Red Star Falling

AU where things went well ? ?

*tears out my heart and hands it to you*

Something something Erid is a high-pressure, no light planet with liquid water and bioluminescent, lure-based, energy efficient ocean creatures could develop; something something Eridians have close to no spatial memory and therefore worse scale? memory; something something Eridians are the apex land predator specifically.

Uber drivers can be suspended at 4.6 stars.

Lyft drivers risk suspension under 4.8 stars.

Even for apps where they don’t have a publicly stated minimum, their algorithms will bury you.

4 stars does not mean 4 stars. It means 1.4 stars.

I'm a teacher, and every year, the State sends out a "climate" survey to all students, parents, and teachers. It has a 1-5 scale and a 'not applicable' option. If you select 4 or 'not applicable' it's marked against the school.

For example, I'm a virtual teacher. The climate survey has questions about the safety and cleanliness of the halls and bathrooms in the school. A normal person would assume that, if they attend a virtual school, they should use the 'not applicable' option, since their school has no halls or bathrooms. Nope, if they select anything but 5 out of 5, our school gets marked down.

This girl was uncomfortably cheerful, to the point where anyone who has worked in service and retail could see she was just really, really close to losing her shit, but apparently if she didn't act like that, as a young, attractive woman, men would mark her down to the point she would get in trouble.

queer, particularly trans representation hasn't come all that far in 20 years. maybe there's less blatant transphobia, but there sure as hell isn't any widespread positive representation. we have multiple generations of trans women and men who were only able to explore their identities during adolescence in online spaces. and kids today are being stripped of that.

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.