crocordile replied to your post:
                   Tagged by @crocordile and @imindhowwelayinjune…                

   YOUR DAD IS CUTE    

HE’S V CUTE. another thing he calls me about is asking if i can check out pool tables in various bars etc in the town (it’s technically a ‘city’ but lol) i live in to see if they’re level (they’re never level)

crocordile replied to your post:                   Tagged by @crocordile and @imindhowwelayinjune…                

   I’ve developed a revulsion for Middle Names in fantastic settings u have no idea   

   “What’s with these anglo-centric questions. ” x10000    

this reminds me, in a random tangential way, that garden-ghoul’s liveblog made me remember how much i would have preferred son of/daughter of to be expressed through interspersed placeholder words instead of the boring -ion and -iel suffixes.

thelioninmybed replied to your post:                   Tagged by @crocordile and @imindhowwelayinjune…                

   idk i always find boyshorts ride up? I am v. jealous tbh they are stylin    

huh i always found it like everything other than boyshorts ride up….? weird.

erotetica replied to your post:                   Tagged by @crocordile and @imindhowwelayinjune…                

   I love how wonderfully bitter everyone’s being abt the ‘ou’s    

I didn’t do ANYTHING i just copypasted this from June’s post >_> u’s are dumb.

bamboocounting replied to your post:                   Tagged by @crocordile and @imindhowwelayinjune…                

   I appreciate your jumping on the grenade of that comment chain=_=      

I’m very predictable/dependable. you can count on me to clog your dash with inane half-baked rambling.

simaethae replied to your post:                   gurguliare replied to your post:
               …                

   i’m blocking all of you    

testimonial! testimonial!

garden-ghoul replied to your post: gurguliare replied to your post:                   gurguliare replied…

    this time I went back and read the whole thing
from the beginning and it’s STILL incomprehensible. I like it though.
I’m very fond of y’all’s tendency to immediately dive off topic into
scathing critiques/literary analysis                  

HDU it’s not like all of these are based on unsupported free-association and massive leaps in logic or something. also the anon started it.

garden-ghoul replied to your post:                  gurguliare replied to your post:                  …                

   also tolkien being anti-allegory is such bullshit, he’s just saying
that so people won’t call him out for the allegories he is totally
writing    

djkghvjdsfkj i admit i was mostly being tongue-in-cheek when i told gogol ‘omg no allegorical interpretations!’ but ehhhhhhh i tend to believe tolkien was genuine when he says he dislikes allegory and didn’t intend it, but I think that does sort of depend on what the bounds of allegory are – i was thinking of allegory as one-to-one symbolism. I think Tolkien was probably focusing on disavowing “lotr is an allegory for WWII/the Last Alliance was WWI/the ring is the atomic bomb/mordor=hell/aragorn=jesus/no wait gandalf=jesus” sort of readings, as opposed to being about War (all wars) and Power (the atomic bomb among other things) and Grace (like religious worldviews, and yeah tolkien’s religious worldview is v catholic). I’m misremembering the quote, but it was something about “but of course, when you write feigned mythology you have to use specific language/images that overlap with allegory” so like, i guessss that depends on whether “allegorical” is only “this represents another story or concept, and it and the elements around it are designed to map onto the source material it is an allegory for”, or is “this particular element/character is totally stolen from [x real world or religious concept] even though it then runs with the issue and doesn’t wholly map” sufficient to make something allegorical. Like, obv morgoth is VERY transparently based on satan (though morgoth
seems to be an especially blatant case lmao). and like gogol said, closing off allegorical readings is also prohibitive, just as enforcing them is.

but yeah I think tolkien’s more backstory-ish stuff gets into allegory much more closely than his more standalone narratives, but also intentionally pulls back to go “oops wait don’t answer that question” when it threatens to start closing off open ends – like near the end of the Athrabeth when Finrod and Andreth start to theorize Eru might have to enter Arda to save it but stop before getting too specific (so like tolkien would have had christianity in mind, but multiple religions do the “god etc enters into earth” thing)? and deciding to scrap the Tale of Adanel as too much of a bible reference as opposed to a more widely applicable premise of fallen humanity. Like i think the distinction is between “this story is based on X, among other things” and “this story represents X and its conclusion is X.” but like, the basis of the world in tolkien is full of a lot of catholicism.

uhhhhh anyway tl;dr: LIKE GOGOL’S DIAGRAM SAYS, writing stuff that is supposed to be applicable almost always includes allegories as well. THE ETERNAL ONION….