:(((

i wish i knew how to quit you

[uncannyparrish]

ok but consider: apparently on some (all? idk) phones you can set personalized voicemail messages so specific things play for specific people and what if, since gansey knows (HE KNOWS) he’s going to die, he records different ones for his friends

Noah’s vanished, Gansey’s gone, and Ronan quietly continues paying Gansey’s phone bill, just in case they ever need to hear his voice again, because that’s all they have left. that’s all there is. 

Blue’s the first one to realize what he left for them.

she’s been sitting in the phone/sewing/cat room every night since he died, staring at the phone and trying to build up the courage to call him. she knows he won’t answer, he can’t answer ever again, she’s sensible, after all, but she can’t stand the thought of having heard his voice for the last time.

she just wants to listen to his voicemail. she presses the phone to her ear and waits to hear the familiar: This is Gansey, I’m busy right now – BUSY FUCKING HIS BOYFRIEND GLENDOWER – quiet, Ronan, Glendower is a king, he is not my boyfriend. I’m busy right now, but leave a message. 

the message doesn’t come. the phone rings, and rings, and rings, and just when Blue thinks the number’s been disconnected and she really has heard his voice for the last time, it comes across the line. 

Jane

for one impossible, breathless moment, she thinks he’s cheated death, again, and he’s back, he’s here, with her, but then the voice, his voice, continues unprompted, and she realizes it’s a recording. he left something behind. Jane, I want you to know that I don’t regret a second with you. If I could go back and do it all again, I wouldn’t change a thing. 

it keeps going, but at this point Blue’s shaking and crying too hard to hear what he’s saying (she hears the rest later, she calls him until her fingers are raw from pressing redial and his message is etched into her brain)

she calls Adam and Ronan, too, choking out through her tears that they have to call Gansey, because if he left something for her he must’ve left something for them as well. it’s the middle of the night, but she knows they’re awake.  

the first time Ronan calls to hear the voicemail, Gansey’s voice mixes with the sound of the bottle Ronan threw out the window shattering into a million pieces in the parking lot below Monmouth

it’s not like he hasn’t heard Gansey’s voice since he died. of course he has, every night when he was busy trying to dream him the world and all that showed up was the other boy, convulsing on the ground, again, and Ronan failing to save him, again. 

but this time, this voice isn’t just an echo in his dreams, a poor shadow of a boy who had been so much and was now nothing. this the real Gansey, his Gansey, and it makes Ronan want to break everything he owns. his cheeks are hot with tears, and he can’t stop calling and listening. 

You’ve always been my brother, Ronan. Keep dreaming me the world. (Ronan does, eventually.)

Adam calls Gansey’s cell from the landline at St. Agnes, hoping that’s the number Gansey’s saved under his name. he rests his forehead on the wall when he hears the voice, trying not to fall over. 

Adam, you beautiful tropical sunfish, you deserve better. he can see vines beginning to wind their way around his arms, Cabeswater trying to comfort him, but all he cares about is Gansey’s voice. 

I know we fought, but I’ve always wanted what was best for you. Never give up. I wish you could see yourself the way I see you. (Adam’s on the way. he’s got acceptance letters from five different colleges upstairs. Gansey didn’t even get to see him open them. )

all the messages Gansey left are different. they’re personal, from Gansey before he died, from when he knew he would lose everything but hadn’t, not yet. they’re Gansey saying. not goodbye, exactly, but thank you. they all end the same way. 

they can hear the other Gansey as he says it, the Gansey they saw in the cave that day, when he’d fallen in that pit and they had changed the hornets into ravens, the Gansey who finally let himself break, who was terrified. they can hear the fear in his voice as he says that last word, his voice barely a whisper. excelsior, he breathes. 

[coldwaughters-deactivated201901]

if adam = cabeswater once and always because time is a Loop, that would also mean that he saved baby gansey ahahaha. ha ha. aha. @demarches FIGHT ME

[demarches]

i will not fight you i will join u

[bluesravenboyss]

joining in to say that ALSO:

it explains why Cabeswater also knows Blue and refers to her as “the psychic’s daughter”. HAHAHAHAH BYE. 

