my reflection somewhere inside these walls

[lotesse]

{tred tired semester teaching exam list argh} - so pretty much the usual. Except I'm pretty sure that when George Gissing told me that "there are half a million more women than men in this happy country of ours," i.e. Victorian Britain, he was either wrong, lying, or doing some really weird shit with population statistics. Because. That can't possibly be true.

And, for a change, I am writing words that are fictiony! Which is making me so, so, so happy. And, yanno, maybe someday I'll even finish a fic and I can do that thing I used to do where I posted the words on the internet and people read them. In the meantime, meme! Ganked from everywhere, idek:

Pick a number and I'll answer the question.

1 - Your current OTP
2 - A pairing you initially didn’t consider but someone changed your mind
3 - A pairing you have never liked and probably never will
4 - A pairing you wish you liked but just can’t
5 - Have you added anything stupid/cracky/hilarious to your fandom, if so, what
6 - What’s the longest you’ve ever been in a fandom
7 - Do you remember your first OTP, if so who was in it
8 - Do you prefer characters from real action series or anime series
9 - Has the internet caused you to stop liking any fandoms, if so, which and why
10 - Name a fandom you didn’t care/think about until you saw it all over tumblr [let's substitute LJ here for a more meaningful question in my case]
11 - How do you feel about the other people in your current fandom
12 - Your favorite fanartist/author gives you one request, what do you ask for
13 - Your favorite fanart or fanartist
14 - Your favorite fanfiction or fanauthor
15 - Choose a song at random, which OTP does it remind you of
16 - Invent a random AU for any fandom (we always need more ideas)
17 - A ship you’ve abandoned and why
18 - A pairing you ship that you don’t think anyone else ships
19 - Show us an example of your personal headcanon
20 - Do you remember what your first fanwork was?
21 - Self-rec: What's your favorite fanwork you've created?
22 - Are you one of those fans who can’t watch anything without shipping
23 - 5 favorite characters from 5 different fandoms
24 - 3 OTPs from 3 different fandoms
25 - A fandom you’re in but have no ships from
26 - Just ramble about something fan-related, go go go

Comments

[boxofdelights]

Gissing's assertion seems to be a fact, or at least not unique to his world view.

Here's one source I found with a quick google:
http://books.google.com/books?id=apSV53gGaOIC&pg=PA5&lpg=PA5&dq=surplus+women+over+men+in+Victorian+England+1871+census&source=bl&ots=BhUHEddnsS&sig=ldoowC0dlxP6qrOiEwnBH4fXN_Q&hl=en&sa=X&ei=1Z4-UNyvHLTUyQH1_YDYBQ&ved=0CDsQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=surplus%20women%20over%20men%20in%20Victorian%20England%201871%20census&f=false

This says that the imbalance was caused by imperialism: that many unmarried men (but not unmarried women) went to the colonies.

[wishfulclicking]

2

[oursin]

Yes, that. Though I'm also prepared to believe that pundits punditting about The Surplus Woman Problem were the Victorian equivalent of Daily Mail columnists.

Part of the issue was not that the men weren't there, but that they couldn't afford to marry until relatively late in life. Also class things in the mix (v much so with Gissing, eh?)

[anghraine]

17!

[mayhap]

19!

[lotesse]

It sounded very that Newsweek thing from the 1980s where you had a better chance of being killed by a terrorist than getting married to me - even if the statistical imbalance was real, no one would dream of describing unmarried men as superfluous.

Now I want to know about the methodology of the 1871 census.

[lotesse]

... oh man this like never happens to me. Mainly because I am INCREDIBLY STUBBORN about shipping. I am like a small bird, once imprinted forever loyal.

The closest instance of changing my shipping habits I can think of was reading this Enchanted fic last yuletide, which switches out the canon het ship - which I very much enjoyed while watching the film - with a Giselle/Nancy love-interest hookup. And suddenly I wanted that movie SO HARD, because it's such a better story, about women rediscovering passion and optimism and joy and idek who even cares about the male lead. McDreamy who?

