I Love Dracula Because It Really Shows That The Age Old Tradition Of Giving Men Random But Identifying

I love Dracula because it really shows that the age old tradition of giving men random but identifying nicknames when you’re just talking shit with the girlies™️ dates all the way back the Victorian era

Hear me out on this… Dan Wilds in a muscle tank top

Deadass

Jonathan Harker, actively watching entire towns of people give him blessings and prayers talking about demons, witches, vampires, etc: Mina would love this recipe I’ll have to get it for her

Neil Josten, actively being hunted by the literal mafia: Andrew’s eyes are so pretty, his shoulders are so broad, they could carry the weight of all my issues

Neil Josten is a Jonathan Harker type narrator and this is a hill I will die on. They’re not unreliable narrators in any capacity because they are telling the story relatively how it is but they’re both absolute idiots who are focusing on the wrong details… that detail may or may not be a love interest

I’m convinced there’s nothing worse than reading a book you’ve read before and genuinely enjoyed for a class. Like I’ve read this book before and liked it but now I was supposed to finish it last week and I’m not even halfway done and I’ve never hated a book more in my life

Every single fic update there is an author trying frantically to find the right balance between a nonchalant aside of "leave a comment if you enjoyed =)" and clinging desperately to the coat tails of a random stranger, dragging along behind them on the street wailing "Please, please! I have to know what you thought! I'm desperate to talk to people about this! Ask me about the alliterative repetition! Ask me about the symbolism!"

MW3 Spoilers!

When Soap dies Ghost lifts the dog tags from his body with more care than he's taken to do anything. They're looped around his neck beside his own. There's no need for them to stay with Johnny's body, there are people to identify him. The people who love him are the ones to file the paperwork. Lieutenant Simon Riley is supposed to sign the death certificate. He never does.

The metal of Soap's feels unnaturally colder than his own, the weight heavier. His body knows he wears two pairs. His mind knows the addition of the second ripped something crucial from his already fractured soul.

When Ghost dies he does so alone. His team isn't there to collect his remains, they aren't there to give him a small but never the less sad funeral, they aren't even there to file the paperwork. They didn't abandon him, he ran away. It's not that they don't love him, it's that they knew he needed the space.

When the men come to collect his body, to record the death, to make him just another number sacrificed in the endless war for peace they find two identities wrapped around his neck. Names pressed to his chest like the locket of a lover.

RILEY SIMON, J. 2073357 O POS ATHEIST MACTAVISH JOHN, J. 2073521 O NEG CATHOLIC

They thought there must have been some sort of mistake, a mix-up in the paperwork somewhere because there was an unknown soldier in the field wearing the identities of two men who had died years ago. Simon Riley, from what they could find went MIA after his team was betrayed well over a decade ago and was declared KIA years later when they couldn't recover him. John MacTavish's tag was newer, shinier than the other, but supposedly he'd been shot years ago. That's what they could find anyway.

No one could account for the body rotting away in the morgue unidentified and unnamed. No one knew him apparently, not even the team he was with.

Laswell finds out a month later, she'd been keeping silent tabs on him until he disappeared. She calls Price as soon as she knows, holding back tears the same way she did with Soap. "He has a grave," she says quietly. They visit with Gaz the day after.

Price laughs when he sees the gravestone. Then he cries.

The other two join him.

They stare at the engraving. Something that should have could have been real if only things had worked out differently. If they'd been a little faster, prepared a little bit more, if Price had let Soap pull that trigger all those years ago. But even though it didn't everything still led to this moment, the three of them at this grave the same way they would've been if things had changed back then. The hilarity of it was heartbreaking.

They'd combined them for the records. Created an identity for a soldier that never existed to mark the resting place of one who died carrying two dead men with him.

In death, Ghost is content, for the first time ever, with the identity his name provides him with.

Simon J. MacTavish Soldier, Lover

Price is the last to leave. He does so with a smile and another glace at the stone, "congrats boys," he says to no one in particular, "wish I could've been there to see it."