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bleak_midwinterUser Name/Nick: Lieke
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poliorketes
E-mail: spider DOT letterbox AT gmail DOT com
Other Characters: Jimmy Darmody/thelastbullet
Character Name: Thomas Shelby
Series: Peaky Blinders
Age: approximately 35 years old.
From When?: End of season 1—after learning of Grace’s betrayal, and just before the stand-off with Billy Kimber.
Inmate/Warden: Warden. Tommy might be part of a gang, and he might do unsavory things in his day-to-day dealings, but he’s ultimately a good man. He’s a strong leader who knows when to take initiative and when to let those depending on him make their own decisions. He’s an excellent judge of character who can be ruthless as well as tender. He’s always shown as being particularly good with other soldiers, people who rely on him to dole out the right orders. He’s gentle with a soldier who’s dealing with PTSD, but also knows just when his traumatized brother needs a joke or a reprimand. Because of his own background (both in the war and in criminal enterprises) he’d be a good fit for an inmate who won’t accept help from someone with a shiny past. He will stick to his inmate through thick and thin and accept them for who they are.
Item: A pocket watch.
Abilities/Powers: Nothing.
Personality: Tommy is, almost above everything else, ambitious. Everything he does is because of his family: he wants his oldest brother to settle down, forget about the war; he wants his younger brother safe, married, so he can take care of his children; his youngest brother, protected from all the things they’ve had to do. He wants his aunt reunited with her children, and his sister happy, safe. He almost desperately longs for the day when everything is done and his family can safely do business. He longs for normalcy, for peace; and the only way he sees that happening is through racketeering. We get the sense that the Shelby brothers didn’t grow up with a lot of money to spare; their father left 10 years before the start of the show, apparently having abandoned them, and that must not have been easy on Tommy and Arthur. Money is very important for him in his perception of success, even when he knows it’s not everything- he knows it goes a long way towards helping.
He’s incredibly confident. He knows when someone wants something from him, and he doesn’t mind showing that he knows. He needs to have the upper hand if he’s ever going to succeed, and he knows he has it most of the time. His confidence makes him patient, too. Calculating in times of need, but most of the time it just makes him supremely reliable. It also makes it easier for him to shoulder any burdens: his family may hate him, but as long as he can still keep them safe, make things better for them, that’s alright. His confidence stems from a sharp intellect: he knows he can outwit most, and he uses the element of surprise. He looks and talks like a Birmingham gangster, and he’s often looked down upon for his Romani heritage, but he has the intellect and planning capabilities of the biggest players in the field.
Tommy was deeply affected by his experiences in the war. He served as a tunneler, which is often described as one of the most dangerous jobs in the war. He suffers frequent and harrowing nightmares of one specific incident, in which he and two friends were digging a tunnel, heard German voices, and had to fight for their lives in the dangerous and explosives-laden tunnel. His service is a point of pride for him (he refuses to respect the detective who comes to search for the stolen guns in Birmingham because he hadn’t served) but it also what broke him. The man Polly describes from before the war is completely different from the man we see in the show; his brother John says he often used to do voices, joking, keeping his brothers up until all hours. He also stopped believing in God, shown by Polly saying she won’t ask him to swear on the Bible because he is no longer a believer.
The war is the reason he can do what he does, but it has not managed to make him blind to his actions. He knows that he does things that are wrong. With his eyes on the goal, he can stomach doing them, but at the end he knows that they are wrong. And that, too, is a difference between the Tommy of season 1 and the Tommy of season 2: in season 2, he sometimes shows regret, but he’s not nearly always so sure of himself anymore. In season 1, we often see him expressing regret and pain. That’s because, despite his ambition, Tommy firmly believes that there is an endpoint: by driving out Billy Kimber, his family will have a legitimate business. They will no longer have to live in illegitimacy, in danger, and he will no longer have to do things that he doesn’t want to do to make it happen. This separates the man he is in season 1 from the man he is in season 2: in season one, he tells Polly ‘after today, you won’t have to pray for us every again.’ He thinks that the fight with Kimber, for which he’s been planning for months is going to be the last fight they’ll ever have to fight. After the war, after coming back to a country sapped of its men, after living on the edge of illegality for years, he so badly believes in the end of all of that. In season 2, we find the Shelby brothers moving in on London, and Tommy no longer says things like ‘this is going to be the end’. He wants to take London, and then he wants to take the colonies. There is just a fight in him, and no longer that hope of everything being better for everyone, one day.
