#please read mansfield park

[bethanydelleman]

Why You Should Read Mansfield Park

Mansfield Park is consistently voted the least favourite Jane Austen novel, much to my despair. A lot of people don't even read it based on that reputation. If you are an Austen fan, or even just a book fan, this is why you should read it.

Mansfield Park: Something for Everyone

Are you an extrovert who wants to understand the other side, have you ever experienced: “pausing a moment for what she knew would not come, for a courage which the outside of no door had ever supplied to her“? Try Mansfield Park and live inside the head of an introvert!

Are you tired of everyone loving the highly extroverted and witty Elizabeth Bennet, Fanny Price is your heroine! Watch her go from unappreciated and ignored to, “the daughter that he wanted,” by being quietly helpful, moral, and kind, not bright and sparkling.

Do you enjoy watching university-aged people creating drama, being selfish, and having elaborate love triangles? TV ratings seem to indicate yes. Look no further than Mansfield Park! Sisters who love the same guy, unrequited love, hidden jealousy, and can the bad boy finally go good?

Not into drama? How about intelligent critiques of the Church of England, a good deal of it still relevant today? Mary Crawford has you covered!

Into Poetry? Fanny Price thinks in poetry! Check out her monologue on “tyrannic memory” or her reflections on sunlight when she’s staying with her family in Portsmouth. Mary Crawford didn’t pay attention, but you will love it!

Do you love free stuff? Who doesn’t love free stuff? Watch the master of mooching, Mrs. Norris, abscond with all the extra jellies after the ball and sponge a heath, some eggs, AND a cream cheese from Southerton. Have you ever made someone feel better by stealing green baize?

Want romance? Only read Ch 30 and forget everything else that happens!

Mansfield Park, give it a first chance, or another chance.

(Also, neither movie (1999 or 2007) follows the book. The 1983 mini is the only one true to canon. If you’ve watched Fances O’Connor as Fanny Price you don’t know the real story. And these aren't small quibbles, they completely changed Fanny's character in 1999, it's the forerunner of Persuasion 2022)

[delphinidin4]

I just had a brainwave about Mansfield Park. This might be something that Jane Austen fans already know and think is obvious, but I've never heard it discussed, and I think it really clears up a lot of things about this book for me.

So scholars are always talking about how this book intersects with slavery. First of all, the Antigua property that isn't doing so well would have been worked by enslaved people (keeping slaves was still legal in Antigua, though selling them there was not). Also, at one point Fanny asks Sir Thomas a question about the slave trade, though it isn't really elaborated on. I saw this discussed again and again in the (admittedly little) scholarship I read on this book, and it always seemed weird to me that they zeroed in on that detail.

More recently, I read Margaret Doody's book on the names Austen used in her work, and she pointed out that the famous legal case that declared slavery to be illegal in England was called the Mansfield Decision. Any reader at the time, reading that novel, would have that information in the back of their head, and it would have informed how they read the book.

This much I knew. But I always felt like these arguments never really explained what slavery had to do with the love story of Fanny Price: even Doody never seemed to connect this factoid about the title very deeply with the novel's themes (a problem I had with a number of her discussions in that book).

More recently, I saw it pointed out that Fanny Price is treated like a slave by Mrs. Norris, and I thought, "Aha! Finally, an explanation!" But it still didn't feel complete to me.

But I just realized: you can take that metaphor a lot farther. (For this argument, please keep in mind that Austen, though on the side of the abolitionists, was a 19th-century woman who didn't have the same sensibilities about the discussion of race as we do now.)

--Like an enslaved person, Fanny is taken from her home and her family and moved far, far away (she isn't kidnapped, of course, but stick with me).

--The family that she joins considers her to be naturally stupider than they are because she has not had the advantage of their education. This is similar to African slaves, whom white people looked down on and thought intellectually inferior because they didn't have a western education.

--The term "family" at the time included the household servants and slaves, not just the actual family. Fanny, the poor relation, joins the household less like a cousin/niece, and more like a servant or an enslaved person. She is literally relegated to sleep in an attic, like a maid.

--Fanny suffers a great deal emotionally because she misses her family (especially Edward). Austen, as an abolitionist, would likely have read accounts like Olaudah Equiano's autobiography, which often described the intense emotional suffering of enslaved people separated from their homes and families.

--One of the justifications slaveholders gave for slavery was that they were "improving" the lives of the Africans they enslaved, by teaching them Christianity and occasionally, trades or other forms of education. Fanny is ostensibly being brought to Mansfield to give her a good education. And while she does get that education, she really functions much more in the household like a servant to Lady Bertram and Mrs. Norris.

--Fanny IS taught a great deal of morality by Edmund, who is a bit of a prig. It seems hypocritical of him to be constantly "schooling" her in morality when it often seems like Fanny is more naturally ethical than he is. This mirrors the hypocrisy of white slaveholders who deigned to teach their slaves Christianity while acting extremely unchristian themselves.

--Fanny ends up with an inferiority complex because she is constantly torn down by Mrs. Norris and treated as inferior by Maria and Julia. In reality, she's very intelligent, well-read, and ethical in a way that none of them area. This mirrors the way black folks were unfairly treated as inferior by white society.

--The injustice of the Bertrams toward Fanny is so obvious to outsiders that even the morally deficient Crawfords are indignant about it. Mrs. Norris makes a snide remark to Fanny about "who and what she is" (a reference to racism?) and Mary Crawford is indignant on Fanny's behalf and rushes in to comfort her. Henry Crawford--at least, after he falls in love with Fanny--says that the way the family has treated her is disgraceful, and that he is going to show them how they should have been treating her all along. Austen may be pointing to the idea that slavery is SO wrong that it should be obvious to everybody.

