Thank you lovely @mercurygray for the tag to share WIPs, I was rather thrilled to actually have one going and ready to share. This one hasn’t got much context and that’s why it’s “in progress”, it may also have a lot more added to it. But I wanted some context for this little world and here it is, for anyone who would enjoy that.
I am No Pressure tagging: @isaacnights @cosmicoatlatte @steph-speaks @arabellasleopardcoat @sagesolsticewrites @reallylilyreally @julyzaa and anyone else who wants to share a bit of their WIP
Also shh, but yes, I do imagine young Arthur as Anto in Manhunt because that the only way I can look at those curls in that era in peace
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1866 - Iveagh House
The young scion of the brewery empire had his face in his hands when you turned to him. Or at least, that’s how the poets would have described it. He actually had the heels of both palms digging into his eyes, as if to allocate a headache or possibly push them so far back to the depths of his cranium that he might find some solution to rid himself of you.
They were as red and squinted as you anticipated when he finally lifted his face and asked of you, with dismal irony, “What is it you’ve gone and done to land you in this arrangement?”
There was honest misery in his assessing gaze, you were grateful for something other than coldness, and well recalling your father’s aspersions against this young man’s own reputation, you felt that truth might buy you a camaraderie of sorts. If you were to wed and bed each other in a short time, and spend the foreseeable life ahead with each other-- some form of alliance would be profitable. “I attempted to elope.” you admitted, “We did not make it to Gretna Green.”
The hand he had raised to strike a match for his cigarette failed him, and he seemed to doubt you for half a second before letting out a disbelieving laugh of genuine amusement. “Rotten luck.” he commented, chuckling once more after he managed to light it.
You tried taking it good naturedly. You hadn’t intended to amuse but you had intended to gain his favor. Perhaps one led to the other. So you smiled back, a pained thing.
“And what was this type that led you astray?” Arthur inquired, a mockery now tinging his tone, you were not certain if it were for societies’ predictable pronouncements of your hoped for union or Arthur Guinnesses’ own jab.
“He was an officer.” you whispered, reedy and thin.
Arthur let out another gusting chuckle. “A real original, aren’t you?” he mocked. This time you were sure he was mocking you.
“I loved him.” you pronounced, bridled venom making a show.
“Poor you.” Arthur sneered back.
“And what was it you did?” You asked with full intent to hit him where it hurt. Having your most recent and tenderest disappointment in life laughed at to your face by your clinically appointed husband tended to inspire violence. Or it did in you.
Arthur seemed torn between taking the offense you had intended to inflict or suspecting you of being truly ignorant of his proclivities. “And what do you mean by that?” he snapped back.
“What did you do to deserve this? It had to be something.”
“Rich men are expected to take a wife.” he warned coolly.
“Was yours an officer, too?” You persisted, seized by an ill considered anger, “Or has it been more of a lifetime of letting the side down and disappointing your fathe—“
“How fucking dare you.” He was out of his chair and towering over you in the blink of an eye.
“How dare you, sir!” you swung it right back.
“You-“ he accused with pointed finger and sneering face, “are penniless, uncultured, irrelevant amongst your own set and ruined by your own account! Yet you dare to look down at this match-“
“Nothing against the match- it’s you!”
“ME? it is my money, MY MONEY!- that’s going to save you from begging for scraps from your daddy’s rich friends when you reach an ugly spinsterhood, which, judging by your weather beaten features is not far off, and yet you dare-“
“You did not just call me ugly?” you balked in complete disbelief and no small amount of devastation. You had been called many things before, including all that Arthur Guinness had previously laid against you while enumerating your good fortune in being bound to his awful self. But never, not once, had you been called anything less than incandescently lovely. Beautiful, enchanting, bewitching, those were all more familiar terms, they made the errant compliment of being a “beauty” or being “pretty” almost insulting. Your status had been called unfortunate, but never your visage.
Yet now, here he was, calling you haggard.
Something calmed in him slightly at your shock. As if he regretted his ungallant remark, more for principles’ sake than out of any feeling for your shattered self perception. “It was unkind to say.” he admitted, "Although you are not particularly...favored”
Something very dismal, and tasting like bitterness but entirely made up of hurt -were you to assess it honestly- took up residence in your heart and did not let go for years after. “I am sorry for that.” you mimed contrition and he leveled you a wary look, as if he knew you were about to strike back in turn, “If I had been given any notice of my destiny to be your beloved spouse, I might have set about making myself more pleasing. A few more callouses perhaps, and a momentous amount of chest hair and a beard you’d be jealous of and even such an appendage between my legs as would satisfy the most voracious deviant, such as yourself.”
You had both been yelling. Yet this great speech of yours echoed emptily back to you from the marble around, unanswered by the man who stared back at you as if marveling at your responsive cruelty.
“God's teeth.” he cursed and said nothing more.
“Apologies.” you muttered back, meaning it this time and rather dazed by your own capacity for awfulness.
