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Entry tags:
- autism,
- ch: colonel fitzwilliam,
- ch: edward fitzwilliam earl of ravenshaw,
- ch: fitzwilliam darcy,
- ch: lady anne darcy,
- ch: lady mary carlisle,
- ch: lord ----,
- ch: mr darcy,
- ch: richard fitzwilliam lord rochford,
- ch: unknown viscount,
- fandom: austen,
- genre: headcanon,
- genre: responses,
- site: tumblr,
- wank
Tumblr crosspost (11 December 2020)
An anon asked:
Based on your family trees, who is Darcy close to, on both sides of his family?
I replied:
Okay, it is very cool to be asked—thank you, anon. And I needed a break from exam stress, so … here we go with the Fitzwilliams. I’ll do a separate one for the Darcys.
The short version: Colonel Fitzwilliam, Lord Rochford, Lady Mary, and Lord Ravenshaw.
The long and rambly version:
Based on your family trees, who is Darcy close to, on both sides of his family?
I replied:
Okay, it is very cool to be asked—thank you, anon. And I needed a break from exam stress, so … here we go with the Fitzwilliams. I’ll do a separate one for the Darcys.
The short version: Colonel Fitzwilliam, Lord Rochford, Lady Mary, and Lord Ravenshaw.
The long and rambly version:
In general: this is the side Darcy is closer to overall, partly because his mother was very close to her siblings and tended to pull his father in her wake (they didn’t marry for love and their relationship was never really romantic, but they always had a sense of partnership and were generally on good terms, and Mr Darcy was happy enough to go along with his more strong-willed wife in most matters).
Additionally, Mr Darcy took a particular interest in the Fitzwilliam children, especially not-yet-Colonel Fitzwilliam, who a) combined the kind of outgoing charm that I imagine Mr Darcy (somewhat guiltily) preferred with intelligence and decorum, and b) was close to the young Darcy in age and just the kind of friend and peer that Darcy needed.
Beyond that, though, Darcy gets on with them so well because he personally likes and respects them, and knows they like and respect him, without flattery on either side. And it’s important to them—all the more since he was so young when his parents died—that he feels he belongs among them and is a valuable connection for them.
In particular: he’s closest to Colonel Fitzwilliam—on terms of “constant intimacy” as he says in his letter to Elizabeth. Fitzwilliam is the kind of person he’s drawn to: very different in temperament from himself, but with similar values and a quality of character he respects, and I think that with Fitzwilliam especially (and later Elizabeth), there’s an underlying similarity in intelligence, resolve, forcefulness, etc, that isn’t always present in his other relationships, and that this is part of the reason they’re so close.
He has a more complex relationship with Lord Rochford, Fitzwilliam’s older brother. They’re certainly not as close, partly because of the age difference, but partly because they’re more temperamentally similar—reserved, awkward, bookish—in ways that don’t clash, but don’t click in the same way. At the same time, they understand each other in a way that they feel other people don’t. Rochford is even more reserved than Darcy, and struggles more with people and expressions, but Darcy certainly struggles enough to get it, and Rochford (who feels deeply unsatisfactory as heir) is genuinely reassured and validated to have someone else like him in the family.
They can pass long stretches of time together in contented silence, or carry on extremely long conversations on very specific issues that would bore other people. I think Darcy’s sympathy with Rochford makes him vaguely protective of him, despite being some seven years younger.
Darcy has a simpler relationship with Rochford and Fitzwilliam’s sister Mary. She falls somewhere between the brothers in both age and personality, so she’s more easy-going than Rochford, and makes for a more comfortable older-sibling-ish figure than either Rochford or her sister Anne (Darcy will always be something of a kid brother as far as Mary’s concerned). But she has more of a sense of dignity and strict propriety than Fitzwilliam, which leads Mary and Darcy to strongly approve of each other. She has a sort of thoughtful, disciplined intelligence that makes her one of the truly accomplished women that he was thinking of at Netherfield.
They like and respect each other, and enjoy spending time together when the circumstance arises. She’s probably the woman he felt on the most equal terms with before Elizabeth, though never in a romantic sense (he and Mary would both be ‘ugh no’ at that).
Intergenerationally, he’s probably closer to Lord Ravenshaw, his uncle, than to any other member of the senior generation. Ravenshaw has always heartily approved of him, valued him, and liked him, which made a particularly strong impression on Darcy as a child, who was building up a defensive shell of ‘other people don’t get me and everyone likes George more but I’m BETTER and SMARTER and MORE IMPORTANT’. Ravenshaw was like … yes, you are better than other people! You’re going to be a great man, and I’m proud to have such an intelligent, principled, dignified person in the family.
