#fence asks

Yeah, the reading order gets confusing in the switch between formats lmao SO here's how you do it:

1. Volume 1 (a compilation of issues 1-4)

2. Volume 2 (a compilation of issues 4-8)

3. Volume 3 (a compilation of issues 9-12)

Here we make the switch from single-issue releases later compiled into volumes to a graphic novel format (meaning it's originally and solely released in a single volume). *

4. Volume 4: Rivals

5. Volume 5: Rise

Here we had a special 4-issue release that was compiled into a volume after all issues were released

6. Volume 6: Redemption (a compilation of Redemption 1-4)

Now we're in a double feature issue era where each release includes 2 issues

7. Challengers: Long Shot

8. Challengers: Sweet Sixteen

9. Breakthrough: Game Changer (releasing July 30th)

*if you want to include the novels, Striking Distance & Disarmed, they 'fit' between Volumes 3 & 4 (but their relationship to canon is weird)

Howdy kwoc 🤠

Seiji crosses me as the kind of guy to meal prep as much as possible. Either he meal preps or ingredient preps (i.e. he has individual things cleaned and chopped, ready to be cooked) to make his life easier.

But! If his nose is wrinkled, he probably isn’t too jazzed about his previously prepped options or too mentally exhausted to try something new. On the menu? Something that’s either comforting or something easy, but both tried and true and unlikely to leave Seiji anything but satisfied.

ha! welcome to life in the Fence fandom XD waiting is torturous and you are so much better off not reading the Pacat-endorsed fanfic that is the novels TT.TT

I'll admit that I'm not well-read in Fence fic, only well-written lmfao so I can mostly just point you toward my own fic... in an effort to be more helpful, I've thrown a lot of them into some general categories to help you find something at a glance that might be to your liking!

Getting together nichoji oneshots

The Improper Way to Declare a Race (1.5k)

Roots (3.5k)

Boundaries (4k)

Couldn't Do Better (5k)

Gorgeous (5k)

Out of Style (4k)

(Un)Resolved (3k, set after KR)

Distant (11k, deals with Seiji’s parental relationships)

Bear Hunt (3k)

Only Fools Rush In (2k)

Apology Gifts (12k)

7 Minutes (9k)

Under the Impression (7k)

(April) Fools (9.5k)

Connections (7k)

Sweet Tooth (3.5k)

Rude (7.5k)

Impulse and Consequence (4k)

Domestic fluff nichoji oneshots

Blanket Thief (<1k)

Special Enough (1.5k)

Request or Demand (1.5k)

Nichoji slow burns (50k+)

Dead Hearts (60k, zombie/witch au)

Heartstrings (69k, werewolf/vampire au)

Promised Things (113k, businessman/arranged marriage au)

Are You Sure? (54k, canon setting)

Truths (118k, canon setting)

I want something with build-up but not super long

Of Breaking and Building (14k)

All is Fair in Love and Lies (37k)

Losing (26k)

Can't Get Over You (31k)

In The Bed of The Enemy (18k)

In Reality (38k)

If At First You Don't Succeed (16k)

More (24k)

Teach Me (11k)

I just want them to kiss right tf now

Momentum (2k oneshot, unresolved romance, nick grew up with the costes au)

Fire and Doll (2k oneshot, romance is resolved in part 2, ballet au)

Afraid (5.5k oneshot, technically part 2 in a duology but can stand alone, fae creature/monster hunter au)

Teach Me (11k multi chap)

Are You Sure? (54k multi chap)

Not Quite Right (1k oneshot, unresolved romance)

More (24k multi chap)

Split Lips and Isolated Incidents (7k)

I want some team shenanigans to go with my romance

November (oneshot, established nichoji)

Gorgeous (oneshot, Nichoji romance)

Don’t Tell Coach The Substitute's Dead (oneshot, basically crack, Nichoji preslash)

Bear Hunt (oneshot, nichoji romance)

What Rolls off the Tongue (oneshot, established nichoji)

Sweet Tooth (oneshot, nichoji romance)

TYPO IN THE GROUP CHAT (two-shot, multi-media/text fic, nichoji romance, established Eugesse)

In The Dark (short multi-chap, nichoji romance)

Baby (multi-chap, nichoji romance)

Fantasy/Magic

Kitten (multi chap, animal transformation au, nichoji romance, illustrated by @thestarminstrel)

