No Fucking Wonder Mary Never Let Neil Make Any Friends On The Run. For Someone Whose Survival Depended

andrew really said “if you’re afraid to die, you have no place on our court” and neil said “bet”

this idea just randomly came to me and i can’t get it out of my head so: the foxes as texters (we already vaguely know some info but i have stuff i want to add on)

neil is just the worst texter ever. like... one word answers, bland messages, leaves you on read 99% of the time. normally reads the texts at least, but he doesn’t text first unless he needs something, and he doesn’t make an effort to keep the convo going. phone is always on silent but with vibrations - he hasn’t figured out how to turn it off vibrate, and he doesn’t care enough to ask for help (esp since his phone is normally dead anyway). he gets better at checking his phone and answering calls when andrew leaves psu though

andrew either answers within 2 seconds or never answers at all. autocap is off and he never uses punctuation (not even for questions). messages are usually short and to the point, but he’s fun to text if he actually deigns to answer. mix of dry humour, heavy sarcasm, and obscure messages that you can only understand by remembering 6 throwaway comments 

nicky is very enthusiastic!! lots of emojis, instant replies for all, only punctuation he uses are exclamation points and question marks. isn’t deterred by bland texters (re: neil) and will spam you with no regrets. also sends lots of pictures! and he never says “already seen it” when you send a meme that he’s seen before - he’s just happy when someone thinks of him

dan usually replies within a few hours. uses excessive amounts of question marks, and her texts are filled with abbreviations. autocap and autocorrect are off. sends memes constantly, never afraid to ask someone to meet up or to start a convo w someone she hasn’t talked to in a long time. sends a ton of short messages in a row rather than one big one. only uses periods if she’s mad or it’s important

matt’s texts have a ton of typos, even though autocap and autocorrect are both on - he mostly texts w capslock bc he gets easily excited. uses punctuation, but not at the end of texts. gets back as soon as he sees your message, but it could be a while, bc he always puts his phone on silent during practice and classes. uses cute emojis all the time

renee has autocap off but autocorrect on, and she uses proper punctuation. many :) type of emojis but rarely the actual face ones. takes a bit longer to answer bc she wants to formulate the right response, but she’s very quick to reply if it’s an emergency

allison doesn’t answer for hours, unless she actually likes you. always has a ton of unopened messages, and says she’ll get around to them eventually. texting style morphs from person to person - perfect punctuation w neil, no autocap or autocorrect w dan, enthusiactic w nicky, etc. won’t text first unless she likes you or has something important to say or ask for

kevin’s texts are very demanding. def has autocap and autocorrect on. not afraid to spam until you answer him. he’ll send a massive text and then a ton of short angry ones. texts people when he’s bored and drunk texts constantly (you could be getting a play-by-play of his fav exy moments, or an in-depth analysis of an important historical figure, or be completely roasted). he has french, english, and japanese keyboards, so sometimes his autocorrect gives you a multilingual message. sends memes to anyone that they remind him of or that he thinks will enjoy them, but hardly ever answers any memes or posts sent his way

aaron is the sweetest texter ever with katelyn, all cute emojis and smiley faces, but he’s pretty dry w basically anyone else. has fun texting w the monsters though, and he’ll never admit it, but he loves getting spam from nicky and memes from kevin. the only people he sends memes to are nicky and katelyn. the messages between him and andrew could all but be in a different language (and sometimes actually are in german) for how chaotic and obscure they are. he’s the type of person to open your message and then forget about it for a week before answering

seth is direct with his messages and you never know if he’s being sarcastic or just really mean. sends posts to allison all the time when they’re on, ghosts her when they’re off. short messages, but happy to help keep the conversation going if he likes you. no qualms about spamming you if you don’t answer. sappy drunk texts

if you made it through that... good job, this is just a dumping ground for my random thoughts lmaoo

fandom really is a closed circle and this has happened before and will happen again but the past few months there was a bunch of 'lol aftg was so bad' posts and it was exhausting but now ive seen about six posts like actually no aftg was really good stfu and id just like to weigh in and say actually no aftg WAS really good stfu

back on my bullshit

n e ways

do you want have headcannon for the foxes cursing habits/how they curse/ everyone’s fave curse word (this totally includes abbie and dadmack too btw)

ilysm, thank you for another ask!

ooo this is fun! (it got very long very fast hahah sorryyy). here’s what i’ve got for you:

