#gansey is a short king

[illustration-station]

im too old to be thinking about this series so much. Sorry if they aren't book accurate, i was working off what I thought they looked like in my head while reading. Gansey will always be a short king to me

[lesbianjudasiscariot]

We as a community do not acknowledge enough that based on the trb cover Gansey is the shortest raven boy

[play-exy-be-sexy]

Blue is layering QUEEN. she never just wears a shirt. no, there’s a vest, and a tank top and a jacket and and and.

[enigmaticvariation]

Every time I see someone draw Gansey taller than Adam it confuses me because I see Adam as fairly tall and there’s no way Gansey is above 5’7

[monstressmasc]

Sammy Stevens is so Adam Parrish to me

[kelliealtogether]

Love that, by this point in The Dream Thieves, the boys have been hanging out with Blue for roughly two months and none of them know how old she is. 😌 Also love that Gansey’s mind jumps to maybe she was twenty-two and just very short and remedial. King.

[the-ghost-bracket]

Noah Czerny propaganda:

"Noah has been dead for 7 years by the time the story starts, and no one knows it. Not even the two friends he literally lives with. They just assume he doesn't eat in front of people and doesn't share classes with them. He was a failed sacrifice to a magic forest and the forest keeps him alive cause his body was left to rot in the forest, and since the forest experiences time differently so does he. He knows a whole bunch of stuff like secrets that haven't been shared and events that haven't happened yet because for him everything happens at once/in a circle. He died as a teenager, so he's kinda stuck in the teenager phase, and he still does dumb stuff like building ramps to drive cars off of. He's described as "less" now that he's dead. It's talked about by people who knew him when he was alive that Noah was cheerful and full of life and joyful and a jokester, but Noah as a ghost is quiet and shy and almost a completely different person because he lost so much of himself when he died.

This next part is confusing, but I'm going to try and explain it as best as possible.

ALSO - MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE BOOKS BELOW - I'M SERIOUS

Basically, 7 years ago, when Noah died, this other guy Gansey, who is one of the main characters also died. Gansey however, was brought back to life by what he thought was a magic king who was buried underground. Gansey spent the next 7 years searching for this king. He was obsessed and he thought it was his duty and his destiny to find the king. Long story short, it turns out the king was actually dead underground and had been dead for a while.

It wasn't the king who brought Gansey back to life - it was noah.

Noah as a ghost went back in time to the moment he died - aka the moment Gansey died - and sacrificed his spirit so that Gansey could live, whispering to Gansey that he was the dead king and therefore setting Gansey on his path to find the king. Because of this, Noah's ghost technically never existed, and Gansey and the others technically never met him, meaning they don't remember him. NOAH GAVE HIS LIFE SO GANSEY COULD LIVE AND I'M NEVER GONNA BE OVER THAT."

"- Noah isn't revealed as a ghost until the end of the book/series

- Most characters are unaware that Noah is a ghost, and when he disappears, they assume that's just a Noah thing

- Noah uses this to his advantage and just fucks off whenever it's uncomfortable or people need him, though sometimes he can't control this

- Noah stays true to Ghosting and permanently disappears at the end of the series

- Got bludgeoned to death with his skateboard I think? might've made that up but i think it adds points for Tony Hawkness

- His death is linked with another character: that character SHOULD have died, but because Noah was murdered at the same time on a ley line, their fates swapped (life/death)

- Had to die in his school uniform :(

- The cast also don't notice he died in his school uniform and assumed he just wore it all the time for some reason

- When connecting with one of the characters through their energy, Noah is clearly more energised, meaning his Ghostness really kills his personality too

- Canonically a Sk8r boy"

"sometimes he relives his death and isn't really aware of that fact. he is very sweet and keeps secrets and is still a third dimensional character even if he can't really interact with many people/things"

"“Oh! Your hand is cold."" Ashley cupped her fingers against her shirt to warm them.

""I've been dead for seven years,"" Noah said. ""That's as warm as they get.” "

"he's dead The Whole Time but his friends love him so much!!! he might be a bit smudgy and confused but he's still just a sweet boy!"

"This boy!!! He is a ghost that just kinda pops up sometimes and his friends are just kinda like “oh hey Noah.” He is so lovely and also his life is tied to a sentient forest that his best friend sacrificed him to. He is always kind to his friends and is a little jokester and is basically the best I love him :)))"

"Please I named myself after him"

"The sweetest boy who was murdered by his friend in an attempted human sacrifice. Lowkey the funnies character in the series if you appreciate dark humor. Sacrifices himself in order to save his friend. All around the best boy."

"He’s been dead for 7 years but when he tells his friends that they just think he’s being #relatable (until they find his skeleton). He was murdered by his high school best friend as part of a failed sacrifice to awaken a ley line and the ley line was basically like damn what a shitty deal here why don’t you be friends with the guys who are gonna wake me up properly. At one point his spirit starts to degrade and it’s all very sad and I’m pretending it didn’t happen."

"He's just my boy. He's sometimes in a trance replaying his own death. He has a stain on his cheek where his head was bashed in. He's sometimes corporeal and sometimes not, sometimes he just communicates through vibes alone or flickerin lights (peak ghost shit). His first line in the series is how he died, but everybody thinks it's a joke. The MC sometimes acts as a living battery for him and he's her first kiss (she was prophecised that her first love will die if she kisses him, so why not kiss a dead guy?)

He kinda gets excluded a bit from the main squad because he's nonexistant from time to time, which is bullshit. Justice for Noah!!!"

