#moriyama you

[aalyre]

saw that post saying that it was necessary that aaron killed drake with neil’s new heavy weighted racket to foreshadow what riko’s could have done to neil and i have not stopped thinking about it since

[ionlydrinkhotwater]

I still think about the fact that according to Nora, the man Neil and Kevin watched the Butcher murder in the East tower when they were kids was an assassin who came to murder Riko. And Riko MADE Kevin and Neil watch to send them a message. Especially Neil (you're dad works for ME and I can make him kill you too).

Then at the end of TKM Neil watches with satisfaction as Riko is murdered by his own brother who Neil manipulated into killing him. In the same east tower.

Also Tetsuji who tried to force Neil to bow was forced to bow his own head while his protégé was killed beside him and his exy career and legacy forever diminished.

Neil didn't just beat these guys at Exy is what I'm saying. Then he goes back to his team with a big grin on his face

When Jean thinks this about Neil RIGHT before the game where this all goes down:

"The smile that curved Nathaniel’s mouth was slow and hungry and hateful. It twitched a bit as Nathaniel tried to force it away, but he finally had to use the side of his hand to smooth it off his face. The look he turned on Jean was almost serene, but Jean still saw the madness in his eyes.”

I mean the layers to this are so good, I'm obsessed with the Neil/Nathaniel dynamic that goes on inside Neil

[leroiestmortvivelareine]

The real tattoos

Drawing these made me realise I can’t wait for the rest of Jean’s reinvention. He’s the most powerful force on the board and hasn’t even got started yet…

[ninyard]

Neil Josten, born Nathaniel Wesninski

[joanofexys]

Kevin Day falls into Raven habits without even realizing it. Despite his best efforts to adjust to a normal life. He runs laps to keep himself awake because he's never quite adjusted to 24 hour days. He struggles to eat anything he perceives as unhealthy despite his dependence on alcohol. When he gets frustrated he plays with a brutality ingrained in him since he was old enough to hold a racquet. He refuses to go anywhere without Andrew, without a partner. Do you think when he wakes up in the middle of the night, to a dark room, he looks over at the other bed expecting Riko to be there? Do you think he traces the ghost of a 2 on his cheek, hidden beneath a chess piece tattoo, out of habit? Do you think despite being a fox he feels as though he'll always be one of them? That, despite it all, he'll always be a Raven?

[ivyinne]

I've been thinking about this theory about Riko orchestrating Jean's sexual abuse as punishment for his attraction to Kevin, because Riko is not in the habit of sharing his possessions. And while at first glance it would seem that Riko does this because it's Kevin... looking deeper I get the feeling that his attitude extends to the rest of the Perfect Court too.

Consider Andrew.

Riko sets first Drake and then Proust on Andrew, and the implication is that Andrew cannot get away with "taking Riko's things." This obviously refers to Kevin, but I don't think it refers to Kevin alone. It's significant that Riko brings it up with Neil and Neil only, and it happens during this specific conversation.

Riko uses Andrew to taunt and intimidate Neil, immediately after Neil implies that Riko is not the only thing saving him from his father. We come to understand several things in the course of this conversation:

That Riko considers Andrew to be responsible for Neil's continued refusal to return to his place among the Ravens.

That he believes threatening Andrew's safety will be enough to convince Neil to come to Evermore.

Which means that Riko obviously has an inkling of what Andrew and Neil mean to each other (even if Neil does not yet). He weaponizes this knowledge against both of them, and while Neil ends up going to Evermore, it does not mean that Riko lets Andrew get away.

That's because he never intended to. When Riko refers to Andrew as the miniature one with the disgusting attitude who thinks he can take my things, his "things" refer not merely to Kevin but, to a heavy extent, also to Neil, and he punishes Andrew for his closeness to Neil the same way he punished Jean's closeness to Kevin.

Why am I bringing this up? Well, quite simply put, it's all because of the as-yet unexplained January incident that Jean brings up in The Sunshine Court.

We know that following Neil's departure from the Nest, Zane betrayed Jean by setting Grayson on him. What we don't know is what Riko did to Zane and Grayson afterwards, or why.

