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the sound I made was not human

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hi!!! would you perhaps be willing to draw raven jeaneil? <3 (have i said before that i love your art because I LOVE YOUR ART)

-@you-know-i-get-itt

he wants a hug (also thank you!)

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He's basking in the sun

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i have important stuff to be getting on with but all i want to think about now is kevin day beating people up! my personal hc is that when he was a raven, part of what his role as riko's number 2 demanded was for him to be the one to get in the faces of anyone who challenged riko or insulted the perfect court. not in the same way as andrew who uses violence to broadcast the message that he should not be fucked with, but in a way that read more like a knight challenging someone to defend his king's honour. i think riko wouldn't have lifted a finger to do any of the grubby fighting himself. I think kevin would have been the one to get the "bad boy" rep for getting into fights.

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Jean Moreau

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okay but jean's surprise at the banquet when neil understands his french. jean who spoke french to neil in the nest. jean who probably hadn't spoken french since kevin left. jean who hasn't had anyone to speak to in the language he's most comfortable in for so long.

jean finding out his lost forever partner speaks french.

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Found Family Battle (Semifinals)

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Matt was the first one to make a promise to Neil, that he would protect him from the monsters until graduation. He gets Kevin off Neil during their first fight in the dorm. He protects Neil's things when Neil calls from Columbia. He waits up for Neil to come back from the first night practice with Kevin just to make sure he is unharmed. He saved Neil from Riko during the banquet since Andrew had his hands full with Kevin. I can keep going but my point is Matthew Boyd does not get enough love from this fandom!!!

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One thing I love about Neil is that as much as he's good at pissing people off, he's also uncannily good at getting a lot of those same people to be on his side and even unite behind him. Whether it's through manipulation, cleverly persuading them or just genuinely inspiring them to follow his lead, the guy has a weird knack for getting people to do what he wants.

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nathaniel wesninski vs neil abram josten

something that fascinates me abt the aftg books is the nathaniel vs neil dichotomy. so i'm gonna analyse and dissect it like a completely normal and fine person. spoilers ahead !!! continue at ur own risk

i feel like the fandom has the wrong idea abt nathaniel and neil; they aren't foils, they're mirrors. they're a lot more similar than i think the fandom likes to acknowledge. and i actually don't think neil himself has too much of a problem with that.

allow me to elaborate. neil isn't scared of nathaniel, and nor is he very sensitive about his father. he actually references his father sometimes as a defence mechanism ("you think i'm afraid of your knife? i'm the butcher's son.") his feelings towards his father are, i'd say, deep-rooted fear and resentment. this has to extend somewhat to nathaniel, given how deeply entwined nathaniel wesninski is with both the butcher (neil's childhood abuser, the one person he truly fears) and mary hatford (also one of neil's abusers imo but their relationship is a lot more complex), both of whom neil says he doesn't want to become like. but he also says it might be inevitable that he is a little bit like them anyway (he's right).

i think this is how the fandom differentiates between nathaniel and neil; nathaniel is cold-blooded, ruthless, analytical, a criminal mastermind. nathaniel wesninski sealed the deal for his own survival with ichirou moriyama. nathaniel wesninski endured the torturous conditions in the baltimore house. nathaniel wesninski watched the butcher of baltimore brutally murder a man in front of him at ten years old in castle evermore. nathaniel wesninski followed his mother on the run for eight years, twenty-two cities, sixteen countries and hundreds of fake identities. nathaniel wesninski watched as his mother left bodies and sacrifices in their wake for their own survival. nathaniel wesninski orders hits on the people who have hurt the people he loves. more than once, others in the series note that neil will always be nathaniel wesninski at heart (ichirou, jean) and neil doesn't correct them.

