kjones-fandom

[kjones-fandom]

Back on my "the monsters and social media if aftg was set in the present day" bullshit

Yes I have an exam tomorrow, we're ignoring that

Kevin maintains a professional twitter and instagram profile. He keeps the apps on his phone logged out and has to sign in each time he posts and then immediately signs back out. He has no interest in knowing what's going on over there, he was very upset when ig switched to the rectangle shapes and started doing the reels thing. He has a personal Facebook and the notifs are On

Aaron has only WhatsApp for a very long time. Initially he was a vine and MySpace kid but both those died. I imagine he went through various other blog forums and posted shit photos and shitter poetry but idk what you lot were using in ye oldy times. He briefly used tiktok when it was musical.ly but it scared him and he refused to go back. He has a tumblr account but refuses to download the app and only uses it on the Web version. Katelyn forcefully created a Snapchat for him so he could be added to various groupchats for their classes, he keeps it on mute.

Nicky, I think, has a healthy relationship with his screen time. He has accounts for the majority of social medias he just doesnt doomscroll constantly unless hes really in yhe feels. He understands the references ppl make but will sometimes butcher them on purpose because the reactions bring him such joy

Andrew is iPad kid extraordinaire. He knows every single peace of obscure Internet lore and he will whip it out to prove he knows more about your stupid dumb references than you do. He can hold a conversation in almost entirely brain rot terms

Neil has zero social medias on his phone at all. It's literally just the text app and the internet app which is always on incognito. He deletes every other app that came preinstalled that it let's you delete. He does start to enjoy taking and keeping photos of his team

[kjones-fandom]

the cats and neil staring adoringly at Andrew while they wait to see in which chair he's going to sit so they could choose a spot next to him

the cats and Neil staring at the front door, Andrew gets in and the cats meow at the same time as Neil says "Andrew!"

Andrew having to forcefully push the cats and neil out the bathroom so he could brush his teeth without three pairs of eyes unblinking, zeroed on him

Andrew is convinced that the cats and neil share the same singular braincell

[kjones-fandom]

I wonder if Palmetto would have let Allison accept Seth’s degree for him.

[kjones-fandom]

Why are so many of you saying and-reel😭.

wait i’m sure this has been asked but how do people pronounce “andreil”

[kjones-fandom]

I just saw a post wondering what Andrew and Neil’s first proper argument is, and naturally I have to offer this:

Andrew and Neil don’t fight. They’ll ignore each other if they’re pissed off - but never for more than a few hours, or maybe until one of them has slept it off and decide it’s not worth it (usually Andrew). They’ll have tiffs but never over anything serious.

Except for in the months coming up to Andrew’s graduation. That is when I believe Andrew and Neil have their first real argument.

Andrew gets officially signed to his pro team around abouts the February of that year. It’s in a state further away that Neil expected, and since they found out, Neil keeps catching Andrew looking at apartments or researching the state and the team. He’s happy for him, of course he is, but he can’t quite identify what this feeling in his stomach is every time Andrew brings it up. The little fights that last longer than their usually bickering start not long after; Neil getting more pissed off by the little things Andrew does, Andrew having off-days with Neil more and more often, each of them asking for their own space because they know if they stay around each other they’re going to start a fight. It’s gradual in a way that they don’t realise for a little while that it’s getting worse, until just after the championship finals, and the season is officially over, when three days have passed without them talking for not much of a reason at all. Neil used his finals as an excuse, but Andrew didn’t have any good reason. After those three days, they’re finally alone in their dorm for whatever reason, and maybe Andrew has started packing or he’s just got some sort of welcome package from the team: everything explodes. Andrew tries to kiss Neil, and something feels wrong, and when Neil asks what the fuck is going on, all hell breaks loose.

Andrew doesn’t yell, of course he doesn’t, but he’s venomous. He’s asking Neil why he’s acting as if the world is going to end just because he’s graduating, he’s angry at him for becoming so dependent on his presence, he’s angry at himself for feeling like he’s found a future in Neil when this was never the plan. He was supposed to be nothing. A casual fuck, with an end date and no feelings but fuck if he can’t live his life without him now. Neil yells, because he does, and he’s angry that Andrew still seems so unsure about what they are, how comfortable they were, but suddenly things are different, and it feels like he doesn’t care. He’s angry at himself for building his life around Andrew, but he’s the only reason why Neil Josten exists. Andrew reminds him of that, and it makes everything worse.

It goes on for far too long, quickly becoming meaningless and just an excuse for either of them to vent out the frustration they’ve been keeping inside for months.

