#Gansey: did you take notes?

[lorethebookworm]

I'm sorry but nothing will ever be more chaotic and deranged and hilarious than Ronan fucking Lynch answering Henry's "Parrish , how are you not dead?" with "it's your bullshit sings , they created a bullshit force field" all cool and unfazed as if Adam had not just almost been CRUSHED TO DEATH

[violetwolfraven]

For absolutely no reason The Raven Cycle AU where Noah can still visit from wherever he went after sliding from time and the others can remember him

But only if they’re all physically together in the same space and one of them invokes him

And it’s not like they all get together and automatically remember “oh yeah Noah exists” it’s just eventually during a reunion for someone’s birthday someone will remember “oh yeah there’s one person missing where did Noah go” and then he walks in as if he’s been there the whole time

And maybe it takes them months or years to realize that Noah doesn’t exist in their minds or on this plane of reality when the group isn’t together. Maybe Gansey looks through his notes and keeps seeing references to this person with them on their adventures who doesn’t exist, who he has no memory of, and then he rallies the group together to solve the mystery only for them to collectively realize that “oh shit, when was the last time I thought about Noah? It was the last time our whole group was together. I don’t remember him while we’re separated”

Or maybe they never figure it out

Maybe Noah says “I only exist for you guys” and they think it’s just a really deep way of saying he loves them

It’s not not that

Maybe Noah never says anything. Maybe the gang is together so rarely that he doesn’t feel the need to. It’s better to just make the most of what time he gets with them even if they won’t remember he was there as soon as the first of them leaves back to wherever they’re living

Maybe they all privately write themselves notes: remember noah Remember Noah REMEMBER NOAH and it doesn’t work, they just think they must’ve been really excited about bible stories while drunkenly celebrating some major event in someone’s life and throw the notes away when they get home

[pansexual-puppy-pack]

day 5 of @theoraekenapperciation 's theo week 2024: college!

note: i don't know how community college works. non-american here. i didn't wanna do research. im sorry americans.

Theo dug his heels into the pebbled stone of the quad.

Beacon County Community College wasn't bad, really. It's just that Liam, Mason, and Corey had dropped him off a day before, helped him move into his dorm, and left him. Alone. In a new place with new people, and he didn't even know what he wanted to major in—holy shit, what was he doing here?

He should leave. He should turn around and go. And he could! He could pack everything back up, get into his truck, and leave.

He was about to.

Like, give him a second, he'll do it.

Fuck it, who was he kidding.

Theo started walking towards Building B.

It wasn't... bad. (Yeah, Theo was skeptical. He'd never really been to any kind of college before, and although he'd memorized the map before setting foot on campus, he didn't really know his way around. In a more social sense. It didn't help that he was surrounded by Liam, Corey, and Mason yesterday, who kept pushing him towards various different groups of people that Theo kept walking away from.)

It really wasn't—it was actually pretty nice, Theo had to admit, as he opened the oddly heavy front doors and went to look for the main auditorium. Just his luck, a couple RAs with nametags were at a table covered in the school colors handing out flyers and pointing to a bunch of places.

Fuck it. Theo approached the table.

One of the RAs noticed and gave him a friendly smile. "Hiya! How can I help you?"

"Which way to the main auditorium?" Theo asked, taking a flyer she handed him.

She pointed behind her, where a crowd of people were flooding towards the end of the hall. "Turn right at the corner—which dorm are you in?"

Theo gave her a close-lipped smile. "Gansey Hall,"

She seemed to light up at that and tapped the arm of her co-RA. "Hey, I think this one's yours!"

He looked up from his laptop, where he seemed to be looking at a disgustingly huge spreadsheet, and turned to face Theo, flashing him a smile. "Hi! Henry, I'm the Gansey RA for floors three and four, you're...?"

"Theo Raeken," He introduced. "Dorm 4D."

Henry laughed at that. "God, 4D—one of my friends used to be in there. If you find any plastic rats, please tell me, I think she stole at least five."

"Noted." Theo nodded. The clock on the wall said he had ten minutes before orientation started. "Why?"

"How much time do you have?" The first RA asked. "Dot. Mare Hall RA for floors 1 and 2."

"Ten minutes," Theo said, glancing back up at the clock. "Nine." He corrected.

"Not enough time, I think," Henry said. "I'll find ya when I do. For now, you should be getting to orientation—have fun!"

Theo decided to test the waters. (Wouldn't do any harm to get in his RA's good graces.) "Listening to a room of old people talk for two hours? Always." He said, heavy on the deadpan sarcasm as he started to follow the crowd.

Henry and Dot's light laughs echoed behind him. (Good. They like him. Hopefully.)

He got a text on his phone.

liam: Don't forget to be normal about making friends

Well. Theo wasn't entirely sure if what he just did was normal or not.

In the auditorium, Theo decided to flip a proverbial coin and take an unoccupied seat between two people in a middle row.

They were pretty nice, too—on his right was a nice lady in her mid-forties who started regaling him with a short version of her life story (Margaret), and on his left was a seventeen-year-old teenager who really wanted to be a full-time archivist (Dmitri). If by "normal", Liam meant "people around Theo's age", he'd already failed it once, but Margaret took a liking to Theo and gave him her number after she learned that they'd be taking the same Biology class, so a win was a win. Dmitri also handed Theo a little crocheted mouse after the orientation, so.

Once it wrapped up—thankfully without incident and without any classes that day—Theo went back out to Henry and Dot's table, where they quickly asked if he had any snacks on him.

"No," Theo said. "But I could grab you something from the vending machine around the corner if you want,"

"Oh my god, please," Dot begged. "I like, need a chocolate bar right now."

"Anything. Literally anything." Henry said. "You could shovel me dirt from the quad and I'd eat it,"

"Okay, jesus," Theo said lightly. "I'll be back."

More than a couple thank you's followed him down the hall as he blew fifteen bucks and five minutes on the vending machine, returning to the table with two handfuls of candy bars and chips for the two of them.

"Holy shit, thank you," Henry said, ripping into a bag of chips. He ate one and whispered, "You get one free pass for this, use it wisely,"

"Henry!" Dot whisper-yelled, unwrapping a chocolate bar.

"What?" Henry asked. "He doesn't look like someone who'd need it, anyway, right, Theo?"

Theo nodded. "If my dorm's trashed, it was my friends from highschool."

"I'll take your word for it," Henry said, making a zipping motion in Dot's direction when she opened her mouth to protest.

Theo greeted them a goodbye as he walked off. He wanted to explore the campus.

[faeparrish]

What did you think about Adam apparently trying to talk himself out of being in love with Ronan when he went home to st Agnes every night?? It sounded so prosey but it didn’t feel like it was supported by the text? Like I felt the Opal story and CDTH did nothing to indicate that

omg sorry i only just saw this q !! but yeah idk i’ve been thinking a lot about that recently. i think with certain contexts it does make some sense to me? not that adam would want to stop loving ronan but that he’d feel like he should stop loving him. that ending things sooner rather than later felt like the safer thing to do for both of them, emotionally speaking. having said that, i feel like if we’d been in adam’s head at all through trkopal or dreamer trilogy, it would’ve made this information less surprising (another loss for the adam pov agenda rip). i have a lot of thoughts on this tho and i ended up writing a lot more than i intended to so i’m going to get into it under the cut !

ok so first off, i think in terms of adam’s arc in dreamer trilogy (or what we saw of it lol) it would make a lot more obvious sense for him to be having that dilemma. at that point he’s actually living in this version of himself that can’t coexist with the version of him who chose a life with ronan. it did kind of surprise me that he’d been feeling that way in the opal story, but then again that story was only told through opals eyes so we only really got bits and pieces of the full picture. we weren’t in adam or ronan’s heads. i think it’s kind of interesting that maggie went back to it from a sort of omniscient point of view in greywaren tho — she tends to do that a lot, like retrospectively add new context to previous scenes by changing perspectives. i guess a perk of writing multiple points of view is that you get a novel filled with unreliable narrators, which means you can withhold information from readers by having characters misread or ignore certain aspects of a situation.

going back to what you said tho i feel like some people would read that section you mentioned and take it to mean that he was going back on his conversation with gansey in trk or that he didn’t want to be with ronan. i don’t think that’s it at all - i think he saw that they were heading towards a future that couldn’t hold their relationship without either of them having to compromise some fundamental part of their lives. and these were compromises that neither of them could make or would let the other make. it was also a conversation they weren’t having; we know they weren’t properly communicating at that point, not in the way they perhaps should’ve been given their situation. but it’s also heavily implied that the reason they weren’t voicing their concerns was because they both knew they wouldn’t be able to fix these problems by just voicing them. they were going to go in circles: adam didn’t want to do long distance; ronan couldn’t move to boston; adam could go to a closer school but ronan would never let him do that.

i think it’s also important to note that they were both at a crossroads in their lives that summer. they’d survived past the point where they thought they would, and now the things they thought they wanted in life were starting to feel different to them. everything was going to shift when adam moved away. they both knew something about their situation had to change but neither of them were ready or able to make it happen. and so they spent a blissful summer trying to avoid confronting it, because it hurt too much to admit that it all felt impossible.

