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carriesthewind · 1 year

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Oh dear.

So as some of you may know, I love to point and laugh at bad legal arguments. And as fun as legal dumpster fires are when they are made by people who aren’t lawyers but think this whole “law” thing seems pretty simple, it’s even funnier when an actual, barred attorney is the person dumping gallons of kerosene into the dumpster.

And oh boy folks, do I have a fun ride for y’all today. Come with me on this journey, as we watch a lawyer climb into the dumpster and deliberately pour kerosene all over himself, while a judge holds a match over his head.

The court listener link is here, for those who want to grab a few bowls of popcorn and read along.

For those of you who don’t enjoy reading legal briefs for cases you aren’t involved with on your day off (I can’t relate), I will go through the highlights here. I will screenshot and/or paraphrase the relevant portion of the briefs, and include a brief explainer of what’s going on (and why it’s very bad, but also extremely funny). (Also, I’m not going to repeat this throughout the whole write-up, so for the record: any statements I make about how the law or legal system works is referring exclusively to the U.S. (And since this is a federal case, we are even more specifically looking at U.S. federal law.) Also, I don’t know how you could construe any of this to be legal advice, but just in case: none of this is, is intended to be, or should be taken as, legal advice.)

First, let’s get just a quick background on the case, to help us follow along. In brief, this is a civil tort suit for personal injury based on defendant’s (alleged) negligence. The plaintiff is suing the defendant (an airline), because he says that he was injured when a flight attendant struck his knee with a metal cart, and the airline was negligent in letting this happen. The airline filed a motion to dismiss on the grounds that there is an international treaty that imposes a time bar for when these kind of cases can be brought against an airline, and the plaintiff filed this case too many years after the incident.

The fun begins when the plaintiff’s attorney filed an opposition to the motion to dismiss. (So far, a good and normal thing to do.) The opposition argues that the claim is not time-barred because 1) the time bar was tolled by the defendant’s bankruptcy proceedings (that is, the timer for the time limitation was paused when the defendant was in bankruptcy, and started again afterwords), and 2) the treaty’s time limit doesn’t apply to this case because the case was filed in state court before the state statute of limitations expired, and the state court has concurrent jurisdiction over this kind of case.

I’m struggling a bit to succinctly explain the second reason, and there’s a reason for that.

You see, the whole opposition reads a bit…oddly.

This is how the opposition begins its argument, and it’s…weird. The basic principle is...mostly correct here, but the actual standard is that when reviewing a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim (which is what the defendant filed) the court must draw all reasonable factual inferences in the plaintiff’s favor. But even then, you don’t just put that standard in your opposition. You cite to a case that lays out the standard.

Because that’s how courts and the law work. The courts don’t operate just based on vibes. They follow statutory law (laws made by legislature) and case law (the decisions made by courts interpreting what those laws mean). You don't just submit a filing saying, "here's what the law is," without citing some authority to demonstrate that the law is what you say (or are arguing) it is.

Again, this isn’t wrong (although I'm not sure what it means by new arguments?), but it’s weird! And part of the reason it’s weird is that it is irrelevant to the defendant’s motion to dismiss. The defendant filed a motion stating that based on the facts in the complaint, the plaintiff has not stated a claim based on which relief can be granted, because the complaint is time barred by a treaty. There is no reason for this language to be in the opposition. It’s almost like they just asked a chatbot what the legal standards are for a motion to dismiss for a failure to state a claim, and just copied the answer into their brief without bother to double-check it.

The opposition then cites a bunch of cases which it claims support its position. We will skip them for now, as the defendant will respond to those citations in its reply brief.

The last thing in the brief is the signature of the lawyer who submitted the brief affirming that everything in the brief is true and correct. An extremely normal - required, even! - thing to do. This will surely not cause any problems for him later.

The next relevant filing is the defendant’s reply brief. Again, the existence of a reply brief in response to an opposition is extremely normal. The contents of this brief are…less so.

Beg pardon?

Just to be clear, this is not normal. It is normal to argue that the plaintiff’s cases are not relevant, or they aren’t applicable to this case, or you disagree with the interpretations, or whatever. It is not normal for the cases to appear to not exist.

Some highlights from the brief:

Quick lesson in how to read U.S. case citations! The italicized (or underlined) part at the beginning is the name of the case. If it is a trial court case, the plaintiff is listed first and the defendant second; if the case has been appealed, the person who lost at the lower court level (the petitioner/appellant) will be listed first, and the person who won at the lower level (the respondent/appellee) will be listed second. There are extremely specific rules about which words in these names are abbreviated, and how they are abbreviated. Next, you list the volume number and name of the reporter (the place where the case is published), again abbreviated according to very specific rules, then the page number that the case starts on. If you are citing a case for a specific quote or proposition, you then put a comma after the beginning page number, and list the page number(s) on which the quote or language you are relying on is located (this is called a “pincite”). Finally, you put in parenthesis the name of the court (if needed)(and again, abbreviated according to extremely specific rules) and the year the case was decided.

So the plaintiff’s response cited to Zicherman, which they said was a case from 2008 that was decided by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. However, the defendant was not able to find such a case. They were able to find a case with the same name (the same petitioner and respondent), but that case was decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1996, and the lower court cases associated with that case weren’t in the 11th circuit either. (The United States Reports is the only official reporter for the U.S. Supreme Court, and only includes SCOTUS decisions, so it’s not necessary to include the name of the court before the year it was decided.)

Just to be clear. The defendant’s brief is saying: the plaintiff cited and extensively quoted from these cases, and neither the cases nor the quotations appear to exist. These “cases” were not ancillary citations in the plaintiff’s brief. They were the authority it relied upon to make its arguments.

This is as close a lawyer can come, at this point in the proceedings, to saying, “opposing counsel made up a bunch of fake cases to lie to the court and pretend the law is something different than it is.”

That, “Putting aside that here is no page 598 in Kaiser Steel,” is delightfully petty lawyer speak for, “you are wrong on every possible thing there is to be wrong about.”

By page 5, the defendant has resorted to just listing all of the (apparently) made up cases in a footnote:

(skipping the citations to support this proposition)

This is where I return to my struggle to explain the opposition’s second reason why the motion to dismiss should not be granted. I struggled to explain the argument, because they failed to explain why the argument they were making (that plaintiffs can bring lawsuits against airlines in state court, and the state court have specific statutes of limitations for general negligence claims) was relevant to the question of whether the plaintiff’s specific claim against the airline was time barred by the treaty. Because 1) this case is in federal court, not state court, and 2) federal law - including treaties - preempts state law. Again, it’s almost like plaintiff’s attorney just typed a question about the time bar into a chatbot or something, and the machine, which wasn’t able to reason or actually analyze the issues, saw a question about the time to bring a lawsuit and just wrote up an answer about the statute of limitations.

We also end with a nice little lawyerly version of “you fucked up and we are going to destroy you.” The relief requested in the defendant’s original motion to dismiss was:

In their reply to the opposition, however:

“The circumstances” in this case, being the apparent fabrication of entire cases. Because courts tend to take that pretty seriously.

And the court took it seriously indeed. The defendant’s reply was docketed on March 15th of this year. On April 11th:

AKA: you have one week (an extremely prompt time frame for federal court) to prove to me that you didn’t just make up these cases.

On April 12th, the plaintiff’s attorney requests more time because he’s on vacation:

The judge grants the motion, but adds in another case that he forgot to include in his first order.

On April 25th, the plaintiff’s attorney files the following:

(And he lists the cases, with one exception, which he says is an unpublished decision.)

But he says of all of the cases except two, that the opinions…

Which is…nonsense?

First of all: if you cited a case, you had to get it from somewhere. Even unpublished opinions, if you are citing them in a brief, you are citing them because you pulled them off of westlaw or whatever. Which means you have access to the case and can annex it for the court. (There are even formal rules for how you cite unpublished opinions! And those rules include citing to where you pulled the damn case from!)

Secondly: remember that long digression I went into about how to read case citations? Remember that bit about how you include the name of the reporter (the place the case was published)? Yes, cases are published. They are printed in physical books, and they are published online in databases (e.g. lexis or westlaw). If the specific online database you are looking in does not have the case, you look somewhere else. If you have a judge telling you to get them a copy of the case Or Else, you track down a physical copy of the reporter if you need to and scan the damn thing yourself. You - literally - can’t just not have a copy of the case! (Especially published federal circuit court opinions, which multiple of these cases are! Those aren’t hard to find!)

And what kind of “online database” doesn’t include the entire opinion anyway? I’ve literally never heard of a case research database that only included partial opinions, because that wouldn’t be useful.

Maybe if we look at the attached annexed copies of the cases, that might give us some answers.

...

My friends, these things are just bizarre. With two exceptions, they aren’t submitted in any sort of conventional format. Even if you’ve never seen a legal opinion before, I think you can see the difference if you just glance through the filings. They are located at Docket entry #29 on Court Listener (April 25, 2023). Compare Attachments 6 and 8 (the real cases submitted in conventional format) to the other cases. Turning to the contents of the cases:

In the first one, the factual background is that a passenger sued an airline, then the airline filed a motion to dismiss (on grounds unrelated to the treaty's time bar), then the airline went into bankruptcy, then the airline won the motion to dismiss, then the passenger appealed. And the court is now considering that appeal. But then the opinion starts talking about how the passenger was in arbitration, and it seems to be treating the passenger like he is the one who filed for bankruptcy? It’s hallucinatory, even before you get to the legal arguments. The “Court of Appeals” is making a ruling overruling the district court’s dismissal based on the time bar, but according to the factual background, the case wasn’t dismissed based on the time bar, but on entirely other grounds? Was there some other proceeding where the claim was dismissed as time barred, and it’s just not mentioned in the factual background? How? Why? What is happening? Also it says Congress enacted the treaty? But, no? That’s…that’s not how treaties work? I mean, Congress did ratify the treaty? But they didn’t unilaterally make it!

In the second case, there’s an extended discussion of which treaty applies to the appellants claims, which is bizarre because there are two relevant treaties, and one replaced the other before the conduct at issue, so only the new treaty applies? There isn’t any discussion of the issue beyond that basic principle, so there is no reason there should be multiple paragraphs in the opinion explaining it over and over? Also, it keeps referring to the appellant as the plaintiff, for some reason? And it includes this absolutely hallucinatory sentence:

…the only part this that makes sense is that the argument is without merit. I’m not going to discuss the actual merits of the legal arguments in the opinion, because they are so bizarre and disjointed that even trying to describe them would require a Pepe Silvia-sized conspiracy board. Like the previous case, both the facts and the legal posture of the case change constantly, with seemingly no rhyme or reason.

The third one…oh boy. First, large portions of the “opinion” are individual paragraphs with quotations around the whole paragraph. What’s happening there? As far as the content of the opinion itself - I can’t. I mean that, I literally can’t. What is being discussed seems to change from paragraph to paragraph, much of it contradicting. It makes the first case seem linear and rational by comparison. The court finds it doesn’t have personal jurisdiction over the defendant so dismisses the case based on a lack of subject matter jurisdiction? But also the defendant hasn’t contested jurisdiction? And also the court does hold that it has both subject matter and personal jurisdiction over the defendant? And then it denies the motion to dismiss the case? Also, at one point it cites itself?

…also, even if this was a real case, it doesn’t stand for the propositions the plaintiff cited it for in their opposition? I’m not going to go into the weeds (honestly it’s so hallucinatory I’m not sure I could if I tried), but, for example, the plaintiff’s reply brief states that the court held “that the plaintiff was not required to bring their claim in federal court.” The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia is a federal court, and there is no discussion of any filings in state courts. The closest the “opinion” comes is with the statement, “Therefore, Petersen’s argument that the state courts of Washington have concurrent jurisdiction is unavailing.” (This statement appears to be completely disconnected from anything before or after it, so I am unsure what it is supposed to mean.)

Moving on, case number four is allegedly a decision by the Court of Appeals of Texas. It includes the following line:

Honestly, the plaintiff’s attorney best defense at this point is that he wasn’t intentionally trying to mislead the court, because if he was doing this on purpose, he would have edited the cases to make them slightly more believable. (Context in case you’ve lost track: these documents are supposed to be copies of the opinions he is citing. The screenshoted line makes it clear that what he is actually citing is, at best, someone else’s summary of an "opinion". It would be like if a teacher asked a student to photocopy a chapter of a book and bring it into class, and instead the student brought in a copy of the cliffs notes summary of that chapter. Except that the book doesn’t even exist.)

The actual contents of the “opinion” are, as is now standard, absolutely bonkers. First, the court decides that it doesn’t have personal jurisdiction over Delta because “Delta did not purposefully avail itself of the benefits of conducting business in Texas.” This was despite the fact that the factual background already included that the appellant (sorry, the plaintiff, according to the “opinion”) flew on a Delta flight originating in Texas. Like, this is just wrong? It’s not even hallucinatory nonsense, it’s just facially incorrect legal analysis. Then the court starts discussing the treaty’s time bar, for some reason? Then it goes back to talking about personal jurisdiction, but now the trial court denied the defendant’s motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction, and the appellate court agrees with the trial court that it does have personal jurisdiction, even though this is the plaintiff’s appeal from the dismissal for lack of personal jurisdiction and the court already ruled it didn’t have personal jurisdiction? And even though on page 1, the plaintiff was injured during a flight from Texas to California, now on page 7 she was injured on a flight from Shanghai to Texas? Also the trial court has gone back in time (again) to grant the motion to dismiss that it previously denied?

Also, I’ve been trying to avoid pointing out the wonky text of these submissions, but:

Everything ok there?

Case number five is similar enough to number four that it’s not worth repeating myself.

Thank god, cases six and eight, as noted above, are real cases, so I’m going to skip them. The defendant alleges that the cases do not stand for the propositions the plaintiff cited them for, and I’m going to assume that is true, given the rest of this nonsense.

Case number seven looks legitimate on the surface. But neither the defendant nor I could find the case through any legitimate search mechanisms. The defendant looked up the purported docket numbers on PACER and found completely different cases; I was able to find a case with the name “Miller v. United Airlines, Inc.,” but it was for a different Ms. Miller, it was a California state case (not a Second Circuit federal case), it was decided on a different year, and the substance of the case was entirely different from the alleged opinion filed with the court.

On top of that, this might be the most morally reprehensible fake citation of them all? Because it is about the crash of United Airlines Flight 585, a real plane crash. Everyone on board - 25 people in total - was killed.

The individual cited in this fake court case was not one of them.

I cannot imagine conducting myself in such a way where I would have to explain to a judge that I made up a fake case exploiting a real tragedy because I couldn’t be bothered to do actual legal research.

Now, I know you all have figured out what’s going on by now. And I want you to know that if your instincts are saying, “it seems like the lawyer should have just fallen on his sword and confessed that he relied on ChatGPT to write his original brief, rather than digging himself further into this hole”? Your instincts are absolutely correct.

Because obviously, the court was having none of this b.s. On May 4th, the court issued an order, beginning with the following sentence:

That is one of the worst possible opening sentences you can see in an order by the court in a situation like this. The only thing worse is when judges start quoting classic literature. If I was Mr. Peter LoDuca, counsel for the plaintiff, I would already be shitting my pants.

“I gave you an opportunity to either clear things up or come clean. Now I’m going to give you an opportunity to show why I should only come down on you like a pile of brinks, instead of a whole building.”

We are getting dangerously close to “quoting classic lit” territory here.

If I learned that the judge in my case called up the clerk of a circuit court just to confirm how full of shit I was, I would leave the legal profession forever. Also, the judge is now also putting quotes around “opinion.” When judges start getting openly sarcastic in their briefs, that means very very bad things are about to happen to someone.

So I’m guessing the delay between this filing and the court order was because the judge’s clerk was tasked with running down every single one of the additional fake citations included in the "opinions", just to make this sure this order (and the upcoming pile of bricks) are as thorough as possible.

If you are following along with Dracula Daily, the vibe here is roughly the same as the May 19th entry where Dracula demands Jonathan Harker write and pre-date letters stating he has left the castle and is on the way home.

Also, hey, what’s that footnote?

Wait, what?

Folks, it appears we may have notary fraud, on top of everything else! Anybody have bingo?

So on May 25, one day before the deadline, Mr. LoDuca filed his response. And oh boy, I hope ya’ll are ready for this.

Hey, what’s the name of that other attorney, “Steven Schwartz”? Where have I seen that name before…

...I ran out of room for images on this post. So I'm going to have to leave this as an accidental cliffhanger. Part 2 to follow once I refresh my tea.

#ai bs #2 Stupid 2 Sanction

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crabbunch · 1 year

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fic posting hours !

#ethoslab #zombiecleo #bdubs #fic #hermitcraft #ok thats good AUGH. i hate posting and tagging bro #anyways this is pretty much just. an indulgence lol. spinning around bdubs and his loremaking stuff forever and ever in my head #and then i spun it too fast and got silly with it #clethubs is there. because i said so. its MY fic and i get to choose the characters even if theyre not exactly relevent #also none of the body horror even starts until like. chapter 2 and thats super mild so dont worry about it #the only stuff ive got up rn is fun game night! do you want to see them do activities #i do #if i had a nickel for every chapter of this fic where they sit down and just play board games and ignore their problems. id have 2 nickels #and ive written both of them #except the second board game chapter is like chapter 11 #i just like board games.#ANYWAYS the writing juice is flowing today so im gonna go pump out as much of chapter 2 as i can before the block hits again #because bro writers block has had me in a headlock lately no ideas brain empty #running with this.#OKAY END OF TAGS GO READ FIC IF YOU WANT. YEAG

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eideticallys · 1 year

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The Dangers of Tennis Skirts

request: based on this.

pairing: spencer reid x reader

summary: “you know, reid,” you said, “guys ask girls out on a date before they bury their faces into their thighs.”

genre: fluff

word count: 817

author's notes: this is my first ever blurb! i wrote this to practice writing blurbs & writing this was so fun. also, i hope anon doesn’t mind that i wrote this with a fem!reader in mind & reader noticing spencer getting flustered. i just think it would be a lot funnier that way. thank you for this cute request, anon! i got to practice writing blurbs and it's about shy!spencer? a win for me! i hope you'll love this ♡ also posted on ao3 (spencereids).

“REID, YOU OKAY?” Morgan asked the younger male.

Despite his blatant intelligence and many talents, Spencer Reid is just a man. And just like any hot-blooded guy out there who is interested in exploring the curves and dips of a woman’s body, Spencer can’t help but have his IQ slashed down to sixty, or whatever it was Emily said before. And unfortunately for him, hiding the effect of seeing you in a short, white tennis skirt for the first time is not one of Spencer’s talents.

“Yep,” Spencer said, popping the p as he tried to stop his ogling—cue the word, stop—but failed magnanimously, eyes wide, pulse racing, and mouth gaping.

