#I WAS RAVENOUSLY READING FIC end of march beginning of april

[orcelito]

There are more trigun fanfics than there were back in April

This is creating a problem for me

[jeffannieresource]

My (long, long, very long) List of Favorite Jeff/Annie fics -- Part 1b

Click here to read the notes for this list Click here for Part 1a

Tell the World That We Finally Got It Right by ameliajessica Rated: T Date Originally Posted: Feb 06, 2015 "IT'S A BEAR DANCE!" Chaos ensues! Riot! Food fight! Jeff and Annie hiding from the mayhem!

Inevitable by Waffleberry Rated: T Date Originally Posted: Feb 7, 2015 He has thought about it so many times in the summer break; of course he has; and what he has deduced is that it wasn’t just Racquel that broke in that lab. Something between them fractured.

Cry Uncle by Fayth82 Rated: T Date Originally Posted: Feb 21, 2015 He's had those words running around his head all week and it was slowly driving him crazy. It will only take one little thing to tip him over the edge.

DVD Extras by PepperF Rated: T Date Originally Posted: March 16, 2015 Movie-making, romantic melodrama as proxy, the art of subtle manipulation, and ghost (?) ninja alien robots.

If It’s Real (It Stains Your Hand Like Wine) by wright_or_wrong Rated: T Date Originally Posted: May 2, 2015 “But I think to really sell it,” Abed muses. “We need a kiss. I mean, you guys are about to die. What would keep you from going for it?” Alternate/Missing scene for 6x08.

When a Resistable Force Meets a Moveable Object by PepperF Rated: T Date Originally Posted: May 5, 2015 Things are fine, really. The kissing is just an aberration. WAS. WAS an aberration.

only fools rush in by ameliajessica Rated: E Date Originally Posted: May 7, 2015 - Aug 3, 2015 Jeff and Annie are terrible at casual sex. Well, Annie is.

Coming Clean by thebaddestwolf Rated: E Date Originally Posted: June 8, 2015 to Aug 3, 2015 It almost didn’t seem real -- that he’d finally, finally, told her, that he’d kissed her -- that she’d asked him to. After the mess he’d made of everything, all the self-sabotage and self-loathing and other self-inflicted pain, the solution boiled down to something as simple as coming clean to her. A missing scene fic, starting after the S6 finale study room kiss. Spoilers, obviously.

You’ll See How Well We Rhyme by wright_or_wrong Rated: T Date Originally Posted: June 9, 2015 "It’s probably why he’s felt so envious of Annie, going out and changing her life, chasing something new and better – and it’s probably why it was so easy to come up with alternate scenarios for the future after she got her internship. There’s got to be something better out there for him too." Post S6 finale

Advanced Manipulation and Mindfulness Techniques by PepperF Rated: T Date Originally Posted: Jan 31, 2016 Fours all have this look: alert, cunning, and ravenous. It may be hell at the bottom and heaven at the top, but one level down the pressure is enough to forge diamonds. But Annie thrives under pressure.

Intro to Freudian Slips by randomramblesff Rated: G Date Originally Posted: Feb 11, 2016 “By which you mean, Chang emails me rankings every day and I don't respond, because if I did, it would always be Annie one, Britta two.” An alternative ending to Basic Email Security (Season 6, Episode 6) where Jeff is a gupti-gupta who accidentally said something he probably shouldn't have said.

Basic Truth by PepperF Rated: T Date Originally Posted: March 20, 2016 What if Annie had been in the study room instead of Britta?

Aimless Walking and Significant Moments by greendalecoolcat Rated: T Date Originally Posted: April 10, 2016 Jeff reveals information to Annie. She takes him on a walk.

Emotional First Aid for Amateur Busybodies by PepperF Rated: T Date Originally Posted: April 21, 2016 School's out and Annie's going away and nothing really matters. Which doesn't explain why he's awake at 2 a.m. worrying about it all.

Open Doors and New Beginnings by greendalecoolcat Rated: M Date Originally Posted: June 1, 2016 An alternate version of the finale.

One More Goodbye by Nostalgia_101 Rated: T Date Originally Posted: June 5, 2016 Annie's last night in Greendale before leaving for D.C.

Five Times That Annie Seduced Jeff, and One Time She Got Distracted and Forgot (But It Worked Anyway) by PepperF Rated: T Date Originally Posted: June 7-8, 2016 I'm just going to let that title speak for itself.

Lecherous by CeleryLapel Rated: T Date Originally Posted: Aug 18, 2016 to Sept 9, 2019 Canon Divergent fic immediate post Remedial Chaos Theory

Alternative Teleologies of Narrative: A Holistic Approach by jeffwik Rated: T Date Originally Posted: Sept 3, 2016 "Or maybe the dean was right?" Annie asked. "About us?" She searched his features, looking for confirmation of what she'd been so certain of when she'd come up with the whole stupid crack-Troy-and-record-a-taunting-message-to-get-Jeff-to-admit-he-wanted-her plan.

Certainty by CeleryLapel Rated: K Date Originally Posted: Jan 22, 2017 Post-S6. Jeff and Annie are dating. They haven't yet told his mother.