i think we should also remember that we didn’t have any povs from adam in dreamer trilogy OR the opal story. every time we saw the pair of them interacting in dreamer trilogy it was through ronan, who was absolutely in denial about how hard it was going to be for them (see: his theory of plausible deniability at the beginning of cdth). we have to base our understanding of adam’s behaviour on outside observations of him. ronan’s pov in cdth does mention how tumultuous adam’s mental state had been during that summer, especially when he found out he was accepted at harvard. he was anxious about starting something he’d been working towards for years, and he was anxious about leaving ronan and having to deal with the reality of their relationship outside of the barns. it makes sense that adam, who is generally less in denial about harsh realities than ronan, was probably having a silent dilemma over it. he’s an incredibly practical character, he over-analyses everything, there’s not a single outcome of a situation that he wouldn’t consider. there was no way that he hadn’t at least touched on the possibility of having to end things with ronan, however painful that outcome is. he was probably debating whether it was worth dragging themselves through something that was inevitably going to hurt them, or if it would just be easier to confront it head on. it’s one of those things that sometimes happens in relationships where, yes, the love between the two people is strong and present, but the love isn’t the problem. it’s their circumstances. sometimes you can’t see a way to fit your life and your relationship together, sometimes you can’t find a compromise that works, and i think that’s what adam was afraid of. he associated ronan with the magic part of his life. in his mind, magic and harvard couldn’t coexist.

the problem adam clearly had was that while this self-preserving and practical side of him was trying to reason it out (i.e. if you convince yourself you don’t love someone then you save yourself the pain of losing them), the more emotional side of him couldn’t fathom not loving ronan. as soon as he was with ronan again, the reality of loving him was too tangible. which also fits into why it feels slightly surprising to learn this information: we pretty much only saw adam when he was with ronan in trkopal, and (as we now know) every time he was with ronan he forgot everything he’d been telling himself when alone. it became impossible for him to imagine ever throwing their relationship away for anything. i also think that’s why that line is so sad. ronan meant so much to him that adam couldn’t convince himself to step away and save his heart from further pain.

and then we have ronan. he’d essentially been having the same dilemma over their situation as adam. distance from someone makes it easy to convince yourself that things won’t work out. isolation and distance makes it even easier. which is why (amongst other factors) it reached a point in book 2 where ronan, more isolated and distanced than ever, ended up being the one to call it. because ronan sees things in black and white and adam tends to focus on the grey areas. because ronan is driven by impulse and adam is driven by considered decisions. because at that time, ronan couldn’t exist in multiples; he was already being pulled in so many directions by his human side and his magic side. he didn’t know how to exist as both: as soon as one thread from his human life came loose, he was unable to contain the rest. adam, however, has always existed in multiples. student and logician, man and boy, etc. his life is a balancing act. he’d balanced friends and school and magic and work and an abusive home life; he could balance this too. he could hold on to this. to quote adam himself, he wanted it too much. even after ronan had essentially ended things between them, adam still found somewhere safe for ronan’s body, still came back to visit him, still risked his life scrying in order to find him. it’s like adam said in greywaren, ronan was where he stored all the reality. with the direction he was going in his life at that point, if he lost ronan, he was losing the one person who knew the truest version of him — he’d essentially end up losing himself fully.

so yes. i think considering everything, it does make sense to me that adam had that dilemma because it fits with the way he behaved in dreamer trilogy. it also feels very realistic. everyone has doubts, or considers cutting loose to avoid the risk of heartbreak. i think it’s quite an accurate depiction of how a lot of people behave and feel in relationships, especially when it’s your first long-term relationship, and especially when you were never taught how to properly and healthily communicate (which neither of them were). it’s hard to imagine a way out of the problems you’re facing, especially when those problems feel out of your control. but i think for me it only solidified how strongly adam felt for ronan, because even with those fears and those doubts he was never going to walk away. no matter how much easier it may have felt to do so, he always came back.

[wander-wren]

always gold is such a ronan song and someone else said this a long long time ago but they said it wrong and it’s lived in my brain ever since. the right way.

because always gold is about a brother who is good and solid and dependable talking to his fuckup of a brother and telling him that even if no one else thinks he’s worth anything, he still is to the speaker.

which, i can see why one would then interpret ronan as the subject of the song, the “you” if you will. but i dont think he is. come with me. take my hand.

this song is not about declan and ronan. this song is about ronan and adam, circa call down the hawk.

We were tight-knit boys, brothers in more than name

You would kill for me, and knew that I’d do the same

do i have to explain this one. it’s them. except ofc for the brothers bit but note the past tense

And it cut me sharp, hearing you’d gone away

harvard. do i need to say more?

But everything goes away, yeah, everything goes away

But I’m going to be here till I’m nothing but bones in the ground

the fact that ronan is tied to the barns both literally and metaphorically, and adam wants out of henrietta more than anything???

the “everything goes away” bit you can chalk up to ronan’s immense number of losses and also his general depression/suicidal tendencies

And I was there when you grew restless

You left in the dead of the night

And I was there when three months later

You were standing in the door, all beaten and tired

And I stepped aside

POINTS WILDLY. HARVARD. THE VISIT TO HARVARD. THE MURDER CRABS. YOU KNOW?? technically ronan left but close enough. and then adam came BACK to the barns to visit and ronan almost shot him. do you see the vision

We were opposites at birth, I was steady as a hammer

No one worried ‘cause they knew just where I’d be

“this isn’t a ronan line” says the poor naive children. i’d argue that it is! maybe not in the way it was originally meant, but generally people know where ronan is and what he’s doing because he’s reliable even in his self destruction. you know? he gets into trouble but always in the same way, in the same places. and to be honest most people except declan and gansey dont seem to worry about him so much as write him off because he’s never going to change. also i think the hammer comparison is very ronancore.

They said you were the crooked kind, that you would never have no worth

But you were always gold to me

the way adam is ostracized for being poor and the way he is described as looking strange….boy literally gets POSSESSED. he even thinks this about himself when he buries his real identity and lies to his harvard friends. but the first moment ronan lays eyes on him he prays to god and asks please. this is the most pynch line ever

And back when we were kids, we swore we knew the future

And our woods would take us halfway ‘round the world

the fact that adam is a literal psychic and they had a literal magical forest is so fitting. but also metaphorically they did have plans for their future together, and those plans did get wrecked in the dreamer trilogy. theres two lines after this about that but i cant really relate them to pynch directly theyre just about the broken dream

But I am fine with where I am now

This home is home and all that I need

But for you, this place is shame

But you can blame me when there’s no one left to blame

Oh, I don’t mind

these lines are why i cant see this as a declan & ronan song, i’m sorry. ronan loves the barns too much for it to be a shameful place. but we KNOW that adam sees his past/henrietta as shameful. we KNOW ronan would take the brunt of adam’s anger if that’s what he needed. declan is a nicer brother than ronan wants to believe but that’s not really his sentiment

And all my life, I’ve never known where you’ve been

There were holes in you, the kind that I could not mend

adam and all his secrets….adam and all his problems that his pride won’t let ronan fix. that ronan isn’t enough to fix because it’s not his job and boy needs therapy!

And I heard you say, right when you left that day

“Does everything go away?”

Yeah, everything goes away

not entirely sure how i want to interpret this, because i like the idea of it being a more positive spin on the first time its said, but also in book context adam leaving in cdth is not really a positive, nor is everything that happens after. it almost feels worse if you think about how adam is the one who loses ronan for a time right after this. adam can’t trust good things, and ronan can’t lie and say he’s not going to go and, uh, become an ecoterrorist

But I’m gonna be here till forever

So just call when you’re around

the end of this song in general makes me cry bc of the way it cuts off RIGHT at the last second, as opposed to the like, 1:30 second intro. especially when the last time they did the chorus (i didnt include it bc repetitive) it went “i’m gonna be here till i’m nothing but bones in the ground (so quiet down)”

something something….no longer talking about dying. that’s very ronan’s character arc-shaped. but the way the familiar music and the extra bit of “so quiet down” isn’t there, it feels cut off, unfinished.

like you’re waiting.

it’s unbearably sad but also soso tender, i know you can’t be here, i know you can’t stay and i can’t fix it, but if you need me, just call.

and let’s not even mention ronan’s aversion to phones that doesn’t quite seem to extend to adam parrish.

so. there you have it. always gold is a ronan song but also, more importantly, a pynch song. [bows]

[blonde-batgirl]

I posted 3,249 times in 2022

That's 940 more posts than 2021!

38 posts created (1%)

3,211 posts reblogged (99%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@anxietyproblem

@funnytwittertweets

@commodorecliche

@compassionatereminders

@lady-byleth

I tagged 1,379 of my posts in 2022

#the raven cycle - 262 posts

#ronan lynch - 155 posts

#adam parrish - 111 posts

#the dreamer trilogy - 102 posts

#blue lock - 99 posts

#dc - 87 posts

#mood - 76 posts

#writing - 62 posts

#greywaren spoilers - 58 posts

#richard gansey iii - 57 posts

Longest Tag: 133 characters

#the fact that ronan did the whole love at first sight thing and then completely failed to make any sort of positive impression at all

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

You know, we talk a lot about Adam letting Whelk die and Ronan and Adam blackmailing Greenmantle with the dreamt-up evidence of gruesome crimes, but I really feel like we’re not getting enough milage out of Gansey bribing the head of Aglionby TWICE like it’s nothing or the fact that EVERYONE pretty much accepts that they are now on more-or-less friendly terms with the hitman who killed Niall Lynch.

Like, the line between being a Raven Cycle character and being a morally questionable individual is a circle.

73 notes - Posted August 15, 2022

#4

Anthony: I have very high standards.

Kate, appears, riding astride instead of side-saddle on horseback, clearly somewhere she's not supposed to be: Oh no! She's meeting all my standards.

101 notes - Posted March 25, 2022

#3

UM. Can we talk about how Declan put out a hit on Bryde to protect Ronan, even though they both have a lot of hitman-related trauma. And Adam, at the very least, knew about it and did nothing to stop it or warn Ronan.

