#lucy is overly invested in vampires

[charmspoint]

Vampires and mental maturity

So when it comes to vampires I always end up wondering about mental and physical aging since a lot of vampire media can have a wonky relation with these. Mars Red got my attention with this line from Takeuchi

Here Takeuchi is talking about how happy he is to be a vampire because he will be able pursue scientific discovery eternally. But the phrasing got me wondering. Does he by 'never age' mean simply that his brain doesn't deteriorate or does he mean that the brains of vampires actually literally stop aging once they are turned as in do they stop mentally maturing. I'm mostly interested in this cuz uhhhh

Suwa is apparently eternally stuck at around 14-16 yrs old which is like, if you aren't mentally aging the absolute worst age you could be stuck on. Which is why I was wondering, is Suwa just physically a teenager or is he mentally a teenager too. Did his mental maturing stop at age 15ish or did his brain continue developing even when his body failed too. I was kinda resigned to this being headcanon ground but then I read the manga and while it doesn't offer a direct answer it does offer a good hint in my opinion.

And by that I'm of course referring to his conversation with Akesato which is like one of the only two deep Suwa reflections we got so far.

When asked about his age Suwa doesn't go the 'I'm 17, how long have you been 17' route, he actually sticks to his real age not once but twice.

He's being a big ass dumbass by going around telling ppl he's 300 but to be fair to him he's probs out of it a lil cuz Akesato reminds him of his little sister who is like one of the rare parts of his human life he at least somewhat remembers. Fortunately Akesato doesn't take him seriously because why the fuck would she.

To get back on topic the way he refers to Akesato is also interesting.

Like a grandpa He refers to her as a child, as younger then him. When referring to his past he says 'when I was your age' even though that was when he would have stopped aging. There's no real reason for him to do this. He doesn't know Akesato, she just happened to be there when he needed to scout out the situation and reminded him of his sister. He doesn't plan to ever see her again and she doesn't know anything about him, including the fact that he is a vampire. There is absolutely 0 reason for him not to refer to himself as a teenager, as her age, if that's how he sees himself. Maybe he would have felt the need to up his age a tiny bit to explain wtf is he doing in a red light district but that's obvs not what's going on here. This leads me to believe that Suwa feels and sees himself as 300 years old and not as the age he was when he was turned. He has continued mentally maturing even when his body didn't.

That being said the 'I have a brain that will never age' is an anime only line but the Akesato conversation happens next ep so we'll see then did they decide to change anything about that, tho I doubt they'll will cuz idk what the point of that would be.

#mars red #suwa #lucy rants #lucy is overly invested in vampires #mars red spoilers

[cha0ticmimzy]

Bis Vivit Que Bene Vivit

I figured it might be nice to post this here, as well. So, enjoy chapter one of my Vampire/Werewolf/Shifter FFXV Au Fic! Which you can also find here.  Boy that was a lot to write- WARNINGS: Mild gore is really all there is for this chapter tbh. 

           “Show me a hero, and I'll write you a tragedy.” ― F. Scott Fitzgerald

           “Whattya mean, you didn’t get the shot?” Dino asks, turning away from the computer to study the blond who seemed to have gotten a sudden interest in the floor. Sighing, he ran a hand through his overly gelled hair, grimacing at the way it felt. Man, he needed to invest in a different type of gel. “Well- just hand the assignment over to one of the juniors, then. I gotta betta job for you to do!” With a flourish, he brought the bespectacled youth closer, forcing him to look at the headline in the newspaper.

           ‘United Once More: The Nox-Fleruet Coven Visits Insomnia’     

           Prompto frowned, pushing his glasses further up his nose before looking over at his boss curiously. “So… You want me to go… Take pictures? Of Vampires?” He asked, not exactly understanding why this was such a big deal. Sure, the Nox-Fleuret family was pretty big, pretty important to the West as far as a governing body went, but why was this so big? The sound of scoffing made him pout, not enjoying being obviously made fun of.

