#and then Andrew is faced with the reality that all of that brainpower is being used for exy and exy alone

[void-and-virtue]

Neil as a team captain is positively delightful, because making him captain is both absolutely insane and absolutely brilliant. It capitalizes on the passive effect of having one (1) Neil Josten (god knows the world couldn’t handle if there were more of him) on the team in the most efficient way. Like. I’m 90% sure that after spending some time around him on the same team, most people will look up to him completely awestruck for how much he has impacted their lives, but that’s just not what is actually happening here. I feel like what’s going on is this:

Neil is a terribly amazing choice for team captain entirely because Neil is a meddlesome little asshole who will forcibly fix all of his teammates’ personal problems and improve their entire lives for literally no other reason than that he needs them to be able to focus on fucking ball so he can win at sports. It’s not even that he genuinely cares about people and their well-being (apart from his original foxes). He just gets pissed when things aren’t working properly because it makes Exy annoying when the lineup can’t communicate. Exy isn’t supposed to be annoying. Exy is life. He’d meddle whether he is captain or not, but by making him captain, he has so much more official executive power at his hands. It’s like people are explicitly asking for him to do his worst. So, fueled by his own competitiveness and love for the sport, off he goes.

Neil is just as bad as Kevin when it comes to his Exy obsession. The major difference between them is that Kevin is endlessly tactical and he runs Exy with a focus on a technical and physical level entirely, whereas Neil’s approach is to look beyond a lack of practice and basically psychoanalyzing people on why they are not doing 110% for Exy. Kevin says “let’s run this drill 500 times, then we will inevitably be better”. Meanwhile Neil is scheming how to coerce and bribe people into life-changing decisions and long-needed healing, entirely because he wants to optimize playing a sport. Exy is a team sport, which is why this is the most logical approach his little Exy brain comes up with rather than minding his own fucking business. He looks at the team and is like “is anyone gonna whip this into shape? No?? I’ll fucking do it then cowards” and goes and does exactly that. It’s like he’s fixing the equipment so he can play.

I don’t think anyone except for Andrew is really aware that Neil really isn’t doing this out of the innate goodness of his heart, but because his personal brand of practicality involves the most convoluted and creative kind of scheming. I feel like Neil is a lot more selfish than people give him credit for. Sure, there’s people he cares deeply and unconditionally for, but that’s really not everyone. It’s fascinating to watch, especially because it’s not like he ever hides that he doesn’t particularly care, but people kinda assume he does, because why else would he put in this much effort?

Exy. The answer is Exy.

#Andrew hates him for this #but I also feel like it’s Andrew’s favorite pass time to just watch Neil do as Neil does #you can’t take the meddling out of Neil #first year was Neil meddling on steroids basically bc he thought he was gonna die so he had to optimize Exy to play and had no choice #that’s how he fixed the foxes the first time #but even so #even if he doesn’t care about most of the new foxes or his eventual pro teams as much #I don’t think he will ever stop with this kind of stuff because I’m dead certain he gets so annoyed when exy isn’t exy-ing #that he ends up fixing problems the majority of people would not be able to eben pick up on just by association #Neil ‘he found their humanity interesting’ Josten #he doesn’t need the death threats to motivate him #somewhere in the background Andrew is watching his every move and realizing time and time again how terrifyingly smart Neil is #and how well he can put his observations to use in really ruthless unapologetic ways #and then Andrew is faced with the reality that all of that brainpower is being used for exy and exy alone #thinking about Neil will kill that man one day I stg #aftg #all for the game #neil josten #kevin day #andrew minyard #andreil #aftg headcanon #aftg meta #character analysis #post canon #the foxhole court #tfc