#i'm graduating university on tuesday and for some reason i'm still writing essays wow

[sirandking]

I’m not entirely sure where I’m going with this, but I really want to talk about how the upperclassmen and the monsters mirror each other. How each member of the monsters has a counterpart in the upperclassmen, someone with a similar backstory and similar motivations and goals, but with certain crucial differences that serve to highlight all the character development that happens throughout the books.

For instance, there’s Andrew and Renee: both foster children with harsh pasts who murdered and feel no remorse for it, but forced to face the consequences regardless. Andrew is left with a brother who can’t forgive him; Renee has to deal with the knowledge that she’ll never be the good person she wants to be. They have the same fighting style - defensive, reactive, but knowing that the only way to win is to stop your opponent from ever hurting you again; they both play goalie because they’re both best when they stand at everyone else’s backs and prevent anything from getting past them. There’s a reason Andrew charges Renee with protecting her half of the team, and not Dan, the official leader; where Dan is focused on moving forward and charging down the opposition, Renee and Andrew are about making sure everyone under their wing survives.

Then there’s Dan and Kevin, the team leaders (one official, one unofficial), a striker and an offensive dealer/occasional striker sub, #1 and #2. They’ve both been pushed down and shoved aside, marked as second-best or second-rate, and they both refuse to let that stop them. They both fight because they don’t know how to lose, because they can’t know how to lose, and they expect the same from everybody else. Kevin won’t accept anything but the best because that’s what he’s been taught, that’s the only way he knows how to live; Dan knows that anything less than perfection gives everyone else the right to stomp all over you, and is determined to never let that happen again. (And then there’s the fact that they both see Wymack as a father).

There’s Nicky and Allison, both cut off from their parents for not following the path their parents wanted for them, but choosing their own way anyway; a defensive dealer and a backliner, #7 and #8, who don’t back down from a challenge and don’t always know the best time to quit. They’re both blunt, protective, unapologetic; open with their sexuality and their personality and their history; they both make sure they look after their family, although Nicky is a bit more obvious about it. Neil once guessed that Nicky’s over-the-top extroversion was a front to compensate for the twins’ antisocial personalities, but it also compensates for the way he closed himself off as a teenager; Allison’s cattiness is a direct fuck-you to her parents and to everyone else who made assumptions about her or tried to tell her what to do.

There’s Aaron and Matt, both backliners, #4 and #5, and both protective to the point of violence. They have a shared history of abuse, both drug abuse and physical(/sexual, in Matt’s case) abuse, and for both of them it started with a parent. They were both forced to face their drug addictions head on by Andrew, and in an extreme way, almost breaking them in the process. But they both held on, and fought to improve, and both of them ended up with plans and a future and a way out.

And then there’s Neil and Seth, the dead and the dying, the oldest member of the team and the newest, both strikers with loud mouths and short tempers. They both refuse to take shit, Seth from people who disrespect him and Neil from people who disrespect his family. Seth is the biggest instigator tearing the team apart; Neil is the one who brings them together.

But where the monsters are still in the middle of their character arcs, still left with things holding them back, the upperclassmen have already moved past them. Aaron is still frustrated with and confused about his mother and angry at Andrew; Matt has forgiven his abuse as a product of the times and accepted Andrew’s intervention as necessary. Nicky is still hoping that his parents will forgive him, while Allison has cut hers out entirely. Kevin is still afraid of surpassing Riko, while Dan refuses to let anyone stop her. Neil keeps trying to hold his tongue and adhere to his mother’s rules for staying hidden, while Seth refuses to be anything but a loud-spoken, aggressive asshole. Andrew is held back by his belief that he’ll never be anything more than a knives and promises, while Renee had Stephanie Walker and her faith to teach her that she could still be worth something despite her past. The upperclassmen still have problems, but when it comes to the traits they share with the monsters, they’re several steps ahead in terms of healing.

So at the beginning, the upperclassmen are foils to the monsters, almost a parallel universe version of what the monsters could have been if they’d had the right supports, the right interventions at the right times. And of course they fight each other; how could they not, when all they can see when they look at each other is the person they could have been? But by the end, all of those problems have been overcome: Nicky has cut ties with his parents, Aaron is talking things over with Andrew, Neil has let go of his mother’s ghost, Kevin has stopped being afraid of Riko, and Andrew has found something to live for that isn’t wrapped up in promises and deals. Suddenly, the upperclassmen and the monsters aren’t opposites anymore: they’re parallel lines, not clashing colours, and it translates directly into their team dynamics.

Which is what the whole series is really about: Exy. Even though Neil is the main character, the story doesn’t end when Neil’s father dies, or when Neil and Andrew get together, or when Neil makes the deal with Ichirou and settles his future. It doesn’t even end when Riko dies; that’s only in the epilogue. It ends with the Foxes, when they do what they’ve been striving towards all year and beat the Ravens with the force of sheer determination and teamwork, when they prove to everyone else that they can be strippers and murderers and drug addicts and gang members and still deserve respect.

Neil is the linchpin who drags the two sides into the same orbit, the one who stands in when Seth dies and bridges the canyon between the monsters and the upperclassmen, the one who sets Riko’s death in motion, but this isn’t just Neil’s story. This isn’t just Neil finding a home in a team, getting everything he wanted and never letting go.

It’s a team of misfits and outcasts proving to the world that every single one of them is worth something. It’s people who were too similar to ever get along finding a home in each other.

#aftg #the foxhole court #tfc #meta #mine #it's funny that neil doesn't like mirrors considering he is the mirror #i'm graduating university on tuesday and for some reason i'm still writing essays wow #but at least with metas you can start 'i don't know where i'm going with this' and still have it turn out alright #also just saying but seth is 6 and neil is also 4 #4+6=10 #andrew and renee are 3 and 9 #renee is also involved with 3 jean #3x3=9 #illuminati confirmed