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pretty--in--purple · 11 days

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Okay I’m awake again and something that really stood out to me with TSC was how different jean and neil are as protagonists. I expected they would be, but the thing I really noticed was how distinct their reactions were.

So, these books are HEAVY. There are many many traumatic events and the characters spend a lot of time in high-stress situations. Even when they’re not being attacked or threatened or XYZ, they’re often in a state of heightened physiological arousal (their sympathetic nervous system is going haywire). As a psychologist, the thing I find really interesting is that we see very different reactions that are all aligned with different adrenal responses, and I wanted to talk about it.

As a baseline, when your sympathetic nervous system is activated, you typically experience what some psychologists call the four Fs. Fight, flight, freeze, and/or fawn (some people use another word here but I don’t like it and think it’s less accurate to the situation). These can occur simultaneously or alone. And of the four characters who are most showing this response are the ones who are consistently in the highest stress situations, but who are also traumatised in such a way that even when they’re not actively in danger their sympathetic nervous system is overreactive and heightened.

So first off, we have Neil. He’s pretty clearly shown to have two responses: flight and fight. For his entire childhood, he’s been fleeing from danger and in the earlier parts of AFTG, we see this response - he tries to run as far as he can possibly get from anything that might be a risk. As a side point, this is pretty clearly a learned response from his mother. As Neil begins to feel more secure and his flight response is impeded (he can’t run away) we see the emergence of his other primary adrenal response - fight. I don’t feel like I need to explain this one, tbh, we’ve all seen how he runs his mouth. Fight is also typically shown when you believe you can defeat whatever’s threatening you, so I love what this says about how his confidence develops across the trilogy.

Then you have Andrew. He’s not a POV protagonist but I feel like his response might be the most obvious. His primary responses are fight and freeze (Andrew Minyard runs from/fawns for no man). Fight is pretty obvious - he’s a very violent person - but I feel like the most clear example of this is stopping Riko from attacking Neil. Andrew is obviously wired and his instinctive response is to protect. I love that for him. His other primary response, unfortunately, is freeze. Based on the most obvious time we see it (during Drake's attack), this is probably a response he developed as a child, before he felt strong/safe enough to fight back. God, these books make me sad sometimes.

Next is Kevin. He has a slightly more varied response - i can see the argument for him freezing, although i wouldnt say it's a primary response - but his main two responses are fight and fawn. Fight isn't necessarily literal, btw - the most obvious example is covering his tattoo. His fawn response is slightly more expanded on in TSC (mild spoilers if you haven't read that yet) when we see him responding to Riko's attack by begging first Riko and then Jean to intercede and stop the violence. he's trying to appeal to their affection for him, which is absolutely heartbreaking. Kevin i love you.

And finally, we have Jean, whose primary responses are only really made clear in TSC, although they are backed up by his appearances in the trilogy - freeze and fawn. We see freezing in Jean's response to sympathetic nervous system arousal, often from hearing about or recalling upsetting events/information. He closes in on himself and becomes unresponsive. Fawn is slightly more complicated, as we see it somewhat throughout AFTG. when he's loyal to riko and doing things he thinks riko will like in hopes of reducing any potential pain/threat he will experience, i'd call that fawning. an example at usc is him getting on his knees and handing coach rhemann his racket - he's not just submitting to punishment, he's trying to be helpful and well-behaved in hopes of lessening it. it's honestly a really strong response from him and it absolutely breaks my heart. jean in tsc is really struggling and i hope the last book brings him some peace. i also find it really painful that he's the only one of these boys without a fight response - he's never felt capable of winning against his abusers. i really hope the trojans and bee are able to help change that.

#tsc meta #tsc #tsc spoilers #the sunshine court #the sunshine court spoilers #aftg meta #aftg spoilers #neil josten #andrew minyard #kevin day #jean moreau #sky (the blogger) originals

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allfortheendgame · 10 days

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liar, liar...

It really strikes me how different characters lie and speak the truth in AFTG.

