theoppositeofprofound

[theoppositeofprofound]

The Fellowship of the Ring, Bronze Age-style, as drawn by Goran Gligovic

Link from his Bluesky, check him out and support him on Patreon!

[theoppositeofprofound]

omg ok so that one (1) case of plague from a Chicago lab leak. I actually know the story abt that one!! (And you're right, that guy was WILDLY unlucky lol)

So you know how whenever you take a biology lab class, the instructor is always like "do NOT mouth pipette" and everyone in the class stares blankly & nods politely bc 1) what even is that and 2) that sounds like a horrible idea, why would anyone ever? Mouth pipetting apparently can let a Really Skilled Microbiologist isolate individual bacteria cells from a sample, so people were still doing it until... terrifyingly recently. Basically just sticking their mouths over the pipette and slurping, being careful not to slurp too far and getting a mouthful of warm growth media

So this Particularly Unlucky Microbiologist is studying the plague. He's slurping along and... oops!! Got some in his mouth. A lot in his mouth. Not to worry, though! The concept of biosafety had been invented, so this strain of plague had been modified so that it required lots of iron in its growth media. Without a metric ton of iron, this strain of plague couldn't get going at all and would die out immediately in the human body. He was gonna be fine! Unfortunately, this particular man had an undiagnosed medical condition & had thousands of times the normal amount of iron in his blood, making him the perfect environment for iron-starved black plague. He went home from work that day thinking he was gonna be fine. He ended up not being fine, and died - making him the only case (and only fatality!) of plague east of the Mississippi in over a hundred years

OH MY GOD

It's true ....

[theoppositeofprofound]

Faramir in courtly dress. I based it mainly on Byzantine fashion but also partly on (very related) Medieval Arabic fashion. Gondor is very explicitly Byzantine inspired after all.

[theoppositeofprofound]

[theoppositeofprofound]

@arwenindomiel's tolkien south asian week 2025 day 3: more fair than mortal tongue can tell ✦ LÚTHIEN

Her starlight faded and the night closed o'er the snowdrops glimmering white. Thereafter on a hillock green he saw far off the elven-sheen of shining limb and jewel bright often and oft on moonlit night; and Daeron's pipe awoke once more, and soft she sang as once before.

[theoppositeofprofound]

we need to be doing everything in our power to acquire and consume tiramisu

[theoppositeofprofound]

This is lacrosse erasure and I won’t stand for it.

[theoppositeofprofound]

just got the call. fired. i was the DEI coordinator at Lumon in charge of making all the old men on the severed floor gay

[theoppositeofprofound]

everything in the natural order is either a miasma or a crystal

[theoppositeofprofound]

I think it would be really fucking funny to write a piece of fiction set entirely in real life but using lazy fantasy worldbuilding talk. I gather coin* for the road west** - I will need it to enter the Capital.***

* two quarters and two dimes

** Interstate 64

*** Richmond, Virginia

[theoppositeofprofound]

the seals yearn for the pipes

via

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baby purples martins have paused their slopping to

: |

[theoppositeofprofound]

““Is your novel an open work or not?” How should I know? That is your business, not mine. “With which of your characters do you identify?” For God’s sake, with whom does an author identify? With the adverbs, obviously.”

— Umberto Eco, Postscript to the Name of the Rose

[theoppositeofprofound]

[theoppositeofprofound]

Princess Sofia Alexeyevna a Year after her Incarceration in the Novodevichy Convent during the Execution of the Streltsys and the Torturing of All Her Servants in 1698 (1879) by Ilya Repin