Latest Posts by penelopes-poppies - Page 4

Azula invented modern chemistry to synthesise Copper (I) Chloride to make her fire blue.

Shes got a lab in the palace, she disappears in there for days.

Every so often I think that I really need to get back to writing because I really enjoyed writing and, very excitingly, other people seemed to enjoy my writing too

Ko-if link is on my page

As is my commission info

For Feanorian week, Miriel Serinde, in whose arms began the burning history of Noldor.

😂 new HC that a tatooine phone book very much exists 10000%

Boba is written in it twice because somebody wrote Bob Fett by accident once but they never removed it

BOB FETT.

Okay but what if that’s not a mistake at all. And he’s actually just some dude and suddenly people are turning up at his door either like. super pissed at him, or they’re throwing like gifts at his feet to get on his good side and he’s like. So tired of this shit?

“For the last kriffing time, my name is ROBERT. I’m not a bounty hunter?? I’m a research scientist from Bogano! I study bantha droppings. No—no—don’t you dare leave that chest of spice—come back here!!”

Metaphysical question - what do you suppose Tolkien meant to indicate by making the 'Flame Imperishable' so important in the early Valaquenta? It's supposed to technically be the thing that really drew Melkor off-course, is the stuff of souls, yet it winds up as this very mysterious, undefined force. Do you think it's the same light that filled the trees (and thus the Silmarils)? Tolkien loves his light, but I wonder how much these forces are connected in canon.

Oh my friend, you just ask the best questions. *evil cackle*

So, as for what the Flame Imperishable does, literally, that's pretty straightforward. (It's also sometimes called the Secret Fire, in case you wanted to search for that in an electronic version.) Eru uses it to kindle life in all beings from the Ainur to the Children, and without this force, that's impossible. Melkor goes searching for it and can't find it, and Aulë makes little dwarf puppets until Eru sparks them to life personally. Ye Olde classic subcreation examples, so on and so forth. Probably sounds familiar from our first thread ever!

I think that this theme of subcreation is really what Tolkien meant to hammer home with the Flame Imperishable, especially in the Ainulindalë. It's a force to give to living beings, not for them to control—and we never see it outside of this "life force" application. So, I don't really think that the Trees or the Silmarilli literally contained the Secret Fire, though I admit that would make a neat explanation for why Melkor was so obsessed with destroying the first and keeping the second.

But neither are we supposed to put the Flame Imperishable out of our minds when we think of these things. Remember how I mentioned searching for "secret fire" in an electronic copy? Well, I did! And the only time it's mentioned outside of the capitalized, proper force of Eru is in reference to... Fëanor.

...Fëanor grew swiftly, as if a secret fire were kindled within him. He was tall, and fair of face, and masterful, his eyes piercingly bright and his hair raven-dark; in the pursuit of all his purposes eager and steadfast... He became of all the Noldor, then or after, the most subtle in mind and the most skilled of hand.

And there's just too many connections here to dismiss, because when the man named Spirit of Fire grows to become a creator like there's a secret fire, the force of creation, inside of him? And he when makes three jewels with literal bits of his spirit, like a secret fire, inside? Isn't a coincidence. And notably, Tolkien says "as if," not "with," so this is still a simile—but it's a deliberate and telling one all the same.

"Actually in his later writings Tolkien said Maglor died-" *slaps you across the face* fake news I saw him at Dunkin Donuts last night

I've always followed this saying: hope for the best, but expect the worst.

So many people hear that, and they immediately assume I'm an extreme pessimist. Or they'll think that that saying is what makes me so depressed. It makes me extremely frustrated because I don't expect the worst in a "life sucks and the world hates me" kind of way.

I struggle when things go wrong, especially when it catches me off guard. Unexpected bad things can trigger big, out of control emotions, and for my autism (and cptsd) that's hard to deal with. It can lead to things being more traumatic than they need to be if I'm not prepared for the bad outcome. The whole situation feels out of control, and I don't always have a good sense of clarity when I'm having intense emotions or a meltdown, which makes my own response feel out of my control.

