Anghraine

An anon asked:

This is a weirdly specific P&P question, when Darcy and Wickham meet Austen says 'one looked white, the other red'. Which one does she mean?! I've seen fanfic do it both ways and I'm really not sure...

I replied:

I know I have a post about this somewhere, but couldn’t find it! In any case:

It’s one of my favorite little bits, because how you read it is so shaped by your ideas of the characters at the time. Before knowing the truth, it’s easy to assume that Darcy is blushing and Wickham is white with anger. Or you could assume that Darcy is pale with fear at the prospect of being exposed and Wickham is righteously angry.

Of course, in reality, their emotions are more or less the other way around. Wickham is so shameless that it’s hard for me to see him blushing about anything, but we know from him evading Darcy at the Netherfield ball that he’s afraid. And iirc Darcy colors on more than one occasion, and he certainly has every reason to be enraged on that one. So I think it’s most probable that Wickham is pale with fear and Darcy flushes in anger.

(It’s debatable, of course—that’s just what I think is likely.)

1. Halo

My best friend and I are watching the first season of Halo, and reached the second to last episode. I was worried in the previous episode that it was going to do some John/Makee thing and sure enough, it did.

On the one hand: not as poorly executed as I expected.

On the other: it speedran the entire relationship, the sex scene (though reasonably discreet) was so polished and glossy that it felt actively wrong for a pairing consisting of a woman abducted by hostile aliens as a child and a deliberately isolated former child soldier—I kept wondering how much these people would even know about human sex, much less that one(1) kiss would lead directly to it in such a camera-perfect way. And yet that's supposed to be enough for Makee to question all her brainwashing etc ... idk, it felt very obligatory het and like something that should have spanned multiple episodes.

I did enjoy Cortana and Kai in it, though, and Halsey is always fun in her horrifying way.

2. People being wrong on the Internet about my fave

I ran over a bad P&P take on f_fa (not surprising), and was idly thinking ... I guess it makes a certain sense that a crowd that leans pretty strongly to The Only War is the Gender War and m/m fandom would be a weird fit for P&P. (I swear, I like f_fa a good 70% of the time, even though I mostly don't say anything about it except when I'm annoyed.) Anyway, I found their takes on Darcy off enough that I was curious what running "Wickham" through dememe would turn up—like, if there'd be any interesting discussions about that particular misunderstanding or whatnot.

I stopped relatively early on, but it mostly turned up Darcy/Wickham shipping, Lydia discourse, and this one extremely f_fa argument that it's actually Darcy's fault that almost everyone misjudged him, believed Wickham's lies, and ignored the numerous red flags in Wickham's story, because if he'd been nicer they wouldn't have been as invested in thinking he was actually evil. Uh, no.

3. Tumblr

Despite offloading my old Tumblr posts here, I'm actively avoiding posting there right now (partly to make cross-posting easier, but partly because I'm genuinely outraged in my way). It's difficult because some people have said some really nice things I'd like to respond to, and I'm just used to putting random headcanons or quote compilations or whatever there and getting quick interaction.

Stepping away is doubly hard because an author I've liked as a public figure for years has—it's become clear through my activity bar that she periodically visits my blog and likes/reblogs stuff, mostly P&P stuff, with cool commentary and everything. I want to respond but ;_;

I was contemplating some of my future plans for Love, Pride & Delicacy (my f!Darcy/Elizabeth femslash fic) that I'm undecided about, and thought of just asking people what they thought made the most sense, maybe in a poll or something. But the particular quandary I'm wrestling with is dependent on knowledge of a plot development that's a significant spoiler, so I'm putting it under a cut instead.

If you don't care about spoilers, or at least ones for that particular fic, feel free to read below the cut and weigh in on The Quandary. If not, that's cool too, I'm just putting it out there.

I talked in my last Snowflake post about my Commander Elizabeth Bennet AU: a P&P/Mass Effect fusion with Elizabeth as Shepard that’s simmering in my brain right now. I may or may not actually write it, but I do want to get the story nailed down for myself, and I’ve gotten the basic set-up established—at least, I think so!

I didn’t want to explain the entire fic (...should I write it someday) on Tumblr, but I still wanted to share some part of it with the fandom friends who might care (I’m actually very excited!). So I thought I’d post about the set-up for the story over here on Dreamwidth.

The story opens on Mira Gardiner, a decorated officer of the human Systems Alliance and captain of a new, state-of-the-art, stealth Alliance starship, the SSV Normandy (I thought about Waterloo, but idk). Captain Gardiner’s staid XO, William Collins, is her current right hand and presumed successor as captain of the Normandy according to Alliance protocols. But there’s a complication.

For years, humanity has been trying to get accepted into the powerful galactic Council, and one major step in that direction would be the appointment of a human to the elite Spectres that act on the Council’s behalf. Captain Gardiner herself was once under consideration to join the Spectres, and served a mission under the observation of the turian Specter Saren Arterius, but failed in mysterious circumstances. Now, years later, the Council is finally re-considering the appointment of a human to the Spectres, and has reached out to Captain Gardiner again. They’re not re-considering her; the current (oblivious) candidate is her favorite protégée, Commander Elizabeth Bennet. They want Elizabeth transferred to the Normandy for a secret mission under the supervision of the Spectre Nihlus.

