Not Gay, Just Radiant

"The chances of finding out what’s really going on in the universe are so remote, the only thing to do is hang the sense of it and keep yourself occupied." -Douglas Adams

[balsa-margarita]

Ayy.

My profile picture is a painting of Rapax-folium (the bracken, or the flowerman) from Lethal Company, done by @rufinator. My background is "Vincent van Rock: Space Rig" by u/Joe_Duncan on Reddit.

Most original posts and responses are tagged with "#balsa says" to help me organize them. Posts tagged with "#drgposting" are exactly that - Deep Rock Galactic posting. I'm not actually a dwarf, nor do I work in a mine and shoot large alien insects for a living. Some of the funny dwarf posts probably slipped through without being tagged, but I try my best.

I am really glad whenever I get those "pass this on to ten mutuals" asks! But I don't pass them on, because some people have told me it can get kind of aggravating when ten of them show up - and also because my mutuals are way faster than me, so I see their posts all over the place before I even notice I have an ask. If you're a mutual just know that I love you and you can chat with me anytime.

[gravitren]

We all know what erectile dysfunction is but literally no one is ever taught what vaginismus is and it can cause people to feel extremely lost, broken, and cause people to take their own lives. Raise. Awareness.

[pokemonprofessor]

For the uninformed, vaginismus is when the vagina painfully tightens and spasms when faced with pressure, usually from anything trying to insert into the vagina. It’s the reason I can’t wear tampons, and why many people can’t have vaginal sex without severe pain.

There’s not a lot of treatments, and there isn’t a single one that is for vaginismus exclusively - they’re all medications or treatments to treat symptoms, but not the causes. In fact, for a long time doctors waved off vaginismus as a purely psychological disorder in cis women.

Seriously, this is so unaddressed and uncared for in medical circles. Please spread awareness, even if all it’s for is to let those who have it but don’t have a name for it finally be able to understand what’s happening to their bodies.

[certifiedsexed]

Certified Sex Ed Post!

[mystery-ink]

Hi hello! This post is almost 10 years old and there ARE treatments for this. Vaginismus is otherwise known as pelvic hypertonia and it is a MUSCULAR condition that can be caused by many different factors including endometriosis, trauma, chronic UTIs, and connective tissue disorders.

It’s incredibly common! And it can be treated by physiotherapy.

I know this because I’m currently undergoing physio and although it can take months to recover, I’m already seeing improvement. A lot of the pelvic floor exercises are available online, but if you have these symptoms please TALK TO YOUR DOCTOR and see if you can get a physio referral (or investigation for underlying causes like endometriosis).

Also, my additions to posts never get reblogged so a note to my followers: this is SUPER IMPORTANT ISSUE that affects many people and is rarely talked about. Please reblog, and please share this info with as many people as possible.

Pelvic hypertonia/vaginismus is incredibly debilitating and psychologically damaging but it CAN BE TREATED. Spread the word, and you never know who you’ll be throwing a lifeline to.

[tomatoluvr69]