           “Read more- see, here. It’s the first time that ol’ Princey’s gonna be out an’ about with the public! It’s his debut, blondie. Prince Noctis Lucis Caelum! Imagine how much we could make if we managed to get a good shot of him!” Dino spoke excitedly, releasing Prompto to walk over to the windows, staring out at the cityscape. “This is big, Prommy. This could be your debut as a photojournalist.” A smirk curled his lips, obvious in his voice as he looked over his shoulder. “Unless, you’d rather hand it off to-”

           “I’ll do it!” Prompto exclaimed, knuckles whitening from his hold on his camera. To get close to the Prince… To royalty. It was a dream come true, really! “I’ll do it, don’t you worry! I’ll get the best pictures of them that you’ve ever seen, just you wait!” He sang, turning and all but skipping out of the room, cornflower blue hues sparkling in excitement and determination. He could do this. He WOULD do this! Even if it meant breaking some rules and maybe paying a guard or two off, he could and would do this.

           The smell of fresh air greeted him as he stepped through the front doors of Insomnia Journals, the sound of traffic and people talking mingling. Fumbling, he pulled his earbuds free and quickly slipped them in, listening as the sound of acoustic guitar began to take over as he started his walk home. It always brought him past the heavily guarded Citadel- the center of Insomnia and where the Lucis-Caelum family lived, as well as where all the governing happened. Prompto had never been in there, but he’d taken plenty of photographs of the imposing building. Towering spirals, dark arches, the engraving of the Gods and the Fall of the Infernian engraved upon the front, over the doors. It was beautiful- and the interior was even more so, no doubt.

           Today, however, a barrier was set up, cutting the roundabout in half and making a mess out of traffic. In front of the steps, three cars sat- gleaming white and pristine. There were more guards posted than usual, giving him pause as he joined in with the crowd. Whoever was in the vehicles was important, obviously- especially if it meant rerouting traffic. Raising his camera, he focused through the viewfinder, closing one eye as he began snapping away. The Glaive- that was what the guards were called. There were rumors that it was made up completely of werewolves. Which made sense to Prompto; the shifters were known to be physically stronger than a normal human- not as strong as vampires, of course, but still. He focused in on the one in front- a shorter man with dark hair buzzed on the sides, two braids on the left side of his head. There were little tattoos on his face; the corner of his eyes, one at his temple. But his eyes…

           Damn.

           They were almost neon in color, a blue so vibrant they seemed fake. He made sure to capture a few shots before freezing in place as the Glaive’s gaze zeroed in on him. Swallowing thickly, he managed to take one last shot before a smirk was spreading across the man’s face. Oh. Oh, Gods. He was handsome, and dangerous, and maybe this was a bad idea. Lowering his camera, he shifted further back in the crowd, but the sensation of the man’s gaze on him never left. ‘There’s no way he can still see me, right?’ He asked himself, brushing a hand over the red beanie on his head, covering blond locks. Nah, there wasn’t any way. Not with this many people in the way.

           Then, cheers began.

           Moving to the other side, he elbowed his way to the front, near the reporters as they spoke into their microphones. He listened in as he raised his camera, focusing in on the cars as their occupants began to file out. “-with channel six news! Here we have the Nox Fleuret family from the Realm of Tenebrae arriving! Sylva Nox Fleuret is exiting, looking stunning in a white pantsuit.” And stunning she did look- especially through the lens of his camera, Prompto snickered silently. “And there is Lady Lunafreya Nox Fleuret, her hair in a lovely long braid and dressed in a modest gown of silver, with Lady Gentiana following from her own car in a traditional gown of black and gold. Both women look wonderful.” Prompto waited, not wanting to get a shot of the Ladies with their backs to the crowd.

           “And there is Lord Ravus Nox Fleuret, standing tall and regal in a suit of white and lilac, his hair tied back. Recently, news of his engagement to Miss Aurora Mane-Glorium broke- and there she is! Oh, look at that dress! Lilac, and how stunning it looks with her hair! Aurora Mane-Glorium comes from a modest Vampire clan native to Tenebrae. Her father served beneath Lady Sylva in her council before his untimely death in a horrid accident twelve years prior. You’ll remember when a radical terrorist group attacked Tenebrae, claiming wanting to put an end to the Nox-Fleuret line.” As she spoke, the group of five turned to face the crowd, flashing dazzling, fanged smiles. Thanks to the overcast nature of the day, none carried parasols with them, nor were there sunglasses covering their eyes.

