Chaos-interwoven - Chaosinterwoven

missing my babygirl dr. melissa king right about now. should i watch the pitt a third time, yes or yes

i am on my fifth reread of aftg so i can read tgr (not bc i don’t remember the plot but because it is as good excuse as any to reread them) and i will never cease to be insanely obsessed with these characters

NEEEEED a scene of jean kissing jeremy against the bike. like they go on a little scenic ride and stop at an overpass. and jean just presses jeremy up against the bike and kisses him with all that hunger we know he has

Don't FUCKING argue with me. "Neil Josten let his cigarette burn to the filter without taking a drag. He didn't want the nicotine; he wanted the acrid smoke that reminded him of his mother." Is a fucking dynamite intro!! Is it edgy as fuck? Yeah. So? Is it hella melodramatic? Probably. So? Is it bad writing? Motherfucking NO! It's damn near expert level execution of several writing principles!

Who is the story about? First two words, next question.

Catch the reader's attention as soon as possible? "Why the fuck is he wasting a cigarette?" Intrigue successfully demanded, next question.

Raise questions that will keep the reader hanging long enough to have answered? "Why the fuck does acrid smoke trigger his mommy issues?" + "Wait it's because he burned her corpse??" Many many more questions raised + blind sided reader via preconceived expectations being subverted, next question.

Character establishing moment? What other characters use for physical and emotional regulation, he uses to fucking reminisce and wallow in his feelings, next question.

Set the tone for the rest of the story? Edgy, melodramatic, and emotionally gut wrenching, NEXT. FUCKING. QUESTION!

The Muses asked Nora to roll for Hook and she rolled a nat 20 five times in a row in 30 words or less. Hook, Line, and motherfucking Sinker bitches

Some of y'all need to stop ragging on AFTG's writing and start using it as a fucking case study cus this shit has the addiction capacity of heroine and god help the goddamn saltine cracker throwing stones

neil's learned obliviousness

gearing myself up to write another essay about neil josten. the grind never stops. had to figure out why people making neil super clueless and oblivious always rubbed me the wrong way even tho it's technically canon so here it is.

ok so i have a lot of thoughts about neil and obliviousness but i'm gonna mostly condense them into this single thesis statement: neil only pays attention to and notices things he deems important.

we've been knew atp that neil has insane tunnel vision, and that often comes across in his narration. because of this, it's easy to assume that neil is just genuinely very clueless and oblivious when it comes to social interaction and also romantic relationships, flirting, etc.

i know nora herself said that neil wouldn't realise if someone is flirting with him because he's dense as a brick and while i appreciate the comedic value of socially oblivious neil i generally take this characterisation with a grain of salt because it very quickly leans into territory of neil being just generally dumb and inept, which i lowk can't stand because it sanitises and declaws neil a lot and makes him boring and stereotypical.

so i raise you this: neil's obliviousness (if you want to call it that) throughout aftg and in his narration is deliberate. mostly, i think it's all intentional. he literally intentionally refuses to notice or give attention to certain things. and because of his relentless focus on only a couple of things (exy and his survival), things like socialising and relationships get put on the backburner unless they relate to the two aforementioned things.

let's dissect it using examples.

nicky's flirting. neil's narration is pretty clear-cut when it comes to this. he doesn't demonstrate much confusion towards nicky's behaviour except that he doesn't really know why nicky's more interested in him than exy. crucially, he isn't confused about why nicky demonstrates an interest in him (which is because he thinks neil is hot), he's just confused about why nicky is investing energy into flirting with him when, in his mind, there are better things to be doing. it seems, at least in his narration, that he knows nicky is flirting, he just doesn't know why and also doesn't really care to focus on it. aside from an initial discomfort/expression of disinterest, neil doesn't linger on nicky's comments and flirtations for the rest of the series. he narrates it when it's relevant but doesn't make any additional internal comments towards it because it doesn't pertain to his two priorities: exy and survival.

marissa's flirting. i feel like there's two ways to interpret neil's response to marissa's advance "i can give you my number". neil says "what for?" and you can either take this as genuine confusion or just neil kinda being a dick. i lowk never considered the first option and just jumped straight to "neil doesn't really care about hurting this girl's feelings" lmfao. i think i'm right tho, because he elaborates and makes it clear he isn't interested in pursuing relationships outside of the foxes (see: priority no. 1, exy) and when nicky and dan comment on it, making it explicitly clear that marissa was asking neil out, neil doesn't express any confusion over what she was trying to do. people who write neil being genuinely exaggeratedly clueless when being flirted with need to remember that neil wasn't unaware of marissa's intentions during this scene, he was just so aggressively disinterested that he failed to remark on most of it. he never expresses any actual confusion or obliviousness about her flirting.

