#but also my fave grant centric fic updated

[lunarrosette]

I’m like going insane abt grant Wilson rn like he’s so AHHHHHHH anyways. Good ep today!

[booksandabeer]

*Obi Wan voice* Hello there! I found myself wondering just now, since clearly you have an extensive list of stucky fics that you read and rec, if you have a favourite fic? I see you mention so many, so I assume your reading a lot of them all the time, sooooo is there *the one* that you found for yourselves? That is all, have a nice day (◕‿◕✿)

Hello there, mysterious person speaking in Obi Wan voice! 😊

Thanks for the ask! To my equally great joy and despair I do indeed read A LOT of fanfic…and yes, I have spreadsheets, folders, lists…it’s a whole (slightly insane) thing. So my first reaction to your question was hysterical laughter. One? I’m allowed to pick only one? *makes big sad eyes at you*

Ok, well. Hm, let’s narrow it down. I kind of consider my AO3 bookmarks my unofficial faves collection (but I haven’t updated that in quite some time, and I almost never put WIPs on there and I can think of at least 2 very strong contenders in that category right now that I should definitely list, so take that with a grain of salt.) In my bookmarks I use the tag ‘All Time Favorites - Top 10 - Best of the Best’, and scrolling through those I just noticed that not only have I used this tag for 11 fics (go figure) but I’m also not even sure about my selection anymore. Ask me again in 3 months what my top 10 are and you’ll probably get a different answer again. Ok, I realize I’ve been waffling on and on in a desperate attempt to not have to make a choice, but I cannot pick just one. Have three instead (even that is painful). And since I’m a cheating cheater who cheats, all three are actually series… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

Notebook No. 6 by magdaliny | 2 parts | 56K | M to E rating

Author's summary: There's a story and it goes like this.

I have already talked about my absolutely deranged love for this series (the first part at least) here, so I'll quote myself:

Come for the spectacular Bucky-voice and his exquisite descriptions of the transcendent love he feels for one Steven Grant Rogers, and stay for his musings on travel, science, religion (Bucky is Jewish in this and the way he confronts, explores and lives his Jewishness is one of my favorite aspects of this fic), history, philosophy and just humanity in general.

This is a story that is at once full of despair and pain, but also brimming with hope and life and love. Yes, it gets very dark at some points, and it will destroy you multiple times before the end. But it will also help you pick yourself up off the floor, gently take you by the hand and say: But look at all the beauty in the world—don’t you forget about the beauty.  

The Hundred Year Playlist by @girlbookwrm | 6 regular parts + 1 collection of “B-sides” | 300K | T to M rating

Author's summary: Steve and Bucky, start to finish.

What it says on the tin. I call this the "Canon-Compliant Stucky Bible" (it ends before IW, and some parts have been shafted by newer canon, but still) or alternatively "The Stucky Sample Platter" because it's got it all: Pre-War Stucky! Wartime Stucky! Bucky: The Winter Soldier Years! Steve: Man out of Time! Bucky Recovery Fic! Wakanda Stucky (aka these ding dongs finally get together)! And every single part is brilliant. Tbh, I never know if it's a good idea to rec this to people who are fairly new to Stucky because I fear it will ruin them for everything else (at least the canon compliant/adjacent stuff). But then again, that's stupid because there are so many wonderful stories in this fandom, I have yet to run out of them!

Welcome Home, Son by @beaarthurpendragon | 2 parts | 50K | M to E rating

Author's summary: Fuck IW/EG. This is how it should have gone. Featuring Bucky & Ayo friendship, a million and one Stucky feels and a soft slice-of-life epilogue.

I have also talked about this series before, so I'll quote myself again:

A Bucky-centric character study set during his time in Wakanda, about the rediscovering/rebuilding of his identity, his friendship with Ayo (her characterization is wonderful in this), coming to terms with his past and his potential future(s), and his complicated feelings about and for Steve Rogers.

I would love to quote some lines here just to showcase how well-written and thought-out, how beautiful and poignant this story is, but I don't want to lessen the impact during the actual reading experience. So, please read this. And then read the sequel. You won't regret it.

--

Ok, dear mysterious person, i hope you got something out of this very long reply. I have to quickly post this now, otherwise I will start to rethink my choices (again).

If anybody else wants a rec or just to talk fanfic, my ask box is always open!

[astarlightmonbebe]

2020 Creator Wrap

Rules: It’s time to love yourselves! Choose your 5 (or so) favorite works you created in the past year (fics, art, edits, etc.) and link them below to reflect on the amazing things you brought into the world in 2020. Tag as many writers/artists/etc. as you want (fan or original) so we can spread the love and link each other to awesome works.

tagged by @eponinemylove (dkskss i kept forgetting about this whoops)

these dreams, like ashes float away - aka the modern mdzs retelling except not really, with a side of mystery and self indulgent characterization and canon bashing (i love to bash canon with a frying pan. any canon at all). okay technically i only finished posting this fic in early 2020, BUT it’s still the longest thing i’ve ever written and yes, maybe it is a mess of a fic/plot that really demonstrates my stress level when i planned it out and wrote it, with so much whump and bias (yes i was mad at some characters, but so what). anyways, so maybe it is a mess but whenever i actually reread it i think that it is pretty good, and yeah, i’m proud of it.

