#mobster neil

[chryseiswriting-blog]

Imagine if after the Trojans found out Jean is *also* the son of a mobster, they saw both Neil and Jean shirtless and were like “ah yes, we see the relation.”

And Laila is just in the background like, “hey hey, have yall considered ✨intensive therapy✨.”

[kd-holloman]

Many readers are writers and many writers are also readers. I’m no exception. With The Traveler’s Gift available for the rest of the world to read, I find myself often wondering, “How can I get people interested in a book about bisexual mobsters with superpowers?” 

I’ve had several books to hyperfixate on since 2018-2019 when the first draft of TTG came out and I drew inspiration from several authors, characters, stories, and themes to come up with something I could call my own. 

The All for the Game series by Nora Sakavic 

I love Neil and Andrew’s relationship and the way Sakavic doesn’t try to cover the trauma her characters go through.  

Six of Crows and Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardguo 

Kaz Brekker is one of my favorite fictional characters of all time and the way he is a driving force in this duology is one of my biggest inspirations. Of course, I love Bardugo’s vivid descriptions and the world she’s created. 

The Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater

Who doesn’t love a soft boy with a hard edge? Ronan Lynch is one of my favorite characters. We all know I’m weak for a Scorpio man, but aside from him, Stiefvater has a wonderful way of incorporating magic into the mundane. I can’t forget to mention her lyrical, but not overdone, prose. 

The Green Creek Series by TJ Klune

From the rampant LGBTQ+ representation, to the themes of found family, and magic with limits, everything about this series is perfect. I cannot wait to order a hardcover for my bookshelf! 

And the Villains series by V.E. Schwab

The funny part of this is I had never heard of Vicious or Vengeful until one of my beta readers sent it to me. She said, “Have you ever read Vicious by V.E. Schwab? Her writing style really reminds me of yours.” And obviously, I had to get my hands on these books. When I read them for the first time, the thought that somebody could compare my writing to these stories made me cry actual tears.

But that’s neither here, nor there. Vicious and Vengeful share the most similarities to The Traveler’s Gift than any other story in the list. It features characters with superpowers who aren’t afraid to get their hands dirty for the sake of revenge. It’s dark, gritty, fast-paced, and I couldn’t put the series down until I finished. 

TLDR: 

If you like any of the books mentioned above, please check out The Traveler’s Gift on Amazon! It’s available in ebook and paperback! 

[joejhang]

andrew is so real for thinking neil is a hallucination cos now that we have outsider pov on him it's actually insane that he's a real person. like this is neil josten: he's the prettiest boy you've ever met. he's the runaway son of a serial killer. he has a million dollars but is afraid of spending money. he folds his clothes a specific way so he can tell when someone's gone through his stuff. he keeps a stalker's journal on the two greatest exy players of all time. he wears coloured contacts and they're brown. he paid a busboy $100 to knock him out cold. he insulted a celebrity athlete on live tv after trying to keep a low profile. he says he's trying to stay alive while running towards death like it's a race. he mouths off to the mafia. he respects your boundaries and is the first person ever to take you at face value and not consider you an out of control psychopath. he orders hits on your abusers. he has the most electric blue eyes you've ever seen. he looks great in clubbing clothes but dresses like he's homeless. he insults someone for their "intricate and endless daddy issues" while his father is a convicted mobster and serial killer. he didn't give a fuck when his teammate was killed. everyone seems to like him even though it's clear he's hiding a million secrets. he doesn't catch on to the many many hints you're giving him. he calls you out not for being a danger to others but for being a danger to yourself. he thinks you should be protected as well as trusting you to protect him (and you think, how can someone be a victim and a protector?). he doesn't give a flying fuck what literally anyone thinks about him. he comes back from being waterboarded and tortured and abused for weeks (to protect you) and is still as feisty and bitchy as before. except now he's a redhead and has many more scars. he is possibly the first person to ever make the active decision to protect you. he's willing to put himself in harm's way again and again and again so he won't lose you. he always has a cigarette but he never smokes. he says "you're not actually a sociopath are you?" and "the next time someone calls you soulless i might have to fight them". even though he's messy and a little oblivious he's sees you. he might be the only person to ever want you off your drugs. he wants to see you lose control, is aware that you're not out of control, you're actually so controlled and restrained all of the time and he wants to see you feel something, he wants you to be angry, be angry at him. he riles you up on purpose to see you show emotion, feel something. he's a runner and yet he's still possibly the bravest person you've ever met. he gets kidnapped and comes back even more bruised and battered than before and he's still a mouthy little shit who bitches at the press and cuts deals with the yakuza. he's most of the reason why the worst team in the nation ends up winning championships. he shoves a guy clean off his feet because they body checked you. he punched celebrity athlete riko moriyama in public, for you. he threatens him, for you. he's almost killed on live tv. he mouths off to the fbi. he watches the (second) best exy player in the world get shot. he also watches his father, notorious serial killer and gangster, get shot in front of him. and he laughs. he smiles. he kisses you and is never gonna run again and he's free and he wants to be with you, he wants you.

