Feralpaules - Farrell Paules, Feral Writer

The war on drugs is rooted in racist policies . The failure of the war and drugs is obvious. We need to find a better solution, because people of color should never be the victims of racist policies. White Americans are more likely than black Americans to have used most kinds of illegal drugs, including cocaine and LSD. Yet blacks are far more likely to go to prison for marijuana, which is not a hard drug. Moreover , even when white people get caught , they get less time in prison. 

honey production does hurt the bees. the honey stolen is replaced with a toxic synthetic sugar substance which isn't healthy for them. honey isn't for humans to steal, please educate yourself.

Arright, sit down, you’re about to get some knowledge dropped on you by somebody with beekeepers and meadmakers in the family.

The “toxic synthetic sugar substance” you’re referring to? Is sugar water. Literally SUGAR and WATER. There’s nothing synthetic about it. And the bees only rarely need a LITTLE bit of sugar water to help them get through, because if they’re provided with enough nectar, bees will make a shit-ton of honey. Most hives generate more honey than they can ever use.

And when a hive starts getting too full, the bees may swarm and try to go find a new place to live. Do you know what happens to a more than three-quarters of swarms that leave their hive? THEY DIE. Yup. Either they can’t find a new hive, or they run into predators, or they wind up landing somewhere that humans don’t want them and then exterminators get called.

So removing a few frames from the hive, taking out the wax and the honey, and replacing them for the bees to fill with new comb and honey and larvae is actually GOOD for the hive. The bees stay busy, they’ve got frames to fill, the queen doesn’t feel the need to go anywhere, and their human buddies can help keep them safe from natural predators and pesticides.

The mutually-beneficial relationship between humans and bees has existed for literally thousands of years. People keep hives, bees pollinate crops and make honey, people harvest the honey, the bees get extra protection and can happily buzz away keeping the plants healthy and making more sweet sugary goo.

Honeybees are an endangered species. If they die, not only does your vegan diet become completely impossible, but the entire planet is royally fucked.

And do you know who’s doing more than anybody else to keep them alive and make sure we don’t all starve?

BEEKEEPERS. And they treat those bees like their own damn children. They’re not going to feed them toxins or “steal” all their food, they want the bees to be happy and healthy and THRIVING.

Being vegan is absolutely fine, but don’t go trying to tell other people how to eat and don’t sound off on shit until YOU educate YOURSELF. Try talking to an actual beekeeper sometime. Or at the very least, read an article by a beekeeper instead of relying on someone else’s scare tactics.

Writing from Scratch is a series I’ve started on my blog as a way to get back to the basics of the storytelling craft.

I wrote well over 20 of these blog posts in April while I was out of work and self-isolating at home. I don’t have to say that since then a lot has changed. I considered not posting any of these at least for now; who needs my silly thoughts on writing silly stories when the world may finally be coming to the tipping point of the end of systemic racism? But I have always expressed myself through story – my hopes, my dreams, my fears – and for me, it’s gift to have this outlet. So I want to share it. Storytelling developed so that we could make sense of the world and shape it into a safe place by creating community. Stories won’t win this war against oppression that has been raging for centuries, but stories reveal the truth of our hearts, and for that, I believe they are essential.

you can make nearly any object into a good insult if you put ‘you absolute’ in front of it

example: you absolute coat hanger

Are there any works in the post-apocalyptic genre with post-apocalyptic librarians? People who worked in the public library and after the Bad Thing decide to stay and keep the library clean, safe and available for anyone who needs it. People can’t remove books from the premises anymore, because they’re too precious, but you can stay as long as you want and read them or copy them out–the librarians encourage making copies, so that the information can circulate beyond the physical boundaries of the library. 

After a while it becomes an unspoken reality of the post apocalyptic society that you Just Don’t fuck with the library. You don’t fight there, you don’t steal from it, you don’t allow harm to come to librarians when they have to leave the building for supplies. 

People donate food and books and paper with no expectation of reciprocity, because the librarians don’t ask for anything when you need a place to hide or information or, fuck, to read a schlocky crime novel because you need to escape reality in some purple prose. 

Submitted via Google Form:

I am quite intrigued about how animals seem to have higher tolerance for pollution and germs while humans seem to lose it. Animals still just eat off the ground and drink straight from streams. However isn’t that exactly what our ancestors did? I absolutely do realise the world in the past also was less polluted than now. But past humans and animals did that in the past in the same environment, while in the present day environments only animals do this and humans can’t. Yes, animals and humans are of course always getting sick, but animals have way less access to healthcare than humans and manage to thrieve while humans need all this heathcare. Also, it is very evident in humans in human communities lacking healthcare being worse off. But with animals, I don’t seem to see the problems occuring as I’d expect for almost no healthcare for them. At least in this way.. the only biggest issues are like lost of land/hunting, and if health is the main issue? Basically, no heathcare affects humans worse than wild animals. And attitudes are if humans eat something off the ground it’s panic, an animal.. nope. So for actual story writing, I want to address these things in my story where both people and animals are time travelling. Also, I suppose how environmental changes would affect these out of time people.

