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headcanon that thomas is a big NAPPER

don’t get me wrong, that boy has insomnia for days but during the middle of the day?? he’s taking a nap anywhere he can find.

Frypan will be taking his rounds and preparing meals for the safe haven and then— oh! there’s thomas, on a little stool propped against the wall beside where frypan cooks because yes, he was originally there to keep fry company and tak to him about some new Order Rules he and minho were thinking of but maybe mid-sentence thomas dozed off

Minho’s on his morning run and comes across thomas, with his arms around his head as he naps on the beach side. Harriet and Sonya with their fishing nets also manage to see this and come laughing, crying about it to aris at breakfast

Jorge, brenda, and thomas are out for a drive and thomas is curled in the backseat because the sounds of jorge’s mixtape mixed with jorge’s whistling sent thomas right to sleep. Brenda nearly laughs so loud she wakes him up but jorge shuts her up.

Gally finds him right after working shifts curled up on top of one of the beds, covers and pillows neatly folded underneath thomas, who is sprawled out and completely knocked out (it’s maybe two pm). Gally takes a pillow and smacks him on his back with it before promptly telling him to “shove over, i’m joining” —because building huts and chopping wood is exhausting work and Gally deserves a nap sometimes too

there are so many times in the books where thomas attempts to make a joke and no one laughs. nobody finds him funny. his comedic timing could be perfect and everyone would just stare at him. like. "what are you saying now maze boy."

Thomas, throwing a pokeball at Minho: Minho, I choose you!

Minho, not looking up from his book and catching it: You need an Ultra ball to catch this Legendary Pokémon.

it’s not that bad is it?

An interesting demonstration of how the human brain works.

But also something of a lesson regarding perception, and the unreliability of subjective perspective versus objective reality.

You can be extremely certain about how you perceive the world, your "lived experience," that which you "feel it in my heart." But that doesn't mean it's actually true. And it doesn't mean we have to endorse it, or ignore or outright deny objective reality.

That's a "you" thing, not a "we" thing.

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

Being a bit soft but the maze runner fandom is genuinely the nicest and friendliest and most down to earth fandom I've ever been in and you are all such wonderful people 💜

The Maze Runner + Text Posts

Thomas: You are, of course, wondering why it is I have brought you here tonight.

Newt: Actually, Thomas, after all these years, I just sort of go with it.