#like it's such a tense scene for adam and gansey

[flogisto]

gansey fighting with adam and talking about how ronan hadn't stolen his car while ronan is not only quite literally stealing his car at that exact moment but crashing it too will never not be funny

[friendofcars]

the cars in the raven cycle and the dreamer trilogy are metaphors for/extensions of the people who drive them (especially in terms of interpersonal relationships and perceptions)- and so is adam’s bicycle. (*warning for brief mentions of abuse in later paragraphs*). adam gets around henrietta on a bicycle because it’s the only form of transportation he can afford, and we know he’s ashamed of this (his narration describes the bike as “somewhat pathetic”). adam's bicycle is present in pivotal scenes: in one of his chapters, he recalls the first time he talked to gansey, and the visceral fear and embarrassment evoked by seeing his bike next to the exuberant camaro (and the awkward fitting of the bike into the camaro’s trunk)- but also their nearly instant friendship once adam accepts a ride to aglionby after helping gansey repair the camaro.

but when adam talks to blue for the first time (described from blue’s pov), they both have their bikes; adam’s is one of several details that endear him to blue, along with his frayed sweater, quiet demeanor, and accent- all of which let blue know that adam doesn’t fit her assumption that all aglionby boys are affluent and arrogant. she notices that adam’s bike is “dolefully squeaking,” which i’m taking to be an oblique reference to a squeaky wheel, or something/someone neglected/in need of care. and when ronan (wakefully) sees adam for the first time (in a flashback in cdth), adam and his bike are going uphill while gansey and ronan ride in the camaro. he refers to adam simply as “the boy with the bicycle." adam, inclusive of the bike, is immediately attractive to ronan, which is a stark contrast to adam’s perception of his bike (and, thus, himself). adam is ashamed of himself, but blue relates to him, and both she and ronan see him as desirable (with the bicycle present!).

in trb chapter 20, adam is trying to get his bike to stand up in the monmouth parking lot, but the kickstand is broken (emblematic of the familial love and support that he lacks/his abusive parents have destabilized him). he then tries to remove the kickstand without breaking it (adam is trying to extricate himself from henrietta without hurting himself or others in the process/ he’s living tensely and precariously. in tdt, he becomes more likely to snap under stress. ronan recognizes adam’s fragility, of being about to break; adam’s spirit breaking is one of gansey’s worst fears). and even if adam could remove the kickstand, a bike without a kickstand (a boy without a family or friends) cannot balance unless it’s in motion (a miracle of moving parts, maybe)- but perpetual motion is impossible, so adam is destined to crash without external support. in this scene, he could lean the bike against monmouth, but he’s not yet ready to accept help or gifts. a bike can only seat an army of one, unlike gansey and ronan’s cars. with the bike, symbolically, there's no risk of codependency or humiliation, but there’s also inevitable isolation and pathological independence. (thank you alli @whoreshoecrab for helping me organize my thoughts re: the kickstand!)

in the same chapter, adam muses that ronan doesn’t need physics/isn’t held back by the mortal, mundane, material restrictions adam has to work around. adam's not serious (and doesn’t know that ronan actually does defy physics when dreaming), but if ronan can waste his time idly and metaphorically use his privilege to launch his bmw through the sky to the moon, adam must drudgingly bike along the ground; he must manage his time diligently and strategically; he must deal with the physical failures of his bike and the kickstand with human amounts of force. this sets up adam’s core frustration with ronan and ronan’s apparent freedom, but this envy gets deconstructed as he spends more time alone with ronan, particularly in bllb.

there's probably a lot to say about the hondayota (and when adam drives alone vs. when he drives blue and noah to the national park and has his awakening, to which his realizations about connectivity and connectedness are crucial), but i'll skip ahead to cdth when adam has a motorcycle instead of a bicycle. the motorcycle reveals some growth (he’s accepted a gift from ronan, he’s healed to the point where he can choose when to leave and return to virginia, ronan says adam has always wanted a motorbike instead of a car, perhaps [metaphorically] because it’s still an independent way to travel but isn’t reliant on sheer physical labor), but also reveals that his life is still unbalanced and marked by the upkeep of a confident façade (he dumps the motorcycle when he slows down/he still falters when he can’t throw himself into a perpetual state of work). he's still adam, always moving and looking at the roads ahead of him, and he's still struggling to reconcile his past with his present without living inauthentically, but he’s no longer balancing his life alone.

[adamprrishcycle]

Okay, you want to talk Ronsey, you better buckle up! (This is going to be long, sorry!)

As the formerly known TRK Anon, I can confidently say that trc is still somewhat fresh in my mind, so I have lots of examples to support my argument. Now, given that I have only read the series once, my character analysis might not be as deep or intense as yours.

If you don't know already, I am a huge Gansey lover/supporter/follower/fan/worshiper/bitch. (Will Patton’s rendition of Gansey drives me absolutely feral!!!!) I have loved him since the very first time we know about his existence (Which is page 15 of TRB). If Gansey is part of the equation, I ship it! Bluesey, Ronsey, Declansey, Adansey, HELL…even Chengsey (I could care less about Henry, so the fact that I acknowledge this ship is a big gesture on my part) I just want to make it clear that I am not an Adansey hater, it's just not my kind of jam (*shrugs*)

I know that what Gansey means to me, Adam is to you. But Adam was tough for me. Like REAL TOUGH to discern. It was not until halfway through TRK (practically when Pynch becomes canon) that I was finally able to appreciate him, to see him eye to eye and say: You ARE knowable. I will give it to Adam, he has the best, most memorable, character growth/development in the entire series (Ronan being a close second). But his stubbornness during TRB/TDT was so unbearable to me. He was such a DICK to Gansey. And yes, there were instances when Gansey deserved it (like the hospital scene) but most of their interactions (at the beginning of the series) are somewhat tense. They are constantly walking on eggshells, afraid to trigger/offend/provoke the other. There are MULTIPLE references to them fighting pre-canon, mostly about money, occasionally about who owns who. The whole DC trip was so stressful for all parties involved. In fact, Adam was so unapproachable that Gansey and Blue kept their relationship a secret because of how difficult he had been back then. (Honestly, I think he would have unalive them both) Plus, he is a hypocrite (I guess we all are) because when the rent thing happens, he goes to Gansey first and throws a fit about it!! But when he finds out that Ronan actually paid his rent, he is “cool” about it. He doesn’t argue with him. He doesn’t feel offended. He just accepts it (it being both the money and the fact). The one thing that really upsets me is Adam wanting the favor for himself. I understand why he wants it, but he knows it is Gansey’s life purpose to find Glendower. It feels like a betrayal, you know? I just cannot stand people being mean to Gansey, it triggers me!!!!

And yes, I get it, there are some good moments between them. Like the call with Mallory when Gansey is trying to make Adam laugh. Or Adam fixing/diagnosing the pig. Or the two of them being ushers on Raven Day. But these moments are so…normal (mundane?) that they don’t feel special.

To me, Adansey is a somewhat “toxic” ship. It is a one-sided relationship, because Gansey gives and gives and Adam refuses to take. Adam practically (and literally) loathes? abhors? despises? everything that Gansey stands for (money, friendship, status, family, you get the gist). How can you possibly love someone that is the poster child of everything you hate?! I think Adansey would be the perfect ship for enemies to friends to lovers.

But Ronsey, oh my dear Ronsey!!!! To me, Ronsey is all about Gansey and Ronan meeting before Niall’s death. The way Gansey describes Ronan before his father’s death is so intoxicating. Gansey mourning the joyful boy that Ronan used to be. Gansey getting emotional over Ronan’s laugh. Gansey being completely and utterly amazed by Ronan’s dream creations (“You incredible creature”). Ronan being unconditionally devoted to Gansey. Ronan being devastated that Gansey has other friends; that Gansey is going to DC with Adam and not him. Ronan and Gansey. Gansey and Ronan. Maybe I am not making any sense right now because my brain convulses just thinking about these two.

They have been through it all. God, there are so many moments pre-canon that I wish we could get to experience. Can you imagine Gansey panicking at the hospital with Ronan’s blood in his hands? Can you imagine Ronan teaching Gansey how to punch?! I can’t remember if canon ever confirms how Gansey acquired his journal, but can you imagine if Ronan bought it for him!?!?!

@singersargentboi said it best: “The thing I love about Ronsey is that even in the books theres this sort of unhinged devotion between them that toes the line at being romantic/sexual.” Let’s unpack this together. Exhibit A) Kavinsky’s substance party. O.M.G. Gansey being such a deranged version of himself that even Ronan cannot stop smiling about it. (“What is it my dog needs?” JUST KILL ME ALREADY) Exhibit B) Ronan dreaming the keys to the Camaro in such a steamy delicate way that I am pretty sure he woke up with a tent in his pants. Exhibit C) Gansey bribing a full-grown adult for Ronan. Exhibit D) Gansey constantly scolding/disciplining/bossing Ronan and somehow stopping the Lynch brothers from killing each other. Exhibit E) Ronan going back home against his dad’s wishes, but still turns to Gansey for comfort (“Can I go and see mom?”) And if all of this does not convince you, I’ll leave you with this: “Gansey was far more of a brother to Ronan than Declan had ever been.”

However, I come to you with a peace offering, a secret third option: RODANSEY. Throughout the series it is constantly noted that 3 is the perfect number for magic ;)

THANK YOU FOR SPILLING YOUR THOUGHTS INTO MY ASK BOX 😍 this is delish and wow a HOT TAKE (to me, a simple woman who will live and die on the hill of adam parrish 🫶) although I understand your grievances from a protect-gansey-at-all-costs point of view! I think you’re right about them having the potential to be a toxic ship because of how much they fight. What’s funny to me is how it seems like they don’t understand each other… yet there’s at least 3 times in TRB alone where they communicate just by looking at each other which is amazing considering from what we know they have only been friends a few years but they’re that close and on that exact same level together. But then… they’re not. I think Adam has just had to rely on himself for so long that he can’t reprogram his brain to think differently, and gansey has had loving parents and a good sibling relationship and intense friendships therefore he can’t even begin to understand adam. They’re on diff planets right? They can’t relate to each other in any way shape or form. But then…. love comes along and makes it work??!??! This is why I’m an adansey girl.

BUT everything you said about ronsey…. That ferocious love I will never ever be over it ever 🥹 unhinged devotion is exactly right. And we all know the when I’m gone dream me the world quote but FOR ME it’s “he couldn’t say it, though. There were a thousand reasons why he couldn’t say it” like???? We were just supposed to move on from that? I can’t I wont.

