#it didn't tell

[ablndfsh]

how do I open the door

in baldis basics on the laptop

[hexjulia]

i don't even know what to say. Apparently my brother has been sending doja cat (singer) recipe links as instagram dms for literal YEARS now because he doesn't know an easy way to bookmark them in the app. Which led to an attempt to save recipes by just linking them to celebrities who he assumes aren't checking their dms anyways. this lifehack got him blocked by mac demarco and lorde however. Doja never blocked or responded so he just continued to use her inbox to save insta recipes. FOR YEARS.

[lylahammar]

My take on unicorns! I'd really love to make a mythical creature field guide someday, since the Spiderwick Field Guide is what inspired me to start drawing in the first place 🥰

[hansoeii]

Jayce's Journal - A Hidden Entry

[leejungjaes]

get a man who will literally shoot his own guards through the skull for attempting to kill you and defying his orders

[jzargo]

"oh Astarion is SOOOO effeminate" wrong. You are judging Astarion by human genders. Astarion is first and foremost a high elf and by high elf standards he is actually INCREDIBLY masc. Other high elves look at him and he reminds them of that one annoying straight guy in their elf-economics (elfenomics if you will) class in elf-college who loved playing devil's advocate. And then they see him kiss a guy and they almost die of shock.

[jamjoob]

Oh hyenas & their catnip 🙂‍↔️

[froggkidd]

Half-joke comic based off something my friends said

[madlori]

My ankle journey

I am sharing this with all you good people on the dash because I am so fucking mad it took so long for me to learn it and if I can spare one (1) person the agony it will be worth it.

So for like...oh, 8 or 9 months, I've been struggling with pain/inflammation/tendinitis in my left Achilles tendon. I don't know what caused it. It just started up (welcome to middle age, this shit happens). It wasn't severe enough to be debilitating, but it was annoying and limiting. It was also intermittent, in that some days it would be very painful and other days hardly at all. The kind of shoe I was wearing affected it a lot.

Now, I have bone spurs on both heels (it's just a thing that happens as you get older sometimes). I'm also aware that heel pain is usually the result of tight calf muscles that pull and irritate the tendon. I tried stretching that calf muscle. You know the stretch, this bitch right here:

I did it all the time. I also iced the ankle after walking for awhile, hoping to avoid inflammation. Results were...unsatisfying.

I went to:

A chiropractor

A podiatrist

A physical therapist

A bodywork coach

They all gave me some variation on the "strengthen your calf muscle, stretch your calf muscle" advice. I continued doing this without results.

I was getting frustrated, and a little afraid that this was just my life now. Finally, I thought...maybe some targeted massage might help. I asked for rec on a local FB site and was pointed to a woman who specializes in therapeutic massage including cupping, etc.

I went to her a week ago.

She spent over half our first session working on my left lower leg. Within about 10 minutes of making my eyes water, she uttered the sentence I did not know I had been waiting to hear:

"Oh, it's your soleus."

Excuse me, what?

"It's your soleus that's the culprit. It's all tied up and stiff." She started digging into it and I felt literal sparks run up my leg as she released adhesions and got the muscle moving a little. When she finally put the leg down, it felt like it was on fire with all the blood rushing into it.

She said, "You'll need to stretch your soleus. It'll clear up, but it'll take a bit of time - tendons take ages to heal."

But I HAVE been stretching.

"No, you haven't. The usual straight-leg calf stretch only stretches the gastrocnemius, that's the big belly muscle in your calf. That's not your problem. That stretch doesn't stretch the soleus. Don't worry, I'll show you how to stretch it."

My mind is spinning.

So here are the muscles in question:

The gastroc (as the pros call it) just attaches down the back but the soleus runs underneath it from the knee around the side to the heel. The lower part above the ankle is where it typically gets tight and forms adhesions.

To stretch it, you do the same calf thing where you put your foot back and press your heel to the ground, but you have to do it with your KNEE BENT:

The bent knee keeps the gastroc from engaging. It's one of those selfish muscles (like traps) - if you give it an inch, it'll just take over and prevent other muscles from working or stretching. There are other ways to stretch the soleus but this is the easiest and you can literally do it anywhere. I've been doing it while standing and waiting for things (the elevator to come, the toast to toast). You just put the heel back and bend the knee. It's kind of like curtseying.

