#even after whelk murdered him

[kinreads]

I just realized that Noah’s last line “He quietly slid from time” probably means that the gangsey doesn’t even remember him and oh dear, I genuinely feel as if I’ve just been punched in the stomach

[dnovep]

noah is gay!!!! tell us all about it :3!!

tysm for asking, let's talk about it!! ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ bearing in mind i just woke up & my memory of anything not right in front of me ('the dream thieves' is in my hands rn) is nyot good sooo sorry for any glaring errors 😬

OK SO

wait i'm going to grab the first book send me luck i don't get dizzy getting out of bed too quick hahah

ok i got all 3 other books from the series we're in business baby

1. barrington whelk, family, & his alive days:

resentful, entitled, angry, lonely whelk is like that for a lot of obvious reasons but is also a mirror to noah. even after he was murdered brutally noah still loves glitter in snow globes & blue's spiky hair & playing with ronan. despite all the voices he hears whelk is alone & separate from his coworkers, noah is part of a family (even if not all of him is really there). tl;dr whelk is a reversing mirror to noah - & both are gay! comp het in an all-boys school for kids of rich & successful parents who stereotypically demand success & the perfect-seeming life (declan and the ashleys, get high grades or you're out, how much do those uniforms cost per year?). the czernys seem lovely at noah's funeral but who knows what pressures noah felt from them/school teachers/society or how much or little they acknowledged the existence of non-cishet identities. cabeswater takes adam's control over himself, his security in his own body, "I sacrifice myself." next to that, adam giving up everything, noah says "I almost woke up Cabeswater, we were close enough to do that." it's less how 'close' they were & actually how much whelk valued noah, reciprocated or not. or, this is noah talking, maybe noah thought they nearly woke up cabeswater, thought they were close enough to do that, but whelk didn't care enough for it to do that. noah makes excuses for whelk killing him (with crushing parallels to things people say in real life for people they love who hurt them). i'm including this whole paragraph because there's more here: ""You don't understand," Noah whispered. Blue was afraid he would disappear. This, she understood, had been a secret, carried inside him for seven years [since he died], and he still didn't want to confess it. "He was upset. He'd lost everything. If he'd been thinking straight, I don't he would've... he didn't mean to... we were friends like - are you afraid of Gansey?"" in the 7 years after he killed noah whelk didn't let himself miss him until it looks like he's going to die (neeve, ritual) at which point the guilt & all the good things about noah hits him & he feels "this terrible weight". of course all of this could be platonic but yeah it's just fun in a really heartbreaking & tragic way to think that they had Something almost romantic. "It was a strange, old expression, one that Whelk hadn't heard since his own days at Aglionby, when he, too, had been tight as ticks with his room-mate Czerny. [and they were room-mates!] He felt a hollowness inside him, like he was hungry, like he should've stayed home and drunk more to commemorate this miserable day." "Only Whelk and Czerny, treasure hunters and troublemakers, cared about [St Mark's Day's] existence." "Czerny and Whelk had returned, a half-dozen times, taking readings (next to the circle, there were six different numbers in Czerny's handwriting), digging in the dirt for possible artefacts, watching overnight for signs of supernatural activity." "All Whelk could find out was that the line loved reciprocity and sacrifice, but that was frustratingly vague." before whelk's family lost all their money him & noah kept pushing the ritual to wake the ley line back, there wasn't a desperate need (& maybe they liked staying there together overnight, taking readings, chatting). whelk's second girlfriend was "technically" noah's girlfriend.

2. adam vs whelk:

adam kills whelk. "[To Noah] Adam said, rather more ferocious than he'd been a moment before, "A friend wouldn't kill you."" whelk's ambition & the value he put on his family's good standing & his obsession after his dad's arrested and his family loses their money vs adam's ambition & the value he puts on improving his own good standing & his obsessive drive to push himself forward and up. "Adam had several things he thought about saying, but when he opened his mouth, it was none of those things. "Why Noah?" he asked. "Why not someone horrible?" Whelk closed his eyes for a bare second. "I'm not having this conversation. Why are you here?"" whelk hears 'voices' from his deal with cabeswater, adam sees 'ghosts' from his deal with cabeswater.

[when noah slips from time does that mean whelk does too?? or does he come back to life, if he never killed noah?? or does everything stay the same & they just fill in gaps where noah was to make it make sense???]

3. ronan & noah & The Secret.

"Noah said to Ronan, "I know why you're mad." Ronan sneered at him, but his pulse heaved. "Tell me then, Prophet." Noah said, "It's not my job to tell other people's secrets."" (this quote is so interesting - whose secret is it?? does he mean he can't tell ronan his own secret? or future!ronan's secret? someone else's??) [i could add more here about ronan & noah & cabeswater & cars, noah's red mustang, & both being gay but it's been nearly 90 mins & i'm getting sleepy again]

4. noah dies so gansey lives,

noah & whelk die vs adam & ronan live, whelk kills noah, adam saves ronan (& vice versa).

5. the blue kiss:

noah died when he was 17 - still learning about himself, still ("technically") dating a girl, so it makes sense that his ghost is still stuck in that mindset. maybe it's too early for him to realise he liked girls as friends, not romantically, maybe it's denial, maybe he never gets to work that out about himself. comp het, pressures of being in a rich family sent to a fancy & demanding school. offers to kiss blue if she's "curious" about how it feels, rubs the mark on his cheek from where whelk killed him before he does. the first kiss is a mess, the second is "a lot like kissing a dishwasher". "Blue squinted. "Are you sure you've done this before?" "Hey!" he protested. "It's weird for me, cause it's you." "Well, it's weird for me because it's you.""We can stop." "Maybe we should." then he refers to how kisses look in movies & says to imagine & copy those movie kisses - ok comp het, ok playing the part. after the 3rd kiss, "His smudge had got very dark, and he was cold enough that she shivered. Blue gave him a watery smile. "That was super nice." He shrugged, eyes doleful, shoulders curled in on themselves. He was fading. It wasn't that she could see through him. It was that it was hard to remember what he looked like, even while she was looking at him. When he turned his head, she saw him swallow. He mumbled, "I'd ask you out, if I was alive." Nothing was fair."

i listened to my noah playlist while writing this so shameless plug:

(i don't think maggie wrote him as gay, this is just fun playing about a character i love hahah)

[astudyinfreewill]

ADAM INFILTRATING BOUDICCA!!!! YOUR MIND!!!! pls elaborate the people need this

oh boy!!! unfortunately my brain is a little too fried from work (i just think video calls of over two hours should be illegal unless you’re bantering with the besties) to come up with any actual plot but like. ok hear me out.

i simply think that it’s such a tragic waste of potential to have this guy who is paralleled with criminals not once, not twice, not thrice but FOUR times (kavinsky/declan/the gray man/mór o corra) and not have him be a little criminal at least ONCE. in fact i genuinely thought, after we were introduced to the fairy market in cdth - what a fucking cool concept btw, and hey isn’t it insane that these were marketed as kids’ books in some forums?? - that this was the direction we were headed!!! bc like declan brings ronan to the market, and tells him to be cool and calculated and wary, but of course ronan is ronan, so that doesn’t end up happening so much. you know however who IS cool and calculated and wary and would have done so so well in such an environment? yeah, you got it, good old adam “lizard son” parrish.

there are hints of this grittiness potential throughout trc as well i think. for instance, adam is the one who thinks to get his dad’s gun at the end of trb; and granted, he actually does so out of protectiveness for his awful mother (because the one thing that keeps adam distinct from his shadier narrative foils is that he has a huge heart, and he keeps choosing goodness even when it’s not his first instinct) - but he still is the one who reaches into that seedier world, where ronan would rather wield a chivalrous sword and gansey shies back from weapons altogether.

we also know what adam is capable of when he doesn’t chose goodness, even if he usually does it for sentimental reasons still: for example, refusing to spare whelk after whelk threatened to kill gansey; or, more glaringly, hatching a nefarious plan to blackmail greenmantle when he threatened ronan’s life. yes he had good reasons for his actions, but he can and WILL go darkside if need be. my dude plotted out a whole criminal case involving grisly child murders specifically to make sure that greenmantle would not only be put away, but put away for a crime that had very good chances of getting him killed.

the other characters are aware of this too - greenmantle himself, yes, but we also get admiring comments from the other two overtly criminal characters in the series - from declan calling adam “a creepily clever little fuck” to the gray man thinking that adam is “cool and resourceful” under pressure and would handle himself well specifically in the context of a shootout. his “criminal adjacent” characterisation stays consistent with that in the trilogy, from scamming rich kids with blatantly fake tarot readings, to oh yeah— hacking into several government databases apparently???

so yeah, when boudicca was introduced as a powerful, shady organisation operating within the magical mafia world, of COURSE i thought adam was gonna be a part of that plot. i was not entirely serious about him infiltrating them since it’s an all-women collective, but he could certainly infiltrate their records if he so chose. a guy who can both hack into your computer AND scry into your thoughts? a guy who’ll point a gun at you AND call down lighting from the sky? that’s a scary fucking opponent, man. i wouldn’t want him for an enemy.

anyway yeah these are my thoughts on mob wife adam who would actually be a lot better at the mob life than his supposed mob husband ronan “let me just hand over my social security number” lynch

[theanimalsarecalling]

As always, spoilers.