Like, when Declan’s arranging it, he literally says, “Ronan’s a follower. He’s always needed a hero to follow. When he was a kid, he idolized my father. When he was in school, he idolized his best friend. Now he’s obviously idolizing this Bryde.” and this draws direct comparisons between Bryde and Niall Lynch, who Ronan literally found dead in the driveway after he was taken out by a hitman. Not to mention that it also draws comparisons with Gansey, who Ronan has also seen die.

I could say a lot of things about this, but I think it really points to how dangerous Declan and Adam think Bryde is and how much of an influence they think he’s having on Ronan that they’re willing to go that route, that they think it’s worth the pain now for everything to be okay later.

Also, the fact that Ronan takes a little bit to clock that Adam knew about it is sort of heartbreaking because, honestly, this is the sort of thing that has Adam written all over it: it’s a cold, calculated, morally questionable plan for the greater good.

111 notes - Posted August 13, 2022

#2

Really getting the sense that some people are missing that Eloise’s feminism is deliberately flawed - we were shown that multiple times in season one - and it’s also a defence mechanism because when she lives and her class both dictate marriage and children as the only path. Not only does she want other things, she specifically talked about how overhearing her mother have a traumatic birth with her youngest sister made her terrified of childbirth (episode two of season one to save you having to search for it like I did). She exists in a society that is actively hostile to her as a person, constantly telling her that the horror she overheard as a child is her ultimate destiny and there’s nothing she can do about that. Every time we see her engaged in having her first season, whether it’s being introduced to the queen or attending a ball, she’s shaking, she’s stumbling over her words, she’s breathing too fast, she’s running away.

In short, she’s terrified.

149 notes - Posted March 25, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Absolutely wild that when Bachira is first introduced he seems a little... unhinged (affectionate) and then he turns out to be the second most normal of the major characters (second to Chigiri). Like, the kid just wants friends. Meanwhile, Reo could potentially be normal if he wasn’t a billionaire’s kid, but then there’s his whole friendship with Nagi to consider, Kunigami wants to be a real-life superhero (wrong manga), Nagi is apathy-incarnate and knows nothing about the sport but is somehow not only holding up but excelling in a setting that is designed to be as intense about it as physically possible, Rin’s whole tragic backstory is that his brother came back from training abroad and wanted to - gasp - switch to playing midfield instead of striker - the horror - and Isagi is. Well. Isagi is concerning. Personally, I don’t trust Ego and I will be very surprised if there isn’t some eventual twist regarding him and his philosophies (Chigiri mentions as early as volume two that he doesn’t think everything Ego says is true), and Isagi buys into all of it. Hook. Line. And sinker. Finally, somebody is telling him what he wants to hear and he develops rapidly into a poster boy for Ego’s whole philosophy. Like, it’s gloriously entertaining and I am here for it, but it’s objectively concerning.

213 notes - Posted November 22, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[crispycostumes]

okay so i will admit that i haven't done a deep dive of all trc meta posts on here but i am yet to see any post mention that mint is a natural repellent for bees and wasps??? like i figured that would be a big thing to analyse but then i come on here and we're just ignoring it

gansey staright up walks around with mint leaves he puts in his mouth (when he gets anxious? when he gets scared? when he feels unsafe?) and no one has brought it up? Like is it another manifestation of his ptsd? he trained himself away from having those violent reactions and instead found other outlets for it? it's established that he always smells like mint well what if that is the point? what if smelling like mint is one small way he can regain control and feel more secure in his skin

we know that being stung to death did a number on him so carrying around mint leaves to compulsorily put into his mouth as a grounding technique is a possibility. it's such a specific thing that it can't be a coincidence. like out of all the eccentricities he could have gotten we're supposed to believe that he just randomly started eating mint leaves? sure jan

(edit: i did end up going back and taking notes on this, you can find the first in the series here or just look for the #the mint saga tag on my blog if you're interested in the little pseudo-analysis and thoughts)

[robindrake93]

Kavinsky’s relationship with Ronan is so interesting when looked at from Kavinsky’s POV.

Kavinsky was skulking about Monmouth for Ronan before he knew that Ronan was a dreamer, which meant that he had some interest in Ronan as a person (which we know doesn’t happen because the dream pack and his family are...dreams). Kavinsky then finds out that Ronan is like him. They’re the same. They’re dreamers and Kavinsky has never met another one in the world. He went from being alone to being one of two. His whole world changed again.

Kavinsky spends like a year trying to tease the confession out of Ronan. Ronan is really only interested in finding the bottom of a bottle with Kavinsky (and racing and fighting with him). Kavinsky is the window in which Ronan’s bird tries to fly into repeatedly and violently. We can assume Kavinsky was met with failure because The Dream Thieves happens.

Kavinsky flirts and he insults in the same breath because he is the instrument that Ronan loves to hurt himself on (and he’s not a stupid boy who can’t read the fucking room - Gansey has a literal collar for Ronan; K isn’t pulling Gansey’s Dog from his ass). But Kavinsky isn’t the only one with sharp, cutting edges and Ronan (intentionally and otherwise) hurts Kavinsky too.

So time passes and Ronan is the same as he’s always been and Kavinsky gets impatient and desperate. He dreams Ronan’s leather bracelets, punctured with teeth marks like the ones in reality, the details noted carefully and lovingly.

“I know you” is what the gift says. “I know you’re a dreamer and I know you chew your bracelets when you’re unhappy and I’ve been paying attention because I care. Look.” Kavinsky leaves.

The next time they see each other, Ronan tosses him a pair of sunglasses. The ones that Kavinsky wears regularly. This is the acknowledgment, the “I know you too.” Except the tint is off, the lenses are slightly wrong (and oh I bet that haunts Kavinsky later, this tiny sign that Ronan isn’t as into Kavinsky as Kavinsky is him). But still. The fact that the sunglasses exist says that Ronan is accepting the gift, he’s returning it, and he’s trying. Which is more than Kavinsky got out of him before.

Things happen fast after that.

Because they’ve always shared dreams and been aware that they were sharing when Ronan dreams of Kavinsky, I’m assuming that the first one - the sex dream - featured a real Kavinsky (although I don’t think Ronan knew). Kavinsky falls asleep and into a dream where he’s fucking Ronan against the hood of a car. This isn’t Kavinsky’s dream, either. It’s Ronan’s. Ronan who controls his dreams. To Kavinsky, this has to seem like a sign that Ronan is very into him.

They’re both dreamers. Kavinsky lives surrounded by dream people and dream objects...why couldn’t they take a dream relationship to reality with them?

Ronan crashes Gansey’s car because of the night horror and Kavinsky shows up to save his life. Ronan’s life is valuable. Except Ronan isn’t grateful, he’s freaking out for no reason over the car. And there’s a moment where Kavinsky literally does not understand what the big deal is; Ronan can just dream a new one. It’s easy. He mentions that Ronan might have a head injury because he doesn’t know that Ronan doesn’t know Kavinsky is a dreamer.

But Kavinsky is going to take care of this and his stupid idiot boyfriend (what else would Ronan be? They courted, they fucked, dreams are reality). Kavinsky flirts on the drive over and Ronan sulks and Kavinsky says in words what he’s been saying in actions; I know what you are, you’re just like me.

Kavinsky is no ones dog. He doesn’t have a Gansey to distract him from his life. He lives with reminders of how bad life is and he’s an addict in a downward spiral. So the process of dreaming is something Kavinsky has had ample time and privacy to streamline.

Ronan doesn’t make cars because he’s keeping himself secret. By showing him the cars and that it’s even possible, Kavinsky says, “we don’t have to be a secret. You don’t have to limit and twist yourself into a tiny box. The world is literally ours.”

I’m not sure how they went from ‘let’s dream a new car’ to ‘let’s get drunk’ and can only assume that it was old habit to drink in each other’s presence but there’s a time skip where we next hear from them via Gansey. More specifically, via Kavinsky being at once jealous over Gansey (probably) being in a relationship with Ronan and where he both reassures Gansey and rips off the bandaid about the car. Kavinsky sends Gansey a dick pic with an Irish flag tied to his erection, a roundabout way of saying that Ronan’s already ridden his dick.

Kavinsky takes Ronan home after the field, they (or at least Ronan) drink alcohol and Kavinsky puts on a racing movie. Kavinsky texts Gansey his dick pick and the news about the car, and he’s not even next to Ronan. He’s giving Ronan space. I’d say the phone thing was invading Ronan’s privacy but Ronan doesn’t use his phone so...there’s nothing there to invade. When Ronan wakes up, Kavinsky tries to start a conversation. And it’s a pretty normal conversation; you handle your liquor well, oh hey you aren’t responding are you okay, wait you inherited dreaming from your dad?

Ronan leaves the room. He’s not very talkative. This probably isn’t going how Kavinsky imagined it would. Again, Kavinsky is an addict and his boyfriend is being more prickly than usual so he gets high. Kavinsky makes a joke instead of confessing to texting Gansey what was basically a “he wants me more than you” text. And Ronan responds with violence. Which Kavinsky points out and his only option is to lay his cards on the table. Kavinsky doesn’t want to play chase, he wants this thing between them to settle. So he spills that he saw Ronan dream the blood and he knew.

And all Ronan asks is how he did it. His hackles have finally soothed. Kavinsky almost literally jumps on the chance to teach Ronan and spend more time in his company; the company of someone like him in all the ways that matter.

