Funny to me how for most people it's a LOTR->Linguistics pipeline but for me it was a linguistics->LOTR pipeline. I never really had an interest in reading Lord of the Rings because the whole thing used to struck me as very boring and I didn't really care but from ages 12-14 I was really getting into fantasy worldbuilding and conlanging "formally" (I did do that kind of stuff before that, but I didn't know it had a name or that there were comunities formed around it) and I said "Look if I am going to be a nerd about this I am going to be a full nerd about this I can't go around life calling myself a Fantasy Nerd™ when all I know about LOTR is that there is a fucked up goblin guy and Legolas has a bow" so I decided to bought the Fellowship of the Ring book in the bookstore because I am autistic and I have a hard time engaging with material I am unfamiliar with so I just picked the safest option and then I read it in a weekend. I came home, I sat down to read, and from the very start I was invested. Because Tolkien had THE BALLS to open his book with an extensive infodump about Hobbit culture and I was so into that. And the chapters in the Shire, they were a genuine delight for me. I thought the book would be boring but it was fun! It was funny! And hobbit culture felt so alive...
And when the final chapter of the Fellowship came I almost cried. Rightly, it was at that moment I realized that this was going to be a life-changing experience whether I like it or not.
Since I didn't have the rest of the books back then (and I wasn't really able to get them for reasons I don't remember) I did the most autistic thing: Right after finishing it, I decided to read it again, because I was that obsessed. I made so much silly cringy art of the characters as I imagined them and it was all I could think about in school. When I finally got my hands to The Two Towers and The Return of the King I decided to refresh my memory by reading Fellowship AGAIN and because it was summer I had the luxury to just sit down and read all day long and it was great.
I went into the books as blind as you could possibly go: I knew there were conlangs and lore, I knew there were elves, I knew the protagonist was named Frodo and the plot was about destroying a ring (there is also a being that calls the ring precious because its like a drug? Idk). But not much else. I didn't know Boromir was going to die. I didn't know about Galadriel or Elrond or Aragorn or Sam. Yes, I didn't know that Sam was a character. I was genuinely surprised at each turn the plot was taking. I was surprised about how GAY it all was (why didn't they tell me about this??) and I was absolutely shaken and emotionally destroyed with the ending. The Return of the King was an awakening of sorts for me, because I was expecting a whimsical fantasy story and instead I got to see The Horrors and I just couldn't believe the comic relief characters were dealing with suicidal ideation, out of all things.
And the last bit of Frodo's journey... Well, the scene in the tower of Cirith Ungol was genuinely rough (when Sam found Frodo, he was naked. And I just closed the book and stared into the ceiling for a while. I just had to take a break real fast) and the struggle with the ring as they got closer to Mordor and I was constantly almost-crying-but-not-quite and I knew, even though I went into the story un-spoiled, I knew Frodo wouldn't give up the ring. And then having him deal with the aftermath of it, and I was so distressed the whole time because finally, someone out there gets it. He sailed off to the west and I cried. I actually cried, right after finishing the book, yes, but for a few nights after as well. It was, well, a lot to process for 14 year old me. It had me looking up the diagnostic criteria of PTSD on Google at three in the morning because this can't be right. It wasn't that bad, surely I'm just being dramatic.
And it is very funny, that I was getting into the books expecting extensive sections of infodumping and lore and LINGUISTICS and I did get that, don't get me wrong, but I also got an emotionally resonant story that complelty re-contextuslized my lived experiences, helped me process stuff I had been shoving down the back of my mind because I didn't have the words to even describe it to myself, and lowkey turned me into a transgender anarchist. I was a changed man (just now fully aware that I was a man in the first place). It blew me away completely.
And it also reinforced my interest in linguistics! I often joke about this, but as a kid, I used to read the dictionary instead of paying attention in class. I liked words. Like, a lot. I liked the way words interacted with each other. I was like 9, perhaps, when I first attempted to create a made-up language, for a race of fictional mermaid race. I was really into My Little Pony at the time and I stole a lot of the story from there (don't forget I was nine) and my attempt at conlanging utterly failed, but still. LOTR felt pretty much tailored to me, when I finally gave it a shot. My favorite appendix was, of course, the one dealing with translation. If I was mildly interested in linguistics before this sent me down a rabbithole. I did my whole final school project for graduating on minority languages of Europe (though, due to the pandemic, I never finished it, which is a shame). I picked the literature course in high-school over the fine arts course because they had a morphology and etymology class. I named myself Beren, for fuck's sake, and I've been going by this name in real life for two and a half years by now. That's how important it was.
I really can't overstate how much this silly little book with silly little fairy people influenced my life. It's. Well, it's cringy, it's awfully, awfully cringy, embarrassing, mortifying. Isn't it funny, that we are shamed and made fun of for loving things so unapologetically? For genuinely connecting with art? Even though that's like, the whole point?