"Noah’s literal first line of dialogue is “I’ve been dead for seven years”. Despite this and many other comments about being dead, his friends (two of whom he lives with) believe him to be their normal alive schoolmate right up until Gansey finds his corpse in the woods.

Anyway on a more serious note Noah’s role in the narrative is so cool. At the start he’s very bright and present but as the series continues and he fades from the living world he fades from the narrative too. Depending on where you began the story (quote that’s repeated a lot in the series), it starts with Noah Czerny. Dying on the ley line when he should not, so Gansey lives when he should not. Literally in the end he gets goes back to kickstart the whole story by setting Gansey on the path to Henrietta I love him."

[nibblette]

My Favorite Pynch fics

Inspired by @kelliealtogether, 10 of my favorite TRC/Pynch fics (and some honorable mentions) for TRC making it to 10,000 fics posted on Ao3. I didn’t realize until I made the list how many BDSM Pynch fics I really knew and loved. So be warned, lol.

1. Like @kelliealtogether my favorite pynch fic of all time is “we all fill up with time”

by Interropunct. Such great writing and emotions! The BDSM scenes are so creative and well written, just amazingly constructed! And hotttttt!!!Consent is emphasized! Ronan lives in a named building (the Brownstone) with Chainsaw the chicken in NYC! Adam has made it as a big shot lawyer with the dustless modern apartment, with its secret bedroom full of plants! Gansey, Ronan and Noah have a super strong friendship bond! Highly recommend this fic!

2. Another Interropunct fic, the SW AU, “The kids aren’t alright.

Part 1 is “blessed be the boys” is young SW Adam’s POV where Ronan becomes his main client. Part 2 is “put your curse in reverse” from client Ronan’s POV. The writing is just so great and I marvel that Interropunct published these fics in 2015 before The Raven King even came out. The morphing of Adam’s and Ronan’s relationship from anonymous transaction to boyfriends is so delicious! Ronan’s angst over his dreaming is what draws him to visit a SW and continue. (CW though since later in the fic it’s revealed by Adam that he was only 17 yo when he started SW on his own)

3. Man of Masks by EtoileGarden

(CW for SA) A very inventive take on the slow burn where the kink/sex comes before the romantic relationship. The feels! The scenes! The longing! (All the characters are aged up) Ronan comes to Adam after being assaulted by Kavinsky during their meeting for drugs/sex/Ronan’s punishment. Adam convinces Ronan to come to him for submisssion/pain/“punishment” instead. Adam surprises Ronan by setting boundaries and emphasizing consent. Ronan is already in love with Adam but it takes a while for Adam to realize his feelings for Ronan, despite the increasingly sexual and emotional nature their kink relationship takes.

4. And the Forest Began to Sing by rootingformistopheles.

A short and sweet and hot smut fic. Cabeswater merges with Adam to physically please their Greywaren. Includes vine tentacles and bondage!

5. “In a hurry” by PennyByTheBlock

Adam and Ronan have a Sunday morning quickie at the Barns before work and church, respectively. It’s so hot, I’ve read it like 20 times already. It really captures the Adam/Ronan dynamic.

6. There’s No Place Like My Room by Lil_Redhead

[abarbaricyalp]

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Let’s spread the self-love 💜

Hi! What a fun challenge. For someone who routinely despairs not being able to write, I'm apparently actually quite fond of my little stories, lol. In no particular order:

We Live Such Fragile Lives

High school, fake dating AU

I am still working on it! 😭 Despite writing at a glacial speed, I really love this story. I love bringing up old high school emotions and tapping back into being a teenager when every single emotion was the biggest emotion you'd ever felt. This is the slowest I've ever taken a relationship in any story and the ANGST is just so wonderful to work with. I love the dual pining. But I just have so much fun with the setting and their extracurriculars and friends and teachers and all the silly situations they get themselves into. The world is literally so big and open for them.

A Time For Dancing

A Footloose AU

I wrote this fic in about two afternoons one weekend after listening to the song on the way to work. I had so much fun writing about a repressed small town and the big world right beyond it that all of the characters are growing into. I adored the whole cast and each individual relationship, especially Sam and Riley. I also really liked writing about Gideon as this kind of ghost haunting Sam's narrative-- the connection Sam feels to his brother for both being queer and a little bit of betrayal at being left behind, as well as Gideon being this cautionary tale that Sam can't/won't quite reconcile as wholly good or wholly bad. I feel like the writing is fairly strong in this one (no one tell me if it isn't) and I just really like rereading it.

Of Kings and Monsters

Prince!Sam and Prisoner/Rescuer!Bucky

This may not be fair to include/recommend because really why I like this story is the rest of it in my head lol. I just think it's a (literally) steamy short with a fun dynamic between Sam and Bucky. The world is so rich (to me) and I just love the idea of it.

These Ghosts That Haunt Christmas

A Hallmark-esque Christmas fic

Man, I just really love the concept behind this one. I wanted to include more to the scavenger hunt, but I love the bits I did write anyway. I love the growth of Sam and Bucky's relationship with each other but also separately. I really enjoyed playing with their repressed history. I also love the literal ghost in the story. The fact that they're haunting themselves by keeping Steve so close and [spoilers] to move on they absolutely cannot have the last letter. I wrote the fic over the Christmas break and it always smells like hot chocolate to me, haha. It's just cozy. And now I'm kind of obsessed with thinking of hallmark fics.

