libri-legendi-sunt

She/Her. A collection of everything that catches my fancy.

[apoemaday]

Travelling Together

by W.S. Merwin

If we are separated I will try to wait for you on your side of things

your side of the wall and the water and of the light moving at its own speed even on leaves that we have seen I will wait on one side

while a side is there

[persephatta-crescent]

Mr Darcy: So I have learned from Elizabeth that Jane is in fact in love with you.

Mr Bingley: Oh my gosh, that's wonderful! When did Elizabeth tell you this?

Mr Darcy: When I proposed to her.

Mr Bingley: ...

Mr Darcy: ...

Mr Bingley: You proposed to the sister of the woman you said I shouldn't marry because of her family's unsuitability?

Mr Darcy: If it helps... she said no

Mr Bingley: *tackling him to the floor*

[prose-n-scripts]

concurrent events

[mistressaccost]

so jane austen was inspired by much ado when writing pride and prejudice and of course she’s brilliant and i love her version of the plot and her very original characters. i mean it’s almost unrecognizable because it’s so original. which is why i love her. she took inspiration from the bare bone plot of much ado with the two couples, and then rooted all their problems in her own time period. it would have been so modern and fresh to read it right when it was published!!

but anyway what i’m trying to say is that i would love to live in a universe where i could see jane and bingley play pranks on lizzie and darcy in a hero and claudio type style. it’s just comedy gold.

[hamletthedane]

Sorry for the rant OP, but this is one of my FAVORITE lit crit topics:

I have written on here many times how much I LOVE that Pride and Prejudice is an adaptation of Much Ado in a kind of stretchy, fanfic-AU sort of way. Austen definitely used the same characters and their dynamics with one another, but she actively adapted the story by giving them all interesting, English Regency versions of their Renaissance Tuscany/London challenges.

My favorite thing is that you see similarities in a) the scandal of an affair with the heroine’s unwed family member, and b) the willingness of the heroine’s “bitter rival” (Benedick/Darcy) to go far beyond what’s expected of him to save her family’s reputation, even when it might hurt his own

In her adaptation, Austen proposes that even if Beatrice/Elizabeth’s family member DID have an extramarital affair, Benedick/Darcy would still be morally obliged to help the family. This differs from Shakespeare, where Benedick believes that Hero is innocent. Sex scandals are therefore key elements in both plots, but Austen really pushes the original narrative to explore what the characters would do if the family member wasn’t innocent and the sex scandal was real. Would Benedick still have the same sense of duty to remedy the situation at great inconvenience/loss to himself? Would that duty be based in his love for Beatrice, or in his sense of ethics? Would Beatrice and Benedick have even fallen in love without their family’s interference?

So like, not only is P&P a wonderful (and very funny) adaptation of Much Ado, it’s also a refreshing, explicit exploration of the themes and issues Shakespeare clearly wanted to introduce to his 16th century audience. P&P doesn’t get to the violent, verbal extremes of “eat his heart in a marketplace” and “kill Claudio,” but it does push the character of Benedick to much more agency and responsibility as a privileged person in relation to Beatrice’s own (lack of) power. And to me, that makes it an exceptionally challenging and effective Regency adaptation of Much Ado.

(But ignore my meta-izing. Let’s talk about what’s really important: Austen preserving the comedy GOLD of suggesting that Benedick/Darcy is painfully in love with Beatrice/Lizzy from the very beginning, and also fucking furious with himself about it)

[bethanydelleman]

Obviously it's not one to one, but if we consider the Hero/Claudio storyline, Austen split it into two couples and made it way more realistic (in my opinion)

Jane and Bingley represent the Hero/Claudio "love at first sight" and "separated by machinations" sections, but come to a much more satisfying conclusion because Bingley's folly is based on modesty. He never turns on Jane, as Claudio does, instead he leaves her, but out of a belief that she doesn't love him and therefore wouldn't be harmed by it. Their happy ending is happy to (most) of the audience.

The defence of honour plot, Claudio doing wrong by Hero leading to her social doom and her being defended by Benedick, is all transferred to the trickster, Wickham (Don John?) and his victim Lydia (the other half of Hero). The solution still is marriage, but we are not left with this ambiguous nagging wonder if it's ever possible for Hero/Claudio to be happy, we know Wickham/Lydia is a bad marriage, but that Elizabeth & Jane will help their sister and she'll be okay.

