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When the Tailor is not present on campus, they are likely to be working at the shop or out in the marshes completing a contract for the Department of Menace Eradication; in other words, they're a little hard to reach. Even so, should you spot a barefoot brat tossing pebbles at the hats of Londoners on the street below, you can ask them to pass along a message, and you'll be assured that it will reach its destination without fail. They'll know which tailor you mean. Most of the urchins in London do.
OOC: Leave your calling card here! This post will be updated periodically with roleplay threads for archiving and ease of access.
Week One of the Correspondence Scholarship
Arriving to Class Nearly Late (Multiple Interactions in drop-down)
A 'Friend' Shows Up
Meeting Thursday
A Poor Start with the Emissary
Lines, of All Things
Petty Vengeance
Nice Eyebrows
Exit Left, into Closet (Multiple Interactions in drop-down)
Week Two of the Correspondence Scholarship
A small gift in way of apology
Poor penmanship
Watching and Listening
Learning by doing
A discrete Tailor
A series of in-depth discussions (Multiple Interactions in drop-down)
Working with Thursday (Alternate link to images X)
After-class snacks (Multiple Interactions in drop-down)
Hunter Revealed
Week Three of the Correspondence Scholarship
(To be added)
A dream about black silk...
A quiet tea shop...
Week Four of the Correspondence Scholarship
(To be added)
A slow walk to a shop flat...
A dream about a ballroom...
Week Five of the Correspondence Scholarship
(To be added)
The Stoat Insists (and epilogue)
A dream about a song...
Brawl!
Week Six of the Correspondence Scholarship
A dream about a roof...
Jul. 19th, 2025 07:45 pmYou dream you are circling the roof of the Foreign Office. Your wings are wide expanses of void, drops of light beaded through like dew. You're hungry, hungry like there's a hole in you that needs filling, like pain aching and wide. The roof is empty: there are no singing children, no little birds. The body of the building looks like a hollow ribcage from here, the bones laced through with ribbon and lace like viscera. You could peel it off with your talons, claim it all for yourself. Would it sate you?
Would anything sate you?
Why does the empty roof fill you with a rage?
(Don't they know what you are? Don't they know what you could do? You could slice it into perfect strips of the finest fabrics, and then shred it further into useless cabbage. No better than stuffing.)
The zee is familiar vastness, reflecting your darkness back to you, shadow on shadow. You drop into the waiting and willing silk, and let it take you. Tangled in its embrace, you perform the Moment and the Act, sing-screaming around the ruined flesh of your prey in your mouth. The emptiness in you gets no lighter.
-
Having Recurring Dreams: The Hungry Silk is increasing...
( Nightmares is increasing... )
Would anything sate you?
Why does the empty roof fill you with a rage?
(Don't they know what you are? Don't they know what you could do? You could slice it into perfect strips of the finest fabrics, and then shred it further into useless cabbage. No better than stuffing.)
The zee is familiar vastness, reflecting your darkness back to you, shadow on shadow. You drop into the waiting and willing silk, and let it take you. Tangled in its embrace, you perform the Moment and the Act, sing-screaming around the ruined flesh of your prey in your mouth. The emptiness in you gets no lighter.
-
Having Recurring Dreams: The Hungry Silk is increasing...
( Nightmares is increasing... )
A dream about a song...
Jul. 10th, 2025 11:20 pmYou dream you are laying in a bright green space, listening to water bubble somewhere near you. There is a light that pulses with the slow beats of your heart. You lift your hand to shield your eyes, and find your arm thin, wrapped with old bandages. Every black strip is covered, embroidered or pressed into or dyed or patterned, with symbols that leak a light through your bones. It's warm without burning.
Somewhere, an old song is being sung, carried on the wind. You know it in your heart, and it slides through your aching valves and chambers like fine linen through a brass ring. You touch your bandaged face, trying to pull the fabric from your mouth so you can join the song, but all that you can manage is a whistle through the cloth. Your mouth is dry and your tongue is a heavy weight. This is wrong. You need to sing. It's important.
Someone offers you a hand, pulls you up to sit against the base of a tree. Your friend smiles at you, glowing, lit up inside like a candle through wax. The bandages on your wrists fall away at their touch. Your hands are claws, beautiful and wicked black talons that curl like cruelty. The smile looks wrong, but the work continues, and your body is so much bigger than the bindings trapping you. The song is getting louder, the wind rustles the tree angrily, and the light from the mountain pulses harder and brighter like judgement.
