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cw for violence, assault, implied sa

The Cormac family were a moneyed lot; when the bombs dropped, you had best believe they were snug away in some of the best-kept vaults in the nation. Despite having a reputation to upkeep, the Cormacs have since found scandal nipping at their heels at every turn—especially only daughter Anne, born out of wedlock from an affair. Anne’s father’s wife divorced and left him, but in the small world of Vault 35, there wasn’t really anywhere to go. Judgement was cast on Anne long before she was even born.

Growing up under watchful—and usually disdainful—community eyes, Anne became rebellious and wild, deciding to live up to the hellion she felt predestined to be. At the conclusion of one memorably cruel community lecture, Anne’s father announced his shame in being related. Anne’s world crashed down in that moment, but, being sixteen and still a child, she acted out. Electing to be a burden on the Vault no more, Anne ran away that very night—something discovered hours later, when the security tag was found on the floor.

As luck would have it, there was a farm only a day’s worth of walking away. By the time Anne stumbled up the rubble of the driveway to the house, she was dehydrated and becoming delirious. The Mister Handy that had taken up residence there followed its primary programming, nursing the human life back to health. For three years, Anne and Mister Handy survived together, traveling when necessary and only when necessary.

Despite these precautions and others, when raiders did what they do best with a trade caravan Anne was traveling with, she was taken.

She was taken for sport to a raider colony, where she surpassed all expectation and won every fight they put her into. A sizable portion of the crowd crowed to throw her to a feral ghoul they kept in a nearby pit, but small-time raider boss James Bonny came to her defense and bought her for a bride before they could throw her in the pit. Anne was married over her protestations and suffered worse by the end of the night.

Anne was the war bride of a fourth-rate raider and treated like his bitch for the next two years of her life. On the night of their marriage she had sworn she’d slip free and murder him some night. He laughed then. It took two years, admittedly, but eventually he slipped up. Anne got her revenge and then some, lighting the night sky up with his camp once she was done.

Anne has talked her way into big towns and “settles” in them from time to time. She offers what she calls wasteland services, from parcel delivery to bounty hunting and everything in-between. It’s a high risk, high reward kind of lifestyle, but Anne’s finding it agrees with her quite well.

hey, little sister

At sixteen, Anne Cormac eloped with her deadbeat boyfriend, James Bonny. They hopped on the back of James’ bike and jumped from city to city, motel to motel, for three years. Each year saw Anne losing more and more of herself until they were led into one last fight. James tried one last time to scare her, staggered off one last time laughing at her—and Anne mounted his bike and ran him the fuck over.

Anne has been drifting ever since, haunted and dissatisfied, unable to settle down. Eventually she rode out to Santa Carla. New to town and unable to afford accommodations, Anne tends to stick to public spaces. Something about this place feels sinister, to say the least.

Edit: The more that I think back, the more I remember about a dear friend (rest in peace) who told me about the novel, and I remember building a very similar verse with them on that blog that I might borrow from. It filled in story holes represented by the finished product in a lot of ways.

Specifically, I remember there being a gang of—I believe—werewolf surfers who opposed David and Co. for mastery of the beach. It accounts for some of the missed time and the bonding in the film.

For the purposes of this verse, and probably others, I think Hornigold’s Flying Gang should be a big motorcycle club, and Anne doesn’t know that she’s riding with twice-stolen valor: once because of her taking it from James, sure, but another time for James taking it without having the right to. Though not a vampire himself, James knew several members of the Flying Gang are, and accidentally indicated some of that information to Anne. Like the jacket and the Gang, Anne knows more than she probably should—but not all, and not nearly enough.

More about Anne in BG3/D&D, because I’m incorrigible and also would love to feature these things:

Anne still has to be cajoled into drinking enough to get drunk; while less of a teetotaler than in some other verses, she simply doesn’t drink much, if at all.

She doesn’t sing very prettily, but when drunk, Anne will crow and clap along to just about any song that starts. She may even bring out the spoons, if you’re particularly unlucky.