Neil lies like his life depends on it (and it often does). He avoids and redirects and lies as easily as he breathes, like second nature. You won't get truths out of him unless you pay the price of something he needs in return, and even then, he'll hide what he can.

Andrew trades truths, one at a time, carefully, slowly, holding on to details until they're demanded. Lies serve him little purpose when even his truths are not often believed.

Jean uses honesty as a weapon. He has a hundred secrets but he'll bluntly confess ninety-nine of them if it means someone will shut up out of sheer shock at his words. He only lies when the truth isn't an option, but he prefers to simply tell you he doesn't want to talk.

Jeremy lies for the greater good. He does so easily, effortlessly, so much so that he might at times even convince himself of the tale he's spinning. He'll lie to make himself seem to be in the wrong if it helps him make someone else look right, and he'll walk away with a smile right after.

#tsc spoilers #tsc #the sunshine court #meta #aftg #aftg meta #tsc mta

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writingpuddle · 11 months

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i wanna talk about this scene because its one of my favourite character moments for both aaron and neil. theyve just gotten to the cabin, only a handful of days after nathans death, and aaron gets neil alone and says this:

now listen. maybe what aaron is doing here is exactly what it looks like. maybe he is concerned that neil is exploiting andrew, and this is him being a protective brother. and i do think theres a part of him that is. he could also be reacting badly due to homophobia, and maybe a part of him is too. but mostly -

he's testing neil.

see, aarons not totally heartless. in that moment in baltimore, when neil was bloody and beaten to shit - aaron was horrified with the rest of them. he might not like neil particularly much, but when you see someone you moderately dislike tortured past the point of human endurance, youre going to put aside your dislike for a second. youre going to take their side, and aaron does. when the foxes claim neil, aaron is right up there with them.

but unlike neil and andrew, who spend the next few days in the emotional wringer with the feds, aaron had several days to process. to really process what allison pointed out to them.

and he realized he could use it.

maybe thats callous of him, but mostly its inevitable; this is how the twins have learned to communicate, to leverage each other with bribes and threats. he watched andrew nearly kill kevin, pick a fight with the feds, grip neils hoodie like he might disappear if he didnt hold on tight enough, and he understood that there was nothing andrew wouldnt do for neil.

meanwhile, neil is still coming off of weeks of telling himself, gritted teeth, its fine so long as andrew doesnt care about me, its fine so long as andrew doesnt care about me, its fine so long as andrew doesnt care about me...

hes barely begun to acknowledge the much less dangerous fact that he has feelings for andrew. less dangerous because if andrew doesnt care about him, then neils death wont hurt him, and neils feelings cant be hurt if hes the one that dies. but if andrew has feelings for him, then this whole time hes been risking that his death would break andrew - break the very person he most wants to protect.

so neil denies it. hes made the first wobbly step towards freedom, but he hasnt yet dealt with the moriyamas. he could still die at any moment. wrapping his head around his fathers death hasnt given him enough time to break those weeks of conditioning himself in the dark. andrew doesnt care about me. andrew cant care about me. neil will go to war for andrew but the idea that the converse is true is too dangerous to look at directly. to protect andrew, to protect himself, he denies it.

but when aaron asks neil if andrew will fight for him, he's not really asking. we can see it in the casual way he shrugs off neils denial. he doesnt care what neil says. he wants to see what neil does. he already knows - or has a pretty strong bet - what andrew will do. what he needs to know is if neil is serious.

listen, i am personally of the belief that if andrew released aaron from his deal for neils sake and then things went sour with neil, andrew would respect the broken deal anyway. but i dont think aaron sees that - he hasnt yet fully internalized that andrew does things out of his own brand of fairness, and not out of malice. so he needs to know; andrew will fight for this. will neil?

so he lobs a grenade at neil, a loaded accusation, and neil comes back swinging. and theres aarons answer. neil isnt exploiting andrew, hes not just playing around. hes as viciously protective of andrew as andrew is of him and those two repressed assholes might not be saying it with words, but aarons not stupid. andrew gave himself away when neil went missing and now neils showed his hand too.

neils right. he has been had, and hes just lucky that what aaron wants is exactly what neil wanted anyway.

