“On its own, the reform of the Work Capability Assessment for sick and disabled people is expected to add only 10,000 workers by 2028-2029. The OBR says a far larger number of claimants — 342,000 — will be placed in lower-paying categories in the benefit system that require them to look for some work. These changes apply to new claimants, not existing ones, avoiding a cliff-edge for many. But giving so many people less money than they would otherwise receive will surely anger welfare campaigners — while achieving little net change to the workforce. The Treasury does, however, predict it will save £1.265 billion by 2028-2029.”

Disappearing schools, families forced out – and we call this progress

“Last week, Lambeth announced that a secondary school founded in 1685 will close for good this summer, with its students farmed out elsewhere. In Camden, St Michael’s primary will not even make the end of the school year – it closes this month, the fourth in the borough to go since 2019. Days before the Easter holiday, Hackney warned that two of its primaries are likely to fold and another four may have to merge to survive. Neighbouring Islington is considering closures, while Southwark believes 16 primaries are at risk.

“This is a huge story, not only about marooned children and panicked parents, or redundant teachers and struggling councils, but the very future of our major cities. These schools are not shutting because they are bad, but because inner London no longer has enough children to fill them. The dead centre of Britain’s political and economic powerhouse is driving out families – and its education system is now taking an almighty hit. Hackney, for instance, has 589 fewer kids in reception today than it did in 2014, a shortfall equivalent to about 20 vacant classrooms. Since schools mainly receive cash per pupil, empty desks mean debts, and debts force closures …

“If this historic shift has a hinge point, it’s the 2010s, when two big forces began reshaping the capital. The first came from Downing Street: since David Cameron moved into No 10, successive Tory governments have taken benefit money from the very youngest and handed it to the oldest. The Resolution Foundation calculates that newborns have lost £1,500 a year in entitlements, while those aged 80 and above have gained more than £500 …

“The post-crash decade also saw inner London turned into a theme park for property speculators. The Bank of England was spraying about hundreds of billions of pounds like it was champagne at a grand prix, the then chancellor George Osborne was chucking taxpayer’s money at the property market, and London councils, including some of Gould’s Labour colleagues in Camden, were allowing developers to run riot. The arguments about gentrification soon descended into cliches about hipsters and Foxtons, when what was really being decided was who would live in the city and who it would serve.”

Bruce invented a special tool to crack open body armor when it can’t be quickly removed and ALL of his kids hate it.

The tool, later known as the “scissors of doom” (Jason) came about after a patrol gone wrong where Dick hemorrhaged under his suit/armor and Alfred and Leslie barely managed to staunch the bleeding in time (Bruce cut Dick’s suit open and literally ripped it the rest of the way with his bare hands)

Bruce calls it the “spike.” When used correctly, it can crack open the base layer of armor and extend blades into the underside for fast and effective cutting. Prototypes, designs, and knowledge of it are all locked down to the Cave.

diversity win: the most annoying DA fan you know got her dresses delivered this weekend 🌟

Despite popular belief, Eddie was not a procrastinator. Sure, he might’ve been held back twice due to not turning assignments in on time (or at all) and a few jobs may have let him go because of his tardiness but he was not a procrastinator. He just had a bad case of ADHD that fucked with his internal clock.

As long as it was something he was hyper focused on or even mildly excited about, Eddie was on time or significantly early. He always got to school hours before every Hellfire meeting to set the drama room up exactly how he imagined so the rest of the club could enjoy it. He’d spend weeks focusing on a campaign so fun and disturbingly gruesome that it would leave the rest of the crew staring at him in befuddlement of his evil-minded tales.

When he started dating Steve, he would arrive to all of their dates and plans sometimes hours in advance just itching to start what he knew would be the highlights of his week.

And it was after he started dating Steve that he realized what was truly a procrastinator. Steve would leave for work ten minutes after his shift started to begin his fifteen minute drive, nearly gave Eddie a conniption fit every time. He’d arrive at their dates thirty minutes after it was set to start so Eddie had to get crafty with the math and plans to fool him into arriving on time. And when Steve finally started taking college classes, Eddie had to haggle him more than Uncle Wayne had ever bothered him just so he could turn his assignments in reasonably late!

However, even despite his procrastinating habits and his frequent tardiness, Eddie fell in love with him. He fell fast and well in advance, four hours into their first day of not hating each other to be exact. Steve, like always, nonchalantly took his time and only realized what everyone else already had months later after they were already dating. But Eddie was patient and he got his reward in the form of a mean boy turned golden retriever slash knight in shining armor that he’d have for the rest of his life. And he wouldn’t trade that for anything.

(Although if Steve wanted to be on time for once in his life, that certainly wouldn’t hurt Eddie’s feelings.)

“Red team was so selfish looking past the cursed team like that” listen man they were thinking about it often, and had evidence they were cursed too. They were convinced they were cursed too. Bad (with Pierre’s help I’ll be honest) singlehandedly destroyed any sort of civil relations and good faith between the two teams and this shot Blue in the foot when they tried to make the case about them being cursed last minute, about trying to rig it in the cursed teams favor.

There was never a cursed team in the first place, it was all a tactic to build paranoia and that feeling of betrayal and to get them to tear eachother a part. And it worked super well! At the end, neither would listen to the other about their evidence, not with an honest open ear, not with the willingness to think the other team could be cursed. It’s not a case of ‘Red just refused to listen because they wanted to win more than they cared’ they thought they were cursed too - if they were selfish, then so were Blue in the same way.

