#mary phinney

[jomiddlemarch]

For the five lines meme: "something wicked" for Mary/Jed? Please and thank you!

“Put whatever that knitted farrago is aside, Nurse Mary,” Jed said, grimacing in a manner he hoped she would see as humorous, one which might ease the furrow in her brow and provoke her into a tart rejoinder. Before she could speak, he’d laid the pack of cards down before her.

“I’ve no time to waste being frivolous,” she replied, but there was a bit of a quirk to her lip, one he could fairly construe as wry amusement if he wished. He wished, for that and any number of things.

“Having your fortune told with Matron Brannan’s cards on All Hallow’s Eve is the furthest things from rank frivolity and I should think any self-respecting descendent of the Celts by way of Manchester would already know that and I must admit, I couldn’t get her to let me carve one measly turnip, so this will be the sum total of the night’s observation,” he said, waiting for her to nod and set aside her handwork before he sat down before her.

[isildursestrid]

I started The Artful Dodger and Jack Dawkins and Lady Belle Fox are giving major Jedediah Foster and Mary Phinney from Mercy Street vibes! 🤌🏻

[onefail-at-atime]

Mercy Street is a perfect example of why public organizations like PBS need all the financial support we can give them. An excellent show ended after only two seasons in 2017 due to funding concerns.

May the universe grant me a winning lottery ticket so that I can personally petition PBS to bring this show back. I absolutely want to see Nurse Mary return and for everyone to see Samuel become a recognized surgeon.

[tortoisesshells]

could I please request #37 "eyes" for...the first fandom on your ao3! (or dealer's choice)

of course! Mercy Street was my first AO3 fandom, so here's some fluff of dubious canonical status. I guess it fits in somewhere in between 1x05 and 2x01?

“That’s enough of that, Nurse Mary,” said Jed Foster, high-handedly taking the latest Frank Leslie’s Illustrated from her drooping hands, “The light’s bad – you’ll strain your eyes worse than our spirits, if that is possible.”

For her part, Mary made a half-hearted gesture that the paper ought to be returned, but, sleep-addled as she was, she could scarcely remember what she had just read about the port of New Orleans, or what was happening there now; her protest was very easily turned aside, and it was hard not to let herself be amused by Jed’s sharp-edged care.

He continued: “If you insist on doing damage to your own features – and with our own equipment and supplies in such a state, I would have an easier time finding tincture of laudanum in Little Napoleon’s camp than here – I’ll be forced to requisition glasses from some unsuspecting soul. For the good of the Union – I think, perhaps, I might be able to convince our stout-hearted chaplain of the necessity with such a line.”

“Jed – oh, don’t – but do I believe you would,” Mary replied, already nodding off.

Send me a number and a fandom/pairing/character(s), and get a five sentence ficlet in return!

[welcome-to-mercy-street]

Reblog if you're still angry at PBS for canceling Mercy Street

[mercurygray]

Okay, not gonna lie, this weeks' episode of The Gilded Age is making me want to write middle-aged and ruthless Mary Phinney.

[historyavatars]

Avatars 400x640

Mary Elizabeth Winstead, in Mercy Street

[theenglishnurse]

Her Name Was Libby

READ ON AO3 HERE

Mary had never been a good patient. Even as a young child she would fight tooth and nail to leave her sickbed, much to the frustration of her mother. It seemed even a fever hot as a Massachusetts summer did little to slow down the headstrong and determined young girl. Only one thing had been able to settle her, that is one person. Her father and his beautiful recitation of Ulysses.

She had not remembered the fit of hysteria that had caused her to flee from her quarantine room. The head nurse could hardly fathom finding the energy to lift her head off the pillow propping her up let alone sprint down the old oak stairs of Mansion House, in her undergarments no less. Miss Phinney had been slightly mortified by that fact but had felt far too tired to grieve over such, quickly taking back to her bed with the help of the anatomist that current sketched her.

“Who did you see, miss?”

“My Father…”

The woman in pink, who introduced herself as Lisette, was far calmer than one should be after witnessing nearly half the staff being rammed into by a delirious damsel. Mary was forever grateful for her gentility and discretion as she helped her back into the plainly made bed, her chemise clinging to her body from the never-ending sweats. And yet this stranger seemed so familiar, as if she had known her her entire life, not hesitating a second over her curiosities or her to draw her in such raw form compared to the usually well-dressed nurse the hospital had come to know, expect and respect.

