Have you guys heard the crazy news about Dan and Phil. They are starting a podcast

Kateaaron valentines wip from who knows when that I decided to resketch and color but not finish

foxes power point night

dan: foxes interview moments ranked on a scale of "tetsuji moriyama should resign" to "did you know i've never been skiing"

kevin: USC trojans best plays ranked 30th to 1st

andrew: why kevin should be banned from powerpoint night (1 slide, picture of kevin's title slide captioned 'seriously'

matt: neil's top ten freshman year moments (#1: picture of him punching riko at the winter banquet. cue long suffering andrew 'you did what.')

aaron: why alkaline water is BULLSHIT and how to spot other health-related pyramid schemes, kevin

seth: best foxes fights and who won (he's tallying everybody's points)

allison: neil's most 'wtf is that' outfits and what i would put him in instead (neil: why me?)

nicky: action movie protagonists that are secretly gay

renee: best places to conceal a knife on your person (andrew is taking notes)

neil: various sports and why exy is better

wymack: how many years of my life expectancy i have lost to each of you (every time your name is mentioned you have to drink)

(voice of a man slowly losing his mind) does it ever strike you that the plot of aftg is moved by little acts of kindness kevin offered to people who never had any semblance of it before. loving riko when no one would, befriending jean in the nest and keeping him alive through debilitating amounts of trauma, telling andrew he was worth it in a dingy high school locker room, teaching neil every night even if he knew he was about to die

aftg heritage post

'I just want you to know who I am'

Art credits : rottenbasil, sanexiah, @llstarcasterll , majordangerrr, lis_photoart, dshr_art

just thinking about how howl spent his entire life looking for sophie. he built an entire castle just to find her. he worked on both sides of the war because he didn't know which kingdom she was from. he dated pretty women because he thought she was beautiful the moment he saw her in the past. calcifer let her in because he knew she was the one. he really was looking everywhere for her. and i think i'm unwell.

lil Howl's Moving Castle Andreil inspired by @s-hanna-h AU!!

robin cross and kevin day parallels actually go so crazy. they both spent their formative years in a basement underground with exy-obsessed captors. they both saw exy as freedom. they both were isolated even within the foxes’ group of outcasts. they were both under andrew’s protection. it cost kevin jean to leave the nest and it cost robin another girl’s life to escape her kidnapper. robin carried her racquet with her to self-soothe and kevin restrings the net of his when he’s anxious. they’re even bird coded

Monsters pregame:

I love how Jean is so focused on Kevin and Neil that whenever there is a scene with them he always just say: oh yeah and Kevin's pet goalkeeper is there too I guess (because Andrew is always there for them) before he starts spiraling hard.

It's so funny that in Neil's pov Andrew was always lager than life, this heavy, commanding presenc that always took up all of the attention in the room ect... ect...

And now we can see that he's really just a dude most of the time (when he isn't high as fuck) and Neil was just very very very gay for andrew, without even realising.

nora going from writing an ace-spec main to a (probably allosexual) bi main, and the difference is so chef's kiss. they're both disasters don't get me wrong, but jean having attraction in his inner monologue even with the trauma he's been through implies to me that neil's demisexuality has absolutely nothing to do with his trauma. hilarious in retrospect because, if i remember correctly, neil in his inner monologue basically blames his lack of sexual attraction on his mother's abuse the few times he kissed girls when he was on the run, but he doesn't have a single sexual thought until andrew lets him in on his feelings in book three,,, meanwhile jean's out here actively fighting his bisexuality like his life depends on it (he thinks it does) (he'll learn it doesn't eventually)

jeremy knox loser manic pixie rich girl of all time. regularly wakes up way too early. besties with his butler and a lesbian couple. waits for jean at the airport while failing to work a yoyo he probably bought on a whim. has familial issues he absolutely will not get into. bullies his crush into taking an honest-to-god ceramics class with him. gets his entire head bleached at the salon even though frosted tips would've been easier to maintain.

neil's concern for jean is so palpable actually they were meant to be 'forever partners' but the few weeks they did spend together really paints such a brutal picture of how awful that would have been

and yet neil is so, so careful with jean in a way that gives me brain worms ykwim? he went through the entire phase of trying to grasp onto a new life and learnt so much from his foxes that he feels the need to pass it on now...'andrew taught me' and 'i've got him, coach' like jean can rely on him and trust him now

especially the phone call when kevin confirms riko's atrocities and in the background someone asks about jean? like i know that was neil his concern is so intense he keeps jean in mind almost like there's a phantom friendship that ties them together

I think my favorite part of TSC is that we get the counterpoint of Jeremy's POV.

Not only because it's funny (it is) or because I love Jeremy (I do), but because it drives home the themes of AFTG in a way that Neil or even Jean's POVs cannot.

With Neil, we get the upperclassmen, but for the most part everyone he interacts with is so steeped in the mafia plot and the ravens, but also just so much abuse that we as the readers get kind of stewed into seeing things from Neil's perspective. It's why we have to remember that Neil is an unreliable narrator. (It's not a bug, it's a feature btw; I love Neil's batshit view of the world)

But with Jeremy, it gets thrown into stark relief that it does not have to be like this.The Trojans practice, and they go home. Exy is not a metaphor to them, or a lifeline, or an obligation; it is an activity. They have lives. They have friends outside of Exy, something Neil does not have.

So, I watch a lot of college gymnastics. I love the sport, but (like all sports), there is the looming specter of abuse. Every year, it seems like another coach is discovered to have abused their athletes. Weight tracking, emotional abuse, physical abuse and intimidation. Its something you weigh when you're a college sports fan, knowing on some level that this thing you enjoy on some level enables this. 

And it makes me think of the line in TSC:

“What we don’t understand is how a grown-ass man took a bunch of kids and turned them into monsters for sport.”

Because this is what Neil's POV can't give us. Neil, and Kevin and Jean, the stakes are higher because of the mafia plot, it's true. But SO MANY OTHER ravens were just normal kids who got destroyed so some adults could make money and have a little bit of glory. 

And, to be clear, this isn't a place to be like “and this is why I don't watch sports” because it's EVERYWHERE. In music, TV, school theater and choir- anywhere there is a power dynamic, there is the potential for abuse. 

And by providing the counterpoint from the Trojans, it becomes even more apparent how unnecessary it all is.