#i just love how Ronan and Adam are main characters

[h0ndayota]

idk about you guys but every now and again I think about how we had a very popular YA book from the 2010s with two queer main characters that ended up happy and alive and engaged (!!!) and their entire existence wasn't just 'oh that's the Gay™️ character' but they were multifaceted & complicated human beings who so happened to be queer...

[ganseylike]

detail thoughts:

- love ronan’s obviously expensive (non-uniform) coat, intrigued that his tattoo doesn’t reach to his neck as far as we can see

- love how noah’s “crushed” side is blocked, also curious if he’ll often be blocked/awkward in panel compositions? could be a cool concept?

- love blue and ronan having the same gaze! yes! lusting for gansey. who said that.

- adam’s slight mullet. justice. plus great contrast to the three other boys all having identical clean cuts on the back of their heads. and i know it’s just dramatic sunlight but if he really had a kinda shitty bleach job i wouldn’t be mad

- everyone has freckles thank u sas

- blue with the classic ➿ choker! and bushy eyebrows!!! also i always forgot how short she’s supposed to be like damn. excited to see how they’ll play into that visually! and her being the only one with her full face shown is nice <3 i wish it was more obvious that she’s the main character but i respect that it’s lowkey too!

in conclusion: look how far we’ve come thank god <3

[ju-nebugg]

moments from trb that make me lose my mind (pt. 2)

- “once your balls drop, that beard’ll come in great. like a fucking rug. you eat soup, it’ll filter out the potatoes. terrier style. do you have hair on your legs? i’ve never noticed.” ronan lynch i love you so much

- ronan panicking and letting the mask slip when gansey was staring down that wasp

- ronan being jealous that gansey was leaving henrietta with adam and saying “do you not want me to come” and gansey responding with “i would take all of you anywhere with me”

- “the sky as blue as death above him” like WHAT

- “i didn’t realize that ‘midget’ was the adam parrish type” ronan your yearning is showing

- gansey’s smile being “complicated” when he notices adam and blue holding hands

- “…blue’s dress had gotten hitched up and gansey could see a long, slender triangle of her thigh. adam’s hand was braced a few inches away on the seat, knuckles pale with his hatred of flying. there was nothing particularly intimate about the way they sat, but something about the scene made gansey feel strange, like he’d heard an unpleasant statement and later forgotten everything about the words but the way they had made him feel.” (long quote i know but holy fucking shit)

- obligatory “i’m always straight.” “oh, man, that’s the biggest lie you’ve ever told.”

- gansey doing his little indie film main character scream to god in a field

- gansey pointing at people. so much pointing. what a dork. i love him so much

- also his vocabulary. what a NERD <333333

- ronan pissing all over the state of virginia

- gansey calling blue “the table everyone wants at starbucks”

- “i just fed chainsaw but she’ll need it again.” “this,” gansey replied, “is precisely why i didn’t want to have a baby with you.”

- adam’s immediate thought when holding blue’s hand is to worry about crushing her fingers :(

- ronan forgetting to be “cool or surly” when translating cabeswater’s latin, and apologizing over and over again good lord and gansey only responding with “it’s okay, you’re doing really well”

- the whole “coincidence because it wasn’t” trend

- gansey being SO NERVOUS to ask blue to hang out at the church, and then sounding “fourteen shades brighter” when she accepts

- gansey’s arms being super fucking ripped from rowing and blue Noticing

- “aquamarine is a wonderful color, and i won’t be made to feel bad for wearing it”

- “gansey’s voice, when he replied, was a little rough. ‘well, if you killed adam, i’d be quite upset.’”

- “on the inside, he sort of wished he looked more like the camaro. which was to say, more like adam.”

- gansey planning out his “cunning thing to say to blue when he saw her next”

- ronan walking in on adam and blue flirting and immediately shoving chainsaw in their faces. hm.

- “no matter how hard he tried, he kept becoming a gansey”

- “out of the blue?” “i’d prefer if you didn’t use that expression.”

- BUTTERNUT

- blue being reluctantly attracted to gansey’s glasses

- ronan trying so hard to give adam an excuse not to go home, and then going absolutely apeshit when adam gets hurt

- neeve’s voice sounding like a “computerized voicemail menu” (can you tell i’m in love with maggie’s descriptors)

- “gansey was just a guy with a lot of stuff and a hole inside him that chewed away more of his heart every year.” oh god

- ronan carrying all of adam’s possessions into monmouth on his back

- gansey saying things like “excelsior” and “yee haw” for no one but himself

- gansey being miserable and blue liking him better that way

- ‘“crushed and broken,” gansey said. “just the way women like ‘em.”’ correct!

- “cabeswater was just as literal as ronan was” HMMMMMMMMM CURIOUS

- ronan writing “remembered” on the red mustang and walking away without a word shut UPPPPPP

- ganseys first question after adam sacrifices himself being “was i so awful?”

- “they didn’t even have the authority to choose an alcoholic beverage. they couldn’t be deciding who deserved to live or die.”

(pt. 1)

as soon as i can stumble my way to a bookstore, dream thieves will be annotated to hell and back. expect more yelling very soon <3

[cabeswaterdrowned]

Was looking up every mention of Aurora in the books for the char study piece I want to write about her and my jaw dropped here because I had been misremembering that “She was the only person who he could not dazzle, and he loved her for it.” line as being a Bluesey quote when it’s about Niall and Aurora… yikes @ myself. But really when you isolate just that line it is very romantic and fits the definition of romance we see for the other main couples. Bluesey Pynch and Jordeclan are all structured as 

character A (Gansey/Adam/Declan) who is a social masker and disconnected from the ‘real them’ to some degree in a lot of interactions with the world around them x character B (Blue/Ronan/Jordan) who in Blue/Ronan’s case especially is very authentic and blunt and fearlessly themselves, that’s a little more complicated with Jordan who also has to perform as a version of Hennessy and then kind of find herself outside of that at the same time she starts her relationship with Declan, but she’s imaginative and creative the way Blue and in a less artistic way Ronan are and that proves an “authentic” contrast in a similar way, and she’s a helpful relationship for Declan in some of the same ways as Bluesey/Pynch.

 So understanding that’s a notion and type of dynamic this verse generally paints as romantic, Niall and Aurora’s relationship being a warped take on the formula is pretty interesting! Niall wants to be with someone who sees the truth of him and wants the truth of him, which was Mor who is also too complicated and sharp-edged for him to understand or to give him the type of love he wants, so he has to craft someone both much sweeter who is a more conventional housewife for him, but she couldn’t be someone who agreed with him 100% of the time because she had to be fundamentally different from him and also provide him with the faintest, most easily controlled glimmer of what he liked about Mor’s challenging nature, without any danger of her actually leaving or overpowering him. So Aurora can contradict him or call him out when she says he’s lying about the way Ronan was born, but she can’t truly Challenge him there’s a difference. I do get the sense from the way the brothers talk about her and the few flashbacks to her in that time she was more dynamic and complex pre Niall’s death than the Aurora we meet in trc present, which makes sense based on the mythology, and I don’t see a reason for her to not have an individual personality the same way Mathew and Jordan do although it would still be comparatively muted by her role. 

But basically, Niall wanting the same thing Gansey/Adam/Declan do but not being willing to actually build a recirprocal connection with someone with autonomy and offer them support too. There’s no Gansey comforting Blue after Persephone passes or Bluesey connecting over their similarly curious natures and wants and strange-loving relationship with Henrietta, and also none of their arguments which are honestly quite integral. If Niall’s… well does Niall have friends probably not, but theoretically if he had a male friend who made a comment like Henry’s very unfortunate r*pe joke in BLLB Aurora’s wouldn’t take Niall to task for putting her in that situation at all she would probably just smile along… None of Adam and Ronan’s conflicts or their viewing each other as equals would be able to occur same for Jordeclan.

I feel like seeing how that desire to have someone unconditionally understand you can be warped to the point of not respecting your partners agency or seeing them as a person outside of what they provide you really puts the main relationships into perspective for how they’re different, is what I meant to say. That’s not to say they’re without flaws (and they would be boring if they were), and I think some of the notion that perfect understanding is possible is one I would have liked to see questioned a little more than it is in canon, because I think these relationships provide the chars with types of understanding they crave and Might know them better than anyone else, but that doesn’t mean said understanding is absolute. As much as I love Bluesey I do think it’s fair to point out there’s sometimes a gap between how much Blue is encouraged by the narrative to understand Gansey and how much he has to reciprocate because of some misogyny and classism in the narrative, so there’s that. Or rather I’d say he reciprocates the understanding but less so when it comes to gendered conflicts. I think the ideal version of the Pynch arc in TD3 would be that it’s meant to challenge the notion we should rely on one person / our partner to always understand us fully by making it clear how terrible their communication has become and the gaps in their understanding related to their contrasting life goals and desires. It would actually be a really fascinating thing to deconstruct with them and if it had panned out I think that storyline could’ve been something truly special, but then either because of an audience feedback loop or just Maggie getting cold feat about some concepts, there’s a major backtracking to actually-love-solves-everything, Like, in isolation Adam telling Ronan that he’s the only Real thing in his life at this point and that’s worth too much to let go of is really romantic …. but then if you truly think about everything in the text around it and where Adam is at this point, and your reading a tad more cynically, you could also say that it reads less as high romance and more as a sunk cost fallac- but I digress the point was that Aurora & Niall’s relationship functioning as a mirror to these protagonist relationships is interesting, and there’s more to be said about the Mor&Niall/Adam&Ronan parallel and how it intersects with the comparison but I don’t have the energy.

(Also worth noting that while comparatives exist the m/m relationship is obviously never going to operate under the same gendered lines as the m/f romances and so any of those comparisons would be imperfect). 

TL;DR Niall and Aurora’s romance is a warped mirror of the protagonists (Bluesey Pynch Jordeclan) romantic dynamics in that they show how a relationship built on a similar dynamic premise of desire to be understood could be horrifying if one stops respecting the other party as an autonomous being outside of the understanding they offer them.