Those hands find your face. When the fabric slides free around your mouth, your companion cuts open their fingers on your fangs. Their smile has faded, even when they let you lap at the wound with your tongue. When they free your eyes and nose, their expression is clear disappointment. Regret.
"I'm sorry," they tell you. "I thought you were someone else."
The wind's a full howl. The song is loud in your ears, many children laughing at you. You're not supposed to be here, the Garden's not for you.
Your friend stands sorrowfully and walks away. The strips of fabric lay all around you. You grab at them to try to cover yourself again, and your claws shred them, ruining the markings utterly.
You scream, and the Mountain screams back.
-
Having Recurring Dreams: The Hungry Silk is decreasing...
Nightmares is increasing...
-
Somewhere, an old song is being sung, carried on the wind. You know it in your heart, and it slides through your aching valves and chambers like fine linen through a brass ring. You touch your bandaged face, trying to pull the fabric from your mouth so you can join the song, but all that you can manage is a whistle through the cloth. Your mouth is dry and your tongue is a heavy weight. This is wrong. You need to sing. It's important.
Someone offers you a hand, pulls you up to sit against the base of a tree. Your friend smiles at you, glowing, lit up inside like a candle through wax. The bandages on your wrists fall away at their touch. Your hands are claws, beautiful and wicked black talons that curl like cruelty. The smile looks wrong, but the work continues, and your body is so much bigger than the bindings trapping you. The song is getting louder, the wind rustles the tree angrily, and the light from the mountain pulses harder and brighter like judgement.
Those hands find your face. When the fabric slides free around your mouth, your companion cuts open their fingers on your fangs. Their smile has faded, even when they let you lap at the wound with your tongue. When they free your eyes and nose, their expression is clear disappointment. Regret.
"I'm sorry," they tell you. "I thought you were someone else."
The wind's a full howl. The song is loud in your ears, many children laughing at you. You're not supposed to be here, the Garden's not for you.
Your friend stands sorrowfully and walks away. The strips of fabric lay all around you. You grab at them to try to cover yourself again, and your claws shred them, ruining the markings utterly.
You scream, and the Mountain screams back.
-
Having Recurring Dreams: The Hungry Silk is decreasing...
Nightmares is increasing...
-
A slow walk to a shop flat...
Jul. 9th, 2025 01:02 pmFollowing class and at Thursday's signal, the pair of students made their way to the floor level of the University and across the campus to the main entrance with relative ease. Afternoon was shifting into evening, but light was strange down here. The Tailor accompanied on Thursday's left, but had hesitated to offer the crook of their arm for support in anyway--it might come off wrong, or offend. So they instead kept their bag on their left hip and kept their right side clear, keeping in step with their companion.
Thursday walked with her cane on her bad side, the Tailor noted. They supposed that made sense; it wasn't the leg that was the problem, it was balance, so a brace worked better when shifting the weight there. It also meant there was no need to avoid the swing of the thing at least.
"You said you lived above a shop?" they asked lightly. "I have a similar situation, it's always terrible cramped. What kind of a shop is it, if you don't mind my asking?"
Thursday walked with her cane on her bad side, the Tailor noted. They supposed that made sense; it wasn't the leg that was the problem, it was balance, so a brace worked better when shifting the weight there. It also meant there was no need to avoid the swing of the thing at least.
"You said you lived above a shop?" they asked lightly. "I have a similar situation, it's always terrible cramped. What kind of a shop is it, if you don't mind my asking?"
A dream about a ballroom...
Jul. 3rd, 2025 09:12 pmYou dream that you are in a large, extravagantly lit ballroom. Despite its elegance and its size, it hosts a paltry number of guests, all masked as you are. A few of them are paired and dancing already, spinning in coordinated circles around its center. When you examine the floor under your feet, you see how the dancers are on set paths. In the center of the floor's mosaic, there is a proud and massive star.
A hand is offered to you. You do not know your companion, and their mask covers their face in its entirety, but the facade itself is that of a maned wolf. Their garb is of the Third City, or maybe the Fifth. Or maybe it's something else entirely, something you have never seen and yet recognize innately. When your fingers finds their shoulder, the fabric is exquisite to the touch, an utter blackness that drinks the light out of the room like an inescapable hole. Their grip on your hip is tight enough to hurt. Your fingers may break as they are squeezed by an elegant glove.
You fall in step with the stranger, onto one of the lines on the floor. The steps are quick. Your feet barely have time to land on the stone. In time it feels like you are not on stone at all, you are walking on air. Walking? Dancing. Flying. Leaping. They're all the same. Your partner glides. You turn in motion. Fire blazes from your trail.
