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astudyinfreewill · 4 years

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What do you think of Blue? I actually dislike her but thats cool if you dont!

i actually quite like blue!!

but i should qualify that it’s not uncritical and unconditional: yes, i like blue as a character, while having problems with her character arc; and i like blue as a “person”, but i have issues with some of the iffy stuff she does.

i just feel like the key word for blue, ironically, is “potential”. the blue we meet in trb had a lot of promise... that isn’t necessarily followed through on in the other books.

some of the problems i have with blue’s character arc:

first of all... what character arc?

no, seriously. we are told from the start that she wants something different, something special, something more. but... does she get it?

blue is set up to be the “protagonist” of trb, but she gets quickly sidelined in favour of characters with more active storylines (ronan and adam both have plot-heavy story arcs, but even gansey arguably gets more development than her, even if it’s just dying and being reborn)

which is... bitterly ironic for a character whose main magical power is to support others’ powers (there’s nothing wrong with supporting others, but there’s something very annoying when the only female character in the group is stuck with a magical version of ~emotional support~ for the male characters around her)

i had high hopes for her -- and i mean, buzzing-with-excitement high hopes -- when gwenllian introduced the whole “mirrors are witches” plot thread... which went absolutely nowhere (but i know that stiefvater was struggling with serious health issues while writing the raven king, so... i’m gonna give it a pass).

we find out that she is literally half-tree... and nothing else gets done with that. like, that’s why she loves trees... i guess...?

even her more “ordinary” dreams, like going to college and studying conservation/ecology, are kind of nixed by the end? she basically gets told by the narrative, “yeah but you have two rich boyfriends now, you can just travel with them”. and while i’m all for blue spending the shit out of gansey’s republican money, that’s not quite satisfying from a narrative point of view.

in short, blue has a ton of untapped potential -- she is truly the page of cups -- and in another world, we get a book where she’s free to explore her tir e e’lintes heritage, to discover her actual powers as a witch, and to follow her dreams. in this world, that’s not the book we got, and at this point i’m kind of beyond caring, because both ronan and adam have been given far more compelling story arcs that i am actually invested in.

now, as for blue as a “person”, or rather as a character, irrespective of story arc... blue is far from perfect. that’s actually not a problem for me - she’s not always a great person, which makes her a great character. blue is brave, generous, kind, accepting, resourceful, smart, curious; but blue is also hypocritical, dishonest, impulsive, and opportunistic.

the negatives don’t erase the positives: humans are flawed, and a flawed character is realistic. but i feel like the problem with this fandom is that often it does the opposite -- it erases the negatives to only focus on blue’s positives, which essentially turns her into a manic pixie dream girl, and even more of an accessory to the boys’ development.

see, i don’t want blue’s negative traits to magically disappear; it would be nice if she could grow and improve on some of them, but since personal growth is a gruelling, time-consuming process, i would have settled for her reaching self-awareness of her mistakes and taking accountability for them... which unfortunately the narrative never gives us (again, lots of stuff happening in the raven king, written and re-written in difficult circumstances -- i have accepted it; it’s just still kind of disappointing, is all).

some of the problems i have with blue’s character:

blue’s feminism is performative at best and damaging at worst, as i have discussed at length in this post. please note: this is not uncommon or unrealistic for a teenage girl. but i wish she had been given a chance to work on it, by bonding with one - one - female character she’s not related to. hell, even orla would be a start.

blue has a lot of internalised classism -- which, again, is realistic; adam has a lot too. the difference is he gets to acknowledge and analyse it, even though he clearly hasn’t overcome it yet. we see blue have a lot of resentment for rich people while at the same time subconsciously looking down on the “wrong kind” of poverty (adam’s) and she never reflects on that bias. we have so many discussions in adam’s pov of how he both envies and resents rich boys, yet in the end he comes to realise that even though he thought he wanted to be one of them, in reality he doesn’t want the kind of superficial, oppressive, entitled life they live.

meanwhile, the only “enlightenment” blue reaches in the final book is that oh hey, she actually kind of likes rich people (the same begrudging awareness adam had pre-series and then outgrew) and in fact she’s fine with hanging out with them. blue, babe, i hate to break it to you, but you have been hanging out with them for 4 books and loving it... how is this a revelation?!

and last but not least, the hot topic: blue’s treatment of adam. blue refused over and over to be honest with him about the curse; actively cheated on him -- both emotionally, with gansey, and literally, with noah -- yet refused to break up with him; and when he finally confronted her, reacted not with honesty but by getting angry and trying to turn the issue around on him and how much he liked gansey (see above: hypocrisy)

now, again: this is not unrealistic or ooc. it’s bad behaviour, but it doesn’t make blue a bad character, nor overall a bad person. it’s something that could have happened and she could have moved on from... the issue, again, is that she never reflects on this. her immediate reaction is to start seeing gansey behind adam’s back, and neither of them tell adam the truth until they are basically forced to

essentially, blue runs into the same issue that gansey does: they’re good, but flawed, people, who are very bad at self-reflection, and so never quite understand why they’re hurting the people around them. i can buy that. i can love a character in spite of it. my issue is that the narrative lets them get away with it. and perhaps that’s just due to time-constraints and the fact that there is more of a focus on adam and ronan’s growth -- but it leaves gansey and blue as characters who never fulfill their potential. and while that doesn’t mean i dislike them, it means that unfortunately i just don’t care as much.

#this got long sorry!#blue sargent #trc #meta #mp #anonymous #answer #my meta

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ragesingoddess · 4 years

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Pynch rwrb au

Gansey is the first son of the United States. Adam is his best friend, and also his counselor. He lives with Gansey in the white house (only because he works there; he only accepted after he had graduated and had a reason to stay there)

Before that Adam lived in a small apartment that he was barely able to afford. Gansey of course tried countless times to pursade him to move in with them but Adam was having none of it.

Now Ronan, is the prince of Wales. He hates his brother Declan and after his father (the king) was killed mysteriously his mother became a ghost.

Ronan has had a crush on Adam for 4 years now, ever since he saw him standing next to the fist son. He always thought that the boy looked different, kind of out of place but at the same time he was intrigued by his determined stare.

Adam now claims he hates the arrogant and cocky prince of Wales who keeps his hair buzzed to piss off his brother and got a secret tattoo when he was 16. (in reality tho he always found him pretty, different from the rest of nobles who claimed to care for the people and in reality did nothing to help those suffering.)

They meet at Declan's wedding. Adam is there with Gansey and Gansey's girlfriend, Blue. Ronan is drinking somewhere with Noah, trying to avoid talking with anyone that is not an absolute necessity.

At some point Gansey is off doing his fsotus work or something and Adam is alone and Ronan takes the opportunity to go over and talk to him.

They don't really hit it off. Adam is not willing to let go of his 'I hate the prince' nonsense and he replies to all of Ronan's messy to say the least attemptes to make conversation.

Ronan doesn't know how to communicate™ so he tries to connect with Adam by offending him the best he can. Adam loses his temper, goes to leave, ronan tries to grab his hand, Ronan fails to hold him back and boom. They just kind of destroyed the wedding cake.

It's kind of a mess after that. Gansey is absolutely freaking out because they did just destroy the royal wedding and fuck Adam this is not good for any of us and rumors are starting to rise about the hatred between the kids of the white house and the prince. So of course he makes Adam start a fake friendship with ronan

Ronan is kind of freaking out on his own bassicly. Declan made him accept of course. And well Ronan says yes its not like he cares, or anything. ("Shut the hell up, Noah.")

Long story short Adam comes to visit. Along with Gansey and blue. The do everything they are supposed to, public appearances and all. (Ronan even allows Adam to post a picture on Instagram)

And well Adam is surprised to find out that he doesn't really hate Ronan. And Gansey and blue also get along with Ronan well (Noah is absolutely as heck fangirling "Ronan I can't believe it. You actually made friends.")

They start talking a bit after. Ronan is actually using his phone which earns him a lot of freaked out stares and impossibly loud cries from Noah and Matthew. (Ronan is not only using his phone he is also smiling can you believe)

Slow burn and everything, Ronan is in love Adam is having a gay crisis™ and blue is making bets with Henry about how long will it take for Adam to figure it all out. (hanry can also be a politicians kid what do I know)

It happens on Ronan's birthday. They are all on the palace for the party and then they leave to go celebrate as a friend group and Adam is laughing and even singing karaoke with Ronan who also happens to have a stupid grin on his face. Ronan kisses him when they return to the palace. They stayed outside while the others went to sleep, and Adam looked at him with his burning blue gaze and Ronan was kind of drunk but not drunk enough to not know what he was doing.

Ronan gets inside leaving Adam freaking out alone outside for a solid two hours.

Their flight is scheduled early the best day. Ronan does not show up.

Back on the white house everything is crisis. Adam is freaking out full on rambling on gansey, Henry and blue and trying to make him get his shit together and call Ronan.

Adam does. Ronan does not reply.

When they meet again at a charity event on the white house Adam shoves Ronan into his room and kisses his brains out.

They don't talk about what they are for a while. They make out a lot and they obviously both like each other but they are also idiots. Blue is trying to get Adam's head out of his ass, Noah is trying to get Ronan to just talk with Adam but his feelings while gansey is totally oblivious ("You mean to tell me that all this time they have not been dating?)

Ronan shows Adam the secret forest he used to go as child hidden in the palace's back gardens. Adam tells Ronan about his past. Ronan kisses him.

Chaos ensues, lots of making out in the closets before gansey comes back, lots of blue rolling her eyes every time they bumb their knees together under the table.

Noah makes the group chat of course. And it's a mess. A beautiful mess, really.

Ronan is the one to actually say I love you first.

Adam panics. Not because he doesn't love him back but because his upbringing had lead him to question if he is capable of love in the first place. He freaks out. He doesn't say it back. He also stops responding to ronan's messages.

Ronan is angry. Not because Adam does not love him back but because he doesn't have the guts to speak to him and tell it on his face. He is also so in love with him it hurts and the thought that he possibly just lost him is enough to fuck his mind

Blue tells Adam to get his shit together. Henry agrees. Maybe gansey nods. Adam takes the first place and goes to England.

He tells Ronan about his family some more. The whole truth this time. He cries. Ronan tells him he is an asshole for believing that bullshit his parents tried to make him feel about himself. They kiss (maybe angry kiss a bit what do I know). Adam says I love you back)

From now I'll change it up a bit, because I can

Ronan and Adam don't exchange emails so they don't get exposed. But the rumors start rising because they appear together more and more publicly and in intimate short of ways.

Adam panics. The last thing he wants is to mess up Gansey's mothers campaign. Gansey tells him he doesn't care. If he is really sure about this they will find a way to deal with this in the best possible way. He cares more about Adam than he does about politics. (also Gansey's mom isn't like Alex's. In my headcanon she is not even that dedicated to the cause. Adam cares though. Adam believes they can make a change.)

Ronan does. Not. Care.

Declan is NOT homophobic (Jesus can we stop portraying him as an asshole) he just wants what is best for Ronan, his image and the kingdom. Ronan tells him he is sure. Declan questions his choices (he has his reasons, hive him a break) but he goes along with it.

They don't exactly 'announce' anything. It's not their style. But they don't deny anything either, and when Adam is Ronan's plus one in the single random ass gala he was forced decided to actually go, no one questioned it at all.

Gansey's mother gets elected again. Adam is still Gansey's main counselor. He also just finished his masters and is finally accepting his role and his importance in the white house.

Adam also drives Ronan to Henrietta, to show to him where he was raised. But it's not only the place where the trailer park was. It was also the place where Adam learned to fight for himself, the place where he learned that hard work is the only way to get you where you want to be, the place where he met gansey and blue, the place where he learned to hope. And maybe Adam thinks, as Ronan is kissing his knuckles, some day, he may be coming back.

(i posted this a few months ago as a response to a headcanon but ive been thinking about it lately so im posting it again.)

#pynch #pynch headcanons #raven boys #red white and royal blue #adam x ronan #Adam Parrish #ronan lynch #richard gansey #blue sargent #henry cheng #noah czerny #Trc

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naometry · 4 years

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Ronan and his hero journey

Alternatively: if Gansey is the Arthurian knight in the shining armor type or hero Ronan is the tragic one.

THERE WILL BE SPOILERS FOR CALL DOWN THE HAWK

“Once the spear was uncovered, it wouldn't matter if the hero's truest love or family was in the room with him; the spear would kill them anyway. Killing was what it was good at, and so killing was what it did...The spear, Dad told me, was him...He told me to make sure Ronan was the name of the hero, and not the name of just another spear.” – The Raven King

As we all well know, Maggie’s books have a lot of mythology and history in them. Varying from Glendower, Gwenllian and Boudicca to some less obvious ones, like king Arthur and his knights, the holy grail, to Fionn Mac Cumhaill, Fintan mac Bochra and finally, the one that I would like to talk about, because this is the journey that Ronan mirrors.

Cu Chulainn.

Before we start, beware that this will be quite long and I’m going with The Raven Cycle and Dreamer Trilogy timeline, more or less.

