BarefootLizz

Much Ado About Nothing - Text Posts (viii)

You've probably heard a little about what was brought over from the New World, corn, potatoes, cocoa, cassava, peanuts, chili peppers, avocadoes, cranberries, pumpkins, and the like. Imagine cooking without chili! Without potatoes! Modern Indian cuisine contains enormous amounts of potatoes and we just didn't have those for the vast majority of history. The best of the nightshades all on one contiguous hunk of land. Hell, tomatoes! Almost forgot about those.

But we don't often look at what the Old World had. Wheat! Barley! Rice! A profusion of incredible grains, really, the finest poaceae has to offer. Carrots! Tons of rosaceous plants like apples and cherries and pears and peaches and apricots! Grapes! Soy and Bamboo! Okra and watermelon! All these things were simply never found in the Americas. The grains one is the wildest for me, the variety of grains available across Eurasia and Africa was truly astounding.

Dornish Ladies

Of course featuring: Arianne Martell, Ellaria Sand, Obara, Nymeria, Tyene, Sarella, and the four baby Sand Snakes.

"Look everyone, we're certain things are only going to get worse from here, because our maid wants to murder us for some reason."

"Dear, it may be because you called her a slut and beat her senseless."

"Ignore my wife. Anyway, luckily, we have a cunning plan so that at least Elizabeth can buy some time."

A Pride and Prejudice ficlet written for @flashfictionfridayofficial

Fandom: Pride and Prejudice Relationship: Elizabeth Bennet/Fitzwilliam Darcy Rating: Teen Tags: Canon Compliant, Post-Canon, Established Relationship, Fluff, Pillow Talk, Implied that they just had sex, Names Word Count: 436

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"Say it again," she breathed into his neck.

"Hmm?" was his only response, muffled, hoarse, and foggy; it made her smile. She was coming to learn that her husband was uncharacteristically inarticulate immediately following his pleasure. It was amusing and charming to see such a competent man utterly undone.

"Say my name," she clarified.

He had said it right as he finished—"Oh Elizabeth, Elizabeth!"—and the joyful sound of it had made her chest ache in the best possible way. She still did not consider herself a terribly sentimental creature in general, but love and marriage had wrought more change upon her than simply changing her last name, and she was not ashamed to let her husband coax such romantic feelings out of her through such seemingly trivial means.

This current pleasing ache around her heart, and its cause, was not new to her. She always thrilled at hearing him call her by her Christian name, ever since that first "dearest, loveliest Elizabeth." It was not only the fact that he was allowed to call her that now, a reminder of their unity as husband and wife, but that he was the only one who called her that. To her family, she had always been Lizzy. To a few of her friends, she was Eliza. But to him and him alone, she was Elizabeth, always Elizabeth.

He treated her name like a treasure, beloved and jealously guarded from everyone else, only his to enjoy. Mrs. Darcy, he called her when they were in the company of others, and she took pleasure in that too, the affectionate tenor of his voice to use her married name, a name he had bestowed upon her. But there was an irresistible intimacy to the fact that as soon as they were alone, it was Elizabeth, always spoken with such warmth of feeling as to make her almost giddy at times.

At the present moment, with the sound fresh in her ears, her heart still racing from her release, and his body heavy and hot atop hers, she was feeling close to giddiness. He raised his head from where he had pressed it into the gracefully sloping valley of her neck and shoulder to look into her face. His cheeks were flushed, his lips parted as he breathed hard, his eyes bright with feeling.

"My Elizabeth," he said, slow and sure, and she sighed as its warmth spread through her.

This guy covers children's songs in the style of various artists, and he's incredible.

I'm weirdly emotional about it?

Saving is very hard and so few people do it. The government in my country has forced pensions that come right out of people's wages for a good reason. A lot of the inheritances we see in Austen are just money being passed on, saved by someone who had the will to do it and then paid forward. A mother's dowry was placed in trust and protected, then split between her daughters and etc. Recycled inheritances.

Mrs. Bennet going from "middle class" to upper class as a very young woman, it must have seemed like the money was endless and would never run out. Her husband didn't even have to work for it like her father! With so much wealth, saving must have just seemed unnecessary.

Mr. Bennet being born into wealth... I remember my parents teaching me to think about all money in terms of my minimum wage. I used to calculate how many hours as a cashier it took to buy this pair of jeans or that book I wanted to buy. Mr. Bennet never worked. He knew the money would keep coming until he died, barring some major disaster. The motivation to save must be so hard to inspire in those circumstances. He knew he should set some aside for emergencies, but he never actually did.

So many people live up to their incomes, no matter their wealth. So many people save nothing, despite knowing they should. I wonder what percentage of the gentry actually managed to save for their daughters (and extra sons) and how many failed at it.

And it makes me think, is one of the things that made Darcy so attractive to Elizabeth the fact that he could come up with £3000 twice at the drop of a hat, indicating that he has both savings and an emergency fund?

Batman is breaking into your landlord's house and promising they would be seeing Batman EVERY NIGHT until they got running water in the apartment building, there are literal plague rats running around

Batman is solving crimes the police ignore due to sexism and racism, finding the perpetrators, and dangling them off a roof, promising if they ever do that again, he will also dangle them off a roof again

Batman is breaking into mafioso bedrooms, tying them up, gluing 500 individual feathers onto them, then taking pictures and sending them to every big newspaper chain in the country to remind people that the ones they're afraid of are still only men

Then he finds police officers on the take and glues feathers to all their uniforms so they can't walk around without everyone knowing they are also associated with the chicken mafia, what a loser.

He is seeing violent crime happen on the streets and swooping in to get in the way as it is happening. Extortion, assault, murders-- get good, assholes, your crime is witnessed and you have been punched in the face, AND he's going to tip off the police commissioner who last year started listening. He is blowing up a mobster weapons depot so they have fewer guns on the street.

People killed: around three quarters of a million.

Up Next: Myr

For me, Myr was all about the lace, and for outfits that have extravagant amounts of lace my mind went straight to the Spanish mantilla. Inspired by the 1600s and the huge lace cuffs and collars, paired with a lace veil pinned up dramatically over the hair.

This was also good for me because I could link it visually pretty directly with Braavos. This way they would "post-renaissance" fashion buddies, but with lighter colours, a Lot more lace, and smaller hats and feathers.

(Illustrations by Ellen Artistic, photos sourced from the free version of Canva)

CARRD TO EVERYTHING