I'm up to chapter 50 in The Dream Thieves, and here is a scene I'd forgotten. It explains something to me. At this point, Adam has just returned from the fateful trip Washington DC with Gansey, where Adam lost himself, and now he has broken up with Blue. He's reached his lowest point. And now Persephone asks to talk to him. She leads him through the memory of the first time his father struck him and releases him from that trauma. Then she reads the tarot for him, past present and future, which brings him to his vision of killing Gansey - or at least causing his death. And Adam refuses to accept it, and insists on drawing another card, the magician card.

In some of my other posts on Adam, there's been an interesting split in the comments. Some people see Adam as thoroughly gray character, who is more than capable of killing for ambition. Then others believe Adam has a strong moral character and would not murder another person.

Well, my friends, both are true, and this is the point we see the shift. Adam in Cabeswater with Neeve and Whelk was still grasping, desperate Adam, full of ambition and ready to murder to get what he wants. He didn't, not because he's better than Whelk or Neeve, but because he is smarter.

But this Adam, freed from his trauma, refuses to accept that killing Gansey is his destiny. And he claims his power, which resides in himself rather than Cabeswater. This is the Adam that can be a real friend to Gansey, and realizes Gansey needs him just as much as he needs Gansey. This is the Adam that eschews murder. This is the Adam with the courage to love Ronan.

Which leads to the question: Did Adam help Declan plan the hit on Bryde?

It's possible. He certainly raised the alarm. I don't think this Adam would murder for ambition. I do think he might kill another person if he felt it was necessary to save someone he loves. Neither Adam nor Declan realizes that Bryde essentially is Ronan. And Adam, like Declan, has that history of powerlessness and fears what Bryde and Ronan can do.

But it's only Declan that goes to see Carmen about killing Bryde. And even he doesn't do anything until after the incident at the art museum, where Declan has his autonomy violated yet again. Which caused him to panic and arrange the hit. (And this is why I find Ronan's later outrage disingenuous, because he participated.) Personally, I think Bryde engineered this in order to separate the brothers.

What's unclear is if Adam knew about this. I had the impression he did, and Ronan certainly thought so. But it's possible that Declan simply told Adam he knew of someone who could help, etc., without making his plans clear. Declan is guarded enough that Adam could have trouble reading him, even though he's psychic, and it's not like they're actually friends.

[piningeddiediaz]

 ok buckle up besties I'm about to give you a crash course on criminal law <3 quick shout out to ambra (@girlbossadam​) for hyping me up through this and listening to my insane ramblings x 

disclaimer 1: I cant believe I am about to apply actual real life law to a series about magic. it is about MAGIC, real life law does not belong there. but i got mad enough to unironically seriously consider it, so i might as well commit fully

disclaimer 2: I am using english criminal law here. I do not know american criminal law but I did a quick check to make sure the basics are the same 

what is murder: essentially, it is the premeditated act of unlawfully killing someone or causing them serious bodily harm. key words here are: premeditated, killing and/or serious bodily harm. this is because murder as a crime is split into two main elements: the ‘actus reus’ (action or conduct) and the ‘mens era’ (intention or knowledge of wrong doing). what this means is that to be found guilty of murder you need to have done the act of killing and had the premeditated intention of killing and have had the knowledge you are going to kill someone. if any single one of these criteria is not met, you are not guilty of murder. and this isn’t even considering things like breaking the chain of causation, which looks at whether, between you committing the unlawful act and the person dying, another intervening act could have happened which breaks the chain of causation (you causing the death of the victim) and instead puts the blame on the third party who conducts the intervening act. I believe Americans split this into first and second degree murder - first degree is having the actus reus and the mens rea (so doing the act of killing and also having the premeditated malicious intent to kill), second degree murder is having the actus reus and the mens rea intention to kill, but it is not pre-meditated.

what is manslaughter:  manslaughter is a crime in which you do the unlawful act of killing or causing serious bodily harm (so meet the actus reus element) but do not have the requisite malicious intention of causing death or serious bodily harm. voluntary manslaughter is when the crime/killing is conducted in circumstances in which any reasonable person would have become so mentally or emotionally disturbed that they could not reasonably control their actions or emotions. involuntary manslaughter is death caused without intent; essentially, harm caused because of negligence and recklessness. e.g. if you are fucking around with your friends, you trip over a rock and accidentally push them into the water where they drown and die. I think Americans refer to manslaughter as third degree murder, which google tells me Virginia does not recognise (if im wrong someone please correct me). this of course does not mean third degree murder is legal, but rather that its kind of counted as a lesser form of second degree murder (so basically manslaughter but they won’t call it that. idk american law is very confusing). 

ok so we have the relevant criminal background, let’s dive into the night of the crime. 

the timeline (I havent read trb in like 2 years but I went back to read the relevant chapters):

1. Noah tells everyone (sans gansey) that whelk was the one who killed him 

2. whelk threatens gansey/tries to kidnap him and steals the Glendower journal. because of this, whelk finds out where Cabeswater is and later teams up with neeve to wake the ley line. we know that neeve planned to sacrifice whelk to wake the line up

3. sometime during all this Robert Parrish beats Adam up. Ronan intervenes, and Adam presses charges to save Ronan. Adam takes the gun from his father to make sure he doesn’t harm anyone with it. afterwards they all go to Monmouth where they all agree that waking up the ley line is a bad idea but later that night Adam decides to anyway and takes the Camaro to Cabeswater. Noah finds out and tells everyone, and they go after Adam

4. Adam gets there and finds out whelk and neeve are also there, which he admits to not having any idea about. it is very obvious that he expected to be the only one there, and him taking a gun was a) a precaution because he didnt know what else to do with it and b) to get rid of it somewhere in Cabeswater 

6. Adam throws the gun somewhere into the bushes. the Gangsey arrive, and in all the chaos, whelk gets his hands on the gun and threatens gansey with it. Adam, in an attempt to save gansey, throws himself into the pentagram and sacrifices his hands and eyes to Cabeswater 

7. as a result of the sacrifice an earthquake is triggered. whelk tries to shoot Adam with the gun, and gun asks (way calmer than a normal person would be in that situation) whelk to give the gun back

8. the sacrifice triggers a horde of magical animals? beasts? idk something. Adam is protected by the pentagram and the Gangsey hide in a tree (? I am beginning to realise how little of this book I retained). during this course, Cabeswater gives him the gun back

9. Adam uses the gun to stop whelk from coming into the pentagram. important: he doesnt not shoot whelk. he doesnt not really even threaten to shoot whelk. he uses it as a deterrent to keep a very bad person who would most definitely weaponise a source of ancient magical power out of a way to get said magical power (also important: we don’t actually see this. we last see adam in the pentagram with whelk shooting him when the beasts turn up and then next see him when whelk is already dead, outside the pentagram, and not shot)

now the application:

remember i said murder has to be premeditated? well, this certainly was not premeditated. adam walks into cabeswater completely unaware someone else might be there. yes, he knows there is a possibility of whelk being there given they knew whelk wants to wake the ley line, but he obviously did not anticipate whelk going there so soon. he has a brief second where he thinks if whelk is there he would have to use a flashlight which will alert adam of his presence, but otherwise does not really think he has company in there. so no premeditation, which discounts first degree murder.

so, the gun. he remembers he has it, and he takes it out to do something with it. he is not sure what, but you think about being a teenager in a magical forest who has recently been partially deafened, is homeless and is now facing down his latin teacher and girlfriend’s aunt in a magical forest to stop them from doing failed human sacrifice 2.0. you’re gonna whip that gun out, is what i’m saying. he states that he has no intention of killing them, simply just stop them from waking up the ley line, and agrees to throw the gun away as a compromise. this therefore reducts the mens rea element of the crime. so so far, we don’t have an intention to kill and we have no premeditation. even if adam actually committed an act (which he didn’t) it already is not murder. murder is out. he didn’t murder anyone, yay

and even if he did kill (very big if), it was obviously self defence

next time we see adam after the trampling, whelk is laying outside the pentagram, dead, having been trampled on. now legally, adam did not commit an act of killing himself. he had a gun, which he was pointing at whelk, but he did not shoot whelk. whelk’s death was caused by the horde of trampling magical beasts manifested by cabeswater. now we’re gonna have to be creative here because the law does not exactly have a precedence for when a magical sentient forest intervenes to save it’s magician, but we are also writing/reading a long legal analysis of a ya book series about magic, so i think we are able to suspend our disbelief here a bit. most likely, the beasts thing will be regarded as a break in the chain of causation (not that there is a chain of causation to begin with, because up until this point adam still has not committed an unlawful act of killing or causing bodily harm beyond simply just pointing a gun) meaning whelk’s death is caused by cabeswater, not adam. adam did not ask cabeswater to trample whelk, after all.

yeah he let whelk get trampled by not letting him into the pentagram but a) whelk is a very bad man who wanted to commit human sacrifice (a second time) to weaponise an ancient magical source because his entitled rich ass could not handle being of average wealth. are you saying he should have let the guy who shot at him and his friends and smashed their other friend’s head in into the magical human sacrifice circle? and b) virginian law (and american law more generally i think) does not impose a duty to rescue meaning that adam was not legally obligated to save whelk just because he was a witness to his death. if you wanna make the ‘should have saved him out of morality!’ argument with me please refer to my previous point. he shot at him multiple times and smashed noah’s head in.

