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theshelbyclan · 3 years

Text

Castle in the Sky

Summary: You’re the daydreaming sibling of the Shelby’s, but when the adventure spills over into real life, it’s not as great as you’d imagined

(Gif by @nofckingfighting) A/N: A sweet anon requested: can I have request please Something like this Tommy was very protective over y/n and she gets hurt by one of the bad guys and sees blood on her face now all bruised but Tommy wants revenge Omg if you do so thank you so much for my request! ❤️ Huge fan of your works!This is set around season 1, back in the good old days when the only real enemy was Billy Kimber, remember those days? So easy… anyways, hope you like it J Words: 2933 ***

You were only nine when you started as a bookie’s runner for the Peaky Blinders. Nothing about this was special, half the kids of Small Heath worked for them, but there was just one difference: the Shelby’s were your brothers. It was a good job in many ways, because it meant not only being able to help your brothers, but people were inclined to give you a bit extra, just for being a Shelby. You imagined they thought it good luck.

“Y/N, take this to the other side of town, will you?” Tommy requested as he sat hunched over a newspaper. You protested a little, “Why me? I’ve done all of mine for today…” “This one’s extra, alright?” “Who is it?” you could never hide your inquisitive nature. But you only showed it around your brothers; to the rest of the world you were just quiet and practically invisible. He smirked slightly, “Someone who’ll pay up big. That’s why I need you to do it. Can’t trust any of the other kids not to steal…” “I have some homework to do, Tommy.” At thirteen, you were still at school, which was a minor miracle in Birmingham. “Tell you what: if you just do this one job, I’ll get you magazine you’ve been talking about, eh?” now he looked up and met your eyes. “Book, Tommy,” you smiled, “You might have heard of the concept? It’s a little like a magazine, a little like that newspaper, but with more pages? Some find it challenging, but once you get used to it…” “Alright, little miss know-it-all,” he grumbled without malice, “Go on, take the slip, make sure he bets all. Off with you. Stop outsmarting your old brother, eh?” He winked to make sure you were comfortable and you returned it with a big grin. “Where?” “Digbeth,” Tommy’s nose was back in the newspaper, “behind the Golden Dragon.” ***

As you were walking through the streets of Small Heath on your way to Digbeth, you were daydreaming. In a way it was strange just how different you were from your brothers, because the entire Shelby clan was very realistic, trying to make their way in this hard world, where you would rather pretend all day you were the main character in some story. The books you read, it was all an escape to you. So while you were walking, the people and factories disappeared. In your head, you were walking through the woods, on a secret mission that your king gave you. With the top-priority letter in your pocket, you remembered what he’d told you before you left: “If you get caught, eat the letter. If they capture you, make sure to be brave and never divulge its contents to anyone. And if all else fails, you must make the ultimate sacrifice. But remember, you have to memorize the contents of the letter first…” Wouldn’t it just be easier to memorize it now and destroy the letter immediately? You pondered on the matter… In the distance, you could see the mountains and the towers of another kingdom, and you knew your enemies were near. Without anyone noticing, you put a hand to your pocket and could feel the reassuring rustling of paper underneath your fingers: the letter was still there. If it would come to a fight, how would you go about it? If there were just one man, the small dagger in your boots would suffice. If it were two, you’d distract one, maybe by throwing the veil you were wearing, quickly turning around to kill the other and then back to the first one before he had time to recover. If there were more than three, you’d run, because you were the fastest after all. You’d get to higher ground and attack them from there, like a deadly shadow they could never see coming. As you smiled to yourself, you left the daydream for a short moment. You looked down and saw the muddy shoes you were wearing, marching through Birmingham mud. In the distance, all you saw was smoke and factory pipes. But it was honestly all you needed: your imagination did the rest. The real world barged in when you delivered the slip in Digbeth. Everything went smoothly at first. Your big brown eyes persuaded him to indeed bet big, and you were quite satisfied with yourself, knowing Tommy would be too. But you still had to walk back with a lot of money now in your pocket.

*** Almost home, there were only a few streets to go. Your head was back in the clouds and this time you were imagining you were a spy during the war. Silently, you moved through the streets, making yourself invisible and pretending every man wearing a hat was the enemy. So each time you saw one, you changed directions or hid for a second. It was a fun game, until you realised the enemy wasn’t wearing a hat. “Now, what’s a pretty girl like you doing on the streets, all by herself?” A man with a heavy Cockney accent popped up next to you and your heart nearly jumped out of your chest. You opened your mouth to reply, but no words came out. In your dreams, you always knew what to say, but in reality it wasn’t so easy. The man approached you and you noticed he’d cut you off from your one exit out of the alley, “It’s Y/N Shelby, isn’t it,” he grinned. “No,” you managed to say, “you got the wrong girl.” He grinned again, “Nice try, sweetheart. We’ve seen you at the Garrison. They don’t allow little girls at the pub, unless they’re a Shelby.” This was all true. You felt your hands getting clammy. “Tommy sent you, didn’t he?” Again, you tried to remember what the hero in your stories would do. She’d run, climb the building and then throw a knife right between the eyes of the man. Or she’d say something clever, just to distract him, and then turn around and escape when he least expected it. He took another few steps forward and you could smell him now, a smell of strange smoke and the river, “Do you know who I am?” Nailed to the ground, you shook your head. “I work for Mr. Billy Kimber. Ever heard of him?” You turned to see if you could escape, but then realised the other side of the alley was blocked by two more men. Neither of them were wearing hats. Cold sweat of fear ran down your back. The man in front of you started laughing, “There’s no running, sweetheart. Just give it to me.” At once you realised he was referring to the money in your pocket, but for Tommy’s sake, you wanted at least to try to be brave, “I don’t have anything.” He sighed, “Don’t play with me. I’m not the kind of man to play with, and neither is Mr. Kimber,” his voice was suddenly low and menacing, “Your brother thought he could, thought he would get away with fixing a race, he did, and now he’s going to be put against the post and shot. Don’t think I won’t do the same to you.” You gulped, but still thought of Tommy’s disappointment in you when he would find out you’d been a coward. So you took a deep breath and said softly, “It’s not yours. This money is ours. You can tell Mr. Kimber to go fuck himself!” It didn’t come out as strongly as you’d hoped. Like a crack of thunder, he swiftly slapped you across the face with the back of his hand. All the air was knocked out of your lungs in a second and you stood gasping for air, as you felt some blood trickling down your chin. “Give me the money,” he demanded again. And then, like your heroes, you pretended to reach for it in your pocket. Suddenly, you turned around and started running into the other direction, hoping to slip past the two men before they could stop you. But it didn’t work. One grabbed your arm and when you tried to push him away, he punched you hard. All strength left you in an instant. The second one started fumbling in your pockets and instinctively you kicked him, which earned you another blow to the head. More punches followed and your head was spinning. As you looked up to the sky, you remembered wanting to get back home, to your castle, where all was well and safe. In the end, they left you on the ground and the money was gone. Your last thought was: Tommy is going to be so embarrassed.

*** “Y/N?” You opened your eyes, but couldn’t see for a moment. “Y/N,” the familiar voice repeated, “Come on, yes, let’s get you home. Polly, Polly will know what to do, yes…” Strong arms lifted you up and rocking with his familiar limp, Curly carried you back to Watery Lane. When he’d taken you into the kitchen, Aunt Polly flew to your side in seconds, asking, “What’s happened?” Uncertainly, Curly explained and as he did, he started to become upset over your state. That’s when Tommy came in and started to calm him, while keeping an eye on you all the time. “Sweetheart,” Aunt Polly had taken a cold cloth to the cut in your lip, “Wake up… Come back to us…” Again you tried opening you eyes and you finally managed this time. But all your concern was with Curly, who was still anxiously fidgeting with his cap in hand. “Don’t worry, Curly,” you croaked, “I’m alright now. You did good, carrying me here.” “Polly will know what to do…” he kept on repeating. Tommy put a hand on his shoulder and it had an immediate calming effect, “It’s alright, Curly, go back to Charlie, eh? We’ll take care of her now.” Before he left, you said to him, “Curly? I’ll stop by tomorrow, see about that beautiful horse of yours, alright?” That put an immediate smile on his face, “Yes, she’s a beauty, alright… And she needs her princess to ride her! Back to that castle in the sky…yes…” When he’d gone, you lowered your head again and sighed deeply. Carefully, you felt your face and only then realised how awful you must look. “Who did this,” Tommy demanded at once. Polly glared daggers at him, “You did, I presume?” “Me?” “I told you again and again not to use the little ones to run errands. Sending them across half of Birmingham with money in their pockets, and look what happens!” For a moment, Tommy seemed to be speechless. Then he protested, “They’re invisible, Pol. Nobody knows they’re carrying anything.” “This one did,” you interjected, “because he knew who I was.” “How?” “Said he was with Kimber,” you whispered as the memories came back to you, “said he’d put me up against a post and he’d shoot me, like he’d do with you…” In a sudden fit of rage, Tommy grabbed a chair and flung it across the room. Polly snarled at the gesture and then turned to you, “Stay here. This cloth is cold, keep it against your eye, or it’ll turn black in half an hour, and I can’t take you to church looking like that. I just need to have a word with your brother.” You took the cloth and didn’t dare to look at Tommy, who was now being taken away by his aunt like he was ten years old again and in trouble. Aunt Polly closed the door behind her, but you still tried to hear as much as you could. Most of it was lost, but when they started shouting you heard bits like “putting your little sister in danger!” and “this is Billy fucking Kimber, Thomas” and “family first”. At first Tommy protested with “I didn’t know they knew her” and “Kimber is getting weak”, but eventually he shouted out in defeat, “I fucked up, alright? I’ll fix it. I promise.” When they came back, Tommy looked like a dog that’d just been kicked. So he retreated into a corner and started smoking, still sulking a little. Aunt Polly lifted your head up by placing a finger under your chin, “You won’t look pretty for a week, but it’ll heal.” You shrugged, not caring about being pretty at all, and muttered, “I feel like an idiot…” “Why?” your aunt demanded, “because big men decided to go after a small girl?” Tears started forming in the corners of your eyes, as you admitted, “Because I wanted to be brave! In my stories I’m pretty and strong and the hero, but in reality I’m just like a mouse. No one notices me and I’m useless…” “Sweetheart,” Polly softened her voice and crouched down next to you, “Just because you can’t fight like Arthur or John can, doesn’t make you useless. We’re all stuck here, in Small Heath, and there’s nothing pretty about that. But you reading all those books? That’s what’s going to make this easier. You can pretend, and that’s worth more than you’ll ever realise.” You smiled back at your aunt, who always knew what to say to make you feel better. “I’m off to the chemist to get you some powder against the pain,” she kissed the top of your head, “I’ll be right back, love.” After she’d gone as well, you sighed again and dropped the cloth. Her words mattered, of course they did, but it didn’t change the fact that you weren’t happy with yourself at all. For starters, you still couldn’t bear looking at Tommy. “Y/N,” he grumbled, which convinced you even more he was angry and disappointed, “Tell me what they looked like.” “They didn’t wear hats…” Impatiently he waved a hand, “Apart from that. What else?” “I don’t know,” you shrugged, “it all happened fast, Tommy. They had that accent that Kimber has as well.” “Fucking Cockneys…” your brother breathed. “Tommy?” you tried carefully, “I’m so sorry, but I lost the money. I tried to keep it. When they asked I told them to fuck off and then I tried to run and even fight, but they still took it. I’m so sorry…” He held up a hand to silence you and locked eyes with you, “You told them to fuck off?” “Yes, but it didn’t help…” “You actually told them to fuck off?” he frowned, “Usually you’re too shy to even say anything to strangers…” “I was angry,” you explained, “and I didn’t want to disappoint you.”

Tommy walked over to you and much to your surprise, he was smirking, “So you told them to go fuck themselves, and then you fought them?” “Yes?” “Did you hit any of them?” You thought about it for a second, “I think I kicked one in the balls and hit the other in the face.” His grin grew even wider and he mumbled to himself, “Wait ‘till I tell Arthur about this…” “Why?” you protested, “So he can laugh at me as well?” “No, sweetheart, he’ll be the proudest brother ever. His little sister, who everyone thinks is a little mouse too scared to do anything? She fucking hit a grown man and told them to go fuck themselves. Now that’s a hero in my book!” His laugh was contagious and you had to join in. But soon you became uncertain again and asked, “Are you not upset I lost the money?” “The money’s not important,” his face grew serious again in an instant, “but you are.” “Really?” you whispered. “Yes,” he took your face in his hands, “Listen, Y/N, this is what’s going to happen: Billy Kimber threatened my little sister, so I’m going to put himup against the post, and shoot him.” “And then what?” “Well, what usually happens in your books? Maybe I could learn something from them, eh?” A warm feeling of being appreciated for who you were came over you, “You’d take his kingdom and his skull would be put up on the gates, as a warning for all future enemies.” “That’s fucking dark,” Tommy raised one eyebrow, “But I like it.” “Me too…” you smiled at your brother. “I mean it though, Y/N. Kimber touched you, so I’m going to shoot the bastard. I won’t let anyone fucking go near you again.” And just like that, you felt safe enough again to continue dreaming. *** A few weeks later, everything had turned to chaos, both in the Shelby household as in the whole of Birmingham. Tommy didn’t speak to anyone of what happened to you, he hadn’t even apologized, but he wasn’t like that. He told you he’d fix it, promised you revenge, and that was even better. When the men were counting minutes in front of the Garrison and Billy Kimber’s army arrived, you were sitting at home with a book. You couldn’t really concentrate, because you knew there were too many of them. You pretended some angel would appear to save them all. There’d have to be no bloodshed, because this angel would be on your brothers’ side. That angel came in the form of your older sister Ada. She’d always had flair. In the end, only two bullets were fired. You listened to them both. One killed Danny Whizz-bang. The other killed Billy Kimber. Nobody knew, but as Tommy fired, he didn’t have business on his mind.

As he aimed, he saw his little sister’s face, all bruised and battered.

He whispered, “for Y/N,” and shot.

Bang.

***

Masterlist

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gingercauldron · 3 years

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Quiet Brilliance (Spencer Reid x BAU! Reader)

A/N: Here is my offering to the Criminal Minds fandom. Also this is my first time really writing fanfic? Just really wanted to have Spencer impressed by the reader and fall in love with them. So I hope you enjoy!! This is totally not an excuse to somehow make random stuff I’ve read about relevant in BAU cases lol

Pairing: Spencer Reid x BAU! Reader

Synopsis: Spencer notices how intelligent you really are, as well as how shy you are about it. He can’t stop thinking about you, your brilliance, and how much he just wants to hold you.

Warnings: None really, just fluff, and normal Criminal Minds content

Wordcount: 1.9k

No one in the BAU seemed to give you enough credit.

Not that it was their intention, of course, but Dr. Spencer Reid could not help but notice all of the times that your quiet brilliance went by as unremarkable. He might have had an eidetic memory, carrying a labyrinthine of facts and figures in his head - but you knew things that even he had not come across. He could tell that you were a researcher, that you would explore through files for knowledge because you wanted to.

When Spencer would pull a fact or statistic out of the air, you would be listening raptly. On several occasions you would scribble something down afterwards, and it made Spencer’s heart swell. This was how he first became so attuned to you when you joined the team. After that, he made sure to observe you.

He noticed that you would duck your head into files of each case, going through detail after detail with a furrowed brow. You would write in a frantic scrawl on post-it notes as a cue to do further research.

The most endearing part of it all, was that you would do the same thing even if there wasn’t a case. You would carry a tome with you, with the tails of post-it flaps coming out the side, each one crowded with writing. You were smart, Spencer learned, and he wondered why it wasn’t seen as big of an asset as it truly was to the team.

At first he could pretend that his interest was merely for the good of the team, learning more about you and what you were capable of. Obviously you were hired for a reason, likely your careful observations and sharp psychological profiling — but there was so much more. Spencer was finding it harder to pretend that this interest was not at all motivated by the affection that was developing for you.

He had three PhDs and was the so-called “resident genius,” but he wondered if you could give him a run for his money. The thing was, because you were quiet and private, he didn’t know — and that in itself was exciting.

On one case where you were observing the body at the scene, a particularly strange case where the jaw of the victim had swelled with tumors, you quickly told everyone to back up.

“What is it?” Hotch asked.

“It looks like possible radiation poisoning because of how localized the tumors are — like the unsub had the victim consume radium.” You said. “I could be wrong, of course. We could check her teeth.”

“Teeth?” Morgan asked.

Spencer quickly replied. “Radium has properties that make it glow in the dark, it was used as a novelty for that reason well into the 1970’s before restrictions were placed on it, actually. If the victim had been ingesting radium it is possible her teeth might glow. In 1938 a case was settled where a group factory workers sued their employment because they had been encouraged to lick paintbrushes covered in radium in the course of their work, resulting in massive tumours around the neck and jaw.”

“And the factory workers had tumours like this?” Hotch asked. He was asking Spencer now, not you.

“Remarkably similar.” Spencer replied.

Spencer glanced at you, but it didn’t seem to bother you that he had jumped in. In fact, the only that seemed to be upsetting to you was the fact that the unsub was on the loose.

“I’ll call some radiologists in.” Hotch said, already lifting the phone to his ear.

It turned out, that you were right. It was in fact radium, and you made sure that the team was safe by telling them to keep their distance from the body. The radiation levels on the body were dangerous.

On the plane home from that case Spencer had sat beside you, and he couldn’t stop thinking about your astute observation. You smiled up at him when he settled next to you, looking back down at the book in your lap.

“Hey, Y/N?”

You looked back up at him. “Yeah, Spencer?”

“That was a good catch with the radium.”

“Oh, that. Thank you.” You beamed. “But you would have caught it if I hadn’t.”

Would he? With all of the gruesome things he had seen they all morphed together, he wasn’t sure that he would have jumped to radium, of all things, as quickly as you had. That he would have been as cautious in avoiding the body to investigate if you hadn’t said something.

“I mean it. It was good catch. It was pretty brilliant, actually.”

“Thanks, Spence.” You said softly.

He knew he should let you get back to your book that was covered in post-it notes, but there was a thought that kept nagging at him. “Y/N?” He said again.

“Yeah?”

“Did it — did I overstep when you were telling the team about the radiation? Because if I did—”

“No, I got to stop you there. You helped. I’d rather not have the attention.”

He furrowed his brow, but didn’t say anything more, letting you return to your book.

After that it seemed that the rest of the team was starting to pick up on your fierce intelligence, too. It was hard to ignore the books you carried with you, but Spencer thought it would have been impossible to not notice you. Not just because you were utterly beautiful, but because everything about your mind was captivating.

Morgan remarked on it when you found a pattern in the artwork of a string of victims’ homes. The artwork looked nothing alike, but you picked it up.

“This painting.” You said, pointing at it. “It’s German expressionist.”

“Okay?” Morgan said.

“It could be nothing, but the last victim had a print of German artwork in their home — it was from the dada movement — but they’re both from the same time period. The other two victims had books on the Bauhaus — an influential German design school that operated between the first and second world wars.” You explained. “I wouldn’t have said anything, but the average joe wouldn’t have German post-World War One art. All of our victims are interested in the same time period for art — seems like too much of a coincidence.”

Morgan stared at you.

“What?” You asked sheepishly.

“Did Reid just possess you for a moment there? How’d you know all that?”

You shrugged and changed the subject. “I’ll call Garcia and see if she can connect the victims through local art groups or galleries.”

Morgan stared at you as you walked off, phoning Garcia. Spencer came up beside him and squinted at the painting on the wall.

“I think I know how the victims might be connected.” Spencer said to Morgan, analyzing the painting.

“The art?”

Spencer looked at Morgan in surprise. “You know about German art?”

Morgan snorted and shook his head. He gestured to you. “Y/N is calling up Garcia right now. Can’t imagine how she knew anything about it.”

