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#and also because this is how fanfic history is made
pendragonsclotpole · 3 months
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i’ve been seeing a lot of the danny phantom and dc crossovers lately, as well as checked out the tag on ao3. it’s grown exponentially over the last few years, which blows my mind, mostly because it’s a trope near and dear to my heart for the last seven to eight years. i first read a dp and dc crossover on the ffn website in 2015-2016. for context, the fic was originally published on ffn in 2012. i’m pretty sure it was one of the last fics i read on that site. the title has stayed with me for YEARS, even across multiple iphones, reappearing in my safari bookmarks, and following me on my ffn to ao3 transition. i’m queuing it for a reread, but just remembering it makes me wonder how many tropes of the current dp x dc crossovers it’s kicked off. For anyone curious, the fic is Zeus’ Dice. it was last updated on both ffn (where it has over 1k follows and favorites) and ao3 (where it was cross posted in 2016) in 2020. it has 9 chapters and it has yet to be finished. i have not reread it in years, but will do so soon to see how it is.
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fitzrove · 17 days
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[shaking and biting] but what does it MEAN. what does it SAY what is the THEME
#akkdlflf i watched this long lecture video abt austrian national identity and the researcher said 'the austrians are quite adept at#selling the austro hungarian monarchy back to tourists incl ones from former parts of the empire... but even in the imperial nostalgia they#don't want back multilingualism or multiculturalism or any of what it actually was'#(it was a lot abt the way in which austria deals with orban's hungary in and after the 2015 refugee crisis)#ajskgldo and that just made me think about... how pointless some things feel. both in fiction and in academic research#you CAN say meaningful things about almost any topic and with almost any argument! but in some strands of history trying to 'uncover events'#with no exploration of the context and what it all MEANS and what the things we think about it mean#is the most prevalent and popular type of research :/ like there's a reason i overrely on hamann's bio of rudolf because her central thesis#is that he wasnt a crazy murderer but someone with a forward-thinking political vision that went as far as suggesting a sort of 'proto-EU'#among other things#so like. she is looking at what it all MEANS!!!#and like. my favourite todolf fanfics are also like that 😂😭 perhaps not abt politics but about suffering and power dynamics and guilt#same for original fiction. i'm never happy if a book i'm reading isnt saying something#or then again - this is more personal pickiness but. they should also be saying something NEW AND INTERESTING#a lot of the time. sometimes if you have a fave trope you can just enjoy it over and over#but idk even tropey stuff can say things#ajlsldkfkf i'm just so tired of kitsch in all its forms and also of bad science
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birdantlers · 8 months
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A heartfelt and grievously expanded-upon update to this—please, please read the whole thing if you can. reblogs much appreciated.
(DISCLAIMER, for all who are saying reasons like abusive parents/legal stuff/toxic ex/triggering memories/page got deleted/job/stalkers/bullying/[[insert any other shitty life thing]], This is not concerning that—personal safety & health ALWAYS comes first, and is worth more than any media ever could be. This is my biggest reason for defending that autonomy. I would be a hypocrite to say I hadn’t deleted triggering posts of mine or ones that got me in trouble with my family.)
it genuinely makes me sad and kinda upset when someone purges all their old art off the internet like. barring harmful content what if someone liked that. What if someone would have. And now nobody will ever know and it's just gone. even people's old invader zim askblogs or whatever getting deleted feels like a micro alexandria to me and that's just something I made up. I wasn't even thinking of a specific one it just stresses me out. Is this the autism I don't get why nobody else seems to freak internally abt it like I do. I see artists whose blogs I've never even looked at go like "man so glad I deleted all my old stuff it's so clean" or saying they throw out art from when they were kids I'm like. how are you not hurling. How is that not distressing that is literally your tree rings why would you do that. I want to see what's out there. people want to see it I promise someone out there likes it
...don't they??? Does everyone get quietly irrationally upset by this as me, or is this just hyperfixation/autism/some amalgam of the two. I'm not a hoarder or obsessive compulsive or anything like that so i wonder..
Anyways. reblog if you had a favorite amateur youtube animator in your childhood whose channel got nuked without a trace one day that you still think about.
I wanted to attach this video because it condenses my point very well. A TLDR of sorts. Please watch the whole thing, it genuinely changed the entire way I think about art as a concept.
(2nd vid is "Subjectivity in Art")
“The moment your art touches an audience, the ownership shifts in an irreversible way. [They're] not having an art experience with you and your intentions. They're having an art experience with the art object.
“You can't just burn your past; it's not even your past to burn anymore. It's other people's history as well. Whether or not you like it, that art is already bonded to somebody's soul, and if you rip the art away, you're ripping a bit of the soul that has adhesive contact to it.”
The digital age makes it very easy to distance or detach yourself from the impact your work has—be it art, fanfic, videos, even memes. Online content is as important to people now as any other media, if not more. But it's also by far the easiest, fastest, and most effective form of it to erase from public access. Media so unbelievably important to people and in general. Yes, you—with the 2010s purple sparkle dog speedpaint. I still think about that speedpaint all the time, because it was the first time i learned that you could draw on a computer, and I thought it was cool as hell. I still do.
I do wish there was a stronger culture of preservation and consideration for this, because every time I see people talk about snuffing their stuff because it doesn't personally resonate with them anymore, I just think ...what about all the people it did?
I've seen lots of people saying "get over it, it doesn't even matter," but it fucking does. It does matter. Even if I didn’t make it, even if I don’t have to deal with being the one who made it, even if I'm naturally inclined to be distressed by it—It still matters. And there’s nothing you could ever say to suddenly make it not matter, because there’s nothing you could ever say to make it not matter to me.
Don't devalue the act of creation. Don't dismiss something you made. It's out there, in people's thoughts and hearts and souls, and that is real. Even if you don't know it. Especially if you don't know it. Especially in a world where physical media is being snuffed out, the internet is constantly dying without any physical remains to recover, social isolation is rampant, and simply because independently produced content online is still media.
Fanfiction can hold equal or greater significance to someone as a book, but you can’t unpublish a book. Authors don’t have a button that can vaporize every copy of their work across all time, but fanfiction authors do. I’m not counting people who download fics either—when you buy a book, that transaction is over. But online, you have the power of unending transaction that can be terminated instantly at your will. The process of publishing fanfic vs. publishing a book may be different, but people’s connection to the art is the same intensity.
So yeah. I do get depressed about the Internet being a constant Alexandria, but the times I get the most depressed is when I click someone's page and see that all their work is gone because they're ‘curating a new aesthetic’ for their page or some shit. Or weeding out all the "ugly" art. Or just went on whatever the hell 'thrill deleting' is, because they just get a kick out of it.
Fuck it—yeah! It upsets me! I’m not wrong to say that. I’m saying it!
Under the cut, because it got long as shit! Also don’t worry the ending is way sappier and more ‘beauty of human nature’ vibe so it’s not all doom and gloom lol
What if that was someone's favorite art of that character. What if someone read that 'cringe oneshot' on the worst day of their life. What if that Warriors meme vid is still burned into a college student’s mind despite being gone for 10 years. What if it's actually not just you and the ones and zeros you rent out to the world—secure in knowing the original will always be on your computer for you to do whatever you want with it.
I really, deeply wish there was more of a general awareness of this, because even though social media can be used like a diary, that’s functionally the opposite of what it is. It’s social media. When you post, it’s no longer in a vacuum, even though you can’t see the real humans that content touches—often deeply.
Media is history. You shouldn’t burn that history just because you personally believe it isn’t worth saving.
Because it’s no longer just your personal opinion. It’s no longer just your personal work. it’s. history. Memory of media is not a suitable replacement for the media itself. If it was, we wouldn’t save anything at all. Nostalgia is an agent of that. The definition of nostalgia is grief for moments of the past that are inaccessible, and the biggest balm for that pain is accessing a physical reminder of those moments. That opinion of yours is no longer personal. It’s weighed against uncountable people across all time that your thing is ALSO personal to. People who would, and will mourn its absence.
How many times have you joined an older fandom only to discover that some of its most popular works are gone? How many times have you routed through random blogs looking for scraps people hopefully reblogged? how many times have you used Wayback machine desperately praying that a fan fiction or a YouTube video will be there? How many times do you look up crunchy old vines or YouTube videos or anime AMV‘s? How many times do you remember old fanfic.net sex that impacted you in middle school, only to shake your head and go ‘probably no point even looking.’
i mourn the absence. No, people can’t and shouldn’t have their agency over what they post revoked, but they should be conscious of that weight. If you’re reading this and getting extremely annoyed, and you’re not in the pink text above,,,, good.
I honestly do hope it gets under your skin. I hope it sits with you. I hope you feel it every time you hit that button, and whether or not you do hit that button—if you hesitate, if you remember this, even spitefully, I’ve done my job. I am howling into the void. And I may not want an answer, but I do want my anguish to be heard and remembered. Because it isn’t me just being melodramatic.
I know I sound that way writing so much, but if my favorite writing YouTuber can drop trow this week and go, "yeah, sorry, all my video essays from less than a year ago that you listen to in the car all the time? I'm "rebranding" my content so i deleted them. besides, my personal views don't really agree align with the analyses i did, or the techniques i taught in them anyway. Sorry if some of the literal tens of thousands of you used them, but I don't want to feel shackled to having youtuber "classics" tied to me”
….then i guess I'm just going to have to sound dramatic! That fucking sucks! Hours of work and knowledge gone! This was a new channel too. It’s very likely there’s no archive of any kind, because who would think someone who worked hard enough to write, record, and edit hour-long videos, would just turn around and nuke it all? I definitely didn’t see it coming, but I did just start a new screenwriting class a few weeks ago, so I’ll tell you at least one person is REALLY missing those fucking videos right now. Because a lot of them were about specifically screenwriting, which I know jack shit about. and that specific person’s pace, editing, and style of breaking down information was the best suited style I found that I could focus on and absorb. There’s no replacement for that. No alternative for his individual perspective. his jokes. his opinions.
No, they may not resonate with him now, but in this decision, he’s put up a big middle finger to everyone who might have. And he has like 100k subscribers! Those are confirmed supporters! Imagine how many silent and untethered observers are feeling this loss right now. Imagine how many will not have it in the future.
If he never posted them at all, we wouldn’t know we had it. It wouldn’t be a loss. But we did. We did have it. Until he decided that no, we didn’t, because he just happens to be the one out of millions of individuals holding the button to burn it in a hundredth of a second.
His personal work, the attachment I had to it, and the ways that it helped me are now just ripped away. I am one person out of millions, literal MILLIONS of people who saw and liked this content before it vanished. The soul has been ripped, the access severed, and by CJ’s (and my) definition, the art is functionally dead. Not for the YouTuber or anyone else lucky enough to save a link or download, but everyone else. From this point until the end of time, even if people even two weeks from now don’t know it. Even if someone who stumbles upon his channel today, doesn’t know it.
We only mourn the concept of Alexandria because we had some kind of scope for what was inside. Yes, maybe you got self-conscious and deleted your 12 year old deviant art account. Do you know who else is doing that?? THOUSANDS AND THOUSANDS of other twenty somethings who ALSO feel self-conscious about their old socials. Art. Fanfic. One direction fan videos. anything.
Suddenly, an unquantifiable amount of information from your age group—an entire age group in 2012, is. gone. And we will NEVER know what’s been erased from that history. We will NEVER know what could have been significant to us ten years from now. Twenty years from now. A hundred years. A thousand.
You could have deleted a fanfic that would have been someone else’s new go-to panic attack distraction tomorrow. You could have deleted a video someone used to laugh at with their friend who died yesterday. When you delete something, you risk tearing a hole in unknowable personal histories.
The Internet isn’t just a big library of Alexandria. It’s a library containing libraries. And those libraries have their own libraries in those libraries have their own as well. libraries inside libraries, inside libraries, ad infinitum. To conceive the amount of destroyed history on the Internet is crushing.
And I just can’t help but I ask myself how in gods name people can choose to contribute to that, instead of reposting everything to trash heap alts titled “hall of shame” or some shit.
You can offload to alts. Put up disclaimers. Make password locked blogs, or dropboxes, or anonymous imgur dumps. Anonymous reuploads. Orphan fics. Make a playlist or linktree of unlisted videos. Cut off the watermarks. Delete all references to it on your main. Make a dedicated unlisted playlist. make a google drive. Make new portfolio sites. Delete any questions you get about it. Change pen names. Pretend it never existed.
Give a heads up.
Something.
But don’t. kill. the media.
The knowledge that our stuff is going to forever be tied to us is a cross we have to bear, but the responsibility that comes with putting it out there in the first place, can’t be ignored.
Anyway. I'm not trying to start conflict. This is not a bash on anyone, nor a call for witch hunts. Or anon hate, or blocks and unfollows or anything of that nature. I'm not wishing ramifications or hate of any kind on anyone who does wants to do any of this.
I'm also not guilt tripping— I am not saying that you should feel bad. I AM saying why it makes me feel bad. That’s not guilting, it’s a dialogue. One I personally feel is long overdue.
It's me yelling into the void: please consider the real people on the other side of the screen before you hit that button. Realize and know that whatever you're about to erase from history could be the most important thing in the world to someone.
Art is an experience. It's why we revisit it. If art and history simply lived in the matter and code of media, we would only need to look at it once. We wouldn’t put things in museums. We wouldn’t build libraries. We wouldn’t look up vine compilations.
If you're able, consider (and I do mean consider, this is not a call to action) not destroying that. And don’t shrug it off as some pretentious asshole venting on Tumblr. You only need to look in the notes and tags to see that it isn’t just me. it’s never just me, or you, or the pixels.
And even if you do shrug it off, then at least recognize that what you make matters. Whatever you think about it, if it’s out there, that's not your discretion anymore. If a tree falls in the woods and even one person is around to see it, it fucking mattered. Because it happened. Don’t mulch your tree rings if you don’t have to. Because if enough people do it, a whole forest is gone. Media is history, no matter whether you think it’s worth putting in a museum, or only has 30 notes.
Thousands of years ago, a child named onfim doodled on his homework. They’re crude, and everyone has the wrong amount of fingers, and they’re also priceless archaeological artifacts recognizable throughout the world.
the only thing separating Onfim’s doodles and your MS paint Pokémon doodles is time. The only thing separating your old MS paint Pokémon doodles from being a priceless artifacts, thousands of years in the future is time. Your creations are already priceless artifacts. No matter what you do, don't ever, ever deny that. It isn’t blowing up your own ass, it’s artistic and anthropological fact.
The mundane and the supposedly unworthy are often the first things lost to time, and that’s why they’re so precious. That’s why artists who were before their time are scorned first only to be celebrated later. Do you think they knew that was going to happen?? What if they nuked it? Many probably did! But now that’s happening exponentially and instantaneously everywhere, WITHOUT the artist having to destroy their only copy—which makes it way easier and more dismissable.
Sometimes, If you’re revolutionary enough, people will make an effort to preserve your work, but recognized and thoroughly recorded work is rare compared to unrecognized and thoroughly recorded work.
Sometimes something is beloved enough that it would be impossible for it not to go down in history, but even then it isnt a guarantee, and it’s rare. But if van Gogh burned all of his paintings in a fit of despair before his death, we would have no van Gogh. Because he wasn’t respected as an artist in his time, but that wasn’t what defined the worth of his art. The people after him did, because his art was still there for them.
