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Darcy’s introduction in Pride and Prejudice is really ‘what if you had just had the worst month of your life because your ex-bestie tried to lover boy scam your baby sister out of her share of your dad’s life insurance and your friend dragged you to a shitty party in a dive bar in the neighbourhood where he’d just signed a short term lease, and you decided to let your bad mood show because you were never going to see any of the assholes in this stupid shitty bar EVER again. And your friend ended up making out with a girl he’d just met there while you were stuck talking to her sister who was less cute and then her mother appeared and started trying to matchmake and started saying how if she was twenty years younger she’d clime you like a redwood and ooooh is that a black Amex, guess the next round is on you hahhahahahaha, while her other sister (how many fucking sisters does she have?!) flashed an obviously fake ID at the bar and ordered six vodka-diet red bulls and no one in her family except the less-cute sister even tried to stop her. And you went home and consoled yourself that you would never see any of these people again but then you met them over and over again because they live next door and your friend and the cute sister keep meeting up to make out but not actually date and then. You fall in love with the less-cute sister because it turns out she’s really witty and charismatic but she already knows and remembers and resents the fact that on a day when you were in a shitty mood you called her mid out loud in a dive bar.’

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Chapter Eighteen of A Mirror for the Prince's Shadow - a historical m x nb romantasy featuring dark academia, hurt/comfort, and dragon royalty - is now on Patre♡n! Wherein our hero parties against his will.

~

“Fernsby’s throwing a bash,” Emlyn told Rat.

It’d taken xir almost an hour to work up the courage to do so. An evening hour spent relaxing with Rat in their dormitory—or rather failing to relax. Emlyn’s nerves rattled on edge for reasons xe couldn’t understand. It was a commonplace proposition. And it was only Rat.

Yet Emlyn had seen almost nothing of him these past few months despite their sharing a room. Hardly more than a glimpse since the horse show. Xe wondered, not for the first time, what xe had done to make Rat avoid xir. Xe told xirself—again—that nothing was wrong; Rat was just busy. First year and all that. And in the medical college to boot. A far heavier course-load than Emlyn’s own philosophy degree. More stringent and more demanding in almost every regard. Understandable given how life and death literally hung in the balance. Still, Emlyn wished it weren’t so taxing on Rat. Not entirely for unselfish reasons.

A wry smile twitched at the corner of Rat’s mouth. “Bully for Fernsby.”

It was only a glimpse of the friend Emlyn had known prior to university. It lightened Emlyn’s heart regardless. “You’re invited.”

Rat cocked an eyebrow. “Not by Fernsby, surely.”

Emlyn furrowed xir brow. A troubling insinuation. But one which xe could contemplate later. At present xe had to make the most of Rat’s fleeting notice. “I’m inviting you.”

Rat’s left eyebrow arose to join his right.

~

Joining me on Patre♡n will give you access to “drawer fic” – aka the 500k+ words worth of manuscripts that have been shelved until I figure out how to fix or finish them. You'll also be invited to join an exclusive Discord server just for patrons!

A new chapter will go up every week. Missing (unwritten) scenes will be indicated by brackets describing what would probably happen if the scene were written. Example: [in this scene Aubrey and Lindsey ride a carousel]

Currently posting… ♡ A Mirror for the Prince's Shadow (historical m x nb romantasy)

Completed works... ♡ the Aubrey & Lindsey solar fantasy project (mm) ♡ A Willing Canvas - John Halloway x Lord Cyril Graves (mm) ♡ The Train Job - Rowena Althorp x Rebekah (ff) ♡ Hold Fast 2 - Hold Faster (mm) ♡ Vampires Vampires Vampires (mmm) ♡ The Sebastian Nothwell Contemporary Expanded Universe (mmm+) ♡ Theo. (transmasc historical mm romance)

See you on Patre♡n!

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A non-comprehensive list of things in Moby Dick that prior cultural osmosis of Moby Dick did not prepare me to find in Moby Dick, in no particular order. Written in the time it takes to listen to Ahab's The Call of the Wretched Sea while making midnight tofu:

Ishmael is funny, actually

Also very aware that he's pretentious and overdramatic and frequently providing you with scientifically unsupported facts. This will not stop him and if you don't like it - well, you can leave, but lbr really you can't leave, you're stuck on this boat in the middle of the ocean with him for all bazillion words/hours/days of this trip and you'd better understand exactly what that feels and looks and tastes and smells and vibes like before you even can dream of understanding how it comes to its inevitable, doomed end

How much listening on audio elevates the content. 10/10, would recommend

Only one bed (clearly I had not been on Moby Dick tumblr)

Yeah these guys are uh. Not entirely heterosexual, yeah

Whale property law

"Blubber is whale skin: change my mind"

Whatever the fuck Ahab and Starbuck have going on

The urge to whisper "that's so fucking metal" aloud multiple times. I have since learned that I am extremely not alone

"a widow with her husband alive" and tbh the whole speech around and beyond that line

