#and now he's getting into Society (aka john isn't in the wrong because That's Just How Things Were

[crashdown]

my english prof taking the brave stance on the yellow wallpaper that is "man good woman delusional"

[lauramkaye]

Hot take on a 200-year-old book

At the start of Pride and Prejudice, Darcy liked Caroline Bingley, and Caroline isn't completely irrational to think that she might get him to propose eventually.

Oh, he WON'T, not with her connections in TRADE, but it isn't so very wrong of her to have hopes of him. He doesn't like meeting new people and he's used to her because she's his friend's sister, he's had her to stay at Pemberley at least once and is now staying with her family so he must not have hated it! Plus, she has fashionable manners and appearance, she's generally fairly savvy and clever, and they have a great time being bitchy to each other about people they don't like. She's funny in a mean way and SO IS HE - "She a beauty? I'd as soon call her mother a wit." For Darcy, Caroline makes a fairly amusing person to trade zingers with, roast vulgar people, and probably to use as a shield against other husband hunters that he knows less well. I suspect that Caroline's plan when they come to Netherfield is to just keep being in his orbit, showing off her society hostess and witty one-liner skills, and eventually he'll realize he has to get on with producing an heir and will decide that as far as eligible known quantities go, better Caroline than Anne De Bourgh. (Which, I mean, at least Caroline brings more pleasant in-laws and you could actually have a conversation with her.) It's not a terrible strategy for somone as antisocial as Darcy, honestly, though I think that pre-book Darcy is okay with being FRIENDS with the Bingleys but wouldn't be polluting the shades of Pemberley with them, so to speak - that's a bridge too far for his sense of what is due to his family.

(In fact when you think about it, the way that Elizabeth and Wickham enjoy dishing dirt about Darcy is kind of a mirror of the way Darcy and Caroline start out!)

I think part of why Caroline gets so very desperate and blatant is that Darcy stops playing along with their usual games as he starts to fall for Elizabeth. It's not so funny when it's about his crush, and instead of giving back another quip about how inferior these country bumpkins are, he not only shuts her down but does it in a way that is complimentary to another woman. I think the first time he does this is at Lucas Lodge with the infamous "fine eyes" comment. You can SEE Caroline getting more and more frantic to re-establish their prior rapport and Darcy just doubling down on taking every one of her attempts and turning it into a way to say something nice about Elizabeth, to the point where by the end of the Netherfield trip he is deliberately fucking with Caroline and I think is kind of enjoying it in a "hah hah, you can dish it out but you can't take it" sort of way.

If Caroline was a little smarter and more devious - a bit more like Wickham - she would have eased off and focused her comments not on Elizabeth but on her family, especially Mrs. Bennet and Lydia, who DO behave in a way counter to propriety and good manners and are genuinely embarrassing to their better-mannered sisters. That way, she could have reinforced his feelings against the match. Continuing to push him and doubling down every time he pushed back activated his Lady Catherine-Tuned Stubbornness Circuits (aka "I am the master of Pemberley and you don't get to tell me who I can or cannot marry").

Caroline and Elizabeth are both witty and fun to talk to, but Elizabeth is witty in a playful and sweet way that doesn't offend people (even when she might WANT to, see pretty much every conversation they have at Rosings). And most important, in the long run, Caroline encourages Mr. Darcy to indulge in his worst self (much like Fanny Dashwood does to John Dashwood in Sense and Sensibility) while Elizabeth challenges and inspires him to become his best self, and that's the most important difference between them.

[laufire]

This is redhoodinternaldialectical from the "main" blog, returning fire with the character ask game :3

For Jason: 23. Fav picture of this character 24. What character from another fandom reminds you of them? 26. Freebie question! What do you think his complicated opinions about Heathclif would be? (Saw ur tags about that hehehe)

I might come back with other characters, but just Jason for now cause it's WAY passed my bedtime

Fav picture of this character

there are so many options... (see: my header of his hamlet moment). but I'm going to go with this one, from batman annual #25.

I fucking love a character climbing out of his own grave. and that lightning bolt is so frankenstein of him <3

What character from another fandom reminds you of them?

my mind is wired to draw parallels and comparisons, and I happen to be rewatching a tv show (the 100, one of those "it could be so good if it was good" things xD) where sometimes it seems that all my favourite characters have some jason-coded moments and traits lol.