Tell Me by randomramblesff Rated: M Date Originally Posted: March 20, 2017 When he first tells, her he feels partly pathetic and partly terrified. He’s been thinking about it for a while, mulling over all the ways he could screw things up. It’s not that he has a common history for ending things because of what happens in the bedroom - well, technically he doesn’t have a common history for any of it seeing as he’d only really class two or three of his past relationships as just that, genuine relationships – but he knows there’s some sort of expectation floating above him like a cloud. (or... Jeff and Annie take things slow when she gets back from DC)

You Are the Opera (Always on Time and in Tune) by PepperF Rated: T Date Originally Posted: March 23-26, 2017 It had been a long week. Hell, it had been a long forty years, and by the end of Friday he was feeling the weight of every weary minute. So he chose to blame the tiredness for what happened—that, and the tequila. He could never get the hang of tequila. It wasn't his fault he couldn't be strong for even one more minute.

Fill in the Gaps by randomramblesff Rated: T Date Originally Posted: April 27, 2017 “I’m Annie,” She stood forward, her champagne free hand ready to shake. “My fiancée.” “Pffft, ugh, sorry,” She tapped at her chest with the palm of her hand, knocking even more wind out of her than Jeff had already just done, “the, erm, the champagne, I think, didn’t settle right.”

Resolved by NE8675309 Rated: T Date Originally Posted: June 16-29, 2017 Jeff has been forced to realize his feelings for Annie just as she has decided to ignore his very existence. While Jeff is trying to make up for his own past indifference, Annie is trying to make a new start free from her own naivete. Angst and misunderstandings ensue. Post S5. Takes place during the Summer as an Alternate S6.

Basic Booty Call Etiquette by Pigzxo Rated: E Date Originally Posted: Aug 19, 2017 Their yam isn't murdered but Annie still sends that text. You're about to be screwed in the bio lab.

Just Like Always by greendalecoolcat Rated: T Date Originally Posted: Sept 2, 2017 It wasn’t just a debate kiss, or school dance make out. It wasn’t small spaces under blanket forts and it wasn’t smiles from across the room. It was sex and the most intimate moment of her life because it was with the man she loved.

Introduction to Sex Toys by Pigzxo Rated: E Date Originally Posted: Sept 11, 2017 All Annie wants is to buy a discounted vibrator at Dildopolis in peace. Unfortunately, with Jeff insisting on walking her to her door and the flash sale only lasting ten minutes, this quickly becomes impossible. The result? A messy, bumpy, totally unhealthy venture into friends-with-benefits territory.

Emotional Consequences of Cross Country Migrations (x) by cgkm2099z Rated: PG-13/M Date Originally Posted: Oct 3, 2017 This takes place mostly in between the final scene in Study Room F and when Jeff drops Annie and Abed at the airport. It's my own answer to the question: "what happened in that week in between?"

#AndAMovie by albatross9 Rated: G Date Originally Posted: Feb 16, 2018 Post season 6. Annie is surprised to find Jeff Winger on her doorstep and even more surprised when he volunteers to escort her an important work event when her real date flakes. All goes according to plan until their friends decide to crash the gala. Frankie has a surprise for everyone and the group decides that crashing Annie's work event is the best course of action. What can possibly go wrong?

The Mistakes Not Made under the Moonlight by Natalie_Carson Rated: G Date Originally Posted: May 14, 2018 During Basic RV Repair and Palmistry, Jeff sneaks out of the RV late at night unable to sleep only to find that one of the other Greendale seven couldn't sleep either.

I know that other things are not of consequence by middlemarch Rated: T Date Originally Posted: Aug 1, 2020 Something was ringing. It wasn't his alarm. It was his fucking doorbell.

Theories of Romantic Expressionism by Little_Annie_Adderall Rated: T Date Originally Posted: Aug 13, 2020 Annie's 21st birthday party. She rarely thinks of herself as "the young one" in the group anymore. But there's always one person who points out her tender age at every ill-timed opportunity. Tonight, she wants to prove her new adult identity. Although whether she wants to prove this new identity to herself or to... him... she isn't entirely sure. So on December 19, the study group gathers to celebrate Annie Edison finally going to a bar without having to be Caroline Decker from Corpus Christi. And once there, she receives a gift that changes everything.

Falling off the Precipice by HarmonizingSunsets Rated: G Date Originally Posted: Sept 29, 2020 Annie and Jeff aren’t a thing. If they were a thing, Annie would know about it. I mean…she thinks she’d know… Annie and Jeff are done with the will-they-won’t-they thing.

Casting by L56895 Rated: T Date Originally Posted: Oct 13, 2020 Jeff isn’t sure why he agreed to be casting director.

Constants and Variables by Raj_Sound Rating: T Date Originally Posted: Oct 21, 2020 to Jan 21, 2023

Advanced Beginner Knots by jeffwik Rated: T Date Originally Posted: Dec 3, 2020 In the aftermath of “Intro to Knots” Jeff and Annie hook up.

Countdown by practicingmypurpose Rated: T Date Originally Posted: Dec 16, 2020 sight, smell, taste, sound, feel.

Five by onenotewaffles Rating: E Date Originally Posted: June 16, 2021 to August 19, 2021 Set after the events of E304 in timeline 5, my third-favorite timeline.

Pottery for Dummies by naboojakku Rated: T Date Originally Posted: July 18, 2021 Annie tries pottery. Jeff quietly—then not so quietly—loses his mind.