The ballroom is empty now, save you and your masked companion. Has the room been lined with mirrors this whole time?
You find yourself in the many reflections. Here, your mask is a small bird with a curved, sharp beak. There, a snake. This one, a bat. The next, a maned wolf, like your partner.
Malleable still.
The claws on your waist tighten. The full face of the stranger dips. The mouth of its mask finds the side of your throat. Fangs meet flesh. You taste blood.
----
A hand is offered to you. You do not know your companion, and their mask covers their face in its entirety, but the facade itself is that of a maned wolf. Their garb is of the Third City, or maybe the Fifth. Or maybe it's something else entirely, something you have never seen and yet recognize innately. When your fingers finds their shoulder, the fabric is exquisite to the touch, an utter blackness that drinks the light out of the room like an inescapable hole. Their grip on your hip is tight enough to hurt. Your fingers may break as they are squeezed by an elegant glove.
You fall in step with the stranger, onto one of the lines on the floor. The steps are quick. Your feet barely have time to land on the stone. In time it feels like you are not on stone at all, you are walking on air. Walking? Dancing. Flying. Leaping. They're all the same. Your partner glides. You turn in motion. Fire blazes from your trail.
The ballroom is empty now, save you and your masked companion. Has the room been lined with mirrors this whole time?
You find yourself in the many reflections. Here, your mask is a small bird with a curved, sharp beak. There, a snake. This one, a bat. The next, a maned wolf, like your partner.
Malleable still.
The claws on your waist tighten. The full face of the stranger dips. The mouth of its mask finds the side of your throat. Fangs meet flesh. You taste blood.
----
Having Recurring Dreams: The Hungry Silk is increasing...
Nightmares is increasing...
----
The Tailor had pulled out their small collection of prized fabrics from under the narrow bedframe. The worn little piece of luggage had carried what few possessions they'd earned while living under the Widow's roof, but they're privileged enough to say all their belongings would no longer fit so tidily. Now, the box contained those fabrics that might be common to the wealthy and elite, but were to them priceless.
They ran their hands over each one; bombazine and puzzle-damask, aurochs-fur, their one scrap of parabola linen. Already the memory of the texture of that fabric was escaping, but nothing in their collection compared, nothing. What had it been? Softer than silk, maybe closer to fur? But not so coarse. And so dark, like their favorite suit. The first suit they'd had tailored to their measurements that had felt correct.
To pursue this was to risk madness. They recognized this plainly. Already they had spent most of their evening poring over the notes they had, and existing drafts for garments, comparing, laying down sketches no larger than the length of their thumb into the fire-proof notebook that they had stripped of its lace. Several pages had been filled with Correspondence that had been drawn over, or Correspondence reimagined in the third dimension, curves and loops becoming the flowing hems of gowns and cloaks. So much exposure to the language would only damage their mind if it didn't light their hair on fire first.
But the dreams. The dreams. What had that outfit been? A sign? Was that fabric significant? Or were they reading too much into the shape of a nightmare?
If a dream repeats, there is a kernel of truth in it, and it’s better to be aware of what it’s telling you.
They fetch the notes they left the week prior, in their book of plain paper.
Silk. Claws. Light/dark. Water/reflections. Burning.
The repetition is there. What is it telling them?
The Tailor leans back on their haunches and presses their hands to their face. It is too early, or too late, for this. They've work in the morning.
They close the little case and slide it back under the bed.
In a quiet tea shop...
Jun. 30th, 2025 12:27 pmOn Saturday, an hour before proper tea time, the Anachronistic Tailor arrives at Beatrice's Tea Shoppe to find a table that is slightly out of the way. Close to the corner of the room, just away from one of the windows that let light pour into the rest of the tearoom. They sit in the chair closer to the corner, which allows them to face the tearoom and all who enter and exit it.
The table is prepared with a tray of scones and sandwiches, but the Tailor insists quietly to the servers to wait on serving the tea itself. They are waiting for company. If that company does not arrive, they will take tea fifteen minutes after--but it would be improper to let the pot over-steep or, heaven forbid, grow cold.
For now, they take water, and they have a book with them, but one eye is on the door. They've sent an invitation to a friend, but only time will tell if that friend chooses to come.
The table is prepared with a tray of scones and sandwiches, but the Tailor insists quietly to the servers to wait on serving the tea itself. They are waiting for company. If that company does not arrive, they will take tea fifteen minutes after--but it would be improper to let the pot over-steep or, heaven forbid, grow cold.