Arthur Guinness just kept blinking and looking somewhere to the side of you, where the prototype of a printed marriage invitation lay beside a performative tea set. He decided to observe with cautiously affected indifference, “So you know.”
About what, was apparent after your last insult. “Doesn’t everyone?” you sighed in exhaustion.
His eyes snapped back to your face. “No! No they do not know.” he hissed.
“Well alright then.” You acknowledged with a roll of your eyes.
Arthur shifted his stance before you, something uneasy about his hips and where to put his hands. He was nervous, you realized. “Though I suppose I am to expect you to divulge this to everyone who does not already know.” he volleyed back, rather pitifully, you thought.
Someone had to end the little tit for tat, and since it was honest to do so, you assured, “I would never think to.”
The muscle in his jaw twitched, a calculating flutter in his eyes, before he asked in cagey tones, “You mean that? What’s your price, then.”
“Be kind to me, Sir.” you sighed, feeling defeated but also chastened by so fruitless tiff- and this the start of your not yet marriage. “Do that and I will be a pleasing companion, I promise you, ugliness or no.”
The chastened look was mirrored in Arthur’s own gaze. “I dare say most men would find you very pretty.” He amended with threadbare gallantry.
“Yes.” you agreed with pricking eyes, “Most have.”
“How could they not.” He layered on the watery encouragement.
“Indeed.” you agreed, holding your breath lest the snot begin to flow: what a miserable prospect.
“I am sorry I do not.” he added with finality and a little guilt.
You shrugged weakly, “Not your fault.”
“No.” He agreed with bitter vehemence, as if taking up an accusation leveled by someone else, someone before you, perhaps someone who had made him. “No, it is not. Neither of us are at fault for this.”
And at the proclamation of this true sentiment, you both lapsed into silence, and remained in his reticent until your wedding day. There were occasional meetings between, of course, exchanged courtesies of a strained and awkward sort. A few brief exchanges regarding presentation of flowers at the reception which you both agreed on and found in each other a worthy advocate for the use of something besides orange blossoms. He even told you that your dress was nice, while holding your hands before the altar.
“I like the Picardy trim.” he whispered with a fortifying squeeze of your hands. It was bizarrely comforting in the moment, and your hope grew fully rampant in response.
In future years, when engaged in the unprofitable exercise of laying blame at the feet of the other while sorting out where everything had gone fully wrong, you both came to a mutual agreement that your first meeting, in which you had engaged in such fruitless and merciless belittlements of the other, would have been better spent discussing more pertinent things.
Like: how on earth a wedding night was to be attempted. Or the matter of children, since both you and Sir Benjamin were eager for heirs, while Arthur held a special enjoyment in withholding that assurance from his father. The matter of wether you would share abodes, or continents even, the matter of your wifely stipend, the matter of Arthur’s intended and repeated infidelities.
None of this was discussed, much less negotiated. And the price for such neglect was paid in full in the coming years.
The Extractor and the Hibernia Trooper by Devid VII
Via Flickr:
Extreme cold, raging snowstorms, and a desolate landscape, this is Hibernia. Beneath its frozen surface, precious minerals lie hidden, waiting to be unearthed. The Extractor is built for this purpose, cutting through ice and rock to harvest the planet’s rarest resources. But Hibernia is not just harsh, it’s dangerous. Ruthless space pirates lurk in the shadows, seeking to plunder the hard-earned riches. That’s where the Hibernia Trooper comes in, a heavily armed guardian standing watch over the excavation sites, ready to defend against any threat. Follow me on Flickr | Instagram | Facebook | Rebrickable
Headcanons that also includes Hibernia because I don't see enough of them
Halt takes every chance he can to talk about his culture, trying very heard to not break his stoic persona in the process. He doesn't really have much interaction with his culture since leaving cause there aren't many Hibernian people in Redmont, but he still loves it, so talking about it is the next best thing
The one time he found a Hibernian person in Redmont, she was a traveler selling sheet music for Hibernian folk songs. She gave one to Halt for free cause she loved talking to somebody in her native language so much, and he gave it to Will. Will didn't really practice it that much at first, but eventually, he did play it for Halt on his birthday cause he just wanted to. Halt was very happy =]
Halt carved the words "Mo Anam Cara" ("my soulmate) into Crowleys bow when they were younger-ish. Eventually, that bow ended up getting snapped because of an accident, and Crowley was devastated. Halt noticed he had a new bow at the next gathering and was just like, "Oh, you have a new bow. Did something happen to the last one?" And Crowley like broke down in that 'half being funny half genuinely wanting to cry' way until Halt eventually just took the new one out of his hands and carved the same thingy into it again
Crowley has made a habit of picking up tiny little Hibernian phrases everywhere he can just to use them in front of Halt - Halt loves it
He, so does any one know if there is a canon map of Hibernia because I could've sworn that there was one but I cannot seem to find it anywhere for the life of me. I'm genuinely just considering making my own but that just seems like a lot of effort yk
