#fire hazard Productions

[allthecanadianpolitics]

Health Canada is recalling 68,000 garage heaters from Canadian Tire and other retailers because of concerns the product is overheating and in some cases, starting fires.

The national health agency issued a recall notice on Thursday, asking consumers to "immediately stop using" certain Mastercraft, Profusion Heat, Prestige and Matrix portable garage heaters.

The recalled heaters, sold in blue and red, have the Intertek file number 3153457, which can be found on the back of the unit.

Full article

Tagging: @politicsofcanada

Date of article: August 24th, 2023.

#cdnpoli #canada #canadian politics #canadian news #canadian #health canada #canadian tire #product recall #heaters #fire hazard #fire hazards #health and safety #health & safety #recall #recalls

[incorrectamazon]

Oh god.

I've found the world's most dangerous socks.

#incorrectamazon #weird #the best products are the ones that look like fire hazards #saturday vibes

[bluesymoon]

WHO IS LIGHTING ALL THESE CANDLES

#FIRE HAZARD FIRE HAZARD #production design went off but also what #shadow and bone #shadow & bone #grishaverse

[reasonsforhope]

"Despite a huge amount of political opposition from the chemical industry, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced its first regulations aimed at limiting quantities of PFAs, or ‘forever chemicals,’ in American drinking water.

For decades, Polyfluoroalkyl substances or PFAs have been used for coatings that resist fire, oil, stains, and water and are now found in a wide variety of products like waterproof clothing, stain-resistant furniture, food packaging, adhesives, firefighting spray foams, and non-stick cooking surfaces.

There are thousands of PFAS compounds with varying effects and toxicity levels, and the new EPA regulations will require water utilities to test for 6 different classes of them.

The new standards will reduce PFAS exposure—and thereby decrease the health risk—for 100 million people in the U.S.

A fund worth $1 billion for treatment and testing will be made available to water utilities nationwide—part of a $9 billion investment made possible by the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to assist communities impacted by PFAS contamination.

“Drinking water contaminated with PFAS has plagued communities across this country for too long,” said EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan in a statement Wednesday.

Under Regan’s leadership, the EPA began in 2021 to establish a roadmap for dealing with widespread PFAS contamination, and so far they’ve gathered much data, including monitoring drinking water, and begun requiring more reports from businesses about use of the unregulated substances.

The agency reported that current peer-reviewed scientific studies have shown that exposure to certain levels of PFAS may lead to a myriad of health issues that are difficult to specify because of the variety of compounds coming from different places.

Regardless, the 66,000 water utility operators will have five years to test for the PFAS pollution and install necessary technology to treat the contamination, which the EPA estimates that 6%–10% of facilities will need. [Note: Deeply curious where they got a number that low, but anyway.]

Records show that some of the manufacturers knew these chemicals posed health hazards. A few major lawsuits in recent years have been settled that sought to hold chemical companies, like 3M, accountable for the environment damage.""

-via Good News Network, April 13, 2024

#united states #pfas #forever chemicals #epa #environmental protection agency #water quality #water pollution #clean water #good news #hope

[fatehbaz]

British ships carrying plants and seeds from around the world arrived in Botany Bay on January 20 1788. This story is overshadowed by convict ships and Royal Navy vessels, but the cargo on board also had a lasting impact. Colonists, convicts and Indigenous Australians were all affected [...]. Some of these plants [...] were food sources [...]. Others were attempts to expand the British Empire. Could the new territory be exploited as a tropical plantation? In the parliamentary debate over destinations for convict transportation [considering potential locations for sending prisoners], Sir Joseph Banks and James Matra, both members of James Cook’s 1770 expedition [to the South Pacific], spruiked the potential of the new colony as an extension of the empire. Matra claimed the colony was “fitted for production” of “sugar-cane, tea, coffee, silk, cotton, indigo and tobacco”. Banks claimed Botany Bay was an “advantageous” site, with fertile soil [...].

Two plants carried by the First Fleet stand out as examples of botanical imperialism: prickly pear cactus (Opuntia) and sugarcane.

Banks, as head of the Royal Society of London [and as a close adviser to King George, and also as a plant-collecting botanist who turned the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew in London into the world's leading botanical garden], selected these species as experiments to compete with European trade rivals. His goal was to break a Spanish monopoly in producing fabric dye and to expand British cultivation of sugar outside the West Indies.

Prickly pear cactus was imported because it is the preferred food of the cochineal insect.

Dried cochineal were crushed to make a vibrant, colourfast scarlet dye for textiles. Discovered in the New World by Spanish colonists, cochineal replaced kermes, another insect that had provided red dye since antiquity. Cochineal dye was ten times stronger than kermes or vegetable dyes.

From cardinals’ capes to British officers’ red coats, cochineal was a product for elite consumers signifying power, wealth and prestige.

New Spain, based in Mexico, had a monopoly on cochineal. Banks wanted to break the stranglehold on the scarlet dye by establishing production in New South Wales.

Plants infested with the precious insects were imported from Brazil in 1788. The project soon failed when the cochineal died, but the cacti survived. Colonists used cacti as natural fences and drought-resistant animal fodder.

Without insects to feed on them the plants spread, uncontrolled, to cover more than 60 million acres of eastern Australia by the 1920s. Poison, crushing and fire failed to stop the cactus. [...] Opuntia cacti remain an environmental hazard. [...] The roots of these early imperial projects are deeply embedded in Australian culture and history, with an enduring legacy.

---

Text above by: Garritt C. Van Dyk. "The botanical imperialism of weeds and crops: how alien plant species on the First Fleet changed Australia". The Conversation. 25 January 2024. [Italicized text within brackets added by me. Some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me.]

[im-the-reader-of-which-you-speak]

Oral Fixation

Pairing: Eddie Munson/Reader

Summary: You want a kiss. Doesn't matter how, doesn't matter who. Lucky for you, your best friend is there to help.

Word count: ~600

Notes: Fluff. Friends to Friends-That-Kiss. Reader is implied to not smoke. Eddie calls the reader "Princess" and "Sugar." Unaddressed fire hazards.

Your eyes focus on the swirls of smoke hanging above Eddie's bed, drifting from his mouth. A frustrated groan erupts from deep within your chest.

"What's eating you?" Eddie spins towards the source of the noise, eager to irritate you further.

"I want a kiss."

"Alright then," he grins. He makes a show out of puckering his lips and making kissy noises as leans down towards you.

"Eddie no!" Quickly dodging, you push him off. He yanks you back down to him, you two collapse into a mess of giggles.

"Oh am I not good enough for a kiss?"

"Nope. Not as long as you keep smoking these things." You flick the blunt out of his hand. You're freed from his grip as he scrambles to retrieve it from his bedsheets.

"Oh c'mon, you don't love my herbal aroma? Prude." Blunt safely back between his soft lips, he inhales. You make an exaggerated wretch and he rolls his eyes "So who do you want a kiss from then?"

"I dunno. My lips are just like... hungry. I just want it to stop so I can get on with my day and think about something productive."

"An oral fixation." He laughs at you before taking another hit of his blunt, finishing it off and throwing the roach somewhere to be forgotten. "So your waiting for your prince to come and save you? Mr. Right with pearly white teeth and minty fresh breath?"

"God Eds, it's not like I want a relationship right now. I just want a kiss. I guess I don't care who."

"Well I got two lips right here, sugar. Ripe for the taking if any princess who wants them."

At this point you were considering it. Your lips are screaming for attention. That's all you could think about. Burning up inside for any mouth-to-mouth contact. Just a quick little kiss could save you. Just quick eensy weensy little smooch. And what's a peck or two between friends? It's not like you're having sex.

"Hmm" you hum. He had gotten up to change the music. He's in his own world now, biting his lips as he chooses the next record to play. It would just be... scratching an itch. He scratches your back, and you'll scratch his when the time comes. That's what friends do, they help each other.

"Maybe I'll have to take you up on that offer" You announce as he drops the needle. You can hear Pour Some Sugar on Me is what he decided on. "Oh?"

And it'd be quick. Over in an instant. As if you two have never done anything at all.

"Yeah. I need it real bad. Worried it'll kill me if I go one more second without my lips mashed against the closest man."

"Well we can't have that, can we?" He comes to sit right next to you, thigh to thigh. Getting right in your face. You can smell the Mary Jane on his breath. He's looking you right in the eyes, holding an almost... hungry stare. The tingle that was once focused solely on your lips has suddenly engulfed your whole body.

"You serious?" Eddie mutters. Your response is only a tremble.

