I said I would do it, so inspired by some other people's lore posts for their Fallen London characters, here's the full backstory of one of my oldest ocs, currently also my second FLPC, Josephine Prescott! I wanted to write down what I actually know about her because her story has changed over the years...
(I'm not sure how to do content warnings. This is not super detailed... But the genre being imitated is gothic fiction and by the time she's going to Fallen London, Count of Monte Cristo style adventure. Mentions of neglect, abuse, arranged marriage, suicide, terminal illness, other topics in that sphere.)
Josephine was born into an aristocratic family somewhere in Northern England. Their estate was just outside of a decently sized rural town. Her early years were sweet, idyllic. She had private tutors, and her father taught her marksmanship.
She had two close childhood friends. Victor, the son of a wealthy factory owner who had a summer house in town, and Thomas (my good friend's oc), who was the heir to a poorer noble family.
Victor was reserved and bookish and proper, while Thomas was a wilder sort. Josephine held affection for both, but it was nothing more than friendship.
When all three were in their teens, Thomas started going to parties and gambling, which Josephine knew her parents would disapprove of, or even be horrified by, so of course she went with him whenever she could. She got to know some middle-class kids, and how different it was for them than it was for an isolated aristocrat girl.
When Josephine's parents discovered where she was running away to, and who she was spending time with, they devised a plan to get her to settle down. They would have her marry Victor, who had grown distant from the other two because he could not run away with them so easily every week, for reasons that will become clear later. Also because Victor had begun to study for medical school.
His father was a very prominent member of the same social circles as Josephine's family despite being of a slightly different social class, and he would not be a bad match at all. And besides, weren't they friends? Josephine had to agree.
Thomas, who had been in love with Josephine, was heartbroken and left her when the engagement was announced.
Here is where things get complicated.
Victor's father was a cruel and imperious man and was constantly holding the threat of destitution or violence over his son's head if he did not do what he wanted. He seemed to disapprove of most things Victor did. This treatment, and being kind of... ignored by his friends partly as a result of it, had built up some resentment in him.
He did in fact go to medical school, to make something of himself, like his father demanded he'd do. He and Josephine were to get married afterwards.
Meanwhile Josephine took the most out of her last years as a free woman. Even in the absence of Thomas she had other friends. She learned to be thrifty since her parents would no longer just give her money. She found some closer friends, men and women, and discovered some things about herself.
When Victor returned to establish himself as a doctor in the county, there were rumors circling about Josephine, and she was on icy terms with her parents. And in these circumstances they got married.
They moved into Victor's father's house, which was new but dark and gloomy, with a large and quite beautiful garden. Victor practiced medicine, his father mostly did not visit but was, for once, pleased that his son had married into such a good family. All was stable for a while.
However, Josephine grew uneasy. She did not hate Victor, but she felt like she could barely recognize him. He had used to be a friend, witty if sometimes unsettling. These were traits she had liked him for! And now he was a good doctor, his bedside manner seemed a bit lacking but he did good things. He was, however, cold to her. And she did not know why. It did not seem to be due to the scandals she had been causing. He seemed to have had some festering thoughts he could not share. He spent a lot of time in the garden.
Everything became clearer when Josephine happened to see a letter Victor had been reading. It was from his father, who was telling Victor that he was a disappointment, that it was shameful he could just live on his wife's money, that his father had not gotten where he was by doing meaningless charitywork in some little town. It did not seem like the first letter of its kind. It seemed to also be a bit untethered from reality.
There were many tense conversations between Josephine and Victor where she tried to convince him to just put together their resources and move somewhere else. They could be independent from their families if they worked together.
One day though, Josephine started getting sick. She was feverish and her heart felt erratic. She could not eat much. Despite being the town doctor, nothing Victor did for her helped.
This is where the timelines diverge. In timeline 1, half a year passed before Josephine died. Victor had her buried in the garden, he replaced Josephine in her parents' will, and was free of his father's influence. He never remarried. In timeline 2, the following happened:
One night a maid came to Josephine's room to wake her up. She told her she had seen Victor putting together her medication for the next day. She would not have found anything about it strange if it hadn't been for Victor's reaction upon discovering her. She was going to be immediately dismissed from her job and had made sure to sneak away to Josephine's room for just a moment while packing her things.
