You know what I realize that people underestimate with Pride & Prejudice is the strategic importance of Jane.
Because like, I recently saw Charlotte and Elizabeth contrasted as the former being pragmatic and the latter holding out for a love match, because she's younger and prettier and thinks she can afford it, and that is very much not what's happening.
The Charlotte take is correct, but the Elizabeth is all wrong. Lizzie doesn't insist on a love match. That's serendipitous and rather unexpected. She wants, exactly as Mr. Bennet says, someone she can respect. Contempt won't do. Mr. Bennet puts it in weirdly sexist terms like he's trying to avoid acknowledging what he did to himself by marrying a self-absorbed idiot, but it's still true. That's what Elizabeth is shooting for: a marriage that won't make her unhappy.
She's grown up watching how miserable her parents make one another; she's not willing to sign up for a lifetime of being bitter and lonely in her own home.
I think she is very aware, in refusing Mr. Collins, that it's reasonably unlikely that anyone she actually respects is going to want her, with her few accomplishments and her lack of property. That she is turning down security and the chance keep the house she grew up in, and all she gets in return may be spinsterhood.
But, crucially, she has absolute faith in Jane.
The bit about teaching Jane's daughters to embroider badly? That's a joke, but it's also a serious potential life plan. Jane is the best creature in the world, and a beauty; there's no chance at all she won't get married to someone worthwhile.
(Bingley mucks this up by breaking Jane's heart, but her prospects remain reasonable if their mother would lay off!)
And if Elizabeth can't replicate that feat, then there's also no doubt in her mind that Jane will let her live in her house as a dependent as long as she likes, and never let it be made shameful or awful to be that impoverished spinster aunt. It will be okay never to be married at all, because she has her sister, whom she trusts absolutely to succeed and to protect her.
And if something eventually happens to Jane's family and they can't keep her anymore, she can throw herself upon the mercy of the Gardeners, who have money and like her very much, and are likewise good people. She has a support network--not a perfect or impregnable one, but it exists. It gives her realistic options.
Spinsterhood was a very dangerous choice; there are reasons you would go to considerable lengths not to risk it.
But Elizabeth has Jane, and her pride, and an understanding of what marrying someone who will make you miserable costs.
That's part of the thesis of the book, I would say! Recurring Austen thought. How important it is not to marry someone who will make you, specifically, unhappy.
She would rather be a dependent of people she likes and trusts than of someone she doesn't, even if the latter is formally considered more secure; she would rather live in a happy, reasonable household as an extra than be the mistress of her own home, but that home is full of Mr. Collins and her mother.
This is a calculation she's making consciously! She's not counting on a better marriage coming along. She just feels the most likely bad outcome from refusing Mr. Collins is still much better than the certain outcome of accepting him. Which is being stuck with Mr. Collins forever.
Elizabeth is also being pragmatic. Austen also endorses her choice, for the person she is and the concerns she has. She's just picking different trade-offs than Charlotte.
Elizabeth's flaw is not in her own priorities; she doesn't make a reckless choice and get lucky. But in being unable to accept that Charlotte's are different, and it doesn't mean there's anything wrong with Charlotte.
Because realistically, when your marriage is your whole family and career forever, and you only get to pick the ones that offer themselves to you, when you are legally bound to the status of dependent, you're always going to be making some trade-offs.
😂 Even the unrealistically ideal dream scenario of wealthy handsome clever ethical Mr. Darcy still asks you to undergo personal growth, accommodate someone else's communication style, and eat a little crow.
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Steve's pinning his polaroids up on his wall when his new roommate walks in.
Steve's immediate thought is oh, I'm gonna hate this guy.
Shaggy hair, leather jacket, rings glinting off his fingers, electric guitar slung over his back. Hot as hell, but compared to Steve's polos and perfectly coiffed hair, they could not be more different.
The guy looks like he had the same thought. His shoulders slump as he takes in Steve's appearance.