Get enough sleep get enough fiber get enough iron wear sunscreen every moment of every day dont get dehydrated don’t slouch brush perfectly floss too keep your tires full of air get your oil changed check your brakes and alignment get new tires get your yearly inspection get your yearly pelvic exam remember your flu and covid shot research the candidates for district attorney take your recycling to the curb on the right day try to limit red meat, alcohol, ultra processed food, sugar and sitting down don’t use screens before bed exercise constantly you’re not socializing or being touched enough meditate daily make sure your clothes are constantly acceptable wash your hair before there’s even a hint of grease don’t have any unsightly hair anywhere don’t drink foo much coffee or sugary drinks or carbonated drinks or anything with citric acid or your teeth will rot change your sheets every few days and your pillowcases daily and you should be also throwing out your pillows every year or two apparently don’t use any kind of cutting board due to the unique drawbacks of each available kind walk 15 min after every meal don’t eat right after brushing but also don’t brush thirty minutes after eating yet somehow brush your teeth every morning and be on time for work also and make sure you’re weight training and make sure you’re doing everything you can to prevent eventual osteoporosis and arthritis moisturize your skin every day keep your prescriptions filled try to avoid being stressed at all costs because it’s the silent killer prioritize your mental health but don’t let any of these habits slip and don’t lose your important documents and keep the batteries in your carbon monoxide detector fresh and deep clean your fridge often and clean your entire house often and exchange pleasantries with every acquaintance and keep yourself polished and presentable at work and stretch before bed every night and buy new kitchen sponges when they wear out and make sure you have laundry detergent and dish soap and olive oil and only eat healthy fats and make sure you’re doing everything to prevent the skyrocketing rates of colon cancer in young people and soak all your berries so that they actually get clean and wash all your produce and buy organic so you aren’t ingesting four million pesticides and avoid animal products but also eat a lot of lean meat and dairy for the protein and eat 30g of protein at every meal and prioritize whole grains and complex carbohydrates and moderate your sugar intake and replace your toothbrush every six months and your running shows every 90 miles clean your car out often and make sure no one smashes your tail light in the parking lot and keep a printout of your up to date proof of insurance in your glovebox even if you don’t own a printer and put a sizeable portion of each paycheck into retirement portfolio replace your windshield wipers and close your kitchen down every night and eat two servings of dark leafy greens per day and do all of this and still get enough rest so that you’re able to give the 40 hour workweek your all. And if you fail to do any of these things you’re a disgusting failure slob

[lara-cherriinie]

my love for Susie deltarune is unquantifiable i absolutely adore her fuck every adult in that town who ever gave up on her she’s MY daughter now

[lara-cherriinie]

i can’t stop thinking about the allusions to her home life i need to Kill Somebody

[lara-cherriinie]

very pointedly doesn’t call her parents when toriel asks her to

her “defense” is putting her arms up in front of her face like shes blocking a punch, as opposed to something more fantastical, like Kris’s shield or ralsei’s cape

seemed genuinely surprised over getting her own bedroom

frequently seen eating whatever she can get her hands on (the alley milk, chalk, Kris’s shampoo??, etc) ((yes this could just be a bit but it feels more important than that)) + constantly seems to be hungry

^ adding onto that, one of the main ways she shows care for people is by getting them to eat (letting Lancer have the darkcandy, making sure ralsei has a slice of cake, baking the pie with toriel)

^^ adding onto that AGAIN, Ralsei is very careful to make sure Susie always has enough to eat in the dark world (offering to bake for her, filling her fridge)

doesn’t claim any of the houses/apartments in town to be hers, and anxiously asks Kris “we’re going to your house, right?” in ch.4

becomes super protective/attached the moment any adult shows her the slightest bit of care and doesn’t treat her like shes “bad” (toriel, old man, etc)

lightworld outfit appears to be pretty tattered, jeans have holes in them

always wanting to go back to the dark world

doesn’t seem like she’s gotten a lot of positive feedback before from teachers/adults (mentions that the old man is the only one whose taught her in a way that didn’t make her feel stupid)

acts violent/mean as a defense mechanism when shes upset (Lancer fight, Ralsei confrontation)

tells Kris that they “have a good mother”, + Toriel was the one who ended up comforting Susie when she was anxious about moving to a new town again, as opposed to her own goddamn parents???

mentions “one of the places I used to live”, implying shes been moved around a lot

doesn’t go to church, like we see many of the other kids doing with their parents/families

everything surrounding the piano incident— nobody stood up for her when she was told she wasn’t allowed to play (like you’d think a parent would), nobody was watching her/stopped her from coming back and smashing it, and nobody ever tried to teach her to play

tells kris that she hasn’t been to the diner since Toriel took her, presumably at least a year or so ago

[lara-cherriinie]

I cant wait to add more to this in t-minus 4 days

[orteil42]

controversial stance but i do wish i could live forever. i certainly live like i'm going to live forever. i take my time. realistically however my lifespan is dreadfully limited and there are things i've "been meaning to do" that i will never get around to. the Emoji Movie came out almost 10 years ago. in all that time on any random day i could've decided to sit down and watch it, and i did not. how many more decades will slip by like this? conceivably, it could be all the decades i have left. watching the Emoji Movie would not be, after all, a crucial use of my time. much better things to do. i could easily postpone it over and over and over until my final breath where it may not even register to me that i never did watch the Emoji Movie. no great loss, certainly; and yet i find myself intrigued by Patrick Stewart's involvement

[startrekprodigyfan]

One of the most common complaints about Star Trek I saw growing up was “why don’t they use the holodeck more? If you were living in that time period and you could just make anything you wanted anytime you wanted and live out fantasies forever, why aren’t more people addicted to the holodeck?”