With whatever strength she had left, Josephine made up a plan. She asked the maid to get a carriage to come pick her up the next night. She spat out her medicine she was given while Victor was not looking, and left by the cover of night.
She asked to be taken to another town, where her aunt and her aunt's husband lived. The journey was difficult and painful and she was received with horror and surprise, as she had gotten very pale and thin and could barely stand on her own. Her aunt quickly found her a doctor who would actually help her. But she did not reveal any details of what had happened, even to him. She was told she could recover somewhat, but the condition had most likely already damaged some of her organs, and she would not live very long.
She had suspected it and had already decided she would not go down so easily. She knew of a place where death could not touch her. She did not want anyone to come after her, though, so she staged her own suicide. No-one would have doubted it as a reaction to getting the news she had gotten.
She only took enough money for the journey, and whatever clothes she had on her, and made off towards Fallen London. Which, actually, is quite a bit farther away than where London used to be. I don't think the journey was pleasant but she did get to spend some time around the Mediterranean! Very possibly had some of the best food in her life in Southern Italy...
(On the way, somehow, she got in trouble with customs and was sent to New Newgate prison. How this happened is not important!!)
When she got to London proper, she was out of funds, her old clothes and jewelry had been confiscated and, since she escaped prison rather than waiting for release, had not been returned to her. She had a simple frock, a "prisoner's mask", a shiv.
Her first year was spent just trying to figure out how to survive with nothing, with her lingering heart condition and other problems. She managed to lie and steal and somehow stayed on her feet but she died at least once during that time. She got some work at a factory, which included living space in a boarding house at the docks.
After a while she had just enough means to consider something else. The factory work only made her health worse, she still suffered from fits of severe pain, heavy fatigue, and fainting. This is how she ended up shooting some beasts for the Department of Menace Eradication, which paid her just enough that she could quit everything else and take real breaks in between commissions.
With her evident skills as a markswoman, she eventually landed a more permanent job as a rat catcher. She bought herself a small but comfortable hunting cabin in the Marshes, which were far enough from the worst of the London smog. Around the same time, since her health improved again she also started getting into ring fights for extra cash, and doing some odd jobs for the Cheery Man. As she spent time around the Medusa's Head, she also heard of the Vake, and namely the impossibly large bounty on it.
With all those echoes, she could get a vial of Hesperidian Cider, return to the Surface, and avenge her own death. That seemed like a worthy goal. Besides, it was terrorizing the citizens, so it would only make sense for her to help kill it. And besides, hunting a legendary beast would give her life a much-needed purpose. She had only barely escaped death by a technicality, so she felt like her life could somehow be taken away at any point. She should make the most of it while it lasted, she thought.
speaking of insectoid mercenarygirls I think bc josie's first point of monstrous anatomy was training to go fight some spiders, she may have gotten subtly spidery. not sure how yet, and I don't think she did it on purpose. Maybe she just has a slightly venomous bite now or something (a paralytic) which, if she bit someone, she'd definitely assume was just bc of her katatox studies.
I thought I should share my FLPC playlists!! I update both on occasion.
Claude's:
Or the Musical Correspondent, depending on which colleagues you ask.
Josie's (this one is more of a work in progress but I'm really happy with it so far):
Lady Josephine, the Huntress of Hunters [health bar appears]
NOTES:
Claude playlist
is sort of chronological.. I feel like it's actually fairly self-explanatory
(Still missing songs for some major events though!!)
'Kâtibim' (Üsküdar'a Gider İken) is a Turkish folk song but afaik it's also popular in the Balkans and I did actually find a Bulgarian artist's version for this. I'm not sure when it was written but I feel like the melody would be one he'd know, and that'd be in his repertoir. (By the time he's in the Neath he might even know lyrics for it.) The lyrics are very him...
