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nickireadstfc · 7 years

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The Foxhole Court, Chapter 6 – Now That We’re All Here, What The Fuck Is Going On

In which we give out awards to characters we barely know, I have questions about demisexuality, Neil turns up the Gay Angst™ and the gang finally gets together although some of them could have fucking stayed home.

Sounds good? Then it’s time for Nicki to read The Foxhole Court.

Neil left reality behind when he stepped into Dan’s room. Spending a month with Andrew’s cracked lot and a volatile Wymack had almost irreparably damaged his image of the Foxes. Now he was sipping a glass of sweet iced tea and eating cookies Renee had brought with her from home.

I’m…….. so…………. What did we do to deserve those angels……………….

[Dan] seemed friendly enough now that Andrew was out of sight, but Neil had already noted her spine. She was made of sterner stuff, his mother might have said. Neil guessed she had to be to captain a ragtag team like this.

Don’t think I forgot the vow I made a few chapters ago:

Well deserved, we honour you and your general badassery with this award today. May your spirit inspire us, guide us, and get our asses back in line when we try being Extra™.

Am I prematurely praising this character? Probably.

Do I care? Absolutely fucking not.

Her roommate Renee was a mystery. (…) Nicky had called her the sweetheart of the team. Neil understood why as he listened to her talk. He had no idea how she qualified for the Foxes’ halfway-house team.

Murderous snowflake, I’m calling it. She probably has the darkest backstory of ‘em all. I’m so beyond intrigued by this character, she has instantly risen to the ranks of my favourites as well.

But all fun girly hangout times must end, and so they drive to the Fox Tower to finally get all the gang together.

Speaking of gangs! Neil’s favourite people, Andrew and the Murder Monster Squad, are back!

“It’s not like we’re going to kill him,” [Nicky said.]

“Kevin already tried,” Matt pointed out.

“Nah, that was just a love tap.”

Nicky knows about the choking kink, you guys.

In an attempt to get the Kandreil ship sailing again make them all settle their differences, Andrew invites Neil to join them on a fun party trip in Columbia next weekend. There is absolutely no way this can go wrong, I’m sure of it.

“Maybe [Allison and Seth] will get in a crash and won’t make it,” Nicky said hopefully.

“Really, Nicky,” Renee said. “That’s a little inappropriate, don’t you think?”

She said it gently, with a hint of a smile on her face, but Neil still felt the rebuke. It was subtler but somehow deadlier than the dirty looks Matt and Dan were sending Nicky, maybe because she was so sweetly disappointed in Nicky’s attitude. Nicky dropped his gaze from hers and gave an uncomfortable shrug.

Honestly, who is this Renee and why does she have such magical powers.

The way I see it, there are two ways this could go: 1) She actually has no deadly backstory (a sad, tragic one at best) and she owns the team’s hearts through sheer niceness, or 2) she is the murderous snowflake I appointed her earlier and has killed like a dozen men in her life, could slit your throat while simultaneously baking sweet cookies for her team, and is generally deadlier than all of them combined.

I’m hoping for the latter.

New character arrivals! The last ones for a longer time, I suppose, so let’s cherish them.

Seth Gordon was the first into the room and he brought an attitude problem with him. He didn’t look happy to see any of them after only a month apart and he barely grunted at the staff in greeting. He took a second to scowl fiercely at Neil, but that was it.

Chill the fuck out, my dude. I’m taking it back, I don’t cherish him. He may be the only character I don’t instantly like, or at least find somewhat interesting.

Seriously, if you only come here to instantly non-verbally shit on everyone I’ve taken into my heart so far, you can fuck off right again.

Allison Reynolds was only a few seconds behind him. (…) Everyone else was in jeans and rumpled from moving in. Allison looked ready for a photo shoot with perfect platinum curls, spiked heels, and a skintight dress.

Okay but. Is it intentional that she has the same name as the basket case from The Breakfast Club???? Because that just makes her overdressed outfit even more hilarious.

Also, glad to see the Extra™ represented on the female side as well.

[Neil’s] skin stung with the memory of his mother’ heavy blows. Life on the run meant no time for friends or relationships, but that didn’t stop Neil from checking out girls as he grew older. His mother’s watchful eye noticed his lingering looks and increasing distraction. Afraid he’d spill their secrets over a childish crush, she beat him like she could kill his hormones with her bare hands. A few years of this violence and Neil finally got the hint: girls were too dangerous to consort with.

Are you telling me that his mom physically abused him for being attracted to girls. That is beyond shitty. That is so, so fucked up. Mom Josten is losing so many previously gained sympathy points right now.

Real talk time, though: How does that tie in with his demisexuality? Because evidently, he did have sexual attraction to complete strangers when he was younger. Is this suggesting that his mother’s abuse made him demisexual? Because that is problematic on so many levels, most of all because it invalidates demi people as it is suggesting you can be beaten into a sexual orientation.

The logical assumption – for me right now at this point of reading – would be that he is actually bi/pan, however his childhood abuse represses that and makes him uncomfortable in his sexual attraction to women as a Pavlovian response, similar to gay kids beaten by their homophobic parents.

Or is there just something else entirely that I’m not getting? There must be, as Nora Sakavic herself said that Neil is demisexual (or so I’ve been told).

Or am I just reading too much into this altogether?

This is v v interesting. If anyone has anything to add to this, do shoot me an ask, but please – please! – keep it spoiler-free.

(If you’re in doubt over whether something counts as a spoiler or not: Don’t send it. I’m serious.)