I think if Much Ado About Nothing does have a flaw, it's that Claudio doesn't have his heart eaten in the marketplace. That flaw exists in Pride & Prejudice too, to be honest, but Claudio as Wickham doesn't get what he wanted. He has his ambitions of a wealthy match ruined by Darcy. For me, the ending isn't as uncomfortable, because no one is trying to pretend it's a happy one.

[hotvintagepoll]

A bit of a biased coffee night question bc he's my guy, but if you could put him in any of your recast tournaments (ones you've done or even just imagined for this question), is there a role you'd put Deforest Kelley in?

in my mind there's a version of dracula with leonard nimoy arthur holmwood, william shatner dr. seward, and deforest kelley quincey morris. so. that

[this is the last ask for coffee night! thank you all for a wonderful night, i will see you in the morning.]

[hotvintagepoll]

#nichelle nicholas mina and grace lee whitney lucy. natch#<- love this casting#but who would play dracula?

tough choice

majel barrett

ricardo montalbán

Voting ended onJul 26

[hotvintagepoll]

final cast we built together:

jonathan harker—george takei

mina murray—nichelle nichols

lucy westenra—grace lee whitney

dr. seward—william shatner

arthur holmwood—leonard nimoy

quincey morris—deforest kelley

dracula—ricardo montalbán (majel barrett for the matinees)

van helsing—majel barrett (ricardo montalbán for the matinees)

renfield—walter koenig

the captain of the demeter—james doohan

[tilthat]

TIL in 1896 a temporary, one-day city was named in Texas called Crush, where two locomotives were to be smashed head-on for purposes of spectacle. It was, for a few hours, the 2nd largest city in TX with 40k attendees. The collision caused engine boilers to explode, resulting in death and injuries.

via reddit.com

[justthesource]

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crush,_Texas

[mangonetics]

you could just do shit back then

[pyomorphic]

texas is still like this

[tyrannosaurus-rex]

[snowriddenwolf]

[professorcalculusstanaccount]

looks like reform hogs are scraping the bottom of the bin for the tiniest bit of dirt. it takes a bin to clean up clacton!

context under the cut. british politics are very silly

nigel farage was a member of parliament "representing" clacton (he goes to the US to schmooze with trump more than he spends time in his own constituency). he's leader of reform, a far right party and is a fascist piece of shit. he also looks like a sea devil from doctor who

he's responsible for brexit, which has tanked the uk economy and is also in the epstein files.

it was discovered that he accepted five million pounds from a cryptocurrency billionnaire in thailand and failed to declare it, which, if found guilty, would cost him his seat in parliament. so to worm his way out of the investigation he quit

this triggered a by-election in his constituency. he immediately announced he would be running for his seat he resigned from. an obvious farce to flex the support he supposedly has.

thing is every other political party could tell what he was doing so boycotted the election.

enter Count Binface, intergalactic dictator of the Recyclons from Sigma IX:

He's been a joke candidate for some time. In the UK anyone can run in elections, you just need ten signatures from residents and £500. This time, he genuinely has a chance of winning. Without the other major parties to split the vote, he could potentially unite the anti Reform vote in Clacton and win Nigel's seat

so Nigel will either win and the investigation into him will continue, which will lead to him being fired, OR he loses his seat to a man with a bin on his head.

it is BINEVITABLE

[libri-legendi-sunt]

Mid-Year Book Freakout

Tagged by @wearethekat, thanks!

Number of books you've read so far:

28 books so far!

Best book you've read so far in 2026:

Impossible to narrow it down to just one, so I'll go with my top three so far: Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin, In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado and The Poet Empress by Shen Tao, which I just finished.

Best sequel you've read so far in 2026:

Definitely Ancillary Mercy by Ann Leckie. I'm already planning a reread of the trilogy and looking forward to reading her other novels set in the same universe!

New release you haven't read yet but want to:

I haven't got to the new Murderbot novella that came out in May, I'll have to read that soon.

