#fuck niall lynch <3

[squash1]

i keep seeing people being like maybe in greywaren niall won’t be so bad & we’ll learn his side of the story. and ok. but to counter that. i hate him. and here’s why:

“‘and you, ronan,’ niall said. he always said ronan differently from other words. ‘when you were born, the rivers dried up and the cattle in rockingham county wept blood.’ declan, the oldest of the lynch brothers, once asked, ‘and what happened when i was born?” niall lynch looked at him and said, ‘i wouldn’t know. i wasn’t here.”when niall said declan, it always sounded like her meant to say declan.”

he made declan feel worthless and like his only purpose was to protect ronan. he treated his children differently because of their abilities and created a divide between them and didn’t seem to care. he is responsible for the unhealthy relationship ronan & declan have. i will never be a niall lynch apologist because i am a declan supporter to my. core.

[loving-family-poll]

Ultimate Incest Tournament - Round 1

The Raven Cycle fanart by xla-hainex on deviantart

Propaganda under the cut:

Merricat/Constance:

Mutual obsession, codependency and isolation sisters win

They happily isolate each other and follow these rules that nobody else understands, Merricat only cares about Constance and Constance would do anything for Merricat, no matter what Merricat does, and seemingly not out of fear, but out of love

When there's a possible love interest for Constance (who also happens to be said looks like their dad), Merricat wants him dead and in the end, even though Constance seemed more she could be a part of society, she chooses Merricat over him and over everyone else

Weird girls 4ever <3

Declan/Ronan:

Estranged brothers who beat the shit out of each other in parking lots, which is just UST central

We spend the first three and a half books (out of seven in total) thinking they mutually hate each other, until we realize that Declan has spent his entire life trying to protect and shelter Ronan

Declan's parentification is intense, made worse by their parents' early deaths, and his entire sense of self is cannibalized by his devotion to and resentment of his younger brother(s). Meanwhile, Ronan is a mess of anger and sublimated self-loathing, rebelling against Declan's authority as his legal guardian because he knows deep down that Declan is one person who is never going to give up on him, no matter how much he may fuck up or push him away

Declan doesn't even believe in god anymore but he still drives a 4-hour round-trip every week to go to mass with Ronan. The catholicism really jumps off the page, and with that comes HELLA daddy issues too, as both boys are canonically "made in their father's image" (the father, Niall, strongly and repeatedly paralleled with god) -- Ronan to the point of being an almost identical copy of him, so Declan/Ronan carries with it shades of Declan/Niall too

When they were small children, after Ronan (a supernatural entity not born in the traditional fashion) was brought into the family, their parents had decided to kill Ronan out of fear of what he would grow to be. They only didn't do so because when they went to carry out the deed, they found Declan cuddled up in bed with him, comforting him in his loneliness.

Declan shoots up an entire building at the mere insinuation that his brother is dead for good. Carried around his limp (alive?) body for a bit. Ronan is psychosexually obsessed with Declan's sex life + describes him unnecessarily erotically in his POVs. Both hot (CRUCIAL)

"Declan loved Ronan. And so Ronan lived."

[neurosses]

ur characterization of ronan pre niall’s death is soooo good like u really capture that it’s not the grief that made him an asshole, like he’s always been a little asshole even pre grief. idk how to articulate it i hope my point came across, but i really appreciated that when reading concorde<3

Thank you! I think (a) Ronan has always been an asshole [personality developed by his upbringing] and that (b) Ronan always dealt with subtle grief/melancholy as a child that exploded into overwhelming darkness after Niall's death.

Regarding the fact that he's always been an asshole, ALL the Lynch brothers are exclusionary and self-obsessed. Blame it on a codependent cult-y upbringing or having Niall Lynch as a patriarch — IDK! But also, to be fair, most teenagers are assholes.

"On the inside, the Lynch brothers were remarkably similar: They all loved cars, themselves, and each other." —The Raven King

The music from inside drowned out every other sound. It was the sort of music Ronan heard all the time when he was at Aglionby, the stuff that made him feel as if he truly were nothing like other people, not because he was gay or because his father had been murdered or because he could take things out of his dreams, but because he couldn’t bring himself to sing along to the shit other students sang along to. Funny how a handful of people loving a song you couldn’t stand could make you feel inhuman. —Mister Impossible

The Dreamer Trilogy also confirms an undercurrent of trauma pre-Niall's death, as Ronan had to keep "the secret" — the dreaming, himself — from other people. It fucked up his relationship with Declan and led (at least partially if not wholly) to the creation of Matthew. Aurora and Declan both hid evidence of Ronan's dreaming. Ronan felt fundamentally misunderstood (his self-interrogation — "What am I?" — pre-dates Niall's death).

If Ronan became more alive as they crept toward winter solstice, Declan became less so. His eyes developed bags. His moods got short. The brothers did not fight then like they did when they were older, but the seeds were already sleeping in the cold soil. —Mister Impossible

“Look at you, Mr. Impossible,” Aurora whispered fondly. She opened and closed it several times to see if the sky would change. It did. From day to night to day again. Sun to stars to sun. “Now let’s bury it.” —Mister Impossible

[clotpolesonly]

Niall Lives AU sounds very interesting!!! I've never read one either except a non-magical au. How would it go do you think? Or any headcanons?

(sorry this took me 3 days, and i hope you're prepared for how long it got cuz i have a chronic life-long inability to summarize, also there's no ending cuz it's an ongoing narrative that lives in my brain, sorry not sorryyyy)

OKAY SO, generally speaking, i fall somewhere in between Niall hater and Niall apologist, i have complicated opinions on Niall as both a character and a father. however, i am first and foremost above all else a Declan girlie, and therefore, for the purposes of this concept, i err on the side of Niall hater 😂 (cw for child abuse afkdljgh)

because what i want most out of this AU is for Niall's secrets to come out while he's still alive. canonically, Declan sort of inherited the burden of Niall's lies. he became personally responsible for them when he chose to carry them forward and keep keeping them when Niall was no longer around to enforce that keeping, but the root of the problem for most of their lives was Niall and his choices.

after spending much time musing on the concept, i realized that i end up with almost an inverted Declan & Ronan dynamic, without the loss of Niall to catalyze them in the directions we know them to have gone in -- Declan shutting down and repressing/denying any love he had for his father because he didn't want to feel the pain of his loss, and Ronan putting his father up on an untouchable pedestal and foisting his father's flaws solely onto Declan instead.

without that loss, Declan still loves and obeys his dad. for all the problems he may have with his father and the way he does things, which is plenty, he is still his father's obedient right hand. and without that loss, when the secrets come out, Ronan isn't searching for a scapegoat. he's seeing his father plainly and realizing that he is a liar. that what Declan does, he does because Niall told him to.

Declan, conflicted but loyal. Ronan, betrayed and disillusioned.

it's a really interesting role reversal that i personally think is entirely in character under these conditions.

