i’m ready to admit it. jeremy being a fake blonde is extremely poetic and prophetic to the news that he’s not actually the faultless golden boy that he projects, but is, instead, human like the rest of us. and. can’t believe i’m saying this. i prefer it even! yeah, i said it.
jeremy so far has been the most avoidant pov in the world because what the hell are his issues? he's not even looking directly at them he's looking around them or focusing on everyone else's issues so he doesn't acknowledge his own
like with neil there was immediate acknowledgement with the memory of his mother's burning corpse but jeremy? nothing. is it parental issues? sibling issues? self issues? why was he in therapy? did he do something? did something happen to him? who knows? he does but he's not gonna look at all that when he can look at jean instead
jeremy is neil's 'i'm fine' personified times ten thousand he's so fine he doesn't even need to say it
where's the andreil brokeback mountain au i need one
The way Neil Josten switched into Nathaniel in order to process and handle the abuse and trauma of being found by his father's people and the reality of his looming death will never not fuck me up, he literally said I can't handle this but maybe the Butcher's son could. And then. And then!! The way those two versions of himself coalesce into Neil Abram Josten (legally recognised) after Nathan is dead and the truth is out? The Neil Josten we see in The Sunshine Court has all of the attachments of Neil Josten, the slow unraveling of family and care but all of the hard edges of Nathaniel, unflinching from the reality of the world he lives in and the decisions he has to make to keep his life. Nathaniel would never have stuck around long enough to care about Jean Moreau and call a hit out on his abuser. Neil would never have trusted those resources available to him (or potentially the trail it could leave) in order to deal with the problem in one brutal but efficient move. But Neil Abram Josten reforged could, would and did.
no but LET'S TALK about how andrew is (outwardly) apathetic in every aspect of his life and towards every person he interacts with; this man shows nothing but indifference (i'd say half of it is true due to his severe depression and trauma/ the other half is just a performance so as not to hurt others with his rage but himself, as neil deduced).
but the MOMENT he gets to kiss neil he drops his neutral facade and throws his self control out the window -and we KNOW how important being in control is to him- and kisses neil like he wants to extract neil's soul out through his mouth.
neil described it like "he kissed him like this was a fight with their lives on the line, like his world stopped and started with Neil's mouth". my boy was STARVING he did NOT care about mantaining his apatheic front.
how is it possible to go from "i hate you 😐 most of the time i want to kill skin you alive 😒" to "let me kiss you like we're souldiers dying in the trenches and the only air i can breathe is through your mouth"
imagine you’re andrew and you’ve gone through almost two decades of struggle—over a dozen foster homes and therapists, juvie, abuse, finding out you have a long-lost twin, medically-induced mania, and are viewed as a heartless threat to society even by your own family.
and suddenly you’re struck by (or more accurately, you strike) some rando little runner from arizona who throws wymack’s offer back in his face just like you did. someone who hates cops and lies to feds, who respects your boundaries but still challenges you. someone who’s not a chain smoker like you but tolerates craves the smell. someone who, for all of his lies, is not as slick as he thinks he is. someone who sees you not as a threat to others but as a threat to yourself. someone with a killer’s smile who doesn’t flinch away from anything you throw at him. someone who bears the scars of surviving childhood and hides them just like you do. someone with so much passion for exy who sees your potential, not for his own benefit, but for yours. someone who doesn’t swing but sees you as someone who is worthy of care and protection and affection.
he’s so offensively perfect i would think he’s a pipe dream too.
The original percy jackson series is about cycles of abuse and neglect, right. Were introduced to percy as a kid who has clearly been left behind by a school system that has given up on him, restless and unengaged and self-defetist because hes been given nothing that works for him and no one even tries to meet him where he is. Then hes told no, listen, your neurodivergence is amazing and you just need to be given something that actually utilizes your unique palatte. And thats obviously the uplifting idea rick wanted for his kids, right. But once we get to know chb the same cycles are happening there too. There are kids "left behind" there too for one reason or another, because their parents dont want to claim them, because their parents werent important enough to get a cabin. Do you get it, all the kids who dont fit the most common neurotypes get shoved into the same closet. Kids are being left in a cruel world to fend for themselves without the tools they need. Theyre dying because no one bothered to accommodate them. Its such an obvious parallel that the first chapter introduces a teacher whos written to be especially hard on percys disability and she turns out to literally be one of these monsters trying to kill him. Meanwhile sally jackson tells him she named him after Perseus because she wanted a redemption for a hero whos story ended in tragedy. Meanwhile every book in the series replicates a greek myth step for step until the moment they break the cycle. Annabeth, playing Odysseus, is talked down from her hubris and grounded by her friends. Percy, playing Heracles, meets someone wronged by the original Heracles and rights his wrongs by refusing to go down the same selfish path as him. Monsters are reborn because they are--as the books explicitly call them--achetypes. These kids are stuck inside the cyclical nature of mythology because thats what happens to mythology, it gets retold over and over again. But these are the kids who have to live it. The series ends with percy being offered immortality and he rejects it because he wants to use his godly favor to force them to break their cycle of neglecting their kids. The series ends with a declaration that we cant keep letting this happen. The very first book offees the same choice. It ends with percy refusing to keep the head of medusa as a spoil of war, refusing his heroic reward. He lets his mother have the head and use it to kill gabe. Isnt that fucking crazy for a kids book? Gabe wasnt a Monster. He wasnt going to Turn to Dust and Disappear in a narratively convenient way. He was a living breathing mortal dude and percy and his mom killed him without remorse. Break the cycle of abuse!!!! Dont let this happen again!!! Anyway thats why the original percy jackson series is Hey where are you going with our breadsticks
we cannot be using the word twink as a descriptor willy nilly...kevin day is most certainly NOT a twink, he's tall as hell and an athlete who's been training every day and night for his entire life probably eating the most meal prepped bland chicken and rice and then hitting the gym......
I've put some thought into this and I've come up with a theory. My theory is as follows: there are two main reasons people think the aftg novels are filled with bad writing.
1. They are self-published. This point is really two points. Because they are self-published they have a lot of typos and editing errors. Also, because they are self-published they are associated with not being good enough to be traditionally published. The belief that self-published books failed at being traditionally published is false. Nora has stated that she received interest from agents and publishers. They wanted her to change too much of the books, including replacing exy with an existing sport. She said that it would have felt like betraying her characters, especially her female characters, as exy is a coed sport. As for the errors, this is not an example of bad writing. It is an example of amateur proofreading, which is different.
2. The books do not have lyrical prose, which is actually an example of good writing. What?! How can this be? I'm about to tell you. The novels are completely from Neil's POV. They stay in Neil's POV. The reason the prose isn't lyrical is because Neil doesn't think lyrically. He is blunt. Straightforward, even though he's a liar. Think of the scene where he rejects Marissa or when he tells Seth why people don't like him. The writing style reflects this. In fact, many writers struggle with staying inside someone's head, with keeping to their POV. The way that Nora keeps Neil's perspective, and Neil's perspective only, is pretty impressive. His language actually changes a little as the books progress, which is seen around Andrew and his golden eyes. He starts to feel feelings around Andrew and his perspective changes to reflect this. Again, an example of good writing.
In conclusion, aftg are actually really good books. Source: me
neil “pathological liar” josten and andrew “eidetic memory” minyard make for theoretically the most implausible ship and that’s what makes them the best. “i am alive because i am forgettable so the people hunting me don’t catch me” vs “i never forget anything”