#the original was all ronan’s pov

[adamprrishcycle]

In 2016 I wrote a pynch fic where ronan accidentally pulls a version of adam out of his dreams who is a manifestation of his own self hatred (oh yeah I was deep in 2016) and just like my fic about adam’s dads funeral that I rewrote, I thought I might try and rewrite this idea too. The beginning is below the cut, let me know if you’d read more

Adam Parrish thought he looked ugly. His face was jagged and hungry, nose crooked and mouth downturned. His eyes looked hollow, despite the light reflecting from the large windows of Monmouth Manufacturing, the skin below them clinging to his skull heavy with lack of sleep and tinted in twin shadows. The freckles on his cheeks were a thousand pinpricks marking every time he had thought about leaving and every time the unbearable summers had suffocated him and kept him here. He wore blue jeans and a green T-shirt that Adam recognised.

Before Adam Parrish’s eyes, Adam Parrish’s face twisted into a grimace and he felt a chill so deep in his bones that he thought he would never feel warm again. It was like a gut punch.

He hadn’t looked at himself in a mirror all day and now he wondered if the Adam Parrish in front of him was a perfect reflection. He knew the answer but he denied it silently, looking down at his school uniform. The faded secondhand jumper, the trousers that were just a little too short in the ankle.

“It’s you,” the Adam standing before him said. His expression gave way to a mixture of realisation and disbelief like he had known of Adam’s existence but he wasn’t sure he would ever come face to face with him.

It would be easy to leave now, to blink and rub at his eyes and turn away. Maybe he was tired, he had been working more shifts than usual recently and his homework had been keeping him busy in any free time he had left.

“It’s really you,” the other Adam said to him. “You look just like me.”

Adam felt himself backing away. He felt the need to put space between himself and the other Adam. The couch was already between them and Gansey’s unmade bed on the floor and now he stepped carefully around the cardboard Henrietta that took up a third of the floor space.

“Where are the others?” Adam demanded, eyes darting to Ronan’s bedroom door which stood open.

Ronan.

Maybe Adam wasn’t hallucinating, maybe this Adam did exist. Maybe he existed like Chainsaw existed.

“They’re not here,” the other Adam said and he frowned. “I don’t think you’re supposed to be here either.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Adam asked, the words coming out harsh.

The other Adam smirked. “Lynch didn’t want you to know about me. I said you deserved to know. Gansey took his side,” he paused, “obviously.”

Adam felt a flicker of anger at his words, the way the other Adam talked about them like he knew them, or the fact that his friends had so far kept this from him, he wasn’t sure. If Ronan had in fact dreamt another Adam into existence, it was definitely Adam’s business to know.

There was no way to contact Gansey or Ronan, neither himself nor, he assumed, this other Adam had a phone. The large room had been warmed by the sun burning in through the south-facing windows all day long, so Adam was sure Noah wasn’t present anywhere in the old factory.

“Why are you here?” The other Adam asked and Adam recognised the way his fingers found his deaf ear subconsciously, worrying at it briefly before letting his hand fall back to his side. It made him feel sick, to see himself as others saw him. Hostile and vulnerable like a frightened wild animal.

He was here because he hadn’t seen his friends over the weekend and neither of them had showed up at school today. Adam had a rare night off until early the following morning and while he had homework to do, he thought this might be more important.

“My friends live here,” he said, shortly, refusing to explain himself. “And you?”

The other Adam spread his hands and shrugged. “How should I know?”

“He dreamt you,” Adam stated, challenging the other Adam to deny it. His mind flickered with images from the day Ronan had dreamt a copy of himself and both of them had watched it slowly choke on its own blood in St Agnes catholic church.

The other Adam nodded slowly. “It’s about you.”

“No,” Adam said, “it’s about him. There must be a reason he dreamt you, he— he wouldn’t just bring you out for nothing.”

That day at St Agnes, Ronan had dreamt the copy of himself to die in his place. And he’d been angry with Adam for being there as it happened, for watching him watch himself die. He hadn’t just been angry, he’d been furious and in turn, Adam’s own anger had flared up. It was one of the worst fights they’d ever had and even now it sat in the pit of Adam’s stomach, heavy as a rock each time he thought about it.

“It’s kind of sick, isn’t it?” The other Adam said.

“What?”

“That he dreamt me, and you had no say in it whatsoever,” the other Adam continued. “Who does he think he is? Some kind of God? He’s an arrogant prick.”

“He will have had a reason,” Adam said firmly, though the other Adam’s words resonated with him. If Ronan could dream anything— anyone, he must have some kind of God complex.

Adam could picture him, his sharp, easy smirk, his blue eyes that when turned on Adam, made him feel overexposed. His short temper and his hyenas laugh. The way he acted like he didn’t care about anything, but recently Adam had come to realise that he cared a whole lot. The smell of trees, of a misty forest and a rainstorm rolling in.

“I don’t know what Gansey sees in him,” the other Adam said and he rounded the couch, sitting down heavily.

“‘Course you do,” Adam said, looking down at his shoes, at the model Henrietta, then over at the window. The sun was beginning to set, heading towards the blue mountains.

[alatariel-galadriel]

hey! same anon as before! i totally agree, the absolute chaos of frank and Ronan (ESPECIALLY ronan in his absolutely feral angry era in early trc) is amazing to read. i also wanted to say ur fight scenes and action writing is absolutely amazing! like so captivating and detailed. the way it’s also so clearly told through ronans eyes and thoughts and perspective?? such a fan. shoutout to you!

asdfklj those fight scenes were absolutely killer to write, I'm glad you like them! I had to watch a youtube clip of the roadhouse scene at .5 speed six or seven times to keep track of what was going on and how people were reacting to everything. Trying to write a fight scene with eight people while ronan knows none of their names was a special kind of hell, so i'm super happy it worked!

Ronan is also SO much fun because he is *so* opinionated (and biased, and sometimes flat out wrong) about every single thing that happens around him. If there's no hills in sight, he'll build one to die on. He's such a vivid and dramatic character GOD i love him so much

[one-squash-one-end]

An unhinged recap of Ronan's homosexuality

Hi! This once again belongs to my big Raven Cycle analysis, click here for the masterpost.

Again, there's not much room for speculation here, but i had to write it for completionist purposes. I apologize for certain metaphores used, for the most part when I was writing this I was going through it (brain was fried).

Here u go (also spoilers for Greywaren)

d) Ronan Lynch

Next to Adam, Ronan is the only other canonically queer person in the Gangsey. A flaming homosexual with a car fetish (because there was something unbelievably sexy about cars at night). Ronan is the original Be Gay, Do Crime. (Adam is the Be Crime, Do Gay to that.)

You get the gist; he is seriously involved with one guy but used to have some bits of self discovery (not only on the topic of his sexuality) with another, which ended because that guy kidnapped his brother because despite being gay, Ronan unbelievably was not into him. I’m sorry, I really do not want to dissect the entirety of Pynch in here, that would go way too far and I bet there are so many people who could do and have done this better than I ever could, so I’ll stick to elaborating some more on how we find out that he is gay, considering I think he doesn’t say the word until Call Down The Hawk.