SO, as for the specifics:

i figure Niall is attacked in the driveway but lives. probably Greenmantle only called for intimidation, rather than a hit, to try and strong-arm the Lynches into giving him what he wants. he was making a point.

the point is successfully made and Declan, at least, is deeply stressed by this. they came to the house, dad, they know where we live and you could've been killed. what happens then? what am i supposed to do then? what happens to us when they take you out and you take mom down with you? (bonus points if Niall hadn't realized Declan was old enough to remember that Aurora was a dreamt replacement. they've certainly never discussed it.)

he thinks Niall needs to be more careful, that he's in over his head, that he can't keep running off half-cocked or running his mouth off without thinking of the consequences. he thinks they should read Ronan in, because he's the one these people are fucking looking for and he's not made any safer by not knowing there's a target on his back.

Niall thinks he's worrying too much. Niall thinks he's got the situation under control. Niall doesn't appreciate having his way of doing business questioned. it takes three or four arguments about it before they both lose their temper, before Declan calls Niall selfish for putting the whole family at risk, before Niall slaps him for it. if Declan doesn't like the way he handles things, his father says, he should go back to playing in the mud with Matthew, let the grown-ups worry about business.

Ronan is in the hall when Declan leaves. he was planning on giving Declan shit for giving dad shit when he's recovering from, ya know, being beaten half to death, and can't Declan chill the fuck out for five fucking seconds?? all the yelling and fighting is upsetting Matty 😤 but he stops dead when he sees the red mark on Declan's cheek.

"dad thinks he's invincible," is all Declan says. "and we're the ones who are gonna pay for it."

Ronan is.....destabilized. trying to rationalize away what he saw and what he knows it means with what he (thinks he) knows of his father. it just doesn't compute. it can't be what it looked like. right? he checks on dad, asks what they were fighting about. dad says he and Declan had "a gentleman's disagreement", nothing to worry about. there's not a single new mark on him. (if it had been mutual, Ronan could've accepted it. like a boxing match. but that's not what this was. he can't convince himself otherwise. not when he's getting the feeling, for the first time, that his dad is lying to him about something important.)

now Ronan has questions. he's suddenly got a lot of questions. dad said it's business stuff and not to worry about it. when he asks mom what he and Declan have been arguing about, she says they're just too similar not to butt heads. don't worry about it. but he IS worrying, and being waved off only makes him worried and mad.

no answers from dad or mom. so brother it is, then. he drags Declan out to spar with him. Declan's got some serious pent up frustrated-frantic-feral energy to work out, and that only gets worse when Ronan springs the question on him -- what the hell is going on?

Declan, already anxious af and now feeling distinctly cornered, says to ask dad. Ronan says he did and if one more person blows him off he's gonna lose his shit. Declan doesn't have an answer that he's allowed to give, and that feels even more like shit than it always feels because Ronan doesn't sound whiny and bratty like he usually does when he complains about being left out of grown up stuff. he sounds serious. genuinely concerned. Declan still tries to evade, so Ronan pivots to another angle of attack.

"has dad hit you before? or was that the first time?"

even as it feels like a punch to the sternum, Declan has to give him credit for the way the question is phrased. either/or, two options both incriminating, no option on the table for "he never did that". it's the kind of rhetorical trick used by cops and lawyers. cleverer than he usually gives Ronan credit for.

it's a reasonable consequence, he says. you yell at your father and you get punished for it. even Ronan couldn't have gotten away with what he'd said (probably). he's not expecting Ronan to argue back that it depends on why you're yelling. Ronan's never taken his side before, never defended him. (he'd never really thought that Declan needed defending.)

"please," Ronan says. "none of this is right. i just wanna know what's going on with my family."

Declan cracks. not all the way, but enough to admit that dad's business is......not exactly aboveboard. there have been some unsavory dealings and that's why dad was hurt. he did some stupid, reckless shit and it followed him home. (he doesn't say that he's expressly forbidden from telling Ronan even this much, even if he certainly can't forget about it himself.)

Ronan tries to be mature and reasonable and cautious when he confronts his dad about it, but frankly, confronting him in the first place was not particularly well thought out. he has the forethought to not start off the conversation with "Declan told me you're a criminal" at least, lmao, but he's kinda sorta on Declan's side here?? Niall keeps saying that Declan is worrying too much, but, like

"oh Declan worries so much, Declan needs to relax -- people came to our house and attacked you with a fucking tire iron, dad!!! maybe Declan's worrying the right amount!!!"

Niall does not appreciate Ronan's tone. (he also does not appreciate his children unionizing.)

Ronan's so upset that it's easy to dismiss him. so emotional, so worked up, so childish. this is why he didn't tell Ronan anything before, he knew he wouldn't be able to handle it.

his dad has never talked to him this way, dismissive and condescending, deliberately undercutting his confidence. he's never made Ronan feel bad about himself (at least not in a way that Ronan could tell it's on purpose), but now Ronan leaves feeling small and insignificant and twisted up inside.

Niall has a talk with Declan. he expresses his displeasure that Declan could be so willful and loose-lipped as to go sharing their secrets around. hasn't he made it clear how important secrecy is? has he failed as a father if this is how his son behaves? their secrets are crucial for the safety of their family, look at what already happened, and that was just because some unsavory people learned things they shouldn't have.

as far as shaming tactics go, it's very effective. shifting blame onto Declan, as if it wasn't his own loose lips that put them in this position. he digs up some incident from YEARS ago, when Declan was a kid, to use against him, which both hurts and is so fucking unfair that Declan snaps again. Ronan deserves to know this stuff, he's a target as much as Niall is. he's old enough to know what he's involved in and it's not fair for Niall to --

Niall slaps him again. (twice in one week. that's a record.)

"he's not involved in anything, and you won't be either if you don't learn your place, son."

Declan has never been afraid of his father. this isn't a regular thing, maybe two or three times over the course of his adolescence, and he's never really felt he had reason to fear for his safety. what he is afraid of is falling out of favor. (further out of favor, i should say.) he's afraid of disappointing Niall. he's afraid of losing his position at Niall's side, of not being trusted or needed anymore. being cast aside. being abandoned.

it's the most effective threat his father could've levied against him.

Ronan corners him at school the next day. (he would've tried talking to him before school, but Declan left the house early specifically to avoid him.) he's not even sure exactly what he wants to talk about, it's just a general big mess of bad emotions in his chest and the feeling that, somehow, he and Declan are in this together now in a way they've never been before. only to finally find Declan on campus and notice that the bruising on his cheek is worse today than it was yesterday. bigger. fresher.

he suddenly wants to set things on fire. Declan tries, again, to put him off. he's not supposed to be talking to Ronan. last time he talked to Ronan, he fucked up. if he fucks up again, dad is gonna be so mad. Ronan is a persistent little fuck, though, and he keeps pushing, keeps asking questions, keeps saying that they need to fucking talk about this and they can't keep him in the dark and Declan agreed yesterday that they shouldn't and --

Declan snaps that he never should've told Ronan anything.

the only reason Ronan doesn't follow him when he walks away to [react however tf he's gonna react, even he's honestly not sure, but it probably wouldn't have been pretty] is that Gansey finds them then and intervenes. they've only been friends for a couple of months, but he already knows it's safest for the Lynch brothers' tempers to steer clear of each other on campus. esp when Ronan has been distinctly out of sorts all week.

he invites Ronan over to continue helping him clear out monmouth manufacturing, aware that invitations to talk are more often met with scoffing and jokes than they are with actual talking. and Ronan, as much as he kinda sorta desperately does want to talk about all this shit actually, is pretty sure that he can't, or he shouldn't, or they're not Close Enough™ for this kind of shit yet, or something.

he does end up telling Gansey a little bit. everything is awful and wrong and confusing, and he feels like he might explode, so he tells Gansey that his dad's into something. there's something going on, something big, and Declan knows about it, but nobody's telling him anything.

