#declan lynch headcanon

[lizpaige]

Ronan is a gift-giver, that's how he shows affection so he doesn't have to use his words, and i want that to come back in full force after the Lynch bros reconcile 😂 stuff Ronan has dreamt for Declan and unceremoniously shoved in his hands without a word: bullet-proof suit jacket, pen that never runs out of ink, noise-canceling headphones that only cancel out shit he doesn't wanna hear, booby traps for the condo, little snake friend that curls around Declan's wrist and looks like a bracelet (Declan is baffled by this one and insists he doesn't want it but he gets attached eventually), truly untraceable and encrypted phone to do business with, alarm clock that randomly announces when Declan's been boring for too long

BULLET PROOF SUIT JACKET 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭 im sobbing

that alarm clock has me laughing again thank youuuu

um YES this is canon. i wonder what ridiculously dramatic gifts he’d give gansey after literally dreaming a sun to keep his mint plants alive. 🙃

[speciouspessimism]

when ronan misses declan he dreams and wakes up with hundreds of bottles of pepto-bismol.

[clotpolesonly]

i wonder what kind of money laundering scheme the Lynches had set up, cuz ain't nobody nowhere believed that that cattle farm would make them multi millions of dollars

[the-raven-babes]

The Dreamer Trilogy should have been about Declan!

He was the only one with a truly compelling story arc that ended satisfyingly.

Ronan not being human was a lame rug-pull that had zero consequences on on his story or even the world.

And speaking of zero consequences! All of that ecoterrorism was for nothing! And he didn’t even get punished for it!

Everyone else was super interesting (Henessey, Liliana, Carmen, Jordan, Matthew, Adam) but there wasn’t enough time for any of them to have satisfying storylines, so Maggie just cut them all short.

Ultimately, Maggie should have realized sooner that this was a series about Declan and focused on that. I think she got lost in the weeds trying to make Ronan a metaphor for her illness and disabilities and in the process lost the story part.

[yathmcclane]

more on this one

Adam asked Ronan one thing only, the kids must go to Aglionby, if after graduating they decide to not go to college and stay working at the barn or doing whatever they want he will be okay with that.

but not matter how much the kids look like Ronan they are also Adams kids so they have a knack for studying and being competitive at it.

but they are still kids so when they were younger when they didn't want to do homework they would just say their dad never graduated and he did fine so why should they learn about multiplication?

Ronan realizing he was setting a bad example so he goes back to school to get his Ged, now every afternoon he sit in the kitchen table with his kids as they do homework together while adam helps them (and ronan)

during highschool at Aglionby unlike what adam and Ronan thought. the kids do well in school, they do so they could get into a good university. also they also like that they are in the same school their parents met and fell in love and the same school they met uncle gansy

they want to make adam proud by getting into a good college without the help of their family influence or money

even though now with ronans money plus Adams job they have more than enough to pay for a good college/university and not have to work after for a life.

during oldest first day the old teachers immediately saw the family resemblance, when asked with a shaky voice if out of curiosity his father was also a student, that went there the boys happily with a dangerous smiles like Ronan's answer proudly that yes, both their parents went to Aglionby, curious the teacher ask both? and the boy confirms that adam is his other dad, making the teacher leave a breath of relief that they may look like ronan but maybe they are as studios as Adam

-

Gansey is the godfather of the middle boy, being Declan the godfather of the first and Mathew of the last.

but Gansey being Gansey the kid has some English old name that only an old man could have. while gansey was really proud of choosing a good name with a deep meaning everyone just calls the kid by a nickname, everyone except gansey (the Older boy would be named niall and ganseys kid named noah)

-

the Lynch clan has a reputation in Henrietta. they went from almost being wipe out to doubling in size, specially every summer when all the kids reunited at the barns.

they are everywhere in Henrietta during summer.

they can be found at Nino's or a 300 way fox, spending time with the grandmas psychics, Ronans boys being the kids of their father love Messing ith granny calla (a name that started with ronan wanting to annoying the woman but stuck with the kids)

they can be found at Nino's or on the streets racing, or exploring the forest.