Morgan frowned at the doctor's weird behavior. Usually, when asked how he is, Spencer would go on tangents that would be relevant to the conversation at hand. A single Yep! would not suffice for the boy genius.

Something is going on with him, Morgan thought.

Worried but still weirded out by Spencer, Morgan followed his line of sight and guffawed at what he found. You just entered the bullpen in a fluffy beige sweater, a white tennis skirt, and with your hair tied with a white ribbon.

"Oh, pretty boy," Morgan exclaimed between chuckles. "You are hopeless!"

"Who's hopeless?" Garcia, who just sat on one of the chairs available, interjected.

Morgan continued chuckling and motioned to Spencer, whose eyes were about to fall out of their sockets, and then pointed at you just entering the area. Garcia gasped in happiness. She always thought you and boy genius would make the perfect couple.

And like Spencer, Garcia has many talents. One of which is playing Cupid.

Making the most out of Spencer’s inattentiveness—busy staring at you—Garcia made quick work of calling you over to talk about your cute outfit.

“Hey, Y/N!” Garcia blurted out. “I love LOVE your outfit. We all do.”

She made sure to gesture at Morgan and definitely at Spencer. “Right, boy genius?”

This interrupted Spencer in reverie and unfortunately for him, he’s not the most subtle when he’s back from being lost in thought.

“Are you okay, Reid?” You asked, none the wiser at the obvious display of Spencer getting distracted by your outfit, specifically, your skirt.

Spencer’s eyes widened at your concern. Frightened you’d find out the reason he was dazed was because of you, he instantly stood up from his seat, failing to notice that an electric cord was stuck beneath the chair. And with his quick scrambling, coupled with the fact that his reflexes are akin to that of a toddler just learning to walk, Spencer ended up falling face-first into the floor.

At his clumsiness, Morgan snickered loudly, earning him a slap from Garcia with a matching, “You are not helping at all!” And a glare from you to which he raised his arms in defeat. You held your palm out for Spencer to reach, who was busy trying to dust off his pants, not noticing it was you helping him up until he looked up.

Aside from talents, Spencer was blessed with the gift of hard luck. And unfortunately for him, it seemed his hard luck always tripled in front of a pretty girl—you. Because instead of looking into your eyes when he looked up, his eyes landed on the plush softness of your thighs, which you haven’t failed to notice.

Spencer never wanted to dig a hole and jump in it so badly before today.

You were already giggling, cheeks reddening at the thought of your effect on the genius. Imagine reducing a cute guy with an IQ of 187 and an eidetic memory to a clumsy mess on the floor. Quite flattering, especially if he happened to be the guy you have been crushing on for quite some time now. Not that he knew that, of course. But a girl has gotta take her chances, right? And what better way to tease the hell out of your crush than when he was face-first into your thighs?

“You know, Reid,” You said coolly, “Guys ask girls out on a date before they bury their faces into their thighs.”

Spencer’s eyes bulged out even more while Morgan was belly laughing at this point, Garcia right behind him, giggling in delight.

“I-I uh,” Spencer began to ramble, trying to come up with a tangent that could get him out of this mess, failing to remember that just like him, you were gifted with many talents as well. And that is making the most out of an unfortunate—not unfortunate, your crush is face first on your thighs!—situation.

“Sorry, Spence,” You chortled, ruffling his hair. “You’re not getting out of this one. We are going out after this case.”

This got Morgan falling out of his chair in laughter, Garcia giggling along, and Spencer’s pinkened cheeks resembling an actual tomato with their redness.

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snickerdoodlles · 4 months

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one of my most formative fandom experiences was a comment i had gotten on a fic i wrote for a halloween themed fandom event.

this was for a manga/anime, so the fic was a general ghost story obviously set in Japan. the beginning of it involved a pizza delivery and while writing it, i had spent like 30 minutes just double checking tipping customs and the types of pizza they serve and even fell down a wikipedia rabbit hole looking up the history of pizza in Japan.

now, i just like the research part of writing, i do stuff like this because i have fun doing it. and while i was writing this particular fic, i had laughed at myself for my 30 minutes of googling that amounted to 2.5 offhand lines in a 3500 word fic. i didn't think anyone would care about or even notice those particular details except for me, especially since none of them were relevant to the ghost part of this ghost story.

except, when i had sent this fic to a Japanese friend, the first thing she said to me about it was "OH MY GOD YOU GOT THE PIZZA RIGHT"

and that was the moment when it had really clicked for me. what had just been 30 minutes of effort on my part had become a moment of relief for her. my friend was far more used to reading ethnocentric fic that ranged from unintentional ignorance to outright superiority against part of her culture (the original story's culture no less). and even with the "innocent" ignorance (heavy quotes on that) far outstripping any outright maliciousness, that's still so many people saying her culture was not worth learning about. the pizza in my story was a small detail, but i had cared enough to put in some effort to check it. and for her, coming from a fic experience where her norm was bracing for hundreds of inaccuracies born of ignorance, especially at that time after a flood of stories centered around "Halloween as a cultural holiday in the US" premises instead of the "Halloween is a commercial gimmick in Japan" reality, seeing someone put in some effort even for minor story details meant something to her.

this also throws me back to the discourse that arose in a french show fandom a few years ago because there were a lot of fic authors that wrote 'dollars' instead of 'euros'-- but when people brought this up as a prevalent issue across the fandom but an easy one to fic/watch out for, many of these writers instead pushed back to complain that they were posting stories for free and it wasn't that big of a deal. which really upset a lot of people, but then this upset was met with a new wave of indignation that people needed to 'get over it' because they're writing fic ~just as a hobby~. but, even if 'dollars' instead of 'euros' wasn't a big deal, by digging in their heels about the issue, they were saying "your culture isn't worth even five minutes of my time or effort."

I've been thinking about these things lately because the ethnocentrism in Thai drama fandoms is...staggering. just over the turn of the year, there were waves of Christmas fic for Buddhist characters. and just. Christmas in Thailand is a tourist thing at best. sometimes a pop culture gimmick for international audiences or maybe an offhand high school thing to blow off steam between midterms. it's not a cultural thing. and even if a character is a part of the Christian minority, a Christian Thai's holiday customs and culture are going to be vastly different than a Christian's customs in the Americas or Europe. and while the Christmas fic is at least finished for now, I'm already bracing myself for the Easter fic wave that also seems to pop up for Thai dramas. it's so frustrating to see this sort of cultural overwrite all the time, especially since most Thai drama holiday works aren't about Thai holidays.

but the thing that really got me bristling about all of this again was i saw a post the other day where op said that they weren't going to write [thai drama] fic because they don't know much about thailand.

what an absolutely appalling statement to make.

google is right there. wikipedia is free. you don't even have to leave tumblr or AO3 to learn more because there are Thai natives in fandom who write essays to explain common elements of their culture. hell, even just watching these Thai stories and considering the values and messages imparted by the narrative framework and story lens tells you something about that culture. the audacity to look at a culture different from your own and say "this is not worth my effort or time to learn anything more about," are you kidding me?!?

the messages and values of a story tell you about the writer's values, which are going to carry their cultural values, beliefs, and biases. Thai culture is going to be heavily relevant to any Thai story, even the ones that aren't explicitly about Thai culture/customs/etc. (hell, Thai bl/gl as a genre alone-- just the fact that queer Thai writers are making these stories in Thailand's current political climate is highly political, even the "fluffy" ones that don't seem to make outright political statements.) to approach any story like it was made in a vacuum is to remove the writer(s)' culture and values and to overwrite them with your own.

especially because this is fandom. these are the lowest stakes to learn! it sucks to see people say things like "but i'm scared i'll get something wrong" and hold up that fear as a shield to justify their ignorance. no one's expecting anyone to get every detail right, especially not for a culture that isn't theirs, just make an effort to learn something new about it. pick out something that caught your eye as different to learn more about and see where it leads you.

and for the record--making a mistake trying to broaden your horizons is a far, far better thing to do than to superimpose your culture on everyone else's because you're scared to confront your ignorance.

edit: check out this reblog thanks

#fandom

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fuckyeahdindjarin · 9 months

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Butter

Joel Miller x F!Reader

{ Main Masterlist }

Rating: None

Summary: What if Joel doesn't forget to buy himself a cake for his birthday? But by the time he remembers, all the bakeries in his neighbourhood are closed - except yours.

Warnings: No outbreak AU, pure fluff, mentions of baking and food, meet cute, some sexual tension but very mild stuff compared to my other fics, single dad!Joel being a sexy menace, reader has a nickname related to her job, reader has an accent similar to Joel, very lightly edited, not my best work, but I'm in my writing for fun era 💁🏻‍♀️

Word count: 3.6k

Notes: It's here! This was an exercise in speed writing, and just putting words to paper without overthinking anything. I really enjoyed writing this sweet little piece, this is dedicated to @psychedelic-ink who has been the biggest cheerleader for this idea since day one. Happy birthday to our favourite single dad who never lived through a cordyceps outbreak ❤️

September 26, 2003 was supposed to be a good day.

It’s Friday, after all. Not that the weekend is relevant to you anymore, with Saturdays and Sundays being the busiest days for business. But you have a date for once tonight, and you’re determined to enjoy it.

If you can get the goddamn security shutter to close, that is.

Standing on your tiptoes, you pull futilely at the bottom of the metal shutter with both hands, but it refuses to budge. You lament the sweat seeping through the fabric of the nice dress you changed into, the hem reaching almost indecent heights on the back of your thighs where it’s climbed up. And you don’t have to look at your reflection to know that stress has already smudged the edges of the eyeliner you hurriedly painted on as soon as you got the last customer out the door.

You can be forgiven for not noticing the wash of yellow headlights over the windows of the shop front and the sound of rolling tyres as a truck pulls up on the curb outside the bakery, until a gravelly voice pipes up behind you alongside hurried footsteps.

‘Ma’am, please tell me you’re still open.’

You tap on the ‘Closed’ sign through the window without turning around, determined to wrangle the shutter into submission. ‘Bad luck buddy, come back tomorrow. We open at nine sharp.’

‘No I can’t, I’m so sorry, but I need a cake now.’

Curiosity turns your head, and over your shoulder, you find a broad-shouldered man in a dark tshirt and casual jeans standing a respectful four paces away. Under eyebrows sloping downwards in a pleading angle that matches the slant of his moustache, his warm and imploring eyes are on you.

‘I’m sorry, sir, but I really need to go,’ you say. ‘Can you give me a hand?’

‘Look, I’ll do you one better. I’ll fix the shutter for you for free - if you sell me a cake.’

You purse your lips, the prospect of saving on what looks like an inevitable repair bill tempting. ‘You can fix it?’

‘I’m a contractor,’ he replies, reaching into his back pocket to pull out a battered looking wallet. ‘Here’s my card, if you think I’m bluffin’.’

Miller & Associates is printed in bold across the top, and underneath, is presumably his name and cell number. Glancing up at him, you say, ‘Look, Mr. Miller, I really want to help, but I’m late for a date, and I’m all sold out of cakes today -’

‘I’ll take anything you got. Cupcakes, cookies, whatever you have left,’ he cuts in, then apologises in quick succession, one hand rubbing the back of his neck. ‘I’m sorry to be so pushy - I’m not, usually - but I promised my daughter I’d bring something home, and by the time I remembered, this is the only place I could think of. Please.’

You feel the exact moment your resolve crack, and then fold like a goddamn lawn chair. What can you say, this contractor really knows how to work those puppy eyes, and you can never say no to a man who refuses to let their kid down.

Especially when the man looks like this.

Shooting off a text to your date to push back your dinner plans, you nod towards the door. ‘Alright. C’mon in, Mr. Miller.’

‘Nice place you got here,’ he remarks politely, hovering by the entrance as the fluorescent lights flicker on, his manners impeccably southern.

‘You don’t have to flatter me, I’ve already let you in,’ you joke, lips quirking at the way he flusters. ‘But I appreciate it. You been here before?’

When he smiles, you notice the corners of his eyes crinkle charmingly. ‘No, but I know I’ll be comin’ back.’

‘I wasn’t lying when I said I was out of ready-made cakes,’ you tell him, holding the door open to the kitchen so he can come in after you. ‘But I have some cake layers in the fridge so I can put together something fairly quickly.’

He ducks his head in a manner that tells you he’s not used to demanding things, and protests, ‘I don’t want to put you out. I meant it, if you just have some cupcakes or somethin’ -’

‘Listen, you promised your daughter a cake, didn’t you?’ you interrupt.

He shrugs. ‘Well, yeah I did -’

‘I’m guessin’ it’s for a birthday?’

He nods sheepishly. ‘It is.’

‘Well, as a baker, ‘mfraid I can’t let a cakeless birthday happen on my watch, Mr. Miller,’ you insist, opening the fridge door with a flourish. ‘Let’s see what we have here. Cake for three, I assume?’

‘Two, actually.’

Hopefully you’re as discreet as you think you are when your eyes drop to his left hand - his fourth finger is conspicuously ringless.

Interesting.

You hum, considering the mismatched options in your inventory. ‘It’s gonna be a bit of a Frankenstein’s monster of a cake, if you don’t mind. How does chocolate and vanilla layers with cookies and cream frosting sound?’

‘Sounds perfect,’ he answers without skipping a beat. ‘Thank you, ma’am.’

You shake your head, hands full of cake rounds wrapped in cling film as you nudge the fridge close. ‘Please, call me Bri, Mr. Miller.’

‘And you can call me Joel,’ he says in return. ‘Is Bri short for somethin’?’

Laying the cakes on the work surface, you reply, ‘Yeah, Bri for brioche, like the bread. It's a silly nickname.’

The single dad surprises you with a low whistle. ‘Can’t say I saw that comin’.’

You grin. ‘You ain’t seen nothin’ yet, Joel.’

You don’t often have an audience while baking, and you find yourself talking Joel through the steps while you prep everything for assembly.

Swirling a spatula through the tub of buttercream you made earlier that day, you explain, ‘I just need to whip up some of this frosting so that it’s nice and soft for putting the cake together. You wanna help me break up some Oreos so we can make it cookies and cream?’

‘I’m all yours, chef,’ he says, one corner of his mouth curling into a teasing smile that has no business warming the apples of your cheek as it does. ‘Just tell me what to do.’

While your Kitchenaid whirrs to life, whipping air into the buttercream, Joel wields a rolling pin, smashing a generous helping of Oreos into crumbs in a Ziplock bag. The almost exaggerated care with which he moves speaks to inexperience in the kitchen, and you muse that either his kid makes up for it in that department, or they live off takeout.

Eventually, he picks up the bag and looks at you in a question. ‘I think I’m done?’

You smile and tap the lip of the mixing bowl. ‘That’s perfect. Why don’t you tip in the crumbs straight in here?’

Before you can step back to allow him space, Joel’s taken two strides towards you, and his arm brushes your shoulder when he lifts the bag and tilts the contents into the frosting. He’s warm and solid, and damnit, he smells good - like sawdust and sweat.

The thought comes to you unbidden - what a man.

There’s a lull, and only when you feel the weight of eyes on you do you realise that you missed his question.

‘Did you say somethin'?’ you squeak, embarrassed.

‘I said, is this ok?’ he repeats, nodding at the mixing bowl.

You nearly stumble over your words. ‘Yes, yes it’s perfect.’

He watches you closely, a touch of concern in his brown eyes. ‘You ok there, honey?’

‘Yup,’ you chirp, far too cheerfully. ‘Just need to mix it all up now -’

If you had your wits about you, you would stir in the crumbs first and set the machine on low. But this man somehow stole said wits by sheer proximity to you, and you accidentally start the Kitchenaid on high, an indignant yelp escaping you when Oreo dust flies aggressively out of the bowl along with a splatter of white buttercream that lands squarely on the front of your dark knit dress.

‘Oh shit!’ you cry out, frantically turning off the mixer. ‘Shit shit shit!’

Over your panicked mantra, Joel is calmness itself. ‘Hang on, honey, I gotcha.’

He makes a beeline towards the sink, grabbing a tea towel and wets it under the tap with a bit of dishwashing liquid. It all screams competent single dad, and you find yourself staring at his unfairly large hand, mapped with thick veins, holding out the damp towel for you to take.

‘Thanks,’ you stutter self-consciously, the tips of your ears hot while swiping at the stain. ‘That was a rookie mistake. I promise I’m actually a good baker.’

He gives you a wink to put you at ease. ‘Don’t worry, I believe you.’

Starting over, the mixer hums as it gently incorporates the Oreos until the buttercream is a speckled grey and doubled in volume. ‘Looks like it’s ready. You wanna taste, Joel?’

‘Sure,’ he says. ‘D’ya have a spoon or somethin’ for me?’

‘You can use your fingers,’ you reply, and it's too late to take it back.

You feel the back of your neck heating up when he shoots you a meaningful look, just a touch of mischief in the tilt of his lips.

‘Can I, now?’ he teases.

You try a nonchalant shrug that probably comes off as painfully awkward. ‘This batch is just for you, I won’t tell the health inspector if you don’t.’

Joel chuckles, his strong shoulders quaking. And so you watch, shamelessly, as he raises his right hand, index and middle fingers at the ready, before diving into the metal bowl, scooping up a generous dollop of buttercream. There’s a peek of his pink tongue when his plush lips part, and then he sucks his fingers into his mouth with a gratuitously loud moan, Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallows.

When he turns to you with a pained expression on his face, maintaining eye contact all the while licking an errant streak of frosting off the side of his middle finger, you gape at him for a whole five seconds before you manage to unstick your tongue from the roof of your mouth.

‘Good?’ you barely manage to squeak.

‘You betcha, honey,’ he declares, then adds, ‘Mind if I double dip?’

He doesn’t mean anything by it, you know it, but a hot flush runs through your body and you swallow thickly. ‘You can do whatever you want, cowboy.’

You don’t think you’re imagining the wicked glint in his answering stare - you’re getting yourself into trouble, and don’t you know it.

Clearing your throat, you attempt to thwart your mind's dangerous descent into the gutter by changing the subject. ‘So, I can do somethin’ really snazzy that I think your daughter would like - do you know what a piñata cake is?’

He shakes his head. ‘Sounds dangerous.’

‘Hardly,’ you chuckle. ‘It’s a cake filled with sprinkles, so when you cut into it, it’s a sprinkles surprise!’

He lets out a playful sigh of relief. ‘As long as there’s no whackin’ involved, it’s good by me.’

You gesture at him to follow you across the room. ‘And here’s the fun part - you get to choose the sprinkles.’

Joel whistles at the reveal of your compulsively organised sprinkles cabinet, each shelf sorted by colour, shape and size. He quips, ‘Is this what the inside of your brain looks like, honey?’

You grin. ‘Pretty much. What’s your daughter’s name?’

‘Sarah.’

‘What colour does Sarah like?’

‘Any and all shades of pink.’

‘I can work with that.’

Now that everything is ready and waiting on the work surface, you pull out a lazy Susan and plonk a cake board on top of it, dusting your hands dramatically. ‘Alright, Joel. Ready for the magic to happen?’