Spencer furrowed his brow. “I knew it, though.”

“Exactly.” Morgan patted Spencer’s shoulder and left to talk to Hotch.

You put the phone down and turned noticing Spencer looking at you. You smiled when you saw him. He loved the way you smiled at him, as if he was the only other person in the entire world. He felt his heart rate increase and new, scientifically speaking, that he was completely infatuated with you.

“Garcia found a connection.” You told him.

You said nothing to him of the connections you had made first, but it made him appreciate the fact that he knew all the more. You downplayed your accomplishments. He wanted nothing more than to be by your side so that he could learn about every one of them.

Rossi noticed during a case, when Spencer was reading one of the unsub’s journals. Flipping through the book quickly and absorbing the information.

“Hard to believe the kid can read that fast sometimes.” Rossi said to you. “He reads 20,000 words per minute.”

“It’s over 60 times the norm. He’s pretty amazing.” You said back.

“The norm?”

You nodded. “Yeah, average adult reads between 200 to 300 words per minute, he reads around 333 words per second.”

“You some kind of whiz kid, too?” Rossi asked.

You scoffed. “Hardly. I just read a lot.”

“So does Reid.”

“You know what I mean.” And with that you left Rossi, effectively stopping the conversation.

Spencer smiled, having overheard you two. Whether you wanted to or not, you would slip little bits of information that show just how much you were thinking. You couldn’t hide your mind completely, and Spencer couldn’t stop thinking about what conversations would ensue in just spending a day with you alone.

Your voice saying he’s pretty amazing kept playing in his head and he could feel his face flush. Did you know how that sounded? You thought he, of all people, was amazing - not his brain, or his skills, but him. Did you mean it to sound like that?

Rossi turned to Spencer. “You know your face is red.” He said.

Spencer stared at Rossi, but he couldn’t make his mouth form any words. A grin spread across Rossi’s face, reading Spencer like a book.

“It’s okay Doctor, I won’t tell anyone.” Rossi said, and got back to his own work.

The rest of the day Spencer could hardly focus on anything, constantly aware of where you were in the bullpen - or distracted when you left the bullpen to see Garcia because that meant you were gone. He tried to keep his head down and look at evidence, but you were so close and you thought that he was pretty amazing, and it was nearly impossible to think about anything else. By the time he felt satisfied enough with the work he had done that day to maybe pack up it was already dark out.

Spencer saw you reading at your desk in the bullpen. Everyone had gone home already, but you were there scribbling notes down. When Spencer neared your desk he saw the book, a book he had been reading two days ago.

You looked up and smiled at him in surprise, with those dazzling eyes of yours. You pushed your hair behind your ear and all that Spencer could think about was what it would feel like to touch.

“Hi, Spence.” You said. “What’s up?”

Spencer swallowed, and his world came to a standstill. The words came out of his mouth before he could stop them. “I think I love you.” His eyes suddenly went wide when he realized what he had said.

He turned around on his heel and rushed towards the door. He could hear your chair scratch against the floor and you called out.

“Spencer!”

He stilled, his hand on the door. He wanted to run, to get as far away and hopefully have you forget about it and not lose your friendship. He never wanted to disappoint you or make you uncomfortable, but he couldn’t turn his back on you either. He turned his head slowly, afraid to see your face.

You didn’t look angry. You had a small shy smile on your face.

“I think I love you, too.”

He dropped his hand from the door. “You do?”

You nodded. “I do.”

He laughed, feeling giddy. “I can’t stop thinking about you.” He confessed. “About your kindness and your brilliance, and just, you. I just — can I kiss you?”

“Why, Dr. Spencer Reid, I would like nothing more.”

That was all he needed before he was across the room, holding your face in his hands and kissing you. Spencer, with his eidetic memory, could not remember having ever been so happy.

#spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x you #criminal minds #dr spencer reid #fic #spencer reid fluff #spencer reid one shot #criminal minds fanfiction #criminal minds self insert #spencer reid x y/n #spencer reid fanfic #im sorry if this is bad lol its hella self indulgent

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findingjoynweirdstuff · 3 years

Text

Dream SMP Recap (April 9/2021) - Interrogation

Tubbo does some interrogating, hoping to find out the truth about the missing nuke. Foolish joins in.

The mysterious messages continue.

---

VOD LINKS:

HBomb94

Foolish

Tubbo

TommyInnit

Philza

Captain Puffy

Ranboo

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- HBomb makes his way from the savannah village back to the main area. He explores around Kinoko and meets with Niki, who shows him her underground city.

- After Niki gets a grass block from an Enderman, HBomb mentions the glitched snow block he got a while back on September 24th, near his parkour challenge: the rarest block in the game. He and Niki leave the city to visit it.

- They reminisce about how HBomb joined the day of Schlatt’s inauguration, and the subject comes up of HBomb’s other characters.

- HBomb logs out and Thevir logs in. Thevir has arrived in the Dream Land. Rumors say, if you go to a special dream land, a green blob gives you more money than usual. Niki shows him around.

- Tubbo needs a way to interrogate people to figure out where the nuke went. He gathers resources to build.

- He remarks that it seems like the Egg is dying away.

SOMEONE NEEDS

TO TELL HIM

- Tubbo takes supplies from Eret and creates the desk of interrogation. He says he needs to scare people so that they take him seriously.

HE MUST GO TO

- Tubbo emphasizes that this room is for interrogation, not torture. He tries out different shaders to see what would look scariest

THE NORTH

- Tubbo turns on some acid shaders. He walks around the mansion and remarks that it’s even more cursed looking to the north.

- He goes down to the north gate to see what Foolish is up to and turns off the shaders. He decides to interrogate Foolish and tells Foolish to put all his belongings in two barrels.

- Tubbo leads Foolish to the interrogation room and tells him that he’s lost something valuable and needs Foolish to be honest with him.

IF ANYONE CAN

- When the nuke went missing, Foolish was online. Tubbo tells him only three people were on the server that day. Foolish says he was probably just building that day.

- Tubbo tells him that the missing “firework” is a very big deal. He asks, if Foolish were to steal something, what his motives would be

- Foolish says he’s just building for people. Tubbo asks about the other kingdom that Foolish is building for, and mentions that Foolish is a citizen of Snowchester. If this other kingdom wanted something of Snowchester’s, would Foolish mention anything?

- Foolish says no. He wouldn’t mention the vault or tell the people of the other kingdom about Snowchester’s “fireworks.” He only mentions things concerning the build.

- Tubbo asks if Foolish has ever seen any strange books. A very distinct book. One with a list of instructions. Foolish says no.

- Tubbo says it was more than just a valuable firework. He thinks Foolish is innocent and tells Foolish to walk with him. He leads Foolish to the confidential nuke factory and shows him.

- Foolish asks if it couldn’t have been stolen before. Tubbo tells him that the nuke was there five minutes before, and Foolish was working on the mansion.

- Foolish insists, though, that he has no motive to steal a nuke, as he’s a pacifist. Tubbo trusts him.

- Who would steal a nuke? Who would be an enemy of Snowchester?

HEAR THIS

- Foolish says there’s no one who seems to be on the war path right now.

- Tubbo tells him that he needs Foolish to gather reconnaissance on all the places he’s been building for. Foolish mentions that there’s another place that he’s been building for, but it’s a secret...there are too many voices, ears and eyes that could be listening. He’ll have to tell Tubbo later.

- Foolish suggests the Eggpire. He tells Tubbo about this event that the Eggpire is holding, a “bury the hatchet” kind of party. He, Sam and Puffy have been invited so far, but there will be more invitations.

- Whoever stole the nuke, they took a scuffed one. One with a dead man’s snitch. It leaks and poisons nature.

- Foolish asks about Sam. What about the prison guard? Tubbo says that Sam’s been couped up. Foolish says he’s worried about Sam, though. Tubbo tells him they’ll kill him someday, put him out of his misery. It wouldn’t be him.

- Tubbo and Foolish return to the interrogation room.

- Is there anyone who lives far away, where if they stored the nuke near their home, they wouldn’t know? Sam lives far away. HBomb lives far away, and Foolish built a mansion for him too, in the savannah. They should pay H a visit.

- They chase after HBomb (Thevir). They spot Niki at the Community House and think it’s H, following her through the Nether to the underground city.

I STASHED A

- They reach the city and see Niki and Thevir together. The two run, and Tubbo and Foolish pan out to look for them.

- Tubbo and Foolish speak with Niki, who insists that she doesn’t know where HBomb is. Niki says H isn’t here, Thevir is here.

- Niki explained that earlier, she showed H around her city and they went to the L’cast area, at which point HBomb’s game crashed and Thevir joined, and Niki has been showing him around.

- Tubbo and Foolish stumble across Thevir hiding in a corner and talk to Niki, who tells them it’s Thevir and not HBomb.

- Tubbo and Foolish tell Niki they lost a weapon and try to waterboard Thevir. (Thevir says that he’s been tortured before and he’s into this, so it isn’t particularly effective)

- Tubbo and Foolish leave. Thevir could possibly have connections to H.

BOOK

- They head to HBomb’s house in the savannah. Foolish asks who else has been to Snowchester? Puffy, Ranboo -- Tubbo says that wouldn’t be possible -- Sam, Fundy...

- They make it to the mansion. Tubbo asks what direction it’s in -- they find it’s east of Snowchester. They search around.

IT HAS INSTRUCTIONS

- Foolish and Tubbo listen to chat to search places. Foolish says they’re all saying to go north, but he doesn’t know why. Tubbo doesn’t think they should go north.

- They think through more possibilities as they run back through the Nether. Quackity? No, Tubbo says he’s on good terms with Quackity. They have mutual respect.

HE NEEDS TO

- Does Tubbo have any enemies? Tubbo mentions that Phil isn’t the biggest fan of him due to the ankle bracelet, but Phil doesn’t really care.

- Tubbo suggests they go to L’manburg. He’s trying to think of past relations. Who were the enemies of L’manburg?

Dream, Technoblade, and Alivebur

- Would someone take the nuke for money or for power?

Tubbo: “The power. Everything on this server is about power, Foolish.”

- They reach L’manhole.

- Eret? Foolish says that when he spoke with Eret last, he was looking to a clean start.

Tubbo: “There are some benefits to knowing your insides and out around your country.”

- Tubbo leads Foolish down to the old underground library and panic bunker. They look through the chests. There are still bits of yellow and black concrete, blackstone... Original pieces of the walls.

- He takes Foolish through the tunnel to Pogtopia. Foolish remarks that he’s never been.

Wilbur and Tommy split off during the reign of Manberg. Tubbo built this tunnel to Pogtopia, but it was eventually found out.

- They mention that things have been quite...quiet recently.

- Tubbo shows Foolish the water drop escape into the tunnel, mentioning that he used it to escape death many times.

- They reach Pogtopia.

Foolish: “When you see this, do you see this as happy or sad memories?”

Tubbo: “Conflicting memories.”

- Tubbo shows Foolish the old pit. It’s dark, the lights are out. There’s the old potato farm that Tubbo made for Technoblade. They reminisce about Tubbo and Antfrost being taken hostage.

- They head back.

WAKE UP!

- Tubbo explains to Foolish that he built the bunker before the tunnel to Pogtopia. He shows the tunnel through which Tommy and Wilbur escaped during the inauguration.

- Foolish says it seems like L’manburg was a nice little place. Tubbo shows Foolish all the various escape routes he used. Dream used to hunt him down during the first L’manburg War for independence.

- Foolish can’t imagine it. There were so many little skirmishes that used to happen. Tubbo shows him the old surface entrance to Pogtopia.

- Tubbo leads him over to Technoblade’s old secret base. A significant part of history -- the original vault.

They find that some of the chests still have supplies that haven’t been taken yet.

- Tubbo patches it up a bit

Tubbo: “This is not how this place deserves to be remembered.”

- Foolish asks -- was this a revolution, a rebellion? Tubbo says it was a reclaiming. The revolution.

HE MUST!

- Foolish and Tubbo make it back to the crater. Foolish wonders if there would ever be a community like this again. Tubbo doesn’t think so. Everything’s too complicated now, everyone’s too split apart.

Tubbo: “So all we have now is memories.”

Foolish: “Well, we could always try to make new memories.”

Tubbo: “Yeah, but it won’t be the same.”

- Foolish tells Tubbo that Bad and the others have said that they can start cleaning up the Blood Vines.

- Tubbo leads Foolish down the Prime Path, asking whether he knows who built each of the builds along the route. Tubbo tells him who built each one.

- Tubbo thinks the Final Control Room is now gone.

- He shows Foolish his and Tommy’s old nuclear war bunker.

- They then return to Snowchester and the interrogation room. They haven’t narrowed down the suspects.

WAKE UP!!!!!!

- Foolish asks, what if the nukes were never really stolen, but just moved to a different part of Snowchester?

- Tubbo tells Foolish the mansion is north of the facility. They need to pause their investigation for the time being.

- Tommy does a birthday stream

- Tommy tells Tubbo that he doesn’t think Ranboo is right for him, and getting married at 17 was a bad idea.

- Ranboo joins the call.

- Tommy leads Tubbo into the ruins of Tubbo’s old house to give him some relationship advice. He thinks Tubbo should rebuild his house and move out.

- He then takes Tubbo to his “secret place.” Ranboo’s just there in the call. He asks where all the Egg has been going. He takes Tubbo to Fundy’s house, where he’s been keeping his things.

- Tubbo gets stuck in a cobweb

- Tommy wants to create a proper vault for his things. Drista gave Tommy many seeds.

- They go to see if the barrier block staircase is still there.

- Tommy wonders what a good place to hide things would be. He mentions Pogtopia.

- Tubbo leads him to L’manhole. Ranboo appears and gives Tommy a Totem of Undying for his birthday.

- They go down to the tunnel. Tommy tells Ranboo to tell him what problems he and Tubbo are having as they reach Pogtopia.

- Tommy starts mining a room into the wall and puts his riches in a chest. He asks Ranboo to talk about his feelings.

- They ask Sam for help with a redstone door and talk about TNT cannons. Maybe they could launch one at the prison to get to Dream. Sam comes to Pogtopia. He gives Tommy a few stacks of TNT for his birthday.

- They ride the railway back to L’manburg.

- They try to blow up the POG2020/ASS2020/CRY sign and in the process explode pretty much everything but. Tommy dies and respawns a million blocks away. He can’t break the bed due to mining fatigue. The totem was used up, he just died again and lost all his things.

- The CRY sign is now the Y7 sign

- They decide to work on clearing off Ponk and Punz’s towers of the Blood Vines. Here are some of the more interesting quotes that came up...

“My sacrifices are boneless, man, just like the wings.” - Ranboo

“Moist is just wet without the commitment.” - Ranboo

“God, why did you invent impotence?” - Tommy

“Who’s the god of English?” “Shakespeare?”

“The mouth sounds are the reason why we can’t remember!” - Ranboo

“How do you reckon you’ll die?” - Tubbo

“Volcano.” - Tommy

- Afterwards, they head over to Ranboo’s house. The instant Phil logs on, Tommy logs off.

- Phil, Ranboo and Tubbo hang out at the Arctic.

- Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson wishes Tommy a happy birthday and tells him to drink tequila.

- Ranboo fills a whole barrel full of totems.

---

Upcoming Events:

- The Red Banquet

- Quackity’s lore stream on Monday

- Quackity’s business opening

- Dream’s lore video

- Ranboo’s lore stream

#dream smp #dream smp recaps #long posts

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mads-weasley · 3 years

Text

Love & War Pt. 1: New Beginnings

1940s!Bucky x Medic!Reader

Series Masterlist

A/N: This is going to be a series about the Howling Commandos during WWII! It’s going to be slightly non-canon because we don’t know much about their different missions. I’m such a sucker for 40s Bucky! Sadly, I do not own any of these wonderful characters except (y/n). Bucky isn’t in this chapter btw, but it’s important for the rest of the series. I hope you like it!

Summary: When she volunteered as a combat medic in the war, (y/n) (y/l/n) did not think that she’d end up working with the Howling Commandos. Most of all, she definitely didn’t think she would fall as hard as she did for a sweet brunette from Brooklyn.

Warnings: angst, fluff, mentions of blood, gunshots, World War II, mentions of death, descriptions of injuries.

(y/n) - your name

(y/l/n) - your last name

(y/n/n) - your nickname

(y/h/c) - your hair color

1943

As (y/n) is packing her small bag for overseas, she can’t help but feel excited and terrified at the same time. Since the attack on Pearl Harbor, she wanted to do her part for her country, so when she got the opportunity, she took it.

“Why do you have to go, (y/n)? There are plenty of other girls who are nurses.” Her best friend, Allie, asks.

Taking a deep breath, she speaks passionately. “Well, Alls, if not me, who? I’m sick and tired of sitting on my butt at home knowing I could help so many people over there!”

“You could work in the factories like the other women! They’re doing their part! You could so do that!”

“No! I want to save people, Allie! I can’t do that here.” Her voice softens to just above a whisper, tears welling in her eyes. “Please, I don’t want to fight during my last day here.”

Allie walks up to her and envelopes her into a big bear hug that made both of them start crying. After many, “I’ll miss you’s,” the girls broke apart and went to have dinner. Being from North Carolina, (y/n) wanted to have some bbq as her last meal before she shipped out.

Laughing inside of Gary’s Diner, they drank milkshakes and reminisced from their childhoods. As both of them were about 25, they had a good bit of funny memories to share with each other, many involving the other. After stuffing their faces full of food, they walked arm in arm back to (y/n)’s house.

Looking at her watch, Allie sighs. “Less than 12 hours, (y/n/n). I’m going to miss you so much. Please, please, please be careful. I don’t know what I’d do if I lost you.”

Wrapping her arms around her friend, (y/n)’s voice betrays her by cracking before correcting itself. “I’ll miss you too. You know me, if I got hurt, I’d just patch myself up and I’d be fine.”

Seeing Allie’s lower lip tremble, she realized she should not have let that slip out of her mouth. Trying to backtrack, she sputters, “Don’t worry, I’ll be fine! I’m not going to be on the front lines anyway. I’ll be far, far, far away from the front.”

The new nurse sends her friend a sweet smile that doesn’t quite reach her eyes. With one last hug, the duo says goodbye and (y/n) walks into her house. She gathers the last of her things and goes to bed thinking of all the things that could happen in Europe.

6 Months Later

Above the chaos of battle, bullets, and heavy artillery fire, “Medic!” Can be heard around the battlefield. A young woman with a bloodstained uniform runs to the man who called out. When she reaches him, she immediately sees the empty space where his forearm was supposed to be. Biting back the bile that rose in her throat, she shakily tried to sooth the soldier while giving him a shot of morphine.

“Hey, kid. What’s your name?”

“D-Desmond.” He replies with a pained sound.

“Well, hi there, Desmond. I’m (y/n) and you’re going to be just fine.”

She applies a tourniquet to his bicep and places gauze to the bloody stump of what used to be his arm. He cries out at the action, resulting in her apologizing for the pain it caused him. Quickly calling for a stretcher, she reassures him and moves on to the next man who needs her help, crouching to avoid the bullets flying above her head.

By the end of the day, her once spotless uniform was littered with dirt and blood. While in the field, she can’t let her emotions show, but when she is alone, she lets them flow freely. The death that surrounds the young woman is enough to break the strongest men, but she refuses to crack. The last place (y/n) thought she would be was on the front lines in France.

The place her unit, the 107th, is currently residing in is an old abandoned school. The classrooms are still intact, minus a few that were destroyed during different bombings. Normally, (y/n) would stay with her friend Betty, who was also a medic. Tonight was different though. She had lost more men today than she had in quite a while.

The Germans rolled out a new weapon that took out soldier after soldier, leaving them screaming in agony in the mud. Seeing this day in and day out took a toll on her, and she often isolated herself to deal with it. With a soft “Goodnight” to her friends, (y/n) found herself wandering the school to find a empty classroom where she could be alone.

