alpharaposa

[alpharaposa]

If your plot feels flat, STUDY it! Your story might be lacking...

Stakes - What would happen if the protagonist failed? Would it really be such a bad thing if it happened?

Thematic relevance - Do the events of the story speak to a greater emotional or moral message? Is the conflict resolved in a way that befits the theme?

Urgency - How much time does the protagonist have to complete their goal? Are there multiple factors complicating the situation?

Drive - What motivates the protagonist? Are they an active player in the story, or are they repeatedly getting pushed around by external forces? Could you swap them out for a different character with no impact on the plot? On the flip side, do the other characters have sensible motivations of their own?

Yield - Is there foreshadowing? Do the protagonist's choices have unforeseen consequences down the road? Do they use knowledge or clues from the beginning, to help them in the end? Do they learn things about the other characters that weren't immediately obvious?

[alpharaposa]

hyperfixation please stay with me long enough to complete the project. hyperfixation do not fade. hyperfixation finish what you started for the love of god

[alpharaposa]

I am positively feral of the idea that John Constantine is an ex of both Maddie and Jack Fenton. Imagine the possibilities. They’re endless.

[alpharaposa]

i have general questions about comments on fics. Is it customary for authors to answer comments? Some never do, is that because they want their comment count to remain true? I find it confusing how there can be such a big difference. Is it different in different fandoms maybe?

Hi! Thanks for asking!

Some do and some don’t, it really varies from person-to-person!

[alpharaposa]

Look at these koi

[alpharaposa]

reblog to give the person you reblogged it from a little heart lollipop

[alpharaposa]

if you’re not someone who picks up dead marine mammals you might be surprised how hands-on random citizens are about trying to assist the picking up of dead marine mammals.

every time I go on a call to a dead seal to collect it for a necropsy, god forbid a passerby sees me because they will walk up to me no hesitation

while i’m dressed like hannibal about to commit a murder and also in an N95 mask and they’ll be like “here let me help” and just reach for this dead animal and when I have to shout “STOP” they look so shocked and even offended every time.

like they think my outfit is just for fun

[alpharaposa]

They had to stop them or they'd never shut up.

Something Dungeons & Dragons gets right about its worldbuilding is that most of its iconic monsters are both capable of speech and willing to argue about incredibly stupid shit – just A+ understanding of the medium there – which makes it doubly perplexing that the game goes out of its way to specify that skeletons can't talk. Skeletons are, like, the classic monster to engage in ill-advised banter with, and it's preemptively taken off the table. What the fuck.

[alpharaposa]

"A tribal-led nonprofit is creating a network of native bison ranchers that are restoring ecosystems on the Great Plains, restoring native ranchers’ connections with their ancestral land, and restoring the native diet that their ancestors relied on.

Called the Tanka Fund, they coordinate donors and partners to help ranchers secure grazing land access, funds needed to install and repair fencing, increase their herd sizes, and access markets for bison meat across the country.

That’s the human part of the story. But as Dawn Sherman, executive director of the Tanka Fund, told Native Sun News, they’re “buffalo people” and these four-legged, 2,000 lbs. “cousins” are equal-part-protagonists.

The return of the bison means the return of the prairie, one of the three great grassland ecosystems on the planet, of which just 1% remains as it was when the Mayflower arrived.

“Bringing buffalo back to their ancestral homelands is essential to restoring the ecosystem. We know that the buffalo is a keystone species,” said Dawn Sherman, a member of the Lakota, Delaware, Shawnee, and Cree.

“Bringing the buffalo back to the land and to our people, helps restore the ecosystem and everything it supports from the animals to the plants to the people. It’s come full circle. That’s how we see it.”

As Sherman and the Tanka Fund help native ranchers grow their operations, everyone is well aware of the power of the bison to transform the environment: just as nations across Europe are, who are reintroducing wood bison to various ecosystems, for all the same reasons.

Sherman points out the variety of ways in which buffalo anchor the prairie ecosystem. The almost-extinct black-footed ferret, she points out, lived symbiotically with the bison, and with the latter gone, the former followed—nearly.

The long-billed curlew uses bison dung as a disguise to hide nests from predators. Deer, pronghorn antelope, and elk all rely on bison to plow through deep snows and uncover the grasses that these smaller animals can’t reach.

Everywhere the bison hurls its massive body, life springs in the beast’s wake. When bison roll about on the plains, it creates depressions known as wallows. These fill with rainwater and create enormous puddles where amphibians and insects thrive and reproduce. Certain plants evolved to grow in the wet conditions of the wallows which Native Americans harvested for food and medicine.

Native plants evolved under the trampling hooves of millions of bison, and that constant tamping down of the Earth is a key necessity in the spreading of native wildflower seed.

Indeed, Sherman says some of these native ranchers are bringing bison onto lands still visibly affected by the Dust Bowl, and already the animals are acting like a giant wooly cure-all for the land’s ills.

Since 2020, the Tanka Fund, in partnership with the Inter-Tribal Buffalo Council and the Nature Conservancy, has overseen the transfer of 2,300 bison from Nature Conservancy reserves to lands managed by ranchers within the Tanka Fund network.

“[T]he more animals that we can get the more of that prairie we can restore,” said Sherman. “We can help restore the land that has been plowed and has been leased out to cattle ranchers.”"

-Article via Good News Network, February 13, 2025. Video via Tanka Fund, July 17, 2024.

[alpharaposa]

These 🌹💐🌹💐💐🌸🌺🌹🌺🌷🌸💐🌺🌹🍫🌹💐🍫🍫🌹🌺🌸🌷🍫💐🌸💐🌺🌹🍫🌷🌷🌺🌸🌷🌺🌸🌺🌹🌹🌹🌷🌺🌺🌸🌺🌹🌹🌷💐🌸💐💐🌺🌹🌸💐🌸🌹🍫🍫🌺🌷🌹🍫🍫🍫 💐🌷r for my mutuals on this valentines day <3

[alpharaposa]

They carry their pups on their chests and form rafts to stay safe and warm as they drift together on chilly, choppy waters. 🦦

We love all the adorable and unique ways southern sea otters rely on each other to stay afloat.

Like otters, love and community keep us afloat too—today and every day. Whether it’s your otter half or that group chat with the weird name, share this post with the pawsome people who buoy your spirits!

[alpharaposa]

Behold: the fruits of my labor of love for the past week. Got a pixel art bug that wouldn't leave me alone until I finished this.

[alpharaposa]

Ch👏

[alpharaposa]

Saw this frame on a different reblog by @thatssroughbuddy but why does it look like Iroh is using his phone to take a photo of his nephew at a landmark

[alpharaposa]

tumblr: on languages

[alpharaposa]

Atoner-type character who, through a series of increasingly unlikely coincidences, keeps surviving their grandiose self-sacrificial schemes. Everybody thinks they're a tactical genius, but no, they really didn't plan on living through that, and at this point it's kind of freaking them out.