dark luni's aftg sideblog

no one talk to me I'm in my KevNeil era (agony)

Neil’s will you teach and Kevin’s grief over Neil never reaching his full potential as a player and teammate. It all being wrapped in their shared language of exy and it really hitting Neil HOW MUCH Kevin believes in him and his talent as a player and teammate.

wait hold on i never see people talk about this specific part of aaron’s bonus chapter and it drives me fucking crazy

“Someone like you wouldn’t understand the importance of hiding scars.” can we talk about how significant this line is???? aaron has andrew so on the backfoot in this conversation that andrew is trying to deflect by bringing up his scars. his scars, of all things. he’s seeing discussion of neil as such dangerous territory that he’s willing to risk aaron figuring out he has self harm scars

and aaron KNOWS he’s implying something, he just is so focused on his goal that he tables it for later. “There was something more there; he could feel a warning heat along the back of his thoughts.” he’s not stupid!! he knows andrew is trying to distract him with a secret!!! once he takes the time to focus on it, he’ll put the pieces together with a little effort

and andrew KNOWS this. he is banking on aaron putting it together and hoping it’ll pull the conversation off track. it doesn’t work, but that’s his goal. he doesn’t want to talk about neil with betsy so badly that he decides he’d rather aaron know he has self harm scars than allow the conversation to continue

everyone focuses on aaron’s snarky comments and the fact that he wins but i never see anything about the fact that andrew gives up this secret to try to avoid talking about neil. it’s crazy!!!

and on the next page we get the line “Andrew was picking idly at his jeans: an agitated tic that had mostly disappeared once his medicine was out of his system. Maybe he was a thousand miles from here, pretending this conversation wasn’t happening, or maybe he needed a few more moments to come to terms with their easy acceptance.” the whole scene is just andrew being uncomfortable and on edge when he can’t steer the conversation in the direction he wants. he’s so uncomfortable that he’s indulging in a nervous tic he has more control of now than he had in the past and using his own closely guarded secrets as bait to try to get control back

i’m going insane i’m like that one iasip “can we talk about the mail?” meme but with this scene (meme under the cut)

Butch Revival, April 2025