#aftg meta #andrew minyard #neil josten #aaron minyard #the twinyards #the kings men #cw: rape mention

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allforthe-gays · 5 months

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shoutout to aftg for being the 8th most popular book on tumblr this year, we are all mentally ill 🫶

#aftg #all for the game #aftg shitpost #aftg meta #aftg thoughts #the foxhole court #the raven king #the kings men #the king’s men #nora sakavic

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hestiaflames · 6 days

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the enigma of jeremy knox

after one full read and revisiting some of my annotations (and shoutout to @andrewminyardslawyer for this collection of passages) I have attempted to collect my observations and conclusions/theories about the enigma named Jeremy Knox

please tell me your interpretations

Jeremy’s Dad

Mr. Wilshire is Jeremy’s stepfather (we know from "Bryson is in the sitting room with Mr. Wilshire" and then Jeremy referring to him as his stepfather. I was confused about this at the beginning lol)

This means that Knox is Jeremy’s dad’s name. Why doesn’t he want to be called Knox? Is it the reminder of divorce or his family drama when he’d rather not think about it?

Speaking of Jeremy’s dad: "Dad's been stationed [in Europe] a couple times". Most likely military, then. The tense (“Dad has been”) suggests that his dad is still in his life, not dead or estranged (otherwise I’d expect “Dad was stationed” instead). Unless perhaps Jeremy is going out of his way to hide it? He does avoid talking about his family, but he brings this up unprompted and I get the sense that Laila and Cat would know something that big so I don’t think this is a lie

Jeremy maintaining a relationship with his dad could certainly be a point of conflict with his stepfather and siblings, but doesn't seem to fit the "freshman year exy banquet scandal" we're catching wind of. It's possible his dad was involved, but I don't think it's where my money would go.

Jeremy’s Siblings

Cat tells Jean that Jeremy has one sister and two brothers. Twice we hear Bryson referred to as “the older brother” and Annalise as his younger sister, so the siblings are: Bryson, Jeremy, and Annalise-and-unnamed-brother-in-unknown-order.

Of course, we must address “Jeremy has–three” and Jean “idly wondering what she’d changed at the last minute and why”. It sounds like the number changed (unless I’m missing a possibility here?), so why?

Step or half siblings? There is a stepfather in the mix, so she could have increased it to include step or half siblings, but I lean towards not this. Jeremy says that “the Knox family was duty-bound to dress up and smile bright for [the] cameras”, which would be odd to say if his siblings weren’t all Knoxes. Also, Cat tells Jean this after telling him that her two oldest siblings are half siblings, so imo it would be an odd thing to hide on Jeremy’s behalf

Otherwise, I think we’re talking about a death or estrangement. The unnamed younger brother, probably (though perhaps a fourth sibling). Now this is “broke the family in half” or “destroyed the family” territory. “broke the family in half” could be a death but almost sounds more like a schism, perhaps between Dad & Unnamed Brother and the rest of the family? Or perhaps Jeremy&Dad?

Jeremy & Bryson. What is going on here?

Pretty much the first thing we learn about Jeremy is that he is avoiding his older brother, leaving without his keys to avoid the possibility of an interaction.

Jeremy says that Bryson always spends his summers at home, and also specifically says he’ll be staying at Cat & Laila’s over the summer but then only over on weekends during the school year.

The conversation he has with Lucas: “Do you feel safe with him there?” “He’s my brother” “That’s not what I asked” could be read as him being protective of his teammate, but also could be implying that Jeremy knows what it’s like to feel unsafe around his brother. Learning there have been physical altercations wouldn’t come from left field.

The Fall Banquet Exy Scandal

Speaking of breaking the family in half, what happened at this fall banquet?

