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what's your most used and abused emoji?

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My problem with heterosexual romance novels (which I am reading under duress due to my coworker book club but find somewhat entertaining cuz they're not something I normally wld read) is that whenever the love interest is an asshole the author also makes him all dommy dom. when what I really want is for him to be thoroughly put in his place. All of these shithead Christian grey knockoff guys in these books would be excellent brat material but nobody cares what I want. Nobody cares what I want

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Volume 3, chapter 24 is up!

Town and Country

Fandom: Pride and Prejudice Words: 133.6k Status: WIP Pairings: Elizabeth Bennet/Fitzwilliam Darcy; Jane Bennet/Charles Bingley (background) Rating: General Audiences Setting: Regency

Summary: Elizabeth Bennet is South Asian.

Sample:

When an Englishman desires activity, inactivity, change, stasis, simplicity, intricacy, strangeness, familiarity, or the pleasure of managing, of not managing, or of having his own way, he will look—very naturally—to India. However little calculated that land, in itself, may be to fulfill these little caprices, its ideal is so fixed in his mind, that he is sure to find something within the stores of its ancient civilisation to answer to his notions.

Such was the case with Mr. Edward Bennet. The second son of a minor country squire, he was faced, at his majority, with the necessity of fixing upon some course, which would enable him to make his own way in the world. From a scholarly bent, which gave him a good deal of inborn curiosity; and because the idleness of habits, which he had heard to be common in the East, attracted him more than the manly rigour required for the practice of the legal or ecclesiastical professions in England; from these reasons, and perhaps still others, he left a country happily enlightened by sound philosophy, and the only true revelation, for one burdened with superstition and gross idolatry: he joined, in short, in the service of the East India Company at Bombay, soon after it was ceded to the English. Once his innate indolence had overcome the exigencies of the journey thither, it was not often further disturbed by any requirements of his post. His work as a writer for the Company kept him largely within its settlements in the western part of the state of Hindoostan; on the rare occasions when he left Bombay, it was only for Chaul or Bassein.

Mr. Edward Bennet had always intended to marry upon returning to his native England, when his contributions of learning to the Company would have earned him an independence. He was yet in India, however, when he was nearing forty; he grew increasingly susceptible to beauty, and ripe for picking; he was caught at last by a girl with gentle manners, a generous dowry, and remarkable beauty (so far as we can reconcile beauty with the olive complexion). She was the daughter of a Mahomedan merchant and moneylender, who had much to do with the India Company, and was very pleased to furnish one of its votaries with this his most precious good.

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uses of the phrase "you must" in Town and Country:

Mrs. Namrata Bennet: 1

Miss Margaret Harding: 1

Miss Elizabeth Bennet: 8

literally everybody else: 0

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Whenever I make fun of deer skull old god blood pomegranate cannibal flesh teeth, it's vitally important that you know that I'm saying you can't write whatever you want. You have to write what I want and the only thing I want is gnome-centric sims 4 erotica

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uses of the phrase "you must" in Town and Country:

Mrs. Namrata Bennet: 1

Miss Margaret Harding: 1

Miss Elizabeth Bennet: 8

literally everybody else: 0

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thinking fondly of this meme I made for a coworker years and years ago

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John Nash, The Chinese Gallery, from Views of the Royal Pavilion, Brighton, 1826, aquatint.

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"Prince Albert lays the foundation stone of the Strangers’ Home, 31 May 1856." The Illustrated London News, 14 June 1856.

At 4 o'clock on 31 May 1856, Prince Albert arrived in West India dock London to lay the foundation stone for The Strangers' Home for Asiatics, Africans and South Sea Islanders. The monarch was welcomed by waving crowds and surrounded by guests of different ethnicities in a room strewn with flags from the empire. A banner reading 'Be not forgetful to entertain strangers', was on display, a biblical reference from which the institution had taken its name. (London Evening Standard, 2 June 1856)

The London Evening Standard was among myriad papers that reported the event. It told readers that there had been much need for such an organisation, which was similar to other sailors home in the area, but catered to Asiatics or Africans 'whose ignorance of the language, manners and customs of the people render them an easy pray to those unprincipled persons who abound in the East end of London'.