There’s more beer to entice Ronan to stay, a little extra incentive to spend time with Kavinsky. Ronan’s first attempts aren’t interesting for someone who’s house is full of one trick magical dream items. Like I said above, Kavinsky has the dreaming process streamlined. He takes his pill, he gets what he wants from his dream and he dies for this. His heart stops for a few seconds. We don’t know if Kavinsky takes the pills to dream every time or if it’s just to make this fast and easy for Ronan’s training. If he does it’s because he’s suicidal, and if he doesn’t then it’s because he’s at the point that he’ll die for Ronan.

What does Kavinsky bring back? Something boring, like Ronan’s dream thing, but it’s complimentary. The cap to Ronan’s pen, the missing piece, that fits and matches perfectly. Which is what Kavinsky thinks they are to each other.

Kavinsky gets his jealous dig in about Gansey’s relationship with Ronan, which makes Ronan almost leave. This time, when Ronan tells Kavinsky to back off about Gansey, Kavinsky does. Because he wants Ronan to stay and he knows Ronan has a temper. Back to the safe stuff, to training, and this time when they dream together it’s intentional.

And when they get back? Ronan is still and he doesn’t react when Kavinsky touches him but he does open his hand when asked what he has. He laughs at Kavinsky’s joke, which doesn’t insult Gansey or insinuate that they’re in a relationship. Ronan laughs, a good sign, the best sign, and Kavinsky flirts. They open up a little, the first time that Ronan has shown any interest in Kavinsky’s home life, and then it’s back to dreaming together.

When Ronan dreams back a lit bomb, Kavinsky saves their lives by throwing it out the window before it explodes. They talk civilly and Kavinsky offers Ronan some cocaine; both to help him dream and because people who do cocaine just like to share with their friends and romantic partners (not diving deeper into this but trust me, it’s a thing).

They’re together so long that days have gone by. This is the first time that they aren’t fighting and antagonizing each other. It’s just dreams and each other. There’s still beer and cocaine because they’re addicts who are hurting, but they’re both comfortable with it. Ronan gifts Kavinsky with a twizzler, which Kavinsky takes because he loves Ronan.

Kavinsky thinks Ronan’s ready for the Camaro but gets angry when he realizes Ronan still doesn’t get how to dream. Ronan gets angry too, takes his failure out on Kavinsky because he just doesn’t get it. And Kavinsky points out how he’s been practicing.

So two things happen next. Ronan says he can’t go back without the car, to which Kavinsky replies to the effect of “then don’t.” He’s asking Ronan to stay with him. And Ronan replies that he’s going to try again, he’s going to dream with Kavinsky again, he’s staying. And that’s all that Kavinsky hears, he doesn’t realize that Ronan meant he was getting the car back so that he could leave.

A new pill comes out, one that keeps Ronan in his body but kicks his mind out. This is a pill that Kavinsky has tested before (once resulting in a girl overdosing) but now he’s got it perfected; this isn’t supposed to hurt Ronan. And Kavinsky re-enacts their first shared dream; Ronan against the hood, Kavinsky pressed up behind him, tracing the tattoo. They’ve already been here before.

But Ronan is gone, back to dreams, and when he comes to, he’s done it. He’s brought back the Camaro and it is perfect. Ronan’s success is Kavinsky’s success (which I’m sure he attributes to his magic dick and phenomenal teaching skills). They are perfect. This is a perfect moment for Kavinsky, a shining moment.

And Ronan crushes it immediately by telling him that actually he’s going back to Gansey; that he wasn’t going to stay. Kavinsky is so surprised that he stands in blank shock. Whatever defensive shields he has slam into place, a wall between himself and his boyfriend who refuses to stay. He can’t believe it.

Ronan mocks Kavinsky for thinking that they’d stay together and that this strengthened anything between them. But Kavinsky still tries to change Ronan’s mind by telling him he doesn’t need Gansey. And then Ronan breaks up with him. Ronan basically says that Kavinsky was nothing at all and he didn’t care about him.

Kavinsky is heartbroken. He says he’ll burn Ronan. He’s a jilted lover, spurned and ashamed and hurt. Ronan is leaving him. Kavinsky puts his finger gun to Ronan’s temple - one last touch - and says he’ll see Ronan later. The exact verbiage is “in the streets”, which might be a joke from Maggie about how they’re no longer seeing each other in the sheets.

But he doesn’t burn Ronan right away. He dreams him a car and lets Ronan know that he’s still jealous over Gansey.

The car gets no reaction and Kavinsky escalates in his attempts to Ronan’s attention. I don’t know how Kavinsky convinces himself that kidnapping Matthew was a good idea. But I want to know if it was before or after he realized that Matthew is a dream thing. When Kavinsky kidnaps Matthew? I bet he didn’t even have to resort to force. Just “hey kid, I’m Ronan’s friend, wanna get a milkshake?”

And he’d take Matthew to get a milkshake and sit in the booth opposite him and drill him with questions. And come to realize that Ronan dreamed him. Now that Kavinsky is actually looking at Matthew, he sees the signs of a dream thing; knows Ronan’s dreams intimately enough to recognize his handiwork. Kavinsky lives with dream things that are so real that no one can tell the difference. And Ronan did a really shitty job making Matthew. The kid has zero personality. He’s essentially a mirror: if K mentions he likes something then Matthew starts talking about it and he copies body language and speech patterns. He wasn’t just made to like people, he was made to be liked. (This was based off the snippet of CDH that was released and I don’t know if later installments negate any of this).

So if Kavinsky hands him a pill and says “swallow this” then Matthew does it and that’s how Kavinsky gets him into the trunk. He literally just asked. It’s that easy because Matthew was made by a child who had extremely base desires...who is very bad at realism.

Kavinsky sends Ronan texts from both his own phone and Matthew’s phone. This is what got Ronan’s attention; he calls. He’s never called Kavinsky before in his life, has never even texted him back before. So this is huge.

It’s important to note here than Kavinsky has replaced real life people with dreams and that he has to practice to get good at making something(one). People are replaceable. Dreams even more so. Matthew is barely a person, he’s a bad creation, and he’s replaceable. This is the key factor; Mathew can be redreamed. If something happens to this Matthew - like an explosion, say - then Ronan can always dream a new, better one. Kavinsky can help him. The point being that this is not actually a high stakes move for Kavinsky. This is breaking Ronan’s toy with the intent of gaining Ronan‘a attention and promising to buy him a new one (a better one, even).

When Ronan threatens Kavinsky on the phone, it’s nothing. Ronan has threatened violence before and it’s only fair for Ronan to make the same threats Kavinsky did. The important, takeaway is that Ronan is coming to see Kavinsky.

At the Fourth of July party, Kavinsky makes an entrance. He wants Ronan to see that he’s fine without him, better in fact.

But Ronan brought Gansey. And Kavinsky cannot resist a jab at Gansey, whom he feels stole his other half. He tells Gansey that he hopes Ronan can’t get it up for him. Ronan attacks him, demanding his dream brother back.

Kavinsky says he doesn’t know. This may or may not be a lie. Kavinsky brings up their relationship again, because that’s what this is about. He says, again, “I can’t believe you left me.” When this doesn’t get through to Ronan, Kavinsky asks Ronan to dream with him.

Ronan does.

Kavinsky is being attacked but Ronan came. He flirts, using a line he’s used before.

And it doesn’t work.

Kavinsky is being attacked by the forest and he tells Ronan that sometimes you have to take what you want; asking again if Ronan wants him, telling him that Ronan doesn’t need to ask before he takes Kavinsky. Again, he bears his heart to Ronan. He’s saying that Ronan is all he has because Ronan is so irreversibly tied to dreaming, dreaming is the only thing there is. Kavinsky says that if Ronan stays in the relationship, they’ll have each other.

Ronan tells him that it’s not enough, that Kavinsky is not enough. Here, Kavinsky begs that it’s not because of Gansey, that Gansey isn’t better than him. And then it comes out that Ronan would rather have a straight man than Kavinsky. A straight man who isn’t a dreamer.

Ronan says that there’s more to life and Kavinsky says that it isn’t true. Ronan says cars, sex, and drugs but he’s also talking about dreaming and that’s how Kavinsky takes it. Everything and a large portion of the people in Kavinsky’s life are dreams. He has no reason to think he won’t be continually replacing people and objects with dream copies. This is his whole life, it’s all he has, he’s made it from nothing. And this is when Kavinsky realizes that Ronan really doesn’t feel the same and isn’t going to return his feelings.

Kavinsky loses the will to live because he’d hinged everything on Ronan. Without Ronan, Kavinsky didn’t want to live. The last little thing he had in his life that was an equal, snuffed out Kavinsky’s flame. So Kavinsky summons a creature that’s essentially his heartbreak; not just this one but every heartbreak and all of his self loathing. This creature hates Kavinsky as much as it hates the rest of the world because it’s Kavinsky’s feelings manifested.

Kavinsky has escalated again. Now he’s threatening to kill himself. He looks Ronan in the eye and asks Ronan to stop him.

Ronan brings back an albino night horror. It fights with Kavinsky’s fire dragon and both boys just watch it. This is so interesting because Ronan’s only reaction is to tell Kavinsky to stop feeling. Stop having feelings for me. Kavinsky says that he can’t. Again, the dragon and the night horror are manifestations of Kavinsky and Ronan’s feelings; they’re metaphors come to life.

