#so thankful that s3 darcy exists

[supermentaleyeliner]

"I know… I know you don't want me to try and fix you. But I love you so much. And I couldn't help but try."

HEARTSTOPPER S3 E3 "Talk"

[narfoonthenet]

An Amphibia and Marcy Gripe I need to get off my chest.

I don't like that Marcy was written out of the story in S3, and I think the most frustrating thing about it is that there's no discernable reason for it.

Yes, Matt had Marcy possessed because he wanted something like a three-way fight between the girls and needed something to justify that.

And okay, fine. There are some small things missing that would explain the in-universe logic behind that choice, but nothing that's major and can't be safely skipped over by the audience.

But, why have it happen so early?

Why do it in a way that denies a character who's so important to the plot, story, and character arc of the protagonist any part in that story, plot, and character arc?

Why write the characters and the story in a way that gives the impression everyone forgot they exist for a majority of the season?

Why deny a character who had done so much wrong and is clearly remorseful of all that the chance to grow and show they've learned their lesson and changed for the better?

Sasha got that chance. Hell, Andrias got that chance. Why not Marcy?

But these questions, to this day, remain unanswered - not just by Matt and the writing team (that I know of, anyway), but there's nothing in the show nor the book that offers a clue or suggestion as to why this decision was made.

There's no thematic reason - how is not showing a character changing play into the themes of change?

The only possible narrative reason would be to introduce Darcy - but, like with Marcy, they don't do anything with them until the last minute. Heck, I argue they didn't actually introduce* Darcy until The Core and the King - which is, what, the fifth-to-last episode? So this doesn't work as a reason.

There's just… Nothing. We can speculate and headcanon all we want, but there's nothing that can really hold water: we'd need something from the writers.

And honestly, despite how it sounds after everything I've said, I don't want the explanation. Considering how the narrative decisions surrounding Marcy - and other aspects of season 3 that I don't really want to get into - are just bizarre and inexplicable, I can't imagine the answer being anything other than confusing and unsatisfying.

Thanks for reading my fan-wank. I just really needed to get this off my chest.

*For clarification, I define a character's introduction as showing the audience how the character acts, behaves, thinks, and interacts with others (i.e. we see what kind of person they are). Darcy's first appearance was just them on-camera, and their second appearance only had them say a couple of lines. It was more like a cameo than anything else.

[charmixpower]

Final thoughts on season 6 despite my better judgment

Okay so this piece of shit has a few good things in it so we'll start with that. It's going to be a very short list, so it won't take too long before we get into the meat and potatoes

Things I liked about S6:

Icy's, Darcy's, and Stormy's dynamic in this season is actually peek. After s5 I was extremely hesitant to see how these three would be written, but it's actually great! They are extremely sibling towards each other, and the way they bully each other after failures is super cute

While I don't like the fashion in this season, tying it all back to Stella's love of fashion and having her passion come though is really cute and makes me wish that the winx were allowed to pursue their interests independently

The Legendarum in concept. I like the idea of stories in a book being animated with magic and going into pocket dimensions. I just like that, it was a fun way to immediately get into a new set piece

The dark witch forms. They had a very Salem energy that I absolutely loved

The specialists new outfits. They are finally wearing armor, Godspeed

The specialist's new weapons. They have weapons that can be relevant in a fight, they're not, but like they could be. Tbh they're already using magic weapons, having magic effects on the weapons was a long time coming

Miele. She's cute and she gets to be a badass and save Flora and be saved by Flora they are so cute 🥺🥰

How Flora got her Bloomix. Is it derivative of s3? Yes, this entire season is a worse season 3 except they don't have the balls to do anything half as cool as the Enchantix sacrifice. Is it cute to see Flora save Miele without her powers??? Yes!

