#ANDREW STOP IT NOW!

[rickswh0r3]

ARMS AND HANDS

[midgart]

ok ill stop now

[andreilscat]

thinking about neil and andrew cuddling. it starts off as this small thing, sleeping close to each other so that their shoulders are touching. then, hands holding, reaching for each other in their sleep. andrew placing his hand on neil's chest, counting his heartbeats as they drift off to sleep. usually, they would wake up on the opposite parts of the bed or just facing the opposite directions

but over time they start clinging to each other more. andrew would let neil sleep on his shoulder and neil would hold the front of andrew's shirt tightly. as time goes on, he would start reaching under the shirt as well, holding andrew's waist, and sleeping on his chest. some nights, andrew would fall asleep fully on top of neil, his face hidden in the crook of his neck. they prefer cuddling while also being able to face each other, but sometimes neil would let andrew hold him from behind, their hands intertwined on neil's chest. at times they would wake up with their limbs intertwined, unable to tell where one human ends and another begins

they would let the cats sleep in bed with them, always too close to their faces, and too loud with their purring

[joejhang]

fanon neil vs canon neil

god i am so FUCKING done with the aftg fandom mischaracterising neil i'm literally writing fucking ESSAYS about it and pacing circles muttering about it under my breath it's driving me up the goddamn wall so i am going to word vomit brain dump yap about all of it in an incoherent tumblr text post. spoilers ahead continue at ur own risk

i've said it before and i'll say it again I HATE FANON NEIL. istg this fandom LOVES to mischaracterise neil and ykw i think i know why. they take the smallest most unnoticeable parts of his personality and then exaggerate them to disproportionate and unrealistic levels in order for him to fit their idea of a conventional, stereotypical and desirable main character. they smooth out his jagged edges and prick at his "insecurities" to make him more likeable, more acceptable and more conventional of a narrator/main character and in doing so erase so fucking much of his personality and draw as a character that he loses just about all of the flavour that made me love him in canon. and also especially within the andreil dynamic this fucking fandom just loves to tweak neil's character until he's basically unrecognisable just so they can cram andreil into some preconceived socially acceptable clichéd ship dynamic. because andrew is perceived as the typical mysterious, moody and grumpy love interest therefore neil just has to be the sunshiney smiley blushing cute softboy in exchange. yeah because all gay ships have to be grumpy-sunshine and black cat-golden retriever dynamic. i raise you: andreil's dynamic doesn't work because of their differences it works because of their similarities. if u think about it andrew and neil are honestly very similar people in the way they think and process emotions and events and that's what allows them to connect and understand each other. andreil would not work if neil was super sunshiney and a blushy soft mess and andrew was the stoic, never smiling, unemotional stone of a guy the fandom loves to make them. just accept they do not fit into the conventional boxes laid out by booktok for what gay ships look like. i fucking digress.

neil is also just insanely mischaracterised on his own. people love making him very jittery and insanely oblivious and easily flustered with a generous serving of self-esteem issues. i hate to break it to you guys: neil josten is not insecure. i don't think there's a single instant in the series where neil is actually insecure about anything. as a narrator, person and character, neil is very realistic, pragmatic and logical. ruthlessly so. i'd say on this, neil is even more cerebral and unemotional than andrew is. neil is very straightforward and realistic abt himself in his narration and i'd honestly say his opinion and views about himself are one of the only things in the story that isn't affected by his narrator bias. if neil is anything, it's self-aware. i'm now going to present all my fucking evidence.

neil doesn't have a sexuality crisis. literally in the entire series never once does he even question his fucking sexuality. it's implied he's already figured out he's aspec/demisexual from the moment nicky questions him about his sexuality. neil says "i don't swing" and follows up in his narration: it wasn't quite the truth, but it was close enough. and later when he starts his relationship with andrew he doesn't ever question the nature of his feelings towards andrew or even anyone else and is pretty clear about it when andrew breaches the topic: "kissing you doesn't make me look at them any differently" so yeah neil is pretty certain and aware of his sexuality.

