bakerstreet | (no subject)

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!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[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. ]

[She never thought she'd feel protective of this man, who perhaps needs the least protection when he strolls down a street in Small Heath. To chase away any shadows from his mind is no small feat. She knows that.]

I thought you had all the answers.

[ if that were true she couldn't have done what she did. he lifts both brows, leaning back to study her expression. his voice is lower, more full of gravel. ]

Are you making fun of me?

[There's a flicker of a smile.]

If you take it as such.

[Yes.]