I'd forgotten how irrationally anti-vegan this hellsite is.

A lot of people don't know about why lawns are so disliked outside of how they are a waste of water, so here:

carbon emissions put out by lawn mowers (and other devices like leaf blowers). Lawn mowers produce significantly more greenhouse gases per hour of use than cars, and majorly contribute to smog.

Fertilizers get into bodies of water and cause algae blooms, converting all the diverse water plants to homogenous green slime.

Pesticides kill fireflies, bees, and all sorts of other beneficial insects, and many can kill or harm fish, birds and even humans.

Herbicides can have negative effects on the wrong targets too, but they are also causing common agricultural weeds to evolve resistance faster, increasing our dependence on pesticides.

Watering lawns does waste a lot of fresh water.

Lawns replace areas that once could have contained 100+ plant species with monocultures of frequently invasive species. Butterflies can't find host plants this way. Bees can't find food. Thousands of insect species rely on specific plants for food, and no other plant will do. A huge amount of the land is taken up by these wastelands.

Lawns also create dead, compacted, lifeless soil that is hard to grow other things in or near. The root systems of turf grasses are not robust enough to allow water to penetrate in. No matter how much nitrogen and phosphorous you dump on a lawn, it will still be lacking in the organic matter needed to create lush, absorbent dirt.

Dirt is supposed to be full of fungal mycelium. Scientists have discovered recently that the vast majority of all plant species are dependent on a network of symbiotic fungi attached to their roots for 80% of their phosphorous needs and 90% of their nitrogen needs.

Yes, this means that when you put a fungicide on your lawn, you've just nerfed that plant's ability to absorb nutrients by up to 90%. And you've also devastated its ability to absorb water, because plants are partly dependent on their fungi to get water out of dirt.

But fungicide isn't the only problem. Every plant in a natural environment is attached to multiple species of fungus, and most fungi are attached to multiple species of plant (though some are specialists). Trees literally use this system to send nutrients to other trees. We discovered recently that trees in deserts in California can survive extreme drought because they're attached to fungi that can break down rocks and extract water from the rocks.

If you don't have a good variety of plant species and rotting leaves and sticks and stuff, it doesn't matter how much fertilizer you put on it, your soil isn't "healthy" because it's not alive.

Vegetation that has been cropped extremely short doesn't hold in water, so a heavily maintained lawn is likely unnaturally dry for your climate, and a flower or bush in the middle of a lawn without tall grasses, shrubs and weeds nearby is getting pounded by the sun much harder than it's meant to handle.

Yeah, gardening isn't hard, most native plants are falling all over themselves to grow, it's just that the standard suburban backyard is ridiculously hostile to life.

Of course at this point you may be wondering

"What do I do instead?"

Well, here you go:

Stop weeding, spraying and fertilizing. Seriously. Stop it!! Stop it!! Chemical intervention in your lawn traps you in a vicious cycle of creating problems that need to be solved with more chemicals.

"Weeds" are a perfect example. Plants commonly considered "weeds" are adapted to take over areas that have been cleared out of other plants. Many "weeds" are actively harmed by the fungi that other plants depend on, meaning they can ONLY thrive in disturbed or devastated areas. The harder you work to eliminate biodiversity in your yard, the harder nature is going to bomb your yard with weeds.

By the way, google the "soil seed bank." Seeds can stay dormant in soil for years or even decades. If you want a "weed-free" lawn, get ready to apply herbicides for the rest of your life.

Mow less often. You really can't go wrong with this one.

Don't try to grow grass where grass doesn't want to grow. Lots of shade? Try moss. Extremely dry? Try drought-adapted plants. See what wants to grow there and let it do its thing.

It's fine to have a lawn area that you actually use. But if no one walks or plays on a stretch of your lawn, it should be something else. A wildflower patch, a stand of prairie grasses, some large shrubs, a grove of trees.

By the way, the idea that shrubs or flower beds are higher maintenance than lawns is wrong. The neat thing about native species is that once they've gotten settled, you literally just do nothing.

People think flower beds are high maintenance because people almost always underpopulate them. They think that there should be big spaces of mulch in between each plant. In a full sun flower bed that's actually filled to capacity, you shouldn't be able to see the ground. If your plants aren't babies anymore and there's still space, more plants.

if you live in an area that was once forest, PLEASE, plant some trees, and not just one tree. Trees are somewhat like guinea pigs, actually, they don't want to be alone. They send each other nutrients through their roots and screen each other from wind damage.

By the way, the "mature spread" of a tree as told on websites means when you plant it by itself. Trees can generally be planted 6-10 feet apart and be perfectly happy, they'll just grow taller and straighter instead of spreading out. (Look at pictures of forests.) HOWEVER large trees like large oaks should really be 25+ feet from structures and septic tanks

(Trees pop up by themselves in lawns. Constantly. Search for them in a woodland biome and you will likely find baby oaks and maples and other cool guys.)

Trees introduce competition for light into the areas you plant them, helping eliminate the "weeds." You know how fast your lawn grows up and gets weedy when you don't mow it? Yeah, that's partly because it's getting a CRAP TON of sunlight dumped on it with reckless abandon.

A shade garden gets "weedy" WAY slower, and unlocks all sorts of gorgeous flowers that don't thrive in a full sun garden. Fallen leaves serve both as compost and mulch. If you live in the right area for it and have room, you cannot go wrong with trees.

Not all wax is beeswax! HOWEVER I do find it hilarious that they use so much parchment that there is canonically a VAST amount of resources devoted solely to animal skin

I mean yeah, but pumping bees full of chemicals to get them to create the MOST WAX to meet the IMPERIAL WAX TITHES is funny. Each bee is the size of a baseball and has a stinger like a small dagger. If it stings you (thus killing itself) you are put in jail for wasting a valuable bees.

