#maurice mails

[eirinstiva]

"The school clapped not because Maurice was eminent but because he was average. It could celebrate itself in his image."

Maurice. E. M. Forster

[dodger-chan]

I find it intriguing how normal a character Maurice is. He's not an exceptional student, but he's not dumb. Not great at sports but good enough. He's bullied a little when he starts school, and when he's an older student he bullies the new students specifically "because it was the proper thing to do." The only thing that separates him from the archetypical man of his economic and social class is that he's gay.

Now, normally, this is where I start looking at who the intended audience for the book is, but Forster didn't publish it, knew while writing it he likely couldn't publish it, and only shared it with some of his friends. So Maurice isn't so incredibly average to make him relatable to straight readers.

Sometimes a character is presented as an archetype because the focus of the story is on what they do rather than who they are. But Maurice is all about Maurice's feelings and desires. His interiority is the point of the story. He isn't average to disappear him from the narrative.

Maurice's complete normalcy must serve some other artistic purpose.

[wilbur-holland-lotf]

HELLO WILBUR!!! how do you feel about the hunters on the island?

BAD. REALLY BAD! THEY SCARE ME. frankie says i’m lucky it was just maurice and not someone who could hurt me! i avoid them whenever i can

frankie belongs to @ask-franklin-shepherd

[mccall-me-maurice]

hihi todd! if you’re up for it, could you draw some doodles for a lotf dps au 👀

these truly are just doodles but they were SM FUN

[klingerfashionarchive]

season 4 episode 15

[postcard-from-the-past]

Courtyard of a school in Rennes, Brittany region of France

French vintage postcard, mailed in 1914 to Saint-Maurice-Lille

[histonics]

[eirinstiva]

Sorrow and Peace

Catching up with Maurice Mails. University keeps me very busy, but I'm intrigued with this new stage of Maurice's life.

Maurice’s grandfather was an example of the growth that may come with old age. Throughout life he had been the ordinary business man—hard and touchy—but he retired not too late, and with surprising results.

Interesting man he was. Did he influence Maurice's business side?

Now he was dying. A past of questionable honesty had faded, and he looked forward to joining those he loved and to be joined in due season by those whom he left behind. (...) He summoned his family, whom he had always treated well. His last days were very beautiful. To inquire into the causes of beauty were to inquire too closely, and only a cynic would dispel the blended Sorrow and Peace that perfumed Alfriston Gardens while a dear old man lay dying.

The will! If there's something that it's really important in any soap opera with a rich man dying is the will. Who will inherite the money? How Maurice's life will change?

There was no intrigue, as Mr Grace had been open about his will, and each knew what to expect. Ada, as the favourite grandchild, shared the fortune with her aunt. The rest had legacies. 

Maurice feels alone again, and for some reason every new paragraph makes his loneliness feels stronger.

There was really no reason, yet he had a dreary feeling he should, because he had not got Death either; she, like Love, had glanced at him for a minute, then turned away, and left him to “play the game”. And he might have to play as long as his grandfather, and retire as absurdly.

His change, then, cannot be described as a conversion. There was nothing edifying about it.

Maurice's loneliness is getting bigger and bigger and he develops new sides of his character that were neglected. This feels more like developing a mask than a new side of his character.

Ada had become engaged to his old chum Chapman, and his hideous rivalry with her could end. Even after his grandfather’s death he had feared she might marry Clive, and gone hot with jealousy. Clive would marry someone. But the thought of him with Ada remained maddening, and he could scarcely have behaved properly unless it had been removed.

Good for Ada, and not so bad for Maurice. It's awkward to fight your sister for a lover. It's weird as fuck if she doesn't know that yoy are fighting for his attention. This is pure drama~

Similar difficulties arose with Kitty. (...). He offered to pay her fees at the Domestic Institute whereon her soul had been so long set, and, though she accepted, it was ungraciously and with the remark, “I expect I’m too old now to properly learn anything.”

Sometimes I forget that this kind of institute was a thing for many decades.

