Latest Posts by twirlingflurry - Page 5

Neil and his trusty duffle bag

“Neil watched the airport disappear, watched signs blur outside the window, and let his eyes close. When he opened them again, he was flat on his back on Wymack’s couch.” (ch.16, trk)

wymack carried neil up to his apartment. wymack carried neil up to his apartment. WYMACK CARRIED NEIL UP TO HIS APARTMENT. 

i will forever be crying about this. it’s such a father-son thing to do?? he must’ve been so small in wymack’s arms. and neil is so familiar w wymack’s place that he didn’t even panic when he woke up on his couch, despite having just gotten back from evermore. 

also, and this is very important:

“Clad in jean shorts and a faded tee, Wymack looked more like a garage band rocker than a university coach.” (ch.1, tfc)

WYMACK. WEARS. JORTS. we make fun of neil for it all the time but PLS CAN WE STOP OVERLOOKING THIS OMFG. wymack wears a wife-beater when he first sees neil and jorts the second time. iconic. what a man. 

on the one hand, saying “make me” and refusing to kneel when tetsuji told him to is iconic. on the other hand, neil knew he’d be there for two more weeks and he still purposely antagonized him???? very in character but what the f u c k

andrew “stood with his back to the car, one arm propped on the hood and the other draped along the top of his door” (tkm, ch. 1) and i stg andrew bought a low expensive car simply for the Aesthetic and the Drama, you can’t convince me otherwise

ok ok but the upperclassmen planning a team bonding night and someone pulls out a puzzle. while they’re building it, neil casually mentions that he’s been there before. after that, it becomes the foxes’ goal to find as many puzzles of obscure places neil’s been as possible. they hide the picture so that neil can’t see it ahead of time, and build until either a) he recognizes it and gives them a random piece of info about that place or b) says he hasn’t been there, but still somehow always has an obscure fact to share about the place

it’s so wild that nicky and aaron could understand everything neil and andrew were saying to each other during the baltimore reunion scene, all the easy conversation and percentages and references to past comments, and they STILL had the absolute audacity to appear surprised when allison pointed out andreil’s not-a-thing relationship like-

my knowledge of west virginia comes solely from aftg and that one song, and i would like to suggest aftg where everything is the same except the ravens’ fight song is “take me home, country roads” 

nicky has such a big heart and prioritizes everyone else over himself and i feel like we don’t talk about it enough. he’s the type of person who soothes the foxes during their panic attacks. he’s the type of person who will leave the only place that truly feels like home behind to go look after two difficult teens. he’s the type of person who will sit next to a crying stranger in the hallway and comfort them however they need (talking, distracting, joking, quiet support) without expecting anything in return

erik showed him joy and love and acceptance. i think nicky made it his goal to do the same for everyone he even remotely cares about

honestly, what a power-move for neil to be an absolute asshole to the feds and get his way because of it. like damn, yes, let them know that you know how vital you are to their case. speak a different language so that they can’t understand you. call them out on their lies. insult them. go off my guy, that’s what we like to see

(and also shoutout to the rest of the foxes for refusing to tell the feds anything because they said they couldn’t see neil. this is the friendship neil deserves. this is the family that he didn’t dare to dream for. iconic)

honestly andrew probably got to neil in time by booking it across the court the second neil opened his mouth after the final match bc he just knew it’d be some dumb shit that would make riko want to kill him 

hc that andrew’s really good at drawing, and bc of his eidetic memory, he can depict scenes perfectly. he didn’t draw much when he was on his meds, but got back into it when he was sober again. here are some memories i think he would recreate:

the “you know, i get it” speech (this one is a kaleidoscope of colours bc of his drugged state)

neil at ground level, andrew’s cigarette between his lips, giving andrew a mock salute (that scene right after andrew returns from easthaven)

seeing neil’s scars for the first time

aaron and nicky dancing, carefree, at eden’s

bee’s glass figurines (he adds to this drawing every time he gets her a new one)

sparring with renee

neil sitting on the ground at the foxhole court after calling andrew during his panic attack

neil leaning over the bus seat

matt grinning during an exy game

neil at the baltimore reunion (the rest of the foxes are blurs in this one because he only had eyes for neil)