A big part of Intuitive Eating involves the de-stigmatizing of food. How do we de-stigmatize food? By not assigning it moral qualities, and by not using derogatory, negative language when we talk about food.

Examples of moralizing, derogatory and negative language we, under diet culture, still use regularly when talking about food:

"Sinful"

"Fattening"

"Unhealthy"

"Deadly"

"Bad for you"

"Clean"

"Pure"

"Healthy"

"Good" "

Junk/Junk food"

"Crap/Crappy"

Words to use instead of: Instead of "Sinful", or "Fattening", use "Decadent", "Rich" or "Delicious". Avocados and dark chocolate and many organic, "healthy" foods will make you fatter if you eat them often enough. Is this really about health? Or is it about fatphobia?

Instead of "Unhealthy", you can just say what it is about the food that impairs your health. "It hurts my stomach," "It makes my skin greasy/makes me break out", "I'm allergic to it" "I feel nauseous when I eat that." That at least is honest. Saying any food that isn't on some diet culture list of approved foods is "unhealthy" is just not scientifically accurate or backed by anything other than fear mongering.

Yes, eating foods high in fat and salt and sugar in large enough quantities, for long enough periods of time can negatively affect your health, but the vast majority of studies done on exactly how it affects your health, do not control for participants' smoking, drinking, drug use, genetic predispositions (genetics makes up a significant portion of health by the way), sedentary lifestyle, exposure to chemicals in the environment, mental health status, or literally anything outside of what they eat, so... yeah... f@ck that.

Ditto with "Bad for you." It's just so formless and un-researched and based in fatphobia. What does that even mean? In what amount is it "bad for you?" would it be equally bad for anyone to eat "unhealthy" foods at any time? Is there a magic threshold past which one's donut consumption goes from infrequent to "bad for you" levels? Or, are human beings a wildly diverse group of people, who all have very different bodies, metabolisms, genetics, tolerances, tastes and needs.

"Clean" is just as bad as "Bad For You", only worse, because it's so moralistic. If food is made out of animals, plants and grains, and is considered edible by human beings, it's fucking clean. Now if you're talking about gross things falling into the food by accident during the process of making it, or if you're talking about pesticides being used on your fruit and vegetables, then I get wanting to make sure the food is "clean". But if you're putting food on some sort of angelic pedestal for being free from sugar, or saturated fats, or carbohydrates, then you are still stuck in diet culture.

Instead of "Junk food", which implies that the food itself is garbage, which is honestly just a horrifying way to think about and talk about food, you could say "play food", "fun food", "snack food". These foods: chips, chocolate, cookies etc. aren't meant to fulfill your nutritional needs. We eat them for enjoyment, or to pick us up when we're blue, to calm us when we're stressed, or just because it tastes good and we like eating it. I think gentle nutrition is important, and paying attention to how food makes you feel is obviously important, but the way we perceive food and talk about food, reinforces what we think of ourselves when we eat it. If we are eating "bad" and "unhealthy" foods, then we are bad and unhealthy people, and that is a mind-fuck, believe me.

I've performed a 25 year longitudinal dieting study on myself. I know what it feels like to absolutely hate myself for what my body tells me it wants to eat. Not fun. So please have a care with the way you speak about food, and the way you look at yourself in relation to food. Food is sustenance and life. It is meant to be enjoyed, not feared. Lets not talk about food as if the thing meant to connect us to life also makes us inherently morally deviant.

[“Take a moment to visualize a crouching cheetah, its eyes focused, its muscles twitching in anticipation, as it prepares to attack a swift, darting impala. I want you to track your own responses as you watch the sleek cheetah overtake its prey in a seventy-mile-an-hour surge of speed. The impala falls to the ground an instant before the cheetah sinks its claws into the haunches of its prey. It is almost as if the animal has surrendered itself to the predator and to certain death. However, the fallen impala is not dead. Although it appears limp and motionless, its nervous system is still highly charged from the swift chase. Though it is barely breathing or moving, the animal’s heart and brain are still racing. The same chemicals discussed earlier that helped fuel its attempted escape continue to flood its brain and body.

There is a possibility that the impala will not be devoured immediately. The mother cheetah may drag its (apparently dead) prey behind a bush, then go seek out its hungry cubs, safely hidden at a distance. While the cheetah is gone, the temporarily “frozen” impala may awaken from its state of shock, then shake and tremble in order to discharge the vast amount of energy it mobilized to escape death. After completing this normalization procedure, the impala will stand up on wobbly legs, take a few tentative steps, then bound off in search of the herd as if nothing unusual had occurred.

The “immobility response” used by the impala is just as important a survival tool as “fight” and “flight.” This normal survival strategy is also called the “freezing” response. Slow and relatively unprotected animals like the opossum use immobility as their first line of defense. Any animal that is trapped in a situation where fight and flight are not viable options will use it. Another of the vital functions of the immobility response is numbness. If the impala (or human) is killed while “frozen,” it will not suffer pain or even terror during its demise.

We humans use the immobility response — frozen energy — regularly when we are injured or even when we feel overwhelmed. Unlike the impala, though, we tend to have trouble returning to normal after being in this state. The very feelings that we need to access in order to us help steer ourselves back to the present are, in effect, numbed-out. This difficulty in normalizing ourselves is very important. I believe that the ability to return to equilibrium and balance, after using the “immobility response,” is the primary factor in avoiding being traumatized.

How do wild animals successfully return to their normal state? The answer lies in the particular type of spontaneous shaking, trembling, and breathing that I described earlier. I remember that when I shared my observations about animal behavior with Andrew Bwanali, chief park biologist of the Mzuzu Environmental Center in Malawi, Central Africa, he nodded excitedly, then burst out: “Yes … yes … yes! That is true. Before we release captured animals back into the wild, we make absolutely sure that they have done just what you have described.” He looked down at the ground, then added softly, “If they have not trembled and breathed that way before they are released, they will not survive. They will die.”]

peter levine, from healing trauma, 2008

So the nonhuman theme of the day that I've been seeing on the Internet seems to be self doubt both due to internal and external influences.

