#JFDHGJKDHGJDK OK LMAO I LITERALLY NEED TO STOP TALKING THIS GOT OUT OF HAND LIKE 200 WORDS AGO

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GO OFF TELL US THE META

ok sisters get this (re: neil and kevin’s conflicting attitudes to injury and what it all Means)

firstly and foremostly i wanna stress that both neil and kevin faced a LOT of abuse/violence in their past. the infamous scene where neil (reluctantly) reveals his scars to abby is telling enough but the series is through neil’s pov—we know he’s been raised in an extremely unsafe environment because that’s the nature of his life on the run. nowhere is ‘safe’ because he doesn’t have a home. kevin’s injury is again, like neil’s scars in that it’s telling enough, but when wymack tells neil the truth about kevin’s hand he also brings up that he can tell it’s not the first time they’ve raised hands to him. there’s emphasis on kevin’s upbringing as not only ‘second’, but also a ‘pet’, as ‘property’—which is cited as why the moiryamas didn’t formally adopt kevin. they don’t see him as human.

so time and time again in the series there’s a common theme of neil saying ‘im fine’. but what i think is really interesting is that neil doesn’t ignore his injuries. he acknowledges they’re there, because we’re reading in his pov, we know they’re there/how much they hurt. the ‘im fine’ isn’t ‘im not hurt, im okay’ it’s ‘i’m hurt, but i can carry on.’ (which is. so fucking sad.) because that’s what neil’s been brought up to do! not stopping is the most important rule, the one thing that makes him spiral into panic at the thought of. if he stops, he’s dead. his mother stopped, and he burned her for it. for neil, functionality is a sliding scale where his tolerance for pain isn’t a factor. 

ok so here’s where i start losing my mind in the #parallels of it all. kevin’s attitude toward being injured is almost the polar opposite of neil’s—in his first match back, he’s cautious, he’s careful. he stops when it hurts, he wears an arm brace the next day. but kevin operated in a very strict controlled hivemind his whole life. performance (as opposed to functionality) was the biggest key. if a racehorse breaks a leg, you don’t try to heal it. you shoot the horse. his place is entirely reliant on him performing as the moriyamas investment. he fears injury so much because he knows what happens to broken parts in well oiled machines. kevin always has to be at 110%, and anything that jeopardizes that is to be absolutely avoided at all costs. 

to quote @kevnday​’s sexy hot take—neil has nothing left to lose, kevin has everything to lose. they were both subjected to horrible acts of violence, but it had entirely opposite effects- neil’s ‘im fine’/keep going no matter the cost to himself attitude is because as long as he’s still breathing, he’s winning. kevin’s fear of injury/violence is because if he stops winning, he stops breathing. 

i just think the idea that overexposure to a stimulus can decrease/increase the response to it until you have a very unhealthy under reaction (downplaying your serious injuries to ensure functionality is never compromised) or overreaction (fear/panic when injured because it interferes with your ability to perform) very interesting and says a lot about neil and kevin’s characters !!