i’m learning to be gentle with him,

he’s still trying to forgive me. aiden, 18, they/them

[hedgehog-troops]

if you're here (on my blog) just know:

inbox ALWAYS open for marauders + aftg headcanons/microfic suggestions

asks always open, for rants, vents and everything (pls tell me everything cz im nosy but also give moderately good advice) <333

free palestine, sudan and congo.

Marauders Soc-Med AU out!!! (currently on hiatus)

i need to make this prettier some day

i like hearing opinions but not if youre being mean and rude. theres a difference between being blunt and honest, and then being rude and mean.

RANT TO ME I DONT CARE!!I WANNA KNOW ECERYTHING!N

jkr sucks.

any kind of hate speech against any kind of group of people and/or specific person¹ is not appreciated. (nobody gives a shit about why you dislike someoen. get off your high horse)

im ready to argue like 90% of the time, so i probably will.

also feel free to come to me with your problems, i genuinely want to listen and advice tho depending on the day the advice can range from poetic therapist to chaotic arom commiting bsf. :)

anon asks are always welcome, ask me about anything and ill asnwer what i feel comfortable with.

¹ unless theyre a celebrity or a known figure and you have proof/something thwy did that you did not like.

[hedgehog-troops]

sometimes praying feels like burning inside but i dont know how else to believe.

[hedgehog-troops]

thank you to whoever introduced neil calling andrew mein lowe because i am obsessed. like genuinely. he SO would.

[ickytacite]

more trans aftg. now!!!

[hedgehog-troops]

when the tv keeps glowing brighter but i decided at 16 that that was going to be the end of my gender crisis so i lowkey just tie a bandanna over my eyes 🤩

[hedgehog-troops]

nora was ahead of her time naming kevins mother kayleigh and not kayley, effortlessly predicting the pauhpewhluhrighzeighshuhn (popularisation) of the unnecessary vowels and consonants.

[hedgehog-troops]

when im reading kandreil, im fine with pre-established kandrew or andreil but not kevneil because i HATE HATE HATE seeing andrew minyard in any sort of emotional pain :(

[tswizzlesfan]

this is a love letter to neil josten, a demisexual man who never put a label to it because he doesn't care about how he's being perceived, he only cares about the man he loves likes. to andrew minyard, nicky hemmick and jeremy knox, three gay men who are so different but all had to suffer through their own personal hell and came out of it battered and bruised but still so so human it confuses you sometimes. to jean moreau, our resident bisexual diva who suffered unimaginable horrors but is so good to the core and his healing journey is healing all of us. to catalina alvarez and laila dermott, our lesbian couple who are the loveliest humans and the best example of a healthy relationship. to non binary icon cody winter who is an absolute badass and an incredible friend. to xavier morgan who is trans and gorgeous and the best vice-captain with his strong personality and the way he cares so much about his teammates.

to nora sakavic for creating all those interesting and complex characters who have so much personality that coexists, compliments and is complimented by their queer identity. representation matters so much 🌈

[butchandrew]

ik i rant about the wymack stuff a lot but god it is rough

Neil outright admits he stole Kayleigh's letter and has had it for MONTHS without Kevin knowing. Like, one of the only personal things he has of hers has been at Palmetto this whole time and now is being used against him.

And Neil outs this in front of the entire team and Neil explicitly switches to English saying that Kevin is going to go public about who his father is putting Kevin on the spot while he's actively telling Neil no.

(And this is after Kevin kept Neil's own secret for months on his behalf and literally just got choked out over it)

And like, Neil is right! The identity of who Kevin's father is has been a media spectacle since Kevin was born...because Kayleigh in her lifetime never wanted revealed. Like, Kevin would be outing something his mother never wanted to be public knowledge for several reasons.

The text validates that this is the right choice because Wymack is owed this information and it is "long past" when Kevin should have told him which feels so unfair. Kevin has no idea how Wymack would have taken the news that he was his father (canonically he doesn't take it well) and is literally on the run from his mob cult who wants him dead. If he miscalculated then he could be screwed.