Gansey doesn't push for details, even though he is......concerned. he's polite like that. he makes a point that he is available to provide support, should Ronan need it.

they pass aglionby as Gansey is driving Ronan back to the barns. and that's when they stumble upon part II of Greenmantle's plan -- Declan, having had a run-in of his own with the Gray Man. not in fantastic shape, but it was, again, intimidation more than anything. a statement made that none of them are safe.

a mugging, Declan says. Gansey has his doubts, but he helps Ronan get Declan into the passenger seat of the volvo so Ronan can drive him home. asks carefully if this is part of that Big Bad Something.

Ronan remembers his dad, shortly after his own assault, clapping him on the shoulder and saying there was nothing to worry about....but also that he shouldn't bring Gansey around for a little while, just in case. all said with an easy laugh. no explanation, no indication that it might be dangerous for Gansey, or for his own fucking sons.

just a mugging, Ronan says. he'll be fine. thanks for the help.

in the car, fear taken over by anger because anger is so much easier to handle, "are you gonna try and bullshit me with this mugger story?"

and Declan, so fucking tired.

"I told you we would be the ones paying for it."

Ronan loses his shit a little bit at Niall. he's lucky mom and Matthew aren't home, cuz he ain't quiet about it. he wants to know what the FUCK is going on, everything. who is after them? why?? how much fucking danger are they in? how dare their dad keep something like this secret? it's his fault that now Declan's gotten hurt too.

Declan tries reining him in. as bitter and resentful as he may be that Ronan can yell at their dad like this and get away with it unscathed, that doesn't mean he wants Ronan pushing his luck. (Ronan sort of wants to. a big part of him wonders what it would take for dad to hit him too.)

it's a giant mess of a confrontation, emotions running high for everyone, and Niall takes a cheap shot at Declan for getting in the middle of it. something about not being able to handle himself, how one thug could take him down and Niall thought he raised him better than that. something about meddling in things that are none of his business. which pisses Ronan off because, hey, Declan is the only one who's even trying to tell him the truth about anything.

Niall, again, does not like this. he doesn't want his sons on the same side, against him. that's not a scenario where he has the power anymore. and so.

"Declan tells you the truth, eh?" he sneers. "are you sure about that? go on, son, ask him what else he's keeping from you."

because why would he require his sons to keep secrets from each other? why would he go out of his way to make sure that they didn't and couldn't communicate about things that were so formative to both their lives? why would he keep such a tight leash on information that did not need to be hidden within the family unit itself?

so that he can weaponize it to drive a wedge between them someday, if need be. control information, control emotions, control behavior.

deflect Ronan's anger away from him and toward Declan instead.

throw Declan entirely under the bus for a secret that was not his decision to keep.

Declan, stunned. betrayed. it takes him a moment to process what his dad is doing here, that he's being sabotaged. because it's not the business or the dreaming in general that he's being put on the spot for here, it's Ronan's dreaming. that Declan has always known about it. a secret that he knows, and his dad knows, is liable to destroy whatever fragile relationship he has with his brother.

"what do you..." Ronan looks between them. Declan, pale and horrified and wounded. Niall, sharp-eyed and satisfied. he would've called his dad a liar if it weren't for the ringing silence. now his stomach is already sinking. "Declan, what does he mean?"

Declan retreats. Ronan chases after, even though he's got plenty more words for his father, even though he knows on some level that he's being manipulated on purpose, because he can't just not know. he follows Declan out to the barn they do their boxing in -- anywhere but where dad is, as far away as Declan can get -- and begs him for the whole truth. there's no solid ground under his feet at this point. he feels like his entire life has been a lie, everything he thought he knew turned upside down and inside out. please, Deklo, just tell me.

and Declan is just.... he's injured from getting interrogated by a fucking mercenary hit man a few hours ago, everything hurts and he's got blood dripping in his eye and his dad's cruel words are bouncing around in his head still and everything is falling apart around him and it's all his fault and there's nothing he can do about it because Ronan is there, looking somehow young and scared and more grown up than he's ever looked at the same time, staring at Declan like he's got the answers when Declan knows the only answers he has are gonna ruin them.

but there's nothing left to hide behind. so he tells Ronan. that dad's business isn't cows or artifacts. that he knows what dad can do, what he can create. that that's what he's selling.

and maybe Ronan shouldn't be as caught off guard by that as he is, but it's one secret that's been so deeply buried that it doesn't even occur to him that anyone might know about it, not even his brother. there's the immediate, instinctive feeling of threat. of fear.

Ronan, through a tight throat: "you.....you know about dad's dreaming?"

Declan, resigned and so so tired: "and i know about yours."

Ronan feels like he's been suckerpunched. this is a load-bearing secret, okay, a secret that his entire life and sense of self have been built around. he cycles through so many emotions so fast, he doesn't know what he's feeling, but anger is the easiest to grab hold of. especially with Declan, who's always been quick to hit back.

he doesn't hit back now, though. not when Ronan shoves him back against the wall, not when he growls "how long have you known? why didn't you fucking say anything?"

because the only answer he has is "dad said." dad said it was for the best, dad said he had his reasons, dad said to trust him, dad said to do as he was told. and he's been saying it for years, since Declan was far too young to know how to be properly skeptical. it's not that Declan didn't want to tell him. he's been pushing for dad to tell him, for weeks they've been arguing about it, but dad was adamant they keep the secret.

Ronan demands to know why dad would do it, why he would keep all this from him, why he would make Declan keep things from him, and he's so full of bad feeling that he wants to hit something, and that's the moment he realizes.

that was the reason. this right here was the reason the whole time, this is what Niall wants. he stumbles back, suddenly sick to his stomach. he turns his back and just stands for a while, pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes and breathing, trying to wrap his head around the understanding he's coming to. he doesn't get less angry. more angry, honestly. but he thinks of the wounded look on Declan's face when dad turned on him. the look of satisfaction on dad's. and he makes the conscious decision that Declan is not the person he's angry at.

dad said, dad said, dad said

what is a kid supposed to do if not what his parents tell him to?

by the time he's wrangled his feelings down into something he can manage, for now, Declan has slid down the barn wall to sit on the floor, head down and hands on the back of his neck. he looks small. and Ronan, not knowing what the fuck else to do but needing to do something now that he's resolved not to vent his boiling rage in Declan's direction, snatches up the first aid kit. Declan's still got a bleeding cut on his forehead and his knuckles are scraped to hell from the few hits he got in against the Gray Man before he went down.