My response to this theme is this. You are who you are. And no one can tell you who you are but you. (The rest of the post is pretty much just this^^ in way more detail than necessary. You have been warned lol. Buckle up this is gonna be a long one. Literally took all day to write 😅)

Most of us live in a society where we've been told since infancy who we are are and what we must be, and if we don't fit in the predesignated boxes then there must be something wrong with us and we just need to be forced into a box. But just think about the vastness of life for a second. From macro to micro there's just so much to everything it's breathtaking. Everything is layered. Why should one being's existence be any different. There is what is seen and then there is everything else. Some thing's don't need to be understood by others, because they are not there for others. They are simply there. Wether we understand them or not. And that in itself (I think) is quite lovely.

I am Fae. Not just because of ______. I am Fae because it is simply what I am. It's what feels right.

It's ok to just exist. It's ok to live without ever fitting into boxes or labels. And if you find a label or box that fits you, that's ok too. It's your existence. Do what makes you happy. I've also found that sometimes, finding that feeling that you fit somewhere, comes first and the reasons why come after. Be patient. I know it's maddening sometimes when you've got a million questions bumping about in your head, or even just one or two burning ones, but life is a journey. A mystery to uncover through experiences.

I could give you a whole laundry list of reasons why I can call myself Fae. But at the end of the day, the only reason I need is that it feels right. I don't need to act like the stereotypical Fae (from folklore, media etc), I don't need to have magical experiences, I don't need memories. Keep in mind that your nonhuman identity does not need to match anyone else's.

If you're a Fae who loves technology and finds the modern age fascinating. Guess what? There's nothing wrong with that. (I LOVE Minecraft 😁 Though that may or may not have to do with the fact that I get to fly around and build whatever I want from nothing. Yes I'm obsessed with creative mode 😅 I usually get bored in survival)

If you're a Therian who's never enjoyed being on all fours or who doesn't like gear. It doesn't make you any less Therian. Do what makes you happy 😊.

If you're some ancient entity and you use an ungodly (hehe) amount of emojis and/or abbreviations (ex. Lol, omg, etc) it doesn't make you any less ancient or awesome. Do what you enjoy. You are too old to not be having as much fun as you can experience. I'm also an ancient creature, you really think I want to spend my time not doing what makes the happy chemicals 😊✨👁️🪽😁.

If you're an Alien who's not obsessed with space stuff. That's ok. Human portrayals probably don't do it justice anyway, and there's so many other things to be interested in. Like have you seen mushrooms? Those funky little guys come in so many varieties it's absolutely delightful 😊🍄✨.

If you're a vampire who can't stand the sight of blood. Don't worry about it. I can almost guarantee you're not alone (plus there's a lot of different types of vampires. If you know you are/were definitely sanguine then you're still valid 😊).

If you're fictionkin and you're absolutely nothing like your fictionkin type/character. That's ok 😊. People often change with their experiences, it doesn't make you any less yourself.

That last one applies to most nonhumans identities in general honestly 😅.

If you're an angel that doesn't/didn't have big feathery wings. You are still an angel. The universe is filled with too much color and variety for me to believe that all ______ have the same or very similar designs. I've never heard of an angel with dragonfly or beetle wings. That doesn't mean they don't exist 🙃.

You can be a plant who loves salads, a placekin who hates going outside, an objectkin that doesn't use it/it's pronouns or is super expressive, a vampire who adores sunbathing or just sunlight in general, a carnivore that doesn't like meat, an avian that's afraid of flying or heights, a demon with a heart of gold, a deity with social anxiety and/or low self esteem, an herbivore that loves going hunting, a dragon who prefers minimalism, an aquatic creature who doesn't like water, a void that's constantly overthinking, you can match all the known stereotypes for your nonhuman identity or none at all. You can have phantom shifts constantly or never get any, you can have countless identities, you can have just one, you can remember your past life/lives in detail or remember nothing at all, you can believe in past lives and souls, or not, your identity can be psychological, physical, spiritual, etc.

It's s your identity. No one else's. Just because you choose to share yourself or your identity with someone else does not mean they own you or your identity. It is, was and always shall be, yours. (Btw please please please, be careful who you share your nonhuman identity with. Not everyone is going to "get it". And not everyone is going to accept it. Stay safe, mentally, physically, emotionally etc.)

They say names have power. They also say not all things are what they seem. Whatever your nonhuman identity looks like, only you can know what it truly is. Understand that I am not saying that the appearance of one's nonhuman identity should be dismissed altogether, especially when one is still questioning. I am saying, that we shouldn't rely solely upon appearances. If your nonhuman identity fits in the category of x as far as appearances go but x just doesn't feel like it fits, then chances are, you're not x, or there's more to it than just x. I've known I was Fae since right around 2019. However I doubted myself for a long time because as far as I knew Fae were "supposed to have insect wings" and on top of having big feathery wings, I have a lot of them. In fact many of my nonhuman features could be considered angelic. However I've never felt particularly comfortable identifying as an angel. It just never felt like the right fit. It took awhile but eventually after I'd already accepted that my "angelic features" didn't make me any less Fae. I remembered why I had those features to begin with, and it all just clicked into place.

It's ok to not have all the answers or even the correct answers right away. Life is experiences. From moment to moment you are who you are. Things may change, new truths may be revealed, that doesn't make you or your identity any less real. You are whoever you are right now. Wether that is someone/something from everything you have ever been or ever shall be or just one thing right now, unconnected to anything else. You are not fake for changing. You're not fake for not changing. Most have doubts about themselves about all sorts of things. To the point where it seems like doubt is just part of the human world experience (not saying it's only a human world experience, just that everyone here seems to doubt themselves about something or other) and perhaps working through our doubts is a lesson of this place, then again maybe not 🤷. In the end what you believe is up to you😊.

