#one day i'll have the modern verse up but lol she can just be her usual heiress self

[sunscess]

" are you certain this is what you want? "

@batcaller liked for a one-liner starter

[imagineitdearies-old]

Ahhh the rhaelicent snippet is feeding me 😂

This here . “Your place was never at his side,” she swore. 😭

I love Alicent because she’s such a complex character. It infuriates me when people try to pigeonhole her as just bad and evil. Crazy to me that’s why I have such a soft spot for aemond I think because he is such a extension of her.

What are your plans after sacrifice and duty? You have any more stories in mind or extensions of this one.

I wanted to drop by on here because your comments can get a bit crazy and the good can be lost in the madness of all the fighting. So I’d rather drop my appreciation here.

Love this story. Love your style of writing. Can’t wait to see how it all wraps up 💜

Regarding this drabble.

Haha I'm so glad! In case you (or someone else) hasn't read it yet, I did post another small snippet a while back too!

Yes, I immediately don't trust anyone who doesn't at least sympathize with Alicent. Like you can villainize her in a fanfic all the live long day, I'll deal (if the rest of it is well-written), but the moment people start blaming her entirely for marrying Viserys or say she hates her children I'm out. Like, we must have watched a different show or something.

My plans once D&S is over are to write 2-3 lucemond one-shots and a few rhaenicent behind-the-scenes moments from the D&S verse! I might do a poll once the fic is done to find out what people want most, but I think it'll probably be around 3-5 scenes of our fav queens :)

Once I take a good enough break from longform fic I'm planning to return though--first with a lucemond fic I'd HOPE to cap at like 6 chapters (with a long sea voyage and Lord of the Tides Lucerys) but we know how that goes for me sometimes 😂 then a modern!rhaenicent fic that's been ruminating in my brain for forever it feels like, which will be pretty long (like D&S length). So basically the whole year is mapped out! lol

Thanks so much anon for your kind words and enthusiasm, it's readers like you that keep me going!! Hopefully my comment section won't be so scary in the future, things seem to have calmed down of late :)

[legendreign-archived]

🤥 LYING 😨 FEARFUL 🖍️ CRAYON for Aomi, Saya, Masaru and Midorima!

𝐎𝐂 𝐄𝐌𝐎𝐉𝐈 𝐀𝐒𝐊𝐒! / Still Accepting! / @tsukuharuko

🤥 LYING - are they good liars? do they have tells to show they’re lying?

( Ironically, Saya, Masaru, and Shintarō are good liars although they can be blunt as well! Chantelle is also a liar because Pisces people tend to appear polite but they talk behind people's back. For Saya, she may sound a little hesitant when she is telling a lie but since in modern days, she has a reserved nature in canon, people may think she's just being awkward. One time when Chantelle lied when I was writing with @sportbaes , she had a lot of pauses while talking lol. Masaru may act a little exaggerated when he is lying / acting but I'm sure his acting skills will improve since in his main verse, he is an undercover demon slayer. As for Shintarō, he's mastered the art of having a stoic face so he's the hardest to detect he is lying except when Kazunari Takao ( tagging my dear Takao in here @ervaurem ) tells the truth about him being shy or actually wanting to wanting to be with the others and he goes "No!" That's the only time he's obviously lying.

😨 FEARFUL - when scared, do they go into “flight” or “fight”?

Saya's reaction to fight or flight has been answered here!

Masaru is a fighter so his reaction in most verses is to fight, especially since in most verses, he's been trained to.

Beneath that sweet demeanor that Chantelle has, lies a woman who becomes competitive and cunning on the court. Dolphins are evil and she has the wild instincts of the Bottlenose dolphin and she's earned them by fighting against people on the basketball court with her skills even if she does get a little scared in the beginning. She won't fight back when her elder sister, Constance, is bullying her at school. Which while writing with you Jenny, my brain started to headcanon that Shintarō once witnessed it which is why he no longer not considers her as a friend because of her blood type. I'll eventually have to drabble out the bullying and it'll be part of my Senshi no Basuke crossover.

Shintarō wasn't much of a fighter growing up. He's probably gotten bullied for carrying lucky items and I headcanon that my oc sister for him, Mika, had to call his bullies out and catch them in the act for them to stop. It wouldn't surprise me if seeing Mika's bravery inspired him as he got older and with his lucky item, he's fearless and depending how high Cancers are on the astrological ranking, he's unstoppable. Look at the time the Generation of Miracles encountered a bike thief in junior high, he just thought rationally, took Atsushi Murasakibara's ice pops, and did a three pointer that he knew would hit the thief. In Replace Plus, guy just used his Daruma to throw it at the guy who tried to throw a cup at Satsuki Momoi. As long as he has something to use for three-pointers, he can fight. I think he would only be afraid if his lucky item wasn't around since his bad luck is out to give him painful karmic retribution.