If you rip the art away, you're ripping a bit of the soul that has adhesive contact to it. If you belittle your art, you belittle the very real relationships and emotions and revisitations people have with the media. You defy the inherent worth and weight of a creation. you created. That's effort. It's passion. No matter how flippant or unskilled or worthless you think it is, it matters. Because at the end of the day, you could have chosen to make nothing at all, and you didn't.
Muting notifs
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boxingcleverrr · 5 months
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Popular Hades & Persephone "retellings" are, rightly, getting dunked on all over the socials right now and, as a Pagan who has an altar to the Queen, I could not be happier. But also, I feel like a lot of people miss WHY they're bad - aside from just plain bad writing and lazy tropes. Which are, yeah, also REALLY bad.
Pretty much all retellings try to wave away, or excuse, or twist the whole kidnapping bit. And I actually do have sympathy and understanding for why, when speaking from a modern perspective.
But honestly...you gotta get over it. There are other stories to play fix-it with, not this one.
The Abduction is The Thing.
Were I a little more sober I could bring up chapter and verse of the Hymn to Demeter but frankly, if you know even the middle school mythology curriculum version of the story, you SHOULD know the themes. The story of Persephone was one mothers and daughters in the ancient world held dear, because it was a reality: you will, one day, be swept away from your home to go cleave to a man you most likely know nothing about. You will miss your mother, but chances are very good that he will be a good husband, once you get to know him, certainly better than Zeus or Ares, and he will make you a queen of his home.
Leaving home to marry was often scary, and violent (look up the history of the tradition of Bridesmaids, if you don't already know it - they were originally decoys on the marriage road). Centuries later we'd have tales like Beauty & The Beast serving the same function: comfort, hope, you are leaving your safe loving home to figure life out with a (often older, powerful) stranger. Your trauma over this sudden ending of your childhood made manifest in a Beast, or a God of The Underworld.
It's wonderful that we don't NEED stories like this anymore to comfort us (here, at least, in this culture). But if you try to force them into modern vernacular it just will not work, not really, because you're gutting out the whole point just to have a more tidy romantic male hero.
I have read MANY very good ...novelizations? fanfic(? however you would frame them, but they're certainly not "retellings"), etc. that simply take advantage of the blank spaces in the myth, and there are many!
It's not explicit that sexual assault happens - "The Rape of Persephone" as a title was coined in much earlier eras, when the word was just as often used to simply refer to abduction.
"She was starving!" the gods didn't need to eat. So it's easy to read her eating the Pom seeds as a deliberate choice on her part. Like, shit, people, scholars have written whole papers on the symbolism of this moment, between marriage rites and even yeah, Seph choosing both worlds with her husband's knowing consent.
And that, I think, is the real heart of the thing. People want an utterly mundane, spelled-out story here, as opposed to what it really is, has always been, just like any other myth or religious parable: IT'S A METAPHOOOOOOR.
They don't need to be destined, or meet at a goddamned BALL and then CONSPIRE to fake her kidnapping, or shit, I once saw one where Hades got MIND CONTROLLED by Zeus?! Jesus.
Persephone was yoinked into the Underworld against her will.
That's how it went.
I don't mean this in a "stay out of my belief system!" way, shit I'm a white American chick with delusions of witchery. I mean this in a "stop stressing yourself out trying to make things palatable" way:
This is a very real, very precious myth to many people, BECAUSE for at least that one event, Persephone had no autonomy, BECAUSE for thousands of years most women had no autonomy. Erasing that, sanitizing the fact that a girl is ripped out of the spring, from her mother's arms, is erasing the thing that gave comfort to women for centuries. And people can and should still find power and healing in it now!
Fill in the blanks the story leaves in whatever manner seems fit to you, there's plenty of room, but. Come the fuck on.
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foone · 1 year
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Look if there's one thing, just one thing, that I wish everyone understood about archiving, it's this:
We can always decide later that we don't need something we archived.
Like, if we archive a website that's full of THE WORST STUFF, like it turns out it's borderline illegal bot-made spam art, we can delete it. Gone.
We can also chose not to curate. You can make a list of the 100 Best Fanfic and just quietly not link to or mention the 20,000 RPFs of bigoted youtubers eating each other. No problem!
We can also make things not publicly available. This happens surprisingly often: like, sometimes there'll be a YouTube channel of alt-right bigotry that gets taken down by YouTube, but someone gives a copy to the internet archive, and they don't make it publicly available. Because it might be useful for researchers, and eventually historians, it's kept. But putting it online for everyone to see? That's just be propaganda for their bigotry. So it's hidden, for now. You can ask to see it, but you need a reason.
And we can say all these things, we can chose to delete it later, we can not curate it, we can hide it from public view... But we only have these options BECAUSE we archived it.
If we didn't archive it, we have no options. It is gone. I'm focusing on the negative here, but think about the positive side:
What if it turns out something we thought was junk turns out to be amazing new art?
What if something we thought of as pointless and not worth curating turns out to be influential?
What if something turns out to be of vital historical importance, the key that is used to solve a great mystery, the Rosetta stone for an era?
All of those things are great... If we archived it when we could.
Because this is an asymmetric problem:
If we archived it and it turns out it's not useful, we can delete.
If we didn't archive it and it turns out it is useful, OOPS!
You can't unlose something that's been lost. It's gone. This is a one way trip, it's already fallen off the cliff. Your only hope is that you're wrong about it being lost, and there is actually still a copy somewhere. If it's truly lost, your only option is to build a time machine.
And this has happened! There are things lost, so many of them that we know of, and many more we don't know of. There are BOOKS OF THE BIBLE referenced in the canon that simply do not exist anymore. Like, Paul says to go read his letter to the Laodiceans, and what did that letter say? We don't know. It's gone.
The most celebrated playwright in the English tradition has plays that are just gone. You want to perform or watch Love's Labours Won? TOO FUCKING BAD.
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Want to watch Lon Cheyney's London After Midnight, a mystery-horror silent film from 1927? TOO BAD. The MGM vault burnt down in 1965 and the last known copy went up in smoke.
If something still exists, if it still is kept somewhere, there is always an opportunity to decide if it's worthy of being remembered. It can still be recognized for its merits, for its impact, for its importance, or just what it says about the time and culture and people who made it, and what they believed and thought and did. It can still be a useful part of history, even if we decide it's a horrible thing, a bigoted mess, a terrible piece of art. We have the opportunity to do all that.
If it's lost... We are out of options. All we can do is research it from how it affected other things. There's a lot of great books and plays and films and shows that we only know of because other contemporary sources talked about them so much. We're trying to figure out what it was and what it did, from tracing the shadow it cast on the rest of culture.
This is why archivists get anxious whenever people say "this thing is bad and should not be preserved". Because, yeah, maybe they're right. Maybe we'll look back and decide "yeah, that is worthless and we shouldn't waste the hard drive or warehouse space on it".
But if they're wrong, and we listen to them, and don't archive... We don't get a second chance at this. And archivists have been bitten too many times by talk of "we don't need copies, the original studio has the masters!" (it burnt down), or "this isn't worth preserving, it's just some damn silly fad" (the fad turned out to be the first steps of a cultural revolution), or "this media is degenerate/illegal/immoral" (it turns out those saying that were bigots and history doesn't agree with their assessment).
So we archive what we can. We can always decide later if it doesn't need preserving. And being a responsible archivist often means preserving things but not making them publicly available, or being selective in what you archive (I back up a lot of old computer hard drives. Often they have personal photos and emails and banking information! That doesn't get saved).
But it's not really a good idea to be making quality or moral judgements of what you archive. Because maybe you're right, maybe a decade or two later you'll decide this didn't need to be saved. And you'll have the freedom to make that choice. But if you didn't archive it, and decide a decade later you were wrong... It's just gone now. You failed.
Because at the end of the day I'd rather look at an archive and see it includes 10,000 things I think are worthless trash, than look at an archive of on the "best things" and know that there are some things that simply cannot be included. Maybe they were better, but can't be considered as one of the best... Because they're just gone. No one has read them, no one has been able to read them.
We have a long history of losing things. The least we can do going forward is to try and avoid losing more. And leave it up to history to decide if what we saved was worth it.
My dream is for a future where critics can look at stuff made in the present and go "all of this was shit. Useless, badly made, bigoted, horrible. Don't waste your time on it!"
Because that's infinitely better than the future where all they can do is go "we don't know of this was any good... It was probably important? We just don't know. It's gone. And it's never coming back"
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gremlingottoosilly · 3 months
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Why do you headcanon König as a loser? Not being salty, just curious. Also, what are his most prominent loser traits in your opinion? I'm trying to make him as a loser in my fanfic as well.
He is a loser, not in life because being a mercenary of his rank still pays quite well, and he does have a property and even a nice car, but he is a loser in a more psychological, spiritual sense. He can't hold a girl in his presence for longer than professionally necessary(he tried to start a small talk with a cute barista but stopped when he saw the poor girl itching towards the distress button), he can't flirt even with women who he pays to flirt with him. This guy tried to order an escort once, and the woman literally ran before even getting her money. So when he finds you, either just as a loser and a wet napkin as him or just too kind for your own good, he is losing his fucking mind. Get ready for this 35+ guy to sit you on his bed and talk to you about Roman Empire. Not even in a meme sense, he just loves what history so much, and he would start from the oldest Persian settlements and their history because you made the mistake of asking him about something from WW2 and he needed to give you context. One of his biggest loser traits is exactly how whipped he is with you. You could consider your relationship to be kinda, average, and casual, with no serious commitment - he is a soldier, after all, you don't trust him with being faithful on deployment - and he is already choosing rings for you. You got on one date and he already starts to plan the wedding and, honestly, it's really fucking creepy - especially when you ask him to stop behaving like a lovesick puppy, and he just tells you to stop being silly and accept being his already.
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neptuneiris · 10 months
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cardigan (01/03)
you drew stars around my scars, but now I'm bleedin'.
pairing: modern!aemond × best friend reader!
summary: being in love with your best friend since high school becomes a strong and unavoidable feeling. until it starts to become more difficult when you get to college and the two of you, especially him, meet new people.
word count: 7.3k
next part • series masterlist
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hello! i'm very happy to include myself also here with fanfics of aemond, our husband:) this is my first post here on tumblr and i have many more planned. also english is not my first language but i'm still learning. without further ado, enjoy!
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Being in love with your best friend for a long time is one of the most beautiful feelings but also one of the most heartbreaking.
Especially if the feeling is not reciprocated.
Even though he and you are very different in some ways, like he's the extroverted person and you're the introverted one in friendship or he comes from a rich family and you've always been the scholar in everything, you still have a lot of things in common.
And that's why you're both best friends.
Even when you met him in high school, in the most prestigious school in King's Landing, you being a scholarship student obviously, you would have never imagined that there were those things in common between him and you.
Until the history teacher asked for a team project of two and you ended up paired with Aemond Targaryen.
You felt it would be the death of you the moment the most popular and richest boy in the whole school focused his eyes on you for the first time by identifying you as his partner.
Already some girls were making cruel comments to you every time they looked at you in the hallways or in the classrooms about not being on the same level because you didn't have money like all of them.
And now teaming up with Aemond Targaryen himself for a History project, you thought, would be unbearable and insufferable.
He was popular. Exaggeratedly popular.
Popular with all the girls because of his good looks and they made comments about how much they wanted to date him. And you understood them, because Aemond's appearance could not simply go unnoticed.
Tall, white skin, distinguished features and incredible long platinum hair. But more than anything else, his sapphire eye caught the attention.
Where his left eye should have been, it was replaced by that precious sapphire jewel. While her other untouched eye was a beautiful lilac color.
And even with that look he didn't push people away nor was he intimidating, on the contrary, the sapphire was what attracted people around him, especially girls.
The favorite of all the teachers, he was the most handsome, popular and richest in the whole school, a lover of parties, reading, piano and sports.
They said he was kind and a good person, but you were suspicious. You thought he must be arrogant like most of the rich students in that place if he was the richest student of all.
And if he was nice to you, surely it must be to keep up his appearance of the nice popular guy that everyone loves and wants as a friend.
But how wrong you were…
As you and Aemond made progress on the project until you finished it and handed it in to the professor, you realized that he really is a nice guy.
Still, you were left in doubt, thinking that possibly by the time you finished the project, he and you wouldn't have to spend any more time together and he would ignore you.
But your surprise was great when in History class, which was the only class you shared together, he started sitting next to you, had a conversation with you, and you did a few more team assignments at his request.
And yet you were still suspicious.
Until one day when you were putting away a few books and notebooks in your locker, the same group of girls that always bothered you showed up again and started with their cruel and mocking comments.
You were used to them, what you weren't used to was being made fun of more openly in public. And just when you felt you were about to start crying in the middle of it all, just making the situation worse, without them stopping teasing you down the hall, Aemond appeared.
It was only enough to place himself in front of you in protective way, with a serious and cold look, to then speak to them in a deadly tone if they were already finished.
The surprised and bewildered girls didn't understand at first why he was so defensive about you.
"Stop bothering her. I don't want to see or know that you did it again."
Those had been the simple and last words enough for him to address to the group of girls in the middle of the hallway and then grab your shoulder and start carrying you away from there along with him.
And from there it all started.
You and Aemond started getting to know each other better and spending time together as friends. He even started inviting you to lunch with him and his friends in the cafeteria.
And as a result of that you discovered a common taste for reading, as well as musical tastes, series and movie sagas or genres, until you became best friends.
The friendship continued after graduating from high school and after applying to the same university until today. Aemond decided to follow the same path as his entire family and chose a career in management, while you chose a career in psychology.
After you both found out that you had been accepted to King's Landing University, Aemond started talking about how he would now rather have his own apartment near the university than choose a residence hall or a fraternity.
And you decided, because of the scholarship, to have to choose the residence hall.
The problem was that you would have to be paying monthly to keep your room, not too much but the money you were getting from your parents wouldn't be enough and you weren't willing to ask them for more.
So you mentioned the fact that you would have to get a part-time job near the university so it wouldn't be complicated and everything would be in your favor.
But Aemond, absurd, told you that it was not necessary, neither the job nor the residence, to later tell you that you could be his roomie and live the dream of living together, like every wish of two best friends.
"Have you lost your mind? How will I be able to live with you, Aemond?"
"Well, as normal, like you live with your parents, but now the two of us together in an apartment."
He explains with all the simplicity in the world, as if it was no big deal, while you look at him completely distrustful and absurd.
"No, Aemond. You're not—
"I've already got it all planned out, okay?"
He interrupts you while he takes a bite of his green apple and continues leaning casually against the kitchen counter of his house.
"Helaena helped me find a very good apartment near the university, it has everything necessary with two bedrooms and two private bathrooms," he explains, "I already talked to the agent, I'll go to see the apartment this Thursday, you can even come with me to tell me what you think and probably a week before we enter the university I'll pay what it costs and it will be all mine."
"You will pay what it costs?" you repeat in shock.
"Yeah," he answers you with all the simplicity in the world.
"Are you actually going to buy the apartment?"
"Yeah," he answers now confused, "Didn't you hear everything I said?"
"But I thought it was a rent, not a purchase."
"What? No. I'm going to buy the apartment, I don't want rent."
He makes it clear to you and now you stay completely silent, watching him even with that slight surprise and also still feeling how absurd his proposal of living together is.
In fact, this is very Aemond Targaryen.
It shouldn't even surprise you that he can afford something like this, obviously because of his rich family. But still, you're not like him in that aspect and that's why you're surprised.
"In fact I want to speed up the whole process, I don't want to be at the last minute arranging everything when we're already going into class. So go tell your parents the news and pack your things."
