#lynch answers

[yeehawevan]

hm just remembered the first time blue enters monmouth adam has to like. kick aside a pair of pants with boxers still in them and every time i get to that part im like jesus which one of you is getting pantsless as soon as you enter the building and just leaving them on the floor

[harlotsforcinnamon]

“Hey.” Ronan’s voice was rough from lack of sleep, small in the vastness of Monmouth Manufacturing. It took Gansey a second to carefully set aside a piece of cardboard and peel his eyes away from his model of Henrietta, removing his glasses and rubbing one dry and tired eye with the heel of his hand.

Ronan was a blur in the darkness, lit softly blue by the screen of his Gameboy DS, abandoned in a tangle of sheets. He floated above the darkness, Gansey’s bed turned ship in a moonlit sea.

Gansey unfolded his limbs and stretched, wincing at the stiffness of his joints, and picked his way down Main Street, joining Ronan on the bed, leaning back on one arm.

Ronan, lying on his belly, craned over one shoulder to watch him out of the corner of his eye.

Daringly, Gansey stretched out a hand and traced the cruel hooks of Ronan’s tattoo, thrusting its claws up past the collar of his friend’s shirt, grasping at jugulars. It was a move Gansey would never have attempted in the daytime, but way out here on their little life raft in the middle of a vast sea, time didn’t count, somehow.

Gansey had never told him, but sometimes in the great silent void of his warehome, he could hear Ronan crying in his sleep.

Gansey skated the pads of his fingers up over the close-shorn stubble of Ronan’s scalp. Ronan leaned his mouth against his own shoulder and closed his eyes, a vulnerable slice of a boy in quarter-profile, his lashes a sooty smudge against his cheekbone.

Ronan’s voice was almost swallowed up by the vastness of the space, a soft-edged scrap of blue-gray silk in a world where light only served to accentuate the darkness.

“What was I like? Before?”

The question caught Gansey off-guard, and his fingers stilled. He was used to the question, put to him by his parents, too polite to more than imply their disapproval of his feral animal. He was used to it from teachers, those who had a man-to-man way of speaking to him, who brought him articles on archeological digs and cast nervous and disbelieving glances at Ronan, slumped in his seat with his tie looped loosely around his throat, like just enough rope to hang himself with. He was used to it from Adam, who’d put the question to him time and again in his exasperation, nursing scraped knuckles and raw feelings, flinging out the question as Ronan charged off in his father’s BMW, music a burnt-rubber-black obscenity against the backdrop of a shattered afternoon.

The question always made Gansey’s heart clench. The answer was a pearl, and Gansey had always thought it would take a knife to prise it from him.

But what was Ronan Lynch if not a knife in the guise of a boy?

Oh, Ronan.

As Gansey considered, Ronan winched his way across the bed until he was curled on his side around the crook of Gansey’s knee. As if the two of them lay before a roaring fire, exchanging ghost stories, perhaps, hilarious in their flimsiness under the onslaught of light and warmth, two lazy princes of Virginia, each peerless but for the other.

“Well,” Gansey said slowly, nerves jangling bright and sharp. “You’ve always had a mouth on you.”

Ronan pressed a thumb to the full bow of his lower lip, a ghost of Gansey’s habitual gesture, and snorted. “Thank my dad. I was encouraged to pick up swearing at a young age.”

Gansey closed his eyes. He felt clear-headed in that way that sometimes came with sleep-deprivation. He wanted to press his own thumb to Ronan’s lower lip. He leaned back on both hands instead and tipped his chin up, letting his head hang back between his shoulders.

“You used to tell me stories,” Gansey addressed the rafters. “That summer we spent hauling trash out of this place. You’d tease me with stories about heroes and shapeshifters to get me to take breaks.”

“I used to spin ‘em out longer just so we could sit in the shade another few minutes.” Ronan’s voice sounded brittle, and Gansey kept his eyes closed, his head tipped back. Privacy was a gift judiciously meted out.

“You had a truck. You used to drive it out into the fields and we’d lie on the truck bed after the sun went down and you’d make up the names of constellations.”

“And you’d tell me all the real ones. All the ones you could see from the ley lines in England and Wales. All their stories. Except the ones I already knew.” Ronan cleared his throat.

Gansey let the memory wash over himself for a moment. It was something he rarely allowed himself these days, because hot of the heels of that little seizure of joy, the last brilliant gasp of sunset light over the horizon, always came a wave of darkness, of pain, now knowing what was to come, overwritten over the memories of before–

Before.

But still, Gansey remembered the heat of the truck bed, almost uncomfortably hot after a sunny day sitting out on the cracked, weedy tarmac of the Monmouth Manufacturing parking lot. He remembered sweat sticking his tee shirt to his back, even as the descending darkness coaxed goosebumps out along his skin. He remembered his arm growing tired and his voice pleasantly hoarse as he pointed up into the vast smear of stars above them, glorious in their multitude, telling Ronan about the Seven Sisters, the Bear, the Dragon.

