Someone On Twitter Is Trying To Claim That Use Of An Em-dash Is An Indication Of AI-generated Writing

They don't always ask the band to play something slow.

They did, of course, the first time they went dancing after Steve's return. But Steve has always been a quick study, and Peggy has always enjoyed all sorts of dancing, and sometimes they're both in the mood to roll up the rugs, put on a livelier song, and exuberantly celebrate the joy of being together, of having time.

And, once they're pink-cheeked and laughing and have had their fill of dancing for the time being - well, conveniently, at this time of year they're already under the mistletoe.

(This is my 2024 @steggyfanevents Steggy Secret Santa gift for @emilybluntt! I hope you enjoy it, and that you and your loved ones have a very happy holiday season! ❤️)

I have some thoughts on Héra's "death" line at the climax of War of the Rohirrim and how it relates to Rohan's story during the War of the Ring.

Spoilers below for the movie!

When Héra tells Wulf that she was promised to death on the siege tower, I think that she was genuinely expecting to die there. Even if the plan went perfectly, she would be isolated from the Hornburg (as the siege tower's gangplank burned down) surrounded by an enemy army. Even if Fréaláf showed up, which to her is still a big if on timing if nothing else, that is not a situation one can reasonably expect to survive.

Yet, it's the only hope her people have to escape. She might die, but the rest would live if she could keep enough attention on her. Is this not what Théoden would do centuries later, first on the ramp of the Hornburg drawing the attention of the Uruk-Hai? Then again at Pelennor Fields, one probably last charge to try and win survival for their people. Failing that, at least choosing to die on their own terms instead of waiting for their turn to fall.

Is that not why Théoden's riders cheered "death!" at the enemy as they charged, throwing back the fear Mordor sought to spread back at its hosts? That they had accepted it and were ready to meet it? Is that not what the ideal of a warrior is so often touted as, fighting because they love what stands behind their aegis?

Héra may not have been fighting the same kind of existential war that Théoden was, but the same kind of courage was needed. Even if it all went well, I doubt she had any expectations of surviving that night. She nearly didn't, even with Fréaláf arriving and utterly terrorizing the Dunlending host into such a panicked rout. Yet, it was the way she could save those under her charge.

The moment she rode out onto the tower's gangplank, Héra truly promised herself to death.

“Public libraries are such important, lovely places!” Yes but do you GO there. Do you STUDY there. Do you meet friends and get coffee there. Do you borrow the FREE, ZERO SUBSCRIPTION, ZERO TRACKING books, audiobooks, ebooks, and films. Have you checked out their events and schemes. Do you sign up for the low cost courses in ASL or knitting or programming or writing your CV that they probably run. Do you know they probably have myriad of schemes to help low income families. Do you hire their low cost rooms if you need them. Have you joined their social groups. Do you use the FREE COMPUTERS. Do you even know what your library is trying to offer you. Listen, the library shouldn’t just exist for you as a nice idea. That’s why more libraries shut every year

I hate the term "religious guilt" because most people who use it are severely muddling up (a) religious OCD (b) some messed up heresy like "it's wrong to be happy" (c) religious doctorine you don't agree with but aren't sure whether you're right not to

obsessed with the fact that howl movingcastle is, like, the ideal portal fantasy protagonist. he's a welsh rugby-playing grad student who enters a magical world where he discovers he's a wildly powerful wizard. there's an evil witch out to get him and the king needs his help and there's a curse catching up with him. he has a magical creature sidekick and an orphan apprentice and a mentor who gets killed by the evil witch halfway through and a love interest under a terrible curse. the story is BEGGING for him to be the main character. and he's just like. no <3.

happy april fools. please take this egg

hahahahahha………………..

youve been fooled………………by the april fools beeper……………..it was a fully grown bird the entire time…..no egg………………it tells u it hopes u hav a good april 1st

Headcanon: Bilbo eventually evolves into something of a Santa Claus figure to Hobbits.

“It became a fireside-story for young hobbits; and eventually Mad Baggins, who used to vanish with a bang and a flash and reappear with bags of jewels and gold, became a favourite character of legend and lived on long after all the true events were forgotten.”

Mad Baggins was remembered for randomly appearing with money, but Bilbo Baggins was well known for being extremely generous with his, especially to people who weren’t too well off. Frodo, of course, is just as free with his fortune as Bilbo was, as is Sam when he comes into it, and even Lobelia with what she has left after Saruman’s occupation, and as “Baggins” begins to decline as a name, it becomes somewhat synonymous with charity, and this gets mixed up in the legends about Bilbo’s funny adventures and ridiculous stories until everything’s too tied together to separate.

Bilbo would give out lots of gifts in the winter, to ensure everyone had warm clothes and a roof that didn’t leak, which is how he eventually became tied to Yuletide, and the legends start out as, “Mad Baggins will share his fortune with those who truly need it,” and eventually evolves into, “Good little Hobbitlings might get gifts from Mad Baggins,” and there are all sorts of pageantry and games, like someone will dress up as Mad Baggins and use Hobbit stealth magic and sleight of hand to “appear” in various places, set off a firecracker, and then run for it, and anyone who can catch him can have some candy out of his bag.

