#and forget about Henry.

[whatrblurbs]

CHEESEPIN MEI DAY 2 !2!2

[yrsonpurpose]

Deep down you’re a gigantic, sappy, embarrassing romantic who just wants the happily ever after.

[juanasfanart]

how the fnck is no one talking about these

[lemonofthevalley]

[yourlocalabomination]

I’ve decided to make some last-minute…cuts.

[adamprrishcycle]

saw this and realised it applies to basically every character in the raven cycle

[saints-who-never-existed]

Never over Collins in that first scene aboard Erebus. He's just an entirely different person - cool and calm, issuing orders in that lovely warm tone, voice clear as a bell, striding the length of the ship with confidence and ease and purpose.

LOOK WHAT THEY TOOK FROM US!

[allthethoughtsandstuff]

Just thinking ab this and how this here is the foundation of their ENTIRE relationship bc Alex is just 100% genuinely being himself and saying whatever he wants bc he doesn’t care how he’s perceived by Henry and bc of that Henry is actually getting the real Alex which is wild bc Alex never really shows his real self but bc he has it in his head that he doesn’t care what Henry thinks of him he just has this freedom to be himself that he doesn’t normally give himself. And then that just becomes how they communicate bc their relationship was built on this unfiltered communication so that’s just the standard and both of them just say whatever they’re thinking bc that’s how it is and I feel like that’s why their relationship feels so genuine bc it’s just unabashed honesty and I think that’s so important bc they both spend so much of their time having to hide who they are or what they think but with each other they just get to be themselves and it plays right into the “I love him on purpose” bc everything started with them just putting their genuine messy selves forward for the other to look at and their relationship formed because of that messiness and it’s just both of them being like yes I see this messy imperfect person and I choose to love them because of that and it started from the beginning when they built a friendship on all those unfiltered texts back when Alex didn’t care and his not caring opened the door to a completely genuine relationship where he was never anything other that who he is and he never stopped himself from being that person and there’s just something so special about that

[one-squash-one-end]

I wrote a giant Raven Cycle analysis

Hi! Over the last year or so I've been working on a sort of essay about various themes in the raven cycle series, and I finally finished it a few weeks ago.

It is titled: "Why I love The Raven Cycle - An excessive analysis of the themes of friendship, queerness and growing up".

And since tumblr loves its meta (and bc I love peer validation) I've decided to start uploading it bit by bit here, making this the masterpost (if I can figure out the logistics of the linking lmao, bear with me)

(beware of spoilers up to greywaren starting at like 3b!)

Introduction

What even is the Raven Cycle?

Trust me, the characters are queer as fuck and I can prove it a) Blue Sargent b) Gansey c) Adam Parrish d) Ronan Lynch e) Noah f) Henry Cheng g) Honorary mentions

The Gangsey is a polycule

Analyzing the reoccurring themes a) Friendship b) Being a teen/growing up c) (Found) Family d) Magic (as a metaphor) e) Further themes I appreciate

Drawing a conclusion

Click here to start with the introductory parts!

1. Introduction

So here’s the thing: I love fiction almost as much as I love my friends. There’s something deeply comforting about the escapism, even if the book actually makes me want to scream and throw it on the floor (only one book has been thrown so far, I promise!).  Fiction is a healthy thing to occupy my thoughts with: headcanons! Quotes being on loop in my brain! Just fandoms!

And for me, if I am hooked on a book (series), it does not even need a good plot where a lot of things happen. In fact, I would say that my enjoyment of a book is made up of 30% plot and about 70% characters and vibes. If the characters are bland, if they do not make me feel much emotion, it likely won’t be more than 4 stars (additional info: I am way too nice rating books!). I really, really need to love the characters, to be able to relate to some aspects of them, or it just won’t become an obsession.

Since I have already started explaining that a bit, let’s look at this question: What is important to make a book special to me? 1. I need to cry reading it. 2. I have to think about it often, even weeks to months after having read it. 3. Obviously, I need to love the characters. 4. I need to be in the fandom! This can be hard with some books, but the internet is a whimsical space allowing you to find at least a small number of people who are obsessed with a work of fiction to a similar extent as you are.

Now, why am I elaborating on this so much? It’s because The Raven Cycle did all that for me. It is my favorite comfort book series at the moment, for all those aspects mentioned, but of course I cannot just leave it at that. No, I wrote a whole-ass analysis on headcanons and some of its themes. You’re welcome.

2. What even is The Raven Cycle?

The Raven Cycle is all I adore and live for (next to my friends). So, naturally, it’s a book series, specifically a four book young adult contemporary fantasy series by American author Maggie Stiefvater. The books in question are: The Raven Boys (2012), The Dream Thieves (2013), Blue Lily, Lily Blue (2014) and The Raven King (2016), and yes I will admit that the publishing dates are a bit of a red flag. There is also the very relevant follow-up series called The Dreamer Trilogy (Call Down The Hawk, Mister Impossible, Greywaren), but it’s a lot less easy to get into that here as I do not know these entire books by heart, so I’ll stick to the original tetralogy here.

