bakerstreet | Young guns of history

Young guns of history

The Historical Romance (AU) Meme

(also including high fantasy, steampunk, and sci-fi because why not)

There's nothing quite like a good historical setting to take a tale of sordid romance to the next level. Perhaps it's the setting that seems so separate from our own time, thus making the whole thing feel more exotic or epic. Besides, the codes of attitude! The costumes! The traditions! The disease and early death!

Uhhh, did I mention the costumes?

HOW TO PLAY

This is a meme for shipping in historical (and also fantastical by historically based) settings. Pretty self-explanatory.
Post with your character, information, and preferences.
There are TWO things you can RNG here, because everybody loves some RNG. First is time period, second is prompt. Two for the price of one.
Comment to other people.
Be kind to others, play nice, etc.

Time Periods:

Prehistory
Egypt
Greece & Rome
Mythic & Legendary
Viking
Ancient Asia
Scottish Highlands
Celts
Medieval & Middle Ages
High Fantasy
Camelot/Arthurian
French Revolution
Tudors
Regency
Victorian/Industrial Revolution
Steampunk
Wild West
Civil War
Roaring Twenties
1940s
1950s
1960s
The Space Age Future

Prompts:

Spoils of War: You've been taken of your home and made either an unwilling companion or, even worse, a slave. Yet something is beginning
Nefarious Intentions: Whether it be from jealousy or a desire to ruin someone, you want to make this person - perhaps with an equal or higher station - desire you, then you will destroy them.
Inherited You: Often times, in the past, positions came along with the spouse of the deceased or disposed.
Must Be Married: In order to get your inheritance, secure your title, produce an heir, or please a parent, you have to marry someone. Anyone will do, won't they?
Arranged: This marriage is one you didn't even get to pick. Hopefully, you'll at least like the person.
Servitude: You live to serve, but you also love the one you serve, perhaps from afar.
Love at First Sight: Okay, admittedly, you have't seen many people because this is before easy travel, but you know this person is the one. What can you do about it?
Learn to Love: The two of you are thrust together. The most you can do is hope to love each other in time.
Promised to Another: You two are head over heels, and things couldn't be better...except for the fact that one of you is supposed to belong to somebody else.
Seduction for Gain: In a time where women and the underclass were treated very poorly, there's no shame in trying to advance your station. Use whatever means necessary.
Courtly Love: Between a knight and a noble, a bard and a noble, a king and his lady, etc etc etc. The kind of love spoken of in ballads.
The One Above All Else: The one who got away...or the one who was never yours. Maybe they are a beloved friend, a special person you must protect, or that flickering green light far from you, but you love them all the same.
For the Man Who Has Everything: You are powerful, strong, well-connected; you have everything except for someone to share it with. Perhaps that will change.
Rescue the Maiden Fair: Or the "man" fair. Surely they will show gratitude.
To Honor You: Maybe if you win a great victory, slay a dragon, or invent a combustion engine, ~~senpai~~ your beloved will notice you.
Cultural Differences: When uniting two cultures through a marriage or union, culture clashes are bound to occur.
Class Difference: The poor street urchin who loves the child of the bourgeois or the serf who longs after the lord's only daughter. Is there anything more heartbreaking?
Healing the Broken: Life is hard, and perhaps one of you has bore the brunt of it. It falls on the other to bring life back into their life.
Met Before: You knew this person long ago. Have your feelings for them changed?
Courtship: You will do this the proper way, with meek handholding and chaperoned dances. Or you may have no other choice.
Secrets and Magic: Your romance is further muddled by the existence of strange creatures and the magical forces. Maybe one of you is even a magician, but you can't let anyone know, even the person you adore.
Torn Apart by War: On the same side or Romeo and Juliet-ing it, the constant fighting is ruining your war.
Forbidden: You took an oath, a vow, or some other kind of promise not to love. Before your eyes, that's all shattering.
Rule by My Side: You want power and you want this person to be your consort, and will do anything to get both.
I've Grown Accustomed to Your Face: PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, or: I hated you but now I've grown to want you like no other.
I'll Wait for You: You will wait for the person you love. Back in the day, this was pretty serious, considering the death rate from the plague. And dysentery.
A Promise Made: You told them you would make them yours and nothing would stand between you. You intend to make good on that promise, no matter what goddesses you have to face, monsters you have to kill, or political situations you must maneuver.
First Contact: You are the first envoy of your kingdom or race. Making a good impression and not breaking any hearts are both good calls.
1.21 Gigawatts: "But I'm not even from this time period!" Instead, you're the modern guy or gal who fell through time. You must fit in...and not break everything by falling in love with the knight or samurai.
WILDCARD

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Marcus is from AD 140, Imperial Rome.]