[the-ghost-king]

Hey ghost do I reread trc solely bc you keep pynch posting yes or no

Tldr; I more or less recommend TRC to anyone and everyone, so yes! But if you are only interested in it for Pynch specifically, might not be the series for you?

Forewarning for some mild spoilers, but I don't tag spoilers when I reblog stuff so... maybe it's a bit unnecessary!

I honestly think it a really good series even if you don't get into it for the ships, there's a lot of care and attention to detail throughout the narrative tbh! (I will admit I wasn't super into the second series on my first read through, but I reread it and it hit so much harder.) It's definitely among my top recommended series for YA, but in my opinion it skews to the older end of YA? If that makes sense, so I feel it's also a really versatile book in that sense.

Stiefvater has a way of leading you down this path that feels intriguing and suspenseful but also it's humorous and even at times can feel like "light reading" rather than some great mystery. However, when you think back on the book and how it connects to the characters and other parts of the series and so forth you realize all the little things that seemed like throwaway lines or not super relevant to the plot actually were pretty important foreshadowing or give you more information on the characters. It's one of those books I feel like you can return to again and again and always find something new within it, which I think is really important and something that's usually pretty hard to find in books in general let alone in series.

On the topic of Pynch - personally I just really like Adam as a character, but I like Ronan's devotion to him (because let's be honest, he worships him) it does take quite a long time for them to get together though (I honestly think it's book 4 !) so if you are looking to read it just for ship purposes, I wouldn't recommend that just because it is such a slow build and Adam dates Blue for a while before getting with Ronan.

They are also long distance for the entirety of the second series, so they only have very brief interactions with one another (partially because of that and partially because Ronan is getting dragged into a cult...) so again, not the best for shipping in that regard either? There is a short story titled Opal written by Stiefvater that follows the summer after Adam graduates high school until he starts college that does actually follow their relationship (somewhat) through the eyes of their adopted psychopomp and I do really love that short story!

Apparently, Stiefvater has written another short story about Ronan helping a dreamer and she published it in some sort of zine? I think? I have not been able to get my hands on that yet, but supposedly there is no mention of Adam in the entire thing.

She definitely did not write Pynch to be the main focus of anything and there relationship in many ways seems to be a bit of a background thing, but I personally prefer ships were the story is not a love story or a meet-cute but instead just two people as part of a larger narrative who just happen to meet and get together but I am just picky like that.

[sunflowersandscreams]

finished the raven boys. exhale.

really good. holy shit what a downward spiral.

adam pressing charges and then slowly losing more and more control, which is one of the most important things to him and reflective of the nature of abuse (taking away someone's control). can't wait to read on to see what the consequences of him sacrificing himself are. also him living with his disability- I personally don't have hearing loss but i always love to read stories with disability elements, whether metaphorical or literal. also interested in if this is it with his family? because it feels like he has more to go through there. i also think there's a risk of him becoming more isolated at the church apartment(?). unsure. also him and blue are so sweet. i hope they don't crash and burn.

ronan- doesn't have the most massive part in this book. with his last line i suspect we'll go more in depth on his dream powers(?) later on. (wish the last scene and ronans line had been a bit more drawn out. it felt jarring and too much too fast). love him so far and hope there's more of his pov in the next book. what a piece of shit (affectionate).

noah- what the fuuuck. man. so I assume he just does not age? how will this relate to the others growing older and moving out and living their own lives? I assume at some point they'll kind of have to let him go? but very curious about who he was before he was a ghost/spirit.

whelk- holy moly. wish we'd gotten a little more on his background but i get that this book is kind of vague and ephemeral with details sometimes. his death felt very impactful because of how quickly his power was stripped away, i think. love the anti-gun sentiment through the book btw. truly nothing has ever been fixed with a gun.

neeve & maura- just a big question mark. especially with neeves ambitions and weird mask stuff. giving me the vibes of an evil mirror twin but I don't think that's the case. Maura i love you. she's sensible but a bit messy, much like blue. I have no idea where the dad plot point is going but eager to find out.

gansey- what's wrong with you fr. he's at his best when he's miserable <3 I love the flashes of him and blue. can't wait to see them fall in love and be star crossed lovers. hate his nickname as well as blue's. i don't see the appeal. fuck he's just so tragic. he falls in love with everyone he meets and he's very genuine but also naive in many ways bc of his privilege. him and ronan augvvh i can't wait to see more. him and Adam are soso bad for each other except when they're not. i can see why many people say polyamory for these people. (or maybe im just in an echo chamber.)

blue- my girl!! she has so much life and energy to her i really want to know why she doesn't have powers similar to her mother's and is only a magic amplifier. i wonder if she'll discover some? I like her interactions and her initial outsider sort of vibe but she's confident enough to fake it til she makes it and get in with the group. I wish they could be happy. love her attraction to everyone in the group, wanting to impress ronan, instant zing with Noah, sweetness with Adam, and banter with gansey. she's very brave but not in a way that feels hashtag badass in some 2010s YA lit. want to see her break down and lose her mind a bit though.

okay! those are my thoughts on characters. as for plot- something is very much starting. it feels like there are layers to this. with more books and gansey having searched in other countries for ley lines i hope we get some more settings outside of Henrietta, but keep a main focus on the town. cabeswater isn't done with them yet and there is something definitely sinister about it. i don't think it's a force for evil but definitely outside human morals and very very powerful.

I'm curious as to how the Latin fits in- to my knowledge this book has elements of Irish & Welsh folklore, and Latin reads more Roman to me? but maybe I'm uninformed & I might do more research into this after I've finished the whole series so i don't spoil myself.

okay. post done! again please don't spoil for future books.

[lizpaige]

🌧️

hi anon! thanks for asking! 💕

🌧️ Share something angsty from your WIP.

You want angst? How about some major character death (MCD) lmao Since you didn't specify which WIP and i have so many, I have a PS I Love You (movie) AU with MCD (Ronan). Here's the beginning of that. (tw: cancer, seizures, depression, loss, etc.)

Adam woke to the sound of his phone vibrating off the bedside table and smacking face down on the hardwood. He wasn’t sure how long he had been asleep, but his body ached when he rolled over and jammed a pillow on top of his head. The pressure felt great against his throbbing temple. The familiar wave of nauseous grief bubbled up as it always did when he slowly came into consciousness in the morning. He wasn’t sure if he could cry anymore, but the tears always came, choking off any possibility of a good day. His days were consumed by the thick cloud of misery, his mind was fixated on the before, on the what could have been, on the unfairness of losing his husband, Ronan Lynch, at only 32. 

Some mornings he considered Ronan’s belief in God, wondering if maybe he could believe it, too, if it would only give him an answer to the ever-present why. How cruel was the universe to only give Adam fifteen years with Ronan and how much time had Adam wasted going to college and leaving Ronan behind for four long years. He should have gone to community college, he shouldn’t have even gone to college, just stayed in Ronan’s childhood home with him enjoying the time they had together. 

There were moments where he was so angry. Angry at Ronan for lying about his terminal cancer diagnosis for months before it was too late, not giving Adam the time to do something about it. What could he have done? He wasn’t sure, but he would have wanted to know. Maybe things would have been different. Ronan’s ridiculous excuse of not wanting to spend the rest of his life worrying everyone around him, not wanting everyone to see every moment with him as their last. Adam was also angry at himself for not noticing that something was wrong. Not seeing the signs that something was off about Ronan, that Ronan ‘I don’t lie’ Lynch was lying about something. They knew each other for 15 years and yet Adam was still completely in the dark. 

He found out when Ronan had his first seizure. He just collapsed one day in the hallway on his way to his studio. Adam called an ambulance, followed him to the hospital, and in the end it was the ER doctor who let it slip that Ronan had a brain tumor. And Ronan hadn’t seemed surprised by this news. 

The prognosis wasn’t good. Chemo wasn’t even an option, it was too far gone, it had spread already. Adam cashed in all of his PTO at work and then some, spending the next few weeks traveling with Ronan because that’s what he wanted to do. They visited their friends Blue and Gansey, stayed with Ronan’s brothers, Declan and Matthew, and even went on a few camping trips just because Ronan wanted to. 

In the end, his condition worsened over the next few months and he passed within the year. 

Chainsaw, the main coon they picked up as a stray, hopped up on the bed next to Adam. She was completely unimpressed with Adam’s lack of motivation, often swatting at him in annoyance when she kept waiting too long for her mealtimes. She was not unaffected by Ronan’s death; she would often be found pawing at the door to his art studio, but Adam couldn’t bring himself to open it. She opted to burrow in his clothes in the closet or lounge in his favorite armchair in the living room. 

This morning, when his phone stopped pulsing against the floorboards, it immediately started up again. Chainsaw made her way up toward Adam’s head, sitting on the pillow next to him. When he cracked an eye open at her, she meowed loudly. Judging by how much sun was in the room, it was nearing mid-day. 

[effemar]

hi are there any trc fics you would recommend? (saw your tags on that one fandoms with good fic post)

ohhhhh tumblr user after my own heart...

First of all, some of my thoughts on the subject. I love fanfiction -- both as a phenomenon and as a genre of writing. I have a deep and sincere appreciation for the earnest engagement with media it fosters, the creative potential it holds, and the way it can be truly and deeply bad. This being said, what I think makes a fic good is different from what makes a book or a movie good. To me, a good piece of fanfiction is simultaneously a story and a piece of analysis. It should respond to the work it's based on, even (or perhaps, especially) to the detriment of its functionality as a standalone narrative.

This is all to say that the fics I'm recommending here rely heavily on knowledge of the books, and their main merit is in how they engage with the canon narrative. So bear that in mind.

TRC has a lot of fic in a variety of niches and tones. I will try to give you a diverse sampling. That being said, the vast majority of TRC fic that exists is Adam/Ronan (because fandoms are predictable like that) which means the recommendations here are slanted that way.

In no particular order:

Son of the Nuclear A-Bomb -- This is the fic I recommend most among this selection. A clear divergence from canon, it nevertheless extrapolates perfectly on existing themes, to the point that it straight-up predicted several plot points regarding Ronan's family in The Dreamer Trilogy. It's the TRC fic of all time.

