#misdeed

[virtuouslibertines69]

"Everything I’m doing is an undoing, the deeds themselves are just misdeeds in the end." - Ingeborg Bachmann, from Three Paths to the Lake; “Eyes to Wonder”

'Katharsis' by David Schermann

[corvianbard]

#6753

A little pumpkin Got itself a grin, A living lantern It shall be to burn Out of whimsicality And glee. In its misdeed, There is no more greed That may corrupt souls As the fun consoles.

[inthewindtunnel]

Cold Contrast

My Emptiness

<3!

Misdeed

CALM T Remix

Silent Souls

Post Analog Disorder Remix

Absent Future

-EP-

[anghraine]

It's always been intriguing to me that, even when Elizabeth hates Darcy and thinks he's genuinely a monstrous, predatory human being, she does not ever perceive him as sexually predatory. In fact, literally no one in the novel suggests or believes he is sexually dangerous at any point. There's not the slightest hint of that as a factor in the rumors surrounding him, even though eighteenth-century fiction writers very often linked masculine villainy to a possibility of sexual predation in the subtext or just text*. Austen herself does this over and over when it comes to the true villains of her novels.

Even as a supposed villain, though, Darcy is broadly understood to be predatory and callous towards men who are weaker than him in status, power, and personality—with no real hint of sexual threat about it at all (certainly none towards women). Darcy's "villainy" is overwhelmingly about abusing his socioeconomic power over other men, like Wickham and Bingley. This can have secondhand effects on women's lives, but as collateral damage. Nobody thinks he's targeting women.

In addition, Elizabeth's interpretations of Darcy in the first half of the book tend to involve associating him with relatively prestigious women by contrast to the men in his life (he's seen as extremely dissimilar from his male friends and, as a villain, from his father). So Elizabeth understands Darcy-as-villain not in terms of the popular, often very sexualized images of masculine villainy at the time, but in terms of rich women she personally despises like Caroline Bingley and Lady Catherine de Bourgh (and even Georgiana Darcy; Elizabeth assumes a lot about Georgiana in service of her hatred of Darcy before ever meeting her).

The only people in Elizabeth's own community who side with Darcy at this time are, interestingly, both women, and likely the highest-status unmarried women in her community: Charlotte Lucas and Jane Bennet. Both have some temperamental affinities with Darcy, and while it's not clear if he recognizes this, he quietly approves of them without even knowing they've been sticking up for him behind the scenes.

This concept of Darcy-as-villain is not just Elizabeth's, either. Darcy is never seen by anyone as a sexual threat no matter how "bad" he's supposed to be. No one is concerned about any danger he might pose to their daughters or sisters. Kitty is afraid of him, but because she's easily intimidated rather than any sense of actual peril. Even another man, Mr Bennet, seems genuinely surprised to discover late in the novel that Darcy experiences attraction to anything other than his own ego.

I was thinking about this because of how often the concept of Darcy as an anti-hero before Elizabeth "fixes him" seems caught up in a hypermasculine, sexually dangerous, bad boy image of him that even people who actively hate him in the novel never subscribe to or remotely imply. Wickham doesn't suggest anything of the kind, Elizabeth doesn't, the various gossips of Meryton don't, Mr Bennet and the Gardiners don't, nobody does. If anything, he's perceived as cold and sexless.

Wickham in particular defines Darcy's villainy in opposition to the patriarchal ideal his father represented. Wickham's version of their history works to link Darcy to Lady Anne, Lady Catherine (primarily), and Georgiana rather than any kind of masculine sexuality. This version of Darcy is a villain who colludes with unsympathetic high-status women to harm men of less power than themselves, but villain!Darcy poses no direct threat to women of any kind.

It's always seemed to me that there's a very strong tendency among fans and academics to frame Darcy as this ultra-gendered figure with some kind of sexual menace going on, textually or subtextually. He's so often understood entirely in terms of masculinity and sexual desire, with his flaws closely tied to both (whether those flaws are his real ones, exaggerated, or entirely manufactured). Yet that doesn't seem to be his vibe to other characters in the story. There's a level at which he does not register to other characters as highly masculine in his affiliations, highly sexual, or in general as at all unsafe** to be around, even when they think he's a monster. And I kind of feel like this makes the revelations of his actual decency all along and his full-on heroism later easier to accept in the end.