Now, I'm not expecting that this single post from a total stranger will erase all your doubts. Not at all. I didn't write it to erase doubt, but rather to give it a little bit of something to fight against. To plant just one more seed in the hearts and minds of others who might need it or whom it might help in any way. This post is far from the only one out there, fighting doubt in its many forms and faces. And what I've said has already been said in many times and ways. But it's my take and not everything will click with everyone. If this post helps even just one being, then it has served it's purpose. Each and every single one or plural of us is unique in our own ways. And I truly believe that's one of the most wonderful things about life as a whole.

If you've read this far, I apologize if I got a bit carried away and made this post longer than necessary but it means a great deal to me and things that matter to me are very difficult to "sum up" 😅. And if you follow me. I warn you now that most of my posts will probably be a bit lengthy if not extremely so.

And now my dear creatures, crawlers, beasts, beauties, hellions, heavenlies (no I don't care that that's not a word it is now lol), magicals, marvels, wonders, wanderers, wildlings, winged things, whimsies, and whatsits (and everything beyond and in between) I wish upon you a most wonderful day/night. May you always know/remember that your existence makes the world a more magical place. 🌍✨ (And in my opinion we could use all the magic we can get 😊)

👁️🪽✨🍄🍀🪻🌱🥀❄️🌟✨

Till next time.

We've known for a long while that people find different things about d&d to be fun and what archetypes they fall into, but I'd posit that within the framework of everything that is "Dungeons and Dragons" there exists several wildly different games/forms of fun that all from a part of the d&d ecosystem.

This was brought up during a discussion with my partner when we were talking about the build for her bard. She LOVES playing d&d, it's one of the highlights of her week, but her brain just doesn't give her the happy chemicals when it comes time to do anything related to character building: levelling up, managing her inventory and spell list, charting out what her abilities do, all these things are a chore she puts up with so she can play at the table with our friends. Compare that to me, who loves building characters so much that I have an ever growing stable of concepts I'm never going to get to play, some of which are so developed I not only have them planned out from low to high level but have gone so far as to make playlists about them.

My brain clearly does give me the happy chemicals when dealing with character stuff, to the point where one of my favourite things as a Dm is trawling through my vast archive of 3rd party content to help a player realize a mechanical/flavor concept that might otherwise be hard to nail. Further contrast that with the older generation of tabletop characters who invest almost nothing into characters and throw that into meat-grinder dungeons, or the folks who spend years debating build optimization on forums but seldom ever rolling dice at the table. We're all playing very different FORMS of d&d.

This variance applies to nearly every aspect of the game: dungeons, combat, roleplay, story, but because we don't have strong terms for as many of these variables as we should we end up with mismatches, especially when narrowmidned folks start talking about how the way they play d&d is the RIGHT or ONLY way to play it.

There's a lot of communities that are guilty of this ( anyone who's ever complained about the Critical role effect for instance) but strangely enough one of the biggest ones is WotC, who's trying to make OneDnD for a VERY specific group of people

They play online

They play official modules almost exclusively

They don't use much 3rd party material, if any

They are willing to accept limited character customization for sake of ease.

Not only does no one I play with fit inside that group of people, it's a profile that more accurately fits MMO players, a group of people that broke off from d&d's target audience somewhere around the 90s. You have to wonder how much of the shitshow OD&D has amounted to is all just a reaction to world of warcraft biting into Wotc's bottomline

Against all odds, we found each other. And we will find each other again.

This is my entry for a Draw This In Your Style challenge on Twitter for the effort to save Our Flag Means Death.

Mine was partly inspired by Stede sending his love letters to Ed via messages in bottles, set adrift in the sea, hoping against all odds that one might reach him someday (spoiler alert, it did).

I also happened to watch this video today about the incredible, incomprehensible vastness of the universe (a lot of this info wasn't new to me, but it's fun to watch people's reactions to this stuff!), and I also started thinking about the incredible odds that we, as complex, self-aware life forms, exist at all (I think about this kind of thing all the time).

The above video references Pale Blue Dot, a really famous photo taken of earth from billions of kilometers away [*and if you look carefully you can spot it in my illustration above]:

[source]

The astronomer Carl Sagan wrote this famous & beloved passage about it (video about it below):

[source]

Just think about it! It has taken billions of years and vast amounts of energy and the right chemical reactions for us to be right here, sitting here thinking & talking about it right now. Every human being who has ever existed won a really incredible lottery.

And how does this tie into Our Flag Means Death? Among the billions of people currently alive on Earth, some of us gathered from all over the world as a community around OFMD, a profound work of art that resonates with us about our shared humanity. That's really something fucking special! We get to experience this all together.

Bonus: I included the imagery of a solar eclipse for a couple reasons. The symbols of sun & moon are repeated metaphors in OFMD associated with Ed and Stede. Also, since a total solar eclipse is an alignment between sun & moon, that seems like a perfect symbol for their relationship.

