Anghraine

I'm taking a brief break from my dissertation to ... uh, amuse myself by figuring out my readers' ranking of my genderbending fics on AO3.

Rules I'm applying: 1) I'm only including fic verses that are collectively at least 2000 words long because, well, I do have to go back to the diss, 2) verses comprised of multiple fics are ranked according to either the popularity of the series as a whole or the most popular individual fic (depending on which is higher; not combining them because there's a lot of overlap), 3) I'm considering both bookmarks and kudos in my judgment—we'll see if it makes a difference, and 4) I'm ignoring everything with less than 30 kudos and 5 bookmarks.

1. First Impressions | 215 bookmarks | 876 kudos | genderbent characters: Elizabeth Bennet (-> Henry Bennet) and Fitzwilliam Darcy (-> Catherine Darcy)

This is a genderswapped retelling of Pride and Prejudice set in its original period (not really a true "what if"). All stats are specifically for the original (completed) 36k fic. It individually beats out every possible stat for every other fic in the series as well as the series as a whole. (Note: The overall series is 44k words long.)

2. Lucy Skywalker series | 163 bookmarks | 406 kudos (The Jedi and the Sith Lord) | genderbent characters: Luke Skywalker (-> Lucy Skywalker)

This is a genderbent AU that mostly, but not completely, sticks to the rails of canon until the end of the ESB timeline, at which point it swerves into the "real" AU. The Jedi and the Sith Lord is the sequel to The Imperial Menace/the ESB plot, and the third fic in the main series, focusing on the consequences of Vader capturing Lucy. It's technically completed at 70k, but only in the sense that it explores what happens to/with Lucy and Vader until the nature of her captivity fundamentally changes, and everything after that will be a separate fic but hasn't been written yet. Although none of the individual fics have as many bookmarks as the series as a whole, my #2, #3, and #4 most bookmarked genderbent fics are all for the Lucyverse. (Note: the overall series is 129k words long.)

3. Love, Pride & Delicacy | 25 bookmarks | 163 kudos | genderbent characters: Fitzwilliam Darcy (-> Catherine Darcy, for convenience)

This is an actual Elizabeth/f!Darcy "what if" femslash AU rather than a retelling, though a slow one—it's still early in the overall story at 25k. It's also placed in the original P&P setting. There is no wider series.

4. The Lady of Gondor | 25 bookmarks | 119 kudos (we also are daughters of the great) | genderbent characters: Faramir (-> Fíriel)

This is a deeply self-indulgent Aragorn/f!Faramir/Éowyn AU, though it's not only a WIP but split into different vaguely related fics (some of which are also WIPs!) about some aspect of the verse in relation to Fíriel. I think the norms of Gondor and Middle-earth make the gender change particularly significant (in some ways more than any other verse), so actual plot and relationship changes tend to be the focus. The kudos are for the specific linked fic, which is a WIP at nearly 5k and the most Éowyn-centric of them. (Note: the overall series is about 9.5k words long.)

5. The Edge of Darkness | 17 bookmarks | 106 kudos | genderbent characters: Tarrlok (-> Taraka)

This is a genderbent f!Tarrlok AU, though told entirely from Noatak/Amon's perspective, and to some extent more about the impact on him than on Taraka herself (though she's extremely important to the fic). Even more than that, the linked fic is focused on the effect of the change on their family dynamics as children, until teenage Noatak leaves her behind per canon. The fic can look like a retelling à la First Impressions, since the basic plot points don't change, but the larger series is on course to swerve into full "what if" territory as well. However, like First Impressions, these stats are all for the completed opening fic (18k) and not the longer WIP series (32k), which is temporarily paused at the point where 37-year-old Taraka openly identifies Amon as Noatak. CW: child abuse.

6. Blood and Fire | 16 bookmarks | 67 kudos | genderbent characters: Tarrlok (-> Taraka) and Noatak (-> Nataka)

This is a dark(er) AU of The Edge of Darkness in which Noatak/Amon is also genderbent, and the bloodbending siblings never separated. Taraka fled home with Nataka back in the day, they only grew closer (...too close), and although Taraka still ended up on the Republic City council, her true loyalty is to Amon. She promptly turns Korra over when Amon shows up, which is where the fic begins; it's told entirely through Korra's attempts to navigate her circumstances as a prisoner of the Equalists. CW: incest, complicated F/F/F dubcon??? emotional bonding kink with occasional violence yet little overt romance and no sex. I am what I am. The stats are for the completed (though deliberately ambiguous) main fic, which is 10k, and not the side fics or the series as a whole (13k).