When she finally finds one, she closes the door behind her and sinks to the floor, knees pulled up to her chest. Every time she closes her eyes, she just sees the men she couldn’t save; the ones begging her to save them. It becomes too much and she starts to sob quietly.

Suddenly, the door opens and an middle-aged burly man with a mustache walks in. The man looks familiar, but the absence of light in the room made it hard for her to make out his features. His eyes soften when he sees (y/n) against the wall.

“Hi there.” He says softly, bending down or her level.

Sniffling and looking up at him through her lashes, she replies. “Hi. I’m sorry. I’m such a mess. I’ll be ri-“

“It’s okay, sweetheart. Don’t worry. Everyone does this, even us men...You’re a medic right?”

She nods, her mind thinking back to the day. “I’m sorry if I couldn’t save someone you knew. I-I really tried, and th-there were ju-“

“Hold your horses. I watched you save so many men. Our squad has been needing a medic, and I think you’d be a great fit. What’s your name, kid?”

Head shooting up in confusion, she replies.“(y/n) (y/l/n), sir. What unit are you in?”

“Let me introduce myself. I’m Dum Dum Dugan, and my unit is the Howling Commandos.”

__________________________________________

Tag List:

@confusednerd09 @ahahafudge @bluemoon-icecream @lunamadhatter99 @thatfangirl42 @fionanovasleftnut @youcanstandundermyamberella @friendly-letters @caritobbg

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amintyworld · 3 years

Text

Goodbye - (SBI Inc.) World War II AU

A/N: Hey guys! So... this is actually part of a bunch of fics I was making for some of my mutuals, and at first, I wanted to post them together, but I soon realized with my own creativity and motivation, not to mention constant burnout, it was more just wishful thinking.

This fic is a gift for my friend and mutual, Cam (@bones-sprouts)! They're an awesome person for me to rant to about AUs or other fic ideas, so if you can check out their awesome blog and give a follow if you'd like. I hope you enjoy it because I'm actually really proud of how this turned out! <3 - Minty

Edit: Forgot Taglist.

Summary: Phil works in the coal factories, his wife Kristen with the sewing machines. No matter how hard they work, there never seems to be enough money. What will happen when a World War rises on the horizon?

TW: Bomb mention, Implied death mention, injury (No blood or gore tho). (Let me know if I need to tag anything else!)

-------------------------

Phil remembered when it was all just rumors. After all, one couldn’t help but get bored within the tedious factory jobs. Hauling coal from one place to another, scooping it into the fireplaces - minds always began to drift. Gossip was whispered with bated breath under watchful eyes. Phil had heard it all - some true, most of them, however... complete fibs. He guessed that’s why he didn’t believe it at first when there were talks of war. There were always talks of war, but after the World War a while back, Phil thought it was stupid anyone would dare try to repeat it. The leaders were smarter than that, he thought to himself.

Besides, he had other things to worry about. Wilbur needed a new winter coat for the season. He’d been going through another growth spurt over the summer and had, unfortunately, outgrew his one from last year. They’d been saving to buy a new one, and his old one was given to his younger brother, Tommy. Funnily enough, the coat was extremely big and baggy on the ten-year-old, so much so he kept tripping and falling to the floor. Kristen kept pinning it up, though it never seemed to help much. He remembered one night telling Wilbur with a chuckle he was getting too tall and Tommy was getting too small. Tommy had grumbled angrily in a way only small children could do, puffing his chest out and proclaiming himself a ‘big man’. Kristen had smiled and laughed throughout it all, and when Tommy yawned she picked him up and carried him off to bed.

Money was always a tight issue, but Phil had the wisdom never to bring it up in front of his sons. Instead, he talked about stories of adventure-seeking pirates or brave warriors in hushed tones at night when the roof began to leak and they huddled together in thin blankets during the winter. Phil’s heart always swelled when Tommy’s eyes would light up in curiosity at the stories, at another world full of hope and things that Phil could only wish to provide them. One day, he promised himself, one day he would give them everything they deserved. Everything they’d wished for upon stars or whispered to themselves at night when they thought no one was listening. One day.

Phil remembered once when Wilbur was not much older than Tommy, he’d asked him if he could work with him in the factories. They had barely been able to afford the school fee that year, and Wilbur had started school a month behind his classmates because of it. When Phil had quickly tried to dismiss the idea Wilbur’s mouth had pressed in a thin line.

‘I can do it, Dad. Let me do it. I want to help.’

Phil’s hand had absentmindedly moved to trace around the scar in his calloused palm. When he first started, the manager put him near the machines, with the task to flip the lever and run them when the ribbon was on target. He flipped the switch before realizing it wasn’t on target, and when he moved the ribbon - the machine was merciless. He’d thought about Wil doing that, the machines, hauling pounds of coal up a hill, and he realized that he’d rather die working in the factories than accept the help. The money wouldn’t be worth it, the money would never be worth his life. Never in a million years.

No matter what, he’d always protect them. That was never a question on Phil’s mind.

When the orders came there was never any doubt about what he needed to do. There was never any hesitation. They needed to be safe. They needed to survive. When he told Kristen he held back tears, but his wife knew him better than anyone, cutting him off with a small loving embrace. Emotion welled up in Phil’s throat as he returned the hug, and the two stood in their cramped dining room like that for a while, the opened letter left scattered on the stained wooden table. Phil’s gaze drifted toward the couch where the two boys lay sprawled on top of each other, covered by a single blanket, asleep. For a moment, just a moment, Phil wanted to keep them like that forever - blissfully in that perfect moment of peace. But, Phil couldn’t do anything. A war was coming.

“We’ll get through this together.” Kristen had promised him. Phil hoped she was right.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

The train howled in the distance. Millions of families rushed to and fro on the platform, volunteers and teachers hoisted the smaller children into the train. Conductors shouted, and the entire train platform was bathed in a large gust of steam. In the middle of all the chaos stood Phil, Kristen, and their two children.

“Okay boys, let’s go through this one more time,” Phil said, getting down more on their level, and trying his best to maintain a smile. “When you get on the train, stay in your seats. Make sure not to lose your bags, and try not to cause any trouble. Listen to the volunteers, yeah?” Wilbur nodded, and Phil noticed Tommy looking around in curiosity at all those passing by. He snapped his fingers, turning the ten-year-old’s attention back on him. “Tommy?”

“Uh-huh?”

“What did I just say?”

“Uhm… don’t pull any pranks?”

“Yes, don’t cause any trouble, Tommy. This is serious. There’s a lot of people, I don’t want you to get lost okay?”

“Okay.”

Phil looked over at his oldest, clutching the suitcase in his hands tightly, a tag around his neck matching his brothers’. He’d been quiet since Phil had told them both the situation a day ago, and rushed off to help Phil get everything they needed from the list - they barely afforded getting the essentials. Money saved up for Wilbur’s new coat went to bars of soap, stockings, slippers, and handkerchiefs. Phil had given Wilbur his own, saying he’d be fine without one for the winter and they’d be able to afford another in no time. “Look out for him, alright?” While the two shared a brief moment together, Kristen was leaning down toward the child, spotting a bit of dirt on his cheek she was determined to get rid of. Tommy protested and squirmed from her grip as she smiled, holding back as laugh and keeping him still. Wilbur looked over at the two, smiling fondly.

“I will, Dad. I promise.”

Phil couldn’t help but be overcome with pride for his eldest, a small smile on his face. He grew up way too fast - where was that small boy who was always propped up on his shoulders and sang beautiful songs deep into the night, eyes shining with happiness? There were still traces of that same glimmer in Wilbur’s eyes, signs that those dreams and that hope were still alive, and to Phil that was all that mattered. He grew and became so responsible, so capable of anything and everything. At that moment, seeing him, he remembered that strong feeling of pride. Phil had every confidence in him, no matter what the future might hold.

He reached into his coat pocket for the letter, before taking in his eldest for what would be the last time for a while. His hand lightly brushed through that curly brown hair that always fell over his eyes, moving down to cup his cheek and look into those dark eyes that were so much like his mother’s - deep pools of infinite. “I hope you know how much I love you, Wilbur.”

“I do… I mean,” Wilbur stumbled, looking down at the ground. “I..I know, Dad.”

Phil nodded, pressing a small kiss to his son’s forehead. “Good.” He handed out the folded piece of paper with a name scribbled on it - Technoblade. “You’ll be staying with an old friend of mine, he knows me well and I trust him. Be on your best behavior.”

“Right,” Wilbur confirmed, looking over the name for a moment before sliding the piece of paper in his bag. “Does he... know we’re coming?”

“Well, uhm… no…?”

“No?”

“Just give him the letter, it’ll explain everything. He owes me.”

Tommy rushed over, seemingly running from Kristen who simply giggled. “Papa!” Phil’s smile widened at the exchange.

“Come here you little squirt!” Phil’s heart lit up as he scooped up the smaller child in his arms, Tommy laughing with a playful shriek as he did so. “What’s wrong, mate?”

“Mama keeps scrubbing my face, it hurts!” Tommy accused, to which Kristen rolled her eyes with a smile.

“You’ve got dirt all over your face, honey-”

The train howled once more, sending all of them to silence. One of the conductors at the train car around ten or so feet from them shouted: “All aboard! All aboard who’s coming aboard!” Phil looked between the two of them.

“Let’s get you two settled, yeah?” They passed through the crowd toward the conductor. At this point many of the parents were already gone or standing a far distance from the track itself, seeing their children off. He slowly lowered Tommy off his hip and into the step. “I’ve got two kids here for the train, they’ve got their cards and items.” Phil gently moved Wilbur in front of him as he spoke. The man, in a bit of a hurry, snatched Tommy’s tag, almost making the child lose his balance as he glanced at it. Phil heaved Tommy’s shoulder bag, packed with things, into the steps with him. “He’s good. You had another?”

“Yes, my oldest, Wilbur. Please make sure, if you can find them a seat together.” The conductor looked Wilbur over before checking his tag as well.

“Will do, but I don’t make any promises.” He nodded at the tag. “He’s a good chap too. Let’s go, we’ve got a schedule.”

Tommy hugged his father around the neck. “Love you Papa. Love you Mama.”

“Love you, Toms.” Phil smiled, as Kristen leaned over and kissed him on the forehead, making the smaller child giggle. Wilbur was already picking up his younger brother’s things and sliding the bag over his shoulder.

“Bye!” Tommy waved as he followed behind the conductor.

“Bye.” Wilbur waved behind him. “I love you.”

And… just like that, they were gone. Phil held Kristen’s hands as they watched their two sons leave in a cloud of steam, chugging away toward the countryside. Going someplace safe. Kristen began to tear up and Phil held her close in comfort. Now, it was a waiting game of fate. A waiting game for the foretold bomb. A waiting game to die.

—————————

General Writing Taglist (LMK if you want to be added/removed):

@bones-sprouts

@foolishcaptains

@benzel

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st-just · 3 years

Text

A Setting: The City of Sethennai

Because I’ve spent long enough tinkering on this that I might as well share it with a population of more than a half-dozen potential players. Also it could almost certainly use an editing pass, and I don’t want to lose it all next time my computer dies.

So, a collection of densely packed plot hooks in the shape of a city

City History

The City of Sethennai is quite possibly the oldest city in the world, or at least the oldest still inhabited. When the first Dwarfs and Goliaths fled the Titans for the coast, they found ziggurats already rising from the water and tunnels dug beneath their feet, ruined by some already ancient cataclysm. Supported by fertile soil and full waters, they built their own city over it, and welcomed their own gods to it, a center of resistance to the Titanomarchy that became an empire in its own right.

Centuries passed and power drifted inland, to the mountain palaces of the Titans’ Giant heirs and the divinely appointed heroes who sometimes overthrew them. The City was rich, but peaceful, its soldiers only raised when one princess or another took it as a capital during a civil war. Such was the case when the first ships appeared from the East.

The adventurers from the League of Free Cities had been spurred across the sea by visions of fortune and glory, overwhelming the defenders with armies of goblin slaves and the ability to evoke demons far beyond what they could deal with. Their leader Sethennai proclaimed himself Emperor and renamed the city in his honour, taking it as his capital. After his assassination some years later the ‘empire’ fell into an anarchy it has never quite recovered from, but the name has stuck, and for the two hundred years since wonders and riches have flowed across the eastern ocean while mercenaries and adventurers have poured west in ever greater numbers.

The city’s ruler for the last fifteen years has been Prince Cael, an adventurer universally believed to be supported by the League’s political rivals back East. If so, they got what they paid for – experts and financiers have been imported and sponsored, and trade opened to anyone capable of paying the reasonable import duties.

Until two years ago, he had been the picture of brutal decadence, rousing himself from luxurious hedonism only to brutally deal with any threats to his power. Recently though, he changed – sponsoring vast expeditions into the ancient palaces of the interior and the ruins buried on the city’s outskirts, and installing a self-proclaimed Hierophant whose heresies had earned her a death warrant back East in the city’s grandest temples (violently banishing the cults which had held them since the Conquest in the process).

One week ago, at exactly noon, the sun vanished from the sky for one minute, and the entire city was filled with a deafening scream. Since then, the Prince’s grand palace has been sealed tight, with ingeniously horrifying magical defences ensuring that anyone who tries to force a door or window isn’t around to try again. Everything’s very rapidly falling apart, and the city’s traditional power brokers are reacting like so many rabid weasels in too small a cage.

It is, then, a perfect opportunity for people with the will to seize it.

Districts

The Palantine

If Sethennai is the oldest continually inhabited city in the world, the vast palace complex which crowns its central hill is probably likewise the oldest building still in use. Its foundation is burrowed deep into the hill on which it stands, to the point that some delvers and historians have theorized that it was once a truly massive pyramid now mostly buried by the ages. Rising out of it are two great peaks - impressive ziggurats in their own right - of obvious dwarven make, fashioned to house their ancient Ancestors-Kings and gods in suitable splendor, and since renovated and built over to house the city’s rulers and most favored priesthoods. Surrounding them are a dozen smaller peaks, each the estate of one of the city’s foremost patrician families, teeming with retainers and servants. The land around them is pristine and perfectly manicured, full of wondrous botanical gardens and menageries for the amusement of Sethennai’s greatest citizens.

Location of Interest: The Throne

A palace built on the ruins of a palace built on the ruins of a palace. The grand ziggurat which the city’s rulers have called home since time immemorial is built into and sits at the peak of its highest hill, the highest point in the sky for dozens of miles in every direction. Its labyrinthine apartments, kitchens, vaults, galleries and corridors house the Prince and his family, dozens of favorites and notables, and hundreds of guards, servants, retainers and entertainers.

Or, well, housed.

One week ago, the sun vanished from the sky, and a scream echoed through the city. Since then, the palace complex has proven impenetrable. Every door and window is closed, and attempts to open them by force have fared...poorly. In a ‘never going to walk again’ sort of way. Scrying and other means of magical surveillance so far attempted have simply failed. No one has tried to escape, and no noises have been heard - the whole complex is simply silent.

Of course, that means that all its secrets and riches are there for the taking. Or that’s the growing consensus - at least three separate groups have camped out near various gates and major entrances, each preparing their own scheme to break in and seize everything within. There’s no fighting between them. Yet.

Faction of Note: The Hierophant

Yri Cenred is many things. A self-proclaimed ‘experimental theologian’. One of shockingly few mortal humans to piss off the Illyrin clergy enough to be specifically declared Anathema. A member of the Commonwealth’s very exclusive list of ‘Enemies of Reason’. Empirically immune to thunderbolts from cloudless skies and most other signs of divine disfavor. Easily one of the most powerful mages in the city. And, for most of the last two years, its High Priestess and Hierophant.

No one knows quite how her first meeting with Prince Cael went, and whether she was responsible for her change in personality or if he sought her out because of it. All anyone knows is that shortly after she arrived in the city a few days ahead of Imperial Witch-Hunters looking for her head on a pike, Cael forcibly expelled the Khasali cults which had occupied the Palantine’s grand temples since the Conquest, and installed her in their place with the newly minted title of Hierophant for the city. Since then she and her growing coterie of acolytes (bright-eyed, motivated and young, though you can flip a coin as to whether their hands are stained with ink or blood) have been extremely busy, though no one can say exactly what with. Certainly they haven’t held any public rituals or services. Despite the costs - both political and monetary - in protecting and sponsoring her, Cael never seemed to question whether it was worthwhile.

The general opinion on the streets is that she’s probably to blame for anything and everything worth complaining about. The only real divide is between those who think she bewitched the Prince and turned him into her puppet, those who think she’s the one who killed him, and the moderates who think the correct answer is probably ‘both’.

Foundrytown

The New World is absolutely full of exotic reagents, fuel sources, and materials to craft and invent with. It is also absolutely full of people who will pay in your currency of choice for finished goods, armor, weaponry, and whatever nasty alchemical tricks you can keep from blowing up in their face until they want them to. Foundrytown is the sprawling mass of smokestacks, workshops, factories and markets that has spilled to the north of Sethennai’s walls, exploiting both opportunities to the fullest while limiting the chance that some idiot will burn half the city down (again). Robber barons, militant workers, loose fraternities of tinkerers and half-trainer artificers, and the occasional rogue clockwork or alchemical monstrosity all jostle for space and control of the beating heart of Sethennai’s economy.

Faction of Note: The Grand Bazaar

Official Imperial theology accords true dragons a place of honour - the Princes of the Earth, entrusted by Heaven with containing the fury of the elements within themselves so as to render the world peaceful enough for cultivation by the younger races - and forbids very few things to wyrms willing to play the part. (Principally, do not become undead, a god in your own right, or an archdemon of the elements. Though some justification can usually be found for how any sufficiently problematic dragon is actually doing one of those).

And Tyramara the Magnificent, the Fire of the Deeps has not technically done any of those things. Still, the ancient wyrm has little interest in allowing the wasting disease which has crippled her continue to spread, and her solution is unorthodox enough that she thought it prudent to abandon her palace-lair in Imir and relocate to the New World, six treasure galleons worth of her hoard in tow.

One of the city’s wealthiest residents from the moment she landed, she has bought a plaza in Foundrytown and offered her sponsorship to nearly every tinker and engineer who cares to set up shop there, provided they help sustain and improve the mechanical and hydraulic prosthetics that supplement and replace her dying organs. She has promised a full half of her hoard to any who can permanently deal with her condition, a fortune men have killed for in the past, and certainly will again.

Faction of Note: The Hellworks

They’re not officially called the Hellworks - there are, in fact, absolutely no devils involved. Still, between the billowing clouds of soot and steam pouring from their chimneys at all hours of the day, the severe architecture, and the bound spirits who keep the looms running at all hours of the day and eagerly take any opportunity to leave anyone who gets too close crippled or maimed to vent their anger - well, the name stuck.

One of the most obvious consequences of Prince Cael’s turn towards the esoteric these last years, the ' ‘Royal Sethennai Weaver’s Trust” is the brainchild and absolute domain of the Lady Binder Katerine sol Dalme sol Telrin ir’Paimon. An Illyrin magister with heterodox opinions on the proper uses of magic, popular opinion is divided on whether it’s more accurate to say Cael invited her to reside in the city, or just offered her asylum before her elders had a chance to properly condemn her.

Regardless, after six months of operation she - and her half-dozen strictly bound and extremely unhappy ifrit, and several hundred eminently replaceable more mundane workers - are already well on their way to supplying all the clothing and textiles Sethennai’s teeming masses require single-handedly, produced at a scale and speed far beyond what any traditional artisans guild could hope to compete with.

