#i am. aware that their piercing is on the wrong side pls dont feel the need 2 inform me 😔 i didnt realize till i was almost done..

[reegis]

Ashes in the dating sim Ashes in the dating sim Ashes in-

Ashes in dating sim…..

[asherlockstudy]

Pls ignore if u dont wanna discuss!I find it interesting you see link as a 'strategic thinker' when I feel like alot of ppl think the opposite(to the point of ytcomments calling him slow/an idiot/on the spectrum).Tho I think alot of his wideeyed goofiness is put on, I put part of awkward stuff said down to not considering implications before talking. Theres even an old video where he talks about how he could reveal something embarrassing at any time and it's part of his personality hes had to ow

Yeah, I know, it’s a rather unusual viewpoint but I stick sooooo hard to it! However, please note that I’m not at all confident about the way I explained my points here. What follows is: 

An unnecessarily long essay on how Link Neal’s mind works that makes me worry about myself because honestly why did I even write all this and I am not at all sure I know what I’m talking about, sorry

First of all, those who think Link is an idiot need to pay more attention. Link is probably the control freak (to avoid the term “Big Boss” that would be unfair for Rhett) behind their successful corporation and this takes something more than a slow guy. He could be close to what you can call “on the spectrum”, with his systems and OCD and all, but people with Asperger’s are usually very intelligent anyway. I think Link has these systems mostly for psychological reasons though, the routine makes him feel safer. 

Anyway, most of his silly moments are made up for laughs like you said and his ability to confuse the audience as to whether he ‘s trully that silly is technically another success on his part, although I feel he’s getting tired of this role lately. 

When Link chooses a stupid answer in a quiz or makes a foolish choice in a game, there is usually a pattern of two explanations:

He often provides a perfect reasoning and then inexpicably goes for the wrong answer / choice, which proves he’s trying to lose in order to get punished for entertaining purposes. He sometimes is in the lead and suddenly gives bonus points to Rhett or something, so there is higher probability for him to lose or, even better, both of them to get punished. On average, if it can’t be ideally both of them, Link subtly tries to be the one getting the punishment. Perhaps he considers his own reactions more dramatic (they usually are) and therefore funnier. In short, Link prefers to get in trouble as long as he provides an entertaining product. It’s a conscious decision that he hides behind silliness. On the contrary, if Rhett can avoid a punishment, he will do so because Rhett often sets as a priority to not look like an idiot.

He genuinely made a stupid choice. Thanks to his hobbies and interests, Rhett is more well-rounded and knowledgeable than Link but if you take the occurences of explanation #1 out of the equation, the ratio of the times Link is being stupid to the times Rhett is gets significantly smaller. Of couse, being less knowledgeable has nothing to do with quick / strategic thinking. 

Speaking of quick thinking, Link tends to be wittier than Rhett. Not that Rhett isn’t incredibly witty already but I think Link is as much and slightly more. 

In the rare occasion of serious discussions, there are two other possibilities:

Link usually tries to make light of every single conversation (eg in Ear Biscuits), stuck to the fact that they are supposed to be a comedic duo, which isn’t always a guaranteed success and sometimes even generates awkwardness. Rhett doesn’t do that and since he also is the one who usually provides information / knowledge, he comes off as more intelligent and mature without this being necessarily the case. 

When Link is 100% serious about something, he’s very different. His stature is different, his facial expressions are different, his eyes become more piercing, even his voice gets deeper. It’s not like Link is a psycho but there are some extremes in his personality and he is usually good at keeping each extremity for where it’s supposed to be. His childish side is ideal for GMM. In rare serious discussions with Rhett on GMMores etc, I find myself agreeing with Link most of the time and despite Rhett’s confidence that he knows Link like the back of his hand, I feel Link actually understands Rhett on an even deeper level than Rhett does. I also think he’s more self aware than Rhett and just knows both of themselves better than Rhett. On the other hand, Rhett is better at manipulating a conversation to his benefit and frequently oozes so much certainty on his argument that Link ends up in the losing side because he knows convincing Rhett otherwise is a challenge and he just gives up. For a long time I instictively thought Rhett was on the right because he gives off this impression of always being right. But when I started paying more attention, I started getting Link’s points more and more. In short, Link is a thoughtful guy ;) whenever he’s given the chance to show it (almost never, sadly). 

