#i just read through my 11th reread and noticed yet another detail in the early episodes that punched me in the gut and left me sobbing | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

mizeliza · 4 years

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So, I’m reading Jane Eyre for a class and was wondering why you like the novel? Currently, I’m struggling to get through it, finding the language to be almost disorienting and alienating and Rochester to be unlike able.

You’ve opened a can of worms here because I truly do love Jane Eyre but I am also painfully aware that it is my problematic fave - there are a lot of things that are morally unacceptable by today’s standards in it and yet. And yet.

I’ve tried to mostly keep this spoiler free, because you seem to be in the middle of the book, but the book has been out for 173 years, and many of the things I have say have to do directly with it’s major plot points and eventual ending. For the most part I’ve tried to be vague, but that isn’t always possible, if you care about spoilers, consider yourself duly warned. And if anything is too vague and you need a better explanation with more details, feel free to message me or send in another ask! As you’re about to see I love talking about Jane Eyre lol

Addressing your issues first:

If the language doesn't work for you, unfortunately you’re just going to have to struggle through it. It’s old and that was the style. I first read Jane Eyre for my 11th grade English class and to this day all my friends from that class refer to long, long sentences as Charlotte Bronte sentences. I don’t mind them, but I am also prone to long, long sentences in both my personal and academic work so. But I can definitely see how that could be a barrier for people. If you don’t have to go too deep into annotations or tracking for the class, it’s okay to skim a lot of the longer paragraphs in order to get to more of the action.

Rochester is very unlikeable, but I think that’s sort of the point, he’s one of the original brooding older men that don’t get on with anyone but that somehow has eyes for the young heroine - he sees in her what no one else does and falls in love with her for it. It’s a trope I associate a lot with 2000s/v early 2010s YA novels, and at this point it’s tired and admittedly creepy, but this was part of the origin of it, and I think that’s why it works for me.

Side note - If at the end of it you want to really hate Rochester, read Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys, which is about colonialism and feminism and Bertha Mason and Rochester, during which he definitely comes off worse than in Jane Eyre and she gets to be more than the originator of a very different trope, but make sure to get a version with footnotes or you will be very lost

There are a ton of other problems with it, which I won’t go into, simply because it would take lots of time and lots of space and that isn’t what you asked for.

So back to why I love Jane Eyre:

I once saw it described as the first YA novel and I think that’s a pretty succinct way of looking at it. It’s definitely a coming of age story - from Jane escaping her abusive family members to an even worse boarding school, to her entering into the wider world for the first time, eventually leaving even though she’s in love because she refuses to compromise her morals - more on that later, getting to explore herself and her purpose in life outside of having to worry about her physical, mental, or moral survival, standing up for herself and again refusing to compromise her beliefs, and then, finally, upon realizing what she really wants in life - with the obstacles conveniently removed by fate - she returns on her own terms and gets to live happily ever after. Upon first reading it, as I mentioned above with Rochester, I noticed a lot of aspects that were very familiar to me - several of my annotations in the copy I read for school are just “wow this is just like in harry potter” - but again, they were new at the time. Anyway I just love narratives of women growing up and discovering themselves and chasing after what they want, I just think they’re neat.

I much prefer the first half? 2/3? of the book, up until she leaves Rochester and goes walking across the moors (so dramatic! and yet, what an absolute mood, if I had a moor to wander across in a forlorn state after leaving the person I love because I refused to compromise myself for them I would also go for it and end up half-dead on the doorstep of strangers) than afterwards, when she’s living with the Riverses, simply because I find them boring, especially St. John (whose name is pronounced Sinjin, which infuriated half my English class). Even though I am too afraid to watch or read true horror, I love the concept of a good ambiguously haunted isolated gothic mansion, and Jane Eyre delivers that.

Which brings me to one of my favorite things about the book, I gave a presentation on it in my English class, which I am now realizing was four years ago which is terrifying, what I call the “almost supernatural.” Jane Eyre is filled with things that could be supernatural that aren’t - the Red Room, where Jane is filled with fear at the thought of a ghost, when she first meets Rochester and at first mistakes Pilot the dog for a gytrash, then thinking the house is haunted when strange things start happening, when it turns out to have been a person all along, if not the one everyone told her it was, and even arguably Jane herself, who Rochester refers to as a fairy multiple times. She wants so badly to believe in the supernatural, and strange and interesting things keep happening around her, and even though they’re terrifying, I’ve always gotten sort of an air of disappointment from her when it’s revealed that they’re just normal things. And then, at the very end of the book, something supernatural actually does happen to her, and it’s glossed over like the fact that what happens is physically impossible doesn’t even matter to her, after wanting things to be supernatural the whole book, because she finally knows what she really wants and has the capacity to chase after it.

Finally, I will always take the chance to talk about how I think Jane Eyre is a feminist narrative, and am always willing to argue my point.