“My father gave me fortitude when I was sick as a child. He died soon after I married.” Mary paused, looking to her lap, suddenly remembering the spectacle she had caused. “I'm sorry if I alarmed you,” she breathed, not sure whether to laugh or cry, instead changing the subject entirely. “Why do you do this, sketch me?”

“It is my work. And my habit.” Lisette chuckled, her hand continuing to shade, not stopping even for a moment. “You care of people. I draw them. You have a husband at war?”

“No!” Mary stated far too quickly, shaking her head for added emphasis. “I'm widowed. It's been... well, quite a while now. . . “

“And your daughter?” Lisette continued to draw, not seeing the confusion and sadness that washed over the pallor face of her subject for another moment, realizing quickly she had crossed the line in the sand.

Mary had been shocked by the question, flabbergasted how this stranger knew about such a secret, on she had buried so deep, even Jed was never to know of her. It would have been one thing to seek a position as a Union nurse as a widow, but to state she had lost a child and a husband within two months of each other would have been grounds for immediate rejection by Dragon Dix.

And then suddenly it flashed back to her, the moment as clear to Mary as her father sitting in the chair, a Cherub like toddler balanced on his knee suckling a chubby hand, the sunlight peeking through the curtains dancing on the chestnut-colored curls that graced her head.

“Who did you see, miss?”

“My Father…and my daughter. “

A few moments of silence passed as Mary forced herself to speak her name out loud for the first time in a few months. Just thinking of her flooded her memories with the entire biography of the young girl’s life. Mary remembered the moment she realized she was expecting, the maid playfully noting how her sheets had gone two months without bloodstains. She remembered telling Gustav, how ecstatic he was that he nearly lifted her in the air, instead simply placing a hand on her stomach. That is where it would stay every night as her stomach grew as did the child’s movements wild whenever he spoke. Mary sobbed the first time she heard her cry, bursting into the world during the coldest of January mornings following two days of labor and three hours of pushing. Gustav however was even more emotional the first time he held his daughter, her wide eye, slated to turn honey brown, already focusing on his voice and solidifying the fact that they would be inseparable. When she was two, Mary had thought the Child had caught a cold, but that wishful thinking was quickly shatter by a rattling cough, her baby struggling to breathe. By the time the doctor had arrived, it was far too late, the unmistakable Diphtheria lesions having suffocated her. The day that she died, there little Maus, so did Gustav’s will to live. Mary had tried everything to lift his spirits, to ease him back to the land of the living as she herself struggling not to drown in the sea of sorrows. Nothing worked and now he remained in Concord, buried with the only thing that may have saved him.

“Her name was Libby.” Mary started slowly, Lisette’s pencil coming to a halt as she listened.

“The honorable Miss Elizabeth Louisa von Olnhausen… “Mary smirked, remembering the day her daughter . . . their daughter had been born, her husband Sitting behind her in bed as they simply stared at this tiny being, they had created.

“Such a big name for a tiny thing, “Mary laughed, Libby immediate grasping the woman’s finger with all her strength.

“Don’t worry, my Liebling,” Gustav smiled, planting a kiss on her temple. “She’ll grow into it.”

[broadwaybaggins]

Valentine 5 sentence fic: rose, Mercy Street, any pairing

(Irony of ironies, you and sagiow reqeusted the same prompt! So I’ll write both, one that fericita won’t kill me for, and the other, well...)

He was hiding something.

There was a look on his face that Mary couldn’t name, and he was hiding something behind his back in a way that reminded Mary of how she would try to sneak rescued kittens and other animals into the house right under her mother’s nose. “Jed?” she asked, her tone a mix between confusion and amusement. “What in heaven’s name are you doing? I have to say you’re making me nervous.”

“What? Damn it, sorry. I...I haven’t done this in a while. E--Eliza always said I was hopeless at this sort of thing.”

Mary’s eyebrows arched. “What sort of thing?”

In lieu of answering, Jed thrust a bouquet of hothouse flowers at her, the arrangement bursting with roses in every shade of pink and red, dotted through with baby’s breath. “Romantic things. Happy Valentine’s Day, my love.”

“They’re beautiful,” Mary said, taking the bouquet gently. She smiled indulgently at him and added, “Although I have to admit, roses aren’t my favorite.”

His face fell, but she reached out and cupped his cheek, kissing his lips softly. “But that’s all right,” she whispered. “You’ll have plenty of time to learn all of my favorites, Jed.”