Ishmael's weird priorities where he'll spend 20min on why the color white is unsettling and how sailors are weird about seals but won't mention a relevant plot point until it's past coming up and then he'll be like "oh right fyi we heard about that at the last port. ANYWAY"

No but really, Ishmael is really funny. There's an entire scene where he elaborately asks half the ship "is this shit normal??" and then when they say yes he dramatically drags his harpooneer boyfriend down to the hold to act as his lawyer while he rewrites his will for the 4th time. I kind of love him

the last line before the epilogue, which got me. 5000 years, man. How terribly vast

Okay my tofu is done so this is what I got. What a BOOK what a TIME

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boat is the best setting for anything all stories should be on a boat

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Obscure Arthurian text which everyone should read #1: The Story of the Crop-Eared Dog

This is what happens when you mash together a revenge quest, a slasher movie, a buddy road trip, a bildungsroman, a fantasy epic, and a shaggy dog story and set it in medieval times. Because there aren’t many Irish Arthurian texts, whether Bhalbhuaidh, the protagonist, is meant to be Gawain or Galahad is controversial. His name and titles could point to either and his life situation seems more like Gawain’s, but I will refer to him Galahad because I find the idea of a Galahad AU where he’s pagan and gallivants around with a prince who was turned into a giant dog and lost all qualms about murder along the way entertaining. It starts when Arthur, who inexplicably holds the title of King of the World, convenes a hunt in the Dangerous Forest on the Plain of Wonders and the mysterious Knight of the Lantern does what any antagonistic knight worth his salt would do: gatecrash and ask for violence. It gets less normal very rapidly from there. Abhlach the druidess is at least as awesome as she is wicked, Galahad may or may not have a magical music-making sword, and the fact that there’s an Island of Naked Monks is never given any explanation because it’s only mentioned in passing when the dog tells Galahad he killed them all. 

Yeah, it’s a fun read.

Here’s a link to the translation I read:

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"A Scandal in Bohemia" is so funny because from Holmes' perspective it's like, it changed his whole perception of women, he remembered her for the rest of his life, she was a major influence on him. But from Irene Adler's perspective it was like:

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I wrote the first story in this episode-- CHERYL! Check it out!!

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So it’s 1403 CE and the future King Henry V of England has just taken an arrow to the face at the Battle of Shrewsbury. Can John Bradmore fix it? Tune in for a story plucked straight outta Shakespeare. (Content Warning for glib discussion of historical child endangerment, medical gore, and medieval attempts at self-harm.)

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Three indie authors discuss the opposing methods of plotting out a book vs. flying by the seat of your pants, and strategies to blend these methods to achieve the best of both worlds.

Featuring...!

RK Ashwick (she/her) aka @ashen-crest

Tess Carletta (she/her) aka @tesscarletta

Luna Daye (she/her)

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trying to read house of leaves like

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I’m finished with P.G. Wodehouse and I’m ready for R Rated Wodehouse now

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Chapter Seventeen of A Mirror for the Prince's Shadow - a historical m x nb romantasy featuring dark academia, hurt/comfort, and dragon royalty - is now on Patre♡n! Wherein a whirlwind ensues.

~

Griswold frowned. “What sort of hound is it?”

“Bull-and-terrier.”

Her left brow arched. “Rat-catcher?”

Rat supposed it was rather funny for a man of his name to keep such a dog. “Aye.”

Whatever jokes Griswold might’ve made, she kept to herself. “Not catching rats at present, though.”

“Not in a pit. Though she does get hold of ‘em now and again in the corridors. Palace is big enough,” Rat added as Griswold’s right brow shot up to meet her left. “She’s plenty of room to find ‘em.”

“And they leave her to it, at the palace?”

Rat felt strange discussing palace life at university, where everyone play-acted as if they all stood on a level field. “She has a keeper. He sees to her needs particular.”

It hadn’t seemed right, throwing her in the kennel with the hunting dogs. She got on better with Iskandar’s long-shank cats and sleek sight-hounds. A palace pup through and through. Spoilt rotten, and who could begrudge her it?

“So she’s not wanting for company, then,” Griswold concluded.

“No,” Rat admitted with some hesitance. He couldn’t speak for the dog’s feelings on her constant companion abandoning her for greener pastures. But she wasn’t altogether alone, either. He hoped that might count for something.

~

Joining me on Patre♡n will give you access to “drawer fic” – aka the 500k+ words worth of manuscripts that have been shelved until I figure out how to fix or finish them. You'll also be invited to join an exclusive Discord server just for patrons!

A new chapter will go up every week. Missing (unwritten) scenes will be indicated by brackets describing what would probably happen if the scene were written. Example: [in this scene Aubrey and Lindsey ride a carousel]

Currently posting… ♡ A Mirror for the Prince's Shadow (historical m x nb romantasy)

Completed works... ♡ the Aubrey & Lindsey solar fantasy project (mm) ♡ A Willing Canvas - John Halloway x Lord Cyril Graves (mm) ♡ The Train Job - Rowena Althorp x Rebekah (ff) ♡ Hold Fast 2 - Hold Faster (mm) ♡ Vampires Vampires Vampires (mmm) ♡ The Sebastian Nothwell Contemporary Expanded Universe (mmm+) ♡ Theo. (transmasc historical mm romance)

See you on Patre♡n!

