Cottagejun

Your characterization of everyone is so spot on and your story’s are just so awesome to read. they are absolutely devastating.

I’ve read everything you’ve written and wish i could read a hundred more works by you. i was wondering what some of your favorite aftg fics were?

Thank you, holy shit, this made my day :') I aim to please and I aim to devastate, so this is great feedback

ALSO! YES! RECS! HOLD ON!

I read a LOT of Jean centric stuff, but also some of my favs are some rogue pairings, so buckle up...

This Time With Feeling by Ocean_Adjacent (WIP/170k multi-chap/Jerejean/pre-TSC canon): This is probably the fic I’ve re-read the most ever, it follows Jean joining the Trojans post TKM and the writing is just CHEFS KISS. TTWF follows three plots: the Trojans, the Foxes, and the Ravens. Chapters alternate btwn Jean's POV and different characters(OC's and canon characters alike). HIGHLIGHTS: Slowburn Jerejean, The College Experience™, backstories! layers! themes!, AND an octopus I have cried over.

The Later Parade by @hourafterhour (Oneshot/40k/Kevjean/Post-canon): AKA The Kevjean BIBLE! If you have not read this fic, you really should. It follows Jean as a pro-Exy player, including his journey with sexuality and KEVIN DAY BEING MESSY. HIGHLIGHTS: Obvious knowledge on sports/drafts by the author, Kevjean angst up the wazoo, Kevin's relationship with Exy/The Nest butting heads with Jean's, The Bisexual Jean Experience™, and DUPUIS!!!

Not Yours To Bleed by Coffeexandxangst (WIP/385k multi-chap/Andreil/Raven!Neil AU but in the pros): If you have wanted more insight into the gang/crime aspect of the AFTG, this is the fic for you (but mind the tags!) Some chapters will be so romantic and lovely and then BOOM! Suddenly it's a thriller and I'm clenching my cheeks in fear. HIGHLIGHTS: Side Jerejeanee, getting to hate on Kevin Day for free (which I only do bc I LOVE him), a morally ambiguous body guard, and PAIN PAIN PAIN!

it's semi-automatic by @wyverningx (WIP/38k multi-chap/Jerejean/Mafia AU): This fic follows Jean trying to take care of himself and Elodie which ofc get's him wrapped up with the Moriyamas and Jeremy, who is the head of his own organization. Despite some devastating details, it's a super fun fic. HIGHLIGHTS: Jean and Elodie sibling cuteness, Jeremy being one sexy mf and a dog named Lexapro. I would rec the Jerejean text fic ALSO by wyverning, but if you haven't read that, I'm assuming you live under a rock (IT'S SO GOOD! READ IT!!!)

Ailleurs by revengeandotherdrugs aka @keirametzbrassknuckles (WIP/45k multi-chap/Kevjean/AU + pre-canon): THIS FIC HAS ME IN A CHOKEHOLD! In an AU where Stuart Hatford took Jean in instead of the Moriyamas, alternating pov's between Kevin and Jean explore their relationship as Kevin and Riko travel through London for Exy Press Reasons. HIGHLIGHTS: Stuart Hatford being a Good Dad, Liverpudlians, angst CITY, and Kevjean as bumbling teenagers.

nothing to be kindle[d] by @poetic-ivy (Oneshot/8k/Kevallison/post-canon): Allison goes pro and is aiming to make the Olympic team. Kevin is also there. Friends with benefits but also friends with feelings for one another. HIGHLIGHTS: Banter/Flirting, Allison getting what she deserves, and some lovely freaky times.

Like Being Known by OfficialStarsandGutters (Oneshot/19k/Kevaaron/post-canon): Kevin suffers a head injury and doesn't remember who he is. Aaron offers to house him and take care of him while he recovers and they grow closer. HIGHLIGHTS: SO SOFT, Aaron the begrudging caretaker, Kevin being #difficult, and a wholesome conclusion

Already Gone by @nina-reads1804 (WIP/150k multi-chap/Andreil/post-canon): ANDREIL BREAKUP! YE BE WARNED! Andrew handles the inevitable of him and Neil moving apart after graduation by breaking up with him during his senior year. This fic follows Andrew in the pros, newly single and struggling. HIGHLIGHTS: Great Andrew and Aaron bonding, Patrick the Therapist, chaotic coping, and crying over sad Neil Josten.

Kintsugi by Zombiecowboy65 (Oneshot/18k/Jerejean/TSC canon): Cute, perfect, gorgeous Jerejean. Jeremy and Jean communication and healing that touches my soul. HIGHLIGHTS: Core four friendship, Jerejean first kiss and MAGNET RESCUE

All This and Heaven Too by @kevindavidday (ParkRose on ao3): kevaaron!! absolutely gorgeous study of both characters i love this fic so much and actually read everything by her if you haven’t already

Reverie by @ashestoashes7: also kevaaron, also incredible

Pictures of You by @minyard-05: kevkateaaron. proceed with caution because this fic tried to kill me

Okay i'm literally shaking posting this, i've been working on it for days i lost all objectivity about it.

