spideymanny

Latest Posts by spideymanny

NEED the aftg fandom to stop demonising andrew just let him exist. sleeping with his arms draped over the steering wheel, smashing his racquet against the wall when he got scored on, staring at neil in silence for a full minute after finding out what the foxes named the cats, "what are you doing with a maserati?" "driving it.", drinking hot chocolate and watching movies with bee, buying neil armbands so he doesn't have to see his scars, running up and down the stairs in the stadium, falling asleep on the beanbag in the dorms, muttering something that makes renee laugh under his breath during an interview, studying criminology for the shits n giggles, clocking jeremy immediately and going back and gossiping to renee about it, buying clubbing clothes for neil, UGH andrew minyard you will always be loved by me.

neil's learned obliviousness

gearing myself up to write another essay about neil josten. the grind never stops. had to figure out why people making neil super clueless and oblivious always rubbed me the wrong way even tho it's technically canon so here it is.

ok so i have a lot of thoughts about neil and obliviousness but i'm gonna mostly condense them into this single thesis statement: neil only pays attention to and notices things he deems important.

we've been knew atp that neil has insane tunnel vision, and that often comes across in his narration. because of this, it's easy to assume that neil is just genuinely very clueless and oblivious when it comes to social interaction and also romantic relationships, flirting, etc.

i know nora herself said that neil wouldn't realise if someone is flirting with him because he's dense as a brick and while i appreciate the comedic value of socially oblivious neil i generally take this characterisation with a grain of salt because it very quickly leans into territory of neil being just generally dumb and inept, which i lowk can't stand because it sanitises and declaws neil a lot and makes him boring and stereotypical.

so i raise you this: neil's obliviousness (if you want to call it that) throughout aftg and in his narration is deliberate. mostly, i think it's all intentional. he literally intentionally refuses to notice or give attention to certain things. and because of his relentless focus on only a couple of things (exy and his survival), things like socialising and relationships get put on the backburner unless they relate to the two aforementioned things.

let's dissect it using examples.

nicky's flirting. neil's narration is pretty clear-cut when it comes to this. he doesn't demonstrate much confusion towards nicky's behaviour except that he doesn't really know why nicky's more interested in him than exy. crucially, he isn't confused about why nicky demonstrates an interest in him (which is because he thinks neil is hot), he's just confused about why nicky is investing energy into flirting with him when, in his mind, there are better things to be doing. it seems, at least in his narration, that he knows nicky is flirting, he just doesn't know why and also doesn't really care to focus on it. aside from an initial discomfort/expression of disinterest, neil doesn't linger on nicky's comments and flirtations for the rest of the series. he narrates it when it's relevant but doesn't make any additional internal comments towards it because it doesn't pertain to his two priorities: exy and survival.

marissa's flirting. i feel like there's two ways to interpret neil's response to marissa's advance "i can give you my number". neil says "what for?" and you can either take this as genuine confusion or just neil kinda being a dick. i lowk never considered the first option and just jumped straight to "neil doesn't really care about hurting this girl's feelings" lmfao. i think i'm right tho, because he elaborates and makes it clear he isn't interested in pursuing relationships outside of the foxes (see: priority no. 1, exy) and when nicky and dan comment on it, making it explicitly clear that marissa was asking neil out, neil doesn't express any confusion over what she was trying to do. people who write neil being genuinely exaggeratedly clueless when being flirted with need to remember that neil wasn't unaware of marissa's intentions during this scene, he was just so aggressively disinterested that he failed to remark on most of it. he never expresses any actual confusion or obliviousness about her flirting.

