Icon from a picrew by grgikau. Call me Tir or Julian. 37. He/They. Queer. Twitter: @tirlaeyn. ao3: tirlaeyn. 18+ Only. Star Trek. Sandman. IwtV. OMFD. Definitionless in this Strict Atmosphere.
One of my roommates cannot stand the way I play minecraft
Instead of looking for diamonds, fighting mobs, trying to go to the nether, doing potions/enchantments/whatever, I like to build these 1-block-wide platforms far above the ground that i walk on to explore without getting lost, attacked or generally inconvenienced. And they hate it
“If you don’t want to get lost just use a compass!” Takes redstone. Also I don’t want to. And on the ground there’s mobs
“Fight the mobs, they’re part of the game!” no. I get scared
“Just use mine carts!” And use all that iron?
“Then use boats and ice!” You need enchantments to collect ice. All my paths take is dirt and ladders (and torches)
Oh heck yes, thank you friend I have so many neat dirt facts to share!
First and most importantly, healthy soil has tons and tons of microbes in it, which do lots of cool things, but the ones I’m most well versed in are related to nutrient cycling. There are microbes that pull nitrogen out of the air and turn it into a form usable by plants, and there are microbes that put nitrogen back into the air. There are microbes that eat organic matter and produce all kinds of interesting byproducts - these are the ones that make methane and CO2, and they’re also responsible for the fact that iron-containing dirt changes colors depending on whether it has oxyegn in it!
That’s because the organic matter eating microbes change one type of iron ion which is red into another kind which is colorless, making the dirt appear gray. So why isn’t dirt with these microbes always gray? Because there are a lot of different microbes that eat organic matter, and different ones dominate the system depending on if there’s O2 and if not, how long it’s been since there was. So in anoxic (without oxygen) environments, there’s a whole series of different microbial processes that take place, in order, depending on how long the system has been anoxic. That’s because the ingredients needs for the earlier processes eventually run out. And all these processes happen in reverse, too - if gray anoxic iron-rich soil is exposed to oxygen, it’ll turn red again.
One of the fun things about this is if you’re at a wetland or river, sometimes you can look at the soil just below the water line along the shore and see rusty streaks in otherwise gray soil. Those are plant roots! Or, technically, they’re where oxygen from the roots has seeped into the surrounding soil, allowing the iron in it to be oxidized. And if you’re an ecologist or soil scientist, that’s a useful observation because then you know for sure that the gray soil around the red streaks is anoxic.
Unrelated fun fact: some soil fizzes upon contact with acid. This is because it contains calcium carbonate, the same stuff limestone is made of. If you’ve ever taken an intro geology class you’ve probably put acid on rocks to determine if they contain the mineral calcite - aka CaCO3 or calcium carbonate. That’s the same stuff I’m talking about in soil.
I hope you’ve enjoyed these facts about dirt, and also that the first part wasn’t terribly incomprehensible because I’m too tired to proofread. Thank you for requesting these fun facts, I sure had fun writing them.
Some Star Trek Alien fun. I made an alien Lady becos why not?? And after deciding to make xie one of the changeling children sent out by the Founders, i wanted to go farther with that idea. (Edit: i retconned some stuff after being reminded about the true age of the Dominion. I originally had xie voluntarily leave the Founder homeworld prior to the founding (haha) of the Dominion, but seeing as it doesn’t really make sense, i had to fix some things)
Xe lived among a species known as Xycanthas for a long time, before an unknown cataclysmic airborne disease wiped out the population. Xe, being a changeling, was not affected, as xie’s chemical makeup was completely unheard of at the time. Xe hopped from planet to planet, and fell in love multiple times, only to outlive xie’s partners.
Thousands of Earth years later, Xe is currently in a wlw relationship with a Cardassian dissident (even though xe is technically in a female form, their relationship is not necessarily sapphic, becos changeling)
Xe also kept the Xycantha form in remembrance of those who took care of xie for so long.
The final sketch is xie in a more alien form, becos we know Star Trek is just funky dudes in some funky makeup, and i like to have fun with characters.
