i was thinking about how i wished leverage had a birthday episode for some of the characters cause that would be sweet, but then i realised something and basically…. okay here’s my thoughts in quotes form, just for fun
hardison: so when’s your birthday? i could plan something for us and the team to do and-
parker: i dont know
hardison: you don’t know… your own birthday?
parker: no, how would i know? pshh, cmon, you’re telling me you remember EXACTLY when you were born? watch this - hey, eliot, do you know your exact birth date?
eliot, innocently passing by, who was canonically anonymously dropped off at a hospital as an infant: no, how would i know?
parker: that’s what i said!
hardison: excuse me?? what is going on right now
sophie, walking into the apartment: whats wrong?
hardison: parker and eliot- well, okay, when’s your birthday? i just have to prove something.
sophie: …….july 12th
hardison: why did you pause? wait, is that your birthday or sophie devereaux’s birthday?
sophie: ………… (guilty silence)
parker: see, no one knows their real birthday! haha you’re so weird sometimes, hardison
hardison:
hardison: what the fuck guys
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I've been moving and navigating further departmental nonsense etc (my pseudo-dissertation got approved for defending, though! l o l). But it was interesting to see the Worst P&P Takes poll I reblogged accumulating more results and the general tenor of responses in the notes.
I mean, the results are definitely to be expected if you're familiar with the side of Austen fandom doing a lot of the reblogging etc. But still, interesting!
Many Tumblr polls specify that they're asking about personal preferences that may be irrational—favorite/least favorite, coolest/most annoying, or something like that. This one, though, asked for the worst interpretation of P&P, not the most annoying one—and the current leader is "Darcy is never really proud, he's just shy and probably has anxiety" against some very steep competition on the Bad Takes front.
I was thinking about why that seemed a kind of tediously predictable choice even though I agree that the take is wrong, and realized that while I do disagree with the shy Darcy interpretation and I particularly disagree with the specific formulation where he is never proud at all, it ultimately feels to me like a failure of nuance rather than just completely wrongheaded like some of the others. And this is probably my fundamental difference with a lot of Darcy takes I see!
In my opinion, a character who is introverted and who feels awkward in various social situations and who doesn't like common social activities and who has to work himself up to talking to his crush and who is repeatedly suggested to behave very differently in contexts where he's more comfortable being interpreted as shy and anxious is not that big of a leap.
Yes, it's important that he is actually fundamentally confident and haughty, that he makes his personal feelings of discomfort other people's problem, and that he thinks he's such a unique and special butterfly that he doesn't need to even put in an effort outside his personal social circle. But it's a misreading that is easy to follow (and long predates the 2005 P&P, as I've mentioned before!).
The additional misreading that a shy and anxious Darcy is also never proud at all is a much more drastic leap, and in my experience, condemnations of shy Darcy interpretations rarely differentiate between "Darcy is shy as well as arrogant" and "Darcy is shy rather than arrogant" as interpretations (although their basic arguments are quite different). But even that as the worst possible misreading of P&P when Darcy is not even the main character is ?????????
I mean, for one alternative (not even the one I voted for!), the idea that Elizabeth is an author avatar Mary Sue seems a far worse misreading of P&P than basically anything to do with Darcy at all. The center piece of the entire novel is Elizabeth's epiphany of self-knowledge about her own shortcomings that do not particularly resemble Austen's at all, but were ethically a concern for her, and she's a complex, interesting character in general whom Austen correctly regarded as a major achievement. Inverting that into Elizabeth as an improbably perfect, reality-warping self-insert is deeply wrong and frankly pretty misogynistic as well.
(ngl though, it's a little funny to see such a blatantly terrible reading of Elizabeth rank so far behind the shy Darcy votes. I've gotten "does anyone actually think/say that?" so many times on my posts about Austen fandom's prioritization of Darcy's character development over Elizabeth's and yet...)
