is nobody going to talk about this?? like, andrew’s pettiness has always been obvious, especially in scenes like when he threw neil’s keys off the roof, but this one is gold imo. he forgoes the chance to make out and share a moment of privacy with neil because he’s full of spite and doesn’t want to accept any “help” from nicky, especially not in matters of his not-relationship. like. andrew. my boy
neil paints his nails because fuck gender roles and when nicky sees for the first time he just starts laughing uncontrolably like doubled-over-can’t-breathe laughing and neil is 103% ready to fuck him up if he says something rude about it but the only thing that comes out of his mouth when he has enough air to breathe again after a solid few minutes is “neil polish”
The one thing I’ll never understand is how Nicky could possibly think Neil and Andrew were hate-fucking when he heard every word of their (German)exchange in the hotel
#I ain’t even gonna start on Aaron#that homophobic sucker can blow me
what she says: i’m fine
what she means: i still don’t understand why nicky hemmick is so often relegated to the sidelines. simplified. minimized. i mean, if we just review the basics, nicky hemmick is a mexican-american, openly lgbt boy that grew up in a toxic environment. he grew up hating himself and thinking he was something disgusting, something unspeakably wrong. it’s the most common form of abuse through the medium of religion and “this is for your own good” logic. how long did he believe that? how long was that “sunrise, abram, death”? how much did the depression and anxiety eat away until erik? then there’s: “[erik] showed me how to balance my faith and my sexuality” which means that nicky had to learn for himself that religion and sexuality are not mutually exclusive, which possibly took months, if not years, for him to completely process and accept after a lifetime of the opposite being brutally beaten into him. and the worst part is, he can’t bring himself to hate his parents, even after everything, which means two things: the first is he’s not that different from the twins and even neil, who grapple with loving the person that hurt them. the second is that nicky hemmick grew up in a place and, frankly, lives in a place where he has every reason to end up cruel. but he isn’t. he loves quickly and unconditionally. he loves and feels strongly. he loves in all the ways he was never loved.
the foxhole court + social media au || a series of nicky’s snapchats {4/?}
full offense, but when will people clue in to the fact that nicky hemmick is more than his sexuality and stop acting like being gay is a personality trait and his only one at that
Dude. I will kick an ass for Nicky Hemmick. That boy is strong as fuck. (Bear with me, my timeline is rusty at best) He survived 17 years with parents who wanted to drown out every last spark of who Nicky was, wanted to erase his sexuality to the point of sending him to conversion camp.
You ever been to or even talked to someone who was in one of those hellholes? It’s like emotional water boarding, every fucking hour of every fucking day. For Nicky to go through that and still be a functioning person is beyond amazing.
For Nicky to walk away from a sure thing, from his happy ending to take care of two kids who gave him nothing but grief – one, out and out hostility! The other fucking death threats! – is a sort of selflessness that I have no problem admitting that I don’t have. That shows an incredible capacity for love and forgiveness that no one seems to give a shit about.
Nicky surrounds himself with people who are too broken to ever really love him as much as he loves them and he does it anyway. (I am in no way trying to imply that the twins, or Neil, or the Upperclassmen, or fuck, even Kevin, don’t love Nicky in their own ways, just not in the language of love that Nicky speaks. Don’t worry, he starts to learn the dialects.)
He comes to PSU with these kids who don’t actually legally need him anymore because Andrew asked. Andrew wouldn’t take this good thing without him so he came. Because Andrew saved his life and was now addicted to court-ordered mania inducing who knows what. (Fuck you if you don’t think Nicky stayed up at least four, five, six times listening to Andrew’s withdrawal through the bathroom door before he realized he wouldn’t be allowed to help.) Nicky puts on this loud person to distract from the twins. They get judged enough without anyone actually looking close enough to exploit the cracks in their relationship.
Nicky Hemmick is love and forgiveness and a safe place to land. And fuck anybody who only sees the loud proud boy he finally gets the chance to be.
Nothing but My Aching Soul 