#emily lacey

[harlots-source]

HOLLI DEMPSEY as EMILY LACEY HARLOTS (2017- 2019)

*newspaper template by cavalierfou

[the-academic-actress]

Was listening to Sabrina Carpenter's 'Manchild' and I thought of the scene in Harlots where Lady Caroline Howard tells Charlotte Wells 'My husband is a man-child.'

Also I was reminded of these two.

Why so sexy if so dumb?

And how survive the Earth so long?

If I'm not there, it won't get done

I choose to blame your mom

Yep - Charles’ mother’s got a lot to answer for.

[selkiewife]

my time has come. the Harlots rewatch has commenced. gifs to follow. here and on @harlots-source

[zora-aurora]

Because there was not enough Emily Lacey on this damn site.

[thestagthatlovedthewolf]

I finished Harlots, and I want more!!! I haven't watched a show this fast in a long time, I was just very immersed - and I've now added a few books to my list!!! - the setting and the life of these people were so interesting, and I really liked the different classes!!!

I really LOVED a few characters here, Violet and Betsey were great and I liked them working outside of a house, but with the support of Nancy still, I really Amelia Scanwell, and I think they did an incredible job with her mother in s2!!! And then still character, but also shipping house, Will and Margaret got me immediately - I LOVE strong marriages/relationships at the center of a show, and I love blended families and the love Will has for Charlotte and Lucy was beautiful to see (also little Jacob is a star character in this show, I love him so much, he's such a good kid!!!!) - and then Nancy and Margaret, this love and trust and history with each other, how they are also partners, and this understanding of each other... and in this triangle you also have a really good Will and Nancy dynamic, this care and friendship that is beautiful to see!!!

Still with characters, I really like how season 2 and 3 brought you a different side of the justice, and you have these people who want to fulfil the law, but also learning that the law is not everything. Now I don't particularly like that s3 left so many characters behind, and having no idea where they went - you had lost Betsey before but you do learn what happens, not here - so it feels like a completely new show, which I wasn't ready for...

Continuing with season 3 thoughts, it was a bit of a let down after the first two... it wasn't the same, it still did interesting things... but the biggest thing is I feel that the ending wasn't satisfying (it's not a bad ending, but it does not leave you satisfied) - and this starts with Margaret Wells leaving!!! I don't mind the introduction of Jonas - I like him - but the leaving with nothing to come after, feels empty, I'm here waiting (and even more than at the end of s2 - that felt like a more satisfying goodbye)... and then it also feels the pairing up of Will and Nancy (with their own respectively women) feels like a bad choice, the pairings work and make sense, but I feel they implied too hard to make the audience forget Margaret was sent away in an unsatisfying matter!!!

I'll now come back to better things, season 1 and 2 were really good with more of a focused in the two factions, but also with always the side reality of the courtesan with the Wells sisters!!! The show also does a really good job mixing up the dynamics and pairings with the characters and keeping important relationships but bringing new ones as well - Will and Harriet was one I really liked, bc there's this understanding between them of being black but also raising biracial kids in that world, and then Nancy with all the girls!!!

Still on characters, Emily Lacey has such a good arc, she was never a favorite, but she was someone you wanted to see and follow, always planning and preparing!!! I also like, that just like with the justice becoming better, they also give us some culls that we don't mind seeing - my favorite is Fanny's favorite, and the line of coming to her because she reminds him of how his wife was hit well!!!

Really this is a good show, with good characters and setting, that got me crying for at least two episodes - I was especially a mess during 2x07!!! And I've now read all the Will and Margaret fic on ao3, but I'm following to check the Margaret and Nancy ones!!! Definitely recommending this show!!!

[perioddramapolls]

Period dramas dresses tournament: Orange dresses Round 1- Group C: Sophie de Clermont, Versailles (pics set) vs Emily Lacey, Harlots (gifset)

Best dress?

Sophie's dress (left)

Emily's dress (right)

Voting ended onMar 27, 2024

[princelydisaster]

I have the inexorable urge to rant about a character I’m obsessed with that much of the fandom hates

Anyway fuck it.