"Yeah"

In the blink of an eye you two were attached at the lip. It's real, it's too real. But your head is in the clouds, everything is so hazy it still feels like a dream. What must have been only a few seconds feels like a life time. His arms wrap arounds you, soothing the heat in the rest of your body. Your sense of time comes back to you when his lips leave your's. Your body simmers down as the distance grows between you.

You're not sure. Maybe you'll have to try again, for good measure.

"Did that do the trick?" He asks, wiping his mouth with his sleeve.

#eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x you #eddie munson x y/n #eddie munson x female reader

[discordantwritings]

Rock Hard (Rock Band! Cross Guild x Reader)

Part 2. The Vocalist

Prelude // The Vocalist // The Guitarist // The Drummer

Warnings: afab gn!reader, facesitting, PiV sex, slightly subby Buggy, I know the title says cross guild but this part is just Buggy

WC: 2.4k

Summary: You will not fall to the clown’s charms you will not fall to the clown’s charms you will not-

Oh shit you fell for the clown’s charms.

Notes: Finally found an excuse to write facesitting lets goooooo

You were less of a manager to Buggy and more of a babysitter. If you could get away with getting him one of those child backpack leashes you would. Within a week you got the passwords to all his social media so you could stop him from posting dumb shit like “I wish my dick could detach” and “I could fist fight The Rock and win, give me a date and time”. It was exhausting. Hilarious, but exhausting.

It would be worse if he wasn’t so damn charming. Ever time you find yourself getting mad at him he would grovel and bat his frustratingly perfect eyelashes at you and all the anger you have fizzles out. It was a game you played- Buggy tested your limits and then you reigned him in before he could do any lasting damage. You’d get mad, he’d get cute, and then you went back to the beginning.

It would be worse if he didn’t do such good work. Buggy was the only band member you could get to do any sort of press (Crocodile and Mihawk claimed that that was what Buggy was there for, so they didn’t have to talk to the public) so you had to lean on him heavily for public relations. It turned out not to be a problem though because he could charm just about anyone. Even the most cynical of interviewers would be at least softened by Buggy’s crazy stories and silly jokes by the end of their time.

And that’s what you’re watching now at The Cross Guild office. You got this interview on the the interviewers misguided thought that he could run into Crocodile or Mihawk. Jokes on him, you planned this for a day neither of them were in the office. Because of that the interviewer came into the set annoyed, and Buggy shot you a look from where he was sat. You shrug and give him a thumbs up as the cameras begin to roll.

Watching him turn on the charm was mesmerizing. The way he leans in towards the interviewer and smiles, the way he never backs down from a question or accusation, the silly physical gags he manages to weave into a normal conversation, it’s all so impressive. After about an hour the production finally wraps up and Buggy bounds over to you.

“He was an ass.” He whispers to you and you nudge him on the shoulder.

“Can’t you wait a few minutes.” You eye the interviewer who is still in the room.

“Can we just go back to my office and debrief or whatever so I can go home?” Buggy says in almost a whine.

“Yeah, yeah.” You follow behind him through the hallways until you get to his office.

Gaudy is the best word to describe his office, right next to messy and a fire hazard. No piece of furniture is the same color and various rugs and discarded clothes cover the floor. You’re bound to trip over something before you leave but for now you find your way safely to a chair to go over the events of today and what’s on the schedule for tomorrow.

“So we did three interviews today, tomorrow we have a meet and greet and then a radio show. And then-“ You look up to see Buggy on his neon green couch and on his phone. “You’re not listening to me.”

“No I am!” He says, not looking up from his phone.

“Then what’s on the docket tomorrow?”

“… more talking.” He clicks his phone off, knowing he’s been caught.

“Look, seriously I just need five more minutes of your attention and then you can do whatever. You’ve knocked it out of the park today, so I just need to keep that going until this press wave is over.”

Buggy pauses and smiles wide. “I knocked it out of the park?”

You sigh. It was hard giving Buggy any kind of praise, the way it went straight to his head. But you felt bad for the way his fellow band members treated him- like he had no redeeming qualities. “You did good today Buggy.”

He stands up and walks over to you holding out a hand, indicating for you to stand up. Confused but curious you do, and are pulled up close to him. “Now see, if you just kept telling me how good of a job I’ve been doing I’d pay attention all the time.”

You did your best not to react at how close you are to him- keeping your breath even and hoping there was no flush to your cheeks. “But then it would all get to your head and I might have to knock you down a few pegs.”

“I don’t know about you- but that sounds like fun to me.” One of Buggy’s hands skirts over your hip while he gets somehow impossibly closer to you.

“Buggy.” You say sternly, a warning.

“What?” He stops moving, one eyebrow raised.

“I know playing around is fun for you, and you’re not serious, but nothing even close to this can happen.”

“And what is this?” He’s clearly feigning ignorance and you put your hand on his chest and push.

“Nothing.” The word comes out a bit more hurt than you would have liked it to sound. Of course Buggy picks up on it.

“It doesn’t have to be nothing. I know you say I’m not serious but-“ He opens his arms. “I like you.”

“You like a lot of people.” You fire back, jabbing your pointer finger into his chest.

“Maybe that’s true. But c’mon we could have so much fun together.” He steps back closer, your finger digging deeper. “You can’t tell me you haven’t thought about it.”

Embarrassment quickly colors your features as he hits the truth right on the head. Of course you’ve thought about it. The way he looks at you, the charm he has, his voice, the way you quickly counted him as your friend here. You really wondered what that stupid mouth could do but admitting that you fantasized about him? “No.”

“You’re an awful liar.” Buggy calls you out, brushing an errant hair behind your ear. “Now c’mon, I’ll even let you knock me down a few pegs.”

It was an awful idea. The worst idea you’ve even considered. You could tell Buggy no one more time and you know he’d respect your choice. But both of you know your heart isn’t in your reflections. Kissing him, doing anything with him as a bad idea.

So of course you grab him by his shirt collar and pull him in for a kiss. He’s shocked for a second- like he can’t believe all that stuff he said actually worked- but quickly melts into the kiss. His hands find your hips and he pulls you flush to him as he tries to take control. But you’re not going to let him win that easy.

You walk forward, forcing him to take steps back until his legs hit the couch. You finally break away from the kiss, panting and grinning wide. Placing your hand on his chest you lightly push and Buggy gets the message, sitting down and letting you crawl onto his lap. He looks up at you, eyes wide and pupils dilated and you want to ruin him.

You kiss him again, aggressive and greedy as your hands hold onto his shoulders for balance. Buggy’s hands, still at your hips, pull you down so he can grind up into you. You gasp as you feel Buggy’s hardness against you through layers of clothing. Bringing your mouth down you kiss along his neck as he continues to grind up into you, small whines leaving his chest.

You lose yourself for a while, switching between his neck and mouth while you grind against each other like horny teenagers. But it’s not enough and you’re starting to get a bit frustrated.

“Hey Bug.” You bite at his earlobe.

“Yeah?” He whispers.

“Wanna be knocked down a peg still?” Your hands travel his chest as he nods furiously. You stand up and Buggy is clearly disappointed but you motion to the floor. “Lay on your back for me?” You ask sweetly, undoing the buttons on your pants.

You barely finish your sentence before he’s eagerly sliding off the couch and onto the ground exactly like you asked. He props himself up by his elbows though to watch you, and you decide to give him a good show. You face him as you unzip your zipper and grab at your waistband but then turn around and bend over slightly as you drag them down over your ass and legs. You can’t see Buggy’s face but you can hear him groan as your pants and panties are taken down in one motion. Turning back you step out of your pants and get on your knees over him, straddling his chest.

“Can I sit on your face?” You ask sweetly, smiling down at him.

Buggy’s pupils are blown out, almost none of that bright sea green remain. He doesn’t say anything, he just grabs your thighs and pulls you up closer to his face. You can’t help but chuckle as you help him out, sitting up on your knees as you position yourself right over him.

“Fuck- I mean- goddamn-“ Buggy curses and you wish you could still see his face. “Please cmon just sit baby-“

Not wanting to wait either you lower yourself and the second you so Buggy dives in. There’s nothing neat or slow or thought out about the way Buggy eats you out but fuck if it isn’t good. His tongue works its way inside you quickly as his hands dig into your thighs. As he haphazardly goes between fucking you with his tongue and sucking on your clit you have to lean forward and use the couch for balance. You start to get dizzy with pleasure and end up focusing a lot of your energy on staying up and not actually sitting on Buggy, which he seems to notice.