Dead Hearts (60k multi chap slow burn, zombie/witch au, nichoji romance)

Heartstrings (69k multi chap slowburn, werewolf/vampire au, nichoji au)

Grace (multi chap, my hero academia au, nichoji romance, illustrated by @thestarminstrel)

Counterpart (pair of oneshots, universe swap au, nichoji romance)

Hunter and Beast (pair of oneshots, fae creature/monster hunter au, nichoji romance)

Petals and Blood (oneshot, hanahaki disease au, nichoji romance)

The Secret Fated (20k multi chap, soulmate au, nichoji romance)

Happy reading! I hope you find something you like in there 💜

oh mAN I have so many and they are all over the place!!

The first one is a little thing, but I bet Seiji had a crush on Marcus Washington when he was a kid--Nick's horror, Harvard's teasing, and Seiji's indignant blush imply as much.

And a fun fact, Jo posted a mini preview of baby Seiji to Patreon on February 14th...maybe I'm reading into it too much, but that's nothing new XD

Next couple of things are about the scene with the trophy case. It was really interesting and fun to see side-by-side redraws of Robert! It really illustrates the way the style has evolved, and also I gOTTA say it feels like Jo is more invested in Robert based on the level of detail she put in--like it's not just a style comparison, it's also just obvious a lot of attention was put into these shots when a) she could have just reused old shots (which she's done before, so I know it was an option), or kept it more simplified like she did when drawing the original shots.

I also think it's sweet that the redraws have Robert looking much more like Jesse than the originals.

And I am sure I will get flack for this, but I have incredible second-hand embarrassment from Nick leaving his newspaper clipping + note in the trophy case jfhdasl like bestieee noooo anyone can see that shit now oh my god please stooop

Onto some Nichoji thoughts! I love that Seiji's been confirmed as a before-bed reader! Him having a Kindle makes sense for the sheer efficiency of it too lmfao. Of course it's also adorable to see him in reading glasses <3 And then my favorite detail is Nick's stupid nightlight...notice where it is?

Rather than illuminating Nick's side of the room, it's peeking around the curtain and lighting up Seiji's reading, which is beyond adorable and sweet. I wonder whether Seiji stole it or Nick put it there knowing Seiji likes to read before bed, and I love both scenarios.

Also, it's fucking adorable that as soon as Nick mentions their date appointment, Seiji takes off his glasses and lowers his Kindle because it's got his full attention and investment.

And a quick pitstop to the locker rooms!

I like the visual metaphor here with Aiden and Bobby both very casual about changing and both literally having their shirts open; meanwhile, Seiji's straightening the cuffs on his button-down, which is already neatly tucked in and complete with his tie. It just highlights how Seiji's a lot more closed off than the others, and I think this was a neat trick to remind us of that.

In regards to plot, I'm still...really disappointed in the pacing. I know most people feel like it's a slowburn/it's taken a long time to develop, but if you waited to read Fence at all until it was complete and then read it all in one sitting, I think you'd see how unbalanced it is. Williams says that their first match will be in three weeks back right after tryouts:

which means everything between issue 12 and CHALLENGERS has happened in 3 weeks. Seiji and Nick's relationship is so sweet and cute, but it went from resentful rivalry to puppy love overnight with very little 'screen time' dedicated to the actual transition from resentment to friends (which I could write a whole essay on but this is not the post for that lmfao). Furthermore, the fact that it's the first match of State Championships rather than first match of the season is crazy to me. I'll admit, I didn't fence in high school--it wasn't even an option because we didn't have a team. And despite hours of research, the structure of high school team fencing is not entirely clear to me. However, I do know that typical high school sports go through the season, facing every other team in their division or whatever. Based on performance in those matches, they can qualify for state, and then their win ratio determines their seeding order for the state championships that happen in like 1-2 days. Seeding order is who you go up against in a bracket, so it's what this diagram is, basically:

(side note, but it appears there are 24 schools competing at state). Again, fencing could be different, but it kinda seems to me like we skipped over the season and went right to State Championships, which just cuts out so much development and build-up. It's like we're speed-running the entire story to get to the end faster. We cut out showing the development in the romance, and now we're cutting out the development of the plot. There's still plenty that we can do at state, of course, but imagine how much more it would mean to see Nick fencing in front of Robert if we'd built that up more. I just don't understand how we spent 12 issues on try outs, 4 on a practice match, 8 on camp, and none on the fencing season. It feels so abrupt and unbalanced. Tryouts and camp were my favorites arcs because they felt pretty well-paced as self-contained pieces of the story. I just feel like we needed waaaaay more relationship development between those two arcs to be satisfying, and I feel like there should be waaaaay more build up during the fencing season between camp and State Championships.

