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you'll never believe the kind of astonishingly fucked-up character study I'm cooking up

Tetsuji had found them tangled into each other’s limbs when he’d come to fetch them for morning training, exhausted but fast asleep. Riko remembered the moment of quiet rightness after stirring awake, the relief of another warm body pressed against his, devoid of hurt. His fingers had still been shackling Kevin’s wrists, all through the night, Kevin’s pulse telegraphing his waning anxiety like morse code. They’d both been beaten black and blue for it. Their fault was shared, after all: weakness for needing comfort and weakness for indulging it. Something else, too, that his uncle hadn’t named lest he concretized it, but that Riko spied in his guarded disgust all the same. Riko ought to keep himself to a higher standard, and so he did. He still despised himself for the child he’d let himself be for too long. That Kevin could reach for the memory of that weakness without Riko’s consent felt vicious, sickening. A liability.

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not to expose myself

but perhaps we should explore kevriko from a pseudo-incest angle a bit more

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Okay, but can we take a second to acknowledge the fact that Andrew “I don’t care about exy” Minyard canonically went through bad withdrawal to play both halves and win games he had no personal investment in?

I mean:

Andrew doesn’t like being touched.

On top of being sick from withdrawal, Andrew is weak by the end of the games.

Weak enough that his teammates swarm him and manhandle him thinking they’re helping him and hiding his withdrawal.

But that has to be super triggering for Andrew and Neil later realizes that Andrew was too weak then to push his teammates off and yet he puts himself through this week after week, game after game.

When Andrew’s on his drugs, he responds to Nicky trying to hug him by pulling a knife on him because he’s so uncomfortable with being touched by him.

But before that, after the first in a string of games ending with Andrew in withdrawal, Neil watches Andrew and with no idea Andrew doesn’t like to be touched we get this quote:

“Neil expected him to fall, but Nicky slung an arm around Andrew’s shoulders and yanked Andrew close to him. It let him take some of Andrew’s weight without it being too obvious what he was doing. Andrew looked ready to say something about the unasked-for help, but Nicky didn’t give him a chance to argue. He pumped his fist and whooped.”

Andrew voluntarily makes himself physically sick and weakened and vulnerable and uncomfortable game after game for a team that assumes putting himself through withdrawal for the games is worth it for Andrew just for the sake of not being high all the time (like Matt and Renee say might be his reason when Neil asks why Andrew would put himself through the withdrawal for a game he doesn’t care about before Neil even knows the extent of what Andrew is putting himself through)

Because apathetic Andrew “Monster” Minyard already cared so much at that point and he was putting himself through that hell for the team because:

Wymack asked and Wymack gave him the first home that wasn’t totally shitty.

Because we know from Cass that Andrew would put himself through hell and on the brink of death to keep a home with a parental figure who gave a damn about him.

But even Wymack assumes Andrew only listens to him so he can get away with more shit and get booze and that it couldn’t be out of anything resembling respect.

Andrew knows they need to win to have more games so that Riko can’t start killing off more of the team.

Andrew supposedly only cares about Nicky, Aaron, Kevin, and Neil and only as property and not humans whose well-being and company he values, yet he was also looking out for Allison and motivating her to play so that they would have enough players.

Andrew might not give a shit about exy one way or the other, but he sure as fuck gives a shit about the team not falling apart and especially keeping his inner circle safe and having Wymack want to keep him around so he can stay with his created family of “monsters” and Bee, even if that does mean having to put himself through withdrawal and manhandling.

Anyways, Andrew Minyard is a fucking gift to the Foxes and the team doesn’t appreciate it or even realize it.

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An AU where the twinyards don’t meet until even mater in life— as in after college where everything from Andrew’s end goes almost the same minus Aaron and Nicky being in his life. He still makes it Palmetto, still meets Kevin and Neil and goes pro. Aaron on the other hand becomes a nurse (I have my reasons for this) never goes to Palmetto, and they only meet because one injured Neil Josten ends up on his unit. Aaron is about at his wits end because Pro Exy player Neil Josten (whoever that is because Aaron doesn’t follow Exy), who is on a lot of pain meds, keeps calling him Andrew and Aaron is about 5 seconds away from making the on-call resident very upset by requesting another CT scan of Josten’s head because surely his brain is scrambled. There’s nothing more that Aaron wants than to go home and fall face first into bed which is of course when his charge nurse walks up to him with a sheepish look, nearly begging him to stay another 4 hours because his relief’s kid is apparently sick and she can’t come in until 11am, which makes Aaron want to die so naturally he agrees, which means another 4 hours of Neil Josten at the end of his shift hooray.

