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hilarychuff · 1 year ago

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20 questions for fic writers

tagged by @2btheanswertothequestion. ty for thinking of me!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

rn i have 23 but i have number 24 going up soon 😈

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

202,248

3. What fandoms do you write for?

rn i'm in my chrissy cunningham phase (stranger things) but i'm still in my overarching sansa stark phase (asoiaf). i have been known to do a rewatch and dip back into my jemma simmons phase (agents of shield). and i'll always sort of be in my lily evans phase (marauders).

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

i carry it in mine (asoiaf, jon/sansa canonish soulmate au)

all the best people see you (all the best people know) (stranger things, chrissy/robin s4 au)

i remember (i remember) (asoiaf, jon/sansa canon drabble)

in any world (in any way) (asoiaf, sansa-centric au graphics collection)

the royal records (asoiaf, jon princess diaries au)

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

usually!! i really like getting comments and i guess i have assumed that having someone respond incentivizes them so i always want to incentivize comments!! i think it is i polite to say thank you also. and i mean i love to talk about my fic so i'm always like "oh y'all tryna chat????" but usually nobody is trying to chat back ahhahaha. sometimes i hide from comments if i'm feeling guilty about not updating something but i always appreciate comments and they're usually p motivating to me

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

hmmm. most of my fics are like alternate media-based au concepts or lil oneshots or stories that are yet to have endings, so hard to say exactly which is angstiest.

i think my angstiest story is a pre-hydra reveal agents of shield one i did as a secret santa for someone where fitz was dead(?!!?!?) and grant ward showed up to bring jemma simmons back to the team and that was yeaaaaars ago but whenever i think of it i'm always like ok wow i hope that is what that person wanted. what bold choices to make in a gift for a stranger!!

other than thaaat i do think of i carry it in mine as a fairly angsty fic but it's intended to have a not so angsty ending so

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

well please trust that any princess diaries or miss congeniality au is going to end up with the main ship getting together, presumably happily for the rest of their lives!! desert hearts (aka all the best people see you all the best people know) is heading towards a happy ending. howl (sansa-centric scream au) i think will have roughly as happy an ending as any horror movie final girl can hope for.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

ummmm not really. i definitely have but the only time it felt like anything other than a one-off was when i essentially started tumblr beef by wandering into the wrong tag. and that was not fun and people were hating on their own blogs for a min BUT it died down and nobody really went out of their way to bother me directly about it after that, so it was not ideal but it was fine. tagging etiquette is tricky!!

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

hmmmmmmmm historically no. but i have outlined smut!! and i'm thinking about actually writing some maybe even soon!! it's interesting bc i've discussed smut with friends and edited for them and used to roleplay and write smut scenes and that all felt fine but i haven't yet wrapped my head around the idea of being like "this is my little smut scene i made up all by myself and now i'm broadcasting it to the masses." feels like i'm opening myself up to psychoanalysis!! but also maybe once i actually write the smut scene i'll be like oh. no biggie. ok post. so we'll see hahahahah

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

not crossovers in the traditional sense but crossovers in the sense that i pick up my little blorbos and cast them in other tv shows/movies/etc, yes, constantly.

i mentioned howl above but i love that one, my sansa-centric scream au. i love jon snow mia thermopolis princess diaries hahahahah. i think it's cute and funny. i love using robin and chrissy from stranger things to make miss congeniality gay. the fic i'm posting in a few days for the stranger things rare pair big bang is also about robin and chrissy in a lil reality tv verse, so that one is really fun and silly and sweet too i think.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

i don't think so! the only time anything like this has happened to me was like a tumblr rp blog misunderstanding a long time ago.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

no but that would be cool!

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

no but i started writing mainly through role playing! so that was co-writing just in a different sense, and i miss that. it's also just really fun to talk about ideas and stuff with friends and then not always actually have to write them. i do play around with concepts a lot with @mistysharks and @beholdthemem for chrissy and the stranger things teen crew, and @cellsshapedlikestars and i also help each other brainstorm sansa and jon related asoiaf stuff which i always super appreciate

14. What’s your all time favorite ship?

i'm more of a favorite ship per fandom kind of gal than a favorite ship over all, but i'm also a multishipper in that i can kind of get into my main blorbos with anyone. i'm super still in my chrissy phase rn and i love writing her with robin, but also in a lil steve/chrissy/eddie ot3. that said i feel like i mainly read hellcheer!!

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

i hope it doesn't surprise anyone to hear that i DO have designs to finish i carry it in mine!! and howl. and desert hearts. like i have specific enough endings in mind that i am working towards for all of those.

the wip that i wish i could finish but know i never will is my marauders mediator series au based on the meg cabot books where lily can talk to ghosts and james is a ghost. i started writing it like back in 2015!! and then even started rewriting it in 2020. and i still love it. but it would be a big project to take on and one that would take a lot more work to figure out, let alone just write, and i don't really see it happening. that said i will always love it!!!

i also started a resurrection au marauders story where lily etc all start coming back to life when harry is like 24 so seven years after the end of the books, and i always thought the like emotional drama in that was so slay too. but the resurrection show itself never really had good answers for the paranormal plot/how it would play out and so i didn't have anything to crib off of lmao. and i never really invested much thought into figuring it out myself iirc. so i never really knew like plotwise where i wanted it to go so much as i was just like "how would the characters react if this happened" but i did like that thought exercise. maybe i would've written more if it would've felt like that would be satisfying to read for other people without actual like. plot.

16. What are your writing strengths?

ummm i'm really interested in like. character profiles. so i think i tend to gravitate towards that sort of story personally. a character figuring themselves/what they want out.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

low key i just like almost never write physical description stuff into my stories?? like it's all fanfiction so i'm like ok first of all you already know what everybody looks like. it takes a lot more active effort for me to be like. does the reader need to know what the character looks like right now?? does the reader need to have a clear vision of where the characters are?? what the room looks like?? i could probably afford to do that more but i find that i tend to skip it a lot

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

hmmm i really only have one fic where that might apply i think. i'd probs try to do it minimally bc i wouldn't want to do a bad job but if it's just one line i could see myself just, you know, doing google translate if i don't know a speaker i can run it by

19. First fandom you wrote for?

harry potter!! i found my way to marauders era pretty quick.

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

i have a lot of love and tenderness in my heart for desert hearts and i carry it in mine. so far those are like my heart-squeezey fics imo. but i also love howl!!! a combination of some of my favorite interests and stories. i feel like these are my main three wips too so i gotta just keep tinkering away until a new chapter falls out. hopefully sooner than later for desert hearts and i carry it in mine, which i have in fact been reorganizing a lil lately!!

anyway!!

ty again for the tag @2btheanswertothequestion!! if you want to do this: @cellsshapedlikestars @mistysharks @beholdthemem @chdarling

#my writing #my fics #tag meme

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hilarychuff · 2 years ago

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ao3 first lines

tagged by @mistysharks! check out theirs here

rules: post the first lines of your 10 most recently published AO3 stories. if you have less than 10 fics posted, post the first lines of all your fics.

Something Down the Road Didn't Happen Yet

(this is a collection of stranger things au graphics/blurbs so just posting the first line of the first one, but it’s a robin/chrissy miss congeniality au lmao)

Over the years, Robin has worked stupidly hard to get as far as she has in the FBI. Her skills as a codebreaker were carefully honed, her fluency in now five different languages was hard-won, and it was no easy feat learning how to wrestle her stubbornly uncoordinated body into fighting shape so that she could throw a punch as good as the rest of the recruits. So when she botches the Russian op and finds herself yanked out of the field and plopped squarely on Assistant Director Hopper’s shit list, she’s desperate to make things right — not least of all because Steve has been put on the Miss United States case. Without her.

