All For The Game - Blog Posts
neil josten definitely picks at his scabs. and it annoys aaron to no end. imagine that aaron just starts swatting at his hands whenever he tries to pick at scabs because he can’t deal with neil having them for any longer. and andrew just lets him because he knows it’s better if neil actually lets his injuries heal and honestly, it’s funny
sorry but can i just say how hilarious it is that neil ended up on the foxes who have bright, obnoxious orange uniforms and is from baltimore where the O’s (their baseball team) have bright, obnoxious orange and white as their colors too. and neil fucking hates baseball. and yet……..
I keep thinking my sunsent-time lighting is getting repetitive, but then i do pieces like these that end up feling kinda soft and i can't think of a better type of ligthing to give it that matches the vibe 😔
continuing this for the upperclassmen:
dan: depends on the shoes. in sneakers or boots, no. in heels, yes. i know what you’re thinking, she was stripper, she has hella experience in heels. and yes, but not with running in them. she can turn up on the dance floor and jump her heart out in heels but will tumble eventually if she tries to run
renee: no way in hell. rain or shine, heels, sneakers, flats, or fucking platform boots, this girl can drunk run without falling. and she is suchhhhh a drunk runner. she gets drunk and wants to run, less for the adventure like nicky and more just because something in her drunk mind tells her too. the instigator in her comes out a bit when she’s drunk and on top of being a drunk runner, she’s a drunk fighter. give her enough drinks and she will square up with any willing participant. and will demolish those dumb straight boys who challenge her to arm wrestle
matt: definitely falls. i’m sorry but he would try to run with nicky and they would both end up sprawled on the ground. i think he loses awareness of how long his legs are while drunk and it makes him fall if he tries to run
allison: again with the too much decorum to fall. she only goes out in heels, maybeeee platform boots if the world is upside down for a day but that requires renee to convince her so usually it’s just her and her heels. and she’s been walking in those since she was 10 and stealing them from her mother’s closet. no way she trips or twists an ankle much less falls in heels regardless of being drunk
seth: no siree. he is far to spiteful to not be the ultimate little shit while drunk and being able to successfully run lends itself to that. he also has far too much experience being intoxicated and some skills are acquired through practice
whether the monsters would fall while drunk running:
neil: absolutely not. that boy has been running since before he could walk and there is no way after all that running under so many kinds of pressure that he wouldn’t be able to handle drunken shenanigans
aaron: can run drunk surprisingly well but also will lose the ability to handle curbs or stairs and has tripped and ended up on the ground before
nicky: yes, 110% yes. definitely a drunk runner. cannot let him out of your sights bc he might decide to go on a little adventure and he largely overestimates his coordination and will be on the ground before he knows it
andrew: honestly i can’t imagine him running while drunk…….. but i don’t see him falling either. he has too much decorum
kevin: yes. less than nicky but yes and he will swear to you otherwise. you’d think after drinking so much he would have a better handle on things but there’s a reason he doesn’t dance and he only had practice controlling his speech and facial expressions while drunk
My favourite thing to torture myself with is imagining the aftg character at an age when they start to resemble their father.
Like Neil one day gets a haircut and then forgets to shave and looks in the mirror and has a complete breakdown. Let's is hair grow pretty long after and never cuts it above his ears.
Jeremy deciding to grow a beard because his father was always clean-shaven.
Jean having some buried memories dug up when he reaches a certain age and suddenly the face of his abuser is right in front of him again.
