#UR WHOLE EXPLANATION (????!?@?

[iridescenttttttt]

Sit down it’s time to talk about how all of the characters in TSAMs are deeply traumatized and flawed and most actions that the characters take that people are frustrated by can be explained if you consider that the trauma plays a huge role in the actions they take in response to stressful situations they’re constantly being put in.

[kingofattolia]

showing up several days late with starbucks only to find out that the damp dishrag whispery mindless villain Thrawn characterization I was worried about manifested exactly

[unheavenlybody]

i feel like i've made the mistake of trying to overcompensate for being clingy in past relationships/friendships (which i think eventually led to their end) by approaching everything as if i'm super aloof and chill with whatever when that is not the case at all. i tried to course correct but maybe overdid it and now i guess it bit me in the ass cuz like?!?!? now the kinds of ppl i attract r distant and noncommunicative and think that i wont mind. when rly i just want someone who cares abt me the same way i do about them and who is just as enthusiastic about spending time with each other lol.

[faaun]

and also just adding onto that, the recent wave of like armchair diagnosing ppl as npd is sooo annoying. Like its actually a serious condition, you CANNOT diagnose someone as npd with just one story or interaction. Sometimes ppl are not "narcissistic", they're just assholes? It feels like every second story i hear, there's ppl going "thats a narcissistic trait yk :/" and its like just bc its a narcissistic trait doesnt mean they have npd??

yes defintely !! it's so so harmful and i have not seen any other disorder (except maybe aspd?) get as much demonisation and hate as npd has and it is genuinely so heartbreaking bc it is a serious dissociative disorder that does Not inherently make anyone a bad person and yet !! like the term "narcissistic abuse" and also ppl just generally equating [mostly covert] abuse w narcissism is so immensely Harmful .

anyway i think we should bring back calling people mean, assholes, rude, gaslighters, abusers, etc instead of being like "my mother was a narc abuser so all ppl w npd are abusers and will never change!" etc etc bc it does 3 horrible things:

1) implies all people with npd are abusers

2) implies people with npd are not capable of self-improvement just like any other human being

3) offloads the horrible actions of abusers onto a disorder, thereby taking away the responsibility they had/choices they made in the situation and instead blames the (completely inaccurate + harmful!!) perceived invariability/ubiquitous evil of npd symptoms/traits .

"how to spot a narcissist" babe are we birdwatching now for ppl with a dissociative disorder or...???

[potatobugz]

huuoogh eridan ampora is arospec and ace you agree. reblog

[cinnabeat]

watching hbomberguys rwby video rn and very annoyed by the idea that the whole dust intro and dust shop robbery scene is poor writing

[crepusculum-rattus]

absolute favorite shirt to wear while working at camp is the one that says “gender roles may be toxic” on it bc then the kids go “what does that mean?” and i go “well—”

[synechd0che]

.

[lilgynt]

having so many thoughts on will and hannibal it’s making me incoherent

[wyvernne]

isnt nahida just tiny cause rukkha used up all her powers? its been a while since i did the desert quest

i think that’s the explanation they went with but honestly it’s so unnecessary alsjkwhdkdjd

[psychosodomy]

logic behind name changes ive encountered among trans people:

the sound of the name was beautiful

a blessing/prayer

marking eras or overarching lessons at a point in your life

historical/namesake

nature

feminine/masc version of birth name

safety, pragmatic reasons

fictional character

everyone just started calling them by a nickname/diminutive and it stuck

cultural connection

intellectual/metafysical concept

and its never one of these reasons alone lol. i just come from a particularly different naming system so that the categories in that poll struck me as niche.

[iraprince]

gonna show u guys a little opalescent highlight hack i threw together today

rainbow gradient above your main figure (i usually have all my main figure folders/layers in one big folder, so i can clip gradient maps + adjustments to it!). liquify tool to push the colors around a bit. STAY WITH ME I KNOW IT LOOKS STUPID RN I'M GOING SOMEWHERE WITH THIS

THEN: set it to add/glow (or the equivalent in ur drawing program), lower the opacity a bit, and apply a layer mask. then u can edit the mask with whatever tools you like to create rainbow highlights!!

in this case i'm mostly using the lasso fill tool to chip out little facets, but i've also done some soft airbrushing to bring in larger rainbow swirls in some areas. it's pretty subtle here, but you can see it better when i remove the gradient map that's above everything, since below i'm working in greyscale:

more granular rambling beneath the cut!

u could also just do this with a brush that has color jitter, but what i like about using layer masks for highlight/shading layers is how simple and reversible it makes everything. i can use whatever brushes i want, and erasing/redoing things is super low stakes, which is great when i often approach this stuff with a super trial-and-error approach.

example: have u ever thrown a gradient w multiple colors over an entire piece, set it to multiply etc, and then tried to erase it away to carve out shadows/highlights? it's super frustrating, bc it looks really good, but if u erase something and then change ur mind later, u basically would have to like. recreate the gradient in the area u want to cover up again. that's how i used to do things before figuring out layer masks!! but masking basically creates a version of this with INFINITE undo bc u can erase/re-place the base layer whenever u want.