[fericita-s]

Today I deliberately misunderstood the MASH prompt from Mercy Street Advent: Silver and AU to bring you that favorite middle school game, MASH, as played by Emma.  Mary made her do it and liked what it predicted.

[sagiow]

She'd never had such sympathy for Odysseus before, when it came to taking the long way home. First line fanfic!

She’d never had such sympathy for Odysseus before, when it came to taking the long way home. To spend ten years cursed by Poseidon on the turbulent seas, fighting all matters of creatures, resisting seductive sorceresses and enchanting mermaids, sailing the thinnest line between Scylla and Charybdis. Ten years yearning for spouse and family, for home, hoping against all hope it still was their home, their spouse, and that all that they held dear had not passed on to another, their prolonged absence mistaken for inevitable demise.

She had clutched Odysseus to her chest, under his Roman name, as she navigated the monster-filled waves of fever that were her constant companions. The steamboat rocked in the choppy waters, the lantern above her swinging dangerously upon its hook, casting nefarious shadows against the cabin’s wooden walls. In the darkness rose rose hideous beasts, a tangle of tentacles, sharp teeth, claws and evil eyes, against which she forcefully shut her own, her lips quivering in a silent plea for mercy. 

For comfort, she grasped the little book tighter in her hand, and the man who had gifted it to her, tighter in her heart. Her wasted body focused on the pressure of his lips upon her burning forehead, the linger of his fingers against hers as he inexorably let her go. Her confused mind held on to his parting words, his beautiful promise of an imminent reunion.

“That’s what Odysseus also promised,” whispered the shadow at her left, in a deep, wet, sloshing sound.

“Ten years,” growled the one at her right. “Fighting the gods and all their cursed creations.”

“I’ll fight them too,” she fought them then.

“Hmmm, maybe you will…” the treacherous waters lapped at her ears, circling ever closer. “But what of your sweetheart?”

A harmony of hisses rose in agreement. “They aren’t all Penelopes, to virtuously resist courtiers and suitors, all too eager to lay claim to your crown, and they to let them have it.”

“He won’t! He’ll stay true,” she cried, but the image of the French artist flooded her mind, all sweet smiles and all-seeing eyes, and she was doomed.

At once, Scylla was over her chest, her tentacles wrapping around her throat, her numerous heads snarling, baring triple rows of fearsome fangs. She gasped for air, but only inhaled Charybdis, her lungs filling with the foaming waters of despair. She tried to cry out, but her words were lost in the gurgling, wheezing cough of the drowned. 

The water rose, filling her eyes, spilling over her cheeks like the ocean at the edge of the world, pushing her over to the bottomless abyss.

The book dropped, and she sunk.

[jomiddlemarch]

Mary Phinney and Jed Foster, “the most wonderful time of the year.”

“Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents,” Jed said and though the remark might be construed as pettish, the utterance of a spoilt child, he’d said it in the tone of a kindly father or wise professor, point out the flaw in her latest proof.

“I know the boys will all miss a stocking, but I mean to make them happy,” Mary replied. Jed reached over and took her left hand in both of his, his thumb grazing the calluses on her palm, the narrow gold band he’d given her when she rejected one studded with diamonds.

“I’m sure you have a plan to make them merry, then, or will you aim for jolly, full of glad tidings?”

“I shall start with carols and I hope I shan’t need to beg you to add your baritone to Henry’s bass and Dr. Hale’s lovely tenor,” she said, warming to the idea and Jed’s answering expression of wry admiration.

[nettlestonenell]

Mercy Street in a  Minute- Episode by Episode

Three gifs, and some sentences.

We’ll count the image above the headline as number one.

Let’s call Episode One: How did Ted Mosby end up on American Public Television in such an amazing beard that somewhere Neil Patrick Harris is probably singing about how truly and deeply jealous he is of it?

-or - 

Mary Phinney is out to Single White Female You and Yes, You Should Be Frightened, but Also Worshipful.

It’s the time of Gone with the Wind, and the Army is operating a military hospital in a once-beautiful multi-story hotel called Mansion House in the occupied South. We get the fun of seeing a “Ball Room” plaque on one side of a door that’s holding bleeding, dying soldiers on the other. Beds are everywhere. Nurses are sleeping on the floor--while an important colonel or something lies upstairs in an elegant suite suffering from dysentery.

None of this stops doctors from tumbling nurses (or possibly the other way around), or planning to enjoy the spoils of war like gaining more power and a very low price for good champagne. (It’s basically the Ka-bubble in Whiskey, Tango, Foxtrot, or China Beach in...China Beach. It’s not like M*A*S*H, though, because the clothes here are much prettier.)