           Perfect. Tongue poking out between his lips, he quickly snapped a few shots before lowering his camera, a grin on his face. They all did look fantastic, he had to agree. Job done, he slipped away, shoving his way through the crowd to the edges, where he almost tripped. Catching himself in time, he looked up, only spot familiar black and red leathers. Or, at least, he thought he did. Once he blinked, they were gone, leaving a sinking sensation of disappointment in it’s wake. Of course it wasn’t them.

           He hadn’t seen his brother or the Huntress in over three years now. Not after the last fight they’d had. It’d been a stupid argument over Loqi being a Hunter- too stupid, now that he thought on it. Stuffing his hands into his pockets, he pushed the thoughts away and instead focused on the agenda he had for the night. Go home, fix some dinner for himself and his Corgi, Insolo, and then go for an evening jog. The jogs helped clear his troubled mind- even if he sometimes pushed himself too far. It wasn’t his fault, really- he just enjoyed the runner’s high. The way his lungs burned with every breath, the feeling of blood rushing through his veins. It was addicting. A drug.

           The farther he walked from the Citadel, the less polished the city became. Then again, it wasn’t all that shocking, considering how he lived in an apartment closer to the markets than the business district. But he couldn’t complain; hell, getting fresh produce and meats daily was worth living in a shoddy studio apartment. Besides, it wasn’t as if he’d get visitors often. Truth be told, he couldn’t exactly remember the last time he’d had someone over. His birthday, last year? Had it truly been that long?

           Brows furrowing, he fumbled with his keys as a calico began to twine between his legs, meowing for attention. Cas- the apartment building’s local mice killer. The tension that had built up in his shoulders began to ease as he knelt down and offered a scratch under the chin for the feline. She was a sweetie, really; if he remembered to grab some fresh tuna from the market tomorrow, he’d leave some out for her. Gotta pay the work, right? Standing with a groan, he carefully pushed the cat aside so he could unlock the door. Slipping in, he was greeted with the sound of nails on hardwood and yipping.

           “There’s my boy!” Prompto cooed, dropping down to his knees to allow the excited corgi to all but tackle him, covering him in kisses. Laughing, the photographer carefully maneuvered back to his feet, making his way into the kitchen. He’d managed to meal prep the night before, meaning he already had dinner prepared for himself. “I want to ride my chocobo, all day~” Singing, he poured Insolo some fresh kibble before reaching into the fridge, wincing at the sight of low supplies. Ouch. Market in the morning, definitely. But for right now, Chicken fajita with Leiden peppers. Heaven on earth!

           Food sufficiently heated, he settled down at his table, scrolling through his social media feed. It was all about the Royals from Tenebrae visiting; what they were wearing, the latest fashion trends that are going to start because of it, the prediction of who will end up with who. Rolling his eyes, he set his phone aside and focused on his food, mind drifting back to the mirage he must have seen earlier. That was the only explanation, right? Loqi would have… Would have let him know if he had come back. They were brothers, after all. Memories of their parting floated to the forefront of his mind.

           “Look, you don’t have to do this. We can… We can figure this out!” Prompto pleaded, watching as Loqi packed up his bags, shoulders tense. “No one has to know where we’re from, Lo. Come on… We can pay that guy off!”

           “No, we can’t. I can’t. I won’t stay here where we can be persecuted for who our father is, Prompto. I refuse.” Loqi replied tersely, turning to study his younger brother with troubled eyes. “Come with me. Aranea’s already got a place we can stay. You can… Stay there while we go out and do hunts.”

           “I can’t leave! I just got this job at the papers, and… And I don’t want to go. This is home, Loqi-”

           “It isn’t my home.” He snarled, shaking his head as he stuffed his feet into his shoes. “Stay here, then. Rot. I don’t care.”

           “You’re just leaving because of that guy- Cor. That’s why! You’re heartbroken because he chose duty over you!” Prompto shouted, but the moment the words slipped out, he regretted them, a hand slapping over his mouth as tears welled up.

           Loqi studied his brother for a moment before turning on his heel and marching out of their shared apartment. He paused for a moment, knuckles white from gripping the door jam. “Take care of yourself, Prompto. Stay away from the blood suckers and shifters.”

           It took far too long for him to move, his limbs leaden. Lurching to his feet, he nearly tripped as he ran to the door, throwing it open only to see Loqi sliding into a car. “Loqi- LOQI, PLEASE.” He sobbed, sliding to the floor as tears trickled down his cheeks. Damn it.