Jean brings it up several times, but only refers to it obliquely, and doesn't give us any details:

I don't think Riko cares about what happened to Jean, of course not. But it makes too much sense to me that he decided what Zane and Grayson did was an insult to him, Riko, because how dare they touch his property when he hasn't permitted it? How dare they take his things? How dare Grayson pretend he has some sort of claim to Jean?

I'm throwing this theory out because I have nothing to lose: whatever Riko did to Zane and Grayson was in retaliation to what they did to Jean, but not because Riko cares. He did so only because Jean was another one of Riko's things, and those who take his things away must be reminded of their place.

So, yes, I think all of this is an extension of the fact that Riko has an unhealthy obsession with the people he considers to be his pets or his property. Transgressions against his claim over them deserve to be punished for the insult.

Even if those transgressions are committed by the Perfect Court itself. Riko plays the part of the jealously possessive master, the one they should all devote themselves to, the only one with authority over them. No one else can have them — which means they cannot have each other either.

[sadboyjacinter]

trying to be brave and get over anxiety and my friend was like "would kevin day act like this?" and actually YES, he would. he would be so anxious his stomach would hurt and he would chug as much vodka as possible but he would do it! so im gonna beat this anxiety like kevin day, hands shaking and barely breathing but im Gonna Do It.

[feelingthedisaster]

The King's Men's plot structure is genius.

TKM has been critized a lot for not following the conventional plot structure, because it doesnt end inmediatly at the resolution of the climax, like they taught us in class. But it actually has a reason behind it and it think that is what makes AFTG unique and Nora Sakavic an amazing writer. I'll explain.

So, we all know AFTG has a lot of chess metaphors, however i think it doesnt contain the metaphors, it is the metaphor. Each character represents a piece of the board (Riko king, Kevin queen, Neil pawn, Andrew knight, etc) and exy is the chess, but but but, a chess game not only involves the pieces, the game cannot exist without someone playing, the chess masters (which would be Kengo, Ichiriu, Nathan and all the mafia stuff).

So, AFTG is divided into two plots happening at the same time: what happens on the chess board (exy season) and what happens outside it (the mafia mess).

Of couse, the climax has to be about the outside out, because who cares which one of pieces move in which way if the players are pointing guns at eachother under the board? The guns are more more important. So who cares? The pieces on the board care, the ones that are being played with. And who is the narrator? The character that represents the pawn, the less important figure of the entire room.

Yeah, the 'outside of the board' plot is over half way into the book, but it doesnt matter because that happens outside the board, the chess game has not ended yet. The pawn cannot go back to rest in the box until the game is over, until the king dies. The book cannot be over until the chess game our protagonist is a piece of ends. The books have to end with the king's (Riko) death and that is exactly what happens.

If this isnt excellent writing and one of the best examples of know the rules so you can break them, i dont what is.

[heartstringgs]

Friendly reminder that when Andrew got fucking assaulted, he didn't care what was done to him but instead his first thought was to pull Aaron in closer and make sure he wasn't harmed in any form or another and I just—

[knox-knocks]

Thinking about wymack trying to break the news to the rookie kid about their problems with the japanese mafia without scaring him off the team only for the rookie kid to have his very own ties to a different but related gang is too fucking funny to me

[you-know-i-get-itt]

time to bring my url into whatever this is:

pt. 4/?

[allforthegayphase]

TW: rape

Something I really appreciated about The Sunshine Court was its nauseatingly realistic depiction of rape culture.

