i steal names from cartoon characters @aster-is-confused - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
i steal names from cartoon characters
@aster-is-confused
you can call me dipper or aster • xe/xem, he/him • 19 • queer and aspec • genderqueer trans guy • bird nerd!! • adhd, autistic, median plural, physically disabled, low support needs • white, usamerican • pfp by @potato-lord-but-not 's picrew
@identifying-birds-in-postss: currently my most active sideblog!
@aster-stims-sometimes: for making gifs and stimboards!
mogai hoarding/coining blog (inactive): @asters-mogai-corner
i ran @aroswagshowdown which is over
i have a horny sideblog which i'm not linking here at the moment. i might add it once i get a proper pinned post over there so people can know what to expect
tagging system (including some sideblog tags)
#aster rambles sometimes - me talking
#aster shitposts sometimes - me talking except i'm trying to be funny
#aster rambles in tags - me talking a lot in the tags of a reblog
#aster kinposts sometimes - otherhearted/link/kin stuff, mostly deer
#sunflower syndicate - system stuff
#aster birds sometimes - birding related ramblings
#aster transitions sometimes - trans-related stuff like HRT updates and vents
#aster makes gifs sometimes - self explanatory
#aster makes stimboards sometimes - self explanatory
accessibility info
i frequently reblog images without image descriptions and do not tag for this (i'm sorry about this /genuine). at some point in the near future i am going to try to focus more on including image descriptions in my reblogs
i do tag for flashing, eyestrain, unreality, reblog bait, and common triggers (suicide, self-harm, weight talk, eating disorders, mental hospitals, abuse, sexual assault, probably a few i'm forgetting). please let me know if i forget to tag!
i do not tag food or reclaimed slurs.
i inconsistently tag suggestive/mildly nsfw content (such as jokes, polls, artistic nudity, and sex ed posts) (there won't be full-on hornyposting or irl nudity here, that stays on my sideblog), irl insects and snakes, and politics/current events.
userboxes and decorations!
blinkies under the cut (eyestrain/flashing) as well as more about me!
about me!
(this section is a work in progress)
i'm a third-year college student studying biology in the central-southern US! my academic interests are in ornithology and ecology, as well as sociology and gender studies
i love birds and birding! birds have been my main special interest for about 4 years at this point, one of my longest running special interests. please talk to me about birds!!
my other interests include music (fav artists are cavetown and ajr, and i play trumpet and ukulele), video games (i like a variety of games but some long-term favs are genshin impact, powerwash simulator, subnautica, disco elysium, and a little to the left), crafts, collecting pins and art prints, and hanging out with my cat nova and my bf @caspergotlost!
i identify primarily as a queer trans guy (queer in both sexuality and gender). i'm also acespec, arospec, and on the polyam spectrum. i was lucky and privileged enough to get on T at 16 in May 2023, so i'm 3 years on T!
my primary disabilities include hEDS, depression, autism, and ADHD. i also have POTS and likely mild MCAS but they are both well-controlled currently and don't affect me nearly as much. i struggle with chronic fatigue, particularly mental fatigue and limited social battery, due to the overlap of several of my conditions. in my day to day life, i use a cane and knee braces. i am low support needs and work to listen to and uplift the voices of those who are higher support needs. i've hyperfixated on hEDS research (and EDS in general) several times, including an extensive class project, and am always willing to answer questions about it!
i'm a median system, which causes some fluctuations in identity and opinions as well as some memory issues. currently there's an unknown amount of asters (at least a couple dozen) that are each better at certain situations. generally i am not able to determine which aster is fronting at any given time so i don't distinguish us. i used to have more distinct headmates at a worse point in my life but they are mostly gone now.
politically i'm a leftist, still working out if there's any more specific ideology i align myself with. i support a free palestine, land back, and major prison and psych reform, among other things.
asks are always welcome! however i am not always good at answering them well or in a timely manner. you're welcome to dm as well but i'm not very good at replying due to anxiety.
At some point on the journey back to Erid, Rocky gets around to asking Grace exactly why he was so mesmerised by seeing the astrophage in the Petrova line.
Grace describes it as best he can, but all he can really manage to get across to Rocky is that he was surrounded by small floating lights.
Later on, Grace is talking about the stars and how important they've been to human cultures for millennia. “What do the stars look like, question?” Rocky wants to know.
Oh, y'know, they're a bunch of small floating lights.
