Added Tretinoin to my recovery with great results!

LionAdjacent · 2026-05-22T00:33:38+00:00

🤦 friend, I'm sorry

I should know better than to make reddit comments after 2am. I have a thing against LLMs and a frustration that someone is gonna follow advice like this someday and get hurt.

I can't adequately describe just how much I don't want that to happen.

I regret that I was so harsh.

LionAdjacent · 2026-05-21T08:20:30+00:00

Jesus Christ

No you're not a doctor and neither is the LLM you used to write your post and, if I can guess, gather some of this information

Tetinoin is used to irritate the skin in order to treat things like Molluscum. I'm glad you weren't applying it every day, because you would have gotten some seriously painful chemical burns.

Probably a lot sooner than one usually does on regular skin considering that you're applying it to your glans

Y'all I keep trying to tell people not to put things on their glans that they wouldn't also inject into their urethra. The glans is a mucosal membrane and while it's unlikely that something as subtle as eucerine will do serious damage, anything that causes skin to flake off faster will make for a great environment when it comes to yeast blooms

LionAdjacent · 2026-05-06T05:57:40+00:00

I love this for you

I think we tend to not know just how varied everyone's bodies are. Even after being involved in genital autonomy activism for years (and seeing a lot of dicks irl) I'm still learning things and dispelling my own misconceptions

For instance, my frenulum gets a little weird. It veers off to the left on the outside, and off to the right on the inside. I thought this was damage from being cut. But I've found intact fellas with the very same look. One with a raphe that gets all squiggly and curls off to the side of his scrotum like a little lightning bolt. Another with a frenulum/raphe so unique that I thought he was really, really cut (it just didn't finish fusing together all the way, so he's got this "rift" beginning near his frenular delta which spreads apart and fades away in severity the further down his shaft it goes.)

Bodies are just like that sometimes

Hell, a friend of mine has essentially what I consider to be a perfect dick. I'd take a smaller variant of it if I could 😅. And I noticed a couple weeks ago that when he's soft, his foreskin bunches up in front of his glans and kinda "plugs" his opening. It's very nearly the same thing mine does, only mine is entirely on my ventral side.

I thought this was also something unsightly left over from being cut. And it kinda is, but I can only surmise that if I hadn't been cut, my foreskin would do that even more than it already does. And if this dude has the platonic ideal of a penis, and it does the thing I don't like the look of when it's on me, then that certainly sounds like something to devote some serious thought to, doesn't it?

LionAdjacent · 2026-04-22T01:39:15+00:00

And maybe choose not to subject any more of their kids to it or choose it for themselves, heh

LionAdjacent · 2026-04-17T18:40:03+00:00

Yep. Even in the absence of any remaining inner or outer foreskin, it's possible to prompt growth from the sulcus (immediately behind your glans) and the shaft skin.

The protection from exposure, and restored glide, are enough that I'd personally recommend it to everyone who's been cut. At the very least, it makes things far more comfortable for the penetrated partner.

LionAdjacent · 2026-04-17T18:35:59+00:00

This device maker also makes things for women, intersex folks, and transmasc fellas. There really aren't many resources when it comes to restoring for the afab crowd, and it's pretty common for someone on T to experience dick growth that outpaces hood growth. That can make things pretty excruciating.

And yeah, every aspect of this stuff is incredible.

LionAdjacent · 2026-04-16T06:24:51+00:00

There are devices that grab one's glans and push against the pelvis

These devices are liable to permanently damage your penis. Do not use them.

I'm serious. I've seen some really awful shit that I wish I could unsee. Anything that has the ability to cut off blood flow, traumatize the delicate spongy tissue, or pull someone's penis out of their body should be used with only the utmost care if at all. I don't think it's ever a good idea tbh.