Cu Chulainn is part of the Irish/Celt mythology in the Ulster cycle. Cu is a demigod, son of a mortal woman – Deichtine, the sister of Conchobar, the king of Ulster and one of the most important gods in the Irish mythology - Lugh. In a very very very short version – this is the most popular version, there are others –: Deichtine was missing for three years with fifty maidens with her. They were turned into murderous birds that devoured everything on sight, so Conchobar and his warriors hunted them but were hit by a snow storm. They found a house and asked for shelter. In this house there was a woman and a man. The man was Lugh and the woman Deichtine. Lugh fucked off as soon as the morning his, leaving Deichtine with a child to take care of. A very powerful child.

It all depends on the source you’re reading really, but the most common version (at least that I know of, please keep in mind that mythology has different interpretations/versions depending on the source material) is that Lugh wanted an avatar to bore his power on the mortal real. In certain ways, we can say that Cu Chulainn is, in fact, Lugh reborn. Here is a Wikipedia small passage of him: “Lugh is portrayed as a warrior, a king, a master craftsman and a savior. He is associated with skill and mastery in multiple disciplines, including the arts. He is also associated with oaths, truth and the law, and therefore with rightful kingship.”

Does this story sound familiar?

Be it as it may, Lugh won. He got what he wanted in the end, an avatar on earth that bore the same power he had and then he is gone. Which is exactly what happened with Ronan. Niall got his dreamer, Niall is gone. Ronan was left to whoever wanted him and had the patience to be there for him. Who turned out to be just like Cu in the myth: Cu had Deichtine, Conchobar and Deichtine new husband, just like the warriors that where with Conchobar in that day. Ronan had Aurora, Ronan had Declan, Ronan had Matthew and later on, the Gangsey.

Well, speeding up ahead:

Just like Ronan wasn’t born Greywaren, Cu Chulainn also wasn’t born Cu Chulainn. His actual name was Setanta. Cu Chulainn is actually a title-kind-of thing. Cu Chulainn does in fact mean “The Hound of Culann”. Almost like Ronan “Gansey’s dog” Lynch.

The name was given to him because, at six years old, Cu Chulainn – part of the boy-corps at the time and already better them they all together, thanks to Lugh’s heritage – was invited to a banquet at one of the most famous smiths at Ulster, Culann.

Conchobar, who was the one to invite Setanta, forgot he was coming. So, Culann ordered that the hound of the house - who he said had the strength of a hundred men - to be freed to patrol the outside. As Setanta arrives the hound attacks him. And the boy, at the tender age of six, kills the dog smashing his head into a rock after throwing a ball so hard into the dog’s mouth that he mortally wounded it. As gruesome as this one is, Ronan’s new name is considerably less bloody. He too could have the power to do miracles that comes from heritage.

After all, what is Cabeswater if not a miracle that gave Ronan his new name?

But this is not exactly how the name “Hound of Culann” is given. Do you know why is that?

Because Setanta promised to guard Culann’s propriety until they could get a new dog. And so he did.

Many thieves, one greywaren, right? Many guard dogs, only one worth of Culann’s hound title.

Life went on, Cu Chulainn keeps getting more and more impossible things done until the point that some people just… got quite enough of him.

The thing with Cu Chulainn is that even with all the demigod fuckery, there were still warriors that could match him, in one way or another. Just like there is more than one dreamer and they all excel at different things.

What made Cu special on itself is a different thing. Ríastrad – the battle frenzy berserker mode that had his body contort in unnatural shapes and distorting him to the point of being unrecognizable as a human. This alone doesn’t seem much but when you put it along a few lines in Call Down the Hawk that I found specially interesting, it can be something else.

“It was The Dark Lady, the painting that had taken them hours upon hours upon hours to copy for the Fairy Market, but with Hennessy’s face and throat and knuckle tattoos. A perfect and cunning forgery, as good as theirs. No. Better. Because it oozed with the same magnetic, otherworldly desire that the original had and that their copy had missed. This was not a real-world copy of a dream. This was a dream of a dream. Perfect. Beyond perfect.”

Now, I’m not sure if the wording here is intentional or not but it seems to me that it means to be taken as Ronan’s version of The Dark Lady is a better of version of Nialls.

And then:

“And how would you know? Did you see the painting he did? Out of his head? It took him no time at all, maybe even better than the original Dark Lady. He said he might be able to do something just for you. You didn’t even let him try.”

Ronan might very well be a better dreamer than Niall. Is a better dreamer than Hennesy until this point – this can change along the series, so I’m not putting my hand on the fire for it yet – and is also an arguably better dreamer than Kavinsky, if you take in consideration the amount of tries he needed to get the Mitsubishi vs amount of tries that we are shown that Ronan needs to get the Camaro as stated in The Dream Thieves:

“Yours. I practiced, man!” Kavinsky gestured broadly to the field of Mitsubishis. “You see all these losers? It took me months to get it right. Look at that bitch!”

Now, this doesn’t mean in any way that Kavinsky is a bad dreamer or inferior dreamer or anything like that. Kavinsky actually is possibly on par with Niall but sadly we won’t be able to measure if because they are both so very dead. Niall exceled at the originals, like Robobee, The Dark Lady and another myriad of dream objects we see him with at some point or another. Kavinsky exceled at copies. He prided himself as a forger, as it also said in The Dream Thieves. I would even go a little further, maybe, and say that they also have another point in common in their dreams – creating life. BUT Aurora is not a perfect copy of Mor O Corra (and I can’t even say if this is deliberate or not so let’s leave this one open) while Prokopenko, on the very little we saw of him on The Dream Thieves, seems perfectly human. He is K’s favorite forgery, after all.

The thing with Ronan is that he can do both /and/ more. The thing with Ronan is that he had Cabeswater and then Lindenmere.

Which, tied with K, are the next point here.

Now, going back to Cu Chulainn’s story, Cu fell in love with a woman called Emer. Emer’s father, Forgall, wasn’t very happy with the idea that they could come to marry and probably would if he didn’t do something. Which is, in fact, very fair because Cu isn’t exactly a nice guy. He killed quite a lot of people, he is cocky, he is young and he is arrogant because he knows he is gifted and nothing will stand in his way if he puts his mind into it. Forgall calls him “the madman from Emain Macha”.

It does sound kind of familiar, doesn’t it? Even if it’s in a less tragic/dramatical way. Cu is in a path that has absolutely no other outcoming than self-destruction if he goes on like this. Here is why:

Another nice or not so nice thing about Cu is that at seven, Cu overhears the magician Cathbad – it’s nice to notice that not all scholars seem to agree in the term magician, some use wizard too. The important fact is that he is a druid and he makes prophecies. He is also the guy who gave Setanta Cu Chulainn as a name/title thing.

Anyway, Cathbad makes a prophecy for his students: any warrior that decided to pick up arms and armature would have his name to transcend all other Ireland’s youths BUT this warrior would also die really young. Can you guess what Cu, at the peak of his seven years do right? He goes on to Conchobar and asks for arms and armor. Now, Cu at seven was already a fucking menace and no arms were match to his strength. So Conchobar goes ahead and gives his own arms to Cu.

You can probably guess what I’m equaling Conchobar’s arms with right? Yeah, you guessed it. This is Cabeswater. A very dangerous thing in the hands of a teenager.

Now, going back to Cathbad prophecy, we know that K and Ronan are mirrors yeah? And that Kavinsky is what would have happened to Ronan if he didn’t choose different yeah? (Also correct me if I’m mistaken but I think it’s also said somewhere that dreamers tend to die young.)

But Kavinsky is a lot more than Ronan 2.0, he just has the same formula of a teenage dreamer with lots of trauma. They are not even close to be the same person. So, I present you the idea of Ferdia.

As I said before, Forgall didn’t really want Cu to marry his daughter so he proposes a plan to Conchobar – why Cu Chulainn doesn’t go ahead and train with Scathach? He would come back stronger and better right?

This is the time where you’re very welcome to slap me for giving this much information in a back and forth way but please bear with me I’m trying very hard to it all understandable without seeming too crazy. Just crazy is actually ok, thanks.

Now, Scathach is also part of the Ulster Cycle just like Cu. Known as the shadow maid, she is a warrior who excels at martials arts and in the use of the lance. She is, in fact, one of the most fearsome warriors of the Ulster Cycle and known to be a really good teacher. Scathach lived in Dun Scaith which more or less translates as Fortress of the Shadows/Castle of the Shadows. For you to be taught by Scathach, the first trial was to get in her home and then survive her training. It wasn’t even remotely unheard-of people dying under her tutelage and this was Forgall’s hopes for Cu.

Now, here I think it’s one of the most interesting parts. Cu has A LOT of fuckery going on in Scathach’s training that doesn’t matter much on the meta so let’s get to the parts where K is:

Kavinsky kind of fills a double role here – he has a little of Scathach as in: just like Cu kicks out her metaphorical door and demands that she teach him. (Among other things, but those are not important and this is already LONG).

Which is what happened with K yeah? Ronan learned what he needed with him and then fucked right off to nicer places.

Another interesting bit is that at the time she was teaching Cu, Scathach, as the warrior she is, was at war with her twin sister, Aife. Fearing for Cu’s life in the war, she gave him a sleeping potion so he wouldn’t go around and get himself killed.

While K motives weren’t nearly as nice as Scathach this happened too. Kavinsky repeatedly puts Ronan to sleep in order to teach him how to properly dream. Even if his properly dream is Kavinsky style – which we learn latter that his not the best way to dream for Ronan but that’s not the point I’m going for.

Long story short, Cu wakes up, defeats Aife, makes a son on her (this will be important afterwards, I promise) and fucks off to keep learning with Scathach.

Fits of parts of what happened between them yeah?

So here comes the next role K fills and this one he fills fully and not just partially – Ferdia.

Ferdia was also under Scathach’s tutelage and was the best friend – also depending of the source lover too – and during to the circumstances of the war with queen Medb which again, are not important here – he ends up battling against Ferdia. For better or worse, they were there for each other for quite a long time and loved each other a lot, until Ferdia’s and Cu’s circumstances and choices differed and they end up in different sides of battle.

Now, they battled for three days, until Ferdia got the upper hand, even with Cu Chulainn in his battle frenzy monstruous state. Ferdia had the advantage of an armor that was impossible to pierce so he called for Gae Bolg (which we will, again, talk later about) and as Ferdia heard of it, he made a mistake – leaving his chest open. Cu throws a spear at him which makes him distracted and then impales him with Gae Bolg,

While the situation is not exactly the same, Ronan and Kavinsky had a battle that was a lot like that. Kavinsky had Matthew, who Ronan loves more them himself and they battle for the right of it. Until Kavinsky gets tired. Until Kavinsky let things get out of control and commits suicide. As in:

“A second later, the fire dragon exploded into Kavinsky. It went straight through him, around him, flame around an object. Kavinsky fell.”

Again, I think Cu and Ronan are mirrors, so they don’t follow the exact same path neither the exact same formula. But I still think this is the right path to think about his journey.

Then we get to the demon, to being unmade, to Matthew, to Lindenmere and how both Ronan and Cu Chulainn hold the war for enough time until the enemy can be defeated.

This piece of Cu’s story happens both before and after Ferdia’s battle so please bear with my lengthy explanations.

First of all: the demon and how it ties to being unmade, to Matthew and the similarities is bores with the ríastrad. When the war with Medb started, the Ulster warriors were cursed – for the lack of a better word – and they couldn’t fight.

So, Cu Chulainn fights for them. During months he invoked the right of single combat with Medb’s warriors. Which is basically what he does with the demon during quite some time. And in the process he ends up being unmade. Now, the process of being unmade is described to being gruesome and violent into Ronan’s body.

He is dying after all.

And it all happens because he is special. To Ronan, it happens because he is very deeply tied to Cabeswater, he made it, he is the first one that needs to go if the demon wants to win the war. Which is basically what happens to Cu too. Medb’s warriors tried every dirty trick in the book to take Cu out and he fought until he couldn’t to hold them.

Ronan (and Adam, but this meta is about Ronan) hold him down until they all can come up with a solution, until their win is possible. (The nightwash is a similar thing to being unmade, which also, again, happens because Ronan is Ronan, because Ronan is a dreamer, because Ronan has a big gift, sometimes too big for him.)

He is special, his gift is special, they both can do it.

So they did.

Which leads to Matthew and Conla, Cu’s son. While Ronan didn’t really meant to dream up Matthew and Cu for sure did meant for Aife to become pregnant with his son, the similarities are quite lengthy.

Cu Chulainn killed his own son and it was his fault. There is no way around it. He himself made Aife promise that Conla wouldn’t identify himself, that he wouldn’t deny any battle and that Conla would search for him. Conla did search for Cu and in a truth “the apple doesn’t fall far from the three” fashion he goes around wreaking havoc exactly like young Cu did, until Cu himself comes to battle him. As he couldn’t refuse any duel, Conla and Cu battled until Cu killed him with Gae Bolg,

Ronan, during a very long time, also didn’t know Matthew was his dream. They were brothers, how could Matthew be a dream? But Matthew is and Ronan almost kill him too in his battle with the demon. And now in Call Down the Hawk we see Ronan, once again, for some reason or another, is influencing his dreams. They all search for the riverside yeah?

Do you all know what else had a deep connection with rivers?

Gae Bolg.

