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inbarfink · 8 months

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So the AA Fandom has no shortage of jokes about how our favorite Anime Laywers generally prioritize stuff like the Power of Friendship above more mundane concerns like 'getting paid for doing their job' but...seriously now, how often do they actually get paid for lawyering?

Well, welcome to...

The Big Overview of WAA Lawyers and Actually Getting Paid!!

The vast majority of AA Cases do not discuss payments for legal services explictly, so I will be Ranking how probable I feel it is the Lawyers got Paid. With a 0 standing for 'explictly and unambigiously did not get paid' and 1 standing for 'explictly and unambigiously did get paid'

The First Turnabout

That's an easy one, it is actually explicitly mentioned that no, Larry did not pay Phoenix for his services as a Lawyer.

And so, my first trial came to a close. Larry slapped me on the back and said, "Gee, Nick, it's good to have friends!" But I'm pretty sure he's not going to pay us. Unless you count the clock he gave Mia.

Which is brought up again months later during 'Turnabout Goodbyes'

Butz: Whoa… Nick. S-so, is that why you helped me out for free? Phoenix: Uh… yes. I helped you because I believed in you. (Except I don't remember saying I'd do it for free…)

So Phoenix expected and wanted to get paid, but he’s just, like, not assertive enough to get his money off Larry. And thus a long legacy of Not Getting Money was born!

Probability of Getting Paid: 0

Turnabout Sisters

Okay, so the subject of money does not come up directly in ‘Turnabout Sisters’ but like… Maya does not seem to have a lot of liquid funds on her at this point. For most of the games she generally relays on Phoenix to pay for things for her. At best right now she is semi-dependent on Morgan for cash - and considering her motivations, she probably came out with some excuse like ‘oooh Mystic Maya must prove her independence in such a dire situation or something, the whole Fey Family is broke we can’t afford to give you any more money I feel so bad ooooh’.

So I think if Phoenix got paid for defending her that was mostly a token symbolic gesture of gratitude more than actually anything that’ll help him pay the rent. And obviously Phoenix wouldn’t gain anything if he paid himself for that second trial of the case lol

Probability of Getting Paid: 0.1

Turnabout Samurai

Okay, so this is the first case where I think it is more likely than not Phoenix Actually Got Paid. There’s nothing textual, but I think with the implications of Phoenix starting the case fretting over how to pay the rent:

Phoenix: A month has passed since my trial. Mia's murder was the talk of the town for some time… But no one paid any attention to the Wright & Co. Law Offices… How am I going to pay the rent this month? Maya: It'll be okay. I'm sure some big client is just around the corner! Phoenix: Hmph.

And THEN his new Client is Will Powers who is:

a fairly sucessful actor whose life and career seems to be unglamorous but financially stable.

the first cilent Phoenix has who isn't a friend, a relative-of-a-friend or Literally Himself

generally just a really nice and wholesome guy.

It seems pretty likely to me that Phoenix and Maya got paid for this one!

Probability of Getting Paid: 0.8

Turnabout Goodbyes

OKAY so, I've seen folks say that Phoenix would've probably done this for free cause he sees this whole thing as repaying a debt for Being Nice to Him in Fourth Grade because as we all know, Phoenix is a Certified Ridiculous Human Being.

Phoenix: This is my chance to finally pay you back. Maya: Pay him back…? Edgeworth: Pay me back? For what? I don't remember ever doing anything for you. Phoenix: Never mind… I guess you don't really need to know.

Buuuuut... Larry at the time was also part of that Class Trial Bestie Pact and Phoenix did expect him to pay I mean Larry is not the Love of His Life but still.

And more important, this case ALSO established that Miles has a problem expressing gratitude and overcompensate using financial gifts.

Phoenix: Thank you. Oh, wait! Umm… I was wondering, how much is bail going to be? Gumshoe: Don't worry about that. Mr. Edgeworth is posting the whole amount. Phoenix: What? Edgeworth…? Gumshoe: Didn't I tell you? He's grateful to her for what she did. Alright, pal. Well don't forget to go pick her up, okay? Phoenix: (Hmm… Maybe I can get Edgeworth to pay this month's rent, too…)

So I feel, like, regardless of what Phoenix wanted - at the end of this trial - Miles IS going to make sure he is GETTING PAID. Dude was probably shoving checks into his mailbox like a full month after the trial concluded.

Probability of Getting Paid: 0.9

Rise from the Ashes

So... the person who initially hires Phoenix to the case is Ema Skye, a 16 year old girl whose main funds are her allowance. And Phoenix was kinda willfully ignoring his financial situation at the start and only took this case for sentimental reasons. (just more evidence that Miles was STILL sending him payments for 'Goodbyes' lol)

It's been two months since Maya left the office… Two months without a single trial. I've had offers… But none I took. That is… until the day that girl showed up.

However he does get 'formally requested' by her probably-well-off-considering-prosecutors-in-this-series older sister shortly thereafter.

Lana: … Mr. Wright? Phoenix: Y-yes? Lana: I believe our discussion here is ended. The rest… I leave to you. Phoenix: …! Um… you mean, you're requesting my services as your defense? Lana: Don't lose any sleep over it. Your client has confessed, after all. The case is over. Phoenix: Right… I'll do what I can to get to the bottom of this. Lana: …

And after a very long and harrowing journey of being in-conflict with his own client, Lana did end up being very grateful for what he did. And again, this case espacially emphasizes that 'prosecutors make the big bucks' - so she had both the means and will to pay him.

Probability of Getting Paid: 0.6

The Lost Turnabout

Alrighty, so, Maggey is generally a nice girl and also a fangirl of Phoenix Wright and that gives her an incentive to support him financially...

Actually, I really love to watch court proceedings, and I always root for you to win! When I'm off duty, I like to come here and…

But with how unlucky she is, that might imply that she could have Money Troubles. Although on the other hand she at least has a stable job at the moment... But on the other OTHER hand she does mention how all the other lawyers 'laughed her off'

Just when I thought all hope was lost; when all the other lawyers had laughed me off… "Leave it to me!" you said! You! The one and only Phoenix Wright came to save the day! And just like that, I was moved to tears, sir! I'll never forget what you're doing for me, EVER!

Which usually I wouldn't note as a financial thing. Usually when an AA Defendant is like 'oooh I have no one else to turn too, all the other lawyers turned me down......" this is because the case is considered too impossible to win or Unbearably Wacky (or some sort of conspiracy like with Maya in 'Sisters'). But, like, this is a Tutorial Case. Phoenix won that one with Fucking Amnesia. The 'impossibility' of the case was not the issue, so, yeah, it might legitimately be the money?

Probability of Getting Paid: 0.4

Reunion, and Turnabout

It's Maya Murder Trial Time Again! Pretty much the same as before with the two added factors being:

Maya is now officially employed in the Wright & Co. Law Offices during the duration of the trial.

AFTER the Trial, when Morgan is like, in jail - Maya might have a bit more acess to her family funds. Although they are established to Not Be Doing Well Financially in general....

A piece of cloth with a ton of finely-written characters jammed onto it. Probably esoteric knowledge only mediums should know. …Hmm, let's see… Here's one in English… It says… "100 Ways to Save Money". … Being a medium sounds like a rough way of life…

I think all in all these kinda even out to the same Chances of Getting Paid at last time??

Probability of Getting Paid: 0.1

Turnabout Big Top

So if you ever start discussing how pointless the AA 'middle cases' are - just remember this one crucial detail; they are the most reliable way Phoenix Wright gets food on his plate! We once again have a stranger (that Phoenix won't feel obligated to defend for free) that is very explictly Fabulously Wealthy.

He's not as nicey-nice as Will Powers is but I feel like paying Phoenix's legal fees is not something Max will bet an eye at.

Phoenix: It's a table for guests… There are some papers scattered on top. Maya: Ah! Look at this! Max's salary is written on this piece of paper. YIKES! Phoenix: W-What is it? Maya: I didn't know a magician… This salary is incredible! Phoenix: (She looks like she's about ready to pass out from shock…) How much is it!? How much is it!? T-T-THAT MUCH!? Maya: Incredible, huh? Phoenix: You can say that again.

Probability of Getting Paid: 0.7

Farewell, My Turnabout

Okay so this is the Big One. This one’s a really complicated one to determine.

Let’s just get the first thing out of the way, the fact that Phoenix “”lost”” the case does not matter one way or another. Criminal Defense Lawyers, as a general rule, do not work on a Contingency Fee Basis. That means they are paid regardless of the result of the trial. So if this was a normal trial, Phoenix would probably be paid.

But this was not a normal trial, was it?

Phoenix was FORCED to work as a Defense Attorney due to a KIDNAPPER. And, like, my first instinct is ‘if you are already forcing someone to work via criminal means, why the hell would you also pay them??’

Buuuuut….. This is MY instinct, not the instinct of goddam Shelly De Killer.

Since Shelly’s whole thing is being the Honorable Assassin, and he has some level of respect towards Phoenix as like a Fellow Professional. I can see him thinking maybe wanting Phoenix to get paid for the work he is Coercing Him To Do Under Threat of Murdering His Best Friend for the sake of Honor.

But also also, Phoenix’s terms are not officially with De Killer, it’s with This Asshole!

And Matt Engarde is absolutely the kind of guy to casually take advantage of Phoenix’s frantic ‘please please just let me be your lawyer or my Friend is gonna Die!’ thing where, like, obviously getting paid is NOT gonna cross through Phoenix’s head atm in order to not pay/severely underpay the guy even though he can obviously afford it.

All in all, things are not looking good for this case’s probability, which is a shame considering how it ends.

Powers: Um, anyway… So, who's paying for this lovely dinner party? Maya: As if you need to ask! Everyone say, "Thank you" to Nick! Phoenix: Huh? Gumshoe: Ah, yeah… I'm kinda at the point where I can't even buy instant noodles, pal. So I kinda already put your name on the bill.

Probability of Getting Paid: 0.3

Turnabout Memories

First time covering a Lawyer that’s not Phoenix!

Now, Mia’s client in this case is a college student who probably doesn't have tons of personal funds, and considering her own motivations for taking on the case she probably would’ve done it for free but…

At the time she was employed at the Grossberg Law Offices, and Phoenix hired just the office in general and then Mia took over the case just last night.

Grossberg: Still, you surprised me… What, with your earnest request last night… "Let me handle this case!" you suddenly said. And quite forcefully, too! Mia: I just found out yesterday. About the case, I mean.

So... really this is just the Vibes I get from the Grossberg Law Offices, being generally the more professional and by-the-book law offices compared to the utter chaotic energy of Wright and Co, that makes me assume that they usually reliably charge their clients and pay their lawyers.

There’s some evidence further down the line (which we’ll get to soon) that some of their lawyers do some pro-bono work - but I dunno if Phoenix’s case was extreme enough to necessitate that (I mean he might be a broke college student but his family would probably help him with the legal funds although that assumes they even exist) . So my assumption is that Mia probably did get paid. Probably?

Probability of Getting Paid: 0.75

The Stolen Turnabout

So, Ron DeLite used to really financially struggle to keep up with his wife’s shopaholic habits - but that seems to have stabilized ever since his ‘benefactor’ showed up. So I’d assume he still has some funds left to pay his lawyer. I mean I guess it won’t be totally implausible if Desiree did manage to blow through them all…. Or maybe being a a high-spending shopaholic means that she’d want to pay extravagantly for her lawyer as well?

Probability of Getting Paid: 0.7

Recipe for Turnabout

It’s Maggey again! And now she’s:

Closer to a friend, or at least a friend-of-friend. Rather than Just Another Client.

Is probably in a more dire financial state than before, on account of being unemployed and also in jail for the last two months.

Also being a waitress isn’t that prestigious a job anyways

And if anyone is gonna help her cover her legal fees it could only be Gumshoe which… does not bode well to anyone involved!

Pissed at Phoenix cause it took her some time to realize that no, that guy who got her found guilty two months ago is not him

So basically everything that changed since her last trial makes it less likely that Phoenix charged for his legal services. I'm sure she'd try her best by the end, but Phoenix might just wave it off to save everyone a headache.

Probability of Getting Paid: 0.3

Turnabout Beginnings

So first things first I want to reiterate that Criminal Defense Attorneys generally get paid regardless of if they ‘win’ and while I couldn’t find any concrete statements about the matter - I believe they get paid even if their clients die mid-trial??? I mean, the legal fees just get added to their posthumous debts? So the lawyer would hypothetically be able to claim their due payment from the deceased’s remaining funds and possessions. If they wanted to, that is…

Cause, well, this is why I said the Grossberg Law Offices might do some pro-bono cases. Terry Fawles was, like, a part-time tutor who has been incarcerated for the last five years. If he has any family or friends outside that could help him with his legal fees, he never mentions them.

So I’m really not sure if he bought Mia services or if she volunteered to do this pro-bono after hearing he had no options for legal representations out of concern for, like, prisoners rights.

And even if he was supposed to pay Mia for her service, after the grim ending of the case - I’m not sure if she would’ve even tried to pursue getting her legal fees from Fawles’ posthumously/from his next of kin. From how deeply traumatized she was by that trial, I think that would’ve only made her feel worse about the whole situation.

Probability of Getting Paid: 0.05

Bridge to the Turnabout

Iris is a nun from a small temple that is mentioned to not-be-doing-so-hot (cause it’s tied with the Kurain Channeling Technique and it’s been on a downturn since DL-6), but she does have at least enough personal funds to have her own cell-phone and occasionally go into town. So it’s not a lot, but I think it’s enough to get Phoenix at least a a symbolic token-of-gratitude payment.

Also, it might be possible Phoenix will wave off the fees due to the Personal Connection to the case. You know, he was doing this primarily to Uncover the Truth and get some personal closure for the Dahlia mess.... Or maybe not, cause he did still get paid (or tried to get paid, or forced to get paid) to save his two Fourth-Grade-Life-Debt Childhood Best Friends in court?

(And I do mean just Phoenix, Miles probably would never charge for his services as ‘acting defense attorney’, we don’t need that farce to get any farcier)

Probability of Getting Paid: 0.3

Turnabout Trump

Now this is a complicated one, let us list the factors here one-by-one:

1. As per Apollo’s comment in the next episode, the Gavin Law Offices probably operated strictly quid pro quo.

(Good-bye, quid pro quo. Hello pro bono. sigh)

2. Phoenix is supposedly friends with the boss of the Agency. And in reality, Kritoph Gavin has a very VERY vested interest in making sure the trial goes According to Plan. Incentivising him to at least give Phoenix a discount.

3. Phoenix is also not doing that great financially right now.

4. Oh right, that entire law agency disbanded once the boss got arrested at the end of the trial!

…Speaking of which, I may be out of a job. I work for Gavin Law Offices, after all. (I still can't believe I just saw Mr. Gavin get led away in handcuffs…)

I think it is most likely that Phoenix got some sort of “”Friend”” Discount from Kristoph. But I really don’t know what happens if an entire law firm gets disbanded right after the trial cause the owner got arrested as a result of it. It probably depends on whether Phoenix was in agreement with the Gavin Law Offices who then assigned Apollo on the case or if Phoenix had an agreement with Apollo directly.

Probability of Getting Paid: 0.5

Turnabout Corner

Oh hey, look! Another rare case of an Ace Attorney that actually discusses the issue of money directly!

Well, I mean we know how much Apollo got paid for solving the case of Phoenix’s accident and Trucy’s panties (nothing) and for solving Eldoon’s Noodle Cart Theft (a free bowl of ramen). We don’t see them directly discuss the subject of payment regarding Apollo’s Actual Job…

Apollo: Your request… let me guess, something's been stolen? Alita: Um, your flyer… It says "now defending" so I thought… Apollo: Whaaaat!? You mean, you mean you want me to defend you? Me? Trucy: Maybe you can tell us what happened? Were you hit by a car? Did someone steal your stand? Or your panties? Alita: No! No… I'm not the client, actually. The client would be my… well, my fiancé, I suppose you'd call him. Apollo: Fiancé…? What happened to him, then? Alita: He was arrested this morning. The charge… was murder.

But as he was complaining before about not only being pigeonholed as some sort of a detective, but also not getting paid for anything…

Um… I was wondering when I get paid? We solved the case of your accident, and um, found a missing article of clothing.

And then getting this job and being so happy about it...

Trucy: Polly! You look as happy as a clam in its shell. Apollo: For a lawyer this is it, the place where the battle begins!

Implies that He’s Getting Paid - just as much as with Phoenix’s rent stuff in ‘Turnabout Samurai’ if not more.

Also, I don’t think the fact that the person who hired him wanted him to fail and is now going to prison is a factor here.

As I already mentioned, Defense Attorneys get paid regardless of the outcome of a trial and logically that would apply both when they lose and when they win. Plus, I am pretty sure Alita filed her request officially through Wocky’s name or the Kitaki family in general and they were obviously very grateful for what Apollo did, and they had both the wins and wills to pay him.

So let’s give a big round of applause for Apollo Justice, the WAA Lawyer most likely to get paid!

Probability of Getting Paid: 0.99

Turnabout Serenade

These kind of showbiz-focused Middle Cases are generally pretty good for Getting Paid Probabilities, but this case is a bit more complicated.

