#and for how much it's just personal anecdotes

[songofwizardry]

it’s strike evening! tomorrow teachers in england and wales start on a series of discontinuous strike days, over teacher pay and funding.

i have had this long post of anecodates the state of state education right now sitting in my drafts for months. but i think it’s a good time to share it. there are no graphs or national statistics—you can get those from the neu, and if you’re reading this you probably know them already. but i think it’s worth sharing the personal side of why we’re striking as well. this is very disconnected, and rambly, and frustrated, but here goes:

i’m a physics graduate. i trained to teach at one of the largest ITT providers in the country a few years ago. there were about 25-30 physics trainees in this batch

at least ten have already left the profession, or left the country to teach elsewhere. this is not including people who left state education to teach in independent schools, or people who dropped out during the training year

i trot this statistic out a lot, because it’s shocking—this year, we have recruited one physics teacher for every eight state schools in england. that’s just trainees recruited. several of them will drop out during the training. even more will leave during their induction period (25% of new teachers leave within two years). it gets worse every year

over the last two years, i have watched my school (a comprehensive secondary) try to replace, or find long-term supply, for several staff—maths teachers, science teachers, MFL teachers, technicians, pastoral staff, etc. pretty much every time, it’s taken at least 3 months to find a long-term replacement. the ‘revolving door of supply staff’ is very true, and supply staff are also hard to find

nationally, schools are ridiculously tight on money. this hits the poorest areas and kids worse—we push up every class to 32 students because that means more money for the school, we turn what were previously free trips into paid ones because schools can’t afford to cover the costs, we turn off the heating at 4pm, we cut TAs and extra-curriculars and sports and equipment budgets. this is a funding crisis as well as a staff pay crisis. a non-funded pay rise is useless

these are not hypotheticals btw—they have happened and are happening in my school and in schools near me. we are cutting trips, clubs, TAs, mentoring support, you name it. if it can be cut it will be.

the easiest way to cut costs is by cutting down on staff. so all our timetables are as full as it is legally possible to be. there is no breathing room. one class can be shared by multiple staff to make this timetable mess work. staff are stretched to their limit, and if someone falls sick long term, there’s no staff free to cover and – see above – we cannot recruit! so we return to a revolving door of supply staff (whom we also can’t get)

the cuts to additional support affect kids with SEND needs, emotional needs, kids who are having a hard time, etc the most. i cannot tell you the number of kids i have who need a TA or a mentor and don’t get one, need counselling, need a reader, need a scribe, need 1-to-1 EAL support, etc..... it goes on

and at the same time social services across the board have been slashed after years of tory austerity. camhs is a mess, the nhs has no money, youth services are gone, libraries and community centres are shut—we are trying to fill a gaping hole, with no goddamn money

and on the note of staff pay—support staff especially don’t get paid enough, but across the board, I’m hearing of colleagues using food banks, not being able to afford heating or feeding themselves or children, struggling to make rent, etc. especially for early career teachers, it’s not enough. I know of plenty of colleagues who took on additional responsibility way earlier than they wanted or were ready for, because it means extra pay, and the standard salary isn’t enough to live on.

couple that with the fact that in a subject like maths or science, there are plenty of entry-level jobs that pay much better, and it’s no surprise people aren’t coming into the profession.

i care deeply for my students. i want the best for them. they deserve teachers who are not overworked, exhausted, and bitter. they deserve subject specialists, not four months of rotating supply teaching their GCSE chemistry class. they deserve staff who feel valued, and thus stick around long enough that they can build relationships with them. they deserve enough lab equipment, textbooks, glue sticks. they deserve extra curriculars and trips they don’t have to pay for, that aren’t funded out of whatever I can spare from my own tight budget that month. they deserve dedicated TA support where they need it, again, with TAs who are valued and have time to build connections with them and support them.

and i am also tired, and i care deeply for my colleagues. we all deserve better.

so i am striking tomorrow, for my students, and my colleagues, and myself, because i deeply love this profession and it deserves so much better than a government that clearly doesn’t value educators or education. if you can, join us on the picket line at your local school, or at a march! there’s a strike map in the notes.