Manslaughter does not require a requisite intent but it does require an unlawful act of killing or causing serious bodily harm (the actus reus element) which adam does not have here because he did not actually physically do anything except stand in a pentagram! the act of merely pointing a gun but not shooting is not illegal!

also side note: you may argue adam had motive but that means jack shit because real life law isn’t like the movies and you don’t actually need a motive to establish a crime. motive simply helps decide the charges and sentencing. also, he was right <3

so in conclusion if we pretend for a second that we are in some weird universe where the court wouldn’t immediately send them all into a psychiatric institution for talking about magical forests and ley lines and human sacrifice and ghost friends who were murdered seven years ago by bitter latin teachers, adam parrish most likely would not be legally convicted of murder. heck it’s barely even manslaughter! so there ya go. LAWYERED!

[hklnvgl]

Hey! How are you? It's been a while since I sent you an ask 😅

Let's talks about Adam Parrish?

I always see around here that the fandom really believes Adam committed murder in TRB. I'm assuming they are talking about Whelk and how Adam let him die in Cabeswater. I went back to the book to read that part again and now I don't know what to think anymore!!!??

I didn't think it was Adam's fault at first, but maybe he really thought he was doing something right by letting him die, it was something he really did on purpose.

What do you think?

👋 i’m always down for talking about adam parrish! 🌿

i have honestly never believed adam murdered whelk but i’ve also seen those takes around and this was the perfect excuse to reread those few chapters so i come bearing proof!

so. first of all. context. whelk is threatening adam with a gun. to be more specific, robert parrish’s gun, which adam took and carried with him to monmouth, where he was staying temporarily after he was just left dead on one ear by his very-loving dad and thrown out of the only home he’s ever known by his also-very-loving mum. he’s also 17. he’s just seconds ago sacrificed himself to cabeswater, which is probably making stuff confusing in adam’s brain.

and then whelk shoots.

cabeswater saves adam. which brings me to my second point: cabeswater is angry. whelk wanted the ley line’s power without a sacrifice (or sacrificing other people). whelk wanted to steal from the ley line like kavinsky also did. he killed a boy and left his body and his car to rot in this forest. he’s just shot a gun at cabeswater’s brand new hands and eyes.

so. facts. a herd of animals appears and runs whelk over. we know this because blue and gansey saw them.

and then whelk is dead.

then gansey asks what happened. i think gansey only asks if adam shot whelk because he was a bit freaked out and mad because adam didn’t listen to him when he told everyone to stay put (he still thinks this is his hunt and therefore he should be able to call the shots) and adam of course stole his car and gansey has a very romanticized view of how the search for glendower and magic should go and this ugly thing happening doesn’t really fit (like that one brown sweater later on didn’t fit either).

so i think there are two possibilities here. either adam gained control of cabeswater in the six seconds this has been a thing and asked cabeswater to kill whelk in revenge for noah (and, you know, the whole kidnapping and shooting his friends and himself), which i don’t think is what happened because adam doesn’t learn to communicate with cabeswater until way later in the series, or—

adam just didn’t ask cabeswater not to kill whelk. which:

may not have worked either way (see above)

might have gotten him killed by the animals as well, since he didn’t go to the safety of the tree as the rest of them

does not make him a murderer! standing by and doing nothing makes him an accomplice at most, and arguably this is all self-defence (and he’s 17 so despite me knowing nothing about us law i’m going to say here he might not even have been convicted at all if there’d been any kind of trial??)

he was not the only one! blue, ronan and gansey were all there and they, very cleverly, hid away into safety when they saw the animal herd coming. they didn’t do anything either to save whelk.

now. gansey does feel terrible about whelk. adam doesn’t, and that’s where the fandom is coming from i guess.

and, actually, i do personally agree with gansey’s view on this (the him not feeling qualified to judge if a person is to live or die part)! but i also see where adam’s coming from, and i’m writing this from the comfort of my couch, and i haven’t just been violently threatened by anyone, or had a close friend killed in cold blood, or have just had my thoughts invaded by this sentient forest with no real concern for human lives.

this new reread has made me realize something else, too. adam is very adamant in pointing out whelk deserved what he got. he did very bad things and he got punished for them. adam is actually satisfied with this (the same way he didn’t feel sad when kavinsky died later), because it is proof that people who hurt other people don’t go roaming free unscathed, and even if it takes years there are consequences. so, in a way, he might be reassuring himself he did the right thing in both pressing charges against his father (bacause there is justice in the world, even if it’s slow to come) and giving himself up to this scary forest that just killed a man (because the forest cares about justice, so it will see that adam never deserved to be hurt).

and then later on cabeswater protects adam from his dad! i’m gonna go cry in a quiet corner now to try and process all the feelings this has awakened in me 🥺

tl;dr: adam’s not a murderer in my books! he just doesn’t regret whelk dying and it might read colder than that because that was a very stressful situation for all the characters and they all have reasons to be pissed!

[kelliealtogether]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater Rating: Mature Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Ronan Lynch & Adam Parrish Characters: Ronan Lynch, Adam Parrish, Richard Gansey III, Noah Czerny, Barrington Whelk Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Non-Magical, Murder, There's Pynch If You Squint, Vigilante Justice, A Lot Of Murder Plotting, And Then There's Actual Murder, Murder Most Foul, Ronan And Adam Circling Each Other Like Neutron Stars About To Collide And Create A Black Hole, Character Death Summary:

Even after Aglionby is over and they've gone their separate ways, Gansey, Ronan, Adam, and Noah still meet up every Tuesday night at Nino's. When Noah doesn't show up one week, all fingers point to foul play by Barrington Whelk. With no evidence for authorities other than Noah's habitual ghosting on plans, Ronan and Adam take it upon themselves to investigate and get justice for their friend.

So I had a shitload of fun writing this fic a long, long time ago and probably wound up on an FBI watch list for the stuff I researched while writing because it's all murdery and stuff. But what better way for two bros to show they love one another than by planning a murder together? 

[foreverfoldedinfantasy]

The Raven Boys review.

I loved this book. It was thrilling, but it also had a slice of life feel to it. The way it was written was like prose to me. The characters are all so lovely and well-developed. This book was very enjoyable.

This book follows several characters: Blue, who has been warned by her psychic family for as long as she can remember that if she kisses her true love, they will die. Ronan, who has a major chip on his shoulder and a tragic family history, as well as ongoing family issues. Adam, who is trying his best to make it in a world that revolves around money...with no money and parents who don’t support him. There is also Noah, a shut in who doesn’t want pizza. And finally, there is Gansey, who has it all and because of that, feels like he needs to make a difference in the world. All together, this unlikely group is searching for Glendower...a long sleeping king made of legends.

My favorite character...is Adam. I kind of love him. I love that he has to do things on his own terms. He is very relatable and his character is so human. I also really like Gansey because of his need to prove himself, having it all doesn’t mean that he doesn’t have to give back.

*There is a spoiler in the next paragraph.*

I dislike Whelk. I can’t believe he just lived on after murdering his friend. Then he goes totally nuts after he found out Gansey was on the same quest he was all those years ago. It’s like his mental state was totally unstable and Gansey was the piece that sent him tumbling.

I loved the writing in this book. I think I’m going to call that my favorite part (as well as the fact that I love how much personality was packed into each character). It was very poetic without being pompous. The writing made the story feel even more magical to me. 

My least favorite part...I don’t know if I had one. I guess I would have liked to see how Blue’s father related to the story. He seems to be brought up here and there, but he never is truly connected to anything besides the birth of Blue.

More books: The Dream Thieves, Blue Lily, Lily Blue, The Raven King. 

I am currently reading The Complete Collection of Tales and Poems by Edgar Allan Poe. It seems I will be reading it for a while seeing as it is very dense and uses a lot of words in a way that I am not used to. Wish me luck!

Thanks for reading!

