#decade trc reread

[deathsweetblossoms]

HELLO?

Not that far into Blue Lily Lily Blue and Adam is surprised that Gansey is showing up at his apartment late in the night AND THAT HE’S NOT RONAN? SO LIKE RONAN HAS BEEN HANGING THERE OFTEN ENOUGH THAT HE FEELS LIKE PART OF THE SPACE????

[squash1]

once again, not a Fan but artemus hiding in the closet and just being like yeah no thank! i don’t wanna come out right now i’m actually suuuuper comfy in here with all the tupperware and flour and stuff. there’s just been too many events this decade i think! i just really can’t do it right now! but thank you for your time anyway! is the most relatable shit

[cabeswaterdrowned]

Adam really is still guy of all time to me it turns out… sorry Andrew

[konungarike]

My initial reaction was [redacted] but then I remembered it’s been like a decade since I reread TRC and I don’t remember at all, actually. The nuances have been lost to time and any thoughts I have on the subject are likely to have been made up

[comicsohwhyohwhy]

Share your self care!

I was tagged by @emmerrr, thanks so much, dear :)

🌿 Favourite comfort food

Chocolaateeeee. And cheese. Which makes me sound like a cliché given the country I live in, but who needs to be hipster when chocolate and cheese are involved

🌼 Favourite alcohol (or hot drink!)

I say, why not both? Mulled wine! (And hot chocolate. Also hot chocolate WITH booze is pretty damn nice, like Amaretto or Rum...)

🌷 Favourite relaxing activity

Taking a bath, reading a comic in the bath and feeling decadent (until I by accident drop the comic into the bath, that makes it less relaxing)

🌸 Favourite fluffy/feel-good fic

Ohh I’m bad with fic recs, also, what I consider to be fluff is probably angst by other people’s standars, ha. I did however just read this and this lovely fic and I think they both qualify :)

🌻 Favourite calming scent

Lavender! Like the fields in the south of France, makes me think of vacations too

🌺 Favourite relaxing (or uplifting) song at the minute?

My chill playlist gives me Dida’s Love Song (Gone Wrong) as the answer to this!

🌵 Favourite white noise

The waves of the sea

🍄 Favourite book to get lost in

Hm I’m not a huge rereader of things, so it’s a bit hard to answer? I reread some of TRC recently; and then in terms of comics let’s go with... Saga. Actually yeah, ongoing comics work because there’s new stuff I can get lost in regularly :P

💐 Favourite chill-out TV show

Atm watching some Brooklyn 99, very relaxing

🌹 The best advice you’ve ever had

Probably that downtime is really important for recharging your batteries, be it for creative projects or other things in life

I’m gonna tag @toast-the-unknowing @laireshi @two-of-swords-621 @motorbikeadam @bipolarronanlynchevangelist @gerdavonrinnlingen and whoever else feels like doing it, of course :)! Also I’m bad at keeping track of those things, so sorry if you were already tagged by other people

[canwriteitbetterthanueverfeltit]

I'm rereading TRC for, surprisingly, the first time, so prepare for an influx of gangsey content

Also, I'm really happy this is going to be my first read of the DECADE and after I finish then I can use my new raven's prophecy tarot deck

[deathsweetblossoms]

I’m rereading the Raven Cycle for the first time in a decade and, I’m sorry, but when Adam buys Blue the tiny sprig of baby’s breath and a single carnation (because that’s all he can afford) I simply cease breathing. Adam, my boy, you are too pure too good.

[deathsweetblossoms]

THIS SERIES IS A MULTISHIPPERS DREAM

[deathsweetblossoms]

So nobody is going to talk about how Gansey is always chewing mint, smells like mint, has mint plants and mint was historically and esoterically associated with the dead? Because of the naiad Minthe?