I Found Something in the Woods Somewhere

A creature/horror fic about monsters and an evil forest and the good man who sees both as they are

It was difficult to pick just one of my creature fics but this is the one that I'm proudest of. I love the world and atmosphere, as well as what a 'monster' is within it. I have a handful of fics that I would expand (or scrub names off and do something more with) and this is at the top of the list

And two non-Sambucky stories because I couldn't not mention them 🫣

No Force Greater Than

A Stucky/Cap Quartet high school au

I love this fic and feel like it kind of got the short end of the stick with how the posting for the event went :/ I love that it's a Cap Quartet fic and I love the personalities for each of the characters. This is another one where working with the characters shared histories was really fun. I just think it's a fun read and love Sam and Nat in this one.

My Heart on the Gas

Blue/Gansey racer au

I love their relationship in this story and I love all the car/racing stuff. I think they're so sexy and in love with each other and life. I also had a FANTASTIC time working with the artist and beta reader, so I'm just thankful for the whole process of working on this bang fic. Fun fact, this is my only M/F story on my page. There's not a part of this story that I want to rework. I just love it and I'm so proud of it.

Everyone should also go check out everything from Cobrafantasies !

[cabeswaterdrowned]

🌹

because of favoritism (lol) I’m going to give you a two snippets from tessellation (Blue and Adam in a time loop TRK divergent) the first one is on the long side from the already published chapter and then the latter one is from the 2nd chapter which I’m struggling with writing atm tbh. So here we go:

Ch.1—-“Why would Cabeswater have us go back in the days and not Ronan?” she asked him. “If Ronan’s the one who made it?”

Adam shrugged. “Beats me. Maybe because you're a mirror, and I made the deal. And maybe the creator can only be so involved in how it works, like with cars.”

Blue thought about this for a moment. When she thought about creating things, she thought of sewing the lace detail on Persephone’s white dress, or stitching together her fingerless gloves. She made things that would stay in her own life, and if they were for herself she could continue to work on them for as long as she pleased. Adam, on the other hand, thought of cars.

As they stepped through the doorway of 300 fox way, Blue and Adam were greeted by the wailing song of Gwenllian. “And on his deathbed, the king once said, my bride my bride, I leave ye before the stroke of midnight.” 

“I’ll kill her,” Blue hissed at Adam. 

“I’ll watch,” he said. She wasn’t sure if he was joking or not. “But after we make her help us.” 

At the kitchen table in fox way, Maura and Calla were sitting with a large pot of one of Maura’s herbal tea on the counter. They looked like they were arguing, as they frequently did these days. The two women loved each other, however they relied on a third party to mediate their squabbles. Persephone had been that third party. Her absence, compounded by the return of Artemus who Calla clearly had no respect for as a concept, had led to a tense dynamic between the two. Blue did her best not to get in the middle of it, but she felt a sense of hopelessness about it. She couldn’t help them, she couldn’t be Persephone. Yet she also wasn’t doing a very good job of helping her friends — at least she was being given a second chance at that. At saving her best friend who she had fallen in love with. 

Maura looked up at them in surprise. “Blue, I thought you were going out to the party with —” She blinked at Adam, as if taken aback by his presence. “Oh, hi. I didn’t expect you to be here.”

“What's the coca cola t-shirt one doing here?” asked Calla with less tact. “I thought you wouldn’t be in a rush to be here, not with Blue and not after…” Her voice cracked at the end. Adam hung his head slightly. “Persephone told me.” He said. “About Gansey. I’m here to help Blue… I want to protect him.” 

Calla gazed at him with narrow eyes. “Hmmm. Alright, you do that. I want a cup of coffee, not whatever this is.”

“Oolong, Pomegranate and Vanilla.” Maura huffed. “I made it with everything you like.”

“I don’t need everything I like all at once.” returned Calla. 

“Sorry to interrupt,” Blue interrupted, not feeling sorry at all. “We have bigger problems. Adam and I came back in time more than 24 hours, because of Cabeswater.” That jolted both women to attention. “You went back in time?” asked Maura. “Such a short window of time…is it…” she and Calla wordlessly communicated with their eyes. 

“They’re in a time loop.” said a third voice, high and shrill. One that was no longer singing. 

Adam crossed the room towards Gwenllian in a couple of long strides, and Blue was bitterly jealous of his long legs as she followed to match him. She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at Gwenllian. 

“Why didn’t you stop him,” she said bitterly.

“Stop who? What?” asked Maura, but they were busy staring Gwenllian down. 

“I could not have stopped him if I tried.” replied Gwenllian, annoyingly cool and collected all of a sudden. “It was his destiny, and he rose to claim it. A lesser boy-king would have cowered behind the two of you and your warrior friend. Wouldn’t have dared leave the comforts of his bed. You should both be proud he did what needed to be done. You were not blindly led by a man such as my father.” 

“Hang on,” interrupted Calla. “You can feel that you're in a loop with them?” 

Gwenllian nodded. “When you’ve been awake as long as I have, it’s difficult for time to play tricks on you.” 

That seemed counterintuitive to Blue, but Maura nodded as though the explanation were as logical as “water is wet” or “don’t leave a glass of milk outside for too long”. 

Ch.2 — “Adam felt at a loss for words for a moment. A part of him hadn’t believed Gansey was still alive here, yet here he was. He wanted a moment to bask in this. But there wasn’t time, not really. His eyes went from Gansey’s face to Ronan’s. The set of his jaw was tight with worry, Adam could tell. He’d kissed that mouth yesterday… and that also wasn’t important right now. The worst and best things had happened to him yesterday and he could neither revel in being with Ronan, nor could he break down in despair over what had happened to Gansey because both things had been erased.”