I conclude that the book is titled Mansfield Park because Austen wants to point out that while slavery may be illegal in England, poor relations are still often treated like slaves by their families.

That being said, here are some questions this analogy throws up:

--Why is Sir Thomas so much nicer to Fanny after his stay in Antigua, where he would have been witnessing slavery on a daily basis? What does this say about him, both as an uncle and a slaveowner?

--Fanny goes home to Portsmouth, and finds that she doesn't like it and it isn't as neat and orderly as she would like. Is this Austen saying that if enslaved people went back to Africa, they would find that they still felt western society to be superior? How would we square that idea with the point above that westerners are not superior to Africans?

--Why does Fanny end up with Edmund? If he's analogous to the son of a slaveowner and she's analogous to a slave, why is she in love with him in the first place, and why does Austen seem to reify her choice by making them get together in the end? (Remember that even Austen's sister Cassandra felt strongly that Fanny should have ended up with Henry Crawford, not the priggish Edmund.) Is Fanny brainwashed by the Bertrams? How does that relate to the slaveholding analogy?

[thelastofthebookworms]

A quick Austen's bibliography -

6 major finished novels : Pride and Prejudice, Persuasion, Emma, Sense and Sensibility, Northanger Abbey, Mansfield Park

The epistolary novel Lady Susan

Juvenile writings

2 unfinished novels : Sanditon, The Watsons

The epistolary novel Lady Susan

Each of those count as 1 work (If you've read the unfinished Sanditon and no other Austen, vote "1 (not P&P)"

(And yes audiobooks = reading too, I think we're past this debate)

-

Please don't feel self-conscious if it's 0. You're not the only one (as I can already tell you the results show).

Reading isn't everyone's hobby, British literature isn't everyone's cup of tea etc.

Poll about P&P adapations

Other polls in my pinned post.

[literatureismyentirepersonality]

Hello! Just wanted to say I enjoy your tumblr. Seeing your posts on the Brontes, Austen, Keats and Hamlet remind me of the time when I was obsessed with literature and specifically these works/authors. One of my underrated favourites is Villette by Charlotte Bronte (though Jane Eyre was my first Bronte love.) And Mansfield Park awakened me to Austen's depths. What are your favourite Bronte novel and Austen novel?

Halloo!

I LOVE Villette. It is Charlotte Brontë's best work in my eyes, showing her real development as a writer. I've always found it confusing/sad that Jane Eyre is the most well known of the Brontë ouvre because although it's good and I enjoy it, it is the weakest link. Charlotte Brontë got SO much better. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is my favourite Brontë novel, partly because I lean more towards Anne's cleaner style, partly because the subject matter is very dear to me. Wuthering Heights was my first love, though. My grandma took me to visit the parsonage having read only bits of Jane Eyre and I took home a copy of Wuthering Heights and devoured it in one night. It's a really magical whirlwind on your first read.

I really need to appreciate Mansfield Park more and do a re-read— I know I saw much more in Emma as an adult and I may well see more there too. Northanger Abbey was my favourite for a while as the most cheerful and fun (and my first Austen novel) but Persuasion has my heart.

Also Keats! Keats! Do you have a favourite piece? A gripe against The Eve of St Agnes? (I do) Please talk to me about Keats because Tumblr has not yet scratched that itch for me.

[saintssaveme]

Bella Swan’s books 🕯️

Every book Bella reads/mentions liking in the Twilight series 🤍 I feel like we don’t appreciate enough that Bella is a literature girlie

“There was a bit of Jane Eyre in her, a portion of Scout Finch and Jo March, a measure of Elinor Dashwood, and Lucy Pevensie. I was sure I would find more connections as I learned more about her.” - Edward about Bella (Midnight Sun, chapter 13)

1. Books mentioned in Twilight (and the rest of the main series) 📚

Pride and Prejudice

Sense and Sensibility

Mansfield Park

Wuthering Heights

Romeo and Juliet

2. Books mentioned in midnight sun 💌

Little women (“That was the first big book I read. I still read it pretty much every year.”)

Jane Eyre (“I read that one pretty often, too. That’s my idea of a heroine.”)

To kill a Mockingbird

Fahrenheit 451

Tooth and Claw

The Princess Bride

Gone with the wind

3. Book series mentioned in Midnight sun 💌

The chronicles of Narnia (Bella’s favourite is The voyage of the dawn treader)

Anne of Green Gables

4. Authors Bella mentions liking in Midnight sun 💌

Douglas Adams

David Eddings

Orson Scott Card

Robin McKinley

The Brontë sisters

Jane Austen (note that Bella is not overly fond of Emma)

Shakespeare (“mostly the comedies.”)

Zane Grey (“My mom had a bunch of Zane Grey paperbacks. Some of them were pretty good.”)

