We Shall See...

Zuri they/them/it/its

[catasters]

[valeriehalla]

I am so utterly fascinated by “Saki”, the 18-year-running mahjong manga in which you, the reader, become gradually, frog-boilingly aware (over the course of nearly two decades’ worth of mahjong tournaments) that none of these girls are wearing underwear and most of their boobs are slowly expanding.

I need you to understand that I have, like, an anthropological level fascination with this comic. From the perspective of someone who is also a comic artist and writer, two things delight me about it:

the fact that I understand completely how an artist gets from “the fans can have a little hint of skirted asscheek” to “the pussy is completely out on center page” over the course of 18 years; and

the way in which the pussy being out is treated by the characters and diegesis as being utterly unremarkable.

Okay. Point 1. The frog-boiling.

Let me put this in perspective for you. There was already a meme about how the characters in “Saki” don’t wear underwear when I was in middle school. I am thirty now. Okay? And it’s still going.

In the time since, this has stopped being a joke. It is now indisputable canon. This is not because anyone outright says it at any point. It’s because the underwear ran out of places to hide. I’m obsessed with this thought: somewhere in the over 20 volumes of “Saki”, there is a panel in which underwear was objectively deconfirmed. And it would be so hard to figure out where that panel actually is. Maybe the artist didn’t even realize it when she drew it! The frog? Boiling!!

And of course there is also the breast expansion. I don’t know how to put a spin on this. They are just expanding. Like, this happens a lot with artists: you define a character as being, in your mind, “the one with the big boobs”, and over the years you emphasize that trait further and further so that the signal doesn’t get lost in the noise. It’s just that normally—in like a wildly popular manga series about mahjong published by literally Square Enix, for example—normally there would be a point at which the boobs stopped getting bigger. Like, an editor would step in or something. Or you would get to the point where you cannot draw the character in the same panel as her mahjong tiles without her breasts spilling over the tiles, and you’d go, “Well, this is now untenable.”

That did not happen. There is no ceiling. The frog is soup.

Point 2. The complete and utter mundanity of all of this.

It’s like this, okay: there’s no shortage of trashy ecchi manga out there. There’s a million other comics doing wildly bawdier things with wildly more improbable bishoujos.

The vibe with “Saki” is different.

It’s hard to explain this, but it feels like the world of the comic is fundamentally uninterested in the fanservice happening on the page. I cannot describe it as “leering”, because I cannot conceive of a person in the story from whose point of view one would leer. I think the artist is probably into it—I can’t imagine anyone is making her do this—but “Saki” the comic has no opinion on the matter.

There are essentially no male characters in “Saki”. Like, there was one guy? Kind of? At the very beginning? But he is gone now. They put him back in the toybox. He does not exist. It appears to be some level of canonical that in the world of “Saki”, almost all humans are women. Those women are sometimes romantically into each other. According to comments the artist has made on Twitter (which I cannot source), they have lesbian baby technology, so it’s no problem. It’s so much not a problem that the story is about mahjong, instead of any of that.

So, like, the fiction here appears to be this: this is the, like, meta-narrative of the fanservice of “Saki”, right: it’s just normal that they don’t wear underwear and their boobs are arbitrarily big. It’s been normal. It was normal before the story of the manga began. It’s just how things are. Nobody bats an eye about it, and if they do, it’s in sort of a lesbian kind of way so like what’s the problem, we love lesbians here. This is literally normal for girls.

The fanservice simply diffuses into this all-encompassing aura of disembodied, ambient sluttiness. The framing of the panels demands you acknowledge it, and the story demands you already be over it, because it’s mahjong time now, and we’re playing mahjong.

Do you get??? why I’m so fascinated??? Are you not a little enraptured???

Anyway, I have no idea how to end this weird post. I guess the conclusion is that women stay winning????

[purseownervolatile]

I have so many questions... How does one SUSPECT a manga character isn't wearing underwear? Like, sure, boobs are front and center amd you can see them get bigger panel by panel but how does this work for panties? Are there just that many upskirt shots?

Also how do you keep a manga about Mahjong going for 18 years, what??

[lexiiii-vt]

Like this, mostly.

[tonights-episode]

[doubleca5t]

The boobs thing is arguably even funnier

[lexiiii-vt]

I have an important update to this saga:

In chapter 299, the main character unleashes a special attack (???), and immediately after, her boobs DEFLATE BACK DOWN TO A REASONABLE SIZE

And then later in the match, she has to use another special move

And now she's completely flat-chested

In Saki, magical mahjongg power is literally stored in the boobs, which in my opinion is the best possible explanation for all this.

