the rest of the bit is so fucking choice
Ok, i need to watch those vids in full
Today's Document
trying on a metaphor
Xuebing Du
tumblr dot com
Cosimo Galluzzi

tannertan36

shark vs the universe
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Origami Around
Jules of Nature

#extradirty
Aqua Utopia|海の底で記憶を紡ぐ
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i don't do bad sauce passes

Janaina Medeiros
d e v o n
NASA
styofa doing anything

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@roslinatreidesdance
the rest of the bit is so fucking choice
Ok, i need to watch those vids in full
Yup.
Also, THE PANDEMIC ISNT OVER.
Bioshock 2 Onion headlines
the least realistic thing about star trek is that starfleet uniforms don’t have pockets and nobody complains about it
My instinct is to agree with this, but like, when I really think about it…
No money, no credit cards, identification is all vocal/fingerprints/retinal, so no wallet.
Again, doors are voice activated, or just unlocked by entering a code. No keys.
Communication devices are tiny and stick onto clothing starting in Next Gen. TOS had bulkier communication that they carried around or kept in, like, packs and stuff, so the arguments for pockets is a little more valid, and if I remember correctly, those costumes did have pockets, tho I could be wrong about that. But anything post TNG, the point is moot anyway.
Tricorders and phasers are really the only thing anyone’s carrying around, and that’s usually on away missions where they’d be bring their packs/holsters or just have them out. I mean, who wants to stick a phaser in their pocket?
So, yeah. There’s not much little stuff people need to carry around everywhere. And if they are preparing for a longer journey or want to bring bulkier things, well…just bring a bag. It fits more anyway.
what if i find a cool rock and want to take it home with me
Every time a member of the USS Enterprise has found a cool rock and taken it home, it has resulted in eleven deaths, six temporal displacements, the holodecks breaking again, and somebody getting turned into a lizard. Pockets are a privilege, not a right.
I’ve gotten more notes on this comment than anything else I’ve ever posted, but this is the best addition to it I’ve ever seen. Thank you.
“Meet Sydney, a male umbrella cockatoo socializing with Vet Hospital Staff”
(via)
Humans are unstoppable...Until they aren’t.
I’m not the most eloquent writer, but I’ve had this idea kicking around for a while and figured I’d put it out into the universe.
A lot of the basis for the “humans are space orcs” stuff is the idea that we’re pretty durable compared to many species, yeah? When it comes to physical trauma, we can bounce back from most things that don’t kill us outright, especially given the benefit of hypothetical space-age technology, and adrenaline is one heck of a drug when it comes to functioning under stress.
But that doesn’t make us unkillable, and even though we can survive debilitating injuries and not die from shock, it doesn’t mean it’s fun. Dying of shock sucks, but at least it’s probably quick.
So - Imagine a ship, adrift in space, slowly being drawn into a star or something. In order to save the ship, someone has to repair the hyper-quantum-relay-majig on the hull or in the engine or whatever. Bit of a problem though- there’s a ton of deadly, deadly radiation (Wrath of Khan style) or poisonous fumes or, I dunno, electrical current, between the crew and the repair. Like, enough to kill most species instantly, so the crew is just like, ‘welp, guess we’ll die then’. But then.
BUT THEN
They ask the human. Because everyone’s heard the stories - you’re basically unkillable, right? Could you survive long enough in there to fix it? And their human goes real quiet for a second, but still says ‘Yeah, I could fix it’. And the rest of the crew is like, ‘Whaaaaaa, it won’t kill you?’ and the human repeats “I can fix it” (which isn’t an answer, but no one catches that, not yet at least), so they send ‘em in. And the human fixes it, they come back, the ship flies to safety, and the crew is thrilled to survive. If the human is a little quiet, well, they’re entitled after pulling off a miracle. Everyone else is just excited to get to the nearest station’s bar to tell their very own human story, cuz, ‘those crazy humans, amiright?’.
The good mood keeps up until the human is late for their next shift. At first it’s just faint unease, but- but they earned a bit of a lie-in, right? No reason to begrudge them some extra rest, even if it is a little weird for them to oversleep. They’ll be fine. Humans are always fine.
(Right?)
(…Wrong.)
- What is… help. Help!-
- ake up! You have t-
- been days. You need sleep, you-
- nother transfusion. We could-