[inadvisablebutinevitable]

I think that in the future when the US court for Exy is first announced and the entire internet is talking about the roster, some reporter will go up to Neil and be like “so how does Kevin feel about being on a team with so many gay athletes? between you and Minyard, Alvarez and Dermott, and Knox and Moreau, there are three gay couples on the US team, some fans are speculating that it is perhaps too many—“

and then Neil cuts him off and goes “yeah, and between me and Jean there are two children of mobsters on the fbi watchlist. Between Andrew and Jeremy there are two convicted felons, and between me, Kevin, and Jean, there are three former perfect court members who said fuck that and got our tattoos removed or replaced. We can all count buddy”

Neil loses his press privileges before practices even start

[allfortheslay25]

Who Framed Andrew Fox? Toon AU

Forgot to say Neil is 28 and Andrew is 30

Both tend to act in Mobster toon films but Andrew dabbles in comedic skits too (gets high to do it tho)

Kevin below 👇

Kevin is a detective who hit rock bottom after investigating his mother’s death and finding out a toon did it but not catching the toon

He takes up a quick job to catch evidence of Nathaniel Fox’s infidelity leading to Andrew Fox (his husband) to murder Ichirou Moriyama in a jealous rage. However, something doesn’t seem right with the crime so Kevin volunteers to clear Andrew’s name

(I forgot Neil’s scars in the last image. Sue me)

[hyperboleigh91]

Watch Jeremy's family be big-time mobsters on the West Coast (where they front as politicians), and they're furious with Jeremy for playing Exy instead of joining the family business, but Jeremy ends up joining them anyway when he finds out about Jean's 'deal' with the Moriyamas so he can get Jean (and Kevin and Neil) out of it by giving his family's protection.

[murdockbuckley]

shout out to neil josten you might be a traumatised mobster's son who has definitely murdered people but you're the only demi representation that i know of in any form of media and i love you

[vonn13]

Fearing 'bee' betsy dobson

Neil feral mobster child josten 🤝🏼 Jean raised in a cult moreau

[pixl-place]

rereading aftg for like the millionth time but i’ve seen a lot of neil characterization discourse on here lately and i just wanna throw some of my thoughts out into the void

one thing i find so interesting is that there are multiple times when one of the foxes or Wymack asks Neil something along the lines of “are you stupid” and he says yes. one of the first things we find out about Neil is that he knows signing with the foxes is a bad idea but he does it anyways. i think this little detail about him is so important because it gives more depth to all the choices he makes that the even the reader is nudged to believe are “stupid”. even when he lays out his plans perfectly to the reader we are still supposed to go “well that’s a dumb plan that’s never gonna work” but i think part of Neil makes these crazy ass plans on purpose because they will work and they almost always do to some extent. he knows what he’s doing is conveniently unwise but he’s calculated the exact steps he can take within that “stupidity” to survive. he also knows how he’s going to be perceived and lets people think this is just part of his personality to add realness to the fake persona! i feel like yall don’t give him enough credit sometimes. yeah he’s a little crazy and feral bitch which is why he and Andrew get along but their main difference and part of why i think they don’t get along at first is because Andrew takes risks first and figures out how to clean them up later whereas Neil has all the steps laid out in his head and waits for whatever to wrap back around to him so he has time to figure that out too. he’s a really smart boy! so much of his character is really complex and goes beyond surface level but i think people take a lot of it at face value. they see his silly mouthing off to reporters and forget that he literally was running away from mobsters for years and watching his mom have to find ways to outsmart them

[fractualized]

I present a collection of normie Jokers (aka how Joker might look if he never fell into the vat), with the following parameters:

no masks/prosthetics

all adults grown into Joker face

limited rehashing of TKJ (only including versions I felt had different vibes)

1) Joker as Arthur Wilde — Joker (1975) #5, Irv Novick

2) Unnamed former lab assistant and struggling comedian — The Killing Joke, Brian Bolland

3) Joker disguised during "Death in the Family" — Batman (1940) #427, Jim Aparo

4) Joseph Kerr in the "Going Sane" storyline — Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight (1989) #66, Joe Staton