Ronan is still focused on his brother, though. Kavinsky even tells him that he’s missing the point of all this, which was to sort through their feelings (or fight through them like the dragon and horror were doing). Ronan finds Matthew, mildly drugged but fine and about to free himself anyway. And Kavinsky finally sees that Ronan really doesn’t care. So he stays in the path of their monstrous, overwhelming feelings made real and ignores Ronan’s pleas for him to get down because he knows Ronan will say whatever he needs to get Kavinsky to do what he wants.

And Kavinsky dies in flame, death via broken heart.

[steelycunt]

re: yesterday's contribution i raise you gansey and k having one of those what are your intentions with my daughter conversations. you're still grounded btw but like imagine

i respect that i am still grounded so just imagine me writing this on a note and sliding it out from under my locked bedroom door but just literally gansey is taking it soooo so seriously. but honestly i don’t know what he expected k to say like did he expect him to lie? k doesn’t even blink (he also doesn’t take the sunglasses off which is another strike in gansey’s book) he’s like well i intend to have sex and do drugs with him what did you think my intentions were. and gansey doesn’t really know what to say after that he expected this conversation to be longer than this and all he can really say is just Well, I’m Not Sure I Like The Sound Of That Actually

[softkostyk]

I couldn’t sleep last night, so I wrote a (soft) missing scene from The Raven King — Blue and Adam talk about him and Ronan. I hope you like it (and stay tuned for a part two that will be parallel to this one but with Ronan and Gansey) ♡

“So,” Blue said. “So,” Adam said. “You and Ronan, huh?” She teased, wiggling her eyebrows in a very Henry-like way. “Let’s not make it a thing, OK?” Adam smirked, effectively failing to let any annoyance seep through the words. In truth, he didn’t really mind the attention on his recently acquired boyfriend and him. Which was odd, – not that he had a boyfriend, although, well, it’s not like he had seen that one coming, or maybe he had, but that was not the point – he thought; because he’d spent a long time actively trying not to draw said attention to himself when it came to his father, then spending other considerable amounts of time making sure teachers and employers would notice that he was the best and the one to take note of. In a way, drawing attention to himself had always been like walking a precarious thread held on either end by people with quite slippery hands, and hoping that if he couldn’t make it to the other side unscathed, that there was at least some kind of mattress to soften the fall. In this moment he was embarassingly happy, though, so maybe attention was just part of the deal. Blue shrugged. “I wasn’t going to say what you thought I was going to say,” she said. “What did I think you were going to say, then?” Asked Adam, shifting his weight to rest on his arms and hands behind him. “That it’s weird, maybe. That it blows my mind,” she replied. “I was going to say it’s not, and it doesn’t. It kind of makes perfect sense, actually. Adam knew very few things that made perfect sense, but he couldn’t stop his brain from producing a wild, shimmery thought: it’s true. Still, he shot his friend a look that said “how so?” Blue glanced behind them towards the front door of the Barns, as if to see whether anyone – anyone being Gansey, or Henry, or Opal, or Ronan – was going to interrupt her. Raucous laughter, a muffled I told you it wouldn’t catch fire, and the more homey than irritating scratch of chairs being moved around could be heard. They were good. “For all of his anger and hurt, Ronan might just be the most caring person I’ve ever met,” Blue started, resting her cheek on her knees, head turned to Adam. “He gave me his only source of light with no hesitation, even though being in the dark in that cave was terrifying. I don’t know a lot of people who would do that.” Adam’s heart did a funny little leap at that, which should have been biologically impossible, but so many things seemed such a mere year ago, that impossible wasn’t really a word he could trust anymore. He allowed himself to get briefly lost in the knowledge that Ronan was a beautiful mystery who was a little less mysterious to him than to anyone else. The thought filled him with sudden, breathtaking joy. “You deserve someone like that. Someone who will always put you first.” Blue said with an unwavering sort of finality. Like that was just how things were supposed to be. Adam smiled softly. He couldn’t find the proper words to say how scared, and excited, and–hopeful he felt when he thought about his future with Ronan. Perhaps he could have, and it’s not that he didn’t want Blue to know, but some things were best kept safe inside his head.

“Don’t get me wrong, you’ll probably get into a bunch of stupid fights on a daily basis, with the awful tempers you’ve both been graced with,” Blue added then, making Adam snort and shake his head lightly. Didn’t he know. “But can I ask you how you realized ... you know,” Blue said, unclasping a bright yellow hairclip from her messy strands to toy with it instead. Adam cocked his head, considering. “I wouldn’t be able to pinpoint the exact moment things changed,” he started, pausing to wet his lips. “I mean, I used to think he was difficult and arrogant just because he could. And that was my fault for not trying to see past that, but, well ... I had too much crap going on to stop and think about it twice. I guess at some point I started noticing little things. Like if I turned to look at him, he was already looking at me. Or like he always seemed to be around when I needed someone to be and then I just thought no, not someone, him. Or how I just found myself leaning on him, like, metaphorically. But I wanted it to be literal, too, you know?” “I know.” Blue said simply. “And he always made me laugh. Like, when he’s not even trying to be funny and then proceeds to say something completely ridiculous. Or when he says something that he knows for a fact will make me laugh, and– He turned to find Blue’s nose was scrunched up. “Sorry. I got carried away,” Adam said, fairly sure he was blushing, and which was only partially concealed by the flickering lights on the porch. “Don’t apologize,” she rolled her eyes playfully. “Happiness suits you, Adam Parrish.” Adam’s mind conjured the image of her hug with Gansey after he came back from the dead. The most unadulterated, visible form of happiness he’d ever seen. “Likewise, Blue Sargent.” A sliver of yellow-ish light reached them as the door behind them banged open. “If you two are done making out, dinner’s ready,” Ronan said with no real venom. Blue let out a laugh, offering Adam a hand to rise. When she walked past Ronan, she reached up to tap his chest twice. “Fear not, Lynch. He’s only ever going to be making out with you.” Adam followed and planted a kiss on Ronan’s cheek. “Veritas filia temporis,” he teased against his jaw, and before Ronan could exhibit his vast knowledge of Latin curses, he took his hand to lead him back inside.

[sohotthateveryonedied]

So, if you don't mind explaining, just what is the difference between The Foxhole Court and The Raven Cycle? I see these terms around on your blog, but I have no idea what they mean. I think they're books, but IDK.

(Just note, you can also use this ask as an excuse for gushing about these things.)

WELL, SINCE YOU ASKED,,,,

the foxhole court (also called 'all for the game') is a trilogy telling the story of neil josten, a college-age kid who has been on the run for eight years in order to evade his serial killer/mob boss dad. the only thing in the world that neil cares about is this sport called exy (because he's traumatized so his way of coping with having to burn his mom's corpse is by playing stickball fghjk) so he joins this college team called the foxes at palmetto university. they're the worst team in the class I bracket and the players are all misfits and screwups <3 it's a series about found family and sports and love and trauma and healing and did i mention found family?? but beware because this is the heaviest series i've read thus far and it features hardcore topics like rape, graphic torture scenes, drug addiction, murder, etc. but seriously these books are AWESOME and i love all of the foxes so much??? neil is amazing and andrew is amazing and kevin is amazing and nicky is amazing and dan is amazing and aaron is amazing and matt is amazing and renee is amazing and allison is amazing and wymack is amazing and the thing is that they're all severely flawed people with pretty dark pasts but they all love each other so damn much and fight so hard together and this series is just. god i love it <3

the raven cycle, on the other hand, is a series comprised of four books (plus a spin-off trilogy!!) that i...don't really know how to explain the plot of? the basic thing is that it's about five teenagers searching for a dead welsh king who they believe is buried somewhere in henrietta, virginia and that whoever wakes him up will be rewarded with one wish. but also there's a TON more to these books like magical sentient forests and people taking things out of their dreams and murder and magic and psychics (LOTS of psychics) and cars and bees and just?? so much?? that i don't really know how to explain?? also blue is the only non-psychic in a household full of psychics and she has a thing where if she kisses her true love then he'll die, gansey is rich and pretty much the MAIN-main character in a series with five main characters and it's really HIS quest to find the king but the others all come along because he draws them in and all of his friends love him more than anything but he's convinced they all secretly hate him because he has self-worth issues, ronan is the tough scary guy with a heart of gold and (spoiler!) he can take things out of his dreams and also he's severely traumatized (they all are, really) and gay and he drinks himself into oblivion and races cars at night but also holds tiny baby mice to his cheek and has a pet bird named chainsaw whom he takes care of so tenderly, and adam is poor and abused and bisexual and ambitious and all he cares about is his pride and autonomy and making a better life for himself and he's also psychic and can do some REALLY cool stuff and also he's canonically the Hot Girl of the series despite hating himself and thinking he's undeserving of love, and noah likes glitter :) also everyone in this group is in love with each other. no that is not hyperbole <3

[wander-wren]

sorry to yoink your tags into the light @avalonjoan (hi again btw) BUT!! i love shiver and i have been nurturing my Theory On How Fandom Forms for like, a year, so here we go!

it’s been a hot minute since i made my list, but i think i decided that the main characteristics of fandom were shipping potential, worldbuilding potential, and oc potential. plus of course amount of content—very few standalones gain fandoms. and i say POTENTIAL bc fandom is transformative, it’s about filling gaps, so sometimes ironically very well-done media doesn’t gain a fandom bc there’s nothing to add/change.

if there are exceptions to this rule, like fandoms that ship mostly canon ships, it’s usually because those ships are queer (Ronan/Adam from TRC, Jesper/Wylan from SOC, Cecil/Carlos from WTNV), or because they’re het ships with a lot of, again, unexplored potential bc of where the story cuts off (Blue/Gansey from TRC, Kaz/Inej from SOC). i point out shipping specifically bc it is the backbone of fandom. genfic is also good and important! but shipping is pretty much always first.