Agatha Christie

Anne McCaffrey

If I missed a book, please lmk! 💗

[captain-aralias]

9 books that are my favourites

tagged by @arenee1999 a few days ago, thank you <3 as i was writing this list in my head last night, i thought - this could be read as a list of my favourite fandoms and television/film adaptations, but hey ho. i did a degree in english lit or something.

harry potter and the prisoner of azkaban by JKR - no book has been so important to my life and i also just think it's a really fun mystery and i still like it, so - it's here, it's staying.

carry on by rainbow rowell - but of course. this one was quite important too.

pride and prejudice by jane austen - i don't think this has ever made a fav book list before, i think because i thought it was too basic, but damnit - this book is great, it influences the way i write enemies to lovers, i love the 1995 adaptation and all of austen's novels are bangers except mansfield park, which i keep trying to like but it sucks.

the once and future king by TH white - all my life i loved the movie 'camelot' and it's depiction of arthur. i only learned as an adult that it was TH white's gentle, earnest, thwarted arthur that they'd used <3 he's perfect. 'ill-made knight' is the best of the series, IMO

lieutenant hornblower by cs forester - i haven't read the books in ages, so maybe it's time for a re-read. the ioan grufford adaptation is great, i wish they'd do the later/earlier books too! BUT this early (in hornblower's life) book is my fav - the only one told from bush's POV as he struggles with how he loves hornblower but worries the guy wants to do a mutiny (which he totally does)

the folk of the air by holly black - a new entrant even though i've loved it for years, but i've decided i don't just think it's really good, it's so good that it's one of my favs. maybe the best of the trilogy is the middle book, 'wicked king' where jude is in power with limited support and they fall in love (or do they???). how the king of elfham learned to hate stories is also brilliant.

'the emperor mage' by tamora pierce. i've been waiting my whole life for the numair book and it was terrible, but her first three trilogies are my absolute crack, and this is the best book of those series IMO. the bit where numair tries to hit the emperor for implying he loves his student daine (which he does) while she's listening but disguised as a bird - and then he fakes his own death, and daine goes crazy... that bit has stayed with me for decades, i love it so much.

'night watch' by terry pratchett. i still feel late to properly loving pterry, but i've always liked this one and now i love it - vimes is my guy, i love the time travel, that he trains himself, that he resists both passively and when required actively. v good. my next fav is probably ... 'monstrous regiment', which i think is a bit more of a weird choice (unlike this one which is mega popular and also about all the things i like), but it just does everything right! oh, 'and 'going postal'.

'the princess bride' by s morgenstern william goldman. i haven't read this for ages either so maybe it shouldn't make the list, but i expect it's still pretty great. a mindfuck for a young child who has only seen the film and thinks all of the frame narrative must therefore be real... also, the film is like one of the best films ever and i have seen that super recently. if you haven't seen the home movie, do yourself a favour and watch it because it's a great way to enjoy the movie a-new.

no idea where this meme has been already. so just saying hello to some folks and if you'd like to do this meme and haven't done it already, please do! @giishu @orange-peony @you-remind-me-of-the-babe @carryonvisinata @alleycat0306 @fight-surrender @cows4247 @messofthejess @mysterioussheep

[grandhotelabyss]

Any thoughts on Byatt, on the occasion of her passing?

I read Possession one summer when I was in college and thought it was extraordinary. (Intimidatingly so, which may be why I never read another of her novels, though Possession is generally said to be her best.) I need to read it again. I can't believe it never came back into fashion with the dark academia trend. Maybe it's too brainy, or maybe it's that the (mostly) heterosexual romance lacks yaoi potential à la Dorian Gray, Maurice, and Brideshead Revisited. For anyone unfamiliar, Possession is about two late-20th-century British academics investigating the lives of two fictional Victorian poets (one loosely based on Robert Browning, the other on Christina Rossetti), and both pairs' possible love affairs with one another. Byatt narrates in a sprightly comic style with no little lyric potential, derived, I now see, from her great models George Eliot and Iris Murdoch, but she also parodies every other kind of relevant style with Joycean or Nabokovian aplomb, giving us jargony feminist essays, image-jeweled Victorian fairy tales, fulsome 19th-century correspondence, jagged Browningesque dramatic monologues, dreamy Pre-Raphaelite ballads, and more. The climatic vindication of writing and reading as almost prophetic activities, this against the reductively ideological approach of the Theory era Byatt was writing within and against, should be carved above the lintel of whatever English departments remain:

There are readings—of the same text—that are dutiful, readings that map and dissect, readings that hear a rustling of unheard sounds, that count grey little pronouns for pleasure or instruction and for a time do not hear golden or apples. There are personal readings, which snatch for personal meanings, I am full of love, or disgust, or fear, I scan for love, or disgust, or fear. There are—believe it—impersonal readings—where the mind's eye sees the lines move onwards and the mind's ear hears them sing and sing.

Now and then there are readings that make the hairs on the neck, the non-existent pelt, stand on end and tremble, when every word burns and shines hard and clear and infinite and exact, like stones of fire, like points of stars in the dark—readings when the knowledge that we shall know the writing differently or better or satisfactorily, runs ahead of any capacity to say what we know, or how. In these readings, a sense that the text has appeared to be wholly new, never before seen, is followed, almost immediately, by the sense that it was always there, that we the readers, knew it was always there, and have always known it was as it was, though we have now for the first time recognised, become fully cognisant of, our knowledge.

I was pleased to see a long story by Byatt, "The Thing in the Forest," in the Norton Introduction to Literature, which I used the one time I taught the class of that name, in the ill-fated spring semester of 2020. If you've never read Byatt, this story or novelette is a good place to start. It does a lot of what Possession does in miniature, synthesizing witty metafiction, aestheticized fantasy, and moving historical reality into a work of the latter-day Romantic imagination.