Crossroads

Dominating the Old City - synonymous with it, really - that the district is called the ‘Crossroads’ is often considered something of a cruel joke by new arrivals. The ‘Labyrinth’ is usually offered instead. Ancient stone tenements and storehouses are basic facts of geography, surviving through conquest and fire, and over and around and through them are generations of newer building - mansions of imported oak and marble, shantytowns of cannibalized carts and derelict ships built on rooftops, and nondescript inns and stores conveniently built on top of trap doors and tunnels leading to much more exciting locales. Natives of a neighborhood who know all the secret passages and blind alleys can quickly get to anywhere they like. New arrivals are strongly advised to pay well for a reliable guide.

Faction of Note: The Dreamers

There’s something under the harbor. There always has been. There probably always will be. Most people can go their whole lives without noticing it, but a certain few find living in the Old City a haunting experience, their nights spent dreaming of drowned palaces and impossible angles, their days spent lost in alleys and markets that have never existed. Inevitably, they come out of a daze and find themselves perched on the waters edge, staring into the filthy, polluted depths with an intense sense of longing.

Called the Dreamers, they’re an eclectic and informal fraternity, living in makeshift houseboats or the cheapest tenements that press against the water. Quite a few simply sleep on the streets. They’re something like a religion, and something like a guild - the most personable and talkative are merchants, selling the fish that others catch, the strange relics and minor treasures that their divers retrieve from the harbor, and the often beautiful - if always uncanny - art they produce. They take care of each other and, though no one has ever seen a dreamer raise a hand in anger, every attempt by syndicates or rival cults to extort or expel them has ended with their opponents going mad, screaming and clawing at their flesh in the middle of the night, or found poised in some elaborate and improbable suicide. After the third time, everyone more or less got the idea.

No one knows who leads them - if anyone does. Insofar as they have a public face, Zoe Alvane is it - a street urchin who ‘found the sea’ before she had hit puberty, for the last few years she has been the one who spends seemingly every hour of the day ensuring her ‘aunts’ and ‘uncles’ have food and shelter, and looking after the other beggars and poor in the neighborhood while she can as well. She’s also the one outsiders deal with when they come looking to buy information - it’s a disquieting fact of life in Sethennai that the Dreamers’ know almost everything there is to know about almost everyone. They are generally content to be left alone, and Zoe is very sympathetic and willing to offer personal advice and play the part of fortune teller to anyone desperate and willing to trade or do a favor - but it’s generally agreed that trying to force information from them is a bad idea.

Faction of Note: Ironfang Mercenary Company

When Prince Cael seized the throne, he didn’t do so single handedly. He needed trained, disciplined soldiers to seize the Palantine and coastal forts, ensure no one escaped the palace, and keep order on the streets while the messy business of extinguishing the previous dynasty was carried out. For all this and more, he relied on the professional expertise of the Ironfang Company.

Formed around a core of hardened hobgoblin veterans of various border wars and colonial filibusters in the Free Cities, the Company has for the last fifteen years been the Prince’s favorite tool for securing his interests, keeping order, and bloodily making examples of any threats to his rule. For their trouble, they’ve grown fat and happy - a steady paycheck and yearly bonuses have left every officer with a townhouse, and most common soldiers with coin for families and apartments for them to live in.

Despite the lack of real combat - and the need to take on locals as new recruits, as more and more soldiers retire or die over the years - Captain Azaersi is a leathery old warehouse who has never let her troops grow soft. Even week the grand parade ground in Crossroads echoes with screaming drill sergeants and the crack of muskets, and it’s an open secret that the Prince paid to import stocks of grenades and munitions from Quepta for her arsenal. No one knows quite how she plans to deal with the sudden disappearance of her patron and employer, but for the moment the Ironfang seem content to keep order in the corner of Crossroads around the arsenal and parade ground that they call home.

The Ruins

The ruins are not, legally, part of Sethanni, and absolutely no one with anything resembling sense would ever actually choose to live there. No one actually knows where the eponymous ruins come from - or at least, no one can agree which section is from where. Shantytowns of the most despised and desperate and built on top of their predecessors, which are built on top of battered and broken pre-Conquest ziggurats and homes, which are built on top of - well, some of it is just a natural cave system, and no one is sure about the rest. Or ever found just how deep it goes. Aside from the casualties of the Prince’s attempts to map it, the Ruins are inhabited exclusively by those that would be strung up or burned alive if they tried to live anywhere else, or those sufficiently dedicated to their greed or ambition that they’re absolutely certain they alone can unlock the secrets and find whatever wonders are buried beneath all the traps and monsters. Not great company, either way.

Faction of Note: The Weavers’ Masquerade

Sethennai never really followed its ‘sister cities’ in the League in religion, with a sort of tolerant anarchy of different gods and sects almost always predominating over the gleefully blasphemously sublime demon-cults that the conquerors originally brought with them. But the small cultists that did exist at least enjoyed a luxurious, privileged irrelevance, with sanctums in the city’s grand temple. That finally changed when Cael seized the temples for his new Hierophant - and every relic and sacred text in them, as bloodily as necessary. Which with demon worshippers meant a massacre - letting one escape and beseech their patron for aid in crafting some horrible vengeance being generally agreed to be a terrible idea.

Not that that actually worked, of course. One acolyte managed to escape - no one’s quite sure how, but then, probably best not to ask unless you’ve got a particularly strong stomach. Well, that’s one of her stories, anyway - she goes by Maia Dayal, Beloved of the Architect, Wearer of Ten Thousand Faces, and sometimes she prefers to say she’s a recently arrived priestess from Celmy, or a street urchin who found enlightenment entirely on her own. As might be expected by the self-proclaimed title, she also changes her face (and build, age, species…) about as often as everyone else bathes.

While she has shown no interest in actually taking bloody revenge on the Prince, Dayal has done plenty to earn the price on her head. The Masquerade that has grown around her is a carnival of wonders and horrors, where all manner of temptations are offered to the truly desperate, debauched and vile. Skinweavers and facetakers always need raw material, and secrets and deaths can both be easily bought for the right price - though in keeping with their patron, the Masquerade is hardly a safe or stable place to do business, and offending the wrong cultist can easily lead to a shift from ‘visitor’ to ‘canvas for artistic expression’.

Faction of Note: The Keendream Expedition

Over the last two centuries, the actual facts about the pre-Conquest city has (with few exceptions) been buried under the weight of legends, rumors and (when necessary) several tons of rock. Despite this (or because of it) whenever things get bad (...worse) for the original population of goliaths and dwarves who can trace their lineage back to that time, stories about some hidden savior or buried relic that will free them spread like wildfire. This is just such a time.

Ilidak Keendream Kathu-Viano is an explorer from a family with some grounds for its claim of being pre-conquest nobility. For the last year he has worked on commission for the Prince, leading a large and incredibly well-armed expedition into the ruins across the water from the Old City, digging into them in search of..something. No one who knows the goal has been willing to talk, but certainly it has involved hiring every historian and scholar with anything like knowledge of the city before it was Sethennai (not to mention half the charlatans and rumor mongers who might know something).

Once news of the Prince’s disappearance reached Kathu-Viano, work shifted from its previous sedate pace to something much more determined. Certain paranoid minds have said it’s almost like he was waiting for this. Other, moderately less paranoid ones have pointed out it’s a bit odd that the government-sponsored expedition is so short on patricians and city notables and so high on mercenaries form the interior and goliath clans with far more reason to listen to Kathu-Viano than the Prince, should some conflict break out.

The Stacks

Museums, exhibitions, satellite campuses, mystical archives, storehouses of eldritch knowledge, and one actual wizard tower - if the faint taste of ozone in the air doesn’t warn you what you’re getting in for leaving the city’s eastern gates, then the architecture certainly will. Wedged between variously reputable bookstores and inquisitives, different formalized and longstanding campuses are dedicated to the arts of conjuration, enchantment, sparkcraft, and practical cosmology. Competition for new discoveries and to fully unlock ancient secrets are good natured and nonviolent - at least, that’s all you can get out of anyone left standing once the smoke clears.

Faction of Note: The Bookhounds

The Bookhounds aren’t any sort of formal organization - and at least half of them would roll their eyes at the name - but rather a loose network of gutter mages, disreputable academics, private inquisitives and researchers for hire, and people with a little talent or cash to burn and far too much curiosity for their own good. They act as a sort of volunteer police force in the Stacks, passing each other clues and leads and doing each other favors to track down stolen (or escaped) relics and curses, stop idiots from unleashing anything really dramatic, and generally help people and save the day. Not to mention accumulate really impressive bags of tricks and rare books themselves in the process.

While they don’t have anything like a real leader, the group’s beating heart is Nikos Roth, an Esheri academic who arrived in the city as a fresh-faced student on a three month expedition a decade back and who never intends to leave. Running a small, incredibly ramshackle-looking secondhand book store wedged between two tenements, he nonetheless has one of the more impressive collections of occult lore in the city, and is more than happy to trade for more of it, or connect anyone in need with a specialist who can help them. As more than one would-be thief has discovered, he’s also a fairly talented mage, and for all that being entirely self-taught has left him with some obvious holes in his training, it’s also left him with some tricks that basically no one comes prepared to counter.

Redgate

Once, Redgate Prison stood alone, a fearsome warning of the Prince’s power to anyone looking south from the city center. Eighty-some years of steady urban sprawl later, most of its inmates would probably just need a running start from the prison walls to land back home. Filled mostly with those whose dreams of a new world fell flat, but with too little cash or too many enemies to get home, the slums of Redgate are a natural habitat for street gangs, drug peddlers, flesh traders, and everyone else looking to take advantage of the desperate and vulnerable. The prison itself - and its infamous and heavily armed wardens - has stumbled into being the center of law writ large, dealing out summary justice for criminals that are (correctly) assumed to be beneath the Prince’s notice.

Faction of Note: Regate Prison

Sitting on a steep hill across the water from the Old City, Redgate prison was at one point a fortress, but for generations has been put to use housing the city’s worst, most dangerous, and most profitable criminals. Given the sprawling, crime-ridden slums that now surround it, its wardens also work as a sort of brutal police force, keeping the pretence of order on the street and preserving the Prince’s Peace. Usually.

The problems with discipline start at the top, really. The Prison’s infamously brutal First Warden is also its oldest and most dangerous prisoner. Before the Conquest, Vrocdruk was one of the city’s lesser gods, enthroned in one of the Palantine’s grand temples. When Sethennai - the man - defeated him, he chose to pull his demons away before they could tear the god into so much bloody aether. Instead he was crippled, lessened, and bound to a new home in the fortress and a new purpose; defending the city and its rulers. Later, less skillful, princes altered the binding, making him responsible for most crime and punishment and hoping that his sacred nature would make the native dwarves and goliaths more obedient.

Vrocdruk is still crippled, still bound to the prison, still forced to obey the orders of the city’s acclaimed ruler, and still extremely unhappy about it. He takes any excuse to work out his unhappiness on criminals or troublemakers with the incredible bad luck to catch his direct attention. His wardens largely follow his example, often acting less like agents of justice and more like a particularly well armed gang - to the point of semi-officially collecting fees for ‘security’ from nearby businesses, supplementing the cash extorted from prisoners and their families for both necessities and luxuries while incarcerated.

Sootcliff

Trailing south of Foundrytown, on and under the steep slope beneath the city’s western walls, the densely packed tenements of Sootcliff are certainly stained grey enough to earn the name. Existing primarily as a source of blood and sweat to feed into the ever-hungry foundries and assembly lines to the north, The buildings are cheap, massive, and constructed at the lowest possible cost, with all the consequences you would expect from that. With easy access to weapons and alchemical supplies from Foundrytown and (literally) beneath the notice of the Old City, Sootcliff is famous as the home of militant bands, revolutionary conspiracies, disgraced artificers, and generally anyone who has a dream for a new world and a plan that will require a lot of explosions to get there.

Faction of Note: The Painted Doctors

Less a single organization and more an extraordinarily loose confederation of - often feuding - crimelords, the Painted Doctors are a fraternity of (largely half- or self-) taught alchemists who have over the last year grown to be the dominant criminal guild in Sootcliff. The name sometimes refers to the incredibly distinctive tattoos each ‘Doctor’ has covering much of their body, universally agreed to be somehow enchanted or cursed. Otherwise it refers to the incredibly alien and vibrant skin tones that their test subjects and muscle develop after repeatedly ingesting their ‘miraculous’ potions and tonics.

While possessing remarkably little actual magical talent among them, the Doctors have perfected the recipes for several extremely useful potions - several incredibly addictive drugs, a half dozen forms of acids and grenades, and a dizzying variety of enhancing tonics to improve themselves and distribute to their thugs - and have managed to keep both the recipes and their sources for the necessary reagents entirely secret. This has left them in the enviable position of being able to promise anyone signing on with them that they’ll be able to more or less become a regenerating ogre for an hour whenever they need to fight, while their opposition has had to settle with advising their men to stock up on fire and acid.

The leading light of the Doctors is one ‘Dr’ Fadre - almost certainly not his real name - an alchemical savant whose ‘miracle cures’ are bought and resold across the city. A flashy and well dressed sort whose patronage has turned several of Sootcliff’s most prominent dens of vice into something close to palaces for those who can afford it, he’s said to be far less interested in the nuts and bolts of running a criminal empire than enjoying its fruits and indulging his passion for the Sciences. It doesn’t hurt his reputation that he doesn’t look a day over thirty, and has for as long as anyone has known him.

Chance

Facing Oldport from across the river’s mouth, the docks of Chance are significantly new, cheaper, and altogether more ramshackle. Not really a part of any conscious design, Chance grew organically as the city sprawled beyond its original walls, essentially smuggling docks so successful it was easier to legitimize and start taxing them than it was to hang everyone involved. They now provide the city with a constant infusion of nerdowells and fortune seekers, and the district around them takes great pride in fleecing new arrivals of every penny to their name by the end of their first night on land. Hostels and boarding houses are usually safe, traditional vice dealers less so, and anyone selling treasure maps or magical amulets not at all. Still, they’re probably more harmless than the various mercenary recruiters and ‘exiled princes’ promising to give new arrivals exactly the thrill and fortune they came searching for.

Faction of Note: The Red Ocean Trading Company

What is now the Red Ocean Trading Company has gone through several dramatic changes over it’s eighty years of existence. First a privateer fleet hired by the Free City of Celmy during the First Armada War. Then eventually growing strong enough to seize several islands as an independent pirate state, before being crushed by the Esheri Navy during the Second Armada War. It’s remnants learned a bit of humility from that, and it is now seemingly content with its existence as either (depending on who you ask) a obscenely profitable shipping firm, or one of the most widespread criminal syndicates in the world.

The Company’s significant interests in Sethennai - nearly half the docks in Chance, guides and guards for anyone heading into the Interior, and fingers in quite a few less legitimate pies as well - are ably represented by Captain Arun Prem, a(n in)famous adventurer and scoundrel in his own right, apparently enjoying his semi-retirement behind a desk by getting outrageously drunk with his favorite mercenaries and criminals every night and swapping incredible (and implausible) old war stories.

There’s plenty of rumors, of course - that he’s here in de facto exile after angering the Company’s mysterious senior leadership. That he’s a thousand-year-old vampire and is the Company’s mysterious senior leadership. That he ate a kraken’s heart, and is immortal as long as he doesn’t lose sight of the water. That he’s biding his time to prepare an army before heading inland to carve a new kingdom for himself. That he’s only in the city for as long as it takes to carry out some truly spectacular heist. That he killed Prince Cael in a secret duel and trapped his soul in the pocketwatch he wears at all times. And so on. Of course, other rumours say that he started all of those himself to preserve his mystique as he grows fat in his old age.

Oldport

Facing out to the harbour but safely ensconced within the city walls, Oldpot is, as the name implies, one of the oldest ports in the new world - and certainly one of the busiest. Fully loaded merchant ships arrive daily, their cargoes emptied and replaced with the plunder of the New World almost overnight so they can return home on the next turn of the wind. Beyond the grand ports themselves, this district is home to all the most respectable shipping companies, merchant banks, hotels, and townhouses and apartments, as well as all the official consulates and embassies that Sethennai plays host to.

Faction of Note: First Bank of Sethennai

Despite only being as old as Prince Cael’s reign, the Bank already feels like an eternal and irreplaceable part of Sethennai. This isn’t something people are necessarily happy about, but its leadership had done a truly amazing job at keeping dissent to grumbling and resentment of the inevitable, and not actual resistance. They’re good at that sort of thing, even when they used Prince Cael’s (and, thus, the City’s) massive debts to his foreign benefactors as justification for taking control of the city’s tariffs and tolls, and began rigorously enforcing them, possibly for the first time ever.

Combined with a legal monopoly on the ability to mint coins, this has of course made the Bank incredibly wealthy. But not to the degree that might be assumed - the riches collected are to a large degree shipped back east to foreign creditors. Of the remaining, quite a bit is invested with as much an eye for politics as strict profit.

Executive Director Salman Ticaret, like most of his staff, is a Sethennai native who sought education in the Commonwealth (like most, he took a new name on gaining citizenship). Along with modern accounting and investing techniques, he came home with a firm grasp of political economy - and so for the last decade and a half has been more than happy to offer favorable rates to well positioned patrician and merchant houses, in exchange for their own favors and consideration in turn. The result is that the bank’s marble halls and adamant vaults house information as much as money. And Ticaret is perfectly willing to invest both, if the opportunity is promising enough.

Foreign Interests

The League of Free Cities

The League of Free Cities is not so much a single power as a collection of fiercely independent deomcratic city-states held together by the intertwined private empires of their leading citizens, deep and interdependent trading relationships, and a common religion that the rest of the world calls demon-worship - they view this as deeply offensive. Also they’ve been doing it for hundreds of years and they’re not all dead yet, so clearly everyone else is just doing demonology wrong. Politics are a mess of knives in the dark and openly bribing the voting populace with feasts and spectacles, with glory and riches to anyone who can hold the mob’s favor for long.

Demonic evocation - and the arts learned as a result of it, like fleshweaving, orienomarchy , breaking reality down into elemental chaos and shaping it to your whims, and so on - are in the rest of the world generally met with very thorough execution, making the freethinkers of the League the world’s bleeding edge in magical innovation. The entire culture of the League is also nearly custom-made to produce bold idiots willing to do what it takes to get rich or die trying, and the various Free City’s Adventurers Guilds are (in)famous the world over.

Until recently, the Free Cities considered Sethennai, if not one of them, then at least a younger sibling or benevolent dependency. Prince Cael’s coup has been taken as something of a wound, and the merchant interests who have lost out as he opened trade have made sure that in the decades since his name has become synonymous with bloody-handed tyranny. The first broadsheets celebrating his death will sell out in moments, and the acclaimed merchant adventurer Vyas Asraya, said to be en route to the city, is said to be very optimistic about future trading opportunities.

Holy Illyric Empire

Technically speaking a vast and sprawling feudal state unified only in the person of the Sovereign (Empress of Illyrin, Queen of Belthaya, Defender of the Hierophant of Imir, Grand Duchess of Abhari, etc, and so on, and so forth), the Empire dominates the better part of two continents, and in terms of size and prestige is unquestionably the foremost state on the globe. It is also a bureaucrat’s nightmare, its aristocracy distracted from their internal feuds only when they need to defend their ancestral rights from central overreach.

Ancient controls and long established relationships make Imperial binders the most fearsome conjurers and thaumaturges in the known world, a process not at all hurt by the wholesale incorporation of any powerful spirits or terrestrial god who will sign on the dotted line into the official pantheon. Illyrin Paladins are also easily the most storied heavy cavalry the world has ever seen, and Abharic necromancers are generally held to be the heirs (or direct pupils) of the inventors of the craft.

Illyric interests have prospered under Prince Cael’s reign, but the last years have seen Sethennai become a haven for heretical priests and radical binders, something Ambassador Konrad Reingard has been rumored to be increasingly frustrated with, though no one heard a word from his Oldport estate since the chaos began.