How Gae Bolg is used depends a lot of your source material but the most widely known version is that Gae Bolg is a spear made from the bones of a sea monster. It’s a spear that divides itself in thirty barbs and it’s thrown with a foot. It’s a terrifying weapon that if it strikes you, there is no chance of getting out alive. But it has a condition: it can only be used in streams. Now, if Cabeswater was the first weapons Cu Chulainn used as a young boy, Lindenmere is Gae Bolg. Lindenmere is dangerous, it’s wild and it’s unpredictable.

Just like Gae Bolg, there is little chance of you scaping alive if it strikes.

As Ronan himself put:

“I let Lindenmere be more of itself, whatever it was in that other place.”

“And what it is over there is dangerous.”

“Dangerous things can protect themselves,” Ronan said.

Now if Ronan and being unmade and unmaking Matthew where tied to the first weapons Cu wielded, doesn’t seem too farfetched to say that Lindenmere and the riverside problem with the dream things is connected yeah?

Another similarity is the geasa. But this one is already on CDTH:

Even the most invincible heroes could be trapped by conflicting geasa. The mighty Hound of Ulster, one of the boys’ favorite heroes, had a geis to never eat dog (“Shame,” Niall said, “it’s very tasty.”) and a geis to never refuse hospitality, and so when he was offered dog meat by a host, what other choice had he but to spiral into tragedy?

One of Ronan geis is that he can’t stop dreaming. And what is the other? Adam? Declan? Matthew? Geasa means taboo, so what is that Ronan needs to do? Or can’t do? I’m dying to know.

Also you all want to know another funny thing? Cu Chulainn was so ferocious in battle that absolutely no one dared to go ahead and verify is he was really dead. Do you all know how they knew?

Because a raven sat on his shoulder and drank his blood 😊

Please take this meta with a grain of salt, because this is my own interpretation of the story, of Ronan’s journey and my own studies in mythology in general. It’s totally possible I’m reaching a little bit too far too but who knows, right?

Also, I have absolutely no idea of why I wrote this or where I wanted to go with it. I just think the parallels are quite neat, if they are indeed true to Maggie’s (quite numerous, that’s what tipped me off) discreet mentions of Cu Chulainn along her books.

So yeah, hit me up if you wanna talk or something?

#the raven cycle #trc #ronan lynch #the raven boys #the dream thieves #blue lily lily blue #cdth meta #joseph kavisnky #call down the hawk #cdth #trc meta #idk how to tag #mom come pick me up I'm scared #also #I'm not a native speaker so there will be plenity of mistakes #but alas #CDTH #CDTH theories

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little-panem · 4 years

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RAMBLE ON RONAN’S 18th BIRTHDAY

okay, so I might make this post in two takes cause it’s late and i’m tired, but i need to get this out of my system. it’s just that the other night i couldn’t sleep and i just started rambling about that whole scene and off the depth of it all, the implications of it all!!

first off: ronan used his phone to gather them all, two phone calls and a text, he really needed them all there wow i love my boy. and then adam gets to the barns and he’s just so confused all the time by how that place makes him feel and how if he wanted one day he could live in a place like that (!!!). like. omg. pls. good sir, maybe that belonging you feel isn’t just because of the place, sweetheart, but we’ll get there, eventually.

then adam arrives at the house and that first interaction with ronan? breathtaking. heartwarming. like the coziness of it all, how familiar it feels, a happy yet feral ronan taking a pause just to admire adam parrish? yes sir. i think that’s the moment ronan makes up his mind and decides that maybe it’s time to try something with parrish, cause hot damn, maybe life isn’t so shitty after all!

and when adam gets sent to look for the tin foil and gets all excited to just be able to wander all around that house? how he yearns to belong, just like everything in that house? i need to take a break.okay i’m back. then he find’s niall and aurora’s bedroom and he just stares at that picture of the two of them, so happy and wild and niall is so handsome and he looks so much like ronan and have you seen how happy they look? the longing comes back, or maybe it isn’t that, so weird, but did you notice how handsome niall lynch was? how much ronan looks like him? and adam doesn’t understand anything, what’s going on????

then we (adam) get to ronan’s room and it’s so ronan it fucking hurts. like, this is /ronan/, no trauma, no dead father, just his room full of dreams, before the nightmares came. and look, a model car that plays music, of course, cause ronan is just like that. but it brings memories back, don’t worry, I won’t talk about it. shit. adam needs to sit. everything is just so confusing, why is he feeling like that? Is that niall on the door? no, just ronan. Half light half darkness, guess that’s just how it is. it suits him, tho.

white sheets and ronan comes and sits besides him. and as he studies his model car adam just looks at him, as always, and his eyelashes, as always. now you can feel it, the tension, how it builds up. and then ronan does it! he kisses adam! and the storm analogy comes on and just woah, can you believe???? adam already knew, he knew ronan had a crush on him, feelings even, and he knew sometimes he lead them on those feelings, but he wasn’t playing after all. did he, too, have those same feelings? oof. and then they kiss again and adam feels it in more than his lips. oh boi. and ronan keeps his eyes closed cause if he opens them the whole moment might vanish!

what is the highest place you can get to on short notice with no wings? oh, yeah, a roof. is this the real life? is this just fantasy? ronan n. lynch really just kissed adam parrish wow how do you cope? such big feelings!!! i, too, would try and touch the sky. and then declan comes and Ronan is surrounded by dream lights cause that’s just how he is and he’s so happy!! look, ORBMASTER!! let’s go have some dinner.

and then the whole night for truth starts and they all know it has to, cause they’re some strange constellation and they trust and need each other so much. and blue and gansey are so intimate and then there’s ronan who just asked a BIG question and adam who already knows the answer but needs some time to process cause yeah, now he’s recieved enough love and seen some magic to understand some of the barns, but ronan lynch is the go big or go home of those two things, he’s literally /made/ of them! can adam really prove worthy of it all??

that’s where gansey boy comes in, always the wise, always the king. Adam desperately needs some guidance, cause even if they don’t fully get each other sometimes he just knows he can trust him on this, hell, he’s an old soul! and gansey is such a sweetheart, he catches it so fast, how adam /needs/ an answer, how he has put all his trust in him. so he just opens up. and then when adam just breaks it to him, what all these questions about love are about he’s just like “don’t break him, adam” cause he cares so much about these two boys, geez! of course you’re not an idiot, adam.

blue and gansey leave and it’s just him and adam. and he /needs/ an answer, now. and adam already knows, but he’s so desperately trying to figure out how this will all work. is he ready to be openly loved? is he capable of loving ronan as much as he deserves? so then ronan reaches out, “adam?” that’s it, that’s the breaking point. yes, he’s ready. yes, he’s capable of love. yes, he wants this.

ronan was never sleeping again.

#i'm so sorry this is so poorly written #like this is not how it first came out #but here we are and i just love these kids so much #pynch #trc #cdth #adam parrish #ronan lynch

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benoitblanc · 4 years

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books read in 2019

(given the state of things and how cooped up we all are, i thought i’d publish this rec list i forgot to publish at new year’s. hope people enjoy :) )

red queen by victoria aveyard (4 books + 5 short stories)

goodreads: 3.98

what it’s about: in a world where class is divided by the color of your blood, “red” mare barrow is thrown into the world of the “silvers”- nobility with silver blood and magical powers- and discovers her own deadly power.

good for fans of: the hunger games; renegades

shadow and bone by leigh bardugo (3 books)

goodreads: 4.07

what it’s about: when ravkan foot soldier alina starkov saves her best friend’s life with a power she doesn’t know she possessed, she’s taken to train with an elite force of magical fighters, but not all about their charismatic leader is as it seems.

good for fans of: throne of glass; red queen

six of crows by leigh bardugo (2 books) **

goodreads: 4.54

what it’s about: a gang of unlikely allies must work together to pull off an impossible heist. their reward? unimaginable riches, if they can get out alive...

good for fans of: harry potter; heroes of olympus

lovely war by julie berry

goodreads: 4.28

what it’s about: in 1940s europe, the goddess aphrodite tells the tales of two world war i romances in an attempt to save her own relationships.

good for fans of: the night circus; the guernsey literary and potato peel pie society

the folk of the air by holly black (3 books + one novella)

goodreads: 4.34

what it’s about: human jude, living in the world of the faeries with her sisters and parents’ murderer, must fight for the place she’s come to call home when embroiled in a web of spies and treachery.

good for fans of: a court of thorns and roses; monsters of verity

the eyre affair by jasper fforde (8 books) **

goodreads: 4.06

what it’s about: in an alternate 1980s england where literature is prized beyond all else, literary detective thursday next must work with classic characters to maintain order inside the pages of books.

good for fans of: neverwhere

the black witch by laurie forest (2 books)

goodreads: 4.21

what it’s about: when elloren, the magicless granddaughter of the fabled black witch, goes to school to become an apothecary, her worldviews and prejudices are turned upside-down.

good for fans of: the school for good and evil; shadow and bone

neverwhere by neil gaiman

goodreads: 4.17

what it’s about: when richard mayhew stops one night to help an injured young woman, he discovers a world underneath london full of magic, adventure, and terrible danger.

good for fans of: harry potter; thursday next

norse mythology by neil gaiman **

goodreads: 4.09

what it’s about: norse mythology. duh.

good for fans of: the song of achilles; magnus chase

caraval by stephanie garber (3 books)

goodreads: 4.13

what it’s about: for as long as they can remember, scarlett and tella have dreamed of participating in the legendary caraval circus, but they soon discover that the games may be more than they bargained for.

good for fans of: the night circus; renegades

the wheel of time by robert jordan (a ridiculous number of books. disclaimer i have only read the first one so far so it may all go to shit. unsure.)

goodreads: 4.19

what it’s about: when their town is plagued by attacks and disappearances, five teenagers journey with a witch and her stoic guard in order to save their home.

good for fans of: the lord of the rings; a song of ice and fire

the gentleman’s guide to vice and virtue by mackenzi lee (2 books)

goodreads: 4.14

what it’s about: when playboy aristocrat monty’s tour of europe is rudely interrupted by bandits, he, his sister felicity, and best friend percy find themselves on the run from the law.

good for fans of: six of crows; percy jackson

throne of glass by sarah j. maas (7 books + 5 short stories)

goodreads: 4.47

what it’s about: in a world without magic, assassin celaena sardothien is pulled from the slave camp of endovier and entered into a deadly contest to become the king’s champion.

good for fans of: the hunger games; the folk of the air

renegades by marissa meyer (3 books)

goodreads: 4.33

what it’s about: the renegades are a group of elite superheroes who stand as pillars of justice for everyone except nova, who wants revenge for her parents’ deaths. but when she infiltrates the renegade base, she’s forced to question everything she thought she knew.

good for fans of: shadow and bone; monsters of verity

circe by madeline miller **

goodreads: 4.28

what it’s about: circe is remembered as a villain, but time, history, and the greeks have not been kind to her true story.

good for fans of: percy jackson; neil gaiman’s norse mythology

the song of achilles by madeline miller**

goodreads: 4.33

what it’s about: exiled prince patroclus and achilles, the best warrior of the greeks, have loved each other since they were children, but a war and a prophecy threaten all they hold dear.

good for fans of: romeo and juliet; the night circus

the night circus by erin morgenstern **

goodreads: 4.04

what it’s about: magicians celia and marco have been engaged in a dangerous contest for years. their battleground is the extraordinary cirque des reves, only open at night. but when they fall in love, their lives- and the lives of everyone in the circus- are thrown into peril.

good for fans of: basically anything. magic + romance + victorian era + beautiful prose. please read this book.

the starless sea by erin morgenstern

goodreads: 4.09

what it’s about: when zachary ezra rawlins finds a mysterious book in his college library, he isn’t expecting to be drawn into the starless sea, a world where sentiment is dangerous, but love conquers all.

good for fans of: neverwhere

good omens by terry pratchett and neil gaiman **

goodreads: 4.25

what it’s about: armageddon is nigh. the armies of good and evil are preparing for war. but crowley and aziraphale, renegade demon and angel respectively, have grown quite fond of humanity. and someone seems to have misplaced the antichrist.

good for fans of: doctor who

the kingkiller chronicles by patrick rothfuss (2 books + one novella) **

goodreads: 4.56

what it’s about: when circus performer kvothe’s troupe is brutally murdered, he resolves to discover the truth about their deaths. his search leads him across the globe, to the most revered school for magic, to far-off kingdoms, but not far enough for his past to be unable to catch up with him.

good for fans of: harry potter; the lord of the rings

aristotle and dante discover the secrets of the universe by benjamin alire saenz

goodreads: 4.34

what it’s about: unlikely friends ari and dante navigate the unfamiliar worlds of friendship, identity, and romance.

good for fans of: simon vs. the homo sapiens agenda; the raven cycle

monsters of verity by victoria schwab (2 books)

goodreads: 4.16

what it’s about: in a world where monsters plague the streets of what used to be america, monster-hunter august and monster-supporter kate must team up in order to survive.

good for fans of: renegades; divergent

the guernsey literary and potato peel pie society by mary ann schaffer and annie barrows

goodreads: 4.16

what it’s about: when writer juliet begins to exchange letters with one of the residents of guernsey shortly after world war ii, she journeys to the island to research a book about the german occupation- but never expected to find a home.

good for fans of: the book thief; lovely war

the raven cycle by maggie stiefvater (4 books) **

goodreads: 4.23

what it’s about: blue sargent has always been told she will kill her true love. richard gansey has been searching for an ancient legend ever since his near-death as a child. when blue meets gansey and the rest of the raven boys, her life is changed forever.

good for fans of: percy jackson; the folk of the air

#arwen makes stuff #book recs #books

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sncwbaz · 4 years

Text

Shepard meets Gansey

| Carry On Countdown | Day 22 | 16 Dec 2019 | Fandom Crossover | ao3

AN: after meeting shepard in wayward son i literally couldn’t let go of the thought that he and gansey would make interesting pals, because in some ways they’re so similar. so, even though i feel like this is a very niche topic to write a fic on, and i feel like not many ppl would care about reading this, i couldn’t help but write a fic of shepard going to henrietta in search for magic and meeting gansey there. so that’s what this is. this clearly contains wayward son spoilers, even though it takes place before wayward son, it does have an actual spoiler in it revolving shepard. when it comes to spoilers for the raven cycle i feel like it only has mild spoilers for the first book? i honestly don’t know where in the raven cycle timeline this fic takes place.

