a Gorn that DJs???

A slightly miscoloured giant leopard moth showing the blueish tint more than usual!

Statement from Mike McMahan and Alex Kurtzman about Lower Decks' cancellation.

This linguistic problem is only going to continue getting worse unless we fuck it in the ass now.

the songs Beyoncé writes about that man are crazy it's like watching someone build the sistine chapel for a possum they found in a gas station parking lot

having received a lot of feedback about this post in the last 24 hours I've realized that everyone is right and I genuinely do need to apologize. possums are lovely creatures and they don't deserve to be compared to Jay Z, that was a deeply uncool thing of me to say. I'm sorry possums, I love the way you eat ticks and I hope you'll forgive me someday.

I've been informed that the thing about possums eating ticks might also be wrong. sorry that this post has become a monument to bad information about the noble possum. the point about Jay Z stands though.

we don't need a boop button. we can just do something like this:

reblog to boop prev

BG3 truly gave me everything i wished for

yall wanted suit & tie lae'zel but I couldn't help making it a lil gender

Because the whole Tuvix wank is rearing its head every week on Trek forums, I finally decided to rewatch this episode. I mostly avoided it because I am So Tired of the wank and how it's been relitigated for YEARS.

I was over it when it first popped up and I was even more over it with the way it's used as a bludgeon to promote 'psycho Janeway'.

But what's left out in the discussions is Kes's part in all of this, from the jump, Kes was troubled with the merging of Neelix and Tuvok, and anytime Tuvix tried to make advances, she just kept getting more uncomfortable.

(When Tuvix unconsciously touched Kes's shoulder, it looked like she had to consciously not flinch.)

To Tuvix's credit, he did give Kes space and respected her wishes but she was not happy with the whole merge because her relationship with Neelix and Tuvok is different.

We don't see the other people grieve but we see Kes's grief and confusion, which was shared by Janeway. But also, the moment the EMH had a solution to separate the two people in Tuvix, Harry jumped at the chance.

And he's already spent weeks with Tuvix.

The irony is that Janeway was coming around to thinking of Tuvix as an individual but the cure presented itself, but also as the Ship's Captain she has an obligation to care for her crew and absent or not that meant advocating for the two voices who couldn't speak up: Tuvok and Neelix.

Kes was the deciding factor. Kes made her plea to separate Neelix and Tuvok.

Kes was the biggest reason why Janeway decided to separate Tuvok from Neelix.

It was such a cop-out from the Doctor that he refused to do the procedure he made and pioneered. And forced Janeway to execute it instead.

Janeway is clearly not happy about the decision and she's caught between a rock and a hard place.

In Nothing Human Janeway verbalizes it.

"Any consequences of this decision will be my responsibility. Dismissed."

Janeway's constantly put into a wheelhouse of trolley problems, as the only high-ranking Starfleet officer, she is the final authority. In Nothing Human everyone is locked in an endless debate about the morality of using the Cardassians' methods to save B'Elanna's life. Meanwhile, the clock was running down to zero and B'Elanna could have died more.

(Honestly, the story should have been more B'Elanna, Doctor, and Janeway-centric than it was. Nothing Human is a weird episode. Especially since Seven was barely in it and seems to be the Acting Chief Engineer -- amusingly enough because the writers thought they killed Joe Carey between s2 and 3. Alas, poor Vorik, he's not getting any promotions either).

TLDR: Janeway is constantly living through what the Doctor of Doctor Who is living through. Or as the 12th Doctor once said: "Sometimes the only choices you have are bad ones, but you still have to choose."

The Comparison to Nothing Human is an interesting one, I think.

In Tuvix, Janeway really had to figure out what Neelix and Tuvok would ultimately want, to decide the right thing to do, and while it was a difficult decision to make, she made it pretty quickly because there really was only one correct answer. Neelix and Tuvok were not there to speak for themselves, and neither of them consented to be merged into one person. Kes would lose her partner and Tuvok's family would lose a husband and father, all as a result of a transporter accident that was reversible.

The difficult aspect was that Janeway had to actively choose to end a life, in order to save two others. It was the right choice, but also one almost no one on that ship would have been able to make, and that's why she's captain.

In Nothing Human, she's actually faced with a more difficult decision, because she knows what B'Elanna wants, so there's no speculation there... there's no wiggle room at all. She was somewhat protected in her Tuvix decision because she had to guess what Tuvok and Neelix would want, and if she were wrong, no one could really fault her for that, because how could she know?

But in Nothing Human, the choice is does she honour B'Elanna's wishes and let her die, or does she go against them and let her live? The right choice is much less clear here. With Tuvix, separating him was denying him autonomy, but allowing him autonomy would deny Tuvok and Neelix autonomy. With B'Elanna, she's taking away her autonomy because she doesn't want to let her die. Is that the right choice?

A patient has the right to refuse medical treatment. She took that right away from B'Elanna, and B'Elanna had every right to be pissed off about it afterward.