Getting to see other magic schools do indeed exist, that was definitely fun

How the Musa/Riven arc ended. Like literally just the final episode of it where Riven left. That's the only good part of that arc and BOY IS IT GOOD. S4 gave me poisoning and this episode fixed it. Riven fear of not being able to help Musa against enemies, and him doing introspection without being smacked into it (I'm looking at you s3-4, he can do it on his own) is everything to me

Diaspro not being plot integral this season thank God, s5 was enough late season Diaspro. She's the fairy of the dragon flame, therefore fire is good for her was also a hysterical ass line

The trix disguising themselves as freshmen and going on trips with the Winx was funny, though why the fuck were they're only there freshmen I hate it here

Selina poisoning Flora has got to be the Selina and Bloom highlight, very cunning on Selina's end, and Blooms look of horror was peek

The vampires are really funny, but the zombie pirates were hilarious

The fun way they twirl the mythix wands sometimes, mythix can get so silly sometimes and it's super cute

Aisha and Nebula, they are so cute

Tecna and Timmy's fun raft adventure

Helia struggling with Flora's evil plants

Riven howling like a wolf, now bark like a dog boy

The werewolf fight in general was funny and entertaining

Icy vs Flora was emotional and action packed and very good! I loved that nature itself helped Flora recover

The elite girlies of CT fighting eachother and training was always cute

Timmy impressing Tecna's parents was cute

Stormy going mad with power in the Legendarum as Frankenstein's bride

Musa getting voice spells

Things I disliked about S6:

Daphne was characterized so badly here. She's nothing. She might as well have been sleeping beauty of the winx world and her personality would have been the same. There's absolutely no hint of the all powerful Nymph that's literally chiseled into the walls of buildings to commemorate her achievements. Now she's just clumsy, not as strong as the Winx, and is good at history. That's nothing. You could literally replace her with an entirely different character in this season and that would probably make more sense

Special mention to how Daphne is condescended in the beginning of this season. Why'd they do that to her

The beast of the depths. You literally made that one up for this season. It's very obvious that none of this was planned ahead of time nor are they even pretending that they give a shit about the timeline. Set it on fire.

The parties. The parties. The parties. Oh my god the parties. Anytime literally anything happens there's a completely useless party attached to it. Instead of developing literally ANY of the EXTREMELY underdeveloped subplots, they write in two billion fucking parties. I am tired

The fashion in this season is ugly, out of character, and has zero personality. Like. I feel like they were dressed by an AI, fucking randomly generated ass outfits. Terrible layering, over use of colors, and it's like they're always wearing outfits in the same fashion line. They never look like they own their own damn clothes, everything they wear is matching. It's like there's a hive mind, while yes I appreciate the incorporation of Stella's desire to be a fashion designer having them never wear their own clothes just makes them feel flat, like they don't exist outside of eachother

The pixies were more redundant and annoying than ever

Cloud tower being taken over in s1 was cool, it was meh in s3, and it's just plain boring and nothing in s6. Stop doing this over and over again I stopped caring the second time. "Oh well this time we'll make the school flying AND invisible." I hate you

The Legendarum as it was written. I swear to God it could have just been called the plot device machine, it just does whatever the writers want it to do

I just realized how did the pixies survive in the Legendarum that long???? Griffin literally flip flops her morals in this season again too, are you okay with tormenting sentient creatures or not please pick one

Why on earth did the witches of Cloud Tower support the Trix???? Why make witches in this show even more one dimensional. As well as the Trix's elite students weren't even memorable, this was more interesting when s3 did it with the mind controlled witches because they had to find why they were acting like that

Nex

NEX

Thoren

Did you remember that Roxy was in this season because I fucking didn't. She's so aggressively sidelined it's not even funny

The trix just show up where ever the winx are... On accident. Sure, they just have the most insane coincidences. God what even

What is a paladin anyways?? Still unclear on this

Okay I should probably say something more on Nex and Thoren. Thoren is literally a nothing character and the only thing we'd lose if he was removed is Sky being a bit pissy, Diaspro manipulating him specifically and not like... Nex or Roy or whatever. Nex is like. A bitch. He acts like s1 Riven but with less self esteem and paranoia issues. Like Riven is a self absorbed asshole who hates himself and who had an arc realizing that punishing everyone away was bad and that he needed to learn to trust, Nex is just a self obsessed asshole with a desire to embarrass and put people down, even being willing to actually injure them over stupid ass contests. Even when being manipulated by Darcy Riven was never that aggressive, he mostly just gossiped and did dragon fighting. Nex is literally a more dickish, aggressive, self obsessed, competitive, and uncaring, Riven. And you want to convince me that AISHA, AISHA "who said you were driving?" WOULD PUT UP WITH THAT SHIT ARE YOU KIDDING ME????

