#pol anon

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I am reading your replies to the asks and I agree with you again! So much waste potential by not changing the book scene I honestly don't know why they didn't. Cheating would still be dramatic for R/D storyline or even if they wanted Elizabeth and Ross to be at odds with each other forever I think her marrying George even after he begs her not to would be great. Tbh Ross is the kind of guy who would hold a grudge over her doing that. If only. Also I don't know much about Hugh but I love that you

are switching Verity’s love interest! How old is James Blamey? 18/19? I just thought he was adorable from the moment I saw him and wished Verity and him were an item instead of his father. I am excited! I didn’t hear the part of George going to war oh that will be interesting to read. Yes for the female friendship that we were promised in S1 but never got. I swear I’m thinking they just couldn’t see R/E being friends w/o him still loving her & that ruins the main love. Yet there are ways!

Yeah, for a while I was trying to retain and work around the cheating scene but ultimately it’s totally unnecessary. They could’ve kept the R/E tension and have Ross hold a grudge against her for her marriage and have to work through his feelings for that reason (AND MATURE FOR ONCE LOL). And given how much I suspect they’ll be changing about the overall plot, that would’ve been a good place to start. 

Hugh/Verity started out as a crackship in my friend @customerservicebotdolores‘ Poldark Sims session ahaha but basically, while I don’t have…much…against Blamey other than the sketchiness of his background, on the show as well as in the books, he’s very much presented as Verity’s last chance because she’s homely or whatever. In this AU, I thought it would be interesting if Verity met Hugh through the literary circle/salon that Elizabeth hosts at her house, given that Hugh is an amateur poet. He and Verity are both romantics but she is more down to earth while he is more whimsical and melancholic. They’d appeal to each other’s passionate natures and she’d ground him while he’d allow her indulge her romantic side. And also the world needs more beautiful men admiring unconventionally attractive women bc Ruby is lovely in her own way as a person and a woman! And I’ll also be able to write Ross and Demelza as I think they deserve to be written, rather than what either the books or the show do with their relationship. Both are sorely lacking imo. I’d like to see Ross finally start treating Dem as his equal rather than as his servant (he still does that no matter what he says - and continues to throughout the books in certain ways). And in this AU I’d be able to write happy Francis/Elizabeth - he obviously gets his shit together in this AU as he doesn’t lose the mine, so I’d like to explore their relationship more and how he might come to his senses and how they work things out together - which will make it all the more tragic when he dies! And ofc as you said I’d get to preserve Dem/Elizabeth, my favorite relationship in series 1.

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I saw that you might be writing a fic from Geoffrey Charles pov. At least I think I did? I can't find the post again but I'm sure I saw it. If I am wrong never mind this question but what's the story about? Will it take place before or after Francis's death? Both? Will his thoughts about his new stepfather George be in it as well? Either way if I didn't read it wrong I'm excited for it! I can't wait to see how George will treat him in S3. I hope he loves him as well as his own child.

Yes, there’s going to be a bit of that in the fic I’m working on! You’re not wrong! Part of what happens in the shorter fic I’m writing (I’m also working on the AU) is that George, Agatha, and GC are left alone when Elizabeth goes to visit Caroline - also Uncle Cary visits. They eat a meal together and it’s basically the brunch from hell lol and gets George thinking about a lot of things. I might write that bit from GC’s perspective - also he will def hang out with Ambrose. And there will be a young school-age George/Francis flashback as well, and George thinking of how GC reminds him of Francis. 

I’m not sure what they’ll do with the George/GC relationship on the show but even if it’s not perfect, I can see Jack adding positive layers of complexity to it. I’m going to deal with it in my own way (positively, I might add) in my fic.

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HI KAT!! HAPPY NEW YEAR! You can still say happy new years four days later right? People are still saying that to to me. What's the limit of saying Happy New Year? A week? The whole month of the January? I MISS YOU!! How was your holiday/break? I'm now catching up with your posts and I can't believe someone wrote another G/E fic!! I'm reading it now and it's so good! Thank goodness for your love for Jyn! I see you wrote lots of meta about her yay she's honestly my favorite heroine in Star Wars.