•-•-•-•

300 Fox Way, Henrietta, Virginia. That’s where Shepard was headed.

Henrietta was a name that often came up when speaking of magic. It was a location known for the high magickal energy radiating off of the town, and its strange supernatural happenings. It also turned out to be a hotspot for the appearing of peculiar magical artefacts, though that was a business Shepard preferred to stay at a distance from.

Henrietta, though. Henrietta he wanted to give a closer look.

When doing his research on the town, he quickly stumbled on the address 300 Fox Way. The address being home to an abundance of psychic women, well known for their accuracy. If there was anyone able to point Shepard towards the magic of this town, he figured it must be them. Or at least that they would be a good starting point.

He didn’t know what to expect from the psychic’s home. When he’d called for an appointment, it had taken him quite some time to cut to the case with the lady who answered the phone. She kept trying to give him predictions over the phone, when really he wanted to talk with the women of 300 Fox Way in person. He hadn’t minded much, though. Regardless of most of the conversation being inapplicable to Shepard’s search, he was still very intrigued by all the lady had to say.

Shepard, perhaps, had expected a rather large house, as it was supposed to house many people, but he found the size of the house to be very average. What he definitely had not expected was the bright orange 1973 Camaro parked in front of the house. It seemed quite out of place in front of this average looking home. The general aesthetic of the car was also one he didn’t associate with psychics. Though, who was he to make that judgement?

The surprise didn’t stop at the orange car. When he knocked on the door, he was quickly greeted by a young man who couldn’t be older than Shepard, though his actual age was hard to pin down. The white boy whore an expensive looking, yellow polo and khaki shorts. Everything about him, from his clothes, to the way he held himself, to the way his hair his hair was perfectly in place screamed expensive.

“Hello, you must be here for an appointment,” he said, allowing Shepard in.

“Sure am,” Shepard said cheerily. He held out his hand and the guy shook it. “I’m Shepard, from Omaha, Nebraska.”

“I’m Gansey,” he said, his head tilted a little as he took Shepard in. “You’ve come a long way, Shepard.”

“Ah yes, I consider myself an explorer of anything magical, and will allow my search to take me anywhere” Shepard said.

Gansey perked up at this, “Do you perhaps know anything of supposedly long dead Welsh kings, asleep on ley lines?”

“I know of ley lines, I don’t know anything about what might be asleep on them.”

A glint of excitement showed in Gansey’s eyes. “Well—” he began, but he was cut off before he could start his story.

“Gansey!” A woman shouted from inside the house. Her voice so loud and intimidating that it fully filled the air around Shepard. Had Shepard not already been acquainted with actual furies, he might have been slightly frightened of this one. “Stop holding up our clients with your king!”

Gansey seemed to take no offence in this command and lead Shepard into what Shepard guessed served as the living room—though, later he discovered it also worked as the reading room.

Here he was greeted by a rather large company. This company consisted of three women: a very short one, one tall and willowy and weirdly faded around the edges, and the one woman who, by the looks of her, must be the one who’d shouted earlier. There was also a short girl, must be in her late teens, with hair that could act like a birds nest—it being just as chaotic, yet just as precisely put into place the way it was. She looked curious and fierce, like a true daughter of the house Shepard found himself in. Besides the female company and Gansey, there was also another young man. He had a shaved head, and was all sharp edges. He had a raven perched on his shoulder, which somehow didn’t look strange or out of place in this environment. Shepard was practically beaming at the peculiar picture that the six of them made.

“Hello, I’m Shepard from Omaha, Nebraska. I’m here for a reading.”

Everyone in the room stared at him. The three teens (were they teens?) seeming rather relaxed as they eyed him curiously—except for the guy with the raven, who looked cold and brutal. Though, Shepard decided that that must simply be his way of being. The three women, though, all gave him intense stares. Shepard couldn’t decide what exactly to make of their stares; they eyed him with a caution that he felt was very unnecessary. After all, he was only a simple guy coming by for a reading. How was he different from any other client they would have over?

“I called in for an appointment,” Shepard said, in the hope it would ease some tension in the women, but none of them loosened up.

“What are you?” The blonde woman asked, her voice was light and airy, yet there was an alarmed tension in it. This question raised suspicion from Gansey and the other two youths in the room.

“Uh, just a human guy,” Shepard answered. Shepard didn’t understand what he’d done to raise suspicion. Normally, he’d be ready for a cautious reaction like this one, while meeting various magical creatures. In this case, however, he hadn’t done anything that he would assume to be anything but normal procedure for these psychic women. Gansey had greeted him normally, knowing he must be here for an appointment, why didn’t these women act the same?

“Liar,” the fierce one of the three hissed at him, but the short lady interrupted her before she could start threatening him. “No, Calla, I think he’s telling the truth.”

“I am. I’m here because I have an appointment. Shepard’s the name. I’m just a guy, curious about magic.”

“He is telling the truth,” the blonde one says, her tone puzzled. “But then why is there something dark in you?”

Oh. Right.

Something must have shown in his face, because the woman who he now knew was named Calla snapped, “So there is something off about you.”

“There is, yes. But it’s something I’m willing to tell you all about if you’re willing to hear me out. It’s really not as bad as you might think.”

All of the company except for Gansey and the blonde woman kept their looks of suspicion, but Shepard was nonetheless invited over to the reading table. The blonde woman introduced herself as Persephone, and then introduced the shorter woman as Maura, and the scary one as Calla—though he’d already fingered her name out.

“Start talking,” Calla said, bluntly, as soon as the four of them were seated, the three teens looking on at them from the sidelines.

“Well, as I said, I’m Shepard from Omaha, Nebraska. I’m perfectly human, though I am possibly more aware of the magic in this world than the average human is. I go on journeys to find magical creatures, simply just to get to know them, if they’re welcoming enough.” The guy with the raven snorted at that. “If not, I leave them alone. I promise. Though—um, I did once come across a demon, who didn’t want to let go of me so easily.” Shepard took off his jacket, under which he was wearing a t-shirt. He held out his arms to show the women the black markings there. “So, you know, I’m cursed. That’s probably the darkness that you’re sensing.” Shepard tried to read the expression of the three women as they examined his arms, but failed. All their faces were focussed, but besides that it was impossible to tell what they were possibly thinking. Calla looked angry, perhaps, but she’d done so from the moment Shepard had entered the room. The three teens had moved closer to the reading table to get a look as well.

“Shit,” said the one with the raven, though he sounded more amused than concerned.

“Blue,” Maura said, gesturing to the short girl, “you might want to move back a little, I don’t know if you’d be amplifying anything wrong here.”

Without a question, but still with a curious look in her eyes, Blue moved backwards. Shepard gave her a curious look back. Amplifying?

Calla snapped his attention back to the three psychics by asking “So you’re here because you think we can help you with that, then?”

Shepard leaned back in his chair, surprised. “Oh no, I wouldn’t want to involve anyone else into this messy business,” Shepard said, gesturing at his marked arms. “I’m really just here because Henrietta is often talked about when it comes to magical energy. I came here to explore and figured that the house of highly acclaimed psychics would be a good place to start.”

“You just want to know about magic?” Maura asked, voice flat.

“Yup.”

“And none of this has anything to do with the possible involvement of a demon?”

“The demon has no involvement in this,” Shepard clarified. “I do this out of my own free will, purely because it’s a hobby of mine.”

“The dark presence within you will likely affect any reading we’ll do with you,” Persephone said.

“Oh, it’s fine. I don’t really care about the outcome of the reading, I’m aware that most stuff doesn’t actually work on me. I only booked a reading because I figured that it would be the most fitting thing to do if I wanted to talk to you about the magic energy of this place.”

Both Maura and Calla gave him raised eyebrows, while Persephone nodded solemnly.

“And you say you have actually met magical creatures before?” asked Gansey. Shepard turned his gaze toward Gansey, who looked like he couldn’t possibly keep himself from asking for any longer. From the corner of his eye he saw Calla roll her eyes.

“Yes,” Shepard said, brightly. “I’ve met and befriended plenty.”

“Befriended,” the guy with the raven echoed in a mocking tone.

Shepard looked at him, over Gansey’s shoulder. “Yup. Befriended. See, most magical beings live in hiding. If you’re just honest and friendly with them, most of them are very happy to finally be able to tell you all that they have to share—most of them are just glad to finally have someone to talk to—or someone to boast about themselves to.”

At this, Gansey turned around to look at the guy with the raven, a grin on his face. The guy with the raven, however, returned both Shepard’s and Gansey’s looks with a flat stare, his amusement from before gone at once.

“I think,” Maura said, “that maybe it’s not us you should be talking to.”

Shepard looked back at the three women sat before him. “What do—?”

“We have nothing to offer you, but our psychic abilities. And those will be likely misled due to the… curse. Gansey, however, will literally never shut up about Henrietta and the magical potential of this place. You’ll find that he’ll be much more use to you.”

“Besides,” Calla interjected, “I’m not in the mood to deal with another one like him.” She jerked her head towards Gansey at the word ‘him’.

“Yes, that too,” Maura agreed, which Blue made chuckle.

A bit confused, Shepard looked from the women to Gansey, who looked nothing but delighted about getting to tell Shepard everything he had to share. “Uh—alright then,” Shepard said, his face slowly transforming into a brilliant smile.

____

Shepard soon discovered that the bright orange Camaro in front of the house belonged to Gansey. Gansey allowed Shepard to ride shotgun, while Blue and the other boy and his raven—who’d gotten introduced to Shepard as Ronan and Chainsaw (Chainsaw!)—rode along in the back of the car.

Shepard had asked Ronan how he’d gotten the bird. “Took her out of my dreams,” Ronan had answered, in such a tone that led Shepard to believe that Ronan had been screwing with him, and that further questioning wouldn’t be appreciated.

After that, Gansey took over all conversation by monologuing for the entire length of the car ride about his search for an ancient Welsh king who was supposed to be asleep on a ley line, and will grant a wish to the one who wakes him. Even though it didn’t sound like the type of magic that Shepard was normally on the lookout for, he found that it was a pure joy to listen to Gansey tell his story.

After a drive long enough for Gansey to tell his tale, Gansey parked his car in the middle of nowhere.

“Here we are,” Gansey said, and the lot of them got out of the car.

Shepard must have looked confused because Gansey started explaining. “I’m taking you to the ley line. We’ve only discovered it quite recently.”

Ronan didn’t look all too excited about the idea of letting Shepard in on their discovery, but clearly wasn’t in a position to speak up against Gansey. Blue, however, did speak up. “Are you sure we can just trust him?” She asked Gansey, sounding awfully judgemental.

Instead of answering her, Gansey turned to Shepard. “Can you promise me that you won’t cause harm to whatever I’m about to show you, and that you won’t just lead everyone straight to this place after leaving it today?” he asked.

“You have my word,” Shepard replied. “Like I’ve said, I’ve met many—and I mean many—magical beings before. All of them still live hidden in uninterrupted peace.”

Gansey seemed satisfied with that answer. He turned to Blue and said, “I trust him, Jane. Do you?”

Blue (Jane?) shrugged, and so they began their walk to the forest that lay ahead.

Ronan muttered something under his breath, but all Shepard managed to catch was “Parrish wouldn’t,” which went ignored by both Gansey and Blue.

As they entered the forest, something in the air around them changed. Shepard knew about magic—about Speakers, about dragons, about faeries—but the magic of this forest was something unlike anything he’d ever seen or experienced. It felt like the forest was an entire beast of its own. He held his breath as he looked around the ancient trees; as he listened to them whisper.

“Welcome,” Gansey said, his voice overflowing with pride and excitement, “to Cabeswater.”