5) Unnamed TKJ-esque husband — JLA (1997) #35, Mark Pajarillo

6) Unnamed worker drone/comedian — Batman: It's Joker Time #3, Bob Hall

7) Jack the criminal in "Lovers and Madmen" — Batman Confidential #7, Denys Cowan

8) Unnamed mobster (at times known as Jackie, Sonny, or Hap) in "Case Study" — Batman: Black & White (Vol 2), Alex Ross

9) Unnamed criminal in Joker's own mind — The Brave and the Bold (2007) #31, Chad Hardin

10) Eric Border, Arkham Asylum orderly — Batman (2011) Annual #2, Wes Craig Batman (2011) #36, Greg Capullo

11) Alby, corrupt businessman — Detective Comics (2011) #27, Bryan Hitch

12) Unnamed amnesiac from the "Superheavy" storyline — Batman (2011) #48, Greg Capullo

13) Jack Napier in the White Knight series — Batman: White Knight #2, Sean Murphy

14) Unnamed comedian — Batman: Gotham Nights (2020) #9, Neil Edwards

15) Jack Oswald White — Flashpoint Beyond #5, Xermanico

16) Darwin Halliday, chemist and head of Halliday Industries in "The Bat-Man of Gotham" — Batman (2016) #134, Mike Hawthorne Batman (2016) #135, Jorge Jiménez

(Once again, thanks to @distort-opia for assistance!)

[afurtivecake]

AFTG snooker AU (Because I got really into snooker for a while) -

Yeah, I know most people think of snooker as this weird boring thing that's always on TV at their grandparents' place on Sunday mornings, BUT-

You have to picture Kevin Day in a crisp dress shirt, fitted black vest, and bow tie, bent over a snooker table.

Yeah kinda like that. Kevin Day, draped across a table, back arched, totally focused on making his next shot that is going to win him the frame and get him the highest score in the tournament, while his opponent (Andrew, Jean, Riko, Neil, Aaron, take your pick, really) fumes and stares intently from behind him. I mean, not just Kevin, but like, that is just How Snooker Is Played in general. Do you see where I'm going with this?

Now the thing about snooker is that it's shady as fuck. You can basically port the AFTG universe into a snooker-based setting and not have to change a thing except geographical location. Hustling, gambling, financial exploitation of young people, organized match-fixing rings, sting operations - you name it; it's got it all. A snooker AU would include more crime, more (cue) sports action, more icy/heated confrontations in matches and insane amounts of tension.

Tetsuji would be running a UK-based snooker academy for training young talent secretly backed by the Moriyama group where Riko and Kevin grow up. They've been playing since they were old enough to hold little cue sticks (they were so small that they had to stand on stools even for the child-sized snooker tables). (Lots of snooker players start ridiculously young. It's not uncommon for people to start when they're 5 or younger.) They both go pro in the same year when they're about 15 (which is very young to be going pro) and are heralded as the new generation of snooker geniuses.

Meanwhile, at the age of 14, Andrew Minyard is playing in sketchy snooker clubs, hustling people for money. (approximately 5 min after snooker was invented, hustling and gambling with snooker was invented. if you look it up, a good portion of snooker terms have to do with gambling.) He's good, but snooker is just a way to make a few quick bucks to him. Fresh out of juvie a few years later, he ends up hustling at this run-down snooker club owned by David Wymack who spots his talent and convinces him to play professionally.

Neil, on the other hand, grows up in the US where snooker isn't popular. He played when he was young but his mother didn't let him pick up any cue sports once they fled the UK and his father. He's talented and obsessed, and snooker is the first thing he decides to do once he returns to the UK after his mother's death. He walks into the first deserted snooker club he comes across: The Foxhole.

(i have so much more on this actually. Like, if you think the organized crime in AFTG is unrealistic, well, let me tell you...there are SO MANY instances of match-fixing in pro snooker. one guy even claimed he agreed to bribes for throwing matches because he was afraid for his safety because he thought the people who approached him with the deal could have been Russian mobsters or something. Like, that's just apparently a believable defense to have given off-hand.)

[theseyellowdays]

Aaron confronting Neil at the cabin has got to be one of the most ballsy moves in the series. Just think about it two days before Neil confesses to being the son of a high-profile mobster with connections to other very dangerous people who very well might off him due to him being a liability to the fucking yakuza and then Aaron has the audacity to not only confront him about his relationship with Andrew (who is also very scary) but brush off Neil's threats like he couldn't back them up. Like dude WHAT

[aziraphales-library]

Hi! I was wondering if you had any fics where Aziraphale has autism and/or Crowley has ADHD? Thank you! ^^

Hello! We have #autistic aziraphale and #crowley has ADHD tags. Here are some more to add to the collections...

