idk. the majority of people do have children in their lifetime. If you are upset and insist it's "out of character" every single time a fictional character is portrayed as having children after the conclusion of their story, maybe you are the one projecting and being weird about it

*this is not a vaguepost abt something/someone in particular; I'm just commenting on a general trend I've noticed

I keep thinking about thg. Like? is this analysis or am I just rotating the text in my mind?

Every time I think I have something it’s like…mmm are we sure? This is so “supported” in the text that one might even say it’s explicitly expressed 🥴 having fun rotating there bud??

i feel like any kind of thoughtful engagement w a text is some form of analysis so i absolutely think you’re doing analysis lol. and if you’re committed to finding textual evidence then you’re just like one step away from writing an essay haha!

i feel like a big part of analysis and media criticism is just thinking really hard about a certain piece. like i spend a lot of time just hanging out thinking about art and just being like. hm. and then i write it down to clear my head haha. sometimes when i feel like i am about 50% of the way to a point ill just start writing because sometimes having your thoughts articulated can help with the process of finding that “answer” you’re looking or just finding a coherent path through your thought process! like you don’t even have to post it or anything but i have so many notes app essays that grew out of me thinking really hard about some random thing and then getting annoyed by my own brain and just writing it down to make sense of it. so once you’ve rotated the text a few times you should try writing something down or talking to someone and trying to articulate some of your analyses!! (you can always send them to me! id love to read your thoughts)

5 ;), 11, 12!

From this ask game

[edit: these are really hard to answer for you, because you know the answers to 5 and 12 already. 😆 I am proceeding as if you don’t. 🤦🏼‍♀️]

5. What’s your favorite headcanon you use in fics?

Hahaha. You know me and my favorite things about which to rant and become inordinately passionate. I have one utter headcanon I am very fond of, and one meta/headcanon I am very fond of, and many others that I quite like besides. 😆

As I often say, the most enduring character trait I have ever written in my life is that my Legolas is a stress!baker. That’s my favorite little nonsense headcanon.

My favorite meta-headcanon that I use in my fics is based on narrative perspective in Tolkien’s universe, i.e., the idea that we make over-broad cultural assumptions in fandom for certain groups. I ramble about it (with no citations, because I’m a hypocritical lug) here. (Please keep in mind that I wrote the linked analysis while having an actual, prolonged mental-emotional breakdown during my first semester of PhD finals, lmao.)

And here is a little snippet of a response I gave to a reviewer in response to my interpretations last week: “I have my reasons for choosing some of the behavior that I have for elves here, particularly given world-building I've done in my head—perhaps not communicated so well on the page—in regards to non-Noldorin and non-doriathrin Sindarin cultures and belief systems, particularly, obviously, Silvan beliefs. I tend to write from the perspective that much of the writing we have on elves is a distinctly Noldorin viewpoint and, taking into account Tolkien's own writing on written language and orality in elven cultures and in rhovanion at large, that what we know about wood-elf culture and spirituality may very well *exist* within the vague framework of High-elf inspired writings and histories in-universe, but that they may be understood to have, potentially, developed in a distinctly different way (and, in the case of mirkwood, influenced by war and a general and distinct otherworldliness).

One day I’m actually going to write up an essay on my cultural, historical headcanons with additional textual support so I can stop explaining myself in author’s notes and just link to a meta essay, but...today is not that day.

11. What’s a fanfic idea you haven’t done yet?

I mean, this depends whether we mean generally, or one that’s in my head that I intend to do. The answer would have been very easy until last month—I’d never written gimli’s death nor *gasp* sex, and now, well. I suppose...

I’ve never written a weird AU— Wait, that’s a lie. I have 100 pages of HP/Tolkien/Artemis Fowl xover I wrote in a notebook at 13...

Hm. I haven’t— no, I did that.

Well, theres lots of things “out there” that I haven’t done, but as for things I actually intend to write? I started a fic years ago—6 years now—on the concept of mercy killing at the height of the Necromancers power in Mirkwood. I’d like to revisit it sometime, but it’s dark and disgusting, so maybe not. And, furthermore, it’s saved only on a dead tablet.

12. What’s the hardest thing to write for you?

Fluff. 🤣

Thank you for asking and indulging my boredom! 💕🍃