-

maybe is because they are the daughter of a dream and their grandfather was a dreamer but when the girls are together they could see... things, they love spending time with their uncle adam, the only person in the family who could understand that side. he teaches them how to read cards, during summer they could be found on the kitchen table doing readings to themselves and laughing at things only them could see.

the gift comes into play when painting, much like their mother and aunt they got a talent for it, sometimes their drawings would be scenes of the future.

it started with finger paintings that became too accurate, a drawing of the family together the day Ronan and Adam visited them as a surprise with the boys, a drawing of declan with a blue stain on his shirt, next week a blue pen exploded while Declan was working. small things like that, it becomes more accurate when they are in the Henrietta.

unlike the boys in the lynch family the girl can't go to Aglionby, so they sent them to some fancy rich private all girls school in the mountains, the best of the best, (like to think they also have their own adventure, an academy with secrets, like a psychic headmistress. weird energy in the school forest, and a mystery, like to think at some point they ask uncle adam for help, being the more knowledgeable on energy and how to strengthen or weaken it.

-

Adam and Ronan's kid love working in the barns, the inherent their fathers love for it, but they also love dreaming.

dealing with 3 kids that could pull anything out of their dream was a challenge. when the boys were kids scary movies were ban in the house, what if one of the kids pulled a monster from the nightmares?.

so no scary movies for the lynch boys.

they had to deal with a lot of weird toys, animals, from a multicolor cow to a unicorn, to toys that would to the impossible like a lava lamp with fireworks inside or a snorkel that would let you breath under water.

sometimes while his boys dreamt Ronan would follow them inside, Adam with now years of experience could follow ronan and his boys to the dream space, where they would spend time as a family seeing the things the kids would come up with and telling them what they could bring and what not.

and there would always be their forever young older sister opal, who seems to never grow.

Mathews kids had a hard time coming to the truth of their bird but with Mathews help they manage, like Mathew was dreamt to be Love all the kids were created with a similar thought,

the oldest a boy, bought by a rich couple from a dreamer, dreamed to be the perfect kid, perfect score in school, sociable, the perfect trophy kid,

then the girl, dreamt by a grieving couple who lost their daughter, dream with the though of her on mind, a little kind playful girl who always brings joy to any room she enters, maybe too much joy,

the last one another boy, same age as the girl, dreamed by a lonely old dreamer who just wanted a family, but because of his ability lived in seclusion alone. you could say the boy trait is just to be family, people feel familiar with him.

when Mathew found them he asked his family for help, Hennssey and jordan helping making sweetmetals, adam helping strengthen it (if adam can make energy lines stronger and ley lines are energy, couldn't he do the same with sweetmetals? he did it before with the mural, like he always positions rock draw sigils etc and everything but a pendant with a mini painting and in the back adam carve some symbols in the metal making it stronger) Declan managing the legal part and ronan dreaming then kids toys and stuff, (maybe he can also dream sweetmetals now who knows).

The boys went to Aglionby with Ronan and adams boys and gansey kids, the oldest same age as the oldest boy and the second same age as the youngest, and gansey and blue's kid.

while the girl went to the same school as the triplets.

-

Gansey babysitting the boys always ends in disaster, gansey idea of babysitting while he goes with the best heart thinking he could teach the kids some welsh kings facts it was more like a history lesson. being trouble makers they would mess with Gansey more often than not, once Ronan and Adam found Gansey tied to a chair while the boys were running around him screaming and laugh.

[lookserratic]

Declan Lynch, the oldest of the Lynch brothers, was never alone. He was never with his brothers, but he was never alone. He was a perpetual-motion machine run by the energy of others: here leaning over a friend’s table at a pizza joint, here drawn into an alcove with a girl’s palm to his mouth, here laughing over the hood of an older man’s Mercedes. The congregation was so natural that it was impossible to tell if Declan was the magnet attracting or the filings attracted. (The Dream Thieves ch 2)

Declan is canon bi as far as I’m concerned.

I think if we ever got bi declan real it would have been done in like a one paragraph anecdote in his internal monologue about the most boring gay experience in the world and never brought up again. like at some point he would've been like 'once declan had slept with a senator's son, a man with the false american charm and loud presence of one used to getting what they wanted, for the political advantage. he had left promptly the next morning as if merely returning from a meeting, and had spent almost a whole hour staring at guido reni's st sebastian which he had stolen from the dulwich gallery without anyone noticing. the twisting, erotic form of the man seemed untouchably alien to anything declan could reach. what declan had felt the night before was merely a polite transaction - nothing like the passion this saint achieved just by dying' and it would leave us still kinda uncertain as whether or not that means he's actually into men or not

[adamprrishcycle]

Okay, brown-eyed Adam Parrish anon here, I have another take.

Despite Declan literally being born in Ireland, I think he heavily suppressed any accent he had once he'd started his mission of blending in on purpose (DECLADAM YOU WILL NEVER ESCAPE FROM YOUR PARALLELS).