He breaks away from you and you whine but hear his voice. “Just sit on me baby- I’ll be fine please cmon-“

He sounds just as dazed as you and the lust and whine in his voice make you relent, fully relaxing and focusing on the pleasure he was giving you. As his tongue finds your entrance again you grind down, rubbing your clit against his nose. Your moans fills the room as you chase your pleasure and use his face to get yourself off. While one hand stays on the couch to keep you balanced the other goes to Buggy’s head, gripping his hair and tugging.

“‘M close Bug-“ You manage through gasps.

Buggy doesn’t let up- one of his hands comes down to join his tongue inside you, filling you up more while you grind on him. The edges of your vision go white as your orgasm flood over you, slick gushing onto Buggy’s face as you ride it out. When the high is over you slide yourself off of his face and lay down next to him. As you do you see that Buggy’s hand is shoved down his pants and he’s grinding up into his palm.

“Fuck- you been getting off on eating me out?” Your voice is breathy and needy.

“Fucking of course.” He says and you finally get a good look at his face- slick from your juices and completely fucked out. You can’t help but capture his lips in another needy kiss, tasting yourself on his tongue. Snaking your own hand down you grab his wrist, gently pulling it out of his pants. He whines but you quickly shush him.

“Need you inside me- now.” You plead and Buggy wastes no time.

He sits up and shoves his pants down while you get on all fours in front of him. He growls when he sees you presented for him like this, one hand going to your hip while the other grabs his length so he can line himself up. He drags his tip through your folds, gagging up your wetness and teasing you.

“Buggy-“ You tried to be annoyed but your voice just comes out like a whine.

“Alright, alright.” Buggy finally presses into you, stretching you out as you both groan.

He takes his time, letting you adjust as he sinks into you and holds himself still for a few seconds when he bottoms out, waiting for your breathing to level out. But after that all of his patience ends. His hands grip your hips tight as he repeatedly slams into you, hitting you deep every time. You try to meet him half way, thrusting your own hips but one of Buggy’s hands leaves you hips and goes to the small of your back and pushes down- he starts hitting spots you didn’t know existed and you give into him.

You know he’s not going to last long from the way his thrusts are already stuttering- but you’re not far behind, already sensitive from the orgasm he gave you not minutes ago. He must know you’re close too, the hand on your hip leaves and travels downwards towards your clit.

“C’mon I want to feel you come all over my cock please baby-“ He babbles as his fingers work on your clit driving you closer and closer.

With one final thrust and his pleads in your ear you cum again, walls contracting around his cock and squeezing him tight. You let your front half fall to the ground as Buggy pulls out just in time to paint your folds and ass with his cum. You both sit breathless for a few moments, regaining the ability to think.

“I can’t say I feel knocked down in any sense.” Buggy comments from behind you and you whip around and hit him on the shoulder.

“Really that’s what you’re going to say?” You want to sound angry but you can’t help but laugh at his stupid grin.

“It could have been a lot worse?” Buggy offers and you just roll your eyes and loop your arms around his shoulders.

“Look- that was-“ You almost give him a compliment but think better of it. “You cannot tell anyone. Seriously.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it!” Buggy’s arms wrap around your midsection and he pulls you in. “Seriously, I think Crocodile and Mihawk would actually literally kill me.”

Yeah.

He’s probably right.

#one piece x reader #one piece x you #discordantwritings #x reader #buggy x reader #buggy x you #buggy the clown x reader #the cross guild x reader #cross guild x reader

[princessmotif]

as i said while discussing iroh as a character, despite the comics being a mess, i feel confident saying that at the end of atla, zuko not only realizes that azula has been harmed too, but he rightfully blames ozai for that harm (although ozai is not solely responsible for traumatizing azula).

as big of a win as that is for the possibility of the fire hazard siblings healing their relationship (zuko absolutely has to take the first step there in my opinon; azula would not be willing to at this point, and their relationship has been unbalanced in terms of care historically), their relationship is still quite tragic even with this realization.

there is no way that zuko actually understands what ozai did to azula. he doesn't even know what ozai did to azula. yes, he knows that ozai abused azula, but zuko only understands and knows abuse as he endured it.

there's also almost no way that azula is going to tell zuko about it. not only would she not want to discuss something so vulnerable in a serious or honest manner (see the way she discusses ursa in the beach), but she's also just had a serious psychotic break. it's very possible that she's not fit to see zuko at all right now, let alone discuss her trauma with him even if she wanted to.

so zuko is left to fill in the blanks about the how of azula's trauma. given his pattern of relating other people's trauma to his even when it's not actually the same (i.e. how he relates katara's trauma about kya being killed during the fire nation's genocide against her culture to his own trauma about ursa's disappearance after committing high treason), he would come to understand and conceive of how ozai abused azula through his own experience with ozai's abuse. while zuko's abuse was clearly always an implicit threat dangled over azula's head ("you can't treat me like zuko!") and ozai absolutely used some of the same tools against her that he did zuko, zuko was ozai's scapegoat child while azula was his golden child. their abuse did not look the same, it did not function the same, and it did not impact them the same.

it's also unlikely that he has the perspective at this stage in his own healing process to apply any of his (false) perceptions of azula's trauma to how it would have shaped both their childhood and his perspective of azula. he probably doesn't even realize just how deeply his perspective of her is colored by ozai's abuse of them both.

furthermore, since he's accepted his recollection of their childhood (which is not his fault. he is a victim of abuse who did not have the means or opportunity, as a young child, to see beyond ozai's more obvious abuse of him, which he couldn't even admit, to notice ozai's more subtle abuse of azula), he likely can only conceive of azula's childhood trauma in two ways:

as the byproduct of his own trauma, existing not because of azula's own traumatic childhood experiences but because of her witnessing his, such as the agni kai

as the product of his exile, occurring because he was no longer physically there for ozai to abuse and thus had to find a new target in azula

the former seems less probable given his belief that azula enjoyed his pain when they were children, so he would likely think that she was abused not when they were younger but exclusively after his exile began.

this isn't even touching on how zuko's perception of ursa and iroh clouds his ability to see how they both harmed azula too. that muddles things a lot more since zuko struggles with black and white thinking.

i think azula and zuko could heal their relationship with time and mutual effort, but as long as she refuses to confide in her brother and as long as he assumes she should experience and respond to trauma the same way he has, they're doomed to remain static in relation to each other.

#atla #zuko #azula #fire hazard siblings

[rebeccathenaturalist]

So on the surface this looks like a good thing. After all, we need mature and old-growth forests as they're havens for species dependent on that habitat type, and they are also exceptionally good carbon sinks compared to younger, less complex forests. (A big, old tree will still absorb and hold more carbon than a new, quick-growing one, and in fact for the first twenty or so years of its life a tree is actually carbon positive, releasing more than it absorbs.)

However, timber industries are trying to paint mature forests as fire hazards that need to be thinned out due to an abundance of plant life. They also tend to oppose leaving snags and nurse logs in the forest as "fuel", because they'd rather salvage what lumber they can from a freshly dead tree. So of course they're trying to push for cutting down trees as the solution to climate change's threat to mature forests.

Large, old trees are generally better adapted to surviving a fire simply by sheer size. Some have other adaptations, such as deeply grooved bark that can create relatively cooler pockets of air around the tree to help it survive, and the branches of older, taller trees of some species are higher up the trunk, away from lower-burning fires. And those old trees that survive are often important for helping to restore the forest ecosystem afterward, from providing seeds for new trees to offering wildlife safe haven and food.

When timber companies come in and log a forest, even if they don't take all the trees, they leave behind all the branches and twigs and just take the trunks. This creates a buildup of fine fuels that burn very quickly (think the twigs and paper you use to start a campfire), while removing coarse fuels that take longer to catch fire. In fact, an area that is subjected to salvage logging after a fire is much more likely to burn again within a few years due to all the fine fuels left behind by salvage logging.

Another factor is that not all forests are the same, even at similar ages. Here in the Pacific Northwest, as one example, the forests east of the Cascades live in drier conditions with slower plant growth, and low-level wildfires that can clean out ladder fuels before they pile up too high are more common. In those locations prescribed burns make sense.

However, the fire ecology of forests on the west side is less understood; because lightning storms are less common and the climate is wetter, fires just don't happen as often. And west-side forests are simply more productive, with denser vegetation that grows back quickly after even large fires like 2017's Eagle Creek Fire in the Columbia River Gorge. Historically speaking, west-side forests get fewer, but larger, fires. So the prescribed burns and other strategies employed for east-side forests aren't necessarily a good fit.