You let out a long breath, running a hand through your hair.
"No, Aemond, I…" you bite your lips, speaking in a soft tone, "I really appreciate you wanting to do this with me but I can't pay you to live together in an apartment that probably costs more than I do. The residency for the scholarship will be charged to me at a low price and—
"And who said I want you to pay me?"
He interrupts you in a serious tone, looking at you in the same way and you look at him incredulously.
"Well, in some way I have to pay you, don't I?" you ask him, "The apartment will be yours, you're the one who paid for it and I can't live there with you for free."
"Y/N, you are my best friend and I am not going to charge you when you know I can pay for it."
"You can't pay for electricity, water and everything without me giving you money in return, Aemond."
"I don't need it. I'm asking you to live together because I really want us to live together, isn't that what you also told me it would be amazing to do together?"
"Yes, but not like this and you know it," you answer with some sadness.
That Aemond is the one who pays for everything so you can live together comfortably only makes you feel like you are taking advantage of him and useless, but obviously you will never say that to him.
Aemond gets very upset when you refer to yourself in a bad way. And even though he's offering you this because he really wants you to do this together, he still makes you feel bad for not contributing anything.
"Hey Y/N," he says and then starts to walk around the bar towards you, "It's okay, really."
And soon enough when he reaches out to you, he pulls you into an embrace as you continue to sit on the stool and he stands in front of you.
His big strong arms lock you against his body protectively as you bury your face in his chest and his fingers begin to gently stroke your hair.
His clean, fresh scent envelops you completely, only making the embrace more pleasant. And you allow yourself to feel close to him and melt in his arms.
You allow it even though you feel more and more that strong feeling that you wish you didn't feel so much but up to this point it's unavoidable.
"How about this? I'll do everything I told you while you take care of the food and laundry."
He asks you with a certain excited tone, and a small smile on his lips as you pull away from each other just enough, without breaking the embrace, just so you can both see each other's faces.
And you are still not very sure, and not because you don't want to do it, but because you still don't think you have much to contribute, which he notices.
"Don't you want to be my roomie?" he asks you now with a sad and disappointed tone, "Don't you want to watch movie marathons and series with me, eat unhealthy food and stay up until four in the morning?"
You inevitably let out a small laugh at the mere thought of them being wonderful plans.
"And watch those Egyptian documentaries you like so much?" you add.
"Those and also watching the whole Harry Potter saga, although I don't understand your obsession with those movies."
"Now that's why my answer is no."
You both laugh softly and then he leaves a soft kiss on your forehead to lock you in his arms again.
And now you are both here.
It's been months since you both moved into his apartment together and you took into account Aemond's words to convince you and make you feel good about living together.
While he takes care of everything financially, you take care of doing both of your laundry, cleaning the apartment, paying the HBO account and buying the food, although sometimes he also buys to make a special meal that he likes.
All while fulfilling college and also plans to stay home together some weekends watching documentaries, movies or series until four in the morning.
It has been very rare the time you have gone out partying together, mostly because you are the one who prefers to stay at home instead of going to parties.
But when Aemond wants to party, sometimes you go with him or sometimes you don't, just as he also sometimes accompanies you on your movie weekend or sometimes not.
College has been tough, neither of them will deny it, but they've managed to get through their respective careers and so far being roomies has been wonderful.
And of course, even though your respective career departments aren't close, even in your areas you've heard your best friend's name.
You both just got into college and he again became a well-known and popular person, while you have only made three real friends, Aileen, Sara and Ryan. But despite this, Aemond never forgets his best friend any more than you forget him.
As if you could.
And everything is going great so far.
It's already getting dark, you can see it through the big windows of the apartment, listening to music on your phone while you finish preparing dinner for you and Aemond who shouldn't be long in coming.
He had texted you an hour ago saying he would have a two hour class and would probably be a little late, so you do this for him while singing and humming your favorite songs softly.
You finish serving everything on the plates when you hear a message notification. You leave everything ready on the bar, wipe your hands and pick up your phone to look at the screen, reading a message from your friend Aileen.
[Aileen Herron]: party on saturday?
You frown and are about to answer her message with a no when you hear the sound of the door opening in quick motion and then you see Aemond walk in with a huge smile on his lips and a completely lit up face.
"Hello, pretty one."
You smile with an accusatory look as you stop the music and put your phone back on the bar, watching him carefully.
"Now what's wrong with you? Your two-hour class was amazing?"
He lets out a snort as he throws his backpack on the couch and takes a seat in front of you on one of the stools.
"I wish. It was so fucking boring."
"So why are you smiling like that?"
And again her smile appears, only this time a little more subtle but still excited.
"I have a date."
And that's when again, like every time this happens, you feel your heart shrink and start to break a little bit more with each time your best friend lets you know news like this.
And not wanting to appear false, just as you don't want to show that his words hurt you, you maintain as best you can that genuine smile you put on when he arrived at the apartment so happily.
"Oh really?"
"Yes," he answers you excitedly, "It turns out that when I got out of class and said goodbye to my friends, I was heading to the parking lot when a girl bumped into me…."
And there comes the part where they both apologize, then they start talking, they both start flirting and at the end they exchange numbers.
"She's so pretty, her name is Alys."
You bite your lips and nod keeping the best face you can while this time you start walking around the kitchen and he continues talking, not being able to bear to see his face any closer as he tells you about her.
"She's also studying management so it's more perfect, only she's three semesters ahead of me."
You clear your throat, pouring some soda for both of us.
"So she's older than you."
You say trying not to sound distant and disinterested, to which Aemond shrugs his shoulders at your question.
"Three years is nothing."
You nod, taking a sip of your drink, starting dinner.
"And when is the date?" you ask without looking at him.
"This Saturday. I'm taking her to my mother's favorite restaurant, the one I took you to once, remember?"
Again you nod, feeling a little more that little sharp pain in your chest, but you pretend that nothing is happening and that you're just… happy and excited for him.
"Well, you'll tell me how it went."
You try to smile even a little in his direction and at this he just smiles a little more.
"I hope everything goes well. I really liked her a lot."
And again at this, you have no idea what else to say and remain silent, although he soon speaks again.
"This is for me?" he points to the other plate.
"For who else?" you say obviously and amused.
He laughs and brings the plate towards him.
"Thank you, pretty one."
You try not to let those nicknames affect you at all. But before you know it, it has inevitably gotten to you, as it has countless other times. But you didn't want it to affect you knowing that he has a date this saturday.
"And do you have plans this weekend?" he asks you, more than anything to create conversation after talking about his date.
"Hmm… I don't know yet."
"You don't know?"
He asks you with an expectant look and you just look at him without saying anything and then shrug your shoulders and focus back on your dinner.
"You know, you should… go out."
He says suddenly in a soft voice and you look away from your plate to focus on him again.
"What about your friends from class? Don't they ask you out to party or something?"
"You know I don't like parties, Aemond," you reply in a more serious tone than you expected it to be.
"Yes, I know, but…" he sighs, "I'm just saying that it would do you good to go out once in a while and not stay here all the time."
"I always stay here," you say confused, "I don't understand why you're suddenly worried about that if that's what I've been doing since we've been living together."
"I know," he says cautiously and with an understanding look, "but I mean when I go out partying with my friends, I don't like to know that you're staying here alone. Nor like now that I have a date on saturday and you'll be here again."
You watch him in silence for a few seconds, and he takes the opportunity to continue talking.
"You should meet new people, don't you think?" he asks softly, "The university is very big. Maybe you should meet new people who love to stay at home watching movies and shows like you. That way you'll have company while I'm gone because I…" he grimaces, "I won't always have time for you."
And at that moment, you think you're overreacting, that it's no big deal, that it's just a piece of advice with all the good intentions of your best friend, that you shouldn't.
But still, try as you might, you can't help but feel broken by hearing his words.
Maybe he didn't mean it that way nor did he intend to make you understand those words, but it's like he's telling you that you have no friends, that he's your only friend and that you should meet more people.
And in the face of this, you try not to break down at that moment, so you quickly want to pretend that everything is fine and that everything he said is also fine.
"Yeah, of course, you're right."
You get up with your dirty plate, taking it to the dishwasher to start washing it quickly, turning your back to him.
"Y/N—
"When you finish eating, leave the plate here, I'll wash it in a moment, now I have to finish doing some homework," you interrupt him sounding as normal and casual as possible.
"I didn't mean anything bad Y/N, I just—
"Yes, I know."
You force yourself to interrupt him again putting on your best nonchalant face, turning to him, drying your hands once you finish. And with nothing more to say, you leave the kitchen and head for your room.
That same night you comply with what you say, wanting to clear your head, knowing perfectly well that when you let Aemond know that you are doing homework, he doesn't interrupt you unless it is extremely necessary.
So you take advantage of that and without leaving your room anymore, once you're done you take a shower and get ready for bed.
You find it a bit hard to sleep as you overthink too much, thinking about Aemond more than anything else, about his date and everything he told you afterwards.
It had happened before… Aemond had already told you about going on dates and how they had turned out, you've seen him flirt with many girls at parties, restaurants and at school itself.
You know the feeling. That ugly, heartbreaking feeling.
So why do you again feel like your heart is breaking over his now new date?
Normally all the dates Aemond goes on, never go any further. Aemond hasn't had a single girlfriend since your friendship began.
Nothing tells you that this date could be any different. Maybe he'll only go out with her two or three times and then tell you it was just something to hang out, as usual.
However, you never know.
The next day you and Aemond don't see each other during the day.
Normally on fridays you have class at seven in the morning while he has classes a little later, so once you finish getting ready you leave the apartment and head to the university.
In the course of your classes, your friend Aileen tells you that since you probably don't plan on going out with her and your other friends to party tomorrow Saturday, it would at least be a good plan for you all to go out together tonight for dinner.
And you agree.
Leaving class the four of you head to a fast food restaurant and pass the time talking about school, gossip and so on. At least being with your friends makes you forget about the outside world for a moment and you just laugh and have a good time.
Until the hour starts to get late, Ryan drives Aileen to her residence in his car and Sara is the one who drives you.
You turn the doorknob and enter the apartment looking forward to sleep, as you should since it's almost two in the morning. Usually on weekends you stay up very late but this night especially doesn't seem to be the occasion.
You close the door behind you and start to head to your room, when you enter the living room and find Aemond very comfortable on one of the sofas looking at you at the same time you are looking at him.
You stay quiet for a moment, thinking about just walking in and wishing him good night, but he's the one who speaks first.
"There you are," he murmurs, looking at you seriously, not having his usual soft look as usual, "I was already worried."
"Why?"
"Why?" he repeats incredulously, "I didn't know where you were. I sent you hundreds of messages and you didn't answer. Also I called you and still nothing."
You frown.
"That's not true. You didn't call me."
"I did call you, Y/N."
He tells you more serious than before, almost annoyed and you, confused, pick up your phone and turn on the screen to see that he did indeed call you and sent you hundreds of messages.
The problem? You had your phone on mute and being with your friends you didn't really bother to take your phone out of your pocket.
You let out a long breath and put it back with a sigh.
"I'm sorry, it was on mute," you say briefly.
"And where were you?"
"I went to dinner with friends."
Now he lets out a sigh.
"You could at least let me know you were going to arrive late."
At first you think to yourself that you don't understand why he makes such a big deal about it. As if he wouldn't do exactly the same thing you've done when he decides to go off with his friends to party.
However, you don't want to argue, you just want to sleep.
"Yeah, I know, I'm sorry," you mumble, then yawn, "I'll go to sleep."
You are about to walk back to your room but he speaks again.
"So soon?"
You watch him sleepily as he, in his most comfortable clothes, seems to be watching one of his favorite documentaries with some chips, like you always do together every friday.
Except this friday.
"It's two in the morning, Aemond."
"Yes, I know, but I thought you might want to watch a movie, as usual," he says softly, "I bought some of the pizza you like, and also some of the—
"I'm full and very sleepy now, Aem. Another day, yeah?"
You don't even wait for an answer, you just go to your room.
And the next morning you wake up later than usual and you don't even want to get out of bed.
Fortunately you don't run into Aemond, even though saturday mornings is when you have breakfast together and watch movies until noon. But not today.
And you know perfectly well it's because you've been avoiding him. It's what you always do when Aemond lets you know about his next date or after you see him making out with some girl at a party.
And you know you're wrong. But that's the only way you can stop feeling that little sharp pain in your chest and this discomfort all over your being.
Until night falls, you and Aemond finally talk after not seeing each other all day to tell you he's leaving. He don't even need to say where.
Then he leaves and you are left alone in the apartment.
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Finally, what you were hoping for and dreading at the same time happens.
Aemond has fallen in love. Your best friend has fallen in love.
In the end that girl wasn't just to hang out or to forget about her overnight. Aemond went on countless dates with her, which was unusual and eventually the two formalized everything and started dating.
You stopped avoiding him because you knew you couldn't do it forever. You both live together, he is your best friend and if he is going through this now, as much as it hurts, you can only smile and feel happy for him because he really looks happy.
You even met the girl, Alys Rivers.
And as soon as you saw her for the first time when Aemond brought her to the apartment to introduce the two of you, you understood.
Alys is tall, black-haired, with beautiful features, a slender body and possesses the most intense and striking green eyes you've ever seen. Even the way she spoke, smiled, laughed and walked was striking, she was alluring, everything about her screamed the word sexy and elegant.
How could Aemond not like her, when she is so educated, beautiful and also studies the same as him?
Now you understood why Aemond wanted things to really work out this time with this girl. And now everything, little by little, has been different.
With your best friend now having someone, now his time is counted between college and her.
The two of you still spend time together, you live together obviously, but you have seen each other in less time when before the first person you saw when you woke up was Aemond and when you went to sleep as well.
They are getting shorter and shorter on fridays for movies and series, on saturdays you barely see each other during the day and on sundays he totally disappears from the apartment and you don't see each other at all.
Luckily today is friday and Aemond apparently has no plans, not even with Alys, as you both find yourselves watching your favorite movie in the living room while eating chips and as much junk food as possible.
"From so many times you've made me watch this movie with you, I'm already starting to hate it."
You look at your best friend in surprise and completely indignant and then throw a pillow that hits him perfectly in the face.
"How dare you? I didn't say anything about your boring and incredibly long documentaries."
Now he's the one looking at you surprised and indignant.
"What did you just say?"
"Just some of them, not all of them," you clarify, "But those some of them are really unbearable."
"You know what your problem is? That you love the plot of some people trying to get out of a huge maze while my documentaries talk about true historical facts and not pure fiction about dystopias."
"Boring," you sing in long tones.
He lets out a small laugh as he shakes his head and you look at him with a small amused smile.
"You are unbearable."
"Oh come on Aemond, you still like these movies, even if you don't want to admit it."
"Not in a million years."
"You keep fooling yourself but you're not fooling me."
He doesn't say anything back to you because at that moment he receives a message and he looks at his phone quickly.
You watch him briefly, slowly erasing your smile, already anticipating what is going to happen and he confirms it with his next words while still focused on his screen.
"Alys wants me to go with her to a party with her friends."
You don't say anything, you just focus on the movie, avoiding making a bad face, telling yourself to control yourself.
"Well, you don't mind, do you?" he observes you, "I have to go now and pick her up."
You instantly put on a nonchalant face and deny without taking your eyes off the movie.
"Of course not."
"I'll make it up to you, I promise," he says as he gets up, walks over to place a quick kiss on your forehead and then rushes off to his room to get ready.
