Saskia was feeling good. Statistically, there was a very good chance that she was going to survive the remainder of the year, given a few givens. One, that she didn't attempt to stampede or murder the staff in a way that the dragons found threatening. Two, that she didn't continue to climb things she ought not to climb. Three, that she not kill anyone by accident or otherwise. All in all, though, Westeros wasn't all that bad, and whilst surviving here was certainly different to living in England, it wasn't horrific, minus the spiders in the bath.
The morning was about to become even more mint, too, as, upon returning to the Hawick common room on the ground floor of the Wailing Tower after Canon for Feeble-Minded Fanbrats, there were seventy-eight envelopes with names on them awaiting on the grand table.
"Presents!" exclaimed Ilze and Amy in unison, rushing for theirs.
"Oh, just our advisory notices," said Sara, reaching for the one that read Sara Taylor. "Miss Ellie said we'd be getting those soon. We're supposed to see our advisors weekly for in-depth feedback on our writing."
That made sense, as how else was Miss Oloi expected to mark three hundred and nineteen (well, three hundred and twelve, considering recent events) drabbles? Hoping and praying that she'd get Robb, darling Robb, sexy Robb, Saskia reached for her envelope and opened it.
Your advisor for the year is Tyrion Lannister. Your weekly meeting time is as follows:
Tuesday, 8.00 pm.
Please come prepared at the aforementioned time with your first completed writing assignment. Tyrion looks forward to working with you.
Half pleased (Tyrion was wonderful) and half totally and irrevocably gutted (Tyrion was not Robb, and she would love to spend an entire half hour in Robb's solar, alone with him but for perhaps a mini dragon, at night, when perhaps he would look so fit and sleep-tousled and need to be coaxed to sleep over a hot mug of tea and fluffy conversation), Saskia sunk into her chair, trying not to tremble. It wasn't the end of the world if she didn't get this time with Robb, right? But Miss Ellie, Saskia reckoned, was cleverer than that, and wouldn't assign you to a staff member you fancied. Besides, what would the real and totally-with-feelings-and-opinions Robb Stark think about such lines as the ones Jaqen had quoted back to her? That considered, it was probably for the best that she'd not got Robb as an advisor.
Esther had also got Tyrion, to her disappointment; she'd been hoping for Hodor, whose only vocabulary word would prevent him from telling on her if she wrote batshit things again. Letty had got Robb (to Saskia's immense jealousy and her own glee, because now she could finally see if he was sexing Theon in his solar), whilst Lucy was shrieking over having Jaime and not darling Oberyn or sexy Jon. Amy was disappointed with Bronn, and Eve and Kayleigh were sobbing over not getting their respective bastards. Orla, shockingly, was not having a fit of jealous whinging over Lucy's luck, and sat tittering in her chair, smirking with glee at her own sheet which, Saskia could see when she brandished it about, read, Your advisor for the year is Ygritte.
"Dear God," whispered Jay Remo, the boy who read, shaking his head. "This is going to end in a stabbing."
"Of Jon's porky-porky poooooke stiiiick!" Orla sang, sniggering and snorting quite loudly. "First comes looooove, then comes marriage, then comes the baby in the baby carriage!"
"Dear God. You live with this, Saskia?"
Saskia felt a momentary twinge of pity for her teachers, then realised that she was the one who deserved more pity for having to live in the same quarters as Orla and in the same vicinity as Esther. And she slept in the same bed as Lucy, who hogged the blankets and wouldn't ever stop chunnering about burritos and Oberyn and phallic weapons and Marvel comic book films Saskia had never seen. And she lived with Letty, too, who was… well, Letty. That is to say, insane, as Saskia would find out the following evening…
Come to the ruined sept at 7.00 pm. I've something to show you, the note on her bed that evening had read, in Letty's splotchy cursive.
Wondering what the world Letty could possibly have to show her, Saskia grabbed her Robb drabble and her cloak and set off for the sept across the courtyard, near the edge of the great godswood. Perhaps Letty had been practising her archery and had, to her pride, hit something other than the ground—or, maybe, she'd written some lewd Theon/Robb smut and was hosting some kind of theatrical reading of it, which really wouldn't be beyond overdramatic Letty at all.
