This Speaking As A Cis Person. Nothing Brings Me More Joy Seeing People Find Gender Euphoria In Becoming

I love the raven cycle because it’s a heart wrenching exploration of love and loss and bonds beyond friendship and then the average Ronan subplot is him doing copious amounts of drugs in a car belonging to a boy who he’s got a criminally insane homoerotic rivalry with

happy birthday neil josten and his little fox paw doodles and his fraying-at-the-hems shirts and his scary ahh smile and his electric blue bambi eyes and his unsettling demeanour and his inability to half-ass anything except for school and his fearlessness and ruthlessness and his love for maths of ALL fucking things and his zombie cowboy halloween costume and his bad temper and his smart mouth that only knows how to talk mad shit, lie, and kiss andrew and his pretty face and his four minute mile and his favourite colour being grey and his five-something languages that he speaks and his fierce devotion to exy and the foxes and jean and his insane aura and his general nonchalance and his breakfast burrito that he hid behind and his napkin that he ordered a hit on and his stalker binder and his keys and cigarettes. i will never love another the character the way i love neil josten.

Andrew based on this screenshot of a tweet I saw on Pinterest

no cos if casual by chappell roan was ever gonna be used for andreil it would be from andrew's pov NOT neil's do you understand because andrew never even said it was casual between them (much as i think neil is really smart he was pretty blind to andrew's feelings for him during their little nothing) it was always neil who thought it was casual between them (lbr it NEVER was). if u recall he justified the relationship to himself because he thought andrew felt nothing for him and so it wouldn't really mean anything to either of them, and it wasn't until after baltimore when neil realised it was more than that. andrew knew that his feelings for neil were more than just physical attraction since their little confrontation in exites before they went to the hemmicks' house, but neil (i think purposefully) remained blind to it. you said we're not together, so now when we kiss i have anger issues is so much more of an andrew line than it is for neil cos neil was always under the impression that it was casual and was fine with it (until he wasn't) but andrew knew it wasn't casual and didn't bother to correct neil but HOW WAS HE FEELING.

ronan lynch is better than me because if my dad had recently died and my brother was a dick and my crush started dating someone else and my best friend was going to die in a year and i was conjuring shit out of my dreams i would have been even a bigger asshole than he is

rereading tsc is awful bc every five pages im reminded of the amount of abuse jean went thru at evermore, like HE WAS 16 WHEN OFFICIALLY JOINED OMFG

thinking about kevin day winning his first olympic gold medal.

kevin day who appears to the media as a confident athlete who knows how talented he is. everyone knew the gold medal was only a matter of when he’d get it and not if he gets it— he’s the son of exy after all. they might have seen him a bit stiff in his earlier years and people did not forget about his class i exy interviews in which he confirms he had never been skiing or that the palmetto state foxes’ coach is actually his father— but he has always maintained that kevin day winning smile and his polite composure with the perfect amount of charisma.

but then the US exy team wins the final game at the olympics. it’s the first time he has won the olympic medal and when the final whistle fills his ears, he quite literally drops to his knees, he yells out in celebration, and then when he takes off his helmet he is crying. he has finally done it. he has won the gold medal which he was so determined to win ever since he could remember.

and most people do not know the extend of what he had to sacrifice for it. they don’t realise the extend of how hard he had to work to get back to exy after his hand got broken— both mentally and physically. nor do they know the amount of panic attacks he had to deal with and the same amount of times he had to drown his feelings away with a bottle or three.

and he’s crying. the fans cheer him on. and it’s not just the USA fans— but it feels like the whole stadium starts cheering his name in celebration and support. because at the end of the day that’s kevin day and he has finally done it. he has gotten the medal and it’s literally going to be a historic moment.

andrew makes his way to kevin’s side and he helps kevin take off his gloves like he has done many times before. andrew wants to say something, maybe a remark that will get under kevin’s skin— but then he looks at kevin’s expression and he realises this is all they’ve been building up to for the past years.

and it’s not just kevin who has won the golden medal right now. it’s him too. his team. their team. and they’re all a bit speechless and astonished by this moment. so andrew helps kevin up and neither of them say a word to each other just yet, but kevin feels andrew’s weight shifting into him too— they’re both leaning onto each other; they’re both holding each other up.

so, another thing about collegiate teams is that they usually have an alumni game.

now the foxes don't have any alumni by the end of the books, but they will eventually.

now this might be different for a sport like exy (I played lax which really dosent have a large professional league, but the big d1 schools i think still do this too) but yk what it usually happens during pre-season anyways and its always a ton of fun.

Because what happens is that it's usually a game of alumni vs current players. and that is hilarious.

(Dan gets back on the court and gets to win against her current players)

(the current players are just like 'this is so unfair' and 'what the fuck do you mean I have to guard kevin motherfucking day' or ' how the fuck am I supposed to score? minyard is in goal???')

Neil has the time of his life btw - because an alumni game is also a chance for everyone to play on the foxes' court again, a chance to come home!

idk a huge draw of an AFTG tv show/movie for me is how much you could do with the exy games, particularly with there being no dialogue during them. like maybe this is just me and my fixation on soundtracking coming into play here but you really can focus an audience's attention purely through camera work and the music you have playing over it. like for example, during the first game in TFC i'd want most of the focus to be on kevin, because it's the first time we really see him play exy, and it's his huge comeback, and we're seeing him through neil's eyes– this champion who had his game destroyed and pulled himself back. so you focus on kevin visually, and then the soundtrack backs it up, with a song like Hysteria by Muse for example– something that sort of mirrors that part of the story lyrically.

in the final championship game, focus it on neil, again match it to a song (for me this is From Heads Unworthy by Rise Against). in the first ravens game, i'd focus on andrew, and his 137/150 saves with something like Down With The Sickness by Disturbed playing. something that mirrors the characters along with the focus of the game, highlight their playing styles you know