[snorlaxlovesme]

i guess i should write down some final thoughts before i dive into the tag and mold my opinions to look like the rest of the fandom’s:

it took a LONG time for the book to pick up speed, imo. and i know a lot of it has to do with me comparing it to The Raven Cycle, which isn’t totally fair, but it’s gonna happen regardless. but it took a long time for the different POVs to finally converge and an even LONGER time for me to even understand the purpose of some of the POVs?? which could just be me being DUMB but still

i was just trying to mentally calculate how many POVs there were in TRC and while my tally is telling a lot it never felt like too many, and i think that’s the biggest thing that bothered me. cdth felt like too many POVs for me to keep track of/to care about and that’s what was frustrating me while reading it and making me take more time than i usually would to finish a book of that size. 

maybe it also had to do with me not understanding the purpose of the Liliana chapters for so long. even after FINALLY getting that we were being shown the destructiveness of Visionaries turned outward + the age shifting conundrum they experienced + Liliana’s love for children i still feel like there had to have been a tighter way to prove that that didn’t involve giving me so much depth to tertiary characters who were going to die anyway

ESPECIALLY because maggie put so much care into making up backstories and quirks to Liliana victims but then just kind of casually mentioned people who were incredibly important to Ronan’s character development in the last series. like every time i got a TRC easter egg i was ridiculously pleased but also upset for people who hadn’t read that series and were starting with Hawk bc people like Gansey/Henry/Blue, Mr. Gray, Greenmantle, Cabeswater, Kavinsky, and Opal were condensed into one or two paragraphs of explanation while fucking Dabney Pitts gets three pages about his lack of courageousness. it was mindboggling

plus i just feel like climax of the book didn’t prove to be as exciting as i had hoped. it wasn’t a gun on gansey or adam parrish making a deal with cabeswater or a fire dragon-level threat in my mind. i didn’t think matthew was going to be killed bc that would dash ronan’s motivations for the next two books. i didn’t have much emotional investment in Hennessy’s other copies so their loss didn’t really sting. and battling the Lace just didn’t really take all that long, i guess. if it had been a harder fight maybe i would have been more invested? it just felt stunted for all that build-up (even though i know its not permanently defeated). just with the terrifying Adam scream and Hennessy’s absolute fear of it i wanted there to be more of a struggle to keep it at bay. 

and this is yet another book in maggie stiefvater’s arsenal that doesn’t come with falling action/a resolution. this one’s a little different bc the climax led straight into a cliffhanger but i have to bring it up bc it’s something about her style that’s always peeved me

and now the good things, shall we?

everything about declan’s perspective is fantastic. i loved how maggie drove it home that his boringness/invisibilty was calculated, that he was as precisely plain as he needed to be to go unnoticed, and that his paranoia was an armor that kept his brothers safe. it’s going to make the next book SO interesting, to see declan unravel bc his camouflaged safety net has been incinerated 

matthew finally learning he’s a dream is as heartbreaking as it is exciting bc i’ve been WAITING for this boy to get a personality other than “loveable” and i might actually SEE it now. also Matthew finally acknowledging that ronan is a dreamer is fun bc in literally ALL of TRC he was like...goofily listening to his headphones whenever that was being discussed. i want a matthew lynch who’s present in his own life and present in the plot. so that bit was cool and i hope it continues to be cool later on in the series

ronan lynch being a BADASS EXPERT DREAMER was so so fun?? especially when the first quarter of the book was ronan bleeding black from his orifices and bringing back murder crabs to his boyfriend’s dorm room and getting kicked out of Harvard for 2kforever. compare that to the end of the book where ronan is a king in his Lindenmere is a thing to behold. i loved ronan being able to show off his dreaming prowess to hennessy and prove just how hard he worked in the entire last series to become the dreamer he is today. he tends to flounder a lot in his own head but dreaming is a thing he’s GOOD at. he’s the fucking Greywaren after all

the complexity of Jordan’s identity crisis was really cool. i loved the concept of her choosing not to paint an original until she got to live an original life. i loved her choosing not to get Hennessy’s newest tattoo. i loved that she was seeing Declan as herself rather than as Hennessy. i HATED declan finding out he was learning to love another dream.

Hennessy’s POV was hard for me to get into bc the second i learned about her timers she just made me SAD and so, so tired. like i felt like i was dragging myself through her perspective the way she was dragging herself through her life and it was exhausting. i hope in the next book she learns more about safe dreaming so i can see what her personality is like without constant fatigue attached to it

and carmen farooq-lane’s perspective was....well. annoying. she seems like a fine person and by the end i was truly starting to enjoy her character but knowing that she was on the antag side of the book (me classifying that as anyone not on the brothers Lynch side of things) made me not thrilled to read about her and Parsifal. her POV always managed to show up right in the middle of something good and turn interesting, actual plot into inaction once again when she continues to bitch about Parsifal being annoying. any time her POV came up i felt like i was ready to stop reading now. so, here’s to her being more interesting in book 2 bc i feel like on my rereads of this book I’m likely to begin skipping her POV like i do Barrington Whelk’s

and who knows how i feel about Bryde?? i enjoyed all of his philosophical monologues, and i give him props for making ronan go find hennessy and finally make the book something i want to read, but like. he’s a bad guy?? flying off on his little ufo with his dreamers to do bad things?? so who knows. the worst kind of villains are ones who start off kind, so that’s as exciting as it is awful

and i’ve already mentioned Liliana so i think that about covers it, for now. book 1 was like a solid 5.5 for me, which was lower than i expected but i plan on rereading it a bunch and will probably like it more with time. i’m someone who legitimately hated The Dream Thieves for a very long time, so opinions are bound to change

[sophygurl]

Here is my list of unresolved questions/mysteries in The Raven Cycle, in no particular order:

What was produced at Monmouth Manufacturing?

Was Ashley spying in the Gangesy’s quest? If so, does she have a connection to one of the magical artifact hunters? If not, did she know about Declan’s magical dealings? She seemed smarter than she was letting on...

Why did Artemus disappear when Blue was born? Was he with the unmaker that whole time?

What is the joke that Ronan wrote on the rock in Cabeswater to signify to himself that it was him that wrote it? Also what was his joke that he made on the board in Latin class? Same joke??

Do the tree-lights in Cabeswater know that Blue is Artemus’s daughter? They only mention that they recognize her for being the psychic’s daughter, so do they know that she’s half-tree-light? Did any of them live through the unmaker’s slaughter? Does Blue have any other tree-light relatives in the world anywhere?

Blue and Gansey find Noah’s body somewhere that’s not directly on the ley line and nowhere near his Mustang, so did Whelk move the body? 

Why did Gansey’s mom think he wanted the Camaro?

Is the dreamer/greywarren stuff always genetic? Was one of Niall’s parents a dreamer?The Gray Man makes a comment about Niall also asking if he killed his father - what does this mean?? Was his father also a dreamer that was murdered for his power? What about Kavinsky? Were one of his parents dreamers? Another theory: Niall’s stories about when he and Ronan were born involve earthquakes. Do earthquakes happening on a ley line when someone is born cause them to be a dreamer, or does a dreamer being born cause an earthquake on a ley line? Cabeswater says “many thieves, one greywarren” - so only Ronan is a greywarren? Did Niall treat things the same way Kavinsky did, by stealing instead of creating and asking? How many other dream thieves are there out there?? Did Niall also use Cabeswater or did he have his own dream forest or did he not need one? When exactly did Ronan dream Cabeswater and what was it before he gave it shape and where were all the tree-lights when it wasn’t ... what it was?

What exactly is the reason Niall decided not to let his sons on the Barns after he died, until Ronan could figure out how to fudge the will? Why were Ronan’s powers treated as such a freaking mystery? Why wouldn’t he have trained his son in how to control and utilize that power, explain to him how it worked - instead of just telling him to never talk about it and then forcing Declan to run his business and never allow them to talk to one another about what was happening? Why did Aurora never bother to clue her sons in? I have so many questions about this! What about that devil creature he saw his dad with when he was a kid - was that Niall’s nightmare creature? Did Niall know Ronan saw that? It seems like Ronan knew/remembered/suspected some things and not others ... IDK ...

Also, like. How did they keep doctors and insurance people and such from questioning what was going on with Aurora after Niall died? Or all the cattle on the land? Like, someone must have been tasked with tending to that stuff, so WTF? And Declan was for sure sneaking onto the Barns to get dream objects to sell. What a hypocrite. 

Dream creatures are sort of PART of the dreamers, right? This is less creepy when thinking about Chainsaw or cattle. But Aurora was a part of Niall? Matthew was a part of Ronan?! How does that ... work?? 

That fucking Camaro wheel under the lake on the ley line that was hundreds of years old MIRITE?!?! And how is it related to the shield boss? They were both left behind? Calla talks about both Gansey and Glendower as people who reuse time, so ... uh ... the fuck?

Gansey DOES abandon his spare wheel at the airport to make room for Malory’s things - is that somehow connected??

What is with Gansey and sucking on those mint leaves anyway?

When Adam and Gansey are at that party and the lights go out and everyone hears that “Make way for the Raven King” stuff - wtf? Was that Cabeswater? Noah? Glendower? Someone else? Why that and then and there? Is the Gansey family mansion on a ley line??

Why does no one ever notice an entire fucking field of white Mistubishi’s with knives painted on the sides and odd fuck-ups in the design?!

Where was Ronan sleeping that Kavinsky saw him when he had his bad dream where he woke up all bloody? Just like ... in the street??