And then generative ai was created.

And now I get it. I get why nobody on Star Trek spends all their free time in the holodeck. I get why all the crew are putting on stage plays, and holding music recitals, and building models, and playing poker. I get why everyone was so skeptical and mean to the Doctor on Voyager. I get why the ONE TIME we see someone obsessed with the holodeck it infringes on people’s likeness rights and permissions.

Because fundamentally at the end of the day we are human beings and we ENJOY working with our hands and making REAL human connections. A person who learns to play an instrument is always going to be viewed as an artist over someone who asks the computer to generate music for them.

Even as recent as Lower Decks they were making fun of the fact that the crew were putting on amateurish plays and holding music recitals. But after living with Ai for so long and seeing how detrimental it’s been to the world… I’d much rather watch my friends put on a stage play than “participate” in a holodeck movie.

What’s most amazing about this is that it was completely unintentional. I do not for one second think that the writers of the time in the 90’s were really thinking about the larger issues that generative ai and chatGTP would cause. How could they? Text to speech back then was still robotic as heck. More likely they wrote that stuff in because it was cheaper to film on sets the owned than try to build, film, or rent out different locations each week.

That’s the down to earth logistical real reason Data is reciting poems about his cat or Riker is in a play put on in ten forward. It’s just cheaper to do that than to build a whole new set or move production to a new location.

Yet at the end of the day, I think that unintentionally speaks to a very human need that ai is making more and more prevalent to us day in and day out.

And that’s the fact nobody wants to deal with generative SLOP.

[sixty-silver-wishes]

sorry america but you’ve been really mean. and I don’t want to go to your birthday party in two days

[onion-souls]

"Why don't the people of Gotham just move?"

Because it's a massive East Coast city but the property values are probably like $200 a month for a three bedroom apartment, and most Gothamites are like, "Hey, Bane never swore to break my back."

And here's the thing: you're not just moving out of Gotham City. You're moving into the rest of the DC universe. And it has hero-based power scaling.

Oh, Metropolis looks fucking great. But it gets invaded by aliens and robots and demigods, because Superman is there.

Wonder Woman's tangling with gods.

You go to Central City, and some Reverse-Flash motherfucker runs backwards from an alternate future and kicks your balls off at the speed of light.

You could move to the West Coast, and oh, an entire city just gets exploded by Cyborg Superman or some shit.

How about you move to Indianapolis, or Cleveland? Haha, no. They have no protector during the alien invasions, and you're in Cleveland

So stay in Gotham. Sure, you have lunatics, but you know that if you had a gun, you at least have a chance against the Joker or Riddler. Mongo of War-World would crush you. But Gotham just has creeps, and you know you have a chance. Even Bane, R'as Al-Ghul, Killer Croc, and Mr. Freeze are just slightly altered dudes. Oh no, Poison Ivy is going to kiss me to death! Who gives a shit, you kinda wanted to go out that way anyway.

There are super-intelligent telepathic gorilla warlords in Africa and the Greek titans are real and chained in the abyss

[choppers-pink-hat]

This does beg the question of why Gotham has such a horrible in-universe reputation when all its villains are relatively human compared to the cosmic bullshit that most other heroes put up with.

