Wear the colour that you want to cling to

[dolorosa_12]

It's the last sunshine_challenge prompt today: violet. The challenge mods are encouraging participants to use this prompt as a way to offer [things to] others to bring a little sunshine into their lives.

I can't make graphics or vids, and I can't reliably write fic on the spot (unless it's for one of my tiny book fandoms-of-one, which I suspect is an unlikely thing for anyone to request).

But what I can do is cheerlead, comment, and essentially provide a lot of enthusiasm. (Seriously, every Yuletide I set myself the goal of commenting on at least 50-70 fics in the main collection, and at least 20 in Madness, and I generally do so.) And so what I am offering is this: comment with a link to one fanwork (art, fic, vid, fanmix, graphics, whatever you choose) that you are especially proud of, and I will leave you a comment either on Ao3 or Dreamwidth. It doesn't have to be a fanwork you produced for sunshine_challenge (you don't have to be participating in the challenge at all), just something you made and feel happy about.

Obviously it will be easier for me to make a substantive comment if I am familiar with the fandom, but I will do my best even if it's not something I know much about. Likewise, I will be quicker at commenting on visual fanworks, or shorter fics than on 100,000-word epics, but if the latter is what you want to share with me, I will comment eventually!

Today's post title is brought to you by the lyrics of this excellent song:

Watch on YouTube

A quick update on 28th July

I am overwhelmed with the response to this offer, and I am definitely looking forward to reading (and commenting on) all your fic, but it might be some days before I get to it. If you haven't had a response from me yet, it's definitely going to happen, but it may not be before the weekend. I will update this post again when I've commented on everyone's fics.

Comments

[dolorosa_12]

I have a PhD in medieval Irish literature, and my thesis mainly focused on pseudohistorical and onomastic texts, most of which were from the tenth, eleventh or twelfth centuries. I've written the odd bit of fic that incorporates medieval Irish literature, although rarely the actual texts which I studied for the PhD.

What were your own specialties/interests when you did your degree? I'm definitely always happy to talk all things medieval!

I left academia after getting my doctorate and now work as a librarian.

[silveradept]

Another librarian, huzzah!

Your field of study sounds very interesting (and I got to learn what onomastics means!), and now I want to know more about what you studied.

Mine is an undergraduate, and my thesis focused on the idea of the chivalric romances as reflecting different ideals of behavior for the mounted class, using Ywain, Perceval, Beaumains, the Dung-Cart Lancelot (not the strongest chapter there) and Gawain and the Green Knight as examples of the shifts in attitude over time.

There was very little research I could find at the time about what the rituals, oaths, and obligations of behavior a member of the mounted class took on when I was doing the research, or I would have probably stuck more closely to a thesis on "what behaviors did a knight swear to when they became one, and what behaviors did they actually engage in?", although I might have still found some very useful material in making comparisons between actual manuals of knighthood, chivalric romances, and harsh reality.