Ya know the whole congenial “If there’s room on your dance card I’d be delighted to dance with you” thing with Tom to Mary and then this moment is followed almost immediately by THE DANCE in which he seems like an almost different person? Like even his hair is different? And the two of them are suddenly in a dream space? He doesn’t seem to suddenly realize his feelings for Mary here. He seems like someone who knows and has known. He seems like a man who has been waiting to be let out.
This doesn’t really make sense. Unless…
My head canon is that Tom has split himself in two in order to function. Smiley!Tom doesn’t even know what Dancing!Tom is thinking or feeling. Smiley!Tom doesn’t remember dancing. He’s just confused why his pants are now uncomfortably tight.
People who don’t like Tom because he isn’t action based, isn’t fighting for Mary, don’t seem to get that (in the show, I’m only talking about the series, didn’t read the book and don’t plan to) Tom and Mary are each other’s mirrors. He sees himself on the outside, as she sees herself. And just as she reconciles he must be with Anne of course, not her, he does the same regarding Mary and Ryder.
The irony and the agony is that they only want each other, but their positions outside the dominant narrative keep them from seeing they have access to one another in this way.
Ryder has access to the narratives of Austen. Being someone who has enough money they don’t have to work, make a proposal on a whim and then again, can leave for Italy on a whim and be totally fine…this is a person who has access to big actions and choices and sweeping gestures and performative narrative agency.
No one is badgering Mary for not fighting for Tom while he’s locked in this agreement with Ann. But the mirror of this with Tom invites readings of action and certain kinds of legible manhood.
I fell asleep thinking about Tom and Mary when they first had dinner together, and I think this moment (specifically the moment when they learned they both read the same author no one else cares about), when they both sort of seem to glitch, they were in love there and then. I don’t think it’s the sort of love you fight for, it’s the sort that is like encountering a fantastical being and realizing you are one and the same. It’s not part of a reasonable narrative of action. It happens to some people, often those on the outside of the story. I think they both knew there and then, and the show is the story of the relief getting back to that place.
Warning! I have a very specific need for a certain kind of fan fic. Basically I need fix it fics, gap scenes, scenes from neglected characters POV, and AUs within the universe of the show. There is one modern AU included below, and it is the exception that proves the rule. (Nothing against modern AUs, they're just not what I'm in neeed of.) If you're like me, this is the post for yooouuu.
Here are some of my faves for The Other Bennet Sister:
TOBS from Tom’s pov. I think about it all the time. Basically reading it as canon it’s so good. I'm sad/slightly afraid she's not gonna update it because she's updating her other fic that I also love, which is -
Default Judgement
by crazyoldlouise1331
https://archiveofourown.org/works/84026641/chapters/221538546
This is the only modern AU I like, and I reeaalllly like it. The author gets the characters on a primordial level so even though it’s a different time I still feel like I’m getting to know the characters. I'm slightly obsessed and need this updated now even though it just got updated…
catch from thy wild eyes these gleams
by Vellinae
This is my kind of AU. The kind that imagines a what if within the universe of the story. I'm also obsessed with stories that (to me) have a kind of borderline science fiction quality because the writing is so good you get the sense that the characters feel this timeline is wrong.
A Week To Build A Dream On
By MischiefInATeacup
My favorite fills-the-gap fic for the time in the Lakes. So needed. So good.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
The unravelling of tom hayward
by Murder_shesnored
Brilliantly fills the gap of Anne dumping Tom. Fills the gap of the time before Tom will propose. Yes agony, yes.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
The Lodger
by minyoongies
Imagines Mary moved to London three years earlier. Only two chapters so far! Aching for this one to get updated.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Single Chapters/One-Shots
1. let lips do what hands do
by bookstantrash
So freaking satisfying yes hallway makeout session yes.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
2.
Our Dwelling is the Light of Setting Suns
by minyoongies
https://archiveofourown.org/works/82269886
I think this was the first TOBS fic I read. So simple, clearly written, and powerfully told. Love it.
3.
nestled between your heart and mine
by Vellinae
This short gap fic with Tom made the show itself better for its wonderfulness. I've read it multiple times.
https://archiveofourown.org/works/84309636
Vigil
by BlissfulEscape
Lovely gap scene
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Smut Adjacent
Shake
by immaculateyearner
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
apparelled in celestial light
by Vellinae
I mean, it's a masturbation short story that gave me a deeper understanding of the character and his misery and helped me appreciate the show on a more complex level. Perfect!
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Two I can't find!
There's a great fix-it fic where Mary and Tom end up next to each other for warmth in a cave that I can't find! And Mary and Tom's first time where Tom describes the experience of kissing alone like this as distinctly different because "we don't have to stop." I can't find themmmmm but they are great.
Tom reaches gothic brooding dark handsomeness here. Next time we see him he will have been dumped by Anne, had a manic episode in which he dyed his hair lighter, cut his bangs, began experimenting with product, and bought another book of poems for Mary.
Tom Hayward trying to read between the lines just like he does with the poems he loves and coming to the conclusion that Mary Bennet doesn't love him and Mr. Ryder is a better match for her anyway.
