#neil is The Best
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omg im the tsc anon, i literally sent it cause i knew from the past aftg opinions you shared - you'd likely feel similarly to the way i did about tsc
neil outshines jean to such a shocking degree when he only has a handful of scenes... neil is a fantastic protagonist so ofc it's hard to live up to, but come on 😭 jean has such a weaker personality imo? he does/says less interesting things, but also has a less interesting perspective on things. his lack of standing up for himself when the trojans badgered him constantly and talked behind his back bothered me to. can u imagine neils reaction if the foxes had been sharing his secrets over a group chat?
but just in general. tsc felt like a sanitised version of aftg, if that makes sense? scrubbed clean of the controversial and unconventional aspects. and it's those aspects that, in my opinion, played a huge part in what made aftg so good. noras a very talented writer, but i can not comprehend the decision to make tsc... all that it was, yknow? it feels almost like it was written for the 'andreil say ily' part of the fandom...
neil really saved this book for me icl. outsider pov of him is fascinating. and while andrew barely said/did anything even when he was there, i actually kinda liked that? it puts into perspective how ig off-putting andrew can appear to those who don't put in the effort with him. 'creepy little goalkeeper' is so funny and so accurate, he IS a creepy little goalkeeper and i love that for him.
idk, some things i had anticipated - the trojans being who they are were never going to match the foxes. jeremy x jean was never going to match andreil (and ive seen ppl comparing them already... the blasphemy.) but there were things i was surprised weren't there. i had expected kevin and jeans relationship to be a lot more tense ig? i had thought jean would harbor a MUCH deeper resentment towards kevin, but i suppose its just not his character? but when i was reading, i couldn't help asking what would the fan reaction had been if that had been the case? if kevin and jeans past relationship, and places in a cult hierarchy, had shown through in a much uglier and uncomfortable way? i can see why she didn't do that, i don't even necessarily want that, i think i was just desperate for this book to have some sort of deep conflict between the characters.
on the subject, kevin felt quite different from how he was in aftg. but i can't quite put my finger on why.
anyway, it is nice to see someone else have mixed feelings towards the book. i enjoyed it, but i was shocked how many people seemed to really love it. not because it was bad. but because, to me, it was so fundamentally different from aftg.
thank you for sharing your thoughts! i suspected you might have written me bc i used to be the resident notorious contrarian of the fandom lol
yeah neil is a textbook example of a protag who drives the plot forward, he has that main character energy which jean totally lacks which makes sense since jean was originally a minor side character. at the same time the differences in their characterization make complete sense in universe due to the different ways they were brought up and the different trauma they faced. so it all comes down to each reader's personal preference: for me, neil's arc is a self-indulgent power fantasy. i think i have a strong sense of self and when i can't achieve something it's due to circumstances so far out of my control it's impossible to overcome them. it's therefore very satisfying to read about neil facing impossible odds and winning thanks to the sheer force of his personality, whereas jean's way of dealing with trauma feels less fun by comparison. but other readers can relate to him more and all the power to them. i do however think tsc does a disservice to its new characters by opening with a rather lengthy recap of how cool the foxes were in the last act of tkm and closing on a chapter where neil comes along and reminds us who the real hero of this story is🤷♀️
i don't think tsc has been entirely scrubbed clean of controversial aspects - i saw plenty of reviews complaining about the amount of dark content (in book 4 of a series known for its dark content, le gasp) - but i do think the handling of certain things was less nuanced than in aftg. for instance, both stories have a plot bit about someone unknowingly exposing a character to their abuser which leads to them being retraumatized (jean himself comments on the similarities between drake and grayson). in aftg that someone is nicky - a person andrew knows and trusts, a person the readers grew to care about (lol not me but certainly some other readers) - so his role in the tragic sequence of events is that much more upsetting. rape and abuse is terrible but the fact that a person who means well can exacerbate the issues bc they don't have the framework to understand the other person - that hits so much harder for me personally. so in the end drake is just an evil rapist but nicky is a much more nuanced character bc through him nora questions whether being nice and having good intentions is enough, whose feelings should be centered on in such a complex situation, whose emotional needs should be prioritized etc. by contrast, in tsc that person is lucas - someone we basically just met, who is nothing more than an antagonistic stranger to jean and who we therefore don't care about. which is why when he leads grayson to jean it's like, first of all, duhh. but secondly, bc it happens against the backdrop of the other ("good") trojans' cheerfully patronizing attitude it doesn't come so much as a shocking twist that puts the ways how we deal with complex trauma into an unconventional perspective than as a culmination of everyone disrespecting jean's boundaries all the time - which is likely what nora intended but the overall constellation feels much less interesting to me.
