#and neither was her husband

[itspileofgoodthings]

one of the things that continues to strike me on reread is how much the character of Darcy, and Austen through him, finds Mr. Bennet dead. And how much Elizabeth, in growing and changing and discarding her past blindness, has to move past her way of seeing her father and thus of seeing reality, because the two are connected! Darcy’s letter exposes her father’s flaws to Elizabeth in a way she’d never been able to see before. Most especially the way his laziness and neglect of his own gifts have hurt his family and that ultimately he doesn’t. care. Not enough to change. It literally says that she comes home from Hunsford and tries to laugh at her sisters’ and mother’s folly (the way she used to; the way her father has taught her to by example for her whole life) and she can’t anymore! It sticks in her throat. She is grieved by the failures that she sees in him, all the more so because she IS his favorite and she loves him! And the thing about Mr. Bennet is he never changes. The Lydia/wickham situation exposes to him sharply his own conduct and the consequences and he feels it! Because he is neither stupid nor unfeeling. But he, like everyone, has free will. And he chooses not to change when the opportunity presents itself. He even jokes about how quickly his feeling bad will pass and how soon everything will go back to normal, to his laziness and his selfishness. He is set in his ways and he serves as a contrast to Elizabeth’s personal journey because he embodies a version of a person she could have become and was in danger of becoming if her only goal at all times was to laugh at and judge people from the sidelines.

[dootznbootz]

I've been seeing some shit on how certain folks apparently think it's like, surprising that Penelope just accepted Odysseus and all the stuff he's done without question and/or disappointment in Would You Fall in Love With Me Again when like... Not only against Odyssey!Penelope but ALSO Epic's. We may have only gotten 2 songs it's still a concept album. THERE'S STILL TIME! of the real Penelope in Epic but like, even then we can see that she's equally as wild

[neottia-orchids]

I want the world to know that Boimler calling Mariner "Mare-Bear" will live rent free in my mind forever.

[lunarrolls]

listen so closely to me i think liliana temult is a fascinating character and she’s really fun to examine morally but also nothing will ever come fucking close catharsis-wise to watching ashton and orym fucking cross examine her ass in episode 92. the sexiest shit i’ve ever seen “your worst fear is probably my worst fear, and i think we just got a little sample (my worst fear came true because you weren’t fast enough, what will you do when it’s her head on the line?)” and “keep wrestling (you must bear the weight of their deaths on your conscience and know it will never be enough for what you took from me)” like holy SHIT you guys

[serpentface]

You meet your other sister-in-law very briefly.

She arrives unannounced in full Odonii garb and a long cloak for the cold, soaked through with rain. She's taller than most men, and carries herself like one too. Her hair spills out of her veil, not only unbraided but a horrendous mess. It's kind of fascinating. You catch a glimpse of a handgun slung across her back, hidden beneath her cloak. This is especially exciting; you’ve never seen one up close. You try to peek around her to get a better look at it, and flush in embarrassment when she catches you, shooting you a cold glare.

It doesn't seem like she speaks much without being spoken to, and you aren’t really the type to initiate conversations either. Livya fills in for the both of you, prompting your sister-in-law to introduce herself. Her name is Couya. You give her a respectful bow and curtsy, she gives a very slight bow back without looking you in the eye. She compliments your necklace. Or at least, she mumbles something while looking in the general direction of your necklace, and it might have been a compliment. You aren’t sure whether there’s something wrong with her or she’s just rude.

She's just her for filial duties at the family shrine, and she doesn't stay long. Livya stops her on her way out. She says she's disappointed that the one time in a year she can be bothered to come by, she shows up looking like a disheveled street-whore in priest's clothing. Look at Hibrides, she didn't even know we were having company and still did up her hair so nicely, and all by herself too. Thank God your father isn't here to see this, he's suffered enough embarrassment as it is-.

Couya stands in the doorway in silence through this whole speech. You thoroughly inspect a loose tile in the floor and try your best to pretend you aren't there. Livya doesn't take her hand off your shoulder the whole time.

---

[I've been writing an overview of Hibrides' first several years of marriage for the hell of it. It's just a summary but it's written with like, the slightest bit of prose, so figured I'd dump a section here]

[wonder-worker]

Thinking about Elizabeth Woodville as a gothic heroine is making me go insane. She entered the story by overturning existing social structures, provoking both ire and fascination. She married into a dynasty doomed to eat itself alive. She was repeatedly associated with the supernatural, both in terms of love and death. Her life was shaped entirely by uncanny repetitions - two marriages, two widowhoods, two depositions, two flights to sanctuary, two ultimate reclamations - all paralleling and ricocheting off each other. Her plight after 1483 exposed the true rot at the heart of the monarchy - the trappings of royalty pulled away to reveal nothing, a never-ending cycle of betrayal and war, the price of power being the (literal) blood of children. She lived past the end of her family name, she lived past the end of her myth. She ended her life in a deeply anomalous position, half-in and half-out of royal society. She was both a haunting tragedy and the ultimate survivor who was finally free.

[lastflowerofyourhouse]

imagining a modern au with cam, pal, and dulcie where palamedes is like yes this is my wife dulcinea and then camilla walks into the room and plops down like hip-to-hip on the couch between them and pal just leans his head against her shoulder without thinking about it and dulcie starts playing with her hair. at least one of them is already halfway into her lap. and the person very reasonably asks something along the lines of "oh, are you guys poly?" and the three of them are like. no of course not why do you ask.