(side note cuz I gotta defend my boy declan and say he is the best brother ever and I will not expand at this time bc spoilers but the dreamer trilogy will)

Rodansey…… now you’re talking my language. Truce? 🤝 thank u for this ask it’s made my day xx

[of-stars-and-moon]

So far but so close

Happy Birthday again @catboyadamparrish !! Here's a little surprise because I wanted to write something to make you smile and hopefully laugh too so here's almost 3k words of pining 😌

Also one scene is partly inspired by this gorgeous fanart from @catbishonen

Ship: Pynch

Word count: 3k

Summary: Five times Ronan tries to count Adam's freckles and one time he does.

---

When Ronan had been young- maybe eight or nine- he and Declan had sat outside on the porch stairs and tried to count the stars. Declan had told him that he read somewhere that it’s impossible to count all the stars and they wanted to try and prove it wrong because they thought it was bullshit- they were idiot kids like that.

They had stayed there for almost an hour before they had grown too tired. Ronan had complained to Declan that it was so hard because the stars were too far; if they had been closer like the cows in the fields, they could have counted them. Declan had let him know how stupid he thought that was by pointing out that there hardly twenty or thirty cows while the stars were in billions. Ronan hadn't known how much that was so he hadn't replied.

Now, he sat a few seats behind Adam in Latin, watching the freckles on the back of his neck, and he wondered if they could be counted or if they were infinite too. This time, it wasn't childish naivety, but something else curdling deep in his gut that he wasn't going to name.

At first, Adam was just the new quiet student that became the one redeeming quality of school. Ronan would sneak glances at him in the classes they shared. He would see him pass by in the halls, with his eyes resolutely not catching anyone’s.

Then one fateful day, Gansey came to Monmouth with the glint in his eyes similar to when he would talk of Glendower and introduced him as Adam Parrish. Ronan already knew that, just like he knew that Adam fiddled with his hands sometimes, or that he bit his thumbnail during tests, or that before raising his hand to answer something, he would do this thing where he would keep his arm already on the table and tense his shoulders like some fucking cowboy shit where he had to attack with the answers- it definitely wasn't endearing.

Keep reading

[girl4pay]

This might be a big question but what would be the ideal way for the raven king to have ended in ur opinion. Bc it doesn’t make sense as is and thematically falls apart I feel but I can never quite figure out what the actually most narratively satisfying thing would be

lets get married. okay keeping in mind i haven't read the series in full in a couple years my core issues with trk are: i think gwenllian was criminally misused, i think adding in laumonier and blue's dad made very little sense and i think doing the gansey noah and cabeswater deaths back to back the way they were was a terrible way to handle a climax. you don't need blue's dad and you don't need laumonier. too many random new parents and men who are absolutely vestigal. gwenllian should be blue's mentor, you focus the piper plotline completely on a professional antagonism between her and henry's mom who can act as the antithesis to piper's greed and recklessness. the grey man is the reader's familiar link between Crime and Magic here, so you can still have him face the challenge of his old life threatening his new life by having to forge an alliance with seondeok to take down a shared threat. 

gwenllian as blue's mentor would come with a similar but almost opposite effect to persephone's mentorship on adam: blue isn't getting stranger, she's getting angrier. this witch who knows what she is keeps getting mayo in her hair and her teachers don't understand her and her family is being evasive and the boy she loves is going to die. also a demon is clouding her perspective, but she doesn't really know that yet. more adam and blue scheming to keep gansey alive. more research and bugging relatives and desperately looking into rituals while it becomes clearer to the reader that adam is losing his agency and blue is losing her clearsightedness. gansey's panic attacks begin to attune themselves to the moments where noah is not himself as well. his chest hurts, he can't breathe - it feels like something is sucking away at his heart. at the same time adam is still trying to help ronan with waking up the dreams, and blue is getting closer to gansey and henry, trying to imagine a future that feels like her own when she has the weights of her confused identity and her fate hanging around her neck. 

i would have ronan and gansey's relationship blow up here: between the hospital and aurora's death, maybe after his birthday party, ronan finds out - probably through declan, to add insult to injury and even more fucked up brother resentment - that gansey is trying to buy him a diploma. actually definitely just after the night of truth bullshit for prime outrageousness lmao. it goes nuclear. blue is, catastrophically to gansey, on ronan's side. adam is, infuriatingly to everyone, judgmentally neutral. things progress as they were except instead of henry getting kidnapped we get a very reluctant henry passing a message to tgm - things have progressed past the point that is acceptable with piper, and his mother wants to meet. also the visit with gansey's family is tense - they love her and henry, and they just can't understand what's gotten into gansey, who's distracted and snappy, and when helen confronts him, he blows up at her, saying a lot more about his worry for ronan and his fear about what will happen to him than was revealed in the initial fight. they're siblings, their relationship can handle it, but there's still an overarching sense that she doesn't really understand, because gansey is still holding his real fear of dying close to his chest. 

cut to auroras death and the grey man having to leave maura with this tragedy to join seondeok - a king, joining a king, doing what needs doing, instead of just a continued trope about being made for violence or whatever that was. there scene with ronan at the bmw goes more or less the same. gansey goes off on his own because he feels isolated and like the burden of fixing all this lies on his shoulders, gwenllians weird witch pep talk goes to blue instead. here is where you would insert cool fun shit about what being a mirror actually means! all of them reunite as in canon, ronan and gansey reconcile after ronan is like you dumb motherfucker i need you here you're my brother and gansey says some self sacrificing shit and blue and adam make it clear without Making It Clear they are going to stand by him, because they still don't know he knows he's going to die. 

here is where we reach the core difficulty: i think the death kiss is incredibly stupid and i don't know how i would write around it. i know how i would finish trk from here, but the kiss curse would not show up at all. i like the kiss curse as a concept but it just doesn't make any sense in the narrative of agency trc constructs and i think it limit's blue's storyline. so without considering the kiss curse: as the demon hijacks adam and tries to use blue as an amplifier to spread to other ley lines, everyone realizes the stakes. everything cabeswater has touched, everything the ley line has touched is at risk, and the ley lines are ALL CONNECTED. blue and adam have been skirting around the realization that the demon and cabeswater are like mirrors the whole book. you can't have one without the other. there is no corruption without something to corrupt. the way cabeswater focuses the ley line for ronan is how the demon has been getting power too, but it's a self contained loop, consumption instead of guidance. kill cabeswater, kill the demon. gansey asks it, realizing in a way they others don’t seem to that he and cabeswater are linked, and the others act. there's a little giving tree moment between ronan and cabeswater, which will surely not contribute to any farreaching survivors guilt that might show up in a sequel series. here is where blue being a mirror comes into play. when neeve was trying to see farther than she could, she used a mirror and it sent her there. the demon is trying to consume beyond it's bounds. a mirror sends it inwards. here blue sees the moment of violence that birthed the demon, and she's terrified and it's tragic. it's a very bildungsroman moment of grief and terror of what will come after for everyone. death of the child birth of the man etc. noah, perpetual child, gets laid to rest with cabeswater, but without cabeswater the ley line floods. here is where gansey dies: without noah fighting his hardest to keep him going, because noah loved him, because cabeswater needed him, his heart simply stops. here is where blue kisses him, because it doesn't matter any more, because he dies even though she didn't, because she's seeing without the demon clouding her for the first time in what feels like the longest time and all she can see is grief. shit gets magically weird with adam and ronan too, and it's henry who grounds them all, who is used to enforcing practicality on the unknown to keep himself safe. with his help the three of them dream something to save gansey. ta da! 

i feel like this would also feed much better into the theme of the dreamer trilogy of like opening ley lines etc bcus trk completely glosses over what happens to the ley line without cabeswater there, and adds to it making sense that ronan thinks opening the ley lines is a good idea - he saved gansey with it! what more could he do! whereas adam felt overwhelmed and out of control and spends the next year trying to construct and repair his own real life conduits and safeguards on the ley line as ronan builds lindenmere. what are your thoughts did i miss anything that you were like absolutely not hate that need it to be gone

[reputayswift]

The Dreamer Trilogy Predictions

Ronan revealed to be genetically a Niall clone/copy

The “Declan” whose POV we’re in is a copy of a realer Declan

Declan tries to catch up with 21 years of Not Really Living and goes fully unhinged

Adam’s past exposed to the Crying Club

Adam almost or actually kicked out of Harvard

Sarchensey returns during a very tense scene unaware that it is tense, Gansey says something accidentally offensive

Declan wears novelty socks under his personality shoes because it’s the only fun gift Matthew can get him that won’t shatter his image

Declan has secret powers that’ve been nerfed by his antacid tablets

Matthew dream death

Deadclan

In the unlikely event Declan does not die, he retires from his life of crime-adjacent activities and becomes a really captivating museum tour guide

Declan’s funeral is an absolute rager

Bryde Bad

In the finale Bryde tries getting Ronan to create an apocalyptic monster and he spites him by dreaming up a giant benevolent tomato-feeding Adam like Gingy from Shrek 2

[parakeatswrites]

For the writer’s alphabet soup: H, P, T, X?

Thank you! 😊 these were really great questions!

H - How would you describe your style?

Great! Question! I am endlessly curious what readers feel about my style, but I’m not actually sure how to describe it because I don’t really think about it much while writing.

I’m never intentional about capital-S Style. Don't get me wrong, a lot of my word choice is very intentional! I try to write down exactly what I mean (or what the POV character THINKS they mean haha). But I’m not sure if my writing comes across as flowery / practical / over descriptive / under descriptive etc etc

I usually write 3rd person limited omniscient in past tense. I like how this forces the narration to be ‘locked’ to one character for a scene & create some dramatic irony between what the reader might have learned from a different character. (Absolutely one of my favourite features of the writing in TRC.) But 3rd person gives me a bit more wiggle room in word choice / voice than 1st person would allow.

Anyone is free to tell me what adjectives describe my writing style though haha I’m a bit curiously narcissistic

P - As a writer, are you an ‘architect’ or a ‘gardener’?

So I had to look this up, and I’m more familiar with the ‘planner vs pantser’ writing style dichotomy. I don’t uh. Keep Up with Mr Martin. BUT that aside, I’m firmly in the pantsing camp. Sure, I’ll start out with a direction and general set of goals, but writing is a discovery process for me (and I rely heavily on ‘zero drafting’). I never know what the final scene of a story is going to be, only the general area that I want the characters’ arcs to end up in.

I definitely write myself into corners (especially if I have already posted part of the fic), and this is probably also why I don’t like writing endings very much. All the fun, for me, is in the discovery - very literally the Act Two “fun & games” stage. That is very clear in my published fics, I think haha

T - Any fandom tropes you can’t stand?