[coldwaughters-deactivated201901]

#also imagine adam as cabeswater having to make the call between noah and gansey though#I’M FINE

honestly i would feel like that would be a call that was so easy to make that it made him feel terrible but like

if noah lives and gansey doesn’t, gansey obviously doesn’t go on to meet ronan. noah probably doesn’t meet ronan. ronan, after his dad dies, ends up being attacked by the night horrors and then…dies? because the only person who finds him is kavinsky, who very explicitly did not call an ambulance? 

if ronan dies, there’s no greywaren. if ronan dies, there’s no one to pull adam’s dad off of adam, which means adam probably could have died, but also means that adam (never having met gansey, never having had gansey to talk to blue for him) probably never finds cabeswater. no adam finding cabeswater, no cabeswater existing

so like, it’s not a question. and i think that’s possibly even more mind-numbingly awful to know, but adam is incredibly pragmatic re: things like this, and he would know what had to be done

[grand-county-witch]

@dreamingincabeswater Oooooo. Look at this other thing.

[dreamingincabeswater]

Oooooo. Nice.

[antacideclan]

one thing i really love about adam parrish is his capacity to be a villain, and his ultimate role as one of the heroes

i don’t mean that he’s evil at all, or that he’s ever even a bad person, but his personality is just so calculating and so devious. he’s introduced somewhat as the softer, quieter boy in the group compared to gansey and ronan, but as the series progresses there are clear scenes where he’s willing to take steps farther than his friends and scenes where his darker side shines (creating fake evidence to frame his latin teacher for brutal murder?) hes not fragile. he’ll do whatever he needs to do in order to reach his goal. he’s got these qualities that, in another universe, would not typically be seen as qualities of the good guy: the cold reasoning, the explosive anger, the means-to-an-end mentality

yet i found it so interesting how these qualities are juxtaposed with his intense love for gansey, ronan, noah, and blue. yeah, he’ll do anything to reach his goal, but his goal is to protect his friends. and because of that, he ends up being someone the readers root for

and i guess what im saying is that im so glad he is the way he is because i wouldn’t change a thing about him

[babzgordon]

i think it’s important to take into consideration that the reason has a “dark” side isn’t by nature, though. when faced with the suggestion to take down greenmantle his mind immediately goes to the ugliest place possible because that’s what he’s been raised around. i think a really important quote that doesn’t get talked about enough is “he had not known to be born afraid, but he’d learned” and also for example the scene where gansey is horrified at the thought of letting whelk die and adam is just like ??? this is the harsh reality of the world tf you want me to do about it. it’s noted, again, that he thinks this way because of the violence and dismal way of living he was born into. it’s not the same thing as a character who is morally harsh and self-serving just because. for adam, this is the only way of survival he can understand. because that’s the learned behavior of his traumatic childhood.

an abusive childhood is a stock trope for the tragic back story of many villains usually packaged with the added bonus of *gasp* they can’t FEEL love. many abuse survivors in real life struggle with love and affection as a concept and in action and the fact that adam is able to open himself up and receive and give so much love is really important not to mention the fact that is aware of the probability of continuing the cycle of abuse and he works so hard not to. like that is. r e a l l y. important. 

so like i get what you’re saying and i know you mean it as a compliment but these kind of posts bother me because they don’t acknowledge the fact that adam isn’t just a person with intrinsically dark personality traits that is a good guy despite those things. the real achievement is that adam is someone who doesn’t use his abuse as an excuse to be a bad person, like many other characters (and real life humans) i could mention. 

anyway i’m sure OP probably agrees with this and i’m not trying to drag this post or anything i just feel the need to add this bc it’s important to me and imo to adam’s character and the way he is viewed by people at large lol. 

[ot5rideordie]

what she says: i'm fine

what she means: when kavinsky said that his father tried to kill him, was he telling the truth? when did k's mother become addicted to cocaine? did k ever have a loving or stable parent? how old was k when he started taking cocaine? was k responsible for prokopenko's death? when did k learn how to use a gun? what does blue mean when she says "you wanted something to hurt you, he was it"? why does k immediately recognize ronan's ptsd? when adam asks blue "did something... happen to you?", are we supposed to ask the same thing about k? why did k want to die? did k have anyone who didn't want him to die? did anyone ever love kavinsky?