So, I try and expect and prepare for the worst. I talk myself through what I will do if something doesn't go the way I want. I make guesses on how I will feel, and talk myself through those emotions before they've ever even come up. I make plans on what my next steps will be, even if those next steps are simply time to recover from disappointment. All the while, I still am hoping for the best. I want things to go well, I want to succeed. I hold my breath, cross my fingers, and wish for things to turn out well.

Nobody ever understands this. I'm not trying to be a pessimist, I'm trying to accommodate for myself and make my life easier, to make my life happier. Life, by chance, is going to disappoint sometimes. I don't want to be blindsided and thrown into a tailspin. I want to be able to sit with myself and process, and move on. And I don't know why people can't understand that.

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. 

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. 

Thoughts on Yavanna and the portrayal of nature in Arda

And in that time of dark Yavanna also was unwilling utterly to forsake the Outer Lands; for all things that grow are dear to her, and she mourned for the works that she had begun in Middle-earth but Melkor had marred. Therefore leaving the house of Aulë and the flowering meads of Valinor she would come at times and heal the hurts of Melkor; and returning she would ever urge the Valar to that war with his evil dominion that they must surely wage ere the coming of the Firstborn.

And:

It came to pass that the Valar held council, for they became troubled by the tidings that Yavanna and Oromë brought from the Outer Lands; and Yavanna spoke before the Valar, saying: ‘Ye mighty of Arda, the Vision of Ilúvatar was brief and soon taken away, so that maybe we cannot guess within a narrow count of days the hour appointed. Yet be sure of this: the hour approaches, and within this age our hope shall be revealed, and the Children shall awake. Shall we then leave the lands of their dwelling desolate and full of evil? Shall they walk in darkness while we have light? Shall they call Melkor lord while Manwë sits upon Taniquetil?’

Yavanna is differentiated from most of the other Valar in her desire to go to the Outer Lands, and she is alike to Oromë and Ulmo in this, but they are clearly in the minority. She is also in favor of directly opposing Melkor through war, and in that scene where she advocates for it, she and Tulkas are the only ones. Of course, some among the Valar find ways to help other than fighting—after the council, Varda goes out to hang more stars in the sky so that the Children of Ilúvatar do not awaken in darkness—and later the Valar do wage war against Melkor and imprison him. But Yavanna was in favor of fighting and getting involved much sooner. 

It seems a defining characteristic of Yavanna is that she not only loves Middle-earth and its inhabitants, as all the Valar do—she also feels compelled to be involved, to act, to fight. Of course, during the First Age she remained in Valinor with the other Valar. But she is far more in favor of being involved in the world: she went to Middle-earth when most of them did not, and she advocated for intervention in Middle-earth before most of them were ready to do so. Tolkien characterizes her this way consistently. 

I love this, because nature is often thought of as passive, and Yavanna is anything but. As the Valië who created green and growing things, she is probably the closest thing in Tolkien’s writing to a personification of the natural world, and so her desire to play an active role in Middle-earth—and to fight to protect it—says something about how Tolkien viewed nature.

Many people think of nature as a passive thing, separate from humans, which we can own and use however we want. In this understanding of the world, nature does not feel; nature does not act. While some people acknowledge that animals have thoughts and feelings, few people think plants have them. But in Tolkien’s world, trees do think, and feel, and remember—and they also literally fight back against those who hurt them. And the Ents and all of the trees of course come from Yavanna’s thought. Yavanna first thinks of Ents because of her desire to protect trees:

‘Long in the growing, swift shall they be in the felling, and unless they pay toll with fruit upon bough little mourned in their passing. So I see in my thought. Would that the trees might speak on behalf of all things that have roots, and punish those that wrong them!’

And Yavanna says to Manwë that this thought was in the Ainulindalë itself: 

‘For while thou wert in the heavens and with Ulmo built the clouds and poured out the rains, I lifted up the branches of great trees to receive them, and some sang to Ilúvatar amid the wind and the rain.’ 

The trees sang to Ilúvatar!!! The trees sang to Ilúvatar!!! I love that so much. Does this mean that some trees participated in the Ainulindalë as it was unfolding? Or was this merely a vision of Arda in the future? Either way, through this passage and others, Tolkien completely rejects the idea that nature is passive or inanimate, and I love that.

