#like this isn't even a humblebrag

[syekick-powers]

every time a medical professional of some sort tells me i have a high degree of self-awareness, it makes me have an external reaction of "thank you i try" and an internal reaction of "honestly i think having as high a level of self-awareness as i do is at least a quarter of why i'm so miserable. :')"

[robzombies-hotwife]

I'm generally an unfriendly bastard and I really wish I could stay inside where it's warm but unfortunately, I'm dragging my ass out to shovel the walkway around my apartment complex (four single-level units in a row) because one of my neighbors is an old guy with a walker and oxygen and another is a mom with a tiny kid. I've never spoken to either of them and I'm not sure if the woman even speaks English, but here I go.

Fuckin' hate this white bullshit 🙄

[robustcornhusk]

actually i'm pretty pleased with how well i managed the food this week: i did the "go to the farmer's market, all caʒ, and get whatever looks good!" thing and i've used almost all of it -- there's some alliums left, and fava greens which seem to keep surprisingly well (as long as you plan to cook them)

for the satisfaction alone, i'd love to get back to actually making breakfast again but that tends to get off the rails pretty fast, since it's a huge hassle to actually cook that early in the morning (sleepy...), i always take longer than i want to, there's a lot of advanced prep necessary (cinnamon rolls! etc), so it just results in a shitton of work for something we don't actually like anymore than bagels

more plausibly i gotta get back to making my own bread. we got two loaves last weekend from two fancy bakeries nearby, and they're definitely better than what i can reliably make, but it's a matter of degree and not kind.

[another-goblin]

Why Ratio isn't in Genius Society - theories

Nous regarded him and decided that he's doing fine without them.

Or because he isn't a genius. When he calls himself mediocre, it isn't a humblebrag. He's just a normal human with average intelligence. He achieved everything through hard work (in one of his character stories, his old professor talks about how, even as a kid, he'd wake up very early, exercise, and spend the whole day studying).

That's why he's often frustrated with his students. Like, guys, you are provided with all these opportunities to learn, you can surpass me, why are you squandering them? Or, I sacrificed my childhood and youth to science, why isn't everyone else willing to do the same? (turns out most people only become students to finally enjoy adult life away from their parents and maybe acquire some minimal knowledge and credentials to have a chance of a cushy job in the future.)

BTW, as a teacher, isn't he a self-made emanator of erudition? Not in a mystical Aeon-related sense, but literally—he spreads knowledge.

[senka-mesecine]

Hai! What do you think would be the boys’ favourite physical feature about their lover?

-

― For Taylor, regardless what he might say about wanting to be a non conformist and stepping out of the bubble of the path his affluent family paved for him, when he sees you well dressed, and for the lack of a better word, dolled up, it's just game over. Done. He's gone. Fog in his head. He's all puppy eyes and lovestruck. Zapped like lightning. And it's not so much about just one particular physical feature of yours as much what you can do with them all combined and just how drop dead gorgeous you can be when you go all out and present yours in the best light you have. I'm talking hairdos. Elegant attire. Jewelry. Finely groomed nails. A flattering lipstick. The whole shebang. Perhaps if we had to single out just one thing, it might be the hair. Sees you, an absolute smoke show with some well groomed hairdo in a dress that seems like it was tailored to the nines specifically for your measurements and he's a lost cause. He's the type to be passed by you as you walk on the street and take a long, hard stare after you because my god, that's a sight. You don't see that every day. His mouth is possibly a tad bit open too. Turns out (slightly cynical, disillusioned) college boy doesn't revile and resent the comforts a bit of glitz can bring that much after all. Which...isn't an easy thing to admit. That he adores how stylish you are when you really want to be. You're a showstopper without it, but damn, with it?

― Tits and ass...is what O'Neill might say if any of the boys ever asked him...and even if they don't ask him, often humblebragging macho nonsense entirely unprompted, but in reality? When he's all alone with you? When there's no audience? Nobody to impress? Suck up to? Man probably likes oddly wholesome things that entirely don't match up with the prick he usually is; He likes dimples. Likes the odd freckle here and there. Likes moles. Likes the way your nose squints cutely when you giggle. Or when you sneeze. Oddly precious bunny teeth. How tall or short you might be compared to him. The discoloration of an awkward tan or a bikini line. That little pouch on your stomach that's so soft. How adorable your toes are when they wiggle. Jesus Christ almighty and for a man known mostly as a brown nosing asshole the things he likes on you physically are actually, contrary to all popular belief weirdly pure because he's one man professionally, in the army, and a completely different man, with you, behind closed doors. Doesn't mean he doesn't like your tits and ass, oh, he adores them, but point is, he's uncharacteristically fond of physical features and attributes that might actually be easily brushed off and overlooked, especially, you know, supposedly by people like him. But, while he presents one thing he just entirely worships all of these features to astounding degrees. He's an absolute simpleton for you, plainly speaking.

― Remember how I said O'Neill might put up a deliberately macho front in front of other men when talking about which favorite physical attributes he'd single out on his significant other so he'd impress them? Now, brace yourselves. Because with Bunny, there's no putting up a front or joking about it seeing as how his favorite feature is your pussy nonironically. He openly says it's your pussy. Entirely means it too. Kid's as blunt as a doorknob and proud of it too. Like, why should he hide it? He sees no reason. Bunny's, in fact, convinced, everyone else is a liar and he's just saying the unspoken thing everyone's secretly thinking outloud. The notion makes him laugh. Don't get me wrong, everything about you is worth salivating over, but that part of you? Yeah, he loves how it looks, loves its color, its texture, the shape of your lips, its smell, whether you're hairy or not --- everything. Could talk about it for hours. Could draw it too. In fact, he might. To a degree it's hard to deduce whether it's a disgusting, blatantly fetishistic fixation or weirdly cute that he's just so shamelessly into your cunt. He can't help that it's so pretty, you know? Might just give it a nickname too, or several, one of those nicknames being...oh, I don't know...Bunny? What else? He names his favorite thing after himself; makes total sense to him. The world's so simple and easy when you're Bunny, baby.

