There's a long long trail a-winding...

Armand Lacroix. One soldier amongst the millions who have made History. EN/FR _____ My friend, you would not tell with such high zest, To some children ardent for desperate glory, The old Lie: Dulce et Decorum est, Pro Patria Mori. (W. Owen)

[pacificlupineangel]

@fleur-au-fusil

The battle had been won, almost effortlessly so, and they were now persuing what was left of their enemy to make their already decisive victory absolute. The sun had begun to fall, casting the sky of the smoking battlefield in a fitting bloody red, Napoleon working diligently in his tent as the temperature began to drop some. Roustam stood diligently outside the tent, and his keen dark eyes flicked over when he saw two soldiers approaching. He slipped soundlessly into the tent but Napoleon, ever used to his movements, looked up.

"They've brought another, sire." The man spoke quietly.

"Who is it this time?"

"An artillery man, sire, by his uniform." Napoleon leaned back, searching his mind for reports.

"It must be... Ah. Yes. Go ahead and bring him in." He waved, dismissing him as he went back to his maps. Roustam bowed rather stiffly as was his nature, and slipped back out of the tent. He regarded the soldier silently for a moment before stepping aside and holding the tent open for him.

"The Emperor will see you now, sir."

[fleur-au-fusil]

The battle was over. The infantry – specifically the light infantry – were now pursuing the remnants of the enemies’ armies, and Lacroix’s work was over. With the help of his men, they quickly checked on the condition of their artillery guns before setting them back into the horse-drawn carriages. A long, arduous task that only added to the general weariness after so much marching and battling.

‘Enough mathematics for today, soldiers,’ he joked. ‘We can use our brains and our legs, but never both at once.’

However, the lieutenant felt a lot less like laughing when his superior told him that the Emperor himself wanted to see him. If anyone else than his humourless jerk of a captain had told him this, he would have asked if they were trying to ridicule him. He had only seen Napoleon once before. It was at a very long distance, and he was nearly impossible to distinguish from the numerous marshals on horseback who surrounded him.

To say he was nervous was an understatement, especially since the captain refused to divulge the reason of their visit. In a matter of minutes, with a sergeant’s help, he brushed the dust off his boots, shined the few brass buttons that were turning dark, rearranged his equipment and finally set out for the imperial tent in the captain’s company.

He was silent the whole way through, keeping his hands behind his back in a concerned manner. He was almost surprised to see a salute from the Guard grenadiers guarding the Emperor’s tent. He was aware they were privates and that they would present arms upon seeing an officer… but he still remembered when he was a mere child among them, looking up to them as role models. How curious one’s life could turn out.

The captain left him there, and Lacroix faced the grenadiers, saluting back and giving them a small, stressed out smile.

Before he could overthink it any longer, the officer stepped into the tent, straightened his chest and saluted the man before him.

‘Lieutenant Lacroix from the 8th line artillery regiment, His Imperial Majesty’s and France’s most humble servant, Sire.’

[fleur-au-fusil]

🌸SEND THIS TO TEN OTHER PEOPLE WHO YOU THINK ARE WONDERFUL, KEEP THE GAME GOING!🌸

[Thank you so much for thinking of me!!]

[fleur-au-fusil]

[Like this for a starter?]

[deactivated-blog]

Send “👋” if you want to RP with me but have been too shy to approach.

(If you cannot see the emoji send “Wave”)

[fleur-au-fusil]

royaldresser‌:

What were they fighting for?

On the surface, Great Britain was brought in on the fight to protect Belgium. Despite repeated warnings, Germany had invaded the country en route to France, and the might of the British Empire was bound to respond with force. It was a contractual response— a ‘you do this, and you force our hand’ affair. After all, King and Country could not be seen as weak. The British Empire could not be seen as one who laid down and did nothing.

But what were they truly fighting for?

These thoughts circled around in Richard’s head as rode in from the North of France. Though his mind held more questions than answers regarding this war, he held them back with the trained reserve of a man in service. From the Royal Dresser to the Soldier, Richard had kept his shoulders rolled back, his posture nearly immaculate, and his gaze ever forward. It was no different now as he came upon the improvised trenches with his fellow men on horseback. He couldn’t be Richard Ellis the dreamer– the man of the future. He had to be Captain Ellis, the cavalryman. 

And so he was. And this was how he rode on into the fray. It was the first post given to the First Royal Dragoons– their first entry into the war that had been going on for several months now.

