ASTER LAND ASTER LAND ASTER LAND

I will post stuff, I sure wonder if anyone will see it.

[demonicgirl05]

Intro:

Blog owner: Aster

Pronouns: She/Her/Xey/Xem

Married to @cheezicow apparently

I like OTD, MHA, Isabelle (the character), robots, girls, Nerf (the hobby), and a lot of other things.

DNI: I don't need a DNI because I'll just block you

[bungerc0re]

most insufferable traits become tolerable and often attractive when transferred instead to a woman

[bungerc0re]

this is mostly a consequence of misogyny, the forces that enable men to be sleazy scumbags by default heavily discourage that in women and so her shittiness is in active defiance of social order rather than in line with it, but critically women are just more likable

[fadedlovemp3]

“progressive” men when a woman is deemed evil enough that they can call her a bitch 24/7:

[northstareclipse]

A lot of criticism of delivery apps focuses on the fact that they offer convenience and variety, which I find much less compelling than criticizing the fact that the apps often send their contractors on fetch quests from Hell.

There are real labor problems here. Base pay is often insulting. Customer tips carry too much of the burden. Workers need better protections, more transparent algorithms, protection from arbitrary deactivation, and actual recourse when the app or a customer screws them over. Car-dependent delivery is also an environmental and infrastructural problem, though in a denser city I’d still be doing this work; I’d just be doing it by bike.

But when people talk about delivery work, I rarely see them talk to actual delivery workers. I see a lot of abstract arguments about convenience, consumer decadence, “hustle culture,” and internalized neoliberalism. Meanwhile, when I’m out working and waiting in restaurants for orders, the other Dashers I meet are usually people who only speak Spanish, people who read as neurodivergent, visibly physically disabled people, or some combination of the above.

I have not met this mythical Disco Elysium poor ultraliberal hustlegrinder-wannabe people seem to be arguing with. Maybe that archetype exists somewhere. If it exists among any kind of gig worker, it would probably be rideshare drivers. But most of what I see looks less like “rise and grind” and more like “this is one of the few forms of work available to people who need flexibility, low barriers to entry, limited managerial surveillance, or a way to work around language barriers, disability, burnout, chronic illnesses and injuries with symptoms that come and go unpredictably, caregiving, résumé gaps, or discrimination.”

That does not make the current system good. It means the current system is filling a real gap that a lot of supposedly better systems do not even acknowledge.

As a disabled person who is burnout-prone and demand-sensitive, contracting as a delivery driver has given me an unprecedented level of financial flexibility. I can work when I have capacity. I can stop when I’m deteriorating. I can build my day around my actual body instead of being trapped under a manager who thinks “reliable” means “able to perform the same way every day no matter what.” That matters. It does not cancel out the exploitation, but it is also not fake just because it is politically inconvenient.

And delivery itself is not some inherently decadent evil. Sometimes people live alone. Sometimes they are sick. Sometimes they are disabled, exhausted, overwhelmed, grieving, overloaded, or recovering from something else - perhaps the stress and fatigue induced by their own job. Sometimes they need medicine, groceries, or a meal that will actually unplug their sinuses instead of whatever generic community-care slop someone thinks they should be grateful for. Humans are allowed to need specificity. “Food” is not the same as “the food I can actually eat right now.”

A serious labor critique would ask how to make delivery work safer, better-paid, less tip-dependent, less car-dependent, less algorithmically punitive, and less precarious. It would ask what kinds of flexible, accessible work should exist for people who cannot thrive in conventional employment. It would ask how cities could support bike delivery, worker cooperatives, public infrastructure, and real protections without simply replacing one bad system with a moral sermon about how nobody should ever want takeout.

But a lot of the discourse does not do that. It treats convenience itself as suspicious. It treats wanting flexible work as false consciousness. It treats the needs of disabled people, immigrants, and other people who can't fit into traditional employment structures as details to be swept aside in favor of a cleaner political image.

I guess the opinions of delivery workers only count when they are politically convenient.

[pansyfemme]

i really need to shake some people and say “being passive in every situation does not mean you are not making active choices and it does not absolve you from harming others. consistently choosing to do nothing in every situation and believing that you couldn’t have possibly been the problem because you chose inaction and not a more agressive approach can in fact also be harmful.” because this keeps happening and its driving me nuts

[molsno]

T4T

"It’s kind of a joke. Trans girls fucking trans girls. But really, it’s an ethos. Trans girls loving trans girls, above all else. Hoes before bros. [...] It’s a promise. You just promise to love trans girls above all else. The idea—although maybe not the practice—is that a girl could be your worst enemy, the girl you wouldn’t piss on to put out a fire, but if she’s trans, you’re gonna offer her your bed, you’re gonna share your last hormone shot."