Since landlubbers are generally less likely to judge her for the habit, Anne does eventually start reading without hiding first. It takes a long time, though: old habits die hard, and they die all the harder when they were secret old habits.

Once she gets comfortable with the party, Anne sits around the fire spinning tales that rival the best of Wyll’s monster stories. Sometimes she tells of her own exploits, her friends’, her lovers’, but often time its tales of supernatural dread and horror that Anne shares.

Having spent most of her adult life at sea, Anne knows very little of “landbound” customs unless they appear in her books. She misses being at sea quite a bit and can’t seem to get a handle on some landbound traditions.

For the same reason as listed above, Anne knows very little about magic, magical creatures, monsters, etc.. She distrusts these things and prefers not to mess with them as often as possible.

…my girl is very stubborn, though, and so will often act as an expert on monsters she knows the lore of. Oftentimes she’ll even dismiss them as being unreal.

Secretly, Anne worries she’s more burden than boon to the party. Past abuse has taught her she’s “only tolerable when (she’s) helpful,” and a lot of the helpful functions she used to perform on the Ranger aren’t so helpful here. (Examples: Anne would help set the course on ship, sometimes pointing out shortcuts and hidey holes when she knows of them, but on land she’s just as dependent on the map as the rest of them. Anne helped with keeping track of supplies and ordering rations on the ship, but on land everyone seems to be doing that.) The only crossover point she can find is that she’s good in combat, and this has made her paranoid that the party will vote to kick her out. A more emotionally intelligent person might recognize this as projection and catastrophizing, probably born from a fear that her old crew planned to maroon her, but good luck trying to get her to understand that.

Anne was very quickly taken off of cooking detail when the others learned her full cooking portfolio consisted of tea, coffee, and boiled potatoes.

Despite this, Anne will often offer to help prep. She’s known to sit up under a tree away from everyone else with two buckets and the produce sack. (One bucket for peels and cores and one for the meat of the thing.) Anne avoids the company of the others because peeling reminds her of being back in the galley, and she’s been known then and now to sing sea shanties to herself—a fate she wouldn’t wish on her worst enemy.

Anne truly has no plans and no purpose on being kidnapped from her ship. Baldur’s Gate is only her destination because it’s the others’, her only goal for a whole being to remove the tadpole. She eventually makes the decision to recapture glory on her own terms, but initially, Anne is treading water and pretending she isn’t.

Anne doesn’t truck with the supernatural. She may be unsure of whether or not she buys into religion, but (even in more grounded verses) she wholeheartedly believes in things like magic, ghosts, devilry, etc..

And she does not fuck with them.

Which is probably why one of my favorite things to do is to make her contend with the supernatural. :3c

That said, there’s a fortune-telling “game” played with a pack of cards that she takes seriously and will sometimes, usually reluctantly, participate in.

RANDOMLY GENERATED HEADCANONS

Anne listens to 80s music.

Anne is afraid to close their eyes in the shower.

If the sorce media was a musical, Anne would be the one character that asks why everyone is singing.

Anne was dropped out of a window as a child.

Anne almost drank the lethal dosage of caffine once.

Tagged By: stole it from @infernaliscor

Tagging: 🏴‍☠️ be gay do crime

Since I’ve brought it up a few different times:

Anne vs Anne’s Wanted Poster

(you can see why she’s upset)

Oops!, All Headcanons!

Anne does not want to, will not willingly, and probably should not ever actually be the person in control. She is a thinker, but not necessarily a planner—not ideal in a leader. But fear not!, she enjoys being the second in command.

So I originally thought I was funny in making Anne a teetotaler because of all the factors leading up to her capture, but now I worry it verges on the unrealistic. I still say Anne Bonny would not have been a big drinker, but now it’s less of an absolute and more of a rule of thumb.

She prefers coffee to tea. This was originally more of trying to be funny about teetotaling, but it just makes sense to me that she’d be all about it. Partly because it would be a sizable deviation from the what she would perceive as her father’s ways.