By the middle of the book, Jane is in love with Rochester, and he is in love with her, he’s proposed and they’re somewhat happy together, but the situation always feels a bit off to Jane. She still doesn’t really value herself at this point, and he wants to give her nice and expensive things, and she also still feels the power dynamic - she’s an 18-year-old, possibly 19-year-old at this point? I don’t remember all the dates/times, adult but v young, governess and he’s her what, mid thirties at the youngest? rich, land-owning employer. There’s a huge power dynamic there on multiple levels, and unlike earlier, during their talks in the library where she openly calls him ugly and teases him back, at this point because of the changed social dynamic between them because of their engagement and her feelings of inadequacy because of their positions in society, made very clear by Miss Blanche Ingram (another trope that Jane Eyre helped make popular - the single father marrying the governess), Jane no longer feels like she can criticize him. While before, especially while alone, they were on more or less equal footing, she is now all too aware of how unequal they are and she shrinks a bit because of it. Somewhat ironically, Jane has very little agency between her assertion of her agency - “I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being with an independent will” - and her leaving Rochester, during that time she basically lets things happen to her while being somewhat bewildered about them.

And then. And then the truth about Rochester and Thornfield is revealed, and they can no longer be married. And he offers to go away with her, to where no one knows them, to live in sin as husband and wife even though they can’t be actually married. And Jane sticks to her principles. She believes that that’s wrong and she refuses, and rather than be tortured by either the betrayal of her principles or the knowledge that he’s there and loves her and she can’t have him, she leaves. She takes only what she already owned, leaving behind everything he gave her. She finally exerts her agency again, and from then on, she keeps exerting it.

While with the Riverses, she makes her own choices, and her own money, and again refuses a marriage that she feels isn’t right and that doesn't align with her beliefs - this time, she chooses not to marry because neither of them are in love. She rejects what St. John sees as her duty, including what can be seen as rejecting a closer relationship to god and god’s work, when god was the reason for her rejection of Rochester in the first place. Even though I think this part of the book is the most boring, Jane stands up for herself a lot more here, and she asserts herself as a person who values herself, and maybe I should reread it lol. And then, after refusing St. John and asserting her value outside of marriage, and with herself now financially secure and able to be on equal footing, socially, financially, romantically, with Rochester, then she returns to him so that they can have an equal relationship - which it would not have been before.

I hope this was satisfying to you, even though (like Jane Eyre) it is very long and somewhat rambley, and I hope that I manage to improve your experience of the book! Please feel free to send me any responses or other commentary that you have because as shown I really do love to talk about it :)

#else speaks #else answers #anonymous #Jane eyre #charlotte bronte

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loquaciousquark · 5 years

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6th Guardian. Chilly, but with a bite just sharp enough to make it unpleasant as well as uncomfortable

There’s a twitchy new elf in town. Showed up last night to ambush an ambush, as Varric’s friend we were supposed to meet is apparently become an ex-friend, or an ex-anything, really. That was unkind of me, but I do find myself intolerably snippy when someone I don’t know a) saves my life so that I owe them a favor, and b) looks better than me doing it.

They were Crows, too, which I rather thought had been dealt with ever since Isabela’s friend Zevran came through and charmed the pants off all of us. Well, off Isabela, certainly. Well, except she doesn’t wear--never mind. I suppose when one is famous enough to have made enemies of both effective heads of state in one’s town one ought not to be surprised when someone else comes a-killing down the lane.

You know, I said I wanted to vacation in Orlais, but this isn’t quite the way I’d meant it. The Heart of the Many is what she’s after, this Tallis, some fantastic jewel (pah!), and the villainous Duke Prosper (really!) keeps it clutched in his Orlesian...clutches. Leave me be, journal, I’m tired and Fenris slept at his own place tonight, so I’m woeful lonely even with the dog curled on the side of the bed where he belongs.

Now Toby looks betrayed. He can’t even read! How should he know what I’m writing, aside from the fact he’s the oldest friend I’ve got & he knows everything I’m thinking in one glance? Hardly fair, is it?

Anyway, Tallis thinks we ought to come a-crashing to this gala he’s hosting at Chateau Haine in Orlais. A hunt, I think. I used to hunt in Lothering, but if I had to wager I’d suspect they’ll be using slightly different methods than my rope snares and broken traps. And different game than my hare & pheasant. Or perhaps they won’t! Who knows?

I wasn’t going to do it except that Anders is planning a particular midnight event that same week and he wants me publicly away of the city for an alibi. He thinks I don’t know what he’s planning, but I’m the one who got Aveline to turn a blind eye to any ships fleeing the harbor in dead of night with too many passengers than should be aboard. He’d realize it, too, if he weren’t so determined to only see what Justice lets him. Sebastian & Varric have said they’ll keep an eye on him, though, if I do end up going on this fool’s errand, which I suppose is as much as I could hope for. They won’t help him with the escape, but they’ll keep him alive. As alive as he’ll ever be, lately.

