You know you're obsessed with LOTR when ...

[Elyna of Rivendell]

1.Your friend tells you she can't come to your house for a LotR movie marathon because she is sick, you start to cry. And that's NOT because she is sick...

2.You're asked to do a project on three books for English, andthe teacher immediatly turns to you and says, "No Elyna, you can't do the Lord of the Rings as three books."

3.Your friend asks you to find a cool quote for her FACEBOOK page, you immediatley recite several of your favourite lines from Lord of the Rings.

[Galadriel55]

...when on New Year your sister gives you a bookmark with your name in Elvish.

[MCRmyGirl4eva]

You get mad at your boyfriend because he won't have a LOTR marathon (The movies are "too long")

[Annalaliath]

You inherit the One Ring from your grandmother...

[Andsigil]

When you make your own Tolkienesque heraldic symbols for each member of your family.

[MCRmyGirl4eva]

Your boyfriend laments that you have unpierced ears because he found cute One Ring earrings

[Lotrelf]

You consider going to the supermarket as a quest.

Yes! I do. Going to the market or Supermarket is no less than a quest to me.

You believe that your brother or sister is some stange creature that was created in the fires of Mount Doom!

Yup! Keep mentioning them as "nasty, little Orces!"

You suddenly decide you have a craving for mushrooms.

I LOVE MUSHROOMS. So yes, even I think at times I can go to a shop and steal them.

You see a flock of crows, and run for cover!

I did something like that after I saw the movie.

Mine are:
1). Whenever you meet a new person who loves and reads the books, and you ask, "Have you read LOTR?"
2). Keep talking in Gollum's style.
3). Keep repeating Gandalf's words "don't tempt me, Frodo!"
4). Taking many things in life in LotR's context.
5). Idealizing LotR characters for life.
6). Despite not liking the films too much watching them again and again because they are THE LORD OF THE RINGS.
7). Going for fight with anyone who insults the books.
8). Being able to talk about the books for hours and hours without getting tired.
9). Keep reciting the poems and songs of LOTR.
10). LotR's Middle-Earth being another Home and loving to visit there despite wars and darkness.
They're not funny, but for now this is what I can think of.

[FerniesApple]

You wonder where The Road will sweep you off to every time you walk out your front door.

You wonder why the local booze seller has just told you to 'get out!' after you have pleaded with him for the hundreth time for Ent Juice.

You get reported and banned from your local park for 'hugging Huorns'.

Every day is a good day to LARP. pity your boss aint so keen.

You get an ugly twitch when Peter Jackson's The Hobbit is mentioned.

[Aganzir]

There was this one time quite recently that Lommy and I had an hour and a half's hike from the bus to the cabin with heavy backpacks. Starting with the old walking song, we entertained ourselves by singing LOTR songs.

[Smug the Fabulous]

I go into Gollum mode whenever I see one of my friends dropping change.
I get a nervous twitch whenever someone praises The Hobbit movies.
I clench my fists and grit my teeth with a murderous rage whenever someone asks why they didn't use the eagles to get to Mount Doom.
I once held a celebratory lunch on September 22nd involving mushroom soup.
Ever since I discovered Tolkien's work, I always walk around the house in bare foot and at times, put on a waistcoat.

[Galadriel55]

When you entertain your baby brother with the Russian translation of The Man in the Moon Stayed Up Too Late. "And the cow jumped over the moooooooon!!!"

[TheGreatElvenWarrior]

Every time I tell my boyfriend how precious he is, I have to avoid saying he's "my precious" because I don't want to sound like Gollum.

Also, my family just had the audacity to have the balrogs having wings argument with me.

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by TheGreatElvenWarrior

Also, my family just had the audacity to have the balrogs having wings argument with me.

Hahaha! Oh my. Sometimes my family attempts to strike up a serious conversation about Tolkien or the legendarium or the movies. I try to change the topic, because it's just impossible to explain the dynamics of an entire fandom in a few sentences of casual conversations, and they don't get it anyways.

(On the flip side, occasionally my siblings would make up funny alternate endings where Sauron looses because he stepped on a piece of gum and got stuck to the floor or something. I appreciate the Middle-earth mirth. )

[TheGreatElvenWarrior]

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

Hahaha! Oh my. Sometimes my family attempts to strike up a serious conversation about Tolkien or the legendarium or the movies. I try to change the topic, because it's just impossible to explain the dynamics of an entire fandom in a few sentences of casual conversations, and they don't get it anyways.

(On the flip side, occasionally my siblings would make up funny alternate endings where Sauron looses because he stepped on a piece of gum and got stuck to the floor or something. I appreciate the Middle-earth mirth. )

I appreciate mirth too, but my family, my mother especially, will come to incorrect conclusions about how characters are by their movie counterparts. It drives me nuts.

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by TheGreatElvenWarrior

I appreciate mirth too, but my family, my mother especially, will come to incorrect conclusions about how characters are by their movie counterparts. It drives me nuts.

My mother has read LOTR and TH, and she likes them (especially LOTR). My father has glancingly seen the movies and heard snippets of the books. He barely knows anything about the story except that there's a ring involved. However, it would happen when I was reading bits of it out loud to my siblings several years ago, that he'd come in at the precise moment when some ruffian would be speaking none too eloquently. He would then ask me if it's really a good idea to read a book to my siblings which is written with such crude language. I don't think he believed me that it's actually very well-written and has lovely flowing language, but this character was meant to sound rude and uncreative.

