We’re watching the Return of the King right now, and got to the part where Denethor is introduced. My husband asks me for the context of why Denethor is Like That, since I just finished reading the book. So I explained how Denethor has been using a Palantir for years to get information, and how Sauron has been manipulating him by only letting him see events that give him a worst possible impression of reality.
So my husband replies “Oh! So Denethor is basically just like your grandpa after he starts getting all his news from Fox.” And honestly, yeah pretty much.
Warn people before you make statements like that. I was not ready.
My brain cannot accept that able bodied people don’t have a base pain level. Like? You’re not in pain?? At all??? Even a little bit??? You don’t have a constant background radiation of pain???
Andrew always says that he has strict rules for himself and the world, that everything must be black-and-white, good or bad, honesty or lies, no in-between whatsoever. Unsurprisingly however, his life isn’t so clear cut. He says that he doesn’t trust people and he makes deals for people to stick around, and yet he’s friends with Renee and trusts Bee, with no strings attached. He says that everyone sees him as a monster and says that he doesn’t care if people do, and yet he’s absolutely dying for someone to see himself, a person who was fucked-up by the monsters of the world and desperate to keep himself alive. He says that his brother and cousin, and later Kevin, are the only things keeping him around, but the truth is that he found the smallest reason to stay and latched onto it with all he had. He wants to stay just as bad as Neil does because no one has ever let him stay, every home he’s ever been in has been temporary and he’s just waiting for this one to go away too. Andrew himself contradicts his own rules because he is nether good nor bad, he’s not a saint and he’s not a monster, he’s just a person, he’s just an incredibly wounded human being who has stopped believing that truly good people exist and yet still craves love and trust so fucking deeply.
Maybe Andrew Minyard pretends that he lives in the black-and-white to keep others from realizing that he’s so gray.
I’m not entirely sure where I’m going with this, but I really want to talk about how the upperclassmen and the monsters mirror each other. How each member of the monsters has a counterpart in the upperclassmen, someone with a similar backstory and similar motivations and goals, but with certain crucial differences that serve to highlight all the character development that happens throughout the books.
For instance, there’s Andrew and Renee: both foster children with harsh pasts who murdered and feel no remorse for it, but forced to face the consequences regardless. Andrew is left with a brother who can’t forgive him; Renee has to deal with the knowledge that she’ll never be the good person she wants to be. They have the same fighting style - defensive, reactive, but knowing that the only way to win is to stop your opponent from ever hurting you again; they both play goalie because they’re both best when they stand at everyone else’s backs and prevent anything from getting past them. There’s a reason Andrew charges Renee with protecting her half of the team, and not Dan, the official leader; where Dan is focused on moving forward and charging down the opposition, Renee and Andrew are about making sure everyone under their wing survives.
Then there’s Dan and Kevin, the team leaders (one official, one unofficial), a striker and an offensive dealer/occasional striker sub, #1 and #2. They’ve both been pushed down and shoved aside, marked as second-best or second-rate, and they both refuse to let that stop them. They both fight because they don’t know how to lose, because they can’t know how to lose, and they expect the same from everybody else. Kevin won’t accept anything but the best because that’s what he’s been taught, that’s the only way he knows how to live; Dan knows that anything less than perfection gives everyone else the right to stomp all over you, and is determined to never let that happen again. (And then there’s the fact that they both see Wymack as a father).
Masculine things Andrew does that Neil can’t help but drool over
• When he’s driving. When he’s holding Neil’s hand or has one hand on Neil’s thigh he’ll make a turn with one hand, shifting it all the way to the side of the wheel and Neil will catch a glimpse of the tendons in his hand before he turns the wheel so easily and the car turns so smoothly it’s like it takes him no effort at all
• When he does bicep curls in front of the mirror at the gym. He won’t even have tension in any other part of his body, he’ll stand there so relaxed like it those weights aren’t fucking heavy. Neil can’t stop staring at the way his bicep flexes and relaxes, and the indifferent expression of Andrew’s face as he looks at either his arm or himself in the mirror
• When he wipes the sweat off his forehead with his shirt and exposes his stomach, Neil just wants to spread his fingers over his stomach and kiss away the sweat and wonders if it would taste salty
• When they’re alone and he walks around shirtless
• When he plays video games and he does that thing where he leans forward with his elbows on his knees and he has that focused expression on his face
• When he gets angry
• When he gets angry and slams things, like when he’s frustrated with his video game and he slams the controller
• When he puts his feet up on tables with his hands in his pockets and a what are you gonna do about it expression on his face
• When he wears suits
• When he ruffles his hair or brushes it out of his eyes without noticing he’s doing it
• When he makes and effort on game nights or at practices because Andrew is good. He’s so competent with a racquet in his hands and he can slam a ball so fucking far he’s so strong and he’s just competent
• His morning voice. His goddamn morning voice right in Neil’s ear when he wakes up because Neil is getting up to go running and he says “Junkie” or “Fuck You” or something but the best is when he pulls Neil back onto the bed and against his chest and hums and Neil can feel the vibrations against his back
• When they’re making out and Andrew pulls him closer by his waist or a hand on his back
• When his hand is on Neil’s shoulder, or his neck or something and he’ll rub circles into Neil’s skin with his thumb or two of his fingers
• When he has his hand in Neil’s hair and he scratches his fingernails lightly on Neil’s scalp in slow, rhythmic movements
• When he squeezes Neil’s thigh
• When he stretches and his shirt rides up so Neil can se his abdomen and he leaves it there
• When he’s sitting on the couch with his head tilted back so Neil can see his throat and his adam’s apple bobbing when he swallows
• When he’s wearing combat boots and chains and earrings and he goes full goth
• When he wears rings and jewellery
• When he puts a cigarette in his mouth and lights it and the takes the first drag and lets blows out the smoke
• When he kisses Neil with smoke still in his mouth
Bonus things Andrew does that are not necessarily masculine but make Neil’s heart do gymnastics
• When he naps in the sun and he’s curled up on the bed and the sun makes his hair glow
• When he yawns
• When something sappy or sweet that Neil said whether on purpose or by accident makes Andrew blush and he hides it by putting a hand over his face.