Tallis says I should pack something fancy for the evening assemblies at the chateau. Something that’ll make me fit in like the nobility I am. I told her I had a set of old leathers that only had a few pints of blood still caked in the creases, but I don’t think she thought it was funny. Her loss!

11th Guardian. On the road! Still chilly, with the fields tipped with frost this morning and a cold mist floating over all the hedgerows before the sun burned it away

I should never have thought it, journal, but Fenris and Aveline both have agreed to come along with me! I was certain he’d be as thrilled at the idea as Aveline when Isabela pulls out the sixth Angel of Death in a hand, but he only lifted an eyebrow and said, “I enjoy following you,” as if he didn’t know how wibbly he makes me every time he suggests the thought. He brought the beautiful black leather set he wore the evening I became Champion. I packed a sleeveless lavender overtunic and a simple white blouse I can wear over trou & boots, because if experience has taught me nothing else I know I should anticipate running for my life at least once during this venture. Aveline won’t show me, but I’d bet ten sovs on the copper it’s that blue gown she wore the night of the Satinalia feast Mother hosted a few years back.

You must forgive me, journal, if the hand is shakier than usual. The road to Chateau Haine is paved not with gold but with boulders as uneven as Carver’s temper when he’s tired.

Also, Fenris is dozing on my shoulder (an accident, I know, because if he could see the knowing looks Tallis keeps throwing our way he’d ghost straight out of the carriage), and I’d rather cut the hand off than disturb his nap.

We’re due to arrive tomorrow, which is the first night of the duke’s week-long hunting party. I expect to be thrown out by dawn.

Later, just after dinner - grouse, capers, mashed potatoes, mediocre white wine. Pretty pattern on the flatware, though

Evening at the Auberge de Tuyé, an old inn unremarkable in every way save its magnificent brick chimney and the fact that it marks our first evening within Orlais’s borders.

The only interesting events so far are that I nearly fell into the pig trough from stiff knees getting out of the carriage (a fine testament to the skills for which I’ve been hired), the elf waitress was almost uncomfortably deferent at dinner over our travel finery, and when the innkeeper gave Fenris the key to our room without a second glance, I got the most peculiar feeling in my chest that still hasn’t abated.

Got stronger, even, as I watched him read the numbers plated on the doors and find ours easily, without hesitation; stronger again as I watched him direct the inn’s boys with our valises as they brought them to the rooms with every comfortable ease. By the time he sat on the side of the bed and tugged off his boots, then ran his fingers through his hair to shake out the travel dust, my heart might have burst from how dear he’s become to me.

He saw me looking and his face changed, and it wasn’t until he asked (with no small alarm) if I meant to cry that I realized how much must have shown on my own.

How easy it was to cross the room we share and kiss him directly on his mouth. How simple a thing, after every agony of Kirkwall & Tevinter put together, to cup his cheeks in my hands and feel his breath hitch as he smiled up at me.

Flames and pyre, but may I never take another moment for granted with him. Ever, ever, ever.

Very late or very early, not sure which

He’s exhausted & therefore snoring. I am rereading the last lines I wrote over and over again in this remarkably feeble moonlight to remind me why I don’t smother him with a pillow this very instant.

If he doesn’t stop soon I’m going to go kip on Av’s floor and not give two shits if Tallis thinks the less of me for it.

12th Guardian, near midnight. Cold

It was the blue gown, ha! We made it to Prosper’s estate just before dinner. More extravagant than anything in Kirkwall, even the Viscount’s festivals; fire dances and swans made of ice and servants proffering canapes at every turn. Fifi de Launcet & her entire hideous family are here. Dulci’s already sneered at me twice. I thought about asking after Emile, but I’ve fond-enough memories of his foolishness I didn’t want to poison them with his relations.

One of the guards thought Fenris was my manservant and tried to hustle him away from the glitterati, which lasted all of three seconds before the guard a) realized Fenris’s jacket cost more than his entire set of armor, and b) looked at Fenris’s face and read the death there if he didn’t release his arm that instant. More dangerous than that pet wyvern Prosper keeps to alarm his guests. Maker, I need to learn that trick.

Aveline mostly kept hawk’s eyes on Tallis all night. For the second day of a week-long hunt the festivities seemed over-grand to me, but Tallis hardly batted an eye as she danced in and out of the crowds, listening for any mention of the jewel and what I suppose are Prosper’s dubious motives for pilfering it. Nothing tonight, she said, though there’s plenty of time yet.

Haven’t met Prosper himself, as it happens. Apparently he’s still negotiating certain hunt-related errata or somesuch. I can’t bring myself to care at the moment, as I’m in a bed with white satin sheets, covers embroidered in gilt thread, and a shirtless elf insistently nibbling his way across my shoulder, please the Maker I’ll put down the pen, fine!

