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reginarubie · 3 months

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When HotD got out everyone was like Oh, Daemyra is the new, improved Jonerys with good storyline

And I didn’t give it too much attention, you know I stay mostly in my line and don’t mess around with shit that doesn’t interest me (like Jonerys) but now that I think of it…

I’ll do you all one better (and maybe I am late at the party as always, because I can’t be the only one noticing this)

Jonsa is the reversed, evolved, less entitled (both Jon and Sansa start as spoiled characters but have their entitlement beaten out of them pretty soon, and we love them for it), more duty-oriented (thank you Ned) Daemyra.

I mean all signs point in that direction and I see you 👀 GRRM pushing the Jonsa agenda further on!

And now I’ll tell you what sources I have to base my logic on (and maybe I am wrong ey, but I think it fits Jonsa more, as of now, though Martin could totally disprove me going the other way confronted to the way the show concluded knowing his ending).

So, at the beginning of the story, Robb becomes king in the North by popular demand.

In the first episode Viserys becomes heir (and later king) by popular demand.

Both Robb and Viserys inherit their position by their much beloved predecessor (Jaehaerys and Ned) and both are ‘named/appointed’ by a conclave of lords/ladies in the Riverlands ffs.

Both Viserys and Robb end up planting, with their own politics, the seeds of the shit storm that almost threatens to destroy their family after their death.

Robb marries Jeyne (Talisa in the show) instead of the Frey betrothed thus snubbing the Freys and going back on his word. He dies without an heir leaving the North in shambles when he had been a step from winning the war.

Viserys names Rhaenyra heir and then — instead of marrying the Velaryon girl — marries Alicent and has more children knowing that if they were male it could cause disrupt with the line of succession.

Both are idolised after their death — Viserys taking the name of The Peaceful thanks to the ruling and politics of his Queen and council and Robb by being sanctified by his siblings and lords even tho he was the one causing most of the problems who caused his death and almost destroyed the North — both Viserys and Robb loose their heirs.

Viserys loses his sons by Aemma

Robb dies childless and his heirs (Bran, Rickon, Sansa and Arya) are to his knowledge lost (Bran and Rickon presumed killed, Arya presumed dead and Sansa married to a Lannister).

The heir that remains them, their younger brother/sister (Daemon and Sansa) is not considered worthy of inheriting after them — Daemon for his character and Sansa because she has been married to a Lannister — so both do the same thing, they disinherit their lawful and rightful heir (yes Bran and Rickon and Arya are alive but Robb doesn’t know it; Viserys will have Aegon, Aemond, Daeron and Helaena but he doesn’t know nor care) to name another as heir someone who, by law, should pass after the rightful heir.

It seems to me like some pretty big parallels here.

Daemon = Sansa

Daemon and Sansa are the second born children of a couple who love each other and apparently their mother’ fav.

And you know what’s sick? Daemon and Sansa both supported their brother’ right to any extent.

Daemon readied men-at-arms and sworn swords to defend Viserys’ claim when people rumoured Corlys wanted to assemble a fleet to defend Laenor’ right after Rhaenys.

Sansa bled for the northern independence when in KL and then later — and this is only show for now — Sansa gathered the northern army and put KL under siege to defend her brother. Sansa is the one who decided to rally the lords of the North behind House Stark once again (Jon was done fighting) and she was the one to offer Bran the role of Lord of WF when he returned from Beyond the Wall.

Despite being loyal to their family in their own way, both Daemon and Sansa are disinherited by their king in favor of someone they love but that by law should have come after them.

By succession tradition and law the brother of a king becomes before the daughter of a king — unless women can inherit the throne which was not the case in Westeros at the time — so Daemon came before Rhaenyra in the line of succession, yet Viserys disinherited him to name Rhaenyra heir.

By law and tradition of succession Sansa as the trueborn eldest surviving daughter of Ned and Cat in the evenience of Robb dying without heirs (Bran and Rickon are both presumed dead) comes before Jon, the base born son of Ned Stark. (Jon himself says so “by law Winterfell belongs to my sister, Sansa”/“Winterfell belongs to my sister, Sansa”, even though Sansa is a Lannister, a murderess and apparently dissolved in thin air) yet Robb with his will disinherit Sansa to name Jon heir.

Everyone expected Daemon/Sansa to be angry at Jon/Rhaenyra because of it — Rhaenyra herself and the viewer when Jon was named KitN — instead what happened?

Daemon became Rhaenyra’ stauncher supporter and Sansa became Jon’s. Daemon supported Rhaenyra and Sansa supported Jon. When people expected Daemon to lash out when the terms of surrender were issued, he obeyed Rhaenyra order without issue; when the northern lords unsatisfied with Jon’ stay in Dragonstone offered the crown to Sansa, Sansa refused and defended Jon’s claim. All she did in s8 was to defend Jon’s claim to the North and the Realm.

And you know what else is incredible?

Daemon is suspected to have “caused” his first wife’ death and his second wife died in childbirth. Rhea Royce died after a fall from horseback — in the show Daemon kills her, but in the book she dies of the wounds later on, as the hit to the head might have caused her delayed death. Still Daemon is suspected to have caused it — the horse to unseat Rhea — and tried to inherit his wife’ keep.

Sansa “caused” her first betrothed, Joffrey’ death, by telling the truth to Olenna and Margaery which spurned them to have him killed at his own wedding feast. Sansa escapes and her first husband is almost killed for the crime — almost making her a widow.

Both Daemon and Sansa are more skilled than their counterpart in their competence. Daemon is the most skilled warrior of his time, Sansa has learned politics from the best and worst in it.

Daemon finds himself at odds with his brother with the war of the stepstones and Sansa finds herself at odds with her brother whilst in KL as she has to navigate and survive the southern court and Joffrey.

Yet both return to their brother in the end, Sansa by remaining true to her Stark identity (“I am not your daughter, I am the Lord Eddard and lady Catelyn’s daughter. The blood of Winterfell”/ “what if it is truth he wants and justice for his lady?”) and Daemon by winning and giving the crown to his brother.

Sansa wins the battle of bastards through her alliance with the Knights of the Vale and lets her brother take the crown.

Sansa and Daemon are both described as beautiful, charming and dashing. But Daemon is mercurial and Sansa is called a witch for her apparent part in Joffrey’ death.

Both Daemon and Sansa are advisors in their capacity to their brother/king though they have to clamor to be recognised any degree of validity. Sansa has to fight to gain the right to be Jon’s advisor even if he chooses Davos as chief advisor as Viserys chose Otto.

Daemon’s children are the one who inherit the Iron throne after the DotD. Sansa’s children will inherit WF and the North after asoiaf is done.

Jon = Rhaenyra

Jon and Rhaenyra are the odd ones out of this.

Rhaenyra knew her place, she prayed for a brother to inherit the Iron throne just like Jon would have died to defend Robb or any of his siblings (and in the book he does die for fakeArya). But both are ambitious.

Rhaenyra accepts she will be queen and makes of it her identity; Jon dreamed of become Lord of Winterfell before he knew what that entailed.

Both Rhaenyra and Jon expect that their orders — despite their intentions — will be followed, even when they go against hundreds of years of tradition. Rhaenyra as Queen and Jon believes the NW will follow to war against the Boltons when the NW has been neutral for thousand of years. And both pay the ultimate price for it. Death.

Jon is killed by his sworn brothers, Rhaenyra is killed by her brother’s dragon.

Both Rhaenyra and Jon have the temper of their family but they control it for the most part. It takes really big things for it to be spiked. Luke’s death for example.

Both Rhaenyra and Jon are intertwined with fake relationships. Both cause the death of their first lover/spouse.

Rhaenyra marries Laenor to keep the Velaryon in her corner, Laenor who is a gay man — in the book she is much less understanding of it btw — and their relationship is fake and her children aren’t his. In the show she loves him platonically, though I don’t remember that being the case in the book. In the end, whether his death is faked or not, Rhaenyra causes that. Either by having him killed — as they say in the book — or by having him fake his death to marry Daemon to strengthen her claim.

Jon has a “fake” relationship with Ygritte (you know what I think of her in the book) to make sure his undercover mission is accomplished. In the end Jon’ mission is accomplished and even though he “fell in love with her” he still left her and the war between them ended up claiming her life.

After the death of the heir — Balon and Bran and Rickon — Rhaenyra and Jon are both raised to the role of heir by their king with a decree that disinherited/snubbed the previous law-ful heir (Sansa/Daemon).

At the same time, Viserys/Robb have other heirs. Viserys marries and has sons (who have sons), Rickon and Bran are both alive though presumed dead who could end up threatening Jon’s claim once the will becomes active after Jon’ return from the dead.

They have sexual tension with the snubbed heir and value them as advisors though they don’t always agree with their politics.

Jon feels that Sansa’ opinion demeans him before the Lords — tho he names her regent — and Rhaenyra distrust Daemon not to declare war without her say-so.

And yet both Jon and Rhaenyra gain the ripe of Sansa and Daemon’ loyalty.

Even if Jon and Sansa don’t always see eye to eye, Sansa loyalty to Jon is what gets him out of KL alive, without Daemon’ skills as warrior Rhaenyra’ war would have ended long before it started.

Sansa and Daemon both are against Jon and Rhaenyra to surrender their crown, and work to keep the other half in their role.

And you know what? There’s more.

Gifts giving — belonging to a House

Daemon and Sansa both have something that defines their belonging to House Stark.

Sansa’s wolf-bit and Daemon’ sword — which, do I have to go down the sexual metaphor about Sansa’ bosom and Daemon’ sword? — and both whilst speaking of heirs/reading to war to defend the claim to the crown gift the other half something that signifies their belonging to the House as well.

Rhaenyra’ necklace and Jon’s cloak. Both items which Rhaenyra and Jon puts on and basically keeps on for ever — like it was a fucking joke how long Jon kept the cloak on even on Dragonstone —also Rhaenyra necklace resembles a chain (chain of command) and same with Jon’s cloak stripes (which resemble a chain of command).

Rhaenyra confronts Daemon about her being named heir — and perhaps we’ll have something similar in the books for Jon and Sansa. Tho we have something akin to that when Arya confronts Sansa about Jon having the crown and Sansa liking the attention.

Yet both Sansa and Daemon stand strong in their loyalty to Jon above anyone else.

Protecting — destroying some of the earliest and greatest threats the other claim

Vaemond is one of the earliest threats to Rhaenyra rule, just as we know LF has been playing against Jon all along, yet both Sansa and Daemon defend the other half by killing the offender.

Arya and Bran serve as the Viserys in the comparison, because it’s Sansa who passes the sentence (as Arya herself points out) the same way as Daemon is the one who decided to kill Vaemond instead of letting Viserys order of having his tongue removed to be carried out.

Thus removing the earliest threat to the other one’.

Also, both Daemon and Sansa destroyed indirectly or directly another threat to Jon and Rhaenyra by killing Aemond and Daenerys who had the attitude (both of them) of destroying the Realm to take the Iron throne if needed. Aemond would not have taken Aegon’ claim from him but if Aegon had died of his wounds before Rhaenyra was executed, with Maelor and Jaehaerys dead Aemond stood the greatest threat to Rhaenyra. Daemon killed Aemond and Sansa plotted to have the truth about Daenerys uncovered and indirectly causing her death through Jon.