The Stranger's Home was a product of intersecting but varied interests. The initiative to establish the institution was spearheaded by the secretary to the Church Mission Society, Henry Venn, and it received essential financial backing from Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, who donated £200 and £100, respectively. The greatest donation, however, was provided by the last maharaja of the Sikh Empire, Duleep Singh, a recent convert to Christianity (Salter, pp 9-12).

The Home opened in June 1857, just a year after the laying of the foundation stone. It had dormitories to accommodate 220 people, a depository where the men could store their valuables, a dining hall, bathrooms, laundry rooms and a library stocked with Christian literature in a range of languages (Garcia, pp 84-5). In addition to providing accommodation and the opportunity for religious instructions, the institution contained its own Lascar Shipping Office. Here, records of unemployed sailors, and lascars? work contracts with shipping companies were organised and negotiated. After 1858, the India Office also paid the Home an annual subsidy of £200 for the upkeep of residents, with the understanding these men would be repatriated (Ibid).

— Lucy Wray, "Laying of the Foundation Stone." Mariners: Race, Religion and Empire in British Ports 1801-1914.

"'The Strangers' Home', West India Dock Road, Limehouse." The Illustrated London News, 28 February 1857.

"Distributing Soup at the Stranger's Home, Limehouse." The Illustrated London News, 7 March 1868.

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I do want T&C to be a little frustrating, in the way that Emma's missed friendship with Jane Fairfax is frustrating; or uneasy, in the way that Harriet's exclusion from Hartfield is uneasy.

The ending of P&P is just so perfect. Elizabeth doesn't have to deal with Aunt Phillips's vulgarity; whether or not her mother ever visits at Pemberley, it isn't mentioned in the epilogue; the world shrinks down to just those people who are not vulgar, embarrassing, 'immoral,' grasping, &c.: Elizabeth and Darcy are "removed from society so little pleasing to either, to all the comfort and elegance of their family party at Pemberley."

A scholar, I can't recall who, described the appeal of P&P as the promise that the personally desirable and the socially responsible are the same thing. Darcy is personally, erotically desirable; but Pemberley is also a well-maintained estate with happy servants and tenants that does a lot of good for "the poor."

Emma, on the other hand, stays in her old world of "everyday remarks, dull repetitions, old news, and heavy jokes"; she thinks of Mr. Knightley as 'a comfort to her in the sorrows to come', or something like that. Harriet silently disappears, and scholars disagree on whether this is classism, or a biting sarcasm on classism.

My goal is for you to be able to read T&C as a straightforward romance, but also able to tug on some things and reveal some faint spots of discomfort. Like when Elizabeth, Jane, and Mrs. Gandjee are going shopping for Jane and it's very lighthearted, but this wording like "freight" "survey" "commerce" "east" &c. keep being used, and you can either pay attention to that or not.