Declan just stares at him as he rummages around for antiseptic and shit, trying to figure out why Ronan isn't yelling anymore. this is one of those moments where saying nothing feels safer, though, so he doesn't risk asking. he lets Ronan pour peroxide over his knuckles and dab at his forehead in careful silence and it's not until Ronan is putting a butterfly bandage on his forehead -- cut not bad enough for stitches, at least -- that Ronan breaks it.

"were you scared? is that why you didn't tell me, even though you wanted to?"

"i'm not scared of dad."

and he's not lying, per se. he's not afraid of Niall in the way Ronan's implying. (at least, he wasn't before this week. the tight fear pulling at his chest now when he thinks of going back inside is.....new.) he doesn't think that Ronan, of all people, could ever understand what he was truly afraid of. Ronan, the favorite, the golden child, has never been made to feel like he's disposable. replaceable. like his worthiness of love and acceptance has conditions.

this right here -- Niall deciding he no longer cared about Declan at all -- is what he was afraid of.

he reiterates that this is an outlier. it's not a regular thing. Ronan asks if dad calling him names is a regular thing. Declan points out that Ronan calls him names all the time.

"i'm your little brother! i'm supposed to give you shit, and you give it right back, and that's how brothers work. you're not supposed to get shit from your father. and you're definitely not supposed to get hit when you try to give it back for once."

(Ronan is the only one allowed to bully his brother, thank you very much. and it's only fun when it doesn't actually hurt.)

Declan's done talking about it. admitting that it hurts is a fresh wound of its own, and he's already got plenty of those to deal with right now. and there's still more that Ronan doesn't know, more secrets that he deserves to know, and there's nothing standing in the way anymore. he figures dad ripping the fucking bandaid off is the closest to permission he's ever gonna get on this front.

except that Ronan's head is fucking spinning. as much as he wants to know everything, and he DOES, he just....he needs time to process. he's learned enough for one night. so he and Declan sit slumped on the dirt floor of the makeshift boxing ring, side by side, in weighty wrung-out silence, until they hear mom and Matthew get home from wherever they've been.

.....

AAAAAAAND that's all i've got so far, i am deeply invested in this narrative as it plays out like a movie on the back of my eyeballs, i am thinking about it all the time. idk where it will go next. there's gotta be some kind of action plot ramping up with Greenmantle upping the ante, pushing to collect on the fancy artifact that Niall claimed to have but actually doesn't because it's his fucking kid.

idk what the endgame would be here 😂 if i did, it could actually be a fic, but instead i'm just examining the immediate emotional fallout of events with a microscope cuz it pleases me aldkfjgh and that does not lend itself to one cohesive story that actually wraps up in a narratively satisfying way.

so anyway. hope you've enjoyed this EXTENSIVE ramble and glimpse into my internal monologue cuz this is what the inside of my brain sounds like most of the time.

(ps i asked my peeps if a complete and utter inability to summarize is a specific flavor of neurodivergent or just a general all-purpose ND mood, and their response was, and i quote, "it's the tism babe" lmaooo, so i guess we have my newly peer-reviewed autism to thank for this 4k monstrosity of an answer 😅)

[rotzaprachim]

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My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

the way andor makes it so clear that actually, no, under fascism the trains do NOT run on time, the Empire can be dysfunctional, disorganised, corrupt, staffed to the gills with lackies who don’t care about their job or Imperial purpose, and none of that makes it less terrifying or fucked or brutal or violent 

374 notes - Posted November 7, 2022

#4

funniest part of greywaren was the implication that if the lady in the opal story was marie lynch (they’re described in the same ways!) then niall’s mother has been periodically booking flights from ireland to virginia solely to break into his house and say heartfelt “fuck you”s to the portraits of him and  mór left in their bedroom. all of this while not doing a single thing to contact her three newly orphaned grandchildren or provide a lick of support. they can handle this

502 notes - Posted October 18, 2022

#3

really haunting call backs in andor: the explicit repetition of the idea that no one outside of narkina 5 knows about narkina 5 because no one survives narkina 5, now, and lives to tell the tale. and then in episode 1 of andor timm casually mentions the “shipment from wobani,” which we know from rogue one is another imperial death camp. how fucking many of them are there, and to what extent do galactic citizens- especially bootlickers like timm- just. live with this knowledge. how many of the parts that cassian and bix smuggled at the start of the show were made by prison labour?

760 notes - Posted November 16, 2022

#2

i don’t want to be overly essentialist or talk outside my cultural lane but... there is something so intensely not anglo-’murican about the way the way andor treats death and it’s so fascinating and refreshing. like on one level this is a show profoundly about death from the very structure of its narrative, but it’s about how you live knowing you will die rather than the glorious death-from-martyrdom-death-as-redemption narrative, and therefor, inversely, about the profound interconnections between the dead and the living and those on the liminal in-between. now we have maarva’s death, and the very introduction of her death comes through the assembled chorus of communal voices who have come to clean her house and take her to rest. (i also love the fact that maarva died, explicitly, of old age and so many of the other related issues. i don’t think you can make the case that the empire *wasn’t* involved because she’s someone so utterly and clearly destroyed by its actions, but i do like that this was a so-called “ordinary” death, because of the thematic purpose that even “ordinary” deaths are heartbreaking and awful and worth remembering.)

andor makes it canon that there are communal aid organizations- i immediately think chevra kadishas! though many cultures have their own organisations and social structures for how to support the grieving and honour the dead- which is just one of the ways it highlights community and the complexity of interpersonal relationships. the daughters of ferrix are introduced an episode earlier, and i realised on a rewatch with my family that the daughter of ferrix - keezy maybe?- introduced at the beginning of the episode is also mentioned by bee in the first episode as being someone who helps maarva with her dinner and medication. we don’t see maarva’s body go alone, we see her transported through the streets by the women of ferrix. andor makes the case of elder care as communal connection and antifascist work, AND that it is done by the same people as those that bury the dead. and the way that andor is building up t having the season finale be the funeral, the thing that drags cassian home and into the line of fire being his mother’s funeral, the storytelling possible about funerary customs and memorialisation as acts of cultural resistance and aggressive rehumanisation... i’m too verklempt to say much more but i think the way this thematic arc is so intertwined with cassian’s time in narkina 5 and the scene with him and melshi at the end of the episode like! no one is lovingly honouring every one of those men with two-day funeral ceremonies through the streets. NO ONE remembers but cassian and melshi. two episodes earlier ulaf died, but the closest thing he had to the daughters of ferrix was the doctor, the fellow prisoner, who refused to learn his name and quietly euthanised him in the hallway. until we know more there were nearly five thousand other deaths. and the episode ends with melshi saying, it’s our duty as survivors to carry the weight of memory so that other people will know and remember this. they are also carrying the weight of mourning those whose time it was not to die. fuck. this show guys. it has me 