[solardrink]

3.5 spoiler !

I CANNOT stop laughing the fact that kaeya as a little kid SHIPPED himself back to where he thought khaenri’ah was because he read it in a book 😭😭😭he’s so SILLY imagine this tiny malnourished kid with fancy clothes on ur fuckin ship carrying goods across the sea with the most determined little face and then his adoptive dad goes ALL the way to sumeru to pick his ass up and drag him back to mond 😭 this was the route they had to take

[anotherpapercut]

hi more drug question

I have been told many many times that using ecstasy will basically fry your seratonin receptors so that you will never be able to feel happy again unless you are using the drug. I am assuming now that this is false but I am curious now as to how false. Is it something that CAN happen if you take too much at once or too often, or is this just random Drug Scary misinformation

Also also since wellbutrin is not an SSRI does LSD work when you are on it or does it also cancel it out

lol that's kind of an extreme version of what I usually hear! you're right that basically the answer here is no. this comes from a couple different things. first is MDMA induced serotonin toxicity, and 2nd is something called "serotonin syndrome" which is a real thing that can happen, but it's really really hard to get like this. prepare for a very long answer lmfaooo

MDMA induced serotonin toxicity occurs when you take too high doses too frequently. MDMA IS slightly neurotoxic, but so are many prescription drugs so don't let that word freak you out too much! basically MDMA works by dumping large amounts of serotonin into your brain, hence why it's the happy/love drug lol. if you take too much too often, your brain will straight up run out of serotonin. obviously that's bad! it's not as simple as "never feeling happy again" but you will essentially have depression for a bit because of lack of serotonin (on its own, low serotonin levels following modest MDMA use is not damaging and resolves within a few days) but the real problem is that if you are on MDMA with depleted serotonin, your brain will continue releasing dopamine which will attach to the serotonin receptors and damage them. this is what can cause long term depression symptoms, the damaged serotonin receptors. ultimately your brain will heal this on its own unless for some reason I guess you keep taking it a lot (which would have no effect. when you take too much MDMA your brain just runs out of serotonin to dump so like. it just won't work lol)?? it can also be treated with the supplement NAC, which I would recommend taking any time you use MDMA because of this!

to sum up MDMA toxicity: it can happen but only if you're misusing it! it's generally recommended that you dont do much more than 1 dose every 3 months or so to make sure your brain has time to reset. research interactions with anything else you're using (prescription or not), take some NAC in the weeks following a dose, drink a lot of water, keep your body temperature regular because that can worsen it, and take some antioxidants like alpha lipoic acid and grape seed oil during/immediately after taking MDMA - it's when you come down that your brain is delicate and could use the protection. also this may sound counterintuitive but weed also has antioxidant properties, so smoking it as you come down helps a lot. also if you DO have MDMA toxicity taking more MDMA will not help u feel happy unfortunately it will just make it worse lol, your brain only has so much serotonin to give

now serotonin syndrome can happen with the misuse of any drug that works on serotonin including MAOIs, SSRIs, and SNRIs, usually by taking a VERY large dose (but some people are just extremely sensitive). it usually takes care of itself eventually, but the amount of time it takes and stuff is kinda hard to pin down bc it's REALLY misunderstood and tends to be overly self diagnosed. again this is like super super hard to do. you would have to take a MASSIVE dose or mix it with other serotonin affecting drugs (ESPECIALLY MAOIs. DO NOT MIX MDMA WITH MAOI ANTI DEPRESSANTS). like 5 times the normal dose at least probably (partner is currently trying to find some literature on it so he'll add that in the replies if he finds anything interesting). it will cause things like heightened anxiety and body temperature and can cause kidney problems or seizures if it's like really bad and untreated. but you'd feel REALLY bad before it got to that point, so in general like, if you take any type of drug and feel extremely bad after go to the doctor lol. mostly this will also just heal itself; your brain is pretty resilient! again usually if this does happen it's very minor. cases bad enough to require hospitalization are exceedingly rare