Psychology of Deception by andropithecus Rated: M Date Originally Posted: July 21, 2021 to Aug 6, 2021 Jeff has always been pretty good at lying, and at getting out of things that he doesn't want to do. But what will he do when his Mom corners him into Christmas dinner and asks him to bring the girlfriend that he (lied and) told her he had? Lots of fluff, lots of fun, and an irritated Annie will ensue.

Cruel Summer by Olivia Sprite Rated: E Date Originally Posted: Sept 13, 2021 Jeff comes out to DC to visit Annie during her summer internship, and it takes everything in Annie not to mention 'The Annie of it all,' lest her heart is broken one more time.

All I Want for Christmas by Olivia Sprite Rated: E Date Originally Posted: Dec 24, 2021 Jeff and Annie are dating, and all Annie wants for Christmas is you-know-what. But a mysterious present means it's time to team up and investigate! A little mystery, a little snow, a classic caper; will our beautiful dummies get what they want this holiday season?

Social History and Holiday Revisionism by PinkCanary Rated: E Date Originally Posted: Dec 4, 2022 Seven years after Annie leaves Greendale, she comes back for the holidays.

[paradiselostbythedashboardlight]

Quarantine, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Wrote 430,943 Words of Prose in a Year

As we are coming up terrifyingly fast on a full year of quarantine with no end to the pandemic yet in sight for most people, I’ve been taking some time to reflect on the last year of my existence in a state that most people now refer to as quarantine. Since March of 2020, I, like most other sane people in my country, have stopped traveling, going to stores, seeing all but a limited group of other humans, and begun having recurring nightmares about being in crowds without a piece of cloth over my nose and mouth.

Suffice to say, it has been a bit stressful.

The other thing that I have done since COVID-19 began rapidly spreading across the globe last year is write over 430,943 words of fiction. 

The number seems insane to me still. That is (approximately) one Gone With The Wind, one entire Lord of the Rings series, or the first four Harry Potter books. That is still sadly not yet War and Peace (but who knows… the pandemic isn’t over yet).

So now that I am looking back, I find myself with one question: how did this happen? Why did I do this? What does this mean about my life this year?

Since apparently I answer best by writing a lot, let’s begin at the beginning. Let me tell you a story. I’ll keep it short, I swear.

Part 1: Blast From the Past

In March of 2020, I was still in the midst of an academic semester. There was a long academic document to write and a class to teach. However, as quarantine abruptly robbed me of most of my usual commitments, I was suddenly thrust into the position of having more time on my hands than I knew what to do with. Consequently, I decided to break out the Nintendo Switch I’d gotten for Christmas and revive a childhood interest in video games.

And boy did I. I played the games I owned for all they were worth. I played them during the evenings when I had no social engagements to attend. I played them during the Zoom meetings I was already struggling to pay attention to. By the end of March, I had finished one game, and it had set the wheels turning in my brain.

Here’s a fact about me: I don’t usually tend to write or read a lot of fanfiction about things that I consider really really good. Basically, fanfiction for me has always been an impulse born from incompletion or imperfection. I see no need to add to a perfect story (although I happily consume and create fanart). But for something enjoyable and yet slightly unsatisfying? That’s fanfic territory, bud.

So by April, I had developed a sort of epic fanfiction for this video game I was playing. It was one of those magnum opus kind of ideas, a grand retelling of the story with a huge sprawling plot and Themes (™). 

At first, it was merely a thought experiment that lived only in my head, a sort of entertainment to ponder in the hours before falling asleep. What changed? Well, a friend of mine decided to also write a fanfiction on the same video game and she kindly consented to let me read it.

Suddenly, I was ravenously hungry to read and to write and to share and to consume. I wrote a hundred thousand words of this fanfic in April and into early May, sending each chapter to my friend and being spurred onward by her kind comments. 

The fic became a gargantuan endeavor full of strange little challenges I set for myself. It was a canon-divergence, requiring plotting, worldbuilding, a darker and grimer tone. For some reason, I decided to write each chapter from a different character’s perspective, making the final product into a series of essentially short story character studies which together formed a plot.

By the end of May, the story was published for the world to see. It was well-received, although not particularly popular by fandom standards. And that was the end. I had gotten out my pandemic crazies, the semester was over and now I could move on. I had made my peace with the source material, plumbing all of the little details that I wanted to examine and creating a narrative that I found satisfying.

It was over.

Part 2: Summer Lovin?

Except that it wasn’t.

Confession: as I had been posting my giant fanfiction, I had also begun to explore the fan community itself, mostly curious to see some nice art and gather a bit of demographic info about what was popular within the community. As a result, I found a fanfic recommendations page. Among the recommendations was one author who kept popping up and i finally decided to give the fic a read.

Woah. It was good. Like, really good. Like, professional quality writing and themes that seemed designed to appeal to me. I devoured everything that the creator had posted in a week and then subscribed to eagerly wait for more.

As June rolled around, I realized that I had a problem on my hands. My great big gen masterpiece was finished, but this author had gotten me hooked on something else, something with a nefarious reputation online: shipping.

The term du jour for this seems to be “brain worms” so let’s just say that reading other fanworks had given me some brain worms. Inspired this time not just by the source material of the game, but now the fan community itself, my mind began to develop another idea.