Ty <3

[ghostblazewrites]

Children of the Forest Intro

BASIC

genre: fantasy, adventure,

status: finished first draft, editing

key themes: found family, exploration, fantasy, nature, mythology, magical realism, siblings, childhood friends, nostalgia, parasites, at this point i'm just listing things in my book i'll stop

𖡼 𖤣 𖥧 𖡼 𓋼 𖤣 𖥧 𓋼 𓍊 𖡼 𖤣 𖥧 𖡼 𓋼 𖤣 𖥧 𓋼 𓍊 𖡼 𖤣 𖥧 𖡼 𓋼 𖤣 𖥧 𓋼 𓍊 𖡼 𖤣 𖥧 𖡼 𓋼

STORY

Two boys are born in a willow tree inside a forest brimming with magic. They become obsessed with uncovering the secrets of this forest, exploring and researching the wilderness along with their childhood friends. When the forest suddenly vanishes and then reappears in struggling condition, the boys are left wondering what happened to their home, and if they can save it.

CHARACTERS

Theo Winter (he/him)

Impulsive, always-smiling, and just a tad bit reckless. He's the class clown, never one to take things seriously and it backfires. a lot. Theo's just having fun ok? Not his fault the god of the forest decided his body would be perfect as its puppet!

age: 17

quote: “I highly doubt any of what you said is gonna be a problem,” Theo said distractedly, then grabbed onto Kian’s backpack urgently as another thought struck him. He was always active, and always filled with energy. Kian didn’t think he ever saw Theo without a grin on his face or his blue bandanna off his head.

quick facts

he's trans (ftm)

adhd king

playboy (don't worry, he learns very quickly this isn't good)

inspired by oliver queen and lance mcclain

heart of the forest

Kian Winter (he/him)

Intelligent, oblivious, and always locked in his own world, he's always operating at 100% and extremely determined/stubborn. the inventor of the group, his tech assists his research on the forest.

age: 17

quote: John’s veins bulged from his neck, his eyes slitted. He turned slowly to look at him and his voice was low. “You’re dead.” “I’m very much alive. It’s Mothsong who is dead. I think.” Kian rushed to pick up his robotic insect’s limp body from inside the mess. “I’m sure I can fix this–”

quick facts

autism king

inspired by zane (ninjago) and gansey from the raven boys!!

always wearing his goggles and his jacket with a million pockets in them- with almost any gadget you can think of

gayyy

always known as the younger brother of theo even though they're technically twins and no one knows who's older

brains of the forest

Rue Ezeani (she/her)

Quiet, sarcastic, and always willing to stand up for what she believes is right, she's a punk who got kicked out of her home, and she's brutally protective of her friends. also, flowers grow on her quite a lot.

age: 16

quote: “Poverly, you don’t know shit about me,” Rue growled, taking a step towards them. “I’ve been to this forest longer than you, it’s more important to me than you’ll ever know. Of course I was working to get it back.”

quick facts

has freckles

trans lesbian

first friend kian and theo made

inspired by blue sargent (wow who could've guessed) and killer frost

eyes of the forest

can play electric guitar

i love her

Becca Hill (she/her)

Smart, cold, and competent, she is known as the 'normal' one of the group, although she has her issues, don't worry. Gets skeptical and annoyed easily, but connects with nature and animals very well. Natural-born leader.

age: 17

quote: “Oh my god, you guys can’t just break ceilings and destroy classrooms. Do you have any idea how much those cost?” Becca pressed her lips together, concerned.

quick facts

'token straight friend' (sure...)

inspired by laurel lance and pip fitz amobi!!

has a pet dog, turtle, and bird

complicated relationship with theo

ears of the forest

Cove Poverly (they/them)

If you thought Theo was impulsive, think again. They're a fighter, with a short temper and witty humour. Chews gum, tobacco, straw, lollipops...they like to keep busy. Mastered the 90's + 2020 aesthetic at the same time? A reaaal southern kid.

age: 16

quote: “Trouble in hetero relationships. Can't relate," Cove casually chewed on a piece of gum. They brushed past Theo, picked up a twig, and began drawing something on a nearby rock.

quick facts

heterochromia! (one eye is blue, one eye is hazel)

inspired by... tbh i have no idea where cove came from they just popped up

very blunt/no filter

nonbinary

m e n

likes arguing with rue (affectionately, they hate each other)

fists of the forest

Amora (she/her)

Mysterious, sassy and flirtatious imp, lives deep within the forest and a master of manipulation. Is she truly evil? Who knows? Some hate her, some love her, but no one trusts her.

age: ?

quote: Amora grinned, her eyes a deep mauve in this lighting. “No games, Thorny. I’m just here to help you save the forest. It’s my job.” She stretched the last part, singing it with a tilt of her head.

quick facts

wears a red cloak

inspired by darcy wu and parisa kamali

seduces like half of the characters

she has elfish ears

twig horns and long black nails

also has ties to a god/spirit...

Miiba (it/its)

no picrew for this mf but basically this is the god of the forest, it's a big pain in the ass for our main characters because there's...occasional possessions and flora growing everywhere on their clothes/body. it has questionable morals due to being immortal and its sole purpose is to preserve the forest. it doesn't have a corporeal form, instead bouncing its consciousness around any creature/living thing in the forest (plants, trees, animals)

AESTHETIC

FACTS

𖡼 i wrote this entire book during nanowrimo!! i won, but i added 13k after november so it's only 63k right now, but i am editing to make it longer. it took me two months to finish draft 1

𖡼 i came up with the idea during summer of 2022, based on a playlist that a close friend gave me - they said boom, make a story, and i did!!