ig this ties into your point about the book lacking the kind of deep conflict aftg had - but maybe that was intentional too, maybe it's supposed to be aftg light in that sense, sort of a post canon character study fic. which i am not opposed to, not everything has to be high plot and tension and grey morality, but unfortunately the emotional core the story relies on in the absence of the plot just didn't work for me. i can accept jean's "weaker" personality, i can understand him not being able to stand up for himself even tho i can't admire it, but i draw the line at how forced his friendship with jeremy and the girls ended up feeling. like, i still can't get over cat's sex toy joke right on the heels of jean being badgered into admitting he had been sexually abused - the info which jeremy promptly spilled to the girls. if something like that happened to me i would never be able to trust these people again, much less call them friends so soon. it's such a bizarre contrast between how neil joining the monsters in tfc despite their problematic initiation rituals feels valid bc the narrative earned it both plot-wise (we're now facing a bigger enemy together) and character-wise (neil pushing back, talking about why they did it, nicky apologizing) on the one hand - and how jean accepting jeremy, cat and laila as his new friends feels rushed and artificial despite them being so very nice and domestic and wholesome on the other hand. idk maybe it's bc i'm inherently skeptical about disingenuous cozy/hopepunk subgenres in modern lit bc they usually have a darker underbelly people are loath to confront but ngl the words sanitized and conventional did come to mind while reading and so did the idea that tsc will especially appeal to a certain subset of fans which found the (at times uncomfortable) complexity of the original trilogy too much to handle. well, i hope they're enjoying their fantasy of healing a survivor of cptsd by cooking and shopping and hugs - i certainly got to enjoy mine in aftg, there's plenty to go around lol
besides, tsc being so different/separate from aftg makes it really easy to just not engage with the fan content and discussions if it starts feeling like they veer into the annoying territory too much. tbh my primary concern when tsc was announced was that it could contain some retcons about andreil and aftg which i wouldn't agree with - and that didn't happen, my boys are still very much in character, so i can just retreat to my enclosure and leave tsc to jean stans who are its main target audience in any case.
#aftg ask#aftg mine#book tag#all of this makes me want to reread aftg#neil is The Best#but the absence of andrew was felt acutely#like#if you think jeremy is a better or more interesting love interest we can't be friends lol#where's the finesse where's the showmanship#anyways#i'm also wondering about people's reaction to how the trojans are a queer friend group - almost to the point of caricature??#idk how i feel about that#if anyone wants to share their thoughts on that i'd love to read them
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I want to step away from the art-vs-artist side of the Gaiman issue for a bit, and talk about, well, the rest of it. Because those emotions you're feeling would be the same without the art; the art just adds another layer.
Source: I worked with a guy who turned out to be heavily involved in an international, multi-state sex-slavery/trafficking ring.
He was really nice.
Yeah.
It hits like a dumptruck of shit. You don't feel stable in your world anymore. How could someone you interacted with, liked, also be a truly horrible person? How could your judgement be that bad? How can real people, not stylized cartoon bogeymen, be actually doing this shit?
You have to sit with the fact that you couldn't, or probably couldn't, have known. You should have no guilt as part of this horror — but guilt is almost certainly part of that mess you're feeling, because our brains do this associative thing, and somehow "I liked [the version of] the guy [that I knew]", or his creations, becomes "I made a horrible mistake and should feel guilty."
You didn't, loves, you didn't.
We're human, and we can only go by the information we have. And the information we have is only the smallest glimpse into someone else's life.
I didn't work closely with the guy I knew at work, but we chatted. He wasn't just nice; he was one of the only people outside my tiny department who seemed genuinely nice in a workplace that was rapidly becoming incredibly toxic. He loaned me a bike trainer. Occasionally he'd see me at the bus stop and give me a lift home.
Yup. I was a young woman in my twenties and rode in this guy's car. More than once.
When I tell this story that part usually makes people gasp. "You must feel so scared about what could have happened to you!" "You're so lucky nothing happened!"
No, that's not how it worked. I was never in danger. This guy targeted Korean women with little-to-no English who were coerced and powerless. A white, fluent, US citizen coworker wasn't a potential victim. I got to be a person, not prey.
