#fuzzballsheltiepants

FINALLY!! All for the Game! I love the fanfictions in this fandom. They're all so beautiful. I have a soft spot for magic AUs and AUs in general, so expect a lot of those!!

Nativity Lobster (20893 words) by fuzzballsheltiepants Chapters: 8/8 Fandom: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic Rating: Explicit Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard, Jeremy Knox/Jean Moreau, Kevin Day/Aaron Minyard Characters: Neil Josten, Andrew Minyard, Kevin Day, Aaron Minyard, Jeremy Knox, Jean Moreau, Nicky Hemmick, Erik Klose Additional Tags: Long-Distance Relationship, Epistolary, Strangers to Lovers, Hook-up to Lovers, Professional Exy (All For The Game), Pining, Fluff and Light Angst, Found Family, Doctor!Aaron, therapist!andrew, therapy cat!Lego, Intersecting Storylines, involuntary outing, Smut, Sexting Summary:

Pro Exy player Kevin Day is fine with his secret fling with team doctor Aaron Minyard…but what if it could be more? Kevin’s teammate Jeremy Knox is struggling with the idea of Christmas spent three thousand miles away from his partner Jean Moreau. And Kevin’s best friend Neil keeps running into the same guy and his cat, and finds he’s much more intrigued than he intends.

 A Love, Actually-inspired collection of intersecting stories that has nothing to do with Love, Actually.

Bookmarker's Notes:

Thank goodness for our Fave Authors who have written the fics we love at first reading plus all those later re-reads! Have you ever realised you’ve forgotten one because there.is.so.much great stuff out here? And then someone reminds you about it + on this re-read you realise you forgot to comment or bookmark this treasure??!! That was me yesterday : GOBBLING up this deliciousness + making sure to share it w/others.

Reader, it doesn’t need to be Christmas to enjoy @fuzzballsheltiepants‘s Love, Actually-influenced story. Each chapter captures a different character’s perspective on their interwoven lives which they don’t realise are QuiTe So iNterWoVeN until the penultimate chapter.

Come for the humour + witty repartee; enjoy the smutty bits + tender kiss; savour witnessing each different character individually and as part of a friendship and pairing. I smiled, swooned, laughed, gasped + cheered.

16) “All I know is, one of us is right, the other is you.”

so… admittedly, this went in a direction I didn’t mean for it to take (I meant for it to be shorter lmao) but, here you go! thank you for sending me a prompt, I hope you like it <3 <3

-

Convincing Andrew to do something he already is interested in doing is delightfully simple, Neil finds. Simple in that he just has to ask. Delightful in that Neil is discovering he feels a surge of pleasure when Andrew agrees to something he asks for. 

Convincing Andrew to do something he’s not keen on doing is something else all together. 

“Andrew?” 

Andrew doesn’t even bother to acknowledge him, just examines the powdered sugar on his fingers.

Neil huffs, ‘not keen on’ is probably an understatement. 

In honor of Fanfic Writers Appreciation Day, here are a few fantastic works in our favorite fandom.

Signing on the Line by andrewiel @jostenminyard | When Neil Josten is offered a position as a starting striker for a professional Exy team, he feels like all of his dreams are coming true. He signs the contract, not caring about the strict morality clause that controls who he can and can't date in the public eye. Then he meets Andrew Minyard, the top-ranked goalie of a rival team, and then Neil thinks he might just have to care after all.

This fic is ah-mazing. I read it 3 times before I could let go enough to read something else. 10/10

Something in Return by reaching_my_summit @reaching-my-summit | Andrew’s final year at Palmetto State comes to a close. His future is upon him and there are plans to be made. Years ago, Neil asked Andrew to stop smoking in exchange for something. Andrew finally knows what he wants in return.

Post canon andreil happily exploring Disney World.

light fires at night (to push back the void) by inthesea | The first time Andrew realizes he wants to hear the words, Neil isn’t even doing anything. He’s just sitting there, staring at the horizon with that stupidly dramatic faraway expression of his, and letting the cigarette burn down between his fingers all the way to the filter — an outrageous waste of good nicotine, if you asked Andrew. (Or: 20+ times Andrew and Neil say I love you, and one time they say it out loud.)

