#PLEASE let the readmore work this is a longass post

[asokatanos]

do you have any fic recs for the mentalist?

I told you I’d post some for you tonight and here they are!! Unfortunately I did a lot of reading while I was still obstinately REFUSING to make another ffnet account, so I didn’t save like a good 90% of what I read, some of which was excellent. But here are some of the ones I did +fav or whatever they call it there. No particular genre since your ask was open ended, but, well-

(sorry in advance - these are mostly ffnet links but they’re worth braving that site I swear)

((also this is definitely a non-exhaustive list. there’s some real talent in this fandom))

Consummate Connection Confrontation - these are three separate fics in that order by the absolutely inimitable @hardlyloquatious. Literally everything they’ve written is amazing. I’ve completely exposed myself because my first rec is sort of. uh, lightly 18+. But I had to put this author at the top of my list because I love them so much. The way Jane talks in Consummate has literally kept me awake more than once. It’s honestly more sweet and touching than anything but it’s definitely uh. not something your boss should catch you with I guess.

Long Lost, Long Last - same author. This was written and posted before My Blue Heaven aired, but it has the same vibe as that episode, except deliciously drawn out. It starts off with Jane being his kinda silly self and deciding he wants to try his hand at letter writing, so he writes little notes for the whole team. Lisbon is the only one who gives him a note back, and they take to leaving each other lil notes - until RJ is killed and Jane disappears to do some soul searching. This fic is so... beautiful and I think about it with some frequency. “Consummate” is hot but Long Lost Long Last is why HL is my fave TM author.

Practice - okay one last one from this author. This one isn’t like, groundbreaking, but it’s just the SWEETEST look at how much Jane tries after they get together. I’m a sucker for Jane being sweet. Clearly, since that’s why Consummate is at the top of this list.

Blood Red Moon - the author is 221b Baker Street. Their fics are a LOT more heavy. But they’re so, so good. Their mastery of language is incredible and their fics read like professionally written books - and they do Jane/Lisbon banter incredibly well. Some of the imagery they use has genuinely stuck with me. Also see Sacraments in Scarlet (Jane pretends to be a priest), Arsenic and Red Lace (murder at an assisted care facility and Jane being the cheery and extremely sad bastard that he is), Jonathon Redding (a take on Red John that is deeply clever), a Road lEss traveleD (this is. unsettling. it’s extremely good but save it for the last from this author, wait until you love them first. The payoff for not-as-it-seems comes towards the end but it really is worth waiting for).

Blood Wind - by Gone2Far speaking of unsettling. THIS ONE. God this fic is so good. Spooky as fuck in a way that’s a little X-Filesy and incredibly well written. I want to live very far from this fic while at the same time wrapping myself in its words so I can borrow a crumb of talent.

In Case series - @halfagonyandhope (yay, they’re on tumblr). This rec list isn’t necessarily in any sort of order because after HL, halfagonyandhope is second fave author. This particular series is SO ROMANTIC and LOVELY and I kinda wanna cry kinda wanna read it again and again. My favorite one in the series is Ya’aburnee but you have to read the ones preceding it to make any sort of sense. Also now that I’m looking at all of these again I’m realizing that apparently the second installment stuck with me more than I expected because I wrote more than 10k words of something that has a vaguely similar theme (which I will post later). 

Qumran and Reset - by J. Roddam. This author only ever seems to have written these two but they’re fucking EXQUISITE. I generally avoid AUs in this fandom because the concept of erasing Jane’s past does NOT sit right with me but Reset is one of the only exceptions I’ve made. It has soulmate vibes without being like, a tumblr soulmate story. Both of them are living SUCH different lives than their canon counterparts but somehow it actually works and it’s beautiful. Qumran is similarly without peer.

Pretending, I: Witness - @inkstainedfingers97. I wouldn’t even know where to start but I love every single thing about this fic - and it’s recently been completed! I was lucky enough to get to binge read a majority of it but waiting for updates was also genuinely thrilling too. Fake/Real Married for WITSEC reasons, real love for obvious reasons. Also the Lorelei dynamic is way more intense than on the show in a way that’s at once very uncomfortable and very believable.

27 Minutes - by Idan. Okay. Okay so this author commented on one of my fics and I almost lost it because I really love theirs. I was smiling for like an hour when I saw the notification from them!! 27 Min is my favorite one but In The Cards is widely rec’d by others for very good reason, it’s so good. The Pretender is also excellent, written based on promos of Orange Blossom Ice Cream and so a bit AU from there.

