#darcy talks

[bunchofjackassesx]

Darcy walked into the room, two steaming cups of coffee from the cafe on the corner in hand. She knew Loki could have conjored his own cup, sure, but she figured it was her turn to supply their daily fix of caffeine. "Morning, Mischief Maker," she said, handing him one of the drinks before settling into the chair across from him. "What's on the agenda for today?" ;; @cosmiclvex

[whetstonefires]

You know what I realize that people underestimate with Pride & Prejudice is the strategic importance of Jane.

Because like, I recently saw Charlotte and Elizabeth contrasted as the former being pragmatic and the latter holding out for a love match, because she's younger and prettier and thinks she can afford it, and that is very much not what's happening.

The Charlotte take is correct, but the Elizabeth is all wrong. Lizzie doesn't insist on a love match. That's serendipitous and rather unexpected. She wants, exactly as Mr. Bennet says, someone she can respect. Contempt won't do. Mr. Bennet puts it in weirdly sexist terms like he's trying to avoid acknowledging what he did to himself by marrying a self-absorbed idiot, but it's still true. That's what Elizabeth is shooting for: a marriage that won't make her unhappy.

She's grown up watching how miserable her parents make one another; she's not willing to sign up for a lifetime of being bitter and lonely in her own home.

I think she is very aware, in refusing Mr. Collins, that it's reasonably unlikely that anyone she actually respects is going to want her, with her few accomplishments and her lack of property. That she is turning down security and the chance keep the house she grew up in, and all she gets in return may be spinsterhood.

But, crucially, she has absolute faith in Jane.

The bit about teaching Jane's daughters to embroider badly? That's a joke, but it's also a serious potential life plan. Jane is the best creature in the world, and a beauty; there's no chance at all she won't get married to someone worthwhile.

(Bingley mucks this up by breaking Jane's heart, but her prospects remain reasonable if their mother would lay off!)

And if Elizabeth can't replicate that feat, then there's also no doubt in her mind that Jane will let her live in her house as a dependent as long as she likes, and never let it be made shameful or awful to be that impoverished spinster aunt. It will be okay never to be married at all, because she has her sister, whom she trusts absolutely to succeed and to protect her.

And if something eventually happens to Jane's family and they can't keep her anymore, she can throw herself upon the mercy of the Gardeners, who have money and like her very much, and are likewise good people. She has a support network--not a perfect or impregnable one, but it exists. It gives her realistic options.

Spinsterhood was a very dangerous choice; there are reasons you would go to considerable lengths not to risk it.

But Elizabeth has Jane, and her pride, and an understanding of what marrying someone who will make you miserable costs.

That's part of the thesis of the book, I would say! Recurring Austen thought. How important it is not to marry someone who will make you, specifically, unhappy.

She would rather be a dependent of people she likes and trusts than of someone she doesn't, even if the latter is formally considered more secure; she would rather live in a happy, reasonable household as an extra than be the mistress of her own home, but that home is full of Mr. Collins and her mother.

This is a calculation she's making consciously! She's not counting on a better marriage coming along. She just feels the most likely bad outcome from refusing Mr. Collins is still much better than the certain outcome of accepting him. Which is being stuck with Mr. Collins forever.

Elizabeth is also being pragmatic. Austen also endorses her choice, for the person she is and the concerns she has. She's just picking different trade-offs than Charlotte.

Elizabeth's flaw is not in her own priorities; she doesn't make a reckless choice and get lucky. But in being unable to accept that Charlotte's are different, and it doesn't mean there's anything wrong with Charlotte.

Because realistically, when your marriage is your whole family and career forever, and you only get to pick the ones that offer themselves to you, when you are legally bound to the status of dependent, you're always going to be making some trade-offs.

😂 Even the unrealistically ideal dream scenario of wealthy handsome clever ethical Mr. Darcy still asks you to undergo personal growth, accommodate someone else's communication style, and eat a little crow.

[bairdthereader]

There's one in every friend group (and we love them).

Bonus--Confused Nick is confused:

[joohoneyboy]

Idk if anyone reads my silly little life updates but this blog is for my brain worms so idc. I've been scarily unwell all this year and yesterday was the most productive day i've had in 5 months. I've made lots of life changes this year and they're working! I've had so much energy the last week and yesterday alone i cleaned out my closet, donated clothes, vaccummed my car, went for a run and a swim in the ocean. I'm actually happy and feeling myself again for the first time in ages and just wanted to brag a bit

[besotted-with-austen]

Caroline Bingley: Charles, are you seriously considering the idea of a ball here at Netherfield? Because you might want to consider other's (Darcy's) opinions before giving your consent to it. There are others (Darcy) who are not that keen on dancing, and they (Darcy) might get bored-

Charles Bingley: *pointedly* if Darcy thinks so he can go to bed before the ball begins, Caroline-I am having fun.

[xeemaee]

not to be on my labru bullshit but Laios opening and closing his hand midair after Kabru lets go and leaves? I’m thanking the animators personally I’m giving them each a visa gift card for their birthdays

[bunchofjackassesx]

“Oh, trust me, I know. Especially since most of the time, there's someone in the room who can make the coffee appear. If you have any suggestions, I'm all ears.” She tilted her head thoughtfully. “So, how about we sneak away for a bit? I doubt either of us will be missed. And if for some reason we are needed, well... we can just come up with some excuse."

