that william and benji scene…

if i had a nickel for every time i was TRICKED into caring about a sport (real or imagined), i’d have three nickels. which isn’t a lot. but it’s embarrassing it happened Three Fucking Times

Character, book, and author names under the cut

Nicky Hemick- All for the Game by Nora Sakavic

Genevieve Lefoux- The Parasol Protectorate series by Gail Carriger

Jack Wolcott- Wayward Children Series by Seanan McGuire

Benji Ovich- Beartown by Frederik Backman

it'd be really fucking nice to just feel and like things a normal amount. but nooooo my neurodivergent ass really gotta just fall madly and obsessively in love with fictional characters and then have unhealthy levels of emotions over them and how fucked up and sad their lives are

all heart

ohhhh shut up the way benji ovich literally gives and gives and gives and no one recognizes it because they refuse to look deeper or because he doesn't let them. its interchangeable tbh. the way he destroys the rest of the bathroom for maya. the way he gives her his and k/vin's island. i will never be quiet about him

the thing that always breaks my heart about benji ovich is just... how good he is. how selfless. how kind. how he helps people without expecting anything in return, without even asking for acknowledgement. he just has such a strong, solid moral streak, far superior to that of his peers and even those of the adults around him. 

he stops bobo from attacking amat in his fury after their first training session together, saving amat (whom he just met) from potentially serious injury. he splits with kevin, his best friend and the boy he’s loved for years, for the unforgivable act of hurting an innocent girl. he’s one of the first few people to believe maya and take her side. he wrecks an entire bathroom in school just so she doesn’t get in trouble for smashing the mirror, taking on all the blame for himself. he steps aside in the bathroom as she’s storming out so that she doesn’t physically touch him and relive her trauma. time and time again he throws himself in the line of fire to protect the people around him, even those he barely knows. 

and in spite of all that he still truly believes himself to be a monster. he’s convinced that he’s beyond redemption, that something inside him is irreparably damaged. he doesn’t want to be saved because he doesn’t think he deserves it. he gets high and starts fights and shuts people out because he’s afraid of those he loves seeing how gentle and vulnerable he truly is. despite being one of the most self-sacrificing and considerate individuals in beartown, he still makes himself out to be the villain.

it just gets me every time, man. 

benji ovich and his need to belong and his desire to leave and his innate loneliness and his air of tragedy and his complete lack of fear while being totally scared and his wearing of his heart on his sleeve and his closely guarded secrets and his constant yearning for the past and his blunt sense of humor and his guilt over being unable to stop loving the version of kevin he knew and his genuine love for maya and his camaraderie with his teammates and his refusal to show weakness and his relationship with his older sisters and his complete exhaustion but inability to rest and his gentleness with alicia and his heroic nature despite him not ever believing himself to be a hero and his feeling useless but he’s not actually useless not at all and his need to run away from who everyone thinks he is but his inability to escape his past, from what beartown made him.

I can’t express to you how grateful I am that Amat and Maya never got together in Beartown. And how Maya didn’t get with anyone in the series.

Amat went through some serious growth, but we can’t forget that he witnessed Maya’s rape and allowed her to get cruicified by the residents of Beartown for it. Despite him knowing the truth- that Maya wasn’t lying- he didn’t say anything in favor of fitting in with the team. He did come out in defence of Maya later on, but the damage was already done. He chose to be silent. 

Maya forgave Amat and they became friends, but after what he did, having a romantic relationship would be off the table. Not only that, but because of Maya’s trauma from the assault, she probably wouldn’t be in the mental head space to date anybody. Even in the last installment of the series, she is getting there, but she isn’t ready to be with anyone romantically.

Not all female characters need romance subplots. Maya was a character that didn’t need a love interest, so she didn’t have one. She existed as her own character, and her plot focused on her, her familial relationships, and her friends. Some authors- mostly male- can’t comprehend that women can exist without a boyfriend, but Maya remained single the whole series. Another reminder that Fredrick Backman is a genius and one of- if not the only- man I trust to write female protagonists with grace and respect.

benjiiiiiiiii

fuck it. Benji Ovich fanart.

doodled this a while ago, and no I havent watched the show so its just my direct interpretation from the books :3

I was thinking about Benji and The Winners today. I’m still not over it. My heart still aches for him. It’s a credit to Backman and his writing, his characters.

Even though we’re warned from page one that Benji is going to die, then forewarned throughout the book. As the story goes, we’re told we have only a few more days, this is the last time. We should be prepared. We aren’t. Grief doesn’t work like that.

Backman describes the Beartown series as a fairytale. Maybe it is, in the darker of ways. There is the darkest kind of grief - devastating and all consuming, leaving you hollowed out and aching. There’s hatred and violence, betrayal, bigotry, cursing, anger and the worst of humanity. But there’s also love, and laughter. Happiness and loyalty, kindness, forgiveness. All the best of us.

“A boy with sad eyes and a wild heart” shut up shut up shut up Benji deserved so much more 😭😭😭 the ending was so perfect but so sad

why is there no one on tumblr to scream about any of my blorbos with me???!?!??!?!?!? this is the blorbo website and yet no one will engage with me about any of mine and it's not faaiiirrrr

more beartown art 🥲

“Shall I teach you a trick? The way we’re lying now, I used to lie like this when I was little. I used to climb in through that window the night before I was going to play a game, but you mustn’t tell the caretaker!” Alicia nods and promises. “Then what?” she wonders. “Then I would lie here and look up at the roof and think, ‘Now I’m alone in the world.’ I sort of memorized the silence. Because I’ve never been scared when I’m alone, only among other people.” “Me too.” Benji hates the fact that the child knows exactly how that feels. She’s too young for that. But he tells it like it is: “No one can hurt you when you’re alone.”