[ ooc ] [ denouement ] application.

Player Information
Player name: Zelly
Contact: skyfell
Are you over 18: Yes
Characters in the game already: N/A
Proof of Reserve:LINK

Character Information
Character Name: Richard Campbell Gansey III
Canon: The Raven Cycle series, Maggie Stiefvater
Canon Point: Post-Blue Lily, Lily Blue
Is your character Dead, Undead or Alive: Alive.
History:

The Raven Cycle books begin with an ominous first meeting between main characters Blue Sargent, a psychic’s daughter with no specific psychic powers of her own, and an apparition of a young man in school uniform, drenched by the rain who refers to himself as ‘nothing else’ but Gansey. The date is St Mark’s Eve, a time of meeting ghosts and predicting the death-dates of those who will die within the year. Blue Sargent and her aunt Neeve, who is here on a temporary visit, are at the church. This is an annual event and Blue’s ability to ‘make things louder’ with her presence, helps the psychic business of 300 Fox Way (her home) hear and sense clairvoyance on a keener level.

Beginnings

Gansey’s full name is Richard Campbell Gansey III, the third of his name, the son of Gansey II (Sr.) and right off the bat this hints at the status and importance of his family name. Gansey is described as being blue-blooded and comes from old Virginia money. The family have been involved in business and politics for years, maybe even generations.

His mother and father are both in Congress, and his only sibling, his older sister Helen Gansey, appears to be deeply involved in the social circle. She plans parties (canon states that she’s in the wedding planning scene) and appears to spend much of her time being a socialite.

Ever since Gansey could remember, he was always the golden son who would one day grow up to be like his father. He was born and bred, for the most part, to come into politics and office, and has been taught how to network and schmooze with the public. This is where Gansey learned how to wield his many masks.

At the age of eleven, Gansey underwent an incredibly traumatic experience that had since become his sole purpose in canon: to find Glendower. At one of his father’s congressional parties, Gansey played hide-and-seek with a few of the other children attending the party. In the midst of his finding a hiding spot, he ventured into the gardens where he stepped on a hornet’s nest and was attacked by not one but ‘hundreds’ of hornets. Having a severe allergy to bee stings, Gansey suffered from anaphylactic shock and died from the stings, only to be ‘resurrected’ by a voice whispering Glendower’s name.

Over the course of the series, we learn that Gansey’s family are collectors of some fashion. His mother prefers glassware, his father enjoys perfectly maintained old cars owned by celebrities and other powerful figures. This might be where Gansey picked up his own love of old things (whether that be cars or books or old vintage miscellaneous items) and collecting. Some might argue that he collects people.

Gansey’s family life is pretty supportive: his sister Helen understands him with a mere glance or physical tic exchanged between the Gansey siblings. His parents allow him the freedom to do whatever he wants to outside of school, so long as he remains a straight-A student with a high GPA. They all support his finding Glendower even if they don’t understand it.

The Seven Year Gap

For the next seven years following his death-experience, Gansey has made it his life’s mission to find the sleeping Welsh King, Owen Glendower, as some form of an enlightenment quest. He has traveled around the world to Wales, Peru, Australia, and parts of the US, including Montana and currently Henrietta, Virginia. He has made several contacts with scholars and academics, though Gansey admits to being terrible with goodbyes, leaving each country before the awkward goodbye occurs.

His closest academic ally, Doctor Roger Malory, is an older English gentleman whom Gansey met while in Wales. The professor was interested in the workings of ley lines, which are psychic connections or bridges that essentially give the supernatural their power.

Roger Malory has seen Gansey at his worst. During their travels, Gansey would suffer from incredible night terrors, waking up in the middle of the night screaming in fear. He was also there to witness Gansey at his most feverish during his quest fo Glendower. (Blue Lily, Lily Blue) and came to visit Gansey and his friends during the events of Blue Lily, Lily Blue, in order to help them in their quest for Glendower, and learn a little more about American ley lines, which are, according to the professor, quite different from the English ones.

While Gansey kept in close contact with Malory over the years, his initial departure to the USA was a strange one. Gansey, never good at goodbyes, simply left the UK one evening, and Malory hadn’t heard from him for months.

Henrietta

Gansey’s most recent clue into the location of the ley line directly connected to Glendower led him to Henrietta Virginia, a small town only three hours away from his home state and family. In an effort to accelerate his quest, he enrolls into the prestigious private school there, an all-boys institution called Aglionby Academy. While there, he befriends a group of boys who become closer to him than brothers, forming close bonds with them - an experience he’s never had for all of his life. It actually makes him a little insecure and desperate for their acceptance and approval, which are aspects covered in the personality section. His first friend at Aglionby Academy is Ronan Lynch, some time before Ronan discovers the death of his father and seems to change dramatically in personality. Gansey often describes knowing a Ronan before Niall Lynch’s death and a Ronan after Niall Lynch’s death.

He befriends Adam Parrish on the side of the road one afternoon when his beloved 1973 Camaro breaks down and Adam happens to be cycling by. Adam teaches Gansey a thing or two about the mechanics of his car and in exchange, Gansey helpfully drives them both to school where he turns to Adam and asks him, ‘What do you know about Glendower?’ essentially including him in his search for the king.