And like, idk, I think if you want anyone to blame maybe it should be Kayleigh? Not Kevin who had no say in his mother's choice to hide it or his parents hooking up in the first place?

I think the worst part is when Neil tells the Foxes and shows far more empathy for their reaction to Coach being Kevin's father than for Kevin himself...and Kevin is doing this FOR NEIL.

And like I get it. Neil is a survivalist who would see this as something to use but the narrative and the Foxes at large all seem to agree this is for the best. That Kevin has deeply wronged Wymack by not telling him. And like...you're telling me none of the Foxes would understand Kevin and his daddy issues? The daddy issues team?

[butchandrew]

I've really loved seeing the discussion and points some people have brought up in their tags and replies to this. I wanted to follow up and write some more nuanced thoughts!

TLDR while I understand that these character reactions are not necessarily out of character, it is just an overall miserable read with little to no comfort which is a sentiment people seem to agree with.

I 100% get why Neil steals the letter and why he pressures Kevin to out his parentage. Especially fresh off Baltimore & still deep in his own survivalist mindset. Neil is capable of being callous when he needs to be and at this point in the narrative, is running on fumes and trying to find anything to secure his and the team's safety. He is reacting purely out of survival and nothing else. To him, Kevin outing Wymack is inevitable so why not use it now when it can do a "net good" for the team / Neil? I think this is an important part of Neil's character and we see similar reactions from him when his back is against a wall. I still think it is crazy though to steal someone's dead mom's letter and hide it for months Just In Case it came up like.

Kevin is not close to the Foxes the way Neil is so of course they react like that. Kevin very purposefully keeps his distance from them. They are much closer to and love Wymack and they idolize him as a father figure so of course their instinct is to worry about him. If they were in Kevin's shoes they would jump at the chance to have someone like him as a bio father. It just feels....weird (bad) to fixate so heavily on this while Kevin is literally downstairs crying over how bad it went.

All this to say while I get the why it shakes out this way. It just still reads as a pretty miserable experience. We also never really follow up on it and Kevin just spends the rest of the novel vaguely sad before he gets hammered enough to cover his tattoo and beat Riko at Exy.

And then Riko dies and he is devastated again sleeping on Wymack's couch.

Ok this is my rough thoughts and ideas thank you for reading.

[hedgehog-troops]

mind you, wymack is an adult. the decision to split off with kayleigh was both his and Kayleighs decision, kevin has no fault in it. perhaps jevin was following his mothers decision, perhaps he was dcared after being led to believe that he has no worth to even go to someone and force them to take him in because of a blood relation when already his relationship with Kayleigh has led to so so much hurt in his life.

kevin is a guy fresh out of a highly traumatic and high stress environment and was constantly being bombarded with more and more stressful situations, it would not have occurred to him to play house with wymack, not when he had already brough so much suffering to his team.

the foxes and the fandom is so blind to kevins own trauma, they forget that whilst wymack was a father figure to them, he was NOT one to kevin. and this is something i stand by forever.

whilst what wymack has done for the team is commendable with trying to keep his first batch of foxes clean, letting andrew off his meds for games, allowing neil to lie and lie, keeping matts spot through rehab, and probably a bunch more, he also was directly worsening kevins alcoholism. kevin remained withdrawn from everyone during his time at psu because whenever he showed any emotion that wasnt anger, wymack thrust a bottle into his hands and told him to drink.

how can one trust an adult who worsens your addiction?

[hedgehog-troops]

saying "as a bi/gay/lesbian person i support LGB" and then wearing that badge of honour from conservatives when they applaud and validate you is disgusting. because when you're not in the conversation, theyre talking about you too, theyre talking about all of us. when we're killed dead, who do you think they'll come for next? YOU.

conservatives are not your allies. they will call you slurs, they will warn their children against you.

stand for all or gtfo and keep your mouth shut.

[birdbloodbirthdays]

family line by conan but its neil. the WHOLE SONG is him.

