:)

If your Regency AU, if your fic taking place in the 1700-1800′s DOESN’T have some scandalized MORAL OUTRAGE and/or young persons SWOONING over the waltz, you’re doing it wrong.

-Look at those couples, dancing in each other’s arms! You better WATCH those hands! Seriously, did you see where he was putting his hands? Did you see how SHE was touching HIM?!

-Definitely corrupting the youth, especially women. The waltz will totally doom moral English society

-It’s practically SEX, except instead of saving that stuff for private they’re doing it under the bright chandelier of the Ballroom, where anyone can see!

-If you think couples weren’t sneaking off to darker corners of the room and/or dance floor, you are wrong.

-It also destroyed the ballroom hierarchy by having couples move in a circle. Previously, everything was line dances, and the top/head of the line started with the highest-ranking couple, and then moved on back. The waltz meant a dance where you couldn’t fight tooth and nail for a slightly more advantageous spot in the visual representation of the social hierarchy any more.