I'm sure Lily has nice sugar cookies.

 

Jon/Arya (Modern)

Read this until Jon: I was already falling for you.

He was 13, she was 9. He tells her that 8 years later, when he's somehow transformed into one of the richest men in Britain, and she's a sad girl whose just lost the both of her parents. Obviously this emotionally turbulent time in the life of a teenager is the perfect opportunity for her pseudo (and of age) family member to console her sexually.

I scour this fandom in search for Badass Arya, but, alas, any instance of her is either too short, wordcount wise, and or too fleeting, since once she spots Gendry/Ageon/Jon/Tywin!? all that badassery & independence is instantly subsumed within pathetic co-dependence.

And all the pedo. It resembles Asstr far too closely, through less explicitly, than I'm comfortable with. Personally, the worst offenders are those who seem to write the incoherence coherently - like this 40~ chapter Arya/Jamie fic I just happened across on AO.

 

Your summary makes me shudder. That seems like the baddest of badfics.

As for pairings...I think pairing characters just for the sake of pairing them up inevitably leads to bad things. Like no plot and characters screwing each other just because...why not? Even if they hated each other in canon.

Some allowances need to be made in such a medieval setting, but the story should not suffer for it.

I'm also on the lookout for badass Arya fics, so tell me if you find some. Right now, I'm holding out hope for this one: http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8549293/1/The-Tenderness-of-Wolves

It sounds promising and there are as of yet no males she can grow co-dependent on, though that might change in time.

 

Two GoT Tumblr posts that I wish were fanfiction.

 

That second fic really needs to happen.

 

I think the fascination with these weird and strange pairings comes from trying to create an interesting plot. Writing a pure romance fic with pairings that are natural and normal is hard. Exactly what plot is there? Chapters full of smut. It's really hard to pull off well.

When you take something a bit stranger - former enemies, big age gaps, conflicting personalities, etc - you instantly get half a plot that involves some sort of emotional conflict, and heaps of narrative that amount to "No way would I ever fall in love with them!".

When I try to think up my favorite romance fanfics or even original fiction, most of them DO exist with some sort 'unlikely pairing' and have a plot that's based around inner conflict. Of course, this doesn't mean that most of these fics are good - but I can see the fascination with it.

The modern AU fics are disguised self-insert fantasies. Why put your own OC in the fic, when you can just change the an existing character into yourself?

 

Agreement

I agree here, I am willing to make many allowances for unusual pairings, or pairings that are well written, but there is a limit here. Sansa and Sandor (sadly the most common pairing in the fandom) would work if they set it in the proper season and didn't suddenly turn it into a teenage fantasy. Probably the best example of such a pairing working in a fic I've seen is the sadly incomplete Harry/Bellatrix fic "Only Enemies". But there was another one that I started reading recently that was set in a modern AU and I was thinking, this just makes it far far worse. I agree with you, what I would like to see are strong independent characters, whether they are male or female. Tyrion becomes a sap in almost all fics, as opposed to a ruthless man with a strong sense of right and wrong (never mind that that the sense of right and wrong doesn't correspond to other people's sense of it). I think my main problem here is how most of the fics are written in a way that doesn't actually take into account the age of the characters, whether it is the TV ages or the show ages. Even a medieval 12 year old will still not think and behave like a sexually mature adult, irregardless of how tough they may be. Martin does a great job of showing this with Arya in the books, and I wish the fandom would follow suit.

 

And anyone who visits IRC has probably seen the worst thanks to Minion.

 

Just the other day I was thinking there isn't enough Arya/Syrio fanfiction.

Well, 'lo and fuckin' behold: Memory holds true

 

No! NO!