Despite his focus, his ruthlessness, his trauma, Tommy is incredibly likeable. Even people who have obviously been affected negatively by Tommy’s action (such as the barman whose bar he bought, because he wanted to make his brother feel better) have to admit: you may be a bad man, but you’re our bad man. This goes back to his family, of course, but Tommy’s nuclear family is surrounded by Tommy’s community. He takes care of them, he gives them jobs and money and he takes care of their families if something happens to them. He is acutely aware of what his community has been through and what they need. And because of who he is, they trust him to make the right decisions. During the war, he was a Sergeant Major—too young, probably, to have had that rank, but he made it work. People reported to him during the war, and as many of the men he’s gathered around him served as well, he’s happy to keep up that role afterwards. It works for him, and he sees no reason why he shouldn’t use that. His own experiences also cause him to be able to deal with the more traumatized soldiers: flashbacks, fits of rage, other types of problems. He knows when they need to be pulled close and hushed, and he knows when they need a stern reprimand to keep going. In a community made up of people who served in World War I or boys whose fathers served, he is unmissable.
The final peg in the puzzle of Tommy Shelby is Grace. She shows up to investigate his gang for the disappearance of a shipment of weapons, and goes undercover to find out more. She is smart, and insolent, and strong; and while Tommy starts out the show not having wanted to be with anyone in years, at the end of the season he wants to settle down with Grace. He has fantasies of them gently berating each other, living together, getting to let her in on family meetings. He gave himself completely to her, feeling like they knew each other. With her, we see the side of him Polly described from before the war: joking, laughing. Gentle. He can absolutely be that man as well, under the right circumstances, and the Barge will at least pull him away from direct danger and make him a little softer. But he will feel her loss sharply- she was the one person who he felt knew him completely, and she betrayed him wholly. He has yet to realize that he will never get over this betrayal, and as such will still be hopeful for the future.
Barge Reactions: Tommy isn’t too big to admit when he’s out of his depth, but luckily for him he also adapts very well. He thinks on his feet, and he also knows the importance of being polite. So he won’t go around actively asking why the fuck there’s a talking cat on board, but he’s definitely going to need some time to adjust. Being from 1921, he’s going to have plenty to adjust to even without all the Barge people and shenanigans. The same goes for ports, floods and breaches: he’ll adjust, he’s a fast thinker, but he’s not going to deny that he's a little out of his element.
Deal: To have his crew come out of the fight with Billy Kimber alive and well; to make sure that his family comes out on top, and can do legal business; to have Grace stay with him.
History: Link to wiki
Sample Journal Entry: Test Drive thread!
Sample RP: He wakes up in his cabin breathing hard, sits up instantly, chest constricting, pupils dilating. He doesn’t know where he is for a full minute before he looks out the window: no fires, no streetlights. Just the bright flickering of the stars outside of the window. He looks at his hand, unfurls it and sees the little clump of opium in there. He hadn’t even realized he’d put it in there.
Unsettled, he puts it back on the nightstand, next to the pipe. This was never about losing control: coming here, accepting the Admiral’s proposal, that was always about gaining it. He thinks of Danny Whiz-Bang shouting at the empty sky, and he turns away from the sight of the drugs. He shouldn’t be relying on this stuff anymore, yet every night he comes back to it. The sight of the wall alone is enough to do it, every time. He breathes in hard; exhales, and makes himself get up.
He has not walked these halls before, but he still walks them as if they belong to him. This isn’t too strange; he is used to halls actually belonging to him, or about to belong to him. He walks as if he is surrounded by men with razors stitched into their hats and guns in their hands. It’s a hard habit to break. He gets himself acquainted with the ship’s layout, eats something comforting, talks to some of the people who live on the boat. He is inconspicuous enough that he doesn’t get many strange looks, but there are also plenty of people who take immediate offense to the way he walks.
He is quick to reassure them. He is not here to take over. He’s a warden; come to help.
The day is different enough from his usual routine that he is tired by the time he makes it back to his cabin. He has shared a few drinks in the pub, has talked to people about why the sight of space inspires such fear in most. He’s not home, but he knows he can come to treat it as his home. He gets undressed and sits down on his bed. For a few minutes, he manages to avoid looking at the pipe, at the clump of opium. He gets under the covers; tries not to think of Grace’s warmth against his side. He closes his eyes tight against the image of her, lets out a deep breath.
And the shovels are still there.
