Tumblr crosspost (16 April 2020)

LOTR wank

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Tumblr crosspost (16 April 2020)

I reblogged this post about my Aasimar sorcerer without a campaign to play in, and added:

I made her a warlock, which naturally solves everything

#celestial pact finally pulled everything together!! #i still have absolutely no reason to have made this character and no game to play her in just... the elaborate backstory in my head #>_>

rhoconfidential replied:

Mood

I said:

Making pacts with unknowable beings of immense power solves so many problems, really!

Tumblr crosspost (17 April 2020)

An anon asked:

Another P&P questions! At Rosings, do you think that Mr. Darcy's family members (especially Colonel Fitzwilliam) suspected him of deeper feelings for Elizabeth? Could his behaviour at that time be a factor why Lady Catherine after all (well, reluctantly, I guess) believed the rumor of Darcy's engagement to Elizabeth be quite possible? How do you interpret it?

I replied:

I think it’s possible Lady Catherine retrospectively found his conduct suspicious, but I think she definitely didn’t at the time, or her behaviour towards Elizabeth would have been much worse.

With Colonel Fitzwilliam, it’s possible that Fitzwilliam realized Darcy was interested in her. But it’s hard to see Fitzwilliam flirting with her to the point that he felt the need to clarify that he couldn’t marry her (I do agree w/ Elizabeth that that’s what he’s doing there) if he suspected Darcy of serious feelings. It’s after the proposal that his suspicions might arise—IMO Darcy had to have told him that Elizabeth might have specific questions about Wickham and even Georgiana, and that Fitzwilliam was to answer them.

I don’t imagine that he actually told Fitzwilliam about the proposal, though.

#i also don't think fitzwilliam's reaction would have been ... uncomplicated even if darcy did tell him #though that's tangential

Tumblr crosspost (19 April 2020)

The other line re: the Gardiners and Darcy’s appearance that I find unreasonably hilarious:

“I have heard much of your master’s fine person,” said Mrs Gardiner

In context, she’s just making polite conversation with Mrs Reynolds, and “everyone says your employer is really attractive” is what goes for polite conversation with an elderly housekeeper.

But if she’s not straight-up lying, then … okay. Back in Hertfordshire, Mrs Gardiner had to strain to remember anything that anyone had said about Darcy prior to that point, so she almost certainly hadn’t heard about Darcy’s appearance before then. She would have heard it from people in Hertfordshire, who nearly all intensely dislike Darcy and (care of Wickham) think he’s a horrible person. So apparently there are these people around Meryton just talking about how terrible yet good-looking Darcy is, well after he left town. It’s like:

Completely random person: So, Mr Bingley had this proud friend with him who turned out to be kind of evil … but super attractive? He was so tall and had this really nice shape to his mouth and—

Mrs Gardiner, who Did Not Ask: uh

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Tumblr crosspost (21 April 2020)

I reblogged a post from Sep 2018 saying:

It is really, truly okay to leave comments without informing the author that you dislike the ship/trope/character they love.

New tags: #just got another one of these and arghhhh #i don't like [thing] you clearly love but your version is DIFFERENT #me: ........... #i understand that 'i don't usually like this thing so it says a lot that i like yours' is the underlying rationale and i don't care

Tumblr crosspost (21 April 2020)

It’s awkward when you want someone to know they did something upsetting, but also don’t want to show that you’re upset.

Bleh.

#anxiety makes it 10x worse than it really was anyway #but it was still pretty inconsiderate so i'm just like '...'

Tumblr crosspost (21 April 2020)

Tolkien had various inspirations for Gondor and I’ve talked about them many times, but:

we come to the half-ruinous Byzantine City of Minas Tirith

In the south Gondor rises to a peak of power, almost reflecting Númenor, and then fades slowly to decayed Middle Age, a kind of proud, venerable, but increasingly impotent Byzantium.

Byzantine Gondor!!!!

Tumblr crosspost (22 April 2020)

I still have a lot of feelings about Gondorian Sindarin! It’s just

To his face men were gravely courteous, saluting him after the manner of Gondor with bowed head and hands upon the breast; but behind him he heard many calls, as those out of doors cried to others within to come and see the Prince of the Halflings, the companion of Mithrandir. Many used some other tongue than the Common Speech, but it was not long before he learned at least what was meant by Ernil i Pheriannath and knew that his title had gone down before him into the city.

ahhhh

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Tumblr crosspost (23 April 2020)

In response to a question from heckofabecca, I posted a ramble about Denethor. I'm not duplicating all of it because it involved a canon I have super negative associations with, but:

Denethor works relentlessly his entire life. He gives everything he has to his community—Gondor—and then more, until it breaks him. Meanwhile, he has very little respect for the kind of charisma that Gandalf and Aragorn and even Faramir possess; what he respects is loyal service to Gondor, the kind that Boromir exemplifies (this is part of what’s so devastating for him about Faramir’s return; after everything, Faramir goes down doing exactly what Denethor most highly regards).