837 notes - Posted November 16, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

“hallelujah” by leonard cohen being played as an easter and christmas song, “zombie” by the cranberries” being played as a halloween song, and “born in the U.S.A.” by bruce springsteen being played as a Fourth of July/generic us patriotism song have got to be a special trifecta of the most no-listening-comprehension musical moments that happen on seasonal playlists every single year 

66,969 notes - Posted October 26, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[noyoucannotpushthevoid]

Fuck it, Characters from the Raven Cycle as things me and my friends have said, part 3 (consider this deranged dnd edition since they all came from our last dnd session)

"'You know what else tastes like Windex?' [Ronan] 'Windex' ([Blue] and [Adam] in unison)" cue horrified and concerned noises from Gansey’s general direction "Hey, those British kids love their porridge" - Ronan not making a good impression on Mallory "He talks like a birdman, acts like a birdman, walks like a birdman" - about Ronan as he strolls around with Chainsaw "If he brings death I think he's more than down to kill people" - about Mr. Grey "Regardless I probably fucked up" - Adam or Ronan "You could be a ghost...OOoooo~" - Noah "Hey the sun's up, get up idiot!" - Adam waking Ronan up for school after a st. Agnus sleepover "Hello fellow humanoids" - Greywaren as Ronan "I miss the desiccated corpse" - everyone about Noah "Bears are a genre of gay porn" - Ronan trying to prove a point "'What are you going to do with a cannonball?' [Gansey] 'I don't know, throw it at someone' [Ronan]" And from thence forward, Ronan was not allowed on any more trips to historical sites or national parks "You're a tax write off" - Declan @ Ronan "'We're going on a trip' [Henry] '...in our favorite pirate ship' [Blue]" in the Pig off on their road trip "Science bitch" - Henry "I'm ironman but if he worked at mcdonalds" - Blue (idk, but the vibes, y’know?) "I'm not going to say 'fuck me' because I know [Ronan] would say 'yes please'" - Gansey when he’s tired of Ronan’s gay jokes "Normal? In this economy?" - Adam (with vitriol) "I will cut off all your toes unless you give me a straight answer...or a gay answer" - Declan trying to get answer on anything from Ronan "You choose between [Adam], [Ronan], and me and you choose to kill the president. Good choice" - Blue @ Gansey when presented with picking between the people he loves (in the same sense as it was irl. Think fuck, marry, kill, but the only option is fuck) "First of all, fuck Greta Thurnberg" - Ronan, probably only to piss off Blue "I think we've established [Ronan] is willing to sacrifice civilization to not answer your question" "Oh, easy bake oven. Set it for 20 minutes. We're on our way baby" - Summer in Virginia (please take this with a grain of salt, I’ve never spent more than like 2 days in Virginia) "Aged like fine wine" - [Gansey] about a [several centuries] old dead body "How do I get that bad money?" - Niall Lynch "What are you? My mom?" - Ronan @ Gansey "You have this guy in your bedroom" - Adam when bi, and Ronan just shows up to St. Agnus to vibe "Try it, try it, I'm Kratos" - Ronan egging on Declan to punch him "Bonding!?" - said in horrified unison after Gansey suggests it (irl it was also said in horrified unison because it was our DM talking, following a very violent pc on pc fight...) "Out of character, you fucking cockblocked me" - Adam @ Gansey "I can do my anarchy in peace" - Blue

[nialltlynch]

five favorite fics that I've written (for writer appreciation day)

tagged by kat @sleepy-skittles thank u thank u 😘😘

5. in the garden sleeps a messenger — one of two non birdverse fics ive posted!! the target audience for this fic was me, twenty some odd years ago. ((love u bitch 🥰🥰)) anyway. edea and seifer have Thee Most Interesting Dynamic. it is insane to me how little there is about them. theres mommy issues. theres a highly problematic age gap. theres a concerning power dynamic. theres a hot evil milf with a banger aesthetic. theres the time loop or whatever the fuck was going on there. succession of witches defined my life for over a decade. seifer is into petplay i know this i know this. theres SO MUCH to explore here and it's all so underutilized in the game. this fic honestly does not even begin to get into but i consider it a decent first exploration and hopefully when i have time and energy i can do it a bit more justice. as it is though i really enjoy it!!

4. without a me there is no you —

She has the same blush rounding her cheeks and the same quiet, nervous laughter as the young Mór many years ago who muffled her kisses on Niall's mouth.

this bit was floating around in my head with perfectly clarity when i woke up one day and i immediately wrote out about six hundred words surrounding it on my phone before getting out of bed. im really interested in the implications of niall dreaming a docile sweet mannered replacement wife and i thought it would be interesting to explore it a bit from mór's perspective because she would be so impossibly biased. also thought it would be interesting if she fucked above mentioned replacement. this was my first time really trying to inhabit mór which, let me tell you, is really hard when the only canon information is scraps.

3. ambilevous — oh handcat fic, my weird little brain worm. all my fics are elaborate, long overstayed jokes in one way or another but this one i wrote specifically because the concept was just sooooo silly to me. absolutely absurd. certified kk comedy hour. it is, in usual fashion, a thinly veiled exploration of the more fucked up lynch family dynamics and how the barns arent quite what they seem but of course it is.

2. smoke alarms, smoke — my first exploration of the lynch family 🥰 it means a lot to me. i love this fic. the idea of the barns as a beautiful fairy tale ending had always rubbed me the wrong way and of course i love the slow desolation of locations through those that inhabit it which, really, what is the barns if not a haunted house waiting to happen. thats the part thats lacking (unfortunate!!) but i did get to write declan as a sad sad little kiddy which is one of my few life joys. i loved it when i wrote it and i love it now (which is saying a lot). while it isnt everything i want it to be i do very much love what it is!

1. it's a gift to be simple, it's a gift to be free — my aurora character study and probably the best thing ive written thus far...maybe ever. i honestly have no idea what the fuck i was on when i wrote this but god i wish i could get it back. some of my personal favorite prose comes from this fic. its a very personal fic in that i centered the emotional core on some of my own life bullshit. stylistically i owe so much of this fic to catherine valente's comfort me with apples which i had read around then (as if it wasnt obvious). i had already been thinking about aurora and her role in the lynch family but reading that helped solidify the tone i really wanted. this is another fic i sat down, wrote, and edited all in one night. i think if i hadn't posted it then it would've languished in editing hell so im very happy with what i put out.

oh and the recurring knife thing was because i was having feelings about knife maintenance, as one does. (if anyone wants me to come over and sharpen their kitchen knives and make you dinner lmk)

ive seen this passed around and lost track of who's already done it so if you would like participate then i am tagging you now. enjoy ((:

[crimeronan]

Ok so I’m into the dreamer trilogy and haven’t read the Raven cycle...what is Declan’s characterisation/journey there?

THIS MIGHT BE THE BEST ASK I’VE EVER RECEIVED. IMAGINE I’M STANDING WITH MY ARMS SPREAD USING DIFFERENT VOICES AND HAND GESTURES TO REENACT THIS STORY FOR A RESENTFUL CAPTIVE AUDIENCE

also declan’s TRC storyline is like. equal parts horribly fucking sad and unbelievably fucking hilarious so. i will try to strike a Balance

FIRST OFF.  there is exactly one (1) declan POV chapter in the entire series. it happens toward the end of the last book. up until then, everything we know about him comes from the observations and narration of others.

he is also a very minor character.  his importance grows throughout the series, but almost all of his actions happen offscreen.  it’s not until the last book that we know exactly how much he’s been dealing with the whole time.

when he’s introduced in the first book, he appears as a plot device.  here is a two-dimensional horrible controlling hardass who doesn’t give a shit about anything but his future political career.  look at his fake, smug fucking grin.  how did someone like ronan end up with a brother like him??  doesn’t matter.  it’s a convenient excuse for ronan to live with his best friend in a drafty warehouse, which means more room for YA hijinks!

declan’s introduction scene is Embroiled in Capital-D Douchebaggery. according to the narration (from gansey and adam), he loves to fuck women and then never call them back, cozy up to powerful people, and bitch about how ronan’s ruining his life by being sad about their dead parents.  SOME people can just get over their dead parents, ronan!

this intro scene is also Extremely Funny i 100% recommend reading it even if u don’t read the actual series.  ronan makes a nasty comment, declan goes “why are you the way that you are” and tries to salvage his date, gansey utters the phrase “man whore”

then later that night things go like. actually bad.

declan shows up at the same pizza place where ronan is with his friends.  this scene is gansey pov.  gansey runs out to the parking lot to find the two of them Very Literally Trying To Kill Each Other.  you don’t see that violence in cdth - there’s only the TINIEST shadow of it when declan confronts ronan over matthew - so i Cannot Express Enough that someone is going to end up hospitalized at BEST. ronan’s already slammed declan’s head on the car, declan’s already grabbed ronan and beaten the shit out of his face, like.

you do not get good old-fashioned Declan Lynch At His Actual Worst in cdth. u might be thinking, THAT guy???? doing THIS????

oh yeah. things are real bad between declan and ronan.

after gansey breaks up the fight (and gets punched in the face for his trouble, albeit accidentally), declan tells ronan that their dad would be fucking ashamed to see him now & that he’s washing his hands of it & basically if ronan wants to go off and fucking die, he can.

this is like. just a couple months after the magical suicide attempt referenced in cdth

in the aftermath of that scene it becomes clear that ronan absolutely unequivocally 100% will kill himself if he has to live with declan. hence. why he’s living with gansey instead.  gansey spends that whole night petrified that the declan altercation will lead to another attempt, and for Good Reason

so like, that’s how we first meet declan. he’s an uncaring wannabe corporate asshole who does not give a fuck and who only exists to exacerbate ronan’s mental health issues.

but then the opening of book 2 gets real interesting.

book 2 is where we start learning more about the lynch family.  we learn that ronan’s father was a dreamer who sold his creations on the black market, we learn that that’s why he was murdered. we learn that ronan’s a dreamer too. we learn that there are very powerful people looking for the greywaren, an artifact that takes objects from dreams. those powerful people just don’t realize it’s a person, yet.

so here’s the assassin who killed niall lynch.

he goes to declan’s dorm.

with everything we know about declan, the kid should be completely unprepared.  he can box, but the assassin knows that, so there’s no real advantage.  he’s alone, and he doesn’t have an escape route.

declan pulls out a gun.

this is an unexpected turn of events.

unfortunately he ends up getting beaten half to death with the butt of said gun, because he loses the ensuing physical struggle for the weapon.  the assassin is like, i need the greywaren.  declan is like, i know it exists but i don’t know what it is.  i’ll find it for you.  i’ll get it to you.  then you’ll leave me the fuck alone

now with everything we know of declan at this point - his attitude toward ronan, his general demeanor, and this new knowledge that he knew about the black market - there’s one obvious question.

will declan sell ronan out if he finds out about the dreaming.

and like, okay. their relationship is antagonistic in cdth but it is NOT what it is in trc. believe me when i tell you that at that point, when you’re reading, you can pretty reasonably go, “oh, god.  oh god.  oh god please no one ever tell declan what the greywaren is.  oh god.”

declan has some other interactions with ronan and the gang throughout the book, mostly where he’s just a hardass who tells ronan to stop causing trouble.  adam’s the only one who notices that declan is scared.  like bone-deep shaking to the core petrified.  about Something.

probably getting beaten to within an inch of his life by the man who murdered his father.  that’s the reasonable reader conclusion.

so imagine how everything changes when you find out that declan already knows.  that declan’s known about ronan’s dreaming for longer than ronan has.  that declan knew exactly what and who the greywaren was, and he lied to a man who was ready to torture him for information, and he got away with it.

suddenly a lot of things recontextualize.

“keep your head down and stop making trouble”? people are gonna NOTICE your magic bullshit, ronan, we do not have time for this!

“stop hanging with that loser druggie friend of yours”? you mean the loser druggie friend who sells on the magic black market and doesn’t care about protecting himself or anyone else?

“i got super weird for no reason about ronan sleeping close to adam”? i don’t have fucking TIME to be homophobic i’m busy with your POTENTIAL TO MANIFEST NIGHT TERRORS IN FRONT OF WITNESSES IN BROAD DAYLIGHT

“i’ll find out what the greywaren is and bring it to you”? i’ll die. i’m making a bargain to die. i’m never giving you the greywaren and i know you’re going to kill me about it and that’s fine as long as my brothers are safe

ronan doesn’t know that he dreamed matthew.  declan knows.  he’s known the whole time.  declan tells ronan in book 3.  and then things recontextualize even further, because ronan’s death is also matthew’s, and matthew IS close to declan in trc.

but declan never tells the goddamn truth unless it’s his last option.  he doesn’t tell ronan that he knows about the dreaming and he doesn’t tell ronan what specifically wants to hurt him and the lack of communication fucking destroys both of them.

in the last book, ronan realizes declan loves him.

more than that, he realizes declan’s loved him the whole time.

this is when declan finally tells the truth.  things are getting bad, plot-wise, and declan is scared, so he comes clean.  he tells ronan that niall specifically tasked declan with protecting ronan from the market.  he begs ronan to run from the danger.  “let’s pour gasoline on everything dad left and start over.”

this is also when ronan realizes that declan’s childhood was very different from ronan’s own.  and that niall and aurora lynch were not the same people to declan that they were to ronan.  and that their father’s decisions are what’s driven the wedge between him and declan all this time

(he’s still struggling with the cognitive dissonance of this in cdth. i don’t think he knows how to adjust his perception of declan to fit this new information.)

aaaaand the final scene with declan makes me cry every time i read it so instead of summarizing, here’s the important part:

Ronan delivered a sharp tap to the object, and a small cloud of fiery orbs sprayed up with a sparkling hiss.