I had to think about this for a long time! I am lucky enough to have a pretty relaxed relationship with fandom/canon and a generally good fandom experience. I’ve just been around too long to get annoyed by tropes / headcanons I think. (I’m boring, sorry lol)

Generally I'm not down with the weird pitfalls like bashing a female character bc she gets in the way of a 'ship', or having one male character be into another male character but rationalize it as being "just gay for him" (e.g., if Adam was like "i'm just ronansexual") I don't see a lot of that in the trc fandom which is a relief. Are those tropes? Haha They just seem like a staple old school of m|m fandom spaces.

X - A character you enjoy making suffer.

Hehehehehehehehe

Gansey💕

Jk jk I will enjoy pretty much any character suffering so long as it’s for a purpose. Mostly I’ll write a character Going Through It because I’m interested in exploring whatever that difficulty is and imagining ways of working through it. It's kind of a processing exercise.

[[send me a letter?]]

[thereisonlyoneoption]

Maggie Stiefvater~Rant YA edition pt.2

I know, I know that I had to make a part about world-building but I’m pissed, I failed my exam I am at my friend house and it’s Fourth of July so I must do this.

Joseph Kavinsky.

First of all I don’t condemn his actions and yes, you can like a character but don’t agree with their actions.

My journey with The Dream Thieves was rocky, like really rocky. It was worse than The Raven Boys, I felt psychical pain while reading this one but there was only one good thing that help get through it AND IT WAS KAVINSKY.

From the first scene I liked him, I was intrigued by him and I was curious why Gangsey hates him so much. I mean what M*ggie give us are just rumours, that's when I asked myself “Why such a hate? What did he do to them?”.

And then the yo mama jokes, priceless by the way. Okay, maybe my sense humour sucks but let me tell you in polish translation “twoja stara” is golden I laughed for several minutes.

But the thing went down pretty quickly, like my face went from a happy to grim in a second and stayed that way while reading this, just to cry at the end. After that it was just anger and to this day I’m angry at M*ggie for what she did.

Lets start from beginning.

1. Kavinsky-Description

The first time we see Kavinsky it’s in the chapter 3 where we got rumours about him:

“Of course it was Joseph Kavinsky, fellow Aglionby Academy student and Henrietta’s most notorious recreational forger. Kavinsky’s infamous Mitsubishi Evo was a thing of boyish beauty, moon-white with a voracious black mouth of a grille and an immense splattered graphic of a knife on either side of the body. The Mitsubishi had just been released from a month-long stint in the police impound. The judge had told him that if he was caught racing again, they’d crush the Mitsubishi and make him watch, like they did to the rich punks’ street racers out in California. Rumor had it Kavinsky had laughed and told the judge he’d never get pulled over again. He probably wouldn’t. Rumor had it Kavinsky’s father had bought off Henrietta’s sheriff. To celebrate the Mitsubishi’s release from impound, Kavinsky had just put three coats of anti-laser paint on the headlights and bought himself a new radar detector.“

Right from the bat, characters expressed disdain of him:

“I hate that prick,” Adam said.

Then we get the “description” of him: white sunglasses, golden chain, which already is kinda lacking but then we get the infamous “refugee face”

“He had a refugee’s face, hollow-eyed and innocent.“

Okay okay, so like it wasn't already offensive, we learn later that he’s Bulgarian and as a person also from Slavic group, this description just looks bad and leaves bad taste in my mouth, because I'm fed up with Americans view of Slavs like we are all simple people, still in communist era somewhere in the Europe, who came to America to steal low income jobs.

On the other hand, how does “refugee face” looks like? Yeah, we get the line “hollow-eyed and innocent“ but it still feels offensive to Slavic group.

Luckily, in my translation it was changed to “runaway’s face” which holds the same idea but it isn't offensive and fits Kavinsky’s character better.

“There was nothing about Kavinsky that wasn’t despicable”

Just... ugh why they hate him so much, I asked myself back then but I didn't know that from this point, all went down hill.

“He was unmistakable: the sort of raven boy who was clearly an import from elsewhere.“

Okay first of all, you can import things, not actual people Blue. Second of all, combining this with “refugee face” it made me so angry like M*ggie, why can’t you describe Kavinsky normally without possibly offending half of Europe. He is human, not your new brand German car.

After that we get the rest of description “Like many of the other raven boys, he sported massive sunglasses, spiked hair, a small earring, a chain around his neck, and a white tank top.“ and that’s it. It’s all we get. There might be some things missing, like hair colour but we can forgive that.

2. Backstory

In M*ggie’s now deleted tumblr, she once wrote:

"Kavinsky has a very logical backstory that leads him to this place.”

And what did we know about Kavinsky? Practically, nothing. He’s a son of a Bulgarian mobster from New Jersey, he’s rumoured to kill his father, he’s mother is a drug-addict, he’s rich, Prokopenko is his favourite forgery and he got away with replacing him and possibly his dad. It gives the idea to what shaped him as a person but it doesn’t explained everything, like if he killed his dad, why wasn’t it? How did it ended up with him replacing Prokopenko? Why he is his favourite forgery?

But okay M*ggie say what you want but I and my friend made better backstory for him in ten minutes (like it wasn’t hard really).

3. ”We matter”

“Closing his eyes, Gansey leaned his head back on his seat, chin tilted up, throat green in the dash lights. There was still an unsafe sort of smile about his mouth — what a torment the possibility in that smile was — and he said, “There was never a time when that could’ve been you and me. You know the difference between us and Kavinsky? We matter.“

That said Gansey, the character we are supposed to like, about the kid who is not only his age but also drug addicted and possibly abused. I was furious at him for saying that because who k*rwa he is to say things like that. Is he some frigging higher being to judge someone like that?

And he was smiling while saying that? What an.. and nobody called him out on that?! It only gives the reader the idea that people like Kavinsky don’t matter and to those who relate to him that they don’t matter.

And Blue, who again made me want to throw my phone, later in the book asked  literal a hitman, who offered to go to “talk” with him to “make him feel worthless” while doing it.

It’s the next example when I felt the main characters are lacking a basic human empathy, like again he is just a kid not “H*tler” like Ronan compare him to.

4. That scene

That f*king scene, we all know about.”R*pe of Ronan” as stans like to call it.

I heard the reaction of the fans to this scene even before reading this books. Of course, I was anticipating this scene and when it came:

“After a moment, he heard the hood groan as Kavinsky leaned over him. Then he felt the ridged callus of a finger drag slowly over the skin on his back. A slow arc between his shoulder blades, drawing the pattern of his tattoo. Then sliding down his spine, tensing every muscle it moved over.

But when his eyes slitted, battling sleep, Kavinsky was just doing another line of coke off the roof, body stretched over the windshield. He might have imagined it. What was real?“

I was baffled, because its bad but its nothing like fans making to be. All Kavinsky does is drag his finger on Ronan’s back tattoo, while he is falling asleep but afterwards Ronan said he doesn’t know, if it was even real, so the reader can’t tell if it was. Somebody would argue, that is a molestation but once again, we don’t know if it was real. Maybe if we got K’s PoV we could get information about this situation but now we are left in the dark what really happened that night.

And then, there is “Consent is overrated” scene

This is one of the main argument of stans preaching that K is a r*pist. Yes, that sounds horrible, we don’t have to argue about that but people missed the context of situation in which it was said.

“Ronan replied, “Not such a thief tonight.”

“Some nights,” Kavinsky said, all teeth, “you just take it. Consent is overrated.”“

Ronan and Kavinsky are referring to pulling things out of dreams and how Kavinsky is doing it aka not asking permission to take them out, unlike Ronan. But without this context, the world “consent” is mainly associated with one thing. You know what...

The bottom line is that, if we got K’s PoV, it would shine a light on his intentions and motivations to say and possibly do all of this. We can only thanks the author for that.

5. Relationship with Ronan Lynch

Maybe that will sound scandalous but I don’t think Kavinsky loved Ronan. All of their interaction seem more like obsession to me and after the dreaming of Camaro, it seem desperate.

At the beginning, after main characters expressed disdain of K, only Ronan thought something different:

“Ronan knew he ought to hate him, too.“

And I thought “Okay maybe Ronan know more about him than the rest” but as the chapters went, I wanted the end of it all.

It was toxic. I know, I know but I was hoping for a least little glimpses of possible friendship. Instead of that, I got throwing over cars, punching and exploitation between them. With Kavinsky saving Ronan from the night horror (which fans forget about in their rants how bad K is) and helping Ronan dreaming a new Camaro, I expect at least some decency? gratefulness?? at Ronan side, because nobody forced Kavinsky to do this but when Ronan got what he wanted he just peace out?! Like Kavinsky was doing all of this as a favour?

“He rolled down the window. “I’m going.” For a moment, Kavinsky’s face was perfectly blank, and then Kavinsky flickered back onto it. He said, “You’re shitting me.” “I’ll send flowers.” Ronan revved the engine. Exhaust and dust swirled in a wild torment behind the Camaro. It coughed at twenty-eight-hundred rpm. Just like the Pig. Everything was back the way it was. “Running back to your master?” “This was fun,” Ronan said. “Time for big-boy games now, though.”

And

““I never lie,” Ronan said. He frowned disbelievingly. This felt like a more bizarre scenario than anything that had happened to this point. “Wait. You thought — it was never gonna be you and me. Is that what you thought?”“

And what was Kavinsky’s reaction after he was “used” by Ronan without even a thank you?

“Kavinsky made a gun of his thumb and finger and put it to Ronan’s temple. “Bang,” he said softly, withdrawing the fake gun. “See you on the streets.”“

Not anger but disbelief about what just happened and then the “he said softly“ just seems sad to me. He got used by the man he, de facto, wanted to befriend. He for sure felt cheated and used but the next thing what he does seems just OOC for me. He kidnapped Matthew, Ronan’s younger brother, to force him to come to the Fourth of July party. Before it looked like he wanted Ronan just to have a fun but after the Camaro something broke in him. But once again, it only my interpretation, because K is the only TRC antagonist that doesn’t get PoV, so I can wonder, what was going on in his head.

I’m tired of this, because most of the things could be explained, if we got his PoV, because without it his actions seems random.

After the text “bring something fun to fourth of july or we’ll see which pill works the best on your brother“, Ronan called K demanding where is Matthew and K responded:

“Ronan demanded, “Where is he?” “You know, I asked nice the first few times. Are you coming to Fourth? Are you coming? Are you coming? Here, have a motherfucking car. Are you coming? You made it ugly. Bring something impressive tonight.”“

It doesn’t sounds that evil to me more like desperate (repetition of “are you coming”) and hurting (”you made it ugly”). It made me feel more curious about what was going in his head and what lead him to kidnapping more than being angry at him for kidnapping Matthew.