When Saskia arrived at the sept, she was not prepared for what she saw. Letty was regally splayed out in a broken spinny chair at the head of the long-disused sept, her hair not a bit out of place, blue skirt hitched up in a way that made her look rather wanton otherwise, the dying light of the sun reflected in her obviously dyed black hair. All in all, that wasn't a sight unlike any of Letty in the Hawick common room, or in their chambers—never mind the horde of fans lying on the floor before her and the grand solemnness and religiosity of the ruins in which they sprawled.
"BENJEN! COME TO ME!" a Lothston girl wailed, quaking so hard that her back uncomfortably kept thumping the hard stone floor. "COME, LORD, COME LORD BENJEN!"
"BENJEN! BENJEN! BENJEN!" came the unanimous reply, in fevered tones. "BENJEN! BENJEN! BENJEN!"
Nine girls and the Cryptkeeper lay prone on the dusty stone floor, their legs drawn up and spread as if they were getting fucked or giving birth, their lips replaying a constant interlude of Benjen, Benjen, Benjen. There was Victoria Harries, a brunette, burly Californian girl in their archery section who had never said a word to either of them, much less probably noticed them before the promise of Benjen, and Victoria's black friend, also in their archery section, whose name Saskia had never got. There was Rebecca Waite, an American in their Canon lectures who happened to be the only fanbrat around (and hopefully the only fanbrat anywhere) who sexually desired Hodor, and several other Lothston and Hawick girls whose faces Saskia recalled but whose names she'd never learnt.
The fuck? And I thought 'Benjen is love, Benjen is life' was weird, and that Letty was crazy for her obsession with killing Mr Blobby and Jon/Theon/Robb threesomes…
"Welcome to my lair, Saskia. I am high priestess in the Kingdom of Benjen," said Letty.
"What… what in seven hells are they doing, Letty?" Saskia whispered. Other than parting with their sanity.
"The Benjenites are opening the gates of their bodies and souls so that Benjen may penetrate and warg them, should their paltry vessels please his purpose."
"Oh my god."
So Letty had started some kind of… well, it had to be some kind of cult, hadn't it? There were no appropriate words in any language besides oh my god or the equivalent to describe exactly what this was, what was going on. Saskia hadn't even known Letty to be capable of speaking so eloquently – she was, after all, obsessed with Starkcest and Throbb to the point of squeeing endlessly about incestuous sex and murder. Letty, despite her calmness (well, relative to Orla and Lucy and girls like Kayleigh and Evie, at least), was actually just a bit insane.
If she's actually insane, and Lucy and Orla are, does that mean that I am too and I just don't know it?
"Well… uh… how do you know these people?" Saskia ventured. "I mean, other than Victoria and Archibald?"
"These Benjenites, you mean?" said Letty, with a fond and pleased grin at Victoria Harries, who had just cried BENJEN! and spasmed so hard against the floor that it shook dust from the cracking ceiling. "If you talk of Benjen, they will come."
It certainly looked as if they were going to come, all right—at least the Cryptkeeper was going to, at any rate, in his usual seedy fashion.
"Letty… why?"
She shrugged. "I just kind of felt like starting a cult, that's all. Melisandre's always made the crazy religion thing look cool, and Benjen was an easy target for cultlike worship. He's not here. He can't shoot it down like Stannis does the Mannimals. And besides, I'm just capitalising on the recent fervour for Benjen."
Saskia figured there was a difference between being a devoted follower of the Lord of Light, an accepted god in Westeros, and being absolutely batshit and worshipping a presumed-dead member of the Night's Watch for no apparent reason… but she wasn't about to argue with Letty.
"Tywin's going to hate this when he finds out," she said, because Tywin would certainly somehow be finding this out. Nothing stayed secret for long at the Official Fanfiction University of Westeros.
"So? The hour is ripe for Benjen. So am I." And, with a pointed look, Letty asked, "Are you?"
"Ripe for Benjen? Uh… no… no, I'm not," Saskia said, backing away some. "Now if you'll pardon me, I've my meeting with Tyrion in a few."
Saskia hauled serious arse out of the sept, whilst behind her the evening was alive with cries of BENJEN, BENJEN, BENJEN!
Brienne was sat in her solar, poring over the list of students she would unfortunately have to mentor for the remainder of the academic year—and by gods, these were some interesting cases of horrible Game of Thrones fanfiction, kinds that Brienne had only heard about through other staff members and was lucky enough to not have seen yet.
