#the raven cycle playlist

[aglionbyacademia]

curating a gansey on fire playlist if you have any recs lemme know

[coffinofteeth]

The Raven Cycle - Playlist

Here’s my playlist for The Raven Cycle that I’ve been working on. I’ll gradually add to it over time, hope you enjoy it 🤲🏻

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6wyV1XAsMlyeXDcpl7wale?si=e001efc453b44b15

[immaterial-pearl]

Thinking about my Blue playlist. I were so right she’d listen to exactly this.

[eiuuei]

‘Blue Lily, Lily Blue’ an animation.

[squash1]

the most gansey song ever.

[aglionbyacademia]

people of Pinterest do not appreciate Adam’s creepiness enough. He’s not just some sweet soft boy. He’s canonically creepy and unhinged

[squash1]

thinking about the lynch’s false mirrors.

declan as a mirror to niall. a son made in his father’s image.

ronan as a mirror to niall. a father choosing to model a son after himself, after his brother.

matthew as a mirror to his brothers, to his father. ronan manifesting a kinder, softer mirror of declan’s face in a brother that would be better than either of them, for both of them.

ronan having to look at declan after niall’s death, seeing his father’s face, not just in the mirror, but in a brother that is not his father, not his idol.

declan having to look at ronan after niall’s death, seeing his father’s face, not just in the mirror, but in a brother all too like his father, dangerous and horrible and lovely.

[micamicster]

Super Rich Kids

Close my eyes and feel the crash...

I wrote this one on post-its on a trans-continental flight after my phone (where i was re-reading the raven cycle) died. 0/10 plane experience would not recommend but I did manage to entertain myself! And now hopefully you as well!

When Ronan pulled into Monmouth Manufacturing he knew Gansey wouldn’t be there. Adam Parrish was, though, sitting on the steps in the golden afternoon light, bike dumped to the side in dying grass. He didn’t so much as flicker an eyelid when Ronan bootlegged the BMW into an approximation of parking on the far side of the lot, which was fine because that’s how he would have parked the car anyway, whether or not Adam was here.

Ronan was pretty sure that Gansey had arranged a shift system with the other boys, to prevent Ronan from being unaccompanied on the rare occasions of his own absence. The idea of a babysitter should have rankled Ronan, but Adam did not seem particularly invested in his role. Small favors.

As he got out of the car he gave Adam his customary once-over, as brief as it was habitual. You could notice a lot in a single glance, if you were Ronan, glancing at Adam.

Adam was wearing long sleeves (his father? Or just because it was October?) and his faded camo pants, the ones Ronan said made him look like a jingoistic meathead. They had recently acquired a tear in one knee. Not in the stylish, deliberate manner in which Ronan’s own jeans were shredded, but awkwardly, in an L-shape, where they had caught on some jagged edge and given way before even careful Adam had noticed and unhooked himself. The tear gaped open at times, like it was doing now, revealing Adam’s knobby left knee and, worse, a triangle of his brown thigh.

Ronan looked away.

Ronan never allowed himself, even in dreams, to trespass beyond the carefully demarcated boundaries of Adam’s clothes. And Adam was usually helpful in the maintenance of this boundary. Unlike Gansey, who could be found working on his model Henrietta in boxers at all hours of the night, or wandering to and from the shower in a towel, absent-mindedly forgetting his clothes in bathroom or bedroom. Unlike the boys Ronan played tennis with, who stripped down casually in the locker room after practice. Unlike even Ronan himself, who’d never met a shirt he couldn’t rip the sleeves off; Adam was always fully covered.

This summer, foolishly, Ronan had imagined that this might change. Now that the hideous secrets Adam protected with his long sleeves were no longer his alone. But by now he knew what kept those sleeves in place, something that Adam had already understood: that knowing and seeing are two very different things.

For example: this. Ronan knew that Adam, like most people who walked around on earth under their own power, possessed thighs. Two of them, attached in the normal way to other body parts, such as knees and hips. To know this was one thing.

Now that he’d seen it, he couldn’t stop seeing it. The way his knee bent, and the muscle above shifted as Adam made room on the steps for him. Ronan was looking away, out at the familiar, grounding, skid marks on the concrete of Monmouth’s lot, but he could picture in their place with deadly accuracy the hinge of Adam’s knee, the tanned skin of his thigh, scattered with golden-brown hair. He could dream about pressing his face against it.

