SOCIAL STANDING
• UPPER CLASS This is divided into three sections: royal class, which at the time was royal family and spiritual leaders. The middle upper class was for officers, baronets, and lower level lords. The lower upper class included your general rich asshole: wealthy families and large scale businesspeople that built their fortunes.
• MIDDLE CLASS Middle class is in two subsections, higher and lower. The only differentiation here was between salaries and social standings. Higher middle class was more likely to be able to secure any kind of upward mobility. Lower middle class people usually worked under higher middle class. A mid-level merchant as opposed to the person working for them.
• WORKING CLASS Working class were the hard laborers and tradespeople - the skilled class and the unskilled class. Think an undertaker as opposed to a gravedigger.
• UNDER CLASS The lowest of the low in society's eyes, we have the poor: people who were destitute and relied on the charity of others, orphans; and prostitutes, who were under much debate at the time as far as decency went. Also, they were being murdered by Jack the Ripper, so you know, ymmv.
GENRES
• ROMANCE Did you know that Anne Brontë wrote what is considered the first sustained feminist novel in a Western society? Well, now you do. In this, take your main characters, watch them suffer for 300 pages, and eventually they'll realize they're meant for each other. It's all a bit gothic though, isn't it? Dreary, brooding. Sometimes awful things happen. But we've got love (sometimes) and marriage (more often) in the end.
• HORROR Did you know that a vampire is haunting this small town? Werewolves the next town over? Ghosts in every manor? Did you hear about that scientist that went mad? What kind of place is this? Maybe that masqued ball isn't a good idea.
• SCIENCE FICTION You've got a time machine, or you live in a steampunk dystopia set in Victorian times. Perhaps you have a flying machine that's quite advanced or you've traveled to the bottom of the sea or the center of the earth.
• MYSTERY Do you want to be the greatest detective that ever lived? Or perhaps their sidekick. You're not as bumbling as people 200 years from now may try to say you are. Solve thefts, catch Jack the Ripper (good riddance), do whatever! Just put your brains to the test.
• SLICE OF LIFE The simple things. Perhaps you're a lord throwing an expensive party. Perhaps you're showing off your charity by inviting the lower classes. Perhaps you're a merchant on a trade ship to another place. It's your daily life and you're living it. Just be yourself.
• FANTASY Perhaps you want something lighter. You want to travel down the rabbit hole or through the looking glass or be a princess or live in a fairy tale meeting mystical creatures.
As always, these are just suggestions and you can pick your scenario from your genre. Also, not all examples are Victorian era but we do what we want in these parts because the meme cops aren't going to get us (even though we're not them). Make up anything you want, as long as you're having fun! Make sure to post a short backstory in your top level comment so people know how to work with your AU! |
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bakerstreet2018-11-19 06:33 pm
Esther Moreau | OC | OTA
Horror, mystery and romance are favourites, but to be honest I'm open to most forms of tomfoolery and shenanigans. ]
Mystery INDEED!
Half blinded by linens, she nevertheless makes her way inside and through the busy kitchen by memory. By the time she's found the small watercloset in the adjoining hallway, she's scrubbed her face nearly clean of soot and grime. A dip in the tepid pitcher kept there removes the rest of the obvious mess.
A housemaid's plain gray dress hangs from a peg on the wall, as expected. Neph quickly shucks out of her urchin garb and does her best to approximate the appearance of respectable staff without the aid of another pair of hands. The laces aren't done up quite right when she's finished, but the apron hides the worst of it, and the demure little cap conceals the shorn mass of her hair. She muffles a wet cough in the dirty towel, chucks it aside with the rest of her costume, clears her throat, and steps out of the watercloset to find the cook already waiting with a laden tea tray in hand. Neph taps a two-fingered salute against this new cap before whisking the tray away and up the servants' stairs.
Her neat little black boots make little noise in the heavily carpeted upper halls, and the damask paneled walls swallow up what little sound she does make. As she reaches the parlor doors, she shifts the tray to one hand, gives a perfunctory sort of knock, and hipchecks her way into the room.
"You had the right'o it, Ess," she sweeps forward and deposits the tray on the low teatable with a satisfied flourish. "Your late, unlamented pa's old partners are up'ta some sidebusiness, make no mistake."
forgive me father for I have no idea what I'm doing
Last night was a difficult one, and getting out of bed this morning was bad enough; the last thing she particularly wants to do now is move from this spot and put any effort into her appearance. With her hair tumbled loose and her dress the most comfortable one she owns - also by default the plainest - venturing outdoors is not something she plans to do in the near future.
