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Andriel - Blog Posts
Sometimes I forget just how terrible of a narrator Neil is. Like the only people that didn't catch onto Andrew's feeling were Neil and the audience. I wonder just how obvious Andrew was but we don't know about it because Neil is just so in his head about things he dismissed it
Y'all think Andrew meows back at his cats?
what if you were GAY!!! and your boyfriend was COLD!!!!!!!!!
This is why we didn't get an Andrew POV.
//Andrew Minyard, All for the Game
my ugly dumb son and his nasty crusty boyfriend...
Twitter rlly liked this one
Love how Neil is hyper-vigilant and exceptionally good at reading people, but doesn't realize that the man he spends 24/7 with is obsessed with him. Truly our autistic demisexual icon
Although to be fair, Andrew's love languages include:
death threats
"I hate you"
swearing a weird oath to protect him from the mafia
causing physical harm
fav hc is that aaron is a girl dad and neil and andrew are THE gay uncles(nicky is eternally pissed-erik loves it)
started reading aftg........completely obsessed with whatever it is these two have going on
Kevin Day, rubbing his hands together with evil glee after jerejean get together: another successful relationship orchestrated by me on accident but I’m going to take credit for it anyways.
neil's learned obliviousness
gearing myself up to write another essay about neil josten. the grind never stops. had to figure out why people making neil super clueless and oblivious always rubbed me the wrong way even tho it's technically canon so here it is.
ok so i have a lot of thoughts about neil and obliviousness but i'm gonna mostly condense them into this single thesis statement: neil only pays attention to and notices things he deems important.
we've been knew atp that neil has insane tunnel vision, and that often comes across in his narration. because of this, it's easy to assume that neil is just genuinely very clueless and oblivious when it comes to social interaction and also romantic relationships, flirting, etc.
i know nora herself said that neil wouldn't realise if someone is flirting with him because he's dense as a brick and while i appreciate the comedic value of socially oblivious neil i generally take this characterisation with a grain of salt because it very quickly leans into territory of neil being just generally dumb and inept, which i lowk can't stand because it sanitises and declaws neil a lot and makes him boring and stereotypical.
so i raise you this: neil's obliviousness (if you want to call it that) throughout aftg and in his narration is deliberate. mostly, i think it's all intentional. he literally intentionally refuses to notice or give attention to certain things. and because of his relentless focus on only a couple of things (exy and his survival), things like socialising and relationships get put on the backburner unless they relate to the two aforementioned things.
let's dissect it using examples.
nicky's flirting. neil's narration is pretty clear-cut when it comes to this. he doesn't demonstrate much confusion towards nicky's behaviour except that he doesn't really know why nicky's more interested in him than exy. crucially, he isn't confused about why nicky demonstrates an interest in him (which is because he thinks neil is hot), he's just confused about why nicky is investing energy into flirting with him when, in his mind, there are better things to be doing. it seems, at least in his narration, that he knows nicky is flirting, he just doesn't know why and also doesn't really care to focus on it. aside from an initial discomfort/expression of disinterest, neil doesn't linger on nicky's comments and flirtations for the rest of the series. he narrates it when it's relevant but doesn't make any additional internal comments towards it because it doesn't pertain to his two priorities: exy and survival.
marissa's flirting. i feel like there's two ways to interpret neil's response to marissa's advance "i can give you my number". neil says "what for?" and you can either take this as genuine confusion or just neil kinda being a dick. i lowk never considered the first option and just jumped straight to "neil doesn't really care about hurting this girl's feelings" lmfao. i think i'm right tho, because he elaborates and makes it clear he isn't interested in pursuing relationships outside of the foxes (see: priority no. 1, exy) and when nicky and dan comment on it, making it explicitly clear that marissa was asking neil out, neil doesn't express any confusion over what she was trying to do. people who write neil being genuinely exaggeratedly clueless when being flirted with need to remember that neil wasn't unaware of marissa's intentions during this scene, he was just so aggressively disinterested that he failed to remark on most of it. he never expresses any actual confusion or obliviousness about her flirting.