Holding Hands by Asexual_Enjolras (G)

Crowley begins to worry when Aziraphale stops holding his hand quite as much as he used to and he starts to panic that he has done something wrong. This is just a silly little story where a Demon asks his Angel to hold his hand again. "And anyway, they like holding hands." - Neil Gaiman about Aziraphale and Crowley.

That Crooked Smile Again by Treestackss (G)

A minisode, if you will. 1949. Eight years since they last spoke, and the demon Crowley insists on taking Aziraphale to a local bebop club. It's stuffy, loud, and worse still, Aziraphale spends the whole evening watching a blonde girl hanging onto Crowley for dear life. Not the night out he envisioned.

Withdrawal by IneffableToreshi (T)

Crowley is just trying not to let his stupid brain destroy him. He could never expected a guardian angel to show up to help.

Be Gay Do Crimes by wyrmy (T)

In The Beginning, there was an angel ( or rather a small boy named after one) and a demon ( or rather a small boy who wasn't always well-behaved) and a walled garden.

They Don't Teach This In School by Rozavie (T)

Aziraphale has been working at Berwick Academy for a very long time, and he could never ask for anything more. Feeding young minds, sharing the beauty of the English language and the written word. He doesn't need anything else. On the first day of the new school year, the instructor meets the new science teacher Crowley, and something about him is very strange, if not eerily familiar. The two strike up a quick friendship, despite their starkly different approaches to teaching, and something a bit more might be striking up between them as well.

You now seem to belong to me by Quinn_Taeyoung (T)

Crowley, a successful criminal, and Aziraphale, an autistic literature student, never thought they would run into each other or have the chance to get to know one another. It was while walking one night that Aziraphale witnessed a shootout between two gangs of mobsters. And witnesses usually don't live long. But the police are already close, so Crowley has no choice but to take the boy with him.

- Mod D

[awildtei]

I can't remember whether Neil has canonically killed anyone, but for my own amusement I like to pretend he hasn't because it's just... so fucking funny if he hasn't and Aaron has.

I don't know who would be more annoyed that Aaron "pre-med student, nerd, dating a cheerleader" Minyard has killed a man and Neil "runaway son of a mobster, technically owned by the Yakuza, has been kidnapped" Josten hasn't, Neil or Aaron.

Them bickering and Neil being like "You wouldn't have survived a single day on the run from my father" and Aaron raising an unimpressed eyebrow and saying "Oh really? How many people have you killed? At least I know when it comes down to it I'm ready to do it, you just stand there and freeze." and Neil seething because fuck, he kind of has a point.

Or Aaron saying something about how he has a moral compass and Neil doesn't and Neil going "Okay, murderer." and Aaron realizing in horror he has killed 1 (one) more person than Neil Fucking Josten.

[medeaaasworld]

Okay, so, hear me out—

We've got our square share of Riko-Neil's-abusive-ex fanfiction, and the idea is wonderful, truly delicious! But.

What if...it was Lola?

Like— let's pretend for a second that Nathan isn't that bad. A local mobster perhaps. Or just an average alcoholic, throwing kitchen knives at his son during the long benders.

Lola works for him and is—obviously—obsessed with the man (eww)

She is older than Nathan's son, Nathaniel —let’s say about a ten-year difference — and the boy is so delicious! He looks just like a younger version of Nathan himself and is way easier to manipulate. (yes, I'm thinking about this part of the king's men)

So she does manipulate him, abuse even. Clearly it's grooming, 'cuz when she starts Nate is still a minor, and that helps her to build an even stronger connection between them.

Nathaniel Wesninski knows that he is just a more amenable replacement for his father. He hates her. But he's way too deep in that shit to stop, because her continuous manipulation has paid off.

So he suffers. Nurtures his silly little crush on the best friend and surrenders all his resolve to not drag Andrew into his mess — ever the martyr.

Nathan sees everything and doesn't give a fuck.

Andrew sees everything and hates himself for making a deal with Neil, according to which the rabbit gets to fight his own battles.

Foxes are foxes.

Riko is a bitch, but otherwise harmless.

And perhaps Stuart saves his unlucky nephew once again.

Am I writing this? Yes

[kazbiter]

those athletes who do the I-came-here-to-kick-ass-and-eat-peanuts-and-I'm-all-out-of-peanuts thing except it's neil josten at the final game in the kings men and he's like I came to palmetto to hide from my mobster dad and go feral on the exy court and said father has recently died