I also want to recommend Imagining Characters, an under-discussed book of conversations between Byatt and the Brazilian psychoanalyst Ignês Sodré about six novels: Mansfield Park, Villette, Daniel Deronda, The Professor's House, An Unofficial Rose, and Beloved. (I've still never read that Murdoch, I confess.) This book is probably why I think of Mansfield Park, Villette, and Daniel Deronda as forming a loose trilogy of 19th-century "problem novels" (like Shakespeare's "problem plays") that challenge any cheap 20th-century talk about the complacency, sentimentalism, meliorism, or all-around naiveté of "bourgeois realism." Plus Sodré and Byatt are superb readers, and it's a pleasure to "listen" to them in conversation.

The Paris Review unpaywalled their interview with Byatt today. I'd never read it before. She says much of interest; she even criticizes Kazuo Ishiguro in the same terms as I have, for writing international literature by subtracting specificity, though she later praises The Unconsoled for its insight into the psychology of the artist. She seems ambivalent about realism, constantly invoking fairy tales, even saying this about Murdoch—

I think Iris learned a great deal from the French surrealists, and then somehow went and sat in Oxford and became a slightly less interesting novelist than she would have been if she had stayed in contact with the world of Beckett and Queneau—she would never have gone into Sarraute-like writings. I think she developed a theory about the virtues of Jane Austen that wasn’t all that good for her.

—and this about herself:

If you asked me what I wish I’d written, I would say Borges’s “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote.” That is a completely pointless postmodernist structure of total beauty that nevertheless has a profound point.

The interviewer notes her nonconformist heritage, what links her to George Eliot as well as to Lawrence and to Leavis. She acknowledges it, but notes as well another way, even within the deep English Protestant imagination:

There’s a Spenserian aspect of Milton that I love. It’s the exotic. It’s the extraordinary metaphors. It’s the luscious sensuousness of him. It isn’t the stern puritan. I think I made something of Spenser that was the presence of stories about unreal things in a serious, real world.

"The Last Spenserian." There are worse epitaphs. Now I just need to read more of her novels.

[typingcorgi]

sanctuary; part ii

read part i here

pairing: joel miller x f!reader (no y/n)

warnings: tw for mention of blood, mild gore, violence, age difference hinted, no smut yet but honey have you met me? it's coming (and so is joel, and you, ey-ohhhh)

word count: 1.5k

author's notes: canon divergent aka no ellie I'm sorry kids cramp my style

still no smut i'm so sorry but i needed a little bit of a bridge from the last chapter before you and joel go to bone town. So this is violent-ish (I'm a very vanilla writer so if you are seeking major thrills you aren't going to find them here lol)

As always, if you like this, please leave a comment or reblog!! I am so happy to be sharing this garbage with you, whether you like it or not, and can't wait to get to the next part. BRING ON DA SMUT

also thanks @magpie-to-the-morning for reminding me you can put cars in neutral

taglist: @avengersfan25 @fairytale07

Gunshots used to remind you of Outbreak Day.

You weren’t old enough to comprehend the severity of the circumstances. Looking back on it now, severity doesn’t even seem strong enough of a word. It was more of a cataclysm, a shattering of the world you’d known for a world you weren’t prepared to enter. 

New York was the first city to be bombed. The outbreak was impossible to contain on the thirteen-mile island, the Infected found on every street corner, every bend in Central Park. You were young, just beginning to experience the storm and strife of your teenage years when everything you ever knew had been ripped from beneath you within a matter of hours. At the time, you’d been in Boston with your family, unaware that when you’d arrived, you’d never leave.

Gunshots used you remind you of Outbreak Day. Now, you’re hard-pressed to go twenty-four hours without hearing them.

—

The pistol Joel had directed you to use lays useless in your lap. You turn the safety on, even though you’re pretty sure you’d fired the last three bullets mere hours ago. The truck, now essentially your immobile mobile home, is parked on the edge of a side street, overgrown with enough shrubs and greenery to make you believe you’re situated in the middle of a meadow.

It’s unsettling, really, to sit in the passenger seat of your pickup, to feel the rays of the golden sun warm the skin along your cheekbones and reflect against your tired eyes when you had a run-in with death in the dark hours of the morning. To be fair, you have a run-in with death typically multiple times a day, now that you’ve managed to get out of the QZ. The monsters out here are scarier than the druggies and corrupt FEDRA officers you’ve gotten used to. These will continue to track you down like bounty hunters until you’re just as harrowing and inhuman as they are.

And while the rational part of you knows this is life in 2023, this is your New Normal, you hate the idea of your actions dragging both you and your partner into unnecessary danger.

“Here are our options,” Joel mutters over the folded edges of his map. “Marlene mentioned there was a base in Mansfield. We can fuel up there or find a lowlife to siphon from along the way. But there aren’t many discreet ways to get there. If we cut around this way, though, southeast—we should probably be able to manage ourselves.”

A part of you wants to scoff. Probably. Every moment is a probably.

But in Joel’s rare moment of muted optimism, you don’t want to rain on his parade. You nod in quiet agreement.

You are not fully able to manage yourselves.

—

Without your truck, the protective cover you and Joel once reveled in now leaves you open and exposed to the dangerous world around you. The most you can do is put the truck in neutral and push the damn thing down the path Joel’s planned out for you.

It’s exhausting; even in the mild New England spring, you’re breaking a serious sweat. Evidence of exertion forms along your browbone and temples, and at one point, you tie the flannel you’ve been wearing for weeks on end around your waist, leaving your arms and chest exposed in a dark tank top.

“There’s a house up ahead,” you observe, hours into your arduous task. The sun is just starting to slip beneath the horizon, painting the sky in a series of blues and purple-pinks. Against the backdrop of the sky, the house looks eerie and dilapidated, almost out of place. You shake your head and remember it’s the rare moments of beauty–a sky at dusk, the glimmer of the Charles on a golden afternoon, the twinking diamonds of midnight stars—that are out of place. A broken-down home with a hole in the roof is all too ordinary for your liking.