Lily Grey, 17, USA
Disease: Insipid High School Gendrya AUs
Nathan Hall, 21, USA
Disease: Gary Stu (Son of Stannis)
Gemma Temperley, 19, AUS
Disease: Bad Crossovers (My Little Pony/Game of Thrones)
Aaron Jackson, 18, USA
Disease: Self-Insert/Falling to Westeros
Frédérique Dupin, 20, FRA
Disease: Mary Sue (Robb)
Amanda West, 18, UK
Disease: Improbable Slash (Davos/Jon, Jojen/Hodor)
How could you possibly reason with someone who thought it wise and perfectly natural to write a My Little Pony crossover, whatever My Little Pony was, or someone who shipped Jojen Reed with Hodor? The first of these students to come tonight, Mr Hall, could at least be reasoned with, Brienne thought, and the girl who wrote high school AUs would likely grow out of it with time. The Mary Sue girl's lust would shrivel when she realised Robb wouldn't ever love her – that was usually the case – and her genuine admiration for her lust object grow when she realised there was more substance to him than good looks and a kingly demeanour. That, or they tended to find new characters to admire from, you know, actually reading the books for once.
When Mr Nathan Hall did arrive, Brienne found, to her dismay, that he could not be reasoned with at all. The lad before her was tall and overweight – though not to Wyman Manderly proportions – and had a scraggly beard that needed a good trimming so that it didn't spread all over his flabby neck. He was clad in a just barely too-tight red Blackwood tunic and trousers that were, Brienne noticed with a soon-retracted glance, a bit too tight around the crotch. He was holding a massive folder of parchment, the kind found in Westeros and not his world, so it seemed to Brienne that the lad must have written that much since his arrival at the university, when only assigned to write a hundred-word drabble.
"I wrote a Mannis. Mannis," he said.
"Pardon?"
"I wrote a Mannis. Mannis." And he drew out hundreds of pages from the bursting folder and placed them neatly on her desk with great love and care, pimply face aglow with what couldn't quite be lust, could it? "A Mannis. Mannis."
"You mean to say that you wrote a fanfiction about Stannis Baratheon?" Brienne asked.
"Mannis."
Was that supposed to be affirmative?
"I… see," said Brienne slowly, unsure of how to proceed in the presence of such a one-track mind. "Tell me more."
"Mannis."
"I see. Tell me more."
"Mannis is king," Nathan said proudly. "Mannis is God. And I am his son."
"You are Nathan Hall, son of Brienne glanced at his chart, "…son of Michael and Sharon Hall, of Nashville, Tennessee. Stannis Baratheon does not exist in your world. He is fictional."
"In my story. I am the Mannis's son. You killed my father in shitty show canon. Prepare to die."
Yet he seems so proud and happy to have written about the Mannis that he doesn't look like he wants to slaughter me, at least? But, with a hiss from Cersie and Ramsey and BRAWN, the mini dragons lurking in the corner, and his ever-escalating pride and obsession over his darling work, the lad was soon babbling nonsense once more, his threat to Brienne forgot.
"I wrote a Mannis. I am Nathanael Storm, bastard son of Stannis and a tavern wench. And my father acknowledges me and sends me to be trained as sellsword in Essos since the age of six. Mannis. I am that talented. I can wield a broadsword at the age of nine and defeat the greatest warriors in a tournament in Lys. Mannis hears of my deeds and summons me home, but I am bitter and refuse. Mannis, Mannis, Mannis. And then, by the time I am fifteen, I am leading an army of 100,000 Unsullied and come home to my Mannis when he summons me for help to defeat the White Walkers. Mannis. We reconcile and I am to inherit Storm's End and Dragonstone and I marry Daenerys. Now we have an army of 250,000 Unsullied, all with Valyrian steel swords. Mannis."
"Then let's have a look at it," said Brienne with as straight a face as possible. There were so many things wrong with the lad's story that she had no idea where to start and no urges but to grimace and shake her head. Doing her best not to sigh, Brienne opened to a random page and began reading.
"I am Nathanael son of Stannis Baratheon" he said sneering "And I am here to kill you"
"Die bastard" said the nights king, who was cold and evil.