“You know that I won’t overstep your boundaries,” Neil points a finger at him. “So in your head it’s okay to treat me like shit and ignore me because you know that I will give you that space.”

He doesn’t even really think that, but every little thing, every little excuse is multiplied by a thousand when he feels this red hot rage. He hates the things that come out of his mouth, but Andrew gives it back, and his insistent refusal to back down just further butts their heads together and infuriates them both.

“I won’t chase after you because you’ve decided to allow me distance,” Andrew says, calm and ice cold. “You can’t invent boundaries for me and then be upset that they exist.”

Lows blows after low blows, unfair quips and insults from both sides, slamming of drawers and doors and throwing of things; they have never, ever fought like this before. It’s over everything and nothing at the same time. Andrew knew it was only a matter of time before campus security was called, but when he tried to tell Neil to calm down and lower his voice, it only made things worse.

They’ve been unkind and awful with each other for about an hour when Neil finds himself starting to get so furiously angry thats he’s upset, that he can feel himself being needlessly nasty with Andrew. For the first time ever he feels the tilt. He feels their foundations getting rocked, a crack in the base of the pyramid of their relationship that gives him the feeling that this might not last forever. He leaves their dorm with a slam of the door, and goes for a run. He hasn’t done that in a while, a run from his feelings, running from his problems and responsibilities. He’s not sure how long it’s been before he finds himself too far away from campus, because he just ran in a straight line.

When he checks his phone he realises he’s over an hour walk away from their dorms. He almost calls Matt, and hesitates over Coach’s phone number, but instead he clicks Andrew’s name. It’s only ringing for two rings before the ringing ends and there’s a quiet hiss at the other end of the line. Neil double checks that he’s answered, because Andrew hasn’t said anything, and brings the phone back to his ear.

“Can you come pick me up?” His breathing is heavy, all of his anger drained out through his feet with every single step that he took to get further away from their dorm.

“Where are you?” Andrew is quick to respond, and Neil can hear him already picking up his keys.

Neil tells him the name of some bar that he can see, and Andrew hangs up almost instantly afterwards. Neil starts to put his phone away, used to the abrupt endings of phone calls, but wishing he would say something more. He puts his phone away and wonders why Andrew can’t just give him something. He’s not looking for a Love you! Bye! But maybe just an answer that let him know he was listening. but then it starts to ring again, and it’s Andrew, and Neil doesn’t say anything when he answers.

“I’m leaving now,” Andrew says. There’s something in his voice. “I’ll be there in about twenty minutes.”

“Okay,” Neil responds. “Thank you.”

Andrew hums in acknowledgment, but this time he doesn’t hang up immediately. He hesitates, but he’s somewhere outside now.

“I will always pick you up.” He says after a while, after he’s shut his car door and the engine has rumbled to life, and maybe it sounds like I love you, I care about you, I need you. Maybe it sounds like I need you to know that i can’t lose this.

“I know,” Neil says, and it sounds like I can’t do this without you. “Thank you.”

Andrew waits a second or two then before hanging up, and Neil waits for him by the curb. Andrew is there quicker than twenty minutes later. Neither of them say anything as Neil slips into the passenger seat, and neither of them say anything as they pull away. Neither of them say anything until Andrew has switched the engine off, and the car is sitting in its parking spot. They look at each other then, and maybe then they understand what’s happening.

“I’m not above telling you that I don’t want to leave here,” leave you. “But this was always a certainty. You’ve had plenty of time to prepare.”

“I thought that I had,” Neil tells him.

It’s the truth, in some way. He realises then that all of these little fights, and growing agitation, and this almost primal urge to push Andrew away was how he’d prepared. He’s been trying his hardest to soften the blow that it would have on him, and if he pushed him away first, then it wouldn’t hurt when he inevitably pushed him back or let him go. Only, that was never going to happen, and that’s what made it worse - nothing could happen to them now that would not bring them back to each other. So when Neil pushed and pushed and pushed and Andrew was constantly hitting a wall instead of a door, all they were doing was filling the room with resentment.

They sit in the car then and talk about the reality: Andrew was moving away in just a few weeks, moving further away than they’d ever been apart. The truth was that regardless of whether or not Neil decides to spend the summer with him, August would come, and Neil would go back to PSU, and Andrew would stay wherever it was that he was staying. They’d been fighting more in a subconscious test with each other, to see if one of them were going to give up, to see it this was the thing that would finally tear them apart. They talk about that, too, as difficult as it is for Andrew to be honest about that kind of thing. Neil asks him if he thinks it would be better for them to break up, to give each other space, to let Andrew flourish on his new team and meet new people and grow into himself as a professional exy player. It’s the first time either of them have acknowledged the possibility out loud with each other, and it destroys Neil to ask it, and it destroys Andrew to hear it.