in the shadow of a flame - the atla retelling, except the main characters are the fire nation gang, with ty lee as the avatar, zuko and azula as her companions, featuring yue as a waterbender and mai as an earth/metalbender. perhaps i have not actually updated or written on this since the end of october (rip!) but i am actually pretty proud of it and i definitely plan to try and complete it eventually. also this fic has had a pretty good amount of growth (likely due to some popular fanart for it), which makes me happy to see.

this mai edit set - 2020 was the year i actually started learning how to use photopea, and granted i haven’t made that many edits, but this one is one of my faves, even if it isn’t my most popular.

this ty lee edit set - same as above, basically, except i really love these ones. like the aesthetic, the face claim? perfection!

a tie between your touch burns & falling peach blossoms - the one shots i published on ao3 this year! the first is something i literally wrote at midnight in one go; focusing on the inherent homoeroticism of rivals (and fighting with one another) for dance of the phoenix, and the second is a lan zhan centric reincarnation au mixed with some chinese mythology, which i wrote in a day (instead of doing online school work because, you know). 

honorable mentions:

my entire star edits tag for 2020 (there’s like 17 i think? which isn’t a lot, but also they are all dear to me so)

i have some slytherin centric fics from where i fell back into harry potter over the summer, and most of them are extreme fanon, but hey, i like them.

bottom of the deep blue sea cql fmv on youtube. tbh i haven’t vidded since the summer, even though i have ideas again, and the ones i made this year are nowhere near as satisfying as the ones i did in 2019, but this one was pretty good (despite some mistakes that i noticed too late to fix lol i cry).

this meta on the end of cql (specifically when lxc stabs jgy and a look in on nhs) because i like how i worded it, even if it isn’t the longest cql meta i have, anyways i just have a lot of thoughts about nhs and the full circle, cycles in the cql, etc...my brain is getting distracted just thinking of it again. i had a lot of good thoughts about cql this year (half of which are still in my drafts or docs).

a qin su (+ wen qing) character study where she and wq are ghosts stuck in koi tower. this one i’m still writing, but ideally it will be posted as a one shot before the year is out. i just haven’t finished it yet, so it’s not on the list ahah.

cql canon divergence fic which is really only a set of ideas and scenes in my head, but i really do what to plan it out more fully and write it one day (ideally in the near future), but basically it’s canon divergence where wwx doesn’t rescue jiang cheng from lotus pier and the golden core transfer  never happens. 

i’ll tag @theserendipityofjimin @etherealjjong @emirablights @curlykytta & anyone else who wants to do this !! (sorry if any of you have done this already xoxo)

[orangeflavoryawp]

Jonsa - “A Violence Done Most Kindly”, Part 2

I just couldn’t leave you guys with a solo chapter so I’ve upped the ante in this next one.  ;)  Expect future updates to be between one and two weeks, though.

Also, keep in mind that this fic is Stark-centric, and the plotlines I'm following won't necessitate the inclusion of certain characters, even ones I love. So don't be surprised if some of your faves don't make an appearance. This ensemble piece can only ensemble so much without losing cohesiveness.

“A Violence Done Most Kindly”

Chapter Two: Don’t Look Away

“She has had enough of men playing to roles they haven't the right to fill." - Jon and Sansa. Stark is a house of many winters.

Read it on Ao3 here.

Part 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 fin

* * *

“My lady, if I may,” Baelish calls to her, catching her after a council meeting, halting her in the hall to her chambers.

           Sansa stills reluctantly, nodding to Brienne when she eyes the Lord Protector warily.

           “Was there something we missed in the meeting, my lord?”

           Baelish makes his way up to her, a smile just this side of a grimace gracing his features.  “I had hoped to speak with you outside the council meeting.”

           “We’re speaking now,” she grants him, and grants nothing else.

           Baelish glances to Brienne at her side, eyeing the way she keeps a perpetual hold on the hilt of her sword.  Sansa wonders wildly if he remembers that day, so long ago.

           “What if I want you to die, here and now?”

           “Privately, if you please, my lady,” he says, head inclined in deference.  

           Sansa watches him for just a moment, contemplating, and then she’s nodding to Brienne, continuing the walk to her chambers where she invites Baelish inside, and Brienne stands guard dutifully by the door, though not without a last lingering look of concern.  Sansa offers her a small smile of reassurance before closing the door behind her.

“I do wish to grant you what time you need to reacquaint yourself with your long-lost sister, unrecognizable though she may be,” Baelish starts, puffing his chest out with the words as he takes in her solar, “But I do hope you haven’t forgotten that there is a conversation to be had between us now, especially so because your brother has gained yet another supporter in your sister.”  He turns back to her with something like self-satisfaction – keen and impossible to miss.

           She begins to remove her gloves.  “I have not forgotten.”

           “Good.”  A step toward her.

           Sansa drops her gloves to the desk beside her.  “Nor have I forgotten your warnings.”

           A gleam lights in his eye, perhaps pride (though it is only a vague measure she can discern), or perhaps simply greed.  She is disappointed with herself for not having the skill to distinguish them yet at this point.

           “My dear Sansa,” he begins, already edging toward her, and it is an endearment that sets her skin to tingling, the base of her spine slipping into a rigidity quite like a familiar armor.

           His hands light along her shoulders.  She wonders when his attentions and his affectations turned from fatherly to that of a lover.  It isn’t in the motions themselves, the touches, the caresses.  It’s in the way he looks at her all the while, the words he spews when he touches her so.

           And she has had enough of men playing to roles they haven’t the right to fill.

           “Did you interpret our last conversation as a warning?” he asks curiously, a false touch of concern lighting his voice.