#the reason that adam's not in this is because i'm scared of writing him because he means too much to me and i can't handle the thought-#-of doing him wrong so yEa #he's a busy boy he's just got work or homework or something ajsdhsakj #also this was my first time writing any of these characters and it was kind of terrifying #idk if i'm satisfied with the outcome but oh well #carry on countdown #carry on #wayward son #shepard #coc 2019 #carry on fic #the raven cycle #trc #carry on fanfic #trc fic #richard gansey #anna writes

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you-are-my-neverland · 5 years

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Book Recommendations (1)

Lost in the Sun by Lisa Graff

Summary: “ Everyone says that middle school is awful, but Trent knows nothing could be worse than the year he had in fifth grade, when a freak accident on Cedar Lake left one kid dead, and Trent with a brain full of terrible thoughts he can't get rid of. Trent wants middle school to be a fresh start, if only he could make that happen. It isn’t until Trent gets caught up in the whirlwind that is Fallon Little—the girl with the mysterious scar across her face—that things begin to change. Because fresh starts aren’t always easy. Even in baseball, when a fly ball gets lost in the sun, you have to remember to shift your position to find it.”

Personal thoughts: It’s definitely a book geared to more younger audiences, but I think it’s a good read for all ages. I actually haven’t read it in a while, but Trent is a character I think lots of people can relate to. He struggles with anger and rage; emotions he has no idea what to do with. Fallon is a quirky character that you can never quite get a hold of, and she makes for a spectacular story.

Starfish by Akemi Dawn Bowman

Summary: “ A half-Japanese teen grapples with social anxiety and her narcissist mother in the wake of a crushing rejection from art school in this debut novel. Kiko has always struggled with saying what she’s thinking, and an overbearing mother makes things even harder. Her one hope and dream is Prism, a fancy art school. But then Kiko doesn’t get into Prism, at the same time her abusive uncle moves back in with her family. So when she receives an invitation from her childhood friend to leave her small town and tour art schools on the west coast, Kiko jumps at the opportunity in spite of the anxieties and fears that attempt to hold her back. And now that she is finally free to be her own person outside the constricting walls of her home life, Kiko learns life-changing truths about herself, her past, and how to be brave.”

Personal thoughts: ‘Starfish’ is a book that touches on a lot of sensitive issues, such as emotional and verbal abuse, presumed sexual assault (my memory isn’t that clear on what exactly happened so djkadhf), and Kiko herself is a very complex character. She’s a survivor who has to face every survivor’s worst fear; the abuser returning. Art is her only escape, but when that too fails, she feels like she’s spiraling. On many levels, she’s a character so many people can connect to, and the story really shows the reality of life.

Turtles All the Way Down by John Greene

Summary: “ Sixteen-year-old Aza never intended to pursue the mystery of fugitive billionaire Russell Pickett, but there’s a hundred-thousand-dollar reward at stake and her Best and Most Fearless Friend, Daisy, is eager to investigate. So together, they navigate the short distance and broad divides that separate them from Russell Pickett’s son, Davis. Aza is trying. She is trying to be a good daughter, a good friend, a good student, and maybe even a good detective, while also living within the ever-tightening spiral of her own thoughts.”

Personal thoughts: You’ve probably either read or heard of this book, but if you haven’t yet, this is a definite book you should read. Aza is really an intriguing character, and one of the things I like about her is that she doesn’t really get a happy ending. The book is her trying (and sometimes succeeding, sometimes failing) to find a way to cope with her disorder. It’s a really deep book (lots and lots of good quality quotes). It’s not supposed to be a positive or negative book; it shows the real struggles of dealing with mental illnesses and trying to balance your normal life along with it.

Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo

Summary: “Ketterdam: a bustling hub of international trade where anything can be had for the right price–and no one knows that better than criminal prodigy Kaz Brekker. Kaz is offered a chance at a deadly heist that could make him rich beyond his wildest dreams. But he can’t pull it off alone…A convict with a thirst for revenge. A sharpshooter who can’t walk away from a wager. A runaway with a privileged past. A spy known as the Wraith. A Heartrender using her magic to survive the slums. A thief with a gift for unlikely escapes. Six dangerous outcasts. One impossible heist. Kaz’s crew is the only thing that might stand between the world and destruction—if they don’t kill each other first.”

Personal thoughts: This book is genius. It’s part of a duo-logy, and is set in the same universe as the author’s Grisha trilogy. In my opinion, you don’t have to read the Grisha trilogy (I didn’t), though it would probably be helpful. You’re able to figure things out pretty quickly though. I’m serious about this book being spectacular though; it’s one of those books where the main character is so clever that you wonder how the author possibly wrote them. Kaz is a trickster and a conman, and makes the book filled with twists and turns that leave you shocked. The other five main characters will grab your heart just as much though; wily and clever and heart wrenching with every page and every new thing you learn. It leaves you holding your breath-but don’t hold it for too long, because there is a sequel, Crooked Kingdom (I...sobbed).

The Cruel Prince by Holly Black

Summary: “Jude was seven when her parents were murdered and she and her two sisters were stolen away to live in the treacherous High Court of Faerie. Ten years later, Jude wants nothing more than to belong there, despite her mortality. But many of the fey despise humans. Especially Prince Cardan, the youngest and wickedest son of the High King. To win a place at the Court, she must defy him–and face the consequences. As Jude becomes more deeply embroiled in palace intrigues and deceptions, she discovers her own capacity for trickery and bloodshed. But as betrayal threatens to drown the Courts of Faerie in violence, Jude will need to risk her life in a dangerous alliance to save her sisters, and Faerie itself.”

Personal thoughts: For once, we meet a main character as twisted and cutthroat as the ‘villain’-who also happens to be the love interest, if you can call them that. Jude is vicious and bitter after surviving for years as a human in Faerie. The Fey are cruel, tricky, deceptive, especially towards her. This whole book was just awesome, really, but in a dark way. Jude goes past just trying to save herself; and in turn endangers so many people.

The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvator

Summary: “An unlikely group stumbles across ancient magic in Virginia: Blue, the daughter of the town psychic in Henrietta, Virginia, who has been told for as long as she can remember that if she ever kisses her true love, he will die. Gansey, who seeks the Welsh magic he believes saved his life. Adam, who searches for a way out of the circumstances he was born into. Ronan, who seeks to recover the magic of his childhood.”

Personal thoughts: Another series I give my heart too. The first book in The Raven Cycle series, this book is rich with mythology set in a realistic world. Rich boys with backstories, headstrong girl with physic abilities, ley lines-what could go wrong? It’s a story about youth, mystery, romance, friendship, fantasy-a little bit of everything thrown in between. Each character is unique, from your perfect rich boy Gansey to scholarly Adam, cold Ronan and spunky Blue. Even if the book doesn’t sound exciting, I can guarantee that you’ll probably be completely absorbed in one way or another.

Conviction by Kelly Loy Gilbert

Summary: “Ten years ago, God gave Braden a sign, a promise that his family wouldn’t fall apart the way he feared. But Braden got it wrong: his older brother, Trey, has been estranged from the family for almost as long, and his father, the only parent Braden has ever known, has been accused of murder. The arrest of Braden’s father, a well-known Christian radio host, has sparked national media attention. His fate lies in his son’s hands; Braden is the key witness in the upcoming trial. Braden has always measured himself through baseball. Now the rules of the sport that has always been Braden’s saving grace are blurred in ways he never realized, and the prospect of playing against Alex Reyes, the nephew of the police officer his father is accused of killing, is haunting his every pitch. Braden faces an impossible choice, one that will define him for the rest of his life, in this brutally honest debut novel about family, faith, and the ultimate test of conviction.”

Personal thoughts: Honestly, this is a book I can reread over and over again. Maybe because it’s a book that focuses on Braden’s faith and his struggle as one of the main topics, but it really pulled me in. I practically devoured this whole book in one day. Braden really struggles internally on what is the right thing to do, as well as externally when his brother, Trey, returns to be his guardian. It focuses a lot on their brotherly relationship-in which of them have two very different perspectives of what their lives have been like-some romance, but mostly it’s a book about Braden himself. When the line between right and wrong is blurred, what path do you choose?

#books #book recommendations #i paraphrased the summaries from goodreads #because i suck at my own summaries #lost in the sun #lisa graff #starfish #akemi dawn bowman #turtles all the way down #john greene #six of crows #leigh bardugo #the cruel prince #holly black #the raven boys #maggie stiefvator #conviction #kelly loy gilbert #tw: mentions of abuse

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rareandbeautifulthing · 5 years

Text

A Night for Truth

So I’ve never posted my fic here. I usually just post on Ao3 as lostintheverse. But I’ve decided to figure out how to do this so here we go.

This is a WIP: a first-person, alternating POV retelling of Chapters 33, 36, an 39 of The Raven King. #trc #the raven cycle #pynch

Read on Ao3 https://archiveofourown.org/works/20306803/chapters/48141343

Chapter 33

RONAN

I go looking for Adam because he went hunting for aluminum foil a while ago and never came back, and I’m a little fascinated by this. Probably because I’m fascinated by everything Adam does.

He’s sitting on my bed. Normally my room is off-limits, both here and at Monmouth Manufacturing, but it’s never been to Adam. We never talked about it. It was just a thing that we both knew.

He’s staring at that silly car I dreamed up when I was a kid. The one that plays a tune. He’s so absorbed in whatever he’s thinking, he doesn’t know I’m here. So I watch him.

Watching Adam when he doesn’t know I’m watching has become one of the things that defines me. He has no idea.

Or I don’t know...maybe he does. Lately, every time I’m watching him, he’ll lift his eyes and meet mine. Or I’ll glance over at him in that way I’ve done since the first time he appeared in my life, and he’s already watching me. Either way, it makes my heart rate pick up, my breaths come short. His beauty haunts me.

And not just his physical beauty, though that would be enough. His features are so delicate, his face chiseled. His hands are works of art. But no, it’s not his physical beauty that makes me feel like I’m falling into a well full of light. It’s what’s inside him. His fierce determination, his unwavering brilliance, his kindness, his stubborn resistance to pity.

No, it’s not even that. It’s something deeper and indefinable. It’s just him. His Adam-ness. That’s what brings me to my knees.

I lean against the doorframe and watch him and wait for him to look up and meet my eyes, but it doesn’t happen, and that makes this moment different. So I rap my fingers on the door, because I don’t want to startle him, and then I go sit next to him. His closeness makes me giddy, as always.

I reach out my hand for the car, and when he places it gently there his fingertips brush my palm the tiniest bit, sending shivers up my arm as though the touch was electric. I look at the car, remembering the day I awoke with it. How excited I was. I was eight years old, and it was my dream-toy (literally). Even then I was fascinated by cars. They were complex and simple, all at once. Powerful, but breakable. Lovely, but cold.

I can feel his eyes on me. He’s watching me just like I’ve watched him so many countless times, and suddenly I know it’s time. I’ve been harboring this secret for so long, holding it so close to my chest that no one could possibly guess the truth. But he has guessed. I know this. He knows I know it. He knows I love him, and he’s sitting on my bed, watching me look at this thing I made, and I feel like it’s now or never.

My heart is pounding in my ears. I’m trembling because I know what I’m about to do is going to change everything, I’m just not sure how. But if there’s one thing the past year has taught me, it’s that everything changes anyway. I may as well take the risk and see what it brings, because I think - maybe - it could bring a miracle more glorious than anything I’ve ever dreamed. There’s something in the way he looks at me these days that feels like a mirror.

Or it could bring about my utter destruction. But destruction is inevitable, so it’s nothing to fear.

And anyway, I can’t take this anymore. I’ve kept my secret too long. There are many painful things I could endure forever, but loving Adam in silence is not one of them.

So I exhale, slowly, and I place the car on the bedside table, and I kiss him.

It’s the first time I’ve ever kissed anyone, at least like this, and it’s undoing me. His lips are softer than I dared imagine. Softer, and warmer, and...responsive. He’s kissing me back.

Holy shit. He’s fucking kissing me back.

I pull back for a second - or, rather, I hesitate. It’s not pulling back, exactly; it’s more like taking a breath, allowing a moment of space for him to process, to decide how he wants to proceed. This is a turning point for us, and I’m not going to rush him into it, whatever the outcome may be. But that moment of pause is all it is - a moment - and then we’re kissing again. It’s not that I kiss him again, or that he kisses me. We just kiss. Together.

This is the most incredible thing I’ve ever experienced.

And I need to stop it. I’m a breath away from pushing him on his back and slipping my hands into his hair and my tongue into his mouth, and that’s not what I’m trying to do. Not right now. Because I need to give him space. Because this - whatever this is - it’s going to change everything, and it can’t be done quickly, or lightly. There’s a heaviness to this, as if it’s the most important moment of my life. And I think it might be.

So I pull back, but I keep my eyes closed for a minute and just relive it again and again, and I pray when I open my eyes he’s not staring at me in anger, or hurt, or confusion.

I open my eyes.

He’s staring at me in wonder.

I don’t know what he’s thinking, but his gaze feels...good. So I stand without looking away from him, and he doesn’t look away from me, either, and I know he knows how much weight this moment holds.

And then I find my voice and say, “I’m gonna go downstairs,” and then I leave him sitting on my bed. I feel his gaze on me as I walk out of the room. Not once has he looked away.

ADAM

I saw that coming for miles. And I didn’t do a thing to stop it.