and now, the moment you've all been waiting for: my devastation over Eugene's role (???) in the story. I honestly question why he's in the story at all--at this point, it would have made more sense to have him flat-out not make the team. Except that keeping him this long lowkey backs up the theory I've had on his role since Striking Distance/RIVALS: Eugene is here to make everyone else look better/cooler/more impressive. The very first thing that struck me when reading the first look was this:

The dialogue here suggests that only one reserve actually gets to be on the team in the end, and the reserve is Nick. And, worse, everyone expected it to be Nick. Sure, it's sweet that Seiji thinks Nick's the better fencer, but all I can think about is how hard Eugene's worked for ten years trying to make the team as opposed to Nick's three months of fencing. Now, I love an underdog story. But it's interesting because Pacat stated in an interview (I'd have to go find where for the specific quote) that he always feels bad for the person who's been working to be #1 their whole lives only to be knocked out of the running by an upstart underdog--which I've always assumed would influence the path taken in Fence...and it seems like we may well let Seiji and Jesse remain above Nick in skill (or at least it seems like we won't be dethroning Seiji, even if we go for Jesse), but Nick's overcoming smaller obstacles. And those smaller obstacles hurt worse to see crushed because Eugene almost made the team in a way that mattered, only to have that taken away. It would have been less cruel to him and his fans to let Nick take the reserve slot back in issue 12, but instead we brought Eugene along to serve as a means to make Nick out 'secret weapon' and elevate his story.

I will say though, this page is one of my favorite Eugene moments because I see the character I selfishly want Eugene to be in it. From the context of the panels above, this page is likely Williams telling them that only one will be fencing in State Championships, and this is their reaction. Eugene's immediate concern for Nick and the comforting hand on his shoulder followed by a bright smile and a thumbs up--he just cares so much about other people and it so used to smiling through his own pain/disappointment and comforts Nick through being positive (and as seen back in issue 12, up playing his competitiveness) and acting like it's no big deal.

Eugene deserved better, but if this is where he goes out, I think I can live with it. Better to see him go now than continue to be a means to uplift the rest of team by being less than. but, man, I was really hoping we were turning it around after his moment in REDEMPTION being the only KR boy not to lose his bout

In the very wise words of @scorp-yo (who fenced on their high school team) "Pacat literally could have watched High School Musical and just made it fencing and it would be more accurate"

Fencing is a 'weekly game' kind of sport in high school team settings, just like you see in typical basketball/football/baseball/etc sports media. Also the pacing is off; fencing is generally a winter sport in (American) high schools, with matches going in the Nov/Dec-Feb area. They do participate in practice matches and some teams will enter tournaments as well that are outside the school structure. The school state championship is a tournament at the end of the season where schools face each other based on seeding order.

Granted, there are Scholastic League Tournaments that are also called "[Insert State] State High School Championships" that are through the USFA rather than the schools, and that must be what Pacat is actually writing here because the rules do limit each school to their top 4 fencers. But those usually happen in the spring, like Aprilish, so the pacing is off anyway. SO even if this was the end goal, we still should have gone through weekly matches to get here. I also think the weekly matches and school-based state championship tournament is culturally more relevant to American high schoolers in sporting events so that should have been included even if they were also registering for the USFA tournament that gives USFA classifications/ratings as well.

Getting more training and practice would have also really fleshed out the fencing instead of having Williams be like "oh yeah, here's how this vital part of this fencing event works" when they get to the event.

Aside from the competition structure being all wrong, Williams's and Donati's 'sabre' match Bobby found a video of is choreographed like an epee match instead and they're not wearing lames. Pacat (at least used to) sends videos to Jo of the fencing matches to help draw them, so either it was his error or Jo wasn't given material to base the sketch off of, didn't realize how different sabre and epee are so drew them the same, and nobody in the editing process caught it.

