palmetto state foxes

maybe neil is also super good (idk man i just think he holds on to useless info since he'll never know when he might need it) and they compete to see who can get the most points between the two

whenever neil beats andrew he just gives him the most smug smirk that andrew has to kiss off his face (and it has nothing to do with the fact that the smirk maybe makes andrews knees weak and ears hot, and maybe he lets him win sometimes just to see the easy confidence that neil takes on, maybe)

and one day the foxes are there to witness the back-and-forth between them and they're like "you guys should go on the show" and i just know that andrew would think that winning jeopardy would be the funniest thing ever and neil would like that it showed his new freedom in that he could go on live tv with no risk.

so they apply and get on the show (idk how that works) and immediately act like they don't know each other, they're just contestants to each other. and quickly they start trash-talking each other, i mean come on, and the host probably mentions that they're both professional exy players and have been on teams together in the past, so they probably trash talk each other about that even more

and it gets to the point where the old (or maybe new idk) minyard-josten rivalry hashtag starts trending again and at this point they're not publicly out so everybody believes they just really hate each other

anyways, andrew eventually wins (IM SRY BUT I JUST THINK HE'D BE BETTER BECAUSE OF HIS MEMORY) and they ask what he's going to do with the prize money and he turns to neil and is like "i'll probably take my husband on vacation, but i wouldn't know where he'd want to go" and neil smiles at him and is like "anywhere is fine as long as i'm with you" and thats how they come out to the public

it’s very, very American. While there are certainly antis who aren’t American, many of them are.

I have a lot of theories as to why this is, but a lot of them are covered in this post: anti-shipping as the cool new trend (while it’s mostly about the age bracket of anti-shippers as of June 2017 (this time last year), it’s an americentric post talking almost entirely about US phenomena).

tl;dr version? anti-shipping is:

the natural result of growing up both LGBT+/queer and marinated in American-flavored Puritan Christianity/purity culture 

with a side order of valuing safety over freedom 

b/c you’ve always had freedom of information 

but you’ve never known a sense of security 

thanks to lifelong internet access 

paired with post-9/11 paranoia.

add a dash of radical feminism/exclusionist thinking

never being taught how to think critically, and

zero education on sex of any kind, and

someone* added these tags to their reblog of this post, which, uh: this is literally the basic, standard fandom anti-shipper position on ships.

 Whether you call yourself an ‘anti’ or not, this is precisely what a fandom anti does: ‘throw down’ if they think someone’s ships are ‘abusive’, ‘pedophilia’, or ‘incest’ (generally with widely expanded definitions, hence the scare quotes).

it’s a pretty solid example of how this works, though:

tag op is 21: too young to remember a world before 9/11 happened or remember a world without internet access

tag op’s strong feelings about fictional ships suggests they flatten fiction and reality to equal levels of potential danger: classic black & white thinking structure that is strongly encouraged by American Protestant Christianity

tag op didn’t read this post with self-awareness and/or application of critical thought, much less click the link that the tl;dr list references

tag op feels justified in limiting other people’s freedom to use fictional ships to explore certain social/romantic/sexual dynamics, threatening to throw down over it.

this is because those social/romantic/sexual dynamics are not safe or healthy in real life.

even though ships are fictional, the safety of censorship is more important than freedom of expression or thought.

the concern is always about ships/sex fantasies: never violence/fantasies about harming others. this is the combined effect of purity culture and radical feminism in a society that glorifies and normalizes violence.

tag op will fight you for bad ships, because it is okay to fantasize about fighting people but not okay to fantasize about unhealthy fictional relationships

Anyway. 

I have a lot of sympathy for antis because I think their lives often set them up to favor censorship and abhor education-as-inoculation, but that doesn’t change the fact that they’re being jerks to fellow fans on the basis of assuming things about the core of their person because of what they ship.

fandom policing of this sort is assumptive, presumptive, and deeply damaging, both to the victims of anti-shipper cyberbullying and the anti-shippers themselves, who are encouraged in this abusive cycle hellhole behavior by emotional manipulation and coercion.

(I want to end this with a joke about how American this is, but assholes are everywhere tbh. Americans are just especially susceptible to the thinking patterns established by fandom antis at this precise moment in history because of the factors listed above.)

The overt, performative denunciation of Bad Content has become the “shibboleth” for modern fandom, as managed by the increasing influence of antis. Why is that every time one of these posts come around people so inescapably feel the need to add “but of course I don’t condone the pedo stuff” to their reblogs? Do they have reason to assume that pedophiles are so universal and normative that any reasonable person would assume they were, unless they explicitly state otherwise? Of course not – it’s a passcode. A performance of cultural acceptability.