🖍️ CRAYON - what advice would you give to them?

For canon! Saya, I want to advise her to not see all Chiropterans as evil. Some humans have good and bad in them too, it's the same with her kind.

For Masaru... I'm sure he can advise me better since he's a lawyer but he does need to cool off with his jealousy.

For Chantelle, I want to tell her to not try to aim for acceptance wit her her elder sisters who hate her but she's so giving that she'll probably not listen to me anyways and somehow she and her sisters will reach an understanding but I'll have to figure that out in the future.

For Shintarō, I want to tell him to not be so closed off since there are people he can trust but he probably thinks of me and Chantelle as foolishly kind and too trusting anyways and he has gone through pain. Hopefully as he grows and does meet people who he can care for, his character will grow and lo and behold, actually apologize to others properly as @ervaurem once mentioned! )

[adamsvanrhijn]

Ooh for the director's cut, I'd love to hear about the Jan 12, 1930 letter from "strange how I fit into you (there's a distance erased with the greatest of ease)"--if you need to break it up smaller, please do! I don't know if that's too long :p (or if there's something more interesting in that fic you're dying to talk about, I could have picked anything from it so please feel free to take this as a Star)

it is not nearly as long as it could be!! :-3 i think i can do all of it; let’s see! under a cut regardless. :-3 

link to fic: strange how I fit into you (there's a distance erased with the greatest of ease)

yes we use the entire title every time....yes we do

Jan 12, 1930

Dear Richard,

While I wait for you to telephone I thought I would write you a letter anyway. I know I've kept you waiting, and I'm sorry to have done. I've been busy, but you know what that's like. 

the scenario here, of course, is that they have scheduled a telephone call (either for this night or on a recurring basis; it’s up to the reader until we get to that point in the other fic in this series, which is a ways out) within the next hour or so & thomas has nothing to do until then so he decides to write. self-explanatory! :-3

the other element is that they don’t write every day or even necessarily on a regular basis anymore, by this point in their relationship. it’s been about 2.5 years since they met and they’ve been going strong, but they’ve also (richard especially) got lives and jobs they have to take care of when they can’t be together, and those can be fairly consuming. it’s right after christmas in this scenario after a very bad winter, and the crawleys are going through a lot! (almost exactly two months earlier: Here in Downton we're not being very optimistic about anything at the moment.) so that’s affecting thomas more than the already-busy time of year normally would be.  there is a Lot happpening at the abbey (which will be Gotten To in the fic that prequels/coincides with this one). we’re entering the great depression. work wise he’s been in a better place before. mental health wise he’s been in a better place before. but, he also some good things going for him too, and those are very much things he shares with richard, so.

Speaking of keeping people waiting, your mum told me to tell you to write her back. I'm sure I'll say this to you in an hour but in case I forget there it is. I told her that this is a very busy time of year for you, and she said that when she worked for Queen Victoria they didn't have any of the modern conveniences you do and she still managed to find the time to keep correspondence with her dear mother and father. So, you have no excuse. 

i just.......... love richard’s mom lol, love writing variations on her... in this verse she was a royal dresser herself in the ‘80s before she quit to marry mr ellis, yorkshire farmboy childhood sweetheart of her dreams, and have five beautiful & talented children (whom we shall get to shortly). you’re getting OC backstory in this commentary haha. 

now, the thing that Matters here for the reader though is that thomas was not only With Richard’s Mother, but that he was without richard present, and that also richard’s mum is close enough to & trusts thomas enough to bother him to harp at her son for him... because she understands that richard’s going to talk to his boyfriend more than he’s going to talk to her. and for thomas that’s huge, but it’s not new to him; the switch happened somewhere in ‘29. but the reader doesn’t get to see that, they only get to see this, so it’s like, epistolary in media res haha.

i’m actually curious to know when the click point in this letter was for people, because it’s been mentioned a few times in comments & in conversations i’ve had since then...! 

this letter is really like, a foil to the sept 23 1928 letter, when richard & thomas visit richard’s family together and then thomas writes to him while he’s on his way back. in jan 1930, richard is in norfolk doing his job, hasn’t been north in months except passing through it to get to balmoral castle, etc, so the vibe is different, but i wanted to convey that this has been going on for a while -- thomas is seeing richard’s family on his own on a semi-regular basis, and they’re inclusive of him to the point where they treat him as an extension-of-richard (in the thoughtful, romance-supporting way, not the not-your-own-person way).