Jean’s (repeated, violent) sexual assault isn’t treated as something horrific; in the toxic environment of The Nest, it’s normalized. The real story — Riko ordering 5 male players to rape Jean as a sadistic way to ‘break him in’ — is quickly twisted by his abusers; Jean is seen as a calculating vixen who slept his way to the top, for a Perfect Court number:

They continuously mock and taunt Jean with senseless jokes about it. There is an element of jealousy at play; Jean is a prodigy player, and, as he says himself at some point in the book, his older teammates didn’t enjoy being shown up by a child. They certainly enjoyed knocking him down a peg, though, by humiliating him and creating an illusion that he only got his spot on the team for sleeping around, not his talent:

Even one of his rapists, Grayson, continues this false narrative despite knowing the truth (or maybe he even convinced himself this narrative is the truth; that Jean ‘seduced’ him for a spot on the starting lineup):

Other ravens who don’t know the truth seem to quickly believe the narrative that a 16 yo chose to sleep with a bunch of his superiors for a personal gain; that is certainly easier than entertaining the thought that your teammates (friends?) are capable of something this horrific. Or maybe they simply don’t question it too hard; after all, Jean can’t tell his side of the story.

The rumors eventually spread outside the Nest. Jean’s reputation is tarnished to the point that this is one of the first things strangers on the internet learn about him:

The most heartbreaking detail about it all is Jean’s age. He was a 16 boy on the college team, the youngest player on the lineup; a foreigner who couldn’t even speak English when he arrived; an outsider. Despite the fact that his young age is something that even the ravens find particularly scandalous about the whole situation, Jean’s agency is never questioned. He’s not seen as a minor who was taken advantage of by older, superior men — and most of them are quite significantly older, having already graduated by the time Jean’s 19; Grayson seems to be the youngest of them and he’s at least three years older than Jean.

As many victims of SA, Jean had no choice but to continue living with his abusers side by side, pretending like nothing happened. Knowing there’s absolutely nothing he can do.

The first time someone voices concern over the questionable circumstances surrounding the whole situation happens in this conversation with Jeremy (to be fair, it seems like Jean's age isn't public knowledge but the ravens obviously know):

And as many victims, Jean internalized his experience as something he deserved on some level:

TLDR: Sexual assault is, unfortunately, a very big part of our culture; it’s not just something that happens in the dark alleys; rapists aren't just scary strangers. They're also your friends, peers, teammates. The way the Nest (and the general public as a whole) turns a blind eye at best and mocks and humiliates the victim at worst is a microcosm of how SA is largely treated in real life. It was genuinely fascinating to see it depicted so realistically, even though it made for a heavy read at several points. I hope Nora keeps up the good work, and we'll see further exploration of the topic and Jean dealing with his trauma in the next book.

[constelationprize]

Thinking many many thoughts about how Jean was Riko's partner for a YEAR and was still rooming with Goon #3. Because that was how unwilling Riko was to let go of Kevin. And how that implies that Jean was placed as his partner both because of the practicality of Kevin being gone AND as a punishment for letting him go in the first place. Being partners with Jean could actually slow Riko down depending on how often he's hurt (because I don't think Riko was all that exempt from the rules to the point where his partner's performance would completely not matter) and he was still placed there. Riko was just THAT angry at him over Kevin's escape. And all the while he was keeping Kevin's side of room like an altar, even back when he didn't even think Kevin could PLAY, because of an injury he caused.

[ninyard]

exy fans + Twitter (the Kathy Ferdinand show edition)

[joanofexys]

y’all ever think about thea muldani? do you ever think about the people she might have cut off when she joined the ravens? do you think she has a family? do you think they’re still waiting for her? will she ever try to reach out to them again? how do you think she felt when she first left the nest? did the lack of a partner nearly break her? do you think she ever feels her heartbreak as she so fiercely protects a team and teammates who so often hated her? does she lay wide awake at night and does she blame her own thoughts or the 16 hour days for that? how many ravens did she reach out to on their summer break? how many of their funerals does she attend? did she attend riko’s? did she want to attend any of them at all? what’s her breaking point? when you leave a cult there’s always going to be one. is it violent? slow or fast? is it the little things of the outside world chipping away at her? or is there one thing strong enough to set her off? just. thea muldani is one of the only ravens seen to graduate and survive outside the nest. what did that take?

[saga-child]

Happy 18th Anniversary of Neil “You know, I get it,” Josten!

** During a recent reread of TFC and TRK, I went through and marked the dates of significant events. According to what I was able to gather, I think the 2006 Fall Banquet fell on September 9th. So, celebrate accordingly!