Annalise says “Overdue for a new scandal… End the way you started”, so it happened his freshman year. She went out of her way to forget everything about Exy and can’t forgive Jeremy for continuing to play, so she seems to blame Exy as much as she blames Jeremy.

If it did in fact have to do with the younger brother, did he get hurt badly or die playing? If a high schooler died playing Exy three years before, would we have heard about it from Jean or Neil? Our other two narrators are not what you’d call tuned into the outside world all the time. On the other hand, yes Jeremy compartmentalizes even in his narration, but you’re telling me it never crosses his mind while playing a very rough sport if his brother was severely injured? It’s possible, but I’m not sold on this theory. It also wouldn’t explain why it’s tied specifically to the banquet.

The other thought I have is that something happened at that banquet that was some kind of PR mess. The family-in-politics obsession with being a “picture-perfect family” and Jeremy being unwelcome at dinner after bleaching his hair support this, but the Trojan reputation doesn’t. Whatever happened would have to walk the line between totally unacceptable to the family but also not a blemish on the Trojan reputation. Jeremy is made captain and Jean (who knows who he is and would be aware of a Trojan scandal even if it happened before his freshman year, since he was in the Nest and with Riko and Kevin) doesn’t know about it. Kevin is obsessed with the Trojans and with Jeremy, and Jeremy’s teammates (besides Lucas’ almost-comment about him being gay) show nothing but respect for him and his leadership.

I’ve seen speculation that it could have to do with Jeremy being gay, but this would again seem to contradict the fact that Jean and especially Kevin would know, wouldn’t they? I also don’t think Nora’s gonna do that. She wrote gay, trans, and polyamorous Trojans, which you could argue are accepted because it’s the Trojans, but even Jean doesn’t blink about Cody’s pronouns. It doesn’t really make sense to me that she’d pointedly avoid doing 2007-appropriate homophobia and then turn around and do 2007-appropriate homophobia. Possible? Yes. Do I think it’s gonna happen? No.

Cops

“There was little to no chance he’d know them, and no reason they’d recognize him, but Jeremy kept his gaze forward and mouth shut until they were past”. He’s afraid to be recognized. Is it because of a previous interaction (from the banquet? the scandal?) or because of his family? Is he apprehensive about them reacting to him, or something getting back to his family?

Later Rhemann offers to send Jeremy away before bringing the cops in after Jean is attacked. Jean has no idea why Rhemann is suggesting it, but it means that whatever Jeremy’s fear of cops is, he knows about it and also assumes Jeremy told Jean. This doesn’t seem like the kind of thing that Just Comes Up with your coach, so it’s probably based on a prior experience in college. The freshman year banquet again sounds like the likely explanation here.

Jeremy and Mental Health

Jean says “Maybe [Grayson] will also kill himself” and Jeremy replies “That isn’t a joke”, with “unexpected ferocity”. Cat winces. This could be Jeremy being well adjusted (A little before this, Cat says, “That’s not a thing well-adjusted people say”, after all), but his tone and Cat’s reaction makes it seem a lot more personal than Jeremy just saying “Suicide jokes aren’t funny”.

Guys, I think Jeremy’s mystery brother might’ve killed himself. If he played Exy and was bullied or maybe got seriously injured and later killed himself, and cops showed up when it happened, and it was somehow brought up during that banquet and Jeremy said something or reacted somehow that caused a familial rift… I think this is my leading theory.

Initially I didn’t think anything of “There’s been an accident”, but I wonder if maybe that’s how the news was broken to him about his brother. Or if his family insists on calling it “an accident” and maybe what happened at the banquet was Jeremy acknowledging that he doesn’t think it was.