[deathsweetblossoms]

“At 300 Fox Way, Adam quietly turned eighteen”

Oh my god he didn’t tell anyone? 😩 nobody celebrated?? ADAMMM HELPPP WHY ARE YOU SUCH A TRAGIC CHARACTER OMIGOD

[deathsweetblossoms]

WHAT DID I F*CKING SAY?!?

Gray Man is the grown up, dangerous and nefarious version of Gansey.

The way he looks through all of Gansey’s belongings with such care and reverence. So cute!!

The way he, like me, lost his shit when the two goons stomped through the mini model of Henrietta (which btw I am GUTTED HOW DARE THEY)!!

I love him. He is hot and mysterious and dangerous. GET IT MAURA.

[deathsweetblossoms]

Rereading The Raven Cycle ten years later and why is the Gray Man making me feel ~a type of way~? Is it because I’m older now, and he’s like an intellectual, nefarious version of Gansey? His flirting with Maura sent me over the edge, he recited poetry on the spot per Calla’s request, and now he’s sitting in a stakeout passing the time by reading a translated Bede’s Death Song?? Daddy hitman 🥵

[deathsweetblossoms]

“I’m sorry no one saved you”

— Maura to the Gray Man

So, the Gray Man is what Gansey would have ended up as without the raven boys and blue. Maybe not a hit man, but definitely something desperate and empty and hungry and always searching. Gray Man finds things nobody else can find, and “the world turns out it’s pockets (for Gansey”. They’re two sides of the same coin. The clues are all there. They both even end up with a Sargent woman, lol!

Kavinsky is what Ronan would have been without Gansey, without the Raven Boys. They’re also two sides of the same coin, down to sexuality and dead fathers and dream thieving (and creating complex things *coughspoilerscough*).

I just this dynamic is so interesting and it really elevates the Raven boys and their relationship with each other. How, even though they go through their challenges and they argue, they still needed each other.

[deathsweetblossoms]

NOAH AND BLUE BLUE AND NOAH

[deathsweetblossoms]

One more thing:

When Ronan says “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours” in Latin to Barrington Whelk, my soul left my body and floated through every level of the bardo before coming back and screaming into the void of my room at 3am. The way he makes dick jokes and sex jokes only with MEN in the first two books, before ~things are revealed~, I cannot. I’m ascending.

[deathsweetblossoms]

Okay listen just LISTEN A SECOND.

Dare I say the epilogue of the Raven King is grossly underwhelming? Dare I say how frustrated I am that we never see the Gray Man at the end of Greywaren? I just finished this reread and I think I was more entranced ten years ago when I first read the Raven King, and I realized the only scene I really remember is That One Scene on the leyline at the end. And Noah’s story. That’s it.

I don’t know how I feel.

Am I missing something? Did Maggie ever give us more information about where they end up over the years??? (Why did she spend so much page time on giving Adam a reunion with his parents in that epilogue when we could’ve had more Bluesy? Lmaooo wtf?? More 300 Fox Way?? Literally anything else? Omg.

Also I really dont know how to feel about the shoe-in of Henry and him suddenly being the means to find Glendower like wtf are you talking about? What a cop out. The addition of Henry and removal of 300 Fox Way weakened this book for me. Also it felt like Bluesy + Noah took a backseat to Ad*m and R*nan in this and I truly feel like TRC is at its strongest when the story focuses on ALL OF THEM TOGETHER, IN BALANCE.)

Also, I did notice there’s similarly no mention of Henry in Greywaren either? I don’t care so much, because I did think Bluesy needed to have some time to adventure alone, but I’m just a bit disappointed, I suppose. It’s like MS only cares about a specific few of her characters. We never heard about 300 Fox Way again and we still don’t get anything in the spin off??? H…hello?

Does Artemus stay where he is forever?

Does Gwenllian become a true member of 300 Fox Way??

Do Maura & Grey Man reunite eventually?

Does Gansey tell Mallory about his finding??

Does ANYONE know what Noah did???????? I think this is my biggest upset tbh.