Cause the plot of this case hinges on Machi being so desperate for money that he was willing to risk death via cocoon smuggling,

Situation… I cannot explain. But money. I needed. Very much money.

That doesn’t necessarily mean he was unable to afford a lawyer - without details of why exactly he needed that Sweet, Sweet Cocoon Money we can’t be sure. But it’s plausible that hiring Apollo was not out of his price range but he was desperate for something far more expensive.

Considering his young age and… you know, until the final day of the trial he pretended to not understand a word of English, it’s also possible hiring Apollo was a matter handled by Lamirior and/or the duo’s agency. Both of which will probably feel committed to Actually Paying, each from their own angle.

Probability of Getting Paid: 0.7

Turnabout Succession

Now, HERE’S a complicated one!

Going generally over the usual stuff, Vera is a pretty nice person and she’s clearly grateful for what Apollo and Trucy did for her. And while the Misham Family was driven into forgeries by financial desperation, at the present-time they seem stable enough that Vera could at least afford the rates of the WAA. If this was just another case, it’ll get like a solid 0.7 at minimum. Pretty typical stuff by now.

But this isn’t just one more ordinary case. This a weird sort of ‘Test Trial’ for the Jurist System with every factor - including the Defendant and the Attorney - arranged by Phoenix’s weird little committee.

Well, for one, I'll be chair of the Jurist System Simulated Court Committee. The chair constructs the ideal situation… choosing the case, the jurist candidates… …even the judge and the courtroom.

Apollo: So… what kind of case is the trial simulation about? Phoenix: Well, since it is the first run through of a new system, I wanted something simple. Trucy: Good thinking! No sense wearing yourself out on something too serious! Phoenix: True. The case is a murder. Apollo: That's not simple at all!! Trucy: By "simple", did you mean that the defendant is… Phoenix: …Guilty. Yes. Most likely. …So, good luck, Apollo. Apollo: Um… with what? Phoenix: With the trial tomorrow. You're defending, of course. Recall that I said it had something to do with you.

So I guess the question here, did Phoenix basically make Vera officially hire Apollo? Did the committee hire Apollo and they’re the one paying him? Is this another case of Phoenix trolling Apollo into doing Free Volunteer Work for him?

Honestly I wouldn’t put that past the AA4 version of Phoenix..............but also if he did that I doubt he would’ve missed a chance to crack a joke at Apollo’s expense about that.

...You know, I started this thread of thought with the thought I’m arguing for a lower Getting Paid score for this case but I think I just talked myself into increasing the probability.

Probability of Getting Paid: 0.8

Also bonus round: THE TRIAL OF SHADI ENIGMAR!

Zero fucking chances Phoenix got paid on this one. HIS CLIENT DISAPPEARED IN THE MIDDLE OF THE COURT PROCEEDING! And even if Phoenix gets paid before a trial is concluded (unlikely, since he didn’t know Larry wasn’t paying him until after the case was closed), he was his attorney for like half-a-day before he disappeared so wouldn’t have much of a chance either way. And considering Zak’s character (and how he also tried to sabotage Phoenix’s current Poker-based career seven years after that), I doubt he put that much thought into Phoenix and his financial considerations to give him a down payment in case he had to to do his disappearnce act or whatever. The only thing Zak left Phoenix with when he left was his goddam abandoned child and ONE LESS BADGE!

So I think this case deserves a very special score!

Probability of Getting Paid: -1

Turnabout Countdown

It’s time for Athena’s first case! Or second case, depending on how you look at it.

Now, one of the major ways that Dual Destinies is gonna shake this Deep Serious Analysis up is that before we had, like, one Active Full-Time Lawyer at any time (maybe with a backup lawyer for Flashback Cases), and we now have Three Different Lawyers actively working together on the same cases. My main concern is primarily not which WAA Lawyers get paid for these cases, but IF any of them got paid at all. Still, shenanigans of cases changing hands officially and unofficially are gonna play a factor in my analysis as well.

And it’s here right from the start! We once again have a Lawyer defending their bestest friend in the whole world, and while some people’s instincts might suggest that means that Defense was for free, well… First things first, we already established Precedence for that back in the first trial of the first game with Larry (not for Lawyers getting paid by their friends, but at least expecting payment) and Juniper’s family is probably doing Just Fine considering she attends this super-fancy-pant prestigious Lawyer High School - so she would want to financially support Athena I would think.

And ALSO, Juniper technically didn’t hire Athena, Apollo was the one supposed to defend Junie in court at first. And although Juniper is… growing closer to Apollo at this point in canon, I don't think it's quite the ‘defend me in court for Free’ point of their relationship, compared to where Juniper and Athena are at. So this is just, like, one extra point to the Final Score!

Probability of Getting Paid: 0.7

The Monstrous Turnabout

So in this episode, we actually have two different jobs we need to make sure if Apollo actually got paid for. We have the actual criminal defense case, and we also have Babysitting Trucy.

Trucy: Oh, we'd better hurry. Doesn't look Daddy's going to make it, so let's get going. Apollo: Huh? Where are we going? What about the job he mentioned? Trucy: This IS the job, Polly! You're supposed to keep me company today! Now, come on! Apollo: Another day of not being a lawyer. Should've seen this coming. Trucy: Well, this is the "Wright ANYTHING Agency," y'know. And there's no law-related work at the moment, so… Apollo: (Tell me again why I chose to "work" here?) Where is Mr. Wright, anyway?

That being said, Phoenix might still be a bit of a troll but the WAA is doing a lot better financially now that Trucy has those Sweet Gramarye rights and he’s not quite as mean to Apollo as he was back in Hobomode. So I get a feeling that even with this little runaround, Apollo is probably at least getting paid for chaperoning Trucy around?? Probably?

The actual case is actually a lot more clear cut. It is directly mentioned that Damian Tenma could probably afford lawyers much more prestigious than the WAA, it’s just a matter of the WAA being the only ones crazy enough to take on this ‘doomed’ case.

Trucy: Apollo! Maybe this is your chance. Apollo: Chance for what? Trucy: To do the right thing and defend Jinxie's dad in court! Apollo: Who, me? Wouldn't a man like Mayor Tenma have access to more experienced lawyers? Jinxie: Umm… You wanna know what the detectives said? They doubted there was a lawyer who could get a not-guilty verdict in this one.

And with Mayor Tenma’s personality being based around being almost overly-generous and grateful…

Tenma: How… incredibly… RUDE! Apollo: Umm, sorry. Did I do something to offend you? Tenma: A visitor when all others shun me like a common criminal! And here I am with nothing to offer! I am the epitome of rude! Apollo: (………Wait, so he wasn't mad at me?)

I feel like it is almost a certainty that Apollo and Athena did get paid for this case!

Probability of Getting Paid: 0.85

Turnabout Academy

Okay so, it’s Junie again! Or Junie for the first time depending on how you look at it!

So all of the points I already brought up about Juniper from ‘Countdown’ still apply (save for the stuff about Apollo, of course) but ALSO this is right when Athena and Juniper reunited and their whole emotional arc in this case is about Athena feeling Juniper is being Uncharacteristically Cold and Distant towards her. So defending her on a Friend Discount would be a bit strange at this point. Maybe I can see Athena trying to insist she’d do it for free but Juniper refused?

Although I think that IS a bit weird that they had this big whole scene with Professor ScaryStatue taking over Juniper’s case and the issue of payment doesn’t even come up in passing. I mean, yes obviously, the issues of Trust and Truth and Aristotle Means being Sus as Fuck are the important things in this narrative but I’m suprised there’s not even a mention in passing. Like Means accusing Athena and Apollo of wanting this case back for the Money but they refute him???

Probability of Getting Paid: 0.8

The Cosmic Turnabout

Okay, look, I know I keep bringing up the Larry Precedence but it really IS quite relevant. If Actual Overly-Sentimental Human Disaster Phoenix Wright tried to charge a rate for his childhood best friend who was drifting through life doing weird odd jobs at that time. - Then Apollo, who is generally more practical minded, is probably going to charge a rate for his older acquaintance with the stable Astronaut Job. And while Solomon is a bit of a Space Larry, I don’t think he’d try and avoid the payment in quite the same way. Probably.

Probability of Getting Paid: 0.7

Turnabout for Tomorrow

This trial has Phoenix defending one of his own employees in a trial forced on by a hostage situation. I feel silly even extending this paragraph any longer.

Probability of Getting Paid: 0.01

Turnabout Reclaimed

First things first, yes, an Orca cannot pay for an attorney - but I assume that the person who hired Phoenix is officially Sasha Buckler. Who IS a human being with her own funds capable of hiring a lawyer. Especially as we know that other lawyers turned her down specifically because her case is ridiculous (and not for financial reasons).

Phoenix: What's the real reason you picked me, Sasha? Buckler: …Well, to be honest, I asked a whole slew of lawyers, but they all refused. They said stuff like, "There's no merit to taking your case," or "I'm not sure I can help." They're all as cruel as sharks, with hearts punier than whitebait!

She does mention doing a performance as thanks at the ending of the trial but that’s probably no replacement for Actual Money.

But I think most notable for our analysis about this case, is not actually any of the Orca stuff - it’s this exchange right here.

Blackquill: Today, the orca. Tomorrow, Sasha Buckler. You intend to save them both? Hmph. You say you "believe" in your clients, but isn't money really your true motivation? Why not admit you're only doing this for your own benefit? I could understand that much more readily than your empty, righteous talk. Athena: Our own benefit?! That's not why we're doing it! Phoenix: Now, Athena. Try not to let him get to you.

Yet another rare case of the game Acknowledging Lawyers Are Paid As a General Rule! And notably, when Phoenix and Athena deny it, they don’t deny the fact that they are getting paid - just that it’s not why they’re doing this. This is not exactly an explicit confirmation of Getting Paid to get the score up to a full 1, but it’s probably as close as we’re gonna get.

Probability of Getting Paid: 0.95

The Foreign Turnabout

Okay, so Phoenix basically just bursted into the Courtroom and bluffed his way onto the empty defense bench despite the protests of his own so-called Client. Said client also only started unlearning his Defense-Attorney-Hate during that same trial. And is ALSO a tiny little child who has to work part time as a tour-guide to make end’s meet. I highly doubt Phoenix asked for anything more than, like, a very token rate or maybe a discount on his next tour.

Probability of Getting Paid: 0.1

The Magical Turnabout

Considering how this case has a WAA Lawyer defending the actual CEO of the WAA, I highly doubt the WAA got any money from it. But maybe Trucy could give him some of her personal funds as a token of gratitude?

Probability of Getting Paid: 0.2

The Rite of Turnabout

It’s MAYA TIME again! And while some consideration has to go to her bond with Phoenix or the possibility of some sort of Frequent Accused card the WAA issued for her - the fact that she is not currently a Coworker at the law office and has been an Actual Independent Adult for quite some time now means it is actually a lot more likely she’s able to pay Phoenix now than in any case in the Original Trilogy!

Probability of Getting Paid: 0.5

Turnabout Storyteller

This one’s a pretty average case. The Defendant is not a total stranger, but he is more of a friend-of-a-friend (and Simon was originally planning to get Apollo or Phoenix into the courtroom so the connection was even more distant when he contacted the WAA). He seems to be doing alright financially with his own noodle business, and he’s a pretty alright kinda guy. The only possible concern is that he’s too totally slushed to remember he’s supposed to pay his attorney. But then again, Simon might be ‘officially’ the one who hired the lawyer for the case.

Probability of Getting Paid: 0.6

Turnabout Revolution

It’s time for the THREE CASES IN ONE SPECIAL!! Because we don’t just need to consider Dhurke’s trial, I think it’s only appropriate that we take into account both Apollo and Phoenix’s side of the civil case. They are both WAA Lawyers, after all.

On Apollo’s side, he is defending Datz Are'bal, an escaped prisoner/wanted revolutionary criminal in his own country hiding away in an abandoned building and making homemade lizard skewers for food- but Datz did apparently enter Japanifornia legally via legitimate means.

Apollo: What are the charges this time? Datz: Unauthorized entry, or something like that. They think I'm an illegal alien! And I can't prove otherwise ‘cause I lost my passport! Trucy: Is there any way they'd let you go? Datz: Not without my passport… If only I had it! Dhurke, AJ! You gotta find my passport! Apollo: …All right, we'll find it. (One more thing to add to our to-do list. Now, where might Datz's passport be?)

So he presumably has some sort of funds to pay Apollo for his legal services, at least a little bit.

And with him being Dhurke’s best friend and knowing that he also struggled financially to make end’s meet as a defense attorney at first - I would like to think that’ll incentivise him to support Apollo financially if he can?

Probability of Getting Paid: 0.7

Meanwhile on Phoenix’s side, while Phoenix uses the word ‘hire’ when talking about working for Atishon. Phoenix was once again coerced via kidnapping into the position of attorney.

And THIS time, there is no Assassin with a Code of Honor who might consider paying Phoenix a fair rate. Both Atishon and his ‘benefactor’ are sleazeballs who would not pay Phoenix a dime if they can get away with it. Plus, with this being a civil case, there might actually be a Contingency Basis going on when Phoenix basically quit and then they lose.

Probability of Getting Paid: 0.001

And finally, the grand event of this case - the Trial of Dhurke!

So… Can a summoned undead spirit pay for an attorney? I suppose it’s probably easier in Khura'in than in other places. And it’ll mostly work the same as if the client died before the case finished, right? It’ll be considered a debt to be carried by their next of kin. Who in this case will be Nahyuta… but also maybe Apollo? Still, considering all of Dhurke’s living family ranges between ‘wealthy and well-respected’ and ‘Literal Royalty’ - I’m going to assume they’d be more than happy then to pay their Weird Brother for his help.

Probability of Getting Paid: 0.75

Turnabout Time Traveler

And here we are! The last case, and a relatively straightforward one at that - at least compared to the last one lol!

Ellen herself does not have many funds as a housemaid, it seems - but since she literally just married one of the richest inventors in the world, I assume her husband is gonna cover the legal fees. The WAA Legal Team and Also Edgeworth and Ema also got an invite to the Wedding but I assume this is not instead of actual payment?

That is, of course, unless it’s technically Larry who hired Phoenix actually.

Then he’s never getting the goddam money he deserves for his labor.

Probability of Getting Paid: 0.7

Average Probability Score for All Cases (not counting the Zak Bonus Round): 0.51721875

So what have we learned today? I think that while the WAA’s reputation for basically giving away legal services for free is not entirely unearned, it is perhaps somewhat exaggerated. While there’s certainly a lot of Shennanigans and their rates are probably not high (especially not for people they know), they still get paid for a decent amount of high-profile cases. I mean, this Getting Paid Probability Score is over the 50% mark at least....

And… the odd thing is that the First Turnabout really is the only time the subject of the lawyer getting paid is really brought up directly. I get that it might, y’know, ruin the Drama if we acknowledge that our Brave Heroes are getting paid to save people from being convicted of a crime they didn’t commit - or on the other hand of the equation, that they should get paid cause They Need Money to Live. But still…

Is the fact that the only time payment is brought up directly is when Larry isn’t paying Phoenix a bad sign for the general financial situation of our Anime Lawyers? Or is it actually a good sign? Like, that they only mention Larry not paying implying that every time it is not mentioned that means the client did pay them?

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oniikabuto · 1 year

Text

one bed!

-- sfw --

characters: kyle broflovski, kenny mccormick, stan marsh, eric cartman

a/n: i did this for a different fandom like a year ago. i love the one bed trope i just had to write a new one for south park....,,, lmk if you want part 2

notes: fluff yayyy; gn reader; characters have a fat crush on you live laugh mutual pining;

guys requests are very much open rigjt now pleasseeeekksflkdfnkjs

— ⛧ k. broflovski

sweetest guy. he doesn't want to take your bed, but you insist.

he also hangs his jacket on the door and keeps his hat neatly on your desk... which is kinda funny and cute that he tries so hard to be neat

freezes up and goes red when you slide into the bed next to him. poor boy is about to melt.

"dude why are you so sweaty are you okay"

"huh- what? yeah, yeah it's cool i'm fine it's..,,,,,,,"

wakes up with a puddle of drool and a wet cheek. he panics and wipes his face and looks over to see if you're awake. you pretend you aren't for kyle's sake. he's so cute.

his nose also does that stupid whistley thing it's so funny

a relatively still sleeper. he just kinda curls up and.. sleeps. sometimes he murmurs something in his sleep.

"cartman.. shut up..",

"what?", you murmur groggily.

"no"

"kyle??? are you awake??"

(no response)

genuinely cannot remember any of that when he wakes up.

— ⛧ k. mccormick

it's like 1am and you turn off the movie as the credits roll.

when you look over at kenny, he looks like a baby that had just woken up.

"dude, what time is it..", he murmurs.

"um.. late." you definitely did not mean to have him over for so long.

"do you wanna go home, or like.. stay with me?"

kenny perks up immediately when you offer to let him spend the night. huge, shit-eating grin spread across his face.

