#philtatos

im sorry I had to do this, everything reminds me of them *sigh*

What I adore most is how you understand longing as something physical. Will’s feelings aren’t just thoughts, they live in his sternum, in his throat, in the way he keeps looking back, in the rituals of normalcy that suddenly become unbearable. That line about everything being “so, so normal” while his whole internal world is collapsing? Incredible. You capture the specific agony of wanting someone woven into your everyday life, because then love is everywhere: in drive-through coffee, morning skates, familiar routines, tape-to-tape passes. There’s no escape from it. And your characterization of Will is so sharp. He’s dramatic, funny, self-aware, romantic to the point of self-destruction, and using humour as camouflage every second. The Cat counseling couch scene was perfect because it lets him spiral and be hilarious and heartbreaking at once. “My life is a tragedy in three parts” is such a Will line, but then the tragedy turns out to be devastatingly sincere. He isn’t joking at all.

I also love how Mack’s love story is fundamentally different but equally intense. Will knows through yearning; Mack knows through absence and panic. Will has been translating devotion into romance for ages, while Mack only understands the shape of his feelings once he nearly loses him. That contrast makes the beach confession land so hard. Mack saying he never thought he was *allowed* to feel that way about Will says so much in one sentence, about repression, fear, youth, identity, and how sometimes the biggest obstacle to love is permission.

And the motif work here??? Unreal. TSOA references could have felt heavy-handed in lesser hands, but instead they deepen everything because you use them as emotional vocabulary. Will reaches for myth because ordinary language can’t contain what he feels. Then you brilliantly counterbalance that with hockey details, coffee orders, smelling salts, teammates chirping them, practical mundane life. Myth and mundanity coexist. That’s exactly what epic love often is: divine feeling inside a stupidly normal Tuesday.

The sensory repetition of recognition is maybe my favourite thread: knowing each other by touch, breath, skates, instinct, movement. The tape-to-tape imagery as emotional shorthand is genius. They have always known where the other is without looking. So the romance doesn’t feel like a sudden shift, it feels like the emotional truth finally catching up to the body’s knowledge.

And then that final section… wow. The scale becomes cosmic,stars, planets, orbit, yet the emotional payoff is domestic: shared pillow, Thai food, TikToks, limbs tangled in bed. That is such a beautiful resolution because it says love doesn’t become smaller when it enters ordinary life; it becomes safer. “Deep water anchorage of Mack’s heart” is an ending line people would kill for. Honestly this fic understands something a lot of stories miss: being chosen is romantic, but being *known* is even more intimate. And your whole story is about both. Thank you for writing something this tender, funny, yearning, and wise. I’ll be thinking about it for a long time.

Thank you so, so much for this gorgeous note about Philtatos. I honestly feel so overwhelmed and grateful and frankly astounded to be read with such care and generosity and love; I cannot tell you how much it means. Your comments made me cry. 🩷❤️

I’ll try and answer your thoughtful points as best I can!

The longing as physical—I’m so delighted you picked up on exactly what I was trying to convey. These are professional athletes who felt instant chemistry on the ice at dev camp and have to be attuned to their bodies, so it only makes sense that emotions are processed first as physiological sensations, that intimacy means attached-at-the-hip closeness wherever possible.

Your description of “Tragedy in three parts” Will is better than I ever could have articulated! Is there anything more tragic than the fool in love who knows the love will ruin him, and loves anyways? He seems to me like a character that is always half-hidden, even to himself, and humour is a bad cloak for vulnerability.

“Will knows through yearning, Mack through absence” just exploded and shattered inside me like buckshot. That’s *such* a beautiful and striking way to put it, I’m going to be thinking about your words for a long, long time. I think to add to your point about Mack’s repression and fear and permission-seeking, Mack to me seems like he clings because of a very particular panic that comes from not being rooted. So he’s always terrified that something, someone is going to be taken from him.

“Epic love [is] divine feeling inside a stupidly normal Tuesday” just made me smile so widely and also snagged at my heart. Goddamn, you’ve hit the nail on the head. I think that’s why I’m so, so hooked by these two hockey boys and their characters—it feels epic and mythical and also so mundane at the same time. Deified on the ice and idiots off it.

Thank you for the kind note about motif work, I was so nervous not to make the fic too heavy-handed or earnest or obvious, so I’m glad it still felt subtle.

“Love doesn’t become smaller when it enters ordinary life, it becomes safer.” Don’t mind me, just over here gasping at the fact that your words performed open heart surgery on me without anaesthesia. I think you’ve just summed up the red thread of my next fic too, about the domesticity of everyday life together.

Lastly your note about the “Deep water anchorage of Mack’s heart”.

There is a repeated image in TSOA of Achilles’ arms being a harbour for Patroclus. I loved that and wanted to expand on it somehow. I knew I needed a visual that represented how Will has been tossed around in a wild emotional storm out at sea, the utter relief of being in a physical space that can finally hold you, and the fact that a harbour with its existing infrastructure of docks and other boats felt too safe, too small for them. I didn’t want it to feel like a temporary bay to tie your boat up in but rather a proper anchoring in place. Something unmovable, unshakeable. Hence, deep water anchorage.