neil josten, on the other hand, is scrappy and messy and impulsive. neil josten has sharply honed survival instincts that he throws away at the first chance of getting to live a real life. neil josten chose to stay at palmetto state university with the full knowledge that he would get himself and many others killed. neil josten clocked r*ko's shit on live tv and at the fall banquet. neil josten trusted a five foot nothing goalkeeper with his life for a year. neil josten saw the opportunity to do what he loved, even if it would kill him, and he took it. neil josten isn't afraid to run his mouth, be it to a teammate who overstepped or a reporter broadcasting on national tv. neil josten doesn't think about the past or the future but lives in the moment, all consequences be damned. neil josten gets to know and starts to care about the foxes even though he knows he shouldn't.

in short; nathaniel wesninski is ice all the way through, unapologetically the butcher and the bird's son, and neil josten is all fire, a young man and a runaway who chose living over survival and friends (family) over safety.

that's the dichotomy, but i actually think people don't realise that they're two sides of the same coin. i don't mean like "neil is nathaniel is nathan" i mean like neil chose to be neil josten, with full knowledge and agency, but that doesn't change that he was nathaniel first. in the fandom's declawing of neil, they forget that he's still the butcher's son, and he isn't afraid to show his teeth.

"neil josten" doesn't exist on his own. he is a product of neil's time with the foxes. neil says himself, at the beginning of the series, neil josten wasn't a person, just another identity that could be discarded at the drop of a hat. it was the foxes that made "neil josten" a real person. they pulled out from that facade the parts of neil that "no disguise could change". neil's character arc from the scared nobody at the beginning of tfc to the brave and happy young man at the end of tkm wouldn't have ever happened without the foxes' influence on his life. that pivotal narration change from neil to nathaniel in tkm is in a sense, neil shielding the foxes and the person he was around them from the cruel reality of his past. the identity of "nathaniel wesninski" is real and undeniable, already bloodstained from his brutal childhood, and untouched by the foxes, and so can't really be ruined by his father's hand (sweet mourning lamb, there is nothing you can do, it has already been done). everything that happened in baltimore, from the legal name change to neil and andrew's conversation in the car ("can i really be neil again?" "i told neil to stay. leave nathaniel buried in baltimore with his father.") is more of a decision to choose a new life than it is a new identity. "can i really be neil again?" is neil asking if he's really escaped his past and he can truly stay with the foxes and be who he was around them freely. and andrew's "leave nathaniel buried in baltimore with his father" is more of an assurance to let neil's bloody past go in favour for a new and better life.

note: "let go" does not mean forget or disregard or lose. it just means to accept it but move on. this is important i promise.

after that, neil is able to continue freely in his life. wait no he's not. ichirou comes to find him. right.

the neil and ichirou conversation is one of the most interesting in the series. it says a lot more about neil's character than people seem to notice. neil actively "switches" into the persona of nathaniel wesninski specifically for that conversation. something about how every word has to be true and it has to be the biggest lie he's ever told. neil's switch to nathaniel is a little jarring and a little uncanny. the way he speaks is pure business, coldly rational and disconcertingly subservient to ichirou (disconcerting because of how adamantly neil refused to submit to r*ko and testuji and even his father's people). but it's interesting because it's still neil josten speaking. the narration doesn't change, and the way neil talks is still very much himself, just honed and polished to suit the man ichirou thinks he's speaking to. ichirou wasn't looking for neil abram josten, starting striker for the psu foxes, he was looking for nathaniel wesninski, the only son of the butcher of baltimore. neil knew this, and knew he had a part to play and he plays it so easily it actually fucking works. he isn't even afraid of ichirou. everything he says and does in that scene is careful and thought-out and logic-based, but there is no fear. all of neil's fear in the aftg series quite literally is caused by his father, and can always be traced back to him. since nathan is dead at this point, neil isn't fearful of ichirou, just cautious.