[TheGreatElvenWarrior]

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

My mother has read LOTR and TH, and she likes them (especially LOTR). My father has glancingly seen the movies and heard snippets of the books. He barely knows anything about the story except that there's a ring involved. However, it would happen when I was reading bits of it out loud to my siblings several years ago, that he'd come in at the precise moment when some ruffian would be speaking none too eloquently. He would then ask me if it's really a good idea to read a book to my siblings which is written with such crude language. I don't think he believed me that it's actually very well-written and has lovely flowing language, but this character was meant to sound rude and uncreative.

Oh goodness! Sometimes my parents would question why I would read things or show things to my brother. Never about LotR, though. They've both seen the movies.

[Morthoron]

You've been discussing Tolkien for years, decades. For me, it's been at least 20 years on the Internet alone (now there's a sobering thought), and even longer if you consider the age of prehistoric barbarism before the PC. You've discussed every issue, every subtle nuance, every arcane or trivial point, every shred, iota and detail hundreds, even thousands of times.

And...yet...you...cannot...simply...walk...away... from...whipping...these...dead...
horses:

1) Balrog's Wings?
2) The nature of Tom Bombadil?
3) The Arkenstone, a Silmaril?
4) Was Legolas blonde?
5) Orcs descended from Elves?
6) Why didn't the Eagles simply fly Frodo to Mt. Doom?
7) Why is a raven like a writing desk? *
8) Who are the Blue Wizards?
9) Celeborn, where's he from?
10) The oldest being in Middle-earth?


* Number seven thrown in to assure you were paying attention.

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by Morthoron

* Number seven thrown in to assure you were paying attention.

That is actually the secret answer to the reason the Seven don't have that big of an effect on the Dwarves.

[Aganzir]

Okay, I know this is deeply inappropriate, but... how can you not think of it? You know the Moria refugee camp?

Human rights groups have criticised conditions in Moria (...) as deplorable and depraved.

"Witnessing the charred remains of Moria camp is shocking but comes as little surprise."

It's not funny, and I wish it wouldn't catch my eye but it does. (It would also help if I didn't work in a human rights NGO where this place comes up regularly.)

(Source: https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...amp-in-greece; the second quote is from a colleague of mine, no less.)

[Rune Son of Bjarne]

I have reached a point where I have developed a habit of falling a sleep to an LotR audio-book.

[TheGreatElvenWarrior]

Originally Posted by Rune Son of Bjarne

I have reached a point where I have developed a habit of falling a sleep to an LotR audio-book.

For many years, I fell asleep to the BBC radio LotR, then it was Bookends by Simon and Garfunkel, and now the boy and I meditate before bed. I can still recite word for word the first disk of FotR.

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by Rune Son of Bjarne

I have reached a point where I have developed a habit of falling a sleep to an LotR audio-book.

Must be so boring, those books. *yawn*

[Rune Son of Bjarne]

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

Must be so boring, those books. *yawn*

I should probably specify that I do not automatically fall a sleep, when I come into contact with a LotR audiobook. Rather i put on the audiobook wen I go to bed.

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by Rune Son of Bjarne

I should probably specify that I do not automatically fall a sleep, when I come into contact with a LotR audiobook. Rather i put on the audiobook wen I go to bed.

I know, but it would be a fun Pavlovian response. "It's a behavioural phenomenon: the subject falls asleep immediately at the sound of text from Tolkien's LOTR! Other texts, even with related contexts, do not elicit the same response from the subject. The text in question is currently being analyzed for its hypnotic properties."

[TheGreatElvenWarrior]

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

I know, but it would be a fun Pavlovian response. "It's a behavioural phenomenon: the subject falls asleep immediately at the sound of text from Tolkien's LOTR! Other texts, even with related contexts, do not elicit the same response from the subject. The text in question is currently being analyzed for its hypnotic properties."

This used to happen to me when I watched the LotR movies because I fell asleep to FotR every night. I couldn't watch any of them for years without going to sleep 15 minutes in.

[Nerwen]

...you find local politics terribly funny, what with all the candidates explaining how long they've lived in the Shire and how devoted they are to the Shire and how much they're going to do for the Shire if elected, etc.

[Galadriel55]

On that note, you ignore most political issues because he's a Saruman, he's a Saruman, he's just a Grima, and he thinks he's Gandalf but he still lives in Orthanc. They might have good intentions, but then again, so did Saruman.

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by Eönwë

When at school you need to write the word "habit" but you by mistake spell it as "habbit", which you then correct to "hobbit" without thinking, only later realising your mistake.

I think I did not use to misspell the word habit when I was in middle school. Leastaways I was never corrected for it by teachers.

And then I read this post.

On which I blame the most habbit-filled years of my life.




Conclusion: habbits are contagious.

[Galadriel55]

When you mean to write "middle ear" but end up writing "middle earth"...

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

I think I did not use to misspell the word habit when I was in middle school. Leastaways I was never corrected for it by teachers.

And then I read this post.

On which I blame the most habbit-filled years of my life.

Conclusion: habbits are contagious.

It's been how many years? And I still can't shake off the habbit. And every time it happens, I think back to this post. Seriously, this never used to happen until I read it! And now I can't get rid of it!

(But in all probability it is likely just the muscle memory of writing/typing a certain word...)

But to add a new phenomenon relating to writing, in recent months my Google Docs has started recognizing certain ME names/Elvish terms and auto-correcting mis-typed names to spell them correctly. You know there is a lot of Tolkien happening on your computer when the AI learns how to speak Elvish.

[Alassë Estel]

You know you're a bit obsessed when one day you find yourself studying Quenya and learning multiple modes of Tengwar. Also, sewing a cloak. And when anyone mentions Rings of Power your friends and family give you one of those "Uh-Oh, don't get her started" looks.