have i no chance of succeeding?

But her family. Holy shit.

First off, it’s p much ALL women, and mostly UNMARRIED women, which at this time means of something happens to her dad then you’re financially responsible for like. Four grown ass adults, potentially forever

Because mom in law is DEFINITELY gonna need someone to take care of her when dad in law kicks it, and they have like. NO money. So already you’re accepting that if all goes well, you’re gonna be one random old bag’s retirement home. That’s expensive and exhausting, yeah? Imagine asking someone on a first date knowing that if they say yes and things go good her high-strung chihuahua mother is gonna move in with you. IMAGINE.

And girly’s other sisters. Well, one is a sweetheart, yeah, so she probably won’t be an issue, but that still leaves three more, and two of those ones are INSUFFERABLE. Never went to school, dumb as rocks, spend cash like it’s toilet paper

And while one of the two is young still and might grow out of it the OTHER one is actively torpedo’ing her entire family’s reputation by wandering off with random dudes and chasing ass. She’s never gonna work, she can’t build connections, she’s a fucking sinkhole, and she’s being led on by the same goddamn con man ass leeching tit who’s been bleeding you dry while telling anyone who’ll listen that your family is full of ratty thieving bastards.

And if he dumps her after a week- WHICH YOU KNOW HIS BITCH ASS IS GONNA- you’ve got a SECOND UNMARRIABLE GROWN ASS ADULT TO PROVIDE FOR. And you KNOW she’s gonna be a tantrum-throwing little shit about it, and it’s not like you can lock her in the basement or something, you’re gonna have to bring her fucking. Everywhere. And give her an allowance and shit while she contributes zero, because again, she NEVER GOT EDUCATED AND HAS NO MARKETABLE SKILLS. She’s not even good to TALK to. FUCK

And you’re looking at this girl’s father like “please for the love of fuck get your spawn under control, marry them off, get them working on their résumé, learning to sew or be nursemaids or manage staff or SOMETHING, yall got no money and one foot in the grave” and that old man just laughs like “haha yeah, what can you do. lol”

So you’re looking to the mom and finally it’s making sense how she got that twitch in her eye and as MUCH as she is you’re starting to realize she’s the SMART one, desperately throwing her armloads of girls at random men like they’re a bunch of fucking lifeboats bobbing around a sinking ship, like yes Jesus Christ sweetly that life boat IS old and ugly and kind of boring but for FUCKS SAKE PICK ONE

And you look back at this girl who is ALSO REFUSING THE LIFE BOATS BY THE WAY and god damn it she’s still the most radiant thing you’ve ever seen so fine, fuck it, Christ alive, you’ll do it. You’ll shoot your shot. She’s everything you’ve ever wanted in anybody abut it’s not even just about that anymore, it’s about being her best fucking shot at a future, and even if she doesn’t like you all that much she’s still gonna say yes and that might break your heart a bit knowing it’s about the money but who knows, maybe it will at least be civil, or companionable, and even if she doesn’t LOVE you at least you’ll know she’s well and cared for

And so you’ll do it. You’ll take on the neurotic stress mess mother in law, the absent father, the broke ass wingnut no brain no money no future airhead sisters, the bad mannered relatives and the embarrassing behaviour and the impending future of sharing your entire shit with a clown parade of freeloaders, you’ll risk it all and accept the absolute certainty of financial ruin and emotional exhaustion for the rest of your whole ass life and you’ll make your own family deal with it too, you’ll do it, you’ll fucking DO IT, you stupid lovesick motherfucker

And so you go to this chick like “look. Your whole family’s a shitshow. You’ve got fucking nothing and you’re gonna die on the street. But for some reason- and I don’t get it either- I’ve fallen in love with you, and I wish I didn’t, but I did, so I’m telling you that whether you like me or not, I’ll give you everything. I’ll give you everything even if it’s the dumbest shit I ever done. Fuck my stupid Baka ass, I’ll marry you.”

And she looks at you- having heard or considered absolutely none of your months-long internal debate and monologue- and goes “The fuck did you just say about my family, you son of a bitch?”

And the shock of that is enough to jolt you back into a reality where you are able to actually hear and process what just came out of your damn mouth And yeah

"Look Charles, there are five of them, four are pretty, they all have different personalities so there must be one who clicks with you, take her off my hands."

"Yes, Mr. Bennet STILL refuses to let me take them all to London. I could get these girls married off so quickly if I could get them there, you cannot even imagine."

