Tumblr crosspost (11 December 2020)

An anon asked:

Do you have any family trees for children and marriages in the Fourth Age? Or any other Tolkien expanded family trees?

I answered the first question here, but I also do have a Grand Unified Headcanon family tree here, with red lines where generations are skipped. There are a lot of stories/story concepts embedded into the tree, some inspired by or dependent on canon, and some just “hey, I’ve had an idea,” so … feel free to ask about anyone on it!

Tagged: #i know it's ... uh. a lot #but there it is!

Tumblr crosspost (11 December 2020)

An anon said:

I'm glad you liked the question, I find the possible vagaries of Darcy's family fascinating (while the Gardiners are the only ones in Elizabeth's family of continuing interest to me) so I'm really enjoying your headcanons. And since he's close to Lady Mary, I can see Darcy doting on her daughters too, from the way you always write him as good with kids.

I replied:

Thank you! And yes, definitely—I was only thinking of the adults, but I imagine that he’s super fond of and indulgent towards the girls, and has a particular soft spot for Sophia, who is gangly and awkward and clever.

Tumblr crosspost (11 December 2020)

I reblogged a post from fairycosmos about how frustrating it is to be mentally ill while knowing how you're coming across, and added:

#god this #especially when you keep doing the same things after telling yourself you would not do the same things if given a chance but can't seem to ever get it right #and then people are like oh there's nothing wrong :) everyone's brain is different :) :) :) #like... fuck offfff #autism #depression #anxiety #hypomania #everything lol

Tumblr crosspost (11 December 2020)

It’s not that the last four years haven’t been weird and awful, but this election has been really, really strange.

Tagged: #the now deeply conservative scotus just went 'bzuh?' at texas's case and it's like #yeah. 'bzuh?' is pretty much my feeling too

[ETA 3/13/2024: This is somewhat "huh" to read in retrospect—I didn't see the insurrection coming at all, but I feel like "something weird is in the air" was basically the right instinct!]

Tumblr crosspost (12 December 2020)

I’m halfway through the current monster essay and the temptation to just say “I’m a doctoral student, not a historian!” is very strong.

Tagged: #me: *earnestly talking about how literary depictions and historical practice are very distinct things* #in general but also in this specific instance #...i think #but i don't know because I AM NOT A HISTORIAN

Tumblr crosspost (12 December 2020)

An anon asked:

Do you plan on watching some of the Star Wars shows that were just annonced?

I replied:

I’m pretty excited/scared about Andor! And Lando might also be cool. I don’t have Disney+, though—I watched The Mandalorian by marathoning it with my best friend who has it, so I’ll probably see things wayyyy after everyone else.

elperian responded:

the conflicted state of being about ‘andor’ tbh

I replied:

lol, right? the duality of fandom!

[ETA 3/13/2024: speaking of foresight, lmao]

Tumblr crosspost (12 December 2020)

I’m kind of morbidly curious if the Joseph Epstein arguing today that Jill Biden shouldn’t call herself “Dr Biden” is the same Joseph Epstein who called Stephen Greenblatt a brain tumor on academia in the 90s.

Tagged: #i mentioned the latter in passing in my 16th cent exam and suddenly saw the name again and was like... the fuck? #and it went down from there

Tumblr crosspost (14 December 2020)

An anon said:

I dislike Aragorn's claim to the throne: he's the descendant of a deposed dynasty, and the only reason he has any claim at all is because the current dynasty didn't want to call themselves kings. He's a war-hero, and a talented general, and won the heart of the people of Gondor thru some flashy theatrics, but the fact of the matter is that he wants Gondor's throne because he wants to marry his girlfriend, not because he cares about the well-being of Gondor.

I replied:

Hmmm. I’m broadly sympathetic to this, though I disagree to some extent in the particulars. I wouldn’t say the Isildurioni were deposed, just conquered, though they are indeed very lucky that the Stewardship never morphed into an established kingship over a nearly thousand-year-long reign. I also wouldn’t call Aragorn’s rescue of southern Gondor merely theatrical; I think it’s where he’s most legitimately heroic in terms of the people of Gondor. Ultimately, I think it makes him more of an Eärnil figure than an Arvedui, which makes him more palatable to me.