After that, that's what happens all the time now.
When he finally keeps you company to watch a movie or a series, Alys calls him and he runs to her. It has even happened several times that you arrive at the apartment after school and they are here hanging out.
On saturdays he runs to have breakfast with her, he also leaves with her that same day in the night, also on fridays and on sundays the two of them barely see each other in the night.
Even many nights Aemond has not come to sleep and the next morning when he finally comes back to the apartment, he tells you that he had spent the night at Alys' sisterhood with her.
Alys has also spent nights here. You overhear her and him as they arrive late at the apartment and head to her room. Fortunately you haven't heard anything more than that.
And because of all this, it is that you have become closer to your friends and have gone to as many parties with them, as you can't bear to arrive at the apartment knowing that Aemond is not there and won't show up until the next day.
You know you have developed a dependency on him, which you know is wrong and you avoided with all your might that it wasn't so but in the end it was so.
That's why now you're thankful that you're hanging out more with your other friends. But still, you miss your best friend a lot. He doesn't have time for you anymore and you can't help but feel sad, disappointed and broken because of that.
You understand that Alys is his girlfriend and the best friend shouldn't be more important than the girlfriend, but still, you can't help it.
You're happy for him, you really are. So now you're just left to be content with the little times he and you now have together. Like, for example, his birthday.
He had already told you how he plans to go with his family during the afternoon and then in the night he wants to go out partying with his friends, with you and Alys.
He told you that you could invite your friends, who fortunately they accepted since you didn't want to be alone surrounded by Aemond's friends, whom you know very little and his girlfriend.
So now you get up earlier than usual to go get his present and once you get back to the apartment you hide it in your room, then when you go out again he opens the door of his room at the same time, still sleepy and you throw yourself in his arms.
"Happy birthday!" you exclaim happily between his chest and neck.
He lets out a hoarse little laugh as he locks you in his arms.
"Thank you, pretty one."
You pull away from him smiling.
"How are you feeling?"
He raises an expectant eyebrow at you, amused, still recovering from his sleep.
"How do I feel about my birthday?"
"Yes," you reply simply, "How does it feel to wake up and know that you are now twenty-one?"
"I feel younger instead of older."
"Oh really?"
"When you turn twenty-one you'll understand."
"And why is that?"
He looks at you more expectantly than before and crosses his arms, watching you with amusement.
"That's a lot of talk, tell me what you're hiding."
You instantly feign innocence.
"What are you talking about?"
"It's my birthday present, isn't it?"
"I mean… it is your birthday, but not-hey!" you shout as you see him quickly walk past you and head to your room, where his present is.
"You're hiding my present, I know."
"No, no, wait."
You stand in front of him, between him and your door, panicking, and he looks at you expectantly again.
"Yes, yes, it's your birthday present."
"And I can't see it yet?"
"Yes, but not like this," you say indignantly and then look at him confused, "How did you know?"
He laughs.
"Because I know you."
And soon Aemond finds himself opening the huge gift box you bought for him so you could put in the little puppy you decided to adopt and then Aemond could adopt him.
"No fucking way," he says in disbelief and surprise.
And so he soon holds in his arms the small female dog of the Maltipoo breed with a very light brown fur.
Adoration completely covers your best friend's gaze and he completely melts into the little dog as he licks his hand and face at the same time as Aemond squeals with tenderness and gives him kisses.
And the image couldn't have been more tender and adorable for you.
"I adopted her. She was given to me with a name, it's on her collar. If you don't like it, you can change it, although I think that one suits her perfectly."
Aemond, still watching and holding him tenderly, looks at the collar and reads it.
"Vhagar," and then turns his attention to her with a small smile, "Your name is Vhagar?" he says in a honeyed tone, "Yeah? Do you like that name, my little one?"
He plays with it for a few more moments and then turns his attention back to you, still with all that tenderness and that little smile of excitement.
"Thank you so much, my pretty one."
And again you both embrace while Vhagar is in the middle of you both and also starts to lick your hand making you laugh in tenderness.
After spending the whole morning together playing and getting to know Vhagar, whom Aemond doesn't want to let go, then you both go to a restaurant near the apartment to start with his birthday and just be the two of you.
And finally Aemond goes to his parents' house. He invited you but you decided it was better for him to spend some time with his family only, so you stay home with Vhagar.
Eventually the hours pass and the night comes, which means it's time.
You fix your hair in soft waves, put on a little more makeup than usual to highlight your face, and choose a black skirt, white top, and black booties from your closet.
Aemond calls you down the hall telling you it's time and you both leave the apartment to go pick up Alys and then get to the frat house where his friends live.
The night goes by incredibly long. Even though you are in the company of your friends, you can't help but stare at Aemond who enjoys his girlfriend's company more than anyone else.
You only manage to take one picture with him when you used to fill your gallery on his birthdays, even played every party game possible and now… he's only with Alys.
Even by the time it's too late, the party still isn't over and he finally talks to you after hours to ask if one of your friends would take you home, since he's sleeping over with Alys.
You don't say anything else, just that Ryan will give you a ride and he nods to go back to Alys. It's not like you could tell him anything, you still didn't want to, because after all it is his birthday.
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Today is another very vague and rare night in which Aemond stays at home with you and does not leave with Alys.
You don't complain, on the contrary, you enjoy his and Vhagar's company. You are both watching one of his documentaries and it is a really interesting one, not one of the boring ones.
Aemond talks to you and explains you about his assumptions, also about what he thinks while you are sitting next to him and Vhagar is very comfortably asleep on his lap.
You also share your opinions and some doubts that he answers, both of you without taking your eyes off the screen.
Time passes and you happily believe that you will last this way until the early morning, as it used to be, feeling excited and enjoying his company on nights like these, as you had missed him.
When then, it happens.
You hear the notification of how a message has been sent to him and he looks at the screen, then confirms what you didn't want so much, feeling instantly disappointed.
"There's a party at Alys' sisterhood, she wants me to come."
And knowing he'll look at you, you quickly feign your unconcerned, unaffected look.
"Do you want to come?"
You want to laugh and let out a snort, because it's not like you like the idea of going to his girlfriend's party knowing that he'll leave you alone to be with her.
"No," you reply in the softest possible voice, "I'll stay here with Vhagar."
"Are you sure?" he looks at you with a grimace.
"It's all right Aemond, you go."
He lets out a long breath as he looks back down at his screen to move his fingers on it briefly, then gently removes Vhagar from his lap and gets up from the couch to go get ready.
All your good looks disappear as he turns his back to you and before you know it, you let out a long sigh of disappointment loud enough for him to stop and watch you.
Nerves get the better of you and you look at him again pretending everything is fine, but he knows it's not.
"Y/N," he calls you in a soft voice, walking back to you, "I know we haven't been spending time together like before and—
"You'll be getting late," you quickly try to evade the subject so as not to talk about it, "If you're not going to arrive here to sleep let me know by message."
He lets out a long breath, looking a little distrustful and worried.
"Look," he says as he takes a seat next to you again, "I just want to tell you that I know we don't spend time together like we used to. I don't think you or I expected me to suddenly have a girlfriend—
Clearly not.
You think.
"But I want you to know that not spending time with you was not intentional," he assures you, then takes your hands in his, "And I'm going to make it up to you, I promise."
That's what you always say.
You want to say it, but you just stay silent, watching him, while he looks at you with all the tenderness and with that look that convinces you to believe in his words.
"I've missed our weekends, believe me. And I hate to leave you like this," he confesses, "But I really don't want you to think that I'm choosing Alys over you, I love you both very much and I want to have that balance in my life between her and you."
And at this point her words are actually hurting you instead of helping you.
"Aemond, it's okay," you assure him, even though it's not, "Alys is your girlfriend. It's obvious that you spend more time with her than with me and I totally understand that."
"Really?"
"Yes, I promise," you assure him and you couldn't be more of a liar at the moment.
"I still feel bad."
"Aemond, it's okay. You should go now, I don't want to delay you any more with this hour," you say so the conversation is already over.
"No, just let me…" he insists, then lets out a long breath, "Look, I know you," he murmurs, looking at you sadly, "I know none of this is right. But I promise I will make it up to you," he assures you, "After all, my family's ball at Dragonstone is next weekend, remember?"
You frown, grateful for the change in conversation but still a little confused.
"I thought it wasn't happening this year."
"It has to be held every year, my mother would have a heart attack if it didn't happen and you know it."
You both laugh a little, while he watches you attentively without letting go of your hands, as well as you let go of his.
"So we'll go together?" you ask, not entirely convinced.
And at your question he is offended.
"Of course we'll go together. We go together every year."
"Yes, but now that you—
"I'm not taking Alys," he interrupts you and his words surprise you, "This ball belongs to both of us, it always has. And I'm not going to break the tradition."
And at his words, this time, genuinely, you can't help but place a small closed-mouth smile as you feel how again this little spark between him and you begins to revive little by little.
Also the hope, that everything will be again, even if it's just a little, like before.
"Also now your birthday is next," he says with a small smile, "I've already got your present, just to let you know."
And at this you put on a small smile.
"You're not supposed to tell me, dumbass."
He laughs.
"I wanted you to know," he says softly.
Then a brief, comfortable silence settles between the two of you, you both smile softly and all seems to be well again between you.
"Then start getting everything ready for the ball, okay?"
"All right," you nod, feeling happy.
"It will be amazing. You'll see."
You believe him.
You really do.
The ball on behalf of his family is a way to celebrate the success of the great company they run, as well as to have the possibility to form new partners or make better contracts. Since the friendship between you and Aemond began, he has invited you every year to be his escort and you have never let him down.
All the decorations are wonderful, the food too and eventually when the important people leave, that's when the real party starts for you and it's all great fun with Aemond's brothers who invite friends.
You thought that this time it wouldn't be like that since he has his girlfriend now and maybe he would want to take her instead of you, but how wrong you were.
And not too long after that it is your birthday, which is a very special day for you and Aemond, as every year he really makes you feel very special.
With those dates coming up and these words of promise, what could go wrong?
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ruskaroma · 1 year
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ordinary, corrupt human love. | chapter 1: written in blood.
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Warnings: this series will include highly disturbing/dark topics such as stalking, unhealthy obsession, graphic descriptions of violence, blood and gore, manipulation, gaslighting, large age gap, emotional/psychological abuse, dom/sub undertones, bad BDSM etiquette, etc.
this is a dark fic, written in john's pov and a glimpse of how his mind works. if you still continue to read and get triggered, that is not my responsibility.
Summary: John finds himself a new obsession.
Author's note: this is my first ever fanfic for this fandom and i am beyond excited to share this with you guys! though i must say before you begin, english is not my first language and there might be a few errors in my writing here and there, so i apologize in advance.
but either way, i still hope you enjoy this piece, and i can assure you that once i finish writing this series there will be more to come! i really enjoy writing john wick be a merciless bastard who kills everything that breathes, and i hope you enjoy it too as much as i did.
please, please, PLEASE tell me what you think in the comment and reblogs and likes would be so appreciated. it motivates me to write even more :)
(also this is not edited so all mistakes are on me and i apologize)
Word count: 8.1k
also read on ao3.
It’s one of those days again.
The sound of his watch ticking is the only thing keeping his car from being too quiet. His eyes watch every single movement of his target, never leaving his sight. It won’t be too long for John to finally strike, he just doesn’t want too many civilians seeing the horror that’s about to happen right before their very eyes.
His mind is thinking of many things he could do with this target in particular. A lowlife thug that got himself involved with a very dangerous Italian mob, but then again that’s not the reason why John’s murderous intent is at its peak at the moment.
He’s angry at something, he just doesn’t know what. And this target of his isn’t helping his situation at all. Reading his criminal record made John think this could be a chance to cure his boredom. This man is not only a sex trafficker, but also a pedophile who has a history of targeting teenagers to rape and sell to the black market that’s as fucked up as him.
He doesn’t normally take his time thinking of ways to kill his targets. He points, shoots, leaves. This one in particular though, got him facing a side of him that John himself doesn’t want to face.
He would start by breaking every single one of the man’s fingers. And if that doesn’t do any justice, he’ll cut them off.
One by one, let the man savor the feeling, let John relish the nightmare.
He could slit the man’s throat, watch as life drains away from his body, watch as the man clings to his legs for mercy. John could even pull out the man’s dick, step on it, fucking cut it off and shove it so far down his own throat that he couldn’t scream for help if he tried.
It’s John’s version of Colombian Necktie. A classic, only ever tried it out four times, hopefully this would be the fifth.
John is never the one to take pleasure in killing people, but these past few months have proved him otherwise.
Maybe it’s because of Helen’s death, and the way he was basically forced to sculpt the demons he buried back into himself. His only remaining bit of humanity was taken from him, and he’s coping in the most unhealthy way possible. Perhaps Winston was right about dipping his pinky a little too much into the pond, but it was inevitable.
John has gone back to his old ways. Taking contracts here and there to distract himself from the void in his heart. He remembers how burying a knife into someone’s throat for the first time in many years has ignited something in him he didn’t even know he had.
That’s why he’s here, exiting his car in a swift move, following his target as quietly as possible into a narrow alleyway that stinks of garbage in piss. This would be a nice place to kill a guy like him – right where he belongs.
John’s movements are so discreet the man couldn’t even sense him until John wrapped his right arm around his neck and his other hand went to cover the man’s mouth. He walks them both to the back of a building as the man struggles, where John’s sure no more people are present, and he kicks him on the jaw to stop the man from making any more noises.
John can make this quick. Pull out his gun and blow his brains out. But there’s that sinister glint in his mind that’s telling him to do something unimaginable – grotesque even – a death a man like him deserves.
The man tries to swing his arm at John but misses pathetically. The poor guy’s already shaking and John hasn’t even begun.
John doesn’t respond to the pitiful attempts of questioning who he is and who sent him here, he simply pulls his knife from his pocket and wastes no time slashing it against the man’s throat, the blood spraying all over his face. The man tries to stop it by shakily covering the deep cut with his hand, but it’s useless.
He’s gargling, choking on his own blood, and John’s watching it all unravel with a familiar glint in his eyes.
John is contemplating if he should follow the plan he made in his head or just leave it like this. Somehow, the sight looks rather incomplete to him. He knows what he’s done is not enough, but that could be just the rage talking. The man’s already dead, and surely cutting off his dick and shoving it so far down his throat it comes out of the wound would leave an ugly reputation on his name. 
Would that be a good thing? John is already feared enough, would it be a good thing to make people fear him even more? But then again, this won’t be the first time he’s done it. Doing it again one more time wouldn’t make any difference.
He glances down at the dead body on his feet before he kneels down to do the unforgivable.
Slicing off a man’s cock is easy. Too easy. John’s knife is perfectly sharpened and stoned, he merely uses any strength to cut it off. The sight is so fucking ugly, too much blood, but nothing he can’t handle.
Once that’s done, John uses his other hand to force the dead man’s jaw open, immediately greeted by the foul stench of blood as he shoves the unpleasant dick into the man’s open mouth. The genitalia is definitely not long enough to reach the throat, but that won’t be any problem for John.
He grits his teeth as he forces his hand in there, not bothering to care even if the jaw breaks and the hole becomes even wider, his goal is the only thing in his mind.
The blood continues to drip and he has never been so grateful for wearing an all black uniform for this occasion. Soon enough, after a few minutes of such a brutal wrongdoing, John sees the tip of the cock reaching the deep wound on the man’s throat as it continues to peak its way out.