Just like that rainstorm that day when I was a kid. I literally watched it roll in. I watched the sheet of rain approaching, and I just stood there waiting for it, waiting to get drenched. Just like I’ve been standing here watching Ronan, and understanding that he wanted me, for...weeks? Months? How long? I don’t even know. It wasn’t conscious. But it was real, nonetheless. I mean, I could tell he was into me. I didn’t understand it, because how could anyone as breathtaking as Ronan Lynch want me? It made me feel good, to be honest, because I didn’t feel worthy of his feelings. But I could see them there anyway. He didn’t care that I didn’t feel worthy. He was just being Ronan.

And I knew if I didn’t do something, say something, drop a hint to put him off, he’d kiss me. I didn’t know it-know it, in my brain. But I knew it in my heart. In my body.

I didn’t try to stop it because...why? That’s what I need to figure out. Ronan just left. He just kissed me, and I kissed him back, and then he stood up and left the room and I need to figure out why I kissed him back. Because I know Ronan is not someone to play around with. I know he puts up that front because he is so incredibly, deeply sensitive, and there’s no way I’d ever hurt him. I love him too much. He’s my brother.

Is that what it is, though? Brotherly love? Because that kiss ignited things inside me that I hadn’t known were there. Very un-brotherly things.

I need to talk to Gansey.

Chapter 36

And so first chance I get, I do. And he’s blustering about not hurting Ronan, and good God Gansey, do you think that’s even a possibility on the table? I would never hurt Ronan.

Gansey can be a first-class dumbass sometimes.

That’s not what I’m asking. That’s not what I’m asking.

“I’m not going to mess with his head,” I say, and I’m unable to keep the irritation out of my voice. “Why do you think I’m even talking to you?” I’m talking to Gansey because everything is about to change, and he’s part of that everything, and I guess I just need to know he’s okay with it. Or maybe I need him to tell me I’m not crazy. I start to tell him I don’t know how I feel, but I stop. Because this is a night for truth, and it’s not true that I don’t know how I feel. I know. God, I know.

I know it in every corner of my body. In every thought in my head. In every wave of emotion. I know that when Ronan kissed me, and I kissed him back - when we kissed, together - everything in the world finally made sense. I mean, good lord. He’s Ronan Lynch. He’s a dream come true. (The irony of that assertion doesn’t escape me.) He’s gorgeous and brilliant and rich and brave and tough and terrifying, he’s intimidating and creative and brutal and gentle and thoughtful and generous. He exudes sex, which is a little weird because I’m 99% sure he’d never kissed anyone until a few minutes ago, when he kissed me. The man has got to be a virgin. But he still manages to exude sex, and fire, and passion, and danger, and tenderness, and loyalty, and safety. He’s a walking contradiction. He would give anything for the people he loves (me included), and yet he won’t hesitate to kick someone’s ass if they piss him off. Not us, though. Not the people he’s chosen. He would die before he hurt me, or Gansey, or Noah, or Blue. He would die before he let us be hurt.

I mean, really, he’s the ultimate badass. And for some unfathomable reason, he wants me.

And I want him back. More than anything in my life, I want him. I think he’s handed me the keys to him, to Ronan, to his heart and his mind and his body, and I’ve never wanted anything as much as I want to just take them and give him my own keys in exchange.

Gansey knows this. Because he’s a first-class dumbass, but he’s also incredibly wise, and he knows his friends. He knows us.

I thought, when I went to talk to Gansey, that he could shoot me down. He could tell me I don’t love Ronan, that I just want to be loved myself, that I’m not worthy, that I’m an object of pity rather than of desire. And I think I would’ve believed him, because I’m not like him or Ronan or even Blue. They all believe they’re worthy of love. And I know, on an intellectual level, that I am, too, but it’s hard to internalize it after everything. I mean, until I met Gansey and Ronan and Noah (not that I remember meeting Noah, of course), I was completely alone in the world. I mean, completely, utterly, unarguably alone. My own parents resented my existence, for God’s sake.

It’s hard to feel worthy of love. It’s hard to feel worthy of Gansey’s and Blue’s and Noah’s and Ronan’s friendship. It’s next to impossible to feel worthy of being wanted, especially by the beautiful badass that is Ronan Lynch.

It’s not Gansey who could shoot me down. It’s myself. And in this span of a few minutes of conversation, that becomes crystal clear. So when all Gansey says is that it’s about being honest with myself, it feels like the ultimate affirmation. I just figured it all out; everything clicked into place, and then Gansey basically told me to trust myself. If kings are truly meant to inspire, to empower, to strengthen...Gansey is truly a king.

And now I just want him to leave and take our pretty friend with him so I can be alone with Ronan so we can get on with our future.

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tubwhumping · 5 years

Text

Adjustment Period

I'm just getting back into writing after going several years without writing anything other than research paper so bear with me if I'm a bit rusty.

Read it on AO3

Ronan was not the kind of guy who made plans. He never had been. So much of who he was came from trauma and fear, but impulsiveness was a part of his genetic code. He never understood the appeal of knowing every detail along the way. He didn’t live his life that way, and he couldn’t if he tried.

Gansey was another story. Blue was Gansey’s second love, always falling behind his longstanding quest for knowledge. Henry, though much less extreme than Gansey, was also a planner by nature. And while Blue loathed to be considered sensible, she too knew this was not the kind of trip meant for aimless wandering. The maps had begun appearing a few days after the near-end of the world. They were spread over the floor of the main living area of Monmouth, and displayed places and routes and the complex research Gansey had done on the history of each of their stops. Ronan had to step cautiously around the display to avoid ripping it because while he would miss them, he wasn’t mad enough to rip up their plans in a jealous rage. Yet.

He tucked his legs underneath him to sit next to Gansey on the floor behind the desk. Gansey’s face remained in its rightful place, smushed frantically in the pages of a book. It would be endearing if it weren't so annoying. He ripped several small pieces of paper from the edge of one of the maps and threw them, one by one, down the collar of his shirt.

Gansey finally flinched as large wad smack him across the cheekbone. He glanced up at Ronan. “Ronan, I’m sorry. I didn’t hear you come in.”

Ronan snorted and threw one last piece of paper down his shirt for good measure. “How’s the research coming?” he said. “Any dead Italian kings to chase?”

Gansey opened his mouth, probably to explain the complicated Italian political system in the 19th century or some equally dreadful account of his adventures in Europe with Mallory, but the sound of the door squeaking open saved him from that particular fate.

Adam, covered in a layer of dust with coveralls thrown over his arm, shut the door behind him. His hair was ruffled and hanging loosely over his forehead, and he seemed to have grown even older and more world-weary since Ronan had seen him the night before.

“The fuck happened to you?”

Adam sighed, toeing his boots off in the doorway not to track anything too far into the room. He crept toward the center of the room but stopped before he reached the maps. “I’m covered in dust,” he said as if that wasn’t obvious. “I had to clear out some old boxes in the warehouse.”

“If you would like, you can shower here,” Gansey offered. It seemed like a safe enough offer, but Ronan knew small things could set Adam off when he was in a mood. “Do you work again tonight?”

Adam nodded slowly. “I have to be at Boyd’s in a couple hours,” he said. “I think I will get a shower.” He drifted back toward the bathroom.

When he returned, Adam looked a lot better, but not as much better as Ronan had expected. He had changed into his coveralls and came over to sit next to between them on the floor. Ronan reached over to grab his hand.

Gansey continued to read. Ronan continued throwing things at him, and Adam settled against his side warming parts of himself that Ronan hadn’t even realized were cold. He inspected one of Gansey’s books as well, but since he had yet to flip a page, Ronan guessed he was not actually reading.

It was familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. The three of them were almost never alone anymore. Usually, Blue or Henry, or both were there as well. Sometimes Adam was at work, or Ronan was with Opal at the Barns. Of course, it was never just the three of them before because Noah had been there, but anyone who knew Noah knew it was really always just the three of them.

A couple of harsh sneezes broke through the quiet trance of the afternoon. Adam sniffed pathetically. “Sorry, I must have missed some dust,” he said. Ronan caught Gansey's eyes from across the room as they both watched him in mutual concern. Adam coughed into his fist before asking hesitantly “Can I crash in N- in the other bedroom?” breaking the comfortable silence. A familiar pang of sadness rang through all them as it did whenever anything related to Noah came up. It was quiet grief they were all experiencing, and one they would most likely carry with them for many years. But Ronan was mostly concerned because Adam Parrish did not ask for favors, even ones as inconsequential as taking a nap in dead boy's bed.

“Of course, Adam,” Gansey said. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” he said. “Just tired.” He rubbed childishly and uncharacteristically at his eyes. He was still a warm weight against Ronn’s side, too warm of a weight. Feeling his forehead like a goddamn mother hen felt far too intimate with Gansey watching so he grabbed underneath Adam’s jaw to turn his face towards him. “You have a fucking fever.”

Adam shrugged. “I think I’m getting a cold.”

“Do you want some Tylenol?” Gansey asked. Ronan was pretty sure there was no Tylenol in the building, but it seemed like Adam was more likely to take it if they already had it and he knew Gansey wasn’t above sneaking out to buy some.

“I’m alright,” he said. “I just need some more sleep.” He pushed himself up from the floor and dragged himself to the bedroom. Ronan let a few minutes pass before following him.

Adam was face-down on the bed, short, congested breaths panting dangerously into the blankets. He was somewhere between asleep and conscious, so Ronan turned his head so it fell to the side and pulled the pillow further down. He roused slightly at the movement, looking up at Ronan through bloodshot eyes. “Are you going to be shitty about this?” Ronan asked.

Adam shook his head and flopped it back onto the pillow. “I’ll try not to be,” he said. “But wake me up in an hour. I still have work tonight.” In the few months since their relationship had shifted to its current position, Ronan had learned a lot about Adam. And he was learning that he was much better off picking his battles. Adam was going to get some sleep and hopefully get a good night’s rest after work. This was a compromise he could live with. He pushed Adam’s hair back out of his face and backed out of the room, shutting the door behind him.

Gansey smiled a mischievous smile, so Ronan flipped him off to prove a point. Adam softened something within him, but he had a reputation to uphold. He stepped right in the center of one of the maps for good measure, leaving a large bootprint right in the middle of it. Gansey pulled it from beneath his foot and grumbled only slightly as he pulled his papers toward his chest protectively. “Is he okay?” he finally asked.

“He’s sick as hell.”

“Is he going to call in sick?”

Ronan scoffed and rolled his eyes. Gansey was learning to speak the language of Adam Parrish, but he would never be quite as fluent in it as Ronan. Gansey, a true genius in so many fields, was stupid sometimes when it came to people. He couldn’t help it. Gansey’s particular brand of stupid came from privilege and generations of Anglo-Saxon breeding. He would never truly understand what it was like to have nothing, but the truth was neither would Ronan.

“He can’t seriously think it’s a good idea to go in sick.”

“I’ll take him and pick him up,” Ronan said. “You know how he is. You gotta pick your fucking battles, man.”

Gansey’s mouth opened, a rebuttal already hanging off his lips, but he stopped. He nodded in concession. He turned his face back down to his research. “Did I tell you we’re spending a week in Ireland?” And with that, Gansey launched one of his lengthy musings on castles and grass and the beautiful sights they were going to see and adventures they were going to have.

Adam ’s subconscious fear of missing work ripped him from his dreams, just a couple of minutes before Ronan came to wake him. He spent those minutes staring up at the industrial ceiling tiles and wondering why he was incapable of calling in sick even when he felt terrible. Boyd wouldn’t mind. Adam had only called in sick one other time. He was a hard worker when he was there. He never showed up late or left early. There was no reason he couldn’t

What had been a steady drum against his temple earlier in the day had evolved (or devolved, from his perspective) into a harsh pounding all over his skull. His throat was raw, and he couldn’t get warm. He wanted to stay in one place. He didn’t ever want to move from underneath the blanket again.

The door crept open, whining as if it could feel Adam’s reluctance to get up. Ronan, sensing the tone, closed it quietly behind him and approached the bed, sitting gently beside Adam. As a cough tore through the little air left in his lungs, Ronan settled his hand on Adam’s back. This was not the Ronan Lynch who broke things and rage raced and pissed people off. This was the Ronan that kept a list by the fridge at the Barns of which foods Opal did and did not like. This was the Ronan that dreamt gifts for all of his friends that Christmas, each one unique and useful and magical in strange and curious ways. This was the Ronan that Adam couldn’t get enough of.

He raised one eyebrow in a questioning manner as if to say “Are you really this stupid?” Adam was afraid he might be, and it left him frustrated and confused. He reached up to grab a hand and squeezed it, suddenly craving Ronan’s skin against his. He needed touch more than he needed to breathe which was good because the mucus had settled into his sinuses, blocking his nose and making breathing a much more laborious task.

The door cracked open, and Gansey stuck his head in. “How are you feeling, Adam?”

He shrugged, too tired to think and too frustrated to speak.

“Are you sure you don’t want to call in sick to work?” Gansey asked. Adam wanted to cry or scream or vomit. Instead, he nodded his head.

“Would it make a difference if I told you that you should?” He shook his head once more.

A guttural groan pulled Adam’s attention back to Ronan. He grabbed Adam’s face, trapping it between his hands, and jerked it up to make eye contact with him. In the moment of complete vulnerability, Adam had no choice but to listen. “You’re gonna spread your fucking germs all over the damn garage. That’s going to piss Boyd off more than calling in.”