The Royal Records

(now this one is a jonsa/asoiaf princess diaries au where jon gets to be the princess 😌)

“Um,” Sansa says suddenly, the slightly higher pitch of her voice grabbing Jon’s attention as they walk side by side to school.

I Remember (I Remember)

(jonsa canon-based au where jon meets alayne in the vale)

“That’s pretty,” Jon says, and her heart thumps hard in her chest. He must feel it, the way her pulse jumps, sending every inch of her skin zinging, but his face does not change one wink.

Am I Making You Laugh (Am I The Joke)

(jonsa/asoiaf overboard au!!! drabble)

“Sansa,” Jon says, voice hard, flinty, and she flinches, freezes, but he doesn’t say anything else, doesn’t move closer than where he stands across the lawn.

He waits for her to look back at him, and when she finally does there’s a flash of something across his face, but then it’s gone, gone too fast for her to recognize it.

In Any World (In Any Way)

(this one is my jonsa/asoiaf au graphics/blurbs collection so again just grabbing the first line of the first one, which is a jonsa bring it on au)

Finally — finally! — it's Sansa's time to shine. Now that Margaery Tyrell has graduated, gone off to college, and relinquished her grasp on the captain position, Sansa's getting her chance to step into the role and prove that she too can lead the RCH Knights to a cheerleading championship victory. But being captain isn't as easy as it looks, and the first practice of the year ends all too quickly when Beth Cassel falls and breaks her ankle.

I Carry It In Mine

(jonsa/asoiaf canon-based soulmate/soulmark au)

It’s a surprise when Jon’s mark comes in. Old Nan had said that when the Children of the Forest ruled the land, the old gods gave everyone a soulmate, but these days they’re rare. When he wakes one day in his tenth year, he doesn’t expect to find a name over his heart. Robb has been ten for months and hasn’t had a name appear, and Theon was still unmarked by his eleventh name day. The both of them are to be lords one day, the leaders of two of the great houses, and he is no one, just some bastard. But when the feeling of a burning in his chest interrupts his slumber, something deep inside of him knows what it means before he even opens his eyes.

Grant Sees a Ghost

(ooo this is my agents of shield haunting of hill house au drabble lmao)

It’s been a long day, fruitless, and Ward is tired as he wrestles two armloads of bags through the door to his apartment building. He hadn’t slept well last night, not in that random woman’s house, not with the specter of a specter looming over him. Much as he’d made a second career out of writing about them, Ward knows ghosts aren’t real, and yet sleeping in a room where someone claimed to have spotted one, trying to catch one on camera — It always left him unsettled the next day, itchy.

Howl

(this is my sansa/jonsa/asoiaf scream au!!! very recently had some really good thoughts about howl 3 but here’s the first bit of howl 1)

“Joff? What — what are you doing here?”

Technically, Sansa’s boyfriend wasn’t allowed at the Stark house anymore. He’d been effectively banned ever since he’d gotten into an actual, honest-to-gods fist fight with Arya, and though Sansa knew her little sister had been the one to throw the first punch, she hadn’t wanted to argue. Things had been tense between the Stark sisters for too long, and after their parents died — Well, it wasn’t worth fighting anymore.

Door to Door Delivery

(jonsa/asoiaf while you were sleeping au drabble)

“You look cold,” Jon tells her as they walk along the Chicago River.

“Hmm?” she asks, and it’s only once he brings it up that she notices it’s true, she’s shivering.

Things We Lost in the Flames, What We Found in the Ashes

(agents of shield missing scenes in s2, mack pov re: jemma)

He figures he should’ve been expecting something like this after May shot Hunter in order to keep Simmons safe, but it still takes him a moment to put the pieces together and realize what’s happening.

“You know, there are a lot of fire extinguishers in here,” Coulson says evenly as he looks around the garage. “You should be careful around Simmons.”

gonna skip tagging this time but anyone who wants to do it should!

#jonsa #jonsa fic #buckingham #my writing #tag meme

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hilarychuff · 2 years ago

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The Bastard of the Beach

a princess diaries au drabble

inspired by this au graphic; find the first in the series here and the second in the series here or read all three chapters so far on ao3 here

“Are you sure you want to go to this beach party?” his mother asks him for what must be the 4,000th time that day. She’s sitting at his desk as she watches him stomp around his room, stuffing a towel and swim trunks into one of the many tote bags she’s collected over the years.

“Yes,” Jon insists again, voice getting a little more stubborn each time, digging his heels a little deeper with every repetition. “I told you. Stop asking.”

“I know, I know. You’ve been working so hard with Daenerys lately. You deserve to have a little fun. It’s just,” Lyanna starts, sighing wistfully, “I thought you didn’t really like any of these kids.”

“Moooom,” he groans, stretching the word into multiple syllables, stopping in his tracks to tilt his head back and stare at the ceiling. He waits for a count of five before he takes a deep breath and looks back at her. “Could you just stop? Please? I’m going to the beach party, alright?”

“Alright, alright,” she says, holding up her hands in front of her. “I get it. What do moms know anyway? I just thought none of them were ever very nice to you.”

“Well,” Jon says, shrugging uncomfortably, “they’re being nice now, so…”

“And it’s a date?” his mother clarifies. “Or it’s like a group thing?”

“It’s a party,” he answers. “You know what a party means.”

“But you said that girl invited you —”

“—Margaery Tyrell—”

“—to go with her, didn’t you?”

Jon gives in, resigns himself to the conversation. He drops down onto his bed, sitting among the scattered band tees he’d tried on and discarded for being a little too off the beaten path. He really doesn’t feel like defending or explaining any of his musical choices to a bunch of preppy populars, especially not Margaery Tyrell. The fact that he agreed to go with her doesn’t mean he’s suddenly forgotten the way she’s laughed at all of Joffrey Baratheon’s jokes for the past year and change. But so what if he might be a little curious about what it’s like to actually be one of them? So what if he wants to know what he’s been missing out on this whole time? Sue him.

All he says, though, is, “Yes, she invited me.”

Lyanna just hmms. He sighs.

“What?”

“What happened to Sansa? I thought you liked her.”

“Yeah, well…”

He scuffs the toe of his boot on the ground. It’s probably stupid to wear combat boots to the beach, but he’d feel even stupider in sandals, and it’s not like he owns any of those twee little boat shoes. If she were talking to him, Sansa would know what he should wear instead, would probably be able to put together the perfect outfit to make him feel like himself without standing out at the beach, but, well, the point is that she’s not talking to him, isn’t it?

“She’s made it pretty clear this week that she’s not interested in hanging out with me, and Margaery is, so…”

He’d tried to keep his tone as neutral as possible, but his mom sees right through it. She lets out a sympathetic cluck and then comes to meet him by the bed, clearing a tee or two out of her way so she can sit beside him on the comforter.

“Is that what this is about?” she asks. “Sansa doesn’t want to go out with you, so you’re going out with another girl instead?”

He shrugs, and she makes another sympathetic noise, reaching over to cup his cheek, but he squirms away and gets to his feet before she can say anything.

“It’s not a big deal,” he says, walking over to his closet so he can pretend to rifle through it for something. “Can you just drop it?”

“What happened to my romantic little boy?” she tuts, and Jon drops his head back to groan at the ceiling.

“Mom, I’m not a little boy anymore.”

“I know, I know,” she says, and when he glances over, she’s haphazardly folding all of his tees into a messy little pile. “You’re all grown up now and ready to lead some foreign country, but when I look at you, I still see that same little boy who swore up and down that he was going to have a foot-poppin’ first kiss.”

“Mom!”

He can feel the way his face flames hot, flushed, even though there’s no one there to witness his embarrassment other than the woman dead set on causing it. He wonders if he could get away with pretending he doesn’t know what she’s talking about, but he’s pretty sure that wouldn’t stop her.

“What?” she asks, mock innocent. “I’m not allowed to talk about what a sweet boy you were?”

“Can you just… not?” he begs again. “Please?”