User DW: n/a
AIM/IM: n/a,
E-mail: spider DOT letterbox AT gmail DOT com
Other Characters: Jimmy Darmody/
thelastbulletCharacter Name: Thomas Shelby
Series: Peaky Blinders
Age: approximately 35 years old.
From When?: End of season 1—after learning of Grace’s betrayal, and just before the stand-off with Billy Kimber.
Inmate/Warden: Warden. Tommy might be part of a gang, and he might do unsavory things in his day-to-day dealings, but he’s ultimately a good man. He’s a strong leader who knows when to take initiative and when to let those depending on him make their own decisions. He’s an excellent judge of character who can be ruthless as well as tender. He’s always shown as being particularly good with other soldiers, people who rely on him to dole out the right orders. He’s gentle with a soldier who’s dealing with PTSD, but also knows just when his traumatized brother needs a joke or a reprimand. Because of his own background (both in the war and in criminal enterprises) he’d be a good fit for an inmate who won’t accept help from someone with a shiny past. He will stick to his inmate through thick and thin and accept them for who they are.
Item: A pocket watch.
Abilities/Powers: Nothing.
Personality: Tommy is, almost above everything else, ambitious. Everything he does is because of his family: he wants his oldest brother to settle down, forget about the war; he wants his younger brother safe, married, so he can take care of his children; his youngest brother, protected from all the things they’ve had to do. He wants his aunt reunited with her children, and his sister happy, safe. He almost desperately longs for the day when everything is done and his family can safely do business. He longs for normalcy, for peace; and the only way he sees that happening is through racketeering. We get the sense that the Shelby brothers didn’t grow up with a lot of money to spare; their father left 10 years before the start of the show, apparently having abandoned them, and that must not have been easy on Tommy and Arthur. Money is very important for him in his perception of success, even when he knows it’s not everything- he knows it goes a long way towards helping.
He’s incredibly confident. He knows when someone wants something from him, and he doesn’t mind showing that he knows. He needs to have the upper hand if he’s ever going to succeed, and he knows he has it most of the time. His confidence makes him patient, too. Calculating in times of need, but most of the time it just makes him supremely reliable. It also makes it easier for him to shoulder any burdens: his family may hate him, but as long as he can still keep them safe, make things better for them, that’s alright. His confidence stems from a sharp intellect: he knows he can outwit most, and he uses the element of surprise. He looks and talks like a Birmingham gangster, and he’s often looked down upon for his Romani heritage, but he has the intellect and planning capabilities of the biggest players in the field.
Tommy was deeply affected by his experiences in the war. He served as a tunneler, which is often described as one of the most dangerous jobs in the war. He suffers frequent and harrowing nightmares of one specific incident, in which he and two friends were digging a tunnel, heard German voices, and had to fight for their lives in the dangerous and explosives-laden tunnel. His service is a point of pride for him (he refuses to respect the detective who comes to search for the stolen guns in Birmingham because he hadn’t served) but it also what broke him. The man Polly describes from before the war is completely different from the man we see in the show; his brother John says he often used to do voices, joking, keeping his brothers up until all hours. He also stopped believing in God, shown by Polly saying she won’t ask him to swear on the Bible because he is no longer a believer.
The war is the reason he can do what he does, but it has not managed to make him blind to his actions. He knows that he does things that are wrong. With his eyes on the goal, he can stomach doing them, but at the end he knows that they are wrong. And that, too, is a difference between the Tommy of season 1 and the Tommy of season 2: in season 2, he sometimes shows regret, but he’s not nearly always so sure of himself anymore. In season 1, we often see him expressing regret and pain. That’s because, despite his ambition, Tommy firmly believes that there is an endpoint: by driving out Billy Kimber, his family will have a legitimate business. They will no longer have to live in illegitimacy, in danger, and he will no longer have to do things that he doesn’t want to do to make it happen. This separates the man he is in season 1 from the man he is in season 2: in season one, he tells Polly ‘after today, you won’t have to pray for us every again.’ He thinks that the fight with Kimber, for which he’s been planning for months is going to be the last fight they’ll ever have to fight. After the war, after coming back to a country sapped of its men, after living on the edge of illegality for years, he so badly believes in the end of all of that. In season 2, we find the Shelby brothers moving in on London, and Tommy no longer says things like ‘this is going to be the end’. He wants to take London, and then he wants to take the colonies. There is just a fight in him, and no longer that hope of everything being better for everyone, one day.
