Nineteenth-Century Unhappiness Simulator

[50,000 words drafted] [23,000/50,000]

Anna was born into the nineteenth century, and when she was eighteen, a System called the Happiness Simulator went live in her mind.

[As a noble young lady, the secret to happiness is to keep an impeccable lady-like smile, cultivate good manners and character, and marry an excellent gentleman of noble birth.]

[Please complete this task: Play an elegant piano piece.]

Anna blinked and played “Eight Little Ducks,” frightening her family into fainting on the spot.

[Please complete this task: Paint a beautiful picture.]

Anna thought briefly, then painted a clump of mud so appalling it could shake heaven and earth. Her governess sighed and left.

[Please complete this task: Embroider a pretty handkerchief.]

Anna presented her mother with a rag that had three holes in it. Her mother asked, “What is this?”

Anna replied, “A handkerchief.”

“How can you be my daughter? I don't believe it!” Her mother finally clutched her contorted face and screamed.

Anna took a smelling bottle from her mother's waist and held it beneath her nose. “Mother, please don't faint.”

“This isn't my fault. You have to understand. You know, I never wanted to come home.”

“After all, I never thought marrying the Duke's younger son would be a good deal.”

As an “orphan” raised by her foster mother in the countryside, Anna never expected to have anything to do with the nobility.

That day, at the entrance to the slums, a servant looked down his nose at her while her older brother bossed her around. “You're our long-lost daughter, a wild country girl. Come with me. A life of luxury awaits.”

As it happened, Anna was worried about how to evade a certain mortal enemy.

What a fine identity, delivered right to her door.

She smiled sweetly and obediently.

“Hello, Brother.”

Hello, sucker.

After ninety-nine failed tasks, the Happiness Simulator concluded its Host was a hopeless case. In a rage, it left and bound itself to someone else.

Then it watched as its former Host trounced her new master.

Why...? She had no ladylike qualities and was crude and reckless. By any measure, she shouldn't have been able to have a happy life.

So why did she end up with more than its master? The right to vote, money, power, fame, prestige, and love?

The Happiness Simulator was completely baffled.

The nineteenth century was full of gold.

If you wanted to, you could earn your first fortune in any field in the British Empire, where the sun never set.

All you had to do was follow the rules.

The intelligence kingpin linking both sides of the ocean, the uncrowned prime minister of London's underworld, and the keeper of order, Anna Karen, at your service.

·

*An alternate nineteenth-century world with lots of fictional elements.

*Fake heiress and true heiress, woman disguised as a man, secret identities everywhere, and an old-school wish-fulfillment romance.

*Here for the kinks above all, with the focus on wish fulfillment. I can't guarantee that every woman will be perfect. There are female villains with stereotypical traits, and the same goes for the male villains. Everyone has their part to play, all in service of the heroine's wish fulfillment.

*Lots of detail about the heroine's career.

Theme: Happiness and unhappiness are only a matter of perspective.