Just my interests and not much else

arranged political marriage narratives are for me similarly fraught to unplanned pregnancy in that they tend to skew towards a conservative, anti-choice sentiment regardless of the author's intentions or ideology, because the end goal is typically the realisation of an apparently empowering and subversive romantic fantasy where the characters involved experience compellingly turbulent and sexually charged conflict between normative expectations and their own desires, but ultimately find themselves fulfilled in and even healed by the acceptance of undeniably important and worthwhile but conventional (and oppressively gendered) roles like that of the loving husband and wife or parental figures. which is a shame because i Do think that there's some interesting and worthwhile commentary to be explored through these kinds of kinky fantasies that reflect the anxieties surrounding very real and enduring sociopolitical issues regarding autonomy and consent, but when that tension is ultimately resolved by settling into a role that's always been what's expected of you, even if it does allow you to manipulate certain social power dynamics in your favour, it just rings kind of hollow. all of which is a very long-winded way of saying that i wish there were more arranged marriage narratives where the participants never fall in love, but still come to care for and respect one another, and perform the marital duties expected of them out of that affection and desire to both help each other advance their sociopolitical countermoves to subvert the status quo and to survive, using the legal and social trappings that come with their marital status to their advantage to protect each other.

like i really Cannot stress enough how imperative it is that they never feel anything like romantic love for one another - nor are they really friends, although they may like each other's company and even actively prefer it to anyone else's. rather their relationship is comparable to that of two people covering each other's backs in a fight, or two prisoners in the same cell, and there's as much of the beauty of human connection to that as there is tragedy that those are the circumstances that brought them together. and they can absolutely have sexual tension and even consummate a sexual relationship and enjoy it, but it will be unavoidably dubiously consensual at best by design. no flinching from it.

arranged marriage where you love each other so much that you'd both shove the other person through a crack in the wall the moment it opened up in front of you while screaming at them to go, go now, run, and don't you dare look back

not an apologizer but a contextualizer. yes the character did that but please understand the Circumstance. yes they had other options but they had to make this choice in a sea of available bad choices. and also it made the narrative more interesting. won't anybody think about the narrative!!!!!

Human beings b like. *sits and stares peacefully at a fire* *sits and stares peacefully at the ocean* *sits and stares peacefully at a sleeping animal*

i genuinely don’t know how to explain to some of you that the USA isn’t the Source Of All Evil in the world in a way that you’d actually understand it

The BEST trope is when a character tells another “let’s run away together, we can leave all of this behind and start a new life somewhere” and gets rejected. And then the rest of the tragedy unfolds

Darcy in his letter being like, "I suppose if you say so, your sister might have actually loved Bingley. I'm not sure though, it seems unlikely. I did look very hard at her for like, whole minutes at the ball. But whatever, it's already done and I still think I was right. Because your family sucks."

Elizabeth to Jane being like, "Darcy's friends who quite literally live with him think he's great, but obviously they are decived and blinded by his wealth. I talked to this hot guy at my aunt's house for a whole evening and I, Elizabeth Bennet, know the real truth: Darcy sucks."

They really are made for each other.

Darcy’s introduction in Pride and Prejudice is really ‘what if you had just had the worst month of your life because your ex-bestie tried to lover boy scam your baby sister out of her share of your dad’s life insurance and your friend dragged you to a shitty party in a dive bar in the neighbourhood where he’d just signed a short term lease, and you decided to let your bad mood show because you were never going to see any of the assholes in this stupid shitty bar EVER again. And your friend ended up making out with a girl he’d just met there while you were stuck talking to her sister who was less cute and then her mother appeared and started trying to matchmake and started saying how if she was twenty years younger she’d clime you like a redwood and ooooh is that a black Amex, guess the next round is on you hahhahahahaha, while her other sister (how many fucking sisters does she have?!) flashed an obviously fake ID at the bar and ordered six vodka-diet red bulls and no one in her family except the less-cute sister even tried to stop her. And you went home and consoled yourself that you would never see any of these people again but then you met them over and over again because they live next door and your friend and the cute sister keep meeting up to make out but not actually date and then. You fall in love with the less-cute sister because it turns out she’s really witty and charismatic but she already knows and remembers and resents the fact that on a day when you were in a shitty mood you called her mid out loud in a dive bar.’

I don't think anyone will ever contextualize this point for me in a way that hits so deeply and accurately. Straight to the heart, poor Darcy.