Joel nods through a grimace, broad palms against the trunk as he continues to trudge forward. “Uh-huh,” he acknowledges. “Okay. We’ll stop.”

While the house is seemingly empty, the front door is open, which is never a good sign.

Your stomach twists as Joel examines the doorway, then looks at you. It’s as though his eyes are telling you what his words cannot—I’m right here with you. I’ve got you.

It’s wishful thinking, maybe.

“Let’s go,” Joel says instead, and your heart sinks.

You nod, following behind him. Joel’s grip is tight around his shotgun, with your hands around the neck of his pistol, aimed right in front of you.

Your steps are quiet. The interior smells like dirt and demise. You gulp, following close behind your partner, your unofficial party leader, considering it’s rare you’re the one guiding the both of you into the dark.

Joel is so quiet, you can’t even hear him breathe. Exhale too loudly, and you give away your position to potential enemies. Step the wrong way, make the floorboards creek, and you’re an absolute goner. You mirror his actions, placing your feet in every invisible footprint he leaves in his wake, nearly holding your breath.

You move around the first floor of the house, observing what might have been a living room, a functional kitchen, a decorated hallway. You wonder who lived here on the side of a main road. Was it a family? Did they make it out of here alive?

Or did they get turned before they even had a chance?

You shudder at the possibilities before Joel gently, strategically, opens a mahogany door to the next room. You’re met with a basement entrance, a damp cement staircase, and a musty odor.

But more importantly, more shockingly, you’re met with an ear-curdling scream.

Joel slams the door immediately, eyes widened without giving away every ounce of worry you wonder he might be feeling. “Fuck!” he hisses, and then his hand is on your wrist. He pulls you away from the door, down the hallway, and toward the entrance that’s now become your dire exit.

You hear the clicker clambering up the stairs, its cries violent and deafening. You can hear its frustration as it punches a rugged fist through the basement door, as it scrambles to find the pair of you, to get its rotten hands on you, and transfigure the fibers of your humanity to something decidedly inhuman.

The house isn’t particularly big. It’s not hard for you and Joel to try to make it out the front door alive, but it’s also relatively easy for the monster on your heels to launch itself onto both you and Joel as you practically leap down the front steps.

Your head slams against the ground, and before your body is able to register the pain, the shock of knowing there’s a damn clicker on top of you, and you’re about to die—or worse, turn—begins to sink into every pore and fiber of your being. 

“Joel!” Your scream is ragged and desperate. Tears form in the corners of your eyes, threatening to fall down your dirt-stained cheeks. Your eyes close, unable to meet the sight of the snarling monster above you, its predator hands holding you in a bone-cracking grip before it can take its prey.

“Joel—help—I need—”

You hear two gunshots fire, and while your eyes are still squeezed shut, you sense the clicker’s blood—among other things that you’d rather not think about—splattering against your face. The monster’s grip along your wrists goes limp and falls away.

You survive. For now.

By the time you open your eyes and rise to your feet, you can’t help yourself—you sob into the fabric of Joel’s worn denim, unable to fight off the emotion as well as Joel had fought off the clicker. It’s impossible, knowing you’d been so close to losing yourself, losing this strange life you’ve cultivated alongside a man that can hardly articulate how he feels for you. Does he feel anything? Have you fabricated it this entire time?

It’s not the moment to mull it over, f you’re being honest. But you can’t help it if the thoughts come.

“J—Joel,” you stammer. “Holy shit, I almost—you almost—”

“I know,” he exhales, and you can hear the exasperation in his voice. After months of practice, he doesn’t know how to do this.  His arms are a loose loop around your body. Despite your relationship and the amount of time you’ve spent together, you know vulnerability isn’t Joel’s strong suit. He’s not one to run a hand over your hair and tell you you’re safe. He’s not one to encourage you to cry it out.

But you do anyway, because it might be all you have left to give.

You both decide the truck is safer. He lets you take the first sleeping shift, offering his backpack as a pillow before locking the truck doors.

You’re dozing off. You think you might have heard Joel whisper brave girl in your drowsy haze, but you chalk it up to exhaustion.

[variousqueerthings]

Thoughts on Jonny Lee Miller please?

sdfghjhgfdsadfgh FRIEND YOU JUST MADE ME VERY HAPPY

(we need to send asks more!!!!!! in this interwebs tumblr cultúre)

JLM THOTS (JLM thot)

okay so I cannot remember when I started watching Elementary, but that was my first conscious JLM (I had watched Trainspotting, but I was but a babby at the time -- I have seen it... some times since then), and listen. we through around the word ND on this here site, but I think Mr. JLM as Sherlock Holmes is one of the original tumblr ND regents, and still absolutely Peak! this man knew what he was doing!

and then I went on a little JLM tour, and I am here to give you the top movies I saw with him at the time (after which I will do the list of movies I want to watch now): Hackers, Trainspotting + T2, Plunkett and Mcleane (seriously, this movie is underrated!), The Flying Scotsman, Mansfield Park, Regeneration -- also most underrated Mr Knightley in Emma + in a fun, odd little show called Eli Stone (I also watched Mindhunters, Byzantium -- which is some great Gemma Arterton -- The Escapist, Aeon Flux, and Dark Shadows, and I'm not necessarily saying don't watch these... well, maybe don't watch Dark Shadows... but they weren't my favourite. although Byzantium is fascinating. misogynist vampires)