On the flipside, Kevin is all Keyleigh until he hits forty and then suddenly everyone is gushing about how he and Wymack are peas in a pod and it's an extra special connection between them
aftg floor plans pt.2
i know i said i would be making the homes in california next however that was actually just me pulling a neil josten so instead here are some more places from the first three books because i had their images in my head and moving chronologically called to me
perhaps most importantly is the monster's home in columbia. i am not sure if the books actually say this is a split level home but it makes sense to me and i have picked up on nora liking split level homes from multiple descriptions so that's what it is. we know nicky's room is on the first floor and so is the bathroom which means aaron and andrew are upstairs. andrew's room being second seemed right because its farther from the front door and because of the vague way my brain played out that scene of him coming downstairs before going to easthaven. not sure if i love that there's only one bathroom but we don't learn of a second one and i honestly don't think nicky could have afforded the jump in price a second bathroom would bring
okay. this one is painful. and for the record, i am sorry. but its mentioned so here it is. as you can tell i didn't want to or feel the need to fully fill in this house. i just added enough so that you can vaguely get the point and put labels for the rest. mainly i just did the kitchen, the back screened in porch where they ate, and that cursed bedroom. again, i am sorry. we're moving on to something more fun though don't worry
spring break cabin!!! this was so much fun, i cannot even begin to tell you. and okay, i know they were there for only a week so like what does it matter but it matters to me. this space is so cozy and caved out in my head that i just had to do it. the tan is the inside and the grey is the porch which we know to be in the back and on one of the sides. ignore how i didn't really put anything on the porch... i was kinda stuck beyond the hot tub. but this place is hugeeeee like oh my god. we have the large living room around the fireplace, the ginormous kitchen, the cute back room that is mentioned to have pool and foosball, and of course, our favorite, the bedroom neil and andrew stay in. ngl i struggled a bit with that bedroom's layout but this is what we ended up with
okay, second floor. according to neil, the four upstairs bedrooms are placed in each of the corners which made it a bit difficult and definitely interesting to do. because of this, i gave two of them a jack and jill style bathroom. in my mind, it makes sense for the two bedrooms sharing a bathroom to be given to nicky, kevin, and aaron. i think kevin being the drama queen he is would get his own and nicky and aaron would share but honestly aaron could be with either. and of course matt and dan are together and allison and renee are in the last one. each room has a door to the wrap around porch but it made sense to me for the open areas to have access too. and speaking of the open areas i made one a mini lounge because apparently there are multiple fire places and i had to put the second one somewhere and the other has desks because i didn't put them in any of the rooms. i mean it is a vacation home, why would they need desks in their rooms?
i swear i will actually do the cali homes next. i have sketches of them in my notebooks but haven't fully fleshed them out online like the rest. but they exist and i have already scoured the books to piece them together so hopefully it won't take ten years but then again, it is finals season and i have so so many essays to do so we will see.
oh and, i have about half of wymack's apartment done in the sims and while it's a struggle to be era accurate, it's very cute and fun
pt. 1 pt. 3 (cali)
whether the monsters would fall while drunk running:
neil: absolutely not. that boy has been running since before he could walk and there is no way after all that running under so many kinds of pressure that he wouldn’t be able to handle drunken shenanigans
aaron: can run drunk surprisingly well but also will lose the ability to handle curbs or stairs and has tripped and ended up on the ground before
nicky: yes, 110% yes. definitely a drunk runner. cannot let him out of your sights bc he might decide to go on a little adventure and he largely overestimates his coordination and will be on the ground before he knows it
andrew: honestly i can’t imagine him running while drunk…….. but i don’t see him falling either. he has too much decorum
kevin: yes. less than nicky but yes and he will swear to you otherwise. you’d think after drinking so much he would have a better handle on things but there’s a reason he doesn’t dance and he only had practice controlling his speech and facial expressions while drunk
She has a bit of an attitude problem 😊
not sure if someone's said this already, so I will: can we appreciate Neil moving stuff out of the way (like the ice cream for example) before making out with Andrew? cause so often we either have people knocking stuff over cause they simply don't pay attention to that, or whatever items were around are just forgotten about / not mentioned again. so I love that he does that first, and that Nora actually bothered to put it in there
still thinking about this and i have another reason why neil should have fucked teeth: his smart mouth. like that boy is always struggling to stay silent and hold his tongue. and yes we know he canonically loses his cool and just accepts that he’s gonna die soon like oh well, why not say the crazy thing. but you can’t tell me that attitude problem hasn’t existed and hasn’t gotten him into some trouble before. and i’m just saying, i think it’s gotten him punched in the mouth before which i think would fuck up his teeth a little
you cannot tell me that neil doesn’t have wacked teeth. like he didn’t have a consistent dentist growing up if he even had a dentist at all. because dentist scans mean leaving unchangable, undeniable truths of your identity behind and mary would not have liked that at all.
