Neil Josten really went and lied himself into existence. He's so real for that.

does aftg count as a slow burn if we didn't even know there was a spark until the last book

fear! at the nightclub? you mean neil josten when he goes to edens twilight?

concern! at the party? you mean Kevin day at the banquet?

the foxes typed out neil's you know i get it speech and framed it in the locker rooms and every time the upperclassman walk past it they pretend to swoon

Andrew: here's something you need to understand, Neil. I would burn this whole damn world for Aaron. I'd give him my kidney or my liver if he needed it. I'd murder anyone who hurt him, break the hand of any bastard who dared to try and hit him.

Neil: you tried to stab him when he stole one of your fries literally twenty minutes ago.

Andrew: you're damn fucking right I did. Those are my fucking fries.

writing fanfiction is wild. i could make these two characters do anything. i could make them get married rn. the possibilities are endless

AH, YES, THE HORRORS™

andrew tries to flirt attempt #5

Andrew, flirtatiously: Have a good night, Rabbit. I’ll be seeing you in your dreams soon enough.

Neil, defensively: Not if I see you in yours first.

Later that night…

Andrew, internally: Success! Neil finally flirted back.

Neil, internally: The bastard thinks I’m going to have nightmares about him. Well the joke’s on him! I have nightmares about being dismembered by my father. So clearly I won this round.

Despite having more teammates, Neil still regularly plays full games bc he knows he can and likes to. Wymack let's him bc it's one of the only sure-fire ways to get that boy worn out enough to chill. His stamina is out of this world by the time he goes pro and his team doesn't know how to handle him bc pros have way bigger teams and there's no way a rookie is going to get that much play time (not to mention, you just don't do full games that's ridiculous)

But like

What are they supposed to DO with him

He runs circles around them at practice despite being there long before and after official times. He's been caught multiple times by himself late at night. And when he's not on the court, he's on the bench running his mouth.

His coach reaches out to the coach of another team, one he thinks might be able to give some advice. But Kevin's coach just says "oh god i was going to call and ask YOU wtf to do he's going to decimate my team"

They conference in a third coach who is not much help bc the only thing David Wymack says after laughing himself breathless is "good fucking luck" and he hangs up

My favorite thought is that Neil eventually gets Andrew with him (best goalie in the league shows up and is like 'you're going to draft me and you're going to pay me ridiculously' you don't question it)

And now Neil can run against the immovable wall that is Andrew Minyard so Neil chills out a bit because essentially he's a sports dog that needs to go on like the exy equivalent of like 18 mile hikes to even feel like he's done anything and Andrew is long used to putting up with his Energizer Bunny of a boyfriend.

The issue is that Kevin still running around like a lunatic.

"Can we at least schedule a playdate?" Kevin's coach asks so desperate that he doesn't even think to say 'joint practice'.

YES

When Andrew transfers and nobody really knows that he and Neil are close and Andrew is famously apathetic towards exy so the staff warn him that Josten is "a little bit much" as if they didn't play together for four years. And Andrew is entirely unimpressed that a team of people obsessed enough with exy to make it their careers don't know how to handle this border collie. He spends his first practice scrimmage shooting the balls across the court to force Neil to zip up and down repeatedly (and also forces the backliners on his side to work harder to prevent Neil from getting the ball close enough for him to do so)

It's the first time that when official practice time ends that Neil collapses onto his back on the court, panting like he's actually tired (Andrew nudges his wide grin with the butt of his racket to make him stop that. It does not work)

But heck if he's going to put in THAT much effort all the time. Kevin's team is close enough, a rival city in the same state, so he organizes a time for them to get together once to practice together for a few hours. The team isn't there but their coach sees (and is Baffled about why The Kevin Day is on his court) and Andrew is just like "I set this up once. More junkie play dates are up to you," and goes to take a nap in the stands

@karmiky 💯 on your tags

Neil:

Kevin:

Jeremy:

PLAYLISTS:

Sweater Weather:

Drive ~ Gretta Ray

BOY ~ Maggie Peake

Polaroid ~ Imagine Dragons

River ~ Bishop Briggs

Someone To You ~ BANNERS

Thunder / Young Dumb & Broke ~ Imagine Dragons/Khalid

Young Volcanoes ~ Fall Out Boy

Take Me Away ~ Young Mister

Fields Of Glory ~ The High Kings

Gorgeous ~ Taylor Swift

I Will Follow You Into The Dark ~ Death Cab for Cutie

Would That I ~ Hozier

Sweet Creature ~ Harry Styles

Violet ~ Bad Suns

Hawaiian Boi ~ Triathalon

Slow Burn ~ Kacey Musgraves

Boys ~ Lizzo

Hard Feelings/Loveless ~ Lorde

Hollaback Girl ~ Gwen Stefani

Back In Black ~ AC/DC

XO ~ Beyoncé

Lions ~ Chase Rice

Illicit Affairs ~ Taylor Swift

My Lover ~ Birdtalker

~

Coast To Coast:

Daylight - Live From Paris ~ Taylor Swift

How to Be a Heartbreaker ~ MARINA

Every Breath You Take ~ The Police

Supercut ~ Lorde

Unbelievable ~ Why Don’t We

ily (I love you baby) (feat. Emilee) ~ Surf Mesa, Emilee

Cryin’ ~ Aerosmith

Places We Won’t Walk ~ Bruno Major

okay ~ LANY, Julia Michaels

Blue ~ The Jayhawks

Fool ~ Cavetown

Oceans ~ Seafret

I Don’t Wanna See You Cryin’ Anymore ~ Adam Melchor

God in Jeans ~ Ryan Beatty

Let’s Fall in Love for the Night ~ FINNEAS

Electric Love ~ BØRNS

Strawberry Blond ~ Mitski

Peace ~ Taylor Swift

Krush ~ Just Jack

I wish I was ~ The Avett Brothers

Beige ~ Yoke Lore

July ~ Noah Cyrus

Apple Pie ~ Lizzy McAlpine

Love Of My Life ~ Queen

Green Eyes ~ Joseph

A Little Bit Yours ~ JP Saxe

Good Kisser ~ Lake Street Drive

He’s Fine ~ The Secret Sisters

Happy & Sad ~ Kacey Musgraves

~

Relic Keel:

