On My Knees Praying, Begging, That Kevin Is An Observant Narrator. Please Kevin You’re So Judgmental,

my absolute hatred of having to write intros and conclusions is torturing me this finals season...... an intro i can sort of understand but can't you just form your own conclusions goddamn. like i spelled it all out for you already

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.

sorry but can i just say how hilarious it is that neil ended up on the foxes who have bright, obnoxious orange uniforms and is from baltimore where the O’s (their baseball team) have bright, obnoxious orange and white as their colors too. and neil fucking hates baseball. and yet……..

AND WHAT IF I SCREAM?!? AND WHAT IF I LOSE MY MIND!?!!? what then

you gave me a key and called it home.

What if The Queen's Game doesn't just refer to Kevin? What if it refers to Kayleigh, too?

I just– Kevin has always said that the Trojans play Exy "as it was meant to be played" and the award for excellent sportsmanship is the 'Day Spirit Award'. What if Kayleigh Day created the sport to be as the Trojans play, and her death left Tetsuji Moriyama free to twist it into something it was never meant to be?

Coach Moriyama taught his Ravens that rule breaking and fouls were just an acceptable part of the game. Tetsuji behaved like success in Exy was intrinsically linked to cruelty and suffering, but Kayleigh used Exy as a way to help people like David Wymack.

As the co-creators of the sport, Kayleigh and Tetsuji were the original King and Queen of Exy. But this King's ruled long enough—it's time to tear his castle down. With Tetsuji out of the picture, will Kevin Day, the new Queen of Exy, be able to push the game back towards what his mother always intended it to be?

Ugh..

oh butch transmasc andrew minyard… oh save me. oh he has glasses and piercings (especially an anti-eyebrow) and acne scars and he’s chubby and he lifts so; much. he lifts so heavy. butch andrew minyard who wears black compression shirts and cargo pants and steel-toed boots. leather butch andrew minyard hanky and carabiner code butch andrew minyard. butch andrew minyard with hands tats and blackout tattoos when he’s older and and and. bitten lips and nails butch andrew minyard i’m blushing

i know the obvious allusion with the title “the broken cage” is that jean is breaking free of the nest and finally taking important, meaningful steps towards healing. he’s the bird, he’s the raven turned golden that we have been following. and the nest and all its cult culture has been trapping him in a cage he didn’t know how to leave. and i do think this is true. i do think we will see jean breaking free of his cage

but i also think it’s an allusion to jeremy. because that man is very much in a gilded cage right now, locked up by his family. i think tsc3 will be jeremy breaking out of his own cage too and working towards healing and the future he actually wants

My canon: Neil is super weird, but in a way people don't expect and it catches them unaware. He will have a perfectly normal conversation with you and then you realise he doesn't ignore the first slice of bread of the loaf, uses it right after opening it to make a sandwich. He doesn't have a set way of replacing the toilet paper roll. He does sock-shoe-sock-shoe. He takes the peel of the banana off completely before eating it on the go. He unplugs the laptop yanking on the cable not the plug. He eats kiwis with the skin on like they're apples. He eats dry cereal then drinks a glass of milk.

Neil Josten is like an alien that has managed to blend in quite well with the humans but sometimes he does something that reminds you he's a martian

Trans fem kevin day!!!