#10 for the all pairings in ciyh
You just go right for the heartparts, don’t you, anon?10: Why did you choose this pairing for this particular story?Strap in for a doozy, kids.
I’m gonna start with the minor side pairings that don’t effect the overarching plot or character development, because I’m nothing if not persnickety and ineffectually comprehensive.Fletcher and Archer: Because I could, and so I did. Where else was I supposed to wedge my favoritest OC and his inveterate life partner (also an OC, belonging to my good good very best friend @archer-and-anders) and their college au incarnations into my college au fanfic? Why, as fellow students on the periphery of the protagonists’ social circles, of course! They weren’t made together or to be together, but they are meant to be together forever, across any and all universes. It’s just how it is, and I don’t make the rules.Declan and Ashley: I latched on to his POV chapter in TRK mentioning her as a present-tense girlfriend and not a past-tense one, and I want them to be the cool, sexy, affably morally neutral Greenmantles 2.0 with matching Audis and a Mr. and Mrs. Smith vibe. Also, my girl Ashley? She’s rad and Declan doesn’t really deserve her because she’s so much cooler than he is.Maura and Calla: BLUE’S MOMS. Because how could I not, when there’s no Artemus to worry about, a Persephone in the mix, or a Mr. Gray to pair Maura off with? Of course I went the “they’re in lesbians” route! If things focused more on the rest of the group and not just on Adam and Ronan, they’d make appearances, but as things stand right now, they’re not slated to turn up at all, which I hope to rectify in The Rewrite.
On to the played-with and past-tense pairings. Funnily enough, most of these involve Adam because of a very particular headcanon I have for him and am deeply attached to.Ronan and Noah: Oh, Noah, my dear sweet boy, he just made his way around the whole group, didn’t he? This is actually only implied in passing once in Ch3 and never mentioned again, and it was from before I realized how potentially icky that was depending on when exactly it happened, since that chapter has Noah saying he’s 28 and Ronan implying that "{Noah]’s girlfriend and all of [Noah]’s friends are 21″, which is wrong, because Gansey turns 21 at some point between Ch18 and Ch20, which is almost two months later. I’m going on record here and now to say that, no, this didn’t actually happen and this passing mention of it is an instance of Early Installment Weirdness that will be nixed in The Rewrite. Adam and Tad: This wasn’t supposed to become quite the thing it did in my mind; I threw Tad into CiYH for Drama caused by Ronan’s jealous streak and his possessiveness of Adam, and I ended up getting really attached to my version of Tad, perhaps a little wrongheadedly. I intended to push this from “played with” into “actually happens” to fuel Ronan and Adam fighting for much longer than they did, which I also decided against about... two chapters ago. Instead I opted to have Ronan continue to be jealous over something that was never going to happen because it seemed in character for him. Adam and Brandy: Okay. So. This plays into the aforementioned headcanon I have for Adam but also has some bearing on the plot, so I can’t get to into the details on this one (especially since Brandy is a present-tense character as of Ch24). I can say this, though, because it relates to Adam’s relationship with Blue: I didn’t want him to be as inexperienced as Blue, as in a virgin who’d never been kissed before they’d started dating each other. So I had to give Adam an ex-girlfriend he’d been physically intimate with, who was (probably) slightly more experienced than he was back in high school. Ronan and Kavinsky: Contrary to what most people might think, I didn’t include this oairing because I wanted to write Rovinsky into CiYH. I knew going into this project that I wanted to write Kavinsky a particular way, and that I was writing Ronan a particular way, and that I was walking a very fine line between making their backstory work and making it seem out of character for Ronan. In my mind, to play out the full extent of Ronan’s teenage trauma without magic and without his friends (save Gansey, who at the time lived hundreds of miles away) but with the grim reality and formative nature Niall’s death had on him intact, I needed to include the only other character he’d known in high school: Kavinsky. How could I play out Ronan’s character (again, without magic) and Kavinsky the way I intended to portray him (also without magic) as realistically as possible, despite the very murky waters I’d be treading the entire time? By giving them an intimate history with each other, even though I was basically writing Rovinsky into CiYH.Adam and Blue: This one’s only a little bit self-serving, because I actually really like them paired together and I wanted them to have dated and boned prior to the start of CiYH. I had that in mind when I wrote the first chapter, and it didn’t even come up back then. Funny how that happens. But yeah, I had a soft spot for Adam being Blue’s first in most of the major ways and I projected a lot of my relationship frustrations and drama onto them because catharsis (and they’re the only pairing I could actually do that with and have it make sense).
And now, for the actual factual present-tense pairings you’re all here for.Blue and Gansey: I guess I have to out myself here as being a Bluesey hater. “Hater” is probably way too strong a word, because I’m honestly more ambivalent to it. It’s boring to me. But I had to include it because I had to, right? Right, because this is a TRC fic. That’s pretty much it, and it’s cute, I guess, but. Yeah. Fortunately it developed into something I could get behind, to an extent, because they’re both also paired off with characters I think they’re both better suited for than each other.Gansey and Henry: Yes, this is canon! No, I have not made that clear in anything I’ve written! Yes, that is horrible of me and I fully acknowledge that and plan to rectify it in The Rewrite! Yes, it’s actually happening throughout CiYH, yes other characters do know about it, and yes Henry is actually around more often than he is not. This is all a major failing on my part because I never developed a good voice for him (or Gansey, for that matter) and, as I’ve said before, I honestly had no idea I’d ever get to a point where I’d realize it was a major misstep to not include him from the get, because I started CiYH well before TRK came out and I’d initially been hesitant to heavily feature a character we knew nothing about (this is based on past experiences I’ve had in fandoms, with getting attached to characters pre-release and being hugely disappointed by them in canon). This is my single highest priority for The Rewrite, and I can’t emphasize that enough.Blue and Noah: MY OTEEP. I’m infinity-percent serious when I say that, I really am. I’ve said it a million times before, but I ship Blue and Noah together harder than I think I’ve ever shipped literally anything since--I admit these freely and fly these particular fandom colors proudly--Shakarian and Handers. Part of this is projecting, part of this is because my version of Noah is, in fact, so compelling to me that I’m planning on giving him a spin-off of his own that delves into his backstory and follows his personal arc as it develops parallel to CiYH. I can’t wait because I’ll get to delve so much more into this relationship. Blue, Noah, and Gansey: This is the amalgam of my gripes with Bluesey and my undying love for Blue/Noah. You’ve gotta love that happy, comfortable, casual polyamory. This is something I’m really looking forward to exploring more in both the Noah Spin-Off and The Rewrite, especially since I’ve dedicated considerable thought to how exactly this relationship comes to be, how it works (i.e. Blue’s time with both of them, their time as a trio, Noah and Gansey’s time as roommates/friends, Gansey’s time with Henry), and how Noah and Gansey (who don’t exist as a pairing without Blue’s influence) work. It’s easy in a way Adam and Ronan aren’t, despite how complicated and difficult it looks on the surface, but there’s still a lot of room for Drama, because there’s a lot of conflicting dynamics insofar as their three distinct cultures and family lives are concerned, and also lulz for that same exact reason. Adam and Ronan: Because, at the end of the day, I wanted to write these angry, sharp-edged handsome dudes being in messy, complicated, aesthetically pleasing love with each other. And boning down, a lot, with vigor and enthusiasm. Really. That’s it. It’s just complicated in context, but the reality is actually that simple.