sleepy neil curled up in the beanbag chair

allison and renee curled up beside each other

kevin coming in, drunk, with his new tattoo 

nicky and erik hugging when erik came as a surprise

kevin and wymack right before the final match

riko with his racquet raised above neil (he wasn’t going to draw this one, but he couldn’t get the moment out of his head and thought it might help to get it down on paper)

aaron smiling for a split second at a sarcastic comment andrew made

neil, yawning and wearing andrew’s hoodie

matt ruffling neil’s hair

allison painting renee’s nails

neil sitting on the rooftop, the sunset setting his hair ablaze

ice cream at sweetie’s (no cracker packets in this memory)

the first goal robin blocked during a game

neil on facetime, staring at andrew like he could never get enough

the first house that andrew could really call home 

sir and king climbing all over neil

neil and kevin wearing olympic medals

neil and andrew’s hands linked together

aaron and his family when they come over for dinner

neil, soaking wet and laughing during a watergun fight in their backyard

neil, smiling and happy and home

i’d like to think that, when andrew feels ready to show neil his drawings, they hang them up around their home. and when the foxes come over, they’re in awe at the memories and the love that is captured in the artwork, but they know not to say anything. dan gives them pictures, though, to hang up alongside the drawings, and they do

neil was ready to die. he had accepted that he wasn’t going to live past 19, that he would be killed, that he wouldn’t do anything else with his life. and he was mourning the loss of exy and his teammates and friendship, but he didn’t bother mourning the loss of a domestic life because it never even occured to him that that could be a possibility. that dream died the night he ran away. he didn’t mourn the loss of lazy sleep-filled mornings or cat cuddles or holding hands or having his own place, because to him, that was always too far-fetched. he didn’t mourn for the small joys of domestic life, because he’d never had them in the first place

andreil having chocolate fondue with strawberries to satisfy neil’s love for fruit and andrew’s love for sweet things

creed from the office would be neil in the future if he’d never signed with the foxes

HAHAH you know what, you’re absolutely right and i love you for bringing this up. i also feel obligated to add your tags to this post, because they’re iconic

i feel like we all just forgot that kevin’s on nicky’s List™?? okay a) this is further proof that kevin’s hot af b) does kevin know??? that nicky wants to bang him???? and c) nicky what a waste of a choice, kevin would never

“My child is fine” your child runs a AFTG blog on tumblr

my guy matt is such a speedy driver that andrew didn’t even catch up to him on the way to the mountains like... oh my ajm, driving with matt would be a mix of wholesome, chaotic, and absolutely terrifying

yes neil is absolutely clueless when it comes to people liking him, both platonically and romantically, but he’s honestly pretty perceptive when it comes to other people. he was able to analyse the relationships and dynamics between the foxes pretty quickly (for the most part) after meeting each of them, even without knowing their backstories or anything about them. i think that this is for a few reasons:

neil has spent his entire life looking for threats towards him, not love

the only person who ever really cared about him before he joined the foxes (from what we know) was his mom, who had very questionable ways of showing it (i could write a whole other post about mary)

neil didn’t actually expect anyone to care about him in any way, because he didn’t think he was worthy of friendships and had never really opened up enough for it to be a viable option 

he had to be good at quickly and discreetly analyzing other people’s relationships, because it was important to understand those around him on the run 

excluding all the times where he went off and snapped at people, he tended to listen more than talk, especially when in big groups. this is the perfect opportunity to absorb information about everyone else

that being said, he didn’t pick up on anyone caring about him, because that idea had never even crossed his mind

also, given that he hadn’t really known what romantic attraction felt like, it was probably pretty hard to place his feelings for andrew 

and andrew’s not exactly the easiest to read, so even for neil (who understands him significantly more than others do), it would’ve been hard to see that andrew liked him (esp since andrew was presenting his attraction as hate)

however!! it would’ve been a lot easier to pick out the subtleties in the relationships between the other foxes, because they’re generally more open 

basically, i think that neil actually isn’t completely clueless when it comes to love/lust/attraction between others, it’s just when it comes to himself - who he doesn’t think is worthy of anything good - that he’s a bit thick

okay but andrew thinking that neil was just a side-effect of the drugs just-

he thought that neil was too good to be true, that there was no way he could actually be real 

he probably braced himself for bitter disappointment when he was going through withdrawal, was probably expecting to feel apathy towards everyone and everything yet again

but then neil was there and he was just as interesting as before

he still cared about andrew

he respected andrew’s boundaries

he didn’t run

he kept his promises

the man with a plethora of secrets willingly opened about his life, unprompted, for three hours on the bus

like

how did andrew come to terms with the fact that neil wasn’t a pipedream, he wasn’t too good to be true?? 