I wrote the fic, about 11k, in a single afternoon of frantic writing. When I finished it, I knew it was one of my strongest pieces. It had just come together, a combination of all the thought that I’d been brewing up and a stylistic execution that just worked with the story I wanted to tell.

I posted it on a new account. Shipping seemed vaguely shameful to me still and my mom reads the other account.

To my surprise, the fic blew up. It got so much more attention than my long fic ever had. Even more significantly, a fan artist actually drew a gorgeous comic of the pivotal scene, completely out of the blue! I was essentially thunderstruck. Honestly, it was probably the first time in my life that I’d ever received so much positive reinforcement from a piece of writing.

While I’d written short stories for undergrad workshops, they’d never been particularly good and I’d never gotten particularly great feedback on them. I’d applied and been rejected by more MFAs and literary magazines than I could count. I’d pretty much resigned myself to writing for an audience of me and me alone (which I don’t mean to sound tragic about, writing for you is great and fun!)

But receiving so much support and praise and feeling like I’d made other people happy or sad or moved? There’s nothing better.

This makes my decision to write another fic for the ship sound vaguely cynical, the action of a person driven by an addiction to praise. I mean, no lie, aren’t we all a little addicted to approval?

But my next fic was another long one, an 80k passion project modern AU that I dreamed up while spending a slow summer alone with my books and only able to leave the house for long rambling walks in the woods. The premise was essentially about characters attending a five year college reunion, something that I myself had missed due to COVID in May of the same year. The fic quickly became a way for me to process thoughts on a lot of topics in my life ranging from relationships to politics to mental health to classical literature.

This fic was also received with far more attention than I was used to and, as a result, I finally joined the notorious Twitter dot com where I found people talking about my fic unprompted, eager to follow me and like my every random thought.

I can’t say that this process was not without its ups and downs. Fandom has changed, in many ways for the better, since my last engagement with it during the 2013 Supernatural days on Tumblr. While fan friendships are often idealized or demonized, they are pretty much like any other human friendship (okay, maybe a little bit more horny on main). There is potential for amazing connection as well as pettiness. But in a year where many people suddenly had no social spaces that were safe anymore, I’m glad that I found a new line of communication with the world.  

So I kept writing fics for the ship, producing a lot of work that I am genuinely proud of and making connections with other people who enjoyed it enough to leave a comment.

To conclude this section, I was in fandom again. While I had not seriously engaged with a fan community since around 2014, I was back with a vengeance. And I had discovered an important truth about what unlocked my ability to write more than I ever had before: community support.

Not simply the kudos and the views. It was the comments. The discourse. The discussion. To add and contribute my thoughts and ideas to a greater network of thoughts and ideas that fed off of one another.

Often I had seen people complain about there not being enough fanworks for particular media or characters. Now I knew the secret. The comments and the community created the works. If I commented on other people’s fics, the more likely they were to write more. I made a resolution I have tried to keep, to comment on any story that I legitimately enjoyed reading, even if I had no particularly intelligent thing to say about it.

Part 3: A Novel Idea

By late October, I had produced a considering oeuvre for my ship of choice and was enjoying slowing my pace as I planned a few future projects.

Remember, though, how I mentioned not having engaged with fandom for the past 5 years? Well, that didn’t mean I hadn’t been writing.

For the past 4 years, I have won NaNoWriMo and completed 4 novels of over 100k each in length. These projects have been massively fun and improved my confidence with executing stories at the scope that I desire.

And so in November 2020, I settled down to write another novel. November is always a sort of terrible time write a novel if you work in academia, but this year, I had more time than usual. I set out to write a comedy fantasy novel, something mostly lighthearted and full of hijinks in order to pretend away some of the quarantine blues (which by this point were well established in my psyche).

This year in particular, I was reminded that writing a novel is… harder than fanfic. That seems like a very obvious point, but I’d written novels before. Suddenly, though, I was realizing how much a novel requires you to set up the world and the characters, while fanfic can be pretty much all payoff all the time.

While the fanfic flowed in wild creative bursts of energy, the novel required diligence of another sort. I wrote 2,000 words every day for two months. It was a grind. Sometimes, it was a slog. 

And sometimes it just wasn't good. The thing about writing your own novels is that the first draft is way more likely to be not good. You’re balancing a lot and it’s easy to let a few balls that you have in the air drop for a chapter or two, with no recourse but to go back and edit later.

I finished the novel by writing a final speedrun of 6k on new years eve, ending my 2020 with another project under my belt. No one has read it. Not even I have reread it.

I’m still glad that I wrote it. I’ll write another one next year. No one will read that one either.

Sometimes, we write for ourselves and no external validation is necessary.

Part 4: Where are they now?

January of 2021 is somehow now behind me, which is terrifying. I’m still writing. Mostly fanfic, although occasionally I go doodle around with some original ideas that are more conceptual sketches for the next novel.

As for the fanfic, I think I still have a few more good ideas left in me, but  I will probably leave it behind before the year is out. That feels a little bittersweet, a sort of temporary burst of fun and friendship that I wonder if I’ll ever experience again.

Coming to the end of this reflection, I suppose I should make a summative statement about what it all means.

In the end, it might not mean a lot. There are some small takeaways. 

It turns out that encouragement makes you write more! Who knew? Also, more free time makes you write more! Wow!!!!