*note that it also helps to have a large cast for max ship potential. and also max blorbo potential, in case someone finds the protag(s) annoying, boring, etc, but can latch onto major side characters. wolves of mercy falls has four pov characters that i remember and they pair off with each other. ofc i love them all, but that’s besides the point

so if you don’t have a lot of ship potential, as you don’t in shiver bc there’s no love triangle and the main couple are intensely in love for all three books, you need a lot of worldbuilding and oc potential. the two are pretty linked. this is like your Warrior Cats or BNHA fandom, or Divergent if you want to go farther back. the ability to make a character that fits into a specific group or has specific powers is very appealing. what faction are you? what clan? what’s your quirk? the worldbuilding is also important bc fans LOVE to play with that. BNHA, for example, has taken hints of quirk discrimination and expanded them into multiple theories/aus that are popular fanon now. Warriors is infamous for it’s bare-bones worldbuilding that fans take in a million directions.

shiver/womf doesn’t really have this. and again, there are exceptions to EVERYTHING, but i actually can’t think of any media with a fandom presence that doesn’t have at least one of these going strong for it rn, so. but yeah, while werewolves exist, there aren’t really distinct packs you can classify yourself/an oc into, no special powers, nothing cool like that. if the mercy falls pack were more established rather than rapidly degrading during the series, maybe there would be something there, but they’re all aging out so again, it’s mostly just sam. and a few others later but they don’t really count as pack.

so to answer the first question, no, gay people didn’t latch onto the series, mostly bc there’s nothing queer TO latch onto (except for werewolves as a metaphor for queerness, maybe, but i don’t take it like that and given the narrative around sam vs the wolf i think that’s a bad idea). maybe you could ship grace with one of her gal pals, or with isabelle. but her friends just don’t show up that much and she’s SO so in love with sam, dude, like that’s The Whole Point.

okay but like, what about twilight, that took off pretty hard? someone called shiver a twilight ripoff and i briefly wanted to go full darrio’s dogs on them but i am calm and rational (look i did a shiver reference are you proud). basically, idk much about twilight, but from the rules above? there was a love triangle. ship potential. there were a lot of extra vampires and werewolves to play with. vampires all have unique powers, right? oc potential! plus i think that fandom was mostly teenage straight girls with crushes on edward which is a fundamentally different kind of fandom. no one has a crush on “bakes bread, makes origami birds, recites german poetry” sam rilke. well i do. but he’s not a bad boy, okay. he’s actually never done anything wrong ever in his life, thanks.

so shiver is a prime example of a very commercially popular fic that didn’t take off in fandom because there wasn’t much for fandom to dig into. but also, if you got this far, you should read shiver maybe. it’s one of my comfort books even tho i have cried over it before.

[OH I FORGOT TO ADDRESS THE BLUEY THING!! idk shit about bluey so idk what happened there but i’m gonna say at least a major driving force is that it became pretty popular and a meme. i guess that’s your exception to the rules??]

you know. i find it so interesting how mstiefs arguably much more commercially successful series (wolves of mercy falls) which is now getting a movie adaptation has like. zero fandom presence whatsoever. did gay ppl just not latch onto that series or what

[andrea-lyn]

The Recs (Less Travelled)

I’m excited to bring you the first installment of my ‘roads less travelled’ recs! I will be doing another round of this, probably once the Ted Lasso fic tag hits about 25 pages, and then I’ll also grab a couple more fandoms to collect in there! 

The Rules:

Each fandom/pairing was sorted on Archive of Our Own by completed works. Anything recced here was not in the first ten pages when sorted by kudos at the time of reccing. There may be some more well-known authors on this list, but the specific fics I’ve picked are ones that didn’t crack that top ten or just didn’t get much traction and I think deserve it, so hopefully I have also balanced it out with other under the radar (and still great!) works. As ever, I have a pinned post of my other recs (none have been duplicated from there), so you can also check those out! Under the cut you’ll find 10 recs in each fandom for:

Raven Cycle

Roswell New Mexico

The Old Guard

Inception

Star Trek (mainly Kirk/McCoy)

The Raven Cycle

savor all the little pieces by littlelionvanz

“Since when do you garden?”

Ronan snorted, “Since I grew up on a fucking farm, genius. Jesus who gave you permission to pursue higher education.”

the old grip of the familiar by littleseal

"There is a single black feather and a printed out picture of Gansey, Blue and Cheng standing in front of some fucking monument Ronan didn’t care enough to remember the name of. Gansey sent it to Ronan’s phone some time ago, but it sat in his messages until Adam picked it up and grinned at it so hard that, one afternoon later, Ronan cursed and kicked and glared his old printer back to life in order to print it out.

Fuck, he thinks, I’m in love with a hoarder."

Adam collects things. Ronan is in love with him.

No Sweeter Innocence Than Our Gentle Sin by gansey_is_our_king

Ronan Lynch has wanted to kiss Adam Parrish for a long time.

(alternately titled: four times that Ronan could have kissed Adam)

Cheers to Another Seven Years! by skyermirth

Adam left Henrietta for Harvard and never returned. Now, seven years has passed, and an unexpected work assignment has brought him back to a place and people he hardly recognizes.

Row, row, row your boat by emmerrr

“What. Why are you smiling at me,” he says suspiciously.

Adam shrugs. “You’re cute.”

“I’m not cute, I’m terrifying.”

“Terrifyingly cute,” Adam says.

and now the world is ours to take / and every single move is ours to make by thatlittleblackcat

"Adam was the scientist, Ronan was the data, and Orphan Girl was the key that explained the strange outliers that Ronan presented, his previously unexplainable actions."

//

Adam sorts out his feelings, Ronan helps him, Gansey is the number one dad friend, Blue is the number one mom friend and Henry tries to make Ronan smile. Otherwise known as the story of how Orphan Girl became Opal.

All These Things You Make Me Feel by SilverOpals394

It was late. Adam could feel the long day catching up to him as he left Boyd’s, all his energy exhausted. When he started his car, the tape deck whirred to life once more. He sighed and raised his hand to turn it off, but before he did a soft melody began to play.

AU in which the mixtape Ronan made for Adam only plays the murder squash song until Adam realizes he's in love with Ronan, too.

Ways to Communicate by Jalules

Blue Sargent reflects on an early memory (and gets busy with her boyfriends.)

(The two things are related, trust me.)

Hold Me Closer, I'm Safe in Your Arms by actuallyronanlynch

“You wanna tell me why I had to hear from Henry Cheng that my boyfriend was at the hospital?” Adam hissed, though his voice wasn’t as acidic as it could’ve been. Ronan took small victories where he could.

“You don’t have a cellphone,” Ronan pointed out flatly. “It’s not like I could’ve gotten a hold of you.”

arts and crafts and the inevitability of death by sunshineinthestorm

Adam comes to the public library in search of a study spot, not a boyfriend. 

But it must be his lucky day—because he ends up with a bit of both.

 Roswell New Mexico

a conversation between insignificant others by Bellakitse

“Hey…have you noticed that our boyfriends are madly in love with each other?"

“You noticed that too, huh,” she answers dryly, letting out a huff of reluctant amusement.

***

Forrest and Maria share a drink and a conversation and start a friendship.

Own Personal Hell by BeStillMySlashyHeart

Now that Isobel's getting the hang of her telekinesis, Michael decides to test out his telepathic abilities. It backfires. Badly. Now Michael's trapped inside his own mind and only one person can break him out.

Drop the Hammer by brightloveee

Max makes a new friend at the shooting range, who turns out to be even more bad-ass than he expected.

(Takes place mid-S1)

Boys Like You by forgadgetsandgizmos

Curly, dirty blond hair (the mere description ‘curly’ felt like an injustice) twisted in every direction off his head, a sharp contrast with the scruff darkening his strong jawline and scowl-ridden face.

Alex made a mental note to compliment Maria on her excellent taste in men.

—

Or, Alex has coffee with Maria's one-night stand, a man who he definitely does not have a crush on.

let's exchange the experience by lostin_space

Michael decides they need to quarantine.

OR

Michael floods Alex with love and care over and over and over.

This Is Hardcore by Anonymous

Michael makes a proposal. Alex accepts. Michael wonders what the hell he’s gotten himself into.

i don't know what to think (but i think of supernovas) by Milzilla

michael discovers that the console can talk. then, he discovers it can do far more than that.

iridescence on skin by Lire_Casander

In a world where (almost) everyone has a tattoo on their right wrist with one set of coordinates that point to the place where their soulmate is born, Alex thought he wouldn't be any different. He couldn't be more mistaken.

He has two.

The Real Thing by elliebird

Max checks on Michael the morning after Michael saves Max’s ass from Wyatt Long and his dumbass buddies. He sees more than he’s supposed to.

Written for a Tumblr anon who one of their friends walking in on them or anyone of them finding out about Michael and Alex in an interesting way 

Sundering by romancandles 

“You know it was just an Air Force balloon, right?” says Alex.

Michael smirks. “That’s what they want you to think,” he says, with a wink.

The Old Guard

Peer Reviewed by ishandahalf

[From:] Journal of Medieval Studies (jms.eds@jms.com)

[Subject:] Ad-hoc note from the editor

I have noticed an uncommon level of animosity in your responses to your reviewers (or rather, one reviewer in particular). I am writing to ask if you would please do your best to keep your interactions civil. In fairness, I have also sent a similar request to the reviewer you seem to have this friction with. I trust you will both try and remain more professional in the future.

Again, thank you for submitting your work to this journal.

