Who Else In The Silm Fandom Had Their Worldview On Morality, Religion, Free Will, Love, Loyalty, Punishment,

oh my goodness, one of dian fossey’s first close up observations with gorillas happened when she was trying to climb a tree to see them better, but so badly that by the time she’d gotten up the entire group had come out of hiding to look at her: “Nearly all members of the group had totally exposed themselves, forgetting about hiding coyly behind foliage screens because it was obvious to them that the observer had been distracted by tree-climbing problems, an activity they could understand.”

a tip for when you're looking for something

I, like many autistics (and, from what I've seen, like my friends the ADHDers), absolutely suck at finding things. Set it down on my desk, and poof, it's gone. If I'm looking for something I haven't seen in days? No luck.

But recently, my dad taught me a trick--don't look for the thing. Ask if what you see is what you want to find.

Looking for the pink sticky notes in your drawer? Don't just aimlessly go "where the fuck are my pink sticky notes?"; instead, examine each thing and say "what's that? Tape. What's that? A pen. What's that? A candy wrapper. What's that? OH IT'S MY PINK STICKY NOTES!"

Same concept for finding a certain book on your bookshelf. "Where's Lord of The Rings?" isn't very helpful; going "That's the Hunger Games, that's Cinder, and that's LOTR" is.

Same concept for food in the fridge. "That's milk, that's eggs, that's the cheese I was looking for".

Same concept for basically anything you're looking for. I don't know 100% why it works, but I'd have to guess that by eliminating the general "sweep around" type of searching and forcing yourself to actually look, your brain can't do the weird little "let everything fade into the clutter" thing that a lot of ND brains (and some NT brains!) do.

I hope this can help someone! :D

Hyphens, en Dashes and em Dashes

Oh- and let’s not forget the minus sign, that thing on your keyboard that can be misused as any one of the above! 

It took me a long time to understand the differences. 

The minus sign                         (-)

The hyphen                               (-)

The en dash                              (–)

The em dash                            (—)

Visually, not much in it, is there?  

But oh what a difference the length makes! 

The minus sign is a mathematical symbol. That’s it. Don’t misuse it for anything else.

The hyphen is used to join two elements to form a compound word, like  self-restraint. Numbers between twenty-one and ninety-nine should also be hyphenated when they’re spelled out. Sherlock Holmes-Watson or John Watson-Holmes (interesting to know which one wins in the battle). You should also use a hyphen in a compound modifier before a noun, as in The Crossed Keys Inn was a dog-friendly pub.

The shorter en dash  is used when describing ranges and with the meaning “to” in phrases like “Dover–Calais crossing.” It applies to ranges of numbers, such as times, page numbers, or scores (I’ll schedule you from 4:30–5:00). That said, outside of formally printed documents, it is increasingly being replaced with a hyphen, so if you miss this one, Sherlock won’t hang you for it. 

The longer em dash (—) is about as wide as the letter M (duh, now I get why it’s called this). It’s used to separate extra information or mark a break in a sentence.  An em dash is most often used to indicate a pause in a sentence. It’s stronger than a comma, but weaker than a period or semicolon. 

You can use a pair of em dashes to draw special attention to parenthetical information, as in

Sherlock—who was wearing the same purple shirt of sex—entered the room carrying his violin..

You can use a single em dash to add explanatory or amplifying information, especially when the information is surprising:

I opened the door and there she stood—Eurus, my long lost sister.

Em dashes can also signal a sudden interruption, particularly in dialogue:

“Wait! I forgot to tell you—” The door slammed shut between us and I missed whatever John was trying to say.

Interestingly, there is no firm rule about spaces around the em dash (either word—word or word — word). It’s a matter of style. Whichever style you choose, use it consistently throughout your document.

