#i also want to have more of a variety of stuff

[drdemonprince]

hypno audio files on how to deepthroat? would you mind sharing? 👀

I wish I could remember all of the ones that I used.

there are a few cocksucking audio files on The Spiral Machine,

people who like the more casual, conversational style will enjoy Ally Brinken's cocksucker file from that site; fans of more intense brainwashy stuff can find a few other options on there, including some audio files by me! some of the other big cocksucking centric files that I used to use are from creators I wouldn't necessarily recommend to others these days, like neural nets and pretty patterns.... some of the accusations that came out about him were very difficult for me to parse, but the community sure seems to treat him as a persona non grata these days and that doesn't seem to have been arbitrary but rather backed by numerous people having problems with him. but if you do want to look them up on soundgasm, I do have to say they are really well produced files.

I used a variety of cocksucking centric files during the time that I was most focused on it, I prefer the brainwashy style stuff that loops and really just fries your consciousness rather than the more narrative stuff, but your mileage may vary. it's not that anyone particular file is magic or anything like that, it all depends on what works for you. I combined listening to the files with fantasizing about sucking cock quite frequently and trained a bit on a dildo at home. I also engaged in some play with partners that really emphasized a fixation on sucking cock and getting face fucked, and that all together seem to unlock a relaxed gag reflex and ability to take it in the throat for hours at a time shockingly easily. I still kind of blank out every time I'm in that position. Man I love this stuff

[moorishflower]

Tunisian Lablabi

I had a lot of dried peppers leftover from making pozole, and I wanted to use some more of them. Fortunately, North Africa had me covered. Lablabi is a Tunisian chickpea soup that's served over stale, toasted bread (not pictured because it's under the soup) and topped with a variety of garnishes, including capers, poached egg, tuna, lime, olives...I opted for capers and egg, since the broth itself is kind of thin, and I wanted this to be a filling dinner.

However, don't assume 'thin' means 'no flavor.' Lablabi is made with harissa paste, which is a SUPER flavorful spice mixture made of (callback here) dried peppers, roasted red peppers, cumin, coriander, garlic...all the good stuff! And this soup is amazing. It's warm without being terribly spicy, savory, salty, a little bit sour from the capers, rich from the poached egg...the chickpeas are tender, and even if you don't much like the taste of them you might not even notice them under the taste of the harissa. The bread soaks up all the soup and becomes delightfully soft and bursts like a little dumpling in your mouth, and the best thing is that you can make loads of this soup for relatively cheap, AND it freezes well!

I used this recipe from The Mediterranean Dish, as well as their linked recipe for homemade harissa paste.

Things I changed:

I added some baby spinach because the only vegetable in this soup is onion, and I'm trying to avoid getting scurvy

I topped this with a poached egg and some capers, but you can also do pickled turnips, tuna, lemon, olives, green onions, and I've seen

When I made the harissa, I left out caraway seeds. This is one of the flavor profiles that I've learned I can't stand -- it just tastes burnt and unpleasant to me no matter what it's in -- but I don't think the harissa suffered for their lack. However, if you've never had caraway seeds before, or if you're neutral on them, I highly recommend keeping them in for an authentic experience

You can follow along with Soupquest 2025 at Map 1 and Map 2, where I have begun to flesh out the Balkans and Africa!

[vintagesimstress]

Northern & Southern European Dyes Palette(s)

It's been almost exactly two years since I made my Iron Age Palette. To celebrate that anniversary... No, you know what, actually not, it's a total coincidence 😅 I was working on a new thing and started wondering about this and that; to not bore you with the details, let's just say that one thing let to another and of course I ended up revisiting the very basics. So here it is! Not one, but TWO new colour palettes for our oldtime-y sims. Based on the lives of my Britons at some point in 1st century CE, shortly before the Roman conquest.

An important note: the southern palette is actually rather an add-on than a separate palette. As in, Romans would surely have access to the dyes from the northern palette as well. But as stated above, I made this whole thing from the viewpoint of a British Celt, hence we have two palettes: one with dyes which he could just obtain from native plants and the other with those he'd have to import. The southerners were more blessed in this aspect :]

You can download PDF files for both of those palettes and .txt files to be used in Paint.net (put them in Documents\paint.net User Files\Palettes). If anyone wants to help me out and make them useable in Photoshop too, please go ahead!