           She knows better than to answer such a question truthfully.

           His fingers curl around her arms, drawing her closer to him.  “Oh Sansa, you must know I never meant it as such.”

           “I know very little, Lord Baelish, where it concerns you.”  She allows herself this small honesty.  Truth can sometimes tempt the best of them.

           The self-satisfied grin that tugs at his lips makes her quiver, though she tempers the reaction before he can register it.  “I’ve been rather transparent with my desires, Sansa, wouldn’t you say?”

           She only looks at him, unblinking.

           “As transparent as the King, I would wager.”

           Sansa’s eyes narrow instantly, her shoulders stiffening.

           Baelish keeps one hand curled tight around her elbow, anchoring her to him, his other lifting to trace her cheek.  “You’re much too smart to think you can play such a game under my nose without me catching wind of it.”

           She gulps, lips pursed, offering no rebuke, but no admission either.  Her skin feels hot – blistering and not her own. “I’m not playing at anything.”

           “Yes, perhaps that’s the tragedy of it,” he muses, a mockingly smooth finger edging the length of her jaw.  “Tell me, Sansa, how long did you let your bastard brother beg before you finally spread your legs for him?”            Sansa jerks back, but he holds her tight, far tighter than he’s ever dared to touch her before, and something flashes in his eyes that looks dangerously like possessiveness.  

“You will unhand me, Lord Baelish,” she grinds out.

           He only grips her tighter, bruisingly so, hand clutching at her jaw now, mouth hovering close to hers, a hiss seethed through his teeth.  “Or are you the one who does the begging?” he murmurs, eyes fixed to her mouth, brows angled down sharply in an anger she recognizes all too easily.

           Joffrey had that kind of anger.  Ramsay, too.

           “Not the sort of boy who gives away his toys.”

           “I said ‘unhand me’, sir.”  It’s a command now, a wolfish sort of thing snarled through grit teeth.

           “I wonder what it took to hear such begging,” he croons at her mouth, dark and promising, ignoring her protest.

           “If you want to keep that hand,” a voice says smoothly from behind them, jolting them apart, “then you’ll remove it from my sister.”

           Sansa whips her head to the far corner of her room, watching as Arya materializes from the shadows.

           Baelish clears his throat, backing from Sansa almost unconsciously, his hands blessedly free of her.

           “Arya, what are you doing here?” Sansa hisses at her, breathing heavily, hands curling at her sides until her nails press half-moons into her palms.

           Arya swings her steady gaze toward her, cocking a brow.  “Minding snakes, it seems.”

           Sansa bristles at the answer.

           Baelish collects himself easily, stepping toward Arya.  “My lady, if you would only – ”

           “I’m not your lady,” she answers swiftly, gaze cutting back to his.  “And neither is my sister.”

           He swallows, chin lifting.  “This was a private conversation you intruded on, Lady Arya.”

           “Yes, and all the more shame that it’s now made public.  But don’t let that stop you.  Please, do continue.”  Arya motions toward Sansa with a daring scorn.

           Baelish looks between the two.  Sansa never takes her eyes off her sister.

           “Arya, you need to leave.”

           Arya glares at her, but then she’s looking back at Baelish, taking a step, and then another, making her way smoothly toward him until she’s standing just a foot away, head cocking as she looks up at him.  “I only ever make threats I intend to follow through,” she tells him, dark grey eyes wide and unblinking, harrowing in their intensity.

           Baelish stares back at her, riveted.  His throat bobs uncertainly.

           Sansa sucks a sharp breath through her teeth.  “Arya.”

           And then the younger Stark is offering Baelish a mocking smile, a false comfort beneath her deadly gaze.  “My list isn’t so long that it can’t fit another name,”

           Baelish furrows his brows, uncomprehending, but she doesn’t wait for a response, stalking away from him to stand beside her sister.

           Several moments pass in silence, and then Baelish smooths his hands over his robe, clearing his throat.  “Well then,” he begins.

           “Well then,” Arya says almost smugly, hands linked behind her back.

           Baelish levels her with a steady stare, before looking up to Sansa.  That anger is back, brimming just beneath a still, composed surface.  Its sourness is no less visceral, even with her sister at her side, and Sansa thinks this must be how poison works – slow and unseen.

           “I bid you good evening, ladies,” he says in farewell, before stalking to the door, unlatching it, and slamming it behind him.

           Sansa takes a long, solid breath, hands finally uncurling at her sides. She glances down to Arya.  Her sister is staring up at her, lip curled, a sneer playing at her features.

           “You’re being reckless,” Sansa throws out on a harsh exhale, shaking with it, and shaking with more.

           Arya schools her face back to passiveness, making her way to the door as well.  “And you’re being stupid.”  She says it with no remorse, and Sansa didn’t think it’d hurt quite so much to hear the familiar words again after so many years.

           But Arya leaves without saying more, and Sansa’s word of thanks is lodged somewhere between her barren tongue and her clenched teeth, as sour as Baelish’s anger had been.

* * *

           “Littlefinger will make his move before long.  Arya’s seen to that,” Sansa huffs reluctantly, glancing toward her younger sister as they sit gathered in her solar.

           Jon sighs, leaning his elbows over his knees.  “We can’t afford this – not now.”

           Arya doesn’t look the slightest remorseful.  “He threatened Sansa.”

           Jon straightens at this.  

           “Arya,” Sansa hisses.  “That’s not what happened.”