"dumbass", you laugh. but you kinda wanted him over, too.

he sits in your room and pokes at all of your plushies while he waits for you to go get a change of clothes for him. ("no way you're sleeping in that eyesore of a parka!")

almost faints when you change your shirt in front of him

youre the only person that can fluster him like that.

sleeps curled up like a little car

(I MEANT TO TYPE CAT BUT THATS REALLY FUCKING FUNNY)

makes funny noises

like when a dog is sleeping

you'll wake up with his face in your chest and he'll swear it was an accident. it was not

— ⛧ s. marsh

you were at your desk doing homework and stan was on your bed on his phone, both doing your own thing as music played from your speaker.

it's not until that last math problem that you realize it's late. really, really late. you look over at stan, and he's face-down dead asleep on your bed, phone still in one hand.

you don't want to wake him up and tell him to go home, so instead you take his hat off and leave it on your bedpost.

he's splayed across the bed right in the middle.

how?? are you supposed to move him???

after a moment of deliberation, you hold your breath and roll him over, praying he doesn't wake up.

he does obviously

"ow..???? y/n??"

"shit. sorry. it's late, just go back to sleep. you can walk home tomorrow morning."

"wha- okay"

he's too tired to object

plus he secretly loves being in your bed. it smells like you

snores and breathes kinda funny once in a while

no matter how still he looks when you get into the bed with him, somehow you wake up with his limbs sprawled out like a spider.

in the morning, his leg is on top of you and his hand is on your face.

— ⛧ e. cartman

actually such a bitch about staying over

he definitely tried to distract you so that he would HAVE to spending the night

he just loves spending time with you but he doesnt wanna ask :(

"but the couch will make my back stiff! i'll be soo sore in the morning!"

"just say you want to sleep in my room with me, cartman."

"whaat?? if you insist, i guess!"

makes himself absolutely at home. if you want to sleep in your own bed, you'll have to sleep on top of him or touching him.

he definitely does that on purpose

as much as it pains you to admit it, cartman is actually like really really comfortable.

even if he's squishing you to death

and he claims he has no idea he does that in his sleep

smells like a dove soap bar or like. baby shampoo and its actually really nice

snores like a monster truck engine

leaves his shit all over the floor but also offers to help clean up to impress you

(he cant clean for shit but at least he tried??)

#south park x reader #eric cartman x reader #cartman x reader #south park fluff #fluff #kenny x reader #stan x reader #stan marsh #stan marsh x reader #kyle broflovski #kyle broflovski x reader #kenny mccormick #kenny mccormick x reader #cartman fluff #kyle broflovski fluff #stan marsh fluff #kenny fluff #kenny mccormick fluff #south park

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bambithewriter · 11 days

Text

M. - Ma karyu, ma tutepe

Lo’ak(21) x female omatikaya reader(22)

Adult Lo’ak pic is made by the amazing Cinetrix💗

Summary: In which the Sully family returns after staying with the Metkayina for seven years. Lo'ak isn't the same teenage boy he was before leaving the Omatikaya clan. He returns a man, a fully grown Metkayina warrior. Now, he must learn the ways of an Omatikaya warrior and pass his rite of passage. Who else can teach him other than one of Omatikya's finest warriors?

Content: MDNI, 18+, angst, fluff, smut, student/teacher trope, reader is the "golden girl" of the clan, Lo'ak is known as a “badboy” due to his rebelliousness

A/N: A part of the Avatar fandom wishes for fics that have more than just smut. I thought that with the relative small amount of Lo'ak fics I'd start a series that not only includes smut but also angst and fluffy moments. This idea has been in my head for awhile and I'm so excited for this. This will be my first time writing a series so it will be a new experience. I am in love with the title. It translates: My teacher, my woman…

Taglist: Let me know If you wish to be added🤎

Chapters:

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

#lo’ak x reader #lo'ak sully #lo'ak te suli tsyeyk'itan #lo'ak sully x reader #lo'ak avatar #lo'ak x fem!reader #atwow #atwow x reader #lo'ak smut #lo’ak avatar #atwow lo’ak #lo’ak x you #avatar the way of water #atwow x y/n #atwow loak

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toast-the-unknowing · 4 months

Text

on fanfic plagiarism

Almost five years ago, in January of 2019, someone I'd never met before reached out to tell me that one of my Pynch fics, "Word on the Street," had been plagiarized.

I remember that the stolen fic was posted in k-pop fandom, though not what specific band it related to -- I'm not into k-pop, or really into pop music at all.

I remember that the person who messaged me told me that they had found my fic because the plagiarist had a reputation for stealing fic, so when they'd posted a new story, this person had known to do some digging.

I don't remember what the plagiarist's username was. I remember scanning the stolen story, trying both to read every detail and to avoiding taking any of it in, because looking at that right-but-wrong, not-quite-there, uncanny-valley-ness of it made me queasy.

I remember being darkly amused that the plagiarist had cut out the reference to the main character suffering physical abuse at the hands of his father -- I guess it didn't make sense in the context of the new character. It's almost like the story wasn't written for him. It's almost like someone wrote the story about Adam Parrish, instead.

I filed an AO3 complaint, on the grounds that this was a blatant and unarguable violation of their plagiarism policy. Within twenty-four hours, they got back to me, and the story was removed.

It was a weird, uncomfortable, gross feeling, knowing someone had taken words I'd written and passed them off as their own.

But at the same time -- "Word on the Street" was a silly thing I dashed off pretty quickly, during a period of my life when I was doing a lot of writing. It hurt to have it stolen. It was a violation. But…I had other words, that were more important to me. Maybe that was a buffer.

Last month, about six weeks ago, someone I'd never met before reached out to tell me that one of my Pynch fics, "there's talk going 'round this town," had been plagiarized.

I was, bizarrely, amused.

I was less bizarrely furious. I was understandably, relatably, I would say rationally, furious. But in a way (and as always, when I say in a way, I am calling back to the scholars of overthinkingit.com for whom in a way is meant as the thing I have just said or am about to say is false) -- in a way, I was amused.

The plagiarist clearly did a 'find and replace' on the character names, to replace Adam and Ronan's names with those of k-pop characters. They did a bad job of it, since the name "Ronan" still appears in one paragraph and the name "Parrish" still appears in two paragraphs. The fic is here, in case anyone doesn't believe me, under the name "i do(n't remember)". At first when I complained about the fic on tumblr, I didn't mention the name, or which fic they'd stolen, because I was worried about anyone…I don't know, making a scene. I've stopped caring. AO3 user springguk is bad at find and replace and they should feel bad. About their computer skills, and also about their blatant plagiarism.

springguk also did some more edits to my fic, I have to give them credit for that. I wrote "there's talk going 'round this town" within a relatively short time span, for me. I tend to either finish things within one week, or else take several months. I believe this one took about five or six weeks completely to write -- I was very inspired.

(I was inspired, specifically, by the press coverage of Winona Ryder and Keanu Reeves 'discovering' they might be 'accidentally' married. I mention that in my author's notes. springguk doesn't mention what 'inspired' them in their author's notes. I wonder how they talk about it with friends. They do, in their author's notes, include a link to their ko-fi, and a request that people buy them a coffee.)

If I'd taken longer with this fic, I might have made some edits. Even at the time, I knew I was being self-indulgent in letting the scene with my teenage female OC talk at such length with Ronan about what his non-canonical film career had meant to her, a person the audience didn't care about. But I had fun. I liked Fox. I didn't want to cut her, and what the hell, it was fanfic. I decided to self-indulge.

I was darkly amused to find that springguk did cut out the scene with Fox from their plagiarized version. Maybe springguk is a more disciplined editor than I am. Maybe springguk just didn't have a good k-pop character to map Fox onto. Maybe springguk didn't even realize that Fox was an OC. Do you know anything about the fandom you steal fics from, springguk? I can't help but wonder. Have you read The Raven Cycle? Do you care about teenage OCs who steal cars because of fake films that are clearly meant to be stand-ins for The Fast and the Furious franchise?

Maybe springguk just didn't give a fuck, because none of their heart and soul was poured into this fic. I cared too much about Fox. springguk doesn't care about a single word in the fic they published. Why would they? They didn't write it.

I'm being a little mean in naming them so many times. But I'm able to, this time, because although I filed a plagiarism complaint with AO3 six weeks ago, springguk's stolen fic "i do(n't remember)," is still available to read on AO3 to this very day. I don't have to wrack my brains to remember what their username was, or which k-pop band they recast my work with. I can just look at their fic with its 24 comments and 151 kudos. Hell, maybe that fic is even better than mine, if you don't mind that by cutting the sequence with Fox they've sacrificed a fairly substantial development in the romantic relationship, and also if you don't care that at one point the characters names switch from Jeongguk and Taehyung to Ronan and Parrish, because seriously, for fuck's sake, if you're going to steal a fic at least do a goddamn ctrl+f at the end.

I was mad. I was amused. I made a complaint that the AO3, six weeks later, has still not acted on. I mostly moved on.

Tonight, someone I'd never met before reached out to tell me that one of my Pynch fics, "while we're on the subject, could we change the subject now," had been plagiarized.

I wanted to vomit.

I was supposed to be playing Dungeons and Dragons online with friends tonight; I spent the entire call unable to focus on anything anyone was saying. I had to keep reminding myself that I was on camera and my face wasn't supposed to look like that.

"while we're on the subject, could we change the subject now" is the first of a series of, currently, twelve fics. skytoseungmin, the person who stole it to pass it off as their own work, knew this. Their stolen version was published as part one of a series, though they hadn't published any of the sequels. Presumably, they wanted to wait long enough to make it plausible they'd gone and written the follow ups, instead of just finding them.

skytoseungmin likely didn't know that this fic and this series are intensely personal. They didn't know that the apartment that Adam -- Seungmin, in their ill-gotten version -- lives in, that was based in part off of the apartment I lived in for a year in Pico-Robertson with talldecafcappuccino. They didn't know that the 7-Eleven Adam buys coffee at is the same one I used to tease talldecafcappuccino for buying coffee at. They didn't know that the strip club where Adam and Ronan have their humorously ill-timed romantic revelation outside of, that was the strip club I used to use as a landmark when giving people directions for how to navigate the confusing as fuck freeway exit I lived near, which once caused me to accidentally tell my highly Catholic parents "just go past the strip club and you're good!"

skytoseungmin didn't know that the apartment Adam -- sorry, Seungmin, thoroughly, they were better with find and replace than springguk -- lived in, was also based off of my ex's apartment in Palms, where I as the mere visiting girlfriend was never allowed to park in the parking lot. Where I would sometimes have to spend twenty or thirty minutes circling the neighborhood before I could find parking, often a walk of several minutes away. skytoseungmin doesn't know that when Ronan's car get towed from a McDonald's parking lot, that that was a specific McDonald's on Venice Boulevards, the same one my ex's asshole roommate used to just roll his eyes and say that I should park at. skytoseungmin doesn't know that I once wished passionately that I had just parked in that McDonald's parking lot and risked getting towed, on the occasion that a man followed me several unlit blocks from my car. skytoseungmin doesn't know that when I talk about how helping someone park is the truest love language there is in Los Angeles, that that was what I meant. Has skytoseungmin ever had to circle to half an hour to find parking in Los Angeles? Has skytoseungmin ever loved someone enough to do that, instead of saying, fuck it, they can come to me or we're breaking up? Has skytoseungmin ever loved someone in Los Angeles enough, to do as my ex did, and come running as fast as humanly possibly when their girlfriend called them whispering and crying on the phone, someone's following me, please, I'm scared, I wish I just parked at the McDonald's?

"while we're on the subject, could we change the subject now" is a very personal fic.

It isn't half as personal as some of the fics that come after.

skytoseungmin marked their plagiarized version of the fic as part one of a series. Were they planning on stealing part two, where I, through an alternate universe characterization of Ronan Lynch, dig into my experience of grief and trauma surrounding my grandmother's dementia? Were they planning on stealing any of the explicit fics, where I play with kink and desire in ways I haven't even exposed to my actual sexual partners, but where I felt able to through the guise of fandom? What else was skytoseungmin planning on stealing, with charming little author's notes apologizing for how they missed the fandom-relevant date they were shooting for, because they were so busy with exams, tee-hee! Why the excuses, skytoseungmin? how long does it take you to ctrl+f, even if you are more thorough about it than springguk?

If I seem too accusatory and mean-spirited toward skytoseungmin, well, the LA verse is a very personal fic.

And it's also, it turns out, only one of eight different fics that they stole from me.

I didn't even notice at first, to be honest. I was too stunned. But my friend Jessie, my Lady Galahad, went to my defense and clicked through to the author's page, while I was still reeling at the horrible possibilities of part one of a series. It turned out, of eight fics on skytoseungmin's author's page…I had written every single one of them.

Some were short and pretty lighthearted, things I hadn't had to invest too much of myself into -- like I said, sometimes, I can write a fic in under a week.

Other things…

They stole the space western AU.

I don't think I can articulate to any human being how much that hurt me, to look at it, to see.

I wrote that as a thank you gift for someone who donated to Fandom Trumps Hate.

I spent nearly two years of my life on it -- two years during which, because of mental health issues and life situation changes, my words per year dropped precipitously. I still haven't recovered. I still think of what a failure I am for not writing more, currently, actively, and I remember how the space western AU was both a symptom of that and a defiance of it: yes, writing has become fucking hard, fucking NEARLY IMPOSSIBLE, but I'm still doing it, goddamn it, you can't stop me, even if all I produce is the tiniest trickle of words a month. it can still add up, somehow, if we just keep TRYING.

To see the space western AU, casually nestled amongst a half dozen other fics that were all apparently casually dashed off in the same month…I know it was theft, I know it was a lie, but it still felt like a slap in the face, why can't you write this fast?

Jessie, my Lady Galahad, went on a campaign of commenting on all of skytoseungmin's (my) fics, and I am so thankful. The k-pop fans who heard Jessie have been reaching out, to her, to me, to each other on Twitter, and I am so thankful for them too. skytoseungmin has deleted all of their (my) fics on AO3, and their entire AO3 account, and their entire twitter, apparently. Maybe they were hoping to get enough clicks to parlay them into some kind of book deal, and they'd now rather give up what was a low investment effort on their part than be associated with accusation of plagiarism.

I suppose they can always start over with a new user name and someone else's fics if they really want to.

I suppose they can always start over with a new username and my fics, if they really want to.

And after all, AO3 has still not reached out to me about springguk, and "i do(n't remember)" is still sitting there. Maybe springguk is also going for a book deal. Who knows?

Why complain about any of it?

In a way* (and remember what "in a way" means), isn't it a compliment, if someone loves the words I wrote, even if they don't know it was me that wrote them? toast-the-unknowing and shinealightonme, if they're the same name (and they are), then why not springguk or skytoseungmin, too?

Am I making too big of a deal out of this? Does everyone just have their work stolen from them, all of the time? Is that simply the cost of doing business in an era and an ecosystem where we all can copy and paste twenty-four thousand words with greater ease than our ancestors could transcribe a single phrase? Are more prolific, more famous, more successful fan authors looking at my piteous cries and thinking, bitch, you've only been ripped off by k-pop fans ten times, come back when you have real problems?

And yet in a month, a year, a whole life phase of not being able to write as much as I would like to, because of my health, because of my work, to have someone else just casually pass off the words I have managed to eke out, as though they have no value, as though it were no more than photo copying a shitty flier to stick under a windshield wiper…

I can't imagine springguk or skytoseungmin give a shit how I feel about any of this. At best, they roll their eyes; at worst they laugh to know they hurt me -- and what's the difference between the two? I'll never know either way.

I know that some of the people they duped do care, and are also upset. That helps. And also, it doesn't help.

I just fucking hate all of this, and if all I have are words, and if my words are valuable enough for someone to steal, then here, here are enough of them to choke on. I know I did.

#long post #fandom #plagiarism #that whole plagiarism thing

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drconstellation · 4 months

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Come Back When You Can Make A Whale

This is going to contain some speculation for S3, so you know what to do! Or not do!

SITIS: What did God say? JOB: Um... I'm not sure. I didn't understand much. Things too wonderful for me. Ostriches came into it. SITIS: Ostriches? JOB: And whales. God's very proud of the whale. Went into some detail about... how great whales are. SITIS: But did They explain? JOB: [shakes head] I think the point was, if you want answers, come back when you can make a whale.

Whales, huh?

If you aren't well read, this could be quite the misdirection. It should be reasonably obvious, given who is doing the talking - Job - what he is actually referring to, then we can join a couple of dots to make some speculative leaps.

You still with me?

No? Then let us start with how do you make a whale?

By giving it another name.

Leviathan.

Chapter 41 of the Book of Job is all about the Leviathan, a great sinuous sea serpent with impenetrable scales and breath like fire. It sleeps beneath the sea until the end of days. Over time it came to be associated with any sea monster, then anything large, and what is the largest animal ever known to have lived? The whale.

The top of the matchbox is also worth a look. We have a skull and crossbones, which is classic Memento mori symbolism, fitting in with the resurrection theme of the Second Coming - but look at the way the address of the pub is spelt! Now, this not the same way it is spelt on the record single Maggie gives to Aziraphale; Goatgate is spelt as one word, not two. A little bit of searching reveals the meaning behind this fictional address that backs up and reinforces the quote on the side of the matchbox.