DOWNLOAD them on my Patreon! (always free, no early access etc.)

Apart from a bunch of visual changes (maybe the font will actually be readable this time? Gasp!), there's some new stuff in the palettes themselves (duh). Let's take a quick look, shall we?

undyed wool - hard to call it a dye, lol, but ofc it had to be here. The so-called primitive sheep of the Brittonic era looked quite different from what we imagine when we think 'sheep', and they most certainly came not only in white, but also in many shades of brown or even black. Perfect for making a colourful garment even without any dyes;

birch leaves - easy to obtain, easy to dye; almost no changes here, other than one added shade which used to be under 'mixed ingredients' before;

birch bark - OK, I don't remember where I took the old colours from, but I'm afraid I was being too optimistic. Birch bark gives rather pinkish than reddish shades; actually, it needs a looooooong soak and proper pH to turn anything but very bright, subtle pink. But it seems you can get them and they don't wash out that easily, so - there you go;

elderberry - here I was for sure being too optimistic, especially with that one pretty, saturated blue shade which got thrown away. From what I've read (and seen in photos...), elderberry is a very tricky dye, not particularly water- and lightfast. 'Not particularly' is mildly put - it just washes out in no time, leaving you either with a very pale or very greyish shade of the once vibrant colour. Adjusted accordingly (and they're still too pretty tbh);

apple leaves/twigs - that's a bit of a tricky point, because the Internet claims it was only Romans who brought apples to Britain. But at the same time apple cider was Britain's national drink allegedly already during the Celtic times. Heck, Welsh mythical island of Avalon literally means 'isle of apples', and mythology tends to be... you know... old. Huh? After a bit of research on the topic I'm inclined to believe that what Romans really brought with them were big, sweet apples and their organised cultivation; but small, tart, 'untasty' varieties did exist in Britain even before, growing in the wild. Perfect for making cider - or dyes 😉;

nettle - no changes here. Easy, cheap, grows everywhere, just that the colours are probably not something you'd wear to a party;

hedge bedstraw - seems it's growing everywhere in Britain, so it's plausible the ancients would've made use of it;

lichen - aaaaalriiight, now, that is a big discovery! Beautiful shades and absolutely possible to obtain from the varieties growing on the British Isles. One of the most crucial omissions from my old palette, here finally in its full glory.

That was it for the northern palette. And the southern? Glad you asked:

weld - previously called 'dyer's rocket', but no one in the whole wide natural dyeing Internet calls it that. Beautiful, vibrant, very steady yellow; won't give away even if you overdye it with indigo or woad. It's native to the Mediterranean and while it was cultivated in Britain in later centuries, I have no reason to believe that was also the case in 1 c. CE. I dub it imported;

madder - I keep reading that it's giving saturated red shades, but I have yet to see anyone dye a skein of yarn deep red with madder only. All that keeps popping up in pictures are gentle, pinkish reds, so that's what I included in my palette too. The orange comes from changed pH of the water;

woad - OK, that's my most epic fail of all. To make a Celtic palette and not include woad?! Putting aside the whole matter of Britons possibly maybe but actually maybe not using it to paint their faces (a very controversial matter, let's not go there 😅), woad was the blue dye in those times. Indigo was far away and while it was being imported to Rome, afaik it was used mostly for painting, not cloth dyeing; and besides, as crazy as it may sound, woad seems to do the job better. Seriously. Higher water and light fastness. The question is, was it cultivated in Britain or imported? Just like weld, it's native to the Mediterraean. There is a British find of a bunch of woad seeds, from 1 c. BCE - but then again, it's just one find. So... Mostly imported but slowly being introduced to the Isles? Maybe?

mixed ingredients - the ingredients specified in the PDFs are given in the order they're used - that makes a difference! My biggest discovery of this whole natural dyeing research is that, surprisingly, vibrant green is the absolutely most difficult colour to obtain. That dark green you see at the bottom - so-called Lincoln green - requires super high levels of both weld and woad, and you must put your yellow skein in the blue dye asap - if you're too slow, you get a lighter shade, e.g. like the one above it. The Hightowers surely knew how to show they're rich, huh...?

and last but not least, the luxury dyes! Some imported from far away (turmeric), some from nearby lands (Tyrian purple), some even grown locally (there were saffron plantations on Sicily. True story), but nevertheless, all super duper expensive. Tyrian purple was actually legally reserved for the emperor only - even if you could, by some miracle, afford it, you'd probably get arrested if you dared to dress in that particular shade of purple. Good that lichens could always come to the rescue!

