I Know The Obvious Allusion With The Title “the Broken Cage” Is That Jean Is Breaking Free Of The

all i can imagine is aaron having had to deal with neil being a capital-t terrible patient for hours on end because you’re right, he would not behave. like he would be trying to get up every few minutes, especially when aaron steps out to check on one of his other patients which means aaron feels the need to be in neil’s room more so that he doesn’t injure himself and aaron isn’t accountable for his dumb ass decisions. and neil would be lying about the pain to try to get himself discharged early. even after aaron turns up the morphine drip (or whatever it is lol, my medical “knowledge” comes from medical dramas), neil is still lying through his teeth and aaron is just like what the actual fuck. because there no way neil isn’t in pain, he’s actively bleeding cause he pulled his stitches trying to get out of bed like an idiot

and then andrew arrives and neil is still trying to say he is fine and can be discharged. and aaron is blocking him out, too busy freaking out over his look-alike and too tired to deal with neil’s obvious lies. but andrew is arguing back and calling him a junkie and all aaron can focus on is “omg his voice sounds like mine too wtf wtf wtf”

he must make some sort of noise, a gasp or that choking in the back of his throat is accidentally vocalized, cause next thing he knows neil is sliding him a cool glare (and again, how the fuck is he still acting like this on so much morphine) and switching to german. his doppelgänger rolls his eyes but follows him into the other language and now aaron is even more convinced that he is losing his mind. screw whatever his coworker said, he no longer believes her. they’re both exhausted, why should her mind be trusted more than his own. clearly this is some sort of hallucination because no way he encounters someone who looks like him, sounds like him, and speaks german too. he needs to listen to katelyn and get more than 5 hours of sleep before a shift and stop having multiple energy drinks. that’s what this is. there is no other reasonable explanation.

he goes to leave the room, needing to escape the insanity and completely okay with leaving one character of his hallucination to deal with the other. he’ll come back. he has to and hallucination or not, he will not be a bad nurse. just maybe after he asks his charge nurse to check his vitals.

he gives neil’s monitors a quick look over and tries to ignore the two arguing in german. but hey its not his fault he can understand them, even if he’s trying to not listen. but then neil says something about needing to be back on the court by thursday and he’s reaching for his IV line like he’s going to pull it out and before aaron can stop himself, he’s saying “don’t,”quick and angry in german and covering neil’s IV with his hand. two sets of eyes whip around to stare at him and that’s it, he’s fleeing. he will deal with this later.

An AU where the twinyards don’t meet until even mater in life— as in after college where everything from Andrew’s end goes almost the same minus Aaron and Nicky being in his life. He still makes it Palmetto, still meets Kevin and Neil and goes pro. Aaron on the other hand becomes a nurse (I have my reasons for this) never goes to Palmetto, and they only meet because one injured Neil Josten ends up on his unit. Aaron is about at his wits end because Pro Exy player Neil Josten (whoever that is because Aaron doesn’t follow Exy), who is on a lot of pain meds, keeps calling him Andrew and Aaron is about 5 seconds away from making the on-call resident very upset by requesting another CT scan of Josten’s head because surely his brain is scrambled. There’s nothing more that Aaron wants than to go home and fall face first into bed which is of course when his charge nurse walks up to him with a sheepish look, nearly begging him to stay another 4 hours because his relief’s kid is apparently sick and she can’t come in until 11am, which makes Aaron want to die so naturally he agrees, which means another 4 hours of Neil Josten at the end of his shift hooray.

And so of course Neil Josten calls him “Andrew” once more while Aaron is checking his IV (note: it’s now visiting hours), and Aaron, exhausted and cranky and just had to dodge a bedpan being thrown at his head, feels his eye twitch violently as he politely (read: thru clenched teeth) reminds Pro Exy Player Neil Josten once again that he is not Andrew—

Which is when another voice pipes up from the doorway, fresh scent of coffee in the air that nearly has Aaron salivating, who says “correct, you are not Andrew. I am.”

And Aaron turns around to see his mirror image standing in the doorway.

i see fics all the time where neil and kevin are siblings with wymack as their dad but i never see kevin and dan as siblings with wymack as their dad. like dan is his daughter 100%, that’s his girl 😭❤️

Don't FUCKING argue with me. "Neil Josten let his cigarette burn to the filter without taking a drag. He didn't want the nicotine; he wanted the acrid smoke that reminded him of his mother." Is a fucking dynamite intro!! Is it edgy as fuck? Yeah. So? Is it hella melodramatic? Probably. So? Is it bad writing? Motherfucking NO! It's damn near expert level execution of several writing principles!