Finally, mature forests are much more biodiverse, and support many more species than a monocultural tree plantation. As climate change continues to affect the planet, mature forests and other complex ecosystems are going to become increasingly crucial to protecting numerous species, to include those dependent only on those ecosystem types. Thinning may seem like a great idea at first, but even if it isn't as destructive as clearcutting it will still damage a forest in ways that will take years to restore.

We really need to be wary of the narrative that thinning is the only way to curb climate change's effects on mature forests. It's a more complex situation than that, and we need to prioritize preserving these increasingly rare places as much as possible.

#wildfire #forest fire #forest fires #fire #forests #old growth forest #old growth forests #ecology #restoration ecology #logging #conservation #environment #scicomm #science communication #science #nature #plants #trees #climate change #global warming

[gottalottarocks]

You guys have probably heard that the EPA just set new Maximum Contaminant Levels (MCLs) for the first time in decades for PFAS, which is BIG news in the industry, but not a surprise. I've been in meetings for months hearing about how new PFAS regulations were in the works, and the consensus in the environmental sector is that it's long overdue. But for the rest of you who've never heard of PFAS before I can break down what the big issues are and why they've taken so long to address.

^stolen from pubchem

So PFAS stands for per- and poly- flouroalkyl substances, and it's not one chemical compound, but an entire class of thousands of chemicals that have these chains of Carbon and Flourine atoms. For anybody who doesn't have a chem background fluorine is a nasty atom, it has seven electrons in its valence shell and it will do anything to fill it up to eight, creating incredibly strong bonds.

So you have really strong C-F bonds and these chains of C and F atoms are hydrophobic, which means these compounds are durable and water resistant, which makes them great for all sorts of industrial uses. And we've used them in everything: clothing, fast food wrappers, paints, solar panels, and non-stick pans just to start.

Unfortunately, these wonder chemicals are PBTM- Persistent, Bioaccumulative, Toxic, and Mobile. They don't break down, they build up in the food chain, they have adverse health effects, and even though C-F chains are hydrophobic, additional compounds connected to them can make them soluble in water (so they're in our drinking water). We're starting to realize PFAS can raise cholesterol, inhibit immune response, interfere with your thyroid (part of your hormonal system), cause liver toxicity, is linked to cancer, and more!

At this point you're probably starting to think wtf, how did we allow the continued widespread use of these chemicals? Well, we have phased out quite a few high profile PFAS compounds including PFOA and PFOS, but we still want to regulate and test for them in our drinking water. While PFAS is in many different products, the biggest sources of contamination are industrial runoff, areas where fire fighting foams were tested and used, landfills that leach out PFAS into the surrounding area, and wastewater treatment plants. So don't feel too stressed about eating microwave popcorn or using nail polish.

The reason these regulations took so long to implement was because of how difficult it was to connect such small amounts of PFAS with health hazards. The level of concern for PFAS is extremely low- in the ppt (parts per trillion) range. When I sample for contaminants I'm generally testing in the ppm range and higher, for PFAS we're looking an entire scale lower. We literally did not have the technology before the last few decades to detect PFAS in the ppt range in water, let alone study their effects (you can't just impose massive regulations without any proof to back it up).

States that currently have PFAS limits in drinking water have mostly capped it in the 10-70 ppt range. The new MCLs are 4-10 ppt for the six PFAS compounds the EPA addressed, which are six of the most common and most studied PFAS compounds. Most of the bitching I've seen is about how much this will cost and that the new limits are too low. The conservative take on this is that there isn't enough evidence to support such low MCLs, although most people in the environmental industry feel that more and more research keeps coming out and will keep coming out (remember studying such small amounts of anything is difficult) to support these levels. On the other side of the spectrum, there's the consensus that this is just the beginning and that more and more regulations on PFAS will be needed.

And they're in the works! I saw a proposed rule by the EPA that would ban 12 (already defunct) PFAS substances from pesticides. It wouldn't really affect the current manufacturing of pesticides, but it would be a safeguard from letting them back into the manufacturing process in case of a conservative presidency.

If you're still here I'd like to end on the note that as our science improves, our understanding of how we have impacted the environment and our health will improve. We are constantly going to find out about the adverse effects of new chemicals or things that we may not even produce anymore, and that's a good thing. Over time we are going to make the world a healthier and safer place.

#PFAS #if the boomers were the lead poisoning generation then were the pfas and microplastics generation #chemistry #geology #science #environment #long post

[lotties-ashwagandha]

ABUNDANCE

lottie matthews x gn!reader x van palmer, 971 words

you finally decide it's time to move in with them, and relish in the newfound domesticity blessing your relationship.

When you agreed to move in with Lottie and Van, you hadn’t anticipated how strenuous of a process it would be. It had all seemed so straightforward in your mind, but as you stood in front of half a dozen boxes strewn across the floor, you realized how exhausting it was. 

You had just finished with the bedroom closet. You smiled softly as you looked over your work – it had taken forever, but you had managed to find a balance of the closet space between the three of you. It helped that you had a walk-in closet, that you lived in a house that was suitable for the three of you to live comfortably together – your good fortune in that did not go unnoticed. 

You began to stack the empty boxes on top of those you had yet to unpack. It was getting late, the rest could wait until morning. You had spent the entire day anyway even getting your things from your apartment to your girlfriends’ residence within Lottie’s wellness center, which was so far removed from the rest of society that the trip had accounted for much of the day. You were indescribably exhausted. 

“You need any help with that?” Van asked, approaching you. She had been in the bathroom that was attached to the bedroom, reorganizing to make room for everyone’s things – skincare products, toothbrushes, shampoo. Everything in the house was being reordered for your shared comfort. 

You shook your head in decline. Van ignored you, taking the box you were holding and stacking it on top of the others. She knew you were capable yourself, but above all she wanted to make you feel at home – as if you hadn’t spent so much time here anyway before moving in. It was part of why you had all decided that this be your permanent residence, that since the house was so far from your old apartment you would stay with your girlfriends for days or weeks at a time before going home, and it had always led to the most pleasant memories for the three of you. 

Van surveyed the boxes for a second before leaning into the closet to examine your work. 

“It looks nice,” she smiled, and you could see that she was as joyful as you were that you were in the process of moving in. “Lottie still has half the closet space, but I think we expected that.” 

“She has so much shit, it makes you and I look like we own one shirt each,” you agreed, resisting a laugh. “Where is she, anyway?” 

“Lottie? She’s in the kitchen. She wanted to try to make you dinner for your first official night here.” 

“God save us all,” you joked. “We should call the fire department, have them here just in case she almost burns the house down again.” 

She laughed. “I don’t think the authorities would approve of anything she does here, fire or no fire. We’re in league with a walking safety hazard.” 

You agreed, and the two of you decided to go check on her. 

When you found Lottie in the kitchen, she had just started pasta noodles on the stove. She was trying at the creation of a sauce, various random ingredients littering the countertops as she began to meticulously dice a tomato. You came up behind her, looping your arms around her waist and looking over her shoulder to watch her work. 

“Van says you’re a safety hazard in the kitchen,” you said with a teasing smile, which grew when Lottie shook her head in annoyance. 

“She’s just saying that because she’s disappointed no restaurants deliver this far out, and I wouldn’t have let her call for delivery anyway,” Lottie said. She put down her knife, wiped her hands on a nearby kitchen towel, and turned around to face you. Her expression was loving, filled with a peacefulness that spread to you instantly. “I want this to be special for you. I know you used to stay with us a lot before you moved in, but this is still big.”

“This is special,” you assured her. “Just getting to be here with the two of you is special enough.” 

In response she kissed you softly, and a sense of home rushed over you – this was where you were meant to be. This was where you were safe, where you would always be welcomed, loved, cared for. 

Van’s voice filled the kitchen – she shouted that the pot on the stove was boiling over, and you and Lottie pulled away from each other instantly, startled. 

You looked to the stove in terror, but the pot was fine. The water wasn’t even boiling yet. 

“That’s not fucking funny,” Lottie snapped at her, and sighed as she leaned against the kitchen counter to sulk. She turned away when Van tried to kiss her, but after a second try from her Lottie relented, and afterwards seemed consoled. 

You watched the exchange contentedly. You craved this domesticity with them, and at last you were able to be a part of it long-term. 

You and Van began to help Lottie with the pasta. The two of them attempted to banish you from the kitchen at first, claiming that this was their treat to you, but when you kept pestering them about it they finally allowed you to help with menial tasks like retrieving ingredients, throwing things away, and whatever else you could occupy yourself with doing that they deemed small enough for the meal to still be a sort of welcoming gift from them. 