The other thing that stands out to me about Yavanna is her anger. She wishes that trees might ‘punish’ those that wrong them, and says of the Ents, ‘there shall walk a power in the forests whose wrath they [anyone who cuts down trees] will arouse at their peril.’ I love this, and it rings true to me that nature is something whose wrath we arouse at our peril… It’s not that you’re going to be attacked by Ents if you cut down a forest unsustainably (although maybe you should be), but destroying nature arouses its ‘wrath’ in the sense that it throws things out of balance, and creates more problems that end up hurting us, too, because we’re also part of nature.

It also occurred to me that Yavanna is quite different from the concept of mother nature found in a lot of myths, even though mother nature or mother earth would seem like logical archetypes to compare her to. There are some similarities, of course: she is associated with growing things and with plenty. But I feel like mother nature is usually associated with nurturing, gentleness and pacifism, and Yavanna is not a pacifist. And it isn’t that she can never be nurturing—it does say she would ‘heal the hurts of Melkor’ in Middle-earth—but she also wants trees to ‘punish’ those that harm them, and warns of the ‘wrath’ of the forests, and urges the Valar to go to war themselves. And I love that. I hear the echo of her fierce protectiveness in the Ents’ marching song:

We go, we go, we go to war, to hew the stone and break the door; For bole and bough are burning now, the furnace roars—we go to war! To land of gloom with tramp of doom, with roll of drum, we come, we come; To Isengard with doom we come! With doom we come, with doom we come!

Things that are really fucking me up today

Just how close in age Elrond and Elwing are, by the Elf standards. It must be so strange when they finally meet, to look at each other and realize the difference between them is only a little over thirty years.

Like, in comparison Finwe was a thousand years older than Finfarin, and Elrond was already roughly 4000 years old when he had Arwen.

So idk it just must have been so strange for them. A mere thirty years is such a wildly negligible amount of time. They’re basically peers when they first meet.

The difference between Beren and Luthien and Aragorn and Arwen is that the former follows the conventions of fairy tale and the latter follows the conventions of courtly love. In this essay I will

What's the trope name for when someone finds out they're the Chosen One(tm) and is like "No, thank you" and goes and does something else

consider this: given how much the hobbits are said to love legalese and documentation, I think when the shirriffs tried to arrest Frodo and company on their return Frodo should have just refused on the basis that they have no official proof that he is, in fact, Frodo Baggins

"The Rings of Power" is allegedly-historical fiction being filmed in Sixth Age Gondor and I only want to consume summaries written in the form of Maglor livetexting Daeron his hatewatch of it.

are you considering getting into NFTs but are on the fence due to environmental concerns or fear of being labelled a "complete douchebag"?

do you want to enjoy owning a unique piece of artwork while still enjoying the possibility of one day getting a girlfriend?

then boy, do I have the option for you!

did you know that there are THOUSANDS of artists on THIS VERY WEBSITE and many others who will make you your very own piece of artwork for the same price or less than an NFT?

these gorgeous artworks are called "commissions", and are environmentally friendly AND don't look like pure shit!

if that wasn't enough, many lovely artists on the internet will, for a price, PHYSICALLY MAKE AN ARTWORK IN REAL LIFE AND MAIL IT TO YOUR OWN HOME! That's right, a PHYSICAL OBJECT that is completely unique and made just for you!

Benefits of Commissions:

Environmentally Friendly!

Supports Real, Hardworking Artists!

Actual Real Art That Looks Good!

Not A Literal Scam!

I Will Stop Fucking Your Mom!

"OP," I hear you cry, "how do I get my grubby hands on such a deal??"

don't fret, dear reader! simply check the bio or pinned post of any artist on any site for further directions! Many will have a "commissions open" or "commissions closed" sign, and often you will find a post with prices or instructions on how to contact the artist for details!

"What if I can't afford it?" you say? Well, you can also support the artist by REBLOGGING their artwork! (NEVER repost without permission, I'll kill you)

stop buying NFTs and support real artists!

It sure is convenient that all these songs that ostensibly weren’t written in English all rhyme when translated into English, isn’t it, Mr. Tolkien?

It sure is convenient that all these songs that ostensibly weren’t written in English all rhyme when translated into English, isn’t it, Mr. Tolkien?