𖡼 the story is set in the fictional town of pinevale, canada, and i do not have a name for the forest yet (i should probably get on that so it's less vague when i talk about the forest

𖡼 it's third person and the POV switches between kian, theo, rue and miiba, and amora for like one pov (i'll probably make it more consistent in the 2nd draft)

LINKS

spotify playlist

pinboard

𖡼 𖤣 𖥧 𖡼 𓋼 𖤣 𖥧 𓋼 𓍊 𖡼 𖤣 𖥧 𖡼 𓋼 𖤣 𖥧 𓋼 𓍊 𖡼 𖤣 𖥧 𖡼 𓋼 𖤣 𖥧 𓋼 𓍊 𖡼 𖤣 𖥧 𖡼 𓋼

if you want to know more, please tell me! this took SO LONG but i loved doing it. i'll probably do it for my other wips!!

[clotpolesonly]

When Restless Hearts Beat Imperfectly

my second TRC fic!! this was actually the first one i started writing, but i stalled on it and had to come back later so the Pynch one got finished first. i am just.....overflowing with Lynch brothers emotions, okay? i am thinking about them for 23 hours out of every day. feel my feels with me ❤️ | Ronan & Declan | Gen | 3.3k | Very Slight AU | Missing TRK Scene | Declan Is Trying His Best | Ronan Has Feelings | Family Feels | Complicated Relationships | Reconciliation | Card Games | (also on AO3)

.

For someone who was primarily characterized by his ability to bring his dreams into reality, Ronan sure as fuck had trouble sleeping. He was no stranger to tossing and turning, to late nights and all-nighters, to watching the sun rise with eyes too gritty and exhausted to appreciate the beauty of it.

He hadn't expected tonight to be one of those nights. But also, he sort of had. 

His head was buzzing with everything. Making Cabeswater and kissing Parrish and demons taking over everything and his brothers leaving and kissing Parrish and being back in the Barns and Noah attacking Blue and kissing Parrish and—

Yeah, there was no way sleep was happening tonight. He hadn't slept in this bedroom in two years, not since his father was alive, and that all on its own would've been enough to make him wary of closing his eyes, but on top of everything else? He didn’t know what kind of dreams would come out of his clusterfuck of a head right now, if he could even make sleep happen, and he wasn’t eager to find out.

As Ronan slumped his way down the unlit stairs by feel and muscle memory, he wished, just for a moment, that he was back at Monmouth instead. Gansey would be awake too probably, cross-legged on the floor, myopically gluing pieces onto his tiny town. He would've offered Ronan the glue gun. They often sat together in total silence, just like that, for hours at a time on nights like this.

But this wasn't Monmouth. And, when Ronan picked his way through the dark to the living room, it wasn't Gansey he found, but Declan. Ronan had almost forgotten that Declan and Matthew were still here, packed and ready to make for DC at first light. Another part of him, on some deep buried level, had already forgotten that any of them had ever left. But Ronan had never had nights like this before, and if Declan had, he didn’t know.

His brother was cross-legged on the couch, wearing an old faded t-shirt with a stretched out neckline and flannel pajama bottoms that were a bit too short for him. ORBMASTER sat on the coffee table in front of him, casting its light over the table's contents: playing cards, laid out in neat little piles. Declan was sorting them by number. Sevens with sevens, twos with twos, kings with kings. 

He hadn't noticed Ronan's presence yet. Ronan considered yelling, for the satisfaction of scaring the shit out of him. He considered asking what the fuck Declan was doing and why. He considered turning around and going back upstairs, finding somewhere else to lurk until the sun came up. He considered trying to sleep again.

In the end, he padded across the carpeted floor to sit down on the other side of the coffee table.

Declan looked up, apparently too tired to be startled. When Ronan didn't say anything, he went back to his cards, putting the last few in their places. Each numbered pile was also organized by suit: spade, then heart, then diamond, then club.

He scooped them all back into a stack. Ronan held out his hand for them. 

Too tired to be startled, but not too tired to be suspicious apparently. Declan eyed him like he thought Ronan was gonna eat his fucking cards or something, but when Ronan flapped his hand impatiently, Declan relinquished the deck.

Ronan shuffled them. Then he handed them back.

Slowly, narrowed eyes confused now more than wary, Declan began his process again. Threes with threes, jacks with jacks. A heart tucked under a club, the diamond slid in between. 

Ronan watched. It wasn't exactly riveting stuff, and it certainly wasn't Ronan's kind of stuff. He was more inclined toward throwing the cards up in the air to see just how much of a mess it made. But as Declan made his way methodically through the deck, he guessed he could see the appeal. There was something…reassuring, maybe, about it. About knowing that everything had a place. Making order out of chaos.

It wasn’t a glue gun or a haphazardly constructed cardboard city, but it was something. The soft sound of two people breathing was the same, at least, even if the silence they breathed into felt different. Declan wasn’t Gansey. Silence with him wasn’t the simple, companionable thing that Ronan was used to. It felt like being in the car with the radio on and the volume turned all the way down, like there should have been sound, or like the sound was there, only Ronan couldn’t hear it.

Ronan touched his ear. The left one.