For now, they take water, and they have a book with them, but one eye is on the door. They've sent an invitation to a friend, but only time will tell if that friend chooses to come.
A dream about black silk...
Jun. 26th, 2025 01:44 pmYou dream of laying in your bed, wrapped safely under your covers. The false-summer heat leaves you tossing and turning, trying to fling your sheets off, but they stay tangled around you. Warm, smothering and suffocating. The sheets are tightening around you, pressing to your face. You press your hands to the fabric, trying to dislodge it. It distorts under your hands, pushed outward. It's only fabric, after all. For all it tries to constrict you, your claws shred through it and leave clean edges.
You slice the silken cocoon apart from the inside. When you emerge, your wings are sticky with sweat, but the thin membrane dries in the cold howling wind. It's bright. You have never seen such a brightness before. You think you hate it. It is an insult to you, and it sees you, and it's Judging you.
You are quite used to the sensation.
You leap from the clinging and cloying embrace of the cocoon, which even now beckons you back in, and drop like a stone in the dark towards the surface of the black pond that is the Unterzee. It roils, roars, and splits apart at the seams, bursting with its beast. No. Wait. That's your reflection.
There's no splash when you collide with the water. You are buoyed and cradled, and your eyes are open. Water slips through the gaps between your fingers, sweet and soft. You lift a hand to the surface of the water where you are submerged. A long, thin claw traces a curling line against the mirror, and your reflection bleeds. It drips onto your nose and your cheek. You write a word that glows against the black, and then press your tongue to it to lap at the blood. Your tongue burns.
You waken up with a hand at your throat and your fingers pressed flat to your tongue, desperate to stop the burning which you have already begun to forget. Your sheets have fallen off the end of your mattress. Your pillow is soaked with sweat.
----
Having Recurring Dreams: The Hungry Silk has increased to 1!
A Nightmares increase has been aggravated because of an item you're wearing (The Walls are Wrong).
Nightmares has reached 6!
----
The Tailor is trembling when they sit at the cramped desk in their tiny room above the shop. It is so late even the latest party-goers in Veilgarden have made it home if not to a honey-den, yet not early enough that the bakers in Spite would be beginning their work. Even the pubs at the docks would be, if not empty, then only full of sad and quiet drunks.
London is not often quiet. But it is quiet now. It only unsettles them further. Their hand shakes over the poorly lit paper.
Write down one of your nightmares. Especially if a particular vision proves to be recurring. … If a dream repeats, there is a kernel of truth in it, and it’s better to be aware of what it’s telling you.
Do they know this dream? Will it return?
Do they... want it to?
They stare at the blank page, brows pinching together. This dream feels like a secret. It's theirs. They want to keep it.
Silk. Claws. Light/dark. Water/reflections. Burning.
What had been the word written on the mirror? It hadn't been in English, but if it had been proper Correspondence, they wonder if it would have burned its meaning into their brain.
It had tasted so...
good.
London, at night...
Jun. 20th, 2025 08:01 pm...is misty in the Marshes. There's a fog that rolls in from the zee, cool and damp. Do things move in there, or do your eyes play tricks? Perhaps it's both. Listen for a rustle. There.
Something is fighting in the dark. There's the sound of snarls, bestial, mean. The splash of a disturbed pool of water, the flash of a muzzle-shot. A pained yip, then the squelch of a sharp implement thrust into something fleshy. The rip of it being torn away. Agonizing silence.
What comes out of the darkness into lamplight is dragging a filthy pelt, unmistakably white under the grime. A marsh wolf is no easy prey, much less a white one. The thing dragging its body is dressed in much darker colors, if only a little cleaner. Most of the muck is constrained to the boots, and to the long coat, though the knees of the trousers are stained from hours of kneeling and crouching in the mud.
The Tailor is sliding the strap to their harpoon back over their shoulder. The thing gleams, tip still coated with blood. The fellow's face has a streak of dirt on one cheek, and their hair hangs loose over their un-notched eyebrow.
Tonight they are a Monster Hunter. It's a secret they guard from their companions, who seem not to recognize their peligin eyes as anything more than natural color. No reasonable individual in good standing would be in the Marshes, they've found, but then, most individuals do not work for Mr. Inch.
Other things move in the dark. They can hear it. A leather glove stays on the strap of their weapon.
Something is fighting in the dark. There's the sound of snarls, bestial, mean. The splash of a disturbed pool of water, the flash of a muzzle-shot. A pained yip, then the squelch of a sharp implement thrust into something fleshy. The rip of it being torn away. Agonizing silence.