Inversely, I think Ronan—not only a copy of his father, but a worshipper of his father—would heavily exaggerate any sort of accent he'd acquire growing up isolated at the Barns with Niall and Aurora prior to assimilating at school. If not to be like his father, then for the attention, certainly.

To summarize, in the same way Adam has brown eyes, the Lynches have accents. I dare anyone to take this from me.

Oh only the greatest lynch headcanon of all time

[seaemberthesecond]

declan csa parallels haven't left me since I made the connection

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk about this, because honestly same.

This is one of those things that I won't even say is a headcanon because it's not. It's a reading of the text, plain and simple. The evidence is all there.

Violation of autonomy, familial harm, and secrets are all big themes in tdt. The central problematic of the Lynch family is that the secrets in the underbelly tear them apart and prevent the brothers from connecting to each other in real and meaningful ways. They're deliberately denied the language and vocabulary to articulate their experiences out of fear of the family's secrets being exposed, leaving them unable to communicate with each other.

And in the middle of all of this, we have Declan.

Declan who, unbeknownst to his brothers, is experiencing a radically different childhood riddled with danger and violence and is forced to keep it a secret by his parents for the 'good of the family.' Declan who resents Ronan and Matthew for getting the idyllic childhood he's been deprived of, thus creating rifts in their relationship. Rifts that are further exacerbated because of the secrets he's forced to keep – he can't talk to them about what's actually happening in his life, he can't share anything real with them, so he constructs a fake persona to hide behind, even at home. But his brothers pick up on his artifice and withdraw from him, leaving him even more isolated.

This is…such a painfully obvious allegory for sexual abuse that I'm kind of dumbfounded by the fact that more people don't talk about it.

Both Ronan and Matthew recognize that Declan is treated differently by their parents, but they deliberately don't examine this too deeply because doing so would require that they acknowledge that something sinister lurked in the margins of their childhood and that's just not something they want to face. Declan's grief isn't as clear-cut as Ronan and Matthew's, because he's grappling with the very real harm his parents did to him, but he's demonized for his "sceptical and imperfect love" for Niall and Aurora. His attempts at getting Ronan to see that their parents weren't who he thought they were are met with hostility and scorn (and in Matthew's case, hesitant incredulity). Because again, Ronan doesn't want to hear it. He's actively standing there with his hands over his ears chanting lalalalalala. I mean in CDTH, we can see how very discomfited he gets when faced with Declan at the fairy market because it forces him to re-evaluate his own childhood in light of all this new information about his brother's secret life that was taking place right under his nose. And he does not want to do that.

I mean does that not drive you insane?? The subtext is THERE. Everything about how the Lynch Brothers' dynamic is set up allows for the reading that Declan has suffered some kind of sexual abuse at the hands of one/both of their parents.

And this is purely at a thematic level. It gets crazier when you consider Declan displays many of the characteristics and behaviours of sexual assault survivors.

"It wasn’t that he hadn’t gone on dates or hooked up, that unlovely euphemism for what was sometimes a perfectly nice time. It was that he didn’t get too close. Intimacy was allowed as long as it revealed nothing truthful." (ch 69, cdth)

His issues with intimacy

His 'hypersexuality'

“So he’s a man-whore. It’s not your problem,” Gansey said. (ch 4, trb)

His troubled relationship with physical touch

(He never initiates anything physical with Jordan, it's always her making the first move; his discomfort with Aurora's hug in the Dauntless Declan scene; his discomfort with Feniall's hug in CDTH; he avoids touching his brothers even and is surprised whenever Matthew reaches out to him.)

His disassociation from his own emotions

Declan Lynch had a complicated relationship with his family. It wasn’t that he hated them. Hate was such a slick, neat, simple emotion. Declan envied people who felt proper hate. (ch 10, MI)

So even if you choose to believe Declan wasn't assaulted by Niall or Aurora, there is still enough evidence in the text itself to suggest he's suffered from some kind of sexual violence during his childhood. Fairy Markets aren't exactly child-friendly places (the woman getting strangled in one of the rooms in CDTH anyone?) and it's not really a stretch to assume Declan had to put up with some fucky shit as a uhh* checks notes* 10-year-old in the uhhhh *checks notes again* black market for the rich and powerful.

And then there's the declan-adam-hennessy and the declan-adam-mor triangles which exist independent of whether you consider Declan a victim of sexual violence but certainly get reinforced if you subscribe to it. But I won't get into that.