― The eyes. It's all about the eyes for Elias. Not so much what their color is, because that doesn't matter to him as much as the eyes themselves do and the person they belong to. Their sheen. Their shape. The way you flutter your lashes around them unknowingly. They way you do or don't do your make up. The way you're focused or unfocused with your eyes. The odd specks and tiny veins in them. The way they reflect unspoken things. The way your eyes smile even when you don't. How they reflect the light and become even brighter in the process or stay entirely and unchangingly black because their shade is just that dark, like the deep sea. He loves all the ways they're a direct mirror to your soul. He relishes looking at them as much as he relishes you looking at him with them. If you're not one for direct eye contact and you're generally more on the shy side of things he might occasionally lean down his head to your eyelevel, trying to playfully catch a glimpse of your gaze beneath low lids and grin regardless if he fails or succusseds because it's a pleasure to do so and he's almost softly teasing you doing so. In fact, Elias might just wordlessly smile merely at the sight of reciprocated eye contact with you; you look at him, perhaps by accident, perhaps intentionally and he just beams up on the spot with happiness. Full mega watt twinkle on display. It's like the man has just seen the face of God right there and then. And baby, did he ever.

― Rhah loves your curves. How they wind. How wavy they are. How full. How thick. How they're shaped like a pear or an hourglass. All the ways in which your thighs touch. How rounded your ass is. Your hips. The ampleness of bosom. Your tummy. How luscious and plump your cheeks are. Just likes how you seem like you lived a soft, comfortable, well rested life, taking care of yourself, perhaps to the point of it all being a tad bit decadent. There's a undisturbed, glowing healthiness to it that's oddly erotic and you downright remind him of the statue of some reclining deity, causing you to look perfectly inviting to lounge and get high with. To put it bluntly, my boy Vermucci's Italian and he enjoys women who look like they eat well and without shame. He openly acknowledges this too. Might just go on a full blown, overly intense semi-philosophical tirade how it should be the new beauty standard and how the world's a dark, dark place due to the fact it ain't. He's disappointed and there ain't no hope left. The boys listen to him intently, fully immersed and maybe even a bit intimidated too because Rhah sounds like he's talking about something with unbelievable theatrical gravitas, and to him, it does come with unbelievable theatrical gravitas because you're beautiful and everyone should see you the way he sees you. They're just plain wrong if they don't. They ain't never been right.

― King loves your legs to the point of being borderline manically heated about it. Why? Because the legs is where all the fun happens. Or between them. Or around them. Doesn't matter. Be they long, be they short, be they thin, be they stocky, shaven, unshaven, the legs, man. He likes to watch you walk. Likes to watch you run. Strut. Dance. Sit cross legged. That odd second when you shift idly to get more comfortable where you're reclining and you open them for a brief moment, giving him a peek and a preview. Likes them thrown over his shoulders and wrapped around his face. Likes cuddling up with your legs on either side of him like pillows. How they jiggle when you move or, in opposition, how lean and firm they are. Likes them as you put your stockings on them. Likes them as you rolled your stockings down. Likes them in a skirt. Likes them in trousers. Likes them bare and naked. Baby, it's non negotiable. In fact, you walk by and he could very well just whistle and holler at you looking at them because life's good when he sees a sight like this. It's one of those reminders he's lucky to be alive and alive to be lucky with you in tow. Mean's the worst has passed and now he actually gets to enjoy the thing he likes best.

― With Wolfe it's all about the smile because when's the last time anyone's looked at him and smiled with, dare I say, appreciation? Admiration? Awe? Like someone looking for guidance from him? With something close to taking notice of him? With pride? With kindness? Sure didn't happen often in the army (if ever) so when it does happen with you he's almost a lost, semi stuttering mess because that's new. That's new and he could get used to it. Which he does; very soon. Laps it up like a man starved. Might be entirely blindsided by it at first (might not even be sure if it's wholly intended for him or not) but he gets weirdly greedy of it soon enough because it's the most beautiful thing he's ever since and it's all for him. Directed at him. Intended for him. In fact, you could just smile at him and he might just get hard at the sight of it. In equal measure, you smile at someone else, perhaps entirely offhandedly and he's weirdly discombobulated and sulky about it. On other occasions? He's cockily half smiling like a weasel when he's introducing you and you give him a loving, adoring smile as he says your name; he can't wipe the grin off of his face almost as if to say 'Yup'. Mark might just get a bit more mean to people as a result, with the wind at his back, feeling like he's atop of the world. He can become something of an emboldened asshole because he has the most beautiful woman in the world smiling at him, so, you see, it's warranted that he's a bit of a prick. Who wouldn't be?