Guess that's enough of behind-the-scenes trivia, isn't it? Props to you if you managed to get to this point, lol. Have fun with the palettes and happy recolouring!

***

Sources:

dzikiebarwy.com - in Polish, but the pictures should speak for themselves. Here you've got a post about dyeing with summer plants, including birch leaves, here - elderberry, here - apple leaves and twigs, here - nettle;

https://woolandpalette.com/blogs/news/making-vibrant-green-with-natural-dyes was my first step in finding out how to obtain a proper green shade with natural dyes;

wooltribulations.blogspot.com - dyeing with birch bark (here), another failed elderberry experiment (here) and overdyeing weld with woad for a deep Lincoln green shade (here);

www.jennydean.co.uk - an absolute godsend, especially two posts: 'Dyes of the Celts' (here) and 'Colours of the Romans' (here);

https://craftinvaders.co.uk/making-dye-from-lichen/

https://earlychurchhistory.org/fashion/colors-dyes-for-clothing-in-ancient-rome/ - on the posh dyes for the rich;

https://www.butserancientfarm.co.uk/gallery - except for the general vibe (*chef's kiss*), the 'animals and nature' section of the gallery has pictures of the 'primitive' sheep which they keep at the farm;

...and a bunch of others which I didn't save in my bookmarks 🙃

[lena-hills]

Awesome!

Starting from the book tag and excluding down Zeb Sabine and Ezra from the characters plus excluding E and M and setting wordcount between 2-50k we have 65 works that are absolutely worth scrolling through to see what catches your eye for summaries and tags!

Quite a few of those are by the same set of authors I linked in another reblog to aaftergloweeye who write a lot for that era and I absolutely love: Spectre83, GreenCharacters, and IKnowWhatToSayNow. If the tags look like something you would enjoy I love all of the fics they have written and there's quite a bit of variety!

...I tried to grab a few specific recommendations but then Ao3 went down again with the 504 errors and won’t load now, but fortunately you really can't go wrong with those folks! I have a couple in that early era too, Priceless especially might be right what you are looking for when the site comes back up!

(Also, if you ever want to meet more Kanera folks we have a Discord server that is open-invite, Kanera Readers and Writers, would love to have you, and folks have a ton of great recommendations/art/other cool Kanera stuff!)

OBSESSED with the fact that Kanan and Hera met each other when Hera was a young pilot who just left home after her father refused to support her and when Kanan was consumed by the grief of order 66. Like the dynamic, the possibilities, someone start sending me fics rn.

[cloudcastor]

icarus

this’ll be a print for upcoming cons >:)

[jade-len]

i adore how mxtx sorta flipped the idea on the whole top/bottom thing with svsss, and just BL relationships in general.

making bingqiu very open to switching, not making the "bottom" super feminine and actually leaning more to the handsome side compared to the "top", how luo binghe is manipulative sensitive and cries easily, etc. one of the main themes in svsss is literally about sexuality (and possibly even about gender roles).

as a queer asian man myself, i absolutely despise the "yaoi archetype" and it was one of the reasons why i avoided consuming BL media. hell, years ago when i first saw heavens official blessing, i mentally groaned and went, "ugh, let me guess, the bottom is super feminine and innocent, while the top is masculine and experienced." of course, that's not the case now, but it's disappointing how that thought was there purely because of the god awful way fetish-y media portrays homosexual people and couples. because, believe it or not, we are not assigned male/female typical gender roles just because one likes to top/bottom (and even then, it's not even like that! some people have preferences, sure, but it's not so strictly "i'm top/bottom")

so, while i absolutely LOVE the english novel designs (especially luo binghe's cute curly hair, gongyi xiao, etc, and personally believe a lot of the takes from the western artist on the designs are an improvement), i am greatly saddened by people subconsciously assigning shen qingqiu as someone more delicate and feminine and luo binghe as someone super masculine and muscly. like, if you're going to have luo binghe depicted as the western design (i believe this stems from binghe being applied to more western ideals for men, and, admittedly, i actually really love his design), at least don't make shen qingqiu feminine and delicate? don't have his appearance play into the stupid yaoi thing?