He closed his eyes and sucked in a deep breath. It was true, of course. The last thing they needed was to pass around this virus for the rest of the winter. Everyone would be much better off if he stayed in and kept his germs to himself, or at least to him and Gansey and Ronan. He still wasn’t sure if he could, but he knew he should. He needed to. But he couldn’t.

He opened his eyes to see Ronan. He had let go of Adam’s face and was leaning against the wall, looking very much like wanted to look like he didn’t care which meant he cared a lot. He turned to see Gansey holding out his cell phone. The number for Boyd’s was already dialed. All he had to do was hit the call button and say the words.

Adam nodded once, then twice and met Gansey’s eyes across the room before looking back at Ronan. He grabbed the phone and took the plunge. Adam Parrish was calling in sick. And while this time it was because of Gansey and Ronan, maybe one day, he could do it for himself.

#whump #sickfic #the raven cycle #adam parrish #ronan lynch #trc #my fic

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sargxnts · 6 years

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when you were young

This work was commisioned by @wishingstardust who wanted Blue and Gansey being kids in love! I hope it’s everything you wanted.

1.6k | ao3

Blue Sargent did not consider herself the type to waste time on doing very much of nothing at all. She worked. She amplified. She carved herself a niche in the world that was exactly five feet even, no more, no less. Well, maybe it was five feet and one inch on a good day. But she had never simply done nothing at all.

But lately, Blue had taken to staring at Gansey’s hands. At the way his glasses sat on his face and the way they often didn’t. At his arms and his legs. At the occasional flash of a tan line on his feet. At the way he furrowed his brow and bit his lip and beamed and frowned and laughed and held her hand like he’d never held anything so wonderful before.

When he’d gasped, alive, alive, alive, the world started spinning again. It had taken some time before the truth of it all settled. Glendower was dead, had always been dead. Noah was gone, faded, had always been dead and gone and faded but somehow alive. Cabeswater was gone how they’d known it. But he was alive.

She was no longer Blue Sargent; murderer but instead was Blue Sargent girl. And so, she’d begun spending a lot of time staring at Gansey.

If anyone had asked her for a list of her top 5 places to kiss her boyfriend (her boyfriend), the Pig would not have been at the top of the list, Really, it wouldn’t have been on the list at all if it weren’t for Ronan being Ronan, if it weren’t for the silence left hanging in Monmouth in Noah’s absence, if it weren’t for all seven hundred and forty-two women who lived in Fox Way. And so, the Pig made the list.

The gear shift was digging into her ribcage at just the right angle to kill her, she assumed. But Gansey had a tentative hand at her lower back her hands were pushing into his hair. The fear wasn’t gone- not entirely- that she wouldn’t kill him. Magic loved to pick and choose and Blue was going to be quite angry if it decided that slipping her tongue into his mouth would kill him all over again. She decided the risk was worth it.

Gansey pulled away, breathless and flushed. His hair stuck up in small tufts; Blue was especially proud about that part. His hand hadn’t moved from her lower back; her hands hadn’t moved from his hair. Instead, he let his head fall forward, forehead to forehead.

He cleared his throat. “We should start heading back,” he said slowly, as if testing out the words as he went along. Pensive. Blue always found it strange to see him like that, unsure of himself and hesitant. She liked it.

It was the difference between Gansey and Richard. The impossible to touch statue of a boy, a Kennedy in the making and someone who was hers, who belonged to Henrietta and a worn out factory with a cereal box city. Blue moved her hand to touch his face. She liked it.

“Jane,” Gansey tried again. “Surely people are beginning to wonder where we are.”

She had a distinct, highly unwelcome thought about her mother because no one wanted to think about their mother while making out with their boyfriend in his awfully wonderful car. But Maura was not like most mothers and as Blue had found, most daughters hardly had to worry about a psychic knowing that they had lied about where they were going. Actually, most daughters probably did. Mothers were known for knowing.

Blue gave a short little huff before finally moving away from him, settling back into the seat she was too small for with a decidedly sour look on her face that she didn’t mean.

“By people do you mean Ronan?” She deadpanned with a raise of her eyebrows. She could never get just one to quirk up. No number of time practicing in the mirror had helped much at all.

Gansey had reached over to turn the key in the ignition, but left one hand to rest on her knee. “By people I mean Ronan.”

Blue laughed, let her hand fall to rest on his as he maneuvered the Pig off of the side of the road. They were mostly in the middle of nowhere and very likely lost, she had decided before the kissing had begun. (After the kissing had started, she had someone how found little reason to care.)

She found it quite telling that she’d begun to enjoy the hideous sounds of the Pig. Maybe it was the company more than the car. Blue watched Gansey as he drove, traced the cut of his jaw with her eyes. She could do that, stare at him unabashed and without worry that someone would see or that she would start to care. Walking the razor thin line of “are we or aren’t we” had been a hard habit to shake but had been a task she welcomed happily.

“Have you ever kissed anyone before?” Blue asked, breaking the silence that had settled over them as Gansey navigated through the winding mountain roads, brow furrowed in concentration, just slightly.

He all but jumped in his seat at the question, turning his head just slightly in her direction. “Why do you ask?” He asked after a moment, something flashing in his eyes that Blue couldn’t quite recognize before he looked back toward the road.

She shrugged and lifted his hand from her knee to trace the lines of his palm. “I’ve only ever kissed you,” she paused, “and Noah.So I’m curious.” He barely had a lifeline, she realized as her thumb brushed across the arch. The thought made her heart clench and her hand hold his a little tighter.

Gansey raised an eyebrow, just one, at her comment on Noah, but said nothing before licking his lips. She could tell he wanted something to chew. “Well, yes. I have before, here and there.” He paused again as if gathering his thoughts.

Blue used her free hand to rifle through the console of the Pig. She finally found a plastic bag and pulled a mint leaf free from it, shifting in her seat and stretching to poke it between Gansey’s lips.

“There was Abigail and Madison.” He chewed slowly on the mint, kept his eyes forward. “Rhett.” She had never seen Gansey...self conscious. All shiny white smiles and firm handshakes and ‘what do you know about Welsh kings?’ Self conscious was not something Blue had thought was in his repertoire.

Blue picked up his hand again, sliding her fingers between his and squeezing once. Twice. “Rhett,” she repeated as her eyes fell to the way his knuckles went white around the wheel.

Gansey nodded. “Early on in my searching, I found him. He was able to sense the line after being struck by lightning. We hunted along the line for days before I ultimately left.” He kept his eyes forward and it was almost heartbreaking. Blue pressed a kiss to the back of his hand. “And I very much wanted to kiss him, and then I did.” He sucked his lower lip into his mouth and spared a glance in Blue’s direction.

She wasn’t sure where they were or where they were going. “Gansey, do you think I’m going to be, what? Jealous or something that you’re interested in boys too?” She asked, trying her best to make sure he knew she wasn’t at all.

He opened his mouth, seemed to think better, closed it again. “That is such an outdated way of thinking and you know me. You know I don’t care about things like that.” And she didn’t. Gansey was still Gansey and, well. She’d seen him look at Adam. “I’m not really straight either,” she added with an easy going shrug.

He looked over at her with a startled look on his face though she wasn’t exactly sure about what he was startled. Her reaction or her own revelation. Relief washed over his face seconds later and he squeezed her hand.

“With my mother in office, I haven’t had much opportunity to be,” he hesitated, “honest, about it all. I have a responsibility to her. Before you say anything, I know what you think about that.” A wry smile worked its way onto Gansey’s face as he looked over at her.

Blue let out a breath, laughed because she had made it very clear what she thought about things like that. “Do Ronan and Adam know?” She asked, curious, as she turned her gaze toward the blur of scenery passing by the window, green and bright and comforting.

He shook his head, gave his mint leaf a thoughtful chew. “No, not yet. You’re the only person I’ve told, though I’m certain Helen knows because Helen knows everything,” he added and Blue was certain he was right. Helen was mildly terrifying in the way her mother was mildly terrifying, like a force of nature.

Something uncurled in Blue’s chest at the knowledge he trusted her to be the first to know. She pressed another kiss to the back of his hand and smiled as he turned on a familiar street. “Maybe we have a little more time to kill.” she suggested, flicking her eyes back in his direction with a smile toying at her lips.

“I’m sure Ronan won’t be too worried,” Gansey added as he made an odd left turn.

“And I told my mom I would be going out,” Blue continued, rubbing her thumb in slow circles against his palm.

“The day is still young,” he agreed with a purely presidential nod of his head.

Blue unbuckled her seatbelt and was already shifting out of her seat. She loved him, she decided as she watched him reach out to brush a tuft of hair away from her face with one hand.

“And so are we,” she finished as the Pig sputtered to a halt, crashing her lips forward to his without waiting. They didn’t need to wait anymore.

#blue sargent #gansey #bluesey #the raven cycle #trc #trc fic #the raven cycle fic #mine #I hope this is okay I'm really bad at fluff tbh

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witchplse · 7 years

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adam/ronan wwi au: an excerpt

tw: historically typical non explicit descriptions of death

Adam made Lance-Corporal some time at the end of April, Ypres, 1915. He met Gansey a month later.

All around them were the dead and dying, and the chlorine was lingering in the air, and Czerny, who had been perched cheerily on a low stone wall that had somehow survived the obliteration, saluted him somewhat ironically. “Sir,” he said.

Adam pulled his uniform straight. He said, fully aware that he’d only been promoted because Lance-Corporal Parker had taken shrapnel to the head the day previously, “now you’re next in line.”

“Watch your back, Parrish. I’ll get you before the Huns do for a chance at that badge.”

“Bugger off.”

He’d never expected to make it past Private, nor had he ever had any desire to. He’d signed up for the sheer joy of watching the family farm vanish behind him and for the rather spiteful hope that one day he’d die in battle and his father would have to live with that regret for the rest of his miserable days - not, thought Adam, that there was any guarantee of regret, or even of grief, if that telegram ever did come. His father hadn’t even been proud of his son marching off to the front; he’d managed to project a sense of selfish irritation even then.

Two weeks later they held Frezenberg Ridge, and Adam lost eight of his twelve-strong company to gas; Adam was pretty sure Czerny survived only though sheer bloody mindedness, and he himself through luck. Another week in and they were all bone tired, and every day they went over the top, and every day new men were cycled in under Adam’s command and every day new men were lost, and every day the heat of his rifle almost seared his palms and every day he looked into the face of another German soldier, distorted under their gas-protecting masks, and felt absolutely nothing. They lost Bellewaarde Ridge on May 24th, when they were forced into another retreat, one step ahead of the cloud at all times, the chlorine stinging the back of Adam’s throat and forcing tears from his eyes like an accusation. And every day, the mud, and every day, Czerny.

They fell back to just south of the city, knowing full well that it was in shelling distance now and that the Germans wouldn’t even have to move from their trenches to wreak havoc. They dug themselves into the new front lines and they were given two days to recover before they received their marching orders, and Adam was so exhausted he could barely see to crawl into the makeshift, damp dugout. Czerny was furiously making tea in a clanging saucepan. He said, sharp, “what’s the point?”

Adam hadn’t asked himself that question in months. He didn’t even peel off his boots before clambering into the hollow that would serve as his bed for the night. “King and country?” he offered, blankly, to the dirt ceiling. For Czerny, the sentence might hold some truth; he was a Londoner, born and bred. For Adam, with the heavy accent of the Highlands, patriotism was something associated with huge dipping valleys and complex clan allegiances that still held sway in the village pub, not the King down south in Westminster. Czerny shook his head.

“I don’t mean the war, I mean this campaign. Ypres. The city’s lost. It’s mostly rubble by now. There are no civilians left. We’re killing ourselves over land.”

“Land we have to have,” Adam pointed out, through a yawn. “Otherwise they have it. Is that for me?”

“No,” Czerny said, handing him a grimy tin cup. It bruised Adam’s lips with its heat and left a bitter taste on his tongue, so strong it was barely tea anymore. He downed it in one long gulp and was out so fast he barely had time to swallow.

The next morning the shells woke him, the crump as they hit the city, the screaming whistle overhead, and he made his way through the grey dawn - he hadn’t seen a clear sky in so long he was growing sure that sunlight was a myth - past bleary sentries, to the Officers’ dugout, and knocked on the door frame, adjusting his cap. Sergeant Wilson called from down below. “Come on, Parrish!”

Adam clattered down the wooden stairs, neatly ducking under the protruding roof as he came down into the dark, damp space that served as the Officers’ home. Sergeant Wilson was by the desk, bent almost double to examine some roughly drawn plans, his arm in a sling that had once been white. Next to him was a man Adam had never met before; he had the decorations of a Lieutenant, which made sense, considering Second Lieutenant Frank Jones hadn’t made it back two days previously. Czerny had been pretty cut up over that - he’d liked the man - but Adam made a habit of not getting attached to the Officers. Whatever happened in some Platoons, this one’s leadership rotated pretty damn quickly. He’d expect nothing less - it was an Officer’s job to go over first, to lead every charge - but it made for some confusing evenings as they tried to remember who was in charge. This one couldn’t have been more than a few years older than Adam, and so, determined already to hate him, Adam snapped a salute. “Sir.”