Supporting the other as ruler

Daemon becomes Rhaenyra supporter just as Sansa becomes Jon’s. Even as snubbed heirs they love the new heir and when the time comes they are there, by their side, defending them.

Also, never forget that Sansa/Daemon are always on the side of the consort when it comes to Jon/Rhaenyra whilst that is not true for other characters, who are always afforded place of importance, but not that of the consort.

When Corlys comments on Viserys lack of action in the Stepstones Daemon replies that he can speak of his brother how he well wishes but that is not the truth for others. Similarly Sansa defends Jon (“he’s our king, he’s doing what he thinks best”) even tho she shares the lords preoccupations.

Despite not always seeing eye to eye with Daemon, he is a trusted advisor to Rhaenyra who listens to him. In the same way, despite feeling the need of Sansa’ validation, Sansa is his trusted advisor to the point Jon entrusts the whole of the North to her.

So, yeah, I raise you the Daemyra is the Targaryen version of Jonsa, with Daemon and Rhaenyra being worse people than Jon and Sansa are combined. By ey, there’s a dark streak to the Starks not to be underestimated.

#Jonsa #Jonsa agenda #Jonsa fam #Jonsa parallels #daemon and Rhaenyra as the Targaryen version of Jon and Sansa #Jonsa vs Daemyra #reverse Daemon and Rhaenyra #daemon = Sansa #Rhaenyra = Jon #I mean it’s right there #I cannot be the only one to see this #Jonxsansa #Daemyra is serving Jonsa vibes #I mean… Jon killed his “lover” for Sansa (we know D was threatening Sansa) just like Rhaenyra killed/had killed her lover to be with Daemon #I mean Daemon used his skills to keep Rhaenyra on the throne and Sansa used her skill to keep Jon alive and safe #If that ain’t peak Jonsa vibe I don’t know what they’re supposed to be doing #And if I am right then Sansa’ children should be Jon’s — like Daemon’ sons who inherited the throne were with Rhaenyra

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magalidragon · 15 days

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the great sleigh escape | a very late Jonerys holiday fic

I’m alive! 😂 I’ve been gone for so long it feels like I vanished off the face of the earth but I’m still here. Just burned out and lacking energy. Regardless I finished the Christmas fic and you know better late than never huh? 😂

She fumbled with the dress, shoving it down and glanced at her escape route. She pushed herself forward, scooting down again, dropping to a balcony on the third floor. Only two more left, she thought, rather proud of herself, and hoisted herself over the railing, shimmying sideways to a gigantic maple tree. "I can do this," she mumbled. She was already this far.

How could she go back now?

What was she going to do? Just wander in to the godswood and say "Whoops, sorry dear, I didn't finish my hair and makeup because I looked at myself in the mirror and didn't know who I was and realized on my wedding day that I wasn't in love with the man I was supposed to marry, and also your mother is insane and will hate me no matter what so might as well jsut get out now while I can?"

Yeah, she wasn't doing that.

#jonerys #jonerys au #modern jonerys #my fic #my moodboards #better late than never #I think #I’m alive!#Christmas in April

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esther-dot · 5 months

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I'm sorry, that's gonna be a really weird ask from one jonsa stan to another but I'm genuinely curious - is there any anti jonsa argument/claim that actually made sense to you? I'm really asking for the sake of, well, civilised discussion - because if there are arguments there ought to be reasonable counterarguments. And all that I see is the same tired old crap - "she's not his favourite sister" and "but they are relatives!" and all the other stuff. Given, of course I'm not hanging around jonry@ and jon@erys side of this fandom (dark things happen to any sansa and jonsa stans there) and have no idea if they have any reasonable metas. Or maybe if there was a moment that made you actually question possibility of jonsa happening in books? (once again - because I'm anxious like that - I'm not asking this to disprove something or make people question jonsa but because I wonder if you personally had this sort of experience).

Thank you and hope you're having a nice day!

No worries! I enjoy looking at things from different angles, so I don’t mind at all. Unfortunately, I haven’t read anti jonsa stuff that isn’t exactly what you described, so I can’t actually have the convo you want about this. I tried to go to some jonerys blogs but their anti tags weren’t what we’re looking for. There’s a blogger people view as neutral who other Sansa fans/Jonsas put on my dash, and a BNF who people I follow also reblog from, so I went over to their blogs to look around and they’re less rabid, but I can’t say they offered though-provoking pushback. I’ll share some snippets though, in case you’re interested.

There was the old "but their siblings" argument:

I, ah, I do not think Jon marries Sansa in any scenario. Regardless of biological relationship, they think of themselves as siblings. The people around them are also quite likely to consider them siblings or as good as, having been raised as such (see also Theon being accused of kinslaying over his apparent murder of Bran and Rickon). Nor do I think either would be in a rush to go back to the traditional “but the Targaryens practiced incest,” again considering that their society is strongly anti-incest. Jon and Sansa were raised together, in the same house, as brother and sister, and that makes a material difference.

But you know, raised as siblings and please nobody try the “but they weren’t close” with me, that’s so not true.

It’s interesting to see someone say they were close, that’s not something I’ve seen before. I suppose my biggest issue with this line of thought is that it feels true for a generic fantasy maybe, but hardly convincing when talking about ASOIAF? Martin wants to talk about incest. So far, we have all the bad, abusive variations covered. I think he’s gonna work some shades of grey into it the same way he tries to do with everything he discusses, and to pretend like he would never feels disingenuous to me. Even if he ultimately abandoned the initial draft, from the author’s mind came the idea of a Jon / Stark girl romance. He has entertained it. Secondly, Jon is a Targ and it’s reasonable to expect that to manifest somehow, or at least, for Jon to experience the fear that there’s something latent there. And third, if we’re gonna get a romance, I think Martin would write it with the complexity and inner struggle that he writes everything and fauxcest offers him that opportunity, not to mention all the parallels it would allow as well.

Let's see...I also saw that they object to the Beauty and the Beast reading of Jonsa:

And I've been searching but apparently I never posted the rest of my "Bear and the Maiden Fair" thoughts, but that's the in-world Beauty and the Beast story. Through that and looking at bears elsewhere in the story, you can track this idea of the beast not being a monster, but being perceived as one by society, an outcast, which is why the Hound, Tyrion, and Jon all fit the role/are related (in a way), and why Jon will be the final suitor or real bear/beast.

The next one, I’m just gonna post the whole thing:

I’m not sure if the best part is the implication that Jon/Dany (which they believe is inevitable) have what’s required to allow for “quick deep emotional connections” or if it’s reading the Hound insult and threaten and then finally put a knife to Sansa’s throat and deciding “romance! chivalry!” The Hound may be disillusioned, but the fandom has got to stop pretending like some of his espoused beliefs aren’t self-serving, a defense because he is a monster. We have Brienne and Jon showing us different versions of knights, true knights, so acting like the Hound is in the right is just bizarre.

Anyway, no, I’ve not read an anti argument that made me doubt it. I do doubt what Martin is aiming for at times, so I’ve vacillated between potential paths/endgames for them over the years, but the anti arguments generally are coming from a reading of characters and dynamics that’s disturbing to me which means I’m usually alienated, not compelled.

#dot chat #jonsa #anti asoiaf fandom

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atopvisenyashill · 4 months

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i totally get not shipping jonerys but i think there's too much potential for george not to explore. i do think jon is going to be critical of dany’s methods and they’re doomed, but they have a lot in common too? like wanting to impose their beliefs and world view on others, and they can bond over having really bad pr too! i just hope that it’s more interesting than the show, for my own sanity.

I do think there's potential to explore but I just do not see the romantic potential. Their commonalities are not the sort that would make them get along. Jon's bad PR is he's a reclusive dick running off bad advice (from another Targaryen to boot) who won't explain his long term plans to people he doesnt like, sends every single one of his allies away, and is trying to break down long held prejudices in the span of a few months. Dany's bad PR seems similar except on top of "breaking down long held prejudices" she trusts violent, shady ass men at every turn (while Jon just straight up executes Slynt! Do you see Jon misstep wrt Alliser and Bowen? Yes, but he is not sitting here justifying their violence the way Dany justifies men like Daario), compromises in ways that completely undermine the prejudices she's trying to break down, and has now simply accepted that her dragons killing innocent people is an acceptable loss. Dany takes a profit off the selling of slaves and I simply do not believe Jon would react so cavalierly to Dany telling him about how she burned her slave alive to hatch her dragons, especially after whatever shenanigans Melisandre and Stannis are going to be getting up to in TWOW. Not for nothing here, but Jon does not use Ghost as a killing machine; anyone or anything Ghost has killed has been in defense of Jon while Drogon is very much a weapon of war.

Beyond that, Dany's identity is very tied up in the being the last dragon. She's going to be ten times worse in the books about finding a dragonseed in Westeros, especially if Rhaegar found out Elia was killed and married Lyanna, thereby legitimizing Jon above Dany's own claim. She's going to kill Aegon VI and destroy KL, maybe even Casterly Rock and parts of Dorne as well! The thing I think everyone overlooks here though is that she is not getting to Westeros until the very end of TWOW at the earliest! She's going to have wracked up a kill count higher than every other character on page, probably a kill count higher than the Conquerors or the Dance or the Redgrass Field. Regardless of any similarities they have in their backgrounds, what Jon is likely to feel when she lands is horror, and a fair amount of nerves. Do I think he will feel guilt for having a hand in his aunt's death, in ending the line of Targaryens? Yes, absolutely! It doesn't mean his guilt will drive him to side with a woman who lands with a slave army and then sets fire to half the continent.

And to be completely honest, if they do hook up, if she lands and she's lauded as a hero after destroying the city states of Slaver's Bay, after slaughtering the khals of the dothraki, after taking a profit off slavery and engaging in collective and cruel & unusual punishment, if murdering Aegon VI for *checks notes* being lied to about who he is and having a better claim than her but not "earning" his ending, and finds some sort of happiness with Jon, I'm saying that's 100x more misogynistic than what the show did, not to mention nauseatingly imperialist and classist. The reason I am very firm in saying Dany will go dark is because it is my opinion anything less is a betrayal of the themes of non violence, the costs of war, and the punishing of the poor. Like, Robb's murder is a tragedy but the book does not shy away from the harm he does! Dany will not (should not!) be treated any different just because she's a woman; that's like the basis of feminist theory!

#a normal person would look at the mess she made of slaver's bay and go 'dude what the fuck is wrong with you.'#unfortunately jonathan snowflake of game of thrones hbo is blinded by emilia's pretty face just like d&d and emilia herself are!#anti daenerys targaryen #anti jonerys #like even if jonsa doesn't happen. they're not hooking up. there's a world i do believe jon feels a complicated kinship with her.#but that doesn't mean he's going to like her.#like if jon had settled the wildlings and been like 'this is too hard. you're all part of the night's watch now and you have no choice'#you can bet i'd be dragging his ass the way i drag hers. but he gets shanked specifically bc he *refuses* to compromise in this way.#dany is a politican. jon is an idealist. neither ultimately makes good leaders.#asks #once again sorry if this sounds mad. i'm not mad. just animated.