HELLO I HAVE MISSED YOU DEARLY AS WELL. And it’s never too late so long as it’s January so far as I’m concerned. My break was great - parents drove up to see me like I told you and we ate delicious food and watched a good movie together in a hotel and walked all over Baltimore the next day - I know the city well enough now from exploring that I was able to show them around, which was lovely. Yes, that person is a friend of mine who wrote a beautiful companion piece to go with it! I wrote…a lot, and I think I’m done with it now. I’ll be writing more, but I don’t need to write anymore defense posts because I don’t think there’s much more to say on the matter and also I just don’t want to be involved in it anymore. She’s a poignant and complex character very dear to my heart and I don’t anyone could convince me otherwise given how much her narrative - and how it interweaves with all the other amazing narratives of her companions - means to me. I love her the way I do the Jedi Exile in Knights of the Old Republic 2 and Bastila Shan in the first game - complex, and as deeply compassionate as they are damaged.

Also, started work on the Poldark supernatural AU! I worked on the first paragraph last night…having trouble with the wording but I know exactly how I want it to open. I’m talking about elizabeth retreating to the attic to study the magical knowledge her father left behind. I like the idea that magic of this sort is matrilineal and so her father couldn’t do magic but was well-educated in it and the opening is about how young women might find a place of privacy to be freeing in a way but in reality it’s another form of confinement at times - but how elizabeth’s - the attic - because of the knowledge contained in it - really is liberating. Also did you see this??? :D

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THANK YOU! I'm crying it's so beautiful. Look at my babies! So young so innocent. He touch her waist!! I love moments like that in period drama it's always so intense. I love he called Francis a true friend. And George said he's wasn't a poet he's so smooth without even trying. Elizabeth's last line is so sad. Thanks for more previews! Your writing is beautiful. ❤️ ❤️

I’m so glad you love it - thank you for reading. And yes, moments like that are electric, aren’t they? I always think of when Darcy helps Elizabeth into a carriage and he feels something between them when their hands touch, and so does she but she’s not quite sure how she feels about it. I wanted to capture a specific moment when the two of them would be “alone together” and show how that’s they way they first connected.  

I thought it made sense to write about young, nervous Elizabeth always feeling like her only worth is in her appearance and accomplishments and unable to deal with the attention that attracts and the pressure to continually be performing for her peers - and needing to be alone because of it and probably having imbibed a little too much in the process of attempting to decompress…so being a lot more openly candid because of it. George, meanwhile, is sick of that same public for different reasons - for never quite feeling part of it and on a level with everyone in it - but he, of course, is also under constant pressure to perform for them, even if he finds them insipid and rude. 

But they connect over more than just that. George is a thoughtful, cerebral sort of person and so is Elizabeth and I wanted that to be reflected in their exchange while also being lighthearted and a little flirtatious. And I also wanted to hint at Elizabeth feeling trapped - emotionally, physically, even geographically. They don’t mention it on the show but her family is quite poor to begin with and is unable to help her after Francis’ death. George is trapped too - by the expectations that come with the family name (as he says to Ross, they are both “fatherless” and “hostage to [their] family fortune”), by the pressure to conform and rise in society, by the old guard of the aristocracy that refuses to acknowledge his status. But unlike Elizabeth, he is a man, and is mobile in many ways she is not, which is what she implies when she speaks to him.

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I love what your friend said! It was smart of him to train when he Tankard told him Ross might want payback & with the mob he never flinch once while trying to protect his family. That's more heroism than Ross "I can snap my fingers and have you and your servants kill" that line was OTT along with D's "I could care less if you two get killed". Book!George & Elizabeth seem like they have zero depth why couldn't WG write an interesting antagonist? Was he afraid it would talk away attention from

Ross or the romance or something? We already talked about why he wrote book!Elizabeth the way he did. I don’t remember what Dwight did at the party to him in S1? I do remember his marveled at how George can have this great houses and everything while old families like Ross and Francis have debt. I really hate that line. It seems to implied it wasn’t right for an upstart like George to have something more genteel families don’t have and not that George is too much of a jerk to deserve it.

