dtilmnh

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can we like…get rid of the so-called leather and rubber “pride flags” ? it’s honestly ridiculous and offensive to the lgbtq community. those aren’t pride flags. 

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I'll get around to writing this fic at some point, but:

Jean and Jeremy get photographed kissing and it's all over the news. It's a problem for both of them because of their pasts, with Jean stressed because he got caught wanting a man and Jeremy stressed because of pressure from his family and because this reminds him of the banquet. The media is vicious, because they're the first confirmed-gay Exy players (Andreil does no PDA, Cat and Laila are obviously Just Good Friends, and I guarantee the 2007 press misgenders Cody).

They keep saying that gay players are ruining Exy, that they should be kicked off the team, that the founders of Exy would be horrified, etc.

And who should read all this bullshit but Kevin Day? Kevin "it'll be easier if he remains heterosexual" Day, who is now watching reporters bully the man he failed all his life and the man he has always idolized. Kevin Day, who is watching bigots online say that his mother would be ashamed of having gay people play Exy, like Kevin himself isn't bisexual.

It's the last straw.

So when they play the Trojans, Kevin decides to make a point. I imagine this is Neil's sophomore year, so the Foxes scraped past the Winter Banquet by the skin of their teeth but everyone knows they won't make it more than a match or two into the spring season. And they just happen to be up against the Trojans as one of their first games of the spring semester.

So a reporter gets to Kevin before the game to ask him about the new scandal and, thinking Kevin will be supportive, says something like, "don't you think Exy would be better if there were no gay players?"

And because Kevin is a diva and a drama queen, he says, "I'll answer that after the game." And he walks off.

He goes to the locker room and he asks Wymack if they've gotten their line-up to the Trojans yet. Wymack says no. And Kevin says, "Good. Take Neil, Andrew, Nicky, and I off."

Everyone looks at him like he's insane. The whole locker room goes quiet.

Neil asks if Kevin is joking.

Kevin looks at Andrew. "A reporter out there thinks Exy would be better without gay players. So I thought we should let him see what that looks like."

And then while Kevin and Andrew are having a moment of dramatic eye contact and understanding, because Kevin is finally prioritizing protecting his loved ones above Exy, chaos erupts.

(Mostly it's Nicky loudly asking why no one ever tells him they're gay).

Kevin hands the line-up to Jeremy and it's a mirror image of the year before, one team sacrificing a chance at victory for a greater cause.

Kevin Day, for the first time since his hand healed, does not play a single minute on the court the entire game.

Neither do Neil, Andrew, or Nicky.

The Trojans win.

At the end of the game, Kevin finds the reporter, in a sea of other reporters trying to ask post-match questions. They're all asking if Kevin's hand hurts, if the Foxes are ill, and what the hell happened that most of the best starters didn't play.

Kevin, in a speech that Neil would be proud of, says that he heard Exy would be better without queer players. So they all sat out, since they weren't wanted.

The reporters go quiet.

Kevin goes on about how Exy has always been a co-ed sport. It's always been welcoming to everyone. How the Foxes, started by Kevin's father, have always been about making sure everyone gets a chance to play. How the Trojans, perpetual winners of the Kayleigh Day Spirit Award, have always stood by their queer teammates. How last year's winners (the Foxes) and this year's future winners (the Trojans, Kevin is calling it a half-season in advance) wouldn't be half the teams they were without the queer players on them. And how Kevin can't believe the reporters dare insinuate that Kayleigh Day wouldn't want her own son playing Exy because he might taint the sport by being queer.

It's the most massive thing Kevin's ever done. Bigger than saying Wymack is his dad. Bigger than "I've never been skiing." Bigger than getting the two on his cheek covered up.

Because Exy is the Queen's game. Kayleigh and Tetsuji and Riko are all gone and only Kevin can now define what Exy is and what it was meant to be.

He's found his spine and decided that he's going to use it to fight for his right, and the right of those like him, to play Exy. He's going to fight for Andrew and Neil, who fought for him. He's going to fight for Jeremy, who embodies the spirit of Kayleigh Day's Exy better than anyone Kevin's ever met and who was the only sunshine he ever saw in the Nest. And he's going to fight for Jean, who he never fought for before but he never wants to let down again.

In 2007, with no out players in the sport and his entire career ahead of him, Kevin Day decides to come out, gambling that the world loves him more than they hate gay people, deciding that he loves his friends and his spine more than his spotless reputation.

And he's right.

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from: kevin, to: andrew

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404 - person doesn't exist

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Andrew being a goal keeper was quite literally the peak of character building in the entire literature history.

wdym he is THE protector of the team during a game? he is THE last line of defense? he has EVERYONE’s back? and he is AMAZING AT IT?!

and not just in the metaphorical sense (although as establish that too) but down to a literal physical level too. like? oh my god of course the character with the best reflexes that won’t let a ball past him is the character that grew up abused and constantly aware of his surroundings. and of courseeee the character that has issues with being touched and struggles to protect himself from abusers is the one wearing the most padding on the court.

nora you own my heart

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‘I’m a bad person trying very hard to be a good person’ - Natalie Renee Walker

Pre-Renee Renee

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The gang (Aaron is the one taking the photo). ✨

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Neil not understanding that at least a part of the unease he feels towards Renee is jealousy over Andrew is so funny to me.