“The right therapist can be legit life changing–just look at Jeremy for proof”, Cat says. We knew from the first Jeremy chapter that he was in therapy and talked about his family, but “life changing” speaks to the severity of all of it. His mom picking the therapist suggests that either he was off the rails enough for her to intervene (more likely mental health issues than something like drug use, again given the Trojans) or that she’s more supportive or sympathetic to him than his siblings and step father. We hear few references to his mom; just a passing comment about her bookkeeper, a mention that she makes the kids go to fundraisers and other events, and that she’s allergic to dogs. Oh, we also know that his mother didn’t hit him. We know he doesn’t get on with his sister or older brother and is “permanently on his stepfather’s bad side”, but very little at all about his relationship with his mom.

Miscellaneous

About the floozies, and I actually don’t think this is Jeremy backstory. Cat says it was “in response to some drama my freshman year”. She’s a rising junior, so that would’ve been Jeremy’s junior year. Jeremy’s scandalous exy banquet was his freshman year, so I think this is Catalina backstory, not Jeremy’s. I am obsessed with the fact that the queer Trojans nicknamed themselves the floozy line. Icons

One other line that seems potentially telling to me is, “What’s Grandpa think of this investment of yours”. What did Annalise mean by investment? Jeremy putting his time into exy? His use of money? The last thing Jeremy said was about Jean, could he be the “investment”? I think it’s most likely about exy, maybe how his commitment to it either reflects badly on the family or is seen as a silly endeavor

god, i could not be more excited for tsc2, or for the speculation in the meantime

#the sunshine court #tsc #tsc spoilers #the sunshine court spoilers #jeremy knox #jean moreau #usc trojans #aftg #all for the game #my post #aftg meta #tsc meta

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tell-me-your-vision · 2 years

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Anyone else think it’s so easy for Neil to understand Andrew’s whole “I hate you and I’m going to protect you with my life” thing because that’s exactly how Neil’s mom regarded him?

She cared for him and protected him, but she absolutely resented him because she cared about him?

Do you think the reason Neil is so comfortable in a relationship where his partner routinely calls him stupid and useless, says he hates Neil, and states that he wishes Neil was dead, is because that’s the kind of “love” Neil is already familiar with?

And what do you think Andrew would do, when he makes that connection?

#aftg #all for the game #aftg meta #angsty thoughts #andrew minyard #neil josten #tfc #andreil #I speak #mary hatford

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achillean-heartbeat · 6 months

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im reading the extras of aftg again and it just hit me that Aaron knew since day 1 that Andrew was lying to himself and everyone else about not caring for Exy.

Since the first day Kevin came to him with riko to invite him to Th Ravens teams, since Kevin challenged Andrew on the eagles court, Aaron knew Andrew lied when Kevin asked him if he had fun and Andrew said no.

Because he recognized his own lying tics on Andrew's face.

and then Andrew finally answered his question at the end of The King's Men, when Kevin came back with the queen tattoo.

GOD I LOVE THEM SO FUCKING MUCH

#andrew minyard #kevin and andrews relationship is so fucking beautiful #neil josten #kevin day #aftg kevin #aftg meta #aftg andrew #aaron minyard #aftg aaron

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void-and-virtue · 5 months

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Thinking about Neil’s anger. Thinking about Neil’s jealousy. Thinking about emotions beyond ugly and raw bleeding right out of him the second he lets his mask slip even just a millimeter.

Thinking about how what Neil perceives as miasma hanging over him acts like a breath of life to Andrew’s drowning. Thinking about how everyone expects them to cover each other in bile and guts until they’re both festering even worse than before and that’s not what happens. Thinking about how when they look at each other in the aftermath of their poking and prodding, it’s with the most rotten parts of themselves on display, but those parts have finally been drained and what’s left might just get the chance to heal.

