Obsessed With The Concept Of Being Haunted By Yourself

Kevin Day pov fic rec list that no one asked for but I’m gonna make cuz I’ve been really feeling the Kevin Day brainrot lately

Canon and post-canon:

how will i know (when it’s gonna come back round?) by nebulousviolet

Neil says something to Andrew – Kevin doesn’t catch it, too busy gathering his things, but what he does catch is the look Allison gives Matt, and the way Matt’s eyebrows knit together in response.

And Neil – Neil doesn’t say anything to Kevin. Later, Kevin will wonder why. Later, Kevin will wonder if there was even anything to say.

The 1st half of Baltimore from Kevin’s pov

biting down by pipe_dream

kevin learns that in order to understand something, you have to allow yourself to learn, and talks to andrew about neil.

Good Kevin and Andrew friendship content

Proof of Life by mostly_maudlin/ @mostlymaudlin

Realistically, Kevin knows he is safe now. No one is after him anymore. No one is plotting to drag him down into the hole he’s clawed out of. He has people who will fight to keep it this way.

A morning in the life of Kevin Day, 10/10 characterization all around here

202607 by abramdeath/ @abramdeath

The Olympics and his life collide into one. Kevin is just trying to win gold with the people he trusts most in the world.

(or, a roulette of dreaming with your eyes open, loving too hard, and winning.)

Kevin has a sports anime flashback moment at the Olympics

Au:

Signs Of Life by moonix/ @annawrites

In which Kevin works the graveyard shift, Andrew is the witching hour cryptid, and Neil guards the ice-cream freezer.

Kevin works at a convenience store and gets befriended by his two strangest customers

Fuck Riko: The Musical by justwhatialwayswanted/ @birlwrites

“Okay, but we still need a show,” Dan says. “A very cheap one.”

“Andrew,” Aaron says.

“No,” Andrew says.

“You didn’t even wait for me to ask my question.”

“I know what you’re going to ask, and it’s a stupid idea.”

Neil looks back and forth between them and says, “But it would make Riko so mad. You could write him out of the show.”

“Fuck.” Andrew sighs. “I don’t know anything about music.”

“I do,” Jean says, so quietly that for a second Kevin thinks he’s imagined it.

“Just to be totally clear,” Nicky says. “Are we talking about Andrew and Jean writing us a musical?”

*

or: What happens if you piss off every other theater kid in your very insular theater kid friend group?

If you’re Riko Moriyama, they write and perform an entire musical as revenge.

Absolutely unhinged theater kid au

Lev St. Valentine

do we think kevin listens to fiona apple

no he would kill himself immediately upon the first few chords of fetch the bolt cutters because it reminds him of riko. also under the table. also relay

the more we see of kevin and riko's relationship, the more insane it feels. like what do you mean andrew calling kevin "his" was the thing that set riko off and made him target andrew? what do you mean kevin was able to carry on a conversation about exy with riko while riko tortured people? what do you mean kevin just looked like riko's soulless exy-sidekick to outsiders when he was in the nest? what do you mean kevin hated all the ravens (with the exception of thea) that riko didn't consider "his"? so much of who kevin was (and in many ways still is) seems to have been shaped by fear and abuse it's no wonder he still has trouble separating riko's voice from his own mind.

Kevin Day falls into Raven habits without even realizing it. Despite his best efforts to adjust to a normal life. He runs laps to keep himself awake because he's never quite adjusted to 24 hour days. He struggles to eat anything he perceives as unhealthy despite his dependence on alcohol. When he gets frustrated he plays with a brutality ingrained in him since he was old enough to hold a racquet. He refuses to go anywhere without Andrew, without a partner. Do you think when he wakes up in the middle of the night, to a dark room, he looks over at the other bed expecting Riko to be there? Do you think he traces the ghost of a 2 on his cheek, hidden beneath a chess piece tattoo, out of habit? Do you think despite being a fox he feels as though he'll always be one of them? That, despite it all, he'll always be a Raven?

So I saw a tiktok that said Dabi never got to be a person and he spent his whole life being a product of what people did to him and that shit fucked me up

Do you ever just think about how the headboard on Kevin's bed on the Nest doesn't budge. Of all the hints about what his life there was like that's the one that gets to me the most because it's so deliberate. Because even though he's probably physically stronger than Riko or at least evenly matched, Kevin wouldn't fight back. But he wasn't given the choice to anyway

honestly i think putting neil in kevin’s side of the room is such a telling choice during the castle evermore scenes. we spend so much of the first and second book hearing about how much kevin fears his so-called family, their haunting of the narrative as bloodthirsty hounds who can sniff out his fear, and when we actually get to finding out why that is we see it from someone who was immediately shoved into kevin’s old place. riko wasn’t just hurting neil because he wanted to (“i’m going to enjoy hurting you just as much as i enjoyed hurting kevin”), he was making sure neil knew he was inferior by putting him in direct contact with the roles kevin and jean played in the nest, using him as a substitute for the one that got away. neil gets a speedrun of some of the worst moments of kevin’s life, and he gets not a single breathing moment for it before he has to be shoved back into exy, like kevin was

i wouldn’t dare presume nora sakavic’s intentions on anything at this point, but i like the idea that neil’s stay at evermore was supposed to tell us all we needed to know about kevin’s time there, without kevin ever having to actually recount the years (he wouldn’t, even if he could): that it was horrifying, and that being in his shoes will never be as glamorous as neil previously thought. i like the breaking of neil’s expectations for kevin; i like how it makes neil realize the life kevin led was not better. and that’s the point, isn’t it? when neil is lying in kevin’s bed, handcuffed to kevin’s headboard, his legs pinned under kevin’s only friend, getting hurt by kevin’s brother, that’s what neil realizes: this is not better. it might be different than life on the run, but it is not better.

whatever i literally dont care 😎 <- cares so much that it feels like my organs are tearing themselves apart in my chest

Do you think hauntings can go both ways. Like, if a ghost is a dead person who can't move on, what is an alive person who can't let go of someone dead? Grief as a form of haunting. Dragging the memory of a corpse with you because it's all that's left of them. Seeing them out of the corner of your eye sometimes. You know. It pairs nicely with obsession of revenge

kevin day is like. he's a child star. he's experienced an incomprehensible amount of labor abuse and inhumane working conditions. he was taken from his home country by a close relative with bad intentions. he's a cult baby. he grew up in captivity underground. every bad thing that could happen to a human being has happened to him at some point. he is happier than most of us when he can kick a ball for a living.