Who is the story about? First two words, next question.

Catch the reader's attention as soon as possible? "Why the fuck is he wasting a cigarette?" Intrigue successfully demanded, next question.

Raise questions that will keep the reader hanging long enough to have answered? "Why the fuck does acrid smoke trigger his mommy issues?" + "Wait it's because he burned her corpse??" Many many more questions raised + blind sided reader via preconceived expectations being subverted, next question.

Character establishing moment? What other characters use for physical and emotional regulation, he uses to fucking reminisce and wallow in his feelings, next question.

Set the tone for the rest of the story? Edgy, melodramatic, and emotionally gut wrenching, NEXT. FUCKING. QUESTION!

The Muses asked Nora to roll for Hook and she rolled a nat 20 five times in a row in 30 words or less. Hook, Line, and motherfucking Sinker bitches

Some of y'all need to stop ragging on AFTG's writing and start using it as a fucking case study cus this shit has the addiction capacity of heroine and god help the goddamn saltine cracker throwing stones

aftg floor plans

not that anyone asked but the way my brain works means that any time i read anything, i am piecing together every room, every house, and every space. i need to create an image in my head so i can see the characters in it and see how they interact with the space. except it’s always vague and sometimes a throw-away line places a window or a wall where i didn’t think it was and i have to redo the entire space in my head…… it’s a struggle but after so many times rereading aftg, i have a pretty solid idea

this is just a long way of saying i have decided to take what’s in my head and make it into reality and i have made floor plans for aftg lol

so far, i have done the foxes’ dorm (both how i think the entire floor is laid out and each of their three rooms), wymack’s apartment, and abby’s house. i plan on doing the cali places later, don’t even worry

of course tumblr is corrupting the quality but in my head there are five rooms to each side of the hall and the stairs are right next to the monsters' room. that stray white box is an elevator supposedly.... i had no idea how or where the elevator should be so i just kinda threw it there, don't laugh. and we know the soccer kids live on their floor so they have the rooms across the hall

i placed everything based on descriptions gathered from the first four books (thank you jean for telling us they do in fact have stoves even if they are just two burners). i gave kevin's desk an extra monitor to watch games on lol and andrew has to be by a window to smoke out of it. also, the beds are bunked. i know this looks big but it was hard to get the spacing right..........

for the girls, i mirrored the monsters' room because i know that piping tends to make apartments laid out so kitchens or bathrooms are back to back with your neighbors. they also get a fancy extra chair and a bigger tv bc allison is rich and you can't tell me their room wouldn't have the nicest furniture. i feel like dan would have the bottom bunk, renee the top, and allison the lone lofted bed but that's just me lol

we know matt and neil shoved their three desks by the windows and in my head, matt and neil's bunk is on the left while seth's lofted bed is on the right. and matt and neil have their dressers underneath seth's bed and his is by the window

this was actually interesting because we know that the front door is out of sight from the doorway of the study and that there are windows in the living room so i put in this turn to the hall. again, the space looks huge here but that's mainly because i didn't want to have to shrink and rearrange all the walls over and over again

abby's was the hardest by far. i went back and scoured the books for more information about her house because i was struggling and have struggled with it since my first read through. we know that there is a doorway to the kitchen (so i couldn't give her the open floor plan i wanted) and that the bedroom jean stayed in was just down the hall from the bathroom. i ended up giving abby her own master bath just because i felt like it but i have no idea if that is canon. and the hall bath seemed too large so i put in a laundry room randomly but whatever. we also know she has a two car driveway so i made the shape of the house a little funky. and in my head, during summer break aaron and nicky stay in one bedroom and andrew and kevin are in the other one. i put kandrew in the bedroom down the hall because it is farther from the front door and andrew would like that imo. that is also the bedroom jean is in after renee takes him from evermore. and of course she needed a huge dining room table to fit everyone

ANYWAY, if you made it this far i am surprised and thank you for entertaining this. i can also share all the passages i used to piece together these floor plans cause they are all bookmarked but that felt like too much to include here and i doubt anyone cares. feel free to debate wall placements in the comments, i would love to talk to you about it as you can probably tell

and if literally anyone is interested, i can and will make these in the sims and then they will be real cute and colorful floor plans. i will probably do it anyway for my own enjoyment but whether i post them is up in the air

pt. 2 pt. 3 (cali)

What if The Queen's Game doesn't just refer to Kevin? What if it refers to Kayleigh, too?