― For Barnes it's your smooth skin --- to put it bluntly; you're unscarred, unmarred, you've no harrowing signs of trauma on it, no scratches, no disfiguration, no wounds and even if you have some, what he'd see as a minor civilian affliction like the odd zit, your skin's just soft and quite literally perfect to the touch. Beautiful to look at too. Everything he feels he ain't anymore. You have everything he doesn't. It's exactly why he might have the habit of looking at you profusely without saying anything; because he's quietly admiring and assessing what he's seeing, a spot shared only by your eyes as his favorite feature even though that one comes with a tactical edge to him because he tends to look at them and hold your gaze as a way to read you. But the skin around it? The skin of your face specifically, more than anything? Your body? Your arms? Legs? Nothing matches that. He has the habit of idly trailing his finger along it and just commenting nothing focused on the texture of it, the feeling, the warmth, the slight features it might have, the occasional or not so occasional freckle, mole or total lack of it. Everything and anything. Even actual scars, that might seem like nothing in comparison to his but that's exactly why they're so fascinating. Might not be vocal about it but it's a vision to him. He can do whatever he likes to your skin; make a scar of his own or just caress the unblemished smoothness. It belongs to him, after all.

[prismatoxic]

i've told parts of this story before, but bare with me, i'm emotional.

so like, i've had this blog since 2021. my original tumblr blog (made in 2011 iirc) was nuked in 2018 for exactly the reason you think (nsfw ban) and i didn't return for a handful of years because it stung so bad. even when i did, i mostly used twitter.

i started posting to tumblr more regularly when musk's twitter takeover finally pissed me off enough to ditch it. (i have since gone back, sort of, but am not reliably present and mostly just rt art people send me.) i've been pretty consistently here since then, sans a very angry break when all the shit with automattic's CEO happened.

and like... looking through my archives... i only made a dedicated tag for asks last july, even though i've been using an organizational tag system since i made this blog. that's how infrequent they were. my art usually got between 0 and 3 notes. when i left briefly back in january, i deleted every post in my art tag because i didn't want to leave my work here, but also, like... the only things that went anywhere were some of my mgs fanarts. no one owes anyone's work attention, but it didn't feel worth it, you know? like why share it with the public when i can just show it to the like 3 friends i know who care?

i came back partially because i felt... isolated. i have friends on the fediverse and on discord, but tumblr gave me a sense of being in a community, even if i didn't feel like an important part of said community. i missed queuing funny posts to enjoy weeks later, i missed being kept sort of in-the-loop about fandom goings-on, i missed my friends who were still here. (and that last one is also part of why i check twitter more now.)

but that alone wasn't enough, because i was a nobody here and it probably wasn't worth it to try again. but then devot and i started watching dungeon meshi, and i got into chilaios just like i thought i would, and tumblr has the largest concentration of chilaios fanart and posts. not only that, but every post i saw in the tag had so much engagement! i didn't see a single one that went unnoticed, back in february. so i hesitantly came back. i started reblogging chilaios posts. i didn't intend to try and break into the space because i knew it'd just hurt if i went unnoticed again, like i did in other fandoms.

but i made friends, little by little. i started a fanfic. i cautiously began posting my art again. i started writing meta, and shitposts, and replying on other people's posts, and commenting on other people's fics, and now...

that ask tag i mentioned? there are 15 pages of posts with that tag on my blog. only 2 and a half of those pages are asks from before i got into dunmeshi. people talk to me--they care about my thoughts and my opinions, they compliment the things i make. i have a group of like, 30+ people i interact with regularly, many of which i now consider close friends. everything i post gets some attention, no matter what it is.

this isn't a humblebrag, it's just... a thank you. i can't really properly express the depths of the loneliness i've felt in the past. i was an outcast for a long time, and it was way worse pre-2019, but i don't think it's ever fully left me. i've been hurt very, very badly in the past, and i've been abandoned a lot, and i've been ostracized a lot. i've grown into who i am today both in spite of and because of all i've been through, and for that i wouldn't ever change it, but it was still hard.

so today, as i turn 29, seeing asks and gifts pour in to tell me happy birthday, and that i'm appreciated... just, thank you.

if there's one thing you can give me today, it's this: reblog someone's art or writing or meta with some enthusiastic tags. send someone a friendly ask. reply to someone's post to comment on something they've said. write comments on ao3 for the fics that move you, no matter how much or how little you can think of to say.

this is going to sound cheesy as hell, but i genuinely mean it: reach out, and spread joy, whenever and wherever you can. you never know who's in pain, who's lonely or who feels worthless. and if it's you who feels that way, do what you can anyway; a community that isn't afraid to reach out will reach back to you, too. and you're not alone. i care, i promise--and more people than you realize do too.

it's so easy to underestimate how much a kind word can do. they add up, though. so keep going.

[gamerwoman3d]

If Tony was Bi Han he would have said so, iirc he was one of the first people to announce that he was a face model. I see no reason why he would hide.

Ibere is the best possibility I've seen so far, I wouldn't be surprised he's spooked by all the Bi Han thirst.

For the most part, the "Actor spooked by Bi-Han Thirst" bit was a joke on my part. Most of the time, the face models know what to expect if they google "[my character name] rule 34."

I see no real reason why Nakamura would deny being the character and no real reason why WB/NRS would not kredit him. That man is gorgeous. He's probably been handling nerd thirst since grade school.

I would think that claiming credit for Bi-Han (or any character that the internet is thirsty for) would only net him a higher paycheck. For a man who is so beautiful that companies literally hire him for his beauty, internet thirst and horny on main blogging are probably a nuisance at worst. I hope it is the least of his worries.

And I agree that Tony Chung would have said so. He has no reason not do so. Like, "Humblebrag but I am BOTH of these gorgeous motherfukkas." It isn't like he needed to hide his involvement in the game in any way - he already took credit for Scorpion.

