Fanlore:Featured Article Archives/2021: Week 45
No Featherbed For Me by vixleonard is a Game of Thrones fic. It is a "what if" AU focused on Arya Stark where Gendry is Cersei's son and the legitimate heir to the throne instead of a bastard. Although the relationship between Arya and Gendry is a major focus of the fic, they aren't endgame and the fic can be categorized as angst even though it's not tagged as such.
The fic is much recced by fans of Arya, and by many fans of the Arya Stark/Gendry Waters pairing. However, it also often comes with warnings because of how emotional it makes it's readers, with fans sometimes including crying reactions gifs in their recs. As of August 2021, the story has over 203,000 hits, 4300 kudos, 790 comments and 1290 bookmarks on Archive of Our Own.
Based upon the idea that Gendry is Cersei's first child, who is mentioned to have died as an infant in the show, No Featherbed For Me is something of a fandom classic in the GoT fandom. It is probably the most prominent example of the Prince Gendry trope, which positions Gendry as the heir to the Iron Throne rather than one of Robert Baratheon's many bastards. Most of these fics feature Gendry as a prince in order to get Arya and Gendry together without the problems presented in canon that keep them apart. In that respect, No Featherbed For Me is something of a departure from the regular parameters of the trope. While the fic is often marketed as "the best" Arya/Gendry fic by fans and they *are* tagged as the primary pairing, Arya and Gendry are not endgame in the fic. This is one of the factors in why people get so emotional about it, because the plot creates extreme angst about the fact that Arya and Gendry can't be together due to Gendry marrying Sansa. The fic is more accurately described as an Arya-centric fic focused on her making her way through the slightly changed plot of GoT.