Making himself comfortable next to you, he leans on his elbows, and your eyes are immediately drawn to the way his tshirt stretches and strains over his back. ‘Go ahead, I’m ready to be impressed, honey.’

Filling a piping bag full of the cookies and cream buttercream, you ask, ‘You wanna get your hands dirty?’

He raises his palms in surrender. ‘I’ll leave it to you, I don’t want to make you any more late for your date.’

You’re used to working with much bigger cakes, so this one doesn’t take you long. With a cookie cutter, you carve out a small circle from each cake round, then you stack and fill the layers with buttercream. After loading the shaft in the middle with all manner of pink sprinkles, you stopper the top with the cake cut-outs.

‘How old is Sarah turning today?’ you ask conversationally while you spin the cake around, smoothing on the crumb coat.

Joel looks up, surprised. ‘Oh, it’s my birthday today, not hers. ‘

‘Wait, what?’ you cry, throwing your hands up. ‘I made this cake with Sarah in mind - it will literally be vomiting pink sprinkles!’

‘I’m a girl dad. I like pink,’ shrugs Joel easily.

You huff, using an icing smoother to make sure the buttercream is even all over the cake. ‘I would pop the cake into the freezer to firm up before adding a final layer of frosting if I had the time, but this will have to do.’

‘It looks great,’ Joel assures you as you put the finishing touches to the cake, with buttercream swirls all around the top and a final baptism of sprinkles.

‘There, all done. Lemme box it up for you and this bad boy is ready to go.’

‘Amazin’, thank you so much,’ he grins. ‘Please, lemme do the washin’ up while you’re at it.’

‘Oh, Joel, you can’t,’ you protest, but he’s already grabbed the mixing bowl and all the bits and bobs stained with buttercream. ‘You’re the birthday boy!’

‘Least I can do,’ he shoots back over his shoulder, already halfway to the sink.

‘Well no, you promised to fix the security shutter for me, remember?’ you call after him.

‘Damn, I was hopin’ you’d forgotten about that.’

Joel cleans up with a practised air, humming under his breath as he waits for the water to heat up and the soap to lather. You watch him from the corner of your eye while you secure the cake inside the box, throwing in a birthday candle for good measure. You’ve just tied a nice ribbon around the cardboard box when he puts away everything in the drying rack and wipes his hands dry.

‘Didn’t expect you to be good at that,’ you tease, moving towards the door.

‘Sexist much?’ he jokes, no real bite in his retort. Then by way of explanation, he tells you, ‘I work late, so Sarah usually cooks and I wash up afterwards.’

‘Sounds like you guys make a good team.’

Joel helps with the lights and locks the door, and you stand to one side when he grabs the security shutter and forces it into submission by brute force. You can’t help but stare when the bottom of his tshirt rides up, revealing a soft sliver of belly underneath, his biceps bulging and back rippling as the shutter is finally forced shut in a metallic ripple.

You give him a smile. ‘Well, happy birthday, Joel.’

‘Thanks again for the cake.’ He looks around, as if looking for your car, but the sidewalk is empty except for his truck. ‘How are you gettin’ to your date?’

‘I was just gonna call a taxi.’

‘No, you ain’t,’ he nods towards his ride. ‘C’mon, I’ll give you a lift.’

‘Oh, no, it’s late, and you should be getting back to Sarah -’

‘I spoiled your date, so please, let me,’ he insists, holding the door open on the passenger side. Hop in.’

Joel takes the cake off your hands and puts it in the backseat carefully, putting the seat belt over it while you climb in. Glancing over your shoulder, you see toolboxes and newspapers on the floor, and it smells like paint and wood dust.

‘Sorry it’s a bit messy, occupational hazard,’ he apologises as he straps himself in. ‘So, where are we goin’?’

‘Do you know the steakhouse on Third Street?’

‘Vaguely,’ he replies, pulling smoothly away from the curb. ‘It sounds fancy.’

‘You been?’

‘Nope, I barely have time to go anywhere nowadays. It seems like I’m only ever in bed, or at work, or in my truck.’

You turn to smile at him, admiring the way his his thick fingers around the top of the steering wheel, making it look so small. ‘I feel you. Small business owner, am I right?’

‘I hear ya,’ he shoots you a smile. ‘So - what’s the deal with tonight? First date?’

‘Fourth, actually.’

He wriggles his eyebrows suggestively. ‘Fourth date? You know what happens on a fourth date, honey.’

‘I don’t, actually. Tell me, what happens on a fourth date?’

He blows out his cheeks, and admits, ‘Honestly, I can’t tell ya. I haven’t been on a fourth date since 1991.’

You burst into laughter at his unexpected answer. ‘You’re such a dork, Joel Miller.’

When the truck rumbles to a stop outside the steakhouse ten minutes later, he looks at his watch and announces, ‘Here we are, only fifteen minutes late.’ Squinting through the windshield, he points at a man smoking outside, an impatient frown on his face. ‘That him?’

‘Yeah, that’s him,’ you nod, but you stay put in your seat, in no hurry to make a move.

Joel nods, tapping his tidily trimmed nails on the steering wheel. ‘So I’ll swing ‘round tomorrow after work with my toolbelt? ‘Round six thirty?’

‘A toolbelt? What a sight to look forward to,’ you rib, slowly reaching for the seatbelt and unbuckling it.

‘Hell yeah, it’s got a special clip for my Nokia and all,’ he adds mischievously.

'You must fend off the ladies by the dozen,' you tease.

'Daily,' he answers without skipping a beat.

You probably shouldn’t have, especially not with the guy who you’re supposed to be on a date with glaring daggers at you through the windshield. But there’s something cackling in the air between you and this man you just met not an hour ago, and the way the streetlight filters through the window, backlighting his messy curls and scraggly beard, that has you throwing caution to the proverbial wind.

Impulsively, you lean across the gear shift, your left hand finding purchase on his knee before pressing your lips to the side of his whiskered jaw, your kiss fitting right into that little heart-shaped patch on his beard.

You’re not sure who’s more taken aback, but you don’t have time to find out.

‘Happy birthday, Joel Miller.’

He smiles after you as you hop out of his truck.

You’ve just sold your last cupcake of the day when the bell over the bakery door rings. And sure enough, it’s Joel Miller crossing the threshold, right on the dot at six thirty.

‘Hey, Bri,’ he waves, hovering half-in and half-out of the shop, a slight awkwardness having set in overnight.

But it's ok, you're happy to pick up where you left off. Putting your hands on your waist and a cheeky grin, you quip, ‘Wow, you weren’t kidding about that toolbelt, huh?’

Your chest swells as you watch him thaw with an easy smile, and he banters back, ‘I’m a man of my word, honey. You ok with me gettin’ to work now?’

‘Yes, thank you. I’ll be cleanin’ up back in the kitchen, I’ll join you when I’m done.’

Joel shoots you a thumbs up. ‘Great. I’ll grab the ladder and get right to it.’

When you emerge fifteen minutes later, he’s on the fourth rung of the ladder, tinkering the rolling mechanism with a screwdriver and a studious frown on his brow. He looks like he’s wearing the same thing as yesterday - you can believe that he’s a man who buys the same tshirt in bulk - and he smiles at you when you duck out of the shop.

‘Did Sarah like the cake?’ you ask in casual conversation.

‘She went nuts over the piñata surprise,’ he replies. ‘And the cake was delicious, there were hardly any crumbs left when we were done with it. She says we’re definitely ordering a cake from you for her birthday.’

‘I like the sound of that.’

‘How was your evening?’ he asks, glancing down at you from his perch. ‘Did you find out what happens on a fourth date?’

You let out a dry laugh. ‘Yeah, I did, actually. He dumped me.’

Joel freezes, a scowl darkening his countenance. ‘Oh shit, what? Why?’

You shrug, leaning your weight on the ladder as you look at the ground. ‘I mean, I did show up an hour late in some other guy’s truck. And I guess probably shouldn’t have kissed you on the cheek right in front of him.’

You startle when Joel’s fingers slip under your chin, tilting your head up towards him. ‘It’s all my fault. I’m so sorry.’

‘Honestly, you don’t look that sorry, Joel Miller,’ you joke.

He cocks his head to one side. ‘Well, I can't lie, I think you deserve better than him.’

‘Do you now?’ you prompt. ‘Who do you have in mind?’

Joel peers at you from under long lashes with a half-smile that's almost shy. He dodges your question, and says instead, ‘I didn't mean to ruin your night, let me make it up to you, honey.’

‘How?’

Deftly, he climbs down the ladder, landing squarely on two booted feet, his presence comforting as he looms over you, his eyes warm. ‘Can I buy you dinner?’

‘Like - a date kind of dinner?’

‘Yeah, like a date,’ he nods.

You can’t help the dig. ‘And you were just sayin' you haven’t been on a date since...?’

He flashes you a smirk, and you shiver when his hand brushes your waist. ‘Since 1991. Tough sell, I know - but I thought I’d give it a shot.’

Running a finger along his sharp jawline, softened by the endearingly untidy beard, you have to bite your bottom lip to keep yourself from giving away too wide a grin. ‘Why, I think I have a good feelin’ about you, Joel Miller.’

Catching your wrist in his fingers, he presses a sweet kiss to your knuckles, the rough graze of his stubble chasing goosebumps across your skin as his eyes smile at you. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow then, honey.’

More notes: I hope you enjoyed this sweet little oneshot 🥰 I really leaned into the fluff and I have no regrets. Comments/reblogs/asks are much appreciated as always! I don't have plans for a second part right now, but a smutty follow-up is always a possibility...

The adorable dividers are by @firefly-graphics 👩🏻‍🍳

#joel miller fanfiction #joel miller x you #joel miller x reader #joel miller x f!reader #joel miller x fem!reader #the last of us fanfiction #joel miller imagine #no outbreak au #joel miller oneshot #the last of us oneshot #fuckyeahshorts

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bettsfic · 2 years

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writing cheats

i know i’ve probably written about these all individually but i’m putting them together in one post. these are writing tricks that are extremely cheap and dirty; when you use them it feels like cheating and honestly by posting them i’m probably exposing all the easy moves in my own work, but more than a writer i am a teacher, so here you go, some writing cheats that have never steered me wrong.

quick character creation

what’s really annoying is when you have two characters sitting at a restaurant or something and the server has to come by. to what degree do you describe the server so that it’s clear they’re just a background character but that they’re not just a faceless form, so that the world has texture without taking up too much space on the page? rule of three, babeyyy: two normal things and a weird one.

she had pale skin and blue eyes but her hair was dyed black like a 2010 emo kid.

he was tall and broad, and he wore a sweatshirt with an embroidered teddy bear on it.

the woman stood there comparing the prices of toilet paper. she had a short angled bob and carried a keychain the length of a trout.

why does it work? it gives the reader something to hang onto, a brief observation that shows the world exists around your narrator. it also works when introducing main characters, but there’s so much action going on that you can’t take time to write a rich long paragraph about them. all you need is a little hook.

quick setting creation

i used to TOIL over descriptive paragraphs. for years i was like, description is my weakness, i must become better at developing imagery. i believed this because a famous writer once projected a paragraph i had written onto a screen and asked my cohort, “count how many images are crafted in this paragraph.” there were none. none! my friends were sitting there like, “we are TRYING” but they couldn’t find any.

i would say that after years of studying imagery development at the sentence level, i am, perhaps, competent at it, but what was more helpful was for me to shrug and tell myself, “i’m just not a writer who does that.”

anyway. my cheat is thus:

there’s not much you can assume about your audience. the audience is not a homogenous whole. but your ideal audience is something you can guess at, and that means you can play around with their existing knowledge and expectations.

if you say your characters are in a tacky shit-on-the-walls restaurant, if your ideal reader is an american who went to restaurants during the maximalist era of franchise design, they will conjure their nearest memory of one of those places. and for those readers who aren’t familiar with it, they’ll use other context clues to conjure that space. the point is, you don’t have to list every single stupid license plate nailed to the wall. you can leave it as one detail of one sentence and let your reader extrapolate from there.

if i say the dentist’s office looked like a gutted 90s taco bell, maybe no ideal audience would have ever seen a place like that, but a lot of people can mentally conjure a dentist’s office and a 90s taco bell and overlay them together to create a weird and fun image.

you can go even simpler than that: a bathroom the size of an airplane lavatory. a tiny studio apartment with a hotplate instead of a stove. a mansion with a winding stairwell. the point is that you want to define the size of the space and its general vibes.

in some ways detailed description can be overrated, because your reader conjures images even in absence of them on the page. and for those readers who can’t mentally conjure images, it doesn’t matter anyway; they take you at your word. the trick is to figure out what details are unexpected, relevant to understanding the story and its characters, and those are the things that you add in.

one other note: after working with hundreds of writers on drafting, for *most* of us it’s difficult to develop images and establish setting in a first draft. it’s nearly always something to be saved for a second or later draft. i think it’s because while we’re writing we tend to put character and action first.

nail the landing

there’s a joke i heard once from a writer i really admire: “you know it’s literary fiction if the story ends with a character looking at a body of water.”

and god it’s so painfully sad and true how easy it is to nail the landing of a given story by ending on a totally irrelevant piece of imagery. the final beat of a story followed by your character looking up at the sky and seeing a flock of birds in the shape of a V flying past. or maybe they’re sitting in their car and they count the rings of a nearby church bell. or maybe they watch an elderly couple walk down the sidewalk hand-in-hand. i don’t know!! when in doubt shove an observation, an image, whatever, something neutral at the end and it’ll sound profound.

(this cheat is the only one that can really bite you in the ass because if the image is too irrelevant you risk tonal incongruity. for use only in the most desperate of times.)

sentence fragments

when writers ask me how to punch up their writing or start developing their own style, my go-to advice is to give up the idea of a complete sentence. fuck noun-verb-object. if you have a series of character actions, knock off the sentence subjects like in script action. if the clause at the end of your sentence is particularly meaningful, don’t separate it with a comma but a period and make it its own thing. if your character is going through something particularly stressful or heinous, that bitch is not thinking in complete thoughts so you don’t have to convey them that way. make punctuation bend to your will!!

rhetorical moves

this one opened a lot of doors for me stylistically. remember that famous writer who called me out on my lack of imagery? i always thought his prose was beautiful, that he’s one of the best living prose writers, etc. once i learned more about rhetoric though, i realized he just employed it a lot.

usually when we talk about beautiful sentences it means a sentence that uses rhetorical devices. the greeks were like, you know what, when we give speeches there are certain ways to phrase things that make the audience go nuts. let’s identify what those things are and give them names so we can use them intentionally and convince people of our opinions.

i love shakespeare, i really do, but one of the big reasons he’s still a household name today and his plays are still performed is because every sentence of every goddamn play utilizes a rhetorical device. the audience is hard-wired to vibrate at the sound and cadence of his writing, like finding the spot on a dog that makes their foot thump. for five hundred years, william shakespeare has been scritching that spot for us.

i have no idea why, cognitively, rhetorical devices are so effective. i’m no rhetorician. all i know is that well-deployed anaphora makes a reader want to throw their panties on stage. my intro to rhetorical devices was the wonderful book the elements of eloquence by mark forsyth, a surprisingly fun read! hopefully that will open some doors for you the way it did for me.

the downside to this is that once you know rhetorical devices, it’s like learning how the sausage is made. on one hand, as a writer, you’ll have a lot stronger grasp of style, but as a reader good prose loses some of its magic.

pacing it out

many writers, myself included, rely on the tried and true “he bit the inside of his cheek” or other some such random action to help pace out dialogue. one time my thesis advisor sat me down and said “you’ve got to take all of those out.”

“all of them?” i said.

“all of them,” she said.

i thought, but that will weaken the text! it didn’t. once i cut what i came to call cheek-biter sentences i never went back. and now when i edit for other people i’m like, look i know where you’re coming from but just cut all these out and see how the scene stands. if it doesn’t feel right you can put some back in. a lot of times when you’re drafting you put those in the way some people say “um.” they’re just sentences you jot while you’re thinking of what the other character says, so from a writing perspective it seems like you’re pacing, but readers don’t read it that way. they just want to get to the next line of dialogue.

but sometimes you really do need to pace out a scene and i think there are other ways to do that that don’t rely on banal physical movements, such as:

interiority: a sentence or paragraph of relevant cognition, bonus points if you weave in background context. good interiority defines the voice of your writing.

observations: i know i just said description is overrated but idk sometimes you just need a character to note the back and forth clacking of one of those desk ball toy things.

character texture: maybe your character notes something about the person they’re talking to. a wilted pocket square. a mole that looks like it needs looked at by a dermatologist. a scar on their forehead. some detail that deepens or complicates our understanding of a character.

narratorial consciousness and access

this one is less a cheat and more a problematic opinion i have that doesn’t win me any popularity in writing circles.

i believe that if you’re writing in first person or close third or any narration which is dedicated to the mind of one character, you are only ever obligated to convey the experience of that character’s consciousness. and nothing else.

by that i mean, if your point of view character is unobservant? then they’re not going to even notice the flight attendant is missing one of their canine teeth. if your pov character is focused and obsessive, they’re going to think lavish, detailed paragraphs about that which they’re obsessed with and have no acknowledgement of the rest of the world. if your pov character has no understanding of time, does your story even need to be linear?

defining the scope of a narrator’s cognition early on can give you parameters in which to work. even if you don’t consciously do this, you still do it. if you write in third person limited present tense without really thinking about it, that’s your scope. i’m just pointing out you can choose to do it differently. you get to define your narrator.

whenever we talk about narration we also talk about information access and the order of information being revealed/conveyed. writing must always be in order; even if you’re writing multiple concurring things, it still has to be rendered on the page in order one after the next, because the human mind can’t read two sentences over top of one another.

if we’re restricted to the mind of a character, that means we’re also restricted by their knowledge and experiences, and this can be used to your benefit. i don’t want to take too much space for this but i do talk more about the relationship between narration and reality here.

in short, you the writer get to choose

what the reader knows,

in what order they know it, and

its relationship to the presumed real events of the story, which develops the (un)reliability of your narrator

okay going to cut this off now before i go on more rants about narrative scope. i hope you found this helpful and go on to put some of these nasty lifehacks in your own writing!!

#writing advice

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v0rpalsword · 4 months

Text

On Calling Out Antisemitism... in the Crossword

So I like to do crosswords. It's fun, sometimes I learn random facts, it exercises my brain, and that jolt of satisfaction when I figure out the gimmick brightens my day. I usually do it on the Washington Post, which is the same as the LA Times, mainly because it's free (though these days I pay for the WP in large part because I like Alexandra Petri's pieces, but I digress.)

So there I am, working on the Sunday crossword at work on a quiet Monday morning, and the clue is "sanctimonious sort." Could be many things, I skip it and continue. Slowly, as I get some of the crosses, I say to myself, "surely this isn't going to be 'pharisee'. I'm gonna be so mad if the answer is 'pharisee.'"

