#all for the game meta

[nettedtangible]

An idea I love is when the Foxes become a more well-respected team in the league, Wymack starts talking to them about being “role models” and that they have all these young fans now who look up to them. And Neil is just horrified.

Then the Exy league organises this like, pre-game warm up meet and greet thing where they do some drills and games with the kids of the local teams in the area.

Everyone expects to have to keep Andrew away from the kids but he’s actually fantastic with them. He’s blunt and honest but he does try very hard and they absolutely love him.

Neil spends the entire time running away from the children and hiding behind Wymack (he tried hiding behind Andrew but Andrew was actually getting along with the little demons)

Kevin hates it but the kids LOVE him, they think it’s hilarious how grumpy and angry he gets and they keep falling over themselves laughing anytime he yells. They keep asking him to “do the grumpy voice” he starts yelling in French and they think it’s just about the funniest thing that’s ever happened.

Dan and Renee are keeping the whole thing on track, actually running through the drills and teaching the kids with endless patience. Dan has a little mini me girl who’s like 10 and the captain of her team and just wants to be Dan so bad so Dan gives her a whistle and she’s just shadowing her all day, blowing her whistle whenever Dan tries to get someone’s attention.

Aaron and Allison hang back and only very reluctantly interact with the children.

Matt is the equivalent of a climbing gym. He has about 4 children hanging off various limbs at any given time and a little 6 year old has taken up permanent residence on his shoulders.

Nicky loooves it and teaches the kids all of bad words and gets them to play pranks on Kevin- which results in Kevin yelling at him and he and the kids falling over laughing.

One child seems to be really isolated and quiet. Neil sits with this kid so Wymack will stop yelling at him to get involved. They don’t talk at all but Neil gives the kid some gum and the kid manages a little smile.

Part 2

[allforthe-gays]

for a fandom that revolves around a sport there is a distinct lack of sweaty all for the game fan art

we could be objectifying our comfort characters more effectively if we made them a little more grimy

[akanemnon]

Despite everything, it's still you.

FIRST - PREVIOUS - NEXT

MASTERPOST (for the full series / FAQ / reference sheets)

[feelingthedisaster]

AFTG is Well Written: a Masterlist

Many people have said the book series All For The Game by Nora Sakavic is badly written. However, I believe it is not. To prove this, I made a compilation of posts that explain why the books are meticusly crafted and amazingly written.

*disclaimer: I'm not claiming the books are perfect or have no mistakes, it is impossible for any book to be that way, I'm just saying that it's not even half as bad some people claim it to be

Plot

Why The King's Men's plot structure is genius

In defense of AFTG crazy plot

Characters

MCs and trauma responses by @skydaemon

Mirrors of eachother by @sirandking

Riko and Neil parallels by @notlacrosse

Jean: Number, name and the narrative by @owlarchimedes

Metaphors/Symbolisms

Characters and their respective chess metaphor

Number symbolims in AFTG by @darkblueboxs with additions by @whydamnitwhy

Writing style

Conveying feelings by @lochenfreh

Here by @joejhang

The reason for the simplistic language by @afurtivecake

Neil/Nathaniel switch by @obsessing-over-fictionn

General

Here by deactivated account

The reason why people tend to think the book are bad by @thetamingofspike

Here by @the-foxhole-clutter

If I'm forgetting something or you know a post that could fit in this masterlist, share it pls!

[inafieldofstarflowers]

I just re-read The Foxhole Court and for the first time I noticed the parallels between Wymack’s speech about Kevin’s time at the nest and THE Riko roast in book 2:

Wymack: “[Tetsuji] raised Kevin to be a star” // Neil: “Being raised as a superstar must’ve been really, really difficult for you”

Wymack: “Kevin isn’t human to them. He’s a project” // Neil: “Always a commodity, never a human being”

Wymack: “He put a lot of time and money into kevin’s development on the court. As far as Tetsuji is concerned, Kevin is valuable property. Any profit Kevin makes is rightfully the Moriyamas’” // Neil: “Not a single person in your family thinking you’re worth a damn off the court”

Wymack: “Kengo and Ichirou mostly keep to New York and couldn’t give a flying fuck what Tetsuji and Riko do” // Neil: “Kevin and I talk about your intricate and endless daddy issues all the time”

In my opinion, this is significant for two main reasons.

First, as Wymack says, “Kevin doesn’t talk about his time at Evermore,” so Neil didn’t get this information from HIM. This is part of why the “Kevin and I talk about your intricate and endless Daddy issues all the time” is so funny, because you know Kevin is sitting at that table losing his MIND at being implicated in this, but this speech means those claims are based on something.

Second, and I think more importantly, Neil is turning everything Wymack told him was true of Kevin onto Riko. On the Kathy Ferdinand show, Neil implies that Kevin is better than Riko, and that Riko knows it and is scared of it—“people are finally going to know which one of you is better. They’re going to know how premature [the facial tattoo] was.” In the Riko Roast (TM), he’s continuing to make that insinuation by basically saying “hey, all those things you think about Kevin? All that dehumanization? It’s true for you, too. Only Kevin got out and you’re still there, and we see that and talk shit because of it.” He’s not just knocking Riko down, he’s building Kevin up while he does it, because in this scenario, Kevin is one of the people on the outside seeing how pitiful Riko is, while Riko is just a guy everyone thinks is annoying, and who should just shut up.

[gale-force-storm]

Thinking about the fact that, to pull Gale from the stone and get him in the game at all, you have to decide to try to touch an extremely dangerous looking swirling mass of unstable magic. Something that is, objectively, a terrible idea

Like, the options it gives you are to either touch the sigil or leave, and if you leave you just... don't get Gale in the party

You have to take the risk. You have to let your curiosity override your common sense. You have to look at this unstable, possibly dangerous malfunctioning magic sigil and go "...Ok, but what if I poke it?"

In short, to get Gale in your party, you have to do exactly what he would in that situation, and indulge in a moment of reckless curiosity. And I just think that's delightful

[vaguely-concerned]

My two cents on how much of Mind!Varric is Rook’s mind trying to fill the blank space and how much is Solas actively talking through a convenient blood magic paper doll of the mind: I think it's a mix of both, a truly collaborative psychosocial horrorshow if you would, but waaaay more towards the second. It feels too directed and tactical at times to be anything else. Rook's mind is willing to go along with the denial phase as far as it can fucking carry them to not have to face the grief and regret and does its part in papering over details that don’t make any sense, the way brains will strive to create coherent meaning even out of deeply confusing input, but to my understanding it's a collaborateur in how that plays out, not the instigator or control center. Solas is using it as a path to agency and to gather insight into Rook as a person unguarded as he can't count on in his own guise. (That stoic option that leads to him being like 'oh I see you're cautiously denying me access to your inner life. well. at least you still have Varric to talk to. y'know as an outlet :)'. You absolute BITCH Solas! That alone convinced me that he HAS to have an active hand in it on some level.)

My guess is that it takes considerable effort on Solas’ part to make Mind!Varric do anything more involved or complicated than seeming to sit up in bed and give casual commentary, and that’s why he keeps having eerie five minute shallow pep talks with you before he announces he conveniently needs a nap aaanyway good luck kid you got this haha. When he’s just spouting NPC lines from his bedrest, I’m ready to believe that could be Rook’s mind being allowed to improv lines for him more freely because it’s less about Solas trying to get something out of them or working an angle and more ‘Still here! Still totally alive and fine and the mentor figure you know and love and trust :) don’t even worry about it! Thankfully there is no war in Ba Sing Sei, as we all know’ upkeep work lol. Rook’s mind is allowed to set the tone of Varric, the outlines, but not always the content. 

AND, on a (beautifully fucked up) character psychology level, I feel like Solas is indulging in actually getting to be the good supportive mentor figure to Rook with one hand to assuage the guilt he feels about what he's done -- and what he's going to do -- to them with the other. Same internal logic as he uses in Trespasser about the Qun. ‘Almost everyone is going to die from the course of action I’m doggedly pursuing eventually. But at least I can make their last years happier and freer and kinder than they would have been otherwise. and that kind of makes up for it right. a little bit. doesn't it. doesn't that make it better at least. I need that to make it better)'. Did I really take your beloved mentor and friend from you if you don’t know yet that I did? Some philosophers would argue not really! So it’s probably almost ok actually. Isn’t it even a little noble that I’m taking all this grief and guilt on myself and shielding you for now. With undertones that I’m not sure he would realize himself (and might be mortified by if he did) that he is so incredibly lonely, and even a dishonest and indirect emotional connection is more than nothing when you’re that desperate. In this setup he gets idk. Both the control he craves so incredibly badly in relationships and over himself, and the scraps, the fading afterimages, of intimacy and warmth and companionship, even second hand. The one thing Solas and Rook agree on deep deep down is that they really wish Varric weren't gone. They're handshake memeing this in the saddest and most creepy way possible.