A sick, small smile spreads across John’s face. The smile is barely there, but he’s fucking enjoying this more than he’d like to admit. He can only imagine how the news would spread across the assassin underworld like a wildfire.
The Boogeyman’s back in business and he’s scarier than ever.
Perhaps this might be the way to lay his point across. This is a way to show them that it was not a good idea pissing him off, killing what’s his, and bringing him back in business. They’d regret it, but it would be already too late for that.
John uses his other hand to pull the cock right out of the man’s throat but not completely. Half of it is hanging out and John thinks he could even consider this as a masterpiece. There’d be flies and maggots that would make the scenery better, but the cleaning service is there for a reason. He can’t just not use it.
John stands up from his position, pocketing his knife back into his pocket before retrieving his phone with the other. He dials a number, waits for them to pick up, all while admiring his work on the ground.
His previous contracts these past few months all ended in such an unimaginable, ugly way. He figured that by showing them that he’s capable of such brutality, it would increase the numbers of people calling him in for more jobs, because this is exactly what they wanted. They wanted Baba Yaga, the ruthless killer of the underworld who stops at nothing to finish his job, and he’s simply giving it to them.
Someone picks up the call and he straightens his posture, checking the time on his watch before speaking.
“This is Wick. John Wick, yes. I would like to make a dinner reservation for one.”
The news spread faster than anticipated.
The notorious man John Wick, the hot topic of the criminal underworld at the moment, even gained the attention of The High Table, and it all happened in the span of one day. That’s how quick the news spread amongst his fellow assassins, though that’s exactly what he was going for.
John expected it so he isn’t surprised when he receives a call from Charon saying Winston wants to meet him.
He inserts a coin in the door and the small window opened briefly. The guy on the other side immediately recognized him, not wasting a single moment to open the door and let the man of the hour in. All eyes are on him the moment he steps into the club, but no one dared to murmur anything to anybody – not when the man himself is here.
They know better.
John spots Winston at his usual spot drinking his usual order, signaling John to sit beside him where a glass of bourbon is already present. 
“Jonathan,” Winston greets, raising his glass. “We have a lot to talk about, don’t we?”
“I figured,” John replies, though not interested. He slides himself to the booth and takes a sip of his own drink. “I don’t understand why though.”
“Are we really playing this game, Jonathan?” The manager raises a brow. 
“I was just doing my job.”
“In a way you don’t normally do,” Winston then adds. “Or should I say, in a way you don’t even do.”
John gives him a look, but he could tell Winston doesn’t know how to interpret it. His face remains emotionless, not letting the mask slip and grant Winston the privilege to take a peak. John will continue to play this game until he’s satisfied, until he feels something again. Surely he’ll find what he’s looking for while doing the only thing he’s ever good at – slaughtering.
“Let’s just say I was trying out a new technique,” John says, voice deep and almost sinister. Winston’s scared, though he doesn’t show it, John knows. 
“I have known you ever since you started, Jonathan. Not once did it cross my mind you would do something so.. horrifying as this. You discarded the body like he was some sort of pig, so believe me when I say I couldn’t believe it at first.”
John has no idea why Winston’s whining about him being horrifying, when that’s all they’ve been saying about him ever since he joined. He didn’t gain this reputation for no reason, now he’s just simply showing them what more he’s capable of.
“You should’ve seen his record.” His tone is menacing, swirling the drink in his hand as he stares deeply at Winston’s eyes. “He’s worse than a pig.”
The drop of the curse word takes Winston by surprise. “So is that what it is, then? You killed him that way because you think he deserved it?”
“Not really,” John simply sighs, leaning back on the leather seat as he takes another sip of his bourbon. He really isn’t planning on staying longer, but Winston seems to be taking his sweet time asking him a bunch of stupid questions. “I couldn’t care less of what he’s done. I was simply… bored. Saying that I did that because I think he deserved it gives people a reason to think that what I did was justifiable.”
The look on Winston’s face says enough. He’s afraid of John, afraid of what he has become. Hearing John say he did such an unforgiving thing just because he was bored is beyond frightening. No man has ever inflicted so much fear on him before – at least not until John.
“I think we’re done for tonight,” Winston finally says, not wanting to hear any more disturbing thoughts of John, but he remains polite and calm for the sake of their friendship. “You have a good night, Jonathan.”
John gives him a nod, standing up from his seat and downing his drink in one go. “Goodnight, Winston.”
He exits the club with an eerie aura following behind him, not caring about the way people are looking at him like he’s got Death himself walking beside him.
It makes him wonder that maybe death doesn’t follow him after all.
Maybe it is him.
Someone offered him five million to fuck up a man who allegedly stole a fuck ton of kilograms of cocaine from their warehouse, and really, who is John to decline the offer?
Hunting the man is easy. It didn’t even take a day to locate where the man lives, and John’s already breaking into his apartment to shoot the guy and leave. There’s no point in rummaging the place for the cocaine, all of it is already up the man’s system by the looks of it, and killing him is John’s job.
John wants to finish this one fast, he’s got other business to attend to. As he backs up the frightened, pathetic excuse for a man against the wall, he takes his gun out of his holster and aims directly at the head, right between the eyes, and he watches in great pleasure as the residue of his brains splatter against the walls and the floor.
This man didn’t even put up a fight. John thinks this is a waste of time.
He exits the apartment with disappointment heavy on his shoulders, slamming the door shut. Although the gun he used has a silencer, the rooms are too close to each other. He’s sure there might be other people who heard the shot of his firearm.
The apartment building is located at the filthy side of New York, where most known drug dealers and junkies do their nasty deals. It’s no surprise that as soon as John steps a foot out of the worn out building, all eyes are on him, but mainly on the clothes he’s wearing. They’re planning on mugging him out, and John would like to see them try.
Just as he’s about to walk to his car, his phone rings abruptly in his chest pocket. He retrieves it in one swift motion, not noticing that a gold coin fell out as he does so, and he continues walking to not waste any more time.
“Sir! Excuse me, sir, you dropped something!” John hears from behind. He doesn’t bother looking.
The call isn’t nearly as important as the business he needs to attend to, so he hangs up the call and pushes his phone back into his pocket. As soon as he does that, he feels a small hand touching his shoulder.
John’s hand immediately flies to wrap his large hand around the person’s wrist, turning around to see a young woman with a bewildered expression on her pretty face, little fingers holding his golden coin that looks far too big on her hand.
She looks scared, terrified, and oh how fucking awful that makes John feel. Like he’s been punched right in the fucking gut. He’s enthralled.
“I wasn’t–you dropped it and I’m just giving it to you, I promise!”
She’s looking at John with big, doe eyes. She also looks freshly showered, wrapped in a black puffy jacket that makes her even smaller than she already is. John lets his eyes linger on her lips, so plump and glossy. Her voice sounds sweet, soft, something John isn’t used to hearing.
John can’t help but to stare.
“Are you–are you gonna let me go, mister?”
The way she stutters triggers a hot feeling in John’s guts, and can’t help but to rub his thumb on the girl’s dainty wrist before slowly letting her go.
So delicate, he could snap them in half.
“Sorry,” John apologizes, taking the coin from her hold, and his fingers itch at the way her skin feels so soft against his rough hands. “Force of habit.”
“It’s okay,” she smiles a little, and there goes that hot curl in John’s stomach once again. “That thing looks expensive so be careful next time.”
Just like that, John doesn’t get the chance to reply back. She makes her leave and patters away from him, and he watches. He watches until she’s out of the view, taking a turn to a corner, leaving John with something he can’t quite figure out yet, but he soon will be.
For the first time in a while, he feels something new.
Suddenly, everything is too good to be true.
John will find himself staring at his hands for too long, still feeling the ghost of her soft skin on his fingers, fantasizing about her pretty face and soft, plump lips.
It’s scary for him to feel something again because that only means destruction. John likes to believe he has a gift of ruining everything he touches, especially the pure ones – like her. It’s a proven statement. Just look at Helen and Daisy.
This little one won’t be any different, he’s sure of it. John’s whole body is heating up everytime he thinks about her. The look on her face when she saw John’s chilling expression, her wide eyes, so glossy and innocent.
John wants to see her again.
His fingers itch, yearning to touch her again. 
Why he’s suddenly interested in a young woman he just met a few days ago, he has no idea. John’s a bit confusing – fucked up, even. He long accepted the fact that his mind is nowhere near healthy years ago. He tried to push those thoughts away when he met Helen, but now he’s out of his shell and back in business, there’s no need to.
He’s always been one of the wolves, and now that he’s laid his eyes on his next meal, he will make sure there’s not a single thing that will get in his way to hunt her down.
He had a crisis for two days before doing the unexpected. It didn’t take long for John to find her. 
Now, John has been following her around for a week, and he noticed a certain pattern his little one likes to follow as she goes on her day.
The very place where they met is where she lives, surrounded by a bunch of goons who have no idea what to do with their lives. John begins to wonder why she’s living in a place like that. He could take her, put her somewhere safe, under his care and protection. Make sure no one will dare to lay a finger on her.
John knows where she works. At a veterinary clinic not too far from her apartment, which is why she walks to work every three in the afternoon, but not without stopping by in her favorite deli and getting a large order of her favorite sandwich. She’s a part-timer. She’d be at school from seven to twelve, and at work from three to eight.
John finds the little things she does amusing. He’d be seated in a cafe right across from her work, watching how she moves around her office through a big window, petting and cooing at the animals who come and go.
She’s so perfect, so pure, so naive. She has no idea that a monster is lurking ten feet away from her, watching her every move like a hawk, thinking about the ways he could destroy her, make her his.
John is not delusional. He’s fully aware of what he’s doing and he’s aware of what people might call him. 
Stalker.
Creep.
They don’t know him though. They don’t know why he acts this way. They’d do the same if they were him, that’s for sure. He’s not the bad guy here, he’s simply just protecting her little one, even from afar. John went as far as destroying a whole Russian Bratva for a mere puppy and a car, he’d do even worse if she’s somehow taken away from him.
John sees her exiting the building and his first thought is to follow her. He stands up from his seat, the cup of coffee long forgotten as he makes his way out of the café and keeps a safe distance between the two of them. It’s risky, especially in the broad daylight, but John knows she’s too oblivious to notice.
She’s with her friends this time, and it doesn’t go unnoticed by John how she clings at the shirt of her co-worker as they cross the street, small hands fisting at the fabric. He thinks about how he won’t ever let go of her hand once she’s his. He’s not big on physical affection, having to grow up with no parents and a rather strict orphanage, but maybe he could be gentle. Engulf her hand in his, stroke it with his thumb, tuck her hair behind her ears, show everyone that she’s already owned.
They wouldn’t dare to lay their hands on her again.
John walks in the middle of the sidewalk, not bothering to move away despite seeing people approaching. He doesn’t need to, the look in his face is enough for people to give him the way. It’s interrupted however, when someone does try to get in his way, placing a hand on his chest and pushing him back a little.
John clenches his jaw, pissed. He takes his eyes from his little one and on the person who so rudely interrupted what he’s doing – it’s Marcus.
“John? I was just looking for you at the Continental.” Marcus has a small smile on his face, clearly not aware of John’s expression.
His eyes dart behind Marcus, where his little one is supposed to be, but she’s gone. John feels something curl in his stomach, his fingers itching again, eyes rapidly searching for her in the sea of people.
He looks at Marcus again, deciding he’ll just find her later, but he worries that something might happen to her now that John’s attention isn’t on her.
“Why?” he almost snaps, voice deep and laced with no emotion.
“Why? Because it’s been quite some time, John. I haven’t heard from you since the Iosef situation, but I did hear you’re back in business,” Marcus replies, but when he sees how distracted John looks, his voice falters. “You working?”
“Yeah.” The lie comes off smoothly. “I’ll see you around.”
John taps Marcus’ shoulder, trying to sound as polite as possible even though he badly wants to break a couple of his teeth for taking his attention away from her. He knows Marcus is probably noticing something, but John’s never the one to care.
Marcus drops the subject. “Alright, John. I’ll see you around.”
With that, John disappears in the crowd with no looking back.
It’s been awhile since John last took a job.
He can’t seem to take his eyes away from his little one. He can’t stop fucking stalking her from morning to night time.
John’s afraid that once he takes his attention from her even for a second, something bad might happen to her. It’s engraved in his mind that she can’t protect herself and he’s solely there to be the protector.
No one would understand. He’s doing this for her own good.
John’s absence at the Continental doesn’t go unnoticed by Winston and Charon. They’re his favorite, after all. Watch his every move carefully ever since that ugly murder John did. Perhaps he could make his next kill even uglier. To them, it’s vile and grotesque. For John, it’s special and unique.
This time, it took a good self-beating before John decided to take a contract. Three million to hunt down a rival crime lord, nothing he can’t handle, but somehow it brings an unusual feeling on his shoulder he isn’t fond of. Perhaps because John’s leaving his little one for a while and he isn’t quite sure what to feel. Worried and pissed – but mostly worried.
That is why he hired someone to trail his little one on his behalf. Everyone in business would do anything for a coin despite how fucked up disturbing it is. John offered a generous amount of coins to keep the assassin’s mouth shut, but he also held him at gunpoint and gave him a good talk before he sent the dog out in the field.
His only job is to keep an eye on her, report everything he’ll see to John, and maybe even take pictures for safety purposes.
John has been overseas in the last three days, and everything that’s been sent to him has been his only form of entertainment. There’s videos of her giggling with her friends, videos and photos of her in the library, outside her school, her work, and even in her apartment. There’s also information sent to him about the background of her friends – every single one of them, because John didn’t pay so much for nothing.
There’s one particular friend that ticks off John in all the worst way possible. He’s young, around her age, and the way he hugs and touches her just fucking sets him off. John wants to break his fingers in half. He reminds himself that once he’s home, he’ll make sure to take care of that boy himself.
“What else have you got?” John questions through the phone, and it doesn’t take long for his precious dog to respond.
“Oh, he is one creepy motherfucker. I’m starting to understand why you’re so riled up with this guy, boss. The urge to strangle him every time he gets in the picture gets stronger and stronger everyday.” He hears a laugh at the other end. The guy that’s working for him – Alex, if he remembers correctly – is young, new in business, knows not to fuck with John so he keeps his job adequate. If Alex ever notice how fucked up John is for making him follow a young woman to keep his life in order, he doesn’t say anything about it. “Just tell me when I can shoot this guy and I’ll do it in a heartbeat.”
“Leave him. Keep an eye on him, but don’t kill him,” John advises, his tone leaving no room for discussion. “I’ll handle him myself when I get back. For the meantime, focus on Y/N and keep any troubles out of her way. Fail that task and I’d serve your head hot on a platter.”
“You got it, boss.”
John is playing nicely.
He’s not going to force his way into her life. He’s gonna be welcomed, with open arms, desired.
There are times he’d thought about giving in to his desperation and act with his dick instead of his head. There are times he’d thought about following her to a dark street, where no one’s around, he’s on the prowl and ready to pounce. He’d put a fabric against her mouth and nose, laced with enough chemicals to make her pass out and for him to carry her in his car with no problems whatsoever. John thinks about how he’d make it look like he’s just picking up his very drunk and passed out girlfriend and no one would know a goddamn thing.
John would keep her in his house where she won’t need anything but him. 
But of course, he’s not that cruel.
They’re only thoughts. Thoughts that he tries hard to keep away, but at the end of the day he reminds himself that he’s better than that.
John is not going to force his way into her life.
