#AND HERE THE BLUE LILY IS ‘KISSING’ GANSEY’S MOUTH and just after it’s compared to rain | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

fleurdehivers · 5 years

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i wanted to expand a little on adam’s need for human touch, because it’s such an interesting subject. starting from the very beginning, i.e. going back to the raven boys and looking at the most intimate moments between him and blue, this want immediately becomes very obvious. adam’s attempts to get closer, both physically and emotionally, start just as blue joins the boys for the first time; but i’m going to concentrate only on the former, since the latter would require their own in-depth analysis. whenever he’s next to blue in these early days he’s always trying to close the distance between them. and these seemingly casual contacts happen more and more. when blue and adam meet after the reading at 300 fox way, and adam first speaks with her, his breath was hot on her skin, and, just a few beats later, blue felt him take her hand. then, during the helicopter flight: as he climbs in, he sits next to her taking the middle sit, in a way shielding her from ronan and his snide comments, but also possibly to have a semblance of privacy with her, because he’s always turned in her direction, adam’s headphones were looped around his neck, and he was leaned over beside blue. he’s not particularly subtle when they’re in cabeswater for the first time either. he gravitates around her and steps in her personal space a lot and as, blue stretched her hand out. adam took it without hesitation, like he’d been waiting for her to offer it. the text is incredibly transparent here, voicing an observation that might have been just a passing thought for the reader up until now. adam not only longs for human touch, but he’s waiting for someone to offer it, too. that doesn’t signify that he’s willing to beg for it or to accept it from anyone or to compromise, his pride wouldn’t allow that and rightly so. he would deserve the attention for the beautiful intelligent and caring, if still unconsciously traumatised, boy that he is, not – as he puts it for both gansey and blue later on – as a pity case. but he craves it nonetheless, and since he likes this girl, he fights for her. not, or not only just, for her attention, not for her compliments, but for a connection. when they’re still in cabeswater, there’s another significant moment that needs considering. as they wander around, adam and ronan find a tree with a cavity and adam steps into it and he’s profoundly shaken by what he sees inside of it. by the time he comes out, blue and gansey have reached them and blue eyes adam and, in front of her adam’s arms were still gripped around himself. this is heart-breaking because it’s a spontaneous reaction, one that adam has little control over, but it shows how when he doesn’t have anyone else to count on for physical contact, he wraps his own arms around himself for comfort.

however, there are instances where adam restrains himself from reaching out, even though he would like to. when blue permits noah to smoothen out her hair, adam perceives the implicit difference of his relationship to blue, compared to noah and blue’s one. he admits he’d like to pet her hair too, but knows that the gesture would be interpreted in a different way coming from him and he knows that whatever it is that has with blue, they’re not at that point in their relationship yet. with the passing of time there’s a progression, and the touches between blue and him become more and more intimate. these are all steps that in adam’s mind should likely lead to the moment of kissing her. and as much as he was into – or thought he was into – blue at the time, it’s not just the fact of kissing blue for him, it’s the kissing itself, the inherent intimacy of the gesture. the kind of thing he has, on a platonic level, with his friends; the bumping of knuckles with both gansey and noah, maybe even ronan?, every time they meet are meant to suggest a symbolic closeness and comradeship between the three boys. something that he still seems not to have with blue, at least not completely. a kiss would maybe seal the reaching of that moment in adam’s mind, but she doesn’t let him have that, so he’s left with doubts and uncertainties about her affections. in fact, the most intimate moment between adam and blue takes place just after adam has pressed charges against his dad and finds himself homeless and more in need of comfort than ever. he goes at blue’s and when he’s there, wordlessly, he sat beside her and then laid his head on her lap, his face in his arms. he’s so shattered after what’s happened to him that he doesn’t even realise how much contact he’s craving and taking. then he asks her for a kiss and in this instance blue is right, it isn’t how it should be because it’s not about kissing her at all, it’s once again about the gesture itself. and the emotional support that he needs, in whatever form, in a moment where his whole world has gone to pieces. to be honest, blue telling him, there’s still worse than what you’ve got is a really cruel thing to say when he’s hurting, even if, generally speaking, it might be true. i don’t want to start discourse on blue, because she’s just a teenager too, and she has her own valid reasons for not wanting to kiss adam. so i’m not necessarily blaming her, but it truly isn’t her best moment and she certainly doesn’t show a lot of empathy for what he’s going through.

in the first book and a half, he tries to kiss her at least three times, and blue rejects him without a (real and true) explanation on every single occasion. as i said, i don’t fault her for not knowing how to handle the situation. but from adam’s point of view, these refusals must sting in a very painful way, because she’s the one person from whom he would naturally expect a physical connection. he asks for a kiss even when they’re breaking up, under the guise of proof that he isn’t her one true love.

so that’s the situation with blue.

but then we have ronan. adam and ronan seem to have casual physical contact all the time, what with one teasing the other or with playful punches on the arm as a way of greeting each other. and that already establishes their relationship, strained as it may be at the start of the raven boys, as a long-standing, strong and contact-based one. they might fight every other day, but they’re very familiar and comfortable with each other. and they fight less and less as the story progresses, their fights being more sparse though sometimes more explosive when they happen. and the first turning point is probably in the dream thieves, as they collaborate to fix the ley line and of course as we learn of ronan’s crush for adam.

things change more visibly by the time of blue lily, lily blue, with both of them becoming more self-aware and self-conscious around each other. for a while it’s just stolen glances and hidden stares, but fast forward to the sudden bite of possibility scene, when adam is reminded of the instant when his and ronan’s hands touched for a second. adam describes the physical sensations from the touching in a very distinct and vivid way and these sensation are so intense that they’re said to explode out of him. at this point his feelings for ronan aren’t at all definite, at least not on a rational level, and yet a simple brushing of hands prompts a strong reaction from his body. and the same happens with the first kiss with ronan, adam felt it in more than his lips, and with the whole mental image of a storm coming from a mile away to soak him, which is obviously a metaphor about being overwhelmed by sensations. he still doesn’t intellectually understand how he feels, but from a physical perspective he feels, bright and dreamy and imaginary as the light through the window. this is such a peaceful, almost blissful scenario. when has adam parrish felt so light before, ever? just the first, unexpected kiss from ronan brings sensations so much stronger than any moment spent with blue. we don’t see the following kisses from his point of view, with mstief concentrating on ronan’s instead, but the description is enough to draw a pretty clear picture: ribs under hands, mouth on mouth, stubble on lips… but especially, they were both hungry animals, but adam had been starving for longer. this is such a simple sentence, and yet it holds so much truth. their hunger is different, ronan’s is more adam-focused because of his crush for adam having much older roots, whilst adam’s is made of both his (newly uncovered) feelings for ronan and a concrete need of someone to let off his starvation for touch with. not any ‘someone’, of course; someone he has feelings for and is attracted to, and who has feelings for him and is attracted to him, too. someone to love and to be loved from. and they were both starving and hungry. adam might not call this love yet, convinced as he is that he’s maybe still unable to feel such a feeling. but from that moment on, he completely confides in and relies on ronan. even when he’s at his most vulnerable once again, when the demon takes over his body, he trusts ronan enough that he physically counts on him for comfort, his body sagging against ronan’s and his head resting on ronan’s shoulders. he doesn’t give up, because ronan does not allow him too. and he trusts ronan enough to listen.

#that took some time #but i loved writing it bc it allowed me to see once more what an amazing boy adam parrish is #and how much he grows and works on himself #trc #trc meta #adam parrish #ronan lynch #pynch #adam x ronan #the raven cycle #maggie stiefvater #cissy talks

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