I Love Reading The Secret History Because You’ll Get Moments Like

sometimes a travelling party is just a sad dude who hears voices in his head, a guy with one arm who won't stop making oaths, a cranky old god, a giant mad tortoise and a severed talking head they keep in a jar

Neil Josten lets Andrew's his cigarettes burn to the filter without taking a drag. He hates vegetables. He knows all the places you can shoot a man without killing him. He doodles fox paws on his homework. He's not scared of knives or violence or the yakuza. He is scared of cellphones and therapists and his own reflection. His favourite colour is gray. He got told he couldn't play exy with a bloody nose so he sniffed back the blood until they let him. He doesn't like movies or loud music. He hitchhiked halfway across South Carolina by pretending to be a sociology student. He gets sad when Kevin watches exy without him. He wishes he had his mother's patience instead of his father's temper. He's brilliant at manipulation. He's stupid on purpose. He was every inch a lie but his friends made him into someone real. He doesn't wear a jacket to the roof when it's cold because he knows Andrew's body heat will keep him warm. He thinks the hardest thing he's ever had to do was opening a tub of ice cream after kissing his boyfriend and not like, all the torture he's been through. Nobody is doing it like him

sorry in what way exactly did kaz fumble inej

he paid off her indenture so she could be free, bought her a ship and found her a first mate so she could follow her dream, and brought her her parents so she could see them again, all while she promises to return to him

man had the most extreme trauma and armor up and still managed to make the baddest girl ketterdam has ever seen fall hard for him

that’s 10/10 game imo

was innocently scrolling and came across a darklina post and when I tell u it was a jumpscare - like I forgot they existed omfg

Neil: *jumping from one identity to another*

Neil: parkour

This is such a revealing passage in regards to how Neil views other people and the world in general. He's so compartmentalized he just straight-up won't process information he deems irrelevant to the things he cares about if it takes any extra time or effort.

I think he's probably so hypervigilant that he notices almost everything going on around him at all times but that's way too much information to deal with, especially when reacting and making decisions quickly is a matter of life and death like it often is for him, so he does this. Filters out everything unnecessary so he can focus only on what's most important.

i love that the zombie apocalypse conversation appears so often in fics like the foundation of andrew and neil’s relationship is based on them knowing each others survival plan

which is funny because in the book neil actually doesn’t actually contribute to the conversation it’s a convo between renee and andrew that neil gets fixated on (and then quotes back to andrew later in the book)

and do u know what. i love it, because that conversation is like a perfect demonstration of their characters - renee, concentrating on creating shelter for survivors, andrew concentrating on keeping his group protected, and neil, thinking that he’d probably cut and run and lamenting that fact UNTIL he realises he would want to go back for andrew. that conversation that neil isn’t even eally part of sets up perfect proof of neil’s character development even in the final book - i mean, the fact that neil says ‘chances were it would be instinctive to abandon all of them’ which he acknowledges as an ‘ugly truth’ already displays a change in his character since the first book - because in that one, he has no qualms about leaving, is prepared to do so as soon as necessary. but then the conversation comes back and neil says he ‘doesn’t want to be that person anymore’ he ‘wants to go back’ for andrew. and just. isn’t that beautiful.

so yes, every time the zombie apocalypse comes up in the most random places in fics i eat it up so hard. cause like, what a perfect hypothetical for them to talk about for 1 - because both of them spend most of their life having to learn to survive in different ways, and so their different approaches to the situation is a great way to demonstrate their different characterisations and show how their traumatic experiences shape the way they react to new dangerous situations - and 2 - because we can starkly see the change in neil when he realises he wouldn’t be able to just leave.

The only way I can imagine Henry Winter using tiktok

Sometimes I think about them and it makes me want to claw my heart out.

I love this trend so much oh my god