He’ll make sure to get her addicted enough to come crawling at his feet herself. She’ll be dependent on him, won’t be able to live without him. John will make sure his plan will go out smoothly or otherwise he’ll be the one bringing Hell with him on this land and seek as much havoc as he possibly can.
The death emissary himself will strike tonight.
A Friday night out with her friends has John on high alert. That’ll only mean she’s constantly surrounded with people, god knows what could happen if John even takes his eyes off her for a second. He lurks on the side, blending himself with the crowd as much as he can all while keeping his gaze on her. 
He doesn’t need any drugs to keep his mind insane, because the sight of a specific man getting very close to what’s his is enough to make him visualize all the ugly and twisted ways to kill a man.
She’s wearing a thin silky dress that’s low on her cleavage and shows her perky breasts. She’s currently the flame in a room full of moths, John included. Everyone’s eyes are on her, observing the way she sways her hips and sings along to the loud music – John’s fingers itch.
The itch to kill is back again, driving into his veins, his hands twitch on the table. John wants to pull out his gun and shoot everyone in this fucking room. He wants to stab them in the eyes one by one and make them feed it to themselves. He wants to grab this guy on the neck and slam his head against the wall repeatedly until his brain scatter all over the fucking place and there’s nothing left for him to ruin.
This guy is getting on his fucking nerves.
John watches as the man smoothly brings his arm on her shoulder, whispering something in her ear that doesn’t make her look so impressed. In fact, she looks disturbed, uncomfortable, tense. Despite the guy being her friend, John could tell she doesn’t feel comfortable with the way he’s showing her affection.
It’s hard to see her like this, but he knows he can’t just jump in between the two of them and beat the shit out of the guy until he chokes on his own blood. He’ll have to wait, maybe after this party, he’ll strike and discard the body in a way that’ll make even Winston spook in his sleep. It’s not a major offense to kill a man that’s not in the game anyway – or at least that’s what John tells himself.
This guy wouldn’t be able to be three feet near his little one once John’s done with him. He’ll be six feet under.
John sees her swiftly moving away from his touch, trying to make her rejection look as polite as possible, which receives a not-so-amused reaction from her little friend.
This guy doesn’t deserve her at all. No one does. Except maybe John, but that’s because he knows he’s capable of actually taking care of her and keeping her safe. Nobody would understand what he feels, what he yearns, what he wants.
Good girl, John thinks. Walk away.
His gaze follow her as she makes her way to the backdoor and out to the cold air of the city. John follows in a hurry, keeping a safe distance between the two of them, then opens the door as quietly as possible so he wouldn’t let his presence known.
There are a few people on the street, either having a smoke break or making out against the piss stained wall, but she stays just beside the busy road as she wraps her arms around herself.
His gaze burn daggers on her exposed back, the urge to cover her up with his jacket and take her home. A drunk man comes stumbling out of the club, accidentally tripping over his steps and he pushes her hard enough to make her yelp as her heels lose balance and almost making herself get run over by a passing truck.
Almost.
Everything happens so fast. One moment John is standing five feet from her, the next is he’s grasping her wrists in his hand and pulling her back to her feet and dragging her back to the curb. He was already on the act once he saw the man exiting the club, he knew exactly this would happen.
The scene looks strangely familiar, one John could never forget. The same position, same hand placement, same rough fingers around her wrist and dark eyes boring into hers – their very first meeting.
“You!” she gasps, not caring about the fact that she almost just got hit by a fucking truck. “I know you! You’re the guy outside my apartment that day! What are you doing here?”
John stares. Predictable. Of course she’s talking to him like they’ve known each other for years. She’s too friendly.
“Hello to you too,” John replies, though his tone is blank as well as his face. “You remember me.”
“‘Course I do,” she giggles, a little tipsy, pupils dilated and licking her lips nervously. “You’re pretty hard to forget. I remember asking my neighbors around the area if you’re new there, turns out you were just visiting.”
John furrows his brows, hand still not letting go of her wrist. What does she mean by she’s asked around the area about him?
His face must’ve looked confused, he sees her grinning childishly. “It’s a coincidence that I see you again!”
Not a coincidence, but fate.
John doesn’t believe in a lot of things, but he believes in fate. Fate brought him Helen, and now fate is bringing him another angel. If she really went as far as asking the neighborhood about his existence, then it must be fate.
“I’m Y/N. I figured if we keep bumping into each other then you should at least know my name,” she says, completely oblivious that John already knows everything that has to be known about her. From her little mannerisms to the last name of her fucking grandmother. “May I know yours or are you just gonna stare at me all night?”
“It’s John,” he gulps, not wanting to look like a loser in front of her, not after everything he went through for her. “It’s really nice to see you again.”
He sucks at this. He fucking sucks at this.
“You haven’t answered my question, by the way. What brings you here?”
It hangs in the air, John lets go of her wrist. Luckily, he thinks fast enough and says the first thing that comes to his mind. “Work.”
“Ah, work,” she nods. “You work here? In the club? What are you, a bouncer or something?”
“I don’t. Someone I work with is in the club.” A lie, but it’s not like she would know. “We had a talk.”
“Not really a man of words, eh?” she raises an eyebrow teasingly. 
“This is the most words I’ve said in the past few days,” John says. “I’d say you’re special.”
The look on her face is enough to make his entire night even better. Blushing, lips opening and closing, not knowing what to say. John wants to graze his thumb on her lips, thinking about how good it would feel stretching over his cock.
He blinks. Where did that come from?
“For someone who doesn’t talk much, you sure make it sound smooth when you do. Are you always this slick, John?” she giggles again, music to his ear. “That’s actually better than what I heard from my friend earlier, so thank you.”
“That’s good to know.”
Before she could say anything back, the door of the club opens once again and her friends appear, waving a hand at her and beckoning her to get inside. She looks at John, gives him a sympathetic look, as if apologizing that their talk gets cut off too soon.
“I’m really sorry but my friends want me back in there. Hopefully we can continue this again, yeah?” she smiles cheekily, tucking her hair behind her ear. “If you want, you could give me your number so we can talk someplace else? You know… with no one bothering us and all that.”
There it is. John didn’t think it would be this easy to sink the hook in. All he needs to do is pull and take what’s meant to be his.
“Sure.” He enters his number swiftly, feeling that familiar burn in his guts once again when he sees the wallpaper being her pretty face. “Feel free to message me whenever you want. I’ll make time for you.”
She looks at her phone and smiles before starting to walk away from him, waving a hand goodbye, but it doesn’t feel like a goodbye. John knows it isn’t. She’s already his the moment she started talking to him again.
“Of course! Get home safe, John! I’ll see you soon!” 
“You too.”
She doesn’t know John won’t be heading home any time soon until he knows she’s safe and sound in her apartment.
Jay Lopez.
The name burns on his tongue. Bitter and resentful. He stares at the photos his precious dog sent to him and he has to stop the impulse to burn every single one of them.
Jay Lopez is the guy that’s been leeching on his girl since the dawn of time, and thankfully John is here to put an end to it. 
He’s hideous. It’s interesting how John stooped this low that he’d be willing to kill a college student for being too near his little bambi, but alas, he’s never the one to care for such things. Morals and righteousness have never been in his book, not now, nor ever.
It’s only a matter of time until he gets rid of this pest. He’s fucking creepy, follows around not only Y/N but a bunch of other women. 
John doesn’t want his death to be quick and simple. He wants to do it in an ugly way, make sure his body will never be found, make sure he’ll never get to lay his hands and eyes on what’s his. The way Jay stares at her in these pictures ignites something evil within John’s veins. It’s been awhile since he felt something like this.
“Alex.” he looks at his pet standing by the door, waiting for the next command. “Bring him to me alive.”
“Can I at least rough him up a bit?”
John doesn’t answer at first, looks back at the photos on his table. “Do what you want, just make sure he’s still breathing when you bring him here.”
“On it, boss.”
Truth be told, John doesn’t need a pet to order around for this job. He has himself – a labeled attack dog of the Tarasovs for years, their hellhound, chained and muzzled unless they need him to kill. He’s a one man army as some would say, he doesn’t need Alex running around doing tasks for him, but it sure does make the job a lot faster.
It’s not a way to downgrade his reputation nor skills to hunt, he really just needs this Jay guy gone as fast as possible.
On the same day, Alex manages to haul a very brutally violated Jay to the floor of his basement. He stinks, pants wet from piss and a face John is having a hard time recognizing.
“You said rough him up a bit, not make him look unrecognizable.”
“Same thing.”
Jay is sobbing his eyes out, his cries of pleas falls to deaf ears and John just wants to fucking bash his skull with his own foot. “W-who are you guys?! What the f-fuck did I do?! Get me out of here or I’ll tell the fucking police–”
John kicks him on the chin hard to stop the goon from rambling. “You’re not telling anybody any shit, tough guy.”
“So, what are you planning to do to him? Can I watch?”
“Can you handle it?”
Alex shrugs. He’s in the presence of the most dangerous assassin in the underworld, wouldn’t hurt to learn anything from his skills and techniques, doesn’t matter how fucked up it is.
John nods towards the chainsaw sitting at the corner of the room, and Alex turns to face him with wide eyes. “Jesus Christ, man. You serious? Last time I heard you’re a hitman, not a serial killer.”
“Same qualifications. Same thing.” John grabs the man by the arm then drags him to a chair. He takes a rope from the table and swiftly ties him up securely. “We start with the head, then arms and legs. It would be hard to put his entire body in a drum full of acid, so we need to cut him off one by one.”
Alex looks like he’s about to run off somewhere safe from what he’s witnessing. “You’re talking like you’ve done this before, holy fuck.”
John gives him a look, and Alex immediately shuts his mouth. Right. He’d done this before. This is completely normal.
“I’ve been following you for a while, Jay. You’re a creep who befriends pretty girls, then you’ll drug them and make them have sex with you,” John taunts, the sound of his heels hitting the concrete floor is enough to send shivers down his spine. “Is that what you’re also planning to do with Y/N? Be her friend and fuck her once she’s drugged up and vulnerable?”
It’s a bold statement coming from John himself since he’s no better man than Jay, but at least his intentions come from a different place.
“You-you’re fucking sick!” Jay spits.
“I’m sick? I’m not the one going around making girls uncomfortable now, am I?” he picks up the chainsaw, then watches in enjoyment as Jay widens his eyes in fear. “We’re going to have a lot of fun, Jay. You won’t be able to use your pathetic little dick of yours to any woman ever again, and most importantly –”
John fires up the chainsaw, adrenaline coursing through his veins when he sees the horrified look in the man’s face as he tries to get up and scream for help.
“I can finally sleep well at night knowing you’re not in Y/N’s life anymore.”
As John steps into the light, a roaring chainsaw in his hands, Alex could only watch in horror as the basement gets painted with blood in mere seconds.
There’s a vacant apartment just across her room, giving John the perfect view of what she’s doing while she’s alone.
Most of the time, John will pull up a seat beside the window and take pictures. The other half of the time is just him staring, observing. It seems that she’s too comfortable knowing there’s no one across the building so she doesn’t close the curtains, leaving John no choice but to keep his eyes on her.
He found this place just three days after following her. He couldn’t help it. Following her to school and work suddenly wasn’t enough for John that he had to find a way to somehow watch her even in her sleep. 
He should be ashamed of himself. He should feel guilty for what he’s doing – he should stop, but he just can’t. John’s already done too much. This is like being pulled back into the underworld all over again but this time, there’s something good that’s waiting for him on the other side.
Maybe it’s the delusion that comes with it that’s not stopping John from whatever he’s doing. Lately, he’s been thinking about how life would turn out to be if his plan goes out smoothly. They’d live happily ever after, she would end up loving him just the way he planned it out to be, and John will make sure no one will ever dare to take those peace away from him again.
He’d make sure no one will ever come close to her again once she’s his. She’d be isolated but protected. Just how John likes it.
It’s been two days since John gave his number, but he knows she’s just giddy and nervous to text him. He’d seen her staring at her phone, biting her bottom lip anxiously, thinking if it would be a good idea or not. He knows she’ll give in one way or another because he sees it in her face. She’s too easy, too gullible, too naive.
She’s lonely, just like him.
John could tell she’s waiting for someone – she’s desperate, no wonder she asked for his number the second time they met. She wants someone to take care of her, to hold her, tell her that she deserves the world. That someone is John whether she likes it or not.
This isn’t just any unhealthy obsession. John finds himself too deep to get out. He knows her little mannerisms, studied her every action, has a red room full of her pictures and no one can’t say he’s not ready to give up anything for her. John has already given up his sanity ever since he mutilated a man for being too close to her.
She’s his life now, his everything.
John watches intensely as she shreds her clothes in her room, baring him the full view of herself naked, and John grips the side of his chair too hard his knuckles turn white. This is the first time he’d seen her naked, it’s so sudden and so… perfect.
His cock fattens in his pants as he observes every curve of her body. Her waist is fucking perfect and her body is thick yet delicate. John thinks about bruising her sensitive skin, leaving a mark that will show everyone that she’s owned. He would love to see her in a collar, hear it jingle when she crawls. 
She’s completely fucking naked that John wonder just how naive she is to think there would be no one seeing her like this. What if John isn’t the only one watching her? What if somebody else sees her like this? His fingers itch, jaw clenching.
He’d kill them. He’d kill them in front of her, and the thought somehow made his cock hard even more. He grimaces, disturbed at the reaction of his body.
John doesn’t really understand the sexual aspects of killing, but now he’s thinking about how she would react if she sees him working. He’d kill someone in front of her and he’d see the look of disgust and betrayal in her face. He can already imagine how her eyes would well up with tears and fuck, his dick shouldn’t be this hard.
She’d fear him, and John would be turned on. How fucked up would that be? Just how fucked up can his mind get?
He resists the urge to wrap his hand around his cock because fuck no. He would not stoop this low, he is not a teenage boy. No matter how strong the thoughts get, the thoughts of wrapping his own hand around her neck, squeezing it hard and cutting off her airflow as John forces his cock in her cunt, hearing her mewl and scream and beg to just –
John sucks in air, eyes back on her in her room, wrapping a robe around herself and heading to the bathroom. This is fucked up. His cock is incredibly hard and leaking, and his mind won’t stop thinking about how good her pussy would feel around him.
He’d talk her through it. Whisper sweet nothings in her ear as she releases around her cock, praising her for being such a good girl. Then he’d fuck her again, in a different position, debauching her in different ways not even the devil himself could think of.
John would ruin her, and she will have no choice but to accept it.
He brings his hand to his face as he sighs deeply. He wonders what Helen would feel of what he’s doing. Disgusted, no doubt. This is not the same man she fell in love with years ago. He would never do something like this, but fate has its plans, and John believes everything happens for a reason.
She was brought into his life for a reason and it’s up to him whether he takes.
John doesn’t realize that he’s been staring at nothing for too long until she comes back in his view once again. Her hair is still wet, still wrapped up in a fluffy pink robe, and John’s fingers itch to grab, squeeze, possess.
He sees her picking up her phone, staring for a moment before her fingers start typing. John has been anticipating this moment for so long, the time has finally come.
In his chest pocket, his phone buzz silently, the vibration sending excitement in his whole body.
There it is.
13.06.15 11:46 PM UNKNOWN NUMBER : hello! this is Y/N from the club the other night
13.06.15 11:46 PM UNKNOWN NUMBER : also that Y/N who returned your super expensive looking coin hehe ;) i hope you didn’t forget about me!
There it fucking is.
