So way back when I started this years ago it was supposed to be all about LOTR, and if you scroll all the way down there’s like 3 posts about it, and now it’s really just anything that comes to mind (generally history things and feminism and some nerdy stuff) and I still love Middle-earth so much that I can’t bear to change the name. <<< that was awhile ago it’s now 99% political with occasional spn finale drama
one thing i looove about tolkien is that he’s 100% realistic about people’s physical capabilities like legolas is the only one in the fellowship able to do anything slightly out of the ordinary. the fellowship reaches a seven foot chasm and they’re like damn. guess we’re trapped here then. legolas walks a tightrope across the nimrodel and the others are like absolutely not??? frodo and sam spend half a chapter figuring out how to get down a cliff. they climb up the first flight of stairs at cirith ungol and they’re sweating and have to take a nap. no superheroics here
I WOULD LIKE TO HELP YOU WATCH SOME ROCK OPERAS!!!!!
There are two, completely separate productions, but they are both adaptations of the story of Beren and Luthien, from the Silmarillion.
The first is the Finrod rock opera. It was written in the early 2000's, and has several old recordings hanging out on Youtube. I recommend the 2014 concert version- it is, by far, the best place to start. Easy access, fully subtitled, and brilliant cast.
If you enjoy it, and want to see more, the company just started making broadcasts! They have six new recordings- four from Oct/Nov 2022, and two from Jan 2023. They are quite different from the 2014 concert version (they shuffled the songs around, and it's fully staged), but they are wonderful. I have a subtitled clip here.
If you wish to purchase one of the recent recordings, please contact me directly; it's a rather complicated process, because they're still working out broadcasting/international logistics. I have not finished subtitles for them, but my friend Anarchy has a translation on AO3.
The second is the Lay of Leithian rock opera. This was also written in the early 2000's, but as a one-woman bardic performance. It was only recently adapted into a rock opera in late 2020, and premiered in January 2021.
This one has six total recordings, and growing- every performance since June 2022 has been broadcast, and they just announced the last three shows of the season. I've made a master list of all recordings available for purchase here, with corresponding subtitle files (free) in English, Russian, and Finnish. Of all of them, I recommend the June 25, 2022 professional edit. It has the highest quality of video, editing, and sound. But if you want to watch for free, the very first recording on that list is an unlisted Youtube video, fully subtitled. It's their first broadcast, so there's issues with sound quality, and missing footage (which I repaired as best as I could), but it's still a wonderful start.
For more information and resources, check out my Lay of Leithian linktree, and for news and updates, I recommend my unofficial Instagram.
And as always- if you have any questions, and especially if you have any reviews, let me know! Happy viewing!
Like, how at first it must have been a home built by Nerdanel and Fëanor together and the walls they made with their own hands housed their children as they grew up, how those walls must be infused with all that love and laughter.
But then the children grew up into adults and their father made the Silmarils and their lives started to revolve around Tirion which left Formenos slightly abandoned until Fëanor is exiled with his son's and father and Nerdanel leaves them all to return to her father's halls.
And Formenos is where Finwë dies and the Silmarils are stolen by Morgoth and that tragedy likely overpowers the Better Times that hadn't been touched in some years and that if you went to the stronghold after the Darkening, you would only see the crumbling remains of something that holds the taint of evil.
And that it would only be the truly brave who go in, who might find any remains of the family home it used to be before Fëanor's paranoia got the best of him and his sons turned fell and fey and Nerdanel left the place to it's ruin.
Who would be that brave, that reckless?
All of Fëanor's followers took off into exile: if they died, it is only darkness and a long imprisonment in Mandos' halls that awaits them, and the others would not risk returning to the land of the Valar even with a supposed pardon.
The other residents of Valinórë would not dare step foot within, and Nerdanel forsook her family (although perhaps, like her grandson, she has not in her heart, and she wishes for them - all of them - to return to her side).
But someone must for there is a hidden beauty to Formenos and it was made by Nerdanel the Wise and Fëanáro the Bold in the hayday of their creation. It yearns for its original purpose, to be a home again, even as trees grow through broken windows and ivy coats the rooftops.
Someone will return to Formenos - whether of Fëanor's ilk or not - and it will hear the sounds of someone's first words, and feel their first steps, and perhaps it will be a place of healing and home again.
