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locked in learning french

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”Fuck what I deserve. What about what I want?”.

📚 The golden raven

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chapter 5 of The Art of Scraping Through is up!

+ tiny sneak peek

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wip wednesday!

snippet of chapter 5 of The Art of Scraping Through. sorry it’s been taking long (at least compared to the last chapter oops)

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I saw something very cute and got inspired. The kevjerejean groupchat is perpetually on my mind

Inspired By

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a requiem: nicky hemmick

im currently so hyperfixated on nicky that i’m literally thinking about him non stop. i wake up to him and i go to sleep day dreaming about him. hes so complex and i just think its such a shame his character never got the depth it deserved. i’ll try to keep this character study as canon as possible.

the thing about nicky hemmick is that i truly believe hes such an emotionally intelligent person and thats why he can craft his persona into a “im so dumb look at me” type. hear me out. first things first, nicky LOVES andrew more than ANYTHING. he may not like him but he loves him. andrew also LOVES nicky. he may not like him but he loves him. maybe as a possession, maybe as family, who knows. this entire analysis depends on this fact, so im establishing it early.

to talk about nicky, we have to understand andrew first and i cannot see andrew in any other way than a baby who has been hurt so many times, so he holds whats his as tightly as possible so he cant lose them. he loves nicky so fucking much and its evident based on the fact that they dont have a deal. he doesnt need one with nicky to protect him because hes the only one in andrews life that has promised to always stay. thats why he protected nicky at edens. you can argue that andrew always protects the weak, but he beat those men so bad that he was put on psychotic drugs that messed with his brain. the same drugs that could have taken him away from his twin. andrew will “do the right thing” so long as his loved ones dont get caught in the crosshairs. aaron is very obviously and apparently affected by andrew beating these men, something i think andrew subconsciously knew was a possibility. andrew wouldnt do something like this for anyone other than family. nicky is his family. his only family. even over aaron. aaron is his blood, his same dna. andrew owes it to him to keep him safe. nicky is just some Guy. some Guy who Promised to keep him safe. who left his everything in another country to come and adopt his cousin and some random kid that looks like his cousin. andrew should mean nothing to nicky but from the moment nicky saw him, he treated andrew like family and at the end of the day, andrew is still just a hurt kid. hes going to take that love, even if its bundled up in mistrust and anticipation of betrayal and disappointment, and hold onto it tight.

nicky might not always understand andrew, especially after andrew got put on drugs, but he loves him all the same. nicky got time to know aaron, but nicky has loved or at least tried to love andrew since the moment he first met him. this is the guy that left his safety net (presumably the person that saved him from extreme depression) in another country (his only escape from the two people who promised to love him but sent him away to get fixed) for two kids he had no responsibility over. he saw two kids that would have to live with the two people that tortured him and sent him to get tortured (we dont know what exactly his conversion therapy was. it couldve been a christian youth camp, or a wilderness camp, or a straight up gay concentration camp. we dont know. and thats horrifying). he knew he couldnt let these kids live with these monsters so he fought these monsters and took these kids in. nicky who presumably had very little money (a 17/18 yo thats cut off from his parents probably having just enough money to gain custody of the twins) buying a house in columbia and raising them all by himself. sure, they were already teens and he probably didnt really parent them or anything and they probably mostly coexisted together but i cant imagine nicky not feeding them or forcing them to feed themselves or making them watch movies or teaching them german. nicky probably needled them until they listened or gave in. does that make him annoying? as FUCK. but it gets the job done. and who cares if youre annoying when dealing with two extremely traumatized boys (one who is probably doping up on drugs left and right and the other who wont talk to anyone or emote).

(also like are we gonna assume that nicky isnt playing exy during this time period?? how does that make sense? hes ends up playing on a class 1 team (the worst one but still) and he keeps up with them. hes not a bad player. theres no way im gonna assume this man cant play or he didnt play during this time period a little bit. where tf else would he learn?? at camp? (now wouldnt that be interesting))

every time andrew got hurt, i can guarantee nicky saw it as his fault. at edens, HE was the one to get attacked and then andrew (the kid he thought barely tolerated him) beat the absolute shit outa these guys to the point where the cops were called and he was placed on trial. and then put on drugs. drugs that in nickys pov made him a threat — a monster. andrew was no longer predictable, he was gone. it was his way or the highway, he didnt care about boundaries, and he would do/say some crazy ass shit. he was terrifying (to everyone other than neil). thats why nicky is so afraid and wary of andrew in the foxhole court. he doesnt know drugged andrew and he barely knows andrew in general. fast forward, thanksgiving. nicky begged neil to convince andrew. and both the twins were hurt. then rehab. yk for the same damn drugs that andrew was on because of him. idr if nicky knows about proust but if he does dear lord. still, needing rehab for a drug that andrew didnt need in the first place? shit man thats gotta hurt.