And speaking of odds, solar eclipses on Earth are pretty unique:

[source]

Edit 21 Jan 2024 - somehow I forgot to include that part of the reason I included the eclipse imagery is that there will be a total solar eclipse viewable from many parts of the US this year, on 8th April. Here are some links about it:

Road trip! See April's total solar eclipse from one of these awesome North American routes

Why 2024's Total Solar Eclipse Will Be So Special

The Science of 2024's Epic Solar Eclipse, the Last for a Generation

(tip: you can read the articles for free if you have Firefox by clicking the icon below in your search bar)

SO yeah that's my story about the design I came up with for the DTIYS Save OFMD thing, and how I've been feeling about OFMD & the fandom community, and how this entire experience for me has felt fucking miraculous.

in conclusion, Peace and Love on Planet Earth /gen

Researchers use nitrogen-based compounds as new high-performance energy storage materials

Researchers at the University of Bayreuth have synthesized unique scandium polynitrides under extreme conditions, with exotic chemistry and potential applications as high-energy-density materials. High-energy density materials (HEDMs) are pivotal in various applications due to their superior energetic performance, which includes high detonation velocity, detonation pressure, and energy storage capacity. Their application in space exploration as rocket propellants and in defense as explosives is of critical importance for modern society. The unique chemical properties of these materials, such as the ability to store vast amounts of energy in a relatively small volume, make them indispensable for advancing technology in areas requiring high-power outputs and compact energy storage solutions.

Read more.

School Funding and the Teacher Pay offer

So in the light of the pay offer made to teachers in England, there’s a big debate about whether this offer is actually fully funded and whether it is affordable for schools. On twitter, you may see some headteachers saying yes, it is affordable, and some saying it isn’t for their school. This isn’t just down to political allegiance, or a desire to avert more strikes. Because of the way school funding works, a pay offer can be affordable for one school, and not for another.

To understand this, you have to understand how school funding in England works (I think the rUK is similar, but I’m not confident enough to comment on that).

The vast majority of funding is per pupil funding. For every student that attends a school, the school is given £X of funding. Rather bizarrely, the actual amount given varies from local authority to local authority, but on average in England about £5215 was given to each school per pupil. There are other sources of money, which I’ll try to go into later, but this per pupil funding is supposed to cover the day-to-day running costs of a school. This money does go up a bit year on year, but it hasn’t kept pace with schools’ rising costs and so a lot of schools are really strapped for cash.

For most schools, by far the biggest cost is staffing. This isn’t just teachers, but support staff as well- everyone from the caretaker and the receptionist, right up to the head has to be paid out of this budget. The only slight exception to this is 1:1 teaching assistants, but I’ll come to that later. The key point is that the vast majority of staff, certainly all the teaching staff are paid from one central funding pot. This can have unintended consequences- such as schools preferring to employ cheaper early career teachers over more experienced staff who cost well over £10,000 more a year. It also means if you have a shortfall in your budget, often the only way to deal with it is by cutting staff numbers.

If a member of staff is off sick, and the school pays for a supply teacher, it comes from this pot. If someone’s off on maternity, the school pays their enhanced maternity pay, and the cover teacher from this pot. Which, again, can push schools into making decisions that aren’t great.

Schools then also have to pay energy costs. It’s worth bearing in mind that school aren’t covered by the energy price cap, and so were hammered with huge energy bills this winter. There’s often not much that can be done about this. Yes, the head can remind everyone to switch off computers and lights when not in use- but most schools aim to heat the whole building for about half the year- and that’s expensive!

Then there’s resources. Everything from exercise books to art materials, to chemicals for science- every worksheet that gets photocopied. Any new textbooks the school shells out for. New IT equipment. Footballs and rugby balls for PE. If desks or chairs need to be replaced- it all comes out of the same funding pot. When schools are short of cash, this is often the first budget to be cut. In recent years, in the vast majority of schools, this has been cut back as far as possible. Certainly, in primary schools, towards the end of the financial year, you’ll hear of schools where they’re told no more new glue sticks. Many teachers these days will supply certain basics (like spare pens, their own board pens) from their own pockets. If you’ve got a decent parent teacher association fundraising for the school, this is often where the money their raise goes.

So, those are probably the major day to day costs of running a school- but you can also end up with emergency costs. The boiler breaks. A ceiling springs a leak. A window gets broken. You need to fence off part of your site for safety reasons. All of this usually comes out of the central pot of per pupil money too. Sometimes, there are funding sources available for new buildings, but it’s pretty rare to be able to access additional funding for repairs. And some of our schools are older than others. Some are literally falling down!

Some students will attract additional funding. There’s something called “pupil premium” which is mainly for lower income students. There’s special educational needs funding, for students with additional needs (although honestly this system probably needs a post in itself). There can be additional funding for students who speak English as an additional language, or who have been in care.

In theory, this money is supposed to be spent solely on those students, but equally it can go into a central pot to e.g. pay for a class teaching assistant to help all the students who need some additional help. However, in recent years, a lot of these teaching assistants have been cut to save money. Some students with special educational needs have an education and healthcare plan- which can provide additional funding for a 1:1 teaching assistant. Often, these 1:1s are now used for whole class support to try and save money (technically, this is illegal, but as I say, it’s probably a whole separate post).

So, the 900 million the government has said schools will get towards funding the pay offer will be added on to per pupil funding. The department for education won’t work out which schools have more expensive teachers and give them more funding to pay for the pay increase. They won’t look at which schools have had big bills, relating to building work this year. Everyone will just get a certain increase in per pupil funding, and be told to make it work. This can be especially difficult for very small schools, where class sizes are smaller than about 30.

That’s supposed to fund 3% of the 6.5%. As you can see, it probably won’t for every school. But the other 3.5% is the bigger issue. This was the originally recommended pay rise for teachers for the 23-24 school year, before the strikes. Everyone (the DfE, the unions etc) says schools should have already budgeted for this- but some schools have no money to budget with. To fund this, they’re often cutting teaching assistant hours, cutting pastoral staff, maybe even cutting teacher numbers and having larger class sizes. They may cut additional responsibility payments for teaching staff (which are also going up by 6.5%). Definitely, they will try to avoid paying for supply, by using existing staff including any teaching assistants left for cover. In a few cases, they’re even considering shortening the school day, or the school week to reduce costs.