There's a disco ball on the Hail Mary. Grace says it's there because it “makes me happy”. “How does it make Grace happy, question?” Rocky wants to know.
Oh, it creates the illusion that he's surrounded by small floating lights.
Rocky begins to do some research.
Glitter: a substance invented by humans to make things look like they're covered in small lights.
Human jewellery: mostly involves gemstones or polished metals, designed to reflect small lights.
Christmas lights. Candles. Lanterns. Fireworks. Glowsticks. Glow in the dark paint. Rocky is beginning to notice a pattern here, statement.
It takes Grace a fucking while after getting to Erid to notice that a lot of the gifts he's receiving from grateful Eridians are either a) sparkly, b) incredibly shiny, or c) fitted with lights.
While the last one is obviously a concession for his human light sense, he's confused about the former two. Are Eridian materials usually this shiny? Is there some quality about sparkly or highly polished surfaces that makes them sound better? Or is there something about Eridian geology/metallurgy that makes their materials like this?
He asks Rocky about it.
“Simple. I tell people humans like lots of small lights. Humans are easy to make happy.”
Grace kind of wants to protest that humans are much more complicated than that.
But honestly… it fucking works. Like yeah the polished gemstones, shiny metals and glittery rocks are beautiful. Yes those Christmas lights you put up around the house did markedly improve my mental health, Rocky. Thank you, I hate it.
Grace spends a lot of time trying not to think about whether his species' urge to explore the cosmos (that saved their planet and nearly killed him several times) is tied to the same instinct that made his students like glitter gel pens.
Okay, apparently some people don't know this and that's not gonna do on my blog. So as we used to say on this hellsite,
sit down and shut up because I'm about to learn you a thing
This:
is the ORIGINAL polyamory pride flag. Jim Evans created it in 1995 in fucking MS Paint. Not using hearts was an intentional choice to: avoid stepping on the leather pride flag's toes, allow people to use it without immediately outing themselves to those not in the know, and be easily input into MS Paint. The infinity heart symbol did not exist at the time and certainly wasn't available in MS motherfucking Paint.
The color symbolism is blue for honesty, red for love, black⚫ in solidarity for those that cannot be out to the world at large, and gold for the high value of each relationship. sources (x, x)
There are valid complaints that people want a pride flag that does advertise what they are, and that this design is hard on the eyes. However. Many polyamorous people still use this flag to represent themselves, most of them 35+ years old. As a personal favor to me, please do not say you hate this flag. Say the colors are too bright till you're blue in the face, sure. But to openly hate this flag is to disparage your predecessors and denounce your history.
The earliest polyamory pride flag to incorporate the infinity heart symbol that I could find actually made its debut on tumblr in 2016. The infinity heart was established as a polyamory pride symbol by this time. ratlab-art intentionally kept the original color symbolism, while using hues generally considered a little more pleasant to look at.
This one, obviously, set the precedent for numerous other iterations of the same idea -- tweaking the colors, swapping the pi for the infinity heart. I will not be posting all of them, because I doubt I could track them all down anyway. The icon I currently use on this blog is one such iteration. But this one uniquely puts the black stripe in the middle, which does make for a nice contrast with the gold.
and of course
This is the "new poly flag" designed by Red Howell for the polyamproud online vote, which took place in 2022. They call it the "tricolor polyamory pride flag" (presumably, not to distinguish it from the other established flags, but to distinguish it only from the others that were in their run-off)
Its symbolism is as follows: the triangle ▶️points forward for progress and is off-center to represent the non-traditional nature of polyamory, white⚪ represents possibility, blue for honestly, magenta for love, purple for unity in the community, gold for perseverance, and obviously the heart for love.
It has garnered controversy, because they kind of... openly disparaged every previous polyamory flag and claim theirs is the one true poly flag. They do still say you can use any flag you like, but the whole vote was predicated on the assumption that no one wanted the existing designs, and no pre-existing designs were included in the vote. And that it was bad to have variants of the same flag, even though you see that with many pride flags, including the rainbow flag. Many old school polyams still don't know this design, let alone that there was a single vote years ago, which they missed. However. This flag has quickly become a popular design, especially among the younger generation. So if you would be so kind, please do not say you hate this flag. Say you're frustrated with how the process of choosing it happened, by all means. But to openly hate this flag is to disparage the next generation and sever yourself from new directions in the community.
finally,
A couple of honorable mentions made by Em Essex in 2019 and Molly Colleen Bennett Wilvich in 2020, respectively. They don't get full write-ups, but they're an additional couple of the more unique (without being downright obscure) flag designs.
