Tumblr crosspost (13 September 2019)

I've said it before, but if I had any gifmaking skills, I would totally make a Jyn/Cassian set for "Annie's Song":

Like a walk in the rain
Like a storm in the desert
Like a sleepy blue ocean
You fill up my senses

Come, let me love you
Let me give my life to you
Let me drown in your laughter
Let me die in your arms

Tumblr crosspost (16 September 2019)

Backing up Tumblr posts to Wordpress now feels vaguely incestuous.

(Tumblr is a graveyard of usernames! I don't want my stuff lost forever—especially stuff at the writing sideblog, even if practically no one else cares about that. Dreamwidth and Wordpress are my platforms of choice, but it is a little ... um.)

Tumblr crosspost (17 September 2019)

Today’s unexpected teaching moments:

My favourite student of the day was the one who argued that the assigned reading’s transgressive eighteenth-century heroine was basically Batman.

Buuuut a close second is the one who was trying to come up with contextual information for a JFK campaign ad, and went, “well, you’d have to know about politics—there’s the Democratic Party and whatsit, the other one.”

Tumblr crosspost (18 September 2019)

I’ll admit that “bloody imperialism is a-ok if it’s against Gondor’s defeated enemies” is not a response to this post that I expected.

(Context: some responses to the Tumblr version that slightly took off were like "it says he became a merciful overlord, so he's just being a good ally, what's wrong with that?" and "they were all evil, so killing them is fine." Yikes.)

Tumblr crosspost (18 September 2019)

I’m occasionally beset by Lothíriel feelings, AKA my headcanon version of Lothíriel feelings, but … ahhhhhh.

(In part they were inspired by Lucrezia Borgia's Spanish court in Ferrara, and in part by bouncing hard off some fanon. But my willful, aggressively Dúnadan, aro Lothíriel is very dear to my heart.)

Tumblr crosspost (19 September 2019)

An anon on Tumblr asked:

is there any (professionally, like someone was paid for it) published P&P fanfic that, if not fully meeting your standards for excellence, is worth reading?

I replied:

I’m not the best person to ask, I’m afraid. I’ve only ever read a few (apart from ones that were initially posted as fic and then published later on). Pro fic tends to have a very different flavour than fandom-fanfic and I don’t much care for it.

Part of my issue is that I’m pretty laser-focused on Darcy/Elizabeth, so books about Caroline or whatever are not at all appealing, while I’m also super picky about AUs, esp when they’re professionally published. So there’s not much that catches my interest. Mostly I just re-read the handful I like on AO3.

Tumblr crosspost (19 September 2019)

An anon on Tumblr asked:

this may be a super invasive ask but i'm having some ace issues of my own. feel free to ignore. as an ace lesbian, do you feel attracted to women you post a lot like holliday grainger? or do you just think she's aesthetically beautiful, like a mountain? is it somewhere in between?

I replied:

Oh, it’s okay.

I’d say somewhere in-between. It’s definitely distinct from what I feel about attractive men (which is very much of the mountain type). But it’s not quite the same as being attracted in real life, either—less visceral and more aesthetic, in most cases.

However, I’m grey-ace for one, so I do feel actual attraction once in a blue moon, and I’m autistic for another, so positioning myself wrt other people is difficult. My experience is probably different from what most ace lesbians feel—though I expect it’s always messy.

(Of course sexuality is complicated for everyone blahblahblah but for me, the ace/lesbian line is very fuzzy, since my preference for women colours pretty much everything.)

Tumblr crosspost (19 September 2019)

The downside of getting a committee of the three profs I most respect is that I’m horrifically nervous about turning to any of them when I need advice.

(Over a month later, I still haven't worked up the nerve to talk to any of them but my chair, and him only rarely.)

Tumblr crosspost (19 September 2019)

An anon on Tumblr asked:

i’ve just discovered the existence of a show called ‘death comes to pemberly’... presumably you’ve heard of it, since you know so much about p&p lol. would you recommend it? it seems intriguing...

I replied:

I have heard of it, yes! I opted not to watch it, in part because what little I saw of the book was terribad, and in part because I was (and remain) deeply bitter that glorified fanfic was what they chose to do for the bicentennial instead of P&P itself.

Even the positive reviews sounded pretty “nope” to me (esp re: Elizabeth), so I never did watch it.

Tumblr crosspost (19 September 2019)

An anon on Tumblr said:

You’re an amazingly talented writer! (Feel free to pass this along to 10 writers you admire and spread around the love!)

I said:

Well, thank you very much! <3

Tumblr crosspost (21 September 2019)

On the one hand, there are plenty of potential reasons for Elfwinë’s name, in-story and out of it.

But on the other, Lothíriel naming her ~impure~ son ‘Elendil’ is such a power move that I refuse to accept any other interpretation.

Tumblr crosspost (22 September 2019)

I’ve been catching up on the AO3/Hugos firestorm and omg, it’s the best fandom wank in years. We're entitled princesses, y'all!

