#ESSAY: Reaching Out to You

[bennetsbonnet]

Hi, I was wondering if you could please expand on why you think Mr. Darcy wouldn't say to Elizabeth "you have bewitched me body and soul"? I'd never really considered it before. Thank you! :)

Certainly, thanks for asking! I love talking about these things :)

I think it's firstly important to point out the context in which the word 'bewitched' is used in the novel. It's in chapter ten, when Elizabeth is staying at Netherfield. It occurs just after Darcy & Elizabeth have argued about Bingley's disposition and after Darcy invited her to dance a reel, which yielded the lovely exchange where Elizabeth says:

'I have, therefore, made up my mind to tell you, that I do not want to dance a reel at all—and now despise me if you dare.'

To which Darcy replies:

'Indeed I do not dare.'

The passage containing 'bewitched' immediately follows:

Elizabeth, having rather expected to affront him, was amazed at his gallantry; but there was a mixture of sweetness and archness in her manner which made it difficult for her to affront anybody; and Darcy had never been so bewitched by any woman as he was by her. He really believed, that were it not for the inferiority of her connections, he should be in some danger.

Although the word 'bewitched' itself does not necessarily have any negative connotations, with the benefit of hindsight, and of knowing what we do about how Darcy deals with his infatuation with Elizabeth, I would argue that in his case, his state of being bewitched by her is not a positive thing.

To highlight my point I'm going to use the definition provided by the Cambridge English Dictionary, which is as follows:

to attract or interest someone a lot so that you have the power to influence them:

to put a magic spell on someone or something in order to control him, her, or it

To deal with the first one, Elizabeth obviously influences Mr Darcy into changing his ways, that is pretty much the whole point of the novel! But I think bewitched has a certain connotation of being under a spell, and perhaps behaving involuntarily. I mean, I think we've all done cringeworthy things for people we've had crushes on that we can look back and laugh at, or perhaps shelled out silly money for concert tickets or bought more copies of an album or another thing because we're so 'bewitched' by the artist. I think that's quite common. But I don't believe that it's an accurate portrayal of the way Darcy loves Elizabeth.

Equally, did Darcy change solely due to his love of Elizabeth, or because she pointed out that he had come to embody so many things he loathed in others? I don't think that a man who spent as long sitting with his emotions and mending his ways as Darcy did, with pretty much zero expectation that he would ever see her again could have such behaviour being explained away as being 'bewitched.' She influenced him, yes, but he was compos mentis the entire time. He knew what he was doing, he did it willingly.

As for the second definition, I believe it's pretty undeniable that Elizabeth put a magic spell on Darcy. I mean, he was openly admiring her fine eyes fairly early on in their acquaintance. There was just something about her which attracted him. But he didn't truly know her as a person. He didn't even know her in Hunsford when he proposed. Darcy knew her so little that he thought she would be expecting such an offer, when in reality she disliked him.

It's almost as though, in his state of bewitchment, he dehumanised Elizabeth a little, and just saw her as the object of his desires, rather than as a living, breathing person with her own autonomy. He thought he loved her, but his emotions were not so deep as that. Darcy disliked so many things about her, including her family which she couldn't exactly change. I suppose, at that point, he loved the idea of her; he liked her wit and was attracted to her, but that isn't true love.

I think Darcy actually reflects on his past feelings towards her with this line, which I personally find infinitely more romantic, when he says at the start of chapter 60:

'I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look, or the words, which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I had begun.'

To me, this definitely sounds like he was saying that he was in some way infatuated with her, but it is quite a detailed and lovely speech. And Darcy is always very deliberate with his words, he doesn't say whatever is on his mind unlike some people (looking at you Mrs Bennet/Lydia). It also comes after they've spoken about their respective thoughts and emotions following the letter and Lady Catherine's visit to Longbourn. It's clear they've sorted out their emotions, come to a deeper understanding and harbour a lot of mutual respect for each other.

In short, I have such an issue with him saying she has 'bewitched' him at the end because, while Mr Darcy was bewitched by Elizabeth at the beginning, his attraction to her caused him to almost dehumanise her and not consider her feelings; after her rebuke of him during the first proposal, he went away and voluntarily—no longer under any sort of spell or illusion—realised how wrong he was and genuinely altered his ways, while his feelings for her deepened into respect and true love.