           Arya lifts a brow her way.  “That’s exactly what happened, even if he didn’t say it in so many words.”

           Jon opens his mouth to press further, but then Arya is scoffing, arms crossing over her chest.  Her words still him.  “You leave yourself too open to threats, Sansa.  Too open… in other ways, as well.”  Arya slips a look of accusation toward Jon out of the corner of her eye.

           The bile is ripe on his tongue – sharp and pungent.  Just like the anger.

           “Arya, that’s enough,” he bites out warningly, purposely not looking at Sansa’s suddenly wet eyes, her jutting chin, her stiff, yet trembling hands bunched in her lap.

           Arya rolls incredulous eyes his way.  “You’re both fools.  You’re both foul, selfish fools,” she seethes.  Her arms tighten over her chest, her jaw locking tight, like collaring a wolf.  Like leashing anguish.  “And you’ll be the end of us.”

           “I wasn’t the one who threatened the Lord Protector of the Vale,” Sansa snaps meaningfully.

           Arya’s face hardens, her throat flexing.  “Should I have let you be, then?”  Her voice is impossibly soft.  “Should I have let him touch you?”

           A flare of possession streaks through Jon – white-hot and instant – but it’s dampened by the look upon Sansa’s face.  It’s a look he’s never seen before, all at once guilty and pleading and proud.

           “They’re our family,” Bran says from his quiet place beside the hearth, nearly forgotten in the sudden vitriol splashed across the room.

           Arya spares him a glare as well.  “I know that, Bran.  And that’s what makes it all the worse.”

           Jon clamps down on the spiteful rush that floods him.  She is his sister, after all, and gods, does he miss her. But this is not what he wanted. “Only the pack survives, Arya.  We have to – ”

           “Don’t you dare use Father’s words after fucking his daughter beneath this very roof,” she spits.

           The scrape of Sansa’s chair is jarringly loud in the sudden quiet, and Jon can do nothing but watch her stalk to the window, his knuckles white wear he grips his knees, his teeth sinking into his tongue as he bites down on his rebuke, the shame tart and instant and utterly unspeakable.

           (There can be no rebuke to truth though, he knows this.  Even when he wishes he didn’t.)

           It’s the first the nature of their relations have been brought to air – the first that exactly what it is they’re doing has been spoken of so clearly  And perhaps it isn’t the vehemence with which Arya says it that startles him to silence, or the crudeness in how she says it. Perhaps it’s just that it was said at all.

           The blaring reality of their sin laid out before them, in no uncertain terms.

           Arya digs the heel of her palm into her wet eyes, teeth gritting.

           Sansa stares stoically out the frost-lined window, taking a single, long breath in, and then exhaling just as slow.  Her jaw works beneath the flicker of candlelight.

           Jon looks away.

           “We’ll need Baelish,” Bran interrupts the silence

From her position along the window, Sansa’s shoulders stiffen, a look of wariness passing over her shoulder when she glances to Bran.

           Jon doesn’t like the taste that floods his mouth at the sight.

           “We’ll need his spies,” Bran corrects.

           Sansa rubs a worrying thumb into her opposite palm.  A sigh like he’s never heard from her passes through her lips then. She is an altogether different woman suddenly.  “Is there a difference?”  Her voice hardly wavers.

           Bran’s eyes shift to Arya.  “One face – many faces.”  

           Arya glances up at the words, her ire momentarily forgotten in place of cautious interest.

           Something of a smile tugs at Bran’s lips, but it’s barely-there and fleeting enough to make Jon question its presence entirely.  “Perhaps it’s not such a difference,” their brother muses.

           Jon thinks he should feel cold at the glint that passes through Arya’s gaze, but he can’t summon anything beyond a vague apprehension.

           Instead, he looks to Sansa.

           She does not look back.

* * *

           She leads Baelish to the godswood in the dead of night, and he doesn’t see the wolves circling until the mark of his own grave stops him stock still in the clearing.

“Sansa, please,” Baelish begs, knees sodden with muddied snow, a gleam of moonlight casting through the weirwood trees to land in slants upon his sweaty, pale face.  At his back, Needle stays pressed just between his third and fourth ribs, Arya’s wrist poised in shadow, her other arm held at her back, spine straight. She watches Sansa expectantly.

           At the gasp of her name from Baelish’s lips, Jon takes a purposeful step forward, lip curling, hands fisting at his sides.  “Don’t you even speak her name,” he threatens in a low growl.

           Bran’s hand at his elbow stays him.

           Arya flits slate-grey eyes up at him, narrowing, her lips pursed tightly.

           Jon shares a look with her, before he averts his gaze, a heated scoff leaving his lips.

           Brienne lights a tentative hand on Sansa’s shoulder. “My lady, you do not have to see this.”

           Through all this, Sansa has stayed resolutely still, a thrum of disquiet washing over her.  In her mind’s eye, she sees her mother.  She sees her father.  She sees a brilliant grey banner, direwolves in the wind.  She sees a house bloodied by betrayal.

           She sees the last song of the mockingbird – words for poison – and she remembers that she has learned the weight of such venom years ago.

           “But I do,” she answers Brienne, eyes already wet, throat already constricting, even as she nods to Arya.

           “Sansa – ”  Baelish ends her name on a cracked exhale, Needle sliding between his ribs with a quiet slickness.

           His mouth is red instantly, lungs flooding with blood.

           Sansa starts to shake.  She feels Jon’s hand at the base of her spine.