( Read more... )

Tumblr crosspost (23 September 2019)

An anon at Tumblr asked:

Hi! I read your post on Pride and Prejudice and Much Ado About Nothing. And... are you saying P&P is Shakespeare fanfiction?

I replied:

Ah, no. It’s …

Hm. Okay. The thing is, I don’t really subscribe to the idea that ‘derivative work’ and ‘fanwork’ are interchangeable concepts. I do think it’s important to point out that fanworks are not unique in deriving their material from other sources, yet are often treated as uniquely illegitimate for doing so. But for me, fanfiction is bound up in modern fandom. It’s a subcategory of “writing that uses some characters/relationships/etc the author didn’t invent,” not the whole category.

IMO the category as a whole is just adaptation. And that post was totally saying that P&P is a loose adaptation of Shakespeare :)

Tumblr crosspost (23 September 2019)

heckofabecca at Tumblr said (responding to this post):

i never realized but OMGGGG

I replied:

Yeah, I’ve always skimmed past the Elfwinë == OE Elendil notes on wiki entries etc, but for some reason I finally just stopped and was like “…wait.” Like, Elendil was A+++, but it’s difficult to see why Éomer would care that much about him. It’s Lothíriel who has the connections to Elendil—and even so, it would be quite the gesture to use his name.

(Elendil founded HER nation! He gave the title of prince to HER house! But also even the heirs of Elendil didn't throw around his name.)

Tumblr crosspost (25 September 2019)

An anon asked:

What do you think of the genre of the “Pride and Prejudice variations” literary genre? Not the out-there ones like “P&P and Zombies,” but the realistic “what-if”/“for want of a nail” variations (e.g. “Darcy and Elizabeth are trapped together by a blizzard in a cottage,” or “Elizabeth never goes to Pemberley and doesn’t meet Darcy again until they’re middle aged”). So many have been published.

I said:

Hmm. Intellectually, I’m pretty indifferent.

I mean—of course, it’s out of copyright, and I do appreciate going back to the tradition of repurposing and rearranging stories. I don’t personally care for most that I’ve looked at, but I don’t personally care for most readings of Austen, so whatever.

I’m enough of a traditionalist, though, that my kneejerk reaction is “ack!” at the prospect of just up and publishing your AU fics (as many of them are). I’m not sure why it feels different than publishing canon-compliant fiction (which I have done myself), but it does.

It’s fine, though. Just not my thing.

Tumblr crosspost (26 September 2019)

Still thinking about Faramir in TTT, and … okay, I appreciate his “war is not good in itself” and “I love my home but don’t want it enslaving other people’s” and “hell no to cursed objects” as much as anyone.

But one of my favourite moments, also, is when he’s trying to ferret out what happened to Boromir and is like … true, lots of bad things can happen on journeys! :)

Like being betrayed by your companions :) :) :)

I mean, I really feel like his capacity for friendly menace is severely overlooked. Sam's response to this is basically HOW DARE, and Faramir is just ... I haven't decided to kill you yet so maybe :) shut the fuck up :) :)

Tumblr crosspost (27 September 2019)

moggett at Tumblr said:

Does Eomer have Morwen’s height? Didn’t the appendix say he took after his Rohan side (as opposed to Eowyn’s “grace and height”).

I replied:

In a later note in UT, Tolkien says:

The Rohirrim were generally shorter, for in their far-off ancestry they had been mingled with men of broader and heavier build. Éomer was said to have been tall, of like height with Aragorn; but he with other descendants of King Thengel were taller than the norm of Rohan, deriving this characteristic (together in some cases with darker hair) from Morwen, Thengel’s wife, a lady of Gondor of high Númenórean descent.

Tumblr crosspost (28 September 2019)

Revising when I add things is so much funner than revising when I have to cut things out.

(Apart from the first line, the first page has never worked right, and my friend was like ... that's because it drops straight from the cool first line into exposition. You could drop straight into scene and have the exposition happen in the scene. And suddenly my path was clear! And I was able to work in some of his other suggestions! /happily writes six pages that imply many things and explain none.)

Tumblr crosspost (28 September 2019)

wrt this:

( Read more... )

Tumblr crosspost (28 September 2019)

I am only reanimating my fandom Twitter account with the utmost reluctance, but … fine.

(Tumblr is pretty clearly headed towards graveyard status and ... okay! Whatever!

...Twitter is reallyyyy not suited to how I do fandom but apparently it's where fandom is now? Or something. Anyway, I have the super original name of anghraine over there.)

Tumblr crosspost (29 September 2019)

I grade exams for one of my former professors, but it turns out that several of the students from my eighteenth-century class are in his class, and … grading my own students’ work in their other classes feels super awkward.

Tumblr crosspost (29 September 2019)

Semi-relatedly (to this), one of the exam questions is about Aelfwinë from “Battle of Maldon,” so of course I’m thinking about the Fourth Age again.

(I never really expected to have Elfwinë feelings but I do. Like ... it's entirely possible that he barely knew Éomer until the wars subsided. What sort of figure was Éomer? What about Lothíriel? Oh right, we know NOTHING about Lothíriel. C'mon, Tolkien! I have headcanons but it's not the same.)