The answer was Pharisee.

If you don't know why that's a problem, in brief: The Pharisees were the precursors to modern Rabbinic Judaism, and that word has been used by those enacting violence upon us for centuries-- throughout blood libels, Inquisition, crusades, expulsions, etc. When "pharisee" means "sanctimonious, hypocritical, self-righteous, etc." and "pharisee" also means "Jew" even of the historic variety, it tends to be extremely bad news for the actual living Jews of whatever era it is.

So I wrote the editors of the LA Times and the Washington Post, and I said so. I told them about the history of the term. I told them that at a time when antisemitism across the United States is rising alarmingly, it is, at best, deeply irresponsible of the newspapers to allow this insidious conflation of Judaism with moral corruption and hypocrisy to appear in what ought to be a light-hearted game.

And you know what? I got a response from the LA Times within hours apologizing for the harm and saying they'd reached out to the crossword writing company to discuss it. I got a response from the acquisitions editor, who had spoken with the crossword editor, conveying their sincere apologies, saying that they were unaware of the antisemitic implications of the term, and they would never intentionally cause harm. They thanked me for bringing it to their attention, and also thanked me for my suggestion of an alternate clue ("Contemporary of Jesus").

We on Jumblr and in the Jewish community offline have spent so much time talking our throats hoarse and our typing fingers sore about the harms of antisemitism, especially since October 7. I know many of us are feeling frustrated, burnt out, and hopeless. We start to wonder what the point is, when none of it seems to be making a dent. I almost didn't send that email. I almost let it go. I let myself be distracted by work, forgot about it for a week or so until something reminded me and I got angry all over again, and then I sent off an email that I expected to be buried in the inbox to maybe get a response in a month or so, because even if it never got read, at least I knew I had written it. But it did get read, and it got shared with the relevant people, and they cared.

Sometimes people listen. Sometimes they learn. Sometimes, all it takes is one person saying "hey, this hurt me."

I'm taking the win today.

#jumblr #antisemetism tw #antisemitism #pharisees #crossword #if you come into my mentions with anything 'well actually' about the pharisees I will block you

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maniculum · 3 months

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Had a baffling interaction a couple hours ago, and I think Tumblr is probably the best place to find an explanation.

I’ve mentioned on here that I have a side job at a bookstore. Today, I heard a customer make the assertion to her companion that the novel Frankenstein is “basically fanfiction”. (I don’t think this was meant as negative, but couldn’t say for sure.)

I asked her about it when she came to check out, because I had to know what that was about, right? She recounted the origin of the book — the Shelleys, Byron, & Polidori challenging each other to write horror stories, etc. I assured her I was familiar with the history, but just wanted to know why that made it fanfiction.

She said, “well, it came from a horror writing competition.”

At this point, I felt I had pushed about as much as I could in this scenario — as anyone who’s worked a customer-service job knows, when customers say nonsense at you, responding in a way that doesn’t upset them is difficult, and you kind of have to be ready to just nod and smile. So I said something along the lines of, “I don’t understand the connection, but as long as it makes sense to you.”

She chose not to elaborate further and left with her purchases.

So now I’m asking Tumblr because I figure this is the best place to find people who are familiar with unorthodox understandings of fanfiction.

Is it because it came from a competition? (This is the most sensible explanation I can think of, but that’s not saying much, because I see no link between these two concepts.)

Is it because it’s horror? (I know people get weird about genre fiction sometimes — last year someone told me they thought “Fantasy / Science Fiction” and “Young Adult” were different terms for the same genre.)

Is it because it was written for fun? (I know that the vast majority of fiction is — to a greater or lesser degree — written because the author enjoys writing, but maybe the customer doesn’t know that?)

Is it because it was written, for lack of a better word, socially? (By which I mean, is the story of its writing significant in that the initial intention was for Shelley to show it to her friends? But of course this is a group of published authors, and authors hang out to talk about & show each other their work all the time… maybe the customer wasn’t aware of that?)

These are the only options I can think of, and none of them have any link to what makes something “fanfiction” in my understanding. I’m just extrapolating from the fact that apparently the relevant distinction has something to do with it being a horror writing competition. Am I missing something? Tumblr, please, help me with this.

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creativesaturn · 4 months

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Could you write something fun about Reid dating a Master/PhD student and everyone is like “how could you???” making jokes about how he is the weird teacher that goes out with his students.

She is not his student, she doesn’t even go to the same college he teaches.

Summary: Spencer's new girlfriend happens to be a student, raising questions and laughs from the team members.

Genre: Fluff

Pairing: Spencer Reid x fem!reader

Warnings: None but lmk!

Word count: 645

a/n: I hope this is okay!🫶 also, if you're wondering why I only include three members.. I'd be lying if I said I was only on season 10 of criminal minds and I don't know any of the characteristics of anyone else.....

"I'm not sure, this guy's got a real temper." JJ commented as she read through the case file, her eyes darting from words to the pictures.

Spencer looked up for a split second to look at JJ, but when he did he got a glimpse of a familiar face through the blinds. You were looking around, confusion written on your face as you looked for, what he safely assumed, was himself. His eyebrows furrowed and suddenly everyone's words were going in one ear, and out the other.

"Uh, give me five minutes." He announced to the table, everyone staring at him in confusion as he got up and walked out the door.

"What are you doing here?" He asked as he approached you. You had your hands in front of you that held onto a brown paper bag, a smile on your face.

"You forgot your lunch!" You quickly frowned, holding the bag up in front of you.

"You're supposed to be studying." He stated, bringing a hand up to rub your forearm.

You groaned in response, "I need a break, Spence! I've been studying all day." You whined, throwing your head back.

He moved his hand to the back of your head to bring your face back to his.

"Exams are coming up, y/n." He sighed, "I'm sure you'll do great, but you really need to study." He added, grabbing onto the bag with his other hand.

You rolled your eyes, moving your head to the side only to catch eye contact with every member staring at the both of you. You laughed, amused, but not surprised everyone was being nosey.

He followed your eyes to everyone staring, as he looked back he brought his hand down from your head with a tight lipped smile.

"Fine, I'll go study." You sighed in defeat, placing a hand on his shoulder. He subconsciously aimed his head down, giving you access to his forehead to place a soft kiss.

"Bye, Spence." You smiled, turning around and making your way out the bullpen.

"Study." He called out, causing you to laugh as you walked out the glass doors.

He placed the paper bag on his desk on his way to the round table. The moment he stepped foot inside, everyone watched his with wide eyes.

He hadn't taken in account that when he left, he left the door open as well. Meaning they could've easily heard the conversation without needing to get up and move closer.

"Study? Is she some sort of student? She looked pretty young." JJ asked, being the first to raise suspicion.

When she spoke, everyone else looked at her and nodded in agreement.

"Uhm, sorta. I mean yeah, she's a student.." He answered, sort of mumbled as he took his seat.

"Wow, Spence. I didn't take you for the student, teacher type of guy." Emily teased, amused laced in her tone.

"What are you--?" Spencer attempted to ask, considering you weren't his student, he didn't think it mattered. But his words were cut short from Rossi butting in.

"How could you, Spencer Reid, be comfortable with that?" Rossi asked, genuinely curious, Spencer could tell by the way he narrowed his eyes and leaned closer.

"It's not that weird?" His brows furrowed, and it wasn't. It wasn't weird at all, you met how anyone would meet Spencer. He didn't see how you, being a student was relevant.

"So, you're just the teacher that goes out with his students now?" JJ went on, raising a brow at Spencer, and a look on her face that said, 'Did you think about that?' without words.

"She's not even--" But before Spencer could defend himself, Emily finally decided that they were getting too off track and needed to focus. Which annoyed Spencer, he's being accused of something that wasn't true and now, had no time to defend himself.

reposts and comments are appreciated <3

#creativesaturn #syd's spencer fics #criminal minds #criminal minds smut #spencer reid #spencer reid smut #spencer reid fluff #spencer reid x y/n #spencer reid x you #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid fanfiction #fluff #spencer reid fic #criminal minds fic #fanfiction #fanfic #writing

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highdio · 29 days

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Pleeease, write your thoughts about the musical lol. I really like your Dio meta posts <3

Just a disclaimer: this is really opinionated but I don't like to drag media for its own sake. There were lots of things to like in the Phantom Blood musical, just ... Dio wasn't one of them. Also, Mamoru Miyano threw himself into the performance he was asked for, so it's hardly his fault. It's just always amazing to me that people feel the need to rewrite Dio into someone else when the way Araki's written him is already perfect, complete and a lot of fun.

So, where to start? Basically, the Phantom Blood musical re-writes Dio, giving him a different personality and different motivations through OOC stage direction along with a bunch of original dialog and scenes. What results is a version of Phantom Blood where "Dio" is just a normal guy without charisma who had a bad childhood and spends most of the story being miserable. Dio as he's written in canon has an uncommon charisma and appeal that's allowed him to remain relevant as one of those 'all-time great' villains. Scene after scene in the musical prove that its creative team either didn't read the manga or just really didn't like Dio.

fwiw Araki wrote Dio as thoroughly fleshed-out, with consistent traits and behaviors and consistent motivations behind his actions. He also left a paper trail of interviews and author's commentaries that develop Dio even more fully beyond the manga. So there's really no excuse for media that treat Dio as some sort of empty vessel waiting to be filled by narrative cliches we already know and expect.

It's annoying too, because, along with its OOC content, the musical is peppered with occasional manga-consistent moments. It's like the musical is camouflaging its Very Bad Take on Dio by having Mamoru Miyano periodically re-enact the canon character's most famous panels. The musical wants simultaneously to take credit for bringing Araki's vision to life on the stage, while at the same time completely undermining its most important element: a capital V "Villain" who, according to Araki, "accepts and embraces his evil nature, and follows his dark path without hesitation." This is the biggest change the musical makes to Dio: musical!Dio has none of the confidence that allows canon Dio him to move so decisively and destructively through the narrative.

Musical Dio is introduced by a scene where he's bullied on his way home, before breaking into a song about how terrible his life is, where "everything is always taken from [him]" ("it's hell …I feel nauseated …[I'm] under a cloudy sky.") The song is alternately tearful and hopeful. "I'm going crazy from being robbed!" he laments and then pollyannaishly muses, "hey, Joestar, can you turn my [cloudy] skies to blue?"

If Dio being introduced as a sad sap and self-described perennial loser hoping for any break sounds attitudinally unfamiliar that's because it is. Araki went in the opposite direction: he started his story by subverting the cliche - wide-eyed poor boy victimized by circumstance leaves his sorrow-filled life hoping for a new start - and instead gave us a kid with surprising, even sinister agency. Dio is not just given a hero's upward narrative arc (something Araki crafted very deliberately), he's introduced improbably in his first scene from a position of control. This fact is important because in the manga it's a position he won't lose until four chapters and nearly 100 pages in, when Jonathan finally fights back. From the time young Dio is introduced - reading a book with his back turned to his bed-ridden father who he's secretly poisoning -

- to the time he's systematically broken down his adoptive brother's spirit by alienating him from his friends, taking Erina's first kiss, and of course kicking his dog, Dio is shown as being in control and on top (Erina drinking the muddy water is the only exception). It's OOC to imagine 12-year old Dio feeling sorry for himself because at the time he's introduced, he's already made a habit of getting what he wants. By the time he sets off for the Joestars after killing his first dad, he's already developed full confidence in his abilities and the inevitability of his rise to riches (something Araki has him explicitly state and then underscores with a panel illustration of a steam train signaling the rise of Modernity).

But the writers and director of the musical don't find this characterization interesting enough or something. So they lose the canon entirely and in its place they invent a version of Dio who's despondent. And they didn't get Araki's steam train memo so they miss the Modernity theme (even though Araki's tied Dio so tightly conceptually to the idea of the Modern that he has him "use a 20th century boxing technique in the 19th century"); instead they double down on class difference being determinative. It never occurs to them that Dio is written specifically by Araki with the freedom to move outside of his social status because he sees it as artificial (the "evil elite" monologue later reveals Dio thinks of the whole social contract thing is arbitrary and voluntary).

Throughout the musical, Dio (although it's not fair to Mamoru Miyano since he isn't responsible for writing this mess, let's use mamoDio from now on because it's easier) seems to idolize the Joestars for what he calls their "beautiful blood." Not "beautiful" because usable calories for the vampire he will become but "beautiful" because noble. The Joestars' noble status and the honor that's apparently behind that status become the shining "star" toward which mud-bound mamoDio flailingly, failingly reaches. I don't need to tell you that in canon Dio doesn't have respect for nobility.

"Mud and stars" is heavy-handedly introduced as a dominant theme of the musical. According to the play, Jonathan, noble and bright, looks to the stars while human Dio, pathetic, conflicted and even confused, can only see life as a mud-soaked prison.

Now, the mud and stars thing was only used in Part 1 as a single text element on a Volume 1 illustration but, in spite of its marginality, it's becomes a liturgical text for some fans looking for an explanation for Dio's actions beyond what Araki gives them in the actual narrative. To this sort of fan, a guy who embraces his inner talent for evil and never had the misfortune of developing a moral compass isn't the right type of villain because he's unapologetic. If the villain doesn't have excuses how can you apologize for him? So they need Dio and by extension Araki to give them a "good enough" reason to accept Dio's ever-escalating atrocities. If the reasons Dio has for doing the things he does lie outside of what's considered good or acceptable, they are simply rejected and new reasons are invented in the hope of making Dio much less objectionable.

Now, like I said earlier, Araki's repeatedly told us in his writings that Dio has an upward narrative trajectory, not a downward, "mud"-bound one. The mud and stars duality fails to describe the narrative journey of the two main characters: both look upward to transcend their circumstances and travel along a shonen manga hero's rising path. (In fact, it's Jonathan who needs a good push to realize his potential, something Dio happily provides). And it's Jonathan, not Dio, who Araki first gives a downward arc, being handed defeat after defeat for those first four chapters before gaining his footing and progressively rising to Dio's challenges. "Mud and stars" isn't just a bad choice of metaphor, it's a misleading one.

Back to the musical, mamoDio is the exact opposite. An air of sadness and insecurity haunts his performance. An original scene where George presents the mud and stars dilemma as a lesson highlights Dio's lack of confidence and the depression that lurks behind it, as Dio bemoans how people doomed to "struggle and die" cannot possibly summon the hope it takes to look up to the stars (he's talking of course about himself).

Likewise, and here's where mamoDio's failure as a character really comes into full relief, seven years after this, when Dio's machinations are revealed and he's about to be arrested, before he uses the stone mask, mamoDio drops to the floor and spends the better part of a musical number in tears, bemoaning his sorry life ("I'm trapped in a prison covered in mud… no matter how hard I struggle I'm crushed…") and his lack of noble blood.

(btw this is after the manga scene where Dio fake cries; here, mamoDio is genuinely distraught).

Contrast this to the actual scene in the manga. His expressions in these panels are memorable because of how assured Araki draws him. Dio's entire world - his poisoning scheme, his grab at what one can assume would have been the entirety of the Joestar estate - is about to end but instead of despairing, he launches into a philosophical soliloquy. His body language is haughty: this isn't mamoDio crawling on the ground and decrying his upbringing and lack of noble blood, instead this is a man who apparently, almost irrationally, perceives himself as noble. When he uses the mask, Dio is smiling widely. Metaphorically speaking, he's looking at the stars.

When mamoDio uses the mask? He's on his knees. He's in tears. On one night he interjects, "Mother…" In short, he's conflicted.

One of these depicts Dio. The other does not.

Now obviously the writers and director of the musical must think making these seismic changes adds something to Dio's character. But (and I feel like this is a theme whenever I write these things) I'd argue it only makes him more basic. It makes him predictable and formulaic, someone we've seen in countless other stories.

(Oh! and did I mention mamoDio repeatedly calls himself "useless"!! Because he does this.)

Now, because mamoDio has no confidence and as a human acts out of desperation, when he becomes a vampire he still isn't Dio. Mamoru tries to make his vampire Dio evil and scary by expending a lot of energy, running about the stage and sticking out his tongue ad nauseum. When you look at how Araki has Dio move physically throughout the manga, it's the opposite of kinetic. Dio is a point of fixity who's charisma draws others toward him (ask me for more on this if you want because there's enough here for its own post).

Now for the worst of the worst: at the very end of the production, after the manga ending that features Jonathan's death and Dio's (presumed) defeat as a head imprisoned in Jonathan's arms, the musical takes an original twist in which, following a finale number featuring most of the cast, mamoDio is lead offstage by Jonathan. You read that right. mamoDio is hunched over, resigned, and Jonathan seems to take on a paternal role. Although the lyrics would have you believe this has something to do with "two fates becoming one," it's clear from the stage direction that any embers of Dio's ambition are being tamed and extinguished as Jonathan takes Dio's grasping hand, subdues him, and leads him docilely into the darkness.

It turns out Dio's vampire arc was just a phase, a hurt and lonely child lashing out and making a mess for attention.

His body language here is obscenely out of character. Consider the following because, as I said in the opening, in spite of what all these re-writes of Dio would have you believe, Araki crafted Dio with specificity and consistency: Araki only draws Dio (with very few exceptions) 1) standing tall, looking down at you; 2) back turned, looking back and down at you; or simply 3) back turned, (performatively?) ignoring you. Dio is never on the ground except when he's knocked down (think, young Jonathan finally fighting back in the Joestar home or, much later, Jotaro stopping time and landing those punches). By constrast, mamoDio has spent an incessant amount of time of the ground, crouching, kneeling,, bowing, hunched down. Who is this guy? So his hunched-down exit in the final moments of the production, literally being led by Jonathan (controlled??), is so amazingly stupid that if I didn't have a gif as proof, you might think I'm just making this stuff up:

There's plenty more to unpack that I won't address here: ghost Dario. The lack of grave-spitting. The complete absence of true joy or leisure expressed by Dio especially during his vampire era: no woman eating her baby, no owlcats, no Poco's sister. No chaise lounge. No roses(!). No fun. Not for Dio. That would be too manga-consistent. That might mean Araki wasn't giving us the appropriate message that bad guys are actually just sad guys.

tl;dr Dio isn't in the Phantom Blood musical. He's replaced by a normal guy who's motivated by a lack of self-esteem and despair that he wasn't born into an upper-class household, or something. He's boring. The result? There can be no Part 3 in this musical's world (and presumably no Parts 4, 5 or 6, no Giorno, no Jolyne, … you get the picture) because mamoDio just gives up. It's a nicely produced little tale about Jonathan Joestar and some random other guy who at some point gets a funny green coat.

#Anonymous #replies tag #jjba #jojo's bizarre adventure #dio brando #mp #dioposts #jojo no kimyou na bouken #jojo #phantom blood #phantom blood musical #dio talk #long post #the fact that media that's otherwise faithful to the text goes out of its way to rewrite Dio and only Dio consistently sends me

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attollogame · 2 months

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March and the status of Attollo

Hi everyone!