My father never talked a lot  He just took a walk around the block (searching for victims) 'Til all his anger took a hold of him  And then he'd hit (the butcher. need I say more)

My mother never cried a lot  She took the punches, but she never fought  'Til she said, "I'm leaving, and I'll take the kids"  So she did (stealing the money and taking neil)

I'm so good at telling lies  That came from my mother's side  Told a million to survive (the fake identities) God, I have my father's eyes ( every time he looked in the mirror and saw blue eyes) I can run, but I can't hide (his father finding him even though he ran)

It's hard to put it into words  How the holidays will always hurt  I watch the fathers with their little girls  And wonder what I did to deserve this (the foxes returning to their families and neil having nowhere to go)

How could you hurt a little kid? (8 years on the run) I can't forget, I can't forgive you  'Cause now I'm scared that everyone I love will leave me (Andrew 'there is no this')

I was a kid but I wasn't clueless  (Someone who loves you wouldn't do this) (who SELLS THEIR OWN SON) (also the abuse and whatnot) All of my past, I tried to erase it (changing his name to neil legally so he doesn't die a lie) But now I see, would I even change it? (will he ever even escape, plus he sold himself off and is now bonded to ichirou for life) Might share a face and share a last name, but  (We are not the same) (him and Nathan)

[hedgehog-troops]

misgendering someone never made sense to me because I'll be using pronouns to refer to someone either way, why not use the ones they want? its no skin off my back??

[hedgehog-troops]

not the nicky hate in the nicky tag smh

was i supposed to put it in the andrew tag? the hell?

[plintuth]

happy childhood of little Monsters

[hedgehog-troops]

AWW THEYRE TINY

[zerozerozio]

bring back tumblr ask culture let me. bother you with questions and statements

[boimann]

reblog to let people know it's ok to bother you with questions and statements

[hedgehog-troops]

plEASE the "talk, yap, rant" is me begging btw

[my-castles-crumbling]

hey cas, english isn't my first language and youre an english teacher so i thought id come to you with my question (🫪 i love the emoji)

why can we say "im a lesbian" but not "im a gay"

like why does gay/bi/trans/etv have to be followed by man/woman/person/bean/wtv but lesbian can be jsed both ways?

i am lesbian

and

im a lesbian

pls it's been deiving me insane

Hi! How are you??

Okay so I'm going to break this down into simplest terms for others who are reading, in case they're not sure. I'm not implying that you're stupid, just so you know!

Let's start with some (very simplified) definitions. I acknowledge that a lot of these terms are much more complicated, but just for this, I'm going to use simple, educational terms.

Noun: a part of speech; a person, place, thing, animal, or idea

Adjective: a part of speech; a word that describes a noun

Article: multiple definitions, but in this case it is a word placed in front of a noun to make it general or specific (a, an, or the)

Gay: ADJECTIVE; attracted to people who are the same gender

Lesbian: NOUN; a gay non-man

SO given these definitions, let's look at these phrases:

'The lesbian'

'The gay'

If we replace the words with the definitions, here's what we get:

'The (non-man who is gay).'

'The (attracted to the same gender).'

We can see now, based on definitions, the first phrase is grammatically correct because it contains an article (the) and an adjective phrase (who is gay) that are both attached to an implied noun (non-man). HOWEVER, the word 'gay' does not imply a noun. It is simply a describing word, so to say 'the gay' would be incorrect because the article 'the' is supposed to be used with a noun, as is an adjective. To make it complete, we would have to say 'The gay person.'

TL;DR, because the word 'lesbian' implies that it is a non-man, it turns the word into a noun, not just an adjective. So we can use the articles 'a' and 'the' with that word.

Also it's worth it to note to others who are reading that to say 'the gay' or 'a gay' could be taken as offensive, especially if you are not in the community.

I hope this makes sense? English is stupid...

[hedgehog-troops]

ohhh i knew the adj and noun and article thing but was confused about how "lesbian" can be both, an adj and noun, but not "gay" so its basically just that lesbian is an exclusive term but gay is not (which i did not know 💀)

i always though lesbian was "non men loving non men" nd gay was "non women loving non women"

(does this mean that a nblnb relationship is technically both?)

[ordinaryschmuck]

I agree with this statement.