Movies I have yet to see that I want to watch: Dead Man's Walk, Complicity, Love Honour and Obey, and Dracula 2000

MOVIES TO SHORTLY GIVE AN EXTRA SHOUTOUT TO

I'm not going to talk about Hackers (famously dreaming about wearing a latex bodysuit and getting railed by his future irl wife Angeline Jolie) or Trainspotting, but T2 -- is it good? yeah, it's not bad actually. did it need to exist? no, no it didn't. did it enjoy textually pointing out that Renton and Sick Boy have some kinda Sexual Tension? yeah, yeah, yeah! actually kind of feels like the main reason it exists is to go "hmmm do you think Renton and Sick Boy are a bit... youknow?"

also shoutout to Robert Carlyle who's in the Trainspotting films and also co-starred with JLM in their very own homoerotic duo film, which includes Liv Tyler "Plunkett and Macleane" loosely based on the history of two real highway men, and it's. just such a great movie. it's one of my "please it's so fun and so silly and such a product of the 90s! Craig Armstrong did the music!" it's kind of got some polyamory going on?

The Flying Scotsman is about a real amateur cyclist, and it's a pretty by-the-numbers inspirational tale, but I quite like those when they're about real underdogs and Graeme Obree certainly was that. From memory (it's been a few years now) I believe I watched this film and went "ah so that's where some of the early development of Sherlock Holmes mannerisms stems from," so it's also just fun as a study of JLM the actor

Regeneration -- gotta mention this one, because of it being about Siegfried Sassoon. he doesn't play Sassoon, but he's very good in it and generally it's a fascinating piece based on a book that I for some reason have only read the sequels of, and I'd recommend anything about Sassoon, I'm easy like that

I also didn't mention Frankenstein up above, but I watched both versions of it back whenever it was being shown with National Theatre Live and he was fucking stunning in both roles. as Frankenstein he's a little different to how I often picture him (read: JLM is not giving pathetic twink, although he is giving twitchy weirdo), but JLM is so physical throughout, so pitch-perfect in how he's interpreting the role. and as Adam/the creature it's like every bit of tension he's ever been able to control is just unleashed, it's sooooo (argh gotta see if I can find a torrent of that so I can rewatch him)

Now the thing about JLM is that he's often cast as kinda the straight man in a lot of his stuff, but he's... so not.... that man is silly! and you can tell! his physicality is a bouncy little weirdo, and for a good long while his body was that of a bouncy little weirdo -- and then he got fuckn Big 🥵😂 (you can take the man out of the bouncy little weirdo, but you can't take the bouncy little weirdo out of the man...... smthin like that. the more i look at this sentence the more I feel like this is an innuendo, oh well. now it's intentional)

the thing I really like about him is that he seems totally un-self-conscious while playing characters who are often under great scrutiny, either for being considered criminal and/or for being visibly non-neurotypical and/or otherwise non-normative. he's a hacker, he's an addict, he's a creature that was created from the bodies of other men, he's a bipolar cyclist, he's giving us Thee Sherlock Holmes of modern times, stimming, kinky, caring, blunt, overstimulated, relapsing, deeply unconventionally in a relationship with Watson that doesn't attempt to fit them into any mainstream language at any point!

also he has the best grimace of ever. he's so good at looking simply. perturbed. uncomfortable. get me out of this party. when he's 70 or 80 he's going to be the best old man face 🥺🥺🥺

also if I am very very lucky and very very nice to my mum, she'll take me to watch him in his current play in London, wish me luck!

TL;DR underrated character actor JLM, broader than you think he is, the hero of portrayals of weirdos and freaks and outcasts, I think it's wild that he's danced around playing queers this entire time, make him kiss a man stat!

(there's a whole other, very specific analysis of his gender in Hackers and how that relates to a wider feeling about his particular take on masculinity in a lot of my favourite portrayals of his, and also there was a youtube video that i just spent 15mins trying to find on Hackers from a transgender perspective that's mostly correctly-so about Cereal Killer/Matthew Lillard, but touches on the gender-fuckery of JLM and Angelina Jolie)

(okay I wasn't gonna talk about Hackers, but we cannot forget this scene, we simply cannot!)

[bethanydelleman]

Fanny Price:

Mansfield Park Memes, Ch 34

[lizziestudieshistory]

Books of 2023 - June

Between finishing my PGCE, still struggling with burnout, and a lack of self restraint with the PS4 I've had a bit of a shit reading month in comparison to my last few months. I did reread Emma though and that's made everything better.

Witches: James I and the English Witch-Hunts by Tracy Borman - I've not been discreet about my disdain for this book. It's full of unsupported speculation and bad faith interpretation of James I/his courtiers. If you want to read some fuller thoughts then read this. And if you are interested in Jacobean/English witches then don't read this book, if you want any recommendations then please ask, but be aware I'm not a specialist in the history of witches.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling - pretty much the same as last month, I was stressed and needed an audiobook.

Appointment with Death by Agatha Christie - this was fine? Although I completely forgot I'd read this until I checked my reading journal so...take that as you will.

Metamorphoses by Ovid - started off really well for me. I loved Phaethon, enjoyed books 4-7 (I think? That feels right but I'm writing this on the train and away from my journal) a lot! But after this I got bored and was tired of the repetitive nature of the myths. I'm also not a pastoral/nature girl when it comes to books, so the endless amounts of trees, grottos, flowers, and birds started to grate in me.

