#simplife

[tenowls]

rivals

[followthebluebell]

Kleptogenesis, as in the salamanders steal genes? Tell me more

Yes! It's absolutely fascinating.

ok, so most species in the genus Ambystoma (mole salamanders) can cross-breed in very specific ways, which can result in entirely new all-female species. This is actually why axolotls are illegal to own in California; there's a lot of concern that released/escaped axolotls could cross-breed with the native tiger salamander, which is already vulnerable due to habitat loss and habitat fragmentation.

Fun note! Captive-bred axolotl (Ambystoma mexicanum) owe their existence to this ability to cross-breed! The fun colors we see in captive bred axolotls are thought to be the result of cross-breeding with other ambystoma species, especially the tiger salamander (Ambystoma tigrinum). This is also why captive-bred pet axolotls don't hold much ecological value. They literally have genes that don't exist in the wild axolotl.

but anyway, back to the lesbian salamander species. There are lots and LOTS of these unisexual ambystoma species--- tbh, I shouldn't use the word 'species'. They're technically considered biotypes now, but 'species' is the word most people recognize more easily so it's the word i'm going to use.

During kleptogenesis, a female salamander just sidles on up to some suitable looking male and accepts his sperm packet. Then she just opens it up and rifles through it, looking for the genes she wants to use and discards the others. She can do this with MULTIPLE males of MULTIPLE species, as long as she's already got some of their DNA in her lineage. Some hybrid ambystoma have the dna of up to five other species! The end result of this form of reproduction is always female.

There's also some unisexual species like the silvery salamander that just... straight up don't use the genetic material at all, but still collect sperm packets. It's believed that the sperm packets stimulate egg development, even though they don't donate any genetic material.

You can loosely compare it to the fictional all-female species asari from Mass Effect.

[papanowo]

sparks flying ⋆｡°✩

[clockwayswrites]

(Not Exactly the Haunting of Danny Fenton)

Tim's PowerPoint

“Drake, why are we here?”

“Because Bruce told us to be,” Tim said, eyes focused on the interface set in the meeting table. Damian was like a dog, too much eye contact and he took it as a challenge.

Damian was thankfully silent for about two and a half seconds. Then, “And why is Todd here?”

Jason tossed some popcorn in his mouth, talking around it. “Cause this? This I have to see.”

Tim resisted the urge to sigh. It would just encourage them both. He went through his PowerPoint one more time. Neither of them would allow for mistakes. He didn’t give a fuck what they thought of how he provided the information, but it would have to be right.

Which was annoying with a complex concept like polyamory.

“Right, let’s get started so that we can get this over with,” Tim said as he sent the PowerPoint to the big screen. “Dick is apparently in a new relationship.”

Damian tilted his head. “He finally saw off with that that absurdly cheerful vagabond of a Speedster?”

Don’t give them the satisfaction of sighing. “No. Dick is still dating Wally. The two of them have agreed to try adding another person to their relationship. Bruce wants to make sure nothing is said to ruin the new relationship, hence this PowerPoint.”

“Adding another person?” Damian asked, nose all scrunched up. “Why?”

“Because Polyamory,” Tim said with a grand gesture to the screen where the Pac-Man ghosts were standing with heart eyes under the word.

“Are you Clyde?” Jason asked.

“What? I’m ignoring you, you’re not required to be here,” Tim said and clicked the button on the laser pointer-slash-remote to go to the next slide. It was a rather artistic shot of what Tim was ninety percent sure was a pigeon orgy. The Merriam-Webster definition was over the picture in yellow:

polyamory noun

poly·​am·​ory ˌpä-lē-ˈa-mə-rē

plural polyamories

: the state or practice of having more than one open romantic relationship at a time

“Like much of nature,” Tim started as the picture behind the definition rotated between different animals from cats to frogs to cows and more, “some humans and humanoids participate in polyamory. There are, in fact, alien humanoids that engage in polyamory or polygamy as the primary form of relationships. If you are interested in a more detailed look at these alien races, there are links in the third slide.”

The third slide was the Clipart of the classic ‘little green man’ head with several footnote citations to various Justice League files. So maybe they shouldn’t have all that information, but Tim didn’t have a back door into the Justice League system for nothing.

“Considering that Dick, Wally, and their new third are all human, we will be focusing on the typical and basic human configurations of polyamory.”

Damian’s hand shot up. Raising his hand was, thankfully, a rule that had been made after the fifth time someone had been stabbed.

“Yes, Damian?” Don’t sigh, Tim reminded himself.

“Animals have the need to produce a large numbers of offspring. They also do not possess the same emotional processing powers as humans,” Damian stated. “While, perhaps, multiple partners assist in both the amount of offspring, but also the dispersal of genetic make up for animals, modern humans do not share this need.”