           “Don’t look away,” Bran says from his chair beside them –

           (Arya is wiping her blade clean before Baelish even hits the snow.)

           – “Father will know if you do.”

* * *

           Arya wears Baelish’s skin with an ease that quietly terrifies.

           Sansa watches the false-Baelish stride across the hall, calling Lord Royce’s name in a voice she still finds sets her skin to tingling.

           Sansa stares at the cover that is Littlefinger.

           A stranger’s eyes stare back, unfamiliar in their familiarity.  

           She had thought condemnation would look different on a face that wasn’t Arya’s.

           She knows now that she is wrong.

           “He’s not worth crying over,” Jon tells her the next night, when she’s busy unlacing his tunic, fingers trembling and frantic.  Something of sorrow lines his words.

           Sansa stills, looking up at him.  “I know.”

           His hand slips up her jaw, thumb brushing along her cheek so achingly slow that she suddenly feels the wetness along it.  “Then why are you?” he asks her, not unkindly.  It’s a whisper between them, an indiscernible secret let to air.

           “I’m not,” she bites out.

           But oh, she is –

           She is, she is, she is –

           “Sansa.”  Something breaks in her with how he says it.

           (Or perhaps it was always broken, and she’s only just now finding the pieces.)

           It’s a terrifying tangle of grief and relief that fills her at the image of Baelish’s face in the red-filtered moonlight, his pleading mouth forming her name so ardently she wants to strike him for it.  “I don’t regret it,” she admits on an exhale, her fingers slipping from Jon’s chest as she stumbles back a step.

           He follows her, doesn’t let her pull away.  He cradles her face in his hands, her tears running freely now.

           “I don’t regret it,” she mumbles, head shaking.  “I don’t regret it, I don’t – I…I don’t regret it, I – ”

           He silences her with a kiss, nothing of kindness to it, nothing of mercy.  He doesn’t give her mouth the chance to form any more words, least of all those.

           She’s back to unlacing his tunic, and she isn’t crying anymore.

           But the tangle has only knotted further.

           She doesn’t know anymore, what to regret in this life.

           Her hand meets his flesh.

           (She just doesn’t know anymore.)

* * *

           Daenerys razes the northern lands of the Crownlands, pushing toward Harrenhal, and what Sansa assumes will be even further toward the Westerlands.  She imagines she could take King’s Landing if she wanted, but perhaps vengeance urges her west first.  A thirst Daenerys must quench before she takes her crown. A kingslayer she must bring to heel before the whole of Westeros.  She must recognize by now that King’s Landing is not the seat of power it once was, not with more than half the population already fled.  If she wants the seven kingdoms to kneel, then she will have to bring the fight to them.  Shouting her claim in the middle of an empty throne room will not get her the subservience she craves and sitting the Iron Throne is not so meaningful without witnesses. So she holds her court at Dragonstone, and pushes west.

Jaime Lannister gives up Riverrun to Brynden and Edmure Tully when the dragon queen’s forces push too close for comfort.  He focuses on The Reach instead, halting their advance towards Casterly Rock.  The Lannisters face enemies on all sides from the rest of the Seven Kingdoms, even with having the largest contingent of men.

And yet, it’s still surprising when Jaime Lannister is the first to answer one of Jon’s many ravens calling for a peace summit.

(‘To fight the horde’, Jon had said.

‘To ensure peace amongst the kingdoms’, Sansa had urged him instead, a hand squeezing his wrist, and she watched as the huff of frustration blew from his lips.

Still, he heeded her advice, dipping his quill to the parchment and adopting her calculated words in his missives.)

Jon tosses a scroll to her desk, raking a hand through his curls.  “He says he’ll come only if he’s granted an audience with the Lady of Winterfell,” he spits almost mockingly, eyes boring into the parchment as it lays innocently atop her ledgers.

Sansa’s brows furrow, fine-boned fingers picking up the scroll to peruse it herself.  She licks her lips, looking up at Jon from her seat.  “He’ll want to know about Cersei.”

“You had nothing to do with that.”

“Not in his eyes, I imagine.”

Jon rests his knuckles along the wood of her desk, leaning over it.  “I will kill him before he lays a hand on you.”

Sansa takes a deep breath, easing back in her chair. His quiet, violent outburst settles something low in her gut like spitting coals.  “And would you have me turn him away over this?  When he commands the largest force in Westoros – the kind of numbers we’ll need if we want to defeat the dead?”

He doesn’t answer her.  But he doesn’t need to.

Sansa sighs, shaking her head.  “We can’t win this without allies, you said it yourself.”

Jon tears his hands away from the desk, stalking across the length of her solar, staring darkly at the wall, a hand gliding over his mouth.  He stalks back along the stones, stopping at her desk again.  “I don’t like it.”

The indignation is easy, ripe in her throat. “It’s not your choice.”

His eyes flash, his hands curling into fists at his sides.  “Aye,” he bites out.  “It’s not.”

It doesn’t sound like a surrender or an agreement, but Sansa hasn’t the patience to argue such a point.  “Then the Lady of Winterfell accepts.  You can tell him as such when you pen your answer.”  She links her fingers atop her lap, lips pursed.

Jon clenches his jaw, chest heaving just the once – like trying to rein something in.  But then he’s nodding his farewell, turning from her, throwing the door to her solar open so harshly that Brienne braces a hand reflexively to Oathkeeper, glancing in on her lady as the King sweeps past.

Sansa scowls at his retreating form, fingers curling into a knot in her lap.