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bohemian-nights · 6 months

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I laugh whenever I see delusional Daemyra stans claim that Daemon was Rhaenyra's #1 supporter and that he would've been the best marital choice for her. When it's like are we watching the same show?! He constantly undermined her claim since episode one! Lemme give you a very quick rundown:

1x01: He was jealous of her unborn baby brother, celebrated her mother and brother's death, made Baelon's death all about him and how he was denied the throne

1x02: He stole Baelon's dragon egg, squatted in Dragonstone (the seat for the heir), and called himself the RIGHTFUL heir to the throne. Does that sound like someone who supports Rhaenyra's claim?!

1x04 aka the most infamous: He sets her up by taking her to a brothel, publicly exposing her identity, has sexual contact with her, leaves her half naked by herself in the brothel for everyone to see, almost causes her to be disinherited, lies to Viserys saying that they had sex, and just abandons her leaving her to suffer the consequences of his actions, and leaving her to marry her gay cousin

1x05: He teases her at the engagement feast and then just leaves her ass to get trampled on by the crowd

1x08: The most unified that they are, but that shit goes downhill as soon as Viserys dies

1x10: Where do I start? He ignores her while she's bending over in pain after being told of Viserys's death, ignores/defies her orders whilst she's having a horrific stillbirth, ignores her screaming bloody murder to plot his war, doesn't even comfort her while she's cradling their dead baby covered in blood sweat and tears, makes decisions without her approval, undermines her authority throughout the entire episode (showing that she was never the one in control), and then CHOKES HER

We've had 6 episodes showing us that Daemon has never truly supported Rhaenyra's claim to the throne, nor has he been a reliable partner for her to rely on. The grooming blinded her to his true character and made her create this image of a man that he wasn't. She thought that she was the exception to his madness and violence, but she quickly learned in 1x10 that she wasn't and as a result she'll look at him in a different light. And most of all she fears him. It's understandable why Rhaenyra is so blind to Daemon's obvious red flags (b/c of the grooming), but the audience has the hindsight and the outsider POV to see how bad he is for her. Why do they deny it and continue to ignore it?

No, you see the show isn't canon(they say only after episode 10 aired🤣). It's the books that show Daemon was the best husband ever to Miss Maegor even though he tries to ruin her reputation to force her father to give him his hand since no one else would want her, cheated on her, and abandoned her when she needed him the most. He did not groom to get closer to the throne, his brother, etc. that’s all lies.

Lol if they admit that Daemon is just using Missy Anne and he doesn’t love her in that way(and the show that they were fine with until the choking scene even though people told them it sucked a**, never showed Daemon loving her) then all their arguments fall apart. Dumbnyra is supposed to be Jonerys done right so they’ll just keep on denying it even if nothing(not the books or the show) supports their delusions.

#bnask #bnasks #anti dumbnyra

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terrainofheartfelt · 1 year

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Gossip Girl Appreciation Week | Day 6: AU

The Grossly Indulgent Pop Music AU I will never write:

Inspired by one of the only Jonerys fics I like.

Not quite a fic, but not not a fic, here’s an unhinged idea that grabbed hold and wouldn’t let me go. The music is a loose jumping off point of inspiration, in that all the characters have one or two artist equivalents. I use their music as the characters’ work in this universe. So it’s like an AU of pop musicians’ lives, but not really, since I don’t know their biographies, just their music. It’s fanfic, you know how it is.

Enclosed beneath the cut you shall find: dairfair, negatively painted jenny/damien & chair, some positive jenate, and a inkling at my newest ot3 vanessa/aaron/serena. And lots of opaque music references.

image sources: (x)(x)(x)(x)(x)(x)(x)(x)(x)

Blair and Serena come up in a lab-grown pop girl group in their teens (sample track here), but break off for their own solo acts after a few years. They have a friend breakup after that. Diss tracks are written. (Inspo: Honey & Bad Blood) the final (supposedly) proverbial nail in the coffin of their friendship is when Blair marries record label exec Chuck Bass.

(Needless to say, Chuck is a piece of shit. Living off family money and power, using his title to back young women artists into a corner. Blair thinks she conquered the beast by putting a ring on it but, well, you know.) (While Jenny Humphrey is coming up she’s one of the artists Chuck harasses. She refuses to sign with his label and tells him to fuck off.)

The rumors as to why their girl group break up run wild, and they mutate with each tabloid run, growing more and more ridiculous, but, like many rumors, they did spring from a small seed of truth.

Blair was ambitious, and always used the act as an opportunity to set herself up for a solo career. Serena was her best friend, but whereas Blair had to work hard at everything that came with this job, it was like Serena didn’t have to try at all. She was the darling of the interviews, of the fans. The favorite on the covers of magazines and music videos. Serena was getting solo offers since their debut, but turned them down, until she didn’t.

Their group toured with a team of dancers, also all carefully selected by the label. Nate Archibald was one of the fan favorites, and the label quickly paired him and Blair together for publicity. Blair was always just a little more invested than Nate was. He wasn’t even sure if this career, this lifestyle was what he wanted, but Blair was more than sure, was constantly working to get ahead. But the label kept them together, until they figured they could pair Nate with Serena instead. (And Nate didn’t fight it, because he’d always carried a torch for Serena anyway).

It wasn’t the first fight between the friends, nor the last, but it was the big frisson that they couldn’t come back from. The group held on for another album, but it was clear that they couldn’t go on. Blair and Serena signed solo contracts, and Blair got close with Chuck Bass, and that was the final straw for Serena.

Nate tried to stay friends with both of them through it, but he was also coming to the conclusion that he didn’t want to keep up this lifestyle. He quit performing to go to school, and he found his niche teaching dance to kids—not at a university level, not with the intention to make future professionals, but just to young people looking for something to love. It suits him, and he becomes a reality check for his two high profile best friends. Or he tries to be, but their lives keep pulling them away from New York, so he sees them less and less.

(The other two members of the group move on to other adjacent things. Kati founds her own fashion label—available in Targets everywhere!—and Iz becomes a judge on one of those America’s Got It Factor Talent Shows).

Post girlgroup, Serena runs a Kesha-like life, pop hits made for club dancing. Her character is much more glittering and reckless than Serena might prefer to be, but she’s in the game so long that it sort of – becomes her from time to time.

Serena works tirelessly, keeps trying to break out of her brand of the out of control party girl, but her label, the one she was brought up on, founded by her maternal grandfather, wants her to keep making what sells. Her brother Eric tries to fight her corner, but he’s only a junior employee. After a handful of solo albums and years of endless touring, she burns out. Eric gives her a place to be and rest, and she tries to figure out what the hell she’s going to do. She wants to make more music, but of what?

Blair is taylor-esque, clinging to her brand of The Good Girl from her teen career into adulthood. The reputation and her general effervescence add sparkle to the Bass brand, clean it up a little. It’s a symbiotic business relationship, until it isn’t.

Chuck progressively tries to exercise more control over the music she puts out, to the point that Blair just…doesn’t. Her last album under the Bass label is the one she released with tracks that allude to their relationship, her victory lap for landing the billionaire bachelor whale, as it were (Style, Wildest Dreams, Wonderland, I Know Places). She’s more clever than some give her credit. For example, the tongue-in-cheek “Blank Space” belies an artistic self-awareness. Which is why, even though they aren’t in the same genres, Jenny Humphrey respects her.

Speaking of Jenny: the Humphreys!

Rufus Humphrey, frontrunner of the early 90s outfit Lincoln Hawk, enjoyed a good run when his kids were little, then a less lucrative run as a solo artist, before he finally settled into producing. He runs a small, proud independent label with his old bandmate, and they pride themselves on supporting talent that the bigger corporate labels pass over. Both his kids, Dan and Jenny, make music with him.

They grew up playing piano, then graduated to guitar, then spiraled on from there. Dan joins his first band when he’s sixteen, playing keys for his best friend’s big sister’s band. Ruby Abrams and her bandmates affectionately call him an honorary lesbian, and after gigging with them for about a year, Dan comes out as bi. (his three sisters: Jenny, Vanessa, and Ruby, are already out)

His best friend Vanessa is also a musician. She tries to go the classical route, wanting to usurp her parents’ and her sister’s expectations, but ultimately finds her happy in the indie folk niche that Rufus curates. (Think Lucy Daucus & Maya Hawke) Vanessa’s favorite instrument is bass, but she can find her way around a keyboard or guitar.

Jenny is the real prodigy, though. She has her guitars and piano and even a mandolin, but she’s restless at sticking to just one sound, so she experiments with them all. Fulfilling, absolutely, but it’s a long time before she puts out a full length record.

Dan and Jenny’s parents break up while the kids are in college. With Rufus touring as much as he was when they were young, Alison did the heavy lifting raising them, and now that they’re grown she kind of – has a Mom Drop. She moves back home to the Bay Area, and Dan ends up following her to California, needing to get out of New York and get some distance from his dad.

Jenny stays in New York, taking classes, making music. She starts dating a much older artist—he’s not on her dad’s label (which is part of the appeal) —but he has a complimentary sound. After the mess that was her model gf Agnes, Jenny is hoping for something steadier, but that’s not what it becomes. Being with Damien Dalgaard, darling of the Guy with Guitar genre, ends up being more of a mindfuck. (John Mayer. Damien’s basically John Mayer.)

Rufus tries to put his foot down (even though Jenny’s an adult) and Vanessa tries to help, but it’s one of those things where the toxic relationship just has to run its course, even if it puts Jenny into major spotlight for the first time. It’s rough on her, but she makes it through and out of the relationship. And, at least she comes out of it with enough material to graduate from EPs and make for her first full length album: Badlands.

Jenny starts out this au Halsey-like, but evolves her sound back to her rock folk indie origins, a sound like Julien Baker.

Meanwhile, Dan tries his luck as a musician on the West Coast, immersing himself in the scene there. He joins the roster of another band, and has enough skill to make income as a session musician to cover the difference, which leads him to another band. He still tries writing, but he’s so busy making other people’s music come alive that he doesn’t get far.

At one concert or another he bumps into Serena van der Woodsen. She’s fun, and smart, and stupid hot, and more miraculously, she is into him. They date for a while, but her life in the spotlight as a partying popstar gets more and more chaotic, and Dan can’t keep up, and he’s not really sure he wants to. The break up amicably, but it still stings enough to generate some songs, ones he doesn’t have time to record.

He keeps dating around. Serena sets him up with one of her friends, an actor, Carter Baizen, but he works so much too that it doesn’t go anywhere at the time. And then, there’s Georgina,

At the beginning, Georgina the heiress from Bel-Air just seems like another in a line of innocuous bad decisions Dan’s made since moving to LA. She’s crazy, but she’s hot, and fun, and it’s a good time until it fizzles out.

Then, months later, when Dan’s offered a spot in a backup band for someone, Georgina shows up at his door, pregnant.

The Milo plot unfolds, Dan steps away from his music, works only on what will pay bills and keep life stable for the baby. Georgina flakes, and flakes, until she doesn’t, until she decides to tell Dan the truth about Milo’s paternity and take him with her, all the way back to her parent’s mansion in Connecticut.

After everything, his parents, Serena, Georgina, everything going on with Jenny, Dan just kind of…breaks. He deflates, struggles, holes up in his crummy apartment on the eastside of Los Angeles until Vanessa bullies him into coming back to New York.