anyway, back to rambling about this specific method:

i actually have TWO of these layers on this piece (one with the liquified swirls shown above, and another that's just a normal concentric circle gradient with much broader stripes) so i can vary the highlights easily as needed.

since i've basically hidden the rainbow pattern from myself, the colors in each brushstroke i make will kind of be a surprise, which isn't always great -- but easily fixable! for example, if i carve out a highlight and it turns out the rainbow pattern in that area is way too stripey, i can just switch from editing the mask to editing the main layer and blur that spot a bit.

also, this isn't a full explanation of the overall transparency effect in these screencaps! there's other layer stuff happening below the rainbow highlights, but the short version is i have all this character's body parts in different folders, each with their own lineart and background fill, and then the fill opacity is lowered and there's multiply layers clipped to that -- blah blah it's a whole thing. maybe i'll have a whole rundown on this on patreon later. uhhh i think that's it tho! i hope u get something useful out of this extremely specific thing i did lmao

[homophyte]

there is probably something about the asmr adage of ‘the more quackery the more relaxing’ but i don’t have the brain power to pick it apart rn

[trevisos]

accidentally killed gale and had to revive him and Immediately after he asked for his first tasty treat LMAO

[ronithesnail]

OKOK i love this so much and i want to actually explain some of the biology thats going on here cuz finally i found a tumblr post that has to do with my special interest! There isn’t much actual research on this area of trans health and im by no means an expert on this at all so please take what I say with a grain of salt :p

So basically- most people, regardless of sex, produce gonadotropins (type of hormones) from the pituitary gland in their brain. There are two types of gonadotropins: FSH (Follicle Stimulating Hormone) and LH (Leutinizing Hormone). These are the hormones responsible for starting the menstrual cycle by 1) stimulating the follicles in the ovaries to start growing eggs (courtesy of FSH) and 2) getting the mature egg to ovulate (courtesy of LH). For males, these hormones have different jobs: stimulating the seritoli cells in the testes to produce ABP aka Androgen Binding Protein (courtesy of FSH), and stimulating the leydig cells to produce testosterone (courtesy of LH) (also this is the primary source of natural testosterone in males); and then these substances bind together (testosterone is a type of androgen or male sex hormone which binds to ABP like the name suggests) in order to begin producing sperm.

However, when a trans woman takes testosterone blockers, the cells’ testosterone receptors are blocked and the binding cannot happen, at least not as much— which is why sperm production often decreases or stops entirely while on HRT. Plus, with feminizing replacement hormones, testosterone production (typically initiated by LH) starts to go down and estrogen + progesterone goes up, and now you start to see a hormone cycle that looks more similar to that of a cis woman.

Normally, when you have a uterus and a menstrual cycle, estrogen and progesterone are (mostly) produced in the ovaries throughout the egg-growing process: estrogen is produced by the developing follicle (which is growing the egg) and progesterone is produced by the Corpeus Luteum, aka the broken remains of the follicle after it ovulates and the egg bursts out of there. Throughout the egg-growing process, the follicle continues producing more and more estrogen, which travels to the brain and basically serves as a meter to track the progress of the egg’s growth (technically theres multiple eggs growing at once and only the most mature egg gets ovulated but i wanna keep things simple for this explanation) and once estrogen levels reach a certain high point thats what triggers the release of LH and causes ovulation— resulting in the Corpues Luteum from the remains which begins producing a bunch of progesterone. Both estrogen and progesterone serve to prepare the inner lining of the uterus for the implantation of a fertilized egg— estrogen starting that process during egg development and progesterone continuing that process after ovulation (as well as some extra stuff for the benefit of the potential fetus).

Period cramps in general have not been studied enough so we don’t know everything but the working consensus for your typical period cramps are that they are caused by prostaglandins— hormone-like substances produced by most organs and tissues all throughout the body with a wide range of effects, inculding to help shed the uterine lining during a period by binding to natural prostaglandin receptors in the uterus and causing contractions (they are released by the uterine lining itself in response to a drop in progesterone after the fertile window passes and the Corpeus Luteum degenerates). This is the same process that causes contractions during labor and its why the feelings are often described as being similar (albiet one far more painful than the other in most cases lol). This is also why ibuprofen works against cramps, since they block the prostaglandin receptors.

Thats not the only way or time you can get period cramps though. Some people get certain physical and/or emotional symptoms before their actual bleeding starts due to the hormonal processes i described earlier during the egg developing process. Remember the estrogen and progesterone i mentioned that peaks when the egg becomes fully matured and ovulates? Well estrogen, as you probably know, causes swelling of the breasts, and thats why some people can have bloated, tender, or tight/painful breasts for a bit before their period. And thats only one the potential symptoms of these various hormonal fluctuations; there’s loads others, both physical and emotional, such as cravings, anxiety/depression, loss of appetite, fatigue, acne, lack of concentration, irritability, nausea, the list goes on and on and includes, yes, ✨cramps.✨