In the first book, Ronan does not get a pov, maybe because Maggie needed some more time to figure out how to make a character subtly and thirst over another character in a secret and homosexual way. Still we get some small hints, based on conversations with other characters, or just his behavior in general.

Gansey: “From now on I need all of us to be straight with one another” Ronan: “I’m always straight” Adam: “oh man that’s the biggest lie you’ve ever told” This, of course, is legendary. Ronan is gay, he jokes about it, Adam knows it. I genuinely cannot tell whether Ronan had come out to his friends, whether he just did it through jokes like this etc. If the latter is the case, I honestly doubt that Gansey would have known, as oblivious as he is.

We also have the case study of Declan and his Ashleys. Ronan seems to despise the heterosexual standards that his brother portrays, but it is not clear whether that’s because of heterosexuality, or because of Declan, because let’s be honest, in book one, Ronan would hate, absolutely hate, anyone Declan dates out of principle, because Declan’s just a bitch, or a manwhore, as Gansey would say.

Then it gradually all becomes very much obvious in The Dream Thieves. We got the parallels with religion, his nightmares (his night horrors/self-hate maybe being because of internalized homophobia?) and of course the secrets. The secrets you keep from yourself, the very obvious metaphor. Plus Kavinsky literally calls him the f-slur. You will very easily pick up on that if you’re not as oblivious as I was when I first read the book (I was in my Declan Lynch era with a tummy-ache ok?), but it is explicitly resolved in the epilogue. There is no more room left for ambiguity, thank you Maggie for ending the queer speculation yourself, within the book.

Then there’s gender, of course there’s gender. Gender is like Tad Carruthers, just always materializing out of nowhere, especially when you just want to stay away from it because it’s fake and a massive bitch.

Ronan definitely identifies as male, but if you look at this a certain way he is somehow trans or defies the entire concept of gender either way, considering he is a supernatural being, spirit, entity, that was just socialized as a boy. Ronan is like Cabeswater, or Lindenmere, which both don’t have a gender, obviously, they are forests. The Greywaren is often referred to as an “it”, which makes sense when people don’t know the Greywaren is human, but something about the entire thing smells very trans rights to me. Also that eldritch horror, not quite human at all,  jumble of dark matter thing in Greywaren was just so gender of him.

Ronan would wear a crop top, there’s no doubt to me.

[writingquestionsanswered]

Hi there,

I have a nasty habit of falling too in love with my side characters and making them protagonists, expanding the plot to involve them more. I started out with two POVs and now I'm wanting six, which is just way bigger of a project than I was hoping for.

Is there a way to properly tell the story of a side character so that I can scratch that itch without making them a protagonist? And/or a way to decide when a side character *deserves* to be a POV character?

Thanks!

Side Characters Keep Turning into Main Characters

I think it's worth starting with a quick refresher on different character types...

Protagonist - The protagonist is the primary character responsible for driving the plot, whose growth or change is most important, and who has the most at stake in terms of whether or not the goal is reached. Most stories have one protagonist. Some stories have two or more, but it's extremely rare. Even in ensemble stories and stories with multiple POV characters, there's usually a single character whose choices, internal conflict, and change arc play a stronger role in driving the story... and as such, that character is the protagonist. In the original Star Wars trilogy, Luke, Leia, and Han Solo all played an important role in fighting the empire, but it was Luke whose story and actions played the biggest role in driving the story. In the Six of Crows duology, Kaz, Inej, Jesper, Wylan, Nina, and Mattias were a team, all with POV chapters and their own important roles in the plot, but it's Kaz's story, choices, and change arc that are most central to the story and drive the story forward. In the Raven Cycle (or at least most of it) although the story is about Gansey, Blue, Ronan, and Adam--and they all have their own internal conflicts and roles in the story--it is Gansey's quest and his steering of that quest that these characters are primarily united behind.

Main Character - Technically, a "main character" is one who serves as the audience surrogate as we experience the story through their eyes. This would be the case when the protagonist is not the main POV character, such as in The Great Gatsby which is about Jay Gatsby, but the story is told through the eyes of his friend Nick. Whereas Jay is the protagonist, Nick is the main character. In The Raven Cycle, Gansey may be the protagonist, but Blue is the primary main character... or, at least, the first three books all begin with her POV which positions her as the audience surrogate.

However... like it or not, the use of "main character" has evolved to mean "the most important characters" of a story. The characters the story is mainly about. So, Luke, Han, and Leia. Kaz, Inej, Jesper, Wylan, Nina, and Mattias. Gansey, Blue, Ronan, and Adam.

POV Characters - Any character, technically, can be a POV character. POV characters are simply characters whose POVs are used to tell the story. Stories can have one POV character, like Bella in the Twilight Saga, or two POV characters like Sean and Puck in The Scorpio Races, or four POV characters like Gansey, Blue, Ronan, and Adam. Or 24 POV characters like in A Song of Ice and Fire.

Typically, though, POV characters are main characters... both in the sense that they're the characters who are telling the story, and in the sense that they are (usually***) the most important characters in the story. (*** Though occasionally you may have an errant POV from a non-main character for various reasons...)

Side Characters - Any character who supports a main character and/or the protagonist of the story.

Background Characters - Characters who exist to fill a small role, such as the protagonist's teacher or a parent who appears periodically.

Another way to look at it: primary characters (protagonist/main characters), secondary characters (side characters), tertiary characters (background characters.)

Now, given all of that, I'm guessing your side characters aren't becoming protagonists, but rather main characters. And yes, because of the definition of a protagonist vs a main character, that does matter and is helpful to know in understanding how to unravel and prevent it.

When you say you're "expanding the plot" to involve them more, that's concerning, because if you're adding plot points simply to include these characters and not because they're crucial to the structure of the story, that's just adding filler.

So... is there a way we can tell the story of a side character without giving them more focus than they need? Yes...

Weave the Details In - The most common way to do this is to simply weave their story details into the larger narrative. You can explore their internal conflict through conversations with other characters, how they support the protagonist and interact with the other characters, their thoughts and feelings, their personal goals and dreams, their behavior, and the decisions they make. For example, Haymitch is a side character in The Hunger Games trilogy, but we learn a lot about who he is and why he is who he is, because of his own experience in the Hunger Games and as a victor of the Hunger Games.

Write a Companion Story - If you're writing mainstream or genre fiction, you might consider writing a companion story for these characters. Companion stories often center on secondary characters, giving them an opportunity to shine on their own outside the main plot. Companion stories can take place during the main story's narrative, filling in "off-page" details of the secondary character's story.

For example, in the Twilight Saga: Eclipse, Bree Tanner was a young vampire turned by Victoria to serve in her "newborn army." She is first encountered in Eclipse when she surrenders to Carlisle and Esme after surviving the defeat of the newborn army. To Carlisle's dismay, the Volturi show up and have different plans for Bree... rules about child vampires and all. Bree's story... being turned, being part of the army, and her ultimate fate, are explored in more depth in the companion novella The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner.

Depending on your publishing goals, companion stories can serve a variety of purposes. Like TSSLoBT, it can simply serve as another book to be released, but some authors use companion stories as newsletter bonuses, special edition bonuses, tier benefits for crowdfunding... the sky's the limit.

