Inspo

[expressions-of-nature]

Fyrish Monument, Scotland by Kier Allen

[calellon]

A Man embracing a Woman, Dosso Dossi (Giovanni di Luteri), ca. 1525 (detail)

[beautifulbizarremagazine]

UNHELD, 2026 by Lina Poluna @linapoluna oil on canvas, 20x25 cm

[cpericardium]

hey everyone "I" have something to show "you"

[cpericardium]

[cpericardium]

[hatchetfield-scarecrow]

There’s two ends of the horror spectrum

[ramblesamongstardust]

[fearlastyear]

the stories i care about most are always “two characters are wounded in similar ways which gives them the unique ability to reach each other” or “one character is wounded in a way no one in her life understands, so no one can reach her before it’s too late” 

[fearlastyear]

[wilwheaton]

[spookyboywhump]

I do really love it when women write graphic and fucked up things. I feel like so often people react to fucked up fiction with “of course a disgusting man would write this 🙄” and it often carries an unspoken (honestly sometimes spoken) message of “a woman’s PURE and DELICATE and FEMININE mind could NEVER think of something this VILE”. Thank you women in fucked up fiction 🫡

[nessa007]

EXACTLY

[mysterious-gizem]

[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.

[pmamtraveller]

"Beneath The Golden Willow"

Ed Perkins.

[casgirl]

Characters who are like “let’s run away together let’s get away from all this” when it’s already too late!!!!!!!

[willgrahamscock]

I think we are focusing on the wrong thing when talking about mainstream romantasy adult books, instead of shaming straight cis women for reading kinky books, we should tralk about how most of the newer books aimed at that demographic are just conservative propoganda, rebranding patriarchy as a kink.

[willgrahamscock]

There's nothing inherently wrong about liking the types of kinks that are present, control, power imbalance, dark themes, but when you really look at the top performing novels (which they are mass prodicing at questionable speeds) it's hard to ignore the ever present morally grey man, who's posessive over the heroine who starts off as otherworldly different from the 'regular woman' aka damsel in distress), is cruel to everyone except her, and the fantasy world revolves around the control of women, especially when it comes to forced pregnancy.

[willgrahamscock]

I'm seeing a lot of responses to this saying "this is why I read queer stories" but you're missing the point! You can relate to queer media because you're queer, cis straight women should also have material that aren't turning their opression into kinks in almost every. single. book. If they want to choose to read those stories, that's absolutely fine, again nothing wrong with exploring those dynamics, but the concerning part is how fast they're being made with the rise of booktok, and the looming threat to women's autonomy.

Remember when all mlm stories were borderine assault stories in the early 90s-2000s? and how long it took for other queer stories to be made? we all used our voices to make a change, it didn't magically stop we fought for it to not be the only type of story.

[lyricwritesprose]

And the solution to this, for people who are wondering, isn't to try to suppress romantasy books because they're not "good for women." That's an old, old game and never goes anywhere good. The solution is not less kink and less porn. The solution is more kink and more porn.

Because when you think about it, the problem isn't that you can go to your chosen bookseller and find a story where Sparklia Special gets semi-forced to have babies for Broody McDarkenfay (it's okay, she's into it). The problem is that it is unnecessarily difficult to look a little further down the shelf and find a vampire princess domming the hell out of the hunter who knows he shouldn't love her. Reducing people's choices always serves the reactionary agenda one way or another. Expanding choices. That's where it's at.

(If this sounds like I am making a pitch that we should write porn to defeat fascism, that's…not entirely a mischaracterization. I mean, of course it won't defeat fascism, but I do feel that while we work to defeat fascism, we should at least have diverse and satisfying porn.)

[headspace-hotel]

Ive never thought about it this way but you're so right!!! The reason the romantasy books are all narrowly focused on submissive woman who makes babies for aggressive dominating dude is that this kind of fantasy is the most acceptable form of erotic fantasy for a patriarchal society that still broadly disapproves of women's sexual desires

Like there is kink, but it still ends up with the characters in a husband/wife type of relationship and the woman being submissive and birthing children and other stuff that follows the pattern of patriarchy... which makes it appear more "normal" and acceptable

Actually, I'm not even sure control and possessiveness as a kink has to be specifically patriarchal. you could have that dynamic for other reasons than one character being male and the other character being female

[omnybus]

I think what I love most about mythology is that the “Trickster God/Spirit” is an archetypical character found in almost every body of folklore. It’s like “Oh, here’s our God of the Sun, our God of the Sea, our God of Fertility, and our God of Being A Wretched Little Gremlin Who Causes Problems On Purpose”

[terpsikeraunos]

ancient greek word of the day: μελίγλωσσος (meliglōssos), honey-tongued

[byoldervine]

Fanfic is a great way to practice self-indulgence while writing. It doesn’t even have to be good, it just exists purely for your pleasure, be a little freak about it. Worry about quality and what other people think when it comes to works you intend to publish in a formal setting