All this to say, CSA survivor Declan you will always be real to me.

[cabeswaterdrowned]

hello since I feel like u have some good takes on trc lore/can be a bit crazy w it

thoughts on my personal headcanon that Declan killed Niall?

I don’t think HE did it but organised it. Obviously Declan was a part of Nialls criminal world and probably knew more than Niall thought he did for a teenager, but my thought is that he knew Niall already had a hit out of him from the grey man and made it so that Niall didn’t think the grey man was going to kill him when he drove up to the Barns. Personally, I just feel like it’s unlikely that Niall would’ve let the grey man kill him that easily (I.e, tire iron and not a gun). Declan already knew about Niall potentially wanting to use Ronan for the greywaren etc and as we saw in TD3 he has been secretly very protective and loving over ronan plus very much hated his dad/niall def traumatised him and thus leading to him wanting to kill him to stop more harm coming to Ronan. I feel like if I read td3 more than once I could maybe back up some with Declan’s thoughts on his dad but overall I feel like his immense hatred and then regret signals that maybe he had something to do with his death, plus his need to take care of ronan and Matthew afterwards.

idk maybe this isn’t backed up very well with the trc/td3 lore but just thought it was an interesting thought

Oh I definitely think that’s an interesting idea and could see some canon basis. I feel like I would believe Declan on some level had suspicions about the plot to kill his dad and kind of .. did not take the steps he could have to make sure it didn’t happen, and then blocked that pre knowledge out, more than I would necessarily believe he organized the whole thing. Either way I do think the fact the Lynch brothers memories were canonically altered leaves room for playing around with what actually happened there, the unreliability of Niall’s story and their memories from a time when they were traumatized combined with literal magic at play. You could take that in a lot of directions creatively for sure and poke holes in how much we actually know about the backstory. I also read an interesting post meta-ing on the possibility of Declan being sexually abused by Niall, and while it’s not a headcanon / reading I like feel so strongly about I want to adopt as my canon, I could definitely see where that was coming from, and it would fit in with this picture as a motive. Regardless of that parentification to make up for the guilt definitely tracks.  

Also though disclaimer that I like Declan and find him interesting but he isn’t a character I have deep emotional attachment to or am creatively enamored by like some other chars in this verse / I’m not a diehard stan, so this might come from a more removed perspective than you were looking for as opposed to brain rot. But yeah I think there are absolutely interesting ideas to dig into there.

[lizpaige]

i have one more hc lol i believe that post tdt declan refuses to call adam for anything because of adam’s “if you need help, don’t call me” in gw, so at like holiday dinners maybe adam runs to the store to get something last minute and when he’s back declan is like “oh we also forgot something else parrish do you mind going back” and adam’s like why didn’t you just call me and declan’s like “probably because on november 17th at precisely 11:58am you specifically told me to never call you again” and this just goes on and on for years. nightmare in laws of all time

this is AMAZING 👏👏👏👏👏 ugh i love their dynamic they are so toxic lmao they both hold grudges and will not budge from the drama of it all. i also love how they wouldnt even yell at each other about it, it would just be passive aggression and glares across the room 😒

[speciouspessimism]

does gansey smoke cigarettes guys.

[butchgrayson]

3, 4, 12 and 24 for dick grayson our beloved

dick grayson our beloved <3 i am about to be so fucking annoying about him

3. Least favorite canon thing about this character?

Joke-ish answer everything from TT nightwing (and rebirth nightwing in general). I just ignore its existence tbh.

Real answer I had a lot of difficulty answering bc i loveeeeee dick's flaws i love it when he's a cunt i love it when he self isolates i love it when he is a hypocrite the tension between his bad traits and his love for people/his friends, his dedication to heroism his intellect all of it is what made me fall in love with his character <3 BUT THEN. i remembered cop dick grayson. who i have almost completely wiped from my mind bc i hate it so so so so bad. it just doens't make sense with him as a person, like whyyyyyy would he ever go and join a police force more corrupt than gothams?????? its so anathema to who he his/his character history that my blood boils whenever i reread nw96 or see that era mentioned in fandom spaces LMAO whatever. im not even mad. in my own personal dc universe that lives in my brain and the personal wiki i have on my laptop the bludhaven cop era was an extended undercover/infiltration strategy. dick's true career calling should be being a bartender/doing seasonal work <3