He remembered Ronan leaning up on one elbow, Gansey’s voice dying in his throat as Ronan had gazed down at him, unguarded, bold as a firework and twice as bright.

The kiss had tasted clean as a mountain spring, cold and melting.

A week later, Ronan had stepped out onto the front porch and frowned at the purple-gray gravel of the Barns’ driveway. It’d looked wrong in the early-morning light, dark and sticky.

Some blood never washed off.

Ronan’s voice ached in the close darkness. “I was more, then.”

“No.” The denial sprang to Gansey’s lips so quickly that it was only after his ears registered it that he realized the truth of it. Ronan Before had known contentment that Ronan After could only access like this, with his nose pressed against the plate glass windows of Gansey’s memories.

But Ronan After was a complex creature, who’d lived and died and been buried alongside his father and had come back to Gansey a twisted mirror version of himself, sharpened by grief, all edges and hard lines.

Gansey knew for every talon blazed across his skin there was another hooked into his heart, a hair's-breadth from exsanguination.

“That version of me–” Ronan’s voice caught. “Do you miss him?”

Gansey opened his eyes. Ronan was a misery in the darkness. He could taste it in the back of his throat.

“Sometimes,” Gansey admitted. “But I’ve never wished that he was here instead of you.”

There was a beat, and then Ronan surged to his knees and Gansey was pulling him forward by the front of his shirt.

Kissing Ronan was a forest fire, a car crash, a broken bone. It was new growth poking hopeful green leaves up toward a sun that hadn’t found its way to the forest floor in ages. It was perfect strangers clutching each other on their knees in the middle of the road, eyes stinging with blood and tears, babbling thank God, thank God, thank God. It was the place where a bone healed stronger for the break, forever marked by it, forever altered.

Gansey leaned his forehead against Ronan’s and tried to transmit his thoughts without words.

I am not leaving you. Even if you try to push me away, I will stand by you.

[kidspawn]

switch pynch in a very specific context? *leans closer to you* *bats eyelashes* tell me more

okay so i'll try to keep this brief but see my thing with adam is that all his sexual encounters become some fucking power play scenario and i rarely, if ever, see him relinquishing control. which means he, obviously, likes to top. if he doesn't top, he's still finding ways to be in control. i don't think for a fucking second adam ever fully lets himself sit in a submissive position in any context. because for adam, attraction is so interwoven in envy and i firmly believe that for adam sex becomes a way to take control of an object of his envy and attraction. and that is best controlled and dominated from the top and i stand by that. (i do not think adam has healthy sex guys i love him so but every time he has sex in my head it veers into some fucked up fight for domination in his head and his partner is like "hey yo wtf" but its too late adam is having an internal monologue about his quest for autonomy while balls deep)

however, i do think there are other ways for adam to retain control and that's by bottoming and very much so controlling the action that takes place. ronan likes to be told what to do, adam likes telling people what to do. if he's bottoming he's still setting the atmosphere, he's telling ronan when to move, what to do, where to go. it's still in adam's control. (until a few years down the line and he's maybe gone to therapy that he hates and he gets it in his head that it is okay to be taken care of and let himself go just for a little while and that's okay because he is trusted and loved and safe and it's okay to not be the one in charge or control all the time also i think getting dicked down would shut adam's brain off a bit and that would be good for him like has he tried just letting someone throw the uno reverse card on him in a controlled environment i think that'd be healing for him) (i also think it'd have to be ronan, but that's because of their trust and synergy you know? ronan is safe.)

so in conclusion adam's character development is tracked from his journey to only topping to sometimes bottoming but actually he's just topping in cosplay to bottoming and letting himself just shut his damn head off and enjoy himself and enjoy being appreciated.

in terms of pynch specifically, these two are horny bastards who fuck in the laundry room in front of the child ronan babytrapped him with and i don't think there's much thought going into this beyond "hey take your pants off dick out now" and yeah usually it's ronan bottoming because while i think adam is versatile i think bottom is engrained in ronan's fucking blood and the few times adam bottoms its a special occasion but also i think ronan loves him so fucking much he wants to appreciate and worship in a way he can't when he's the one on the bottom. so yeah they switch sometimes and adam feels really weird about it for years but does it anyway because it's ronan and even if he doesn't want to experience that all that much it's important to ronan but over time it becomes something he enjoys. also i just think adam wants to get dicked down sometimes idk it just so fucking happens his boyfriend is a sappy fucking bottom with a hand kink who likes getting ordered around and well its ronan as long as clothes are off it's just instinct atp.

or whatever i don't think about it that much. switch!pynch for life.

