#mannafics

[mannatea]

Something Beautiful, a Rose of Versailles fanfic

Chapter 23/50 Current Word Count: 201,040 words Summary: With the start of a revolution putting their safety at risk, Oscar and André flee to England where they hope to build a new life for themselves. Pairing/Characters: Oscar/André, Bernard, Rosalie, Original Characters Warnings: Mild sex scene. Extra Info: Sequel to Say It's Possible. Rating: E Genre: Romance, friendship, angst

Notes and behind-the-scenes stuff under the cut.

I don't have many notes for this chapter because, once again, it's pretty self-explanatory (and this is a rather short chapter to begin with, being just 6,688 words long).

I think Oscar is very much susceptible to the "I talked about this thing happening so much I convinced myself it would happen" sequence of events, so she is of course disappointed in a way that surprises her.

Ultimately, what I wanted to portray in this chapter is Oscar's...not mixed feelings, exactly, but that inner conflict. If she wants a child she does have to start trying Right Now (basically); she's had years to think about it, but never really let herself think about if she wanted it for her own sake because the timing was so bad she couldn't let herself imagine it.

While they're not in an ideal position to have children, that is mostly due to the length of André's employment; in many other respects, this is a great time and place to have children: they have the space and privacy, André is employed and has relatively easy work and will be home at night, and Oscar isn't busy. If they're going to do it, it is more or less a "now or never" sort of situation.

THAT SAID, having children is obviously a very permanent choice, and I wanted to give that the weight it deserves. The idea is nice, the concept is nice, but is the reality? Oscar at least knows it will not be easy and makes the effort in this chapter to consider whether it's really what she wants or just some romanticized fantasy that exists in her head.

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Newspaper articles will come up a lot in this story (as I'm sure you can imagine; they are OA's primary source of information), and one of the most important things to note about newspapers in this time period is that they did not have headlines in the modern sense. A "headline" is really just the "stand-out" text, often the first sentence. Newspaper articles were only separated by lines and while they did seek to catch attention/eyes with that first sentence, sometimes, there was often not much to separate one article from another, save a line.

Due to this, you kind of have to read everything to make sure you don't miss anything important!

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Now that a decision has been made, we will have to see how it turns out for our favorite characters. 🥺 Of course, I know the answer to that (I'm 530,000 words into the story, now), but you don't. 😆

So I'll see you again next week! 💕

We're also looking at a total of probably 60 chapters, but I don't want to update the story until I have that final count. But you will see that number go up since I'm 2/3 of the way done writing Ch57.

[mannatea]

Something Beautiful, a Rose of Versailles fanfic

Chapter 24/58 Current Word Count: 210,928 words Summary: With the start of a revolution putting their safety at risk, Oscar and André flee to England where they hope to build a new life for themselves. Pairing/Characters: Oscar/André, Bernard, Rosalie, Original Characters Warnings: Sex scene. Extra Info: Sequel to Say It's Possible. Rating: E Genre: Romance, friendship, angst

Notes and behind-the-scenes stuff under the cut.

This is basically Oscar Is Impatient: The Chapter. 😂 Of course, this should surprise no one. She’s exactly that kind of person where she’s not going to try to prevent pregnancy, but then tries at every opportunity to get pregnant—and despairs when it doesn’t happen right away!

I do feel really bad for her, though, to be honest. She wants this more than she can articulate and is scared to hope—because ultimately, she does struggle with vulnerability, and what is hope but letting yourself be vulnerable?

She tells herself to chill and we know already that she’s not very good at that, but the effort matters. Getting pregnant can take a long time, and the cycle of extreme highs and lows is exhausting, so letting herself try to enjoy the process for what it is, at least for now, removes some of the pressure.

And while it’s true that the only person putting that pressure on her is her, it’s not as if she can help herself.