andrew. ok look. this is gonna require some explaining. first of all let's talk about andrew's attraction to neil on a purely physical level. their nothingship era, if you will. neil's dizzying whiplash during the "that doesn't mean i wouldn't blow you" scene is honestly pretty understandable. like really, who wasn't surprised during that scene? the hints in the previous books about andrew's attraction towards neil were so subtle that most of us readers had to reread a couple times to actually catch the progression and build-up. and also, andrew was high and manic for most of the first two books, so it's understandable that neil probably chalked up a lot of andrew's yapping and odd behaviours to the drugs, rather than a genuine expression of andrew's feelings. that's not to say he discounted the things andrew told him, but since he's always taken andrew at face value, he also didn't doubt andrew's "i hate you" and supposed dislike of him. i think it's actually very very understandable that neil didn't pick up on andrew's attraction to him because 1. why would you ever assume that about anyone anyway 2. neil is pretty preoccupied with being hunted down by his serial killer father and the japanese mafia 3. andrew was NOT making it easy on neil at all. this is partially because andrew himself wasn't ready to face the reality of his feelings for neil and also just his general confusing way of going about things. it makes a lot of sense that even neil, who's generally good at reading andrew and picking up on his hints, would miss whatever hints andrew was dropping about this, if any. and finally, 4. andrew wanting to fuck neil doesn't have anything to do with exy or survival, so neil instinctively filters it out and doesn't think about it a lot. next, i guess we have to talk about andrew's actual feelings for neil. again, we like to make fun of neil for never picking up on the fact that andrew is in LOVE with him during their situationship phase. but again, i think it makes a lot of sense? yes, andrew wasn't exactly subtle about it by a certain point (see: baltimore reunion) but also, neil has literally been pavloved to reject romantic relationships. one of the ways he "justifies" his nothingship with andrew is by assuring himself that andrew is only physically attracted to him. and the other justification is that he sees andrew as intertwined with the idea of his survival, because of the deal they have. keeping andrew close and being in a relationship with him is directly related to his own safety and survival. because neil's lowk manipulated his own thinking to associate andrew implicitly with survival, suddenly their relationship is a lot more prioritised in neil's mind and narration, because it pertains to priority no. 2, survival. i truly, truly believe neil's refusal or inability to see andrew's actual feelings for him is deliberate. he doesn't want to notice that andrew actually is in love with him because that is area he isn't familiar with and he doesn't want to hurt andrew when he dies. but because he obviously does want to continue this little "nothing" with andrew, and because he associates andrew with survival, he's unwilling to let go of him. so he just refuses to notice and remains deliberately oblivious to andrew's feelings for him. it's all very psychological.
final argument: people like to make fun of neil for not realising his own feelings for andrew but listen. he does realise. he never says that he doesn't feel anything for andrew. he never denies being in love with or attracted to andrew, not even in his own head. he registers, literally in trk, after his conversation with nicky, that he sees andrew differently and could be developing feelings for him, but he literally forcibly pushes the thoughts away because they would distract him from priority no. 1 (exy) and priority no. 2 (survival). he also notices in the back half of tkm that their nothingship has taken on new weight and means more than just "nothing" but he avoids acknowledging it with andrew even when he's aware of it in his own mind. so yeah. neil isn't in a state of denial. like at all.
also, neil does notice things when they pertain to his priorities. like, he picked up on jeanee the same way kevin did. he noticed literally in trk the way jean reacted differently to renee, but he only chose to acknowledge and mention it out loud when he could use it to his advantage. and it did work out in everyone's favour, because he brought it up with kevin, kevin gave renee jean's number, and that's how jean was able to escape the nest and survive the year. so, lbr, neil isn't as clueless and out-of-it as the fandom likes to make him. he can be very perceptive and socially aware when it pertains to his narrow-minded priorities.
ok at the end of the day, i can acknowledge: it is not that deep. if ppl want to make neil super oblivious and clueless and socially inept, it's not rlly a big deal. i just personally hate when they dumb neil down when he is honestly such a smart and perceptive character and his intelligence is actually such a huge part of the series. so anyway. i hope u enjoyed this essay, it's been a while so it's a little rough.