Y'know that little warning bell that goes off, when you're around someone who might be a danger to you? That animal sense that says "Something is off here, watch out"?
Yeah, that doesn't ping if the preferred prey isn't around.
That's what rattled me the most about this. I liked to think of myself as willing to stand up for people with less power than me. I worked with Japanese exchange students in college and put myself bodily between them and creeps, and I sure as hell got that little alarm when some asian-schoolgirl fetishist schmoozed on them. But we were all there.
I had to learn that the alarm won't go off when the hunter isn't hunting. That it's not the solid indicator I might've thought it was. That sometimes this is what the privilege of not being prey does; it completely masks your ability to detect the horrors that are going on.
A lot of people point out that 'people like that' have amazing charisma and ability to lie and manipulate, and that's true. Anyone who's gotten away with this shit for decades is going to be way smoother than the pathetic little hangers-on I dealt with in university. But it's not just that. I seriously, deeply believe that he saw me as a person, and he did not extend personhood to his victims. We didn't have a fake coworker relationship. We had a real one. And just like I don't know the ins-and-outs of most of my coworkers lives, I had no idea that what he did on his down time was perpetrate horrors.
I know this is getting off the topic, but it's so very important. Especially as a message to cis guys: please understand that you won't recognize a creep the way you might think you will. If you're not the preferred prey, the hind-brain alarm won't go off. You have to listen to victims, not your gut feeling that the person seems perfectly nice and normal. It doesn't mean there's never a false accusation, but face the fact that it's usually real, and you don't have enough information to say otherwise.
So, yeah. It fucking sucks. Writing about this twists my insides into tense knots, and it was almost a decade ago. I was never in danger. No one I knew was hurt!
Just countless, powerless women, horrifically abused by someone who was nice to me.
You don't trust your own judgement quite the same way, after. And as utterly shitty as it is, as twisted up and unstead-in-the-world as I felt the day I found out — I don't actually think that's a bad thing.
I think we all need to question our own judgement. It makes us better people.
I don't see villains around every corner just because I knew one, once. But I do own the fact that I can't know, really know, about anyone except those closest to me. They have their own full lives. They'll go from the pinnacles of kindness to the depths of depravity — and I won't know.
It's not a failing. It's just being human. Something to remember before you slap labels on people, before you condemn them or idolize them. Think about how much you can't know, and how flawed our judgement always is.
Grieve for victims, and the feeling of betrayal. But maybe let yourself off the hook, and be a bit slower to skewer others on it.
#listen to old auntie Shades#serious#fuck I don't know how to tag this#I should probably read-more this but I'm not sure where#and now I need to go take a walk for my stupid mental health#you never stop processing#you do it over and over and over and over#and hope it gets a bit easier each time#Someone might get upset by using prey#but 'preferred prey' is an important concept from the predator's view#it doesn't mean the people are inherently prey#you feel me?#it's the best word I can find for the concept#neil gaiman#adjacent
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we go just right.
#when the date went so wonderful that you don't even mind that you forgot your umbrella at home#crowley is doing his best and aziraphale appreciates it very much#aziraphale's very special version of pride and prejudice can't get wet#so you gotta use the four year old newspaper you found in your bentley#I am not mentally ready for season 2#it will change me in a way that I cannot even explain#thank you neil gaiman love of my life fr#good omens#good omens 2#good omens fanart#good omens 2 fanart#aziracrow fanart#aziracrow#ineffable husbands#aziraphale#crowley#david tenannt#micheal sheen#neil gaiman#digital art
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Redraw of THAT scene.
My favorite moment in the game for many reasons.
Im always so proud of him for it.
#astarion#bg3#bg3 astarion#astarion ancunin#baldurs gate 3#bg3 art#Guys I got to met Neil yesterday and gave him this art#the meeting was RUSHED af but he said a big 'WOOW' seeing it#was one of the best moments ever im so glad damn I love this man#myart#spawn astarion
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i love matt boyd bc he spends the whole series pre-baltimore trying to give neil openings to tell him he has a thing for andrew and likely trying to figure out how to say “i support the fact that you like men but i think we need to talk about your taste,” and then baltimore happens and he’s like “oh nvm i don’t have to get into all that, i get it now”
like yes it is very funny how many times he aggressively side eyes neil and unsubtly prompts him to talk about his feelings, but it’s also so genuinely sweet how much effort he puts into being a safe person for neil to talk to if he wants or needs it, and how seeing the strength of andrew’s care for neil is enough to change his mind about them being together
#matt boyd#you will always be famous#neil josten#andrew minyard#aftg#that bit in the ec where nora says neil was matts best man#they love wach other so much your honor
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GREAT GOOGILY MOOGILY! Good Omens season 3 has been confirmed and it’s the best Christmas present ever!