Nathanael spun around drawing Lifecleaver his Valarian sword from its sheeth and he whipped it about. The nights king did not look afraid and drew his own ice sword that was colder than ice. "Come to me and die you puny mortal" he said.
"I am not a puny mortal I am the son of Stannis" he said dodging a swing of the nights kings blade. The nights king hacked and hacked away at the air because Nathanael was two fast for his blows. And in one swipe of his blade across the freezing air the nights king stumbled before Nanthaeneal and was hit by the sword. The nights king died.
"You did so great my love" said Daenerys smiling at the corpse of the nights king which was smoking smoke and being a pile of ice "Now you will give me oral sex"
Brienne let out an inevitable sigh. Not only was the lad incapable of punctuating, he was incapable of writing a realistic battle that didn't involve one party being totally and uncanonically overpowering his opponent. And the last line. That last line needed to go, as did the Stu marrying Daenerys (as half of them did, whilst some shacked up with Lady Sansa). Well, all of it needs to go if the rest of the fanfiction is like this. I could throw it into the fire and this university's mission of ridding the fandom of horrible stories be in a small way accomplished…
Instead, Brienne just said, "Well, Nathan, that's very interesting how your Gary Stu fights the Night's King, but…"
"Mannis, Mannis, Mannis, Mannis, Stannis the Mannis, Mannis, Mannis, Mannis, Stannis is the Mannis…" Nathan suddenly interrupted, tittering and whispering to himself, rocking in the chair, his size making the thing creak and reminding Brienne almost of Manderly.
What in seven hells was she supposed to do in a situation like this? Call for help knocking some sense and decent writing into the lad? It's too obvious and expected if I go to Jaime for help. Besides, he may be back in his chambers, for all I know. Robb's door, opposite the corridor, was shut, and she'd not ten minutes ago heard Daenerys, to the right, leave for the night. And to the left was Oberyn's solar, but here and there strange thumps and moans were coming from the rather thick wall, so she assumed she'd best not interfere with whatever was going on there. The same thing I wish I could do to Jaime sometimes, were we properly wed…
"Having trouble in here?" came a voice from the door.
Jaime, very conveniently, looking rather handsome in his white Kingsguard cloak and a Lannistery gold tunic that fit so perfectly across his toned chest. Not that I am noticing.
"He won't stop saying 'Mannis'," said Brienne. "No one ever trained me on how to deescalate rabid Stannis fanboys."
"There's nothing that a little slap doesn't cure, except, as Bronn says, for being a cunt," said Jaime, proffering his golden hand as he walked towards the lad. "Tyrion tried so hard with Joffrey."
"We're not allowed to—"
"Do you think that ever stops Olly?" interrupted Jaime. And suddenly he raised his hand and smacked Nathan hard on the upper arm, and the lad at once stilled and calmed, no longer spouting Stannisy bullshit. "Relax, Brienne. See? The lad's better."
"Mannis," said Nathan calmly.
Jaime's golden hand descended to his flabby arm again.
"I… I mean," sputtered the Mannimal, "I'm sorry, m'lady, m' good ser."
"See, Brienne? A little violence never hurt anyone."
"It hurt me just... just a little bit," offered Nathan, wincing.
"Mr Hall and I are going to have a little talk about the proper sizes of Westerosi and Essosi armies, if you don't mind letting me take him for ten minutes," said Jaime, pulling the lad to his feet and ushering him out of the solar, shutting the door behind him. "And we'll have a talk about tactics for one-on-one combat. And… everything, really. I'll leave the Stannis obsession and more of the weaponry talk for you. Get a bit of rest and brace yourself for worse fanfiction tonight. Goodnight, Brienne," he said with surprising and sudden tenderness, turning to go.
"Goodnight, Jaime," she said, somehow wishing he would not go.
As much as I like long chapters, I'm going to try to keep them in the 3000-4000 word range so that they get out to you much quicker than I would if I mulled over them for too long. I hope the fanboy was just as ridiculous as the fangirls. I know this fic is more fangirl focussed, so I am trying to be a bit more balanced in my mockery of the fandom, which is much more heavily male than my other fandoms (you don't see too many lads writing Downton Abbey and Harry Potter fics).
Next on: Saskia meets Tyrion, and Oberyn and Bronn unleash a terror on the students. Muahahaha.