John’s lips curl into a small smile. His efforts are finally paying off. 
All he needs to do is to get what’s his.
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olderthannetfic · 3 months
Note
Until I read the comments on that one post I had no idea the Bechdel Test was a joke and wasn't supposed to be a serious measuring stick by which you gauged if something was feminist or not. Everywhere I'd ever heard it brought up, it was brought up as a very serious thing, and it was a failure of media if it didn't pass it. I remember the debate about Mako Mori from Pacific Rim and if she was a character you were "allowed" to like as a progressive person despite the fact that Pacific Rim doesn't pass the Bechdel Test, the discourse, the discussion of if the director was sexist for not writing in another woman for her to chat with about non-men related stuff, the camp of people trying to insist that having a fully realized character arc and being as developed as any of the male leads = good writing even if she doesn't talk to another girl...
And I've also had the remark about my writing not passing the test, just not to my face. I searched my fanfic's name once, curious to see if anyone was discussing it outside of tumblr and AO3, and found a Tiktok complaining about it not passing the Bechdel Test. The top comment was "motherfucker YOU don't pass the test but we still watch your ass". I cackled and moved on, but neither the commenter, poster, nor I had any awareness this wasn't Feminist Media Critique 101 theory and was, in fact, a goof.
Right now there's a segment of fandom debating if Blue Eye Samurai is feminist since when Mizu and Akemi talk, they do bring up men, since, y'know. Women aren't considered people with rights in their era in Japan and thus it's something they mention instead of only talking about being cool girlboss badasses who never bring up gender. If something doesn't pass the Bechdel Test, a smug segment of the internet high-fives itself and congratulates one another on being More Feminist Than Thou.
They then get really angry if you disagree, even though by this metric, Sleeping Beauty (the original animated one, where Aurora has only 16 lines of dialogue) is more feminist than Blue Eye Samurai.
--
*DYING*
Okay, so, nonnie....
Dykes to Watch Out For (1983-2008) was a long-running comic and major piece of lesbian media. I grew up buying compiled volumes at the bookstore. To be honest, that kind of 90s-ish lesbian culture isn't really my scene despite me being bi, but it was very nice to have this slice of life-y somewhat realistic, occasionally somewhat parody, look at the queer communities around me. It's up there with Tales of the City for me in terms of being a window into a particular culture and time and place.
If anybody is interested in queer history, in addition to looking up factual info, I think a read of the complete Dykes would give a really good overview of how people were thinking about things and what issues came up a lot. You'll see things like Barnes & Noble increasingly putting feminist bookstores out of business in the 90s, attitudes towards porn in lesbian circles—all kinds of cultural issues of the day.
I drifted away as I got later in my teens and found more genre fiction I cared about, but at one point, this comic was a very welcome antidote to the glurgey coming out stories that made up a lot of the more realistic media.
Anyway, here's the comic itself, reproduced in its entirety because I think it's important to actually understand the context.
This is from 1985, so the era of Rambo, Conan, and Death Wish, each of which you can see being made fun of here. It's based on Bechdel's friend Liz Wallace's actual rule for seeing movies.
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That's it. That's the origin of this whole stupid test.
"LOL, fuck 80s action movies". That's it. That's the joke.
The fact that blockbusters still routinely fail to pass in the 2020s is shameful, but that was never the point of the strip.
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lightsofpandora · 1 year
Text
Na'vi language
Summary: You were the new "acquisition" of the Omaticaya clan, the tribe had found you lost in the forest (you had been separated from your group on a mission to save your life) and they decided to take you with them since they did not want to take any risks: you were human and they had to decide what to do to see if you were intended to be a threat or not. Now, you had been with the clan for a while and the Sully children were doing their best to help you learn more about their culture and even more, their language. But, not everything went the best way for two of them.
Word Count: 1591
Warning: All of them have the same age
Pairings: sully children x female!reader
A/N: Sorry if there is more than one mistake, English isn’t my first language and I am still learning it. It’s my first time writing an Avatar fanfic! However, I hope you enjoy it and have a good time, thanks for reading! (:
Neteyam
You two had established a good relationship since he discovered that you were not a threat, from that moment Neteyam wanted to get closer and help you understand those lands, their traditions and the history of the people, because he could see in your eyes that you were a beginner in everything related to that world of which you knew nothing; he was more than happy to give you a hand and help you in whatever was possible. At the beginning, Neteyam and you communicated through gestures, signs and short words in English that his father and brothers had taught him, but, like you, he still needed practice to be able to dominate a whole sentence in English. Neteyam had become one of your best friends in the clan, so when he found out that you were to be given lessons of Na'vi he was very excited because he knew how fast you were learning and you were going to be able to communicate in a "more natural way" soon, no more English words and phrases that he battled with constantly and struggled to understand. He was very excited to teach you.
"Look, here's the deal: I'll teach you our language and if you say one correct word after another, you'll teach me that complicated and difficult language of yours, is that okay? It'll be an easier way for us to communicate! Tsun oe ngahu niNa'vi pivängkxo a fi'u oeru plite' lu!"
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Lo’ak
Even when he knew you were not a threat to the clan, Lo'ak took much more time to trust and start a conversation with you because you were a human and he didn't know which side you were on, he barely knew you. The stories his parents had told him all his life about the RDA made him grow up with a feeling of constant alertness to any foreign movement, especially danger. He had learned to be distant and cold to those who were not part of his people or race, just as he was doing with you. However, as time went by, you showed him that you were friendly and had spent enough time in those lands to fall in love with every aspect and detail of Pandora, constantly trying to make him understand that not all humans were the same. Little by little, Lo'ak stopped being so defensive and began to approach you slowly, with "baby steps" (as his father would say) and the same way he got closer, it didn't take him long to fall in love with you almost instantly; a feeling that scared him at first and he tried to hide it as best he could, although, when he found out that you were to be taught to speak his language, he saw an opportunity to spend more time together even with his siblings around. He simply found it hard to take his eyes off you and even harder to accept that he was in love with a human. "You're doing great, y/n. Much better than us! Now, can you say tawtute?" he kept laughing with your pronunciation and the way you quickly managed to get frustrated, he found you really adorable.
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Spider
Like Loak, Spider was hesitant to make friends with you and show you his ways because, like the others, he also thought that you were part of the RDA and that this was just part of a plan. However, time proved him wrong and besides becoming friends, Spider's heart developed something much deeper. At the arrival of these new feelings, he felt insecure and somewhat nervous, but, he thought that at least, he had a better chance than Lo'ak since the guy didn't have the least idea of how to dissimulate and didn't think he knew the meaning of the word either. When he was assigned the task of teaching you new words, Spider stayed leaning against a tree with his arms crossed watching how the others did all the work, not because he didn't want to teach you himself but because he knew that the others had more experience and knew what they were doing. Anyway, he would say phrases that always managed to make you laugh: "You said it wrong, Lo'ak! y/n, he's teaching you wrong. Don't listen to him, please!" "I'm sorry I can't teach you myself, y/n. My pronunciation is a hell of a lot better than Lo'ak's but my accent is awful." Those kind of comments always generated a friendly fight between the two brothers and some branch used to hit the head of the Na'vi.
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Kiri
Unlike the two skxawng, Kiri was much more similar to Neteyam in many aspects; she was a very kind girl even when she was warned of your arrival, she was one of the first to defend you over the others by saying that she did not see you as a bad person. She was also very curious, so she went to meet you behind Jake and Neytiri's back to find out where you came from, who you were and what you were looking for in those lands. It didn't take long for the two of you to form a strong bond. But, at that moment, Kiri was worried because neither Lo'ak or Spider were teaching you useful words with which you could learn to communicate. All they were doing was laughing and being silly in front of you; on one hand, Spider wanted to teach you jokes and funny words so that you would "make good friends" while on the other hand, Lo'ak was determined to teach you how to say phrases like: "I love you", "Do you want to be my boyfriend?", "You are a cute boy" and some swear words; they were not teaching you anything at all. For this very reason and refusing to do nothing but watch, Kiri went looking for Jake.
"What's wrong, kiddo? is everything all okay?"
"They're not teaching her anything they should! Spider and Lo'ak are messing around and y/n is playing along with their joke simply because she doesn't understand what they're saying! She' s trying so hard to learn, but they're not helping!"
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———————————————————————————
Hearing her words, Jake covered his face with his hands and let out a sigh, frustrated. He knew it wasn't a good idea to put two rowdy teenagers next to y/n, the way he saw it, they looked like two monkeys trying to get attention and it was a trait that always stood out to them.
"They're flirting with her, aren't they? little bastards!"
"Spider yes but Lo'ak... he's not doing very well, he doesn't know how to dissimulate, he's terrible, daddy." answered the youngest of the family, Tuktirey, who at saying those words frowned and played with a plant, not entirely sure of the meaning of her words.
Jake was guided by his two daughters to the place and observed the two young boys with a very negative look on his face. Then, he shouted something to them in his native language so that y/n would understand perfectly and, he hoped that it would have an effect on one of them:
"Hey, both of you! Stop acting like lovesick monkeys and do what I told you! You'll have the rest of the day to teach her romantic lines and anything you want. Damn it!"
And to his good luck, they did. Both, Lo'ak and Spider turned red as a tomato and shrugged their shoulders in embarrassment, unable to look at y/n or say a word. Neteyam let out a big laugh when he saw the expression of both and then thanked his father with a nod of his head, very different from Spider and Lo'ak, who didn't know whether to murder their father or their brother first.
Kiri and her little sister returned with the others, now ready to teach y/n the right way. However, the girl didn't want to return to her lessons without giving the two of them their revenge.
"So.... lovesick monkeys?"
The laughter that followed from the three girls and Neteyam was an embarrassing blow to the naughty ones, although deep down, perhaps, they deserved it. That would be a good story to tell later, but now they had to get on with their lessons, including Spider and Lo'ak who had already had their little secret found out.
"Can you say "Jake skxawng?" were the last words Lo'ak addressed to y/n with a fake smile before remaining silent for the rest of the lesson.
—lightsofpandora
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dannyphantom1234 · 3 months
Text
Reborn as Dan Phantom.
A fan of the show is reborn as Dan, the evil version of Danny just as he was created— but what no one knew was a fangirl had taken over the body and knew just what to do to help her family that would suffer what she just went through unless she did something to help. So— she creeped towards Clockwork, stole the time medallion, went to the timeline of the original, and immediately took over as big brother figure to help these poor children from suffering the future they would have to endure alone without adult supervision.
She— now he— didn’t care for gender, and just wanted to help and protect his new(ish) family from bad people. What he didn’t know was he was also thrown alongside the dc universe, which was an awesome discovery on his part later on.
Dan— or Dante— as he wished to be called, came to the group with sorrow in his heart as he explained what would happen in the future if Danny cheated on his test, not that it was anyone’s fault but fates. He explained how no one was at fault and it could all be avoided if he could help it.
He took over the ghost fights, and had a long talk with Clockwork about what would happen and his real purpose for being there.
His original timeline was obviously erased, and the only reason he survived was because of the medallion, so later he had to go through ghost magic and make himself his own person, gained a whole butt load of tattoos intertwined with ghost time magic and becomes the next king of the infinite realms after defeating the old guy easily after seeing him beat up his little bro.
Dante became king instead of Danny and took over all the overloaded paperwork along the way.
What he didn’t know, was that he would be summoned because of his status. He really thought the fan fictions were just exaggerating what would happen if he was ever given the position and power. Well, it was all true from what he read.
(I’m making this a Dante/King Phantom x Jason Todd/Red Hood).
He made an actual legal identity for himself with the help of Technus and Tucker, who became better pals after they set aside the fact that they attacked each other at some point or another.
Danny became a little brother to him, Jazz became his little sister who likes to treat him as if he were still Danny at times, and Danielle became his daughter.
Dante legally adopted Dani after they got his papers in order, and made her an identity as well. Elle was much younger than he remembered, but then again, she was deaged recently and just came back into contact with the group, who couldn’t take care of her because they were still children as well.
Vlad was still a little evil but leveled out after a huge diabolical involving Maddie, their so called mother.
Madeline Fenton had thought her son and daughter conspired with the ghosts and attacked them in their own home, Danny was greatly injured with multiple blast wounds and Jazz suffered a concussion while trying to push him out of the target zones.
Jack had football tackled Madeline and the rest was history.
Vlad had fallen out of love with her after seeing what she did to her own children, and instead got his head out of his butt and realized he was in love with Jack all along.
Jack divorced Madeline, took custody of his kids and decided they should move, all while Vlad made plans to take down GIW with Team Phantom.
Jack and Vlad met him and decided to emotionally adopt Dante as well in their messed up family.
Dante got a job as a mechanic and started his own business in Gotham. Very cliche from all the fanfics he read in his past life but he wanted to do something he knew and loved. He loved fixing things and his side job as the king of the infinite realms was basically being like a father to ghost children while scolding those who thought it was a good idea to attack innocent mortals.
He mainly spent his time raising Danielle. Giving her everything she deserves and making her happy now that his family was safe.
He was randomly summoned by the Justice League who were ready to full on attack him until they saw him reading to his child, not realizing he was summoned until someone cleared their throat. He was literally in his own little bubble, reading his two year old daughter a storybook while holding her against his chest as he floated above the ground, laid back in a relaxed position.
How it would go:
I looked up from the book after feeling a sudden shift in my surroundings, seeing multiple very brightly dressed people in front of me. I glared, shifting completely into my ghost king form while holding my daughter close to my chest. The storybook I was reading had disappeared into a pocket dimension for later, as I had to deal with this madness.
“Who in their right minds would summon the Ghost King? I literally burnt all those summoning books to ash.” I grumbled, and looked down to see Elle had slightly woken up at the sound of my deep voice.
“Dada?” She mumbled, rubbing her right eye as she sat up from my chest.
“It’s alright, Elle,” I rumbled, kissing her forehead as she plopped back down to take her nap again at my reassurance. “We can finish reading time later today.” I murmured to her as she went back to snoozing.
“What do you want, mortals?” I asked nonchalantly.
“Why does the ghost king have a child? And how in the hell are you not attacking us as the books state?” Zatanna asked, looking on at me in shock.
“You willingly want to be attacked after summoning me? That’s idiotic. “ I state, looking bored with their conversation. I still held Elle close, not answering their questions about my child just yet.
“No, a bloody idiot summoned you just as we defeated him as a last defense!” Constantine spat out, looking hysterical.
“Well, sorry to break the news, coward, but the last king was defeated by me after trying to take over the world, he is now locked away in forever sleep until we can find a way to get rid of him completely.” I explained to the coward looking at me in shock on the ground, bruises across his face and the usual weird looking villain costume on him.
I looked around for a quick second before stopping at the Batfam. Who were all here in a more relaxed formation seeing a child in my arms. My favorite fandom family in my last life.
I looked them over before spotting the Red Hood, my celebrity crush I had on him was no secret to my family, but they had no room to judge for themselves.
His aura admitted contaminated ectoplasm, and I knew I had to heal him sometime in the future.
“May I ask what your goals are? And who is this child?” Superman spoke up after a moment of digesting my information about my new position.
“I protect both living and the undead. I don’t have a world ending goal in mind, just to raise my daughter and give her the life she deserves.” I said, looking down at my daughter with a small smile that would be unnoticeable to most.
I looked back up to see the large group had softened at my words and I was about to ask a question about Red Hood, when my daughter suddenly decided this was taking too long and too much noise for her to take a nap.