(coarse language ahead, obviously)

dan mostly swears at people. by this, i mean she doesn’t usually swear if she stubs her toe or is running late, only if someone pisses her off

her favourite ones are asshole and motherfucker, but she’s also fond of dick

kevin isn’t picky with his swear words - he’ll use whatever gets the point across

however, he loves swearing in french, and his fave french curse is “putain à la merde”, which loosely translates to fucking shit

andrew opts for fuck and fuck you most of the time. in english, because he usually wants everyone to understand him if he swears

that said, he doesn’t often have to swear - his stare says it well enough

matt curses not only when he’s mad, but also when he gets excited (so basically, he swears a lot)

his faves are holy hell/fucking hell and frick frack crack-a-lack (bc of the looks the foxes give him when he says it)

aaron’s favourite english swear words are bullshit and moron, but he especially enjoys the casual german curse word “scheiße” and uses it very often

seth goes right for the throat. he’s not afraid to use the f slur or c*nt, especially around the foxes (two swear words that i’m nervous to even type out LMAO) 

in more public settings, he opts for jesus christ and shit

allison loves saying bitch/son of a bitch (bc people call her a bitch all the time so she just turns it around)

worth noting that she swears at inanimate objects more than at people - her curling iron when it burns her, her phone when she drops it, anything she bumps into, etc

nicky, like aaron, is fond of german curse words. his are generally more colourful though, since he learned more german slang and bc swear words are the first thing he got erik to teach him

in english, nicky likes kiss my ass and damn. he also enjoys making up random insults sometimes, like calling someone an untied shoelace or a stale piece of bread. medicated andrew found this very entertaining

renee doesn’t swear - she destroys people with condescension and passive-agressiveness

before she was born-again, she was fond of using fuck (twinning w andrew xoxo)

neil will use literally anything, in any language. typically he morphs his curses to fit whatever culture he’s currently immersed in. some examples:

america: fuck/fucker

britain: wanker and prick

france: merde, salope, and va te faire enculé (shit, bitch, and go fuck yourself)

germany: flachwischer and du fickfehler (~fuckiwit/motherfucker and you mistake*)

wymack always mixes it up. flying fuck, pain in my ass, what the absolute shit, goddamnit, etc. he doesn’t have a favourite; he likes them all

abby’s pretty tame, usually. her most frequently used are crap, what the hell, and christ. if she stubs her toe, she normally says frick. wymack thinks it’s adorable

*i don’t actually speak german, besides very basic beginner duolingo stuff, so those translations are just what i found on random websites

hola me amiga, back again to ask: tilda minyard and her relationship to both of the twins. thoughts?

hello again! 

(cw: abusive parent-child relationship, tilda, twinyards’ pasts)

oh boy. tilda. she is one character that i just. hate. i don’t hate her for putting the twinyards into foster care. i don’t even hate her for only taking aaron back, bc while it’s heartbreaking all around... she couldn’t handle two kids, which is devastating but fair. not telling aaron about andrew was pretty shitty, but again, she couldn’t handle two and aaron would’ve wanted to reunite, so keeping him a secret was maybe what she thought was the least painful.

but god. i hate her so much. 

she was neglectful of aaron his whole childhood and made him feel like a burden. he still loved her, bc kids want to love their parents so desperately. and in return he was met with snarls and insults and silent hatred. the kind where a person can channel their hate as they’re washing dishes roughly or clenching they’re jaw while watching tv. the kind that festers around you and makes the entire environment stifling and toxic. 

and then andrew. i don’t think andrew had it in him any more to care that he was abandoned. the fact that tilda abandoned him and kept aaron may have stung slightly, but ultimately, he would’ve shoved that down as just another shitty thing in his shitty life and moved on. 

however. 

tilda started to become violent when higgins told them about andrew. she’d been abusive the whole time, but now it was physical as well. and there’s no way aaron didn’t associate that negativity with andrew, even only subconsciously, before he even met him. 

and then andrew was reunited, which tilda had tried to avoid all along. and andrew saw how abusive she was and told aaron he could take care of it, and he did. and aaron despised him for it. because he still loved his mom. because he was still so desperate for the love that came out in fractured fractions from time to time. 

tilda is, ultimately, why the twinyards have such a shitty relationship. she’s the reason aaron had such a shitty childhood. (i don’t think it’s 100% fair to blame all of andrew’s on her, because while she is why he’s there, she wasn’t the actual abuser for him. she doesn’t haunt his nightmares). 

tilda shattered the twinyards and did nothing to put them back together. and i will never forgive her for it. 

