Elizabeth MacMillan Ă— Phryne Fisher Ă— Jack Robinson
Written for @thepromptfoundry's Trope Fl!p prompt 'enforced secrecy', and as an early entry for @polyshipweek's prompt 'metamour' (yeah, I tried to combine the November event prompts for the same days but it didn't always work out xD), here's a little story about Phryne/Mac, Phryne/Jack and Mac&Jack from the TV show Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries! :)
~1k words, rated T, no warnings apply
Summary: Mac knows that Phryne is a free spirit - she could never tie her down, wouldn't ever even try. But is the inspector Phryne has taken a shine to recently aware of the same truths?
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Summary: Loving yourself can be hard for a variety of reasons, and sometimes things aren’t as they seem at first glance.
Set early in the series, and pre-ot3 relationship
~~~
Elizabeth MacMillan had to work hard to love herself for who she is.
She knows the world at large does not accept her. Mac had found her way despite it, clawed a path for herself in a world that doesn’t want her, even gained respect by some of her peers…
But she still isn’t sure whether she truly loves herself. Whether, if she could change who she is - truly change, not just act and pretend - she wouldn’t take that option…
It would certainly make life easier, if she could find herself a nice husband and be happy as a housewife.
~
Her friend Phryne never seems to have such doubts.
Loving herself seems to come easy to Phryne Fisher, much easier than it comes to Mac.
She is vibrant in her clothes and her smile and her entire being, she pulls you in and always seems to know exactly what she is doing.
Where Mac is content to have found a style she isn’t quite so uncomfortable in, Phryne wears any style like it was made for her personally. Where Mac at least doesn’t hate herself anymore for whom she loves, Phryne never cared what society might think about her lovers.
~~~
Captain Jack Robinson has similar thoughts about the enigmatic Miss Fisher.
She used to unnerve him, but it didn’t take long until he was caught in her light, in the way she seems to make the entire world love her.
She doesn’t seem to ever doubt herself - in fact, often thinks she can do his job better than him (not that she is wrong, most times).
Phryne does whatever she likes, and instead of second-guessing herself, she expects the world to adapt to her and her eccentricities. He never wants her to change, and thinks she wouldn’t want to, either.
~
Jack sees Phryne, and he sees a kind of confidence he never had.
Not to say he is lacking confidence entirely, he knows he is good at his job, and he likes to think of himself as a good person… but all of this is only while sticking to what is expected, fitting to the mold of a man in his position, and when he finds himself desiring more, desiring otherwise, he pushes it away.
He isn’t sure he loves every part of himself. Isn’t even certain he knows who he truly could be, if he let himself choose freely.
~~~
Phryne is very aware of how the world perceives her.
She knows she isn’t what most would call normal, and she has long made peace with this fact. She had her own demons haunting her, and life can be too short not to live it at the fullest.
Besides, she needs the distractions sometimes, danger and excitement and a string of lovers to forget the dark thoughts of the past.
She isn’t sure whether she is a good person, not like Jack or Elizbeth are. But she is alive, this is her life, and she is damn well living it.
Tagged by @startrekgeorgiouery (still can't @ your main @aleksandrachaev adsfg), thanks so much! <3 without even looking at mine I already bet yours have way more variety than my sentences bc you have some short ones and I tend to use monster sentences only? XD we'll see!
Taking fic prompts, btw! Especially for shortfics I can write rn, stuck on trains all day again so I need sth to do xD
Rules: List the first lines of your last 20 stories. (If you have less  than 20, just list them all!) See if there are any patterns. Choose your favorite opening line. Tag some people to play the next round!
Okay here goes
Lilolilyrae on Ao3
1. "Is this, um, Management Systems 101, right?" Andy asks, slightly breathless, as she stumbles into the seminar room on the third floor of her University.
2. Philippa laughs in delight when the shuttle makes a sharp turn.
3. Adrenaline is still running through Andy's body when she lets the stranger -- Celeste, the girl's name is Celeste, and Andromache has always thought that knowing a name and a face makes someone less of a stranger already -- stitch up her injury.
4. Madeleine giggles as she turns around, her eyes following the line of fairy lights Sam has helped Emily stick to the edge of the ceiling earlier that day.
5. Myka looks harried when she gets out of the train in London, wondering not for the first time how Helena can be so cheerful after travelling for three days already when she still feels the jetlag from when they first arrived in Europe and absolutely despised having to sit on a train all day to get to the British Isles.
(ok these are from my (posted) abandoned drafts pile, idk whether to count them or not... And I took the first actual fic-text-like sentences instead of the actual first ones as some start out with summaries or hc ideas
Andy falling for Miranda, seeing through her facade...