In UT, Tolkien defends Denethor because “he loved Gondor and its people” and says that this was his main motivating drive. On the flipside, Tolkien also said in a letter that Denethor’s essential flaw is fighting Gondor’s enemies because they are Gondor’s enemies more than because they are evil. Whether seen positively or negatively, though, Denethor is all about loyalty to Gondor, love for Gondor, service to Gondor. It’s very community-oriented and very grounded in hard work and sacrifice.

Tumblr crosspost (24 April 2020)

heckofabecca replied to this post:

this is. HILARIOUS.

I said:

heeeeh, thank you!

Tumblr crosspost (24 April 2020)

I reblogged a discussion about bad redemption arc takes where they only work if the redeemed person is ~~deserving and has been misunderstood, and said:

Thank you! Honestly, if people would be honest about just not liking redemption arcs, it would be so much less obnoxious.

Tumblr crosspost (24 April 2020)

Someone from the anti-AO3 brigade on Tumblr went on a screed about the OTW's evils via a questionable and very long break-down of their donations, in which the OP said they didn't care but-.

I reblogged one of the rebuttals and added:

#lmao at 'i do not care' #op's caring is visible from space

Tumblr crosspost (24 April 2020)

ak;jdfkajdf I just finished my 16th cent reading list for one(1) of my three(3) exams and it’s four pages long

my exams are in September :)

#aghHHHHH #everyone's like 'oh you'll do fine' and that is NOT REASSURING

Tumblr crosspost (25 April 2020)

emily-elizabeth-rose said:

Re your meta on Ladies Catherine and Anne being close due to a distant father, I realised that Lady C was likely not close with her brother the Earl. Her father likely doting on the son while being distant to the girls causing resentment. So even with Darcy slow to marry Anne, Col. Fitzwilliam not raised as an alternative, even though he would come to Rosings rather than Anne leaving. Why not Col. Fitz? Because Lady C doesn't like the Earl and doesn't want his son to marry her daughter :0

I replied:

Hmm. While we know that Lady Catherine firmly believes daughters never matter to their fathers, which presumably extends to her relationship with her own father, all we know about her relationship with her brother is that his son comes to visit her. So it’s hard to extrapolate much from that. It does seem probable that someone with Lady Catherine’s personality would likely not have taken favouritism over her well, but the form that displeasure would have taken …?

The question I have isn’t about Colonel Fitzwilliam, since marrying a younger son without a significant fortune of his own wouldn’t be a great match for Anne. Sole, well-born heiresses of large estates were rare, and could hold out for very good matches; Fitzwilliam would only be a real possibility if Lady Catherine was absolutely set on Anne marrying within the family and his older brother was already married.

The real question, for me, is why Lady Catherine preferred baby Darcy over the viscount.

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Tumblr crosspost (25 April 2020)

With regard to this post, the Tumblr formatting got messed up and I said:

arrrgh, I don’t know what happened with the Read More for that post D:

#i went in and deleted it but it keeps showing up in the ask...?

perminas said:

it looks like it somehow got inserted within the question?

I replied:

Yeah, idk how.

#i have never had this happen! #and it was fine at first #bleh

[ETA 1/24/2022: only crossposting as a reminder to myself of why I'm backing things up over here!]

Tumblr crosspost (25 April 2020)

Also in response to this post, cosmonauthill said:

Is it also possible that the viscount was just enough older that he was already paired off to, if they’re new-but-rich, the daughter of an old-but-poor family, or vice versa? I’ve seen it in a few fics that he’s married to the daughter of a Notable Family and it does make sense, I think

I replied:

Possible? Sure.

Also, by that time, arranged marriages between young children were pretty odd—imo it’s one of the things that’s meant to make Lady Catherine ridiculous and old-fashioned. So it’s possible that her brother wouldn’t have been up for it, or he’s enough like her to have already tried the same thing with someone else, or any number of reasons that an Anne/viscount match wouldn’t have turned out.