Again, I believe the model is someone that is named in the kredits. WB has enough trouble with the actors'/trade unions right now without doing something so egregious as outright failure to credit a cast member. On the other hand, they can get away with a partial failure. If the actor's name is listed in the credits, but the credit given was for some smaller thing (Example: Additional Voices) it is harder to penalize them for that.

Because they can argue that he was in the credits, with no breech of contract.

Also, Stephen currently has bigger fish to fry, it seems. He wants to get in to the MCU as Martin Li in live action.

Claiming he was Sub-Zero's face model might help towards that goal, but more likely would hinder it. I trust him to know what's gonna help his career most. Disney / MCU wants their actors' net/film history to be squeaky clean, even for their villains. Mortal Kombat is particularly gory in its violence in a way that Spiderman is not. And let's face it, Sub-Zero is the fatality dummy. All of the worst shock-value moments are practiced on Sub-Zero first. You know the ones.

It might not be something Disney wants associated with Spider-Man.

Stephen also openly admitted that there is some legal issues that need to be addressed between videogame actors in Sag-Aftra, Sag-Aftra itself, and game developers. So there's no telling how much cooperation he gets from SAG if he does take an action toward getting himself and the other models properly credited.

I'm just saying he's one of the only people who might have logical reasons for not promoting his work on Mortal Kombat.

I can still be wrong. It's just my best guess.

[fitzrove]

Finished tsh, (re-)perused if we were villains (I've read it properly before) and I think what bothers me about the latter is

that the things that happen don't MEAN anything.

Like, the protagonist hates his home life and thinks his family is dull and he's from Ohio (and he feels like his school friend group is his true family - he states this in explicit terms, rather plainly too, tbh almost cartoonish) but there's no REASON in the text for him to be or feel these things, unlike in TSH. The reason it is in the text of IWWV is not because one of the central themes of the book is artifice, inequality & a specific kind of pretentiousness that comes from trying to "fake it until you make it"/a sort of imposter syndrome when you enter spaces where other people are much richer than you (and, because of how society is set up, "more intelligent" - not truly more intelligent, mind you, but in possession of more cultural capital because of their upbrinting) - unlike in The Secret History, where these are central and pervasive themes and the protagonist's whole "deal". The reason IWWV contains those tropes is because it's playing off TSH (which isn't a bad thing in itself, I love TSH and liked that there was smth similar) but has altogether different (and more clumsily constructed imo) themes.

Also I wantttttt to write an original fic dark academia university story, but I don't want to write it to fit a genre (ie. no New England liberal arts university where murder happens, I'm not equipped to write abt that), I want it to scratch the same itch thst TSH does (and other books that are not seen as DA staples lol)... and for that I would need an actual thematic framework that I have lots of things to say about, to inform the characters and plot.

Unfortunately the ones I can come up with will probably feel sooo petty and unrelatable to people, like, people will go "how is this worth exploring lol" but the thing is, marginalization within academia is absolutely a thing on other levels than just the "obvious" categories like gender race class ability etc, esp in international contexts, and differences in language/cultural capital do feel worthy of exploring to me...

Like, this will sound like a humblebrag but I speak(ish) five languages - out of necessity. Learning languages exclusively for pleasure is an english-speaker luxury actually (100% joking, duolingo wouldn't be as popular as it is if this was the case, but still xD) - or idk, a "big language area" luxury, and ofc academically it's also a specific kind of field where you even do that anyway (as a hobby it's more universal) :'D

[bubblegumsunshine333]

Honestly, the main issue I have with the enshittification of social media is that it accelerates the epidemic of people ignoring the fact that there are real human beings on the other side of the screen. Previously-social corners on the internet become these faceless corporate places where people mistreat other users by dealing with them with the same lack of respect they would have for NPCs or chat bots. The internet used to feel like a series of clubs or casual hangouts, and now it's unrecognizable. (You can't even Google shit anymore, it's literally such a husk of what it was even just 5 years ago...)

Lately, just about any platform but tumblr really hurts. It hit me earlier today, when I checked my reddit notifications for the first time in a year--something I've avoided more and more over time. I remembered how even though people can be really lovely and nice and helpful, so many people just want to send hate to every other user they see, EVER. All of the music production subs I follow (which have tons of people getting into music for the first time) are methodically downvoted into the negatives for no reason, even when all the comments are kind. Often, though, half the comments are just trolls, and it's so out of hand that even nicer areas of the site are overrun unless they're super big with tons of active mods. There's just so much hate there.

And strangely so, with YouTube, there's so much fascist bs recommended to me even though I always click "Don't recommend this channel" about 20 times a day now, and my algorithm was (luckily) devoid of all that shit for years. And yes, I've cleared my YouTube history and data using the (somewhat secret) Google feature that makes it so old stuff you saw has no affect on your algorithm, so I know that it's not because I watched boxxy once a decade ago (Isn't it so odd how the weirdest microcelebrities turn into right wing grifters?). It just hurts emotionally to go anywhere except tumblr anymore, or directly to one of your favorite YouTuber's channels.

Loosely related: Strangely enough, on reddit I post and comment MINIMALLY yet I have super high karma. No matter what I write, no matter how simple it is, or how few people use that sub, it gets an inordinate amount of attention. I'm not even internet humblebragging, I literally couldn't give a shit less about reddit karma. It'd be like if every day of my life I found a penny face-up in a parking lot. Mildly interesting and unlikely, but I can't really do anything useful with this odd and random sort of luck I seem to carry???