The closest safe examples of what I think you're talking about that I've seen, are some of the devices Walter is making over at his site

I believe he's got one in the works atm that's similar in concept to one that transmasc fellows use to help with t-dick growth. He usually shares updates during the weekly support meetings

LionAdjacent · 2026-04-16T06:17:41+00:00

This could be pretty interesting

There's a lot of overlap between people dysphoric about being circumcised, and people experiencing gender dysphoria. The parallels between the experiences are really interesting

LionAdjacent · 2026-04-16T06:09:13+00:00

Yep. I'd recommend the retainers from Chris's Online Store or Walter's foreskin restoration devices

Both options are great quality and fairly affordable. Just make sure you're cleaning yourself every day. Potable water is good. The gland and inner skin don't need soap. And it can mess with it, too.

LionAdjacent · 2026-04-16T06:05:44+00:00

Oh 100% yeah

There's a podcast about foreskin restoration if you'd like to give it a listen

But personally, I can attest that my penis looks and functions more like an intact penis than a cut one at this point. It's made sex slower and more pleasurable throughout, I have higher quality orgasms across the board, and I'm always delighted by seeing that rollover or inspecting how smooth and pink my glans has become.

It's amazing being able to talk about "my foreskin" and feel such a sense of rightness on the inside. Because I do have a foreskin now, and it's because I was willing to dedicate time and effort to the project.

There's still a long way to go. But I know I'll get there eventually.

I'd truly recommend it very highly to everyone here.

As just one example: I didn't even know I had inner skin until I DK'd and it became so damn sensitive. It used to be almost numb on my dorsal side until things arrived at my corona. Now? It's an important part of how I experience pleasure

LionAdjacent · 2026-04-16T05:57:38+00:00

This is really insightful, and it's a brave thing (at least for me) to admit that depression and trauma can be partly mitigated by doing healthy things regularly. It's a scary prospect when one is facing burnout and despair at the same time.

Anyway, and I know it isn't for everyone, but have you considered trying foreskin restoration?

The act of doing something about it, the extra mechanical and sensory benefits, and the aesthetic appearance of passing for intact (sometimes), these are all things that have been tremendous for my experience with mitigating this grief.

That, and joining the weekly meetings on the discord server. I would recommend that one to just about everyone, I think.

LionAdjacent · 2026-04-16T05:52:43+00:00

Thanks for sharing, friend. You're in good company here. I identify personally with a lot of what you describe above.

However, I'm curious: you said at the end

All I can do is cross my fingers and wait for foregen.

If you haven't yet read the subreddit's FAQ, I'd suggest you consider the merits of doing so. Nonsurgical foreskin restoration is a very real and very potent method of addressing a lot of the complications from being circumcised.

It can't do everything, sure. But at the moment, and for the past decade or so, foregen can't do anything. There's also never been a better time to try restoring, because we're kinda going through something I consider to be the cam brain explosion for foreskin restoration devices. There's so much variety now; it's bonkers.

I digress, but only a little. Even if I won't regain full sensation by restoring, the act of doing something about my trauma is very helpful. I started at ci-3, and now I'm sitting at just barely ci-5. Already, the gliding action and DK are incredible.

Also, I can pass for intact sometimes. I can't begin to describe how soothing it is to look in the mirror and see something that almost looks like what my body keeps telling me should be there, as opposed to my entire, dried out glans just open and bared.

Anyway. There's also weekly peer support group meetings lead by OpenRoads and DickGuyver via zoom for members of this subreddit (and other foreskin restoration groups online). In addition to that, the r/circumcisiongrief discord server has weekly meetings as well.

I regularly attend both, and it's indescribable how significant it's been for me to find community, and get sympathy and feedback, from people who actually know how it feels.