I think an important element too is that Solas needs Rook and their team to *succeed* —  up to a certain point. He needs someone to hold the two other elven mean girls off until he can get out of here. Ideally, in a perfect world, even do all the hard work of killing them so he can swoop in at the end and do his thing when both sides are exhausted and out of resources to stop him, and then Bob’s your uncle! Same logic as he was using with Corypheus, and after that worked out so well, too! King of choosing to never learn from a single solitary mistake he’s ever made even though i fully believe he could have the capacity to Fen’Harel <3 The underlying idea isn’t flawed, you see, it was just unforeseen circumstances getting in the way. This time for sure it’ll all work out the way I cleverly imagined it in my head beforehand. Cue By Talos this can’t be happening etc. in the form of a statue almost crushing him like a bug. 

So he's providing guidance and forging Rook into a leader from two angles: one Rook might not trust, and one they probably will. Shaping them into what he needs slowly and carefully. He’s helping you hone your team into their most effective state, as he might have done with his own agents back in the day, setting up his chess pieces even if he has to squint through two glimpsed realities to do it haha. Pincer maneuver of an insidious stealth mentor you never asked for. Also… at one point mind Varric gives you a whole little monologue about how Solas' problem is that he’s always seen his interpersonal connections as flaws and see where it’s landed him, all alone and the worst part? it hasn’t even worked. it’s all been for nothing he’s back where he began with nothing to show for it but his mistakes. Like...that has such strong 'uh okay happy to play your therapist from two rooms away here what the fuck kind of traumadump is this' energy to me, I’m not sure Rook like. Thinks that much about Solas as a private person. So much of Solas' self-loathing and futile insights into his own flaws seem to shine through in Mind!Varric's dialogue all the time — I just can't believe that there's no guiding hand behind it as it were. 

Most of all. I feel like people underestimate the degree to which Solas is incredibly funny. As in, he has a very consistent and recognizable sense of humour. It’s one of my very favourite things about him. We must remember — it is crucial that we always keep in mind — Orlesian accent and wig Solas from May The Dread Wolf Take You (my beloved, the explanation for why I love this dude even with the. All of the everything else. No one does it quite like him). He is not at all above doing things or adding little flourishes for his own obscure amusement, in fact that seems to me to be one of his most consistent traits. The Randy Dowager Quarterly comment Varric has? The ‘Maybe this is the Dread Wolf’s revenge. Forcing us to house sit for him’ thing? To Me this is 100% Solas amusing himself in his boring Fade jail surrounded by the screaming hellscape of all his regrets. Source: it came to me as divine revelation through pure vibes trust me bro 

If nothing else I find it much more narratively interesting personally if the connection between Rook and Solas really is that defenselessly intimate and entwined (and so unbalanced!), and the sense of violation and invasion and betrayal afterwards consequently all the more nauseatingly intense. Even if you kept him at arm’s length in the open, he’s been under your skin the whole time, looking around, gathering what he needs to destroy you, wearing the face of a friend. Regretfully, probably, but choosing to do it every step of the way anyway. (Sound familiar, Inquisitor? Solas doesn’t have that many tricks when you actually look at it, he keeps returning to old tried and true ones like a dog with a bone haha.) Maybe he even genuinely meant some of it as mercy, which only makes it so much worse. It makes his sin against his own core principles of autonomy and the freedom of all beings in mind, spirit and body so much more juicily grave if it’s something he pursues actively and consistently, rather than it half-falling into his lap as a happy accident mainly orchestrated by Rook’s own subconscious. Solas, too, is at his very lowest point, the closest to giving in and becoming his own antithesis fully that he’s ever been, and it makes the choice of whether you still reach out your hand to him one last time or not all the more impactful and difficult.

[flagellant]

reached the point in my life where i'm a reactionary moralist about shit like live service games

[deadliestpieceontheboard]

It's actually a good thing that Jean refuses to get in elevators.

In The Sunshine Court Neil takes him to his dorm by elevator and Jean doesn't complain, not even internally. Yes, his injuries mean it would be unwise to try to climb three floors by stairs, but he doesn't even make a note of it.

Jean hates being in boxes, but just a month out of the Nest he's still wired to swallow down his trauma, so much that any discomfort doesn't even register.

The fact that he can tell Jeremy he doesn't want to and refuses to get inside the elevator in multiple situations might seem like regression but this is Jean finally setting his boundaries, learning to say no. It's him refusing to hurt himself when there's another option. The stairs are just his first step.

[tritoch]

the warrior of light as a game-breaking force of violence

there's a moment, relatively early in dawntrail, that establishes succinctly how out of place the warrior of light (as the savior of eorzea and main character of four successive final fantasy game plots) is in what is essentially the story of fresh new final fantasy protagonist wuk lamat. and it sets up quite nicely how the framework of fantasy video game conflict pulls the warrior of light forever towards violence as the expansion goes on.

spoilers through 7.0 follow

consider wuk lamat's kidnapping and rescue. bakool ja ja holds his blade to wuk lamat's throat, taunting you. his lackeys line up against your party in neat little ranks suspiciously reminiscent of a classic final fantasy encounter screen.

and it simply does not matter to the warrior of light. you stride right through their combat setup because you are beyond that by now. the warrior of light has absolutely no respect for the "we are about to do ATB combat" lineup. the camera even jumps the line for you in one continuous rotating shot, crossing the axis of action as though to emphasize through the disruption of visual convention how far outside the game's boundaries you are.

this is how far you are above the problems of dawntrail's first half. you cannot even be bound by the normal rules of cinematography and video game combat. everyone else here lined up for a good old-fashioned scrap and the warrior of light said haha nope actually. i'm going to stroll through here like a god of war astride this tiny battlefield. your henchmen cannot even raise a hand to me. i don't even have to engage in violence directly anymore. my mere presence is enough.

in fact, not only can bakool ja ja's henchmen not raise a hand to you, he's not even worthy of your direct intervention. he kidnaps wuk lamat and steals her keystones and frees valigarmanda and kidnaps hunmu rruk and none of it warrants the warrior of light so much as raising a finger. he's wuk lamat's recurring villain, that's not your problem. you're just here to take in the scenery.

zoraal ja spends his whole life aspiring to be thought of as his father's equal and a worthy successor to the dawnservant as the "resilient son." all it takes for gulool ja ja to acknowledge you as a warrior on his level is like a five minute sparring match. the acknowledgement from gulool ja ja that zoraal ja hungered for his whole life and would eventually go full cyborg supervillain to get via regicide is something the warrior of light receives casually in a throwaway line after their level 93 solo duty on the way to more important plot conversations.

it really seems for a second, in the first half of dawntrail, like you are strong enough and the problems simple enough for this to be a clean and easy adventure. bakool ja ja? power of friendship'd. mamook? successfully reintegrated, no worries about the crimes against humanity. rite of succession? handily won. nothing can stop you. even duty finder queue times have been conquered: you can do all your duties with trusts now.

all of which only makes it better when the second half has sphene ask you and wuk lamat directly: could your strength have been enough to save alexandria? could you have found a different way?

i know some people get very annoyed we don't intervene in the gulool ja ja fight. now personally i think if you see arthur and mordred squaring up it's rude to intervene, but beyond that, it simply wouldn't have mattered. by the time zoraal ja's forces arrived in tuliyollal, alexandria and tural were already on a collision course and doomed to conflict. your hands alone could never have averted this conflict. sphene was always bound to do what she did—and certainly a gulool ja ja without his reason would not be any more inclined to peace than wuk lamat and koana were.

there's a great little moment just before living memory where estinien, champion at reading the room, is like "okay so if thancred and i stay here that frees up you up, aibou, to do what you do best and save the world and have epic fights. woo!!!" and immediately afterwards you basically have to apologize to alisaie because part of the sort of unspoken premise of this whole trip in the first place was that you were, finally, not going to plunge into mortal peril to save the world. you were finally going to take it easy. you were finally done with that. and she has to sort of ruefully be like nah it's fine bro. i was trying to get you to take it easy and not do insane risky world-saving violence. but y'know these things (interdimensional invasions) happen.

by the time you reach the very last trial, all pretense that the warrior of light could have ever been beyond these problems has vanished. you were, very emphatically, not strong enough to hold onto all that was dear without sacrifice. gulool ja ja and otis and cahciua died. yyasulani was irreversibly changed, physically colonized and culturally decimated by another dimension. you systematically shut down each part of living memory, and all its friendly, charming, loving ghosts, with your own hands. with your own clicks.

not even the vaunted strength of the warrior of light is enough to overcome sphene's inexorable logic of conflict. and so, in the end, she plucks you out of the crowd and says, explicitly for reasons of your strength, that you are going to have to do a boss fight now. you are going to have to kill her and you are going to have to do it in a proper 8-on-1 trial, and she forces you to affirmatively state that you understand you're going to kill her.

did you think you were above it all? did you think you could get away from here with your weapon undrawn, with your hands clean? that for you and you alone the logic of conflict comes undone? wrong. wrong. wrong.

your strength cannot redeem you, says sphene. your friends cannot make these sacrifices for you. if you would play the hero then you must play the hero. no half-measures.

back to the duty finder with ye.

[mollysunder]

There is a theory that the way children play serves as a means to simulate and prepare them for the tasks they'll take on as adults. So for all the narrative weight both Jinx and the story give the boxing machine at the arcade it would never have prepared her or the kids to take on Piltover.

What are the two things that Piltovans excel at over their Zaunite counterparts to keep the hierarchy? Weapons and technological development.

When you look at the way Piltovans invest in their children, they don't prioritize hand to hand/melee combat training. Piltovans focus on giving their children experiences in handling firearms, a pursuit that is both leisure sport for the wealthy and a key offense against dissenting Zaunites.

And from the show notes even Jayce, whose family occupies the upper middle class, was sent on educational excursions across Runeterra to explore the world and learn what it had to offer. Without Jayce's education abroad he would never have been inspired to pursue the concept hextech.

It's no wonder that the two figures that are set to be Piltover's biggest threats from Zaun are Jinx and Viktor, becasue they engaged in the same kinds of games and activities as their Piltovan counterparts.

Jinx didn't have an entire forest preserved to help her practice her sharpshooting like the high houses of Piltover, but she did excel in the few games at The Rift (the arcade) that built on her talents. She's the only Zaunite thus far who's long distance offensive is a strong counter to Piltover's forces.

Viktor couldn't travel the world like Jayce did, but for better or worse he managed to stumble into an opportunity to get real opportunity in research not offered to his peers through Singed. It was through that experience that Viktor knew to turn to Singed when he was at the end of his rope, and the consequences of that will be fully realized in season 2.

Ironically, the kind of skill the boxing game champions is only good for keeping other Zaunites in line. Vander's days of fighting Piltover were way behind him when we first met him, and Vi spends season 1 primarily fighting other Zaunites. It's no surprise the Zaunites who embody the old ideal of strength in Zaun that the game portrays, Vi and Vander, are largely at the mercy of Piltover and end up collaborating with them to avoid further harm.

Zaun's future as an independent city-state couldn't happen if they stuck to their old ideals. The people who stand a chance against Piltover are the ones that not only succeed but excel at playing Piltover's games against them.

[galedekarios]

Karlach: Aw, was that Gale’s granddad? Player: That was Elminster Aumar - the most famous wizard in the realms. Karlach: Huh. Doesn’t ring a bell.

[reingkings]

Everyone jokes that the Frontman had to personally search Gi-hun’s cavities to find the tracker, BUT.

Have you guys thought about the fact that in season 1 he did this to Gi-hun:

Think about how deep he had to shove his hands in there that Gi-hun literally starts choking on it. What? He didn’t have pockets? 😒

Apologies for the image quality btw, when I tried to screencap on Netflix I got this:

Edit: And then he sends him flowers.

[leroiestmortvivelareine]

masterlist of aftg essays

mostly so I can find them - but you may as well have this too

Other Masterlists

Why aftg is well written by @feelingthedisaster

(the OG - symbolism, structure, and other examples of Nora's brilliance)

Numbers in aftg

(includes timelines for aftg events)

Plot insights

Parallels / exy positions by @atticusfinchismydog - also in the masterlist above but deserves special mention

Andrew’s protection was not physical by @awildtei

Andrew agreeing to go to the Hemmicks by @afurtivecake

The effect of cults by @cultpastorkevin

Why steal Wymack's painkillers by @i-did

Why Kevin needed to keep his distance by @cowbilover

What was Mary's plan by @your-local-mixed-race-bisexual

Fun lists

Jean’s awesome descriptions of everyone by @swampthingking

Unsung heroes of aftg by @problemduetest4life

Character insights *

(* many more are in the Masterlists at the top, this is for posts that don't fit otherwise)

Nathaniel / Neil - flip a coin by @neilljcsten

Neil as an uncanny creature by @sncwbaz

Andrew wanting to be known by @foxholecore

Andrew really nailed by @afurtivecake

Andrew and Kevin by @afurtivecake

Andrew and Roland by @afurtivecake

Andrew cursing Nicky by @afurtivecake (technically a fic but too perfect not to include)

Andrew and losing control by @palmettoshenanigans

Andrew and breaking the cycle by @palmettoshenanigans

Andrew's promise to Kevin by @coldsaturn

Kevin as the sun by @adaysgrace

Kevin as a bitch by @thatsnotevenmyname

Kevin as a temptation but never a connection by @jeanmoreaue and @afurtivecake

Kevin and Wymack by @fairvstairs

Kevin learning to live in the light by @odetojupiter

Understanding Aaron by @minyard-05

Aaron's need to feel normal by @interstellar-productions

Aaron and Andrew by @figuringthengsout

more Aaron and Andrew by @allforthegaymes

Neil through Aaron's eyes by @bloodfiresandabram

Dan as captain by @minyard-05

Riko hmm I wrote an essay on Riko

Nora's ec

The extra content (master link provided by @peggyrose19)

The ec link

on tumblr

Nora's now-deleted kandreil scenes (fyi scene breaks show as ".....")

How the fandom started and grew - by @coldsaturn

For writers generally

(because we all are, aren't we)

not aftg, but a list of most interesting essays

what emotion do you create from (quiz). I can send you the text of all 15 answers, if you're like me and want to see it all

Feel free to share others that you know of.

I'll keep a running list of anything else i think of in the reblog.

---

Update - Part 2

[feelingthedisaster]

The King's Men's plot structure is genius.

TKM has been critized a lot for not following the conventional plot structure, because it doesnt end inmediatly at the resolution of the climax, like they taught us in class. But it actually has a reason behind it and it think that is what makes AFTG unique and Nora Sakavic an amazing writer. I'll explain.

So, we all know AFTG has a lot of chess metaphors, however i think it doesnt contain the metaphors, it is the metaphor. Each character represents a piece of the board (Riko king, Kevin queen, Neil pawn, Andrew knight, etc) and exy is the chess, but but but, a chess game not only involves the pieces, the game cannot exist without someone playing, the chess masters (which would be Kengo, Ichiriu, Nathan and all the mafia stuff).

So, AFTG is divided into two plots happening at the same time: what happens on the chess board (exy season) and what happens outside it (the mafia mess).

Of couse, the climax has to be about the outside out, because who cares which one of pieces move in which way if the players are pointing guns at eachother under the board? The guns are more more important. So who cares? The pieces on the board care, the ones that are being played with. And who is the narrator? The character that represents the pawn, the less important figure of the entire room.

Yeah, the 'outside of the board' plot is over half way into the book, but it doesnt matter because that happens outside the board, the chess game has not ended yet. The pawn cannot go back to rest in the box until the game is over, until the king dies. The book cannot be over until the chess game our protagonist is a piece of ends. The books have to end with the king's (Riko) death and that is exactly what happens.

If this isnt excellent writing and one of the best examples of know the rules so you can break them, i dont what is.

[inafieldofstarflowers]

ik we talk about how Neil’s an unreliable narrator in terms of leaving out details about his life & that’s true BUT it’s important to me that we acknowledge that he’s also deeply unreliable in the more traditional sense when it comes to his understanding of the people around him—it’s easy to overlook because the person Neil thinks about the most and in the most depth is Andrew, and he does understand Andrew incredibly well, so it’s easy to just trust he knows what he’s talking about when it comes to other people when that’s not necessarily true. Especially when it comes to Kevin and Aaron, who Neil has some pretty direct ideas about, but whose images in his mind are impacted respectively by Neil’s understanding of himself and his understanding of Andrew. To really understand Kevin you have to lose the idea that he only cares about Exy & is a coward for not standing up to the people who he fears will kill him for valid reasons. To understand Aaron, you have to acknowledge that Andrew’s view of events & their relationship isn’t objectively the “right” way to view it because that’s not how that works, and that, as much as Aaron didn’t understand Andrew or his motivations, Andrew didn’t underrate Aaron or his.