The thing is, he does remember. They’d been watching some old movie, one of those black and white ones where everyone spoke in an inexplicable accent, and when the hero had grabbed his girl and kissed her, one of her feet had lifted off the ground as if it had a mind of its own. He’d been determined to have a first kiss equally as powerful, equally as passionate — and his mom had laughed. And then, when she’d seen how serious he was, how struck he was by her laughter when he was not joking, Mom, it’s not funny, she’d assured him that of course he would have a foot-popping first kiss one day. He guesses now that she already knew then not all princes were made out of fairytale stuff, but he’d been young and starry-eyed and determined to be different than his parents. And then he’d gotten older and reality had set in for him, too.

“Besides,” he grumbles, “I already had my first kiss years ago, and Ygritte wasn’t exactly a ‘foot pop’ kind of girl.”

“I know, baby,” his mom says, following him over to the closet so she can run her fingers through his newly cropped hair the way she used to when he was little enough to lay with his head in her lap. “I just know you’ve been doing a lot for everyone else lately, especially when it comes to your father and aunt. I don’t want you to give up on the things you want just because other people want something else for you,” she says. “Even if what you want is for a girl to suddenly transform into a Hays Code-era heroine.”

—

He’d said it to his mom. He’s not a kid anymore. But if he’s honest with himself, really honest, he does still want it. Maybe not literally. He doesn’t need a girl to literally kick her foot up as some sort of chaste way of showing just how deep a kiss can really be, but he wants the sparks. He wants it to mean something. He doesn’t want to just fool around in the backseat of a parked car next to a bunch of other parked cars filled with teenagers fooling around. He’s done that before, and as good as it had felt in some ways, it had felt decidedly not good in others.

So when Margaery steps close to him in the storage shack on the beach, well, he’s not really sure what to think. She’d herded him in here after a news helicopter swooped low overhead, a floodlight searching him out amongst the partygoers, and she’s been flirting with him all night — all week, really, even before she told him that she dumped Joffrey for being the most obnoxious, fame-sucking scumbag dickhole on the planet (his words, not hers). But when she slides her hands up his chest, onto his shoulders, looks up at him from under her eyelashes, he can’t say he’s not curious.

It’s weird, suddenly being wanted by the most popular girl at school.

A week ago, she never would’ve looked at him. She would’ve seen him, sure — her sly eyes landing on him for some impossibly brief moment before sliding right past him as she assessed her surroundings and found him totally useless to her — but she never would’ve looked. And he’s not stupid. He knows why she’s looking now. Even if he gives her the full benefit of the doubt when it comes to her supposedly noble intentions in dumping Joffrey, he’s not blind to the optics of the upgrade. State politician’s son to a future king of a country. Local society papers to the national news. But there’s still something to it. All night, she hasn’t been looking at him like he’s useful to her. She’s been looking at him like he’s all of a sudden interesting to her.

And Sansa has never been less interested in him.

“Jon,” Margaery murmurs, her eyes on his mouth, and one of her hands drops back down to toy with the neckline of the plain black shirt he’d finally settled on earlier. “I’m sorry the paparazzi found you here, but I won’t pretend I’m not glad to get a minute alone with you.”

The shack is dark around them, umbrellas and volleyball netting and spinal boards taking up much of the space, crowding them together. She’s waiting for him to kiss her, he’s pretty sure. It really is like something out of a movie, the way she’s giving off all the classic signs. His hands had settled at her waist almost automatically when she’d first stepped right up next to him, reaching for him, but he still can’t quite bring himself to close the gap between them.

Margaery doesn’t seem to mind. She ducks her head, lets her warm breath fan over his neck just above where her fingers tug at the hem of his tee. Her knuckles brush against his collarbone, and then she turns into him, lets her nose trace the line of his jaw. The tip of it skates over his chin, drags along until it meets the corner of his mouth, and then her lips are right there, soft against his. His hands tense at her waist, but she seems to take that for encouragement, because suddenly she’s kissing him and, yeah, maybe he’s kissing back.

When she pulls away from him, she sighs his name again, a perfectly romantic sound that he’s pretty sure his younger, starry-eyed self would’ve swooned over if it didn’t all sound so… practiced. Performative. Whatever spell there was breaks, and he lets his hands drop, takes his own step back.

“Uh, I don’t — I don’t hear anything anymore, do you?” he asks, not sure the best way to extricate himself from the situation. “I think probably it’s safe to head back out now.”

The reality is that he doesn’t exactly care anymore. So what if some news reporters snap a picture of him at a party? If he was avoiding the cameras because he didn’t want to pretend to be some perfect prince, he’s not any better off in here as Margaery tries to manufacture the perfect moment between them.

Still, he’s not expecting the instantaneous burst of camera flashes the second he opens the door, and he nearly slams it closed again just so he can gather his bearings. Instead, he lets the door swing wide in front of him, jerks back a step, and then Margaery is at his back. One arm drapes over his chest, fingers tangling in his shirt, and her other hand reaches out in front of them to block the glare as though she’s some damsel in distress and he’s her dashing savior.

“Jon,” she whimpers, ducking her face into the back of his neck, and his stomach twists.

This was a mistake. This whole night was just a huge, stupid mistake.

He shakes her off, steels himself and charges forward, pushes through the crowd to stomp towards the parking lot even as shutters click and voices shout after him. He can feel his face heating up, his blood rushing in his ears, but he doesn’t stop until the sand ends and he reaches asphalt, and even then he only pauses because Joffrey is leaning up against the passenger side of his mom’s car. Lyanna had let him borrow it so he could fly under the radar, so he could pick Margaery up without his aunt knowing how he chose to spend his time, but now he’s wishing he’d taken one of the official Valyrian cars if only so there would’ve been a driver to go with it — a driver who would’ve never allowed Joffrey to hang around waiting for Jon to come back.

“Get off my car,” Jon orders, his voice low and to the point as he steps onto the pavement.

“Calm down,” Joffrey sneers. He’s moving slow, languid — like he’s been drinking, Jon realizes as he stands up straight, sways a little. “I was just making sure the reporters gave mommy’s Subaru a little space.” He looks over at the few photographers who’ve followed Jon up the beach, their camera flashes still bright at his back. “You do know Margaery was the one who called them, don’t you?”

Jon doesn’t answer, just gives him a wide berth as he heads for the driver’s side on the far end of the car. It doesn’t stop Joffrey from leaning back against the door.

“I guess it figures,” he says, voice loud in that way drunk people have, where it might well be considered shouting if it weren’t for the lack of intent. “She’s dating the fucking governor’s son, and even she wants to try and trade up the second she gets the chance.”

“Baratheon,” Jon barks. “Get the fuck off of my car.”

Joffrey makes a show of rolling his eyes, swaying back to a standing position again. “I’m just saying they’re all the same,” he continues, overenunciating a little.

Jon ignores him, unlocks the car, yanks his door open — and Joffrey tugs on the handle on the other side, doing the same.

“Gold diggers,” he says, and Jon stares at him, slack-jawed over the center console, as Joffrey slides into the passenger seat. He lets out an ugly, mean laugh. “At least Margaery puts out,” he adds. “Some of them are frigid fucking bitches.”

For a second, everything goes red. And then Jon is on the other side of the car. His fists are balled in Joffrey’s shirt. Jon grabs him, then shoves him, and Joffrey stumbles back, lands on his ass, palms slapping the pavement. Jon slams the car door, stalks back to the driver’s side, hits the lock as soon as he shuts himself in, because he wouldn’t put it past Joffrey to try again, to start something. And then he fits the key in the ignition, shifts into gear, and hits the gas.