Overall, what it means is higher workload for teachers, and often a less good experience for students. I don’t usually have much sympathy for bosses, but I know there are heads who absolutely feel they cannot make this pay offer work. They’ve cut everything to the bone. They’ve already sacrificed the quality of education in their schools. And that’s why a lot of people are saying the current funding deal isn’t enough.

Tell us more about locusts!!!

I DONT KNOW IF U KNEW WHAT U WERE SIGNING UP FOR BUT THANK U FOR ASKING!!!

they’re insane! they’re grasshoppers! or they were before they got too buddy buddy with the other grasshoppers while trying to eat food when it’s scarce as hell in the desert. very “you’re not you when you’re hungry,” except snickers never did an ad campaign on the dangers of locusts…

anyway. grasshoppers usually travel alone. the saying is “lone wolf” but really it should be “lone grasshopper,” okay? okay. but, when food is scarce, they’re forced to gather together in one spot to eat, getting so close to each other that they bump their little leggies together constantly. this sounds harmless right? a little cuddle never hurt anyone right?? wrong! in about 20 of the 7000 known grasshopper species, something about rubbing their little leggies together triggers what’s called a “gregarious phase,” which is a hilarious term to me but that’s not important. they get greggy. and WHEN they get greggy, they undergo a whole chemical transformation basically overnight!!

a greggy boi will transform magical girl style, from tan (best to blend into the desert when alone) to bright yellow and black (which might signal they’re toxic — interestingly enough, when they get greggy, they start to change their diet to ingest local toxic plants that they used to avoid) and actually become slightly smaller than their grasshopper counterparts. their legs and wings become stronger though, so they can fly super long distances with their buddies and. well. yknow, destroy vast fields of crops cause they looove carbs now! and unfortunately so do we, hence why a plague of locusts has been a major problem since the dawn of time :)

but wait! there’s more! i bet you’re wondering how these plagues of locusts get so big and only come around every so often, right? well. turns out that these species of grashopper lay their eggs in damp soil. so, when there’s a lot of rain in the african desert, there’s a lot of free real estate for these hoppers to make massive amounts of hopper babies! except, those hopper babies have to eat, and BOY CAN THEY EAT. so they’ll eat and eat all the new vegetation that came with those Rains Down In Africa that Toto was talking about, and then what? well, if there’s enough rain and enough vegetation like there was a few years ago, then there’s enough time for potentially more than one generation of grashopper to procreate before the vegetation finally can’t keep up with their appetites. each generation can grow exponentially by about 20 times the previous gen, and a generation cycle only takes 3 months! which means, many months later when they finally do have to gather together to eat the last vestiges of food? there’s JUST. SO. MANY OF THEM. just an insane number of grashoppers in one place, getting soooo greggy. and that leads to what you may call A FUCKING LOCUST STORM OF BIBLICAL PROPORTIONS COMING FOR YOUR GRAINS. BAD NEWS BEARS.

so anyway, africa has a locust patrol of dudes just out there in the desert, looking for signs that grasshoppers are about to get greggy and destroy everything AGAIN, so they can proactively poison them and save the crops, but. sometimes they slip by like they did in 2018 and things get real bad.

also, if you have a greggy breed of grasshopper, you CAN trigger their transformation yourself by rubbing their legs enough, which i find endlessly fascinating.

and um. yeah! i’m likely forgetting lots of stuff in there because i just woke up but. there you have my very brief rundown on locust basics

Interesting to read your dom/sun analysis. I tend not to read that trope because a large amount of time it’s written badly, so thank you for explaining it to me. The majority of Klaine fics of this trope have Kurt as dom, and I feel the author is wanting to imply he is the stronger, decision maker, more capable of the couple. What do you think?

Thanks for the ask! I'm sharing this as -my perspective only- and each person, of course, can headcanon as they please. I am incredibly passionate about this subject and trope, and I could write about another 100k words.

A true dominant 'doms' out of service, love, and compassion for their sub or fellow human being. It's not born entirely of ego or acted on in a need to control others and/or some magical intelligence that makes them better at making decisions or being in charge. Although, that doesn't exclude the possibility that they might be those things. Someone should not be labeled a dom simply because they have the ability to be strong, just as someone should not be labeled submissive because they have the ability to surrender (and I always use the word surrender as a sacred, consenting action).

In the fewest words possible, a dom/sub relationship is a trust so profound that they trust someone to be what they need. Sometimes as a sub, that is the dom making a decision for them, sometimes it's holding their hand, sometimes it's asking them to kneel so they can go deep within, sometimes it's pain (like edging or crops etc if the dom/sub pair is into that) because they feel so numb in this world that they're begging their dom to help them feel something. It can be anything and everything as they explore what they each need, but it is never about power/and the powerless. There must be consent, understanding, and a safe way out for both parties if desired.  The surrender is all about letting go, surrendering so you can find that thing you need, whether it's ethereal or tangible. It's trusting that the other can provide it (either the dom or sub). A dom's true satisfaction comes from knowing that they are accomplishing the giving and the helping (this can come in various forms that people outside the scene might not understand).

I don't know the intention behind other author's takes, they are vast and varied. I speak only for myself, when I say there are dozens of reasons why I think that Kurt and Blaine each exhibit both tendencies at different times. I don't only see Kurt as a dom, just as I don't only see Blaine as a sub. I can observe that in different circumstances, they each take up different roles. They each have strengths and weaknesses, and they both need help at different times. They are each brilliantly divine and magnificently flawed, as we all are. And that's why I love AUs. I love to take these complex characters and say. "Okay, what if this one thing was different or that thing? What then?"

I go into DEEP character studies in my D/s stories. If you've ever wanted to try one, I promise you they aren't what you're used to in this trope. They are always equals. Always loved and always safe with each other (out in the world is a different thing altogether). 