the thing is i cant imagine the things this man does throughout the series is just because “hes a blabbermouth”. it doesnt make sense. unfortunately, neil dgaf about aaron so we know so little about his relationship with nicky other than he’s homophobic and technically they are closer than they are to andrew (nicky has known him longer, they take solace in each other when andrew is being a freak, they are both isolated as a result of andrew, nicky introduced aaron to non addictive drugs from his job at sweeties (cracker dust), andrew is so weird that its beyond nicky to understand him whereas aaron comparatively isnt that hard to figure out). but to me ive always seen it as nicky was trying to help andrew THROUGH neil. he didnt know how to get through to him but he figured out immediately that neil did. thats why he spilled everything to him. you can call nicky a blabbermouth all you want but the rest of the foxes knew nicky longer and still didnt know half the shit neil found out from nicky. oh but op, the monsters didnt talk to the other foxes. okay but nicky started spilling shit to neil even before andrew took him in. the moment andrew was interested in neil, nicky knew this guy was different (his “this child is definitely in danger and needs help” senses were tingling, too, probably). nicky probably didnt tell kevin shit either. at least not until andrew practically adopted him. nicky, to me, is very aware of what will benefit him and what wont and thats why he does what he does. hes strategic. its easier to seem like a blabbermouth than it is to ask for help. its easier to cry and worry and be emotional than it is to breakdown every five minutes. its easier to be gay immediately and prominently than it is to be hate crimed after developing a friendship with something. nicky knows what hes doing he just likes to play dumb.

(i fear i cant write this post and not address the weird creepy comments this guy is always making and his non-consensual kissing of neil. again i think its Cope. its much easier to be overly gross about his love for men because people dont try to fix him then. its nasty but its his way of putting his sexuality in the forfront. him kissing neil was fucked. full stop. period. but i think its important to contexuatize it because we contexualize every other character's actions in the book - specifically the shit andrew does. nicky was high on cracker dust, he was given a mission by andrew, and he saw how jumpy neil was right off the bat. nicky is NOT dumb. he knew he would have to do something crazy and unexpected to get neil to consume the drugs because he was obviously paranoid as fuck. nicky did not want to get stabbed by andrew (nicky is also extremely selfish lets keep that in nind) so his main goal was to ge the drug in neils mouth, and if he got to kiss a hot boy? wellt hat was just a plus. i really dont think he realized the implication of his actions. i mean how is kissing someone any worse than drugging them? how do you compare the two? he was already doing dumb immoral stupid shit, what's one more? we can assume that he took care of neil after he knocked himself unconscious because neil wakes up without a shirt/pants (probably because it got wet when he smashed a bottle on his own head) being hugged by nicky. again Weird. but also so nicky. Cope City. someone help this man)

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in nora’s layout of the lofts there are three bedrooms BUT one of them (the smallest) doesn’t have any windows. so what if jeremy moves into the lofts and stays (or says he’ll stay) in that bedroom but jean refuses. because no one should have to live in the dark. (especially not the sunshine captain)

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this building used to be a parking garage

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chapter four of The Art of Scraping Through is up! +sneak peek

(i may not be the best at writing but i sure can put a character in a situation)

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Reblog if you want random asks and you don't care what they're about

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Kevin Day writes self insert fanfiction where he walks downstairs in the morning to find out the Moriyamas have sold him to the USC Trojans.

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In the same vein as the "twinyards", may I present: the Kevin Dayology

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chapter 3 of The Art of Scraping Through is up! considered adding a little sneak peek but i don’t want to spoil it. instead, let me just say nicky has some visitors

(also thank you so so so much to everyone who has read and left their kudos and especially to those who have commented and sent messages here on tumblr. you make me so happy. no words.)

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happy pride month!! here’s a little treat 🤍

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i would tell you the dream i had about aftg tonight but i don’t think anyone would believe me. let’s just say andrew was on death row and that this was very controversial because he was pregnant (or faking being pregnant? it got confusing before i woke up)

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wth my dad just told me he used to know a guy who was like 160cm (5’2) and rail thin, spoke german, ran marathons like they were nothing, and smoked a pack of cigarettes a day. why didn’t he tell me he met neil josten before

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i promise i’m working on The Art of Scraping Through ch3 btw, so don’t think i’ve forgotten about it. here’s a little sneak peek to whet your appetite for the chapter coming in 1-2 business days