[diokiraceo]

so I've already seen a few ships for Reca being thrown around, but have we considered

[lighthouseas]

i think it's pretty genius how st3 satirizes the american dream and how its constraints inadvertently caused the downfall of hawkins but some of you aren't ready to hear that

[listen-to-the-inner-walrus]

Every time I watch A Crown of Candy, I get more and more defensive of Caramelinda. This woman deserves a vacation and at least six massages.

[backpackingspace]

Young odysseus convincing everyone Ithaca is nothing but a poor island with rocks and goats to avoid any raids/conquerors/so he doesn't get murdered for talking to Helen bc "it's not like he's a real choice"

Young odysseus falling in love with Penelope at the same event: wait. Wait shit I fucked up hold on just hear me out

[ciderjacks]

my biggest fear is that Jax will do something Really bad (intentionally or unintentionally) to a beloved character bc I will probably end up defending his ass against the entire fandom. My track record with defending horrible fictional people like my life depends on it is NOT good.

[cockringvarric]

the posts ive been making today reallllly make me sound like someone desperately using lonesome inspired horniness to avoid their family at a christmas get together, when in fact im happily & comfortably at home drinking boba tea. how do i make it clear i want a loser boyfriend in a non-god fearing and distinctly anti-christmas way?

[candyskiez]

Thinks about my jongerry au. They dint know about my jongerry au.

[starfieldcanvas]

So if it's not Paladin of Souls, which is the Lois McMaster Bujold book you talked about in your notes? I'm curious 😊

The Sharing Knife! It's a four-book fantasy series in a setting based on the Great Lakes region. I was clueless enough the first time around (and so heavily used to vague-medieval-renaissance-Europe-expy fantasy settings) I didn't realize it the first time I read the series, but it's very obvious once you think about it at all, and sometime in the last two years my library updated the audiobook covers from the original "beautiful high-effort romance novel painting where they're both white" style to the "expressionless racially ambiguous cutouts that make the setting explicit" style:

(These are the same book.)

It's a story about fantasy Native Americans ("Lakewalkers") and fantasy white settlers ("farmers"). The actual cosmology and history of the fantasy world is very different from our own—everyone is native to the same continent, and have been living in roughly the same area for at least a few hundred years—so the politics of settler vs. native don't actually apply in the same way. However, the tension of "people who share the land" vs "people who parcel off the land to sell" is still very present, as is the tension of quasi-nomadic groups with seasonal camp rotations vs. people who stay in place and build large towns with industrial capacity.

And then, of course, there's the magic. The Lakewalkers have limited hereditary magic powers, plus magic monsters they're sworn to fight; the farmers have no magic and no defense against it either. Farmers tend to mistrust Lakewalkers and misunderstand Lakewalker magic; Lakewalkers keep the secrets of their powers under wraps and often look down on farmers as a kind of invasive pest species. As I mentioned in my tags, Lakewalkers' most important magical tools involve someone choosing the time of their death—though typically only when already dying of terminal illness, old age, or a mortal wound.

If you love the movie Ever After like I do, you may remember the part where Danielle says to Leonardo, "A bird may love a fish, Signore, but where would they live?" The Sharing Knife is a series about a bird (Lakewalker) and a fish (farmer) that get engaged halfway through the first book and then spend the next three and a half books figuring out where the hell they're going to live...and slowly realizing they may have to remake society in order to find their place in it.

Even the book where they first get together is not really what you'd call a romance novel, but every book in the series is a lot more focused on a central romantic relationship than most fantasy adventure books, so it's interesting from a genre perspective. "Established relationship" is normally my second-least favorite AO3 (my least favorite being major character death) but the political and magical worldbuilding, and the family dynamics on both sides, kept me very invested even with the amount of meandering domesticity on display throughout the books.

There are some potential triggers to ask about if you have common trauma triggers, and the main romance has a pretty big age gap, which I know is a turn-off for some. But if you ever found yourself asking "why is the Wizarding World's excuse for keeping muggles in the dark so fucking flimsy?" or "how the hell does Wei Wuxian stand living in the Cloud Recesses when most of Lan Wangji's sect hates him?" or "why aren't more fantasy authors as obsessed with craft skills as Tamora Pierce" or "why aren't there more permanently disabled fantasy protagonists who actually have to cope with the limitations created by their disability?" or "why aren't there more fantasy protagonists who genuinely lack magical powers?" then this may be the book series for you.

[tuttle-did-it]

So, funny story for you other aro/aces out there.

Years ago, I tried to explain to my grandmother that I was aro/ace because she kept demanding to know why I didn't have a partner.

She repeatedly told me I needed to get in a relationship, that I needed to have children. I told her I don't want any of that, I tried it and hated it and I'm much, much happier on my own.

She told me I would "grow out of it," and I would eventually "settle down" and do what I was "supposed to do” so I didn’t “die alone.”

I repeatedly explained that I don't actually enjoy sex-- in fact, I find it quite unpleasant. I don't like romantic relationships-- I just want to be on my own, with my dog. And that goes double for sleeping with anyone else in my bed except my dog.

This woman looked me dead in the eye and said, "no one likes sex. It's horrible. No one does it for fun, you do it because you are supposed to have a child. Even if you don't want one. And no one wants to sleep with another human in the bed, that's why your grandfather sleeps downstairs. No one wants to be in a relationship. It's hell. You do it anyway because you're supposed to. I did."

And I was like Ma'am.

MA'AM. Did you just hear yourself?

Point of the story? There have always been aro/aces, and always will be. And because society repeatedly told them they were broken, many of these people had to just fall in line.

So, big hugs and love to all the aros and aces, and aro/aces out there in the world today.

And hugs the ones who don't even realise it, or who have had to conform in society even when they didn't want to.