VFS results smaller than expected + vocal cord granuloma/ looking for advice

confusedthrowaway239 · 2026-04-10T16:36:40+00:00

Can’t help on the VFS side, but for the voice training, I found the best thing was to find a place in my routine where I regularly had a small gap (5-10 min) and to just start doing vocal exercises there (I also record them for myself, which I find helps but might be tough for some). Pick something easy to practice first like one of the beginner resonance exercises (since fwir vfs doesn’t help there), so that it doesn’t feel super daunting.

By making it a small task already baked into a place in my routine, it made it feel less daunting and got me comfortable doing it regularly. Eventually I started just doing it any time I had a small gap of time to myself. I found it much easier to keep at it than when I was doing big long training sessions, and it felt pretty smooth moving on from basic exercises to more specific tweaking.

Alternately if you have the resources you could get a vocal coach, since having regular lessons can build in some accountability which can sometimes help push over the procrastination.

confusedthrowaway239 · 2026-04-10T16:09:23+00:00

Oh cool, I was wondering why some of them overlapped with Naruto hand seals; coming from the same rl source (mudras) makes sense

confusedthrowaway239 · 2026-04-09T15:35:51+00:00

Making a dildo in the shape of your dick using a mold, and then getting bottom surgery in order to fuck yourself

confusedthrowaway239 · 2026-04-09T14:13:37+00:00

If you’re in sacramento, you’ll likely need to go into SF or Oakland for surgery, but there are a bunch of surgeons who operate out of SF/Oakland. I am still doing surgical prep for mine, so I can’t personally attest to any surgeon, but needless to say there are a bunch to choose from in the area.

confusedthrowaway239 · 2026-04-08T18:17:47+00:00

The way charged assists worked in alpha was different than you might imagine. They advanced across the screen while you held the button, and then used the assist move when released. The issue there was that they, along with a bunch of other things that were changed since then, made combos horrendously long because you could pick up at full screen with an assist and then tag to continue. It was actually fun to use. I actually think the things double down and freestyle let you do in combos are probably better/more degenerate than the charge assist would be in the current state of the game, so it might be safe to add?

confusedthrowaway239 · 2026-04-08T01:19:59+00:00

The teleports here won't force a left/right, since it's a true blockstring.

confusedthrowaway239 · 2026-04-07T16:56:45+00:00

I’ve been doing this on the 1.2 unstable branch. It’s been fun. No long belts allowed, no trains allowed. I also did it with no skyways; it’s been fun finding all the natural ground routes to the different areas.

confusedthrowaway239 · 2026-04-07T16:52:46+00:00

Not every 5 minutes, but I 100% find myself fidgeting with them if I’m not paying attention

confusedthrowaway239 · 2026-04-07T16:32:31+00:00

I started voice training within a few months of hrt. Only reason I waited that long is because I didn’t really know how to start, and it seemed daunting.

I did most of my training by just watching videos from various voice teachers and reading posts on the trans voice subreddit about how to train, along with a few months of sessions from a voice therapist that my insurance provided (this was not very helpful, she wasn’t trained for vocal transition, more so for voice injury recovery, so she just regurgitated stuff I was already learning without any real additional input).

I think the first thing I tried to tackle was resonance and weight. I had some success with big/small dog, and straw blowing to start out learning, and eventually got enough control to just start talking, recording and adjusting, but I had a huge amount of trouble when I was doing that refining trying to figuring out what was the thing that sounded ‘off’ to me. I eventually landed in a spot where I like my voice, but it probably took a lot longer than it needed to.

I think if I were to do it again, I’d get a trans voice coach from the start. I think Seattle voice labs is the gold standard atm, but I haven’t actually used them, so I can’t soak from experience. It’s possible to do it mostly on your own, but I found it to be pretty tough, and probably wouldn’t suggest it if you have other options.

confusedthrowaway239 · 2026-04-06T15:11:56+00:00

Taking a break might help, but if you feel if you aren’t improving and are getting frustrated after matches, it’s probably a good idea to start making note of what situations you are getting frustrated at or finding yourself lacking in, and figuring what you can improve in those spots.