andrew. ok look. this is gonna require some explaining. first of all let's talk about andrew's attraction to neil on a purely physical level. their nothingship era, if you will. neil's dizzying whiplash during the "that doesn't mean i wouldn't blow you" scene is honestly pretty understandable. like really, who wasn't surprised during that scene? the hints in the previous books about andrew's attraction towards neil were so subtle that most of us readers had to reread a couple times to actually catch the progression and build-up. and also, andrew was high and manic for most of the first two books, so it's understandable that neil probably chalked up a lot of andrew's yapping and odd behaviours to the drugs, rather than a genuine expression of andrew's feelings. that's not to say he discounted the things andrew told him, but since he's always taken andrew at face value, he also didn't doubt andrew's "i hate you" and supposed dislike of him. i think it's actually very very understandable that neil didn't pick up on andrew's attraction to him because 1. why would you ever assume that about anyone anyway 2. neil is pretty preoccupied with being hunted down by his serial killer father and the japanese mafia 3. andrew was NOT making it easy on neil at all. this is partially because andrew himself wasn't ready to face the reality of his feelings for neil and also just his general confusing way of going about things. it makes a lot of sense that even neil, who's generally good at reading andrew and picking up on his hints, would miss whatever hints andrew was dropping about this, if any. and finally, 4. andrew wanting to fuck neil doesn't have anything to do with exy or survival, so neil instinctively filters it out and doesn't think about it a lot. next, i guess we have to talk about andrew's actual feelings for neil. again, we like to make fun of neil for never picking up on the fact that andrew is in LOVE with him during their situationship phase. but again, i think it makes a lot of sense? yes, andrew wasn't exactly subtle about it by a certain point (see: baltimore reunion) but also, neil has literally been pavloved to reject romantic relationships. one of the ways he "justifies" his nothingship with andrew is by assuring himself that andrew is only physically attracted to him. and the other justification is that he sees andrew as intertwined with the idea of his survival, because of the deal they have. keeping andrew close and being in a relationship with him is directly related to his own safety and survival. because neil's lowk manipulated his own thinking to associate andrew implicitly with survival, suddenly their relationship is a lot more prioritised in neil's mind and narration, because it pertains to priority no. 2, survival. i truly, truly believe neil's refusal or inability to see andrew's actual feelings for him is deliberate. he doesn't want to notice that andrew actually is in love with him because that is area he isn't familiar with and he doesn't want to hurt andrew when he dies. but because he obviously does want to continue this little "nothing" with andrew, and because he associates andrew with survival, he's unwilling to let go of him. so he just refuses to notice and remains deliberately oblivious to andrew's feelings for him. it's all very psychological.

final argument: people like to make fun of neil for not realising his own feelings for andrew but listen. he does realise. he never says that he doesn't feel anything for andrew. he never denies being in love with or attracted to andrew, not even in his own head. he registers, literally in trk, after his conversation with nicky, that he sees andrew differently and could be developing feelings for him, but he literally forcibly pushes the thoughts away because they would distract him from priority no. 1 (exy) and priority no. 2 (survival). he also notices in the back half of tkm that their nothingship has taken on new weight and means more than just "nothing" but he avoids acknowledging it with andrew even when he's aware of it in his own mind. so yeah. neil isn't in a state of denial. like at all.

also, neil does notice things when they pertain to his priorities. like, he picked up on jeanee the same way kevin did. he noticed literally in trk the way jean reacted differently to renee, but he only chose to acknowledge and mention it out loud when he could use it to his advantage. and it did work out in everyone's favour, because he brought it up with kevin, kevin gave renee jean's number, and that's how jean was able to escape the nest and survive the year. so, lbr, neil isn't as clueless and out-of-it as the fandom likes to make him. he can be very perceptive and socially aware when it pertains to his narrow-minded priorities.

ok at the end of the day, i can acknowledge: it is not that deep. if ppl want to make neil super oblivious and clueless and socially inept, it's not rlly a big deal. i just personally hate when they dumb neil down when he is honestly such a smart and perceptive character and his intelligence is actually such a huge part of the series. so anyway. i hope u enjoyed this essay, it's been a while so it's a little rough.

happy birthday neil josten and his little fox paw doodles and his fraying-at-the-hems shirts and his scary ahh smile and his electric blue bambi eyes and his unsettling demeanour and his inability to half-ass anything except for school and his fearlessness and ruthlessness and his love for maths of ALL fucking things and his zombie cowboy halloween costume and his bad temper and his smart mouth that only knows how to talk mad shit, lie, and kiss andrew and his pretty face and his four minute mile and his favourite colour being grey and his five-something languages that he speaks and his fierce devotion to exy and the foxes and jean and his insane aura and his general nonchalance and his breakfast burrito that he hid behind and his napkin that he ordered a hit on and his stalker binder and his keys and cigarettes. i will never love another the character the way i love neil josten.

rereading tsc is awful bc every five pages im reminded of the amount of abuse jean went thru at evermore, like HE WAS 16 WHEN OFFICIALLY JOINED OMFG

i'm imagining kevin day on mythical kitchen's series "cheat meals" where they work out with a famous athlete and then indulge on the athlete's fav cheat meals......

like imagine kevin being so serious about teaching josh from mythical kitchen how to play exy and he'd be rlly dedicated in showing others how to play... AH

yall need to put spoiler warnings at the top of ur post or smth I HAVENT READ TGR YET PLSSSS i have just seen the most devastating spoiler and idk if it's real or not 🚶

redraw of iconic photo by james patrick dawson, and how are you coping with waiting for tgr??