And finally...

How to tell if a side character deserves to be a main character: It isn't about "deserving" so much as it's about the importance of their role in the story... or the importance of their potential role. If they can serve as the audience surrogate, or if you can give them enough things to do that help to drive the story forward, they can be a main character. But unless they serve that pivotal role that makes them crucial to the events of the story, they're just not a main character.

I hope that helps!

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

LEARN MORE about WQA

SEE MY ask policies

VISIT MY Master List of Top Posts

COFFEE & FEEDBACK COMMISSIONS ko-fi.com/wqa

[lizpaige]

fics i read this week 👩‍💻

hiiiii its me again. I've read lots of fics this week, but going to share some of them here in case you need some recs in your life! also please send me some recs if you've got any! i'd love to check them out!

Adam Parrish and His Band of Merry (College) Friends by Idontshaveforsher_yesyoudo Collection of pOV Outsider stories of pynch and this is my fave genre of fic okaaaaaay? I just love it and love their dynamic it's great!

A Moment in Time by pinkhorizon This is a WIP (3/10 chapters so far) and sososo good! farmer!Ronan hires college student!Adam for the summer to help around the farm and the tensionnnnnn is just so good I love it so far!

Am I Gonna Get to Love You? by earthquaker Classic oops they got married in vegas au. butbutbut the pining and backstory and everything is just next level.

shout (let it all out) by beanwestchester My heart!!!! This fic was so sweet and delicate and soft and just let Adam enjoy wearing his skirts pls and thank you.

we all fill up with time by interropunct There aren't enough trans!Ronan fics in this fandom tbh and this is a great one. soft dom!Adam was *chef's kiss* and there's 6 chapters of outtakes/bonus scenes from the original story

how to rescue your idiot vampire crush from the jaws of death (and maybe kiss him too) by elliptical vampire!adam!!!!!! this story is standalone but there's a greater series that is just as good! I hiiiiiiighly recommend checking out the whole series if you like vamp!aus

Different Wounds, Same Weapon by ungoodpirate i loooooove a niall is alive and meets adam story. i want to read 1000 of these, but this one would always be my favorite. the drama, the comfort, the chaos, i love it all.

[prettyxvenom99]

The hands Levi holds when he has a nightmare

Angst, fluff, hurt/comfort. Allusions to PTSD. 1,089 words. This is from Levi's POV, hence the third person POV and she/her pronouns. Originally on AO3.

Blood sprayed on Levi’s face — warm, he thought — and he whirled around in panic, and saw yet another limb on the ground…

“Levi? Levi!”

... a human limb — whose? — he didn’t know — one of them, one of his men — how many left? — the world shook — there's just one figure left zipping through the air …

“Levi! Wake up!”

The world shook and a titan’s hand came out of nowhere, swinging toward the dot in the sky … and Levi zipped toward it, flying — flying — in — slow — motion — slower than the titan’s hand — 

“Levi, please!”

No. No no no no. He was always the fastest, always had to be the fastest — but why couldn’t he ... save them ...

“Levi!”

Levi opened his eyes. Everything was blurry, so blurry he couldn’t see; and so he blinked and blinked, and that was how he realized he was crying.

“What…?” he croaked.

“It’s just another nightmare,” a voice said. 

Levi looked down and blinked again. A face came into focus.

She smiled. “Hi. You’re okay, you’re okay.”

She was kneeling before him, and he was sitting in a wingback chair … near the fireplace … in the library’s sitting room? Yes, he remembered now. They had come here as usual, to do their training reports, and they must’ve decided to just sleep here again: him in the chair, her in the sofa, taking turns guarding the other from nightmares. 

Nightmares …

He realized he was shaking. She had his hands in her grasp, clutching gently, steadying. Levi stared at the tangle of their fingers: his own pressed together, bone-pale, peeking between hers. This wasn’t the first time she woke him up from a nightmare, and it wasn’t the first time she held his hands either. 

The first time was a month ago, when her roommate went on a visit to Mitras with Erwin: Levi was working in the sitting room as usual, past midnight, avoiding his bedroom to avoid sleep at all; and she suddenly wandered in, trying not to fall asleep as well. My roommate isn’t here, she muttered, I can’t fall asleep alone.

So he let her share the desk with him; him with his paperwork and her with her sketches; and when she was nodding off over a half-finished drawing, he told her to go lie down on the sofa. 

She looked at him suspiciously. He shrugged; he understood why she was wary of falling asleep around strangers. 

So instead they tried to stay awake, the both of them, until Levi moved to the wingback chair, ostensibly to read a book. Next thing he knew, he was waking up from a nightmare; she was holding his hands and comforting him, and when they both realized where their hands were, they immediately pulled back. Sorry, it's just a reflex, she babbled. Didn't mean to ...

“Wanna tell me what it was about?” she said gently. Levi blinked, trying to reel his mind back to the present. He looked at her, her soft smile and patient eyes, and he was tempted to spill everything. But in the handful of times that this had happened, he had never told her what he saw in his nightmares, and he wasn’t sure if he ever should tell. She wasn’t even supposed to know about any of this; wasn’t supposed to know how fucking weak he actually was. She was training to be strong like him — but for fuck’s sake, he never was that strong, was he? 

He no longer wanted to count the number of people he had let die. A long time ago he had reached the point where he needed to stop counting, needed to take responsibility for no soul at all.

“It’s nothing,” Levi murmured. 

“It’s not nothing, is it?”

“It’s nothing.”

“You were screaming out a name.”

Levi fell quiet. He looked away, searching for an escape route, but she was still holding his hands, and her gaze was kind but unyielding. 

“The name you were calling out, it was Ronan,” she said. “Ronan Strauss, right? Wasn’t he in your squad?”

“I don’t wanna talk about this.”

“The first squad you led?”

“I don’t wanna talk about this.”

“I know,” she said. “But maybe that’s why you keep seeing it in nightmares. Talking helps, you know?”

She scrutinized him. He was still trying to escape. 

“You can talk to me too, if you want,” she said gently. “I don’t mind listening.” 

It was an offer, one that came without imposition. It wasn’t the first time she had offered. For a moment Levi was tempted, to just pour it out, tell her how scared he really was—

“I’m fine,” he blurted out. 

“Okay,” she smiled, then she let go of his hands. Suddenly he realized how cold it was in the room; the storm was still blowing outside and the fire had burned low. 

She moved toward the fireplace — to stock the fire, he guessed — and as he stared at her back, he wondered why she was the one comforting him again, instead of the other way around. After the first time she saw his nightmare, she finally let herself lie down on the sofa — with a knife clutched in her hand; I’ll stab you if you come close, she said half-jokingly. But she did fall asleep; that was some comfort.

When she woke up from her nightmare, though, he could only watch her wrap herself tight in her blanket. He didn’t know what to do. She said her sisters used to hold her when she slept, and sometimes her roommate would too, on particularly bad nights. But Levi didn’t know if she would want him to hold her, and so all he could do was to sit by her, on the floor, leaning against the sofa, arms hugging his knees but eyes glued to her, watching her from the corner of his eye. He didn’t know what else to offer besides his company and silence.

