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tgis is so fucking funny to me. they accidentally Rock Lee'd a retired racehorse

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kevin at the beginning of tgr:

jean at the end of tgr:

jean choosing his people over the ravens is so important to me

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This quote literally got me into uni last year at age 30, after years of wanting to do this course

this actually is rewiring my brain as we speak

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Just watched the sweet indie Swedish movie "Patrik, Age 1.5" about a gay couple who adopt a child, thinking he'll be a toddler but ends up being a troubled teen due to a typo in the form.

The boy reminds me so much of a younger Andrew Minyard; his past in foster care (even *that* is implied), his looks, his attitude.

It really moved me. Any kind of story showing troubled foster kids just hits different. Really really makes you feel for these kids who should have just had such a different life. And it makes your heart full seeing them find a home.

This movie was far more touching than I thought it would be, and the characters were acted beautifully.

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Hello Jeremy

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The Extraordinary Strength of Andrew Minyard

So last night (or rather, very early this morning), I found myself lying half-awake in bed and thinking of fandom, as you do. And my mind drifted suddenly to Nora’s extra content on the All for the Game series- specifically, this account of what Proust did to Andrew when he was committed at the end of book two. (If you haven’t read it, trigger warnings for everything. Seriously. Just everything.) It is, from my first encounter with it to now, still one of the most horrifying parts of this series (the extra content counts as part of the series too, I think). In the books, you only get glimpses and vague hints about this; having it laid out here, in sharp and stunning blunt detail, never stops being a sickening shock.

And as I lay there sleepily thinking about this, the thought my mind settled on was this: For all his hostility and brokenness, Andrew has one of the strongest spirits of any character I’ve ever encountered.

Because for all intents and purposes, this should have broken him. And it didn’t.

Andrew’s childhood alone was disturbing enough to tear someone’s spirit to pieces, but by the time we join up with the story in The Foxhole Court, he’s a couple years removed from the immediacy of it. He’s got his bonds with Aaron and Kevin and is just starting one with Neil. (I maintained in an earlier post, and still insist, that those bargains of protection are meant to protect Andrew as well. Andrew trusts very few people, and his support systems thus far in life have been incredibly tenuous and unreliable. Making these promises with people provides more insurance that they will stay with him; they also, by establishing Andrew as the protector, give Andrew a sense of power in the relationship so he doesn’t have to present his vulnerability. He has some control through that.) He has Nicky as a caring sort-of guardian. His ties to the Foxes are more distant, but having Wymack and the team there provides an additional stability he didn’t have before. He takes medication, however dubiously good for him it may be. He sees a therapist who helps. He cares little for his own well-being, but his self-destructiveness is kept somewhat at bay for the time being, or perhaps just redirected.

His former rapists are far away. He is, in some ambiguous way, coping. He’s moving on as best as he can.

And then in The Raven King, an old threat resurfaces. He is violently, violently assaulted- I won’t quote it here, but look at the description of that tableau when Neil and Aaron burst in. Look at how much blood it says there is. Look at the fact that Andrew fought back enough to scratch Drake’s face and was still assaulted. Look at the description of how bruised up Andrew is afterward. This wasn’t someone covertly taking advantage. This was an attempt to break Andrew, knowing that Luther and the Moriyamas would shield Drake from consequences. This is the act of a man who knew it didn’t matter how visible his assault on Andrew was, because he’d still get away with it. Andrew suffers this brutal attack, and then gets taken away to the hospital where Proust is, and where he not only goes through a probably nasty withdrawal, but also falls victim to the absolute torment that post describes.

But what shocks me is that Andrew comes back to the Foxes in The King’s Men, fully sober for the first time in years and fresh from all the devastating torture I just mentioned, without the drug-induced mania to temper his crippling depression… and he doesn’t shut down. Two chapters later, he reveals he has feelings for Neil. And then, step by step, he allows Neil past all these boundaries he’d kept up for so long. We can’t argue that Baltimore was what changed Andrew, because he was reaching out to Neil long before that. Andrew admits feelings. Andrew allows affection. Andrew’s protectiveness becomes commitment, without the bargain as an excuse. Andrew lets himself be vulnerable, and lets himself care for others (even if he doesn’t admit it), and lets others care for him in return.

After all that suffering, the change that seems natural is that Andrew should come back from Easthaven a shell of a man. Instead, while he’s certainly troubled and scarred from the experience, he returns to the Foxes, to Neil, and begins to let himself explore things he’d hardly ever let close to him before. Do you know what astonishing strength that takes?

Do you know what a brave, brave man Andrew Minyard must be?

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[Channing] was like, “You just couldn’t even believe…  a butt could be like such a bubble and so perfect! It’s like all muscle!” He’s like, “Everybody was like… I was like, ‘What is that?!’“ So Channing is even saying how much he admired it! Like it was just unreal, and I’d never seen his butt, so I had no idea what they were talking about, until I saw him do his first take of his strip scene, and I was like “un – believable!” I had no idea – I had no idea he had that!  - Channing Tatum on the perfection of Matt Bomer’s booty [x]

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Sweaty make out session between gym work and Exy training

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riko must’ve hated jeremy’s ass so bad oh god just think about it. jeremy is the EXACT opposite of riko, yet in the same position. riko tries so hard by using violence and abuse day to day just to keep the other two members of the perfect court in line and jeremy is admired by jean and kevin with smiles and clean play from miles away from the nest without even knowing. this fucking gay kid from california should have no place on the court with the way he plays but he’s close enough to perfect that they get compared. he beats jeremy every year but it’s still not enough to stop the awe on kevin’s face or to take jean’s admiring eyes out off him.

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Andrew enjoying his meal.

Pencil sketch!! This may get flagged for content warning but...

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thinking about how neil says jean is a survivor not a fighter and thinking about how jeremy says he is a starving dog and thinking about kevin saying "if you tell him to submit he will" and thinking about jean giving rhemann the racquet and thinking about contrition and thinking about jean asking and expecting to be punished and not fighting back AND ALSO thinking about how nora said jean went to evermore angry and betrayed like if you shoved a cat into a box closed the lid shook it and opened it again and how the cat is jean and thinking about how jean was angry and all claws and teeth when he first showed up at evermore and thinking about jean saying he would tear out kevin's throat with his teeth and thinking about jean wanting to punch jeremy for treating him with too much caution and thinking about jean biting back every time lucas insulted him and thinking about how jean is at once defeated and depressed and unwilling to fight back or fight for himself and also so insanely angry all of the fucking time and how he had (has?) so much passion and emotion and rage that got tortured out of him during his time at evermore but did it really?

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i feel so seen!!

(twitter thread)

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— Greg Santora (via letsbelonelytogetherr)

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Aftg couples doodle yay 🎀

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the face he makes when no one sees

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clean version bc the paper warping in the previous post bothers me

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A softer version of this doodle which I actually prefer