The em dash is a relatively artistic punctuation mark, compared to the more technical hyphen and en dash, both of which need to be used accurately in legal contracts, for example. 

thinking about Jet, as I often do, and thinking about how bryke really thought not only that vilifying the only organized resistance to the Fire Nation was a good idea, but also that making that resistance a group of mostly kids and teenagers and still painting them as horrible monsters was a good idea. We really don’t talk enough about how Jet is treated like an adult in the show. And to an extent, all of the kids in ATLA are doing things that they’re too young to do, but pretty much all of them except for Jet have their emotions and backstory explored. Jet gets one line about the Fire Nation killing his family. One line. He’s shown to be this mature, autonomous figure, a leader, taking care of a bunch of other people, and the show goes out of its way to make him both unlikeable and totally responsible for his actions in a way that a character like Azula (who is exactly as old as Jet) isn’t. I was thinking about this post, which talks about the little girl and how that draws on an old racist trope that depicts people of color violently resisting oppression as child-killers and makes real the “what about the women and children?” hypothetical, and it honestly just turns my stomach that bryke used another child to paint this group of mostly children as evil. The little girl gets to be a little girl and is protected, and her protection is used as justification for vilifying Jet. Jet and the rest of the Freedom Fighters don’t get to be kids. They don’t get to be good or morally ambiguous or even just naive. They already had their innocence robbed from them when the Fire Nation took their families from them, and bryke, instead of exploring them as the children they are, makes them out to be just as bad and just as culpable, if not more culpable, than adults who actively participated in imperialism (like Jeong Jeong and Iroh.) And then Jet’s “redemption arc” is him, the only Brown Freedom Fighter, dying violently for the cause. I don’t know, man, writing this post is making me cry, but Jet deserved so much better than that. Jet deserved to be a kid, and he had that taken from him both within the narrative when the Fire Nation burned down his village, and outside the narrative by Bryan and Michael. 

[ID: screenshot of a tag by tolkien-feels that says, "eol about maeglin".

End ID.]

my beautiful infant son Untitled Document

Thingol had the Silmaril the whole time he fostered Turin, right? Like, it was probably sitting down in his vaults somewhere and maybe sometimes he or Mablung would go have a peep to make sure it was still there.

But like. Turin. Smol baby. Bad luck charm. Walking doom magnet. Imagine if he’d gotten his hands on the shiny shiny jewel. How much chaos he could have started. The Tale of Turin Turambar and the Seven Sons of Feanor.

If you’re ever feeling down, read this paradigm for “banana” in Icelandic. read it aloud. you will feel better

People can be so quiet about their pain, that you forget they are hurting. That is why it is so important to always be kind.

— Nikita Gill

Hey bitch!!! I’m back and I still love you and your writing!! Any way, I was wondering if you had any ideas of which elves can tell Elladan and Elrohir apart and which can’t? You’re still amazing byeeeee!!! -🏳️‍🌈

Yaaasss hello again my good bitch!! 🎩🎩

Thanks I love and apprecate you so much!! Let me know if I forgot anyone byeeeeeee

People that can

Elrond -- Even when they were 1 hour old Elrond could tell them apart. 

Celebrian -- By the time they could talk, there was no fooling her  (Heartbreaking sidenote headcanon: After she was rescued from the Orcs she couldn't tell them apart anymore. So they each began wearing a different color. Nothing drastic. Elrohir tended to use grey tone while Elladan uses lighter blue tones so that she wouldn't have to guess and get it wrong because they knew how bad it made her feel.)

Glorfindel -- Can always, always, always, tell them apart. 

Arwen -- Same with Arwen. 

Legolas -- If they stay completely silent, then sometimes he can't tell. But as soon as they talk its game over. 

Erestor -- Can almost always tell them apart but sometimes he pretends he cant. 

Galadrial -- Mind powers, enough said. 

Celeborn -- Usually, but the twins are very aware that their grandfather has been tricked before on several occasions, and therefore can be tricked again. 

Aragorn -- They've never really tested it with him, but this far he's never mixed them up that they've noticed.  

Merry & Pippin -- For some reason the two hobbits have proven to be unflappable by any scheme to confuse them. 

Galion -- You can hide nothing from him. Nothing.

People That Can’t 

Tbh, most people 

Gimli -- No idea. None at all. Never has, not once. People can tell him but as soon as they start moving around again he's lost it. 

Gandalf -- Sometimes he can but more often than not he can't tell unless he's told who is who. 

Thranduil -- Doesn't know and honestly doesn't really care. 

Frodo -- Has a 50/50 chance of getting it right. 

Sam -- Refuses to guess in case he offends anyone.