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Hello! I'm writing a comment that is critical of your work only because I saw your response to the negative bot comment in prev chapters with you asking for honest opinion. I normally never criticize free works otherwise, but I thought you are such a talented writer, that my honest feedback might help you improve if you choose so and since you asked for such a thing already in the comments. Please trust me in that I'm not a bot, but a reader that have followed and recommended your work to others from the very start of this fic, and also I am of mixed central asia decent, though not Indian. I loved your fic from the start esp the conflict between Lizzy yearning for her roots and her family's compliency with English beliefs and white supremacy. I thought this would be a major conflict in this work, that Elizabeth will be confronted with a choice of renouncing her heritage for fitting in English society, but I don't believe she ever had that conflict. People were racist and nasty to her for sure, but it was very brief and incidental like Ms. Bingley who we are led to understand just hates her on principle of fighting for Darcy like in the orignal where shes a white woman, and Margaret and Darcy never really struggle with this, with having a dear friend or loved one who is othered by the society. They are always just too perfect and influential and able to set the tone to be bothered by racism. I thought there will be societal consequences, situations were Darcy\Margo will have to confront the large society and not just nasty Ms. Bingley, esp Darcy having to confront his aunt, which is a part of the original that was dropped from this fic, but I think would bring so much for the conversation. The setup with Lizzy's bright trims and wardrobe seemed perfect for this to me, her showing up in high society with Darcy and him having to actually content with public opinion on that. It just feels too easy and convenient to me that Darcy just so happened to donate to Lizzy's specific charity and was never really confronted with any negative implications of making a match with dark-skinned Indinan. Forgive me, I'm not even dark skinned, but i face tons more complications and orientalism living in Europe as an asian even in modern times. I honestly think Lydia's situation was brushed off as just a check for the canon plot instead of saying anything interesting, which I was looking very forward to with the precarious position of Lizzy as "half caste". And I absolutely loved Lizzy's aunt comment on her perspective as privileged Englishwoman judging many diverse people of India as one nation, I thought there would be more exploration of that, bc right now it feels kind of brief and easily missed. Again. I don't want to be too negative as i loved the premise of your work, please disregard if you choose so, but it seemed to me there were many very interesting points of conflicts that you unfortunately chose not to explore in depth. I could not post this comment on Ao3 as anon, for some reason it claimed it's a spam, so I hope you don't mind me sending it here. Best wishes <3

Thanks so much for your input! This is exactly the kind of thing that I want to dig into as I finish the first draft and start to reread and revise. I'm going to take this point by point as a way of helping myself to think this through & figure out ways of tackling some of the weaknesses of the draft.

Volume 1 was meant to be pretty small and local, and about manners in Elizabeth's immediate society. Volume 2 was where I wanted to get bigger and open us up to London, trade, waterways, a few glimpses of what racial capitalism is starting to look like in the city, &c. And then Volume 3 ought to be sort of the synthesis of, well... town and country. How does Elizabeth resolve the separate issues of privilege, race, gender, personal ambition and emotion, and her responsibility to the world around her?

And the answer here is always going to be "by doing her best, but there should be something unresolved and uneasy about it" (because no one person is going to go out and save the world on their own; and sadly Elizabeth is simply not going to become a revolutionary). Darcy and Elizabeth are genteel, and they're not going to give that up. Their lifestyle relies on either colonialism or the exploitation of the tenantry. I want to make these connections, and yet, also, this is a romance, so I don't want to make them seem completely hateable. Like with an Austen novel, I want the reader to have a choice how much they 'enter into' the society they're reading about, versus how much they criticise it. This is a big thing with Austen: scholars debating how excoriating versus how loving & gentle her satire of genteel life is. How do you criticise the world, knowing that at the end of the day you have to live in it?

esp the conflict between Lizzy yearning for her roots and her family's compliency with English beliefs and white supremacy. I thought this would be a major conflict in this work, that Elizabeth will be confronted with a choice of renouncing her heritage for fitting in English society, but I don't believe she ever had that conflict.

Because you're talking about Elizabeth making a choice, I take it you're thinking of an internal conflict within Elizabeth herself? You're right that I don't get into that... Elizabeth is an adult by the time the novel begins, and we know that she's a headstrong person very capable of being unconcerned by the opinions of those she doesn't care about—I think I had the idea that she had already made up her mind on that score. I don't think her mother, or the Netherfield party, are going to change her mind.

So maybe the best time to have this happen is in Volume 2, in London. She could feel that her habits were diminishing her marriage prospects, and thus her ability to start the charity she wants to start. Mr. Winmore is our resident Orientalist, so I don't think he's going to give us this. Maybe the best choice is Mr. Blanchard. I already have him complimenting Elizabeth specifically when Miss Harding dresses her; maybe I could have something like this happen earlier, and that could be when his interest in her actually begins.