Out for Re-henge -- Among TRC fics, there's a surprisingly substantial percentage that are, simply and exclusively, about Blue and Ronan having platonic bonding moments. It's just two teenagers having unmagnificent adventures. Like, as a distinct genre. I've never observed this in any other fandom. You can find more of these under the 'Ronan Lynch & Blue Sargent' relationship tag, with Gen checked as the work category. There's some real gems.

empire that runs on its own -- MIND THE TAGS. I said I'd give you diversity, so I'm giving you diversity. I hesitate to recommend this fic usually, as it can be unpleasant to read and has genuinely upsetting subject matter, but if I'm going to talk about how good TRC fic is, I have to pull out the big guns. It's genuinely incredible work. There's imagery and themes in this that still echo in my head, years after I first read it.

feels better biting down -- Everything by this author is incredible, but I enjoy this fic in particular because it's set in an unexplored bit of time before the series actually starts. It has a unique, lethargic tension that mimics the state of the characters' relationship at this point. It is almost pointedly unromantic, despite dealing with characters who we know have/will have a romantic dynamic during the events of the books.

my bones into your bones -- This fic frustrates me so much. It's incredibly emotionally intense, it has lines that are tattooed on the inside of my eyelids, and it's completely and unapologetically About People Fucking so I can't recommend it to anyone without paralyzing embarrassment. I skipped over this fic in the tag for like three years because of this, but eventually I decided to see what all the fuss was about, and gave it a try. When I tell you it's good, I mean that I felt like I'd been put through the fucking laundry.

Those are mostly pretty serious fics, so here's some light(er) runner-ups as palate-cleansers.

see you somewhere, someplace, sometime -- Ronan assholery, feat. Declan

Hey, Brother (PUNKBITCH) -- Ronan assholery, feat. Blue

in your manner of speaking -- Ronan assholery, feat. Adam (are you beginning to notice a pattern)

[friendofcars]

i've revised my trb chapter 36 notes and they've somehow expanded to ~15 pages. you can read them here (i've also pasted the text into this post under the cut). the notes don't constitute an essay or produce a coherent thesis but they're a pretty comprehensive list of observations and interpretations i drew from the chapter.

TRB chapter 36 notes (content warning for abuse)

Last updated: 230610

“’The buck stops here,’ Ronan said, pulling up the hand brake. ‘Home shit home.’” This is the first chapter where Adam and Ronan are the only main characters present- their first scene entirely alone, set in the BMW before Adam gets out. I’m thinking about a few things: how differently Ronan and Gansey talk about Adam’s trailer, his parents, his poverty, etc.; how Ronan’s flippant insults and nonchalant offers of help (despite genuine concern) are less alienating to Adam than Gansey’s more openly heartfelt concern, since it’s paired with criticism of Adam’s pride and a tendency to command rather than suggest (full disclosure- I love Gansey and understand his point of view, but it’s clear why his approach upsets Adam more, and I think Ronan, having felt smothered by Declan, is more capable of empathizing with Adam on the matter of refusing help moving out); the recurring theme of cars being a place of refuge and solace for Ronan and how he wishes Adam would stay inside the BMW (even though he knows he won’t). I didn’t verify what I’m about to say so if I remembered incorrectly please let me know, but I’m pretty sure that we see Ronan drive Adam in the BMW to the trailer park twice (in this chapter, and in TRK when Adam scries while Ronan drives [the “wrong devil” scene]). Nobody else drives Adam home (although Gansey repeatedly stops by to pick him up). Gansey is constantly bringing Adam away from the trailer, for good reason (and practical reason too- sometimes they’re just going to class). Ronan brings him back, setting Adam up to confront his life and make decisions to change it. I know someone else has written a tumblr post about Ronan putting Adam in these types of situations and it’s very insightful and I’d love to cite it here (so if you wrote it or know who did, please tell me!). But ultimately this sets up an arc that ends with Adam driving the BMW alone for a final conversation with his parents, in which he can come and go from the trailer independently and in control of his interactions with his parents- the effects of the abuse are not erased, but his character arc has such a trajectory that he’s able to get some closure on his own terms via his hard-won autonomy and healing (the BMW/Ronan has played a key role in establishing both).

“In the dark, the Parrish family’s double-wide was a dreary gray box, two windows illuminated.” The description of the double-wide has gone from pale blue in daytime to an absence of color- things are even more grim. No love, no liveliness. A strong contrast to the home from which they’ve just driven (300 Fox Way, which has a bright blue exterior). The illuminated windows seem like omens or warnings rather than beacons. “Box” implies simplicity, a lack of architecture, a constraining place, a place in which one might be trapped. I’m thinking about how the flat ceiling of a box-like trailer also contrasts with the multi-sloped attic of 300 Fox Way, perhaps symbolizing Blue’s family’s proclamation of Blue’s potential versus Adam’s family’s stifling of his talents, needs, wants, etc.

“It was a comfortable enough arrangement; Adam and Ronan weren’t in a fight at the moment, and both of them were too startled by the day’s events to start a new one.” Not that they don’t get genuinely upset with each other on page (things get heated in BLLB as the development of their relationship becomes more prominent/less subtextual), but I feel like we get told that Adam and Ronan don’t get along but they…usually…do, from our vantage point. When they do have conflict in the first book, it doesn’t seem as heavy/personally directed as when Adam and Gansey fight. I get the sense that a lot of their bickering is routine and low stakes, especially since the passage tells us that the day’s chaos and threat to Gansey’s safety has jostled them out of their typical (mundane?) arguing.

“Adam reached in the back for his messenger bag, the one gift he’d ever permitted Gansey to give him, and only because he didn’t need it.” I remember this sentence being critical to my understanding of Adam’s character the first time I read this series. Adam accepts the one gift he doesn’t need because he could get rid of it and suffer no dire consequences if the friendship ended. He wouldn’t have to rearrange his carefully made plans over a messenger bag if he wanted or needed to give it up at all. There’s no desperate gratitude or a gnawing need to pay back a debt- it’s superficial, not connected to his precarious survival, no implied reliance. There’s also something in here about a bag being used to carry things (burdens?) that I’m trying to tease out into words but haven’t yet. whoreshoecrab also made the brilliant observation that a messenger bag is more of an academic, white collar (and relatively impractical) choice of bag which I think plays into Adam’s willingness to accept something since it doesn’t highlight his desperate need for the bare necessities.

“Another silhouette, distinctly Adam’s father, had joined the first at the window. Adam’s stomach curdled.” We don’t get much information about the relationship between Mr. and Mrs. Parrish (although Adam’s later concern about leaving his father’s gun behind implies that Robert also abuses his wife), but here there’s an implication of a united front against Adam. His stomach going sour is a visceral description of his fear- how terrible to go home to danger rather than safety. This sentence reminds me of one from TDT in one of the Gray Man’s chapters: “The Gray Man’s stomach wrung itself out… His brother had never intended for him to pick up; he merely wanted this: the Gray Man stopping the car, wondering if he was supposed to return the call. Wondering if his brother was going to call back. Untangling the wired threads in his gut.” (TDT, chapter 7), both serving as descriptions of a particularly physiological, visceral fear stemming from abuse.

“He tightened his fingers around the strap of his bag, but he didn’t get out.” Tightening -> builds tension in the narration as Adam braces himself for a confrontation. I mentioned this already, but cars often serve as places of refuge in the series. Ronan goes to wait in the Camaro after his brawl with Declan in TRB chapter 7 and after Calla goes for his neck in TRB chapter 15; Adam lingers in the BMW to delay having to go home in this chapter. Adam joins Ronan in the BMW in TRK in silent solidarity as Ronan grieves.

“’Man, you don’t have to get out here,’ Ronan said. Adam didn’t comment on that; it wasn’t helpful. Instead he asked, ‘Don’t you have homework to do?’ But Ronan, as the inventor of sly remarks, was impervious to them. His smile was ruthless in the glow from the dash. ‘Yes, Parrish. I believe I do.”’ A suggestion, not an order (i.e.. You don’t have to get out here vs. don’t get out here). Adam’s arguments with Gansey are often about how Gansey views/treats Adam; Adam’s arguments with Ronan are often about how Ronan wastes the time he has, the time he could be using for school work, the time Adam wishes he had. He’s genuinely frustrated that Ronan wastes such a precious resource, but the frustration is with a behavior that doesn’t have anything to do with himself (if he doesn’t compare himself to Ronan, which is another can of worms). Adam ignores Ronan’s comment- would he have ignored such a statement from Gansey, or started to argue? Would Gansey have ever phrased it like that? We get more insight into how they interact/communicate; Adam avoids arguing over serious circumstances but is comfortable resorting to banter since he knows there’s no risk of actual offense. There’s also a microscopic bit of dramatic irony here if you’re re-reading since the outcome of the events in this chapter directly lead to Ronan doing his homework in earnest.

“He didn’t like the agitation of his father’s silhouette. But, it was unwise to loiter in the car — especially this car, an undeniably Aglionby car — flaunting his friendships.” This chapter obviously shows Adam’s father’s physically abusive nature but also demonstrates how absolute his effect on Adam is, whether or not he’s actively enacting the abuse. Adam is constantly tuned to his father’s posture and follows a set of rules designed to minimize conflict and harm to himself. For someone running so low on time and sleep, this perpetual monitoring must add an additional layer of exhaustion. There’s no place to hide- to stay safe in the BMW is to potentially worsen his father’s mood, and to go home is to put himself in the path of danger anyway. Re: it being unwise to flaunt friendships: this was also crucial to me understanding Adam and his independence/lonesomeness; because the Parrishes are poor and Adam’s friends are wealthy, and mentioning his friends (which is criticized as flaunting) threatens his father’s insecurity about their poverty, Adam is conditioned to see connection and community as shameful, as a betrayal to his roots (which he is also taught to see as shameful- there is no winning). In the context of his family, he is safer on his own (but in the context of the world, he cannot move forward alone, and this is a lesson he must learn).