i get that people have different takes on svsss, especially how the western version depicts it. but, people just... seem to very over exaggerate the top/bottom roles when it comes to bingqiu (again, these two are, canonically, VERY open to switching).

it's weird, it's uncomfortable, and it comes across as, "so, who wears the pants in the relationship?"

so, can we please have more canonically handsome shen qingqiu? canonically beautiful and pretty boy luo binghe (they literallly state that binghe looks EXACTLY like his mom, su xiyan! while a more handsome woman, is still very beautiful!! plus it is stated several times that binghe is slim, and that shang qinghua made him that way!) or at the very least, a BL couple who actually look like normal people (ok thats a little hard considering binghe is literally supposed to be perfect) and not just a stupid fetishized version of themselves.

and no, i'm not saying that queer men shouldn't be feminine or men who are feminine shouldn't be in a relationship with guys who are masculine, etc.

TLDR: please stop twinkifying shen qingqiu and going against what mxtx defied for us queer men (the stupid yaoi roles). and for the love of whoever you believe in, do NOT think that i hate the english design or people's personal interpretation of characters, i just hate the subconscious assigning of gender roles to bingqiu and how media portrays and fetishizes LGBTQ+ relationships in general.

edit: also i love teardrew's (check them out on twitter!) interpretation of shang qinghua. while i do really like the the eng novel design's tiny scared hamster vibes, teardrew's version just radiates "up to no good, paranoid but suspicious looking bitch" rat man and i love it so so so much. i'm not gonna repost their art bc i don't know how they feel about that but perhaps you can search up "svsss designs" on here, you'll see it pop up eventually lol.

edit 2 (1/16): i just saw someone reblog a post (that im pretty sure was referring to this one because, well, if you saw it i think it'd be a little clear kahxj) that was about how bingqiu switching and completely eschewing traditional top/bottom dynamics was a fandom idea or smth? so now i'm wondering, since i swear i remember that they were open to switching, but it's just that sqq preferred to bottom and/or was just a little too lazy to top. plus, sqq is a pretty unreliable narrator who says he doesn't want something one moment and then he does. how could he say no to bingbing? esp if he seems to wanna try bottoming too. perhaps i'm mixing things up though, idk? so if anyone can find that passage that says he only and strictly wants to bottom or whatever please show me! but i think the point of this post still stands haha (i wanted to ask about it, actually, but when i clicked on the og post's user it turned out that they blocked me ? so that was a little surprising oops. hey if ur somehow reading this, im... sorry for making you want to block me bc of this post? akdhxjj)

[hood-ex]

"Love" and "proud" and "family" come up so frequently in bat comics now. Bleh. Bring back something I can relate to like emotional constipation and repression.

[skyloftian-nutcase]

@starwolfie asked me to elaborate (thank you for indulging me lol), so long rambles under the cut :D

So, basically, the era of the Imprisoning War takes place in Hyrule’s ancient past. TotK shows a variety of clothing styles for that ancient past, such as Greco-Roman kind of stuff for the commoners and then… idk random fantasy stuff for the Zonai with like Inca influence lol. I tried to stick a bit to totk style since this era is the same one, and I just wanted to have fun of my own. Also had to bear in mind climate, because like… those totk fashions don’t feel like they jive much with Hyrule’s weather patterns in “modern” day Hyrule of the games. Like I ain’t wearing a sleeveless mid-calf tunic dress in 50 degree weather, y’all! Especially if you add cold rain to the mix. Zelda, Link, literally everyone in modern Hyrule dresses in layers because of the weather.