But at least he had saved her — or helped her save herself — from titans, from bad men. He still breathed a sigh of relief every time he remembered she was alive — that he hadn’t got her killed. That was the one thing Levi held on to, amid all his failures and fears, all the close calls and letdowns: she was a risk taken and a risk paid off, and Levi understood all too well how rare this was. His hands didn’t always make miracles, but once in a blue moon, once in a lifetime, they did.

This is an excerpt from chapter 17 of my Levi longfic, "To You, 2,000 Feet Above" (on AO3). It's a slow-burn romance that's also an epic fantasy / action & adventure. Check it out if that sounds like your jam!

The art commission was drawn by scrawny.rey on Instagram, for myself, to illustrate this scene.

Reblogs and likes are always appreciated! And kudos over on AO3 haha.

[karouvas]

adam from trc? (for the characters ask game!)

Why I like them: Difficult to sum up since he’s one of my favorite characters of all time, I mentioned he’s probably my second favorite specifically male character in media and I stand by that <3. He has a lot of traits that appeal to me between the control issues and emotional repression and being curious and wanting to know what is up at all times and being a resourceful smart bb who can probably (the traits that most make me vibe with male chars tbh), his ambition and drive and desire for autonomy is really admirable to me but I enjoy that his arc in original trc is about learning he’s worthy of loving and being loved and about the value of that, that vulnerability isn’t automatically going to lead to being ruined in a sense. And his whole journey/arc in original trc is really beautifully done, one of my favorite character arcs ever to this day. On the flip side he’s a freak and a menace and I adore that as well, his internal monologue and pov is truly unhinged in the most fascinating and fun way. I definitely wouldn’t be nearly as attached to him without that. And I love stories about identity and masking and characters who feel alien and other having malleable relationships to identity to conform… so that might have started a bit with my love for Adam I’m realizing.

Why I don’t: I’m satisfied enough with how the arc played out in canon to not hold this against him when it comes to my feelings about his char especially since the breakdown of Blue and Adam’s relationship is pretty compelling to me in general, but anytime I see fandom takes that act like he Never treated Blue badly during their relationship at all and blame her for everything … Bombastic side eye doesn’t begin to cover it. But that’s only related to fandom bs, in terms of moments I actually dislike him which are not reckoned with by the narrative at all obviously it’s the racism re: Henry in TRK, ugh.

Favorite episode (scene if movie): tbh so much of my favorite Adam content comes in his internal monologues and PoV rather than what he’s Doing in a scene… but DC Party scene is incredible <33. If you made me pick another scene would go with him blackmailing Greenmantle nefarious king <3. Oh but also being unbothered by Kavinsky’s death iconic… wait I actually changed my mind pretend I never said those things it’s definitely the sacrifice scene in TRB yes that is my final answer.

Favorite season/movie: I love his entire arc and journey in trc so much so it really could be any book each for different reasons but I’ll say TDT, I love a Downward Spiral that’s interesting and messy <33. But also his BLLB arc rules… but it is the more obvious answer since it’s more positive/uplifting so yeah will stick to TDT answer and unpopular opinion but he’s the best part of that book for me.

Favorite line: lonesome internal monologue is iconic for a reason it’s incredible… also his whole internal monologue about being jealous of all combinations of his (hot) friend hanging out without him is soo real and iconic. Oh also ik I slander TRK but his monologue about loving magic and not knowing he was capable of love before and then Cabeswater showing him the images of his friends in moments linked to heightened emotions surrounding them… went off. If we’re going with just dialogue World’s Ending Folks! tirade is iconic + the internal monologues surrounding it… so much fun to dissect together.

Favorite outfit: the white shirt and cargo pants from BLLB ig my man has no drip… actually changed my mind it’s the secondhand tweed suit Gansey’s dad gave him he wears at Harvard for symbolism reasons.

OTP: Adam/Gansey. I love him with Ronan too and find stuff to be compelled by re: him and Blue but Adansey just hits on a different level emotionally and narratively they are everything…

Brotp: Persephone I love their psychic mentorship in BLLB.

Head Canon: would not have said this was my take before this reread but I do actually think of Adam as having some more internalized homophobia than most of the fandom, not as intense and exacerbated by religious shame as Ronan’s but there in a subtler way. I think Adam at the beginning of the series has some level of awareness about his attraction to men without fully registering it/accepting it, when he thinks about a model for success in TRB&TDT it’s this very heterosexual WASP ideal him watching Declan and Ashley as a model is very this to me for instance and I reblogged some older meta posts about this I agree with (stopping myself here because I kind of want to make a separate post about my thoughts here at some point).

Unpopular opinion: He’s quite an emotional mess for most of the series so fanon portrayals of him as totally cool and collected and put together rub me the wrong way especially after rereading where it Really stood out to me how much fanon and canon tend to diverge... He’s a logical, pragmatic person and a brilliant problem solver but that boy is emotional as fuck (Not soft at all which is totally different from emotional imo) and his efforts to deal with that logically make it worse (I can relate but that’s beside the point), he’s also really not smooth it’s just that Ronan and Gansey’s disasternous is more telegraphed and it makes Adam’s easier to downplay, also a trademark of Adam narration is that He prefers to see himself as a totally logical in control of emotions person and will downplay his emotional investment/emotions as a factor even when his feelings come out in other thoughts and especially especially when you look at his actions….

A wish: makes me deeply sad that even though he clearly values knowledge, loves when other people love knowledge for it’s own sake and get’s a taste of that passion himself when it comes to how much he loves being a powerful psychic/doing magic, he never gets to have that in his academic pursuits because they’re all tailored to get him out of Henrietta / help him win at the capitalist American dream… I so want for him to find a major he’s actually passionate about.

An oh-god-please-dont-ever-happen: well from the Greywaren spoilers I heard (I read CDTH and MI when they came out and now that I’m done rereading the original series am rereading them and will then read Greywaren so will.. try to reserve judgement but what I’ve heard to me is 😬) but aside from that I did always hate the idea of him losing his psychic powers and I’m glad that specifically didn’t happen.

5 words to best describe them: ambitious, observant, obsessive, practical, neurotic

My nickname for them: don’t have one, but I did call him a Freak (affectionate) a lot while rereading so I guess you could count that

thank you so much! (send me a character for ask game)

[friendofcars]

hi i was reading your mask dream essay and was wondering what you thought of ronan thinking of adam in the mask dream when gansey accepts the molotov cocktail from kavinsky in chap 27 of tdt? i personally can't think of why he decided to connect those moments but perhaps u can. thanks if you choose to answer!

hi! so i will preface my response by saying i went back through some discussions in the trc book club discord server and a direct quote from me about this exact line is "tbh im a little befuddled by this connection" so i'll do my best (and if anyone has additional or opposing insight they'd like to share, please chime in if you'd like). this is a very rambling response so please ask for clarification if you'd like/if you need to!

i originally tried quite hard to glean additional insight into ronan and adam's relationship from that line- and their relationship is certainly relevant, but i think the main purpose of the line is to provide insight into ronan's perception of gansey in a specific context (although to be fair, the context, which is at kavinsky's infamous substance party, circles back to adam for a variety of reasons*). in short, ronan observes a more toothful version of gansey, so he is reminded of the more toothful version of adam from the mask nightmare.