to give you an example of what these can look like, I have a friend who was given about 3-4 times a regular dose by a fucking piece of shit asshole she knows and, this part is crucial, it was mixed with a very large amount of alcohol AND acid (which can slightly increase the neurotoxicity. normally not a huge issue but becomes one in circumstances like this), AND coke; like she was blackout drunk and while not on a lot of acid or coke, this is just too many things to have in your body and brain at one time. the mixture of such a large amount different drugs caused her what I'm guessing was a mild case of both of these things at once. she experienced slightly worsened depression for about 6 months after, and actually had a mild stutter for almost a year. I made sure she took some NAC and other things that aid brain healing, and she didn't try molly again for a long time to be super sure she didn't overload her brain before it was ready. this is a pretty extreme case, and even with that she has fully recovered thankfully. do NOT EVER do drugs with someone you don't trust with your life. DO NOT EVER do drugs in doses you have not confirmed for yourself to be safe and DO NOT EVER mix drugs without finding out if it's safe!!! just as a small aside though: usually taking molly and acid at the same time is perfectly safe. in fact it's called a candy flip and I HIGHLY recommend it because it's fucking awesome. again, just make sure you are taking safe doses in a safe environment

OKAY now finally your specific question about Wellbutrin: I actually take Wellbutrin so I can answer this one from personal experience! Wellbutrin should not alter the effects of LSD in any way HOWEVER! both of these drugs lower your seizure threshold! I'm on the max dose of Wellbutrin (which is the max dose BECAUSE of seizure risk) so when I plan to drop acid I usually either skip my dose entirely that day or only take half depending on how much acid I'm planning to take. because of the way Wellbutrin works, this shouldn't cause you any problems as far as that goes. for me, not taking my Wellbutrin for a day mainly has the effect of making me more fatigued, and acid counteracts that really well by making me feel very awake/aware. if you don't want to skip or halve your dose though you can also take things that will RAISE your seizure threshold. so like I sometimes will smoke hemp because CBD actually will help with that. the risk here isn't huge either way especially if you have no history of seizures, but again if it's something you're concerned about you should be just fine skipping or lowering your dose for the day. acid usually lasts about 12 hours too so i personally don't even care about skipping the Wellbutrin that much because it basically does the same thing for me. I did take my full Wellbutrin dose the last couple times I've done acid though because I was taking a very small amount of acid (about half a tab)

in summation lol sort of TLDR I generally would recommend MDMA for recreational use because the risks of damage are low and it's safe if you are safe about it. and it's honestly just a really fun one! the only negative effect I've ever felt is some emotional and physical fatigue the following day, and this is largely because of how emotional and energetic you are on it. I just make sure to have the next day off to lay around and listen to music :)

taking it with a partner or loved one will give you an especially beautiful experience, as MDMA has been proven to facilitate extremely open emotional conversations. in fact, when MDMA was first synthesized it's primary use was in psychotherapy! research was shut down during the war on drugs, but in recent studies it's demonstrated amazing abilities to treat and even straight up CURE disorders like PTSD. for a personal anecdote, my partner actually completely fucking cured his alcoholism on a combo of MDMA and whippets (nitrous oxide) lmfao. like dude straight up went from getting black out drunk multiple nights a week to drinking nothing for the past year and a half without any other treatment program. LSD has been proven to have similar incredible results with treating and curing things like depression, anxiety, PTSD and addiction and is also a very fun and very safe one.

sorry to reiterate for the billionth time lol but it's important: these drugs are safe and fun if you make sure they're safe and fun! do your research and never use in an unfamiliar environment with people you wouldn't trust in an emergency! also I know this sounds like a lot, but remember I'm giving you like the absolute safest possible practices and emphasizing sort of over cautiousness because I think it's always better to be too safe. I've taken molly without nac and I've taken kinda big doses a little closer together than I should have without any problems. there's a bit of flexibility to these guidelines, but it's always better to think of them as being rigid so you don't end up too far in the other direction. like I've said it's really really hard to do actual damage that would last more than like a day or 2 max. most of the time you'll just be sleepy the next day from all the dancing so it's nice to do it on a day 1 of a weekend. also it only lasts like a couple of hours lol so it's not your whole day or anything!

