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100 days of enemy recs: 27. Pride & Prejudice
I am really not the right person to be doing recs for Pride & Prejudice - I have read very little fic for it (not even An Ever-Fixed Mark. Yes I know I should read that one!) It's one of those canons which for me, the canon is so good that I don't need fic, and if I do look for fic, I have absurdly high standards for it to live up to the canon voice and themes. Plus it's public domain, so if I suddenly start craving it, I can just go to Project Gutenberg instead of AO3 (and if I finish it and need more I can just re-read Persuasion too.)
But it had to be on this list because it was in some way the genesis of this list, because way back at the con-txt panel that inspired this, somebody mentioned Elizabeth and Darcy as an enemies pairing and it went through me like electricity because it had not occurred to me in the past that they counted? I've mentioned this in comment threads a few times but I guess it's time to talk about it here. Elizabeth and Darcy aren't doomed to opposite sides of a generational feud! They aren't on opposite sides of the law or the courtroom! They haven't spent millennia opposing each other on a cosmic scale! They aren't opposing generals who fought one of the most pivotal battles in history. At no point do they wrestle for dominance at the gates of a palace, or contend for a throne, or for the heart of another. There morals and ethics are generally in alignment. They haven't sworn vengeance on each other's best friends. There are no great rivalries or betrayals or heartbreaks or villainous plots (only one or two little ones, and that was before they'd made each other any promises) and they never even try to kill each other! They never even promise to kill each other!
But, you know, there is that line about "you were the last man in the world I could ever be prevailed upon to marry". And they do spend a great deal of time cordially disliking each other and/or each other's circumstances before they realize how mistaken they had been. So I suppose they must belong here. So I pulled one rec for you out of the ancient del.icio.us bookmarks. It is heartfelt.
But it had to be on this list because it was in some way the genesis of this list, because way back at the con-txt panel that inspired this, somebody mentioned Elizabeth and Darcy as an enemies pairing and it went through me like electricity because it had not occurred to me in the past that they counted? I've mentioned this in comment threads a few times but I guess it's time to talk about it here. Elizabeth and Darcy aren't doomed to opposite sides of a generational feud! They aren't on opposite sides of the law or the courtroom! They haven't spent millennia opposing each other on a cosmic scale! They aren't opposing generals who fought one of the most pivotal battles in history. At no point do they wrestle for dominance at the gates of a palace, or contend for a throne, or for the heart of another. There morals and ethics are generally in alignment. They haven't sworn vengeance on each other's best friends. There are no great rivalries or betrayals or heartbreaks or villainous plots (only one or two little ones, and that was before they'd made each other any promises) and they never even try to kill each other! They never even promise to kill each other!
But, you know, there is that line about "you were the last man in the world I could ever be prevailed upon to marry". And they do spend a great deal of time cordially disliking each other and/or each other's circumstances before they realize how mistaken they had been. So I suppose they must belong here. So I pulled one rec for you out of the ancient del.icio.us bookmarks. It is heartfelt.
- The Last Man in the World (1950 words) by Nineveh_uk
Fandom: Pride and Prejudice - Austen
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Elizabeth Bennet/Fitzwilliam Darcy
Additional Tags: Roadtrip, Post-Apocalyptic, AU, Het
"I told you once, Mr Darcy, that you were the last man on earth whom I might ever be prevailed upon to marry. Now it seems that you do indeed hold that unenviable position."
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(By happenstance, when I saw this, I had sat down at my computer to beta a P&P AU for another fandom, in which the most popular -- and canonical -- m/m pairing gets to be Elizabeth and Darcy while second most popular m/m pairing -- enemy ship but also dang near canonical -- gets to be Darcy and Wickham. So I was quite primed for this post.:D)
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(Also I kind of OTP him and Lydia, ngl. In my headcanon she throws all propriety aside and becomes a famous actress under her married name and Wickham just kind of sidles in and out of her life between the money, glamour, and lovers, occasionally begging for money and/or sex when he's hard up, and she laughs and gives it to him in exchange for the veneer of respectability of being married, and they're weirdly suited to each other.)
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I love this idea and also the sheer horror that Darcy would have over it.
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I can't decide if I'd rather Lydia the famous actress kept her respectable connections dead secret because she does actually care about her family enough not to, or she flaunted them just for the joke.