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Here's a cheval mirror, by the way (this one is French, from around 1790):

[mannatea]

Something Beautiful, a Rose of Versailles fanfic

Chapter 30/58 Current Word Count: 270,993 words Summary: With the start of a revolution putting their safety at risk, Oscar and André flee to England where they hope to build a new life for themselves. Pairing/Characters: Oscar/André, Bernard, Rosalie, Original Characters, Alain Warnings: None Extra Info: Sequel to Say It's Possible. Rating: E Genre: Romance, friendship, angst

Very short notes/behind-the-scenes stuff under the cut:

Oscar and André are a little behind on the news out of France, so it ended up getting kind of info-dumped in, here.

The aristocrats that were arrested under Lafayette's orders is referring to the Day of Daggers, on 28 February 1791. The very basic background of this event is:

Municipality voted to restore the dungeons of the Château de Vincennes to house more prisoners.

A rumor started staying there was a secret underground passage between the Tuileries and the Château.

People suspected the restoration was a conspiracy to allow King Louis XVI to flee France in secret.

Workmen went to demolish the prison with the goal of preventing Louis from escaping.

Lafayette led a contingent of the National Guard to Vincenes to quell the riot there, but with so much of the Guard away from the Tuileries, many nobles were worried about the safety of King Louis XVI.

Nobles flocked by the hundreds to the Tuileries armed with concealed weapons like daggers to defend the king, but remaining officers thought this was a counter-revolution, and Lafayette returned to disarm them.

Louis XVI asked them to lay down their weapons, promising they would be returned the next day. But the weapons were confiscated and sold by the soldiers.

Long-term, this caused a lot of upset and confusion. The nobles were there to defend the king, but because they were arrested and their weapons confiscated, it put fuel on the fire of the assumption that they actually planned to take the king away as a counter-revolution measure.

Really unfortunate turn of events.

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Mirabeau was kind of a piece of shit, and I would say his portrayal early in the manga is generous. He was pretty well-known to suck as a person.

He ended up rather trusted, and even revered through the start of the French Revolution, and died on 2 April 1791 in Paris from pericarditis (inflammation of the fibrous sac that surrounds the heart). Apparently his death hit a lot of people very hard, especially the Jacobin Club.

He was later branded a traitor to the Revolution (after his secret dealings with the king were uncovered), but historians sometimes argue that he was not the traitor he was accused posthumously of being, as he did not compromise on his political beliefs and mainly tried to keep building a bridge between the revolutionaries and the monarchy.

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Thanks for reading. I'll see you guys again next week. <3

[mannatea]

Something Beautiful, a Rose of Versailles fanfic

Chapter 29/58 Current Word Count: 260,549 words Summary: With the start of a revolution putting their safety at risk, Oscar and André flee to England where they hope to build a new life for themselves. Pairing/Characters: Oscar/André, Bernard, Rosalie, Original Characters, Alain Warnings: None Extra Info: Sequel to Say It's Possible. Rating: E Genre: Romance, friendship, angst

Short notes/behind-the-scenes bits under the cut:

I’ve been trying for some weeks to think of what to post for notes for the last two chapters. Honestly, I don’t think these chapters need notes; they speak well enough for themselves.

So I’ll keep this short.

Thank you for reading. I know it wasn’t easy to get through, because it was one of the most difficult things I’ve ever written in my 25+ years of writing.

Even though this tragedy, and the story itself, is fictional, the experience of Oscar and André’s loss is something that happens every day to people who are very real. Miscarriage isn’t this distant thing that happens to Other People; it is more common and prevalent than you might realize.

And there is always a need for stories of the human experience in this world.

Please continue with me on Oscar and André’s journey toward healing. I promise it will be worth it.

And save some grace for Oscar; she really is doing her best.

[mannatea]

Something Beautiful, a Rose of Versailles fanfic

Chapter 28/58 Current Word Count: 253,118 words Summary: With the start of a revolution putting their safety at risk, Oscar and André flee to England where they hope to build a new life for themselves. Pairing/Characters: Oscar/André, Bernard, Rosalie, Original Characters, Alain Warnings: NEW TAG ON FIC FOR TRIGGER WARNING. Extra Info: Sequel to Say It's Possible. Rating: E Genre: Romance, friendship, angst

SOME READERS MAY FIND THIS CHAPTER TRIGGERING.

If you are at all concerned that might be you, please read the tags again to prepare yourself; I've added a new one as of this chapter.