And as the anti movement is hugely American, that means that the passcodes and rituals are also firmly based in American culture. Why all the focus on who is and isn’t eighteen? That’s the age of legal adulthood in America. There’s no magical transition in America where you go to bed on the eve of your 18th birthday an infant and wake up the next day magically transformed into an adult, any more than this same metamorphosis occurs at 16 in the UK, or at 20 in Japan. Concepts like the age of adulthood are entirely arbitrary and culturally defined – but the only acceptable metric, among antis, is the American one.

All the other Unacceptables are equally foggy as soon as you step outside the USA boundaries. Are relationships between adopted siblings considered incest? What about non-blood related people raised in the same creche? Childhood friends? Step-siblings? Classmates? Second or twice-removed cousins? Ancestors or descendants? Different cultures don’t all answer these things the same ways (nor is there any reason that they should,) and that murkiness provides plenty of foothold to launch an attack from, when someone else is shipping in a way that Just Doesn’t Seem Right to you.

To give an example of the ‘widely expanded definitions’ that @freedom-of-fanfic mentions, I have seen antis decry a ship as ‘pedophilia’ where both characters were over the most rigid U.S. age of consent (it actually varies by state), but one character was a few years older than the other.

(I have actually seen this ‘logic’ applied to more than one ship, and also real people? The latter was particularly horrifying, because the relationship I remember being decried as ‘pedophilic’ was one where the younger of the two people was in their thirties.)

Go to Walmart, buy the three items that, combined, will freak out the cashier the most

And yeah, the employees mostly don’t give a shit what people buy, and know about the game, to boot. You gotta be convincingly weird to pull it off

Neil is shit at this, he buys garbage bags, duct tape, and a shovel and gets an eye roll

“Yes we might actually need those items someday but if you buy them together you don’t get away with the murder, idiot”

But medicated Andrew is a local legend/cryptid at the Palmetto and Columbia Walmarts

Seasoned Employee A: “Have you rung up the ‘pack of cigarettes’ guy yet?”

Newbie: “Hundreds of people buy cigarettes.”

Seasoned Employee B: “No YOU’LL KNOW when you meet the ‘pack of cigarettes’ guy.”

Seasoned Employee A: “What did he buy from you?”

Seasoned Employee B: “Moon shoes, a plunger, and lube.”

Seasoned Employee A: “Holy fuck. He bought donuts, donut holes, and glue from me.”

Newbie: …that’s someone pranking-

Seasoned Employee B: “Oh God, and his smile. His SMILE. You knew he was going to use them, too. He was going to do it.”

Seasoned Employee A: *shudders* “I know.”

Newbie: ………………….

More employees start chiming in with haunted looks: “a bottle of maple syrup, Coco Puffs, and a wide-mouth funnel”

“A Slip n Slide, Nesquik, and a jumbo pack of boba tea pearls”

“The look on his face”

“The eye contact, God”

“His SMILE”

A few weeks later, Newbie watches a short, manic blond man in all black unceremoniously dump his items onto her conveyer belt at a quarter to midnight. His grin is ghastly in the fluorescent lights, and the way his hair and eyes shine make him look like some kind of ghoul.

There’s a pack of loopy neon silly straws on her conveyer belt, a CuisineArt blender, and…a dozen live goldfish wobble in sloshing water as their inflated bag rolls unevenly down the belt to her scanner.

Newbie is pretty used to people buying everything under the sun by now, Walmart sells everything under the sun, but…

She glances up in a split-second of trepidation.

That shit-eating grin could swallow the goldfish whole.

But it…won’t, will it. Oh god. She glances at the blender she just bagged, then back to the ghoul.

Since Andrew goes to the store a lot for cigarettes (I picture him trying different brands, that’s why he’s always getting a pack, not a carton) he gets to do the Monster shopping while he’s there

Fact: Nicky whined for days about wanting a Slip n Slide for the Columbia house in summer and Kevin wanted to make boba tea (the Nesquik is obviously for Andrew)

Abby needed syrup for Team Breakfasts when they return from winter break as well as a wide-mouth funnel for ladling homemade soups into jars (the Coco Puffs are obviously for Andrew)

He needed something appropriately stupid for Kevin’s birthday so moon shoes it is. Four guys in one dorm room? Yeah they need a plunger okay (The lube is obviously for Andrew’s private use)

Sometimes it is a little on purpose though.

Like, he’s getting Aaron glue to make a poster for a final project and Andrew wants donuts, and when he looks at the items in his hands he grabs donut holes too because obviously, and when he reaches the checkout he leans slightly over the counter without blinking and taps the tube of glue while confiding “nontoxic” like it’s the best thing that’s ever happened to him.

