just trying to make it @oldmankenny - Tumblr Blog

rolling up real late to Salmon Slammin Saturday

🐟🐟🌕🐟🐟🐟🐟 // swallowtail shiners // gouache on hot press paper

Symbiosis isn't just mutualism. Parasitism is symbiosis. It's uncomfortable to confront parasitic relationships if you want to see your human ideas of good and bad reflected in Nature.

But gazing into something huge and utterly Other, being uncomfortable means you're engaging your mind with it. "Uncomfortable" is actually a whole spectrum of emotions that become a vivid and satisfying rainbow.

There was a post a while back with some artwork of Dendrogaster, a crustacean that parasitizes starfish, and its body is like this branching fractal of fleshy lobes made to fit inside the body of the starfish mirroring its structure, and I was absolutely horrified to look at this, and this horror was the same emotion as a strangely visceral wave of sympathy for this parasite.

Creative works about parasites often invoke the horror of bodily invasion, which is visceral and strong for me, but this artwork inverted that horror, instead showing the horror of being made so perfectly for fitting within someone else that you lose everything you are and become unrecognizable.

I also think of the post about the cowbird chick. It's awful that the bird pushes its siblings out of the nest as it grows, and the mama feeds it because she instinctively must feed her chick, but the cowbird is just a baby. Was it wrong for him to hatch, to be alive, to be hungry, to be a baby and to need love?

Symbiosis is intensely beautiful, and sometimes it's beautiful because it's grotesque and terrible. Of course, the symbiosis between two organisms isn't an allegory for a relationship, it just is a relationship, but looking at the way organisms become entwined feels like you're seeing things that, if words described them, would also be human experiences.

Being invaded by a parasite is a horror of powerlessness and loss of autonomy, but being a parasite is also defined by powerlessness. In many cases, the parasite will die without the host, but the host can live without the parasite. I wonder why it is expected to sympathize with one and not the other.

Your immune system fights against internal parasites like a tapeworm...Imagine being a tapeworm. The body of your host is your universe. Do you find your world to be kind? Benevolent? Does your god love you?

Sometimes people call disabled people "parasites." When I think about my future sometimes I'm uncertain and afraid.

But when a rare non-photosynthetic orchid blooms in the forest, this is not the forest's weakness and failure, but its crowning glory.

pngblog

bebsi-cola

do you ever think about how disability runs in families and the way that dramatically impacts your support system as a disabled person. the media stereotype is of a perfectly abled family, usually middle class, having a disabled child and their journey on how that changes their lives. i don't think this is necessarily wrong in the sense that this can be real disabled people's stories, so i don't think these stories don't need to be told. but i do think of the disabled people i meet, a significant amount of them have a family history of disability

generally disabled people are aware that the primary or only support system many people get is their family. that without someone to advocate for you, you face homelessness, medical neglect, legal abuse, and often slip through the cracks. and when you're disabled and your support system is also disabled there's a lot of compounding interest. family disability tends to go hand in hand with poverty, multiple generations of medical neglect or medical trauma, people being unable to fully manage their own health nevermind yours, and disabled people having to push themselves to support other disabled people. sometimes you know that working is killing your health but out of the whole family, all of which are disabled, you happen to be the most able to work. sometimes you can see just how easy things would be if there was just the right support, but not only do you lack that support and struggle for it, everyone around you lacks the support and struggles for it. the disabled family unit is just so complicated and there's so many thoughts i have on it

kawpee

before and after seeing string

horsefigureoftheday

I love you Sebago, I would die for you Sebago

fern-tdvuh

Ok first I need everyone to know that the owner posted another picture of Sebago and like. She could easily be a moose for Halloween.

Also, the official Guinness World Record for tallest mule was a dude named Apollo, who was the same height but weighed in at 100lbs heavier.

littlemissminu

i'm being nice so i can bite you!

aphractal2

miku ideas

casarole76

ayllen009

Fuck ice

zmpl

i will replace chatgpt

zmpl

two pieces of bread and in between theres a bunch of bullshit

sparrowlucero

the featherless emus are like easily in the top 10 animals on the planet right now

sparrowlucero

creatures have peaked with this thing

oarfjsh

it doesnt even have a head, just the beak sprouting right from the neck. gee sus

velvetys

How is bnha anime of the decade...... they aren’t even anime of the hour of the minute of the second

grimeclown

The notes on this post were so toxic that staff just axed em

abraxasrinbalt

1969.........

harperhug

Yes, when the original post is deleted from the server (not just the blog, but the Tumblr servers), there is no root post for notes to be added onto, and also no root post for time to be counted from, so it starts from zero. Most computer operating systems use Unix, which was launched in 1971 with t.he epoch date of midnight on January 1, 1970 as 1. Therefore zero is one second behind that date: December 31, 1969. Also, very unfortunately, this also means nobody except you and anyone you reblog it to will see this explanation, as you cannot open the notes to see comments when there are no notes.