okay, so. Nora says Andrew and Neil never explicitly say I love you and they're her characters so she is obviously the authority and everything but... what do you think?
word of god is never an easy thing because a fan might choose that once canon has been put out there in the world, the interpretation is up to the reader, no matter what the author will say about it. even more when we’re talking about comments and info that were released outside of the canon story, actively making it something that the reader can choose to never read and ignore completely. for me the thing is that I like how nora built andrew and neil, so I tend to agree to what she says about them because I trust her and the fact that she knows them and will deliver something that I will enjoy just as I enjoyed their canon time. but I’m also someone who never denies a believable characterization and development arc (or I wouldn’t be able to enjoy all that I enjoy in fanon), so I welcome stories where their characters are brought to the point where they feel that declaration has a meaning when they say it. which implies that I’m always conscious of when I’m reading fanon or the author’s take on it. confirmed that I enjoy it when it’s well built and believable in fanon, what do I think of canon andreil? if I agree with nora’s take on them? personally I do, I don’t believe that they would ever say it. neil might possibly be more lenient on this and learn to associate and summarize his feelings with those three words, but I don’t see andrew as someone who would be comfortable saying it nor hearing it (”I love you” doesn’t mean anything specific, and andrew values honestly and clarity of intentions), and consequently, I can’t see neil saying it to him. this is why I find considerably realistic those old headcanons where neil admitted to loving andrew when talking to others, while never saying it openly to andrew himself; in those scenarios the others failed to understand their relationship and needed that specific order of words to comprehend what was going on, and neil knew that “I love him” would make them go “ah. yes, of course, I get it now”, but it would be a captatio benevolentiae for them, not something that he personally believed to be fitting for him and andrew. old thoughts on this matter were also expressed in THIS old comment to that specific ask in nora’s extra content.