Everybody else says hello and that they miss you and wish you could have come home for Christmas. Surely some of them have put this to you in writing by now but I am passing on the message anyway.

Other notable things from Sunday dinner that I'll try not to ramble on about once I've got you on the telephone:

and so same thing here, really!

worth noting that this day was thomas’s christmastide day off. (despite being three weeks after, but again. stuff goin on with the crawleys.)  

thomas is being a little flippant here... ascribing a different emotion to the thing he’s doing than the one he actually has. the fact that the ellises trust & value him is huge for him and he’s taking the responsibility to be the middleman very seriously, but he’s uncomfortable letting on that he feels that way, so he’s sort of downplaying both in put this to you in writing by now And try not to ramble on about. like, richard is Definitely gonna ask him to tell him all about how his family is and he knows it, but he’s also worried about getting any of it wrong/leaving things out etc so he’s putting it down on paper, too. which has the advantage of helping him organise his thoughts before they call! but the lessening-his-own-role-in-this thing is certainly a Thing indeed.

richard knows what he means by it at this point though. :-)

I got to hold Ruthie. Dick, in my forty years of life I have seen some very sweet babies, and you just may have the honour of being uncle to the sweetest of them all. I hope you can come meet her soon. It doesn't feel right that I should get to see your niece before you do.

 this is another integrating-thomas-into-the-family thing and also a Giving Thomas Children To Love thing haha. ruthie is of course the newest leaf on the ellis family tree! she’s the daughter of one of richard’s sisters (dorothy, sister 2/3, unmentioned in this fic because she doesn’t bother her brother about doing his laundry for him), she’s a november scorpio, she’s VERY sweet and thomas got a lump in his throat while he was holding her. 

those last two sentences... some very sincere thoughts there being expressed in plain language. like, on the one hand this is amazing for thomas and he’s finally, finally got an actual family to feel a part of. on the other hand it is missing a very big piece that is important to him and to everybody else, and thomas has such a strong sense of justice that kind of comes out here. both in the sense of thinking he’s not worthy of what he’s being given (a chronic issue of this thomas) / not knowing his place 100%, and, wanting richard to have what he’s entitled to but can’t access because of the position he’s in. and that’s not a comfortable feeling for thomas, because it’s something he’s powerless to, so there’s a reason he doesn’t dwell on it.

Teddy is about as tall as I am, which I do not remember as being the case the last time I saw him. This is what happens when first footmen breed. Maybe by the time you see him he'll be as tall as you are, which, as I have said in the past, is not actually that much taller than me. Just so we're crystal clear.

teddy is the oldest of richard’s nieces/nephews! he’s the first son of his older brother, who Was A First Footman & he’s like 17 here. again this is really about like, establishing that thomas seeing richard’s family is ongoing and that he’s serving kind of as the link between richard and his own family in a way. they’re really integrating as a couple. which is a BIG part of this fic that matters more once they move in together a few years after this bit but right now we’re laying the ground work for it.

aaaaaaaaand teasing of course. :-3

You must have received yours weeks ago already, but Hannah gave me the scarf she made. I can't believe you managed to keep this a secret from me. I am very impressed with you. Luckily, I did not cry in front of anybody in your family when I opened it but I felt like I could have.

matching handmade scarves!!! yes!!! i guess the thing here is just more thomas-being-an-honorary-ellis stuff but also showing how richard works within his own family... hannah, sister 3/3, worked with him on figuring out/applying what thomas likes, so that’s part one, and part two is that like, she was Expecting to see thomas and to give him his gift in person, whereas she mailed richard’s to get to him in time for christmas. and thomas is aware of that, and for him her waiting to see him and physically put the thing in his hands means a lot and so there’s some overwhelming emotions going on there, as he mentions. 

I don't know what you told May and John, but I had only been in the house five minutes when…

…

being sister & brother in law, respectively. i..... wanna get into the thing going on here elsewhere in the series so i’ll let it be for now. sorry !

…well, it is five minutes past. Knowing you I am assuming you'll be calling in the next 2-6 minutes, so here is as good a place as any to stop.

richard stops keeping track of time the second his majesty king george the 5th goes to bed at 11:10pm on the dot and so is pretty much always fashionably late, but thomas has figured out how to adjust and it is something they can tease each other about + share as an injoke. and not only is it teasing but it’s also Correct, in this case at least! :-)

I wish you had been there today. I am thinking of you.

Your loving,

T.B.

and this is just an emotional but understated letter closing from thomas, expressing the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth, etc. :-3 

i’m getting sleepy and now i’m kinda worried this isn’t gonna make sense / is too repetitive etc haha so if you’re dying to know smth else just lmk :’-)