{{1880/90's but I can flex him to 1870 (his days at Oxford) or, in an AU where he survives being in a story about Wildean Love, up to maybe the 1920's? He has a preference for younger men(early 20's), especially his models, and for affairs more romantic than sexual...though he might enjoy the company of a like-minded man his age (late 30s?) or a little older, or might be gently lured into bed by a very kind and patient soul.}}

{{nebulously late 19th c. but I could also bring her forward to the 1920's-ish if desired. She's all about whirlwind romances, she likes to fall head over heels for her ~muses~, often showering them with gifts and extravagant gestures.}}

{{1880s/1890s-ish, though she's technically a vampire and I'd love to play her all the way up to the 30's, though the earlier we are, the less vampire-like she is so if you want something very low fantasy, I can pretty much leave it out. Open to men and ladies. She's a little shy and somewhat married to her work, but she's not without a little desire for companionship, nor bereft of passion!}}

[I mean, usually I suggest Tesla, but...]

{{1920's/1930's socialite who steps out on her husband and prowls low nightclubs and speakeasies in search of trouble."Romance" is a strong word, "white-hot affairs that burn everyone involved" might be better. Men only.}}

[And, well...]

No one is especially surprised to see Livvy Ashburn at this party without Leslie Ashburn, the promising young lawyer who had made the mistake of hitching his wagon to the wrong mare. Leslie usually came home late from the office with just enough time to see his wife headed out the door, painted like a dockside frail and wrapped in silk dresses at clung to her thighs and showed the entire ivory line of her back.

But what was she to do? She wasn't going to sit around all evening while he worked or read the paper or sat and listened to the radio because they had nothing to talk about. She had nothing in particular to say to him and the only pleasure she got out of his conversation was when she could bait him into a fight about her spending or her blatant infidelities or whatever embarrassing thing she'd said or done while she was drunk or dizzy off pills or snow. He always gave up before the fight got really
good, so she stopped trying.

Instead, she was leaning, listless as a cat, on the plinth of a tacky bronze statue with a saucer of champagne hanging from her painted fingertips. Funny how one either had to go to the very top or the very bottom of the social ladder to find a drink in this city. In this case the top, surrounded by crystal and silver and women who smacked their husbands when they caught them staring. She'd long since lost any shame in who she was or how she conducted herself, or indeed to feel much of anything at all, her gaze raking through the faces in the crowd in search of literally anything to ease her fatal boredom.

For his part, he walks about the party as if he owns the place. It's an act, but it's a perfected one. He's not the life of the party, oh no - but he's the one people want to talk to. The charming one; never too much, never really giving up much of himself, though people don't notice it much.

The tuxedo is bespoke, and elegant. Spotless.

"Ah," he said, taking a martini off the tray of a passing waiter. "Why thank you very much."

A ten dollar bill disappeared into the man's jacket pocket. That was another side of it - always be generous. It never hurt the reputation; and it made people talkative, which was of tremendous use in the other facet of his life.

Has she seen that one before? Her eyes tracked the moneybags with the martini. She wracked her brain, that precious ledger of names and faces, these hideous amusements. Lamont Cranston, but there wasn't a lot she knew beyond that.

Well then...

She knocked back her champagne and detached herself from her perch and crossed the room, snatching a martini from that tray as she moved into his orbit.

"Well, hello there."

His memory flips up a card instantly, and an assessment. But none of that reaches his face, which is carefully pleasant.

"Well, hello. Enjoying the party?"

"Mm." She glances at their glittering surroundings with a feline expression of ennui. "It passes the time, doesn't it?" She sips her martini. "And you, Mister Cranston?" He seems to chat a little with everyone, but doesn't linger. Perhaps a man like herself, drifting through all the hollow glamor of it all.

