#and SICKLE CELL ANEMIA I STILL NEED TO MAKE THE SICLE CELL ANEMIA POST

[chimaerakitten]

Temeraire body horror magic AU you say? 👀👀👀

oooh that one's fun 😆 it sort of grew out of the whole thing where the corps keeps a lot of secrets, some of them more guarded than others. I was wanting to do some magic stuff anyway and was like, what if there was something else thats both extra secret and another reason that aviators don't mix with polite society.

this is also one of the ideas on the list that I actually managed to write a tiny bit for:

"Pray," Laurence said, faltering. He mastered himself and finished in a sharper tone than was appropriate, "explain your meaning." Harcourt and Berkley both blinked at him in silence a moment before Harcourt exclaimed, "Oh, I knew we'd forgotten something!" Having posed the question once, Laurence couldn't very well demand answers again, but luckily Berkley had mercy. Sounding a little strange, he said, "See, having a beast...it rather changes a fellow. More than ah, having a boat in the navy might." Seeing the look on Laurence's face at his calling ships of the line boats and misreading its cause, Berkley rushed on to say. "Not that promotion in other services don't bring changes, mind, only—" Harcourt came to his rescue. "Only, it's rather more literal, with a dragon." And so saying, she loosened her neckcloth, and entirely insensible to Laurence's startled protest tugged her collar open to show him a neat line of bright orange scales running along her collarbone.

the fridge body horror part is that it's a somewhat unpredictable and progressive condition. Aviators tend to die young so for most captains it's not really a problem to have a patch of scales here and there or a sharp tooth or two. Kind of a badge of honor actually. But ah, aviators who live long enough to retire tend to gain reputations as recluses for...reasons.

there's not a lot going on thats overtly magical outside of that but I've got another idea for an AU thats like, "magic is a Known Thing thats illegal for most people but the corps has a dispensation since dragons won't hatch without a sufficient quantity of magic around and the options are either let a bunch of other dragons take the eggs to magical locations (not so great for being able to harness the hatchling) or let the potential captains dabble in magic." That AU may fizzle out or combine with this one or split off into its own thing, I haven't decided yet.