Literally everyone and their mom can steal powers in this season, it's so fucking easy it means nothing

Remember how in s2 there was a large amount of focus on the not Bloom main character because the main characters of Winx were the WINX CLUB and not Bloom, remember how s3 had a lot of focus on the not Bloom characters. S6 wants you to remember that Bloom is the most important specialest baby in the world and doesn't care that there's other main characters. Fuck narrative balance and giving the cast a chance to shine outside of Bloom I guess, Bloomix is a thing

How literally everyone got their Bloomix power except Flora. Triple back flip I'm going to hurl

What stated the Riven/Musa arc this season, like at the beginning he's just dismissive and overly competitive, it's only towards the end he says hes doing this because he wants to be able to help Musa. They should have written him like that the entire time

How quickly they rushed everyone getting their Bloomix, it was giving me charmix flashbacks

DIASPRO WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE???? STOP SHOWING UP!!!

Bloom getting her Bloomix last in her own episode is trying to be s3 so bad. Okay Nick writers please sit down. That was so good and impactful because Bloom didn't have a home planet, this time Bloom should have gotten Bloomix first and you could have done something with Aisha's magic rejecting the dragon flame or something. Stop trying to be s3

Thoren/Daphne is underdeveloped, Riven(/Musa) is underdeveloped, Roy v Nex is under developed, Selina is underdeveloped, these are all season long arcs and they suck ass. Please, spend more time on your subplots over PARTIES

Allowing the pixies to have combat spells midagated how annoying and intolerable they are but it was also extremely weird. No Piff cannot attack people your making that up

Eldora's diary

Saying that Bloom had friends on earth, s4 did that too and look how that garbage turned out

Selina's lack of motivation and lack of consequences for her actions

S6 wastes so many episodes showing us places on earth when we could be going to new planets, I wanna see Romeula

Eldora's personality is the most annoying thing I've ever had to deal with

Eldora not noticing the FAIRY OF THE DRAGON FLAME IN FRONT OF HER

Eldora and Selina knowing Bloom, this literally makes no sense. And she was also an Alfea teacher because of course she was

You'd think Bloom would grow out of running to earth whenever she's upset, but no

The girls get into so many arguments this season over bullshit. Like yes I don't want them to be perfect friends but this is a bit much

Why is everything important in gardina?? The winx world conspires to make Bloom the only narratively relevant one

The extremely annoying amount of "Wow!" "Cool!" "Awesome!" The girls do constantly

Eldora can summon counter myths to fight the Legendarum, she does this once and never again

The entire mother's day thing, like they didn't do anything interesting with it, got rid of the day of the rose, and did another stupid party

The mythix wands, they are about as thin as paper, they're excessively pink, and why do they already match the Winx that makes no sense

The way the Winx need to keep proving themselves, like you can bring in conflict other ways. I would love to see a choosey artifact just once be like "oh the winx, go ahead ma'am's" that would be so funny

The 3d in this season is so ugly and I hate everything to do with it. Mythix is extremely ugly and bland and WHY ARE THERE SO MANY FLOWERS ITS SO FLOWERY I HATE IT

The time limit on the Legendarum world only exists for fake stakes, the pixies were in there for how long??

The spell "friendship flame" Bloom just being allowed to make people Faries makes me irrationally angry

The two things used to make the Legendarum key are so arbitrary it pains me

Magic just came back to earth but everyone is acting like it's been around forever

Stella being stupid and self centered again. Like Stella was full of herself but she was also usually aware of people's feelings and only accidentally hurt people by not thinking, she also is the glue that holds Winx together!!! She's the one who gets them all together!!!! You don't get it!!! She'd never act like that she does have a brain!!!

God I hate the entire thing around Stella being queen for a day except how Stella looked in a crown, it was all awful

The music cafe was nonsensical and stupid and I STILL DON'T KNOW HOW IT WAS SUPPOSED TO PROTECT ALFEA

RUMPELSTILTSKIN IS THE MOST ANNOYING AND STUPID CHARACTER IN THIS SEASON AND THE FINAL BATTLE HINGES ON THIS DUMBASS CHARACTER AHHHHHHHHH

Musa not having any spells in Mythix

Acheron feels like discount wizard of the black circle and Valtor with the worst pacing and battle out of all the finale's I've seen thus far it's so bad

Daphne why are you getting married

In conclusion I hate it here

[butterfly-winx]

Seen a lot of talk about relationships in people’s rewrites, and I wanted to share my headcanons for the “butterfly fic” AU! (I’m currently going on an S6+ timeline, so the story starts off with all canon couples and then... crumbles from there)

