THIS IS THE BEST THING I HAVE EVER SEEN

I’VE BEEN TRYING TO FIND THIS FOR SEVEN YEARS

DO YOU UNDERSTAND HOW HARD IT IS TO ?????

That last fatal scream tho

THE TERROR IN HIS SCREAM OH GOSH

i’m crying

WAAA-

I will always reblog this on the off chance some other poor soul has been searching for it

IT’S BACK

HOYL SHIT ITS B A CK

IT’S BACK?? ON MY DASH?

re-blogging again xD

what was that we were just saying about still having posts circulating from ridiculous numbers of years ago? 😂

i did actually once find this video by googling but my search terms were like ‘rafiki vine video shadow tree asante sana fall shriek’

@picadreams IT'S BACK!!!

I want to tell a story about a Santa and a fiddling Christmas Tree.

So I make costumes. Not your average fitted attire. I mean I do that too, but not just that. I make BIG costumes. Like with metal and shit. So about October-ish, I contacted a costume making studio that does work with a convention called “Dickens-fair”. Maybe You’ve heard of it. It is a Christmas fair that turns the whole center into a replica of Dickens’ London, complete with actors who represent his characters. I had always wanted to go and was just trying to think of ways to help out.

I contacted the head person for costumes for the actors and I told her I make period pieces and I specialize in weird stuff, but also in turning old thrift store items into period attire. She emailed me back and was like “Come meet me” and so I did. I came out to her studio and was sitting with her folks, showing her pictures of all the stuff I’d done I was proud of. Then she says…”Wait…I have an idea.”

She tells me that every year, Dickens-fair has this one performer who is a fiddling Christmas tree. Like What? yes. A tree…that fiddles. Apparently it’s like the fucking Mickey of Dickens-fair. Only, her outfit was made a few years back  from fabric, and kind of looked like a dunce cap with streamers. She told me that this year, the Fiddling Tree wanted a new costume. She says “Can you make a Christmas tree that can fiddle?”

I’m like…no. “If she can fiddle and wear a tree, then I can build a tree that can be worn by a fiddler. Hell yeah.”

And she’s like…”It can’t touch her shoulders, and it has to fit over her normal costume, and it has to be period accurate, so all period ornaments.” 

And I’m like…bitch, “I got this.” 

She says “Come back in a week and meet her and give us your idea.”

So I designed…because I make costumes and I have Christmas in my blood. My mom always tells this story about how when I was like 4, I was with her at the train station in LA and I saw this man sitting on a bench. Now this man wore blue denim overalls, with a long sleeved red shirt, had a white beard, and carried a wooden cane carved with Rudolph, who had a gemstone nose…He was fucking Santa. Admit it. And 4 year old me was like……SANTA? My mom always says I stared at him hard and then tried to climb in his lap, like for real Tim Allen from Santa Clause style, but he was cool, and pulled me into his lap and had a whole conversation with me about whether or not I was being good…in July. According to my mom, he told her he was a professional Santa and this was something he always got from kids, and that he loved it. He then got picked up by a woman in a convertible and drove away.

My mom has been telling me this story since I was five. 

So this year, about 3 years ago, I was like…A Christmas tree that fiddles…I got this.

I mean, I drew this shit. I went to hardware stores and craft shops and I priced out this shit. There were emails about what I could expect to be the substructure. I made a barbie doll scale model with pipe cleaners. I came in with a fucking Plan.

And they laughed and said… “We love the barbie…OK.”

So I had a budget. I had an idea. And I went with it. I made measurements and all sorts of stuff. Let me tell you about this costume…

This woman is 6′2″. She fiddles. She wears, beneath the tree, a full period costume. This means a bell hoop skirt and a corset. I made sure they had a hoop for her that was carved from fucking PVC pipe and a steel boned corset, and I went to work. I had frames…on fucking chains…from MY CEILING. I had the whole thing mapped out.