The minute I did this stretch, I could FEEL where it was pulling on my tendon. I knew that THIS had been the problem.

The massage therapist also told me to stop icing my heel. She said icing is for an acute injury, but a more chronic aggravation needs heat, to increase blood flow for healing. She recommended elevation with heat every day (I've been doing it in bed during "phone before bed" time).

I have been doing the soleus stretch at least half a dozen times a day for almost a week, and the ankle is at least 70% better. It is still a little tight and tender, but the improvement is significant. I think a few more weeks will have it feeling normal.

I am...blown away by this. This massage therapist was able to pinpoint an issue in only a few minutes that eluded all the other professionals I saw. I can't wait to go back to her and have her solve all my other problems, tbh.

[akanemnon]

Kick that cupid to the curb!

FIRST - PREVIOUS - NEXT

MASTERPOST (for the full series / FAQ / reference sheets)

[inkskinned]

probably time for this story i guess but when i was a kid there was a summer that my brother was really into making smoothies and milkshakes. part of this was that we didn't have AC and couldn't afford to run fans all day so it was kind of important to get good at making Cool Down Concoctions.

we also had a patch of mint, and he had two impressionable little sisters who had the attitude of "fuck it, might as well."

at one point, for fun, this 16 year old boy with a dream in his eye and scientific fervor in heart just wanted to see how far one could push the idea of "vanilla mint smoothie". how much vanilla extract and how much mint can go into a blender before it truly is inedible.

the answer is 3 cups of vanilla extract, 1/2 cup milk alternative, and about 50 sprigs (not leaves, whole spring) of mint. add ice and the courage of a child. idk, it was summer and we were bored.

the word i would use to describe the feeling of drinking it would maybe be "violent" or perhaps, like. "triangular." my nose felt pristine. inhaling following the first sip was like trying to sculpt a new face. i was ensconced in a mesh of horror. it was something beyond taste. for years after, i assumed those commercials that said "this is how it feels to chew five gum" were referencing the exact experience of this singular viscous smoothie.

what's worse is that we knew our mother would hate that we wasted so much vanilla extract. so we had to make it worth it. we had to actually finish the drink. it wasn't "wasting" it if we actually drank it, right? we huddled around outside in the blistering sun, gagging and passing around a single green potion, shivering with disgust. each sip was transcendent, but in a sort of non-euclidean way. i think this is where i lost my binary gender. it eroded certain parts of me in an acidic gut ecology collapse.

here's the thing about love and trust: the next day my brother made a different shake, and i drank it without complaint. it's been like 15 years. he's now a genuinely skilled cook. sometimes one of the three of us will fuck up in the kitchen or find something horrible or make a terrible smoothie mistake and then we pass it to each other, single potion bottle, and we say try it it's delicious. it always smells disgusting. and then, cerimonious, we drink it together. because that's what family does.

[xiaq]

Your first pride story was touching and all but you still married a man.

Yeah, bisexuals do that sometimes.

[annabelle--cane]

sure, "I'm part of this marginalized group that I'm writing about" isn't a get out of jail free card for all bigotry, but if someone says "I'm portraying an exact experience I've had, this literally happened to me" and your response is "okayyy but think of the optics of showing that that happens? maybe keep that to yourself?" it might be time to reconsider your approach.

[barbaricjester]

I'm think so hard about Stanley Pines I'm gonna fucking cry. Have you guys ever noticed how he talks to Ford even before he got him back. In Carpet Diem he scolds Ford and says his carpet is ugly. He asks the wax lookalike if he wants anything from the kitchen. He tells Ford to shut up when he's reading his journal. He tells the kids he talked to his reflection while fishing alone. He needed his brother so fucking much and I'm

[sachermorte]

the way they sometimes introduce fish to lakes cracks me the fuck up because they literally will just drop a bunch of them out of an airplane

imagine that happening in the warrior cats universe. dudeheart, respected warrior of riverclan is trying to chill and enjoy the five minutes of peace he has today. his new apprentice is a dipshit. the deputy is on his ass. thunderclan is up to something weird. he just wants five minutes. five goddamned minutes to himself to sit and organize his thoughts.

and then a giant metal bird screams by and dumps a fuckton of fish into the lake

what do you even say after that. what do you even do. it never fucking ends for dudeheart. it's always fucking something

[mari-lair]

this is so silly but it's been in my head for WEEKS, so I had to make a shitpost about it