I understand that a lot of people dislike Charles Quigley (for good reason) but I keep getting burned by finding fanfics and posts tagged with the character that only feature him to make fun of him or something

Honestly if you are writing a fanfic in the Harlots ‘verse and don’t want to include him, there is no shame in writing him out. (Or any other character for that matter.)

Have a throwaway line where someone says he went to visit a friend for a month or something.

That could also introduce things like more tension because Lydia might be more stressed / worried about having her precious baby mid 30s boy out of the house. Maybe she’s more prone to lashing out. Maybe she’s distracted and her rivals like Margaret get more bold about taking action against her.

It introduces a lot of interesting things that could work for a number of fanfic plots.

…Okay that’s it for people who don’t want to include him in fanfics, I’m gonna discuss things I think could be explored in fanfic below.

Note that because this show has a lot of interconnected characters I also talk a lot about Lydia, Emily, and Nancy for some reason.

TW: discussions of abusive relationships, incest, sex trafficking, kidnapping, murder (stuff that’s in the show)

I’ve seen someone say before that Charles is one of the few straight male characters on the show who’s important because of his part in fleshing out female characters via relationships.

I can see that. I think the nature of the show means that he as a man - a passive one at that - wouldn’t get a lot of screen time.

The point about him being important relationship wise is really interesting. Tbh, the early-mid season 1 interactions between Emily and Lydia remind me of the trope of a dad running to chase away his daughter’s boyfriend with a shotgun.

There’s that gender flipped part where women aren’t usually given as much sexual agency in tv/film etc, but also I like that it’s not played off as a kinda quirky “overprotective” parent thing, but the show recognizes how toxic this dynamic is.

You can argue in the gun toting dad example it’s sometimes bc the daughter is underage, but still, there’s often that undercurrent of a parent being threatened by their child getting a romantic partner and “replacing” them.

This is a big part of the Lydia and Charles relationship imo. I would characterize it as a nuanced depiction of an emotionally abusive relationship with elements of covert / emotional incest.

Emotionally abusive because she tends to manipulate him - isolate him from others, like potential partners.

When she feels he “replaced” her by choosing Emily - she immediately replaces him with Charlotte, a surrogate daughter.

Note: covert incest is not actual, literal incest. I do Not think their relationship has an actual sexual / romantic component to it. (but idk if you think that would be interesting to explore in a fanfic, go right ahead.)

I’m referring to unhealthy parent/child relationships where the child is expected to take on a role similar to the parent’s spouse. Such as where the parent expects the child to comfort them emotionally (even from a young age), or to prioritize their relationship over other forms of relationships, like friendships or dating other people.

I can definitely see that, especially with Lydia’s line to Rasselas in season 2 after he talks about losing his partner to an unknown disease. He says something like “I lost my precious boy”.

And she says, “so did I”.

This is due to Lydia being self centered as fuck, sure, but remember how she reacted to Charles nearly dying of an OD because of Emily? She was nowhere near this mopey about it.

(Ofc she had to make sure he was safe but once he was in stable condition she immediately struck.)

In that case at least she could react with violence and use Emily to boost her own standing.

In the case of Charles moving out to live with her, she’s kinda screwed, her old methods of dealing with a situation by attacking others to her own benefit don’t work.

It’s not really actionable. She can’t just go after Emily at the moment.

Lydia is finally stuck having to deal with the idea that her son - who she’s made part of her identity, especially if it means she can say she’s a Good Mother so she’s winning at Patriarchy - maybe chose someone else over her. Or doesn’t want to be close to her anymore.

—

Okay yeah I have talked about the relationships a lot but I could also talk about Charles himself.

Again, he’s a very passive character in a show about very active - or even aggressive - women.

I think his scenes in the show serve an important role of providing some levity or respite from the more intense drama (ie kidnapping, psychological torment, etc). It kinda breaks things up so you can fully digest how awful the other scenes are.