The point that I think this reflection exercise has shown me, the point that I think matters more than any other, is that writing is a way to process my thoughts. Even if it is through the lens of ridiculous video game fanfic or novels about sad wizards, my writing is my way to make sense of my own mind. 

And sharing that is special. If you share it with online strangers, with your family on Christmas Eve, with your close friend who has become even closer and dearer to you since she let you read her work, or just with your mom (the one personal legally required to read your damn novel if you want to share it). To share writing is to give someone a little peek at your beliefs about the world.

And right now? When we’re still isolated and bored and scared and in desperate need of distraction? Binge some TV, play Nintendo, read a book. Take in other people’s thoughts.

But put down your own somewhere as well. It’s a conversation.

And for once, it’s a conversation that doesn’t have to take place on fucking Zoom.

[luobingmeis]

hawk in the raven nest, chapter one

A/N: it’s here!!! i am about 95% done with this fic, which means i can finally begin posting!!! as some of you might have seen on my blog, this is my raven!neil fic that i have been working on since april!!! likes, reblogs, and feedback mean the world to me, and thank you to all that have supported me while writing this :)

a thank you goes from the bottom of my heart to @exybee​, who is the reason that this fic became a thing!!!

read on ao3 (please read end notes since they contain important information regarding the fic. i promise that the other end notes will not be as long!!!)

Nathaniel Wesninski traced the three on his cheek. At a younger age, the marker would have smudged under his touch; however, the ink, scarred into his face, held up. The three was the ever constant reminder that that was where he stood in the nest. He was not first like Riko Moriyama; he was not invincible like Riko Moriyama. He was not King Riko Moriyama. He was not second like Kevin Day. He was not valuable like Kevin Day was valuable. He was not Kevin Day, the one who was meant to make something of his life with Riko Moriyama.

He was third. He was third from the top, second most valuable piece of property. He was third, and therefore more punishable than first. He was third in rank, and there was a price sitting on his head. At one point he was a being. He once had something to him other than a three and a price tag.

If his life had gone different, he could have been something more . If his father wasn’t the Butcher, the Moriyama’s infamous executioner, or if his mother hadn’t been killed in trying to make Nathaniel free of the Moriyama’s power, he could have been someone different.

But this wasn’t that life. This was the life where he was Nathaniel Wesninski, sold by Nathan Wesninski, bought by Lord Kengo Moriyama, and given to Riko Moriyama.

The life where he was third and paired off with Jean Moreau, all before he was Nathaniel Wesninski.

He covered up the three on his cheek with his index finger. The three was what made him recognizable. Everyone knew who he was because of that number.

For a second, he wondered what life would be like if he was completely unrecognizable.

But there was no life outside of the Nest. Not until he was signed onto his future Court team. And then there would be no life outside of Exy.

The bathroom light flickered, and suddenly the black walls and ceiling and floor and aspects of red felt all-too-suffocating. He turned on his heel and shoved the door open before he could feel the cold grip of claustrophobia start to strangle him. The black hallway of the Nest swallowed him whole as he stepped out. The yellow and red lights shone down at him as he made his way down the hall and to his shared room. Even after being with the Ravens for ten years, the red glow still made him feel uneasy, like something terrible was always creeping up right behind him and he was too slow to catch it.

He swung open his bedroom door and found Jean Moreau sat on his bed across from Nathaniel’s. His fellow backliner, Nathaniel wouldn’t call Jean a friend. They were more so allies. They were paired at three and four (Jean with his own number marring his face), and therefore were the only person each other had guarding their back. As Nathaniel was, Jean was also sold by his father and bought by the Ravens. Both were trained by Riko, since Tetsuji wouldn’t waste his oxygen on those who weren’t his promised prodigies. Under Riko, they were not his teammates; they were his property. They each had to suffer through his violence, physical and mental, and pick each other up off the ground as the other Ravens watched and did nothing.

No, they weren’t friends, but they were more than allies; Jean and Nathaniel were what was keeping each other alive. They understood their situations in the lives they were living, and both knew that things could have been better if other things went different. While Riko and Kevin were destined to a life of greatness, they were forced into it.

Jean looked up when Nathaniel entered and watched silently as he shut the door behind him and crossed to his bed. When Nathaniel was laying back and staring at the ceiling, he spoke up in French, “One day Riko might actually kill Andrew.”

“Andrew might be the only person Riko wouldn’t want to waste his time replacing,” he said, lolling his head to the side to look at Jean.

Andrew Minyard was the best goalkeeper Nathaniel had ever seen, though he never expected anything less from a Raven. He was the only one exempt from having a partner on the Ravens only because Riko wasn’t going to bring in a sixth-wheel to their Top Five. However, that didn’t mean that Andrew was alone; it just meant that he had the other Top Four looming over him.

Nathaniel and Andrew were very different people, for Nathaniel enjoyed Exy and Andrew did not (among other reasons). From the moment Andrew met Nathaniel, the former made it very clear that he hated how Nathaniel was just as Exy-obsessed as Kevin.

Sports newscasters identified him by his number five, a late addition to Riko’s inner circle at being recruited last year. The Ravens identified him by his black armbands that he wore everyday and an attitude problem that could be split into two sections: pre and post medication. Andrew was put on court-mandated medication instead of being arrested for nearly killing four men who assaulted his cousin, and he was supposed to be on it for three years before being eased off it.