Feral: there are a lot of assumptions in your ask that just don’t hold up.

Assumption #1: Animals have a higher tolerance for pollution and germs than humans do. Animals do get sick and die. In the case of pollution, higher pollution in a given area is more indicative of human life than animal life. Humans and our domesticated pets are the creatures living in cities with horrible smog conditions and the like, and while pollution definitely causes illnesses and disabilities in humans, one of the reasons you don’t see wild animals as much in these areas is because the development and pollution it causes has killed them off. As for germs, it is true that in industrialized countries, humans are probably more susceptible to germs, bacteria, viruses, etc, due to the inhibitions sterilized environments place on the development of natural immune systems. But animals still get sick and die, too; they may not die as frequently from illness as humans (I have no data one way or another), but I would argue that many also just don’t live long enough to die of illness over another cause.

Assumption #2: Animals eat straight off the ground and drink from streams, and that’s what our ancestors did. Our ancestors always cooked - eating straight from a raw carcass means more bacteria, more difficult digestion, and less calories. And it’s very likely that humanity didn’t exist before cooking, and only exists because of cooking. Our reticence to drink directly from natural water sources has a lot more to do with human pollution than any naturally occuring bacteria; see the multiple cholera outbreaks in history. Also, a polluted water source will usually kill the animals that live in that water source, the decaying carcasses of which further pollutes the source, and animals drinking from that source will also absolutely become sick.

Assumption #3: Humans can’t forage and drink from streams in the same way animals can in not overly polluted environments. There is a whole community of wilderness survival experts who disagree with you. The knowledge of what is and isn’t safe to eat and drink isn’t taught to us by elders anymore (again, in industrialized places), but that doesn’t mean we couldn’t learn it and survive just fine.

Assumption # 4: Animals don’t require healthcare the way humans do. Animals also don’t pack themselves into crowded stadiums during worldwide pandemics and otherwise tend not to do stupid shit that will almost certainly cause them harm. A broken leg on a wild land-based animal is a death sentence, so access to healthcare would definitely keep more animals alive. We know this because we offer animals healthcare - wildlife rehabilitators exist. Meanwhile, a broken leg, even in a human community without good or any healthcare options, would probably not result in death.

Assumption #5: Wild animals thrive. Not really. I mean, there are populations that do better than others. This is often due to human intervention and interaction. Prey animals will “thrive” when humans have killed off all their natural predators. Scavenging animals will “thrive” when there’s plenty of human food waste and refuse for them to eat. An invasive species will “thrive” after humans introduce them into an environment where they don’t have any natural deterrents to population growth. An animal community “thriving” is very different from a human community thriving. And an animal community that is afflicted by a virus is far less likely to survive it than a human community. Here’s a list of mass animal die-offs that occured just between January 1 and June 1 of 2015; literally tens of millions of animals dead in 5 months.

Assumption #8: You don’t see these problems occuring or dead animals all over the place therefore, wild animals are not dying everyday everywhere from disease and pollution. You probably do not live in a place where you see massive wild animal populations; the thriving wild animal populations you claim exist are in your imagination. In a truly balanced, natural ecosystem, homeostasis is achieved; you have neither mass die-offs nor population explosions. But due to human intervention in the environment, those ecosystems are becoming far less visible. And most population centers don’t have nearly the wild animal populations necessary to make any judgements based on anecdote and personal observation on how wild animals survive or don’t.

Assumption #7: Humans eating off the ground as a “panic” response due to environmental reasons. This is 100% societal. We have moralized cleanliness. Eating something off the ground is seen as demeaning and dirty, and you have to be in really desperate straits to do it. You know, unless you follow the 5-second rule. Because that’s totally how germs work. If I drop something on my kitchen floor while I’m cooking versus outside while I’m grilling, there isn’t really a difference except that I feel gross about eating the thing that dropped on the ground outside that I immediately picked up even if there is nothing that is actually harmful on it - meanwhile my kitchen floor could absolutely have bacteria on it because I’m really lazy about mopping.

I think a lot of what you’re putting forth in this Ask is more socialized or due to industrialization than having anything to do with wholly naturally occurring environmental factors.