It made him sick, really, to ride in on these makeshift trenches with their freshly-pressed uniforms of green while others were buried alive in the dug up earth. 

Uncertain mumbling began to crop up from behind Richard, and he turned his head around so that he may see the young men who rode by his side. His blue eyes conveyed quiet reassurance just before his superior came riding to the front. 

‘Running mouths don’t get the horses watered. Dismount and tend to your animal.’ The Major ordered. Without a sound, the men hopped off in good order, including a certain Captain Ellis.

He had just come around to the front of his mount, pulling the leather reins up and over the horse’s head so that he may walk side-by-side with him, when an unfamiliar face came toward him. He clearly was not of the Royal Dragoons, for Richard had not seen such a uniform among his ranks. However, he was clearly of the Allied Forces– the French units who had stationed themselves here.

“Captain Ellis of the First Royal Dragoons,” he stated. “What is your business, soldier?”

The Belgian plains extended before Lacroix’s gaze like a never-ending world of possibilities for war. He did not know it yet, but the green grass and blooming forests were soon to be torn down by shrapnel and rains of steel. For now, the landscape sounded bizarrely peaceful, which sounded nothing good to the soldier.

Crawling or sneaking his way around the hills and recesses of the field, the musician finally found a place where he could be, for a moment, sheltered from the Germans’ sight. Sitting on the ground with his legs relaxed, he grabbed his water bottle and profusely poured its contents into his throat. He rested his head against the grassed embankment and took off his kepi to wipe sweat off his forehead. As his blue eyes rose to the skies, he found the sunlight to grow dimmer and, finally, rain started falling in small showers.

Parting his lips ever so slightly, he contemplated the sight for a short instant. The water slid off his overcoat before finally soaking the woollen fabric, staining it like ink blots on a letter. Did the British cavalry wear shiny helmets, like the French Dragoons? Would they complain about the weather and the rust it would cause on their equipment as if it truly were the sole concern of this war? Or would they be scythed by Prussian machineguns like new wheat in summer before the sunrise?

This brisk downpour that eventually rolled down Lacroix’s cheeks-- how much would it cost to see it again?

The bugler thought that his brother, an experienced officer who was the descendant of a long military lineage, would surely mock his artistic thoughts-- so he finally stood up. He had a mission, and perhaps this mission could mean that a few more than just himself would live to see the next dawn.

If Lacroix was not in a hurry to meet the English, it would be because he despised them in a way that felt rightly natural to the Frenchman he was. Not that he hated the men themselves-- he thought they were of a different breed, that was all. He found them cold, sometimes arrogant, and he knew that cavalrymen were certainly the worst at this type of exercise. Englishmen from the upper classes who had enough money to make it into the King’s finest regiments-- what would they think of those rustic infantrymen from the other side of the Channel?

When the Frenchman finally managed to reach the khaki crowd, he looked around for the man who looked to be in charge. Perhaps the one with the fanciest sleeves. What did he know about British uniforms? Why did they wear simple woollen caps? Would one guess they were cavalry if it were not for the horses accompanying them?

‘Captain Ellis,’ started Lacroix, as he gave the officer a very informal salute. ‘I am Private Lacroix, 24th infantry regiment. I was sent here by my commanding officer to warn you that the Belgian staff flooded the lower grounds of the plateau and that it will be quite difficult for you to maneuver with horses. I suggest our battalions should be coordinated together by our respective officers.’

Though the soldier’s English was near perfect in grammar, it was heavily accented by his incapacity to understand the softer, rounder sounds of a British voice. Perhaps this would do for now.

He voluntarily omitted the fact that the French interpreter – normally an officer attached to British staff – had been killed in the morning. It was not the best impression to make on the newcomers, was it?

[fleur-au-fusil]

[I watched Blade Runner and it was mindblowing]

[duchessofostergotlands]

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

- Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, 1915 

[fleur-au-fusil]

[At the going down of the sun, we will remember them...]

[fleur-au-fusil]

@royaldresser for the first battle of Ypres!

___

‘I’ve only been here for a month and I’m already fed up with all this.’

Though no one in the improvised trench answered the soldier’s remark, no words were needed to understand that it was a shared feeling. The Frenchmen, in dark blue coats with clear blue trousers overalls as an urgency measure to hide their conspicuous red, were sitting or laying about the wooden planks as casually as they could in the absence of their officers.