Being around each other again helps the Humphrey siblings reset. Jenny is already promoting Badlands, and Dan becomes her roadie, proudly cheering her on from the sidelines, even while the contents of her lyrics are absolutely gutting.

He keeps trying and failing to write, until both V and Jen tell him that he’s trying too hard to “make it into something.” Jenny just tells him to write and see what comes out, and however it sounds, it sounds.

So he does. It’s not quite the folk his mother raised them on, or the 90s rock of their dad, or the punk that Dan’s been a support player in all these years. It’s softer than that, but more jagged too. But he plays a demo for Jenny and Vanessa and keeps on going.

Jenny is a big believer in using songwriting as some sort of “exorcist.” Spit out all the bad shit, pour it into a song, put it into a vessel that doesn’t hurt you anymore. Dan’s style is a little bit different from his sister’s. She’s braver than he is – is okay to take her emotion and throw it out into her singing, but Dan thinks he might not be that tough.

For example, the stuff about Milo, Dan can’t even say it directly. He writes about it sure, but it comes out a mess, until he’s not sure if he’s talking about himself, or Milo, or even Georgina. He can’t even bring himself to mention either of them by name, just names a song after an approximation. Georgia. He also writes his first of many storytelling songs: You Missed My Heart.

He gets enough positivity from the demo for a record deal, and the leading single, Motion Sickness, does better than Dan thought it would. He says it has to be because there’s more residual interest in one of Serena van der Woodsen’s exes than he thought. Jenny and Vanessa share a look, because he really is that good though.

And after years of work behind the curtain, Dan Humphrey is getting vested interest in his own songs, and what’s more, he’s written something worth singing. Stranger in the Alps launches an entirely new phase of his career, and, as it turns out, his personal life.

Blair doesn’t travel in the circles of the mid-level artist, but at a festival, purely by chance, she ends up in Dan Humphrey’s car.

It’s not Dan’s first festival gig, but this is definitely the biggest, and the best spot he’s ever gotten in a lineup. The true sign that he’s on the up and up, though, is that he’s provided transportation.

After sound check before his gig, he’s herded back to his car, to go back to his hotel before he goes on later tonight.

But then this girl gets in with him.

Blair had had it with her handler (her husband’s goon), and paparazzi were starting to catch the scent—as far as the public knew, she still had the perfect fairytale dream marriage—so she co-opted this nobody indie guy’s ride as her getaway car.

Dan’s bewildered, and irritated, but also kind of charmed. It’s a nice break in the routine, accidentally kidnapping a princess of pop.

He invites her to see his set, which she scoffs at, but she googles him as soon as she’s back in her hotel room. And then, she pulls strings so she can watch his set from backstage. (He covers “I’m on Fire,” and she absolutely does not think that it’s hot).

They have a drink in the green room after, and don’t stop talking until a festival staff person kicks them out because the venue’s shutting down for the night.

AND SO IT BEGINS.

She arranges for him to see her headlining set, and then after, she asks him what he thought, and he tells her. Like, actually tells her. She’s a good artist, with talent, but she keeps dumbing it down, and why?

He essentially says she’s better than this, and she tells him to fuck off, and tells him that just because not every single one of my songs is about angsting alone on the bedroom floor doesn’t make me shallow, Humphrey. (and that’s his Moment.)

She’d been after compliments, some vague idea that he’d be blown away by how good she is, and she’d get a positive review for once. Which is so stupid, why should she even care what a nobody like Dan Humphrey thinks?

But he is not a nobody, not anymore.

She looks him up after the festival. His star is definitely rising. A child of nepotism, his father was in a popular band in the late 80s and early 90s, and so Dan and his little sister grew up close to the business. Humphrey’s been in a couple bands since he was sixteen (started young like her), but after those broke up, and a couple lost years that google can’t account for, he released a solo album and just like that, people are paying attention, beyond just the indie bubble.

Blair recognizes his sister, Jenny Humphrey, and even has one of her albums saved in her library. Not something Blair would make, but it’s decent.

She digs a little more, trying to figure out those lost years, but comes up empty. She does find, however, that Humphrey famously dated Serena a few years back, Google is rife with paparazzi photos of them in LA. And he accused her of making shallow music? Serena’s solo work is nothing but her belting about parties and drugs and sex to heavy beats. Club music. Music to have parties, drugs, and sex, too.

Finding out his history with Serena is enough for Blair to write off Dan Humphrey as a hack, an aberration. A way to pass the time at a festival gig and distract herself from her own life.

But, Blair finds Dan Humphrey is becoming increasingly unavoidable. He’s doing one talk show appearance while she’s at another studio a few floors up. He’s moved back to New York, he tells her, just until he goes on tour again. He invites her to a show, at some dive in Brooklyn she’s never heard of. For that, she nearly doesn’t even go.

But then, she does.

For security reasons, she sneaks in the back, aided by her assistant Epperly, and watches from the closet that counts as a backstage. It’s an acoustic set, and Dan plays arrangements of his solo album (that she absolutely did NOT listen to), plus some covers. In fact, he covers one of her songs. “Blank Space,” mashed up with “Stand by Me.” He introduces it by saying, “I really love the melodies in this song, I think it’s just really good melody writing.” And it feels like…an apology.

They keep meeting up, but now, it’s on purpose, not accidental. They’re both in New York for the time being anyways, Dan is getting some rest before the European leg of his album tour, and Blair is supposed to be working on a new album before her own, but she’s got…nothing. Less than nothing. And Chuck knows that, which means it’s harder and harder to have him around.

Besides, there’s no rule that she can’t have friends. Honestly, with how her career is, she doesn’t really have any. There’s Epperly, and Dorota, maybe Nate. She’s married, but she’s not sure she would call Chuck her friend.

She and Dan though, they have a real connection. And they can be just friends.

Since she has absolutely no new songs to record, she leaves for Europe a couple weeks early, she tells Chuck it’s to visit her parents in Paris and get inspired, but then, at the last minute, she changes her itinerary, and goes to Dublin instead, where Dan’s first gig is.

Blair’s been letting herself and this friendship live in plausible deniability, but as she’s learned more about Dan, about the kind of person and artist that he is, she knows that isn’t really his thing, and when she appears at his show in Dublin, he refuses to let it go, and Blair, worn thin by…literally everything else, can’t keep up the denial anymore, and tells him to bring her back to his hotel.

It’s a mistake, it’s such a mistake. Blair’s life is already precarious enough as it is. Chuck’s label owns her contracts, her catalog, and basically her. She’s been over and over it, and can’t see a way out. She wanted to be on top, and that was the price.

But, Dan.

Being with him feels like waking up after spending her entire adult life asleep. She’s excited about music again, about making something. She writes, then hides it all away, because she can’t record songs about being in love with someone else on her husband’s dime.

She has her tour, and Dan has his, but they meet on every overlapping date. Sometimes she’s so tired after a concert all she has energy to do is sleep in his arms, but even that stolen time feels sacred.

When their tour legs end, Dan tentatively asks if it’s the end, but she really doesn’t want it to be.

He’s back in New York City at first, so that’s easier, and harder, because Chuck is there too. Thankfully, Blair’s sales were high enough that she’s in his good graces, and when she slips away it’s easy enough to say she’s working on something new. She practically sees cartoon dollar signs flash in Chuck’s eyes when she does. How she ever thought that this could be her happily ever after, she’ll never know.

She and Dan talk about that, about living in stories and wanting fairytales but being smacked down by real life. She tells him that she doesn’t feel like she belongs to herself anymore, how she doesn’t want to write anymore if it means that Chuck will profit off it, but if she walks away, all those things she believed, promised, sung, was all of it for nothing?

She wrote love songs about Chuck, for Chuck. Her life’s work is tangled up in him, and she’s not sure she wants to pull away from all of that, much less if she even could.

Dan tells her about Milo, about loss, about the shadow his father cast and how hiding in it was safe so he didn’t try to break out of it, but now he’s out. He talks about loving his parents but resenting them for not staying in love, and resents himself for falling out of love in the past.

“What did you do about it?” she asks him.

He waggles his eyebrows at her, and reaches behind him to grab his guitar.

It’s unfair, she knows it’s unfair. Blair comes to rely on Dan too much, to center her, to hold her, to love her even when it’s not his place. But she keeps going to him, and he’s always there, arms open.

He’s writing about her. She knows before he even tells her. She can sense it sometimes, when he’s looking at her, and she just knows he has lyrics running in his head.

But it’s unfair. He’s bicoastal, going to and from LA for gigs and appearances. When he’s gone, Blair does her own, always beginning and ending with paparazzi shots of her on Chuck’s arm, smiling like she’s still in love with him. Her heart belongs to someone else now, but she’s afraid she’s in too deep to break away.

In the meantime, Dan, Jenny, and Vanessa come back to their roots: each other, and decide to do a project together, write an EP (boygenius. It’s boygenius). They have a fair mix of songs, and all of Dan’s lyrics are fed by his relationship to BLair, that he’s told no one about, but it bleeds out of everything he writes. They’re approaching an impasse, he can feel it, but selfishly, he wants to avoid it as long as possible, to keep her as long as possible.

In addition to his EP with Jenny and Vanessa, Dan has a deal for a next record, and a handful of songs to put on it already. When he’s in LA, he’s working on his own music, and when he’s in New York, he’s either working with Jen and Vanessa, or he’s with Blair.

But it can’t last. Blair is feeling the pressure from Bass Records, and if she were to get caught in an affair, or separate from Chuck, Chuck would hold her catalog hostage. Her entire life’s work wouldn’t be hers anymore. And maybe Dan’s right when he says that she can’t stay with her husband, but she’s right when she says she can’t leave him either.

She can’t even record new music for the label either, because everything new she’s written is covered in Dan. She even wrote a song about that. She is covered in him.

But Dan has his own wounds, and they make him push, and push, and self sabotage, and after one gruesome, draining fight, Blair calls it off.

In the meantime, Jenny and Vanessa are doing work of their own, on their music and on themselves.

Vanessa plays her solos up and down the east coast, through the Midwest, and back in New York. Through Rufus, she meets Aaron Rose, a jack-of-all-trades of sorts. Like Rufus, he was a musician first, but mostly works now as a producer. They hit it off, and after working on a thing or two, they start dating, but only casually. After several years and multiple musical acts, Aaron’s star as a producer is rising, and he’s working with bigger and bigger names.

Jenny is still healing from all her garbage (Agnes, Damien, etc.), and the music helps, and the project with Dan and Vanessa does too—it’s an excuse to reconnect with each other, and she becomes close to two of her favorite people again. It helps. As does the therapy, and all the other things she does.

One such thing, recommended by her therapist and her parents, is to do creative things that are outside of her purview as a musician. She’s always sort of been into fashion, so she gets into sewing, into designing her own looks. And when that’s not active enough, she puts in time at the dance studio in Brooklyn where her mom used to teach, where she took classes once upon a time.

She isn’t interested in lessons, or classes with other people, but the owners still know her, and love Alison, so they’ll give her solo studio time when she asks for it, and one afternoon, one of their new staff walks into the wrong studio.

Jenny kind of bites his head off, but he kind of likes that. He says his name is Nate, he’s the new hire to take over the beginner classes. And — he’s hot, obviously, but Jenny is on permanent hiatus in that department. Not that that stops her from looking.