"You need another form of cardio, Lewis." Wanda scrunched her nose at the comment Darcy was most likely going to make and pressed a finger to her lips to silence her before she could. "Nowhere in particular. I just want out of the tower before they make us do something. It's one of those dead days I feel like we'll be forced out if nothing happens."

[avirxy]

blight art for some emotional damage

[hello-eeveev]

I have no evidence to support this, but I like to imagine that when Orym randomly pulls out a rock at breakfast and says, “Mr. Widogast?” there’s a least part of Essek that’s like—

“hehe, that’s me :)”

[hurt-over-comfort]

When the story goes so wild that you literally have to make a reference for all the damage your blorbo has sustained. Im sorry Albert I swear that I love you

[sillypenguinwitch]

okay so i'm not trying to make this a ~thing~ or a hot take or whatever, but can we talk about how all the hyped up queer shows still predominantly feature mlm couples? i'm not saying there aren't wlw shows/movies or the mlm-focused shows don't also feature wlw characters/couples, just... they either get nowhere near the same amount of hype, have some other main plot, end with at least one of them dying or experiencing something traumatic, get cancelled after one season in the middle of their arc, or they're not the main couple. And that's not to discount the representation you can get from secondary characters of course but just... ugh I want a heartstopper or rwrb or young royals or skam or love, simon or i don't even know... with girls. And I know I'm not the first person to bring this up and I know it's not that simple, but seeing all the hype for heartstopper and rwrb this week makes my heart ache a little bit so i needed to say this somewhere.

[peach-pot]

I think Catherine Tate could play Lizzie Bennet but idk if David Tennant could be Mr. Darcy.

[feminist-cult-following]

it’s been just over a year since we got alicent’s driftmark monologue and the way olivia delivers the line “where is duty? where is sacrifice?” has never left my mind. that scene alone should have earned her an emmy nomination.

[shinehalley]

I think between the most common misinterpretations of Pride and Prejudice that irritates me the most i can say the one at the top is when they say that the story is about a woman fixing a complicated guy and this becomes references in terrible romances. I've heard this so many times and as a person who grew up with the 2005 film and reads the book at least once a year I need to get it off my chest.

Starting off, Darcy is not a "complicated man". He's not a bad guy who takes out his traumas on other people, he's not a guy who's waiting to be saved by a woman who "silences his demons" and even less a guy who mistreats the women he's with. Darcy is actually a rich man with rude manners and some class prejudices. The point is that Darcy is a man with moral convictions and feelings that make him a good man despite these aspects. His rude manners are a reflection of his class prejudice, but they do not dictate how he treats people for whom he has feelings of affection. The way he would be able to move the world for those he cares about and seek the closest thing to what is considered justice in the temporal context of the story reinforces the goodness of his character. This is even more evident in the comparison that is made between him and Wickeham, where one is unpleasant but good and the other is pleasant but a cheat.

And what Elizabeth does is far from correcting him. Darcy doesn't realize how his class prejudice affects the way he communicates with people and the view he has of himself because everyone always justifies his arrogance as fair because of his wealth. So he believes that Elizabeth admires him when, in reality, she despises him for these characteristics. And what she does is just say it to his face, something no one has done before, and that's it. This is Elizabeth's contribution to any development of Darcy, to say how arrogant and prejudiced he is. It is Darcy himself who reflects on her words and realizes that she is right and that he is not being as fair as he thought he was. He realizes his own prejudice and realizes his own arrogance and of his own free will decides to change because he wants to be a better and more pleasant person.

It could be said that it was fate that put him and Elizabeth in each other's path and made her realize, now with more pleasant manners without prejudices obscuring her actions, what a good man Darcy is and become enchanted by him. But if they hadn't met again, Darcy would still take on this challenge of re-educating himself and being a better person and Elizabeth would still continue to think of him as an arrogant man in whom she feels no interest.

The other issue is that Elizabeth is not perfect. She has her own prejudices that are overcome throughout the book thanks to her coexistence with Darcy and not because of Darcy. The fact that she lives with both Darcy and Wickeham at the same time is what makes her understand how unfair she was in her first impression and how foolish she was in being guided by that to define the characters of both. Kindness and amability are not synonymous with integrity and she learns this the hard way. It's a lesson that if she hadn't learned through her time with Darcy, she would have learned it in some other way because life has things like that.

Finally, they were essential in each other's lives because of the teachings they left to reflect on their actions in relation to the world and not because they depend on each other. Both are confronted with their prejudices and realize that they were not fair and try to change for better people regardless of whether they are together or not. Their meeting after realizing their errors in judgment is purely accidental. They don't change for each other, they change for themselves, because they realize how proud they were and want to be more fair, and after that they end up being placed back in each other's lives by chance. That's what makes them such an interesting couple and makes us wish we had what they have.

Reducing the story of Darcy and Elizabeth to an asshole man who is fixed up by a woman is a mistake so grotesque that it is noticeable that it could only have been said by a person who has never seen the story or seen it with their ass.

[dutifullylazybread]

HEAR ME OUT: the first time Rolan tells his partner "I love you," is while his partner is giving him the most mind blowing blowjob in the world.

Rolan is falling apart at the seams, moaning and gasping, and as he comes, he chokes out those three little words.

It takes him a solid thirty seconds to register what he said.

[emry-stars-art]

Ok ok but royal au Andrew def does the Darcy hand flex™️ after any hand interaction with Abram

YOU UNDERSTAND MY VISION