#its just a soup of cheesy romance tropes cherry-picked from Stories I Like

[bananonbinary]

Would you mind to share your Jonmartin Guys and Dolls AU daydreams?

its deeply silly and borderline cracky, and mostly half formed, but sure lmao

im thinking about jon as sky and martin as [i cant fuckin remember the love interest's name oops], except jon is a bit more of a mix of sky and nathan.

jon is lonely and prickly, and after an argument with tim is all “oh yeah, as if human relationships are sooo difficult, i could have a date if i wanted, maybe i just think its all a waste of time” and tim’s like. “wow okay rude, i could stop this trainwreck, OR i could be petty and let you crash and burn here” so: the Bet is made. if jon can actually take out someone of tim’s choosing and show them a genuinely good time, tim will pay for the Thing jon’s been trying to fund raise for entirely out of his own pocket. actually maybe its not really tim promising the money. i dont want to paint him as the asshole. maybe tim and jon have the argument, and fucking elias just butts in out of nowhere like “lets make this interesting gentlemen” because he’s a Rich Creep like that. also elias is definitely a 1920s gangster because thats fucking hilarious.

martin and jon Do Not like each other. i think martin is trying to save a failing library with a super conservative head or something (his mother perhaps?), because running with the original not-salvation army gives me fucking hives, but i do still like the idea of Religious Trauma!martin and will pepper it into all my ideas. this might be shading a bit into music man also. listen i like cheesey romance musicals dont @ me. jon, sticking with his original premise that romance is for fucking losers, is like “listen i need a date for Reasons you dont need to know, if u go on a date with me i’ll bring in so many new patrons” and martin’s thinking “wow okay this guy is a skeevey as fuck pick up artist but shit i do need the help” so out loud he’s like “i hate this, but fine.”

honestly i dont really have much of the rest of it i just think its fun to think about them going on a date together that they’re both sort of stubbornly committed to hating and then being like,,,,oh,,,,,,he is soft actually,,,,,,,,,,,

they have a surprisingly wonderful date, but then martin finds out about the bet and thinks jon was just putting on a nice act so he could win some money and his first impression of “skeevey pick up artist” was actually correct. (jon definitely forgot about the bet like ten minutes into the date when martin smiled at him)

actually i might steal a bit from Drawn To That Sort Of Library Magic by god_commissioned_me just to say that the thing jon needs money for is something super wholesome and important, like an lgbt+ support group, and that’s also the group he’s planning on bringing to the library, but he just. never fuckin mentions what the group actually is to martin so martin’s assuming its some sketchy group based on that first impression, and then he finds out jon is just a regular dude trying to do a Good thing and has to come to terms with the fact that he’s maybe a lil in love now.

i cannot stress enough that no one is deliberately playing with anyone else’s emotions in this version, all parties view the initial date as a purely transactional thing, the messy feelings just happen afterwards.

#this got so long oh my god #lol i said it was half-formed #its just a soup of cheesy romance tropes cherry-picked from Stories I Like #lady-with-a-deathwish #im absolutely not going to write this if anyone else wants to play in the space go nuts #i changed the wording a lil cause i dont want jon to sound arophobic #the point isnt 'man thinks hes above romance' the point is 'man is transparent about how much he wants romance' #he's lonely bc he also holds friends at arm's length. not bc hes currently single.