And even just going with the Darcy-centric misreadings, the idea of Darcy as a "bad boy" seems easily the most absolutely wrong take on him. His pride is at least complicated and the finer points can be fairly debated and it's a quality that actually changes somewhat throughout the novel, and you can have discussion over what happened when, whose testimonies should be weighted more, etc. But there is no point at which "bad boy" isn't utterly wrong for him. However, there's definitely a tendency in some wings of the fandom to find the idea of Darcy being misread too favorably more objectionable than him being read too unfavorably, regardless of the particulars, so it's not a surprise.
I suppose you could argue about what "worst" means in the context of variously bad interpretations. Like, is an interpretation that is about a fairly trivial aspect of the book but extremely wrong about it "worse" than an interpretation that is pretty bad but at least comprehensibly so about something very important?
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Ride 774: Kiji, coming!!
Pag 1
1: Welcome, to the Emperor's throne!!
My aim is the double crown!!
Pag 2
4: Ahhh... you're fast, the two of you
I thought I could catch you for sure at 2km left
Pag 3
1: But it took me until “1km left”, yon!!
Pag 4
3: Ah!?
He
4: caught up!? Who....
Pag 5
1: who the hell are you!?
2: The two people in the lead are taking the curve and passing the sign that says that there's 1km left until the sprint line.....
Pag 6
1: No, it's three people!!
Three people passed the “1km left” sign!!
2: There's more people!? Since when!?
Wasn't it two people!?
What happened!? Who's that? That jersey-
At the last curve, suddenly-
3: It's not “who are you”....!!
Dammit!! I know!! This guy!!
Pag 7
1: There's one more person who we need to pay special attention to
2: Gunma Ryousei's third year, Kiji Kyuui
3: Ohh, Kiji? Who's that
Oi, I already told you about this in advance, Manami!! Come on, at the sea
Is that so?
4: What's your data about him?
5: There's basically no record of him in road racing
6: He's an..... “assassin” from the MTB world, huh
7: Is he aiming for the goal?
8: Yeah.... the goal...
That's right....
We should be glad
Pag 8
1: That he's only aiming for the goal
2: Hayaaaa!!
3: Dammit!! The first result.... so you're aiming for the sprint too!?
4: Since they said you were aiming for the goal I thought you were a climber like Manami!!
Pag 9
1: Let's speed up, Orange!! He'll catch up!!
2: I've seen it before!! This guy's jersey
3: That day.... he appeared suddenly on that bike with the thick tires
Pag 10
1: It's the guy who chased Onoda-san and the Hakogaku guy with the bouncy hair!!
2: Before that, Onoda-san said they were friends and that he's “strong”!!
3: He's coming to catch up to
4: mine and San-na's battle
Pag 11
1: He really is strong!!
Let's switch, I'll pull!!
Pag 12
1: Orange!!
3: They're in tune
You have amazing judgment and explosive power!!
4: When I caught up at the last curve
5: Even though they could have also accepted me and made me join them
Without making eye contact or calling out to each other, in an instant at the same time they made the decision
6: that they would “cooperate” to leave me behind!! Yon!!
You're really....
Pag 13
4: What's that
He's lowering his stance and pushing on the handles like he's about to dance....!!
5: Hayaaaa
Pag 14
1: You're really close friends!!
Pag 15
4: He lined up to us in one go!?
Pag 16
1: This guy!! Was it an optical illusion? Just now, I saw something like a cloud of dust behind me
2: Takadajou told us this
Be careful
3: I've been told that the power that a MTB rider can produce in a short time
4: is 1.5 times that of a road racing cyclist
5: This guy can match this top speed!?
8: Ah!?
9: Huh!?
Pag 17
2: In between!?
He came in between!?
Ah!?
3: You bastard, usually when one catches up he joins in the back
Pag 18
1: It's road racing theory!!
4: This guy doesn't know the theory?
5: 800m left until the sprint line!!
6: 1
Pag 19
1: 2
What's this- San-na, did this guy suddenly started counting
2: What's this
The sign for an attack?
3: 3
Pag 20
2: Alright, I recovered
5: Well then, I'll go
Pag 21
1: Ahead, yon
2: So it really was a sign for attacking!!
Who's that guy!!
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