#did nora know that?

[topemberlytherefore]

so i found out face tattoos are illegal in SC so technically kevin committed a crime in TKM when he got the 2 covered. but also. i proceeded to make a cursed meme so hell here i come. here you go:

[kevindavidday]

he told betsy to go ahead with using any information from their sessions if it made jean feel even slightly comfortable. he asked someone he hadn't spoken to properly in years to make space for jean to heal. he held jean's hand. he held jean's face. he left the room without argument when jean asked him to. he knew jean liked some of the trojans. he grounded jean's mind when he was slipping. he locked himself in a room in distress when he thought jean was dead. he agreed to do an interview with jean knowing the comments they would have to face. he asked if jean would teach him french when riko wasn't looking. he wrote jean messages at the back of postcards. he got jean a little bear magnet, among many others. he made jean promise not to take his life. he told jean he didn't want to lose him.

[colourofmagic]

captain sunshine and the best backliner in ncaa exy ☀️

[youruinedmylifebynotbeingreal]

Hi yeah these two images have emotionally destroyed me!!

Ren reaching out for Nora, trying to be there for her - but then he doubts himself, remembering that she wants space. So he lets Oscar take the lead.

But then by the end of the epilogue he’s feeling more comfortable with them again and feels like he can touch her so I nEED TO KNOW WHAT EVENTS LED TO THIS DEVELOPMENT

[allforthegayphase]

TW: rape

Something I really appreciated about The Sunshine Court was its nauseatingly realistic depiction of rape culture.

Jean’s (repeated, violent) sexual assault isn’t treated as something horrific; in the toxic environment of The Nest, it’s normalized. The real story — Riko ordering 5 male players to rape Jean as a sadistic way to ‘break him in’ — is quickly twisted by his abusers; Jean is seen as a calculating vixen who slept his way to the top, for a Perfect Court number:

They continuously mock and taunt Jean with senseless jokes about it. There is an element of jealousy at play; Jean is a prodigy player, and, as he says himself at some point in the book, his older teammates didn’t enjoy being shown up by a child. They certainly enjoyed knocking him down a peg, though, by humiliating him and creating an illusion that he only got his spot on the team for sleeping around, not his talent:

Even one of his rapists, Grayson, continues this false narrative despite knowing the truth (or maybe he even convinced himself this narrative is the truth; that Jean ‘seduced’ him for a spot on the starting lineup):

Other ravens who don’t know the truth seem to quickly believe the narrative that a 16 yo chose to sleep with a bunch of his superiors for a personal gain; that is certainly easier than entertaining the thought that your teammates (friends?) are capable of something this horrific. Or maybe they simply don’t question it too hard; after all, Jean can’t tell his side of the story.

The rumors eventually spread outside the Nest. Jean’s reputation is tarnished to the point that this is one of the first things strangers on the internet learn about him:

The most heartbreaking detail about it all is Jean’s age. He was a 16 boy on the college team, the youngest player on the lineup; a foreigner who couldn’t even speak English when he arrived; an outsider. Despite the fact that his young age is something that even the ravens find particularly scandalous about the whole situation, Jean’s agency is never questioned. He’s not seen as a minor who was taken advantage of by older, superior men — and most of them are quite significantly older, having already graduated by the time Jean’s 19; Grayson seems to be the youngest of them and he’s at least three years older than Jean.

As many victims of SA, Jean had no choice but to continue living with his abusers side by side, pretending like nothing happened. Knowing there’s absolutely nothing he can do.

The first time someone voices concern over the questionable circumstances surrounding the whole situation happens in this conversation with Jeremy (to be fair, it seems like Jean's age isn't public knowledge but the ravens obviously know):

And as many victims, Jean internalized his experience as something he deserved on some level:

TLDR: Sexual assault is, unfortunately, a very big part of our culture; it’s not just something that happens in the dark alleys; rapists aren't just scary strangers. They're also your friends, peers, teammates. The way the Nest (and the general public as a whole) turns a blind eye at best and mocks and humiliates the victim at worst is a microcosm of how SA is largely treated in real life. It was genuinely fascinating to see it depicted so realistically, even though it made for a heavy read at several points. I hope Nora keeps up the good work, and we'll see further exploration of the topic and Jean dealing with his trauma in the next book.

[odetojupiter]

i see you saying that it’s heartbreaking that wymack set up the foxes to help people with trauma but couldn’t help his own son and i raise you: wymack saved kevin before kevin left the nest, without even knowing. kevin never would have left the nest if he didn’t have somewhere to go, and wymack - with the media attention he garnered with the foxes - became such a trustworthy figure in kevin’s mind that he didn’t doubt for a second that wymack would take him in and keep him as safe as he could. wymack did help kevin, before they had even met each other, by being such a strong beacon of hope that kevin was drawn to him despite the fact that he was raised and abused in a cult and probably found trusting anyone difficult, let alone someone he hadn’t met.

something else to consider: the foxes are still a newish team (if i remember correctly seth’s year is their first year, dan is their second, meaning neil is their fifth), and jean tells neil that kevin only found out wymack was his dad a few years ago when neil is in the nest. this means that kevin will have been aware of who wymack was - outside of wymack having played the sport prior to coaching - and would have seen the type of person he was before he knew they were related. he’d have witnessed from after wymack fighting tooth and nail to support his foxes despite all the mess, the tragedies, would have seen him staying firm in his belief in second chances BEFORE he found out wymack was his dad.

think - kevin saying to jean imagine having that. jean would say it’s a publicity stunt, it’s not real, those types of people don’t exist and kevin would agree and say they’re a shit team anyway, but something about wymack always rang true to him. maybe after that conversation he didn’t bring it up - other than to say i think my mother would’ve liked dan wilds when it’s announced she’s the new captain. but he still sees wymack’s actions in his periphery, and it’s enough to build up a picture of him as someone who is real. and then he finds out it’s his dad

imagine how that would have been for kevin - going from living in a cult, cut off from any family he may have had after kayleigh’s death to suddenly being told he has a dad, and that dad is the type of person who would have risked himself if he knew what was happening to kevin.

[thespineoftherighteous]

watch tsc be Nora's revenge. like she's just leading us on and then she's going to absolutely wreck everything, take a sledgehammer to all the things that everyone loves, as retaliation for people being so shitty to her online for so many years. it's all a ruse, she's biding her time, being nice to us online while quietly pouring gasoline over everything and then we crack open tsc1 and boom. Andrew and Neil broken up. Kevin with a career-ending injury, will never play exy again. Coach ditched the Foxes to go get married to some fling and now lives in Mexico. Dan and Matt both cheated on each other with Jeremy and the exy tabloids are losing their minds. Renee ditched the Foxes to join a sorority. Matt died. I'm not saying it's what she will do I'm saying maybe it's what she SHOULD do (and also what I would probably do)

[daddyduncan69]

something something the first time i truly felt pity for riko was his death and i think that fucking matters something something

[centaur-dreaming]

Jean Moreau you deserved so much fucking better.

[adventure-ocelot]

I love that Neil has just been turned into some racially ambiguous guy like personally I’ve never seen a specific race head cannon for him but that bitch is never white

[crazy-fangirl2524]

Andrew’s “bottomless rage” and Jean’s “old and ugly rage” are the same in this essay I will -

[broken-heart-raven-queen]

Just picture Jean with his newly learned motorcycling skills, leather fingerless gloves and a Trojan hoodie with Renee's crucifix under it... HOLDING A STRAY PUPPY!!

The little thing is so dirty it can barely open it's eyes, it's shaking, not only because of fear but because he is lacking chunks of hair. It's black and fits just right in the crook of Jean's neck inside the hoodie that keeps it warm.

He calls Jeremy and he's scared because he thinks Jean totalled his bike (maybe it's one of his first times going alone) and he just told him to pick him up from some "clinic" (vet) and to make sure he had a pillow in his car.

When Jeremy saw the image of Jean with the now clean and vaccinated puppy sleeping in his arms he almost dies then and there.

Jean: Name?

Jeremy: Jean, we can't...

Jean: I'm not sharing my name with the dog, pick another one.

Jeremy: The lease...

Jean: Fuck the lease. Give. Me. A. Name.

Jean holds the yawning puppy in front of Jeremy's face with his two hands and he thinks his face is gonna crack in two from the force of his smile.

[cloud-hymn]

People that hate Nicky for what happened during the first Eden’s scene in tfc but say nothing about Andrew really drive me up the wall. Like personally I choose not to acknowledge that scene as canon but if you’re gonna call Nicky an evil monster for kissing Neil, maybe hold the same energy for Andrew who not only horrifically violated Neil’s consent and autonomy by drugging him but then didn’t even bother making sure nothing happened to him while he was high out of his mind in the middle of a fucking night club. Like genuinely the whole scene is horrific and so fundamentally misrepresents both Andrew and Nicky as characters but people are so hypocritical about it that it makes me feel crazy.

[syl-stormblessed]

reading the foxhole court again after tsc is really something

[chryseiswriting-blog]

Hey hey, totally not going to happen, but imagine if we got a “I am the villain you made me” ending for Jean, like he’s employed by Moriyama and quits Exy to take over his fathers role as the French liaison for the yakuza and becomes the Wolf of Marseille, and kills people, including his father while he’s walking up the steps to the trial (sniper shot?), and all because Moriyama has his sister.

Like,

“As far as I’m concerned, this sport should have died the day Riko put a bullet in his head.”

A real French hit man.

[feelingthedisaster]

i just know kayleigh day has some crazy lore hidden