I am really ambivalent about his motivations, though. He does seem to feel a certain alignment with Gondor on account of his ancestry, and we don’t hear about his other motivation within the main body of LOTR (iirc). While the association with Gondor can take on a decidedly entitled flavor (as in the linked quote), I do think it suggests it’s not wholly on Arwen’s account that he’s seeking the kingship. I certainly would like more of a sense of how he thinks and feels about Gondor’s people, though.

Nevertheless, overall I think his claim as inherited from Arvedui is pretty messy and requires a lot of things beyond the merits of the claim going right for him. It’s not like his own abilities and virtues have nothing to do with his success; indeed, the messiness of his claim is what makes his abilities so necessary. But the idea that he’s the rightful king of Gondor by blood alone is something that I think is super questionable; I really do think Aragorn becomes king in a way that other heirs of Isildur were not.

Tumblr crosspost (14 December 2020)

So I was trying to go to sleep the other night and decided to vanity search myself at an Austen site I used to frequent (not sure why I thought this would help). But it was weirdly entertaining. Things that turned up:

• someone annoyed five years ago that I had stopped updating a fic (and the previous version of the fic, at that). I still haven’t updated it.
• someone who really liked my grey-ace!Darcy fic and someone else who thought it “implausible” even if he were ace
• someone who thought I’m no longer around because I stopped updating my livejournal
• someone who thought I’d written an epic about my NOTP; I’d seen this one before, but not the response explaining that I didn’t write it, but am friends with the author (I do not know the author)
• someone thanking me by name (well, username) for a minor anonymous criticism I had made many years before
• someone I’ve always liked and admired complimenting my old headcanons :)

Tumblr crosspost (14 December 2020)

I kind of love that Éowyn has no idea that Faramir kept his seat while being chased by multiple Ringwraiths and then turned back to help his men, and probably doesn’t know much of anything else about him either, but almost immediately upon meeting him decides he must be a warrior equal-to-or-better-than any of the Rohirrim.

(I do imagine that someone mentioned this event to her at some point and she’s just … yeah, thought so.)

Tagged: #i do really enjoy that of all the potential ... skills of war that he might have #he's above all else an amazing /horseman/ #given who he marries and her kneejerk 'hmm he seems very gentle but i'm getting kickass vibes' response #in my more schmaltzy moments i like just imagining them riding out together or racing each other or whatnot

Tumblr crosspost (15 December 2020)

An anon said:

Elizabeth/Colonel Fitzwilliam is a NOTP for me as well, the pairing seems to only exist to torment Darcy!

I replied:

*fistbump*

I know there are people who ship it for its own sake, as happens with any ship, but I get a reallyyyy strong “so THERE, Darcy” flavor from a lot of it.

Tumblr crosspost (15 December 2020)

An anon said:

Just stumbled across your Darcy/Emma fic which was delightful, and I can't help wondering what Knightley would think of their relationship, and what Darcy would think of Knightley? Would love to hear any of your headcanons for this!

I replied:

Oh, thank you! It’s an old one, but was fun to come up with and write.

I think it’d be very difficult for Mr Knightley. In part, there’s his general love for Emma, which naturally would make the whole thing painful, but I think Darcy’s character would also make it complicated.

On the one hand, Darcy is very respectable and upstanding, in ways that I think Mr Knightley would value, and to some extent, Darcy could be a good influence on Emma (he’s more deliberate, more disciplined). But on the other, they share quite a few faults and would probably only exacerbate them in each other, which would be painful to watch even for the limited duration of Mr Woodhouse’s lifetime.

And then they’re gone for just about forever. I imagine there would certainly be an amount of resentment and disapproval of Darcy mixed in with general respect—it’d be hard.

