I Cannot Over-emphasize The Degree To Which Ive Been Preparing My Entire Life For This Moment @jone-slugger

He's gay he's a patholical liar he's a political exile his boyfriend is the stations wannabe pass around party twink who can't actually get anyone to pass him around or party

Made a Damar and Weyoun edit to "Shadow" by Sidewalks and Skeletons + Goo Monday

(cw suicidal thoughts)

Headcanon that Julian's parents moved to San Francisco while he was at the Academy to keep an eye on him/ "support" him and he was invited round to theirs at least once a week and they would randomly show up at his dorm with some dinner ("we know you're working so hard, Jules") (half the time it's something he doesn't even like that much) and while he is enjoying his time at the Academy - and it's still better than living with his parents and he gets actual time away from them now - his post at DS9 is the first time he's ever been able to properly distance himself from them.

This is also partly why he became such a ladies' man - his mum turned up once when he was entertaining a girl and she quickly apologised for interrupting and then the next week when they were eating together all his parents' questions were about the girl and they were saying "if you don't have as much time for us, do let us know, we wouldn't want to get in the way of true love future grandchildren 😉😉" and Julian gets kind of used to having a girlfriend as a sort-of form of, like, self-defense? Which is an awful reason to have a girlfriend and is not a mindset that particularly serves him well, but at some points when his parents are being particularly intense, it becomes literally about survival.

(Also, a reason why he's so weird about turning 30 - he's kind of freaking out because there were lots of times when he never really thought he'd make it, but it's a lot easier to stick to the socially acceptable line of "I feel so old :/" rather than telling people "I only stopped being actively suicidal sometime after I left Earth and still can't quite believe I ever escaped")

Meet the seven new frog species we just named after iconic Star Trek captains!

Artwork by A. Petzold, CC BY-ND 4.0

At the right time of year along rushing streams in the humid rainforests that stretch the length of Madagascar's eastern and northern mountain ridges, otherworldly trills of piercing whistles can be heard.

Are they birds? Insects? Communicator beeps? Tricorder noises?

No, they're little treefrogs!

Boophis janewayae. Photo by M. Vences, CC BY-SA 4.0

Until recently, we thought all of the populations of these little brown frogs across the island were one widespread species, Boophis marojezensis, described in 1994. But genetics in the early 2000s and 2010s showed that there were several species here, not just one.

Now my colleagues and I have shown that they are in fact eight separate species, each with unique calls!

These whistling sounds reminded us so much of Star Trek sound effects that we decided to name the seven new species after Star Trek captains: Boophis kirki, B. picardi, B. janewayae, B. siskoi, B. pikei, B. archeri, and B. burnhamae.

Photos of all new species described by Vences et al. 2024. CC BY-SA 4.0

I subtly and not-so-subtly built some Star Trek references into the paper, but probably the best one is this one:

'Finding these frogs sometimes requires considerable trekking; pursuing strange new calls, to seek out new frogs in new forests; boldly going where no herpetologist has gone before.'

— Vences et al. 2024

There’s a real sense of scientific discovery and exploration here, which we think is in the spirit of Star Trek.

Of course, it doesn't hurt that there are at least two Trekkies amongst the authors (including yours truly). As fans of Star Trek, we are also just pleased to dedicate these new species to the characters who have inspired and entertained us over the decades.

On a personal note, this marks a milestone for me, as it means I have now described over 100 frog species! I am very pleased that the 100th is Captain Janeway's Bright-eyed Frog, Boophis janewayae (if you count them in order of appearance in the paper)—she is probably my favourite captain, and I really love Star Trek: Voyager.

You can read more about the discovery of these new species on my website! You can also read the Open Access paper published in Vertebrate Zoology here.

starfleet ds9 crew: we only have two morally compromising options before us here... what we need is a third option

the third option:

he's like if the trolley problem could be solved by a mentally unwell gay lizard jumping onto the trolley and blowing up the track before it got to the junction where the switch could theoretically happen

I had a lot of fun drawing out this little sequence from @alphacygni-8‘s Especially the Lies, though perhaps it’s a little bit spoilery! 

Paul Wesley gets a lot of shit for not looking much like Shatner’s Kirk (even though he’s got the mannerisms down perfectly), which seems unfair considering he looks exactly like TAS Kirk

LMAOOOOO IM LISTING TO THE GARAK BOOK RIGHT NOW AND IT'S JUST HIM TRAMA DUMPING TO BASHIR FOR 20 HOURS STRAIGHT... I can't stop picturing Bashir listening to all of Garaks messages like:

"Our Man Bashir" as text posts

Even the fiercest warrior needs a good skincare routine.