He asked her not once but TWICE “why does Andrew like you 😒” lmao

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In love with Andreil and their burning hatred of labels that is either canon and mostly ignored by the fandom or quite possibly something I’ve entirely made up myself.

Matt: Are you guys dating?

Neil: Oh, we don’t really use labels.

Allison: So, what? You’re just friends with benefits?

Neil: That’s a label.

Nicky: I heard about something called a queerplatonic relationship, would that—

Neil: Also a label.

Aaron: You can’t expect us to believe you’re just friends!

Andrew: Do you know what a label is?

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i hate you

you were supposed to be a side effect of the drugs because obviously someone could never look at me like you do. nobody could SEE ME the way you do. nobody else would dare to step into a viper pit on the off chance that it might protect me because nobody else has ever considered that i’m a real person. and that means you cannot be real. because there isn’t a single person who would try to protect me. i’m the only person who can save myself and i haven’t wanted to save myself in a very long time. i cannot be saved. but then i saw you standing there with auburn hair and blue eyes… jesus christ you cannot be real. because you are a terrified runaway and now you’re telling me that instead of running away like i told you to, instead of letting me take the fall like i expected to, you somehow ran directly into danger for ME? unreal unreal unreal you are a hallucination and a pipe dream because you’re saying things nobody has ever said to me and there is a catch in your voice that i’ve never heard before and it’s all because you were worried about me and it makes me sick because nobody should ever make you feel that way, least of all me. i see every piece of myself and my pain directed back at me, reflected in the ocean of your eyes and it makes me want to burn down the world, it makes me want to destroy myself, and yet you keep telling me that i deserve to live. you see me and you won’t let me tear myself apart but you don’t see that in offering yourself up to be slaughtered you are ripping me to shreds. you cannot be real. you cannot exist. and yet here you are, standing in front of me, bruised and bandaged and more alive than you’ve ever been. and i’m so terrified to want any piece of that because it’s impossible. you’re impossible. you don’t listen. you won’t back down when i tell you i’m not worth it. you’re a dream. you’re all the hopes i threw away when i was a child. you’re not my savior. i wish you would save me. i wish you could. i’m terrified that if i look at you too long, you will.

i hate you.

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the thing is that every time I think too much about andrew I want to curl up and cry.

precious andrew doe, lost in the system since his first breath. moving from house to house but never finding a home; learning how to be quiet, how to patch himself up, how to keep everything inside or else he wouldn’t get up anymore. saying please and being ignored.

and yet after everything he’s still just a little kid with hope and want in his heart; he wants cass to be his mom, he wants a family, he wants to be loved, he wants a home. he’s ready to sacrifice everything to get it, he’s ready to deal with drake and pain and blood if it means he’ll finally have something.

but not aaron. never aaron.

so he gives up on the only thing he wants to protect a brother he has never met. to keep him safe from his own nightmares.

andrew minyard who has dealt with monsters his whole life, with predators and abusers, just to be called a monster by his own team. called crazy and a sociopath and dangerous and violent by his own family, the same people he protects every day.

andrew minyard who has to make deals with people because he thinks no one will stick around if he has nothing to offer, who always keeps his word while no one does the same for him. andrew minyard who protects what little he has left of himself behind a wall of apathy and detachment.

and yet. and yet.

he still wants. he still hopes. he still loves. just in his own way.

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thinking about andrew's foster parents rn.

not the ones who were cruel, who left him in his diapers a little too long, or locked their kitchen cabinets, or went prowling in the dark to take what wasn't ever theirs to have.

but the ones who wept when they disrupted the placement. the ones who wanted him to stay but had bio kids who were suffering because of attachment issues so they had to pause fostering. or who knew they didn't have the resources to handle the trauma level of this hurting teenager that was just dropped off at their door by cps. the ones who switched jobs or got laid off or moved or just couldn't afford to foster anymore. the ones who loved him for months and months but for whatever reason couldn't keep him.

those who fed him a bottle and laid him down to bed and sang him lullabies or changed his sheets after a bad nightmare or made sure he went to the next home with his belongings in a suitcase instead of a trash bag or who argued in defense of his boundaries at the mandatory doctors appointments or who memorized the scratches in their kitchen table after he stormed upstairs thinking "how could the world do this to a kid. he's just a kid. oh god, he's just a kid".

the respite care providers who took him shopping on a long weekend while his foster family visited their "real grandparents". the respite parents who told the caseworker about some weird bruises or paranoia behaviors and prayed, genuinely prayed something would come of it.

thinking about those who mourned him when he left. those who kept his picture on their desk long after he was gone.

because he was in care for too long to never have been loved, but long enough to grow incapable of noticing.