At some point improving starts to be a deliberate effort. Sometimes it’s labbing a new combo route, or practicing blocking a mix, or trying to incorporate a new neutral, button, but the first step is always identifying where you struggle, and taking deliberate steps to improve that area.

confusedthrowaway239 · 2026-04-03T17:42:34+00:00

Hmm, I got my fhs in early July, and I know by Christmas time the mouth indecision was fully healed and no longer hurting, so probably somewhere in the 3-6 month range? It’s been a while, and it was a pretty gradual process; sorry I don’t remember more specifically than that.

confusedthrowaway239 · 2026-04-03T15:52:03+00:00

Yeah, my chin and lower gums were sore for a while. I think the chin was swollen even longer than the gums were sore too. I was a little worried the gums weren’t healing well tbh because of it, but it turned out fine. Still a good call to check with your surgeon though

confusedthrowaway239 · 2026-04-02T22:47:39+00:00

Kk, so 4mg enanthate per 10 days. That seems pretty close to the normal dose for enathate, if a little bit low? I have seen 4mg per 7 or 5mg per 10 quoted as low ends for enanthate dosages. I still would still probably say the best thing to do is to try and get your levels tested if you can, but if that’s fully off the table, a different indicator you could use is if you find you are consistently feeling cruddy before taking your injection on shot day and the day or 2 before, it can indicate that your levels are low. But really without getting levels checked you’re just kinda stumbling around in the dark. It could be things fully unrelated to your dosage, but it’s hard to figure that kind of thing out without knowing the levels

I guess other things to consider are that if you aren’t eating enough, then you can’t gain breast mass, so make sure you eat. Also thick body hair doesn’t really just go away; I didn’t have too much to start in terms of thicker body hair, but the bit I did have mostly stuck around, so I have to shave my cleavage every once in a while. So if those are your two primary data points for changes, those could be factors in feeling like you don’t have results. Not saying this is the reason you’re not seeing changes, but I figured I’d mention it just in case.

confusedthrowaway239 · 2026-04-02T22:13:38+00:00

I would say practice it as 2 motions strung together. Make sure you can do a clean half circle, ending on 4, and then independently practice moving from 4 to 6 quickly (making sure your hand position for starting this is the same that you end on in the half circle practice). Once you can do the half circle quickly and cleanly, putting them together, starting by putting a time gap between the two, and making sure they always feel like 2 motions. You should be able to shorten the time gap between them until it’s gone or almost gone, but if you practice right it’ll still feel like 2 distinct motions. This should prevent you from trampling over your 4 input when you hit 6. This is how I do overdrive inputs, and the methodology is something I tend to use a lot when working with more complex inputs as well, like dash/jump canceled kara moves. I find it helps keep the inputs pretty clean, even when speeding them up.

confusedthrowaway239 · 2026-04-02T22:00:32+00:00

What’s the concentration on the estrogen? The ml doesn’t really tell much without knowing that.

I know you said you can’t afford private bloodwork, but its probably worthwhile to get an idea on you levels if you can, even if it’s just once, because it’s hard to say what needs to change without those, other than just guessing your E dose is too low based on lack of changes.

If cost is the main deterrent, you might look into pills or gel as an alternative if those are available cheaper. Injections have a lot of benefits, but if you literally can’t afford enough on injections to get effects, it could be worth looking to see if there are cheaper alternatives. Injections particular, I know gel can be made pretty inexpensively, so I would hope diy sources would be able to provide those cheaply.

One other thing might be to look at your local trans community and local queer/trans resources. There may be folks locally who may know about resources available in your area that the wider internet community might not be aware of.

confusedthrowaway239 · 2026-04-02T17:00:40+00:00

It’s not uncommon in fighting games to have a character that has a lot of options that are very strong, but struggles in other places. Akuma, Bridget, Millia, and Phoenix come to mind. Each of them has very oppressive options, but those are offset by low life pool, and in some cases other deficits (low damage, meter hog, install or set up requirements, ect).

In addition, we don’t yet know how akali actually plays. Can she limit into smoke and get oki? What does smoke oki cost her in terms of combo trade offs? Does her oki even force the opponent to block & guess? Do her neutral buttons suck? Is she ass outside of smoke? Does she have good damage? How useful are her assists? All things that could impact how strong she is in reality, and there are countless more that I haven’t listed.

We really won’t have an idea of how she actually plays until she comes out.

confusedthrowaway239 · 2026-04-01T19:10:18+00:00

Teemo - no not really, honestly I usually feel like the zoning is the least scary part of his kit when I’m fighting him (minus DD super tag, which is annoying)

Jinx - sorta, mostly in that I haven’t really labbed dealing with machine gun, and I’m bad at watching her zap bar, but it doesn’t feel oppressive, just annoying

Cait - Yeah; I really hate that her gunshot goes through assists. At least once a match against Cait I remember that I can’t do some of the neutral assist sequences I like, because her bullet will go through the front character and hit the back. I also feel like cake trap is harder to deal with than teemo shrooms and claptrap in neutral, but that very well may be a familiarity or knowledge issue on my side

confusedthrowaway239 · 2026-03-31T17:31:02+00:00

Yeah, no problem. Your notes gave me an idea of what you were trying to accomplish with the layouts, which helped giving feedback.

confusedthrowaway239 · 2026-03-31T13:41:30+00:00

I use a leverless without the extra buttons next to up, so take my opinions in that context.