“Dada! Where puppy?” She demanded answers, smacking the side of my face with her chubby hands, as I floated there, unmoving with an emotionless face towards the group.
“Cujo is with the twerp, remember? He will come by later for playtime.” I answered, which was slightly muffled as she squished my cheeks together and smiled at me happily.
“Dada! Fishh—“ she squealed out, looking happy with herself as she giggled at my face.
“You gremlin—“ I muttered out, tickling her sides as she squeaked, her flying out of my arms and turning into her young ghost form, looking ready to play.
“Playtime?” She asked, bouncing a little in the air, clapping her hands a little.
“Not yet, blob ghost. We need to head back home for snack time.” I explained, crossing my arms as she pouted, my arm muscles bulged a bit as I crossed them, and I still always forget the fact that I’m taller than most, alongside bigger. In my past life, I was a stick of a girl that had spaghetti arms, much different for sure.
Her pouting turned into the famous puppy eyes, and I turned back to the group to avoid them, only to see amused faces all around.
“Do you guys need anything before we head back? I’m sure you don’t want to deal with a Princess tantrum.” I rumbled out, looking on in disinterest as Elle decided to hug the side of my face like an octopus. She probably still had the puppy eyes on.
“You have an adorable daughter!” Princess Diana exclaimed soon after I was finished speaking. “How old is she?” She asked, looking at me curiously as I lowered myself to the ground, Elle now floating behind my head as she played with my low ponytail.
“She is now two years old.” I answered, swiftly nabbing Elle from behind me while reaching the back of my head. I lowered my arms to see I had her upside down now, her hanging like a sack of potatoes as she giggled.
“Dada!” Elle exclaimed, waving her arms around her in glee as she looked up at me.
“You don’t feel like a ghost completely… neither does she, what are you exactly?” Constantine asked, waving his hand at me in confusion.
“I don’t know if I can trust you with that information, Constantine.” I growled a little, glaring at him as he stepped forward while Elle hid behind me.
“Hey now! Let’s calm down, no one needs to start anything!” Nightwing stepped in front of the glaring Constantine who looked more and more like a bug the longer I looked at him.
“There isn’t anything to start, really. His soul is in shreds at the moment, not very powerful compared to my kind anyway.” I stated, crossing my arms once again as Elle peaked out from over my shoulder.
“Now, I need to speak with a Mr. Red Hood.” I said, looking on at the Batfam who tensed at my words.
“Why?” Batman growled out, stepping in front of the confused Red Hood.
“To heal him, of course.” I sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose as I heard sounds of confusion from everyone else.
“His ectoplasm is very corrupted. He has the ghost flu, in which case makes my kind very moody and in need of pure ectoplasm to filter it and his emotions.” I briefly explained, unpinching my nose as I looked up from the ground. Willing my headache away for now.
“So his pit madness is basically the ghost flu?” Red Robin murmurs out hysterically, almost giggling in disbelief.
“Yes, I have heard of his haunt, Crime Alley, that being under his protection, I have never stepped foot on his property because I didn’t want to seem like a threat to a sick person who can’t control themselves completely with such a sickness.” I explained myself a bit nervously, rubbing the back of my neck a little with my right hand as Elle now sat on my left shoulder, swinging her legs.
“Wow, the ghost king is a dork…” I heard Spoiler mutter to Orphan, who nodded in agreement.
I huffed, crossing my arms and floated once again. “I can come back another time. I just wished to help a little. My doctor can probably fix him quicker than I, but I know what to do as I have studied under him for more than over a year now.” I informed them.
“So the pit madness can go away…?” Red Hood asked, stepping from around Batman to speak to me clearly.
“I’m unsure of what this “Pit Madness” is, but yes, I can heal you and make sure you properly get the help you need from your emotional roller coaster sickness.” I said, looking down at him as he took a few more steps to me, his family following behind him.
“Well, when can you fix me?” He asked, his voice modifier cutting all emotions from his voice, but I can clearly feel his emotions bursting from his almost formed core. It seems this sickness had stopped him from forming his core completely and left him sick for many years.
I could feel his hope, his rage and especially his bursts of want for some reason.
“I can fix you right now, but I wasn’t sure if you wanted privacy or not. It’s very…. Intimate. I can take you somewhere private if you would like?” I rumbled out, the burst of want came out more clearly, and I could tell Red Hood was clearly not expecting that word choice.
“Take me anytime—“ I could clearly hear his muttered out answer behind his helmet with my enhanced hearing, but I don’t know if I was supposed to hear that.
“Nope! Little Wing— you are not going with the ghost king—“ Nightwing suddenly yelled out, the whites of his mask bigger as Spoiler, Red Robin, and Signal burst into loud laughter. Batman sighed loudly in disappointment. Robin just “Tt” and sighed alongside his father, looking like a mini bat. Orphan just smiled at me.
“By intimate, I mean having a look at your soul, I will essentially have to take a closer look at that and cure you.” I fixed my words, making it seem as if I didn’t hear anything and I could feel a little disappointment coming from Red Hood but he nodded at my explanation.
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fitzrove · 2 months
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Rant in the tags... I am insufferable
#i keep watching video essays that annoy me.....#largely about like idk 'girlhood' 💀#and they never make sense or come across as relatable because smth like loneliness or relationship drama or identity for women is ALWAYS#connected to relationship history with men 💀#and h*terosexuality is treated as an universal aspect of womanhood#this also makes many stories unrelatable to me. a man existing is not a crime but stories saying smth deep about womanhood through how women#feel about men makes it alienating when you don't see the world that way#also idk some video essays are just soo pretentious and the person talking obviously doesnt know enough abt the topic#this doesnt only go for 'girlhood' type essays btw it also goes for the stuff i watch about minecraft and ts2 etc (yeah...) 😂💀#anyway yeah where is the essay about the universal girl experience of wanting to be crown prince rudolf (JOKING)#no but the thing is... watching dune made me realise... ppl never let a girl be a hero in blockbusters IN THE SAME WAY men get to be#st*r w*rs tried but the overall plot failed in many parts & people couldnt be normal abt it#idk i do think its because of how sex and romance are treated way differently in women's stories....... women never have those happen#just randomly on the side as things that build her up and somewhat affect the hero's journey - it often becomes About The Man#(because often it is a man)#idk#where's girl p*ul atr*ides. where's girl j*sus. where's girl crown prince rudolf#(in my fanfics.... that last one is in my fanfics...)#well just one so far unfortunately 😔
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sweettomyhoney · 6 months
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I have this theory that Quinn is the least talked about because he is the most visibly Jewish. People talk about how they think Jack is the best for the same reason. I’m not saying it’s on purpose like I’m sure some people don’t realize but think about which one falls into the hockey player look very white/ European. I’ve been saying this for months.
Racism/ Antisemitism in Hockey
Yes Quinn is the one that looks the most ethnically Jewish. Jack and Luke are the most Eurocentric white looking. And I want to bring to attention that antisemitism and racism go hand and hand. And hockey is not stranger to both.Quinn is the first Jewish Captain the NHL has had. Jack is the first Jewish person to be a number one pick. The NHL only has a hand full of Jewish players as well as black and poc players. Still in 2023 we have players reporting racist comments.
If you don’t believe me, I want you to think back to how Nazem Kadri was treated after he won the cup with the avalanche. There were all types of racist comments directed towards him.
The NHL and its fans have a diversity problem. This issues goes beyond just the ice. It also goes down to the wife’s and girlfriends of players. Every player in the nhl is married to a white woman except a handful. Even the poc players are married to white women.Mostly the girls the guys are encouraged to date are white women. Preferably blonde. I have yet to see a WAG that is a woman of color or black. It even carries over to fanfics all of the ones on here are centered around whiteness. All the characters are pictured to be white.
Hockey is a very white space and anything out side of being white is not encouraged. I understand that hockey is trying but it’s still not enough. So I am not surprised Quinn is treated the way he is. Even when he has made history it’s still not celebrated as much as other captains.
This is a huge thing for Quinn to make history! And I want to Celebrate him as much as I can.
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luna-rainbow · 2 months
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i saw someone recently say that they preferred sambucky over stevebucky (either platonic or romantic tbh) because they felt bucky was happier not living under the shadow of his former self? suggesting that he intentionally spent most of him time post winter soldier away from steve because he didn't want to be compared to a former version of himself that he couldn't return to? I'm a big lover of stevebucky so the idea that steve wouldn't be able to stop comparing (even if subconsciously) post-ws bucky to pre-ws bucky made me question the ship slightly? or that bucky was actually happier without steve in the readjustment process bc he could become his own person without preconceived ideas of what he should be like hanging over his head. I've read a few fics about this and i kinda wanted to know what u thought - would steve's knowledge of the old bucky affect their relationship so negatively that bucky would be happier alone/with people unfamiliar with who he was before (sorry for the rambling question)
Thank you lovely for the very interesting ask! I love these kind of hypotheticals!
First and foremost, don't ever let anyone convince you that you're only allowed to ship one pairing. A lot of people DO only ship one ship, and kudos to them, but you are not a bad fan if you want to ship Bucky with multiple people. Heck, I got into Stucky via Sambucky, and uh…anyway, here I am.
The idea that "Bucky stayed away from Steve because he didn't want to be compared to old Bucky" is one of my favourite angsty "loss of innocence" tropes to explore -- because yes, that's going to be one of Bucky's major insecurities after the Winter Soldier. He isn't the same person as before and no matter how hard he tries, he's never going to go back to who he was before.
The absolutely fascinating part, then, is how a fanfic writer decides to address this. So yeah, I can see this as the jumping board for a SamBucky story (or any other non Stucky ship).
But this is also a concept that not only fits in well within the Stucky fanon/narrative, it's also crucial to explore in order to bring the two of them back together. How does Steve accept that Bucky has changed, and how does Bucky come to trust that Steve accepts this changed version of him?
The answer is, for me, this is Steve we're talking about. Steve with all his tenacity and empathy and loyalty. This is Steve who's known Bucky since childhood, who probably knows Bucky better than the current Bucky remembers himself. This is also a Steve has fought one of the bloodiest wars in history. He is young, but he's not naive. The people of his time didn't have the right words for it - but he has seen a lot of mental health issues on the field. He's come out on the other end of the war still believing in the goodness of humans (his "I'm willing to bet I'm not" speech), so I have no doubt he will look at Bucky and see that -- yeah, you've changed, you've had terrible things happen to you for well over half a century, but you are also still the same kind soul that I grew up with, and that kindness is what's most important; I can still see him in you, even if you are different, and I believe you deserve all the love I can give you.
And you know what, there IS canon evidence that Steve believes in Bucky, believes in the goodness that couldn't be burned away with 70 years of brainwashing. Sam saying to Steve - (Bucky) isn't the kind you save and he won't know you - and Steve replying without an ounce of doubt in his voice, "He will." Or Steve going after Bucky to save him from the SIT because "he'd have done the same for me".
I think another crux is that recent gif set - the "I'm following the little guy from Brooklyn" speech. That was a vow - it was Bucky saying "I loved you (platonically/romantically/wte) when you were a poor disabled scruffy kid in the dumps, and I will love you just the same even if you're a buff blue-eyed Adonis." Their story, as always, encircles each other's - it is now Steve's turn to say "I loved you when you were a nerdy protective flirt and I will love you just the same even if you're disabled and scruffy and dealing with horrendous PTSD". I think that vow also highlights just how important Steve was, even at that point, to Bucky, which means…their loyalty will always draw them back to each other. Once Bucky sees Steve has faith in him, he will have faith in himself to rebuild his identity in a way that's true to him.
It really depends on the writer, but most versions I’ve seen in which Steve and Bucky separate (over this issue) write Steve as either obtuse, selfish or emotionally immature…which is not how I read him to be. I think he has the emotional maturity to accept that Bucky will have similarities but will also have stark differences to who he once was...but then, time leaves its mark on everyone it touches, not just Bucky (I kinda touched on that concept on my "Learning to Want" fic *self plug*). It's a rough road and on some days there's going to be more setbacks than progress, and yeah on some days Steve is going to get frustrated and upset and maybe even a little defeatist, but I think both he and Bucky have that tenacious survivor streak in them that will pull them through, especially if they're together.
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mysticsublimeperson · 1 month
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I want to express my frustration because... im trying to write some time travel Merthur fanfic as one does...
and I keep hitting my head against the same wall. Because just in case you didn't know England SUCKED before imperialism and colonialism.
Not that that made it better but, the English isles didn't have a variety of fruits or vegetables, the did have meat and fish and salt I think, but no sugar or way of producing it but honey if I remember correctly.
And admittedly climate change is a pain in the ass, but in medieval times the winters probably consisted in huge blizzards and freezing for 4 months.
They didn't even had tea!!!
All the good stuff its because of colonialism which is horrible for the world but whatever.
Im trying so hard to ignore this facts... to be free and write about silly angsty boys but I needed someone to know how difficult it is.
Because Merlin having lived in a 21 century would have spent since the 16th drinking bloody tea, and now he is back in time and doesn't have tea, doesn't even have sugar, it's a pain in the ass to get milk, and he can't even get his favorites foods because the fruits and vegetables aren't even evolved yet.
BECAUSE YES! All of the greens have suffered a tremendous amount of change because of selective farming!! so even if there were apples back there, they probably wasn't the same apple, probably weren't even half as sweet as they are now a days!
Same with animals, and plants. Many of the species have gone extinct but they existed back then. And im dying for a chance to bring this into the fic, to prove just how difficult the transition it's, but a the same time, it doesn't matter right? not really.
bUT I NEEDED TO VENT A LITTLE SO thank you for listening to my rant.
Also im not even a history girly, im an art babe, so all of this I know by logic and assumptions from my art history clases, and my hyper fixation, so obviously take everything with a grain of salt.
((It's just that I was cooking and I was trying to think which ingredients were available at that time to make the most simple dish but no, there was almost none, no spices, no tomato, I think the had cabbage, and like broccoli because its the same plant, but probably wasn't evolved into all of the different versions we know, they had beans, and lentils I think, the potatoes come from South America, so no potatoes, the had bread but what kind of bread??? sO YEAH, this is my head.. all the time))
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4thelneyj0nes · 2 months
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Okay I've been told no one's made a post about this, so I'm doing a write-up: The Murphy's Law Saga
OR how John "podcast" Watson will probably record a podfic of a popular S&Co fanfiction.
A few weeks ago, in the Sherlock and Co. patron discord, a fantastic fanfic called Murphy's Law, written by the lovely @ra-mt got a lot of attention. It's a T rated hurt comfort story about John getting injured on a case, and Sherlock supporting him after the injury.
Originally the fic was on anon, and the server spent a good day and a half deducing the author, because we knew it was someone in the server. Eventually the author was unmasked, and the events were written down in a google doc in case notes format.
Following this, someone sent the documentation of the mystery, along with a link to the fanfic, to John at his email. John loved it and said it was wonderful:
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Thus the fanfic entered discord fandom lore.
John makes occasional appearances in the discord and on one of these occasions he was asked to read the fic aloud, and this was his reply.
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Of course the discord loses its collective marbles and starts a petition to have John read Murphy's Law. At around 100 signatures someone asked John how many signatures they'd need for him to read the fic and he replied:
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This morning someone asked John when he was likely to read Murphy's Law and he replied with this
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All this to say you should sign the Murphy's Law petition.
It's likely to happen anyway, but I thought it would be nice to make a post to get as many signatures as we can, and also to record this moment in fandom history, in whatever way it plays out. Once there's an update I'll edit this post to include the additions.
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