but i do want to think about this a bit more. here are what i see as the purposes of having ronan recall adam in the mask nightmare:

to draw comparisons/contrasts amongst gansey, kavinsky, and adam. the obvious contrast throughout the chapter is between gansey and kavinsky: the beginning of the chapter highlights how rare it is for gansey to exist in kavinsky's henrietta (darker, more electric, what else??), gansey only making an appearance in defense of his own henrietta (monmouth), but they both represent possible paths for ronan, possible leaders, possible approaches to life and magic, etc. it is even rarer for adam and kavinsky to cross paths on page. how does gansey act in an environment when his presidential mask is a hindrance rather than an asset? does he become more similar to ronan? to kavinsky? to adam? to ronan's nightmare adam only??? the important thing is that ronan is thinking about all three of them. is gansey on fire another mask, or it is a truer component of gansey himself? it's gansey's realest and wildest version of himself from ronan's pov, at least. the mention of the mask invites us to think of things like facades, secrets, public vs private personas, mutlifaceted beings, etc.

to remind the reader that ronan is frequently thinking about adam and is easily reminded of him (in both chapters 9 and 27, adam is absent, ronan experiences complicated emotional reactions that obscure his attraction to gansey, kavinsky, and adam [the attraction is obscured to him; it's pretty clear to the reader, especially if you're re-reading], and then he makes some sort of comparison to adam. in ch 9, he's homesick and angry and thinks of adam, about to break, and how ronan has seen himself in the mirror about to break in the same way. in ch 27, he sees a fiercer, more assertive, less reticent gansey and thinks of adam in the dream, when adam was fierce and assertive and wild too. worth noting that ronan is the fiercest and most reckless out of the three of them- what do we learn about ronan as he sees or imagines his friends acting more like him? it seems exhilarating in ch 27 (gansey), but terrifying in ch 17 (adam in the nightmare). what are the consequences of gansey being more ronan like? is ronan into this? (yes lol it's his canonical favorite version of gansey). are these toothful versions of gansey and adam also more kavinsky-like? is ronan aware of this?

*some related thoughts that somewhat restate the above bullet point: reference to adam is somewhat second secret-like as in ronan is confronted w guys he's attracted to and adam isn't there- but of course he's reminded of him. of course (is it at night? is everything worse? is he surrounded by desire- but without the self hatred? i don't think the tone in the substance party chapter is depressive at all- it's exhilarating for ronan, but there's almost a melancholy aftertaste because ronan knows this toothful gansey, this gansey on fire, is ephemeral. he's forced to compare gansey and kavinsky- as the beginning of the chapter implies, he can't have both. of course. the reason i'm saying this setting is adam relevant bc ronan feels like the choice is between gansey and kavinsky- he doesn't see adam as an option- that's a flippant way to put it and i'm thinking not only in terms of idk, romantic prospects, but also in terms of a philosphy/approach to life and relationships and creativity and power and magic and love and... [on a related note: he has yet to realize that the realest choice is choosing himself, life vs death/self-hatred] and now i'm thinking all kind of thoughts about adam's third choice that he makes himself, you know the whole two of swords arc in trb..... another post perhaps.)

he doesn't spare much of a reaction re: adam and the mask in this chapter (it seems to be a fairly fleeting thought), which was pervasively terrifying in the nightmare and mundane at the barns and when thought of at the substance party- no fear, no revulsion, no concern- just a passing thought. it's noise; adam is a constant undercurrent in his thoughts (second secret lyricless melody playing in the background), and in this context is mainly adding to ronan's observations about gansey and kavinsky and how they're alike/how they differ rather than adam as a primary topic.

we could also talk a little about the term toothful, which out of context just means having visible/prominent teeth, but in ronan's narration is correlated with assertiveness, maybe even ferocity. the lynch brothers (mainly ronan and declan) are often described as having excellent teeth- this could be a nod to their affluence, but symbolically, they will 'bite' when necessary to assert themselves in social situations. there's also a line about ronan's 'prison of teeth' in trb which brings me to the topic of secrets, which for ronan is in league w shame, desire, etc. which are relevant to both the nightmare chapter and the substance party chapter. that's a more tenuous connection though (imo). also thinking about desperation, about hunger, how in trk adam and ronan are described as hungry animals. i'm also pretty sure kavinsky gets described as hungry looking at some point, maybe from blue's perspective in ch 6? the mitsubishi's grille is described as voracious, which i think counts anyway. is showing teeth offense or defense? does this vary from character to character? are the toothful actions truthful? lies? shields? confessions?

i also can't ignore the line that tells us this gansey on fire has made fewer appearances since the "introduction of adam's taming presence" which opens too many cans of worms to address right now but i'm fascinated by the fact that ronan sees adam as a taming presence- it's such a contrast to the nightmare adam, so perhaps ronan is afraid a connection with adam will corrupt adam, will make him wild in an ugly way, even though it turns out that ronan's influence on adam (esp. in bllb) is more freeing than anything. adam also seems himself as wild, unrefined, etc. as mentioned in most of his self deprecating narrations, the conceptualization of his family through animal, ecological, etc. metaphors... so in general this plays into the recurring trc theme of self-perception vs how people who love you perceive you and the shape of the space between these two conceptual 'people,' but it also intimates that gansey has molded himself to be more diplomatic and refined and restrained after meeting adam, which could be gansey trying to avoid conflict, or trying to impress adam, or not wanting to put adam in any more danger than he's already in, or a variety of other things that ronan, prone to jealousy, might be worried about. i think the truth is closest to some version of gansey wanting adam to stick around so badly that he's afraid of scaring him off. so much to consider.

another topic to consider- not so much directly related to your question, but while we're at the substance party, fire! the molotov cocktail, autonomy, self immolation, choice (gansey throwing the fire at the volvo instead of the mistubishi....so many choices made as thematic elements of these books...), obedience, kavinsky's death by dragon....ronan's love being described as fire about a billion times in this chapter but also the ocean burning in trk, gansey on fire of course! not only toothful but on fire- gansey being more aligned with ronan-like qualities again. should we mention that the mask is wooden? vulnerable to fire? that seems worth noting. another possible tangent- masks vs sunglasses. gansey's glasses (which are pointedly not masks) vs kavinsky's sunglasses. concealment vs confession. i also have listed in my notes the following: duality, fluctuating personas, masks and facets, beauty vs violence, tools vs weapons, ronan's love and rage and hunger reflected onto his friends... so much to think about

i'm also interested in the fact that after gansey throws the molotov cocktail at the volvo, ronan feels as if he's in a dream (not a nightmare). there's still a confluence of desire and shame for him (he describes his elation at the situation as "polluted pleasure") but i'm chewing on the possible reasons why this situation is less terrifying for him than the non-literal aspects of the mask nightmare scenario-in both situations, gansey and adam have power over ronan- gansey holds a weapon, adam is a nightmare version of himself, an omen of demonic corruption that we see in trk (see: love/connection as vulnerability, avenue of harm, adam's fear of hurting his friends, etc.), but i think they key difference (aside from the obvious difference between being awake at a very real party vs being stuck in a vivid nightmare of psychological chaos) is that ronan does not fear losing gansey- he's afraid for gansey's life, but as long as gansey is alive, ronan has him in his corner. at this point in the series, he doesn't believe the same re: adam, especially in the context of adam's sacrifice to cabeswater/ronan's guilty conscience. he seems relieved? electrified? that gansey could be like him. he seems terrified that adam could be too.

this is starting to go in circles but i'm sharing everything in case a particular detail catches someone's attention and sparks more conversation. :)

[thetypedwriter]

Greywaren Book Review

Greywaren Book Review by Maggie Stiefvater

This book is a fantastic disappointment. 