14th Guardian. Warmer today but not by much, clear skies to see doom from miles away

Short entry, as we’re to be guests of honor at the feast tonight--got the wyvern today! & an alpha, for that matter, and my left arm’s burned to the Void to prove it. Got wrist-deep in wyvern dung & Fenris laughed at me (prior to the burning), watched Tallis make a fool of herself (roughly contemporary to the burning), and nearly killed but didn’t an Orlesian baron who attempted to poach our rightly-earned victory from under our noses (post-burning, and some of his details are frankly lost by me attempting to beat my own arm off to get away from the spitting poison). Asked Aveline after if she missed being part of these fancy companies and she said as yet she hadn’t seen anything worth missing. Ha!

Regardless, Tallis wants to use the party Prosper’s throwing for us as cover to sneak inside the chateau & find the Heart. I feel as though the guests of honor vanishing mid-feast might be noticeable, but then again, I’ve snuck out more than once at these things and haven’t been caught yet. Perhaps tonight will be more of the same.

Tallis told us we ought to be prepared to do whatever it takes to get hold of the key we’ll need to reach the innards of the chateau. I told her I drew the line at my clothes coming off at any hands not tattooed in lyrium and Fenris coughed into his wine. Tallis only rolled her eyes and said she’d be happy to do the seducing if it came to that, and Aveline sighed and said she wished Isabela had come along as well. She’d have enjoyed every minute of this, the wench.

(Sidebar, before I forget--Bann Teagan is here as well. That’s who Aveline’s been spending most of her time with when absolutely forced to make small talk, & I must remember to ask him how Lothering is doing before we go. His outlook was not so sunny last time we spoke, but I have hopes.)

Agh, I’ve more to say and no time! Later, later!

Who knows what time it is

Tallis is a Qunari spy, Prosper knew we were coming, and it was all a trap. This prison cell is so old the stone has graffiti from over an age ago.

And yet, funnily enough, I’ve been to worse parties.

I’m annoyed with Tallis & writing here to ignore her. The guard outside the cell keeps rattling the bars with his pommel and asking if we’re hungry yet. I can’t say I care for his leer, though it’s better than the way Cyril de Montfort eyed me like a hock of (despairing) ham earlier. His hands are larger than Fenris’s and much colder, and when they came ‘round my waist I could feel him searching for a hem to slide under. Thank the Bride I can be fucking glib when I wish to be, & that Cyril’s fool enough to think midnight being more romantic was a good enough reason to let me go.

I think I could burn these bars to slag but I don’t know how many guards are down the hall, and I don’t know where my father’s staff is. I also don’t know where Aveline & Fenris are, which worries me more than anything.

Tallis looks miserable I’m so angry with her. Damn it. Damn me. If she’d been straightforward from the start I’d have been so much more inclined to help her with this piffle.

It must have been at least two hours by now. My left arm is killing me since Aveline has my salve. I’ve forgiven Tallis solely out of boredom

She says if we don’t stop Salit hundreds of innocent people will die. The guard suggests that if we don’t stop chit-chatting like a pair of magpies he’ll shut our mouths himself. I don’t care for this one’s attitude, honestly

Later, briefly

We’ve only stopped a moment to rest, so this must be extremely short. Fenris & Aveline found us in the prison--Tallis had made them stay behind as we crept through the chateau to avoid attention. Fenris tore out the guard’s heart as Tallis picked our lock & then he took hold of me so tight I could barely breathe, and it was the first time since the inn I felt quite myself again.

Prosper has these creatures fighting for him. Harlequins, he calls them. They fight like demons & wear masks to boot, and there’s something very skittish in the way they move. I don’t like it, though I will admit they die like anything else.

We’re deep in the caverns under the chateau. We did manage to loot the high holy fire out of Prosper’s vaults before we left, which has made me feel loads better, but we’re not out of the woods yet. Or caves, as it happens. Aveline’s shield broke in the last fight & she twisted her elbow badly; we’re giving her a moment to bind it before we continue on. I’ll heal what I can when she’s finished, but Fenris thinks I should save my strength for battle. Tallis agrees with him, which is even more irksome.

Aveline’s done with the splint. More later.

(I hope)

17th Guardian. Warmer still today, or is that just the wyvern spit

There is, it seems, a later, though it was a close thing. Prosper and his wyvern are both dead, as are Salit & the plans to steal the Qunari agents’ identities. Tallis has mucked off to who-knows-where, though not without hocking a great fat ruby at my head in thanks and exchanging a few flirts that had Fenris rolling his eyes so far back in his head he probably saw the Maker Himself. We’re in the carriage now, on the way back to the Auberge for our last stop before returning home to Kirkwall tomorrow. I’ve had to borrow clothes from Aveline’s bags, as the green slime Prosper used to guide his wyvern’s little nosie right to me has stunk my leathers to high heaven. They’re wrapped three layers deep in a trunk lashed to the roof of the carriage and I can still smell them.

Maker, I don’t even remember where I left off. We made it out of the caves eventually, though not before I found Fenris a necklace that used to belong to some Fog Warriors & he kissed me hard in one of the little rocky nooks right before the exit into daylight. Aveline was already outside, and Tallis didn’t seem to care much -- not that it would have mattered if she had, as there was enough lingering fear in his voice I shouldn’t have stopped if Andraste had come down herself to ask.

