#jonathan strange and mr. norrell

[rqbossman]

if you could give michael distortion any haircut what would you give him

6 mile long irregular backcombing/teasing. I want those corridors full of hair.

(Don't forget this character was the reference we used as an anchor for the performer)

[see-arcane]

Every time I blink there's some new Jon, John, or Johannes taking up space in my head. I plan to add to it by finally sitting down and reading through Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell in the coming year. Still missing a Johanna, though.

[knitepercival]

Major Grant! ✨

[occasional-owl]

[stingrayextraordinaire]

Thank you so much for the challenge, @valiantarcher! I was tagged to list six books I want to read this year. I have an impossibly long list for 2025 but these are the top six I'm most looking forward to! :)

The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden

The Lost Books of the Odyssey by Zachary Mason

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susannah Clarke

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

The Princess Bride by William Goldman

Tagging anyone who would like to participate!!

[austenreusedcostumes]

This pink dress is worn on Charlotte Riley as Arabella in Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell (2015) and years later worn on Rose Leslie as Isabella in Miss Austen (2025)

[mrsbillycranston]

Reboot Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell with Nick Mohammed and Steve Pemberton in the title roles you cowards.

[floradelisstuff]

Mr. Norrell from Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke... If you have not tried this wonderful novel and the associated BBC series, I would highly recommend it...

All illustrations have been created by photo manipulation with Adobe Photoshop and BeFunky filters...

[alichay]

For "I wish you would write a fic where…":

Maybe you could write a story that would expand on this bullet point in "3.0: Subject content":

Recognition of magical psychosis: contrasts in treatment of Lady Pole and Jonathan Strange; the publication of The Black Letters; ideological discourse on medical ethics; Starecross Hall and the foundation of magical asylums

I'm especially interested in magical asylums other than Starecross. Who were the patients of these asylums? Were they people who, like Lady Pole, were thought to be mad because no one recognized they were under an enchantment? Or were there other reasons why someone would be committed to a magical asylum? Was there a type of mental illness caused by specifically by magic? Was it different from "mundane" madness? Why was an ordinary asylum insufficient to these patients? Did they have destructive magical powers and thus there had to be a magician on staff able to neutralize them? Lots of topics here to be explored!

oh this is such an interesting area for discussion!! i had some of these questions in mind while i was writing the bullet point. i was wondering if there would be more sympathy/treatment of psychosis in an England with magic because people would assume that the illness was the result of some kind of enchantment, kind of how you see sympathy towards insanity in the mediaeval period (where it was often thought to be possession by evil spirits). i feel like in a pre-Freud era the understanding of trauma etc would still be fairly rudimentary, but i wonder if you'd end up with diagnoses of like "magic-resistant melancholia", kind of how we have "treatment-resistant depression" now, where they'd spend a time throwing magical remedies at someone and then decide that they simply hadn't found the right spell, rather than it not being a magical malady - or perhaps that's when someone would end up in a "traditional" madhouse* and "doctors" would take over. or maybe you'd have magicians going round madhouses* trying spells on the poor patients to see if any of them can be cured. and in that vein, i wonder if you'd have to pay magicians in the way that you had to pay doctors, so treatment would either be exclusively for the wealthy or exercised in the context of charity.

(i wonder this too about magic in general - the Victorian era saw so many examples of public institutions being established, like schools and museums - would you end up with public magicians employed by the crown for the good of the people? or would it be like medicine and there wouldn't be a "magical"-equivalent NHS until much later, if ever? i could go on forever!!)

fic-wise i think it would be really fun to read a series of discussions in a journal where different magicians and/or doctors are talking about treating patients, what extra steps might be needed if they have magical abilities themselves (as you suggest), what different remedies might work, documenting fairy encounters/advice and similar. i could see myself writing that!

*i use this term in its historical sense, not to condone the word.

[dont-eat-the-algae]

If you dislike Childemass we can't be friends.

[occasional-owl]

Thinks about Stephen Black and starts sobbing

[dragonfly756]

Yeah the thistledown hair dude is so. Untrustworthy. "Oh let me take half her life mr. Norrell." Stephen saying thank you for being invited to a party and nothing bad happening (yet.) Like is there a live slug reaction for when it's the fae because HNGHHHH

[slow-burn-sally]

[slow-burn-sally]

when it’s time for your favorite character to show up

[slow-burn-sally]

girls when their favorite character: