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Andrew Minyard - Blog Posts
i obsess over neil and andrew but 1 of 2 things would happen if they were real/i met them
1) i’d laugh because i’m 5’7 they are are so tiny compared to me
2) id shit myself in fear once i was within 20ft of them
not to mention they’d hate me
okay but i’m soooo interested to see how andreil’s rooftop cig moments will transform in the queen’s game now that andrew is quitting. because neil doesn’t smoke but he’s still holding a cig and i doubt he would keep that habit up with andrew’s decision
just realized we’re gonna see non-smoking andrew in the queen’s game……..
just realized we’re gonna see non-smoking andrew in the queen’s game……..
started reading aftg........completely obsessed with whatever it is these two have going on
all i can imagine is aaron having had to deal with neil being a capital-t terrible patient for hours on end because you’re right, he would not behave. like he would be trying to get up every few minutes, especially when aaron steps out to check on one of his other patients which means aaron feels the need to be in neil’s room more so that he doesn’t injure himself and aaron isn’t accountable for his dumb ass decisions. and neil would be lying about the pain to try to get himself discharged early. even after aaron turns up the morphine drip (or whatever it is lol, my medical “knowledge” comes from medical dramas), neil is still lying through his teeth and aaron is just like what the actual fuck. because there no way neil isn’t in pain, he’s actively bleeding cause he pulled his stitches trying to get out of bed like an idiot
and then andrew arrives and neil is still trying to say he is fine and can be discharged. and aaron is blocking him out, too busy freaking out over his look-alike and too tired to deal with neil’s obvious lies. but andrew is arguing back and calling him a junkie and all aaron can focus on is “omg his voice sounds like mine too wtf wtf wtf”
he must make some sort of noise, a gasp or that choking in the back of his throat is accidentally vocalized, cause next thing he knows neil is sliding him a cool glare (and again, how the fuck is he still acting like this on so much morphine) and switching to german. his doppelgänger rolls his eyes but follows him into the other language and now aaron is even more convinced that he is losing his mind. screw whatever his coworker said, he no longer believes her. they’re both exhausted, why should her mind be trusted more than his own. clearly this is some sort of hallucination because no way he encounters someone who looks like him, sounds like him, and speaks german too. he needs to listen to katelyn and get more than 5 hours of sleep before a shift and stop having multiple energy drinks. that’s what this is. there is no other reasonable explanation.
he goes to leave the room, needing to escape the insanity and completely okay with leaving one character of his hallucination to deal with the other. he’ll come back. he has to and hallucination or not, he will not be a bad nurse. just maybe after he asks his charge nurse to check his vitals.
he gives neil’s monitors a quick look over and tries to ignore the two arguing in german. but hey its not his fault he can understand them, even if he’s trying to not listen. but then neil says something about needing to be back on the court by thursday and he’s reaching for his IV line like he’s going to pull it out and before aaron can stop himself, he’s saying “don’t,”quick and angry in german and covering neil’s IV with his hand. two sets of eyes whip around to stare at him and that’s it, he’s fleeing. he will deal with this later.
An AU where the twinyards don’t meet until even mater in life— as in after college where everything from Andrew’s end goes almost the same minus Aaron and Nicky being in his life. He still makes it Palmetto, still meets Kevin and Neil and goes pro. Aaron on the other hand becomes a nurse (I have my reasons for this) never goes to Palmetto, and they only meet because one injured Neil Josten ends up on his unit. Aaron is about at his wits end because Pro Exy player Neil Josten (whoever that is because Aaron doesn’t follow Exy), who is on a lot of pain meds, keeps calling him Andrew and Aaron is about 5 seconds away from making the on-call resident very upset by requesting another CT scan of Josten’s head because surely his brain is scrambled. There’s nothing more that Aaron wants than to go home and fall face first into bed which is of course when his charge nurse walks up to him with a sheepish look, nearly begging him to stay another 4 hours because his relief’s kid is apparently sick and she can’t come in until 11am, which makes Aaron want to die so naturally he agrees, which means another 4 hours of Neil Josten at the end of his shift hooray.
And so of course Neil Josten calls him “Andrew” once more while Aaron is checking his IV (note: it’s now visiting hours), and Aaron, exhausted and cranky and just had to dodge a bedpan being thrown at his head, feels his eye twitch violently as he politely (read: thru clenched teeth) reminds Pro Exy Player Neil Josten once again that he is not Andrew—
Which is when another voice pipes up from the doorway, fresh scent of coffee in the air that nearly has Aaron salivating, who says “correct, you are not Andrew. I am.”
And Aaron turns around to see his mirror image standing in the doorway.
An AU where the twinyards don’t meet until even mater in life— as in after college where everything from Andrew’s end goes almost the same minus Aaron and Nicky being in his life. He still makes it Palmetto, still meets Kevin and Neil and goes pro. Aaron on the other hand becomes a nurse (I have my reasons for this) never goes to Palmetto, and they only meet because one injured Neil Josten ends up on his unit. Aaron is about at his wits end because Pro Exy player Neil Josten (whoever that is because Aaron doesn’t follow Exy), who is on a lot of pain meds, keeps calling him Andrew and Aaron is about 5 seconds away from making the on-call resident very upset by requesting another CT scan of Josten’s head because surely his brain is scrambled. There’s nothing more that Aaron wants than to go home and fall face first into bed which is of course when his charge nurse walks up to him with a sheepish look, nearly begging him to stay another 4 hours because his relief’s kid is apparently sick and she can’t come in until 11am, which makes Aaron want to die so naturally he agrees, which means another 4 hours of Neil Josten at the end of his shift hooray.
And so of course Neil Josten calls him “Andrew” once more while Aaron is checking his IV (note: it’s now visiting hours), and Aaron, exhausted and cranky and just had to dodge a bedpan being thrown at his head, feels his eye twitch violently as he politely (read: thru clenched teeth) reminds Pro Exy Player Neil Josten once again that he is not Andrew—
Which is when another voice pipes up from the doorway, fresh scent of coffee in the air that nearly has Aaron salivating, who says “correct, you are not Andrew. I am.”
And Aaron turns around to see his mirror image standing in the doorway.
They deserve a good nap 😴
afab twinyards but aaron is a trans guy and passes decently so he's really confused about how higgins got him confused with his twin sister. until he meets andrew and she's a butch lesbian. they have the same haircut
hold a magnet near the foxes and weapons start appearing outta hammerspace
love language of sharing cigarettes
Listen, you know why Andrew loves Neil? Why Neil Abram Josten was the one Andrew would allow into his inner space, to allow growing roots where Andrew keeps the remaining fragments of his heart?
Because hardly anyone respects Andrew's boundaries. Renee does. Bee does. Wymack does. Andrew respects his own boundaries to the point of enforcing them at knife point.
But Neil? Neil Abram Josten?
He views Andrew's boundaries as sacred.
Renee, Bee, and Wymack would view crossing Andrew's boundaries as disrespectful at best and a violation at worst. They earned his trust that way.
But NEIL???
Neil views crossing Andrew's boundaries as a fucking sin. As blasphemous. A devoted disciple would sooner spit in their God's face than Neil ever conceiving of crossing Andrew's boundaries.
Some people would look at you erecting brick walls covered in barbed wire and would start looking for a good crack to aim a sledgehammer. Some people would watch you lock a door and try knocking, just once, to see if you'll open it for them. And some people would watch you draw a line in the sand and never dream of stepping over it.
Neil parked his ass on the other side of Andrew's barbed wired multi-layered brick wall surrounding his concrete bunker and stayed there, running his mouth. And when Andrew revealed the hidden door, Neil smiled, stayed put, and kept talking.
Andrew didn't fall for Neil because Neil wouldn't come in.
He fell because Neil waited for Andrew to come out, waited for Andrew to extend his hand, and waited for Andrew to lead him inside by his own volition.
And that's why Neil was the one who earned Andrew's "Stay".
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
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 😔
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
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.)
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
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
just got home after a night out and i’m drunk and thinking of the monsters getting to their columbia house drunk af and crashing the way i’m about to
dude i was dancing in a circle of my friends while leaning against the back of a stranger and i couldn’t think of anything except nicky and aaron on the dance floor week after week just getting drunk and turning up. partying with them would be so fun i can’t
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)
AND WHAT IF I SCREAM?!? AND WHAT IF I LOSE MY MIND!?!!? what then
you gave me a key and called it home.
THIS IS AMAZING OMG they mean so much to me
CW: MCR :)
'Cause I love all the poison away with the boys in the band
Okay so this one is L O N G- Don't question the format I'm trying new things.
Aftg, it's been a while! Almost got a full playlist of song that would match aftg and that I would love to animate, unfortunately I have exams to pass (3rd year art school film incoming) so this is a kind of compromise.