you ever see a picture of two guys and the only thing you can think is oh definitely one drunken handjob in 2006

THIS ALSO GOES FOR WRITING

REBLOG REBLOG REBLOG! EVEN IF YOU DON’T ADD TAGS.

I LOVE PEOPLE WHO REBLOG MY ART, I GET DOWN ON ONE KNEE FOR YOU

I LOVE PEOPLE WHO

REBLOG MY ART, I GET DOWN

ON ONE KNEE FOR YOU

Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.

hey hold on a sec. we talk about what baltimore was like for kevin, neil, andrew, but can we talk about wymack for a second. Can we just.

the year before the twins and nicky signed at psu, two of wymack's foxes, ian and kirk, died in a car crash.

the next year, kevin day broke his hand and went to wymack, the only person he thought would keep him safe.

the year after that, seth gordon, the only surving member of wymack's original lineup, overdosed after he was so nearly clean, and it almost destroyed allison.

months later, andrew was attacked in columbia and committed to easthaven. aaron killed someone. andrew was gone and the others came back shattered.

then neil claims to go home for the holidays, they don't hear from him all of christmas break, and on new years, neil calls him and asks wymack to pick him up from the airport. he's there instantly and god, he looks half-dead. neil sees the 4 tattoo and tries to cut it off his face. all he can say is that he didn't sign to the ravens.

then there's the blood in the locker room. wymack can't push away the feeling that something's getting closer, something is coming to hurt his foxes and there's nothing he can do to stop it.

then. the game at binghamton. neil looks on edge but wymack doesn't ask what's wrong. neil and andrew are above his paygrade. then the riot. he can't see any of his kids in the crush. he finally pulls them all out, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight–

neil's gone. neil's gone and they can't find him. andrew can't find him. neil got taken by someone. what was that like for david wymack? did it feel too familiar? did he look at his kids and think not again, i didn't lose another one again. does it ever scare him. does it terrify him. when aaron came back from the police station in columbia, twenty four hours in holding and he couldn't look wymack in the eye, did he think what if i can't save these kids? when andrew was lying in a hospital bed, too drugged to react, did he think what if i can't give them their second chance? when neil grabbed that knife, when he fell to pieces on wymack's kitchen floor, when he came back to them in baltimore, bloody and broken, did wymack think why am i always too late?

But then, think about the after. About Aaron, going on to take his spot in med school and finally becoming a doctor, getting married and having children. About Kevin playing with both his hands instead of only one or none, and so well he brings an Olympic gold medal home to his father. About Andrew and Neil going with Kevin, but, most importantly, Andrew and Neil going together. Arguably his two most broken foxes, the ones who probably wouldn't have made it had they not met him. But they did meet him, and he gave them a space to call their own, silent understanding, a person to rely on through anything. And this two boys who didn't think they would see their 20s, went on to have brilliant careers as some of the best players, and to build a strong and stable relationship that lasted their whole life.

And all of this happened because Wymack was there to give another chance, just one more, because he refuses to lose another one

a lot of fic rec lists focus heavily on long fics but here’s a shoutout to short fics they give so much snack-size joy i hate how writing short form is sometimes looked down upon it has its own challenges and deserves so much more respect and love because a well executed short fic can ruin your life in 20 minutes

They’re soulmates but one of them is infact trying to choke the other to death with the red string of fate tying them together

new TV show coming out SOON !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"haunting the narrative" is one of those phrases i wanna put up on a shelf. not all characters that are dead haunt the narrative. not all characters that are dead haunt the narrative. not all characters that haunt the narrative are dead.

a character who haunts the narrative is a character whose presence in the story itself is sparse to none (!!!!!) but whose actions have major consequences to the story and help to build the theme of the work (!!!!!!!!!) if blorbo blingus doesnt tick both these boxes then im sorry. they are not haunting the narrative. they just died.