But after that first meeting, Nate is just always around, and Jenny doesn’t really want to deal with all the shit that having him around kicks up within her, but she likes hanging out with him, so she tells him – firmly – that she only wants to be friends, and he respects that. What a thing, to have a guy respect her boundaries.

She keeps putting it all in her music, Turn Out the Lights doesn’t make the same splash as Badlands, apparently people care less the more distance she puts between herself and Damien, but Jen decides she’s okay with that.

Reeling from another heartbreak that Dan can’t really talk about, he puts it into his music, in the EP with Jen and V and in his new album. His sophomore solo album, Punisher, comes out to a great reception. Well, great within the small circle of people who actually know who he is.

The gigs that began with his debut keep rolling in, late night shows, radio appearances, festivals, and now mixed in with those are engagements for his act with Jen and Vanessa. To his surprise, people are interested in that music because of him. He doesn’t know how to feel about that. If you ask him, Jenny and Vanessa are way better at what they do than he is.

Dan’s public profile grows bigger and bigger, but Blair can’t be happy for him, because it makes him increasingly unavoidable. She refuses to listen to the new music he releases, she’s afraid it’s too cruel towards her, or worse, it’s too kind.

But, just like their accidental first meeting, she stumbles across a single he put out after the new album. Typical Humphrey. A goddamn overachiever, kept on writing even after the album was done. She didn’t mean to see it, but she was scrolling through All Songs Considered, and there he was, talking about Audrey Hepburn, of all things.

There’s this line in the movie Sabrina, where she says “I have learned to be in the world and of the world, and not just stand aside and watch.” And that’s really what this song’s about, about falling in love with a person because they’ve taught you how to live, how to appreciate everything the world has to offer. And there’s – there’s a tremendous amount of joy in that, but there’s also fear, because gaining that now means that it’s possible to lose it too. So – I guess this is sort of trying to reconcile those ideas within a song.

Blair listens to “Sidelines,” and it makes her so angry that she scribbles off a song idea of her own, because he still doesn’t get it. He meant her while she was in the middle of running away, so why won’t he just let her run?

She worries fleetingly about getting caught, because Audrey is her thing, and Dan knows that, but Audrey is a ubiquitous enough icon that no one but she would ever make the connection. He’s good at that, Dan is, of coding a message to her that only she could understand. It’s the same skill that makes him such a good writer.

Blair writes songs because she can’t help it, but she won’t record them. A new album would mean adding to Chuck’s empire, and the thought of Chuck owning these songs too, the only things of Dan she’s allowed herself to keep…she can’t stomach the thought of it.

She’s stayed with him to protect her work, but now her work is dead on arrival because of him, and that’s really what drives her decision to divorce Chuck.

She has to do it carefully, of course. She sets up a place of her own to go to in New York, moves in all the things that mean the most to her. Puts her notebooks in a safety deposit box—just to be sure. And, finally, she reaches out to her mother, to get a recommendation for a divorce attorney familiar with entertainment law.

On a first impression, Cyrus Rose doesn’t look like much beyond a short, ebullient, overly cheery middle-aged man, but Blair quickly learns that when he’s practicing law, he turns into a bulldog. He fights for her and for her work so fiercely that for a little while, Blair lets herself believe that it will all come out her way.

But there’s all the media coverage, and it paints her out as a bitter, gold-digging, ungrateful woman, villainizing a man who doesn’t deserve it. It pisses her off to no end, but Cyrus tells her to hold her silence, and she trusts him, so she does.

In the end, Cyrus is able to get her out of her marriage and most of her contract with Bass Records. She’s not destitute, she still has her family money, and a comfortable settlement, but Cyrus is ultimately unable to save her music. Bass will still own her masters, and the residuals from those masters. It’s that that breaks her heart the most—more than how quickly Chuck turned the media cycle against her, more than how many people followed his lead, more than the evidence Cyrus discovered of his multiple affairs, of his mismanagement of the company—but that her work cannot belong to her, that hurts the most.

But, bulldog that he is, Cyrus digs out a loophole. Since going solo, Blair has been the prime writer of all her songs, which gives her the legal right to rerecord her masters. So while she can’t stop Chuck from doing whatever he wants with her old work, anything she makes now can be entirely within her control.

She just has to find someone willing to work with her. And who she trusts enough to work with.

Worn out, Blair retreats from the public eye, it’s lonely, but thankfully, not too lonely.

The divorce process set Blair to looking back at lots of her life, at things and people she wishes she had handled differently. After she privately filed her petition, she reached out to Serena, and, miraculously, Serena answered.

Before anything else is fixed, Blair and Serena’s friendship is fixed. They reconnect, because everything they’ve been through, together and apart, has made them want to focus on what matters, and what matters is each other.

They talk all the shit through, Blair’s marriage, Serena’s struggles, their respective creative blocks. They start appearing in public together, and the tabloids gobble that shit UP.

Serena is working on a comeback record of her own, her first since burning out with her grandfather’s label. It’s zany, and bright, but doesn’t shy away from the heartache she’s been through. It’s so incredibly her, that Blair can’t help but love it. She loves it, no matter that the liner notes give credit to a Dan Humphrey on a few tracks

Free from Bass Records, Blair wants to work on a new album, but she’s unsure of where to begin. Serena offers to introduce her to this producer she’s been dating (out of the public eye for a change), Aaron Rose.

Blair doesn’t quite know what to make of Aaron, of his music, of his open relationship with her newly restored best friend, but she looks up his previous acts and thinks…maybe working with him could be the change her sound needs.

Dan is moving in—if not the same—adjacent circles to her. Enough so that she can’t get him out of her head, can’t get over wanting him. She spills the whole thing to Serena, who she knew was also Dan’s ex, but didn’t know that they were still friends. Serena tells her to stay optimistic, Blair says Serena just thinks that because she’s okay sharing a boyfriend.

Her engagements have been sparse, she’s not wanted many, and not many have wanted her, but Austin City Limits is still on her calendar. In the promotional materials, they highlight her on one stage, and Dan’s band with Jenny and Vanessa on another.

She doesn’t intend to seek him out, but fate conspires against her, and they end up thrown into the same green room. Again.

Dan doesn’t want to want her anymore. His career has forward movement and even if the music he makes is about her, the people who like it don’t know that, nor do they care. They care that it’s good. His career is good, he’s been dating Netflix Original darling Carter Baizen for months now, happily and uncomplicatedly. (Serena put them in touch, then one dm led to another, and it’s nice). Not that Carter doesn’t have his own damage—no one in LA is without damage, but they can forget about their damage with each other. It’s not love, but it’s not not love.

Dan doesn’t want to want her anymore, But, oh, he does.

They nearly miss their calls—his set, her soundcheck—while talking (well, talking, fighting, kissing, then talking some more). But they fulfill their contracts, and just like it started three years ago, they end up backstage after their shows, drinking, and talking, and talking until a harrowed stage manager is begging them to leave.

Dan sets a limit, makes himself go back to Jen and Vanessa, instead of going home with her, but he says he’s going straight to New York after this, and asks if she’ll be around.

Blair says yes.

After the divorce, Blair sold off the real estate she’d kept from her marriage. It was all too haunted, too high up, too far from reality. While looking for a new place, Epperly showed her a listing for a remodeled carriage house in the West Village; Blair would have bought it sight unseen if anyone but Epperly had been there.

Back in New York, Dan invites her to a secret acoustic show he’s playing near NYU. She goes, of course, and this time, when she asks him to come home with her, he says yes.

It takes time. For them to trust each other, and reconnect. But they do, and Blair feels like her life is finally making sense.

She and Dan take one day, one step at a time, in secret, for both their sakes, and meanwhile, she, Epperly, Cyrus, and Aaron negotiate a new contract with Rose Records.

Her best-friendship, record deal, and love life all fall into place, and then Blair is writing like never before.

Aaron is….unconventional, and doesn’t let her push him around, which she finds infuriating, not for least of which is the direction he wants to take this album. She fights it at first, but if she really does want to make a departure from the pop princess songs she was generating, maybe following down his path is not the worst idea. And if she hates it, then she can just walk.

It’s still pop, but it’s bigger, less bubbly and more….glittering. It’s….darker isn’t exactly the right word, but like she’s not trying to be the Good Girl anymore. It’s just crafting a record that’s hers, one song at a time.

She offers Dan the option to co-write, more than once, but he turns her down. Not because he doesn’t care, but because this is the first time the music she’s making entirely belongs to her, and he doesn’t want to get in the way of that.

“Church and state,” he says one late night in her cozy house on Cornelia Street.

“And which one’s this?”

“Church,” he answers immediately before kissing her. “Obviously.”

Speaking of church and state, and despite their expectations, they’re able to keep them out of the public eye. Blair’s friends know, and Dan’s family knows, but no one else does. By some miracle, they keep out of the tabloids. Blair keeps working on her album, Dan keeps working with his sister and best friend. They go out into the world and make music and go home to each other at the end of the night.

Blair and Aaron Rose make a surprisingly good time. They finish the album fast, and nine months after Blair’s divorce from Chuck and Bass Records, reputation drops.

She has a whole slew of promotions to do for the release, but that midnight, she and Dan open a bottle of wine and listen to the whole thing start to finish. (“Church and State, honey, I’ll listen when it’s done,” he’d said). He’s a fan.

She and Aaron were both intent on it not being a “divorce record,” but it is about her, exploring who she is as a person and an artist after her carefully constructed life fell apart, and about the love and truth she found in the wreckage. It's not a divorce record; she never point blank references Chuck, or their marriage, but the argument could be made that there’s a rebuke against him in every track. Even in the love songs she wrote about Dan, her writing of him is an antithesis of who Chuck was as a partner. The most pointed tracks are even able to claim plausible deniability. There are some people on the internet, though, who criticize the single “Look What You Made Me Do,” as a phrase habitually used by abusers, to which Blair says (in private, of course): “Yeah, that was the whole fucking point.”

The album doesn’t out perform her Bass releases immediately, but no one denies that the Queen B is back, she charms on late night shows, radio spots, and a months-long tour kicks off with high sales. There’s another legal fight about her having to pay for the right to perform her own songs on the tour, and as infuriating as that is, Blair is restored at having herself as an artist back.

Of course, to the public, the addressee in many of the songs is a mystery. Who is “Gorgeous” about? Or “Dress”? Or “Call It What You Want”? Many a pop culture think-piece is written on the topic, but no one guesses right. The most popular theory though, since they appear in public so often nowadays, is that Blair is dating Serena. It turns out to be a pretty good cover for keeping their real relationships private, so they play it up.

(sidebar: in the effort to hold of the Divorce Record allegations, Aaron had her tweak the bridge in Gorgeous, the original lines she demo’ed for him were: you make me so happy it turns back to sad / there’s nothing I hate more than what I can’t have / guess I’ll just stumble on back to my man / unless you want to take me home)

(It’s actually a testament to the loyalty and restraint of the people around them, because Blair and Dan are shit at being subtle while they’re together. )

Speaking of the people around them, it’s a bit hilarious how their lives all intertwine and overlap. There’s Dan’s sister, who’s hated Blair’s ex-husband for years, and who’s now decidedly not dating Blair’s ex-boyfriend. (“Just friends,” she and Nate insist to anyone who even comes close to asking, but Blair thinks they doth protest too much). And there’s Blair's best friend who was her former nemesis and Dan’s ex but is now dating Blair’s colleague and producer. Speaking of her colleague and producer, Aaron—who just so happens to be her lawyer’s son—he’s also in a poly-relationship with Dan’s best friend and bandmate, Vanessa Abrams. Vanessa who, on more than one occasion, Blair has caught giving Serena the eye, and vice versa.

