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.)

In reference to this meme, rain-sleet-snow said:

I'm curious about Philadelphia!

I replied:

So, once upon a time, I wrote a P&P AU that basically re-tells the whole story, but with m!Elizabeth and f!Darcy. The main appeal for me personally was f!Darcy, though, and while that one stuck pretty firmly to the P&P rails, I couldn’t help thinking of a more ‘what-if’ style AU where Darcy is the only genderbent one. Darcy/Elizabeth femslash!

The doc is called ‘Philadelphia’ because I was trying to think of a feminine name that began with the Fi- sound but also had L’s in it, and thought of either Philippa or Philadelphia—I chose the latter because it sounded more pretentious to me, lol, and because it was a name used repeatedly in Austen’s own family. Here's an excerpt:

To be sure, Miss Darcy neither did nor said anything wrong. Her manners, however uninviting, were correct; her appearance was more than correct. Elizabeth had never seen a handsomer woman, except Jane, whom Miss Darcy did not resemble in the slightest. To look at her, in fact, she might have been Lady Catherine’s daughter rather than insipid Miss de Bourgh. Miss Darcy had the same black curls, the same cold dark eyes in a colourless face, the same decided way of carrying herself. 

Elizabeth did not suppose that Lady Catherine had ever been quite as pretty, or as sensible. Miss Darcy spoke well when she deigned to speak at all—but her air of superiority was exactly Lady Catherine’s. The haughty silences would have been, too, if Lady Catherine ever confined herself to silence.

[ETA 3/3/2024: as you might guess, the "Philadelphia" fic was an early iteration of Love, Pride & Delicacy, but I ended up changing a few major things about it: I decided to re-use "Catherine" as f!Darcy's name just because it struck me as so apropos for Lady Anne's and Lady Catherine's daughters, Elizabeth goes from moderately disliking Philadelphia personally but not even remembering that she was supposed to be Wickham's villain to carrying a grudge against Catherine for Wickham's sake, and Philadelphia was implicitly white while Catherine is visibly biracial.]

Belatedly, here's the third challenge!

Create a wish list of fandom things (podfic, graphics, playlists, canon recs translations, research help, vids, sky's the limit!) that you'd like to receive. Post your answer to today’s challenge in your own space and leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

This one stalled me because I love art so much that it was hard to think of anything else! I'm flattered by getting podficced, but because my particular autistic auditory issues don't work well with audiobooks/podcasts/etc, it's not something I'd specifically ask for. But images are great (graphics or more traditional art). So I'll go for what I honestly would most like at this moment in time:

1. I haven't even written it yet (...okay, mostly haven't written it), but I'd love some kind of art/graphic/whatnot for the Commander Bennet (P&P/Mass Effect) AU, especially involving Elizabeth (as Commander Bennet aka FemShep) and/or Darcy (as Dr. Illia T'Arzi aka Liara, though she looks more like Aria in something like Liara's clothes in my head, haha). I envision Elizabeth as an Infiltrator-like tech expert and Illia as a powerful, skilled biotic who occasionally remembers that guns exist.

2. In terms of fic I have written, probably the single fic I would most like a visual gift for is The Jedi and the Sith Lord, the third fic in my f!Luke Skywalker series, but the first one where the plot truly is drastically and permanently wrenched off the rails by the AU. The entire fic is about what happens after Lucy (f!Luke) gets taken captive by Anakin/Vader in the previous fic, and I'm not sure how many of you seeing this have read it (if any!), but I've always thought art of the scene where Lucy strikes her deal with Vader (in Ch 16) would be really cool. But really anything for it would be awesome—it's one of my most beloved of my fics (not necessarily the best, but one of the dearest to me personally).

3. Art of Tolkien canon Faramir—long black hair (not shoulder-length "long," long enough to stream out in the wind and mingle with the considerably shorter Éowyn's), naturally beardless, grey eyes, with the canonical "fair face" (as in pretty, not pale), very tall. Bonus for a more Byzantine aesthetic that would contrast with the usual quasi-western medieval vibe. Bonus if with Éowyn (blonde, grey eyes) or Aragorn (also beardless, tall, greying hair).

3b. Speaking of the Faramir/Éowyn scene, a variant: I mentioned on Tumblr awhile back that in an earlier draft, Éowyn cut her hair as part of her male disguise. People quibbled with me being like "hey that would be cool too" but I stand by the greatness of long-haired Faramir+post-haircut Éowyn.

4. Since this is a random wish list and not an exchange, I'll actually go wild: bookverse f/f Faramir/Aragorn in basically any medium. My personal preference would be for f!Aragorn to be a tough, hardened warrior and f!Faramir to not be a warrior at all.

5. Something for Love, Pride & Delicacy.

Looking over these, all but one involve genderbent characters. Ah well, I am what I am.

I am having a ton of fun with this chapter of LP&D—I'm about 3.5 pages in and still have some plot sequence stuff to nail down, so there's a ways to go. Normally, I'd post the excerpt I'm having fun with at Tumblr, but I don't want to spoil Catherine's opening scene. But. DW is safer and better at spoiler cuts, so:

( cut for spoiler! )

Some spoilers under the cut, though probably unsurprising ones:

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A fancast/aesthetic post for the f/f Darcy/Elizabeth AU that haunts me, with Simone Ashley as Catherine Darcy (f!Fitzwilliam Darcy) and Daisy Edgar-Jones as Elizabeth Bennet.

An anon asked:

Have you ever played around with gender-swapped Pride & Prejudice?

I replied:

Oh, bless you, haha.

I wrote 36k of f!Darcy/m!Elizabeth here. There are some other fics in the ’verse that you can see if you click on “Series.”

I brainstormed a fully genderbent P&P with tulina and hl, but then couldn’t do my part for personal reasons, so they wrote the whole thing. It’s here.

I also have a f!Darcy/Elizabeth femslash fic in scraps. The longest piece is here [Tumblr link].

( tags )

it was nice and i'm gay for miss catherine darcy because of fucking course i am

Mission accomplished, tbh. <3

(Honestly, I am still gratified after all these years that Catherine turned out to be the highlight of First Impressions for ... like, everyone who did like it. She was absolutely the reason I wrote it, so lol, SUCCESS.)

I got my Yuletide letter! I have no idea what to do! So, getting into the spirit of things, I wrote around three times the minimum requirement in the last twelve hours for something completely unrelated.

title: assurances of attachment (1/2)
verse: First Impressions! (always-a-girl!Darcy, always-a-boy!Elizabeth, spoilers for literally the entire fic)

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I've discovered that I don't hate religion, per se, just mine. Um, yay.

But seriously. A teacher explaining that there has only ever been one universally accepted model of marriage until now as the lesson to be learned from Abraham's family is so horrifically wrong that, in retrospect, it starts coming around the other side. That family tree is the simplified version I made to help me sort out the main characters. Now I wish I'd drawn it on the board.

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Title: First Impressions (8/13, 9/13)

Fanverse: First Impressions

Blurb: Henry finishes his trip to Hunsford, discusses the fallout with Jane, then goes with the Gardiners to Pemberley and gets another harsh dose of reality.

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( Chapter Eight )

( Chapter Nine )