ALSO!! Because it must be mentioned, Aiden should notttt be on the team. Or at least he'd be a member of the 'everyone gets on' junior varsity team. Fencing has a culture of respect and honoring your opponent around it, and Aiden's attitude, lack of commitment, and flakiness just...would not fly in any actual team trying to win. I know this one is for plot reasons and I can forgive it, but it still irritates me

It's me, Atom. Just wanna ask if you have read the new fence comic yet. (Fence Challengers: Sweet Sixteen) I wanna hear your thoughts that's all. Btw happy new year to you.

P.S what fence fanfic are you plannibg to write for this year?

Anyways have a good day

Atom 🫶

oh MAN I'm so sorry I have taken 6 months to respond to this ask!! I had so much spam in my inbox that real messages got buried! But I saw this right before I did my Fence reread in preparation for Game Changer, and jotted down my thoughts on it before reading the new issue!

Seiji's little crush on Marcus continues to be adorable TT.TT Although I'm confused about the timeline for Marcus's injury since it should have been when he was about 16 (since he dominated under-16s and then vanished, which we're told was 2 years ago), but Seiji sees him in the salle as his knee gives out and then we see his slow recovery. But he looks 12ish throughout that time, not 16. So did his injury just become too much at age 16 but first presented when he was younger? Or am I misunderstanding ages/misreading how old he was in those panels? The world may never know.

Okay, but Nick's whole thing about his dad was embarrassing to me and also it felt out of place? Leaving the newspaper clipping/note in the trophy case was unwise and literally made me cringe with secondhand embarrassment. Also, it's just super careless of him; like, that is in plain sight, sir!! Anyone could see that and they'd have questions about who's calling Robert Coste "Dad". It also bugged me how much he was hinting at having a big important dad when it seemed to be a pretty important secret to him? It's like he wants it to get out. That carelessness just felt out of character to me from what we saw in the first issues (where the most he did was talk to the picture in the trophy case alone). Also, I don't love that Bobby's the first one to know about Robert--somehow that reveal didn't feel satisfying to me. I think I might just not be super invested in Nick and Bobby's friendship, but Nick being so damn obvious that Bobby guessed it just did nothing for me. I'd have liked Nick to be more tight-lipped about it, and I'd have liked the reveal to either be more dramatic or involving Seiji tbh

I loved Kyle being a pompous asshole on purpose in the bathroom scene where he 'goads' Nick into subbing for Seiji (although Nick's ultimate motivation was for Seiji's well-being). I just loved the callback to Lowther Hall liking to exploit the rules and technicalities, especially when their coach is all for it! I love their coach, she is pretty, she is petty, and she fully supports her bitch ass annoying team and I love her for that.

I did really love Nick being concerned for Seiji never getting a break and insisting he sub in for him so Seiji can rest. And it was so sweet in turn when Seiji insisted Nick keep fencing rather than swap out for him becasue he wanted to do this bout the way Nick said they would.

Overall, ignoring that we did a speedrun of a 'slowburn' and jumped right to the concluding match of the season 3 weeks into the school year, I really liked this issue! My main complaint was Nick's carelessness about the identity of his dad and that Bobby figured it out first. Although! I love Hector and was sad to see him out of the running right away TT.TT especially because I love their rivelry with Lowther and would have liked to see them fence (though I understand that Pacat wants to show KR beating all the teams, which means they can't face each other or one of them would be knocked out before we got to them)

As for my fic business, I'll yap under the cut!

Do you have any headcannons for Fence?

Have a good day. 😊😊😊

i am full of headcanons for Fence alwayss

I'll share two stupidly specific ones that I've been thinking of lately

although Eugene and his mom are rulers of the kitchen at home, Eugene's dad is a professional chef

sorry for ranting in your askbox but i know you really like eugene; i’ll be in my cave writing fanfic 😤

I’m always here to scream about Eugene, never apologize for that XD

MAN see, maybe I'm biased (i definitely am) but I find Eugene's story far more compelling than Harvard's and even Aiden's--we're given his flashbacks earlier in the comics than we even get of Harvard's 'oldest daughter trauma' storyline (which,,, i never find interesting to start with,, I'm so sorry) so it feels really bizarre that if the end we're supposed to go along with the conclusion to his arc here. Because let's be real Pacat is a good enough writer to make this anything but the end for him. The message in his story is 'sometimes working hard isn't enough and it never will be' and while that's true, it really fucking sucks given the fact that none of us are here for the 'harsh realities of life' messages, we're here, like you said, for chasing dreams, working hard, and making it as the unexpected underdog.