“Jesus, Ronan!” Declan jerked his chin away.

“Please. Did you think I’d blow your face off?”

He demonstrated it again, that quick tap, that burst of brilliant orbs. He tipped it into Declan’s hand, and before Declan could say anything, jabbed it to activate it once more.

Orbs gasped up into the air. For a moment, he saw how his brother was caught inside them, watching them soar furiously around his face, each gold sun firing gold and white, and when he saw the spacious longing in Declan’s face, he realized how much Declan had missed by growing up neither dreamer nor dreamt. This had never been his home. The Lynches had never tried to make it Declan’s home.

“Declan?” Ronan asked.

Declan’s face cleared. “This is the most useful thing you’ve ever dreamt. You should name it.”

“I have. ORBMASTER. All caps.”

“Technically you’re the orbmaster though, right? And that’s just an orb.”

“Anyone who holds it becomes an ORBMASTER. You’re an ORBMASTER right now. There, keep it, put it in your pocket. D.C. ORBMASTER.”

Declan reached out and scuffed Ronan’s shaved head. “You’re such a little asshole.”

The last time they’d stood on this roof together, their parents had both been alive, and the cattle in these fields had been slowly grazing, and the world had been a smaller place. That time was gone, but for once, it was all right.

The brothers both looked back over the place that had made them, and then they climbed down from the roof together.

[squash1]

THANK YOU FOR ALSO LOVING GREYWAREN that book made me go from slightly obsessed with this whole little universe to being VERY obsessed, and I suspect I'll never stop being a menace about it <3 it did THINGS to my psyche

i know u just said some favorite scenes from greywaren, but as a fellow lover of that book, I just have to know: what are some other things u really love about it?

THANK YOU FOR ASKING. FINALLY. SOMEONE ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS

declan lynch autistic child core. as a child i was exactly like child declan and it warms my heart.

jordan and declan are the best couple and if anyone tries to say they’re not u should shut up. (i love all the couples equally but i love them more).

hennessy is so fucking funny like what an icon. her hatred of pennsylvania is so special to me. i don’t even hate pennsylvania i just admire her commitment to the cause.

the thing with declan’s moth. enough said

also declan and adam bonding and (this is mister impossible but whatever) meeting up to have a Ronan Lynch Support Squad Consultation….yes.

THE MATTHEW-BRYDE DYNAMIC. “YOU ARE THE SADDEST DUDE IVE EVER MET!”

the juxtaposition of niall and ronan in the chapters at the barns. aghhhhhh. and the glimpses into niall’s past like…..i wouldn’t call it a redemption arc but the careful way he is humanized WITHOUT being redeemed. and seeing what ronan saw in him. but also what declan saw

DECLAN LYNCH GANGSTER ERA

on the seventh day the lynch brothers became friends again. BECAME FRIENDS AGAIN

but basically. if trc is a coming-of-age series where you see these kids delighting in and struggling with the magic on the edge of adulthood. the dreamer trilogy is like the loss of childhood innocence. cdth and mi are ROUGH at points. it’s much harsher feeling than trc, more heavy and sad and action-packed and suspenseful. and greywaren is like…the tentative peace you make at the end of the transition to adulthood. ronan’s finding his feet, seeing old friends, proposing. declan is settling down, letting go of his childhood wounds. it’s not an ending really but it’s where things start to be okay. and that’s how it feels. and that’s why (for all the plot holes and rushed pacing blah blah blah) it’s so. fucking. good.

AND CAN I JUST SAY. all the ppl who say that post-TRK pynch became “bad” and “toxic” and “isn’t as good as in trc” and “they shouldn’t be together anymore”……..i hate those ppl w my whole heart bc. i’m sorry, but if you read the scene in greywaren where their, like, celestial soul energies found each other in dreamspace and reconciled and apologized and forgave (in. disembodied dream soul form…whatever) and WERE WANTED THEY WERE WANTED THEY WERE WANTED and decided to love and help and heal one another and you STILL think that???? i just don’t know how to help you!!! sorry u can’t enjoy mature healthy relationships where people have gone through bad periods and so the relationship suffered for a while and then they recalibrated and decided to continue to grow together, but i’m built different :))

[robobee]

tag yourself as one of my favourite recent trc mutuals' debates . feel free to add on

ronan is antivax

Was Niall Hot? (dilfcourse)

adam has a flat ass

is BRYDE sexy (dilfcourse pt 2)

ronan thinks a polycule is just being monogamous to 5 people at once

would henessey fuck Niall lynch (dilfcourse pt 3)

ronans insane usurper monologue turning into a meme

who's the hottest milf in trc and why is it mrs gansey

declan's shoes theories .. i think they're louboutin heels personally

daily freakout over someone posting a random trc excerpt

the book2 excerpt i edited with an adansey kiss that actually fooled people

Is Henessey A Clone Fucker

who has the fattest ass in the polycule and why is it gansey

[seavoice]

top three dreamer trilogy resolutions i thought we’d get in book 2 but NEED in book 3:

1. mór and niall’s messy backstory, mór to meet one or two if not all the lynch brothers

2. hennessy’s last dream girl plot point which i hope to god is making a comeback. like we didn’t talk about that at ALL in mister impossible (I think?)

3. whatever the FUCK is up with the farooq-lane siblings. nathan has some major relevance on the current dreamer situation and i feel carmen already knows what it is even if she’s not putting the pieces together

[clotpolesonly]

tagged by @adamprrishcycle!!!

Current time: 8:41pm

Current activity: on the couch watching tv and tumbrling

Currently thinking about: how the cushion i'm on is slightly uneven and my back is gonna start hurting soon cuz i'm at an angle and i keep forgetting to do anything about it cuz i never wanna get up lol

Current favorite song: fuck if i know, it cycles by the day and i haven't listened to any music today so idk what mood i'm in 😂

Currently reading: not currently in the middle of anything, but i just finished Red White & Royal Blue, which was delightful

Currently watching: Agents of Shield

Current favorite character: i am a Declan girlie yo

Current WIPS: i don't have anything that i'm actively working on as far as, like, actual prose that will be posted, but i'm embroiled in the midst of a thorough and ongoing daydream notfic that is a Niall Lynch Lives AU, which i made a very long post about this morning cuz i have no chill aldfkjh

aaaand i tag @poetry-protest-pornography <3

[theanimalsarecalling]

When Ronan Lynch was first given voice in The Dream Thieves, I was excited. He is definitely the most interesting pov character.  By turns, he is poignant, funny and a total shit.  His dreaming is presented as a sort of cross between being a gifted child and having a chronic disease, both of which are isolating, and which both feed into the depression he regularly experiences.  He is an immensely relatable character. I think that's why so many readers take his pov at face value.

Chapter 12 in The Dream Thieves presents what, to me, is one of the most troubling scenes in the series. This is the chapter in which Ronan meets his brothers at church. Declan is obviously injured.  In chpt 2, Declan had just survived a terrible assault from the Gray Man.  As described, he had head injuries severe enough that I'm surprised Maggie didn't give him chronic migraines in addition to an incipient ulcer.  And Ronan's reaction to seeing this?