A lightweight metal skirt in a grid pattern made from chain, linked together in a mesh. gathered at the waist and clipped like a belt. Over the head, a cone-like structure carved out of mesh, mounted on braces that were lashed to the torso with straps bolted into the metal cross-braces. A light aluminum frame. And over this…a cape, made from long dangling chains. Every inch of chain was coated in weatherproofing green paint. Every few links…a limb hacked off a fake plastic Christmas tree. Woven amidst these? A series of handmade and donated ornaments, including fake cookies made from clay, fake candles with a remote control that controlled the flicker. I had paper ornaments, streamers, instruments made of brass, birds, candies made from plastic…I mean I had everything, and all to period. I worked and worked on this for months and had numerous fittings.

The aluminum headpiece came along. I was stressed. I didn’t know exactly how I was going to make this fucking cone mount on her chest so her shoulders would be free. I mean I had ideas - like a cone, but with a back and front piece that came down her torso and to which, straps were fixed that clipped at the sides. This would distribute weight evenly through the corset and allow for freedom of the shoulders. But! I didn’t have a firm plan. I went to the hardware store.

Me. Three months pregnant. All cute and glowy and shit.

And I walked into the section where all the plumbing and flashing is. Now I know my way around. I hate going here because I’m usually hassled by a dude who thinks girls can’t know shit about hardware. But this time…this time it was a nice old man with a snowy white beard, wearing a red shirt and a green apron. I’m like…he’s a Santa…this is fate.

He comes over and says “What can I help you with today?”

And so I tell him the whole story. About the tree, and the odd parameters, the physics, the complexities. I tell him what I’m trying to create, this cone of metal lashed to the chest, and he…

Smiles. 

He tells me, “I’m a Santa. I do it every year. I love this project! I want to help!”

As we are brain storming, and he’s showing me all the products that might work, he mentions to me that he isn’t the first Santa in his family.

“My dad did it for most of his life.”

“Man, I have such respect for Santas. My mom always tells this story about me meeting this man who looked like a Santa at a train station and trying to sit on his knee.”

The man got very quiet. “At a train station?”

“Yeah, like he was wearing overalls and a red shirt and had this carved cane…”

“I remember that cane,” he says.

I turn to him… “The one with Rudolph?”

“With a ruby nose. Yeah. After he died I looked everywhere for it, but I couldn’t find it.”

I stopped. Like straight up stopped moving, with like my limbs all cold as snow. “Wait a minute? What? Are you telling me you know that Santa?”

“I think that was my dad. He is exactly as you say. He worked on the railroad as a conductor for most of his life, and when he retired they gave him free travel. He was always taking trips, and he always went as Santa, because after he retired, he did that full time.”

“Did your mom own a convertible? Like a sleek one?”

“Yup.”

I lost it. I’m in the middle of fucking Ace Hardware, talking to Santa, about my Santa, the one I can’t remember, but always knew existed, and that man is this Santa’s daddy. And here I am…shopping for parts to a fiddling Christmas tree. I cried like a little kid. He hugged me. I apologized and told him I was in my first trimester. He said it was fine. He gave me his card. Told me he was glad to hear his father had had such an impact on kids. He helped me pick out my tree pieces and then checked me out.

I built the best fucking tree you ever saw. I wove metal. I bent aluminum. I used riveters. I worked with saws, and vices, and paint, and glue, and fucking plastic clay. I did everything wearing gloves and a mask because of baby. I did it all like I had a fire under me, because fuck that…I’m not letting Santas down.

And this is what I made.

This was the dry fitting, the trial run. We fluffed it out with more limbs, added bits here and there, or planned for more. I strung this fucking thing from my rafters on a mannequin and we had a tree decorating party, putting ornaments on it like it was a real tree. Then we had her put on the whole thing, and we watched her play “O Tannenbaum”

And it was the best Christmas moment ever, for me. 

That year, I had free tickets to Dickens-fair. I went and caught sight of my Christmas tree fiddling around, playing songs for kids and spreading the spirit. Then later I saw the fiddler dancing in Fezziwig’s ball, with her tree skirt still on over her dress. It was awesome, seeing this 7.5′ tall tree gliding around, this thing I made, with help from My Santa’s Son.

I was Santa that year. It made my holiday.

So the next time you meet a Santa… it might not be the real guy… but you needed to meet him. And if you are a Santa… this is what you do. This is your legacy.