No Mermaid ~ Shaye, Natalie MacMaster

Kamera ~ Wilco

Vienna ~ Billy Joel

Under My Skin ~ Briston Maroney

Old Shoes ~ Tom Waits

Sally Forth ~ Peter McPoland

Honeybee ~ The Head and The Heart

Another New World ~ Josh Ritter

Glasshouses ~ Maribou State

Losing My Religion ~ R.E.M.

Friday I’m In Love ~ Phoebe Bridgers

Nature Boy ~ AURORA

Half the World Away ~ AURORA

Tiger Mountain Peasant Song ~ Fleet Foxes

Hearts and Bones ~ Paul Simon

Under The Boardwalk ~ The Rolling Stones

Across The Sea ~ TheWailin’ Jennys

Saint Honesty ~ Sara Bareilles

Orpheus ~ Sara Bareilles

Blue Healer ~ Birdtalker 

Strange ~ Celeste

Walk me Home ~ P!nk

Dissolve - acoustic ~ Absofacto

The Way It Was ~ The Killers

~

Vaincre

July ~ Noah Cyrus

August ~ Taylor Swift (long pond studio sessions)

September ~ Taylor Swift, Spotify cover

We Fell In Love In October ~ girl in red

November Blue ~ The Avett Brothers

Back To December/Apologize ~ Taylor Swift

January Wedding ~ The Avett Brothers

February ~ Beach Bunny

Marchin On ~ OneRepublic

April ~ Beach Bunny

End of May ~ Michael Bublé

June ~ Briston maroney

Out Of The Blue ~ Katie Pruitt

Accidentally Told You ~ Tamzene

~

Between Fifth and You

Young Folks ~ Peter Bjorn and John

Autumn In New York ~ Billie Holiday

Somethin’ Stupid ~ Frank Sinatra, Nancy Sinatra

Si tu vois ma mère - Slow ~ Sidney Bechet, Claude Luter et son orchestre

Lovely Day/Good as Hell Mashup ~ Pomplamoose

Strawberry Blond ~ Mitski

Kick It to me ~ Sammy Rae & The Friends

Paper Thin ~ Lianne La Havas

Street by Street ~ Laufey

Girl ~ Jukebox The Ghost

Green Eyes ~ JOSEPH

Sour Candy ~ Melt

Weekend ~ Upstate

~

Breakaway

Campus ~ Vampire Weekend

Sports ~ Beach Bunny

Shade of Yellow ~ Griff

Soft Spot ~ Claud

The King ~ Sarah Kinsley

Angelina ~ Lizzy McAlpine

LOVEEE when i’m in the kitchen while someone else is cooking and they say “could you give that a stir for me?” brother. i would be HONORED to give that a stir for you

if my 13 year old self could see me now she’s be like i can’t believe you’re still alive

A CROW TRIED TO GO IN OUR CLASSROOM AND HE HAD A PEN

yes hello i am here to learn geometries

That crow is more prepared than some of my students.

You’ve all just like, completely skipped over the possibility that this crow has seen people using pens in this room, found one, and is trying to return it. There’s been videos of crows picking up sweet wrappers and stuff and placing them in bins after seeing humans put their litter in bins. I really do believe that this crow is trying to return the pen and that is ADORABLE AS HELL. 

THEY ARE SO SMART I LOVE THEM

Crows are thought to be self aware by some scientists. Its perfectly possible the crow wants to return the pen to humans. Knowing it belongs to humans.

Corvids. Who KNOWS. :)

Another cool crow deal: Once, when trying to assess if crows could reason and use tools, scientists had two crows who didn’t know each other each take a wire from a table (one was hooked, one was straight) and try to grab meat from a bottle with it. The crows could see each other, though they had separate bottles. Only the straight wire worked for this, so they hypothesized that if crows could reason, the second trial would have the two crows fighting over the straight wire. The second trial started and, to the surprise of the scientists, the two crows both went for the bent wire, one held it down and the other unbent it. They both got meat out of their bottles. They came to a peaceful solution without verbal communication. Crows are probably smarter than we are.

they still shit all over the place and eat garbage

ok but so do we

@neurodivergent-crow

Cool facts about crows:

1. Crows understand the concept of gifts.

There’s a little girl who started feeding the murder by her house and they started bringing her trinkets (cool pebbles, coins, shiny things, bleached animal bones, etc) as a thank you. 

2. Crows remember who has been kind to them and tell other crows about the nice humans.

There are various examples of people who have helped crows and the crows not only come back to say hi, but also bring friends who need help over for the nice human to help.

3. Crows are the only other animal known to make tools in order to make another tool.

4. Crows have been proven to have a sense of self

If you mark them with a coloured dot that they can see and then show them their reflection in a mirror they soon realize that the reflection is them and not another crow.

5. Crows have regional dialects and accents.

They are also able to copy each other’s dialects and accents to fit in if they move to an area where the accent is different.

6. Crows regularly visit their parents after leaving the nest.

They also regularly live with their parents after reaching adulthood to help with raising their younger siblings for up to five years before moving out.

I love crows so much