Of course, the book is good. Of course the writing is absolutely phenomenal. It’s Maggie Stiefvater. Even when I’ve questioned her plot or character development, I have never once questioned her writing. 

She is a wizard with words. Her writing floats off the page and lives rent-free in my head for months. The way she concocts her stories fills me with delight and awe. 

That was never in question. 

The biggest question I had going into Greywaren was: will I get what I want?

The answer is no. 

I think it’s mostly safe to say that a majority of readers saw the Dreamer trilogy as Ronan’s own triage of books. It was pitched that way to us as an audience and the way the books were presented was that it would be about the Brothers Lynch. 

This is a lie. 

Perhaps, Call Down the Hawk could be described as such, the first book in the trilogy, but every book since has fallen further and further away from the original premise. 

The second installment, Mister Impossible, was almost entirely about Declan. And now the final book, Greywaren, I would argue, is about Hennessy and Carmen Farooq-Lane. 

Now. I like Hennessy. I like Farooq-Lane. They’re great characters. 

However, they are not the Brothers Lynch. 

I don’t understand why authors do this. They promise things and entice readers with certain characters, plot points, and relationships, and then don’t deliver. 

I’m sure Maggie has her reasons for writing the trilogy this way, and I’m not pretending to know what they are or that I understand the intricacies of her writing process or the publishing world, but I am just so frustrated that she wrote the trilogy this way. 

Ronan, the so-called main character, is hardly in Greywaren at all, and half of the time when he does have his own chapters, he is either asleep, dreaming, or not taking part in reality. The amount of exasperation I have that Maggie made this choice is overwhelming to me as a reader. 

In the original The Raven Cycle books, Ronan and Adam were my favorites. They were many people’s favorites, including, it seems, Maggie herself. Which is why she set out on a quest to tell Ronan’s own story.

 Except what started as Ronan’s narrative quickly devolved into a tale featuring so many other characters that Ronan’s part became so diluted that it is barely there at all. 

Once again, I love Maggie’s characters. Jordan, Hennessy, Farooq-Lane, etc, they’re all wonderful. If Maggie had them as side characters in the Dreamer trilogy and then set out to write a spin-off series featuring them, I would not be mad. I would be super excited and pumped to read such a cool installment. 

But that’s not what I wanted, what I anticipated, or what I got. 

Instead, the final book about Ronan Lynch and his brothers is really about unrelated side characters who somehow took center stage despite everyone wanting the opposite. 

Irksome doesn’t even scratch the surface of it. 

Greywaren itself is…fine. As I said above, Maggie’s writing is undeniably beautiful. I will say, though, the plot gets convoluted and hard to follow and the ending feels rushed and shallow. 

This book essentially picks up after Mister Impossible, in which Ronan is asleep, along with many other dreamers or dreamt people who need sweetmetals. 

Declan is trying to save everyone, Matthew goes through a rebellious stage, Hennessy is creating, and Farooq-Lane is trying to stop her brother, Nathan, from starting the apocalypse. 

Honestly, when I think about it, this book simultaneously has so much going on and nothing going on at the same time. The overarching plot could be described as: Nathan is bringing on the apocalypse and people try to stop him as well as reawaken their sleeping friends. That’s it. That’s the plot. 

However, it takes 300+ pages to get to the end, which then rushes through really essential reunions and revelations, because there are so many characters we have to switch POV’s between. 

Additionally, there’s a lot of abstract things happening that don’t really contribute to the plot, even if they're interesting to read about. 

Overall, this means you could read 100 pages and have a very minimal amount of progress because everyone is taking one small step instead of having one character (Ronan) taking many. 

Jordan is hardly in this book, and Matthew, whom I anticipated seeing a lot of, is very cruelly shafted by having a sparse amount of chapters and a character arc that feels vague and incomplete.

 After running away towards the beginning of the book, no real headway comes from it and then in the end, bam! Matthew returns to the Barns like nothing happened. 

We don’t see the conversation between Matthew and Declan, we don’t see the reunion between Matthew and Ronan, and we certainly don’t get a scene with all three brothers, which, if you remember, is what this whole trilogy was supposed to be about. 

In the same vein, Adam and Ronan, the couple everyone was most excited to see and read about, had a few paltry scenes in this whole trilogy combined. There are more scenes with Farooq-Lane and Liliana than there are with arguably, the main couple. 

The injustice of this vexes me beyond words. 

Even in this book, at the very end, the reunion between Adam and Ronan that we waded through 300 pages to see, is brief and from someone else’s POV. 

What on earth? Really? This is the reunion we waited years for and we didn’t even get to experience it though Ronan’s own eyes. 

As I write this, I realize that I feel cheated and shafted. 

At this same time, I don’t know how fair it is to feel that way. It’s not my book or my characters, so who am I to demand anything of Maggie? I understand this. 

On the other hand, this was a book pitched to us and advertised as a series about the Brother’s Lynch. I would very much argue that by book three especially, this is completely unfounded and untrue. 

Did I still like the book? Yes, of course I did. However, I just wanted more. I wanted what was promised at the beginning. I wanted less abstract and confusing chapters and more chapters with essential characters actually talking, meeting, and growing. 

I wanted resolution, development, and conclusions. 

Instead, I got a muddled, albeit gorgeously written story, where all the characters felt full with potential, but never truly reached a point of promise. 

Like I said at the beginning, this book was both fantastic and a disappointment in so many ways, a fantastic disappointment that will always leave me wanting more. 

Recommendation: Read it. However, you’re not going to get the development or scenes that you want. Beware of this. Use fanfiction to fill in the gap that this trilogy wasn’t able to deliver on. 

Score: 6/10

[litrallymadlad]

you mentioned you were reading trc at some point—what are your thoughts on it so far? :0

HAHAH IT MADE ME SO MAD I HAVEN'T BEEN ABLE TO CONTINUE IT. I got like two chapters into the second book and haven't picked it up in a couple weeks.

I've been wrangling in my rants about trc so if you're interested to know em I'll put em under the fold below. BUT FAIR WARNING: I think I missed the opportunity to read them in middle/high school because I think I really would have enjoyed them then and been able to read them later in life for the nostalgia factor because THE VIBES WERE IMMACULATE.