#Neil is a shot of epinephrine when Andrew has been flatlining for years #Andrew is a door that has to swing open and almost break Neil’s nose for him to realize that it’s there and an out to the running #also #Andrew’s selflessness being the most destructive thing about him #to the point where getting angry and selfish is actually what he needs more instead of less of #the way Neil understands that about him when nobody else gets it #also the way Andrew is at first most fascinated by the exact things that make Neil feel ugly raw and exposed #and how that becomes the space Neil needs to let go and lay himself out in the open #the understanding and acceptance of it all and the way they become a safe space for the other #if I think about this too much I might just spontaneously combust #aftg #all for the game #neil josten #andrew minyard #andreil #aftg meta

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jeanmoreaux · 9 days

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Can’t stop thinking about tsc and jean finally asking for help im not sleeping tonight

you and me both!!! also. i know i keep coming back to the parallels/differences between neil and jean but when jean asked for help ofc my mind immediately went to help me/let me in trk and the way these two scenes are emblematic of their individual journeys. neil’s main concern has always been surviving the dangerous Now, and the first time he asks for help it’s a plea for wymack to help him make it through the moment. he’s incredibly close to splintering and he needs someone to hold him together for the time it takes to get back to himself. jean’s main concern has always been surviving the hopeless Future. so the first time he asks for help it’s not a “help me rn” it’s a “help me survive what comes next.” he’s lost and scared, the ground has been pulled out from under him, and he needs someone to help him imagine a future he can live in. a future he can hold in his mind. a future that can hold him together.

#oh i got off track again. alas. the brainrot has taken over.#thanks for the message love i appreciate it so much <3 #the sunshine court #all for the game #neil josten #jean moreau #tsc #tsc spoilers #aftg #mish reads tsc #answer #ask #tsc meta #aftg meta #<- in the loosest sense

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stick-ball · 4 days

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The Sunshine Court by N.Sakavic + The Tyger by W.Blake

Tyger Tyger burning bright,

In the forests of the night:

What immortal hand or eye,

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies.

Burnt the fire of thine eyes?

On what wings dare he aspire?

What the hand, dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art,

Could twist the sinews of thy heart?

And when thy heart began to beat,

What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain,

In what furnace was thy brain?

What the anvil? what dread grasp,

Dare its deadly terrors clasp!

When the stars threw down their spears

And water’d heaven with their tears:

Did he smile his work to see?

Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger Tyger burning bright,

In the forests of the night:

What immortal hand or eye,

Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

#the sunshine court #the sunshine court spoilers #aftg #all for the game #the foxhole court #tfc #neil josten #jean moreau #riko moriyama #kevin day #elodie moreau #stuart hatford #david wymack #nora sakavic #william blake #tsc #the sunshine court edit #aftg edit #aftg meta

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deadliestpieceontheboard · 1 year

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i know where the "aaron grew up with [insert awful thing here]" takes come from, but i want to highlight that nicky says tilda only started abusing him when they moved to SC and isn't this it's own brand of terrible?

tilda never being a loving, caring mother, but never negligent. feeding him, taking him to church every so often, letting him do kid's stuff as far as it didn't bother her too much. we even know she took him with her on a date to an exy game.

then they find out andrew and his life is now awful. they find andrew and he hates aaron. his mother moves them across the country and his twin is in juvie. tilda gets angry just by looking at his face and now *she* hates him too.

he doesn't know anyone at school and his mom hits him at home and begin taking those pills and his uncle preaches about the importance of family at church and his cousin is gone to germany...

and everything was fine six months ago. and then they met andrew.

#and like #i think this adds another layer to the twinyards issues regarding tilda #because andrew didnt Know her before #aaron wanted her to go back to three years before #he knew how she could be she was better than that for 13 years #and then andrew killed her #aftg #all for the game #the foxhole court #tfc #aaron minyard #andrew minyard #aftg meta

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lolhex12 · 2 months

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i'm probably extremely late to the party but i just realized how deep Andrew's sacrifice and Aaron's betrayal go when it come to the Twinyard's dynamic like??