“If he shows up for class,” Adam replied, “I think that the reading will be the least of his concerns.” Subtle threat/hint at Adam having zero remorse for Whelk in future chapters

“There was quiet, and then Ronan said, ‘I better go feed the bird.’ But he looked down at the gearshift instead, eyes unfocused. He said, ‘I keep thinking about what would’ve happened if Whelk had shot Gansey today.’ Adam hadn’t let himself dwell on that possibility. Every time his thoughts came close to touching on the near miss, it opened up something dark and sharp edged inside him.” Like Ronan calling Adam ���man” and “Parrish,” referring to Chainsaw as “the bird” serves as an example of Ronan keeping his emotional distance, maybe as a way of giving Adam space in a tense situation, maybe to disguise Ronan’s intense emotions. Ronan engages with his concern for Gansey by obsessing over the worst case hypothetical outcomes; Adam (who is typically concerned with planning for all the possible futures) chooses to avoid thinking about such fears at all. As explained in the remainder of the passage (next section), Adam cannot fathom a life without Gansey. This is a clear reminder that Whelk is Adam’s foil, not someone on a parallel path- for Adam, harming Gansey/Gansey’s mortality is too heavy to even think about, much less plot out. Something dark and sharp edged- a hole, a grave? In BLLB when Adam figures out that Gansey is on the St. Mark’s Eve death list, the narration says, “his heart was a grave” (ough). A place to bury impending grief? Or, if you’ve read TD3, this sounds a lot like the Lace, which is to say it sounds a lot like fear and insecurity and terror and being seen and the infinite and abandonment and grief and a lot of other things I haven’t processed yet.

 “It was hard to remember what life at Aglionby had been like before Gansey. The distant memories seemed difficult, lonely, more populated with late nights where Adam sat on the steps of the double-wide, blinking tears out of his eyes and wondering why he bothered. He’d been younger then, only a little more than a year ago.” Not only is Adam currently repressing the thought of a life without Gansey, he recurringly prevents himself from crying. Adam alone at Aglionby, struggling to adapt and feeling like a fraud, with no one to believe in him but himself, is incomprehensibly sad. “Lonely” followed by “populated with” makes it seem like the late nights themselves were Adam’s only company.

“His hand worked on the steering wheel; something was frustrating him, but with Ronan, there was no telling if it was still Whelk or something else entirely. “No problem, man. See you tomorrow.” This assessment of Ronan (aside from an incidence of Ronan in motion/his kinetic way of processing emotion), in my opinion, serves to illustrate Adam’s self-perception and paradoxically egocentric and unselfish thought process (he’s self-centered in the sense that he has to prioritize his own needs to survive and is constantly worried about how he acts and feels and interacts with others and looks and on and on but is unselfish in the sense that he doesn’t consider the possibility that Ronan might be frustrated and worried about Adam himself). Ronan is reeling from grieving Noah, worrying about Gansey almost getting killed (which was a pre-existing fear, as we know from chapter 16 and the wasp encounter). And while we’re on the topic of chapter 16 and the aftermath of chapter 33, I hadn’t realized until now that Gansey’s “dual vision” when death is imminent (“Two narratives coexisted in his head. One was the real image: the wasp climbing up the wood, oblivious to his presence. The other was a false image, a possibility: the wasp whirring into the air, finding Gansey’s skin, dipping the stinger into him, Gansey’s allergy making it a deadly weapon.” And “Gansey had that same, detached feeling that he’d had in Monmouth Manufacturing, looking at the wasp. At once he saw the reality: a gun pressed against the skin above his eyebrows, so cold as to feel sharp — and also the possibility: Whelk’s finger pulling back, a bullet burrowing into his skull, death instead of finding a way to get back to Henrietta.”) is perhaps an effect of him living two lives at once, at both dying and surviving twice (but sort of at the same point at the time loop because both deaths and rebirths are temporally linked to Noah’s favor, powered by Cabeswater and the ley line). ????????????????

“With a sigh, Adam climbed out. He knocked on the top of the BMW, and Ronan pulled slowly away. Above him, the stars were brutal and clear.” Who else notably sighs? Noah, another target of physical violence. Ronan is slow, reluctant to leave. Over the next few pages (as Robert berates Adam and accuses him of lying) Ronan continues to slowly leave the driveway because Adam can still see his break lights (antithetical to a stereotypical Ronan response- speeding off recklessly). The brutal and clear stars- perhaps an acceptance of the inevitable cruelty he is walking into? Adam feels destined or cursed to suffer, maybe as if fate, is cold and uncaring. (but does he believe in fate? Evidence in TDT chapter 8 says yes, if not literal fate but a general doomed-by-your-origin/bloodline sentiment, although he also persistently rewrites his narrative and seeks autonomy in his own life, so I don’t think there’s a clear answer. If anything, if he does believe in fate, he sees it as mutable and probably something not named fate at all). I think it’s also notable that the stars are a source of calming comfort to Blue, rather than harsh and distant observers of her struggles. “The stars were brutal and clear” always reminds me of Javert’s Suicide from Les Miserables: I am reaching but I fall/ And the stars are black and cold/ As I stare into the void/ Of a world that cannot hold.

“Hi, Dad,” Adam said. “Don’t ‘hi, dad’ me,” his father replied. He was already revved up. He smelled like cigarettes, although he didn’t smoke. “Come home at midnight. Trying to hide from your lies?” Adam graciously attempts civility; Robert eschews all pretense of acting like any sort of father at all. He’s already agitated, by Adam breaking curfew (which he’s broken for good reason, though Robert doesn’t and can’t know this) or by anything else in the world- his anger is out of Adam’s control. We’ve recently learned Adam does not like to be accused of lying from his encounter with Declan (TRB, 31). The cigarette smell on an adult non-smoker is probably indicative of the company they keep- co-workers? Friends, if he has them? An affair if Adam’s mom doesn’t smoke? The midnight curfew is surely a measure of control rather than care, and is relevant to interpretation of Adam’s constant meticulously meted out aliquots of time (for school, for work, for friends, for sleep) and deep envy for/resentment of those that have time and waste it- not even his own time exists outside the shadow of his father’s fist. 

“Adam’s knees were slowly liquefying. He did his best to keep most of his Aglionby life hidden from his father, and he could think of several things about himself and his life that wouldn’t please Robert Parrish. The fact that he didn’t know precisely what had been found was agonizing. He couldn’t meet his father’s eyes.” Emphasizes Adam’s need to always be hiding, keeping secrets, protecting the truth. Ronan is also familiar with the burden of keeping secrets in the name of safety. More description of the physical impact of abuse on Adam (in addition to the actual physical abuse- here I’m referencing the physical manifestations of fear and dread). I’m really interested in Adam’s relationship to his body throughout the series (and I’d have to dig up some other notes to elaborate but his POV chapters often pay acute detail to physical sensations, he dissociates on a number of occasions, his sacrifice of his hands and eyes and ongoing struggle for autonomy on physical and psychological levels especially as the unmaker/demon gains access to his hands and eyes, his healing occurring metaphorically via ley line work/outside of his own body, being alive because he bleeds, perhaps positing his awakening in BLLB as a reintegration of his mind and body after that pivotal scrying scene, etc. I would LOVE to discuss this more but I think I to collect my thoughts or the input from someone else on which to reflect- but this is probably the foundation of a legitimate essay imo). The liquifying sensation intimates a dissolution of the body, or the loss of restrained solidity and form, an unwilling spilling out of his tightly rehearsed outward projections. And finally, not knowing what his father found = lack of control = lack of strategy to defuse the conflict and protect himself.

“Robert Parrish grabbed Adam’s collar, forcing his chin up.” This is a repeated gesture in this chapter: a proprietary, controlling action, forcing Adam to make eye contact he’s trying to evade.

“Think fast, Adam. What does he need to hear?” Adam ends up carrying the burden of resolving the abuse inflicted on him, as if it’s his responsibility and not just a deescalating survival tactic. In TRB chapter 32, Blue muses that Adam isn’t often lost for words- but here, he’s scrabbling for words (he’s too panicked for his words/intellect to cooperate). This is another example of Adam’s solution oriented nature (the mechanic, the scientist)- here is a problem; how do I solve it?

“His father drew Adam’s face a bare inch from his, so that Adam could feel the words as well as hear them. ‘You lied to your mother about how much you made.’ ‘I didn’t lie.’ “Do not look in my face and lie to me!��� his father shouted.”  This is one of the more visceral, tactile chapters in the book, with the narration appealing to sensation to convey the intensity of the conflict. The physical nature of the scene also highlights the running theme of Adam’s relationship to his body- how it’s integral to his survival but also how he bargains it away and how it betrays him, the duality of mind and body, etc. I’m remembering that in chapter 31, Adam is highly displeased to be accused by Declan of lying. And not that it really matters, but I wonder if Robert not originally realizing how much money Adam has to accumulate in order to cover the remainder of his tuition is due to a) a lie by omission or b) him simply not listening to Adam’s needs in the first place. Robert also keeps invoking Adam’s mother as she stands idly by, perhaps to emphasize that everyone is against Adam, as if Adam alone is in the wrong here. It’s also interesting that the yelling here is italicized rather than capitalized. I don’t think the books are entirely consistent about this, but I believe we see capitalized yelling from Maura, Neeve, and Jesse, at least. Because the characters’ internal monologues are also italicized, we get a visual representation of how Adam’s parents’ cruel statements worm their way into his own self-talk and therefore self-esteem, self-perception, and reflexive victim blaming (Adam later muses that he has some sort of Stockholm syndrome). The italics in external dialogue and internal monologue collectively simulate abuse survivors’ internalization of abusive rhetoric against themselves. It’s also a little impressive how quickly a knot forms in my stomach at hearing a father say the phrase “your mother.” Has anything good ever followed that phrase?

“When his father’s hand hit his cheek, it was more sound than feeling: a pop like a distant hammer hitting a nail. Adam scrambled for balance, but his foot missed the edge of the stair and his father let him fall.” I’m thinking about hands as tools used as weapons (recurring knife motif in the books, especially in TDT, and how Adam works with his hands, offers up his hands to Cabeswater and in the process the demon uses his hands to nearly kill Ronan). Previously, sound and feeling converged; here, they diverge; Adam is possibly dissociated from the violence to some extent (like a distant hammer, more sound than feeling, etc. … a hammer is also a tool that could be used as a weapon). Adam is literally scrambling for balance here (but also does so figuratively at all times and is often quite successful at maintaining his tightly orchestrated and exhausting equilibrium). The precise nature of Adam’s fall here is brutal- the hit doesn’t make him fall, but it knocks him off balance and the subsequent misstep makes him fall, which his father makes no effort to prevent- the abuse not only aggression but neglect, which is to say control in both positive and negative (not good and bad, but additive and subtractive/maliciously neutral) ways.