I can write the silliest thought that comes to mind in a random comment section just as a cheerful joke or similar, and people eat it up. I get reply after reply from other people joining in on the fun, or looking to share info or life experiences, yet 1 in 10 people is devoutly trying to spread hate. It just bums me the fuck out. Imagine how shit real life would be if every few people you bumped into was trying to verbally abuse you. It just about sums up most social media sites nowadays though.

[anghraine]

There is basically no way to talk about this without humblebragging and also giving way to, idk, internalized ableism or wtfever, but:

Grad school is sometimes incredibly frustrating, on top of the other reason it's incredibly frustrating, because people will be like "Elizabeth's mind is very bright and analytical," and that is nice, and there's nothing about having a mental disorder or three that contradicts it, BUT

One of the things about autism for me—a way in which it feels distinct from my mood disorders—is that some parts of my ways of understanding and experiencing the world just don't work. I realize this description sounds accurate enough for mood disorders as well, but it's difficult to articulate what I'm actually trying to get at that feels fundamentally different. It does, though.

Being bipolar frequently sucks and frequently sucks more than autism, because depression is terrible and I have a history of very severe depression. Nevertheless, being bipolar isn't, at the core, what makes me literally unable to do most math or drive or otherwise multi-task, and it's not what makes keeping track of things like scheduling or simply where things are spatially so difficult, and it doesn't have that much effect on hand-eye coordination and balance and things like that except in conjunction with the autism.

And then there's the sensory overload, which triggers super easily and is... worse when I'm depressed but very obviously rooted in my visceral and almost inexpressible loathing of most sensation and eye contact.

Now, I wouldn't (and couldn't) excise my autism if I had the choice, because there's no ... separate non-autistic self, it's not a layer of apathy or terror or something, it's all me. And yeah, I know we're "supposed" to conceptualize this stuff as "works differently," or these things aren't accommodated properly, or whatnot, and I understand why. But some days it just feels like some parts of my brain are fine and then large swaths don't work right, and people don't really get what it feels like to be getting a PhD and surrounded by people telling me how bright I am, but also to be unable to calculate tips or develop my ideas at the speed that everyone else is doing or write within the usual time limits or line up tasks in a practical way.

It also feels like there's no way to talk to people IRL about the massive chasm between the things I do really well and the simultaneous sense of having blank spots in my brain. My diagnosis even talks about this—not my towering frustration, lol, but that I have advanced reasoning skills that can obscure the extent of my disability in other areas.

So one moment I'm teaching Classical rhetoric to college students and the next I'm blankly staring at a division problem or struggling to manage basic scheduling, and it feels ridiculous and embarrassing. But I can't tell the authorities in my life that—I can get accommodations, but they don't get how intensely uncomfortable it is to have people constantly assuming I can easily do things that either a) I can't or b) are very difficult because I'm "bright" and... blah.

(Making this unrebloggable for hopefully obvious reasons. I mostly needed to vent.)

[ragecndybars]

Can I ask what mitsuru hcs do you have?:)

ooh, yeah, I'd love to share some!!! :D here's a couple that I think about the most, lmao

She generally doesn't like being hugged by other people, and she certainly isn't used to it. Though she's always had a loving relationship with her dad, neither of them are particularly physically affectionate. With that said, if someone else is in need of cheering up, and it's an extremely close friend who she feels comfortable around (read: a member of SEES), she'll hug them, and, in that case, she's a really good hugger. (If you can ignore the fact that she runs pretty cold, lmao)

In general, she doesn't have an interest in mechanics or technology, but she does maintain her own bike and she adores that thing. If you asked her to do anything more complicated than changing a tire on a car, she would be dumbfounded, but she can fix pretty much any damage her motorcycle takes on her own.

Speaking of the motorcycle, she drives like a maniac. Just the motorcycle, though. She drives cars very carefully and safely, as one might expect from someone with such a fastidious and serious personality, but once she's on the bike? All bets are off. Anyone who gets onto that bike with her will leave traumatized.

I think she actually tried a few different weapons and fighting styles before settling on fencing as her preferred method of attack. While she genuinely enjoys fencing, she initially picked it up for purely pragmatic reasons--it just suited her best, and she took to it better than the other things she tried.

(I also think that one of the things she tried was archery, and she wasn't very good at it. There's been this fic idea in my head for a long time where she watches Yukari practicing her archery and comments on her skills, mentioning that she isn't very good at archery, and Yukari thinks she's just humblebragging at first, only for Mitsuru to try to take a shot and completely miss the target by like ten feet... and then get all embarrassed because she embarrassed herself in front of her crush friend.)

She loves tea, both for the caffeine and for the flavor. Probably has a collection of super expensive looseleaf teas from all over the world. She is also absolutely one of those people who gets super judgmental when other people add lots of milk/sugar to their tea, even if it's an objectively bitter tea, lmao. She wouldn't say it out loud, because she has tact, but she'll watch someone spoon sugar into a cup of tea and in her head she's screaming "NOOO YOU'RE RUINING THE DELICATE COMPLEXITIES OF THE FLAVOOOOR"

Junpei introduces her to video games and she isn't a huge fan of most of them, but she gets VERY invested in any games where you can rack up some kind of points throughout the game. Introduce her to a farming simulator and she play obsessively until she racks up billions upon billions of dollars. Introduce her to a shooter that tracks your kills throughout the campaign and she will kill EVERYONE. She is insanely competitive when she's only competing against herself.

(Yet she's somehow incredibly chill when it's a multiplayer game.)

In general, she doesn't own too many expensive or ostentatious belongings; she'll only get the expensive version of a thing if it's actually better than the cheap version (ie. she'll splurge on expensive teas imported from China or extremely well-made boots, but if she's just buying a button-up shirt, she'll buy the cheapest one that fits).

