#tlfjn

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But the lord above may save my soul from portin in hell at the well below the valley-oh green grows the lily-oh etc

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Father Devlin of St Jude’s Sisters of Charity Convent, Dublin, and Petty Officer Davey Spence, from Armagh, formerly Subordinate Officers’ Steward on H.M.S. Sussex. being normal, as usual.

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Máire and Áine at a fictitious pre-union poorhouse in dublin c. 18--. background heavily based on the derry workhouse clothes loosely based on the bristol one, with a bit of a regency update since I had to use mostly late victorian photos for reference. ignore Patrick he knows he's supposed to be dying off king william island rn idk how he escaped

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Devlin and Davey and Máire and the manifestations of religious guilt. only 2 of the people in this drawing are even catholic and it's up to YOU to guess which ones

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Captain John Nickerson of HMS Sussex, with a portrait of himself commissioned in celebration of his recent victories in the wars with the loathéd Corsican tyrant. what a fella I sure hope nothing goes wrong during his planned next voyage to discover the Northwest Passage I sure hope he finds it

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Patrick and Davey, my own personal doomed norn iron polar explorers from my project tlfjn. happy christmas or whatever

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Stuff about my fictional arctic expedition. the ship itself was originally a whaler out of liverpool, was used to transport supplies in the 1790s, captured by the french but mostly destroyed, so they ship of theseus it into a bomb-vessel, and then the british recaptured it and ship of theseus it into an icebreaker. ft patrick and máire trying not to kill each other in front of jesus and father devlin weighing in on the rumours surrounding what happened when the crew was forced to abandon ship for the wee boats and open water after they ran out of food

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WIP intro: The Lament for John Nickerson

Status: drafting

Genre: historical fiction; set during the Continental Blockade of 1806 - 1814*

Themes: nationalism, colonialism, hypocrisy, power, being a hater about how cs forester talks about the british navy

Ireland, 18--. As the Napoleonic Wars drag on, a group of militant republicans lie in wait outside Belfast's assembly rooms, hoping to assassinate Capt. John Nickerson, lately of HMS Sussex, hailed as a hero after saving all but five men on his ship's disastrous expedition to navigate the Northwest Passage. The plan to strike fear into the British establishment seems foolproof, but they soon discover that the man is already dead -- murdered in a not-so-random act of violence which puts them, the would-be killers, in the strange position of finding the actual killers. Their search only seems to take them nowhere, fast, but unbeknownst to them, far to the south, a seaman of the Sussex comes forward with a story to an inmate of a workhouse for outcast women, which tells of her brother's death, disaster, survival, and maybe, just maybe, the key to who on earth would kill beloved John Nickerson.

Most important characters under the cut :3

Eoin O'Donnell -- he/him, leader of the almost-assassins (POV)

Mary Boyle -- she/her, also attempting to help solve the crime (POV)

Naoise Crilly -- he/him, Eoin's best friend (POV)

Máire Gleeson -- she/her, the woman in the workhouse (POV)

Áine Flanaghan -- she/her, Máire's voice of reason

Aoife Boyle -- she/her, Máire's homoerotic girlbestfriend (POV)

Patrick Gleeson -- he/him, Máire's elder brother; died under Nickerson

Davey Joy -- he/him, Patrick's friend and messmate (sort of (?) POV)

Capt. John Nickerson -- he/him, murdered heroic English explorer

*inb4 anyone brings this up -- well aware that it's kind of strange that this guy took ships that could have been used to blockade france to the arctic in like 1808 in the first place. it's a plot point dw

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Writing historical fiction is so unserious. today in tlfjn one of máire's friends is being denied medical attention and máire is demanding she be provided with actual treatment except the story is set in like 1809 and so what she's actually textually saying is I don't think there's been enough dangerous blood loss can we get some more dangerous blood loss in here

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I don't know if her name will stay as áine but either way now that I've started writing about it the situation with the girl máire befriends at the workhouse is frankly categorically insane. in chapter 1 she locks máire in a closet in chapter 3 máire literally almost kills her and then they make a blood pact with each other and máire is like btw I'm actually here because I ****** * ***** ***** ** ****** and I'm using you as a blatant replacement for my gf who I'm not even dating and the other girl is like (completely not listening) that's ok every day I consider poisoning you with 19th century laundry powder

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Davey is a terrible person who I would not normally find relatable but in the first scene with him in it he walks in and gets uncomfortable immediately because he doesn't know what to do so he salutes to some random nun like she's an admiral and then runs away without explaining why he was there or what he wanted or why he did that and folks,

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The main character of TLFJN and Máire in her workhouse uniform in the foreground too also I guess

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To be clear there are plotlines in tlfjn other than máire's I've just been using evil yuri as an emotional crutch to get me through the holidays

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Dying of scurvy in the arctic finally mentioned 3 chapters into tlfjn 🔥

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My greatest passion in life is coming up with increasingly stupid and also niche character details for my oc stories

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Writing update for today is that I barely wrote anything cos I wanted to have the characters read a specific atlas (from the 1790s) they have a copy of at the archives where I work for ease of having already seen it in person before so I searched for the title and found a complete scan online of it and well suddenly it had been two hours and writing about the characters staring intently at the coast of baffin bay with no awareness of the outside world had become more of a write what you know situation