Names like Dorothea Dix and Florence Nightengale have each got a champion at the hospital, there are Union nurses and a rebel nurse, and a nurse (?) with an Irish accent, and the show is at once desperate to see women fight AND conversely also join forces (not necessarily in that order) you just...you just gotta keep watching.

Mary Phinney, who we meet first, comes to the hospital as a New England widow--to a German baron (she appears to be based on a historical character, but I don’t think they’ve hewed too close to her actual CV). Don’t get too excited, though--the show only really plays with this tantalizing premise for a few scattered moments in the first ep. After that, it’s mostly up to fanfiction to scratch that itch if you have it.

Mary Phinney is at once a neophyte AND someone so determined to be good at what she’s doing, she can probably do just about ANYTHING, and better than you. She has been put in charge of the nursing staff of the hospital, without having any nursing experience beyond home-nursing family members. (again, little mentioned after the first ep.)

One person with an itch, here, is the aforementioned Ted (Dr. Jedediah Foster, here). He’s a depressed, life-hating misanthrope who probably has a bust of Victor Frankenstein somewhere in his house with the wife he never goes home to. He doesn’t need to. He gets his rocks off in the blood and the experimentation and the SCIENCE OF DISCOVERY of it all. His hair, both facial and on his head, is daringly terrible, and one of the most true-to-the-times I may have ever seen on present-day film.

He is the kind of person it is hard to imagine attending a party and enjoying himself.

It’s hard to know who else to mention on a show filled with interesting characters, when I’ve only given myself one more gif for this post.

Okay, I’m going with this one. This is Emma Green, and if you should be afraid of anybody on the show, it’s this little trick in shoe leather.

It’s her lack of understanding her own power in the world (and, arguably her lack of understanding the world) that make her a terror in a hoopskirt. Ministers, especially, should pray for extra protection in her wake.

She’s part of the Green family of loyal Confederates, along with the (*points for best accent) actress AnnaSophia Robb, and Gary “Sir Gary” Cole and Mother Gothel as her parents. I do not mention her brother Jimmy, and that is on purpose.

Emma has decided to go to the hospital and join in the girl-fighting, the Single White Female-ing, and the women as allies movement whose landscape alters from moment to moment.

[We’ll get to all the other characters in future episodes]

There is a saying, I’m told, that I can’t recall quite correctly (and google is no help), that women are the ones who follow history with a bucket, cleaning up.

Well, welcome to the bucket brigade, where the ladies are trying to mop up the Civil War’s mess.

You can find Mercy Street (in the US) on Amazon Prime.

(an animated gif, I’m not counting this one. You needed some Cherry Jones in your day, anyway)

[cicadaemon-moved]

My arm is doing better so please have a sketch of Mary Phinney

[tortoisesshells]

Unusual Fic Author Asks: Perspective Flip for "Physician, Heal Thyself - Or, Our New England Cousin: Being An Unpublished Excerpt From the Lives of the Staff and Volunteers of Mansion House Hospital, Alexandria, Virginia, in the late War"

kind friend, this was SUCH fun to come back to!

men may rise on stepping-stones Of their dead selves (Mercy Street, T, continuing the spiritual crossover with AL:VH, ~900 words)

In which something is the matter with the dead and dying of Mansion House, in late May of 1862,

or,

Mary Phinney von Olnhausen had never considered her mind particularly inclined to suspicion, and the circumstances of life in Mansion House were of such a magnitude of concern that investigating what struck her as abnormal about that place would be as futile a process as examining the strand of a beach she had once seen, grain of sand by grain of sand – she could gain little knowledge by the experience, and what she had gained would be swept away – by the grey tide of the Atlantic, which she and Gustav had watched for many hours, while hoping the unshadowed sun and clean sea air might provide some relief from the wasting disease which would, in some short months, claim him –

Her mind was wandering.

Mary pinched the bridge of her nose against the coming pangs of a headache – whether from the exhaustion, or sorrow, or hunger, or even the irritatingly tuneless whistling of the dentist’s apprentice – she could not say. There were two empty beds which had been occupied when she had performed her last rounds, and it –

It pricked at something in her. Her better senses, perhaps, or conscience.

Read the Rest on AO3!

[welcome-to-mercy-street]

PSA: Mercy Street is a fantastic show if you enjoy even a little whump.