the narration change in tsc is also notable. jean thinks of neil as nathaniel wesninski until the foxes beat the ravens and r*ko dies. this is significant because the idea of "nathaniel wesninski" is also deeply entwined with the perfect court. if neil had signed with the ravens he would've been nathaniel wesninski (03) not neil josten. but once r*ko is dead and once tetsuji steps down, the perfect court no longer exists, and neither does the phantom partner jean was clinging to all these years. there is no nathaniel wesninski (03), no forever partner for jean, even though he has nathaniel's auburn hair and ice-blue eyes and cruel smile, he doesn't have the mark of the perfect court anymore and r*ko and tetsuji aren't around to reinforce that delusion so for jean, now there is only neil josten.

still, he also says later on that neil is a wesninski at heart. neil doesn't really take this personally, from what we can tell. killing a rapist isn't something particular to neil or nathaniel, he would do it whether he was neil abam josten or nathaniel wesninski. but the method, the subtlety, writing the numbers on a napkin, handing them to his mobster uncle, that is such a nathaniel-characteristic thing to do that jean comments on it. neil might have problems with wearing his father's face and his father's smile, but he never denies the truth that he is a little like his father (referencing his hot temper), and he isn't hurt or offended by jean's comment.

this post is getting way too fucking long, even for me, so i won't go into the "abram" of it all, but just know there's something to be said about that, too. i just think the fandom takes the whole "leave nathaniel buried in baltimore" thing a little too literally. nathaniel isn't gone for good, he will always be a part of neil, but neil's accepted that and moved on. he's living his best life, doing what he loves with people he loves, and even tho he does act a little bit like a wesninski at times, he's come to terms with who he is and who he chose to be: neil abram josten.

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my favorite thing about andreil is that they spent the first two books observing each other like strange bugs in a lab going "mmm how peculiar" at each others every move only to come to the conclusion "wow this dudes 100% not all there. i should be gay about it" and then they are and its the healthiest thing you've ever seen

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HAPPY BIRTHDAY JEAN-YVES MOREAU!!

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Math Nerd? 🫶

11/6/24 WIP Wednesday (CLOSED) | Math Nerd

They’re the last to arrive for the Winter Banquet which makes finding their seats quite easy. It seems that someone doesn’t want to chance it twice since it they’re sat next to some team that Andrew would forget it he had the ability to.

The Hornets are nothing to write home about but they’re within a decent range of the Ravens but he only knows that since Neil waves in greeting to Riko of all people. “We’ve been texting,” Neil says as if it doesn’t give Kevin massive bouts of anxiety.

“You have?” Renee asks.

“Yeah, he’s sent me some of the pottery he’s been working on,” Neil explains.

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Hi, do you think you'll write more about Riko and/or the Nest in Math Nerd AU?

If not, anything is fine. Maybe more TBD? At this point, I can't choose

11/6/24 WIP Wednesday (CLOSED) | Math Nerd

“It’s that distinctive?”

“Makes it pretty obvious who I’m related to.” Neil eats a french fry lazily.

“Who’s that?” Andrew asks.

Neil shakes his head, “I’m answering a lot of questions right now as a thanks for helping me get the suit, but I won’t be answering that one.”

“Fine, so why are you going to let it grow despite the boss’s orders?” Andrew asks.

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fandom talks a lot about kevin being a cult survivor and that shaping his personality & world view but a lot of the time the fact that he was also an abuse survivor on a personal level out of the conversation like even before riko broke his hand, he was very much abusing kevin, maybe not as blatantly and visibly as he was abusing jean, but it was still happening. that kind of persistent emotional and verbal abuse is so so damaging, and it can be even more insidious when it's coming from a "loved one." remember that at one point, kevin and riko considered each other family. they were children together, they loved each other. kevin loved and trusted riko as a brother, so when the abuse began mounting and mounting, it wasn't just coming from a teammate or coach, it was coming from someone he loves

i think sometimes people judge him way too harshly for his fear and coping mechanisms and attitude, but like. you can't ask someone who has suffered like that to be well-adjusted

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Found Family Battle (Quarterfinals)