Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Hello hello hello y'all!!!!! Welcome to the mystreet rewrite that literally no one has asked me to do but i'm doing anyway, or, alternately known as, hell!!!! This chapter is just a bit of housekeeping for this part of the project, you don't have to read all of it. Maybe gloss over the bits that concern you and then just heed the warnings listed at the beginning of every chapter lol

I, like 1000 others, am attempting to rewrite the entirety of Mystreet :))))) (help)

This is just a quick disclaimer that goes into a little more depth into what content warnings may be relevant to know of before y'all read to your heart's content lol

I must warn you that if you're looking for escapism from reality, you should probably click away now. I love fiction because it explores real life in so many creative and nuanced ways, and even though this is fanfiction and not necessarily that serious, I apply this frame of thinking to everything I write, minecraft roleplay rewrites included. Thankfully PDH isn't too heavy content-wise, but there are still a few morally ambiguous themes that I intend to explore head-on that y'all might not be comfortable with.

Here's an overview of recurring content warnings that you might want to be aware of before reading:

I’m going to attempt to be a lot more up front with the racism metaphor that was vaguely tied into the werewolf lore of the series. I think jess had the right idea in seasons 5-6 (and the PDH season 2 finale) but it's pretty obvious she wrote herself into corners too early to fully acknowledge the nuance of these sorts of issues. I'm putting this warning in for PDH season 1 because I made the whole werewolf aspect MUCH more in-your-face than it was originally, which hopefully will allow me to be more respectful in later instalments of the rewrite, but may be confronting considering how downplayed this particular interpretation was in the original series.

Love triangles suck. They ESPECIALLY suck when miscommunication is involved. However, there's a whole arc in PDH season 1 with those tropes that involves Garroth, Laurance and Aphmau. I'm not cutting it out, but I am making my distain for it known. Situations that Aphmau was in often go in tandem with sexual harassment or even abuse in real life and I am. NOT about that shit at all. Aphmau will be a lot more assertive and will call the boys out when they cross her boundaries and/or act plain stupid around her. The boys will still have their crush on her, but they'll learn much quicker to manage it better. So much of Garroth's and Laurance's character development stems from them liking Aphmau and it is genuinely interesting to explore their dynamics because of that, so I'm ok to write it. But multiple characters can and will call bullshit whenever their actions border on sexual harassment because what the fuck was that arc lmao

Aaron starts as 17 in this fic and turns 18 around the middle of the school year. Him being a senior explains his jaded and introverted outlook towards others without soley relying on the label ‘friendless delinquent with anger issues’. People are intimidated by him because he’s weirdly quiet for a 6-foot senior rumoured to have military training, not because his reputation is soley built around physical displays of violence. Despite his universally pessimistic behaviour, however, Aaron is naive. Going from almost complete isolation as a kid straight to the military leaves him with the emotional maturity of a child. He’s awkward and immature because he’s been forced to suppress his emotions in ways his peers haven’t, which stunted his mental growth. My issue with age gaps is the power dynamic arising from maturity gaps; if both parties mentally balance each other, I’m not bothered. Aaron might have the schooling experience of a typical senior, but lacks the corresponding maturity when it comes to social interaction of any kind.

Aphmau turns 16 the month after beginning her junior year. I extended her homeschooling just so she’s not fucking 14 when they meet, but she’s still naive. She’s able to make friends easier as she has better social skills than Aaron (I think Aphmau is an ambivert with social anxiety), but she’s yet to share Aaron’s jaded attitude since she hasn’t yet lived in an environment as mentally confronting as high school. That being said, Aphmau gains maturity through having a mother like Sylvanna - she inherits a strong sense of justice and grows up adopting healthy mentalities. She’s naive to public school experiences, but her maturity is reflected both in her interactions with others and in her resilience. In this universe Aphmau also started school a year early, so she’s younger than most people in her grade. This change was made to add to the dynamics between Aphmau and others - she has a short fuse towards Aaron because he acts patronising, she and Zane have an ongoing rivalry as the designated ‘annoying sibling’ of both families, she naturally looks up to Katelyn and the others because they’re older etc.

It’s still a 2 year age difference, but they’ll balance each other out a lot more in ways that I hope are no longer alarm-inducing like their original 4-5 year gap (especially since I plan to directly explore Aaron’s perspective; since PDH was almost entirely from Aph’s point of view, there wasn't any real confirmation that he didn't have ulterior motives). Aaron's lack of experience and Aphmau's younger age give each of them something to learn from the other without there being too significant of a gap in maturity for it to be alarming.

Y'all know how this tag is usually tied to sexual acts/scenes? Not here babyyyy, this is an innocent, christian-minecraft-server-friendly fic that will involve absolutely no smut between underage characters :))))) The abo tag refers to the lore already present in PDH, and I will be exploring it a lot more just because I love thinking about how it impacts even general interactions between characters (specifically Aph and Aaron) and there's just. there's a lot of introspective shit I can explore completely unrelated to smut and it's genuinely fun to write. There will be romance drama and themes explored above (as well as teenagers simply learning to live with hormones for the first time), but there will be no sexual content. If you're apprehensive because of the tag's sexual connotations, hooo boy I fucking feel you bro however you do not need to worry because I will NOT use it as an excuse to write smut :))

Ivy will be a prominent antagonist who causes Aphmau actual mental anguish rather than being downplayed as a traditional 'mean-girl' archetype who Aphmau largely ignores. Her bullying is technically canon-typical, but I've made it more in-your-face in the sense that it's actually angsty and potentially triggering. I get why Jess didn't explore bullying too much in PDH season 1 since Ivy was pretty one-dimensional (before Love-Love Paradise) and was pretty much there to cause drama. She does the same here, but I explore in full how her actions actually impact Aphmau instead of brushing her off. I get that it's a little annoying to have such an obviously bad character actually affect Aphmau in detrimental ways, but I feel it'll make both their overall character development feel more complete.