Someone requested this scene when I asked for recommendations on an older post, so this is tkm chapter four:

"Andrew sprawled on the couch in the lounge while Kevin went ahead to change out. Neil hesitated, changed his mind and started after Kevin, and changed his mind again. He stood behind the couch, folding his arms across the back of it, and peered down at Andrew. Andrew had one arm folded under his head and the other draped over his eyes to block the light. 'One of these days you might as well practice with us,' Neil said."

This scene is so long I had to cut some parts (including the incredible "You let us run ourselves into the ground and clean up behind us. You play the game like you play life. That's why you're so good at it.").

Not to mention Andrew's height fear, one of my all-time favorite aftg quotes ("When you said you were afraid of heights, you were joking, right?" "Andrew, you can't be. What were you doing on the roof?" "Feeling." -tkm ch.5).

Okay i'm literally shaking posting this, i've been working on it for days i lost all objectivity about it.

Someone requested this scene when I asked for recommendations on an older post, so this is tkm chapter four:

"Andrew sprawled on the couch in the lounge while Kevin went ahead to change out. Neil hesitated, changed his mind and started after Kevin, and changed his mind again. He stood behind the couch, folding his arms across the back of it, and peered down at Andrew. Andrew had one arm folded under his head and the other draped over his eyes to block the light. 'One of these days you might as well practice with us,' Neil said."

This scene is so long I had to cut some parts (including the incredible "You let us run ourselves into the ground and clean up behind us. You play the game like you play life. That's why you're so good at it.").

Not to mention Andrew's height fear, one of my all-time favorite aftg quotes ("When you said you were afraid of heights, you were joking, right?" "Andrew, you can't be. What were you doing on the roof?" "Feeling." -tkm ch.5).

Everything, Mary Oliver

The Breathing, Denise Levertov

A Prayer by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

The Laughing Heart by Charles Bukowski

Like a Small Café, That’s Love by Mahmoud Darwish (translated by Mohammad Shaheen)

Having a Coke with You by Frank O’Hara

Eating Together by Li-Young Lee

The Orange by Wendy Cope

The Quiet Machine, Ada Limón

To Go Mad, Paruyr Sevak

Our Beautiful Life When It’s Filled with Shrieks by Christopher Citro

Hammond B3 Organ Cistern, Gabrielle Calvocoressi

Peace XVIII, Khalil Gibran

Your Unripe Love, Paruyr Sevak (from “Anthology of Armenian poetry")

Here and Now by Peter Balakian

Ich finde dich (I find you) by Rainer Maria Rilke

The Thing Is by Ellen Bass

One Art by Elizabeth Bishop

Miss you. Would like to take a walk with you. by Gabrielle Calvocoressi

I Want to Write Something So Simply by Mary Oliver

What's Not to Love by Brendan Constantine

Where does such tenderness come from? by Marina Tsvetaeva

You Are Tired (I Think) by E. E. Cummings

Living With the News by W.S.Merwin

To the givers of this beautiful reward, my thanks, from the heart. My family, my agents, my editors, know that my being here is their doing as well as my own, and that the beautiful reward is theirs as much as mine. And I rejoice in accepting it for, and sharing it with, all the writers who’ve been excluded from literature for so long — my fellow authors of fantasy and science fiction, writers of the imagination, who for fifty years have watched the beautiful rewards go to the so-called realists.

Hard times are coming, when we’ll be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now, can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies to other ways of being, and even imagine real grounds for hope. We’ll need writers who can remember freedom — poets, visionaries — realists of a larger reality.

Right now, we need writers who know the difference between production of a market commodity and the practice of an art. Developing written material to suit sales strategies in order to maximise corporate profit and advertising revenue is not the same thing as responsible book publishing or authorship.

Yet I see sales departments given control over editorial. I see my own publishers, in a silly panic of ignorance and greed, charging public libraries for an e-book 6 or 7 times more than they charge customers. We just saw a profiteer try to punish a publisher for disobedience, and writers threatened by corporate fatwa. And I see a lot of us, the producers, who write the books and make the books, accepting this — letting commodity profiteers sell us like deodorant, and tell us what to publish, what to write.

Books aren’t just commodities; the profit motive is often in conflict with the aims of art. We live in capitalism, its power seems inescapable — but then, so did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art. Very often in our art, the art of words.

I’ve had a long career as a writer, and a good one, in good company. Here at the end of it, I don’t want to watch American literature get sold down the river. We who live by writing and publishing want and should demand our fair share of the proceeds; but the name of our beautiful reward isn’t profit. Its name is freedom.