As for Darcy, I think he would be largely oblivious to all this, or at least fairly indifferent. Mr Knightley isn’t the sort of person he’s usually drawn to (who seem to be lively, outgoing types), but at the same time, is very much the sort of person he’d respect IMO. So he thinks well of him, but without a lot of interest in him—if they’re thrown into company together, he’s happy enough to talk with him, but he doesn’t go out of his way to seek him out or anything like that. He mostly thinks about him in relation to Emma.

After they leave for Pemberley, I doubt he’d think much about him at all.

Tagged: #this is probably not the most exciting answer #but is what i envision there!

Tumblr crosspost (15 December 2020)

For my headcanon anon: Darcy and the Darcy/non-Fitzwilliam connections that he’s closest to in my headcanon!

Short version: apart from Georgiana, these are Lady Auckland, Thomas Stanley, Lord Carrington, and Cassandra Darcy.

Longggg version:

( Read more... )

Tumblr crosspost (15 December 2020)

I’ve been thinking back on the Fandom Experience, and was remembering the opposite of the vanity searching—some of the odder experiences of being told things directly:

• I got a comment on a fic asking if leaving it unfinished made me feel desired.
• I got a comment on a different fic telling me that they knew I wasn’t writing for the ’95 mini-series and that I dislike it, but that they always pictured my Darcy as Colin Firth anyway. Darcy is a) blue-eyed and b) a woman in that fic.
• I got anonymous hate because I headcanon Luke Skywalker as asexual.
• A troll apologized for missing my birthday.
• A random person informed me that my fic was Wrong and Darcy’s mother wouldn’t be Lady Anne but Mrs Darcy, and his uncle should be Lord Matlock. [ETA 3/13/2024: Lady Anne being called "Mrs Darcy" and her brother being "Lord Matlock" are both from the ’95 mini-series and not in the novel; the first seems to be a mistake and the last an invention.]
• Someone on AO3 told me that my fic was great, and also, it was shitty of me not to respond to comments.
• Someone told me they had been sent by an anonymous group of haters who wanted me to tag my Silmarillion posts so they didn’t have to see them. (I already was tagging them.)
• Someone told me that calling The Horse and His Boy racist made me the racist one, actually.

None of these were the end of the world, and my general experience of fandom has been mainly positive, but sometimes it is … really strange.

Tumblr crosspost (15 December 2020)

steinbecks responded to this post:

one of my personal favorites was someone on anon saying i should be more grateful for the comments/reviews i was getting on fic. like “if i was getting what you get, i’d be thanking people on bended knee” or something

I replied:

lol, wow

steinbecks responded:

how nice of your troll to remember your birthday tho! you live rent-free in their head

Tumblr crosspost (15 December 2020)

capablecapybara responded to this post:

all your p&p content is chef’s kiss!

I replied:

Hey, thank you very much! It’s really nice to hear :)

Whew

I got into a debate with a friend that touched on the Ottoman genocides, I went to do some research to make sure I was remembering details correctly, fell down a rabbit hole of research, and wow I'm not sleeping tonight.

The conversational aside was specifically about the assassination of Talaat Pasha, which also happened on March 15th. My birthday! I mean, not my birthday at the time, obviously—I would not be born until many decades later—but it is certainly a day for the annals of history. I cherish and respect Tumblr's hatred of Julius Caesar, but he's got nothing on Talaat Pasha. I wish I believed in hell specifically so I could believe he's burning in it.

(Fun fact: my grandmother, who is Greek, used to hint darkly about some misdeed of "the Turks" that she's still got a grudge about, and for years, I thought she was just being vaguely Islamophobic. I did eventually get the impression of something happening not long before she was born, maybe. But I was still really unsure about any details until I was digging through some articles on a trip during my master's program and discovered that "vague misdeeds" were entire fucking genocides that my own country, the USA, did not find it politically convenient to acknowledge until years later.)

Tumblr crosspost (16 December 2020)

I reblogged a post from madseance about not so much having plot as affection for the characters.

Tagged: #this is eighty-five percent of the original fic #/sigh #also plenty of my fanfics lol