You get me @captain-kit-adventuress

I think they might actually get along. Caroline is very good at mirroring people, as she does with Mr. Darcy, and she'd quickly catch on to Mr. Bennet's way of cynically mocking those around him and join in. Caroline is well educated and intelligent enough that Mr. Bennet would probably enjoy talking to her, even if she's not quite at Elizabeth's level. And I think with Caroline getting the house in order, Mr. Bennet might be less likely to retreat to the library.

i always thought that was what louisa hurst was for, besides being her sister, lol.

but honestly, if caroline wasn't in london much because mr bennet hated it, i'm not sure louisa would be so content to stay at longbourn as she is at netherfield, so if the hursts go back to london, i think caroline would naturally look to one of the girls to fill that role, and who better than kitty, who's already had so much experience at it with lydia and is still in some way of being influenced by caroline?

i've always read caroline bingley not necessarily as mean and horrible like a lot of people say, but snobbish and self-centered, which is quite different. she'd want good matches for the girls for its own ends, but she'd be thinking of herself, too, because good matches for the girls reflects well on caroline. after all, what an accomplishment, to get happily- (or at least well-) settled those particular five girls, who started out with so little to recommend them! and as i said before, it's not like she wouldn't use it to help herself, either, by building the added social caché into the caroline empire, because being a person of high influence in society, even if only behind the scenes, was just as important then as it is today. imagine being able to say that you had the ear of the prime minister because your stepdaughter married an important MP or something! now imagine four more super important sons-in-law as well; caroline would dearly love being at the centre of that.

caroline would probably care about their happiness, too, if for no other reason than even one unhappy or ill-suited marriage would reflect poorly on herself, and three or four would put her own social position on much more precarious footing. unlike mrs bennet, who's ready to dump most of her girls, excepting jane, with the first decent man who gives them a second glance; this only reflects mrs bennet's own poor judgment in marrying off her girls, which is also a judgment on her. it's why she says that jane marrying well will put the other girls in the way of marrying rich men, both because of the social networking, and because it will help raise the social standing of the rest of the bennets. even if caroline thinks the same thing, she'd never be so crass as to say it out loud, because people knew how the system worked and didn't need the reminder. it's just mrs bennet bragging about her eldest in ways that actually hurt her chances rather than increasing them.

Anyway, yes, it is in Caroline's interest to get the girls good matches, which reflects well on her and gives her more social networking.

HOWEVER, the AU I originally proposed is ILLEGAL since Charles Bingley would be the Bennet girl's uncle by marriage and I'm pretty sure that is not allowed. So Caroline Bingley could be an older cousin, same personality, still works. Ou, cousin and ward of the Bingley family, so her, Charles, and Louisa still grew up together but everything is legal. And she still has her 20k because I need to work with that.

Still, I have a few thoughts, which bear on but don't relate directly to Caroline's empire-building. I'm much more interested in the dynamics between Caroline and her new step-daughters. I looked in the text, but I couldn't find an age for the Bingley sisters. Maybe Louisa is around 30 - she did marry first. Charles is canonically 22-23 when the action starts. I think Caroline is in between them (but just guessing). Whether she's still their sister, or a cousin, in this AU, I think it'd be very interesting to explore her relationship with all five sisters, not merely with Kitty. A stepmother only a few years older than her stepdaughters is interesting. They're more like younger stepsisters than stepdaughters, but her position as wife of Dad gives her power over them. Again, interesting. I'm especially curious about how she would relate to the potentially ungovernable Elizabeth.

Caroline would not even think of Darcy as a possibility for Elizabeth (well, nobody does, except for Darcy, and even he's resistant at the start). So does it end with them together anyway? Does it go in another direction? And how does Caroline relate to Elizabeth along the way? They're no longer competing for Darcy (in Caroline's mind), so ... ?

Also, what about Mary? How does one blunt or soften her priggishness? A makeover so she's not the plain one? Would that help? Or some sort of manners guidance? Or both? Or teach her herself?

And what about Mr. Bennet himself? How does she light a fire under his lazy ass? Yeah - maybe he'd creep out of his lair emerge from his library because the new family environment is not invariably silly - but what does that look like? Caroline canonically overspends also. Does she use that as a bargaining chip in marrying off her stepsisters stepdaughters?

AAAAAAAAAHHH!!!!!! 🥹🥹🥹