BUT. among all of them, we definitely need to talk about john murphy!!! he's my #1 in that show (with some strong competition), because I love his journey. he really started being... well, what dc regularly tries to convince us robin!jason was: a mean, angry teen, product of his society, who lashed out at people once he could, because he had been wronged himself. this show gave him far more grace about it (even during his messy revenge quest lol), and in season 2 they landed on a really potent love story with him and another character, emori (another outcast in her own society, this time because she was born with a mutation, that survived by stealing from others) that ended up catapulting him to Romantic Hero status in a way s1!murphy couldn't have dreamed of lmao. it was great.

even his backstory (which he's given in the first episode of s2) is. very jason añdslkfjasf. two important things about this gifset is a) the girl here, raven (another favourite), has a similar backstory (alcoholic mother who failed to take care of her, raven would've starved if not for the kindness of her neightbour & childhood sweetheart). she's taunting murphy because a few episodes before murphy shot her in the spine (he didn't intend to hurt her but it wasn't exactly an accident. part of his messy revenge quest against a -barely- adult who failed him lol). she hates him, and yet she clearly can't help but empathise </3. a few episodes later she tries to get him killed to save her ex <3. in a few seasons they'll become best friends <3. as far as I'm concerned she's memori's third <333

a few other things in favour of "jason-coded murphy" are this post, or the fact that at one point murphy had to use sex to survive in a way I personally headcanon jason doing (I've actually drawn some comparisons between that plot and nightwing/tarantula but only stylistic ones; plot-wise it's a very different situation where he displays an attitude closer to what I imagine jason doing).

What do you think his complicated opinions about Heathclif would be?

alñsdkfjasdf I can't believe I'm going to talk more about other characters than about jason but here we are lol.

anyway first of all, unlike many people in this fandom, jason is a smart cookie capable of differentiating fact from fiction, who could recognise heathcliff did some really fucked shit against undeserving people and still appreciate the hell out of him as the fascinating character he is. tyvm. that said, he's also someone who gets very personal about literature xD

one thing about heathcliff is that he does what some people argue jason is doing when he "targets" tim or mia (or damian, but that's bftc and fandom has more or less accepted that it's a mess, and also damian isn't white :))). aka, he's (a grown man!!) viciously, hatefully going after innocent children for the sins of their fathers!! for shame. sorry but that's not even true in bftc or hush (the situations there were very messy and the writers desperately needed medical consultants to make them make any sense, get off his dick xD), but definitely not true for titans tower or seeing red. jason was NOT trying to kill these teens (a few years younger than him at most), he's never wanted them death, and he's never even aimed to caused grievious, irreparable damage. again, get off his dick :P

but it's interesting to me thinking about jason reading the book for the very first time during the lost days era, in particular. he would empathise with heathcliff's desire for revenge, but I don't think he'd ~relate as strongly to him as some people think. yes, there is mistreatment in their youths and the revenge plot (after heathcliff does whateve he does in his own lost days period lol); there's even possible racial ambiguity in common, if we take into account the shiva thing. and he'd half-mindedly draw some links between bruce and earnshaw senior and, if he's feeling ungenerous lol, between dick and hindley, but nothing particularly strong, imo.

but I can see even this faint link being enough to have him pondering his own lines, what he's willing to do once he returns and what he isn't. and it's a fact that jason crossed some of his own purported lines, because he was too in his head about bruce or because they were convenient at the moment or because of all other reasons. and I picture him rereading the book years down the road, and grappling with that fact. wondering if heathcliff had drawn his own lines beforehand or gone all in from the beginning, wondering if he had any regrets. eta: it's interesting that he goes about his revenge in a very different way than heathcilff, who does it by becoming a legitimate (ymmv) landowner himself, one of the privileged, the top dog in a system, etc., and abuses his newfound poewr that way.

anyway. otherwise, he would appreciate heathcliff as the force he is in the narrative, while being utterly disgusted by some of his actions. at the same time he'd be really wary of the unreliable narration (I imagine him thinking nelly gives all the lintons too much grace, even if he obviously would think heathcliff's actions towards isabella and cathy are undefensible). I also believe he's ready to fist-fight anyone that supported the "monstrous" readings of heathcliff as something inhuman, as some supernatural force of nature. heathcliff, to him, is utterly human.

ALSO. jason is definitely that bitch who reads the FUCKING UNHINGED SHIT (x, x, x, x, x) catherine and heathcliff say about each other and be like. why can't that be me 😭. he's fucking unwell.

(and feel free to ask me about any other character you want! or any extra questions about jason lol)