And so of course Neil Josten calls him “Andrew” once more while Aaron is checking his IV (note: it’s now visiting hours), and Aaron, exhausted and cranky and just had to dodge a bedpan being thrown at his head, feels his eye twitch violently as he politely (read: thru clenched teeth) reminds Pro Exy Player Neil Josten once again that he is not Andrew—

Which is when another voice pipes up from the doorway, fresh scent of coffee in the air that nearly has Aaron salivating, who says “correct, you are not Andrew. I am.”

And Aaron turns around to see his mirror image standing in the doorway.

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that begs the question though

why does neil take andrew's trauma so much more seriously than kevin's?

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jean telling andrew, "You had no right to covet him," is an insane line that haunts me. we've known all along that riko must have targeted andrew because he's close to kevin. but here jean really implies that someone did have a right to kevin and that that someone was riko. jean also tells us that that bit of vengeance on andrew, punishing him for "claiming" kevin, was what riko was most happy with. like i knew there were weird kevriko vibes going on since book number 1, but tgr really felt like getting my faced smashed in by weird kevriko vibes.

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hold a magnet near the foxes and weapons start appearing outta hammerspace

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Gonna post a tone of aftg stuff I've drawn this past month

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I think about Cassius discovering Darrow killed Julian in a universe where they’re lovers EVERY DAY OF MY LIFE

Damn. Me too, man.

It’s grueling to even write those scenes, tbh, because I have to somehow justify Cassius’ decision not to gouge his own eyes out or taking a long walk off a short rampart, when that is invariably where his stream of consciousness leads. My poor lamb suffers more than Jesus. 

😔

😈

More seriously, though—we should not underestimate the intimacy of their brotherhood or assume a romantic and/or sexual relationship would automatically be more intense. Sure, they might not have explored each other’s bodies at the Institute, but we can safely assume they’re much closer than the canon insists upon.

After all, they spent the bulk of the first two months in each other’s sole company, more often than not, and were constantly having conversations that we weren’t privy to. And their ensuing overfamiliarity is demonstrated by how casually they touch each other, despite both of them being defensive towards unsanctioned affection, and how they instinctively reach for each other, despite both of them being emotionally repressed.

There’s something audacious that should not go unrecognized about Cassius cupping Darrow’s neck when he calls him brother, pulling leaves unprompted from his hair (which, it bears mentioning, is precious to Darrow) after Lea’s death; that he would do this, at all, and that Darrow would not only let him but think nothing of doing so, of being so vulnerable to Cassius and permissive of his touch, even in a freshly traumatized state. 

Equally significant is the fact that Darrow expects Cassius to hug him, despite all that’s transpired, when they reunite at Castle Mars, and that Darrow wants to hug him; that Darrow reaches for Cassius during the Triumph and presumes his lingering tenderness will be reciprocated, even after he’s outed as a Red; that Cassius, in turn, reaches for Darrow as the Obsidians take him away at the Spires and expects his protection, despite the fact that Ragnar’s blood is drying on Darrow’s hands.

And so on.

There’s an impulse in this fandom to romanticize their behavior, in the sense that it’s seen as evidence of a romantic dimension to their relationship, and I, of course, believe they’re deeply in love. But it’s important that we acknowledge their level of intimacy does not insist on the presence of that romantic dimension, lest we fall, in our haste to rescue them from heteronormativity, into amatonormativity. Both are reductive.

I go into deeper detail here, but one of the things I love most about the Bellona family is how they reject amatonormativity, how they live in defiance of it. And, regardless of whatever romantic and/or sexual feelings he might harbor for Darrow, Cassius clearly believes in the preeminence of platonic love, especially fraternal love. He barely shows an interest in romance, at all, and never at the expense of his family.