           He was alone.

           Shaking his head, Prompto forced the lump in his throat away as he finished cleaning up his dishes. It was still light enough outside- he could manage a quick run. Yeah. Changing quickly, he made sure the running leggings were on right before pulling on a yellow hoodie, earbuds secured in his ears and phone in his pocket. The sound of heavy bass began to trickle from the speakers as he set out, locking his door behind him. Down the stairs, out the gate, and onto the sidewalk. It was Thursday, meaning the streets weren’t as busy as they could have been. Perfect for running.

           Feet slapping against concrete, he wove his way out of the market district, away from the business district, leading down to the riverside. Street lamps were spaced out, leaving dark gaps between each burst of light, but he knew his way around. At least, he liked to think he did. Breathe in, right foot hit, breathe out, right foot hit. Every two steps, he’d breathe. Nice, deep, and even. He’d worked damn hard for this physique- the marks on his stomach and hips told the story- and he’d be damned if he let it fall out of shape! Slowing, he checked his pulse rate and then the time, eyes widening as he realized he’d already been running for over twenty minutes.

           The sky had darkened, the stars peeking out. Of course, you couldn’t see them in the city- the lights blocked them out. Turning around, he jogged instead of running, letting himself cool down. Man, the park was emptier than usual. How… Weird. Maybe it was because of the cooling weather? That had to be it.

           Until the sound of a scream had him freezing in his tracks.

           Yanking out his earbuds, he turned around quickly, hands tightening into fists. He may have looked small, but he’d been taught how to fight. He even was part of a dojo at one point! But that didn’t mean that the sweat on his skin chilled him to the bone, the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end. “Who’s there?” He called out, wincing as his voice cracked. No answer. No sound at all. It was as if all life had been suddenly sucked free from the park. Breath quickening, he turned and took off in a run, listening as his feet hit the concrete rapidly. Then-

           There.

           The sound of a second pair of footsteps. Eyes widening, he didn’t bother risking a look over his shoulder, instead leaning forward as he forced himself to run faster. Come on, legs, work! Work, damn it! Wait- no, no- fuck. Fuck, he was falling and when had he left the path? Shit. Blue hues widening in pain and fear, he quickly rolled over, bracing himself for an attack that never came. He was alone…

           What the hell? Had he imagined it all? Shaking his head, he pushed himself up, wincing at the twinge in his ankle. Twisted, not sprained- hopefully. His hands throbbed, scrapped to hell and back and bleeding. Ouch. Shaking his head, he brushed himself off, sparing a glance around. The woods in the center of the park. In the day-time they were nice, but now? It sent a chill through him to even be in here. Muffling a whimper as he began to make his way out, he was too focused to feel the gaze of a predator upon his back.

           But he felt it the moment claws ripped across his back, prompting for a scream to escape him. Gods, that hurt! Nails clawing at the earth, he tried to pull himself away- but the creature…

           Wolf.  

           A wolf was hovering over him, all solid brown fur and hulking and far too large to be considered normal and oh gods, this was a werewolf. Oh gods, he was going to die. A whimper spilled free as he curled in on himself, flight taking over the urge to fight. The creature- his forearms were more humanoid than his hind legs, he noticed, standing straighter, it’s jaw opening. And opening. And opening. A terrified squeal peeled free as he tried to force himself backwards, only to hiss in pain as fire crawled up his back. Row upon row of gleaming, bloodied teeth shone in the moonlight, and his head was spinning or was that the werewolf hovering over him?

           And then it was rolling away in a flurry of growls and yelps and pale skin. Wait, skin? He struggled to focus, watching as more and more people showed up suddenly. What? His head lolled over, unsteady gaze falling on a woman’s face. Wow, she was pretty- wait, why was she smiling? Had he said that out loud? She looked like Lady Lunafreya… But that was impossible, she was at the Citadel! She opened her mouth to say something, but it was all… Watered down. Like he was under water.

           And then, the light disappeared and he was left in shadows.

           Sunlight filtered in, making everything seem red behind his eyelids. But man, the bed he was in was far too comfortable to be his own, and the hand in his hair was so nice… Wait, what?

