Avatar

Prone to random bouts of Enthusiasm

@ramblebrambleamble

Ramble, they/them, mostly reblogs. Hi! Poetry: @ramblebramblepoetry, it all gets archived there. | Fanfic, sometimes: @ramblebramblefun. | AO3: ramblebrambleamble.
Avatar

july in appalachia by keaton st. james

Avatar

[poem text: ma says there’s an angel in the creek out behind old mr. henry’s shack. she saw it when she was seven years old, playing by herself while her pa helped mr. henry with his hay bales: sliced her bare foot open on a jagged rock, and the angel swam towards the blood in the water.

ma looked right into the angel’s six blind eyes and asked him, “how come you’re down here, sleepin’ in the mud, when you could be up in heaven, plantin’ sunflowers for god?”

his wings were like a dragonfly’s, transparent and glimmerin’, and his halo was a ring of algae. the angel grinned, three rows of sharp teeth, and said, “girlie, god has plans for the bluegills too.”

end poem text.]

You know, when somebody has a magnificent head of hair – that, honestly, when I was nineteen I would have loved to have had - and they shave it all off… I feel that somehow they’re kind of infringing on my territory. [x]

I saw a man this morning Who did not wish to die; I ask, and cannot answer, If otherwise wish I. Fair broke the day this morning    Against the Dardanelles; The breeze blew soft, the morn's cheeks      Were cold as cold sea-shells. But other shells are waiting      Across the Aegean sea, Shrapnel and high explosive,      Shells and hells for me. O hell of ships and cities, Hell of men like me, Fatal second Helen,      Why must I follow thee? Achilles came to Troyland     And I to Chersonese: He turned from wrath to battle,     And I from three days' peace. Was it so hard, Achilles, So very hard to die? Thou knewest and I know not— So much the happier I. I will go back this morning From Imbros over the sea; Stand in the trench, Achilles,      Flame-capped, and shout for me.

I Saw A Man This Morning, by Patrick Shaw-Stewart

(context and some incoherent opinions below)

Anonymous asked:

Do you have any references for centaur foals? It's really hard to find any references that's not adults

Yea! Enjoy a dump of all my centaur babies! They're mostly a bit older drawings but I think they still hold up haha and I don't think many people draw them cause they can be a little funky- what with the chunky little bodies on big ol spidery legs 😅 But I still think they're cute 💜

And a lot of my drawings of the bitties are in slings, as that's how I built in infant care with an L-shaped infant 😂

and of course, some goofy little baby Sunny doodles <3

Avatar

i went to a tiny counterserve diner once and accidentally poured sugar instead of salt all over my hashbrowns and was eating them sadly anyways. the waitress took them away and started making me another one and I tried to protest, but she just snorted and said "we're not catholic here". now every time i'm doing something painful out of obligation i think about how that is not repenting, this body is not a catholic establishment, there is no nobility in suffering.

Unironically, vegans need to be advocating for more and better sheep, llama, and alpaca farms. Wool is one of the best fabrics we have in terms of versatility, longevity and most importantly, insulation. Even wet, it retains 80% of it’s insulation potential.

AND IT DOESN’T SHED MICROPLASTICS

Like, there’s literally nothing you can do to a sheep that’s as morally reprehensible as dumping plastic down the gullet of literally every other living thing. You wanna talk about animal welfare? Talk about reducing the amount of microplastics produced by rayon, polyester, and spandex.

You are brave as FUCK for saying this, and it’s 100% true.

Wool farming, if done with an eye on animal welfare*, does absolutely nothing to harm a sheep or alpaca. It’s no different than a haircut. And just like a haircut, it’ll grow right back. If your argument is that sheep may be cut in this process—very occasionally a sheep may be nicked. To be clear, I say NICKED, not cut. Think about shaving your legs or face and hitting a bump, and ow, you bleed a couple drops. That is what may, rarely, happen. But RARELY, because farmers are going to take damn good care of the animals who keep them in funds. Should it happen, it’s as much an accident as you finding that bump while shaving.

Likewise y’all should be promoting ethical beekeeping and honey farming. Bees are unique among livestock in that if they don’t like their keeper, if they think the hive is shitty, they can, and will, just…leave. You can’t put a collar or ear tag on a bee. Bee populations are declining and they’re incredibly important in our biodiversity (as pollinators, yes, but also in other ways). And bees do, indeed, make too much honey for themselves. That’s why they swarm. A nest gets too full of comb, or they outgrow it, and they just dip. Swarming is dangerous because it leaves the bees vulnerable—the queen is mostly unprotected, they have only as much food as they could carry with them so if it’s late in the season they’re dead meat, humans spot swarms and freak out and send exterminators because they don’t realize swarms aren’t dangerous as long as you’re calm….it is, BY FAR, better to have bees in a hive that never overfills, where they can be checked for parasites and diseases that would destroy the colony or even an entire apiary and can receive honey substitute rather than starving to death if winter should be particularly harsh or long, and where an excess of their natural product and instincts can be siphoned off for the benefit of humans with no detriment to the bees.