andreil would die for each other in a heartbeat, and i think that’s from a mix of wanting to protect each other and not wanting to be the one left behind. if one of them dies, they want it to be themselves - because, yes, they want the other to continue living, but both of them also finding the thought of living without the other unbearable

yes neil is absolutely clueless when it comes to people liking him, both platonically and romantically, but he’s honestly pretty perceptive when it comes to other people. he was able to analyse the relationships and dynamics between the foxes pretty quickly (for the most part) after meeting each of them, even without knowing their backstories or anything about them. i think that this is for a few reasons:

neil has spent his entire life looking for threats towards him, not love

the only person who ever really cared about him before he joined the foxes (from what we know) was his mom, who had very questionable ways of showing it (i could write a whole other post about mary)

neil didn’t actually expect anyone to care about him in any way, because he didn’t think he was worthy of friendships and had never really opened up enough for it to be a viable option 

he had to be good at quickly and discreetly analyzing other people’s relationships, because it was important to understand those around him on the run 

excluding all the times where he went off and snapped at people, he tended to listen more than talk, especially when in big groups. this is the perfect opportunity to absorb information about everyone else

that being said, he didn’t pick up on anyone caring about him, because that idea had never even crossed his mind

also, given that he hadn’t really known what romantic attraction felt like, it was probably pretty hard to place his feelings for andrew 

and andrew’s not exactly the easiest to read, so even for neil (who understands him significantly more than others do), it would’ve been hard to see that andrew liked him (esp since andrew was presenting his attraction as hate)

however!! it would’ve been a lot easier to pick out the subtleties in the relationships between the other foxes, because they’re generally more open 

basically, i think that neil actually isn’t completely clueless when it comes to love/lust/attraction between others, it’s just when it comes to himself - who he doesn’t think is worthy of anything good - that he’s a bit thick

neil spent his whole life trying to blend in and desperately avoiding being remembered, and i feel like a monumental moment that shows how much he’s changing is when he sees himself on the foxes’ photo wall. he even reaches out, ready to tear the picture down, but he hesitates and leaves it up which is just... huge

 he allows that small piece of himself to live on, he lets is stay there, and he even thinks ahead to the future. he thinks of being dead in a few months and of how that small picture will keep him in people’s memories, and for once, he WANTS to be remembered. he wants people to know that he lived and breathed and was a part of the palmetto state foxes. that he was, however briefly, part of their own little messed up, flawed, perfect family. for the first time in his life, he doesn’t want to let himself fade into oblivion 

and for the first time in his life, he’s ready to die if it means protecting the people he loves

I loved your hc about Neil doing Robin's hair so much 🥺 do you have any more Robin and Neil headcannons?

thank you so much!! and yes omg, i think about robin and neil’s friendship constantly, i’ll add a few of my hcs here :)

they go for runs together. it’s a good way for robin to become comfortable around him because they don’t really have the breath to talk, but she can get used to his presence. it took neil some time to adjust, since he’s used to running alone to escape his thoughts, but it’s nice to have a quiet, determined person with him. plus, it makes her faster on court, so its a sneaky way for neil to get her to be better at exy without actually playing exy 24/7, since she’s not quite as exy-obsessed as him

they bake together!! even though neil doesn’t like sweets, andrew does, and he normally saves them for him (he brings some w him when he goes to visit andrew after andrew leaves psu). robin likes knowing that she took all of these random ingredients and made something delicious. she shares with the team but also indulges in the treats that she’s been missing out on most of her life

sometimes the court is a bit too stifling, too cage-like, for robin, who has way too much experience being locked up. (even though it was the one thing in her childhood she associated w freedom, it’s different to watch the games than to have the heavy doors bolting you in). this is one area where neil and robin can’t really understand each other; robin was stuck for too long to want anything to hold her in place, while neil was on the run for so long that any hint of permanency is something that he latches on to. despite that, he’s always there to help talk her down from her panic, and never feels any frustration towards her when she needs to step out for a bit. those panic days are ones that always end w a quiet run together 

they have secret movie nights together where they try to catch up on the movies that the foxes reference all the time, since they both are seriously lacking in that department. (the movie nights are secret because they don’t want to deal with other people). sometimes they think the movies are worth the hype, sometimes they don’t, but they always enjoy each other’s presence. this is also a great opportunity for neil to practice more complicated braids, and to coach robin on how to do some simpler ones herself

robin slowly becomes more vocal, being so close to neil. she never has any speeches quite as iconic as “you know, i get it”, but her dry humor and sarcastic smiles make her fans go wild

robin learns german! she can communicate w the monsters privately that way, which is something that she’s immensely grateful for. and in neil’s senior year (when the rest of them have graduated), robin and neil become closer out of necessity, like nora said. the german is super helpful then for developing inside jokes and having conversations without fear of everyone eavesdropping

i have to go finish up a final project rn, but i hope those are the sort of things you were looking for! if you want more in the future, let me know :) and same goes for any other character combo hcs you’d like to see!!

it’s the way that the foxes didn’t stay anywhere overnight all year and instead drove home in the middle of the night every single time to avoid being stuck somewhere unfamiliar, but they willingly stayed at a hotel when neil was taken and would’ve been fine with booking a second night when he came back to them if that’s what he wanted. like andrew would’ve stabbed them if they even thought about leaving, but the best part is that he didn’t even have to. i’m sorry i’m just crying