Yes, she nailed it, didn’t she? George is no coward, and even book!Ross actually acknowledges that in the books in an internal monologue. Ross was on top of a horse and had two pistols and practically an entire mine workforce behind him; he seemed much more the bully than the coward there - much more the “sorry excuse for a man” he termed George. 

They really don’t have any depth at all lol. I think with George, WG was trying to create the stereotypical grasping, tyrannical capitalist villain as I discussed here and didn’t take the character any further than that. He has a chip on his shoulder because of his background, but it’s not explored sympathetically like it is on the show.

Here’s the scene at the card party - it’s really interesting because you see George attempting friendly banter with Dwight (pretty similar to Caroline’s, really, and it gets a similar reaction from Dwight lol) and Dwight blowing him off. Later we see George openly express his regret that Francis has bankrupted himself and when Ross blames him for it, he doesn’t get angry, he just looks deeply sad. 

Yeah, Dwight said something in that scene like “why are you guys suffering in this slump and he isn’t" - well, part of the reason for that is that Francis and Ross don’t know how to manage money for shit. Regardless of any nobler motivations, they are horrid businessmen - Fancis bc he’s emotionally unbalanced and reckless, Ross bc he’s too proud to engage in anything other than dangerous mining (which leads to a rock slide that injures and kills his workers because he didn’t buy timbers which he admits is his fault and calls it “an ill-conceived venture from the start” - where’s his consideration for their safety when his recklessness endangers a ton of people beyond himself??) and free-trading. The Poldarks are poor because they are irresponsible gamblers, not just because they are more in touch with the common man. Why does it take Ross over 10 years to consider investing in shipbuilding? Why does he pretty much never take his banker Harris Pascoe’s advice? Part of the reason George is so successful is that he’s smart and shrewd and freaking responsible. He engages in underhanded methods as well (though only his efforts to legally entrap Ross and beat up Jud were actually illegal, he also takes advantage of the poverty of others, as when he raises the rents on the Truro hovels via Unwin), but he would not have gotten where he is if he weren’t as intelligent and skilled as he is, so for Ross to dismiss his rise as simply a product of injustice is foolish and incorrect. When George rides over and tells Elizabeth “I pity anyone who has to depend on such a man”…he’s not wrong.

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I don't think I truly ship them romantically but a lot of their gifset for them look like a tragic love story I love it. Yes I love the more you added and what you said! I do think if George was so look down upon by others in school and outside I think it says a lot Francis was friends with him and got even closer after Ross left. There wasn't a shortage of male friends in his same class. I know Ross would be like it's because he's easy to influence but I don't believe it was just that.

It really is tragic. Like I said, Francis was just a tool to George in the books but it’s different on the show, which gives me more hope for the George/GC relationship as well (also remember George’s face at Francis’ funeral??? I wonder if he thought if he’d never enabled his gambling habits he never would’ve died down in the mines…I can see that occurring briefly to him and then he immediately represses it along with so many other regrets that get in the way of him moving forward in life).

Having rewatched all the George and Elizabeth (separately and together) scenes in the episodes and having gone back and reread important and relevant passages from the books, I’ve seen just how different both of them are from their book counterparts. Elizabeth I’ve discussed many times in the past (and have some more book comparison posts lined up) and her differences are the most obvious, but George’s are actually hugely significant as well. And really, it’s only practical - otherwise the two of them would basically just be plot devices meant to be stumbling blocks for the protagonist and to create conflict as they are in the books. The show dwells on George’s loneliness (George never seems lonely in the books at all but we get tons of scenes where George appears to be visibly hurt by his isolation from Francis, from being shunned by Ross - especially in the series 1 finale, even by Dwight when he tries to be friendly towards him at one of the card parties in series 1; he talks in the series finale about the loneliness of his childhood and it’s emphasized in the script which makes me think it could be part of his arc about fatherhood, etc. - and of course we get his heartfelt confession of loneliness to Elizabeth and his recognition of her own loneliness - his is the story of a man shunned all his life from the class his family wanted him to aspire to integrate into, and when you are called repugnant over and over again simply because of the socioeconimic inferiority of your birth, it is often little surprise when you start becoming whatever you have been told you are), which is partially the result of him being an orphan and partially the result of him being shunned when he makes genuinely friendly overtures (which is also not a thing in the books - no friendship he has or attempts is genuine). This all gives George a ton more depth in the same way Elizabeth was given an actual personality as I’ve discussed many times. And like I said, plot-wise, it gives him very obvious reasons to hate Ross, given his treatment by him. George at most is annoyed and dislikes Ross in the books and is occasionally infuriated by him but bc he’s so detached and nigh-imperturbably self-contained and flat, his annoyance can never take on the elemental fury George has on the show, so beautifully written by Debbie and conveyed by Jack.