What comes out of the darkness into lamplight is dragging a filthy pelt, unmistakably white under the grime. A marsh wolf is no easy prey, much less a white one. The thing dragging its body is dressed in much darker colors, if only a little cleaner. Most of the muck is constrained to the boots, and to the long coat, though the knees of the trousers are stained from hours of kneeling and crouching in the mud.
The Tailor is sliding the strap to their harpoon back over their shoulder. The thing gleams, tip still coated with blood. The fellow's face has a streak of dirt on one cheek, and their hair hangs loose over their un-notched eyebrow.
Tonight they are a Monster Hunter. It's a secret they guard from their companions, who seem not to recognize their peligin eyes as anything more than natural color. No reasonable individual in good standing would be in the Marshes, they've found, but then, most individuals do not work for Mr. Inch.
Other things move in the dark. They can hear it. A leather glove stays on the strap of their weapon.
OOC: infopost
May. 6th, 2025 04:37 pmName: The (Aspiring) Anachronistic Tailor
Pronouns: they/them
Species: human
Age: Early-mid twenties
Appearance: The Tailor is a short, stocky individual, easily mistaken for a member of the student body unless one is playing close attention. Their curled hair is regularly heavily slicked back, their eyes are peligin-black, and their right brow is notched from time in the Fighting Rings. These are the only tells that this well-dressed fellow is not merely another classmate. (And, very possibly, the clear lack of curiosity for the sciences in general.)
About: The Anachronistic Tailor, when not on campus, is something of a rising star among Londoners who dress to impress. Or, well, they're trying to be. This urchin-turned-apprentice moonlights as a hunter when they aren't working long hours at their patron's shop.
Ambition: Bag a Legend! Has not been started, but is the end-goal.
Personality: 'Patience' is a concept the Tailor is still trying to learn. They're learning the art of subtlety but they haven't perfected it, and are prone to frustration when they don't accomplish what they want on the first go. Which is unfortunate, because they have a tendency to take on just a bit more than a person can feasibly manage. But when they want something, they're going to get it one way or another. Just hope they realize eventually that brute force isn't always the best method.
Reason for joining this class: The Tailor was never very focused on a formal education growing up, and that's turned out to work against them as they try to find status in London. If you want to be someone worth talking about, you have to also control what they're saying. So, unfortunately, it's off to the classroom and lecture hall to learn more about the esoteric and eccentric sciences and languages. Maybe this will pay off in their lines of work somehow? Although they doubt it.
Player: Hey, I'm May! I used to roleplay on Zetaboards (remember that?) and then on tumblr. I'm in my late twenties and I work at a library with unpredictable hours, so if you need to contact me, you can find me over here on tumblr. My character is still early POSI in Fallen London, due for a name change hopefully soon. Feel free to send me a calling card there!
Pronouns: they/them
Species: human
Age: Early-mid twenties
Appearance: The Tailor is a short, stocky individual, easily mistaken for a member of the student body unless one is playing close attention. Their curled hair is regularly heavily slicked back, their eyes are peligin-black, and their right brow is notched from time in the Fighting Rings. These are the only tells that this well-dressed fellow is not merely another classmate. (And, very possibly, the clear lack of curiosity for the sciences in general.)
About: The Anachronistic Tailor, when not on campus, is something of a rising star among Londoners who dress to impress. Or, well, they're trying to be. This urchin-turned-apprentice moonlights as a hunter when they aren't working long hours at their patron's shop.
Ambition: Bag a Legend! Has not been started, but is the end-goal.
Personality: 'Patience' is a concept the Tailor is still trying to learn. They're learning the art of subtlety but they haven't perfected it, and are prone to frustration when they don't accomplish what they want on the first go. Which is unfortunate, because they have a tendency to take on just a bit more than a person can feasibly manage. But when they want something, they're going to get it one way or another. Just hope they realize eventually that brute force isn't always the best method.
Reason for joining this class: The Tailor was never very focused on a formal education growing up, and that's turned out to work against them as they try to find status in London. If you want to be someone worth talking about, you have to also control what they're saying. So, unfortunately, it's off to the classroom and lecture hall to learn more about the esoteric and eccentric sciences and languages. Maybe this will pay off in their lines of work somehow? Although they doubt it.
Player: Hey, I'm May! I used to roleplay on Zetaboards (remember that?) and then on tumblr. I'm in my late twenties and I work at a library with unpredictable hours, so if you need to contact me, you can find me over here on tumblr. My character is still early POSI in Fallen London, due for a name change hopefully soon. Feel free to send me a calling card there!