so give me neil with a chipped tooth he got from a rough landing after jumping out of a car or a window. give me neil with a gap between his front teeth. give me neil with crooked teeth to match his crooked smile
bitchy older sister allison and bratty younger brother neil is actually a top tier dynamic
andrew definitely loves to nap. i just know he gets exhausted from having to be around people at class (and generally just deal with the human species) and as a result, needs quiet time in bed to be able to make it through the rest of the day. especially with their late night practices. and when i say nap, yes i do mean i think he takes naps in the traditional sense where he’s falling asleep for a little while but i also think he just likes to get in bed midday to just rest and reset. like just to be in the dark and not have to deal with anyone while he is horizontal and tucked in. tell me you can’t see it
(also imagine neil finding this out. i feel like some days he would join andrew but knowing andrew is doing this to be able to mentally handle the rest of the day, he would know to give him space and respect that. and when he does join him, sometimes he’ll be invited to just lay next to andrew but a lot of the times he just gets in his own bed and rests too, just providing some quiet company. dorm beds are tiny, even for them, and there’s no way to comfortably avoid contact and the last thing neil wants to do is push andrew’s boundaries especially when he is doing this to reset. but andrew lets him stay in the room when he does occasionally join and i feel like neil would be pleased at that alone, at being able to partake in and witness this ritual of his even without cuddling.)
Don't FUCKING argue with me. "Neil Josten let his cigarette burn to the filter without taking a drag. He didn't want the nicotine; he wanted the acrid smoke that reminded him of his mother." Is a fucking dynamite intro!! Is it edgy as fuck? Yeah. So? Is it hella melodramatic? Probably. So? Is it bad writing? Motherfucking NO! It's damn near expert level execution of several writing principles!
Who is the story about? First two words, next question.
Catch the reader's attention as soon as possible? "Why the fuck is he wasting a cigarette?" Intrigue successfully demanded, next question.
Raise questions that will keep the reader hanging long enough to have answered? "Why the fuck does acrid smoke trigger his mommy issues?" + "Wait it's because he burned her corpse??" Many many more questions raised + blind sided reader via preconceived expectations being subverted, next question.
Character establishing moment? What other characters use for physical and emotional regulation, he uses to fucking reminisce and wallow in his feelings, next question.
Set the tone for the rest of the story? Edgy, melodramatic, and emotionally gut wrenching, NEXT. FUCKING. QUESTION!
The Muses asked Nora to roll for Hook and she rolled a nat 20 five times in a row in 30 words or less. Hook, Line, and motherfucking Sinker bitches
Some of y'all need to stop ragging on AFTG's writing and start using it as a fucking case study cus this shit has the addiction capacity of heroine and god help the goddamn saltine cracker throwing stones
runaway
ft. watercolor & colored pencil
there's this artist i follow @clementinecloudz who does younger version art of particularly andrew but they've started drawing lil neil as well and now my brain is full of kid headcanons.
- aaron and andrew live with betsy
- kevin and neil live with wymack and abby.
- kevin was obsessed when wymack started dating abby. he loved her, wanted to be her friend right off the bat. neil was suspicious asf and still isn't a big fan of her living in their house.
- aaron and andrew have entirely opposite tastes for food and it drives betsy crazy because whatever one likes the other doesn't so she's always making two different meals.
- andrew is all over the place and the thought of bringing him crowded places stresses betsy out because what if she loses him, but the first time they go to the zoo on a super busy day, he will not let go of her hand.
- aaron on the other hand, absolutely refuses to hold betsy's hand. he'll hold andrew's though.
- andrew, neil, and aaron are absolutely the kid who would shove another kid on the playground.
- kevin loves hanging out with the whole group, but will put on a show of rolling his eyes and complaining about having to hang out with little kids.
- the wymack household will go through a box of bandaids a week and solely due to neil.
- kevin and neil wrestle when they play and it stresses wymack out. they've broken a coffee table and two lamps.
- andrew, kevin, and neil are way more into exy than aaron.
- betsy meets wymack when he starts coaching the little league team for andrew/aaron's age group.