The only soldier with a slightly more colourful uniform was Lacroix, the bugler of the regiment. With a discreet embroidered pattern on his collar as sole indicator of his function, the man did not seem quite happy, however, with having left his piano and the pomp of the Opera of Paris to trade them for a knackered bugle.

These trenches, these uniforms that looked anything but uniform, the rough moustaches and the strong accents of those surrounding him; this was the army of rural France. A battalion of conscripts, of men who had been pulled from their wheatfields to take a train for the first time; half of which barely wrote their own language correctly. They were a world away from Lacroix’s own environment, the higher classes of Paris, the top hats and brand new suits. They were a world away from their allies that had just arrived on the front, the exclusively professional army of His Majesty George V, the sharply dressed and camouflaged Englishmen, the experimented campaigners of the Boer Wars, the ‘Old Contemptibles’.

But at this moment, they were all in the same place, through the same circumstances. Perhaps there was nothing more French than this.

And their lieutenant, Dupeyron, a grunting man straight from St-Cyr’s military academy, did not look much better in his already outdated uniform.

‘Private Lacroix, is that it ? That’s a familiar name.’

The bugler stood to attention. ‘It’s likely, sir. My brother, Philippe, is a captain of the 28th infantry regiment.

- Yes, I remember him. He was one of my instructors. A good man. Do you speak English, Lacroix?

- Enough to ask a Tommy not to make me taste his cooking.

- That sounds fair. I’ll need you as my runner for tonight.’

The content of the message was simple. The Allies being placed on the higher grounds of the valley, the Belgian staff had decided to flood the area beneath with water so that the Germans were slowed down in their attack attempts. The only issue ; the British cavalry that had just arrived from the North of France. Their horses would be useless in such a setting; they were to be dismounted.

Carrying the message would be less than easy.

With his rifle strapped to his shoulder, his bugle tied to his haversack, the Frenchman set off to the British trenches.

Far far from Ypres I long to be...

[adreamyassortment]

“Are they following me because they’re interested in rping or do they just need the follow-back follower count?”

I’ve been seeing this a lot lately and I understand if people get miffed about it. I would be too. And I think it’s a good call to try and interact with folks by calling attention to it.

let it be known though

if I follow you but we never rp, it’s not that i’m using you to get my follower count up.

I’m just rlly bad at making the first move.

Follower count doesn’t mean squat to me since I know that it usually ends up being like, dead blogs I’ll never see again. So yeah. 

This is a post where I’m encouraging you, the reader, to make the first move. Just try and talk to the people you follow, even if you don’t think they’d be interested in rping ( provided you follow their rules on contact, mutuals, ect ). Maybe they wanna rp? Maybe they don’t. Your chances can only increase if you come with an idea to bring to the table, so just try it!

Maybe a friendship will happen, maybe it won’t. But at the VERY LEAST you can say you tried.

[crissxcrossedxout]

PSA

Notifications are NOT working right now. 

Please, if you reply to something or answer something from someone make sure they’ve gotten it!

Activity feeds and notifications aren’t working at all right now for some people and are very spotty for others.

[midsummernightmemes]

Reblog if you’re open to improvisational rp and just “winging it” with threads

Whether it’s the first interactions between the muses so the chemistry is still up in the air and it’s still unknown as to whether or not they’ll click before potential plotting, or the muses have too much minds of their own and run wild the moment you set them loose in a thread, plotting is hard and occasionally your pre-planned threads jump the track and go in totally different directions than anticipated thanks to the muses’ creative differences. Reblog this to let your rp partners know that you don’t mind simply jumping straight into in-character interactions and threads.

[fleur-au-fusil]

[Fun fact but my tags to store my RP posts into the historical verse they are set into, are mostly obscure references to period songs/texts:

To start with my URL, “fleur au fusil”, it is a French idiom meaning, word for word, “with a flower on his rifle”. It was widespread in 1914 to describe the attitude of the French soldiers departing to the front, who were certain to crush the Germans in little time and come back for Christmas.

American Rev verse: “Lafayette nous voilà” (Lafayette, here we come) was the sentence pronounced by Colonel Stanton on Lafayette’s grave when he arrived in France in 1917 with the American Expeditionary Force, referencing the American debt to the French for helping them with the Revolution. It was used again during the Second World War.

First Empire: “Pour le salut de l’Empire” (for the salvation of the Empire). Lyric from a 1791 French revolutionary song reused under Napoleon’s regime.