* * *

           He thinks maybe the right words will come to him at the tip of a sword.  They usually do, and he’s never been much good without one.  So when he invites Arya to a spar at the far end of the eastern courtyard, well enough out of earshot of any passersby, he doesn’t waste time.

           “Sansa misses you.”  He sees the moment the smirk slips from her mouth.  

           She’d been enjoying the spar, he can tell, and while some part of him aches that he’s the one to shatter that moment, to temper that glee, a larger part of him knows how to recognize the temporary and the fleeting at this point.

           Arya doesn’t blunt her swipes, Needle clacking against Longclaw with a sharp ringing.  “I doubt that very much.”

           Jon steps into the parry, teeth gritting.  “I know why you’ve been distant but – ”

           “If you know, then it shouldn’t be so hard to understand.”  Her swing lands dangerously close to his cheek.

           Jon stumbles back, breath breaking from him with a jolt, a flush of anger heating him.  “She’s your sister.  Shouldn’t that be enough?”

           Arya straightens, a hand held primly at her back, a single brow arched.  “It wasn’t enough for you, was it?  To have her as a sister?”  She doesn’t hide the contempt now.

           Jon huffs his frustration, swinging low, teeth bared when he meets her blade for blade.  “Whatever I’ve done, whatever I’ve – ”  He swallows his words behind a grunt.  They meet in a clash, eyes locked.  “I won’t apologize for what I want.  Not even to you.”

           Arya’s eyes wet instantly, even while they harden.  She shouts as she shoves him back.  “You should have known better!  You should have – she should have – ”  She swings again, too wide, staggering back when he parries her almost effortlessly.  “It’s like I don’t even know you anymore!”  

           He imagines she hadn’t meant for her voice to break on that one, and he understands why she covers it with a snarl, another lunge, but he’s finding it harder and harder to brace against her vehemence.

           Jon knocks her back, bracing his boots in the dirt to steady himself.  His chest heaves, the breaths coming ragged and full.  “You’ve no idea what she’s been through.”

           Arya narrows her eyes at him, twirling Needle into an overhold.  “The people talk, Jon.  I know what Ramsay – ”

           “I’m not just talking about what Ramsay did to her!” he bellows, stilling her instantly.  His gut churns at the name, even still, even now when he bears the marks of that bastard’s ruin on his scarred knuckles, even when he carries him with him beneath his skin (and oh, how he would scar worse if it meant he could mar him again and again and – )

           Jon closes his eyes, taking a deep breath as he swallows back the rage.

           Because Ramsay was not all of it.

           “What do you mean?”  Arya is standing eerily still, hair slightly disheveled, gloved hand curling around Needle’s hilt.

           Jon opens his eyes.  

           (Just a stupid, little girl, Sansa had muttered in a voice so scathing he knew he’d never know the whole of it.

           She doesn’t like mirrors, he finds.  And this, perhaps, makes him saddest of all.)

           “I meant down in King’s Landing.”

           Arya doesn’t respond, but Needle lowers minutely.  Jon takes it as a motion to continue.

           Something strikes him then, instant and resounding.  “Could you have done it?”

           Her brows sharpen down in her confusion.  “What?”

           Jon licks his lips, continuing.  “Could you have held your tongue in the midst of those who killed Father, knowing it would be your head next?”

           Arya’s chest puffs out, her hiss high and biting.  “I would have died to avenge Father.”

           “And could you have held it knowing that if not, it would be your mother next? Your brother?  Your sister?”

           Arya stops, throat flexing beneath her tight swallow.

           Jon takes a step closer, Longclaw still at the ready.  “Could you have taken the beatings, the humiliation, the constant reminder of your helplessness, your uselessness?  Could you have listened day after day to the threats on your family?  Could you have done nothing, because to do more meant worse than death for those you loved?”  He’s panting by now, quaking in his own skin, desperate, wretched, lungs full with his woe. He can see her trembling from where he stands.  Longclaw tips to the ground, forgotten.  “Do you know how she cried for you?”

           Arya turns her head away, eyes riveted to the stone wall.  The tears are more apparent now, though they never fall. Her jaw works beneath her tight words. “I never asked her to.”

           “Aye,” Jon says, nodding, voice cracking.  “Sansa did a lot of things for us we never asked her to.”

           She looks back at him then, her face fierce, a shadow of distress glancing through her eyes, and then gone.  She blinks back the wetness.  “I don’t know what she’s been through, no.  Not truly. Not entirely.”  She tilts her chin up, her voice steady.  “But neither does she know what I’ve been through.”

           And there it is.

           The reminder of how he’s failed.

           Jon crumbles beneath the weight of such guilt, his head lowering, and he digs the knuckles of his free hand into his eye socket, clearing his throat when he looks back at her and his hand comes away salt-tinged.  “I know.  And I’m sorry, Arya, I’m so – ”  His breath catches, and he has to choke back the break, start again.  “I’m sorry I couldn’t – ”

           “I’m not saying it because I blame you.”  Arya sighs, glancing away to the wall once more.  It seems a comfort.  “I’m not saying it because I blame her either.  It just… it just is.”

           “Would you wish it upon her?  What you went through?”  He asks it softly, plaintively.  

           She considers him a moment, eyes a hauntingly familiar grey.

           (How like his sister he’s always been – and how not.)

           “No,” she finally answers, Needle lowering to her side entirely, the crinkle of her glove resounding in the blaring quiet.

