u kno i had to do it to em

pinned post babey

hi, i'm celeste, a graduate student and hobbyist artist. i like drawing my ocs and almost nothing else lmao

all follows/reblogs come from @shiny-rayquaza, i post photography rarely on @syrcidia

quick links:
toyhou.se (oc repository)
flight rising (dragons!)
ko-fi

got the materials for my phd candidacy qualifying exams and uh

the molecular biology dude really handed us a 33pg long paper huh

also they made it harder for everyone because it's online and they can't take away our papers, but like... how much harder could it get it's already a 3 hour exam based on knowing the papers completely

mantis blades are the only good thing that came out of cyberpunk 2077

i was watching this anime on netflix and there was this evil pope man who, when questioned about his use of violence in spite of his faith, straight up busted out some brass knuckles and said "i'm not doing anything, it's god, he guides my fists"

it was honestly the funniest fucking thing so now i have an oc who's supposedly a pacifist because of their faith but beats up people with brass knuckles and says it's god's will

except it's literally god's will because they're getting possessed

@3ye-kand1 commented on this post:
what anime was it
asking for a friend

it was yasuke on netflix but tbh.... it's.... not that good.... a 4/10 or 5/10 for me

i was watching this anime on netflix and there was this evil pope man who, when questioned about his use of violence in spite of his faith, straight up busted out some brass knuckles and said "i'm not doing anything, it's god, he guides my fists"

it was honestly the funniest fucking thing so now i have an oc who's supposedly a pacifist because of their faith but beats up people with brass knuckles and says it's god's will

except it's literally god's will because they're getting possessed

rule #1 of the lab: trust no one, especially not yourself

aw shit it's mermay already

they're here owo

finals are done

i'm free!!!

hehe bacterial transformation successful

i shoved a plasmid (a piece of circular DNA) inside my bacteria and forced it to express a red fluorescent protein (original color is on the right, the whitish color)

they really raised the price of filing for daca from $485 to $495 huh

insult to injury

bruh

@naiad commented on this post:
Not that shipping isn't ridiculous but I've been using my local post office a lot and it seems like their minimum price for a "large envelope" is around $3-4 and then they add more onto the price up to a certain weight. So if they do anything extra like buy any kind of bubblewrap or cardboard wrapping + the price of the envelope I can see how it would actually be around that much? I think a lot of people take a cut on their item listing to list shipping as cheaper tbh Idk how ups or fexex price things though

i mean, like i don't mind having to pay extra to cover the costs of shipping, especially since this is an indie place, but human brains are Dumb and if i see "$53 free shipping" i'm like 😊 and if i see "$47 + $6.50 shipping" i'm like 😢

also it's just Weird because nail polish companies will also charge me ~$6 in shipping, but they're straight up shipping flammable materials in glass bottles. they also offer free shipping at ~$50-75, while this place is like "free shipping at $100 😊"

bruh

@idioticsilverware commented on this post:
i got my tarot cards for 20 dollars and they're so pretty.....

oh, there are definitely gorgeous sets for ~$20 (shoutouts to the modern witch tarot), but the one i want just happens to be $47 + $6.50 shipping rip

they're matte black with gold foil illustrations, made of recycled plastic so they're easier to shuffle/won't crease

bruh

some of my succulents started flowering :o

one of the gods of myr'seros, who is obviously a space deity. they're usually holed up on a big mountain.

more digimon model kits available for sale.... my wallet....

more digimon model kits available for sale.... my wallet....

helix cloud for good science luck 🧬

college is a fucking scam lmao (in the USA at least)

i have students who got 50s on an open notebook exam where the average is an 80 and students who got 30s on a report with an average of 60 and the professor said she was going to pass them all, even when it's obvious from their assignments that they have 0 clue what's going on and don't care to actually understand

what's even the point then? why even make students go to class? just tell them to hand over $60,000 and give them the degree instead of letting up continuously fail upwards

it dilutes the value of degrees, especially for students who know their stuff and actually try in class. like that's why they say undergraduate degrees are worthless when it comes to getting a job, because employers know unqualified graduates are everywhere. now you have to waste even more money on a master's or a phd, which is more $$$ in the colleges' pockets and more time that students have to waste away in schools.

and when does a master's degree also become worthless? when will every student have to do a phd and stay in school from age 4 to age 28 just so employers won't throw their resumes in the trash?

education is fucked

edit:
and like... what is this teaching the students? they're not stupid, they'll realize they won't have to do any work in order to succeed (and the TAs will be stuck wasting time grading them and giving them feedback that they won't take). they'll also think that they know what's going on, when in reality, they seriously don't and would be woefully unprepared for employment.