Andrew thinks about how Exy was supposed to be the deal with Kevin: how he was supposed to come off his meds, and Kevin would give him purpose, and he would find something to live for in the sport that would not love him back. Instead he gave him Neil. That was his something to live for, and while he’d started to learn how to live for himself, and he would eventually survive without him, he didn’t want to. He couldn’t. He would sooner give it all up just to keep him, and Neil knew that was the truth.

Neil thinks about how Neil was supposed to be temporary. Now it was the future, it was Andrew, it was a long and successful life. Neil Josten did not have an expiry date anymore. He could have things that were his own, things to keep, things to live for.

They knew it wouldn’t be easy, but as the evening went on, and they stay in that car and talk about the future, they’d truly come to the understanding that neither of them can lose each other. They will always be half of one another, and no amount of distance can change that. It’s hard conversation after hard conversation, and it’s emotional in the way that Andrew and Neil get emotional. All the fighting ends up being a catalyst for possibly the most personal, deep, intimate discussion they’ve ever had. There’s lots of silences and voices that threaten to raise but stay low. There’s a lot of questions, and answers, and questions without answers, too. Buts it’s needed. Andrew could not leave PSU without them having this conversation. If he had, I think they would’ve struggled a whole lot more with the distance, and the conversations they would have afterwards would’ve been far more difficult.

Ultimately that’s where they end the conversation sometime past midnight - with a semi newfound understanding of where they stand with each other, what they are, what the future means for them. It’s a fight that needed to happen, and in their own ways they apologise for the things that they said. Maybe they don’t say sorry, they just say everything is going to be okay, and distance will not be the thing that ruins this.

I don’t know. I really do think it’s a fight that’s needs to happen. I think it’s a terrible, angry, nasty argument, and they both feel awful about the things they said and did, but it had to happen. Yeah, could it have been communicated with words? Sure. But Andrew had to understand how afraid Neil was of losing him, he had to understand what Neil was doing to protect himself from it. And Neil had to understand that Andrew was always, always willing to fight for him, but he couldn’t do that if Neil wasn’t willing to see that he would.

[kjones-fandom]

Andrew doesn't care about the name minyard. The only reason he took it in the first place is because that is his brother's name. Aaron also doesn't care about the name once he comes to terms with how his mother treated him. When aaron and katelyn get married, aaron talks to andrew about changing his name to katelyns last name and of course andrew says do what you want. Fast forward to the wedding. Andrews gets up to give the best man speech and he just holds up a piece of paper and says. My last name is also mackenzie now. And sits back down.

[kjones-fandom]

honestly i feel like a lot of fanfics have andrew still saying “i hate you” and “this is nothing” after the end of tkm but i don’t buy it. when andrew said “im not as smart as i thought i was” that was kind of it for him. there’s no coming back from that. “i almost didn’t survive last time” and then sliding neil’s hand over his scars??? like that’s an admission of love, baby. that’s the andrew minyard version of holding a boombox outside your window. how more clear can he be???

[kjones-fandom]

>>> the perfect court the foxhole court the raven king the king's men the sunshine court the golden raven the broken cage >>> the queen's game

[kjones-fandom]

The thing about Neil's mistrust of Betsy is that unlike most fictional characters who dismiss psychologists, Neil doesn't write off her profession as quackery, nor does he consider himself well adjusted.

Neil knows he's fucked up. He knows his personality is paper thin, just another layer of papier mâché that he has spent his life trying to keep anyone from cracking open and seizing the calcified corpse of Nathaniel within.

Neil's existence hinges on total control over his own identity and being able to reinvent it on a dime. The idea that someone not only can, but in fact has made a professional career out of wresting that control away from him, cracking open the layers of paper and glue and not reaching for the center but making him look, is nothing short of a death sentence.

[kjones-fandom]

hc that someone develops a crush on neil and make their intentions of stealing him clear for Andrew. like they straight up turns at Andrew to say "he will be mine"

Andrew's answer is a bored tilt of his head with an unimpressed "try"

And not try as a threat, but as the cockiest challenge ever: try to hold Neil's attention for 5 minutes, try to ease his Andrew-obsession, try make Neil look away from Andrew when they are in the same room, try to make Neil stop taking a picture of every single thing that Andrew does because he will want to look at it later. try.

