#johnathan strange and mr norrell

[its-to-the-death]

Battle of the Gingers Wave 1 Preliminary Round #50

Whoever gets the most votes moves onto the next round

Pictures below the cut

Emilie Munthe (Glasskongen)

Webjørn Giddorg (Mørkalven)

Molly Wind (Molly Wind, bibliothécaire du Far West)

[speakingskies]

Good evening, dear colleagues!

I am Happy to say that I am now in possession of Polls, and inspired by my Delightful colleague @fol-de-lol‘s Advent Trivia Questions, I am Proud to Announce:

THE GREAT JOHN-OFF OF ENGLISH MAGIC

38 Johns, Jonathons, Johnsons &c. from both Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell and The Ladies of Grace Adieu will, over the next few days, battle it out to become The Ultimate John!

The brackets were chosen by a mixture of random number generator and personal choice on my part to make the different rounds as interesting as possible.

This post will link to all active polls, once they are posted.

ROUND ONE MATCHES: Preliminaries

Match 1: Sir John Sowreston vs Jonathan Barratt 56%:44%

Match 2: John Ker, 3rd Duke of Roxburghe vs Captain John Kincaid 54%:46%

Match 3: John Waterbury, Lord Portishead vs John Brassfoot 76%:24%

Match 4: John Ford vs Jonah Montefiore DRAW! REMATCH!

Match 5: Jeremy Johns vs John Longridge 87%:13%

Match 6: John Aubrey vs Rev John McKenzie 88%:12%

ROUND TWO MATCHES

Bracket 1

John Hyde vs [Sir John Sowreston or Jonathan Barratt]

John McKean vs Johnson (Beggar)

John Copperhead vs John Alfreton

Jonathan Strange vs John (Waiter)

Bracket 2

John Napier vs [John Ker, 3rd Duke of Roxburghe or Captain John Kincaid]

John Windle vs John Harker

John Segundus vs John Upchurch

[John Waterbury, Lord Portishead or John Brassfoot] vs Black Joan

Bracket 3

John Childermass vs [John Ford or Jonah Montefiore]

Dr John Willis vs John (Servant)

John Hollyshoes vs Clara Johnson

John d’Uskglass vs John Cockcroft

Bracket 4

John Uskglass vs [Jeremy Johns or John Longridge]

John Wheston vs Captain John Ayrton

John Polidori vs John Purvis

[John Aubrey or Rev John McKenzie] vs John Murray

ROUND THREE MATCHES

TBC

QUARTER FINALS

TBC

SEMI FINALS

TBC

THE FINAL JOHN-OFF

TBC

[bleedingedgeavoidancetactics]

England's second greatest magician!

[dickensianenglishbulldog]

Gosh I love the internet, in everyday life I perhaps meet twelve people who have heard of Sherlock Holmes and six of them think he was real. Where else but online may I meet people I can enthuse about Gilbert and Sullivan, Raffles, The Scarlet Pimpernel, Lord Peter Wimsey, Biggles, Diana Wynne Jones, Johnathan Strange and Mr Norrel, why the Oxford comma needs rights, and P.G. Wodehouse with?

[madmonksandmaenads]

I am writing my first fanfiction, and I have decided it needs a thousand word in-universe introduction.

[queerolddad]

me @ Henry Lascelles

[vesseloftherevolution]

Keep the magician! Nothing more sexy than eating dead mice and stealing your friend’s books in order to curse Venice.

In order to make this bracket work nicely, we need one less person. So....

The one with the least votes after 24 hours will be voted off the bracket. We repeat, the least votes. Vote for who you want to stay, not who you want to go.

Propaganda under the cut:

Tom Pullings:

“have you seem the james d’arcy depiction? come on.”

Jonathan Strange:

“Incredibly weird. Somehow both a wifeguy and ignores his wife to get back at his former mentor. Eats a dead rat to become insane. Panics when the French attack unexpectedly so he moves Brussels to America. Also he is ginger and has a big nose <3” admin side note: the casting for the live action apparently didn't keep his ginger-ness

Anthony Trumbull:

"Portrayed by Cary Grant!"