• When he leans on Neil
• When he puts his hand under Neil’s shirt just to stroke his skin and feel the warmth
• When he’s sleepy
• When he makes Neil lie down to be a pillow for him but he doesn’t ask he just pulls Neil in by his hoodie sleeve or his hand and shoves him on the bed and makes himself comfortable
• When he says I hate you in the softest tone and then kisses Neil deeply, cupping his jaw and then pecks him chastely before pulling away
this literally made me sob i love this so much it’s absolutely gorgeous?? your mind is chef kiss
You know thank you and everything but also your username?? I can’t it’s the best thing I’ve seen today
during the height of the minyard-josten rivalry, a tiktok account is made titled “andrewminyardshusband”
At first it’s believed to be a stan account or something similar, since all they do is post clips from his games and interviews, half the time zoomed in on his arms with a ridiculous commentary dubbed over it
No one knows who makes the videos, mainly because they always use voice filters
But then the account starts posting videos of andrew?? Like at home?? And they’re not like reposted Instagram stories, it really seems that this person is living with andrew
(these videos coincidentally start posting around the same time that neil josten joins andrews team)
Even weirder, they actually seem to be andrews husband, which astounds literally everyone because how did no one know about this???
The account blows up, obviously. Like, millions of followers, gets verified, the whole shebang
And it isn’t always Andrew, half the time it’s videos of their cats doing cat things (he tried out the tinfoil thing to get them to stop jumping on the counters and eating his sandwiches, king got so scared by it that she hid on top of the fridge for an hour. Meanwhile, sir didn’t give a single fuck and layed down directly on the tinfoil)
The account’s most viewed video is of a slow zoom of andrews biceps with the careless whisper intro played over it
He starts answering questions in the comments while pointing the camera at andrew
“‘How did we get our cats?’ we found them in a dumpster. As far as we can tell they were raised together and fell in love. I’m 99% sure they’re lesbians”
“’why does andrew wear armbands?’ because his forearms are too powerful to be viewed by the general public” *the video is a slow zoom up to andrew’s glare*
“‘are you and andrew actually married?’ yes. fuck you.” (andrew flips off the camera with his left hand) “wrong finger, dumbass”
“‘how did you two get together?’ he threatened to kill me and I thought that was hot"
“’can you two kiss?’ like, physically? yeah. right now though? i dunno, i’m comfortable sitting on this table and andrew is all the way over on the couch”
“’whats your opinion on neil josten and the whole rivalry he has with Andrew, especially after he joined his team?’ I really don’t give a single fuck and neither does andrew”
“Have you met neil josten?” is one of the questions he gets asked and no one knows why he’s laughing so hard or why andrew rolls his eyes when he answers with “yeah he’s pretty cool”
Sometimes the other foxes make appearances in the videos, like Renee baking in their kitchen while Andrew is filching cookie dough or Nicky, Aaron, and Andrew all sitting on the floor and feeding the cats catnip.
the speculation on who andrew minyard’s husband is is astronomical. it grows beyond the exy sphere and practically every comment is “who is this guy??”
People keep asking but all he answers with is “I’m andrews husband, can y'all read?”
People ask the other foxes (who don’t say shit cause why would they), comb through their social medias to see if he’s in any pictures or videos
It is then believed that andrews husband has to be one of the foxes from Andrew’s sophomore year, and due to half of them being related to him, one being married, and one being neil josten, it is then believed that andrews husband is Kevin
At least it is until the account posts a video of kevin being asked “thoughts on being andrews husband?” “like of you being his husband?” “no, you being his husband.” “what?? Ew, no, gross” “I cant tell if that’s more insulting to Andrew or to me”
So everyone is back to square one
Until
Until
there’s a new video on the account
And it’s of andrew on the couch reading a book and he gets asked “what’s it like having me as your husband?” but!!! There’s no voice filter?? And it sounds vaguely familiar, like they’ve heard it before?? And he wasn’t even answering a commenter question. and then Andrew grabs the phone and turns it to show neil josten, neil josten!!! sitting on the other side of the couch in a bright orange sweatshirt and a smirk while Andrew says “fucking infuriating”
Needless to say, all four million followers implode upon seeing it
- asking wymack to choose a number between 1 and 5 and letting the opposition have only those many goals before he shut them out completely
- the time he remembered that striker’s go to penalty shot and saved an impossible fucking goal by moving before the dude even caught the ball
- the ravens attempted ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY (150) goals (the actual fuck) and he only let in THIRTEEN (13),,,,,, sir
- when he made nicky instigate a fight on purpose so he’d get the ball from the penalty shot and rebound it to neil to make a goal because “the game was getting boring”
- also andrew stopping every goal in that second half and bouncing off rebounds off the opposition’s helmets just to rile them further
- the time he shut out the goal completely when neil asked him to and for the first time ever started talking to the defense and chewed them out and matt was straight up grinning like it was the most fun he’d had in years
- his mad gamble in the final raven match to switch neil’s position from a striker to a backliner?? (fucking genius). also him letting renee play the first half because he knew he could control the game in half 2 if she showed him how they played