To your point about George and Francis’ friendship in their school days - Francis is a witty guy who enjoys the finer things in life - so is George. He’s clever and intelligent and I think Francis likely responded to that, so it’s not so surprising that they’re friends. While a bad influence in some ways, I think George was also a good influence in others - he’s much less melodramatic than Charles (Francis’ dad), Joshua (Ross’ dad), or Ross Poldark, who would’ve been Francis’ chief influences aside from George. George would be the one de-escalating situations and getting Francis OUT of scrapes rather than putting him in the middle of them. As my friend @chocksawaychaps put it, “I have to say about Ross being a bully - so much of what he does is by force and intimidation. He resorts to violence or the threat thereof to solve most problems and I think part of what grinds him about George is that George won’t back down to that unlike all of the other ‘lesser’ people.” It’s a very keen observation because we hear so much about the reverse - how Ross is the only one who doesn’t bend to George’s own bullying methods. Those who cave in to George often have no choice really because he controls their financial means, which is why Ross has so often risked destitution rather than go to George for aid. What people discuss less is George’s similar resistance to Ross’ use of physical intimidation. He should cave to Ross in that arena but he doesn’t and actually holds his own, considering he weighs about 5 pounds soaking wet and isn’t a freaking army captain like Ross. He manages to sock him in the face a few times and block some of his punches, and even comes close to gouging out his eyes after Ross nearly chokes him to death.

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Okay. :) I read the preview you provide yesterday and I love it! The banter between Geroge & Francis is sweet. I think kougami-shinya has turn me into a George x Francis shipper a bit from those lovely gifsets of them being super intimate back in S1 it make me think they were like this before the show started and George's need to control took over their friendship. I also love their Elizabeth Francis George gifset one it remind me of your story. I'm so happy Ross isn't in it yet. I like these 3.

Glad you like it - I’ve added a little bit more to the last paragraph as well. I don’t ship them romantically but I love their friendship on the show and I’m glad some people appreciate it whether they like it romantically or otherwise - in fact, it’s far warmer on the show than it ever was in the books. Francis is merely a tool to George in the books, and while he does take advantage of him on the show, he also obviously considers him a dear friend and Jack has said many times that that was done on purpose and is how he played it. “…Francis sits very much between them. The story is that Ross and Francis were best of friends, Ross then went away and George stepped in and they became friends. There’s a bit of political behaviour on George’s part, he uses Francis to get what he wants and what makes it most interesting is George does have this real love and respect for Francis, there’s a definite friendship there and they spend a lot of their time together. Francis benefits from that too to some extent as he has the support George gives him financially.” Much like his relationship with Elizabeth being far more substantial and complex on the show than it is in the books, George’s relationship with Francis is similarly given more depth - which gives me hope for the positive development of all of George’s family relationships in the future - why bother to give any of them such depth if positive exploration of them is impossible? And yes, they were all three lovely together, weren’t they? As Heida has pointed out in an interview, it was Ross’ continual categorical (and occasionally very classist) rejection of even speaking civilly to George that drove things in the direction they went and made George determined to drive a wedge between Ross and Francis, not just to make things better for him personally business-wise, but also out of hatred for Ross after his treatment in the series finale of series 1. 