Declan gathered up his cards again. This time, he offered Ronan the deck unprompted. Ronan shuffled it wordlessly, cards sliding through his fingers to form a bridge, the two halves cascading back together into one whole. Some of the cards felt warmer than others. Or maybe his exhausted brain was making shit up. He was spending way too much time around psychics lately and their weirdness was rubbing off on him.

Instead of giving the whole deck back, Ronan split it and kept one half for himself, flipping over the top card in the universally understood invitation to play War. Declan gave him a dirty look for disrupting his weird little un-shuffling routine. But he laid down a card of his own anyway. He won, and the dirty look immediately became a smug one. Fucker.

For a while, there was nothing but the soft fwip of cards being turned over. The last person Ronan had played this game with was Noah. They’d gotten way too into it, whooping and hollering and shit-talking each other like there was actually something riding on the outcome besides bragging rights. Gansey had had to intervene to make sure nobody got thrown out the window again.

Ronan hadn’t seen Noah in days. Hadn’t seen him really be him in longer than that.

He flipped over a jack. Declan played a four.

Christ, Ronan was tired. He wasn’t really paying attention to the game, not that it was a game that required a lot of attention. There was an empty-wrong feeling in the back of his mind, one that crept around the edges of his consciousness all the time now. Cabeswater, dying. Cabeswater, decaying, just like Noah. The feeling was getting harder and harder to ignore.

Six. Ten. Declan took the hand.

Did Adam feel the empty-wrong too? Or did it feel like something else, this demon slithering in to pollute his connection with the forest? With Ronan's forest. With…

Matching eights. Three cards each, face down, and one more to win it. Declan grinned down at his jack with a mocking little head wiggle, just like he always had when they were kids. After winning hands of cards, after boxing matches that went his way, after mom agreed that Ronan had started it (this time), after succeeding in sneaking a cookie off the cooling rack when Ronan had gotten caught. It was a smug little shit of a gesture, all mischief and delight. Ronan hadn’t seen it in years.

Declan was sweeping the whole stack of cards into his hand when the words “I kissed Adam” fell out of Ronan’s mouth. He finally found the awakeness necessary to be surprised.

“Parrish?” he asked after a beat, his voice gritty from the late hour and lack of use but otherwise neutral.

“No, the other Adam.” Ronan slapped a three down on the table. He hoped the light from ORBMASTER wasn’t enough to illuminate the sudden redness in his cheeks.

Declan did that stupid thing where he blew air out of his nose and that was somehow supposed to be considered a laugh. He laid down a seven and took possession of Ronan’s three. He asked, “When?”

“Like, five hours ago.”

Queen and nine, in Ronan’s favor.

“Did he kiss you back?”

Ronan’s cheeks flushed hotter. “Yes.”

Out of the corner of his eye—the wood grain of the coffee table had suddenly become the most interesting thing in the room—he caught the motion of Declan’s nod.

“Nice.”

He laid down an ace. Ronan stared at him.

“Nice?”

Declan raised an eyebrow. “Was it not nice?”

“No! I mean, yes, it was— Of course, it—” Ronan huffed and threw down a jack that Declan immediately snatched up with a noise of satisfaction. “It was fine,” he said, face burning. “I just thought you’d have more of a reaction than that, is all.”

Declan paused in his straightening of the definitely-more-than-half-the-deck stack of cards in his hand to raise another eyebrow at him. “To you kissing Parrish or to you kissing a boy? Because you and Parrish were attached at the hip all night and, I hate to break it to you, but you have never been subtle about liking boys.”

The noise Ronan made was 80% surprise and 20% embarrassment. Okay, maybe 60/40.

Now Declan actually laughed, real laughter with sound and substance to it. With the way he said Ronan’s name, he might as well have put a hand on his chest and said “bless your heart” like one of the painfully southern old biddies at church.

Ronan leaned across the table to snatch the cards out of his hand. “Give me those, you fucker. You don’t deserve to be winning.”

Declan let him have them, too busy laughing some more to protest. Like the dumb head wiggle, it had been years since Ronan had seen his brother genuinely laugh. Or laugh at all, honestly. Or even just smile, beyond that creepy, bland, picture-perfect politician shit he pulled out for important adults and girls he was trying to sleep with. Not that he’d ever really noticed, or thought about it, or cared. Here, though, in the Barns—in their home—it felt like a glaring oversight. The thought occurred, unbidden, that Declan hadn’t seen him smile in just as long, only he’d probably noticed.

The thought didn’t sit well in him. It lodged somewhere in his ribcage, like a stubborn stitch after running for too long, and made him feel… He wasn’t sure how it made him feel. So he yanked a throw pillow out from behind Declan and hit him with it.

“Laugh it up, fuckface, see if I tell you anything ever again!”

Declan didn’t manage to stop laughing entirely, but that did get a strangled “no!” out of him. He fended off Ronan’s pillow attack and righted himself, making a futile effort to finger-comb his uncharacteristically messy hair into something approximating its usual presentable state. He cleared his throat.

“No,” he said again, with a bit more composure, though the jackass was clearly still trying not to crack up. “I want you to tell me things. I want you to—”

The last of his amusement fell away abruptly. Something about the silence that followed his bitten off words was louder than anything they’d said so far. Years of words unspoken stretched out between them, most of them his own. They filled the air like static, like radio waves, like an almost-physical thing. Words about dreams and deals and burner phones and secrets paid for in blood.

A whole other life his brother had been living.

Declan ducked his head, cleared his throat again. He reached for the cards, abandoned on the table when Ronan had gone on the attack. Ronan expected him to start sorting again, to fall back on the reassuring predictability of his little numbered piles, but after a long moment of hesitation, Declan hastily split the deck. He handed Ronan the noticeably bigger half. This time, he was the one to lay down the first card. The invitation.