Why is Ronan paralyzed when he comes out of his dreams but Kavinsky isn’t?

What is the actual deal with Kavinsky’s family, speaking of? Like is his mom an addict or does he just drug her to keep her compliant? Does she know what he is? What happens to her after he dies? What about the whole story with his dad? Did he really kill him? Did he then copy him like he did Prokopenko?

Is Kavinsky’s creature also a night horror to him too? Or was it once? He seems able to control his, even though Ronan can feel the hate coming off it like he can with his own. Ronan’s creatures eventually stop hating him because he stops hating himself. Kavinsky clearly had a death wish, so how is he so comfortable controlling his creature?

Is Henrietta just kinda like Sunnydale and they all know something is a bit off and that’s why no one ever freaks out and calls, like, the FBI when actual fucking dragons start fighting in the sky?? (Also did the Gangsey have to bury Kavinsky’s creature that night to make sure no one found it?? What did the authorities think about Proko’s sleeping body??) Or like when Noah started throwing shit around in the counselor’s office - what did she think ... happened?? Or when there is water dripping off of a picture in the hospital waiting room - does ... does no one else see this stuff? NOT TO MENTION when there’s like a primal scream and an ancient beast appears in the street and then hordes of birds of all kinds start swooping about and flying cross country!??! 

So.... this whole three sleepers thing. The unmaker was the one NOT to wake. Gwen was Maybe the one to wake or Maybe the one in the middle or Maybe not even a sleeper since she was never fully put to sleep. Glendower was ... actually fucking dead so not a fucking sleeper at all? Adam thinks, symbolically, that he was the sleeper to be awoken, which is nifty, but prolly not what the ladies meant. Are there OTHER sleepers still?!? 

Okay. When Maura disappears, who becomes Blue’s legal guardian? I would think maybe Jimi, being her aunt? But it seems like Calla is the most responsible/parental one so perhaps Maura had already designated her as a guardian if something were to happen?? I’d love to know, honestly. I need so much more about this household,really. 

Was it one of the Fox Way psychics who came to sage the Greenmantle’s rental place? I wonder which one...

Is the sleeping that the dreamed creatures do when their dreamer dies somehow connected to the sleepers referenced on the ley line??

WHAT is the story behind the time Blue ran away and they had to call the police?!?! When did this happen?!? I need details!

Calla seems to recognize or sense something about Jesse when she meets him - what’s that about?

It seems like Gwen and Artemus, as tree-lights, can live a really long time and Gwen lived a long time not-really-asleep with no food or water or anything. Does this mean Blue will get to live a super long life? 

Can Persephone’s ghost come and go the way Noah’s does? Is that how she communicates with Adam? Why only him?

WHAT is the story behind when Jimi punched Calla??

Did anyone ever tell Declan that his mom got to be alive again for awhile in Cabeswater and how pissed was he that he never got to go and see her?

How does Gansey’s voice command thing work, and how is it/he connected to Glendower? I’ve got a LOT to work out about this one....

Which Laumonier is Piper’s dad? How did that all work? Did they all raise her as one? Does she even know which one is technically her dad? Why are they ... like that??

Who is the dead person in Calla’s life that Noah reminds her of when he’s doing the creepy 6:21 stuff? I want THAT story, too.

Are all of the Asian kids at Aglionby from Vancouver? Is that... a thing??

Here’s one: is Declan even Aurora’s kid or did Niall have him with a human person? I don’t know why I strongly suspect this so much, but I do.

How much does Matthew know about his weird-ass family? Any of it??

What is the story behind Blue dumping the stuff over the kid’s car at school? Also what’s behind the Not Your Bitch nickname the other kids have for her? Gods, tell me so much more about Blue being a badass trouble maker okay!

Also, omg, going back to the Lynch’s - so we talk about Chainsaw and Opal as being sort of part’s of Ronan’s psyche, right? So ... is that what Aurora is? Was she, like, Niall’s psychopomp??? That is so weird. 

When Blue has her tree-dream ... was she actually integrating into the tree?? Did she really take Gansey in there with her?!

The unmaker is a wasp. Gansey was killed by bees. Coincidence?! 

That woman who comes to the Barns in Opal’s story RIGHT?!?!? 

Also, gods, I have SO MANY QUESTIONS about Glendower and Artemus and Gwenllian and all of those folks. Why did the magic of putting Glendower to sleep not work? Or did it? Did it wear off? Did the kids just find another false grave and he’s still yet to be found? Did they just not do the right things to wake him? Will they come back to that? Did Artemus purposefully not put Gwen to sleep-sleep? If so that is seriously fucked up, dude. Why is Artemus so messed up after they find him again - so much lesser, I think, the narrative says? Is it because of having been down with the unmaker for so long? It feels like there’s more to it than that. Gwen seems simultaneously really ticked at her dad and really wanting for him to be found - what is their story? 

When the Fox Way ladies do their big reading at the start of TRK, they ask “does this mean she’s still alive?” - I’m guessing that’s about Neeve. And then “does this mean she’s leaving?” - probably Blue? And then “does this mean she’s coming back?” - could this be about Persephone? Is she gonna come back in some way PLEASE SAY YES, PLEASE SAY YES.

Also, omg, Persephone’s whole backstory is one giant mystery that I want uncovered. I mean - all of the lady’s stories are, really, but hers, especially. It’s said a few times how she never tells anyone anything about herself and they’re just not sure about anything about her, etc. She is so vague all the time and never answers questions about herself so ... yea, that means I wanna know everything.

I don’t know, folks. I have just so many other questions. Some are mundane things I just wanna know about the characters. Some are deep mysteries that there are probably clues to that I just have yet to piece together after my 20 re-reads thus far. Some are left hanging on purpose so we’ll have different theories and interpretations, probably. SOME ARE HOPEFULLY GONNA GET ANSWERED IN THE DREAMER TRILOGY?!?!? But this is long enough. Feel free to add to this or answer me if you think you’ve got one answered!

[pynchvinsky]

between memory and dream

pairing: ronan lynch/noah czerny word count: 1276 warnings: major character death, graphic depictions of violence read on ao3

Noah is gone.

Noah was never there.

Noah won’t leave him alone.

These things are not mutually exclusive-- they are all happening at the same time. And, as Ronan is realising that time doesn’t work how he thought it did, these things have always been happening. He’s alive, he’s dead, he’s a ghost, he’s gone. This is something that Ronan cannot stop thinking about: Noah alive, laughing and skating and scraping his knees. Blood on his jeans, letting him know he’s alive.

He dreams about this a lot. He falls asleep to wake up in a time where Noah is alive and Noah is Ronan’s friend. They’re at Aglionby, in Latin class. The words around him are muffled like he’s underwater, but he can hear Noah’s voice. He’s telling Ronan this story, and it’s about Whelk, but Ronan doesn’t want to think about that. It doesn’t matter, Noah is alive. ‘Alive’ being the only correct word. He’s so dynamic and erratic that just listening to him makes Ronan’s body feel electric.

In these dreams where Noah is alive, he looks different. His eyes are lighter, his skin warmer and he is missing the smudge on his cheek. Yet still, he is unmistakably Noah. He is everything Ronan never got to have.

He can’t take Noah out of his dreams, and he wouldn’t dare try. Not only would dream Noah be a shell of the real Noah, he would also be breakable. Before, Ronan had thought that he would never go, that he was immortal. It was stupid to think that Noah wouldn’t decay like everything else. He couldn’t lose him again, so he would keep him in his dreams where he’d be safe. He was safe and he was Ronan’s, it didn’t matter whether he was alive or dead or otherwise.

Sometimes he dreams about the Noah he knew, his illusive ghost roommate. These are closer to memories, based off them. In these dreams, Ronan feels his whole body get cold before he sees Noah. He stands by Ronan’s side here, and speaks to him. It’s like he’s the only other one who knows it’s a dream.

It’s not just Noah that he dreams about, but he’s always there. He dreams about Kavinsky. He dreams about crashing cars and throwing fists and spitting blood. One night, he dreams he is winning the fight.

Kavinsky is on the ground, Ronan crouched over him not letting up with punch after punch. Blood is splattering over Kavinsky’s face and dripping down Ronan’s knuckles.

“You just fucking left,” Ronan spits. His breath is laboured and arms aching, he grabs onto Kavinsky’s shirt collar and holds back his sobs. “You weren’t mean to die, you bastard.”

He screws his eyes shut and goes to throw his broken fist into Kavinsky’s face one last time, but it collides with cold gravel. He opens his eyes to see him gone with no trace, not even the blood that was pouring from his mouth only seconds ago. He looks around, only to see Noah standing above him, his face hard to read.

“Why is it always him?” Noah asks.

“I can’t hurt you,” Ronan replies.

This isn’t even the worst of them all. The worst dreams are not Noah dead, not Noah alive, but Noah dying. He’s seen it enough times. Noah’s face screwed up in pain and his body collapsing the the ground. The way he struggled, scrambling against thin air. Ronan’s head could paint a vivid picture.

