Come Feed the Rain

🇦🇺🇬🇧 Reblogs are not endorsement. "Supreme jester of the dark dark side of the moon moon." - @nightingaletrash Queer. 30+. Aroace cis+ gender expat. Not religious but I reblog religious stuff (see above disclaimer). Sometimes I write about vampires. AuDHD.

[ninanofun]

After several months of work, I finished this embroidery project yesterday. It's my second ever attempt at embroidery and I'm really, really happy with the result.

Also, a few weeks ago, my partner and I did a little photoshoot at a nearby park with the previous iteration (which is identical except for the golden circle).

[handmadehistorypodcast]

This is your…second…embroidery…

[animentality]

[poppyseed-art]

[midnightvrose]

[tooiconic]

both of them are me

[janmisali]

pick whatever option the person you're following who reblogged this post didn't pick. if they didn't say in the tags what they picked or if you're seeing the original post and not a reblog, pick at random instead.

first option

second option

Remaining time: 4 days 49 minutes

[aromanticduck]

There's wholesome ships and there's toxic ships, but I'd like to coin 'sodium chloride ships', where the individuals involved are both horrible and dangerous people, but somehow being together renders them surprisingly well-adjusted (if a little salty).

[aromanticduck]

The opposite of this is a 'coke and mentos' dynamic, where the two people are generally chill and likeable but being around each other makes them both wild and chaotic.

[aromanticduck]

Here's the breakdown:

[jpeg-dot-jpeg]

Normalize an Alfred Pennyworth who is absolutely dogshit at his job. This freshly legal little slut moved to the Big Smoke to pursue his dreams of acting then did military service then immigrated to fucking new jersey probably bc it was cheaper than new york. then he got a job as a valet or housekeeping staff or some shit at the mansion of Most Rich and Killable Couple On The Eastern Seaboard and you KNOW his slutty ass slept his way to the top. pennywaynes truther martha and thomas were swingers and i'll DIE on that hill. so they are obsessed him and he's blowing out backs while the rest of the house staff talk mad shit in the kitchen and then Alfred's sugar mommy and daddy get fucking SHOT and have named him the GUARDIAN of their CHILD and he has to shape the fuck up. BUT HE STILL DOESNT KNOW HOW TO DO THIS JOB. this cunt aint got experience running a household, he's british and can't cook for shit, landscaping cleaning bills property management HE WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A STAR. and this is too much. so he fires the entire staff. and then single parents what will become the most emotionally fucked up human being on the face of the planet.

[sometiktoksarevalid]

[closet-keys]

all emotions are important indicators that something in your life needs to change. feeling like emotions are evil and suppressing them in an effort to Be Good will result in way worse long term effects than acknowledging them.

being curious about emotions--especially the really Big Painful Stigmatized ones--and getting to the root causes so you can make slow substantial changes, rather than impulsive superficial ones, is pretty much always the way to go whenever possible.

most of the time when people apologize for their emotions (e.g. anger), they should really be apologizing for the behavior they engage in to soothe the emotions. because emotions in and of themselves do not actually harm other people.

people who say they are harmed by emotions are usually either

actually responding to behavior and simply uncritically accepting conflation between the two (e.g. "I'm afraid of your anger" often translates to "whenever you mistreat me you blame it on your anger, so if your anger is the cause of mistreatment, then my fear of mistreatment can only be discussed as a fear of anger"),

or are themselves engaging in a controlling behavior to soothe their own emotions that they are refusing to manage (e.g. "I'm afraid of your anger" often translates to "whenever you're angry I feel panic, and instead of interrogating what I'm afraid of and what I need to remind myself that I'm safe, I'm going to demand you never express feelings around me").

WITH THIS SAID.

a lot of the time what men call ''anger'' is actually just misogynistic resentment.

a lot of people will say ''men are only allowed to feel anger.'' this is just not true, but I believe there is something here that is gendered.

men are incentivized to outsource management of all pain and discomfort to women (and children). managing emotions is not paid productive labor, it is reproductive labor, so men--as a class--do not feel obligated to do it. feminized classes are supposed to do the unpaid labor. so men expect to outsource their emotional management to women and children in their lives.

this is why media often depicts women and children serving the role as "healing" the male protagonist. this is why women and children often are expected to learn how to not "set off" the patriarch. this is why people will say that men will get humiliated at work and "take it out" on their families. it's why men do not openly and by default process emotions with other men. the culturally normative expectation is for men to offload the effort of managing their emotions onto feminized classes.

men feel that it it women's responsibility to manage their emotions. they feel entitled to easy, pleasurable emotions all the time so that they can do good, productive, paid work without interruption. but then they still experience extreme, painful emotions that they don't know how to handle, because they are human beings, and emotions happen.

when faced with the dissonance between unbearable emotional pain, and women simply refusing to set down everything in their own lives to attend to it immediately, men become extremely resentful. they imagine that they are experiencing a painful emotion because women have neglected them, and then interpret their own emotions as cruelty inflicted by women.