When it was at last finished, the three of you sat down at the dining table, and life became complete in your togetherness. The end had come of your aloneness, and in its wake you were blessed in the abundance of their love. 

#lottie matthews x reader #van palmer x reader #yellowjackets x reader #lottievan #lottie matthews x van palmer x reader #lottievan x reader #yellowjackets #adult lottie matthews x reader #adult van palmer x reader

[stillness-in-green]

On Heteromorphs and Heteromorphobia (Arc XV - My Villain Academia)

(Skewing away from the wiki arc titles here, because come the eff on; everyone on god's green earth calls this My Villain Academia, not "The Meta Liberation Army Arc.")

At the request of a kind asker, I'm trying something different with footnotes this time; you'll find them at the end of the relevant bullet point, rather than at the bottom of the post. I've also flagged the numbers in purple, though I left the text itself the default color. I hope people find that a little easier to handle than having to scroll all the way to the bottom, have two tabs open, or wait until the end when they've forgotten the context.

Content Warning: Mentions of the KKK, as well as anti-Korean hate crimes/speech in Japan.

The My Villain Academia Arc (Chapters 218-240)

Chapter 218: 

Tsuyu’s weakness to cold is noted in-canon, rather than in a volume extra profile.   

All of the people featured specifically in the Detnerat commercial are heteromorphs—a four-armed woman, a walrus gent, and a little gelatinous boy.  Re-Destro pontificates about how people with these “newer types of bodies” struggled in the new era because they couldn’t find products that would meet their daily needs; mass production was not equipped—could never really be equipped—to handle the endless variety of body shapes and sizes that came about due to the Advent of the Extraordinary.  It recollects the mall scene back in Chapter 68—or, even further back, Ojiro’s character sheet and UA’s lack of varied desks—and calls the reader to consider, once again, the sorts of special needs that those with heteromorphic bodies might have, and how difficult it can be to meet those needs.    RD says that his company’s ability to rapidly customize and produce unique goods for every customer has made them #1 in their industry (lifestyle goods).  Assuming there’s at least some truth to the commercial shpiel—and the newscaster does at least call Detnerat “a big player”—it suggests that plenty of other companies are not so good at the rapid+customizable combination.  Of course, not all companies are trying to be all things to all people, but specialization costs money—as do speed and customization, really, and note that nowhere in the commercial is there a talking point about affordability!  So mainly what the commercial leaves me wondering is what degree of inconvenience is still felt by heteromorphs, especially those who are somewhat cash-strapped.    That strikes me as a particular hazard when it comes to child bullying.  Of course, Japanese schools have uniforms, but I wonder how available tailoring and alterations are for students with particular needs?  Is there a provided budget for that sort of thing?  Financial aid?  How much did Ojiro’s parents have to pay for him to have a full set of uniform pants with a hole for his tail in them?  How about Shouji getting all his uniform tops made sleeveless?  What arrangements had to be made for Shouto’s gym uniform to be fire retardant?    Even setting uniforms aside, there are also their social lives outside of school to consider.  Kids will absolutely notice when one of their number wears the same clothes all the time, or home-made clothes instead of name brand, or with obvious patchwork and repair.  As in real life, it’s at the intersections of more than one type of disadvantage—in this case, a heteromorphic body combined with a low-income family—that problems become more likely.

Here in 218, almost fifty chapters after the first mention of them, we finally get the proper introduction and explanation of the Meta Liberation Army.  Of course, they aren’t heteromorph-specific—the closest any of the named commander-types in RD’s inner circle get is Curious, with her bright blue skin and black sclera,[1] though certainly Re-Destro himself has drifted somewhat away from baseline compared to his ancestor.  Regardless, their foundational belief is the deregulation of quirks, stemming from a time when any deviation from the norm made meta-humans targets.  The compromise society reached—that quirks require a license to use—is restricting enough on those whose abilities are found with a baseline body, but, as I’ve brought up before, it makes life even more potentially fraught for heteromorphs.  That kind of thing is basically a pre-written excuse for heroes or police to stop and harass a heteromorph they don’t like the look of!  And while the evidence of that kind of bias has been pretty circumstantial thus far, it’s about to get way, way less so.    [1] Wacky hair colors being somewhat de rigueur in anime, we’ll give her a pass on the purple hair.

   Chapter 220: 

Here we finally hit the major leagues: the Creature Rejection Clan, or CRC.  The Japanese is igyou haiseki shugi shuudan, with igyou and shuudan being pretty straightforward—igyou is, of course, “heteromorph,” and shuudan is any sort of organized or self-identifying group of people, anything from a family unit to a business organization, even all the way up to a nation.  Haiseki shugi is the important bit, with shugi meaning “doctrine; principle” and haiseki meaning “rejection; expulsion; boycott; ostracism.”  Thus, “group whose doctrine is the rejection of heteromorphs.”[2]    Note that, in the Japanese, the word in the group’s name is heteromorph; they didn’t pick something more insulting or derogatory.  They didn’t really need to, since igyou is, as discussed back in the introduction to this piece, plenty derogatory all on its own.  So Caleb Cook went with a translation of igyou that would better get that derisiveness-in-the-context-of-a-hate-group across than his choice way back in Chapter 14.  Creature Rejection Clan is a fairly localized translation, but Cook was pretty frank in his Twitter thread on the chapter that he was thinking about the KKK when he made the decision.    And it’s not an unwarranted comparison!  Of course, I wouldn’t think to presume Horikoshi’s that up on the history of racism in the U.S., but combine the cod-religious trappings and the full robes and hoods with an explicit textual description of hate crimes, and it’s an extremely easy parallel to draw. [2] The Japanese also gives the abbreviation of CRC, with the databook eventually coming out and revealing that it really stands for the name they’ve chosen for themselves in English, the Curious Rejection Committee.

That established, it’s notable that Spinner, in describing them, says that they commit hate crimes against “people with heteromorphic quirks”—a nearly word-for-word translation of the Japanese igyou-gata no ningen.  This leaves aside the idea I’ve spent so much time talking about, that heteromorph discrimination is aimed broadly at those with heteromorphic bodies, and not only those with the more narrowly defined heteromorphic quirks.  Shortly, however, I’ll cover some evidence that Spinner is over-generalizing, or just misinformed.

In the meantime, take note of a few things the CRC guys[3] actually say here, starting with the fact that they call Spinner a lizard. Instantly, a word that was previously a snippy and dismissive little shrug in Dabi’s mouth takes on the weight and ugliness of a slur.    Further, they call the League of Villains “sins against nature”—or, in a more literal translation, “impure criminals.”  I provide the more literal translation there because it’s more specific.  My immediate question of the English translation would be whether the CRC judge the League as being sins against nature simply because of their criminality, or because of their association with Spinner, but the Japanese makes clear that there are two separate labels being flung there: the League are both criminals and impure.    This idea of impurity brings in a religious dimension to heteromorphobia, a dimension heightened by the line (dropped by the English translation) in which the CRC accuses the League of invading a sanctuary—in Shinto, shrines have to be kept pure.  The CRC calling their hideout a sanctuary, with the added context of, “They have a lizard with them.  How disgusting,” thus makes it pretty clear that the impurity is about Spinner’s presence, not just the League’s assorted crimes.  This spiritualistic justification for bigotry will later be made even more explicit in Shouji’s flashbacks.    [3] With skull masks right there on their hoods!  A real, “Are we the baddies?” moment, but given some of the other things we get on them later, it's possible the skulls are meant to contrast what e.g. Spinner or Koda’s skulls might look like: baseline human versus animalistic or “misshapen.” Credit to @codenamesazanka for connecting the dots on that!

Spinner also gives us here the line that I covered back in the terminology section at the beginning:

We’ll go with the official version this time.

So here we have the observation that the word absolutely everyone uses, the word that, as far as we know, academically defines an entire category of quirks, is an unpleasant, even rude word.  But what is the alternative?  We’re never given one.  Indeed, Spinner doesn’t suggest one; he says that the nice thing to do is “avoid” the word instead.  In other words, talk around it.  See again what I said at the start about all the difficulties baked into that prospect.

