#writing this felt like summarizing the emo version of legally blonde

[theleadbull]

you have a masters degree in latin, a DEAD LANGUAGE because of MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE FRERARD FANFICTION UNHOLYVERSE BY BEXLESS?

okay so i was really hoping someone would ask about this because it’s a gaud-level anecdote. literally my entire career is because of unholyverse.

tiny 17yo me was in college with literally no idea what i wanted to do in life beyond “teach” but with consistent internet access for the first time (another long story) and finally FINALLY able to use the fabled music streaming services i’d only dreamt of as a wee child. and one thing led to another and i’m deep in a redux of my emo phase, running a bandom blog, and writing and reading mcr fanfiction that is thankfully lost to the void of orphan_account on ao3.

it is from this time period that my career has its origins.

you see, i went to an honors college (of course i did) and it had a hefty 4-consecutive-semester foreign language requirement. any number of languages were offered, but i’m from texas and was a cool slacker my first year before the Frerard Time, so i was planning to take spanish for the easy A+ and just forget about it.

and then i read unholyverse.

another thing you should know about me: i am a huge lore nerd. i have a brain like a magpie that hoards shiny things, and any kind of origin story or mythos just ends up on display in its little autistic brain nest.

so i, raised an atheist, read unholyverse and become absolutely fixated on catholicism. like. obsessed with catholicism. in true high-functioning asd fashion, this blossoms into me taking class after class on ancient and medieval religion. i’m in a roster of classes on medieval islamic and christian philosophy, ancient greek philosophy, the history of christianity in russia, you name it.

but oh, that pesky language requirement.

to properly Study the things i’m studying, you need to know a laundry list of dead languages including but not limited to ancient greek, classical latin, and sanskrit.

so my ass signs up for ancient greek. oh, it’s to meet the language requirement.

but i could. i could do a minor in ancient languages. i could do that.

so i sign up for latin.

at this point i’m 19 years old taking 24 hours of classes. 12 of them are unholyverse, 2 are electives, and the other 10 are core requirements.

i graduate summa with a minor in medieval philosophy, a minor in ancient languages, and having successfully defended my literal thesis on early christian heresy, for which i spent several months of my life slogging through ancient greek, latin, and tolkien (blessedly in english).

i go on to graduate school in classics, where i say “fuck greek” because i’ve decided i want to teach latin, and all the cool courses on church fathers and paleography and whatnot are taught in latin anyway.

i graduate that with a 4.0 and a certification to teach. i am immediately headhunted by schools, including the one i teach at now.

and that is how unholyverse is responsible for my career.