He picked up a rock and hurled it. It glanced off the side of the soulless suburban and fell anticlimactically into the grass dying by the rear tire. It didn’t help.

Adam shifted next to him, subtly.

“What?” said Ronan. “Impressed?”

“Surprised, more like. I thought you were supposed to be the tennis star.”

“You think you can do better?” Ronan pried another hunk of gravel or concrete out of the dirt and tossed it in his left hand, tauntingly.

“I know I can.”

“But?”

“But,” said Adam, with some hint of exasperation coloring his voice, “I’m not going to sit here chunking rocks at Gansey’s car to prove it. My ego’s not that fragile.” His accent slipped out on chunkin’, not as if Ronan had pissed him off enough to forget to hide it, but as if it was a word he’d never used any other way.

Ronan threw his rock again. This was, if anything, a worse throw than before, and it skittered harmlessly across the suburban’s roof.

Adam made a small but contemptuous noise.

“Don’t give me that shit, man. You know he hates this fucking car.”

“That was for your shitty aim.”

“Come on then.” Ronan hefted another piece of gravel. “Ten points if you knock out his taillight.”

“It costs a hundred and five dollars to replace a taillight on that make and model. Plus tax.”

Ronan’s brief cheer was collapsing again. “I’ll pay you a hundred bucks to bust Dick’s lights.”

Adam blinked slowly, his dusty eyelashes obscuring the contempt in his eyes for a brief moment. “I’ll leave.” (He wouldn’t).

Ronan dropped the rock. Next to him Adam sighed. Abruptly, he put out his hand. “Telephone pole. Six feet from the top.”

Ronan swept back up the rock and dropped it into his hand. Their fingers did not touch. His heart thudded.

Adam tossed the rock once, testing its weight while his gaze, cool and assessing, remained on the telephone pole. It was a splintered, tilting thing, shamed by his attentions. In one smooth, economical movement, he rose to his feet and let the rock fly. His leg went forward, knee jutting out of his clothes, his back curved, and his arm swept around in an arc, fingers scraping at the blue October sky. Ronan didn’t need to turn his head to know if the rock hit—he could see it in the brief hard satisfaction on Adam’s face.

Adam turned back to him, one eyebrow cocked.

“You’re going to have to do better than that if you want to earn that hundred,”

Adam shrugged. The gesture was disinterested, but there was a quirk to his mouth that contradicted it. “I know nothing blew up, but…”

Ronan already had another rock in his hand. “West corner lightbulb. It breaks or it doesn’t count.” Adam rolled his eyes, but turned agreeably to watch Ronan miss.

“Would you like to get your tennis racket?”

“Eat me,” said Ronan. (Maybe).

They traded shots back and forth for a while, calling increasingly specific and complex plays.

“Bullshit. Bullshit.”

“Get the government to pay for some glasses, Parrish, and then come back and try to tell me that wasn’t a fucking bullseye—”

“It wasn’t even close! You—”

“You calling me a liar?” Ronan loomed, and Adam, as usual, was unimpressed.

“Just because you don’t lie doesn’t make you right all the time! Like when you said that quote on Tuesday was Seneca. It doesn’t stop being Martial just because you’ve got a child’s sense of morality—”

“See, right there.” Ronan pointed triumphantly at an invisible scuff mark on the doorsill, marking where his handful of gravel had made impact.

Adam gave it a skeptical glance. His face was faintly flushed from exertion in the cold air, but his eyes were as cool and considering as ever. “What we need,” he said, “is a knife.”

Ronan was not allowed knives.

~

“Are you trying to stab each other in the feet? Why are your shoes off! It’s October!”

“Equal playing field.” Ronan wiggled his toes against the cold asphalt. “Parrish’s shitty knife is no match for my boots.” Over Gansey’s head, Ronan tried to catch Adam’s eye, to share a ‘can you believe him’ sort of look. Adam’s embarrassment over being caught acting irresponsibly meant Ronan could expect the look to be rebuffed, but he couldn’t help himself from trying it anyway.

Adam was bent over, eyes hidden. He carefully dusted off his socked feet one at a time before sliding them back into his shoes, as though the socks or sneakers could look any worse. A little parking lot crud might improve their appearance, actually.

Next to him, Gansey was still fussing. Without the pressure release valve of eye contact with someone who knew Gansey was overreacting, Ronan snapped, “Come off it, man, I’m not going to slit my throat while Parrish watches. He can’t afford that caliber of snuff film.”

