allfortheandreil

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All the things Neil felt were unimportant enough to gloss over in AFTG -

1. Andrew's candy drawer??

2. The fucking cheese drawer

3. Him driving Jean to his own dorm for the final Raven v. Foxes game

4. Poor Jean's breakdown there

5. Neil did not even bother mentioning that Jean wrecked their dorm 💀

6. The RUMOURS about Jean

but no, please let's just swing our feet, gaze at Andrew longingly, notice the way his hazel eyes seem aglow in the sunlight and the sturdiness and broadness of his shoulders and how much he can lift and the gold of his hair and—

(no really please do)

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A reminder of this thing I wrote, even more applicable now that tsc is out :))

key figures in jean moreau's life as they relate to the cycle of a day

kevin day is sunset. because kevin left. they were each others lifelines, reminders of solace, and then kevin left jean to pick up the pieces of riko's brokenness and anger in the darkness.

riko moriyama is midnight. he offers no light, only a desperation for something better. anything better. he is only empty hope, only a reminder to jean that eventually the sun has to come back... right?

neil josten is dusk. he is the first time jean has considered the sun in years, the first time he remembered the possibility of daylight beyond the fractured darkness of the dungeon under the castle.

renee walker is sunrise. escape from darkness, a light to cling to in a glory of bright colors and promise of warmth to come as she crests over the horizon to save him from himself.

but jeremy knox... jeremy knox is high noon. he casts everything into shadow and shows jean just how meaningless darkness is because how can jean be afraid when he sees everything as it truly is for the first time? when he has jeremy to shed light onto his life and heat the traumatic ache from his bones? he is all light and toothy smiles and loud laughter which brings the walls of castle evermore in jean's mind crumbling to pieces, making way for rays of gentile the likes of which the ravens had never thought possible. all for jean on the sunshine court with jeremy by his side.

#aftg #the sunshine court #tsc #riko moriyama #jean moreau #jeremy knox

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first snow

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I can't find it, but I read a post on here a while ago that suggested that "aftg" wasn't just meaning the game of exy, but also andreil's game of truths, and I'm still going absolutely insane about it

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first snow

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Saw a tiktok talking about how they’re in love with the fact that neil and andrew didn’t become a thing until tkm - the book where andrew got his mind back and neil his looks - so both chose the other when they were most authentically themselves. I wanted to share that.

(tiktok name: @ sirendeepity)

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It's taking everything in me to keep to my own writing right now and not reread the most horrific scenes of aftg

I have a deadline to meet.

I have my own horrific scenes to write

But it's Neil's torture anniversary and I want to wollow

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RAINBOW CRATE ANNOUNCEMENT HOW ARE WE DOING AFTG NATION

#aftg #i cannot believe she is hand signing every copy oh my god nora the carpal tunnel #the covers are so pretty #i am so ready to throw my money at these books

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ftr yallre free to hate thea, it's unrealistic to assume every reader will like every character

bc you're against the 4yr/freshman-senior gap, bc she wasn't well-presented in her scene, bc i cxld the story that would've actually given her more time to breathe, bc you don't want Kevin with a Raven, bc her no-harm-no-foul approach to a man whose first response after any tragedy is "but can you still play", cool cool cool, that's fine by me. i have hated characters for less!

we're only revisiting her now because of the persistent argument that she somehow went out of her way to fuck a 14yo or groom kevin. unsure where or how it started, but at this point I have to assume something in the EC was blindingly unclear. so let's revisit it. not a rewrite or a retcon, but a reword of what we've already talked about before, in hopes it adds a bit of overdue clarification. and then I'mma mute her name, let the conversation die, and keep on keepin' on with my plans for her. thanks, lovies <3

Theodora Muldani "Thea"

Recruited to the Ravens as one of their token women. Advised from the get-go that the master is against both her race and her sex, and that she will have work twice as hard to earn her place. Spends years fighting her way up the ranks until the master finally approves her for starting line-up. Nominates self for vice-captain her senior year (soundly rejected). Had been seeing the captain at the time, but broke things off with him when he laughed off her irritation ("of course he wouldn't pick you, you're a girl"). Spends her senior year in a casual fling with the Ravens' starting goalkeeper.

Summer practices before her 5th year, the perfect Court officially join the lineup. Sees a lot of Jean, who follows her around wanting advice and insight. Sees more of Kevin & Riko (always together, since the two never leave each other alone in a room). Knows Riko is King, but is predisposed to be annoyed with Kevin who has already made snide comments about her goalkeeper and who dispenses nonstop opinions and judgment without invitation. They spend the next several months shit-talking each other's skills until Riko gets tired of it and tells Kevin to just fuck her already. Finding out that's why Kevin has been such a wretched bitch to put up with finally makes him interesting.

Thea drops things with her goalie, but Kevin is leery of actively pursuing her long-term when it puts her under Riko's microscope. They settle for harassing each other on the court and passing notes (sometimes using Jean as the bitter go-between). Kevin fusses at her for turning down the national team; she tells him he's better than Riko is. Bit by bit they see pieces of who they are past the Ravens, his love of history and her dream of climbing Kilimanjaro. Bit by bit they see how much they both want to be the best on the court, to be unchallenged and unstoppable. They're compatible, and Thea knows it, but Kevin has years at Evermore still, has a King!brother in his line-of-sight at all times and a master who is hawking him out to the press on a regular basis.