William Laurence

“The man rode a dragon and treated it as a person (character is important!”

[foldingfittedsheets]

So I finally finished Priory of the Orange Tree.

…underwhelmed.

[shakespearesdaughters]

What kind of books by Dark Academia do you suggest to me? At the moment I’m on Tolstoj but I wanna to know much

The Secret History by Donna Tartt anything by Donna Tartt (praying we get another book in the next 5 years)

Maurice by E. M. Forester

Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh

The Patrick Melrose series by Edward St Aubyn

Confessions by Kanae Minato

In the Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco

Piranesi and Johnathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

Dead Poets Society by N H Kleinbaum

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

An Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

The Idiot by Elif Bautman

The Talented Mr Ripley by Patricia Highsmith

Babel by R F Kuang

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

Stoner by John Williams

The Queens Gambit by Walter Tevis

The odyssey by Homer

Carmilla by J Sheridan le Fanu

We Have Always Lived In The Castle by Shirley Jackson

Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay

Labyrinths by Jorge Luis Borges

The October Country by Ray Bradbury

Inferno by Dante Alighieri

Just to name a few!

[stesierra]

In response to criticism of your writing, be aware there is always a way to make something work even if your critics say it's insane to try. It's always always about the execution.

"Too descriptive?" "Too purple?" Try reading Robin McKinley or Patricia McKillip and tell me description and flowery writing can't work.

"Too low-stakes?" The entire field of cozy fantasy laughs at the very idea. Check out Legends and Lattes if you haven't yet.

"Not enough description?" I used to read Patricia Wrede books where I still to this day don't know what anyone looks like. Don't care.

"Too violent/gross?" The field of horror would like a word.

"Too unoriginal?" Baby, people are still writing the same tropes and getting published. Tiktok loves that stuff, as I understand it.

"Too long?" Have you seen Johnathan Strange and Mr. Norrell? That puppy was a debut!

"Too short?" Flash fiction. Short stories. Novellas.

I could keep going. The point is, it's not what you do that makes your writing sing but HOW you do it.

Unfortunately, figuring out how can take a lifetime!

[slow-burn-sally]

@burnsopale thought you might find our ongoing discussions of Segundus' littleness interesting...

@ohveda this reply will stand out forever in my mind. Such a perfect Segundus description.

[szappan]

ohohoho end of the year book asks!! i'd love to hear your answers to 2, 14, 17, and 25 if you'd be so kind :^D

oho thank you so much for the ask! id love to ask you some things as well if you feel up to it!

2. Did you reread anything? What?

Yes actually, I reread quite a lot of Gerald Durrell and Lázár Ervin books this year because they were my absolute favourite authors when I was little and I took them with me to Finland for comfort. :-) A halak jelleme was my favourite I think and it was interesting to see how much more I understood of it now that I'm both older and know what the UK is.

14. What books do you want to finish before the year is over?

There are 3 Jeeves novels I haven't read yet and I'd like to read them soon but also I've been putting them off because I don't want to finish them all yet. A conundrum! I'm nearing the end of Joy in the Morning right now but I haven't been reading it for the past few days because so far it's my favourite Jeeves novel and I want it to last!!!

17. Did any books surprise you with how good they were?

Not really. I don't often get surprised as a rule because I don't have expectations but maybe Alan Davies's autobiography, Just Ignore Him, fits this the most, because it exceeded the expectations I didn't have. It's really very good. I sort of surprised myself with the fact that I read not one but two autobiographies this year, the other being Brent Spiner's book, but that one wasn't very good. I also read the Naked Sun by Asimov and I ended up liking it less than I wanted.

25. What reading goals do you have for next year?

THE NAME OF THE ROSE PLEASE GOD FINALLY. I've been wanting to get on with it for YEARS. Also finishing Johnathan Strange and Mr Norrell! And just reading More. I read more this year for fun than in the past 3 combined and I enjoyed myself immensely so it would be nice to continue in this vein. :-)

Thank you again!