Now that I expanded on this which wasn’t even what you exactly wanted me to discuss originally, let’s go to your ask in particular. (I just felt I needed to explain first why I don’t consider Link slow.) 

As I already mentioned, Link has some extremities in his personality. He is impulsive and emotional which means his emotions drive his actions before his brain can stop him. When he’s angry or very excited or feels sarcastic or anything really, he will just blurt out whatever’s on his mind. But that doesn’t mean Link does not understand what he is talking about, it just means he doesn’t have a good filter on his mouth and at the moment he does not care to have one either. 

There might be a paradox about Link - although he strikes me as an extrovert, he is actually not particularly socially skilled. But social awkwardness has little to do with intelligence as a whole (there is what we call social intelligence of course) and it is more common than not for intelligent people to be socially awkward and generate many weird moments. Then again, Link is very sensitive in awkwardness or inappropriate remarks or insults when it’s someone else doing it (not necessarily to him) which makes me think that he has a perfect understanding of what he says too at all times, only he’s usually bursting too much with enthusiasm, fury, hurt, irony or love to keep his mouth shut effectively. In occasions when he feels uncomfortable, another extremity of his is severe anxiety and he feels so much pressure to improve the situation that he will try to say anything to alleviate the moment which inevitably leads to failure quite often. I think that’s what happens in his personal awkward moments. 

In GMM, in all these lovely moments when Link says something that makes us go “What on earth did he say again?”, like 85% of it, Link is perfectly super-absolutely aware of what he’s saying. Extremely aware. Like the “meat flap” to Stevie. He’s also angry in that video which explains his boldness. Or even the “Your wife can hang out with me anytime” to Rhett. I start suspecting he was even playing up a bit his shocked reaction after the Newsical kiss with Rhett. That’s how gloriously evil I consider him

The rest is because of emotions and an even looser filter since Link knows that there are no really bad implications that can occur during GMM unless, I dunno, he says something really horrible which he doesn’t really do. I mean, Rhett may say something extremely awkward more rarely but it usually can be even worse or more hurtful than whatever Link says. 

Last but not least, Link is the epitome of clumsiness. This contributes to the idea of him being foolish, although they are not really correlated, if anything, it’s just a stereotype. His brain also tends to get stuck to a certain thing which makes him  oblivious to anything else for the time being but I seriously doubt it is as much of a deal as Rhett makes it to be. Technically this is filtering of what matters to him, at least in his case.

But when Link is not a rollercoaster of emotions and feels relaxed or has already processed something and is confident about it, that’s when the strategic thinking comes up and I seriously think he’s unbeatable.  I think Rhett has a more relatable kind of intelligence and he is clever in pretty much everything more or less whereas Link can be absolutely ignorant in what he doesn’t care about but can easily rip everyone apart in any field he shows an interest in and that is beneficial for him (management, finances, marketing, humour, entertainment, acting, psychology, yes, psychology, remember Sheena who said he has amazing empathy and he is the leader? Sheena knew what she was talking about). And probably many other fields of interest I don’t know about but all these need a good strategic brain. Link channels his intelligence in certain ways, probably for efficiency, and his way of thinking is also a bit peculiar which might estrange initially but he’s veeeeeeeeeeeeeeery clever underneath this carefully constructed persona. And underneath that soft cookie there is a much more challenging man to deal with. And underneath that divine calming smile there is a hell of emotions, good mixed with bad. I think he’s a very intense person. 

I find him so fascinating that he almost scares me. There is a small chance he fascinates me so much that I straight up imagine things about him but honestly I think I may be right about at least a few of these. He’s definitely much smarter than most people think he is, let’s leave it at that XD