[maggie-stiefvater-deactivated20]

OK I'll take the bait -- how fucked up is Kavinsky REALLY? I'm expecting at least an 5 on the Richter scale of heartbreak.

Okay, I’ll take the bait back, because I’m young and crotchety.

Note, spoilers for Dream Thieves will abound.

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILING THINGS

Readers can interpret the events of the book in all sorts of ways, obviously, but here are things that happen canonically in The Dream Thieves:

Kavinsky drugs his mother without her knowledge

Kavinsky pursues Ronan with multiple text messages and gifts that indicate he has observed Ronan closely — i.e., copies of bracelets Ronan always wears and Ronan’s driver’s license

Kavinsky generally calls Ronan either gay or a girl

Kavinsky is seen once with a girl, who he calls “bitch”

Kavinsky has at least one dead companion who he dreamed a perfectly obedient replacement for — it is heavily implied that Kavinsky was somehow responsible for the guy’s death.

Kavinsky claims to have killed his own father (but this is debatable, as Kavinsky clearly is a liar)

Kavinsky tries to get Ronan to give up his friends

Kavinsky touches Ronan’s head, taps Ronan’s teeth with a pen, leaves stuff at Ronan’s home when he knows he won’t be there

Kavinsky gives Ronan a drug that renders Ronan immobile and barely conscious and then, while Ronan is helpless — and only then — sensually touches Ronan’s body (Ronan tells himself this might be a dream)

Ronan tells Kavinsky that they will never be an item, but Kavinsky keeps texting him

Kavinsky tells Ronan that consent is overrated (which echoes him continuously stepping into Ronan’s space without permission)

Kavinsky ultimately grows frustrated that Ronan will not give in, kidnaps Ronan’s brother, drugs him, and stuffs him in the trunk of a car to provoke a reaction from Ronan.

Here are other things that are canonical:

Kavinsky is a scary, terrible predator

Kavinsky has a very logical backstory that leads him to this place

Kavinsky chooses to be led to this place

Here are other, other things, also canonical:

Kavinsky can pull things from his dreams, has an absent (possibly dead) father, and an absent (largely useless) mother

Ronan can pull things from his dreams, has an absent (definitely dead) father, and an absent (largely useless) mother

I very much enjoyed writing Kavinsky — as a character, he challenged and delighted me. And I really wanted him to challenge and delight readers. One of the main ideas I’m exploring as I write the Raven Cycle is the question: how much are you a product of your upbringing? And can you overcome the terrible parts of it to become something better? All of the characters engage with these questions, which I find fiendishly interesting in real life. Kavinsky and Ronan both get the same set of circumstances and handle them in very different ways. It’s a choice.

So do I like Kavinsky? Out of all the characters I have ever written, he is one of my favorites.* Top four, probably. Or five, since four is an ugly number. But he’s a terrible person, more terrible because he chose it every. step. of. the. way. A logical backstory is not justification for trampling over consent, for kidnapping, for harassment.

Otherwise Adam would be justified in hitting Blue when he was angry, because he was hit by his father.

Kavinsky’s scale on the Richter scale of heartbreak? I’ll give him a solid 9, where 10 = absolutely zero evidence of desire to change.

These are all of my thoughts on Kavinsky. Your mileage may vary.

*ETA: I mean, people: I painted my car like his.

[corvidyouths]

So like what? Halfway across their sweaty endeavor to sprint through Henrietta to get to the court house did Gansey just turn to Ronan and tell him to get his look together?

[corvidyouths]

#tuck your damn shit in lynch#like you bet your ass Ronan did not just randomly show up to school that day with his tie actually tied correctly#that happened sometime between the front doors of aglionby and the judge#sprinting across town#rUNNING#fumbling with his tie trying to actually get it right#or did Gansey do it for him#who knows???!