Mary Bennet, who started to appreciate poetry only recently, has to punch him because she knows sometimes the curtains are just blue and the text clearly shows that she loves him very much.
Part of the argument for Ryder is he has more clearly stated opinions and beliefs, so therefore as an audience we know him more fully. He tells us again and again who he is.
Tom isn’t a collection of beliefs. He’s a mess who Mary accidentally activated on high when they smashed into each other trying to leave that living room. He’s a storm of passion and chaos that has never been put into words because if he really tried he’d start crying in front of everyone.
I get this. Other people have seemed so *clear.* Like they emerged from the ocean on a shell shouting out their lifelong core feelings thoughts and beliefs. I want quiet messes who can’t express themselves because their feelings and thoughts deserve the right words they can’t ever fully find to be the ones who get to have love returned.
I connect with Tom’s need to express himself in other people’s words. It’s one of the more autism-coded aspects of Tom. And maybe that’s what rings something in Mary. I connect with Tom’s compartmentalizing of his life. I resonate with the experience of aching for an extraordinary, poetic love while simultaneously seeming perfectly fine with the ordinary coupling that he seems to have been assigned.
We know Tom through his actions and his behavior.
He makes one big proclamation about himself regarding the law as his profession and poetry as his passion. He has said this many times to himself to the point it is a personal creed and it holds him together, this uneven duality that sort of encompasses his life up until Mary.
Part of the argument for Ryder is he has more clearly stated opinions and beliefs, so therefore as an audience we know him more fully. He tells us again and again who he is.
Tom isn’t a collection of beliefs. He’s a mess who Mary accidentally activated on high when they smashed into each other trying to leave that living room. He’s a storm of passion and chaos that has never been put into words because if he really tried he’d start crying in front of everyone.
I get this. Other people have seemed so *clear.* Like they emerged from the ocean on a shell shouting out their lifelong core feelings thoughts and beliefs. I want quiet messes who can’t express themselves because their feelings and thoughts deserve the right words they can’t ever fully find to be the ones who get to have love returned.
I connect with Tom’s need to express himself in other people’s words. It’s one of the more autism-coded aspects of Tom. And maybe that’s what rings something in Mary. I connect with Tom’s compartmentalizing of his life. I resonate with the experience of aching for an extraordinary, poetic love while simultaneously seeming perfectly fine with the ordinary coupling that he seems to have been assigned.
We know Tom through his actions and his behavior.
He makes one big proclamation about himself regarding the law as his profession and poetry as his passion. He has said this many times to himself to the point it is a personal creed and it holds him together, this uneven duality that sort of encompasses his life up until Mary.
Tom’s face after Mary smiles like that at him, trying to hide his teeth almost or hold in something or just like that ache that’s both happy and sad is so good.
(I saw some interview with Dónal Finn in which he said he thought that in the secret garden scene, Tom still sees Mary only as a friend.)
Tom made the plan and committed to the plan for his friend Miss Bennet the moment she disappeared into the house. Miss Bennet was his friend and this was the most obvious and immediate solution to her sadness, and something he could do, easily and gladly. Rather than continue to the office, he dedicated the day to favor-asking, to the paperwork, the traveling to acquire the key, to make this secret garden visit happen for his friend. He carried the large key in his pocket and checked it every few moments to make sure it was still there. Sometimes he ran his thumb across the key's teeth, sometimes his fingers slid along its curves. Sometimes he gripped the key so tightly he wondered if his palm might bleed.
He didn’t think to eat dinner that evening. That night he lay awake and paced his room thinking about just which poem, the right one, the perfect poem to touch the heart of his friend. More hours were spent practicing just how he’d recite it for his friend, where and how he’d stand, and what the weather would be. And time thinking about how he should get there hours early to wait to make sure he was there when she arrived, and, given that, how maybe he should sleep in his clothes. About how his favorite poet was going to help him, so he couldn’t fail. And thinking about how his lovely friend Miss Bennet’s eyes would change when she smiled listening and how his very good friend Miss Bennet was going to rush up to him and say she felt so much better. And how then his dear friend Miss Bennet was going to look right at him, again, like she did before, when they were alone, look right at him longer than needed. And how they’d walk together through the secret garden, and time would slow. And then his friend Miss Bennet would stay near him and he could hear her share her thoughts on the poem, on the garden, on anything and everything.
When he did finally fall asleep, he dreamed of carriages, and rain, and Mary Bennet reaching out and taking his hand.
My problematic secret head canon is that Tom is in fact great at drawing, he’s been drawing since he was 6, these sketches in his notebook are all characters in the sprawling world of his graphic novel fantasy series, they all have names and backstories and multi season arcs. That duck is standing on a plant, that duck is named Truly, she likes the optical illusion she’s creating and also she feels less unmoored when near foliage. The plant is also sentient and over three thousand years old and cannot remember its name. Tom knows they’re good because he loves them, and it is a bonus that they also make Mary stop thinking negative things about herself and maybe now he can tell her how he feels.
gummygunk
germansingergirl
origamiaround
prguitarman
dededos
janainaart