Gansey’s concern transformed into revulsion, but underneath it he looked hurt, which was far far worse.

Adam straightened up. “We were just using it to mark where we hit. Honestly, we could have done it tossing a sharpie, but neither of us had one.” He sounded conciliatory, which pissed Ronan off. But Gansey was letting it go, returning the knife to Adam with an apologetic smile. Sorry for the fuss. Sorry for Ronan. Ronan’s bare feet were cold against the asphalt.

“Well? Are you going to throw or not, Parrish?” he said belligerently.

Adam rolled his eyes, but obligingly stooped for gravel and let one fly at Ronan’s open bedroom window, a shot he made easily.

Gansey whistled. “You’ve got quite the arm on you. How come you’re not on the Algionby baseball team?”

Adam shifted his feet, awkwardly.

“Please,” scoffed Ronan, “he’s not a team player.”

Gansey did not let it go. “Bet you’d have a better fastball than both our pitchers.”

There was a pause, during which Adam’s face clearly showed all of the thoughts he was trying to corral into a polite response to Gansey’s unconsidered enthusiasm. Ronan got there first. “Yeah, Parrish, why not hitch your wagon to the star of organized sports, like every other rags to riches wannabe?”

“Ronan!” said Gansey, Ronan’s offensiveness registering where his own had not.

“Hitch my wagon to a star?” Adam was unruffled. “I thought quoting Transcendentalists could get you excommunicated.”

“Who said I know it’s Emerson. It’s a sourceless idiom to those of us who aren’t sad little nerds.”

Adam smirked. The smirk said, I never said Emerson. His words said, “Gansey’s damning me with faint praise. No one’s going pro out of an Algionby sport team. Even tennis.”

“Ouch,” said Ronan, cheerfully. “Hit me where it really hurts. My school pride.”

~

Now that Gansey had arrived, his plans for the day took precedence over noble pastimes such as flipping pocketknives at each other’s feet. His plans involved comparing readings from various instruments and then placing said various instruments in various new locations, all of which were equally arbitrary (to Ronan’s eyes) and inaccessible. Gansey’s plans involved him waiting by the car to monitor the readings while people hiked with antennae to the outermost reaches of the signal. People, in this instance, being Ronan and Adam, Noah having mysteriously and silently fucked off, as he so often did when a job required carrying anything.

Ronan put his head down and trudged. It was brambly here, and slightly damp, and he was beginning to work up the kind of counter-intuitive sweat that appears from working in the cold, the kind that makes you colder later.

As the person leading the hike, custom would dictate that he should catch and hold the long clinging arms of the brambles for the following hiker. This presented a dilemma. Ronan compromised, and set about stomping the multiflora into the ground as he walked. Scarlet hips burst under his feet, invasive and beautiful, spreading their millions of seeds across the damp earth. Noxious weeds.

“It’s too unreliable,” said Adam, into the silence. “Sports. It all depends on… your physical condition.”

“And your condition is shit.”

There was Adam’s ironic smile. “Yes. So.” He shrugged. There was the part they weren’t saying, which was that his physical condition could always get worse. Unexpectedly.

“My dad hates baseball.” Ronan heard himself make the slip—hates and not hated—and a spark of fury burned through him, brief and inconsequential.

“My dad loves it.”

They marched on in silence.

Adam swore as a bramble Ronan had beaten down sprang up again, catching him right across the tear, where his skin was exposed. He bent to unhook it from the camo with deft, deliberate hands. “What?” he said, like he could feel Ronan’s eyes.

Ronan looked away. “Why not the military?” He kicked purposelessly at the bramble and heard Adam sigh. “And don’t tell me you never thought about it. Test scores like yours out in hicksville high school, you must have had recruiters hopping all over you like fleas.”

“Would you believe I had a moral objection?” Adam’s smile was self-deprecating. Ronan studied it.

“No.”

Adam shrugged. It, too, was self-deprecating.

“I think you had a superiority objection. You think you’re too smart for that shit.”

Adam blinked at him. “Do you think I’m wrong?”

Ronan snorted. “Hell no. You can do better than getting blown up in a desert for the United States government.”

The smile, when it came, was small and stunning. “Damned by faint praise again.”