But I think that if Lady Catherine had ever considered the viscount a viable option, she’d be less obsessed with Anne/Darcy in particular. Anne could have made a good match already, given her birth, connections, and vast wealth (unusually so even for aristocratic women), but Lady Catherine seems set on her marrying Darcy specifically, from the moment of his birth.

Tumblr crosspost (25 April 2020)

gritsinmisery replied to this post:

At that time, would anybody have cared any more one way or the other about the “Fitz” in Fitzwilliam? I mean, just exactly which William were they a bastard line of? Or had that naming convention been forgotten by that time anyway?

I replied:

Long forgotten. The rl Fitzwilliam earl was one of the most powerful and respected figures of his day.

Tumblr crosspost (26 April 2020)

I reblogged this post and added:

I’m imagining a version of Gondor that actually leaned hard into the Byzantine aesthetic and just … *sigh*

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Tumblr crosspost (26 April 2020)

In response to this post, okionlywanttoreadforever said:

ooh, what’s on the list? I really enjoyed the 16th century drama class I took in college

I replied:

A… lot, but the main chunk:

• The Alchemist
• Bartholomew Fair
• Volpone
• The Spanish Tragedy
• Tamburlaine
• Edward II
• Doctor Faustus
• The Jew of Malta
• The Malcontent
• Utopia
• Women Beware Women
• The Changeling
• The Revenger’s Tragedy
• The Roaring Girl
• The Art of English Poesy
• The Defense of Poesy
• Shakespeare
• The Devil’s Law-Case
• The Duchess of Malfi
• The White Devil
• The Praise of Folly
• The Prince
• Selected essays of Montaigne

(The list is actually 16th+early 17th century)

Tumblr crosspost (26 April 2020)

In response to this post, someone (as usual) suggested that Lady Catherine was basically manufacturing the agreement with Lady Anne about Darcy and younger Anne marrying.

I replied:

When I was in Austen fandom, it was pretty generally assumed that the whole thing was to a greater or lesser extent a figment of Lady Catherine’s imagination.

But the first person we hear about it from is actually Wickham, who is prattling on about his background at Pemberley. He could be making up the expectation of a Darcy/Anne marriage for some reason of his own, of course, but if so, his lie gels with Lady Catherine’s understanding of what happened, even though they both hold each other in contempt. I think it’s more probable that he’s simply repeating what he heard at Pemberley to bolster his bona fides.

I do think there’s often a certain … hm, tendency towards preserving Lady Anne’s character by distancing her from Lady Catherine, even though Lady Anne has almost no character to preserve. We know a) she was a good person, b) she was apparently less benevolent and amiable than her husband, c) with him, she participated in allowing and encouraging Darcy to think himself better than other people, d) her otherwise egotistical sister named her only child after her, and e) Wickham and Lady Catherine believe that Darcy was expected to marry Anne.

It’s all so vague that we can’t know for sure, but personally, I don’t think there’s any reason to suppose Lady Catherine is consciously or unconsciously misrepresenting what happened.

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Tumblr crosspost (26 April 2020)

I’m not sure there’s anything more Tumblr than the incessant stream of “it’s okay, you can just say X” responses to general villain posts.

(bonus if X keeps changing)

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Tumblr crosspost (27 April 2020)

elizabeth-karenina responded to this post with

#OMG! #I LOVE EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS

I replied:

Thank you very much :)

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Tumblr crosspost (27 April 2020)

An anon asked:

Do you think part of the reason why Tarrlok antagonized Tenzin was envy because Tenzin still had his brother Bumi, while Noatak was (thought to be) dead?

I replied:

Hmm. On the one hand, I don’t imagine that Tarrlok typically went around antagonizing people for having living brothers (for other reasons! just probably not that), and I do think the personality/morality clash is probably sufficient to explain their general animosity.

BUT it’s also really hard for me to imagine that Tenzin’s family background wasn’t a factor for Tarrlok, given how tightly Yakone ties his abuse of Noatak and Tarrlok to Aang. I mean, he says outright that punishing Aang is the purpose to their existence, and he prepares them for doing it by making them torture animals for years until they snap, which results in the apparent death of Tarrlok’s teenage older brother. That is a LOT.

And, like … Aang’s children all live to adulthood (and are still alive!). Aang’s children had normal childhoods and are reasonably close. And Aang’s son is right there on the council lecturing people. I definitely imagine that Tarrlok’s needling of Tenzin is a tiny, tiny outlet for the nuclear rage he actually feels.