Keep it up.

Hi! Person who works the Great Dickens Christmas Fair here. I have seen this tree about in our fake London and I was always so in awe of it. I can’t stress this, the women who wears this literally looks like a Christmas tree and it’s magical and I was always like ‘that’s crazy and definitely Fair, I love it’.  You’re a joy and always welcome at the Fair :) I would love to give you tickets for this year and/or future years. You’ve made our fake London more magical and for that I can’t thank you enough.

Wow that’s so sweet!!!!

Unfortunately, I’m not going to be there this year as I’m traveling literally the entire time the fair is on, but I might just take you up on this in future years if you’re game! I love going to this fair and wearing my period costume I made. Really a fun fair. Thank you so much for the offer.

Ah bell hoops…

Are you wearing bloomers also?

That is a very fine gown.

True Story: I’m dating the Fiddling Christmas Tree.

oh my god every single part of this was magical but then i get to the end and THE TREE IS YOUR GIRLFRIEND this is the best thing ever.

why do we have 567898475 hallmark christmas movies about some bland woman being shown the magic of christmas by falling for an equally bland man when we could have generational santa magic inspiring intrepid costumers to bring fiddling trees to life? a Travesty

Hey if you wanna reach out to Lifetime network, that’s totally fine with me.

Touched By A… No. Let me think through this again.

Fiddled By A… nope

i love you rain, i love you cold air, i love you sound of raindrops hitting the rooftops, i love you cloudy skies

vader: who tore the warning sign off of this wampa cage?? storm trooper: security footage shows it was removed by a golden protocol droid vader: LOL

Vader in RotJ: wait the Alderaan princess is my daughter?? don’t know how to feel about that.

Luke: she strangled Jabba the Hutt to death with a chain.

Vader: OH HELL YEAH

why would you hide this in the tags that’s hilarious

I think that the absolute worst thing, hands down, about long distance relationships, platonic or otherwise, is when your friend feels bad and you can't just be like "I'll be there in 20 with a pizza and a shoulder to cry on"

@picadreams Always here for you no matter what but, you know, this post hit the mark a little too hard 🥲

saw a post claiming that microplastics are mostly fishing nets which seems to be...totally made up? fishing nets ARE a source of microplastics but a quick google says (page 4) theyre like 0.5 Mtons/y and the total from plastic waste is 5-8 Mtons/y. do you think someone would do that. just go on the internet and tell lies

From the linked paper:

I can definitely understand where the original post was coming from; it's important to consider the huge amount of environmental pollutants that are the result of corporate malfeasance, however the initial post specifically says:

And again, I do think that glitter and single-use plastics are often overemphasized, but the study in question was the first proof of microplastics in human blood and the study specifically considered:

So while I think the initial post is valid in saying "let's not blame people who rely on straws or individually wrapped medical supplies or food items" I do think that attempting to frame fishing nets (which are the majority of oceanic plastic waste, do release microplastics as they degrade, and are a major component of microplastics in ocean water) is incorrect when the questions this study should raise are more along the lines of "why are so many of the things around us, from our clothing to our makeup to our denture adhesives, made of plastic and are there options that might reduce our overall environmental exposure to plastics?"

So I think it's primarily shortsighted to focus on the fishing industry when the fishing industry should be under scrutiny as well as the fast fashion industry, the cosmetics industry, and industrial food production and preparation.

Interesting addition to the post I reblogged the other day.

So, there's apparently research coming out now about microplastics being found in people's bloodstreams and the possible negative effects of that and I feel the need to get out ahead of the wave of corporate sponsored "be sure to recycle your bottles!" or "ban glitter!" campaigns and remind everyone: It's fishing nets. It's fishing nets. It is overwhelming fishing nets It always has been fishing nets. Unless regulations are changed, it will continue to be fishing nets. The plastic in the ocean in largely discarded nets from industrial fishing. The microplastics are the result of these nets breaking down. The "trash islands" are also, you guessed it. Mostly fishing nets and other discarded fishing industry equipment. Do not allow them to continue to twist the story. Do not come after disabled people who require single use plastics. Do not come after people using glitter in art projects and makeup. These things make up a negligible amount of the issue compared to corporate waste, specifically in the fishing industry. Do not let them shift the blame to the individual so they can continue to destroy the planet and our bodies without regulation.