The Sublime Esheri Commonwealth

A thoroughly modern and enlightened state, the Commonwealth is history’s gift to the cartographer, an empire with firmly delineated borders and clear, rationally determined administrative divisions. Governed by a Janissary Corps educated and conditioned from childhood to put principle above self interest and the good of the Commonwealth above friends or (nonexistent) family, the Esheri control far less land than the Illyrin Empire, but has been able to fight it to a standstill and even force it to abandon certain far flung dependencies over a series of wars across the last century.

Beyond a ruthlessly efficient system for taxation and conscription, the Commonwealth’s military might is credited to two sources - on the one hand, its marines are the finest and most disciplined line infantry anyone is likely to ever see, experts in the use of gas and artillery and famously cool under fire. One the other, their heavy automata are an answer to any conjured devil or bound beast, enlightened clockwork providing enough force to cleave through scales and enchanted plate without missing a beat. But the Janissaries are as happy as their enemies to admit that they prefer unfair fights - though they credit their infamous spy network to the fruits of their scientific studies of society and history, while their enemies instead blame the corrupting effects of gold, blackmail, and a complete indifference to the morals of those they work with.

While the Commonwealth does have an embassy in the city, it mostly exists as an appendage of the First Sethennai Bank, the private institution responsible for printing and guarding the solvency of the city’s currency, its entire upper rung staffed by experts trained in the Commonwealth and generally considered Prince Cael’s way of paying back their support for his coup. More recently, it has been rumored that the Secretariat has taken an interest in the struggles in the interior. Coincidentally, an ‘Academic’ has been seen floating around various less than reputable bars in Chance, ostensibly as part of a project to record the city’s myths and folklore.

The Warlord States

For the last two hundred years, the interior has been an evershifting patchwork of successor kingdoms, native revolts, monstrous empires, released horrors, and stranger things besides, the unending tide of weapons and adventurers ensuring that no single player was ever able to secure dominance (and the various rulers of Sethennai have certainly played their part in keeping things that way). At the moment the foremost powers are a giantblooded kingdom led by a messaniac priest-king claiming to be the reincarnation of a Titan, a personal union enforced at sword point between a Khasli pirate queen and a goliath ‘emperor’, a red dragon who has claimed an old giant palace and forced the dwarves living in the mountains around it to provide tribute and worship, and several dozen more minor principalities. It should go without saying that war is the natural state of being, and soldiers are sucked up like ships in a whirlpool.

Adventurers are the lifeblood of Sethennai, and they don’t only flow one way. A constant stream of veterans - either enriched or embittered - skulk, limp or run back once they’ve had their fill of the wonders of the new world, usually missing something important or carrying something priceless - sometimes both. The courts and inner circles of every powerful warlord are composed exclusively of this sort of hard, tricky and generally insufferable type of rogue, and they’re often the only agents trusted enough to be dispatched on delicate missions. The line between warlord and criminal kingpin or pirate magnate is also extremely thin - sometimes nonexistent - as smuggling, sabotage and assassinations are simply basic tools of statecraft in the ruthless arena of the interior. More than once, an ambitious Prince of Sethennai has attempted to recreate their ancestor’s short lived empire, only to be found butchered in their bed but the agents of one warlord or another.

The Warlord States view Sethennai as a vital artery for supplies and funding, and for manpower to refill their armies with disposable bodies for their constant border wars. On a grander scale, those with ambition view it as either a crown jewel and future capital, or a bleeding ulcer on the land which needs to be razed to its foundations. In either case, few are interested in a strong, stable government for it. Regardless of their opinions, sending emissaries and embassies to the city is the first (and often only) diplomatic initiative of every new warlord state - though in truth their role is often closer to mercenary recruiter and fundraiser.

#this is theoretically a writing blog #D&D #abhari #well D&Dified but mostly #worlbuilding

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thermodynamiclawyer · 3 years

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yeah, this is gonna be a trainwreck. here’s @bandagegirl ‘s and my GHS headcanon masterpost. our goal was to have at least 3 per character, if not more. we kinda had to group the last few characters together in the end, though. it’ll be split up in categories between the characters in the Game, then Anime-Only, and then overall Worldbuilding at the end as for easier reading.

Game Characters

Gregory

the Lost World/Gregory House is Gregory’s own manifestation through loneliness and envy. (see Worldbuilding)

he’s WAY older than a grandfather of James. he’s more of a great-great-great-great grandfather, but it’s easier to just call him grandpa.

he’s been long dead in reality for years. always constantly dreaming and manifesting his Lost World and eventually never woke up.

there is almost 0 records of him from reality. because of this, there is no clear time period he originated in, unlike the guests.

he’s a collector. he loves historically significant antique items to put on a shelf and learn all about.

as taken from the manga, his favorite historical subject is War.

he suffered from frequent night terrors as a teenager, making it difficult to sleep before the manifestation of the Lost World.

while he usually tries to set up a weekly chore schedule for the residents in the hotel, he usually ends up doing everything himself (both because the guests throw in the towel very quickly and that Gregory wants to do everything right).

his magic abilities include teleportation and immortality, but he’s still very prone to injury.

Gregory Mama

she’s actually a manifestation within the Lost World that Gregory used to cope/punish himself with.

has the tendency to adopt new guests as family members only to eat them/their souls later. this also applies to Gregory attempting to manifest new family members in the past, to which he stopped after Gregory Mama has shown to steal their souls each time.

obviously, she’s not Gregory’s real mother, rather a personification of the abuse Gregory suffered in reality.

as young children usually don’t use their parents real name often, she doesn’t have a real name.

James

he’s a child who escaped reality after discovering a forgotten family member (Gregory) in very old family photos; having little to no relation to the rest of the family.

plus, hearing rumors of a hotel that only appeared during moonless nights only encourage him to take on a challenge.

since he’s related to Gregory (even if it’s very distant), his monster transformation was a lot faster, becoming a full rat in little under a month.

he LOVES horror movies, especially slasher films. he might be a little too influenced by them.

he owns a large range of weapons, from toy water guns to actual chainsaws. that doesn’t mean he’ll use them responsibly, though.

he’s a very smart kid, even to the point where he can be manipulative to both the kids and the adults. he’ll even convince other kids to take the blame for him whenever he starts problems.

his parents from reality miss him very much.

Catherine

in reality, Catherine was a German nurse in the 1940’s during WW2.

as a human, she was actually afraid of the sight of blood and would get lightheaded whenever she had to treat a soldier’s wounds. however, as a determined nurse, she tried her hardest to become tolerant of blood. tolerance became fondness and fondness became obsession to the point where she was hurting her patients just to see blood again.

she is attracted to both men and women, however she experiences internalized biphobia. due to this, she’s desperate to find true love with a man while specifically trying to avoid romantic relationships with women.

she knows how to take care of children.

she molts her skin during periods of time, you know, since she’s a lizard.

she didn’t gain magic powers along with her transformation, but instead gained physical strength.

Cactus Gunman and Cactus Girl

both originated in the Mexican revolution, especially around 1910.

Gunman had been shot in the chest a few times in his life and surprisingly survived each of them.

Gunman’s personality completely changed once he arrived in Gregory House with his sister, becoming a paranoid coward from the brave “hero” he made himself out to be.

they both grow seasonal flowers in the springtime. Gunman grows one large red flower on his head, which he hides with his hat in the spring time. he prefers to only show to his potential lover. Cactus Girl grows smaller white flowers in her hair.

Gunman is in dire need of glasses.

Gunman is quite fond of gardening, and loves to talk about flora. sometimes, Lost Doll will accompany him in the courtyard while he weeds.

they would die for each other, so don’t cross them.

Cactus Girl can shoot better than Gunman, but prefers her lasso and other melee weapons. she’s sworn off using guns after the revolution.

Cactus Girl has the ability to spawn in zones in smaller closed areas, such as turning her hotel room into Cactus Land; sort of like a pocket dimension. it’ll disappear as soon as she leaves the room.

sometimes, they both don’t need to eat due to the occasional Photosynthesis, and can go a long time without water.

Hell’s Chef

he worked as a highly regarded chef in Russia at a fancy restaurant, with mixed European family origins.

him and Mirror Man were coworkers of some sort.

he came from a long line of wrestlers, but broke family tradition to cook as a passion and career.

he died after the restaurant went up in flames.

his throat is still scratchy and rough from the incident, so he isn’t much of a talker. not to mention the language barrier and that he’s still attempting to learn the language everyone else speaks in Gregory House.

while the appearance of his meals look absolutely irredeemable, Chef’s cooking is actually very tasty; so much that you almost can’t taste the poison. he prefers making meals that are hearty and savory, rather than “looking good”.

he prefers to do all the food shopping and butchering. nobody knows the best ingredient selections like he does.

like Catherine, all of this “magic ability” went to his incredible strength.

most, if not all of his body is made out of wax, with vein like wick all throughout the body, giving him general bodily structure.

Neko Zombie

(see Worldbuilding)

Clock Master and My Son

My Son was a stillborn in reality; the death of him and his mother gave Clock Master an alcohol addiction and depression.

1960 is the year My Son and CM's wife died, making it when time stopped for CM. he’s sort of “stuck” in 1960 in a way, which is why the year is plastered on both of their foreheads.

My Son was technically "born" in Gregory House.

when Clock Master came to Gregory House, an infant My Son was already waiting in his room. Because the child died before getting a name, CM referred to him as My Son.

while CM's time abilities are getting worse with age, they never were great to begin with due to the Lost World's unusual flow of time.

My Son's time abilities on the other hand have the potential to be the most powerful ability out of everyone's when he gets older, being able to play multiple timelines at the same time and even rewriting reality. this is due to being born in the Lost World, so his ability has adapted to Gregory House’s “time” system.

Judgement Boy + Gold

instead of a singular character, Judgement Boys are classified as a “species” considering there are multiple of them, with more being produced in the Judgement Factory daily. there is not a singular JB.

the Judgement Factory in Gregory House is a sub-factory of a much bigger Core Factory, where it branches off into different zones and other manifestations. There are countless Judgement Factories in existence, all with numerous JBs being produced and trained.

Judgement Boy Gold is an individual one-of-a-kind model, however, there are more in the “Metal” series similar to him in different factories with a variety of training jobs.

JBs came into existence after a lawyer in the early 2000’s won a court case that suppressed the rights and safety of these assembly line workers in a Toy Factory, which caused hundreds of workers to be injured or even killed. realizing the consequences of his actions, he spiraled downwards into insanity and ended up in Gregory House, rarely leaving his hotel room and eventually manifesting the Factory.

most models or designs of a Judgement Boy are based off of toys; one of the very few things reflected from the lawyer’s fatal court case.

the standard JB’s appearance is a bastardized caricature of the original lawyer, only with added cages and robotic features. the lawyer began transforming into a red monster with sharp teeth and claws, but never saw the results as he disappeared into the Core Factory one day, never to be seen again.

see @ask-factory and the #extended factory tag for a more extensive story.

Mummy Family

Mummy Papa, Mummy Dog, and Mummy Mama originated somewhere in the 1980’s.

the reason they’re in Gregory House is an overlap of death and the fact that Mummy Papa was unintentionally poisoning the 3, leading to ending up in the hotel as a “punishment”.

they’re Bloodhounds.

Mummy Papa loves to collect weapons and owns a saber collection, especially older historically significant ones.

Mummy Dog enjoys morbid facts and likes to tell the other children about death.

Mummy Papa has Münchausen Syndrome by Proxy, which is triggered when the sword shifts in his head. because of this, he keeps himself and the rest of his family sicker with unclear motives, perhaps to have the ability brag about their ailments. (more details here)

Mummy Mama suffers from more immune-system based illnesses and anemia while the other two deal with physical and phantom pain, which they all pass off as colds.

the plant in Mummy Mama’s head is a parasite, and needs to be fed directly to continue living if Mummy Mama gets too weak. (the plant prefers blood)

TV-Fish

one of the few characters classified as a species.

TV Fish have a wide variety of fish or other sea creatures they can be. the TV Fish in Gregory House are much smaller.

some TV Fish don’t even have to be TVs. some can be other electronic appliances just as long as they’re combined with a fish skeleton.

they can be found across other Zones and places besides the Lost World, some with localized and native species differing from what we already seen.

TV Fish are an invasive species in the Lost World.

they’re attracted to people with better memory. a person more intact and in touch with their memories could attract an entire school of TV Fish!

Roulette Boy

practically a God, Roulette Boy has reality bending powers.

however, since he follows his own rules strictly, he sets limits on himself as to only use them for his games, and won’t apply them to himself since he’s the Game Master.

nobody knows what the “rules” he follow are, but he restrains himself on what he can do while hosting a game. though, once you’re in his game, it’s almost a free-for-all and he can change you to be whatever pawn he sees fit until the game is over.

while RB prefers traditional board games, nothing’s stopping him from hosting RPGs or other turn-based video games (as seen in Lost Qualia.) he also loves gacha games and gambling.

when not hosting a game, he likes to roleplay.

Angel/Devil Dog

she is not a guest in Gregory House, neither a manifestation of the Lost World. she is a messenger from an entire separate outside world/reality, and she’s always been Angel Dog.

her, Death, and Gregory have been around equally the longest.

her and Gregory have a long history of rivalry. she’s always meddling in the Lost World and trying to let souls out a backdoor. whether she’s doing it to free them, or just to piss off Gregory, depends on her mood.

Angel Dog has a solid grasp on reality, however, her reality is different from the guests. it’s why her and Neko Zombie get along.

she doesn’t have a split personality disorder, as she chooses to become Devil Dog whenever she feels like it. her decision making is very emotion-based.

she’s a Dachshund!

Devil Dog likes soccer, and Angel Dog likes american football.

Lost Doll

ever since coming to the Lost World, she has either stopped aging altogether or she ages very slowly, as most object-based guests do.

she’s a wooden marionette with the ability to change her size.

in reality, she belonged to a very poor family who could only afford a few outdated wooden toys, which is why Katie was so special to her.

she’s good friends with James, even if she’s usually the one falling victim to his pranks. sometimes, when Katie takes over, it can be the other way around.

she has poor volume control and tends to shout when she’s excited or provoked.

she’s the youngest guest.

Death

Death, like Gregory Mama, is a manifestation of a part of Gregory's life.

he was created from Gregory’s favorite comfort movie, The Seventh Seal.

Death used to work in Gregory House as a doorman, welcoming the guests and wishing them goodbye, but fleed when Gregory Mama appeared and got rid of all other "manifestations".

his goal is to free Gregory's soul and end the Lost World, which is only possible if Gregory is the only person left.

Anime Characters

Dr.Fritz

Dr.Fritz is also German like Catherine, but came a little later in time.

back in reality, his body slowly stop responding, so he illegally tried to build himself a new body. that new body wasn’t fully ready yet when he decided to transplant his own brain when he was wheelchair bound and starting to lose arm control, so it was a very long process.

because of his condition, doctors either didn’t treat him correctly or flat out ignored his problems, so he has a strong mistrust to other doctors, which is why he wanted to operate on himself. the other doctors said there was nothing they could do, but he had other plans in mind.

he was there for the Berlin wall falling, and still has a piece of it as a keepsake.

he falls apart easily and has to re-sew body parts or snap his neck back into place. Catherine helps put him back together (in return, Fritz helps her shed.)

Catherine calls him Fritzchen on occasion.

he documents the species of the patients he treats out of curiosity and hopes to help them better. his treatments may be considered “unethical” but he knows for certain that if it’s to cure or treat the patient, he’ll go great lengths to break any rule in the medical field.

Mono Eye Wizard + Frog Fortune Teller

both are canonically married to each other, i just wanted to make sure everyone knew :]

Mono Eye Wizard wears a helmet, and he’s also an amphibian with one eye underneath his robe.

both are very interested and knowledgeable in the Magical and Paranormal side of the Lost World.

both held onto their souls for longer than most people, but lost them in the end.

Wizard is normally very powerful, he just SUCKS at summonings. (plus, he’s a little bit of an idiot)

on the other hand, Frog Fortune Teller isn’t very powerful, but she is very smart (and stubborn). she’s almost always right, especially if it’s a bad thing she predicted.

Wizard, and other characters such as Musha Dokuro and Egypetit all worship the same Dark Lord.

the little horned skeletons in Wizard’s cult are also classified as a species. sometimes, he allows in other interested members.

Wizard is fluent in latin.

Second Guest

the Second Guest, as shown at the end of the season two, has the silhouette of a rat. that’s her actual form; a shadow.

her “job” is to eavesdrop on other guests to go and report to Gregory Mama.

she’s very fast, quiet, hard to catch, and a big snitch.

the others call her “Hello Sister” as a title, while Gregory Mama calls her “My Lovely Daughter.”

her cigarette embers still glow on the wall, which is one of the only signals she’s in the room, especially in a poorly lit one.

usually only Gregory, James, and Mama can “hear” what she’s saying.

Chef strongly dislikes her and Lost Doll avoids her like the plague.

Prompters

a pair of indistinguishable twins, escaping reality after being rejected of their dream to become famous theater actors. both young adults.

they work multiple part time jobs, including helping out in the Judgement Factory in the hotel and Kabuki's theater, along with Poor Conductor’s performances.

they share drinks at the bar. their favorite drink is a raspberry/strawberry milkshake with two cherries. don’t forget to give them two straws!

they’re both learning how to cook with Hell’s Chef. so far, they can dice onions very well. :]

Public Phone

he’s in the Lost World as a punishment for being a greedy thief in reality.

he can create fake alibis, passports, various cards in addition to faking voices.

he’s drinking pals with Clock Master.

he takes any currency, just nothing fake. only HE can be the swindle here.

he’s a perverted little bitch.

Various Species

Haniwa Salarymen are classified as species, created from overworked businessmen in reality. The occurrence of them are very common, and season 1 happens to focus on one of them.

Black Ducks are a species, specializing in working kiosks, amusement parks, and other booths. Speed Mouse is never seen without a team of Black Ducks. Street Vendors sometimes accompany them.

Musha Dokuro are an invasive species to the Lost World.

Trap Mice are a (rare) artificial species built in the Lost World.

Dead Bodies are also classified as a species. they are the result of Death freeing an individual’s soul, leaving a husk/empty body behind.

species like these show up in reality to those who are close to their visit in the Lost World, appearing in the background or the corner of their eye, replacing real people.

individuals in all of those species are not visible/noticable until you interact and get close with them. they’re like NPCs.

Others

Wooden Lizard was Captain Wood’s favorite keychain that came to life.

Fat Chicken is an omnivore. He can and will eat anything.

(see here for Pig Gentleman and Mirror Man.)

Mirror Man can summon his own pocket dimension.

Kinko and Inko know more than they lead on, and Kinko is definitely much more powerful, but he can’t be bothered to do anything about it. he’s lazy.

Inko smokes cigars, but hates cigarettes.

Earth Man (from Lost Qualia) is non-verbal. he’s also very eco friendly!

Hell’s Taxi is a manifestation of a false sense of hope to escape the Lost World. it can also manifest in Reality to pick up new guests.

Egypetit’s head is made up of Gold, a strong conductor of magic in the Lost World.

Poor Conductor was powerful enough to manifest his own room into the Lost World, rather than checking into the Hotel himself.

Unbaba is semi non-verbal and cannot remove his mask. he’s definitely powerful enough to make guests lose their souls.

Bonsai Kabuki needs to water his head frequently or else he’ll be drained of energy, and be unable to open his third eye.

The Rainbow Dragon fossils, which Bonehead is after, are cursed, and uses his wife’s voice to compel him into seeking after them to claim yet another victim.

Toilet Baby may not be as powerful, but he can still summon dangerous attacks related to pocket dimensions.

Sleepy Sheep is used as a vessel in his sleep for those who are powerful enough to enter dreams.

Worldbuilding

Gregory House was a real place back in Reality, and it originally belonged to Neko Zombie and his loving family.

However, years and years of built up envy and hatred from Gregory, a person who didn’t receive the same love and luxuries as Neko Zombie, manifested the Lost World as a way for him to cope with the things he didn’t have in Reality, bringing the house down with him.