           Eyes cracking open, he winced at how bright it was. It took a few moments for his sight to adjust, and when it did- oh, boy. This bedroom was the size of his entire apartment, plus some. The ceiling was high, painted ivory and with stark black lining. And the hand in his hair… Turning his head, his gaze trailed up the delicate, pale arm, up, up to long brown hair and a delicate face with emerald hues studying him curiously, set in a face that rivaled a porcelain doll’s. Brows furrowing, he opened his mouth to speak, but no words escaped.

           “Ravus, love, he’s awake.” She spoke, voice lilting with the accent that was native to Tenebrae. It was musical to hear, really- wait. Ravus? As in, Prince Ravus Nox Fleuret? Turning his head quickly, he took in the sight of the man sitting beside him, long silver hair that he’d normally seen tied back in interviews and photographs loose around his face. It was long- really long, falling past his shoulders. And pretty.

           “Thank you, it takes a lot to manage it.” Oh, he’d spoken aloud again, hadn’t he? “Yes, you did. I’ll go retrieve Regis and Noctis- stay with him, Aurora.” Oh his voice was nice- low and soft and rumbly and Prompto found that he would be content to listen to it for hours on end. A giggle sounded to his left, making his gaze fall onto the woman, Aurora, once more. She wasn’t as dressed up as she was the day-days?- before, wearing a crème colored sweater and a pair of black leggings. Comfy.

           “Do you need a drink? I have water here…” She spoke softly, removing her hand only for Prompto to whine at the loss. “Oh-… Oh, well, alright.” She replaced her hand with a soft laugh, head tilting as she studied him. “I wasn’t there- but Noctis says it was bad. Do you remember what happened?” Aurora asked, pink lips turning into a pensive frown. He went to answer, but the door opened, and the air in the room seemed to drop a few degrees.

           “Well, this is certainly interesting. You’ve caused quite the stir, Prompto Argentum,” came a smooth voice that made Prompto think of velvet, and his gaze landed on the group that had entered. Specifically, the man who wore a suit of black, whose hair was just starting to grey and whose eyes held the color of blood. His breath caught in his throat as he realized who he was staring at.

           Regis Lucis Caelum, patriarch of the Lucis Caelum Dynasty, oldest living Vampire in all of Lucis. 

#chaoticmimzy #my writing #ffxv #ffxv fic #alternate universe #vampire au #werewolf au #prompto argentum #Noctis Lucis Caelum #dino ghiranze #ravus nox fleuret #lunafreya nox fleuret #regis lucis caelum #nyx ulric #there are a lot more #like some OCs #but that's enough tags for now #bis vivit qui bene vivit

[janeaustentextposts]

Question! I noticed - maybe I'm wrong - that in all the adaptations, the casting for the main characters is similar: Darcy is dark haired, and so is Lizzie; Jane is blonde and (for some fascinating reason) Bingley is ginger-y. Is there a reason? something in the books that I missed? Some extra source? It seemed too much a coincidence (although I do love Ginger Bingley) thanks!!!

First off, I’m going to refer back to Mullan’s What Matters in Jane Austen? again, because he’s done a whole chapter on what her characters look like (and starts off with a basic examination of casting choices in adaptations and the admiration or outrage which always follows.) “How people look is often suggested rather than specified in Austen’s novels.” He then goes on to quote Sterne’s Tristram Shandy, “…paint her to your own mind–as like your mistress as you can–as unlike your wife as your conscience will let you.”

All we know of Jane is that she is considered very beautiful–as much is said by Bingley, her mother (who has no difficulty criticizing her children when they displease her,) and even Darcy must admit it as a fact. Looks are important in novels where often penniless girls must rely on other attractions in their manners and person–”…words used so frequently about characters when we first meet them: handsome, pretty, gentlemanlike, elegant…”. And yet she avoids specifics–perhaps as a reaction to other novels of her era, where a heroine’s precise points of beauty are totted up among her other virtues to make her a peerless wonder. Austen’s heroines are often described by other characters, rather than the narration, as it’s important to consider who is looking, and how, when looking at their judgements. Some people use a mention in Jane Austen’s letters about Jane wearing the colour green and Elizabeth preferring yellow to be some kind of marker of what their haircolours must have been in Austen’s mind’s eye, but that’s a tenuous argument at best, and if Austen had wanted the world in general to know imagined particulars about Jane and Elizabeth, she would have set them down in the text.

