Penelopes-poppies - Lots Of Tolkien And Autism, No Actual Poppies

I have a lot of Thoughts about the framing of classic fantasy stories that are actual specific published works as Ye Olde Folktales of no particular origin. especially given the most common modern understanding of “original fairytale” as “didactic story intended for children”

(same goes for stories where the most common modern understanding of the story is based on one particular published version)

like. I don’t know. Beauty and the Beast owes a lot of tropes to earlier tales that occupy the nebulous ~folklore~ space we usually assign it to, but the actual story itself is a novel. a full-on fantasy novel intended for adults, with a known author (Gabrielle Suzanne Barbot de Villenueve), published in a definite time and place (1740 France)

the most popular modern version of Cinderella- with the fairy godmother, glass slipper, single ball, and so on -was written in 1697 by Charles Perrault. that’s not the oldest known version of the story, and DEFINITELY not the only one out there, but it’s the one that most informs our cultural ideas about what Cinderella is. in the west and honestly, in most of the world

(luckily most people know by now that The Little Mermaid started life as a story written by a particular author. but it sometimes falls prey to these misconceptions, too)

this is all really hard to articulate, but it just feels weird to say “Beauty and the Beast was meant to teach girls to accept arranged marriage!” when you wouldn’t try to sum up, say, The Fellowship of the Ring so neatly. or “well, in the ORIGINAL Cinderella, birds peck out the stepsisters’ eyes!” when that comes from a version published in 1819- over a century after the version we’re most familiar with today

I think it also takes away important context when analyzing these stories, to completely sever them from the very specific points in history that created them and make them seem the product of a murky, generic Olden Time™ that never existed

You ever think about unimaginably far back in the past the event of the First Age are compared to LOTR. Just. By LOTR Gondor is more than 3000 years old. For us 3000 years ago is… It’s not just before the Roman Empire, it’s before Rome even existed. It’s back before Ancient Greece as we usually mean it was a thing. Tutankhamun ruled around 3300 years ago. Numenor is to Gondor what ancient Egypt is to us. And the founding of Numenor was more than 6000 years prior. That’s older than the first recorded examples of a writing system we have

Imagine being a scholar in Gondor and being able to read a diary that was written by someone in Numenor. Imagine reading a 5000 years old letter written by a Numenorean, and not like a transaction receipt or something of the sorts, not something written for functionality when written language was just invented, but something already fully fleshed out and nuanced. Imagine being told that out there the brother of the first king of Numenor is still alive and he could tell you all about him. That’s like if you could just stroll to a Sumerian and ask them what Uruk was like back in the day. If I was Boromir I would have died on the spot meeting Elrond

And like maybe the scholars would have enough documents and proof to say yes, Numenor existed, Elros existed too, but the common people? What would a fisherman or farmer said if you told them about it? The tale about the son of a star who ruled a star-shaped island, and of the star-shaped island who was sunk in the sea after the old kings became evil, that would absolutely be seen as a legend. There’s gotta be plenty of Gondorians who think Numenor was just a tale, a metaphor, that there’s no way the stories are true, and they’d be right to think that because it’s such a wild tale and from so long ago that it just sounds like someone made it up at some point

@prekliata-bryndza I realize what gets to me about Elrond as specifically the minstrel of Gil-galad. Obviously I have thought about Maglor teaching him, but many people have already created works on this topic better than I can. Actually this makes me think of a scene I have had in my mind for quite a while but haven’t written yet. I imagine near the end of the War of Wrath, a ship full of refugees fleeing a sinking Beleriand lead by Elros at the front steering, and I imagine Elrond at the back singing to comfort the children and the hurt and the weary, and this is how I came up with a concept of this role that Elrond fulfills first beside Elros in practice and then beside Gil-galad officially that is more than knowledge and wisdom — the close companion of a king whose role is less decisive but less constrained than a king’s, therefore providing a balance to kingliness that Elros and Gil-galad and their peoples value and need.

So, I fell down a rabbit hole and learned two cool things in relation to the Irish language and Tolkien!

1) He seems to have tried and failed to learn Irish and thought it sounded awful XD

2) In one of his letters where he’s talking about the origin of the word nazg (Black Speech for ring), he says that he thinks it most likely came from nasc, which in modern Irish refers to a tie/bond/link and in older Irish seems to have also referred to ring-shaped jewellery (by which I mean bracelets, necklaces etc, not just finger rings). Technically, he does say that he didn’t do this consciously. He was looking up some stuff about Irish, came across the word and ‘re-learned’ it as such and thought “oop, that’s probably where that came from!” but I still think it’s cool.

Bonus! In that same letter, he describes the Irish language as “mushy” sounding and like, I get what he means? I don’t know why, but I find this description hilarious. He’s not wrong XD

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. 

I did some more fantasy archery trope testing. This time the arrow stabby thing!

Cries in writer

“But you always have to watch Tolkien with water. He never uses it unmeaningfully. Pools and lakes mirror stars, and hold hidden things. The Anduin has contrastin banks and, moreover, reeks of history. In a way, it is history, and the Fellowship is going with the current, to break up in confusion at the falls of Rauros. It is worth pointing out that when Aragorn later uses the same river, he comes up it, against the current, changing a course of events that seems inevitable. The other water is of course the Sea. This has been sounding dimly in our ears throughout the book, but in Lothlorien it begins to thunder. Does it suggest loss, departure and death? Certainly. But since water is always life to Tolkien, it must also be eternity.”

— Diana Wynne Jones, ‘The Shape of the Narrative in The Lord of the Rings.’

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I showed up for my covid vaccination appointment at my pharmacy, and where to check-in was very unclear. I joined the back of one of the lines and stood there trying to figure it out for a bit, before asking a Latino family standing nearby, "Hi, could you tell me where the vaccination check-in is? I'm very confused."

They showed me to the right window and afterwards, when I was confused again about where I needed to go, explained each of the subsequent steps and what I needed to do for each one.

I appreciate them more than they know. Being autistic, I need clear directions and freeze when I don't know what to do, which made the appointment very frustrating at first. I asked for help, and that family helped me. It might have taken only a few minutes of their time, but they made my week.

I'm so grateful to them and everyone else who makes life accessible for me.

To all the kind strangers, thank you.