Most anticipated release for the second half of the year:

I never manage to keep on top of all the new releases, but one I definitley can't wait for is Bodies of Magic by Freya Marske.

Biggest surprise favourite new author (debut or new to you):

I hadn't heard of Carmen Maria Machado before last year, but her memoir In the Dream House was phenomenal! I loved the original structure and her writing style and I placed a hold on her short story collection Her Body and Other Parties immediately after finishing the memoir.

Book that made you cry:

The Poet Empress is incredibly good and also incredibly sad - it actually managed to get a few tears out of me, which doesn't happen often.

Most beautiful book you've bought so far this year (or received):

I haven't bought many physical books so far, so I'll go with Ein halber Löffel Reis by Dacia Maraini, which was a gift from my brother.

Book that made you happy:

Most of them, actually, or I wouldn't be reading them =)

Dream on, Ramona Riley by Ashley Herring Blake was a great sapphic romance to get in the mood for summer, so I'll mention that one here.

What books do you need to read by the end of the year?

It would be great if I could read the following books (and it would net me at least a few bingoes for @2026-book-bingo’s bingo sheet):

Ein halber Löffel Reis, Dacia Maraini

Die Vermessung der Welt, Daniel Kehlmann

Transactional Intercourse, Jack Parker (Edt.)

Platform Decay, Martha Wells

Content Warning: Everything, Akwaeke Emezi

no obligation tags:

@longsightmyth, @mizeliza, @morhath

[darkcomedies]

my understanding and interpretation of Mary Oliver’s “Wild Geese” cannot be untangled from the fact that it was originally published to follow her poem about childhood sexual abuse, “Rage”

[darkcomedies]

i just don’t think it was unintentional that these were presented flush against each other

[emily-e-draws]

The clearing is ringed with hawthorn trees, framing the dragon curled beneath their shelter in white and green bloom. White petals erupt from their rest in the grass as Elizabeth whirls through, kicking up the lingering sour smell of the flowers. Scylla had not been sleeping soundly; she lifts her head the instant she hears footsteps, luminous amber eyes at once alert. Severely, she examines Elizabeth for injury, then gasps and exclaims in delight, “Don’t you look fine! Not that you wear a uniform poorly, mind, but—oh!—what a pretty color!”

Commission for @boltlightning, from her very excellent PotC + Temeraire crossover fic deadfall 🩵

[apoemaday]

Afterglow

by Jorges Luis Borges tr. Paul Weinfield

The sunset is always moving no matter how poor or flashy it is, but still more moving is the last, desperate glow that turns the distant plains to rust when the sun has finally sunk. It hurts us to be with that strange, tense light, that hallucination imposing itself upon space, with our shared fear of shadows and what suddenly ceases when we see our error, as a dream sometimes ceases when we see we are dreaming.

[herpsandbirds]

Blue-banded Pitta (Erythropitta arquata), family Pittidae, order Passeriformes, endemic to Borneo

photographs by Supasil Kalayanakoul 

[cl3rks]

Burn Notice. [S1.E1: Pilot.]

[platypusisnotonfire]

This is legitimately how I’ve broken into a thousand places like just act like you’re meant to be there and if someone actually ends up calling you out on it just be super confused

[platypusisnotonfire]

#I would be an excellent pentester and actually have considered it as a job many a time#when I was a kid (7-14ish) my grandmother was in the hospital a lot and I was a bored kid that no one was really watching#and we spent days and days at the hospital over the course of those years#so I’d wander around and it became a challenge to see where it could get into without gettting caught#and the answer is basically everywhere#like ther is no legit reason for an 11 year old to be in the morgue but I was tall for my age and I would carry a cup of coffee#and look irritated to be there like someone woke me up for this#and no one would question me#people would ask where are you headed and if you just exhaustedly point through a security door 97% of the time they will swipe their card#-and open it for you

I want to add that I don’t make a habit of this now that I am a law abiding adult, but recently I accidentally did this again. Having been used to having my run of hospitals and walking basically anywhere as a child, I was visiting a friend in the hospital just before covid and I was legitimately exhausted and carrying a coffee cup cuz it was like 5:30am or something dumb, and I went to leave and get to the bottom floor and i’m like “this is not the lobby” and I walked around for a bit and people kept holding doors for me so I traveled through many corridors, and nothing looked familiar, and then I realized every single door was a key card swipe and everyone had mag-stripe badges with varying security levels and I realized I had gotton onto a staff elevator with the staff, who had swiped their card to go down into a high-security area of the building, and people had just been letting me through all these security doors.