Pre-medication, Nathaniel found himself actually surprised that Riko (and Kevin) wanted Andrew in the first place. He talked back, he was rude, and his attention span barely found an ounce of care for Exy. All around, he was destined to be the bane of Riko’s (and Kevin’s) existence.

And then Riko realized that Andrew would be the Ravens’ unwanted weak link, and a week into training for Andrew’s freshman season, Riko pulled some strings and Andrew was forced into a withdrawal two and a half years early. Nathaniel didn’t know what Riko expected when Andrew was taken off medication. He still talked back. He was still rude, except this time it was more blunt than hyper. The only thing that changed was his care for Exy: he cared even less.

But Nathaniel wasn’t wrong when he said that Riko wouldn’t do anything to Andrew. At least, he didn’t think he was wrong. He assumed Riko steered clear of Andrew because he was too valuable of a player. He didn’t care, he would never practice outside of the mandatory practices, and yet barely anyone could score on him. In a game, it was an off day for Andrew if someone scored past him four times. And that was what made him irreplaceable. He was the top pick as goalie for every school that offered Exy; Riko wouldn’t be able to find anyone better. He had no choice but to resort to verbal threats instead of physical.

Besides, even if Riko did ever physically attack Andrew, everyone knew that Andrew would fight back, and fight back harder. Riko valued his life too much to risk it with Andrew.

Andrew had a twin and cousin somewhere that both played Exy, but he showed up to the Ravens alone. The Ravens didn’t have time to raise families; if they weren’t good enough, they would just have to deal with one less cousin.

(Apparently they dealt just fine, since twin Aaron Minyard and cousin Nicholas Hemmick were signed onto the Palmetto Foxes the same year Andrew was signed to the Ravens.)

“Riko only has so much patience,” Jean said, shaking his head.

Jean actually looked concerned, and Nathaniel furrowed his eyebrows. “Are you actually worrying about Andrew?”

“I’m worrying about us,” Jean lowered his voice to a whisper even though they were the only two in the room, not to mention they weren’t even speaking English. “You know that Riko’s anger comes straight back to us.”

Jean wasn’t wrong. After Andrew bluntly expressed his apathy for the sport, Riko lost it. The only reason Jean and Nathaniel didn’t face the brunt of his anger was because they got out of the locker room fast enough to be out of Riko’s sight. However, Nathaniel knew they wouldn't always be so lucky. Despite having just won the championships (again) in the end of March, they only got a few days off before starting up training again. The season didn't pick back up until August. There were still many opportunities for Andrew to piss off Riko, and no one would step in when Riko finally turned his anger to Nathaniel and Jean.

“We survived it before,” was all Nathaniel could think of saying.

“And what if there comes a time when we don’t?”

“Let me rephrase, we don’t have a choice on whether or not we live,” Nathaniel said, now lowering his own voice. Jean’s paranoia made him feel anxious, too, and now he feared that others were listening and taking note of the foreign language. They weren’t supposed to be speaking in a language Riko didn’t understand. “We’re loose ends, Jean, and you’re smart enough to know that. With us, there is no room for mistakes, no room for a breaking point. We have to survive and be strong because we have no other option. The Ravens don’t handle weakness, and neither do those who bought us. We’re stuck living a life where we have to survive every blow thrown at us. It’s either we survive and take the cards we have been dealt, or die. There’s no middle ground with people like us..”

Jean went silent at the grim truth that both of them have always known from the moment they entered Castle Evermore.

Finally, Jean said in English, “We have to get to the stadium.”

--

Castle Evermore, home of the Ravens. The stadium walls welcomed their team with open arms, and loomed over opposing teams with an oppressive stance. On the walls, up by the rafters, hung all the Championship banners the team had won. Their most recent win was already added. All the ravens on the banners stared down at the team, pressuring them to constantly do better than before.

Nathaniel had high hopes for his team. They were undefeated for as long as they have existed. All cockiness aside, they were the reigning team in the nation. Sometimes, though, he wondered if they would ever reach a point where they couldn’t get any better. He had seen teams hit rock bottom, like the Palmetto Foxes, but could a team only go so high? Nathaniel had confidence, but he did wonder if there would ever be a team that would one day knock them out.

With the way Coach Tetsuji trained them and Riko pushed them, however, he couldn’t see that day coming anytime soon. The Ravens worked sixteen hour days. For them, sports came before grades, so most of that time was dedicated towards Exy. A few hours were spent in between for three or four of the athletes to group together and go to a class made specifically for them.

The Ravens didn’t associate with anyone outside the team. It was to eliminate distractions and keep everyone’s focus on the game. Coach didn’t want outside forces affecting his athletes’ mentality. No one who was recruited ever questioned that, not even Andrew (though Andrew wasn’t a particularly social guy). And people like Riko, Kevin, Nathaniel, and Jean all accepted it. Riko naturally accepted it since he grew up with it. Kevin followed Riko. And Nathaniel and Jean, who were bought, knew that they might as well follow the leading duo for it was better than the alternative.

Besides, if the Ravens social group was only the Ravens, it made practices (slightly) easier to handle. They had no other places to be or people to see.

“Wesninski, get your head out of your ass, we have a practice to start.”