Sincerely,

James Copley, PhD

Editor-in-Chief

Journal of Medieval Studies

An (accidental) academic epistolary romance as (inadvertently) documented via a (theoretically) rigorously blinded peer review process.[citation needed]

third for a word and the song keeps going Macremae

It was honestly shaping up to be a pretty uneventful year before the Vatican got on Nicky’s bad side.

Or: three times in 2008 that the team genuinely thought about killing Nicky if only to get him to shut up about the changes to the Catholic English Mass and his unrelenting opinions on them, and one time Nile did.

Apex Predators In Island Ecosystems (Freeman et al., in press) by Sixthlight

Palaeobotany PhD student Nile Freeman and her supervisor Joe al-Kaysani are invited to billionaire Stephen Merrick’s new project – a theme park full of cloned dinosaurs. What could possibly go wrong?

This Rough Magic by Marivan

When Joe came to Scotland to study the sea, he did not expect to also encounter a beautiful man claiming that A. he’s a selkie and B. they’re married because Joe picked up his scarf.

It sounds like a fairy tale and that’s a problem. Because Joe’s a scientist. And selkies don’t exist.

Wars for the broken by Yuliares

Five years into his exile, Booker is joined by a companion he never expected to meet. Together, they try to work on healing.

Sometimes they go down to the sewers just so she can scream and scream. “I like to hear it echo,” she explains. “Underwater, you can’t hear anything. Here, at least I can be heard.”

“I don’t feel like a warrior anymore,” she tells him, throwing bread crumbs at pigeons. “I feel broken.”

“You’re still a warrior,” he says roughly. “This is still fighting.”

a good (eighth) impression by deanniker

Over the next few months, Joe runs into Nicky every so often at the farmer’s market. Some weekends Nicky doesn’t make it, because of his work schedule - Joe doesn’t understand it because he doesn’t ask, though he does start to recognize when one of those missing weekends is coming up because Nicky will stock up on things with longer shelf-life. When they do run into each other, they make small talk and move through the stalls together.

Joe doesn’t mention it to Lykon when he stops by, because it is kind of weird, that Lykon’s ex-boyfriend texts Joe things like - If you’re here, the apples look particularly good this week and thank you for that recipe, I did not know what I was going to do with that much couscous

Or,

Joe wouldn't usually consider starting anything with his best friend's ex, but as long as they keep it casual, it shouldn't be weird... right?

get back to where you once belonged by tenderjock

Nile takes a sip of her cappuccino and closes her eyes.

(Booker and Nile get that coffee. Life happens, along the way.)

a house; a home by mehm

“Is this a kidnapping?” Joe asks as Nicky checks both their seat belts. “Like, I don’t mind. It’s just not quite what I expected for my birthday.”

In which Joe gets a birthday surprise, because that’s the stuff you have time for when you and the love of your life become mortal at the same time.

the ties that bind by damaskrose

“There’s a story I heard many times,” Andy begins, “in the Mediterranean. Threads of fate and three sisters. One to spin, one to measure, and one to cut.”

Clutter And Croutons by flawedamythyst

Joe and Nicky have an argument, and then Nicky talks to Nile about what it really means to be in a relationship for 900 years.

Inception

My Big Fat Slightly Annoying Wedding by jibrailis

Arthur and Eames elope for ~tax reasons. Certain people in their lives are not happy at the lack of a wedding.

Remember Sydney by pathera

When Eames shambles into the safe house outside of London, he finds a red light blinking on the phone.

For the inception_kink prompt:

Arthur is on a plane which is about to crash. No way anyone is going to survive. Instead of panicking he calmly calls the team's office and gets the answering machine. He hangs up before the plane crashes.

Give me Arthur's last message to the team.

 (TW: Character Death / Angst)

Of Such Deceitfulness and Suavity by delires

In which emotions manifest themselves in unusual ways.

YO, K2tog (it's like a code) by lazulisong

“Oh my God,” moans Arthur. “I’ve paid less for Somnacin. Good Somnacin.” A horrible thought strikes him. “How much is the yarn --”

“I want you to have an unguarded reaction,” Eames tells him, and pulls him up from the floor.

(They run an extraction on a knitter.)

hit the ground running by orphan_account

"I travelled halfway around the world for you. I dealt with the French for you."

Valley by wldnst

It's an old story: a knight, a prince, a kingdom in peril.

If This Is Rain Let It Fall On Me and Drown Me by Brangwen

We used to be so brave, Eames thought. Of the two of them, Arthur had always been the more fearless.

a gentle familiarity by jollypuppet

Two weeks later, Eames is on his doorstep with bad Italian takeout and a grin, and Arthur tells him he can sleep on the couch.

Your Crisis Cannot Be Completed As Dialed by sevenimpossiblethings

Arthur doesn't do snow, Ariadne is determined to be as Midwestern as possible, and blizzards make cell phone service unreliable.

Let’s Say I Do (I Do) by xsilverdreamsx

There were, perhaps some things worse that this, Arthur thinks, as he glares at the letter in his hand with his name printed clearly in bold ink, indicating his presence in two weeks for his esteemed marriage to one William H. Eames, III, at St. Catherine's Church in London, England.

Star Trek (predominantly Kirk/McCoy)

Show the World That Something Good Can Work by knune

Leonard McCoy is a doctor, not a personal assistant, and maybe that's why he can't stand working for Jim Kirk.

It's in the little things by winterover

Bones is bemused by a persistent secret admirer.

"Wedding" Away with It by pendrogon

One morning, Bones wakes up and he's single. By the same afternoon, he's married to Jim Kirk for Arbitrary Fic Reasons(TM).

How Long Will You Stay (For Your Whole Life) by withthepilot

Jim Kirk, deputy director of the Enterprise parks and recreation department, sees all of his hard work fall to pieces when budget specialist Leonard McCoy arrives from the state capital to cut Jim's budget and threaten the livelihoods of his colleagues. But thanks to a major parks project, Leonard finds a place in the department, as well as in Jim's life—and when all is said and done, Jim doesn't want him to leave.

All-Time Favorite by mardia

What to do when your best friend suddenly starts making new friends. 

Joy Ride by Cards_Slash

While running for their lives from an alien species Kirk had accidentally enraged, they come across a car. And well, if you were to come across a car while being chased by aliens that wanted you dead, and you possessed some lingering knowledge of how to drive a car similar to said car, you would have decided to drive it toward the nearest cliff too.

Also a gunfight.

Syncytia by epistolic

He’d signed up for Starfleet on an impulse, but Starfleet meant James Tiberius Kirk: the first – and second, and third, and fourth – big mistake of Leonard McCoy’s life.

Renovation by canistakahari

Jim has a whammy put on him by an alien death ray and he suddenly craves domesticity. He's crazy with longing to shop at space!Ikea and get potted bamboo and he starts looking into adopting AND HE HATES HIMSELF AND CANNOT CONTROL THE SHIT. Luckily, McCoy is drunk all the time and plays house.

17:08 by butterflycell

She'd watched the news holos with a sick feeling, searching for information that was completely obvious in its absence. Amidst the reports of the the Enterprise's miraculous recovery and the damages sustained, there had been next to nothing about the crew or her captain. Jim had been mentioned only in passing, his name shied away from as his first officer limited interaction to the bare essentials.

The Honey of Hybla by shrift

"Bones, prepare to be my date."

[ganseybois]

would you be willing to write a gansey and ronan prompt? something about gansey or ronan's wedding day, with the other as the best man? i just miss them!!!

here you go! i hope you like it :) 

In many, many ways, Richard Gansey III never thought that he would actually make it to this day. And it wasn't even his day really. But like so many things that happened to their group, everything that happened to one person happened to all of them.

That, or, Gansey was feeling very overdramatic due to the nature of the day, which was very possible.

It was Ronan Lynch and Adam Parrish's wedding day, and considering the number of times death had brushed their gang, everyone was feeling quite overwhelmed. Gansey, in particular, felt as though he was one speech away from blubbering. He couldn't recall the last time he had felt so emotional.

Ronan, of course, could see it in his best man's eyes.

"Dick, seriously, pull yourself together." but he was grinning as he fixed his bowtie in the mirror. He looked stunningly handsome in a suit. It was a rare, but delightful image.

"I'm sorry." Gansey chuckled, collapsing in the armchair.

"What's wrong with you?" Ronan asked, walking over to him. He got down on one knee and looked up at his friend.

Ronan had softened considerably over the years. Age and the possibility of a risk-free life had stretched out before him and done wonders to his attitude. While sarcasm (and the occasional outburst) still littered his tone, he was much more open now, and his eyes had not looked cold in years.

Gansey sighed, "You're going to ruin your suit."

"As if I give a shit." Ronan grinned. "Come on man, I'm supposed to be the one falling to pieces, remember?"

"I'm sorry," Gansey said again, "I truly don't know what's come over me. I suppose, looking back on who we were, and seeing you and Adam here now...it's just making me sad. In a good way. Melancholic." Except it wasn't that, either. For all the words Gansey knew, for all the times his friends had called him a know-it-all, he could not put his finger on what he was feeling.

"I don't want you to be sad on my wedding day, man, you're going to bring down the party."

"No, it's the kind of sadness that is happy. A change I welcome, but wonder how many more changes we will go through." Gansey rubbed his hands over his face, moving his glasses up and down as he did. "Ignore me, I'm having trouble communicating my feelings today." After he put his hands down, he smiled lightly. "I am deliriously happy for you, Ronan, please don't misunderstand me."