Strong's Concordance for 66 gives us "wild, savage, fierce." Goatgate is an interesting one, because it turns out to be a relatively modern term from the urban dictionary, and I'm just going to refer to the polite version of it here - it's another word for "mouth." So 66 Goatgate is a "fierce and savage mouth." Yes, that does sound about right - in more ways than one, once you know who it is. (If you want to look up the impolite version, go ahead - I'm sure you will still find the connotations very amusing.)

Our metaphorical Leviathan is Crowley. He gave the game away at the end of S1 during the appearance-swap.

This also means Aziraphale is his counterpart, Behemoth. Why - well, I made a bit of joke in my post here that he was playing at being a "river horse" while he wallowed in the bath of holy water during his part of the appearance-swap scene. Modern day scholars think the description of Behemoth in the Bible may be that of a hippopotamus in real life history. If that is so, I'd still be betting this is what the "dark horse" comment from Nina in S2E1 is foreshadowing.

Maybe none of this new to you if you've been hanging around the the fandom for a while. That's fine, I'm just trying to establish the scene. And the next bit we need to talk about is this one, where Job gets a lecture from God.

During this sequence, we hear lines that come from Job 38 and 39.

GOD: Job, if you have questions for me, I have questions for you. Do you know how I created the earth? Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth, Job? Were you there when all the morning stars sang together and all the Angels shouted for joy?

These lines are paraphrasing some of the beginning of Job 38.

Then we have:

GOD: Do you know the rules of the heavens? Did you set the constellations in the sky? Can you send lightning bolts and get them to report back to you? Did you give wings to peacocks, Job, or teach the ostrich to run?

These lines are again, paraphrasing Job, half from 38 and half from 39.

So then, we need to ask, why highlight these lines in particular?

Job 38 is mainly about setting the boundaries of the universe around us. The Earth might seem impossibly huge to a human, but it started with a single stone at its foundation. Earth and the other planets obey certain laws as they move around the Sun. The patterns of the stars in the sky take so long to change that it seems like they are set and inconstant. Even the chaotic form of lightning respects its Creator and returns to its point of origin.

From the last part of Chapter 38 to the end of 39 God challenges Job with a list of animals. The theme here is about freedom and wildness. Whether it is a noble lion, a loathsome crow, a nimble mountain goat, the head-strong wild ox or the willing war horse, they all flourish upon the Earth under the sight of the Almighty. Even the mightiest and most fierce beasts of all, Behemoth and Leviathan, have a place, although only God has the means to control those two.

None of this needs a human to be involved. We are so often the center of our own universe, and try so hard to control every aspect of the world around us that we lose sight of the bigger picture. Shit happens. Some things are out of our control. That doesn't mean its your fault and you're wicked and damned to go to Hell because of it. And that was the point God was trying to make to Job. The world is a far bigger, wilder and chaotic than you can imagine, but its also incredibly beautiful, and it runs itself within the rules and limits that seem to be set by invisible forces you can't see.

So back to the script from the show.

The first set of questions from God could apply to both of the duo. They were both around when Earth was created and were more than likely there when the "morning stars" (the highest angels, such as Lucifer, Gabriel, Michael and angel!Beelzebub) sang together.

The second set of questions are the ones that seem to have got the most attention so far, with ops cross-matching them to things Crowley does in S2.

Do you know the rules of the heavens?

Did you set the constellations in the sky?

Can you send lightning bolts and get them to report back to you?

Did you give wings to peacocks, Job...

(I make a suggestion this has something to do with Michael, but also see comments below)

...or teach the ostrich to run?

The first three of those questions are fairly straight forward, and I doubt many would dispute what they are referring to. But the reference to the peacock and the ostrich are more subtle and curious, and I would like to take a moment to look at the actual verse - because it is only one verse that is providing both questions - that is being paraphrased here.

Job 39:13 Gavest thou the goodly wings unto the peacocks? or wings and feathers unto the ostrich?

Did you realize that the King James Version of the Bible is the only one that mentions peacocks in this particular verse? All the other versions mentions the first sentence of that verse in relation to the wings of ostriches: "The wings of the ostrich wave proudly." The ostrich is considered a cruel and witless bird in the Bible, pleased with the way it looks, and seemingly careless about its young.

Why does that sound familiar...

Shax thinks this ostrich feather-clad angel in disguise isn't too smart either.

So using the peacock line is a curious choice in the script. Other than the "eyes" in the tail of the peacock having a connection to Michael's many watchful eyes on the world, it's still not clear how Crowley helped them upwards. Unless both lines are supposed to refer to Gabriel, and how the vain peacock was helped to both fly and run to a distant location in the stars.

Edit: Since I first wrote this, @beebopboom pointed me to some more peacock lore, and this helped me delve a bit deeper into them. Peacocks were associated with wealth and royalty, but they were also associated with immortality in early Christian beliefs. There was a belief that the flesh of the peacock did not decay after its death. The bright colours in its tail came from its eating venomous snakes, which reminded people of Christ becoming sin for humanity's sake (think of Crowley downing the laudanum to save Elspeth from Hell in the crypt in 1827, its a similar action.) The "eyes" on the males tail also represented the all-seeing eye of God. So we have a connection with both royalty and resurrection here.

(Oh - just as an interesting connection here - a number of the newer versions of the Bible not only don't mention the peacock in this verse, they compare the ostrich to the stork! The meaning is meant to be that the stork cares more for their young than the ostrich, but if you read the words at face value, you could take a double meaning away...)

Let us return to questions, answers, and whales.

Questions. Always questions. It's like the proverbial toddler who's always asking a never-ending string of "but, why?" for funsies and you just want them to shut up for a moment and think about the last thing you said first. They, too, are a bit like Job. They are the center of their own universe at that age, having not had much experience of the world. They have no grasp of how far it extends beyond them, and how little even we as adults know.

If at this point you're going "oh, no, no, no, no, op, please don't tell me the point of this meta is it's all ineffable," relax. I'm not.

The point was to set you up for some nice, juicy, awesomely sweet S3 speculation.

Because I believe Crowley will finally get to ask his questions of God.

(oh lordy, I made the mistake of taking a break to have a shower before trying to finish this off, because I was having trouble seeing how to finish this in a tidy way, and that caused me to have "shower thoughts" and now the nice sweet simple speculation has turned into a slightly bat-shit crazy kind-of one, although still on the same track as what I was originally thinking. Here goes...)

We have this three card spread from waaay back at the beginning of S1. We all think its something to do with the three babies.

What if its not?

Because we need something like this to happen again - Aziraphale and Crowley either side of a third protagonist. What if it's the King of Kings, Love personified, Jesus, in the middle? (Or Adam again, I wouldn't discount that option either...)

If you would look at the GIF and the screenshot together again and go, well that makes, sense, white for the angel on the right, and green for the demon on the left, I would jump up and shout at you - NO!

Look at the cards again! In the Tarot, that's the Ace of Swords on the right - it belongs to Aziraphale. It's a very powerful card, about new beginnings and change.* Lets call the one of the left Knight of Wands, which also represents the element of Fire. Knights are all about movement and journeys. Who owns the Bentley? And look what Gabriel has instinctively done with his hands - he has held his screen-left hand out to Aziraphale, the Sword, the angel who wears green, and his right hand out to Crowley, the Knight of Fire. The yin and yang qualities are actually swapped. That was what I was trying to tell you in this post. They aren't as obvious as they seem at first glance.

And love is the answer, it turns out. Did you see my comment the other day on another post? In Strong's Concordance 25 = to love.

Anyway, we should get a third parallel scene somewhat like this, and like when Aziraphale and Crowley took Adam out of time to talk to him in S1.

Only this time the three of them (with who ever is in the middle) should be having a talk with God about what is or isn't supposed to happen.

JOB: I think the point was, if you want answers, come back when you can make a whale.

Crowley could be a literal serpent (though I would be very surprised if he did manifest that way) but it should be a metaphorical Leviathan that stands before the Almighty to ask his questions and get his answers. And it will be that he has earned the right to be there, because he finally understands the lessons of Job.

@makewayforbigcrossducks I hope this answers one of your questions

*The Ace of Swords speaks of new beginnings, but it is a two-edged sword that can cut both ways. It is strength in adversity, victory out of struggle, good out of evil, a change in the old order on the way.

#good omens #good omens 2 #good omens meta #crowley #aziraphale #job minisode #book of job #leviathan #behemoth #i only ever asked questions #come back when you can make a whale #gabriel #shax #did you give wings to peacocks?#teach the ostrich to run #king of kings #king of hearts #yin to his yang

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queers-gambit · 1 year

Text

When Pride Married Prejudice part two

[ part one ]

[ series masterlist ]

prompt: moments at the beginning of your marriage.

pairing: Aemond Targaryen x Velaryon!wife!reader

fandom: House of the Dragon

word count: 8.6k+

warnings: cursing, nothing but filler and fluff, marriage smut, stop giving author internet access cause literally what is this ? not edited.

Your wedding was something small by other royal comparison, but neither you nor Aemond seemed to mind; he was the one who wanted it much smaller, but the King was feeling festive. So, the whole of the court was invited - minus your family, which felt glaringly obvious.

You married in the Sept and hosted a banquet in the Red Keep's Great Hall. The King hummed along with the music, tapping his fingers in rhythm, before exhaustion set in and he was being escorted back to his rooms. The Queen departed soon after, and your new husband lead you away rapidly right after that. Behind you, there were a few inappropriate comments hurled your way; but Aemond was quick to shield you from them.

He moved his body as if to physically protect you from their vile words, an arm protectively around your waist to guide you forward; your first sign of his deep-running loyalty.

When you got to your new shared chambers, you found the room in disarray - gasping your shock and wondering if someone had ransacked his room. "Were you robbed?" You had asked.

"No," his cheeks flared, "I was trying to move things around, make room for you, but I realized I did not know what you would arrive with, so, it has come to... This..."

"So, what I'm hearing is that your room needs organized, huh?"

He smirked at you, "I'll order us some wine, but yes, if you'd like," he gestured you forward.

That perhaps was your second sign of his unwavering support of you.

The third was when, during your room-rearrangements, he promised to not share your bed, "unless you ask me to."

His hands also idly toyed with your own, the two of you facing one another; his fingertips tracing down the scar on the palm of your hand. He was quiet as he did, but you weren't bothered - he was usually always quiet.

Anyways, your marriage wasn't consummated that night, but you got to know Aemond on a much deeper level after proposing a drinking game where you each told three statements - two that were truthful, and one that was a lie. It made you both snicker gently and lounge on the bed together after the room was put in relative order.

He did not share your bed, as promised, for a full week after your wedding; but he spent time with you after his training sessions in the courtyard. Apparently, his mother thought it important you and he bond, so, Aemond was excused from afternoon lessons in favor of spending time with you. You both liked to stroll through the gardens, sometimes with a book shared between you both; other times, with an escort through the city streets.

But only eight days after your wedding, there was a rapid knock at your chamber door, and just as you rose from your vanity to answer it, your husband was entering. He swung around to shut the door and lean on it for a moment, making you smirk. "Well, hello there. Nice fo you to pop in, isn't it?"

"I'm sorry for the intrusion, my Lady," he sighed, shaking his head, "but Aegon was being his usual self and I needed to get away - then apparently he followed me and I didn't need him seeing me waiting..."

You nodded, "You know, you're allowed to stay here, too. I would not put you out."

"I do not wish to crowd you."

Your shoulders shrugged, "I think I'd like it, actually."

"Oh?" He breathed.

"Sure," You nodded in agreement. "I mean, we should get used to one another, should we not? I do not wish to put you out."

"Lady - "

"Please, stay?" You pouted dramatically. "C'mon, maybe I'll let you do my hair, huh?"

He chuckled and pushed off the door, glancing at the hand you outstretched. Aemond slowly reached for it, taking a moment to breathe before speaking softly, "I did not mean to interrupt you."

"You're not," You assured softly. "I was getting ready for bed, but between you and me, I'm kinda into this book right now."

"So, you're not tired?" He smirked slowly.

"I'm almost afraid to answer that," you eyed him up and down. "Why?"

"Perhaps you'd like to get dressed? We can sneak out," he sighed some. "Think I could use some air, thought perhaps a walk around the city would do us both some good?"

Your grin slowly stretched as you considered his offer. "All right, yeah. But we go in disguise."

"You think we'd walk around, bare?"

You shrugged and moved for the wardrobe. "I only mean to show you some places and it wouldn't be exactly proper if word reached the palace of our misdoings."

"I thought I was sneaking you out?"

"You are," You assured with a grin, "but perhaps I'll show you a thing or two while we're out."

"All right," he sighed, nodding softly and wiping his palms on his pants nervously. "Whatever gets us out of here."

"What did your brother say that upset you?" You asked, eyeing him slightly before moving for the changing screen. "C'moooon, I know you wanna tell me. I can see it on the tip of your tongue."

He chuckled some, "He's just tiresome."

"Noooo, really?" You mocked gently as you changed from your nightdress into something plain.

"We were at dinner..."

"Mhm."

"And he had choice comments about something that doesn't pertain to him in the slightest."

"Might I ask what that was, husband?"

There was silence as you laced the trousers on. "Our marriage," Aemond finally admitted.

"Hmm," you considered, situating the tunic. "And what was said? What were these choice comments?"

Aemond sighed heatedly, "Something - I don't even know. It was about how you won't let me near you, how this marriage is like all others and it's a farce, telling me to get used to you being absent - and that my one obligation is to put a babe in your belly, but it was the way in which he spoke that drove me up the fucking wall."

"Mhm."

"As if he even gets an opinion on this..." Aemond ranted as you stepped out from the screen, moving for the vanity again to wrap your hair up in a tangle of scarves. "As if his own marriage isn't some sham!"

"Is it?" You wondered gently.

"They were betrothed as children, Helaena's never known different but Aegon does as he pleases - no matter his marital status."

"So, your older brother doesn't respect you," you sighed gently, still fixing your hair to hide it. "But you know what's different now?"

"Hmm?"

"You've a wife who does," you turned to smirk at him, hands dropping to slap your thighs gently, "and Aegon can be jealous all he wants. It's not gonna be a concern of ours, we don't live the same truths."

He paused for a moment, nodding, "You're right..."

"But when you're feeling stressed," you offered your hand again with a grin, "your wife is here to sneak out with you for a bit of fun."

He chuckled and took your hand with his, "We'll need to stop at my room."

"Kinda hate that, but okay," you mused gently, letting him lead you from what was supposed to be your shared quarters. However, just as you were about to pass into his room, Amira rounded the distant corner, and your husband called for her.

"Could I ask for a discreet favor?" He asked, opening his door to lead you both inside.

"What is it, my Prince?" Amira asked, looking you up and down. "Oh, no, you're sneaking out, aren't you?"

You only shrugged with a broad smirk, making her sigh as your husband found his cloak. "Might you bring my things to our room?" He asked your hand maiden.

"Oh," she blinked, nodding, "yes, of course, my Prince. Um...?"

You smirked at her, "I didn't realize the lengths my husband went to to ensure my comfort, so, I've invited him back to our rooms."

"Oh, that is good to hear," she breathed, patting your shoulder. "All right, yes, I'll move your things, my Prince. Might I ask the reason for discretion?"

"Aegon's a dick," you shrugged, making Aemond say your name in reprimand. "What? Am I wrong?"

"Well, no - "

"So, that's the reason," you told Mira, "and we'd appreciate Aegon, you know, not knowing about this, so discretion is paramount."

"I gotcha," she winked, nodding with assurance. "I got this... Yeah, I got this... This is nothing..."

"Mira?"

"Hmm?"

"You got this?" You checked, Aemond tucking his hair beneath his hood.

"Oh, yeah, for sure," she sighed, waving you off. "Just be careful tonight, please. The city's changed, Princess, lots of crime has gone up in rate. Stay close to your Lord husband."

You chuckled, "Maybe I'll save his arse, you never know."

"You'll probably start a fight and he'll have to rescue you," she laughed you off. Aemond offered his hand silently, leading you to a hidden passage at the back of the room.

It was easy enough to sneak through the back passages of the Red Keep, and you quickly realized that this must've been common enough for Aemond - given how well he knew his way around. When you broke free of the Keep, you breathed deeply.

"All right?" Aemond checked, tightening his hand in yours.

"Mhm," you assured, needing to jog slightly to keep up with his long legs and quick pace. "Where to first, Princey?"

He chuckled dryly, leading you down around a few turns. "Perhaps a drink?"

"Hmm," you considered, peaking around alleyways.

"No?"

"I didn't say that," you chuckled. "But could we go this way?" You pointed.

"Why?"

"There's a few fun vendors this way," you smirked, leading him away. For the remainder of the night, you and Aemond crept around King's Landing - hopping around taverns, and you're pretty sure you didn't stop smiling once since leaving the Keep.

Aemond seemed different, too.

He was quiet, still. But he was relaxed, kept a hand on you at nearly all times. He chuckled when something was funny, smirked when someone made a fool of themselves, but mostly, he sat beside you all night. His legs straddled the benches to keep you close to his body, and you'd feel his idle touch as time passed.

Touches to your hand, waist, ribs, back, shoulders, and once even, he smoothed his hand over the back of your head in an affectionate gesture when you had made a particularly funny joke.

