Falling feels like flying

but like…Becky, of course LGBTQ+ people existed before Stonewall. We’ve all existed since the beginning of time. But the movement got a shock to its senses, a jump-start, a rocket-into-space when that glass shattered via Marsha P. Johnson, and when Sylvia Rivera was up on-stage protesting guess who was on the sidelines heckling her?

Without a trans black woman, LGBT+ rights would not exist. Never forget. Never “pay it no mind”.

But what I haven't seen with it's own post?

In the book, Grace's amnesia is NOT caused by the coma. Stratt gave him amnesia-inducing drugs, developed for interrogation purposes, before he left. She did it on purpose.

Because in a desperate bid to save his own life, Grace threatened to sabotage the mission if he was forced into it against his will. She called his bluff -- she knows that even if he isn't a brave person, he's a good one. He wouldn't sacrifice billions of lives out of what, spite?

But there's a chance. 1% chance, a risk too high for her to take, that knowing he didn't choose this would impact his mission performance. There will be two other astronauts there to remember the details. They'll think it's a side effect of the coma. They'll all think he volunteered, and then forgot.

(Because Commander Yao is a good person. Because he refused to have anyone on his crew who didn't choose to be there. Because Eva Stratt is not a good person, at least not in that way. She knows her choice, and could not make any other.)

The drugs will wear off, eventually. Maybe after he's dead. Maybe while he's still on the mission, but she knows by then he'll be in too deep to quit just because he's remembered that she murdered him.

Is it a mercy? He's on a suicide mission either way. Why not let him believe that he chose it? It's the same mercy she tries so hard to offer, giving him those precious hours to decide. Give him the illusion of choice, hoping he'll choose right, and not notice the walls closing in.

Please, don't make this harder than it needs to me. Please, make the right choice. She's not begging on behalf of humanity. She has already taken that risk out of the equation; it is too vital a choice to be left to Grace's hands. (To any hands but her own.) She's begging for his sake, for her own, for whatever tangled-up friendship they shared. Please, let me pretend the armed security is only there as an overreaction to the explosion. Please, let yourself go onto this mission not knowing what I would have done to put you on board. Please, stay on the path I lead you on, so you don't have to press your face to the walls of the cage we're both in.

Please, let us both pretend there was a choice. Neither of us had one.

I will give you back my greatest mercy, and my greatest cruelty. You ran at every turn. You saw the chains. You pulled against them and wailed and screamed as the cold iron cut against your skin. (One day, that skin will burn at the touch of an alien risking everything to save only your life.)

Forget. Be blind to the chains once more. I grant you the grace of believing yourself to be a good person. Of believing that as doomed as you may be, at least you chose this fate yourself. I will take everything away from you -- your life, your planet, your choices and your memory -- at least I can give you this.

Don't blame me. Not until it's too late. Not until you've already proven me right.

Because Eva Stratt believes in Ryland Grace. She knows him. She believes in him so deeply she knows that forced into this challenge, he will rise to every occasion. The odds go up if he think he had a choice. Her life, the life of the whole planet, is a game of odds. Every percent chance, multiplied out across seven billion lives. Seven million lives saved for every tenth of a percent she can add to their chances. He can't remember; she can't let him.

She's right. He does it, all of it. Presented with the same choice, he chooses right. (Exactly the same choice -- save Erid at the cost of his life. The only difference is this time, he really could say no. There is no Stratt there to force him. Only Rocky, waiting and dying and alone.)

She was right. In every single individual choice, she was right. Earth is saved, and that's all that matters.

And if, for a few precious weeks, twelve light years and a suicide mission away, her best friend gets to think of her fondly? A brief window where he remembers who they were together, without remembering how it ended?

(She can never for a moment forget how it ended. How can she, when the pain of that parting is also her greatest success, her only hope?)

Well. Perhaps it is not earned. But in this doomed, star-crossing friendship, one ending in murder and deepest betrayal-

But ☝️I feel like it kinda dismisses a part of her integral character and creates a perception divide between people who only watched the movie and people who read the book?

Eva Stratt was on her own suicide mission, because she would die after the Hail Mary launched. Well, first sentenced to lifetime in prison without parole and be publicly slandered and demoted from all her power. BUT she managed to piss off almost EVERY leader and corporation and when the end of the world approaches and you have a strong powerful woman as a convenient scapegoat, you really think they're gonna have enough mercy not to mutilate her in her cell?

