Scruffy-Looking Dumpster Nerd

I’m sorry but that’s thinking way too small, hear me out:

We need to have Miss Piggy as Odysseus, and Kermit as Penelope.

Think about it… who’s the more fickle, prideful, warlike one in that relationship? Who is absolutely ready to go ham, at a moment’s notice?

what do they even think a fortification is for???

what do you think a shield is for. what do you think ranged weapons are for????

if your tactics are dumb and reckless but you usually win and it's just you punching people that's one thing. or even if it's you and five guys who've decided they like how you roll!

but if you are put in charge of soldiers. and you throw their lives away because you don't know what you're doing. that's not okay.

it's not always avoidable! one of the basic problems with armies! but when it happens in fiction it needs to be on purpose, to make sure the military elements of the narrative remain thematically congruent.

when you have a bit where Main Character is in command and then makes avoidable bad decisions and people die who didn't have to. either the protagonist has been put in a horrific position by whatever authority figure thrust them into a role they didn't want and weren't competent to handle, without support.

or the protagonist, voluntarily assuming a management job they suck at, has committed a grievous harm against others by not recognizing their own limitations.

even if they win! i don't want to be watching a movie where the main character squanders every tactical advantage and loses 40% of their forces totally unnecessarily for Narrative Tension, but the enemy retreats or gets eaten by a dragon or loses the MacGuffin or whatever, and then there's triumphant music and a party because They Won!!!

For example, in the American Civil War, the tactics used of soldiers, marching into open fueled, and exchanging musket fire was not all that different than the tactics of the American revolution a little under 100 years prior. However, the rifles that infantry men were armed with were significantly more accurate. As a result, casualties, both in terms of lives lost, and soldiers, injured were horrific.

The concept of trench warfare in World War I was not all that different from wars, fought all over the continent in the century prior, and were designed to try and curb advantages of cavalry. But again, of mortars, more accurate, rifles, and chemical warfare meant that charging trenches resulted in truly grotesque numbers of casualties.

There is certainly evidence that World War I era generals were fairly callous when it came to casualty figures. They were more interested in territory gained. And it mattered very little how many lives that cost since soldiers were replaceable.

I agree that there should be some narrative coherence when protagonist squander advantages due to bad tactics, but when you look at actual history, it’s very clear that even if there are “good guys“ and “bad guys“ in war, there’s also just a lot of waste. That doesn’t make for a very sexy narrative, but it’s the nature of the beast. Militaries in particular are conservative institutions slow to change. you do things a certain way because that is the way they are done. That will always get people killed. But that’s also excepted as the way things are done.

At the end of the day, I’m just not sure there is a good way to organize two groups of people trying to kill each other.

thereby creating major ruptures in the narrative logic and characterization for anyone who knows (for example) what the point of a wall is.

this is a writing complaint, about failure to adequately situate motive within character and maintain internal consistency.

i'm not going to ask every piece of fiction that wants to have swords in it to engage in a meditation on the nature of conflict. that sounds boring, and also like it's asking too much of people. i'm aiming way lower here.

this frozen dessert is also known as an ice pop, popsicle, paleta, lollipop, lolly, ice lolly, icy pole, ice block, ice drop, ice gola, ice candy, ai tim tang, ice cream tang, and kisko. whatever you call these flavored frozen something-or-others on a stick, these recalled ones have a secret ingredient: glass

and that glass has best before dates all the way into november 2027.

for whatever reason, the FDA has made it unnecessarily difficult to tell if you have any of these recalled outshine fruit bars. more on that towards the bottom. I (rune) went ahead and made the batch information easier to read, because it feels extra bad imagining people panicking through the recall announcement trying to figure out if they or their children possibly ate glass.

if you have an affected box, do NOT eat it. throw it out or return it to the store for a refund. make sure everyone else you know does the same, because eating glass can cause unwanted side effects. such as death

🇺🇸 US food recall links | how to report a problem with food 🇺🇸

August 18, 2026 - Dreyer’s Grand Ice Cream, Inc. is voluntarily recalling a limited number of select flavors of Outshine Fruit Bars due to possible foreign material contamination with glass. Products affected include Outshine Strawberry, Watermelon, Grape, Tangerine and Black Cherry 6-Count 2.5 ounce Fruit Bars and the Outshine 24-Count 2.5 ounce Variety Pack Fruit Bars. These lots were distributed to retailers nationwide.

"limited number" and "select flavors" are doing a lot of heavy lifting for a nationwide recall where the contaminated fruit bars were distributed to too many retailers to list.