(also i actually don't care that much fic is fic and if it's presented well fuck yeah bottom!adam or bottom!ronan or they just stare at each other and just have outrageous sex through eye contact idk why involve dicks when god is in the room ya know it's sunday ronan put ur socks on)

[kissandscry]

[clotpolesonly]

Would love to hear some of ur thoughts/hcs abt loml Carmen farooq lane if you have them 🫶

ooooooooh you have unlocked an unskippable cutscene i am going to take this opportunity to finally write up my treatise on how good GW could've been if the Farooq-Lane siblings had been fully rendered and thematically relevant hERE WE GO

it's a goddamn shame that we have pairs of siblings, mirrored siblings, and not only is one of them so flat and one-dimensional that he completely undermines the narrative potential of his sister, but the parallels between the pairs are barely touched upon!! with the Lynches and the Hennessies, we get a really interesting kind of compare-and-contrast punnet square of character traits and behaviors and personality traits and experiences. it enriches all four characters and all of their interactions are so interesting and compelling.

we could have had that with the Lynches and the Farooq-Lanes too!! what we get, canonically, is some behavioral parallels between Declan and Carmen (older than their years, uptight and businesslike, neurotic freaks whose repression shields are failing) and the surface level comparison of Ronan and Nathan (dreamers failed by society and lashing out against it). except Nathan is just kind of. crazy?? he's not a character, he's not a fully fleshed out person with a personality and coherent understandable motivations. and because we don't know him, we don't feel like we can really know Carmen either, because so much of her motivation centers around this blank slate of a brother.

we were so perfectly set up with two rogue dreamers, off the rails and threatening the balance of the world, and the siblings who have to choose what to do about it. there was something interesting to be said with them about how necessary love and support and community is to mental health and what happens when the village that was supposed to raise you fails.

so let me put forth my version of the Farooq-Lane family.

it starts with Aunt and Uncle. remember them? the people mentioned, three times, by the Lynch brothers as associates of Niall, and then never brought up again (legitimately drove me crazy that they never showed up in person, it felt like foreshadowing but it just wasn't, smh). Declan claims to know that these were just code names for people who weren't actually related to them, which is a reasonable assumption for that paranoid little fucker to make, but consider for a moment that this was Niall's actual biological aunt -- Mrs Lane.

consider that she fled from ireland to escape the "ugly business" that the Lynches and Curries were so deeply involved in. she got out, and she helped smuggle her nephew and his girl out of the country after the even uglier business with Mor's uncle. she was also a low-level dreamer raised in the Marie Lynch school of thinking -- dreaming is blasphemy. it's both a sin against and a punishment from god. it's something shameful to be repressed, buried, never spoken about even amongst themselves. her ability is weak enough that she can get away with this without much consequence, the way Marie does, but she passes this mindset down to her daughter, who also passes that shame and secrecy and judgment down to her own son, Nathan, a dreamer of significantly more power.

Nathan isn't trained as a dreamer either, the same way that Ronan wasn't. dreaming is still a dirty secret, never spoken of openly. Nathan isn't completely in the dark, though. he knows about his family's past, partly from his mother's cautionary tales and partly because he went out and sought it. his grandmother's faked death so many years ago is what inspires his own, also executed on irish soil, in cdth.

Carmen, on the other hand, knows nothing about any of it. she doesn't know of her mother's dreaming, or her grandmother's, or her brother's. she isn't close to her grandparents and hasn't thought to push for details on their history. she's never had reason to seek answers for questions she doesn't know to ask. as far as she's concerned, her family is perfectly normal and perfectly happy, despite her brother's occasional instability and emotional troubles.

and this is how we get the Farooq-Lane siblings as such perfect character foils for the Lynches.

we get Carmen being so much like Declan in personality and manner, but holding Ronan's place in the family dynamic: the soft, sheltered, ignorant, favorite child who never stepped outside herself enough to see that her brother was falling through the cracks of their parents' uneven, unfair treatment. left completely in the dark, realizing far too late that she's a stranger in her own family, only finding out about her inheritance of secrets and lies after her parents have already been murdered and scrambling to accept it all on top of her grief. having to reckon, too, with how different Nathan's upbringing was compared to her, with the guilt of not recognizing the isolation and shame that's driven Nathan to be so angry with the world.

and we get Nathan with all Ronan's power and all Declan's resentment: an unfavorite child who actually succeeds in hating his family and has the means to make them pay for not loving him enough. a powerful dreamer with a valid reason to be angry with both dreamers like his mother, who hated herself enough to hate him too, and non-dreamers, who are weak and inferior and still have the gall to hold power over him when he has all the power. but still a big brother with enough attachment to his little sister to want her to work with him.

imagine if we'd gotten Nathan bombing his parents' house paralleled with Declan microdosing on catharsis by telling people the Barns burned down. imagine the juxtaposition of Declan's TRK "just come with me. we can burn down the Barns and just go" with Nathan trying to bring Carmen with him into the skewed idealized future he's trying to build, and compare that Ronan and Declan's museum convo in MI, with Ronan high on the power of what his dreams can do and how beautiful that world is to him without the perspective to realize how intensely fucked up it would be for non-dreamers like Declan (and Carmen).