Kavinsky was looking someone like Ronan, to share problems and to destroy themselves together. And Ronan was the closest thing to it, dreamer and all. He was looking for connection but in the end, Ronan didn’t want anything to do with him and that ended in tragedy.

6. Fourth of July

Ah yes, the main reason why I’m writing this post. We know how this goes. Gangsey arrives at party. Ronan demands where is his brother. Ronan follow K into a dream.

"Kavinsky laughed the word. "Reality! Reality's what other people dream for you."

"Reality's where other people are," Ronan replied. He stretched out his arms. "What's here, K? Nothing! No one!"

"Just us."

There was a heavy understanding in that statement, amplified by the dream. I know what you are, Kavinsky had said. "That's not enough," Ronan replied."

One again K got rejected and it was told to him he "wasn't enough" Okay, Ronan doesn't own him anything but what happened next is more fucked up

Kavinsky dreams fire dragon, Ronan night horror. They fight. Gangsey search for Matthew.

Ronan demands K to tell him where is Matthew and K just said “He’s all yours! You missed my point, man. All I wanted was this —”“ while gesturing at their creations and ONCE AGAIN I REPEAT ONCE AGAIN we are not sure what K meant: dreaming together? fighting? One chapter from his PoV couldn’t hurt Maggie you know?

Matthew got rescued, Ronan shielded him from upcoming dragon then this:

"He shouted to Kavinsky, ”Get down!”

But Kavinsky didn’t look away from the creatures. He said,”The world’s a nightmare”.

Ronan once again shouted to him but Kavinsky didn’t answered and let the dragon to kill him.

“A second later, the fire dragon exploded into Kavinsky. It went straight through him, around him, flame around an object. Kavinsky fell. Not as if he was struck, though. Just like when he’d taken the green pill. He crumpled to his knees and then slumped gracelessly off the car.“

And we know K is dead, because both the dragon and Prokopenko fall asleep.

And that’s all and what was all for? Because they thought he was draining the ley lines (but Adam fixing the lines seems to do the trick) and because Ronan didn't want to come to Fourth of July. After that comes nothing. No reaction from the cast and the dream pack who supposedly were his friends (In later book Jiang talks to Ronan like nothing happened) there is no funeral of which we know and the town is silent. Like K never existed.

What kind of message this sends to a reader? That if you are like Kavinsky in any way nobody will mind if you are gone. You are not even worthless to remember. On one podcast M*ggie said she don’t want to be educational in her books and that’s f*cked up because she is writing YA, young people who are easily influenced and after reading how K is treated the majority will close the book with belief that people like K don’t deserve help and they are goners not worthy of redemption.

While in the same book Gray Man, adult hitman who killed people on pages, was hunting down Ronan, relieved to be murderer behind a Niall's death, beat up and threaten Declan with a gun to tell him where the Greywaren was not only forgiven by everyone (including Ronan) but got redemption arc and love interest. Let me repeat adult man, literal a hitman gets redemption arc but not mentally ill kid. Okay Margaret what the f*ck was that. Where is the logic, where is the lamb sauce?! Does she knows how her writing can influence young people? And it seems most of the fans agree with her.  

Conclusion

Joseph Kavinsky was handled terribly through the whole book. With main cast hating him from the get-go. Narration that tried to make him the great evil (with some fans of TRC calling him the worst villain) and after the book got published the fans and the author themself further demonised him, 17 year old boy with a drug addiction, mental illness and with possible history of abuse.

I can only shake my head every time, I see someone calling him the devil. What Kavisnky needed was rehab and therapy, not death! If she wanted to find solution to stop him from dreaming, why couldn't she just moved him outside of Henrietta or Virginia, not lead him to commit s*icide and public s*icide mind you. He was a bad person but nobody deserved to die like this.

To end this post (I wrote this post so long that in my country is no longer Fourth of July), I still to this day think about Kavinsky and what would happened, if the author didn't choose the easy way to "get rid of him". And do not tell me, it was impossible to end it differently, because it was possible. Ronan just grabbing him by the shirt and pulling him off the car. Sending him to a rehab or just talking with him, instead of assuming from the start, that he wouldn't listen. His only crimes were, he needed help and he wouldn't listen to Gangsey telling him what to do.

[starslung]

❛ all these marks - i look like a crime scene . ❜ (from adam lmao)

EARLY MORNING AFFECTION STARTERS !

    finn doesn’t argue because, as usual, adam is right. a trail of kissed red bruises make their way from the underside of adam’s jaw, down his neck, and to the tense, pale skin of his shoulders where they stood out the most and absurdly seemed the most obscene. it was strange to see adam without a shirt on. even stranger to know finn was the one who’d made those marks, his mouth on places most people never saw on serious, pragmatic, exhausted adam parrish.

    all at once finn feels a little silly, imagining himself an explorer on some remote beach, leaving footprints in sand that would wash away eventually but for now said i was here, i came to this place, i made a mark on it.

    and all at once finn wants to find other places people never see on adam parrish. wants to leave marks there, too. wants adam’s body covered in that say i see you and i’m not trying to control you and i’m glad you are here. wants adam’s skin to know what it’s like when love leaves a mark, wants adam to see how different it is from when violence does it.

     fat chance he’s gonna say any of that out loud, though. finn pillows his chin on his hands, forearms propped up on the edge of gansey’s floor mattress, body spilling carelessly off of it and onto the floor. the shrug he gives is almost formless, almost too-casual, but still recognizable. “y’coulda told me to stop.”

[crimeronan]

was musing about adam loving gansey and rafi wanted me to post my thoughts here so:

adam loving gansey and all the wonderful and painful complications that come from that

these thoughts are mostly cobbled together from me being emo in group chat messages so this probably won’t be the most cohesive put-together analysis, it’s just.  a dump of all my thoughts about adam loving gansey

i’ve read and written a lot of meta about gansey being the first person to show adam uncomplicated love

but there’s also this: gansey was the first person adam ever loved.  adam had never had any connections or emotional roots in anything until gansey

and now i’m gonna grab my messages by putting them in linear order of gansey and adam’s relationship timeline rather than the order i sent them because they’re spread across two chats and all over the place

-

i fucking ADORE the gansey and adam meeting scene it's one of my fave in the books that i can go back to and dissect over and over anyway what i'm thinking about is how gansey interacted with him and how that intersected w/ class and privilege and adam's assumptions like

gansey asking adam to show him how to fix his car because he recognizes adam has a skillset he doesn't and attributes no class dynamics to it whatsoever, adam knows something he doesn't and can teach him something he's been wanting to learn and adam's knowledge is a respectable impressive wonderful thing

 (also, on a lesser note, how gansey wanting to speak the camaro's language immediately Gets the part of adam that needs to understand and connect everything put in front of him)

how when adam tells gansey he's working as a mechanic to put himself through school (AND WHAT AN IMMEDIATE SHOW OF VULNERABILITY THAT WAS JESUS) gansey's awed and impressed and a little intimidated by adam's drive, how gansey's response to adam being a scholarship kid isn't "oh lol you're a poor local you're not like me" it's "oh holy shit you're so fucking smart"

like.  hhhhhh. hhhhhhhhhhhhHhhh.  thinkin about adam's headspace.  how tense he was at the start of the interaction and how tense he's been trying to fit in at aglionby every single day of his life and then going home to a violent hostile place he also doesn't fit like.  so much of adam is so spiky and defensive and constantly braced for an attack

and gansey being the first person in adam's life who's ever not only NOT made adam feel like he needs to apologize for or explain himself but ALSO seen value and worth in the choices adam's made for himself and the person he's trying to be and how adam's like i am going to love everything about you so much so fiercely so acceptingly even if it kills me because that's how you love me

and gansey has no idea about any of that because why would he, he wasn't making a grand gesture or trying to manipulate, he was just..... being gansey

-

the fact that this is The First also means that adam doesn’t have any prior lived experiences to tell him what love is supposed to feel like.  when what he and gansey have is painful he accepts it because he doesn’t have the context to know that love isn’t supposed to cause pain.  the same is true of gansey, who never doubted his parents’ love but who, prior to ronan, had never really experienced honest and open and unquestioningly loving relationships

adam doesn't have any idea how to navigate love or boundaries or friendships or how to accept help or what's okay to accept like.... adam's core rock is his own set of principles and he uses those as his rules because he is COMPLETELY adrift when it comes to understanding other people or relationships or the give and take of them.  adam needs to live by strict occasionally irrational sets of semi-neurotic rules because he literally does not have ANY lived experiences that can help him here

adam is like okay i can control what i do and i can't control what gansey does but i can control what gansey does to me.  if gansey violates those rules it's game over.  but if gansey occasionally seems thoughtlessly cruel or malicious or ignorantly classist or any number of other things that's fine i'm gonna call him on it but accept and live with it because he's gansey and he accepts and lives with all my shit because i'm adam

which causes the majority of the push and pull tension that exists between them for like the whole series

-

that it’s not until the THIRD BOOK that adam even REALIZES that gansey EXPERIENCES FEAR and what that means for them - so much of gansey’s core motivation is based in fear.  gansey’s terrified all the time.  most of gansey’s worst mistakes are born of frustration and anger that, underneath, are rooted in terror

and adam doesn’t understand that.  adam truly believes that the hurt gansey’s inflicted has been because there is a part of gansey that is so ignorantly privileged and desperate for control and ownership of things, that gansey is always self-assured and never afraid, that gansey wants to possess him. and adam chooses to love gansey regardless because he knows that gansey is giving him that same acceptance, and he’s thinking well, we can tolerate the ugly parts of each other, they don’t ruin the good

adam has no idea how afraid gansey is.  adam has such a fundamental misunderstanding of gansey, here, and it makes gansey a much more unpleasantly-sketched person than he actually is, and even so it never even occurs to adam not to love him

-

gansey was the first truly precious thing adam ever wanted to keep

-

adam had no attachments to anything!!  he had nothing!!  literally all he had was himself and his ambition and his escape plan, he had NOTHING he loved and no interest in putting down any roots anywhere 

like, he loved ideas and cars and the concept of a financially successful future but he didn't have a single real meaningful connection to any other person or any piece of the world and he didn't believe love was something that existed or if it did it certainly shouldn't be prioritized

and then the SECOND gansey gave adam unconditional warmth and acceptance adam immediately and actively decided he was gonna love and accept everything about gansey forever because gansey was worth keeping 

and all it took was ten minutes of honest connection and warmth that's ALL IT TOOK 

because adam wasn't being cold or callous or removed by nature he just had literally never been shown unquestioning kindness in his life and did not know it EXISTED

gansey was the first person/place/thing where adam ever put down any permanent roots 

he was - at least until adam befriended noah - the entire shape of adam's ability to love and connect with anything