It was as if your warm touch reassured him.

So you did not mind, and in fact, found you reveled in it. It was your first real indication that his love language was primarily physical touch and while words did not come easy, his touch lingered.

And when you snuck back into the Keep, the ale you both consumed made your steps clumsy and for you both to snicker as you tried to shush each other. When you fell into your room together, you noticed Amira had, indeed, packed the Prince's things and moved them into your rooms.

It became a comfort that for each night the following five days, Aemond would read aloud from your book as you organized his belongings and clothes around the room. He liked pausing to consider the passage read, making the both of you bicker gently - even if he didn't have a varying opinion, he liked pushing you to see how far you'd go to make a point. You caught onto his game and didn't find it as annoying as when Jace or Luke did it.

Then came your first 'family' dinner that you'd attend at Aemond's side. He paced nervously by the window, watching the sun sink, and you perused your wardrobes for something to change into.

"You're nervous," you mentioned softly, laying a gown out to the bed.

"A bit," Aemond agreed.

"Is there reason, husband?"

He sighed, turning from the window with hands behind his back. "Father's not doing well..."

You nodded slowly, "He's been on a decline for quite some time now."

"And now it's enough for Mother to call for weekly family meals," he sighed, wiping a hand down his mouth.

"'S all right," you assured, "might be kinda nice."

"Nothing's really nice with Aegon around," he frowned, shaking his head to send some strands of gloriously long hair around his shoulders.

"Still mad about what he said?"

Aemond sighed, shrugging some. "In truth, I am unsure what I feel."

You nodded slowly, "That's alright. Family's a confusing matter."

"It is," he eyed what you had laid out for him.

"Yet, I must ask for your forgiveness," you smiled at him, stepping closer as he slowly turned to lower himself onto the bed. He reached for you, taking your hands to pull you between his wide-set legs.

"For what, my wife? I have not been wronged," he sighed, fiddling with your fingers.

"I have let you endure this alone the past two weeks," you spoke gently, slowly raising your hands to pet over his silver locks. "That's not what a wife does, hmm?"

He let his own hands raise to gently wrap around either of your wrists. His eye examined the one as his fingers caressed your skin, leaning in to gently press a kiss to the appendage. "It is of no trouble," he told you, "because you're here now, yes?"

You smiled at him, "Yes, I am here now. The support of a wife, something your brother does not know - should you need to use that to your defense."

He chuckled and tugged you so your hands went to his neck and his own settled heavily on your waist. "Something tells me with you there, wife, I will have little reason to defend myself."

You chuckled at him, giving his cheeks a quick squeeze, "Yes, yes, you get a wife and personal attack dog - aren't you lucky?"

"Terribly," he smirked, leaning forward slightly to rest his forehead against your stomach. He groaned, "Must we go?"

You chuckled and let your arms wrap around him in a hug, folding slightly to peck the top of his head. "Yes, we must. C'mon, it will not be for long."

He sighed, "Might I use you as an excuse?"

"Depends on the excuse used," you teased gently.

"Hm... What if I cited newlywed duties?" He picked himself up to stare up at you with a growing smirk.

"I think I'd kill over from embarrassment," you gasped, nudging his shoulder; making him grin at you. You found, each day, he loosened up - but always tensed up when others were around. When it was just you two, my Gods, he was entirely different; making you feel grateful that you could see him as such.

He sighed and let his hands settle back on your waist, "All right, maybe not. But, perhaps, I could say it to Aegon? Yes?"

You chuckled, hands caressing his jaw to force his eye to your own. "All right, yes, but do not let your Mother hear - please. Or Father. He's still my Grandsire and while I know he knows what happens in a marriage, he does not need be reminded."

"All right, deal," he agreed, sighing again.

"It will not be so bad, come now, we should change," you chuckled, gently pulling away from him. His hands fell from your body, and you instantly missed the warmth.

Though, after changing behind the screen, his hand was back in yours to lead you from the room. You swung your conjoined hands gently, smiling at him when he offered you a curious look. He ended up cracking a smile, unable to help it, but quickly sobered up when you arrived at the private dining room.

It was mostly just an outside terrace with a long table, but it made do for tonight's gathering. And with the fortunate weather, you were almost excited for the meal, if only for the location.

Aemond lead you both in stoically, and surprisingly, you were the last to arrived. Even Viserys beamed, teasing, "Well, this is a surprise."

"Apologies, Your Grace," you offered instantly. "We did not realize the time."

"No, no, no need, I was once newly married," he chuckled, waving you offer as both you and Aemond froze momentarily. You were quick to laugh at the King's joke, and with your hand to Aemond's arm, discreetly directed him towards the only two chairs left at the head of the table. Apparently, it became Aemond's common seating arrangement after the loss of his eye, but you didn't mind much.

Otto was in attendance, and Heleana greeted you happily; all but jumping from her seat when you neared her. You kissed her cheek in greeting, giving her a loving squeeze.

Aegon looked mildly annoyed but hid it behind his cups of wine, slouched in his seat; and making you ponder what seed he came from, since surely, it was not Royalty.

"Here," Aemond muttered to you, dishing something onto your plate. "You've gotta try this."

"It looks strange."

"Just a taste," he nodded, smirking at you. You sighed, eyeing the food with disinterest. "Come now, you mean to say you do not trust me?"

"Well, that's a loaded question."

He chuckled, "Let this be a test, then. Go on, just a taste. For me?"

"Well, way to guilt me," you teased him, nudging his arm before taking a taste from your fork. You pondered the feeling on your tongue, manicured hand over your lips as you chewed and considered the flavors. "It is... Strange."

"Is it?" Aemond smirked.

"I do not think I dislike it," you nodded at him, "though, I am unsure if I like it, either. Hang on," you moved for another bite, and before long, you'd finished the bit he'd spooned to your plate. "What was that?"

He chuckled, shaking his head slightly, "You told me on our wedding night you fancied those mangoes from Pentos, did you not?"

"I did," you nodded, narrowing your eyes at him at you glanced at the dish. "Do not tell me..."

"Apparently, stewed mangoes is popular over there," he shrugged a bit, glancing up to his family to ensure they were all still in their own conversation. They were.

"Would you do me a favor then?"

"Hmm?"

"Bit more?" You smirked, nudging your plate once. He chuckled and reached for the dish, dolloping another spoonful before you scooped a bit of rice to your plate and mixed them together.

"How's that?" He wondered in genuine curiosity when you tasted the new dish.

"You know what?" He nodded at you. "I don't hate it. Here, try it."

He nodded slowly and took up his own fork to try a bit, making your head cock in wonder as you waited for his opinion. "'S not terrible," he agreed with you, chuckling dryly before reaching for his goblet.

"So," Viserys boomed down the table, making you jump slightly. "How is married life treating you both?"

You smiled at the King, "You've raised your son well, Your Grace." Your eyes cut to Alicent, knowing she was who truly raised the children. "Married life is... Going well," you glanced at Aemond.

"Like a built-in companion," he mused to the table, taking a sip as Viserys chuckled.

"It is good to know you are getting along," he granted. "Surely, we'll see your face more often, Princess?"

"Of course, Your Grace," you agreed.

"Good," he nodded, smiling lightly.

"Unless my brother actually manages to get it up," Aegon snickered into his, oh, maybe, third cup in an hour? "Then, we'll never see you, will we, sister?"

"I'd mind my tongue, Aegon," you mused, taking another small bite of your meal. "Might start to sound jealous. Though, we know your brother has the injury and one less eye, you've always been jealous of him, heaven't you?"

"Aegon," Alicent warned when his face heated in anger.

Aemond chuckled a bit and let his hand drift to hang off the arm rest. You silently reached for his hand, finding relief when it fell naturally to your lap - turning over for you to hold. The other hand rose his goblet again.

"Do you think you'd like to take lunch sometime this week?" Heleana asked you, leaning over. "I've some questions of my own," her voice lowered to explain.

"Sure," you agreed easily, nodding at her with a smile.

Aegon rolled his eyes, "Oh, what questions could she answer? She's been married all of two weeks."

"I wouldn't take that tone, brother," Aemond warned.

"Boys," their Mother snapped. "Not now."

"Not ever, hopefully," You offered a sweet smile with your words.

"I'm not quite sure how it was done in your Strong Family," Aegon sneered, sitting up in his chair, "but here, we - "

"If your only means is to insult a silly rumor pertaining to my family, then, I'm afraid you might want to silence yourself," you chuckled, staring your uncle down with anger burning your gut. "You are only making my point for me."

"Please," Alicent asked of the whole table, "can we not get along for a single meal?"

Your hand tightened in Aemond's, asking him, "Surely, this is not common?"

"What, sweetheart?"

You paused at the use of the nickname, finding you enjoyed it more than you should - before finding your voice again, "Your brother thinking it is appropriate to speak in such a manner?"

He smirked at your tactic to publicly embarrass his brother, nodding at you, "You will grow used to it, sweetheart, I promise."

"Hmm," you mused, leaning into his arm more as his hand released yours in favor of holding your inner thigh instead.

"So," Otto cleared his throat, "how're you finding the city, Princess?"

"Very well, yes, thank you," you assured with a nod of your head. "Aemond and I might've gone out almost everyday this past week."

"The weather held," he shrugged a bit, cheeks heating at the knowledge that his family knew he was soft on you. It was obvious, if the time together was any indication.

"It was nice," you assured, one hand holding his forearm and giving a squeeze. "I'll have to take you sailing some time."

"You know how?" Otto asked in surprise.

"Yes, my father and his father took me out," you smiled softly. "Taught me how to fish, too, if you'd believe it. Never thought I'd live long enough to watch Corlys Velaryon fish for his own meal. But I must admit, it was incredibly satisfying. Father and I caught this sort of tuna," you told Otto - who was staring at you with the slightest amount of pity, "it must've weighed some 80 pounds." You chuckled at the memory, sniffling lightly, "Father and I nearly fell in trying to wrangle that bad boy from the waters."

It was quiet for a moment before Aemond cleared his throat, lowering his voice, "We did not yet find the time to extend our condolences for your father, my wife. And how sorry we all are for your loss."

"Mother got your letter," you nodded softly. "But thank you for verbalizing it."

With a returning nod, your husband tried to focus on his meal; but before you could, his sister was starting a new conversation. He was quiet most of the remaining meal, just content to listen; and any time Aegon got lippy, even Alicent started to sit back - because your wit outmatched all of their own. You easily fended the boy off.

Heleana simply adored you, and let that be known.

Viserys was oozing pride, as if taking personal responsibility in the match made between you.

Alicent smiled and actually asked a few questions to better know you.

Otto was just as ever - kindly, old, and soft spoken. He also knew some really good riddles that you liked to try and work out - his grandchildren giving up on most of them. Imagine your surprise when you asked, "Is it a mountain?"

And Otto beamed, "Yes! Dear girl, yes! I've been telling that riddle for months and none has solved it!"

It was an overall nice dinner, but truly, by the end, you were exhausted from keeping appearances. There were a few times you wanted to snap at your brother-by-law, but held your tongue; doing little to hide the irritation in your tone when you shut him down.

When Viserys was taken away for bed, Otto escorted Alicent away, and to your surprise, Aemond ushered you to your feet, "C'mon, come with me."

You let him pull you by your hand, jogging again to keep up with his long strides. When you were out of the dining room, you looked around and wondered, "Why're we in a rush to get to bed?"

He chuckled, shaking his head, "Got something on my mind."

"Wanna share?"

"In our rooms," he nodded, glancing at you only as he kept his quick pace - ignoring your whine of annoyance. The moment the doors opened, he pulled you in and shut them after you - pushing your body against the wood as his nose pressed into your neck.

"Aemond," you gasped in shock, holding onto his shoulders; not pushing him away.

"I-I wanted to let you come to me," he rushed, hands bruising your hips. "Yet I do not think I can wait longer."

"What changed?" You smirked, petting over his cheeks as he nuzzled your neck. You wanted to feel his mouth, but he did not dare yet - showing an ounce of restraint.

"Dinner," he sighed, sounding as if he was straining. "Watching you with them all, Gods... I know I am not who you wanted, but I think I need to start giving thanks for having a wife who can keep up."

"That got you going, did it?" You smirked against the shell of his ear; hands petting down his neck. His hands tightened and your hips rose up the wall to let his growing bulge press into you. Your breathing stuttered as his head lifted to leer over yours, your fingertip ghosting over his bottom lip.

"In truth, it's been hard to give you space," he breathed, "but yes, my wife, seeing you with my family was enough for me. You showed no fear in talking to the King and Queen..."

"Hmm?"

His lips pulled in a smirk, hands moving up to hold the base of your ribs. "It was impressive," he whispered, "and listening to you put Aegon in his place? Lady wife," he chuckled, slowly letting a leg raise to press between your thighs, "that did something to me I cannot explain nor control."

"Power turns you on, does it?" You chuckled.

"Only a bit," he nodded, "now," his thigh pressed more securely, "might I kiss you, Lady wife? Or might you haunt me further?"

You chuckled, but he clocked your nod before surging forward to connect your lips in a searing kiss. You let out a shrill whine when his hands drove you down onto him, his bulge more prominent.

"Aemond."

"Tell me, sweet girl," he spoke in your ear, letting his tongue flatten against skin that made you moan, "what it is you want."

But worry knotted your stomach.

"Wait, wait," you pulled back as much as you could, but pushed his shoulders some; making him pull away.

"What's wrong?"

"It's just," you sighed, head thumping back to the door in exasperation. You sighed through your nose.

"You can tell me," he nodded, lowering his leg to give you room to breath. His thumbs started to swirl comforting circles around your hip bones. "You want me to trust you, but it goes both ways, pretty girl. Speak your mind."

"Well, for one, in truth, I think I prefer being called pet names rather than the name my mother gave me," you chuckled some, hands drifting down his chest.

"Noted," he nodded, leaning in to rest his forehead on your own. "Come - tell me what bothers you."

"I've not done this," you whispered. "I worry it will not be satisfying."

"With the way I've been ramped up the past two weeks, there is little you can do to dissatisfy me," he chuckled. "Though, might I tell you a secret?"

"Mhm."

"Think you got me started the day you saved my life," he whispered, "and I never even thanked you for it."

"We share blood, Aemond, I would not have walked away. You needed help, and I knew how to give it."

"Thank you," he nodded, sighing. "I never got to thank you for what you did, but I am grateful."

"'Twas a dramatic night, there was little room for anything else."

He hummed before telling you, "Look, you do not need to worry, this is another learning experience for us to endure together."

"Oh, you must 'endure' laying with me?" You whined, heat flaring up your chest and neck.

"I did not mean that," he relented softly. "Only that I am no expert, either, but this is something between us - something we will learn to do together. As husband and wife."

You sighed, nodding, "Just be patient."

"I know it does not mean much now," he let his lips peck over yours, "but this is between us, sweet girl. You can do no wrong with me."

You sighed, "You say that, yet..."

"Yet?"

"I do not know of a single marriage where either, nor both, were ever happy. I fear that this could be a partnership, but not much else. I understand you've an obligation to sire children, but I am only nervous - "

"You do not need to be," he sighed softly. "It's just me."

You nodded, brows crinkling gently. "It's just you..."

"Your husband."

You nodded, "My blood."

"I am not here to wrong you, nor harm you," he promised. "And while I agree, I do not know of a marriage myself that has been... Happy... I do know that marriages are between spouses, and we get to not just make our own rules, but play by them, as well."

You sighed gently. "How you've been without a Lady all this time is beyond me. You might be the sweetest man I know, and my father was Laenor Velaryon."

He smirked against your lips, letting you gently pull his cheeks to kiss him to time. "None ever bothered to try and know me," he whispered. "You are different, pet, and you always have been."

"You are different with me," you noted, nose rubbing up his. "Why is that?"

He sighed, "You... Provide me with a sense of safety, I think. It is difficult to explain - "

"'S not," you smiled at him, "because I understand perfectly well. I fear I might feel much of the same, as well."

"Hmm," he considered, "that is good. I would hope my wife feels safe with me."

"I do," you nodded in assurance. "That if you'd like to move for the bed, I would not disagree..."

"Are you sure?" He asked, frowning.

"If you're willing to take this slow?"

He chuckled, "As slow as I can bare."

You laughed against his lips, leaning in to trap him in another kiss. "I have to admit..." You pulled back to peck his lips, "You're mildly addicting to kiss."

He grinned, licking over your lips slowly. "Might find more than my kisses addicting,"

"Oh?" You laughed, holding onto his neck tightly as his own arms snaked around your waist to hold you against him. He sighed, nuzzling into your neck as a hand pet down the back of your head before settling around you. "All right?" You whispered.

"Mhm," he hummed, "just appreciating the feel."

You smiled against his temple, laying a kiss there as the mood in the room shifted; and his hands bore the weight of the world. "Aemond?"

"Hmm?"

"Would you show me all of you?"

You felt him pause against you, but his sigh was sad, "Not tonight."

"But would you?"