[irlpretear]

100 trans/genderqueer musicians

Bands

Against Me! (rock, folk punk) (x)

The Oozes (punk) (x)

The Hirs Collective (metal, grindcore) (x)

GEL (hardcore punk) (x)

Urn (hardcore punk) (x)

The Black Dresses (noise pop, hardcore hyperpop) (x)

Party Ghost (rock) (x)

Lagrimas (hardcore punk, scream punk) (x)

Doll Skin (rock) (x)

Dazey and the Scouts (rock, indie) (x)

G.L.O.S.S. (hardcore punk) (x)

Dog Park Dissidents (punk rock) (x)

She/Her/hers (rock) (x)

Deli Girls (hardcore electronic) (x)

Dream Nails (punk rock) (x)

Sarah and the Safe Word (rock, dark cabaret) (x)

Pinkie Promise (punk rock) (x)

B. Fraser (emo) (x)

Newgrounds Death Rugby (emo) (x)

Scowl (hardcore punk) (x)

Feminazgul (black metal) (x)

Sports Bra (dream pop, light rock) (x)

Club Sofa (indie pop) (x)

The Cost ov Living (grindcore, harsh noise) (x)

Kuromy (punk) (x)

The Sonder Bombs (indie, pop) (x)

Lidocaine (rock) (x)

I'm letting unseen forces take the wheel (cybergrind) (x)

Gum Disease (punk) (x)

Cam Girl (rock, trash rock) (x)

Gully Boys (grunge pop) (x)

Arcadia Grey (sparkle punk) (x)

Schmekel (folk punk) (x)

Destructo Disk (punk rock) (x)

User Unauthorized (hardcore punk) (x)

The Spook School (indie pop) (x)

Pinkshift (emo) (x)

Glass Beach (emo) (x)

Butch Baby (light rock) (x)

VIAL (indie punk) (x)

Sister Wife Sex Strike (folk punk) (x)

homewrecker. (metal, hardcore punk) (x)

Mega Mango (indie rock) (x)

Keep For Cheap (prarie rock) (x)

Steam Powered Giraffe (cabaret, steampunk) (x)

Thotcrime (grindcore, cybergrind) (x)

Whirlybird (indie pop) (x)

Kampsport (hardcore punk) (x)

Um Jennifer? (alt-rock, punk) (x)

Scarlet Demore (alt-rock) (x)

HappyHappy (folk, folk-punk) (x)

Queen Zee (punk) (x)

Grumpy Plum (slop pop) (x)

Cheap Perfume (punk) (x)

Pollyanna (power-pop, rock) (x)

Ballista (metalcore) (x)

Faetooth (fairy doom, metal) (x)

Lacerated (death metal) (x)

Fortuna Malvada (hardcore punk) (x)

Peach Rings (bedroom power-pop) (x)

Solo Artists

Laura Jane Grace (rock, folk punk) (x)

Left at London (pop) (x)

ZAND (pop, ugly pop) (x)

Ada Rook (hardcore electronic) (x)

Ms. White (pop) (x)

Rett Madison (indie, folk) (x)

Murder Person for Hire (folk) (x)

Backxwash (rap, industrial hip hop) (x)

LustSickPuppy (electronic, rap) (x)

Babylungs (electronic, rap) (x)

Human Kitten (folk punk) (x)

Harley Poe (folk punk) (x)

Ewy (emo, folk punk) (x)

Averstaskta (instrumental) (x)

Andie Schoen (indie) (x)

Elliot Lee (dark pop, electronic rock) (x)

Urias (hip hop, ballroom) (x)

Twink Obliterator* (cybergrind) (x)

Rio Romeo (cabaret punk, indie) (x)

Knife Girl (art pop, indie) (x)

Alexander James Adams (folk) (x)

Starmaxx (pop) (x)

Sofya Wang (pop, alt-R&B) (x)

Boy Jr (indie/alt pop) (x)

Medusa (revenge pop, hip-hop) (x)

Mal Blum (singer-songwriter, folk) (x)

Gina Young (riot grrrl) (x)

Petra Fiyd (indie pop) (x)

awfultune (bedroom pop) (x)

Quinn Hills (alternative pop) (x)

Femtanyl (electronic) (x)

Vivivivivi (electronic, glitchcore) (x)

Lilac Boy (glitchcore) (x)

Rosie Tucker (indie rock) (x)

Ryan Cassata (singer-songwriter) (x)

Pain Chain (noise, synth) (x)

In Love With A Ghost (electronic, lo-fi) (x)

Alice Longyu Gao (hyperpop) (x)

Prophetic Nightmares (ambient synthwave) (x)

Saint Wellesley (indie folk) (x)

[mockva]

Man notices an Eagle eyeing the fish he just caught

[mexicain-sans-frontiers-v2]

[the-davest-of-uncles]

*gets back to the nest* baby you are NEVER gonna believe how i got this fish

[yorgen-sh]

[daily-lifeprotips]

If you have a senior to check on ask them to "borrow" something small so they think they're helping you.