I just– Kevin has always said that the Trojans play Exy "as it was meant to be played" and the award for excellent sportsmanship is the 'Day Spirit Award'. What if Kayleigh Day created the sport to be as the Trojans play, and her death left Tetsuji Moriyama free to twist it into something it was never meant to be?

Coach Moriyama taught his Ravens that rule breaking and fouls were just an acceptable part of the game. Tetsuji behaved like success in Exy was intrinsically linked to cruelty and suffering, but Kayleigh used Exy as a way to help people like David Wymack.

As the co-creators of the sport, Kayleigh and Tetsuji were the original King and Queen of Exy. But this King's ruled long enough—it's time to tear his castle down. With Tetsuji out of the picture, will Kevin Day, the new Queen of Exy, be able to push the game back towards what his mother always intended it to be?

somehow i survived finals week and moving out……… still up in the air if i have any brain cells left and the next few days will not feel real but hey now i can drown myself in aftg all summer 🤭

love language of sharing cigarettes

Jean “damn him for looking just as good as a blond as he did a brunette” Moreau

Jeremy “forgot everything else he could have said in favor of staring. It was the first time he’d heard Jean say his name. Hearing it in Jean’s accent put a wicked flutter in his stomach.” Knox

Jean “noticed the flick of his gaze over Jean’s face and down to his shirt: the deep blue top Jeremy had seemed so taken with yesterday.” Moreau

Jeremy “It was more endearing than it should be, and Jeremy hid a smile against his long-empty mug whenever Jean got particularly rude.” Knox

Jean “The sound of his language on Jeremy’s lips was enough to give Jean pause. He counted his heartbeats as he studied Jeremy’s face, committing the textbook-perfect sounds to memory” Moreau

Jeremy “it wasn’t the words that set his heart tripping; It was the heavy satisfaction in his tone that put a needy heat in Jeremy’s stomach.” Knox (all because Jean said he was very good.)

Jean “and like Kevin had accused him, Jean had been ultimately more interested in the accompanying photographs than whatever the text might have said.” Moreau

Jeremy “he couldn’t look away again. He watched colored lights dance off the sun-reddened cheeks until Jean finally caught him at it.” Knox

Jean “Jeremy’s smile was slow and radiant, and Jean had to look away.” Moreau

Jeremy “I’m not learning French for anyone but you” Knox

Jean “It makes you more interesting. Not your capacity for unkindness, but how fiercely you fight against it.” Moreau

Jeremy “It was enough to get Jean’s undivided attention, at least until Jeremy peeled his tank top off. Jean immediately found something else to stare at, like he always did when Jeremy was in varying stages of undress. It was horrifically inappropriate fighting for Jean’s attention like this, Jeremy knew.” Knox

Jean “didn’t have to look at Jeremy to know he was smiling, he could practically feel the warmth radiating off his captain” Moreau

Jeremy “would be lucky to know his own name when Jean was standing between his legs like this.” Knox

Jean “Fuck what I deserve. What about what I want? Moreau

Jeremy “Jean’s fingers on his neck killed his train of thought” Knox

Jean “I am not sorry. Perhaps I should be. But I will choose you every time. You, and Cat, and Laila, every time. I will lose them all if I must.” Moreau

Jeremy “What little Jeremy heard went way over his head; he knew nothing about motorcycles, and Jean was more interesting by far.” Knox

Jean “Brown like the gaze that sought Jean out in every room.” Moreau

💕 Jean “Tell Kevin to stay out of it” Moreau 💕

some more wymack love today because him giving the foxes their second chances will never cease to mean the world to me

“I bet on losing dogs” and it’s Wymack betting on the foxes, it’s Wymack creating a team of fucked up kids to give them a second, third, fourth chance, it’s Wymack never losing faith in them, it’s Wymack supporting them without a question, it’s Wymack never doubting them, it’s Wymack patching them up, holding them together. IT’S WYMACK NEVER GIVING UP ON THEM.