The next hours are a blur. We fought our way up the hills and down them again, mostly against Tal-Vashoth & these horrid little nesty creatures called ghasts, and then Baron Arlange must have been very determined to die as he came out at us, again, and this time there wasn’t a duke to intervene on his behalf.

Flames, I’m starving, and the dried jerky Aveline so thoughtfully brought for us on this last journey is not taking away the edge. We’ve still over an hour before we reach the inn; thank goodness this is distracting enough. I’d rather be napping, honestly, but Fenris has taken the seat across to lounge its full width, and since he was nearly gutted by the wyvern in the last fight I suppose I can’t begrudge it overmuch. Aveline’s solid enough, but her shoulder’s hard as a rock. A good thing--strong! Rock-strong. Mountain-strong. Don’t give me that look.

Anyway, we eventually fought our way back to the chateau, whereupon we discovered our intrepid Salit dispensing his little scroll directly into the duke’s grasping ...grasp. Tallis got the scroll back via a bit of trickery--good enough--but then Prosper saw the rest of us and it was all “you’ve seen too much” and “now you must die” and blah, blah, blah, here’s my raging seasick wyvern to spit up on you while I rain fiery exploding arrows from the sky, worst Tuesday ever.

In the end, though, both the wyvern and his rider went off the cliff backing the chateau’s courtyard, Tallis got her secrets returned, and Fenris got the munificent honor of lying flat on his back on the pavingstones for another quarter-hour until I could get his side closed up again. Aveline was marvelous this whole time--held all the remaining, goggling guests at bay while Tallis invented an excellent cover story (I assume, as I wasn’t there to hear it, but we also remained un-mauled by Prosper’s guards further, so it must have had some success). Leliana came out from the house too, that Nightingale from that evening at the Chantry a few months back, and as much as she obviously knew we were lying she backed up everything Tallis said and more. Tallis clearly didn’t thrill at her presence (is she truly a spy? She shows her emotions far too easily--said the tar-black pot to the kettle, I know, I know), but thanked her for the help, later, and didn’t make a single acerbic comment when Leliana and I began talking about the Lothering chantry over dinner.

(I’d forgotten she used to run the handbell choir there for a while. I was only a ringer for half a season, since there weren’t enough bells & Bethany wanted it more than I did, but I have so many fond memories of watching her on the little dais before the altar, dressed in Chantry rose & gold, her hair ruthlessly pinned back as she watched Leliana for their cues.

Leliana says she remembers her, is sorry for the loss of a sweet girl. She’s a far better liar than I’ll ever be, but I’d like to believe her.)

As it is, by the time Lord Cyril arrived to find his father dead & his house in utter disarray, most of the carcasses had been ceremonially tossed to the rocks below. Leliana and I managed to persuade him Leopold had eaten something poor and lost his mind, and in the fracas took the duke over the edge with him--true enough, given the circumstances, but as Cyril seemed both wholly unaware of his father’s attempt to ally with the Tal-Vashoth and wholly unsuspicious of our motives (aided, perhaps, by the fact that I still had blood up to my ears), he accepted our truth readily enough and turned all his attention to legal matters and the rest of his guests instead. I nearly got away without any more of his attentions, too, but at the last moment he caught me by the hand, kissed my cheek with very cold lips, and gravely told me as alluring as I might be, he thought it would be unseemly to pursue a summer romance given the circumstances. Of course, said I ad nauseum, until at last he let me go and I was able to get Fenris inside to our room where he might rest. Fenris, who is infinitely warmer even when complaining about the Kirkwall cold.

Hm. In retrospect, that may have been the fever. Ah, well.

We’ve pulled up to the picket gate before the Auberge, so I will end this here.

18th Guardian. Very cold dawn, clear pink skies

Writing this at breakfast. Fenris is still asleep and Aveline strongly discourages dialogue before she has had her second cup of coffee, so I speak to an ever-willing audience in you instead.

Fenris’s fever has broken and his side looks much better, thank goodness, though he’s disgustingly tired and prone to snippy complaints at the least discomfort. I’m of the opinion a few good nights’ sleeps & a few really good sleepless nights will get him back to his old self, but I doubt he’ll feel truly well until we’re in Kirkwall again. He’s also annoyed my arm is taking so long to heal, though I haven’t told him it’s because I’ve been using all my strength to get him whole, first. He wouldn’t thank me for the knowing, and I don’t need his high dudgeon prolonging his healing even more.

Damn all of this mess. Despite everything I do like Tallis, and despite everything I feel badly for Cyril. The only person I don’t regret killing there is Prosper, and that’s half because I got to be very clever as he died. Maker, bring me quickly back to Kirkwall, where at least I know I don’t know who’s right and who’s evil.

Ah, Fenris is up at last. His eyes are clearer than they’ve been since the weekend, so he must be feeling better. And here comes the starry-eyed waitress to bring him his breakfast, right on cue. I ought to marry him as soon as possible to ensure I’m forever included in this excellent service too.