Sometimes he’s watching, unable to stop anything. Whelk is pummeling into Noah’s face and he’s going to die. There’s nothing he can do but watch, and he knows the exact moment the light will go from Noah’s eyes, like clockwork.

Then he’s Whelk, with Noah’s lifeless body at his feet. Noah’s eyes are half open, his face caved in and his mouth open with last words cut off. The sight makes Ronan feel like he's being torn apart from the inside, and that’s before the guilt hits. He looks down to see the skateboard still in his hand, and drops it with a start. He’s scrambling back through the leaves, unable to take his eyes off Noah’s corpse.

And then he wakes up, skateboard in hand. It’s 3 AM, and he can hear Gansey working away in his room. He creeps past with the skateboard, and rushes out of the building. There’s a spare fuel tank in the Pig, he takes it and pours it other the skateboard. He curses Whelk’s name over and over as he does. He opens his lighter and throws it down onto the skateboard, watching it erupt in flames.

Of course, Gansey notices the light from his window and runs down to him. He’s half dressed and panting. “What on earth is going on, Ronan?”

“Bonfire,” he replies half-heartedly. He couldn’t explain this to Gansey. This was internal affairs of Ronan’s subconscious, and Gansey could not help him. They both watched the flames flicker down until they were left in darkness. Ronan could barely make out the remains of the skateboard, the murder weapon, the dream thing. Wordlessly, Gansey left and went back to bed.

Ronan slept again that night, and another dream came with it. It’s somewhere between memory and dream-- he was struggling to discern between the two recently. He’s seeing Noah flicker in the space between flames. They’re at opposite ends of a campfire, Noah is smiling again, wide and impish. Suddenly, burning the skateboard felt like a dream, and this was real. The heat from the fire is genuine, the soil damp and cold beneath him, and the sun setting behind them. It cast warm orange light over Noah’s face and makes shadows from his hair, which was pale and unruly. Ronan could run his hands through it to check he’s real, but instead he watches from across the fire.

Still, dreams of Noah’s death aren’t the ones that make him the most guilty. The guilt comes with the dreams he has on his worst days. On the days where his emotions are taking over, where he can hardly talk to even express how out of control he feels. His dreams give him what he can’t admit he wants.

They’re in Cabeswater. His eyes are closed but he knows that much because everything around him is so familiar; cool, crisp air under shade of the trees, moss damp on his back where he’s leant against a tree, Noah’s lips pressed against his own. Well, maybe that wasn’t as familiar-- he’d never felt it for real, but everything about it felt genuine and practised.

He opens his eyes to get an idea of his surroundings, his heart racing. He can see Noah looking back at him, eyes a little lost. “It’s just a dream,” he mutters, still close to Ronan’s lips. Noah always knows it’s fake, even if Ronan is in denial.

“How does that make it okay?” Ronan says hoarsely.

“It doesn’t make it okay, just easier,” Noah replies, and Ronan can’t make sense of it.

“How?”

Noah turns his head slightly to the side, “I am dead, but I am here.”

“This isn’t where you should be,” Ronan insisted, anger building up. He was stuck in Ronan’s dream, in a loop, just like he was on the ley line. It wasn’t okay and it didn’t make his loss any easier. It was like leaving an arrow in your leg; if you pull it out, you’ll bleed to death, but you can’t go on with it still dug into your flesh. Right now, Noah was an arrow snapped in half but still tearing at Ronan’s skin.

[astudyinfreewill]

hey this may be a stupid question, but it's already been a long time since ive read trk so i don't remember everything properly, so can you explain to me why exactly ganseys behavior in the book is seen as problematic??

hey! don’t worry, there are no stupid questions in my book. in fairness, it’s not about gansey’s behaviour in trk, it’s about his behaviour throughout the whole series. most of his problematic actions all come down to the same basic flaw: self-centeredness. for all that gansey is a generous and loving person, he can’t help but make everything about himself. he is driven by anxiety to define his place in the world beyond his privilege, yet he is blinded by that very same privilege - a bad combination, and one that leads him to show very little empathy for the people he loves.

like many teenagers, he’s looking for affirmation from his friends... but then resents them for not giving it, while failing to see that (most of) his friends are dealing with traumatic issues. when his friends reject his input - because it is not what they need or want at the moment - gansey always, always takes it personally. at no point does he try to ask himself, okay, if this isn’t what my friends need, then what do they need from me and how can i be a better friend? instead, he goes straight into self-pity mode, complaining that his friends reject his support and walk away from him. thing is... it’s not real support if it only makes him feel better and not them.

i don’t really have the time to write an extensive meta on all of the interactions where gansey’s lack of empathy comes into play, but here’s a list of just the most glaring ones in the series, in no particular order:

gansey consistently tries to pay for adam’s way and persuade him to move in with him, even though adam has told him multiple times that he is uncomfortable with it because independence is key to his sense of self as an abuse survivor. sometimes he does this even when he’s fully aware that it will start a fight. despite that, adam is usually the one apologizing, at least on page

notably in trb there’s a scene where gansey tries to get adam to move in with him, but when adam asks what’s going to happen if gansey leaves henrietta - is adam just supposed to drop out of aglionby and follow him? - gansey doesn’t reassure him that’s not gonna happen. he just says adam will have to start again at a new school. 

as i said above, this is not true support because it helps gansey feel better without inconveniencing him, but it is not what adam wants. if gansey wanted to support adam, he’d at least promise he would stay in henrietta for their final year of high school, instead of expecting adam to follow him around the world.

when adam rejects that offer and says he’ll stay in the trailer park, gansey takes it incredibly personally and his first response is to victim-blame adam for his abuse, saying things like: “you let your dad pound the shit out of you. you’re as bad as [your abusive mother]. you think you deserve it.” when adam still refuses to move in, and tells him, rightfully so, that gansey doesn’t know what it’s like for him, gansey follows that up with “don’t pretend you have anything to be proud of”. this is past mean and straight into cruel.

adam is the one who apologizes after this fight. let that sink in.

when thinking back on ronan’s suicide attempt, it is strongly implied in the text - and was made explicit in deleted scenes - that gansey appears to have taken ronan’s suicide attempt not just as a traumatic event, but as a slight against him, and is always vaguely guilt-trippy when it comes up (i.e. you promised me you wouldn’t get suicidal again)

gansey does illegal things on ronan’s behalf, multiple times, without ever wondering if this is what ronan wants, see: bribing school officials to keep ronan in school when ronan explicitly wants to drop out, because staying in school is what gansey thinks he should do. even if gansey’s heart was in the right place (i believe in staying in school), he is essentially involving ronan in illegal dealings against his will.

gansey is happy to share his search for glendower with the others, and delegate tasks to them (adam especially) as long as they do things his way. when adam acts against one of his decisions, gansey is absolutely unable to let that go. and while i understand that he is hurt by the breach of trust, because adam went behind his back, his language is telling: “i did tell him that we were to wait, right?”. you don’t “tell” your friends what they “are to do”. that’s not an equal relationship. 

this is also seen in the way gansey acts with ronan in more of a parental role, actively ordering him about. you know there is a problem when an outside character refers to ronan as “gansey’s dog” and neither gansey nor ronan disagree with this.

there’s the infamous hospital scene in trb, too, which has been excellently analysed in this meta post by @bleachersmp3 and @mericatblackwood, but i’ll say a few words about it anyway

in this scene, adam has just been beaten into losing his hearing. he has just come out of the hospital, bruised and traumatised, and has been told he will now have a permanent disability as a result of his abuse. he is now also homeless, because by pressing charges against his father to protect ronan, he has ensured his parents will kick him out for good. so he is forced to move into monmouth - something we have been told from the start of the book he absolutely did not want, because it was critical to his sense of self not to depend on gansey’s wealth. so, he’s bitter about it.

and okay, that’s not entirely fair, because it wasn’t gansey’s fault. but if your friend had just undergone such horrific trauma, surely you would be a little lenient, and understand they’re not being objective atm, right? well, not gansey. instead, gansey launches into a tirade at him: “what is your problem, adam? [...] is there something about my place that’s too repugnant for you? [...] I’m sick of tiptoeing around your principles!”

when adam snaps at him that he’s being condescending by using highbrow words (we can assume that this is a discussion they’ve had before, because adam tries to get gansey to use more everyday words multiple times in the book, especially when it’s clear that blue doesn’t understand something, so it’s something gansey already know adam finds condescending), gansey goes straight to victim-blaming again, this time with a classist twist thrown in: “i’m sorry your father never taught you the meaning of repugnant. he was too busy smashing your head against the wall of your trailer while you apologized for being alive.”

gansey does not apologize at any point after this fight. 

when adam sacrifices himself to cabeswater - which he does explicitly to stop whelk from murdering one of them and save gansey - gansey takes it as a slight against him, because it goes against what he told adam to do, and sadly asks adam “why? was i so awful?”, showing he has completely misunderstood adam’s reasons. adam tells him, and not for the last time: “it was never about you”.