Phryne being loud and colourful and maybe dancing with Jack or singing or both is what attracts Mac, she's glad to see a familiar face because she already figured out the date from a newspaper and is Seriously Freaking The Fuck Out and not much has the power to freak out Elizabeth MacMillan.
Hermione was always somewhat fascinated with the Slytherins at school - Hogwarts, a History, was still one of the first books on magic she ever read, telling her about the different houses and associated personality traits.
I'll just put 3 more sentences total to get to the 20)
6. "Looks like I was not the only one who needed to get away from all that... Merriment." Jack Robinson steps onto the balcony where Doctor Elizabeth 'Mac' MacMillan is already leaning against the railing, smoking a cigarette.
7. I'm sitting in the sand, sketchbook open on my knees.
8. I'm standing by the window, staring at the pouring rain.
9. Jane Rizzoli has her eyes fixed to the screen of her partner Maura Isles's small universe signature scanner.
10. Miranda wakes feeling well rested and content.
11. Squinting down at the papers in front of her, Florence tries to focus enough to read them, but it's no use, everything turns blurred and painful again after a moment.
12. Helena is pacing between the kitchen and living room of the B&B.
13. "Good girl," Quỳnh husks into the kiss when Andromache melts against her, letting go of all tension as she lets Quỳnh dominate her, pressing her into the ground.
14. Madeleine stands in her new room in the library, staring at the walls.
15. Anna May is sitting on her living room couch, idly TV channel-surfing, but nothing quite catches her attention.
16. They were swaying together in the darkness of the late evening in Bogotá, the dancefloor only illuminated by the fairy lights hanging from the trees.
17. Madeleine notices quickly where her hand is because Florence has hair there, never shaves it
18. In the olden days on earth, soulmates used to be a thing of fairy tales, of myths – some believed in them, some even said they had found them.
19. "What, Andromache, have you gone slow in your old age?" Quynh laughs as she jumps into the circle they have designated as their fighting arena – no mat or other cushioning, just a line drawn in the dirt by the toe of Andy's boot.
20. Bernie curses under her breath when she almost slips on the frozen sidewalk, steadying herself at the last second on a lamppost.
& Bonus bc there wasn't any GOmens fic in here yet: 21. "Wha' is this?!" Crowley quickly hits the pause button and hisses at the TV screen in something between shock, dismay and admiration.
Alright to analyse: I have a lot more short opening sentences that I expected! (Tho still not half as short as some of yours, Kat xD & some monster sentences made it in as well), and I seem to have just two or three modus operandi for starting fic
- x is doing y, while z happens
- *dialogue* x says while doing y, (while z happens)
- *description of past event*
I wrote for way, Way more different ships than I thought I would in just about two dozen fics and fic ideas?
- We've got a lot of Floreleine of course, fluff, h/c and smut and some Florence character study ficlets, also librarywives ot3 but I think no other Gunpowder Milkshake ships
- several Andromaquynh and one Andy/Celeste for The Old Guard, though I think I only really got back into writing for that fandom through gift exchanges and now the big bangs (which aren't finished yet, but when I'm writing for the fandom already oneshot inspiration tends to find me)
-Mirandy (and I'm sure some of the opening sentences it's hard to tell whether it's Andrea-Andy or Andromache-Andy from TOG^
- Milippa my beloved! Just Prime though, I think? My fav Milippa so that checks out... No wait, one's polymilippa MxPxP, ot3s rule always <3
- another ot3: MacPhrack (idk whether they already have a shipname, couldn't find any, looks like I'm the only one seriously shipping Elizabeth MacMillan/Phryne Fisher/Jack Robinson from Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries anyway)
- I did not expect there to be not one but Two Bering & Wells (Myka/Helena from Warehouse 13) fics in here, it's one of these fandoms I read way more for than I write
- 1 each for Cissamione, Berena, Rizzoli&Isles (and ineffable spouses)
Great tag meme, was fun having a look at this :D
Tagging, if you want to do it, @yelowjackets @cryhardanddanceharder @habrenwrites @guardianrock @bobbseynumber3 @squishmittenficfan @kaorimaxwell-blog @girlgoneangsty @ba-lailah @thefallenmutineer @i-lovefandom @petrichoraflora @purlturtle @salzundhonig @aeternumregina @onaperduamedee @tea-lizard @cookie-sheet-toboggan @daisydoctor13 @batnbreakfast @songbookff @verbumproxen @xvnot15 @lonely-night @andunetir @les-begay-together @accio-baqat @poemsingreenink and any of my other writer mutuals/friends who actually scrolled this far xDxD
For this one I don't mind if you reblog my post as it's kind of fic recs, but if you do the tagging meme, pls make your own post, don't create a giant reblog chain!