Ultimately, debating on whether or not it was ethical to use the Cardassian's methods to save B'Elanna was irrelevant. It wasn't the right discussion to be having, because B'Elanna had already made a decision for herself. The real debate wasn't on whether or not the Cardassian's methods were ethical, it was whether or not using them against B'Elanna's express wishes was ethical.

It wasn't.

And what I find most interesting is that Janeway was not actually listening to the arguments the crew was making in good faith. Her mind was made up. That much was clear the moment that Tom was like "you're not actually going to let her die?" and Janeway didn't even hesitate with her answer (I can't remember the exact wording, but either way, it was clear her mind was made up and she wasn't not actually considering any other option).

And that's not to say it was the wrong choice, necessarily. I personally think it was the right choice, for two reasons. The first is obviously that they need her. The choice to let her live or die impacts more than just B'Elanna, as long as they are on Voyager, stranded in the Delta Quadrant. If Janeway had chosen to honour her wishes, she also would be indirectly choosing to kill Voyager's Chief Engineer, and to take someone away from the crew, who was vital to their survival.

The second one, and this is one I really wish the show had gone into, is that by overruling her, Janeway is making a choice for B'Elanna that she never would have been able to make for herself. It's similar to Tuvok's reasoning in Prime Factors, he goes behind Janeway's back to do something that he knows she couldn't do, because of her ethics and her position, but something he truly believed needed to be done.

B'Elanna would never be able to live with herself if she'd made the choice herself to be saved by the Cardassian research, but that doesn't mean she wanted to die. Janeway making the choice for her, absolves B'Elanna of any guilt.

It's also interesting that Janeway says she will accept the consequences of that decision, and then she doesn't. At all. She basically tells B'Elanna to get over it, and points out that she's the Captain and it was her call.

And I think that part is very telling. I try not to write anything off as just bad or inconsistent writing, if I can come up with an alternate explanation, and I think that scene can be explained as Janeway being unable to deal with her own guilt, for going against B'Elanna's wishes. She needs B'Elanna to get over it and accept her choice, so that she doesn't have to grapple with it.

When she separated Tuvix, Neelix and Tuvok immediately confirmed that she made the right choice, and she didn't need to grapple with the ethics of it anymore.

B'Elanna, on the other hand, made it quite clear that she was not happy and she didn't think it was the right choice, and I really wish they could have delved into that a little more, tbh.

And that also makes it so bizarre to me, why people won't drop the Tuvix debate. The episode made it clear that Janeway made the right choice. There's no debate left at that point. Janeway went against Tuvix's wishes, not knowing what Neelix and Tuvok wanted. By the end of the episode, the audience knows what Neelix and Tuvok want, so in arguing that Janeway shouldn't have separated Tuvix, they are arguing that Neelix and Tuvok should be sacrificed, despite knowing they didn't want to be merged. It's absolutely insane argument to make, when you have all the facts.

If any episode leaves an open-ended moral debate, it's Nothing Human. Was Janeway right to go against B'Elanna's wishes or not? An argument can be made from both sides, and we also know that the two people who have a stake in this (Janeway and B'Elanna) do not agree, and the show never actually resolved it in a way that made it clear which side they wanted to present as being right.

Like, I believe Janeway made the right choice, but I also believe B'Elanna has every right to be pissed off about it. It's a way more complicated moral debate than Tuvix is, and the episode ends with both Janeway and B'Elanna being pretty unwilling to consider the other person's stance.

Having a whole menagerie in the Med Bay certainly isn't hygienic but it is funny as hell.

I wonder: Do Americans know about american school buses? Not their existence in general, but how they're seen overseas.

Over here, they're one of the symbols of America, on par with the Statue of Liberty, the flag, the Eagle, and well ahead of any chain restaurant you can name. People won't know any US states, but they will know these vehicles.

The thing is, here in Germany, we don't have dedicated school buses. The general idea is that kids go to school on their own. When that's not practical, they're expected to use (and given free tickets for) public transit. Public transit is designed around this requirement; there are many places where there is a bus, and anyone can get on it, but the route and timetable really only makes sense for school children. In case a dedicated school bus is really needed, that's generally subcontracted out, and the lines either use something like a Sprinter Van for smaller routes, or a normal city or interurban bus (often a used one that's a bit older). School trips are normal public transit, or a rented bus, typically a coach or regional bus.

It's not a perfect system, in the past couple of years there's been an epidemic of people bringing their kids to school in their cars instead of letting them walk, which is less than ideal. It is what it is. But building a dedicated network of public transit lines only for students, and building dedicated vehicles only for that, has never occurred to anyone here.

Of course we know about these buses, from movies and such, but they're as foreign here as cacti or pick-up trucks (actually we're seeing more and more of these here) or yellow cabs (all europeans will assume all cabs in the US are yellow until they actually visit).

You do see these buses here at times, because people still generally like the idea of the US, even if they have a lot of issues with a lot of details, and so folks bring them over, along with stretch limos and stuff (also not really a thing here). And of course, if someone goes to all that trouble, they don't do it to haul school kids, they rent it out for city tours or as a party bus or whatever.