This was not necessarily good for Darcy, but it was extremely validating, especially given my headcanon in the tags here. Ravenshaw has made it sometimes uncomfortably clear that he sees Darcy as the most satisfactory member of the family (and is totally thrown for a loop by Darcy’s sudden engagement to a non-Fitzwilliam-approved girl). When Darcy talks about his sense of family obstacles to marrying Elizabeth that he’s been struggling with, it’s mainly Ravenshaw that he’s thinking of.
Tagged: #pretty sure my pupils turned to hearts when i got this #allllll the headcanons #i def imagine that both rochford and darcy are on the autism spectrum *projects like an imax* #(no this does not negate darcy's pride and character flaws) #but it's more pronounced with rochford #they just think of it as 'temperament' #but rochford and darcy have this amorphous sense that there's something going on that only they understand #which both draws them together and pushes them apart in this messy sort of way
Additionally, Mr Darcy took a particular interest in the Fitzwilliam children, especially not-yet-Colonel Fitzwilliam, who a) combined the kind of outgoing charm that I imagine Mr Darcy (somewhat guiltily) preferred with intelligence and decorum, and b) was close to the young Darcy in age and just the kind of friend and peer that Darcy needed.
Beyond that, though, Darcy gets on with them so well because he personally likes and respects them, and knows they like and respect him, without flattery on either side. And it’s important to them—all the more since he was so young when his parents died—that he feels he belongs among them and is a valuable connection for them.
In particular: he’s closest to Colonel Fitzwilliam—on terms of “constant intimacy” as he says in his letter to Elizabeth. Fitzwilliam is the kind of person he’s drawn to: very different in temperament from himself, but with similar values and a quality of character he respects, and I think that with Fitzwilliam especially (and later Elizabeth), there’s an underlying similarity in intelligence, resolve, forcefulness, etc, that isn’t always present in his other relationships, and that this is part of the reason they’re so close.
He has a more complex relationship with Lord Rochford, Fitzwilliam’s older brother. They’re certainly not as close, partly because of the age difference, but partly because they’re more temperamentally similar—reserved, awkward, bookish—in ways that don’t clash, but don’t click in the same way. At the same time, they understand each other in a way that they feel other people don’t. Rochford is even more reserved than Darcy, and struggles more with people and expressions, but Darcy certainly struggles enough to get it, and Rochford (who feels deeply unsatisfactory as heir) is genuinely reassured and validated to have someone else like him in the family.
They can pass long stretches of time together in contented silence, or carry on extremely long conversations on very specific issues that would bore other people. I think Darcy’s sympathy with Rochford makes him vaguely protective of him, despite being some seven years younger.
Darcy has a simpler relationship with Rochford and Fitzwilliam’s sister Mary. She falls somewhere between the brothers in both age and personality, so she’s more easy-going than Rochford, and makes for a more comfortable older-sibling-ish figure than either Rochford or her sister Anne (Darcy will always be something of a kid brother as far as Mary’s concerned). But she has more of a sense of dignity and strict propriety than Fitzwilliam, which leads Mary and Darcy to strongly approve of each other. She has a sort of thoughtful, disciplined intelligence that makes her one of the truly accomplished women that he was thinking of at Netherfield.
They like and respect each other, and enjoy spending time together when the circumstance arises. She’s probably the woman he felt on the most equal terms with before Elizabeth, though never in a romantic sense (he and Mary would both be ‘ugh no’ at that).
Intergenerationally, he’s probably closer to Lord Ravenshaw, his uncle, than to any other member of the senior generation. Ravenshaw has always heartily approved of him, valued him, and liked him, which made a particularly strong impression on Darcy as a child, who was building up a defensive shell of ‘other people don’t get me and everyone likes George more but I’m BETTER and SMARTER and MORE IMPORTANT’. Ravenshaw was like … yes, you are better than other people! You’re going to be a great man, and I’m proud to have such an intelligent, principled, dignified person in the family.
This was not necessarily good for Darcy, but it was extremely validating, especially given my headcanon in the tags here. Ravenshaw has made it sometimes uncomfortably clear that he sees Darcy as the most satisfactory member of the family (and is totally thrown for a loop by Darcy’s sudden engagement to a non-Fitzwilliam-approved girl). When Darcy talks about his sense of family obstacles to marrying Elizabeth that he’s been struggling with, it’s mainly Ravenshaw that he’s thinking of.
Tagged: #pretty sure my pupils turned to hearts when i got this #allllll the headcanons #i def imagine that both rochford and darcy are on the autism spectrum *projects like an imax* #(no this does not negate darcy's pride and character flaws) #but it's more pronounced with rochford #they just think of it as 'temperament' #but rochford and darcy have this amorphous sense that there's something going on that only they understand #which both draws them together and pushes them apart in this messy sort of way