So with all that in mind, a few points. One, Hyrule in the ancient past was apparently warmer, which is feasible since we have no way of knowing how many thousands of years have passed (for the purposes of my story, it’s about two or three thousand years between Imprisoning War and Hyrule Warriors, and it’s about ten thousand years between Age of Calamity and one of those eras). Two, clothing and technology would have been fairly simple way back then until the Imprisoning War revolutionized Sheikah technology, which would also alter how clothes can be made and therefore change fashion. Three, I had to bear in mind how Hyrule Warriors’ fashion would also be a continuation of what the Imprisoning War had.

So! My own takes on their fashion, then, for the Imprisoning War era.

For Hyrule in general, commoners usually wore simple tunics/tunic dress. The shorter the attire, the more active the lifestyle, typically. Sleeves weren’t really a thing unless it was regularly cool/cold (the tunic was legit just a rectangular cloth with a hole for the head and arms, cinched at the waist with a belt and embellished with layering of belts depending on the region; more formal attire included the overlaying toga-looking over tunic for men and layering tunics/dresses for women), if it got chilly you’d just wear a cloak or a wrap. Sandals, like the ancient ones in totk, were fairly common, or no shoes at all depending on the region and the people. Now, it did get cold in places, so pants were a thing, but they were pretty shapeless and baggy, and were tied in place with cloth to be more fitted around the calves and ankles, and then the thongs for the shoes were simply tied overtop. Places with snow were typically where you’d find something more akin to boots.

Now, things got a little different at the castle because richer/more important people had access to more. Head coverings didn’t matter to the common folk, but boys and girls alike usually covered their heads in noble families, a leftover of the image of Hylia wearing a veil and the Hero always having a hat. Layering was far more common in the castle, with Princess Zelda often wearing a simple tunic dress underneath a more complicated fabric, sometimes something with wide sleeves in the winter or something that lays over like a sash and skirt in warmer weather.

The Sheikah are a different matter. They’re generally very Japanese coded, so I did some digging on ancient Japanese styles. The Sheikah are very incorporated into Hyrule’s affairs but alas their own distinct cultural group, so there’s some blending there. Sheikah warriors usually wear some variation of an under tunic with a sleeveless version of an uwagi (kimono short top used in martial arts) worn over it, all tied by an obi. They wear trousers, which are baggy and shapeless, tied just below the knee, and closed shoes. When just doing guard duty that’s their outfit, but they have armor they can layer overtop as well. They also commonly wear bracers. In their casual attire, they wear something far more akin to the familiar kimono/hakama or kimono top paired with a full length skirt. They didn’t start wearing more form fitting kimono, like what you see in botw/totk, until Sheikah tech improved.

As for detail/embellishment/ornamentation, jewelry is not very common in Hyrule. Commoners hardly, if ever, have any. Nobility typically use earrings as their main form of jewelry. It’s a status symbol - the more earrings, the more status you have. Royalty wears four on each ear by adulthood. Children typically only have one or two ear piercings, gaining more as they grow if their station allows. Sheikah traditionally pierce their ears at their coming-of-age ceremony, a tradition that caries on through the millennia. The Hyrulian royal family and the sages commonly have skin paint with symbols depicting their people’s history, as they are living embodiments of carrying on Hyrule as a whole and its traditions.

Now, the Gerudo are entirely different. (Firstly, what the heck is their culture based on lol, they’re Middle Eastern coded but dress like belly dancers. Sigh. I digress. I decided to mix Turkish, Egyptian, and a little bit of Indian culture together for them.) They like fashion and bright colors and they love jewelry. But their climate is quite harsh, either blazing, dry heat or frigid nights. So while they’re famous for their jewel-decorated halter tops, that’s really only formal military attire that the royals wear when going abroad. More common attire consists of baggy pants based on Turkish şalvar in bright colors paired with a choli blouse, or the same blouse with a full length skirt. They also often wear headdresses adorned with brass (gold for the nobles) and beads, with silky veils. For more formal occasions, they would wear sheath dresses, dresses that were wrapped from bodice to below the knees with two straps holding them up. A looser form of this was often preferred for nursing mothers because it allowed easy access for the baby. As for the colors, the Gerudo would make their clothes in every bright color they could. And they would wear all the jewelry and extra fabrics, like sashes, in the world to embellish. And no, none of them wore heels - their shoes were flat or they were barefoot while just chilling at home. But they were designed to help them get through the sand. As for the men (husbands were allowed to live in the desert with the women in this era), they typically wore either the same baggy pants as the women or a skirt length loincloth that was essentially a shendyt (ancient Egyptian standard wear for dudes). Oftentimes men would also wear a sleeveless top that could either be worn as a triangular shawl or just over one shoulder (Ganondorf’s preferred way). For the royal men, this top was usually made of silk.