This is called Premenstrual Syndrome, or PMS. You’ve probably heard of it before, and if youve gone through it you probably know what it feels like. Not everyone experiences it and even those who do don’t experience it all the time, but it makes sense that trans women on HRT would be able to. Despite not having ovaries where most estrogen and progesterone would normally come from, as long as someone gets those hormones from somewhere else (HRT) they pretty much have everything else they need already in their bodies. When cis women get hysterectomies they often still have their ovaries— the source of their estrogen and progesterone— so they still have PMS symptoms and cycles despite not having periods. We don’t know much about this in trans women. There has not been anywhere close to enough research. But with the influx of estrogen and the blocking of testosterone it makes sense that the body would adapt and begin the cycles it was made to do based on the hormones available, just like cis women do without a functioning uterus. Afterall its not like the replacement hormones from HRT would remain static and consistent, we have hormonal regulatory systems (pituitary gland) for a reason. I just think its so amazing and beautiful how all of this fits together. How when you really take a look at reproductive biology, the sex your assigned at birth just melts away.

Literally had cramps while drawing this

[luveline]

Hi!! Sometimes in ur bombshell reader fics she talks about how she has nervous energy would u ever write a bombshell reader fic where she has one of those days where she just woke up wired and Spencer tries to calm her down?

“Spencer,” you whisper. 

“What?” 

Spencer turns another page. You, across from him with your legs crossed, slouched, poke at his leg gently with your foot. “What are you reading?” 

“It’s just a book on Wyoming land boundaries.” 

You nod. Spencer watches you from across the top of his book, at first without worry, and then an attentiveness that furthers all the reasons you may or may not be in love with him. 

“You okay?” 

Everything should be fine. The case is solved. You’re heading home, without turbulence, two hours at most from touching down after a job well done. “I’m fine.” 

“You sure?” he asks. 

You smile fraughtly. You try your best to be the perfect image, to put that best foot forward, and you nail it ninety nine days out of a hundred. Nobody knows about your nervousness besides you, and that’s how you’d like it to stay, but Spencer clearly cares about you too much to look away. 

He closes his book and sets in on the table, pushing a glass into his hand. “Here,” he says, leaning forward. “It’s not poisoned.” 

You take it. Feeling his gaze, you drink a little sip that immediately goes down the wrong way. Your coughing swallow perturbs him worse. 

People tend to look at Spencer and see someone who needs more help. Even the people closest to him can doubt his ability, but as far as you’re concerned he’s proven to understand emotion quite well. He won’t shake a stranger's hand, he can’t flirt to save his life without notice, but he can make you feel better. He’s good at taking care of you, even if nobody else can see it. 

“Hey, it’s okay,” he says, leaning right over to touch both your knees at once. He pushes your skirt up a half inch with the movement, but his eyes are on your face. “You have the jitters?” 

“Think so,” you murmur. 

“Maybe it’s the air pressure.” 

You’re sure he knows you get like this sometime, but his explanation is kind. His hands on your knees are somehow strangely placed and still a natural feeling. Just like sitting together at his place to watch TV, or elbow to elbow on the train into New York, your boundaries with one another are eroding. 

“Wanna come and sit by me?” he asks, like he’s thinking the same thing. 

You laugh softly. “In all that space?” 

The seat is big enough for a larger person, but not you and Spencer together. 

He squeezes himself right to the side. “Come on,” he insists, sitting back, “just sit with me.” 

“I’ll squish you.” 

“So squish me.”

You think about it before setting your traded glass down. You don’t know why you have these weird moods, you don’t understand what it is about Spencer that can make them feel better, but he’s offering to make it go away. You have no real reason to turn him down. 

In the end, you sit in the chair beside him, ignoring Hotch’s perturbed look as you stand and then quickly plop yourself down at Spencer’s side. Your thigh has to go completely on top of his, but otherwise, it’s not so bad. It’s more room than you thought. 

It works quicker than you could imagine. With both of your heads held back the space between you is still minimal, which means his face is in detail. His hair brushed back and with the barest traces of gel, a little curled, what had Hotch said? His boyband hair.  

Spencer turns toward you, eye shadowed as he presses his forehead to the chair. “Is it just jitters?” he asks. 

“Sometimes I think I get… weird,” you say. 

“Me too.” He pulls your leg further into his lap. You’re shocked at first, but it’s a friendly move that takes the strain off of your knee. “Can I tell you something?” 

“Of course you can.” 

“I’ve started to care a whole lot less about being weird since I met you.” 

You fight the urge to touch his hair. “I don’t think it’s about caring, Spence, I just.. don’t feel right.” 

“Okay.” He nods sincerely. “Okay, well, we can work it out. We’re still hours from Virginia, you can turn your brain off. We can work it out.” 

You’re relieved to have him promise it. This isn’t the sort of thing you can work out, but it doesn’t matter, Spencer caring this much makes all the difference. You take a deep, deep breath, and you give him a grateful smile, before you rest your cheek on his shoulder. That’s just wanting, no weird feeling or jittering at the root of you as he lets a warm breath kiss your forehead, his nose pressing into your skin. 

“Don’t let anybody see,” you mumble. 

His next breath is a little shaky. “I won’t.”

See what, you’re not sure. But soon you start to feel less like you’re gonna try popping open an emergency window, and that’s enough for now.