------------

*The incompetently awful villain(?) in Sanditon, for instance, imagines himself another Lovelace (a reference to the famous rapist-villain of Samuel Richardson's Clarissa). Evelina's sheltered education and lack of protectors makes her vulnerable to sexual exploitation in Frances Burney's Evelina, though she ultimately manages to avoid it. There's frequently an element of sexual predation in Gothic novels even of very different kinds (e.g. Ann Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho and Matthew Lewis's The Monk both lean into this, in their wildly dissimilar styles). William Godwin's novel Caleb Williams, a book mostly about the destructive evils of class hierarchies and landowning classes specifically, depicts the mutual obsession of the genteel villain Falkland and working class hero Caleb in notoriously homoerotic terms (Godwin himself added a preface in 1832 saying, "Falkland was my Bluebeard, who had perpetrated atrocious crimes ... Caleb Williams was the wife"). This list could go on for a very long time.

**Darcy is also not usually perceived by other characters as a particularly sexual, highly masculine person in a safe way, either, even once his true character is known. Elizabeth emphasizes the resilience of Darcy's love for her more than the passionate intensity they both evidently feel; in the later book, she does sometimes makes assumptions about his true feelings or intentions based on his gender, but these assumptions are pretty much invariably shown to be wrong. In general the cast is completely oblivious to the attraction he does feel; even Charlotte, who wonders about something in that quarter, ends up doubting her own suspicions and wonders if he's just very absent-minded.

The novel emphasizes that he is physically attractive, but it goes to pains to distinguish this from Wickham's sex appeal or the charisma of a Bingley or Fitzwilliam. Mr Bennet (as mentioned above) seems to have assumed Darcy is functionally asexual, insofar as he has a concept of that. Most of the fandom-beloved moments in which Darcy is framed as highly sexual, or where he himself is sexualized for the audience, are very significantly changed in adaptation or just invented altogether for the adaptations they appear in. Darcy watching Elizabeth after his bath in the 1995 is invented for that version, him snapping at Elizabeth in their debates out of UST is a persistent change from his smiling banter with her in the book, the fencing to purge his feelings is invented, the pond swim/wet shirt is invented. In the 2005 P&P, the instant reaction to Elizabeth is invented, the hand flex of repressed passion is invented, the Netherfield Ball dance as anything but an exercise in mutual frustration is invented, the near-kiss after the proposal in invented, etc. And in those as well, he's never presented as sexually predatory, not even as a "villain."

[duckdotcom]

*sigh* looks like i've got to block anoth-

oh!

[juicyspacesecrets]

Something something the festive cheer something

[pinkysberg]

is it misogynistic to critique a flawed female character? of course not. is it misogynistic if the only characters you find yourself investing time into actively critiquing are the female characters? i mean, if i were you i'd maybe invest some time into self reflection.

also lets put our intersectionality caps on while we're at it. maybe you find your critiques being levelled more frequently, with more intensity at a queer/gnc presenting character, or a black character, so on so forth.

we can all be flawed and any good character is flawed. that's what makes them interesting. but perhaps we can dedicate more energy into dissecting the misdeeds of dudes in media more often as well. i don't know. how about that?

[muzzlemouths]

(regarding the dftr au) i think the mc should take Sun's leg with them. so that when they bring the dca home they could place it on the chimney shelf. like a souvenir. right between a crystal ball and a tiny camel statue.

KEEPING HIS FOOT LIKE A TROPHY??

[violent138]

None of the Batfam can be relied upon to pick up even one of eighty calls, but they will chew out anyone who misses one of their calls.

[dollya-robinprotector]

Honestly my head canon for Whitney is that when he feels something that doesn't make him feel dead inside (pc) he freaks out. So his bullying is somehow apn attempt to control pc and an attempt to keep them away. Because if he can't control them, they will eventually leave him, so he needs to get rid of you first. Like the dude is an emotional mess, scared of any good emotions.

Imagine what a mess he is after waking up and realizing that PC rescued his sorry ass from the UB...

[beatcroc]

obsessed obsessed obsessed obsessed obsessed obsessed obsessed obsessed obsessed obsessed obsessed obsessed

[cottoncandylesbo]

being an artist is awesome because you can draw your friends in skimpy slutty outfits and they will grovel and weep at your feet

[inthewindtunnel]

Cold Contrast

Misdeed

<3!

[lesbiancosmicowl]

We actually think you're a really good kid beneath all this stupid attitude! ↳ Betsy Swain + (Un)conditional love

[cissa-calls]

“Late 20’s, green eyes, 5’7, and hair the colour of…scarlet”

There was dirt found under her fingernails and toenails from Eastern Europe. Crushed to death under heavy weight. Her fingertips were blackened from dark magic use. The only thing she possessed was a library slip from the place her husband last fought, containing clues leading to the spell book that corrupted her and the place where she perished. She was alone.

[borgialucrezia]

the tragic irony of juan saying this in the sweetest and most playful way possible makes the whole fratricide arc even more moving because throughout the show he never took his quarrel with cesare to the heart, never calculated that cesare's envy would be so extreme that he'd actually end up killing him and then their father would eventually forgive him for the act...