Thinking About Kevin Day Winning His First Olympic Gold Medal.

Honestly, Gentle and La Brava’s livestream is so chaotic with 0 context. Like, the YouTuber known for petty crimes suddenly appears to save the world class hero high school that is free falling to the ground for some reason while the kid who broke his bones like it was nothing on national television is the only one facing off against the worst villain Japan has ever seen then it changes over to the number one hero and his entire family being barbecued in the sky and then frozen on the ground then it changes to Twice? Who everyone thought was dead but is now back in full force until it’s stopped by two teenage girl’s crying into each other’s faces, one of them naked, mind you, is that allowed on Twitch? Then it changes back to All Might who is iron man now?! Facing off against some maniac teenager with a million quirks who is apparently All for One, by himself. He’s about to get snapped in half by said teenager until BOOM! The sludge villain kid rushes to the bone breaking kid and holds his hand before being thrown like a bullet to rescue All Might. Then BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! All for one is now a baby. Oh- now he’s gone. BACK TO THE BONE BREAKING KID! They’re in Mt. Fuji now for some reason. And the world seems pretty doomed until suddenly the kid becomes a being from your worst nightmares and now you’re watching him do acrobatics with his nightmare tendrils and hoping he doesn’t die.

The chat must be going crazy.

nathaniel, neil, nathaniel, neil. andrew flips the two names around in his head like tossing a coin. heads or tails, the coin always comes up abram. nathaniel and neil are two sides of the same coin; forged in a dark basement, in musty hotel rooms, on the exy court. both hate sweets, love to run, to talk back any chance they get.

some days, the coin lands on nathaniel. jack makes one too many comments at practice and neil - no, nathaniel - has him on the ground, raquet to his neck in an instant. he can't hear what the strikers are saying but through the grate of the helment, andrew sees nathaniel's smile.

others, it lands on neil. andrew finds neil and matt splayed out on the couch, three movies deep into a "pop culture lesson". neil motions for andrew to sit and absently cards his fingers through the blond's hair. matt hides his grin in his sleeve.

but abram; he runs to andrew after each winning game to tap sticks, he sits each friday in columbia, talking about escape routes for an alien invasion, he keeps ice cream in the freezer and cigarettes in his backpocket.

heads or tails, doe or minyard, doe or minyard.

doe was made and unmade in california. 13 homes, 13 film reels constantly playing in the back of his mind, each scene driving the cuts deeper and deeper. andrew doe learns the danger of wanting and vows to keep everyone out.

minyard went to juvie for his brother. he crashed the car to keep him safe. he spent years on medication that sent him up up up to protect his cousin. minyard guards himself with knives sharper than his glare; he protects those that are his and fuck anyone else.

heads or tails, the coin starts to come up drew.

it starts small; quick grins in columbia at neil; shared dinners with aaron that don't end in a fight; something like excitment in his stomach before an exy game. when neil is hanging out with the upperclassman, he stays.

heads or tails; the coin lands on growth

i’m ready to admit it. jeremy being a fake blonde is extremely poetic and prophetic to the news that he’s not actually the faultless golden boy that he projects, but is, instead, human like the rest of us. and. can’t believe i’m saying this. i prefer it even! yeah, i said it.

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

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.

Neil Josten is an amazing protagonist and here’s why‼️ first off he gets into the juicy stuff from page one! “Oh? Wanna hear about my dead mom? Sure! Why would I lie to myself when I can lie to everyone else?” Also ever read about a character being a bitch and you wanna jump their ass and tell them they’re a stupid bitch? NEIL JOSTEN WILL!! He will not hesitate to go for the damn throat. Abuser you wish would die? Boom he took out a hit on them. Character being a bitch? You know I get it. Also he sees problems and he fixes them‼️ bob the builder ass over here rekindling connections n shit. You see the twinyards and wish, damn wish they would talk to each other, well good for you Neil Josten is going to poke them with a stick until they do!! I just love Neil so bad can you tell…

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

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

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

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.