In a modern verse, Anne plays acoustic and bass guitar. She wouldn’t care for social media and I actually think is, like. Very cyber-security focused. I can’t see her being super techie, but despite her dismal charisma she’s fairly good at social engineering networking, and she leverages that often in investigative pursuits.

Modern verse bassist Anne is one of my favorite things to think of, even though I don’t think I’ve shared her here yet. I’ve mentioned she exists but like this girl

Plays Måne.skin songs, because they’re fun and sexy and in her opinion have the best bass parts

Wears primarily ripped jeans and band t-shirts, leather jackets and oversized sunglasses and combat boots. She doesn’t glamorize herself unless it’s demanded of her

I don’t usually imagine her in a successful band. I’m happy to do AUs for it but, as in history, I feel she wouldn’t end up with one of the real greats

This is one of the few verses where I feel very strongly that Anne would partake more in substances from alcohol to weed to worse; more than probably she smokes cigarettes regardless of what else she does or doesn’t do

Probably writes the lyrics to the band’s original songs; she feels like she can’t otherwise contribute to the songwriting process, but thanks to her privately tutored education, she has a strong grasp of poetry (although she’ll say otherwise)

Headcanon Dump Because I Am Obsessed

Anne’s middle name is Grace. This means different things to her in a few different verses, including

A sense of closeness with her own pirate idol, Gráinne Ní Mháille, anglicized as Grace O’Malley. This really shaped Anne’s early perceptions of herself and piracy, and really shaped her life’s goal as well: she wants her name to go down in history, just like O’Malley.

It came from her father. Her mother had chosen her first name, her father her middle: that had been their agreement on learning Mary was pregnant. Grace was the name of an aunt William had been particularly fond of; Anne the name of a beloved sister-in-law.

In modern verses, her birth certificate was originally filed incorrectly under Grace Anne Cormac, a mistake that I sometimes leave legally unchanged for the fun of it. For example, in spy verses like the kinds I’ve been dreaming up behind the scenes, none of her legal documentation ends up following her into her profession, making her harder to properly trace. Grace Cormac is alive on paper and living on a small farm near a small town in South Carolina. Her shoddy teenaged wedding to James Bonny is the birth of her paper trail as Anne Bonny, with no legally recognized Anne Cormac having existed before that moment either.

Now for some unrelated shenanigans.

Anne wants to get her J tattooed over with an anchor. It’s fair to say both of those J’s weighed her down; maybe symbolizing it can help her drop it, now. Like an anchor to a ship, it’s an important part of her. Also like an anchor to a ship, it doesn’t define her. This is one of about four tattoos Anne’s ever seriously considered in any verse.

In most verses, especially pirate ones, Anne also wants a swallow tattoo as well. Swallows among historic sailors were symbols of the owner having sailed 5000 miles. You can see where earning that would be appealing to someone who feels like they’re only ever alive when at sea.

Anne would also consider getting a constellation tattooed on her right shoulder, to match the anchor. Probably Ursa Major, her preferred way to find the North Star.

For similar reasons, she’s considered a compass as a simplified design for the same motif: the pull of exploration, the surety of the path.

TW for dv and da.

Just before the end of their marriage, James got the idea to brand Anne with his initials. He only managed the J before she knocked him off of her and broke free. Later, when Jack met her, he insisted it was a sign of fate: his name starts with a J, too! Anne was less certain that was a good thing, and it turned out to be a good thing she was.

A glimpse into shit that I’ve been thinking about pretty much nonstop, all alone, because I haven’t got the relevant partners/relationships to feel I’ve “earned” talking about it yet.

Anne on seeing Raoul’s face without its masking elements for the first time: I won’t lie t’ye, it en’t pretty. Fucking off-putting, hard as dick t’look at…but I’ll get used to it. Hell, might even come to enjoy it. Still you under there.

Anne on seeing Wade’s face without the masking elements for the first time: Jesus fuck! Ye said ye weren’t pretty, not that ye were a rotting fucking corpse under there! Ye’re lucky ye have such nice bone structure, really ye are, or ye’d have dick all goin for ye. Poor fuckin you! Do they make Halloween masks of yer face? No, don’t put it up! Ye took it out, clean it first at least, let it breathe. Fuck, man!