Industries are incredibly resistant to taking responsibility for their own waste, to the point where “consumers are responsible for industrial waste” is somehow considered a sensible, ethical, worthy sentence.

It is actually perfectly reasonable to say that “industries are responsible for industrial waste” and “the effects of industry can, should and must be fixed by industry” and “Industry can, should and must be held responsible for its impacts on the commons, such as air, water, oceans and land.”

good things will happen 🧿

things that are meant to be will fall into place 🧿

THIS ONE FUCKING WORKS. REBLOG IT.

Right now I need all the good things

I worked a cash register in a crappy grocery store on Friday the 13th, the day the schools got word that they were going remote because of the virus. 

There were horrible people. I don’t need to go into details because we’ve all heard them or read about them or experienced them firsthand. 

But most people were just scared and anxious and trying to take care of their families in spite of bad local and state and national leadership and terrible messaging and limited personal resources. They were intense, but understandably so. 

My bosses weren’t great, not on any level, from CEO to shift managers, but that’s not news, most of us have been exploited and abused in our jobs before and during Covid. 

We weren’t allowed to wear masks because the store thought it would freak out the customers. Some people quit on the spot, but precious few because it’s not the kind of job you work if you have a ton of options. A woman came through my line and she was wearing a cloth mask with a pretty botanical print. I complimented the design and we bonded over love of fabrics and crafts. She asked about the store mask situation, I explained store policy, she shook her head, left with her groceries, and I kept working the endless line. She was back four hours later with a mask for me. She’d gone home, put away her perishables, sat down at her sewing machine, made a mask for a stranger, and then gone back out into crazy traffic and crowds, just to find me and give it to me. She gave it to me in front of the floor manager, and explained to the manager that she was worried about the employees, and my boss had to let me wear it (out of a weird mental loophole of  ‘customer is always right’ even though no other employees were allowed to wear one that day and for a few weeks afterward, which sounds insane, but it’s true). 

Another woman had come through with a ton of cheese, really cool fancy stuff. I’m in the cheese fandom so we had a good time chatting. She left with her groceries and I kept working the line. About an hour later, she was back in my line again with more fancy cheeses. I rang her up, bagged her food, handed it to her, and she handed the bag to me and said “This is yours, I’m grateful for all the essential workers but I don’t know how to tell you guys or keep you safe, so I’m just doing this.” She’d put her groceries in her car, gone back into a madhouse, picked out cheese for an anonymous cashier, and WAITED IN LINE FOR AN HOUR so she could give it to me personally. 

Toward the end of day, after credit card machines had gone down five times in as many hours (do you know what it’s like a for an entire grocery store to go cash-only for overlong periods of time on March 13 with a building full of scared customers? Do you know how funny or charming or lighthearted you have to be with that many intense people on the verge of freaking out? Sometimes being a cashier is like being a goddamm standup comedienne or therapist or surrogate mom I swear). Anyway, a guy came in toward the very end of my overtime and the card reader went down again and this customer didn’t freak out. He started SINGING. He stood there and sang to me until the computers came back online. I’ll never forget him or his sweet voice or that moment in time, ever. 

I know things are bleak right now. I know they’re going to get worse. But I see acts of bravery and kindness all day, every day. Every. Day. People are channeling their despair into personal outreach that doesn’t get witnessed by many people because it’s usually one-on-one type stuff. I do a ton of climate & political stuff, as well as all my odd jobs, so I see a lot of different demographics in a lot of different situations, all of them stressful, and yes, there are sociopathic assholes in all of those settings, but there are ALWAYS always people being good and brave and looking for ways to connect or care for or support other people in a myriad of ways.

I don’t believe in very many things at this age but I will go to my grave defending the goodness of humanity. We may be isolated, we may be headfucked and heartbroken, but we are still fighting the good fight. That’s as real as all the bad stuff. 

