When The End comes for real, it’s just as Crowley supposed, with Heaven and Hell united against humanity. There are a lot of people who don’t believe what’s happening, but about half earth’s inhabitants do. And they show up for the fight.
The army humans have guns, there are doctors wielding baseball bats and taxi drivers with tire irons. Masses of youths are forming up with nothing but broken bottles and spite to defend themselves with.
Lucifer scoffs at them, his beauty already luring some people from their posts.
Not too many of them, though. Aziraphale has to believe that…
There may be millions of angels and demons among the ranks, united for a common goal, but there are billions of humans.
Crowley and Aziraphale are in the thick of it, of course. Of course. Aziraphale has come into the possession of his flaming sword again, through a series of events that Crowley really doesn’t want to think too hard about.
They stare down the Morning Star across the open expanse of the soon to be battlefield, humanity behind them, as much of it sheltered beneath their wings as they can manage.
There really really ought to be a book about how the staple crops of different civilizations shape and influence those civilizations, and I really want to read it.
Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky and A History of the World in 6 Glasses by Tom Standage (three are alcohol, three have caffeine) are not quite that, but may still be of interest?
I read Salt back in the day and it's so so good, second the rec. I have heard of 6 Glasses and not read it but I am sure I would probably love it. Gotta see if the library has it. Thank you!
A Short History Of The World According To Sheep by Sally Coulthard blew my mind. So many things are tied to wool and sheep and weaving and so many words and phrases are tied to wool, people have no idea.
Example words which come from textiles/weaving, if not specifically wool (go look them up!): subtle, shoddy, tabby, Brazil, rocket, twit, warped, going batty, on tenterhooks, text...
I'll throw in a rec for Pickled, Potted, and Canned by Sue Shephard - a very interesting look at food preservation and how the availability of different types of food preservation shaped cultures and cuisines.
The Lost Supper: Searching for the Future of Food in the Flavors of the Past might also be up your alley. It's about "forgotten" foods and staples. They talk about different types of wheat, sauces, veggies, etc and a little about the cultures from whence they come
DO I HAVE A SERIES FOR YOU. University of California Press has a gift for you and it is a 80+ book series on food studies. There are even some that are open access (legally free), but the rest are in libraries.
I also highly recommend Frostbite by Nicola Twilley. It’s about the impact refrigeration has had/is having on food preservation and culture, globally. It was one of my favorite books of this last year.
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You know, I like that Tumblr doesn't use The Algorithms, but that means that some of you still don't know that I started a webnovel!!!
JOHN RICH & THE BIG PICTURE ✏️
Rating: Mature Audiences
Category: m/m
Characters: John Rich, Tyler Hughes
Additional Tags: enemies to lovers, enemies to friends to lovers, banter, snark, quips, new york city, romantic comedy
Updates: every Friday
Words: 28,963 out of 100,000 Chapters: 7 / 22 Comments: 237 Subscribers: 1,452 Total Views: 34,831
At 28, John Rich is the youngest cover artist in the illustrious history of The New York Review. This means, every week, he draws a portrait of some notable person and this portrait becomes the cover of this very prestigious magazine. But when John is tasked with drawing the supposedly vapid (and obviously gorgeous) action movie star, Tyler Hughes, he discovers that Tyler is the one person he cannot draw.
I have a family friend who worked at our local Salvation Army headquarters as a a secretary. This particular office took all the Christmas donations for children in need, put them in a warehouse, and on a designated day the staff and their friends picked through them all, taking whatever they wanted. She saw people hauling away bikes donated for specific families. Some local children had hundreds of dollars of gifts donated in their name, and on Christmas they received three cheap things, items likely not even from the person who sponsored them.
My friend quit, and I’ve not given them a dime of my money since then.
I deal with a lot of agencies who provide disaster relief.
I used to say the Salvation Army’s disaster services were the one (literally the ONE) good thing they did.
They would come in, set up a canteen trailer, make and pass out hot coffee and donated food in a disaster, usually being one of the first agencies to get there and the last to leave.
Then I found out.
Every time they did this, regardless of if they were actually invited or deployed by the agency in charge (usually FEMA, sometimes others) they would SELF-DEPLOY. Meanjng they would just show up. Ok. That’s not TOO bad, sometimes agencies have to take initiative and get there before the red tape is sorted out. BUT. They, after they left at the end of the incident, they would send FEMA or the host agency a BILL. They used one or two paid employees (usually the driver of the truck and a supervisor); and many VOLUNTEERS, but they would bill for EVERYONE’s Labor at standard federal rates. They would bill for the food they distributed even though it was all donated by another agency or private parties. They would bill for the coffee they made and the supplies. Except they would use electricity from the shelter location, water from donations or from the shelter, and in many cases, they would get the coffee and industrial filters DONATED, but bill for them at retail prices.
The Salvation Army is also ass to the workers. A good number of people join it, naively thinking that it’s doing good, and end up leaving cynical and beaten down. The management is hostile, if not outright abusive, and demand some ridiculous hours of it lower to mid-level staff. Don’t support these people.
Also just for even more horrific context on the original twitter thread?
Salvation Army reached out to Milknmuffins and asked what shelter she’s at with the promise to address the abuse in it. She…ended up saying where she was. She was thrown out onto the street. It’s also all on Twitter.
They invited her to a personal talk so she could explain the situation in person.
And then they threatened her with a screenshot of a rape-threat made supposedly by her:
And then threw her out into the street while claiming she broke house rules that
So yeah, the Salvation Army is a bunch of entitled assholes that will treat the most vulnerable like shit if they dare try to do anything that makes them look bad
The “Fuck Salvation Army” posts are making the rounds again, so conisder this your reminder:
Do. Not. Give. These. Assholes. A. Single. Fucking. Penny.
If you see the timestamp and think ‘maybe the Salvos got better in the last 8 years’ no. No they didn’t. Actually they got worse. DON’T GIVE TO THE SALVOS. THEYPISS ALL THEIR MONEY UP THE WALL ON THE CORPORATE END AND DO LITTLE TO NOTHING TO HELP WHO THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO HELP.
Reblogging again cause I tried this site last night and if you need background noise to focus this is perfect for that, I was locked the fuck in on a task. And it’s also just gorgeous to listen to
hua mulan: hey i respect MY father so much, and also yours
belle: i would lay down my life for him in an instant, so of course when his life was on the line i didn’t hesitate to set aside whatever identity and thoughts of the future i had had to defend him
hua mulan: that’s crazy i also did that
belle: i didn’t expect that i would end up with more grandeur and authority than i ever could have accessed otherwise, but of course i didn’t forget who i was doing this for or let the power tempt me
hua mulan: 100% with you sister
belle: also the giant bloodthirsty cat creature gives insane dick like you wouldn’t even believe
