0meadow-deactivated20200602:

blighted-elf:

Ohhhhhh my god

me designing a search feature: actually it’s good that you can’t find what you’re looking for

roguetelemetry:

magooni:

To anyone who is feeling sad or anxious about the deadly virus going around or the indefinite break in taking college classes at your university as a necessary precaution, here is a video of my idiot cat

for when you need a jester in medieval times…

sniperct:

jenniferrpovey:

themightyglamazon:

frasier-crane-style:

midydoof:

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.)

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”. 

TRIES NOT TO CRY

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.

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.

shaelit:

lady-feste-pendragon:

liz-alfos:

My job just gave everyone permit letters to break quarantine so we can keep coming to work because we’re Essential.

We sell Furniture

Same company that said “if u get sick, we will front u two weeks of PTO! But you have to pay it back by not accruing a single second of pto this Entire Year And if you leave your position before its fully paid back, we’ll pull the remainder out of your final pay check :)”

Psst. Here’s how to report workplaces violating shelter-in-place orders. And here’s a reporter you can talk to to anonymously name and shame employers exhibiting bad behavior.