side blog for literature memes

Which means when Victor wakes up to the Creature standing by his bed like ☺️, and Victor freaks out and runs away, the Creature could have ostensibly wandered into the hallway after him, only to be met with a pack of incredibly drunk-after-an-all-night-1818-rager yet well-meaning frat boys.

Who were so blasted that they were just like, "Dude, what, do you play rugby? Holy shit, he's fuckin' huge, look at this fuckin' guy! Absolute unit!" And they all whooped and hollered and just ushered the Creature into their dorm to keep the party going.

And the Creature was just like, "?????" but very pleased to find other people vaguely shaped like him, so he lets them because he may be just minutes old but he knew early on all he really wanted was one (1) buddy and now there's, like, a herd of them and they're all having a blast.

When the guys inevitably pass out, sloshed beyond all sense, he just sits and waits for them to wake up and when they do, later that morning, he's poking at one of them to make sure the guy is still breathing, and the kid wakes up and yells for a second and squints at the 8 foot-tall (rugby???? player????) guy in their dorm and is like, "Shit, what is that?"

And another one squints at him and goes, "I don't fuckin' know, bro, but he can throw us so hard. Did you see how David just...fuckin'...flew out the window last night? Just hurled David like it was no big deal. That was awesome."

David groans and puts his head under his pillow because his headache is awful but he lets out a pained, muffled, "that was awesome" in agreement.

So in a rare case of wholesome frat boy camaraderie, this herd of college roommate boys, all of whom are dumb as rocks but well-meaning, just take the Creature in because, "There's this huge fucking monster guy and it's the coolest thing we've ever seen."

This would possibly mean the Creature is socialized to be a dumb-as-rocks frat boy, but because I cannot allow that to happen and because there is no universe in which he would not be into poetry, he somehow also gets socialized by liberal arts majors and is just as Sensitive™, it rubs off on his frat buddies, who start saying things like, "No, man, it's Sturm und Drang, it's, like, the fuckin' vast rolling of the soul that, like...fuckin' eschews Enlightenment rationalism."

But some of the boys' lingo inevitably rubs off on the Creature so when, months later, Victor comes back to get all of his things with Henry post-mental breakdown, he bumps into a crowd of rowdy guys playfully jostling each other, and that crowd includes an 8-foot tall dude in a letterman jacket holding a volume of Goethe in one hand and a tankard of beer in the other, and he scoffs down at Victor and goes, "Accursed Creator! Why didst thou abandon me in my hour of need? Fuckin' lame."

They would almost certainly like him better. Not because they're okay with an amalgam of human corpses brought to life by unholy means, but because having an undergrad try to tell you that they know your own subject of expertise better than you is fucking insufferable.

it’s so bizarre to me how most people who argue that he’s crazy or annoying can’t connect holden with real cases of how most victims of abuse are seen as and treated, because most of the time a perpetrator of abuse is a normal human being, just like you or me, and often is seen as a model human being, such as a close adult or youth leader or parent or teacher or family member, in comparison to a victim who may already be unlikable in their community

and that’s what leads to shunning victims both in real life and what holden experienced, being viewed as a troubled teen and embracing that label as a defense

She is the more rational choice for Darcy vs. the Bennets. She has education, manners, a fortune, and clearly, relatives that he likes. So many fan fiction authors make her vulgar and/or unfashionable, but she isn't! That is why Darcy enjoys hanging out with her in the beginning; he would not have her at his house if she was embarrassing. Even when angry with Elizabeth, Caroline does not dare go further in attacking Elizabeth at Pemberley. She has self control. She understands boundaries, which Jane and Elizabeth mostly do, but the rest of the Bennet family struggles with. This is why she's a foil for them.

As for Darcy, at the beginning, Caroline is a nearly perfect mirror of his opinions and snobby attitude. She is doing this on purpose as a way of flirting, but it's probably pretty close to her real personality anyway. She's right that Darcy looks down on Elizabeth's uncle being a lower class lawyer. She's right that he finds the Bennet family intolerable to marry into. However, as Darcy falls in love with Elizabeth and then reforms, Caroline's mirror distorts. That shows his growth in the novel. She, like Elizabeth, fails to update her priors, though to be fair to Caroline, she didn't build her knowledge of Mr. Darcy on first impressions. It's harder to change her mind because she did once know him very well.

Side note: this is also why people woobyfying Darcy hurts Caroline as a rational character. They start in a very similar place and love mean girl gossiping together, then he changes. When Darcy's flaws are erased, it makes Caroline look super irrational and much crueller.

Fitzwilliam Darcy as a Parent:

oh, hello, Mr. Avery. Yes, I'd be pleased to discuss the spring planting. Before we start, have you met my son? produces baby who is strapped to his chest under his coat He likes to tour the estate with me while his dear mamma is resting.

Darcy absolutely keeps a journal that is full of proud notations of all his kids' milestones:

"my firstborn has grown another inch and E. says he needs new clothes again. He's already up to her shoulder, half a head taller than his cousin. Such a fine, strapping lad. I shall get him a new horse for his birthday."

…….many years later his series of detailed notebooks for running his holdings is considered a treasure trove of primary sources for historians. I bet he has, like, a book for the staff with their name, position, salary history, performance notes, and personal notes so he knows when someone has an ill relative he should send a basket to, or if their mom died this time of year so let them work in the quieter part of the house, or whatever. Same for the tenants with notes on their farm, planting, prospects, succession planning etc. Because he knows that he's task-oriented rather than people-oriented, basically, but he doesn't want to mess up with the people he's responsible for taking care of, so he makes the "people part" into one of the tasks.

There is some kind of foundation in the modern Darcy holdings that makes sure that historical family stuff is made available to researchers. And at some point, someone takes like a collection of letters and documents Darcy made to teach his heir with and wrote some kind of best-selling management book, and people who had read the back of the book blurb on social media started using his (very handsome, very posh looking) portraits as like. Self-improvement entrepreneur memes.

And THEN there's this whole pushback to reclaim the Darcys from business bros, which results in a historical study of all the ways it's obvious that Darcy was a devoted family man and Wife Guy. Illustrated with informal sketches of him doting on his wife and kids done by Georgiana, maybe Kitty, eventually his own kids.

One of the sons has a talent for caricature and draws him, like, seriously doing a Business Thing with a straight face while one child is perched on his shoulders, one is holding his pant leg, and he's got a baby's head poking curiously out of some kind of baby sling. It's captioned "Papa is Working."

In another one he's seriously inspecting a ditch or something and a little row of mini-Darcys in descending size order is imitating him very solemnly: "Seeing To The Drainage"

one of them is Elizabeth sitting on like. A throne made of books, utterly bedecked in jewels, super fancy clothes, and is captioned like "If Papa Had His Way"

the next one is Elizabeth sitting up in a tree and Darcy looking up at her smitten, captioned "Come And Get Me, Then"