We know Elizabeth’s eyes are fine, and dark, but beyond that, we are given no details. On a genetic level, dark eyes are far more likely to occur in people with darker hair, but Austen wasn’t working with genetics–and dark eyes paired with lighter hair can sometimes be a rare sign of remarkable beauty, as in the descriptions of Irene in Galsworthy’s Forsyte Saga books. (A description which was entirely ignored in the casting of my future wife Gina McKee, but then Irene’s beauty and her allure is such a pivotal force in the novels that to pin it down as necessarily belonging to certain shades of colouring is to make it more trite than it truly is. Irene’s beauty is something beyond what one sees at first glance–it is transcendent charm.) Dark could mean brown, or also a very dark blue or grey–it’s impossible to tell, exactly. Anne Elliott’s eyes are mild and dark, Fanny Price’s are soft and light, Harriet Smith’s are blue, Jane Fairfax’s a deep grey, (and her lashes and eyebrows called dark, giving us some notion of the likely shade of her hair,) Mary Crawford’s are sparkling and dark…eyes are often the only thing near to a solid description we are given of physical attributes, and even then half of the description is more to do with the expression of the personality or feeling of the character through their glances and gazes, rather than specifically the colour of their irises. (Only Emma Woodhouse’s exact eye-colour is known–they are “hazle” and no adaptation so far has given enough of a shit to make certain of casting.) Marianne Dashwood has very dark eyes, and there is a general comparative description of the figures of the two sisters–but casting directors rarely, if ever, I think, take specifics of figures into account beyond an ‘acceptable’ level of Hollywood slimness.Now, for the casting trends (exceptions to the pattern you laid out being the 1940 P&P’s Greer Garson being a dirty-blonde/light brown Elizabeth, while Maureen O’Sullivan’s Jane had very dark hair; and the 1980 miniseries with Elizabeth Garvie’s Eliza also having light brown hair while Sabina Franklyn’s Jane was several shades darker–but indeed, the two more recent and well-known adaptations of 1995 and 2005 have the colourings you mentioned,) it’s probably just down to Hollywood mechanics where you’re going to have to combine the tropes of a comparative Ugly Duckling sister as well as a Best Friend/Beta Couple plotline. Coding a blonde woman (or man) as ‘good’ and a darker-haired person as ‘less good’ has been a Thing since long before cinema showed up on the scene. There’s a reason Laura Ingalls spends so much time inwardly (and outwardly) bitching about her sister Mary’s luck in being blonde (and also better-behaved, though this is never explicitly tied to the fact that Mary is blonde, but just ties INTO the overall notion that Mary is The Better Daughter.) Dark-haired heroines throughout older literature have bemoaned their lack of golden locks (notably also in LM Montgomery’s works, with Anne Shirley’s famous sensitivity about her hair being red, but also briefly in Emily Starr’s contemplation of her own black hair and atypical looks, which gets a bit of verse thrown at it which I can’t find sourced anywhere else so must have been made up by Montgomery herself: “If the bards of old the truth have told the sirens had raven hair. But over the earth since art had birth, they paint the angels fair.“So culturally, in the west, there’s a pervasive notion (especially when it comes to women,) that dark-haired women are the ‘darker’ side of their humanity…the temptresses, the more-likely-to-be-bad. (Though any reasonable reader would be like “…well, they’re human, you see, not out-and-out evil.”) But of course anyone compared to the fair-haired saintly paragon of womanhood would look bad–and so equally is the angelic blonde woman a trope in literature, often but not always used in comparisons against her brunette foil.