I think it's all about perception. Gotham City has crime. But when Ares sends his undying legions to march upon the mortal realm and Wonder Woman has to punch all of them, people don't internalize that as "crime." That's "a crisis" or "a religious event" or at best, terrorism. Same thing when Superman has to stop Brainiac from shrinking Metropolis or whatever. That stuff is objectively more dangerous but it's on such a huge scale that "crime" is not the word for it. The cops don't involve themselves in this at any point. But the stuff Batman deals with is like, robberies, assaults, gang wars, serial killings. All his villains commit actual crimes, so they go into police reports, which end up as statistics. So when someone compiles all this data, oh look, Gotham City has the highest crime rate in the country, yet again. Forget the fact that 10% of Keystone City's population had their skulls crushed by invading superintelligent gorillas. Who cares that a random guy in Opal City accidentally teleported the entire state to Hell after he found out the hard way that he was born a wizard. Those are not crimes. There's nothing in the police recordkeeping app's drop-down menu for a Gorilla invasion. Closest thing we've got is Random Chimp Event.

So my theory is that while Gotham does have a lot of crime, what it does not have is space catastrophes. And so it ends up being the most dangerous city based on a bureaucratic technicality.

[starberry-cupcake]

all this is very true, I just wanted to point out that the worst thing about metropolis isn't the alien invasions, killer robots or meta human fights breaking buildings, it's the power hungry scheming ego maniac billionaire who gets enough of a pass from the population, despite the several journalistic exposes about him, that he's been able to run for president and win

at least gotham's billionaire is funny in the tabloids and, even if he's rather ditzy, he seems to be helpful to legit causes, against all odds

[theworldvsyoshiko]

RimHUD shows skill levels even for babies, so it allows me to see that this < 2 year old baby has 'some familiarity' with firearms and 87% shooting accuracy.

[earlgraytay]

[kiapet2]

It's commonly accepted in this fandom that humans have extremely fragile bodies in comparison to Eridians, but I think that's actually an oversimplification.

Because while Eridians are incredibly strong and tough on the outside, on the inside they are actually quite fragile:

They have no immune system, so anything that makes it past their enclosed carapace and internal heating will pretty much kill them

They have no natural defenses to radiation of any kind

In general they have very little organic matter so anything that targets their cells directly is quickly lethal

They are partially cold-blooded and live at a very narrow temperature range (about 20 degrees C)

They rely almost entirely on one, highly developed sense and are helpless if deafened (can't even remember the layout of a room)

They are completely helpless while asleep and can't control when that happens

They will forcibly become dormant after eating AND when badly hurt enough (their equivalent of going into shock)

They require more energy to function than humans do, and have very little organic matter to burn in the case of starvation

In contrast, humans:

Have an aggressive immune system and internal mechanisms for dealing with cell damage

Have adrenaline which allows them to temporarily ignore injuries and perform abnormal feats of strength

Are persistence hunters built for economy of movement and capable of extreme levels of endurance

Exist in a very wide range of habitats and on a diverse diet

Are very hardy in general, able to survive massive injuries, lack of sleep, prolonged starvation, and intense environmental conditions if given proper care

The quintessential example of this dichotomy between strength and endurance is the Going Fishing incident in the book: Rocky is able to survive and move in G forces that are killing Grace and to physically wrestle off the chair crushing him, but he collapses from his injuries almost immediately after. Despite being injured himself Grace then carries his 400lb friend up a ladder, is badly burned returning him to his atmosphere, and then proceeds to get some basic medical care, hype himself up on pain meds and keep working (albeit rather badly, lol) while Rocky forcibly sleeps.

The TL:DR is that Eridians are harder to damage, but easier to kill. They're like an rpg character with high armor and low health. I think Rocky would consider Grace to be very delicate at first, only to be blown away by how deceptively tough his friend can be.

[vesper-potato]

[artisimpossible]

I genuinely wonder if people realize how many projects get abandoned because the readership "wasn't there", when in reality, the readership just stayed silent. It's a big thing in trad pub that book series get discontinued because readers pirate the books or wait until the series is finished to buy a copy, leading the publisher to think that nobody actually wants the book enough to continue the series, but it happens with indie creators too.

I've discontinued a lot of free, online series because it's not worth putting 3-5 hours a week into posting a project for no readers. Sometimes I finish the series for me but just never post it again, other times I don't finish it at all because it feels more worthwhile to put my time into other things. Sometimes I hear from readers who are sad or upset that I didn't finish something they were liking, but the *reason* it never got finished is because I didn't know anyone liked it. If you like something, tell the creator, tell your friends, make some noise about it. If you would be sad if a story never finished, make that interest known because one of my biggest considerations before discontinuing a series is "will people miss this? Will I be letting people down" and 9/10 times, I come to the conclusion of "no, it doesn't even seem like anyone's reading this" only to learn after I've moved on that apparently someone was.