Bloom x Sky: The two of them got together for real at the end of S2 in this timeline, after the identity shrouding/theft both of them pulled made their start rocky. They both understand why the other did it, but it doesn’t make it any better or easier to bear after months of insecurity, thinking they would be dumped eventually when the truth came out. S3 though S4 they are well off, but then the whammy hits when Sky loses his memories during the oil rig rescue mission. He still knows Bloom and that he loves her, but even after a year he doesn’t feel like he can recover the version of his self that he has been before. Bloom tries to assure him as best as she can, showing him that she can learn how to love the “new” him as well. Their lives end up on hugely different trajectories that lead to their relationship slowly crumbling over the S8 timeline, during which Bloom is going crazy worries about her sanity and reliability (👀). Bloom also slowly finds herself developing feelings for Stella after the other confesses. In the end Bloom and Sky go their separate ways amicably.

Stella x Brandon: So, Stella confesses to Bloom, then how does SxB work out? Well, both Stella and Brandon are home of sexuals in a mutually beneficial fake relationship. They did date of course back in the S1-2 time, fully conforming to what society expected of people of their standing. Stella believed as long as she could find a guy ok enough to settle with, everything would be fine. She could be happy. Brandon on the other hand was a bit more aware of his crush on Sky, but he though if he hid behind a relationship with a conventionally feminine and attractive girl he could squash all rumours and budding feelings. Internalised homophobia is a bitch that did a number on both of them. Though this is not to say there are no real emotions between them. Stella loves Brandon deeply, they consider each other their respective closest friend. In that vein, Stella would do anything to make life as stable and comfortable for Brandon - after his childhood had been less so - including marrying him to make him a prince. Since Solaria supports polyamory, this comes at no additional strain for her. His presence in the meantime wards off other suitors and creeps, for which she is very thankful, as it gives her space to figure out her feelings about Bloom. And oooh does she have many. She eventually confesses during the S8 timeline, but has to wait quite a while for a positive response, after which Stella and Brandon both come clean about the nature of their relationship to the rest of the world. In the end, Stella is lucky enough to celebrate not one, but two fun weddings.

Brandon: He gets his own column, because his story goes on separate from Stella’s. While the engagement to Stella is still on the table in the S6 timeline, Brandon struggles both with his crumbling team of Specialists and his feelings about the new recruit. Alright, he did not recruit Roy to the team because he thought he was cute. Brandon thinking that and low-key flirting with him came after they settled on the addition to their team. But BxR doesn’t have a long future after Roy believes Brandon cheated on Stella by sleeping with him. Plus his tension with Layla eventually lead to Roy leaving the team mid S7. Long after that, Brandon gets over his crush for Sky, just when Sky is in the middle of a life crisis and Brandon tries his best not to get sucked in too deep again, but that hurts Sky and irreparably damages the close friendship they had before.

Flora x Helia: Ah yes, unproblematic faves. Don’t change what isn’t broken. (Their S5 trouble isn’t about Flora being jealous about a literal teenager,  but rather about her shock of him being so willing to close off and leave behind people from different stages of his life.) The two of them would be set for marriage if such a custom existed on Lynphea, but they definitely plan on raising a family on planet once that is an option again.

Timmy x Techna: Equally low drama zone. They felt a bit pushed together when they first got acquainted as their friends started to date each other. Techna was having their gender identity crisis for the majority of S2 so a relationship was furthest away from their mind. They softly flirted in S3 as they grew closer, which as we know ended in Timmy losing his marbles when Techna got sucked into the Omega portal. He confessed right as the rescue mission was still happening and the two of them have been going strong since then. In S5 they even move together, which Musa joins in S6 (they had a two bedroom flat, just in case they needed the extra space from each other, when/if things weren’t working out, but they were using only the one bedroom anyway, so Musa was welcome there) Surprising everyone who knew them, Timmy and Techan were actually the first ones to get married. After Timmy’s family was becoming more and more hostile, denouncing him for his choice of career, Techna thought it was the most logical thing to get married and grant Timmy much better social security. The two of them plus Musa living together were falling into a tooth-rottingly cute domesticity, until life got unexpectedly difficult.