4. If you could put this character in any other media, be it a book, a movie, anything, what would you put them in?

ACE ATTORNEY !! i have an extended dc ace attorney au that i will post about someday but even outside of that it would be soooo fun to see him as either a protag (esp given that the defence attorneys in aa have to do all of their own detective work) OR as a supporting character. i think he would fit right in with the main cast of the series too, especially trucy (fellow circus kids !!!) and apollo <3

12. What's a headcanon you have for this character?

Another one i had a difficult time w just because how can i pick there r so many. BUT i saw a post earlier that reminded me that i am a dick grayson occasional smoker truther. i understand why most people would NOT agree w this but its a little self-indulgent i fully admit. on the one hand like yes he is a high level athlete/why would he do anything that he knows have bad health impacts but i can say as a former (semi) high level athlete i think that is the demographic i have known that has the highest proportion of smokers LMAO i think he picks it up in the ntt era originally as a social smoking thing whenever the titans would party or whatever (another self indulgence is i think he picks up the habit from donna) and it eventually turns into a very rare (as in, goes through a 1.5 packs a year) stress management technique when shit with bruce/the family/the titans/a case gets bad. he's filled with a lot of guilt over it but this does not stop him.

24. What other character from another fandom of yours that reminds you of them?

See there are so few characters with the specific brand of neuroses/issues that dick has that i was stumped on BUT while it is very much not a one-to-one i draw soooooo many parallels between him and declan lynch from the raven cycle series. ESP DURING THE ERA WHERE BRUCE IS "DEAD". pov you are the eldest child of an emotionally unavailable man who has involved you with his underworld/vigilante dealings since you were far too young to be doing so and so you take up the burden of it and incorporate it so deeply into your sense of self that you don't know how to be a real person anymore. and when your father dies it is your job to look after your family and protect them even when theyre estranged from you and you are the inheritor of something that you must keep going even if it kills you to do so <3 i think this parallel also works especially well with declan&ronan compared to dick&jason (<- am drafting a post in my mind about this whole topic as i type all this btw)

tysm for sending this in it was v v fun to answer !!!

character ask game

[clotpolesonly]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

SO, as for the specifics:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

and Declan, so fucking tired.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

dad said, dad said, dad said

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

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

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

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

"i'm not scared of dad."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

.....

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

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

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

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

[morrisxn02]

{HARRIS DICKINSON, 21, MALE, HE/HIM} Is that EDWARD MORRISON? A JUNIOR originally from MANHATTAN. They’re THE PROUD ELITE on campus, but even they could get blamed for Greer’s disappearance. 

tl;dr: eddie responsible, pragmatic, methodic but he is also frustrated that he still hasn’t found his path in life and is too scared to live life the way he wants to without disappointing his family. i feel like, right now, he’s at this crossroads where he wants to be young and find his path and have fun, but he is too scared this will put all the great things he has in jeopardy.

-– the basics:

full name: edward rufus morrison nicknames: ed, eddie, rufus (if you want to annoy him) + whatever your muse desires age: 21 birthday: march 13th, 2002 birthplace: new york city, new york major: computer science + literature gender: cisgender male sexuality: bisexual

stats - pinterest board - playlist - wanted connections

multimedia character inspirations:

henry winter (the secret history), dickie greenleaf (ripley - 2024), julian fromme (these violent delights), art donaldson (challengers), declan lynch and richard gansey iii (the raven cycle/the dreamer trilogy), kendall and shiv roy (succession), logan dellos (westworld), nate archibald (gossip girl), mahdi (blocco 181)

background:

middle child of the morrison family;

grew up as the family's perfect little golden boy;

his parents always deposited in him the expectations of one day taking on the family business;

was always sort of a conflict mediator at home, which is one of the reasons why his parents love him so much;

always enjoyed reading and studying;

didn't have any big issues growing up aside from sporadic ideological conflicts with his parents;

spent a year in france as a part of an exchange program in high school;

personality:

kind of nihilistic;

matured way too early so he kind of just wants to be young and dumb for a while but will not allow himself to be happy bc he feels like being his dad's ideal of a man is more important;

very creative and artistic;

on the outside he's a conformist, on the inside he's super liberal. he refrains from dabbling in politics, though bc as aware as he can be abt his privilege, he would never give up the nice things he has;

roy-siblings coded: he will do anything to impress an unloving parent because there's no drug more powerful than parental validation

can be very practical when he needs to be, but is usually very much the opposite

he is very VERY lost in life, very frustrated, very unhappy, thinks he's trowing his life away and regrets like 75% of his life choices;

he can be a bit selfish and narcissistic;

thinks he's smarter than everyone;