7. The Queer Rogue One AU | 12 bookmarks | 57 kudos (the words we've both fallen under) | genderbent characters: Cassian Andor (-> Cassia Andor)

This is, on one level, a relatively straightforward genderbent!Cassian AU that is more or less complete at 13k. The underlying concepts are: a) what if my male fave was a hot lesbian and my ship was f/f and b) what if we headcanon every single member of the main team as queer in some capacity :D and c) the SW universe is so blatantly patriarchal in the films that it's a particularly interesting setting for exploring the effects of the gender change on someone like Cassia, a female revolutionary and spy :D :D. It's a little challenging to properly evaluate where it sits wrt stats because I revised the scattered, vaguely connected scraps of the universe into a single fic through both sentence-level revisions and significant additions, but that revision is only on Tumblr (where the link currently goes to, sorry) and my GoogleDrive, not AO3. It's not even a series in my heart! But it is on AO3. Evaluate as you will, but when I finally get around to converting the AO3 version to the correct format this may or may not change. For now this is where it goes by AO3 stats.

8. Daughters of Númenor series | 5 bookmarks | 33 kudos (the voices of the sea) | genderbent characters: all Númenórean throwbacks in LOTR, but specifically Aragorn (-> Aranor), Faramir (-> Míriel), Denethor (-> Andreth), and Imrahil (-> Imraphel)

As might be guessed, this is an AU where every Númenórean throwback mentioned in LOTR is genderbent (in the backstory, this also includes Ivriniel and Finduilas of Dol Amroth, who become Túrin, Prince of Dol Amroth, and Gwindor of Dol Amroth). It's Aranor/Míriel and definitely focused on them despite the broader change (where Arwen is a non-factor for the OT3 in The Lady of Gondor because she went to Valinor with Celebrían, she actually is present in Middle-earth in this series, though unfortunately very straight). While Fíriel in The Lady of Gondor was never expected to be a warrior and gets on reasonably well with Denethor, this AU is more about the broader effects—so even though we rarely see f!Denethor/Andreth, it's significant that she was a trailblazer as a female warrior, loremaster, and ultimately the first female ruler of Gondor, inadvertently laying a foundation that Aranor could build on later (which would have horrified Andreth herself!). The specific fic with the most kudos in the series, linked above, is a nearly 2k fic about the effect of Faramir's canonical visions on Míriel. (Note: the overall series is currently 3k words long.)

I saw an interesting, but also somewhat disturbing, conversation about the history of the Sansa Stark hatedom that touched on something I've been thinking about for awhile.

The Sansa hatedom discussion was sparked by someone asking about the reasons for the dudebro Sansa hatedom of days of yore. Someone else brought up these same dudebros' idealization of Arya by contrast with Sansa and how they basically valued Arya in "not like the other girls" terms. Yet another person argued that this was #problematic because the criticism of NLOG is homophobic. Somebody was like ... don't you mean misogynistic? Neither of these characters are gay? The previous person explained that the criticism of NLOG ignores the social context that it arises out of and disproportionately targets GNC women who are often lesbians, hence the connection with homophobia.

I do get that a lot of the kneejerk condemnation of NLOG rhetoric arises out of the misogynistic and gender essentialist and generally fucked-up perception of GNC women as threatening to femininity in some way, that plenty of those GNC women are lesbians or otherwise WLW and thus it can factor into homophobia in practice, and that those condemnations of the NLOG rhetoric are trotted out to dismiss the most basic criticisms of gender role expectations for women (imagine a conversation about the connection between the make-up industry or body hair removal and the widespread social pressure put on women to conform to narrowly-defined and generally harmful and expensive beauty standards that did not promptly turn into defensive choice feminism screeds).

I even get that there are over-invested Sansa stans who prop her up at Arya's expense because they find Sansa's conformity to feminine gender performance appealing and more appropriate to their own expectations for women/girls, and that they have used criticisms of NLOG rhetoric to bash Arya (or basically any woman/girl who even mildly diverges from gender performance norms).