A man comes in behind his roommate, toting a suitcase full of clothes. "Oh, are you Eddie's roommate?" he says to Steve, who shakes himself out of his thoughts.
"Yes, I am." he says politely. "I'm Steve Harrington."
The man sets down the suitcase. "Wayne Munson." he offers, shaking Steve's hand. "I'm Eddie's uncle."
He nudges Eddie forward, who lets out an almost inaudible groan. "Eddie." he says snippily, shaking Steve's hand.
This'll be a fun year, Steve thinks.
They don't talk. Steve didn't think he was going to be best friends with whoever he got saddled with, but he thought they could at least be civil to each other. Their room is split down the middle. Eddie's half is absolutely covered in posters and music and cutouts of magazines. Steve's is...almost as blank as his room back home.
He misses the shitheads.
No one can ever tell them that. They'll get even more insufferable.
Once or twice, when Steve comes back from a class, he'll catch Eddie peering at Steve's pictures, but he’ll jump away before Steve can call him out on it. It's awful. Steve misses Robin.
It takes him a horribly long amount of time to stop flinching awake at every little sound. He'd stored his nailbat under his bed, out of sight of Eddie, but every time someone yells in the hallway or shouts in the room next door, Steve startles awake, already grabbing his bat. Luckily, Eddie sleeps like the dead, because Steve's not sure he'd be able to explain the weapon without breaking his NDA.
It's three A.M., early November, when there's a knock on their door. Steve isn't asleep yet, so he stands and answers it.
Eight people pile in, talking in hushed whispers. They slam into him, knocking him over.
In the middle of the hug, Steve counts his kids. It's Dustin, nestled against his side, then Lucas, El, and Will under his arm, Max draped over his back, Erica leaning into his shoulder, and Mike on the very outskirts of the group. He pulls them all in tighter, and they all yelp and squawk at him.
"Let us go, Steve!" Erica says, annoyed.
"Nope." Steve says. "You came to find me at three in the morning, you can tolerate a hug."
"Shoo, move." another voice says, and all the kids part like the sea. Robin pushes her way through the group and hugs him tightly. "I don't know how you do it." she says to Steve. "Driving all these nerds around, it's exhausting."
He buries his face in her hair. "Missed you, Robbie." he mumbles.
She leans her head against his. "Missed you too, dingus."
Steve pulls back. "You got your license!"
"I did!" Robin jingles her keys happily.
Eddie sits up, and everyone in the room freezes. "Wha's happenin'?" he slurs sleepily. Then he registers all the people in the room. "Whoa, what the fuck?"
Steve stands up, brushing himself off. "I'm sorry, man, I didn't know they were coming." He shoots a glare at the group, who looks appropriately cowed. Minus Dustin. Steve can now see whose idea this was.
Eddie swings out of bed. "No, it's- wait, are these the kids from your polaroids?"
"Yeah," Steve says. "Dustin, Mike, Lucas, Will, El, Max, Erica, and this is my best friend Robin."
"Awww, you have polaroids of us?" Max teases over his shoulder. "That's sweet."
Steve reaches behind him and tussles her hair, shoving her gently. "Shut up, shithead."
"Your room is cool." Mike says. "Not Steve's side. But this part is cool!"
Steve glares at Mike, but Eddie grins big. "Thanks! I'm Eddie Munson." He shakes Mike's hand.
"Is that a DnD poster?" Will says. "That's amazing!"
"It certainly is!" Eddie says. "I used to DM back in high school. Played a bit too."
The nerdier section of the group reacts appropriately, oohing and ahhing, while Max and Erica just roll their eyes and nudge each other.
Steve hesitates. “I know these guys don’t really do anything on Saturday afternoons, and I think they’ve been wanting to start another campaign. Would you mind if they come up, maybe every weekend, and you can…” he doesn’t know enough about DnD “…run a game for them?”
Eddie looks amused. “You mean DM a campaign?”
“Yeah, that.” It’s an olive branch that Steve’s offering.
