Also if you want a modern rhaenicent au idea...rival PTA moms or Dance Moms if you're familiar with that show's structure at all.
okay i know this is the five fun facts prompt but i immediately cracked myself up with:
“alicent, please be serious. the WHOLE bake sale doesn’t need to be gluten free just because your eldest thinks he has celiac.”
“he DOES have celiac. i cannot believe how insensitive you’re being right now, rhaenyra!”
“he ate THREE burgers at my house and was FINE. we can have a gluten free PORTION.”
“why, exactly, are you feeding aegon burgers at your house?”
“christ, alicent, i WASN’T it was a team dinner they bought it themselves!”
i imagine instead of friends to enemies it’s enemies to lovers, meeting as moms with kids that don’t get along with starts them off at odds. alicent and her kids just moved from out of town, where she ran the pta there, but rhaenyra has been in charge of various ptas in this district since her kids were in elementary school, which causes some.... conflicts and differences of opinion.
but i think over time they’d start to realize they’re more alike than not and, importantly, more aligned than not.
i think rhaenyra’s husband (not laenor) left her for a man and alicent’s (not viserys) died, and they’re both starting at place of heartbreak and loneliness, and struggling with single motherhood, and they’re able to help each other a lot through it all.
i wrote the above on my lunch break and thought about this for the rest of my shift so have some more:
maybe if he's not her ex, laenor is rhaenyra's best friend. he has custody of the twins, after laena died he petitioned for it ("sorry rhaenyra, i know he's your uncle" "i love him but you're fine he's a shit dad <3") and goes to a grief group regularly, both for himself for the loss of his sister but also cuz he wants to teach the girls healthy coping mechanisms. one day alicent shows up at the start, and then doesn't even stick around for the intro, but it's enough for laenor to spot her, realize she's going through it(tm) and is probably not as much of a bitch as he and rhaenyra assumed. but he doesn't want to just Tell rhaenyra so he finds other ways to get them to talk to each other lol
(also it's important to me that rhaenyra gets along really well with helaena and that's one of the reasons alicent starts to trust her)
also @topthagomizer and i were also talking about what things are like after their household combines and how chaotic figuring out all of their kids extra curriculars are and the driving schedule which made me laugh thinking about how busy and overly involved all of them would be! and then also thinking about just.... how much of a relief it would be for both of them, not only to have each other but to lessen the burden on both their eldest kids and have slightly less things for them to do since there's another adult around now.
i am SO sure i am going to be thinking about this for ages now so let me know if you have any follow up questions
(and sorry i haven't seen dance moms but i was delighted by this one!)
