#swallows and amazons

[best-childhood-book]

#best childhood book #poll #serafina #the wildwood chronicles #the clique #swallows and amazons #spy school #my friend flicka #kingdom keepers #alcatraz vs the evil librarians #the faraway tree #the candymakers

[captainsvscaptains]

Prelims

Poll J

#tournament polls #battle of the captains #prelims #jane roland #temeraire books #temeraire #kelly grayson #the orville #leo valdez #heroes of olympus #hoo fandom #percy jackon and the olympians #nancy blackett #swallows and amazons #setzer gabbiani #ffvi #final fantasy vi #ff6 #the dread pirate roberts #the princess bride #princess bride #jimmy ocean #pirates and princesses #disney #elric of melnibone #elric saga #charles vane #black sails #bookblr #gameblr

[dimsilver]

just found out that a little Swallows and Amazons fic I started writing years ago must have been accidentally deleted a while back without me realizing :/

if I really tried I think I could bring most of it back, because I always read back over my writing and I remember a lot of the lines. but I don’t really want to work on it again, I just want to read it…

#such a good book by the way #swallows and amazons

[namedafterflowerstournament]

Botanic Tournament : Susans Bracket !

Round 1 Poll 1

#botanic tournament #tournament polls #susans bracket #round 1 #susan pevensie #pevensie siblings #the pevensies #chronicles of narnia #the chronicles of narnia #tcon #narnia #narnia books #queen susan the gentle #swallows and amazons #susan walker

[atorturedpoet1989]

My seven comfort films:

1. Harry Potter and the prisoner of Azkaban

2. Swallows and Amazon

3. Little Women (I know it’s depressing)

4. Enola Holmes

5. The Peanuts Movie

6. Mamma Mia

7. Fantastic Mr Fox

#prisoner of azkaban #little women #swallows and amazons #fantastic mr fox #the peanuts movie #enola holmes #mamma mia

[gailyinthedark]

petition to start calling it "going susan" when someone has a fit of responsibility and starts mothering everyone in sight

#narnia #swallows and amazons #if you know you know

[elennare]

I have a question for the “Would you ever write” ask game! I’m always interested by which fandoms have loads of AUs and people rarely write canon-compliant fic, and ones where almost everything is set in or around canon. Swallows and Amazons is definitely one of the latter - I think almost all the stories I’ve read in the fandom are canon-compliant or adjacent. So would you ever write a Swallows and Amazons AU of any kind?

Oooh, that's a good question! Technically, I have written some AU snippets as a meme on dreamwidth some years ago, but none of them developed into full-fledged fics or even ficlets... I wonder if it's because the setting feels so integral to the stories? The ships, the Lake, they're practically characters, which may be making it hard to AU it?

Thanks for asking! I shall be pondering this now...

#ravenpuffheadcanons #ask game #swallows and amazons

[neurodivergent-aroace-64]

the fact that Nancy is the only swallows and amazons character to have her own Wikipedia page is honestly so in character

#swallows and amazons #nancy blackett #arthur ransom

[piratesandexplorers]

Well, some time last year I said I was going to watch the not-so-new-anymore Swallows and Amazons film on Netflix, but apparently it's taken a dose of Covid to lay me up in bed and actually get me to do it.

I have lots of thoughts, as I promised I would...

(Spoilers ahead I guess, but nothing big that's not fairly obvious from trailers etc., I don't think.)

There were a lot of little nitpicky things that annoyed me, but I could probably have got past those (actually, no I couldn't, but never mind) if the whole thing had been good enough to carry me through. I'm obviously biased, and it did have its good points, probably fun enough as a kids' film, but I genuinely just think it was poor storytelling, which is extra disappointing as it was based on such a good story. Some of the bigger things that I had problems with:

The Spy Plot. I don't really have that much to say on this one because it's obvious that the second they decided to go with this idea, it stopped being Swallows and Amazons. The modern thing is to believe everything needs Super High Stakes and Lots Of Action or kids will be bored. I think they're wrong, but there we go. (Sorry, Andrew Scott, I'd watch you in anything, but you didn't belong here.) But even accepting that for what it is, I just don't think they did what they were trying to do particularly well, so on that note...