They are all kind of a mess, but Blair finds she loves it that way. Her supposedly pristine life had been fake anyway. She much prefers this.

She and Dan keep their relationship a secret through her stadium tour and into awards season, when they decide to finally come out of the shadows.

“I’ve never really come out before,” Dan jokes, “everybody just already kinda knew.”

They pick the American Music Awards as the event. Blair gives him one last out in the limo ride over, but he doesn’t want to take it. He’s not ignorant of the public attention and pressure she lives with, but he loves her more than he’s afraid of that.

He gets out of the car first on his side, then comes around to open her door and help her out onto the red carpet. She kisses him as soon as she’s on her feet, limo door still open, cameras flashing in front of them.

The internet loses its collective mind. Intrigue suddenly sprouts up around this unassuming sad boi indie artist. Streams of Punisher and Strangers in the Alps hit all time highs. Dan’s been represented by his dad this whole time, but now Rufus jokes, “I think I can’t afford you.”

To ask him if his life has changed is stupid, of course it has, but his focus doesn’t. Dan’s attention is always only on the music. On the music, and on Blair.

Every year, Vanessa orchestrates a benefit show at one of their old favorite clubs in Brooklyn. It’s usually just Vanessa, Jenny, and Dan, but once she’s earned the trust of Dan’s sisters, Blair appears too. People go feral for a bootleg when they hear through the grapevine that she covered “A Case of You,” with Dan on the dulcimer.

For two people who love playing music, and love playing music together, they don’t do it in public very often. It becomes something that they save for just each other, and only occasionally will they perform together in public. Dan plays on Blair’s NPR TIny Desk once, and once for WFUV, they do a cover of “Dust to Dust.” it’s OBSCENE. sex in the studio amirite

The dark corners of the internet (fangirls) start looking a little too closely at their lyrics, and it’s only a matter of time before a fan tweet theorizes that Blair Waldorf had an affair with sad boi indie guy while she was married.

Chuck jumps on the rumor, plays it up in an attempt to smack Blair down after the success of her latest record. He calls her a cheater, a gold-digger, all the accusations he floated during the divorce and more.

In response, Blair releases a single. She wrote it while she and Dan were first together all those years ago, and kept it for her. At the time, she never planned on letting it see the light of day, she wasn’t even sure she would share it with Dan. But where she is now, she feels happy and safe in sharing this piece of her soul.

When she drops “ivy,” it's a confirmation of the rumors, but unapologetic. Comedians applaud her gall on late night shows. She was accused of having an affair, and she said, yeah I fucked him, and I wrote this ballad about it.

It isn’t pristine, or the most graceful thing to admit, but Blair is happy, and she won’t pretend to be sorry for being happy. She releases another album (Loneliest Time), then another (Lover), as does Dan (the more rockabilly Sleepwalkers). And three years after her divorce, they marry in a private ceremony with only their nearest and dearest in attendance. They keep the marriage quiet for six months after the fact. And, in the meantime, Blair sits down with Aaron to strategize re-recording her masters.

She starts with a single from her last record under the Bass umbrella. She’d written “This Love” about her and Chuck’s on-again, off-again relationship before he finally gave in and married her. On touring, she’d grown increasingly tired of it, she’d hated it for a while there. But her life and heart have come full circle, and now she can sing it with a new perspective.

When “This Love (B’s Version)” drops, she posts a set of photos on instagram:

The cover of the new single, which is a close up of her face, eyes closed, lips red, another set of lips kissing her cheek

The original photo used for the cover, zoomed out to see Dan kissing Blair’s cheek.

Another photo of Blair and Dan in their home at the West Village, forehead to forehead, facing each other.

A candid shot of Blair in the studio, wiping her eyes after tearing up while recording vocals.

Another candid of Blair and Aaron hugging once they wrapped.

Blair writes the caption of the post herself, which reads:

It’s funny how the meanings of songs can change as you change. When I first recorded “This Love,” I hadn’t even met the love of my life yet. I thought my big, magical, cyclical love story was done. Then, when I learned it wasn’t that magical at all, I couldn’t bring myself to sing the song anymore, its meaning had become tainted, hurtful. But then, after enough time, and with the right person, something amazing happened. I found a new meaning in it, deeper, happier, and it was like my life had finally caught up to what I had written all those years ago. These hands had to let it go free, but “This Love” has finally come back to me, and now I share it with you. xoxo, B

And CURTAIN

PS: this is how they announce Blair’s pregnancy when it happens

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thelustybraavosimaid · 1 year

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[ps: and even if it was just "shipping wars" like yeah?? because jonsa is literally built upon attacking and degrading arya and dany, while jonaryas and Jonerys never even have to mention the other girl when talking about their ship]

It's very strange, isn't it? Because the Jonsas who do this are the same ones who say StArK sIsTeR sUpReMaCy, uWu I lOvE tHe StArK sIsTaHs and go on and on and on about how criticising Sansa is steeped in misogyny while hypocritically throwing Dany and Arya under the bus.

Some theories I've heard since I've been in this fandom (since 2014/2015, mind you):

-Dany is going to lose her sanity and kill scores of people, becoming the Mad Queen

-Jon is going to kill Dany for the love of Sansa

-Dany is going to lose every dragon and be useless in the War for the Dawn

-Jon is going to go all Azor Ahai and stab Dany against her will

-Arya is going to be sent on a mission to kill Alayne Stone and will die

-Arya is going to die unceremoniously in the snow (insert frozen fingers quote that everyone misreads), warg into Nymeria and serve as a replacement for Lady.

Ugh, etc...

All of this sounds extremely misogynistic to me. Why Sansa's affection from Jon hinges on two of George's leading ladies—and favourite female characters, mind you—dying disgusts me, and the fact that they feel they must do this seems like subconscious proof they know Jonsa is never fucking happening.

They hype up limited interaction and importance in the narratives from both Jon and Sansa as proof that they are going to end up together, ignore what's written in the books, and treat Dany and Arya like they are somehow lesser than Sansa because she "suffers prettily" and "handles trauma with grace" (which are wild fucking statements in themselves) and I do not get it.

Writers do not write arcs and stories like that. In order for something to have a important narrative punch, like with the fated mates trope, there has to be symbolism established between the two characters. There should be parallels.

Foreshadowing does not exist subconsciously in a narrative, nor should it be twisted to fit perceived ideas of these two would be great together, yeah? That is not good writing. George never equates anything in Jon's narrative to Sansa—he does that with Arya: like, for example Alys Karstark, Ygritte (his lover). Jon questions if Arya was ever his sister while remarking on Ygritte's stubbornness.

Moreover, Jon wishes he had a dragon or three, Val's hair shines a pale silver in the moonlight. Dany sees a great wolf and a man in flames, she thinks that if Rhaegar's son had lived, she would have married him, and she hears a wolf howling after Jon's death. These are incredibly important, but we are expected to believe that Sansa hearing a "ghost wolf" is somehow more important? Or her thinking that it'd be sweet to see Jon after she had to be told that Jon exists?

We don't need to talk about Sansa because we know that her life (or death) would not impede on the importance of either relationship to Jon. We already know from the books and from the show that these three are tightly interconnected and seemingly have always been from the beginning.

#can you tell that i am annoyed? i am lol #anti jonsa #asoiaf #ramble #asks

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fierypen37 · 2 years

Text

The Flames Just Get Higher

Enjoy!

@snowxstormworld

@libradoodle1 for the beautiful moodboard!

The Flames Just Get Higher

Guilt and desire were cruel masters. Snowflakes fell in a cold, feathery kiss on his upturned face. Even the hushed silence of Winterfell’s godswood offered no solace. Here, all he could see was the crown of winter roses in her hair, the magnificent white fur of her wedding gown, her ripe lips quivering with cold and nerves as she pledged her life to be joined with his brother’s. Neither hard labor, nor beatings on the training yard, nor prayers to the old gods could absolve him of what lived and breathed inside his heart. A bastard was devious, amoral, ruled by lust and avarice. Every day of his life, he’d tried to live by honor as his father did. But the moment Daenerys Targaryen set her delicate foot in Winterfell’s bailey, he was lost. Cold seeped through the knees of his trousers where he knelt in prayer. Even through the leather of his gloves, his woven fingers ached. The face carved in the weirwood judged him. Faithless and horrid.

“Why are you sulking? Shouldn’t you be at post with Dany?” Arya asked, crunching on an apple. Jon scowled at her over his shoulder.

“I’m praying, not sulking, little sister,” Jon grumbled, rising to his feet, “And Lady Daenerys is at the high table with your mother breaking her fast. If she isn’t safe with the inner keep of Winterfell, I know not how to make her so.”

Arya shrugged. She and Dany had become fast friends in the half year since she had wed Robb. They spoke of dragonriders and old stories, rode like hellions together through the fields, chatted and picked wildflowers. Dany had won every one of their hearts. In the bower, she would spend hours sewing and painting with Lady Catelyn, Sansa and the septas. Bran and Rickon would sit in the rushes at her feet and listen to her stories. She lit the dark corners of Winterfell with laughter, so dour and quiet in the wake of Father’s death a year ago. An apoplexy, Maester Luwin said.

Rhaegar Targaryen, King of the Seven Kingdoms, had trothed his younger sister to the heir of Winterfell when they were both still infants. A way to knit the kingdoms back together after Robert Baratheon’s rise, and salve to Eddard’s Stark’s wound of losing his dearest friend. A dragon’s wroth was not to be scoffed at, though. The Stormlands would never rise again. Stannis and Renly were stripped of lands and title and imprisoned in the black cells. House Buckler now wore the title of Lord of Storm’s End and Lord Paramount of the Stormlands. Jon Arryn and the Vale suffered a similar fate.

“Come, save your piety for later. There’s breakfast,” Arya said, nudging his shoulder with hers. Even Arya’s easy humor did little to lighten his mood.

“I’m not hungry,” Jon said. His belly betrayed him by letting out a loud gurgle. A double measure of guilt had been his meal, and prayers had done little to nourish him. Jon had done it again last night. Spied on them.

The first time had been an accident. On the feast night of Robb and Daenerys’ wedding, Jon had sought solitude in a supply closet. The air was musty and close, smelling of pickled turnips, but a fair sight better than the close heat, reek of sweat and raucous, drunken laughter of the great hall. Jon took a swing from his hip flask when a loud crash caught his attention. Jon peered through the aperture of the closed door. Her voice caught him.

“Ser, hic I think I’ve—hic—taken to my cups!”

“Northern ale is strong, my southron lady. And call me Robb,” he said, his voice a gentle rumble.

“Robb,” she repeated just as softly. Her words were flavored with a tinge of an accent and Jon suddenly longed for those lips to form his own name.