I think the whole principle I outlined above (i.e. instead of suppressing emotions as evil and then lashing out impulsively to self-soothe, it is much more fruitful to be curious about emotions, to understanding where they come from, and figure out constructive ways to change your life that address unmet needs) really needs to be applied here.

if you realize you are experiencing this kind of misogynistic resentment, it is not helpful to try to suppress it. emotions grow when suppressed. even if you tell yourself you would never hurt someone, it is extremely likely that eventually you will justify lashing out at women in your life to self-soothe because you are not spending any time figuring out other ways to address the emotion.

instead, you need to really try to deconstruct your beliefs about emotions. you are not responsible for managing other people's emotions, but you are responsible for managing your own. even when they are enormous and debilitating. it is your life. if you are incapacitated by emotion, it means something really needs to change. you need to figure out what needs are not being met, and you need to figure out what can be done to meet them. this is not women's job. this is not the job of children. they have their own enormous debilitating emotions to manage!

there is nothing wrong with feeling negative emotions. there is something wrong with expecting to never feel negative emotions and then blaming them on other people, and using this blame as an excuse to punish them. it is essential that you understand the difference.

also, this goes for women expecting emotional management from children. it goes for cis people expecting it from trans people. it goes for tme people expecting it from tma people. it goes for white people expecting it from racialized people. it goes for nonblack people expecting it from Black people.

if there is a class that is constructed as "there to do unpaid labor for you" then you need to really interrogate any entitlement you feel towards anyone in that class to soothe your emotions for you.

maintaining healthy emotional boundaries is not neglect or cruelty.

[passionpeachy]

The way adult fandom people hold indie online creators and cartoons to a much higher standard than their actual local politicians. You could be putting that energy into terrorizing and protesting conservatives at your town hall and actually make a good material impact on the world but instead you're background checking everything the trans woman who made the amazing digital circus has ever said

[passionpeachy]

The point isn't "stop criticizing indie artists" or "defend your favorite show under this post". I don't even watch Digital Circus and no one is above criticism. Literally every indie show is getting torn to shreds on twitter right now and I'm not saying this to defend anyone I don't know. The point is "someone who actually has the power to kill us all and get away with it deserves way more ire and accountability than a cartoonist and I expect grown adults to understand this"

[gibbearish]

got a good grade in physical therapy because i ordered a sex toy life is fun

[gibbearish]

anyways tmi/nsfw warning but since it helped me and my therapist hadnt considered the idea before im willing to bet a lot of others havent either so im gonna share:

if you have vaginismus and struggle with dilating regularly i highly recommend looking into wearable toys. theyre generally vibrators that hook onto your clothes or your person in some way, and they're intended to be worn long-term and in public which means you can safely+comfortably just put it in and go about your day without having to sit down and do the whole production of dilating on its own. theyre usually curved to follow your body and soft/flexible unlike the dilators which are straight and stiff, so theyre imo easier to get in and less uncomfortable to ambiently exist with, and the long term aspect gives your body more time to adjust to having something there. and frankly the vibrator part is helpful too, a big part of vaginismus therapy is teaching your body that sensations there arent actually painful like it thinks so introducing positive stimulus helps it relax, bc functionally it kind of is a type of massage lol. but yeah again i know this is oversharing and tmi but i also know this disorder majorly sucks to have and feel like you cant make progress on so if it helps anyone else then yeehaw