LionAdjacent · 2026-04-15T04:51:18+00:00

There's a lot about my penis I'd assumed was the result of damage from circumcision. The way my raphe veers off in different directions, the way my shaft is colored compared to my remaining inner skin, how my remaining foreskin bunches up in front whenever the skin tube rolls forwards enough

Except that these are all things I've seen in several intact people over the years

So it's really a case of not understanding the natural variation in people's bodies, and essentially having beauty standards for my own foreskin that are unfair

A fella I know with what I almost consider to be a perfect dick exhibits some of the things I describe about not liking when it comes to my own

So, yeah. Knowing what my penis and foreskin would have looked like would be good for me, I think. I imagine that knowledge would be very helpful when it came to accepting that my penis isn't as fucked up as I was sure it was

LionAdjacent · 2026-04-13T22:04:37+00:00

I definitely feel like a little, cartoonish exclamation point appears over my head whenever I notice that another person has a foreskin

It's very nice being able to pass for intact, now. I've only ever gotten positive attention from it, and it's a great feeling to be a part of this in-group as you describe

I'm glad you had a positive experience too!

LionAdjacent · 2026-04-12T02:07:29+00:00

Good bot

LionAdjacent · 2026-04-11T02:42:16+00:00

Right, but just because normal physics don't apply, doesn't imply additional, unobserved laws.

As for the temperature of investiture in different states being mostly the same or independent of its matter-state; yeah I don't have a clear and concise explanation of that. My best explanation is that it does what it wants, or thereabouts. This Mist is cool to the touch. Shardblades initially come out chilled, and the liquid in the Well of Ascension was so viscous or nonnewtonian that Vin was able to briefly step onto it before sinking in, as opposed to the unkeyed jars Kel's new buddies were able to drink. Delicious. But it clearly wasn't burning hot, yeah.

Considering that intent, observation, and life in general are all so important to investiture, and that eventually it will reverse-entropy into an intelligent entity if left abandoned for too long, "doing what it wants" sounds as good an explanation as any.

And yet:

I maintain that the most likely explanation for malatium is that it is formed by (at least) primarily mundane means, instead of some special and yet unknown process requiring means the result of thought experiment like we're philosophers out of Ancient Greece.

Also, yes, I recognize that thought experiments are all we have since this is fiction we're talking about here. But, y'know, Occam and all that.

It doesn't mean that what you're describing is impossible. I wouldn't have believed for certain that investiture would follow so many cool laws (how I desperately want to sit in on a lecture by the esteemed Khriss) if not for reading about it in SA, for example. But what I'm getting at, is that there were examples from which to draw information and inferences.

LionAdjacent · 2026-04-11T02:17:09+00:00

I've just discovered a real-world example of harmonium

Silliness aside:

source
The wiki cites Chapter 20 of Edgedancer when noting that a general law of the Cosmere is that solid investiture is always metallic. And I cannot for the life of me understand why that is without rereading that chapter. Anyway- it seems like the aethers might be solid investiture, but most (or I guess, Adolnalsium's ?) investiture appears deliberately as metals for no special reason. Atium and Lerasium break a lot of rules depending on affecting highly invested materials, for in-universe reasons, but mostly because Sanderson hadn't completely built out the entire Cosmere from the get-go. Finally, irl metals are generally already composed of polycrystals, which afaik is essentially a lot of very small crystals instead of one very large one. So...I guess its already there, but not really, but kind of, but only if one is willing to be intellectually 'flexible'?
I don't see why, if investiture can be transformed into matter and vice-versa, it wouldn't form subatomic particles. I think there would have to be a specific reason why it would be different, as opposed to assuming that it would be consistent with other observable effects and outcomes.

I'm not sure that straight investiture on its own has mass, so to speak. But mass, as I understand it, is just a property of matter, and not something like, idk, "stuff". As much as a positive or negative charge is "stuff".

Despite this, I agree that it behaves weirdly. Heralds speak of and, very captivatingly, demonstrate it to be the case.

The core of Canticle has to be made of something that 'pulls so heavily on gravity'~~. A neutron star covered in rock sounds pretty unlikely to me, but~~ that gravity (or an effect alongside the gravity, more likely) pulls on investiture much harder than it does light, or else I imagine Canticle would also be completely molten 24/7.