Honey is less harmful to us and to the planet we live on than agave syrup, stevia, or cane sugar. It does not rely on any kind of slave labor (again: if the bees weren’t happy, they’d leave). It does not upset entire economies. And by its nature there are more independent keepers than there are giant conglomerates, which is better all the way around! (Although the conglomerates are trying to change that, so like. Support your local beekeepers.) Plus, old no-longer-needed honeycomb is made of beeswax, which can be used in all manner of things in lieu of more harmful chemicals like phthalates. There is no downside here!

“Never do anything involving an animal ever” should not be the goal. That completely ignores that we are animals that grew up in a complete ecosystem. “Do the least amount of harm and be good stewards, because this planet doesn’t belong to only us” should be the goal.

Wool and honey. We can argue another time about eggs. For right now let’s agree that sheep, goats, alpacas, and bees make far more of these products than they will ever need, that in some cases an excess can even be detrimental to them, and that it is a GOOD THING to find a way to live in balance rather than poisoning our world with “vegan leather.”

*to wit: animals should have plenty of space, shelter, food, and clean water. I love meat and I fucking hate factory farming.

Avatar

"how do i know a woman wants me to talk to her in the grocery store" are you an elderly woman with valuable information about cooking, cleaning, or saving money? if you answered no, then women do not want to talk to you in the grocery store.

These tags needed to be shared with the class.

Learning about edible plants (and eating them) has given me a lot of insight into the problems with the USAmerican food system

It's incredible how a supermarket gives you the sense of being surrounded by immense variety, but it's just the visual noise of advertising. In reality almost everything around you is just corn, wheat, soy, and milk, repackaged and recombined and concealed and re-flavored using additives, over and over and over again.

I'm also 10 billion times more Done with honest conversations about food having been totally obliterated by diet culture, the repugnant American emphasis on "personal choice," fatphobia, and veganism-the-ideology

The problem is not that Americans don't want to eat vegetables something something burgers obesity mcdonald's

The problem is that like 95% of the calories we PRODUCE in this country come from the same 6 or 7 crops/livestock that are easiest to minimize human labor in the production of, through automation and industrialization.

Americans eat so much ultra-processed food because it is easier for a corporation to shove a bunch of corn through 5 machines in a factory and dump additives in it, than to pay farmers and laborers for the highly skilled labor of raising a wide variety of crops and cultivars with the personal, non-mechanical, human attention that is required to grow every crop that you can't just floor with a combine harvester

Americans don't eat vegetables and fruits because vegetables and fruits in supermarkets are all of cultivars that taste like ass because they are bred to produce a lot (profitable) and be able to sit on a shelf for weeks after having the crap beat out of them being shipped in a truck. They're usually picked prematurely (so they can sit on a shelf for weeks) meaning they're unripe, mealy and sour, and half of them are approaching "actively rotting."

The main "plant based" meal that is served at almost any restaurant is a "salad" which means iceberg lettuce that looks like it was dragged across Texas by a bungee cord in a styrofoam cup of ice

We cannot make-better-choices our way out of just not having a variety of good quality food. Sure you can try to hork down the flaccid carrot sticks and strawberries that taste like pee on a tarp at a strawberry farm, but if you pretend to enjoy it everyone can see the pain in your eyes

It should be so damning of our food system that so many people legit think sugar is basically cocaine and that having access to candy and ice cream desensitizes your taste buds because they're being overwhelmed with an "unnatural" stimulus.

Buddy. You just...rarely have access to fruit that's actually fresh and ripe. Strawberries and apples aren't "sweet" in your head because the ones you've been eating usually taste like aquarium gravel.

That's so sad.

I'm just saying that one time I was lucky enough to eat ripe pawpaws in the woods still haunts me and I'm craving them just thinking about it

And sometimes you are lucky to pick up a perfectly ripe fruit from the walmart and those fruits are the fruits that live in your longing fantasies forever.

I literally still think about this one pineapple that I ate like 4 years ago I'm not even joking

I need y'all to know that "food you grew yourself tastes sooooooo much better" is not a metaphor for how hard work makes something more satisfying it Really Does Taste Way Better

Avatar

alright friends. best revision tips: GO

Read through your story, and create an outline that is based solely on what is actually there. For each chapter, give it one word that encapsulates what the chapter is about. This is to help think about relevancy to the chapter’s overall arc, and so when you go back later, you can remember your chapters more easily. Then bullet point the scenes below, including three details, written with simple sentences (this is so you can boil down what’s happening without getting too in-depth). Detail 1: initial state. Detail 2: conflict of the scene. Detail 3: outcome. Make sure to be specific with what you’re talking about. “Character x accuses character y of stealing the sword,” not “character x accuses them of doing it.” Optionally, color-code the bulletpoint to represent which plot thread it mostly deals with, or jot it down.

this outline should give you a means of seeing your entire story from a top-down perspective, which will allow you to see what kinds of structural edits you need to do. Before diving back into actually writing and making edits, mark out where you need to add, cut, or merge scenes, and any places where it would make more sense to rearrange scenes. Also look for places where a plot threads are left out for too long, and see how you can weave them in so it doesn’t feel like it was just dropped.