But in this case, the conversation was about the ways Sansa has been harshly criticized for her association with femininity/feminine performance, mostly by adult men hyper-scrutinizing the gender performance of a fictional eleven-year-old girl, and framed as inferior to Arya because those men (like many men!) hold anything and anyone associated with femininity in contempt. That is something that very definitely did happen, frequently. There is a reason that "like a girl" or "girly" is an insult and has considerable power in defining what masculinity looks like to so many men and boys (there are further complications w/ this that I don't have the time to get into, but it's certainly a very conspicuous aspect of the construction of normative masculinity). The idea that an entirely accurate description of something that actually happened is problematic, even unspeakable, because the criticism has been misused in other contexts sits really uncomfortably with me. It feels a bit like creeping up to alternative facts from the other side.

However. I'm also writing about hyper-scrutiny in my dissertation—generally speaking, the way in which women's behavior (especially wrt sexuality) is placed under such intense scrutiny that you get this obsessive nitpicking and over-scrutinizing of anything and everything a woman or female character does or feels. Literary critics absolutely fall prey to this and that's the context of the discussion in my dissertation—essentially, that each individual nitpick they're making could be correct as far as it goes, but the cascade of so many of them and the way some early modernist critics concentrate this scrutiny on female characters does seem pretty misogynistic after a while. And I've seen that kind of behavior in other contexts.

Like, when MTG released LOTR art in which Aragorn was depicted as Black, some people were explicitly racist about it, and some people explicitly welcomed the depiction. But the thing I noticed was the way that some people would make all these detail-focused criticisms of the art that didn't mention race at all, but seemed very disproportionately directed towards the art pieces that presented heroic characters as POC. And many of the people doing this were familiar as the same people who responded similarly to The Rings of Power, especially the characters played by POC. Some of these critics just kept escalating and eventually went full mask-off; there was one former follower (former because I blocked him) who at first seemed a normal enough nitpicky purist (something I get), then suspiciously so, and within a couple of days his blog was just overtly racist responses to any heroic Tolkien characters being depicted as POC. Some of these people never went that far, but would actively minimize the impact of racism and misogyny on the general ROP discourse (like, there were popular ROP discourse memes in which the more respectable criticisms were presented up front in large letters and the racism/misogyny in significantly smaller font on the edges of the image). Others didn't do that, either, but still hyper-focused on every "wrong" detail about characters played by POC like Disa, Arondir, and Míriel.

It is, let's say, unsurprising that the ROP characters who probably got the most positive fandom reception in the end despite the general histrionics around the show were Elrond, Durin, Halbrand, and (more controversially) Galadriel. The most popular ROP ship by a gigantic mile is a white het ship, and at least on AO3, Celeborn (who does not appear in the show and is only very briefly and belatedly mentioned at all) shows up in more ROP fics than any of the characters played by POC (Arondir and Isildur barely squeak onto AO3's top ten list of commonly tagged ROP characters, following after Galadriel, Halbrand/Sauron twice, Elrond, Adar, Elendil, Gil-galad, and Celeborn, with Míriel, Disa, and Bronwyn not even making the list).

So, like ... it's not news that Tolkien fandom is racist and misogynistic. But the broader point is that popular condemnation of something can reach such a volume and be so disproportionately targeted that even things that are individually true or at least defensible in isolation start looking really suspect. And often they are really suspect in ways that become pretty obvious (it's about ethics in gaming journalism!!!!). But I'm not entirely sure how to reconcile my extreme distaste for "you can't use criticism of NLOG to characterize dudebro fans actively using that exact framework in a grossly misogynistic way because of the homophobes" and my extreme distaste for Tolkien fandom's refusal to consider the context before they start going on screeds about Arondir or MTG Aragorn.

ngl I have yet to read any justification for Aragorn's argument that Théoden's edicts should not apply to him in Rohan that I didn't find deeply annoying.

I just saw yet another one on Tumblr, which ultimately was not very different from the rest. The argument was that given actual Anglo-Saxon customs, it is Théoden's requirement that everyone relinquish their weapons (often great heirlooms, which Andúril is) that is unreasonable, not Aragorn's distaste for doing so. In other permutations, it's Háma who is being short-sighted in not accepting Aragorn's greater authority. But essentially the idea is that Théoden's command itself is sketchy and Aragorn is the one being reasonable.

None of this addresses the actual problem, though, which Háma himself does.

