#andrew minyard meta

[stick-ball]

Serious question, but how do you think Andrew being taller-tall would affect plot and in what way. I always have hard time seeing him as this steady image of safety mainly because of his size.

I am an Andrew lover first and foremost so I accept him in every shape and size he may come in xd

Okay, but seriously now. I think him being taller would've definitely altered some points of the plot. The first thing that comes to mind is his relationship with Neil. Neil from the get-go makes us aware that due to his father's abuse, he is scared of not only older but taller men. They read as a threat. If Andrew was a big guy and had not the puppy dog personality of Matt, Neil would probably have a much harder time trusting him or opening up to him. Their relationship might've gone differently. All of Andrew's actions would've been interpreted with distrust, as they are anyway at the start, but the root would be in a much deeper fear.

I also think that's crucial for Andrews character. He is, as you said, seen by us as the image of safety - but that's Neil's opinion. that's how he sees him. Most people look down on him, only those who are keenly aware danger is not always about brute strenght don't make fun of the red flag he comes waving around in every situation. Neil or Riko aren't tall either, so they know what kind of things he can still be capable of without the proper moral limitations. Kevin, Jean and Renee will know that to, due to their experiences.

Still, most people don't see him as a threat, or as strong, the size is a point of ridicule but also a point of tactical advantage for him. If they don't take you seriously they don't see you coming for them, do they? Add the label of "psychotic" which is also thrown around in contempt, on the edge if being a slur by some characters and there you go. He's not seen as strong, he's seen as a train running of the tracks, about to crash in a nearby town.

There are only a few that know better, as it usually is in life, which, proper advantage. I would say the only reason Andrew was on parole with the requirement for medication after he almost killed those 4 guys who attacked Nicky before the first book happens - instead of being locked up for it instead - was due to his size. If he was a big guy he would be treated much more harshly, especially with his previous criminal record.

Another thing this point brings up is how I read a couple posts in the past, where people thought it improbable that Drake managed to get Andrew concussed and at his mercy so easily in the Thangsgiving scene, since Andrew is supposed to be so strong. (This isn't criticism, im just giving my own outview)

Be that as it may, size does matter. Andrew is strong and dangerous for many, and he could best probably most of the people reading this in a fight no sweat. But you know what's the reason for that? He's prepared. He actually knows how to fight. There are scenes in canon and ec If im not mistaken, that bring it up. I've been trained in martial arts since I was 4 years old (on G-d no cap) and I can, and did, manage to take down many guys twice my size and strenght because of that - but that's because I was smarter, or quicker, or my technique and endurance was better. Andrew spars, Andrew has training while most people don't. Just because a guy is twice his size doesn't mean he actually knows how to use his body weight to land a solid punch, doesn't mean he has the instinct and proper form to block a fist coming at his side thats gonna push all air out of his lungs. So yeah, against people less trained than him, he has a chance.

Tw: discussion of the thanksgiving scene, psychological trauma, ambush situations.

But Drake is a marine. He has extensive training, worse - he has the tactical advantage of surprising him, and worst of all - the force of trauma that comes with being suddenly attacked by one of your worst fkn horrors. It's a ambush and he has every single ace up his sleeve. I've been in a situation like that once, so I can imagine the complete and utter short-circuit Andrew's brain must have gone in in those precious seconds that would give him an even chance against Drake. But then, Drake is as much a physical as psychological horror, and it's no wonder the fear that brings make Andrew spiral into dissociation as a coping mechanism.

End of the triggering stuff!

In the end, though, safety in my opinion is about more than physical strenght. Sometimes it's just having someone by your side even if there's no chance of making it to the other side. That type of support can make anyone keep going. And I think that more than anything else is what Neil sees him as. He is, to make it cliché, the lighthouse bringing him to the safety of shore in a midnight storm. (I will shut up now bcs the fever must be getting worse if im saying shit like this).

thank you for this ask, I live to talk about andrew minyard ❤️❤️❤️

[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

[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.

[writingpuddle]

"it's fine if you hate me"

this has been said many times before by many (very hot and smart) people but it bears saying in perhaps a different way:

if andrew had somehow, by some absolute miracle, managed to actually ask neil out--if neil had said "you like me" and andrew managed to say "yes actually i like you as a person and want to be around you"--

neil would not have fucking kissed him.

thats what it means when neil says andrew hating him is fine. its not just fine, thats--in neils own words!--an understatement. its a necessary condition for neil to move forward with a physical relationship. because neil knows hes going to die. hes not going to do that to somebody; if dan or matt or someone quote unquote normal had asked him out, he would have shut it down immediately even if the feeling was reciprocated. hes going to hurt the foxes enough by being their friend and dying; hes not going to lead someone on into thinking they could have a long term relationship. he can only pursue this thing with andrew because he believes that andrew does not care about him as a person.

theres two main cases for why neil believes this:

he completely misread the situation with andrew

he is deliberately lying to himself about it to give himself an excuse to do the thing he wants to do anyway (kiss andrew stupid)

we can argue ourselves blue in the face about which one is most plausible; i generally take the boring centrist route of "bit of both, probably." andrew is, after all, a bit of a hard person to read, and neil is, after all, a lying liar who lies.

but what "its fine if you hate me" isnt is just some weird courtship thing. its the only way a guy on death row feels comfortable kissing the boy hes falling in love with. its selfish, because hes finding a reason to do it anyway, and its selfless, because he would rather deprive himself than hurt someone. and that tension is, quite frankly, one of the most delicious things about the whole book

[skydaemon]

Okay I’m awake again and something that really stood out to me with TSC was how different jean and neil are as protagonists. I expected they would be, but the thing I really noticed was how distinct their reactions were.

So, these books are HEAVY. There are many many traumatic events and the characters spend a lot of time in high-stress situations. Even when they’re not being attacked or threatened or XYZ, they’re often in a state of heightened physiological arousal (their sympathetic nervous system is going haywire). As a psychologist, the thing I find really interesting is that we see very different reactions that are all aligned with different adrenal responses, and I wanted to talk about it.

As a baseline, when your sympathetic nervous system is activated, you typically experience what some psychologists call the four Fs. Fight, flight, freeze, and/or fawn (some people use another word here but I don’t like it and think it’s less accurate to the situation). These can occur simultaneously or alone. And of the four characters who are most showing this response are the ones who are consistently in the highest stress situations, but who are also traumatised in such a way that even when they’re not actively in danger their sympathetic nervous system is overreactive and heightened.

So first off, we have Neil. He’s pretty clearly shown to have two responses: flight and fight. For his entire childhood, he’s been fleeing from danger and in the earlier parts of AFTG, we see this response - he tries to run as far as he can possibly get from anything that might be a risk. As a side point, this is pretty clearly a learned response from his mother. As Neil begins to feel more secure and his flight response is impeded (he can’t run away) we see the emergence of his other primary adrenal response - fight. I don’t feel like I need to explain this one, tbh, we’ve all seen how he runs his mouth. Fight is also typically shown when you believe you can defeat whatever’s threatening you, so I love what this says about how his confidence develops across the trilogy.

Then you have Andrew. He’s not a POV protagonist but I feel like his response might be the most obvious. His primary responses are fight and freeze (Andrew Minyard runs from/fawns for no man). Fight is pretty obvious - he’s a very violent person - but I feel like the most clear example of this is stopping Riko from attacking Neil. Andrew is obviously wired and his instinctive response is to protect. I love that for him. His other primary response, unfortunately, is freeze. Based on the most obvious time we see it (during Drake's attack), this is probably a response he developed as a child, before he felt strong/safe enough to fight back. God, these books make me sad sometimes.

Next is Kevin. He has a slightly more varied response - i can see the argument for him freezing, although i wouldnt say it's a primary response - but his main two responses are fight and fawn. Fight isn't necessarily literal, btw - the most obvious example is covering his tattoo. His fawn response is slightly more expanded on in TSC (mild spoilers if you haven't read that yet) when we see him responding to Riko's attack by begging first Riko and then Jean to intercede and stop the violence. he's trying to appeal to their affection for him, which is absolutely heartbreaking. Kevin i love you.

And finally, we have Jean, whose primary responses are only really made clear in TSC, although they are backed up by his appearances in the trilogy - freeze and fawn. We see freezing in Jean's response to sympathetic nervous system arousal, often from hearing about or recalling upsetting events/information. He closes in on himself and becomes unresponsive. Fawn is slightly more complicated, as we see it somewhat throughout AFTG. when he's loyal to riko and doing things he thinks riko will like in hopes of reducing any potential pain/threat he will experience, i'd call that fawning. an example at usc is him getting on his knees and handing coach rhemann his racket - he's not just submitting to punishment, he's trying to be helpful and well-behaved in hopes of lessening it. it's honestly a really strong response from him and it absolutely breaks my heart. jean in tsc is really struggling and i hope the last book brings him some peace. i also find it really painful that he's the only one of these boys without a fight response - he's never felt capable of winning against his abusers. i really hope the trojans and bee are able to help change that.

[ohfallingdisco]

They left Kevin and Wymack in West Virginia for Riko’s funeral.

How much strength would it have taken Andrew to get on the bus without them? How much trust, from Neil? How did Dan find the courage to leave Wymack behind, whom her entire future was modeled after? What was running through Aaron and Nicky’s heads, who had spent every day for two years in Kevin’s mess? Matt and Renee and Allison, driving away without two of the ten that made them the Foxes?

How terrified do you think Kevin was? Walking freely back into the belly of the beast, flaunting a Queen tattoo to a dead boy’s King. Taking his father with him—his father, who now knew who he was, and that the Moriyamas were to blame for the years of silence. Walking to the front, to pay respects to “The Master,” to commiserate a loss he can’t regret. How many hours did he spend on the phone, texting Andrew?

But, “Maybe it’s not about him,” Renee told Jean. “Maybe you’re mourning the wreckage he made of your life. You’re allowed to grieve what he took from you.” Perhaps Kevin heard something similar. Maybe his father told him something similar.

Maybe it was never about him. Maybe the shaking and the panic, in the dead of night, were never about him. The King had wronged the Queen, and she was bound to take her place in his stead. Maybe Kevin needed to stay to find a better version of himself, in the wreckage of who he was.

[scholliski]

I’m betting some dude sarcastically bet for the foxes to win while drunk of his ass and still gloats about it every day to his buddies

[achillean-heartbeat]

im reading the extras of aftg again and it just hit me that Aaron knew since day 1 that Andrew was lying to himself and everyone else about not caring for Exy.

Since the first day Kevin came to him with riko to invite him to Th Ravens teams, since Kevin challenged Andrew on the eagles court, Aaron knew Andrew lied when Kevin asked him if he had fun and Andrew said no.

Because he recognized his own lying tics on Andrew's face.

and then Andrew finally answered his question at the end of The King's Men, when Kevin came back with the queen tattoo.

GOD I LOVE THEM SO FUCKING MUCH

[allforthe-gays]

every time i interact with someone short i compare their height to andrew. most of the time he’s shorter. nora was crazy for making him five foot nothing, and i have nothing but respect for that decision.

[coldsaturn]

Hey, so one of andrews no go words was 'misunderstanding' right?? Do you have any idea why he uses it when he talks to neil on the way to the court where neil first meets Allison and seth in tfc ??

"Misunderstand" makes exactly 1 appearance in TFC and it's here:

"We'll take you out to dinner," Nicky said over his shoulder. "We used to live in Columbia, so we know all the best spots. Even better, we've got a free place to crash so we don't have to worry about driving back drunk or exhausted. It'll be a blast." "I don't drink or dance," Neil said. "That's all right," Andrew said. "Kevin doesn't dance anymore and I never do. You can drink soda and talk to us while the others make fools of themselves. We can't get through this year with this little misunderstanding between us, so we'll take a night off and fix it."

And you'd think this is a slip, because he does explicitly warn Neil against using that word in TRK because he hates it, but then in the aftermath of Drake he'll say to Neil:

Andrew turned to face him completely and stuffed his hands into the oversized front pocket of his sweatshirt. "You misunderstand," he said, with a knowing nod. "I wasn't asking, Neil. You helped create this mess. The least you could do is help clean it up. Where's your sense of responsibility?"

So it's a word that he hates, especially when it's used against him (which seems to be the big problem), but not so much that he won't use it against others. You could stretch the meta more and think that in both scenes Neil was a major thorn in Andrew's side, so by using "misunderstand" even though he hates that word, Andrew is effectively framing just how thin the ice Neil is treading is.

Even with "please" Andrew tells Neil he hates that word when Neil throws it in his face, but he doesn't say anything all the other times it's used around him (even in his favor, like when Aaron begged Wymack to release Andrew when Andrew was punching the wall), and doesn't really bat an eye when Katelyn literally begs him when he's threatening her. In TFC Kevin uses "Please" with Andrew and Andrew warns him that he knows how much Andrew hates the word, and that's it.

So they're words that can and usually do remind him of very bad memories, but they're not uncontrollable triggers, and they're contextual. He knows when they're being used in situations that are "harmless" to him.

[stick-ball]

Happy Women's Day to all who celebrate

[lolhex12]

i'm probably extremely late to the party but i just realized how deep Andrew's sacrifice and Aaron's betrayal go when it come to the Twinyard's dynamic like??

Andrew, after having spent years alone in the foster system and suffering through the trauma that comes with it, he finally found Cass, a woman who genuinely cared about him and wanted to be his mother - someone he was willing to sell his soul (and body) to the devil for and endure the abuse Drake put him through bc that was just the price he had to pay for Cass' love, care and kindness. all bc he dared being selfish and wanting something for himself for once. he loved her and wanted her love back so bad to the point he would cut himself to cope with being in that house when Cass wasn't looking.

after accepting this new reality of his and resigning himself to the pain (psychological, emotional, physical and self-inflicted), he found out he had a twin brother who looks EXACTLY like him yet got to live a (to his knowledge) stable loving life with their birth mother. that Andrew got thrown away while his carbon copy had everything.

he hated the revelation so he put it out of his mind, went back to Cass' where Drake found out abt Aaron and ran his mouth abt having both twins for himself and... it's not like Andrew hated nor loved or felt any kind of attachment to his brother (who was still basically a stranger to him), and yet he knew, bone-deep, that 1) no one deserved to go through what Andrew had (especially someone 'untouched' (so to speak) who looked like him; as in, the picture in Andrew's mind resembled a young, still innocent, 7y/o Andrew who had not yet fully grasped or learned how to deal with just how cruel the world could be when thinking abt Aaron in the same position), and 2) he didn't want to give Drake the satisfaction.

so, Andrew, after having endured however long Drake's abuse in Cass' household and cutting himself to cope with it, all for the right to stay with her, he gave it all up when he received Aaron's letter asking to meet and rejecting the offer with a 'fuck off' bc he could not risk Aaron getting too close and going through anything remotely similar. he didn't owe his brother anything, nor had they made a deal by that point, yet Andrew, despite not really knowing Aaron, could not risk getting him into his own shit. and so, all those years of pain and sacrifice Andrew had to endure went down the drain bc he wanted to protect a stranger wearing his face, out of his own volition.

Andrew then did sth that landed him in juvie and thought everyone's safe now bc Drake can't get to Aaron anymore, until Aaron visited Andrew in juvie and Andrew noticed the bruises on Aaron's arms and Andrew realized Aaron might not be as safe as he'd thought after all.

ALL that pain and sacrifice thrown away to protect his twin and the fucker still wasn't safe?? mother dearest count your days.

so he got out of juvie early on good behavior (which was a bitch to manage but what was he to do when he had to leave to protect his brother?) and adopted into the Minyard household to see who was hurting his stranger of a brother, for whom Andrew has already given so much up?

Aaron, as we know, agreed to Andrew's deal, not expecting his brother to commit matricide bc of it. a deal which to Andrew seemed simple enough: 'l'll protect you and help you get into med school and become a doctor and all you have to do is stick together with me' (aka not let anyone (women in particular) get between us).

so, after all that sacrifice, after sacrifice, after putting his life on the line by participating in Tilda's car accident, getting his brother clean, curating his friend group to a drug-free environment (later also putting his own reputation with the team on the line by violently getting matt clean for the same reason), getting him a scholarship to get into med school and become a doctor (as agreed), THIS FUCKER could not even hold up his own end of the deal while Andrew literally checked every box and then some for his idiot ungrateful brother.

meanwhile it took Aaron seeing Andrew get sa'd, killing his abuser, and years of joint therapy to begin to comprehend just how much Andrew endured, sacrificed, risked and overall did for him without Aaron even realizing. bc Andrew doesn't do what he does for recognition or gratitude, he does it bc that's what's been agreed to.

---

this is not meant to diss Aaron's character but simply put the entire situation into perspective from Andrew's POV. like, no offence to Aaron but Andrew legit bent over backwards for him and Aaron's response was just "ure a psycho, i choose Katelyn" (or at least that's how Andrew viewed it)

all that being said, Andrew definitely could've communicated the situation and his intentions better, or at least explain how much those deals really meant to him, but unfortunately he wasn't quite there yet (if ever) <- in other words: it wasn't Aaron's nor Andrew's fault. shit's just shit sometimes ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[feelingthedisaster]

"a ship could never love an anchor" but it's andrew minyard and the fact that all his relationships improved/were saved when the deals were called off

[satanic-foxhole-court]

Knowing Nora it was probably intentional that in each book someone was intentionally hit with an exy racket on screen (three times). Its in the similar vein of how the books mention of two intentional deaths in a car makes us question Kayleigh Day’s death in a car and if it was an accident

[saywhatyouwillbut]

there’s this really interesting parallel between the raven king in trc and the raven king in aftg. not the books, but the figures and perceptions of glendower and riko themselves.

in trc, glendower is this great-man-cum-genie’s-wish. he is man and myth in one. gansey’s focus on the yet-to-be-confirmed magic of glendower instead of the very real magic that exists all around him makes it so that, when glendower is found to be impotent, gansey sees no other solution to stopping the story’s great evil than his own sacrifice. we know there was another solution all along, stemming from a magic there had been tangible proof of since book one, but gansey still dies, even if he is ultimately revived.

in aftg, riko is made a god through his parasocial relationship with his fans. there’s a mythology around him: his perfect court and the fact that he was trained from childhood by one of the inventors of the game he plays, at the most prestigious program in the world. but behind the scenes, riko is propped up by a criminal organization and encouraged by his mentor to abuse his power. this, combined with neglect, turns him into the root of worst things to happen to each of our three main characters: kevin’s hand breaking, drake finding andrew, and neil’s dad finding him.

both riko and glendower end up exposing the main characters to almost dooms, glendower passively through the power of gansey’s faith, and riko actively through the power of the public’s adoration.

[scholliski]

there’s always some sort of discourse floating around about this topic but despite that I do thoroughly enjoy that the aftg fandom can be divided into their niche sub-fandoms, there are people who almost entirely stick to writing about, talking about and drawing the Ravens or the perfect court, those that lean towards the Trojans and make their content surrounding that, and even within the foxes there are those that focus on the upperclassmen, the upcoming freshmen, or the pre-canon seniors; I really think that it makes for a well rounded fandom experience where even the most niche topics and characters are explored and analysed in such depth and everyone eventually finds their own calling within the fandom