For battle, the women could wear their colorful armor depending on where they were fighting, but in hotter or wetter climates it was best not to be cooking in metal, so they would switch to leather armor instead.

After the war, Sheikah technology made major changes throughout Hyrule, and the utter near annihilation of the Gerudo wiped out much of their rich fashion culture. Hyrulians could wear more form fitting clothes while Gerudo wore whatever simple shapes they could throw together to survive.

Okay, NOW I’m done talking, I have chores to do LOL

I wanna talk about the fashion of the Imprisoning War but that means I’d have to draw more and I don’t have time for that and I have other things to do but I’ve been thinking about it for like a month and—

[quibbs126]

I think it’d be funny if you had a version of Megatron and Optimus who had the whole “were once friends (or more) but fell out and hate each other and are probably now on opposite sides”

But like, not with each other. They separately both have this with some other characters. They kind of just know each other as that bastard running the other side

[crownedwille]

I know the fandom is shrinking so it makes this even harder but are there active yr blogs who also contribute something to faves fest that doesn't include wilmon (besides like the two other blogs I can think of)? Or in general any blogs who post content of literally any other character? I seriously wanna know, are there Sara blogs, Felice blogs, etc? If so, I would love to follow them so in case you are and see this, please speak up

Or let me rephrase this: are there any people who are interested in including more Sara or Felice or other characters on their blog?

[art--harridan]

[Image description: A digital drawing based on the film Girl Shy. It depicts Harold Lloyd's character Harold Meadows sat at his typewriter, paused in thought as his fingers hover above it. His eyes are looking up and his mouth is slightly open, like he's dreaming awake. A thought bubble floats around him like smoke, with the faces of two women in the middle of it. The two have annotations next to them that denote the twenties era stereotypes that they are styled as. The one noted as "the flapper" is smiling and has curly, slightly unkempt hair, with a headband around it. She has lighter makeup than the woman next to her, who has dark lips and eyeshadow and is labelled "the vamp". She has large circular statement earrings and an ornate headpiece atop her smooth updo. Her eyes are downturned, and her expression less approachable. Harold is coloured in greyscale, and so are the ladies, although they have a warmer brown tone, as does the smoke. There's a pinker line of light surrounding them and the writing. The background is a dark brown.]

Inktober - Day 15 (Guidebook)

Film - Girl Shy (Fred C. Newmeyer, Sam Taylor, 1924)

[unproduciblesmackdown]

set out to create a serious, canonesque drawing with which to say "feel free to go in my lackadaisy tag and help me mystery speculate" but only got going when i made it bowling and the rarepair agenda

[graff-aganda]

No no ikr. The ENT fandom is so quiet around here. And honestly I'm just excited to see art of my favourite dudes, because we rarely get fanart around here, and when we do it's usually Trip or T'Pol solely. Malcolm gets left in the dust quite a lot so I'm happy you drew him as well - and so well done too!

Anyway, ramble over, lol.

OMG... Well I think I can see why a lot of fanart is of Trip and/or T'pol (those two seem like they're doing some heavy lifting for the show/are just a lot of people's faves. I've got a few half baked ideas in mind for them myself.) but the rest of the crew as a whole do deserve more love I think! :]

[icewindandboringhorror]

finally finished all of one character's entire quests/optional dialogue/questions/etc.... 100,000 words... .... aughhh

[giantkillerjack]

Uh-oh! You are like, SOOO awkward!!

You're so awkward that it is occasionally mildly uncomfortable for people!

You're so awkward that sometimes people are confused by you and then there are awkward silences!