“At ease. This is Lieutenant Richard Gansey,” said Wilson, who was a tired-looking man in his forties, with greying dark hair and a drooping mustache. “He got here from Artois yesterday evening.”

“Oof,” said Adam involuntarily, in sympathy. “Festubert?” The news of that had filtered through pretty damn quickly: most of Adam’s platoon had come with him from the Highlands, and two of the Battalions obliterated in Artois had been from the north, too. Lieutenant Richard Gansey, who had the clear, broad face of an Eton man and carelessly curly bronze hair, nodded.

“You’re not from Kinguisse?” he asked, and Adam congratulated himself on his judgement: his accent was Oxford through and through, so sharp it could cut glass; all he needed was a flute of champagne and he’d be every man Adam’s father had ever wanted dead. Adam shook his head.

“No, thank God, poor buggers. I’m from Lairg.” Gansey nodded. He held himself like a military man. Some of the Officers they’d been sent had clearly never left the home counties; they hadn’t lasted long. Adam wondered how Wilson felt taking orders from someone so much younger than him, someone who had so obviously been promoted through connections - an uncle or someone in the war office, thought Adam, somewhat bitterly. He couldn’t keep the confrontation out of his voice when he said: “See much action?”

For a moment, at the perceived challenge, Gansey’s mouth tightened. Adam knew that look; he wore it himself, often enough. But then he relaxed, and spread his hands wide, and when he smiled it was warm enough to defrost the centre of Adam’s chest, just a little bit. “Some,” he said, inclining his head like a fencer acknowledging a hit. “But not so much as you, I don’t think. We’ve got reinforcements making their way up from Lens.”

“We need them.” Wilson looked up sharply at his tone, but Adam ignored him.

“I can see that.”

His face was grave. Adam narrowed his eyes, trying to get a handle on him, but failed; Gansey was nearly impossible to read. “I’d better get on,” he said, and then added, before he could be accused of insubordination, “sir.”

“Yes,” Gansey said, “yes, go on. I’ll see you this evening with the other Lance-Corporals to receive the new ones.”

Adam nodded to Wilson, who was chewing his little fingernail, and turned on his heel. Outside, the sky was still grey, and the air tasted of smoke when he inhaled, a part of him already braced for the pineapples-and-peppers scent that proceeded gas; there was nothing and the horizon, through the barbed wire, was clean and clear. He rolled his shoulders back, feeling oddly unsettled, as if he had just lost a fight. It wasn’t that he resented the Officers, not usually, but God if he didn’t want them to stay well away from him. Down the trench and round the corner he thought of Czerny and his endless card games and took off his hat, smoothed his blond hair back, replaced it. He hadn’t realised he had been lingering until a hand on his shoulder made him jump a mile high.

He crashed down to earth, hating Gansey more than ever: the Lieutenant was grinning, abashed. “Sorry,” he said, “my mistake. Lost in thoughts, were you?”

“Jesus,” said Adam, through gritted teeth. “I could’ve shot you.”

“I’m a quick draw.” In the sunlight Adam could see imperfections on Gansey’s marble statue face; bags under his eyes, a long thin cut that stroked the length of his jawline. His eyes were amber and trusting, like a labrador. He shook Adam’s clear disapproval off as if it were nothing. “I wanted to catch you without Wilson in the room. I don’t think he likes me.”

“He doesn’t like anyone,” Adam re-joined immediately. “He makes a career out of it.”

Gansey barked out a laugh. It was shockingly endearing. Adam squared his shoulders; he was braced for friendship - he could see it coming and hated it, but couldn’t think how to avoid it. If the man wanted to be liked, then damn it, fine, he’d like him. Gansey leant in a little, conspiratorial. “I want you to tell me,” he said, “how the men are. And I mean, really. This is my first platoon, and I’m not going to fuck it up.”

The word was crisp in his smart voice. Later, Adam would learn that Gansey swore only rarely - he wasn’t brought up to, and he was shockingly prudish for someone who went to boarding school; in fact, in the short period of their acquaintance, Adam would hear him say the word only once more. As it was, Adam accepted it without question. “I’ll tell you what you need to know,” he said, impressed despite himself. “But be wary, alright. They won’t take kindly to an interloper being in their business - especially not an English one, no offense meant.”

Gansey smiled. “Offense meant,” he corrected.

“Well, maybe,” Adam conceded. “Listen to me and you’ll be fine. Well,” and he shrugged. “I can’t predict the future. But we won’t stab you in the back.”

To Adam’s surprise, Gansey held out his hand. After a moment’s hesitation, he took it. Gansey’s grip was firm and determined; Adam felt like he had when he had first been recruited. He felt something cold travel down his spine. It was being in the presence of something great. If any of them, he thought, were going to survive this, it would be Lieutenant Richard Gansey. “That’s all I need,” Gansey said. “To have someone at my back.”

#pynch #the raven cycle #adam parrish #gansey #ronan lynch #can you believe I have 10k of this written??? I'm a MESS #A MESS I TELL YOU!!!#anyway lads! let me know if anyone actually wants to read more of this!#my writing

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booklr-16 · 6 years

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December/Christmas Book Haul

These were all the books I got for Christmas this month.

The Raven Boys, Maggie Stiefvater - Every year, Blue Sargent stands next to her clairvoyant mother as the soon-to-be dead walk past. Blue herself never sees them—not until this year, when a boy emerges from the dark and speaks directly to her. His name is Gansey, and Blue soon discovers that he is a rich student at Aglionby, the local private school. Blue has a policy of staying away from Aglionby boys. Known as Raven Boys, they can only mean trouble.

The Dream Thieves, Maggie Stiefvater - Now that the ley lines around Cabeswater have been woken, nothing for Ronan, Gansey, Blue, and Adam will be the same. Ronan, for one, is falling more and more deeply into his dreams, and his dreams are intruding more and more into waking life. Meanwhile, some very sinister people are looking for some of the same pieces of the Cabeswater puzzle that Gansey is after…

Blue Lily, Lily Blue, Maggie Stiefvater - Blue Sargent has found things. For the first time in her life, she has friends she can trust, a group to which she can belong. The Raven Boys have taken her in as one of their own. Their problems have become hers, and her problems have become theirs. The trick with found things, though, is how easily they can be lost.

The Raven King, Maggie Stiefvater - All her life, Blue has been warned that she will cause her true love's death. She doesn't believe in true love and never thought this would be a problem, but as her life becomes caught up in the strange and sinister world of the Raven Boys, she's not so sure anymore.

It, Stephen King - They were seven teenagers when they first stumbled upon the horror. Now they are grown-up men and women who have gone out into the big world to gain success and happiness. But none of them can withstand the force that has drawn them back to Derry to face the nightmare without an end, and the evil without a name.

The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue, Mackenzie Lee - Henry “Monty” Montague was born and bred to be a gentleman, but he was never one to be tamed. The finest boarding schools in England and the constant disapproval of his father haven’t been able to curb any of his roguish passions—not for gambling halls, late nights spent with a bottle of spirits, or waking up in the arms of women or men. But as Monty embarks on his Grand Tour of Europe, his quest for a life filled with pleasure and vice is in danger of coming to an end. Not only does his father expect him to take over the family’s estate upon his return, but Monty is also nursing an impossible crush on his best friend and traveling companion, Percy.

All Rights Reserved, Gregory Scott Katsoulis - Speth Jime is anxious to deliver her Last Day speech and celebrate her transition into adulthood. The moment she turns fifteen, Speth must pay for every word she speaks, for every nod, for every scream and even every gesture of affection. She’s been raised to know the consequences of falling into debt, and can’t begin to imagine the pain of having her eyes shocked for speaking words that she’s unable to afford. But when Speth’s friend Beecher commits suicide rather than work off his family’s crippling debt, she can’t express her shock and dismay without breaking her Last Day contract and sending her family into Collection. Rather than read her speech—rather than say anything at all—she closes her mouth and vows never to speak again, sparking a movement that threatens to destroy her, her family and the entire city around them.

My Lady Jane, Cynthia Hand, Brodie Ashton, Jodi Meadows - Edward (long live the king) is the King of England. He’s also dying, which is inconvenient, as he’s only sixteen and he’d much rather be planning for his first kiss than considering who will inherit his crown… Jane (reads too many books) is Edward’s cousin, and far more interested in books than romance. Unfortunately for Jane, Edward has arranged to marry her off to secure the line of succession. And there’s something a little odd about her intended… Gifford (call him G) is a horse. That is, he’s an Eðian (eth-y-un, for the uninitiated). Every day at dawn he becomes a noble chestnut steed—but then he wakes at dusk with a mouthful of hay. It’s all very undignified. The plot thickens as Edward, Jane, and G are drawn into a dangerous conspiracy. With the fate of the kingdom at stake, our heroes will have to engage in some conspiring of their own. But can they pull off their plan before it’s off with their heads?

City of Lost Souls, Cassandra Clare - What price is too high to pay, even for love? When Jace and Clary meet again, Clary is horrified to discover that the demon Lilith’s magic has bound her beloved Jace together with her evil brother Sebastian, and that Jace has become a servant of evil. The Clave is out to destroy Sebastian, but there is no way to harm one boy without destroying the other. As Alec, Magnus, Simon, and Isabelle wheedle and bargain with Seelies, demons, and the merciless Iron Sisters to try to save Jace, Clary plays a dangerous game of her own. The price of losing is not just her own life, but Jace’s soul. She’s willing to do anything for Jace, but can she still trust him? Or is he truly lost?

Turtles All the Way Down, John Green - Sixteen-year-old Aza never intended to pursue the mystery of fugitive billionaire Russell Pickett, but there’s a hundred-thousand-dollar reward at stake and her Best and Most Fearless Friend, Daisy, is eager to investigate. So together, they navigate the short distance and broad divides that separate them from Russell Pickett’s son, Davis. Aza is trying. She is trying to be a good daughter, a good friend, a good student, and maybe even a good detective, while also living within the ever-tightening spiral of her own thoughts.

Renegades, Marissa Meyer - The Renegades are a syndicate of prodigies—humans with extraordinary abilities—who emerged from the ruins of a crumbled society and established peace and order where chaos reigned. As champions of justice, they remain a symbol of hope and courage to everyone...except the villains they once overthrew. Nova has a reason to hate the Renegades, and she is on a mission for vengeance. As she gets closer to her target, she meets Adrian, a Renegade boy who believes in justice—and in Nova. But Nova's allegiance is to a villain who has the power to end them both.

Every Heart a Doorway, Seanan McGuire - Children have always disappeared under the right conditions; slipping through the shadows under a bed or at the back of a wardrobe, tumbling down rabbit holes and into old wells, and emerging somewhere... else. But magical lands have little need for used-up miracle children. Nancy tumbled once, but now she’s back. The things she’s experienced... they change a person. The children under Miss West’s care understand all too well. And each of them is seeking a way back to their own fantasy world. But Nancy’s arrival marks a change at the Home. There’s a darkness just around each corner, and when tragedy strikes, it’s up to Nancy and her new-found schoolmates to get to the heart of the matter.

Down Among the Sticks and Bones, Seanan McGuire - Twin sisters Jack and Jill were seventeen when they found their way home and were packed off to Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children. This is the story of what happened first… Jacqueline was her mother’s perfect daughter—polite and quiet, always dressed as a princess. If her mother was sometimes a little strict, it’s because crafting the perfect daughter takes discipline. Jillian was her father’s perfect daughter—adventurous, thrill-seeking, and a bit of a tom-boy. He really would have preferred a son, but you work with what you've got. They were five when they learned that grown-ups can’t be trusted. They were twelve when they walked down the impossible staircase and discovered that the pretense of love can never be enough to prepare you a life filled with magic in a land filled with mad scientists and death and choices.

Clockwork Angel, Cassandra Clare - The year is 1878. Tessa Gray descends into London’s dark supernatural underworld in search of her missing brother. She soon discovers that her only allies are the demon-slaying Shadowhunters—including Will and Jem, the mysterious boys she is attracted to. Soon they find themselves up against the Pandemonium Club, a secret organization of vampires, demons, warlocks, and humans. Equipped with a magical army of unstoppable clockwork creatures, the Club is out to rule the British Empire, and only Tessa and her allies can stop them...

Clockwork Prince, Cassandra Clare - With the help of the handsome, self-destructive Will and the fiercely devoted Jem, Tessa discovers that the Magister’s war on the Shadowhunters is deeply personal. He blames them for a long-ago tragedy that shattered his life. To unravel the secrets of the past, the trio journeys from mist-shrouded Yorkshire to a manor house that holds untold horrors, from the slums of London to an enchanted ballroom where Tessa discovers that the truth of her parentage is more sinister than she had imagined. When they encounter a clockwork demon bearing a warning for Will, they realize that the Magister himself knows their every move—and that one of their own has betrayed them. Tessa finds her heart drawn more and more to Jem, but her longing for Will, despite his dark moods, continues to unsettle her. But something is changing in Will—the wall he has built around himself is crumbling. Could finding the Magister free Will from his secrets and give Tessa the answers about who she is and what she was born to do?

#bookworm #booklover #book blog #book photography #books #the raven cycle #the infernal devices #the gentleman's guide to vice and virtue #book haul

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