how did he accept that neil chose him and he wasn’t backing out, wasn’t leaving??? 

how long did it take him to stop expecting neil to abandon him? 

how long did it take him to realize that neil was permanent?

and for how long did andrew think that he didn’t deserve any of it?

hc that andrew’s wardrobe is entirely black... except for his socks, which are super colourful with ridiculous patterns

neil likes sweet things, just not artificial sweetness. it’s canon that he likes fruit, which is packed with natural sugars!! i think that this also translates to people for him - if someone has a mask up or seems too nice (re: renee, bee, etc), he tends to be wary of them. he really just craves authenticity 

when jean told neil that “fun is for children” at the winter banquet, he probably actually believed what he was saying. i doubt this traumatized man has genuinely had fun since he was a kid back in france - and even then it was probably rare bc let’s be real, if your parents sell you to the yakuza to pay off debts, it’s unlikely they provided a childhood full of sunshine

jerejean fics are so much fun to read bc in aftg the characters more or less roll with the hits and just kind of accept what’s going on, and it doesn’t seem that out of the ordinary when you read it, but then you see how jeremy reacts to jean’s stories in the fanfics and it’s like... oh right... that’s actually probably how a normal person would react in this scenario

one of the many reasons that i love andreil is that they don’t fall into typical relationship... stereotypes? idk but like there’s not the soft one and the scary one, because they’re both TERRIFYING. i love that their relationship is so out of the ordinary and that they honestly don’t care what others think. i love that they feel so comfortable around each other and never feel pressured to do things just to make the other happy. they draw strength from one another and of course they do want the other to be happy, but they also know that their own boundaries are important and need to be respected. their relationship is built on so much unwavering trust and understanding and i love them

you know what’s painful? before the final match against the ravens when neil says that he can see how much matt loves his mom and that “sometimes he was still surprised at how blatantly that love was returned” 

like?? 

mary did her best to keep neil alive and they had a complicated relationship but, ultimately, neil loved her

this quote hurts though, because neil obviously didn’t really get that love reciprocated - yes, in her own way, mary loved him and tried to keep him safe and as happy as possible given the circumstances, but overall his life on the run was full of pain and fear and his mom added to that

so of course it’s weird for him to see randy love matt so fiercely and so openly, but my heart still aches for him

andreil! i’m thinking of maybe digitalizing these two and adding them to my redbubble shop, but i’m not sure yet. i hope you enjoy!

I always thought Andrew's big tips were actually for the drugs??? Like to pay them in an inconspicuous way??? The cracker dust at sweetie's and the drug for neil at eden's (also wasn't it aaron who paid in the first sweetie's scene???)

the very excessive tips at sweetie’s were definitely for the cracker dust! but in chapter 9 of the raven king, when all the foxes go to columbia together for halloween, there’s the quote: “Nicky's friendship with the staff and Andrew's generous tips got them instant access and ridiculous discounts on drinks”. so i guess it’s only really confirmed that he tips well at eden’s, but i’m assuming he’d do the same at sweetie’s (even without the cracker dust), especially since they continue to go there after andrew’s deal to quit using the cracker dust. plus, nicky worked there as a host before getting his job at eden’s (it says that in chapter 12 of trk) which would be even more incentive to leave good tips :)

(i think you’re right about aaron paying for sweetie’s and the drugs in tfc. maybe they take turns paying? regardless, he left lots of tips too so i bet they’re just all really generous tippers!)

i picture renee talking w a customer service voice 99% of the time to stay sweet so that she doesn’t rip someone’s throat out

okay you know what, andrew may have killed his mom but at least he’s a generous tipper. murder? excusable. tipping 5% at a restaurant? well now we’re gonna have to excuse another murder

neil “i’m fine” josten telling wymack after coming back from evermore that no, no, he’s not alright just... pierces my heart every time i think about it. you can really see how much neil’s grown by how he finally begins to trust someone other than himself or his mom. he puts himself in such a vulnerable position when he reaches out, especially by asking for help from an older man (given his past). and the way that wymack drops everything during winter break to immediately rush to the airport, i just-