“When the side of Adam’s head hit the railing, it was a catastrophe of light. He was aware in a single, exploded moment of how many colors combined to make white.” The prose... The pain is absolute, infinite, world-ending. A railing is a safety feature; a parent is obligated to prioritize their child’s safety. Adam’s injury involving the railing is a testament to his parents’ failure to consider his safety at all. When Adam comes to on the ground, his face, especially his mouth, is “caked with dust” (which frequently appears when Adam expresses shame about his roots); I take the dust as a symbol for a dearth of love given that water repeatedly stands in for love and longing. It’s also a reference to Adam from the Bible being made of the earth. I think his mouth being mentioned in particular references his usual ability to talk his way out of scrutiny and concern or hold his own in arguments, but in the trailer park, his words don’t work as weapons.

“Adam had to put together the mechanics of breathing, of opening his eyes, of breathing again.” A bit of a symbolic rebirth moment, coming back to life. Similar sentiment: “a miracle of moving parts, a study in survival.” My original notes for this chapter said, “I do think this could have been revised though- ‘breathing’ is repeated but not rhythmically or frequently enough (in my opinion) to actually simulate the act of deliberately inhaling and exhaling to self-regulate.” But as I’m re-reading, I understand the choice better. It emphasizes that to live, you must breathe, and breathe again, (and this is relentless), which in turn emphasizes the labor Adam puts in to take yet another breath, to keep going (but the effort to breathe is so great that it’s impossible to consider anything past this breath and the next). Maybe it’s not meant to be a cycle but a Sisyphean climb. Adam has to choose his path forward over and over again.

In Adam’s head: “Just go, Ronan.” He thinks this as he’s rising to his feet after his head hits the railing and sees Ronan’s brake lights go on. The light (Adam indirectly associates Ronan with light multiple times in the text) should be a symbol of hope, but Adam is both too proud and too ashamed to want to hope/accept Ronan stepping in on his behalf. Is this the first time someone not-Parrish has observed the abuse first hand and not just lingering evidence of it? Ronan becoming a direct witness is a line they can’t uncross, a truth Ronan can’t un-know.

“’You’re not playing that game!’ Robert Parrish snapped. ‘I’m not going to stop talking about this just because you threw yourself on the ground. I know when you’re faking, Adam. I’m not a fool. I can’t believe you’d make this kind of money and throw it away on that damn school! All of those times you’ve heard us talking about the power bill, the phone?’” There’s just so much awful here- the victim blaming, the immediate trivialization of Adam’s injury, the devaluation of Adam’s education and opportunity for freedom, and the guilt-tripping over financial burdens a child shouldn’t have to cover, the implication that Adam is running some sort of con, etc.

“His father was far from done. Adam could see it in the way he pushed off his feet with every step down the stairs, from the coil in his body. Adam drew his elbows into his body, ducking his head, willing his ears to clear. What he needed to do was put himself in his father’s head, to imagine what he had to say to defuse this situation.” Keen observation of body language, pattern recognition, (and conscious use of empathy – understanding his father’s thoughts to protect himself). We see these behaviors from Adam in a variety of contexts outside his household; his survival tactics have become ingrained, and while they keep him safe and probably make him a better student too, what is the cost? Exhaustion, mistrust, hypervigilance, repression, isolation. Defusing the situation is what Gansey references back in chapter 7- Adam keeping things quiet.

“But he couldn’t think. His thoughts crashed explosively across the dirt in front of him, in time with the rhythm of his heart. His left ear screamed at him. It was so hot that it felt wet.” Re: previous discussion of mind/body duality, dissociation, etc. his thoughts feeling like they’re outside his body in a dynamic/describable way, the distinction between his ear and himself and the pain transmitted between them, etc. An inability to think as a critical loss given his reliance on his perceptive and intelligent nature.

“Grabbing Adam’s collar, he pulled his son up, as easy as he’d lift a dog. Adam stood, but only just. The ground was sliding away from him, and he stumbled. He had to struggle to find the words again; something was fractured inside him.” In this instant, Adam’s body is at the mercy of his father. This is from where his desperate drive for autonomy comes. Gansey fears that something essential in Adam will break- I’d posit that Gansey fears Adam’s inherent goodness or happiness or youth or curiosity or humor will be trampled beyond help; Adam’s fear of something breaking is more along the lines of his self-assumed potential to be violently angry/a threat to others being unleashed, as if his ability to choose to be good will shatter. Dog/collar – what does this evoke? Adam often laments his upbringing through metaphors about animal behavior (he feels cursed by both nurture and nature. I think this observation is in conversation with my earlier questions about Adam’s thoughts on fate). The ground slides away- the foundation of the world moves (much like the earthquake when he sacrifices himself in Cabeswater); the moment is unstable and unsafe; Adam is unsupported. Struggling for words is unusual for sharp-tongued Adam, but he’s too threatened to think as he usually does.

“’To do this,’ Ronan Lynch snarled, smashing his fist into the side of Robert Parrish’s face.” Reading about Ronan swinging at Declan from Gansey’s POV (nooooo) versus Ronan decking Adam’s dad (YES). I get the feeling that Ronan has been waiting for an excuse to do this for a rather long time. A core aspect of Ronan’s character is not hesitating to cause some damage for a cause in which he believes (especially in TD3).

“Beyond him, the BMW sat, the driver’s side door hanging open, headlights illuminating clouds of dust in the darkness.” Ronan (the BMW) being a source of light in a field of dust, taken with Adam finding the light switch in a previous chapter (29) only once Ronan appears -> Ronan as a source of light (probably more accurate to say source of energy) in Adam’s life.

“Out of his right ear, Adam heard his mother screaming at them to stop. She was holding the phone, waving the phone at Ronan like that would make him stop. There was only one person who could stop Ronan, though, and Adam’s mother didn’t have that number.” Adam’s mother has been a silent bystander while Adam’s dad screams and berates and hits Adam, letting him fall and blaming him for “theatrics,” but as soon as Ronan steps in, she yells for the violence to end. Gansey helps mediate the fight in Nino’s parking lot (TRB, 7)- but Gansey (i.e. Ronan’s impulse control) is not here. The bit about Adam’s mother futilely waving the phone of all things at Ronan is so fitting- she’s found the person perhaps most scornful of phones and telephonic communication on earth.

“Get up, Adam. He was on his hands and knees. The sky looked the same as the ground. He felt fundamentally broken. He couldn’t stand. He could only watch his friend and his father grappling a few feet away. He was eyes without a body.” without a body: dissociation from the current pain and overwhelm; foreshadowing to sacrificing his eyes (and hands) to Cabeswater. The empty, unreal sensation of incredulous “how can this actually be happening” is terrible, and he feels it here. (The sky mirroring the ground reminds me of one of my favorite concepts, probably because of the tomb/shroud quote from the Les Mis chapter about the drowning man; the motif is best summarized as “as above, so below”, which is particularly fitting for the Magician.). I can’t help but think of the sky and the ground as mirrors, reflecting one another in perpetuum like Neeve’s in the Fox Way attic, between which Persephone’s soul gets lost from her body. In “my” tv adaptation (or any visual adaptation really) I’d have Adam’s posture on the ground here (before he gets onto his knees) be the same as Persephone’s on the attic floor when she dies scrying. The fight proceeds without Adam; he has lost a say in his narrative for the time being.

“It was all just noise. What Adam needed was to be able to stand, to walk, to think, and then he could stop Ronan before something awful happened.” The cops show up incredibly quickly here, unless the fight is particularly long and/or Adam’s sense of passing time is warped. “What Adam needs” is a recurring and often tense theme in his character arc, and as usual, his needs are linked to a drive for autonomy, capability, and independent action. We get evidence of Ronan and Adam’s developing, mutual, and unspoken care for each other- the instinct to protect the other, often at the expense of their own wellbeing. Adam, while he’s already gravely injured and unbalanced, worries about something awful happening- but something awful HAS happened, has been happening.  I’ll go on a bit of a tangent here because “it was all just noise” that Adam wants to filter out reminds me of things like signal to noise ratio, electrical impulses and synapses, electricity and ley lines, and how once Adam becomes the magician, he learns to scry intentionally (metaphor- healing from, or at least understanding, dissociation) and to rewire the ley line (metaphor- rewiring his brain as he heals, eventually distinguishing Cabeswater from his father, and accepts the necessity of connecting with others to do so/accepting the dual risk and reward of love, connection, magic, etc. which are double-edged swords in this context). I’m jumping ahead here, but I think Adam’s awareness of the way in which he takes in data from his environment, synthesizes a response, and acts accordingly is always relevant. Ever the scientist and all that.