[gibbearish]

actually ive decided these tags are important enough to go in the post body

image id under cut bc it wouldnt fit in alt

image ID: screenshot of tags reading "#now obviously this is limited to once you hit a point where you can fit the vibrator itself "but once you do this is a speedrunning tactic LMAO #im torn on community labelling this bc on the one hand it is for sure sexually themed but on the other hands its medical advice #advice that i wouldve killed to be able to know as a minor bc i already knew i had it at that point i might add #and something thats p common to learn early on because when you cant fit a tampon in for no reason on your first period #you go 'what why not everyone else can what am i doing wrong' #or well i guess more intense cases like mine are more likely to be discovered early‚ ik for some ppl its more 'tampons are fine but #anything bigger is intense pain' so they dont find out until they lose their virginity #or after if they just assume its supposed to be painful which is p common too #hm yeah i will not be community labelling this and am going to specifically say to any vagina'd minor reading this: if your first time #is intensely intensely painful‚ THAT IS NOT NORMAL no matter what the other person says!! and there are excercises that exist that #can make it easier!!! #and also: forcing your way through the pain will make your condition worse in the long run because it reinforces to your brain #that any interaction down there = pain so the muscles lock down even harder next time #if it hurts really bad and you can do so‚ go to your doctor and ask to be referred to a pelvic floor physical therapist for potential #vaginismus and they should be able to help #you can also research self treatment methods online bc its primarily just dilating‚ kegels‚ abdominal/thigh massages‚ stretches‚ and #bowel health (any tension in neighboring regions will ripple effect back to your pelvic floor so indigestion can make things more difficult) #(hence also the abdominal/inner thigh massages‚ those muscles being tight pulls towards your chest and knees respectively which again increases tension in the pelvic region) #a physical therapist will help you set a timeline and pace yourself as well as assign homework excercises to fit you but #the general stuff that can be found online is helpful regardless #and also remember: any progress is good progress. since my first appointment i have been very bad about doing all my excercises #the amount i should be but ive already made ridiculous progress #oh part of the physical therapy too would be yknow. doctors getting their fingers all up in your business so thats another reason you might #prefer self treatment however personally i can confirm it gets wayyy less awkward after the first one i soend my appointments rambling #about terraria now #youll feel embarassed but dont‚ remember that this is their entire job and youre probably the fifth cooch theyve touched today #so this is just a part of their life‚ its not weird for them #also specifically if anyone is near Spokane i recommend core pelvic physical therapy w julia salazar shes a complete delight". end ID

[gibbearish]

alao i don't know enough about vaginoplasty to feel comfortable saying whether the first tip would be useful for that dilating too but its something to keep in mind at least, i cant see any reason why it wouldnt work the same though

[gibbearish]

i dislike "hey rb this actually" type things so if you dont want to thats completely fine esp considering a good chunk of it is abt vibrators lol, however it would be greatly appreciated as vaginismus was never mentioned in school / health class for me and ppl really do end up assuming (or being told by assholes) that the pain is just how it works and they have to push through it to be normal, i learned abt it somewhat early on bc mine was so severe i straight up thought i simply Didnt Have A Vaginal Canal and wanted to see if that was a thing, but for a lot of people its more subtle where penetration is /possible/ just not /comfortable/ so they think "ah this must just be how it works, everyone must experience this when they have sex so i just have to deal with it", which sucks on its own but is also something often taken advantage of/encouraged by abusive partners. or those with low/no libido* often find out when they reach the age for their first pap smear and either are in way more pain than normal for it, or are just straight up unable to complete it and then have to wait until after therapy finishes to get that test, so i want to give anyone i can a head start on that realization lol. and even medical stuff aside, the mental impact of not being able to engage in sex the "normal" way despite wanting to is really rough on its own, it's even been really rough for me and i'm transmasc so to a certain degree ive found it gender affirming not being able to do it """the girl way""", but at a certain point that just became a sprinkles-on-a-turd kind of thing yknow lol

*can also include those with active libidos who just choose not to sleep with anyone, but theyre a bit more likely to find out via masturbation whereas someone without probably won't feel the need to explore what's going on there as much

also i wanted to add vis a vis the physical therapy part, the "having a doctors finger in you" part does feel weird and awkward and embarassing and yes probably will hurt a bit when youre first starting out, but they will go as slow as you need and it really is helpful, because from that they can tell you what areas to focus pressure on with the dilator, test muscle control, make sure youre doing kegels/breathing exercises right, and gauge your progress while making sure youre not pushing too fast, so if youre willing/able to push thru the awkwardness of it then it really is worth it

[fandomshatefatpeople]

i know this isn't under this blog's theme at all but i feel like we do dip into general medical stuff a lot, and this is something pretty personally important to me so i wanted to share it here too

- mod CJ

[fandomshatefatpeople]

oh actually one more thing to add, if you're transmasc go through planned parenthood for your referral if you can, they should be able to find you a trans-friendly location

- mod CJ

[gibbearish]

