when you read aftg from neil’s perspective you sort of get used to his fucked up logic but the moment you see him from jeans pov you’re like oh . he’s literally just a short little freak (affectionate)
no cuz u don’t understand I love these silly little aftg fake tweets they bring me so much joy
the shower scene this, the shower scene that
what no one talks about though is how andrew took his armbands off.
Of course it wasn’t to keep them from getting wet; the shirt he kept wearing disapproves that. It was part of their truth. He saw neils bare scars and answered with his own. One vulnerable part for another.
That’s what we should be talking about
the year is 2006. you’re an avid fan of collegiate exy. kevin day recently transferred from the best team in the league to the worst after breaking his hand in a skiing accident. before the season starts, janie smalls attempts suicide. she’s a fox, so absolutely no one is surprised by this. however, this means that david wymack has to find a new striker. he picks up a neglected, unremarkable kid from millport. for some reason, this mysterious nobody thinks it’s okay to publicly humiliate riko moriyama, king of exy. apparently, neil josten and kevin day talk shit about riko all the time (this confuses you. kevin and riko are supposed to be best friends). not long after, seth gordon dies of an overdose. once again, it’s the foxes, so no one should be surprised, but something is… off. seth was clean, and it didn’t seem likely for him to throw it away. the foxes don’t get anyone to replace him. despite being short a player, they’re performing better than ever before. you don’t want to admit it, but neil josten can probably be credited with a lot of the foxes success. and something is off about that kid, too. he’s a 5’3 brunette with brown eyes, and then suddenly he’s not. he comes back from winter break with red hair and blue eyes, but more interesting than that is the number four tattooed onto his face, marked for the ravens, marked for the perfect court. the normal minyard twin murders someone in cold blood. neil josten is actually nathaniel wesninski. his father, the butcher of baltimore, tortures him and burns his tattoo off. the trojans throw away their shot at winning. kevin covers up his tattoo with a queen chess piece. he’s never been skiing, the theories behind what happened to his hand are endless. jean moreau transfers to the trojans. this isn’t helping with the abuse allegations. despite everything stacked against them, the foxes beat the ravens. for some reason, this is riko’s final straw and he kills himself. some people are blaming kevin and neil, but you personally believe that it’s a tad bit dramatic to commit suicide after losing one game. the rest of the ravens don’t seem to agree, as they’re all suddenly in the most fucked up game of “follow the leader” known to man. jean moreau is spotted being escorted from the foxes dorm room a bloody mess, but that’s only the beginning. one of the ravens stabs himself with a letter opener, another steps onto the subway tracks, and a third overdoses. it’s 2007, and you started saying that the ravens were in a cult as a joke, but you don’t know if it’s a joke anymore. you’re seriously starting to consider that your favorite sport was created solely as a front for the mafia
uhhh so the number four is associated with death in certain cultures, including japanese, which is fitting for the butcher’s son, yes but just remember neil was supposed to be number three and jean was supposed to be number four ,and in every draft but one jean dies. he is symbolically saved from that fate by dodging the number four (being given, instead, the number three which represents REBIRTH of all things - i made a whole post about that if ur curious) because it means he was never marked for death. so in this draft, where he’s number three, but was supposed to be number four, he comes so close to death - to the point where renee doesn’t know how he’s still alive - because he was supposed to die, doomed by the narrative, but that number three saves him. that number three represents resurrection, and so he doesn’t die like he was supposed to. because he’s not number four, he’s number three. he comes back. he transforms, he heals. he becomes number 29 (i will eventually make a post about jean and the 29)
neil, though, was marked for death. he had the number four tattooed on him, and he goes through his own narrative believing he will die by the end of it. his survival, however, is foreshadowed in the very moment neil thinks he’s about to die - when he is kidnapped. lola burns the number four - the signifier of death - off his face, leaving him scarred, yes, but not marked for death anymore. and so he lives. and guess what: the number 10 represents the start of a new chapter, that one cycle is coming to an end and a new life is starting, one that you’ve worked hard for. so for the number four to be burned off of neil, that tells us neil is going to live. and when neil becomes neil legally, he settles into the number 10 properly. and his new life begins.
me enjoying an aftg fic but then andrew says “please”: 🤨😟
New year, new obsession 🦊
I'm glad I looked past the first sentences of aftg, which really made me want to just close the book and never open it again. After a while, I somehow fell in love with that mess 💓
No specific scene or anything, just thought about how I imagine Andrew, Aaron and Kevin could look like (kind of at least)
andrew minyard majoring in criminal justice might just be the funniest thing ever
so jean likes grabbing people's chins to get them to listen right? so you can't convince me he and kevin didn't argue all the time and jean didn't grab his chin and make him look at him and they didn't stand there chests heaving with suppressed rage, all up in each others spaces, kevin's eyes flicking down to jean's mouth, then pushing him off bc he wants to kiss him so bad and it makes him look stooopid
An Ancient Egypt AU nobody asked for
and here some additional things I did faster but ended up liking more