now think about the ways this would've improved the narrative for the Lynches! for a story supposedly about the Lynch brothers, they spend the vast majority of the series separated from each other, not interacting directly, and their growth, both individually and in relation to each other, suffers for it immensely in my opinion. but the brothers don't have to be physically together in order for their relationship to grow if they have functional narrative foils in the Farooq-Lanes, people who force them to confront truths about themselves and each other!!

when Ronan faces down Nathan, he's not only facing a worst case scenario version of himself but also a dark mirror of Declan, and understanding Nathan enough to counter and defeat him would require also reaching a new understanding of his brother and everything he went through and how he must feel, seeing the pain and rage and shame and envy that fuels Nathan and recognizing both himself and Declan in it.

and Declan would be teaming up with Carmen and seeing the parts of Ronan that he's never quite gotten to see before, the parts that were scared and lost and confused and sheltered. seeing how much being kept in the dark and set apart by their parents, and by the big brothers they love and look up to even now, fucked them up too.

do you see my vision here? do you feel how good this could've been?? how much POTENTIAL there was in the Farooq-Lanes and just how much of it was wasted?

i am absolutely frothing at the mouth over what could have been

[bookishjules]

the 14yo i used to babysit reading the dream thieves:

[lizpaige]

squash one squash two mother fucker

[squash1]

choose your fighter:

gansey — strengths: crafts, being bossy in a cool way, 9 lives like a cat, ability to morph to fit any situation. weaknesses: crippling anxiety, has melt downs like a toddler.

adam parrish — strengths: pretty much good at everything, would rather die than do something imperfectly, part magical forest. weaknesses: pride, part magical forest.

ronan lynch — strengths: diffuses tension easily, loyal, can literally dream shit into being. weaknesses: creates tension easily, a lack on impulse control, depression <3

blue sargent — strengths: sensible, can make an outfit out of anything, good in a crisis, living breathing battery. weaknesses: pride, can’t kiss people, five feet of stubbornness.

henry cheng — strengths: can throw one hell of a party, can rally a team & talk anyone into anyone. weaknesses: talking about emotions.

noah czerny — strengths: currently unkillable, creative thinker, loyal. weaknesses: is dead, easy to possess.

[romantichopelessly]

invitation to speak more about the secret good td3 in your head, if you so desire!

Ok so I sat on this ask for DAYS because I wanted to have some cohesive, great answer, but the thing about The Dreamer Trilogy that haunts me is that I can never come up with good concrete thoughts about how to fix the issues I have with it, which is why I reference the “secret good td3 in my head” because it can never fully leave my head in any real way. That being said here’s a list of some elements I would change to make my secret good td3, in no particular order.

The visionaries don’t exist. Liliana, Persifal, etc. are just psychics that keep getting visions of the end, and die for reasons other than their power. Explaining what Visionaries are and subsequently over explaining the magic system of td3 is part of what made the trilogy so confusing and ruined a lot of the magic that the TRC universe already had for me. We don’t need concrete explanations, and psychics can still fill this role. The changing age and exploding added nothing?? to the narrative?? that I can think of?? We can even keep the age gap for Carliana if we want to, just make Liliana an older psychic like Maura/Persephone/Calla. It will even add to the excellent Carmen-Mr. Gray parallels.

Lean more into the themes of the age group. TRC is a coming of age story. It’s about being 17/18. It’s about learning your inner self and getting others to see the true you. TD3 should be more about being 19/20/21. To me, TD3 at its peak is like Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 6. Which is uniquely about the horror of being in your early 20s, losing support systems, having to learn to be a full self-reliant person, grappling with what your parents did to you, and the crushing loneliness of not being around Your People anymore. TD3 has all of these themes, but I really think they need to be fleshed out more, and given proper conclusion that isn’t just “yippee everything is fine now!”

Greywaren is longer. I think almost everyone agrees that Greywaren, as a book was just too short to wrap up all the plot lines set up, and does almost none of them justice. That book needed a whole rewrite. In theory, I’m completely fine with how it opens—Ronan being in a dream coma was foreshadowed from CDTH, and is an idea that I’d actually thought of as interesting before even reading the book. Other elements of this book like Declan’s rampage, Matthew going rogue, etc are great directions for the characters, I’d just want to rework them. I could make solo posts about any of these.