With that said, she does own several very expensive genuine leather jackets. She justifies it by saying it's safety equipment for her bike, which isn't wrong, but also she just loves leather jackets.

[lacefuneral]

no one asked but i try to be educational about my experiences with transness when i can, and today i'm thinking abt my top surgery

(surgery description, nipples, me being kind of tmi)

ok so i had a double-incision top surgery, which is the top surgery most frequently depicted in artwork and spoken about.

when i had top surgery i didn't know (or care) about alternative surgeries. i knew about keyhole, which i did not qualify for on account of my massive tits (not a humblebrag)

i did not know about T anchor, which is a surgery that leaves the exact same scars as double incision, plus an additional vertical scar leading from the bottom of the nipple to the scar below it, forming an upside down T shape.

the primary difference, aside from scarring, is that T anchor leaves the nipples intact. the extra incision allows the surgeon to move the nipples to where they should be on the chest without cutting into the stem. meaning, the likelyhood of retaining FULL sensation is greatly increased

whereas with double incision, the nipples have to be cut off of your body, trimmed, and grafted back on in the correct place.

the result is unpredictable, and this is an instance where "your milage may very" is EXTREMELY apt. because some people have full sensation. some people have none. some people have one or both nipples fall off during the healing process (usually as a result of not properly caring for them) - it's um. it's wild. a lot of stuff going on there, with nipple grafts.

because, yeah, you can go to the best surgeon in the world, and that increases your chances of success. but then it also comes down to: how well does your body heal - and - are you putting in the work to make sure that you aren't disturbing the stitches, changing your bandages properly, keeping the incision sites clean, etc. and then the final factor is time.

i had surgery in april of 2016. my nipples survived the ordeal, although they look very different from one another. the right nipple looks like a real nipple, while the left looks more like it was formed from areola tissue. i do not know the story, nor do i want to. (the thought of my surgeon fucking up in the operating room distresses me, so i'd rather not think about it)

i had no sensation in my chest anywhere for at least a year. over time, i gradually gained sensation in different areas. for a long time, the sensation meant for my nipples were somehow misdirected to my surgical scars. i would say that at least some of that feeling remains there now. obviously ask first, but your man may enjoy having his scars rubbed when he's healed up. just a T4T tip from me 2 u.

anyway, the nipples themselves had NO sensation at all. for YEARS. and then (and sorry, this is gross) in 2021, i noticed that my left nipple appeared to have some sort of cyst or zit. now, i have OCD. and more specifically, dermatillomania. so after i dealt with the left side, i looked at the right to see if there was anything similar. i squeezed the nipple in various areas, only to realize that, as i continued, i was in PAIN.

and i was so, so ecstatic about this. because i realized that i could help the nerves wake up by stimulating the area. my right nipple now has full sensation, or something close to that.

my left, though? there's a marked difference. hardly any sensation at all, even in my attempts to "wake it up." so i'm not getting my hopes up about it, especially because it is made from different breast tissue than the right.

but yeah, while sensation isn't 100% where it was prior to surgery, my chest overall does have feeling when i touch it.

and also, despite the left nipple being, in my mind, "pretty much dead", it still reacts to temperature and touch in the way you would expect a nipple to. so it "knows" it's a nipple. and i think that's really weird? cool?

this has been jay's nipple corner

[becomehaikyuu]

Haikyuu Chapter 88: Illusory Hero

REFLECTION:

The chapter begins with a dude at a Volleyball competition in middle school. He's the team's ace and his little brother thinks he's more awesome than God. He's Akiteru and he's Tsukishima's older brother.

Later on (in the flashback), Akiteru tells Tsukishima that he wants to attend Karasuno because they're strong and he wants to make it to the nationals. After practice, we can already see that Akiteru is hitting a bit of a wall but he still has his Shonen Spirit and he won't let it get him down! The first year goes by...and Akiteru won't let Tsukishima come to any of his matches...

But he does teach his brother everything he knows, even if Tsukishima is stuck on the whole "be a team player" thing. One day, Yamaguchi is spying on the volleyball team and Tsukishima walks in. Yamaguchi thanks him for saving him that time...and Tsukishima draws a blank. Much like me, he thought that Yamaguchi didn't have enough of a presence to be memorable. They end up talking about Akiteru and Tsukishima humblebrags that his brother is the team's ace. Akiteru...doesn't disabuse Tsukishima of this notion at home.

Year 3. It's Akiteru's last game in the prefecture. Tsukishima invites Yamaguchi to sneak over to see him play, not wanting to tell his brother so that he won't make him nervous. Because that's what Akiteru told him why he can't come to his games. Some kid said his brother's on the team and in a surreal scene, a classroom of kids talk about Volleyball like it was an interesting thing. One kid revealed that he never heard of a regular named Tsukishima. Little Tsukishima decides to see this in person...

At the game, he sees his brother.

Benchwarming.

Turns out the other kid's brother is getting the same treatment. All because of some acre named the Small Giant. Because of him, the benchwarmers couldn't play the entire season. Little Tsukishima felt like his head was just fucking cut off. He looks down. His brother looked up. Their eyes meet. Tsukishima says:

And that's Tsukishima's Start of Darkness.

