What Did You Expect, Captain?

andrew's first pro game in the city aaron lives. he doesn't send tickets or ask aaron to come and he doesn't even tell aaron his team is coming to town. if aaron wants to come he will. andrew can't make him do anything.

between quarters, the jumbo tron is showing a "look-a-like" game on the screen where the camera operators find people in the crowd who look like different celebrities or animated characters. andrew's not paying any attention to it when the crowd goes wild. a teammate nudges him to look up and lo and behold, wearing a Minyard jersey is andrew minyard's look-a-like, aaron minyard himself.

he rolls his eyes when the camera focuses back on him for the side-by-side shot and but aaron can see that andrew is actually very pleased.

I mean yeah we all know that Neil is a good liar and all, but I think sometimes we forget to what extent.

Like he got literally plucked from class one day and put in front of his father’s boss, totally unprepared, and put on an oscar-winning performance of a lifetime. Bitch was like “I am not saying your brother is out of line my lord 😔😔😔 I am afraid of what will fall back on you 🤔🫢 🤧” and fucking manage to convince ichirou to kill his own brother.

What a man…

(The Raven King, ch.14)

This one line lives in my head rent-free. Neil may be antagonistic, but he never hated Aaron. He wanted him to be happy from the beginning.

I genuinely love Neil's "I'm fine" bit so much because in his fucked up mind, he actually is fine. To him, a broken nose or smth is miles better than having to jump out of a moving car because the alternative is getting killed. And it takes so long for him to realise that even the Foxes don't have that kind of filter.

I thought about Andrew, who falls asleep on Neil on the couch or in a bag chair, and Neil is completely immobilized for several hours, he even has to skip training

Maybe half the time Andrew just lies with his eyes closed, pretending to be asleep (and enjoying the feel of Neil's body underneath him)

reading the sunshine court truly made me realize just how unbelievably fucking insane the foxes were as a team/family unit.

like wdym your coach is your star players father and didn’t know? wdym multiple people on your team have killed people??? how do multiple people on your team have mafia connections??

usc could hardly believe the ravens intentionally injured jean while the foxes were used to the ravens regularly using vandalism, kidnapping, torture, psychological warfare, and murder against their team

usc talks out their interpersonal team problems while the foxes blackmail eachother into joint therapy until they break a bros before hoes pact

the trojans have no-touch jerseys for practice while the foxes were getting punched, stabbed, choked, and suffering major bodily harm at the hands of another teammate at any given moment in the series

jeremy makes sure jean doesn’t meet the team all at once to not overwhelm him while andrew has a habit of quite literally breaking in the new members in columbia

the trojans tiptoed around and almost didn’t believe kevin’s hand injury while one of neil’s first conversations w the man is yelling “fuck you cripple, you’re a dead weight has been” in french in front of half the team

jeremy avoids cops while neil forces fbi agents to wait for him to finish eating, proceeds to blatantly lie to their faces, and then fucks off

usc would’ve thrown the semi finals match if jean hadn’t survived but seth fucking DIED and kevin and neil were only worried about how it’d affect the line up

jeremy gets furious when he finds out about grayson while neil fucking orders a hit out on him right in front of jean on a napkin over lunch

i was surprised by how hard the trojans were taking things until i remembered the foxes were just grade a crazy

i’m ready to admit it. jeremy being a fake blonde is extremely poetic and prophetic to the news that he’s not actually the faultless golden boy that he projects, but is, instead, human like the rest of us. and. can’t believe i’m saying this. i prefer it even! yeah, i said it.

its so sick to me that the rumors of jean sleeping his way onto the ravens are widespread but not one person has stopped for a moment to remember that jean started playing with them at 16 years old.

"jean moreau slept with the entire starting line" did he? or did a bunch of 20 year olds fuck a 16 year old?? Like I know it's 2007 but nobody is talking about that?

even though renee isn’t in the books as much as some of the others, i’d argue that she’s on the same level as andrew and kevin in terms of importance, not necessarily because of her impact on the main plot but more because she symbolizes something these characters desperately need: hope. first of all, it has become increasingly obvious to me that she’s a narrative foil to neil. not only do they leave their sketchy pasts behind, change their names, and dye their hair, but their birth names (natalie, nathaniel) are incredibly similar. renee represents who neil would be if he actually processed his issues instead of running away from them (“i’m not proud of my past, but i’ll never heal if i hide it”). neil is so unsettled by renee because she’s the person who neil has been told for his entire life that it’s too dangerous to be. he dyes his hair to blend in. she dyes her hair to stand out. and she’s HAPPY. she’s not dead like neil’s been brainwashed to believe. then, of course, there’s her iconic friendship with andrew. i’m not going to say that she’s the only one who andrew likes, because we all know he’s very protective of his cousin, brother, and neil. however, renee is the only one who andrew never lashes out at. if renee hadn’t intervened when andrew was attacking allison, who knows what would’ve happened? finally, there’s her connection to jean. jean was denied color for years, surrounded by black and red, never thinking that he would escape. his first interaction with renee always stands out to me because for the first time, he’s left speechless. he sees renee and her rainbow hair and can do nothing but stare. how could he not fall in love with a girl who goes so directly against the rules of his abusers? and she gets him out of the nest. she’s the reason why he defies all the other drafts and stays alive. throughout the books, she grounds andrew, saves allison, and gives jean a reason to keep living. the events of all for the game and the sunshine court couldn’t have happened without renee. none of it could’ve. she was at the center of it all the whole time

i absolutely love Renee because this the sweetest person and i can't stop thinking about that this sweetness it is her personal choice like she really want to be that good and she actually is. the way she supports Jean is insane to me.

“You’ve endured the storm long enough. Don’t you think you’re overdue for some rainbows?”

“What you hold onto is less important than the act of holding on itself. It’s so easy to get lost in ourselves and this world. Sometimes you need to find your way back one tiny miracle at a time.”

“I have enough faith for us both" 

“I’m so proud of you for making it this far. I’m excited to see how far you can go from here when you can finally spread your wings without fear. Fly safe, Jean. We will see you on the court in finals.”