"Ronan's mood improved."

This nearly sank Ronan as a character for me.

This is his brother we are talking about. I know they don't have a particularly good relationship, and with the reveals in the Christmas story and TDT, we know it goes back farther than Niall's death or the will. But still.  Who gets happy seeing another person brutally beaten? 

Then the narrative switches to Declan's story that he was beaten up by burglars, which Ronan knows is a lie. Ronan briefly considers who could have beaten up his brother, who he knows to be a good fighter. But then he says to himself "It was like the truth was a disease Declan thought might kill him."

At this point in the story, we have been told that Declan is a liar, a calculating man-whore, who cheats on his girlfriends and trots out his brother's trauma to get laid, is bossy and controlling, and possibly homophobic and just a general asshole, all filtered through Ronan's pov. (In fairness, Declan's not perfect.  The lying, bossing and controlling are all true. He's also crabby.) But by bringing  up Declan's lying at this point, Ronan implies that Declan somehow deserved the beating because he's a general asshole.  But isn't this dangerously close to blaming the victim?

I eventually circled back around to liking Ronan.  He's still relatable.  He's also the victim of unusual circumstances, flawed parenting and his own poor choices. 

One of the central themes in The Dreamer Trilogy is coming to terms with your own self hatred.  Three of the principle characters hate themselves.  In Hennessey's and Declan's cases, this stems primarily from parental abuse and neglect.  In Ronan's case, it's a bit more complex.  I think Ronan's  is caused by three things:   

1.  The conflict between being a devout Catholic and gay man.  Personally, I think this is the least of it.  By the time you reach CDTH, he's pretty openly out, and seems to have made peace with it.  

2.  The gifted child / chronic illness thing.  These are circumstances beyond Ronan's control. And they are truly isolating for him.  The moment he realized he couldn't be with Adam at Harvard and he was stuck accepting that all of Adam's friends must think of him as a hopeless fuck-up, was truly heart wrenching. (And Declan's suggestion to Adam that he blame it all on Ronan, while practical, certainly showed some resentment on Declan's part).

3.  But the biggest reason is this. There was a very dangerous dynamic going on in the Lynch family.  Two children were favored, and one was isolated and excluded, made to work, and regularly placed in dangerous situations. Of course, Ronan only witnessed the first two.  But witnessing the abuse of a sibling can mess you up almost as much as the victim.  Ronan learned to think treating Declan this way was normal.  He accepted the narrative that Declan was somehow deficient and therefore deserved to be treated badly.  Even in CDTH, the way Ronan treats Declan is appalling.  

How do you reconcile this with the Ronan who fought Adam's father to protect him, who has such high ideals, who wants to be a hero?  Well, you can't.  In accepting the abuse Declan's received as normal and deserved, Ronan has been perpetuating it.  

For those of you who've read the other stuff I've written here, you've probably realized I keep circling back to the same place.

The biggest lie Ronan has been telling himself is that the way he treats Declan is normal and okay.  Until Ronan recognizes that he had been perpetuating his brother's abuse, and makes amends, he will never be true to his ideals, will never learn kindness, will never grow up and become a hero.  Eventually, this will affect his relationship with Adam, who has eyes and who is an abuse victim himself. 

So the only way forward is for Ronan to grow up, recognize his behavior and make amends by taking Declan's concerns seriously and treating him with kindness.

[trzee]

1) adam’s type is trees……….. 2) FAWK IDEK IT MAKES SO MUCH SENSE TO ME AND NIALL LYNCH IS SOOOO FUCKED UP 3) that one line about declan being the embodiment of people being moved by art ooooooooooh 4) adam being so humancore while ronan is literally magic

AND ADAM BEING A PSYCHIC WHO CAN FEEL THE LEY LINE WHILE RONAN CAN'T screaming crying shaking and throwing up NAUR BECAUSE WHEN I READ THAT IT MADE ME GO INSANE AS FUCK u have no idea how many things went through my mind i also want to drop an anvil on bryde Die old blond bitch BUT ALSO the connection between ronan the forests and adam like................ What if i ****** myself

maggie stiefvater you're not allowed to disappoint me I also think it's pretty neat that ronan fell in love w adam being That

[doughfaceddcpig]

A comprehensive list of al the clones in the Dreamer Trilogy thus far:

1 . Jordan and Hennessy- the hottest clones. And yes, there were 6+ of them, but sadly, they won’t be relevant to the story. Jordan is a dreamt clone Hennessy but that’s were the clonery ends... they’re personalities alone are so different that to say that Jordan is merely a copy-paste of Jordan is wholly inaccurate

2. Mór Ó Córra and Aurora- yeah.. EASILY the most fucked up clone pairing (so far!)...from what we can gather, Niall had a beautiful baby boy with Mór, she realized Niall was kind of a creepy loser, and took off (sorry Declan). Niall then dreamt Aurora Lynch, who was so identical to Mór that Ronan was convinced it was her. (I’m pretty sure her the fact that Niall fucked Aurora- a body double of Mór- constitutes some form of sexual assault.) Like Jordan/Hennessy, are similar in appearance, but nothing else. There are also some possible differences given the fact that Mòr didn’t dream this clone herself, her ex-hubby did..

3. Niall and Ronan- The most textbook clones we have in the series. Because Niall made Ronan with Aurora, and Aurora (like all dreams) doesn’t have any DNA, Ronan got all of Niall’s 46 chromosomes, completely intact. Ronan isn’t just a clone of Niall because he looks exactly like him (a point brought up MULTIPLE times), Ronan is a clone in that he is genetically identical to him.

4. Niall and the New Fenian- Again, a dreamt clone, much like Aurora/Mór. It’s likely that Mór dreamt this copy of Niall (who actually loves and appreciates Declan like a parent), but WHY, I have no fucking clue. Also, for whatever reason, he’s the same age that Ronan currently is? So a young copy of Niall Lynch dreamt by Mór, that exists for God only knows why,

5. Ronan and the New Fenian- both are clones of Niall, so by extension, are clones of eachother.

TLDR; there are a fuckton of clones in this goddamn series so it should have been named the Clonan Cycle instead of the Dream Trilogy

[nialltlynch]

22 and 14 for the ask!

14. Unpopular opinion about your fandom?

mister impossible is succulent as fuck. no i haven't reread it since may. yes im obsessed with it.

niall lynch did absolutely nothing wrong

ronan/hennessy is a god tier pairing

pynch breaking up forever would be extremely delicious

the raven king is fun and good (my top 3 for the series for sure. sometimes even a fave)

noah/blue is meh in a vacuumn (delightful with the addition of gansey, but thats not an unpopular opinion)

the adam parrish you* adore doesn't exist on the page 

multishippers do not diminish the potency and effectiveness of canon pynch

adansey is more compelling than pynch

22. Popular character you hate?

i will eventually think of a character i hate alskdjdhd 

*not you personally but those who adore adam parrish in a certain way