So, while I understand why they used that particular word in the film, since it does occur in the novel, it's important to understand how changing when you use it in the course of the story can alter things quite dramatically, especially for their respective character arcs. And I think that line from Darcy about being unable to fix on the hour etc. is one of the most romantic in the entire novel, the fact that it never gets used in adaptations is a CRIME!

Well this was an essay. I realise I'm being intensely pedantic but, hey, I care about the little details :') and I'm not here to bash 2005. You won't see me do that here. I have my preferences but I can absolutely see why people enjoy it. Personally, I just adore the novel and the characters so much that these seemingly trivial things matter to me.

Ultimately, I think Austen was very deliberate in her choice of words and even just altering the tiniest thing can change the weight of them.

[bardan-jusik]

cannot get over lately the realization that while repcomm is widely criticized for being 'anti-jedi', it's WAY kinder and more understanding to all of its force-using characters and the jedi order as an organization than actual anti-jedi fans are

[isan0rt]

One of these days I really need to get around to writing an actual essay about the strong narrative and thematic parallels between Dedue and Edelgard. Today is not that day. But one of these days I will write the essay.

(It's about two people who lose their entire families and their entire worlds and react by covering themselves in literal armor and picking up a physical shield the size of their own bodies to defend their hearts from further pain. It's about picking up an axe and deciding to change the world with your own hands. It's about how only one other person in the world at the beginning of the story knows their true selves and loves them as an individual first. It's about how totally human and ordinary Dedue would be the perfect example of the deserving in Edelgard's ideal crestless meritocracy if Dedue didn't fundamentally reject Edelgard's worldview, and if Edelgard didn't completely overlook him. It's about how in the only route where Edelgard doesn't turn herself into a monster as a futile last ditch desperation effort to save her dream of a better future, Dedue does to try to save his.

It's about wanting a savior to reach out their hand to them in the worst moments of their lives, and how Dedue gets that and Edelgard doesn't and that emotionally and thematically makes every single bit of difference.)

[theolderguards]

scrolling through tumblr and loving the fact that because The Pitt has become quite popular, people are going back to watching ER (WHICH WAS MY WHOLE LIFE WHEN I WAS GROWING UP YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW!!!) and now there's always a lot of ER gifsets on my dash and it makes me so happy but I'm also sitting here wishing someone would gif one of my favorite scenes from my favorite episode....

and then I remembered I MAKE GIFS NOW 🤣🤣🤣

[specialagentartemis]

Dear college students:

I’m a TA. Your TAs are students too. I get it. College is a Lot. Sometimes you can’t come to class. Sometimes you can’t finish your work by the deadline. It happens.

We’re willing to work with you if you tell us.

I have 50 students in my “Intro to World Archaeology” class. I prepare the discussion sections, I grade the essays and exams. I have plenty to do. I am not going to track you down and ask why you didn't come to class last week or if you need an extension on your work or if you would like me to email my comments on your draft to you if you didn’t pick it up on the day I handed it back. I cannot read your mind. I do not know your life. You have to approach me.

If you didn’t get your feedback, let me know! If you can’t come to class, let me know! If you need an extension on a project, let me know! You don’t need to give private personal details, but you need to at least tell me ahead of time that you can’t make it! If you never email me or approach me after class or come to my office hours, I can’t know what you need! Your TAs are tired grad students, they will sympathize with you, it is our job to work with you and help you, but you have to be the one to ask for what you need.

And seriously, if you have any questions, go to your professor’s or TA’s office hours. That’s what they’re there for!!

[a-totally-original-name]

I beg you to draw your favs with this please🙏🙏

[stjernec]

Fucking kill me

[thebardbullseye]

shit i stayed up til 1am writing another essay about WBN again

surprisingly it's not even about the newest episode- it's about episode 10 of WWW

[dye-it-rouge-et-noir]

"If you post and do more traditional art that's of finished quality, you can consider that a covert promotion post for your favorite pen company if you put the pen somewhere in the photo to show what pen you used."

You're right.

[pamshindouu]

Rei and Hackmon's character song is such a misunderstood work of art

[hide-your-bugs-away]

*Pretends that Eric is singing directly to Alan within some of his "Eric Burdon and the Animals" songs* Boy, I sure do love being delusional!