[interropunct]

#there are two times gansey has tied ronan’s tie for him#once outside the courtroom#he did it more out of anxiousness than anything else#because ronan had tied it just a little uneven#so gansey fixed it as they waited to find out if they were too late to join adam inside#the other time was twenty minutes before niall’s funeral#when ronan was too numb to think about much#gansey’s fingers were steady as he tied the knot but his thoughts were frantic#there was nothing he could say#and nothing he could do#when he finished gansey lingered awkwardly#and just as he considered breaking the silence#ronan let out a shuddering breath and leaned down until his forehead was resting on gansey’s shoulder#raven cycle#GanseyRonan (via ronanremembers)

[neiljosten]

#okay but whO will tie ronans tie at gansey’s funeral??? (corvidyouths)

[neiljosten]

#adam finds him in his room #he’s staring at himself in the mirror like he’s looking at a stranger and his tie’s dangling from his hand #adam says ‘hey you okay?’ gently #he turns around to look at him and adam takes the tie from him and puts it around his neck#he ties it in silence #ronan grabs his hand before he can pull away #presses it against his cheek #and there are tears running down his face #and it’s like something breaks inside adam’s chest #and then they’re holding onto each other like they’re caught in a hurricane and they’re the only things left (via bloodravenking)

[excelsors]

you know what we do not talk about enough??? ronan’s response when he thinks gansey/the others are in danger in the cave at the beginning of bllb

“Do you hear me, Cabeswater? You promised to keep me safe. Who are we to you? Nothing? If you let him die, that is not keeping me safe. Do you understand? If they die, I die, too.” (pg 25)

if they die, i die, too. if they die, i die, too???? iF THEY DIE, I DIE, TOO

[dreammetheworld]

They had been a two-headed creature for so long, Ronan-and-Gansey.

When Ronan thought of Gansey, he thought of moving into Monmouth Manufacturing, of nights spent in companionable insomnia, of a summer searching for a king, of Gansey asking the Gray Man for his life. Brothers.

[coldwaughters-deactivated201901]

blue/noah are the greatest though like what the hell?

our introduction to their friendship is that noah is fascinated with blue’s spiky hair and it pleases both of them for him to pet her hair

also that noah has become a golden retriever re: blue and seems to instantly love her

noah gets sad when her hair isn’t spiky and blue says she needs sleep 4 quality spikes

holding hands with blue makes noah stronger #canon

they’re literally always hanging off of each other like i can think of three separate occasions where it’s like “really guys…really”

blue loves noah enough to humiliate herself and risk some serious anger directed at her to give him some peace and give his mom his last message

blue and noah plant flowers together at jesse dittley’s and we’re gonna pretend that scene ended right there with them giggling and planting flowers YEP THANKS

“a pretzel of girl and dead boy” shut the fuck up

one time a counselor told blue she couldn’t go 2 her first choice college and noah had a shitfit and wrecked her office??? what’s up buddy

rmr that time they had monmouth to themselves so they played pool and went through gansey’s stuff and jumped on the beds and then MADE OUT 

and noah shook his hands out like he was gonna get a cramp making out with her

that one time they went and hung out with adam and adam went all Scryface McScaryShit and blue and noah were definitely in the cave yelling in high-pitched voices like “FUCK WHAT DO WE DO” “I DON’T KNOW THEY DON’T COVER THIS IN PUBLIC SCHOOL” “ISN’T YOUR MOM A PSYCHIC” “WHAT DOES THAT HAVE TO DO WITH ANYTHING” “OH MYG OD JUST STAB HIM” “WHAT?!??!?!” “STAB HIM!!!” “AHHGHGHGHHGHHHHH! [STABS]” 

[ot5rideordie]

the signs& your pynch trash moment

Aries: "Maybe I dreamt you."

Taurus: "What do you want?" "To do this."

Gemini: "Ronan's second secret was Adam Parrish."

Cancer: *threatens tennant so Adam can afford rent/tuition*

Leo: "Well. Fuck you, Parrish."

Virgo: *Declan sees Ronan's leg on Adam's*

Libra: "I can't kill his demons."

Scorpio: "For your hands."

Sagittarius: "Man, you don't have to go in there."

Capricorn: *Adam sensually traces Ronan's tattoo in dream*

Aquarius: "I hear if you want magic done, you ask a magician."

Pisces: "...he realized that while he'd been looking at Ronan, Ronan had been looking at him."