Margaret and Darcy never really struggle with this, with having a dear friend or loved one who is othered by the society. They are always just too perfect and influential and able to set the tone to be bothered by racism

Hmm. I think the proper place for Margaret to face some kind of social consequence for her association with Elizabeth would again probably be in volume 2, in London. Perhaps that would give some depth to why she's been trying to change how Elizabeth dresses, &c.? I already have the thread of Margaret being someone who surrounds herself with social inferiors—like, Miss Bingley doesn't like that she's friends with Elizabeth, but she's not exactly a leader in society, so she's not going to say anything about it. So that creates the problem of who, exactly, is going to give her a hard time! I will have to think about it.

As far as Darcy being able to set the tone—I think that's natural in Volume 3, since this is a party of 15 or so of his closest friends whom he's hosting at his house. We already know from canon that he tends to like people whose tempers are more ductile than his ("Bingley was endeared to Darcy by the easiness, openness, and ductility of his temper"; and this is where I was going with Lord Blanchard as well).

So the time for Darcy to face social or familial consequences for his marriage to Elizabeth would probably be after his marriage to Elizabeth, which hasn't happened yet. I mean, in canon, Darcy makes a big deal about how her birth & the conduct of her family are going to cause big problems for him, and Lady C tells them that her birth & the conduct of her famliy are going to cause big problems for them, but we never see any hint of that. It's the kind of thing that I think would fit most naturally into a sequel (though I have toyed with making this a novel in 4 volumes rather than 3, and having the 4th occur after their marriage...)

esp Darcy having to confront his aunt, which is a part of the original that was dropped from this fic

Remember that the story is not over yet! The reason that the Lady Catherine Confrontation happened before D & E's engagement in canon is that Lady C heard a rumour about D & E before D had received any encouragement to propose again. We don't know exactly how the rumour got to Lady C, but since D & E were both in Meryton at the time, it's safe to assume that it was someone around there. In T&C, D & E are at Pemberley when they get engaged—thus the rumour doesn't reach Lady C, and so she won't know about the engagement until Darcy writes to tell her (after he's received her father's consent & knows that the engagement is official).

It just feels too easy and convenient to me that Darcy just so happened to donate to Lizzy's specific charity

Do you mean you think it's too heavily coincidental? Unlikely coincidences weren't really thought of as a problem in this era of fiction (think of how Mr. Collins just happens to be both Elizabeth's cousin and Darcy's aunt's rector—of all the rectors in all of England?). But I also don't think it's that unlikely. Both of these things have the same ultimate cause—the charity goes back to Elizabeth, and Darcy's interest in initiatives in London that seek to aid "East Indians" also goes back to Elizabeth. We also know that he rearranged his investments in general at this time—so this probably isn't the only new charity he's subscribed to. We know from Mrs. Reynolds that he's very charitable in canon.

and was never really confronted with any negative implications of making a match with dark-skinned Indinan.

Again, I'm just not sure how this could have come up by this point in the story! He hasn't made this match yet, and only like eight people even know they're engaged.

i face tons more complications and orientalism living in Europe as an asian even in modern times. I honestly think Lydia's situation was brushed off as just a check for the canon plot instead of saying anything interesting, which I was looking very forward to with the precarious position of Lizzy as "half caste"

I think there's an assumption with "even in modern times" that racism starts off bad, and then gradually gets better over time. But the Regency period is actually before a lot of the racist ideas that we experience today had been invented yet. The 1810s was when the first wave of Orientalist interest in the "East Indies" was really hitting its stride, and before the Sepoy Rebellion had worsened attitudes towards Indians. East India Company employees had been readily adopting Indian dress and manners for decades (though by this time I think there was the beginning of a shift away from that).

I would be really interested in any historical accounts you know of that might point to the position of a "half-caste" in early 19th-century England as being precarious. The only examples of specific Anglo-Indians in England at this time that I found were Kitty Kirkpatrick and Dean Mahomed's children, and I don't know of any record of them having any trouble marrying white English people and moving in English society. (It was Dean Mahomed's grandchildren, after the Sepoy rebellion, who were apparently feeling the effects of prejudice, since they changed their last name from 'Mahomed').