IN THE PRESENT, Yamaguchi runs up to Tsukishima, tells him that he always thought he was cool and smart. He then remembers Hinata's question for a third time. Then, he says to his hero/life partner:

Yamaguchi turns into a Manowar album cover as he call Tsukishima out for giving up against someone who just has more talent than him. Tsukishima shoots back with a requiem of the "Calm down, Greg" meme, saying that if you can't be the best than what's the point? Tsukishima has seen what's at the top of the mountain: the view of another taller mountain. Fuck that shit. Remembering the faces of his teammates, Yamaguchi grabs Tsukishima by the hem of his shirt and screams, "WHAT BETTER MOTIVATION IS THERE THAN PRIDE?!"

(Sorry, Masha.)

Even Tsukishima has his Halloween fright when he realizes that Yamaguchi has just gotten cooler than he will ever be.

The chapter ends with Hinata and Yaichi talking, Hinata admitting that Tsukishima is cool because he's cool at Volleyball. In the end, isn't that the only thing that matters? Volleyball and literally nothing else?

Nothing?

[superblysubpar]

Hi Taylor! Responding to your post about engagement. I don't think you're doing anything wrong. The only ST blogs (including writers) I'm seeing have super active engagement right now are people who make a ton of personal posts for their followers to interact with: talking about their personal lives, asking opinions, soliciting recommendations for things like hair products/other stuff their audience probably has opinions about! But those are people who have a LOOOOOOT of followers and are constantly interacting with them. Which isn't everyone's cup of tea! I used to write in a different fandom and cranked out a ton of work and had an obscene number of followers, but I didn't like sharing a lot about myself because I was a minor and I'm kind of a private person, and that made it almost impossible to drive engagement or make connections. I had like a billion likes and reblogs on everything I posted (in the age where reblogs were given more freely). But I didn't have any friends and didn't receive many comments (maybe like 30 across all of my works combined), so my fandom experience felt really lonely. I want to stress here, and I am not humblebragging or anything, I was the #1 most popular of all writers in my (massive, at the time) fandom based on the number of hits and likes I received on my platform of choice. I still had no friends and felt invisible. Eventually, I pulled the plug because the only meaningful interaction I was getting were requests or people asking when I was going to update, which felt frustrating and also alienating.

Now that I'm seeing other writers get that engagement by just being a little more open with their followers and kind of carving out their own identity as a person, I think my fandom experience would have been a lot more rewarding if I had felt comfortable doing that. You already frequently interact with other blogs by reblogging their stuff with commentary. And I want to say, that's exactly how you would make those connections, usually. Have you tried kind of keeping tabs on followers who frequently interact with your stuff, maybe following them back if you like their blog or reaching out directly to them? A lot of people find writers intimidating, but if you see them leaving nice commentary frequently in the notes or something, it could be worth DMing them to talk about the fandom you have in common or even to follow up on their comments about your work!

I hope I'm not telling you stuff you already know. Another thing I wanted to say is: I love your work, and you're doing great. I don't comment as much as I should, and I'm pretty busy a lot of the time. (Sometimes it takes me several tries to read through a chapter because I have to keep putting my phone down to deal with things like family, work, etc.) When that happens, it can be hard to use my indoor voice in support, because I'm already in a headspace of just being glad I was able to finish something I enjoyed and reblog it. But I love your work, and I'm always excited when you post. I do all my ST stuff on a sideblog and it isn't very active, but I love your energy, so if you want, I can DM you on my main and maybe we could be friends! 🌻

Thank you so much for all of this! Again, it's clear from these messages and my DMs that I'm not the only one feeling this way, and already that has helped, and I'm glad we're all talking about this.

Unfortunately, yeah, I kind of already knew these things and have been trying for a few months now. I know things don't happen over night, but sharing personal posts and leaving them up for 24 hours with zero interaction, I'll tend to delete the post then. But I do try to share a lot, and I'd love to share more. I'm always reblogging those asks, I even posted my face a few times, I talk about screenwriting & things outside of tumblr - but this also lead to some nasty anons. I know it's kind of a give and take - what am I willing to put up with, and what do I actually want, so maybe I really do just need to up it more than I have been.

I definitely notice people in my notifications and if I don't follow, I try to send a DM. Like I said, I'm trying 💛

And thank you 💛💛 I really get it. I don't have the energy most days to read, my drafts of tbr is over 60 and many of them are series. And I'm not upset about reblogs or comments or anything like note count. I've done a lot of work to feel better about those sorts of things. Not to over state it, but I'm just in a community seeking headspace in both tumblr life and real life, and it's just easy to feel isolated lately.

Overall, I'm glad I posted about all of this because maybe it got some people thinking, and it most definitely got me connected to more of you, and for that I'm extremely grateful 💛 I'd absolutely love to chat more, my DMs are always open, truly 💛💛💛

[tartrazeen]

I'm obseeeeeeesseeeeed with this 😍

Just found this post about virtues and excess and deficiencies and went like "THAT'S THE MYSTIC KNIGHTS THING, THAT'S THE SHOW"

Like it went right to my head in seconds

Courage is the first thing on that list, and it immediately taps into what I was saying about Rohan being tested for courage, being the 'brave one', but uhhhh... kinda being bad at bravery...? But it makes so much more sense to see both ends of the scale this way: rashness (literally what Deirdre calls him out for) and cowardice (which is constantly getting to him even when there isn't a curse. He runs from so much - "i want to know my destiny! Nooo why am i Draganta" "i want to know my family! Nooo my mom's mean" "i want to be a knight! Nooo i'm letting everyone down, time to run awaaay"). It's like Fin Varra was testing him to see if he was even capable of threading the needle, not necessarily capable of staying at that sweet spot.