“This can’t happen. He can’t go to jail because of me.” This is one of Adam’s sacrifices – pressing charges and losing his home/a say in how and when he leaves the trailer, all to keep Ronan out of jail (and expulsion, and Declan-induced eviction from Monmouth, and self-destruction, et cetera). In some ways, this is The Big Sacrifice of the book (and the bargain with Cabeswater at the climax gives an additional magical and metaphorical layer of commentary? discussion? on how and why Adam makes sacrifices and the consequences that arise from them). There are a lot of similarities between the sacrifices. I haven’t read the latter chapter in a little while, but from memory: “he was eyes without a body” links to “I will be your hands, I will be your eyes,” both of which play into the overarching theme of Adam’s fight for bodily autonomy, dissociation and eventual reintegration of body and mind (BLLB I am alive because I bleed chapter is crucial to this), a focus on his senses and how they become unreliable as he processes the events of the first book, etc. The foundations of Adam’s world figuratively (first sacrifice) and literally (second sacrifice, with the earthquake/stampede) shift beneath his feet. In the center of the pentagram, there is no sound at all. These vestibular and auditory effects of the magical sacrifice emulate detail from the mundane counterpart, which sets up the narrative about Adam learning to distinguish between the two (Cabeswater is not the boss of you, etc.). There’s also the parallel intervention of Ronan/Cabeswater on the behalf of Adam’s safety that forces him to make decisions/confront the consequences, even though Ronan intervening catalyzes Adam’s sacrifice of his pride, autonomy, and home and Cabeswater intervenes against Whelk after Adam sacrifices himself to the forest…much to chew on here. Mirroring experiences, perhaps. I’ll also say that one thing I really appreciate in TRC is that the metaphors don’t obscure the real life experiences (like you pointed out, Adam dissociates because of his magical connection/sacrifice to Cabeswater, but also as he copes with his father’s abuse, so the metaphor enriches and further discusses rather than sanitize the effects of the abuse; another example of this is Ronan’s dreaming, at least in TDT, doesn’t supplant him being gay and the associated identity, isolation, exploration, etc. experiences- the magical counterpart to the real experience is additive, not obfuscating or censoring. [I say at least in TDT because in TD3 I think the dreaming takes on additional metaphorical meaning such as chronic illness, generational trauma, amongst other things).

“He knew he looked drunk. He needed to get himself together. Only this afternoon he’d touched Blue’s face. It had felt like anything was possible, like the world soared out in front of him. He tried to channel that sensation, but it felt apocryphal.” Concern with outward appearance- his injury is internal, so there’s no way for the cops to believe him without his or Ronan’s explanation. The assumed concussion temporarily robs Adam of his resources- clear headedness, analytical skills, etc. “He tried to channel that sensation, but it felt apocryphal” is such a painful and effective way to describe someone grasping for hope and having it slip through their fingers. Adam, whose faith is “imperfect” to start with, is further challenged here. I always think of the word “apocryphal” when I think of this chapter. The infinite (the world soaring out in front of him) previously gave him a sense of optimism, but in this chapter, the infinite mirrors (ground and sky) trap and dwarf him. Blue’s face (which is to say connection with Blue) felt like potential. I think you could interpret this chapter as the beginning of the end for Blue and Adam’s romantic relationship- the attraction and care for one another persists, but there’s a distinct shift in their interactions after this chapter that disconnects them in a way they don’t resolve until after they break up.

Adam replaying what his mother has told him previously to keep the abuse quiet: “Don’t say anything, Adam. Tell him you fell down. It really was a little your fault, wasn’t it? We’ll deal with it as a family.”  Encouraging him to keep secrets, to lie, to blame himself, to believe in the guise of a family his parents hide behind (he’s ostracized in his own home for acting “against the good of the family”). This rhetoric from his mother gets woven into his own internal monologue.

“If Adam turned his father in, everything crashed down around him. If Adam turned him in, his mother would never forgive him. If Adam turned him in, he could never come home again.” These statements are written like hypotheses. If _, then _. Scientific. Even though she’s watched him endure so much pain and violence and has done nothing to help him, he grapples with the guilt of leaving behind his mother. This moment is a crucial turning point for Adam, when he’s standing at the crossroads of two of the existing paths described in TRB chapter 15 at his reading. It’s one of several explanations of his hesitation to live somewhere safer, of why the more arduous and painful way of doing things is in some ways easier for him.

“Adam couldn’t move in with Gansey. He had done so much to make sure that when he moved out, it would be on his own terms. Not Robert Parrish’s. Not Richard Gansey’s. On Adam Parrish’s terms, or not at all.” Full names invite the reader to consider [confront?] these characters as complete and distinguishable entities -> what defines each character/what is intrinsic to each?, how can you distinguish their own goals and personal ethos? If Adam succeeds in the world, he can claim all credit. If he fails, he resigns himself to shoulder the blame alone without the messy implications of shared culpability. He doesn’t see anything as worth doing if he can’t do it independently in the way he’s meticulously determined to be optimal, in the way that keeps his pride most intact.

“Adam touched his left ear. The skin was hot and painful, and without his hearing to tell him when his finger was close to his ear cavity, his touch felt imaginary. The whine in the ear had subsided and now there was … nothing. There was nothing at all.” The loss of his hearing is representative of greater loss- of literal (vestibular) and figurative balance (oh by the way do you know what requires good balance…riding a bike), of the ability to observe the world in the precise way in which he observed it before, the curse of an invisible injury he must explain by telling rather than showing as well as the unquantifiable psychological impact of surviving abuse, etc. Adam feels that he has nothing after losing not just half of his hearing but his home, even if said home is dangerous, the opposite of a sanctuary. He ends up at St. Agnes, which he thinks of as “Adam Parrish’s nothing,” something visually unimpressive but valuable in the way that it is his alone, untainted by the authority of others. I’m thinking about “Gansey. That’s all there is.” versus “There was nothing at all.” and how their experiences are so heavily shaped by their families and the associated expectations based on their upbringings and how they worry that others perceive them as their origins rather than their actions. “His touch felt imaginary” echoes the sentiment of Blue’s touch feeling apocryphal; the abuse disconnects Adam from others and from himself.

“Ronan was defending me.” Adam’s mouth was dry as the dirt around them. The officer’s expression focused on him as he went on. “From my father. All this … is from him. My face and my …” A couple observations: Adam breaking his “keeping things quiet” habit to the cops; Ronan has already begun to make him loud. It might just be a function of his injured state but I think Adam referring to Ronan as Ronan, as if anyone would automatically know his name, posits Ronan as some essential figure in Adam’s life (although to be completely fair there are few enough people in this scene to make it obvious to whom Adam’s referring- but I do think the word choice is deliberate, especially since he doesn’t use Lynch, which to an outsider might imply more distance between them). The dirt/dust motif returns as he thinks of his father/his origins; his dry mouth indicates the strain of making this sacrificial confession. And finally, the double entendre of “All this.. is from him. My face and my…” to mean the immediate state of Adam’s injuries but also his pervasive concern that he has inherited his father’s violence and cruelty. We know that Adam resembles his mother more (at least facially), but these books are about mirrors (and Adam looks into them frequently, literally and figuratively), and he’s most concerned about seeing his father looking back at him.

“His mother was staring at him. He closed his eyes. He couldn’t look at her and say it. Even with his eyes closed, he felt like he was falling, like the horizon pitched, like his head tilted. Adam had the sick feeling that his father had managed to knock something crucial askew. And then he said what he couldn’t say before. He asked, ‘Can I … can I press charges?’” To make this decision is to completely disrupt his carefully planned life; he’s falling into a version of his life he wasn’t prepared to live in yet. Adam’s fear about being permanently altered echoes Gansey’s fears about Adam. I think, on a less central note, his view of Ronan is also knocked askew after this incident (him using violence on behalf of someone other than himself). I’ve been musing on the decision to mention his mother one last time at the end of the chapter, and I think it’s to emphasize the complexity of Adam’s decision (and that he’s considering the repercussions of leaving his mother alone in the trailer with Robert. I think the fact that she doesn’t have a canon first name indicates that she also lacks power and autonomy in the household, or will especially lack such things once Adam leaves).

I think it’s significant that we never see inside the Parrish house- the violence we see on page happens outside. The audacity of Adam’s father to yell at him and assault him on their front steps for anyone to see is…really something. Even in his own POV chapters, which are quite introspective and descriptive, Adam doesn’t let us in to the extent of his life at home (from a meta standpoint, this makes sense- it’s just as effective and less exploitative to characterize the extent and impact of abuse through Adam’s self-image and relationships and behaviors rather than saturating the text with repetitive, gratuitous, and graphic sequences of abuse). And while I’m dancing around the subject of private vs public spheres, I am very interested in discussing Adam in terms of unheimlich/the uncanny and I’m hesitant to do so because so much of it will come from Freud’s essay on the uncanny and with that comes all sorts of cans of worms but there’s something about the domestic vs public spheres and in the home and out of the home (stemming from the etymology of heimlich and unheimlich) and homelessness and Adam’s uncanniness and strangeness (both as in odd and as in foreign/estranged). Freud’s essay even talks about the loss of eyes as a castration metaphor in a different work that I’m forgetting at the moment, but even if we exchange castration for loss of autonomy (which might be a misinterpretation of the text but I’m still percolating), it works so well with I will be your eyes/the demon taking over Adam’s eyes/his visions that begin in TDT chapter 8/the blindfold on Adam and the figure on the two of swords and eight of swords cards, etc. (A lot of associated themes work for Ronan too- the intentional use of the word strange at the beginning of The Dream Thieves and the Lynch brothers’ estrangement from the Barns and Ronan dreaming about going home and him existing of and between two worlds and how these two uncanny and strange characters find themselves in these weird, isolating social valleys and seek a sense of home with from other…) anyway this is hopefully an actual essay I will write someday, but it will require a good amount of reading outside the series.

I did a final read-through of the chapter after I revised my notes to see if I missed anything (and of course I did) and I did want to highlight the switch from “his father” to “Parrish” when Adam describes the brawl that ensues when Ronan hits his dad, which I think serves the purpose reminding us how Adam separates himself from violence as a dissociative coping mechanism, how Ronan’s intervention grants Adam some distance from the situation, etc. but also how Adam views the Parrish name- violent, on the ground, in the dust. I also forgot to consider the purpose of flashing back to Gansey right before Adam makes his sacrifice (to press charges, to keep Ronan out of jail): You won’t leave because of your pride? We’re given a clear example of the circumstances necessary for Adam to give up said pride (it would be reductive but not incorrect to say the circumstances = Ronan).

[nibblette]

My Favorite Pynch fics

Inspired by @kelliealtogether, 10 of my favorite TRC/Pynch fics (and some honorable mentions) for TRC making it to 10,000 fics posted on Ao3. I didn’t realize until I made the list how many BDSM Pynch fics I really knew and loved. So be warned, lol.

1. Like @kelliealtogether my favorite pynch fic of all time is “we all fill up with time”

by Interropunct. Such great writing and emotions! The BDSM scenes are so creative and well written, just amazingly constructed! And hotttttt!!!Consent is emphasized! Ronan lives in a named building (the Brownstone) with Chainsaw the chicken in NYC! Adam has made it as a big shot lawyer with the dustless modern apartment, with its secret bedroom full of plants! Gansey, Ronan and Noah have a super strong friendship bond! Highly recommend this fic!