Neil Josten you are my favourite cunt ever like that man was really on his deathbed being TORTURED and still managed to gain the confidence to call his torturer a “strung out whore” like boy give it up

i think an andreil "eternal sunshine of the spotless mind" au would be incredible...PLS PLS PLS

BAND AU OH MY GOD.

Kevin and Riko used to be a duo under the Moriyama label. Label was abusive and milked its artists for all they were worth—promoted addiction and disparaged mental healing so the songs would be more raw. Kevin gets out after a private fight with Riko and goes to Wymack’s label, confusing the public. People riot when he announces he’s joined The Monsters.

The Monsters are their own band, more rock-based and edgy. They recruited Neil from a video of him busking for cash (a la Justin Beiber).

The Monsters before Kevin:

(Neil sings this ironically bc no one knows how batshit his mom is) ^^

The Monsters with Kevin:

Kevin has more of an emotional crooner vibe.

Once Kengo dies and Ichirou picks through his assets, he tries to see if the labels are worth keeping. Riko kills himself in an artistic spiral. Ichirou buys and keeps Wymack’s label, therefor owning Kevin and Neil (who has some connection idk). Neil convinces Ichirou to keep Jean because he’s worth something, but he has free rein and can go other places as long as Ichirou can collect in the end.

Jean goes from a duo with Riko to solo and free.

Jean alone:

THEN. THEN. The Floozies try to collab with Jean. It takes a lot of fighting, but they eventually go on a tour together.

Floozies without Jean:

Floozies WITH JEAN:

The Floozies go into a darker era, far more emotional than before, and people go fucking nuts for it. Jean and Jeremy are usually the lead singers, so people pick up on their odd yearning tension easily. Cat and Laila have an insane WLW fanbase and have their own songs that they lead, though those are more rare.

RAHHHHHH I HAVE SO MANY THOUGHTS

Happy late Valentine’s Day 😭 this is so embarrassing to post i literally never make stuff like this but i am twenty years old i think i deserve to draw a couple smooches

People who don’t like Aaron Kevin Nicky for “not understanding Andrew the way Neil does” PISS ME OFF SO BADDDDDDDD bro people have different mindsets. Different worldviews. Andrew and Neil’s align in a way that’s really beautiful. But also Andrew makes no effort to understand anyone else’s perspective. NEIL makes even less. It’s not normal for people to just immediately get why someone would be acting as violently as often as Andrew does! You have to grow up around an insane amount of violence to not see what Andrew does as insane! If any of you ever met someone like Andrew you’d be fucking terrified! Most of you couldn’t even handle meeting Aaron let’s be so fucking fr! Neil and Andrew Understanding each other the way that do is so lucky and so brilliant, but you guys must end this tirade against Aaron Kevin and Nicky for “not trying to understand Andrew.”

Let’s j go through the list, ok?

If you were teenager Aaron and your brother almost killed you by locking you in a bathroom for a week for you to get clean while you were literally clawing at your enclosure (same brother who killed your mom. Btw) would you be so quick to try and understand where he was coming from? I love Andrew truly I do but that was so unfathomably dangerous.

Imagine you’re Matt and you put so much effort into getting clean and staying clean just for Andrew to literally drug you again? Jesus fucking Christ!!!! Imagine being Dan and having that done to your boyfriend!!!

Imagine being Kevin and the person who swore to protect you is choking you, with intent to do serious harm potentially even kill you (three people to get Andrew off?) because you made a promise to the person Andrew is doing this whole bit for. My god

Andrew is incredibly protective and that drives a lot of his actions and as the reader we see that more clearly because it didn’t happen to us and we never actually see these happen on paper. Andrew is not a kind character (none of the monsters are) and that’s okay. We are all attached to unkind people in real life. You can’t just justify every violent action he does by blaming other people for not truly understanding him

Listen to me when I say this, Kevin and Jean are bitchy and hateful. Do they have every right to be? Absolutely! Stop taking parts of their characters away. Yes they have good intentions and hearts but they’re assholes and thats okay!!

put neil josten in solitary refinement that man needs to learn some manners

there's aftg twt discourse about if andreil would wear skirts or not which is such a headache bc like ppl can headcanon anything they want with fictional characters? like fandoms always headcanon these kinds of things so just let ppl be

but honestly idk if andrew would wear a skirt, at the very least not in the books timeline like andrew just doesn't seem like that kind of guy?