ALSO FROM THERE THAT accepting all the pieces of gansey including the yearning and the wanderlust and the quest adam doesn't even really believe in and then gansey leading adam to cabeswater??  i need to walk into the ocean

-

so much of adam's terror and ferocity wrt gansey's safety and fear of hurting/killing gansey takes on a whole new life when you stop and realize gansey's the first person adam's ever loved like this

(not the last, obviously, there's noah and then blue and then ronan, but gansey being The First matters)

it also makes me wonder if any of adam's fear of gansey hurting him is projecting because for the most part i read lines like "he likes all his things in one place" as a really EXCELLENT dissection of classism and privilege and power dynamics and freedom and independence and everything therein

but adam looking desperately and helplessly at gansey like "here's this thing i love so much and i don't know how not to ruin it.  i don't know how not to hurt anything"

-

adam following gansey with an attitude of “i don’t believe in magic but i accept that you do so i’m along for the ride” and then that faith in gansey leading him to cabeswater and deeply rooted emotional magic and connection

is the narrative’s direct external parallel for adam following gansey with an attitude of “i don’t believe in love but i accept that you do so i’m along for the ride,” and then through that connection finding other people he loves and finding things he loves and learning to love himself and love the world and build connections and feel awake and alive and meaningful

adam risked everything to give his love to gansey and even despite the varying pain it caused, adam being brave enough to take that leap and give that piece of himself just that first time -- that’s what led him to eventual healing and self actualization.  not gansey himself, but adam’s active conscious choice to love gansey.  to take that risk

gansey being the first person that adam loved matters a Whole Fucking Lot.

[astudyinfreewill]

hello, saw your recent post about adam/gansey/blue “quiet” line and although i agree with the post 100% and think exactly the same as you re: that line, i think it’s more proper to begin your post saying that all of those are your interpretations only, too, as much as it is more “right” than romantic interpretations.

while i’m glad you agree, i have to respectfully decline your suggestion, because i don’t believe it’s “only my interpretation”. sure, in some ways, art is open to interpretation, especially regarding what is left unsaid. but where things are said, especially in written media, which has communication as a goal in addition to emotion, they are typically said in a way that is designed to convey meaning to the people consuming the content, through the choice of words, the tone, and the context.

if i make a guess about something in the characters’ past, or the way ley line magic works, or what characters like/dislike, based on what we know of them and how i imagine things could have gone -- that is just my interpretation.

if i analyse the text based on tone, meaning, context, and the deliberate clues of the narrative, i am not putting forward an interpretation -- i am reading the text, by taking in and putting together its components.

let me make an example: if i had said -- before cdth came out of course -- that ronan is gay, would that be “only my interpretation”, because the text in trc never said explicitly and literally that he was gay? no. ronan is written to behave in a certain way (i.e. showing attraction/interest towards boys but never towards girls), and the text uses contextual clues to make its meaning apparent. for instance, blue is compared to a lamp > parallel drawn between a girl and a lamp > ronan was not a fan of lamps > ronan was not into girls > ronan was gay. maggie never has to outright say it, because she has provided enough context clues for the metaphor to make sense.

gansey saying that blue “makes HIM quiet” (i.e. calms his anxiety) when adam asks him to describe love, and gansey noting that adam is good at “making THINGS quiet” when adam is trying to convince someone not to call the police on a scene of violence are two unequivocably different things, and become even more so when you take into account context clues from the other books. reading that line as a comment on adam’s skill at defusing tense situations is not “more right” than a romantic interpretation -- because there IS no romantic interpretation of it.

all art can be open to interpretation in some ways, but not every part of art is up to interpretation in all ways. sometimes, the text is just the text, and you have to be able to read it. i’m sorry if this sounds conceited, but this isn’t me claiming i have some superpowered knowledge of how to read a text -- it’s me being a staunch believer in the importance of critically analysing texts. i have been analysing text, both academically and for fun, for many, many years. i’m better at it now than i was before; i will be even better in the future. it’s a learned skill, and like all skills it must be practiced.

not to go on too much of a tangent here, but the belief that “everything is subjective” and “opinions are just as valid as evidence-supported facts” has led to some worrying trends, especially when it comes to spreading (mis)information.

TL;DR: when something is just my opinion or headcanon or interpretation, i actually say so myself, without anons telling me what is “proper” to do on my own meta posts. but when i am reading the text in the way that makes the most logical sense based on the text itself and its internal context, i am not required to dismiss it as “only my interpretation”, because textual communication usually has a meaning, and i usually know how to parse it (or if i don’t, i research and educate myself before speaking up about it).

[seekthemist]

I have not been able to stop thinking about Adam meeting the Lynches when Niall was still alive and being THIRSTY A F for Ronan's dad, it has been on my mind ALL DAY and I don't have the time to do a fic but one isn't magically appearing for me to read. How dare you. (💖)

Referring to this post over here.

LISTEN, THE LYNCHES ARE UNFAIRLY HOT AND ADAM AND HIS BI THIRST HAVE ALL OF OUR UNDERSTANDING.

And I mean, I was procrastinating wildly so excuse me while I just...

The thing is, in a universe where Niall never died and the Lynch family was never broken into pieces, Monmouth Manufactory keeps being the headquarter of the gang’s missions--when they don’t reconvene at Nino’s--and Ronan keeps them studiously away from the Barns.

Adam thinks he has a good grip on the Lynch family. He met Matthew, and Declan more than once, because the three brothers are messy but intertwined. He even occasionally witnessed Mrs Aurora Lynch molding Ronan into an approachable and affectionate human shape under the weight of some liberally applied motherly love--the type that left Adam quietly miserable on the inside and standoffish on the outside for the rest of the day.

Ronan’s father travels a lot and Ronan always has heat in his voice when he can be persuaded to talk about him, mostly by Gansey who apparently met Mr Lynch enough times to feel entitled to courtesy enquiries. That, too, is unrelatable for Adam, so he purposefully does not even try to dig deeper into it.

How much difference can it make, to be missing the head of the family? Adam has to deal with enough quiet yearning for the dynamic of the four-fifths he knows personally--and with Ronan’s heated stares, hidden in plain sight, leaving Adam to wonder what can this well-loved boy want from him, what can Adam possibly have to give him.

The only known fact is this: every time Ronan’s father deigns Virginia with his presence, Ronan bails on them as if it’s the Second Coming his catholic heart had been waiting for. Even worth texting Gansey over it.

But this time the boot of Ronan’s BMW holds a little pile of obscure books that Gansey recovered in an even more obscure town library at the border with Washington D.C., and apparently they have to have them.

Blue refuses to come all the way to the Barns in Gansey’s Camaro--which, to be fair, is notoriously unreliable and will make her late for work if stranded as its usual at the roadside. Adam steps out alone from the passenger's seat, and Gansey doesn’t even bother locking the car before leading their way to the main house.

The Barns are generally an organic mess, from what Adam has seen in the rare times he was brought over--alone like a cherished secret, for afternoons in which anything Ronan wanted to share with him hasn’t included his family or their friends.

Today, it’s more like a funfair striking through a war zone, or vice versa.

There is a shiny SUV at the drive away closer to the porch, all the doors and windows are open and for some surreal reason even the animals have gathered around--not only the barn cats or the chickens, but also the cows, and the rabbits, and Adam is pretty sure that thing moving among the closest trees are actually deer.

Adam feels his forehead tense with the disbelieving raise of his eyebrows, but Gansey is already advancing through the open front door so Adam can’t ask--he can only follow.

“Hello, good afternoon, this is Dick, may I be excused for the intrusion?” Gansey asks to the empty hallway, with a polite knock over the door frame to announce himself further.

The fact that he introduces himself as Dick induces another wave of thick envy--the type that is too close to longing--coling in Adam’s stomach. Apparently the Ganseys’ refinement is not enough, and Gansey can smoothly fit himself in another family as well, for good measure.

He drags his feet on the porch, unwilling to tag along like a third wheel--maybe not unwelcomed but not belonging. There is plenty to entertain himself with, after all, surrounded as he is of basket and boxes and fabric bags. It would be a perfect scene from a messy moving, be it not for the fact that the Lynch family has been firmly planted in Singer Falls for the last twenty years.

There is something shimmering through the tape fixtures of one of the boxes, overfull enough that the cardboard of the covering mismatches at the sides. Adam gravitates closer to it as leaves rustle in the wind and birds sing obliviously over the branches.

Even though he crouches beside it, head tilted sideways as if a different angle might give him different insights, Adam would never touch Ronan’s family properties.

He wouldn’t, so he doesn’t know why he feels so guilty when he finally notices the shadow looming over him--over him, and the box, and Adam doesn’t even know how long it has been there.

He jumps to his feet, turning around, and the person behind him doesn’t even move of half a step, forcing Adam to just face him.

The first impression of Niall Lynch is like a little note travelling unexpectedly through a time portal. This is how Ronan is going to look in fifteen years or so, a treacherous voice whispers in Adam’s mind. The blue of his eyes is exactly the same colour, the cut of his face is sharper with age and only made more marked by the not-so-casually perfect stubble. In the light of the afternoon, there are shadows on his face, bent and mutable, cast by the dark curls that frame his face--wilder than Declan’s primness, less innocent than Matthew’s cherubic look.

It’s so difficult, to look away, even if just to take in the effortless mixture of closes that bring casual into business-causal into actually I’m not so sure I care.

Adam’s mouth runs dry, and then drier, as Ronan’s father let him stew in silence and something that is not quite discomfort.

“So, was it interesting?” Niall Lynch says, with exactly the same accent as Ronan, but a bit more marked, his voice lower and whispering as if this is a private mischief between the two of them. “The box, I mean.”

“I didn’t touch anything!” Adam has the embarrassing suspicion that his cheeks are burning, guilty over something that has very little to do with trinkets spread over the porch. “I wouldn’t, Mr Lynch, sir.”

“Wouldn’t you…” Mr Lynch trails off, disbelief teasing in his tone. He raises his voice with distracted self-assurance. “Ronan, you misplaced one of your friends.”

Hearing him call for Ronan makes another wave of incongruent guilt rush through Adam, effectively silencing any attempt on witty reply. It is ridiculous in the first place, to yearn for a witty reply, and yet faced with Niall Lynch’s presence--staged as if they were all playing in his theatre production--Adam cannot not help but feeling the pull.

