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crack_van2013-04-10 10:28 am
stars-inthe-sky.livejournal.com) wrote in crack_van2013-04-10 10:28 am
Entry tags:
"Trout Heart Replica" by brett (T)
Fandom: THE LIZZIE BENNET DIARIES
Pairing: William Darcy/Caroline Lee, Lizzie Bennet/William Darcy, Jane Bennet/Bing Lee, Ricky Collins/Caroline Lee
Length: 2099 words
Author on LJ: Unknown
Author Website: AO3
Why this must be read: Ah, Caroline. Perhaps the one character who didn't so much improve in the retelling. For better or worse, her role in the LBD is functional. She's not the protagonist of any story we see. "Trout Heart Replica" is by far the best counter to that I've read. It doesn't "redeem" Ms. Lee per se, but it does present her perspective in a frank, raw, and unapologetic way.
Once there was a girl named Caroline.
She was named after the grassy hills in the north where her mother has grown up. As a child she imagined this state as a mystical fairy place and then, at twelve passed through it and was disappointed. It was all strip malls and empty beer cans and that was when Caroline began to see that she could not trust her parents.
At seventeen Caroline was voted senior class president. She had a button nose and soft chestnut skin. Her hair was dark, silky and came to her collarbones. She had a boyfriend named Tom and he would pry her with cheap wine until she let him touch her breasts. So far her life had been a series of happy nothings, predictable plotlines with even more predictable resolutions. She was warm and easy.
She had won her presidency on a platform of consistency. The school was as okay as one could expect high school to be. With the tuition their parents payed, why mess around?
There were stirrings though, even then. Caroline ran over Lucy Steele’s foot on her bicycle. Lucy, wearing ratty designer knock-offs and chewing noisily, had implied that Caroline was destined to be Tom’s trophy wife.
“I mean, it’s not like you can be a doctor too,” Lucy had drawled.
Lucy limped for a week.
“You’re so wonderful at dancing. Maybe you could teach at the studio after you graduate,” Caroline’s stepmother said. Caroline smiled and said that she intended to give up ballet in college anyway and later accidently smashed all the wedding china.
Graduation came and Caroline gave a speech that everyone appreciated and congratulated her on. It was concise, witty and moral.
That night, after her party, Caroline stole her brother’s zippo as he snored in a puddle of beer and destroyed the speech notes.
College came. A flurry of gen-eds and perfect grades and still she was introduced at parties as Bing’s little sister.
“Bing’s like, so fun,” Louisa Musgrove told Caroline once. “You’re so lucky to have him for a brother.”
“He’s lucky to have me for a sister,” Caroline replied. I suppose that’s when she became truly angry.
Four years went by quickly. There were memories that stood out brightly. Tom crying when she said she never loved him. Making Dean’s List for the first time. Declaring herself a philosophy major and seeing Bing gape. Her father announcing his second divorce over dinner.
There was a party. There was always a party. Everyone wanted Bing and his beautiful younger sister to come along.
“I’m applying to law schools,” Caroline told a group of awestruck freshman.
“Why would you want to do that? You’re an heiress,” said one.
“Why wouldn’t you want to be a lawyer? You are an heiress,” William Darcy said. They met each other’s eyes and Caroline let herself smile. She was furious.
And then the rejections came and she had cried out of humiliation and mostly wrath.
Trout Heart Replica
Pairing: William Darcy/Caroline Lee, Lizzie Bennet/William Darcy, Jane Bennet/Bing Lee, Ricky Collins/Caroline Lee
Length: 2099 words
Author on LJ: Unknown
Author Website: AO3
Why this must be read: Ah, Caroline. Perhaps the one character who didn't so much improve in the retelling. For better or worse, her role in the LBD is functional. She's not the protagonist of any story we see. "Trout Heart Replica" is by far the best counter to that I've read. It doesn't "redeem" Ms. Lee per se, but it does present her perspective in a frank, raw, and unapologetic way.
Once there was a girl named Caroline.
She was named after the grassy hills in the north where her mother has grown up. As a child she imagined this state as a mystical fairy place and then, at twelve passed through it and was disappointed. It was all strip malls and empty beer cans and that was when Caroline began to see that she could not trust her parents.
At seventeen Caroline was voted senior class president. She had a button nose and soft chestnut skin. Her hair was dark, silky and came to her collarbones. She had a boyfriend named Tom and he would pry her with cheap wine until she let him touch her breasts. So far her life had been a series of happy nothings, predictable plotlines with even more predictable resolutions. She was warm and easy.
She had won her presidency on a platform of consistency. The school was as okay as one could expect high school to be. With the tuition their parents payed, why mess around?
There were stirrings though, even then. Caroline ran over Lucy Steele’s foot on her bicycle. Lucy, wearing ratty designer knock-offs and chewing noisily, had implied that Caroline was destined to be Tom’s trophy wife.
“I mean, it’s not like you can be a doctor too,” Lucy had drawled.
Lucy limped for a week.
“You’re so wonderful at dancing. Maybe you could teach at the studio after you graduate,” Caroline’s stepmother said. Caroline smiled and said that she intended to give up ballet in college anyway and later accidently smashed all the wedding china.
Graduation came and Caroline gave a speech that everyone appreciated and congratulated her on. It was concise, witty and moral.
That night, after her party, Caroline stole her brother’s zippo as he snored in a puddle of beer and destroyed the speech notes.
College came. A flurry of gen-eds and perfect grades and still she was introduced at parties as Bing’s little sister.
“Bing’s like, so fun,” Louisa Musgrove told Caroline once. “You’re so lucky to have him for a brother.”
“He’s lucky to have me for a sister,” Caroline replied. I suppose that’s when she became truly angry.
Four years went by quickly. There were memories that stood out brightly. Tom crying when she said she never loved him. Making Dean’s List for the first time. Declaring herself a philosophy major and seeing Bing gape. Her father announcing his second divorce over dinner.
There was a party. There was always a party. Everyone wanted Bing and his beautiful younger sister to come along.
“I’m applying to law schools,” Caroline told a group of awestruck freshman.
“Why would you want to do that? You’re an heiress,” said one.
“Why wouldn’t you want to be a lawyer? You are an heiress,” William Darcy said. They met each other’s eyes and Caroline let herself smile. She was furious.
And then the rejections came and she had cried out of humiliation and mostly wrath.
Trout Heart Replica