At his name being said, Nathaniel realized he had been standing at the edge of the court, staring blankly up at the banners. He looked over his shoulder and saw Kevin Day approaching, helmet in his right hand and racket on his left shoulder.

“Just taking in our new win,” Nathaniel said as he retrieved his remaining gear that laid discarded on the nearby bench.

“Are you surprised?” Kevin asked, leaning on the divider wall. “Of course we won. No other team can even come close to beating us.”

“Not even the Trojans?” A smirk appeared on Kevin’s lips at the mention of the Trojans. Even though he was a Raven at heart, his favorite team was the University of Southern California’s Trojans.

“Jeremy wishes he could beat us.”

“You’re still as cocky as ever.”

“With all of our wins, we have a right to be,” Kevin said, now casting his eyes up at the banners.

Nathaniel wouldn’t really consider Kevin a friend despite being part of the inner circle, too many things had changed. With competition and the lifestyle of the Ravens being worked into their everyday lives, Kevin and Nathaniel were now teammates, dependents of each other, before they were friends. But they were friends once. It used to be the Top Three, and then it became the Top Four, and as of recently the Top Five, also known as the Perfect Court; however, even that had split into Riko Moriyama and Kevin Day, Nathaniel Wesninski and Jean Moreau, and then Andrew Minyard, separate but watching.

The Perfect Court wasn’t a place for friends; it was for success.

Friend or not, though, Nathaniel did find room to appreciate the easy atmosphere between him and Kevin. Talking with Kevin was much easier than talking with Riko, less intimidating than talking with Riko.

The rest of the Ravens began to trickle on. Somewhere in the middle came Andrew Minyard, helmet hanging by his fingertips, racket lazily draped over his shoulder, and black armbands under his jersey.

Kevin’s eyes darted to Andrew, though Andrew paid no mind. “You’re going to try today.” It wasn’t a question but a command.

“I don’t recall you being captain,” Andrew shot back, not sparing Kevin or Nathaniel a glance as he walked past them. Both knew that if Riko told him the same thing, he still wouldn’t listen.

And that’s what confused Nathaniel. It was beyond him why Kevin wanted Andrew so badly. Riko had been fine leaving Andrew after he rejected their initial recruitment. Riko didn’t have the time or patience to deal with athletes who had an attitude problem, so he was happy leaving Andrew “to rot”. However, Kevin kept persisting Andrew, and suddenly papers were being signed to make Andrew a Raven. And then there was a five on his cheek and he was a part of the inner circle.

And what confused Nathanial even more than that was how often Kevin and Andrew stuck together. It was always Riko and Kevin. Wherever Riko was, there was Kevin, and vice versa. But where there was Kevin, there was Andrew somewhere nearby, lurking. Nathaniel didn’t know if they were forming some sort of alliance between themselves, but he definitely didn’t think that the two were particularly close. The two so often fought (mostly Kevin fighting and Andrew staring through him) about Exy, or a lack of care for it, that he was surprised the two could even stand the sight of each other certain days.

The only possible conclusion Nathaniel could jump to was that Andrew had something that Kevin wanted.

Nathaniel didn’t get enough time to even consider asking, for the last two to enter the court were Riko Moriyama and Coach Tetsuji. Riko shadowed off of his uncle’s shoulder, scanning his eyes across his fellow teammates. He had a hard look in his eye, one that refused to tolerate any bullshit (though Nathaniel realized a long time ago that “bullshit” meant any slight inconvenience).

Once the entire team had warmed up, Tetsuji brought them in to talk about the day’s practice. Riko, Kevin, Nathaniel, and Jean all clumped together, with Andrew somewhere on the outskirts. Today was for scrimmages. Tetsuji split them into two teams of eleven. Riko, Kevin, Nathaniel, Jean, and Andrew all ended up on one team together, and Nathaniel wasn’t surprised at all. Tetsuji had told his team multiple times before that Riko, Kevin, Nathaniel, Jean, and Andrew were the pinnacle of what Exy players should be.

They were the Top Five, the Perfect Court.

The scrimmages were played like actual games, and just as rough. The Ravens barely took breaks, even when Exy season was technically over. This intense training year round allowed for the current team members to never lose their abilities, and it challenged incoming athletes to see how easily they could pick up Raven strategies.

Nathaniel’s team was doing fairly well. Both Riko and Kevin had scored twice each on the opposing team’s goal while that side had yet to get one past Andrew. Andrew was involved enough in the scrimmage; he was blocking all the shots. However, whenever Nathaniel cast a glance at him, he was leaning on his stick, watching the match in front of him with more apathy than interest. Only when the ball neared the goal did he move his racket.

Nathaniel couldn’t see Riko and Kevin’s faces through their helmets, but he could tell when they were staring each other, having some sort of conversation that didn’t require speaking. After that, it didn’t take long for Kevin to become fed up with Andrew’s disinterest.

“Are you going to actually make an effort on this team, or are you going to stand there and waste space?” Kevin demanded of Andrew once Tetsuji called the scrimmage to a halt. His voice had boomed down to the home goal from half-court, but now he was stomping his way over to Andrew.

Andrew took his own helmet off and feigned offense. “Waste space? You wound me.”

“This isn’t the time for jokes, Minyard,” Kevin growled. By now, the entire court had their eyes on the pair, even Tetsuji. Nathaniel saw that Riko was watching them with his helmet held to his side.