Musa x Riven: The drama central couple that never should have gotten together. In retrospect everything was super clear to Musa: they had gotten together after Riven had rescued her from Shadowhaunt, playing the hero he had always wanted to be - this streak for glory being the thing that ruined their relationship down the road. Riven’s insecurity got the best of him during S5 and he couldn’t stop comparing himself to Sky, feeling helpless even beside Musa herself. She of course was incredibly offended her boyfriend only wanted her as long as she was waifish and he could swoop in for the rescue, so as soon as Domino was restored the two of them broke up, Riven going his own way, away from the Specialist team itself. Reflecting over the mistakes of her relationship cause Musa to realise she was forcing herself to like a lot of things about Riven, and maybe she was actually also interested in women as well. Layla welcomes her to the wlw world and suggests Musa put herself out there. However Musa doesn’t find love anytime soon (not like there weren’t options out there, like Galatea would go on a date with her in a heartbeat if Musa only asked) And then after moving together with Techna and Timmy, the three of them fall asleep on the same couch one too many times for Musa to start thinking there might be something there, a bit more than just friendship.. and then of course she ruins it, cause....

Riven x Darcy: He enters the story again in the S8 timeline, and disappears quickly again after Flora gives him the worst advice of her life (that she thought he looked genuinely happy with Darcy, hoping he wouldn’t force the thing with Musa). So he goes looking for Darcy, unintentionally setting off the whole plot for this arc, because Darcy is not where she should be prison and she is not there on her own accord. Darcy and Riven continue to have a thing on and off (seeing as she is a wanted criminal and shit) and that drives Musa up the wall. She may or may not still have feelings for Riven. Upset, she looks for an outlet with her quarantine mate, and that ladies and gents, is bad decision central

Stormy x Musa: Bad decision central. A drunken one night stand, let’s not talk about it anymore.

Layla x Nex: A sweet one sided crush that goes nowhere. Nex tries, but Layla is nowhere near ready to date again when he steps into her life in S7. He takes the rejection with dignity and the two of them try to remain friends, as best as they can, when Nex suddenly becomes the biggest critic of Layla’s chosen relationship in S8 (he means well of course, and once again, despite the Riven-vibes he gives off, he knows when to shut up).

Layla x Orion: A girl can only handle so much flirting on galactic starsailers before she starts noticing a kind of chemistry she tried to suppress from budding for years after a huge personal loss. Are LxO a match made in heaven? Probably not, but they offer interesting perspectives to each other and are both happy with a casual relationship at that point. Things get tense about a year in when Layla pitches that she does want something more permanent and Orion’s first instinct is to nope out of there. But despite themself, Orion has to realise they really like Layla way too much just to let her go because of their attachment issues. The actual relationship between them is a bit on hold until after everything in the Universe is sorted, but in the meantime Orion becomes the biggest supporter of Layla going her own way and exploring independence away from what people expect of her. Deciding that being a nymph and protecting the whole Universe is way more important to her than following the path the circumstances of her birth set out for her, Layla eventually settles with her partner sailing the winds of the cosmos.

Daphne x ?: Immortal Queen. Needs no one in life except maybe her right-hand woman to lean on 👀 

Some one-sided crushes that went nowhere, but were sweet anyway:

Musa x Layla: not a secret that Musa had a thing for Layla when she transferred to Alfea in S2

Sky x Riven: Due to his amnesia, Sky idiotically forgot he was already out as bi and had a whole crisis, as he developed a tiny crush on Riven of all people

Icy x Tritannus: Gets an honourable mention here because it wasn’t true love, but obsession with power on both sides

Musa x Stella: Not as pronounced as Musa’s other crushes, but on the down low she always softly admired Stella and it turns out what she felt wasn’t envy like internalised societal expectations made her believe 

Diaspro x Sky: Once again, a bit more obsessive than loving. Diaspro saw Sky like a lifeline and she hyperfocused on being able to call a husband her own. After her betrayal and prison time she mellows out, gets pardoned and gets a kind of “stupid, but loving” bf who would kiss the floor she walks on.

[anghraine]

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers (◠‿◠✿)

Oh, thank you very much! This is not set in stone and in no particular order, but

1) boringly, per ardua ad astra

The one where Jyn, Cassian, and Bodhi escape Scarif alive (if barely, in Cassian’s case), but get caught and have to pass themselves off as Imperials. On the Death Star. With the ANH clock ticking down.

