#lambsbridge orphans

[victoriadallonfan]

Jessie Ewesmont from Twig

[pennysperfectpolls]

Are the Lambsbridge Orphans (Twig) adoptable?

(fanart by @bug4932)

I tried to find more information because I’d never heard of them. Here’s a few things I found on their wiki

“The Lambs are Radham's special ops forces specialized for urban warfare and infiltration.”

“The Lambs are described as a gestalt. Operating as a unit, they do not have a leader as such, but rotate decision making around themselves based on specialization and seniority.”

[regentdidmanyquestionablethings]

Everybody starts talking about how awful it is to have Sy on your team as an imposter (nobody argues that they should stop immediately killing/voting him out though), so Sy, needing to be useful starts concocting some batshit scheme to use his limited time to kill off whoever he calculates to be the biggest threat to his teammate(s).

Jamie is the first to recognize that Sy's imposter teams have started winning, but waits to see exactly who Sy kills depending on his teammates out of curiosity.

Ashton is the first to bring up the pattern, which initially impresses everyone that he was able to catch on to Sy's scheming, until it surfaces that he only found out because the last time he was Sy's teammate Sy killed Helen first, which despite being the optimal strategic play made Ashton sad, so he bugged Sy to tell him why he did it until Sy caved and explained it to him.

Evette is dead.

the lambs amongus. sy gets killed round 1 every time. but then he starts making it his mission to sow as much chaos as possible in the brief window he has to type before he gets voted out

[senviva]

my Halloween costumes of the past few years: Rachel, Maggie, and Sy

[katliveblogs]

To the adults, he was cuddly.  To me, he was a nuisance.

“Hey, Gordon, can I grab that extra umbrella?” Rick asked.

Gordon and Helen were walking together, each holding large umbrellas, a herd of the younger orphans walking around them.

“I think Sy would prefer it if you left him alone,” Gordon said.

“Thank you,” I said.  “Yes.”

Oh dang, guess we are continuing from Sy’s perspective. I’m still going to hold out hope for arcs from the view of other gang members though, especially since if the interludes are all going to be called “Enemy” it’d hardly make sense to get their perspectives in those.

“He’s going to get sick if he gets this cold and wet.”

“It’s summer,” I pointed out.  “It’s warm rain, and I want to get wet.  I’m changing when I get back anyway.”

“Why would you want to get wet?”

“Why is it any of your business?  My head gets hot, I like to cool down sometimes.”

Dang relatable.

“Your head gets hot?” Rick asked.  He gave me an indulgent smile.  “I think you’re already feverish, Sy.”

I gave him a very unimpressed look, then ducked around a pair of recent arrivals, aiming to put them between me and Rick.

It didn’t work.  I felt a hand grip my hood, and spun on the spot, slapping at it, harder than was necessary.

It didn’t have much effect, but it made for a loud slap, and the speed with which I’d turned caught eyes.  Other children and a few bystanders on the street were staring, now.  The Lambsbridge group slowed, some stopping altogether.

I stared Rick down, glaring.

I don’t exactly get the sense Sy gels super well with the unaugmented orphans. Also where are we going exactly? Is Mary with you or still being “processed”?

[katliveblogs]

“They’re Mary’s ‘brothers’, to Mary and the Puppeteer.  Mary is their sister.  It’s a little family unit.”

“I notice you called Helen a sister,” Jamie said.  “Interesting.”

“One isn’t related to the other,” I said.

“I seem to recall you going on at length about the intricacies of the human mind,” Gordon said.  “Everything impacts it on some level or something like that.”

“Okay,” I said, “Whatever.  Let’s joke around about Sy really wanting a family, deep down inside.  Mary’s situation has made me realize it’s what I really want.  It’s a yearning even.”

Deflect with sarcasm all you want Sy, it’s obvious the idea made an impression on you.

Hands settled on my shoulder.  Prey instinct, wham.  It took me a moment to realize it was because I saw Gordon, Jamie, Lil, and the smallest clone, but I didn’t see Helen.

Her arms wrapped around my shoulders from behind, and she hugged me tight, before leaning forward to give me a peck on the cheek.  Too perfunctory to be anything serious.

I didn’t move a muscle.

Helen must have done something real fucking ruthless at some point.

“I’ll be your big sister if that’s what you really want,” she said.

“Sarcasm,” I said, still not moving.  “I’m not sure what we are, but I don’t think ‘family’ is exactly it, and I’m really truly okay with that.”

She pulled away, giving me a rap on the head as she stepped over to Gordon’s side.  I caught a glimpse of a wry smile on her face as she gave me a sidelong glance.  For my benefit.  Her way of letting me know she’d been joking too.

Geez.

I mean it’s not like smiles aren’t for that purpose usually, it’s just not conscious but instinctual.

“We’re the Lambsbridge orphans,” Gordon said, as Helen leaned against the wall beside him, raising her hand to fix the placement of a strand of hair.  “That’s all we need to be.”

Geez Gordon, way to jinx everything.

[katliveblogs]

“Okay.  As far as everyone here knows, including the headmistress and the rest of the faculty, I’m the son of a butcher mogul, Helen is the daughter of a diplomat, and Jamie is the orphan son of a military captain who died and left him some money.  At Jamie’s suggestion, the story is that we were all staying at the orphanage as a matter of convenience before our enrollment at Mothmont.  Favors were called in, whatever.  It’s happened before, given the ties between Lambsbridge and Radham Academy, and it’s not going to surprise anyone.”

Seems like a serviceable enough cover. And Lambsbridge is the name of the orphanage I guess.