Something that Neph's clearly had to do, judging by the haphazard tie of her apron and the more stubborn patches of grime on her hands, likely under her nails too. All part of the package with her, and certainly not something the ladies Esther should be associating with day in and day out would approve of. Which is precisely why she all but insisted on Neph staying here in the first place after her father's death. Without the company of someone who wasn't in the habit of tiptoeing around her, or whose only interest in conversation was marriage and idle gossip, Esther was fairly certain she'd drive herself half mad within a year.
"To the surprise of no one, I'm sure." Finishing the final line on the page, she saves her page with her bookmark and sits up, pushing the book onto the side table closest to her. Looking at Neph properly now, Esther arches a playful brow. "Did you possibly find this out whilst cleaning a chimney..? Even your ears are filthy this time."
we are joined together in holy anachrony
She drops three cubes of sugar and half the cream to her cup, but makes no move to fix Esther's tea (even though she knows exactly how she takes it, after a decade). If any of those society mavens Esther's so keen to avoid were to walk in just now, they'd faint dead away at the sight. Neph warms her hands on the thin china, no doubt leaving soot smudges on the gold leaf.
"You're not far wrong," she admits as she blows across the steaming surface of her tea. "I hired on wi' a coal barge and poked 'round the dock offices. There's more ships there'n're on the manifests they send you."
As Neph understands it, Esther's supported by certain dividends from her father's controlling shares in all kinds of businesses across the city. As Neph understands it, those shares are technically being held for Esther's hypothetical future husband to step in and manage. As Neph understands it, that's horseshit. But Neph is, maybe, a little biased when it comes to the gentler sex's ability to handle their own affairs, being one and all.
She sips warily at her tea and studies Esther sidelong, taking in the wild hair, the dark undereye circles, and the obvious lack of a corset. "You're lookin' a bit peaky yourself," she says. "Did you get much sleep? Or, ah, any sleep?"
no subject
Again, the answer is just as she guessed; it's really rather astounding how often men assume that underestimating women is a good idea, or that they're too engrossed in staring wistfully out of windows or taking the air to notice what's going on in their own private accounts and affairs.
Then again, it is that frequent underestimation that has allowed the two of them to get away with as much as they have already, respectively. It has it's ups and downs.
"Then I suppose I can forgive the state of you this time." Said, of course, with an air of jest rarely heard by anyone else, and accompanied with half a smirk. One which fizzles out as Neph makes her own observations.
"That depends; is it a day of the week ending in the letter Y?" Glancing over herself, Esther shrugs off the look she's either getting, or no doubt will be getting momentarily. "I'm fine. Besides, I used the time wisely; I finally finished the second part of the sonata, more or less."
It's definitely an attempt to change the subject, though not as lazy as it might seem. This piece has been difficult to write and any progress is something she enjoys bringing up. Veering their conversation away from more serious matters, for now, would simply be an additional bonus.
no subject
The shipping offices had been full of incriminating notes, double ledgers, even correspondence, all easily divulged to an appropriately skilled lockpick. Neph's all but bubbling over with ideas, plans, schemes for striking back at the rats nibbling away at Esther's income, and yet...the manor's well kept, there's no shortage of food or coal, and Esther has the freedom still to devote herself to music. Neph supposes there's no harm in letting those rats steal away a few more pounds. For now.
"So what're you waitin' for?" she sets her tea aside and flings her arms wide. "Serenade me!"
/Places this on your mantelpiece & hopes you'll just assume it's been there without you noticing
Making a sound very similar to one she's heard Neph make on more than one occasion - a dramatic groan, saying quite plainly without words 'But, dear girl, that takes effort', Esther lets her head loll theatrically against the back of the sofa.
"That involves me actually getting up, going upstairs and then coming all the way back - not to mention relinquishing my seat here so you can spread out - the true motive, I'm sure."
And yet, she does want someone to hear it; whether that someone is Neph or an audience of hundreds, she's never been picky, although at least with Neph there's room for muck ups and far less pressure overall.
After a long, needlessly heavy sigh, Esther finally smiled and rolled her eyes, and made her way out of the room.
While there was technically a room on the ground floor specifically for entertaining guests, with music or otherwise, Esther's world had become much smaller within the house itself in the past few years. Any rooms she didn't use were kept locked and went ignored, in favour of her bedroom, the library, and the sitting room where she'd left Neph. Doors were practically unseen to her room and then from again, reappearing again a couple of minutes later.
And despite the fact she seemed to hold the violin around it's neck, like a little girl might instinctively hold the wrist of a favourite doll, this particular toy was handled with far more care.
"Now, it does go on a little longer than the last one, but if I don't send you to sleep or running for the window, I'll consider it a small victory."
Mary Crawley | Downton Abbey
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