I might be biased, because of course the current fic is always the one I’m most excited about. And, of course, it’s deliberately constructed to soothe myself after my faves dying, and highlight what I love about them and my ship, and throw my favourite tropes into a pot (slow burn! whump! competence! domesticity! emotional confusion and inarticulateness!).

So, despite the occasional glitches and glacial pace, I absolutely love writing it. I love planning the twists and turns and, uh, long stretches of dialogue, and thinking about where the characters are at the end of Rogue One but how it would be influenced by not facing down immediate death and different sorts of pressures. I even had fun looking up rib injuries 

I’m ridiculously gratified that it’s already one of my most popular fics, can’t lie.

2) we get dark, only to shine

The one where Cesare visits Lucrezia smack in the middle of Sforza’s most overt abuse, and they spiral into S3 territory in the middle of S1. Also, bonus Valencian poetry and quasi-OC historical figures, because I can.

One of the wilder twists of my fannish existence: I’ve gotten OMG SO PROBLEMATIC over things like ace!Luke, disliking tie-ins, defending Kylo Ren, and the like, but meanwhile… I wrote 170k of ~romanticized~ adulterous underage incest between a countess and a Catholic priest and not a peep.

(In all fairness, the characters are sexually active at that age in canon, they’re a canon couple, they’re played by 20-somethings, and I was very cautious about … many things. But still, I kind of boggle at the priorities here.)

Anyway, it’s somewhere between fix-fic and love letter to the show/ship, depending on the moment and the particular element, with a strong side of I DON’T CARE I’M DOING IT MY WAY BECAUSE I WANNA. While it’s too badwrong to be something I would encourage non-fans to read, I love it dearly and think it’s probably one of the best things I’ve done, qualitatively.

3) The Lucy Skywalker series.

The one where Luke is a girl. Obviously.

It’s not the most even or disciplined thing I’ve done, but it’s very close to my heart. When I first heard about the phase when Luke was going to be a girl and saw the beautiful McQuarrie art for her, I was both thrilled and disappointed—Luke isn’t really a gendered character to me, so while it made sense that he could be flipped from male to female to male in the drafting process and I reallyyyyy wished they’d stuck with f!Luke, there wasn’t much to do with that.

And then I started thinking about how incredibly male-dominated the Rebellion is (and everything, but it’s most jarring there), and how the Cloud City duel in particular is drowning in masculinity tropes, and the similar/different ways that f!Luke would relate to Leia in particular, and how Han would most definitely not approach a pretty blonde girl as he did a boy. Even though I did think a lot would stay the same, and wrote it that way (the first in particular verged on novelization at times), the differences were also fascinating and—it’s really just such a fun thing to do and one that I’m satisfied with at its most flawed.

(shout-out to @grumpyfaceurn for encouragement and Inspirational Art!)

4) what are we living for

The one where I have my own Skywalker language headcanons, basically. 

I formed a lot of these a long time ago (that is, on lj), but never managed to finish my various attempts to write them out. However, my writing meme helped me concentrate my ideas down to an actual fic.

It’s focused on Luke, but I wanted to also focus on the way that language works to link the various Skywalkers together: Shmi, Beru, Anakin, Luke, Leia, C-3PO. 

5) The Letters of Elizabeth Darcy (1796-1798)

The one where I explore the first two or so years post-P&P (assuming a 1795-6 timeline for P&P, which I do) through excerpts from Elizabeth’s letters to assorted loved ones.

It was a close tie between this and First Impressions (the f!Darcy/m!Elizabeth AU—honestly, catch me at a different time and it would be that), but I think this one is probably better. In fact, fractured as it is by the format, I think it might be the most even and focused fic I’ve ever written. It’s not the excitement of ad astra or the discipline+id candy of wgdots, I’m just… satisfied? It’s what I wanted it to be, and remains what I would want it to be.

It was an interesting challenge, really, because the central—conceit, I guess, is that it’s exclusively Elizabeth’s letters, and fragments of her letters, at that. So I wanted to give an idea of what’s going on over those two years without any other voices than hers, and to sound as true to her character as I could imagine. I wanted Elizabeth’s mediation with the Fitzwilliams, her relationship with Jane and her father, the inevitable pregnancies and attendant drama, hints at politics, and of course a sense of the Darcy marriage in general, and cramming that all into a fairly short fic in a natural way was just … I liked it and I still do.