They abandoned you and I collected you like a treasure
Sign up to my Patreon before September 1st to receive this as a free print
‘blame it on my youth’ isn’t allowed to end because the one-liners in this fic are single-handedly keeping me alive
Look Neil even has the matching armbands (sniff their everywhere)
<a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/40048491"><strong>Why do we feel alone?</strong></a> (39866 words) by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leocante"><strong>Leocante</strong></a><br />Chapters: 7/7<br />Fandom: <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/tags/All%20For%20The%20Game%20-%20Nora%20Sakavic">All For The Game - Nora Sakavic</a><br />Rating: Teen And Up Audiences<br />Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply<br />Relationships: Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard, Minor or Background Relationship(s)<br />Characters: Neil Josten, Andrew Minyard, The Foxes | Palmetto State Foxes Member(s) (All For The Game)<br />Additional Tags: Alternative Lifestyles, Writer Andrew Minyard, Blogger Neil Josten, Literature, all the bad things happened in the past, Past Rape/Non-con, Past Child Abuse, Swearing, Germany, i guess that is a tag, no beta we die like nathan, monsters getting along, Copyright Infringement, Books, bad literature takes, Attempt at Humor, Andrew Minyard Has Feelings, Sassy Neil Josten, Pining, i will tag as i go, Neil Josten Has A British Accent, aaron minyard is a romantic and i will die on this hill, Amputee Neil Josten, Slow Burn<br />Summary: <p>Andrew isn't a renowed author. Sure, he has his fans here and there, a few hardcore readers, but he's not famous or internationally known. </p><p>So, when he stumbles across his own book in a place where it absolutely shouldn't be and in a language it absolutely wasn't translated to, he makes it his personal mission to find the person behind it.</p>
For anyone looking for a
> writer Andrew & Blogger Neil
Not my work but by Leocante on ao3
Champagne coast was definitely playing in that one scene on the bus where Neil noticed how Andrew’s eyes went gold at a certain angle.
I saw a video on TikTok showing two foxes fighting on a roof then later it showed the same foxes curling up on the roof under some branches cause it was raining stealing glances at one another , on opposite sides. It reminded me of Neil and Andrew
Remember when Andrew hit Neil with a racquet, literally like in the first chapter…like they probably had a moment right right !? But like listen in the Second chapter Andrew goes “ it’s a cruel world right Neil”? And Neil goes “it’s not the world that’s cruel ,it’s the people in it “ .. like …LIKE WHAT WAS HAPPENING IN ANDREW’s DRUGGED MIND WHEN HE HEARD THAT?!? Was he thinking something like “oh great we got another one with issues and secrets” (I mean duh obviously) or was he like “imma break you and reshape your scars so they heal properly…..aUghsidhdghusbj DO YOU GUYS UNDERSTAND WHAT IM TRYING TO SAY?!?!
Im looking for a specific fic, I always remember very specific scenes and dialogue from fics I’ve read but never the fic itself 😭. I can’t remember if it was on ao3 or tumblr
It had the minyard v. Josten rivalry and was post-canon and during pros, and I think at the end it after Kevin and Neil had been fighting for the ball during a game, Kevin’s team had 8-5? I think on Neil and Andrew’s team, then when Andrew gets out on the court, Neil asks Andrew to shut down the goal and Andrew’s like what do I get out of doing it? And Neil says it’ll make Kevin sad. And since he only sees Kevin a few times a year now bc they’re in pros, he ends up shutting it down and Neil and Andrew’s team get 4 more points I think and then Kevin’s team gets Kevin another shot at the goal but Andrew blocks it and their team wins. Then at the end of the game Neil asks Andrew if he wants to piss of Kevin more and he’s like how and Neil asks yes or no and Neil calls Kevin’s name to make him turn their way and they kiss on live tv , Kevin’s pissed and says “fuck you josten, fuck you minyard” before storming off.
If you know which fic it is pls share bc I’ve looked everywhere through my history and I cannot for the life of me find it again 💔
And these are the newer additions to my ongoing little animatic thing. Very fun to see how much I improved over the years.
Hope you guys enjoyed this, I’ll go back to reading about my silly little gay mafia jocks ✨
These are all the older sections from my aftg animatic I reworked the framing and colour a bit since the init post years ago so I thought I’d post the newer version again
Hope you like this cavepaing old level work
So this is a little project I’ve been working on on and off since like beginning of 2019. I finished the newest section two years ago but and then forgot about it. But now that our collective spirits have been reawoken by the holy bible that is the sunshine court I thought it might be time to post this somewhere.
Enjoy ✨✨✨
Hands down the most emotional and hard hitting moments in the aftg series and I love it every time I come back to it
Neil and Andrew after an away game :)