[skitskatdacat63]

Painting 🖼

[finelinens1994]

i'm really grateful that catlyn and brookeab streamed and gave their perspectives as people who are in that sphere and, in catlyn's case, are friends with the dteam. watching their vods was so good even if it was really hard emotionally, like it's just nice to see women bringing these difficult conversations to their audiences and trying to have a positive impact

[a-little-podcast-blog]

NUMBER ONE ON TRENDING WE ARE SO BACK, BABY‼️‼️

[queerbeverage]

Okay, i will engage with this, sure.

Firstly, yes this is absolutely an experience both transmascs and transfems and nonbinary people who don't fit into either category have. I am not saying that this is wrong in any way, i just think these people should think a little about how others they share a space with might feel about these things.

I don't think you have any right to tell me how to cope with my oppression. Basically telling me to "loosen up a little" and take it with humor does not solve my problems, and is in no way healthy for me as a way of dealing with that. It's cool that it works for you and for others, but it absolutely does not for me and i think telling me i have to is just bullshit.

I may have been not precise enough on this point: Trans femininity is a threat to the patriarchy, because we represent options. In their eyes, we are 'men' that 'choose' to become women. In their worldview that pits men above every other gender, a man seemingly abandoning this higher standing for a lower one threatens the order of the gender binary.

>The assumptions you've made about other trans people even up to this point alone are wildly inaccurate

Every single trait i have described here i have experienced in real life. The amount of conversations i had with uneducated trans people where it became clear they offer nobody that has a different experience with gender any grace or understanding (to be clear - this includes transfems aswell as transmascs) is frankly astonishing. Thankfully this is mostly a problem with newly out trans people, but i have also experienced this with older trans ppl who were out for some time already.

It's incredible how you can just brush these systemic issues aside, as if it were solely the fault of me and my friends for getting bullied out of social circles, getting lies told about us by people we considered friends, being dropped like one-time-use disposable toys after whatever we had to offer got squeezed out of us. It is not a personality issue if every transfem person i have ever spoken to can tell me atleast one anecdote where they have been harrassed by someone who is not affected by transmisogyny and has weaponised that against them.

Yes. Yes i am as passionate about transmascs being excluded from social groups and queer meet-ups, and i advocate for change when i see it happen. Yes, i talk to younger transfems about the oppression transmascs experience and how that differs and in what ways it is the same; and that we should have empathy for each other. I don't think just hating on transmascs & trans men is the answer to this problem, and i also think we can't let transmisogyny weaponised by these people slide. It's important to call out in the community, just as much as it is important to call out people who have it out for transmascs.

It's just plain bullshit that trans men and transmasc people can never have power over women. That is just plain not true and antifeminist bullshit. Neither is saying that every trans man / transmasc has power over every trans woman / transfem. Gender is of course a spectrum, and the newly out young poor not-passing nonbinary transmasc person is not really capable of oppressing the older middle-class trans woman who has been out for a decade. Yet the passing trans man with social standing can OF COURSE oppress a trans woman. This isn't some ground-breaking relevation, it's intersectionality and feminism 101.

It's cool that for you gender is just a funny little cloak you can don whenever you want to, and you don't feel as dysphoric when getting misgendered, and that you use the bathroom that has the shorter line.

However, have you maybe for one second considered all of these things are privileges people like me do not have? When i go into the women's bathroom, i might get kicked out or assaulted. My specific kind of gender will not be acknowledged, because anything feminine is immediately seen as threatening. Idk, i feel like a lot of trans people and especially transmascs never learn to respect other trans people who may have different experiences and get oppressed in different ways. It's not enough for you to be trans, that does not make you a feminist by default! It does not make you understanding & accepting of other identities! That is still work you have to do yourself!!!

