forum "You are a fool..." "Says the one who married me..." | oxo | open

Started October 31, 2022 by @knightinadream group

tune

May 1891….London, England

The turn of a new century is near in Victorian England. And while change is to be anticipated, not many in London would except it to come from two individuals in particular.

A is a young lady who is described as intelligent but rather "unconventional". She is bright, but will not let go of her standing when someone blocks her way. Defiantly bold and daring. Part of which comes from her father, the duke, but even he disapproves of her attitude and interests. A is particularly fond of forensic sciences; she dreams of helping in investigations. She has gotten in trouble for sneaking out to classes or borrowing textbooks for study. One time her father caught her at a crime scene when she was supposed to be buying a dress for a ball. Now to solve her "problems", her father is looking to marry her off which will cause A more problems.

B is not as strong as A, but is intelligent and has an interest of crime investigations as well. With a compassionate heart and a love for pondering and solving, he dreams of being an investigator of high prestige. His father and stepmother do not support any of this only because they worry about reputation. B is of illegitimate birth, and tends to stirr attention that his father doesn't want. His parents are trying to come up with a plan to put a stop to this, but give B a difficult time in the process.

But A and B know each other after have been running into each other at crime scenes or outside the police stations. Their families know each other, yet A and B have their disagreements. They also have their similar interests and experiences too. To get out of their miseries, A convinces their families that they should get married. B only accepts thinking it would make his life and work easier.

Around the time A and B get married, twelve people are murdered and some assume they are all tied together with more coming soon. B gets assigned to the case, yet hasn't a clue on where to start. Rumors fly about. Bodies go missing. A starts to get curious, wanting to open up an investigation of her own, but she'll need B if she wants to make any progress.

I was re-reading Stalking Jack the Ripper and got the idea for this. Why not try some sort of enemies to colleagues to lovers?

• andrew (Our Supreme Lord and Overseer)'s rules
• TW: There will be mentions of murder, blood, gore, alcohol, drugs, and so on. It is the late 1800s, just to keep in mind.
• Sexy times will be omitted and skipped over.
• At least one detailed paragraph per response.
• This is your rp too. If you have any questions, concerns, or ideas, please do let me know!
• I'll post a template once someone joins. If we haven't rp before, I may ask for a sample.

Name:
Age:
Gender:
Orientation:
Appearance:
Personality:
Background:
Other:

Name: Sir Connor Basil Walsh Allard
Age: 23
Gender: Male (He/Him)
Orientation: Bisexual
Appearance: Many note Connor for his tall stature. On both sides of his family, he is the tallest, standing at 6'2". It makes him appear lean yet fit. He has an inverted triangular body shape with some muscle definition. Connor has soft facial features. The softness balances out with the general look of being strong. His blond hair is pushed back, short, neat, and parts to the left, although he generally comes home with it naturally being messy. Sometimes he'll put it in a man bun with a ribbon. It goes well with his steel blue eyes which happened to be just as bright. Sparsely around his body are scars. He even has calluses at the bottom of his fingers.
Personality: A good-hearted young man, Connor just wants to do his best for everyone around him. He is quite the curious individual with a strong mind, yet questions it on the fact that he is rather soft-hearted and vulnerable. Thanks to influences like his father, his heart is often misguided on things; it makes him rather closed off or bottle emotions up. Regardless, he is caring and can often be very sweet. He enjoys being around others, helping them to the best of his abilities. Connor loves analyzing and figuring out things, especially subjects that tend to be a mystery. It is hard for him to take things at a face value without asking questions or figuring it out himself. Anything that piques his mind and heart, he will be persistent in it. He is not afraid of most things, but failure has always been a fear of his. Although, he can be daring when push comes to shove and fear would be the last thing on his mind.
Background: One way or another, Connor has found himself in the middle of some sort of chaos. He was born out of wedlock to an English wealthy businessman/noble and an Irish young lady. Up until he was twelve, he was actually named Connor Basil Walsh. He spent those twelve years in Dublin growing up to be an interesting fellow. Connor did a lot of odd end jobs ranging from an errand boy to manservant for English men. He learned how to read and write thanks to these jobs. And it was thanks to being a manservant for a former detective where his dream was born.

The dream kept him going. He planned to save money up for school, but everything derailed when Lord Allard came into the picture. Yes, Connor knew about his father, but he never expected for the man to take him from his home and have him live in London with the rest of the "family". His whole world was flipped upside down. Somehow he managed to pursue his dream in midst of being in a new place away from his mother and home. Connor wouldn't say that Lord Allard and his family are indeed his family. They let him go to school, become a detective, and live on his own, but they have tight control on him. Even though he works for Scotland Yard and is newly married to a noblewoman, he still feels like a fish out of water.
Other: Stories about monsters and ghosts are his favorite. He has a habit of covering the back of his neck and flicking his wrists. Horizon blue is his favorite color. Connor enjoys reading by the fireplace which is where he usually accidentally falls asleep.