Eddie takes it. “Well, how can I turn that down? Sheepies of the Harrington flock, how would you like to join a new campaign?”
“I’ll keep the rest of you occupied,” Steve mutters as the guys (and El) start talking excitedly. “Max, Rob, you guys wanna find the closest arcade and set some new high scores?”
“Only one person will be setting high scores.” Max says, gesturing to herself, but she looks excited at the prospect.
Steve lets Eddie and the kids talk for a couple more minutes, then claps his hands. “Okay, it is three in the morning and I have a nine A.M. class tomorrow SO! I have enough blankets for all of you to sleep on the floor if Eddie doesn’t mind-“ Eddie shrugs. “Or Rob can drive you back home.”
Steve looks around and Robin is already in his bed, cuddled up like the blanket hog she is. “Okay, well, sleepover here it is then.”
He whisks out his ungodly amount of throw blankets (courtesy of Joyce’s knitting spree) and the kids get together in their usual movie-night-at-Steve’s cuddle position.
Will’s got his head on Mike’s shoulder, Lucas next to Mike, Max leaning on Lucas, El’s head in Max’s lap and her legs thrown over Dustin’s lap, and Erica with her back against Dustin’s shoulder. Sometimes Robin and Steve are wedged into the pile somewhere, but just as often they’re tangled up under six different blankets across the room, which is why Steve whispers “Scoot over, dumbass,” as he climbs into bed next to Robin.
Eddie watches them assume their positions with an expression of what could be awe on his face. “When I saw those pictures,” he whispered, “I thought they were like your siblings? Or maybe old pictures of your friends. I didn’t think you were a soccer mom.”
Steve glares at him, but unlike earlier in the year, there’s no heat behind it. “Hope you like coparenting then, because these guys need to be watched 24/7 or they’ll run off and start the apocalypse.”
Eddie laughs like it’s a joke. To him it is. He hops back into bed. “Goodnight, weird little family.”
The kids murmur a collective sleepy goodnight, and Steve shuts his eyes.
It’s the most relaxed he’s felt since he moved in.
part two!
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100,000 dollars is not a lot of money.
it is also a lot more money than i will ever have. my student loans make up half of that - they're coming back, i'm told, like we all bounced back recently. the other day while paying for gas to go to work, i overdrew my account without knowing it.
i sat in the car and looked at the charge and tried to do the math. where the fuck is the money even going? i don't live extravagantly. i live in a hole in the ground, in an apartment the size of a sneeze; covered in ants. yes, i wanted to live close to a population center. maybe that's my fault. i've downloaded the apps and i've spoken to the experts and i've cut back on excess. i can't help the pharmacy bills or the medical debt.
i have a good, well-paying job. when i googled it to see if i was getting a fair salary, i found out i'd be making "upper middle class" money. which doesn't make sense - is "upper middle class" now just "able to afford a one-bedroom without a roommate". when i was younger, upper-middle meant a nice big house and a backyard and vacations and not flinching about eating at a resturant.
i was talking to my friend who is a realtor. he said 100,000 dollars is extremely cheap for housing. he's not wrong. 100,000 dollars would change my life. 100,000 dollars also won't really buy you anything. it could get you out of debt, potentially, if you were lucky and had a certain amount of scholarships to tack onto your degree. you could pay off the car and then have enough left over for "spending" money. how fucking amazing. one vacation, maybe two if you're thrifty. and then - like magic - the money would evaporate into nothing. people would sigh and tell you see, you should have put it into savings! like "upper middle class" people can't afford to value "actually living" over squirrelling wealth. you should spend your life only in scarcity. like that is what made the rich people all their real "actually a lot of money".
100,000 dollars would literally set me free. it also would just set me back to "earning normally" instead of paying down debt into infinity. god, do you know how many of us just want that? that our first thought is we could stop scrambling and just be free of debt if we won the lottery? that we don't even necessarily need to stop working - we just wouldn't have to worry about failing or falling?
and. at the same time. 100,000 dollars is next to fucking nothing.
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