“Don’t go quoting fucking Shakespeare t’me and pretend it’s yer own original thought! I know him better’n I know the fuckin Scripture.”

Me trying to explain how I view Anne versus how I view Read: Read plays chess. Anne plays poker. They can respect each other’s game, but they can’t really play it. This also happens to make them a deadly team when they play any other game together.

On Tall & Small

If you spend enough time around Anne, you’ll undoubtedly hear her using the words “tall” and “small” to describe the people around her. It’s understandable to mistake this as a measure of height, but when Anne uses these two specific words, she’s actually referring to a person’s character. (It just so happens that the first two examples she’s prone to reach for to explain it fit their respective category in both senses of the word!)

Tall. A tall person is someone of admirable character. Usually this indicates a principled person that Anne greatly admires. They tend to be fair in their dealings and guided by morality rather than legality—but, importantly, their moral guide must be themselves. (She doesn’t consider religious figures “tall,” as they are still allowing somebody else to dictate their moral compass.) The first example she’ll reach for in the majority of verses is Edward Teach, the notorious Blackbeard. (For most of my canon verses, he’s well over six feet.)

Small. A small person is someone of detestable character. If morality is defined in terms like in D&D, the small people in Anne’s world would be considered chaotic evil. Only in it for themselves, guided by nothing but self interest and the pursuit of selfish goals. Small people are incapable of forming real connections; there’s only enough of themselves for themselves. Anne often points to her first husband as a prime example of a small person. (I don’t know if he’s short, but he’s shorter than her so it’s easy to see why people would still mix it up.)

When describing people’s height, Anne avoids the words tall and small, specifically because they have such a specialized meaning for her. She actually most often uses big and little when describing someone’s height.

Below the cut is a list of people she knows well enough in other verses to have a tall or small opinion of!

Tall

Edward Teach/Blackbeard - 6’0”+ (182.8 cm+)

Stede Bonnet/The Gentleman Pirate - 5’10” (177.8 cm)

Israel Hands/Izzy Hands - 5’8” (172.7 cm)

Raoul Silva - 6’2” (187.9 cm)

Small

James Bonny - height unknown

Benjamin Hornigold - height unknown

Jolly Rodger

JOLLY RODGER is a four-piece rock band of some small reputation thanks to frontman, co-founder, singer, sometimes songwriter, and networking expert Jack Rackham. Jack is joined by co-founder (ex-)girlfriend lyricist bassist Anne Bonny, guitarist Mark Read, and drummer John Silver*. Although the band hit a rough patch after the departure of Silver and the absence of Bonny, when Bonny returned to the band it steadily began to climb in popularity once more. The band continues to go strong today.

Or so Jack(ass) tells those that ask.

In reality, Anne, Mark, and Silver have long been the creative force behind the band. Though Jack sometimes contributes, it’s rarely for anything that doesn’t revolve around his vocal talents. Mark and Silver are musicals heavyweights, but have all the emotional sense of an upset teenager. Anne contributes where she can, in bass lines and lyrics for the most part. When the three come together, with or without Jack, it’s amazing!* The band is named JOLLY RODGER after both the pirate flag and to honor the memory of a now deceased mutual friend who actually brought the group together, their larger-than-life first drummer.

* Shut up, it’s my au and I’ll do as I please!

JOLLY RODGER serves as opening act for the Flying Gang, a much more famous rock band in the same genre. The tour is called the Queen Anne’s Revenge Tour, actually named for Anne. When Silver left JR, he joined TFG as their new drummer and ended up telling them a little bit about Anne from his own perspective. The conversation quickly became an impromptu songwriting session, ending with a new song for a new concept album called Queen Anne’s Revenge. In a twist of fate, Anne broke up with the band she’d co-founded the same day the album dropped. Anne went to ask Silver if she could crash at his since she was now, effectively, homeless. In a bid to keep her in work, Silver got Anne to agree to do the inevitable album tour, even going so far as to get her to agree to sing a few solo songs. That was huge. TGF’s record label was meanwhile contacting JR to get them signed on for that very same tour. Neither exactly knew what the other was up to until it was too late and worlds collided. It’s a very strange situation to be in.