Yes, Théoden's insistence that warriors relinquish their swords or other weapons is clearly framed as dubious and a marker of Gríma's malign influence over him, much like the use of the Rohirrim's language as a shibboleth. This is perfectly evident even without bringing in Anglo-Saxon history. Yes, Aragorn has good reason to be uneasy about leaving Andúril lying around with a random door warden. None of that is the problem.

Aragorn does not only argue that Théoden's decree with regard to weaponry in his hall is a bad idea. He argues that it is not his (Aragorn's) will to give up his weapon and that "it is not clear to me" that Théoden's will as king of Rohan should override his own as heir of Elendil "of Gondor."

There are a number of issues at play here:

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.

Unsurprisingly … there’s an AU that lives rent-free in my head where Faramir remains Ruling Steward in Gondor, and Aragorn wholly dedicates himself to rebuilding Arnor (assisted by Gondor after the war).

Sometimes it’s in a Denethor lives scenario; it’s not like Denethor was ever going to concede the Ruling Stewardship, healing hands or no healing hands, but his gratitude(!) to Aragorn for saving Faramir might lead to him being much more accommodating as an ally than he would otherwise be.

But also, sometimes it’s not out of strict necessity—perhaps Elrond “only” requires the restoration of Arnor for Arwen’s hand and so that’s the overriding goal that Aragorn focuses on, (rightly) trusting Faramir to have his back in Gondor. (And/or he himself wants to prioritize Arnor; he could, of course, become King of Gondor but largely leave it in Faramir’s hands while dealing with Arnor, and I sort of wrote a fic where this is the case, but ehhh.)

Or there’s some vague idea where Elrond’s conditions are the same and Aragorn has to make a very hard choice, but makes it nevertheless, and it’s Elrond who ultimately concedes, accepting a future for Arwen as “only” Queen of Arnor. This works most easily with alive!Denethor, but idk, part of me prefers the idea of it as an independent choice even though I’m really into scenarios where Denethor survives.

The thing is, of course, that Aragorn in the book is so focused on becoming King of Gondor and feels so strongly that it is his right to do so that it takes a lot of finagling to make it work. It’s just not probable for his character.

…and yet.

Tagged: #legendarium fanwank #putting that one there to be safe since it's kind of intrinsically wanky #éowyn: no longer do i wish to be a queen #faramir: well technically you wouldn't be... #aww but éowyn as the ranking lady of gondor is also really charming to me #i know that at the end of the day it's no less monarchist but ... i like and want it

It’s occurred to me that two of my least favorite scenes in two very different adaptations are … basically the same.

(Predictably, ranting negativity re: Jackson’s LOTR and Davies’s P&P under the cut)

( Read more... )

Not to harp on the same points eternally, but…

Tolkien denied that using Old English to represent the language of the Rohirrim meant they are functionally old English, but at the least they seem to be roughly northern European. OTOH, he very heatedly insisted that Gondor is not northern European and compared it at varying points to Italy, the Byzantine Empire, and ancient Egypt. In particular, he described Minas Tirith as analogous to Rome and Byzantium (which one depends on the context).

Nothing is 1:1 in Middle-earth, but those are at least the closest inspirations.

And sometimes I wonder about … aesthetics, you know? Not just horses vs trees, but say—Éowyn and Faramir’s wedding in Rohan, with Éowyn in her Eorling gown and Faramir and perhaps Lothíriel et al in Byzantine Gondorian robes, and all the different hairstyles and different musical traditions and so on. And like, is the starry mantle a sort of whatsit … chlamys? What about hairstyles/pieces? Does Aragorn switch from Ranger gear (whatever that looks like) to robes like Justinian’s?

Or … I don’t know, but I’m just curious about what the contrast between Rohan and Gondor could look like. 

Tagged: #i am genuinely thinking of commissioning faramir/éowyn art that really shows a contrast between their backgrounds and cultures #there's a lot of pretty art but i think the generic medieval conception of rohan and esp gondor touches quite a bit of it

Quora sent me a response about Aragorn’s claim to the throne that heavily downplayed the Stewards while completely overlooking some very salient elements of the original claim (like, Arvedui claiming to be the rightful king of Gondor under a misrepresentation of Númenórean law while his father was alive)

And then the first annoying response came from

Orson Scott Card

Tagged: #i mean. i already despised him but apparently he's on lotr threads on quora now #he wrote my favorite writing book as a young closeted lds writer so i'm very ADJKFKJADFK;ADFJKAGHHHH about him generally #WILL I NEVER BE FREE