[essie-grant]

If an epilogue of The Later Years comes out after The Raven King and Ronan Lynch is NOT the Latin teacher at Aglionby I’m going to be super disappointed. Just imagine Ronan at thirty in front of a class of posh brats. He thinks he’s this hardass jerk that all the kids are afraid of but it turns out he’s actually a really good teacher (like his dad) and, even worse, that the posh brats actually kind of adore him, and he has no idea what to do with that.

“Fuck off, they’re lame,” says Ronan, at the table in his and Adam’s dining room, aggressively writing passable at the top of his best student’s perfect quiz, and then adding a gold star.

Adam says “sure, yeah,” in that way that means he thinks Ronan is full of shit.

“I hate them,” says Ronan, filling out the form to volunteer as a chaperone on the sophomore trip to Rome.

“Right,” says Adam, patting the top of his head.

“Education is a farce,” Ronan whispers, up for four days straight writing letters of recommendation to colleges.

Adam is asleep, but his mouth breathing agrees.

“This fucking job is the fucking worst,” says Ronan, half-glum and half-proud as he watches the seniors who won’t be back next year graduate.

“Yeah,” Adam says, nudging Ronan’s shoulder with his own, unbearably fond. “The worst.”

[midsummerpuck]

The Raven Cycle; pynch. 

How appropriate it was that Ronan, left to his own devices, manifested beautiful cars and beautiful birds and tenderhearted brothers, while Adam, when given the power, manifested a filthy string of perverse murders.

[sigmundfreud]

when u first read the secret history it’s like oh, what an elegant and deep piece of literature. and then ur like…………bunny steals a frozen cheesecake from someone on financial aid. charles gets high and kills a bee at the funeral of his friend, who he helped to murder. henry didn’t know that people landed on the moon. richard thinks he’s straight. francis is hesitant that their alibi is going to the theater because he doesn’t want people to think he went to see such terrible movies. “and as we leave donne and walton on the shores of metahemeralism, we wave a fond farewell to those famous chums of yore.“ what the hell is going on in this book

[rouencathedral]

Hey i was wondering if you could help me out- where in TRC does it ever mention that Ronan crashes at Adams' place on occasion??? I don't remember ever reading that part and it's bugging the hell out of me lol

Was this canon? honestly I’ve read so many pynch fics I do not recall can anyone else help?

[sarahbatistapereira]

Ronan mentions it in DT, when he lists Adam’s apartment as one of the three places he can expect to wake up. Adam also implies it in BLLB, when he’s shocked to see Gansey, rather than Ronan, appear at his door in the middle of the night (and goes on to compare how much more natural Ronan feels there than Gansey).

[studio82a]

This is one of my favorite show-don’t-tell moments about the books, the fact that this is clearly a regular thing since Adam got the apartment and yet we do not see it ever happen ‘on screen’ even once, and I love

maggie-stiefvater

’s ability to naturally widen the experience of what is happening to the characters (in real-time, not even just their backstory) without writing out every scene - just referencing things in a way that lets you know this isn’t the first time something has occurred or whatever. I LOVE how it’s done, impeccable writing. That being said I WANNA SEE ONE OF THESE SCENES SO BAD. C'MON, THE RAVEN KING. DO ME A SOLID.

[patroqlus]

Adam looked up at Ronan. “I know it was you.” he said. “I figured it out. The rent.” he held Ronan’s gaze for just a moment longer, until something inside Ronan unwound and                                                                      he almost said something.

[shmadass-deactivated20161216]

“Adam?” Ronan demanded. “Is it really you?”

Because suddenly, the landscape had shifted. The trees had moved and shivered to the side, and now there was the ugly man-made lake they had discovered with Gansey. Adam crouched beside the shore, laying out stones in complicated patterns. Was it the real Adam? Or was it a dream Adam?

This Adam looked up sharply. He was himself, and he was something else.

[transfuzionfromthefire]

Maybe I dreamt you.

-Ronan Lynch

God this breaks my heart because this is the boy whose mother was made up, who dreamt up his brother because he wanted someone good and kind to grow up with. He’s so in love with this boy that you just KNOW a part of him isn’t kidding. A part of him questions if this is just another person he created because he wanted someone to love.

And Adam just automatically responds with deprecation. He doesn’t think for even a moment that someone would dream him up. That someone would want him exactly as he is.

(via transfuzionfromthefire)