And frankly i am tired of getting kicked from communities and socially murdered because a transmasc decided i was too weird/didn't fit into their transmisogynistic worldview/any combination of those two; and watching my sisters get ostracized with no support system over the most basic of differences. It gets even worse when we call this shit out, it's immediate social murder, everyone turns away and abandons you.

DO. BETTER.

Educate younger transmascs, be vocal about transfems, stop attending events where no transfems are and either work to make those spaces better or hold space and grace for the transfems in your life. I am tired of my sisters being hurt so badly in the places they're searching comfort in. DO BETTER!

Transmascs & trans men who are vocal about these issues, i love you. Your voice is important in this, and it's imperative that if you notice one of your TME friends act like this around transfems to speak up. To them, your voice carries a lot more weight than ours does (as sad and shit as that may be). Just like feminist cis men, you can help a ton by just calling out bullshit in your communities.

Please, i'm fucking tired of being hurt by the people that should be my brothers and siblings.

[etoilesbienne]

i wouldn't say comparing view numbers is taboo? i guess it's just something that's Not done about much and i can obviously see why someone wouldn't want to LOL—but if it isn't in any mean spirited context i don't personally see it as a problem!

TRUE BTW about how sometimes people will have tens of thousands of viewers. on separate streams at the same time 💀 didn't mariana have like 56,000 Viewers (WHAT RHE HELL!!) during the trial at the same time everyone else had like 10k+. qsmp sweep?

YWAH IT WAS INSANE. like from charlies pov i think he had maybe ~15k or so. mariana has had 40-50k views every time ive watched him stream minecraft point blank and like 25-30k everything else. That is fucking insane in terms of numbers. what really got me was the trial and not only did mariana have 50k viewers q had like 40k and roier had like 25-30k? somewhere around in there for those three. and then all of the english streamers were like 2-15k (fit being lowest and charlie being highest) THE DIFFERENCE IS SO STAGGERING TO ME ITS SHOCKING

[skhardwarevers1]

sorry for saying I was going to do things and even starting them and then disappearing from this website entirely for three days. It will happen again

[contraspem--spero]

Theoretically, how does one get a professor fired

[padfootastic]

Hello,

Please feel free to ignore this ask because it may contain sensitive topic to some people. What's your opinion about trans James ? In most fanon works , both art and fics, it is Sirius who usually is headcanoned as one. I have not seen many works with trans James or him being gender fluid , etc . Do you think it is because the way his character is described in the books , which in all honesty is not much or is it because Sirius had been described as really handsome? It doesn't do anything with handsomeness, I know , but the fandom works strangely like that 🙊

well, hello there, friend! so sorry for getting to this so late.

so, my opinion on this is really just my usual for identity hcs--i personally dont care much for them. that's not to say they're bad (i've seen some beautifully done stuff) just that it hits too close to reality for my escapist ass.

i see where you're coming from with the sirius comparison, tho! i think partly it's also because sirius is just...more popular? james is a pretty niche character, i'd say, even within mwpp compared to the others, so just by virtue of numbers, trans james doesnt get so much attention.

(there's a part of me that also thinks its also bc so much of the queerness in fanfiction comes from. wanting representation rather than caring about writing a queer character. and that means there's no deeper engagement than outward aesthetics. which means no real transgression is taking place. so u have repackaged cishetero norms circulating. but what do i know about that)

[lesbianamalvada]

How is it TERF rhetoric to claim straight trans MEN are not lesbians? TERFs believe trans men are women so they would agree that yes, you are a lesbian. Y'all use TERF as a word to shame and silence lesbians and other women.

Either you think trans men are men and that men can be lesbians and you're a homophobe or you think trans men are not men and you are a transphobe. No wall of text or gender studies course will change this fact.