Thea promises to cut him out when she graduates. She has the national Court calling her back and professional teams trying to sign her to their line; she has enough to keep her busy and new lineups to hone her skills against. She'll focus on her own growth and let Kevin get through Evermore's hurdles. She says "Tell me if I should come back", and Kevin says "Yes". She jokes that he should get some practice in with the ladies while she's gone so he'll be ready for her: a joking insult against his skills to rile him up, a promise she'll wait as long as it takes, and reassurance that he isn't bound to her and can pursue other people if he so desires. Thea graduates, signs with the Houston Sirens and the US Court, and goes on to earn a fearsome reputation.

Almost two years later, the news is out: Kevin has been injured in a skiing accident and has vanished. Thea breaks her promise and tries to reach him, but his number is disconnected. She tries Jean next, and Jean tells her Kevin wants nothing to do with any of them anymore. Then Kevin starts helping at an unworthy scrap of a school, and he joins their lineup like he's not ashamed to be associated with dead-last losers. The future Thea was waiting for is burning; she puts everything she has into her own career and life to try and figure out where to go from here.

And then one day Kevin opens his mouth on live TV and says "Did you know I've never been skiing?"

She can't reach Jean for an explanation. She can't even reach Riko. So Thea breaks her promise a second time, and this time she buys a ticket to South Carolina to get the answers for herself.

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andrew as that one scene in twin peaks

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this has probably been done before but Neil <3 referenced from the desperate man by Gustave Courbet <3 get him a colourist plz

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AFTG from a D1 perspective

As a D1 athlete from a sport where men and women practice and compete together (thought we are separate teams) here are my thoughts ;)

Whenever the Foxes travel and stay in hotels they have to share rooms (but if Wymack is going to drop the $$ for shower stalls they def don't have to share beds like my team does) but I wonder if they randomize the rooms?? lots of potential there...

(however, USC?? They're big enough that I can def seeing them have to share beds hahahaha)

training trip? do they go on training trip Nora I need to know! Lacrosse sometimes does, so maybe exy would idk... (they go to Florida or PR, Kevin gets hella burnt and Neil gets freckles end of story)

Lift?? They have to be lifting!! I know Aaron and Andrew are really into it and Nicky and Allison fight over the aux

there are days where everyone gets along (even people who hate each other) and there are days where everyones HATES each other (even the people who are best friends) it just happens

men are always puking during practice. Aaron personally gives me big barf boy energy (Nicky canonically yaks already lol)

periods. Having men and women practice together means the women don't GAF about talking about periods while the men stare at their shoes and pretend not to hear hahahha

Abby definitely gets pissed at Wymack and lift coach (they have to have one okay??) for working the foxes too hard, it's the trainer's job to get pissed at coaches okay

just NCAA violations in general. We have to do quizzes and shit to show we know the rules we can't break/rules the school and coach have to follow. (I could make a whole separate post about all the NCAA violations broken haha)

this is no way saying aftg is inaccurate, it just means they didn't ever get caught which checks out

speaking of which, whenever Aaron get's pissed he definitely is like "And we went over 20 hours last week!! I could just report them!!" to Katelyn and she calms him down

Interactions with other teams/greek life. I know there have to be some mixers/athlete events, if not the Foxes then the Trojans for sure.

complaining about dining hall food, I know Kevin's pissed about seed oils or lack of protein, something stupid like that

hookups within the team. okay the Foxes are small, but that just makes it more messy. the trojans have insane teamcest I just know it. (being coed means even more hookups than normal) . cute relationship sex, hate sex, random sex between people you would not believe (i def don't know this from first hand experience what....)

I'm so excited for TSC because we get so see how a "normal" Exy team behaves (I put normal in quotations bc ppl need to understand that D1 athletes, esp ones on a team as good as USC, are definitely not normal people ahahha)

this is definitely just part 1

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Every time I see someone call Neil an unreliable narrator I think about how cool it could be to have AFTG from like fully unreliable Neil. Like Neil in canon is mildly unreliable in the same way all 3rd person close narrations are: he has a point of view and priorities but he's not actually that unreliable. He's telling us the truth and he's telling us the story and he's telling us basically everything (I love these books but those early chapters of TFC were some exposition heavy chapters). But like Neil as a real actual unreliable who actually lies to us? Imagine spending like the first book and a half not knowing he's not Neil Josten? Imagine us believing his story and buying into it as much as Andrew and only learning the real story of Nathaniel as and went pieces are forced out of him. Imagine the post-Columbia scene and being so mad at Andrew because Neil is just a private little guy who's a fan of Kevin, only for Neil to then go "welp actually my dad was low level mafia guy who worked for the Moriyamas actually" and we find that out at the same time as Andrew. Neil who is so deep into his cover he doesn't even tell us unless someone has dragged it out of him.

(And no, this is not a "this is how it should have been written" this is a "imagine it and I kinda want to write the fanfic")

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sticker sheet close ups while i work on commissions & try to get them out! we just love these little fools ok