The Experience @barefoot-earth-child - Tumblr Blog

video game and film fandoms will come and go for me but the Silmarillion fandom will never die. because that book came out like 50 years ago and we're all still trying to figure out what the hell is going on there.

hamletthedane

Average Silmarillion fan:

chrishayley

THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING 2001 | dir. Peter Jackson

tanoraqui

it’s just hard not to think about the fact that in 1915, JRR Tolkien went to war not with but certainly in the same army and many of the same battles as his 3 best school friends, all nicely upper class young men who had never known much loss, and only he and one other came back alive - and a couple decades later, he wrote a book in which 3 nicely upper class young men (and one very excellent gardener) who have never known much loss go to war together, or at least they start out together, and they all come home alive. (Though one cannot bear it, and does not stay.)

meerius

What more it wasn’t just losing his friends, he was a commanding officer of a battalion of working class men. All farmers and miners from the same area of Lancashire. He felt affinity for them, but wasn’t allowed to socialize between the ranks due to military protocol and he hated it.

"The most improper job of any man … is bossing other men. Not one in a million is fit for it, and least of all those who seek the opportunity.“

I don’t think it was even 6 months later that he contracted trench fever and was sent home.

His entire command was wiped out in one charge shortly after, the majority of a whole countryside’s youths slaughtered while he survived. Youths who were brave and steadfast, but thought of as lesser than their superior officers while still being the ones carrying the actual battle. Youths who deserved fellowship, respect, and above all to go home and dance with their own Rosie.

“My Sam Gamgee is indeed a reflection of the English soldier, of the privates and batmen I knew in the 1914 war, and recognised as so far superior to myself”.

seriousfic

themightyglamazon

TRIES NOT TO CRY

jenniferrpovey

There is a reason Frodo, who represents the English gentry, in the end falls and is caught by Samwise, who represents the common man.

But there is a soldier in Lord of the Rings who does not come back, and I don’t mean Boromir.

I mean the being who was a common hobbit, but who became corrupted by darkness and poison, who’s face is described in ways reminiscent of a gas mask.

The soldier who doesn’t come home, who is poisoned by gas and stress and insanity.

Is Gollum.

sniperct

The Lord of the Rings repeatedly stresses the horrors of war. Eowyn’s entire arc is about the truth of warfare versus the way it’s glorified. She starts out glorifying war and combat and soldiers, even when her own brother is telling her war sucks and is terrible. And then in the end, she sees first hand what war does to people.

Aragorn’s entire arc isn’t to be the steadfast hero saving the day, it’s to hold the line in terror and horror and blood while the overlooked folk are the people who save the world. And then, what makes him a king, is not his skill in battle, but his healing hands.

Which then ties into both Eowyn and Faramir’s arcs. Eowyn goes into healing not because she’s a weak and meek woman, but because war is horrible and saving lives is better than taking them. Aragorn is glorified within the text for his healing, and so is Eowyn.

Also, tying into the common man thing, in the movies it’s Faramir but in the books it’s SAMWISE who questions what brings a man so far from home to fight in a war and if he is really so different.

LOTR is anti-war propaganda.

lookashiny

And this is why I don’t get people who find Eowyn’s fate to be anti-feminist. She doesn’t become a healer because she’s a woman, she does because it’s the right thing to do. Both her and Faramir’s futures are to renew the world. That’s a good thing.

thephilosophersapprentice

It’s because people still take Joss Whedon’s view of feminism, even in the year 2020 CE.

that-vexaholic-cryptid

catchymemes

disgruntled-foreign-patriarch

it’s almost as if Tolkien knew what he was talking about

thepieking

It’s almost as if Tolkien personally witnessed one of the bloodiest wars in human history and then used that to fuel his writing.

cwnerd12

shit man this got me emotional

mckitterick

left: the Nebra sky disc, circa 1600 BCE, showing the Moon, Sun, and stars in gold on copper - the oldest depiction of the cosmos in the world

right: the Webb Space Telescope, July 2022, revealing thousands of baby galaxies forming in the early days of the universe - humankind’s deepest look into the sky

thirdtimecharmed

ivynightshade

fatima aamer bilal, excerpt from moony moonless sky’s ‘i am an observer, but not by choice.’