BLUE PISSES ME OFF. FUCK HER HONESTLY. She's so unnecessarily mean to the lads (specifically Gansey AND I'M A GANSEY APOLOGIST. I LOVE THAT MAN I WOULD DIE FOR HIM.) It's giving 2012 not like other girlies PICK ME VIBES. I ENDED UP SKIPPING BLUE'S POVS CUZ SHE'D ALWAYS SAY THE FOULEST THINGS ON THE PLANET and I'd have to put the book down. I just don't respect her as a person LMAO

AND ADAM PISSED ME OFF for similar reasons but his beef with Gansey was a lot more personal so the justification was there. BLUE DOESN'T EVEN KNOW THESE GUYS. TALK ABOUT PRIDE AND PREJUDICE MY GOD. Adam's angst was like, a deep character and circumstantial flaw that I can get behind. BLUE???? I get the impression that she's supposed to be a y/n character which is very 2012 tumblr girlie of her so I'm supposed to insert my grievances with rich boys and wanting to kiss em onto her BUT I DON'T HAVE ANY OF THAT TO BACK HER UP. SHE'S ON HER OWN.

ALSO I'm convinced the kissing scheme is BS because theoretically she can kiss the love of her life AFTER he dies. What's stopping her from kissing a corpse. Necrophilia?? NO!!!!!!!!!!! That doesn't have to stop her. Why aren't we considering the possibility that the person she kisses could die before she even kisses them and then in a fit of grief she kisses them or gives them mouth-to-mouth trying to resuscitate them. YOU KNOW WOT OIM SAYIN BRUV??? ALSO Istg the logistics of the kissing scheme CHANGE. IT CHANGED LIKE THREE TIMES. I think it was just a matter of rephrasing it but with something like that THAT'S LIKE A PROPHECY. YOU CAN'T BE MIXING UP THE LANGUAGE. THAT DEFEATS THE PURPOSE. It added to the unreliability of the narrator misinterpreting it and it made me want to wring someone's NECK. Cuz by the end of the book I was like "I DON'T EVEN REMEMBER WHAT THE ORIGINAL VERBIAGE WAS."

Also, what if she has MULTIPLE LOVES?? I'm of the belief you can love someone the same amount in various parts of your life like??? Do widows just never love the same way again? What if the love of her life was a childhood friend who died tragically? LOVE IS DIFFERENT FOR EVERYONE AND EVERY RELATIONSHIP. IT'S NOT ALWAYS A HIERARCHY WHERE THE END-ALL-BE-ALL IS YOUR PARTNER. She loves her family! What if she kisses her mom on the cheek and she knocks out DEAD. WHAT THEN. DOES IT HAVE TO BE ON THE MOUTH?? I don't trust anyone relaying this prophecy. FUCK THEM, HONESTLY. I'm sure I'm just reading into it too much and am bitter about the verbiage constantly changing. It's probably more like a fairy tale Disney vibe of True Love HAHAH IF SO IGNORE ME.

Honestly I think if I'd just read this in middle school/high school I'd like it a lot and the nostalgia would be unreal. It'd be so iconic. But at this point I think I'm too old to vibe with it HAHAHA I FUCKING LOVE GANSEY AND ADAM THOUGH. THERE'S LIKE NO FICS OF THEM (and them alone, no Ronan). I'VE READ THEM ALL. THEY'RE SO GOOD. THE GANSEY X ADAMS OF THE WORLD KNOW WHAT THEY'RE FFFFFUCKING DOING.

[butchgrayson]

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

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

3. Least favorite canon thing about this character?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

character ask game

[theanimalsarecalling]

When Niall gave up his memories in Greywaren, he gave up his own story.  What does a story-telling man do who when he hasn't got a story of his own?   He makes one up.

Here are some descriptions of Niall in TRC.

Niall was handsome and charismatic and rich and mysterious (Gansey's POV RB chpt 7)

And

Niall Lynch was a braggart poet, a loser musician, a charming bit of hard luck bred in Belfast but born in Cumbria . . . Niall was a rogue and a fiend . . . a scoundrel (Ronan's POV TDT prologue)

Ronan's description Niall is remarkably similar to that of Greenmantle, who refers to Niall as "Bastard" and "Loser" and "Fucking Braggart" in BLLB. It's funny how Ronan's opinion of Niall is closer to Greenmantle's than Gansey's. Which indicates Ronan didn't idolize Niall nearly as much as Declan thought (and Gansey had a crush on Niall). But none of it sounds like the anxious, people-pleasing young man who loved Mór in Greywaren.

The New Fenian says that both Mór and Niall both gave up a lot of memories, the sort of painful memories that hold people back. Mór seems to have reconstructed her life without embellishment - she had the New Fenian to help her. Niall created a whole different life.

First, of course, was Aurora. Was Niall disturbed when he realized he dreamt her? At some point, he figured it out. The will he left behind shows that.

But also, Niall told Ronan he was from Belfast, but we learn in Greywaren he actually grew up on a farm in Kerry. Niall told Declan that his father had been murdered - Declan asks Mr. Gray if he was the one who did it - but we learn Niall's father died of alcoholism. And Niall as rogue, fiend, scoundrel? Not much like the man whose main goals were to be a farmer and stay-at-home-dad.

When Ronan went searching for proof that Niall was telling the truth, it wasn't just about the dreaming or where the money came from; it was because Niall had invented his life out of whole cloth.

In Greywaren, you learn that Hennessy dreamt Jordan because she wanted to see what she (Hennessy) would be like without the memories of her mother. What she got was a woman who was nothing like her.

Declan notes that the New Fenian is not the same as his father because their lives had diverged. That's only half the story. Their early memories were different. Fenian had Niall's original memories: Niall had only the memories he chose to keep, as well as his invented history.

This is not to say that nothing of Niall remained. He still loved his family, all of it. He was still charming and fast-talking. He was still a people pleaser - you see that when he built the box for Declan's moth against his better judgment. The combination of braggart + people-pleaser + not being the brightest bulb in the chandelier is what got him killed.

So, by choosing to give up memories of Declan's birth and retain memories of Ronan's, did Niall create a new reality in which Ronan WAS the favorite. After all, the whole family thought so. By choosing to think of himself as a rogue, did he become one? There's nothing inherently wrong with selling non-sentient dreams, but nothing prevented him from remaining a farmer only. It would have been less dangerous. And the blessing of Greywaren would have remained since Ronan was still there. But did Niall even remember what Greywaren meant, or was it just a vaguely familiar word he latched onto while bragging.

In any case, the New Fenian retains far more of the original Niall Lynch, and the primary unreliable narrator in the Lynch family was Niall himself.

[deathless--aphrodite]

Perspective Flip for “if we climb high enough” if you’re up for it

this was so much fun! this fic is a favourite of mine and ronan's POV of the situation was really fascinating to consider - the most fun i had writing the original was the epistolary parts where they swap emails, so i focused on ronan's perspective of that, given he opens up that line of communication.

Ronan wonders if he’s ever going to grow out of being an asshole. He longs a little for his adolescent ability to say whatever shit he wanted without feeling any regret at all. With some people, he’d brush it off - they might’ve deserved it, after all. But he’s going to need to work with Adam Parrish for a while, the foreseeable future, and he knows he’s on thin ice with Glendower Press as it is, what with the Lindenmere situation. 