neil isn't insecure about his appearance. i feel like this is gonna require a bit of work to explain but hear me out. it is mentioned several times that neil has a complicated relationship with his appearance because he looks so much like his father/abuser. this is obviously understandable; you wouldn't want to look into the mirror and see the man who gave u all ur scars. that being said, neil doesn't have a lot of strong emotions regarding his appearance. most of his feelings of panic tied to when r*ko dyed back his hair is because of how it would be a lot easier for his father to discover him now that he has his original colouring back. i'm also pretty sure neil knows that he's cute. like it's never explicitly stated but i've reread aftg maybe fifty times and trust me i can read between the lines. neil explicitly says that he has a "love-hate relationship with his reflection out of necessity" and while the "hate" part of that statement is obvious: he doesn't like that he resembles his father, i've sort of just accepted that the "love" part of it is that he knows he's kinda fine. it's not brought up by him at all bc neil as a person is not one to linger on people's appearances almost at all. i think the only people to get a decent amount of lines dedicated to their appearance in the narration are allison and andrew. but yeah i genuinely don't think neil thinks he's ugly or unattractive and he's probably definitely been told how cute he is by others enough that he doesn't harbour any delusions about how he looks. regarding his scars, he never expresses any insecurity towards them and how they look, he just doesn't like them on display understandably bc of how acutely they point to his past and childhood that he's trying to hide.

neil is actually very very confident in his own and other people's abilties. this is esp regarding exy. he knows he's good at the game. like he knows. the most distinct example i can think of for this point is when kevin tells neil that he was at castle evermore to try out for the perfect court when they were younger. neil doesn't even doubt for a fucking second that he would've made it onto the perfect court. never does. he skips over the second-guessing and doubt part and just straight up starts daydreaming about the future he could've had playing with kevin and r*ko. like that really got me bc it's easy to assume neil would be super unassuming and have low self-esteem but no like neil doesn't doubt for a fucking second that he deserves to be perfect court. it's just that he doesn't believe in r*ko's delusions enough to play along with it by the time he gets the tattoo. he's also insanely confident about the foxes and their abilities and also kevin by the end of the series. at the beginning he takes a pretty realistic vantage point and says that with the way things are, the foxes will never beat the ravens. but even with that pov he still has the gall to challenge r*ko on LIVE TV and i doubt he's lying when he declares so boldly to everyone that if the foxes were united they'd be an unstoppable force (and guess what he was fucking RIGHT). and by the end, when the foxes are united, he has no more room left for doubt at all. some guy tells neil to kick the ravens' asses and neil just replies with zero hesitation "that's the plan". like he's so fucking on board with it. and he never once doubts that kevin is the best striker in the game. like literally never. at first he considers r*ko and kevin on par with each other (possibly, it's never stated outright) but by the end he literally has no doubts when he says "kevin is the best striker" like goddamn the amount of confidence neil has is so underrated.

neil is a very unemotional narrator. it actually gets me all the time how logical and ruthlessly pragmatic neil's narration and inner monologue is. some of the only strong emotions portrayed in neil's narration are anger, irritation and occasionally grief, which is only ever triggered by major trauma-inducing events (e.g. dr*ke). almost all of his inner monologue is analytical and observing others and dissecting either other people or the situation he's in. and almost all of his decisions and actions are made based on impulse and instinct. neil is a very instinctive person. this is outright stated in the way he plays exy; in theory, he can't give u a lot, but in the heat of the moment he's at his best. this applies to practically all facets of neil's life. he never plans his moves or what he's gonna say (except like that one time when he planned out what half-truth he was gonna tell andrew post-columbia). he's super quick and on the ball and literally does whatever the fuck he wants at any given moment. he's also insanely good at compartmentalising. like it's difficult to explain but while his priorities are obv hilariously skewed, they're also very clear in his mind. things he considers unimportant he simply just doesn't think about. what others look like and what they think of him don't factor into his internal monologue or his thoughts at all he literally just files them away in the back of his mind until they do end up becoming useful or important to him. he barely comments on andrew's appearance at all until andrew becomes someone worth staring at and admiring for him. the only reason he describes allison and renee in the detail that he does is because it's important in understanding how and why he reacts to them the way he does. this man was literally about to lose his goddamn mind at the fall banquet but he specifically reserved his mental breakdown for after the banquet so he could spend his time roasting the fuck out of r*ko. bro fully locked in and was like "clock riko now break down later" and i respect it.