You're right that I didn't do anything with Lydia's elopement. When Lady C heard of it, she said she knew that "the young man’s marrying her was a patched-up business"—which, because of Lydia's money, isn't the case in T&C. An elopement isn't as big of a problem in Regency England as it would be later, in Victorian times. Still I should probably either do something with it, or just get rid of it.

I absolutely loved Lizzy's aunt comment on her perspective as privileged Englishwoman judging many diverse people of India as one nation, I thought there would be more exploration of that, bc right now it feels kind of brief and easily missed.

I would need to think some more about what this would look like. It might be something that Elizabeth can learn more about as she actually interacts with people from India as she does her charity things.

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Mid-18th century French tortoiseshell étui with golden scissors, scent-bottle, snuff spoon, and medicine spoon, and silver thimble; mirror on the inside lid.

18th-century French wooden étui with vermeil thimble, scissors, awl, and needle-case.

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The reason I believe Fitzwilliam Darcy has a huge dick is, not my preference (certainly not), but because at that time a smaller penis was preferred. A large cock, however, was frowned upon as something that would signify a more animalistic, less cultured man. And I just think it's fun to imagine that Darcy, this Paragon of Duty and Goodness, who has dedicated himself to keep his nature under good regulation, has, at the end of the day, to deal with this massive appendage in his breeches that keeps reminding him of this other side of him.

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Brilliants for rings, set in clusters, are worn on the fore-finger, and rings composed of small enamelled hearts-ease, and the simple little blue flower called Forget me not, are elegant articles in fancy jewellery, and appropriate presents for friendship or love; they are at present worn by many of our fashionable brides, as guards to the golden fetter they have just put on [i.e., on the outside of a wedding band].

— The Weekly Entertainer, and West of England Miscellany, vol. 52: August 8, 1812. p. 455

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was anybody going to tell me that the word "upcoming" didn't exist until nineteen thirty-seven or was I just supposed to figure that out myself after having used it in Town and Country like 8 times

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loveee reading multiple fics by the same author and seeing little nods and references among them like yes! this is a multiverse to me!!!! i giggle and squeal everytime i catch a reference!!!!!!!!

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I see a lot of people assert that Darcy mentions the uncouthness of Elizabeth's family during his first proposal. In fact, we explicitly know that he does not.

Here's the indirect description of this proposal:

[...] the avowal of all that he felt and had long felt for her immediately followed. He spoke well; but there were feelings besides those of the heart to be detailed, and he was not more eloquent on the subject of tenderness than of pride. His sense of her inferiority, of its being a degradation, of the family obstacles which judgment had always opposed to inclination, were dwelt on with a warmth which seemed due to the consequence he was wounding, but was very unlikely to recommend his suit. [...] He concluded with representing to her the strength of that attachment which in spite of all his endeavours he had found impossible to conquer; and with expressing his hope that it would now be rewarded by her acceptance of his hand.

When he mentions "her inferiority" and "its being a degradation," he's referring to rank: her lack of connections, mother's family in trade, &c. The "family obstacles" are his own: i.e., his family will disapprove of his choice.

It's only in his letter that he mentions her family's behaviour at all:

My objections to the marriage [of Bingley & Jane] were not merely those which I last night [i.e., during his first proposal] acknowledged to have required the utmost force of passion to put aside in my own case; the want of connection could not be so great an evil to my friend as to me. But there were other causes of repugnance; causes which, though still existing, and existing to an equal degree in both instances, I had myself endeavoured to forget, because they were not immediately before me. These causes must be stated, though briefly. The situation of your mother’s family, though objectionable, was nothing in comparison of that total want of propriety so frequently, so almost uniformly betrayed by herself, by your three younger sisters, and occasionally even by your father:—pardon me,—it pains me to offend you.

He refers to the behaviour of Elizabeth's family specifically as a "cause of repugnance" which he had not mentioned "last night."