“Do you want to know what’s inside that?” Niall asks.

It’s a trick question, obviously, and Adam still stumbles over the trap and tries for argumentative with very questionable results. “I looked like it was shimmering, I wouldn’t touch it...but I thought it was interesting.”

“Oh, I’m sure it’s plenty interesting,” Niall smiles, and for a moment it’s as suggestive as it feels dangerous, perfect white teeth flashing through.

And then, just as smoothly as he arrives, Ronan’s father walks away and cuts every bargain Adam really feels like making about the content of that box. It’s an infuriating power move, and Adam’s eyes stares him a bit too much on his way towards the inside of the house--all confidence, in all forms.

Adam squirms on two feet, swallowing thickly by himself, just to counter how much he feels like gaping over this first impression.

He should move but he doesn’t, especially because facing Ronan right now would be stupidly complex.

Someone should have told him that Niall Lynch was like this, and at the same time Adam wishes he never knew so first-hand.

[emjenwrites]

@ganseyweek Sunday, August 18: Protect/Fight/I feel safe with you by my side

This is somewhat influenced by a post I saw talking about Gansey and Ronan’s friends before Niall Lynch died, though of course I can’t find it now though I swear I reblogged it. Basically, this is an attempted explanation for what’s going on with all the other people the books say Gansey is friendly with but who never get named. I’m also using the “Ronan played tennis” thing; I can’t remember if that’s canon or headcanon. Also I’m headcanoning that Gansey quits crew had some point because in canon he literally never goes to practice as far as I recall.

Ronan had skipped out again. He’d been gone when Gansey had woken up, and Gansey had slept deeply enough the night before that he wasn’t sure when Ronan had left. He was worried. He had tried calling Ronan, but of course he hadn’t answered. With no other choice, he’d gone to school and hoped that Ronan hadn’t wrecked his car somewhere.

Lunch came with no sign from Ronan. Gansey hung back by his locker for a couple minutes to try calling him again. Still no answer. After a couple of unanswered calls he sent a text (Just let me know that you’re alive!) and got the middle finger emoji in response, so at least he knew that Ronan wasn’t dead in a ditch somewhere.

He made his way to the cafeteria and ordered his lunch. He could see Adam already sitting at their usual table, shoulders hunched as if that would make people less likely to notice his solitary peanut butter sandwich. Normally Ronan shared his lunch with Adam, but given that he was gone Gansey got an extra packet of fries which would probably just make Adam angry.

“Hey, Gansey,” A boy lounged carelessly against the counter while Gansey paid for his food.

“Hello, Hayes,” Gansey said putting his credit card “How have you been?”

Hayes Leighton was on the Aglionby tennis team and had been one of Ronan’s friends before Gansey had met him. He’d been Gansey’s friend for a while too, though they’d had a falling out in the aftermath of Niall Lynch’s death. Gansey hadn’t talked to Hayes in a while and he wasn’t quite sure why Hayes was talking to him now.

“I’ve been well,” Hayes said with the sort of practiced smoothness that most Aglionby boys had when they made small talk. “Tennis practice is going well. I think we might do really well this year.” He didn’t ask if Ronan missed tennis, but then Gansey hadn’t expected him to.

“That’s good to hear,” Gansey said, stepping away from the lunch line so the next person could pay for their food. “I wish you luck.”

“What about you?” Hayes asked. He snatched one of Gansey’s fries and popped it into his mouth, chewing loudly. Gansey tensed with annoyance though he wasn’t sure why given that he had too many fries and Adam was unlikely to eat any. “I heard you quit crew.”

That was unsurprising. The fact that Gansey had quit crew had been almost as gossiped about as Ronan’s reaction to his father’s death. Gansey had only joined crew to maintain the illusion that he was a normal Aglionby student, but as the things with Glendower and everything else got more and more demanding something had to give. Gansey couldn’t expect most of Aglionby to understand the choice though; he was perfectly aware that crew had been all keeping most of the students from outright acknowledging how eccentric he actually was.

“Yeah, I couldn’t dedicate enough time to it.” Gansey said. “I didn’t want to hold the team back because I wasn’t able to commit.”

“I can respect that,” Hayes said, taking another fry. Gansey tried to move the tray out of Hayes’s reach without him noticing.

“You know, I’m having a party at a Airbnb outside of town on Friday,” Hayes said. “There’s going to be alcohol and local girls,” he raised his eyebrows suggestively. “You should come.”

Gansey had a sudden, very vivid image of what Blue would say if she could hear this conversation. “Forgive me for being dense,” he said, “but I thought you said I wasn’t welcome at anymore of your parties.”

“Not you,” Hayes said like Gansey was missing the point. “You’re welcome any time. Lynch,” he made a face. “Lynch needs to stay as far away from my parties as humanly possible.”

A few weeks after Niall Lynch had died, Ronan had gone to one of Hayes’s parties. Hayes Leighton’s parties did not have the kind of infamy that Kavinsky’s substance parties did, but if drugs weren’t your thing then Hayes’s parties were the best you could get. Gansey didn’t like parties, period, but he’d been worried about Ronan so he’d come along. To say it had been a fiasco would be putting it lightly. Gansey was trying not to think about the whole affair, but that was different than saying that he’d forgotten how Hayes had thrown them out shouting not to come back.

“Really?” Gansey asked. “That was not the impression I got.”

Hayes rolled his eyes. “Gansey, don’t play stupid. I’m not sure if you were even drinking. Lynch was acting insane and if I let him come to my parties people will stop coming. You can totally come; everyone likes you. Lynch can go to Kavinsky’s substance parties where he belongs.”

Gansey had never been told he was likeable in a way that made it feel like an insult before. The fact that it was obvious Hayes meant it as a compliment made it even worse. “You know, Ronan was your friend before I was,” Gansey said, trying to figure out how best to handle the situation.

“Yeah, but you didn’t go off the deep end and become a punk,” Hayes said. “So Lynch’s daddy died. Big deal. Most people just deal with it instead of making a big show of it all the time. The rest of us shouldn’t have to put up with him acting out just because he’s not getting enough attention.”

That was exactly the wrong thing to say. Gansey had been accused of acting out in the hopes of getting attention as a child after he’d died from the hornets, and if he was completely honest with himself (which he often wasn’t on this subject) that was one of the major reasons he’d stopped being open about that sort of thing. At this point he almost believed that he had been looking for attention, but he knew that Ronan wasn’t. Ronan was hurting and it was wrong of his friends to abandon him just because he was hurting in a way that they didn’t find seemly.

“I’m not coming to your party,” he told Hayes. “In fact, I would greatly prefer it if you never speak to me again.”

Hayes looked genuinely shocked. “Why? What did I say?”

Gansey’s tightened his grip on his lunch tray, he was shaking so badly that he was afraid he was going to drop it. This would be the point where Ronan would punch someone, Adam would start yelling and Blue would pull out that look of disdain she had that could freeze an entire room. Gansey wished that he could do any one of those things and truly make Hayes understand how angry he was, but Gansey was a Gansey and Ganseys didn’t make a scene. They spoke softly and somehow made the other person feel guilty for daring the stand against them by sheer politeness. Gansey had never been at making people feel like they should agree with him, but he was, unfortunately, far too good at not making a scene.

“I don’t care what you think,” Gansey told Hayes trying to be as confrontational as possible. He still felt like his tone of voice was too calm. “I have the ability to decide who I hang out with, and I choose Ronan.”

“You’re too good for him,” Hayes said. “He doesn’t give a shit about anything but himself, least of all you. It’s time for you to wake up and see that.”

“Get one thing straight,” Gansey snapped, his voice finally rising enough to catch the attention of a couple of the people in the lunch line. “Ronan is my best friend,” he said tightly. “You do not talk badly about him, and you don’t get to talk about how I’m good enough to hang out with you but he’s not.”

Hayes blinked in surprise. He probably should have been surprised; he’d done the impossible and made a Gansey raise their voice. “I-”

“Is everything alright over here?” The lunch monitor strode up. Aglionby lunch monitors were like hawks, making sure every shred of strife which might damage the school’s reputation was contained. “Gentlemen, tone it down! There are prospective students here today!”

Gansey hadn’t even noticed the presence of a couple middle school boys sitting at one of the tables watching with interest. He wanted to say more, to make Hayes take the things he said about Ronan back, but if he made a scene in front of the prospectives he’d get detention. Unlike Ronan, the idea of that bothered him. “It’s fine,” he said stepping away from Hayes. “Everything’s fine.”

He walked away, his shoulders tight and his hands still shaking. He wondered if he’d feel better now if he’d punched Hayes. Maybe Ronan had the right idea.

“What happened?” Adam asked when Gansey reached their table. “What did Hayes want?”

“Nothing,” Gansey almost but not quite slammed the tray onto the table and sat down. He pushed one of the packets of fries towards Adam. “Here, these are for you.”

Adam tensed. “I don’t-”

“Adam,” Gansey said. He meant to sound calm but his voice still contained some of the sharpness which it had had during his fight with Hayes. “I am not in the mood. Eat the fries and if it bothers you so much you can buy me coffee some time.”

Adam looked like he wanted to argue but then stopped. He looked from Gansey to where Hayes had returned to the table where Gansey and Ronan used to sit. Hayes was talking to their old friends, his face twisted in frustration. Gansey was glad he couldn’t hear what was being said.

“Fine,” Adam said after a moment. “But I am buying you coffee.” He took a fry and nibbled on it like he was afraid someone would notice.

Gansey forced himself to look away from Hayes. He took a deep breath and tried to focus on something else. “Did you understand what Ms. Woods was talking about in Chemistry?”

“Yeah,” Adam said. “What confused you? I can help…”

[emmerrr]

Prompt for pynch if you're interested: snippets of Adam checking out Ronan, from pre-series (even before they met and Adam just saw Ronan around school) to post-canon (well into their marriage).

dearest anon, I started this prompt with the most golden of intentions to actually stick to it, but it’s gotten so far away from me and it has veered off brief and it’s still not finished :/ rather than it being snippets of adam checking ronan out, it’s sort of turning into snapshots of the progression of their relationship, and although there are still elements of your original brief in there, it’s not exactly what you asked for and I’m really sorry :(

what I’m gonna do is post the first scene of it here now because that part probably best reflects your prompt, and hopefully I can finish up the rest of it tonight and tomorrow and then I’ll post a link on tumblr to the finished fic on ao3 tomorrow night. again, I’m sorry it won’t be exactly what you asked for, but I hope you enjoy it anyway!