You're so awkward ...... that ultimately no one is harmed!!

Oh damn!!! What a vile crime you have committed! What an unforgivable thing it is to make a fellow human briefly confused!

Why, if *I* were ever briefly confused and kind of uncomfortable as a result, I'd be devastated.... by the absolute net zero change in my happiness and health! - From which I might never recover!! Yes indeed! No punishment can ever be enough for you!!

So you better absolutely hate yourself for it.

Better be SO MEAN to yourself about every single missed social cue so you don't forget your horrible crime! Meaner than you'd ever dream of being to someone else for the same thing! This is YOUR responsibility!

You need to show the world that you KNOW you are bad by punishing yourself constantly! After all, think of all the people who BENEFIT from you punishing yourself! - No, really! Think about it! Think about who benefits from your pain.

Think of alllllll the definitely-good people that your definitely-necessary self-torment definitely helps! I mean, you can't just cut off their definitely-life-sustaining supply of your suffering, right?? Sure, everyone else has a breaking point, but you're probably the only person in human history who doesn't, right? Best not to question it probably. Sure, it's a symptom that billions of people with trauma have had, but who knows? You could be a one-in-seven-billion exception. Anything's possible!

Instead, better just accept that idea that bullies carry like guns in holsters - the idea that people who have trouble with social cues deserve to suffer. Better carry on the burden they placed on you until you drop. Aid the cause of the callous by enforcing shame and suffering upon yourself extra hard; try your best to do their work for them. They're very busy.

Better not recognize that you need patience and kindness to heal from your trauma. Better not find out that it was trauma rather than personal weakness filling your head with self-hating thoughts. Better not find out it wasn't your fault.

Better not find out that awkwardness is not inherently harmful or unkind, and, in fact, the people who act like it is *are the ones enacting harm and being cruel.*

Better not get righteously angry when you realize just how much unnecessary damage this has done to you. After all, if you get mad, you might realize you deserve better. You might even feel brave enough to DEMAND better! You might build boundaries that keep you safe! You might make other people think they deserve to feel safe too! And we obviously can't be having that, so...

Better not show yourself even a little kindness a little bit at a time.

Better not make a habit out of it after all that practice.

Better not get confident.

Especially if you can't first wipe out every trace of awkward. (And you probably never will. Because people who experience absolute social certainty at all times tend to be insufferable assholes that enforce the status quo. And you just don't have the stock portfolio for that.)

Better not be confident and awkward because then you might confuse and delight people

- you might accidentally end up making other people feel less shame for their social difficulties

- you might make isolated, traumatized, and shy people feel like they deserve to be included in social situations

- you might even make them feel they can be themselves around you

- you might start loving the effect you have on a room

- you might enjoy conversations more

- you might forgive yourself and bounce back from shame more easily and frequently

- you might come to enjoy some of those moments of harmless confusion you cause because NOBODY expects the Confident Awkward, and that can genuinely be an advantage in social situations

- you might stop apologizing so much.

- you might find that socializing is like a video game: it requires practice but also a safe space for it to be fun and positive.

Or if you can't become assertive and confident, better not remain awkward and shy and quiet, and then love and forgive yourself anyway!

Why, it would be carnage!!

In either scenario, you run the risk of finding out that it's not your fault that safe spaces full of kind people can be really hard to find, create, and nurture. You could end up building a skillset that helps you do those things if you're not careful!

If you start giving yourself even the tiniest amount of grace at a time, you will find that you've accessed a gateway drug with extreme long-term side effects:

- You might realize that it was never your fault that it took so long to like yourself.

- You might realize that you were always worth talking to, even when you didn't like yourself and communication felt impossibly difficult.

- You might realize that you'll still be worth talking to even if communication becomes harder as you age and/or experience disability.

- You might come to know that you deserve to be heard even on bad days when words come slow and blurry.

You might discover that you were always deserving of kindness, first and foremost from yourself.

So. As you can see, it's FAR too much of a risk to start granting your awkward self free pardons for your many heinous and harmless crimes. Better to just leave it there.

[ceramicbeetle]

finally found a place to read With the Light online and i'm thrilled; if you haven't read this manga i do Legitimately recommend it