Elizabeth is a controversial figure these days. She’s always been respectful, clever, and pleasant, even charming, but she’s never backed down from anyone or anything. She recently triumphed in a brutal battle on Torfan with batarian slavers; her forces were obliterated by the batarians, but Elizabeth used her tactical and technological expertise to not only survive but to wipe out the batarians. Captain Gardiner herself defended Elizabeth’s actions to the Alliance high command—and apparently Elizabeth’s resourcefulness and resolve at Torfan caught the eye of more than the Alliance.

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I am eternally amused by Mrs Gardiner pausing her effusions to dissect Wickham's vs Darcy's attractiveness—Wickham's kind of prettiness just gives him this look of goodness, you feel like he's got to be a great person, while Darcy's kind of prettiness is like, perfect features, which is nice and all, but not the same ... though there's something about him as well that makes it hard to believe he's actually bad, even though he's got to be a bad person because Our Pal Wickham would never lie, but Darcy does have such a nice mouth, you notice it when he talks—

Elizabeth: this is how I die

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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Sometimes I think about Wickham’s stalkery pursuit of Georgiana, and Darcy’s perspective on it:

She was then but fifteen, which must be her excuse; and after stating her imprudence, I am happy to add that I owed the knowledge of it to herself. I joined them unexpectedly a day or two before the intended elopement, and then Georgiana, unable to support the idea of grieving and offending a brother whom she almost looked up to as a father, acknowledged the whole to me. You may imagine what I felt and how I acted. Regard for my sister’s credit and feelings prevented any public exposure; but I wrote to Mr Wickham

And Darcy’s response to Lydia’s “elopement”:

He saw Wickham, and afterwards insisted on seeing Lydia. His first object with her, he acknowledged, had been to persuade her to quit her present disgraceful situation, and return to her friends as soon as they could be prevailed on to receive her, offering his assistance as far as it would go. But he found Lydia absolutely resolved on remaining where she was. She cared for none of her friends; she wanted no help of his; she would not hear of leaving Wickham; she was sure they should be married some time or other, and it did not much signify when. Since such were her feelings, it only remained, he thought, to secure and expedite a marriage.

Even though the situations are not exactly the same, and (as we see here) Lydia and Georgiana are very different, I think it’s interesting that Darcy’s first impulse is basically the same: to get them out of the situation without marriage and with minimized consequences. He still thinks the situations are bad—just that neither should be shackled to Wickham for life because of a poor choice at 15/16.

(I also think it’s interesting that he says that he was able to help Georgiana because of Georgiana’s decision—a level of initiative he emphasizes but which most takes on her ignore.)

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While I’m at it, there’s another disparity between Wickham’s and Darcy’s accounts, though a small one.

Wickham:

- “Yes,” replied Wickham; “his estate there [in Derbyshire] is a noble one. A clear ten thousand per annum.”

- “My father began life in the profession which your uncle, Mr Philips, appears to do so much credit to—but he gave up everything to be of use to the late Mr Darcy, and devoted all his time to the care of the Pemberley property.”

Darcy:

Mr Wickham is the son of a very respectable man, who had for many years the management of all the Pemberley estates, and whose good conduct in the discharge of his trust naturally inclined my father to be of service to him

I think it’s intriguing but reasonable that each sees the dynamic from his own family’s perspective; Wickham sees it as the result of his father making a personal sacrifice for the benefit of the Darcys, and Darcy sees it as a personal favour made to a trustworthy and competent employee. But those aspects of those story are perfectly compatible, just differing in emphasis.

Their accounts do seem different, though, in their representation of the actual property at hand. Wickham pretty strongly suggests that Pemberley proper, as a single “noble” estate, is the total of Darcy’s property and what his own father was responsible for, while Darcy says outright that Mr Wickham had management of multiple Darcy estates.

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In response to this post, someone (as usual) suggested that Lady Catherine was basically manufacturing the agreement with Lady Anne about Darcy and younger Anne marrying.

I replied:

When I was in Austen fandom, it was pretty generally assumed that the whole thing was to a greater or lesser extent a figment of Lady Catherine’s imagination.

But the first person we hear about it from is actually Wickham, who is prattling on about his background at Pemberley. He could be making up the expectation of a Darcy/Anne marriage for some reason of his own, of course, but if so, his lie gels with Lady Catherine’s understanding of what happened, even though they both hold each other in contempt. I think it’s more probable that he’s simply repeating what he heard at Pemberley to bolster his bona fides.

I do think there’s often a certain … hm, tendency towards preserving Lady Anne’s character by distancing her from Lady Catherine, even though Lady Anne has almost no character to preserve. We know a) she was a good person, b) she was apparently less benevolent and amiable than her husband, c) with him, she participated in allowing and encouraging Darcy to think himself better than other people, d) her otherwise egotistical sister named her only child after her, and e) Wickham and Lady Catherine believe that Darcy was expected to marry Anne.

It’s all so vague that we can’t know for sure, but personally, I don’t think there’s any reason to suppose Lady Catherine is consciously or unconsciously misrepresenting what happened.

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I reblogged a meta post I'd originally posted in July of 2012:

Okay, so most people seem to have liked the Noatak-and-Tarrlok part of the finale, even if they hated the rest. There’s a lot of “I loved the finale, especially Tarrlok and Noatak’s story” or “the finale/season sucked, except Tarrlok and Noatak’s story,” or “I’m mostly meh about it, except Tarrlok and Noatak’s story, duh.”

For me personally, the finale catapulted them from “love to hate” to “omg my babies!” so I’m glad people liked them so much. There’s just this one thing. It’s this one complaint I see all over the place, both from the handful of people who hated the storyline to the many people who loved it. A lot of people think it would have been better and made more sense if the boys’ personalities had been switched.

No, no, no.

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