#classic lit fic

[the-bar-sinister]

Jane Darling hacked her way through the thicket of rosebushes with her borrowed blade.

Her mother and father had lived here once, before she was born-- if you could call what happened in Neverland living.

Jane's mother spoke of Peter Pan with a mixture of tenderness and bitter bile, her father with cautious, wary awe.

Jane hadn't been impressed, when she met him.

Now he had gone and declared a game of war between them.

Jane didn't think he'd expected a girl to like war.

She cut down another swath of rosebushes.

She was thinking about cutting out his heart.

ao3 link

[lets-get-lit]

It can be really exasperating to look back at your past. What’s the matter with you? I want to ask her, my younger self, shaking her shoulder. If I did that, she would probably cry. Maybe I would cry, too.

- Elif Batuman, The Idiot

[otrtbs]

I saw this post by @/r.a.b.supremacy on tt and i was like… Nat you need to see this.

okay,,,, first of all,,,, crying like a small child rn

this is so so sweet and so lovely and the comment section is so beyond kind. i am very touched by the outpouring of love !!! 🥹💕 and while i very much think it would be fitting for regulus’ dreams in ahb! to be remembered by the masses i came across this comment

and yeah!!! like i don’t need it to be published or to be the greatest i like having it for us. it’s our little thing ,, our love story / our tragedy / our thing to joke about our little secret that can be found tucked away safe in a little corner of the internet . and the people who know will know and that’s what makes it great 🥰💗

[guiltyonsundays]

In defence of Will Ladislaw

George Eliot's characterisation of Will Ladislaw is one of the few aspects of Middlemarch that is not universally praised, with no less a person than Henry James commenting in 1873 that he lacked “sharpness of outline and depth of color”, making him the novel’s “only eminent failure.” And while Will's character is certainly not as clearly defined as some of the other characters in the novel, I believe that this was absolutely intentional on Eliot's part. Middlemarch is full to the brim of characters who believe they know exactly what they want—not least among them, our two protagonists, Dorothea Brooke and Tertius Lydgate, whose ardent ambitions and inflexible attitudes lead them into catastrophic errors of judgement and unhappy marriages.

By contrast, Will's lack of strongly defined goals and his changeability are almost his defining character traits. He's aimless and pliable, prone to rapid mood swings and drastic career changes, with even his physical features seeming to "chang[e] their form; his jaw looked sometimes large and sometimes small; and the little ripple in his nose was a preparation for metamorphosis. When he turned his head quickly his hair seemed to shake out light."

Will’s inscrutability is closely tied to his ambiguous status within the rigid class structure and xenophobic society of Victorian England, with his Polish ancestry and “rebellious blood on both sides” making him a target for suspicion. He is repeatedly aligned (and aligns himself) with oppressed, marginalised, and outcast populations—Jewish people, artists, and the poor.

He serves as a narrative foil for characters like Lydgate and Edward Casaubon, who prioritise specialist expertise above all and are consequently incapable of broad knowledge synthesis. He critiques Casaubon's life's work as being "thrown away, as so much English scholarship is, for want of knowing what is being done by the rest of the world." By contrast, Will serves as Eliot's defence of the value of a liberal education. One of the first things that we learn about him is that he declines to choose a vocation, and instead seeks to travel widely, experiencing diverse cultures and ways of life. He has broad tastes and interests, trying his hand at poetry and painting before eventually pursuing a career in politics.

He also functions as a narrative foil for Dorothea. Will is initially apathetic to politics, whereas Dorothea initially professes herself to be disinterested in art and beauty. This is perfectly encapsulated in their exchange in Rome, when Dorothea declares, "I should like to make life beautiful—I mean everybody's life. And then all this immense expense of art, that seems somehow to lie outside life and make it no better for the world, pains one", to which Will replies, "You might say the same of landscape, of poetry, of all refinement [...] The best piety is to enjoy—when you can [...] I suspect that you have some false belief in the virtues of misery, and want to make your life a martyrdom.”

By the end of the novel, Dorothea unlearns some of her puritanical suspicion of sensual pleasure, whereas Will becomes more serious, compassionate, and politically engaged, dedicating his life to the accomplishment of humane political reforms. They are both flawed individuals, who ultimately become more well rounded through their relationship with each other. Admittedly, Dorothea's influence on Will is more significant than his on her—and once again, I believe that this was intentional on Eliot's part.

In my opinion, the negative response to Will Ladislaw at the time of Middlemarch's publication (and in the centuries since) was and is profoundly informed by gendered expectations of masculine dominance in romantic relationships. Will's marriage to Dorothea has often been described as disappointing, with many readers and critics viewing the ambitious Lydgate as the embodiment of the ideal husband that Dorothea outlines at the beginning of the novel—a talented man engaged in important work for the betterment of humanity, to whom she can devote herself.

However, one of the central themes of the novel is that people are often mistaken in their beliefs about what they want, and Dorothea's marriage to Edward Casaubon certainly demonstrates that she would not in fact be happy living her life in submission to a man who does not respect her opinions. I firmly believe that Lydgate's misogynistic attitudes and expectations would have made it impossible for him to be happy in a marriage of equals with a woman like Dorothea. He is explicitly drawn to Rosamond Vincy because she has "just the kind of intelligence one would desire in a woman—polished, refined, docile."