Not to say that he’s a totally innocent guy.

He’s still a shitty person, very self centered and privileged and willing to take advantage of others for his own desires.

I feel like sometimes I’m tipping the scales in his favor too much, as Charles is a morally grey character who likes to think he’s a good guy, but… it’s much easier for him to continue being awful or allow others to suffer for his benefit.

I think there’s a lot of interesting stuff at play with him, the ways Lydia’s parenting makes him see her as a role model and also a negative role model.

He starts off wanting to follow in her footsteps, to impress her. When Lydia starts intimidating Margaret for Emily coming to her, he backs up Lydia by remarking that Emily’s pretty bangable.

(Which is… kinda a stupid thing to add, but it still has an effect on Margaret, which is what they want.)

But once Charles starts to get into what it really means for Lydia to be a bawd - and him by extension - he doesn’t want to continue in the same way.

It’s not just, maybe he can keep Lydia from lashing out at the girls, or maybe if she does he can help them out by sneaking them food.

Once Emily nearly kills him via OD to escape, he doesn’t feel like going after her. Maybe he has a realization from that near death experience. Maybe he’s just too passive to want revenge. Maybe he knows that if he tried to get revenge Lydia would just take it to an eye for an eye levels of intense.

Maybe you could argue that he’s got some kind of guilt around what he did to Emily.

He seemed to almost have a moment of self awareness when (iirc) he told her he’d want to move out some place without Lydia, where she wouldn’t have to have sex with anyone… except him. Oops.

I think the relationship with Emily - because she’s a lot more pro active than he is, and she’s willing to talk back to him despite the power he has over her - forces him to realize his role in things.

And the development with the whole kidnapping people and giving them over to sadistic cultists to murder thing gets him firmly off Lydia’s side.

(Well, that and the line where iirc Nancy says something like “you can’t be on everyone’s side”.)

I think also there’s a lot that could be said about Nancy’s role in nudging him in the direction of a redemption arc in season. Maybe more like pushing him, idk.

Nancy is one of the only people who’s really patient enough to help Emily, even when she lashes out because she feels vulnerable.

She’s one of the first people who really treats Charles as an adult now that I think of it. Like even when Emily rocks the boat, she still plays into his childish side to keep his favor.

I think it’s largely because he’s the exact kind of guy Nancy is used to seeing - a rich dude who wants a dominant woman to take care of him and guide him - and the added history with his mother helps.

You could also argue that while Lydia fits patriarchal ideas of the ideal mother - being nurturing (unless you piss her off), delicate, feminine, lacking her own romance / sex life in lieu of caring for her child (usually) - Nancy is more like the reverse of all these traits, but she actually cares for and guides the people she takes under her wing.

When Emily lashes out at people she thinks are condescending to her, Lydia just doubles down on punishing her, but Nancy gives her the benefit of the doubt and offers her aid.

Was this post a Trojan horse for Nancy birch?? Maybe??

I think that the contrast is also interesting, with Nancy lacking all the conventionally feminine things that make Lydia appear to be a good person on the surface, but actually nurturing and wanting people to grow and providing good coping mechanisms and a shoulder to cry on. Often at the expense of herself.

(So basically Lydia is cloth mother and Nancy is wire mother? Yeah)

I realize I went way off the mark here but I think there’s a lot of potential in exploring the relationship between Charles and Nancy too.

Like he’s more used to seeing women who try to fit into social roles men place on them (whore, virgin, mother, crone etc archetypes) so seeing a goth butch lesbian who tells him to get his shit together… kinda breaks his brain.

It’s a really interesting dynamic I wish we saw more of.

—

There’s a lot more I could say, and maybe will say at a later date, but I’m getting kinda tired of writing this post. I tried to focus on the stuff that was touched on in canon + my own interpretation of it. Or different ones you could run with.

If you got this far… thank you for reading! I give you a sugar pig (whatever that is) for your efforts

[mirandahamilton]

emily lacey’s pink and yellow dress from harlots s2e7 (requested by anonymous)