-Torrey Peters, Infect Your Friends and Loved Ones [PDF]

[ace-disgrace-on-the-case]

Hey, this is your sign. If you’ve been thinking about getting a cane, go do it.

[ace-disgrace-on-the-case]

No, you aren’t too able-bodied to “deserve it.” No, you aren’t taking it away from people who need it more. The people who need it is you! Go get one!

[ace-disgrace-on-the-case]

I can, technically, walk without mine. I don’t “need it.”

I don’t really get all that far, though; my joints are horribly unstable and my blood doesn’t flow right, and I frequently need something to help my balance or prop me up so I don’t collapse. That’s what my cane does for me! It’s life changing, I promise.

[ace-disgrace-on-the-case]

Hey if your friend could use one and wants it but can’t afford it go give your disabled friends some money, especially if they’re racialized or transmisogynized.

[ace-disgrace-on-the-case]

These tags were too good so I wanted them to live on the main thread.

(via @martyrofacrimescene)

Make sure the cane is the right size as well! It should be long enough that when you rest your hand on it your arm makes about a 15 to 30 degree angle.

[tedthetalk]

I actually do think it’s better for abusers and abusive characters to realize the harm their past actions caused and seek to do better than be literally or metaphorically executed for their crimes

[tedthetalk]

I think it’s better for abusers and abusive characters to realize the harm their past actions caused and seek to do better than be literally or metaphorically executed for their crimes.

[tedthetalk]

I think it’s better for abusers and abusive characters to realize the harm their past actions caused and seek to do better than be literally or metaphorically executed for their crimes.

[dogletantte]

Reading comprehension test:

1. Does OP mention an obligation on victims to forgive abusers who have learned from their past actions?

2. Does OP mention any work on the part of victims to educate their abusers?

3. Is there any mention of “redemption” or “forgiveness” at all in this post?

[fandomsandfeminism]

Something about how society cares more about punishing the wicked than about making the world a better place, and how many people really struggle to shake that.

[aceynk]

i've got some serious issues w the larger transfeminist community & space on here i'll be honest. and it is hard for me to talk about because not only do i feel the need to be very precise and clear with my words, but also there is enough opposition to transfeminism already that im afraid my words will be twisted for use against the movement as a whole. it feels difficult & dangerous to talk about issues w this community on here.

i think the 'transfeminist' space on here is.. unprincipled, for lack of a better word. you will advocate against harassment, against alienation, for the assuming of good faith, etc., but really only for girls who you see as likeable, for girls who are agreeable. you will discuss an element of transmisogyny while being blind to or perpetuating the same pattern in your own spaces.

transfeminism should not be empty words. you are a fucking hypocrite if you consider yourself a part of this movement yet utilize transmisogyny against other transfems.

there is no transfeminism without intersectionality, without principle, without solidarity. humble yourselves. understand your positionality in all of this and where you hold power. stop being a hypocrite and educate yourselves. the amount of racism & ableism left unchecked in these spaces is sickening. put in the fucking work.

transfeminism is, i mean this entirely seriously, dead in the water as a movement without intersectionality. this shit can't continue.

[storyweavingspider]

Im gonna be very blunt here because this is a very white and US-centric site: even as transfeminists yall gotta actively seek and destroy your internalized white supremacy, fascist propaganda, and homonationalism because those are the things you’ll routinely betray transfeminism and your fellow trans women over.

The woman who introduced me to transfeminism and who I still hold up many of the transfeminist ideals she taught me, threw me under the bus because when I confronted racism and ableism in our group of transfeminists, she chose white solidarity over commitment to transfeminism.

And shit like this isn’t just happening, it’s COMMON because so many are so desperate for power in a world that takes it from us that they refuse to willingly hold back from using the tools of white supremacy, fascism, empire, against other transfeminists the moment it becomes convenient enough or they hate someone enough.