Later, we get the first drops of Spinner’s backstory, and hit again on the “lizard” thing, with the note that Spinner’s backwater, stuck-in-the-last-century hometown called him “the lizard freak.”  He grew up with it, grew accustomed to it, thought there was nothing he could do to change it—he might even have internalized it somewhat, though clearly by the time Chapter 160 rolled around he was ornery enough about it to complain.    It's perhaps also notable that Spinner knows who the CRC are.  Though we’ll later find out that their numbers have hugely diminished, he not only recognizes them, he’s not even surprised to see them—unlike many, Spinner knows the CRC never truly went away.  (Compare his lack of reaction to, for example, Shouji's unsuspecting classmates, who will later be shocked, just shocked, that this kind of ugliness still exists in their country.)    So just to state the obvious here, yes, the presence of active hate groups does irrevocably shift the lens on everything we’ve seen up to this point.  You can’t say calling a heteromorph an animal is harmless, a little insensitive at worst, maybe even meant as a cute nickname, when that same language is used by openly violent bigots.

The volume version gives us, at the end of the chapter, further notes on the CRC.  It’s full of relevant tidbits, so I’ll provide the text in its entirety:

Once superpowered society grew more stable and less chaotic, this group emerged, based around a lack of acceptance for those with body-altering quirks.  They started out with demonstrations and protests but eventually started committing violent hate crimes.  Most felt this was taking things too far, so the group saw a sharp decline in membership and a scattering of factions.  These days, one faction might only reject people with animal properties, while another focuses its hate on people with irregular heads.  These two, among others, have very few members left.  The faction that Tomura and the villains attacked was one that stood by the original group's fundamental tenets.

So what is there to gather from this?  Let’s break it down a point at a time.

“Once superpowered society grew more stable (...)”    If you’ve ever lived through a time of increasing acceptance for a marginalized group, particularly if that acceptance involves measures for legal protections being passed, you’ll recognize what this is.  Just to pick a few U.S. examples, the KKK didn’t exist until after the Civil War;[4] proactive federal bans on same-sex marriages didn’t start getting passed/proposed until individual U.S. states started legalizing them and civil unions.  When opposition to something is the norm, said opposition often doesn’t start organizing until they see that status quo being threatened; they weren’t organized before because they never imagined they’d need to be!  That’s what we see with the CRC: they didn’t formally declare themselves until it started looking like quirks—and especially non-baseline quirks—were going to find legal acceptance.    [4] Literally.  The last day of the war was May 26, 1865; the date the first Klan was founded was December 24 of the same year. Easily the most vile thing I learned in the process of writing this piece.   

“(…) based around a lack of acceptance for those with body-altering quirks.”   This is what I was referring to when I said Spinner's characterization of the CRC might be a little bit off: the CRC wasn’t founded because of a hatred for specifically heteromorphic quirks; they were founded because of a hatred for different bodies, a descriptor that could also apply to those with transformation-style quirks!  Those, too, are quirks that alter bodies, after all; it’s just possible for people to turn them off, which is not the case for those with heteromorphic quirks.  So Spinner was not quite on the mark before.    Further, note that the phrase “body-altering quirks” is used here—a phrase that’s similar in meaning and much less othering than igyou.  It doesn’t fully cover everything I use “heteromorphic” and “non-baseline” to cover, in that it’s still murky in situations like e.g. Cementoss’s, where his emitter quirk is entirely independent of his oddly shaped head, but it’s still a useful term!  Except for the small complication of where it isn’t found: anywhere in the actual story.  The fact that Horikoshi uses it in an author’s note, but it comes up nowhere in BNHA proper, puts it in an unclear place as far as in-universe alternatives go.  Has it just not come up because Horikoshi hasn’t thought to include it?  Or has it not come up because it’s not a phrase people in-universe use?

“They started out with demonstrations and protests but eventually started committing violent hate crimes.  Most felt this was taking things too far, so the group saw a sharp decline in membership and a scattering of factions.”    Confirmation here of what Spinner said about the CRC and hate crimes, but note what this doesn’t say: that the CRC was outlawed.  There are, I suspect, a couple of factors influencing that.   o Firstly, while Japan has legal methods to restrict undesirable organizations,[5] making it difficult for them to raise funds or engage in publicity, the country doesn’t actually de facto criminalize membership in such organizations.  That distinction is part of the legacy of violent crackdowns on labor groups and protest movements in the first half of the 20th century; people tend to get very loud about anything that whiffs of the government trying to give itself the power to get that heavy-handed again.    Assuming that the laws haven’t changed overmuch in HeroAca!Japan, then, I wouldn’t expect membership in the CRC to have been criminalized outright, but the volume extra doesn’t mention any kind of legal repercussions at all.  That, I think, may go more to my next point.    [5] The relevant laws are aimed mostly at terroristic groups or organized crime.      o Secondly, another thing Japan has very, very little of is hate crime legislation.  From my research, there are only two laws of any note: a federal law passed in 2016 and widely regarded as toothless thanks to it lacking any criminal provisions targeting offenders,[6] as well as a local ordinance passed in Kawasaki in 2019 that went as far as mandating fines against repeat offenders, among other measures.[7] [6] It required the government to start “implementing measures” to eliminate such speech/behaviors, as well as to “respond to requests for consultation” from victims, but did not directly mandate consequences for offenders. [7] I suspect from some of what I read that Osaka has picked up a similar ordinance, but I didn’t find anything detailing it specifically.  Osaka and Kawasaki are home to the largest and second-largest population of Koreans living in Japan. One major thing neither of these measures did, though—and something activists have been pressing for—is to establish standards for considering discriminatory motivations when issuing sentences against those who have committed violent crimes.  To pick an example that made the news last year, a man committed arson out of openly admitted hatred for the Koreans he targeted, but nowhere in the trial or discussion of his sentence did the prosecution ever bring up discrimination.[8]    [8] https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20220829/p2a/00m/0na/015000c    Also, it’s worth noting that both of these measures were aimed at ethnic discrimination—speech and behavior targeting people living in Japan while being themselves, or being children of, people of non-Japanese ethnicities.  They did not address discrimination based on e.g. religion or sexuality.    Folding both of those points together, the image we have of the CRC is of a violent hate group whose existence is regarded as perhaps distasteful and extremist, but not actually illegal.  Even what few laws Japan has now wouldn’t have applied to anti-heteromorph discrimination, because, while they may look wildly different from a prototypical Japanese person, heteromorphs still are Japanese, and therefore not protected by a law based solely around ethnic discrimination.    Incidentally, the ordinance in Kawasaki laid out a number of specific examples of the kind of behavior it was looking to address, and one of those examples was likening victims to something other than human.  I know why that was included in the context of anti-Korean sentiments,[9] but it certainly does shade e.g. Dabi calling Spinner a lizard more harshly to know that there’s legal precedent for categorizing such dehumanizing language as hate speech.    [9] An extremely common form of anti-Korean hate speech in Japan is to refer/allude to Koreans as cockroaches.

“These days, one faction might only reject people with animal properties, while another focuses its hate on people with irregular heads.”     This is a good echo of the sort of factionalization you see in organized religion, wherein the minutiae of tenets that seem similar to an outside eye are the topic of vicious, vehement inter-group debate. More to the point, however, it provides an excellent illustration of the senselessness of bigotry.  They can’t even keep their own discriminatory dogma straight!    Probably the second most common complaint about the story’s use of heteromorphobia—after calling it retconned-in bullshit that didn’t exist until Chapter 220—is that it’s illogical, that it makes no sense to judge people because they look a little different in a world where everyone is now a little different from the way we see the world.    And I wonder if the people who say that are listening to what they’re saying.  “Illogical bias that has no foundation in reality is unrealistic?”  What do these people think bigotry is?  Racism, sexism, xenophobia, ableism, religious discrimination, all the many different shades of queerphobia: all of these are built on foundations of fear and hate for people who are fundamentally still as human as anyone else, yet they all exist, and have existed, and will go on existing for quite some many years still.  Because irrational hatreds are, by definition, irrational.  Heteromorphic discrimination is the most realistic societal dynamic in the entire series! That little rant aside, I also want to highlight the first group in the excerpt above—people with animal properties.  Check any talk on the theme of, “So you can believe dragons but not black people in fantasy?” and you’ll run into the ways people are much more ready to suspend their disbelief for full-on fantasy than for something that, rightly or wrongly, pings them as incorrect, and it’s easy to imagine animal-associated heteromorphs running into a similar issue: it’s fine for people to just look weird, but looking like an animal, that’s bad and unnatural.  A heteromorph who just looks like nothing in particular other than “non-baseline” is not evoking the baggage of animal anthropomorphization and cultural animal symbolism that someone who looks like a bird, a lizard, a dog, an orca, etc. is.   