Ada, Kitty and Mrs. Hall are adding gasoline to Maurice's loneliness. With a family like this one who needs enemies?

He hadn’t a God, he hadn’t a lover—the two usual incentives to virtue. But on he struggled with his back to ease, because dignity demanded it. There was no one to watch him, nor did he watch himself, but struggles like his are the supreme achievements of humanity, and surpass any legends about Heaven.

Oh, dear! Not big amount of charity can fix this broken heart! Time to catch up and read more~

[dodger-chan]

Clive took the receiver, but only a burr arrived. They had been disconnected.

Bit on the nose there.

[babaroqa]

i finished reading piranesi (which i absolutely adored), now i just have to decide whether i should get back to my hunger games reread, reread ember in the ashes (the whole series so i can finally read the final book), get back to tolkien who's been waiting for me to finish my bookclub books, orrrrr read careless people which i only just got

[feuerbluete]

2025 tumblr book clubs

A compilation of all (classic) lit substacks going at this point in time, aka early January 2025

Starting fresh: Maurice Mails | Discord

Currently Ongoing: Letters from Carruthers (The Riddle of the Sands) | Discord Frankenstein Fridays Martian Messages (The Martian (original blog version)) Jekyll and Hyde Weekly (almost over again but seems to rerun every winter)

Re-runs: Dracula Daily (Starting in May) Les Mis Letters Divine Comedy Weekly (Longfellow translation) | Discord Whale Weekly (Moby Dick) (Restarted in late November) Letters from Bunny (The A. J. Raffles canon) | Discord (Starting in March) Letters from Watson (The Sherlock Holmes canon) | Discord (Rerun planned for the future, most likely not starting before April or later)

More general classic lit substacks: Dickens Weekly The Public Domain Book Club Literary Letters

Still going on Discord: Poe Fortnightly

If I missed any, add them in the comments/reblogs! And look there for more book club recommendations yourselves!

[mccall-me-maurice]

I don’t know why but I wanna see Maurice with the caption “Alright bucko!” LITERALLY NOTHING ELSE…he’s so goofy

probably him when jack was like I CAN SING C#

[dark-lord-of-awesomeness]

DarkLord. DarkLord what does Maurice think about the Jurassic Park debacle. Please tell me I gotta know. Do they tag along to watch. Does it happen on the one day they decide to take a break from their favorite show and go check in on some other spawn. Do they try to help or just watch in horrorified fascination as Shifty and Stan fight dinosaurs. Please tell me

Also also. How disgusted do they and Stan get about Emma-May making the dinosaurs part shifter

Hmm..... let me think....

I almost always operate by 'rule of funny' so the funniest thing for me is if Maurice is spying on the day Stan's going in to tour the dino park. They can't miss a special episode of 'Stan's life' after all, but they also can't let Stan see them. So they're upstairs, pretending to be one of the scientist or something when the whole place goes on lock down and they watch all the screens Fiddleford is frantically pulling down (Fiddleford only agreed to help Emma-May with her project to help manage his robo mania and to try and mend bridges so that there's less fighting over Tate. This ruins that attempt).

Thankfully both of the shapeshifters that could have called Maurice out for being there are downstairs when the whole thing goes down. Not so thankfully they are both downstairs, and Maurice watches them both throw secrecy out the window in the name of punching and beating up every dinosaur they come across. There is no horror movie anymore (except for the fact that Shifty and Stan are horror monsters) just a straight comedy of attempted horror that gets instantly smashed as both shifters beat up everything that wants to try. Stan's only marginally more subtle about it, trying to avoid dinos when possible, but he's still very much on camera shapeshifting.

They are holding their head in their hands. Its a nightmare scenario, and then they're scrambling to delete all the tapes in such a way that no one finds it suspicious. Which involves just straight burning/ destroying everything. So Emma-May doesn't get to watch her babies get syruped on repeat.

