"be nice to me" by the front bottoms is SOO newt/newtmas coded so here comes a very long character analysis-ish where i yap for way too long about newt and his relationship with thomas.
okay so the first line of the song is "i got boulders on my shoulders, collarbones begin to crack" and i mean this definitely fits newt; he always had too much responsibility and was under constant pressure, especially in the glade, and the "collarbones begin to crack" is him no longer being able to carry everything, mostly due to the flare.
"there is very little left of me and it's never coming back" is him slowly succumbing to the flare and losing more and more of himself. at that point, he has also lost the little hope he had and doesn't believe he can, or even want to, survive; therefor the "it's never coming back".
"there are certain things you ask of me and there are certain things i lack" honestly this one just fits. thomas obviously wants newt to keep fighting, while newt wants to give up, and doesn't even consider himself able to keep going.
"the beginning, we were winning and now im just making up facts" is definitely thomas getting them out of the maze and being the first person ever to give newt hope, just for him to lose everything again when they all realize they're still in WICKED's hands.
"what's it matter anymore, if you believe the lies i tell you, there's no meaning to the words" is newt in the death cure no longer having the energy to pretend that everything is fine because its obviously not.
then after that there are a few lines i can't really connect to tmr, i mean "if we left it all alone, im sure it'll work itself out fine" could refer to the gladers not trying to get a cure and just wanting to be safe, but that doesn't have anything to do with newt, especially since at that point, his intentions are so different from the gladers; they want to be safe, newt wants to die.
in fact, he doesn't just want to die, he also wants to make sure his death leaves a real impact and hurts someone. that was the purpose of his suicide attempt in the fever code: trying to make whoever put them all there take response for their actions and feel bad. (it definitely also had to do with him genuinely just wanting to die and seeing no other way out, but still). in the death cure, he chooses thomas to put at blame for his death, which i think is because he realizes he will never be anyone to WICKED and that they will never feel bad or take responsibility for their actions, and instead, with his flare-infected mind, puts it on thomas, most likely because he has the closest connection to WICKED, and also because newt already has some complicated feelings towards him and his involvation with WICKED. honestly, in tdc, newt probably doesnt even see himself as one of the gladers anymore, and also, the whole concept of newt, long before catching the flare, never really feeling as if he belongs with the others, is something i honestly love and highkey need to explore more. hellengellen here on tumblr has talked about that and it's soso interesting.
back to the song! after that we have the line "but you're a killer, and i'm your best friend", which is newt to thomas, and it could be 1, just the fact that thomas is the one to kill newt and therefor a killer, or 2, the whole thing with thomas working with wicked and the fact that he helped sending everyone up into the maze, which lead to a lot of people, including the most important person is newt's life, alby, dying, and from a point of view, makes thomas a killer. (obviously he is not actually at fault for this and im a thomas defender until i die but it could be seen like that). that definitely complicated newt's feelings towards thomas, which he expresses in his final scene.
honestly, newt's death scene is something i have been itching to talk about so here we go, because newt's intention during that scene is literally just hurting thomas as much as possible. he starts blaming everything bad in his life at thomas and is basically desperately trying to make his death leave as much of a mark on thomas as possible. personally, i don't think newt's anger towards thomas actually was about thomas and i highly doubt that newt hated thomas. that being said, i still think he meant some of the things he said; in the beginning of the scene, he's saying how thomas could have stopped all this earlier, and that i think he has definitely thought about before. but after that, he starts just spitting out blame, while also getting more violent and the flare gaining more control over him. for example he blames thomas for his suicide attempt, and i think he most likely hadn't considered those things thomas' fault before, it was rather a part of the whole my-death-is-gonna-mean-something. also something i would like to talk about is how one of the first things he says to thomas in that scene is something like "go away" or "leave" which i think proves that he does still care about thomas and wants to protect him, from himself. if he really, even when his mind was clearer, wanted to go through with the plan, that moment would have been a perfect opportunity for him to force thomas into killing him. him leaving the berg also shows that he still wanted to protect everyone from himself. so yes, i think newt loved thomas, and yes, i also think his feelings towards him was complicated and some of the things he told him during his death scene was his real feelings and thoughts.
ANYWAY. back to the song. the next line is "think it's unfair, your situation" an it could obviously be seen as thomas to newt. it could also be newt, some part of him, feeling bad about making thomas kill him. or, if we wanna twist the lyrics a bit, it could put be in a mocking way, with a question mark at the end and instead being about how newt genuinely wanted to hurt thomas by forcing him to shoot him, and in a way, punish him for working with WICKED. this line would be said like "oh you think what im putting you through is bad? well you put me through a lot worse.", referring to everything newt, and everyone, went through in the glade.
