Ana

“i can’t get over ditching jane and darcy and sif and basically all the great mcu ladies”

no offense but tell me five things about darcy that aren’t ripped from someone’s self-insert fic

Exsqueze me? But are you talking trash about Darcy Lewis, Queen of Tasers?

It’s one thing to not want her in Ragnarok but she is one of the most complex female characters in a long time.

1) Darcy Lewis is the only character in any franchise that has any actual common sense.

At the beginning of Thor, Jane and Erik want to drive into a tornado but Darcy has enough sense to stand up to her friends and say no.

She only drives into the storm because Jane grabs the wheel, forcing her to turn.

Do you know how rare it is for any character to have even a shred of common sense? So few that the concept should be renamed rare sense.

I know I don’t have to scream at the screen for the character not to do the stupid thing because if Darcy Lewis is there, she has enough sense to tell people not to do the stupid thing.

How many other MCU characters can you say that about? If your answer is anyone other than Phil Coulson, you’re the one self inserting fan fiction.

2) Darcy Lewis is the only female character who UN-appologetically defends herself.

Thor, a man who is much larger and physically stronger, who could easily overpower two young women and a senior citizen, who seems drunk/on drugs, starts to act belligerent and hostile.

So she tasers him.

The scared woman trope has been used for eons: lone woman hears someone breaking in so she grabs a baseball bat/knife/feather duster to defend herself. The audience is scared for her safety because she’s a poor, helpless maiden and he’s a big, bad predator.

But we’re not scared for Darcy. Why? Because Darcy Lewis doesn’t second guess her instincts. She has the confidence to keep herself and her friends safe!

Later, at the hospital when Jane tries to deflect her own blame by pointing out that Darcy tasered him, what does she say?

Darcy Lewis is PROUD of her actions, she owns her decision to keep her friends safe from Schrodinger’s Rapist.

Our sexist society says that women should be nice, even to their own detriment but Darcy Lewis is an example of putting yourself and your own safety before men’s ego & comfort.

I hope that more women in the real world decide to take a page out of Darcy Lewis’ playbook.

3) Darcy Lewis speaks her mind.

You know you were thinking it. For once the everyman trope is played by a woman and she does a fabulous job of being the audience surrogate but let’s put that asside.

Darcy Lewis is honest and doesn’t care about society’s expectation that women should stroke an ego as if her life depended on it.

4) Darcy Lewis IS the backup plan.

Even though she’s a poli-sci major, Darcy decides to go for an internship in the “hard” sciences with Jane. Armed with nothing more than her common sense, bravery and honesty, Darcy decides to follow Jane to London.

At one point in Dark World, both Jane and Erik fall off the map and SHEILD doesn’t returning her calls. Darcy makes the most logical call in the history of the MCU!

Sidebar here: how many times did you ask why the Avengers never showed up in Iron Man 3? I bet it was more than zero.

Darcy is left to deal with the Convergence, an actual-sci problem, by her poli-sci self.

She doesn’t fall apart, she doesn’t let her male intern take over the decision making, she just goes about saving the world the best way she knows how.

Darcy finds Erik and hatches a plan to get him out of the hospital and when the battle starts she doesn’t run away to hide, she does her part.

5) Darcy Lewis is funny.

Men are funny and women laugh at their jokes. That is the pre-ordainded hierarchy of the world.

Only Darcy Lewis is having none of your chicanery. She is witty, sarcastic, dry, charming and knows she’s awesome. She doesn’t need your approval or support because at the end of the day she knows how to take care of business.

And she still gets her man.

A sixth thing: She is Jewish.

(Since Kat Dennings is, and visibly so)

Darcy Lewis is the most realistic person in the MCU. She fell into something larger than her, made connections and kept them despite it not being her thing. She found something she’s good at and people who need her and stayed to help. She went through hell and reacted as civilians were likely to, she panicked and helped however she could. If you don’t like her don’t like her, but don’t say she’s useless. She’s (and Jane) are two of the most realistic women in the MCU, which is likely why so many people have so many issues with them.

This. All of this.

All of this is true and glorious and is also the reason WHY she’s a popular character for people to write self-insert type fiction around. She’s easy to identify with, she’s hilarious and strong in a way that people want to be more like her, but she is still that “everyman” character. (In THEORY, people should be able to write her without being accused of making a Mary Sue, since she’s not a superpowered, central, or in any way perfect character, but the thing is you’re going to cop shit for daring to write any woman ever like you think she’s interesting, so just fuck the haters and do it anyway.) She’s easy to like, which is why when people hate her it says an awful lot more about them than it does about her as a character.