[healerqueen]

I've said this before in a different way, and this post said it so well. With real examples. If you like something, tell people.

If you want more content from an artist or author, if you like their stuff, tell them. It will give them creative fuel to keep going. And often it gives them other resources as well. Recommend a work to other people. Leave a comment or a review. It doesn't have to be long, just genuine, a sentence or two. Not many people know that a book's success is judged by book reviews as well as sales. Review the book on Amazon or another site to help it pass the metric of success and be recognized by publishers and retailers.

[depsidase]

[fittingoutjane]

Ebola is still spreading in several countries in central Africa. How did the outbreak manage to spread so far and infect so many people without being detected? This guy!

This guy, in violation of Congressional funding allocation, withdrew tons of international aid. The end of USAID was orchestrated without warning, without a wind-down plan, leaving critical infrastructure to simply collapse.

[flork-of-cows-official]

clark reupload

edit: forgot the sweater comic

[reblogs-by-jinarra]

[gayluigi]

Can’t believe you forgot the Connecticut dog!!

[amethystsoda]

[worldheritagepostorganization]

World Heritage Post

[aorish-deactivated20251222]

Recent discourse reminds me of that cult indoctrination trick that's often used to weed out more difficult marks early on, where they tell you all that you aren't allowed to eat rice on Tuesdays and then if you protest they go "wow SOMEBODY likes rice a little much huh" as if you're the fucking weirdo who cares too much about how much rice is consumed between Monday and Wednesday instead of them.

And this forces you to decide whether your autonomy matters to you more than the approval of the group - while they'll still act like you're on thin ice either way, if you give in at this point they know you're theirs forever, because now they've established a foothold, you've shown a moral weakness, which they will brand you with so it can be used against you in the future ("hey RICE-addict here doesn't want help break into the city records office") to force you to double-down and isolate you further.

And if instead you do decide to push back further, after your abrupt departure from the group ("You're seriously leaving us over RICE?!? Seriously?") and subsequent ostracism, you can then be used as a demonstration to the others who were more pliable, of how the outgroup is full of people like you who are obsessed with violating the No-Tuesday-Rice rule to the point where they'll abandon all their friends, who cared so much for them, so it clearly isn't an arbitrary restriction, you're the kind of monster these rules are intended to protect them from, thus all the other wise and esoteric precepts of the charismatic leader are implied to be equally justified.

[doomhamster]

This isn't just for cults either! Shitty partners, bosses, friends - they all do variants of this where if you kick back the first time they make an unreasonable request, it proves you weren't ever committed since you'd let such a small thing ruin everything. And of course, if it's the third or the tenth unreasonable thing they ask of you, it's SUCH A SMALL THING to be a deal-breaker at this late point in your relationship!

[sergle]

are you guys hearing about this dude working to developing a vaccine for cats that he's hoping would like. theoretically double their lifespans?

[sergle]

turns out i wasn't making that up, his name is Dr. Toru Miyazaki! he also wrote a book called "The Day Cats Live To Be Thirty", so cats are kind of his thing.

apparently, cats' kidneys tend to be the thing that takes them down, something about their bodies being unable to self-clean their kidneys, and the vaccine is supposed revitalize the body's ability to do just that. It would be very VERY fucking cool to have cats suddenly reaching 30 years of age be the normal thing.

Could the macrophage-derived protein AIM save cats from kidney disease?

