Rise Up, Oh Heart, For There is Another Battle to Win
Jun 03
wildehacked asked: DEFINITELY write the tragic soulmate AU. 1000%.
Okay but see it would be great terrible.
James McGraw grows up being told that he’s lucky, so lucky, he has three soulmates and it’s wonderful. Everyone tells him that the world has so much love for him.
Thomas and Miranda meet and she has his words on her skin and she doesn’t care that he has someone else’s because HE doesn’t care, and they’re so happy, and then they meet James McGraw, who has them both, and Miranda tells herself (and it’s truth, at the time) she can live with this, she can live with being James’ soulmate while James is Thomas’ soulmate. Because James adores them both. And God, she loves Thomas, and he loves James, and James loves her, so it’s all okay. They lie in bed and giggle together like children, wondering about the third line of words on James’ skin.
Things go horribly awry. Miranda is still one of James’ three soulmates, but he is not hers and she cannot quite stand to call him hers when her soulmate is gone and her soulmate’s soulmate is sinking into dark water.
James meets his third soulmate. It is a strong contender for the worst thing that has ever happened to him. It’s certainly in the top five. James swears to himself that he will never, ever let on the truth.
John Silver meets his soulmate. It is certainly the worst timing he has ever experienced. Captain Flint, scourge of the seas, doesn’t bat a goddamn eye, and Silver decides that this match must be unrequited, because the universe hates him so goddamn much. When Madi, proud Madi with her unmarked skin, touches the words and asks, an unusual tender moment, he tells her (and it’s the truth, at the time) that his soulmate bond is unrequited.
At some point the truth comes out. There is angry sex. I do not have the plot figured out past this.
Other miscellany: Anne Bonny is Jack Rackham’s soulmate and he is also in Something (no one is crazy enough to call it love) with Vane. Anne is in love with Max, whose soulmate is Eleanor, much to Max’s profound distaste. Eleanor and Max had the potential to be the only functional soulmate bond in this whole mess until Eleanor fucked it up, because Max is also Eleanor’s soulmate. Anne’s soulmark leads her to a man who is actually a woman who has Anne’s words on her ribs, and Jack is only a little bitter that Anne is not bound to him as visibly as he is bound to her. Anne has never shaved her head, and so they do not know that words are written, neat and small, at the base of her skull.
Jun 02
Anonymous asked: *slides in* you're probably gonna hate me: Xavier/Erik, "Stumble into my Arms"
(I don’t actually…ship this…which I know makes me weird…so here, have another Real Dark Thing)
AO3 summary: “It’s going to be okay, Charles,” Erik says quietly, brushing dark curls away from where tears have started to dry under Charles’ closed eyes. “You’ll see.”
“He’s a madman, Erik,” Charles says dully, past caring if Apocalypse hears them.
“He’s going to fix us,” Erik swears, like a man clutching to the last thread of his own reason. “You and me, Charles, he’s going to fix us.”
“Go to hell,” Charles says, and turns his face away when Erik bends down to pick him up from the ground.
Actual summary: It starts with a missing scene that’s like 98% Erik being obsessed with Charles and Charles being in mourning for the man he used to know and also the whole entire planet. Apocalypse lied to Erik about why they needed Charles and Erik is shattered, pretty much clinging to Charles as his last anchor point. So when he discovers that this plan doesn’t end with Charles converted to his viewpoint and by his side, Erik goes off the fucking rails. The fight is a lot shorter, since Charles is in better shape and Erik doesn’t do a heel-face turn halfway through. On the other hand, Erik is in pretty bad shape, mentally and emotionally speaking, and his worldview is pretty well shattered, after the battle. Jean rebuilds the house herself, alone, and the fic ends with Erik broken on the floor of Charles’ reconstructed study begging for forgiveness. Charles presses his lips thin and does not answer.
If you want bonus pain feel free to imagine this as a soulmate AU.
I just want to say that the decision to have a nude bathing scene that’s 100% a Vulnerable And Confused Love Interest Scene ft Steve Trevor was a good one.
Anonymous asked: I love the idea of all of those animorphs crossovers, but especially the star wars and avengers ones.
HONESTLY I MIGHT WRITE THEM.
But like for a preview:
STAR WARS: General Leia somehow ends up on Earth and has a Very Grim Conversation with Jake that’s mostly about brothers and warriors and how to live through living through battles and loving someone who doesn’t carry that weight half so harshly. Alternatively, Rogue One is caught by the Death Star’s blast wave and shunted across a universe, and the Animorphs find them broken and bruised and Cassian and Jyn look into their eyes and see themselves. Chirrut and Baze call all of them ‘little brother’ and ‘little sister’ and it makes Rachel prickle. The Animorphs go from six to eleven (Chirrut morphs a mountain lion and Jyn morphs a wolverine, I don’t have the others sorted). K2 doesn’t make it to Earth at all. Rogue One still dies for the cause. The End.
AVENGERS: I have two ideas here.