*general disclaimer: I have 5(!) more prompts still to get to so please don’t send me any more at the moment. depending on how I feel when I finish the last one, I’ll re-open them again. so keep an eye out. :) 

-

Adam’s very first class of his very first day at Aglionby is World History, and he’s the first to arrive. He takes a seat by the window near the back of the room, perches his elbow on the desk to prop his chin up with his hand, and peers outside at the courtyard, watching the hustle-bustle of students heading to their classes.

He’s not here to make friends; Aglionby is his ticket out of Henrietta and all he wants to do is keep his head down and work hard. That being said, his stomach is in knots as he hears the approaching voices of his new classmates.

Cutting his gaze to the door is a natural reflex as a couple of boys enter the room, mid-conversation as they discuss what they did over the summer, and Adam feels himself tense as they notice him. But their eyes glance off him and away as they sit down, and he’s both relieved and offended by the casual dismissal.

The classroom gradually fills and by the time the teacher arrives, there are only two empty chairs; the one directly in front of Adam and the one next to it. The seat next to Adam is now occupied by a boy who introduced himself as Tad Carruthers, the kind of name Adam thought only existed on shitty teen dramas. He’s the only person who has said a word to Adam and he seems friendly enough, happy to carry the conversation despite Adam offering him little more than nods or monosyllabic answers. He wonders if perhaps being ignored is preferable.

Luckily, class then begins and brings an end to the forced socialisation. The teacher does the obligatory start of a new school year admin, and just as he’s wrapping up two more boys show up, almost five minutes late.

They’re both impressive specimens but in entirely different ways. The one in front looks like a future president or CEO, so immaculately dressed that Adam reaches subconsciously for the tiny tear on the shoulder seam of his second-hand jumper, covering it with his fingers. This boy looks entirely at ease in a way that Adam never is, and it’s all topped off with perfect hair. Artfully tousled, Adam wants to say, and then can’t believe the phrase even crossed his mind.

The second boy is taller, with a shaved head and derisive eyebrows and an expression of utter disinterest on his face as he casts his gaze across the classroom. His uniform is somewhat more bedraggled than that of his companion, but he wears it well and it annoys Adam to no end. His shirt’s untucked, top two buttons clearly undone from where his tie is knotted loosely and carelessly. He catches Adam’s eye, and Adam can’t quite look away. His eyebrows raise slightly, clearly at seeing someone he doesn’t recognise, but then he continues tracking the room.

If his friend is classically handsome, then this one’s savagely handsome. They make quite the pair.

“Richard Gansey,” the teacher says to the newcomers, “and Ronan Lynch. How nice of you to join us.” The tone is a little tetchy and Adam actually agrees with the sentiment — how hard is it to be on time on the first day? All the same, he prepares himself for the secondhand discomfort that comes from other people being told off in front of you.

It doesn’t come.

The boy who entered the room first — Richard, apparently — smiles at the teacher and it’s disarming; even Adam can feel it from nearer the back of the classroom. Quiet chatter has broken out during the distraction and so he can’t quite hear what Richard says, but the teacher’s demeanor changes almost instantly. They look like they’re the best of friends somehow, like this kid’s somehow managed to subvert a potential telling off to a social call, and Adam’s not sure how he’s done it. It’s a trick he wants to learn.

While Richard keeps the teacher occupied, the other boy — Ronan — starts to move. There’s only two seats he can pick from, and he decides on the one that puts him right in front of Adam. He flings his bag across the desk like it’s personally offended him and all but throws himself into the chair.

He tilts it back so it’s on two legs and Adam sees the top of what looks to be a very intricate tattoo creeping up towards his neck, out of his collar.

Adam finds himself wanting to see the rest of it, and he swallows thickly, shaking his head to try and dislodge the thought.

“Lynch,” says Tad Carruthers from Adam’s right. “Good summer?”

With painstaking slowness, Ronan tilts his head so he’s almost looking at Tad upside down. He says nothing but he doesn’t need to in order to get his message across, and Tad laughs nervously then looks away. They are clearly not friends.

Ronan smirks and it’s a good look on him, even from this angle.

Adam doesn’t realise he’s still staring until Ronan catches his eye again. He hurriedly glances out of the window; he’s got nothing to be embarrassed about anyway. Ronan’s chair is tilted back so far that he’s practically in Adam’s space as it is, but he can still feel Ronan’s eyes on him.

“Put your chair down, Ronan, you’ll break your neck,” says a voice, and Adam looks around to see Richard taking his seat next to Ronan.

Ronan instantly does as he’s told and faces back towards the front of the classroom, and Adam wonders at that easy acquiescence in the light of the encounter he just witnessed with Tad. But then the teacher is calling for everyone’s attention once again, and Adam pushes it to the back of his mind.

He’s not here to make friends. And he’s definitely not here to get distracted by angry hot boys.

Definitely not.

[anxiousanimal]

Favorite Adam moments

It’s Adam Parrish’s birthday and since he’s a character that has made me bite my fingernails and yell at the page and grin like an idiot and maybe even get a moist eye or two (this despite being spoiled to his ending), here are some of my favorite Adam moments in (I think) chronological order:

(Note: Some notable fav moments I omitted because I felt they fell more under “Pynch”. I admit the line between the categories can blur a little.)

Adam and his Spongebob ball:

Gansey joined Adam at his safely distant vantage point. In comparison to Ronan, Adam looked clean, self-contained, utterly in control. From somewhere, he had gotten a rubber ball printed with a SpongeBob logo, and he bounced it with a pensive expression.

"I convinced them not to call the cops," Adam said. He was good at making things quiet.(TRB ch7)

This scene is such a deft, innocent way of hinting that this character is going to be Trouble.  

Adam sends Blue flowers:

As the woman headed back to her car, Blue turned the arrangement in her hand. It was just a spray of baby’s breath around a white carnation; they smelled prettier than they looked.

Calla commented, "The delivery must’ve cost more than the flowers."

Feeling around the wiry stems, Blue found a little card. Inside, a woman’s scrawl had transcribed a message:

I hope you still want me to call. — Adam

Now the tiny bunch of flowers made sense. They matched Adam’s frayed sweater. (TRB ch19)

Man, I wish I could just include all his scenes with Blue because their whole relationship is such a rollercoaster ride. Blue got to see the best and the worst of Adam Parrish, but I picked this moment because it’s hopelessly adorable.  

Adam puts his head in Blue’s lap:

She’d given up and leaned back by the time Adam appeared. He stepped into the dim green shadow of the tree from the house side.

"Persephone said you were out here." He just hung there at the edge of the shadow.

Blue thought about saying I’m so sorry about your dad, but instead she just stretched out a hand toward him. Adam gave an unsteady sigh of the sort that she could see from six feet away. Wordlessly, he sat beside her and then laid his head on her lap, his face in his arms.(TRB ch41)

I’m thinking about the line “Adam had been starving for longer” in TRK. It’s both touching and unsettling how readily he opens up to Blue during TRB. There’s the sexism in seeing a girl as someone you can automatically confide in, but there’s also a boy who’s clearly starved for affection and hasn’t learned proper boundaries yet. In some ways he’s very emotionally mature, in other ways he has miles to go.

Adam vs Declan:

"You’re not going to fight me, are you?" Adam asked, as if he wasn’t nervous. "I thought that was Ronan’s thing, not yours."

It worked better than Adam could have imagined; Declan immediately fell back a step. Reaching into his back pocket, Declan withdrew a folded envelope. Adam recognized the Aglionby crest on the return address.

"He’s getting kicked out," Declan said, stuffing the envelope toward Adam. "Gansey promised me he would turn his grades around. Well, that hasn’t happened. I trusted Gansey, and he let me down. When he gets back, let him know he’s gotten my brother kicked out."

This was more than Adam could stand.

"Oh no," he said. He hoped Ronan was listening. "Ronan did that all by himself. I don’t know when you both are going to see that only Ronan can keep himself in Aglionby. Some day, he has to pick for himself. Until then, you’re both wasting your time." (TRB ch31)

What I love here isn’t just that Adam stands in the way of someone much bigger and stronger than him, that he knows what to say to get Declan to back off, nor that he does all that for Ronan. It’s that he then can’t help but yelling in Declan’s face about his and Gansey’s treatment of Ronan. Adam may be a careful sort, but if you step on his principles, goddammit, he’ll let you hear about it.

Adam and Gansey at the hospital:

This was where Adam always said something. Where he got angry. Where he snapped, No, I won’t take your damn money, Gansey. You can’t buy me. But he just turned that paper bracelet around and around and around.

"You win," Adam said finally. He rubbed a hand through his uneven hair. He sounded tired. "Take me to get my stuff."

Gansey had been about to start the Camaro, but he took his hand away from the ignition. "I didn’t win anything. Do you think this is how I wanted it?"

"Yes," Adam replied. He didn’t look at him. "Yes, I do."

Adam stopped. Climbing in jerkily, he pulled the door shut. He didn’t do it hard enough, so he had to try two more times. They were silent as Gansey pulled back into traffic. Words pressed against his mouth, begged to be said, but he kept silent.

Adam didn’t look at him when he said, finally, "It doesn’t matter how you say it. It’s what you wanted, in the end. All your things in one place, all under your roof. Everything you own right where you can see …"

But then he stopped. He dropped his head into his hands. His thumbs worked through the hair above his ears, over and over, the knuckles white. When he sucked in his breath, it was the ragged sound that came from trying not to cry. (TRB ch38)

God, this scene is so tense and awful and heartbreaking, and the car door that won’t shut just emphasizes the frustration so perfectly. He may have just escaped an abusive home, but it feels more like a defeat than a victory.  

Adam picks the Magician:

He said, “I am. I’m — I’m pulling another card.”

He hesitated, waiting for her to tell him it wasn’t allowed. But she just waited. Adam cut the deck, laid his hand on each stack. He took the card that felt warmer.

Flipping it, he placed the card beside the nine of swords.

A robed figure stood before a coin, a goblet, a sword, a wand — all of the symbols of all the tarot suits. An infinity symbol floated above his head; one arm was lifted in a posture of power. Yes, thought Adam. Understanding prickled and then evaded him.

He read the words at the bottom of the card.

The Magician.

Persephone let out a long, long breath and began to laugh. It was a relieved laugh that sounded as if she’d been running.

“Adam,” she said, “finish your pie.” (TDT ch50)

I don’t know if I even need to explain this one. After reaching his lowest low and then being told that his future is bleak, Adam decides that no, screw fate, he’s going to take charge of his own future. It’s such an exhilarating moment and might be my #1 favorite.