–

He spends the first half of Sunday being screamed at by his aunt and the second half wallowing in his bed, boombox turned all the way up as angsty, angry rock blares through the speakers late into the night. When Monday rolls around, he wakes to find his mom let him sleep straight through his classes. Ghost curled up at his side, he turns to bury his face in a mass of white fur and will himself back into unconsciousness for another few hours, and the night comes and goes in a sluggish haze. Tuesday morning follows with a knock at his door about five minutes after his alarm would’ve gone off if he’d bothered to set it. He contemplates faking sick, continuing the pity party, but when his mom ducks her head around the door, then lets herself in to sit on the edge of his bed and rest the back of her hand on his forehead — he just can’t stand the look in her eyes.

He knows it was bad. Daenerys made sure that she permanently impressed upon him just how bad it all was. The papers had printed photos of him shaking off a wounded-looking Margaery, the picture perfect portrait of a lovelorn woman with her kiss-swollen lips and tousled hair, her arms reaching out towards him. They’d also gotten shots of him dragging Joffrey out of his car, throwing him to the ground, mouth twisted with some ugly words that Jon can’t even remember shouting. Each different weekly journal or daily newsletter had managed to snag their own slightly different versions of the images, one particularly vulgar looking shot showing Jon standing over Joffrey on the asphalt.

His aunt had insisted that he’d embarrassed the whole Targaryen line, put the whole dynasty at risk — nevermind the fact that the headlines were only bound to go global because they were all saying what a fucking chip off the old block he was. A philanderer like his father. Violent like his grandfather. “Do the Fiery Targaryens Really Need Another Hotheaded Heartbreaker In Line for the Throne?” one tabloid had asked in bold, black letters.

If they’d never fucked up, Jon would be just another teenager having a bad night. If they’d never fucked up, the Targaryens never would’ve even needed Jon in the first place. But the look in Daenerys’s eyes when he’d started to bring all that up had practically burned him alive, and it wouldn’t have mattered. She’d never have listened anyway. There would’ve been no point shouting himself hoarse, so he’d shut his mouth and grit his jaw until it felt like his teeth would crumble away into dust.

But that’s not the part that has Lyanna treating him like he’s a five year old with a fever. She doesn’t want to talk about what he did, what he’ll do now, what there is to be done next if he doesn’t want to take the whole family down with him. No, she wants to talk about how he feels, how he feels about whatever made him agree to go on a date with Margaery and how he feels about whatever made him run away halfway through it — and that’s somehow a thousand times worse, because he doesn’t want to think about how he feels. (Stupid. Unwanted. In the spotlight. Even more invisible than ever before.) If he stops and thinks about it, he’ll drown in it, so he’s staying sullen instead, surly, and he pushes his mom away when she reaches for him, insists he feels fine, he’s just running late, he slept through his alarm, but he’s going.

If he lets her baby him — if he lets her call the school and tell Arryn that he’ll be out for another day — he’ll be stuck for hours being looked at like he’s the saddest boy in the world. He can’t stomach the thought of that.

He almost wishes he had, though, when he gets to school and finds Sansa is no longer the only Stark giving him the cold shoulder.

It had been messy with all of them last week after the news had gone public. Between the press, his aunt’s people, and the popular kids suddenly taking an interest in him, he’d barely gotten time with a single one of them, but at least he’d talked to Arya on the phone, talked to Robb, managed to get at least a few moments with both of them throughout each day. Sansa, though… She’d been too nice to ignore him out right, always waving before fleeing the premises, but her message had still come through loud and clear. Now she’s graduated even from that, avoiding eye contact entirely and turning to head in the opposite direction when he tries to catch her attention from down the hall.

Worse, Arya has begun following her lead, only she’s shooting him full-blown glares from across the quad. Even Robb offers him only half-hearted shrugs, a gesture somewhere between commiserating and resigned before he’s following dutifully after one sister or being bodily dragged away by the other. It takes almost until the end of the day before Jon finally manages to corner one of them, hunting down Arya during their shared free period until he finds her whacking tennis balls on the rooftop court.

“Arya,” he calls, but she ignores him as the machine spits out a lime green missile — one she immediately fires back his way as he steps through the gate at the top of the stairs. He curses, dodges, and she smirks, then narrows her eyes again as she determinedly rockets another tennis ball in his general direction. “Arya!” he tries again. “Stop! I’m trying to talk to you!”

She keeps lobbing them, and he keeps ducking, until he’s close enough to yank the extension cord powering the equipment. One last ball falls free, rolls away, and Arya shrugs, turning to pack up her racket and grab her backpack instead. He has to vault over the net to follow, grab her shoulder, and he knows she’s let him catch up, but it doesn’t feel like that much of a victory when he spins her around and she immediately crosses her arms, raising her eyebrows in response.

“Arya,” he pants. He’s so tired — of dodging tennis balls, reporters, emotional minefields. He doesn’t have the patience left to play whatever game this is. “What is your problem today? What is everyone’s fucking problem lately?”

Her eyebrows shoot even higher.

“OK,” she starts, “so just to be clear, you don’t even remember that you agreed to be on my morning show on Sunday? You’re totally unaware of the fact that I got stuck trying to fill the whole time slot with Hot Pie’s various animal shaped baked goods?”

He groans, drops his head back. Of course. Of course he forgot. Of course he was so busy wallowing over how he can’t do anything right that he fucked up. Again. He rubs a hand over his face, sighs, braces himself for another apology, his millionth over the last 72 hours, but at least this one he’ll mean.

“Arya —”

Before he can get another word out, she’s cutting him off.

“And Sansa,” she continues. “Do you remember her?”

His stomach twists, clenches. He hesitates.

“What about her?”

Arya scoffs, and he can see her grip clench on her racket like she’s itching to launch another tennis ball at his head.

“Wow,” she says, voice flat. “And I really believed it when I told her that you were smarter than her douchebag ex.”

“She’s mad about Margaery?” he ventures, unsure.

“No,” Arya tells him. “That’s the worst part. She’s not even mad. She’s just fucking heartbroken.”

For a second, he can’t speak, his voice coming out strangled when he finds the words.

“Because I went out with someone else?”

“Because she waited for you at the garage for like three hours before she finally gave up and came home. Because she figured you probably got roped into some stupid royal responsibility until she saw all of the papers the next morning and realized you just ditched her for the same exact girl Joffrey did.”

“But —” he starts, the words dying in his throat because that can’t be right. That doesn’t make any sense. Even as a dawning horror sets in, he shakes his head and says so. “That doesn’t make any fucking sense, Arya. Why would she be waiting for me at the garage?”

Her jaw drops. She stares at him, hard, like she’s trying to tell if he really is stupid.

“Because she asked you out, and you said yes,” she says slowly.

“Yeah, but — but that was on Tuesday,” he tries.

“So?”

“So how was I supposed to know we were still on by the end of the week?”

“Because she never fucking canceled on you, dipshit,” Arya spits. Whatever patience she might’ve had for him a second ago is gone.

“But she was obviously blowing me off! Arya, she ignored me for the next three days!”

“When did she ignore you?” Arya demands. “During all the rides to school you didn’t give us? In all the classes you don’t have together? Did she screen any of the calls you didn’t make or not come to the phone any of the times you didn’t ask for her?”

“She —” he starts, fumbling for his words. “Arya, she practically ran out of the room any time I entered one.”

Even as he says it, though, he knows it’s not true. Or, at least, now he knows, now that he knows what it actually looks like when she runs away. This morning, she hadn’t offered him a little wave and a tense smile when they’d first locked eyes. She’d just frozen, then turned around and fled in the opposite direction.

Abruptly, he feels the need to lay down on the ground. He wants to let his backpack fall from his shoulder, to drop down on his hands and knees, to flop onto his back and splay his limbs out. He wants to stare at the gray sky overhead until he somehow travels back a week in time to the day Sansa first asked him out. It had started so well that morning, then gone so wrong, and he’d sort of thought things had only gotten worse over the weekend, that Sunday had been his low point, maybe Monday, but no, it’s now, it’s this moment.