So you see these yellow things as a symbol of faraway places, scenic vistas, some vague undefined idea of freedom that doesn't necessarily hold up to any contact with reality, and it's just a huge part of the whole US aesthetic.

And then you go to a student exchange with the US, and you finally get the chance: You yourself get to ride in one of these iconic chrome yellow buses! It looks just like in the movies! You get in, you drive in them a little…

…and you realise they're shit. Just the worst buses in the western world. Terrible suspension. Uncomfortable seats with weirdly high backs (so they don't have to put seatbelts in, they just restrict how far kids can fly in an accident). Everything made out of the cheapest materials. Turns out the reason why the US uses school buses like that instead of normal modern city buses, which the US has, is to save money and because they just hate kids.

And then it hits you why US Americans say "as American as apple pie", a dish that is made and enjoyed literally anywhere in the world, instead of "as American as yellow school buses". Of course the Americans already knew all this. They got tortured by these things forever. It would never occur to them to see this as a symbol of America, it's just a normal part of life for them. It's a symbol of school and school life and sometimes normalcy, and tells us that these actors getting out of it are supposed to be teenagers, nothing more.

But most people in Europe have, of course, never ridden on these buses. So when they see them in movies and TV, that's a giant big yellow signifier that we're not in Hessen or Wallonia or wherever anymore. A symbol of a different world, one that may be at most a once-in-a-lifetime-experience for most people, just like a picture of a tropical beach, Incan Pyramids, the Great Wall of China, or Hildesheim (there's no reason to go there twice). And I think Americans don't know that, and that's fascinating.

Huh, didn't know school buses were seen like that overseas, I kinda assumed that most countries used school buses. They're just so ubiquitous here (heck I got stuck behind a school bus as it stopped just an hour ago) that I don't really think about how common they might actually be, much less how other countries might view US school buses.

this also says something about expectations of autonomy for children and teens in the US vs other places

and about how in lots of parts of the US, school buses pretty much are the public transit, people who live out of walking distance of their schools don't have any options for getting there except ride school bus or drive car

Yeah, when a lot of the US was getting laid out, late 18th and 19th centuries, the hot scientific new modern community concept was one based on large-ish individual farms, on which a single owner unambiguously lived with his family unit, none of this old-fashioned village-based system with medieval strip-based farming, where everyone lives all huddled together.

Europe was actively trying (for better or for worse) to move away from the medieval model, but it was baked into the existing shape of things; America very much took advantage of not having existing settlement and land ownership arrangements to respect to arrange things according to the zeitgeist.

Which means that American communities, especially west of Ohio, tended to be laid out on a pattern wherein 'going into town' was an operation in its own right. Not necessarily a highly arduous one, but even your nearest neighbors were frequently out of sight.

Then, we got serious about universal literacy, and universal general education beyond literacy, and started mandating kids going to school for increasingly long stretches. And it's simply not practical, with that layout, to have a school in walking distance of even a majority of rural homes, especially if you want distinct curricula for different ages and all of that; you could never train and pay that many teachers.

So school districts are drawn up much larger than it would make any sense to have a kid walk across. Oh yeah, ten miles uphill to school in the snow. That won't impede attendance.

My mother grew up in New York City and most certainly never took a school bus, but because of the settlement patterns that the 18th and 19th century lawmakers thought were up-to-date and efficient for land use, a majority of rural communities were in a position where there wasn't enough demand for establishing public transit to make any goddamn sense, because a majority of adults worked where they lived and tended to need cargo capacity when they did leave home. (Hence the ubiquity of the pickup truck.)

But hundreds of children needed to be rounded up and then dispersed again, every single day. Thus, the school bus. Objectively ridiculous, but in context it's a rational solution to a situation created a few generations previous. One idea of modernity interfering with the next.

The cheapness of them and the way they're used until they fall apart is down to 1) many municipalities are poor as shit and 2) kids are legally obliged to ride the damn things so it's not like they need to make them nice lol.

Recently a local school district cut costs for a while by stopping school bus service for a couple of high schools. They gave the students public transportation vouchers and got local transit to add a couple buses a day to the routes that ran past the school (this school actually had some that went right by).

I only heard about it when the school bus service resumed and the extra buses were removed, but I gotta say I was very puzzled about how this was supposed to substitute. Those buses would not have had that many additional seats, and while they went a good long ways from the school in the cardinal directions that was a lot of space not covered, and… I don't know, I expect a lot of students were dropped off by parents instead. Which drop-offs totally clogged the drop-off area and then the school threw a fit about THAT, I'm sure.

Commissions are open; please help a queer, disabled artist!

This past week I had a diagnosis and treatment procedure for my endometriosis. While it was important for my long term health and wellbeing, it landed me with a hefty medical bill I don't have the funds for right now unfortunately.

I currently have commissions and donations open on my ko-fi! If you don't have the money to support, please consider helping by spreading the word please!

Use code ENDO at check out for 15% off your order, or simply use my link here and above to auto apply it!

Thank you so much!!

And they actually met 😭

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/04/09/solar-eclipse-new-york-teacher/

3d printed start gate

For @madgedothorse

Wait for it...

EXQUISITE