this elegy would love to save everything

Penni. Catholic. ask me about space opera. if you're reading this, i love you. icon by @holly-warbs, header photo taken by me

[distance-does-not-matter]

[loveridden1999]

[divorce-enjoyer]

ice water is awesome because you get more water in your water

[divorce-enjoyer]

you think youre out of water but then you check back in five minutes and woah! theres more water! the world is so beautiful

[caffedorzo]

spin the wheel to be assigned a mysterious source of income - who will grant you 10k usd every month without fail!!

will you take the money?

yes

no

bald / nuance

Remaining time: 4 days 5 hours

[prolifeproliberty]

@tinfoil-catholic Alphabet is the parent corporation that owns Google and YouTube and a bunch of other things

Mine was the estate of Lindsey Graham. I’d be very confused, but I wouldn’t argue.

[distance-does-not-matter]

HI PENNI! Hope your Monday is going well! For the Year So Far asks:

6. Biggest surprise

10. Most beautiful book you have bought or received this year

hiii Phoebe!! it is! i got to hang out with the baby cousin today and read her a book while she babbled and squealed and blew raspberries

6. Biggest surprise

I think I've had some good surprises this year! There is, of course, the classic Passage rug pull, but I think one of the bigger surprises was how fast I read North and South (looking back, I see it took me 20 days, but that was with school, work, and a class that required a LOT of reading). I got sucked in and couldn't stop! Similarly, how long I'm taking to read Blackout. I think the biggest surprise, however, was the Ivory trilogy, just because they weren't on my radar in the slightest and I absolutely devoured them. Book one took me just a day! And I still had homework due that day!

10. Most beautiful book you have bought or received this year

Maybe it's cheating bc I JUST got it at the library used book sale, but I got a book on tile patterns from the 90s and it's so gorgeous. Patterns! Interiors! Sun rooms! My kingdom for a sun room

[stroebe2]

June and July are the same months btw. They want you to think they're two different months but it's the same month that's 60 days long. Same way August is actually August and the first half of September

[fictionadventurer]

The Year So Far Book Ask Game

(I turned this old tag game into an ask game, and I'm bringing it back around before we get too far past the halfway point of the year).

Best book you have read in 2026 so far

Best sequel you have read in 2026 so far

A new release you want to check out

Most anticipated book release of the second half of the year

Biggest disappointment

Biggest surprise

Favorite new author (either new-to-you or debut)

Favorite new character

A book that made you cry

A book that made you happy

Most beautiful book you have bought or received this year

A book you need to read by the end of the year

[lustcannibalism]

you have destroyed and betrayed yourself for a nuanced reason

[kyra45]

“Commission open? Dm me” - commission scam

“I have something important to tell you but can’t message u pls message me ” - accidentally reported you scam

“I love your story and want to illustrate it dm me at discord” - commissioner scam

“I saw your post looking for artists to draw (x) and would love to draw it it sounds like a lovely idea and im an artist” - commissioner scammer who DM’d you when you didn’t ask

“Did you send me this link for free tumblr premium?” - accidentally reported you scam

“ your account is limited please kindly verify at (scam link)” - verification scam

[the-zenith-calls]

My favorite scenes in the LotR books are the ones where Legolas has vital information and just decides it's not important to share.

Like when Gandalf spent literal PAGES trying to figure out why the vibes were off in Moria and Legolas chimes in with just "it's a balrog :) that shit's evil :) we're so fucked :)" like what do you MEAN you knew already and just didn't tell him??

Or at the beginning of Two Towers when Aragorn thinks there's something nearby so he puts his ear to the ground to listen, and then like 10 minutes later is like "hmmm i hear horses" and Legolas is just like "mm yep. there are 105 blond bitches with spears" like you just let your friend put his face in the dirt and you can SEE them??

Legolas please gain a sense of urgency

[knives-in-the-dishwater]

It's because legolas hasn't spent enough time with non-elves to remember that they don't know what he knows.

gandalf is scratching his head in moria, and legolas is thinking "oh man, the wizard noticed something off *besides* the obvious balrog that we all are aware of??"

"I wonder what aragorn is listening for? must be hard to hear, what with all of the horses. How many horses are there, actually? 1... 2... 3..."

[taavicleric]

"What do your elvish eyes see?" is Aragorn saying, as politely as possible, "Because the REST OF US are at a significant disadvantage, Prince Dipshit."

