One of the lawyers currently prosecuting Alex Jones got interviewed on knowledge fight. He talked about how he had to watch 150+ hours of Infowars content as background for the case.
He talked about how he had to take regular breaks because he could feel himself passively absorbing information against his will.
I can’t really articulate how validating that was to hear. Sometimes I worry that I’m being overdramatic when I say shit like “hey if you’re not careful, even casually browsing some types of conspiracy media can fuck with your brain” but here was an actual lawyer talking about how it affected him.
It’s not necessarily the content itself, but more how it’s presented. (in my opinion) I think Infowars could be considered an actual cognitohazard.
One of the ballsiest things Tolkien ever did was write 473k words about some hobbits called frodo, sam, merry, and pippin and then write in the appendices that their names are actually maura, ban, kali, and razal.
This just in: Eowyn and Eomer’s names actually start with the letter “L.” [source for other nerds]
What you’ve got to understand is that everything Tolkien wrote was him pretending to merely translate ancient documents. He was writing as if the HobbitandThe Lord of the Rings were actually been written by Bilbo, Frodo, and Sam (or Bilba, Maura, and Ban) and he was just some random contemporary academic translating it all into English for us.
There are many languages in his books, but generally speaking, everything written in English in the books is a translation of the language “Westron.” Therefore any names that come from Westron, he translated. Names coming from other languages, like Sindarin, he left as they were. Why? IDK. Maybe because the stories are from a hobbit perspective and hobbits speak Westron, so he wanted the Westron parts to sound familiar and the other languages/names to remain foreign?
“But Mirkwoodest!” you cry, “The word ‘hobbit’ isn’t an English word! And the names Bilbo Baggins, Frodo Baggins, Samwise Gamgee, Peregrin Took, and Meriadoc Brandybuck” all sounds super weird and not like English at all!”
Psych! They are in English! (Or Old English, German, or Norse.) Once again you underestimate what a nerd Tolkien was. Let me break it down:
In Westron, hobbits are actually called “kuduk,” which means “hole-dweller,” so for an English translation, Tolkien called them “hobbits” which is a modernization of the Old English word “holbytla” which comes from “Hol” (hole) and “Bytla”(builder).
“Maura” is a Westron name which means “Wise.” Weirdly enough, “Frodo” is an actual Proto-Germanic name that actual people used to have and it means the same thing.
“Razanur” means “Traveler” or “Stranger” which is also the meaning of the word “Peregrin(e)” This one is a twofer because “Razar” means “a small red apple” and in English so does “Pippin.”
“Kalimac” apparently is a meaningless name in Westron, but the shortened form “Kali” means “happy,” so Jirt decided his nickname would be “Merry” and chose the really obscure ancient Celtic name “Meriodoc” to match.
Jirt chose to leave “Bilba” almost exactly the same in English, but he changed the ending to an “O” because in Westron names ending in “a” are masculine.
I’m not going to go on and talk about the last names but those all have special meanings too (except Tûk, which is too iconic to change more than the spelling of, apparently).
The Rohirrim were also Westron speakers first and foremost, so their names are also “translations” into Old English and Proto-Germanic words, i.e. “Eowyn” is a combination of “Eoh” (horse)and “Wynn” (joy/bliss).
“Rohirrim/Rohan” are Sindarin words, but in the books, they call themselves the “Éothéod” which is an Old English/Norse combo that means “horse people.” Tolkien tells us in the “Peoples of Middle Earth” that the actual Westron for “Éothéod” is Lohtûr, which means that Eowyn and Eomer’s names, which come from the same root word, must also start with the letter L.
The names of all the elves, dwarves, Dunedain, and men from Gondor are not English translations, since they come from root words other than Westron.
The takeaway from this is that when a guy whose first real job was researching the history and etymology of words of Germanic origin beginning with the letter “W” writes a book, you can expect this kind of tomfoolery.
Notes: Sorry I said “Razal” instead of “Razar” in my original post I’m a fraud.
The file should look something like this but you’ll need to save it to a Google drive or something in order to edit it:
Each heading has a text box below it, and so does the statistics on the side! There’s also a place for a quote on the top, just like on Wookiepedia. As well as a place for a picture.
This took 5 hours and I’m so unbelievably proud of it! I hope it can help you guys have fun with your ocs!
If you credit me, please just type “@/queen-breha-organa” , if I get too many mentions it might just destroy my notifications hajsjjsjs
Okay I’ve changed my mind I don’t care if it crashed my notifications please just tag me I wanna see it- peoples ocs make me so happy especially peoples self inserts and I need the joy-
Queer is such a good word, I love it so much. I love being queer, I love being around other queer people, I love queerness in general it’s all wonderful.
Group portrait for @naerwenia’s SWRPG crew! Such a great little collection of characters (not to mention being able to revisit a most excellent bothan) that was a blast to put together.
the colin trevorrow Rise of Skywalker script has some gems (kyle gets his mask welded to his face and rey murders him w a double-sided saber) but the rest of it is either so terrible or so ridiculously hysterical it makes me want to throw up laughing (hux realizes he lost the star wars)