and neil while he doesn't care about what he wears and let's andrew pick for him, i think it would take him time to rlly feel comfortable in expanding his gender expression, bc wearing a skirt as a guy is still "out of the norm" and may attract attention so it's honestly an interesting idea to explore at the very least

i need to give neil's description of andrew before their first kiss more attention because the way he says that the look they share is one of deep understanding, it's just that neil is about to fall off the ledge but andrew has already fallen. it's crazy to think about because both neil and andrew never rlly had a home, except andrew made one in columbia and then invited neil into it. andrew as a kid was constantly forced into moving from place to place, and neil from ten on went through the exact same experience. even during the series neil was never going to stay, while andrew agreed to stay somewhere for five years (the longest previously he'd ever stayed being two years) and then asked neil to stay himself. like i always thought of it as neil saying that andrew had already reached his breaking point and broken (see andrew's gutter comment), but it's also that andrew reached his breaking point and now is unable to see the way he's creating situations that will do the exact opposite. if that makes sense.

we cannot be using the word twink as a descriptor willy nilly...kevin day is most certainly NOT a twink, he's tall as hell and an athlete who's been training every day and night for his entire life probably eating the most meal prepped bland chicken and rice and then hitting the gym......

Neil Josten lets Andrew's his cigarettes burn to the filter without taking a drag. He hates vegetables. He knows all the places you can shoot a man without killing him. He doodles fox paws on his homework. He's not scared of knives or violence or the yakuza. He is scared of cellphones and therapists and his own reflection. His favourite colour is gray. He got told he couldn't play exy with a bloody nose so he sniffed back the blood until they let him. He doesn't like movies or loud music. He hitchhiked halfway across South Carolina by pretending to be a sociology student. He gets sad when Kevin watches exy without him. He wishes he had his mother's patience instead of his father's temper. He's brilliant at manipulation. He's stupid on purpose. He was every inch a lie but his friends made him into someone real. He doesn't wear a jacket to the roof when it's cold because he knows Andrew's body heat will keep him warm. He thinks the hardest thing he's ever had to do was opening a tub of ice cream after kissing his boyfriend and not like, all the torture he's been through. Nobody is doing it like him

if aftg was set a bit later in the 2010s, i can imagine andrew putting "pumped up kicks" as neil's ringtone...the irony would just be too good to pass up

Merry Christmas

no but LET'S TALK about how andrew is (outwardly) apathetic in every aspect of his life and towards every person he interacts with; this man shows nothing but indifference (i'd say half of it is true due to his severe depression and trauma/ the other half is just a performance so as not to hurt others with his rage but himself, as neil deduced).

but the MOMENT he gets to kiss neil he drops his neutral facade and throws his self control out the window -and we KNOW how important being in control is to him- and kisses neil like he wants to extract neil's soul out through his mouth.

neil described it like "he kissed him like this was a fight with their lives on the line, like his world stopped and started with Neil's mouth". my boy was STARVING he did NOT care about mantaining his apatheic front.

how is it possible to go from "i hate you 😐 most of the time i want to kill skin you alive 😒" to "let me kiss you like we're souldiers dying in the trenches and the only air i can breathe is through your mouth"

where's the andreil brokeback mountain au i need one

*takes you by the shoulders and shakes violently* listen to me. You have to listen to me. I don’t have enough time to explain.

Aaron Minyard opened his acceptance letter into med school with every. Single. One. Of the og 9 (10 in our hearts) foxes present. (Plus Wymack and Abby). He was surrounded by his entire family when he opened those results.

When he got in it was the only time any of them had seen Aaron cry. Andrew had such a tight grip on the back of Aaron’s neck during it he almost left bruises. Neil was holding his hand (neither will admit to doing such a thing). Nicky sobbed (Erik was on video call when Aaron opened the results. Erik got noise complaints from how excitedly he was cheering). Kevin finally realized medicine was Aaron’s exy and was happily shaking Aaron’s shoulders.

It goes down in fox history as one of the best moments for all of them. The photos hang on the fox wall in the foxhole court.

Wymack and Abby both keep framed photos of Aaron with his acceptance letters in their offices (right next to the photos they keep of all og 9 foxes getting their offers for pro teams).