This was posted on patreon, but I thought to extend it on the blog as well for transparency purposes for everyone. If you clicked the read more to check this out, thanks, and glad you're still kicking around!

March consisted of me jumping in and out of medical care for the bulk of the month, and despite the armada of pills and specialists I'm hanging around with in my free time, answers have been nonexistent about what's been going on. I'm tired—understandably so.

So what's this got to do with the game?

Beyond just feeling too tired to do what's required of me for work and school, I've been weirdly anxious about the game in general. I think it's based around comments I received in the past about how the game is, what people's opinions are, etc. I've been genuinely sick to my stomach opening my doc containing the game. I just start writing and then it's like... will people even like this? Or read it? Is it just jargon that they'll skim past for 5 seconds of dialogue with a character they like, and then never touch again? Is it worth putting the lore and stuff when it won't be relevant until later in the game? And so on.

I don't know. It's been a bit of a hole. I'm wondering if maybe I need to rewrite it to make it more appealing, or if it's fine as it is, and all these other anxieties that have by no means been helping my health. I want to write, and maybe that's the worse bit. The want versus the brains refusal to do so.

Anyway. None of this particularly matters, because you guys are mostly keen on when it'll be updated. It will—I'm plugging through it slowly. I originally said I'd post the three on patreon and then bulk release, but I may just post on patreon and then release as the new routes come out as a form of apology for my inability to keep a consistent schedule.

Unfortunately, real life demands often take away from fun side hobbies like this.

I reactivated patreon for this month so hopefully I'll have some new content to post on there as well to kind of... rebuild the confidence about the game.

That being said, I do hope you (the lovely person who has read this far) are doing well. I hope you're healthy, and stress free, and enjoying month 4 of 2024. Stay that way for me, will you?

#update

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asumofwords · 6 months

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Lighthouse - Sailor!Aemond x LighthouseKeeper!Reader - Mini Series 4/4

Summary: You work as a lone Lighthouse keeper on a small island just off the coast. Everyday was the same routine, tending to your duties and the lamp with not much time to spare. But what will happen to your routine when a storm rages across the sea, and a handsome man washes ashore?

Warnings: This fic is 18+. Readers discretion is advised. Warnings will be added in their relevance. She/Her Pronouns. Pining, kiss, angst, anxiety, fingering, smut, pussy eating like a champ, creampie for days, creampie, longing, dirty talk, love, fluff.

Note: Good lord, this is a long one, and also the final chapter! It's sitting at 12k words, so settle in for a hefty piece because I refused to cut it down or into two. Thank you all so much for your love and support of this mini series, I have had so much bloody fun writing it! I hope you enjoy how I have ended it, and hopefully now I can do some one shots for once in my damned life hahaha. Anyway, enjoy!!! <3

Final Chapter: Inevitable Ends, New Beginnings

The first thing that you noticed as you woke was a soreness between your thighs, a dull ache that throbbed with your heart beat, eyes slowly opening to the early morning light.

The room had a light blue glow to it, the sun only just beginning to rise over the sea and lands behind you, casting your little sanctuary in a cerulean tint.

The second thing that you noticed when you awoke that morning was that you were alone.

You turned in the sheets, eyes surveying the room in search for the silver head of hair you had grown accustomed to seeing almost every waking moment, but he was nowhere to be found, though there was evidence of his presence being there.

Bar the small marks on your skin, the smell of him in your sheets, and the soreness between your legs, your clothes that had been strewn on the floor were now neatly folded on your chest at the side of the room, and the lack of breeches and tunic told you that Aemond was already up and dressed.

A moment of anxiety crawled through you.

Had he left you?

But then you remembered that he had no way off of your island, unless of course he swam, which you very much doubted he would be desperate enough to escape you to do that. But then there was the reason for his absence that early morning that began to spiral out of control in your mind.

Had he slipped out of bed? Tiptoeing as quickly and quietly as possible to not stir you from your sleep because he regretted last night, and could not bare to face the shame and embarrassment of seeing you?

Had your moment of weakness tainted his stature in society?

Would he beg that you tell none other?

Not that you knew anyone from where he was from, but still, the inferiority of your birth gnawed at your conscience and creeped through you like the bitter sea winds.

Did he get his fill and was now avoiding you at all costs?

Was he repulsed in himself for laying with you?

Did he wish to pretend that it did not happen?

Was his early departure to find the time and wherewithal in himself to gather strength to not feel ill upon looking at you?

Sure, men of his breeding were sometimes known to lay between any woman’s legs, but it was usually one of equal standing and not at all someone of your status. And if last nights activities were any reference, there was no doubt within your mind that he had in fact lain with women before, once, twice, more, if his skills were any indicator. But perhaps they had been Ladies of his court back home, women of good breeding in high society, and for him to have been with you, well that would be akin to rolling in the mud.

You pulled yourself from bed and dressed yourself nervously, shaking your runaway thoughts, fingers stumbling over your buttons, pulling hastily at the laces of your boots, all too tight for your feet to be comfortable.

When you walked into the living space, you found that the glasses and whiskey had also been put away, no longer on the table where they had been left that evening, and atop the coal stove sat your kettle, steam rising from its nozzle.

Beside the door, your large coat was hung on its hook, and the hook beside it, which had recently held your fathers old coat, given to Aemond to keep him warm on the breezy island, was now bare. At the absence of the coat, you knew that Aemond was to be outside, and decided to go out in search of him.

Perhaps he left early to see what he could salvage of your boat, desperate to rebuild it himself and risk another encounter with the waves in an effort to get away from you. Or perhaps he had-

You walked to the lighthouse, the only place he could possibly be besides the beach that was empty with few planks of wood and what remained of his ship that hadn’t been re-swept out to sea.

Dew covered your boots, kicked up from the soft strands of grass with every step you took. The air was cold, and as you breathed, a cloud of your breath puffed in front of you, white and soft that dissipated before your eyes just as quick as it came.

The large door to the lighthouse creaked open, and then clunked shut behind you, echoing up the spirals of stairs, no doubt alerting him to your presence. You slowly began to make your way up the never ending steps, the only time in your life in which you had dreaded it and found each one to be harder than the last.

Would he run?

Would he scorn you for seducing him? Bewitching him? Tempting him?

Or would he let you down gently? Telling you the dispiriting truth that you both knew; That he was a Lord and you were not of good breeding, and he would have to go and be wed to his advantageous bride that awaited him back home, and that laying with someone like you was a grievous mistake indeed.

Your heart beat in your chest rapidly, gut churning as you picked at the skin at your nails nervously.

When you got to the top of the lighthouse's small landing where the lamp was held, you spun in search of him, spotting the figure of the sailor, bent over the small desk in the corner, quill in hand.

His long hair was pulled back in a loose braid, tied together with a piece of ribbon from one of the bags of food William had delivered to you. You watched as his hand moved swiftly across the page of your log book, pointer and thumb delicately holding the quill as ink pressed into the parchment with a neatness and precision that could have only be attained from proper schooling.

Hearing your approach, Aemond lifted his head to face you. Stray strands of silver hair hung in front of his face, swiftly tucked behind one of his pale ears as he gazed at you.

A small smile pulled at his lips, eyes crinkling in the corners.

All anxiety, all worries, any trepidations about his reaction after your coupling from the evening before were swept out the window when he stood straighter, smile pulling wider at his lips.

“I didn’t want to wake you,” He placed the quill in its holder, leaning down to the book to blow at the ink gently before he took a step toward you, “You needed the rest.”

Be still my beating heart.

You smiled at him shyly, watching as he came closer towards you, hand twitching at his side as though it longed to reach forth and close the gap between you.

But it didn’t.

“You should have woke me.” Your hands clutched each other tightly in front of your skirts, embarrassment licking at your neck. How could you have ever doubted him?

Aemond shook his head at you, “No need. You have already taught me what needed to be done.” He turned to face the table again, picking up the log book to hand to you, “I’ve logged the weather for the morning. Checked the lamp and oil reserves. All is well.”

You took the book from him, watching as his finger reached to graze yours gently, sparks flying up your arm. His writing was neat, swift and soft loops pulling in a slant as he correctly and proficiently logged the winds, skies, seas and temperature. There was not a thing missing, and he had even written note of his predictions of the weather for the rest of the day.

He stepped closer towards you, heat radiating off of him, “Besides, it’s only fair since I spent the night teaching you something new.”

Heat rushed to your face, hands clutching the logbook tightly as you looked away nervously, hearing his soft chuckle before his head dipped, hands coming to grasp the log book from your own, fingers purposefully covering yours, “Do you want to double check my work?” He asked softly.

You shook your head underneath him, stepping back, letting him take the log book from you to place back on the table, “No, I trust you.”

At your words, a softer smile pulled at his lips, before he held his hand out in the direction of the stairs, “Shall we? You’ve not eaten yet.”

“How did you-“

“-You would have seen I was gone and come straight for me. You’re a naturally curious person, and no doubt had a myriad of questions or things to say. I wondered if you would have felt some sort of fear to wake up alone after what we did last night.”

Heat rose in your cheeks again, and you cursed yourself mentally for ever doubting him, for ever doubting yourself, “I thought perhaps you would have made a mistake. You are a Lord, and I-“

“-You are far more than what you believe. I have not met anyone quite like you. Your birth and rank mean nothing to me.” Aemond’s hand reached forward to tuck a strand of hair behind your ear, warmth spreading through you at his words.

You couldn’t look at him, casting your gaze down to your hands as your eyes prickled with tears. How could he be so kind to you? How could he be so understanding? So calming?

As your thoughts began to race away from you again, Aemond uttered your name, causing your gaze to raise to his.

“Stay with me. Do not let your mind run away from you.” His seeing eye flicked back and forth across your face, the other unmoving, “Come. Let's eat.”

Aemond had walked with you by your side back to your cottage, and together you ate your breakfast, talking quietly to one another, through the initial shyness that swallowed you, about anything and everything you could to avoid talking about the evening before and what it meant for you, and despite his obvious desire to discuss it, he did not push the conversation and allowed the pace to suit your needs.

And that was how your days passed, not quite dismissing what had happened, nor acknowledging it outright like before, but knowing that it had changed the space between the two of you. The dynamic had changed once again, the way you began to dote on each other changed, or more so, him doting on you more romantically.

For every morning that passed, you would wake to an empty bed to find him in the lighthouse before the sun would rise, logging the weather and checking upon the lamp. Even times where he would stir you from your sleep in the middle of the night as he left to keep an eye on it, or telling you to take rest and go to bed if you had been with the lamp in the late hours.

What was more, was that Aemond no longer slept upon the small couch, and nor did you, the both of you comfortably sharing your bed together in the cold of the night. At first you had been nervous, but Aemond had behaved as though the two of you had slept in a bed together for years, simply telling you that the two of you should retire for the night and sliding beneath the covers, opening the other side for you to crawl in after.

Your initial thought at the behaviour was that he wished to dive between your thighs again, to lick and suckle at the crux of your legs or thrust himself between them, but not once had he pushed for it, or been untoward, in fact, he seemed to open the possibility of a second time to be entirely under your control.

Not that he didn’t touch you, no, he would slide behind you and tuck you beneath his chin, arm wrapped around your middle to keep you close to him, lips pressing featherlike kisses atop your crown when he thought you had fallen asleep, fingers tracing your curves with a featherlight touch during the night.

The shift was not only different for the dynamic between the two of you and your new living arrangements, but different in your own duties. No longer did the work of the island consume your every waking moment and thoughts, for now you had time to sit, to read, to get a good nights rests and spend more time attending to smaller more menial tasks, like repairing clothing that you usually wouldn’t have time to, or cleaning the cottage throughly. You also felt yourself smiling more, laughing more, enjoying life and what Aemond brought to it.

It was simple, nothing extravagant of course, but above all, content. It was in those quiet moments when he would tell you a tale of sailing or more sanitised story of his youth, small smile on his lips, did you realise that you were happy. Happier than you had ever been, and in every hour that passed spent with him, a warmth within grew.

A warmth for him grew.

It wasn’t until you had insisted that Aemond sleep the early morning and for you to tend to the lamp did you realise just how much time had passed.

You were up the lighthouse on the circular gallery that it had outside, leaning against the railings as you looked out at the water, watching as the dark blue waves rocked softly against the cliff below, and even more gently towards shore, which was slowly becoming illuminated with the sun. But that was not all that was illuminated.

There on the rocking waves, was a row boat, off in the distance, making its way towards you.

It was not an unfamiliar boat, nor was it manned by an unfamiliar man.

William was rowing towards your island, reprieve supplies in tow which he delivered on time, every time, but this time you had forgotten what day it was, how much time had passed since he last came, too preoccupied with the new and exciting presence that had landed upon your beach.

With swift steps you made your way down the spiral case and sped to the cottage.

What would William say when he saw Aemond?

Would he be shocked?

Would Aemond be compelled to leave?

Would William send word to Aemond’s family and alert the town, thus speeding up Aemond’s farewell?

You selfishly didn’t want him to leave, and almost wished William had forgotten about you, just this once. And there it was, that ache in your chest once again at the thought of him leaving, at the very real knowledge that he would leave, and that you would be alone once more.

When you entered the cottage, Aemond was seated at the table, cup of steaming tea in his hand with another in front of him at your seat waiting.

Waiting.

He was waiting for you, with fresh tea made.

Your eyes welled with tears before you swallowed them down, a lump in the back of your throat forming. You almost didn’t want to tell him, didn’t want to see the excitement light in his eye in knowing that he could go.

That brilliant violet eye, a colour you had never thought to be true on a person until you saw him, a colour in which made your heart fill with warmth and stomach full of flurry, looked up at you, smile at the ready until he saw your anxious demeanour.

Your shifted on your feet back and forth before pulling your coat off to hang at the door awkwardly.

Sensing your anxiety, Aemond straightened in his seat, “What is it?” His smooth timbre crackled in the air, your back facing him as your face crumpled.

You swallowed and steeled yourself as you turned to sit with him at the table, pulling out your chair opposite to him as you sat quietly, grasping the hot mug in your hands.

“Is there another storm coming?” His voice wavered as he asked, lingering fear of storms still clawing painfully in his mind. The visions of the waves, the darkness, the screams of his men, the water entering his lungs, the-

“A man comes.” Your voice pulled him from his memories, fingers tightening on the sides of the mug, “William. He brings my reprieve.”

Aemond’s silver brows pulled into a frown, “You sent word of my presence.”

It wasn’t a question.

It was an accusation.

“No.” You shook your head, and watched as he visibly relaxed, “I wouldn’t have sent word unless you asked. William brings my reprieve every fortnight or so. We have been so busy I,” You gnawed at your lip, “I forgot. I thought we would have had longer, but now I suppose when he comes, you can go with him. Take lodge in his home.” You sipped the hot tea to swallow your nervous rambling, but still it broke forth, “I have a friend, a fellow sailor. Dalton Greyjoy, he could take you close to home, another port, anywhere to help. I don’t have money to pay for your passage, but he likes me well enough to perhaps do me this one favour. Or mayhaps you could offer gold on your arrival, I’m sure-“

“-You wish for me to leave?”

“No. But I know you must.” Your heart clenched in pain, you lowered your gaze to the mug of tea in your hands, watching the steam slowly rise from it, “You have a family waiting for you, worried for you. I do not wish to keep you here knowing that I may be causing you pain, or your family pain in the unknown.”

If you had raised your eyes to meet his, you would have seen Aemond frown lightly, but you didn't, so you hadn’t.

“You do not keep me here, and my family are not of your concern.” A beat, “Nor mine.”

Silence wrapped around the both of you as you refused to meet his gaze.

“When shall he arrive?”

You swallowed, looking at the small clock on the mantel, “Within the hour.”

Aemond nodded in your periphery, chair scraping beneath him as he stood, “Excuse me.”

His footsteps echoed on the stone flooring as he made his way to the door, pulling your fathers coat onto his shoulders before he left, no doubt waiting at the small alcove or beach to watch William arrive.

You stared at the clock for some time, watching as the minutes ticked by, arm moving across its face slowly. But now that he was gone, away from seeing you, you allowed yourself to feel the ache that had crashed inside of you. Tear after tear fell down your cheeks silently as you watched the clock, the heat of the mug that lightly stung your palms, slowly but surely turning cold.

He would leave, and you would be alone.

Alone.

Again.

And he would leave and marry another.

Not you.

It shocked you that the thought of him laying with another, holding another tightly to him, caressing her, kissing her, smiling at her in ways that only you had seen thus far, made your stomach feel as though a knife was twisting itself inside. The lump in your throat sharp as though a dagger had been thrust through flesh and sinew, obstructing you from swallowing or breathing.

It felt as though you were losing him again.

You didn’t know why, you couldn’t reason with it, for you had never known him before, but that day on the beach, as he lay lifeless in the sand, you had lost him.

And then he had come back.

And now he was to leave once more, and no more would he laugh in your small four walls, nor would he wake you with tea, or twist in the sheets beside you.

No more would his hand linger upon yours, or his lips, or-

As another tear fell, the door to the cottage opened, and your hands quickly swiped up the wet tracks left behind on your cheeks. Rapid steps moved into the room as the door clunked behind.

“Your friend has arrived.” Aemond breathed, looking at the redness of your eyes and un-wiped tears on your chin.

You swallowed, that dagger still lodged in place and nodded your head to stand, averting your eyes from his as you brushed down your skirts, “I suppose then I should fare you well.”

All that you could hear was the crackling of the fire and the beat of your heart thundering in your ears. You knew if you looked up at his face, to look into his lilac eye, to gaze upon his soft lips and sharp edges, that you would fall apart.

And so you didn’t, keeping your eyes averted to the corner of the room near the fireplace, wishing for it to be over. Wishing that he had never washed ashore so that you wouldn’t have to bear the heartbreak of him leaving.

Because that’s what it was, you realised in that moment.

Heartbreak.

“I’m afraid I will have to ask for your generosity once more.” Aemond breathed, and you blinked, slowly raising your eyes to meet his. His seeing eye searched your face as he breathed heavily, “I feel I may be succumbing to illness. I am falling- I feel,” He swallowed, “I feel compelled to stay. If you’ll have me. If not for a while longer.” His chest rose and fell visibly beneath the coat, hair cascading over his shoulders like waves of water.

He wished to stay?

Here?

With you?

Aemond blinked at your silence as his shoulders slumped slightly. He shook his head, looking to the floor, “Forgive me. That was too much to ask of you-“

“-No.” You shook your head, “No, not at all. If you,” You swallowed thickly, “If you feel unwell and compelled to stay, who am I to cast out a Lord in need?”

Relief washed over the two of you, and an unspoken air of gratitude floated amongst the space. You fought the urge to smile, to laugh, to jump with joy at the prospect of him staying longer. Of wanting to stay longer, of the thought that perhaps staying here with you was better than the prospect of going home to his family.