Slowly, gingerly, Ronan settled back into position on the other side of the coffee table. Declan didn’t look up at him, still and waiting, eyes on his two of spades.

Ronan played a card.

They played in silence again for a while. Hard to tell how long; the wee hours didn’t carry with them the same feeling of movement that daylight hours did. They were a crystalized thing, suspended in the warm dimness of his—Declan’s—little dream light, and there was nothing in the living room to track the passage of time. Ronan thought there used to be a clock in here. Something that ticked, at least. There was no ticking now, though, and he had to wonder if it had been a dream thing. If it had fallen asleep when their dad died. If their dad had sold it to some collector somewhere. If Declan had. He wondered what else he hadn’t noticed he’d lost track of.

Ronan laid down three cards and a jack to do battle for their evenly matched fours. Declan’s cards were late in coming, delayed by a yawn so strong and insistent that it scrunched his whole face up. He muttered a curse and dragged the back of one hand over his eyes. He lost with a seven.

“You sure you’ll be good to drive in the morning?” Ronan asked as he gathered up his spoils. “Sure would be ironic for you to end up dead in a ditch on the way to DC.”

Declan huffed. “I’ve driven farther on less sleep. I’ll be fine.”

He rubbed at his eyes again, though, then dragged his fingers up through his hair. He looked as exhausted as any normal person would at somewhere around three in the morning, which, for Declan, was probably a sign that he’d barely slept for days and it was all catching up to him at once. Ronan knew the feeling. Hell, he was that feeling incarnate. That heavy, soul-deep kind of tired was baked into his DNA. Maybe it shouldn’t be surprising, then, for his brother to share it. It was part of the family resemblance. The Lynch legacy: curly hair, good teeth, blue eyes, and exhaustion.

Declan turned his cards over in his hand, tapping at the edge of the stack with his fingernail before drawing one. “I still wish you would come with us.”

He didn’t look at Ronan when he said it. There wasn’t much force behind it either. It wasn’t a plea or the overture to an argument. They’d done all their arguing earlier. This was merely a statement of fact, like he needed it on the record one more time. Like he just wanted Ronan to hear him say it. To know he meant it.

And Ronan did. It felt strange, believing it, like a square peg in a round hole, but all of it together—the wee hour stillness, the bittersweetness of home, the red rims of Declan’s eyes and the frizzy mess of his hair, every unbelievable piece of truth he’d offered up the day before—all sanded down the peg’s edges until the idea of it could wedge into place. His brother loved him. For all the blood and bile between them, for all the filthy water under their crumbling bridge, his brother loved him. He wanted Ronan with him where he could at least try to keep him safe, like he had been doing this whole time, their whole lives.

Ronan swallowed. It wasn’t easy. “You know I can’t do that. This is my fight. I can’t run away from it. Leave my friends to face it without me. I’m not that much of a coward.”

“I’m not asking you to be a coward, Ronan. I’m asking you to survive this. Can you promise me that?”

Declan looked so strange like this, at once entirely familiar and so new as to be almost unrecognizable. A liar with all his pretense stripped away. What was left was a boy, not far past 19, looking at the only family he had left with the knowledge that it might be the last time in his eyes, desperate for Ronan to tell him that it wouldn’t be.

But Ronan was no liar.

“I can promise I’ll fight like hell.”

It wasn’t what Declan wanted to hear, but he smiled anyway. Not a smile Ronan had ever seen before, but something new and painful and honest. He said, “Yeah, I bet you will.”

He laid down the last card in his hand. A jack of spades, falling to Ronan’s ace of the same. Something about that made Declan laugh again, that gentle puff of breath that barely qualified, and then he was pushing himself off the couch. He left the cards where they were—he’d probably found them stuffed down the side of the couch, where their dad had had a tendency to leave them, once upon a time—and scooped ORBMASTER into his hand. He cradled it against his stomach, the glow seeping out between his fingers to stripe the room.

“You should try and get some sleep,” Declan said, emphasis on try because, for all the times that Ronan had thought his brother could never understand him, the truth was that Declan knew him all too well.

“Yeah,” Ronan said to the deck in his hand. “You too.”

Declan rounded the coffee table, the dream caged in his fingers sweeping over everything like a lighthouse. He paused by Ronan. Then, like he often did with Matthew but Ronan honestly wasn’t sure he’d ever done with him, he ran his hand over Ronan’s head. On Matthew, it was a ruffle of his curls, but there were no curls to ruffle on Ronan. It was only the bare curve of his skull, cradled for a moment in the warmth of Declan’s palm.

If Declan were Gansey, they would have hugged. He would have made a speech about the power of love and how much they meant to each other. He would have had something optimistic and inspiring to say about the upcoming battle. If Declan were Gansey, there wouldn’t still be the static hum of things unsaid like radio waves in the still air between them.

But Declan was not Gansey. His hand slipped from Ronan’s head before Ronan could decide to acknowledge it or not, and then he was in the doorway, turning back one more time. ORBMASTER’s light just caught the edge of his smile.

“I hope things go well,” he said. “For you and Adam. He’s cute.”

Ronan fumbled the cards. “Oh my God, shut up, or I’m gonna have to break up with him on principle just because you said that.”

He could hear Declan chuckling to himself all the way up the stairs. Ronan grumbled about what an obnoxious fuckwad he was as he tried to gather the deck in the dark, then he grumbled some more when he gave it up as a lost cause. The cards would just have to stay a mess. He didn’t mind, really. He could sort it out later, or Declan could. If they all survived what was coming long enough to sort out anything.