This is a bathrooms during social events appreciation post

Femenine urge that

Masculine urge this

What about the autistic urge to info dump about your special interest even tho you just infodumped someone else like 3 minutes ago?

honestly Anakin and Padmé’s secret marriage has so much comedy potential and TCW did not take advantage of that at all

I’m talking ridiculous sitcom hijinks

Anakin diving out of Padmé’s high rise Coruscanti apartment in his knickers to avoid getting caught

Padmé sneaking into the Temple to hang out with her husband, gets caught by some random Jedi, claims she’s there to meet... uh... Master Yoda??? Gets roped into having tea with him for the next 4 hours

They get sent on some diplomatic mission together... (with Ahsoka maybe?). it all goes tits up as per usual... they *have* to kiss to avoid getting caught. they get super into it. Ahsoka coughs loudly like “the bad guys have been gone for five minutes”

Someone asks Anakin why he’s visiting Padmé’s apartment. he claims he’s there to fix her washing machine. Ends up doing odd jobs for every single resident of 500 Republica to keep his cover

I headcanon that Gil-Galad is the eldest son of Galadriel, because canon-wise it makes no sense whatsoever and should dissatisfy all parties equally.

god i hate how aesthetic-obsessed we have become. i'm not talking about cottagecore or dark academia or any of the other -cores, i'm talking about everything being so glossy and pretty and perfect and smooth and one-liner hot takes and feel-good own-the-conservatives progressivism and Top 10 Company Tweets We Laughed At and ring lights and young vloggers with pastel-perfect colour-corrected lives and carefully curated messy title cards and perfect montages being called "photo dumps" and bookstagrams or booktoks or bookblrs who buy every book they read, not a library edition in sight and "that girl" and this is how you age when you're unproblematic and glow ups and "clean" "inclusive" beauty and earth tones and minimalism and filming random people without their consent and definition of the self through consumption of goods and ggrgehwrgehrgehrgehrgehrrerg

jedi hopscotch. jedi padawans drawing hopscotch squares on floors, using jedi knights’ shoulders to chalk hopscotch onto the walls, having their masters force lift them to put them on the ceilings. every single jedi who sets foot on a square, intentionally or not, must stop what they are doing and complete the sequence. your ridiculously billowing sleeve brushed one of the squares on the wall? hope you have good control of the force bc every padawan in the hallway will start chanting at you until you wall-run through the hopscotch. sometimes there’s just a big chalk circle at the end where everyone has to do a cool flip if they step inside. eventually there’s an official hopscotch lane in every hallway in the temple. jedi hopscotch.

Din: I have reconsidered your offer to train me to use the darksaber.

Luke: Did you hit yourself with it?

Din: I hit myself with it.

ICYMI: fragments of Kidnap Fam fix-it by Jirt

Here Damrod and Díriel ravaged Sirion, and were slain. Maidros and Maglor were there, but they were sick at heart. This was the third kinslaying. The folk of Sirion were taken into the people of Maidros, such as yet remained; and Elrond was taken to nurture by Maglor. (HoME 5, The Later Annals of Beleriand)

The Third and Last Kinslaying. The Havens of Sirion destroyed and Elros and Elrond sons of Earendel taken captive, but are fostered with care by Maidros (HoME 11, The Tale of Years)

Yet not all the Eldalië were willing to forsake the Hither Lands where they had long suffered and long dwelt; and some lingered many an age in the West and North, and especially in the western isles and in the Land of Leithien. And among these were Maglor, as hath been told; and with him for a while was Elrond Halfelven, who chose, as was granted to him, to be among the Elf-kindred; but Elros his brother chose to abide with Men. (HoME 5, Quenta Silmarillion)

“In 1404, King Taejong fell from his horse during a hunting expedition. Embarrassed, looking to his left and right, he commanded, “Do not let the historian find out about this.” To his disappointment, the historian accompanying the hunting party included these words in the annals, in addition to a description of the king’s fall.“

LMFAOOOOOO rip to that guy

On a scale of Tolkien protagonists, how has your adventure been treating you?

I’m so sorry in advance to anyone who says Túrin.

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