Loyalty's in the longer list I found. I love that the excess is 'conformity', because some of the few times we've seen Ivar be wrong is because he encourages everybody to respect traditions. We don't see 'disloyalty' too often from him, but that is his major character flaw: he's always picking the short-term plans to get the chalice over the slow-and-steady plans. Tbf, the one time he did break completely off to do his own thing, he got the chalice in one try. But it's not like the show let that go unpunished, so yeah, it still falls onto this spertrum of nuance. :3

Humily for Garrett is pretty obvious. The thing we don't see is the deficiency of it: he wasn't on the show long enough to have an arc about spineless and meek. I'd like to think it'd be when someone 'better' than Garrett comes along - like his dad or a sibling or something. It would've been great to see him go from bragging to instantly shutting up, and I'd especially love to see how everyone bonds around getting Garrett to believe in himself no matter what his family thinks.

The last two were harder. 🤔

Angus had 'honesty', and while I'm happy to sub in "Truthfulness," I don't entirely agree with it...? The excess of that is (according to the list) being indiscreet and imprudent. Okay, fair for imprudence - he himself calls attention to how often he blurts out the wrong thing. They've all had their turns at cutting him off. Indiscreet, though... 🤔 It's not like these all need to apply - this an entirely random, separate list - but I'm not sure I saw indiscretion being too prominent in him. If anything, he was always too discreet. And that's why I agree with the deficiency in him more: it's "deceit" and "boastfulness" (he talks a lot of shit he knows he can't back up). "False modesty," though - ehhhhh... I didn't see him doing that a lot. Technically, he tried buttering Cathbad up to help him with getting his armour, but that falls under 'flattery' more than 'humblebrag'. We'll just cross that and 'discreet' off his list. 😌

Deirdre was definitely the hardest. Her noble trait was selflessness, and the closet I could find for that was 'Generosity'. But her arcs were never about being stingy or wasteful. What seems to match her better is 'Fair'. She absolutely overdoes it and pulls rank to be all self-righteous with her royalty. And she's judgy, and she can pick fights with the others real quick. 😝 On the other side of that is just 'unfair'. She does technically struggle with having the wisdom to make the right decision as a leader, and when she was ruling for a few days, she did make a lot of unfair calls. So I think this suits her, even there's a bit of massaging being done to these terms.

😋 I just like this. It gives me an easy set of anchors for everybody, and it especially gives a fast look at some parallel flaws we know they have (like perfectionism for Deirdre, short-temperedness for Angus, naivete for Rohan, stuffiness for Ivar, and derisiveness for Garrett). Easy prompts for head canons 🥳

[turtlemagnum]

self indulgent rant about my own experiences with body shaming and what i view as my own lack of attractiveness as opposed to what other people seem to think about me

so like, from what i see people talk about online in terms of body image issues, it seems to come from other people's opinions for most people? and that's wild to me, because i'm not sure i've ever had anybody other than myself call me ugly. like, i knew a person who was probably the most attractive person i've ever known, like honest to god celebrities and porn stars can't compare to her, and she told me that i was attractive. and yet, as i exist, i look in the mirror and am disgusted with what i see, y'know? i feel fat and ugly and overly hairy, and while i am inarguably fat and hairy, that's also like, attractive to some people? which is wild to me, because i unequivocally feel like the guy in an ugly bastard hentai, yet this is all internal, and i don't know where this is fuckin coming from???

in regards to body shaming, i'll say i've only meaningfully experienced it once, and i need to specify that this isn't meant to be a #humblebrag or anything like that, because this was sincerely and deeply damaging to me when it happened. but that beautiful person i mentioned, well. i was young, and stupid, and i had finally measured my dick for the first time, and it turned out i was well endowed. i told her about this, and she said i was "too big". my heart fucking dropped out of my chest, something so mild, but so accusatory, it hurt me beyond belief. i already have problems with rejection, and this was a rejection of who i am as a physical being where i have no recourse to change this shit. hell, while i've definitely grown since then, i lost like an inch and am still back to where i was when i knew her because i've also gained a lot of weight. so like, i really empathize with other men shamed for their dick size, because while it happened to me for the opposite reason than it's societally expected to, i'm sure it still hurts the same, y'know? this shit sucks, man.

now, fit all this in with my recent lack of romantic success, right? i tried using a dating app a while back, and got about as close to no attention as i could've gotten without literally getting no attention. i used bumble which meant that i couldn't message people first, and i think i got like 2 or maybe 3 messages, and one of them was just somebody asking me if i wanted to play fucking minecraft, only for him to summarily ghost me. and like, on things like that, your looks are really all that matter to other people, right? so that just hammered it home for me, "i shouldn't fucking even bother"

i don't know where i'm going with all of this, to be frank. just helps getting it out, i guess?? i dunno man, this sucks. i've been telling myself i need to work on myself before i can get into a romantic relationship, but i'm not sure what i can even do in the isolation i'm in. it feels like everyone i care about slowly pushes me away, doesn't care what i have to say, doesn't even bother responding. it hurts, seeing people go about their lives without me, y'know? it feels like i'm always there for people when they need me, and never the other way around. i'm always quicker to respond to messages, which doesn't sound like a big deal, but when i'm the only one who seems to give a shit in a relationship, it feels hard to keep going. do i care too much??? should i care as much as i do???? god, i want to LOVE, i want to care for somebody, and i want for somebody to fucking reciprocate. aren't i good enough??? will i ever be good enough????? the island between me and every other fucking person feels like an eternity, and i seem to be the only one that cares. i want to love, and it feels like nobody wants to love me. maybe this is what i deserve, for the people i've hurt. for all the times i've tried to help, and only made it worse. maybe this hell is deserved. hell if i know