[kooki914]

Given that the collection has 151,406 words, if you turned it into one book it wouldn’t be a novel, it would be an epic

Ok so while I'd love to let this blindly stroke my ego, I do have to point out that the Spadesgore collection technically doesn't meet the criteria for an epic novel, I think? Like, not only does an epic require actual high stakes of epic proportions, but the collection was also never technically intended to be one huge thing. If it were turned into a book it'd probably be multiple, like a romance series where each subsequent entry is longer than the last for seemingly no good reason. And the fics themselves wouldn't be individual books, they'd be more like... chapters. This is a really bad analogy let me explain myself-

Since I started expanding the first fic, I planned for the series to be split into Arcs™. Basically, the story is all one continuous thing and belongs in one collection, but by the way the fics are planned/written, they (thus far) follow three major arcs. The first arc, the light world arc, lasts from "A talk by the lake" and concludes with "A series of very, very fortunate events" (about 40,157 words total). The second arc is the dark world arc, which begins with "Sleepy words" and ends with "Surprisingly perfect" (109,904 words in total, thanks in no small part to the beast that is "Royalty"). If turned into books, I'd want those individual arcs to be split into individual books, technically able to stand on their own but following the same overarching story. The third arc (which I don't have a name for yet oops) just got kicked off with "A kind of daydream, but don't call it that" and will encompass the next approx twenty-something fics (whenever I get around to writing them) that I have planned out that (somewhat) neatly wrap up most of the remaining threads I want to explore with these two.

I say most because there's stuff I might want to write for the collection even after that - ideas I left unexplored for the sake of time and cohesion - or even stuff concerning my other Spadesgore AUs that we aren't even factoring into the full word count (yet) that could get their own standalone expansions outside the collection (looking at you, demon AU). All of that is, however, majorly dependent on two factors. 1) how exhausted I feel with the concept of the Spadesgore collection after the third arc is finished, and 2) how I end up feeling about the next chapters of Deltarune. (Though I'll be honest the second point is a LOT less important than the first LMAO)

So, yeah! Thank you for the ask that let me segway into rambling about my godforsaken fic series structure, and I hope you look forward to the next entries in the collection as much as I do!

[the-alan-price-combo]

Hiii, please do you know where I can watch that interview where Eric talks about the night Alan leave the band? The video that was on the post was deleted from YouTube 😭

P.s I love your drawings ❤️ (english is not my first language, so I apologize for any mistake )

AaAA!! Hello, and thank you so much for reaching out to ask!! 🥹🐾

I remember it was sometime earlier last year (2023) that I noticed that the YouTube links for the Eric-BBC-Interview clips had suddenly dissappeared - both the anecdote about the phone call Eric shared with Alan when Alan left, and the "love-hate, delicate relationship" clip. It was extremely disappointing to realize this.. not only because it left a couple missing sources in my essay, but also because I didn't have the foresight to save them beforehand; I apologize for that! 😭

I saved many, many Animals and Alan videos in late August of 2023, with this situation being one of the primary reasons. At the very least, I'm glad I typed out a little transcript of those moments, and it isn't as major with the anecdote from Eric's first autobiography supporting it... but, it does feel really weird to have a missing source to a video that I so distinctly remember being up with Eric actively saying those words. And it makes me feel really bad that I can't find it for you! 😢

I'll try and do some research and see if the full BBC interview is saved somewhere - that original YouTube uploader never included a date, but considering how somewhat decent the BBC is with archiving their interviews/broadcasts (several of Alan's are still in circulation!), maybe I'll be able to find the full broadcast! If I'm able to, I'll definitely message you or tag you in a post so you can listen to it!! 🐾✨️ And, of course, if the YouTube channel suddenly comes back, I'll let you know as well!

Thank you again for the kind words, and I'm very sorry that source is unavailable. 😭 I'm so glad you like my artwork as well - drawing the Animals (and Eric and Alan) is a passion of mine!! 💞🐾✨️

[yasmini24]

me when ap gov is actually about the united states political system and culture:

[coruscantide]

okay, anyone want a starter?

[charles-leclerc-official]

could you compare and contrast charles leclerc and max verstappen's driving styles?

Oh yes! This is obviously a really good topic, and super relevant to why certain races play out the way they do.

Now obviously this is a pretty broad topic so it will take me a while to do a thorough breakdown, but absolutely. I probably should do this just for reference sake.

I want to do it justice so it will probably take a while though. But I am adding it to the list!

Thank you <3