A/N:

Bumping this to let you know I am moving the Friday Night Lights Facebook Season 6 I couldn't post here to Live journal. It's not on ICanStop's Archive of Your Own account anymore. Well, we're in the process of moving it. Will expand while posting. Wanted to have fun with pictures and such. If you missed it or want to read again, you can go here (just replace all the dots and slashes with figures – can't put sites in here): erikataylor dot livejournal dot com slash 773 dot html

Whatever Happened to Facebook?
or Rules, Rules, Rules

"What the hell is wrong with my Facebook?" Coach Eric Taylor demands. "Why did it stop working?" He bangs on the keyboard of his laptop.

Tami walks into the kitchen nook with a bottle of wine and two glasses and starts pouring. She pushes him a glass of wine. "You're going to need this, sugar."

"Why?"

"I've got some bad news. Facebook has been eliminated."

"But Facebook is how I keep track of all my boys! It's how I know they're doing a'ight! It's how I…you know…"

" - Continue being a molder of men?"

"Yeah!" he yells, slamming the screen shut. "What do you mean it's been eliminated?"

"Well, you know how we're a part of this story that's happening on a fanficiton website?"

"Yeah, yeah, I know," he says.

She downs half her wine and tops her glass off again. "Well, apparently, it's against the rules of that website to post any stories in chat/script format, including Facebook-style stories."

"What? Why would there be a rule against that?" Coach Taylor hasn't touched his wine glass. He's too irritated to drink. "You know, it's possible to have an entire plot in that format. I mean, stuff was happening in our story – people were getting hired and fired, falling in love, getting married, descending into alcoholism, getting pregnant – "

"- I know, sugar. But it's a rule."

Grumbling, he stands up and goes to his home office. He grabs the rule book. "Rule my ass," he mutters as he heads back and sits at the table again. "I don't remember any rule about that. I don't see that rule. I see a rule against interactive entries - - no Choose Your Own Adventures."

"That's a shame. I loved those books when I was a girl. I spent hours reading those under my desk in school."

He winks at her. "You always were a rebel."

"Why would there be a rule against that?" she asks. "Wouldn't that be a good way to spur creativity and get the writer to keep writing?"

"And kind of fun, too, to have the fans participate. Better than face paint even."

She brushes a wisp of strawberry blonde hair away from her eye. "Well, I suppose you wouldn't want people to be too interactive on the internet. I mean it's not like it was created for people to interact with each other."

He grunts. "There's also a rule against stories with non-historical and non-fictional characters: actors, musicians, and etc. You don't think we're in danger of violating that rule, do you, since we're about to mention the author of our story?"

"I don't see how," she says. "The author isn't going to be a character in our story. She's not going to be described. She doesn't have any lines. Other than the narration, which is the case in any story."

He flips a page in the rule book. "Well I still don't see any rule against…oh….oh…there it is. Number 6 under entries NOT ALLOWED: Chat/script format and keyboard dialogue based entries. I guess the author overlooked that."

"Well, the author probably shouldn't click I AGREE without reading."

"No one ever reads all that fine print online, do they?" he asks. "So how did the author find out our story was in violation of the rules, then?"

Tami takes a sip of wine. "Somebody posted a review of the Facebook story we were in, when we were already four chapters into it, informing the author that it had to be rewritten."

"Who?"

"Some member of a group calling itself Eliminator."

"Eliminator? Sounds like a nickname for one of my players." Coach Taylor scratches his head. "Are these eliminators official refs?"

"I don't think so. I did some research on them in the website forums. As far as I can tell, it's a group full of Joe McCoy types."

He takes off his Pioneers cap and slaps it on the table. "Great. I thought we got away from that sort of nonsense when we moved to Phili." He runs his fingers through his ruffled hair. "So, what does this group do?"

"I think maybe they consider themselves vigilantes of a sort. You know, heroically riding the bandwidth and enforcing the rules far and wide."

He snickers.

"Hey, do you remember that famous definition of a puritan?"

He shakes his head slightly.

"A puritan is someone who is haunted by the continual fear that someone, somewhere, might be having a good time."

He chuckles.

"In my research on this group, I discovered they also reviewed one of my favorite fanfic pieces about you, a really old one by one of the original FNL fanfic authors. They said the author had to take it down because it used the second person."

"Seriously?" he asks. "You mean that beautiful one where I'm thinking about my love of the game? Why? There's a rule against second person?"

"Well," she takes the rule book from him and points, "if you're into broad interpretations."

He reads, "Entries Not Allowed #5 . Any form of interactive entry: second person/you based, Q&As, and etc."

"Obviously," she grumbles, "this group doesn't know the difference between an interactive you-based story and simple, second person narrative point of view."

He shakes his head. Then he frowns. "So how is our Facebook story going to be rewritten to comply with the regulations? I don't want to be thrown out of the game."

"Well, that's just the thing. I'm not sure it's going to work. This Eliminator gave two suggestions, and neither one seems feasible."

He leans back in his chair. "Well, we've got to do something. People are reading our story. They're following us. They like it. They want to know what's going to happen. We can't just leave them hanging! The last time I left anyone hanging was when I forfeited that Lion's game, and I swore I would never do anything like that again!"

Continued next chapter...