#comparing trump to a literal dark lord is funny to them. which foesnt mean they had a better time yk...

[galadhremmin]

your ability to stomach trump quotations so you can have fun with them is impressive but there are a lot of us who had a traumatic 4 years directly because of his rhetoric, and just want to move on now, so maybe that’s why trump generally isn’t associated with fandom fun

you're not required to find everything I post funny of course. that's to be expected! I'm mainly entertaining myself here. I do think the fandom is missing out by not applying reduce reuse recycle (as Dark Lord quotes) to a certain former usa president. Shit, at least, can be used to grow flowers.

Sort of relatedly-- judging by someone else's 'this is the first time i've been repulsed by sauron' reply as well, it's much easier to empathise with (and often uwufy lbh) a character like Sauron if one doesn't quite connect his repulsive qualities and actions with currently living deeply awful people.

Maybe due to the fairytale elements it becomes, I suppose, too emotionally abstract to be truly repulsive? He is supposed to be terrifying and repulsive though. His domain is torment etc. He's arrogant to the point of stupidity. He's a fictional tyrant who enjoys complete control over others, inflicts pain, pollutes the environment, enslaves people.

Personally I dunno. Though it was obviously a joke it does sort of fit into the way I prefer engaging with Tolkien, which might just not always be yours. I make very stupid jokes. I also think finding ways to make his fiction less emotionally abstract to me and giving some thought to what he wrote about the corrupting power of power etc. + thinking about how I (dis)agree are worth doing.

Tolkien gains meaning both by looking at his own ideological influences and thinking about the real life events and people who inspired his writing + linking to current irl things that have more direct emotional impact. I'm more interested in that than, say, sexy sauron content myself.

One of my dream AU fics is an entirely historically accurate one in which Sauron rises again during the industrial revolution as a pro-child labour owner of multiple factories who expands his grasp over global politics through investments while he unsuccesfully tries to regain some of his former supernatural power through the local deeply disapppointing Occultist scene (making fun of Aleister Crowley while at the same time making Sauron a capitalist who, of course, supports the monarchy, at least in name... 😌). I would love to make Tolkien's local embodiment of evil fight unions/socialists/anarchists/etc. with conservative support and generally make the man spin in his grave in a deeply informed way. The few surviving Elves are connected to the Arts and Crafts movement and-- ok shutting up now but you get my point I think. This is very niche and a very specific way of engaging with the material that would probably only appeal to me. Also it would take so much effort to write oh my god.

But yes my posts sometimes aren't going to appeal to you because they're made for someone else entirely (me).