dancing with an android

💬 he/they 🧡 sci-fi and fantasy enthusiast 🔗 links 🎨 art blog

[epsee]

life of adventure

[hybbat]

It's true, if Grace did have a partner or children or any other family Stratt absolutely would have used those people as a reason for Grace to go. She would have gone harder into how people would die if he didn't. Her only goal was to get him on that spacecraft by any means necessary.

But that's kinda the point, isn't it? It's not that Grace had no one at home was her base logic for why she picked him to go to space. Grace was going to space and she needed to make a logical argument. And the argument she chose was "you don't have family, therefore you have no reason to not go."

Because that's what matters, that's the main thing that would stop someone, surely. Grace is a charismatic guy who made several friends even with her in his time working there. Grace has multiple years of students and a school worth of staff who know him, he has neighbours and friends and a community he participates in. He has a career and hobbies and a home and possessions. But none of those matter enough to stop someone from going to space. They can just up end his life and move him to a remote base far from home where he isn't allowed to talk to anyone he used to know, isn't allowed to go anywhere, it's no big deal to send him a bit further.

He didn't have any relationships important enough in the eyes of their society for it to have legal ties that could complicate things, and that's what mattered. A social construct so deeply rooted in their society that those relationships are written in legal contracts and government papers, those are the ones that are designated to matter. They matter so much that certain rights are withheld from anyone outside those relationships. Grace could be as happy as a clam but as far as any government and person living in the society formed by that government is concerned he was a lonely man with no reason to not sacrifice himself, and so that becomes the pitch.

The pitch could have been anything, but what it was is based in a heteronormative amatonormative understanding of how people and society should work. And it doesn't matter whether Grace was aspec at that point, what matters is he didn't meet the standards for a person who has sufficiently participated in society, and should thus when made aware be willing to rectify this at the cost of his life.

It just so happens that an aroace person who inherently has a complex relationship with these systems by their nature is painfully familiar with that experience.

[idlelizard]

dinky dragons

[valkwise]

"it's in me, too."

fanart for THE WORKS OF VERMIN by hiron ennes

[itsjesscapade]

the second 'o' in "zoologist" is putting in heavy duty work. girl is working two jobs

[macabrevampire]

i think avoiding everything is going to save me for real this time

[bumblebeedog]

did some timber hearth celebration paints because midterms are over and im freeee 🥹 (for like, 1 week, but ill take what i can get).

now i can draw more :p

[alrobertsphotography]

The Plym North Wood Dartmoor

[samimarkart]

Pigeon stack!

[fishing-princess]

I Defeated the Demon Lord but it Turns Out the Demon Army was Largely Unaffected and I Fell Victim to a Flawed Belief in Great Man Theory

[hollenix]

for the good of all mankind

[redstonedust]

its probably a normal sign for the economy that all of my adulthood fantasies are like "imagine having your own kitchen living room and bathroom to decorate" "what if i could get on a train" "maybe one day i could purchase a sturdy pair of shoes" "i should save and invest in a single bicycle"

[ivytea]

requiem for vanished birdsong

[artnyuta]

Garrett stole my heart after all.

=3

[twobeesornottwobees]

printers behave like that because the medieval monks they put out of work are haunting them

[sahlofolina]

i know it's been years since tumblr started pushing all the mobile-first stuff and javascript ban that resulted in the death of customisation, and i know it's only a part of the reason why theme making isn't as big as it once was, but it still makes me so sad to think about. i've been on tumblr since 2011 and i remember how active the theme/page coding community was for a whole decade or more, and how the majority of tumblr users truly enjoyed setting up their custom themes on desktop. even all these years later i still remember old theme makers i followed and i love going back to look at the themes that were so revolutionary 10 years ago, even though almost all of the people who made them left in 2020-2022. i'm still mad that tumblr chose the lazy route of (mostly) squashing such a creative ecosystem that was a major part of the platform's charm in favour of looking more like a typical social media feed. i miss seeing literal dozens of examples of experimental web design every day done by teenagers and college students as their hobby outside school!! i miss watching their skills evolve from simple two-column layouts to full-on interactive designs with fun scripts and pages to explore. i miss the personality you would see immediately upon visiting someone's blog - now like 80% of users i check out don't have a custom theme at all.

all that to say it gives me an even greater appreciation for the people who do still create themes despite less engagement than before, and especially despite tumblr always screwing over creators. when i made this blog in january of this year i immediately took on one of @phantomcodes's themes, and then recently changed it to their newest theme, and i always get giddy to see new things from them. same with @glenthemes - in fact i just recently made a playlist page using one of their codes that i had on a blog 10 YEARS AGO LOL. there are still several theme makers out there trying their best and i think all of you are the coolest. it almost feels like finding a relic, like, oh, this still exists! someone's still doing this and there are others who still enjoy it! and i'm so glad for that.

[homunculus-argument]

Artfully layering an axe bodyspray deodorant and two different perfume oils to create a tasteful mixture of amber, oud, mint, lavender, moss and petrichor, producing a scent that smells exactly like damp, stale, rotting laundry.

[dreamsareliminalspaces-deactiva]

Reminds me of that tumblr user that made powdered milk with sparkling water and created instant spoiled milk

[homunculus-argument]

That was also me.

[adeline-wheat]

Do you know any other ways to speed ruin things?

[homunculus-argument]

I wish I knew any other way to do anything.