Thank you, Mr. Gaiman!
Here’s a very grateful page from THE DAY MURIEL HAD ENOUGH
*happy claps and perhaps some light parkour on the living room furniture*
#illustrator#illustration#digital artist#artist on tumblr#crowley#good omens#good omens art#aziraphale#good omens aziraphale#gleafer#neil gaiman#happiness#gleafer art#best Thursday ever#Happy KRiMuS#who has two thumbs and a stupid grin? ME!
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neil josten the man that you are
#art#artists on tumblr#fanart#aftg#all for the game#all for the gay#aftg trilogy#neil josten#aftg neil#aftg fanart#aftg fandom#my art#andreil#sort of?#i get you andrew i too would choke my best friend for this
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Honestly if the situation was less dire 24 year old Renee Walker watching her 19 year old best friend be horrendously down bad for the new 19 18 year old asshole striker would have a lot of comedic potential. You know he’s furious about his crush. In denial. Renee sure as shit knows. Wymack knows. Kevin is tired as hell and trying to domesticate Neil like a feral cat.
#au that just adds Andrew’s pissed off rants while sparring with Renee#and his pissed off rants in wymack’s apartment#Kevin is disappointed but not surprised#he’s mostly just upset that they work best together by the end of it so he has to negotiate with two (2) assholes to go to court#renee walker#andrew minyard#neil josten#andreil#david wymack#kevin day#aftg#all for the game#feverdreamsandlucidnightmares
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I don’t trust people who hate Stardust lol
If you don’t like this book the problem is you, not the author 🛐🛐🛐
I read "Stardust" in my British Literature class in high school about a decade ago and absolutely hated it. What (of your work) would you suggest someone reads instead? I very much want to like you as an author.
What kind of thing do you like to read?
#how could one hate stardust?#stardust superiority#it’s one of my favorite books#Neil is the best#neil gaiman#stardust#stardust book
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exy twitter (neil josten: pr nightmare au)
#sillysillysilly#neil josten#aftg#all for the game#nicky hemmick#tfc#the foxhole court#socmed au#in universe memes#mine#:))#not my best work#but <3
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andrew helping neil shower was so tender i’m crying into my fucking fist. andrew wrapping up neil’s wounds so they wouldn’t hurt in the water. andrew helping him take his clothes off to shower because it caused neil too much pain to pull them all the way off. andrew washing neil’s hair. andrew helping him stand up when he was struggling to balance. and then neil crossing his arms behind andrew’s head to keep him closer, tilting andrew’s face up to kiss him. i’m so fucking soft for them oh my god
#i never would've fucking guessed these two were capable of such sweetness but consider me surprised in the best way#i had to put my head in my hands for a minute after reading that because it was just so. tender. the way andrew cares for neil.#god. someone hold me.#when he washed neil's hair i nearly fucking died from softness#andreil#andrew minyard#neil josten#the king's men#aftg
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the year before neil and andrew are on the same team, neil's team plays in the city where katelyn and aaron live, and they go see neil's game (katelyn insists). they have amazing seats (neil insists). during warm ups, neil saunters over closest to where they're sitting and waves happily at katelyn (who gleefully waves back) before he flips off aaron, and then neil is gone. aaron's med school friends are like wtf.
#in his friends perspective#one of the best rookies in the league comes and flirts with aarons girlfriend and then flips him off#neil sends tickets for both katelyn and aaron to bring friends#neil and katelyn friends supremacy#i definitely think she'd be wary off him after the andrew thing but her and neil vibe#all for the game#aaron minyard#aftg#neil josten#post canon
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One of the things that strikes me about the whole Neil Gaiman thing is that people really want to portray Amanda Palmer as being a remorselessly complicit figure, when a lot of things that are very obviously fucked up and menacing when you put it next to the actual assaults going on - are perfectly normalised and accepted within poly/ENM world. All of these things are fucked up and menacing, but the bubble of pseudo-feminist poly world is incredibly effective at making you totally oblivious to the fact that you're opening the door to abuse and emotional damage.
