space girl @alexkablob - Tumblr Blog

Hello, I am a trans woman who got laid off, has run out of unemployment assistance, and hasn't been able to find a new job yet despite hundreds of applications. If you can afford to help me stay housed and make ends meet for another month, please send something my way.

Venmo: @Alex-Anderson-10272

Paypal: paypal.me/alexiskablob

$0/$1800

#mutual aid #trans crowdfund #crowdfunding #signal boost

francy-sketches

catelyn and cersei kofi request

#waow #asoiaf

sibyllance

Apparently someone got their car stuck on the light rail tracks at Mt. Baker. For those unfamiliar this is 35 feet up in the air

puppygirllaika

Fun fact! this is likely due to racism. Not the drivers, to be clear, but this is a not-entirely-unsurprising result of systemic racism in the greater Seattle area and the influence it has on infrastructure spending.

I'm a huge proponent of public transit, rail in specific, and I'm very glad that the greater Seattle area is finally starting to see some solid light rail infrastructure sprouting up in the form of the 1 and 2 lines, but that in no way stops me from critiquing the decisions made in planning and implementation.

Light Rail, in it's colloquial form here in the US, is basically always a compromise solution. It's cheaper than subways, can make good use of existing right-of-way around freeways, and can function as a kind of low-capacity commuter rail in the subways while behaving more like a tram or streetcar in downtown areas. It is crucially, however, not a streetcar, nor is it a commuter rail. Streetcars make frequent stops and are optimized for dense areas with lots of traffic. Commuter rails are larger and stop lest frequently, optimized for bringing suburban residents into city centers. Commuter rail should, however, be independent of street traffic so it can travel at higher speeds. For this reason, most of the Link light rail system in seattle is actually not at-grade (street level), but on either elevated or sub-grade track. Downtown, the lightrail actually functions as a low-capacity low-frequency subway system in what used to be the bus tunnel (we don't have time, but yes it was stupid). Everywhere else, it's up on elevated tracks that largely follow the freeway system.

There are three stations, all immediately south of that Mount Baker elevated station, where the Link actually runs at-grade. These stations run through the historic low income immigrant neighborhoods of southeast seattle. Here, the trains are forced to stop at red lights, interact with crossing and left-turning traffic, and even cross through terrifyingly narrow pedestrian islands. They could have built elevated track here, as they did everywhere else, but they didn't. they didn't want to spend the money. I have personally watched light rail cars carrying hundreds of people have to wait two full minutes for cars turning left in front of them, delaying trains so like, 5 people could drive there. Once it reaches the end of this low income immigrant-dominant neighborhood, however, the Link returns to it's above-grade status, with Mount Baker being the first elevated stop. You want to know how this woman, who claims she was misdirected by her GPS, probably ended up here? I would bet anything she tried to make a turn at the intersection just before the stop and got confused. The intersection, for reference, looks like this:

I'm not saying it's an easy mistake to make, but given the number of people who drive through here every day, it's honestly not that surprising that someone, especially someone who is from out of town, or someone who is used to shared streetcar lanes, would eventually make this mistake. When you're dealing with a city of hundreds of thousands of people, it's only a matter of time before a mistake like this happens. but it is only possible for it to happen because of the decisions made in the planning process, and one of those decisions was "we can save money if we make everything worse in that part of town where all the foreign poors live", and so they built the thing at-grade, instead of keeping it elevated like everywhere else.

and yes, those tracks are in the middle of a four lane road, and no, there is no way to get to any of the at-grade stations without crossing at least two lanes of traffic on a very busy avenue. and those tiny little pedestrian islands are not only terrifying to walk on, but a man in a wheelchair was clipped by a passing train car a while back because his chair didn't really fit through the tight turns well and one of his feet was sticking slightly out when the train passed by. This is not a problem at like, any other stops in the Link system. Just here. Just in this neighborhood. And it's a fucking disgrace.

star-mom-selkie

happy pride month

glamnessaaumisc

#been thinking about this all morning

haventacluewhatimdoing

Love that this alien arm is clearly just green bubblewrap. 70s prosthetics I love you

circular-time

Classic SF once again betrayed by a clear, static-free signal and a flat digital screen

This is how I remember classic Who and Star Trek, folks, with signal ghosts and scanning lines (but usually with more static/snow)

sepdet

Sharing this on my main because it appears from the notes that it's useful for some modern viewers.

You KNOW classic SF used the limited displays of CRT television and the static of transmitted signals the way theaters use stage makeup and lighting to make inexpensive props look great fine— take advantage of the medium! But it's hard to imagine how it looked if you've only seen Blu-ray HD restorations.

I swear to you, despite classic Who using bubble wrap for years as one of its go-to materials that reflected light in interesting ways, we never realized that's what it was.

clementine-kesh

call me terminally academia-brained but i do think a lot of the fun of character analysis is figuring out how to build a compelling argument for a particular reading using lines of evidence from canon as well as meta/intertextual support

clementine-kesh

and you could say that what i’m saying here is basically “a lot of the fun of doing character analysis is doing character analysis” but let’s be real a lot of fandom character analysis is pretty heavily vibes-based. and i think that’s where i really chafe up against the traditional thought-terminating fandom attitude of like, everyone’s opinions hold equal weight and any interrogation of that is inherently hostile. because i think it’s fascinating to dig into where others are coming from in terms of their views on characters or dynamics or whatever, especially when they differ significantly from more commonly expressed views, and part of that digging is asking people okay what parts of canon are you drawing from to support your opinion? what parts of canon are you disregarding or downplaying? how does this argument hold up in the light of how race, gender, class, ability, etc. operate both in the piece’s in-fiction and real world contexts?

valtsv

basically the best thing any character can do is decide they don't want to be afraid anymore - in fact they never want to be afraid of anything ever again - and take action so drastic they fail to realise that this too is a decision motivated by fear. or to account for the Consequences of that.

valtsv

[with obvious perverted intent] hey. don't you want to release the safety catches on that character. don't you want to flip off all the switches holding them back and let the control rods go.

#:D

clementine-kesh

like literally if i didn’t want to see some weird nonsense i wouldn’t be consuming scifi

clementine-kesh

“ohh this episode is about meeting a bunch of dinosaurs who developed space travel and left earth to go live on the other side of the galaxy isn’t that crazy?! isn’t that silly?!” sure yeah maybe a little but by focusing on that but you’re missing the narrative reason for it which is to provide a starting point to explore religious authoritarianism and the production of scientific knowledge

mylittleredgirl

just a spoonful of [nonsense] helps the [critical thinking about uncomfortable social and structural problems that are such a fundamental part of the background radiation of our lives that we can't see them] go down

clementine-kesh

this is the meanest thing anyone’s ever said to me. apologize to star trek: voyager season 3 episode 23 distant origin right now