Late evening, in the estate at last, home sweet home (or as much as it can be, anyway, though Toby’s done a wonderful job at trying to crawl through my whole self in welcome)

Asked Fenris tonight if he would have minded a summer romance with Lord Cyril. Said immediately Cyril wasn’t his taste--not nearly alluring enough, even covered in wyvern spit, and went right back to his quail. Cheeky, said I, though I know I was smiling.

Orana keeps walking out of the laundry room with scented kerchiefs pressed to her nose. The leathers may be a lost cause. Damn!

25th Guardian. Warm winds from the north today, though the morning broke cool

Varric is already drafting a series on the Chateau Haine escapades. Jewel Heart, he’s titling it (tentatively), in spite of my numerous and vociferous objections. I say it ought to be an adventure, not a romance; he says it can be both. Hmph.

Varric, when you read this (and don’t flatter your chest hair, we both know where you get your source material, and we both know Isabela’s helping), for Andraste’s sake, come up with a better title. Heart of the Many, maybe. Mark of the Assassin. Something!

14th Drakonis. Warm but very wet -- the puddles are steaming

He uses the word “alluring” forty-seven times in the rough copy. I’m going to burn his press to cinders.

16th Drakonis. Still raining

Fenris likes it.

I may never win again, but at least he makes me enjoy the losing. And Varric -- oh, who cares, you’ll do what you like regardless. Just make sure he’s in his black leathers at least once, and I’ll be satisfied.

And for the record, I demand the first print copy to be autographed for me. Consider it payment for services rendered, for my arm’s gone and scarred and if I haven’t you to tell me how wonderful I was in the scarring, how else will I know it was worth it?

(You know I love you. Don’t ever stop.)

#fenris #hawke #fenris/hawke #dragon age #quark writes #hawke's journal tag #mark of the assassin #ft. tallis and tired aveline #haHAA bet you thought i'd forgotten this eh #eh eh #well #haven't

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whopooh · 7 years

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Great tension in the Miss Fisher fanfic – for the 11th PFF

What do you say, Jack, shall we go for URST or RST this time?

I asked for help from this lovely fandom to spread some fanfic love -- asking for fics with great tension, either with Unresolved or Resolved Sexual Tension, or both.

I have gotten wonderful answers, and I will give them to you here as a contribution to PFF (Phrack Fucking Fridays) – the 11th since it was started by @firesign23 in August!

I didn’t get as many answers as last time – whether it was because the timing was bad, or the theme too difficult to choose fics for, I don’t know. But I hope to receive more during the coming week, when you see this and think “These are super wonderful fics, but where is X, Y and Z?” Just keep sending me ficrecs, and I will do a second post. And do not fear if you cannot fill both URST and RST – I didn’t mean that you should, one or both or just tension is equally fine! (check here for details and how you can contact me)

Here are nine recommendations that makes me immediately want to go and reread the fics.

"Wake Me Up" by @edeainfj/deedeeinfj. Recommended by @omgimsarahtoo.

The whole thing, but especially this:

"Early shift tomorrow... today, that is?" she asked, smoothing back his hair. He nodded. "I didn't mean to wake you." He exhaled a laugh. "Wake me whenever you like. It's surreal, still." "What is?" "Being wanted. Like that." He traced his fingers down her spine. "Especially by you." "I wanted you long before you let me have you, cruel man," she grinned.

I love the established Phrack-ness of this fic, and yet you can tell it's still new because he's not certain that her fantasy involves him. The sex is hot, but the feelings that are around it are what makes it memorable for me.

“Here be Dragons?” by @anne-louise-fortune. Recommended by @olderbynow.

aljohnson's yaci is wonderful, and i adore it, but there are two scenes from the sequel that just always makes me all chinhands and hearteyes. first, the scene when phryne comes over after her burlesque performance, and jack is very focused on the practical side of things:

“And your thoughts on the remainder?” Phryne looked at him as if there had been nothing at all unusual about her ‘outfit’.

“My thoughts are mostly around the logistics of how the, erm….” Jack indicated towards Phryne’s breasts.

“Nipple tassels, Jack?”

“Indeed. How do they stay on?” Jack was genuinely intrigued as to how the small objects had remained perched on her breasts, covering her nipples. He had not actually been able to see anything that a gentleman should not have been able to see. He was coming to the realisation of exactly how unlike a gentleman he would like to be with her.

and then, you know what's super high on my list of favourite things? jack losing control and being run away with by his passions. (and by 'passions' i mean 'wanting to bang phryne fisher', obviously.) there's just something completely fascinating and wonderful about this man, who is always so buttoned up and completely in control of himself - except for once in a while when he's forced to look at a painting of a naked phryne very shortly after having stuck his tongue down her throat in the name of policework, or when he's been imagining saving her from poisonous spiders only to have her clothes spontaneously fall off and then she perches herself a little too cleverly on his desk - just fucking LOSE it. which, yeah...