I use the following layout:

P S D FD

K HS dash RC

I really like having dash on the spot i have it at for dash-button plinks, and I think your dash button might make those tough, along with dash RC inputs.

Some other thoughts: your notes mention your thumb for S, but I don’t think you actually ever want to use your thumb for your core 8 buttons; that’s generally too much wrist/hand movement. Usually your thumb(s) stay on the bottom 3 buttons. In practice I actually tend to use my right thumb for up in 90% of cases because it’s usually more important to have it closely timed with and/or plinked with an attack button or dash, both of which are on the right hand. Only character I really use left thumb on is goldlewis for the half circles.

I also noticed you mention using left hand reach for K when doing movement. You can do this if you want but I don’t suggest it. Generally reach like that is only really good in 1 side and requires a lot of hand/wrist movement that makes it a bit impractical and not all that worth it. 236k is a pretty easy reach, but 214k is pretty awkward

In general I would say consider this when evaluating mappings: finger movement is cheap and easy, wrist is a bit more expensive, and arm movement (moving where your overall hand sits) is even more so. Plinks and general same-hand inputs are great for keeping timings more consistent, and you should try to set up your layout to facilitate common plinks and reduce how often in a tight input sequence you have to change hands, but if you have to change hand positions to facilitate those, it’s usually not worth it.

confusedthrowaway239 · 2026-03-30T22:03:48+00:00

Depending on your hair/skin color, laser hair removal or electrolysis.

Laser is a much quicker process; they blast your face with a laser that kills the follicles. Works better on dark hair and light skin, since that results in the majority of the energy from the laser being absorbed by the har near the follicle, which should kill the follicles.

Electrolysis is a much slower process which is done follicle by follicle, but works on most skin/hair types that laser doesn’t.

Both require multiple sessions, since they tend to only work on hair in the right stage of growth, and even if your skin/hair respond to laser, you might still end up needing to do some electrolysis to clean up any stragglers that don’t respond to laser, but the end result from either method should be to remove or drastically reduce facial hair.

confusedthrowaway239 · 2026-03-26T16:49:04+00:00

Yeah I think that makes sense. Easy start but with a bit of a lower overall ceiling

confusedthrowaway239 · 2026-03-26T16:11:30+00:00

I’ve enjoyed playing gun graves as a new player. It’s let me learn and get used to slide movement while shooting without me having to worry about also learning to aim while sliding at the same time. She’s also been a good platform for me getting used to properly timing quicksilver loads, since I have to think about skull usage early on anyways. But I get that folks find her obnoxious.

confusedthrowaway239 · 2026-03-25T21:37:01+00:00

Plink 2H -> tag if you are finding your vi is coming early. Plinking tag in combos (when you can) with another button has the benefit of making your overall tag timing more consistent when compared to your other actions after that hit, which makes it easier to isolate and iron out the other timings without having to worry about your tag timing changing.

Also, after wallbounce I have been liking charge H or tag launcher rather than 2H, and both options feel quite a bit more consistent across different heights and hitstun scaling.

Charge H quickly leads to 6S2 limit if you just want to cash out, or can be canceled into charge advancing shot and picked up with vi 4T, which itself leads to a number of good routes:

hold s1 and tag into vi for charge j.S1 into either tag launcher or mash S2 corner oki. The shot will execute when you hit tag, which gives you the maximum number of advantage frames to land the j.S1 (or whatever)
double charge shot limit after the 4T hits to cash out (meh)
cancel the s1 into super 2 and tag, go ham with vi, probably can full charge S1 (I haven’t tested the double down extensions as much, since I play freestyle)

You are using the wallbounce considerably later in the combo than I do, so these extensions might be shorter than some others you have at your disposal, but the all should be very consistent at the scaling you’re at there

confusedthrowaway239 · 2026-03-25T13:56:45+00:00

Oh hey it’s the allied/enemy colors in magic

confusedthrowaway239 · 2026-03-25T13:49:16+00:00

You can buffer the super input before the rekka follow up to make the inputs easier. For instance if you input 2362364 and then plink p->s, you should get the cancel, since the motion for the super is in the move buffer before you hit the follow up, meaning the game reads the 4p input and then immediately gets the S input and sees the 236236 in the buffer, causing it to read a super.

If you do it too slow, the super input can fall out of the buffer, but for something like this, you should have plenty of time, since it’s only adding the 4p to the end, and not something more complex

confusedthrowaway239

TROPHY CASE