One evening, in the sky, a message appeared: “In 24 hours, a billionaire will die.” Everyone everywhere on Earth could see it, in every language. Nobody could explain it. The next day, one of the richest men passed away. “In 24 hours, 2 billionaires…”
# my favourite part about this post # is that nowhere does it say to reblog this # but we’re all reblogging it # because if we have to suffer # so do other writers
If a British person makes a post talking about how we're having our rights to protest taken away because of this country's extreme policing, racism, and general bigotry, and your response is to be like "lol who cares they're British!!" then you're just an asshole actually
Literally. I know everyone likes to say 'Fuck the British' in the same way you say 'Fuck the South' but we are actually people and yes, that includes POC, disabled and vulnerable folk who will suffer because of these new laws that are generally related to bigotry and racism. So, for once if you could get off your performative woke high horse here on tumblr.com where you think your generic ass statements that condemn thousands of vulnerable people to systematic oppression is somehow 'quirky' or 'lol so funny' as long as it's aimed at the right group, that'd be great.
As a British person, we have a deeply complex political history. The untied kingdom was United by force. Theres a reqason the North, Scotland, cornwall and the Midlands keep pushing for independance
The new England and Wales Police Bill, just passed in the House of Commons, allows the Police the power to "clamp down on protests for being too noisy, and create 10-year prison sentences just for causing someone ‘serious annoyance’" even if the protest is ONE person.
It's worth noting that the Police authorities have stated that, contrary to what the Government has said, they were not consulted on these powers and don't actually want them. (I treat that with suspicion since it's a power they will have and can use, even if they claim they don't want it, but it's stil an extraordinary thing for them to contradict the Government that much)
There's an unproven (but not completely unreasonable) notion that a motivating force behind at least some of these draconian rules is Steve Bray, the activist who has, for the past several years, been yelling, on a daily basis, in Parliament Square in London, usually "Stop Brexit" and the like, and can frequently be heard in the background of UK radio and TV news broadcasts. He's been embarassing the Tories for years now, and it's hard to NOT see some petty revenge being involved in this.
Not forgetting that of course when shit like this happens, in any country - and UKnia is no exception - the result is to consolidate power even more in the hands of the already powerful - the corrupt, the right-wing, the rich - so that they can shut down any voices and sparks of opposition even harder.
Friendly reminder that GIMP does pretty much everything Photoshop does, and it’s 100% free. Fuck DRM and the license culture, we have plenty of open source options available to us as a consumer.
Audacity as mentioned above (for sound editing and recording, pretty sure it can do more stuff)
Voloco: iOS - android (mostly for sound recording, effects and key correction on phones and can work with external microphones from my experience, and you can use an android emulator if you want to install it on PC)
Bandlab (for sound editing, composing and recording and is the app I use the most for my musical projects)
Bonus: I use Canva for my music video lyric project stuffs
We’re currently in the midst of a massive, nation-wide propaganda campaign to convince you that staffing shortages are a major problem, when in fact they’re the most promising sign the American economy has seen in decades. Labor shortages are what rising wages look like on the ground level, and that’s what the business owner on your local news station is truly opposed to.
- Criticized the Jews for defending themselves against the Holocaust because he insisted that they should have committed public mass suicide in order to “shame” the Germans instead of fighting back. His exact words were, “But the Jews should have offered themselves to the butcher’s knife. They should have thrown themselves into the sea from the cliffs. As it is, they succumbed anyway in their millions.”
- Wrote an open letter to the British people in 1940 telling them to surrender to the Axis even if it mean accepting genocide.
- Was very anti-black. I hope you can stomach reading how he treated black people in South Africa. It’s fucking disgusting.
- Refused his wife life-saving medication (for religious reasons), but those religious reasons all of a sudden no longer applied to him when he was in a similar position.
- Refused to have sex with his wife for the last 38 years of their marriage. He felt that in order to test his commitment to celibacy, he would have beautiful young women (including his own great niece) lie next to him naked through the night. His wife, whom he described as looking like a “meek cow” was no longer desirable enough to be a solid test.
- Believed that Indian women who were raped lost their value as a human.
- During his time as a dissident in South Africa, he discovered that a young male was harassing two of his female followers. He responded by cutting the girls’ hair off to ensure the “sinner’s eye” was “sterilized.” He later boasted about the incident in his writings, pushing the message to all Indians that women should carry responsibility for sexual attacks upon them.
- Argued that fathers could be justified in killing daughters who had been sexually assaulted for the sake of family and community honor.
- Believed that menstruation was a manifestation of the distortion of a woman’s soul by her sexuality.
- Waged a war against contraceptives, labeling Indian women who used them as whores.
- Held the attitude that women were simply creatures that could bring either pride or shame to the men who own them.
