(no subject)

I don't dare call the chapter I'm working on "It's a Trap!" but that was honestly my first temptation. I guess "Trapped" will have to do, though I considered keeping the exclamation point. 

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 said:

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 (26 September 2019)

I actually originally posted this in ... *squints* 2015, but reblogged it in Sep 2019. At any rate, it's still one of the things I'm happiest with. A labour of love!

Tumblr crosspost (4 October 2019)

A small detail from P&P—

Ch 31:

“I cannot catch their tone of conversation, or appear interested in their concerns, as I often see done.”

“My fingers,” said Elizabeth, “do not move over this instrument in the masterly manner which I see so many women’s do. They have not the same force or rapidity, and do not produce the same expression. But then I have always supposed it to be my own fault—because I would not take the trouble of practising.”

Ch 61:

Mrs Philips’s vulgarity was another, and perhaps a greater, tax on his forbearance; and though Mrs Philips, as well as her sister, stood in too much awe of him to speak with the familiarity which Bingley’s good humour encouraged, yet, whenever she did speak, she must be vulgar. Nor was her respect for him, though it made her more quiet, at all likely to make her more elegant. Elizabeth did all she could to shield him from the frequent notice of either, and was ever anxious to keep him to herself, and to those of her family with whom he might converse without mortification.

My Tumblr tag ramble: 

It's funny how the first is almost universally seen as one hundred percent righteous truth, and yet by the end, it's—Darcy is trying harder, but it's also ... what if socially awkward people exist ... and it's not only a matter of trying. Like, the ultimate result is not that Darcy transforms into an easygoing person, but that he tries to deal with his pride and Elizabeth accepts his very real discomfort and tries to help with it. Reciprocal character development! /grumbles into infinity
 

 

Tumblr crosspost (9 October 2019)

I said:

My love-hate relationship with the LOTR movies has mostly settled on negativity, but the ride of the Rohirrim is … good. It’s really good.

In response, theozilla asked:

Do you any thoughts on the Ralph Bakshi or Rankin/Bass adaptations?

and I replied:

Haven’t seen them!

(...I still haven't, actually)

Tumblr crosspost (10 October 2019)

I said:

Today in grad school life: being unable to go to sleep early and then waking up at 4 AM to put together a presentation on an author I know nothing about :)

(It's a class in British and American lit, so I couldn't just have British authors, but ... I don't study Americans ...

Yes, I am one, and no, I don't care.)

heckofabecca asked:

Who did you pick?

I replied:

Charles Brockden Brown! It went okay in the end.

Tumblr crosspost (11 October 2019)

Not to harp on the point, but GRRM’s “what about TAX POLICY and ORC BABIES” questions about Aragorn’s reign (and others like them) will always baffle me because in virtually all cases they’re

a) answered already

or

b) problematizing scenarios that might exist when the ones that very definitely do exist are already problematic af.

tagged: #i care a lot more about the decades spent subjugating easterlings and haradrim than theoretical orc babies

Tumblr crosspost (11 October 2019)

Lebennin is very important.

Legolas paused and sighed, and turning his eyes southward softly he sang:

Silver flow the streams from Celos to Erui
In the green fields of Lebennin!
Tall grows the grass there. In the wind from the Sea
The white lilies sway,
And the golden bells are shaken of mallos and alfirin
In the green fields of Lebennin,
In the wind from the Sea!

Green are those fields in the songs of my people.

-

[The] most part of the people of Gondor lived in the seven circles of the City, or in the high vales of the mountain-borders, in Lossarnach, or further south in fair Lebennin with its five swift streams. There dwelt a hardy folk between the mountains and the sea. They were reckoned men of Gondor, yet their blood was mingled, and there were short and swarthy folk among them whose sires came more from the forgotten men who housed in the shadow of the hills in the Dark Years ere the coming of the kings.

-

For this attack will draw off much of the help that we looked to have from Lebennin and Belfalas, where folk are hardy and numerous.

-

And the City was filled again with women and fair children that returned to their homes laden with flowers; and from Dol Amroth came the harpers that harped most skilfully in all the land; and there were players upon viols and upon flutes and upon horns of silver, and clear-voiced singers from the vales of Lebennin.

-

L E B E N N I N

Tumblr crosspost (11 October 2019)

I’m still very tired of the dichotomy between Good Villain Fans who accept the collective judgment on their faves, and Bad Villain Fans who defend their faves.

Bad Villain Fans are represented as fans who refuse to accept the objective truth of their faves’ villainy, and Good Villain Fans as those who understand this objective truth and consequently refrain from defending their villainous faves, from anything, ever.

There’s no possibility that reasonable people could disagree on the villainy in question, or that a villain could be falsely accused of something else, or that misrepresentation ever happens in fandom. If a character is guilty of any villainy, then it’s fair to accuse them of literally anything, and Good Villain Fans will meekly accept it.

Ugh.

Tumblr crosspost (13 October 2019)

But now wheeling swiftly across it, like shadows of untimely night, he saw in the middle airs below him five birdlike forms, horrible as carrion-fowl yet greater than eagles, cruel as death.

‘Black Riders!’ muttered Pippin. ‘…They are looking for something, surely? See how they wheel and swoop, always down to that point over there! And can you see something moving on the ground? Dark little things. Yes, men on horses: four or five.’

… ‘Faramir! The Lord Faramir! It is his call!’ cried Beregond. ‘Brave heart! But how can he win to the Gate, if these foul hell-hawks have other weapons than fear? But look! They hold on. They will make the Gate. No! the horses are running mad. Look! the men are thrown; they are running on foot. No, one is still up, but he rides back to the others. That will be the Captain: he can master both beasts and men. Ah! there one of the foul things is stooping on him. Help! help! Will no one go out to him? Faramir!’

Something I’ll never be over: Faramir riding back to help 3-4 other men while five Nazgûl are chasing him.

In his letters, Tolkien said: “As far as any character is ‘like me’ it is Faramir—except that I lack what all my characters possess (let the psychoanalysts note!) Courage” (232).

Tumblr crosspost (13 October 2019)

suddenwildmagic at Tumblr responded to a post I wrote about parallels between P&P and Much Ado About Nothing:

just remembered this post and have to add obligatory <3 <3 because Much Ado/P&P comparison

I replied:

:)))

I once wrote a paper about it, and the entire first paragraph consisted of the history of P&P/Much Ado comparisons, going from 2017 back to an anonymous reviewer in March of 1813 who said that Elizabeth “is in fact the Beatrice of the tale.”

(P&P was published on Jan 28, 1813.)

otoh Shakespeare himself certainly adapted a number of myths, at least (and also wrote historical fiction)

Yes! Actually, that’s what interests me most about Shakespeare’s influence on Austen—if you look at, say, Lear and Mansfield Park (though it’s less pronounced than Much Ado/P&P), the lineage of narrative keeps going back and back. They’re these towering shapers of story, but they’re also working with material that existed for a long time before either of them were born or thought of.