Sansa asked him out. Sansa never canceled. Sansa didn’t run away from him, or at least not really. He’d been making out with Margaery while she was waiting for him at the garage, and then she’d had to see photographic evidence of that the very next morning.

Maybe he really is just like his stupid dad.

Jon gives in to the urge, sits down right where he is in the middle of the court. If he asked Arya to turn the tennis ball machine back on and aim it right at his head, she probably would.

Instead, she just watches him for a minute, uncomfortably shifting from one foot to another. Then, she nudges his boot with the toe of her sneaker.

“Get up.”

He doesn’t move.

After a moment, she tries again.

“C’mon, Jon. Get up.”

This time, she kicks at the soles of his boots, one first and then the other as though she can manhandle his feet back beneath him and him standing on top of them. When that still doesn’t work, when he’s still resolutely on the ground another long moment later, she sighs, then leans down and joins him.

“She really waited for three hours?” he asks.

“I really wish I was exaggerating,” Arya answers, mouth twisting in a grimace.

“I’m sorry,” Jon finally says. “God, I just — I just got really caught up in all the prince stuff, I think. I didn’t even really check in with any of you last week, and then I thought Sansa was blowing me off, and then I went to that stupid party, and then everything fucking blew up —”

He huffs another sigh, reaches to tug on curls he remembers he cut off over a week ago just a moment too late. He drops his hand back into his lap, looks over at her to make sure he meets her eye.

“I should’ve remembered your show,” he says. “I’m really sorry that I didn’t.”

“Yeah,” Arya says, “you should’ve. And, for the record, I will be expecting you to rebook your appearance in the coming weeks. But I hope you know I’m letting you off easy this time.”

She taps her foot against his, and he nods, and then she’s getting to her feet, reaching a hand down for him. He grabs it.

“Just for the record, though,” she adds, pulling him back upright, “that only goes for me. If you want to even think of apologizing to Sansa, you’re going to have to come up with something a lot better than that.”

#jonsa #jonsa fic #jonsa au #jon snow #sansa stark #asoiaf #asoiaf au #asoiaf princess diaries au #my writing

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hilarychuff · 2 years ago

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hi!! :) i love all you fics i was re reading your princess diaries au and i was wondering if you had any plans on continuing? if you did i’d love to see the aftermath of jon missing his date with sansa and how upset arya is too! and the ball scene!! ily <3 :)

hi!!!!!!! this is really good timing asking this because i've actually been working on it a lot lately!!!! (@cellsshapedlikestars even helped me noodle my way through a part where i was stuck xoxoxoox)

i'm not sure if the next chapter will be the last or if i'll need to break it into two more (maybe a sansa pov??? not sure) but i've got at least one more jon bit coming that should cover at least some of that!!!

aaaaaand because i am so delighted to get a lil anon message about it, here is a sneak peek!!!!!

“What happened to my romantic little boy?” she tuts, and Jon drops his head back to groan at the ceiling.

“Mom, I’m not a little boy anymore.”

“Mom!” He can feel the way his face flames hot, flushed, even though there’s no one there to witness his embarrassment other than the woman dead set on causing it. He wonders if he could get away with pretending he doesn’t know what she’s talking about, but he’s pretty sure that wouldn’t stop her.

“What?” she asks, mock innocent. “I’m not allowed to talk about what a sweet boy you were?”

“Can you just… not?” he begs again. “Please?”

“Besides,” he grumbles, “I already had my first kiss years ago, and Ygritte wasn’t exactly a ‘foot pop’ kind of girl.”

#my writing #asoiaf princess diaries au #jonsa #jonsa au #asoiaf #asoiaf au

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hilarychuff · 2 years ago

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OMG I just thought of another "The Princess Diaries", sometimes I still think of Sansa who waited for Jon and him never showing up. My poor baby😭

ok i knew i wanted to do this jonsa princess diaries au scene almost immediately because a) frankly there aren't that many actual mia michael scenes in the movie and i don't have my copies of the books at my apartment and b) it's cute!! cute before the heartbreaking moment where jon accidentally stands her up!!! you can imagine the ensuing angst for yourself on this one ❤️ also i thought about waiting until the morning to post this but whatever fuck it i’ll just shameless self reblog later

Oh For Fork’s Sake

“Um,” Sansa says suddenly, the slightly higher pitch of her voice grabbing Jon’s attention as they walk side by side to school.

She’s been talking practically nonstop for the last five minutes, rambling really as she fills him in about her day yesterday, how Sister Mordane gave her a solo in choir, how Robb’s band practiced the same song for forty-five minutes straight at their uncle Benjen’s garage last night. He doesn’t mind. He’s liked just listening, actually. Well, not exactly listening. He’s getting the gist of what she’s saying he’s pretty sure, and he’s been responding appropriately (or at least he thinks he has, nodding along each time she glances over at him at least), but mostly he’s just been enjoying walking next to her.

It’s rare that it’s just the two of them like this — usually Arya is nearby, or Robb, even her little brothers Bran or Rickon — but when he’d rang the Stark family’s doorbell that morning, she’d been the only one who’d answered, opening the door almost immediately and then snapping it shut behind her. Arya was running late, she insisted. Too late to wait for. She’d overslept, told Sansa they should go ahead without her, that she’d grab a ride with Robb instead. So they’d left, and Sansa had seemingly made it her mission to fill the silence for every moment since.

He doesn’t mind. Lately, his head has been so full of stupid prince stuff, packed to the brim with names of long-dead relatives and Valyrian family crests and edicts the Targaryen line had issued over the last 300 years. Daenerys has been drilling him on them relentlessly, insisting he’ll be an embarrassment of an heir if he doesn’t figure out how to get this all down. She’d lost her temper with him last night when he’d mixed up his oyster fork and cocktail fork, and he’d been so frustrated he’d shoved away from the table, so desperate for a break that he’d nearly knocked his chair to the ground. Instead it had only wobbled for a moment, then slammed back down onto all four legs, loud enough that it had startled one of his aunt’s vicious little corgis that had been crowded around her feet under the table. Drogon had lunged, snapped at his ankle, and Jon was certain he’d been on the verge of starting an international incident once he’d finally managed to shake his pants free of the pup’s clenched teeth.

Daenerys had banished him for the rest of the night after that, commanding him to get out of her sight, and he’d stormed straight out and walked the 15 blocks home without stopping. Only Ghost had been able to help him calm down, but when he’d fallen asleep later that night, his dreams had been plagued by royal rules and family trees and he’d woken up stressed all over again. So hearing Sansa just babble on about her day as they walk the half mile from her place to school — well, it’s been kind of nice to pretend at least for a few moments that everything is still normal. That he’s just a regular high schooler like she is.

Now, though, she’s like a record that skipped the track, a few sharp little intakes of her breath punctuating the silence that’s fallen between them even as she keeps her strides steady.

“Um, so I was wondering,” she finally manages, and is she… nervous? Is that what the babbling had been about? She’s a little flushed too now that he thinks about it, both of her thumbs hooked into her backpack straps instead of swinging loosely at her sides. Did Arya tell her about him? Does she know? Is that why she’s suddenly acting weird around him?

“Do you —” she starts, then lets out a huff of a laugh, shaking her ponytail as if that’ll reshuffle the words she’s looking for into just the right order. When she finally gets them out, they’re not at all what he was expecting. “Do you have plans already for Saturday night?”

The question takes him entirely by surprise. Is she asking what he thinks she’s asking?

“Why, is Robb’s band playing somewhere?” he says by way of answer. “Did he recruit you to find him roadies again?”

“Oh, no — Well, I mean, yes,” she says. “Robb managed to convince some café by Dacey’s house that they’re definitely good enough to be playing public gigs, but I, um —” She hesitates again, just for a moment. “I was thinking maybe, if you wanted to, we could do something else. The parts for your mustang came in, and Uncle Benjen gave me my own key to the garage just in case I ever need it, and I know he wouldn’t mind if we wanted to work on your car after hours.”