Phryne was trying to find her front door key in her handbag as Jack slid his hand across her waist, his lips pressing butterfly kisses to her neck. “Jack!” She implored, softly. His response was a low growl. Phryne could feel arousal spiking within her. As she finally got the door open she turned to Jack, “Would you like to… oh” she failed to complete the question as Jack swiftly moved over the threshold, closed the door behind them and spun Phryne so she was pushed back against the inside of the door. He was kissing her neck, nibbling on her earlobe and caressing her hips and waist with a keenness that Phryne found intriguing. What had come over him?

She tried to speak again, “Would you like to come upstairs?”

“No time” responded Jack, pulling her hips to his, allowing her to feel his very obvious erection.

and you should probably go read the rest for yourself if you haven't already... and if you have, maybe read it again, idk?

Is this my last chance, Miss Fisher?

"Alleviate" (part of 500 words) by @firesign23. Recommended by @longlineoftvdetectives.

“You seem certain there will be another time.”

It was, perhaps, the first time she had given voice to her doubts about this endeavour. If she’d had time to plan it properly it would be another matter, but she had not; there was a fine line between adventurous and reckless, and she wasn’t entirely certain whether she had fallen on the right side. He just smiled and took another biscuit.

“There’s always another time, if you’re willing to take it.”

She moved closer, intending to make a quip about his sudden optimism, but caught his eyes, smouldering with all the things left unsaid, and exhaled loudly. She hadn’t thought it possible to want him more, but she’d been wrong.

“Are you willing to take it?” she sighed.

I love the movement in this piece, from the long history of unresolved tension to the inevitable resolution, at what may be the last possible moment, the night before Phryne leaves to fly back to England. The passage is weighty and true but ultimately hopeful, and they decide together to take the risk of being together, despite all the uncertainties of the future. It's hard even to pick one favorite @firesign23 fic, but this one had a huge impact on me creatively.

“Hope Springs Eternal” by LemmingDancer. Recommended by @lillbilly.

"Then you'll look for him?" Hugh begged, meeting her eyes for the first time. The guilt in his guileless expression penetrated Phryne's fog. He still blamed himself for the waiting so long to look for Jack, when he'd been abducted.

"Of course," Phryne reassured him, even as a smile spread across her face. She began to sort through the pillows around her carefully, lifting the corners of each and peaking underneath. Hugh shot a mystified look at Dot, who was watching her mistress with an increasingly worried expression.

"Ah ha!" Phryne said, tossing aside a turquoise pillow.

"Uhngh," Jack protested incoherently, scrunching up his face against the sudden light. Draping one long arm over his eyes, he snaked the other around Phryne's waist. Hugh and Dot's faces were mirror images of shock and mortification.

“Delight out of loosened soil” by @ladyroxie. Recommended by @ollyjayonline for the URST.

We see them working so well together as they chase a suspect, then the banter we all love but the mood changes quickly when Jack has to remove the protection of his clothing to locate the jewels in the mud pool.

First we see Phryne being affected by handling things that are so representative of him.

She hung his hat and coats on a couple of nails protruding from the post beside her, trying not to notice they were warm from his body and smelled like spice and leather and books.

The scene below is reminiscent of the ‘tie’ scene in the last episode S2, starting as just a practical action soon surprising them with the intimacy it evokes.

Pushing up her own sleeves, she stepped forward, balancing carefully so didn't tip into the mud, and began uncoupling Jack's cufflinks. Her elegant fingers nimbly slipped a post through the slot, and she withdrew first one and then the other from his cuffs. She tucked the studs into her coat pocket, and returned to Jack's left wrist. As she leaned down again, she caught his eyes flicker from her lips to the shadow between her breasts and linger there. Her coat was open, the silk blouse she wore underneath gaping as she leaned forward.

Then Jack, already aroused, tries to calm himself: “Jack cleared his throat. Breathe, man. This is just a practicality. Nothing more. Completely chaste.”

And then his understanding of the power she has/he has given her over him: “But her skin, her hands, her fingers against his flesh... It was undoing him in a way that made him understand drowning men.”

And then his decision:

He could, he knew suddenly and with surprising clarity, stop this. He could stand, mud everywhere, words rough and wrong, and pull away. He saw that scene unfold in an instant in his mind and knew that she would play her part, if that's what he wrote.

But the bigger surprise was that he saw another scene, even more sharp, in even more depth, and all he saw in it was her. Her body, her lips, her hair spread across his naked chest. He didn't know precisely what happened in between this moment and that one, but all at once he believed it existed. And that fact made him realize he was not going to say no.

And her understanding that he is making a decision, about them.

Phryne stilled her fingers when they reached as far up Jack's sleeve as they would reach. She swallowed, and brought her eyes up to meet his, an uncharacteristic uncertainty shaking her.

As her hand drew slowly down to rest once again on his wrist, their eyes met, and Phryne lost her breath. In the many worlds she saw in Jack's blue-grey eyes, one word rose above everything else.

