#but still the existence of this assignment in general is making me Suffer woooo

[birlwrites]

alright so, this isn’t quite a question, just terrific appreciation for your work that i feel the need to share.

i’ve been rereading the available chapters of ttdl because it’s my favourite fic at the moment, and i’m just. absolutely amazed with your character and world-building. most fics where regulus does his own thing about the war are more about personal rebellion—which i absolutely love, too—but the politics-heavy take you present in ttdl is so new and so, so interesting. also your characterisation of evan and house rosier as a whole? amazing, incredible, show-stopping, never done before.

i’m also very intrigued about the whole family specialty thing, especially the black’s, and i’m really curious to see if regulus and sirius have different stances on it, or if it’s one thing they somewhat agree on. (i could see sirius just rejecting any and all form of dark arts purely out of spite, but him still having crazily elaborate and intricate knowledge of them is just. yeah.) i’m also generally curious about what their relationship will be like once sirius inevitably gets involved, really.

okay, i lied. i do have a small question, actually. see, i’m just as obsessed with career goals: tyrant, and the past couple of chapters have me absolutely gone with anticipation. so, are we getting some sort of similar situation in ttdl later on? like, all-out warfare in the dorms on an unassuming tuesday night? i would like that very much, i think.

AAAAAAAAAAAA THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! sjfskghsjfjskf i have such a great time with evan and house rosier

i also love the stories in which regulus has more of a personal rebellion!!!!!! (like - literally any fic in which he reaches out to sirius for help, regardless of what that help is, i LOVE him deciding to use the example sirius has given him. i also love him not doing that because he is a stubborn little shit)

the thing driving the premise of this series is that we know from the note in the locket/kreacher's retelling that regulus is clever, determined, protective of people he cares about (to the point of martyrdom), and FULL OF SPITE, and i think that mixture of character traits lends itself to some really bonkers decisions. that and wanting to write a very slytherin regulus and the fact that what he's doing in ttdl could *totally* have happened in canon except the concept of dark arts was not really fleshed out whatsoever which is why i'm doing shitloads of worldbuilding

ANYWAY. i shall proceed through the rest of your ask in order!!

re: regulus and sirius's relationships to the family specialty - the biggest difference is that regulus takes the dangers of it in stride, while sirius Absolutely Does Not. sirius used to be pretty relaxed about the risks, but then arcturus died, and here is why this mattered:

sirius was the new heir to the lordship and like 9 or 10 at the time. he was deemed old enough to have this conversation with orion (especially given his heir status), while regulus was *not*

so sirius got the detailed explanation of how arcturus died. it was a slow slide - he used the family magic too much, and nobody could get him to stop, and he managed to keep living for years but he couldn't hold off the madness with willpower alone

the general theme of this conversation is 'you have to be careful, because you will be lord black one day, and you set an example and ALSO you need to look out for your family because they're your responsibility for things like this'

sirius didn't stop using the family magic right away - he was scared by the conversation, but orion told him he'd be okay as long as he was careful. so he was careful

but he couldn't really stop thinking about it - especially in combination with the knowledge that he and regulus had a double affinity for it, which they figured out when they were about 5 and 6

there was no distinct moment in which sirius decided not to use the family specialty. like, he never committed to that or anything. but he could never come up with a good enough reason to use it at hogwarts, and then at some point he was at home and orion mentioned teaching him something and sirius refused

he cloaked that refusal in language of morality and whatnot because he knew his parents would take it as Gryffindor Word Salad, rather than fear. neither is acceptable but one is at least not too far out of the ordinary

sirius's relationship with dark arts is. really complicated. he's been trying to sort it out for years. the vehement anti-dark sentiment that suffuses gryffindor tower does bother him, because like, he's not evil, and marlene isn't either. and i don't think sirius practices dark arts at all right now because he's afraid of his non-dark friends finding out and he's picking and choosing his battles at the moment

sirius's general attitude towards dark arts is along the lines of 'it's just....... magic.' he doesn't like the villainizing of it and he's painfully aware that he cannot fix that alone, and he may never use his family magic again, but he does wish it wasn't such a bombshell of a topic. sirius does not like hiding. he also doesn't want to lose his entire support system (except marlene but she's not james and she will never be james) and possibly get thrown in azkaban seeing as he's of age and his family sure won't step in to so much as hire a good lawyer, much less network in the wizengamot on his behalf

all of which is to say that when sirius does inevitably find out what regulus is doing, he will be............ bewildered but grudgingly impressed? (the 'bewildered' part is mainly due to 'HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN A BLOOD TRAITOR AND ALSO HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN PLANNING THIS AND ALSO WHAT THE FUCK REGULUS')

afjslghsfhj i think the best way i can describe what their relationship will be is: they were BESTEST FRIENDS when they were little, they both feel abandoned, they are both stubborn, and sirius is way better at articulating all of that than regulus is. which is not to say that either of them is good at it. so there will be a confrontational period. and also a sad period. they have a lot of shit to work through. but also, they know each other SUPER WELL and in some ways they'll pick up like they never left off and then be like '>.> wait a second'

re: warfare in the dorms on an unassuming tuesday night: FJSLGHSHSGGHKFJSKGJ

okay so: i have to confess that i'm not a super detailed outliner (like - i know the turning points and the character arcs and the stuff that has to happen, but i don't usually figure out the specifics of a scene ahead of time? in terms of like, who's there, where it's happening, etc. unless those are plot points), and people are in general a little more pragmatic in ttdl than they are in tyrant. the worldbuilding change in which prefects no longer get their own rooms means that there is unlikely to be a situation like what has just happened in tyrant, with junior death eaters breaking into regulus's room to attack him. HOWEVER...

the temperature is rising in ttdl.

so things WILL get unhinged. as of right now, i don't have a plan for all-out dorm warfare, but i do have a plan for things escalating soon (as in, i'm writing them soon, but i have a bunch of chapters written and not yet posted, so it'll take longer before you see them). and we're only in regulus's 5th year, so there's a lot of room for things to continue to escalate, and there are some junior death eaters who will be at hogwarts next year - whether there are junior death eaters at hogwarts the year after that depends on how good a job regulus does of stamping them out.

but in terms of there being outright fighting in the dungeons between the different factions in the wee hours of the morning? yeah we're coming up on that lol, although it's not going to be quite like how it was in tyrant