My mom (72) recently downsized and moved close enough to me that checking on her in person regularly is not really out of my way, but when I was obvious about it she wouldn’t let me “stop-by” because she was, “fine”.

Well, one day I actually needed some aluminum foil so I called and asked if I could borrow enough to cover a baking tin because I didn’t want to run to the store. She said sure, but when I got to her house she needed furniture moved, a wasp nest removed, and her coffee pot fixed. After I got the foil I mentioned each thing cautiously and she let me take care of them for her. So next weekend I’ll need a cup of rice and check on her again.

[morwentrouble]

Even better, here’s an array of more reciprocal options for building relationship & supporting seniors’ dignity and independence:

- ask for something they can actually help you with. Elders have skills. Mending? Advice about knitting, gardening, home repair, nevermind professional training?

-ask about their experiences. “I was reading about xyz event the other day & I would love to know what that time was like for you. Can we chat about it over tea?” Goes double for family history for relatives.

-“Someone gave me this [or, I ended up with extra] & I don’t need/want it, but I bet you have a use for it. Can I bring it over? I would hate for it to go to waste.”

-work side-by-side. They get your physical help, you get their experience & expertise. “Could I come over & have you show me how you [used to] prune your gorgeous roses? I’m trying to get better with mine.”

[prenbyw]

Spoon in the shape of a fish. Carved from some Sycamore I found just outside Wivenhoe, Essex.

[hinako-supremacy]

op i love your fish so much i made it a png

they are now a school of fish

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

sorry to be a broken record every month but christ menstruation is a stupid concept. oooooh excuse me for not getting pregnant, why the fuck is there goo falling out of me about it? grow the fuck up and reabsorb that shit for nutrients.

[daftpatience]

this messed up vintage cat sewing pattern has tormented me since i saw it & like some other folks have done in that post - i tried my hand at tweaking the pattern to resemble the illustration (and my personal tastes) a little more. i've ended up with this, which i have only tested at a small scale and not this final version exactly (where i have done such things as further widening the cheeks and finalizing the leg shapes.) i bestow it upon you nice folks now 👐

go forth and make weird little beanbag kittens! pls show me if you do!

[daftpatience]

woah this got big!! and after another try i have another untested tweak for yall. this should help the weird pinchy side seams out. yey

[calltainn]

My first attempt! I made the pattern a bit smaller as I wanted it to be able to fit in a pocket, but then (accidentally but perhaps unavoidably) sewed it with a wider seam allowance than the resized pattern indicated, so the face is proportionally a bit too big and I lost some detail in the ear shape. I'm pleased with it though! It was fun to make something and to do some handsewing.

[daftpatience]

SOO CUTE AND TINIE 😭

[chthonink]

I tried this pattern a while back to try out some minky and I get no points for making the pattern well but looook at my boyyy

His name is Tofu. Thank you for sharing the pattern I will love him forever

[hobbies306540111]

women should lift weights because it prevents osteoporosis in old age and makes you a more capable person in everyday life please shut up about butts and waists and hourglasses i'm going to fucking kill

[endangeredlove]

;___;♡♡♡♡

[mothric]

genuine question from someone who would rather chew their arm off than go to a public gym, and also doesnt have a lot of money: how do you safely get into strength training? are there youtube channels, apps (android), etc anyone recommends that makes it approachable and don't lean into diet culture / body shaming?

also the biggest thing that keeps me from working out is that I already have joint and spinal issues and moving the wrong way can fuck up a knee or a shoulder or my spine for days. I really don't want to injure myself, and have unwittingly done so before. resources that are extremely clear on exactly how to move and offer gentler / alternative ways to move for people with limited range are vital.

[feenyxblue]

Okay, so this may not technically be strength training, but muscles are dumber than bricks and cannot tell the difference between your own bodyweight and actual weights.

So, may I recommend:

Hybrid Calisthenics

Hey everyone! My name is Hampton and my brand is Hybrid Calisthenics. You can find me by that name pretty much everywhere on social media.

He runs a YouTube channel where he goes over how to work your way up to more complex exercises (for instance, his pull-ups videos start with using a door jamb and moving your weight back and forth) so it's good for easing yourself into things.