By contrast, George Eliot made a deliberate choice to pair Dorothea with a man who is not ashamed to be influenced by her, and indeed looks up to her as his moral superior. Through Dorothea's influence, Will discovers his life's work. In turn, by marrying Will, Dorothea is able to pursue her true passion. As a result of their influence on each other, these come to mean the same thing—reform. Thus, George Eliot grants Dorothea Brooke a subversively feminist, politically progressive, and profoundly cathartic ending: a life of companionate marriage, sensual pleasure, and meaningful work, in which Dorothea can devote herself (within the limited means available to her as a woman in the 19th century) to the achievement of just and compassionate reforms that "make life beautiful" for everybody—herself included.

[sad-eyed-lady-of-the-paperbacks]

I’m doing a thing! It’s a retelling of the plot of The Brothers Karamazov from Grushenka’s perspective. You can read it on ao3.

[s3janus]

If you could suspend your disbelief enough to buy that a teenage university student was able to discover the secret to creating life, and with this knowledge made an 8 foot tall creature out of human parts in the attic of his dorm room, I think you could reasonably believe that the said university student would also be able to give himself top surgery

[spooky-something]

You dudes think you guys are cringe???? You dudes think your Frankenstein hyperfixation/Special interest is bad??? Embarrassing???? Cringy???? You feel like a loser for it???

WELL DON'T, BECAUSE WE GOT A FUCKING PHYSICAL COPY OF A FRANKENSTEIN FANFIC FOR CHRISTMAS....

I WISH THIS WAS A FUCKING JOKE, BECAUSE THIS GOES CRAZY... /Srs

[bibliocharlie]

if youre an academia, literature, cottagecore, cozy, vintage, or plant blog, REBLOG THIS PLS!!

i’m desperate for new people to follow and idk how else to find active accounts

[kurokoros]

aaaand done???

[doriansredroses]

Heheh idea time. Beauty and the Beast au but Jonathan is Belle and Dracula is the Beast. But instead of beasts, it’s vampires.

[bigcats-birds-and-books]

Books of 2023. ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE by Gabriel García Márquez.

Currently reading! This has been languishing on the TBR for a While™ and came highly recommended by a bookstore coworker. I'm only a couple chapters in, so far, and the family tree is ~Messy~, but the prose is lyrical and lovely!

[coulson-is-an-avenger]

Chapters: 1/1

Words: 11,234

Fandom: Moby Dick - Herman Melville

Rating: Mature

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Relationships: Starbuck/Mary Starbuck/Original Female Character(s), Captain Ahab/Starbuck (Moby Dick), Starbuck/Mary Starbuck (Moby Dick), Starbuck/Original Male Character(s), (it's a polycule but it's mid-expansion and also during the 1840s so it's a bit messy, but they're working it out) - Relationship

Characters: Starbuck, Mary Starbuck, Starbuck's Son, Original Male Character(s), Original Female Character(s), Captain Ahab (mentioned)

Additional Tags: Pre-Canon, Polyamory, Polyamorous Character, Polyamory Negotiations, Queer Awakening, Bittersweet, Depressed Starbuck (Moby Dick), Hurt/Comfort, Alcohol, cowboy, Brief Sexual Content, Starbuck is a sad wet cat who sucks and I like him so much

Summary: The sea has taken all that Starbuck has ever known: his father, his brothers, his wish for a peaceful future with the woman he loves. Now, he fears, it has taken his only friend as well.

He misses Ahab, so much that it is sending him spiraling away from all his known lovings and comforts. He misses Ahab, so much that he would do anything to feel that even a piece of him is still here. He misses Ahab, and he burns. Oh, how he burns.

Or: The Cowboy Fic :3

special thanks to @pocketsizedquasar for getting me into MD, as usual, but also for putting up with me talking abt this fic for months, as well as beta reading it for me, and for @comfycouchcat who helped me with some LOAD bearing plot and character decisions <3

[sacred-algae]

What if Jack Harkness and Dorian Gray were in a relationship?

It would be toxic as fuck, that's what. I now proudly present my third book:

Welcome to what's planned to be 19 chapters and 50k+ words of pure heartbreak and hot as fuck sex, with a bit of mystery thrown in for good measure. You're welcome.

(I promise I'll get back to updating when I can!)

[boogiewoogieweeb]

it's all fun and games typing up a silly, rickety little au idea in the tags of someone else's post and then suddenly you find yourself expanding on the world-building and plotting out interconnected stories for characters you swore would only make background appearances and your brain is On Fire with the need to write even when you know you can't commit to yet another doomed wip

[sad-eyed-lady-of-the-paperbacks]

Chapter 6!

Here is chapter 6 of my retelling of The Brothers Karamazov from Grushenka’s POV. It’s up on ao3 now. If you read it, please let me know what you think!

[satoruin]

my irl read a chapter of the book i’m semi-working on and then asked if i wrote fan fiction 😭