Go through your manuscript and rewrite/add/cut scenes as needed so that it reflects your new outline, and so that details in later parts of the story reflect new changes in earlier parts (for example, if you change how two characters meet, and then they talk about it later, make sure what they’re saying actually matches what happened in the updated version)

Avatar

Reading a thing about rabbits vs hares ( @gallusrostromegalus‘s conversation) and I kept coming back to the forest. Back in the day of the 80s and 90s my family moved a lot from farm to farm while my father worked a job in a nearby city. For eight years we lived in Lanark County, Ontario. There is a reason, I believe, so much of Charles DeLint’s early work is centred there. Let’s just say… mushroom rings? Don’t step inside. But across the road from where my family lived was a large lot that had been a farm with a house and everything, converted into a pine farm. Trees in rows. Rust coloured needles covering the ground, giving the interior a look of a floor with endless pillars. Already, you see, you know things feel weird.  The first tree in the forest was a massive maple sitting at the edge of one of lots of trees. Big twisting, writhing limbs with leaves and bark you could lose a hand in. Only. Every spring when I walked by it would be filled with green and… clicking. I was told later it’s not common or something but someone needs to go find that tree and tell all the porcupines in it that they’re unusual. Because like spikey rattling fruit of owies and musk, they filled that tree. Silence but the sound of their quills (which at sufficient numbers is just… eerie as all hell). They’d watch you. Fill a tree and watch you.  I once counted to twenty before I stopped. I don’t even know where they came from or where they went. But apparently porcupines grow on trees. And then there was The Tree. As I said in monocultures like a planted pine forest there’s a kind of weird sense that you know This Isn’t Natural. But this one block of trees older by a little bit and more established. It was darker with only random spears of light hitting the rust or blood (after a rain) needled ground.  Except. There was an apple tree. It had long limbs that grew in gnarled curves and clutching branches parallel to the ground, spreading out more than up. Enough so it created a break in the canopy and light would spotlight it. Only. For the few leaves and the command of a clearing of it’s own, with a few sickly saplings that would try to grow from under it.. the bark of this apple tree was black. Like jet black. So, again. A forest of lines stretching out of sight. Floor of rust and blood needles, level as if made. Bone-white needles still on branches except. Where a black apple tree snarled and gnarled and twisted limb to throttle a patch of light from the forest. And it was always a kind of dim light. Like it should’ve been brighter but it never was. While the forest around it was pitch. Every single time I approached it all I could think is. We aren’t the only things that have gods. And demons. And beings from Outside. I was always convinced in the forest with the porcupine moot, where a black apple tree grows untouched, trees have their gods and I’d met one. I’m not at all sure it was kind. But I bet it was fair.

b-atiful

Literally where would be as a society without the soup store video

b-atiful

ive never met anyone under 25 who hasnt seen it.

It's literally an impossibly good video. The fucking performance and sheer ANGER and building frustration from both party's, the absurdity, the slow ramping ridiculousness, the way the diologue flows off itself at a breakneck speed, the phrase "I'm at soup" the pure fucking rage off both parties, the sheer almost unbelievable idiocy from the guy who's 'at soup,' the way it ends so ubruptly without losing any momentum. Its insane. I've watched it 150 times in like 2 years its never not funny.

here’s the video since op didn’t link it

Fun fact: this was written, edited, and voice acted by one guy.

Fun fact #2: this whole sketch was apparently based on an overheard conversation where someone was trying to buy chicken at The Gap.

Fun fact #3: there is actually a clothing store called Soup.

Anonymous asked:

Fun detail: If you look closely at Riza's skirt slit, there are snaps or buttons along the hem. It's probably a tearaway made to look like a pencil skirt or something similar, but that can be ripped open to allow her quick access to her thigh holster. I wonder who her tailor is.

bold of you to assume riza and roy don’t have a standing stitch & bitch night where riza adjusts her clothes to accommodate a range of weapons while roy embroiders 37 pairs of gloves at a frankly upsetting speed and complains about every single thing that happened to him that week

Avatar

#roy: i don’t want to be annoying it’s just that your hems -#riza: shut up about my hems. Shut up about my hems#roy: it’s just that if you use the backstitch instea-#riza: I Will Backstitch You I Swear To God (tags via silentwalrus1)

“‘Tis a foolish thing to fight over.”

“What is?”

“Pride. Why does it matter who has the bigger ego?”

“That’s not -”

“True? Oh, but it is. How many people have ignored the suffering surrounding them, only to be goaded into battle by the slightest insult?”

“… I will concede the point, though I must point out that I -”

“/You/ are no different, do not presume to fool me otherwise. I know exactly what it took to get you to heed my summons, and it certainly wasn’t compassion for my plight.

“Well, if/that’s/ how you feel, then -”

“Don’t misunderstand; I am grateful for your sword. But you must admit that it was only your pride that moved you to my side. My messenger had plenty to say on the subject … You made quite an impression.”

“…”

“Ha! Come now. I have guests in need of aweing.”