2. Another Interropunct fic, the SW AU, “The kids aren’t alright.

Part 1 is “blessed be the boys” is young SW Adam’s POV where Ronan becomes his main client. Part 2 is “put your curse in reverse” from client Ronan’s POV. The writing is just so great and I marvel that Interropunct published these fics in 2015 before The Raven King even came out. The morphing of Adam’s and Ronan’s relationship from anonymous transaction to boyfriends is so delicious! Ronan’s angst over his dreaming is what draws him to visit a SW and continue. (CW though since later in the fic it’s revealed by Adam that he was only 17 yo when he started SW on his own)

3. Man of Masks by EtoileGarden

(CW for SA) A very inventive take on the slow burn where the kink/sex comes before the romantic relationship. The feels! The scenes! The longing! (All the characters are aged up) Ronan comes to Adam after being assaulted by Kavinsky during their meeting for drugs/sex/Ronan’s punishment. Adam convinces Ronan to come to him for submisssion/pain/“punishment” instead. Adam surprises Ronan by setting boundaries and emphasizing consent. Ronan is already in love with Adam but it takes a while for Adam to realize his feelings for Ronan, despite the increasingly sexual and emotional nature their kink relationship takes.

4. And the Forest Began to Sing by rootingformistopheles.

A short and sweet and hot smut fic. Cabeswater merges with Adam to physically please their Greywaren. Includes vine tentacles and bondage!

5. “In a hurry” by PennyByTheBlock

Adam and Ronan have a Sunday morning quickie at the Barns before work and church, respectively. It’s so hot, I’ve read it like 20 times already. It really captures the Adam/Ronan dynamic.

6. There’s No Place Like My Room by Lil_Redhead

[fltrmoon]

okay i wanna try list all fandoms i’ve been a part of or had an interest in there are SO MANY!!! and i still love them all!! (っ＾▿＾)

okay okay let me go from the past to the present soooo we have:

Books 🏹:

raven cycle: i read these very very long ago and i couldn’t be able to specify what happens exactly but i’ve never forgotten how i loved the characterisation in these books!! truth be told though, my main interest was pynch - i love ronan and adam so bad and i need a fic of them that will change my life i never really found one sighh. i also really want to know what happened in ronan’s book, no matter where i look i can never find a comprehensive detailed spoiled review of the plot and i NEED TO KNOW. ARE PYNCH OKAY?!?

acotar: now probably every YA novel lover went through this phase - reading the chapter in acomaf where rhysand confesses to feyre and then they smash changed my little life. admittedly, my fixation on these books didn’t get very deep and i never went on to read nesta’s book because, from what i’ve seen other people say, i think i wouldn’t have liked it. the men in those books are…. um not so great! still, i have some interest in this fandom because - just from what i’ve read on tumblr!! - i want to see gwyn and azriel happen they seem like such an interesting couple to me

mortal instruments: now. Now. now. this series holds a special place in my heart. i have always loved these books, they have interested me in every part of my life i just love the entire mortal instruments universe and the plotlines are always so interesting i adore it. i haven’t read every series; only the main six books with clary and jace and malec (which, whilst i still love, was my least favourite), the last midnight series (julian and emma are seriously underrated their relationship being forbidden friends to lovers is like crack cocaine to me, and i’m excited to see what comes of ty and kit), and then the infernal devices… the INFERNAL DEVICES GODHDGSGJSJ

the infernal devices were the first books i ever cried to and even now when i think about it i start to tear up. and it’s not even all sad tears, i just hold these characters and their relationship so dearly to my heart that it achesss. jem and will and tessa are incredibly beautiful i’ve never read love like theirs and individually as people i want the very best for them so badly that the thought of them ever feeling sad Breaks. Me. like literally thinking about the fact will isn’t alive right now makes me want to throw up i can’t even process it. i love these books and i require deep therapy to deal with the emotions it left me with.

six of crows: this kinda includes the entire grishaverse, but with shadow&bone i didn’t completely read the books i was more into the tv show. oh and also i read one of the best fan fiction i have ever read in my existence it still sticks with me i think of it randomly from time to time it was darklina rewriting of the ending and it was literally amazing. anyways, okay six of crows yeah amazing amazing amazing. kaz and inej love of my lives - kaz is one of the most interesting characters i have ever read. i think the heist was really interesting too, which is rare for me because i’m always much more focused on the characters rather than the plot so that’s one of the reasons this series is on top for me. writing about it is making me want to re-readddd. with the tv show - i was really into the cast and first season, but i think the show wasn’t so great in terms of bringing the books to life. but i still liked it! and i’m sad it was cancelled i wish they had given it time to flesh out :(

harry potter: my first love 🧡 my childhood was harry potter obsessed, i have every piece of merchandise you can possibly imagine. a gryffindor scarf (even though im hufflepuff and proud🏳️‍🌈), pyjamas, harry potter cutlery, a golden snitch nightlight, a marauders map - everything. i love love loveee the universe of harry potter and that love has never and will never leave me. this should probably be talked about in the movie section, since i was more invested in them, but i generally just have a love for the world and the characters. ron weasley has my heart that beautiful, lovely golden retriever loser boyfriend, harry i would protect with my life, and hermoine the icon the legend we should all acknowledge that everything would have crumbled without her she’s amazing. actually over the past few days i’ve been reading drarry fics which…. these are so good y’all the dynamic why am i only just realising this. well, i know why, and it’s because of the next hyperfixation that RUINED ME-

marauders: now, my love for harry potter started when i was child but it’s been revived in the past months because of one fanfic that destroyed my life and any chance of me ever being a normal functioning part of society - and that fic is crimson rivers. i’m sure anyone who’s read it UNDERSTANDS MY AGONY. i came across it literally out of nowhere, i had never read a hp fic before even when i was into the universe when i was younger. but i randomly decided to search the hp fics with the most hits on ao3 one day and crimson rivers was top three. the description stood out me because hello hunger games is one of the most interesting plots ever created, and normally i would be deterred by the length of the fic or i would end up skipping chapters but for some reason - as if the universe was aligning my ruination - my brain committed to reading it thoroughly and now no other fanfiction will ever compare. i am so disgustingly irrevocably attached to jegulus and wolfstar i think of nothing else all day. jegulus just works SO WELL they are basically all my favourite tropes rolled into the two characters who are so easy to from undying love attachments to. and wolfstar like that’s holy grail we already know. this is my current obsession and i want to talk about it and talk about it and talk about itttttt i am CONSUMED IT HAS RUINED ME

TV Shows 🐚:

game of thrones: i was HEAVY into game of thrones i really loved that show and was so excited to see where the plot would go… imagine my disappointment lmao. i do still love to rewatch up until season five but the seasons following that are and empty mess and every character is ruined and IT COULD HAVE BEEN SO GOODDD that’s a let down i can’t move on from. but still, i love the show and the characters and i wish grrm would write his ending because the books are infinitely more interesting and i need that ending. even though i haven’t read the last book yet, i have been watching many video analysis on youtube lately and now love jon’s book character so much.

others: i was mostly into book fandoms, so for tv shows i wont go into much detail. the ones i remember being fixated on are; skam, glee, vampire diaries, money heist, gossip girl, pretty little liars, and umm… there are others i feel like this actually isn’t a very representative list of what i liked but oh well! on to the next!

Music 🎸:

BTS: my loves, my everything!! one major part of me is my love for my seven. i’ve been army since 2022 and these boys are literally the best people in the universe. i love their music, i adore their personalities, i love the relationships between them; i’ve really never felt love or care for anything the way i feel for them. i’m jimin biased in the most unhinged crazy way you can imagine - that boy is my world. so yeah part of the cassie lore is that she is insane over bts and don’t get me started on them because i’ll never stop. i also - alongside harry potter fics - read mainly bts fics. i read mostly jinkook/taejin/yoonmin/jikook/ot7 and have once again had my life ruined by many of these fics.

hamilton: i’m not kidding at all when i say i can sing this entire musical word for word from memory. i LOVEEEE the soundtrack of hamilton it’s hit after hitttt, i love the original cast i’ve never moved past how much i love it. these days my link to watch the full musical hasn’t been working so im suffering bad but it’s okay since i have the amazing abilities to recreate it myself. honestly non-stop is the funnest song to ever sing.

harry styles: i was big into harry back in 2020/21 when he released fine line. my interest kinda faded out but i still love his music so much - harry’s house was amazing.

others: my taste is music is literally so wide range that i listen to everyone but the artists i keep up with are; kiss of life, red velvet, aespa, le sserafim, sabrina carpenter, olivia rodrigo, billie eilish, frank ocean, hozier, kali uchis, chappell roan, sza, ariana, and many moreeee!!

okay!! that’s all i can remember for now, i wrote this mostly for fun to see for myself all the things i’ve found happiness in. being a fangirl is the best thing in the world i was made for it <33 i might add more if i can remember it but for now yeahhh this is my brain 🩷

[unganseylike]

ok so re: your tags on that post about the trc covers and adam / blue’s “books”

i went back and forth on the same thing (adam and blue and trb and bllb)

but i eventually decided that based on A) adam’s major character development in bllb (whereas in trb he remained somewhat static internally, even though externally he changed a lot) and B) the POV breakdowns, with adam having the most POV page time out of the four in bllb, that bllb is adam’s “book”

in the interest of cool discussion, can i ask why you consider trb his book?

oh i love this discussion thank u for sending ask! its been a sec since ive read books (ok actually just over a year so not really) so forgive me if I misremember details..

if i didnt have to choose just one character for the books and instead was considering most main characters for the book i think:

trb- gansey blue adam; tdt- ronan maybe adam; bllb- blue adam; trk- gansey blue

what do i define as most main character? Idek its kinda vibes and whose plotlines contribute most to the central plot. this is typically going to be blue and gansey to me because the overall plot of trc starts and ends with their evolving relationship to each other (true love and/or killing). but maybe thats bc im biased and love gansey and blue most; im sure fans who are really into pynch and also adam+ ronan separately would see them as most central.

anyways so i agree that adam is a centerpoint of both trb and bllb. thats an interesting point about the most pov time and he definitely gets lots of development in bllb.

but to me bllb is blues book- she even has her name in the title! the other titles kinda correspond to characters too, with dream thieves obviously referencing ronan and raven king referencing ganseys kingliness and quest. trb is ambiguous and to me is a reference to the story from blues pov and and introduction to her world. anyways, the main plot of bllb imo is the search for maura and kinda the overall exploration of cabeswater/related magical areas/caves as a result, which ultimately leads to the demon plot and thus ganseys foretold death which is of course the overarching plot. so its blues family and her drive to search for her mother that progresses the series plot forward. we also get to spend a lot time with blue alone and with different groups of people and see how she interacts with new people, all contributing to her character growth in this book. plus her relationship w gansey becomes definitively romantic love, which again is necessary for the series plot and its tagline. although adam grows as a character (what i recall- learning to use his connection w cabeswater, the lead up to the trial w his father, being able accept his friends help, pynch), i dont think it contributes as much to the main plot of bllb or the series overall.