She’s blushing a little more now, biting her lip, and he can’t believe for a moment that this is really happening. He’s never imagined it like this, her asking him, so nervous that it makes him feel more confident than he ever has in comparison.

“If we wanted to work on it?” he teases, grinning.

“OK,” she says, rolling her eyes, but he can see her fighting her own smile even as she looks straight ahead instead of at him. “If you wanted to work on it while I watched. And maybe —” She hesitates again, sneaks a glance at him, but his smile seems to reassure her. “Maybe we can even order pizza. And M&Ms. And put it on the company card. Uncle Benjen still owes me from that time he accidentally spilled transmission fluid on my math homework.”

He nods along, waits for her to finish, and then shoots her mock-suspicious look.

“You know,” he drawls. “If I didn’t know any better, Sansa, I’d say you were trying to ask me on a date.”

She laughs, finally releases her iron grip on her backpack straps so she can give him a playful shove.

“Shut up. Do you want to or not?”

When her arms drop to her sides, they’re close enough that his knuckles brush against the back of her hand. Suddenly, he feels like he could correctly identify a thousand stupid little forks, recognize the minute differences in each one by touch alone. “OK,” he agrees. “Yeah, Saturday. Let’s do it.”

His knuckles brush the back of her hand again, his fingers flexing, hand open just in case she wants to slip hers into it — and then Arya is bursting between them.

“Um, hello!” she demands, just this side of panting, her school uniform rumpled and ragged where Sansa’s is pristine and pressed. “Didn’t you two hear me shouting your names? And why didn’t you wait for me? I told you I just needed a few minutes!”

He shoots Sansa an accusatory look, and she has the good grace to at least seem a little sheepish. Still, to think that she purposely went out of her way to get him alone? If you put a family tree in front of him, he could fill out every single fucking name, date, and formal title on the damn thing.

“Sorry,” Sansa says. “I thought you were just getting in the shower, not getting out.”

If she were paying attention, Arya would see that for the obvious lie it is, but she’s not looking at them anymore, instead looking down the street past them.

“What’s going on at school?” she asks, and she’s right, there’s something, a crowd hovering around the front steps.

The whole area is buzzing, people milling around with microphones and cameras and tape recorders, reporters and photographers loitering as if they’re waiting for something. There are some students out front too, Joffrey and Margaery and Loras all at the top of the steps — and then Joffrey is leaning out over the railing, pointing, shouting something and, almost as if as one, the whole mob turns to look at Jon. Fuck.

#jonsa #jonsa fic #jonsa au #jon snow #sansa stark #asoiaf #asoiaf au #asoiaf princess diaries au #my writing

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hilarychuff · 2 years ago

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The Pizza Artist Formerly Known As Princess

a princess diaries au drabble

inspired by this au graphic; find the first in the series here or read both on ao3 here

The day Jon Snow shows up on her front steps with close-cropped hair and a clean-shaven face, Sansa Stark wants to die.

She hadn’t processed it at first that morning — she’d practically gone into shock when she’d first answered the door, and then it had been hard to get a thought in edgewise with Arya berating him nonstop for the entirety of the drive to school — but by fourth period, the misery had started to set in. Now, she’s escalated to full-blown despair, barging into Arya’s room so she can dramatically flop onto her sister’s bed.

“It’s not fair,” she groans, throwing her arms over her eyes where she’s laying in a haphazard swoon. “I can’t believe Jon would do this to me.”

Arya doesn’t look up from where she sits at her desk across the room, eyes laser-focused on some video game she’s playing on her computer. She jabs violently at her keyboard, the keys clacking loudly as she swears under her breath, but Sansa sighs in increasingly loud increments until her sister finally breaks.

“I hate it when you do that,” Arya growls. “And whatever. Get over it. It’s not like he did anything to you anyway. All he did was cut his hair.”

“What!” Sansa shrieks, bolting upright so she can stare unbelievingly across the room. “He did so! And you were saying the same exact thing this morning, by the way! You really owe him an apology, you know. You were being really mean, Arya. Like, meaner than usual.”

“I was not,” Arya sulks, but anyone could hear the guilt in her voice. “But just for your information, Jon’s stupid haircut has nothing to do with you. He’s just… going through some stuff. With his family. Why do you even care, anyway? Doesn’t his freaky preppy makeover mean he’ll finally be popular enough for you to date now?”

“Mean!” Sansa accuses again, pointing a finger. “This is not the plot of an Avril Lavigne song, Arya, this is my life! And now he’s ruined it by shaving his patchy little mustache.”

Finally, Arya looks away from the computer, spinning around in her desk chair so she can glare at her sister. “You’re the one that’s always saying — and I quote — ‘if Jon Snow would just get a haircut and give up on growing a beard, everyone would see how cute he totally is.’”

“And I was right!” Sansa moans, flopping onto the bed again, throwing her arms back over her eyes. “Now everyone knows what I’ve known for the last two years! You should’ve seen the way Margaery was looking at him when Mr. Slynt finally made him take his beanie off during lunch. I bet she’s never even noticed him before in her life!”

“So what?” Arya grumbles. “You’re also the one that’s refused to ask him out for forever. Shit or get off the pot, Sansa.”

“Ew, don’t say that. And you’re the one that told me that it would ruin everything if Jon and I dated.”

Arya gives a noncommittal grunt, spinning back around to face her computer game.

“Well, you did,” Sansa insists. “Now everything’s going to be ruined anyway.”

“What are you so worried about?” Arya asks in that same sulky tone from before. “Isn’t Margaery Tyrell still dating your heinous ex boyfriend?”

“I mean, yeah, but if it’s not Margaery, it’s bound to be someone else.”

“So if everything’s ruined anyway, why don’t you just ask him out, then?”

Sansa sits right back up again. “Do you mean that?”

Arya peeks over her shoulder, gives a reluctant shrug. “I mean, you should check with Robb first. I feel like he might be kind of pissy about it.”

“But you wouldn’t mind? You’d be OK with it?”

“I mean…. It’s whatever,” Arya says, more mock-casual than actually effortless. “Obviously I still think it would be weird if you and Jon dated. But if someone’s going to date him, it should be you, right?”

“Totally,” Sansa agrees. And then, more shyly, “Do you think he’d say yes?”

Arya groans, drops her head down into her arms on top of the keyboard. “Can we not talk about this anymore?” she moans, her voice coming out muffled. “Isn’t it enough that I’ll have to live with it?”

“But do you think he would?”

Arya shifts so that she can peek over at Sansa with one eye.

“You’re not really worried, are you?”

Sansa only shrugs, brings her hand to her mouth where she bites down on the pad of her thumb, teeth clenched against the skin as the best alternative to her nail. Other than a minor relapse last fall, she managed to break the habit years ago, and she cements her commitment to it with a fresh manicure each week, but every now and then the temptation feels overwhelming. Her sister just sighs and lifts her head all the way off her arms.

“I think,” Arya says slowly, voice measured, “that if he said no, he’d be even stupider than Joffrey.”

Sansa nods, forces herself to release her thumb. She wipes her hands on her skirt as she stands, then reaches up to fix her ponytail, all mussed from her dramatics.

“Totally,” Sansa says. And then again, as if just to herself, “Totally.”

She moves towards the door, and Arya turns fully back to her computer, hands poised over the keyboard and mouse.

“For the record, though, Sans,” Arya calls over her shoulder, glancing back before Sansa fully steps into the hall, “I’m pretty sure Jon is one of the smartest guys in our whole school.”

—

Jon Snow is a prince. Like, a real prince. Like, a real royal prince set to inherit a whole royal throne one day. Probably even one in a castle. Probably even one with a scepter. That’s what everyone is saying, at least, that he’s the heir to some tiny European country called Valyria.