Spoilers for chapter 3:

There is an explicit depiction of internalised fatphobia in chapter 3. I have never been fatshamed, but a lot of my friends have. Aphmau's dysmorphia in this chapter is based off what they reveal to me about their personal mentalities and how bullying has affected their perception of themselves. Ivy bullied aphmau in the past, and although she isn't intentionally fatshaming aphmau in this specific scene, that's how aphmau's brain interprets their interaction. Especially since Ivy is going for a run at 6am and claiming Garroth's her boyfriend, Aphmau feels a mix of past hurt and jealousy because she's never had time to get 'fit' (whatever that means) nor really felt pretty/desirable. Ivy antagonising her now is just re-perpetuating that cycle of self-hatred and bringing up Aphmau's old trauma since she's made her feel worthless in the past. This chapter should be the heaviest I go into detail about Aphmau's bullying since she ends up healing really well from it, but both that scene and this little warning is here to explain Aphmau's spiralling.

There's not much to say on this point, just because the explanation is pretty simple. This fic often shifts to Aaron's perspective. Aaron's parents in PDH times neglect him. It's canon-typical neglect, just explored directly through Aaron. PDH alluded to it, but I'm dragging it into the open and shining a spotlight in it's eyes. I think it will make Aaron's overall character development much more satisfying if we learn just how far he's come.

Again, it's canon-typical. Aaron literally throws Balto out of a window in episode 2 for comedic effect. This warning is just there for those who need a refresher lol.

At the time I’m writing this heading I’ve included Aaron’s perspective a few times in the story by now. Aaron in my rendition of PDH has piss-poor mental health, it’s not until he starts relying on people other than his shitty family (excluding Missy my beloved, their relationship is healthier and slightly different to what it was canonically atp in my fic) that he actually begins to recover from it. I’m reluctant to use modern terms for his habits because Aaron himself doesn’t recognise how his mindset is morphed, but I recognise it could be disturbing to readers who have struggled with maintaining their own mental health. I didn’t intend for this heading to be relevant in my PDH season 1 rewrite but goddamn do I love to hurt my own feelings.

Spoilers for chapter 8:

Aaron plays guitar for a lot of reasons. A lot of the time he plays it because he enjoys recreating music and the routine of playing/being able to play it, but there are times where he plays guitar as a way to deal with his emotions without having to confront them completely. Playing guitar hurts if you don’t do it regularly, the callouses on your fingers don’t get to toughen up from pressing on the strings and let me tell you that shit STINGS. Aaron only really ever feels the need to play guitar at school when he’s being overwhelmed by something, sometimes it’s a calming session (like when Aphmau and Aaron canonically begin to talk to each other unknowingly about their problems) and sometimes it’s more of a vent without words. Since he didn’t feel the need to play over the holidays, the skin on his fingers grew more sensitive to the point where in chapter 8 he just. he just made whatever motions that hurt him the most. It’s not really something you’d see in real life and immediately realise ‘oh thats self harm’ but because I’m describing his mindset (plus he does end up slightly bleeding from it) I figured it needed a bigger warning than one in the notes :/

Zane is a trans man in this universe.
This is a headcanon of mine that I figured I could put into this fic since its, y'know, my fic haha. I'm putting this here because he is introduced in this season pre-transition. He will be referred to using she/her pronouns and with the name Zuheilyn (or Zuzu for short). Apparently for a minecraft mini game Zane’s name was Zuwellyn, which technically isn’t a real name but sounds very similar to a bunch of other names such as the one I’m using. I consulted the wise wise tumblr aphmau fans and they verified a screenshot of that information lol. But yeah Zane will be Zuheilyn for this fic, but he will be Zane in the future and I will make it apparent when he finally transitions.

This list will grow as I begin outlining/writing the rest of the chapters, so if any more warnings pop up in the chapter summaries that y'all are worried about, just recheck this part and there should be an explanation corresponding to it (only if the warning applies to something BIG. If it's just 'graphic depictions of ___' then that's just my writing style sorry lmao). The next part is a chapter list and follows the same rule of being updated when necessary. That part is mostly just there for me to keep track of what will inevitably turn into an entirely-too-long fic whoopsie, but if y'all just want to read certain things then that serves as my archive within an archive lol

There are big changes to the plot that aren't going to be outlined here; this warning exists just so people know what themes to look out for since I know some of what I write about can be distressing/upsetting. I hope that I cover everything and please please please call me out if I gloss over topics that should be acknowledged with more nuance than I give them. I love writing because it helps me comprehend the world at a pace I can follow, but I do see why people think of fanfiction as an escape from reality, not a reflection of it lol

On that note, proceed with caution and I hope you enjoy the first official instalment of Worlds Collide :)