Name: Lady Millie Garland
Age: 21
Gender: Female , she/her
Orientation: Demiromantic

Appearance: long blonde hair, soft brown eyes, and a height at 5’4’’. Her hair is the kind that curls up after showers and starts to smooth out over the rest of the day, so it’s common to spot her patting down her hair or adjusting it because it has such a mind of its own. She has a few calluses and old scars on her feet from running around in heels when she wasn’t supposed to, and her hands are only unmarred because of her penchant for wearing gloves everywhere.

Personality: the definition of a passionate youth. Bold and brash, but still delicate and ignorant under her teachings as the sheltered daughter of the house despite her attempts of climbing outside of this defining circle to see what lies beyond. While her brightness and intelligence was praised by her father when she was younger, as time went on and her interests narrowed he began to disapprove of it all, seeing that she hadn’t mellowed out as he’d believed. She can be hesitant to try new things when it doesn’t relate to her field of interest, but tries to be polite about it. With enough persuasion, she can be pressured into many things.

Background: Born to a comfortable life, Millie has always wanted to use her privileged position to do something good, no matter what it was. She is not unwilling to use her position to her advantage though, having mentioned her father’s name a good number of times to get away with sneaking into areas where noble ladies are not commonly seen. Admittedly, she’s trying to lessen this now due to the possibility of her father getting notified on more of her ‘adventures’.

Other: She enjoys painting occasionally, but hates the feeling of dried paint on her skin. Her favorite season is fall, and loves warm colors.

(sorry her background is pretty empty, I'm never good with those)

The clock stroke nine, and the streets were already full with people. A corner on Aruther Street is filled with pass byers who have stopped to get a look at the scene of another new murder. Sounds of murmuring and whispers mingled with the sounds of carriages going by. Shouting from policemen ricocheted.

Connor was in the midst of the whole stage. Just less than an hour ago, he was just getting his clothes on before the telephone rang. There are stands from his hair spilling over into opposite sides from the running he did from the flat all the way to Aruther Street. Crazy thing is, he doesn't care and he would do it again.

The young detective stood a foot away while staring down at the body. His hand squeezed the leather-bound journal he held. He wanted to take in every little detail possible before the body would be taken away. The little details always fascinated him. Which ones would disappear in an instant? Which ones can help him find the suspect?

Two men came with a stretcher. They placed the body on it then hoisted the stretcher onto a carriage. Connor watched all of this play out in front of him. Not once did his eyes leave the body till the carriage door swung shut.

Connor remained still. A few colleagues with a witness came to him. They all talked when he wrote down everything in his little journal. By the time he flipped to a new page, one of his colleagues nudged him in the arm then motioned ahead of them.

Getting his eyes off of his notes, his chin tilted up just as his eyes met the one who caught his eye. A long drawn out sigh escaped from his lips. "Millie?" Connor bit the inside of his cheek. He closed the journal then began to make his way over.

"You know this why we are together in the first place," He said as he stopped in front of her. "Millie, you should go. It's not the best place for you to be."

Under the silvery light of the moon peeking over old buildings, Millie carefully checked to make sure no part of her dress dragged against the ground. She had adjusted it just a bit a few weeks prior for convenience sake with good old sewing needles and a long afternoon, but the layered black dress patterned with dusty roses hadn’t been taken out of the wardrobe ever since and she hadn’t bothered to try it on afterward, so this was all rather impromptu. Crime waits for no one, or something like that. She nods to herself after seeing the tip of her black heels peek out from below the hemline.

Aruther Street was never terribly dark at night because it was such a busy place, a few people milling about even late into the day. Millie herself had been out an innumerable amount of times, sneaking out after bedtime. However, the shady alleyways that opened occasionally into areas where the moon couldn’t reach seemed to be fair game for miscreants. Today, it seemed, was going to be another one of those days where someone slipped into the gritty back streets to never come back alive again.

Well. Another day living in London, then. Millie slipped through the crowd of concerned citizens until she was closer to the front, pulling out a small pad and a pen from a discreet sleeve between her corset and the frilly layers of her dress. She wrote in an almost frantic manner, observations abbreviated and sentences shortened with a practiced efficiency. It had only been a short dozen minutes before she was interrupted by a familiar voice.

She hadn’t noticed since her focus had entirely been on the scene, but she’s not surprised that Connor had been on scene as well. After all, he’s the one with direct alerts to incidents, though it’s not to say she couldn’t make do with her own means. At his admonishment, she huffs, tucking the pen back into the folds of her dress.

“You should know this isn’t something I can just set to a side. Innocent civilians are being endangered, and I’m stuck being told not to even try to help. And I’m sure you’re the most knowledgeable about my capabilities in this field too.” Millie frowns, staring at the journal in Connor’s hands.