He is a brother, a cousin, a son, an uncle—and perfectly content in this, proud of this, defined by this. 

Why are you saying all this, Vesper? How is this possibly relevant?

Well, I’m not sure that Cassius’ reaction to the Holo would be substantially worse if Darrow was his lover, rather than his brother. I am speaking hypothetically, as we’re unlikely to ever see Cassius’ reaction to the Holo or experience of the stabbing, generally, in a universe where Dassius is platonic, and this aspect of I&F is still nebulous, because I have conflicting ideas that I’ve yet to reconcile.

But the romantic dimension, surprisingly enough, might be an improvement to Cassius’ situation. Might being the key word, because we’ve no touchstone to measure Cassius’ anguish against, but...

Darrow is less of a Julian–substitute if Dassius is romantic, rather than platonic, and there would naturally be more distance between Darrow and Julian in Cassius’ mind. Cassius’ feelings for Darrow would be less commensurate to his feelings for Julian and Darrow could never supplant Julian in Cassius’ heart, because the love Cassius would feel for Darrow is fundamentally different.

There’s a certain guilt that sprung from Cassius calling Darrow brother—Cassius doing so and Darrow encouraging him to do so, that weighs heavily on their consciences in the canon; it’s absent if they’re fucking instead. 

It’s true that Cassius would feel physically polluted by Darrow, defiled by the hands that are still lathered, spiritually, in Julian’s blood, but he could ultimately shift blame to Darrow for this and engross himself in outrage over the deception—which is only defensible, after all, insofar as it was necessary.

Necessary to befriend Cassius? Yes. Necessary to deceive Cassius? Yes. Necessary to scapegoat Titus? Maybe. Necessary to manipulate Cassius into teaching him Kravat so he might survive a future duel with him? Pushing it. Necessary to fuck Cassius? No. Necessary to seduce Cassius? No. Necessary to court Cassius? Fuck no.

Darrow has very much lost the plot here and whatever justification he could cling to. He’s crossed a line—and they both know it.

And this would allow Cassius to claim moral highground he wouldn’t otherwise possess—his actions would be more vindicated, because Darrow is deeper into the wrong. And that sanctimoniousness would effectively suppress his awareness of his own culpability, too; both in Julian’s death and Darrow’s lies, because he could’ve prevented both if he’d been less selfish—as far as I&F is concerned, at least.

Because he could’ve warned Julian about the Passage, after all, and he should’ve thought more critically about Darrow’s discomfort over Julian and pried further in their conversations. Even in the canon, it must’ve been obvious that Darrow darkened whenever Cassius mentioned Julian.

Cassius is too clever not to have noticed this... but he might be delusional enough to pretend he didn’t. Perhaps, he simply wanted Darrow too much—as a brother, as a lover, however you slice it—to risk revealing something he’d rather not know.

And the irony of choosing to watch the Holo, despite this, is surely not lost on him. Not in I&F, at least.

Anyways! Food for your thoughts, anon?

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Darrow literally has more light scenes with Cassius than with Sevro or Virginia and Cassius isn't even there with him for 3 of the 6 books

(he so clearly wants what Darrow and Sevro have😭)

Wait there are more in the reblog-

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the happy end

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A living weapon lab whumpee that had to kill other lab Whumpees (experiments/subjects) in order to keep their own life

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"i can't benefit from oppressive power structures, i'm literally nice :)" is a disturbingly common sentiment on here and if u express it then i can never trust u again

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Whumper keeping non-human Whumpees in a "zoo".

They kidnap them, buy them, maybe even make them in their own basement lab. They could even be a world-jumper and collect Whumpees across the world. Whumper gives their pets pretty little collars, muzzles, and forces makes them look their best. Then they teach them how to do tricks, hours upon hours on end. Even if Whumpee is exhausted out of their mind, they still have to put on a show. The residents that come to the zoo are mostly other Whumpers, but there are a few naive innocent people who wandered in by mistake.

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Firestar's nine lives.

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i’m watching Bee Movie for the first time

i’m 1 minute and 30 seconds in

a’ight so this main character is supposed to be a male bee but he uses a pencil sharpener to sharpen his stinger but male bees don’t have stingers?