Back to the matter at hand: Now that all the Foxes have huddled into the Foxy Hol(e)y Court, it’s time for some real talk from Wymack.

“Questions, comments, concerns? Anyone?”

Seth pointed at Neil and said angrily, “I’m fucking concerned–“

Neil guessed Wymack had heard this argument before, because he spoke over Seth like he didn’t hear him. “All right, then. Moving on…”

Ohhh, the shade. Get fucked, Seth.

#dicksoutforwymack

“The death threats [they received last season] were creative, though,” Nicky said. “Maybe this time they’ll follow through and actually kill one of us. Let’s vote. I nominate Seth.”

Me too, buddy.

“Fuck you, faggot,” Seth said.

“I don’t like that word,” Andrew said. “Don’t use it.”

My MAN. <333

“I would say ‘fuck you, freak’, but then you wouldn’t know which one of you I was talking to.”

“Don’t talk to us at all,” Aaron said. “You never have anything useful to say.”

Get fuckin rekt, pissbaby.

You come into my house, you insult my newly adopted characters, you can fuck the fuck off.

Sadly, Wymack breaks up what had been shaping up to be the diss battle of the decade by dropping the Edgar Allan bombshell on them. The entire team freaks out (obvs), but no one more than Andrew – however, it’s weirdly not the Ravens’ transfer he’s mad about, it’s simply the fact that Kevin didn’t tell him.

“When were you going to tell me?”

“I told him not to,” Wymack said.

“You picked Coach over me?” Andrew asked, and laughed. “Ohhhh my. Favoritism, deception, betrayal, how familiar. After everything I’ve done for you.”

What, what have you done for him, I need to know.

“It’ll be fine,” Andrew said. “I promised, didn’t I? Don’t you believe me?”

It took a while, but at last Kevin visibly relaxed. The dead edge melted out of his eyes as he absorbed every ounce of strength Andrew could give him. The unwavering trust Kevin had in Andrew was amazing. How Kevin thought one psychotic midget could protect him against a family as twisted as the Moriyamas, Neil didn’t know.

Honestly, I can’t stress enough how interesting I find their dynamic. They switched from mortal enemies to BFFs within a season, and now they switch from viciously aggressive to almost tender within seconds. I need to know all their backstory and I need to know it now.

(Also, where’s the fanfiction at.)

“Why does Kevin trust Andrew?”

Renee smiled. “Because he knows he can.”

“With so much at stake,” Neil pressed, as if she didn’t understand what was going on as well as he did. Maybe she didn’t. (…) She wasn’t like them. She was normal, or as normal as the Foxes could hope to be.

No, she fucking isn’t, don’t ask me how I know this I just know okay I know my murderous snowflake.

After this, Neil goes back to his roots in reminding us that he is, in fact, the Overlord of Angst™ in this book.

I joke about this, but those passages are always really well-written and super immersive, that is some bomb ass writing right there. Case in point:

Kevin’s fear cut him wide open because Neil knew that feeling. Every day Neil woke up and relearned how to breathe. He gave himself two minutes every morning to calculate his chances of getting caught, weigh the benefits of staying wherever he was, and talk himself through his fear.

Did Kevin do the same? The dead look Kevin turned on Andrew today was the same one Neil saw in his reflection.

Also ayy, back at it again with the Kevin/Neil parallels.

Following that is a lengthy description of Neil’s anxiety that I cannot quote simply because it’s too long. The key elements are this: Kevin, in all his fucked-up misery, still has Andrew to lean onto, while Neil is absolutely alone; Neil is deeply jealous of Kevin’s life, specifically of Kevin and Andrew’s trusting relationship; yet even though he hates him Neil still desperately wants to stick around to see Kevin succeed, and I fucking cry in a corner because that is too much for my poor shipping heart.

Give a girl a break.

Finally [Seth] threw his hands up in disgust und turned on Neil. “And to make it all worse, I get stuck with a fucking amateur as a sub!”

Did I want a break? There it is. Assbrain McFuckface has graced us with his presence once again.

Seth glared at Neil. (…) “We were supposed to make it this year. I trusted [Kevin] to pick our sub because he said he could get us past the championship death match. But this is repulsive.”

Your face is repulsive, Jesus Christ. Take a fucking chill pill, Gordon. You know this guy ten minutes and you’ve never even seen him play at all. Maybe try thinking outside of your tiny monkey brain and consider judging his game before you shit all over him.

(If anyone of you really likes Seth: I’m really sorry. But also: Why tf would you.)

Matt to the rescue!

“At least give Neil a chance,” Matt said.

“Day’s fucking with us,” Seth said. “It isn’t right.”

“This attitude isn’t right,” Matt said, pointing at him.

You go, tall Billie Joe Armstrong. You’re good people.

The chapter’s almost done, save for one peculiar thing that happens towards the very end: Nicky loses Andrew – bad enough – and for some reason, turns to Renee to find him.

Neil knew someone picked up by the way Renee smiles, but he didn’t know how Renee could smile so warmly when she was speaking to Andrew.

“Did I wake you?” she asked in lieu of hello. “I was hoping to talk to you tonight, but Nicky says you’ve wandered off. Oh? All right, then. I’ll try again tomorrow. Lunch, perhaps? Okay. Good night.”

They go on LUNCH DATES??? I’m so fucking invested in this Brotp. Goalie bffs 4 lyfe.

But seriously, who is Renee and why is she so magical.

Find out next time, I guess.

#tfc #the foxhole court #the raven king #the kings men #nora sakavic #nicki reads tfc #dicksoutforwymack

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