[text id: my fist has always been clenched around the handle of an invisible suitcase. / i am always ready to leave. / there is not a single room in this world where i belong.]

fablerenown

Listen, I have seen many a posts to the tune of "Hozier is a fae god!" Or "Florence is a fae god!" And I am here to tell you that neither of them are fae gods. Paramours, probably, maybe members of an Entourage, but gods? No.

You want to know who an actual fucking fae god is???

Kendrick Lamar.

The pettiness. The creativity. The persuasiveness. The accuracy. He had 110 million people across the nation today singing "a minooooor" like it was fucking nothing. This man has cast a thousand-year curse on Aubrey Graham's bloodline that cannot be undone through mortal means.

Now, THAT is some fae god level shit.

davidlynch-gf

Home of Florence Welch

wibblyrlin

FLORENCE + THE MACHINE | Third Eye

phantomghoulshaze

The gang got the whole summer covered

libraford

It's very endearing to me how many people are willing to keep an eye on a video feed so they can push a button and let a fish in the Netherlands get to the other side of a dam.

rahjin

It is genuinely baffling to me, in a very kind and positive way, especially coupled with the local news continually going several shades of 'wtf, this thing is a roaring success again and we don't quite get why'. They've already quadrupled their capacity for simultaneous clicks and it's still nowhere near enough and there's just... Bewilderment.

libraford

I think people want to help the environment in small but tangible ways, which is hard right now because of.. well... because of The Horrors. And being able to say 'wow! I helped this creature cross a dam' makes you feel good.

I also think that most people can relate to a small, helpless creature trying to get from one place to another and there's a FUCKIN WALL in the way.

But to come back to point 1- Citizen Science fills a hole in the soul that wanted to go out on adventures and discover things when we were younger, but the study of it was hard or we didn't have the money or our schools were garbage. But you don't have to have a degree to do things like... press a button or download and use an app, or count or transcribe notes.

Anyways- here's some Citizen Science links if the Fish Doorbell makes you feel happy and you yearn for more ways to help scientists do stuff:

Foldit (folding proteins)

Fathomverse (sea animals)

Project Monarch (butterflies)

Bioblitz, an event where citizens identify as many species in an area within a period of time

Species Watch (animal species)

BOINC’s Compute for Science

Zooniverse is a website that hosts information on many citizen science projects

Label trees in aerial photos

Count cells in fossils and modern leaves

Digitize Atmospheric Data

Count penguins

US-based Citizen Science Database

eBird (bird identification)

Merlin (bird identification by sound)

iNaturalist (nature identification)

MapSwipe (collaboration between several Red Cross organizations and Doctors Without Borders, update vital geospatial data)

Smithsonian Archives Transcription Center

dailytxf

THE X-FILES | 4.08

super-lupus

Fox Mulder won the autism lottery. He made the FBI give him an entire subdivision for his special interest AND someone to infodump to

shymagnolia

so I got into grad school today with my shitty 2.8 gpa and the moral of the story is reblog those good luck posts for the love of god

shymagnolia

okay so i just got my dream job??? a week after applying to it?? and now i’m thinking….maybe this is the good luck post

flagellant

…..not even six hours later i got an offer of a well paying full time long-term job with free room and board in queens in nyc, allowing me independence and a way to escape an abusive situation and an unhealthy environment

likes charge reblogs cast, folks, this is the good luck post

coffee-or-hot-cocoa

i need all the help i can get for finals

finnglas

Hey so

the last time I reblogged this post right before I got a great job, in a permanent work-from-home position, with benefits, retirement, and a salary literally 3x what I was making before, doing something I really like.

So you know.

This might be the real one, y’all.