Sansa hadn’t understood what was happening earlier when the mob had suddenly surged in their direction, shouting questions and snapping pictures, cameras flashing as microphones and tape recorders and the hands holding them were suddenly shoved between the three of them. They’d been separated by the crowd, her and Arya and Jon all pushed or dragged off in different directions, and it had only been once Sansa finally stumbled free of the crush that she’d even realized it was Jon they were circling, Jon they were following up the front stairs to school. She’d heard what they were shouting, the questions they were asking, but there’d been so many people around, so much noise that she hadn’t really processed any of it until she was sitting in first period.

By then, the whispering had started, too.

At first, Sansa wasn’t sure if she believed it. She knew Jon! She’d known him for years. She’d been to his house, met his mom. Had he kept it secret that whole time? How come he’d never told her? Did Robb know? Did Arya?

By the time the bell chimed for her second class, people were saying that the queen herself was on campus, holed up in the principal’s office with half her security team. Sansa had gone so far as faking a period emergency so that she could duck out of gym and sneak down the hall to see just who that meant. And Lyanna had been there, voice raised, visible through one of the windows on either side of the office door as she shouted about something Sansa couldn’t quite make out. But she also hadn’t been alone in the room with Jon and Mr. Arryn. As Sansa walked by, she could also catch a glimpse of at least one more man, one more woman, both with silver blonde hair — and then the towering security guards standing outside the door had meaningfully cleared their throats and she’d scampered away down the hall, ducking into the computer lab so she could frantically Google Jon Snow’s mom.

But when people had talked about the queen, they hadn’t meant Lyanna. There hadn’t been any search results for her, but there had been for Valyria, and it had led her straight to a Wikipedia page that outlined generations of the Targaryen family history, even included portraits of silver-haired, stoic-faced rulers over the decades. Apparently, the queen everyone was talking about was Daenerys Targaryen, the newly crowned monarch of Valyria. And did that mean the other man in the principal’s office had been Jon’s dad? She hadn’t even known he’d had one. Or she knew he’d had one at some point, obviously, but nobody had ever talked about him before.

The whole thing leaves Sansa’s head spinning. Jon, a prince. In line for his aunt’s throne. An aunt she’s almost sure he’s never met before. That he might not have even known he had a month ago.

She’s still trying to wrap her mind around it all an hour later, but everyone else seems to have no problem coming around to the concept. Instead, it’s all anyone can talk about, small clusters of students circled up in classrooms, in hallways, out in the courtyard — and it’s driving Sansa absolutely crazy. Last Friday, most of these people wouldn’t have known Jon’s name, or at least would’ve pretended not to if they thought it would’ve gotten a laugh out of Joffrey or Loras or one of the other popular kids. Now, even they were pretending to be Jon’s friends.

Finally, Sansa can’t stand it anymore when a senior she’s seen around campus a few times bursts into the third floor bathroom, boasting to a friend, “I always knew there was something really cool about him. He’s so dark and mysterious.”

Sansa stuffs her crumpled paper towel into the trash can, spins around on one heel to fix them with a glare.

“Do you even know his full name?” Sansa snaps.

The girl stops in her tracks, giving Sansa a once-over from toe to top. “Excuse you?”

“Jon Snow’s full name,” she says, and she can feel her cheeks going hot. “Do you even know what it is?”

It’s just Jon. He doesn’t even have a middle name. But Sansa doubts this girl knows that. In fact, she half wants to see if the other girl will go far enough to invent one for him. The senior doesn’t, though. Instead, she just narrows her eyes.

“If I knew his full name, then he wouldn’t be so mysterious, would he?”

Sansa lets out an affronted squawk, coming up short on some sort of immediate quippy comeback, then scrambles to regain the upper-hand.

“He’s not mysterious,” she insists after a beat, at least half a lie. “You just never noticed him before today, so don’t pretend you have.”

The girl scoffs, but her friend laughs, rolls her eyes, steps forward to fix her hair in the mirror. “Whatever,” she says. “Ignore her. Just because she’s little miss princess doesn’t mean she gets first dibs when an actual prince comes along. He’s fair game.”

And that stings. Because Sansa’s not trying to call dibs, she has an actual, honest-to-Gods real date with him planned for Saturday night, and she hadn’t even known he was a prince this morning when she’d asked him out — but it’s the princess part that nearly sends her lip quivering. She clamps her mouth shut so they won’t see, then shoulders past them and pushes back out into the crowded hallway. Outside, she squeezes past the lockers and to the stairwell so she can go hide in the second floor girls’ bathroom instead.

–

For three days now, Sansa has hardly seen Jon outside of awkward little waves exchanged across the hallways between classes. Ever since the news broke, he’s been mobbed at school, accompanied by his aunt’s security everywhere outside of it. It had been nice, those few days Jon had picked them up in a limo, but apparently those rides are off-limits until his aunt’s people have finished giving them all background checks, and his aunt doesn’t want him to walk anymore either now that the whole world knows who he is. At least, that’s what he told Arya on the phone when he’d called to let them know not to wait for him in the mornings.

He’s talked to Robb too, called him up to beg him to make Theon stop trying to sell embarrassing stories to the local papers. Each time Theon convinces a journalist or reporter that Jon won the seventh grade spelling bee contest with the word brassiere or that Jon volunteers at a soup kitchen each weekend to serve exclusively shrimp cocktail, he comes up with an even more far-fetched lie to try on the next one. And Theon’s not the only one taking advantage of the media barrage.

By Thursday, Joffrey has also wormed his way onto the local TV news, promising that his dad’s role as the state governor is going to be super important when it comes to foreign relations with Valyria. He puffs out his chest and insists it’s good luck for Queen Daenerys that he and Jon have known each other so long. He twists his wormy lips into a smirk and says he’s even happy to give Jon some tips about what it’s like to be a public figure. After all, he knows how it feels to have to deal with all kinds of phonies and social climbers who are just after him because of his status.

Sansa doesn’t want Jon to think she’s one of them. They’ve never spent much time together at school, and she doesn’t want him to think she’s suddenly hanging all over him in public in the hopes that someone somewhere will snap a photo of them. That she’s aiming to end up on the cover of a magazine so she can get discovered. Or so that she can be a princess for real. She doesn’t want him to think she’s being weird, that anything has changed between them. Most of the time they spent together was in the mornings or after school, but with that off limits, with him busy with his aunt and official royal business or whatever — well, Saturday night will be there soon enough, right? She’ll see him then.

Only, when it turns out that Margaery dumped Joffrey because of that stupid interview, Sansa wants to tear her hair out. Because that means Margaery really is going to try and ask him out, and if Sansa dares to even look at Jon at school it’ll become a whole thing, some weird, stupid rivalry, and she can’t take it if people start pitting them against each other as often as they had back when Joffrey first dumped her for Margaery. Especially when she can’t compare, not when Margaery has a driver’s license and a platinum card and two homecoming queen tiaras displayed in her bedroom while Sansa hadn’t even scored a sophomore court sash.

But it doesn’t matter. It won’t become some sort of public competition as long as she doesn’t make it one. If she just stays away, if she just lays low for one more day, keeps ducking out of rooms whenever Margaery or Jon or Joffrey enters them, then soon enough she and Jon will be on their date and it won’t matter that Margaery has her eye on him. Sansa knows that she doesn’t just like Jon because he’s suddenly famous and cool at school, and she knows that he knows that, too. Right? It was one thing to worry about Margaery making a move back when Sansa was just planning on pining after him forever and there was nothing to stop him from saying yes, but now they have plans — real, solid plans — and Jon wouldn’t just forget about that because someone more popular came along. Jon’s not like that, even if Joffrey was.