In cinema, quite often it’s just to better differentiate between characters, and to use these assumptions which are deeply entrenched in our cultures to play upon our immediate and almost instinctive reactions to visual cues. Jane is super-good, so she’s blonde. Bingley is likewise a bright and easy-going character, with more elements of comedy about him, so he’s got lighter hair, too, either as a strawberry blonde or redhead–but he is definitely the sidekick. I, personally, would be all for a ginger Darcy. Or a ginger-everybody P&P. (But that’s not going to happen, because redheaded men are culturally de-sexed/made less masculine or attractive, whereas redheaded women are more inclined to be overly-sexualized. Humanity is weird.) Darcy is a brooding brunette, because darker hair in the case of a male character gives them gravitas and mystery. It’s that damn Byronic thing coming into play. Dark hair, dark secrets. It’s a visual construct we’ve trapped ourselves into, at this point. Also, when you’ve got two love-stories running more or less concurrently, an audience needs visual markers to help them quickly identify and individualize (and therefore emotionally-invest in) the characters. More morally-dubious and fascinating hero and heroine Elizabeth and Darcy are brunettes because we see them making mistakes and drawing our attention by being fuck-ups. Lizzie can’t be the Prettier Sister, so she’s more automatically made the Brunette Underdog. Darcy is brooding and mysterious–so it’s very easy to make him dark-haired. Their contrasts are in their secondary characters–Jane and Bingley. Jane is prettier, and good-hearted (moreso than Eliza, anyway,) so she ascends to Blonde. Bingley is the Good Friend, and seemingly with fewer social defects compared to Darcy, so as the Nice Man, he gets lighter hair to also differentiate him from Darcy and make him more matchy-matchy with Jane. Our brains are making these connections based on visuals even before we’ve gotten half a dozen words of dialogue from any of these people.

This happens often in films and TV shows–in Coppola’s Dracula, Sadie Frost (a natural brunette) was made a vibrant redhead as Lucy to contrast to Winona Ryder’s more sedate and mysterious Mina. (Though this also had the fun effect of tying in a possible reference to the historical link between redhaired people and vampires, and the whole mythos of redhaired women in particular and sexual allure/witchcraft/spiritual evil–particularly as THIS version of Lucy is much more heavily sexualized compared to her book counterpart. I don’t know how much of the hair-colour-change was on purpose from Coppola’s perspective, and largely it’s just handwaved as being so people could really tell apart the ONLY TWO MAJOR FEMALE CHARACTERS IN THE FILM, but personally I think it’s an interesting choice–particularly compared to Katie McGrath’s blonde Lucy.) Again, we see the contrasting of virtue coded in hair-colouring, as Lucy is a character known for her sweetness and purity…as well as being a secondary female character to the heroine, and hence her more-virtuous foil…with lighter hair. Mina’s place as an educated, working, and married woman, with a more active part in the narrative, particularly as her brushes with dark forces mark her as ‘unholy’, makes it easier to code her as ‘complicated’, i.e. a brunette. Interestingly, this is set on its head in Penny Dreadful, where Mina becomes the blonde, doomed damsel, and her friend/lover Vanessa is the raven-haired woman at the center of a maelstrom of fucked up shit full of vampires, witches, and devils. Essentially if you want your heroine to go ‘bad’ a little (or a lot), give her a better-by-comparison blonde friend and have at it.Of course, since these tropes are so pervasive, we do see stories where this is purposefully mirrored or mocked, where the icy blonde is the femme fatale or turncoat who uses her appeal to deceive others–but this relies just as heavily on the initial assumption that a fair-haired character is intrinsically ‘better’ on a moral level.To conclude, this is why I think we see that general trend with colouring when it comes to casting/styling these characters in cinematic adaptations, as we have really very little in the text to go on, but from the characters themselves there are long traditions to draw from for visual cues to quickly and adeptly condition audiences to draw certain assumptions about these characters which enable us to rapidly bond with and understand them to some degree. I want to specify “Western” audiences because the blonde/brunette thing is at its roots kind of a colourism thing which is grossly pervasive in a white supremacist society going back for centuries, and Caucasian beauty standards do not and should not apply globally; but as the media most of us are familiar with is dominated by this white heteronormative patriarchal history, these tropes and codings exist for ultimately gross reasons. Frankly we could all do without them from this day forward, but change can be slow and so these stereotypes continue to exist and blonde people on-screen for now often continue to be the tacit code for ‘these people are the purest bestest people’ while the darker-haired people are almost always more morally-grey, complicated–even troubling–and made more ‘fascinating’ by their more flawed natures. It’s a shitty way of doing things, but we’ve been culturally conditioned to respond to things like that, and so it works.Anyway, thanks for asking this one–my answer went to places I wasn’t fully expecting me to go, but I enjoyed blowing the dust off my film studies qualifications and I always love yelling about culture.

#Ask Me Anything Austen-Adjacent #AMAAA #eorlsdotter