The thing of 'oh we just slept together and I took a consensual nude of you, now can I have your consent to send it to my husband' is a feature of poly culture, not a bug. Suggestive and inappropriate comments to a woman about how hot your husband will find her are completely normalised. A statement from your husband like 'I don't get to play with my Dom side with you, so I need to be with other women who are natural subs' (which I suspect is the reason he gave when he kept having affairs when she was eight months pregnant, after agreeing to be monogamous) is something that culture will expect you to be completely Cool Girl about. Being blasé when a woman comes to you and says 'your husband made a pass at me' is also the expected Cool Girl reaction. Bringing women into your circle that you think your husband will find hot is completely par for the course in those mindsets and part of being a good and fun and sexy partner - no one doing that in poly culture thinks of themselves as 'feeding him women to rape' or grooming. Lots of people seem to find Amanda telling Neil that he couldn't hit on Scarlett, but still leaving him alone with her, to be jawdropping - but, as someone who has had people in ENM relationships exhibit poor boundaries around me and try to insinuate me into their sex lives in inappropriate ways, I know that that kind of thing is seen as due diligence and an appropriate way to navigate a situation. My experience of people immersed in that kind of culture is just this general assumption that words and agreements are magic - that all you need to do is communicate and agree terms and everything is fine, and if an agreement is violated you just need to communicate more and agree terms and everything is fine, pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
What a lot of people want (and have wanted all along when they were making jokes about how understandable it was for Neil to 'fly across the world to escape having lockdown with her') is for Amanda Palmer to have been a truly abhorrent person, when the truth is that the whole culture around poly/ENM/open relationships - not necessarily the stated rules everyone claims to be abiding by, but the actual culture itself - encourages this stuff, especially from women.
I'm not suggesting Amanda is a victim in anywhere close to the same way as any of the women profiled in the reportage, and I do think her learned obliviousness enabled her complicity in creating a situation like Scarlett being left alone with Neil, but she has clearly been manipulated as well. Think of how insanely manipulative it was for him to wait until she was in late-stage pregnancy to start violating the terms of their marriage, how he surprised her with a lot of 'dark' elements of his personality after they were already married with a child, how we don't even necessarily know how much control she had over the marital pursestrings, how (as covered in the Tortoise podcasts) he would pressure the woman who lived on his estate into sexual activity by saying that Amanda, not him, wanted to sell the house and kick her out - and that if she kept him sweet he'd be her advocate against his evil wife. He is so clearly a profoundly manipulative person and it's just lunacy to suggest that none of that manipulation will have been targeted at Amanda.
#neil gaiman#also: that her being silent about this is almost certainly for legal reasons to do with custody battles#and I think everyone can agree that however problematic you find her as a person#however much this makes you scream and cry to admit#the best option is very very clearly for her to get sole custody of that child
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if i was kevin day id be more annoying actually
#im just saying that if it was my mother that invented exy id never shut about it#and my father is david wymack? coach known for giving second chances and eventually getting the foxes to win championships#i discovered neil josten? the best stricker in collegiate exy#i have andrew minyard best goalie ever on my team?#youd literally never be able to get me off my high horse#and kevins hot so theres that#aftg#all for the game#the foxhole court#kevin day
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in his primadonna girl* era 😌✨
(*playing the damsel in distress and getting locked in a tower in the middle of the french revolution so his boyfriend can rescue him from being beheaded 😏)
#good omens#aziraphale#ineffable husbands#good omens fanart#my art#neil gaiman#what is this... me?? posting on a regular time and not in the dead of night???? no way#anyway he is the best#in his sassiest era#also can you tell I can't draw the complex ruffle design or whatever it's called to save my life?? lol#hope it came across as an artistic choice#not incompetence (which it is)
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I have nothing but the utmost respect for the women who came forward with the allegations against Neil Gaiman. Their stories (particularly those of Scarlett Pavlovich, Kendra Stout and Caroline) are utterly horrific, and their bravery and resilience in discussing the heinous things they suffered at the hands of Gaiman (and Amanda Palmer) cannot be overstated. I hope that all of these women live happy and successful lives going forward, and that no one suffers at the hands of this depraved predator ever again.
(And to any victims of his that have not come forward yet or who will never feel ready to come forward, your experiences are just as valid and your courage/perseverance is just as strong.)
#i just wanted to make a post expressing my appreciation and respect for these women#they are so incredibly brave and i wish them nothing but the best#neil gaiman#neil gaiman allegations#amanda palmer
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