You have to fucking sit there and actually interrogate your actions and choices as you make them. Yes. This is uncomfortable. Yes, we’re all mentally ill and traumatized. Sometimes we’ll fuck up and lash out or intentionally make choices to harm others, but instead of running from what we have actually done, we MUST be able to take the L and address it when it is brought to us in good faith.

You cannot keep separating your actions and your self in your mind. You cannot keep making excuses or exceptions to your ideals. You have to start looking at what you do and go “is this actually fully in line with what I believe and how I want the world to treat us?” And if it’s not, FUCKING CHANGE.

[grimelords]

There’s six guys who live in this flat and all they do all day is play WoW and watch movies. Waking up at 2pm every day and there’s always just someone asleep on the bed near all the multimonitor computer setups. There’s always music playing and it feels like a recovery day every day, padding around blearily in pyjamas or underwear. Old hoodies from defunct school teams. They’ve got this system where they’re selling their excess computing power to companies and hosting all this warez, and they’re stealing the internet from the business next door anyway and getting welfare on top of all that. They’re self sufficient and never go outdoors except to buy more fast food, and even then only in the dark. But then one of them wakes up dead some heavy afternoon. He’s just dead and they don’t know why but maybe the floor covered in fast food wrappings is a clue. They don’t want to tell the cops because of the purgatory den they live in and the illegality that supports it, and as far as they know he never had any actual parents. So it’s trouble. It’s taking a long trip out to the forest and thinking about how stars are so far away for the first time in a long time. It’s sweating in the cold air and digging a hole all night with your brand new shovels to leave him alone in. And it’s a long few days cracking all his passwords to keep his identity and associated payments persisting. Until the rhythm of waking up every day at 2pm to play WoW for nine hours and half watch a movie on your other monitor takes over again. It’s the same as it ever was except now there’s a room no one ever goes in.

[mousidy]

I cannot give birth

what's more,

there is a gaping

hole in my

stomach through

which strangers

can see where

my womb

isn't

they do not

say I'm sorry

for your loss.

they stick their

hands inside and

they look stern

when they tell me

it's a disgusting

hole

[mousidy]

love for those of us who are not only sterile, but for whom our sterility is just public knowledge everywhere we go and we don't have the option of keeping it private

[ariane-ashen]

I'm sorry for making a sadpost about this. I am so astoundingly worried about the future of this planet. In my lifetime I've seen it shift from "how do we prevent the climate crisis" to "how do we survive the incoming mass extinctions and temperature increases". Maybe I just saw too many doomy things in a row but it's so scary. I just wish I had a future to look forward to. No matter how much I could treat my own depression I can't give the world a happy future. All I can do is cuddle my plushies and try not to think about it, because I'm powerless to change any of it. We're gonna live long enough to see everyone responsible for this die, and the world they leave will be so awful I'll wish I went first.

[h0lyshift]

The older i get the more i understand why some people become obsessed with privacy, not because they’re hiding something, but because being constantly perceived starts to feel spiritually exhausting.

[melyzard]

Did you know that soda machines at restaurants and movie theaters spy on you? That most common new cars now record your sexual preferences and send it to the manufacturer (and also data about anyone who also gets in your car, walks by your car, and maybe happens to be within visual range of your car)? That grocery stores are trying to force customers to download an app to scan barcodes on shelves instead of putting up prices, so the app can scan the phone, decide how much that customer should be squeezed for, and adjust the price? That more and more innocent people are being sent to jail for crimes committed hundreds of miles away because an AI facial recognition algorithm spit their faces out and the cops didn't bother to do the most basic of checks?

I am not uptight about privacy because I'm hiding something. I'm uptight about it because the people who dismiss my right to privacy are dangerous to you and me and our families, personally, all the time.

And often, they are assholes, too.

[moonsinkfoxgirl]

「Oniichan wa...」 by 八代 涼 (pixiv, twitter), translation by me

[mousidy]

the creeping allure of becoming a jax defense warrior

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

people who are reblogging that post about imagining a world with no ads to go "um but actually what about Some Ads! I think we should have a little advertising as a treat! surely there must be at least a couple of ads!" what is wrong with you

[mousidy]

speaking from experience, if you're a lesbian and you're attracted to a trans man then two options present themselves to you:

realize that you don't really see him as a man, or :

accept that you can be attracted to a man

a fork in the road like this would be a great place to examine your bioessentialist transphobia, but instead of doing that you can just ascend to a new enlightened plane and reach queer level 100 by deciding "welllll trans men can be lesbians"