I started noodling with a Pride & Prejudice AU in my head where Lizzy Bennet was actually the oldest sister, and a spinster in her mid thirties. Then I made her a bastard. Then the Sr Darcys decided they were alive, actually, and routinely and lovingly threaten to disown their son if he ever marries Miss Bingley, and they wouldn't go away. they also don't want their son to marry a spinster with scandals attached to her but Mrs Darcy is pretty certain her son will never marry literally anyone else so she's like, what the hell, why not, it's not like my own husband does shit to help our reputation anyway becAUSE HE KEEPS SNUBBING PEOPLE DON'T YOU WILLIAM (pointed look goes here). Then Lady Catherine de Bourgh's brother barged in with no fucks given for propriety. Did you know Lady Catherine had a brother? I mean, other than the implied one. Anyway yeah, he exists now and they're twins and he works really hard to keep her humble and when the two of them are in the same room they're more embarrassing to Mrs Darcy than Lydia is to Lizzy. Then he decided he wanted to marry Jane Bennet and then Miss Bingley decided to cause a scandal and Mary turned out to be much less insufferable under the careful attentions of a much older sister and ended up with Mr Collins and now the results have diverged soooooo far from canon now that I'm seriously considering filing off the serial numbers and writing a novel out of it and sticking it up on Ao3.
The only things still intact:
The Bingleys and Darcys being wealthy and close friends
The Gardiners, although their relationship with "Lizzy" is different
The disastrous proposal scene (it's actually even worse now)
The Wickham thing (also even worse)
The financial situation of the Bennets
"She's not pretty enough to tempt me"
So. Hm. Wonder if I should make a project out of this.
should I do the thing
Voting ended on12h