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Tumblr crosspost (28 April 2020)

I once had a therapist who had me take the Enneagram, which was … weird, but it’s a fun system for thinking about fictional characters. I’ve been primarily using it to get original characters clear in my mind, but now it’s like … what about our faves?

Say, Darcy for me: I could see a few others, but I’m inclined to go for Type One, with features of both the healthy and unhealthy aspects:

Extremely principled, always want to be fair, objective, and ethical: truth and justice primary values. Sense of responsibility, personal integrity, and of having a higher purpose

-

Highly dogmatic, self-righteous, intolerant, and inflexible. Begin dealing in absolutes: they alone know “The Truth.” Everyone else is wrong: very severe in judgments, while rationalizing own actions

He has a weak Two wing (they can be “overbearing, patronizing, presumptuous” while Nine is reallyyy not him), but by the end, he mostly lands at just a solid healthy One:

Conscientious with strong personal convictions: they have an intense sense of right and wrong, personal, religious, and moral values. Wish to be rational, reasonable, self-disciplined, mature, moderate.

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Tumblr crosspost (28 April 2020)

kissmeagainarthas responded to this post:

Aro-ace Luke headcanons! *fistbump*

I replied:

*fistbump*

Aro-ace Luke is my forever headcanon and nobody will take it from me.

Tumblr crosspost (28 April 2020)

Female character meme!

I was tagged by cinefantastiquemitho and princesssarisa.

RULES: name 10 favorite female characters from 10 different fandoms and then tag 10 people.

1. I was just thinking about her, so Mary Crawford for Austen fandom

"No cold prudence for me. I am not born to sit still and do nothing. If I lose the game, it will not be from not striving for it."

2. Aravis of Calormen for Narnia fandom

She was proud and could be hard enough but she was true as steel.

3. Tar-Ancalimë for Tolkien fandom

But she did not refuse the Heirship, and determined that when her day came she would be a powerful Ruling Queen; and when so, to live where and how she pleased.

4. Annabella from ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore (which doesn’t have a fandom per se but shhhh she’s great)

VASQUES: Good sir, be reconciled; alas, good gentlewoman.

ANNABELLA: Pish, do not beg for me.

5. Avatar Korra for Avatar fandom

"You have always been strong, unyielding, fearless."

6. Leia Organa for SW fandom

"Somebody has to save our skins!"

7. Lucrezia Borgia for Borgias fandom

"I will have blood for this."

8. Lessa for Pern fandom

"Time, time, time. It’s always the wrong time. When is now the time?"

9. Moiraine Damodred for Wheel of Time fandom

"Before I let the Dark One have you, I will destroy you myself."

10. Sandrilene fa Toren for Tamora Pierce fandom

"If I tell you my friend is a lady, then you had best start lapping."

Tumblr crosspost (28 April 2020)

In response to this list, jubaah said:

This list is a delight

I replied:

:D :D :D

They’re different types but also … I have a type.

elperian said:

I love how mary crawford is at the top of your list

I replied:

Haha, I was literally in the shower like “wow, she’s just… so great…” and then got tagged! It was meant to be.

cosmonauthill said:

Aravis!! My forgotten babe!!

I replied:

I love her! She’s probably my favourite heroine in all of children’s literature, in fact. I mean, proud, hard, true as steel? HELL YEAH. My nine-year-old heart was just AHHHHH

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Tumblr crosspost (29 April 2020)

ajkldf; I sent off a chatty email in response to questions about my reading list from my most helpful yet intimidating committee member and admitted that lol this wasn’t even my area until recently THANK YOU FOR THE HELP and sent it off

ugh, COMMUNICATION

Tumblr crosspost (30 April 2020)

I reblogged a post about how Tolkien fandom doesn't just come up with headcanons, but headcanons drenched in literary sources from "all unreliable kinds of vague tolkien material" and tagged it:

#unreliable kinds of vague tolkien material is about right lol #though i can't lie; i owe my academic career to this #bc i got annoyed at certain tumblr silm fandom things and put together a vague overview of an argument about them #then reformatted it into an abstract and sent it off to a conference and ended up presenting on it #and then used that paper to apply to my master's program #so thanks silm fandom #...i guess

Tumblr crosspost (30 April 2020)

I reblogged a post about the ways in which the places we love can feel like they belong to us and attempts to redefine those places can feel like betrayal, and tagged it:

#yeah #my conservative relatives complain about portland all the time and i keep my mouth shut #but inwardly i'm just HOW DARE