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second go at renee's tattoo

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Its Andrew’s first time trying a cigarette and he coughs on the smoke and its Aaron’s first time snorting cocaine and he sneezes on the tickly powder. Andrew aged 14 enters juvie to get away from Drake and Aaron aged 19 enters custody after murdering Drake. Andrew and Neil sit on the roof and Aaron and Katelyn enter the library, Andrew crashes the car holding himself and his not-mother and Aaron drives the Mas holding himself, his brother and Neil in California, Andrew gets onto drugs just a year after Andrew gets off of them, Aaron writes a letter, "Andrew," [Aaron says,] desperate and frightened. He held onto Andrew like he thought Andrew would disappear if he let go and Andrew writes back a refusal, Andrew who’d barely acknowledged Aaron’s existence in the entire time Neil had known them, looked immediately to his brother, they’re identical twins and they’re the closest set of twin primes, Andrew forces Matt clean as to not trigger Aaron into relapsing and Aaron wavies his right to a jury and hinges the entirety of his life onto one judge to save Andrew from spilling his trauma to strangers, Andrew slams Katelyn into the wall and Aaron hounds after Neil viciously to make sure his intentions towards Andrew are pure, they’re doomed in every universe and they seperate after graduation but they interconnected no matter what they do.

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Obviously there is so much interesting in the Neil/Jean dynamic but what I'm currently obsessing over is the way Neil let's Jean see the tattered bloody and mad parts of Nathaniel Wesninski no one else gets to see.

Neil doesn't want the foxes to know Nathaniel, Kevin is too obsessed and too cowardly to want anything to do with him. Andrew would and does see him but his promises and the future they imply belong to Neil Josten

Other than Andrew, only Jean Moreau sees Neil without the mask, sees the madness in his smile, the casual and easy violence, the bloody heart that beats despite it all.

Like, yes its very funny when Jean calls Neil out for being an ill-bred cretin, but it's important to note he doesnt do that to be exaggerating or insulting, he does it because that's the side of him Neil let's him see that everybody else only gets flashes of. Jean is just calling what he's seeing not realizing most people don't get such a clear view.

Neil 'most dishonest man in world' Josten who doesn't bother with the effort of lies around Jean Moreau

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imagine being such a good boykisser that the boy who never wants to kiss anyone thinks he could die happy after spending his last days on earth having the privilege to kiss you and the kicker is, he means this literally bc he's certain he'll die, and then he almost does. not only that, but you're such a good boykisser that after said boy is tortured and almost killed and left extremely injured, one of his top sources of anxiety is that you might not kiss him again. genuinely no one was doing it like andrew minyard.

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pls someone let him get a good nights sleep

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Halt drills into Will the importance of blending in with the shadows and other typical Ranger lessons throughout his apprenticeship, and then once Will gets his mandola, completely shifts gears and is like “go attract the attention of this entire establishment with your lute while me and Horace (the notably unsneaky knight) remain inconspicuous and gather information.”

And Will is just like “cool!! I love playing my mandola :)”

I love them your honour!!

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The last name Treaty really began and died with Will, huh?

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you can’t make this stuff up

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If I may add onto the whole “post-skandia Will is triggered by the cold” headcanon— what if, despite being triggered by extreme cold, he weirdly craves it?

I can picture Will struggling with a warmweed craving. Every time the urge hits, he feels incredibly ashamed of himself. Ashamed that, while in Skandia, he chose self-destruction over the cold. Ashamed he wants it again.

This time, he chooses the cold. He just wants to prove to himself he can resist the craving. He wants to feel strong, like he’s made real progress in his recovery. And if it takes jumping into an icy lake to prove it, so be it.

Needless to say, this isn’t a very healthy way to go about it. It inevitably makes his craving stronger, and he gives in half the time. The other half, he’s so overwhelmed by the traumatic memories he can hardly function.

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ooough wet rat

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tfc andrew minyard was funny as fuck he saw a guy he thought was hot and was like "ur coming to the club with us but not in that fuckin hoodie" and proceeded to break into his dorm, search his bag, find out his clothing size in order to buy him a whole outfit (including shoes), go to the club, and then do drugs in front of him while throwing out lines like "are you compelled to step on my toes because you're feeling the tragic weight of the holier than thou?" Like that's an objectively funny series of events

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So I know that everyone’s headcanon is that George is the one who wrote down Will’s life, that the scribe, ever faithful to his old wardmates, was the hand behind the found manuscripts. That he was the one who preserved Will’s story in the Lost Stories, neat and orderly as really only George could manage.