The remains of the house in Reality is now a mere rumor in the town, but its influence spreads across many zones to this day.

Neko Zombie is the final remaining member of the original owners of the house.

Him and Gregory are LONG forgotten for generations in Reality.

Zones are a loose term in the Lost World, which could mean alternate realities, different dimensions, etc. The Lost World is a zone with its own manifestations.

Another Zone could have its own origins and realities. Reality is not a zone, if that makes sense.

A Zone itself can manifest as a single individual or object being the Core that keeps the zone existing. (See The Core Judgement Factory that branches off Sub-Factories into different Zones.)

The Lost World is a very large Zone that reaches and branches off into other Zones, pulling in individuals.

Because of Zonal shenanigans, time moves a lot differently in the Lost World.

awful hospital does a better job handling zones better than this, actually. we took a little bit of inspiration from it. see here and here for a better grasp on what i’m trying to say.

#ghs #gregory horror show #ghs headcanon #I CANT TAG ALL THE CHARACTERS ILL ACTUALLY RUN OUT OF SPACE #i didn’t include firebird bloody wheel or bell seal only cuz we didn’t have shit for them n they weren’t related to other characters #anyways holy SHIT please enjoy i’m gonna fuckin shower or some shit #oh yeah That Guy isn’t included either cuz he hardly exists

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firstfrostfall · 3 years

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A Cold Lament - Chapter Two

a tommy shelby fanfiction

In the winter of 1918, the Shelby brothers returned home from a war-torn France. In the winter of the following year, the middle brother, Tommy, recognizes an opportunity for his family to move up in the world, and it came in the shape of a misplaced crate of weapons.

In the meantime, per the request of his aunt, he gives a struggling young woman a job.

Little did he know, that like the smell of snow on the wind in late autumn, everything was going to change, and it wasn’t just because of some stolen guns.

Takes place during Season One.

Somehow, Anna had collected quite a bit of jewelry in her twenty-three years of living. She never necessarily went out of her way for it- it would just find its way to her. She was enamored by shiny things. You know, the things that glimmered when you held them in the sunlight the right way. Stones, sea glass, gems. Really whatever she could get her hands on. But she was especially fond of sea glass. She always loved sea glass.

It started off with small things at first, like sea glass, when she was a little girl. Because of this love, Magpie was the nickname her grandmother had given her.

Her grandmother would say things like, be careful, you’ll cut your hands on the sea glass, my little Magpie.

When she got older, more so into her teenage years, she would be gifted with various pieces of jewelry for her birthday or other special occasions. Each piece was beautiful, surely. She couldn’t deny the appeal that came with a pair of diamond earrings, those certainly caught in the light well, but she would’ve been just as happy with a particularly glossy stone from a rocky beach. Jewelry, or whatever stone it was, didn’t have to be expensive, she just liked how they glinted in the light. Like a magpie. She felt quite silly about it.

Nevertheless, she preferred sea glass to anything.

Growing up, she kept her entire collection in an ornately carved hope chest at the foot of her bed. There was no organization, no rhyme or reason for the placement of any of it. Of course, she kept the most expensive pieces tucked away in a separate gaudy jewelry box, nested in swaths of black velvet. The hope chest, on the other hand, was entirely in disarray. Anna liked it that way. It was her big box of things.

She brought the hope chest with her when she went to live with her aunt. It was a nightmare to travel with, surely, but it was hers. For the past year it remained at the foot of the bed she shared with her five other cousins. Living with her aunt and cousins under one tiny roof was an adjustment for her. It was different. The war changed a lot.

The war changed everything.

A family torn apart, and a girl sent packing off to her aunt’s home in an unfamiliar factory city hours from the only home she ever knew.

Anna remembered the day vividly. It was in the middle of summer, 1917, and the trip was dreadfully rainy. She traveled by train and cab to get to Birmingham.

When she eventually arrived at her aunt’s doorstep, she was soaked. The brim of her hat drooped under the weight of the rainwater. She knew her aunt was barely scraping by, she had so much on her plate already, she didn’t need the additional burden of a niece added to that roster. Her aunt had five children of her own, a husband away at war- but Anna had nowhere else to go.

So she stood there, surrounded by luggage and suitcases and trunks full of whatever she had left, waiting for her to answer her pleading knocks. When her aunt did open the door, she quickly ushered her niece in and helped her get settled with all of her belongings.

A few weeks later, word reached them that her uncle died in France. Her aunt was frantic after receiving the news, and understandably so. Not only had she lost her husband, but another source of income for the family. There was no one coming home to work in a factory.

Anna began selling whatever items she could to make extra money to cover the cost of a sixth mouth to feed. She sold dresses, silver hairpins, and combs, shoes, miscellaneous books. She sold almost anything and everything. Her belongings were finite, however, and soon enough, she had sold as much as she could.

Except for her jewelry, except for the hope chest.

She had accumulated enough valuables in the chest to scrounge up a few months rent for her own flat. A shabby little place, not too far from where her aunt lived. She even had a little extra money leftover to tuck away for her family, just enough to help them get by for a little while longer. There would be more space at her aunt’s house now that she was gone, too. More room for her cousins in their bed, one less mouth to feed, one less body to clothe.

It pained Anna to look at the chest. It pained her even more to open it. Almost everything she had collected was gone. Of course, she kept a few things, the items that were the most precious to her. An opal ring, a pair of diamond earrings, a golden bracelet, a jar full of sea glass. Each unrelated, but with their own meaning.

There was no point in moping around about it. She could spend another twenty-three years collecting more shiny things.

She was learning to make do with what she had.

Of course, now with her own expenses, she was also learning that her money was finite as well. This made her aunt worry for her terribly.

Finding a job had been difficult, to say the least. She spent hours reading through newspaper after newspaper, clipping away at any job advertisement that she thought she could even remotely qualify for. Most of the time, she wouldn’t receive an interview or would be flat-out rejected on the spot.

It was discouraging- but made sense to her. She really was just a girl, from a village barely anyone had ever heard of before, with a resume that was, to put it plainly, terrible. She never held a job before, and her only experience came from a few accounting courses from a couple of summers back. Truthfully, the courses were something to pass the time, to keep her from boredom while the days were long and hot. She never expected to actually need those skills.

One morning, however, there was a series of frantic knocks at her door. It was no one other than her aunt, giddy and exclaiming that she may have found her a steady job.

“I have a friend from church who can help you,” Her aunt said. “She set up an interview for tomorrow, three o’clock. You’ll be speaking with her nephew. She’ll pick you up from the house. She’s a good woman.”

Anna hugged her aunt tightly at the news, a wave of relief washing over her. Until, she realized, that she wasn’t sure what exactly she was interviewing for. That was when the panic started to settle in.

But alas, when fortune drops something valuable on your lap, it’s best not to question it.

That was where she found herself currently, a few days after the interview, staring at her reflection in the cracked bathroom mirror while she got ready for her first day. She was brushing through her hair, smoothing out the curls from the rollers she had slept in. The wan morning light made it a soft auburn that curled down past her collarbones.

She had been ready for work since dawn, and truthfully, even before then. She had a hard time sleeping and chalked it up to be a culmination of nerves for the day ahead of her, and the fact that her flat didn’t feel like a home just yet. In time, she hoped it would.

All throughout the night, the floors creaked, and the pipes hissed. She barely had any furniture, except for a wire bed frame and a hand-me-down mattress she had gotten a deal on. She was also pretty sure that the lock on the front door was broken, so she propped up a chair against the knob and hoped for the best.

Despite all of this, for better or worse, this place was her own. It eased the burden on her aunt.

Anna stood by the window while tucking her cream blouse into the waist of her maroon skirt. She spent the better part of her morning ironing out her clothes, desperately trying to ensure that the linen was fine and creaseless. Her iron was one of the things she couldn’t part with. At the very least, she could look her best with it. Or at least try to.

She glanced at the window one last time before slipping her shoes on by the front door, watching as tiny flurries of snow began to fall onto the city below. She smiled.

It was early this year.

Anna promptly knocked on the door to The Garrison at nine o’clock that same morning. The snow was still falling, each flake thick enough to catch in her hair, a contrast of white on red, but soft enough that it would not stick to the ground, instead, it melted on contact with the muddy pavement. Harry, the barkeep, answered the door.

“Miss Caldwell, good morning.” He took a step to the side so she could enter. His face and nose were flushed red, he must’ve arrived not too long ago himself.

“And to you, Mr. Fenton.” She smiled, her breath turning into clouds as she spoke. “Quite the weather we’re having.”

“I’ll say,” He closed the door behind her and turned the lock. “Haven’t seen snow this early since I was a boy.”

“It’s good luck,” She replied while shrugging her coat off. “They say an early snow brings good fortune.”

“I’ll keep that in mind when my toes are freezing off in the morning,” He gave her a lopsided grin. “Follow me, you can leave your things in the back room.”

Once Anna was settled, she stood behind the bar with her own apron tied around her waist, (already stained, mind you) given to her by Harry. The remainder of the morning was another lesson in “making do” for her. The pub wouldn’t be officially open until noon, so this extra time beforehand was for her to get a feel for everything. To put it plainly, it was additional time to practice.

No matter how hard she tried to mask her nerves and keep her composure, it was like she had two left feet. Spilling drinks, forgetting the difference between vodka and gin, pouring a pint incorrectly, and causing the foam to rise over the rim of the glass.

Despite the extra time she had spent on her appearance, smoothing out any wrinkles on her skirt, curling her hair, and flashing a smile at all times- she couldn’t have felt any more out of place, and painfully unprepared. There was so much on the line for her. She had her own place and an aunt who needed financial help. She would keep trying, she didn’t have any other choice.

Harry was kind to her, and as patient as he could be, but it became quite obvious that she was a terrible bartender. Embarrassingly so. Terrible enough that he insisted that she just watch him for the rest of their shift, assuring her that it was for the best.

“It will be a slow night,” He said, wiping down the remnants of the third pint she had spilled. “A good way for you to learn the ropes. Nice and easy.”

Anna nodded, accepting her wounded pride. In the late afternoon and early evening, business was slow. It was quiet, a few patrons here and there ordering a drink or two. She was able to observe Harry interacting with the regulars and took mental notes of what people seemed to like. She thought it was quite pleasant.

Until it wasn’t a slow night.

Evidently, there was a football game earlier in the day, and all of the men came trailing in afterward. The pub became boisterous and loud. It was overwhelming, to say the least.

“Just work on collecting the empty glasses,” Harry motioned with his head to the cluttered tables from across the bar. “I’ll take care of everything up here.”

Anna nodded, typing the apron around her waist tighter. She weaved through the crowds, deftly trying to avoid any leering gazes or comments. Of course, she made quite a few spills, and mentally kicked herself for being so clumsy, for letting her composure waver. In the beginning, she was slow going back and forth from table to bar, but eventually, she was able to get into a rhythm.

She placed the last few glasses on the bartop, exhaling heavily. The pub was finally empty. She glanced down at her blouse. This morning, the linen was freshly pressed and the color of cream, but this evening, however, it was stained with splotches of beer and other liquors. She frowned.

It was late.

Harry wiped a forearm across his brow. “You did well.”

“You’re very kind,” Anna wiped her hands on her apron, shaking her head. “I did terribly.”

He laughed, quite loudly.

“I’ll finish cleaning up here,” He nodded. “You go catch a breath in the back.”

“No, no, let me help with the clean-up. I made most of the mess.”

“You had a long enough day today, and you’ll have a longer one tomorrow.” He smiled, waving her off with his hand. “I’ll take care of it.”

“Thank you.”

Anna walked into the back room and sighed, collapsing onto a chair. She held her face in her hands. Her body ached, her feet especially, and her head throbbed. But more than anything, she was embarrassed. She was tired and wanted to weep. It was silly. Her first day of work and she wanted to cry. She swallowed sharply and stood up, untying the apron from her waist and tossing it over the back of the chair.

There was no point in crying, she would make do.

When she stepped back into the main room, Harry wasn’t alone anymore. It was the man who she spoke to a few days before, Mr. Shelby, standing by the bar with a glass in front of him. A cigarette dangled between two fingers, the smoke curling in the hazy lights above the bar. He didn’t notice her at first, and if he did, he didn’t make it known.

It wasn’t until Harry cleared his throat, that he tilted his head toward her.

Anna glanced down at her beer-stained blouse and grimaced. She certainly felt like a mess, she could only imagine what she looked like. With a sheepish smile, she combed her fingers through her hair and smoothed it all over one shoulder.

“Miss Caldwell,” He nodded.

“Good evening, Mr. Shelby,” She smiled, folding her coat over her forearm.

“Heading home?” He turned away from her.

“Yes, just about.”

“Mrs. Gray instructed me to walk her home on these late nights,” Harry quickly interjected. She could've sworn Mr. Shelby scoffed at that.

“Ah, waiting on me then?” The other man raised an eyebrow.

“No, no, of course not Mr. Shelby.” Harry’s voice wavered. Anna noticed his eyes widening, like he was nervous, almost.

“I’m sure you’re both tired,” He finished the rest of his drink in one swig, and then fully turned to her. “First day, wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” Anna could feel her face flushing. A disastrous first day, she thought. “Harry was an excellent teacher.” She could see Harry beaming at that comment.

“Ah,” Mr. Shelby nodded, stacking a few coins beside his empty glass. He placed his cap on his head and tipped the brim to the barkeep, “Goodnight.” He paused for a moment, and then he tilted his head toward Anna. “And to you, Miss Caldwell.”

“Goodnight, Mr. Shelby,” She smiled, her cheeks growing warm. “Thank you again, for this opportunity.”

He hummed in response, shrugging on his coat as he walked to the door.

By the time Harry and Anna had locked up the pub and were outside, Mr. Shelby was halfway down the street. She watched as he walked away, unable to tear her attention away from his retreating form.

As if on cue, it started snowing again. The little white flecks looked more like the ashes that spewed from the factory chimneys.

“This way, Miss.” Harry’s voice interrupted her musings. She blushed, feeling silly for mooning over a man she hardly knew.

Just as she was about to look away, she saw Mr. Shelby stop short. Anna’s heart skipped a beat when he turned around and looked at her from over his shoulder.

All was and quiet and cold.

#tommy shelby x oc #tommy shelby x reader #tommy shelby fanfic #peaky blinders fanfic

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detectiveinchicago · 4 years

Text

Please, don’t go

Fandom: Chicago Fire

Pairing: Blake Gallo x reader

Requested by: @tomanyfandoms04

Warnings: Medical Stuff might not be accurate.

Word Count: 1.806

GIF IS NOT MINE.

Being in a relationship with a firefighter was being willed to have your heart on edge all the time. Every time he went out on a shift Blake knew that you had gotten used to letting it be because you were sure that if you thought about it every day you were going to freak out. You had been dating for over 10 years; you had met in high school after Blake had lost his family in a fire when he was twelve. Blake spent most of his time at the fire station or training. He knew in his heart that he was destined to be a firefighter and you supported him; you were always there for him. When you started studying finance, he was also there for you during the long study nights. You were always happy for each other’s achievements; it was their nature.

Less than a year ago I had entered a new station “It’s my dream job baby” he had told you. The problem is that he was too intrepid and impulsive for his own good, but despite your reservations, he had been doing very well. You remember how proud you were of him when he ran that race to raise awareness about lung cancer in the fire department.

You had talked about getting married, of course, but it never seemed like the right time. Blake, however, was trying to find that moment for many months. He was sure he loved you and that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with you, so why wait? Even though Blake had been looking for the right time for months, it never seemed to be and the ring was still in his pants pocket, either you were both exhausted when you came home from work or you were at Molly’s or you had something to do. It always seemed like there was something more important to do.

“Have you seen this?” A coworker had asked you while pointing to the television where there were images of a fire in a mattress factory that firefighters were trying to put out. You hoped that Blake was not there, but unfortunately you knew that was not the case. The fire was so big that they had called all the units, so most likely he was there. At least she hoped he was at least being careful.

It was after seven when you arrived to the apartment you two shared. You left the keys on the front table next to your coat and your wallet when your cell phone rang.

“And it is?” you said, rubbing your eyes. You needed a shower.

“(Y / N)? This is Chief Boden I work with Blake Gallo” a raspy voice spoke to him on the other end of the phone. Was Blake hurt? It wasn’t the first time he’d hurt himself at work, that’s for sure.

“I know who you are” You answered. You had to ask “Is Blake okay?”

“We don’t know” Chief Boden replied across the line with a sigh “We are in Chicago Med waiting for news”

“I’ll be there” you answered before cutting off the communication and taking your things again.

You could feel your heart leaking out of your chest. You weren't sure you wanted to experience that pain again. Never had Blake’s superiors answered “We don’t know” whenever they called her it was “He’ll recover in two weeks” or “He needs to rest and stay home.” Then you would just take leave from your work to accompany him, Did you know how anxious he got when he had to stay home?

When I arrived at Chicago Med, the uncertainty did not improve. Nobody had news about Blake’s condition. And everything got worse when a doctor came out to talk to Otis’s girlfriend, one of Blake’s companions, and she cried. You needed no more negative thoughts, so while everyone was mourning the death of one of them you quietly slipped away. You sat by the hospital door and started looking around. The place seemed grim.

“Is it going to be okay, you know?” You turned to look and saw Captain Casey, you had seen him before in Molly.

“Why do you say that? You just lost one of yours,” you answered acidly, not wanting to be so daring “I’m sorry”

“Don’t apologize, I know it’s not the best time,” he replied leaning a hand on your shoulder “You just have to have faith”

“Sometimes faith is not enough” You responded by getting up and shaking your clothes “Blake and I have been together for over 10 years, I know what kind of relationship I have but I can’t help but get nervous” Captain Casey looked at you with a smile of sympathy as you reentered inside. Otis’s girlfriend kept crying and you couldn’t stop the bad thoughts from coming back.

“Blake Gallo’s family?” asked one doctor entering the waiting room

“That would be us” you replied to the doctor and Captain Casey smiled at you. You knew that this was how fire stations worked, they had each other backs inside and outside work.

“Blake lost a significant amount of blood, he had the explosion from the front and we are monitoring his organs and vital signs, he has several burns on his torso and back, his lungs have also been severely damaged so we are monitoring to see how he evolves. I’m sorry, I wish I could give you better news” The doctor explained to you.

“At least he’s not dead” you thought, but then you realized that that was not a great consolation

“Do you want to see him? You can take turns one at a time” He asked and you nodded. The doctor directed you to the ICU and showed Gallo’s door before heading to the nurse’s unit.

He looked so calm, so peaceful. It just looked like he had gone to sleep, but you knew it was the effect of the drugs. He had bandages around his chest and he was intubated, but he was still your Blake. The one who always made you smile, the one who was always by your side when you were sad, the one who massaged you when you were tired and the one who cradled you until you fell asleep at night. Even though his body looked like it had been in a war and his face looked unpolluted, you assumed it was because she had been wearing his helmet and protective mask. You sat on the empty chair and took his hand; you weren’t sure she could feel it, but still; you stayed there; you took advantage of all the time you had before letting your friends pass.

“Please Blake, don’t leave me, we still didn’t have enough time together, I need to have more time to love you and to feel your love, I need you, please don’t leave me now”

Three days after Blake was in the hospital, one nurse gave you the few belongings he had in his uniform before the explosion. Of course, he had his cell phone and his watch, but he also had a small box. So as she sat in the chair next to Blake’s bed you opened the bag, he had some missed calls from you on his cell phone and when you opened the box; you found yourself with an engagement ring. You took him in his hands and you cried; you cried because you expected him to wake up so you could get married. You wondered how long he had been keeping that ring.

