¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Obviously, the goal of this experiment is to grow the lobsters until they’re big enough to settle to the seabed and then release them, because they have a much higher likelihood of surviving to adulthood when they’re able to hide. Ideally, captive lobster hatcheries can boost the wild population and keep things stable, so we don’t have a major crash in a decade or two.

The first year we tried this was pretty bad. We had a lot of eggs, but very few babies. It turned out that the CO2 levels in the building spiked as more guests visited throughout the summer, and that settled into the water and threw off the pH and caused a chemical reaction that prevented a lot of the eggs from hatching. I think we ended up releasing three baby lobsters (which is still better than their wild survival rate but not great).

The second year was a little better. We added a de-gasser to the aquarium and got a ton of larval lobsters, but right as they were settling to the bottom we had a disease outbreak that killed most of them. We ended up releasing four babies at the end of the season.

But this year? Oh boy. We have so many lobsters that we had to release the first round early (usually we wait till September or October so guests can see them). We just released a total of FIVE HUNDRED AND TWENTY FIVE baby lobsters, and we still have over a hundred who haven’t settled to the bottom yet. I genuinely don’t even have words to explain how cool this is. OVER FIVE HUNDRED. We just added hundreds of lobsters to the wild population that wouldn’t have been there otherwise.

robby moves him to BH-2. baran argues that it's too visible, that it's not much better than his jail cell, that they should give him privacy. this is empathetic and a good point, and she's recognizing Gus's humanity. she's very good at that specifically, at recognizing everyone as human first.

robby counters that Gus came in with an orange jumpsuit, they don't know his crimes, and it would be safer if they kept him out in the open to monitor him. this hits as a little harsh, but it's realistic, we have no idea why Gus is incarcerated. nurses get assaulted almost constantly, safety of the staff is important.

baran wants to keep him admitted, because he's getting malnourished in prison and he could get better care in the hospital. again, empathizing with Gus and recognizing his humanity, knowing the prison system is broken and abusive. she sees a way to help him, she knows she can help him, and she's fighting to take it.

robby called up the prison, and knows they'll give him care there. not quality care, but enough to survive. it's not ideal by any means, but he's bringing up the bed shortage that they always have, that at least Gus won't be out on the street, and they need the space even more today with Westbridge diversions. also some good points.

baran tends to be highly individualistic in her thinking, and robby tends to go bigger picture. neither of them are necessarily wrong. they both have good points. it's just robby's kind of a dick about it lmfao and also it's easier to root for and connect with baran because she showcases empathy and a hopeful outlook. most of us want to be hopeful about things. but this situation, and many others, aren't solved only by hope. so much of the pitt, american healthcare, etc, is a grey area, a mess of nuance and multiple sides. baran and robby are just trying to do the best they can.

no one wants to be the guy saying no, but thats the job -- and it's why i agreed from the beginning that Baran has a lot to learn about doing it, that maybe Robby's right to be a little trepidatious about her ability to run the department (though again, should be way less of a dick about everything, but thats sort of a blanket disclaimer over the whole discussion). like op said, she thinks on an individual level more often than not. that's not a bad thing on it's own, a lot of them do that (Abbot especially); but when you're the one running the whole thing, you can't be as individualistic as others might want. Robby is right about the lack of open beds, about getting ICE out as quickly as possible, about Gus being a potential risk, that McKay shouldn't have been treating a patient elsewhere while she had one actively passing -- there's nuance to every situation, but ultimately he's pretty consistent about going for the best overall choice for the department as a whole, patients and staff alike.

the arguments he has with Dana over the versed and with Baran over her seizures also show the difference in thinking pretty well. Dana is charge nurse, so she also has to think about the bigger picture, the forest instead of the trees. still, she tends to allow her own biases and feelings to make some of those bigger picture decisions. she carries the versed because she was attacked, and has decided that that sort of offense is the best way to keep her people from going through the same thing. she's right that the nurses deserve better protections, that it's been made very clear that they have to defend themselves because the hospital won't. and Robby understands this! he even says "i'll sign an extra order [for versed] so you can have one when i'm gone." what he's worried about in that argument is how this could backfire -- on Dana, on himself, on the nurses. he wants to protect them legally and emotionally. it's why he's stressing about why she had the vial in the first place. it's why he told her to pass that patient off. Dana yells at him and turns it into a fight about his sabbatical, but the point still stands that while she was right to defend Emma (and herself, and her staff), the way she did it could've come back to bite her in the ass.

the fight with Baran is a very fascinating showing of how they each think, and part of the issue is that they're each mapping their own way of thinking onto the other. Baran tells him he's selfish, he's thinking about "his department" and nothing more. the verbal stressing that the department is his is very interesting to me, because it shows that when Robby says "my department", the most important part of that sentence to Baran is the ownership. that Robby's worried about what's his (the ED) and not what's her's (the seizures). in her eyes, she trusts him with what's her's and he doesn't do the same in return because he thinks he's the only one who can be trusted with it.

Robby, on the other hand, is thinking about how her disorder could affect the entire department. she's had sudden episodes twice in one day, both times over patients. the treatments she may need would cause her to be out of work, meaning a staffing shortage. the seizures could happen while she's actively working on a trauma patient, causing further injury or even death -- which could then trigger a lawsuit against her and the hospital for allowing her to work while impaired. her condition could worsen, she could develop new symptoms that would make it difficult for her to do both the physical doctoring and the administrative-ing that being (temporary) chief comes with. her teaching could be impacted. and personally, it could (and does!) take a real genuine toll on both her physical and mental health. her skills as a doctor aren't ever called into question, even before he sees them. it's the ability to run the department that he's concerned about, because if the chief can't run the department, the department falls apart. he thinks she's ignoring all that when she decides not to tell anyone else, which is what pisses him off.