She was bossy enough that the workers under her would be able to just say they were just following orders. She was involved everywhere because she wanted to be the name associated with the project because she was taking the fall for it all. She was a genie in the bottle allowed power but forced to come back and be punished after the project was done.

I simply don't believe he hasn't thought about it 🤷‍♀️

Ilya did not become a generation defining athlete in elite sport by just gambling on risky behaviors. He doesn't completely avoid them, obviously, but that just makes it more apparent that he's good at weighing risk and potential consequence (even when in a poor headspace to do so) to minimize effect on his game / life.

He clearly drinks heavily and it's probably not unrelated to his personal problems, but he put up numbers in his rookie year that he never would have hit if he was playing / training even a little drunk or hungover regularly. He cruises and hooks up with men despite the risk but clearly does not get caught (and I don't think Alexei knows because he'd be way worse if he did). Sasha calls him no fun in Soichi for a list of things which includes not doing coke, a choice I'd bet has nothing to do with Shane and everything to do with knowing one of the few ways he could really blow up this situation even worse is by failing a drug test mid season. Something he's keeping in mind and listening to despite the insane cocktail of disassociation / depression / stress he's dealing with that would make running away from his problems sound really good right then.

Even if Shane was the only man Ilya was ever having sex with - which I don't believe - that's a regular and significant enough risk that he has to have considered even tentatively what would go down if he was outed. And he had to have come to the conclusion that being as secure as possible in his immigration status would be important if he lost his NHL job, got excommunicated from his family, and/or (later) ran afoul of Russian law. His best friend is a dual Russian-USA citizen. He literally can't have missed how game changing that would be if he very abruptly could not go back to Russia.

Even with zero intentions of ever actually cutting ties with his home country, I don't see how Ilya hangs out on a standard work visa until 2017. He got an american agent and immediately said "I want the option to live in the US for as long as I want. Maybe even citizenship. Who do we call for that?" And then his agent hit the speed dial button for an immigration lawyer.

Man whose entire career has been international hockey is not sitting here seven years after moving to the USA with an understanding of visas that amounts to "Well I could marry a US citizen or maybe move to Canada and finally ask if there's options other than a temporary work visa sponsored by my job? There's people that know this, I'm sure."

He's not intending to come out or retire any time soon when he moves. He could have sat down with his immigration lawyer and talked over pros/cons of going for US citizenship since he's already on permanent residency or moving to Canada and starting that process from scratch but ending up Canadian. He could have decided to intentionally delay the process of getting a non-Russian passport because of this, because he wants to go for this in Canada and figures the risk of a few more years being in the immigration process is acceptable.

so first ill start with andrew since it was a quote from him that got me down this rabbit hole. but basically, it's very very clear in the text that andrew does not like being lied to, and he makes countless remarks about neil's lies. on multiple occasions, he responds with anger at being lied to, or what he counts as lying. in the very first book, when kevin doesn't tell him about the ravens coming down south, he calls kevin a liar straight to his face, which makes kevin flinch and pretty much start begging andrew not to abandon him, basically. some of that could be sourced from kevin's own trauma from riko—who has also been outspoken about his distaste for being lied to, at least with neil—but it wouldn't surprise me if it was just kevin knowing how much andrew doesn't like liars/being lied to and worrying andrew would break their deal. or it could have just as easily been both.

either way, that was just one example among multiple where andrew expresses discontent with dishonesty. ironically, so many of those examples involve neil, but ill get to that in a minute. what initially caught my interest was how andrew lied in the first book, because andrew's usually portrayed as never lying (which isn't entirely accurate, he definitely does, it's just that he rarely does), and the text puts a whole lot of emphasis on his distaste with lies in general.

there's a scene in tfc where he says he knows about neil's "ouchies" bc he took a look at neil's file, then goes on to flatout state that he didn't read neil's file and that he made it up. now, personally? it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if he read neil's file lmao, but whether he did or not, in one direction or another, he lied about it. either he lied to say he did when he didn't, or he lied to say he didn't when he did. what sent me into this spiral was this specific quote:

said to neil: "you don't believe me, do you? i know you don't. that's probably for the best."