He nodded as he pulled back; leaving your cheeks brushing against one another. "One day," he sighed, making your heart plummet in sadness. The abuse the boy endured was more than you were willing to admit, but you'd try to understand it best you could and offer him comfort. "For now, let me see you," he whispered in your ear, the fire crackling behind you both as the room flickered and glowed in the light. You did not protest when his hands rose to undo the laces at your back; pulling apart to loosen your gown.

You feared he would not like what he found, but your resolve was crumbling as his mouth opened against your neck. You moaned faintly as his hands easily yanked behind you, freeing more of your flesh for him to grab at.

He pulled back first but you could not meet his eye. His fingers tipped your chin up to let your eyes meet, breathing one breath as his lilac gaze raked you in.

"You're absolutely stunning," he whispered, holding your gaze, and making you feel like he was staring through you. But his eye did not drop from your own as his hands pulled at your dress, freeing your shoulders and upper body.

Your lungs shuddered in nerves as you helped pull the garment down, freeing your breasts, and then down to your hips. His hands moved, his eye did not; only bowing to his knees to hug your waist, looking to the floor, and pulling the clothing from your hips.

Your hands shot back to hold your position against the wall; keeping balance as Aemond freed your legs of shoes, stockings, then your hips of any under garment. But he kept his gaze on the ground as he rose, letting your hands mimic his from earlier, and tip his chin so his eyes met your own.

"See me," you requested in a breath; holding it then as his eye soaked in all you were.

"Gods," he breathed, taking half a step back to get the full image. When his eye met yours, it was almost as if he could not stop the words from flooding out, "You're breathtaking."

"We are married, you do not need to compliment me," you teased gently, leaning back to the wall. "Do you need a moment?"

"I might," he mused. "You're incredible... And you're truly mine?"

"That's what the law now says," you teased. "You know, standing here, naked, 's bit cold."

"You don't say?" He chuckled, reaching a hand out to sweep his thumb over your pebbled nipple. But that was it - that was all he did. "Come, lay on the bed, pet."

He turned from you to give you space, bare feet muted over the bare stone as you moved on the balls of your feet. Look - standing in the nude was one thing, but sitting in the nude? That was something entirely, and you reached for a pillow to hold against yourself the moment you reached the mattress - and climbed upon it.

Aemond turned from the window to look you over, then started to undo his jerkin. "You've never been with a man?"

"Never even kissed one till we got married," you admitted.

"So... You're all mine, is it?"

"Seems so," you chuckled. "Though, I am afraid to ask in return."

His head cocked, wincing, "Lost my virginity at ten and three."

"Truly? To whom?"

He freed his upper half of the leather jerkin, revealing a thin tunic. "A whore, no less."

You hummed in thought, watching him undress without abash. "That was it?"

"If you'd believe it," he pulled the tunic off his torso.

"And how is it you've come by scars when there is no war?" You asked, letting the pillow fall to the side in favor for drawing a single leg up and into your chest.

"Same way I came to lose an eye, pet," he sighed, now avoiding your gaze. "Though accidents - no matter how unfortunate."

Your heart weighed to your feet, slowly finding them as your fingers nervously twisted together. He was distracting himself with pouring a goblet of wine, but stiffly turned when your hands deftly asked him to. They smoothed over rigid, pink-going-on-white scars, asking, "Where did this one come from?"

He glanced at your hand on his upper arm. "That was a lancing accident gone wrong."

"Hmm," you nodded. "And this?"

Your fingertips pressed to his pectoral. "Swordplay with Aegon... Gone wrong."

You smirked, "And this one?"

He breathed uneasily as your hand pushed at the scar on his lower belly. "Hmm... That was from a spoiled organ."

"Come again?"

He smirked as your hands rimmed the hem of his pants. "When I was, possibly, oh, maybe ten and five? There is a little organ that, if ruptured, can ooze toxic waste back into the body. Maesters were quick to remove it."

"How interesting," you spoke softly, watching his throat bob as he took a drink. "And this one?" Your lips asked, nearing his ear.

"Which?" But he flinched with a laugh when you bit his neck. It wasn't hard enough to break skin, but against his pale skin, it was enough to leave a small red mark. "Oh, you devil of a woman," he chuckled, letting an arm wrap around your bare waist.

"Apologies, dear husband," you smirked, reaching your arms around his neck to allow your breasts to press into his chest without barrier.

"Perhaps I can be persuaded into forgiving you," he hushed against your lips, licking over them before trapping you in a kiss so searing, it pulled a moan from your throat.

"Just ask it of me," you whispered to him, daringly letting your hands drift when he pulled you in for another kiss; fondling his growing length over his trousers.

He hissed lightly into your mouth, muttering, "Perhaps this will be new for us both, after all... Gods."

You smirked against his mouth, feeling emboldened to now sweep your tongue over his lips and into his mouth; hand solidifying around his neck to keep tight. He blindly set his wine to the table beside him to then press both hands into your warming flesh under your rib cage. His hands pushed, and you were lead back towards the bed; where you were sat on the edge for your husband to gaze down at. His hand cupped your jaw, gently caressing your cheek; yanking the laces of his trousers at the same time.

"Let me," you whispered, mostly curious - reaching for his breeches, and keeping eye contact as you unlaced him.

You fist the material by his hips and yanked down, still staring up at him - even when his cock sprang free to gently bob in your face.

"Fuck," he seethed, reaching to pull your hair back. "Might I teach you something first?" When you nodded, he almost grunted, "You can use your mouth."

Your brows furrowed, "On your cock?"

Aemond let himself chuckle, "Yes, sweet girl. But not your teeth..."

"I think I could've figured that one out, Aemond, Gods!" He laughed with you, but sharply inhaled when your hand reached for his thick member; giving a few curious strokes. "I can ask you something?"

"With my cock in your hand, you can ask me anything," he breathed in tune to your pumping hand, twisting wrist. "What is it, pretty girl?"

Your breath fanned across his public hair, head tilted to gaze up at him and wonder, "It... Will fit?"

He snickered, "Yes, sweet girl."

You nodded, "And are they all... This size... A-And girth?"

"Perhaps not, but I'm not running around, whipping my cock out to compare it to others,"

"Pity," you pouted at him, seeing his teeth flash in amusement, and lean in to take a tentative lick. His hand tightened in your hair and you understood what he meant; slowly, surely, and very sloppily, figuring it out. What your mouth didn't fit, your hand twisted around; and Aemond's knees were slowly buckling.

"Slowly, slowly," he whispered to you, thumb sweeping a tear from your cheek when you tried to take more of him. "That's my girl, good fucking girl," you preened at his praise. "Easy, don't over do it - that's it, good girl. Use you spit - fucking Gods, that's right - there - wait, wait, less teeth, sweet girl - slow yourself."

You listened to him as you went, feeling sweat start to slowly streak down your skin as heat sweltered in the room; skin at the base of his cock turning salty from his own exertion.

"All right," Aemond hissed, nodding to himself as he took hold of your cheeks and pulled his cock from your mouth; leaving a trail of saliva. "Seven fuckin' Hells, girl, I told you I'm not fucking anyone else, you're not in competition here."

You grinned up at him, rolling your eyes right after as you understood his teasing tone. "C'mere, please," you whispered up at him, hands curling around his neck to thread into his hair when he loomed over you. Your lips met in a frenzied mess again before one of his hands held his balance and the other pushed your knees apart.

"Easy," he whispered against you, tracing slow patterns up your inner thighs. "This is where trust comes in, sweet girl. I've got you."

"Yeah?" You nervously checked, nodding at him; hands holding onto him as if a lifeline.

He sighed softly, "I'll always have you, sweet girl. Today, and everyday."

You pet down his chest and tried to relax as his lips met yours again in a frantic mess of lips, tongues, and teeth. His fingers then were dusting up your crotch, and you all but flinched as a jolt of pleasuring electricity shot through your veins.

"Aemond," you breathed as one hand darted out to wrap around his bicep; fingers sweeping up and down your wetted heat. "Gods," you squeaked when he pushed to let his face rest against your neck; arms tight around his neck for anchoring, letting a finger sink deep into you. Your legs opened wider to accept him.

"Good girl," he growled, your hand feeling his arm flex as he started to pump his finger messily through your sopping folds. "So fucking wet for me, Gods. I heard rumor virgins were wetter, but fucking hell."

"Or perhaps it's just for you," you whispered in his ear, holding on tighter as a coil slowly tightened in your lower belly. Almost on instinct, your hips moved to hump into his hand.

"Hmm," Aemond considered, "say that again, but without the perhaps."

You chuckled, pausing for a moment before telling him in his ear, "'M just so fucking wet for you, and only you, my Prince."

"Gods," he groaned, pulling his hand free to straighten up. "On the pillows, love, go on." But you paused to beam obnoxiously at him. "What? What is it?"

"You called me 'love'."

He chuckled against you, leaning in to kiss you happily. "Got issue with that, Lady wife?"

"You will not hear complaint from me, Lord husband," you assured.

"Good - back on the pillows, then." When you pulled yourself back over the bed, he was quick to follow overtop of you; pressing another kiss to your lips as he settled between your legs. "I will warn you, there might be some complaint the first few minutes."

"Oh," you nodded, "yes, I-I was warned of that. And it is common for there to be a bit of blood, too."

"Good to know," he smirked, pecking your lips. "You need only tell me if it's too painful, but it will be before the pleasure takes over. But if it's too much, just tell me."

You nodded and pet over his cheek, promising, "I will."

He smirked, "Spread your legs, pretty wife."

You both paused, shaking your heads at one another, and you deciding, "'Pretty girl' is a solid option, 'pretty wife' sounds strange to my ears."

"Strange on my tongue, too," he agreed. "Pretty girl, it is."

You hummed in agreement, bringing his lips to yours as he helped shift your hips slightly. Then, his cock's head was sweeping up and down your slick - like his fingers had - and just paused to linger at your entrance.

"Hold onto me," he whispered, slowly pushing in - and feeling you instantly freeze.

"Fuck's sake," you wheezed as he went.

"Do you want me to stop?"

"There's more!?"

Aemond was unable to fight off his laughter, leaning down to push his tongue into your mouth before pressing forward the rest of the way - pressing his hips to yours in full.

"Fucking hell," you whispered against him. "Oh, wow, okay, okay..."

"All right?"

"I don't know," you admitted. "Feels very strange."

He nodded, leaning in to kiss you softly. "Tell me when it's okay to move. This will be uncomfortable until you're acquainted, and then it'll feel better - I swear it."

You nodded, "Go ahead."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," you whispered, moaning when his tongue swept into your mouth again. "Holy shit - Gods be good," you whined when he began to retract his hips and push forward again; the friction created something mouthwatering.

"Fuck," Aemond panted, humping a little faster. "Ah, shit, you feel fucking divine, sweet girl. Fuckin' made for me."

You readjusted your hips again and let him work at a new angle. His mouth hung open for a few thrusts, eye fluttering close as your hands gripped anywhere they could reach. And with his motions, you started moving your own hips; fucking him back, to his approving groan. His mouth found purchase against your neck, biting, sucking, licking; humming into flesh as pleasure coursed.

"Aemond, fuck, fuck, fuck, harder," you pleaded, letting your knees reach your chest as his hands pushed the backs of your thighs in a new, bruising grip. His balls slapped against the apex of your cunt, creating something of a rhythm amongst the room that met the chorus of your moans, groans, and his grunts.

"Take it," he growled, hands sliding up to hold the back of your knees. His hips were relentless. "Oh, fuck, good girl - 's my good fuckin' girl. Feel so fuckin' good, taking all of me your first time," he smirked down at you, reaching a hand for your throat when he felt your walls tightening as his cockhead pounded into that soft, spongey spot.

You whined against the pressure on your throat - not enough to constrict but enough to feel all the way down into your toes.

"Gods," he groaned when your velveteen walls stroked him for all he was worth, "look at you, so fuckin' ready for me."

"Yes," you whimpered, reaching for his neck to yank him closer. "Please, please - "

"Tell your husband what you need, Princess," he smirked, dropping his lips to stick to yours - and pull apart messily.

You whined lowly in your throat, "Wanna cum."

"Where?"

Your hands shook as you held his cheeks in your grip, "Around you."

"That's my girl," he purred, moving himself at a renewed pace. "Where do you want me, pet?"

"In me," you didn't even realize you moaned that aloud until he groaned from deep in his chest; brows furrowed, and one hand holding himself up as the other dropped to your cunt. "Wait, wait, wait - "

"That's the feeling, my girl," he promised, fingering your pearl. "Chase it, let it come for you - let it come, good girl," he praised, catching your body when you arched into him and came with a soft cry.

"Ae-Aemond," you begged still, eager to please. His hands held your hips in place, face held to your neck; hips pumping relentlessly to chase his own end now. "Please - oh, fuck!"

He came with a shout of his own, hips swooping to thrust into yours once, twice, a third time, then grinding to a slow halt as his balls contracted to release his load in your warmth.

"Shit," he panted, body giving up some to collapse into your own. It pushed his cock further up, making your mouth open in shock; arms coiled around him to keep him against you.

"Yeah," you agreed, letting a hand smooth down his hair. His breath fanned across your collarbones, and readjusted your hold on him to press a kiss to his forehead. "All right?"

"Yeah, yeah, good," he chuckled, pecking his lips up your neck. "Are you all right?"

"Mhm," you nodded at him, noses brushing together before his lips met yours - again - slowly. "So, that's what we've been avoiding?"

He smirked, "Well, you've been avoiding, Lady, and I've been dreaming."

"How'd it match up in life?"

Your husband offered a soft smile, "'S like you're a dream come into my arms. If there is a heaven, I think I've found it."

"Oh, please - "

"No, truly, Lady," he nodded, letting his lips peck yours again. "Here, with you, I am at peace."

"Then make a bargain with me?"

"Cock's still in you, so, ask anything of me - 's yours."

You giggled lightly and rolled your eyes as he fixed himself up to his elbows to keep the pressure off your chest. "Spend some time alone with me in the next few days?"

"Lady - "

"No, I mean, let us take a period of time away from everything and just," you shrugged a bit.

"Hump?"

Your eyes rolled, "I was aiming for something a little more poetic, but sure, yes, yes, stay with me and fuck me properly."

"My Lady wife," he teased, "I did not think you so brash."

"You've not been paying attention," you teased. "Please?"

He chuckled through his nose, nodding as he shifted himself towards your side - huffing a bit when his cock pulled free of your warmth. "Whatever it is you want in this life, wife, I'll give to you," he decided as he crashed to the bed beside you, offering an open arm for you to curl against his chest.

"You sound smitten, Prince," you accused gently, nestling into your new home - at his side.

"Perhaps I am, Princess," he told you, eye taking in your entirety. "Perhaps you have me enraptured, and I am unwilling to leave your clutches."

You hummed and let your lips press to his, slowly increasing the tempo as your own libido felt newly heightened. How strange, the moment you lost your virginity, you suddenly crave the action of another warm body - or perhaps, you craved the body of your husband.

None the less, Aemond let loose the faintest of moans; hand coming up to hold the back of your head, mouths moving in sync.

When you pulled back, it was only just to mutter, "Perhaps the feeling is mutual."

"Good," he whispered, licking into your mouth again. He hummed and pressed one last hardened kiss to your mouth, then pulled back. "Give me time to nap and I will spend days worshipping you. Yes?"

"Deal," you agreed against his swollen lips, breathing stuttering when your teeth caught his bottom lip and pulled.

"Devil woman," he whispered, hand wrapping around your throat. "Behave."

"You're not making the point you think," you whispered.

"My girl likes my hand at her throat?"

"Only in this sort of position," you smirked, lips catching his own again to tangle together in a frenzied dance of passion and newly found, newly formed love.

[ part one ]

[ series masterlist ]

#aemond targaryen #prince aemond #aemond the kinslayer #aemond one eye #aemond targaryen x reader #aemond targaryen x fem!reader #aemond x reader #aemond imagine #aemond targaryen imagine #aemond smut #aemond targaryen smut #house of the dragon #hotd #hotd x reader #hotd imagine #hotd smut

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epickiya722 · 24 days

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Can, I ask, why do you think Yuuji is one of the character that is so underated in JJK? He is the mc, but many people (in fandom) treat him like a side character? At first, I don't think so, but I love many shounen, and somehow Yuuji is one of the mc that is underated in their own story....

Sorry if I'm wrong, just I love Yuuji and want him to get the spotlight he deserve....

I wouldn't say you're wrong, Anon! In fact, I would say he is an underrated character. Yes, fairly popular, but when it comes to how the fandom treats him compared to characters like Gojo, Yuji is Underrated.

I feel exactly how you feel about Yuji. To me, he is the best JJK character. Oh, yeah, I'm being bias, whatever, but it's how I feel.

My guess as to why the fandom treats him like a side character because Yuji isn't like how most older gen MCs are written, let alone the others of the cast.

Let's be real, when the mid-late 2010s rolled around, how fandoms started to treat the new age MCs is opposite of their treatment of other MCs. It's because they're a different formula and honestly, I feel like folks who bash on Yuji and others like Tanjiro and Izuku, just don't want to try something different.

They're used to the MCs who speedruns their training and powerups and suffer little to no drawbacks, "trauma, what trauma" and want to be the best because they got an ego and pride they don't want hurt.

