Blogthing

There are two great problems with what happened to Margaret (and that her parents are trying to do to Juliet). One is easy for modern people to spot (but was also a common response back in her own day). And that’s the moral implications of what was done to her. She was too young to be married, and it was horrifying that she was forced into it so young. Every one of the adults around her either acted immorally or failed to protect her. They were wrong. This is what modern people see, and it’s important to remember that people back in her day mostly agreed with it. You’re supposed to think it’s fucked up! When girls were married that young (and it didn’t happen often!) it was a formality 99% of the time. It was for dynastic or financial reasons (the girl has lots of money and/or land and/or a title that her husband wants), but the “couple” don’t consummate their marriage for years. And it’s not just that they would have separate bedrooms. They might not even live in the same country until the girl was in her late teens and physically and mentally mature enough to bear and raise kids. Hell, a lot of times they didn’t even meet until the girl was older! They had this thing called “proxy marriage” where you would have two separate ceremonies, in two separate places, with each party saying their vows separately, one in one city and the other in a different one. So, yeah, sure, the girl was technically married at 12, but she didn’t actually meet her “husband” in person until she was 17 and they didn’t start sleeping together until she was 20. That was a thing they did.

The other problem, the one that modern people don’t notice, is dynastic. See, marriage wasn’t generally because you loved someone. It was because you had the resources to support a family, and you or your family wanted to pool those resources with someone. It’s about “our family has these resources, and we want that to continue.” It’s about continuity across generations. It’s about making sure that your children and grandchildren have the best possible resources to survive and thrive, whether those resources are land or a trade or a title or money or whatever. In order for this to work, you have to have kids! The family and the family’s resources depend on the married couple having children. If the couple doesn’t have children, the marriage is a failure. And that failure affects not only the couple, but both families. This is a really big problem. And you can’t have just one kid to pass on the family name, because half of all kids die in early childhood. If you want to be safe, you need several kids, to be sure at least one will survive to adulthood (when they can marry and pass on the family name and resources.

You know what happens when a girl has her first pregnancy too young? She is very likely to either die in childbirth, or have complications that destroy her future fertility. Just like Margaret Beaufort. Just like Juliet’s mother. In other words, the marriage is a failure, not just for her, but also for her family, and her husband (who can’t divorce her, it’s not allowed except in extremely rare circumstances), and her husband’s family. So even the people who didn’t have a moral problem with adult men having sex with pubescent girls had a practical problem with girls married too young because you are very likely to destroy the entire purpose of the marriage by doing it. As Shakespeare reminds us in the play through Juliet’s mother having been married too young and only having one child.

another thing i noticed, the year my local community shakespeare theater did r&j, and i made the costumes so i got to watch the show every night: part of why capulet is telling paris, take your time, get to know each other, no rush, is that he still has his nephew tybalt as his heir. as long as tybalt is in the picture, there is no pressure on juliet to go further with paris, than get acquainted. once tybalt is killed, then suddenly capulet needs an heir, he needs a husband for juliet, now, this week. (the role of capulet is best given to the actor in the company that can do over the top apoplexy, you need to believe his urgency comes at least in part by how clearly he could drop dead any moment from giving himself a stroke)

i feel like this play is often taught in middle schools as if it was somehow relevant to, or about, teen hormone storms. really it's got more to do with the social structures around family and inheritance. leaving that context out makes it confusing, why is capulet suddenly flipping from nice dad to evil dad?

Art for @candyqueenblog ‘s fic

i’ve seen a lot of posts over the years discussing whether crowley is, in essence, good or bad. but here’s the thing: no one is fundamentally good or bad. full stop. in fact, that’s one of the major themes of good omens, and it doesn’t just apply to humans.

we are the sum of our choices, a messy amalgamation of nuance. as a person you will do good things and bad things over the course of your life, but a lot of that comes down to circumstances (think of the edinburgh minisode). we do what we can to survive in the circumstances that we’re given. it’s all so much more complex than something like intrinsic morality.

crowley’s job is to inflict evil. does that make him a bad person? he does, after all, do a lot of bad things.

he also saved the world. that’s pretty good. exceptionally good, even.

i don’t think someone “fundamentally good” would try to hit a hedgehog with his car, and i also don’t think someone “fundamentally evil” would risk his life to save the world.

crowley and aziraphale spent millennia among humans and thus no longer fit into the mold, which goes to show that the mold has always been optional. free will can be learned. angels aren’t fundamentally good and demons aren’t fundamentally evil, they’re both just doing the jobs they’ve been assigned. we are often victims to our circumstances, but if we can manage agency, we can break out of those circumstances and make different choices.

Angel of the Eastern Gate

The term "beta" in this context is short for "beta reader" - a person who reads a fic while it's still in the editing stage and helps the writer get it ready to post. Some betas check grammar. Some check canon compliance. Some are sensitivity readers. There are lots of things that betas can do.

So functionally, saying "no beta" means that the writer didn't get this checked by a second person before they posted it. It's a warning that there might be errors or typos etc. It's mostly used when an author has written something quickly and is posting without doing a lot of (or any) edits first.

As for where it comes from? It all started with a bumper sticker.

This image was an internet meme at one point, and it got meme'd on in the form of "no ___ we ___ like men"

Here on tumblr, one of the versions that got really popular was from now-deleted user @grec1a who created this version:

Bookomens in an AU where Aziraphale is a knight and Crowley is a prince from another kingdom.

The fic: archiveofourown.org/works/51534508

op's tags

the underworld is a connecting flight in another terminal

when his men die its just his buddies got on the wrong flight

the sun god's island stuff was Odysseus was the only one questioning where the flight goes, his buddies just wanted to be on a plane already