“Anyway, I’m responsible for my own decisions. I’ll make sure you won’t get a modicum of blame if something happens to me, I promise.” She glances back up at him confidently.

–
(so Connor is also somewhat against her being out here doing her own investigations?)
(++also I've never done it before but I'm confident that I'm absolutely terrible at creating murder mysteries but what if in between them learning each other farther than convenient marriage arrangement and examining crimes they slowly realize over time that a string of murders are actually connected and work together to figure out the culprit in between everything? :'00

(yes, but mostly because he's worried about their fathers. that's it really)
(that's a good idea! yeah i was thinking the murders be connected, but im wondering who the culprit will be. we'll figure it out though)

Connor rolled his eyes. One of the rules added onto his life was to keep Millie away from these investigations and crime scenes. Lord Garland told him that he'd be damned. He shook his head. Closing the journal, he placed it in the inner pocket of his coat. Then with the click of his pen, he slid it into another.

He shook his head. "You should not be here," He retorted. "I appreciate your concern, but as your husband, I think it'd be best if you stayed at home. I would have told you everything about this." At least, everything that he possibly could without losing his badge. Besides, gossip tends to run around the city faster than the newspaper boys. "Millie, I am sure you would have known about this before I'd reach our doorstep."

Looking over his shoulder, he briefly glimpsed over at the blood stains on the pavement. His jaw squared. "I am responsible for your well-being. I know very well about your capabilities and curiosity." Removing his glove, he showed the wedding band. "Do not make such promises though."

"Allard!" One of the other detectives called out. Connor turned around, waving his hand. No one would really care about Millie being here. Well, aside from their fathers and the deputy and the commissioner. On-lookers would give weird looks, but still. This isn't place nor the time.

He sighed while running his hand through. "Millie, let me take you home." His lips drew thin while he tried to put his glove back on. "There's too many people here and I am sure you know how such a detail can ruin a case…It's not safe here. Let me take you home."

(I see, and yeah, we can toss a few ideas back and forth when we make them!)

"I know you would. I just," Millie's grip on the folds on her dress tighten.

“I guess I’m not used to the idea, is all.” She ends lamely. How could she ever even begin to explain it? After all, they're both people who want to peel open the fleshy underbelly of London and examine it like the fillet of a rare fish species. They’re both motivated enough to make something of it, too, but her story was to end before she could come to a decision about it herself.

She looks back at the scene of the crime, where the body has already been transferred off site. The people who had been crowding up the area are already starting to dissipate. Soon, after the other detectives have collected what they needed, cleaners will be coming and scrubbing off the blood any useless pieces of evidence off the old road. Soon, it will be as if nothing ever happened here, people milling about and slowly forgetting about this as more important things come up.

Everything about this will only be examined behind restricted doors. To the civilians tomorrow, this will be a rumor told only through hushed whispers, another layer to the endless tales of dangerous nights alone, another cautionary story for children.

“..Sorry. We should get going.” Millie sighs. She shouldn’t think Connor any wrong for asking her to leave. Truly, he had done what he could already by accepting her unconventional marriage arrangement. And yet she couldn’t help but feel a bit jealous that despite his troubles, he could at least still hold his title proudly and use it to do good.

Millie takes a step back towards their home, heels clicking quietly against the hard ground.

(I don't have many ideas right now. Definitely someone connected to Connor and Millie. But I was thinking like what if later on, the killer frames Connor to throw the two off track?)

"You are not used to the idea?" Shutting his eyes, he sighed. He glanced down at her grip, noticing the way she maintained it while forcing it to tighten. Wrinkles creased his forehead. "I understand, Millie. Believe me, but this is how things must work so we'll both be fine."

The murmuring became to dissipate. Connor's eyes squinted. Turning his chin, he looked to see as people began to return to their normal lives. Some even heading into a pub nearby. Lovely. Then he looked back at to the body's transportation disappearing behind a corner. By tomorrow morning, he will go to the corner office to see that body laid out and opened up.

Murders always occur everywhere. In London, thanks to Jack the Ripper, they have become sensationalized. One time a murder happened by a friend of his father's business, and his step mother talked about it at a tea party with friends like it was gossip. What makes it even more terrible is how he knows this one will be a simple teatime story, and so will the next one and the one after that and the one after that. Victims become sensational stories and that's it.

He won't let that happen. By God if he doesn't solve this case or any future ones that may come up, then what's the point in dragging him here? He's going to one way or another. The world has to be safe for everybody, including Millie.

His wife had already begun to leave by the time his lips parted for words. Facing his colleague, he waved to get his attention. "Ay laddie! Give me a call if anything comes up." The other detective just waved him off then turned to walk off.

Strands of hair fell out of place as he turned back around then rushed over to be at Millie's side. He said that he'd take her home after all. "Did you leave soon after I did?" He asked. "It's getting late. I thought you would be getting ready for bed."