The Raven Boys / The Dream Thieves

One thing I genuinely think the fandom forgets or underestimates is just how weird Neil is. Like we paint him to be this carismatic, flashy, cocky bad boy, but in reality he's stingy, skittish, balks at anything more personal then his thoughts on Exy and Cannot for the life of him socialize. Like in the Raven King, right after Seth dies, he straight up goes:

"Neil had to patch things up with [Allison] somehow, but he didn't know where to start. He'd never been good at winning people over. Someone like Allison wasn't likely to be his first success. "

Neil's spent his life living on the outskirts of "average" life. Ergo, he's cagey and flighty and so far removed from normal that even among the Foxes he'll always be a little unpredictable and odd. And you know what, good for him; we all deserve an antisocial introverted asshole to raly behind.

hi raven cycle fandom

(second, third)

render practice with joseph "homotron 5000" kavinsky

actually can’t wait to see the graphic novel design for K

i have a problem BECAUSE HEARTBREAK HIGH X THE RAVEN CYCLE CROSSOVERS ARE MAKING ME GO FUCKING CRAZY AND I HAVE NO ONE TO TALK TO ABOUT THIS (this shit is full of shit and long, but hmo)

I am talking about Cash & Chook = Ronan & Kavinsky parallels, you see

Chook & Kavinsky are pretty obvious, i think. Both are from fucked up families, we can assume both are from families with drug problems and overall substance abuse. They both were kids whose fate was pretty much laid infront of them to follow.

Ronan and Ca$h, also pretty fucked up families, parents gone, not many people from family to lean on, choosing found families, choosing to get better. (word of the day) Also both, are connected to self harming in a way or another.

We also have the scene in HBH where Woodsy calls Chook by his real name (Michael Cooper) and Chook shouts

"That's not my name!"

I am aware this is very subtle and on the border of overanalyzing (and might just be the characters whose pov Kavinsky was told from) but not a single character in trc has called Kavinsky only by his first name (hear me out now)

Later on when Chook and Cash are stuck in the middle of the lake we get to know how Ca$h got his name, Chook saying that he gave Ca$h his name. So I can only assume Chook also gave himself a name. Maybe to be separated as a person from the person he was before.

How we get to Kavinsky is that maybe Kavinsky is all the same, separating his own persona from him by only using his family name.

Getting to other parallels, (now remember Ronan = Cash)

We don't know shit about details (whats that? never heard?) but we can assume.

Chook was the one who helped Ca$h before Nan was in the picture, gave Ca$h a name, a place, a family (more or less), a place to belong

Kavinsky offered all the same, obviously we know that there was some sexual attraction and tension and just Kavinsky pining. But Kavinsky asked Ronan to be one of his, offered Ronan a place to belong, where Ronan could shamelessly be himself. Kavinsky saw all of Ronan what Gansey didn't want to know and acknowledge, that Ronan could be the same as Kavinsky and is the same as Kavinsky, dangerous, destructive, the list goes on.

Ca$h, young Ca$h didn't have anyone else than Chook, but then he did. Then he did have Darren, Harper, Quinni, Amerie, all of them. There isnt such a difference. Kavinsky doesn't have anything else (worth staying for, it seems) but Ronan has Gansey, has Gangsey.

Chook had chosen his lifestyle, Cash even offered Chook that he could change too, Chook declined and said that its his shit. He chose his future.

Kavinsky, too, had chosen his lifestyle, or maybe either of them couldn't think that they could get away from it. He chose his fate, by not getting down and getting killed by his own demon. It was his shit.

So back to the lake scene, now paralleling the last dreaming day and 4th of July.

Let me put these two scenes here, first from TRC

---

The difference between us and Kavinsky, Gansey whispered in Ronan’s head, is we matter.

“You don’t fucking need him,” Kavinsky said.

Ronan released the parking brake.

---

Chook: Look can we stop fucking about please. You're one of us. So why don't we just cut the shit and get back to how things were?

Cash: You don't get it, I can't.

Both, at the end refused to get back to whatever it was they had, they chose to get better.

While Chook & Kavinsky didn't. (yes im repeating this because theres so so so so so many times Ronan offered a possibility to Kavinsky and Kavinsky didn't take it because he couldn't have Ronan anyway (Cash wasn't that hopeful and asked only once))

Now, there's (still the lake) scene where Chook talks about how it was "me, who took care of you, me who.. , me me me." and theres Kavinsky, who taught Ronan how to dream.

More lines !

---

Cash: I haven't been taken in by some other world. I just saw ours for what it was. And it made me sick.

--

Going to how Cash and Ronan both, realised that the world they lived/could've chosen is not good. Is the wrong way and leads to more harm than good.

To the last part.

Cash telling Chook that he'd rather be dead than come back to Chook, go back to the world he now despises, (or always has.)

There's the way that Chook breaks when he hears that. The blinks his tears away, nods, gulps, sniffs, turns away and grunts, spits, acting fine. Tries the boat again and says, "Guess I just needed to show it a bit of love."

Now I haven't been able to actually get full sense of that line yet, but theres a deeper meaning to that (which rlly fucking annoys me that i dont know) But theres also Kavinsky when Ronan leaves the new dreamt up Camaro, hitting air, turning around, threatening, his voice shifting, expressing his feelings with rage but still hiding them. Like Chook did.

I'm aware there's probably many stories like this with character's like these, but their actions too, their personalities (not Ronan and Cash so much but I can see a (canon) Kavinsky variant in Chook, both running around with their pack of dogs.)

Anyway if you're as fucked as me and read this through, lmk what you think, (i repeated the same things over and over again but spare me)

ahhh what would happen if i unironically read rovinsky fics? is that punishable by death?

fourth of july fall out boy is rovinsky and fourth of july by sufjan stevens is adansey thank you for coming to my tedtalk

I don't think you understand how much Jean referring to Neil as Nathaniel has effected me emotionally.

Neil saying ‘I didn’t think it was a personal problem’ between Andrew and him even after Andrew drugs him, vows to protect him from the mafia, gives him the keys to his home, runs his fingers over his uncovered torso and covers his mouth because he can’t bear to hear him speak so passionately, what did bro think this was, a business exchange?

Don’t get me wrong, I think Andrew calling Neil Rabbit is cute, but I don’t really like it. And this is absolutely no hate to anyone who does. It’s a cute pet name but I think it means something completely different for them. Andrew only calls Neil a rabbit because of his tendency to run away from his problems, and I think he only ever calls Neil rabbit like twice maybe in the whole series (Correct me if I’m wrong) and only when Neil gets flighty. It’s not an endearment, it’s an accusation and an insult honestly. Andrew literally says, "Remember this feeling. This is the moment you stop being a rabbit.” As in he trust Neil not to take off because Andrew’s got him. It wouldn’t make sense for Andrew to call Neil any variant of rabbit because that’s not what Neil is to him anymore.