The Pynch breakup either doesn’t happen, or is set up further in advance and lasts longer. Personally, I lean towards the latter. Adam and Ronan’s conflict is set up from the very beginning of CDTH, or even from Opal (Adam warring between wanting to stay with Ronan and needing to follow through with his lifelong plans, and being frustrated that Ronan never asks for anything from Adam (specifically, to stay) ((side note: perhaps Adam’s insecurity here about Ronan respecting his boundaries so thoroughly stems from both having a family that never would respect his wishes, and Gansey (Adam’s model of love, Adam’s model of everything) having to learn not to ask things like that of Adam. What does it mean that Ronan never even tries?)) AND Ronan dealing with the crushing loneliness of being left and dealing with the consequences of having a long distance bf who is more successful than him). So they needed to have an argument about this. It’s also just in character that these two would not be perfect communicators. So. My idea: In CDTH we get no Adam POVs, just Ronan’s side of the story. We see, rather than Ronan just getting upset over one missed text, that Adam begins to pull away after the murder crab incident. We the audience don’t know why, other than Ronan’s unreliable narration and insecurity. So when Adam doesn’t respond to that one text at a vital fraught time, Ronan does what he does best, shuts down, pulls away and self destructs. Then MI rolls around and we start getting Adam POVs. We learn that after the murder crabs, Adam was throwing himself into trying to fix the nightwash situation for Ronan (Adam is not in contact with Declan here, unfortunately). After visiting for Ronan’s birthday and seeing the Lace, Adam starts to have dreams/premonitions about the end of the world (no visionaries in this universe, just psychics who are/were close to dreamers getting the visions!!). So he obviously sets out to fix this alone too. He calls his best approximations to contacts in this underground world that aren’t Declan. Henry and Mr. Gray. (+ maybe also Maura & Calla) ((Also don’t worry Henry doesn’t leave the Sarchengsey trip, just advises Adam on where to start)). Now that Adam has lost contact with Ronan (he was busy and missed the message and Ronan went off the grid like in canon), he goes full throttle into trying to solve everything while managing being his perfect Harvard persona (this gets him close to a breakdown, very reminiscent to Dream Thieves). Perhaps we get to see Adam and Declan working together to acquire sweet metals and understand the underworld of magic together. He and Ronan fight the one time they get to talk over the phone, Adam because he is truly scared Ronan will be the one to end the world, Ronan because he feels like this is another person perceiving him as a failure and wanting to control/baby him (+ he hates Adam hanging with Mr Gray and Declan of all people). By the time Greywaren starts, Adam is wrung out and hurting and Ronan is dead to the world, so yeah. He doesn’t think he can spend emotional energy playing safeguard to his boyfriend’s coma corpse. And then by the end of the book they have an actual argument/discussion no “they didn’t need words” cop out.

The number of Dreamers/Dreams has to be reduced. It’s cool to say that dreams were always integrated into this world, but it creates so many plot holes it isn’t even funny. There is no way Niall could have passed off the Greywaren being a box that brings dreams to life if Dreamers were such a common occurrence. No secret can be kept that well, someone in the black market would have known, and thus Greenmantle/Mr. Gray/Laumonier/ect WOULD HAVE KNOWN !!!

Declan does not have all his character erased by suddenly loving his mommy and daddy. Seriously what the fuck was that. Declan suddenly deciding to forgive his father because actually Declan was secretly the favorite child first is INSANE. Especially after seeing that that changed because Niall and Mor WANTED TO KILL HIS BROTHER!!! The two tenants of Declan Lynch in TRC were protecting his remaining family and fucking hating that Ronan idolized Niall just because Niall loved him best. So why make Declan turn around and do the same??? Suddenly Niall wasn’t so bad because actually he let Declan be shoved into a car trunk during a shootout out of love. I hate this plot line. Family doesn’t have to be forgiven. Understood, that’s one thing. Forgiven?? Not always. Sick of it. The real takeaway from seeing those memories should have been closure to Declan’s arc of learning that dreams should be viewed as people completely.

I definitely have other points but I cannot think of them right now. And I want to post this so I will. But TD3, as you can see, makes me an insane person.

[likeasecondself]

for those who have read the dreamer trilogy: matthew is no longer dependent on ronan after the events of the series right? like if ronan does die, matthew can still live on without him due to some sweetmetal stuff?

[harlotsforcinnamon]

rodansey -- adam and gansey helping ground ronan during a dissociative/derealization episode where he can't tell if he's awake or dreaming

Gansey came awake with his ears still ringing, tensing into wakefulness. Adam groaned and covered his eyes as Gansey leaned across him to click on the light and retrieve his glasses. “‘S matter?”

“Ronan.”

Adam followed him down the hall to where the cracked-open bathroom door spilled a stripe of warm brilliance across the floor and up the opposite wall.

“Ro?” Tentatively, Gansey pushed the bathroom door open. “You okay?”

Ronan stood with his head bowed, hands braced on the edge of the sink. The first four knuckles of his right hand were a mess of blood and glass, the mirror above him a spiderweb of splitters.

“Careful.” Ronan’s voice sounded strangely remote. “The floor.”

Glass glittered up from the tile like a handful of spilled diamonds.

Adam peeked past Gansey. “I’ll get the broom.”

“Ro, c’mon.” Gansey held out a hand to him. “Let’s go to the kitchen. We’ll get you cleaned up.”