Character development and relationships. So much went wrong here, I don't know where to start. Obviously they butchered both John and Susan (presumably because they lazily read them as boring and, rather than read any deeper, just changed them entirely), as well as Mrs Walker and her relationship with the children. Genuinely, what's wrong with writing families who like and trust each other? Captain Flint was already ruined by the spy plot, but his eventual switch to being the nice fun uncle didn't work well even in the context they gave him - it felt like they just went "and actually he turned out to be nice, which you should just accept and not question because it's just a kids' story so it's not that deep". Which does such an injustice to the original writing. Then there are the Blacketts, who need a third point all to themselves:

The Blacketts. I was so disappointed with Nancy and Peggy. I feel bad criticising children, but I didn't think the actors playing them were good at all (compared to the Walkers, who could all act). But the real issue I had with them was their lack of screentime?? They barely appeared, we had no time to get to know them, to care about them, or to see any sign of genuine friendship between them and the Swallows. There was no spark to them at all, no sign of Nancy's charisma, or sense of them as the wild rule-breakers. Mrs Blackett was a non-character too, which is forgivable as she was sort of a non-character in the first book, but given that they did give her extra screentime, they could at least have given her some characterisation?

The Pacing. I feel like this point wraps the previous ones together, because the cause is the spy plot and the result (or one of them) is the bad/non-existent character-dev. There's no time for the characters to unfold, no time for them to sit and talk to each other, no time for extra scenes that show relationships, no time for fireworks on the cabin roof or parleys around the campfire or Vicky/Bridget's birthday or fishing trips or Octopus Lagoons or Nancy bullying policemen on John's behalf. Even the Black Spot gets delivered in a moment at the dining table, with no explanation of what it means. And it's mainly because most of the time is taken up by the Big Plot, but it's not only that - those small but important scenes are also replaced by things like losing the food hamper, and John shouting at Roger, and Roger falling in the lake. Things they obviously decided were more Dramatic and Exciting, but actually do nothing meaningful at all. It all just feels completely rushed, which is the opposite of Ransome's vibes. And not only that, but the piling on of difficulties, and problems, and fights, and things going wrong, just makes the whole island camping expedition seem entirely depressing, rather than a taste of joyful freedom.

The Aesthetic. Related to the last point, but I did think that the one thing we would get from this film, since they filmed on location, would be the feel of the Lakelands and the scenery and rural Northern England in the 20s. I got almost none of that. Again, probably because the only things they cared about were spies with guns and ramping up the sense of danger and difficulty at every turn.

It sounds like I hated the film, and I didn't hate it. It was fun to watch, I thought the kids playing Tatty (whose name change I do get) and Roger were particularly good, and I liked the Billies (although less so the fact that Susan and Roger didn't even meet them, and Tatty screaming the place down over the adder).

I just didn't think it was particularly good as a film, let alone an adaptation of Swallows and Amazons. Which, as a Swallows and Amazons fan, is just really sad.

What's funny to me is that the Netflix synopsis says: "When four siblings camp on an island in the middle of a lake during their vacation, they fall into a whimsical turf war with two boisterous rivals." Which is... far more of a description of the original plot than of the plot of the film.

#swallows and amazons #swallows and amazons 2016

[theyre-gay-because-i-say-so]

Today's LGBT+ Headcanon is;

Dorothea Callum from Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome-Bisexual

Requested by @absolutelynotclassicusernam-blog

Status: Alive

#Dorothea Callum #Swallows and Amazons #bisexual #lgbt headcanon #character of the day #wlw #literature #books #lgbt #headcanons #arthur ransome #tv shows #movies #fandoms i'm not in #requested #keuw #alive

[boatmediatourney]

⚓Boat Media Tournament⚓

Round 2, match 5

#bmt2 polls #bmt2 round 2 #boat media #boat media tourney #rime of the ancient mariner #swallows and amazons

[best-childhood-book]

#best childhood world #poll #the impassable wilderness #the wildwood chronicles #wildcat island #swallows and amazons #skandia #the brotherband chronicles #feravel #dragon slippers #the great ga'hoole tree #the guardians of ga'hoole #abarat

[captainsvscaptains]

Round 1 Part 3 Poll 2

Propaganda

Nancy is the capable and adventurous captain of the dinghy Amazon, which she crews along with her sister and ship's mate Peggy under a pirate flag.