Long after Hobbits stop having dealings with Dwarves, and perhaps even after they stop believing in them altogether, they become mystical figures attached to the Mad Baggins legend, coming and going as they please and answering to nobody; anybody who catches a Dwarf may get cursed, but they also may win a treasure off of them like nothing else (and the curses, of course, are the sorts of dreadful things Hobbits can think of; thin foot-hair for a season, or never finding something until you’re looking for something else).

You know those creepy ornate woodland Santas, or like, the horrible Victorian illustrations? They have those too: Mad Baggins (a bright red nose and curly golden hair around his ears, bald on the top of his head and wearing boots of all things) accompanied by thirteen dwarves and a troop of ponies, passing out gifts and then disappearing with more than Hobbit skill. But the classic image of Mad Baggins, the one that springs to mind when children think of him, and appears in whatever their version of The Night Before Christmas is, garbs himself in green and silver and carries a sword (quite an outlandish thing among Hobbits!), and laughs often, being a great lover of song and good food and drink and practical jokes.

And if sometimes the perfect gift does appear out of thin air with no reasonable expectation, well. They say he learned from wizards too, and even though all things are diminished in the latter days, nobody ever said they were going to dwindle to nothing, did they? And it sits well with certain entities that at the end of the day, this is what’s left of a certain Dark Lord’s legacy; a legend borrowing the incidental property of his magic talisman to grant invisibility to bring gifts to children.

She is young; some would say very young. But the light in her eyes is mother-light all the same, purified and holy through exhaustion and pain. She forgets the pain for the joy of a man-child brought into the world, and her gaze rests on him, lying there in the straw.

He is an ordinary child with the ordinary, transcendent beauty of a newborn. The man who is not his father washed the blood from him, hands trembling and so, so careful. This Son of God is a helpless baby, but he is still God's Son.

No words can express the wonder of a birth, of nigh unendurable pain that bursts suddenly into eternal joy. The child is crying with the thin, short bursts of a one so newly born; he is healthy, flushed and swaddled well in the new cloths brought for the purpose. There is a mess nearby, but it is unimportant.

There is a commotion; shepherds, gentled by reverence, speaking in hushed tones of angels singing their praises, of a newborn king. They drop to their knees before the baby, as if no wonder in the world had ever been so mighty. And perhaps it had not.

Mary watches, and she stores up all these things in her heart. There is so much she cannot understand. Someday the whole tapestry of her son's life will be shown to her; for now, this is enough.

She gathers her boy to her, and wonders if she, too, can hear the angel's song.

B2MEM - "Ashes"

@spring-into-arda (308 words)

My first thought on seeing that one of the prompts this time was the song "Ashes" by the Longest Johns was that this was a great prompt for Elrond and Numenor; the talk about worshipping the ashes really seems to fit with later stage Numenor and tending to the flame of life and hope is a very Elrond thing.

(Okay, my very first thought when I saw that one of the prompts was a song link was an irrational certainty that it was a Rick Roll. Tumblr has made me paranoid.)

. . .

It was a hard thing to visit Numenor now. He had seen it when it was green and golden; to see it slowly crumble into ash was a hard thing.

It was elves who were supposed to be most tempted by memory and its traces of old glories; to see Men so enthralled by their own past, their own dead, felt unnatural. Elrond had known these faces when the lifeblood was still bright in their cheeks. He did not mind seeing them captured in stone, but to see more care expended on these remnants than on the ever fewer children whose voices echoed down the cold streets - it disturbed him.

There was not much he could do. The kings of Numenor did not like an elf telling them their business.

Even if the one doing so was, even now, not quite an elf.

There had been a time -

But he turned his mind firmly from memory. He could do no good there.

He could do some good here in the poorest quarter of the city in the market corner where a host of anxious mothers with infants who had caught the fever plaguing the city had gathered because they had heard he could help.

It was a good reminder that there was still some new life in the city.

“Hello, little one,” he said softly to the first squalling little one that was placed in his arms. “Let me see what is amiss. Should you like to hear a song while I do?”

It was an old song, good for soothing fevers and children alike.

He had sung it long ago to some who were now immortalized in ever more elaborate stone. He could lose himself in grief for that if he let himself.

He could.

He would not, so long as there were more children to tend.

Happy National Otter Day!

We've been cooking this up for quite a while >:) I've been given the go-ahead to share some art for our card game that's in development- "Otter Nonsense"!

Play as multiple factions of Otters to defeat the army of Geese who are trying to take over the river.

You can follow the instagram (still in the works) for updates! I'll also be sharing whatever I can on here, as well.

This is just a lil sneak peek, but there's more art on it's way!