I Get So Emotional About Newt Saying “and I Remember You” In His Letter Because He Didn’t Always

*The maze runner fanart*

Not finished but god I love this man (he’s so German shepherd bf coded)

Gally from The Maze Runner (especially the movie bc in the books he’s such a real asshole help) has been a huuuuuuge part of my teenage years, I think he even was one of my first biggest fictional crush

The guy was just so misunderstood, he was scared and trying to protect the only thing he knew : the glade.

Everyone hated him for acting like a strong minded but self-centered dude always against Thomas and the others, but let me ask you something :

As much as you love Thomas (and believe me, I do too), what would have you done if the only place and people you cared for were slowly starting to get destroyed just because of a stranger who came only a few days ago?

I Hope you get my point here, not to forget the guy had become such a great man in the third movie (and hot asf too, sorry to state facts hehe)

Yup, I’m a Will Poulter Stan since day one.

In honor of jdash confirming newt is gay

it's been 3 years since the tweet(s) and i still have a lot to say. the discourse surrounding it has long since calmed down, but to this day some people's responses bother me immensely and i wanna get a few things off my chest.

"it undermines his friendships"

um.. no ? i can't believe people still have this weird mindset. straight people can have friends of the opposite gender, gay people can have friends of the same gender. bi people ?? pan people ?? they can have friends. (don't even get me started on the weird spot nb people land in with this weird friend mindset some homophobes have).

if you never saw newt's relationship with thomas/minho (or even alby) as anything other than platonic before, then newt being gay literally changes nothing.

"he did it as fanservice"

no. if it was fanserice he would've pandered more to the ships; newtmas being the most popular but thomas was not mentioned. if it was fanservice and for any personal gain he would've hinted at other characters also potentially being queer. if it was fanservice he probably would've at least confirmed newt was into thomas; but he didn't. cause it wasn't about any romance, it was about newt and a part of his character.

the crank palace would've been the perfect opportunity to pander more to shippers if that's what he was doing, but there were no explicitly hinted romantic feelings there either. (there were certainly ways to read certain parts of this book as queer, but i won't get into that in this post.)

"he was forced"

yes and no.. the final push to him confirming newt's sexuality was because someone criticized him for donating the proceeds from the crank palace to lgbtq+ (and BLM) charities. however, the way his tweets were phrased leads me to believe what he says. he voices his apprehension to confirm something so long after the work was released in fear of it coming across as insincere. (*cough* jkr *cough*). he also mentioned in this same 2-part tweet that his upcoming series (at the time) would feature lgbtq+ characters much more prominently and explicitly (no plausible deniability).

tldr for this point: it was someone criticizing him that finally made it happen, but i do believe he genuinely stands for what he said. he'd gone through a lot of personal development during the 11 years between the first book's release and the tweets, i don't doubt that for a second.

"there were no hints in the books"

this is a hard one to talk about without outing myself as a newtmas shipper, but i have a few things to say.

james did not intentionally write newt as a queer character. if you read through the books and didn't pick up any queer subtext/undertones, then that was how he, at the time of writing, intended it. however . does this mean there was nothing there ? how come a huge part of the fandom read him as queer then ? it's all up to reader interpretation whether certain subtext is or isn't present in the work they're consuming.

link to the part 1 that i never see people acknowledge when discussing the "announcement": https://x.com/jamesdashner/status/1336775453755895809?s=20

The urge to bother my mutuals

newt - the maze runner 2014

"it doesn't matter. any of it. because the people we were before the maze don't even exist anymore. these creators took care of that. but what does matter is who we are now and what we do. right now."

Gally: hey! Sorry I’m late I was uh- doing something-

Thomas *running and out of breath*: HE PUSHED ME DOWN THE GODDAMN STAIRS.

my newt (maze runner) headcanons

VEHEMENTLY a dog person. like, he doesn't HATE cats, but he wants nothing more in this world than a golden retriever that he can raise from puppyhood

one time he heard thomas singing in the shower and he laughed so hard he cried

used to say the "c-word" so often that even minho (resident foul-mouth and creator of most if not all of the glader slang) had to be like "dude can we reel it in a little"

he likes to say things like "devious" and "scoundrel"

unbelievably clogged pores. it's a serious issue

can't eat apples with the skin, he has to peel them with a knife

regularly quotes random bits and pieces of early 2000s pop music. he does not know what he's quoting or why he knows it

the maze runner textposts (+ newtmas) (2/?)

A quick sketch of Dylan O’Brien at Comic Con ✏️

Minho: we gotta get through this door, but it’s locked. Newt, give me your credit card.

Newt: Here.

Minho, pocketing it: Thanks, Thomas, kick the door down.