On the flip side, it is the first and maybe only time that Maurice willingly shows up, forces everyone involved to sit in the living room, and does the Maurice equivalent of yelling at them. Which doesnt involve yelling, but is just them listing out what they saw (Shapeshifting on camera, stolen DNA, stolen DNA used to modify dinosaurs without telling anyone, dinosaurs that caused havoc and nearly escaped) and what future consequences of those actions might be (Hunted down, experimented on, stolen stolen DNA used to create shapeshifter hybrid armies, shapeshifting dinosaurs on the loose) then list what they are going to do about it if any of those consequences happen(Lock down, they will ruin everyone's life. they will take Shifty away. they will take Stan away. They will bring the full might of their circle down on this house and strip it of anything shifter related. Stan might be versatile, but Maurice is very old, and has contacts and favors they will use to make sure Stan can't see Ford for the next decade. If Emma-May tries anything like this again, they will make her disappear).

Then they are there. they are in the house, watching everyone. They are not leaving, and everyone's going to know about them watching their every move, until they disappear without a word. Then they are watching them from the trees, and they are mailing detailed descriptions of what certain members of the house (Emma-May) have been doing when no ones seen them. This is a threat.

Stanley is very upset with Emma-May over the whole dino DNA modification. So upset, she looses her bug body viewing privileges. Its devastating for her. At this point Stan's barely comfortable with getting the whole arm bugged, she hasn't seen the rest of him, and Shifty's form just doesnt have the same mysterious appeal. Stan might look different! They don't know! The colors already don't match, what else!

I need you to imagine Emma-May, kneeling with a boom box outside of Stan's window here. Thats the immediate effects of the dino incident. Like a break up, but its a scientist and the bug they want to study under a microscope but has person hood and rights. Stan's going moss already, clinging to Fords chest and making him wheeze as he shakes his head at Emma-May through the window for hurting Stan's feelings and making Ford suffer for it.

[postcard-from-the-past]

Post office of Saint-Maurice-de-Pionsat, Auvergne region of central France

French vintage postcard, mailed in 1952 to Versailles

[cameronsbabydoll]

bambi!reader’s: favorite fall movies ࣪ ִֶָ☾𝜗𝜚˚⋆

mystic pizza — 1988

you’ve got mail — 1998

autumn in new york — 2000

heathers — 1989

barton fink — 1991

bicycle thieves — 1948

autumn sonata — 1978

coraline — 2009

practical magic — 1998

possession — 1981

nosferatu the vampyre — 1979

portrait of a lady on fire — 2019

petite maman — 2021

maurice — 1987

over the garden wall — 2014

what we do in the shadows — 2014

mistress america — 2015

girl, interrupted — 1999

vivre sa vie — 1962

november — 2003

the bookshop — 2017

[walks-the-ages]

Every Autistic+ADHD person should have a Public Domain character as their special interest. It is so great.

You can go hog wild collecting books, movies, adaptions, and sharing all of your Public Domain finds freely.

You can write your own fanfiction and *its not even fanfiction its just its own canon.*

You can make your own custom covers and print your own custom versions of the books.

You can freely rewrite the books and publish them if you want.

You can change a character's pronouns and make them queer as much as you want.

You can make as much art and AUs as you want and you could literally make them their own published series if you wanted.

You can know the joy of receiving a 96 year old book in the mail in a language you can't even read yet but know that you can scan it and upload it to the Internet Archive because it is Public Domain and being able to see the original text is going to make someone's entire week.

You can start learning a new language just to be able to read the original works from a hundred years ago in their native tongue.

You can feel the Hatred of Disney for the Mickey Mouse Protection Act meaning the USA is one of the only countries in the world that doesn't have the entire series of books that are your special interest in the Public Domain which they should have been over a decade ago , but now at least you have something to look forward to on January 1st for the next decade, give or take a few gaps years of nothing entering the Public Domain!

This is about Arsene Lupin by Maurice Leblanc, first published in 1905 through to 1941, but I would *love* to hear about everyone's Public Domain blorbos in the notes lol.