Trb is the hardest to assign to me. I do think there are great arguments for blue or adam or gansey. of course thats partially because they are the pov characters. i think its more between blue and adam though, because they are really the ones introducing us to the trc world as theyre both outsiders. and of course they are kinda in a relationship— even though gansey is her ~true love~ adam is actually the one that leads blue to her involvement w the boys. i’d say blue is more of a “main character” than adam in this book simply because it opens with her monologue and her knowledge of ganseys death plus she probably gets more pov time. but main character doesnt equal their both to me necessarily. we see so much of adam through others eyes but he turns all of their beliefs of him on their head when he takes matters into his own hands and goes to cabeswater. i dont remember much about first reading the book (i cant believe it was like 10 years ago now!) but i remember being surprised when adam did that- i actually got a little nauseous. it was not what i expected for him and i realized that his actions were going to change what i had expected to be the clear cut plot of the series. it was no longer just this drawn out plot for blue to kiss and kill gansey, and adams bargain sets the stage for so much of the rest of the story! to me its really his defining moment. so overall i think trb is adams book solely because hes the star of its conclusion; we realize we dont know adam as well as we thought and neither do his friends, but we know his actions will have consequences that will affect everyone and everything.

but i think i could be persuaded in either direction for which book is whose, i can easily see the arguments in the other direction. and i actually love that its blue and adam’s plots that we are debating- i love their relationship and their parallels :)

Let me know what you think!

[allsassnoclass]

For AU Game: Raven Cycle AU? -Annie

@carouselstars

STOP i saw this and gasped because i literally have 20k of a raven cycle au already typed up (prologue posted here back in the day) you don't even know how excited the thought of this makes me you don't even know!!!!!!

Michael, as Ronan's parallel, doesn't have a thing about secrets like Ronan does (RONAN'S SECOND SECRET WAS--), but instead has a thing about promises. How long after someone dies are you allowed to break your promise to them? How do you keep a promise to yourself when you also hate yourself? Is it enough to keep yourself safe for someone else because you promised them you would, not because you want to for yourself?

Niall Horan makes a beautiful appearance as a Henry Cheng parallel, and the Vancouver Crowd is actually the UK Crowd (aka 1d)

Ashton built a soundproof room in Monmouth (former factory turned home for 3 rich teenage boarding school boys) so that he can drum when his insomnia kicks in. He and Michael used to joke about forming a band that only practices late at night when neither of them can sleep

i cannot describe to you exactly how much i want to write the almost-kiss with ashton and luke. literally the thing that inspired this whole journey i'm on. it's a pretty standard scene to include so maybe it doesn't count for something like this but i would LOVE to write that scene (so i guess the fun fact would be there's an almost-kiss scene in the first book)

i would make this a three-fic series rather than a four-fic one by managing to combine the dream thieves and blue lily, lily blue. this would mostly be accomplished by doing away with the villany of kavinsky, smushing him and jesse dittley together and making them both roy. who knows how i'm handling greenmantle (i certainly don't)

fun bonus fact, the main character parallels are as follows: ashton as gansey, luke as blue, michael as ronan, calum as adam, ryan flemming as noah. the ladies of fox way would largely stay the same (there is no one else who could replace them in the 5sos public circle lol) with the exception of maura, who would of course be replaced by Liz. persephone and calla have a slightly larger role in this, as I am doing away with neeve altogether because i simply do not vibe with her :)

in general, a raven cycle au i think would need to be shifted a decent amount in order to make it work, if only because there is So Much going on and the characters are so distinct. i personally have never seen the point of completely copying a book/movie and just switching out the character names, and the characters in the raven cycle are so unique and the story is decently character driven, so things would have to change with our boys taking their place. ashton is still definitely a gansey-esq character, but he also feels a lot more external pressure because i've added a whole side plot with his grandfather (i am insane) and external pressure caused by needing to uphold a positive public image for his mother's political career. i am in no way making mr. hood abusive, but the poverty still impacts calum significantly. however, his choice to move into st. agnes is caused by his sacrifice to cabeswater and his dad finally getting a better job and moving to washington dc (calum is trapped not by his home circumstances, but by the sacrifice he made. he wants to get out of henrietta, but when he's finally offered the chance his loyalty to his friends prevents him from doing so). michael is an only child and i cast him as a character with plot-important siblings, and the lack of declan and matthew is definitely going to change things for his story.

overall, i think the changes would ensure that this au would still be fresh and enjoyable for fans of the book series, while keeping with the spirit of the series and general large plot. if there are people who haven't read trc and want to after reading the fic, they'll still be surprised and delighted by maggie's characters and writing as well (although i would recommend reading the book series first as she's obviously going to tell it much better than me lol).

obviously i talked a lot more with this one than prompted lol but in my defense i have been brainstorming this since 2020. it's a good time! i love thinking about it!

Send me a potential AU and I'll tell you five fun facts that would happen in a story

[cabeswaterdrowned]

i love noir so much and i'm so intrigued by ur fic because i know i'm gonna sit there and imagine The Outfits they're gonna be wearing

hi thanks for being compelled! I will say despite me thinking of this concept because I do think it would slap I’m definitely not like, a film noir buff (although I am trying to watch more of them / read up on more about it recently. It is something I find interesting it’s just that my attention span and movies often do not go well together a lot of the time so I never would describe myself as like, very knowledgeable about a genre of film in the way I could speak more confidently about lit or tv which I read/watch more. As a result my main associations with noir are things like Veronica Mars more than like, a lot of classic films although the few I’ve seen I have enjoyed). But I think this concept has so much potential for trc, there’s something that feels very right about centering the story around Gansey’s death and lining up characters whether they’re villains or people who were close to him as people who could have killed him given how in canon all the Gangsey members do have some degree of fear about that (Blue and Adam much more significantly I think but it is touched on with Ronan and the dreamt wasps). It also feels right to make some of those villains like Whelk or Greenmantle into corrupt law enforcement. And like you said there’s a style to whole concept that’s really appealing. Re: the costumes I do enjoy being detailed about that in my writing so I hope I do that aspect justice but I also am self aware that I’m generally less imaginative with wardrobe for male chars than I am when writing women so I’ll do what I did when I was outlining a different piece where I ran into issues there and consult with multiple people who know more about men’s fashion + the history of it than I do… so hopefully the end result works out lol.

[wander-wren]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[theravenkin]

this is gonna be me projecting (and also losing my FUCKING MIND over finishing greywaren five minutes ago) but is it just me or was everyone in that goddamn book autistic

first of all: the declan childhood flashbacks...that boy is autistic as SHIT. i'm giving maggie the benefit of the doubt here and telling myself that she was implying that and not just making a joke about "haha guy is uptight and no fun as an adult he only sorted things and enforced rules and structure as a kid cus that's funny" because oh my god?? also as an adult he has "declanisms"- phrases he uses for certain situations like categories...scripting... declan baby. he is the most autistic babygirl i have ever seen holy shit oh my g

i've also always related to ronan and a big part of that is because i've always read him as autistic. i mean i've always read all the original trc characters as autistic, to be fair. but i mean? are t they? (yes, they are, because i said so. it's my special interest, i get to assign the autism)

now i understand that the larger metaphor is about chronic illness, and i'm in love with that. i don't think autism is the main thing there. but i don't think it's not there, just as depression and bpd (imo but thats another post) aren't not there. (it's art, it's literature, it's open for interpretation.) but what i keep thinking about: chronic illnesses like epilepsy, hypermobility disorders, mitochondrial disorders, and several others mt end to be comorbid with autism. and as someone who is both autistic and deals with chronic illness/chronic pain (and who has several friends who are in the same boat), autism and chronic illness often seem intertwined to me. idk, just thoughts

ALSO. y'all heard people comparing being autistic/neurodivergent to speaking a different "language" than allistic/neurotypical people? THE WHOLE THINF ABOUT THE DREAM WORLD SPEAKING A DIFFERENT LANGUAGE THAT COULDNT BE TRANSLATED INTO ANY HUMAN UNDERSTANDING. thinking also about how autistic people so often feel like (and are compared to) aliens or otherworldly beings. how changeling children in folklore were probably just autistic kids but were etched in canon as erdrich creatures. how sometimes i wanna become that eldritch creature that others seem to think i am...

also, also: the theme of masks and "other selves" running throughout the entire series, even in trc. declan is the most obvious masker as an adult; he has to create a persona and STICK TO A SCRIPT OF THW SAME WORDS ALL THE TIME in order to feel like he's functioning and got his shit together. and then hennessey and jordan--hennessey creates a version of herself that she feels is more palatable, more socially acceptable, and that's who does all the soft skills of their operation early on. adam creates a false version of himself. ronan lies to himself about who and what he really is. matthew discovers that he's just been acting like who others want him to act like all along--that he's been suppressing his emotions and wants and needs in order to make others happy. and i know that this whole theme can translate into a lot of things, but what i've read it as since cdth is masking with autism/neurodivergence.

anyway. this has been my greywaren manifesto. i am sorry. (i'll be back later.)