Worked like a debutante’s coming out used to… (incidentally the debutante’s coming out is where we get the terminology) and so being gay or trans or what have you meant getting presented to the reigning monarch.
“Your majesty, may I present… a gay”
I would love this as a story conceit? Like, an upper class who have to engineer elaborate confections to present the younger generation of queers in the Appropriate Manner for Social Advancement.
“Have you heard about Lady Hemington’s youngest? They’ll be coming out as genderqueer!”
“Oh, poor dear Lady Hemington – so hard on the heels of the first two. She can hardly arrange a come-out until the first two have had their chance to shine…”
“And the cost of another nonbinary ball – !”
“The costume changes alone will be terribly hard to bear. But, of course, one mustn’t skimp. Not when that wretched Lucrezia Netherbottom threw such a come-out for her first.”
“Oh, I know, my dear, I know. I’m so terribly grateful that my wife was able to present our boys at Court herself – I’d simply die if the Netherbottoms had an advantage in wooing the Prince, just because Lucrezia’s quite willing to spend thousands on a French cosmetic surgeon.”
“And you’ve got that dear little daughter who’s looking quite Hard Butch, isn’t she?”
“Oh yes, we do hope it isn’t just a phase; ‘twould be such a nice change to throw a proper Lumberjane Ball…”
Consider this (based on a conversation I had with some friends a while ago): Pride and Prejudice and Zombies for people who actually like Pride and Prejudice.
Look–I tried to read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and I got about 20 pages in before I came to the conclusion that the person who wrote it did so out of the belief that the original Pride and Prejudice was stuffy and boring. There were out of character vulgar puns. And the trailer for the movie did not convince me that I had missed anything by cutting short my reading experience.
So, what I’m talking about here is this premise: the world of Pride and Prejudice, but if you die, it’s highly likely, almost certain that your corpse will get up and try to eat people.
But no one dies in Pride and Prejudice, you might say. In fact, few or no people die in any Jane Austen novel.
This is true. But people do get sick with some regularity. Imagine the tension added to Jane getting sick after going to visit Bingley if there was the chance that she would become a zombie after she died. Becoming a zombie in an eligible bachelor’s house probably would have seriously wrecked any chances of any of the living sisters ending up with him.
Imagine Mr. Collins, as a minister, having the duty upon someone’s death of severing their head with a ceremonial plate or something that would prevent the corpse from rising. Obviously important, but this only makes him more self-important and obnoxious.
And dangerous.
For you see, in this version, Mr. Bennett, who stays in his office all the time, whose life is the only thing allowing Mrs. Bennett and her daughters to stay in the house–Mr. Bennett is definitely a zombie. He died at home, and Mrs. Bennett decided that, no way were they dealing with this, and so…just started faking it. Jane and Elizabeth know. The younger sisters don’t.
In this universe, I think we have to go with zombies that are not any faster or stronger than the humans they were, and in fact tend to get weaker as time passes because their flesh is rotting. And…hmm, okay, how about they are pretty violent upon rising, and for about a week afterward, trying to bite people and spread the infection (even though most people are carriers anyway, but getting a nasty bite from a corpse will give you other stuff that will have you die while carrying the virus). But then they calm down and basically just start sort of attempting to act like they did in life, that is, taking habitual actions with no consciousness, in a depressing and desiccated way.
So Mr. Bennett is a zombie, and Mrs. Bennett’s number one goal is to get her daughters married before anyone finds that out. And this, actually, makes Elizabeth’s refusal of Mr. Collins more frustrating for Mrs. Bennett–obviously Mr. Bennett didn’t tell Elizabeth that she could refuse Mr. Collins, because Mr. Bennett is dead, but Mrs. Bennett can’t say anything or the game would be up.
Another question in this version–does Mr. Darcy find out about Mr. Bennett being a zombie somehow? Does Elizabeth find out that he knows and didn’t say anything and this is something that helps repair his earlier actions?
Anyway, this is the Pride and Prejudice and Zombies that I was looking for.
I just need everyone to know how much I really, really, REALLY hate Aristotle.
And there are three kinds of hatred for Aristotle, the first being visceral, so called because it rises from the intestines and through the middle of a person, yet never wanes nor increases but remains constant; and the second is called passive, and this occurs when a scholar or reader comes upon the works of Aristotle by chance, without seeking them out of their own volition, but rather confronted with them unexpectedly as a man set upon by bandits along a lonely road, but this sort of anger passes quickly; but indeed the third is active, and this occurs when a person seeks out Aristotle with the particular intention of becoming choleric; this sort of person seeks out the works of Aristotle wherever they may be found so that they might read them and thereby conjure up some bilious reason to cast invective and rebuke upon his theories and observations, and this anger is kept by its possessor at a boil.
An announcement regarding the tomb of Aristotle in Ancient Stageira in northern Greece was expected to be the highlight at an international conference held in Thessaloniki on Thursday.
International delegates attending the “Aristotle 2400 Years” World Congress on Thursday were expected to hear that archaeologists carrying out a 20-year excavation at the ancient Macedonian city believe the site’s most important finding to be the Greek philosopher’s tomb. Aristotle, who was born in the same city in 384 BC, died in Evia in 322 BC.
The conference is organized by the Interdisciplinary Center for Aristotle Studies of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. (source)
Kimchi and Justice 