[bundibird]

You also don't have to fork out for expensive weights and such if you don't want to/can't. Substitute with stuff you either already have at home or can get from the supermarket and build up the weight you can exercise with. 500 gram cans of butter beans then 750 gram bottles of pasta sauce. 1 litre drink bottle then your 1.5 litre milk bottle. 3 litre bulk-buy bottle of laundry detergent. Etc. One of my dogs weighs 13 kilos and I pick her up on the regular (to her delight). One weighs 16 kg and I pick him up too (to his consternation and mild disapproval). You don't have to fit out some fancy home gym before you can start strength training.

[theygender]

I second Hybrid Calisthenics, that's the program I use. It's run by one guy who's taken it upon himself to make exercising more accessible and it's completely free! Each exercise has different variations based on your ability and each variation is further divided into different levels of difficulty so you can work up to where you want to be. If you can't do a single push up for example then this program will help you work up to the point where you can, and if you're a master of push ups then there are more advanced body weight exercises you can tackle so you can keep moving forward in your training without stagnating. The routine offers a full body workout with absolutely no equipment required for the beginning levels. The only reason you would need to buy anything is if you want to work up to a full pull up, at which point you would need actual pull up rings

Here's his actual website which I feel is easier to navigate than the YouTube channel on its own and organizes things in a way that's easy to understand. He explains everything you need to know about the routine and each individual exercise has both a text description and a video tutorial

Hybrid Calisthenics

[aroaceauri]

@movementnudge

[armengoldira]

The scale of baby hummingbirds vs a human hand

[revretch]

The inside of the nest is white because they're so tiny they line them with spiderwebs!

[hollowboobtheory]

i support universal free healthcare for one simple reason: if you are diagnosed with a terminal illness you should quit your job. quitting your job is the correct response to terminal illness. but you can’t do that if your healthcare is tied to your job

[hollowboobtheory]

listen if somebody knows that they will be dead in a years time, and you are forcing them to continue to come into work, that’s fucked up. terminally ill people should be able to quit their jobs and live their last few months to the fullest. i don’t get how that’s a controversial opinion

[what-even-is-thiss]

I’m kinda surprised that nalbinding isn’t as popular as crochet and knitting tbh because it has an even lower barrier of entry tools wise and unlike crochet and knitting it makes fabric that you can cut.

I guess it’s because it’s slower or something.

[what-even-is-thiss]

Nalbinding aka needle binding is when you use yarn and a big sewing needle to make fabric btw

It also has a lot of different kinds of stitches you can do that make different densities of fabric.

Some people even make rugs.

[thewolfwaitsbelow]

I feel like part of it might be casual people are generally aware of the existence of crochet and knitting, even if they don’t know very much about either, but have never heard of nalbinding

[what-even-is-thiss]

Yeah I hadn’t heard of it until recently and I ordered a big bone needle for myself to try it out and that should be arriving soon.

I was surprised that I’d never heard of it though. It’s older than knitting and crocheting and even though it’s been done all over the world it’s super relevant to Nordic culture and my grandmother and I are both into keeping in touch with our roots a bit so I’m surprised I’ve never heard of it.

It seems like the sort of thing that would be popular even if not as popular as crocheting and knitting, considering the low barrier of entry.

[what-even-is-thiss]

You also don’t need a bunch of different sized needles for nalbinding or whatever. The size of the stitch is controlled either completely freehand or by pulling it against one of your fingers. Most people who have a lot of nalbinding needles seem to either have tried out wood, bone, and metal ones to see which kind they liked or they enjoy carving wood or bone and like making their own needles as an extra hobby.

It’s also a lot easier to freehand and adjust as you go than crochet or knitting and you mostly go by inches instead of rows and number of stitches so a large number of accessories like stitch markers or whatever isn’t really necessary.

Maybe the lack of accessories also makes it unpopular idk. People do like collecting things in their nests.

[the-color-of-sound-is-space]

I've been wanting to do so, I cannot find anyone who can teach me, and any books I can find on it are Ass in the Visual Learning department. Otherwise I'd be making the hell outta some nalbinded fabric

[what-even-is-thiss]

I found this channel by a nice man who makes up close tutorials

Happy Needlebinding

I create videos on YouTube to learn people how to needlebind using two fingers and your thumb. Needlebinding helps people to relax, relieve

[what-even-is-thiss]

I thought this would be kind of a niche post to make but I was quickly reminded that I’m on tumblr, the website full of gay people with one billion hobbies.

[what-even-is-thiss]

So my bone needle actually came this evening (yay!) and I’ve started trying this for real. It clicks in my brain way easier than crochet does. I’ve gotta work up the muscle memory but I think I can do this.