Kevin broke his blender with too many greens at once so Andrew went to get him another one to shut up his whining, and threw in silly straws for his kale smoothies to mock him. The goldfish were one of the funniest things he ever did to the cashiers, but in reality Walmart takes shit care of their fish section and he mostly bought them because he felt sorry for the things.

By that time Neil is around and Andrew rationalizes the purchase of live animals with “they’re orange like our school colors, Neil will love them” and dumps the bag into Neil’s sweaty hands without explanation when he picks his two Exy junkies up from night practice.

The confused look on Neil’s face is priceless and also…Andrew finds it fun and more interesting than it really should be to toy with the kid…

<<1/3>> this is taking me so long I apologize,, but it’s a scene redraw from the last chapter of tkm!!

it's called "Feel Again" and is from Andrew's pov!

my apologies for not having background music, i don't play any instruments, but i hope you still enjoy it!!! please lmk what you think of it!! I'd love your feedback!!!

so without further ado:

https://youtu.be/7ygjHKBMoTg

Yeah sure I have a lot of thoughts on this. I think this is an overall fandom issue and not just an aftg fandom issue, but the feminization of neil as well as the ironing out of his personality to make it more palatable is definitely a thing.

I've noticed in a lot of fics hes a lot friendlier, a lot less distrusting, and a lot more oblivious. I also noticed the amount of demand for vixen neil, and neil in dresses and skirts and crop tops, neil crying and being vulnerable isn't a challenge on traditional masculinity because andrew and the other guy foxes don't receive nearly the same amount of demand.

There is heavy emphasis on people wanting not just neil but andrew to be softer, and while that's okay, it's important to remember the moral of aftg is that trauma makes some people hard, and intense and not traditionally likeable, and that those people aren't broken and don't need to be fixed. So when people just, ignore that and make andrew and neil a lot softer, neil always sitting in andrews lap and other things, lots of expressions of PDA, and other out of charter moments, it erases the idea nora was trying to convey.

I've stated before about how the fandom also often doesn't mention body hair but when it does its andrew having facial hair and neil having less typically, but also there is usually emphasis on andrew having a deeper voice than neil, who sometimes gets written almost as whiney and petulant or pouty.

-nsft text below-

I also think there is an overall lack of understanding of mlm culture in fandom which is largely a women's space. I won't go into detail here but how pwp is written (especially a lot of the trans andrew or neil ones) are not with a mlm gaze in mind, after all if it was proper gay porn then only mlm would be turned on by it, but the consumer in mind isn't mlm at all, both because the authors are almost always not mlm, but the readers aren't as well. There is emphasis on neil being more vocal and whining, mewling, whimpering, and moaning, all common in how straight porn treats the woman, while andrew is emphasized in being a lot more quiet, maybe grunting and groaning.

Lingerie is not common in gay porn outside of fanfiction, jock straps?? Thats a thing thats a huge thing, but in all the pwp I've seen of them in their exy gear I haven't seen it mentioned before, not a cup or jock strap or anything like that.

Neil is also the one being put into the lingerie and there is emphasis on him feeling pretty rather than handsome and him being petite and slim rather than a bulky athlete

There is also an overall lack in realism in preparation and dynamics that are physically impossible or unsafe but thats a whole other thing.

This is just off of the top of my head, I can get into the fetishization of trans andrew fics another time thats a whole other thing, but yeah this is just my unprepared thoughts and observations I've noticed.

Fanart also tends to lack the men having bulges, i respect trans hc but i have possibly never seen a flaccid penis in running shorts neil is wearing. They don't go away they sit there and take up space.

-end nsft text-

I have more to say when it comes to the dealings with trauma in fanfiction but for another time. I also have a huge rant about how fanon deals with the race in fics, both nickys canon race as well as the fanon everyone else's race

Overall, people can write what they want to write, and fiction is fiction and i cannot stop anyone from doing anything, and people can interpret the characters how they want. But when writing fiction, the authors own biases can slip though, the charters are written by them after all. An author who writes a torture scene isnt someone who has done that, but an author who writes let's say nicky as even more predatory, slutty, stereotypically gay and "ayeyeyye" in fanfic is unknowingly being racist and homophobic.

A person existing in real life fitting steryotypes is one thing, I've been told like once a week that im stereotypically gay since I've been alive, and have been under a lot of fire for being both "too mexican" and "not mexican enough" but an author who is not mlm and is white can still fall into these pre conceived notions they don't realize they have. There is no such thing as a real life queer couple being heteronormative, but someone else writing one can be because they're not real people, they're characters.

Why does this dynamic appeal to you? Are you projecting? In what way? Why do you think x character is more passive and y is more aggressive? Are they like that in canon ?