Yes.

I just adore this.

The palpable tension of Angry Jack.

"Double the Pleasure, Double the Fun" by @phrynesboudoir/Sassasam. Recommended by @omgimsarahtoo.

In Double the Pleasure, Double the Fun two fictional characters played by Nathan Page meet, Jack from Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries and Henry Stokes from Underbelly: Squizzy. Jack and Phryne are together, but Jack is still angry (maybe not realizing how angry) because Phryne had slept with Henry Stokes in the previous fic. Jack's impulse to make this menage happen -- or rather, to watch Phryne with Stokes -- comes from that anger, and the fic treads a very fine line when it comes to consent. it is cracktastically amazing smut, and a lot of it packed into a relatively short fic. The URST is very high before Jack joins in, and then the resolution is explosive.

“What exactly did you plan to do with my - with Miss Fisher,” Jack asked calmly.

Henry Stokes stared Jack down, “I planned on stripping her bare and fucking her senseless on her bear skin rug,” he answered unblinkingly.

Jack cocked the pistol. And Phryne looked between the two men in fear. Long moments passed.

“Go on then,” Jack said.

"Lost Together" by @gaslightgallows. Recommended by @adverbally.

“I want you, Phryne Fisher,” he said, forcing his voice into steadiness, even as her eyes made it plain that she was thinking about all the indecent things she wanted to do to him. “I want... to put you on that bed and strip you down to your skin, and know every part of you. I want to touch you, kiss you, devour you, be devoured by you—“

Her fingers on his lips stopped his litany. “Careful, Jack,” she murmured, dragging her forefinger down his bottom lip. “We’ve a long night ahead of us. You don’t want to spoil every surprise.”

As Jack and Phryne move to consummate their relationship, the nerves the two feel about the change in their relationship are expressed perfectly in character-- Jack, of course, channels these feelings into a gallant declaration of his intentions, while Phryne tries to defuse the tension with her usual charm. It's a lovely light-hearted moment in a sweet and poignant fic.

“Saudadee” by @kidnthehall. Recommended by @ollyjayonline for the RST.

With this piece there is the inevitability: the knowing this is going to happen, we’ve been apart and we didn’t want to be and now we’re going to be together and this is happening. No talking, no thinking, just doing:

From the moment he opened his door everything was a blur of lust and months apart, love that none dared to address lingered like smoke. Lips were seized, limbs entangled. Clothes were tugged at, ripped off, discarded. Eyes locked on eyes, hands rushing to feel every expanse of skin at once. Intense kisses. Impossible to resist to kiss a neck, impatient to return to a longing mouth. Rewarded by thrilled moans.

And this I think is a wonderful contrast to Queenscliff where she thought ‘he was a policeman in her room’ and didn’t immediately pick up that Hilly was talking about him when she referred to ‘your handsome friend’: “The sight of him above her, letting go, looking so little like the Inspector and so much like her Jack, made her laugh from sheer joy.”

“A Modern Woman” by @omgimsarahtoo. Recommended by @olderbynow.

This whole fic is so wonderful, but there are a couple of paragraphs that stand out for their sexual tension-ness. like this one:

Jack blinked, his own thoughts shocking him a little. He’d known that he was horny—six months of divorce proceedings and a reluctance to start anything new was wearing on him—but he didn’t usually look at women as if they were meat. He was certain this woman had a personality and intellect that were just as stunning as the points of her nipples against the silk of her blouse and the crimson slash of her lips. He’d really love to find out for sure—though he’d also love to have just one night with that body of hers, much as it shamed him to admit it. Sipping at his whiskey, he shook his head at himself. He didn’t do one-night stands, as a general rule—he found them unsatisfying—but as he was not ready to jump into a new relationship at this point, he wondered whether he should reconsider.

obviously i'm a HUGE fan of the slow burn (the slower the better, tbh) but variety is the spice of life or whatever, and sometimes a bit of "let's just jump right in there and have jack want to fuck her before he knows her name" is just what the fic stew needs. or it's the chocolate with salt caramel filling after you've had six coconut ones. i don't know.

oh, but also this:

Jack fought the urge to swallow, knowing that she’d intended him to feel this arousal. Absurdly, he wanted to hide his reaction from her as much as he could. This woman knew her own appeal, but he thought perhaps she would prefer someone who didn’t just lie down and let her walk on him. Oh god, would I love to lie down for her, though. For her. Under her. On top of her. He wrenched his thoughts back to the question she’d asked, letting his lips curve in a small smile.

and in between, there's mac catching him ogling phryne... i'm not going to quote that, because it seems like an appropriate teaser for the two people in this fandom who haven't already read this fic. which they should do. because it's AWESOME. and funny. and hot. and awesome.

That was all for today. Thank you to all contributing, you are the best! ❤︎

#reading miss fisher #mfmm fanfic tidbits #fic recommendations #pff #fic recs from the fandom

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