Not Only Did Irvin Die For Helly R He Died Doing What She Loved Doing Most (trying To Kill Her Outie)

my read on the chances of a successful gemma rescue was already very low but having mark basically turn to the camera and say "maybe I am the one guy who can bargain my way out of experiencing grief....?" oh buddy you are so fucked.

Hi Maggie, I'd really like to hear you say a bit more about why you wrote Adam trying to repair the relationship with his abusive parents in the Raven King. What is the merit in salvaging a relationship such as that, and do you think it is possible for Adam's parents to truly redeem themselves? P.S. Can't wait for Call Down The Hawk, hopefully by the time it comes out I'll quit accidentally calling it Call The Hawk Down (every time I do that I'm like SHIT...was that it? That wasn't it...)

Dear courageofhorses,

I have also seen CALM DOWN THE HAWK which is a perfectly appropriate title.

Following is spoilers for TRK

spoilers

spoilers

no seriously

spoilers

CAVEAT: I’m going to answer this with how I interpret Adam’s character, but in the end, the books live without me, so it’s what makes it on the page and into your interpretation that counts.

THAT SAID. I’m not sure I would call Adam’s final move in The Raven King an attempt to repair the relationship, because it’s not about his parents, it’s about him. It’s about what he needs to say and do in order to feel he has the moral high ground; it’s what he personally requires to allow himself freedom.

By the time we get to that final scene of his in TRK, he’s been living on his own for quite awhile, a high school senior who fled his childhood home under duress. In that time, he’s lived through a helluva lot of traumatic and brilliant events. He’s seen his mentor die, he’s fallen in love, he’s dreaded his best friend’s death, he’s learned that he can be a good friend. 

The only time he’s seen his father in that time is when he comes busting through the door of his apartment with violence and Cabeswater intervenes. 

Otherwise, it has been only Adam and his memories of his parents, and if there is anything Adam doesn’t trust throughout the series, it’s his own interpretation of events. He’s been trained his entire childhood to doubt himself. 

So him returning to TRK isn’t about him genuinely trying to repair a relationship, to accept his parents back into his life despite all the’ve done to him. Instead, it’s about him — for the first time, ever — walking back to the trailer he grew up in without fear. He’s just come from graduation, and he’s closing the books behind him. He’s choosing to be blunt with his parents, without fear, older, wiser, more powerful. He knows he can trust whatever he sees as he walks back through that door under his own steam. It will be the truth, not what his battered emotional thoughts whispered to him for 800 pages.

Adam returns to see if, now that he knows himself, these people he saw as monsters still look like monsters. He wants to see if he becomes monstrous in their presence. He wants to feel for the first time in his life the glorious glow of the absolutely certain high ground while looking at his father. 

He wants to exorcise the memory of a fearful man who controlled his life for 17 years by instead facing him with the full knowledge that he has no control over Adam whatsoever. 

And as to the rest: shit, man. Even if your parents beat the crap out of you, it can be hard to make the decision to walk away completely. The voices whisper that maybe it wasn’t that bad –

But Adam says what he came to say.

He came to see if he ever had parents. If, once he didn’t hate himself, they might be different. And guess what: he’s the only thing that changed. They didn’t. 

He fled that trailer last time he left. Like the scared kid he was. But now he just walks out, like the man he became.

So to me, that scene is about Adam coming back to the trailer to realize this about his past:

And this about his future:

And walking out as Adam Parrish, son of no one, only himself.

tl;dr: abuse is a complicated creature with many different roads to closure. Is what Adam does right? I can’t say that. Is what I think Adam did in that scene what you think he did in that scene? I can’t say that either.

But I reckon that’s what I was thinking when I walked him out that door for the last time.

urs,

Stiefvater

Adam Parrish makes people obsessed with him and then gets mad when they express concern for his wellbeing.

lowkey obsessed with my own blog. it has all my favorite things and all the opinions i agree with. best place on the internet maybe ever

✨Pretty floor mosaics✨

Ok guys I’m gonna be honest there’s a LOT of Voltron but plz be aware I haven’t rlly used Tumblr

DERRY GIRLS (2018 - 2022) I Episode 3

i keep noticing most severance meta has a common appreciation towards helly's violence as a gateway to liberation (it's awesome, i agree!) but somehow all memes and conversation about dylan revolve around comic relief, his sigma grindset vibes in early season 1 (that are presented as a joke because haha, of course, he's fat, his outie doesn't win muscle shows, he thinks waffle parties are so cool, he thinks he's so great but the joke is that he's delusional)

but dylan also had a violent catalyst to class consciousness after the first blatant act of infantilization in defiant jazz, after he realized the shitty little office rewards were a bribe to keep him from finding out his outie has children, a family, and things he cares about that he's being denied. his outie severed because he can't hold down a job because of disabling mental illness, needs health insurance and wants to ease the financial load on his wife, who works night shifts. and you want him to get excited about two waffles?

dylan was radicalized through the you that you are right alongside mark. dylan chose to stay during the OTC against his start-of-the-season individualist characterization because he thought all of them deserved to know who they were. dylan asked for a portrait of all of MDR, knowing they might not come back, to keep him focused during the switch operation. dylan was the one to run after irving when he was clearly distressed (worried about financial insecurity, even subconsciously) and tried to keep him from committing suicide, he was the first person (and one of the very few so far) that acknowledged his relationship with burt as romantic and in a positive light. dylan requested the a funeral and gave an eulogy even when he wasn't sure he could trust helly (and it's helly's agreement that makes him trust her) and calling out how shitty mark was for not even acknowledging lumon killed irving because both mark and himself fucked up? dylan immediately worried about gretchen's happiness when they meet. dylan asked her if it was okay to hug, he acknowledged his outie's relationship with his wife and his own sadness about the situation without shifting the blame onto gretchen herself, and basked in the genuine love he got in return.

do you know how big these things are for someone with a history of relentless self deprecation for not being able to financially provide (in a show where family and material relations are constantly intertwined)? how it manifests in the way innie dylan engages with rewards as proof of accomplishment, how big it was when he noticed they are not?