[classicrants]

What blows my mind is that Dante may have casually admitted to having homosexual desires in Canto 16 of the Inferno, where he sees sodomites and wishes to literally throw himself into the flames to join them, but he fights the urge and says, "And then I spoke: ‘Repulsion, no, but grief for your conditions spread throughout my heart (and years will pass before it fades away)...'” Like, Bro???????????? Am I reading this correctly?

What's even crazier is that he says Virgil would have let him. Fucking Virgil. Like whadhdtahwhat?? Perhaps I'm misremembering, but I can't remember a single canto in which Virgil would approve of Dante putting himself in physical danger. That is so crazy to me. 

Thinking about this in terms of Virgil = Guido and my brain explodes. 

It's true!

Dante says that he sees three people rushing towards him ("like champions do, naked and oiled, studying their grip before they come to blows and thrusts between them" .ahem.) and Virgil says that if it weren't for the fire it would actually be more becoming if it were Dante rushing towards them rather than the contrary. And a few lines later Dante says that if he weren't terrorized he would throw himself amongst them and hug them, and Virgil would've allowed it.

There are two things that strike me. The first is that a central theme with sodomites is dignity. Contrary to literary tradition of the time where the punishment of sodomites was often described in quite brutal terms and involved the torture of genitals, Dante is much more delicate and his focus is not on the perversion of their lust but on the fact that those corrupted are prestigious people. With Brunetto Latini Dante insists on his intellectual dignity, and only with the three sodomites of canto XVI their nakedness is highlighted, but the comparison says everything about how we need to interpret it: they look like wrestlers, like champions. There is no belittlement in this image but clelebration (and Brunetto was compared to a champion too). In a way I would compare them to Farinata degli Uberti (canto X) in the way they deserve respect, but with the difference that with Farinata we still see the flaws of his character, his pride and his attachement to his lost life, while the three sodomites do not talk about themselves but are rather interested in the state of Florence's customs — are florentines still courteous and valorous? (spoiler no)— Again, what seems to be relvant to Dante is not the sin per se but how frequent it is amongst respectful people. The subtext is saying: sodomy does not make a person a vile subhuman being — contrary to, for example, robbers who become one with snakes and where Vanni Fucci, one of them, openly insults God. — This is all a very unusual and original approach.

Then we have, as you said, sympathy. Dante not only respects them, but feels like he's part of them. Just like in Limbo, where he meets famous poets and he joins them as they form a circle and discuss poetry because Dante is a poet himself, here the three form a circle around Dante ("fénno una rota di sé tutti e trei", "they wheeled round all three", l.21) and he wishes to hug them and they speak of virtues thus demonstrating they are not subhuman because....Dante is one of them and he too is not subhuman but is deserving of respect?

All of this, of course, from the earthly, skewed perspective of Dante-character who's too weak to condemn people who share his same sins. God very much punishes them not only because we are in Hell but because there might be, as we have said, the full reversal of Guido's poem.

To sum up, I am a sodomite-Dante truther.

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Our friend Tarra ( @wellntruly ) returns for another thrilling chapter from our Varney vault! Will the Bannerworths finally leave the Hall? (No.)

Varney the Vampire is a genuine penny dreadful, read aloud one chapter per week just like the original Victorian working class audience would do for the authentic 1840s Chartist coffeehouse experience.

To instantly unlock over a hundred more chapters (literally), check out our Patreon.

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thoughts while watching Pride & Prejudice 2005:

Bingley’s hair could rival that of a member of One Direction

I suppose in a way he was the original Harry Styles

Mrs. Bennet WOULD sell her daughters to One Direction

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a little one shot scene that I did back when I was sick uhhhhh last year. since it's now 2025. jesus christ, the passage of time sure is a concept.

anyway, I think this is as done as this page is ever going to get, partially because I decided to go in a different direction with fashion decisions, and I like how kay's hair turned out, so I'm freeing it from my WIP folder :)

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“Athough written many years ago, Lady Chatterley’s Lover has just been reissued by Grove Press, and this fictional account of the day-by-day life of an English gamekeeper is still of considerable interest to outdoor-minded readers, as it contains many passages on pheasant-raising, the apprehending of poachers, ways to control vermin, and other chores and duties of the professional gamekeeper. Unfortunately, one is obliged to wade through many pages of extraneous material in order to discover and savour these sidelights on the management of a Midland shooting estate, and in this reviewer’s opinion this book cannot take the place of J. R. Miller's Practical Gamekeeping.”

- Ed Zern providing probably the greatest review of Lady Chatterley ever written (Field & Stream magazine, 1959).