           “I think she feels much the same,” he offers her, stepping closer, until he is standing right before her, until he can reach a gloved hand up to brush a lone strand of hair behind her ear.

           Arya’s eyes flutter shut at the motion, leaning into the touch unconsciously. Her lashes glisten with the unshed tears.

           Jon’s hand retreats, a long-forgotten fondness creeping out between his ribs.  He waits until her eyes shift open once more.  He waits until she’s looking at him, really looking at him.  He waits until he knows she’s ready to listen.

           “Sansa isn’t weak,” he tells her, voice steady.  “She’s just strong in ways you’ve never had to be.”

           Arya stares up at him, and she is all at once exactly the sister he left, and yet nothing like her at all.

           He wants to reach for her once more, but something tells him not to.  Something tells him they’re not there yet.

           Arya flits her gaze to the side, a heavy sigh leaving her.  She wipes at her eyes, clearing her throat.  She sheaths Needle without further word, stepping back from him.  “I’m not okay with what you two are doing,” she says finally, voice clear of tears. She looks back up at him and her eyes are dry.

           Jon shakes his head.  “I’m not asking you to be.”  It’s easy to be unapologetic.  It’s easy now that he recognizes how little condemnation means to him.  Not with this.

           Not with her.

           (He will never be sorry for that.)

           “But,” Arya starts, swallows, starts again.  “But I hear you.”

           Jon stares at her, blinking swiftly.

           “I hear you,” she says again, and then she’s turning and stalking away, their spar forgotten.

           He doesn’t think they’d have ended in anything but a stalemate anyway, but he hopes.

           He hopes.

* * *

{The hearth spits another log to cinders before them, and she thinks he means to keep this damn silence always, until, “Because she is needed.”

Sansa nearly scoffs, her throat catching on the noise.  She blinks the wetness from her eyes.  “We never needed her,” she says on a harsh exhale.

           “We do,” Bran counters, no malice in the correction, no reprimand.

           “We needed Jon,” she manages through clenched teeth, fingers curling over her armrests like talons.  She wants to strike him – her little brother.  She wants to claw those desolate white eyes out and find the monster beneath – the monster that did this to them.  “We still do,” she grinds out.  It almost seems a pointless grief now.

           Bran gives her a long moment of silence, eyes frustratingly vacant.  “There can be no Jon without Daenerys.”}

[kibibarel]

do u have any. pokemon fic recs? preferably game and SuMo based but its up to u

i am a simple woman with simple desires who only really actively seeks out fics that feature her top faves (read: N and Lusamine. also occasionally Zinnia, AZ, and Lillie)…so i can recommend some but they all heavily feature at least one of those characters KSDjfklds;j…and actually good Lusamine-related fics are pretty hard to come by, so my SM-based fic recommendations are probably very few BUUUUUTTT….

Beasts and Beauties is one that i have read and reread several times over and consistently blows me away with how amazingly good it is…..it ended recently at 38 chapters and just uh..ripped me apart and gently put me back together again??? tragically beautiful. it’s horribly sad and super brutal at times (and includes a lot of triggery material…including but not limited to the fact that it’s technically a Guzamine fic), but ABSOLUTELY incredible. like i wish i could write like this

aaaaaaaand uuuuhhhhhhhhhhhh…………i’m just now realizing that pretty much all my other fave SM fanfics are one-chapter fics about like…Lusamine being sad and terrible. well i guess i just know what i like. here’s the Lusamine Is Sad and Terrible and I Love Her So Much section

Achilles Heel is another i go back to a lot because it always makes me embarrassingly emotional…….Mohn and Lusamine are sad and the tragic relationship they have gives me indescribable power. minor trigger warning here for mentions of child abuse and eating disorders

i’ve been losing you one day at a time is another simple one-chapter Lusamine and Mohn one……but USUM-based!! like this if you cry every time

chrysalis is super short but still a fun little character study……minor trigger warning for body horror

Roth’s drabbles are also GREAT and have given me a lot of inspiration for writing my own Lusamine over on my RP blog…i love a Lusamine who is bitter and exhausted. here’s… Two of Swords, Mirror Match, and Rebuilding

i also really love this one that explores Mohn and Lusamine’s relationship prior to getting married and ruining everything……..even though it’s only one chapter and ended on a cliffhanger…..with no sign of updating again any time soon………..PRISM………

AND WAIT I ACTUALLY REMEMBERED A COUPLE MORE that shockingly don’t feature Lusamine as the lead….

to sing soft, on high mountains is a really short drabble collection that has Lusamine in it, but it’s definitely more Lillie-centric…tbh i think this is the only fic i’ve seen explore their post-game excursion into Kanto AT ALL????? or at least it’s the only one i’ve read that wasn’t completely terrible and tone-deaf and instead actually good?? smh, the unprofessionalism of this fandom…anyway it’s lovely and just a little bittersweet. Italian chef kiss

Silver Bird is a Gladion and Null fic that is currently unfinished but i LOVE what i’ve read of it so far…i’m a huge sucker for Boy and His Horrific Genetic Experiment Dog stories, and this is the only piece of writing i’ve seen actually explore how their first days together might have played out? granted i don’t search for Gladion shit nearly as doggedly as i look for Lusamine shit, but it’s also one of very few fics i’ve seen that actually gets Gladion as a character…

anyway there…might? be more but i can’t think of them right now……anyway thanks for coming to my book club! hope you like some of them

[pleasesavetanaka]

500 Followers!

Well, it’s been a bit over a year, but I finally hit 500 followers! This is a pretty big milestone for me--the largest follower count on any of my accounts--so I wanted to celebrate it a bit!