cannot muster up the courage to confront his family about anything so he can often be found looking forlornly at the horizon wondering abt everything his life could have been;

headcanons

fatally allergic to hornets. he WILL die if he gets stung

loves videogames;

kind of an art/history nerd;

annoying film-bro that carries a mubi tote around and has a criterion channel subscription (also hit him up if you want to borrow any criterion collective exclusive releases);

would have been an actor in another life. LOVES shakespeare;

eddie is kind of closeted with his bisexuality, mostly bc he feels like his parents might start looking at him differently (a few ppl know and he doesn't make a point of hiding it but he won't openly label himself as queer, it's a weird thing but you know where i'm going with this right)

also LOVES winter sports like and is an amazing tennis player but doesn't care much about other sports;

mildly near-sighed

slightly allergic to polyester (as per a collective gc decision lmao)

other tropes: princely young man, gentleman snarker, byronic hero.

RELATIONSHIP TO GREER: Most of his life, Greer was like a best friend inside of their home. Someone with whom he shared most of his fondest memories, like summers in the Hamptons, Christmases in the Alps, and Halloweens at Disney World. Yet, when you grow up in a Succession-esque household, there are certain unspoken rules about loyalty and comradery. Siblinghood was always a game – fun, for the most part, but competitive and always marred by the inevitable awareness that there was always a great deal at stake and that one could end up finding himself on the losing side. Luckily, for most of their lives, the Unfavorite gracefully assumed that position – which neither he, nor Greer ever questioned. But Edward knew that there were always boundaries to his relationship with the golden girl, there were secrets to be kept from her, lies to be told to appease her, because he knew – as his twin did – that Greer would gladly throw any of them under a bus coming in at full speed if she knew that would expand her advantage in their parents’ rankings.

HOW THEY EMBODY THEIR SKELETON TROPE: The linen shirts, the tailored suits and the cashmere sweaters attest to his love of all things fine and luxurious. Edward is the stereotypical Barbie of northeastern rich men: his favorite sport is skiing; he loves a good glass of premium aged scotch; and his go-to Holiday getaway is quick trip to Europe. All this privilege makes him a little out of touch with reality. Sometimes he just doesn’t get the so-called “small pleasures of life”. And all this luxury at his full disposal might make him appear a little too self-assured. He doesn’t do it out of malice or hatred of the less privileged, though, he just loves his life too much not to be all-in in it… 

EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES: tennis, sailing, writing club, fencing club

[seavoice]

16 and 22!!

16. you can't understand why so many people like this thing (characterization, trope, headcanon, etc)

adam and ronan being fully functional teenage parents to human child opal...dark days. and sanding away trc characters' assholery! i also just in general don't get the appeal of non-magical aus, but that's a firmly personal taste thing

22. your favorite part of canon that everyone else ignores

there is sooooo much in trc that fits this. in no particular order: jordan and hennessy's fucking insane backstory. lynch family fuckery especially the fact that declan and ronan were living their own private nightmares throughout their childhood. batshit crazy DREAM lore. implied fairy market shenanigans, that whole time period from when niall gave up his memories till he gets killed is so fascinating for me. recently i reread the gwenllian and artemus chapters from trk and i'm so so so intrigued by that whole deal (but this one i can understand not being so popular lol). aurora's whole deal 😔

i mean fandom, but tbh i also wish canon itself went deeper into these.

[clotpolesonly]

i am FIRMLY committed to my headcanon of Declan having diagnosably perfect pitch and Ronan using it to annoy the shit out of him 😂 plucking out random notes on any instrument that comes within arm's reach knowing that Declan will be compelled to announce exactly what note it is no matter what he's doing

Declan: "C3 -- ugh, excuse me, Ronan, we are trying to have a conversa -- A flat 5 -- oh my god, would you STOP THAT" Ronan: "you know, you could just ignore it, if you really wanted to" Declan: "you're such a little shi -- E flat 6" Ronan: "[BUZZER NOISE] WRONG, sorry, that was actually a D sharp" Declan: "that's the same fucking note and you know it, shut UP!!!!"

but also fr, just, as a person from a musical family who grew up singing trio music with my mom and sister, musical Lynches making music together is sooooo important to me 🙏🏻 i firmly believe that the Lynch bros miss singing/playing with each other but they're too proud and stubborn to say as much but also making music with anyone else is always vaguely dissatisfying cuz nobody else is up to their personal Lynch-family standard

why did declan continue with black market magic shit he shouldve been a museum tour guide explaining art to children and the elderly