Ronan didn’t bother going upstairs. He just crawled over the coffee table and onto the couch, the worn cushions as familiar to him as any mattress. The throw pillow he’d wielded against Declan earlier was better suited to weaponization than it was to comfort, honestly, but he stuffed it under his head anyway, and it didn’t stop sleep from tugging at him as soon as he closed his eyes.

He hoped his dreams would be kind, for once. He hoped his brothers would wake him up in the morning to say goodbye before they left. He hoped Adam would kiss him again tomorrow. He hoped they could salvage what was left of Cabeswater, and Noah. More than anything else, though, he sort of hoped he lived long enough to play cards with Declan again.

[capcavan]

We made the raven cycle and all for the game crossover and the only thing you need to know about it is that gansey used one of factory rooms in monmouth manufacturing as ext court for riko and that riko carrying title of raven king means their metting was fated

Also Declan hits on riko BC he thought he was short girl with long hair but then does not back away realising his mistake

[the-z-part]

ok so i was going to ask what trc was since i saw it in your tags, but then i searched and i have a new question: what is the raven cycle about and who would you recommend it to?

Hey! So! The raven cycle is a series of four YA novels from the mid-2010s that I've been obsessed with since I was about 20. They're about a group of teenagers searching rural Virginia for the Welsh king Glendower, who they believe is sleeping somewhere nearby and, if woken, will grant them a favor.

Main characters:

Blue: non-psychic daughter of an all-psychic household, artsy, angry, extremely short. If she kisses her true love, he'll die.

Gansey: the richest boy you've ever heard of. Goes by his last name only. Pretentious, effusive, obsessed with Glendower.

Adam: scholarship student with zero money and so much exhaustion. Smart, proud, on the edge of a breakdown 24/7.

Ronan: Bad Boy TM. I'm talking tattoos, homoerotic street racing, dubiously suicidal behavior. Has a pet raven named Chainsaw.

Noah: soft boi, everyone's life coach, but kind of a weirdo tbh. Makes a big deal about not eating. Intuitive, quiet, adorable.

They're all completely in love with one another and also fight constantly as they try to locate the ley line that this sleeping king is supposed to be on, pass at least some of their classes, and avoid kissing each other.

Other important characters include Blue's three platonic-life-partner moms, a dilf hitman, the guy Ronan homoerotically street races with, the largest man in the world, and a kid with good hair, and a bee.

Personally, I really like the prose style, which tends toward weird metaphors and what detractors have described as "overwritten". I also like that everyone's relationships with their families are central and complex, and sometimes even positive, which is hard to do in a YA novel.

If you enjoy YA "low" fantasy and slightly elaborate prose doesn't bug you, I'd say give it a shot! I really recommend the audiobooks in particular.

Thank you for asking <3

[lonelyplanetfag]

been wondering . whats trc / the raven chronicles (pls go into detail)

this is probably the best ask ive ever gotten oh my god i could talk abt trc forever

the short answer is that it's a fantasy series of four books and a spin-off trilogy abt four private school boys and their token Girl friend trying to find a dead welsh king (and i know that's like. every red flag possible but hear me out ok)

the long answer is. ough. i know you specified detail but i got frank to read it so im gonna be So Careful mot to spoil anything and im mostly gonna talk abt the main group of characters cuz they have me in a chokehold (and there's so many details about the plotline itself that it's impossible 4 me not to spoil it on accident once i get talking)

in the first chapter you find out that one of the private school boys is going to die. his name's gansey and he's the one who got all his friends roped into his obsession over the dead welsh king. he's like the personification of rushed cursive and accidental insensitivity and passion. he means well but he's overly polite and knows what is objectively too much about business for a seventeen year old

you find out that he's gonna die via the token Girl friend. her name's blue and shes the only non-psychic in a family of psychics that run a Psychic Business out of their house (which is probably really dangerous considering they're all women and live in the middle of nowhere). she makes things Louder when it comes to all the psychic shit and she's like fingerless gloves and tangled necklaces and having too many highlighters 2 me

blue's dynamic with adam is one of my favorites. adam's another one of the private school boys, but he's the only one who isn't filthy rich. he lives in a trailer park and has a family that makes gansey worry so much that he all but begs adam to come live with him (the school has dorms but gansey decided to invest in an old factory instead and lives there with the other two private school boys). the thing about adam is that he wants out of that fucking trailer more than anything, but success means nothing to him unless he got it for himself. he's my favorite character and i could talk about him for days. he's like shitty cars and guilt and the forced silence of things that are loud in nature

then theres ronan. he's another one of the private school boys and there is so much about him. his dad was murdered and he was the one who found the body, his older brother's a dickhead who controls The Family Fortune, and there's so many secrets that go into who he is that i can't go into much detail without mentioning them. he's an asshole in the best way possible and he's like loud music and fucked up religious imagery and anger and violence. also im 80% sure he's franks favorite

noah's the last of the private school boys and has more secrets than ronan does. he's connected to the plot so intensely that i am Not gonna say much about him, but he's like smudged pencil and being forgotten and being remembered

[professorllayton]

"the gang tries to ruin x thing of ganseys bc they hate it-" AS!!!!! IF!!!! . they r literally obsessed w every single thing there is abt him. did any of u read the books . I think ppl who make those posts r projecting bc they hate to see a short king loved and desired by those around him . whatever