Non-Boring Environments that need Fantasy Representation
Tropical Rainforests
Scrubland/Dry Forests. For extra effect make them the sort that burn very often; some native plants never germinate until after a fire, and some animals not only rely on fire to smoke out prey, but may even start them themselves.
Savannas/Tropical Grasslands
Temperate Rainforests. I almost didn’t include this bc New Zealand is covered in them, and that’s where they filmed Lord of the Rings. But tbh, no one really knows about them, so it belongs here
Taiga Forests
Barren Tundra, perfect for some extreme seasonal dichotomy
Polar Ice Sheets
Desert-Grasslands (arguably the same as Scrubland but Australia’s good at adding its own twists)
Barren Desert
If you like Cacti, look at American Deserts like the Sonoran
Salt Flats
Soda Lakes and Alkaline Lakes
Madagascar’s Karst Limestone Formations
Madagascar’s Spiny Forests
Madagascar’s Baobab Forests
Madagascar’s Subhumid Forests (Madagascar is cool as hell ok)
Danxia Landforms
Badlands/Mountainous Deserts
Steppes and Highland Prairies
Flood Basalts
Newly-Formed Islands, still rife with Volcanic activity
Now for Underwater Environments, sure Coral Reefs are cool.
But there are SO MANY other kinds of environments for aquatic settings, it’s unbelievable:
Seaside Cliffs
Archipelagos. Not just Tropical Island chains like Polynesia (Moana anyone?) but also Coldwater Archipelagos like the Aleutians.
Tidal Flats
Bayous/Cypress Swamps
Tropical River Basins, AKA Seasonally Flooded Rainforests
Mangrove Swamps/Deltas/Beaches
Kelp Forests
The Open Ocean
Coastal Seabeds
Rocky Beaches with Tidepools
And there are a LOT more I could name but this post is already obscenely long as is, if you’d like to toss in your own go right ahead, but my point is if you limit yourself to European Deciduous Forests you’re a wimp.
Finally an update! This chapter is all about the kids in the Temple. Anakin is still off on Naboo and has no idea his babies are all grown up and rebelling without him.
It was his mother’s favorite saying. It meant that he’d said too much and she probably wouldn’t have realized he’d done something if he’d just kept quiet. It took him too long to realize that he gave himself away, but it meant the lesson stuck when he finally figured it out.
Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.
Dori had first heard it from their mother, of course. And probably caught in to the meaning far faster. He always had made Nori work things out himself. But he had picked up the saying. When people were discontent, something was wrong. When people were hurt, something was probably wrong at a high level.
Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.
He probably should have figured it out sooner. After all, Dwalin was smoking hot, and the sex… But even if he’d thought of the saying (he hadn’t), he wouldn’t have wanted to understand what it meant.
Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.
He did think of it, later, when they cuddled close and talked about all of the things they could do, now that they were they. And they were different than before, and needed a way to show it. To show that they had changed and were bound together. Soon everyone would know, but the first time he said it they’re foreheads were touching and he was curled in the strongest, tenderest arms he knew. He said it, and they knew through their laughter that it was right.
*hugs you all* Because today is a day for hugs, and I’m going to run out of spoons if I go putting hugs in everyone’s ask box.
Feel free to reblog this to give a hug to every one of your followers.
*who is comfortable with being hugged. If you do not like hugs or are uncomfortable with physical contact, or even just prefer not a hug from someone not a mutual friend, cookies or other snacks suitable for your dietary needs and restrictions.
Good morning everyone, and welcome to Radio Free Monday!
Ways To Give:
kshandra linked to George Manley, a voice actor who has been trying to keep a roof over his head, sometimes working through health issues that should keep him at home. He is presently fighting eviction proceedings and trying to come up with the full amount of back rent he currently owes, now that he is finally getting the medical attention he needs, but many of his previous clients are no longer offering him assignments. You can read more on Facebook here or at his gofundme here; his gofundme has been completed and closed, but he is still accepting donations via paypal at ironraider@yahoo.com.
Anon linked to gwydion, who is struggling to make ends meet after having to fund housing and insurance in March, then housing and car repairs in April; they are disabled and need their car for basic transportation. They’re trying to raise $150 to stay afloat in May; you can give at their paypal, lethran@gmail.com.
secondsilk linked to Archie Barry, a non-binary trans person raising money for top surgery, who is accepting donations and offering art works in exchange for donations as well. You can read more and support the fundraiser here.
discursivetacenda linked to a fundraiser for Mosaiccreme, a full-time student working on her Master’s in Counseling and the mother of a non-verbal autistic child. She’s struggling to make ends meet this summer while taking unpaid internships and with limited childcare options for her daughter, until her next round of student loans. You can read more and help out here.
Gabby linked to a Kickstarter for a friend’s mother, who is working on a documentary about Helen Keller and disability history. The Kickstarter is now funding for work on the second hour of the documentary. You can read more and support the movie here.
queerbian linked to wetwareproblem, who is almost to her goal for bottom surgery; healthcare in Canada covers it, but with a wait period of years, and additionally she doesn’t have the support network she needs in Canada. In Arizona she will have the support she needs, but of course the surgery will cost much more under her partner’s insurance. You can read more, including updates, and reblog here or give directly to the fundraiser here.