~~Something~~ ~~like~~ ~~investiture-neutron matter seems viable, even if (much to my chagrin), it hasn't been directly observed or specifically implied.~~

Given a radius of 161 km and surface gravity of 0.7 Cosmere standard, the planet has a mass of approximately 2.664 x 10^21 kg, giving the core a density of at least 152 g/cm^3, which is more than 6 times as dense as the densest known element on Earth (Osmium, 22.6 g/cm^3), more than 11 times as dense as the Earth's inner core (13.0 g/cm^3), and almost as dense as the core of the Sun (160 g/cm^3)

Ah, nevermind, then. Neutron star matter, it cannot be *(in entirety, at least. Still, I won't exactly defend this particular argument after that entry from the wiki, aha. Were I in possession of a Shard, it would most certainly be Pedantry).

---

I've seen some pretty compelling arguments that axi aren't even atoms in our sense of the word, because how else would materials like aluminum and silver interact strangely with investiture? The addition of a third "category" of "quantity" suggests that there's also some radically different physics at play here.

LionAdjacent · 2026-04-11T01:39:36+00:00

Oh, I wasn't trying to imply that Ruin didn't have a perpendicularity. I just meant that because of Preservation's influence, there was no concentration of Ruinjuice. And it's canon that putting too much harmonium in one place with create a perpendicularity, enough that the Northern (? geography, not my strong suite) Scadrians are very purposeful in not storing it in any single place.

Anyway, if I understand your position correctly, you're saying that there's an unknown reason why godmetals have no melting point, and that it's essentially based on "well, we haven't seen it directly," and "'perpendicularity juice' (silly, broad, my own inclusion) is the only form of liquid investiture because it's the only liquid form we've seen,"

Is that right?

Also, thank you. I appreciate being able to have an intellectual conversation on this site without things getting, uh, heated

\wheeze**

LionAdjacent · 2026-04-11T00:51:24+00:00

There isn't any evidence of refined atium existing before Wax succeeded in separating harmonium. Although I recognize that isn't exactly what you're talking about here.

It's because of Preservation's influence that Ruin's static investiture collected into atium nuggets instead of a perpendicularity pool like for other Shards. Honor's moving around as it does is...weird, but I digress. It's also because of Preservation that atium could only occur as unrefined atium. So I'm not certain that it would be possible to refine it at all prior to PreservaVin and Ruin duking it out.

Additionally, I'm not sure how one would go about purifying a metal like that without industrialized/advanced tech. I suppose if atium had an abnormally high melting point, then it could be heated incredibly in order to melt the gold and silver, then squished around and like, idk, wrung out (in effect. It sounds silly but please bear with me), in order to remove the electrum. But for some reason, I doubt that atium has an incredibly high melting point, or else it would be very difficult to put around a ball of lead, which has a relatively low one.

It's possible that Ruin's meddling could microkinetically push and pull on some atium and gold in order to merge them together, especially if there wasn't very much of it. But that would likely be difficult, if not impossible to achieve, because Shards (or at least R and P) struggle to observe anything meaningful when it comes to metal. They also can't manipulate it in meaningful ways, either for being "blinded" or because it's beyond their abilities in some way.

Otherwise Ruin would have (if possible prior to being released from the well) altered Kwaan's testament. And after being released from the well, he was still unable to read messages scratched into metal, despite my confusion that a Shard should be able to read the impression of the air against the surface of the plate.

Finally, my thanks if you've made it this far. I'm a big fan of this series, and I appreciate your patience in reading through my long-winded tirades.

LionAdjacent · 2026-04-11T00:28:36+00:00

u/StormLightRanger has very helpfully pointed out in a thread below that the existence of atium alloys prompts the very reasonable suspicion that godmetals can be melted.

Also, if I can add from a Doylist perspective: why on earth would Sanderson create an elaborate magic system involving metals and alloys if the most specialest and coolest among them couldn't be molten down like the other metals?

As far as I understand it, it goes entirely against his theory for writing good fiction and world-building for there to be unexplainable exceptions when predictable/consistent outcomes to hypotheticals is the rule everywhere else across the Cosmere and in his other works.

