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anghraineSome spoilers under the cut, though probably unsurprising ones:
It’s always interesting to write Charlotte in a f!Darcy verse, because there’s a vague association between Charlotte and Darcy in my head—not as much as with Darcy and Jane, but Darcy and Charlotte are actually the same age, Charlotte sticks up for Darcy a couple of times, Darcy says Mr Collins was lucky that he chose Charlotte, both combine thoughtful intelligence and a kind of internalization of bad systems that in some ways compromises them morally (even while their circumstances are obviously different). And that’s in canon, where Charlotte doesn’t even like men.
BTW I truly cannot see Charlotte as attracted to men at all—she’s always ace or lesbian or ace lesbian to me. So when I was writing First Impressions, it seemed pretty natural that the friendship between Henry and Charlotte would be in some ways less charged than Elizabeth and Charlotte’s in canon (it’s a solid BROTP), while the weird affinity between Charlotte and Darcy gets dialed up into an intense and, to Henry, baffling friendship between Charlotte and a receptive but oblivious Catherine. My biggest regret is that I didn’t figure out a way to resolve Charlotte’s arc and situation by the deadline, so she pretty much just drops out of the fic.
Meanwhile, in LP&D, the interactions between Elizabeth and Charlotte are ... basically just rephrasings of canon at the moment, but even so, I had a lot of Feelings while writing Charlotte, and Elizabeth’s feelings about Charlotte. Okay, the extent of Elizabeth’s shock, indignation, disappointment, and prognostications of misery can be explained by Mr Collins being what he is, and Austen’s emphasis on Charlotte caring more about Elizabeth’s reaction than anyone else’s can be explained by their friendship amidst what seems a pretty stultifying community. I don’t think LP&D!Charlotte is in love with Elizabeth as such or that this Elizabeth and Charlotte were ever literally lovers. But even so, there’s still a kind of ... difficult queer vibe to the dynamic that’s hard to pin down.
But then I’m throwing in f!Darcy again, and this time, Charlotte still marries Collins, so she has the chance to interact with this Catherine, too, as well as having a front-row seat to the Elizabeth/Catherine Rosings disaster area (though it winds out differently in some major ways). So the dynamic there has the potential to get even messier.
The fic is definitely not Elizabeth/Charlotte or even Elizabeth/Catherine/Charlotte in terms of who does/does not get together in the end, it’s Elizabeth/Catherine. But at the same time, I don’t want to completely lose Charlotte’s queerness and how it influences her relationships with Elizabeth and Catherine. Nor do I want to minimize the choice she made in selecting Mr Collins and the circumstances that led her to it. But I also don’t want her to completely drop out of things à la FI, either.
Hmmmmmmm.
It’s always interesting to write Charlotte in a f!Darcy verse, because there’s a vague association between Charlotte and Darcy in my head—not as much as with Darcy and Jane, but Darcy and Charlotte are actually the same age, Charlotte sticks up for Darcy a couple of times, Darcy says Mr Collins was lucky that he chose Charlotte, both combine thoughtful intelligence and a kind of internalization of bad systems that in some ways compromises them morally (even while their circumstances are obviously different). And that’s in canon, where Charlotte doesn’t even like men.
BTW I truly cannot see Charlotte as attracted to men at all—she’s always ace or lesbian or ace lesbian to me. So when I was writing First Impressions, it seemed pretty natural that the friendship between Henry and Charlotte would be in some ways less charged than Elizabeth and Charlotte’s in canon (it’s a solid BROTP), while the weird affinity between Charlotte and Darcy gets dialed up into an intense and, to Henry, baffling friendship between Charlotte and a receptive but oblivious Catherine. My biggest regret is that I didn’t figure out a way to resolve Charlotte’s arc and situation by the deadline, so she pretty much just drops out of the fic.
Meanwhile, in LP&D, the interactions between Elizabeth and Charlotte are ... basically just rephrasings of canon at the moment, but even so, I had a lot of Feelings while writing Charlotte, and Elizabeth’s feelings about Charlotte. Okay, the extent of Elizabeth’s shock, indignation, disappointment, and prognostications of misery can be explained by Mr Collins being what he is, and Austen’s emphasis on Charlotte caring more about Elizabeth’s reaction than anyone else’s can be explained by their friendship amidst what seems a pretty stultifying community. I don’t think LP&D!Charlotte is in love with Elizabeth as such or that this Elizabeth and Charlotte were ever literally lovers. But even so, there’s still a kind of ... difficult queer vibe to the dynamic that’s hard to pin down.
But then I’m throwing in f!Darcy again, and this time, Charlotte still marries Collins, so she has the chance to interact with this Catherine, too, as well as having a front-row seat to the Elizabeth/Catherine Rosings disaster area (though it winds out differently in some major ways). So the dynamic there has the potential to get even messier.
The fic is definitely not Elizabeth/Charlotte or even Elizabeth/Catherine/Charlotte in terms of who does/does not get together in the end, it’s Elizabeth/Catherine. But at the same time, I don’t want to completely lose Charlotte’s queerness and how it influences her relationships with Elizabeth and Catherine. Nor do I want to minimize the choice she made in selecting Mr Collins and the circumstances that led her to it. But I also don’t want her to completely drop out of things à la FI, either.
Hmmmmmmm.