“You always say that.” There was that voice again. It was scary-calm, and Gansey could feel the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.

“Baby—” Gansey breathed, but Ronan cut him off with a sharp inhale, hands curling into fists on the edge of the sink.

“Don’t. Please.”

“Baby, will you turn around?” When Ronan didn’t reply, Gansey took a chance and slid a foot across the floor, brushing glass out of the way as he went.

Ronan flinched as Gansey touched his wrist, but he let him pick up his hand, turning it this way and that.

“What would your dad say?” Gansey scolded. “You better hope you didn’t break anything.”

Gansey raised his eyes to find Ronan looking back at him with blank eyes.

“Ro—?”

“Is this real?” The whisper pierced him.

“Baby,” Gansey pulled Ronan toward him and wrapped his arms around him. “Baby, baby, baby.” Ronan sagged in his arms, his hands coming up to fist in the back of Gansey’s shirt. “It’s okay. This is real.”

“Yeah,” Gansey felt something wet against his cheek, felt the tremors in Ronan’s hands, “You always say that.”

Adam had returned. “I brought your shoes. Why don’t you wait in the kitchen? I’ll bring the first aid kit in a minute.”

Ronan was silent as Adam picked glass out of his hand, as he swabbed his knuckles with disinfectant and packed them in gauze. The tea Gansey had made him sat untouched by his elbow.

When Adam stood up and held out a hand, Ronan did not take it.

“C’mon, Lynch.”

“What’s the point?” Ronan muttered.

Adam looked to Gansey, who mouthed dream.

“You think you’re dreaming?”

Ronan looked away.

Adam shrugged. “So what? Even if you are, what? You wanna punch yourself awake? Get over yourself and come to bed. The worst that can happen is you have a nice dream about the idiots who love you for once.”

Ronan hesitated, and then held out his good hand to let Adam pull him up.

The three of them settled with Ronan’s head on Adam’s chest and Gansey curled up behind him with his knees fitted behind Ronan’s, his arm wrapped securely around him.

“Thank you.” Ronan’s voice was a tiny thread in the vast dark.

Adam snorted softly. “I’ve been in your head, remember? I know what a fucking mess it is.”

Gansey nosed at the nape of Ronan’s neck, his voice a whisper meant only for him. “And I remember what it was like before.”

[sonofa-dream]

writing about edgy 33-year-old ronan lynch is doing wonders to my gender

[astudyinfreewill]

hi! sorry for this random ask but I've read your amazing post about adam's birth chart, it was so interesting and spot on, so I was wondering if you'd ever shared your headcanons about ronan's big 3 or big 6 too :) if not, I'd really love to know what you think! imo in addition to his scorpio sun having pisces and aquarius placements would also suit him, and also at least one fire (aries?) placement 🌸

hey there!! please never apologise for random asks, i love getting visitors - and i'm glad you enjoyed my astrology thoughts about adam! :D

i don't believe i've shared my hc's for ronan's big 3/6, but rest assured i do have them, and in fact i'll do you one better - i have his whole birth chart, which was concocted with/peer reviewed by some of my really good friends, way back when in 2019 :')

(incidentally, i'm a little disappointed no one bit the bait in my previous post asking to guess how many scorpio placements ronan has... but i'll tell you right now the answer is seven. yes, seven. i don't think anyone's shocked)

anyway, before i get started, one caveat: this is the chart that i made when ronan's original birth date was revealed. people who've been in this fandom a long time may remember that initially, when the sampler for call down the hawk dropped, ronan's birthday was placed on the 14th of november, and it was only later, in the published book, that stiefvater retconned it to be november 1st. general consensus at the time seems to be she did it for two reasons:

a) November 1st is All Saints' Day, and maggie wanted to make ronan as catholiccore as possible

b) maggie is notoriously bad at timelines, and she realised belatedly that putting ronan's birthday so late clashed with some other events in the books (iirc, political events happening with the gansey family??? OF ALL THINGS??? like. be so fr rn margaret who even cares???).

personally, based on the fact very few timelines make sense in the trc/tdt world, i tend to think it was mostly the catholiccore thing. the problem i have with this is that for astrology purposes, having ronan born on nov. 1st changes a crucial aspect of his chart, and i simply won't stand for such shenanigans. but let's get into it, shall we?

as we all know, ronan's a scorpio sun - but you asked about his big 6, so: if we go by his og birthday on 14th november 1994, that makes him an aries moon, a leo venus, and a scorpio... everything else dkgjfdlg. ok, so we don't technically know his rising sign, but come ON - he's 200% a scorpio rising. some evidence from my trusted resource thee cafeastrology:

"Scorpio Ascendant people have a lot of presence. There is something about them that tells the world that they are not to be pushed around. Their manner commands respect, and in some cases, fear. [...] You either love or hate Scorpio rising people [...] They seem to look right through people, seeing through superficiality. This can be quite intimidating to some, and intriguing to others.