A really good example of how different George’s relationships with both Elizabeth and Francis are from the books is the 1200 pounds scene. In the books, it’s obvious George planned to manipulate Francis from the start, very simply and matter of factly, but in the show, that’s not the case (also, Elizabeth doesn’t stay to hear the whole conversation and in fact she and George don’t even speak - so there’s no “mend your smile” line or any of the rest of their beautiful interaction in that scene other than George staring at her as she leaves).

On the show, George has no idea that Francis blames Ross for what’s happened rather than Verity, so when he gives Francis and Elizabeth the money, it really is because he’s trying to be kind (aside from potentially utilizing their goodwill to his advantage in the future) - and he obviously takes great pleasure from their ecstatic reaction to it, doing that little happy head duck thing he only does on rare occasions. He manipulates Francis afterwards because he senses that Francis is in an “I hate Ross” mood and could potentially give away the names of the members of the Carnmore Copper Company but George wasn’t expecting it and therefore couldn’t have planned for it. 

Also, here’s a fun little E/G detail I noticed in that scene - I don’t know that George is entirely aware of the extent to which his feelings for Elizabeth are obvious in it. In series 2, Caroline’s observation about his feelings took him off guard, which to me explains why he just blatantly stares after Elizabeth right in front of Francis. He has no idea how obvious it is and then goes right over to put a hand on Francis’ shoulder in complete earnest, not knowing how besotted he looked staring at his wife only moments before.

And another thing - my headcanon is that George never approaches Elizabeth openly and lets Francis marry her because he doesn’t think enough of himself to consider himself a serious prospect for her yet. I feel like it’s sort of implied by George and Cary’s first conversation on the matter at the Francis/Elizabeth wedding when Cary says he could’ve bought her for him and George says he brokers his own business these days. George didn’t want to win her that way, I think.

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LOL. I bet who ever WG base Elizabeth was pretty awesome and made the right choice in not dating him. Yikes that makes what he made Elizabeth suffer through in the books even worse though. But yes I always agree that George was into Elizabeth because of her kindness and genuine behavior towards him not just because of looks and class otherwise he would've marry those cute teens creepy Uncle Cary wanted him too. I think they're slow getting to place to know one another. The wound tending scene &

how close they were sitting by each at dinner shows Elizabeth does have feelings for him maybe not love yet but she does like him. I have high hopes for their relationship development in S3. I like that scene from the old series despite not knowing the context I just imagine our Elizabeth saying that to our George and seeing how Heida and Jack will acted out it gave me feels. Even if it’s not to be any scene when she admits her true feelings to him will be beautiful.

I think the Elizabeths (let’s be real, there was probably more than one) in WG’s life dodged a pretty big bullet. 

And that’s exactly it - George’s love for Elizabeth has always been entirely separate from basically all of his other ambitions because there is a certain degree of purity to it that nothing else in his life comes close to. His love for her outstrips his desire to one-up Ross - that was just a bonus. And as Jack himself said, when George is at his lowest point at the end of series 1, he goes to Elizabeth because of his feelings for her and for no other reason - he hasn’t thought ahead to wanting to marry her somehow or getting her to reciprocate his feelings. “He has an emotional response to a crisis in his life, and it leads him to her.” And he doesn’t expect anything in return, he was just searching for that human connection with her. He “declares” for her simply for the sake of reaching out to her and leaves her with that knowledge. 

There were several mentions in the script of her finding him attractive and over time I imagine she would love him if he would treat her with respect and continue to cherish her as he has. Heida basically said in her interview that she might’ve married him a long time ago, before Francis or anything else, if things had gone differently - and that they’re “stronger” together and “perfect” in a way. And she already respected and liked him even if she’s always been wary of his darker, more possessive and tyrannical side (although it hardly compares to Ross now, does it?). She recognizes his humanity and can hopefully draw it out of him. 

I can’t wait to see Jack and Heida absolutely kill it next series. It’s not gone into in much detail in the books, but it is mentioned that George is really excited and nervous and happy when the baby is born so we better get to see that on the show! 

btw Heida liked this tweet on twitter [eyes emoji]