People on TikTok formed a pick-up band to craft a piece of Balkan music over a cat drinking in a funny way. I follow a blog whose user creates small sculptures of fantastical creatures. I watch videos of people giving deep intellectual takes based on things of little significance. I message people on discord to make jokes about ancient Greek plays. I watched stream of a man creating a postmodern comedy play where users can control him in a giant dollhouse set. There’s a silly polka cover of an overwrought historical opera on YouTube. I listen to podcasts that passionately discuss the hidden designs of everyday life. I grew up new folktales as protagonists fled new monsters and crafted modern mythologies. As a sheltered American teen, I made friends with kids from other countries; we joked about our cultures as well as our shared experiences. When I realized I was transgender, trapped in a conservative bubble, I learned I wasn’t alone. As an expression of humanity, the internet might have value after all.

And that value is usually comedy, critique, joy, and recognizing the hidden things we take for granted, as well as learning that you aren’t alone.

But there’s more. I shared a true crime podcast episode with my Grandma from across the country, where a woman her age posed as a cowboy and robbed banks. She needed something to listen to after her cataract surgery and loved it. I watch anime from Japan, subtitled in English, with my girlfriend almost every night, despite being states apart. She’s learning Polish, talking to people in Poland. I was able to graduate college during a global pandemic, with the professors giving their lectures online. I listen to music from decades past whenever I want, music my parents had on records, music they listened to when they were my age. Right now, I’m not actually filled with love for the internet. It can be an awful place. I’m filled with a love for humanity, and a love for the fact that I can share this all with you, whether or not you care.

This is a comment someone appended to a photo of two men apparently having sex in a very fancy room, but it’s also kind of an amazing two-line poem? “His Wife has filled his house with chintz” is a really elegant and beautiful counterbalancing of h, f, and s sounds, and “chintz” is a perfect word choice here—sonically pleasing and good at evoking nouveau riche tackiness. And then “to keep it real I fuck him on the floor” collapses that whole mood with short percussive sounds—but it’s still a perfect iambic pentameter line, robust and a lovely obscene contrast with the chintz in the first line. Well done, tumblr user jjbang8

I hate that my aesthetic sense agrees with this but everything you just said was correct

I went back to dig up this post because I was thinking about poetry.

This is one of those non-poem things that are among my favorite poems.

As the OP stated, the use of alliterative consonants is aesthetically just great, especially the placement of the strongest use at the end: “fuck him on the floor.” The use of “chintz” is indeed great word choice.

Because I’m insane, decided to scan the poem:

Not only is the second sentence, indeed, perfect iambic pentameter, the entire poem is perfectly metered, though the first sentence has four iambs rather than five.

There are further things I love about this poem, though: I like the casual connotations of “keep it real” juxtaposed with “chintz.” It causes me to interpret the “chintz” more strongly as meaning something fake, a facade. There is also of course the coarseness of “fuck,” which is a contrast with “chintz” but a different kind of contrast, gutsy and carnal where “chintz” is flimsy and inanimate.

And then there is the storytelling: there is SO MUCH storytelling in just these two lines. To break it down: The speaker is having sex with a married man, in the house he shares with his wife, which is “filled with chintz”—something that here connotes fakeness, in contrast with “keep it real.”

The illicit encounter in the poem takes place within a house filled with facade, the flimsy construction of the wife’s marriage and domestic sphere, but the encounter itself is a taste of something “real.” That’s a story, and it’s just two lines.

This is EIGHTEEN SYLLABLES, y’all. The amount of meaning condensed into these eighteen syllables is stunning, and it is so elegantly done.

From a technical standpoint (and ive taken 300- and 400-level poetry classes so I can say this) this is damn near flawless as a poem.

Kept thinking about this ever since I saw it and had to do something

there's art now

Can someone please tell me what it means when an owl LITERALLY fucking swims towards you and then stares you down??

Like look at it?? Literally flew past me and my my friend, it was so close that the wings touched our faces.

It’s reminding you to do your Duolingo practice

The real answer is that it really wants you to go away

That’s a fledgling great horned owl, they’re known for being generally ballsy and aggressive, and owls have been known to both climb trees and swim through still water in a pinch

Most likely full scenario: the bird was practicing flying, but it fell because it’s still a kid and they do that. It probably fell in/by the water. It then was like Oh Damn Oh Jesus and decided it was not in fact a duck and headed to shore, saw you, and was utterly offended but confused on what to do. So it decided to Square Up and face you like the hellbeast it is.