Andrew, after having spent years alone in the foster system and suffering through the trauma that comes with it, he finally found Cass, a woman who genuinely cared about him and wanted to be his mother - someone he was willing to sell his soul (and body) to the devil for and endure the abuse Drake put him through bc that was just the price he had to pay for Cass' love, care and kindness. all bc he dared being selfish and wanting something for himself for once. he loved her and wanted her love back so bad to the point he would cut himself to cope with being in that house when Cass wasn't looking.

after accepting this new reality of his and resigning himself to the pain (psychological, emotional, physical and self-inflicted), he found out he had a twin brother who looks EXACTLY like him yet got to live a (to his knowledge) stable loving life with their birth mother. that Andrew got thrown away while his carbon copy had everything.

he hated the revelation so he put it out of his mind, went back to Cass' where Drake found out abt Aaron and ran his mouth abt having both twins for himself and... it's not like Andrew hated nor loved or felt any kind of attachment to his brother (who was still basically a stranger to him), and yet he knew, bone-deep, that 1) no one deserved to go through what Andrew had (especially someone 'untouched' (so to speak) who looked like him; as in, the picture in Andrew's mind resembled a young, still innocent, 7y/o Andrew who had not yet fully grasped or learned how to deal with just how cruel the world could be when thinking abt Aaron in the same position), and 2) he didn't want to give Drake the satisfaction.

so, Andrew, after having endured however long Drake's abuse in Cass' household and cutting himself to cope with it, all for the right to stay with her, he gave it all up when he received Aaron's letter asking to meet and rejecting the offer with a 'fuck off' bc he could not risk Aaron getting too close and going through anything remotely similar. he didn't owe his brother anything, nor had they made a deal by that point, yet Andrew, despite not really knowing Aaron, could not risk getting him into his own shit. and so, all those years of pain and sacrifice Andrew had to endure went down the drain bc he wanted to protect a stranger wearing his face, out of his own volition.

Andrew then did sth that landed him in juvie and thought everyone's safe now bc Drake can't get to Aaron anymore, until Aaron visited Andrew in juvie and Andrew noticed the bruises on Aaron's arms and Andrew realized Aaron might not be as safe as he'd thought after all.

ALL that pain and sacrifice thrown away to protect his twin and the fucker still wasn't safe?? mother dearest count your days.

so he got out of juvie early on good behavior (which was a bitch to manage but what was he to do when he had to leave to protect his brother?) and adopted into the Minyard household to see who was hurting his stranger of a brother, for whom Andrew has already given so much up?

Aaron, as we know, agreed to Andrew's deal, not expecting his brother to commit matricide bc of it. a deal which to Andrew seemed simple enough: 'l'll protect you and help you get into med school and become a doctor and all you have to do is stick together with me' (aka not let anyone (women in particular) get between us).

so, after all that sacrifice, after sacrifice, after putting his life on the line by participating in Tilda's car accident, getting his brother clean, curating his friend group to a drug-free environment (later also putting his own reputation with the team on the line by violently getting matt clean for the same reason), getting him a scholarship to get into med school and become a doctor (as agreed), THIS FUCKER could not even hold up his own end of the deal while Andrew literally checked every box and then some for his idiot ungrateful brother.

meanwhile it took Aaron seeing Andrew get sa'd, killing his abuser, and years of joint therapy to begin to comprehend just how much Andrew endured, sacrificed, risked and overall did for him without Aaron even realizing. bc Andrew doesn't do what he does for recognition or gratitude, he does it bc that's what's been agreed to.

---

this is not meant to diss Aaron's character but simply put the entire situation into perspective from Andrew's POV. like, no offence to Aaron but Andrew legit bent over backwards for him and Aaron's response was just "ure a psycho, i choose Katelyn" (or at least that's how Andrew viewed it)

all that being said, Andrew definitely could've communicated the situation and his intentions better, or at least explain how much those deals really meant to him, but unfortunately he wasn't quite there yet (if ever) <- in other words: it wasn't Aaron's nor Andrew's fault. shit's just shit sometimes ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

#i'm really late to the party but i never thought abt it like that or this deeply #like. from Andrew's pov Aaron is just too stupid or doesn't care enough to realize just how much he did for him #aftg #all for the game #andrew minyard #aaron minyard #twinyards #meta #aftg meta

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