Edit:

I FORGOT KATELYN OH FUCK

I’m at work rn but tonight I revise ok ok ok I promise (Katelyn my fellow red head I’m so sorry 😭)

no cos if casual by chappell roan was ever gonna be used for andreil it would be from andrew's pov NOT neil's do you understand because andrew never even said it was casual between them (much as i think neil is really smart he was pretty blind to andrew's feelings for him during their little nothing) it was always neil who thought it was casual between them (lbr it NEVER was). if u recall he justified the relationship to himself because he thought andrew felt nothing for him and so it wouldn't really mean anything to either of them, and it wasn't until after baltimore when neil realised it was more than that. andrew knew that his feelings for neil were more than just physical attraction since their little confrontation in exites before they went to the hemmicks' house, but neil (i think purposefully) remained blind to it. you said we're not together, so now when we kiss i have anger issues is so much more of an andrew line than it is for neil cos neil was always under the impression that it was casual and was fine with it (until he wasn't) but andrew knew it wasn't casual and didn't bother to correct neil but HOW WAS HE FEELING.

I want "Neil died in Baltimore" Andrew and "The Moriyamas killed Andrew as a warning" Neil to meet

wait a minute...does Renée choose her name bc it means "reborn" in french (re-née)

she is reborn from Natalie's ashes into Renée DUDE HELLO

andrew is so real for thinking neil is a hallucination cos now that we have outsider pov on him it's actually insane that he's a real person. like this is neil josten: he's the prettiest boy you've ever met. he's the runaway son of a serial killer. he has a million dollars but is afraid of spending money. he folds his clothes a specific way so he can tell when someone's gone through his stuff. he keeps a stalker's journal on the two greatest exy players of all time. he wears coloured contacts and they're brown. he paid a busboy $100 to knock him out cold. he insulted a celebrity athlete on live tv after trying to keep a low profile. he says he's trying to stay alive while running towards death like it's a race. he mouths off to the mafia. he respects your boundaries and is the first person ever to take you at face value and not consider you an out of control psychopath. he orders hits on your abusers. he has the most electric blue eyes you've ever seen. he looks great in clubbing clothes but dresses like he's homeless. he insults someone for their "intricate and endless daddy issues" while his father is a convicted mobster and serial killer. he didn't give a fuck when his teammate was killed. everyone seems to like him even though it's clear he's hiding a million secrets. he doesn't catch on to the many many hints you're giving him. he calls you out not for being a danger to others but for being a danger to yourself. he thinks you should be protected as well as trusting you to protect him (and you think, how can someone be a victim and a protector?). he doesn't give a flying fuck what literally anyone thinks about him. he comes back from being waterboarded and tortured and abused for weeks (to protect you) and is still as feisty and bitchy as before. except now he's a redhead and has many more scars. he is possibly the first person to ever make the active decision to protect you. he's willing to put himself in harm's way again and again and again so he won't lose you. he always has a cigarette but he never smokes. he says "you're not actually a sociopath are you?" and "the next time someone calls you soulless i might have to fight them". even though he's messy and a little oblivious he's sees you. he might be the only person to ever want you off your drugs. he wants to see you lose control, is aware that you're not out of control, you're actually so controlled and restrained all of the time and he wants to see you feel something, he wants you to be angry, be angry at him. he riles you up on purpose to see you show emotion, feel something. he's a runner and yet he's still possibly the bravest person you've ever met. he gets kidnapped and comes back even more bruised and battered than before and he's still a mouthy little shit who bitches at the press and cuts deals with the yakuza. he's most of the reason why the worst team in the nation ends up winning championships. he shoves a guy clean off his feet because they body checked you. he punched celebrity athlete riko moriyama in public, for you. he threatens him, for you. he's almost killed on live tv. he mouths off to the fbi. he watches the (second) best exy player in the world get shot. he also watches his father, notorious serial killer and gangster, get shot in front of him. and he laughs. he smiles. he kisses you and is never gonna run again and he's free and he wants to be with you, he wants you.

this speaking as a cis person. Nothing brings me more joy seeing people find gender euphoria in becoming a mediocre representation of humanity. And I mean that so genuinely. Local boy finds joy and fulfillment wearing a cargo shorts and t-shirt combo. Local girl has transitioned to look like someone's disheveled aunt, has never been happier. Local person experiences gender euphoria rocking the world's worst bowl-cut. Without a scap of irony, this shit makes me see the wonder and whimsy in just, being a human. An average, person going through their day-to-day, is a wondrous thing? That's amazing. And heteronormativity has stripped these experiences of their joy. Like you're right, wearing a basic girlypop skirt should make my heart sing. Why not? Why are these expressions lesser because they're normal? All this to say. Shoutout to all the basic bitches out there. Yes that polo shirt does make you look like a divorced golfer dad. Yes, that too is kind of a slay, now that I think of it.