Eighteen Hours - I would definitely be remiss if I didn’t mention @leafenclaw (and actually, I was remiss because I realized while making this post that theirs were some of those early fics I read that I never +fave etc, so ty for the ask so I can do it now, anon). Leafenclaw writes SO well and I have an extra soft spot for them because they pointed me in the direction of a lot of fics and were one of the first ppl I ever spoke with in this fandom since luckily they’re on tumblr too. Also Kindred (note - both of these are still WIP but being updated/worked on!) Chasing Storms is complete, incredible, angsty, beautiful. Also I kind of want to borrow the idea of writing one story around a set of many prompts like this. I don’t actually think I’ve ever seen anyone else do that?

The Long Way Back - by LouiseKurylo I consider them sort of a friend because they’ve been SO supportive while I was writing  Saving Grace but even before that with a new suit, another pair of socks, and a terrible couch. And I’ve seen them supporting everybody else too - they’re just SO NICE. Their fics are also very interesting, and they sort of bring Jane and Lisbon much more into the real world. There’s more real life problems to go hand in hand with mentalist plot type problems, which makes for very interesting reading. Fischer in this particular fic is FASCINATING. Also, a hot tip @leafenclaw shared with me: Louise’s faves list has 500 stories in it and pretty much everything in there is worth reading.

Last but OBVIOUSLY not least I wanna mention some of the very cute and talented and actively posting people here on tumblr in our little mentalist squad of approximately 12 people lmao. You probably already know @gracevanpelt aka LilyThistle’s Big Blue, Red Road, Breathe, and Collusion. I have an especially soft spot for Breathe actually even though it’s the least plotty of the lot. I just think it works so perfectly on its own, as is, like a quiet little interlude. No muss no fuss as Jane would say - and I love it a lot. @asambergs aka cmbing’s how glad i am that you exist is actually the FIRST piece of Mentalist fic I ever read, and then I was pulled down this slippery slope to end up posting this at 11:52 pm on a Thursday night. And I’m not about to forget @pjane aka epaynter whose words are so beautifully atmospheric and who writes the softest Jane (I love Soft Jane and will fight anyone who disagrees about it!!)

Aaaand a nice and shameless self plug in the form of ao3 links: Come Fly With Me (this is the softest thing I’ve ever written), Saving Grace (an actual, complete, fully plotted fic. 14 year old me is SHAKING), a new suit, a terrible couch, another pair of socks (this last was inspired by @asambergs fics actually, and was the first thing I wrote in this fandom!)

[lionfanged]

i started on this HUGE LONGASS READMORE POST detailing atticus’ extensive background, but, like, i haven’t picked it up in Weeks bcuz i never have the brainpower. so you know what i’ll do instead, or at least in the meantime? bulletpoints. ... but still under a readmore, as atticus’ childhood to adulthood was one unkind and contains sensitive subject matter, which i will tag for. and this ended up being long as shit too like fuck but WHATEVER IT’S DONE.

atticus king to the public eye may as well as have simply sprung out of the ground a charming, influential man with deep pockets and a profound place in the market at large. this is wholly due to his extensive scrubbing his past, erasing any mention of his former name, identity, and family in favor of giving himself a fresh start.

the story the public receives is that he was an average kiddo with loving parents who unfortunately passed in a tragic car accident when he was sixteen, and from there, he took on odd jobs and was his own caretaker. such a brave young soul.

the reality? there was no car accident. he didn’t become this single-handedly Super Mature teenager capable of managing his own finances and life.

atticus king was born syouhi rosales. born to hiroko and mathias rosales, his conception was unintentional, and sent a spiraling series of events into motion that neither of the two were prepared for.

mathias was studying abroad in hoenn (or japan, dependent on verse), and what he had with hiroko, a young woman who shared some of his college classes with him, was intended to be brief, a fling, a quick romance to reminiscence upon when he returned home.

when she found out she was pregnant her family, in hoenn, and his back home put on the pressure to marry, lest either faced the shame of a child born out of wedlock. there was no other option that they felt existed.

hiroko dropped out. mathias maintained his studies, but eventually had to do the same to support their new family, and he picked up menial, labor-intensive jobs with little pay.

the household atticus grew up in was one fraught with financial burden, which strained a relationship that neither of his parents never felt truly happy in.

hiroko’s family eventually cut them off. mathias occasionally heard from his own, but never had the time, nor financial means, to go back and visit.

over the years, mathias turned to drinking, became emotionally and verbally abusive, and hiroko withdrew into herself, with atticus somewhat aware, but mostly oblivious due to his young age.

they hit rock bottom when his younger sister, saori, was born. she was a sickly child, and hospital visits were costly.