I’m currently not writing anything, but I’ve finished up True End, and I just finished up moving! That took up a ton of my time, so instead of writing something new I wanted to highlight some older fics which newer followers might not have read yet, so I went through and touched up a lot of the shorter ones, as well as making a nice little directory.

That said, I do want to thank everyone who follows me - this is my first ‘real’ fandom, and it’s been a pretty interesting ride! My writing in particular has changed a lot (touching up some older fics to correct errors was an adventure in cringing at my own writing), and I’d like to say it’s gotten better over time. Hopefully you’ll find some older stuff to enjoy under the cut!

Some fics have been updated to fix tense issues, typos, etc. I’ve marked those fics in italics. Lots have content warnings, so check when clicking through.

General Fics:

Fics with no set romantic (or sexual) relationship. Often non-romantic at all, or focusing on familial relationships.

Ajin Week 2016, last years ajin week stuff! Contains a whole bunch of drabbles for a variety of prompts and characters, with associated content warnings.

Between, a series of drabbles, almost all of which are now non-canon, set between Pokerface playing ball and the present day. Focuses primarily on Satou and his Vietnam war buddies. Chapter 2 is a favorite of mine, and could still be canon! Lots of mentions of suicide as well.

Houseguest, Satou visits Carter not long after Tosaki does.

Come Home Again, a fic that I absolutely love but kind of slid under a lot of people’s radar. It’s hugely Tanaka-centric, and follows a ‘what if’ - specifically, what if Satou rescued Tanaka not long after he was captured? Heavily Features Thomas Owen, AKA Satou’s father as a major character.

Thin Red Line, Super short but also super popular. A soulmates AU with no romance, jumping between a lot of different characters to show how they adapt to it.

Not the Last, Post-anime canon and the saddest thing I’ve ever written. A oneshot.

Satou / Tanaka:

I write my Satana pretty manipulative, and that’s not for everyone. You’re not likely to get much romance out of these.

Like Riding a Bike, explicit, one of the first things I wrote, it’s some pwp smut.

Heat, explicit, another pwp smut one, this time with ABO dynamics. People really liked this one, even though I wrote it on a whim.

Bad End, explicit, the first of four parts in a much longer series. The first part stands on its own, even without the later parts (which eventually shift to Tanaka / Takahashi / Gen as a relationship).

Life After, a post-canon short fic about Tanaka’s life after Satou is caught. Very sad.

Demons are Like Dogs; They Come When Called, explicit, my secret santa fic from last year! Hard to summarize this without spoilers, but it’s teenage!Tanaka getting seduced by kindly-old-man Satou and all the horrible consequences. Primarily Tanaka POV, so very unreliable narrator.

Satou / Ogura:

One of my fave ships, even if I haven’t written much of it lately. Ogura is just so snarky...

Near Miss, explicit, the first big satogura thing I wrote. Comes with a lot of drabbles and porn. Set in an AU where Ogura got caught by Tanaka during the lab invasion and everything went to shit from there.

Double Down, explicit, technically this is a spinoff of Near Miss but I think it stands decently on its own, assuming you know the premise of Near Miss. That said, I freaking love this one and it’s some of my favorite smut. Pokerface shows up in the Near Miss universe and Satou gets territorial over Ogura.

Satou selfcest:

Man I love these. They’re all more or less plot-what-plot style stories, but some of them get a bit of angst involved even though it’s literally crack. I throw a lot of Pokerface in the mix, and I throw a lot of hat (the now non-canon mercenary Satou) into the mix as well.

Go _____ Yourself, explicit, in order, this one has smut, violence, and feelings. Satou meets three of his younger selves and does his best to impart wisdom on them in his own very Satou way. I still really like this one, mostly because I still really love Satou selfcest.

Satou / Vietnam Squad:

Satou and his teammates! It’s canon in my heart, at least in the manga universe. I call the bearded guy ‘Deck’ and the other guy is ‘Jack’.

Bettings Odds, explicit, two parts speculation about Satou’s time as pokerface, one part porn. 

Defender, explicit, technically a sequel to betting odds, this leads into Not the Last, only Defender can be read on its own. Predates the release of chapter 47, and thus is no longer canon. Effectively follows Satou’s life after the war, speculating what he might have done, and his relationship with the members of his old team. Part three is completely non-canon. Please enjoy sad ossans.

Tanaka / Naomi:

My ‘please let it happen in canon because I want Tanaka to be happy’ ship.

For Good to Do Nothing, a longer fic that serves as my primary Tanaka/Naomi fic. Has a lot of followups and drabbles that go along with it, as well as a ton of fic art. Set in an AU where Naomi does save Tanaka when he asks, rather then not and regretting it.

Tanaka / Ogura:

Restraint Series, explicit, bare with me here because it’s weird. The first part is effectively romanceless, with hints of Satou/Ogura. Second part is heavily Satou/Ogura in a very unhealthy manner. Third part? Tanaka/Ogura, with a heavy focus on recovery. Set in an AU where Satou’s IBM doesn’t save him during Grant, and he gets caught by the Japanese Government.

Takahashi / Gen:

The standby ship that EVERYONE seems to ship to some degree. I consider them pretty much canon, and they act like they’re in a relationship even in fics where they aren’t the focus characters.

First Death, mature for drug use and themes, one of many fics I’ve written about potential TakaGen backstories.