In the faint light of the candelabra in its sconce, Jon was struck by how beautiful they were together. Robb’s auburn hair, high sharp cheek bones, eyes blue as a summer sky. And Daenerys . . . gods, she was a goddess of moonlight with her fair skin, silver hair and violet eyes. An old familiar jealousy twisted and sickened within Jon’s heart. Robb cradled her cheek and bent to kiss her. A catch of breath, a soft half-smothered sound as their lips touched. And she melted into Robb. Jon was transfixed, and hard as brass. Like a deviant, he watched as they kissed and touched—chastely through their wedding clothes, of course, there was still the bedding ceremony to consider. Half-innocent, half-hungry. Tentative and tender and so beautiful his eyes burned looking at them. Watching. Listening. Wanting so bad, there was a bitter taste in his mouth.

“Come on, Jon. Ghost misses you,” Arya’s voice drew him back to the present, and she tugged his arm. Jon relented, though her argument did not hold water. Jon and Ghost had gone for their morning run before the sun rose. Jon steeled himself against the familiar torment of seeing her. The warmth of Winterfell’s great hall embraced them. Daenerys was laughing. The high, happy sound seemed to hang in the air. Or he was a besotted fool. Either would be accurate.

“There you two are! Come and fetch some breakfast. Jon, there’s some white cheese left, and some bacon.” His foolish heart skipped a beat. She had taken note of his preferences and saved him some of his favorite food. Did she? Could she . . . ? The sweet feeling was as fleeting as a beam of sunlight under swift-moving clouds. Lady Stark glowered at him. Those blue eyes as hard and cold as marbles. Even in the wake of Father’s passing, her hatred of Jon had not slackened. Jon wouldn’t have been surprised if she blamed him for the apoplexy in Lord Eddard’s head. Daenerys laid a gentle hand over Lady Stark’s. A keen judge of character, Robb’s wife. For her part, Lady Stark mellowed under her daughter-in-law’s regard. Jon cleared his throat. From the tail of his eye, he saw Arya take her seat on Daenerys’s other side, scratching Nymeria’s ears as she did so.

“My thanks, Lady Daenerys,” Jon murmured, taking a seat on one of the lower tables. A servant laid the plate Daenerys had made before him. Warm bread spread with butter and drizzled with honey, slabs of bacon crisp at the edges, neat parings of white cheese. She even remembered he liked to the salty rind. A better man would have abstained, but Jon could not. The food was excellent, the sweet smile he earned from her was even better. There was perhaps a metaphor to extrapolate from this, but he chose not to dwell upon it.

“Where is Robb?” Jon asked. The Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North usually breakfasted with his wife before attending to his duties.

“As his guard, you should be aware of his comings and goings,” Lady Stark snipped. The words were mild compared to her usual jabs, no doubt due to present company.

“Mother, Jon is my guard. Robb has his own retinue,” Daenerys admonished gently. Jon took a long draught of his water, trying desperately to ignore what being referred to as ‘hers’ did to him. His cock had some very definite opinions.

While Lady Stark’s position as former lady and mother to the current lord was well-respected, there was no doubt of Daenerys’s authority. There was steel beneath her sunny smile and gods, it was as if she had been fashioned for him. Fashioned for him, and married to another. A cosmic fucking joke.

“Robb’s preparing for the progress as soon as the snow stops. A hard freeze tonight with help the sledges,” Arya answered, sneaking morsels of bacon to Nymeria. Jon nodded. He and Robb had poured over the map to find the best route last evening. Every five years, the progress toured all of the Stark bannermen and holdfasts. The purpose was to renew oaths of homage, field complaints, assure the bannermen and sworn swords that House Stark was strong. Houses often tried to outdo one another in feasts and entertainments.

“You needn’t worry for accommodations, my lady. The sledge is most comfortable.” Jon said. Drawn by six draft horses, the closed sledge was very warm. A painfully vivid image rose in his mind’s eye: Daenerys in her chemise with Jon’s head between her creamy white thighs.

“I have no doubt you will see to my comfort as well as my safety, Jon,” she said with a merry grin. Daenerys rose and bussed Lady Stark’s cheek, then playfully pinched Arya’s arm.

“Since I intend to ride in the sledge, perhaps we can race after the midday meal? Just to give our horses some exercise.” she challenged. Arya’s grin was fierce.

“Excellent! I’ll go groom Mara!” Arya said and bolted off with Nymeria at her heels. Jon’s mouth tipped at her antics.

There was a familiar drawing of tension within him as Daenerys approached. The ghost of her scent lingered in the air, lemon soap and clean linen.

“Walk with me?” she asked. Together, they walked out of the great hall and down one of the wending halls toward her rooms. There was still a mountain of packing left to be done. The everyday gown of green wool clung sweetly to her and her hair shone as the light knifed through the arrow slits. Jon rested his hand on the pommel of his sword and waited for her to say what was on her mind.

“Did you ride with your father on the last progress?” she asked, chewing on her lower lip in a very distracting fashion.

“I did.” He’d been eighteen and spoiling for adventure as most young men were. The shine of riding at his father’s side to survey his lands quickly soured. All the bannermen fawned after Robb and sneered at him. Most lords wouldn’t even seat him in the hall during feasts. By the time they reached Last Hearth, Jon contemplated running away north to the Wall. Uncle Benjen would welcome him. If he had, he would a brother of the Night’s Watch and wouldn’t be trapped in the sweet hell of loving Daenerys. There were days when he wished it were so.

Beside him, she plucked at the gold braiding looped at her cuff, embroidered with painstaking care.

“I suppose I am nervous about the progress.”

“About what?” he asked. She shrugged, a tight nervous gesture.

“There . . . there is little love for Targaryens so far north. Most would have happily risen against my brother with Robert Baratheon. What if—” A sudden flash of anger burned through him so hot he wondered that smoke didn’t eke out his ears. He stopped in the hall and faced her square.

“If anyone looks at you in a way that displeases you, tell me. I will take care of it,” Jon said in a fierce undertone. The leather of his gloves whined as he clenched the hilt of his sword.

“I will protect you, my lady. I swear it.” The words were a holy oath, he would protect her with every drop of his strength.

Something darkened those violet eyes and Jon tumbled into them, mesmerized by her closeness. In the half year since she had arrived in Winterfell, Jon had made a study of her habits. Daenerys had a tender and generous heart. Gifts and embraces were given freely and easily. She held Sansa’s hand as they whispered together, she embraced Lady Catelyn in greeting, she kissed her handmaiden’s cheek for fetching her correspondence. The one glaring difference: she never touched him. Not once. Jon ached for it, longed for her to pat his arm or kiss his cheek or squeeze his hand. Though he yearned for every intimate touch, he would settle for even an informal one.

“Jon . . .” Gods, the way she said his name! It hurt so sweetly. Daenerys stepped back. Jon realized with shame that he had stepped closer, invading the usual neutral space between them. Jon cleared his throat, an apology bubbling up. Daenerys cleared her throat.

“I wish Arya were coming with us,” she said, her tone warbling. Jon warmed to the topic of his favorite sister, grateful to smooth over the awkwardness of their earlier exchange.

“Her mother will have to bar the door to her rooms on the eve of our leave-taking. I’m certain she would pose as a stableboy and ride off with us.”

Daenerys chuckled. Jon opened the door to her rooms.

“Don’t give her any ideas! She might do just that,” Daenerys said. Conversation flowed easily as Daenerys flitted about the room, packing her things the travel chest. They spoke about the progress, the weather, their first visit took them south to Cerwyn. Robbard Cerwyn had been a good friend and bannerman to their father and would be a perfect beginning.

“Perhaps Mother Catelyn would let the little ones accompany us south to Cerwyn. It isn’t far. They could be home again before supper,” Daenerys said. Jon made a noncommittal sound. Lady Stark did not like many of her brood beyond the walls of Winterfell. In her mind, old grudges lingered. With those grudges, the risk of kidnappings and assassinations.

Time passed smoothly. The two of them had formed an easy rapport. Silences were comfortable. He studiously ignored the unmade bed, and ignored even harder the lingering memory of last night. Robb and Dany entwined . . . and Jon watching. Jon moved to stoke the fire. To Jon, the room was comfortably warm, though Daenerys’ warmer blood thought differently. Daenerys bent at the coffer and began sorting through the already packed clothes. The unmade bed and her plump arse lit something dark and hungry in him. A nudge of his hand would bar the door. He could bend over her and kiss that sweet smiling mouth . . .

Daenerys muttered a curse. Jon blinked back to awareness to find Daenerys clutching a bleeding finger on her left hand.

“My lady,” Jon said, crossing the room to stand at her side.

“Damned clasp snagged,” Daenerys said, blotting her finger with a linen cloth.

“Let me see,” Jon said, cradling her left hand between both of his. A ragged scratch across the pad of her fingertip. Another drop of blood welled up and Jon checked the perverse urge to lick it. Taste the salt and heat of her. Gently, Jon wound the scrap of linen around her finger.

“We must be careful, hmm? Wouldn’t want it to fester,” Jon said, his voice huskier than he intended. The words were intended as a jest. Daenerys smiled, a breathtaking crinkle of her eyes, the white gleam of her perfect teeth.

“Do you think I’ll survive, ser?” she asked.

“I shall see to it, my lady. You shall need careful tending,” Jon said. Gods, the words fell out of his mouth: coy and teasing. Daenerys pulled her hand free of his and Jon suddenly felt as bereft as if left out in a blizzard. Gooseflesh stippled his skin at the sudden chill between them.

“I—I don’t feel well. I think I shall rest my eyes a moment,” she said. Jon nodded, his scowl deepening.

“I shall see to it that you are not disturbed,” he promised, “if you have need of the maester, just ring.” Daenerys led him to the door. The ornaments tied at the end of her long silver braid chimed with each step, her slippers whispered on the rushes. The door shut with a heavy thump and Jon inwardly writhed with mingled shame and longing. Striding down the hall, he stopped the tacksman at the end of the hall.

“See that no one disturbs Lady Daenerys. She needs rest,” Jon said. The man nodded.

Jon clenched his hands so hard his fingertips went numb. Temptation lay ripe for the taking. The long vigil this morning hadn’t purged the longing. Jon shouldn’t. He knew he shouldn’t. Guilt and desire waged a painful war within him. His body seemed to move of his own will, one foot in front of the other. The next he knew, he was in small storeroom. The room directly above the lord’s rooms. With a crack in the floorboard. On their wedding night, Jon had once again sought solitude as he paced and drank, paced and drank, sinking deeper into misery. The low murmur of Robb’s voice startled him. He looked down and found a crack in the floorboard.

Above the bed.

He crouched down on his knees and watched. Drank in the milky perfection of Daenerys’ bare skin. The half-awkward fumbling of new lovers. Shy and eager by turns. Gods, the wet little sounds of their kissing, the stifled moans. The firelight made Robb’s sweating back gleam. Jon shoved down his trousers, pumping his hard cock as Robb made love to his new wife. Jon watched Daenerys’ face. Pain made her brows pucker, her lips parted in a soundless gasp. Yes, yes he would comfort her. Kiss her sweet mouth, tease that sweet pearl of flesh between her thighs until she writhed, begging for more. It almost ruined it when his double Robb did not see to her pleasure. Then Daenerys had dragged Robb in for a kiss and Jon sped up his strokes. Yes, so beautiful. When she cried out, pleasure twisted through Jon like a cruel knife.