#if the story cannot work without them but also cannot work if they’re present/alive? They might just be haunting the narrative (via @passerparvus)

i think theres this idea in the general public that the "best" fanfic gets turned into real books like 50 shades of grey. but the truth is that the best fanfic can never be published as an actual book because its intricately woven into the canon material so its inseparable even if you change the names

thinking about how Neil let Andrew do every single one of these things to him without noticing just because Andrew’s a boy and Mary was heteronormative

This.

I don’t know about others but the only reason I put both is so that whichever someone clicks on, they will find my fic. So if there is supposed to be rules, I guarantee you that no writer knows these ones. We can barely get people to comment, you think we’re going to specifically choose & or / ? Hell no.

I’ve been in fandom for twenty years, and “/” means romance and “&” means no romance was literally one of the first things I learned. It dates back to Star Trek fanfiction of the 70s. I’m boggled by the fact that anyone who’s been reading fic on AO3 for more than like five minutes wouldn’t know that, and I’m curious as to what fanfic community you come out of.

I don’t think that tagging with both is actually going to get your fic in front of more readers. People looking for romance often exclude the “&” tag if there are too many gen fics tagged with both. People looking for gen often exclude the “/” tag if there are too many fics with both. So rather than putting your fic in front of twice the people, you are in fact more likely to get your target audience ignoring your fic because it has a tag they don’t want.

Also, by overtagging you are more likely to annoy potential readers away from your fic than entice them. A fic tagged both & and / better have both romance and a ton of platonic interaction between the two characters, like a slow burn romance friends-to-lovers arc. If it isn’t, I’m going to be very unhappy because the author lied to me with the tags to try and trick me into reading a fic with deceptive advertising.

When I’m in a fandom and see tagging where some of the tags don’t really apply and are just there to get it in front of more eyes, I’m going to assume one of two things. Either the author is a newb who doesn’t know anything, or the author is purposefully spamming the tags because they don’t care about lying to their potential audience and think that “spray and pray” is an effective tactic. In the first case, their writing probably will not be very good, so why bother reading their fic. In the second case, the fact that I can’t trust the tags to be accurate means I’m not going to read it to see if it’s interesting even if it has a tag I like. Chances are, that tag isn’t actually in the fic anyway, and even if it is, by spam-tagging the author is making the archive harder to use for everybody. Why would I reward bad behavior with attention? No. Far better to mute the author and move on.

More to the point--and no, I will never stop harping on this, because we have GOT to stop leaving our strongest points in the drawer--it doesn't matter if you heard of this convention before joining AO3 or not, because it's in AO3's tagging FAQ.

[id: the "How do I tag a romantic or platonic relationship?" section of the tagging FAQ here.]

"But Jo," you may argue, because you're wrong. "There's no way to find that without digging through site FAQ menus, and that's really inaccessible!"

sure

except

that when you go to post a new fic, and you go to put in those relationship tags, you see this

[id: the Relationships field]

and that tooltip, the one THERE TO EXPLAIN HOW THE FIELD WORKS, links to the Relationships segment of the tag FAQ, which explicitly lays this shit out.

I don't care if you don't know fandom history. I don't care if you've never heard a goddamn word about the spirk shippers. I don't care if you've never been exposed to fandom culture in your life. It is, frankly, not fair to expect those things of everyone.

What is entirely fair to expect is that you will READ THE INSTRUCTIONS PRINTED NEXT TO THE FUCKING BOX, actually. Forget fandom conventions. It genuinely doesn't matter whether you agree with or respect fandom conventions. This is a site policy. This is explicitly how tagging on AO3, specifically, works.

“People don’t understand the word ruthless. They think it means ‘mean.’ It’s not about being mean. It’s about seeing the bright, clear line that leads from A to B. The line that goes from motive to means. Beginning to end. It’s about seeing that bright, clear line and not caring about anything but the beautiful fact that you can see the solution. Not caring about anything else but the perfection of it.”