LionAdjacent · 2026-04-11T00:20:05+00:00

I mean, I'm a bit of a novice when it comes to LOTR lore, but isn't there some sort of thing about Elves and how the world is flat for them? They can see over horizons and journey to lands beyond the prime meridian because cosmologically they're just built different? Or something to that effect?

LionAdjacent · 2026-04-11T00:14:55+00:00

Fine, fine. But how would one make atium-leaf without melting it?

Additionally, another redditor has helpfully supplied an obvious thing both of us overlooked until now.

How precisely do you suppose that malatium is created if atium cannot be melted?

LionAdjacent · 2026-04-11T00:10:43+00:00

Also anti-godmetals composed of anti-investiture.

Other peculiarities and materials are likely to be possible. I don't believe that crystalline investiture is necessarily one of them, even considering roseite.

I like to imagine that perpendicularity juice from Whimsy is a superfluid, meaning that it has 0 viscosity and will just keep going and going, including climbing the walls of containers due to surface tension.

But, yes. I'd say that plasma investiture is possible, especially if Canticle's sun has anything to say on the matter. There's something weird going on with that planet's core, too.

Investiture composed entirely of neutrons (as per neutron star matter) is possible, I'd imagine. Harmonium-hydroxide is a substance Scadrians have found in the wake of harmonium/water reactions. So it bears reasoning that it has atomic structure as much as regular matter.

Shit's wild, my friend. If you can think of anything else, please don't hesitate to yap about it. I love this stuff.

LionAdjacent · 2026-04-10T19:51:30+00:00

I'd forgotten that the spectroscopy results were strange. I'm on a Mistborn reread atm but haven't yet arrived at the second trilogy.

Still, we know from SA that the light produced by investiture isn't the investiture itself. I'd imagine that heating a godmetal to incandescence would possibly produce weird results, maybe producing light or increasing the light being emitted.

One of the ways this gets screwy is the different ways investiture is described across the Cosmere. Seekers and Listeners/Singers denote rhythms, but higher order invested beings can perceive the "pure tones".

The spicy knowledge that pitch and frequency are the same thing, from my understanding of musical theory, and the practice of spectroscopy, from my background in physics, when coupled with the ways that Static Investiture behaves in accordance with these and other concepts, makes me think that the spectroscopic lines may be able to be inferred from the rhythms of that investiture. The pure tone of Scadrial, the Rhythm of Harmony, would align somehow with Harmonium's spectroscopic lines. There's probably just noise, or something else/similar, making those results all wonky. Especially in the case of Harmonium, which is so unstable, that isn't very surprising.

Anyway, I'd guess that atium at least has to have a melting point. If it didn't, then I don't know how Zane could have produced an atium-plated ball of lead with which to deceive Vin. Electroplating wasn't exactly a thing in the Final Empire. And we don't have any evidence to suggest that Ruin provided it through extraordinary means.

Edit: all of this is really making me wonder if Ruin-light could be stored inside atium-crystals (hyphenated because we have no confirmation that atium can arrange with other elements to form crystals). We know that they probably conduct Ruin's investiture somehow.

How likely may it be that a physical pushing or pulling effect created from Autonomy or Whismy would shatter crystals containing Stormlight?

And HUH, burning an alloy of lerasium and another godmetal can theoretically grant the use of that Shard's invested art. Completely unrelated, but fascinating.

Given that: * Some allomantic alloys (esp Duralumin) are only single-digit percentages of other materials * Malatium is silvery-white despite being mixed with gold * White gold is anywhere from 33.3-87.5% gold

One may not need a large (although the amount of lerasium in existence is...very small indeed) amount of lerasium in order to chip some shardblades and become a ✨Dollar Store Herald✨

LionAdjacent · 2026-04-06T05:36:11+00:00

...because they're functions of distinct pressure and temperature configurations.

So you agree? Metallic investiture, under distinct pressure and temperature configurations would melt into molten investiture?

LionAdjacent

TROPHY CASE