As for how the narrative will address these things, that’s a plot issue that I don’t have any advice on, but I hope this has given you some food for thought.

The things I've seen about this whole fucking DOGE thing, from reputable sources, so far have been

there's a very good chance that this will basically be cut off before it even happens because it would require some form of approval from the House and Senate

presidents cannot make departments so it would actually be an office

their plans involve massively cutting down on regulations relating to safety and the environment and potentially getting rid of the FBI??? Inexplicable.

their promise of saving the country $2 trillion is literally impossible, like every single politician and financial advisor agrees that there is absolutely nothing that could be done to save that amount of money and very few expenses that can actually feasibly be cut (and would only save a few billion at most)

Writing from Scratch #2:

What is a Plot?

Different people mean different things when they use the word “plot,” and they are all correct, if not as descriptive as they could be.

Some people mean a story structure, like the 3-Act Structure; some people mean a plot archetype, like an underdog sports plot or a heist plot; some people mean the negative to positive or positive to negative trajectory of the main character, like Rags to Riches; and some people mean “to plot” as in “to outline.”

Throughout Writing from Scratch, when I say “plot,” I’ll be referring to the definition I’ve already hinted at: a plot is a problem and its solution. Plots of this nature can be very long if the solution takes a while for the character to arrive at or very short if the solution is solved without much trouble. In a story with multiple plots of this type, the plot that has its problem first introduced and last solved is what I will call the Long Plot.

Plot-Problems

There are four umbrella types that plots of this kind fall under – all based on the type of problem the plot has. And these are called the MICE* plot-problems.

Milieu

Inquiry

Character

Event

Over the next few posts, I will be diving into each in turn.

*The MICE Quotient was developed by Orson Scott Card, but I do deviate in my approach from the way Scott Card developed it and from the way most other writers teach it.

Plot-Solutions

A plot’s solution comes through what are referred to as the Try-Fail Cycles. The character is introduced to the problem, tries to solve it, and succeeds or fails. Most plots are solved after the character has failed to solve it at least once.

The Try-Fail typically goes in one of two directions: “Yes, but…” or “No, and…”

The “Yes, but” failure follows the character trying something with “yes, that technically worked, but now a new aspect of the same problem has been revealed.”

Obi-Wan and Luke hire Han and Chewie to take them and the droids to Alderaan. Yes, Han and Chewie get them to where Alderaan should be in orbit, but the Death Star got there first and blew the planet up.

The “No, and” failure follows the character trying something with “no, that didn’t work, and now the situation has worsened as a result.”

Harry and Ron run off to warn Hermione that there is a troll loose in the castle and get her to come back with them to the Gryffindor Common Room. No, they do not get a chance to warn Hermione about the troll, and they have locked the troll in the girls’ bathroom with Hermione.

“No, and” can also be a final – fatal – plot-solution, but this is not usually very satisfying. The ultimate plot solutions are typically either “Yes, and…” or “No, but…”

Prompt: Analyze a plot (that is a problem (subject) and solution with try-fail cycles (predicate)) in a favorite book, movie, or TV episode. I'll be posting my analysis this Sunday; if you're from the future, check it out here!

If you want to read more, you can check out my over 80 WfS posts on my website theferalcollection.com

Writing from Scratch #3

Flash Fiction: A Simple Plot

The first writing prompts we’re going to tackle will be flash fiction pieces. Flash fiction is a complete story written in under 1,500 words. We’ll be aiming for 250-500 words at first – that is one or two pages double spaced written in Times New Roman 12 pt. font.

The type of flash fiction I’ll encourage you to write will be Eighteen Sentence Stories*, and each of these sentences will have a very specific job.

The first Three sentences will provide the main character, the setting, and the genre (which clues the audience in on what kind of story they are about to read).

The main character should be introduced via an action that reveals their attitude at the start and with one defining job or trait that relates them to the plot. For example, a character may be both a father of three and a pilot. If the problem of the plot will deal with the kidnapping of one of his daughters, then “father” or “father of three” will be the defining job; if the problem of the plot will deal with the starship he’s piloting falling under attack, then “pilot” will be the defining job.

The setting should be introduced via a grounding sensory detail. The lingering scent of cookies left to burn when the parents received the ransom note. Or the pressure of being pinned back into the pilot’s seat under g forces.

The genre should be introduced via something specific and unique to the story. A ransom note is not specific or unique; a ransom note scrawled on the back of a picture that went missing off the fridge the week before is. A space ship is not specific or unique; a living space ship with a giant brain in its core that the pilot must psychically link to via the tentacles that suction onto his temples is.

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