No one is policing how you "identify" you can "identify" as whatever you want, no one can stop you from lying. I can do it right now, I identify as a selfless and good billionaire, I'm so queer, look at my contradictory identity!!!

You can identify as something that doesn't exist. But don't be mad when people call you silly and dumb for your silly and dumb identity. Don't be mad when people who belong to the identities you appropriate treat you with scorn.

Stop queersplaining what being a lesbian is "about" to people for people who are so against boxes you love doing that shit! Being a lesbian isn't "about" anything just like being Mexican isn't about anything it is just a descriptor, nothing more nothing less. It describes homosexual women. That's it.

Stop gaslighting lesbians into accepting this bullshit, stop telling us to "look inside ourselves" and think the sky is green and the grass is blue. Why don't you look OUTSIDE yourself for once, stop naval-gazing, realize you aren't the special main character, get another fucking hobby besides queer theory and micro-label inventing, and stop embarrassing and disrespecting actual lesbians and trans men.

the first lesbian i ever knew irl when i was younger was my moms friend who was an ftm lesbian, who did not identify as a woman in any way but fully identified as a lesbian, and was in a triad with two women who fully accepted him for who he was.

we have been around for a long time, and will continue to be here long after you immature box obsessed baby queers have burned out. being a lesbian is about loving women and being queer, if you can't understand that congratulations on drinking the terf juice.

also its okay to be wrong as long as you don't fucking double down when confronted with the facts like. if you see this post and want to actually interact in good faith with bi or mspec lesbians and lesbians who dont identify as women or "woman-lite", then please do! that's the mature response!

i just want yall to look inside yourselves and really try to figure out why you feel like you should have control over how other people identify. thats the opposite of what being queer means, and i'm not even angry at people who think this way it legitimately just makes me sad?

[wowreally0102]

how happy can you really be when you’re reading paragraphs upon paragraphs of people against your very existence whenever you log on is my question

[nest-being]

yesterday the emotional pain was just too much. overpowered my every thought and action. consumed me whole. but today i'm okay!! i cried trying to sleep wishing so badly that i wouldn't feel like this in the morning and my wishes came true!!! i woke up feeling a lot better compared to yesterday. i think i'll always have painful memories and emotions and idk if i'll ever be able to look at my face in the mirror without feeling some kind of way about it but i have to keep reminding myself that it'll be okay no matter what happens it'll be okay

[violentdevotion]

go upstairs to escape the sound of my brothers voice but he talks so loudly and the walls are so thin i can still hear him

[genderqueerdykes]

i feel like it's really important to point out some really transphobic and dangerous rhetoric that we've just accepted as the norm in online queer spaces.

if you believe that in order for a trans man to talk about their experiences with trans manhood, they must also talk about how bad trans women have it or else they're being transmisogynistic, you're being transphobic. these are two separate conversations and not all trans men can accurately tell you what trans women go through. not all trans women can accurately tell you what trans men go through, either. you can't expect someone to have every conversation about transness at once when they are just trying to give anecdotes about their personal lived experiences. trans men are allowed to talk about trans manhood as much as they need to... that's their lived experience.

expecting one side to talk about how the other has it worse in every conversation they have about themselves is hostile behavior. it's not holding trans women down for a trans man to talk about their experience with trans manhood and don't mention how bad other queer people have it. those are separate conversations. don't expect trans women to have to bring up the struggles trans men have in order to talk about their own experiences, and don't do this to any other group of queer person, either. don't do it to anyone. it's okay to have one conversation at a time. not every conversation can represent every single group of queer person at once, nor should they have to.

there's a time and a place for all of these conversations. there is just as much time to be had having conversations about trans womanhood as there is trans manhood. it's okay to have these conversations separately at the same time. it's alright for someone to only comment on what they know. it's not great to force people to comment on experiences they don't understand because it leads to misrepresentation. let trans men talk about their experiences with trans manhood without expecting them to talk about a bunch of other queer identities, too. you don't have to drown out the voices of trans men in order to lift someone else up. we can have these conversations, separately, at once.