^ other than the invoking fear/seeming dangerous (see: ronan the pitbull, the pit viper, the snake - ronan whom, per the books description, you would not hand over a baby to hold, and isn't that a misleading impression), this to me is very reminiscent of that part in trb where blue says that she finds herself craving ronan's approval and good opinion, in spite/because of how intimidating she finds him. she can tell he sees through the bullshit, and she likes that.

on a cute pynch note, it seems also that Scorpio rising people are drawn to down-to-earth and reliable partners, with whom "they generally look for complete commitment" - which seems very fitting for ronan "imprinted on adam before they ever met and decided to mate for life AND the afterlife" lynch.

...also, it's just good fun to think of ronan as being a hyperscorpio lol.

on to the other placements!

now, here is the one that makes me resent maggie changing his birth date: if we stick to nov 14th, then ronan would be an aries moon. this is PERFECT for him, as despite being a water sign, he's definitely got some fire to him, especially in his subconscious/emotional side (see, anon, your intuition was right!! :D).

mostly, an aries moon has to do with impulsivity, impatience, and rash decisions - which, hello, is ronan to a T:

"Life is a series of emergencies for Lunar Ariens. They live in the moment and have a hard time waiting for things to happen. Whims of the moment take absolute precedence in their lives."

life as a series of emergencies? for ronan "always the car crash" lynch? say less bestie. furthermore: "dealing with new sentiments and needs stirs up a huge desire for activity", which seems to me to be how he largely deals with his feelings for adam in trc. don't know how to cope with the fact you're absolutely head over heels gonzo for one of your best friends? SIMPLE just put him a shopping cart and crash it into your car at breakneck speed!! ideal date right there-- high energy, low talking, and plenty of convenient excuses for touching.

Additionally, Aries moon is said to be very defensive and take things really personally, but also that "their flare-ups generally end almost as quickly as they started", which again strikes me as true for ronan. although often consumed by their needs, they are also direct, and don't tend to play manipulation games. other interesting/fitting traits:

they project a strong personality but actually go through emotional rollercoasters quite often, and their moodiness presents not as them getting withdrawn but rather being temperamental

they appear to enjoy trouble and confrontations, and get easily bored with environments that are too peaceful

interestingly: "their childhood homes are often battlegrounds", as their strong personality can make them not the most peaceful to live with... i bet declan has a thing or two to say about that.

HOWEVER... if we change his chart to nov 1st, then ronan's moon is actually in libra. there are many reasons why i think this placement, for ronan, is a travesty, starting with the trait that "Because their drive for harmony, peace, and sharing is so powerful, Lunar Librans are apt to do a lot of conceding". (i could almost stop here tbh - "drive for sharing" is already a nonstarter with ronan). furthermore, lunar libras are described as charming, flirty, and "rarely directly aggressive", rather projecting a "gentle and refined" outlook... again, not quite a match. finally, lunar libras are said to be diplomatic with acquaintances (LMAO...), but argumentative with their partners and rarely letting them win (LMAO surely not the ronan lynch that has adam in his phone as "management").

it was very clear to me and my esteemed colleagues from the crying club server that this, quite simply, will not stand. kelly @ellipsea and i even tried changing his birth year and generating other charts to see if we could find a november 1st placement that was more fitting - but we had no luck finding a better match, plus 1994 is usually taken as the consensus, and changing years threw adam's astral chart completely out of wack as well - so we decided to just act like despite being born on nov 1st, his birth chart remains as nov 14th, lol. or as kelly wisely put it:

which is of course: correct. and so, as gansey boy would put it, onwards and upwards! 😌

mercury is meant to rules the sphere of communication - and for ronan, a scorpio mercury makes a lot of sense. scorpio mercury people are said to, essentially, want to cut the bullshit and get to the heart of the matter, of any matter. they're observant of other people's secrets, though not willing to divulge or examine their own, and they will deep dive into something that makes you uncomfortable and give no fucks. they hate superficiality (check), and can come across as quite 'dark' or negative and suspicious (check again), but they will also staunchly defend/support anyone they care about.

i'll close on a quote about them that made me laugh: "Their idea of constructive criticism can be interpreted as destructive criticism". chef's kiss, no notes.

interestingly, this is the only other placement that changes drastically by moving ronan's birthday on the 1st, changing his mercury from scorpio to - AGAIN - libra. shall we check out that description?

