bakerstreet | (no subject)

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the USERNAME meme

Journal names. They're something we all think about, and that we often try to make as fittingly torturous to our characters as possible. Isn't it nice that our characters never have to know they're wandering around with that horrible label attached to them?

...wouldn't it be fun if they did?

RULES

1 Your character is communicating with others through a journal community, just like how we're using them, and they are perfectly aware of that fact. Whether they think that's normal or not is totally up to you.

2 The also know that when they signed on to this community, they were automatically assigned a name that supposedly has something to do with their personality and/or history. They didn't have any say in what that name was going to be, they're just stuck with it.

3 Make a post with your character's reaction to seeing what their own username is. Do they think it fits? Do they hate it with a passion? Are they downright confused?

4 Comment to other people's posts with your character's reactions to everyone else's usernames. If they know the other character, they might have good reason to laugh at them or feel sorry for them. If they don't, this could lead to some pretty interesting first impressions, don't you think?

5 If you want to use a name that's different from your actual journal name, just mark that in your post. No need to create a whole new journal just to make your character's life worse for one meme. ;)

6 PROFIT!

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Should I change?

[ casual, as though he's asking whether he should dress for dinner. they could be a matching pair. his could answer hers. if it did, would that hurt more or less? ]

Edited 2020-07-23 16:34 (UTC)

It suits you.

[Which is neither yes or no. She's seen his files. And she doesn't need reminding of the response to what she told him that night.

Tommy Shelby does what he wants, regardless of what she might hope for, so why even ask?]

[ he feels as defined by their love as she is. even if that was never written or intended to be true, it's the truth of his heart. nothing of value would be lost if his username reflected this.

they're both pretending it's solely his decision when, for once, it isn't. they do have typists who have to carry these changes out. tommy is not very good at getting the typist to do his bidding. if he were, grace would be seeing a lot more of him. ]

Does it? Fuck.

[ she's right and he knows she's right. just saying, it'd be nice if it didn't suit him. he looks resigned though.

his files are subtly wrong. that's a fact she might never have accounted for. the army can't know his date of birth if he doesn't. he has no birth certificate. the year she knows is correct, he wasn't one of the boys who had to lie about that, but his birthday's an estimate. ]

But like you said, could be worse.

[The reaction, and that there is one, earns him her open surprise.]

Is that sarcasm, Tommy? Are you ashamed about that?

[The name, not the potential change. She's not sure what honest to God actual shame would be from him, save a quiet drive back to Birmingham or a quiet walk to her flat in the dead of night. And only if she's looking for it.]

[ it is a disappointment, at the very least. he's disappointed at his own failure to meet the standards he's set for himself. he should be able to shut the door on the war. it's not a good thing that some people, like grace and alfie, can still see him as a tunneller. ]

I don't feel any way about it.

[ that's not true at night, but it's true by day and it's how he got through the war in the first place. dissociation, though they don't yet call it what it is. he's probably making himself sound heartless. ]

You know how it is, when you've a job to do.

I do. I also know how it's not always so cut and dry. How the lines become blurred.

[Talking about his job, and what he carried home, of course.]

Yeah... But you still got it done, didn't you?

[ grace set out to recover the guns, which she did. he doesn't think that punishing the wicked was anywhere in her mission briefing when she signed on for it. so, that she saved his life isn't truly the dereliction of duty that her fellows consider it to be.

no one else will see it that way, most likely, but he can. in his time, he's had some suicidal orders handed down to him and he's made them workable. technical compliance, creative interpretation. it's a valuable skill for both soldiers and spies. he even admires it about her, at the very same time as it wounds him to the soul. ]

I did. It's not all that I got.

[A broken heart in the end, hers and his and she doesn't care about Campbell's beyond the thought of maybe that's where she should have aimed the gun.]

[ he steps closer, feeling the need to go to her, even when it's like this between them—or especially when it's like this. he's hurting. it stands to reason she's hurting too. he wants to comfort her and be comforted by her. they can't let that happen now, but standing closer to her, he can at least stand at the precipice of what he wants. better than nothing.

he sighs, shoulders sagging. ]

I know.

[She wishes he wouldn't step closer because it only encourages her to be less careful. She shouldn't have fallen in love, and she shouldn't be reaching out to touch his hand, but there are things she's learned she has no control over, regardless of the danger.]

Better or worse than France?

[She leaves it up to him to interpret the question.]

[ his fingers flex under her touch. it's just reaction, not reciprocation. bold fucking question, as he interprets it. that's grace for you. ]

If you're happy— [ she isn't, so he falters ]

If you live well, better. If you don't, worse.

[ much depends on her and where she goes from here. if grace lives well, then it's like france, which he knows how to manage. if she doesn't live well, then it's like the state he was in when he volunteered. like his mother too. a far less predictable pain. ]

[He doesn't pull back, but he's never needed to do that to shut her out. She could hold his face in her hands and he'd still make a fatal blow. And there it goes.]