The worst part is - Ronan had actually liked Adam Parrish, liked him immediately. He seemed like he knew what he was doing, like he was good at it, and the revisions he’d given Ronan were perfect - things Ronan hadn’t ever been able to put his finger on, like Adam had managed to translate exactly what lived in Ronan’s head onto the page. Even with a decade or so of writing practice, Ronan himself could only do that in tiny increments, which is a part of the reason why there was a five-year gap in his resume. 

While Declan and Matthew are still getting ready, Ronan just bites the bullet and sends Parrish an email apologising. He tries to convince himself his interest was entirely professional and had nothing to do with the boyish jut of Adam’s knuckles, his straight, hawkish nose, the feeling Ronan had gotten when he’d walked into the room - like Adam had brought some warmth in with him from outside. Ronan has always been a little hasty in love - in lust, loneliness, whatever looked like love at the time. 

He isn’t expecting a reply, not tonight, but when he gets one his stomach does a little nervous flutter. He thinks about the neat, endearing way Adam had arranged all the books in his office, alphabetically and by height. Last summer, this had been the feeling he’d been chasing, pining over - the beginning, the precipice of something, the part where you ask questions and decide whether or not you like the answers. The precognition that there’s going to be more. Ronan picks up his phone, to read, to ask and answer. 

[hklnvgl]

(tagged by the lovely @ailec-12 ✨)

I posted 1,471 times in 2022

48 posts created (3%)

1,423 posts reblogged (97%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@flitwickslittlebrotha

@charactershoesfic

@werewolffeelings

@bloody-wonder

@grrrrrr-argh

I tagged 884 of my posts in 2022

Only 40% of my posts had no tags

#trc - 243 posts

#tdt - 206 posts

#mdzs - 111 posts

#pynch - 79 posts

#d - 54 posts

#aftg - 32 posts

#greywaren spoilers - 32 posts

#fic - 17 posts

#greywaren - 15 posts

#ask - 13 posts

Longest Tag: 138 characters

#i also want to check the country of others by leïla slamani out from my library so whenever i do that i'm pushing it to the top of my list

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Rules: List the first lines of the last ten (10) stories you published. Look to see any patterns you notice yourself, and see if anyone else notices any. Then tag some friends.

i was tagged by both @flitwickslittlebrotha and @kelliealtogether thanks!!! 💕

the real hawk: Ronan knocked, and then knocked again with more force.

est quaedam flere voluptas: On some hidden level, Adam wanted to be the kind of person to effortlessly enjoy parties.

Yiling’s apples: There were plenty of homeless people in Yiling.

overflowing: Sirius regretted many things.

little dolls for sale: It wasn’t the first time Ronan had thought about it.

enormous are the groves: Adam poured himself out of his car, barely pausing to close the door after him.

into silence: It was Blue, Gansey and Henry’s fourth going-away party.

the plum tree flower: Adam inhaled deeply when he got the door open.

arm as a pillow: Declan didn’t technically live with Jordan.

stars parting: The nightmare wasn’t special.

all in all i'm pretty happy with these first lines! so much that some of them doubled as summaries 🙃 i'm not sure who's been tagged already so i'm just gonna tag @of-stars-and-moon @ailec-12 @parakeatswrites and you guys can ignore me if you've done it already 💛

10 notes - Posted February 21, 2022

#4

ages ago (i'm super late sorry 🙃) @andrea-lyn tagged me to do this! 💛 (thank you lovely!!)

Rules: it’s time to love yourselves! choose your 5 (or so) favorite works you created in the past year (fics, art, edits, etc.) and link them below to reflect on the amazing things you brought to the world in 2021. Tag as many writers/artists/etc. as you want (fan or original) so we can spread the love and link each other to awesome works!

when the world is one color (pynch, 2k). so this is the first of the many one shots i managed to write and post last year and i'm very happy with how it turned out! aka how to combat being cold with hugs (missing scene, post-trk, pre-epilogue)

but for their voices (pynch, 5k). this was very exciting to write bc it was fun to explore adam's thought process in this cdth-inspired au. aka adam is not unkowable if you stare at him long enough (different meeting au, college)

a persimmon (pynch, 1k). oh dear i struggled so hard to finish this little piece bc there were many different things i wanted to include, but i'm quite happy with the result! aka adam panics bc he's horny (missing scene during ch. 39 of trk)

the puppeteer (pynch, 3k). i made myself cry while writing this one. aka once upon a dream (sickfic, mi-adjacent)

yiling’s apples (mdzs, 2k). i've fallen hard for their story so i had to write something for it. aka why does everything important happen in yiling (pov outsider, gen)

tagging @ailec-12 @of-stars-and-moon @cheeeryos @behindtheatlantic @parrished @catboyadamparrish @flightspathfic @kelliealtogether @parakeatswrites 💛💛

12 notes - Posted January 11, 2022

#3

back in march (😅😅) the lovely @ailec-12 tagged me in this game! i'm super late but 🤷‍♀️

rules: tag 9 people you would like to know/catch up with

Last Song: can't remember as usual 🙃

Last TV Show: twenty-five twenty-one (yes it's destroyed me thanks! 🥺)

Currently Watching: crash landing on you (it's a rewatch!)

Currently Reading: you are not like other mothers by angelika schrobsdorff and i'm listening to beloved by toni morrison's audiobook

tagging @ive-garden @creativefiend19 @kelliealtogether @of-stars-and-moon @parrished @sleepy-skittles @purgatorybfs @catboynecromancy @cheeeryos 💛

12 notes - Posted August 3, 2022

#2

Describe yourself with ONLY pictures you have! You cannot download or search new pictures.

i was tagged by @parakeatswrites @kelliealtogether and @behindtheatlantic 💕💕💕

See the full post

13 notes - Posted August 22, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

writing prompts 💖

it's been a hot minute since i last opened prompts and i don't really have lots of time in my hands to write but i think having little things to serve as inspiration is exactly what i need to get back to my usual writing rythm! so. please send me a pairing and a prompt and i'll write a little one-shot 💕 (i'm mainly in the mood for writing pynch and wangxian but if you wished to see any other pairing just send it my way and i'll see if i can write something for it!)

thanks @ailec-12 for helping me compile this lovely list of prompts! 💛

50 Angsty Questions Prompt List

more questions

dialogue ideas

kiss prompts

more kisses

100 dialogue prompts

bad things happen bingo

minifics

anon asks are of course welcome as well! 🥰 thank you!

14 notes - Posted August 23, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[unknowablecore]

Not really a question but GOD I wish we got to see Ronan reckon with the fact he is part Ancient Being. After six books of oh god what am I please god answer me (one of my favorite parts of the series tbh) I’m upset we don’t get more Ronan monologue about finally knowing

Not really an answer, but I noticed on my second read how suddenly he knows what he is in CH43. He's aware that he can make this decision to give up the human life he left the other world for, but the last time we saw him before CH43 he was still telling Hennessy he had no clue what he was, I guess it was like that dream logic of suddenly having information? I get it story wise since we all got to see his origin and all that, and CH43 was sooo good, probably in my top 5 GW chapters, but I spent several moments flipping back and forth when I noticed haha. It's funny to me because I can imagine it clicked for Adam in the sweetmetal sea what Ronan is before Ronan realized.

But yeah, if not a monologue just a little more Ronan pov would have helped :') I want to know how he feels! He has so many of them and I need them all.