"Libra communicators come across as very pleasing. Diplomacy comes naturally to these natives. At the very least, they take many pains to be diplomatic--"

...yeah, no. i don't think so. i'm gonna have to stick with nov. 14th for this one as well, i fear.

thankfully!!! the rest of his big 6 remain unchanged regardless of the specific november date, so we can forge ahead without second thoughts.

if mercury rules communication, mars rules aggression/conflict. ronan's mars is in leo, bringing us back to a mix of fire and water. some highlights of a leo mars:

strong need to create in some way— (ronan does so quite literally with his dreaming)

enjoys the pleasures of risk-taking, but still generally has strong willpower and sense of self

strong idealistic streak, hates disloyalty, and fiercely defends their high principles

apparently - or at least according to cafeastrology - this is also one of the "more sexual positions" of mars, making mars leos easy to arouse, but only as long as love and romance are involved to make their passion long-standing... i mean i can't say i disagree here 😮‍💨

the mention of sex/romance segues neatly into ronan's venus sign, which is - of course - scorpio. now, venus in scorpio has two main traits, both of which are extremely ronan: intensity and commitment.

essentially, scorpio in venus people make for devoted, laser-focused lovers whose feelings run deep. they fearlessly go all-in when it comes to intimacy, they are intensely loyal and incredibly unlikely to stray. a word that comes up a lot is possession, which also rings true of the guy who's not willing to share adam in the afterlife, lol. they also tend to want to know their lover completely, but are not always equally forthcoming with their secrets, which i think we can agree is also like ronan.

one quote that struck me: "Their body-and-soul love and commitment can be so intense [...] it makes loving them a very heavy experience". this makes me think of the siken quote about taking romantic love as a religion - which i always associate with ronan - and also about adam's thoughts in trk, about how ronan is the most difficult of any option, how loving him is not a game and he's aware of the enormity of his feelings - and still decides to go for it. which is lucky, because as it turns out, the way to win a scorpio venus' heart is to demonstrate your complete commitment and loyalty to them in return. <3

and for the last sign... we have another scorpio placement. i'll admit i don't know a lot about jupiter in astrology because i tend to stick more to "big 5" analysis, but apparently it stands for luck, vision, and personal growth. from my reading, jupiter in scorpio people are at their best, career-wise, when they "put their “all” into a project or undertaking, and use their magnetic powers to heal others". these projects can often include rather esoterical studies, delving into subjects that are considered deep and/or mysterious.... and honestly, that's kind of perfect for ronan at the end of the trilogy, considering that he's making it his mission to help other dreamers through his considerable powers in all things dream-related. :')

so, there ya go, anon, hope you enjoyed this deep dive on my objectively correct and canon interpretations headcanons for ronan's big 6! if you have any thoughts or questions, i'd be delighted to hear them - this is such a fun subject to yap about teehee<3

[clotpolesonly]

those tags are on that reblog of the "pynch first time" just.... ugh i am nodding in agreement so hard i'm getting whiplash because EXACTLY. i genuinely think there's so so so much emotional turmoil and grief and desperation that depending on Ronan's coping mechanisms I can't see them properly having penetrative sex until he's begun to properly process it all. i'm nodding so hard about them just thinking they need to jump straight to penetrative too, like so aggressively my neck hurts you plucked so many of the thoughts from my head (hi i think you're neat and appreciate you you're a cool human)

hi friend you're a cool human too i appreciate all of your posts adfkjgh

yeah yeah yeah, like, i feel like their big thing is just closeness. they're very tactile people and they need need need to be physically CLOSE with each other, but that need can be plenty well satisfied without penetration. they're all over each other from day 1, they're getting each other off without any further ado, but i think they might put a little thought and planning into actual capital letters First Time™ fucking if they're gonna go there. i feel like that would mean something to them, like, emotionally, as a relationship milestone and an expression of particular vulnerability and whatnot. Ronan esp, who expresses himself so physically and wears his emotions so outwardly, needs to get settled a little bit after all the turmoil before they do that.

[stabbyfoxandrew]

demon Neil <3

WIP Wednesday (5/7) | Demon Neil AU (Part 39)

Neil takes so long to answer, Andrew starts to wonder if he might've up and vanished again. Finally, the demon yawns and says, "What are you talking about? I didn't go anywhere. I can't."

"Oh? Because we just went two days without a peep from you. You're a lot of things Neil, but quiet is not one of them." Andrew tells him. And it's the truth. No matter the activity, Neil always seems to have a running commentary for it. Something that plays in Andrew's head like a a podcast hosted by an idiot.

"Wait. What? Two days?" At last Neil finally has the sense to sound alarmed. "Are you serious?"

"Yep! You disappeared right after your mother..." Andrew trails off, trying to find a tactful way of saying 'possibly got murdered by a bloodthirsty demon'. After a couple seconds he remembers that Neil has access to his thoughts and he needn't bother to shield him from them. "After she hung up, you were just gone. I couldn't feel you anymore. And you wouldn't respond to anything I tried. Until Hashbrown tried to get me to amputate my own finger a minute ago."

"Oh." The void is replaced by a whirlwind of emotions so strong Andrew nearly gets bowled over. Anxiety, confusion, devastation. Plus something akin to heartburn, but Andrew thinks that's more than likely his body reacting poorly with the mango. He takes a couple antacids to ward it off and puts himself on the couch to wait for Neil to stop freaking out.