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Definitely been said before, but Andrew didn't just stop because Neil was having a 'nervous breakdown'. He stopped because when he kisses someone he expects to be used, hurt, wanted in a needy way that curbs all respect; even with Roland this was partially the case (COUGH he ended up using handcuffs with the guy). A delicate hand on his sleeve, refusing to even graze his skin, was absolutely not what Andrew was anticipating and that's what really freaked him out.

Neil was the first person to treat Andrew in a way that implied feeling, not just lust or greed or abuse. Andrew couldn't get self-destructively lost in that; it pulled him out. It reinforced the pipe dream and made it real simultaneously.

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Do you guys- do you guys ever think about how the first thing Andrew does to cope after Higgins first calls him about Cass is spar with renee?

Do you ever think about the fact no matter how far away he gets from it just being mentioned Cass’ home makes him so upset he needs to fight that energy out?

Do you ever think about the fact as soon as he’s reminded of everything he survived he feels the need to pick up knives and be reassured he can use them to defend himself?

do you?

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Andrew smiles then. It's barely there and almost immediately gone, just a slight upturn at the corners of his mouth, but his eyes shine and Neil- Neil would move mountains for that smile. Would give up everything he's worked so hard for just to have it directed his way again.

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Words to replace said, except this actually helps

I got pretty fed up with looking for words to replace said because they weren’t sorted in a way I could easily use/find them for the right time. So I did some myself.

IN RESPONSE TO Acknowledged Answered Protested

INPUT/JOIN CONVERSATION/ASK Added Implored Inquired Insisted Proposed Queried Questioned Recommended Testified

GUILTY/RELUCTANCE/SORRY Admitted Apologized Conceded Confessed Professed

FOR SOMEONE ELSE Advised Criticized Suggested

JUST CHECKING Affirmed Agreed Alleged Confirmed

LOUD Announced Chanted Crowed

LEWD/CUTE/SECRET SPY FEEL Appealed Disclosed Moaned

ANGRY FUCK OFF MATE WANNA FIGHT Argued Barked Challenged Cursed Fumed Growled Hissed Roared Swore

SMARTASS Articulated Asserted Assured Avowed Claimed Commanded Cross-examined Demanded Digressed Directed Foretold Instructed Interrupted Predicted Proclaimed Quoted Theorized

ASSHOLE Bellowed Boasted Bragged

NERVOUS TRAINWRECK Babbled Bawled Mumbled Sputtered Stammered Stuttered

SUAVE MOTHERFUCKER Bargained Divulged Disclosed Exhorted

FIRST OFF Began

LASTLY Concluded Concurred

WEAK PUSY Begged Blurted Complained Cried Faltered Fretted

HAPPY/LOL Cajoled Exclaimed Gushed Jested Joked Laughed

WEIRDLY HAPPY/EXCITED Extolled Jabbered Raved

BRUH, CHILL Cautioned Warned

ACTUALLY, YOU’RE WRONG Chided Contended Corrected Countered Debated Elaborated Objected Ranted Retorted

CHILL SAVAGE Commented Continued Observed Surmised

LISTEN BUDDY Enunciated Explained Elaborated Hinted Implied Lectured Reiterated Recited Reminded Stressed

BRUH I NEED U AND U NEED ME Confided Offered Urged

FINE Consented Decided

TOO EMO FULL OF EMOTIONS Croaked Lamented Pledged Sobbed Sympathized Wailed Whimpered

JUST SAYING Declared Decreed Mentioned Noted Pointed out Postulated Speculated Stated Told Vouched

WASN’T ME Denied Lied

EVIL SMARTASS Dictated Equivocated Ordered Reprimanded Threatened

BORED Droned Sighed

SHHHH IT’S QUIET TIME Echoed Mumbled Murmured Muttered Uttered Whispered

DRAMA QUEEN Exaggerated Panted Pleaded Prayed Preached

OH SHIT Gasped Marveled Screamed Screeched Shouted Shrieked Yelped Yelled

ANNOYED Grumbled Grunted Jeered Quipped Scolded Snapped Snarled Sneered

ANNOYING Nagged

I DON’T REALLY CARE BUT WHATEVER Guessed Ventured

I’M DRUNK OR JUST BEING WEIRDLY EXPRESSIVE FOR A POINT/SARCASM Hooted Howled Yowled

I WONDER Pondered Voiced Wondered

OH, YEAH, WHOOPS Recalled Recited Remembered

SURPRISE BITCH Revealed

IT SEEMS FAKE BUT OKAY/HA ACTUALLY FUNNY BUT I DON’T WANT TO LAUGH OUT LOUD Scoffed Snickered Snorted

BITCHY Tattled Taunted Teased

Edit: People, I’m an English and creative writing double major in college; I understand that there’s nothing wrong with simply using “said.” This was just for fun, and it comes in handy when I need to add pizzazz.