Chapter 223: 

Shigaraki refers to Gigantomachia as a gorilla.  It’s debatable how much this is of a piece with Dabi calling Spinner “Lizard”—Machia’s only actual animal quirk is Mole, not anything simian, nor is Machia particularly ape-like in anything other than his large size—but it does stand out to me that Spinner, who we know to have strong opinions about animal epithets, just refers to Machia by name or as “the big guy.”

Chapter 224: 

Mr. Compress calls Machia “our pet gorilla”; see note above.

Chapter 226: 

Curious introduces the idea of quirk counselling, telling us that its goal is to align people to a unified understanding of how the world and society work, but that it’s flawed in that it winds up emphasizing peoples’ differences instead.  The advisor at the hospital raid will include quirk counseling in his litany of grievances, so I’ll discuss its possible utilization against heteromorphs more there, but for now, recall that I talked previously about how quirk-based behavioral tics might vary from person to person by comparing Hound Dog with Sansa.  With that in mind, it’s not a big reach that some heteromorphs might run into similar problems with quirk counselling.   

There are a good number of what appear to be heteromorphs through the Curious fight; whatever the MLA’s core views on quirk supremacy, the organization self-evidently makes ample room for heteromorphs, even if, like e.g. the red panda guy in the crowd jumping Toga inside the noodle joint, they don’t seem to have any other stand-out powers beyond the fur and fangs.   

Chapter 229: 

Twice notes in his flashback that something about his eyes always rubbed people the wrong way, scared them.  We’ll eventually see this same thing with Tenko on the street—a totally normal-looking child, but the look on his face scares people away even more than the blood.  And I can’t help but think, “If even a totally baseline person’s eyes can creep people out, how much easier—and more extreme—is that reaction for the more out-there sort of heteromorph?”   

Gori makes the tiniest of cameos in Twice’s flashback, playing backup off to the side when we will, in current times, find him having worked his way up to the interrogation chair himself.   

Chapter 230: 

Geten brings us quirk supremacy via his understanding of the MLA’s goals.  It’s hard to say how accurate this is, since the MLA leadership is inconsistent on what exactly their vision of Liberation entails.  Whatever it is, it certainly doesn’t seem to dissuade the MLA’s own heteromorphs, though of course there’s a big difference between how e.g. Spinner or Ojiro versus Gang Orca or Mirko would fare in a societal quirk free-for-all.  Likewise, the MLA is a cult, so one can’t discount the likelihood of double-think in its members.   

Chapter 232:

Re-Destro talks about the state of the country in Destro’s infancy, a period in which metahumans suffered “constant abuse—blatant discrimination.”  Merely for speaking out that her child was just like everyone else—that his special power was just a quirk—Destro’s mother was killed by an anti-meta mob.  This gives us further evidence of the violence metahumans faced.  Of course, in that time, the hate wasn’t distinguishing between types of quirk, but with that being said, an emitter and a transformer can still hide the truth about themselves with far more ease than heteromorphs—recall All Might’s discussion about the early days of quirks back in Chapter 59, in which the panel showing four people with quirks contained only one baseline person.  It would be entirely unsurprising for an outsized number of the metahumans killed in those days to be heteromorphs.

Chapter 233: 

The confrontation between Trumpet and Spinner gives us Trumpet clucking about Spinner having a weak meta-ability—Gecko lets him cling to walls, and that’s about it.  It’s a striking contrast to someone like Mirko or Gang Orca, or even Tsuyu, all of whom have some combination of big power moves and a veritable fleet of sub-abilities.  We can see the way Hero Society prizes powerful, flexible quirks in this.  Having a strong quirk can help overcome the societal bias about heteromorphs, but if you’re stuck with a weak quirk and a weird face, you lack that metaphorical ticket out.[10]    [10] Incidentally, the fandom reflected some of that attitude as well.  There was a widespread assumption that Spinner’s quirk would be really useful or situationally powerful, otherwise why would Horikoshi have hidden it for as long as he did?  Then, after the reveal, there was a certain amount of complaining that Spinner was useless to the League, and why even bother with him?  Sometimes, life imitates art in some very unflattering ways.

Trumpet brings up that Spinner was a recluse, “mocked and pilloried,” and we see Spinner in his hikikomori days.  What we’ve gotten on Spinner up to this point suggests that the abuse he endured was mostly verbal, though one can imagine it was pretty rough when he was young enough to be the target of school bullies.  There’s a certain amount of temptation to minimize that in comparison to his response: most people who are bullied or targeted by discrimination don’t grow up to become terrorists.  But there was, we will eventually find, more visceral stuff going on—and parts of the country that were even worse than Spinner’s hometown.

Spinner spent most of his life trying to fit himself into the world around him; his strongest parallel in the League in this regard is Toga, as they were the two that held themselves back, let the world define what they were and how they should act, right up until they saw something that caused them to snap.[11]  Trumpet tries to do much the same to Spinner here (albeit probably less as an intentional psychological attack than Skeptic’s attempts on Twice), but Spinner, like Toga, is long past the point where he would swallow that abuse without fighting back.  When you tell someone they are something long enough, they eventually start to believe it—but if you aren’t careful, they’ll start to embrace it, at which point those weaponized words change hands.    [11] Shigaraki and Dabi, by contrast, pushed back harder, trying to get the world to accept them and never accepting it when their families (and particularly their fathers) told them to stop.  Twice was ejected without getting the chance to try to contort himself into a shape that fit the world, whereas Mr. Compress seems to have been raised to reject his society's accepted norms from the start.   

Chapter 234:

We see an image excerpted from Quirks and Us, a children’s book published by Curious’s outfit, that exhorts the reader not to judge people by their quirks.  It really, really begs the question, “If this is what’s being said in literature published to coax people towards anti-suppression radicalism, what on Earth is normal society saying?”    Regardless of that absolutely wild disparity, though, the fact that there are children’s books being published about quirk bias being wrong suggests that the world very much does have a problem with quirk bias.  Indeed, that much has been shown throughout the series, not merely in terms of anti-heteromorph bias, but also the bias against “villain quirks,” as well as the widespread idea that people with weak quirks—or no quirks at all—are weaker people overall, pitiable folk who lack the power to live their fullest lives or pursue their dreams unhindered.[12]    People on more than one of these axes of discrimination will, as in real life, be more likely to experience discrimination and violence. [12] Villains like All For One and Geten may say it more loudly, but it’s not only villains who believe it—perfectly good-hearted people like All Might and Midoriya Inko fall into that trap as well.   

Chapter 237: 

Nothing much to say about Shigaraki’s flashbacks save to note that, if people won’t stop to help a lost and bloodied (and baseline) child, they sure as hell won’t intervene in anti-heteromorph bullying.  Recall that Kirishima was accused of sticking his nose where it didn’t belong for trying!

-----

Thanks as ever for reading along, everyone! How was the new footnote format? Should I keep that up for lengthy meta going forward?

I was kind of expecting to be able to wrap this up (the main canon, at least) in one more post, but I underestimated the amount of writing I'd be doing for the first war arc. For next time, then, I'm looking to cover the Endeavor Agency, Paranormal Liberation War, and Dark Hero Villain Hunt arcs. See you all then!

#bnha #heteromorph discrimination plot #bnha worldbuilding #bnha meta #my writing #creature rejection clan #tw racism #tw hate crime #bnha spinner #iguchi shuuichi #meta liberation army

[sniperct]

Some highlights

Given the prevalent flaws in the previously tested 1/3 scale model, and the visible flaws in the carbon end samples for the Titan, Lochridge again stressed the potential danger to passengers of the Titan as the submersible reached extreme depths. The constant pressure cycling weakens existing flaws resulting in large tears of the carbon. Non-destructive testing was critical to detect such potentially existing flaws in order to ensure a solid and safe product for the safety of the passengers and crew. The counterclaim also details a meeting at OceanGate’s Everett, Washington, facility with engineering staff where “several individuals had expressed concerns over to the Engineering Director.” The OceanGate CEO, Stockton Rush, asked Lochridge to conduct a quality inspection of the Titan. Per the complaint:

Over the course of the next several days, Lochridge worked on his report and requested paperwork from the Engineering Director regarding the viewport design and pressure test results of the viewport for the Titan, along with other key information. Lochridge was met with hostility and denial of access to the necessary documentation that should have been freely available as part of his inspection process.