Emma by Jane Austen - to quote Mr Knightley, "my dearest, most beloved Emma"! I've spoken at length about Emma and my feelings about it are only getting stronger as I reread it. It's my favourite book. It makes me happy. I cannot adequately into words how much I love it and why.

The Farthest Shore by Ursula K. Le Guin - I enjoyed my latest foray into Earthsea a lot, but it wasn't a patch on The Tombs of Atuan. I personally didn't connect with Arren's journey as much as Tenar's and it did effect my enjoyment. It is an excellent book, and I loved seeing Ged's arc come into completion (well, sort of - it FEELS very complete from here so I'm feeling apprehensive about coming back to him in Tehanu, but I have faith in Le Guin) but it wasn't my favourite of the three so far.

Articles on Emma - I'm not listing them all, I don't have the time, but, obviously, it's been a real mixed bag but I've been enjoying myself. It's been fun thinking about Emma in different ways. I'm just going to keep reading them until I've stopped having fun. It's also weird straying out of academic history and into literary criticism 😅

Currently Reading:

Mansfield Park by Jane Austen - and regretting it

Evelina by Frances Burney - loving it!

More articles about Emma!

[4setsofcorsets]

If an adult recommended a specific Jane Austen novel to you as a teenager, here is what they were trying to say.

Northanger Abbey: it wouldn’t kill you to read the news once in a while

Pride and Prejudice: you think too much and should consider having a few actual conversations instead

Sense and Sensibility: you are making your emotional regulation struggles everyone else’s problem. Please get some coping mechanisms

Emma: have you tried considering other people’s feelings?

Mansfield Park: I am begging you not to major in theatre

Persuasion: you should get out more.

[innitmarvellous]

My experiences with Jane Austen books so far look like this:

Northanger Abbey: instant favourite, 5 stars, I want a boyfriend like Henry (yes, I am 100% serious here)

Persuasion: I kind of hate this book with a passion, but I won't elaborate for my own good. Please don't ask, it annoyed me a lot. 😓

Pride and Prejudice: quite boring, occasionally funny, but mostly boring. I found Darcy more interesting in the beginning, when he was still all bitchy lol

Sense and Sensibility: only read like 70 pages, it was okay but not that spectacular

So, and now I'm wondering whether anyone could tell me if I should bother reading her remaining works or not. E.g. if S&S is worth finishing, or if either Emma or Mansfield Park is likely to be more to my tastes. Help?

[triviareads]

i just finished a novel you recommended (bed me duke! excellent!) and moved on to my usual annual re-read of northanger abbey and do you have any recommendations for romance novels for each austen couple? i think that would be pretty cool!

I love that! the Bed Me series has never failed me so far, and I'm very excited for book 4, Bed Me, Baronet (the hero's a blond and possibly a virgin based on ALL his friends speculating about him in each of their books lol). As for romance novels based on Austen couples, I'm gonna be a little selective here because I haven't actually read Sense and Sensibility (but I vaguely remember watching the movie) or Mansfield Park:

Pride and Prejudice

There are lots of romance novel adaptations of Pride and Prejudice, and there are even more claiming to be inspired by the "enemies to lovers" aspect of P&P EVEN IF IT'S NOT AN ENEMIES TO LOVERS ROMANCE. So my best recommendation would be Pride and Protest by Nikki Payne; it's a modern adaptation set in Washington D.C.; Liza is a local radio DJ and activist who meets Dorsey (a Filipino adoptee) and realizes they're on opposite sides of the gentrification situation occurring in DC. I loved how the book dealt with the class difference along with the added layer of race. It also modernized the "proposal" aspect really well imo because randomly asking a gal to marry you without even dating wouldn't necessarily work in the modern era BUT the proposal Dorsey put out there still felt inherently degrading to Liza even if she'd hooked up with him already (another change from the original, and an appreciated one).

Persuasion

Again the Magic by Lisa Kleypas: I'll forever recommend this; McKenna and Aline were childhood sweethearts before they were separated by her father the earl, because McKenna was a stableboy. Now he's uber-wealthy and resentful about what happened all those years ago BACK for REVENGE and by revenge I mean he's going to seduce Aline and... that's about it lol. Never has a man come back with more loathing/self-loathing with a plan that's so half-baked even his drunk friend is like "but are you sure buddy".

Full Moon Over Freedom by Angelina M. Lopez: Another second-chance romance; Gillian asked Nicky to take her virginity when they were teenagers and teach her about sex stuff before leaving for college. Now she's back and divorced, and they're skirting around each other and having multiple clandestine encounters even though they think it's all temporary. While there's not much of a class difference, you get the sense Nicky thought of himself as her bit o'rough and she was an unattainable princess-type to him.

The Legend of Lyon Redmond by Julie Anne Long: Second chance romance with love at first sight; There were a couple aspects that really reminded me of Persuasion; there's very similar language to Anne where Olivia is described as having "withered away" since Lyon left, and she refuses all other suitors. And! Lyon is a sailor like Wentworth except, well, not on the legal side of things lol. It's also just super romantic when they do reunite years later.

Emma

Bed Me, Baron by Felicity Niven: George and Phoebe are long-time friends who've known each other since she was a baby. She asks him for sex lessons so she can help her please her future husband who she's engaged to (not George lol). While there's not much of an age gap in this one (4 years), George Danforth is daddy so that should square you away there.

Olivia and the Masked Duke by Grace Callaway: Here's an Emma/Knightley-ish age gap, plus, Ben and Livy were family friends/friends since she was a kid. Later on, she sees him having sex with another woman in the stables and it's basically her sexual and romantic awakening, so she spends a lot of the book chasing after him while he's running for his life.... until he isn't. Sex-wise the vibes are daddy dom/mildly bratty.