The pose it’s taking in the pic is one I affectionately call Full Orb. A fully orbed owl is 100% READY to FIGHT 1v1 no items final destination. You were probably its first up close encounter with a human, and since birds tend to associate larger animals with predators, it tried to make itself look as big as possible to make sure you know what’s up. It was staring you down because it was waiting to see you make the first move in the dual or flee in fear from its superior owl might.

This reply made this post 101x better

me: oh hello little owl

owl: i will fuck you up

Never forget that an owl is mostly feathers and air.

@picadreams 'o,o'

my toxic trait is never tracking my periods so every 28 days i gaslight myself into thinking the world is ending when the pms symptoms hit me like a freight train

WATCH THIS: MAN SHUTS DOWN ANTISEMITIC WHITE POWER PREACHER

One of my friends in the Boston area took this video and gave me permission to post it. She writes: “ I stood there for twenty minutes, easily. Hitler Youth kept trying to preach about “the evils of the Jews” and the big guy barely let him get a word in edgewise. At one point, the big guy yelled, “I will be here ALL DAY” and the crowd cheered.”

I promise this will be the best thing you see today.

Where’s a goddamn bullhorn when you need it?

wow that preacher is probably shitting his pants low key with some big ass biker that close to his face 

Caption for those who need it– the guy in the suit is saying shit like “all races must serve us as put here by God” and a lot of racist/anti Semitic drivel.

Every time he opens his mouth to speak though, the biker yells “AHHHHHHH!!!” Until the man in the suit shuts up again. When the man in the suit takes a breath and opens his mouth, the biker doesn’t even let him get started and just screams “AHHHHH”…. This happens a few times.

The guy in the suit plows ahead but the biker screams and says “No no no no!!!”

I love biker dude

Make racists afraid again.

Um, sorry, but the guy in the suit deserves to speak his opinions. How’d you like to get screamed at everything time you spoke about what you are passionate about? I’m not saying I agree with his opinion, but that doesn’t make shutting him down like this right. Freedom of Speech. Just agree to disagree and walk away.

1) Freedom of Speech means you have the right to speak your mind without being punished or censored by the government. It does not mean other people have to listen to you, and it does not mean they can’t yell over you if you’re saying something disgusting and inflammatory. The Biker Dude has just as much right to do what he’s doing as the Neo-Nazi. Nobody’s right is being infringed upon here.

2) The guy is “passionate about” hating and inciting violence against Jews. I’m passionate about information literacy, candle-making, and giving snuggles to my pet rabbit. There’s a fucking difference, there. 

3) “Agree to disagree” is something you say when two people can’t come to a consensus over whether or not The Empire Strikes Back is the best Star Wars movie. It’s not something you say when one person is Jewish and the other person believes Jews are a evil satanic cabal trying to enslave the white race who must be stopped at all costs. That’s not an “agree to disagree” topic. We don’t “agree to disagree” over the issue of whether or not Jews are people. We don’t “agree to disagree” over whether or not black people, immigrants, Muslims, LGBTQ folks, etc. are deserving of basic human rights. These things are not up for debate, and there is no middle-ground to be had with people who think otherwise. 

“I can’t remember where I heard this, but someone once said that defending a position by citing free speech is sort of the ultimate concession; you’re saying that the most compelling thing you can say for your position is that it’s not literally illegal to express.” – Randall Munroe

Always reblog the anti-hate bikie.

In Scotland it’s traditional to have at least one bagpiper at any Antifa counter protest. They’re situated as close to the police cordon and any speakers the Nazis might have brought and they play just anything. If you managed to get a few they usually play different songs. If you’ve only ever heard bagpipes on a recording you probably don’t appreciate how loud those mother fuckers are, these are war instruments designed to terrify your enemies as you approach from across the glen, not yet visible in the horizon. Needless to say you can rarely still hear the Nazis

Ok but that’s a tradition we can all get behind. May we share it please?