it clearly doesn’t sink in bc they have the same discussion in the dream thieves, when gansey again asks him why did he go to cabeswater against his orders. he does this in an emotionally manipulative way, too - implying that ronan and blue both think badly of him while gansey has been defending him so adam owes him. adam again tries to tell him “it wasn’t about you”, which gansey refuses to believe, and reminds adam that the glendower search “belongs” to him. adam replies that if gansey wants adam’s help - which gansey relies upon frequently, as it seems like adam is assigned a very large share of research and coming up with ideas - he needs to treat him as an equal

after the fight, when adam has a mental breakdown due to the combination of stress, ptsd, and magically-induced hallucinations, and is found wandering along a highway, clearly dissociating and undergoing amnesia, gansey is still so bitter about their fight that he contemplates leaving him behind in dc, so that “adam will have to apologize for once” (for once???)

consider all this emphasis gansey puts on how much adam betrayed his trust; consider that gansey then spends nearly two books seeing blue behind adam’s back (starting in tdt, through bllb, and halfway through trk)

consider that despite the fact adam takes the reveal gracefully and thanks gansey for his honesty, when adam later in trk is honest with gansey about his feelings for ronan, gansey’s immediate reaction is to assume adam is using ronan as a sexuality experiment and warns him not to break ronan’s heart, because ronan is just so fragile and adam is just so cold

consider that the only basis gansey has for making this assumption is that “adam has hurt him (gansey) so many times before”, but never stops to think about his own responsibility in their disagreements, or whether he ever hurt adam 

as you can see, the vast majority of these are in the first two books, with the exception of the “shovel talk” in trk. i would like to say gansey grows over the series, but i think unfortunately it’s more to do with the fact that starting with bllb, the plot is split between gansey/blue and adam/ronan, so gansey just doesn’t get as many interactions with adam and ronan (he’s still bribing school officials on ronan’s behalf though, including selling monmouth which at the time is where ronan is also living). 

gansey isn’t a bad person, and doesn’t (always) mean badly. he does love his friends. unfortunately, his refusal to see things from anyone’s perspective but his own makes him a toxic friend on a great number of occasions.

[crookedspoonfic]

The Raven Cycle Fic Masterlist

I thought I might compile a masterlist of TRC fic before it becomes too long for me to bother with. More of a quick browsing overview. Tags and everything on AO3.

Fics are grouped into Series, Standalones and Snippets. Series are sorted by date of creation and the fics by internal chronology. Standalones are divided into main pairing, sorted alphabetically, and then listed chronologically. Numbering reflects when a fic was written, so it’s easier to find the latest ones.

Last updated: 2017-10-22 (39 fics; 1 podfic; 1 new Series)

Series

nothing more than any artist dreams - Artist AU.

4. blue as a gunshot wound: Kavinsky/Prokopenko (M; 3,635 words; 01 February 2017) Proko knows he’s a doormat when it comes to Kavinsky. It doesn’t take a genius to figure that one out.

17. Les liaisons dangereuses: Kavinsky/Prokopenko (M; 1,500 words; 27 May 2017) You shouldn’t be surprised when he drags you into the men’s room, although somehow you are.

19. something burning on my chest: Kavinsky/Prokopenko (M; 3,785 words; 05 July 2017) In which Proko is hungover and having a full-on angstfest before K wakes up and defuses it by being a dick.

34. A work of art and a weapon, a delight and a defense: Kavinsky/Prokopenko (M; 2,135 words; 07 October 2017) Kavinsky is a lot more taken with what Proko wants to show him than Proko would have expected.

30. maybe this is danger and you just don’t: Proko/Swan (E; 2,815 words; 01 October 2017) The fact that Swan of all people wants you is really fucking flattering.

2. Hidden here below the fracture: Kavinsky/Ronan, Kavinsky/Prokopenko (M; 3,278 words; 28 December 2016) Irritation lurks at the other end of his high, not inspiration. Or, the one in which K tries to banish Lynch from his head. Through art. And fails. Just give me what I came for 5. I’ve tasted hell and it tastes just like you: Kavinsky/Ronan (E; 2,565 words; 07 March 2017) Everyone knows that when you need someone to hurt you, Kavinsky is it. 7. Stay with me, I’ll show you paradise: Kavinsky/Ronan (E; 3,010 words; 14 March 2017) Kavinsky would never admit it but he can’t say no to Ronan. No matter how late it is, he’s there. Though he’s usually not this destroyed. 9. my tongue still misbehaves: Kavinsky/Ronan (M; 500 words; 18 March 2017) “Answer me this: how much would it piss you off if I got into Gansey’s pants before you did?” 26. So maybe I wanted to give you something more (E; 3,104 words; 30 August 2017) "Here's the deal, sweetheart, since I'm in a generous mood: Whatever you want me to do to you, I'll do it. All you have to do is say it out loud."

12. No sins as long as there’s permission: Kavinsky/Ronan (E; 4,555 words; 15 April 2017) WIP? “If we’re gonna do this, I want you to leave Gansey out of it. Completely.”

Two maniacs, indulging in the pleasures of their world - Childhood Friends AU.

22. Dreams are made for fools and sages: Kavinsky/Ronan  (T; 500 words; 2017-07-13) The act of falling asleep: childhood vs. teenage years.

Be quiet and drive (far away) - Roadtrip AU.

1. Something’s got me and I just can’t seem to choose: Ronan/Kavinsky (T; 1,250 words; 13 November 2016) “You know where you can keep an even better eye on me, Lynch?” he asks. Ronan ignores the tickle of warm breath against the shell of his ear and empties his shot glass. “On the dancefloor. Come on, dance with me.” Or, the one in which Ronan doesn’t dance with K. Because obviously.

24. Don’t let me go; take me to the edge: Kavinsky/Ronan (M; 500 words; 24 July 2017) The hour-long drives and restless nights turn your days into a haze of dream-like images, impressions, impulses, stuttering like a flicker book – the open road before you, the car thrumming beneath you, Kavinsky twisting out of the window beside you and whooping with the thrill of it, white tanktop fluttering around his stomach.

I never liked that ending either - Rehab AU.

25. I wear these scars, I own my mistakes: Kavinsky & Ronan/Adam (T; 2,500 words; 28 August 2017) A year after the fateful Fourth of July party, Kavinsky suddenly comes out of the woodwork to apologize for what he's done.

27. And I still believe that I cannot be saved: Prokopenko & Kavinsky (T; 500 words; 02 September 2017) Prokopenko pays Kavinsky a visit in the hospital after the Fourth.

Grant me the freedom from objects - trans!Kavinsky/Ronan.

28. not really soothing but soothing nonetheless (E; 2,525 words; 08 September 2017) Working through some issues.

31. When you have nothing to say, set something on fire (M; 2,342 words; 02 October 2017) More musings on sleep and rehab than anyone asked for, and a hand job in the rain.

Married Alive - Kavinsky/Piper

33. You’re never too good for me (M; 1,611 words; 05 October 2017) When Greenmantle ordered the Greywaren to be delivered to him, he didn't expect to lose his wife (partner? lover?) over it.

Standalones

Adam/Kavinsky/Ronan

10. a new kind of love your life has never allowed + polytangle (M; 2,835 words; 31 March 2017) Youtube AU, sorta. Or: Adam is trying to edit a video, Kavinsky has other plans, and Gansey interrupts them both by video-calling long-distance. Gansey/Noah

29. ille me osculat (the scenic byway remix) + OT5 (G; 2,272 words; 11 September 2017) "gansey stands apart from the connection the other four share, because he doesn't know how to ask the others for that and the others don't think he wants like they do."noah is the one who sees."—weesaw, (i want you to know that i want to)

Gansey/Kavinsky

35. You know you like it but you’re scared of the shame (E; 2,560 words; 08 October 2017) Ronan said there was no negotiating with Kavinsky, but you had to see for yourself if that was true before deciding anything rash.

Gansey/Ronan 6. your heart frayed and empty (M; 2,705 words; 12 March 2017) Gansey wants to help Ronan, but has been drawing blanks as to how. Ronan has an idea, but never dared give it voice or thought. Until now. 8. stealing like the tide across a map (M; 2,150 words; 16 March 2017) The collar is heavy in your hands, heavy with the weight of what’s being asked. You’re aware that this could very well cost you your friendship, no matter what decision you make. Kavinsky/Ronan 11. It’s lovely. I hate it.: Kavinsky/Ronan (G; 200 words; 03 April 2017) Of weakness, disbelief, and growing families. 13. He wonders what to say and whether to say it (T; 500 words; 07 May 2017) For the first time in over a year and a half, you consider going to confession, to cleanse your soul of the sins you’ve committed this past week. 14. I’m variously sweat or shudder + Kavinsky/Prokopenko (M; 500 words; 10 May 2017) You’re about ready to dissolve when his phone rings. Kavinsky, of course, has to answer. 15. No warning from either of us (M; 2,205 words; 13 May 2017) Business AU. Niall Lynch has expanded his business of procuring rare items. In his absence, Ronan takes over the helm, although he has no real interest in it. That is, unless it means one-upping Kavinsky. 18. I just made you up to hurt myself (E!; 2,745 words; 30 June 2017) cw: non-con/rape, violence You parted as enemies on opposing lines, finger-gun to forehead, rage and rejection and a promise to end the other. Unless he’s begged you on his knees to take him back, there’s not one scenario in which you’d wind up back in your basement together with the real Lynch. Conclusion: You must have dreamed this one.