Sense and Sensibility

The closest I could think of in terms of Marianne/Col. Brandon was Rosalind and Torrington from A Recipe for a Rogue by Kathleen Ayers. Like Marianne, Rosalind is initially horrified that an *older man* like Torrington might want to marry her (the number of old man-girdle and secretly balding hair jokes.... hilarious) and Rosalind avoids every attempt her mother makes to match them. Torrington is attracted to her from the get-go and slowly woos her by way of exchanging recipes, baked goods, and licking food off her thighs.

tbh I have no idea who'd fit Elinor/Edward's vibe.

Northanger Abbey

It's actually very hard to find heroes who have Henry Tilney's playful irreverence paired with Catherine's sweet naivete so I'm holding off on this one for now!

[shipcestuous-two]

I'm trying to find a first cousin romance novel to read. Could you recommend a few?

Hi Anon,

I'm terrible at recommendations because I have a terrible memory.

My first thoughts were:

Gone With The Wind

Mansfield Park

Mansfield Park Revisited

How I Live Now

The Secret Adversary

Wuthering Heights

How We Fall

Everyone else, please add!

Catherine and Hareton are one of my favorite ships and I almost forgot to mention Wuthering Heights, so that just shows that I have a brain like a sieve.

[oraclekleo]

@ylilsillage + Choi Beom Gyu (TXT) Writer's Wisdom Couple Tarot Reading

Disclaimer:

All readings have purely entertainment nature

I don’t know any of the celebrities personally

Don’t base life decisions purely on tarot readings

I can never guarantee any of what’s said in the reading

Before requesting, read the pinned post and appropriate linked post

Tarot readings are my hobby - I’m not obligated to accept any of the requests nor to complete them, it’s my choice, not duty

Waiting time is long, even several months

If you can’t wait, please, seek other tarot reader

Reading Info:

Rating: 18+

Reading Type: Single - Couple

Requested: Yes - No

Requester: @ylilsillage

Deck: The Spiritsong Tarot

Spread: Writer’s Wisdom

Questions:

Pride & Prejudice (The way you empower each other)

Sense & Sensibility (The way you balance each other)

Persuasion (The way you fight with each other)

Mansfield Park (The way you cherish each other)

Emma (The way you communicate)

Northanger Abbey (The way you fall in love with each other)

Celebrity Info:

Full Name: Choi Beom Gyu

Stage Name: Beomgyu

Group: TXT

DOB: 13.03.2001

Sun Sign: Pisces

Chinese Sign: Metal Snake

Life Path Number: 1

Masterpost: TXT

Ko-fi - Voluntary Tip for Readings

Choi Beom Gyu

@ylilsillage + Beomgyu (TXT)

Deck: The Spiritsong Tarot Spread: Writer’s Wisdom

Pride & Prejudice (The way you empower each other) [8] - Page of Crystals (Pentacles)

You motivate each other to stay disciplined and consistent with your endeavours which leads you both towards success eventually. You inspire each other to set goals and to stick to your plans and stay motivated and passionate about what you do. Beomgyu is likely to really need that as in the entertainment business, the motivation and inspiration are highly valued. Together, you make each other enthusiastic about things and never lose interest and focus. Nothing seems dull when you can do it together or discuss it in a playful way.

Sense & Sensibility (The way you balance each other) [27] - XVI The Tower

Life is a constant change and sometimes the shift is so sudden we try to resist it and the inevitable upheaval forces us to go with the flow. It can feel a bit traumatising when fate makes the move despite our grip on what used to be. With Beomgyu by your side, these shifts and changes come more smoothly and you are more willing to undergo the transition because you know he’s there to support you through anything that might come. Stepping into the unknown and transforming yourself or your ways of thinking feel less scary when you can hold Beomgyu’s hand.

Persuasion (The way you fight with each other) [37] - Ace of Shells (Cups)

You and Beomgyu prefer to avoid fighting as it truly hurts you both deeply on an emotional level and you always feel so disconnected and lonely when you fall apart. When you do fight, neither of you is reasonable about it and rivers of tears flow. On the brighter side, you are both so loving creatures that you don’t hold grudges and reconcile quickly.

Mansfield Park (The way you cherish each other) [6] - XII The Hanged Man

You give each other new perspectives. Things you always thought were impossible are suddenly your daily routine with Beomgyu. You start to cherish the quiet private moments with him when words aren’t needed for the two of you to express yourself. Beomgyu allows you to pause life for a few moments, in his company you feel like the rest of the world stopped existing and you are the only two souls in the entire universe.

Emma (The way you communicate) [7] - 5 of Shells (Cups)

You feel such a freedom of spirit with Beomgyu. You know you can talk about anything with him and any deeper conversation is not only enlightening but it’s healing at the same time. You feel your soul being repaired by his complete attention to what you need to say, by his kind words of encouragement and support and by the healing glow of his eyes fixed on you.

Northanger Abbey (The way you fall in love with each other) [3] - 3 of Acorns (Wands)

It’s a smooth transition from friendship to love between you and Beomgyu. You started as friends but one day you realise you have become so much more. Suddenly you can see that your calendar is full of dates with Beomgyu, he has become the central point and priority of your life. And to his surprise, Bemgyu feels the same. He’s counting on you, when he makes plans and schedules he takes you into consideration and includes you in his plans. Your future is entangled so tightly you can’t imagine living without each other.

Thank you for reading!

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