- out of sedatives!-
A week later, the crew finally reaches the station. They stumble into the bar, haggard and haunted. And over the next months and years a new rumor about humans starts to make its way through space. A rumor unlike any before.
‘Be careful with your humans’ it whispers. ‘Their strength is not always a blessing. Be sure they don’t do something they can’t come back from, because when a human dies… they die slowly.’
The thing is, humans can be tricky. And if they’re sufficiently pack-bonded with a ship’s crew? And that crew is in danger? They’ll willingly offer themselves up to make sure the crew survives.
They won’t tell their crewmates that whatever danger it is will just kill them slowly, that they can endure the exposure but not the long-term effects.
But the idea that humans can be fragile? Can die later from exposure to radiation or toxins or electricity or even smoke inhalation?
It seems preposterous!
There are too many stories about humans surviving all sorts of conditions that would kill their other crewmates. A human dying slowly, later, lingering and in agony? It’s a creepy story but of course it’s not true.
But then… another crew shares their own story. Their human volunteered to go into the danger zone to fix what needed to be fixed. Or maybe she had to retrieve a critical component or resource. And she lingered. Wasted away. Later the human doctors told their medical team there was nothing they could do but make sure she was comfortable, ease her pain before the end.
And yet another crew, whose human plunged through smoke and ash to make sure his crew could escape. He choked and coughed and couldn’t get enough air. Their medical commander performed an autopsy and found his lungs and throat and sinuses all coated in black soot and blackened mucus and red blood.
So the stories spread. Just because they don’t die of shock, just because they don’t die right away doesn’t mean it won’t kill them. They linger in agony or unconscious or waste away slowly.
But what’s most horrifying of all?
When other humans hear the stories from the traumatized crewmembers?
They aren’t surprised or horrified.
They say “Of course”
They say “I would have done the same”
They say “it was the Right Thing to do”
And they’ll smile (what the crew’s human would have called a sad smile) and toast to the dead. For making “The ultimate sacrifice for the folks they loved” and every human listening will say the name and drink a shot of liquor.
#close encounters of the awkward kind#I think my favorite aspect of this whole storytelling phenomenon we’ve got going#is it very quickly shifted from ‘humans are terrifying space orcs’#to ‘humans are pitbulls’#strong and vicious when provoked; incredibly gentle with those they love; will absolutely fight to the death out of loyalty#the bottom line of this folklore we’ve all built together seems to be that we’re not monsters and we’re not weaklings#we’re dogs
Human: *does a heroic thing*
Starfleet Captain: Good boy! *ruffles the human’s hair*
humans are space orcs. space orcs are good dogs.
why does feeling like your gonna puke worse than actually puking?
Because actually puking gives you relief from the yuck feeling. I 100% know how you feel.
Holy cat
Big floof!!
Never regret cutting ties with toxic people. You only deserve people who love you and are supportive of your goals.
Eliot Solo Quest and Margo Solo Quest Parallels
(s03e02 vs s04e10)
Oscar Isaac talks DUNE and explains why he’s growing a beard…
why does this have 32k notes? it’s just a picture of a knife in a ranch bottle, is there some unspoken joke that 32 thousand people share? what is going on here, i dont get it. it’s just a fucking picture of a knife in a ranch bottle. is there some spiritual connection people have to this picture? is there some ominous and mystical reasoning that this has 32 thousand notes? do people reblog this because it makes them look like some indie blogger? or is there just something funny to this? someone please explain
no one tell him
Scheduling this to post on March 15 because it needs to happen.
The ides of March have come
OK so let's agree that the Bene Gesserit are super-feminists, and the guild is super-menninist, according to the original novels and prequels. looking at the sex-political overtones already in the series, what's applicable to modern sensibilities on sex/gender politics? what can we draw from here? ....... i guess i dont really have a take, but wanted to bring this up for discussion after watching the super nerd-tastic extended (but also missing scenes??) version of movie for the up-teenth time
Whoo! This is some spicy discussion!
::cracks knuckles::