a fun thing about andrew is he's unusual in how he speaks, with his riddles and games and wordplay, and sometimes, it's clearly his way of skirting the truth or avoiding offering it, rather than outright lying. it's also common for the things he says to have a lot of layered meaning to it, things that can be overlooked easily etc, so this caught my attention, because i was so sure that if i knew one thing about andrew minyard, it's that he doesn't like not being taken at his word—and that quote above is about the stalls in the locker room, and he's actually telling the truth. why then would it "probably be for the best" if neil didn't believe him?

and so i went looking to make sure i wasn't off in my initial analysis, and i came out the other side of it certain andrew absolutely does value being taken at his word (being seen as honest), and he also takes it as a borderline unforgivable slight when someone does not do that. directly from the text, we have examples to indicate this:

said to neil, about luther: "he chose not to believe me at all, and that's a thousand times worse, you see."

said to aaron: "i did what i said i would do, and fuck you for expecting anything else."

said where all the foxes could hear, about tilda: "i told her what would happen if she raised her hand again. she had no right to look so surprised."

so, clearly this is a guy who means what the fuck he says, and takes some form of offense at not being taken at his word. he's also the promise guy. they're a big deal for him, as are the deals he makes with people.

i got even more curious and found multiple instances of andrew either seeking out reassurances that people believe him, or calling attention to people not believing him.

just a handful of direct quotes:

said to kevin: "i promised you, didn't i? don't you believe me?"

also said to kevin: "it'll be fine. you believe me, yes?"

said to neil, about bee: "i told her it was a mistake to let you stay, but she didn't believe me."

said to neil, about pig higgins: "i knew he wouldn't believe me, so i didn't waste my time trying."

said to aaron: "because i made you a promise. i did not forget it just because you chose not to believe me."

he says it at least twice that people make the choice not to believe him, which makes it sound like he sees it as a targeted attack, with malicious intent behind it. and obviously it doesn't feel good when people don't believe you, especially when you're being honest, but for andrew, it appears to be a layered problem for him. one i think began in his childhood, likely treated as the foster kid with plenty of behavioral issues, brushed off or repeatedly let down, even from an early age. by the time he makes it to the spears, he actively chooses not to tell anyone about drake, specifically cass, and is willing to keep his silence to keep her. and while there may have been many reasons for that, i wouldn't be surprised if a big one was due to him presuming she would not believe him to begin with.

either because of evidence in his youth, or even evidence in the present, or because he just doesn't have a hopeful view on life in general—andrew does not believe that people will believe him, whether he tells the truth or not. which is very clearly an issue to him, and for him, something that bothers him, and so i reached a conclusion.

that very first quote where he says that he knows neil does not believe him, and that it's probably for the best, i think he says it bc very few people ever really believe him, and the ones that do, he ends up getting attached to in some form or fashion. (bee and renee, where it counts, just as examples.) so, if neil was someone who believed him, who saw him as someone who is true to his word, who is honest, that would mean something to andrew. which, as we know, neil went on to do exactly that, so not only was he the attractive mystery andrew was reluctantly infatuated with, he was also the one who saw him in a way no other ever did and came to believe him/believe in him in a way that he never got before (and likely always desperately wanted).

now onto neil, who is a bit simpler in this.

neil is a pathological liar to a tee. he doesn't even deny it when it's pointed out to him either. wymack says it directly, that he was told neil was a pathological liar, and neil's reply to that is ironically very honest. he says "it's what i was raised to be." which is the truth.

he lies frequently and accepts that being a liar is what he is. he once tells matt "you probably shouldn't believe anything i say." he lies with a goal in mind. his lies are elaborate. he does it for survival, or to manipulate people and situations in his favor, and he doesn't initially feel bad about it at all. as the trilogy progresses, we watch him start to feel guilty and weighed down by his lies, even though he always finds it in him to brush off that guilt out of necessity so he can cling to his lies. to be fair, his circumstances are so complex and dangerous that lying is (and has been for a very long time) extremely necessary for him.