His previous words echoed in your head.

Let me stay dead a while longer.

Was this his staying dead a while longer? Avoiding his duties that awaited him when he returned home?

“Will you tell William of my presence?” His voice broke you from your revere.

You blinked.

Would you?

“Did you wish for me to?”

“No.”

You breathed a silent sigh of relief, “Then I shall not tell William of your presence.”

Aemond shifted on his feet, before nodding, “Thank you.”

You gave him a hopeful smile in response.

William arrived not too long after your agreement with Aemond for his extended stay, and hidden presence. You watched on from shore as he pulled his boat up the sand, his warm eyes crinkling at the sight of you.

“Y/n, my girl!” He called out to you, trudging up the sand to you as he pulled you into a tight embrace which you returned heartily, head tucked against his chest.

Ever since your father had passed, William had become a father figure to you, but he had always been like that. Or at least like an uncle, a man who cared and loved you just as much as he did his own. You considered him family, and he considered you one of the same.

“How have you fared? We worried for you with that storm." His hand gripped your shoulder tightly, "Celia was beside herself with worry, pacing about the fire each night. Thought she would have burnt a hole in the floors by the end of it.” He chuckled, pulling away to look you over as you smiled up at him.

“As you can see, I am alive and well. The sea did not swallow me this time round.” You smiled, and turned to help him pull his boat further up the beach to unpack the supplies.

“Not all were so lucky,” William cast a glance to the remaining debris from Aemond’s ship, “Large pieces of hull washed ashore, we worried the ship had run aground atop the lighthouse.” His voice grew morose, “A few men washed up on the beach, but none survived the storm.”

You nodded solemnly, pulling a large bag of flour from the row boat as you lined it up on the grass with the others, “Debris landed here too. The ship sunk just off of the horizon in the thick of the storm. The sea took all.”

William hummed sadly, “Unbelievable storm that, not even Lord Greyjoy had seen a storm so large. Did any find their way here?”

You straightened, heart beginning to race in your chest. You swallowed and carefully thought of your next words, “One. Though he succumbed to waves like the others.”

The lie made you shift uncomfortably. You didn’t want to lie to William, but you didn’t want to go against Aemond’s wishes either.

A large hand grasped your shoulder and tightened softly, “There was nothing you could have done. We saw the lighthouse day and night through the storm and thats how we knew you were safe. Celia dragged me to the beach in the rain to make sure it was on as proof of your wellbeing.”

You nodded, “It would take far more than a storm to stop me or the lamp.”

William chuckled, a crackly laugh that was familiar and warm, “Don’t I know it. Now, are you going to make this old man a drink, or do I have to beg for one.”

You laughed at his words, picking up the sack of flour and other bags of food and supplies, leaving the large crates for him to carry, “Come on then, before the Gods take you.”

After doing multiple trips and talking along the way, the cottage was now filled with supplies and food for the next fortnight. Flour and dried meats and other items were strewn on the counter and in the kitchen, leaning against the walls and shelves, whilst small jars of pickled foods and jams made by Celia were neatly lined in a small crate on the table.

When the two of you had begun to drop the supplies into the cottage, you held your breath, hoping that Aemond had made himself scarce and out of the way as you came in and out. Thankfully, your bedroom door was for once closed, and you assumed Aemond was keeping himself quiet inside.

William sipped at the warm tea you made him as he seated himself in the chair that had become Aemond’s, long stocky legs stretched out in front of him as he rubbed a knee with a hand, working some invisible pain or injury out of it.

“Place looks good,” William commented, eyes roaming across the room, “You’ve been busy.”

You hummed in reply, lifting the mug to your lips.

If only he knew.

But William’s gaze stopped by the door, eyes locked onto something as he wordlessly stared.

Shifting in your seat you turned to face it, stomach dropping.

Beside your empty hook, was the other.

And hung on it, was your fathers old coat.

Aemond’s coat.

Your head turned back to look at William, mouth opening and shutting as you tried to think of an excuse, as you tried to think of a way to explain as to why there was a man’s coat hung on your door when you had supposedly been alone. And as you opened your mouth to explain yourself, to make up some poor take of an excuse, William beat you to it.

“I miss him too.” His voice was lower than it had been before, “Did you keep all his belongings?”

Your heart pounded in your ears, and a pang of grief moved through you.

Your pa.

He thought you had his coat out because you missed him.

And whilst you did miss him, you were thankful that that was what William thought of it, and not that there was a man living with you, currently hiding in your bedroom. Though, that would be a hard thing for William to believe, even if you told him.

You nodded, “It seemed a waste to be rid of them.” You sipped your tea, wondering where this conversation may lead you.

William gave a gruff sigh, “Do you not get lonely here? You’re all on your own. A woman your age should have a companion, someone to talk to at the very least. A cat even.”

You raised your eyebrows at him, “Are you suggesting I marry someone? I have my pigeon, but she’s not very talkative.”

The sea weathered man raised his shoulders, “You’re not getting any younger.” His words irritated you as he continued, “Not that you’re not capable of doing this on your own.” He explained, watching as your eyes narrowed on him, “You’ve proven yourself more than capable for that. I just,” Another sigh, “I know this isn’t what your father wanted for you.”

“Wanted for me?”

“He didn’t want you here, trapped. He wanted you to see the world, to go out and meet someone. He hoped you would settle down, start a family. He did not want to bear the burden of the lighthouse onto you.”

You looked down at the table, “It’s not a burden.”

“I know.” He said, but it didn’t sound as though he believed you, “But how often do you get to do things for yourself?”

You gave him a small smile, “I am perfectly content here, I don’t see why I should have to marry.”

“I’m not saying you have to, I’m merely suggesting the option.”

You hummed, “Well, not many men would like to live this life, nor are they prepared or knowledgable enough for it.”

Except for Aemond.

William laughed, crows feet becoming deeper, “I know you think men are a burden, if not a waste of ones time, but you never know, one may just wash ashore and change your perspective.”

Your breath stilled in your chest.

Did he know?

“What about Greyjoy?” William clicked his fingers, “The Dalton lad.” “His eyes always looks for you when he comes to town. Asks after you; Where you are, who you’re with, what you’re doing. Nice lad.”

“Nice enough.” You shifted uncomfortably, “But his heart belongs to the sea, and he would scarcely be home. What life would I live raising a child with a father who blows in with the tide? Not to mention, he has, shall we say, fleeting affections for others.”

William snorted, “I wouldn’t say his affections for you were fleeting, but aye, he is a man of the sea through and through. And those Greyjoys are known for their whoring.”

You guffawed, “William!”

“What?” He looked at you incredulously, “I speak the Gods honest truth. He wouldn’t be my first choice for you, but Celia-“

“Ahh.” You leant back in your chair, “Has Celia been playing the matchmaker of late?”

The older man grumbled, “When has she not? She tried to suggest Edmund Pyke-“

“-The fish mongers son?”

“Aye.” William shook his head, “Meek young man, too meek for the likes of you. I told Celia you’d eat him alive.”

A huffed chuckle fell from your lips, “Not much to devour. If I remember correctly, he stands half your size. Quiet boy.”

“Indeed. Always a shock when you hear him speak, like a mouse’s fart.” The man teased, draining the rest of his tea in one gulp, “But a man like that is no match for a woman like you. You need someone who can take what you give.” His eyes softened as he looked at you, “I doubt any man would be worthy of you. You are so very much like your mother; kind, soft.” A grin pulled at his lips, "But then you are frustratingly stubborn like your father and argumentative to a fault. And Gods awful at making tea.” He grimaced.

“My tea is perfectly fine, thank you very much. If it is so horrible for you to drink, then perhaps you should make yourself scarce.” You bit the insides of your cheeks to stop yourself from smiling, and William did the same, until finally he burst into a howling laugh, hand on his stomach as his head bent backwards.

“Oh no,” He grinned, standing with a grunt and pop of his knees, “I don’t worry for you marrying a man, I worry for the poor soul who will have to marry you.”

You stood to meet him, “Then you needn’t worry, for I see no husband on the horizon by the name of Greyjoy or Pyke.”

William raised a brow, “Just those names then?”

Heat rushed to your cheeks, “Be quiet, you.” You smacked him on the chest lightly, letting him pull you in for a final hug.

Slowly you walked William back to his boat, chatting quietly amongst yourselves as you went to shore, helping him to drag it down the sand to the water, the little vessel swaying in the small waves, the sun slowly beginning to set in the horizon.

“Now you take care of yourself, you hear me? Come to town and visit when the weather is fare. The girls would love to see you.”

You nodded, promising to come soon, hugging him once more on the sand.

William took one final gaze at you, eyes searching your face with an almost unreadable expression to it, “You’ve changed.” He pushed his boat further into the water before sitting to face you, rowers in hands as his boat rocked side to side on the small waves, “You’re lighter. Brighter. Before the storm you were dull, but now…” His voice trailed off in the wind as he rowed himself backwards slowly, “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were in love!” He called out, boat moving away from the beach.

“A good thing you know better!” You called out after him, heat rising in your neck and face as your heart began to race in your chest, “Give my love to the girls!” You waved and he nodded, your feet stepping back to avoid a small wave that dragged water up to your boots, “And tell Celia to stop trying to marry me off like a prized mare!”

“I’ll do no such thing!” William yelled back laughing, before finally he was away.

You stood on the beach, watching the man grow smaller and smaller as he made his way back to shore. Your feet had begun to sink into the sand, damp seeping in through the sides before you decided to return back to the cottage.

When you entered, your bedroom door was open, and Aemond was in the kitchen, pumping water in the dry sink to wash the two cups and put them away. As he heard your approach he turned his head toward you, though not fully.

“He seems a decent man.” He stated softly, hands scrubbing the tea from the cups.

You smiled softly, “He is. I grew up with him. Always visiting me and pa whenever he had the chance. And when pa died, he became a father to me.”

Aemond hummed, “He cares a lot about you, as if you’re his own.” Aemond grabbed a cloth and dried the mugs placing them back on the shelf, “It’s good to see decent men being decent fathers.”

You nodded and smiled. You knew from what Aemond had told you that he did not have a good relationship with his father, and you were more than fortunate to not only have one, but two father figures in your life who had been nothing but loving to you.

And whilst you thought of memories of your pa and William, the air in the cottage shifted.

Aemond dried his hands and turned to face you, his posture stiff, face pulled into a hard line, “You didn’t tell me that Dalton was pursuing you. You would let me leave on his ship with him without saying as much?”

There was something in his eye and the way that he spoke that made you shift on your feet nervously.

You began to pull your coat from your shoulders, “Pursuing is an exaggeration.” You lied to yourself, “Dalton has no desire to ask for my hand, nor has he ever expressed any desire. His family are Lord’s. He himself is a Lord. His family would never approve of my-“

“-But he wants you.” Aemond said lowly, stepping forward, looking down at you from his nose, “Desires you. I heard William say that he seeks you out, asks after you. It’s clear there is something there between you.”

Your brows furrowed, “Do you make a habit of listening in on others conversations? There is nothing between me and Dalton. I have known him all my life, and to this day nothing has happened. He is scarcely in town, always on the seas exploring new lands, new women. His interest in me is purely physical, I assure you.”

“And is it reciprocated?”

You blanched, blinking up at him, “Reciprocated?”

Aemond’s jaw twitched as he looked down at you, “Do you desire him in the way he desires you? Do you wish for him to touch you?” His voice dropped lower as he stepped towards you, hand coming to tuck loose strands of hair behind your ear, fingers lingering at the skin of your neck, “To taste you?”

You couldn’t think.

Couldn’t breathe.

Stuck to the floor as you looked up at the silver haired man whom you now realised was jealous.

His lilac eye had darkened as he looked down his nose at you, sharp features illuminated harshly by the fire behind him. His lips were pulled into a stiff line, and his chest rose and fell shallowly.

“Well?”

You blinked again, and cleared your throat softly, “No.” You whispered quietly to the room, watched as his brows furrowed in disbelief, “Once I had.” You admitted watching as his jaw ticked, “But that was before I met you. It feels a long time ago, and it was merely a passing thought, one bred by the desire to not be alone.”

At your words, Aemond seemed to relax, his lips softened and brow evened out, though his jaw remained clenched, “And are you alone?”

Your head cocked to the side.

Alone?

But he was standing right with you.

Right in front of you.

“No?”

Aemond huffed a small humourless laugh at your response, clearly you had misunderstood him.

“Do you feel lonely? With me here?”

You licked your lips, feeling the warmth of his body come closer as he stepped forward, fingers at your neck sliding to the back, tangling themselves into your hair as he pulled you closer. His mouth was a breath apart from yours, his eye on your lips as you heaved uneven lungfuls, waiting for your answer.

You tilted your head upwards, lips brushing against his softly, the feeling sending warmth settling into your gut as you chased his embrace. But Aemond did not let you close the gap, and moved his lips away, awaiting your answer yet again.

As soft as a whisper came your answer.

“Not anymore.”

Aemond’s lips met yours as soon as the words left your mouth, chasing yours in a heated kiss, the hand at the back of your neck tangling in your hair tightly as he pulled you impossibly closer, other arm wrapping around your waist to pull you against him, almost lifting you onto his own feet.

His lips felt like a breath of fresh air, a fire within you set ablaze with each passing moment. You chased after him as much as he chased after you, your hands desperately pulling his tunic closer to you, neck craned up on your tip toes to reach.

The sailors hands came to the front of your dress, teeth nipping at your bottom lip causing you to gasp. His tongue took advantage of your parted lips, licking into your mouth at the opening. You moaned warmly, feeling his hands pause at the buttons at the front of your dress. You nodded sharply, not willing to part from him to verbally give an answer.

With practised ease, he began to pull at the buttons one by one, slowly opening the front of your gown. When it was finally undone down to your navel, you parted for air, a wave of realisation crashing over you.

“The lamp.” You breathed breathlessly, rearing your head back to look up at Aemond, night had begun to fall outside.

His eye was half lidded, pupil expanded across the lilac, and a soft pink dusted on his cheeks, “Already lit.” He mumbled before crashing his lips back against yours.

You made a startled squeak, and wondered briefly when he had had the time to go light it in your absence. But any lingering questioning you had were lost when his large hands scooped under the front of your collarbones and up to your shoulders, slowly sliding the gown down your torso, freeing your arms as he went.

He stepped back to look over you, goosebumps rising on your skin as his heated gaze roamed over your breasts and body. His lips were pink and swollen from your embrace, and the pupil of his eye expanded.

Feeling a spur of confidence, you undid the small belted laces at the back, letting the heavy dress and skirts fall to the ground beneath you in a puddle.

Aemond was on you in a second, the room tilting as you were suddenly picked up, legs automatically wrapping around Aemond’s hips as he hungrily kissed you, all teeth and tongue and impatience, neediness bleeding through the both of you in a rush of desire.

It was as though wildfire had caught in the space between, and it burnt at you both hotly, the flames licking higher and higher on your bodies, an all consuming need.

Your need for him burnt.

“Bed.” He murmured into your lips, speedily walking to the room before he dropped you onto the bed with a bounce.

You gazed up at him through your lashes and watched as he pulled his tunic from over his head with one hand in one swift movement, your eyes roaming down his lean body.

Pale littering of scars were on his chest and arms, and your gaze moved lower still to the trail of hair that lead to what was beneath his breeches, the memory of it causing your core to clench around nothing.

Aemond breathed heavily looking down at you before he pulled you to the edge by your feet, a squeak rising from your chest as he loomed over you.

With haste, Aemond unlaced your boots, throwing them away alongside the stockings he rolled down your legs impatiently. Then came your stays, which did not survive his large, weather worn hands, which tore the laces from their holes, ripping the material at the seams.

You gasped loudly as he did it, not truly knowing the strength he had hidden, which was then smothered by his wanting mouth, body climbing on top of you as he kissed and nipped sharply at your lips with his teeth, hips pressing down into your own as he ground into you.

Heat settled in your gut with each thrust of his hips, his hardening length brushing against your sensitive pearl each time, sending shooting sparks of pleasure up your spine. The kiss consumed you, heat rising in the room as the both of you gripped and pulled at each other desperately, Aemond only breaking the kiss to pave a path down your neck, stopping every so often to suck or bite at your flesh, marking you which caused you to mewl beneath him.

He sunk lower and lower on the bed, pulling up your slip with his hands as he settled between your thighs once again, your hands gripping the sheets of the bed as you looked down at him. His eye was already on you, watching your face as he breathed cool breaths against your bare core.

You whimpered as he blew air onto it, cold on your throbbing bud as he smirked up at you, “Sīr lōz.”, He cooed, swiping two fingers gently up your slit, parting your folds.

A finger pressed down on you, watching with delight as you squirmed beneath him. You bucked your hips up towards his lips shyly as he blew against you again, smirking at how you whimpered and writhed, desperate to alleviate the ache that had been building within since he captured your lips with his.

“Is something wrong?” Aemond smirked, rubbing his fingers through your folds, but never quite touching you were you needed him.

“Please.” You whispered, hips seeking his fingers desperately.

“Please, what?"

You shut your eyes tightly, embarrassment coursing through you, "Please, Aemond."

The man chuckled gently, pressing a kiss just above where you needed him, watching as your eyes opened to look down at him again.

"Syt ao? Mirros.”

Aemond ducked his head between your thighs, hand on either side of your thighs, holding you open for him as he licked a wide stripe up your centre, tongue flicking against your bud.

Your back arched from the bed, eyes screwed shut as pleasure shot through you. The Targaryen moaned into your folds, beginning to lap at them hungrily, thumbs holding you open for him so that he focused on your pearl.

“Iksā sīr vok syt nyke.” Aemond groaned, two long fingers finding your entrance, slowly beginning to push inside of you.

Your breath hitched as they entered, immediately curling up to the soft spongey spot inside of you that he found last time, memorising each and every inch of your body and the reactions that you made when he licked, sucked, pressed or rubbed against it.

The sounds he made as he lapped at your core was filthy, depraved, and down right ravenous, moaning into your cunt as pleasure wound tightly in your belly, his ministrations slowly but surely pulling you towards the edge, no doubt assisted by his low rumblings in his mother tongue.

“Nyke jorrāelagon ao.” He gasped against your thigh, watching his fingers disappear inside of you as he began to fuck them at a faster pace, wetness coating your thighs and the bed beneath you “Gaomā daor gīmigon ziry,” He kissed at your thigh looking up into your eyes with an intensity that made the breath in your chest still, “Yn iksi vēttan naejot sagon.”

Your hips bucked, one hand releasing the sheets to card through his hair, his lilac eye momentarily shutting as you pulled lightly at the strands, a hum vibrating his chest, “Common tongue, please.”

“More tongue?” Aemond responded cheekily, eyebrow raised at you, and before you could quip back, he was back to using his mouth on you, sucking your pearl into his mouth as his fingers did not slow, the tension in your gut about the break.