neil doesn't actually have a martyr complex. it's funny because almost all of aftg is him being the absolute fucking opposite of a martyr. he wilfully sticks around the foxes knowing he's putting himself and them in danger. he doesn't "sacrifice" himself until he's absolutely forced to by his father's people. by then, he's already told himself he can't and won't run and he's smart enough to know he'll never get away anyway. and going to evermore wasn't about self-sacrifice or martyrdom it was about protecting andrew and those two are pretty fucking different. he knew he was coming back from evermore and he knew that he wouldn't die there, despite all the shit he went through, so i don't think that can be counted as "self-sacrifice". he was doing what he had to do to protect andrew, the same as andrew would've done for neil or aaron or kevin or anyone else he'd sworn to protect. the kidnapping in baltimore was the culmination of neil's character arc, which isn't really about learning to be selfless and self-sacrificing, it's about learning to stand his ground and stop running. those things r crucially different: neil not running in baltimore wasn't about selflessness, it was about courage. yes, part of it was obviously inspired by the foxes and motivated by not wanting them to be hurt but i truly believe it ultimately was about neil learning to stand his own ground and make his own home and have it be something he's willing to die for. call it whatever u want honestly i just don't think neil is as much of a martyr/sacrificial lamb as the fandom makes him out to be.

[emry-stars-art]

@vivireshar they kiss 🤲

[deviousautumn]

this photo but it’s andrew minyard

[hoziercriespower]

Hozier and Noah Kahan performing at Railbird Festival.

Hozier joining Noah Kahan on stage, June 1st '24 in Lexington at Rainlbird Festival to perform Northern Attitude.

❝ thank you for this hozier. ❞

[lilmeowmrow]

quick comic redraw of *the* tkm scene

[popcorn-ceiling-chickemn]

Just had the horrifying thought of this blog being discovered but someone who knows me outside of fandom areas irl.

Anyway when Kevin starts ranting about exy around Andrew and Neil he'll get really into it and Neil will totally follow him and argue back for like five minutes until Kevin starts monologuing and he'll keep going until he notices that Andrew and Neil are just making out. They time it each time the current record is 15 minutes of Kevin talking shit about the player that checked him mid shot before he realized neither of them were remotely paying attention.

Andrew and Neil aren't big on PDA but they're 100% big on annoying the fuck out of Kevin and since Kevin instinctively follows Andrew around still he really just sets himself up to get burned.

[ofsunshineandfoxes]

You ever think about how renee went to juvie just like andrew but because she’s so nice now, probably no one knows? Like I imagine she got hate when she joined the foxes for being a girl, but do you think anyone ever went beyond that? Stopped to dig up her past? We all know she wouldn’t be hiding it but did ‘the public’ ever stop to look?

Like canonically she’s done worse shit than andrew? But they’re treated so differently. Is it just because his is more recent? And he doesn’t smile prettily? Probably, but that’s still kinda wild.

[brisketlungsminyard]

im just thinking about how nora said andrew and jean wouldve got on well if they had spent more time together because of how alike jean and neal are. and they had that bit of summer during TSC while they were staying at abby's but jean was injured and traumatized and andrew had the trial on his mind and wouldnt have had the energy to socialize anyway.

and then their interaction in TGR?? obvs warning for spoilers

maybe im reaching here but he couldve taken a swing at jean and ended the conversation once he had his answers. at this point he's already strangled one (ex) raven (kevin) broke another ones hand (riko) and in a few chapters hes about to strangle another one. all jean got was a punch to the back to stop his panic attack. t

his interaction felt familiar to me because this is kinda how he talks to neil (the brutal honesty, "no one asked you") nevermind the fact that he does everything neil says despite acting like he doesnt. and we know that what jean said actually got through to him since he stops (or tries to) stop smoking after the foxes vs. ravens game. because he realized jean was right!!

[solemnswearings]

“A silhouette that’s in my head

You don’t exist, you’re my imagination

You don’t exist, you’re just a bad decision”

[i-did]

bullet fic where Andrew works at one of those reptile birthday party companies, and Neil is hiding from the kids at Dan and Matt's kids 6th Birthday

Andrew first got into reptiles because a foster dad was really into them, his whole garage filled with vivariums of different animals, mostly reptiles but some were tarantulas and other bugs

Andrew thought it was interesting watching feeding time, and he liked that the animals were set in a designated space where the animal wouldn’t touch him unless he approached the space first

He learned how to fiddle with and maintain the spaces, which can become very self sustaining and many only need to be fed once every few weeks or once a week