"you say im changing, sorry i didnt know i had to stay the same" the flare obviously changed newt a lot and new parts of his character were revealed. it's not like thomas blamed newt for it, but i still feel like this lyrics fits.
"can we talk about this later, your voice is driving me insane" i would say this is just newt being mad at thomas and then getting even madder when thomas tries to calm him down.
the next verse is harder and some lines really don't work but let me try.
"i try to write you poems but the words they don't make sense, the hand tries to grip the pencil but the fingers are too tense" this immediately reminds me of newt's journal, and since we don't really know what he wrote in there (lets ignore the maze cutter because those quotes did not feel in character or realistic), im gonna assume a bunch of it was about thomas. both bad and good stuff. so, he wrote about thomas, most likely not poems but still lmao.
also the line being "the hand" and "the fingers" instead of using the word "my" could also connect to the flare and how newt felt more and more detatched from everything and probably even himself.
"i try to show emotion, but my eyes won't seem to wet" i can't draw an exact connection to newt or newtmas here but it just feels fitting okay.
"i'd love to tell you stories, but i don't remember how they went" i would say this is newt's more positive feelings towards thomas, and the side of him that still has some sort of hope or a dream of something better, a side that maybe would like a future where they all got to the safe haven together, where they could be happy and safe and where newt could tell thomas about the glade, therefor the "tell you stories".
and the not remembering part makes me think of the flare; we don't know that much about how the flare works, but it causing memory loss really wouldn't be a surprise, and it definitely messed with your memories since newt started remembering things from before the maze in crank palace.
"you're a flashlight in a dark room or the loneliest black out" flashlight in the dark room is thomas who came to the glade and got them out of the place newt hated so much, which also meant thomas was the first person, ever to give newt hope. the loneliest black out is thomas also being (a part of) the organization that put them there in the first place and, from this point of view, being the source of their suffering.
then there are several lines that doesn't fit and a few that i can vague connect to this topic: we have "and all your very worst enemies will be gone soon" which would be newt, at least a part of him, despite everything, still wanting good things for thomas, wanting his "very worst enemies" (WICKED) to stop bothering him, wanting him to survive and get the future newt was convinced he couldn't have himself.
"i think you're changing, don't worry, you don't gotta stay the same" okay so this doesn't really have to do with newt, but i think thomas really did change, because his major trait in the first book is his curioustly: finding out and understanding everything was his goal. somewhere throughout the latter books, it shifts, and all thomas cares about is getting himself and his friends to a safe place. in the end of the death cure, he just doesn't care anymore. he spends no time questioning ava paige or thinking further about how the world was gonna end up or about getting his memories back and everything he still doesn't know. he just wanted to be safe. (this could also be the reason we're left with quite a lot of questions in tdc. most of those gets answered in the prequels instead)
and the "don't worry, you don't gotta stay the same" line doesn't actually go well with this but it made the wheels in my head spin or whatever you say so here we go;
i don't really think newt wanted thomas to change, that's not the right word. that wouldn't fix anything, and in a way, there was nothing wrong with thomas. but maybe newt wanted thomas to be changed, from the start of it. because listen here, i think newt really did love thomas. and this can be argued about, obviously, but i have settled on that and i will not change my opinion, nor do i have any doubt about it. but as i said before, their relationship was complicated. due to thomas' connection with WICKED and especially his (kind of - obviously it wasn't thomas' fault but i think newt, part of the time, viewed it like that) involvation in alby's death, newt just couldn't see thomas purely in a good light and that led to a list of complications that, even if newt somehow got to the safe haven, would've made it hard for them to maintain a relationship, either romanitc or platonic. i do think it could've worked but it definitely would've taken time; not even just because of the WICKED/thomas thing, also because newt was generally mentally ill and probably needed theraphy that couldn't be provided in the safe haven, at least not for a long time.
back to the point, now imagine a world where thomas was different, where everything was different, where he had nothing to do with WICKED; if we also exclude newt catching the flare, he could love thomas freely, and they could actually have a happy ending together.
of course, there is also the complication of newt's mental state, and i do think they would still need some time before being able to maintain a relationship but honestly, lets just believe in them. i actually hate the idea that newt just couldn't have a happy ending or couldn't love anymore due to his mental health, obviously there's nothing wrong with seeing it like that, and i also do think him getting "better" would be complicated, but i could never think that there was just no way for him to get a happy ending.
also i haven't personally decided on how bad i think newt's mental health was, i've read analysises where they see him as a very mentally fucked up person where getting better would really hard, but there are also a lot of people who doesn't see his mental health as a hinder, and as said, i don't really know my take on this, but i do believe that he could have gotten better to the point where he could live a good life, with thomas.
okay well that was it??? this turned into less of connecting a song to newtmas than i intended but i hope someone found this interesting😭
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