Okay, let’s dive in. Keep in mind that my analysis is coming mostly from the state of the universe in the original series, not the prequels or sequels by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson. Here we go!
Labels like “feminist” and (ugh) “meninist” are slippery in this context, primarily because it seems clear from Frank Herbert’s novels that that the sexual politics of the Imperium are a few centuries behind our own, not more advanced; they’ve reverted not just to a feudal political structure but to the attendant patriarchal gender expectations. Men are the heads of families, succeeded by their sons. Men hold every powerful position, and daughters are bargaining chips in diplomacy (tellingly, Farad’n must renounce his family to marry Ghanima, in order to make it clear that he is not the new Corrino Emperor - the implication being that Ghanima is not under normal circumstances a legitimate heir to the throne). Same-sex attraction, especially between men, is linked by the author to degeneracy, perversion, abuse, and violence - and it seems likely this is how people feel within the universe of the book, as well. We can infer that ideals of feminine behavior haven’t changed from a few hundred years ago from the particular attributes Hwi Noree is designed with to appeal to Leto II. The Bene Gesserit are called “witches” and, while respected, are also feared and treated as repulsive in no small part because they are powerful, mysterious women.
The Imperium’s attitudes and norms regarding gender are not ours, but they’re recognizable. As such, it’s not clear an organization like the Spacing Guild is more devoted to patriarchy than any other organization in the Imperium - it seems like there are few if any powerful women within the Guild because there are few powerful women in official positions outside of the Bene Gesserit generally. In other words: it may just be another male dominated organization in a male dominated universe.
The Bene Gesserit are interesting in this discussion in that it’s not clear they’re meaningfully “feminist” in any way we’d recognize, except maybe that they’re powerful women. They’re gender essentialists, they hate birth control and assisted pregnancy, they’re rigidly hierarchical and seek to control the lives and choices of their adherents, they’re megalomaniacal, they often use their sexuality to enslave men, they manipulate “primitive” cultures, and they engage in eugenics with the ultimate goal of creating a super powerful man they can use for the purpose of furthering their secret control of society. (Sure, they want to control that man, but it seems relevant to the discussion.) It doesn’t seem like a goal of theirs is the advancement and societal equality of women; instead, they seem content to use the patriarchal systems of the status quo to their ends.
As for other organizations: in Dune Messiah it almost seems as if the Bene Tleilaxu are being set up deliberately as a male organization almost in opposition to the Bene Gesserit, but this focus seems to shift as Herbert’s idea of what the Tleilaxu even are seems to shift. (It seems relevant that the entire power of the Bene Tleilaxu rests in using women’s bodies but eliminating their sentience, while the Bene Gesserit have never done anything so horrific to male bodies.) The Fish Speakers and Leto’s musings on why they make a better army are really interesting while also managing to be super sexist!
For better or worse, Herbert’s novels place an enormous importance on biological gender. While characters within the novels are not always subject to the biases and constraints of the society in which they live - the Fish Speakers, the Bene Gesserit, Lady Jessica’s defiance of her order - in many ways the outlines and limits of their destiny and abilities are determined by the bodies they’re born with. This is even true to some extent for the Kwisatz Haderach’s offspring. (It’s true that there are hints of feminine influence on a number of male characters, and this is welcome.)
While I’m not sure the novels’ gender politics hold up, I will say I’ve always admired the idea that the Kwisatz Haderach was a centuries old breeding project meant to fuse the essences of the masculine and the feminine. I also think, in the Bene Tleilaxu, we see a dangerous extreme in the dismissal of womens’ personhood in favor of a focus on their reproductive capabilities.
Oh, here’s something: the Bene Gesserit represent, for me, a fascinating look at an organization created by and populated entirely by women for the express purpose of subverting and influencing a society that would otherwise deny them power and autonomy. In other words, in order to become respected equals, they had to build something entirely new. So they did.
I’m curious: what about watching the extended edition made you ponder this topic?