[lotesse]

argh this is hard toooooo, for the aforementioned reason that I am stubborn about shipping and will rarely admit to having been wrong. But, um, Buffy/Angel. When I first watched BtVS I shipped it hardcore, helped by the fact that I was overidentifying leik woah, being also in possession of an older bf that people thought was bad for me. Turns out he actually was - this is the asswipe I left last year, after a long period of escalating emotional abuse. Hindsight's a bitch.

I think that connection is part of why I just can't DO Bangel anymore, but I've also found that my engagement with Buffyverse stuff in general has been moving away from romance and toward rage - because I think I actually really disagree with Joss about how love/relationships work(s), but the man makes pretty pretty cathartic kill em' all anger stories. I don't care about Buffy's love life, I just want to watch her sucker punch the patriarchy.

[lotesse]

So the thing I have the most headcanon for in the whole world is the Star Wars Original Trilogy, because I began fangirling it at a young age and, due to the anticapitalist scorn of my parents, was kept almost entirely separate from the merchandise/expanded universe/massive SW deuterocanon. I just had those three movies. And I also bounced hard off the prequels, instantly and completely. So I had like 13 years of active fanbraining going on in total seclusion.

Okay, so in this canon the Jedi have been gone for a REALLY LONG TIME. Tarkin says they're extinct; I'm thinking at least a hundred years, maybe more? They're bordering on mythical, of course the Jedi have been gone for a long time. Yoda was trained after the end of the Order, when the Jedi had been reduced to a handful of weird old hermits living in isolated caves. No Jedi living remembers the old days.

Anakin was never out as a Jedi knight; he was a fighter pilot in the Imperial military, back before it was such an obviously evil empire. (The Empire has also been around for ages. You don't get that kind of control/infrastructure in 18 years.) He'd been secretly identified as a Force-sensitive by Obi-Wan, and had trained with Yoda on Dagobah, but without a central organization these guys are pretty much on their own, you know? He's in his mid-thirties when he falls, various pressures sending him gradually down a dark path, all very MacBeth/Lear/fall of a Great Man.

Padme, meanwhile. She's a senator. They're openly married, have been for some time. But she's getting more and more edgy about the empire, suspects that there's something Evil at its heart. So while Anakin is being seduced by moral relativism - which, you know, if Obi-Wan was already doing his "certain point of view" schtick at that point, it wouldn't be hard - Padme is secretly investigating sedition. They drift apart, each consumed by their own secrets. When Padme discovers who he's become, what he's done, that's the final impetus that sends her underground to accept a leadership position with the fledgling Rebel Alliance. (I heard somewhere that this used to be actual deuterocanon? I think?) Padme's work is a big part of the reason why the Alliance is so successful.

Meanwhile, there are some babies. And Obi-Wan is all, "your male child is Force-sensitive, let me take it away and train it," which Padme agrees to. Obi-Wan later fails in this trust because, you know, he's a giant dick. This also explains why Luke is so badly hidden from Vader - they keep his surname AND have him live on Vader's old homeworld? Please - because the purpose was never to hide Luke in the first place, Obi-Wan was bullshitting again when he told Luke that, and anyway Anakin isn't even from Tattooine because that would be absurdly coincidental. I'm going with the old canon where Uncle Owen was Obi-Wan's brother, not Anakin's.

Padme raises Leia until she's killed in battle. Leia's four or five, which is why she can still remember her real mother in RotJ.

eta: also, of course Vader/Anakin isn't secretly short/slight/a tenor under the suit. He's a big dude with a big basso profundo voice. Stupid prequels.

[mayhap]

Yes yes yesssss this is all so good! I mean, it goes without saying that it makes more sense than Those Movies We Do Not Speak Of, but it also ties up a bunch of carelessly-strewn plot holes very neatly indeed and I love the elegance of Anakin and Padme's inverse trajectories. Their story would be wrenchingly excellent.

[wishfulclicking]

I came on to this comment so late but I wanted to thank you for linking me to that fic. I really enjoyed it.