Sources:
Websites: Women Suffer From Gandhi’s Legacy, People who most likely chose Gandhi as a historical figure to do a report on and immediately regretted it, On Mahatma Gandhi, his pathetic racism and advancement of segregation of black people by Sentletse Diakanyo, Not All Peaceful: 13 Racist Quotes Gandhi Said About Black People by Nick Chiles
Books: Sex and Power by Rita Banerji, On Pacifism by Derrick Jensen, The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi
The reason why Ghandi is so revered is the same reason MLK was whitewashed– it pushes this notion that it’s noble to protest in such a way that doesn’t inconvenience anybody.
Okay so I was doubtful of the veracity of those posts above, so I went to the the research myself, and apparently here id the source, an article from Grenier:
T he movie Gandhi had the effect of a well-told love story: it left a pleasant feeling inside, and it
I should have seen it coming… of course even the historical figure of Gandhi was…
It’s amazing because when I learned about him in school, I was in awe. I think I even thanked him? Then I learn this? And we keep teaching about him in school as if he was the best pacifist and the best pro-India independence activist you could find, almost a living saint, and not this?
Fuck it I don’t like this feeling of betrayal… Urgh…
Losing my mind remembering that pic chelsea manning posted of the extremely undercover and not at all obvious fbi agent who was tailing her after her release
1. They all have the same haircut, almost everybody in law enforcement and the military have the same haircut due to regulations.
2. They all wear the same shoes. Same boots, and same overpolished dress shoes.
3. They act different. Shifty eyed and always on their own.
4. They’re kinda really bad at their jobs. I’ve encountered plenty of “undercover” cops outside of bars that ask questions no regular person in their right mind would ever ask. “How are you getting home?” “Who did you come here with tonight?”
5. America is a police state on a budget. Most officers are poorly trained, fbi agents require a 4 year degree (I think), but lord knows how much training they actually get. And the dumb kids from your high school always become cops.
It’s always the dense as a brick kid, with something to prove that becomes a cop. The kid that mouth-breathed and couldn’t chew gum and walk at the same time.
Their shirts are never form fitting so they can conceal a weapon and cuffs.
Always look at the watch, it’ll be expensive but in neutral tones (uniform standards strike again).
They will always sit where they can see their target and the nearest exit.
They will have a partner who is less obvious but wil point a recording device (phone or camera) at you. Check elevated positions, it gives them the clearest view to track you and keep an eye on their partner at the same time.
One time when i lived in phoenix, I was driving home through residential streets from Panda Express on April 20th and there was a 40something year old white man standing quite literally in the MIDDLE of the fucking road wearing a brand new straight from the store weed jersey (jersey #420 with a big pot leaf), a wornout old raiders hat, regular-fit straight leg jeans, and cop shoes. This man proceeded to try to wave me down to stop since I was driving slowly (again, residential neighborhood) and as he did so fully yelled “You buying bro? You buying? 420 bro 420 you buying?”
I almost choked laughing so hard. I couldn’t stop myself from just yelling “NO THANK YOU OFFICER” as i drove by him.
for the past 60 years law enforcement, military, and even literal espionage/intelligence based organizations have assumed that rigid conformity to dress code was more important then actually training how to go undercover, blend in, or understand what the fuck theyre doing
largely because the ‘we are infallible’ mindset is too strong for them to consider they might not be doing very good
shoutout to the two “undercover cops” who were at my school to monitor the student body for a week, acting like “substitute assistants” and literally all of the kids immediately recognised them as cops and everyone would address them only as “officer” which annoyed the hell out of them because “we aren’t cops” like sir you literally have your badge in your back pocket and a taser what fucking substitute assistant would have an actual police badge and a whole ass taser??
Just a casual reminder that this is what secret police are. Like, this is the literal definition. Police who are (badly or otherwise) pretending to not be police.
I’m gonna go ahead and put a caveat here because undercover cops are easy to spot, but they recruit too. informants are harder to pin down and they are infinitely more effective. Red Fawn Fallis very likely had a gun planted on her at Standing Rock by her partner of a couple years who was an FBI informant. Fred Hampton was drugged and killed by COINTELPRO thanks to an informant in the Black Panthers.
the US federal government, like any effective system, has lots of redundancy built in. yes, undercovers are easy to clock and avoid, but they are also essentially a lure to collect more valuable players. all it takes is busting the one person vulnerable enough to take a deal instead of prison time. feel free to ridicule, just don’t underestimate their potential to do damage if you find yourself near one.