Spying on them became an addiction. If he could not love her himself, Jon was happy that Robb would. At least, he convinced himself he was happy. When he watched them, Jon was able to ignore Robb and focus on Daenerys. He knew what sound she made when she found her pleasure. He knew the positions she liked best. He knew she had a pink heart-shaped birthmark on her left inner hip. He dreamed of it. Wanted to trace its borders, nuzzle the tender skin there. Often, at midday, Daenerys would retreat to her rooms and rest. And before she rested . . .

Jon knelt in his customary spot; his cock already bruisingly hard. Through the crack, he watched as Daenerys shed her dress and stood in her chemise. The firelight illuminated the shape of her body through the thin fabric. She slipped under the heavy down blankets and furs. Her hair a silver spill on the pillow, her face relaxed and eyes shut. Imagining her husband no doubt. Jon’s mouth watered, following the stealthy movement of her hand beneath the coverlet. First at her breasts, a repetitive motion, first one, then the other. Plucking her nipples. Yes. He wanted to taste her skin, suck on those pert little buds.

Jon loosed the ties of his trousers and poured a bit of oil into his palm. The pleasure of his rough hand on the hot skin of his cock made him hiss through his teeth. He watched. The lump of her hand beneath the coverlets slid lower. She shifted her legs wider and a soft moan fell from her lips. Jon swallowed hard, stilling his movements. Gods, the sight of her sent him mad with lust. One little moan and he could’ve spilled. No, wait . . . wait it was better to come when she did. Jon pumped his cock, enthralled by the little movements of her fingers. Rubbing that sweet little pearl. He imagined the musky smell of her cunt, the tiny wet sounds as she slid her fingers through her honey. Mm, gods he longed to linger there, to touch her sweet cunt, fuck her with his tongue, his fingers, his cock. A slight shift, a thrusting motion. Oh gods! Daenerys thrust her fingers inside herself. Yes, yes sweetheart. A little more. I’ll make you feel so good, love. Give me more. The endearments and filthy words remained unspoken, but he willed her to keep going. He craved her pleasure more than his own. Jon sped his pace to match hers. Pleasure boiled up, a warning tingle in his balls.

“Jon!” Daenerys cried out as she came. Jon bit down hard on a howl, pleasure surging through him. White streaks of come dribbled from his fingers into a puddle on the floor. Endless spasms of pleasure, the sound of his name ricocheting through his head. Jon slumped down until his forehead touched the plank floorboard. Daenerys had said his name. What in the seven hells was he going to do now?

#daenerys targaryen #jon snow #jonerys fanfiction #smut #FP37fics #robberys #robb and dany are married #angsty pining ensues

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ashleyfanfic · 9 months

Note

Jonerys prompt please

29) just because you can doesn’t mean you should.

49) I do not have an answer for you

I've gone over and over this one in my head and even written it out twice. I can only come up with angsty things. I don't like writing angst most of the time. Only with JW. So, let's see what we get.

Not betaed. We die like Eddie Munson.

Jonerys fic

*~*

Jon watched her at the feast, laughing with the Dothraki leader. Her hand rested on his forearm and he turned away, hating the ache that sat in his chest. He did this to himself, caused his own bloody heart break, all because of a secret that was better left buried.

He felt a hand slap on his shoulder and a horn of something pressed into his hand. He looked up at Tormund who had probably had more to drink than the entire country. "What's got you looking so fucking sad, Little Crow? We stand in a feast of victory."

He shook his head. "Nothing. You know me. Not known for smilin'."

"True. You're a sour fucker. But not since that queen came around and started fucking you regularly. What's the matter? She stop?"

He heaved a sigh. "I stopped."

Tormund stared at him for a moment then stood and swiped a hand over his tangled hair. "You mean she's available?" Jon yanked on his heavy furs and the man laughed and resumed his seat beside him. "She's not available."

"You just said..."

"I know what I said."

Tormund sighed. "What's the problem. You're both young, beautiful, unmarried rulers. Isn't that the usual thing your lot does? Unite your kingdoms and all that?"

"Usually."

"I fail to see the problem."

Jon was quiet, knowing if there was one person he could tell that wouldn't bat an eye at the revelation, it was probably Tormund. "An unexpected problem has presented itself."

"She is married?"

"No."

"She tried to kill you?"

"No," he answered as he rubbed a hand over his face.

"Then tell me, Jon Snow, why you're being so fucking stupid."

Jon leaned closer to him. "I found out that she's my aunt."

Tormund looked at Dany and then back at Jon. "And?"

"And... we're related."

"Did you know that when you started fucking her?"

"No. I didn't find out until a few days ago."

Tormund nodded. "I see. For a man who died and was brought back to life, you really take the long way around to get somewhere."

Jon drank down his own drink and grimaced in Tormund's face. "What does that mean?"

"Do you love her?"

"Yes," he answered without question.

"Do you want to lay with her?"

"Yes, but--"

Tormund cut him off with a raised hand. "Can you live with the idea that she might someday marry someone that isn't you? That might not love her, but only use her for her title?"

"No."

"What about you? Your people would require you to marry a woman eventually. Produce an heir." Jon shook his head. "Let me give you a piece of advice, Jon Snow. Just because you can, doesn't mean you should put distance between the two of you. A woman like her... I don't know that there's actually been a woman like her through out all of history and time. And she loves you, you stupid fucker."

Jon looked up to find Dany staring at him, and she raised her glass to him. He raised his back and bowed his head. "It's only a matter of time before the lords start circling around her, each one wanting to use her for something. Her dragons, her arms, her title. None of them seeing her the way you do. Loving her the way you do. What you feel for her is very rare and you should relish it. So many of us are unfortunate that we never find it or we do and lose it. So she's your... family. From what I've heard from Arya, that's sort of what Targaryens do, isn't it?"

He took Tormund's drink from him and finished all of it. "You're right."

"I know. So get up and go claim your queen."

Jon stood on wobbly legs and grimaced at the taste in his mouth. He held his goblet up for a boy passing with wine, had it filled, and drank all of it in one swallow. He stumbled around his chair but righted himself and took slow steps towards her. She dismissed those standing near her and soon they were standing alone.

"How drunk is Tormund?"

He glanced back at his ginger friend who was now in a drinking game with Tyrion. "I don't have an answer for you," he replied and turned back to her. Her smile was bright, even if it didn't reach her eyes. "Dany, I want--"

"I plan to have my armies march south starting tomorrow morning," she interrupted. "It's in everyone's best interest, I feel, if my people and I are no longer in your country."

"So soon?"

"There are people who aren't happy about our presence, and to be honest, I don't like it here."

He sat on the table in front of her and cautiously took her hand. "There's still things you haven't seen."

She nodded. "I agree. Many things you promised to show me. But I'll not pressure you, Jon Snow. I've loved and lost and lived through it. I'm fairly certain I could do it again, if I must."

"What if you didn't have to?" he said softly.

She shook her head, confusion marrying her pretty face. "I don't understand you. You've avoided me for days and when you finally do acknowledge my presence you shake everything I've ever known to its very core. And now, I'm supposed to be happy that you've made up your mind?"

He stood. "Come with me."

She sighed. "Jon, I'm tired. I'm tired of games played with leaders and I'm tired of getting my expectations up only to then be disappointed."

He squeezed her hand and pressed a kiss to her palm. "Come with me," he prodded.

She reluctantly allowed him to lead her out of the room and through the lit corridors out to the courtyard. He pushed open the gates and they trudged through the sloshy snow together toward the heart tree. She looked up at the tree that appeared to be crying, along the white bark and up to the red leaves.

"The Night King died here," he said softly. "Bran was just here," he said, facing her, "and Arya came in from this end. She had made it past all of his guard and actually got the drop on him, from what Bran said."

She folded her hands in front of her and stared at him. He could feel her eyes on his skin as well as the eyes of countless others, always watching. "I've heard all of this, Jon. We were briefed this very morning, in fact."

He took a deep breath and lowered his head. "I never expected to survive the fight. I thought my destiny was to kill the Night King and that was the reason I was here. Once my purpose was finished, that would be it. I'd go back to wherever Melisandre pulled me from. To be very honest, Your Grace, Dany, I never allowed myself to look past that."

Dany's frown deepened. "So, am I to understand that you fully believed you'd die and yet you never thought to share this information with me, the person you claim to love who very clearly loves you?"

Jon shifted his weight to his other foot and lowered his head. "Yes. And now, I can only ask your forgiveness for my foolishness."

"What foolishness is that? That we became involved or that you're ending the involvement now that the world is no longer in peril."

"Neither," he answered quickly. "Dany, I never said I wanted to die. I only said that's what I thought would happen. It kept me from hoping beyond the battle for anything more."

She walked past him to the tree and he watched her placed her gloved hand over the bark and look up at the leaves. "Jon Snow, you're the most insufferable man," she said with a shake of her head. She then turned her frustration on him. "What is this? Why bring me out here? Are you telling me that you'd like to explore other options now that you're alive? That you want to stay in this Gods forsaken wasteland for the rest of your life with your sister, excuse me, cousin, constantly doubting every decision you make?" He shook his head and she stepped forward. "I've never taken you for a coward."

His jaw clenched and his hands tightened into fists at his side. But she continued as if he hadn't had any reaction to her words. "You came into my throne room and demanded my help. You defiantly refused to bend the knee. You dared to pet a dragon when neither of us knew what would happen." She huffed out a breath. "You took my hand and offered me your heart. You openly declared your allegiance to me when it would have been far easier to lie. You knocked on my door, Jon Snow. You rode a dragon into battle. But in front of me, faced with the possibility of a beautiful future together, you're cowering away?"

"I'm not cowering away."

"You could have fooled me. I ask you again. What do you want?"

"You," he said softly and her shoulders slumped. "I'm torn up about it, Dany. Bran and Sam telling me all they have... I still want you. I can't think about you with someone else because it makes me want to destroy the world," he said as he cupped her face in his hands. "I don't give a damn about the Iron Throne, but I'll fight until my dying breath to see you upon it."

She grasped his wrists and shook her head. "You have to live, Jon. You have to." She whispered gently against his lips. "You're the one who told me that the witch wasn't a good source for information. You were right," she guided his hand down to her belly and he looked up at her in surprise. "I had gone to the crypts to find you and tell you. But I found you so lost and sad that I didn't get the chance. And then the dead were here. But we've both lived and I believe we're both here to bring peace to this world. Both of us together. And our children after us."

He kissed her, his lips pressed against hers desperately. His arms looped around her waist and he lifted her to swing her in a circle. "You're magic, Dany."

She laughed and swatted at him. "Put me down before you make me sick." He placed her back on her feet and kissed her again. "Stay with me tonight," he whispered to her. "Let me... celebrate you."

Dany brushed her finger over the cut on his cheek. "I suppose I can allow that. I'll count it as your apology for being stupid."

He laughed and caught her around the waist. "No. Don't. Let my apology be separate."

She furrowed her brow. "Why?"

"Any reason to get on my knees for my queen."

"What if I told you that you didn't need a reason? I'd accept anytime you'd like to kneel for me."

He smiled and kissed her again. "Then I shall start in my chambers, Your Grace. Tonight. If you'll have me."

She wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her face against his chest. "I'll have you, Jon Snow. Until the end of my days."

#jonerys #jon x dany #jon x daenerys #fan fic asks #fanfic asks #ashleyfanfic

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