Adam relieving Gansey’s anxiety:  

“No, it’s not. It’s disgusting of me.” Gansey didn’t open his eyes. “Everything has gotten so ugly. It wasn’t supposed to be this way.”

Everything had begun ugly for Adam, but he knew what Gansey meant. His noble and oblivious and optimistic friend was slowly opening his eyes and seeing the world for what it was, and it was filthy, and violent, and profane, and unfair. Adam had always thought that was what he wanted — for Gansey to know. But now he wasn’t sure. Gansey wasn’t like anyone else, and suddenly Adam wasn’t sure that he really wanted him to be.

“Here,” Adam said, standing, fetching their history text. “Do the reading. Out loud. I’ll take notes.”

An hour passed this way, Gansey reading out loud in his lovely old voice, and Adam jotting in his overambitious hand, and when Gansey reached the end of the assignment, he closed the text carefully and set it on the upside-down plastic bin Adam used as a bedside table. (BLLB ch12)

I think this is such an Adam Parrish way of taking care of his friends. While he can often be harsh and hard, when Adam does reach out to help, it tends to be in a way that is tailored to the person in question. Here he can see Gansey’s facade unraveling and so he asks Gansey to read aloud under the pretext of helping Adam with his homework, something that soothes Gansey and leaves his dignity intact. See also: soothing Ronan after Whelk almost shot Gansey.

Adam gives Opal his watch:

As Gansey circled the tree, trying to look useful if nothing else, he saw Adam crouch in front of the hooved orphan girl. She continued staring past him as he unbuckled his cheap watch. He tapped the top of her hand, lightly, just so that she marked that he was offering the watch to her. Gansey expected her to ignore him or to reject the gift like she had Aurora’s rose, but the girl accepted it without hesitation. She began to wind it with intense concentration as Adam remained crouched before her for a moment longer, eyebrows knitted. (TRK ch8)  

Another example of tailored caring, although of course, in this case it ties to very personal memories of Adam’s. Either way, it’s one of the best moments in the books.

Adam scries into headlights:

He spotted it, the headlights still on, engine off. Adam was crouched in front of it, staring unflinchingly into the headlights’ brilliance. His fingers were spread on the asphalt and his feet braced like a runner waiting for the starting shot. Three tarot cards splayed before him. He’d taken one of the floor mats out of the car to crouch on to keep from dirtying his uniform trousers. If you combined these two things – the unfathomable and the practical – you were most of the way to understanding Adam Parrish. (TRK ch18)

This is just a very Adam thing to do.

Adam sets out to find a demon, ends up back at the trailer:

The dust cleared and Adam finally saw where he had brought them.

He sighed. (TRK ch19)  

I love that twist. He’s come so far at this point, but here’s this nasty little reminder that some things you don’t escape easily. Instead of letting it get him down, though, Adam lets it motivate him to save someone else.

Adam saves Ronan and Opal:  

This was what had saved them from drowning. They had been lifted by the branches. Adam crouched on the other side of the pool, head dropped low like he was about to sprint or pray, his hands pressed to the rock on either side of him, knuckles white. He had placed a few small stones between his hands in a pattern that must have made sense to him. One of the still growing tendrils had tangled around his ankles and his wrists. The proper truth struck Ronan: The plants had not saved their lives. Adam Parrish had saved their lives. (TRK ch23)

Adam forced a demon-possessed magical forest to do his bidding. I thought covering them with leaves to protect them from the acid was a nice touch. .

Adam goes back to the trailer in the TRK epilogue:

He felt a sudden urge to save all these other Adams hidden in plain view, though he didn’t know if they would listen to him. It struck him as a Gansey or a Blue impulse, and as he held that tiny, heroic spark in his mind, he realized that it was only because he believed that he had saved himself that he could imagine saving someone else. (TRK epilogue)

Of course this had to be here. Not much explanation needed, but I do like that though Adam didn’t exactly happily wrap things up with his parents, that wasn’t the point. We see that he will be fine, he’s in a good place mentally, he and Ronan are going strong, he thinks of Gansey and Blue in admiring terms, he’s heading off to college and he wants to rescue kids like him in the future. We just know he’s headed for great things and that it’s all well-deserved. Such a perfect way of wrapping up his arc.

[yamisnuffles]

♡: Accidentally falling asleep together (for pynch :)

Angst with a fluffy end, set post TRK but before the epilogue.

When he had control of his body again, Ronan stumbled into the bathroom. He had to rely on muscle memory to carry him there because his eyes still flashed with the memory of murders both real and dreamed. Except, with his dreams, it was all real in a way. He had his father’s blood on his hands. His mother’s. Matthew’s, Opal’s, and Adam’s. All of them killed again or unmade, until he was all that was left and he was unmade, too.

He fell to his knees and emptied the contents of his stomach into the toilet. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, then spat when he tasted blood. He swiped blindly until the toilet flushed and got shakily to his feet. He ran his hands under water from the sink, waiting for the water to run clear instead of red.

When the last of the blood swirled down the drain, he turned off the faucet, curled his fingers into fists, and slammed his hands down on either side of the sink. His knuckles stung but the pain was a good distraction. It grounded him in the present. The metallic tang of blood on his lips was replaced by the salt of tears. Ronan let out an increasingly vulgar string of curses as he squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his forehead to the mirror that hung over the sink.

“It’s like a game of Marco Polo. Follow the ‘fucks’ to find the Lynch.”

Ronan’s entire body tensed at the sound of Adam’s voice. He hadn’t heard him come in and didn’t have time to make himself presentable before Adam appeared in the open doorway. Adam’s easy smile was just another wound for Ronan because it vanished the instant he took in the scene in the bathroom. Ronan watched those blue eyes widen and rake over the smudges of blood on the toilet and sink, then fall on Ronan himself.

“Shit, Ronan. Shit.”

Adam reached a hand toward Ronan’s face and then pulled up short. Ronan caught his reflection in his peripheral vision and saw why. Black streaked from his eyes, nose, and ears. He rubbed the back of his hand against his face, which only made him look worse.

Ronan glared at the pitch black goo that now stained his hand. There wasn’t a part of him that wanted Adam to see him that way but, after the dream he’d just had, there wasn’t a part of him that wanted Adam anywhere else. He needed to see that Adam was safe and whole and alive.

“It’s just dream stuff. Not the real thing. Fucking unpleasant but not the same bullshit that demon cooked up.”

Adam nodded. He grabbed a nearby washcloth and soaked it with hot water and soap. With one hand, he held Ronan’s chin, and with the other, he carefully wiped Ronan clean. Once he was done, he threw the rag in a corner where it would be out of sight. Then he took Ronan’s hand in his own and lead him out of the bathroom and down the hall. Ronan wasn’t sure where they were going but he would let himself be lead anywhere by those hands.

They ended up outside on the front porch. The night air was bitingly cold but it was just what Ronan needed. Nerves on end, he felt wide awake. After such a nightmare, he was in no rush to go back to sleep anytime soon. This was clearly something Adam sensed or maybe, like Ronan, he’d just been eager to escape the smell of blood. Either way, Ronan had Adam with him, so he wasn’t about to complain.

They sat for a while without talking and watched while deer threaded through the trees in the distance. Or, Adam watched them. Ronan’s eyes were on Adam, more specifically on hands that worried at each other and betrayed the concern he didn’t show on his face.

Adam looked at him sidelong. “The blood?”

“Not mine.”

Adam nodded and Ronan was relieved he left it at that. He wasn’t sure he could have specified anyway. There’d been so much of it, from so many sources. Being unmade had almost felt like a relief at the time. That is, until he’d woken up feeling like someone had tried to scoop out his insides.

He longed for music to drown out his thoughts or a drive at speeds that didn’t allow for concentration on anything beyond survival. If he wasn’t liable to pass out, he might have drank himself blind. Aside from wanting to stay completely conscious, he had the impression that Adam didn’t much like being around him drunk. A choice between a happy Adam and an unhappy one wasn’t a choice at all. He stayed where he was. He’d sort through this the slow and shitty way.

Ronan gnawed on one of his leather bands. He frowned at Adam. “Don’t you have school tomorrow?”

“It’s Friday, Lynch.”

Unsaid was that Ronan would have known if he still went to classes himself. Ronan shrugged off the accusation. “It’s late.”

“It’s ten,” Adam countered. “I just got off work. I would’ve called ahead but I didn’t think you’d be asleep already and we both know you wouldn’t have answered anyway.”

Ronan shrugged again. It was the only answer he had.

Adam leveled him with a steady gaze. There was a challenging line between his furrowed brow. “I’m not Gansey. You don’t want my help, I’m not going to force it on you. Just tell me to leave.”

His pronounced accent made his annoyance all too apparent. Ronan dragged the chewed stubs of his nails along his close shaven scalp. He laced his fingers at the base of his skull, creating a buffer when he threw himself back against one of the porch pillars. He threw his legs over Adam’s, effectively holding him in place.

Adam shook his head. “You’re such a fucking asshole, you know that?”

It was said with a smile that stole most of the bite from the statement. Not that Ronan would have minded either way- it was true. He preferred ugly truths over shiny lies any day.

Adam shoved Ronan’s legs away and for a second Ronan thought he really was going to leave after all. But he made his way over the gravel drive to his shitbox Hondayota, not to leave but to retrieve a heavy canvas jacket. He tossed it at Ronan, who caught it easily. It smelled like grease and the dusty incense and old people smell of St. Agnes. Instead of putting it on as Adam obviously intended, Ronan snagged a hold of Adam’s wrist to pull him down onto his lap and then draped the large coat over the both of them.

“Asshole,” Adam murmured again, his lips brushing the sharp edge of Ronan’s tattoo.

It wasn’t exactly a comfortable position for either of them, but that was part of its charm. It would be easier to stay awake with the post pressed in Ronan’s back and Adam’s bony elbow jabbing him in the ribs.

Adam shifted so that he could look up at the sky, which opened up for them with the sort of brilliance only possible far away from the city. Probably not even possible then, considering how many dream things illuminated the dark around the Barns. Fireflies that weren’t fireflies drifted through air cold enough to have killed the real things. Their dance punctuated the companionable silence that had fallen between Ronan and Adam.

Without a watch, Ronan marked time in the slow revolution of the stars above. It was the collection of dew on the windswept grass. It was Adam’s every breath. It was stiff muscles in Ronan’s back and his ass falling asleep. He let his eyes drift shut out of pure contentment and so missed the sun peaking over the woodline. He also missed when he fell asleep again but with Adam in his arms and the smell of him all around them, he didn’t have to worry about nightmares attacking him again that night.