But I will offer you two ideas here:

First, that George didn't write it all down, but Will did.

Will had watched Halt go through many waves of dementia in his old age. He saw the sharp eyes of his mentor dim, the stories fade from his memory, the names of old friends like Crowley, Gilan, and even Will himself -- slip away. He watched Halt get frustrated with himself because he knew his mind was deteriorating.

But Will refused to let the world forget.

So before Halt's final breath, Will came often, carrying parchment, ink, and a fierce determination, coaxing as much information as he could from the haze of Halt's head, and piecing together The Early Years.

And when Halt finally passed, something inside Will shifted.

He looked back on his own life-- not with bitterness, but with a sense of wonder. He had truly lived an epic. His life had been extraordinary. He loved deeply, fought bravely, and he had lost so much, gained so much, and through it all endured. Most of all, he endured. And he feared that one day, he too would forget. That silence would swallow it all, like it did Halt.

So Will started writing.

At 64 years old, he left the corps. Laid aside his bow and took up the pen. His friends thought it was a distraction. After all, he had always imagined retiring with Alyss, spending the last decade or so of his life traveling with her. Perhaps, he was lonely. Perhaps he was writing music again, the way he used to.

They had no idea.

For years he wrote in solitude, and when he died, Horace was the one who found the manuscripts. The hundreds and hundreds of written pages, the first being titled “A Ranger's Beginning” and the last being titled “A Royal Ranger.”

The second idea? a very slight variation of the first, very slight.

Will wrote the manuscripts-- but not alone.

When Halt died, grief shifted something in him, and he went to George--not the scribe this time, but the friend, the wardmate, the brother-- and Will asked for one last favor.

And so, for five years, four days a week, they met.

Will spoke. George transcribed. Together, they wrote thousands of pages, thousands of moments of friendship, love, laughter, tragedy, trauma, grief. All written in ink.

A record not just of one life, but of all of their lives.

Because the books weren't just for Will, they weren't just about Will. It was about all of them; it was ensuring all their legacies would be preserved.

Not as "lost stories."

But remembered ones.

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Kevin Day writes self insert fanfiction where he walks downstairs in the morning to find out the Moriyamas have sold him to the USC Trojans.

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Grateful to live in a timeline where I know who Will Treaty is

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So y'all know that super weird part between Alyss and Halt in TBB that everyone chooses to forget about?

I covered over that part and improved it with my own writing

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Do y'all think Halt ever had to teach Will to watch his facial expressions. Like making sure Will doesn't blow his cover by laughing at the dumbass bandit who just ran into a tree

Moreover, did that training involve Halt telling Will increasingly terrible jokes just to make sure he can keep a straight face

Moreover moreover, is this why rangers often drift to deadpan humor

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Someday I’m gonna be somebody people want:

Will knew that people liked him. Not in an arrogant way, it was just the truth. A truth he had come to understand because he had spent the first decade and a half being someone that wasn’t worth liking. A poor orphan boy who got into too much trouble and whose mouth was a little too fast. But then Halt chose him. He picked him as his apprentice. He saw something worth liking. And little by little, Will grew up. He put all of his troublemaking skills to use in the Corps. He figured out how to fine tune his wit into charm. He learned when to bite down on his tongue and swallow down his true feelings whenever they weren’t convenient. He let Halt and the Corps sculpt him from a boy to a ranger. They chipped away the unsavory bits and sanded down his unfinished edges. And what was left was a full fledged ranger who Halt, who all of them, were proud of. A man that a woman like Alyss would actually be interested in. A man who a crown princess would befriend. A man who an entire fief would trust and rely on.

And Will?

Will was just happy to finally be what people wanted.

Even if he woke up every morning wondering when they’d all realize it was just a mask. Realize they had been backing the wrong man for years. Realize he was still just that scared, unwanted, useless, little boy. Some nights, he’d lay awake and wonder if they’d be more angry or hurt. If they’d hate him for fooling them all or wounded that they lost someone who had never even existed in the first place. He knew it was inevitable that someone would see behind the curtain, but he was going to do whatever it took to delay that day from coming.

So he worked harder. He molded himself into a person nearly impossible not to like. He was funny, but never in a cruel way. He was smart, but never a know-it-all. He was kind, but not condescending. He was a great ranger, but never arrogant. He worked hard to maintain his friendships and his relationship with Alyss. He became somebody people want. And that’s all he’s ever wanted.