“…correct,” Tim agreed warily.

Damian kept his hand up as he continued. “I was also under the impression that if one is to be with a romantic partner long term, that the partner should be someone that one is romantically interested in and emotionally invested in.”

“Oh, he’s adorable,” Jason cooed.

“Raise your hand or shut up,” Tim said. “Yes, that’s generally correct, though there some other forms of relationships that are not romantic. We will cover some of these shortly.”

Damian nodded as if actually satisfied. “Then why would someone want to share?”

“Cause sharing is caring,” Jason said with a snicker.

“Ignore him,” Tim said, “and we’ll turn back to the slides! There are a few different types of standard polyamorous relationships! The first we’re covering is open relationships.”

On the screen, the words ‘open relationships’ went around in a circle like a train.

“In an open relationship, a member or members of the relationship are free to date, or otherwise engage with, whomever they might want to.” Tim clicked the buttons a few times and the main circle connected to other circles, some that spun and others that did not. “These other relationships may also be open or may be closed—limited to only a select amount of people—depending on the other person. These open relationships may also have certain rules in place or be completely open depending on the agreement of those in it.”

Tim clicked over to a rather scrunched list of rule examples. Maybe Tim made it purposefully unreadable so that he didn’t have to answer Damian’s questions about sex. Maybe.

“Why?” Damian asked. He sounded so confused that Tim decided to answer even though Damian hadn’t raised his hand.

“Lots of reasons. A person may want to experiment with other gender combinations. Or they may have different or more emotional, romantic, or physical needs than one partner can support.” Tim hurriedly clicked ahead to his slide on asexual and aromantic individuals. The background was a loop of hundreds of bouncy balls. Tim had no reason for that, he’d been losing his mind by then. “Asexuality and aromanticism run on a spectrum of course, but at a basic level, asexuals do not experience sexual attraction. They may be sex favorable or sex avoidant. So, for example, they might have an open relationship with their partner, so that the partner can satisfy their sexual needs.

“An aromantic individual does not experience romantic attraction, so again we might see multiple partners to satisfy the diverse need of the aromantic themselves or their partner.”

Damian frowned and tilted his head, but stayed quiet. Interestingly, Jason was also frowning slightly.

Tim moved on hurriedly and backed up to his intended slide. “Now, by contrast a closed relationship either does not add new partners, or partners are added with the approval of all members of the relationship. As a major simplification, this can be thought of as a series of arrows or triangles.”

“Now with arrows, the agreement and negotiations are still there, but everyone can be dating different people!” Tim said. Green Arrow stared back at them from the next screen. Tim thought it was particularity fitting, knowing what he knew of Oliver Queen. “So A might be dating B and C. And B is dating A and D. D and A are not dating. They might not even really be friends. Their relationship is known as metamors.”

Damian nodded slowly.

A spinning graphic of the triforce came up on the screen next. “This can really be any shape, but a triangle keeps it simple. Basically every member in this format is involved with every other member. This is what Dick will be in, if everything goes well. Think of it like… so A and B both like C. It’s not about A sharing B or B sharing A, not really, it’s about them both also getting C! It’s more cake. Though that’s an ace saying, but, um, it’s like getting an ice cream with two scoops, yeah?”

“Sure,” Damian mumbled, a lost sounding agreement.

“And this can be lots of shapes, like I said! This is how it would look with four people: triangles in a square. The more people you have, the more complicated the relationship, agreements, and managing emotions can get, but if people are a really good group with each other and are willing to talk, it can work out!”

Damian almost tentatively raised his hand.

“Yes?”

“How would… something like that even start?” Damian asked.

“Oh, well… like, I guess think of it like a hero team just with romance? Sometimes you know people deeply enough that you trust them with your life and identity and everything else. In cases like that, it might not be odd for things to�� for things to, um,” Tim trailed off, blinking up at the interconnected square.

“Drake…?” Damian prompted.

Jason started giggling.

“I, what? Sorry!” Tim said with a shake of his head. He continued in a rush as he flicked through various relationship set up examples. “But something like that! So um, those are your basic types but things can be combined and changed and altered. The main thing is to respect that someone who is in a polyamorous relationship wants to be in one. And that if you enter one, that you aren’t afraid to talk things out, make boundaries that you need, and talk through any changing boundaries!”

Tim flicked quickly to his last side.

“Oh, and, um, queer platonic relationships is sorta like aroace stuff, people in it dedicate themselves to a partner or partners even if they have no romantic or sexual feelings. It’s basically a way to say that a person is that important to them just as a person!” Tim said as he fumbled for his phone. “Anyways! The PowerPoint has been emailed to you. Direct any questions to myself or Bruce and be polite to Dick, Wally, and their new guy, okay? Okay. Gotta run.”

