The Color of Love by Jane Greensmith (PG-ish)
I have come to the end of my recommendations this month. There are so many more stories I could recommend, but I have run out of time, alas. Before I present my last recommendation, I must encourage you to seek out other Austen fanfic. I have found that the Austen fandom has a great deal of quality stories in it. You just have to find them.
If you are looking for a good story, you should definitely check out the Jane Austen Fanfiction Index. Login information for the site can be found at every major Austen fic site on the web. (Look at the author sites from my recent and not-so-recent recs and you will be able to track down login info on most of them.) Once you log in, hit the "Fanfiction Therapy" button. You will be presented with a random list of excellent fics, all finished and almost universally well-written. You can also search under specific categories. Looking for a fic wherein Wickham gets his just deserts? There's a whole list of them! How about fics in which Mr. Bingley has more of spine? Or in which Elizabeth learns the truth about Wickham before Darcy's first proposal? There are hundreds of categories to cater to every taste. The site is a veritable treasure trove of links to wonderful stories.
Anyway, on to my last rec:
Fandom: PRIDE AND PREJUDICE
Pairing: Elizabeth Bennet/Fitzwilliam Darcy
Length: 5,300 words
Author on LJ: Unknown
Author Website: Jane Greensmith
Why this must be read:
In this excellent, excellent story, Fitzwilliam Darcy has a rare condition known as synesthesia. He sees letters and the written word in color. This affects how he thinks about people and everything around him. He inherited synesthesia from his father, and learned how to conceal it and yet use it from him.
This is a beautifully written story from Darcy's point of view. Colors are used to evoke emotion and understanding in the reader. We follow Darcy's journey in the colors he sees. I cannot explain better; I wish I could. Read it. You will not be disappointed. Highly, highly recommended.
* * *
More often than not, Fitzwilliam Darcy considered his condition more a curse than a blessing. He longed to be able to take the world as it came, without being prejudiced by shades and hues. He longed to be able to lose himself in a book and see the worlds of literature unencumbered by the pigment of their portals. He longed to be able to point to a printed page and say, "It's right there, in black and white." But he couldn't. For Darcy, logic was forever clouded by color.
His opinion of a work was formed as soon as he saw the words on the page, before he had the chance to read one word. Shakespeare was a soft cerulean. Voltaire was crimson. Milton violet. Wordsworth emerald. The Times was orange.
Besides his father, Darcy had never known anyone else who read in color. Not until he was eight years old did he realize that the rest of his fellow creatures didn't see beyond the color of the ink used to transcribe the words. In his innocence, he had thought ink was but a medium, a base from which the true colors of letters and words sprang.
His father counseled him to keep his condition a secret. No need to seem a freak amongst his peers. But his father also taught him to use his insight to advantage. He learned to trust those who wrote in blue, as he did. He learned to watch those whose words were flinty, metallic, or iridescent. He learned that his father was color-blind.
George Darcy mixed up his reds and greens, his son discovered, which was how he had missed the latent treachery of Wickham. It wasn't until after his father had died, when his own writing had dissolved into muddy brown while he battled depression and fear, that Darcy reread a long-forgotten letter in which his father wrote of his delight in seeing again 'young George's rosy hand.' Darcy had read the passage twice over, puzzled, until he remembered his parent's ongoing discussion over the carpet in the morning room. He remembered that for years his father would tease his mother regarding her choice of a red carpet in the room while his mother would line up her allies to repeatedly testify to its being a lovely shade of green. The children, Darcy and his sister, had assumed it was but playful banter and not truly a disconnection between their parents.
But Wickham, Darcy knew, had always written in a dull green-gray that seemed almost leaden. His father had seen his favorite's words in dusty red and never thought to look to see what lurked beneath their color. George Darcy's only daughter almost fell victim to a fortune hunter because her father came to rely exclusively on first impressions. Darcy learned from his father's mistake-he reminded himself always to read the words as well as see their color, to question his understanding of the colors he saw. He stayed on guard. Color was a tool, not a toy.
The Color of Love
If you are looking for a good story, you should definitely check out the Jane Austen Fanfiction Index. Login information for the site can be found at every major Austen fic site on the web. (Look at the author sites from my recent and not-so-recent recs and you will be able to track down login info on most of them.) Once you log in, hit the "Fanfiction Therapy" button. You will be presented with a random list of excellent fics, all finished and almost universally well-written. You can also search under specific categories. Looking for a fic wherein Wickham gets his just deserts? There's a whole list of them! How about fics in which Mr. Bingley has more of spine? Or in which Elizabeth learns the truth about Wickham before Darcy's first proposal? There are hundreds of categories to cater to every taste. The site is a veritable treasure trove of links to wonderful stories.
Anyway, on to my last rec:
Fandom: PRIDE AND PREJUDICE
Pairing: Elizabeth Bennet/Fitzwilliam Darcy
Length: 5,300 words
Author on LJ: Unknown
Author Website: Jane Greensmith
Why this must be read:
In this excellent, excellent story, Fitzwilliam Darcy has a rare condition known as synesthesia. He sees letters and the written word in color. This affects how he thinks about people and everything around him. He inherited synesthesia from his father, and learned how to conceal it and yet use it from him.
This is a beautifully written story from Darcy's point of view. Colors are used to evoke emotion and understanding in the reader. We follow Darcy's journey in the colors he sees. I cannot explain better; I wish I could. Read it. You will not be disappointed. Highly, highly recommended.
* * *
More often than not, Fitzwilliam Darcy considered his condition more a curse than a blessing. He longed to be able to take the world as it came, without being prejudiced by shades and hues. He longed to be able to lose himself in a book and see the worlds of literature unencumbered by the pigment of their portals. He longed to be able to point to a printed page and say, "It's right there, in black and white." But he couldn't. For Darcy, logic was forever clouded by color.
His opinion of a work was formed as soon as he saw the words on the page, before he had the chance to read one word. Shakespeare was a soft cerulean. Voltaire was crimson. Milton violet. Wordsworth emerald. The Times was orange.
Besides his father, Darcy had never known anyone else who read in color. Not until he was eight years old did he realize that the rest of his fellow creatures didn't see beyond the color of the ink used to transcribe the words. In his innocence, he had thought ink was but a medium, a base from which the true colors of letters and words sprang.
His father counseled him to keep his condition a secret. No need to seem a freak amongst his peers. But his father also taught him to use his insight to advantage. He learned to trust those who wrote in blue, as he did. He learned to watch those whose words were flinty, metallic, or iridescent. He learned that his father was color-blind.
George Darcy mixed up his reds and greens, his son discovered, which was how he had missed the latent treachery of Wickham. It wasn't until after his father had died, when his own writing had dissolved into muddy brown while he battled depression and fear, that Darcy reread a long-forgotten letter in which his father wrote of his delight in seeing again 'young George's rosy hand.' Darcy had read the passage twice over, puzzled, until he remembered his parent's ongoing discussion over the carpet in the morning room. He remembered that for years his father would tease his mother regarding her choice of a red carpet in the room while his mother would line up her allies to repeatedly testify to its being a lovely shade of green. The children, Darcy and his sister, had assumed it was but playful banter and not truly a disconnection between their parents.
But Wickham, Darcy knew, had always written in a dull green-gray that seemed almost leaden. His father had seen his favorite's words in dusty red and never thought to look to see what lurked beneath their color. George Darcy's only daughter almost fell victim to a fortune hunter because her father came to rely exclusively on first impressions. Darcy learned from his father's mistake-he reminded himself always to read the words as well as see their color, to question his understanding of the colors he saw. He stayed on guard. Color was a tool, not a toy.
The Color of Love