"I never understand you to begin with." Ronan teased, but they both knew that wasn't true. He got up, but instead of standing straight, he leaned forward, pressing his forehead against Gansey's. "You know, I love you too, right?"

It was no secret: Ronan Lynch loved Richard Gansey more than his own life.

Gansey reached forward and clutched at Ronan's suit, tightly. "I know."

They stayed like that for a moment, childhood friends silently telling the other: we will never change, and things are changing, but we are the same, and we are happy and alive and are living.

Things were changing, things were always changing, but each of them knew, deep down, that their friendship would survive it all. It was simply, sometimes, even someone like Richard Gansey III, needed a little reassurance that they would be okay. Weddings made people irrational and emotional. But, for the most part, in the best ways possible.

Ronan pulled back finally, pulling Gansey up. "Come on, help me get married."

Gansey smiled. "That, I can do."

***

note: apologies if this was a bit ooc, but this takes place in the future and we all know people change, grow, etc, etc, but i still hope you enjoyed :) 

[werewolffeelings]

last line tag game

@kelliealtogether tagged me for this one thank you kellieeee!! 💖

idk what the rules for this are but this is probably longer than necessary SHRUG EMOJI

“Okay,” Gansey says, clapping his hands together. He takes a breath. “Ready, Parrish?”

Adam had been perfectly ready earlier that evening. Ouija boards did not rank high on his list of potential sources for real ghost activity, and even lower on his list of fears. But after what he’d seen—he can’t be sure anymore that every case of Ouija board haunting is simply one of the players moving the planchette across the board. A silly prank board game for children’s sleepovers. 

Not with the way Ronan paces behind him—his boots thumping loudly, back and forth, back and forth. The muscles in Adam’s neck are very tight and he fights the urge to stretch it out, to shake out his hands, to do anything to dispel the nervous energy flooding his body. Instead, Adam scoots forward, his ass cold on the concrete floor. He places his fingertips very gently on top of the tacky, glow-in-the-dark plastic triangle in the center of the board and Gansey does the same across from him.

Blue says, “I just want it noted, for the record, that I don’t support this at all, and I tried to stop you.”

Ronan grunts in agreement.

tagging @hklnvgl @superstringtheory @cheeeryos @flightspathfic 💖

[crispycostumes]

as a follow up to this post: link (prequel here), you are now welcome to the sequel: an analysis of any and every time mint is mentioned in conjunction with gansey in tdt 

the first and second times are in chapter 5 when he and Ronan are up and talking about how Ronan’s dreaming works. 

“Tell me what it’s like.” Gansey stretched to get a mint leaf from his pocket. He put it on his tongue and spoke around it. “Walk me through it. What happens?”

(he doesn’t understand Ronan’s dreaming and right before this they had been talking about the violent night horrors that almost killed Ronan, gansey’s best friend who he loves so fucking much. i feel like i don’t need to explain the way this plays into the whole mint ordeal) 

and then before they decide to go to the barns.

“Gansey considered. He looked to where his keys sat on the desk beside his mint plant. The clock beside it, a repellently ugly vintage number Gansey had found lying by a bin at the dump, said 3:32.” 

the third time is in chapter 18 when noah and him find ronan in the first floor of monmouth

“Inside, the small smells of the building — the rusty fixtures, the wormholed wood, his mint plants — had been overtaken by an unfamiliar odor. Something damp and strangely fertile and unpleasant.”

(note that he apparently has several mint plants in his possession)

the fourth time is in chapter 19 after the whole gang goes to the barns and buries the night horror. 

“With a gentle oath, Gansey jammed the tip of the shovel into the ground and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. He stuffed a mint leaf into his mouth. “I have blisters. Nino’s? ””

(they bury a night horror, a terrible monster that attacked ronan and gansey and tried to kill them both. they’re at the barns when they’re not supposed to be. gansey is wound up and strung out, he is not having a good time. and what is his method of dealing with this to not bother anyone else with his feelings? mint leaf)

(it also struck me while i was editing this that gansey knew this entire time that this was the year he died. and then he thought he was going to get killed by a nightmare monster,,, my poor boy)

the fifth time is when the gray man breaks into monmouth in chapter 23

“And it’s you. The sword in my spine. I seem to have lost my wallet somewhere.” The Gray Man let the compromised door fall open. A smell of musty paper and mint rolled around him. Dust motes played over a thousand books; this wasn’t quite what he’d expected. “When you were vacuuming under Calla, did you happen to see anything?”

the sixth through eighth times are blue noting how much and how constantly gansey smells of mint. first when blue goes to monmouth after gansey leaves. (hah, leaves)

“An hour later, Noah let Blue into Monmouth Manufacturing. The sun had made the space vast and musty and lovely. The warm, trapped air was scented with old wood and mint and tenthousand pages about Glendower. Although Gansey had been gone only hours, it suddenly seemed longer, like this was all that was left of him.”

then it continues as noah and blue are spending time together

“One of Gansey’s EpiPens bounced against the interior of the topmost drawer as Blue withdrew a fancy pen. She copied Gansey’s blocky handwriting onto a Nino’s receipt as Noah put on a preppy sweater he’d found balled under the desk. She ate a mint leaf and breathed on Noah’s face.”

“Without any particular discussion, they curled on top of the blanket, each taking one of Gansey’s pillows. It felt illicit and drowsy. Only inches away, Noah blinked sleepily at her. Blue crumpled the edge of the sheet against her nose. It smelled like mint and wheatgrass, which was to say, like Gansey.”

(then she admits she has a crush on him) (also further proves that he smells so much like mint that mint becomes synonymous with him for the people in his life)

the ninth time is in chapter 33 when gansey and adam are at the party for gansey’s mom

“Jesus Christ,” Gansey said tragically, his eyes on the gathering. “Oh well.” He flicked an invisible piece of lint off the shoulder of Adam’s suit and placed a mint leaf on his own tongue. “Good for them to see your face.”

(neither adam nor gansey was comfortable at this party, gansey knows that they’re about to have a difficult ass conversation, and he’s been carrying the weight of everything adam’s sacrifice made him feel alone. He’s been afraid and agonising over losing adam and adam leaving him (and we all know how gansey feels extreme anxiety around the fact that he doesn’t perceive himself to be as important to other people as they are to him). he’s anxious and wound up and strung out and uncomfortable and in a situation where he doesn’t have full control. and he’s also been wearing his richard gansey iii mask all night, something we know he partly developed (or at least the ease with which he uses it) to hide his violent ptsd from people)

the tenth time is in chapter 36 when gansey and adam have their argument about the whole cabeswater debacle

“Gansey turned to him; his breath was all mint leaves and champagne, him and them. He asked, “Why did you go to Cabeswater without me, Adam?””

(very big thing that “him and them” and the distinction between the smells of the people at the party and gansey, two very different things in adams mind. gansey, to adam, is encapsulated by the smell of mint)

the eleventh and twelfth times are in chapter 45 when adam and gansey leave his parents house and his mom gives them gifts

“Next was Mrs. Gansey, peering out the window to verify that her driver was out front before saying, “Dick, I’ve gotten you another mint plant to take back. Don’t forget it. Adam, I picked you up a rubber plant, too. You boys never think about feng shui.”” 

(this is something his family knows about, at least in the peripheral) (could it be something they’ve encouraged? do they know the real reason?) (she knows he already has other mint plants but also knows that he will gladly accept another)

and then

“As the boys were headed out the door, Gansey holding his tiny mint plant and Adam struggling beneath a five-gallon pot of rubber tree, Helen came down dragging a tiny black wheeled suitcase.”

and then the thirteenth time is in the same chapter in the garage

“Just get back, he thought. Get back so you can find out . . . “Look, just flash your lights if something goes wrong,” Gansey said, standing before the open door of his black Suburban. He ordinarily kept it here, but no one really trusted Adam’s new vehicle to make the drive across the state. Gansey rocked the driver’s side door a little. Adam could tell that he wanted nothing more than to ask, Are you all right? or What do you need, Adam? The mint plant, placed on the dash, peered anxiously around Gansey’s shoulder.”

(and as we all know from miss maggie herself, every time an object is closely described, it’s describing a person. and mint is previously said by adam to BE gansey. what does this tell us? well you see, gansey is anxious and the symbolism is turned up to fucking 11. Mint Theory™ truthers rise)

the fourteenth time is in chapter 51 when gansey and blue have their not-kiss

“He leaned toward her — her heart spun again — and pressed his cheek against hers. His lips didn’t touch her skin, but she felt his breath, hot and uneven, on her face. His fingers splayed on either side of her spine. Her lips were so close to his jaw that she felt his hint of stubble at the end of them. It was mint and memories and the past and the future and she felt as if she’d done this before and already she longed to do it again.”

the fifteenth time is in chapter 52 when blue gets home from the great big not-kiss that didn’t mean anything at all whatsoever 

“Her mind took the memory of mint and spun it into a related memory of him, one that Gansey didn’t have yet: the first time she had ever seen him. Not at Nino’s when he asked her out on Adam’s behalf. But that night in the churchyard when all of the spirits of the future dead walked past. One year— that was the longest that any of those spirits had. They would all be dead before the next St. Mark’s Eve.”

(the memory of mint easily turns into one of gansey himself)

then the last and number sixteen is in that same chapter 

“Her mother climbed into Blue’s narrow bed. She jerked at the pillow until Blue allowed her a few inches of it. Then she lay down behind Blue, mother and daughter like spoons in a drawer. Blue closed her eyes again, inhaling the soft clove scent of her mother and the fading mint of Gansey.”

(and once again we see this: gansey is mint to these people)