Despite his focus, his ruthlessness, his trauma, Tommy is incredibly likeable. Even people who have obviously been affected negatively by Tommy’s action (such as the barman whose bar he bought, because he wanted to make his brother feel better) have to admit: you may be a bad man, but you’re our bad man. This goes back to his family, of course, but Tommy’s nuclear family is surrounded by Tommy’s community. He takes care of them, he gives them jobs and money and he takes care of their families if something happens to them. He is acutely aware of what his community has been through and what they need. And because of who he is, they trust him to make the right decisions. During the war, he was a Sergeant Major—too young, probably, to have had that rank, but he made it work. People reported to him during the war, and as many of the men he’s gathered around him served as well, he’s happy to keep up that role afterwards. It works for him, and he sees no reason why he shouldn’t use that. His own experiences also cause him to be able to deal with the more traumatized soldiers: flashbacks, fits of rage, other types of problems. He knows when they need to be pulled close and hushed, and he knows when they need a stern reprimand to keep going. In a community made up of people who served in World War I or boys whose fathers served, he is unmissable.
The final peg in the puzzle of Tommy Shelby is Grace. She shows up to investigate his gang for the disappearance of a shipment of weapons, and goes undercover to find out more. She is smart, and insolent, and strong; and while Tommy starts out the show not having wanted to be with anyone in years, at the end of the season he wants to settle down with Grace. He has fantasies of them gently berating each other, living together, getting to let her in on family meetings. He gave himself completely to her, feeling like they knew each other. With her, we see the side of him Polly described from before the war: joking, laughing. Gentle. He can absolutely be that man as well, under the right circumstances, and the Barge will at least pull him away from direct danger and make him a little softer. But he will feel her loss sharply- she was the one person who he felt knew him completely, and she betrayed him wholly. He has yet to realize that he will never get over this betrayal, and as such will still be hopeful for the future.
Barge Reactions: Tommy isn’t too big to admit when he’s out of his depth, but luckily for him he also adapts very well. He thinks on his feet, and he also knows the importance of being polite. So he won’t go around actively asking why the fuck there’s a talking cat on board, but he’s definitely going to need some time to adjust. Being from 1921, he’s going to have plenty to adjust to even without all the Barge people and shenanigans. The same goes for ports, floods and breaches: he’ll adjust, he’s a fast thinker, but he’s not going to deny that he's a little out of his element.
Deal: To have his crew come out of the fight with Billy Kimber alive and well; to make sure that his family comes out on top, and can do legal business; to have Grace stay with him.
History: Link to wiki
Sample Journal Entry: Test Drive thread!
Sample RP: He wakes up in his cabin breathing hard, sits up instantly, chest constricting, pupils dilating. He doesn’t know where he is for a full minute before he looks out the window: no fires, no streetlights. Just the bright flickering of the stars outside of the window. He looks at his hand, unfurls it and sees the little clump of opium in there. He hadn’t even realized he’d put it in there.
Unsettled, he puts it back on the nightstand, next to the pipe. This was never about losing control: coming here, accepting the Admiral’s proposal, that was always about gaining it. He thinks of Danny Whiz-Bang shouting at the empty sky, and he turns away from the sight of the drugs. He shouldn’t be relying on this stuff anymore, yet every night he comes back to it. The sight of the wall alone is enough to do it, every time. He breathes in hard; exhales, and makes himself get up.
He has not walked these halls before, but he still walks them as if they belong to him. This isn’t too strange; he is used to halls actually belonging to him, or about to belong to him. He walks as if he is surrounded by men with razors stitched into their hats and guns in their hands. It’s a hard habit to break. He gets himself acquainted with the ship’s layout, eats something comforting, talks to some of the people who live on the boat. He is inconspicuous enough that he doesn’t get many strange looks, but there are also plenty of people who take immediate offense to the way he walks.
He is quick to reassure them. He is not here to take over. He’s a warden; come to help.
The day is different enough from his usual routine that he is tired by the time he makes it back to his cabin. He has shared a few drinks in the pub, has talked to people about why the sight of space inspires such fear in most. He’s not home, but he knows he can come to treat it as his home. He gets undressed and sits down on his bed. For a few minutes, he manages to avoid looking at the pipe, at the clump of opium. He gets under the covers; tries not to think of Grace’s warmth against his side. He closes his eyes tight against the image of her, lets out a deep breath.
And the shovels are still there.