As they age, almost all cats develop kidney disease, from which they eventually die. Just as in humans, kidney disease i

Cat Kidney Disease Cure Nears Reality: Dr. Toru Miyazaki’s AIM Therapy

Dr. Toru Miyazaki’s AIM injection for cat kidney disease enters trials in 2025, aiming for a 2027 release. Greycoat Research supports the sc

[moki-dokie]

whoa wait i actually read the articles and it's so much cooler than just that!!

dude cracked the case about WHY kidneys fail, across the board as far as i can tell. turns out there's a specific molecule whose job it is to attach to waste and signal macrophages to come eat it. it remains inactive in cats for some reason, but the molecule is still there. basically what he's done is found the switch to activate them. this will be profound not only for our domestic babies, but for big cats too - especially cheetahs!

although his research was focused on cats, it's already being used to develop drugs for humans too!

on top of that, since these molecules are tags for waste, this could also dramatically lower the rate of fatty liver disease, liver cancer, urinary crystals, rheumatoid arthritis, and even some neurological cases! like, they're hoping it may have an impact on parkinson's and alzheimers, but it DOES have an impact on stroke recovery. like. holy shit.

furthermore, he's insisting that the feline drug be affordable if and when it rolls out onto the market. he wants this to be something anyone can get for their cat!! idk how much sway he'll have over the human drug, but hopefully enough that it, too, won't be that expensive.

annnnnd in his research that he's still doing for the human side of things, he's found a potential link between this molecule and estrogen. in the 20,000 samples he's tested, women between ages 10 and 29 had the highest amount of this molecule present in their blood (a higher amount means Something Fucky is going on, essentially. There's a higher amount of waste the body is trying to clean out) but it drops down to be almost equal amongst men and women after menopause. it hasn't been looked into yet, but fuck, just the fact it's noted and known and probably WILL be looked into soon??? imagine if this is what leads to figuring out all the various ways the ovaries and uterus fucks with people and how to fix it. or even like, maybe there's something about estrogen that makes it work better. who knows! but it's rad the link is there to be researched :D

man just think, not only could our kitties start living longer, healthier lives, but just maybe dialysis will become as rare and obsolete as the iron lung is for people. what a badass Dr. Toru is!

[fluxxdog]

"But I don't want to turn people into dinosaurs. I wanna cure kittie kidneys!"

[rorleuaisen]

Update: So they have done clinical trials and have submitted it for approval as of april 2026. They are expecting it to be available late 2026/early 2027

AIM Kidney Drug for Cats: 2026 Approval Update — How It Works, Efficacy & Expected Cost | Carelogy

The AIM protein drug for feline chronic kidney disease has been submitted for approval in Japan (April 2026). We break down clinical trial d

As for the study itself, the 360 day follow up on stage 3 kidney failure kitties showed that the control had a survival rate of about 20%, while the test group had a survival rate of 80%

New 2026 study: AIM protein boosts cat kidney disease survival from 20% to 80%. Discover how this scientific breakthrough is changing the fu

[idiomagic]

Our cat Scout is in the early stages of kidney disease. This might be available in time to save her!

[autisticlittleguy]

Apparently Eva Stratt at the end of the movie on the ship had a prison tattoo on her neck that meant something along the lines of "life without parole." So, parallel to Grace and Rocky's adventure, there was a whole subplot where Eva Stratt

- Was eventually trialed by governments of the world as a scapegoat and sent to prison

- She somehow BROKE out of said prison and currently commandeers a rogue paramilitary faction of Project Hail Mary loyalists who believe in her over world governments, who presumably are still hunting her down

- She currently is on the run and staying mobile on an ice breaker ship like some kind of james bond villain base (but you know, good) while STILL working on project hail mary the whole time

- Her rogue loyalist faction controlled enough resources they could go to space and collect the beetles Grace had sent. Alternatively, it was the world government that collected the beetles, and Stratt had a whole ass heist movie to steal them, which is why she had the little xenonite figure at the end of the movie. Either ways she was running circles around them.

Absolutely insane. Never piss off a history major

[lesbianshepard]

on my "don't walk to metlife" post I kept seeing people say that drivers would "bergentruck" pedestrians on the turnpike and it turns out that that's a reference to an Undertale meme where a character purposefully runs over people, but the portion of the jersey turnpike that goes to metlife is bergen county, and I had just instantly accepted that there was a term specifically referring to jersey drivers from there. I didn't even question it. Neither would you, if you had ever driven there.

[lesbianshepard]

posters: if you try to walk on the jersey turnpike they will bergentruck you without hesitation.

me, unfamiliar with undertale memes, but familiar with driving through north jersey: fuckin yeah they will.