Second Empire: “Sus aux Pruscaux” (stop the Prussians). From 1870-1871 war slang ‘Pruscaux’, a pejorative way to talk about the Prussians the French were at war with. Reused in the WWI song “la Chanson de Craonne” (see WWI tag).

First World War: “Adieu la vie” (farewell to life). First lyric from the WWI song “the song of Craonne”. This important song of the 1917 mutinies was banned by the army for its anti-military, revolutionary and pessimistic tone.

Second World War: “La flamme ne s’éteindra pas” (the flame [of the Resistance] shall not fade away). From the famous 1940 speech by General De Gaulle, on Radio London, inviting the French to resist the German invader.

Futuristic era: “They say they mechanised the war” (so what the fuck are we marching for?). Lyric from WWI British song “Mademoiselle from Armentières” mocking the fact that general staff praised their technological advance with tanks and war machinery, but still used regular infantry for most of their strategy. I thought it appropriate for an era where the army is mostly made of androids but still uses humans to fight its wars :)]

[fleur-au-fusil]

[@negotiiator liked for a starter!!]

A stark contrast.

On one hand, the security agents working for Cyberlife and the representatives of the US army, clad in thick layers of combat clothing and ballistic armoury. With the helmets covering half of their face and their askew rictus, perhaps due to a tense muscle, the armed men looked almost comically stern, clutching their assault rifles against their chest as if they were to be attacked by a thousand androids at any moment. And perhaps they were; it was a threat that their guests had not yet taken in.

On the other hand, their very guests. A detachment of the French military delegation that had been invited to the United States to help their allies with the deviants’ crisis, lest it spread to their own forces. Of course unauthorised to bring weapons on foreign ground, the soldiers had chosen a much more common outfit, their ceremonial khaki uniform, complete with tie and visor cap. If it were not for the official-looking outfits, they would look like prisoners being escorted by their gaolers. Occasionally, the group would stop their walk to accommodate the difficulties of their leading officer, a withdrawn-looking man in his mature years whose right leg twitched from time to time in a way that made him grind his teeth.

“We would like to introduce you to our RK800 model,” announced the only guide in a business suit. “It is indeed our prime hope in resolving this... difficult situation we have found ourselves in. A prototype released recently, we programmed him to help law enforcement in investigating what exactly causes androids to deviate. It is our most advanced model thus far in every ability, to the extent of a social relations program that allows it to partner with a human detective and blend in perfectly. If needed, it can help you, gentlemen, to analyse the less obvious hints.”

The Cyberlife spokesperson smiled, hoping -- and expecting -- a positive impression among his audience. Unfortunately, he was met with a certain scepticism. The French army had previously only used androids for the dirty work, and their officers had only recently started to work on developing a rather crude form of socialising program. The captain and his men did not know what to think of a robot that truly acted human.

“A deviant hunter,” Captain Lacroix finally answered after a long moment of silence. “I suppose it is not subjected to the same flaws as the rest of its kind.

- Of course not, sir. This model has been specifically developed with a protection against deviancy in mind.”

A sort of vaccine to the contagious disease, Lacroix thought.

And what an impressive prototype of its own right it was. Though the soldiers were fortunately used to human-looking androids, the RK800 model, aside from its height, looked almost inoffensive in comparison to the task of great importance it had been assigned.

“Hello, Connor,” started the Cyberlife representative, hoping his first contact would break the ice between the foreign soldiers and the android.

The response took a while to be heard. The French were not used to talk to androids per se. With a tense smirk that almost paralleled the one of the US Army soldiers beside him, Lacroix finally advanced towards the RK800. 

His leg twitched again. The soldier held out his hand.

“Greetings, Connor. I am Captain Lacroix... from, er, the French 2nd Engineers Division. Can you... tell us more about your capacities?”

[fleur-au-fusil]

[Like this for a starter?]

[fleur-au-fusil]

[In the process of writing a longer bio for my futuristic verse, which apparently consists in poorly photoshopping French insignia on US army soldiers lmao]

[fleur-au-fusil]

Wow you're still alive

[I know..... I come back from the dead sometimes

I do have a main blog, on which I post everyday, but it’s pretty hard coming back to the RP community? I’ve tried doing it but there aren’t that many RPers left anymore, especially on the historical side, and my best friend is way too busy to RP with me at the moment so :(]