ANTIFA BIKER AND BAGPIPES!

YES PLEASE

So, as someone who’s attended a lot of protests I can confirm that not letting racists get in a word in is incredibly affective and very satisfying.

When I go to protests my priority is sounding the alarm on a megaphone every single time someone on the other side opens their mouth. Bonus points if you repetitively target the same person cuz they show up to talk racist shit and get So Upset when you don’t allow them. That person gives up. They leave.

Aggressively Don’t Giving Racists the Time of Day 2k21

Don’t ask about the time me and my lone vuvuzela pretty much hyperventilated trying to drown out the Klan at our statehouse come to think of it, that’s the story.

Of all the redemption arcs in popular fantasy media, I feel like Theoden's in The Lord of the Rings is the most overlooked.

The movies emphasize the magical control that the evil powers exercise over Theoden, but in the books, it's more obviously a depiction of bad kingship, in the British medieval sense. Theoden takes bad advice; he neglects his family; he fails to reward his knights; and he leaves his people vulnerable to attack. He also does not honor his kingdom's promises to help nearby kingdoms, as we can tell from Boromir's account of what Gondor has been going through.

Gandalf doesn't just cast out the curse and magically fix everything. He encourages Theoden to free himself from his bad advisor, but Theoden has to take all the subsequent steps. And those choices are not easy; after so much neglect, his knights are scattered, and his only option for defending his people is to gather them at Helm's Deep. The siege does not go well. His people are afraid and despairing. But nevertheless, he holds firm and charges out to meet the enemy -- and Gandalf literally meets him halfway, bringing with him the lost knights, whom Theoden welcomes and rewards after the battle.

Theoden could have just gone home after that. But when Gondor calls for aid, Theoden proves his worth by honoring his promises. He keeps his oaths not only to his people but to his allies.

And the climax of his redemption in the book is not his death, but his leadership. The ride of the Rohirrim against Sauron's armies is described in lavish detail, with an uncharacteristically heated pace: Theoden leads the entire line of Rohan, his banner streaming behind him in the wind as they race toward their foe. And that's the end of the chapter.

I love Theoden's arc so much, and especially that moment so much, because the message is not that he has to win battles or seek power. He just has to keep fighting. Theoden's greatest enemy isn't really Sauron: it's despair. And over the course of the book, he keeps choosing hope and action over despair and hesitation, until finally he can lead his people with courage.

As someone who struggles a lot with despair, I really needed to hear that story.

and it’s contrasted against Denethor’s arc; who also struggles against despair, and doesn’t overcome it.

yooooo. so I literally wrote a 20 page english paper about the Hope/Despair theme in Tolkien’s work once. It was like ten years ago and I don’t think I have it anymore, but oh boy do I have feeeeeeelings about this topic. And I have drunk a little bit of wine tonight! So here are my unasked for thoughts:

Yes, Theoden’s greatest enemy is despair! Everyone’s greatest enemy is despair. It’s the biggest fucking theme of the series IMO and it makes me crazy how often it gets overlooked.

lord of the rings is a story written by a man whose experience of war was crouching in the bottom of a trench. People like to make a lot of hay about the charge of the light brigade and it’s similarity to the ride of the rohirrim, but no. Tolkien’s experience of war was getting fucking trench fever, not watching cavalry charges. Tolkien’s experience of war was listening to the shells fall around him, knowing that death could come at any moment. He experienced war in a way where the soldiers on the other side of the line were a faceless threat, and the closest and most present enemy was his own fear.

this is the hill I will die on. This is why I hate it when people talk about LotR as a morally cowardly story about fighting mindless orcs that exist to be cannon fodder. No. Lord of the Rings is about seeing the dark coming on the horizon, and fighting yourself. Fighting the fear and despair that rise up inside you. Struggling with your own terror and powerlessness, knowing that you are small, and nothing you do will matter in the face of this massive conflict—  you’re just here, one more meaningless soul to feed into the machine guns. Lord of the Rings is about taking a deep breath, and bracing yourself, and deciding that if nothing you do matters, all that matters is how you do it. The ring can’t possibly be destroyed— we choose to form a fellowship anyway. Helms deep will surely fall by morning— we still choose to fight. The quest can’t possibly succeed— and yet we choose to march into the teeth of mordor to distract the enemy. It’s not hope, exactly? But’s it’s not not hope.