When quarantine started I threw myself into aftg even more, but quickly became depressed and felt gross and watched, I felt lonely as an mlm and isnt white in a dominantly white wlw/wlm fandom. Most of tumblr is queer white women dominant tbh, in the same way its American dominant, and fandom is like that too. I still have a hard time talking to my friends who aren't mlm about fandom stuff sometimes because I will tell them something bothers me and I'm not sure they understand or take it seriously. I was so depressed because my personal escapism was making me feel worse.

My depression has gotten better since then, but I still get very uncomfortable with the word "twink" being applied to not just neil, but now any queer man, especially when not said by someone mlm.

i wanted to challenge myself & making this was super out of my comfort zone, so i’m sorry if this isn’t particularly good hehe. also pls ignore the way my art style changes like five times throughout this whole thing.

neil josten: favorite/most iconic line?

nathaniel wesninski: one thing you would change about the books? (plot, characters, etc)

andrew minyard: if you could be friends with one of the characters, who would you pick?

kevin day: if you played exy, what would your position be?

dan wilds: favorite moment/scene?

matt boyd: song you would love to see in a live-action adaptation?

nicky hemmick: which made you more emotional, neil at evermore or neil in baltimore?

aaron minyard: a character you will defend to your death?

katelyn: which minor character do you wish you could see more of?

allison reynolds: favorite headcanon about the foxes?

renee walker: favorite non-canonical ship? (renison, jerejean, etc)

seth gordon: most underrated dynamic? (matt & neil, wymack & andrew, etc)

david wymack: which ncaa team would you play for?

abby winfield: which character was the most realistically written?

besty dobson: how many times have you read the series?

riko moriyama: coolest exy moment? (kevin’s last-minute point against the ravens, andrew shutting down the goal, etc)

jeremy knox: which do you like reading more, domestic!foxes or chaotic!foxes?

Andrew would be livid, but he’s always claimed he doesn’t care about his birthday so it’s not like he can pull a no show on the game just because it’s his bday. His captain - who he shares an apartment with and also happens to be his husband - would just kill him‬

‪Neil might have also bribed him with a promise of chocolate ice cream for dinner, a bottle of quality whiskey and some other things Andrew shouldn’t be thinking about right now if he wants to keep the Hawks from scoring on him. ‬

‪Andrew starts thinking that maybe, maybe, playing a game on his bday might have its pros when they win 11-4 (see what I did there?) and Neil, who has scored 7 of those goals, is so exhilarated he jumps straight into his arms and kisses him on the court. Right in front of everyone.

‪He kisses his sweaty brow (disgusting), his jaw, his nose, his lips. And between the kisses he whispers “happy birthday drew”. Andrew tells him it’d be, a happy birthday, if he wasn’t playing exy. Or if they’d lost the game. ‬

‪ ‪But Neil doesn’t believe his words for a second. Andrew glares at him, but still he lets Neil take his hand and drag him to the locker rooms.‬

‪What Andrew hadn’t expected was to find Aaron, Katelyn and their 5-year old twins Alex and Ava waiting for him outside the stadium.

because my school is an absolute mess and i might as well milk it for content

neil: spent almost an entire maths exam zoned out with ‘you know, i get it…’ playing on loop in his head, yet still got an a (and was only a few marks off an a*)

medicated!andrew: stuck a bunch of sharp pins into an elastic band and put it around his neck, while looking someone in the eye, because she was afraid of needles (and he’s a menace)

sober!andrew: got a bunch of people together to make a diss track about kfc the ravens, and posted it on youtube. it had a few thousand views before the school made it get taken down.

aaron: when a teacher tried to explain a translation of something by asking the class “what does a babysitter do with kids?” he just replied, deadpan, “tranquillise them”

nicky: it was a non-uniform day, so he came into school wearing a hotdog costume. he got harassed for it by 80% of the year group.

kevin: was competent at high jump, so when a group of people were messing around instead of practising the sport ready for sports day, a pe teacher asked him to demonstrate. he misjudged the jump and knocked the pole over, and everybody laughed at him

matt: stood on the astroturf while surrounding by around 150 students, and shaved his head. i still don’t know why he did this.

dan: she had to do public speaking in front of her school house (around 300 students) and did her speech on the topic of soggy baguettes, purely because she didn’t give a shit. she came second.

allison: her friend was asking people what they thought his name would be if it wasn’t his actual name, and she looked him in the eye and said ‘bitch’ before going back to her work like nothing had happened

renee: in the middle of a lesson, randomly looked down and said “this is a really nice floor!” before walking around the classroom and asking if anyone needed help

wymack: was on a call to a student when a dog started barking in the background, so he yelled “shut the fuck up” at it, forgetting that he hadn’t muted himself and the student heard every word

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