Neil Josten Is An Amazing Protagonist And Here’s Why‼️ First Off He Gets Into The Juicy Stuff From

idk a huge draw of an AFTG tv show/movie for me is how much you could do with the exy games, particularly with there being no dialogue during them. like maybe this is just me and my fixation on soundtracking coming into play here but you really can focus an audience's attention purely through camera work and the music you have playing over it. like for example, during the first game in TFC i'd want most of the focus to be on kevin, because it's the first time we really see him play exy, and it's his huge comeback, and we're seeing him through neil's eyes– this champion who had his game destroyed and pulled himself back. so you focus on kevin visually, and then the soundtrack backs it up, with a song like Hysteria by Muse for example– something that sort of mirrors that part of the story lyrically.

in the final championship game, focus it on neil, again match it to a song (for me this is From Heads Unworthy by Rise Against). in the first ravens game, i'd focus on andrew, and his 137/150 saves with something like Down With The Sickness by Disturbed playing. something that mirrors the characters along with the focus of the game, highlight their playing styles you know

Exhibit A of how Aizawa's decision to pair Izuku and Bakugou was only intended for Bakugou's growth. There is no mention or concern about how Bakugou's presence stunts Izuku's growth as well. He was only concerned about Bakugou's personal stagnation.

The dadzawa characterization seems to have poisoned a lot of the fandom to Aizawa's actual earlier characterization. At least early on, Aizawa primarily treats Izuku as a burden, a strawman to tear down about All Might's brand of heroics, or as an obstacle to Bakugou's character development.

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

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

I don't know what the heck is going on and who's Gansey and who's Adam but holy moly I need more (?)

they're so great and gay i love them!!! (okay honestly they're NOT gay at least not for each other but listen. listen. they are. gansey is obsessed with adam and adam is obsessed with gansey but also gansey could offer adam a stick of gum and adam would tear his arm right off with his teeth. they have the most fucked-up and unconditional and messy bond i've ever read in my life but there's also quotes like "hey tiger" and "i am only my money. it is all anyone sees. even adam" and "gansey, his best friend, his stupid and kind and marvelous best friend" and "'treason,' said adam, because he knew it would please gansey" and "yee haw" and "he sort of wished he looked more like the camaro. which was to say, more like adam" and "his breath was all mint leaves and champagne, him and them" and "gansey turned his eyes to adam, who looked more like himself than he had in ages. he silently vowed to do whatever it took to keep him that way" and "if adam was stupid about his pride, then gansey was stupid about adam" and "what do you think i'll see if he dies?" and "'come on, adam.' please. 'we'll make it work'" and "i'm losing him. i'm losing him to cabeswater" and "the bruises he'd come to school with. who has he ever had to love him? ever?" and "you two make a grand couple! kiss him!" and "he was still searching for the only pair of eyes in the room that mattered. where was gansey?" and "you marvelous creature" and gansey egging malory on to talk about birds just so he could see adam laugh, and adam peeing in the woods and gansey wishing he could be that uninhibited, and gansey calling adam a sepia photograph, and adam not hesitating before deciding to use his glendower wish to save gansey despite book one adam having no problem with the idea of taking the wish from gansey so adam could use it for his own purposes, and gansey keeping his and blue's relationship a secret for months so they wouldn't hurt adam, and adam throwing himself into the pentagram when whelk pointed the gun at gansey, and the fact that adam was the one who suggested sacrificing cabeswater's life for gansey's, who suggested sacrificing this entity that adam loved and that loved him right back, that protected him and kept him safe when nothing else in the world would, that helped teach him what unconditional love was, and he sacrificed it to have gansey back, and then the fact that even before cabeswater there was gansey and that gansey was the first person in the entire world to love adam and to treat him like he deserved that love and who hated seeing adam hurt and who risked adam's wrath to beg him and beg him to move out of that trailer because he couldn't stand to see adam bruised and broken, bitch i'm

so, another thing about collegiate teams is that they usually have an alumni game.

now the foxes don't have any alumni by the end of the books, but they will eventually.

now this might be different for a sport like exy (I played lax which really dosent have a large professional league, but the big d1 schools i think still do this too) but yk what it usually happens during pre-season anyways and its always a ton of fun.

Because what happens is that it's usually a game of alumni vs current players. and that is hilarious.

(Dan gets back on the court and gets to win against her current players)

(the current players are just like 'this is so unfair' and 'what the fuck do you mean I have to guard kevin motherfucking day' or ' how the fuck am I supposed to score? minyard is in goal???')

Neil has the time of his life btw - because an alumni game is also a chance for everyone to play on the foxes' court again, a chance to come home!

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

The way Neil Josten switched into Nathaniel in order to process and handle the abuse and trauma of being found by his father's people and the reality of his looming death will never not fuck me up, he literally said I can't handle this but maybe the Butcher's son could. And then. And then!! The way those two versions of himself coalesce into Neil Abram Josten (legally recognised) after Nathan is dead and the truth is out? The Neil Josten we see in The Sunshine Court has all of the attachments of Neil Josten, the slow unraveling of family and care but all of the hard edges of Nathaniel, unflinching from the reality of the world he lives in and the decisions he has to make to keep his life. Nathaniel would never have stuck around long enough to care about Jean Moreau and call a hit out on his abuser. Neil would never have trusted those resources available to him (or potentially the trail it could leave) in order to deal with the problem in one brutal but efficient move. But Neil Abram Josten reforged could, would and did.

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.