“Blake, open your eyes, I want to marry you. Please don’t leave me now, I want us to get married and invite all our friends, I want to have that special day with you, I want you to tell me again how much you love me, for please don’t go “

You spent every day in the hospital and when you weren’t there; you were bathing and then sitting again next to Blake’s bed or in the waiting room. That was your routine for the last week. Sometimes you brought your laptop to do some work tasks to distract yourself. His colleagues from the station had stopped by to see him several times.

“Do you ever stop working?” God, you thought you’d never hear that voice again. His voice was scratchy, but it was his voice. You raised your eyes from the computer and started crying. You hadn’t cried in all those days but at that moment it felt perfect to have a little sentimentality “Don’t cry” Blake told you as you approached him.

“I’m crying because you’re alive” You replied “And because I love you so much” you added while he grabbed your head.

“How long was I asleep?” I ask while you wipe your tears.

“About a week” you informed him while you brought him a glass of water

“That’s been a long time” he replied, drinking some water, “I thought I was going to die, (Y / N)”

“You need not explain to me” you said, taking his hand between yours

“I thought I was going to die without seeing your beautiful face again,” he said caressing your cheek “I thought I was going to die without telling you how much I love you, how much I need you and how much I want to make you my wife” you approached him and gave him a little kiss on the lips

“You wanted to ask me to marry you and you had no better idea than to go around carrying this ring in your pocket?” you asked with a small smile on his confused face “The nurse gave me your things a few days ago, I don’t know how you didn’t lose that ring” you said

“I’ve been trying to ask you to marry me for months” Blake replied scratching his head embarrassed “I bought the ring at Christmas”

“Christmas? Blake, it’s May” you said raising your eyebrows

“It never seemed like the right time” he defended “We were always busy”

“Blake, I would have told you yes even if you had proposed to me in the shower” you informed him “I want to marry you, I want you to have a great wedding with all our friends, I want everything with you, I love you Blake”

“I want everything with you (Y / N) since we were teenagers I knew that the only thing I wanted was to see your face every morning and be by your side”

#one chicago #chicago fire imagine #chicago fire one shot #chicago fire #chicago fire imagines #chicago fire x reader #blake gallo #blake gallo imagine #blake gallo one shot

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auroras-blend · 3 years

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What is Martha's backstory? How did she becone the way she was?

A combination of poverty, the illusion of the "American Dream", and childhood with parents who didn't love each other made her who she was. Martha was always someone who knew what she wanted and made a plan on how to get that.

Martha Bianconi (nee Harrow after my fav Richard Harrow from Boardwalk Empire because you know how I am Qui) was born on July 30th in the late 1930s to unnamed parents in Kentucky. Her father was drafted into the war and had to leave Martha and her mother behind while he fought in France. Martha’s mother worked in factories making bombs and bullets to get by, leaving Martha to fend for herself most of the time contributing to her independent nature. While Martha and her mother were distant from each other, Martha sympathized with how tired her mom was after working and wasting in the factory all day. This colored her view on work and she grew up with an immediate dislike for it.

As a teenager, Martha worked as a waitress and found that male customers paid her special attention and gave her generous tips simply for her beauty which is when she learned she could make money from her looks. During this time, she had a high school sweetheart but he was more of a small-town boy and she wanted a brighter and glitzier life so it didn't work out. When she turned 18, she left the “shit hole town” behind and moved to New York with dreams of living the high life by seducing and marrying a rich husband. Of course, that's not how it usually works out and people's perceptions of "making it big" rarely come to fruition.

Martha realized living in New York was expensive and lived as a squatter before she found a job as a retail employee on 5th Avenue. Working in a place where wealthy New Yorkers came and went worked to her advantage as she was able to catch the eye of wealthy (married) men who came into the store and would strike up an affair with them. She would be their sugar baby and they would pay for her expenses and spoil her with gifts until they inevitably left her for their wives, devastating her each time.

I think it was when she hit rock bottom that she decided she could live without love like her parents did and that just so happened to be when Bianconi swooped in and took advantage of her situation. Martha saw her gold-digging nature as a legitimate career, and a profitable one so she could convince herself to tolerate the gross task of being his lover in exchange for a comfortable life.

Who she was before her marriage to Bianconi is very different to who she is now.

Sorry, that was a lot longer than you probably wanted 😂

#martha bianconi #garland city tales #asks #my fav character #after marilyn ofc

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stark-raving-madd · 3 years

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Backstory of The Seventh Day

(Just a warning, this paracosm is gonna be lowkey fucked up and dark but I do not condone any of the negative behavior within it!)

So, the idea is that, basically, the governments of the world foresaw that a nuclear war would happen. So they created a project that would be basically a means to recreate humanity. Genesis (the main protag) doesn't have parents. Rather, she was a genetically engineered, frozen embryo, meant to be as far away genetically from a human as she could be while still being sexually compatible and biologically stable. There used to be more like her. As well as a male version- an 'Adam' to her 'Eve'- that, theoretically, could produce a human of any possible genetic combination were they to have a child.

Essentially, a single 'Adam' and 'Eve' could, theoretically, produce children genetically dissimilar enough that they could breed without genetic defects, meaning that if even just one Adam and Eve survived, humanity could restart.

Basically, the idea is that the embryos would be unfrozen and mature automatically once the radiation settled down enough for humans to survive, and then the Adams and Eves would be released into the world to repopulate as best they could. Afterwards, they would (hopefully- they weren't at the point where they could genetically program orders into them) return to the place of their birth, where they would then be educated on everything required. The first thing it would show them is how to make fire, then how to farm, then how to forge and work metal, etc.

The issue is that only three of what were planned to be several dozen bunkers were constructed by the apocalypse.

They all had probably eight embryos of each gender, but the issue is that the builders had no idea how many nuclear weapons would be fired before there was no one to fire them, so they had a range to work with. In terms of when the radiation would settle, I mean.

So Genesis is a part of the last set of two embryos- all the others were released too early, and succumbed to radiation.

There's no telling what happened to the other bunkers, but based on documents the leader of the caravan has, it's probable they were both annihilated during the apocalypse.

When Genesis was released from the wild, she succumbed to her animal instincts, due to not being raised by anyone and having to fend for herself for years. She doesn’t have very good abstract thought, critical thinking, or any executive function. She excels at reading facial expressions, reading emotions, survival instincts, remembering scents, landmarks, and really anything survival related. She never learned how to speak, so she mainly communicates with sounds,

Genesis' was the last one, and she and her Adam the last set of two embryos. And something *still* went even *more* wrong.

Because her Adam was released early.

Adam was eventually found at the Haven, which relieved the scientists there, as well as the leader of the Haven, Elijah, but there was a problem.

Adam is infertile.

I'd think he also has an underdeveloped limb or two, but the most important part is that he's incapable of reproducing- the necessary parts just never fully formed in the first place.

The leader of the caravan found Adam, realized what he was, and took him in. Even though Adam was useless to him in that respect, it still allowed him to locate the rough position of the bunker- or so he thought.

And so the caravan has waited, from the time they found Adam to the time they found Genesis- or, rather, when she found them.

You see, they were off on the location by no more than about ten kilometers- the same ten-kilometer radius that was all Genesis knew before she found them.

She survived without them for 14 years, just outside of the area they were patrolling.

And when the leader finally finds the Eve his father's father essentially wrote the genetic code for by hand, he renames her Genesis- because an Eve without an Adam cannot be called an Eve.

The story mainly focuses on Elijah and the rest of the Haven finding Genesis, and doing experiments on her to find out how she survived out in the wilderness for so long, despite the radiation.

But the thing is, that’s not the true purpose of the experiments.

See, Elijah kinda has a weird God Complex. He believes that he meant to be the savior of humanity because that’s what he was groomed to be, by his father, Cain. This complex makes him go to extreme and unethical lengths to reach this goal. The true purpose of the experiments isn’t to see how Genesis survived out in the wilderness and radiation. It’s to use her as a breeding factory, essentially. But the only people who know this are Elijah, Adam (who isn’t even okay with it but can’t do anything about it) and a handful of other scientists. The other scientists outside of that small group have no idea what the true purpose is, and the only reason why they don’t question Elijah is because everyone in the Haven basically views him as a father because they don’t know his true nature. No one else in the Haven questions it either because they also view him as a father figure. Genesis doesn’t question it because she doesn’t even have the mental capacity to.

The story’s struggle is mainly these two things;

One, Genesis' struggle to understand what's happening to her, despite the fact that she has no context.

Two, the rest of the cast trying to find out the truth about Genesis and, later, struggling with their own morality on the subject.

#ahhhh I’m so nervous I hope whoever sees this likes it!#this paracosm has been rolling around in my head for a while so I’m happy to show it!#the seventh day #madd #maladaptive daydreamer #maladaptive daydreaming disorder

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soundofseventeen · 4 years

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Snapshoot (OT13)

Hi, in case y’all didn’t know, I have declared war on Erin and Haley and this was one outcome lmao! It’s also one of my favorite songs and I’m really happy with these! Credits to the owners for the gifs!!! I couldn’t find names!!!!!

Seungcheol: (Ahh, that’s how it’s done...3,2,1 shoot) the way you had fallen on your butt when you two had decided to take an evening stroll after dinner one night. You circled the nearby park a couple of times when you noticed your shoe had become untied. You let go of Cheol’s hand and knelt down to tie it up. You’d been so focused on looping the laces, you didn’t notice the furry little creature trotting up to you until it barked to get your attention. You let out a small yelp and fell back from the scare, only to squeal in delight when the pup sniffed your face and licked your cheek. She ended up sitting next to you while you petted and cooed her. Seungcheol took out his phone and snapped a photo of you nuzzling noses, the biggest smile on both your faces, until the rightful owner came calling for the pup a moment later and she vanished, breaking your heart. Cheol did help you up eventually, shaking his head at your expression. He posted all over social media, gushing over your cuteness.

Jeonghan: (snap shoot, you) the way a bucket of paint managed to fall, spilling the orange color all over you. After agreeing to help one of your friends paint their new house while they went furniture shopping, you invited Jeonghan to help you. Okay, he wasn’t really helping, but he did occasionally dip his brush in the paint and got it on the wall, and he liked changing every song that came on because it didn’t fit the mood, but you couldn’t complain much. At one point, Jeonghan did get up on the ladder to paint the parts you missed (because his eyesight was better than yours), and when he had forgotten he had the can of paint on the top step, he buckled his knees and one of them hit the can and it spilled on the ladder and on you while you were removing the tape. He captured the perfect moment with you rubbing the paint off your clothes and hair, the laughter being heard throughout the house. And before he could do anything else, you splashed a different color of paint on him and going to hug them so the colors could blend together as well as you did.

Joshua: (the way to set the focus on you is a tutorial of love) the way you held his guitar in your hands. In the entire time you’ve known Joshua, his most prized possession had never been far behind. In the midst of his collection of rice cookers, Winnie the Pooh plushes and never ending love letters, his guitar had been his first and only love. He loved dedicating a few minutes of his day playing Encantadora, the name he had given her because he was so enchanted by her. And whenever you hung out together, he’d always ask if it was okay if he could fill the silence with her music. And it’s not like you could say no. Sometimes he sang along with her and sometimes she sang alone, but both were always beautiful. The last time he was at your place, Joshua had been called back to work for some last minute changes and Encantadora had stayed with you since then. You were always afraid of carrying his guitar, because of the things that could go wrong and you couldn’t handle him hating you if something did happen. So naturally, it stayed on your couch where you hardly moved her. But Joshua was picking Encantadora up today, so after Google searching what was safe, you cleaned her up, making sure to rid any specs of dust. Curiosity eventually got the best of you and picked her up and fixed her on your lap, strumming the chords lightly and cringing because she didn’t sound anything like when Joshua played her. Joshua had quietly let himself in during this time, just in case you were asleep, and he saw you tenderly caressing the strings, you frowning when it didn’t like the way you expected it to. He smiled, exiting the app he currently had and opened the camera. He clicked the button a couple of times before announcing his presence and taking a spot next you, showing you how the basics.

Junhui: (capture this moment right now) the way you stopped to smell the roses, literally. One of Junhui’s favorite times of year was the rose festival. Businesses all around the Seoul area closed and gathered at the park to support the small businesses. Jun often woke up early to get a good seat for the parade that kicked off the momentous occasion; the only difference was that this was the first time that you’d be joining him. Other than being mostly sleepy and resting your head on his shoulder it was fun. The people on the floats engaged with the crowd, throwing candies and small toys and even fliers to vote. Junhui constantly disappeared and then reappeared with food, only sharing sometimes. And with the parade ending, he brought you to your feet, making you follow it (yes, walking) until you ended up at the park which had been up with various booths, the dj barely setting up his stage, and the bounce houses getting ready to go. You didn’t know how Junhui managed to fit so much food in his stomach throughout the day, and how many items he buried in his pockets and once he started getting recognized by the fans, he had to hide in one of the public bathrooms until you got him a hat and sunglasses. And once the early evening followed the humid afternoon, he pulled you onto one of the benches to let you catch your breath and once you were on your feet again waiting for your ride, you recounted the day’s events, you swearing you were gonna be full for the rest of the year when you noticed the rose bush. You stopped in the middle of the story, making a beeline for the bush and petted the flowers, adoring the color and everything and even inhaled the scent, praising their beauty and you didn’t notice Jun pulling out his phone and taking pictures of the candid moment, your nose pressed to the petals, your skin tone complementing the rose.

Soonyoung: (to me baby, you are the greatest gift) the way you ended up falling asleep on him curled up on the couch. He had just come after an exhausting practice and all he wanted was to cuddle you in his arms until his idol duties separated you again...or until his limbs fell off; whichever came first. He opened up Disney plus, telling you about the movie that he had been wanting to watch since forever just to see if he still remembered it. Soonyoung found the movie, pressed play, and let you snuggle close to him, throwing a blanket over yourselves. At one point he asked you if you wanted to order pizza for a late, late night dinner when he noticed you weren’t responding to him. He turned to you, ready to ask again, but he saw your eyes closed, breathing in and out deeply and he smiled. He kissed your head and fumbled around for his phone, wanting to capture the moment. He finally found it and after turning off the flash, took a couple of photos, even coming in for a few of them and sent them to you so you’d have something to look forward to when you woke up in the morning.

Wonwoo: (let’s remember this happy day; let’s capture it in a picture) the way you lit up with your photocards. Wonwoo had promised you that when your albums from the other kpop group that had stolen your heart arrived at the boys’ dorms, he’d let you know (even though you got the notifications by email to track their every movement.) Sure enough on a clear Saturday afternoon, he had woken up from his second nap because of your constant knocking. He let you in, rubbing his eyes and grumbling how he could never get any peace and quiet, despite being the only one home. You saw the package on the couch addressed to you and you ran, tripping over someone’s blanket. And then the package disappeared from your sight as Wonwoo picked it up and said you weren’t opening it until you had something to eat and as if knowing you, your stomach growled so you complied grumpily slurping the ramen noodles without really tasting them and being the little shit he was, didn’t let you open the box until he finished eating. You didn’t ask for much, just that you’d be gifted with a bias card. Just one, and then you’d be happy. And with each one you opened, you could feel a little sadness at not seeing your favorite face and Wonwoo made sure to capture your reaction each time. You had given up hope at the fact you weren’t getting your bias this time, but still you opened the final album, thumbing through the photos when you saw the photocard. You flipped it over, and then you showed it Wonwoo with a big grin on your face, radiating with the same happiness and he snapped away, the smile making its way to his face.

Jihoon: (you in viewfinder, the focus is auto. Naturally following the movements, it follows you) the way you covered your face when he was singing the song he wrote for you. You had been under the guise that he had been holed in Universe Factory while everyone spent the day in the great outdoors, so he asked if you could pick up his lunch order and bring it to him. You didn’t bother changing out of your comfortable clothes so you left almost as soon as you read his message. He was surprised to see you so soon, but stammered out how you didn’t want him to be hungry when he still had so long to go. Jihoon smiled at your sweet response, otherwise not being able to form any words. You feel your face warming up, so in order to move away from the awkwardness, you asked him if you could hear what he was working on. He was slightly embarrassed but he took a collective breath and went to pick up his guitar and played. Once you realized it was about you, you looked for something to hide behind so you didn’t notice that Jihoon had stopped playing and quietly pulled out his phone and captured the moment until the sound gave it away but he set it to his lock screen to remind himself of his muse.

Seokmin: (to me, you’re the most precious) the way the wonder etched across your face. You weren’t sure how you managed to convince Seokmin to play hooky but here you were at the sea turtle reserve you volunteered at during the season. You showed him the in and outs of the place, giving him the rundown of how you normally spent your time here. He nodded along, not really understanding a lot but he enjoyed hearing you rave about it and seeing you light up. You even got to show him the nest that you found one day while picking up trash and gave him an estimated date on when they were gonna hatch. You picked up an egg, dusting the sand off when it began to shake and move. Seokmin, not knowing what else to do, searched his phone, finding it in his back pocket, and almost dropping it while trying to unlock it so the perfect moment wouldn’t pass him by. He snapped several of them, from the way the shell cracked open to the way the baby sea turtle popped its head out, all the while you being so mesmerized with a live baby in your palms and he swore he found a new favorite animal as you gingerly placed it on the sand and said goodbye before the ocean wave took him home.

Mingyu: (I want to capture that smile, just as the way you are) the way he got you laughing again. After a long week of struggling with your work life and being dragged into unnecessary family drama, Mingyu snuck into your house and turned it into a mini photography studio, complete with stuffed animals, all your favorite foods and running up your energy bill from all the light sources. The moment he heard you unlocking your door and stepping inside, he ambushed you with his camera, throwing out every compliment that came to his mind and it took everything in you not to cry into the plush when he tossed one at you. He reassured you that you didn’t have to talk to him but he wasn’t gonna leave you alone until you smiled like you meant it. Mingyu then proceeded to poke your cheek, telling jokes, doing aegyo and impersonating his brothers until the corners of your lips turned upwards and you forgot about your hard week. He even went as far to develop the photos and telling you he was keeping them somewhere in the studio so he could always see you happy (and you bawled.)

Minghao: (Ahh, this is how it feels like...3,2,1 shoot) the way the leaves fell around you. When Minghao’s Polaroid came in, the first thing he wanted to do was take you out on a date and capture as many moments as he could. The only problem with that was that he forgot to order extra film, so he had to wait until that arrived. The air had a crisp feeling to it, an uncommon occurrence during the hot weather, but he took advantage of that and took you hiking. The camera was a little heavier than he expected it to but he carried it around, nonetheless. The few butterflies that came out, he snapped; the names you engraved on a tree to symbolize you were together forever, he got twice. He even got the little squirrels chattering at you as if getting you in trouble for vandalizing their home. He loved your hand around his, feeling as if you were one with nature. Minghao, at times, felt as if he was looking at you for the first time, because he couldn’t speak. The light breeze that followed you around blew on the tree as you carved your favorite lyrics into a different tree and you had to stop to catch the falling leaves. Minghao, after refilling the film, raised the lens to his eye and clicked on the camera, the candid moment captured and already developing. He was almost sure he’d put the photo behind his phone case.

Seungkwan: (me by your side and you by my side) the way the fantasy life took over your life. When Wonwoo had raved about a book, your curiosity had gotten the best of you and bought the book for yourself just to see it was worth the buzz that he created and unfortunately for you, it did. Even worse was that Wonwoo failed to tell you that there wasn’t a sequel, but it was a series that just had you ordering all of them at once to save you shipping costs. In that week you read them cover to cover, Seungkwan invited you to Pledis while they worked on songs, vocals, choreos and antics of every size, especially since they stayed late to the point where they went straight home after work. One night while they were perfecting the choreography, you finished another one, and you couldn’t remember where you placed the other book to start reading it, until you found it under Chan’s hoodie and opened it straightaway, immersing yourself in the newest adventure. You missed the way Seventeen finally nailed the moves and the 15 minute break they took to enjoy their soda and burgers and just how loud they were in general. The only thing you complained about was how you couldn’t find a comfortable reading position so Seungkwan took a spot next to and draped an arm around you to bring you close to him and you decided to rest your head over his heart and resumed your reading, although you could feel yourself growing more tired now that you were finally comfortable. Seungkwan picked up his phone that had been charging by an oultet and called you softly once he opened the camera. He placed a soft kiss to your cheek and clicked on the shutter, ecstatic that you didn’t push it away.