If she can just survive the next 30 hours or so, none of this will matter. They’ll have all the privacy they need at the garage, and she can make sure he sees exactly how much she likes him just for him. Not because he’s a prince. Not even just because of his cute new haircut. They’ll finally have a chance to be alone, just the two of them (or maybe his new bodyguard will have to be there too, but she can work with that), and she’s not going to waste it.

–

The pizza is getting cold. She’d ordered it in advance so she could make sure it was ready in time, so she could make a smiley face on it with M&Ms, but now she’s thinking maybe that was a mistake. Maybe she should’ve waited to order it until he was already here. She doesn’t think he’ll mind, and there’s a toaster oven in the makeshift break room Uncle Benjen set up by the front office if they want to pick off the M&Ms and heat their slices up, but she just really wants this whole thing to go right.

But it’s fine! It’s fine. Jon’s running late. It’s no big deal. He’ll be here soon.

Only, another hour later, he’s not. She’s tried calling, but the phone at his house just keeps ringing and ringing. She wonders if maybe Lyanna’s not home. She usually is. She’s usually working on some amazing, abstract art project in the big, open area where they used to park the ladder trucks back when their place was a fire station, but it’s not uncommon for her to have the radio turned all the way up. Maybe she’s working on a piece. Maybe she can’t hear the phone ringing. If Jon’s not answering, that means he’s probably already on his way, right? Right?

By the time another hour has passed, she’s eaten all of the M&Ms off the pizza and most of the cheese. She’d thought she could get away with just little nibbles at first. If she left enough, if she didn’t bite right into a slice, it would still look like a full, regular pizza by the time he got there. She didn’t want him to think she hadn’t waited for him. But now it’s just bread smeared with red sauce, and she’s starting to think he’s not coming. There’s probably a good reason. He probably got caught up doing something important for his aunt. He’s a prince, after all. He’s probably got, like, duties and stuff now.

He’ll call her tomorrow and explain everything, she’s sure of it. But maybe she’ll give him just 20 more minutes first.

#jonsa #jonsa fic #jonsa au #sansa stark #jon snow #asoiaf #asoiaf au #asoiaf princess diaries au #my writing

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hilarychuff · 3 years ago

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princess diaries in my asoiaf au graphic series

When they come at him with the scissors, eyes on the hair he’s sloppily thrown into a bun using one of his mother’s loose hair ties, it finally starts to sink in that they’re serious. They want him — him, Jon Snow, an absolute high school nobody — to be the prince of Valyria, some far away European country he isn’t even positive he’s ever heard of before. He’d known his dad was some sort of politician over on that side of the world, maybe in France or something, but his mom had always been fuzzy on the details. Had she ever actually told him that he was a politician? That he lived in France? Or had he just assumed?

It doesn’t matter, though. His dad has always just been some loser who knocked up Jon’s mom despite the fact that he already had a wife and two kids. Other than the yearly tuition check he sends for Jon’s private school education, they have exactly no contact. Except, as it turns out, he’s not a loser. He’s a prince. Well, was a prince up until a few years ago. It seems Valyria’s royal family had undergone some turmoil after Rhaegar Targaryen, heir to the throne, was outted by the Sunspear tabloids for a series of affairs throughout his marriage to Princess Elia of Dorne. The king, Rhaegar’s father, had called the accusations libel and an act of war — and the ensuing political fallout had only been settled with the agreement that Rhaegar would abdicate his right to the throne, that the Martells would give up their own claims through Elia’s teenage son and daughter.

The matter had been settled, and Rhaegar’s younger brother Viserys was set to rule when King Aerys passed. In the wake of the royal’s actual death, however, Viserys’s reign was short lived, lasting only two weeks before he, too, had abdicated, citing instead his younger sister’s worthiness of the throne, her inherent talent and instincts for leading. The only issue with Queen Daenerys’s rule is that after having married, miscarried, and been widowed young, she’s been open about her infertility. The dragon queen, as they call her, can’t have an heir — and that is what brings her to Jon’s door. After Rhaegar’s abdication, the tension with Dorne, the whispers that she had blackmailed Viserys or used even more nefarious threats to secure the throne, stability is necessary. Valyria needs to know there will not be another succession crisis so soon, and so Daenerys has flown stateside to meet her older brother’s long lost son, a bastard child and candidate for future king nonetheless.

Jon hadn’t believed it at first, sure it was some prank Arya had put together. He’d laughed in his alleged aunt’s face, then breathlessly told her to shut up when it sank in that she was serious (and the expression she’d donned in response had him suddenly understanding the dragon queen moniker). In the weeks since, though, as they taught him history and etiquette and what tiny spoon to use when so that he wouldn’t bring further shame to the Targaryen name when she presented him to the public, her judgment seems to have softened. Only now, as they finally finish making him presentable, his long hair trimmed into a set of tidy curls, the mustache and goatee he’s been working on for months shaved away, does she look at him with something close to pride.

Arya, on the other hand, looks at him with disgust when she sees him before school Monday morning. They’ve always been outcasts together, after all, shunned by the popular crew for preferring metal music to pop, tattered black band tees to polo shirts with upturned collars. That he is suddenly conforming marks him as a sell out, a traitor, a bad friend, a wannabe, shallow — and she keeps up the onslaught for the entirety of their limo ride to school (though that’s one upgrade she certainly doesn’t seem to mind). She only stops when he pulls her aside, just the two of them, and finally spills the beans.

Arya promises to keep his secret, but it only takes one day for someone else to leak the news to the press. By Tuesday, he’s greeted with camera flashes and a crowd, reporters demanding to know what he thinks of the Targaryens, of his father, if he’s met his siblings, if he’s used his new royal status to secure a date for Saturday night. And, the thing is, there is someone he sort of has plans with for Saturday.

Just that morning, Sansa had walked to school by his side, invited him to come to her uncle Benjen’s car shop that weekend to finish up the work on the mustang he’d been saving for for years. She’d promised to order a pizza and M&Ms on her tab, teasing she could charge it to the company card thanks to the few hours she put in each week at the front desk, and at no point during Daenerys’s prince lessons had he felt as truly worthy of a crown as he did in that moment.

And yet as he suddenly finds himself thrust into the spotlight, everyone’s attention on him, she disappears. All of Robb’s friends who’d turned their nose up at him before are pretending they’ve always been tight, Joffrey Baratheon is bragging to tabloid journalists that they go way back (without mentioning any of their literal fistfights), and Margaery Tyrell is suddenly flirting with him in class, but Sansa is ducking out of rooms when he enters them, offering only tight smiles and short waves on the rare occasions he does manage to catch her eye. She’s all but giving him the silent treatment... so when Margaery invites him to the big beach party that weekend as her date, he figures fuck it. Why not.

Only the party ends in disaster, his very existence proves the Sunspear tabloids weren’t printing libel, and Dorne’s royal family are arguing that his half-siblings Rhaenys and Aegon should be added back to the line of succession before him. And, worse, Arya is pissed at him — both because he completely forgot he’d agreed to appear on her talk show and because he apparently broke Sansa’s heart when he stood her up Saturday night. He’s let everyone down: his aunt, his best friend, two siblings he hasn’t even met... and as infuriating as it is that Sansa ignored him and simultaneously expected him to realize they still had plans, the thought of her spending all night waiting for him makes him want to throw himself in some Valyrian dungeon for the next 60 years. He deserves it.

But he’s going to fix it. He’s going to fix all of it. Or, actually, maybe he’ll just run away. He hasn’t decided yet, but with the Annual Valyrian Ball just around the corner — set to mark Jon’s official entry into Valyrian high society — the clock is ticking.

ft. jon as mia, arya as lily, sansa as michael, the starks as the moscovitz family, ghost as fat louie, joffrey as lana, margaery as josh, lyanna as helen, daenerys as clarisse, drogon as rommel, rhaegar as phillippe, tormund as lars, sam as tina hakeem baba, arthur dayne as mr. gianini

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