A few notes/behind-the-scenes bits under the cut:

I'll be updating on Tuesday this week for Bastille Day, so you won't have to sit with this heavy chapter for too long. Posting new chapters on both the 12th and the 14th was just a lucky break in terms of timing, though I think I would have uploaded mid-week regardless.

Most of what I have to say about this chapter will be posted with Tuesday's upload notes, but I can't leave you with nothing after you've read all that.

This is the chapter/scene that I mentioned in the first chapter notes—the one I knew I had to write this story for, because the emotional beats of it hit so goddamn hard.

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As most of you probably remember, this 'fic is based on an RP.

And in the process of writing RPs, Sara and I often use random.org to "roll" for outcomes.

As you can see, this is what we had to work with. We still reasoned out what would happen and how, but what you see is what we ended up with, so I won't linger on that unless it's something you guys are curious about.

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And then we got to the actual writing of the scene and wrecked ourselves:

And so...

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Thank you for reading. I'll see you guys in a couple of days.

[mannatea]

Something Beautiful, a Rose of Versailles fanfic

Chapter 26/58 Current Word Count: 231,922 words Summary: With the start of a revolution putting their safety at risk, Oscar and André flee to England where they hope to build a new life for themselves. Pairing/Characters: Oscar/André, Bernard, Rosalie, Original Characters Warnings: Sex Scene. Extra Info: Sequel to Say It's Possible. Rating: E Genre: Romance, friendship, angst

A few notes/behind-the-scenes bits under the cut:

In this time period there weren’t any tried-and-true methods to tell if a woman was pregnant, and oftentimes a woman simply had to wait until the baby moved to know for sure that it was there. Pregnancy is, as a general rule, rather varied. Some people have the easiest and most perfect pregnancy ever, and others projectile vomit for months. You just never know what you’re going to get!

That said, Mrs. Stone has had enough children and has been a part of the lives of a great number of women who have had birth, so she has a pretty developed sense for it.

Anyway, it was still pretty common to wait a period of time (typically until the 12-week (3ish months) mark) to speak of the news, because early miscarriages were common.

They still are, to be clear.

Worth consideration is that, in our modern society, pregnancy in weeks is measured by date of the last menstrual cycle, even when there is a conception date (as this is a consistent method), but in this story that is not the case; the weeks are pretty exact from the date of conception, as would be common in this time.

I do want to say that “rules” for pregnancy and the like were pretty wildly different from place to place and social class to social class. Noblemen who impregnated their noble wives were typically expected to get their pleasure elsewhere while their wife was growing a baby (if they wanted their needs met), but commoners didn’t necessarily subscribe to this. Oscar and André aren’t really equipped to understand these rules, though, having existed a bit in both worlds, but I think they would consider it to some degree, especially since everything is so new. 😊

So yeah: this story has been tagged with pregnancy.

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And finally, the wardrobe has been moved. 🥺

Looking forward to seeing you all again next week!

[mannatea]

Something Beautiful, a Rose of Versailles fanfic

Chapter 25/58 Current Word Count: 220,682 words Summary: With the start of a revolution putting their safety at risk, Oscar and André flee to England where they hope to build a new life for themselves. Pairing/Characters: Oscar/André, Bernard, Rosalie, Original Characters Warnings: None for this chapter. Extra Info: Sequel to Say It's Possible. Rating: E Genre: Romance, friendship, angst

No notes this week! <3

[mannatea]

comme les étoiles dans le ciel, a Rose of Versailles ‘Ficlet Collection

015: Adieu, chagrin d'amour Words: 324 words Summary: Mid-manga. Oscar thinks about her feelings for Fersen. Pairing/Character: Oscar/André Extra Info: The original was called "Goodbye To You" and was inspired by the song of the same name by Scandal. It was 336 words. Rating: G for this chapter! Genre: Angst, Friendship

Another moderate rewrite. I wouldn't have rewritten this because it's one of the more "nothingsauce" stories in this collection, but I think there's something to be said for the challenge of trying to put meaning where there was once very little.

Thanks for reading. :)