@ wymack probably
I feel like the Trojans are to Jean what the never ending story scene is to Hopper and Joyce from stranger things like life or death situation and you just have Bobby and Diego completely unaware over here serenading each other and Jean's in the corner trying to faze into the wall like holy shit I'm gonna die
do you think he loved history so much because he looked at the ravens and saw the nest as another civilization so sure that they would never be defeated and took comfort in knowing how even the strongest civilizations, like rome, eventually fell? do you think he took to this pattern with so much fervor because he was desperately wishing for the nest to crumble, hoping that if they were destroyed he could finally escape riko? do you think he hoped for an aftermath that allowed him to rebuild his life without all the abuse, a future where he got to keep his exy but didn’t have to be viciously punished for success and failure alike?
and do you think that he watched the nest fall and the ravens spin into destruction and thought with quiet pleasure how he was right, how history was right, and all civilizations eventually meet their end? and do you think that right on its heels came fear over how the ravens would rebuild?
hey so like Kevin Day history nerd that came to love history so much because he kept learning and reading about people and civilizations that where continuously torn down but rebuilt time and time again, how things were destroyed and created anew, how people, despite everything, prevail and claw their way back.
oh butch transmasc andrew minyard… oh save me. oh he has glasses and piercings (especially an anti-eyebrow) and acne scars and he’s chubby and he lifts so; much. he lifts so heavy. butch andrew minyard who wears black compression shirts and cargo pants and steel-toed boots. leather butch andrew minyard hanky and carabiner code butch andrew minyard. butch andrew minyard with hands tats and blackout tattoos when he’s older and and and. bitten lips and nails butch andrew minyard i’m blushing
slowly starting to make wymack’s apartment in the sims and let me tell you, it’s a struggle
why are there simultaneous so many options and no variety for kitchen cabinetry 😭 i have to keep repeating to myself this is 2006 this is 2006 this is 2006. bitch how the fuck did cabinets look in 2006…….
between that and trying to do decor choices like a middle aged man, i have my work cut out for me
Things that are not funny but are also hilarious
Thinking about Wymack putting up with Neil, alone, during his senior year. None of the other foxes are there to deal with his antics. Kevin isn’t there to talk about everything Exy related. Andrew isn’t there to keep him grounded and sane. Allison and Nicky aren’t pushing him out of his comfort zone with his style, appearance, etc. Matt isn’t there to be a friend. Dan can’t help him captain his team. Aaron isn’t there to annoy him. Renee isn’t there with her gentle, reassuring smile.
I know that some of the freshman from the EC become Neil’s friends, but it isn’t the same as the OG Foxes.
So, he turns to one of the few people he trusts, Dad Wymack™️. Neil joins him in his office for lunch and tells him all about Andrew’s most recent Exy game. “Did you see how many saves Andrew made last night?” 38. It was beautiful.” *heart eyes* Coach returns his attention to the paperwork he was working on when Neil walked in. He half listens as the striker explains a movie that Nicky said he needed to watch to understand current trends.
After a game night, Neil goes home with Wymack, who now lives together with Abby, and stays for dinner with the couple, yapping about everything that plagued him that day. “I talked to Andrew last night and he was telling me about this drill his pro team does at practice. He thinks it’s stupid, of course, but I think it could help us get through the other team’s defense easier.” He goes on to explain the drill between bites of pasta and sauce.
When Neil leaves, Coach looks at Abby, feeling slightly dumbfounded, “I never knew the kid could say so many words in such a short time.” Abby lets out a chuckle.
“I don’t get any paperwork finished anymore with him around so much.” He explains with fake annoyance. She gives him a soft smile, “He just misses Andrew and the rest of our Foxes. I think it’s says a lot that he trusts you with the details of his private life. We all know how hard that is for him.”
Dad Wymack sits in his thought for a quiet minute, thinking back to the locker room in Millport with the brown-haired, brown-eyed boy who was scared to live. To the airport before the new year with the red-haired, blue-eyed boy who was fighting for his family. To a cheap motel in Baltimore with a boy covered in scars who fought to stay and live. Neil has come a long way and Wymack’s chest swells with pride and love for the striker.