(obligatory the fight was also at the end of a 15hr holiday shift from hell and Robby is in fact being a dick on purpose for suicide reasons)

that line of thinking isn't all good, obviously. it's why he's so harsh on himself (and Samira) when he breaks down -- if he can't keep himself together, it's going to have major affects on everyone who depends on him, patient and staff alike. he can't break, he has to be there, he has to be On, he has to be "the bee protecting the hive". it's what makes him a good leader, and it's what's killing him.

(i could -- and maybe will one day -- do another whole thing about Robby and Samira because it's so vibrantly glaringly obvious that he's terrified she'll become like him, and also that most of the more egregious moments of him being a dick in s2 were all Robby trying to make sure that their mentor's (his own) death wouldn't tear them apart like Adamson's did to him, and it's easiest if they hate him and remember him as an asshole. not on this post though lol i'll make my own)

spiderman dances to the beat

Gameboy Nostalgia - Pokémon Red & Blue Versions

PBS and NPR were never beholden to the US government.

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting was created so that the US government could fund public media without public media being influenced by the government. It was a private non-profit funded by the government, not a part of the government itself. This is by design. This was a good thing. It meant that even small local TV and radio stations, could afford to create media for the public good, without government influence.

This meant TV and radio stations for poor communities. For non-english speaking communities. For rural communities. For minorities. It meant that free and accessible media could be created for everyone, even if the government didn't like it.

That's why conservatives defunded it.

Because if they couldn't control it, and if it helped the people they hated, then they would have to destroy it. Do you really think that a fascist government would defund their own propaganda machine?

Not only is the idea that PBS before being defunded was propaganda wrong, but ignores the fact that defunding it is going to have long-term negative effects on vulnerable communities.

Screenshot via Alejandra Caraballo @esqueer.net on bluesky

Tldr Amnesty International, global human rights organisation, published a report called 'A growing threat: the anti-rights movement in the UK'. In it is detailed, amongst others, a whole bunch of transphobic groups and organisations, including Beira's Place, JK Rowling's trans exclusionary sexual violence support service. JK Rowling threw a shit fit and got Amnesty to take the report down by threatening libel. This was obviously not enough, because you can't appease a fascist, so now she's going to bankroll a bunch of lawsuits anyway through the JK Rowling Women's Fund.*

You can read an archived version of the report here, please save it and share it.

Elliott Page is a man. Juno is a girl. (Yes yes Vanya Hargreeves is a trans man but Page came out midway through filming and the filmmakers' solution was to have the character transition too - if they'd kept Hargreeves a woman or written Hargreeves out altogether, Hargreeves would still be a woman regardless of what Page was up to because Vanya Hargreeves is not Elliott Page.)

I make a point of never knowing any more than the absolute bare minimum about an actor who plays a character I love, because they are different people. I will look up their height because it's useful for fics, their pronouns in case I ever have to refer to them, and their nationality and whether they're still alive. I will sometimes look up an actor's filmography if I particularly want to see them in more stuff, with the understanding that in other stuff they are playing a different character and, for instance, Bryan Mills and Qui-Gon Jinn, exist in different universes and will never meet and have nothing to do with each other. I will occasionally read interviews about the experience of playing specific characters because the actor, practically by definition, knows the character really, really well and Christopher Lee especially has a lot of very interesting stuff to say about Dooku. Other than that I do not care and I do not want to know.

Elliott Page is not Juno, he's Elliott Page.

Ewan McGregor is not Obi-Wan Kenobi, he's Ewan McGregor.

John Barrowman is not Captain Jack Harkness, he's John Barrowman.

You can, and I have, which is why I'm so militant about this now, get yourself in a world of hurt feelings by assuming otherwise.

whatever we do, we can't win. we can't be seen as actually nonbinary. people binarize us and often mock us or get aggressive or dismiss and ignore our nonbinaryhood or something else.

if we don't medically transition, we are "just cis trenders."

if we do medically transition, we are "just [binary trans] eggs."

we are "technically transmasc or transfem anyways" if we don't use these terms.

we are lumped together with binary trans men and trans women if we do use these terms. our nonbinaryhood is ignored or seen as some kind of "gender-lite."

we are aggressively pressured to disclose if we're AFAB or AMAB, TMA or TME, transmasc or transfem, "boy nonbinary" or "girl nonbinary." and if we refuse to answer, people get double mad at us and pick something for us anyways.

if we show the slightest hint of something that could be interpreted as binary gendered, we are immediately binarised.

if we put a lot of effort into looking the most ambiguous or androgynous or neutral, people still try to find something. and they become aggressive. people often EXPLODE [PT: explode] when they can't gender someone by glance.

our ways of expression are constantly mocked and ignored (like neopronouns, nonbinary-centering labels for gender and orientation, basically all things that are associated with nonbinary people).

but if we choose more typical ways of expression (for example, use "he/him" or "she/her" pronouns), people use it to ignore and dismiss our nonbinaryhood.

We literally do not have enough friendships. Our culture's obsession with romance over friendship is shockingly new (1850's on) and it is having a serious impact on our health across the board, specifically men. This problem has become sharply exacerbated in the last 20 years.

We need more friendships. We need more friendship in media. "But what if they kissed?" What if they didn't, and the love that was there mattered anyway??? Take my hand. Imagine this with me. A relationship unbound by law or expectation. People who choose one another again and again. To stay in each other's lives when there are no societal tethers holding them together.

This is the most beautiful scientific diagram I've ever seen.

Do not work on your days off.

"But--"

Do not “answer a few emails” on your vacation

Do not work off the clock

1) Thank you, seriously. Those are fun and being included shows that my followers care enough to want to learn more about me.

yes a few for OCverses but ultimately i know mine will never compare to the perfectest being in fiction, the ATLA turtleduck <3