Ridley Scott: I made a film about two rival officers constantly duelling throughout and in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars, and now I've actually done a film about Napoleon!
Me: Great! Could you also do a film about Baron Dominique Jean Larrey, a vital innovator in European battlefield surgery and triage, often considered the first military surgeon; who pioneered the ambulance volantes ("Flying ambulances") to quickly transport wounded men from the battlefield, effectively creating a forerunner of the modern MASH units; co-led the team that performed one of the first accurately recorded pre-anaesthetic mastectomies in Western medicine; was spotted helping wounded men while under heavy fire during the Battle of Waterloo by the Duke of Wellington who purposefully ordered for his soldiers not to fire in Larrey's direction; and when captured by the Prussians after the battle was about to be executed on the spot when he was recognised by one of the German surgeons, who pled for his life because he had saved the life of Field Marshall Blücher's son some years earlier?
1814 portrait miniature of Lieutenant John Trumbull Ray, by artist Andrew Robertson. A Peninsular War veteran of the Napoleonic Wars in the British Army, he served under Lt. Gen. Sir Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, and was wounded first during the Siege of Badajoz and, later, at the Battle of Salamanca.
Lmao Sam this is literally the plot to the Nandopoleon AU this exists in my head 😭😭
So Fernando is Napoleon, right? And Napoleon had two wives, right? Mark is his first love(i.e. Josephine), older than him, and who he is deeply in love with but has to divorce because Mark can't really provide anything(i.e. no political advantages, infertile, etc.) So Fernando needs to make a political marriage. And who does he marry! The young son of one of the most prominent monarchies in Europe: Lance, Archduke of Austria.
Lance is very resistant to this at first of course. All grumpy like, "Dad, why do you want me to marry the guy who just defeated us in four separate wars. He's literally beaten us since practically my birth, and now I have to marry him? Yuck." Both him and Fernando come into the marriage with bad expectations, Lance despising Fernando for all he represents and Fernando viewing Lance as just a means to an end. But Lance fits in to the kingdom very well and Fernando comes to adore him and pamper him all the time. And suddenly Lance to his father is all like, "the Emperor is great actually 🥰 I was so wrong 🥰"
Meanwhile Mark is just forced to the side, and has to watch while Fernando's love for him diminishes, and his love for Lance grows. They still talk a lot and spend time together, but Mark is constantly sniping at Fernando about his new "wife."
I think Lance would stick by Fernando's side during his exile and subsequent return. He grows to be more loyal to Fernando than to his own family and original kingdom. And even though Fernando originally just views him as a means to an end, he eventually lets Lance fight alongside when they are eventually drawn back into war. Maybe in this AU, he actually wins 😔
not my dad cheering me up after I started crying by saying "hey, if you get your homework done, we can hang Napoleon!" 😭😭 he means we can hang my painting of Napoleon in my room but why did he say it like that, it sounds like we're going to execute him