Buy Stuff, Help Out:
M Brighty has had sudden issues at work, leaving her with fewer hours than will sustain her bills for the next three months. She is trying to sell her entire stock of jewelry, hats, scarves, and bags; you can use RADIOFREE to get a 40% discount on her Etsy, and she also has a ko-fi where you can donate.
Anon linked to Chaz on Facebook, who is selling her belongings in a move from Montreal to Australia; she’s selling at a heavy discount in order to move ASAP. There are books, crafts, nail polish, and other items for sale; you can read more and purchase here.
News to Know:
Molly Stratton is holding a series of queer-focused classes in the DC area called Sew Queer; the upcoming class on June 3rd will teach attendees how to make a simple bow tie, just in time for Pride, and future classes are planned for tailoring button-down shirts and DIY cat toys. Sew Queer is also focused on making the class available to people without the cash to pay the class fees; if you can’t attend, or in addition to attending, you can also buy a “Support a Queer” ticket that allows people to attend the class for free. There are three for sale for the Bow Tie class, and sponsors receive a thank-you card from their sponsoree. You can buy a ticket for yourself or another attendee here!
And this has been Radio Free Monday! Thank you for your time. You can post items for my attention at the Radio Free Monday submissions form. If you’re not sure how to proceed, here is a little more about what I do and how you can help (or ask for help!). If you’re new to fundraising, you may want to check out my guide to fundraising here.
Okay, so my friend Chloe just pointed this out, and it’s amazingly accurate:
“Because of the scarcity of Dwarf-women, their secrecy and similarity in
appearance to males, and their lack of mention, many Men failed to
recognize their existence.”
Okay, so?
Well, Tolkien was a philologist, and a Norsist, and that means he knew Völuspá well enough to pull the names of every dwarf from Dvergatal and he had a pretty firm grasp Old Norse grammar.
In fact, he grasped it well enough that he knew if you dropped an n from a name ending in –inn, it changes from the masculine
definite enclitic
to the feminine.
Well, what the hell does any of this mean?
Well, I give you the names of the Dwarves from the Hobbit, as they appear in Dvergatal (stanzas 14-16) and in the order they appear:
Now, you notice something with the way those names got changed? That’s right, he changed the masculine -inn definite suffix to -in, which is feminine.**
That means that, at least grammatically, Dwalin, Dáin, Thorin, Thráin, and Glóin are female Dwarves.
Since we know Tolkien was meticulous about his grammar, this was done most likely as an in-joke (lol we’re so learnèd about Norse grammar that my comment on Dwarf women being indistinguishable from men is hilarious because of this grammatical funniness)
But there’s a not-inconceivable chance that the Dwarves were using the masculine pronouns in Westron because that’s what the Men who met them used, despite the fact that a third of the company was female, and
hey, it’s kinda neat to think he wrote a bunch of Dwarf-ladies going on an adventure.
given Tolkien’s general approach to women he’s unlikely to have intended this but I don’t care I’m going to accept it as canon anyway
isn’t there stuff in the appendixes about the Hobbit language having ’-a’ as a masculine name ending and ’-o’ as feminine but then he changed all the Hobbit names anyway?
Bilb-O
‘O’ and ‘e’ are feminine suffixes in hobbit-dialect Westron, which is not English.
Tolkien translated/Anglicized the names of all the hobbits into names that both sounded appropriate for their gender and reflected the aesthetic impression a native Westron speaker would get when meeting hobbits and hearing their language. It’s not about how The Hobbits Are Actually Girls (though that would be cool) it’s about how “Bilbo Baggins” gives a certain feeling when you as an English speaker encounter it – you get an idea of a character, perhaps, and it sounds just a little ridiculous – but you wouldn’t get that feeling from “Bilba Labingi”, the original hobbit-dialect Westron name.
(As to “Tolkien’s general approach to women”, yes, the man was sexist, I’m not going to deny that, but he was also meticulous and perfectionist when it came to language and there is no way this was accidental. No way at all. Not when he wrote an entire fake-academic-journal fanfic essay about why the Sindarin word ros had two translations, justifying it with in-universe linguistic drift.)
That being said, yeah, quite a lot of those dwarves were ladies. Headcanon accepted.
The most common cause of female infertility – polycystic ovary syndrome – may be caused by a hormonal imbalance before birth. The finding has led to a cure in mice, and a drug trial is set to begin in women later this year.
Polycystic ovary syndrome affects up to one in five women worldwide, three-quarters of whom struggle to fall pregnant. The condition is typically characterised by high levels of testosterone, ovarian cysts, irregular menstrual cycles, and problems regulating sugar, but the causes have long been a mystery. “It’s by far the most common hormonal condition affecting women of reproductive age but it hasn’t received a lot of attention,” says Robert Norman at the University of Adelaide in Australia.
There's a Mirror on the Wall 