“That was odd, was it not?” Tim heard Damian ask Jason.

“Yeah…” Jason was still staring at the screen on queer platonic relationships when Tim glanced back. “Actually, I have to go too, okay? Doesn’t have to be your jam for you to be polite, got it?”

“What on earth has gotten into them,” Damian mumbled.

-

Cassie crossed her arms as soon as Tim appeared on Mount Justice. “Okay, what’s the emergency?”

“It’s, okay, so Bruce made me give this presentation to Damian because Dick and Wally added a new person to their relationship and no one want’s Damian to be an asshole—”

“Like he normally is,” Cassie muttered.

“—and ruin things before it starts, you know?”

“Please tell me it wasn’t your normal style of PowerPoints?” Kon asked.

“Of course it was,” Tim said with a dismissive wave. “But I was giving it and—just it all made sense suddenly! We are all idiots.”

“Hey!” Bart chirped. “I mean, yeah, but hey!”

“No, I mean—” Tim let out a noise of frustration and grabbed the nearest teammate, which happened to be Bart, and kissed him.

Bart made an adorable little squeak and then practically went boneless and still in a way that Tim had never seen Bart go before.

“Oh,” Kon said off to the side, sounding oddly flat. “That’s—congratulations you two.”

“Zeus, you are an idiot,” Cassie said.

Kon’s reply was muffled.

Tim pulled back, shoved the lax Bart at Cassie (who had just finished kissing Kon), and marched over to pull Kon into a quick, crushing kiss.

Kon blinked back. “Oh.”

“Yeah, oh,” Tim said. “All of us. I want… I want all of you and for all of you to want all of you and for… and for us to be together—teammates and more in all the ways. Because I trust you all, and I never don’t want to have you.”

Tim looked from Kon, who still looked stunned, and over at Cassie who was cradling a boneless looking Bart and petting his hair. She rolled her eyes. “You’re all idiots.”

“Yeah,” Tim agreed breathlessly. “But you love us.”

“Yeah,” she agreed with a smile and a sigh. “yeah I do.”

[friendlynaborhooddisapointment]

the first half of batman and robin volume one felt like this

[right-there-ride-on]

Johnny is NOT stupid because he doesn’t know what a dinosaur is. In the 1890s American education wasn’t standardized and dinosaurs and evolution theory wouldn’t have been taught at most schools in the Bible Belt, which Kentucky is a part of. But he IS a dropout / delinquent. I beg of you do not confuse his issues with authority with being less intelligent

[breadandlottery]

Consequentialism | Stoicism | Moral Absolutism

[nigelgraz]

Study 4

[elvyn]

Interesting how one sad worm almost turned the world upside down

[llawlietisjesus]

it is STILL insane to me that death note, a serious series about morality and justice, CANONICALLY has a character who is the evil freaky version of another character

[short-for-jules]

aw hell naw look at my [doctor] dawwwggg I'm going to [die]

[milkbreadtoast]

choose your protag..... YOU COULD WRITE A SUPER LONG META ESSAY COMPARING/CONTRASTING THESE 2 BUT I WANTED TO MAKE A SHITPOST FORGIVE ME🤧✌️

[demonlorddante]

spock chart that came to me in a vision

[vintagerobin]

You know I love Bruce and Clark's relationship, but I feel like a lot of people neglect a very key aspect of it. That aspect being that Bruce is as afraid of hurting Clark as Clark is of hurting him. This is a relationship between a man who most of the time can only be hurt psychologically and emotionally and a man whose greatest strengths are exactly those things. That's a big part of what makes them so compelling to me.

[mint-termsandconditions]

Random subject,

but I need someone to make a video essay about the bastardization of female characters and the woobification of male characters in media/fandom spaces

because I think it’s a really interesting subject that probably stems from biases that plague our society

from

“He’s such a silly little guy.”

to

Literally calling fictional female characters worse than Hitler or something

Like, I feel like people talk about specific characters but not the topic as a broader subject

I feel like there’s so much to talk about

but I don’t have the elegance, critical thinking skills, the experience, or consume enough media to talk about this

So anyone who’s reading this please, please make a video essay about it

Or make one arguing against it idk

I just need a good video essay to watch while doing homework

[bardspeak]

VERY late entry for Ulysses Week's prompt "the divide". Lyrics are from Autopsy Garland by the Mountain Goats. I have a project for fnv planned involving the whole song, but I couldn't get this concept for an alternate Ulysses thing for these lyrics out of my head. I love Ulysses and the divide very much. >24 hours of drawing on this one.