@excessive-vampires hey of course<3 i know it fuckin sucks to deal with so anything i can do to help others with it ill do my best

with that i saw your reblog earlier and was working through forming a response so i just wanted to say firstly im really sorry youre stuck in that situation and that your doctors treated you like that, secondly im not sure if you wanted advice on working around that so if not feel free to disregard all of this but if yes:

firstly dilators - if the issue is:

> not knowing what to get - i got the intimate rose dilator set off amazon and my physical therapist made happy noises when i showed her so they get two thumbs up, id estimate the smallest one is abt the size of a pencil

> they would open your mail and get angry - see if you have any friends nearby who would be willing to let you ship it to their house and then pick it up in person

> if they found it in your room they would get angry - try to think as far outside the box as you can on hiding spots. like say an old pair of boots buried in your closet or something, what are the chances of them checking somewhere like that yknow?

> worried theyll catch you doing it / no lock on door - i usually wait until my housemates are entirely gone or 100% certainly asleep before dilating, its not a noisy activity on its own you go really slow. and even if that means you can only do it once a month, thats ok, like i said any progress is good progress. when i first started out working on it p young i literally couldnt fit much of anything at all and would just occasionally toe the line like every few months, and even that slowly got me to the point where i think shortly after graduating highschool when i ordered the dilators i was able to do the first size after like a week

if none of those solve it and dilatings not a possibility thats def unfortunate but not the end of the road. as for the rest of the exercises none of them involve material stuff so they should be pretty easy to do discreetly if you want (except the massage thing but theyd have no reason to suspect its pelvis involved as the tools used are used for regular massages too lol, and failing that you can still do it with your hands its just not as ideal). so with that here's a rough breakdown of the exercises im supposed to do, and again this is just the general stuff so i cant tell you how many days a week you would do these. and also disclaimer that i very much am not a medical professional, just regurgitating what i remember of the instructions from my doctor. anyways!

kegels:

breathe in through nose 2 seconds, out through pursed lips 2 seconds while squeezing, release and repeat 5 times

then

take slow steady breaths drawing them down into your stomach rather than your chest, do these continuously independent of kegels. pattern is squeeze for 5 seconds, release 10 seconds, and repeat that 5 times

do one set of each of these standing, sitting, and laying down flat on your back with pillows under your knees to elevate your pelvis. originally i was supposed to do all of that eight to ten times a day but that rapidly evolved to "whenever i can remember to in whatever position i happen to be in right now" lol

the abdominal/inner thigh massages are primarily intended as a cupping exercise but you can also use a Gua Sha tool if the cups hurt (like me, they pull my stomach hair so i got one also off amazon, its the shiny metal rock shaped like a paint pallette. for the cups this one looks closest to what she had and you just squeeze it then place on your skin so it creates a seal, release the bulb to create suction, and then slide it around as described below), or she told me the thigh part can also be done with a massage gun. but essentially you just make sweeping motions around your abdominal region, if you start at the bottom on one side you sweep up around your bellybutton on that side to the top and vice versa, if you imagine your stomach in quadrants you wanna spend abt 3 mins going over each corner. then you also wanna do the cardinal directions and just sweep from the outside towards your bellybutton, also 3 mins each (i do not do these in any particular order truth be told im truly just rubbing a slimy rock around on my stomach lol). inner thighs are similar, you just sweep up towards your pelvis. and use massage oil/lotion/something otherwise itll get uncomfortable and chafey, ESPECIALLY the silicon cups my skin hurts just thinking abt that lol

for stretches she told me -

1 minute daily: priformis figure 4 stretch, deep squat stretch, half kneeling hip flexor side bending stretch, supine hamstring stretch with strap, happy baby pose, and adductor butterfly stretch

10x pushup-y things daily: prone on elbows stretch

i googled all of those real quick to make sure those keywords lead to diagrams or guides that looked mostly right so those should be a p good rough guide

the breathing exercises are just more of the stomach breathing thing, you lay down with one hand on your stomach and one on your chest and just concentrate on taking deep breaths without the chest hand moving for a couple minutes

if you had to pick just one of these though i would primarily go for the kegels, for the first month that was the only thing i remembered to do every now and then and id still made a fuckload of progress by the second appointment, theyre entirely undetectable by anyone around you so you can do them whenever and wherever you want, and as far as i know theres not really any way to do them wrong or like. overdo them? worst thatll happen is youll get too tired to keep doing them and the result will be ... you relaxing, so thats also a win lol