The downside as a beginner is that undoing mistakes is more time consuming than with knitting or crochet. You’ve gotta like sew your mistakes out backwards. Disadvantages of making a really sturdy fabric I guess.

I like the feel of this bone needle though and don’t think I’ll be trying the wooden or metal ones.

Also I think I’m gonna have to get good at doing Russian joining if I decide to get good at nalbinding because I don’t have wool yarn and the ends won’t felt together if it’s not at least 50% wool. A small price to pay for using big bone needle though.

Anyways curse of new fiber craft be upon ye.

[prismatic-bell]

Russian join tutorial I did, if you need it.

[rabbitindisguise]

I had heard about the name from books on the history of crafts, but I thought it was a lost art! Tunisian crochet is something I see a lot more, I feel like this would be a good complement to that trio of crafts. From the videos I've seen of it, I like it because the logic reminds me of even weave stitching like cross stitch. Very excited to try this out sometime since I have all the supplies already :3 going to mention it to my weaving friends too, maybe they'd like to try it for long trips where they can't carry knitting or crochet supplies

[andhumanslovedstories]

I truly enjoy how much Animorphs is like “here are our young heroes, each with a distinctive trope to fill in the group!” And then it makes you watch how the pressure of each person’s role grinds them to dust. And also they have homework.

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

#IM SORRY THEY DO HOME FUCKING WORK IN ANIMORPHS??????

Yeah they're students. If they don't keep their grades up or if they miss too many classes (or miss classes at suspicious times) then they risk drawing the attention of the faculty and/or their parents, some of whom are the enemy and some of whom can just make future espionage a whole lot harder. There are multiple missions where they're like "okay, this is incredibly time sensitive but it'll take a full day or longer so it has to wait for the weekend and we'll have to all lie to our parents about sleeping over at each others' houses. It's gonna have to be done at the last minute because we've gotta go to class. Also, remember to get that English paper finished, we can NOT afford to have you grounded right now."

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

They also get disembowelled and/or eaten a lot

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

#animorphs#its actually devastating i bever got into these#they wouldve been a million times more up my alley wtf was i reading harry potter for

It's not too late. You can still read them.

[cheerfulomelette]

These have been out of print for an age, and the authors have given their blessings to share the PDFs. Here's everything, including companion/side books and the non-canon Alternamorphs books, in reading order:

Animorphs PDFs : K. A. Applegate : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

All of the Animorphs books by K. A. Applegate, as well as the other books set in that universe. I got them here. I am not the one who collec

[durnesque-esque]

Samsung is discontinuing its texting app, tells impacted users to switch to Google Messages

Samsung is saying goodbye its namesake texting app, at least for United States customers. According to an end of service announcement publis

So let's talk about this bullshit.

Woke up to this message yesterday, but with the whole "he might push the button" insanity, I did not have the bandwidth to deal about this. But now it turns out that my Android phone has decided to make it the default to try and force me and all their other customers to utilized Google messages instead of continuing to provide a BASIC service of a phone.

Phones in the modern age are for 2 basic tasks: calling & texting. And you're telling me you can't manage that second basic function?

What's next? Gunna try and make me channel all my phone calls through Google calling? It'll be a cold day in hell before I allow that.

I'm already in the process of transfering all my e-mails & drive storage to Proton, for my business too. It's going to be messy and awful, but I'm not giving Google one more inch of my data than I have to and I'm certainly not going to subject myself to more of their FUCKING AI.

I have genuinely loved my 3 Galaxy Note phones. But I will never purchase another Samsung device if this decision is not reversed.

@samsungmobile if you cannot perform a basic service, then you are no longer a functional option.

[heresmyfiddlestick]

in the interest of being the annoying person in the reblogs suggesting alternatives: this happened to me when i got my most recent phone (a Motorola) while in the process of degoogling. texting apps are hard to come by! especially through the app store! i ended up using QUIK, which i got through the 3rd-party app downloader Obtainium. this all might seem a bit power-user, but it's really not as hard as you might initially think when you see those are github links above. QUIK works great, and interfaces completely fine with my friends texting me from android or ios, and offers some nice customizability

[durnesque-esque]

I have currently done a swap to Textra as a bandaid solution (because my bandwidth for change rn is so SO low), but I'll probably test out QUIK when I have more brain space available.

But also... wouldn't it be nice if Samsung just RETAINED A DEFAULT FUNCTION OF THEIR DEVICES???

Also, it genuinely pisses me off that this is JUST for the US. So it's not like they're doing away with it everywhere. Just for the good ol USA.

[catasters]

[rpgchoices]

Every time someone complain about how "this choice is not moral, if you chose it/did this in this videogame you are a terrible person!" my mind plays this on repeat