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| Alverstoke's sense of humor! |
In my fan fiction, I get Alverstoke and Jessamy together.
I increased Jessamy's age (from 16 to 19) but kept his essential personality. I thought Jessamy's gravity made a nice "complement" to Alverstoke's somewhat quizzical above-it-all view of the universe.
I used my Regency fan-fiction world's "marriage mart lad" background to emphasize that Frederica has misread the situation with Jessamy as she did with Charis: due to their father's misuse of money, Jessamy has passed the point where he can be a marriage-mart-lad. To be presented so "late" would imply that he was looking for a lover, not a husband, and Jessamy is conservative enough to want a husband (a realistic character trait that many M/M writers utterly miss, assuming that "gay"="clubbing"). He is also deeply rational and realizes that he has more opportunities than Charis re: getting on with life, so he sets out to become a parson, a job with which he has a true interest.
Alverstoke has numerous encounters with Jessamy in the original book. He takes Jessamy driving and lets Jessamy handle his horses. At one point, Alverstoke is forced to deal with damages caused by Jessamy's huge dog, Lufra. After inadvertently destroying a Pedestrian Curricle, Jessamy goes to Alverstoke for help. He and Frederica both encourage Alverstoke to follow Felix when non-stop Felix ends up in a hot air balloon. Jessamy turns to Alverstoke for help with his studies. And he ends up moving with Alverstoke, Felix, and Frederica to Alverstoke's estate.
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| Jessamy |
As mentioned, I increased Jessamy's age. I additionally allow for a longer time span while Alverstoke and Jessamy sort out their feelings. I do have Frederica marry (not the lecturing Buxted!) and become Alverstoke-Jessamy's "doyenne"--that is, she will supply them with a heir since Endymion and Charis's offspring would not be the best choice to manage a huge estate, unless that offspring is completely unlike his parents.
In sum, I
frankly thought Jessamy and Alverstoke had more in common than Alverstoke and Frederica, especially since Alverstoke doesn't impose his version of Jessamy's life all over Jessamy's experiences. In fact, Alverstoke and Jessamy at one point in the original text discuss how
making mistakes as a youth makes one a better parson in the future. Alverstoke has no more interest in religion than Frederica but he does have the capacity to see the world in more than one way.
But then, as mentioned in numerous previous posts, I prefer Beauty and the Beast to Cinderella. Show me a couple operating together rather than a couple coming together after many, many hardships and misunderstandings.