No other Outshine products or varieties are impacted. ONLY the five flavors of 6 Count (2.5-oz bars) and Outshine Variety 24-Count (2.5-oz bars) Fruit Bars. Batch codes can be identified on the product packaging.

really neat thing to emphasize after dreyer's original recall failed to list every product affected by the glass contamination. this post is actually about the expanded recall. surprise!

the original version of this line was, "No other Outshine products or varieties are impacted. ONLY the five flavors of 6ct 2.5-ounce paddle bars."

no need to worry about our other products being affected by glass contamination, unless you trusted us the last time we said this...a whole three days ago! move on

Dreyer’s is taking this action out of an abundance of caution following consumer reports of glass found in the product. No illnesses or injuries have been reported to date. Anyone concerned about an injury should contact a healthcare provider immediately. Consumers who have purchased the affected product should dispose of it or return it to their place of purchase for a full refund.

as is the case with countless food recalls, dreyer's only discovered their desserts were contaminated with glass and subsequently issued this recall after multiple heroes reported issues with their food. no glass-related injuries have been reported yet, but...be real, chances are good someone already ate some amount of glass. if that sounds like you, dreyer's says to pursue medical attention (or at least professional medical advice) immediately.

even if the glass only slices your digestive tract a teeny tiny bit, any possible germs on said glass (and anything else you eat afterwards) get expedite delivered directly into those cuts and might lead to a serious infection. consumed glass could also become embedded somewhere on the way in, on the way down, and on the way out of your body. a scenario like that could require surgery to remove the glass.

if you do accidentally eat glass, PLEASE report it to both the FDA and to dreyer's to get your injuries officially recorded. the more heroes who report injuries and illnesses from their food, the more these issues get taken seriously, the more people find out about them, the more other people can be protected, and the more easily other victims can receive medical care and possibly compensation. in a worst case scenario, eating glass or food contaminated with mystery germs can result in lifelong disability or death. please help save lives.

The safety, quality, and integrity of our products remain our highest priority. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this action may cause our consumers and retail customers. We remain committed to maintaining the highest standards of food safety and quality and to earning the trust of our consumers and customers every day.

...which is why the dreyer's primary official website, icecream.com, definitely contains a prominent warning about outshine fruit bars containing glass? or at the very least a search result for "recall"? surely someone who claims safety as a "highest priority" would never half-ass communication about actual glass, right? (whoops!)

none of this PR bullshit matters. dreyer's should have at least had a prominent banner and recall page template ready, filled out, and published by now. plenty of other food manufacturers manage that part just fine. despite dreyer's PR pinky promises, they already extensively fumbled this recall. my (rune!) sympathies to anyone else devastated by dreyer's performance. and also the glass

Consumers with questions may contact Dreyer’s Grand Ice Cream, Inc. Customer Service at 800-392-4885, Monday thru Friday 8am to 5pm EST. Dreyer’s Grand Ice Cream, Inc Media Contacts: [email protected]

got questions? want to know when dreyer's plans to add prominent banners and pages to their websites about their glass recall? reach out!

alright, now here is where things get confusing. on the FDA's table listing the specific recalled products: product packaging (name and quantity) and UPC (identifying product number) both say "see image below". the batch code/best before date column is still correctly filled in, albeit attached to incomplete information.

the FDA apparently expects everyone to look at the blurry-as-shit images, transcribe flavors and UPCs in order, and then link them to the incomplete table. possibly while racing against the melting of their creamless ice. keep in mind, recall announcements do frequently contain errors, including having their associated photos incorrectly ordered or labeled. but the tables are usually at least completed.

so, where exactly is the list of recalled flavors and UPCs in plain text to know for sure? especially if the images are too blurry to read?

...hidden within the fucking alt text!!!!!!

and so it was up to me (rune!!) to utilize my expert hacker accessibility alt text skills and format this information for the tragically-tableless tumblr. why these steps were skipped over on the FDA website with full table capabilities in favor of making people hunt for it, I (rune!!!) have no fucking clue. rough times at the US FDA

reminder that tumblr natively supports alt text on both desktop and mobile, and more people should be using it. after attaching a photo, click on the meatball menu/3 dots to add a brief description.

rune (me) recall pro tip: to check your bars, take pictures of the box and then promptly put it back in the freezer. do not keep the box out while looking through the numbers. otherwise, much like the eventual fate of all things on our fragile earth, your treats might disappear into memory

RECALLED OUTSHINE FRUIT BARS, THEIR UPCS, BATCH CODES, AND BEST BEFORE DATES (see bottom of package) BELOW THE CUT

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