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we passed a sign in boring that said their sister city is dull, scotland

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The house of his spirit crumbles... He is burning... Already burning...

Denethor & His Son Faramir + Ivan the Terrible & His Son Ivan

I have seen many artists' renditions of this painting, yet I have yet to see one with Denethor and Faramir, despite its narrative potential for perfection. So I tasked myself to bring it into existence--

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enrichment time for Lily :)

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imagine having a personality so morally bankrupt that the pope himself said "i'm telling god" and headed out

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Woke up this morning with a very important thought rattling around in my head.

How do the cars in the 2006 Pixar masterpiece Cars... safely merge?

This is a question that requires analysis. It doesn't really matter for Lightning McQueen before the movie starts, as he explicitly spends all of his time either at the racetrack or inside Mack (the gay subtext of this is for another post), but if we imagine a normal, non-Piston Cup car, how in the blue hell do they merge?

It's flat-out stated during the "driving backwards" scene in the 2006 movie that cars can see their rearview mirrors. This is because, particularly for Mater's character design, his mirrors are always placed outside his field of vision. But the scene states that he must be able to use them, because the purpose of that scene is to set up Lightning driving backwards during the finale and to advance both of the characters, especially in bringing Lightning closer to Mater as a friend. Even with Mater's ability to articulate his side mirrors to a certain degree, he is never able to bend them forward enough to be able to cover his blindspot. Given where the cars eyes are fundamentally located, this leads me to the conclusion that these vehicles are capable of seeing out of their mirrors. While this raises terrifying questions about the structures of car anatomy, we're gonna completely ignore those implications in favor, instead of a minor question about driving on the highway.

Normally, when one is driving, they eliminate the problem of a blind spot by physically turning their head to look at it before they merge and physically see for themselves whether or not another vehicle occupies that space. But characters in Cars (2006) don't have an in-car mirror, so their blindspots should be the gap between the mirrors and their regular fields of view, and directly behind them.

This, of course, raises the question: if the world of Cars was designed and built for sentient cars, and they have such an obviously unsafe limitation, why is the world still designed in a way that would only be safe to humans who can physically turn their heads? That question, after what I can only describe as a bit of a fever dream, leads me to what I see as the only logical conclusion.

Cars can see out of their windows, too, but have evolved camouflage for those eyes so that their prey can't tell where they're looking.

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Kestrel-dad not sure how to dad but he’s trying his best.

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To be perfectly honest, I am always ready to defend the honour and integrity of Denethor son of Ecthelion and ever will be for as long as there is breath in my body.

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whatever needs to be said was said in iris by the goo goo dolls

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🔪 ⇢ what's the weirdest topic you researched for a writing project?

Thanks so much for the ask!!

In another ask, I went into my research on old-fashioned violins, but I also did a lot of research into Hummers for Burn Like Cold Iron. I know way too much about their average mpg and tank capacity, because I was doing math to see how easy it would be to drive one from Isengard to Minas Tirith. Then there was other research into their warning lights and engine problems symbols. I skimmed through a lot of Hummer instruction manuals XD

But overall, it pays to have a relatively ignorant protagonist, because then I get to be vague in the technical aspects of my worldbuilding and I can blame her limited point of view, rather than my own stupidity lol

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🎱or🧃or🍬

Thank you for the ask!!!

🎱 ⇢ post your AO3 total stats 

I feel awkward showing my entire stats on here, but I will share the deep inequality of my hits count

and my overall word count

🧃 ⇢ share some personal lore you never posted about before

Personal lore....let's see....ooh okay my sorority house burned down in college--random electrical fire--so I'm really really good at getting the smell of smoke out of clothing. The secret is either vinegar or cheap vodka, depending on the material you're cleaning and how much you're willing to tolerate the lingering smell of vinegar. Don't bother trying to clean your electrical cords and plugs, because for some reason the smoke just disintegrates the rubbery plastic and turns them into sticky unsalvageable messes.

Anyway, the university put me and my sorority sisters in apartments and shitty dorm rooms for the rest of my time in college. I listened to Bastille's "Things We Lost in the Fire" a few thousand times those years, at a conservative estimate.

When they were rebuilding the house (which was a really old historical home from the 1920s or so, hence the random fire), a friend and I jumped the construction fence and stole some of the pretty mottled red bricks from the rubble pile, as keepsakes. I still have mine on a shelf in my parents' house. Being in a sorority sucked overall, but I will always remember that old house very fondly and am very happy to have that old dusty brick <3

🍬 ⇢ post an unpopular opinion about a popular fandom character

I'm not sure if this will count, since he's hardly popular, but I really like Denethor as a character. Like he's easily in my top ten favorite LOTR characters.

I mean, I'm hardly going to march at the head of the Denethor Defense Squad but I do think there's so much interesting nuance and tragedy to his character, especially in the books, that goes completely ignored by the fandom. He's so creepy and tragic and interesting. I'd love to have a conversation with him except for the fact that he would 100% leave me in tears with the desperate need to talk to my therapist asap

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🍓 🕯️ 🍄 🍬 🔪 for the writers truth or dare meme!

Thanks so much for the ask!

🍓 ⇢ how did you get into writing fanfiction? 

Back in the dark ages, when I was in middle school, my friends and I would read the Warrior Cats books and create our own characters and clans, and I wound up writing some stories about mine. Which I then printed out and handed in to my English teacher for extra credit, a choice so horrifically embarrassing it still keeps me up at night sometimes

🕯️ ⇢ on a scale from 1 to 10, how much do you enjoy editing? why is that?