“Oh.” You breathed, mouth open, “Oh Gods. Oh- fucking Hells.” Pleasure raced through you violently, and a long pealing whine flitted from your lips as you reached your peak.

Aemond sucked your bud into his mouth as he flicked his tongue against it, fingers fucking inside of you speedily through it, the wet squelching of your release loud in the room with each thrust of his hand. Your grip in his hair tightened and you pulled, still falling from the precipice he had brought you to, a deep grunt vibrating into your already sensitive core.

“Aemond- Nng- Please. Slow down.” You whined, writhing as the pleasure soon turned borderline painful, too overstimulated to function.

With a final broad wipe of his tongue, the silver haired man ceased his movements, allowing for your body to finally slump into the pillows, a light sheen of sweat covering you.

Your eyes slid shut as you huffed a laugh, whimpering lightly when he pulled his fingers from within you. Aemond placed wet kisses to the top of you mound, your hip bones, and then to your stomach which he revealed by pulling your slip up your body.

Only did your eyes re-open when he kept lifting the slip up over your breasts, his mouth coming down to capture a pert nipple in his mouth. He rolled it with his tongue, teeth lightly holding it in place as he slotted his hips against you once again.

You moaned, hands sliding down his sides to his breeches which were still very much on his hips.

“Off.” You breathed, tugging at his pants, his mouth releasing your nipple with a soft pop.

“Patience, byka perzys.” Little flame, Aemond chuckled, shifting to drag his breeches down his legs, kicking them off the bed along with his boots.

When he laid back against you, his hands moved to your shift again, pulling it over your head, leaving the two of you bare before each other once again. His head dipped and captured your lips, the taste of yourself on his tongue tart and musky.

Swiftly, Aemond used his thighs to part your own, moving them over the top of his as he lined the hard tip of his cock up with your soaked entrance.

Without pause, Aemond slid inside of you, catching your gasp in his mouth as you stretched around him. There was only the slightest of stings this time, your body far more relaxed than the first time.

The head of his cock pressed against your cervix snugly as he pushed to the hilt, the feeling of fullness spreading within you and up through your gut. You don't think that you could ever get used to such a feeling, such an all encompassing fullness that would forever shock you.

Aemond didn’t wait to give you a chance to adjust, and began to thrust himself through your silky walls immediately, sparks of pleasure beginning rippling up your body. A large hand held your hip, whilst the other buried itself in your hair, tilting your head further back for him to dive his tongue into your mouth, flicking at your own as you messily grabbed and kissed one another.

Feeling yourself begin to jolt up the bed, you lifted your legs and wrapped them around his waist, pulling him deeper and closer to you, desperate whine moving through you as his hips clapped against yours.

It was frenzied, fiery, and with each smack of his hips, you felt your wetness spread against his thighs and hair at the base of his length, his pelvis rubbing against your sensitive nub.

“Sīr ȳrda.” He moaned, head dipping into the crux of your neck, hand on your hip skimming to the globe of your ass, squeezing it as he fucked you harder, grunts spilling from his lips growing louder.

“You feel so good.” You whimpered, hands clawing at his back sharply as you felt a familiar coil within begin to wind again, “Please.”

Aemond raised his head to look down at you, your gaze meeting his. With his thumb, Aemond began to swirl small, wet circles into your pearl, accelerating your oncoming release. The lilac of his eye looked almost black as he lowered his voice to you.

“Take it from me.”

Pleasure coursed through your veins. Blinding white heat pummelling through you as you reached your peak below him.

“There you go.” He cooed, watching as your release crashed over you.

Aemond tumbled over the edge with you with a cry. Your nails dug into his back as he sped up, looking down intently, mouth slack as he watched you come apart from below, not once breaking your locked gaze.

His forehead pressed into yours as he slowed, the throbbing of his length inside you and warmth of his spend filling you causing a smaller wave of pleasure to race through you, your walls clamping down onto him. Aemond hissed before coming to a stop, the both of you panting heavily, bodies going slack, the weight of him on top bringing you an odd sense of comfort.

Carefully Aemond rolled off of you, his cock sliding out from your sensitive walls as he lay on his back, pulling you into his side to tuck your head beneath his.

You curled into him immediately, as though you had done it a million times before, fitting perfectly at his side. You wrapped an arm around his middle, lifting a leg to hook over his hips, which he held and sooth his his hand.

Your entire body was buzzing with the after mass of your release, limbs feeling heavier than they once were. The two of you sweaty and satiated, whilst small little huffs of joy breathed into the space as you both fell into a comfortable rest.

Another week goes by, and soon enough, it had been almost a month since Aemond washed ashore on your island.

Almost a month since the largest storm you had seen raged across the horizon and into the headlands.

Almost a month since you had nursed a man back from death and back to the living.

Almost a month since your heart began to grow fond of the man.

Almost a month since you had grown content with Aemond’s presence.

Things had changed again, not in any negative way, but things became more passionate, more heated, more tender.

Aemond would touch you whenever he could, hold you whenever he could, hand pressed against yours. Lips to yours, or your cheek, or forehead, and his his hands would seek you in gentle caresses that would set you alight and wanting for more.

And he always gave you more.

He seemed to be insatiable, never quite getting his fill, and whatever he had awoken inside of you was equal in fever.

You noted that his personal preference was to be between your thighs, lapping at your folds whenever he could, pulling peak after peak from you whether on your bed, or the couch, against the table or walls or doors or kitchen bench. And even, on one occasion, in the lighthouse, pressed against the bricks with a leg hitched over his shoulder.

Aemond never seemed to get enough of it, always insisting on it before he would sink himself inside of you. You had asked him why once, and he had flushed, stating that it was to prepare you, but when you had asked again, he said that there was no greater sweetness in all the lands he had travelled to than your, so eloquently put, cunt.

Not that you minded, in fact, it began to be a favourite pass time of your own.

When you had woken that morning, it wasn’t to your usual bodily clock, rising before the sun after years of habit, but rather to the warm and wet sensation that prodded and swiped between your legs.

You rose with a moan, and then a deeper one as you found Aemond between your thighs kissing your centre like a man starved. It didn’t take him long to get you to reach your peak, and when you had, he had smiled almost smugly, and stated that that was all he needed to eat for the day.

But the newfound intimacy and exploring each others bodies wasn’t all that you enjoyed in your shifting tides together. Each moment spent with Aemond you learnt more about him. Piece by piece he would reveal new information to you. A new memory, a new story, a new piece of knowledge about the mysterious man that you would itemise and lock away in the back of your mind to create a larger picture of the man in front of you.

You spent hours reading together when not working, for double the hands makes for swift work, and you found that for the first time in your life, you had the ability to sit down, to breathe, to not have every waking moment thinking about the lighthouse and only the lighthouse. And in those moments of breath and thought, you realised how much you truly had been missing out on in life.

You had thought you had been content alone, but the more time you spent with him, the more time you spent reading or hearing about his own adventures, you realised, much to your dismay, how you longed to do the same. But you couldn’t ever leave, for no-one would man the lighthouse after you, at least no-one you would know to be so proficient. Unless it was William himself, but he had a wife and daughters and a job of his own, and you would never ask him to do such a thing for your selfish wants and imagination.

And so you were content in savouring each moment you had with the sailor whilst he was still there, laughing loudly over whiskey as he told you of a story of his older brother losing a wooden sword match with one of his nephews, or another time in which his brother Aegon had grown so drunk at a family event, that two maids had to assist him to bed, dropping him halfway up the stairs as they went.

You learnt that his sister, Helaena, was a sweet and gentle woman with a soft and kind heart. She had, what he called, a nervous or paranoid disposition, and often believed her dreams that things were to happen, the family taking no notice to her fretting. Though he did note, with an ashen face, that she had warned him once about a danger beneath the eye.

Had she meant the eye he lost?

Or the eye of the storm which led to his ships demise, and almost his own?

Aemond did not know.

His mother, you learnt, Alicent, was a stern and pious woman, heavily religious and intent on him performing his duties and marrying a young Lady from a neighbouring land. Though at times she seemed to be somewhat overbearing and traditional in his retellings, when he spoke of her, there was a deep fondness in his eye, and it made you all the more disappointed in yourself for having kept him away from them.

During his stay, Aemond kept his promise to you, teaching you what he could of High Valyrian when you had the chance. It was a struggle to start, but you picked it up quicker than you had thought you would.

He would praise you for your pronunciation, which only led you to want to do better for him, his words of affirmation doing something to your heart and body, which resulted in you mumbling words and phrases beneath your breath every chance you had to perfect them.

You also learnt that he had an older sister, estranged, not talked about and something that was clearly a taboo for the sailor, but when he did mention her, it was to note that her High Valyrian was more advanced as their father had spent ample time teaching her, but not his four other children.

Aemond was, for the most part, self taught, besides the help of a lone tutor which Aemond noted was poorly.

Each time he shared a piece of himself to you, your heart longed to go with him, to see the famed Keep where his family resided. To meet his mother Alicent who was such an important person in his life, as well as his sister Helaena. You wished to meet Aegon, to see if he truly was as bumbling as Aemond had told you.

You wished to see the foods they had, imported from foreign lands you couldn’t pronounce, to walk the Gardens of the Keep, to see the ashen barked Weirwood tree in his Godswood, to try a starfruit, which Aemond had a craving for almost every second day, the shape and flavour a wonder to you.

You wished to be a part of his life, a part of his family, and a tiny, foolish part of you thought that perhaps you could. But the more rational side knew that it could not be, that you were of low rank, and you could not leave the lighthouse unmanned, and as each day passed with this heavy revelation, came the looming of a dark cloud above you.

The fresh scones you had made were still soft and fresh, Celia’s jam spread thickly on top as a treat for the both of you that morning. The cottage was cold, but the heat of the fire radiated warmth around the two of you, a subtle wind whistling past the windows outside.

Despite the bright mood the two of you had, started by Aemond waking you up between your thighs, that cloud still loomed over the top of you, dread and anticipation of what was to come nipping at you like a hound.

“Celia makes great jam. I should like to thank her one day.” Aemond hummed, popping a small broken piece of scone into his mouth to chew, licking the jam off the pad of his thumb after he swallowed.

You nodded, smiling, though it didn’t reach your eyes, “You should thank her yourself in person. I am sure she would like to meet a real Targaryen.”

His eye searched your face, “One day.”

“But when?” You swallowed, preparing your speech which you had practiced over and over in a loop in your head, finding some way that would make him want to stay, to make him want you.

The silver haired man frowned, placing the rest of his scone on his plate as he sat himself straighter, “When?”

“Yes. When.” The lump in your throat grew larger with each passing second, “You have a family, duties, a life. Your mother must be beside herself with worry and grief, and I fear that I am taking you from that. I fear I am creating pain for you all.”

“Taking me?” Aemond sounded confused, eye swiftly searching your face as you straightened in your chair.

“I do not wish to…force you to stay here, or corrupt you into thinking I could be anything other than this.” You watched as his frown deepened, lips pulling into a thin line, “I cannot keep you here as much as I wish to.”

His frown softened, “You wish for me to stay?”

“Kessa.” (Yes) You said quietly, “But I know it is not the reality we live in. You are a Lord, I am-“

“-Why do you always bring up my rank?”

“Because it means something. If your family found out that you have been here, with someone like me, the talk alone could ruin your potential list of decent wives. Your future. I fear I have already tainted-“

“-Tainted?”

“Yes, I-“

“-Why do you believe yourself to ever be capable of tainting me?” Aemond’s voice was stern, colder than before, as though angry at your words. You looked down at the table shyly, focusing on the scone smeared with jam.

“You do not think you could stay here forever, do you?”

Aemond huffed air through his nose, “I can do whatever I like. Go where I please, see who I wish. For now, my family believes me to be dead, and even if I was known to be hale and healthy, I can still do as I please.”

“But your mother-“

“-My mother,” Aemond began, voice softening, “Will one day come to understand.”

You shook your head, confusion coursing through you, “I don’t understand.”

Aemond’s jaw tensed, teeth pressing sharply against each other before he adjusted himself to sit even more impossibly straighter, “Do you believe in the Gods?”

Your eyebrows knitted together, “Of course. I would not have prayed to them if I did not.”

“Then you must believe the Gods control our paths and fate.”

Paths and fate?

What was he talking about?

“Yes, I believe so. But I don’t understand what the Gods have to do with you needing to go home.”

Aemond took a deep breath through his nose, his hand on the table as fingers flexed and then curled back into a fist, dropping into his lap out of sight, “My ship sunk for a reason. I do not believe that it happened without purpose. I drowned and came back for a reason. You prayed to the Gods to save me, and they did.” His tongue peeked out of his lips to wet them, and your heart began to race in your chest, “The Gods gave me a second chance at life and brought me straight to you.” He shook his head, silver locks falling over his shoulders, “Before you, I was unhappy, but with you? I have never been so content. So… at peace.”

Tears prickled at your eyes, your own hands twisting in your lap, “Please do not say such things to me, Sir. My heart cannot bear it.”

Aemond leant forward, “But it is the truth. And mine own heart cannot bear the thought of leaving here. Of leaving you.”

A tear fell from your eye, sliding wetly down your cheek as you looked at him, his figure blurred in your vision, “You cannot want me.”

“I can. And I do.”

A sob fell from your lips as you looked at him, “This is cruelty, Aemond. You cannot- You can’t- Your family would never allow it. You cannot say these things to me, do not give me false hope. Do not give me reason to believe.”

Aemond's hand lifted on top of the table, palm up, offered to you.

You looked at his palm, and the soft smooth skin there, and wished to mark it. You wished to mark him so that he could never leave, so that he could never be without you without evidence of you existing.

“False hope would be to say that I could ever leave here with my heart intact.” His hand waited for you on the table, “Please.”

Another tear fell from your cheek, “You cannot want a life like this. You cannot want a life with me. I have no money, I cannot ever leave, I would never trap you here with me.”

“You could never trap me in the first place. I am yours.”

I am yours.

Another sob fell from your lips, chest aching at the thought of losing him, at the thought of him leaving you. That this declaration would be for naught, that he had not truly thought this over, but deep inside of you, you hoped, dreamed, begged the Gods for his words to be true.

Aemond’s hand slid off the table and back into his lap as he stared at you, silence creeping across the table.

“I am just as much yours. Irrevocably.” You breathed, watching as relief flooded Aemond’s face, “But I cannot ask this of you. Not when you lose so much if you do.”

Aemond stood from his seat, swiftly coming towards you where he knelt in front of you, forcefully taking your hand in his as he looked up into your tear filled eyes. His thumb brushed over your knuckles soothingly, his other hand briefly coming to swipe a tear from your cheek before meeting the other that held yours.

“You are not asking me to do anything, byka perzys.” His words came swiftly, eye searching your face as tear after tear fell down your cheeks, “And if you were, I would do it. A thousands times over, I would do it. If you asked me to walk back into the sea, I would do it. For you, I would do it.”

“Aemond,” You shook your head sadly, mouth opening again to argue, but he interrupted you.

“-I want to stay.” His hands gripped yours tighter, “Here. With you. I want to be with you. Always.” He swallowed thickly, “If you’ll have me.”

Your blood thumped loudly in your ears as you looked at him. You couldn’t breathe. You couldn’t speak, mind going a thousand miles an hour.

He wanted to stay.

He wanted to stay here.

With you.

“Please do not turn me away. The fate of the seas would be kinder.” His voice cracked, and your heart ached.

There was no turning back, no moving from this conversation without an outcome.

It all just depended on which path you wished to go. Which path your heart ached for most, and that was for him to stay. But would it come without consequences? Would his decision to stay be a mistake he would come to resent you for?

You had nothing to lose, he had everything to.

But the way he was looking at you, the way he was patiently and nervously awaiting your answer, watching as tears continued to fall from your eyes, not just out of grief, but sheer overwhelming love for the man knelt before you, offering all that he was, sacrificing all that he had, and for you.

A small smile cracked on your lips, and you watched as his eye became hopeful. Your hand lifted to his cheek, caressing it softly to cup his jaw as you looked him over; his lilac eye, the sharp aquiline of his nose, the way his plump lips pulled sharply at its peaks. Never in your dreams could you have imagined such a man, and never in your life did you think to imagine that a man such as him could be yours.

And it was in that moment that you made your decision.

You smiled, small sobbing laugh escaping your lips as you rubbed a thumb against his skin, feeling the smooth stubble beneath it, “The Gods brought you to me.” You whispered, eyes searching his face for any sign of regret or trepidation, and when you found none, you continued, “Who am I to turn you away?”

And there it was, that full smile that you had grown to love.

Aemond’s lips pulled widely revealing his teeth as he beamed up at you.

Never had you felt such joy, such elation inside of you at the sight, your heart feeling as though it became full, a fire settling into your chest raging as it always did with him, for he always made it feel as though he set you alight.

“Avy jorrāelan.” Aemond declared softly with a smile, his eyes crinkling in the corners, lilac dancing with admiration, the unseeing eye reflecting the light of the sun outside like a cloudy morning sky.

He sat up on his knees and leant forward, face coming towards you before his eye shut, and his lips met yours in a passionate kiss. Your hands grabbed his face, and he did yours, diving his fingers into your hair, holding you to him gently as he slowly sought your lips with his own.

It was not rushed, it was not frantic, but patient, the both of you knowing that you were no longer running on limited time. No longer stealing moments together before the end.

No longer was there a looming departure of his presence in your life, and as though a breeze from outside swept inside the house, the dark looming cloud that had situated itself above you cleared.

When finally did you part, breathless and giddy, a curiosity took over.

“What does that mean?” You questioned, burning desire to know eating away at you, “What you said?”

And there was that smile once more, and you knew in your heart what it meant after that.

“You will know soon enough.”

Translations:

Sīr lōz - So wet

Syt ao? Mirros - For you? Anything

Iksā sīr vok syt nyke - You are so perfect for me

Nyke jorrāelagon ao. I need you

Gaomā daor gīmigon ziry, Yn iksi vēttan naejot sagon - You do not know it, but we are made to be.

Sīr ȳrda - So tight

Avy jorrāelan - I love you

Thanks so much for reading along with me, if you wish to be added to the general tag list please let me know :) Likes and reblogs are greatly appreciated ! Enjoy <3

Tag List:

@blackswxnn @marihoneywk @targaryenrealnessdarling @namelesslosers @aemondsfavouritebastard @dahlias-and-marigolds @aemondsbabygirl @toodlesxcuddles @jemmaagentofshield @malfoytargaryen @bellaisasleep @aaprilshowers @assortedseaglass @elizarbell @xpersephonex @lijeno @likeanecho344 @coffeeobsessedtrencher @diannnnsss @lexwolfhale @notasockpuppetaccount @at-a-rax-ia @spinachtz@marysucks-blog @generalkenobitrash @zenka69 @shygardengalaxy-blog @kittendoll05 @300nightmare003

#aemond x reader #aemond targaryen fanfic #hotd #aemond targaryen #aemond targaryen fic #aemond #aemond targaryen x reader #aemond targaryen x y/n #aemond x y/n #hotd fanfic #lighthouse!Aemond #asumofwords lighthouse #sailor!aemond #LighthouseKeeper!reader #sailor!Aemond x reader #Sailor!Aemond #LighthouseKeeper!Reader #Asumofwords Lighthouse #shipwreck!aemond

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blicketdabest33 · 5 months

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Y'all remember that MCYT PJO au I asked for help with awhile ago? WELL HERE'S THE CABINS AND MY EXPLINATIONS BEHIND THEM!!

