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okay my personal thought and assumption has always been that Neil would have had a totally different Nest experience than Kevin or Jean did. I had always assumed that he wasn’t getting sold off to the Moriyamas to repay a debt but that he was getting placed in an environment to be groomed into Nathan 2.0, for when Ichirou took over. Like the violence of the nest to train him and isolation from his parents so he had only loyalty to the Moriyamas. So that eventually when Kengo died and Ichirou took over there was a replacement for Nathan ready and (hopefully) willing to go

#ive always thought this #why would nathan have named him nathaniel if the plan wasn’t for him to inherit nathan’s title #neil josten #aftg

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Also in light of Lazarus I want everyone in this fandom to sit down and reflect on how they would feel about Jean/Renee if Renee was a man.

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there’s more!!

st nathaniel (also known as st bartholomew) was the first saint in the new testament to heal through confession. his sins are ‘untold because of the seal of confession’ - neil’s past crimes, which for the most part are not told to the reader, are similarly forgotten as long as he provides testimony for his father’s crimes. neil as nathaniel confesses everything to the fbi which allows him to become neil legally, a person untainted by the ‘sins’ of nathaniel.

furthermore, st nathaniel was a martyr, he was skinned alive and then beheaded. one of the things nathan says to neil in the basement is that he might ‘skin [him] alive’.

it’s also quite ironic that st nathaniel was the patron saint of butchers (among other things)

and the name neil is an anglicised version of the name niall which means champion.

oh

#neil josten #nathaniel wesninski #all for the game

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Andreil dynamic in TRK is so so special to me because you have Neil (guy who didn’t trust Andrew until three days ago and doesn’t even really like him all that much yet) going “joining the war on Andrew Minyard on the side of Andrew Minyard” and he was DEAD serious about it

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everyone should always be memorising poems. being able to recite a poem is a fun way to make everyone around you roll their eyes.

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They deserve a good nap 😴

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Commission!

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GENESIS. RAYE

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no one does it like raye

and god the music video

#raye #Spotify

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aaron and andrew and newton’s cradle /pendulum imagery. there’s just something about it.

(adding newton’s cradle here bc i think my description of it is confusing - i’m sure everyone knows what it is but this is Just In Case):

the two of them are constantly falling back on each other, just like the weights in newton’s cradle fall back due to gravity. if gravity represents the history between them, then you can consider that to be what’s bringing them back down after being pulled away, time after time. they can’t leave each other, because they need each other, so they always come back. it could also represent the deal between them - they’re stuck in this repetitive swinging motion, forced away but forced to come back, because of the deal they made to stick by each other.

but at the same time, it is also gravity that pushes the weight on the left side to swing upwards, after the one on the right side has swung down, and vise versa. so, in this metaphor, their history, the deal between them, is also the thing that is pushing the other away.

newton’s cradle also places more weights between the left and right side to act as obstruction, to stop the movement of the one swinging down, preventing the left and right side from moving together. they force the one swinging down to stop moving and transmit a pressure wave which forces the opposite side to swing up. these can represent the people that the two of them consider to get in the way of a harmonious relationship existing between them. for example, tilda, katelyn, neil.

so they’re stuck in this movement, the upswing and the downswing, never in harmony, but they still can’t leave each other. when something removes the force of gravity - aka, the end of their deal, the slow healing of their relationship through therapy - the weights stop moving. they’re aligned with each other, not touching, still stuck on their own side of the cradle, with weights (people - katelyn, neil) between them, but they’re steady.

#hoping my description of newton’s cradle makes sense #note i am not a physicist #i am just a writer #so don’t quote me on the physics of this pls it probably won’t hold up #andrew minyard #aaron minyard #aftg

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maybe i just make the songs i like about andreil in my head but to me, this one fits

take this lonely heart - nothing but thieves

#neil josten #andrew minyard #andreil #aftg

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Imagine my shock as a neurodivergent teen when I first realized that using large vocabulary and eloquent speech doesn't make you less likely to be misinterpreted, rather it adds an entirely new layer of misinterpretation I had never even realized existed in the form of people thinking you're being snobbish or condescending when you're just trying to be specific

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"No climate justice on occupied land"

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I was thinking about this after I saw a post about it and: This is such a powerful line. Neil absolutely would've been the one to knock this into Jean and honestly I feel like he had to be, considering there's some stuff between them that other people just can't understand.

There's something that also reminds me of Andreil here. I don't think Neil did this intentionally but like, Andrew didn't think he was worth saving, yet that perspective began to shift for him with "If it means losing you, then no". Like, if Neil cares enough himself I think he knows how to get people to care. He pulled the foxes together, got them to admit to or care more about something or someone so the team could actually play together. So, here it feels very reminiscent of Andrew cared enough about Neil to care about himself because Neil put his foot down and said no.

He did the same to Jean, in a sense. Obviously the dynamic is different. Obviously the clouds aren't going to clear for him just from this. But this was so, so important for getting him into something more akin to "I am Jean Moreau. I am a Trojan." And maybe, just maybe, we'll see him add onto that "win", "conquer", "triumph", etc. and so forth.

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confession time. lowkey i don't see what everyone else see's when they describe neil as being like some scary unhinged wild animal in tsc. like to me he's just neil being neil. insufferably blunt and honest, annoyingly snarky and incredibly perceptive to people around him. if anything i think it's more surprising how much more caring he seems. with regards to jean who he claims he can't stand. yet he promises they'll beat the ravens, doesn't say a word after jean trashes their room, is hesitant to leave the hospital room after he confirms riko is dead, asks after jean when jeremy calls kevin late at night, takes all of a couple minutes to decide to put a stop to jean's abuser, was ready to blow off the fbi and make a run for it from the thai restaurant when it seemed like jean wouldn't be able to contain his grief, told wymack he had him, told jean to find his own reasons to not wanna let go of life instead of holding on because he was told he had to, didn't touch jean until he absolutely had to and even then it was to remind him he was worth saving and he should believe it himself. like sure, him putting out a hit is a little unhinged maybe. but i have no doubts he wouldn't have done the same with drake if he'd been able to contact stuart at the time and things did not occur the way they did. again. it's just neil being neil. he's an instigator. and he even said it himself he was great at starting fights knowing he couldn't win them but doing it anyway.

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So y'all know how in the beginning of tsc Wymack offers Jean scotch, and he says Ravens don't drink (well, specifically, aren't allowed to drink)? And Kevin famously overdoes it with the drinking? And Wymack's mother, at least, had an issue with substance abuse? So do we think Wymack was the first one to offer Kevin alcohol, and how do we think he felt about Kevin's obvious issues with alcohol when he found out that Kevin is his son, knowing that addiction can be hereditary 🤥🤥🤥

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we talk about matchmaker kevin day but let’s talk about matchmaker neil josten for a sec. he sorted aaron and katelyn’s relationship issue by encouraging katelyn to get aaron to fight for her, and got kevin to give renee jean’s number. like he doesn’t even realise he’s doing it because he has his own motivations but still. accidental relationship therapist. imagine the foxes end up going to him for relationship advice and he’s like why tf r you asking me and they’re like, look at aaron and katelyn, they’re dating because of you!! and neil is just like, god, don’t blame me for that.

#he gets seth killed to give renee a chance with allison #THATS A JOKE OKAY #sorry seth #aftg #neil josten