23. Everything that used to matter, don’t matter no more: Kavinsky+Prokopenko (T; 500 words; 17 July 2017) “I’m dying, man. What is that?” He scrubs his fingers over his breastbone, just below his gold chain. “I tried everything. I can’t make it go away.” 

36. I could almost swear I felt us float (M; 1,310 words; 09 October 2017) "Truth, then: you ever kill someone?"

Kavinsky/Prokopenko 3. Reality bites hard (T; 2,050 words; 08 January 2017) WIP? Congratulations on coming out,“ Gansey says. "No fucking way. Kavinsky’s not gay.” A joke, that’s all this is, but not everyone seems to get it and suddenly has opinions about your life and who you are as a person. Trouble is, you soon find you’re not so sure yourself anymore. 20. You taste so bitter and so sweet (T; 500 words; 06 July 2017) “I don’t want you to go.” To him hangs in the air.

21. with a cloud at your feet (T; 500 words; 08 July 2017) Kavinsky has a lot of strange moods, depending on what he’s tripping on, yet arguably there are none stranger than when it’s just the five of you and he’s trying out new pills.

37. Cheap thrills and a breakfast full of white lines (M; 3,000 words; 10 October 2017) "Do you remember the first time we did this?" he asks, because memory fascinates him, knowing for a fact that most of it is fabricated because he is. How could you forget? It was the day that made you who you are today. And him, too.

Noah/Whelk 16. And it’s a long way back from seventeen (T; 1,210 words; 25 May 2017) It wasn’t only your skull that cracked that day. 

38. You kissed me like a storm at sea (T; 1,424 words; 12 October 2017) It started out with you losing a wager and having to pose as Barry's maid for a day.

39. Don’t leave me behind (T; 500 words; 15 October 2017) Even after you lost everything, he picked you up as if it were a normal Tuesday.

Ronan/Greenmantle

32. A bullet in your head is how I want it (E; 2,135 words; 04 October 2017) cw: graphic violence, blood, gore, imagined character death, guro Ronan has a recurring fantasy: he dreams of killing someone. But not just anyone, no. He dreams of killing his father's murderer.

Podfic

1. gonna rip it off (go back home) by ilgaksu: Kavinsky/Ronan, Ronan/Adam (T; 6:04 min; 13 September 2017) Joseph Kavinsky can't read Latin. He can't read Latin and Ronan can't read his own body and they've both got enough blood on their hands they could mark each other up and you'd never see the red. That's beautiful, that is.

Bonus: Snippets, Excerpts, and WIPs

i.  You tell yourself you haven’t always been this pathetic: Kavinsky (T; ~1.8k words; 29 August 2017)

ii. Childhood friends AU, scene 1: Kavinsky/Ronan, Declan (T; 2,255 words; 01 September 2017)

Previous updates:

2017-06-22 (17 fics)  2017-07-01 (18 fics, re-did the numbering to reflect when a fic was written, hoping to make it easier to find the latest ones) 2017-07-08 (20 fics, added explanation on fic sorting) 2017-07-13 (22 fics, created a new untitled series) 2017-07-24 (24 fics; named the previously unnamed series, created a new one and sorted my first TRC fic under it) 2017-09-03 (27 fics; added another Series and a Snippets category for tumblr-exclusive previews) 2017-09-15 (28 fics; 1 podfic; added the section Podfic) 2017-10-08 (32 fics; 1 podfic; 1 new Series)

[thecrucibleffxiv]

THE GREAT GARLEAN CONSPIRACY: THE TRUTH BEHIND THE EMPIRE THAT NEVER EXISTED!

There is no mistaking the might of the Garlean Empire. They've invaded numerous lands, destroyed countless families, and even brought down the lesser moon of Dalamud and changed the history of Eorzea forever. Or did they? 

The Crucible has come across disturbing evidence that the Garlean empire we know and fear today is nothing more than a long-running sham! Any supposed “Garleans” you have ever met are actors! We were tipped off when we intercepted a Garlean broadcast which ended with the oh-so-recognizable and dreadful mantra: “'Til Sea Swallows All!”

This conspiracy predates the current regime of the festering cesspit that blemishes Vylbrand today. It predates the violent patricide committed by so-called “Admiral” Merlwyb Blowfishwin. The treacherously violent madwoman had already made a name for herself as a con artist by telling people about her mad crew’s travels to places like the imaginatively-named “New World”, a name which, incidentally, is yet another of Merlwyb’s impressive list of blatant lies. The only thing she actually did manage to do is efficiently and brutally murder every undisciplined sea whelk of a man who tried to stop her, and robbing innocent and undefended ships belonging to honest, hard-working merchants trying to honor Nald. It was after pillaging, massacring and scuttling one such ship that the shrewd con artist realized that if the crime spree continued forever, eventually the rest of Eorzea would rise as one and smash their pathetic island home to bits (as they so richly deserved). The solution was, to her, obvious.

In her travels she once came across a stretch of barren, empty land which signs identified as “Garlemald”. This empty waste was the remnants of what once had been a promising young nation, who had through hard work and ingenuity crafted magnificently powerful technology. The downside, as they learned too late, was that by draining all the ceruleum from the land to fuel their “Magitek” engines, the land itself was doomed to wither and die, and the Garleans with it. It was a sad story and an archaeological wonderland, a somber monument to the folly of man and a place of great potential for learning. Merlwyb returned with a fleet, took everything that wasn’t nailed down and could fit aboard and completely atomized the rest of the civilization to cover her tracks. When she returned to Limsa, she ordered her top “scientists” to reverse-engineer the equipment they had stolen.

Her efforts met a snag when it turned out the closest thing Limsans have to scientists are ale brewers, and so she kidnapped the best scientific minds of Ul’Dah and ordered them at gunpoint to get to work. This was where the “Reaper” tank design comes from - you can tell it’s a Limsan design that’s half-finished because the driver has no protection from enemy fire.

When she made her plans clear to her father, the standing “Admiral” of Limsa Lominsa, he recognized how mad his daughter had become and tried to stop her. She executed him on the spot, without even the typical Limsan pretense of a trial, and declared that the Garlean Empire were a menace to Eorzea that must be stopped and that she had executed her father because he wanted to defect to them.

Honestly, the Limsan attempts at deception are childish at best. The so-called “Garlean” army’s color scheme is black and red - the same as the Maelstrom’s. The “Garleans” use weapons which are, to the last, part-gun - and Limsa Lominsa was the first city to come to rely on guns (because they were the ones who stole the technology in the first place). The sea raids (cover for continuing to rob innocents blind), the “castra” (treasure hoards and places to disappear dissidents and those who know too much), the airships (a way to pioneer a new realm in which to commit piracy and murder), all of it comes down to Limsan lies, with their albino puppetmaster holding the strings.

You thought it was a coincidence all Garleans are supposed to have white hair, a trait Merlwyb herself showcases? And what distinguishes “Garleans” from the rest of us? Three eyes? Please. Have you ever, in your life, seen anything with three eyes? Or something with an eye that looks like a marble cheaply implanted in the forehead? (This is, of course, precisely what they really are.) No. Garleans are a lie crafted by Limsa Lominsa.

And here’s where it gets far more sinister.

The obvious question to ask, upon being confronted with this mountain of irrefutable evidence, is that of the lesser moon, Dalamud. If Garleans didn’t call it to destroy us all, then what actually happened?

Well.

As it turns out, Merlwyb has Kan-E-Senna and Raubahn Aldynn in her pocket, and for a conspiracy this massive there are many, many hands involved. Naturally, there were many good souls (mostly Ul’dahn) who wanted to stand up and, in defiance of orders, declare the truth. These people were told that at the Carteneau Flats, there would be a conference where everyone would discuss their ideas publicly and openly for how to best dissolve the lie.

Then Merlwyb dropped the damned moon on them!

If a high-tech civilization of fanciful power actually existed - one with overwhelming air superiority and martial supremacy - why didn’t they just bomb the tents of the leaders of each city to dust? Why didn’t they just shoot them from malms away? That’s what an actual army of that level of qualifications would do.

Only the Limsans could bungle things this bad.

Minaji Maji would like to clarify that while Raubahn Aldynn is an Ala Mhigan in cahoots with a foreign nation abusing his wrongfully-earned position of power, she wholeheartedly supports Her Royal Majesty, the Syndicate proper and Raubahn’s incredibly attractive and delightfully single son Pippin, who cannot be blamed for his father’s unforgivable crimes.

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