The obvious, in which the Animorphs get a “gift” from the Ellimist (”DOES HE OWN A DICTIONARY” Marco demands) and are sent to a world the Yeerks never touched and pop up RIGHT in the middle of the Battle of New York and handily freak out the Avengers. Especially Steve, who almost has a heart attack at the sight of a teenaged girl in a leotard sprinting at him and shouting “Toss me”, and literally almost gets his head cut off when he watches her vault off his shield and turn into a fucking grizzly on the way down. Tony almost throws up when he sees a gorilla get disemboweled and start turning back into a teenager as a bunch of people yell <No medics, no medics, someone protect his head!>
The one I haven’t really seen yet, in which the War happens a little later (like it ends maybe 2001) and thus the Animorphs are only about 26 when the Avengers are formed. Still pretty young. SHIELD kept the whole Yeerks thing under wraps (so. many. NDAs.), so imagine the Avenger’s surprise when the late Phil Coulson is replaced with a young dude build like a football player who tells them to call him Jake, and who introduces his team of equally young people plus one bird as their new backup.
Both of these include Marco and Tony basically talking shit about each other incessantly, Bruce and Cassie talking in soft honest tones about how it feels to be afraid of yourself, Tobias and Clint making horribly unfunny jokes about their childhoods, Steve taking it upon himself to make sure Jake actually talks about the stress of leadership and about how afraid he is of getting someone killed (Bucky and Tom get compared…especially if this is still a thing post-WS) and Natasha and Rachel being really weird friends where mostly they spar. Oh, and also Ax and Thor bonding about Poptarts.
I also saw Wonder Woman today and I feel like there’s a great AU where that crossover also happens.
Ao3 Summary: “Him,” Lucrezia says softly, and nods her head at the man across the room. Tomorrow he’ll be dead, she thinks, and masks her shiver with a bright smile.
Actual Summary: AU where Micheletto isn’t hired to kill Cesare at that banquet. Instead, he’s hired to kill Lucrezia after her marriage to Giovanni Sforza, and winds up swearing fealty to her instead.
This fic features: -Lucrezia attempting to poison Lord Sforza’s wine, which is how she stumbles across Micheletto attempting to poison her wine, which is how she ends up shoved against a stone wall with a dagger at her throat, Cesare’s lessons in self-defense meaning she has a knife pressed to the big vein in Micheletto’s thigh. “God, you’re fast,” she says, with the same false laugh she gives the French king in canon, the one that’s charming and sweet and full of bravado and masking utter terror. “I don’t think even my brother has someone as fast as you.” -Lucrezia in her nightgown with her gold hair falling all around her, knees tucked up to her chest, sitting on the edge of her bed, with Micheletto on the floor. Covered in blood. Having a quiet conversation about Saint Paul and marriage and the evils of being compelled to marry where the heart and flesh are unwilling. -Lucrezia doesn’t hook up with Paolo. She doesn’t know he exists. Lord Sforza is dead in the ground, and Pesaro is hers. -There is no baby. -Lucrezia doesn’t allow Cesare to poach her assassin. -Cesare is deeply, deeply suspicious of the assassin his little sister brought home from Pesaro. Micheletto falls in lust with him more or less at first sight, but his loyalty is already given. -Lucrezia realizes Micheletto is in love with Cesare before he does, although obviously he’s aware of the lust. -Micheletto realizes Lucrezia lusts after Cesare before she does, although obviously she’s aware of the love. -Lucrezia is deeply impressed by watching Micheletto garotte a watermelon -Cesare is deeply distressed and deeply turned on by watching Micheletto garotte a watermelon and then watching Lucrezia stick her pink thumb into the meat of the severed fruit and lick off the juice.
EXACTLY everything I could have wanted
wildehacked asked: Marco/Rachel + "Jerry Springer, not Casablanca".
(I like your setup for these so I’m stealing it)
AO3 summary: It’s not a gin joint and it doesn’t belong to him and she’s not the love of his life. Some days he’s not even sure they’re friends. They fuck anyway. (PWminimalP, Angst, Longer War AU, Unsafe Insane and Consensual, Light Bondage, Blood)
Actual summary: It’s about year six of a war that burned them all out about year three. They’ve managed to keep their secret through increasingly brutal means over the years. Rachel and Cassie haven’t spoken except on missions since Rachel killed a member of the Yeerk Peace Movement in order to keep them from giving the Animorphs up. Jake looks like the walking dead and hasn’t smiled–really smiled–since they failed to save Jake’s parents. Tobias is less human than ever since Rachel left him, and morphs Ax more often than he morphs his old body (his old body is barely fourteen, glaringly young among the others).
Marco and Rachel aren’t dating. Marco is still their tactician and their sense of humor, but their sense of humor is bitter and cutting, and when Rachel kisses him, she bites until his lips bleed and ties his hands with rough cord, he fights her and leaves bruises and cuts. They don’t have a safeword. Rachel needs to feel in control and Marco needs to feel like he’s not the one guiding Jake’s hand on the trigger. It’s a bad system, but God they need it and if anything happens…well, they can just morph it away, and wash each others’ blood from their hands.