- Marco, Book #30: The Reunion, pg. 71 (by K.A. Applegate)

I'm losing my fucking mind at this fandom constantly trying to minimize aaron's complexity and woobify him

I can't stand anyone who looks at a chapter of aaron getting to confront andrew's hypocrisy but also getting confronted with his own shitty behavior and the main thing u take away is "omg he said he doesnt hate gay people anymore! Confirmation he's not homophobic!" or "andrew is a horrible person and aaron has done nothing wrong"

Aaron is literally doing a "i'm not transphobic, i only misgender those trans people who are bad people" but about nicky's sexuality. Him justifying them with nicky's own shitty behavior does not make the remarks he's made any less homophobic. The entire chapter, the way bee questions him and the way he realizes he actually has to explain to andrew that he doesn't have a problem with him being gay shows how much these remarks have not existed in a vacuum, have never only affected nicky, have always, in effect, been homophobic.

This is not me wanting aaron to be homophobic, this is me being pissed about people wanting to rob aaron & his relationships to his family of layers of complexity. About people trying to make a person unlearning bigotry he's aware of and has admitted to into something simple and easy and quick. About people viewing bigoted actions and remarks as only defined by their intentions and not their effect.

Aaron is a damn complex character. He was raised with shitty worldviews and shitty behavior. He literally did used to hate and be disgusted by nicky for being gay. He's unlearning that shit. He's still grossed out by nicky for being a creep. And now he's confronted by the fact that his history of actual bigotry and his displays of disgust at nicky's remarks about others simply do not exist separately from eachother and that that has affected his relationship with andrew. And he gets to sit there and has to actually convince his brother that he doesn't hate him for being gay. Stop trying to minimize the importance aaron's past homophobia and homophobic remarks play in the twinyard's relationship.

Also i'm pissed off how little people are talking about aaron finally FINALLY getting a dig in at andrew's hypocrisy. About how andrew's actions also aren't only defined by his intent to protect but have cause a lot of hurt. About how unfair he's been to others, to katelyn, because he himself hasn't even tried to reflect on his own presumptions and prejudice against the people aaron wants in his life and how they might be wrong.

This bonus chapter is so important to me because it's practically everything i've always imagined their shared therapy sessions would be like. And because andrew getting pushback and aaron getting a chance to voice his stance and perspective and andrew actually having to listen is so important to me. Most of the canon material is so dominated by perspectives sympathetic to and/or protective of andrew and it's so good to get a chapter that isnt that. And obv Aaron's perspective isnt unbiased either, but it balances out somewhat against neil's perspective dominating the narrative. And while bee ofc isnt a perfectly impartial party, therapy with her is the perfect setting to provide this perspective.

I love the TKM bonus chapter and i hate how a lot of people are choosing to talk about it

YES THANK YOU @sunny-three BIG EMPHASIS ON THE WHOLE UNRELIABLE NARRATOR THING!

aaron isn't suddenly a more reliable narrator than neil has been. Every perspective we read from is tinged by the character's own view and biases. We as readers have the ability to look at the different perspectives and actions vs words and actually see how they are affected by their biases. So it's so strange to see people whom i've seen engage with posts about neil being very unobjective in his narration suddenly act like a chapter from aaron's perspective is fully objective and accurate.

Aaron isn't lying that he's no longer hateful the way his mother and the hemmicks raised him. He's not being intentionally misleading. That's his perspective, that's how he sees it himself. But his perspective and how he understands his own viewpoint doesn't fully match up with his own actions. Like, for example: saying he would punch people for talking about katelyn the way nicky talks about kevin, neil, etc, that it's because nicky's predatory not because he's gay, yet making zero moves or displaying any care about stepping in when nicky gets his hands on a drugged neil, despite fully believing his cousin is willing/planning to assault people.

And it's okay to like aaron despite this. I like aaron a lot as a character. He's a great character. It just gets weird when y'all make excuses for this or pretend none of it happened