“I’ve been here before,” Lillian said.  “Before I was a student at the Academy.  Teachers know me, they like me.  We leaked the idea that I was suspended, and the rules of Mothmont mean I can come back here whenever, to get some classes in, use facilities or brush up.  I might have to explain to my parents, but I think it’s okay.  Nobody’s asked how I know you guys, but I don’t think it’s a problem.”

“I suggested the ‘ties to the orphanage’ thing because I recognized faces among the students, and those faces have probably seen us out and about as a group,” Jamie said.

“Overall, we have a cover,” Gordon elaborated, “Nothing so questionable that anyone’s going to raise questions.  But people have a way of taking things at face value, and this situation hasn’t really bucked the trend.”

So is going undercover something you’ve done before then? I suppose they might just be generally talented and experienced at reading and deceiving people.

“Except for the attempts on your life,” I said.

“Except for that.  But there aren’t any holes in what we’re saying that should have raised suspicions,” Gordon said.

I nodded.  “Mr. Hayle filled me in on most of that, but it’s good to have the details.  He said he was intentionally vague about who I was, so I could adapt as the situation required.  He did say that it was a special favor from the orphanage to work me in later than the rest of you.”

“Really,” Gordon said.  He smiled a little, “Why would the orphanage be so eager to get rid of you?”

The teasing banter between these characters is honestly very good, it really emphasizes that these are a bunch of smartass kids who know each other well.

[katliveblogs]

They?  The other Lambsbridge orphans?

“I trust Sy,” Jamie said.

“Yes,” Helen murmured.  She’d sensed the coach slowing down, and had roused.

I glanced at Lil, and sensed the hesitation.  Mary would too.

But Lil said, “Yes.”

Makes sense that Lillian is less confident in Sy’s ability to judge people.

Mary’s expression didn’t change.  Not deadpan, like Helen’s; it was a vaguely lost, heartbroken look that she had about her, and it was a look that didn’t offer any tells.

It suggested she was more comfortable or certain about what was going on than she had been a moment ago, when all the walls had been down and in ruins.

Let’s hope it’s because of Sy’s continued kindness and not because she’s more sure she can fool them and escape.

The coach stopped, and we made our way out, Lillian removing the blanket that covered Mary’s shackles, clumsily folding it and dropping it on the spot where Helen had been lying.  One by one, we made our way out, passing the Stitched bodyguards on either side of the door.

When Mary reached the door, they seized her.

“Go easy,” I told them.  “She’s not a threat.  You can stay close, but don’t manhandle her.”

The handlers for the two stitched bodyguards echoed my orders.  The two bodyguards let go of Mary, leaving her free to follow a pace behind me.

Huh, does Sy really have the authority to make that order?

We were on dry ground.  At the base of the Tower, a roof had been set up so one side rested against the Tower itself, the other side propped up by a row of custom-grown trees.  Stitched horses were lined up beneath, with cords and wires stringing them up to a rack of large metal cables that ran down one side of the tower.

Gordon was already out of the other coach, lying in a stretcher, with the team that worked on the Griffon project surrounding him.

So do they get the electricity for the stitched from lightning rods in true Frankenstein fashion? It’s not totally scientifically impossible I don’t think, although with Victorian era electric engineering you’d need some sort of branched construction the size of a large house to store the energy without having everything blow up or melt, in my extremely inexpert estimation.

[katliveblogs]

My eyes scanned the shelves and bookshelves.  Searching.

For what? Something out of place?

Mrs. Earles didn’t give off the image of someone who ran an orphanage.  She’d struck me more as the assistant to that sort of someone.  Managing one child had a way of turning women into mothers, wearing away at certain things while exaggerating others.  Even with help, managing sixteen should have pushed her to an extreme in some respect.  Something in the vein of a tyrant or a defeated woman, a woman who turned to vice to escape stresses, or a saint.  But she wasn’t any of those things.

A part of me wanted to think of her as a mother, but she wasn’t.  She didn’t pretend to be.  She ran Lambsbridge, she kept us fed and sheltered, and she was quick to use the threat of a smack to keep us in line.  Even though I’d been a recipient more than once, I could appreciate that she didn’t hesitate in that respect.  I had to live with fifteen others, and if they were allowed to run rampant, I faced more grief than I did dealing with the occasional rap to the knuckles.

While this isn’t particularly bad character archetype deconstruction, it is I think the most glaring example of Wildbow struggling to write realistically from the perspective of a child so far.

Syl is a 12 year old orphan, even if he’s perceptive and analytical there is no way he has the lived experience or social understanding to make these kinds of observations on the way Mrs. Earles differs from the norm when it comes to the characteristics of women who manage children.

Which isn’t to say that this is more than a minor flaw, or that I think that its detracting from the rest of the story, but letting his own deconstructionist and analytical tendencies bleed into the perspective of his characters even when it doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense is a little bit of a weakness of Wildbows I think.

Mr. Hayle, by that same token, was almost but not quite my father.

He frowned as he saw me, immediately taking in details that more than a hundred people in the busier part of the city had failed to spot.

“I’ll make sure you don’t have eavesdroppers,” Mrs. Earles said, disappearing.

“Thank you,” Mr. Hayle said, without turning to look at her.

We stood in the entry to the sitting room, while he examined each of us, silent.

So wait, if Mr. Hayle is another familiar person, then who is the totally unexpected stitched gentleman accompanying?

[pennysperfectpolls]

Yes, the Lambsbridge Orphans are adoptable

Are the Lambsbridge Orphans (Twig) adoptable?

(fanart by @bug4932)

I tried to find more information because I’d never heard of them. Here’s a few things I found on their wiki

“The Lambs are Radham's special ops forces specialized for urban warfare and infiltration.”

“The Lambs are described as a gestalt. Operating as a unit, they do not have a leader as such, but rotate decision making around themselves based on specialization and seniority.”