After meeting Aaron, Andrew’s first job is at an adoption center, handling all the “scary” pets that aren't cuddly or cute, because of his experience and isn't afraid of them

Andrew ends up working for one of those lizard birthday party companies – unfortunately named Kreepie Krawlies – as an animal handler who both takes care of them and drives the van to events occasionally

Renee, his coworker, handles the kids, doing educational talks and passing off some of the creatures for kids to hold

Andrews maximum involvement around the kids typically being setting up the tanks as well as holding things the kids aren't allowed to touch, but depending on the party size he hangs out back by the neon green and yellow van with the company logo, blending in with his khaki and green uniform

He meets Neil in his mid 30s, at a really expensive birthday party for some professional athletes kid, child of Matthew Boyd and Danielle Wilds

Andrew is waiting out by the Van, waiting for when Renee will need him and call him on his walkie talkie, smoking his cigarette, listening to kids shriek, and play, one giving a startled cry and beginning to sob

When an adult from the party wanders over, like he's hiding from the kids

Hes burned heavily on his arms, half his face and neck melted, one ear a waxy nub, Andrew wouldn't be surprised if they continued down, 

The non burned side has cuts like shards of glass scarring his other cheek, he was hot, Andrew decided, and wondered if he was vain before whatever had happened to him

He reaches out, asking “Can I bum one?”

Andrew quirks his brow, thinking this could very well be a deadbeat dad hiding from his own kid, as Andrew gives one over

The guy, answering a question Andrew didn't ask, says, “Dan doesn't mind if I smoke as long as they don't see it” 

Andrew resists responding with, ‘didn’t ask’, and instead says, “Husband?”

“Ah, no. Friend’s wife – well – she's my friend too, I just met him first.” 

Ah, Dan short for Danielle, Andrew thinks, then states: “Hiding.” 

Neil confirms, nodding his head, “Their kid is used to me but uh, not the others, kinda scared of some of the others.” and gestures vaguely with the hand holding the cigarette. 

“Hm” Andrew says, watching the other man's fingers, burned and some shorter than they should be, a mixed set, fiddle with Andrew's lighter, flicking the spark for the flame, completely unafraid of burning his hands any further. 

“You?” the man asks

“I don’t hide.” Andrew responds, and it's the truth, he isn't hiding, he's waiting, and smoking away from helicopter parents eyes. 

He looks at Andrew for a second, before nodding and accepting it for the answer it was, and reaches his hand out to pass back the lighter

Andrew waits until his hand drops, “Don't burn yourself, not much skin left for anymore grafts”

He laughs, and pockets the lighter, he's about to say something, a smile on his lips when a voice calls out, “NEIL?” and his head whips around, looking for who called him over.

He, Neil, turns back around, and does one last inhale, before he carefully stubs out the cigarette

“Thanks uh..”

“Andrew.”

“Thanks, Andrew.” and he walks away

[codename-adler]

is this going to make sense? we shall see.

the Drake murder is also the end of the twin switcheroo. Andrew can’t pretend to be Aaron so Aaron does get murder charges and go to jail. he cannot take his place, cannot take the fall. because Andrew absolutely would, if he could. but this was the one thing, the one scenario where that became impossible. Andrew dedicated almost a decade of his life to protecting Aaron. and in an instant, from one second to the next, Aaron irreversibly chucked it all to hell. for him. Aaron finally stands on his own, for Andrew. Andrew finally gets recognition, as his own person, from the one person he always walked in the shadow of. does this make sense? do you get it? they can’t switch anymore. not interchangeable. different. but never closer. a clear break. not clean, but definite. the real first step in annulling the deal. i make my own choices and you cannot take them from me. you cannot erase them and paint them on yourself. clean slate. separation. back to point zero of the embryo splitting in two. not the same. no more.

[antheiasvase]

blade runner 2049 au - andreil

i watched blade runner with my dad and oh - my - god. it's amazing. plus, it was giving pipedream/side-effect-of-the-drugs/hallucination neil as joi, and stoic/only-has-one-expression/desperate andrew as joe. i got a new brush - clearly, lmfao - and i wanted to test it out as well, so this artwork was borne. and i posted twice in one day ;) im an art genius.

[ruvviks]

hanan at age 24 vs hanan at age 35 :] becoming a test subject at arasaka special programs really changes people huh

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