Hansol: (a perfect subject that is more than perfect) the way you modeled an old hat you didn’t wear anymore. After your family had threatened to throw away the belongings in your old room, you asked Vernon to take a trip with you to your hometown to clean it out and take with you what you wanted to your new home and the rest could be donated or trashed. He helped you throw your posters away (although that hurt your teenage self a bit), stuffed the shirts you cringed at in a trash bag, and packed some CDs into boxes so you could ship them back. While clearing out one of the drawers on your nightstand, he pulled out a digital camera, the strap decorated in puff paint peeling in some parts. Hansol pressed the power button, unsurprised when it didn’t turn on, so he asked if you had any batteries and you pointed him in the direction of where you remembered you kept them, but you focused more on throwing everything you kept hidden from your nosy family, making sure to rip your notes into tiny pieces in case they decided to rummage through the trash, even going as far as dousing them in water just to be safe. When Hansol managed to finally turn it on, he skimmed across your photos, hardly recognizing the person you used to be but also believing it, since you never lost your smile. He came back into your room, telling you to wear the first thing you grabbed and snapped photo after photo, capturing every movement, even going as far as throwing the hat as you posed for the grand finale. Naturally, Hansol dragged you to the nearest place that developed photos, and picked out a book to keep these in.

Chan: (I know, even if it turns to be hard somehow, but since I have you, everything is alright) the way you couldn’t stay still before getting ready to go to work. When you had quit your last job, you felt a mixture of emotions but mostly the relief of no longer taking people’s shit and the fear of not knowing how you were gonna survive without money. Chan had been more than helpful, letting you move in with him while you got back on your feet. During those days, you had grown closer and eventually started dating, and you found a short college course that could help you in achieving something close to what you wanted. And when you received the degree, you immediately looked for a job in hopes of paying Chan back as soon as possible (even if the idea did offend him. He was more than happy to help you out after all. It seemed that Chan was your good luck charm because you found it...your dream job and got it almost as quickly. You guys celebrated that night and you found yourself being unable to sleep the entire night and you were still up early the next morning. Chan, feeling more like a proud parent than a supportive boyfriend, made you breakfast while you got ready and didn’t let you leave the house until he got many, many, many pictures of you to show off to his friends when he left for Pledis. He sent the selfies to you as a way to remind you that you could conquer the day.

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stop-handing-me-knives · 3 years

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Turmeric and Tears

um so i didn’t set out to write a AU about Rex and Ahsoka sticking together after the events of Order 66 but sometimes you have a funny exchange with your brother on a weirdly emotional night and then this comes out? (note: this is nOT a ship)

“Rex, best bud, my bro, that smells amazing, but is that just a pot full of onions??” Rex looks up as Ahsoka stumbles into the kitchen then just barely keeps himself from doing a double take when he sees the tear escaping her eye. “Uh, not anymore? I just added the tomatoes. I’m trying out a new recipe?” he adds, unsure if he should joke or comfort. There was a time when they didn’t have to be so guarded, careful of unexpected triggers, back when they had friends to turn to and didn’t have to hide their face every time they went outside and—please tell me I’m not thinking of an intergalactic war as a simpler time. Ahsoka snorts out a laugh. “It smells great, really, but the ventilation in this ancient apartment is funneling all the fumes right into my bedroom and then directly into my eyes.” “Blast, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you up yet—” from the few short hours she gets to sleep when she gets off the night shift at that crumby factory— She places a hand on his shoulder. “Hey, it’s good. I should be thanking you for spending your free time making me breakfast—dinner? I don’t even know. Where would I be without my big little bro to help take care of me?” “Rex, sir, my hero, brightest blue wonder, this is incredible—” munch munch “—this is my new favorite food—” spoon scraping against the bowl “—where did you dig up all of these spices?? there’s gotta be at least 9 in here—” sniffle, furtive eye swipe “….man, those onions…” A bit of the old Ahsoka was poking through tonight, the one that still called him ridiculous nicknames and got excited about mealtime and Rex didn’t want to accidentally discourage her effort at normalcy. He had broken down three times since they’d found this apartment and this was the second place they’d (somewhat legally) holed up in; she’d sat him each time, not offering empty platitudes, but quietly reminding him to breath, solid and comforting as the surrounding mountains, but he hadn’t seen Ahsoka cry since the silently shaking shoulders at the gravesite — don’t think about that, don’t think about the mounds and broken bodies underneath— She didn’t push him away when he’d check on her, just thanked him for his concern but kept her sorrow to herself. If space was what she needed to grieve, he’d give it to her, but by the force he’d make sure to support in every other way he could: bribing that one smuggler to bring along vials of lotion to keep her lekku from drying out on this dirtball planet, rigging up blackout curtains so she could sleep during the day, getting creative with their limited budget to make sure she ate well. He’d be there, but he’d let her decide when she was ready to talk. “Yeah,” he answers. “They really were some strong onions” She’d insisted on washing the dishes since he’d made the meal, so he ducks out with the trash, keeping his head low out of habit, which didn’t look at all out of place in this neighborhood — just run-down enough that people didn’t ask questions, but not so bad that you couldn’t get a decent night’s sleep, which he was good and ready for. The day’s work had been long, but dinner had been nice— relaxing even. They’d both laughed for the first time in forever and he’s pretty sure that had something to do with his new hobby in the kitchen. He’d have ask the old nautolan at the workstation next to his for some more of her recipes; tonight’s was still tucked in his back pocket, carefully transcribed in shaky handwriting on the back of a wrapper. It was incredible what a good meal would do to ease the knot of worry in the pit of a fugitive’s stomach. Maybe he do it more than just in their kitchen; maybe it could become a source of income even, one he didn’t dislike and one he chose for himself. Stars, but he was glad he wasn’t doing this alone; they were far enough in the Outer Rim where the Empire’s presence wasn’t such a slap in the face (yet), but it was comforting to have someone beside him as they clawed out a new place in the galaxy, especially when he couldn’t breathe, thinking of all his brothers he’d left behind, thinking how they’d hate what they were doing if they only knew, when those waves of helplessness would wash over him. Someone going through it all with him, who’d talk to him about anything, would sit with him in silence, or teasingly argue about who was the older sibling in the house — a sister. He smiled a bit as he teased out the word in his mind. She’d always called him big bro and he’d always stood by her side as he stood by his brothers’, but now, without the hierarchy of war and with their fake IDs declaring them war siblings with the same last name, the idea was feeling that much more tangible, more real. He was still smiling as a little as he reentered their apartment to find Ahsoka motionless in the kitchen, her back to him, water dripping from her hands. She flinched at his footsteps. He didn’t breathe for a moment, but then she turned to face him, tears silently running down her cheeks. He took a small breath, unsure, then said softly, “It wasn’t all the onions was it?”

A fragile, shaky laugh. “I guess not.”

The aroma of turmeric, cinnamon, and cumin, and Rex holding his weeping sister.

Notes

Bear with the random star wars slang - I was frantically googling to find anything to make this feel more in-universe, but I gave up on the food - mostly because i was so happy with my dinner. In case you’re curious, the dish I had in mind was a North African chickpea cauliflower stew. It might have a name somewhere? i just don’t know it? All it know is that it’s one of my favorites and I always feel a bit more grounded after eating it.

#originally intended to write from Ahsoka's perspective #whoops #never written Rex before #never really written much at all ha ha #please don't call me out on anything #self-admitted novice #Ahsoka Tano #captain rex #star wars #Clone Wars #My writing #my au #star wars au #screams a little as i release this into the world

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rubysunnday · 4 years

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Florence Nightingale

Summary: WW2 has arrived and instead of staying in Birmingham, you followed them to the front lines - as a nurse

A/N: I think this is the longest fic I’ve written yet! I’ve had this idea in my head for a while and it feels good to finally get it down :)

The First World War had taken a lot from you. Your whole family was changed by those events and it haunted you al.

But when the news of the Second World War broke out, you knew that your whole life was about to be rocked. Your entire family was of age and was being sent to the front. The women were rising up to take over again.

Whilst the rest of your family stayed at home, working in the factories and helping evacuate children to the countryside, you made the decision to head to the front as a nurse, helping those injured by the fighting.

As much as you missed your family, you hoped that you’d never see them until their days off or until the war was over. I’d you saw them in the hospital, your heart would break into two.

You hadn’t told your brothers that you’d enrolled as a nurse on the front line, they would’ve freaked out and forced you to come back home. You waited until they’d gone before enrolling so they couldn’t do anything.

It was a very busy day in your hospital. A bomb had reached the trenches and dozens of soldiers were injured and in need of help. All around you, bombs were exploding and the sound of gun fire over powered the screams of pain.

Ironically, it felt like Birmingham.

“Y/N!” Patrick, the doctor in charge of the hospital, yelled at you. “I need you!”

“Coming!” You called back, wiping your hands in a towel and running over to where the latest soldier had been brought in.

“Shrapnel in his arm and side,” Patrick told you as they lifted the soldier into a bed. “I’m assuming you can manage?”

“Go,” you nodded, pushing Patrick out the door to go deal with those in worse shape.

You turned around to face the soldier and froze.

“No,” you whispered, shaking your head furiously. “Arthur?”

Your brother groaned and you immediately snapped back into your nurse mentality, sitting down on the side of the bed with a bowl of hot water, tweezers and a cloth to pull the shrapnel out of your brother.

This was your worse nightmare come true.

Night had fallen hours ago and you were sitting by Arthur’s side, carefully changing his bandages and cleaning them.

Your brother groaned softly and you looked up to see him slowly waking up.

“Arthur?” You asked softly, moving closer to him.

“Y/N?” Arthur asked, frowning. “What?”

“A bomb exploded in your trench,” you told him gently. “You’re in the hospital.”

“What? In Birmingham?”

You paused. “No, in France. At the front line...I’m a nurse.”

Arthur’s head turned to face you snd you had told hold him down (which wasn’t very difficult) to stop him from tearing his stitches.

“No, you can’t be -“

“Arthur, calm down otherwise I’ll have to knock you out again,” you warned him and he actually listened to you for once.

The two of you fell into silence for a while as you continued to clean his wounds, holding his hands when he hissed in pain.

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Arthur asked quietly after a while.

“Because you would’ve stopped me,” you said simply. “I didn’t want to just do nothing. My whole family’s here, why shouldn’t I?”

“If Tommy knew, he’d kill you,” Arthur muttered.

“He’d also be under my care so I could sedate him if I wished,” you shot back, smirking and Arthur chuckled.

“You know, Finn and Michael are under my command,” Arthur said.

“Really?” You asked, trying not to sound too hopeful.

“Yeah, managed to call in a favour and get them with me to keep an eye on them.”

“They weren’t with you when the bomb exploded, were they?” You asked nervously.

Arthur shook his head. “No, they were over the top when it happened. They’re fine, y/n.”

“I know, if they weren’t I’d know.” You sighed. “Try and get some sleep, Arthur. I’ll be right here.”

“Don’t you need to sleep?” Arthur asked as you settled down in your chair.

“Not much chance of that happening, Artie, “ you replied, smiling. You grabbed his hand and held it as he fell asleep.

Twenty years later and the roles had completely reversed.

The next morning came far too quickly for you. Arthur had slept the entire night, thankfully, and you had left him with Marie as you went to get him some breakfast.

“He’s our commanding office and our brother!”

You frowned at the yelling come from the front entrance. You turned around and walked back the way you came, bedding towards the yelling which was increasing in crescendo.

“Hey!” You called, silencing everyone in the room. “What is the problem here?”

“We want to see our commanding officer,” the soldier doing most of the yelling told you. “He was brought in last night after the bomb explosion...”

You stopped listening as you stared at the two soldiers in front of you, trying to figure out why you recognised them.

“Michael?! Finn?!” You exclaimed, cutting them off.

Finn frowned at you. “Y/N?!”

You gasped as Finn launched himself at you, hugging you tightly and spinning you around.

“What the hell?” Michael laughed, joining in on the hug as you dismissed the nurse behind the desk.

You couldn’t help but cry as you hugged your twin and your cousin.

“Is Arthur -“ Finn began, pulling away.

“He’s fine, I’ve been with him the entire night, Finny. I promise you, he’s fine.”

“Can we see him?” Michael asked. You nodded and gestured for them to follow you. You didn’t let go of Michael’s hand as you led them through the maze of corridors and walls to the room where Arthur was.

“Finn? Michael?” Arthur asked, trying to sit up.

“Don’t you dare, Arthur Shelby,” you scolded, forcing him back down. “I don’t want to have to stitch my brother back together again.”

“You’ve gotten bossy,” Finn teased and you elbowed him in the ribs.

“I need to go and do my rounds,” you told them. “I’ll be back in about two hours. Don’t do anything stupid, otherwise you’ll get kicked out.”

Finn kissed your cheek as you left and you gave him a smile.

Your rounds had taken you two hours, but you’d yet to get back to Arthur as an influx of newly injured soldiers arrived. You’d been caught up frantically arranging the beds, stitching injured soldiers up and holding the hands of those who were dying.

They’d gone over the top again that afternoon and plenty of soldiers had gotten caught up in the rain of bullets and bombs raining down around them.

You’d been tending to one badly injured soldier when two more came in - one with bullets in his stomach and leg and another with a shattered right leg due to a bomb explosion.

Patrick had done his best with them both, but wasn’t sure if they’d last the night. You, the new Florence Nightingale according to many soldiers, offered to sit with them both during the night, just in case.

But as you headed over to their beds, which were situated against the back wall, you finally caught a glimpse of the poor soldiers.

And you nearly fell to the ground in shock.

Tommy and John lay next to each other, both pale and practically dead. Tommy’s stomach was pierced with bullets and John’s leg was smashed to pieces, a cage set around it. Your heart dropped to your stomach as you pulled a chair to sit in between them.

You carefully took each of their hands and sat there quietly. You weren’t going to tell Arthur, it would make him even iller than he was.

“You alright?” Marie asked you quietly, noticing your face.

“Basically, my entire family is in this building. Two of my brothers are dying next to me and I’ve no idea how to tell Finn or Michael if they die. Oh god, I’d have to tell Polly.”

Marie put a hand on your shoulder and squeezed it gently. “Let me know if you need me, y/n.”

You smiled sadly at her as she walked off. The evening passed quickly, but the night went painfully slowly. You’d asked Marie to let Arthur know you’d been caught up with an influx of patients so wouldn’t be back for a while and you stayed with Tommy and John the entire night.

It was early the next morning when you finally began to doze off. It was the first time you’d slept in two days and as much as you didn’t want to, you couldn’t help it.

But when someone squeezed your hand, you instantly work up. You blearily looked over and saw John slowly waking up, squeezing your hand as he did.

“John?” You questioned softly, letting Tommy’s hand go and turning to face John fully.

“Y/N?” He mumbled. “Am I dead?”

You chuckled softly, trying not to cry. “No, but you nearly were.”

“Am I in Birmingham?” John asked, slowly turning his head to look at you.

“No, you’re still in France. I enrolled as a nurse for the army.”

“Huh, good for you,” John muttered, falling back to sleep.

You smiled sadly as your brother passed out again. You didn’t let go of his hand, re - adjusting your position so that you could hold Tommy’s hand too.

You fell asleep again, only waking when Patrick shook your shoulder.

Your immediate thought was that someone had died.

“Who’s -“

Patrick shook his head. “They’re both fine, y/n,” he reassured. “I came to tell you that there’s room next to Arthur if you want to move them.”

You nodded. “Thank you, Patrick.”

“They made it through the night; hopefully they’ll get it through the next two days,” Patrick told you.

“Tommy hasn’t woken up yet, but John briefly woke up last night,” you told him, standing up and yawning.

“That’s good,” Patrick replied, smiling. “Go and check on your other brothers, I’ll have John and Tommy brought through shortly.”

You got up and walked through the corridors towards Arthur’s room.

“Hey, y/n,” Michael called as you walked past him. “You ok?”

That was all it took for you to completely break down in front of your cousin. Michael quickly caught you in his arms, guiding you to the floor as you sobbed.

“Hey, hey, what’s wrong?” He asked softly, stroking your hair.

“Tommy and John came in last night,” you told him through your tears. “They’re in a bad shape and I don’t know if they’re going to survive -“

You cut yourself off as a fresh wave of tears hit you and Michael sighed sadly, hugging you tighter. You and Michael may have had your arguments the past few years, but you’d never been so grateful for your cousin before.

“You don’t have to be strong all the time, sweetheart,” Michael told you. “I know that your brothers are injured, but Finn and I are here and we can take up the slack. It’s ok to not be ok.”

You nodded, trying to calm yourself down as Michael kissed your head. “They’re being moved into Arthur’s room, if you want to see them.”

Michael nodded, helping you stand up. He put an arm around your shoulders and guided you down the corridor to Arthur’s room.

Michael watched you sleep next to Arthur, your brothers arm wrapped over your shoulders, holding you against him tightly. Tommy and John were in beds next to you, both still unconscious.

Finn and Michael had forced Patrick to sign you off your job so that you could spend time with your dying brothers and had take up the job of looking after you all.

Michael looked up as a groan came from Tommy. He stood up and headed over to his cousin, sitting down next to him.

“Tommy?” Michael asked quietly, trying not to wake you. “Are you with us?”

“Michael?” Tommy asked, scrunching his face up. “What?”

“You’re in hospital. So are John and Arthur.” Michael caught his cousin as he tried to sit up, forcing him back down. “They’re fine, Tommy. They’re right here.”

Tommy looked over and saw John, visibly relaxing. He turned his head the other way and saw Arthur and then you.

“What? Why is y/n here?” Tommy demanded, his voice still holding an air of authority despite the pain he was in.

Michael sighed. “She enrolled as a nurse on the front line. She’s been here since Arthur was brought in three days ok. First time she’s slept since.”

At the mention of your name you woke up, rolling over and spotting that Tommy was awake.

“Tommy!” You exclaimed, jumping off the bed and walking over to your brother. “Are you alright?”

“I’m better for seeing you, sweetheart,” Tommy said, smiling broadly.

“Thank god,” You muttered, bowing your head in relief.

“Tommy?” John grumbled, waking up to all the noise.

“What’s going on?” Arthur asked, also waking up.

“Oh, now they all wake up,” you muttered to Michael and he giggled.

You were so grateful that all of your family was safe and well. Yes, there were still years left of a war that could still kill them all, but for now it was all perfect.

You laid down next to Tommy, curling up into his side as he, Arthur and John caught up with each other. Finn and Michael joined in, Finn sitting down next to John.

“I missed you, Tom,” you whispered to your brother, kissing his cheek.

“Missed you too, gorgeous,” your brother replied and you smiled.

“Just, next time you want a family reunion, don’t fucking kill yourselves in the progress,” you said, loud enough for them all to hear. “I don’t think I can cope with it again.”

“She’s gotten bossy,” John muttered and you threw a cushion at his head.

“That’s what I said!” Finn exclaimed and you threw another pillow at your twin.

“I’m regretting being nice to you now,” your grumbled.

Tommy smiled in response, holding you tightly against him and pressing a kiss to your head.

“My little sister, the nurse,” Tommy said softly, smiling broadly.

“Y/N Shelby, the new Florence Nightingale of France,” Arthur announced and there was a murmur of agreement from your family. You just smiled happily, snuggling into your brother for the first time in months.

#imagines #peaky blinder imagine #peaky blinders #peaky blinders imagine #shelby sister #shelby sis #tommy shelby x sister!reader #arthur shelby x sister!reader #john shelby x sister!reader

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