"Overconsumption is bad because we have limited resources on earth and the production of your comforts is done by practically enslaved global southerners" - yes real. Fucking real and true.
"Overconsumption is bad because you will get fat and lazy and stupid and fat and your brain will rot and youll be a feeble whiny disabled" - okay you are a eugenecist. Can you fucking hear yourself
same thing for ai usage. Are you complaining about companies investing in ai over people, or are you just an inch of self preservation away from openly calling its users the R slur? Be fucking honest i see how you talk.
little doodle thing. disability rights and accepting my own disabilities has been very important to me lately 🍻🪽💘 i love helping others who may need an extra hand yayyyyy
[ID: A digital illustration of two colorful anthros with pink text reading "support disabled furries" large pink text.
On the left is a purple dog with long curly hair with a medical respirator mask, and a shoulder port. The dog stands with a rollator, looking at the figure next to her. The other anthro is a pink bunny-like creature with wings. They wear a strapped vest with the word "service" on it. They smile, winking and holding a bottle of water while smiling at the dog.
The pink creature says "ok?", and The purple dog replies "ok!" The background is made up of many pastel colors.
End ID.]
💘🪽 credit to @/hemo-lymph for the image ID , thank you so much !!! ☘️🫧
they are sexually mature at ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS OLD.
their (live!) young gestate for. wait for it. eight to eighteen (??) YEARS. can have up to 10 at a time. good grief.
longest lifespan of any vertebrate, up to five hundred years
toxic flesh
has giant eyes but is usually blind because of a weird little crustacean that's evolved to live on and eat their eyes. this doesn't seem to bother them much.
lives in deep cold water and has the lowest swim speed and tail-beat frequency for its size across all fish species. just generally lives life in extreme slow motion
largest genome of any shark
eats everything including moose and polar bears
ma'am you are delightfully strange and I'm privileged to share a planet with you
So it’s very likely they diverged from other Sleeper Shark lineages during one of the Pleistocene ice ages, when thickening polar ice would have trapped certain populations in perpetual icy darkness for thousands of years. These are the descendants of the survivors of that.
Their flesh is toxic for numerous biomechanical reasons that directly relate to their ability to not only survive but thrive in waters that would literally freeze you or I solid.
Urea and Trimethylamine-N-Oxide
The Greenland shark accomplishes this using first concentrated Urea, which is a natural antifreeze and depresses the freezing point of the shark’s fluids; and TMAO, which stabilizes proteins against denaturation, both from the concentrated Urea and the crushing pressure of the deep.
Additionally, the Greenland Shark has 3 distinct Hemoglobin complexes in its blood, 2 of which are apparently specifically adapted to be unaffected by the high antifreeze concentrations. More research is needed here.
{anecdotally; once pulled from the water by fishermen, the shark allegedly persists thrashing and fighting for far longer than any other fish, and there are stories of the flesh itself continuing to twitch and move long after its apparent death, as the creature is butchered}
Their longevity is partially enabled by a highly derived genome: it is comprised largely of transposable elements, also known as “jumping genes,” which normally cause organisms to be more prone to Cancers, but, are also capable of self-replication; and amongst these, we have already identified over 80 discrete gene sequences dedicated specifically to DNA repair.
They’re viviparous, and the female reproductive systems are quite complex, including a system of villi to deliver oxygen to the developing pups. The variability in gestation time remains subject of ongoing study: how is this accomplished? What triggers it? Many questions; fewer answers.
Truly a remarkable and magical Beast of the lightless depths. It is an honor and a privilege to share this wet rock with you all 🫡
i also want to highlight how black skin is really pretty, especially when it's mega saturated with lighting. I feel not many people outside of people like me draw this so it's a pleasure to make this piece of art
recently, been feeling bad about being black too. the isolation and ignorance I receive in spaces that are supposed to protect me hurts so much. so I try to make art representing myself as boldly as possible.
i really really really really really like hadestown's repeated use of "eurydice was a hungry girl" because at first pass you might think oh, she's scrappy and street smart and her ambition is going to be the foil to orpheus's idealist romanticism. but nope! no she is literally hungry. she is starving. that is her motivator and everybody knows it. she loves, oh she does, but she can't be fucking blamed for fulfilling her physical needs first.
senior/elderly nonbinary people. I adore you and you make the world a better place. whether you've known for multiple decades or you just found out last year. thank you for just Being. so much love from me.