Just One Look dom Blaine and sub Kurt This one is about Kurt fighting his submissive instincts (he has no idea what they are), and when he realizes why he's having them, everything changes when Blaine discusses in great detail what a dom/sub relationship actually is. 

Since Sense Sensory dom Kurt and sub Blaine Explores how the boys found each other again after a long separation. They have many conversations about how the dom/sub scene has helped them overcome grief and loss and manage their strengths and weaknesses. 

Soulsons and Seatstars dom Kurt and sub Blaine (with hints of dom Blaine) Is an AU world where a natural chemical balance is needed. A dom cannot live without a sub, and a sub cannot live without a dom (that's an oversimplification), so if you are new to dom/sub, this is an interesting take because it helps you better understand the symbiotic relationship in tangible terms. Again, they talk so much about their dynamics. And this one might surprise you how Blaine might be a sub, but he's got a sassy tongue and a dom streak that Kurt very much encourages. 

Thanks for the question. I hope I answered it, alright. I love these boys so much! Klaine owns my whole heart and soul. I always want the best for both of them. 

17 million years hence

17 million years hence the end of the anthropocene, mankind has changed. Most organs have atrophied to the point of vestigiality due to vast technological advances and the expansion of brain mass which requires vast amounts of nutrients to be redirected away from other organs. The liver, reduced to nothing more than a small fist-sized lump of stem cells; bone marrow, converted into porous storage for nutrient supplies; the heart, reduced to a bundle of convulsing knotted arteries, often connected to external blood-sacs and biomechanical vacuum-pump muscular aides in order to keeps the blood flowing. The blood has thinned, no longer requiring the costly lymph and immune cells, complex hemoglobin simply reduced to simple ferrous oxides, a byproduct of human genetic experimentation to reduce bodily demands for complex replacement proteins in old age that need to be produced in resource-intensive chemical vats after the extinction of ~95.7% of all species of life on Earth. The limbs are practically useless; legs only containing an extended femur knitted with cartilage to a rudimentary bowed leg bone, the patella completely obliterated, muscle tissue practically non-existent; the arms, still fairly similar to those of today, asides from their distension to an average length of 2 meters, fingers, too, distended and spindly to operate minute and complex machinery, nails turned to rigid hoof-like finger caps, thumbs used as secondary fingers in case of a needed transplant. The skin has mostly thinned to a thin sheet at most ~500 cells in thickness, nearly transparent in colour, having lost all pigmentation, exposing the fleshy red hues of muscle and blood and sinew. The skull has lost most its covering of the back of the brain to allow a grotesque state of macroencephaly, brain often making up 40-50% of total body mass. The face mainly remains unchanged asides from slightly enlargened eyes and a smaller jaw and mouth, increasing the neoteny of the modern human. Some are hooked into mechanical cradles, protected from the outside world by metallic alloys and plexiglass, their innerworlds connected to life-supporting machines that pump them full of drugs and filter toxins and waste, air conditioning and heating units keeping the innerworld a close climate-controlled 37 degrees centigrade, brains held in place by specially-constructed metallic braces and straps, needles placed into the skin everywhere, minds often hooked up to virtual escapist fantasies and mindfeeds of constant information and entertainment. Others go into biologically engineered protective suits, effectively separate organisms that do all of the biological work of the human for them, created long ago out of the now-extinct and forgotten common Earth Pig, Cattle, Sheep, Chimpanzee, and flesh-eating bacteria. This organic armour has tough, almost impenetrable leathery skin, bone plates, anywhere from 5-7 separate heart-like organs in case one fails, constant production of stem-cells to repair the body, sacs of organic sedatives, stimulants, and neurotransmitters to pump into the human if need be, 2 strong grasping claws to hold onto tree branches, hydrogen sacs to help keep afloat when the human employs telekenetic levitation to move, breast-ike teat structures for the human to suck on in case of food emergency, double-digestive systems to account for the human's athrophied digestion, phosphorescent lights to see in the dark, xylanth patches of photosynthetic tissue to generate sugars from sunlight, chemosynthetic microorganisms in appendix-like sacs to further break down and use waste products, and even a prehensile tail-like structure with neutoxins in its needles to kill prey and defend the human inside.

SpecBio concept #5: Plantworld

A planet resembling Earth in its late Archean state (higher temperature, no free oxygen, dense atmosphere, extensive salty oceans, thick coat of carbon dioxide), perhaps more tectonically stable, extensively seeded with Earth plants and bacteria. Not a single animal or fungal species is brought.

The first green settlers struggle to get a hold on the barren continents, in absence of fungi to erode bare rock and worms to aerate the ground. But some ground is more hospital than other, the first layer of debris provides soil for the survivors, and eventually plant life starts to grow properly.

For many millions of years the plants thrive, thanks to the abundance of carbon and water, the higher temperatures, and the lack of oxygen to interfere with carbon fixation; but eventually oxygen starts piling in the atmosphere, gigatons of carbon are locked into wood and buried debris (to be released in pulses only when wildfires burn out uncontrollably), and the diminished greenhouse effects starts to cool down the planet sensibly. The forests start to shrink.

There’s an obvious niche to be exploited there. Parasite plants without chlorophyll exist on Earth right now, such as the very unfortunately named broomrape. They’ve always thrived on Plantworld in many lineages, with the bounty of hosts to exploit, but now they can do one better: they find out how to secrete acids and enzymes to break apart cellulose, much like fungi did on a forgotten planet, and start consuming the vast dead biomass.

The decomposer plants scatter their pollen and seeds to the wind (no animal disperser to exploit), gliding away on wing-blades like maple seeds, but why stop there? If they gather enough energy, they can manipulate osmotic pressure inside the seeds to move the blades, until they can flap them like wings. This consumes enormous amounts of sugar and oxygen: each plant can afford very few seeds. The strands of turgid cells become analogues of muscles, and soon Planetworld’s forests are abuzz with little flying seeds, flying as far as possible from the mother plant to avoid competing against their own kin.