another tip is if you cant get dilators but still want to go that route and can fit your pinky: put it in until it starts to hurt and no further, even if thats only a single centimeter and just chill there until it relaxes, focusing on deep breaths and releasing tension in the area (also make sure youve gone to the bathroom prior so you wont get scared of relaxing too much and tense up bc that can hurt a lot w something in you if youre not prepared). itll feel like it never will but i promise eventually it will chill, even if that time is another day youll still have made progress. if you do get it relaxed though then you can try for a little deeper, again stopping as soon as it hurts and waiting for it to adjust. one thing that can help is directing sustained pressure down towards the bottom of your pelvic floor, it will hurt some but in a different way like a really intense backbreaking massage does, and as such will also steadily drive the tension out. vaginismus is lowkey your pelvic floor being one big muscle knot anyways so yknow lol. also if its not going well dont force yourself to continue forever, like give yourself a 15 minute timer as a goal but allow yourself to tap out whenever you need. and conversely if you make it to 15 mins and find youre still feeling fine you can choose to bump that up, the world is your oyster

for bowel health she recommended i get a magnesium supplement, the brand she recc'd is CALM specifically the raspberry lemon flavor, you just mix i think a teaspoon of it with however much warm water you want so if you dont like the taste you can just take it as a shot like i do, or she said adding it to tea and stuff is fine too, and you just drink that before bed every night. its not prescription or anything you can get it at costco or again amazon (all of these companies certainly have their own websites you can order direct from but i am broke as fuck so we do what we can lol)

that's all i can think of right now, make sure to use way more lube than you think you should, and i hope this helps and that your situation looks up soon💜

[gibbearish]

bringing this back again in honor of a) me finishing my physical therapy a couple months ago 🎉🎉🎉 and b) me finding out that i did not find out about mine by myself! someone sent me an ask in i think 2016 telling me about it after i made a post talking about how i was worried something was wrong! so it makes me sososo happy this post has also done that for others ;0;

[tiktoks-i-enjoyed]

"But can you feel it?" Post-phalloplasty sensation explained.

By @ kashcolegrove, Kai Asher Colegrove (he/him).

[manuciruja]

awww the like button turns into a rainbow when you press it! that's so cute...hey staff what's with all the trans women you keep nuking?

[manuciruja]

i think we should be ridiculing them more for this. you don't get to try and go all "queer website" when your staff likes to go on nuking sprees targeting the trans fem users

[smadsel]

would be remiss not to mention that the rainbow notably straight up just removed the trans flag colors from it. like they’re gone. it’s the progress flag minus the trans flag colors.

[smadsel]

that’s not the whole flag, now is it

[manuciruja]

hey staff what the fuck

[villainessbian]

hey staff don't you think you're being too on-the-nose

[shrodingers-catgirl]

HEY STAFF DONT YOU THINK YOU'RE BEING TOO ON-THE-NOSE

[intimatevoid]

I'm in Australia and am replying a couple of days after the original post, and the heart is now a double swirl animation, first with the rainbow and then black/brown/trans/intersex colours. Pardon the dodgy screenshots:

Either it's a regional thing or a modification since yesterday, but this at least needs to be updated.

Of course, fuck everything else. I'm just counting the days til my own account gets nuked.

[microsff]

The parking attendant paused by the double-length bay. Intended for mobile homes and cars with trailers, it was currently occupied by a sleeping dragon.

No parts of it extended beyond the lines, and the paper ticket was clearly displayed, impaled on a horn.

The parking attendant moved on.

[lionessfeather]

I was going to just queue it for later but then it stuck in my brain, and I decided to make it everyone's problem

[archivemol]

*tips muppet* m'namana

[consumed-by-hyperfixation]

It's mentioned multiple times in the book that "Stratt makes sure to stand at the front" for every major step taken for Project Hail Mary. It's easy to interpret that as an authority thing. But no!! She's the scapegoat. Shes on her own suicide mission!! Shes making sure that when humanity looks back for a culprit in its darkness moments, it's her that they see. Not the scientists. HER.

[therepudiatedimmortals]

I Literally miss armpits so bad mann

[therepudiatedimmortals]

correction: i miss smelling other people's armpits after theyve been suffering summer heat all day

[transgenderization]

i don't have a tip for this one hi helly sorry

[therepudiatedimmortals]

hi can you give me a veryclose hug

[transgenderization]

hi you're not getting that

[treecitysessions]

Why does everyone think fiction is just fantasy wish fulfillment now and not like an exploration of themes and ideas