#meanwhile mikal is just annoyed about everything...and then he finds cam johnson

[xariarte]

I’m considering trying to start a long Nova Knicks fic with flashbacks to their college days (inspired by one of your posts). I definitely want it to be angsty 🫣 and was wondering if you have any angsty plot lines or ideas? I’ve never wrote a fic before so I need all the help I can get 😅

Hello! Thanks for this ask!

When I wrote that post I didn't actually think anyone would get inspired by it, so I admit I didn't really think too hard about it. (That's why I took a couple of days to answer your ask. 😅)

But anyway, I did flesh out a hypothetical timeline in my Scrivener doc, so here it is with potential angsty plot lines/ideas:

On the first day of the 2015 Villanova Wildcats season, Jalen and Donte arrive on scene…Josh and Mikal are already there. Jalen and Donte have to share a dorm room and they get along pretty well really fast (like after preseason ended they were besties fast), but they also bonded over how annoying Josh was.

Most of the drama happens during the 2015-16 season. Jalen already liked Josh (even though Josh literally said he hated him), but Donte had to go through his own journey of acceptance with Josh (despite Jalen trying to convince him that Josh is fine). I'd recommend listening to the Donte guest pod episode. He was also injured during that season, so he spent most of that year in a walking boot, which added to his overall angst (and unhappiness with Josh). I think the Villanova Wildcats won the NCAA tournament title this year (I am not good at understanding college basketball as a Canadian).

In the 2016-17 season Josh and Donte have The Incident (Donte guest pod episode talks about that and also the ESPN article that I linked earlier). There's a lot of room for jealousy here because they're both cool with Jalen but not with each other. They do make their peace eventually but they fail to win the championships. Josh also declares for the draft that year, so he's pretty disappointed that they didn't win back to back NCAA tournament titles.

After Josh heads to the NBA, there is the 2017-18 season where Donte and Jalen win the NCAA tournament together. Josh is gone, which means there's plenty of angst here - Jalen missing Josh, Josh missing Jalen, Donte growing closer to Jalen, Jalen maybe giving Donte a chance because Josh is gone.

Now we get to the weird long period of 2018-2022, where they didn't play with each other. Jalen was on the Mavericks, Donte on the Bucks, and Josh on the Lakers. Donte and Josh moved to different teams during the years, but Jalen stayed on the Mavs most of the time. There are also the off seasons to keep in mind - I imagine there could be a lot of pining flashbacks here, maybe Jalen hangs out with Josh or Donte hangs out with Jalen or Donte and Josh hang out and there's lots of pining here.

Jalen was the first of the Nova boys to get on the Knicks — around July 2022. Josh came second, in February 2023, and Donte third in July 2023.

There is also the bonus summer where Josh and Jalen (and Mikal) were together for six weeks of unpaid basketball on Team USA for the FIBAWC. I don't know if you want to include this, I mean, there are more photos of Josh hanging out with Tyrese Haliburton more than with Jalen, so maybe there's a mini jealousy plot line to be found here...but Jalen and Josh's lockers were beside each other during this period so. I figured I'd include it.

Then finally we get to the Knicks 2023-24 season, present time. They're all playing together again, like they did in back in the 2015-16 and 2016-17 seasons except this time it's different. They're different. They're older and they're spending a lot of time together, which means more angst, are they going to finally get together or not. Plus, Jalen and Josh start the podcast, which means more off-season time together, and an extended play-off run.

Phew, this was...very long. I didn't specify what kind of angst necessarily because I think it depends on what kind of story you want to tell - is it a story about the Nova polycule or just Jalen/Josh (or Josh/Donte or Donte/Jalen)? The Knicks Nova boys are really versatile in which their story can be told in a lot of ways, with many tropes.

I admit I haven't paid detailed attention to them because I like to write various ships and switch back and forth a lot (if I only thought about the Nova Knicks I'd Go Insane). But understanding and talking about writing is something I love, so at least I can help there.

Hopefully this timeline provides you - or other people - some help on writing fics of them. I probably missed some stuff though. There's a lot of Nova Knicks history, like I didn't even mention their tweets about each other... 😭💖