#1 Zeus Cabin: Jimmy, Joel Jimmy: He's a Zeus kid, but everyone somehow forgets about it. Joel: He's competitive and strong. Also, because Jimmy is his half brother through godly parent, i get to make a fun bit about him dating Lizzie. And one of his origins in Afterlife SMP was a thunderborn

#2 Hera Cabin: Scott Scott: Scott's whole thing is loyalty. Hera is the goddess of marriage and is insanely loyal to Zeus. However, I feel like Hera should get at least one affair. So now Scott can use peacocks as weapons.

#3 Poseidon Cabin: Skizz Skizz: Poseidon kids tend to be really, really loyal to a fault and heroic, both qualities I think Skizz possesses.

#4 Demeter Cabin: Sausage, Shelby, Bdubs, Stress Sausage: This man built Sanctuary in a jungle and has flowers in his hair. He sells wood. There is no other place to put him. Shelby: Mushroom gnome, spooky mangrove witch, powerful storm witch, i need not continue. Bdubs: Moss man. Stress: SHE HAS FLOWERS

#5 Ares Cabin: Martyn, False Martyn: His planet is Mars, which is the roman version of Ares. He ended Limited Life in such a violent way, i can't help it. He was also red for the majority of Secret Life. False: I just feel like False should get to kill people more often.

#6 Athena Cabin: Grian, Pix, Owen, Xisuma Grian: This sums it up pretty well

Pix: Smart man. Archeologist and definitely a nerd. I wanna see him skipping out on training just so he can read history books. Owen: He likes to explore and discover new things in Pirates. In Rats, he's a tinkerer. In New Life, he's an explorer who wants to study hybrids. In Empires, he's a Llama who's curious about how humans work. Just a very curious character overall. Xisuma: Admin. I'm not elaborating.

#7 Apollo Cabin: Gem, Oli, Lyarrah Gem: She is an Apollo kid because of her Empire in S2. She's the sunlight princess. Apollo kid. Oli: MUSIC. MAN. Lyarrah: She writes the captions for the hermitcraft recap.

#8 Artemis Cabin: Pearl Pearl: Y'know, Artemis could've just like... had a kid, even though she took that oath. It wouldn't even have to be with a guy. Gods can change to whatever gender they want. Anyway, Pearl gets to be an Artemis kid because her symbolism is moon, she loves dogs, and will commit murder and hunt at night.

#9 Hephaestus Cabin: Doc, Mumbo, Tango, Impulse, Cub, Zedaph, Fwhip, Iskall Doc: Redstone Mumbo: Redstone Tango: Redstone Impulse: Redstone Cub: Redstone Zedaph: Redstone Fwhip: Redstone AND has a red scarf (don't ask me how that's relevant) Iskall: Redstone

#10 Aphrodite Cabin: Keralis Keralis: Okay, I don't know why, but Keralis gives me the vibes of a very charming person. His voice is nice to listen to, so imagine how useful it'd be if I gave him charm speak.

#11 Hermes Cabin: Scar, Etho, Joe Scar: Trader Scar, scammer extraordinar. Etho: All i must say is Shady-E's. I get "jack-of-all-trades, master of none, often better than master of one" vibes from him. He's funny, he's mischievous, it just works. Joe: Comedy man. Excellent delivery. And, yet again, i look at this man and go "That right there is a multi-talented man with a habit for mischief."

#12 Dionysus Cabin: Joey, Beef Joey: *points at his season one empires theme* i need not say more Beef: Idk, food. I don't really have a reason. I don't know too much about Beef.

#13 Hades Cabin: Zloy Zloy: Zombie man. He writes the Hermitcraft recaps in the dark at 2am with nothing but pure spite.

#14 Iris Cabin: Katherine Katherine: SHE. HAS. COLORS. and also I couldn't put her in Demeter cabin because Shelby is already there and i am NOT excluding Nature Wives from this au

#15 Hypnos Cabin: Bigb, XB, Wels Bigb: Sleepy stuff, right? WRONG. Gaslight. Go in everyones dreams, make fake prophecies, peace out, and cause chaos. XB: I look at his fanon design, I see an alien, and I go "aha he sleeps" Wels: This guy (@dingdinghq) said so and i completely agree. Something about sleeping in S6.

#16 Nemesis Cabin: Edit: wels not here no more

#17 Nike Cabin: Ren Ren: VICTORY. I don't know much about Ren's story in the Life Series, but I look at this man and see someone who has won a lot.

#18 Hebe Cabin:

#19 Tyche Cabin: TFC TFC: Man goes mining and gets really lucky. That's it.

#20 Hecate Cabin: Lizzie, Cleo, Jevin Lizzie: Witchy vibes. Also, Arson. Cleo: Arson. She uses her magic for Arson. Jevin: He's a magic slime. Also, Arson. All Hecate kids love Arson.

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hollowed-theory-hall · 2 months

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what's the one harry potter pairing u like that u mentioned in the tags of your hinny post?

Anonymous: Can I ask who that minor character you ship with Harry is? For some absurd reason my mind jumped to Stan Shunpike lol but it's probably not him.... Or is it?

Okay, so this is kind of a funny story. Like, my pipeline through hp pairings was a weird one. Like, I used to read a lot of Harry pairings, still do on occasion (some make more sense than others). None of them were ones I would point at and say: "that should've happened in the books"

One day, I was innocently writing a fic (canon divergence of GoF), and it was just for me, for funnsies, never posted it anywhere and not planning to. And I planned to pair Harry with someone there (honestly, I don't remember who because I didn't write the plan down) but when writing, Harry ended up with a different character. And it was so strange to me because that never happened.

Like, how do you write a ship accidentally?

But I did. I wrote Harry into a ship by accident. So I went back to the books to try and figure out why the hell would my subconscious decide that's the way to go.

I'll also preface it by all this being my subjective opinion and I do read other Harry ships in fics, this one just quickly became my favorite to write (and the only one I write). Also, I don't actually think this is a pairing that should've happened in the books, it's place is in fic and that's where I like it.

So, the character I accidentally shipped with Harry is... *drumroll*

Stan Shunpike!

Not really, it's:

Theodore Nott

Now, you might look at the name and go: "Who the fuck is that?"

And you'll be correct. Theo has 0 speaking lines in the entire book series. His name appears twice. He, himself, as a person, only appeared on page, like, 3 times in the background. The scene that gives the most information about him is other characters talking about him. He isn't even present.

That being said, I'm very good at extrapolating a lot of information from very little evidence. So allow me, to walk you through who is Theodore Nott and why I ship him with Harry.

Basic Information

So, let's start with the most basic overview before I pull out the quotes and go any deeper.

We know Theo is a Slytherin student in Harry's year. So he likely shares a dorm with Draco, Blaise, Crabbe, and Goyle.

Theo's father is both at the graveyard at the end of GoF and in the Department of Mysteries at the end of OotP, so we know he is a Death Eater. We also know Thoe's father was one of the first and closest Death Eaters to Voldemort, who waited for him during his interview with Dumbledore in 1967:

“Then if I were to go to the Hog’s Head tonight, I would not find a group of them — Nott, Rosier, Mulciber, Dolohov — awaiting your return? Devoted friends indeed...”

(HBP, page 444)

We also know the Nott family is "as pure-blooded as the Malfoys" according to JKR in an interview. We also know Theo's great-grandfather (maybe? the family relation isn't clear), Cantankerus Nott, is suspected to be the one who wrote the Pure-Blood Dictionary, the book that coined the term "Sacred 28" and made that list (which the Nott family are on).

The name Nott is potentially to be derived from the name Nótt, which is the personification of the night in Norse Mythology. So it has been theorized the Nott family have a Nordic origin. Possible, but it doesn't really matter for this post.

What does, is that he comes from a dark, Death Eater, blood-purist family similar to the Malfoys. Even so, Theo never took the Dark Mark and never joined Voldemort in the books.

Now, that we have the basic information out of the way, let's look at Theodore as a person.

All the details I could gather from the books

Alright, now we get to the fun part. That is, me going through all the relevant scenes that mention Theodore Nott and actually creating a character psychoanalysis out of basically nothing.

So, the quotes aren't organized in a particular order. I'm just going to explain Theo and then explain why all this makes me ship him with Harry.

“Well, I pity Slughorn’s taste. Maybe he’s going a bit senile. Shame, my father always said he was a good wizard in his day. My father used to be a bit of a favorite of his. Slughorn probably hasn’t heard I’m on the train, or —” “I wouldn’t bank on an invitation,” said Zabini. “He asked me about Nott’s father when I first arrived. They used to be old friends, apparently, but when he heard he’d been caught at the Ministry he didn’t look happy, and Nott didn’t get an invitation, did he? I don’t think Slughorn’s interested in Death Eaters.” Malfoy looked angry, but forced out a singularly humorless laugh.

(HBP, page 150)

This is a part of the conversation between Draco, Pansy, and Blaise, Harry overhears when he is hiding in their compartment at the beginning of HBP. I have a few things to note regarding this scene.

Firstly, throughout this conversation, Pansy, Blaise, and Draco all call each other by their first name. This shows closeness, they are all friendly and familiar enough to use their first names with each other. Theo, though, is referred to as "Nott" by all three in the compartment.

He doesn't actually sit in their compartment which is in itself a sign about how he isn't really friendly with Draco's group. Considering the group is most of his year from his house, Theo is likely very lonely, and it will be apparent from other scenes I bring up later.

Secondly, Theo's father is in Azkaban. We know Draco is bothered about his own father's predicament. He mentions it to Harry and bothers him over it, Theo doesn't though. Theo doesn't seem to be bothered by Harry or his father's incarceration.

The only conclusion I can draw from this is that the relationship between Theo and his father is not a good one.

(I know some fics like to have Lucius be abusive towards Draco, for some reason. But the books really don't back this up. Lucius loves Draco and Draco adores his father)

Theo, though, Theo seems to be the one with a very strained relationship with his father. Strained enough that he isn't bothered the man is in Azkaban. What I'm saying is that Theo's father likely abuses or mistreats him in some capacity.

If anything more was needed to complete Harry’s happiness, it was Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle’s reactions. He saw them with their heads together later that afternoon in the library, together with a weedy-looking boy Hermione whispered was called Theodore Nott. They looked around at Harry as he browsed the shelves for the book he needed on Partial Vanishment, and Goyle cracked his knuckles threateningly and Malfoy whispered something undoubtedly malevolent to Crabbe. Harry knew perfectly well why they were acting like this: He had named all of their fathers as Death Eaters

(OotP, page 583)

This is a scene at the end of OotP after Draco, Crabbe, Goyle and Theo's fathers were caught at the ministry and sent to Azkaban because they are Death Eaters. There are a few important notes about this scene.

The first, Hermione knows Theo, while Harry and Ron don't really. This means she likely knows him from the classes she takes and Harry and Ron don't — Arithmancy and/or Ancient Runes.

The second, he is sitting with other Death Eater children, but I don't think it's by choice. I mentioned in the previous quote how he isn't close to Draco and his crew. He sits with them here mostly because he doesn't have another choice. Theo doesn't seem to really have any friends, so he sits with the closest people he has to friends — kids he has known since he was young because their fathers were in the same circle.

The other note about this is that Crabbe, Goyle, and Draco are all mentioned as being threatening and malicious towards Harry because they don't like that their fathers are in Azkaban. Theo, though, Theo doesn't threaten Harry, he isn't part of their whisperings. As I mentioned above, he's likely happy his father is in Azkaban.

A pair of blank, white, shining eyes were growing larger through the gloom and a moment later the dragonish face, neck, and then skeletal body of a great, black, winged horse emerged from the darkness. It looked around at the class for a few seconds, swishing its long black tail, then bowed its head and began to tear flesh from the dead cow with its pointed fangs. A great wave of relief broke over Harry. Here at last was proof that he had not imagined these creatures, that they were real: Hagrid knew about them too. He looked eagerly at Ron, but Ron was still staring around into the trees and after a few seconds he whispered, “Why doesn’t Hagrid call again?” Most of the rest of the class were wearing expressions as confused and nervously expectant as Ron’s and were still gazing everywhere but at the horse standing feet from them. There were only two other people who seemed to be able to see them: a stringy Slytherin boy standing just behind Goyle was watching the horse eating with an expression of great distaste on his face, and Neville, whose eyes were following the swishing progress of the long black tail.

(OotP, page 445)

“The only people who can see thestrals,” she said, “are people who have seen death.”

(OotP, page 446)

The stringy Slytherin boy mentioned here is Theo. This scene proves that:

He takes Care of Magical Creatures

He saw someone die

Let's explore the second one for a moment. The fact Theo can see Thestrals means he watched someone die and was old enough to comprehend what he was seeing. We also know Theo's mother is dead. So it's likely the person he watched die was his mother.

I also want to draw attention to Theo's distaste towards Thestrals. He could likely see them carrying the carriages every year since 2nd year, it's not his first time seeing them. But it doesn't stop his displeasure with their sight from showing. Which says something about him. It means he likely recalls his mother and her death whenever he looks at the Thestrals. and these are memories Theo rather not experience.

We don't know how his mother died, but I'd hazard a guess it wasn't natural. After all, wizards have long life spans, they are more durable to illness and injury, and don't usually die from accidents unless very extreme or magical. And there was no epidemic of dragonpox (a disease that does tend to kill wizards) in the time since 1980 and the books. So, she was more likely killed at some point between 1985(ish) and 1991.

“No, I don’t think so, sir. I’m Muggle-born, you see.” Harry saw Malfoy lean close to Nott and whisper something; both of them sniggered, but Slughorn showed no dismay; on the contrary, he beamed and looked from Hermione to Harry, who was sitting next to her.

(HBP, pages 185-186)

First, Theo is an O student in potions since he is in the potions NEWT class, and was probably meant to be there even if Snape was the teacher.

Second, again, Theo doesn't really have friends. He sits next to Draco as the only other Slytherin in the class. Also, they share the circumstances of being sons of Death Eaters currently in Azkaban. Although both of them seem to deal with it quite differently.

Third, Theo joins Draco in making fun of Hermione's blood status, but he does not initiate it. Considering the environment he was raised in and is in, it makes sense he would make fun of it. Whether he's a blood-purist or not, he would want to keep his image considering he doesn't have many allies. Hanging out with Draco is survival, not friendship. They aren't even on a first-name basis with each other.

“Amortentia doesn’t really create love, of course. It is impossible to manufacture or imitate love. No, this will simply cause a powerful infatuation or obsession. It is probably the most dangerous and powerful potion in this room — oh yes,” he said, nodding gravely at Malfoy and Nott, both of whom were smirking skeptically. “When you have seen as much of life as I have, you will not underestimate the power of obsessive love. . . .

(HBP, page 186)

The final quote I have about Theo is from the same potions class as above. Both he and Draco are portrayed here as underestimating amortentia and its potential damage. It makes sense for their upbringing in the Wizarding World, which has no real laws or regulations regarding love potions that are seen as harmless fun more often than not.

I'll add Theo likely didn't witness a healthy romantic relationship. Considering his father is a Death Eater who is likely abusive and may or may not have killed his mother. With this as his reference to a marriage, it's clear why he'd look down on love and love potions.

Why I think Theo and Harry have potential

Okay, so now that we know who Theodore Nott is, let's talk about why I ship him with Harry.

I think Harry, in general, would get along best with a clever partner with the ability to be ruthless (Slytherins or Ron fall into this category). Because Harry isn't some golden savior; he casts unforgivables, and is very willing to poison Umbridge or Crocio Snape if he could get away with it. He needs a partner that won't be horrified by these thoughts.

Also, Theo literally never speaks on page. Even when spoken to, his reactions are silent. I think this quiet and no need to talk, the ability to be comfortable in silence, is something that would be comfortable for Harry. Harry in the books finds himself annoyed with Ron and Hermione's constant banter on occasion, so I think it fits well.

Theo would also be comfortable around Harry without a need to play a certain part. Because Harry wouldn't care about that. He would honestly rather Theo forgo the pure-blood Slytherin act.

I feel like Harry and Theo, have a good potential to understand each other. Theo lost his mother and likely experiences abuse from his father. It makes them very likely to trauma bond over their crap life and shared experience. Two out of three only ones who could see the Thestrals in the entire class.

The other thing I feel they could connect over is being lonely. Harry spent all his childhood until Hogwarts basically being on his own. Theo stayed on his own. Draco at least has his parents, he has other students he's closer to, not that he shares everything with them, but he has some support network. Theo has none. And this is something Harry knows well.

Theo, I think, wouldn't expect anything specific from Harry. He doesn't even interact with him, not to mock him, and not to idolize him, he doesn't care at all. And we know how much Harry appreciates being thought of as Harry and not as the Boy-Who-Lived. Theo would allow Harry to be himself without some mold he wants him to fit in.

The fact Theo never becomes a Death Eater, even though he was in Draco's year and his father was a Death Eater before Lucius (and in better standing than Lucius with Voldemort) is so interesting. It's somewhat surprising Theo wasn't marked. It means he didn't want to be. It means that Theo Nott didn't want to torture and kill muggleborns or blood traitors, or anyone really. And he didn't want to swear his allegiance to Voldemort. This is just a fascinating fact to me and something I enjoy considering. What life experience made him come to that conclusion? Was it just his dislike of his father that pushed him away? Could he have been another Sirius Black (Gryffindor in a Slytherin family) under slightly different circumstances? I mean, Voldemort likely wouldn't force him to become a Death Eater, but would his father? I don't know what at all went down there, but I like that potential story.

We also know he wasn't part of Umbridge's Inquisitorial Squad, even though some minor Slytherins were mentioned to be part of it. He just seems to be an actually decent guy (I don't care what Cursed Child says about him, I know he's there but I avoided almost anything to do with Cursed Child so I barely know the plot).

Finally, this is a character Harry doesn't have as much drama to get over with. Yes, sometimes I want to read overcoming drama between characters before it becomes a romance, but sometimes I want something chiller than that. And Theo is a really chill, safe, Slytherin option for Harry.

#harry potter #harry potter thoughts #hollowedtheory #hollowedheadcanon #hp #hp thoughts #harry james potter #asks #anon asks #anonymous #theodore nott #theo nott #nottpott

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