Every time Red had tried to talk first early on, it was met with extreme violence - and with Bad consistently proving he’ll play dirty to win, they didn’t trust Blue enough to listen to them in the later game. Maybe they should have listened then. Maybe Blue have listened earlier. The game worked as intended to set them against eachother.

given that vol 3 is titled “son and heir”, is it safe to say that we’ll be getting some more background on the black sisters and lucius? there’s tons of juicy throwaway lines in book 4 that describe how they were at hogwarts that i’ve been hoping will be expanded on eventually.

two words: oh BOY

Honestly it's a bit surreal any time the OVA goes completely off script and just starts doing its own thing but I think the episode that is the most surreal out of context is probably episode 3. This one sequence in particular always makes me think 'what the fuck am I watching' but in a good way?

Like instead of the [REDACTED] that was happening in the manga storyline the OVA just has four solid minutes of uninterrupted footage of The Gang running around on an extremely atmospheric abandoned ship alongside two admittedly endearing Speedwagon Foundation OCs. Nothing else happens, they're just exploring a cool set piece and it's spooky and mysterious.

It's like the screenwriters and storyboarders were just like 'hey what if Team Joestar were just exploring this huge dark abandoned area together would that be tight or what lmao' and then they went and made it real through the collective power of an animation studio. Imagine being able to just go and do that.

ALRIGHT please ignore the half assed skeleton anatomy I have IDEAS.

Ok so a connection gem is what allows a familiar to channel magic to their person. From there theres sort of a secondary circulatory system that spreads across the whole body, except instead of pumping blood its pumping magic (extra fun idea I'm considering is that the gems pulse slightly like a heartbeat. it gets faster when they're using a lot of magic and exerting themselves just like a normal heart.)

Because in their magic forms they don't really have insides (she said casually [see below]), I was thinking that if an area gets hit or damaged enough while they're not transformed the area will infuse itself with more magic as a defense and to allow for faster healing. Like a magical scar! Below Robbies diagram is Frank. He's been at this for a WHILE and has had his fair share of injuries, so his body has adapted accordingly.

Plus theres the upside of being more familiar with constantly channeling that magic, which can allow them more experience and control for spellcasting later. ALSO. This adds some extra layer of urgency for Robbie because if he wants to get out of his deal and get this magic shit out of him then he had better do it before he becomes mostly composed of it. I mean. Theoretically. If a person got out of their deal with their familiar and the magic thats been composing them for a while just disappears... well. Id imagine it's a painful deterioration where they decay from the inside out. You don't get to leave.

So in their magic forms they don't really have INSIDES or BONES or ORGANS or BLOOD its JUST MAGIC and slightly more solid magic that acts like scaffolding. It's not skin or cloths or even metal really on the outside, its all just a glorified container for massive amounts of magic stored on the inside.

(ngl I mostly did this because OH? YOU WANT TO TAKE OFF YOUR STUPID HEELED BOOTS?? SORRY BRO THATS LIKE TRYING TO TEAR OFF YOUR OWN SKIN THERE AINT NO GETTING RID OF THAT)

UK food banks bring in counsellors and private GPs to help exhausted workers

“Britain’s food bank charities are buying in counselling, GP and mental health support services to help staff and volunteers cope with stress and exhaustion triggered by the explosion in demand for emergency food.

“The wellbeing services are a response to a rise in burnout and stress among frontline food bank workers as they deal with expanding workloads and the emotional burden of supporting increasing numbers of destitute and emotionally traumatised clients ...

“Emma Revie, the chief executive of the Trussell Trust, said the £30,000 investment was a response to the ‘unrelenting’ mental and physical effects on its staff ... ‘Most of our volunteers signed up to give out food parcels and be a friendly face spreading some love,’ said Su Parrish, operations director at the Easter Team food bank in Crawley. ‘They didn’t anticipate the level of stress that our clients now exhibit because of the situations they find themselves in.’”

“A voluntary movement that started in earnest in the UK just over a decade ago, and which is still relies predominantly community groups and churches, is having to adjust to an increasingly central and semiformalised social emergency role as austerity cuts to welfare benefits and public services push the human consequences of poverty straight to their door.”

I forgot what i was supposed to be doing 🙄

✨My links✨

been messing w some colours for my alive angel/anthony design so have a fucking horde of heads w his little 40's haircut lmfao

I have no base for this, but Halsin seems like the type who would settle in the middle of the group with fruits (that he likely foraged) and little wooden bowl in tow and just start cutting them unprompted and offering them to everyone else.

I know you're keeping Clear Sky as an antagonist (and he's very compelling as one in your rewrite), but I'm curious: if you absolutely had to give him a redemption arc, how would you go about it? (Besides not fridging his sister and wives, of course.)

If I was forced to give Clear Sky a redemption arc I'd slip a femur right out of my legmeat and beat someone to death with it

I'd never write a redemption arc for him, ever. It would be a completely different character.

Clear Sky's redemption arc is not even an idea worth considering; This an extremely consistent abusive family member who drives the entire plot, a predator who will leverage the love people have for him, whose defining characteristic is that he dresses up his megalomania as "Just Trying to Protect Everyone"

And I'd give that up?! for what?

I'd rewrite the whole plot, JUST like how the writers did with TWO born evil foreigner villains so their story wouldn't get boring, so I could prove the he could be a good boy if he wanted to? WHY?

It's doing the same thing the Erins do, totally uninterested in the story of his victims to write yet another plot centered around the pain of an abusive man.

Elder Bones is disappointed in you if you even think about it, actually. I am holding the femurbone in my hand as we speak. I'm gonna GETCHA

I GOT THE BANK JOB ‼️ 😭👍

Sakura your hair grew so fast :0