[kjones-fandom]

nothing. NOTHING. prepares you for neil fucking josten. the monsters take him to columbia bc andrew doesn't trust him and all his secrets and lies. they drug neil against his will to make him talk and his solution is to tip a busboy 100 dollars in cash to knock him out. at this point he's blackout high as all hell and the most he's given away were several creative death threats. he wakes up in an unfamiliar bed in an unfamiliar house and his immediate first response is violence. he throws an alarm clock and an empty water glass at aaron. the second he's presented with the opportunity to escape, he wiggles out the window of a bathroom. "desperation is a valuable lubricant". he calls matt and casually doesn't mention the fact that he's stranded with no way back to palmetto other than walking. instead, he hitchhikes all the way back. he comes up with a list of convincing enough interview questions to pass as a sociology student and hitch a ride with truck drivers. he SUCCESSFULLY does this and spends the entire time asking and answering questions he makes up on the spot and taking notes to make it look legit. he does all of this while hungover. no one knows where he is during this entire trip back. he could have asked to be picked up at literally any moment and matt or wymack would've done it in a heartbeat. he genuinely did not consider this as a viable option. truly the character of all time i love him so much.

[kjones-fandom]

Look, hear me out

What if Neil was the one responsible for Lane's, Winter's and Willian's death

The last time someone gave Jean trouble (Grayson), he simply wiped the guy out

It would be weird if, after doing this for Jean, he just accepted that Winter and Willians tried to kill Andrew and moved on with his life. And even though I dont think he would order a hit on Lane for attacking him, she stopped him from getting to Andrew, which is also unforgivable

The three of them were found dead literally on the same day and they were the only ones to die after the match took place.

The ERC announced that the Ravens were disqualified still on friday. If they were to kill themselfs over it, they would have done it on friday or saturday, but they did on monday

You can call me crazy, but I think our beloved Wesninski Junior attacked again, because I dont see him just accepting waht they did to Andrew, and he definitely would not waste time with proper legal action

[kjones-fandom]

Franklin House by Brenn! Is Andrew Minyards song following Thanksgiving.

“And I'm drivin' home from the worst night alive

Thanksgiving was like Hell, but I give thanks that I'm alive

I don't care that I don't mean it, I don't care that I can't hide it

Like I used to, what's the use to?”

-“Everyone knows now Bee”-

“I will survive, but I'll never recover

The ache comes and goes like stars with the weather

I'm stuck with the pains in the place of all the love

I still have for you, I'm not mad at you”

- Cass -

“I had reasons to run and reasons to fight

Don't ask me why I stayed 'cause I couldn't tell you why

I was hopeless, I was young, I was angry

But I thought I was fine”

- Cass -

[kjones-fandom]

genuinely the most heartbreaking part in aftg like out of the whole series is at the end of the kings men when neil snaps and starts begging for his life

like his “please, just let me go, just let me go i’m not—” LIKE UGHHHH

to me it really emphasizes just how young he is…like he’s literally only 19 he’s a teenager!!! begging for his life!!!! (after trying so hard to save face in front of lola in the car it didn’t even matter in the end bc fuck i’m about to die)

and also just the parallel with andrew and his hatred in the word, that he also said please and it didn’t work

(and the fact that he probably also came to a point where he knew it wouldn’t work but he had to try and beg anyways bc there’s no way out he has no other options he has nothing to gain but nothing to lose either just please let me go—)

[kjones-fandom]

poor riko. growing up totally isolated from ichirou meant he never learned that the correct response to your brother saying “come here” is “no you’re gonna hit me”. and that’s how he got shot

[kjones-fandom]

I really love how after getting one more chance in life, Renee tries to be a better person and leave all the gangster business behind, while Neil truly embraces his title as a mafioso asshole and starts (or continues) killing people as if it's his usual day (it is).

[kjones-fandom]

Seeing Andrew from a perspective outside of Neil's is so fascinating because it really demonstrates just how quiet and detached from his surroundings he is. He fades into the background of Jeremy's POV especially, but Jean only notices him a bit more because he cares about Andrew's Exy career and his connection to Kevin and Neil.

Meanwhile when Neil is the narrator, he is sure to inform us of where Andrew is in any given scene and what Andrew is doing. For him, Andrew is the bright spot in every room, and when he is not present Neil feels his absence keenly.

Andrew also actively engages with Neil even when he's not speaking, through eye contact and fidgets and listening when Neil speaks. Pretty much everyone else (apart from Kevin) is ignored. Notice how, for example, the only time Andrew made a point to have a conversation with anyone in California was to ask Jean about Neil getting rid of Grayson.

It's such a brilliant way to show - not tell - how stupidly in love with each other they are.