To stick to red flags, the books are set in the fictional Henrietta, a rural town in non-fictional Virginia, US, in the 2010s. However, that doesn’t really say *that* much about the plot, so let me summarize that really quick, because I can do better than the official synopsis! (Or let’s pretend I can.)

Blue Sargent comes from a family of psychics, yet she does not have any powers of her own. Even worse, she is a bit of an amplifier for the others, meaning she is always somehow but never directly involved in the business. As if that isn’t enough for an identity crisis, every psychic she has ever met has told her that her kiss would kill her true love. Yikes.

But because she is that amplifier, she comes to a church watch on St. Mark’s Eve, where psychics see the spirits of those to die within the following year. It’s important business, but to her it’s really just staring into the dark. Until she does actually see a spirit: That of Gansey. Of course this is not a coincidence. No, to add to this teen’s mount of problems, there are only two reasons why a non-seer would see someone’s spirit: They are their true love, or they killed them. Or, in Blue’s case, maybe both.

The aforementioned Gansey is Henrietta’s Golden Boy, the son of politicians (read: he’s fucking loaded). He does not run with the Republicans though, he runs with dead Welsh kings, meaning he has been searching for the probably dead, presumably sleeping Welsh king Glendower (*1350; †1416; yikes) for the past like seven years. Why the fuck would he do that? Well, legend says that he will grant a wish to whoever wakes him, and our favorite PTSD-ridden guy really wants that favor.

Aiding him are fellow Aglionby students Adam Parrish, Ronan Lynch and Noah Czerny, plus Henry Cheng, though only a lot later in the series, but I really did not want to leave out that menace (affectionately) here. The paths of Blue and the boys cross because of Gansey’s search for Glendower, plus the fact that Blue works at a popular pizza place, but that’s a lot less whimsical. And, well, there’s the implication that Gansey might also be her true love, but perhaps she just kills him because of his bad fashion sense, it would be justified. Anyway, in true Famous Five fashion (Ronan is the dog; I won’t elaborate, the girls that get it, get it) they are of course not the only ones searching for the king, so it’s not completely a wholesome friend bonding activity all the way through.

Be prepared for: friendship and growing up, lots of treasure hunting, family mysteries, magical forests, illegal and slightly distasteful activities (our favorite of course), but most of all, heavily queer-coded (or even canonically queer) characters. Be Gay, Do Crime.

[pineappical]

father and son

[lasshoe]

ted: i need you to hire a private investigator to spy on my ex-wife and her new boyfriend in paris

rebecca:

[mccallhero]

favourite ouat scenes: 11/?

[wonder-worker]

I've been thinking about the tragedy of Elizabeth Woodville living to see the end of her family name.

I don't mean her family with her husband, which lived on through her daughter and grandson. I mean her own.

Her sisters died, one by one, many of them after 1485. When Elizabeth died, only Katherine was left, and she would die before the turn of the century as well.

All her brothers died, too. Lewis died in childhood. John was executed. Anthony was murdered. Lionel died suddenly in the peak of Richard's reign, unable to see his niece become queen. Edward perished at war. Richard died in grieving peace. For all the violence and judgement the family endured, it was "an accident of biology" that ended their line: none of the brothers left heirs, and the Woodville name was extinguished. We know the family was aware of this. We know they mourned it, too:

“Buy a bell to be a tenor at Grafton to the bells now there, for a remembrance of the last of my blood.”

Elizabeth lived through the deposition and death of her young sons, and lived to see the end of her own family name. It must have been such a haunting loss, on both sides.

[kale-smoothies]

I had a dream I opened twitter and Shadow THE hedgehog posted a tweet that was like this:

« I look up at the sky and think to myself… “Henry.” » (Idk why he said that..)

Scourge replied with « I look up to the sky and think “Daddy” »

[wololo-01]

While I still finish some wips, have this thing I did it some days ago, no context, is just mittie talk about something with Mrs water.

(+extra: Solved to redid mittie's scars since it's would be more easy to me for draw and also cuz i though the old one kinda ugly 🥲)

[kaseyskat]

do you guys think sparrow watched henry try over and over to convince lark that he was forgiven for years and years knowing that he was always supposed to be the good twin to lark's bad twin and that's why their parents expected better of him when really he and lark have always been the same. do you think sparrow knows that right now, if lark wanted to accept that forgiveness, he would be forgiven. do you think about how they both doomed the world in different ways but only one of them is going to come out of it with a salvageable relationship with their parents. do you think about how lark was a manipulated teenager and sparrow was an adult in a desperate situation with no better option because the alternative was watching his family die. do you think about sparrow taking that burden from lark because despite it all he wants lark to have that relationship with their parents even if it means sparrow will never get the chance. do you think sparrow remembers henry desperately pleading with him when he was pretending to be his twin that he was forgiven and everything would be okay if they stuck together when he is sitting in that office watching his father turn his back after declaring him unforgivable. do you think about how much sparrow is willing to do for his family, for lark, for normal. he can't be better, the only reason henry and mercedes think he can be better is because ever since faerun he was supposed to be the nice twin, the good twin, the twin not afflicted by unrelenting anger and hatred. maybe henry would've forgiven lark in the same position but he never expected it of sparrow. do you think sparrow ever forgives himself.