they scraped the bottom of the barrel to survive, most of their savings going to her medical care, but eventually, they were tapped.

saori died on her fifth birthday. her funeral was a few days later, barely hobbled together with what they could manage. atticus was ten.

a month later, mathias was killed in a car accident, drunkenly headed home from the bar. it was a monday, and that friday, atticus came to the bathroom, suspect of why the shower had been running excessively longer than he had ever heard it be. he found the room flooded with frigid water, and his mother hanging from the metal shower rod fixed to the walls.

atticus was handed off to the custody of the only family willing to take care of him--his elderly grandfather who suffered profound memory lost and was struggling with onset dementia.

he’d eventually run away, and from the age of ten to fifteen, atticus was homeless, scavenging trash cans and diligently trying to avoid trouble, but running into it anyways.

in his pkmn mainverse, a pokemon breeder pities the lonely child she finds, and while wanting to provide actual help, she never was able to get close. instead, she leaves behind one of the eggs she was incubating that was nigh on hatching, which atticus takes. the egg later hatches into cairo, the golden luxray that serves as his companion in the present day.

by his fifteenth birthday, he had settled into living behind a mechanic shop, and is eventually found out by the owner---who chooses to take him in.

atticus doesn’t tell him his name, age, or his unfortunate start, and the owner, tomas o’hanson, doesn’t question it much. the kid’s emaciated, filthy, and ragged from what he could assume was years of suffering alone. atticus tries to deny tomas’ good-hearted efforts to provide him a safe place to live, and they make a deal instead: atticus would work in the shop to earn his keep, and later, he would amend this deal to include resuming the education he never completed.

for the first time in a long while, things felt good. he worked hard, and when tomas gently coerced him into doing some home schooling, he excelled above and beyond expectation, rapidly catching up on an education he had been lacking for years. tomas became something of an unspoken father figure to him, and shared the space above the shop with him. out of earshot of atticus, he would often remark on how he felt like he was the son he never knew he wanted, but was everything he had needed in his life. atticus told him his name. it felt like everything was finally falling into place.

his seventeenth birthday was when he realized it was all too good to be true.

late at night, when the shop was vacated and atticus was cleaning up long after their departure, one of the newer mechanics cornered him. his peace was shattered when a knife was pressed against his neck, and with the threat of waking up tomas and laying harm to him, atticus let him do as he wanted. he was left ashamed, and disgusted with himself, and spoke to no one of it, especially not of the knife marks left behind on his inner thighs to remember the night by.

he rushed to apply for colleges, and the first one that accepted him, he left. tomas was never told, and atticus never went back.

his beginning college years were uneventful, and spent in silent isolation. people couldn’t be trusted, and he had learned the cold lesson of letting his guard lapse---until in one of his classes, one particular young man continued to insist upon that they were destined to be friends.

atticus valiantly sought to ignore it, but, eventually, began to reluctantly open up.

akira fujiwara was bright, bubbly, and excessively happy for atticus’ tastes, but, loathe as he was to admit it, he was lonely. he gradually opened his heart to him, and by his third year, he found himself accepting akira’s insistence to date.

quickly did the tides turn. akira became slowly more and more controlling, domineering, forceful. efforts to appease him were an irritation, and to not obey was to be an insult to their relationship, the trust he had in him, and placed atticus’ moral character in judgment.

however, as much as he pushed, atticus at most allowed chaste kisses and clothes-on touching, quick to shut down anything that felt borderline uncomfortable. his skin still crawled when he was touched, and even these little things were nigh overwhelming for him---but he thought he was making a good compromise, and that akira would be satisfied with it until he “got over” his supposed moods.

akira wasn’t pleased, and the compromise did not satisfy him. frustrated with atticus’ reluctance to have sex and discomfort with his coming on’s, akira finally pushed the boundaries they had established beyond their limit---and perhaps for the first time he felt true regret when seeing the terror atticus reacted with.

atticus ended the relationship, cut off contact with him and everyone else he had begun to speak to at the college in his slow opening-up, and focused wholly on his education.

it was in that year he decided people weren’t worth it, that their pure, outer intentions concealed far more sinister motives, and that he still clung too fiercely onto his former self. the broken, damaged boy with a heart too fragile and too open to be manipulated. he wouldn’t allow himself to remain so.

upon graduation, atticus drowned himself in work, outlining where he wished to be, and fought for it.

it only took one minor success for him to build and compound upon it, and with the wealth that accumulated, he worked to erase syouhi rosales and every last scrap that indicated he had ever existed.

he was atticus king, and he would back from the world that robbed from him.