Remember that fic you read that one time when Andrew counted syllables and consonants and everything about it was just. so. good? I think everyone loves this fic. This was one I read before I read the books based on kudos, then went back and read it again.

dangerous magics by SashaSea (SHCombatalade) @anneuhken | For centuries, there was a war. Then there were the Bindings (Reposted and restricted to registered AO3 users only)

If you’ve seen many fic rec lists, you may have heard of this fic. I searched high and low...and finally it’s back! If you enjoy fantasy, this one’s for you.

Ultraviolence by lscar123 @lscar123 | Neil Josten is of the most successful songwriters in the industry but years of blocking out his own personal pain and writing mind numbing radio hits have started to wear him down so he decides to take a break from it all and return to The Fox Hole, the bar he stumbled onto years ago and helped set up an open mic night at. It's there he meets Andrew Minyard, a bartender who makes an immediate impression on him. Something about Andrew tells him to run but it's either his own stubbornness or his pension for self destruction that makes him stay. Nothing in his life will ever be the same after the first night he spends back in the place he used to call home.

I. Love. Neil. In. This. Fic.

Ohana Means Family by SensationalSunburst @sensationalsunburst | He honestly thought they were going to make it.David understood that adrenaline could make time feel like it was crawling by; make seconds turn to minutes turn to lifetimes. He’d experienced it before. But when a man to his left, up next to Andrew's lot, raised a bottle high, red flushed face contorted in a sneer, he felt time slow to molasses around him.

Part of the Return of Dad!Mack series, in this one, Wymack takes a hit meant for Andrew.

Where You Lead by gluupor @gluupor | When Neil promised Kayleigh that he'd look out for Kevin if anything ever happened to her he'd never expected to be a single teenage father hiding out in a small town. Luckily the town's residents seem keen to adopt them. A Gilmore Girls AU where Kevin's a kid, Neil's his caffeine-addict father, and Andrew's a grumpy diner owner who loves them both.

Part of a just-the-right amount of sweet series set in a small town.

Skilled by wildfrancium @lexatargaryen | Neil has a talent for deactivating sensors that tell doctors when a patient takes their medication. Andrew, a famous Exy player, has a sensor that needs deactivating.

Very cool sci fi.

Kintsugi by SensationalSunburst @sensationalsunburst | “He saw our scars and thought they'd been fixed with gold, like the pottery in the book.” Neil blinked, stunned. “Kids this age are honest.” Andrew said, “They haven't learned to lie.”

This whole series (Small Angry Gardeners) is fantastic, featuring post canon andreil playing pro exy and living in the suburbs. This piece shows Kevin’s son reacting to their scars...it’s beautiful.

Crossfire by RoseGold_En @foxhole-pipe-dream | The year is 2073. Andrew and Aaron Minyard are twins born into a world with a strict one-child policy due to overpopulation. They take on a singular identity as "Adam Minyard", with only one of them allowed outside at a time. Siblings who are discovered are separated from their families and put into an eternal cryosleep. One day, Andrew disappears. Aaron and Nicky have to find him while maintaining the twins' cover. It's up to Aaron to find out who sold them out and why a bureau agent named "Neil" knows his brother's real name.

An excellent distopian au

A Mewment Like This Series by fuzzballsheltiepants @fuzzballsheltiepants | “...will the owner of the cat with the stupid name come back here? Your cat is trying to kill the vet.” And Neil and Andrew both stand up.

A continuing series of vignettes featuring pre-relationship andreil (so far), their cats Sir and King, and various aftg characters. Andrew cooks, and Neil is grateful.

Two Bros Five Feet Apart by Leahelisabeth (fortheloveofcamelot) @leahlisabeth | Jeremy's girlfriend dumps him on the eve of a romantic vacation. Jean fills in.

1. favorite fic you wrote this year

Ooooo…. probably my big bang fic Above the Clouds (although it changes depending on my mood). I just had so much fun with all the world building and I loved working with my artists.

14. a fic you didn’t expect to write

Nine Weddings and No Funerals. Honestly, I was going to take a break this fall, but instead I did that.

25. a fic you read this year you would recommend everyone read