“I never kid, Kevin.”

“Really?” Kevin’s voice was growing angrier and he was losing any composure he had left. Kevin had the tendency to be an asshole when it came to Exy, and it wasn’t the first time Kevin lacked tolerance for one of his teammates (especially Andrew). “Because that performance looked like a joke to me. Just because you got no shots past you doesn’t mean you can just stand there like none of this matters. You will not let this team suffer, you will not jeopardize our future, because you can’t bring yourself to give a shit about any of this.” It was another command that Nathaniel was sure Andrew was going to dismiss.

“I’m doing what you brought me here to do: guard your goal,” Andrew said, leaning on his racket. “Was there something in the fine print that I missed? I didn’t realize getting a hard-on for Exy was required.”

Nathaniel wondered if Kevin regretted putting that five on Andrew’s face. From where Nathaniel was standing, he could see Kevin clench his free fist before dropping his helmet to the floor. “I will not let you humiliate me for bringing your ass here,” Kevin fumed as took one step closer to Andrew. He shifted his one hand as if to grab Andrew by the jersey and the other reeled back. For Kevin, reeling his hand back was just a threat; Riko would be the one to actually hit people, but he was just watching. He looked completely entertained with how the event in front of him was progressing.

Except before Kevin could get either of his hands on Andrew, Andrew managed to drop his stick and helmet and secure Kevin’s wrists in his own hands. No one expected Andrew’s reflexes to be as fast as they were after taking it “easy” in the recent scrimmage.

“Do you really want to do that, Kevin?” Andrew asked, his voice monotone though his hands did not release their grip on Kevin’s wrists.

The room, which had only been filled with the sounds of Andrew and Kevin and slight shuffling, fell deathly silent.  It was one thing for Andrew to physically resist Kevin, surprising yes, but not horrifying. But to so blatantly issue a challenge, a threat, to Kevin, that was a bit closer to horrifying.

Kevin didn’t do anything for a moment. The two stared at each other with locked eyes. It was like they were daring each other to just do something and see what happened. Kevin was the first to break the stare. He tugged his hands back and Andrew let them slip from his grip. As Kevin stepped away, Andrew bid him goodbye with his two-fingered salute.

Riko did not look amused anymore; His gaze had turned cold and as he watched Kevin and Andrew separate, Nathaniel was unsure of whether his aggravation was for Kevin or Andrew.

At one point when the next scrimmage started, Andrew deflected the ball so hard and fast that it would have pelted Laura Jenkins, who had tried to make the goal in the first place, if she didn’t leap out of the way.

It was impossible to not notice the tension running through Kevin’s body.

During another break later in that practice, Nathaniel slipped into the locker room. The tension in practice had not let up after the whole Kevin and Andrew thing; in fact, it only got worse. Kevin and Riko were now both on edge, and shouting at anyone who breathed wrong on the court. Nathaniel was as dedicated to Exy as the next Raven was, but the leading duo’s voices became grating on the nerves after a while.

Nathaniel was about to let the door shut behind him when he heard the sound of a body being slammed into a locker. His reflexives caused his hand to instantly shoot out and grab the door handle, preparing for a quick getaway. However, he stopped his runaway when he heard voices.

“You knew what you had to do,” Riko Moriyama snapped. “You were supposed to train your fucking pet. You were to show him what happens to those who disrespect their superiors.”

“How? With force?” It was Kevin. Nathaniel hadn’t even noticed that Riko and Kevin walked into the locker room.

“That’s how you get people to learn their place in this world.”

“He doesn’t listen, he never has. I can’t-”

Once again, the sound of a body being slammed into lockers filled the room. It was obvious that they were talking about Andrew. It wasn’t the first time Riko and Kevin fought, but those fights didn’t regularly involve their goalkeeper. Nathaniel knew that he should leave, that this wasn’t his place to be or conversation to hear. Yet, his hand remained on the door handle but did not pull it open, and his feet never left where they stood.

“You were the one to bring a fucking embarrassment onto this team! He’s your responsibility, not mine,” Riko growled. “We should have left him to continue living his short, miserable life. He has no place here, he will only bring this team down. He’s your responsibility and you let him put his fucking hands on you like you’re his bitch?”

Riko probably had more to say, he always had more to say, but Kevin cut him off with, “Riko, please, it’s not-”

“Stop talking!” Riko shouted. Nathaniel flinched despite not being the person Riko’s anger was directed at. “You letting him push you around like this, it’s a fucking disgrace, Kevin, and it’s making you look like an embarrassment. And then that makes me look like an embarrassment and a disgrace, and you can’t fuck up my future for me by having a feral dog out on the court.”

There was a beat of silence and Nathaniel was waiting for something, anything. He expected Kevin to fight back, to try to defend himself, but he said nothing.

“Make Andrew obey,” Riko said. “Or else we’re going to have a problem that’s taken up with Tetsuji.” Tetsuji was one to strike fear, and pain, into his players if they weren’t playing to his standards. If a problem, especially one plaguing the Perfect Court, was brought to him, Nathaniel couldn’t see any one of them coming out without new bruises and scars.

Nathaniel had a feeling the conversation was over. He quietly slid back out of the locker room, not wanting to even think about what would happen if Riko discovered that him and Kevin were not alone for their discussion.