Each incremental improvement to fitness suggests others. If you sharpen your chemical senses, you could detect the places were there is fewest competition... if you steal back some photosynthetic pigments from your prey (which are but light detectors, after all) you can repurpose them into crude eyes to look for better ground... if you can move your wing-flaps, you can move them on the ground to place yourself in a better germinating position.

Absorbing matter through roots is agonizingly slow for these increasingly energic parasites. It would be much quicker to take food in bulk. The flying seeds secrete powerful saliva-like enzymes to degrade the matter on which they germinate; they use their osmotic muscles to grind shell-plates against each other like tiny jaws; they develop internal specialized glands... And eventually they discard the roots at all, which have lost their use. Why bother growing into a plant form? You can just stay a flying seed all your life, and sprout your flowers directly there. Actually, now that you’re so nimble, you can just seek out your mates directly.

Half a billion year later, Plantworld has a rich biosphere full of animal life; swift-footed grazers and silent ambush predators, swarming minute plankton and giants feeding on them by the millions, industrious hive-builders and devious endoparasites; and perhaps some creature with inquisitive brains and dexterous hands who is in for a big surprise or two when they finally chart the history of life on their world.

EDIT 26-11-23: used to be #4, but then I remembered the actual fourth concept

SpecBio concept #4 (a biosphere feeding on sound, inspired by @cromulentenough) SpecBio concept #3 (children falling from the “sky”) SpecBio concept #2 (liquid brain, chemical memory) SpecBio concept #1 (double silicate biosphere, one hot, one cold)

I sought out G1 Acid Storm's toy bios via tfwiki. According to the bios, they;

Take a "more treacherous" approach by using their powers instead of a frontal assault. Not flashy? (Generations)

Are known as an individual only to their teammates and a very few others. Highly intelligent, eager, and dedicated utterly to the Decepticon cause. Has a talent for marshalling vast amounts of data, as well as a way with words that would make them a powerful speaker. However, they prefer to remain anonymous, as part of their team. (Universe)

There's little known about them and they're "mysterious". Serves quietly under their commander Starscream and lord Megatron. Speaks rarely, but when they do, it is in passionate defense of the Decepticon cause. Their oratory skill is so great that those few who hear them speak believe they have a great future among the Decepticons - but Acid Storm has no ambition other than to soar high in the sky, seeding clouds with deadly corrosive rain. (Masterpiece)

Universe and Generations both give them the stats: Strenght 6; Intelligence 9; Speed 7; Endurance 7; Rank 5; Courage 9; Fireblast 6; Skill 10 (which are higher than i expected). Masterpiece has no stats.

Tfwiki says they're unusual among the Decepticons because they're more than happy to stay buried in the ranks, a largely anonymous soldier in a sea of very similiar bots, rather than try making a big name for themselves. Their intelligence, data gathering skills, charisma, and powers could propel them up the ranks, but for whatever reason they stay in their role as one of the Rainmakers rather than striking out on their own. Tfwiki also indicates Wings Acid Storm is eager for fights, and Transformers Roleplaying Game says Acid Storm is a skilled chemist spezializing in chemical warfare.

Cyberverse Acid Storm is one of the seeker captains under Slipstream, is skilled with technology, studied under or was an assistant to Shockwave during the war (but somehow became a soldier), and while loyal to Megatron eagerly took the opportunity to solely follow Starscream.

There's more to work with for SG Acid Storm than i thought.

Maybe they want to be ome famous, and/orview the war as an opportunity to become some kind of a big hero, which leads to them getting themselves into peril? Charges at the enemy openly? Not sure where else to go with this.

Oooo okay!

That's more than I anticipated as well!

I can exactly see SG AcidStorm, using the information I now now you mentioned above, very much taking bigger risks for the glory. Does this get them into trouble? Yes. Yes it does.

HORRENDOUS timing on my part, but I think that the three new android siblings have been held away for far too long! So, here comes an introduction to Burst, Sync, and Pipette!

All of them shown off below the cut:

Prototype X, Flight Type, Burst! By far the largest of the Prototypes, Burst is Ovocon’s first attempt at a flight-capable, pegasus-adjacent android. She’s extremely loyal and by-the-book, preferring to take orders than give them. Despite a strict adherence to protocol, Burst is hotheaded and often prone to outbursts. She has two downsized Burst class engines on her sides, which can fold away like the wings on a pegasus. Due to the immense power draw, she has double the amount of organs, lending to her towering size. Were she to stand side-by-side with Celestia herself, Burst would be a smidge taller (not counting the horn)!

Prototype XI, Magic Type, Sync! Sync is a tall and lanky unicorn model, featuring a prominent storage crystal in their chest. Their unusual looks are due to the collaborative effort between Ovocon Labs and MechaniCast Research, a horn-focused prosthetics company. A bit of a pessimist, Sync is anxious and jittery. This anxiety has made the learning of spells a slow process, and they are only barely comfortable with the use of basic telekinesis. When afraid, the magic storage has a tendency to malfunction, leading to potentially violent discharges. Sync is most comfortable studying and organizing data and research results!

Prototype XII, Chemical Type, Pipette! The newest android to the lab, Pipette was purpose-built as a laboratory aid. Her primary feature is a downsized, internal OL-58 Chemico unit, which allows her to produce medium quantities of almost any substance near-instantly. Solids, liquids, gasses, and if given proper storage devices, a little of everything in between. Due to the large amount of space required to have such a device be internal, Pipette is far more artificial than the other androids within Stage 2 of the program. She’s pleasant to speak with and always happy to assist! Pipette has a solid grasp of the Chemico, and vast knowledge of chemical compounds, their makeup, and their properties.