[letthebookbegin]

hafsa, hi! for the books asks - 3, 4, 6 and 9, please!!!!!

hiii sorry ria i must've missed this!!

3. What were your top five books of the year?

Weyward by Emilia Hart

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

The Orange and Other Poems by Wendy Cope

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir

(so far!)

4. Did you discover any new authors that you love this year?

i loved piranesi so much i immediately went to add johnathan strange & mr norrell to my tbr! it'll have to wait until next year though, i'm trying to reach my goodreads goal and a 1006 page book will not help hahah

6. Was there anything you meant to read, but never got to?

i've still got a few i plan to read before the year is over, but i've been meaning to read the 4th book in the stormlight archive (rhythm of war) since it came out, and now the 5th book is also out! it's just a daunting task when i want to reread the others before i read the 4th & 5th and the shortest book in the series is 1000+ pages '^^

9. Did you get into any new genres?

i didn't! the vast majority of the books i read this year were fantasy, which has been my favourite genre since i started reading books (thank u magic faraway tree). i stopped reading as much fantasy the last few years, so it's been nice to return to that

send me an end-of-year book ask

[cuteteacakes]

I have a list of dark academia reads in my drafts and I've read 6/22 9/22 of them. I feel the need to increase that number...

(in case anyone is wondering what they are... here's the list I found under the cut) and if anyone has any more dark academia suggestions I'm all ears! I like classical novels personally uwu

The Secret History by Donna Tartt anything by Donna Tartt (praying we get another book in the next 5 years)

Maurice by E. M. Forester

Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh

The Patrick Melrose series by Edward St Aubyn

Confessions by Kanae Minato

In the Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco

Piranesi and Johnathan Strange and Mr. Norrell (I watched the show but I want to read the book) by Susanna Clarke

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde ✔️

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley✔️

Dead Poets Society by N H Kleinbaum

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

An Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

The Idiot by Elif Bautman

The Talented Mr Ripley by Patricia Highsmith

Babel by R F Kuang

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte✔️

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte✔️

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

Stoner by John Williams

The Queens Gambit by Walter Tevis

The odyssey by Homer✔️ (three times actually!)

Carmilla by J Sheridan le Fanu

We Have Always Lived In The Castle by Shirley Jackson

Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay✔️

The October Country by Ray Bradbury ✔️

Labyrinths by Jorge Luis Borges

Inferno by Dante Alighieri ✔️ (I've read the whole Divine Comedy in high school hhhh)

An Education in Malice by S. T. Gibson (suggested by @s1lxcs)

A Study in Drowning by Ava Reid (suggested by @s1lxcs)

A Dark and Drowning Tide by Allison Saft✔️

A Deadly Education by Naomi Novik

The Cloisters by Katy Hays

[vlupshittous]

Finally making my intro post🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

My name is Eve and I use she/her pronouns. My paracosm started when I was 10... it grew out of something my dad and I used to do that we called "talkplay" which was basically like playing D&D without any of the external resources. Dad would give me a situation, I would say what I my actions were and we played out entire adventures this way.

I distinctly remember playing with Legos on my grandma's carpet one day when I was 10 and building a medicine cat den from Warriors... then I decided, hey I'm going to pretend characters from my other favorite books are coming in for care too and I need to fix them up.

And the Guardian World was born.

I'll make more posts about the timeline/mechanics/history/locations of the Guardian World, but the main idea is that Guardians are sort of an artificial species (they can start as any species and then be reborn and trained) that have the ability to bend one of the elements like in ATLA. They can also teleport through space and time and dimensions at will, something 10 year old me named blipping. This allows Guardian me to go into any world I want to.

From this, the biggest influences into my world have been the Legend of Drizzt series, Dragon Age, K Project, actual history (lol), the hilariously mediocre Warcraft movie (but not the game??), Johnathan Strange and Mr. Norrel, and most recently Baldur's Gate 3.

Guardians link themselves to Guardees and are then able to sense whenever their Guardee is in need and blip to their location. Guardians also live 100x the length that they would have lived as their original species, so human Guardians would get ~8,000 years but high elf Guardians would be neigh immortal.