Then perhaps it will be worse than France.

[Her own attempt to wound, petty as it may be. Maybe she won't live well, just to spite him. Perhaps she doesn't deserve to live well.]

[ it's a sharp enough shock to break the barrier down. he grabs onto her hand at last, not too tight but pointedly. she knows how to cut him. the pain flashes in his face, brief yet clear as lightning. she really is as dangerous as everyone else tommy loves, maybe more dangerous than some of them. ]

Why would you say that, Grace? Why fucking say it.

[ this is how less rational minds than his get to believing in curses.

all right, so she doesn't want him to wish her well because it sounds like being dismissed by him. exiled from his life. but her spite and stubbornness are far worse, he feels, than his dismissal. he doesn't deserve to live well either, but he wouldn't threaten her with his misery.

if she plans to be unhappy, fuck. it would've been kinder to let him hang. that's quick. the broken heart method is slower. it did shake something loose in him, which she wanted. now he's murmuring a sort of counter-spell. ]

You'll be all right. You'll find a good man and you won't think of me.

[She warned him she'd break his heart. Grace shakes her head, unafraid of this statue brought to life by so few words.]

I will. Every day.

[Either out of longing or resentment because he wanted her to be someone else's.]

[ polly told him once, there'll be others. then they drank to the others. all of them. he knew then that he'd never want anyone like he wants grace. and pol knew it too.

this is all there is. there's nothing before, there's nothing after.

easier if he believes grace doesn't feel the same. inconvenient, to hear this from her.

he reaches up to brush her cheek, right back in an old habit. ]

And me. It's the same.

[ he already does think of her every day. ]

Then stop talking like it's so easy to walk away from this.

[For either of them, because it's clear that it's not. She gently holds onto his wrist, leaning into the touch. This, these feelings between them, shouldn't be. They should be able to walk away. Yet here they are.]

It's you that I want.

[She can't argue that he's a good man, and knows if she did he'd scoff at it, but it matters less these days.]

It's not easy, Grace.

[ he breathes another sigh between them, leaning closer still. ]

I just don't see what choice there is.

[ which is something else he knows she won't want to hear. ]

How do you want me to talk?

[ just tell him what to do. the man who plans for everything defers to her sometimes. she knows that's a unique power to hold. ]

[She dares to touch his face, like he did hers. She wishes she had the answer to that, because it feels like a genuine question.]

I don't know. But I do know that being with anyone else, for both you and I, would be putting on another uniform.

[Filling another role. The husband. The wife.]

[ he tips his cheek to favour her touch. then exhales through his nose at what she's got to say, disapproving. he's just like a horse fighting the bridle, refusing the bit. it doesn't last. he's clever enough to size her up and know he's lost. ]

And I can't tell whether that's romantic or cruel, but I know it isn't wrong.

It can be both. [Just like he can be. And her, too, she knows.] I'd think of you while with him. While kissing him, sleeping with him.

[Him, that theoretical better man in her future. It'd be very cruel to have a bed with three people in it.]

[ three in a bed. he'll be that cruel, if he keeps going how he's going. it'll feel like survival. teamwork. on a good day it might feel like family. what it won't feel like is love.

she's gone far enough to make him jealous of the theoretical. both his hands fall away and then return to her in a new place, settling on her hips. ] I want you with me. Just us.

[Hearing it warms her heart, even if it's not that simple. But she can at least give him the ghost of a smile for it.]

Just us. And you won't hear the shovels.

[ his aunt and his brothers would have more reason to resent grace, if they heard some of the shit she says to him in private. they'd see it, perhaps rightly, as exploiting his weakness. she's found out she's the cure to something and she doesn't hesitate to offer it up. in the back of his mind, tommy knows too. at least her motivations are purer than they were before. love makes people do things. she loves him.

whether she's trying to be merciful or manipulative, it doesn't matter. the result is the same: he holds tighter and tries to kiss her. ]

[She can be merciful, manipulative, and desperate all at once. Still, she's glad he doesn't verbally respond to that. A man that dug tunnels in the war, and the sound of shovels. Maybe she didn't make sense of it at the time, but she does now, and it makes the betrayal's depth all the more clear.

She's never been able to resist his kiss, even when she could have in that church. He might kill her for deceit, she had thought at the time, but not for refusing a kiss. But she hadn't. Just as she doesn't now, kissing him back.]

How do we just go on?

[ though he's told her so before, when they kiss it's all the more obvious that he really does need her. there's a longing to it. if he could, he'd breathe and drink her in. after, he rests his forehead against hers. ]

That's the question.

[ following his heart is all he's doing. his head doesn't want to work on the problem of keeping someone in his life who only entered it to fuck him over. being sensible and smart, he'd still say there's no chance and they're fooling themselves. ]