I just want to say. This is important to me. This means a lot to me. I keep talking about it but I can't help myself because it's hilarious. I went into this book out of a sense of responsibility and it completely changed my life.
This post wasn't meant to be this long. Uh. Sorry. I just wanted to make a silly joke about "Tolkien fan goes on to study formal linguistics, but it's not for the reason you think" but it turned into this whole personal rant. This is like a tendency of mine, no I don't know how to stop it. I'm sorry if this is in your dash lmao
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It is truly astonishing how little work I’ve been doing for my job and how everything is still fine.
I like should probably really do at least more something before it actually becomes a problem but this role only lasts until December so it’s really hard to care
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i don't think people really understand what's happening in gaza. with each passing day that sees more and more palestinians dead, it's becoming easier and easier for those in the west to perceive them as nothing more than a statistic. they might engage w the occasional palestine post, sure, but it's just as easy to scroll right past that moments later w no real outrage for the genocide retained.
it's vital to stay reminded that palestinians who are with us today won't be with us tomorrow. it's happening every second of every minute of every hour, and it's relentless. somewhere in gaza a little girl is losing her mother, a little boy is watching his siblings bleed to death, elderly people are infirm with starvation and illness, palestinian women and girls are being sexually assaulted and kept in cages, fathers are leaving tents to find food for their families and not coming back. this is all happening right now, and it's a direct result of the west's complacency. it's a direct result of their not seeing arabs as people worth saving.
it might be hard to compute as a westerner, but this is real. don't let your privilege blind you to your humanity.
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🙂↕️
hate that i'm still really unable to let go.
7 things i hate:
i told you about how when my baby sister went to prison it kind of buried my spirit and turned my life inside out. such a monumental formative turning point in my life for my soul and years of addictions and you were distracted by your dnd group on discord
the shaky uncertainty you left me with, not knowing if anything was ever real or if you ever meant any of the honeyed words you said
banning me from your house when your illinois dnd friends came to visit for actual days bc 'no one else had their partner around and we'll be playing'. it made me feel so so so insecure and unwanted (you have been in a relationship with one of your illinois chicago friends since june, a month after you broke up with me.)
making me believe that it was codependent for me to want to spend time with you more than a couple days a week. how you insisted that a 45 minute drive was long distance. my therapist says that isn't normal lol
you take pictures with your current partner and make them your profile pic over and over. we had one picture together and it was a group picture for your friend's birthday
you broke up with me over facebook messenger less than a day after sobbing into my arms about not wanting to lose me. you looked at me like i was a stranger, or perhaps an employee that you were dismissing. i didn't recognize the look in your eyes.
you bringing your roommate with you to my apartment to pick up your things. you looked sad and ashamed and her presence ensured that we wouldn't be able to talk about it. why didn't you want to talk about it? (also it pissed me off that you brought me the paperback copy of gideon the ninth that i gave you as a gift. it was a gift!! i have my own superior hardcover!)
(bonus! :) dnd dnd dnd dnd dnd dnd dnd dnd dnd dnd dnd dnd dnd dnd dnd dnd dnd )
7 things i liked:
sweetly asking me if you could introduce me to your friends as your girlfriend at the solstice party
writing that you loved me on the stupid fish game at the aquarium for the first time for valentine's day
the way i would catch you sometimes just looking at me with such an incredible amount of love in your eyes that made my heart ache and made me feel safe
when you started leaving things here
my sweet dumpling
you referred to me as one of uzu's moms. (i wonder if he remembers me?)
holding me when i was feeling depressed and crying (did you know then how much it was breaking me when you kept me at arm's length? i asked if i was too much and you said no. that is one thing im certain was a lie. i broke my foot days after you left and the x-rays have shown that the bone has been healed since late summer but i am still in so much pain every day when i walk and it is so tied together with the hurt from that day and every step is a reminder. this brought me to my knees i am at my lowest and everything is slipping away lmfao)
idk this song is a banger that's all.
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I don't know who needs to hear this, but as a creator -
I am fine with "the audience" -
downloading my fics
printing my fics
copy/pasting or screenshotting my fics
sharing your saved copy of my fics with anyone else who might want them in the unlikely but never impossible case that my fics are no longer available on ao3
making a book of my fic(s) and running your fingers across the pages while lovingly whispering my precioussss
doing these things with anything I create for fandom, such as meta, headcanons, au nonsense like 'texts from the brodinsons,' etc
I am not fine with "the audience"
doing any of the above with the purpose/intent of plagiarizing my work or passing it off as their own in any capacity
feeding my work into ai for any reason whatsoever
Save the fandom things. Preserve the fandom things. Respect the fandom things.
Enjoy the fandom things.
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