Joan La Barbara's experimental vocals make me think of Correspondence Music
'Cariad Cyntaf' marks the end of Light Fingers. (end of season 2) It would also be The Claude Leitmotif. Also another song he'd know.
'Largo' to 'Cabaret' to 'Metropolis' are all about the same thoughts, and Claude's more mundane problems... and also calling back to his arrival to London bc the end of the ambition is a bit of a reset even though everything has progressed...('Spilling Towards Alpha' is some more problems)
'Give' is a bit of reckoning with what sort of person he's become
Josie playlist
Starts with strong imagery, I added the music video of 'All Of My Friends Are Going To Hell' on purpose.
The whole middle of the playlist ('Dead Women' to 'Said The Spider To The Fly') is an escalation of the same thoughts
Would you have liked me better if I'd died
So you could tell my story the way it ought to be?
I'll never rot up with disease, don't you bury me and leave
Don't you leave me in the ground alone
'Shramy' marks the start of BaL and is more literally reminiscing about what she's been up to in London so far
'USSEEWA' is her getting back into Society and feeling really alienated & Gira Gira is more of that + aromanticism thoughts
Not to brag but the transition from 'Dance With Night Wind' to 'I Will Be With You Always' is so good
My FLPCs' housing situations, because I think how they live says a lot about them. I might try to draw something later for the sake of studies.
Josephine's townhouse stood empty for a while. She had no staff, lived out of a hunting cabin in the marshes, and only slept in the townhouse when she had business in the city proper. Now though, she has moved into the city and has been making plans to have it be made presentable so that she can at least accommodate guests, and to hire people (which means I need to make ocs!!) (I think I said this before but it'd be kind of fun to have my nemesis character be Josie's maid at the start...... but that remains to be seen) She has plans to host a salon. For now though, she lives in a house that, while handsome, you wouldn't know is occupied. She ALSO occasionally just sleeps in her zee ship because she loves it a lot. It took so much effort to get and she's attached now.
Claude has quite a few places (all 3-card lodgings that can be bought at the bazaar except the townhouse + a dripstone temple that serves as some sort of weird country villa) that exist mainly to store contraband, but that he can sleep at if he has to hide. For most of his time in London his actual place of residence has been the rooms above a bookshop, but immediately post-Light Fingers he went into hiding took a retreat for his nerves and lived in the temple outside of the city for a while. After that he got a room at both the Brass Embassy and the Royal Bethlehem. The former + the rooms above a bookshop are now the addresses he tells other people. However he currently lives at the Royal Beth. It's complicated on purpose.
Josephine's hunting cabin is very utilitarian, and she likes it that way. It's a bit cramped and full of equipment from her menace eradication & rat catching days. She has a bed and a very modest kitchen and a small writing desk, that's about it.
For the townhouse interior, as it is before being properly furnished, I'm thinking about this bit from The Idiot by Dostoyevsky (Eva Martin translation) about the interior of the Rogožins' house
The room they were now sitting in was a large one, lofty but dark, well furnished, principally with writing-tables and desks covered with papers and books. A wide sofa covered with red morocco evidently served Rogojin for a bed. On the table beside which the prince had been invited to seat himself lay some books; one containing a marker where the reader had left off, was a volume of Solovieff’s History. Some oil-paintings in worn gilded frames hung on the walls, but it was impossible to make out what subjects they represented, so blackened were they by smoke and age.
Parfyon lives on an empty floor of his family's house but Josie just has a couple rooms she keeps tidy by herself... I think they came with some things left by the previous occupant, including some smoke-stained paintings.
In contrast Claude's actual lodgings, if not the hideouts, have always been furnished and decorated in a way that is as pleasing to look at as possible. He tries to hide most of the weird FLPC inventory but some of it is purposefully on display. I also imagine the house with the bookshop was a less-handsome townhouse with maybe three floors and someone hired by the landlord came by occasionally to clean the apartments too.
I think the rooms above a bookshop are basically a small office with living space behind it. Like a film noir character... That's still what he uses them for since the rooms at both the royal beth and the embassy are just fancy hotel rooms, and he needs a proper (fireproofed) office for Correspondent business.
