LOTR Rants | Mostly Aralas

is the lotr fandom toxic??

**SO SORRY IM LATE W THIS CHAPTER!!! ideas were running out and this one was a WHILE in the making. also, i admittedly got distracted by new projects so i apologize for that**

so ik i usually do more lighthearted rants about ships i love or characters i hate or crackhead realizations i've had about lotr

but i feel like this chapter has been coming for a LONG time

so buckle tf up ppl bc today we're talking about toxicity in the lotr/tolkien fandom

im talking fanboys, gatekeeping, ppl taking the lore too seriously, racism and sexism in the fandom, tolkien "enthusiasts" who are really just over-conventionalists and of course diversity in the actual fandom

i have a LOT to say on this

LETS GOOOOO

***

right so before any of y'all get ANGRY, i wanna start this chapter by laying down my base point:

OBVIOUSLY the entire tolkien fandom isn't toxic-- the fact that this book exists and has 661 reads and counting is a case in point of that

HOWEVER as ive stated before, it's impossible to ignore the fact that there is clearly a SIDE to the fandom that IS toxic and this chapter is gonna be me proving that and laying down the evidence

SO JUST KEEP THAT IN MIND

here we go~

1) the single-minded cult of The Fanboys™

i've touched on this before and no i'm not done

NOT ALL THE FANBOYS ARE DICKHEADS THO REMEMBER THAT.  some of them are v cool ppl that im friends w irl or moots w on tiktok or discord 

HOWEVER THE FACT THAT THE MAJORITY OF GATEKEEPING IN THE FANDOM STEMS FROM THE FANBOYS CANNOT BE DENIED

bc these are people, right, who read the hobbit when they were like seven and immediately, FROM THE FREAKING WOMB they decided to make their LIFE MISSION pRoTeCtInG tHe sAcReD wOrKs oF pRofFesSor tOlKieN aNd pReSerViNg tHe gReAtEsT sToRy eVeR tOlD

aka dictating who is and isn't a "real fan"
aka telling people what they can and can't support in terms of lotr headcannons/media interpretations

aka the tolkien cult

BC THESE FANBOYS, right, THEY HAVE NO ORIGINAL THOUGHTS WHATSOEVER.

LIKE EVERYTHING THEY SAY HAS BEEN SAID BEFORE AND REPEATED OVER AND OVER AND OVER

the fanboys just have like one brain cell and they pass it around their like fanboy-blob and carry this ONE MESSAGE like freaking SATANISTS and this ONE BRAINCELL is loaded with this like MOTTO that they repeat and hold onto like it's their only purpose in life BC IT LITERALLY IS WHAT DO YOU THINK THEY DO FOR FUN

that's how it happened with rings of power, where SOMEONE started this "Evil cannot create anything new, they can only corrupt and ruin what good forces have invented or made" quote chain in the comments of the trailer on YT and EVERY SINGLE COMMENT was this goddamn quote.

ONE BRAINCELL.  THAT THEY PASS AROUND.  NO ORIGINAL THOUGHTS WHATSOEVER.

and every single one that you meet will always

a) have either boromir or faramir as their fav character
b) their fav quote from lotr will ALWAYS ALWAYS ISTG be that one faramir quote that's like "i do not love the arrow for its swiftness nor the sword for its sharpness i only love what they protect" or some shit EVERY SINGLE TIME
c) gatekeep the SHIT out of the lore