Today's MCs? Pain, not afraid to show a range of emotions, training? Oh, they get the hang of it but still a lot to learn and watch out! They have the scars to prove that they almost lost an arm!

Now focusing on Yuji, as I said he's not like other JJK characters.

He's not overpowered, but he's not weak either. He's a bit of a goof and he's says he's an idiot, but he actually isn't all dumb he makes himself out to be. He's not flashy, but he has amazing moments where he gets to show off.

He has a goal to get strong, not being he wants to be the top or anything. He just wants to help people.

He has a sad backstory, but it's only until later we realize how messed up it is and even still we don't have his reaction to realizing those messed up bits. Yuji was raised by his grandfather and he states he is a loner. But unlike how we see with most characters, Yuji is relatively fine with that. He brushes off knowing about his parents, unlike most MCs who would literally beg for answers. He's a loner, but he's not a loser. Note how people around him in his hometown treats him. They gave him a nickname to reflect his impressive physical prowess that amazes them and yet, he doesn't care for the popularity.

Yuji has this balance to him where he's both spontaneous but also pretty chill. A lot of the cast outshines Yuji be because they are more showy than Yuji, even calm characters.

Unlike Gojo and even Yuta, Yuji is literally what you call the audience surrogate. Through him, we learn about the Jujutsu world while experiencing (growth).

From the start of their stories (referring to JJK 0 and Gojo's Past Arc), both Gojo and Yuta are established as powerful sorcerers from the start. Yuta may have had inexperienced but he was still recognized as a powerful kid. Both are born lucky with having such powers. The most Yuta and Gojo really develop and change is their personalities and attitudes towards certain ideas. That's it. They don't even have to do anything and immediately their auras show who they are.

In contrast to Yuji, how is he recognized?

As just Sukuna's vessel. Most of the time, he is literally called that. When he's recognized by his strength and abilities it's when he actively has to fight. Then it's like "oh, so he does have capabilities". Yuji actually has to show he can be just as capable as the others because when people first look at him it's "Sukuna's vessel" or back in Sendai it's "Tiger of West Middle".

It's not "Yuji".

Hell, he'll even be compared to Maki. It's not "Maki's like Yuji". No, it's "Yuji is like Maki". Megumi is the first character to do this. Maki is unique enough that if someone, in this case Yuji, displays a similarity to her, she is the template.

However, for Yuji, while he's unique it's almost like it's not enough to be acknowledged until he has to show them. Like, he has to prove something when he actually doesn't care to do that. Yuji doesn't care to get stronger than the next person, especially at this point. If anything, he seems to be the only one from the very start recognize that none of this is a test of strength when people are dying. Note how he acts during a fight. Every major to majorly minor character has displayed some sort of enjoyment out of a fight or fights to show they're not weak.

Not a single time has Yuji ever even smiled. Look back at all the fights and you will see that he hasn't done such a thing. He fights not because it's a game. He fights because he has to and only that.

And it's not like it gets better for him because he later identifies himself as "a cog". It's like Yuji never really had his own identity.

He's the odd one out.

It's how I think some of the fandom sees him. Without an identity, without recognizable traits. Hell, go on any post that praises Yuji and Yuji alone and there's gonna be a hater to bring up another character.

To some, I feel like Yuji only exists to them to hate on. Only a tool to bring in their praising of other characters to put him down as if that's all he's worthy of. It's a damn shame, too, that people actually feel the need to bring down a character to build their faves. Oh, feel like your fave can't stand on their own and show their greatness?

#kiya answers #kiya answers questions #jjk #jujutsu kaisen #itadori yuuji #yuuji itadori #itadori yuji #yuji itadori #💖🐯👊#jjk spoilers

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alwaysquestioneverything · 5 months

Text

I've been curious lately about the origins of some details in Ao3 Stucky fics.

I'm relatively new to the fandom and didn't read fics back in the zenith of Stucky popularity, so I'm catching up on all of it now, and in a sense, I get a bigger picture of Stucky fics as a whole because I'm reading over a decade's worth of them in one go (instead of spread over the decade).

And I've noticed that there are some details that crop up pretty frequently, details that are movie-canon-adjacent but not actually canon, and the editor and researcher in me can't help but wonder how they came about — Were there 'fads' when it came to certain details? Like one popular fic author including a detail and others co-opting it and then it becoming ubiquitous? Because I can't imagine that so many authors individually made the same choices.

To clarify, I'm not referring to tropes, nothing like a/b/o or soulmate fics. I don't even mean the [over]use of epithets (that's for a different post). I'm talking about small details, like:

Calling the place Steve rescued Bucky and the others Azzano instead of Kreischberg (Azzano was where they got captured but they were brought to the factory in Kreischberg)

Calculating years Steve is out of the ice as 70 years + years passed (it was 66 years; Fury says "You've been asleep, Cap, for almost 70 years.")

Calling Bucky's hair chestnut (chestnut hair is lighter and maybe also a bit more reddish; his hair is only remotely chestnut after he gets a makeover to prepare for seeing Steve in Infinity War, but even then, calling it chestnut is still a stretch)

Calling Steve's hair blond (it's dirty blond at best; his enlistment form says light brown)

Blonde and brunette (okay I guess I am touching on epithets, but this is more about the use of the feminine forms of the words rather than the use in the first place)

Giving Bucky a job at the docks; or Bucky working at the family mechanics shop (this one's not incorrect, just very common for some reason; is it in any way comics-related?)

Making George Barnes abusive (same as above)

Anyone able to shed light on any of this?

(I'm also curious about fanart that has Bucky's right arm amputated/as a prosthesis instead of his left one.)

#steve rogers #bucky barnes #stucky #stevebucky #steve/bucky #steve and bucky #steve x bucky #archive of our own #fanfics #fanfiction #stucky fanfiction #stucky fandom #mcu #marvel cinematic universe

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39oa · 1 year

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(nonsensical hrpf data exercise) degree centrality graphing & other archive insights

intro/prior work

hello 🙇‍♀️ i'm not sure this post will make any kind of sense at all, but i love analyzing ao3 data and i especially find it fascinating in the realm of sports/hrpf because of the amount of player- and team-related attributes that offer dimensionality to fandom analysis when examined in parallel with archive metrics. i've already kind of done hrpf overviews on two separate occasions over the past year or so, but my method of collection differed in each instance and also always gave me new things to chew on and potentially explore, such as expanding on the link between player talent and shippability and whether high-draft picks have more fic written for them on average.

i most recently examined player data based on aggregated relationship counts since 2022, but this was a limited snapshot meant to piece together recent ficdom trends (see top ships since 01/01/22) and not be representative of fandom overall. basically, things i want to visualize/talk about now are:

hockey is so widespread as a sports fandom because there are 32 teams in the league, which when compared to a community like f1 makes it difficult to succinctly summarize primary relationships for. there is no self-contained grid of 20 drivers that remains generally fixed within a season, where every move in/out of that "roster" is highly reported upon and instrumental to fandom makeup, but instead a more amorphous network of malleable rosters featuring high-variance cascading orders of character visibility; in short, the difference between the most and least popular driver in f1 fandom is not the same as the difference between sidney crosby and that one ahl lifer who was called up to your 4th line two months ago because your team is utterly decimated and gunning for bedard.

Still: because rosters are so malleable and trades happen with some amount of frequency, and because hockey is still an "insular" ecosystem in terms of geographic accessibility and junior-age development (for better or worse; mostly for worse, but that's neither here nor there), players intrinsically have a low degree of separation between one another, whether it be as teammates now or as friends growing up in the ohl, ntdp, etc. i therefore wanted to take that a step further and look at it through fic metrics especially: can we use a summary of ficdom's real, tangible output and visualize it through a similar network? (+ where and how does that network differ from player connections in practice?)

back to the impact of draft pick # and assessments of talent relative to popularity, i also wanted to look at the most "successful" ships in ficdom from this network and evaluate the different distributions and impacts of their respective attributes. are certain player positions more popular? which nationalities are the most commonly shipped?

etc. But let's just get into it.

process

getting any kind of information from a 60%-locked fandom on ao3 is a nightmare and introduces a myriad of data-collecting limitations, so i do feel it important to disclaim that what i present in this post functions more in the realm of Approximate Interpretation and Potential Correlation than any actual 100% objective representation of fandom metrics.

a perceived limitation i have with character tagging metrics on ao3 is that they don't exactly reflect shippability; that is, if q.hughes is tagged as a character in a n.hischier/j.hughes fic, it gets attributed to his character tag but doesn't actually say anything about how many Relationship Fics exist for him on a whole. my best solution for this was essentially uncovering most of a player's relationships and summing their individual fic counts to create an approximate # of "relationship fics" for each player. so any kind of shippability graph going forward will use that metric.

i used ao3's relationship tag search and filtered by canonical in the men's hockey rpf fandom and only pulled relationship* fics ("/" instead of "&") with a min. of 20 works. ao3's counts are... Not the most accurate, so my filtering may have fudged some things around or missed a few pairings on the cusp, which again is why all the visuals here are not meant to show Everything in the most exact manner but function more so as a "general overview" of ficdom. although i did doublecheck the ship counts so the numbers themselves are accurate as of time of collection.

(*i excluded wag ships, reader ships, threesomes to make my life easier although i know this affects numbers for certain players, hc/gm ships, and any otherwise non-NHL Player ship. for ex., this eliminated anna kasterova/evgeni malkin, tyler brown/tyler seguin, and kyle dubas/william nylander, just to name a few)

all ship data was collected march 16, 2023.

PART 1. SC87 ship networking

when i first began this exercise i tried graphing ships for all the first-overall picks from 2003-2022 because i wanted to get an overarching sense of their connections. however, doing so made me realize that sidney crosby was by and far the most-connected node in the graph (and basically all hrpf in general) with a degree of 11, and that he was centering one huge component to which only two ships failed to connect (op/kj and slaf/xhekaj). basically:

so then i was like, right! let me instead use sidney crosby as my sole starting node, map out all ships with 20+ works from him specifically, take the players he connects to and map out their corresponding ships (excluding sid) and just keep iterating until i basically reach a final child node. through this, i yielded 112 ships and 98 unique players, with my final connecting node coming 9 degrees of separation away through brady tkachuk ↔ tim stützle/quinn hughes. unfortunately i can't actually host this little code snippet anywhere lol but i also wrote an input to check the pathways between any two players which was kind of fun:

here is the actual network graph with colors from automatically generated clustering, which doesn't really mean much but i thought was one nice way of presenting it. the edge width refers to the sum of fics for each ship and the node size refers to the degree, or number of ships, for each player.

i then also joined my player set with a dataset that included draft year, drafted team, position, etc... and through that color-coded the graph with the team each player was originally drafted to (i always struggle between using current team and draft team because which one matters more is super contextual, but... using draft team made my life easier this time so i hope it's still interesting.) here i only included colors for 13 teams that had 3+ players each:

→ [full-size graph]

we can do a bit more analysis based on this specific sidcros network, like which players are the "most-shipped" or overviewing cross-team shipping tendencies:

but! of course, not ALL big hrpf ships lead back to sc87. using him as a central node essentially just helped me filter out excess "noise" when searching for relationship tags on ao3, because now i could exclude anyone connected to him at all (note: the relationship fics from my set equaled upward of 19,000 works, accounting for 60.4% of the entire men's hockey rpf archive) and hit other significant tags more efficiently.

through this method, i singled out a new set of 76 ships and 134 unique players (notice the significant decrease in overlap), which i then combined with my sid ships to create one massive set of Hockey Ships With Over 20+ Works On Ao3 that i could analyze holistically. no idea if this makes any sense but bear with me:

PART 2. general ship insights

i won't bore people with endlessly listing out ship rankings but here's the previous top chart with the new ships slotted in:

now for some overall player analysis!

first i wanted to look at how attributes like draft round, nationality, and position (F/D/G) are represented in the player set.

the nationality distribution is pretty close to all active nhl players this season, so there aren't major disparities there. however, the vast majority of players 1) were drafted in the first round and 2) are mostly forwards, with the forwards also seemingly reflecting the general philosophy of faster development/higher recent-round representation. we can take this overview a step further and actually examine the fic averages for each characteristic as a proxy for measuring shippability/ficdom popularity.

first, i scatterplotted all players by their draft pick and number of fic to (try and) show the heavy skew toward top picks (inspired by the gar draft pick value curve and other similar plots). this is... well, limited in many ways, and if i had an actually adequately large dataset i could specifically plot averages per distinct pick number and try to present something there, but the problem is that a lot of these later pick numbers only have like one player so there's way too much variance LOL.

but just for the sake of this exercise i excluded j.benn as an outlier and grouped fic averages by round (left below). again, noting the sample sizes, let's just say that first rounders on average seem to have the most fic written about them, even if it's not a particularly shocking insight. we can also try creating a histogram for "shippability" by draft year, binning here for every 2 years, to see which draft years appear to have had the most success (right below). note the peaks around 2005 and 2015, aka the sc87 and cm97 ~Generational Years~ 🤔

i've also been interested in figuring out which positions are commonly preferred—since centers are so often the faces of a franchise and are essentially the most sought-after position, and since goalies occupy a positionally static role/are less oriented toward contact (and the presumed homoeroticness thereof) in the way skaters are, is that reflected in the fic metrics as well? turns out: yes.

some ship analysis

learning more about player data in a vacuum is fun, but we also have all of this relationship data that lets us examine how different characteristics interact with each other, which is meaningful as well! for example, we know that forwards are heavily represented in the dataset, but is center4center the most common combination? or is there love for a franchise center and his beloved winger or the team's dependable 1d?

(fought for my life trying to figure out how to map this properly so please accept a horrible bar chart instead) as it turns out, the most common combination is centers/wingers, followed afterward by centers/centers. i don't know whether this really means much to me because i'd like to dissect the combos even further (is C/C more often 1C 2C or cross-team rivalry 1C shipping? are C/W usually linemates? etc.) but 🤷‍♀️ here's a graph.

i also distributed ships by their nationality combination, displaying to the surprise of no one a heavy preference (a whopping 66.4%!) for north american-exclusive shipping. i also thought stacking by "draft year" (= averaging the draft year between both players for each ship) offered some interesting insight into usa4usa shipping having slightly younger representation. also i do think usa/germany being singlehandedly driven up this chart by one family is remarkable and hilarious LOL.

also in the realm of draft year analysis, i wanted to look at draft year differences and whether fandom preferences seem to lie by way of same-age-ish pairings and In-Class Bicycling so to speak. graphing ships by these differences spanned a range of 20 years, with the oldest "age" (draft) difference being 20 years between zdeno chara and charlie mcavoy. overall, of 175 ships with a drafted player, 60.5% were drafted within 2 years of each other (18.2% in the same draft), and only 5% had a draft difference of 10 or more years.

then, of those 32 ships drafted within the same year, i distributed their counts by year to see which draft classes featured the biggest in-class clusters, leading us again to the Famed Class of 2015:

closing thoughts

i'll stop here :saluting_face: something else i had on the agenda that i don't really know how to adequately explore with this dataset is basically stanley cup champion stuff, e.g. looking at players and ships and fic counts from winning teams and how/whether a sort of "winning bias" has been trending down as of late (see the relative success of ships from teams like phi/ana compared to tbl/stl)—temporal data is so particular and difficult to wrangle with ao3 though so i'll have to let this one percolate a little bit.

finally, another thing (!) that i love examining is captaincy and how it often helps inform shippability; C/A/guyswithletters shipping obviously generously overlaps with being drafted early, high-impact players, some positional stuff like Young Star Center having the role foisted onto him, etc. and many of these aspects are immediately identifiable in top ships like 8771, 1634, 1386... just to name a few obvious ones. unfortch i don't really have the time or space to look at that here but it's something i'm still interested in maybe expanding on, and i also never ended up collecting actual skater *performance* data which would be super fun to eventually get to, e.g. mapping ficdom output to not just background identifiers like draft year/pick but also 1) actual tangible evaluations of player goals/points/(salary?!?)/etc. and 2) some dimension of draft outperformance/underperformance, which is pertinent for scenarios like late-round picks who have defied career expectations (see outlier jbenn having a shit ton of lifetime fic) AND early-round picks whose trajectories have not panned out as expected for whatever reason; often the ~tragic~ frustration of being a bust actually invites more narrative focus and scrutiny, but at the same time ficdom trends have pointed themselves to being attracted to many historic, talented, generational, and so on players, who more often than not are also winners, which potentially posits a need for some sustained line of access/visibility to high-expectation players significantly before they're regarded as "busts" in order to organically grow and generate initial interest that can survive the renewed reality of their situation. but who knows

again, i don't know whether any of this even makes sense or is interesting to literally anyone at all, but i personally enjoyed just dicking around graphing shit and getting to join a ton of tables together for absolutely no reason lol. that's all!

#(extremely long post warning)#*m #stats #>guy who needs to reflect

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the-badger-mole · 8 days

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hey so I’m relatively new to the Zutara fandom and I heard you were a Zutara blog?

do you have any headcanons for them? post canon or otherwise.

apologies if this is not the place I’m still super new (also any other good Zutara blogs out there)

Hey! Welcome! Jump on in, the water's great! My blog is very pro-Zutara, and I have tons of posts including short fics, meta and head canons. Feel free to scroll through it. However, I don't know if anyone's told you, but my blog is also very, very anti–Aang. If you enjoy him, I respect that, but I don't respect him. My anti–Aang stuff is not the majority of my blog, but there's your heads up so it doesn't surprise you later.