his outlook on being seen as a liar and lying in general is the complete opposite of andrew, but because dishonesty was so tangled up in necessity and survival for him, he yearns for the truth. he associates honesty with safety, and given that he's gone so long without that, he's resistant to the feeling at first, which we see in how he struggles when he's giving a lot of his earlier pieces of truth to andrew. it terrifies him, but it also progresses into him wanting to do it even more.

because he associates honesty with safety, andrew being how he is draws neil to him, and there's a whole arc in the very first book that sets up the foundation for why and how neil's feelings for andrew progress.

in an early scene in tfc during a night practice, one of the first talks andreil properly have alone, andrew tells neil that kevin said he'd be court one day. neil instantly doesn't believe andrew and wholeheartedly assumes that andrew is lying to him. neil believes this from around the beginning of the book to around the end, where kevin is quoted saying that very thing, and then it's reinforced on the show with kathy when kevin reiterates it, confirming that andrew had been telling the truth. neil's initial thought about the fact that andrew hadn't lied was that it was "disturbing" lmao, but after that, we start to see more and more progress during their little truth4truth games and how relieved neil starts to become with how andrew unflinchingly accepts his truths.

then, eventually, neil starts really hating keeping things from the foxes as he grows attached to them, andrew especially, and he starts really wanting to be honest with them, or just wishing he could. he started making plans to tell people, wymack and andrew specifically, and then after baltimore, as soon as he considered himself safe/safe enough, he lets himself be honest. he goes as far as refusing to speak with kevin in french in front of matt, because he doesn't want to lie anymore. and a big thing for him during what happened in baltimore was being afraid he would die a lie, then the sheer relief afterwards when he realized he wasn't going to.

but it was andrew, ultimately, that neil was initially the most honest with. andrew found a way that neil could be honest long before he felt safe enough, which essentially made him into a safe space that neil was never given before (and likely always desperately wanted).

which brings me back to my original point, which is how insanely compatible andreil are, even though neil is a liar and andrew values honesty. because what matters more to neil than lying is being given the chance to feel safe enough to tell the truth, and what matters more to andrew than being lied to is being believed/believed in.

🩸𝔄𝔪𝔟𝔯𝔬𝔰𝔦𝔞🩸

andrew werewolf 🐺

kevin vampire 🧛🏻‍♀️

You guys don’t know how much this fanart means to me i genuinely be sniffing the kandrew crack through it i fucking love kevin i fucking love kandrew i fucking love this art

I also wanna add 2 other details that I think make this scene richer - 1 in Russia, national heroes like sports figures are treated as assets of the state. His phone was likely tapped, he was probably being followed by secret police, his apartment bugged. In actual real life Putin played a “friendly” game of ice hockey with his past and present olympians. 2 after Sochi 2014 Russia was found to have non consensually doped their players by lacing their food and drinks. So if you add all that together - being closeted in a country where it is illegal to be queer, being humiliated by how the rest of the world views said country, leading your country’s team to a devastating at home loss, knowing you’re being spied on but not how, AND being unknowingly hopped up on performance enhancers - ya I don’t blame him for being “mean” for a second.

i've been endeavoring to verify the sochi surveillance of russian athletes for a while but my success has been limited by google enshittification & monolingualism. it's aligned with my memory and the politicization of russian athletes i'm familiar with, but is unsourced as far as i can find for now. as always i'm not an authority

the doping scandal is well documented (links are haphazard, don't have time to organize robust articles). the whistleblowers fled russia & at least two people were assassinated amid the investigations. i couldn't source the claim of lacing athletes' food, albeit i remember hearing it. that said, fearmongering about russia was ablaze at the time. regardless, if they were going so far as to smuggle urine samples through the walls like a damn spy cartoon it'd shock me if uncooperative athletes weren't coerced to dope

sochi was addled by a myriad of scandals, including the immediate invasion of crimea 3 days post. but russia's anti-queer legal precedents were a cornucopia of global contention after the "anti-propaganda" law in 2013. to the extent that athletes were coming out, obama sent queer representation in the american delegation to make a point, and putin personally commented on it to warn athletes & kneecapped protests

Hudson Williams, #1 Shane Understander

I think Shane was a character who, soon as I read him, made all the sense to me. I felt immediately a kinship and an ownership over Shane. I was like, “I need to be the only person to tell this story. I get it. I want to be the person to be Shane and I want to spend time with him.” [x]

(sources below)