I did at one point have twenty pages written about this. Tolkien was a deeply christian man— he believed in eucatastrophe. Salvation. A better world to come, after suffering, if you bore your suffering well. But he was also a world-class Beowulf scholar with a kinda viking-warrior-type view of the world. And do you know what the vikings believed? (Pls don’t anybody @ me for saying viking, I know it’s a verb and not a culture). The vikings believed that the time of your death was preordained, and that all you had control over was how you met it.

And that is some seriously Rohirric shit!! Like, we’re all mortals doomed to die, Ragnarok is coming, and this whole world is an inevitable grind down into oblivion… but if we’re fighting a long defeat, all the more reason to fight it gloriously!! That’s epic. Eomer approves the hell out of that message.

I’m gonna be a real nerd now, and quote from a poem called the Battle of Maldon.

That’s a translation from an Old English poem that’s literally a thousand years old, but it always gets me how much it sounds like something Tolkien would write. Theoden and Eowyn are practically leaping out of that poem: We’re all going to die, I choose to meet my end fiercely. We’re all going to die, so I want to die beside my king.

It’s an acceptance of death, and even of failure, but not of defeat. Because— to get back to what I was talking about earlier— Lord of the Rings isn’t actually a story about battlefields. It’s a story about being at war with your own heart. Despair or faith? Hope or defeat? Tolkien wants you to know that even if your city is overrun by orcs, or you’re killed in a meaningless push for another 50 feet of french mud, you can still hold on to your courage with both hands and not cede up your soul to despair-- and that’s the battle Tolkien thinks is really worth writing about.

It’s a battle that every major character in the story fights. Frodo, Sam, Gandalf, Theoden, Denethor, Merry, Pippin, Boromir, Galadriel, Eowyn, Faramir, Eomer, Saruman, Gollum, Aragorn. Some of them hold onto hope through everything. Some of them break utterly. Some of them are defeated, and then with help find their footing again, and make a redeeming last stand.  

But the point that Tolkien hammers home again and again is: Death and failure are natural parts of life, and should be accepted. Despair shouldn’t be.

Tolkien says: hope is hard, actually. Fuck that Game of Thrones grimdark bullshit. Hope is hard fucking work. And even if you don’t have hope? Fight like you do. Because the world needs people working to make it better. Do the best you can with what you have, and whether you can see the mark you’re making on the world or not, the simple fact that you’re trying means the world is a better place.

Anyway, I fucking love these books. I am going to stop drinking wine, and go to bed now. :)

^^^ The Battle of Maldon quote is very appropriate here since Tolkien actually wrote TBoM fanfic and there’s a lot of parallels between that text and Pelennor Fields

@picadreams I felt this post in my very bones. And now I have to read LotR again.

Royal Advisor After Grima is kicked out and Gandalf fucks off to do Wizard shit: Hey Theo, we should let the artists capture your likeness for the Hall of History, you know. In the event that something unfortunate happens when we go up against fucking Mordor.

Theoden: Oh shit, you're right. The portraits of my forebearers brought me much comfort in my times of darkness, and I should do the same for my (remaining) descendants.

Royal Advisor: Dope. OK, let's get you into your armor and gather up the artifacts of the era, so the historians in a couple hundred years can reference this. Your sword, your shield, your armor-

Theoden, nodding along: -And Snowmane.

Royal Advisor: Uh. Okay, yeah. We can have him like. looking in a Window or-

Theoden: No. I want him in the throne room with me. Also armored up.

Royal advisor: Uh. OK. Well, look we've got this cool bearskin to put in front of the throne as a symbol of your-

Theoden: Great. Snowman can stand there.

Royal Advisor: Uh.

Theoden: I'll just be to the side here.

Royal Advisor: ...

Theoden: And back a bit, so I don't get in his light.

Royal Advisor: ...Yeah. Okay. Why Not. Hey! Painter! Work fast! You're racing the speed of a horse's intestines here.