Queen. Kelly accidentally started a religion

#battle of the captains #tournament polls #round 1 #nancy blackett #swallows and amazons #arthur ransome #bookblr #kelly grayson #the orville

[ravenpuffheadcanons]

me: I am never writing a long fanfic again once I’ve finished this one. I want to devote that time to original writing

also me: what if I wrote a sequel to The Big Six set during WWII where Dorothea and the Coots are grown up and they have to solve a murder for contrived plot reasons. What then.

#i may or may not actually write this #but i have definitely started outlining it in my head #i do miss writing swallows and amazons fic... #i promise not to start working on it properly until both of my actual wips are finished though! #swallows and amazons #coots forever! and ever!

[gailyinthedark]

Sometimes you ask yourself why you want to do something and the only true and worthy answer is because Titty Walker would

#swallows and amazons #it's not my fault her name is sketchy #blame arthur ransome

[elennare]

Poetry-inspired flash-fic

It has been far too long since a. I posted here, b. I wrote fic, c. I did this fun little meme, so here I am again!

Rules 1: Pick five fandoms. List them in alphabetical order. 2: Visit this site to find your first RANDOM POEM OF POWER. Write down the 5th line (yes, even if it's an E.E. Cummings poem and you wind up with an apostrophe). Repeat five times and - you guessed it - list them in alphabetical order! (No cheating, mind! This is a challenge and it's always been about creativity.) 3: I think you can see where this is going. Write a very quick 50-word half-drabble for each fandom (try to do it all in one sitting), using the line from the poem as a prompt. You don't have to include it in the half-drabble - it's just inspiration. 4: Bravo! Have a cookie.

(I always forget to alphabetise the poems, I just take them in order - and I had to find another random poem generator, the old one was broken. This one is very Canadian, but it's the best I could find - suggestions for other ones welcome!)

Chalet School - informed crowded alloys detect no (Rita Wong, “fluorine” from forage) “I don't expect scientific brilliance from Corney and Co,” Nell Wilson assured the Staffroom. “But is basic coherency really too much to ask for?”

Hilda Annersley's eyebrows rose as she read some samples. “Leave them to me, Nell,” she replied, in a tone that boded no good for the miscreants.

High Rollers : Aerois - too large for this body. Too willing to (Joshua Jennifer Espinoza, "COMFORT" from There Should Be Flowers) It's not that Quill doesn't feel the lure of the spark of divinity. But it's too big, too powerful. What will he be if he takes it? Not an aarakocra any more, not really… will he even still be Quill? No. He'll stay mortal, stay with his friends, stay himself.

High Rollers: Curse of Strahd - “Forward, the Light Brigade! (The charge of the Light Brigade, Tennyson) Yesper hears stories, on his trips outside Barovia. Songs of glorious last stands, heroic charges, victories against seemingly insurmountable odds. He likes these tales, memorises them for the campfire. But he doesn’t believe them, not really… Maybe they’re true, maybe in Faerun they can be true, but not in Barovia.

The Left-Handed Booksellers of London - Forsaken by my parents (Alootook Ipellie, "Walking Both Sides of an Invisible Border," from Gathering: The En’owkin Journal of First North American Peoples: A Retrospective.) Vivien and Merlin rarely talk about their parents. What is there to say? Their father is birthday cards with dutiful invitations to visit Cambridge, that Vivien takes up occasionally and Merlin mostly avoids. Their mother is a case file Vivien doesn’t want to think about and Merlin can’t leave alone.

Swallows and Amazons - travels a direction it cannot find, (Kevin Irie's "Current") Susan peers blindly into the fog, trying to make out anything at all. Why did she let Titty and Roger go back by themselves? It’s all very well Nancy and Peggy saying they’ll have been back at camp for ages; Susan won’t be happy until she sees it for herself.

#fanfiction #chalet school #high rollers #the left-handed booksellers of london #swallows and amazons