Since you asked specifically for head canons, here's one I'm pretty sure I haven't mentioned before. Post war, Katara encourages Zuko to make more friends. He doesn't trust most of the nobles, so in disguise, he takes an art class attended by middle and working class citizens. Not only does he make friends, he gets to know a few of his subjects by name. Later, when he and Katara build a new advisory board, unconnected with Ozai, some of the first nominees are people Zuko met in his art class.

#atla #zutara #headcanons

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heresmyfiddlestick · 3 months

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Tumblr Dr. Who Poll vs Doctor Who Magazine Poll

It's been just over a month since the end of @adventure-showdown 's monumental survey of how Tumblr feels about individual Doctor Who adventures. Across ten rounds, we sorted the wheat from the chaff, the Quarks from the Rills, and the Cousins from the Looms. I wanted to compare the results of that huge bracket with the results from last year's Doctor Who Magazine poll, which ranked each Doctor's stories individually.

The methodologies for these two were quite different (though adventure-showdown did seed the bracket with a pre-poll that used the same methodology as DWM, but I'm looking at the final poll results for my data here), so comparing them is really interesting! I'm not a statistician, I just like making spreadsheets for fun. I think what can be seen from the trends and data below is a really unique picture of two somewhat overlapping but seriously demographically distinct fragments of the fandom.

Methodologies

Poll Methodologies

The DWM poll asked readers to rank as many televised Doctor Who stories as they liked from 1 to 10. The editors then took the resulting scores for each story and put them in a ranked list for each Doctor.

adventure-showdown began with a series of Google Forms with the same method as DWM, asking internet users to rank stories from 1 to 10. adventure-showdown lumped and split stories differently to DWM: The Key to Time was included as a distinct Four story to each of its individual parts, and each of the individual parts of Trial of a Time Lord and Flux were included alongside the overarching story. Utopia was also split from The Sound of Drums/The Last of the Time Lords.

adventure-showdown used the resulting rankings to create a series of Tumblr polls, moving from a group stage into a series of head-to-head matchups. They matched stories up roughly by obscurity (keeping advertisements and musical numbers separate from audio dramas and comics, which were separate from TV spin-offs, which were separate from the TV show itself), then Doctor or era. With each new round, the matchups were scrambled within melded groups, which ultimately led to a diverse distribution of all different eras and media under the umbrella of Doctor Who throughout the tournament.

My Methodology

In order to turn adventure-showdown's poll results into something that can be compared to DWM's, I created a spreadsheet tracking how each Doctor's stories were doing, separating them first into tiers according to which round they were eliminated in, then within those tiers by how many votes they had in the matchup where they were eliminated.

In the case of some particularly tough matchups, this means that the story that got the most points throughout the entire competition is not necessarily the highest-ranked story for that Doctor. For instance, The Happiness Patrol finished #3 of the Seventh Doctor's stories according to my reckoning of the Tumblr poll, being eliminated in the fifth round with 400 votes, less than the two stories above it (which were eliminated in rounds where they got 147 and 107 votes, respectively). The Happiness Patrol saw a vigorous campaign to increase its vote count, since it was up against Blink. The post for the matchup that eliminated it currently has 304 notes as of this writing. This is one of the fun quirks of this execrise.

General Trends

Where We Agree

The Ninth Doctor shows very stable story rankings between DWM and Tumblr.

On average, the difference in rankings for each episode of 9 is 5%, with only 2 out of 10 stories actually moving up or down the rankings at all. The Sixth Doctor is similar: only 3 of his 8 stories (included in the DWM poll, meaning not counting the individual parts of Trial) moved by more than 1 ranking. The Seventh Doctor only had 4 of his 12 stories move by more than 1 ranking.

On the flipside, Tumblr's opinions differ from DWM most regarding the First, Fifth, and Eleventh Doctors. The only stories that stayed relatively stable across both rankings for these Doctors are as follows.

For the First Doctor, only 4 out of 29 didn't shift by more than 1 ranking: #2 The Time Meddler, #5 The Tenth Planet (#6 in DWM), #18 The Keys of Marinus, and #20 The Reign of Terror (#19 in DWM) For the Fifth Doctor, we agreed only 5 times out of 20: #1 The Caves of Androzani, #2 The Five Doctors (#3 in DWM), #11 Frontios, #14 Black Orchid, and #17 Arc of Infinity (#16 in DWM) For Eleven, 5 of his 39 stories stayed relatively stable: #1 Vincent and the Doctor (#2 in DWM), #4 The Eleventh Hour (#3 in DWM), #9 Amy's Choice, #14 The Snowmen (#13 in DWM), and #39 The Doctor, the Widow, and the Wardrobe.

As you'll see further below, there is usually agreement between both polls about at least one episode that is in the top and bottom 3 or 4 for each Doctor, so these extremes represent the battle over ordering the ones generally ranked in the middle.

We Hate Daleks

As a general trend, Tumblr seems to think less of Dalek stories than the general DWM readership.

Out of 26 stories with Daleks as the primary antagonist, only 8 did not drop by more than 1 slot between the DWM poll and the Tumblr bracket (that is The Chase, Genesis of the Daleks, Remembrance of the Daleks, Dalek, Bad Wolf/The Parting of the Ways, Daleks in Manhattan/Evolution of the Daleks, The Magician's Apprentice/The Witch's Familiar, and Eve of the Daleks). DIM/Evolution actually ranked 3 slots higher on Tumblr than the magazine, while TMA/TWF and Eve finished significantly higher on Tumblr than in the magazine, cracking into the top 5 for their respective Doctors.

We Love The Master

Meanwhile, out of 26 stories featuring the Master, either as the primary antagonist or as an important character, only two dropped by more than one place in the rankings (The End of Time and The Power of the Doctor), while the others either stayed put or increased their positions, some by quite a lot (e.g. The Time Monster (up 20 slots in the Third Doctor rankings), The Keeper of Traken (up 8 slots in the Fourth Doctor rankings), Planet of Fire (up 6 spots in the Fifth Doctor rankings), and The Magician's Apprentice/The Witch's Familiar (up 9 spots in the Twelfth Doctor rankings)).

We Have No Easily Observable Feelings About the Cybermen

Out of 18 Cyberman stories, 9 fell in the rankings between DWM and Tumblr, while 5 stayed within 1 rank of the DWM poll, and 4 rose. If I had to venture a hypothesis based on my unscientific qualitative analysis, it looks like Tumblr marked down most of the Classic Who Cyberman stories (only The Tenth Planet, The Invasion, and Attack staying within 1 rank of the DWM poll), while the only ones that rose in the ranks were New Who stories (Rise/The Age of Steel, Closing Time, Nightmare in Silver, and Dark Water/Death in Heaven-- though of course this last one is also a Master story, which we know we love).

Superlatives

Here are the stories that showed the biggest positive and negative difference in their rankings between the DWM poll and the Tumblr bracket, for each Doctor:

First Doctor

Biggest jump: #10 The Sensorites (up from #27 in DWM) Biggest fall: #28 The Crusade (down from #13 in DWM)

Second Doctor

Biggest jump: #8 The Highlanders (up from #16 in DWM) Biggest fall: #14 The Evil of the Daleks (down from #14 in DWM)

Third Doctor

Biggest jump: #4 The Time Monster (up from #24 in DWM) Biggest fall: #21 Day of the Daleks (down from #11 in DWM)

Fourth Doctor

Biggest jump: #7 The Horns of Nimon (up from #40 in DWM) Biggest fall: #36 The Talons of Weng-Chiang (down from #5 in DWM)

Fifth Doctor

Biggest jump: #8 Planet of Fire (up from #14) Biggest fall: #15 Resurrection of the Daleks (down from #6)

Sixth Doctor

Biggest jump: #1 The Mark of the Rani (up from #5 in DWM) Biggest fall: #6 Revelation of the Daleks (down from #1 in DWM) [NB: not counting each part of Trial, since DWM didn't include them - though The Ultimate Foe ranked #10 on Tumblr while Trial itself ranked #4 in DWM, so that could be another option for this superlative]

Seventh Doctor

Biggest jump: #3 The Happiness Patrol (up from #7 in DWM) Biggest fall: #12 Silver Nemesis (down from #9 in DWM)

Ninth Doctor

Biggest jump: #5 The End of the World (up from #7 in DWM) Biggest fall: #7 Rose (down from #5 in DWM)

Tenth Doctor

Biggest jump: #17 42 (up from #31 in DWM) Biggest fall: #29 The Girl in the Fireplace (down from #7 in DWM) [NB: adventure-showdown split Utopia and The Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords where DWM didn't, which both placed above these two stories.]

Eleventh Doctor

Biggest jump: #13 The Rings of Akhaten (up from #34 in DWM) Biggest fall: #36 The Crimson Horror (down from #18 in DWM)

Twelfth Doctor

Biggest jump: #20 The Eaters of Light (up from #30 in DWM) Biggest fall: #18 The Zygon Invasion/The Zygon Inversion (down from #7 in DWM)

Thirteenth Doctor

Biggest jump: TIE #1 Demons of the Punjab (up from #5), #2 Spyfall (up from #6), and #3 Eve of the Daleks (up from #7) Biggest fall: #15 Rosa (down from #4) [NB: not counting each part of Flux, since DWM didn't include them - though The Vanquishers ranked #29 on Tumblr while Flux itself ranked #12 in DWM, so that could be another option for this superlative]

Definitive Bests and Worsts

Here, then, are each Doctor's commonly agreed-upon best and worst stories: that is, those stories ranked in each Doctor's top/bottom 10% (minimum 3) in each poll, and where both polls overlap. Lists are alphabetical.

First Doctor (top/bottom 3)

Best Both agree: The Time Meddler Tumblr: The Edge of Destruction, The Romans DWM: The Dalek Invasion of Earth, The Daleks' Master Plan Worst Tumblr: The Crusade, The Savages, The Smugglers DWM: The Sensorites, The Space Museum, The Web Planet

Second Doctor (top/bottom 3)

Best Both agree: The War Games Tumblr: The Enemy of the World, The Mind Robber DWM: The Power of the Daleks, Tomb of the Cybermen Worst Both agree: The Dominators, The Space Pirates Tumblr: The Krotons DWM: The Underwater Menace

Third Doctor (top/bottom 3)

Best Both agree: The Green Death Tumblr: The Dæmons, The Three Doctors DWM: Inferno, Spearhead from Space Worst Both agree: The Mutants Tumblr: Death to the Daleks, Planet of the Daleks DWM: The Monster of Peladon, The Time Monster

Fourth Doctor (top/bottom 4)

Best Both agree: City of Death, Genesis of the Daleks, Robots of Death Tumblr: The Horror of Fang Rock DWM: Pyramids of Mars Worst Both agree: The Power of Kroll, Underworld Tumblr: Nightmare of Eden, Revenge of the Cybermen DWM: The Horns of Nimon, Meglos

Fifth Doctor (top/bottom 3)

Best Both agree: The Caves of Androzani, The Five Doctors Tumblr: Enlightenment DWM: Earthshock Worst Both agree: Time-Flight Tumblr: The Awakening, Four to Doomsday DWM: The King's Demons, Warriors of the Deep

Sixth Doctor (top/bottom 3)

Best Both agree: Vengeance on Varos Tumblr: The Mark of the Rani, Trial of a Time Lord (considered as a whole) Worst Both agree: Timelash, The Twin Dilemma Tumblr: The Ultimate Evil (specifically) DWM: Attack of the Cybermen

Seventh Doctor (top/bottom 3)

Best Both agree: Remembrance of the Daleks, Survival Tumblr: The Happiness Patrol DWM: The Curse of Fenric Worst Both agree: Delta and the Bannermen, Time and the Rani Tumblr: Silver Nemesis DWM: Paradise Towers

Ninth Doctor (top/bottom 3)

Best Both agree: Bad Wolf/The Parting of Ways, Dalek, The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances Worst Both agree: Aliens of London/World War Three, Boom Town, The Long Game

Tenth Doctor (top/bottom 4)

Best Both agree: Blink, Midnight, Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead Tumblr: The Fires of Pompeii DWM: Human Nature/The Family of Blood Worst Both agree: The Idiot's Lantern, The Lazarus Experiment Tumblr: The Next Doctor, The Shakespeare Code DWM: Fear Her, Love & Monsters

Eleventh Doctor (top/bottom 4)

Best Both agree: The Eleventh Hour, The Pandorica Opens, Vincent and the Doctor Tumblr: The Doctor's Wife DWM: Day of the Doctor Worst Both agree: The Doctor, the Widow, and the Wardrobe Tumblr: The Crimson Horror, Night Terrors, Victory of the Daleks DWM: The Curse of the Black Spot, Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS, Nightmare in Silver

Twelfth Doctor (top/bottom 4)

Best Both agree: Heaven Sent, Mummy on the Orient Express, World Enough and Time/The Doctor Falls Tumblr: The Husbands of River Song DWM: Flatline Worst Both agree: In the Forest of the Night, Kill the Moon, Sleep No More Tumblr: The Lie of the Land DWM: The Woman Who Lived

Thirteenth Doctor (top/bottom 3)

[Villa Diodati gif included because there is no overlap in the two polls' top 3 for Thirteen, however this episode ranked #4 on Tumblr and #2 in DWM, so it is the closest overlap at the top.]

Best Both agree: None! Tumblr: Eve of the Daleks, Demons of the Punjab, Spyfall DWM: Fugitive of the Judoon, The Haunting of Villa Diodati, The Power of the Doctor Worst Both agree: The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos, Orphan 55 Tumblr: The Vanquishers (on its own) DWM: Legend of the Sea Devils

...What about Eight?

Who said that? I thought you had all gone. You shouldn't scare me like that. Well, you see, the Eighth Doctor only has two televised appearances in which he features, and only one of those was included in the DWM poll. This post is about comparing the two polls. I can't really do anything...

Ah, alright.

Televised Appearances

We ranked The Night of the Doctor above the TV Movie. Night made it all the way to round 6, while the TV Movie was out in Round 2, losing with 266 votes to Jubilee, which then lost to Scherzo in the next round. Night lost to Bad Wolf/The Parting of the Ways, which had 344 votes to Night's 204.

Audios

Scherzo made it to the quarter-finals of the Tumblr poll! It lost out to Midnight 435 to 581, the first TV episode it encountered in adventure-showdown's very intricate media-segregating bracket.

Caerdroia made it to round 7, losing to Scherzo after it had beaten out Father's Day in round 6 (299-280) and the much-loved SJA episode The Curse of Clyde Langer in round 5.

The Natural History of Fear made it to round 6, finally losing out to Blink (253-352), and making it the top-scoring Eight audio to go out in this round.

The Chimes of Midnight also got to round 6, finally just losing to Remembrance of the Daleks (163-166); in the same round, Zagreus lost to Scherzo (131-210) just after it had beaten Genesis of the Daleks (132-103) in round 5.

The next highest-ranked Eight* audio is Solitaire (a Companion Chronicle, hence the asterisk), which was eliminated in round 5, losing to Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead (180-43).

It's worth noting here, that Doctor Who and the Pirates also made it to round 6, making it the highest-ranked non-Eighth Doctor audio. It lost to City of Death (170-78). The next-highest ranked audios are The Marian Conspiracy (lost in Round 5 to The Wedding of Sarah-Jane Smith), The Holy Terror (lost in Round 5 to The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances), and A Death in the Family (lost in Round 5 to The Natural History of Fear). Congratulations to Evelyn Smythe.

Novels

The EDA Alien Bodies managed to make it to round 6, finally being eliminated by Turn Left with 145 votes to 264. It had just beaten out Time Crash in the previous round. This makes it the highest-ranked Doctor Who novel overall, according to this Tumblr tournament.

The next-highest novel for the Eighth Doctor was Unnatural History, which was defeated in round 5 by The Chimes of Midnight.

Below that, there were five EDAs eliminated in round 4:

Interference (lost with 41 votes to Scherzo's 85)

Mad Dogs and Englishmen (lost with 38 votes to The Marian Conspiracy's 56)

The Adventuress of Henrietta Street (lost with 28 votes to A Death in the Family's 54)

Camera Obscura (lost with 27 votes to Lungbarrow's 47)

The Scarlet Empress (lost with 22 votes to The Chimes of Midnight's 102)

Comics

I hadn't actually been tracking any of this Eight stuff, so I'm having to squint through the backlog and this is already much too long. So you're only getting two: The Land of Happy Endings is the Eighth Doctor comic that made it the farthest in the Tumblr competition, being eliminated in round 3 by An Adventure in Space and Time (46 votes to 95). The Flood also made it to round 3, where it was eliminated by the Thirteenth Doctor comic Old Friends, gaining 39 votes against Old Friends' 47.

#doctor who #classic who #big finish #eighth doctor #jodie whittaker #thirteenth doctor #christopher eccleston #ninth doctor #many interesting things here #will reblog with analysis

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