[tamsong]

the “secret third thing” that grace and stratt have going on is one million HR violations

[wizardarchetypes]

a 65 year old human man is dating a young woman but she's a vampire so his friends are like "oh, so she's actually like, centuries older than you? that's alright. can't expect her to date within her own age group. can't be that many options." but it comes out she just got turned into a vampire like 8 months ago and all his friends start boo-ing him

[dizzyghoast]

every so often i remember how awesome the modern interconnected multicultural world is. i grew up getting to hear fairy tales from all over the world. africa, asia, europe, america. everywhere in between. i can have bagels for breakfast, curry for lunch, and ramen for dinner without even leaving the city limits. music and art and philosophy and technology that originated thousands of miles and years apart from eachother have come together and interwoven into something greater than the sum of its parts. its hard not fall into despair when thinking about the horrors but god. god the wonders.

[dizzyghoast]

you can have friends on the other side of the planet! neither of you even has to travel!!!!! you can just talk to them whenever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[t4timekeeper]

ACCIDENTALLY LEFT MY MACERATED APPLE SYRUP ON THE STOVE AND IT CARAMELIZED I GUESS?

[t4timekeeper]

it was super thick and dark and golden and bubbly so i took it off the heat. happy accident.

[t4timekeeper]

tastes delicious so good. idk what to do with it though

[t4timekeeper]

thank you for your recommendation! with brief consideration, it has been disregarded.

[greater-than-the-sword]

It's because you're always on that cursed tome

[greater-than-the-sword]

The doom scroll, if you will

[sailforvalinor]

[army-of-bee-assassins]

okay i'm reading the semantics chapter of my language development textbook now and i know i've already posted a bit about the wacky methods researchers have employed to test infants' and toddlers' linguistic knowledge, but this is a really fucking great one.

so they were trying to figure out if children use syntactic knowledge to learn new vocabulary, specifically in this case they were researching two year olds. with verbs, some are done to a person ("x hit y") and some only have a doer ("x laughed"), and they wanted to see if these different sentence structures had an effect on how toddlers learn.

they got some grad students, put one in a rabbit costume and one in a duck costume. they had the rabbit repeatedly push the duck into a crouching position using their left hand. at the same time, both the rabbit and the duck were moving their right hands in a repetitive circling motion. they had a bunch of two years olds watch this. with half of the kids, they said "the rabbit is gorping the duck!" and with the other half, they said "the rabbit and duck are gorping!" afterwards, they showed two videos at the same time to the kids, one with the rabbit pushing the duck down but no circling motion, and one with both making the circling motion but no pushing. then they said "where's gorping now? find gorping!" and the kids who had heard the first statement would consistently look towards the video of the pushing motion, while the kids who heard the second statement would consistently look towards the video of the circling motion.

so it provided good evidence that kids do learn new words using their knowledge of sentence structure! my textbook says it's called the "syntactic bootstrapping hypothesis", which is also a fun term. anyway, i just think it's a fucking hilarious way to have tested this. imagine being a linguistics grad student and your advisor is like "hey i got this furry suit. i'm gonna need you to put this on for research purposes."

[foone]

ever since I took a developmental psychology class in college I've wanted this job. I want to be a professional baby-confuser, for SCIENCE

[bisexualbaker]

It has not escaped my notice that they picked a rabbit and a duck specifically, as well as who's pushing whom around. That's some Looney Toons shit right there.

[hellenhighwater]

A note, because not everyone knows this: if you're driving and another driver flashes their brights at you, this is a signal to be on alert and slow down. There may be debris in the road, a cop out of sight, or an animal crossing ahead of you. (Or, alternatively, your brights are on and they're getting blinded.) Whatever the reason, it's a signal that you need to focus and reduce speed. And possibly turn your own brights off.

This PSA has been brought to you by the four fawns and does that ran out in front of me at various points on my drive home.

Let's court death with mama!

[words-to-accomplish-something]

adding the tags for more relevant info

[troublepunk-ldn]

this is also true in the UK! a cyclist or motorcyclist will signal the same thing by tapping the top of their helmet.

[leonardslee]

Also if the vehicle in front of you puts their hazards on - they may be indicating to you that they can see something ahead you can’t, they may need to stop unexpectedly, or they may be about to do something else you won’t expect (for example, reverse park in the driveway on the other side of the road, so they need the other traffic to wait at a short distance while they complete the manoeuvre).