[sharknosed]

how to know if a song should go on your trc playlist:

does it talk about cars? great. that’s either bluesey or maybe ronan if the vibe is more about the car itself than driving

is it about religion? that’s also ronan!! bonus points for a love song. pynch babey

does it feature nature? cool. cabeswater/lindenmere/rural virginia/whatever

drugs/alcohol? kavinsky probably. ronan on occasion too

shitty fathers? well that’s kind of everyone honestly. put it on

are there ghosts? slay. the rizz king himself noah czerny

is there that sort of overwhelming feeling of teenage years spent somewhere rural with loved ones and a home you can never return to without forgetting it? like. yeah

[unnamed-royalty]

Made a Blue Sargent Webweave :)

Mungo Jerry, In the Summertime// Of Monsters and Men, Little Talks// Taylor Swift, The Last Great American Dynasty// Olivia Rodrigo, ballad of a homeschooled girl// Mitski, First Love/Late Spring// Lorde, Supercut// Taylor Swift, The Prophecy// Olivia Rodrigo, love is embarrassing// Lorde, A World Alone// Taylor Swift, Cardigan//

[binbrick]

i love listening to my trc playlist and then being shocked that i'm thinking more abt trc. like yeah. you listened to thirty songs that remind you of ronan he's gonna be on the brain

[adamnsey]

adansey / come over - noah kahan

[neverbeenanaturalll]

there’s nothing i love more then making a playlist for my favourite character and then playing it and putting my head in my hands and just taking in the lyrics and being like “oh my god this is so them 😭😭😭” as if that’s not the exact reason the song is in the playlist.

[adamsrcnan]

a study in survival.

a playlist for the unfathomable and the practical - adam parrish

[LINK]

[micamicster]

Country Girl Blue Sargent

I hit the highway in a pink RV with stars on the ceiling

One True Love - The O'Kanes / Gravedigger - Willie Nelson / Marie Laveau - Bobby Bare / Closer to Fine - Indigo Girls / That Don't Impress Me Much - Shania Twain / Blowin' Smoke - Kacey Musgraves / Coat of Many Colors - Dolly Parton / Wide Open Spaces -The Chicks / I Wish I Was the Moon - Neko Case / The Lucky One - Alison Krauss / Passionate Kisses - Mary Chapin Carpenter / Love Will Turn You Around - Kenny Rogers / I'll Be Your Baby Tonight - Linda Ronstadt / Orphan Girl - Emmylou Harris/ Shut Up and Drive - Chely Wright / Help Me Make It Through the Night - Willie Nelson / Alibi - Hurray for the Riff Raff / Share the Moon - Indigo Girls / Something to Talk About - Bonnie Raitt / What's Your Mama's Name? - Tanya Tucker / The Unquiet Grave - Joan Baez / Boulder to Birmingham - Emmylou Harris / Landslide - The Chicks / Light of a Clear Blue Morning - Dolly Parton / On the Road Again - Willie Nelson / The Long Way Around - The Chicks

Country Boy? Dick Gansey

It's a mighty dark night and I made that drive, but I'll never get out of your love alive

Delta Dawn - Tanya Tucker / Southern Nights - Glen Campbell / Seven Year Ache - Rosanne Cash / Are You Ready for the Country? - Neil Young / Garden Party - Rick Nelson & the Stone Canyon Band / The Waiting - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers / Everybody Knows - The Chicks / Blue - LeAnn Rimes / Long Black Veil - Johnny Cash / Walkin' After Midnight - Patsy Cline / I Take My Chances - Mary Chapin Carpenter / Share the Moon - Indigo Girls / Something About What Happens When We Talk - Lucinda Williams / Valentine's Day - Bruce Springsteen / 'Til I'm too Old to Die Young - Moe Bandy / Easy Silence - The Chicks / It's Not Supposed to Be That Way - Waylon Jennings / Raise the Dead - Linda Ronstadt & Emmylou Harris / I’ll Go to My Grave Loving You - The Statler Brothers / Hang Me - Peggy Seeger / My Life - Iris DeMent / Those Memories of You - Trio / Oh What a Beautiful World - Rodney Crowell / Shenandoah - Bruce Springsteen / Our Town - Iris DeMent

Obviously we are taking a broad view of country music and one heavily influenced by my personal tastes blah blah but as always please understand that while these playlists may not be definitive, they are 100% Correct <3

Ronan and Adam's playlists

[heartru]

i think that i’ll think about ronan lynch for the rest of my life