andrew. ok look. this is gonna require some explaining. first of all let's talk about andrew's attraction to neil on a purely physical level. their nothingship era, if you will. neil's dizzying whiplash during the "that doesn't mean i wouldn't blow you" scene is honestly pretty understandable. like really, who wasn't surprised during that scene? the hints in the previous books about andrew's attraction towards neil were so subtle that most of us readers had to reread a couple times to actually catch the progression and build-up. and also, andrew was high and manic for most of the first two books, so it's understandable that neil probably chalked up a lot of andrew's yapping and odd behaviours to the drugs, rather than a genuine expression of andrew's feelings. that's not to say he discounted the things andrew told him, but since he's always taken andrew at face value, he also didn't doubt andrew's "i hate you" and supposed dislike of him. i think it's actually very very understandable that neil didn't pick up on andrew's attraction to him because 1. why would you ever assume that about anyone anyway 2. neil is pretty preoccupied with being hunted down by his serial killer father and the japanese mafia 3. andrew was NOT making it easy on neil at all. this is partially because andrew himself wasn't ready to face the reality of his feelings for neil and also just his general confusing way of going about things. it makes a lot of sense that even neil, who's generally good at reading andrew and picking up on his hints, would miss whatever hints andrew was dropping about this, if any. and finally, 4. andrew wanting to fuck neil doesn't have anything to do with exy or survival, so neil instinctively filters it out and doesn't think about it a lot. next, i guess we have to talk about andrew's actual feelings for neil. again, we like to make fun of neil for never picking up on the fact that andrew is in LOVE with him during their situationship phase. but again, i think it makes a lot of sense? yes, andrew wasn't exactly subtle about it by a certain point (see: baltimore reunion) but also, neil has literally been pavloved to reject romantic relationships. one of the ways he "justifies" his nothingship with andrew is by assuring himself that andrew is only physically attracted to him. and the other justification is that he sees andrew as intertwined with the idea of his survival, because of the deal they have. keeping andrew close and being in a relationship with him is directly related to his own safety and survival. because neil's lowk manipulated his own thinking to associate andrew implicitly with survival, suddenly their relationship is a lot more prioritised in neil's mind and narration, because it pertains to priority no. 2, survival. i truly, truly believe neil's refusal or inability to see andrew's actual feelings for him is deliberate. he doesn't want to notice that andrew actually is in love with him because that is area he isn't familiar with and he doesn't want to hurt andrew when he dies. but because he obviously does want to continue this little "nothing" with andrew, and because he associates andrew with survival, he's unwilling to let go of him. so he just refuses to notice and remains deliberately oblivious to andrew's feelings for him. it's all very psychological.

final argument: people like to make fun of neil for not realising his own feelings for andrew but listen. he does realise. he never says that he doesn't feel anything for andrew. he never denies being in love with or attracted to andrew, not even in his own head. he registers, literally in trk, after his conversation with nicky, that he sees andrew differently and could be developing feelings for him, but he literally forcibly pushes the thoughts away because they would distract him from priority no. 1 (exy) and priority no. 2 (survival). he also notices in the back half of tkm that their nothingship has taken on new weight and means more than just "nothing" but he avoids acknowledging it with andrew even when he's aware of it in his own mind. so yeah. neil isn't in a state of denial. like at all.

also, neil does notice things when they pertain to his priorities. like, he picked up on jeanee the same way kevin did. he noticed literally in trk the way jean reacted differently to renee, but he only chose to acknowledge and mention it out loud when he could use it to his advantage. and it did work out in everyone's favour, because he brought it up with kevin, kevin gave renee jean's number, and that's how jean was able to escape the nest and survive the year. so, lbr, neil isn't as clueless and out-of-it as the fandom likes to make him. he can be very perceptive and socially aware when it pertains to his narrow-minded priorities.

ok at the end of the day, i can acknowledge: it is not that deep. if ppl want to make neil super oblivious and clueless and socially inept, it's not rlly a big deal. i just personally hate when they dumb neil down when he is honestly such a smart and perceptive character and his intelligence is actually such a huge part of the series. so anyway. i hope u enjoyed this essay, it's been a while so it's a little rough.

accidentally binged all of the pitt in one day so i’m rewatching the whole thing

you cannot tell me that neil doesn’t have wacked teeth. like he didn’t have a consistent dentist growing up if he even had a dentist at all. because dentist scans mean leaving unchangable, undeniable truths of your identity behind and mary would not have liked that at all.

so give me neil with a chipped tooth he got from a rough landing after jumping out of a car or a window. give me neil with a gap between his front teeth. give me neil with crooked teeth to match his crooked smile

every time i reread aftg (the original trilogy) i forget how sassy wymack is and its literally amazing

here are some examples from tfc:

first line and he’s opening with sass at a 10/10

i. love. him.

great one liner but the whole thing is hilarious

the way he just speaks over seth is everything lmaooooo

“watch me beam with pride” im. dyinggggg

kicking kevin? 💀 the colon??? iconic

the forming relationship between him and neil actually means the world to me

and while i’m on the wymack train, can we please just take a moment with this passage because ohhhh my god

“Neil looked down at the key in his palm, at the security Wymack so easily and unquestioningly gave him. Maybe Neil wouldn't get any sleep tonight, and maybe he'd spend the next couple weeks waking up every time Wymack snored a little too loud, but maybe Neil really was okay here for now.” - tfc ch. 2

the found family in this book never fails to warm my heart. because this is so so soon after neil came to south carolina and so soon after he met wymack, a man he is predisposed not to trust because of his age, and yet (AND YET) wymack gave him a key and neil knew he was staying, knew that he had a place there, a place to come back to, and it was enough for now

AND WHAT IF I SCREAM?!? AND WHAT IF I LOSE MY MIND!?!!? what then

you gave me a key and called it home.