I love editing other people's work- that's a huge part of my job, although at work I mostly read over boring government documents that don't mention Lord of the Rings even once 🤮. Still, it's nice to be able to clear up a messy document, indulge in my inner grammar nitpicker, and help a document find exactly what it's trying to say.

For my own writing, it's a lot muddier. I'm not happy with my writing most of the time, so a round of editing ends up with me rewriting half of it from scratch.

🍄 ⇢ share a head canon for one of your favourite ships or pairings

Hmmm I like to imagine that Faramir and Eowyn spar sometimes, just for fun, and half the time they'll make bets on the outcome, like the winner gets to pick the dinner menu for the next week, or the loser has to meet with that boring foreign dignitary making a visit to Ithilien

🍬 ⇢ post an unpopular opinion about a popular fandom character

I don't have a ton of unpopular character opinions, but let's see...I find Arwen really boring. Even in the movies, where they at least tried to give her more screen time and relevance to the plot. But there just isn't much to her, and everything that *could* be interesting is mostly just headcanons and fandom ideas that go completely unexplored in the text. She could've been so much more interesting, but it's pretty clear to me that Tolkien wasn't interested in Arwen as a character, just a figure for Aragorn to marry at the end.

I could go on and on, but smarter people than me have already dissected her character enough. I just get a bit bitter when fans credit Tolkien with creating a really fascinating female character here, when he very much didn't.

🔪 ⇢ what's the weirdest topic you researched for a writing project?

I fell down some weird rabbit holes for Burn Like Cold Iron- the weirdest probably being different kinds of medieval string instruments, because I initially wasn't sure if Middle Earth would have the equivalent of a modern violin for Bee to play. I got deep into viols and vielles and lire da braccio and rebecs and a million other proto-violins, and what they might be called in Middle Earth if I wanted to avoid names that were too Italian or French-inspired, and how easily a modern violinist might be able to transfer their skills, and then there was the sheer confusion of the use of the word "fiddle" as a catch-all for all kinds of vaguely violinish string instruments, contrasted by my vehement opinion that fiddles didn’t sound like something any self respecting Tolkien elf would play….eventually I scrapped it all and just gave Middle Earth violins, but I'll never get all that time back XD

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For the Truth & Dare ask game (you don't have to answer all of them):

🧩⇢ what will make you click away from a fanfiction immediately?

🏜️⇢ what's your favourite type of comment to receive on your work?

🦷 share some personal wisdom or a life hack you swear on

🪲 ⇢ add 50 words to your current wip and share the paragraph here

Thank you for the ask, anon!! Sorry it took me a hot minute to get to it.

🧩 - If a fic is written in the past tense, then switches to the present or vice versa, I bail right away. I know it can be a pain to keep verb tenses straight, but if one paragraph says "he laughed and sat down next to her" and in the next paragraph "he orders a drink and smiles" I'm going to throw my laptop out a window lol

🏜️- I love each and every comment I get- I've been really lucky with the engagement on most of my fics. But I've gotten a few here and there from readers who told me they think about my fic frequently, or have internalized it as their own headcanon now, or that it's inspired them to start writing their own fanfics (!!) and those are the ones that make me cry

🦷 - Oh no oh no I'm not a good person to turn to for wisdom XD But ummmm....don't buy vegetables unless you have a specific recipe in mind for them, or they'll end up rotting in your fridge?

(I have no writing or general fandom advice to share, idk what I'm doing lol)

🪲 - I've been picking at the next chapter of Burn Like Cold Iron like a scab lol. But I swear I'm gonna be done with it soon!

"If there’s anything I can…” I trailed off, remembering how horribly my offers to repay Elrond for his hospitality in Rivendell had been received. Besides, things were different now, weren’t they? I was here as a guest of the Steward-Prince; of course I wouldn’t be expected to pay for my rooms. Still, that didn’t do much to alleviate my discomfort.

(does that count as character growth for Bee?)

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A shieldmaiden of Rohan

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thinking about the pope's little soldiers. will they chase me someday...? perhaps...!

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Some women are conditioned to be fragile and weak, and to believe that it's a sin to outperform a man. Her feminism would involve allowing women to be strong.

Some women are expected to be strong at times when they can't. Her feminism would involve reassuring her that it's okay to not be strong.

Some neurodivergent people are raised to believe that they're too stupid to ever amount to anything. Their disability activism would involve reassuring them that they're capable.

Some neurodivergent people are raised to believe that they're smart and gifted, and are expected to live up to impossible standards. Their disability activism would involve allowing them to fail, make mistakes, be stupid, etc.

Some children are constantly reminded "you're the child, I'm the adult" in order to deny their autonomy. Their youth rights activism would involve treating them like an adult at times when they feel ready for it.

Some children are treated like adults in order to justify increased expectations or to downplay abuse against them. Their youth rights activism would involve allowing them to be a child.

There is no one-size-fits-all solution to oppression. Each individual person's experience is different. Whatever trauma is caused by their oppression, the activism should focus on undoing it.

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my little brother tried to show me a "cool trick" where he entered my name and hometown into chatgpt and tried to get it to pull up my personal info like it did on all of his friends, then was absolutely shocked when it couldn't find anything on me

so. keep practicing basic internet safety, guys. it still works. don't put your personal info on social media, keep all your accounts on private, turn off ai scraping on every site that you can, enable all privacy features on social media apps. our info still can be protected, we have to keep fighting for control