So then I had to out myself and be like “Um I accidentally broke into you high-security wing, please show me the door, I’m literally just trying to leave this hospital” and I had to get like searched and stuff. 

And what was funny was that while I was blissfully walking around assuming I belonged, No one questioned ANYTHING and in fact, were violating protocols left and right to let me through, but the VERY SECOND I realized I was not where I was supposed to be and let that show on my face, like three people in the hall confronted me. 

So the take away is, be confident that you belong, look exhausted and like you don’t want to be there, and carry a cup of coffee. It will open pretty much all doors.

@clutchkuza I feel like you need to hear this lol

[i-am-corbin-dallas]

No joke, Burn Notice is a great show. If you like Leverage, give Burn Notice a try (its available on Hulu and Prime iirc) and frfr, confidence and an excuse are all you need to get around places

[disasterlarper]

This works I accidentally broke into someone’s whole ass home a month or so ago and uhhh it went fine because I’m short white and VERY CONFUSED

[echodrops]

One time while I was in Rome, I was busy admiring the ruins and not paying attention to signage, got lost, and ended up in some kind of archaeological dig or restoration. Not knowing it was off-limits (having missed all signage, as previously stated), I started peeking around all the stone stuff, wandering off the path, and most importantly (to this story), poking around in a hole that had been dug into the ground. I was careful not to touch anything, but still, clearly (to anyone who wasn’t as oblivious as me) this was not a place a tourist was meant to be.

I finally attracted the notice of someone who was meant to be part of this restoration project when I came back up from the hole. He quickly came over to ask me, in Italian, what I’m sure were the very normal questions of “Who are you?”, “What are you doing here??”, etc.

Problem: I do not speak Italian.

My brain’s solution: Quick, what language do we speak that’s close?! 

And that is how I wandered up out of a hole in a Roman ruin without warning and began speaking ancient Latin to an archaeologist.

This man’s face went through 15 different absolutely floored expressions in ten seconds, like you could physically see him going through the thought process of “Have I encountered a ghost from ancient Rome? No, ghosts aren’t real. But if ghosts not real, how Latin??? Fellow researcher??? Supposed to be here???”

So this is the story of how I was allowed to walk away without issue at all after blatantly trespassing upon the ruins of ancient Rome, because if you speak Latin, where else would you belong?

[charlesoberonn]

When in Rome…

[ellakas]

[ellakas]

[knight--error]

CANNOT take credit for these, my sister in law made them. Behold.

[magicratfingers]

i need this completed or ill die who is kitty?? WHO IS LYDIA

[fishing4stars]

@scyllas-revenge this has your name written all over it. twice.

[scyllas-revenge]

Ahh my two favorite things smushed together!!

[ellakas]

as op of this post this had me laughing truly out loud @scyllas-revenge

my bro in law: I hope they fold their gowns properly

[scyllas-revenge]

Hell yes I'm getting a good grade in reblogging

something that is normal to want and possible to achieve

[spacemomnephmoreau]

I gotta throw in a tag for @bethanydelleman because I hope you can hear this as clearly as I can!

[lytefoot]

@hillnerd

[elodieunderglass]

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a group on an adventure must be in want of a hobbit.

[wonderstruck]

If you see this you’re legally obligated to reblog and tag with the book you’re currently reading

[readinginmars]

"Murdered a dynasty," I echoed, and laughed softly. They all cared so much about these things, didn’t they? "You say it like it is an unspeakable crime, Isan. A greater evil than killing a child. But dynasties are not real. They are made up. Fiction."

The Poet Empress - Shen Tao

[asexualbookbird]

Please know I checked out Poet Empress because of you, and my librarians were commenting about “how beautiful and wonderful” the book looked, and I didn’t have the heart to tell them what was inside said beautiful book.

It is beautiful though :) Inside and out :)