Anne’s not handling her new fame well, and has come to resent Silver for telling the world her story before she could even tell it herself. She’s distanced herself from Mark, her self-admitted best friend, out of fear for his life. Jack believes to this day Anne was unfaithful with Mark, something that became a self-fulfilling prophecy. Anne and Mark only got together in the time between Anne leaving Jack and Anne leaving the band, a nebulous few weeks before Anne snapped and fucked off for Silver’s.

In applicable verses, this timeline is slightly altered, and represents the rise, fall, and recent reappearance of Red Death.

In my quest to find the perfect excuse for a spy story without having to tie Anne into an alphabet institution, I found a loophole that made me giggle in the persona of Red Death. Red Death is a singularly extraordinary individual, at once an expert hacker with extensive knowledge of several alphabet institutions, an enigmatic figure passing through high security spots without a trace, a brutal assassin, and a literary reference to Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Masque of Red Death”. Naturally, Red Death is a shared identity between a few people. By name, Mark Read and Anne Bonny. (Jack was never involved as more than an alibi, actually innocent in it all.) You can imagine what the new visibility on Anne is doing to her career as Red Death.

Someone letting Anne seduce their muse during a rehearsal/performance for her band when? Whomst?

Just saying for the future: I'm making ocs and lore for my Candle Cove Reboot thingy and it will be different from the wiki in some ways.

In fact, here's some ideas I have:

Sariah is a pirate lady because it's what she deserves

Percy and Thade are brothers and both are burned

Fae can be flower based or insect based. Both are under the fae umbrella and are similar yet different.

Harpies and sirens/merfolk interact with humans more and the Laughingstocks have a harpy scout (an oc).

Harpies, sirens and merfolk can be based on actual birds or fish

I plan to make a crew of sirens (one is half-harpy because I like to cause problems for myself)

Every crew will have thirteen members and some lesser known characters have been moved (Sanjay is now captain of the Jolly Hounds)

If anyone has questions about any of the lore or ocs, feel free to ask! I will reblog all this onto my au account as kind of an archive (idk if that's what I'm thinking of but eh-)

A major change is to Skin-Taker. I made him a guy who's burnt on most of his body and covers it up. He's not a skeleton and is Percy's older brother. Do Abyssians exist in this au? I'm not sure yet but if they do, then I suppose Percy will be one of them. But yeah, I'm not having a skeleton pirate, as cool as he is, because I want to have a guy who's intimidatingly pretty but mysterious.

Fun little things about my reboot-au:

The fae species of plant fae and insect fae growing/hatching and being physically eight for eight years. I have no reason as to why it's like that.

Harpies being based on actual birds as I realized there would be kiwi harpies and turkey harpies. Mostly because those two would be funny. Also that means certain features might give context clues in some cases (I can elaborate but I feel like being vague).

Janice and Nathan saying "fuck it" and joining the Laughingstocks and essentially running away from home.

Skin-Taker is still technically a pretty boy even if burnt.

Sirens deciding to hijack a ship and becoming pirates instead of just attacking normally.

Poppy wearing a crop top. Yes, I have put him in one because I can.

The inevitable yassification of the Rubberfishes.

Two siren concepts! The first one is a Chinese mitten crab and the second is the siren-harpy who ended up half flamingo.

These are just two of the siren pirates btw

Thanks to a dear friend creating a succulent fae, there's now a new Florian species: Produce fae (aka, fruit and vegetables).

They're much rarer than the other kinds and actually reside in deserts or places where food and water are usually scarce.

Weed fae tend to hang around gardens and due to magic auras and the fact Florians can modify plants (mostly for cosmetics and it does tire them out), they can create produce fae.

Because of where they live, they have yet to be reported.