"It passes the time," he replied, with a soft sort of smile. "And please, my friends call me Lamont, and tonight is entirely too dry for anything but."

"As you wish, Lamont." Her painted lips twitch into a sharp smile that looks more like cold triumph than pleasure. "Olivia Ashburn, but I suppose in the spirit of fairness you'll have to call me Livvy." She says, raising her martini in a gesture of toast before she tips her head back to swallow the whole thing in a single smooth motion.

"Livvy," he repeated, watching that motion. That was easy even by his standards. He held up a hand, summoning a waiter back over.

"Let's get you suitably equipped once again. Can't have you going without, can we?"

"Aren't you sweet?" She says, handing her empty glass to a waiter. "Though I think I might be gasping for a cigarette before too long. You could keep me company?" She flashes another one of her cold smiles, like a cat with a new toy.

"I could absolutely do that," he replied, with genial charm.

Of course, he knew her, and her reputation. But there were larger questions in play. Such as who she knew on the...well, other side of the divide, as it were. The weed of crime bore strange fruit, after all. It never hurt to know who she knew.

And who that might lead to.

"It does just so happen I have a light on me, after all."

If he wanted a pretty gilded thread to follow to the shadiest citizens of this fair city, Livvy Ashburn was a sure bet. She'd been seen in some fairly disreputable company, clinging to like a long white mink around the necks of crime kingpins and their feckless sons in theater-boxes and casinos. To say nothing of what kinds of back-rooms and back-seats she's been in with all kinds of cutthroats, cutpurses and criminal elements.

"I like a man who comes prepared." She says, taking a fresh glass and heading for the cold vastness of the french doors and out onto a balcony. They were alone and she went to lean a hip against the rail, looking down at the city below. The call of the void fluttered just behind her ribs and for half a moment she giggled and swayed at the edge before turning and leaning towards him, a slim white cigarette between her fingers.

"Good of your to join me." She says, dreamily. "I do so abhor being alone with my thoughts."

And a lighter appeared in his hands, a touch more dramatically than it had to.

"Oh, I'm sure you do your thoughts a disservice," he replied, snapping the lid shut when she was finished. He, perhaps curiously, did not light one himself. "I'm sure that pretty head of yours is just full of all sorts of delightful secrets."

"Oh, do you think so?" She laughs, taking a deep drag. "There's some who would tell you I can't keep my trap shut, y'know?" She looks down off the balcony, exhaling tremulously. "It's just jolly good fun, you know, just saying whatever the fuck you're thinking while everybody else just goes about pretending."

"I'm, uh, not exactly the usual," he replied, airily. "And well, you've certainly found a way to break out of the old societal rulebook - and so grandly, too."

He stepped closer, looking over the edge himself, seeing very different things in the darkness.

"So are you trying to be a black sheep? A bête noire, perhaps?"

"Trying?" She arches a pencil-thin eyebrow at him. "You don't think some of us are just born bad? Ask anybody in that room there and that's what they'll say. I don't care, of course. I think it's funny. I'd rather be terrible than bored." Her eyes glitter beneath the city lights and there's something feverish there for a moment. "Of course, now you've been seen with me, so..." She turns to pace along the rail, dress trailing on the floor, the back so plunging he can see nearly all of the long white line of her back.

He chuckled at that, gesturing expansively.

"You're uh, maybe not aware of this, but my reputation isn't exactly..." he tiled his head from side to side. "Not the best."

"Though it doesn't prevent the people who whisper from coming to my home and drinking my alcohol, apparently."

Some are born to evil. Others are born to flit around its flame, those without purpose, those without remorse. Some can be redeemed - others will burn in perdition's flame - in one life or the other. Which, indeed, are you?

She's like a frail moth flirting with whatever flame seems like to scorch her. There's a bruise on her back, just below her sharp shoulder and is not from her hapless drip of a husband.

If he were to ask, she'd say she can't be redeemed and she wouldn't be interested anyway. At least the fire made her feel something; being saved would be so boring.

"Really? You must have some skeletons buried deep in your closet, then."

His brand of redemption came with a very definite price. And, usually, a significant amount of danger.

"A few of them, I'm sure. We should compare them sometime, see if we've got a matched set."