'Forth now, and fear no darkness!'

Heather flowers along the mountain stream - Isle of Skye, Scotland, August 2025

photo by: nature-hiking

Sometimes where writing, particularly dialogue, can feel funky is the problem of voice, of that just doesn't sound like him, which can come down to individual words used. What's really interesting is this sense can ping even for characters you don't know at all, NPCs and background characters, not just the big main canon favorites that everyone knows intimately.

For example, I was writing a fic recently where I had typed out a character saying

"He was lucky he wasn't more seriously hurt."

And immediately had to backtrack because the word lucky felt wrong. I knew exactly what needed to go there instead without really thinking about it, but let's break it down a minute first.

Okay, so imagine you're me and lucky feels off, so what do you do? You turn to the thesaurus. This is what you get:

[alt text added to image; should pull through]

These aren't... wrong. (Well, some of them are.) Most of them are synonyms of lucky in various contexts, but they're not one-to-one by any means. So first you have to know that, in this spoken context of describing a person who avoided a potential negative outcome, only some of these will work, because it needs to be an adjective that has to address a moment of good luck (as opposed to a pattern or a lifetime) and avoiding that potential negative outcome by chance. Most of the time, you can sort these out by saying them out loud in your chosen sentence.

"He was lucky he wasn't more seriously hurt"

✅ Original sentence, construction works.

"He was serendipitous he wasn't more seriously hurt"?

🚫 No. That doesn't make sense at all.

"He was blessed he wasn't more seriously hurt."

✅ Yeah, that works, in a vacuum, too.

Of the above, in the sentence of dialogue I created, the following work:

Blessed

Fortunate

Lucky

Only three. (If I changed the sentence structure to "It was ___ he wasn't more seriously hurt," I could try out a few more, maybe, like fortuitous and providential, but I'm not going to.)

Even with only three options, especially in dialogue, you have to be able to parse out what kind of person would use which. That was why lucky pinged as off to me, even though it works perfectly well in this context in a vacuum.

In my scenario, the person speaking was a highly educated, upper socioeconomic middle-aged man of authority for whom American English is a first language speaking to another man with whom he has only a professional relationship, a reason to worry about his standing within the state of said relationship, and a vested interest in maintaining a healthy level of respect and trust.

That is not a man who is going to say lucky.

I knew immediately and instinctively that he would say

"He was fortunate that he wasn't more seriously hurt."

He wouldn't say blessed unless I wanted to imply something about his religious and/or spiritual background and beliefs, which I did not. Lucky has a more common feel to it, a little more casual, and just wouldn't be the word of use for this kind of character in this situation. Reaching for the three-syllable word instead of the two, the one that echoes with a tiny bit more pomp.

You'll notice, too, that a that appeared as well, because a man like the character I described would be more particular about the formalities of grammar, even in cases where his meaning is clear without them.

A different character, someone of a lower socioeconomic status and/or in a much more casual situation might even say

"He got lucky he wasn't more seriously hurt."

Do you see how those four ways of saying the exact same thing sound and feel different?

"He was lucky he wasn't more seriously hurt."

"He was fortunate that he wasn't more seriously hurt."

"He was blessed he wasn't more seriously hurt."

"He got lucky he wasn't more seriously hurt."

The exact same sentiment, just tweaked to match the speaker.

Dress

c. 1805

French

credit to @ fauwn_fantasy_costume on instagram!

Medieval Revival found on the Spring 2026 NYFW runway! 🔆

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