Two days later, on Monday, Neil shows up right on time for Wymack’s lunch hour, but the older man doesn’t mind the sound of Neil’s chattering over their shared lunch. “Allison told me my hair is getting too long, but the shampoo she sent me is making my curls look “delicious”. I don’t know what she means by that, how hair can look edible, but Andrew says not to worry about it. Speaking of Andrew, do you know how much he has been bench pressing in the gym? He’s up to—“
Wymack lets out a quiet, exasperated sigh as he leans back in his chair, accepting his fate for the next year as Neil continues talking. He may act annoyed about his new lunch time guest, but it means a lot that Neil feels safe with him, even if that means learning about pop culture and Neil’s distaste for broccoli.
you cannot tell me that neil doesn’t have wacked teeth. like he didn’t have a consistent dentist growing up if he even had a dentist at all. because dentist scans mean leaving unchangable, undeniable truths of your identity behind and mary would not have liked that at all.
so give me neil with a chipped tooth he got from a rough landing after jumping out of a car or a window. give me neil with a gap between his front teeth. give me neil with crooked teeth to match his crooked smile
Andrew Minyard doesn’t recover
And that’s okay- here’s why
Many people have been angry about the extra content through the years, but by far the thing that I see the most people being pissed about is this, “Andrew and Neil doesn’t get married” and the “they never say I love you”
But let’s talk about this for a minute
Because just because he doesn’t recover, doesn’t mean he doesn’t get better
He does, he keeps a stable relation to his brother, cousin and Kevin after graduation, something he wouldn’t have before
He let’s himself care for Neil and the cats
He starts finding some sort of joy in Exy with the people he cares about and who cares about him
He gets well enough to sleep in the same bed as Neil and have sex with him
He gets well enough to go on mundane dates with his partner on the beach, FaceTime Nicky on schedule and cuddle up with the cats at night
He gets a lot better
Don’t relate “full recovery” to “getting better” because they’re wildly different
He shows that even if you do not recover completely from the trauma you’ve suffered, from the hurt, you can still live and be happy with the people you love
So if I see one more person saying that he’s “bad mental health rep” I might actually have to fight them
We all know that Neil has two smiles, his "Neil-smile" and his "Nathaniel-smile". I went through the books to see how many times Neil actually smiles, because god knows it's not that many.
His "Nathaniel-smile" pops up a few times, usually when he's around Riko, threatening someone, or daydreaming about his father's gruesome death.
"Are you threatening a federal agent?" Nathaniel smiled so hard his burns ached. "I wouldn't dare."
He smiles his normal or "Neil-smile" a total of eight times through the series. Never in the first book, twice in the second, and six times in the third. Out of these eight, four were towards Andrew, one to Kevin, one to Wymack, one to Nicky, and one to Matt.
Nicky subsided with a lightning-quick grin in Neil's direction. Neil managed a small smile back.
The original point of this post was that Neil really doesn't smile or laugh or anything as much as he does in fanfictions and stuff. Andrew and Neil are not a grumpyxsunshine trope, Neil is not the light to Andrew's darkness, they're both massively fucked up and Neil does his crazy serial killer smile more often than his regular one.
He couldn't sleep, but at least he could daydream his father's death over and over again. That was almost enough to make him smile, and eventually it thawed the chill from his veins.
Anyways, that 𝘸𝘢𝘴 the original point of the post, but now I'm stuck thinking about how cute it is that he literally smiles only eight times throughout the entire series, and 𝘧𝘰𝘶𝘳 of them are to Andrew. It's so fucking cute, especially when you consider the circumstances of the rest of them.
Andrew, who for once hadn't wasted their time denying that this thing between them might actually mean something to both of them. Neil hadn't even noticed the silence at first, too distracted by his dizzying thoughts. Now he couldn't help but smile and pull Andrew in.
He shares a tired smile with Kevin after the first Raven match. He smiles when Wymack picks up the phone when he calls him after he comes back from Evermore. He returns Nicky's grin with a small smile to reassure himself when Riko comes to watch their match against the Longhorns. And he gives Matt a tight smile during the final match against the Ravens.
"Neil?" All the gruff posturing left Wymack's voice; that sharp edge was all alarm. "Are you all right?" Neil smiled. It felt like it tore his face open. "No. No, I'm not. I know it's kind of sudden, but can you come get me? I'm at the airport."
