Rise Up, Oh Heart, For There is Another Battle to Win

wildehacked asked: UH tell me everything about the star wars au immediately

So this is the OTHER Star Wars AU.  It was the second variant I came up with and, while it ruins fewer childhoods (this is the one with Prince Cesare of Alderaan and Lucrezia as the first of a new Jedi Order), I feel like it’s much truer to the characters.  Plus Lucrezia still gets a lightsaber.  This time with 2x the Dark Side!  It’s been a million years because HA I forgot this was done and I didn’t want to work on it anymore.

Cesare, no last name because slaves don’t have them, is a very small boy on Tatooine when a pair of Jedi Masters and their padawans show up with a child-queen. Cesare is only nine, but nine is already nearly an adult among the slave quarters, and he brings the whole lot of them back to his mother before they can get in trouble.  Queen Bonadeo is shy.  She doesn’t matter in this story.  One of the padawans, a fierce woman named Sforza, is almost through with her training, but the other is a pretty girl like a shaft of sunlight, just a little younger than Cesare.  The Jedi, Padawan Sforza’s Master and Master Farnese, want Cesare to come with them, to be trained as one of them, and he goes for the sake of the golden-haired girl who promises a better life.

When they return to the Core, they are greeted by a man just beginning to pass middle age, steel-grey hair and a steady, trustworthy voice, who is very interested in Cesare.  Cesare has never been interesting to anyone before.  It is incredible.  The man introduces himself as Senator Borgia, and tells Cesare to keep in contact. Cesare does.

Padawan Sforza becomes Cesare’s Master after her own Master is murdered.  She and Master Farnese could not be more different—Caterina, which Cesare is forbidden to call her, is fierce and military, while Giulia is gentle and fluid and diplomatic—but their opposing styles are beautifully complementary, and they are often put on missions together. Cesare comes to know the golden girl as Lucrezia, and they are best friends, as like as two halves of a coin, and as they grow up, they train together, fight together, live together, until the entire Temple speaks of them in a single breath, as Cesare-and-Lucrezia.  

Lucrezia is the only one who knows about how often Cesare and Master Sforza clash, about the times that they shout at each other until Cesare is screaming and Master Sforza is all but glowing with rage.  If Cesare cannot control his emotions, cannot master this lightsaber form, cannot do this simple Force trick, cannot be a Jedi, Caterina shouts, then what did her master die for? Lucrezia is furious—she is shaking with it, she has never been so angry in her entire life.  She destroys Giulia in a sparring match and is advanced to her Knighthood trials at sixteen, the youngest Knight in living memory. And living memory stretches back quite far, with Master Innocent being several centuries old.

That’s not quite true.  One other person knows.  Senator Borgia.  He does not think Cesare is a failure, he does not think Cesare was an ill investment, he thinks Cesare is bright and clever and strong and full of potential.  Cesare tells him everything.

Keep reading

…….26. I’m not sure why. But it’s true.

*notes down age 26 as next major milestone*

Oddly enough I believe it.

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.

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.

wildehacked asked: OKAY I have an 18th century terrible medicine question. Do you know if there was a specific place on the body doctors would blister? Like, would a person be more likely to have cupping scars on their back, or their ribs, or? did they just not discriminate much?

Back and chest were the most popular in men, generally there was an attempt for symmetry because [some bullshit about balance]. In women, the back only because breasts got in the way. Arms and legs were generally uncommon because there’s a lot of movement there and a wide expanse of skin was better for minimizing extraneous damage. Also they DID actually know the abdomen was full of important squishy stuff so they were more hesitant to, you know, burn someone seriously there.

wildehacked asked: YOU'RE WRITING MICHELETTO FIC??????? :D :D :D

My thesis is close enough to being done that I’m granting myself some down time to write historical fic, so here is a preview.

“Am I, Micheletto?” he asked distantly.

“Are you what?”

“Am I your lord?” Cesare said, and turned on his heel until he was studying the line of Micheletto’s profile.  “Are you my servant?”

Micheletto tilted his head to observe Cesare out of the corner of his eye, the unobtrusive regard that had served him so well.  With no indication of hesitation, he said, “I am your instrument, my lord.”

It’s actually from Cesare’s POV which I somewhat regret because, A, it means that I do not get to deal with how intense Micheletto is about literally everything regarding Cesare and, B, I sadly do not get to talk about how hot Cesare is.  Much.  But also it had to be from Cesare’s POV because I had to be able to talk about Micheletto’s scars and Claiming and how Micheletto is Cesare’s favored weapon who wears the heraldic sigil of his lord’s house in his lash marks.