Anghraine

I reblogged an Austen meme! Here's the first ask/response:

elperian said:

I shan't ask ones I think I know the answer to ;) so: 17, 18, 19, and 20!

Haha, let’s see:

17) Moment that made you sad/cry while reading

Hmm, I don’t really go to Austen for tears. I do feel really sorry for Darcy and Elizabeth after the first proposal and the letter, though. And for Anne, generally, though a particular moment…?

18) Moment that made you smile/happy while reading

Ahhh, it’s always going to be Elizabeth’s realization that she’s proud of Darcy.

19) Moment that made you laugh while reading

Oh, there are a lot, of course. Hmm … it’s cheating to call it a moment, but I get a huge kick out of the History of England.

20) Moment that made you mad while reading

Wickham saying “it pains me to speak ill of a Darcy” as he trashes Georgiana. D:

An anon asked irresistible-revolution:

Who in the atla cast do you see as Pride and Prejudice?

She replied:


I said:

:)

I’m thinking about it and tbh—if we’re looking at Elizabeth/Darcy specifically, P&P doesn’t always map well onto some things, and I think this might be one of them.

(The boring answer, I know.)

There are plenty of characters who are fierce and spirited like Elizabeth, but I don’t think many who are that and temperamentally light-hearted, while also fundamentally serious. Aang combines easy-going high spirits and strength of character, so he’s probably closest. Still, he’s a very different (esp gentler and, critically, humbler) personality. He’s more like a stronger Bingley.

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anyway

I posted the first chapter of the f/f Elizabeth/Catherine(f!Darcy) fic at AO3. I guess I'm doing this now???

One of the things I really enjoy about P&P is how much it emphasizes the difficulty of really understanding other people, and how inadequate our schemas for doing so can be. This is true of lots of literature, of course, but I feel it the most with P&P.

There are a lot of ‘consistent inconsistencies’ in the novel. For instance, at Netherfield it’s asserted that Elizabeth dislikes Darcy too much to care about his opinion of her, but in Elizabeth’s outburst after accepting the truth of the letter, she realizes that she was offended by Darcy’s “neglect” of her the whole time. If you accept the outburst as accurate, it’s going to profoundly shape your view of Elizabeth’s full emotional response to Darcy through the first half of the novel (and sometimes even beyond). If you think she’s exaggerating out of shame and embarrassment, that leads to very different conclusions.

People throw each around as conclusive discussion-enders, but it’s often more the case that a single data point ends all discussion for that person, but the text actually offers many overlapping but not perfectly congruent data points for interpretation. You, as a reader, have to decide the extent to which you accept them and how you’re going to weigh them.

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More of Elizabeth’s takes on Darcy, from the second half of P&P:

Elizabeth re: Darcy’s feelings at finding her at Pemberley:

Her coming there was the most unfortunate, the most ill-judged thing in the world! How strange must it appear to him! In what a disgraceful light might it not strike so vain a man! It might seem as if she had purposely thrown herself in his way again!

-

“I am almost afraid of asking what you thought of me when we met at Pemberley. You blamed me for coming?”

Darcy:

“I felt nothing but surprise.”

Elizabeth re: Darcy’s response to Lydia’s disgrace:

He seemed scarcely to hear her, and was walking up and down the room in earnest meditation, his brow contracted, his air gloomy. Elizabeth soon observed, and instantly understood it. Her power was sinking; everything must sink under such a proof of family weakness, such an assurance of the deepest disgrace.

The reality:

she soon learnt that his resolution of following her from Derbyshire in quest of her sister had been formed before he quitted the inn, and that his gravity and thoughtfulness there had arisen from no other struggles than what such a purpose must comprehend.

Elizabeth re: Darcy’s response to Lydia’s marriage to Wickham:

Had Lydia’s marriage been concluded on the most honourable terms, it was not to be supposed that Mr Darcy would connect himself with a family where, to every other objection, would now be added an alliance and relationship of the nearest kind with the man whom he so justly scorned.

From such a connection she could not wonder that he should shrink. The wish of procuring her regard, which she had assured herself of his feeling in Derbyshire, could not in rational expectation survive such a blow as this.

Darcy:

“If your feelings are still what they were last April, tell me so at once. My affections and wishes are unchanged.”

Elizabeth re: Darcy’s response to Lady Catherine’s visit:

it was certain that, in enumerating the miseries of a marriage with one whose immediate connections were so unequal to his own, his aunt would address him on his weakest side. With his notions of dignity, he would probably feel that the arguments which to Elizabeth had appeared weak and ridiculous contained much good sense and solid reasoning.

Darcy:

Lady Catherine’s unjustifiable endeavours to separate us were the means of removing all my doubts. I am not indebted for my present happiness to your eager desire of expressing your gratitude. I was not in a humour to wait for any opening of yours. My aunt’s intelligence had given me hope, and I was determined at once to know everything.

sweetie

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I know it’s not news that I love my OTP, but also, I love my OTP:

Elizabeth:

“What does Mr Darcy mean,” said she to Charlotte, “by listening to my conversation with Colonel Forster?”

“That is a question which Mr Darcy only can answer.”

“But if he does it any more I shall certainly let him know that I see what he is about. He has a very satirical eye, and if I do not begin by being impertinent myself, I shall soon grow afraid of him.”

Darcy:

“Indeed, Mr Darcy, it is very ungenerous in you to mention all that you knew to my disadvantage in Hertfordshire—and, give me leave to say, very impolitic too—for it is provoking me to retaliate, and such things may come out as will shock your relations to hear.”

“I am not afraid of you,” said he smilingly.

<3 <3

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