The Guardee's life force is bonded to the Guardian so when the Guardian dies, so do all the Guardees. The trade off is that they could live for eons, or they could be killed at anytime through no fault of their own.

Most Guardians are polygamists and they have exceptional strength due to their elemental magic. They're very OP and Mary Sue, but this is a paracosm, not a fanfic and these are paras and not OCs so I really won't apologize for making my fictional self as powerful as I want.

There are some big changes happening in the Guardian World rn that are taking it away from it's roots, but those are the basics!

I look forward to posting more and learning about other people's paracosms!

[overdecorated-furniture]

Writer Introduction

Greetings, fellow writers of Tumblr! I thought I should introduce myself, as I have been lurking quietly for a while now, and you all seem like excellent writers with interesting projects.

About Me

I’m a teenage English girl, with a passion for history, literature, the odd cosplay, and storytelling. I’ve been making up roleplays with myself since I was small, and my stories have always kept me company.

I’ve grown up reading Shakespeare since I was seven, as well as the more traditional children’s classics, and have since found that my passions lie in fantasy worlds, historical fiction, and detective fiction/murder mysteries, although I like to dabble in all genres if I get the chance.

My WIPs

I am currently in the middle of writing two novels, a short story that has accidentally turned into a novella, and various short stories, flashfiction and any other bits and pieces that take my fancy.

The Jack of Diamonds

This is a historical fiction set in 1890s London, and focuses on the criminal classes, and the anonymity of personal and public life that is so prevalent across Late-Victorian Literature.

The plot centres around a young Aristocrat called Philip Devlin, and the double life he leads as London’s most infamous criminal. It’s still very much half formed, so I can’t be amazingly accurate about everything that’s in it, but it might be your cup of tea if you like:

Close Male Friendships that fall apart unexpectedly.

A strong female character who doesn’t fall in love with the protagonist.

The adventure/mystery style of Conan Doyle and Maurice LeBlanc.

And the inevitable morally grey Venetian of all good stories.

Echoes of Eternity (Working title)

This is a fantasy/folklore work, centred around the Arthurian legends, and has a time travel/time slip element to it. There is also an exploration of power and the damage it causes, as well as how death affects the living.

This is still mostly at a world-building stage, although I have written the odd scene out, so the plot is still fairly nebulous, but it follows the dual paths of a young mage called Amser from Arthurian times, and the story of Rose and Jay Fleetwood, as they attempt to right the wrongs of the past together. This might be up your street if you like:

A Morally Grey protagonist with dubious motives.

The magic of King Arthur and his knights.

Magic systems similar to those used in The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel series by Michael Scott.

And randomly angry ghosts leading to time travelling quests

A Monstrous Regiment of Women

This is historical fiction meets fanfiction, with a good helping of biographical info thrown in. It’s set during the Napoleonic Wars, and examines the place of women in that society, the psychological effects of war, and how the Napoleonic Wars shaped Europe.

I Have reimagined Napoleon Bonaparte and the Duke of Wellington as women, Letizia Bonaparte and Francis Wellesley respectively, and have imagined how their lives would look if they had still enlisted in the military. This is probably the most complete of my major WIPs, as all the information and plot is already available in history books, I just need to jig it around. You might like this if you enjoy:

Stories with good depictions of battles in them.

Regency Literature, or pastiches like Johnathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke.

Strong female protagonists acting outside societal norms.

Sweeping story arcs that cover a character in a range of situations and moods.

Other Bits and Pieces

I often write short stories, and most of them end up on my AO3 account. It’s a rather eclectic mix, with a lot of crossovers, but I enjoy writing them a lot. You can find it below:

I am more than up for being sent asks, participating in tag games etc, and love writing socially. I’m also happy to share any tips or prompts I think up, although those will be very sporadic given all my writing to date has been mostly self-governed. Generally speaking I’m somewhat uncomfortable with NSFW type prompts, asks etc, so avoid those if possible.

Finally, I look forward to chatting to you all and sharing my creations. Happy writing everyone!