@theonlytoner commented on this post:
I 100% agree with this and I'm from the UK. I struggled desperately with my undergrad (biochem) for many reasons; but I knew coming out with 2.2 was garbage. My parents born in the 50s even now still believe that a degree puts you in the top 1% of the population despite the fact I was basically unemployable as my grade was too low to get a graduate job. Just read that. We normally talk about low grades as barriers into subjects in high school not work. Ultimately it took me 6 years to get an entry level job in life sciences. I'm nearly 30 and I am so grateful to be a lab tech... and now I get 23 yo graduates with firsts coming into my lab treating me like garbage because I don't have a first and I'm 'not a real scientist' despite the fact I've been working in this profession for 3 and half years and can work circles around their lazy asses. Yes these kids are lazy, they have been spoon fed their degrees and are just the worst to work with. Education is a scam! sorry I needed to rant.

p r e a c h

i'm a phd student doing a TA for a molecular genetics course and half these kids should not have even passed freshman bio, and yet they're gonna graduate next year with a biotech degree? and they have the nerve to think they know anything compared to people who have been in the industry for years? fuck off lmao you don't even know how to properly use a pipette

and honestly scientists are people that do science. why are these clowns gatekeeping science??? like how would they feel if someone told them they weren't scientists because they didn't waste 6 years of their life on a phd

college is a fucking scam lmao (in the USA at least)

i have students who got 50s on an open notebook exam where the average is an 80 and students who got 30s on a report with an average of 60 and the professor said she was going to pass them all, even when it's obvious from their assignments that they have 0 clue what's going on and don't care to actually understand

what's even the point then? why even make students go to class? just tell them to hand over $60,000 and give them the degree instead of letting up continuously fail upwards

it dilutes the value of degrees, especially for students who know their stuff and actually try in class. like that's why they say undergraduate degrees are worthless when it comes to getting a job, because employers know unqualified graduates are everywhere. now you have to waste even more money on a master's or a phd, which is more $$$ in the colleges' pockets and more time that students have to waste away in schools.

and when does a master's degree also become worthless? when will every student have to do a phd and stay in school from age 4 to age 28 just so employers won't throw their resumes in the trash?

education is fucked

edit:
and like... what is this teaching the students? they're not stupid, they'll realize they won't have to do any work in order to succeed (and the TAs will be stuck wasting time grading them and giving them feedback that they won't take). they'll also think that they know what's going on, when in reality, they seriously don't and would be woefully unprepared for employment.

i keep buying stamps with no one to send mail to F

i just like stamps 😢

someone: hey how's ur research going
me:

i am SCARED for my succulents okay. they say you have to keep them out of the direct sunlight for a week after repotting and not water them after that one watering you did while repotting and I'm terrified. you know what happened to the succulent leaves that were supposed to give roots after being left to dry for a week? they DRIED, @star-rice. they're DEAD. they won't produce life anymore. also every tutorial just says "put them at a south facing window" AS IF I HAVE FOUR WINDOWS IN MY HOUSE EACH ONE FACING EACH DIRECTION. both of my windows are facing...whatever they're facing, north-west? too poor too mentally ill for plants, I guess. but they're so pretty it hurts

@star-rice i am assuming the middle ones are dead. i splashed them with water because nothing works anyway

those directions are uh very oddly specific and i don't think they're that good tbh

"south-facing window" sounds very specific, but obviously not everyone has a south-facing window. that usually means the window with the most light (south-facing windows tend to get the most amount of sunlight light for people living in the northern hemisphere). if a north-facing one is all you have, that's fine too.

the succulent leaves you're showing there look like aeonium kiwi (i think, based off the general shape and the red tinges around the leaves). they can hold some water in their leaves, but they're not like traditional desert succulents because they're from a more subtropical climate. their soil needs to be a bit moist instead of completely dry.

as for propagating leaves of succulents, it's a mixed bag depending on the species. the leaves you're showing off here are 90% goners (especially the yellow ones). i've actually never had any success propagating the leaves of aeoniums. i don't think it's possible for the leaves to grow roots for this particular genus - it usually has to have a bit of stem for it to grow roots.

plants can be wack and kind of picky, and it's really hard to get "good" care instructions unless you know the specific genus (not easy for people who aren't familiar with plants who get unlabelled plants at the store), and even then they can just Perish out of nowhere. please don't blame yourself! even i've had plenty of plants die on me after i did my best to take care of them and i would consider myself "good" at taking care of plants.

EDIT: actually they might be echeveria agavoides, not aeonium kiwi (aeoniums have serrated leaves and i don't think your succulents have those). for echeverias, i just take the entire leaf and shove it in some dry soil and water it every once in a while. i don't bother leaving it to dry for a week or whatever. sometimes the leaves grow roots after a while, but they also might just die. it's like a 80% death rate for me when it comes to leaves. i've had better chances (almost 100% survival rate) if propagating them by cutting off one of the heads instead.

nobody asked but uh

as an lgbta+ asian, the amount of Bad lgbt rep in asian light novels (particularly mlm "bl" stories) and the amount of people defending that shit (like "fujoshis" aka straight girls fetishizing gay men) really upsets me. like why do all the authors try and shove noncon in there and why do people try to say it's ok??? (i know why, it's because none of them have ever met an lgbt+ person in their entire lives). like it gets me so worked up dalfbdks

confession: i used to run a "popular" tumblr blog where i translated this one mlm story, but i just had to stop because i couldn't handle the toxicity. some of it was my own fault because i mocked the fujoshis for being fuckin weirdos but like... ugh

i legitimately love historical chinese settings, but there's almost zero lgbt+ works in that setting that doesn't trip the Bad alarm. and i ain't gonna flip through mountains of garbage to find One Good Thing. like i have such a bad association with it because of these dang bl novels that i don't even wanna touch my own historical chinese au. ~be the change u wanna see in the world~ but also i don't want people to see my work and automatically associate it with That

tfw ur using antibiotic resistance to make sure your experiment worked but as it turns out they've somehow evolved resistance naturally and ur results are fricked