With Andrew, basically every single time is directly 𝘣𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘦 of him. Those smiles are some of the only times he actually feels or shows genuine pleasure or happiness, and I just think that's so cute.
It wasn't funny—none of this was—but that response was so obnoxious and so typically Andrew that Neil couldn't help but smile.
Technically he does smile a ninth time, at all of the Foxes, but since that was immediately after and because of Riko's death, I'm tempted to classify it as a "Nathaniel-smile" lmao.
Neil looked from one tired face to the next, soaking them in, reveling in everything they'd accomplished tonight and imagining how they'd react when they heard the news tomorrow. "What's so funny?" Nicky asked when he spotted Neil in the doorway. Neil hadn't realized he was smiling. "Life?"
(Also the word smile no longer feels like a word to me now. I never realised how often Renee smiled until I had to go through every single time any character smiled in the books)
aftg floor plans
not that anyone asked but the way my brain works means that any time i read anything, i am piecing together every room, every house, and every space. i need to create an image in my head so i can see the characters in it and see how they interact with the space. except it’s always vague and sometimes a throw-away line places a window or a wall where i didn’t think it was and i have to redo the entire space in my head…… it’s a struggle but after so many times rereading aftg, i have a pretty solid idea
this is just a long way of saying i have decided to take what’s in my head and make it into reality and i have made floor plans for aftg lol
so far, i have done the foxes’ dorm (both how i think the entire floor is laid out and each of their three rooms), wymack’s apartment, and abby’s house. i plan on doing the cali places later, don’t even worry
of course tumblr is corrupting the quality but in my head there are five rooms to each side of the hall and the stairs are right next to the monsters' room. that stray white box is an elevator supposedly.... i had no idea how or where the elevator should be so i just kinda threw it there, don't laugh. and we know the soccer kids live on their floor so they have the rooms across the hall
i placed everything based on descriptions gathered from the first four books (thank you jean for telling us they do in fact have stoves even if they are just two burners). i gave kevin's desk an extra monitor to watch games on lol and andrew has to be by a window to smoke out of it. also, the beds are bunked. i know this looks big but it was hard to get the spacing right..........
for the girls, i mirrored the monsters' room because i know that piping tends to make apartments laid out so kitchens or bathrooms are back to back with your neighbors. they also get a fancy extra chair and a bigger tv bc allison is rich and you can't tell me their room wouldn't have the nicest furniture. i feel like dan would have the bottom bunk, renee the top, and allison the lone lofted bed but that's just me lol
we know matt and neil shoved their three desks by the windows and in my head, matt and neil's bunk is on the left while seth's lofted bed is on the right. and matt and neil have their dressers underneath seth's bed and his is by the window
this was actually interesting because we know that the front door is out of sight from the doorway of the study and that there are windows in the living room so i put in this turn to the hall. again, the space looks huge here but that's mainly because i didn't want to have to shrink and rearrange all the walls over and over again
abby's was the hardest by far. i went back and scoured the books for more information about her house because i was struggling and have struggled with it since my first read through. we know that there is a doorway to the kitchen (so i couldn't give her the open floor plan i wanted) and that the bedroom jean stayed in was just down the hall from the bathroom. i ended up giving abby her own master bath just because i felt like it but i have no idea if that is canon. and the hall bath seemed too large so i put in a laundry room randomly but whatever. we also know she has a two car driveway so i made the shape of the house a little funky. and in my head, during summer break aaron and nicky stay in one bedroom and andrew and kevin are in the other one. i put kandrew in the bedroom down the hall because it is farther from the front door and andrew would like that imo. that is also the bedroom jean is in after renee takes him from evermore. and of course she needed a huge dining room table to fit everyone
ANYWAY, if you made it this far i am surprised and thank you for entertaining this. i can also share all the passages i used to piece together these floor plans cause they are all bookmarked but that felt like too much to include here and i doubt anyone cares. feel free to debate wall placements in the comments, i would love to talk to you about it as you can probably tell
and if literally anyone is interested, i can and will make these in the sims and then they will be real cute and colorful floor plans. i will probably do it anyway for my own enjoyment but whether i post them is up in the air
pt. 2 pt. 3 (cali)