And these parts are damning:

At the meeting Lochridge discovered why he had been denied access to the viewport information from the Engineering department—the viewport at the forward of the submersible was only built to a certified pressure of 1,300 meters, although OceanGate intended to take passengers down to depths of 4,000 meters. Lochridge learned that the viewport manufacturer would only certify to a depth of 1,300 meters due to experimental design of the viewport supplied by OceanGate, which was out of the Pressure Vessels for Human Occupancy (“PVHO”) standards. OceanGate refused to pay for the manufacturer to build a viewport that would meet the required depth of 4,000 meters. Paying passengers wouldn’t know or be informed about Lochridge’s concerns, according to his complaints. They also wouldn’t be informed “that hazardous flammable materials were being used within the submersible.” Lochridge expressed concerns about the Titan again. But OceanGate didn’t address those concerns, and Lockridge was fired.

#titan #titanic #submersible #missing sub

[harrywavycurly]

Hi Sarah! I’m just wanting some convos between reader and her friends about husband Eddie. I know she gossips about their relationship to maybe Nancy and Robin? 😂🥰

Hiii babes!!! Oh yes of course she tells Nancy and Robin details about Eddie and their relationship! I hope you enjoy these😂💖

-find all things husband Eddie here✨

-I put a 💕 next to the convos that are with Nancy and ✨ means it’s a convo with Robin

*Robin wants all the details on your wedding night but instantly regrets it*

✨ “wait wait…you mean to tell me Eddie Munson did all that? No fucking way…” “you’d be surprised what he’s capable of.” “But he’s just…such a pushover…” “I mean yeah but that’s…outside of the bedroom.” “So what as soon as the lights go out he turns into this assertive dominant…man?” “Why did you say man like it was a question?” “Because i’ve always thought he identified as like a string bean but what you’re describing is…well no vegetable I know can do all that.” “You’re so annoying.” “So it was good then? Like better than it was before marriage?” “Oh totally better than before we were married…I don’t know why…maybe something about getting to call him my husband or something?” “I always knew you two were freaks.” “You’re the one who asked how it was.” “Yeah…I shouldn’t have done that.”

💕 “I’m going to kill him.” “What did he do now?” “He ate the last fucking bag of hot Cheetos and I don’t have a back up like I normally do because he’s making me lay off them for a bit.” “He’s making you take a cheeto break? Why?” “Fuck if I know! Something about it’s not good for me or some shit.” “I can tell you’re really mad…want to see if I have any?” “No…I just want you to tell me if it’s okay if I kill him or not.” “No you can’t kill him…you’d miss him the moment there’s a spider in the shower.” “That’s true he is good at killing spiders…damn him.” “You can always tell Wayne that Ed is being an asshole…” “i can’t use Wayne for everything…besides Wayne will be on his side he hates my hot Cheetos addiction.” “Those Munson men…what assholes.” “Right? So rude…and can’t even kill them because they’re so useful…so damn annoying.”

✨ “I’m sorry you said he did what now?” “He almost caught his hair on fire using the stove.” “Like…on fire on fire? Or it just got singed a bit?” “Oh it got singed a bit and set the smoke alarm off.” “I bet it smelled like ass didn’t it?” “It did…so from now on he has to have his hair up if he’s using the stove.” “And here I thought Steve was a fire hazard with all the product he has in his hair but turns out it was Eddie I should’ve been worried about.” “Steve keeps his hair short for a reason” “oh that makes so much sense! So it doesn’t combust!” “Exactly.” “That’s your man though…brunt hair and all.” “Yup that’s my man…gotta love him.” “I mean I don’t have to…but I get what you mean.”

💕 “Nancy! Guess what Eddie just got.” “A new hair mask?” “No…he does need one though his hair is looking a little blah.” “I liked the one he used to make his hair all shiny.” “Same it was nice…but it’s not hair related.” “Uh…new seat covers for the van?” “I fucking wish…the cracked leather is so annoying to sit on but he’s stubborn and super picky so sadly that’s also not it.” “Okay…a new guitar strap?” “God you’re not good at this…it’s a tattoo.” “Oh of what?” “He got my initial on his ring finger.” “Shut up no he didn’t.” “Oh but he did….” “Holy shit that’s…kinda romantic?” “Right? At first i was like what the fuck is wrong with you? But the more I was looking at it…it’s growing on me.” “Yeah? You gonna get his?” “Hell no…I already have a bat that matches his…that’s about all he’s getting.” “Let me see the font he used for your initial….oh that’s cute…yeah I like it.” “Yeah he said it’s mainly because he doesn’t like to wear his ring while at work so this will help keep the bitches away while he doesn’t have it on.” “Keep the bitches away? Does Eddie…get bitches?” “I mean he got me didn’t he Nancy? Edward James Munson would shock the shit out of with how many chicks are actually interested in him…so yeah he has to keep the bitches away.” “Well whatever works…is that the only one he’s getting for you?” “He has my name on his side…but yeah I think that’s it.” “I forgot about the name one…didn’t he get that when you two were broken up?” “He doesn’t like to talk about it…but yes.” “Right I forget he’s sensitive about that time in your relationship.” “He’s a sensitive little metal head.”

#eddie extras #husband eddie munson #eddie munson series #eddie munson fluff #eddie munson x y/n #eddie munson x you fluff #eddie munson x you #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x fem!reader fluff #eddie munson x fem!reader #eddie munson x wife!reader #nancy wheeler #robin buckley #Eddie Munson #my little dungeon master baby

[etaleah]

I have to imagine that Team Dark drives, teleports, or takes a train everywhere they go because airport security would be an absolute nightmare for them.

Omega sets off the metal detectors and has to get into it with the agents about how the weaponry is part of his body and no, he can’t just hand over his guns and lasers, it isn’t that simple. Yes, he should be considered a person and no, he is not a service animal or piece of property and he is not getting on that conveyor belt. Yes, there are robots who do get onto the conveyor belt, but they are WORTHLESS CONSUMER MODELS.

Rouge has to take off all her jewelry and convince the agents that the gems in her suitcase are definitely not stolen, she promises. Taking off her boots is at least a 10-minute process because of how tightly they’re made to fit her. She has way more beauty products than will fit in a plastic bag or 3 oz. container.

Shadow also sets off the metal detectors because of his inhibitor rings and has to have a go-round of his own with the agents over whether he can bring his air shoes that are definitely not a fire hazard onto the plane.

And it doesn’t help that every time he walks into the scanner, he glares intensely at it as the lyrics “Go ahead and try to see through me, do it if you dare…” start playing in the background out of nowhere.

#team dark #shadow the hedgehog #rouge the bat #e 123 omega #sonic the hedgehog #sonic headcanons #my thoughts

[eirinstiva]

A bit about "oil of vitriol"

In the last letter that I received from my friend Watson I was waiting for a girls fight but Kitty Winter surprised everybody with a chemical attack using "vitrol" against the villainous Baron Adelbert Gruner.

Oil of vitrol is an outdated name of sulfuric acid (H2SO4), a colorless oily liquid widely used in industrial processes. This name comes from "vitrols", sulfates of different metals like copper, iron or aluminium. My favourite one is copper(II) sulfate penahydrated CuSO4·5H2O because is blue:

[ID: blue crystal of copper(II) sulfate]

Sulfuric acid has been known for many centuries, but medieval European alchemists called it "oil of vitrol" because they prepared this oily sustance by roasting iron(II) sulfate FeSO4·7H2O or green vitriol in an iron retort.

[ID: green crystals of iron(II) sulfate heptahydrate]

There are many ways to produce sulfuric acid but in 1831 British vinegar merchant Peregrine Phillips patented the contact process. This method is economical for production of sulfuric acid in high concentrations and still in use today.

It surprised me how cold blood acted Kitty Winter carrying the oil of vitriol considering this hazards:

- CORROSIVE and/or TOXIC; inhalation, ingestion or contact (skin, eyes) with vapors, dusts or substance may cause severe injury, burns or death. - Fire will produce irritating, corrosive and/or toxic gases. - Reaction with water may generate much heat that will increase the concentration of fumes in the air. - Contact with molten substance may cause severe burns to skin and eyes. - Runoff from fire control or dilution water may cause environmental contamination.

But during those years there wasn't many norms related to use, transport and labelling of chemicals like today, even the treatment of chemical burns is different. Dr. Watson used water to dilute the acid, then applied oil and cotton to protect the wounds. Currently he standard first aid treatment for acid spills on the skin is irrigation with large quantities of water. Washing is continued for at least ten to fifteen minutes to cool the tissue surrounding the acid burn and to prevent secondary damage. Contaminated clothes should be removed to wash the skin underneath. Additional measures like diluted solutions of sodium bicarbonate can be used for smaller burns but in case like Gruner is better to use the shower 🚿

#letters from watson #science #chemistry #the illustrious client #ILLU #acd canon #medicine #letters in the underground