Noah Czerny, the ghost-boy, is not a consciously made friend; instead, his presence becomes a staple in Gansey’s life at Monmouth Manufacturing, a factory he buys up and refurnishes into an apartment complex for him and Ronan. Noah appears one day and simply becomes a part of their lives without any real thought.

Finally, Gansey meets Blue Sargent in canon, which is where the books begin.

Gansey’s first meeting with Blue actually occurs a year out of time when she finds his spirit arguably traveling towards the After Life. Their exchange

"Will you tell me your name?”
“Gansey.”
“Is that all?”
“That’s all there is.”

The Raven Boys, 15

is a haunting one, and happens to be heard not only by Blue and her aunt Neeve (who was visiting Henrietta on some secret, unknown business) but by the real Gansey who was situated in another church. He happened to catch this conversation on his recorder and shares it with his best friends: Ronan Lynch, Adam Parrish, and Noah Czerny. This recording is part of Gansey following clues that might lead him to Glendower, a quest he takes on following an actual death-experience some seven years ago. It’s what leads him to Henrietta when his latest of clues guides him to the ley line, a psychic network connection that is supposed to be directly linked to the sleeping place of Owain Glendower, an old Welsh King whom, if found, will grant his finder a favour. What occurs throughout this quest is a coincidentally-not-so-coincidental meeting with Blue Sargent in the small pizzeria Nino’s, an appointment with the psychics of 300 Fox Way (one of whom happens to be Blue’s mother) in order to learn the general location of the ley line in Henrietta, and the slow burn unraveling of magic, and the supernatural.

Knowing the fate of her daughter, Blue, if she were to hang around these ‘Raven Boys’ (so called because of the emblem sewn onto their Aglionby school uniforms), Maura Sargent does not divulge this information to Gansey and his friends. Instead, it is Blue who volunteers it to them on the condition that they let her come along. When questioned why, Blue responds that she wants to see this supernatural myth for herself. Like Gansey, Blue is in it for the enlightenment; the rumoured favour isn’t one she prioritizes.

They discover the ley line by way of Helen Gansey and her helicopter, and with it, they discover a supernatural forest where the trees speak Latin, where dreams can be made real, and future visions are shared amongst the group. The visions are very specific to each person and most of them are rather bleak. Half of them pertain to Gansey’s foretold death. Strange things happen while they explore the barest surface of the forest - thoughts are manifest, time appears fluid and no longer linear, and the seasons don’t comply with ‘reality’. The forest calls itself Cabeswater and already shares a connection to Ronan Lynch, though he doesn’t remember having entered this place before.

Their first brush with Cabeswater renders the group a bit frightened. Gansey, especially, seems to have developed an extra layer of caution now that the quest grows more intense, more real. He insists that they do a little more research before they venture into its trees again. But he does visit the forest again, and over the course of the book, they learn from Cabeswater that in order to harness its full power and therefore find the sleeping king, the ley line needs to be ‘woken up’. They learn, through the discovery of an old red Mustang and the bones of a former Aglionby student (so known because the bones are still characterized by the uniform left in tatters) that seven years ago on the day that young Gansey III was stung repeatedly by hornets, Noah Czerny was killed in an attempt to wake the ley line up the first time.

In the meantime, Gansey takes off for a few chapters to head home for his mother’s birthday in Washington DC. On his way back to Henrietta, following the party, the Pig breaks down (as it often does) and he faces Aglionby’s Latin teacher, Barrington Whelk (a former student, and formerly a blue-blooded rich kid) down the barrel of his gun. Gansey manages to escape with ‘superficially competent’ defence, breaking his thumb in the process, and heads straightaway to 300 Fox Way where they form a plan of action: it’s do or die, and one of the parties must wake the ley line first. Will it be Gansey’s party? Or Whelk?

At this point, Gansey sees the very real danger that his quest has brought upon them. Originally, the quest was a solo one and he almost regrets getting his friends involved, if only because there’s a threat of someone being harmed in the process. Playing it incredibly cautious, Gansey tells them that they’ll find another way of waking the ley line without some kind of death sacrifice, and that they won’t play this game with Whelk. Adam disagrees. Stealing Gansey’s car, he heads to Cabeswater, where the ley line is to be woken, against the majority vote (or Gansey’s vote) in an attempt to stop Cabeswater from being under Whelk’s control, but also in an attempt to be on Gansey’s level.

Adam sacrifices himself, offering to be Cabeswater’s hands and eyes, and in the process Whelk is stampeded by a group of mysterious animals. Things appear to go back to normal, though there begins a real shift in the group dynamic with Adam isolating himself from the rest of his friends, particularly Gansey. He spends much of his time trying to understand his newfound connection with the magical forest. However, there is very little time to think about this as Cabeswater soon becomes under threat of disappearing. This is because the abilities of the Greywarens (Ronan Lynch and, it turns out, Joseph Kavinsky) have been drawing too much dream energy to make dreams real and the magic is not quick enough to replenish the theft.

Some months earlier, it is implied that Gansey invited Adan to a networking event in Washington DC back near the Gansey household. Gansey reminds Adam of the event in an attempt to patch up their friendship, and a possible way for Adam to make some headway into the world of rich people and self-made men if he so chose (and it being one of the few ways that he could help Adam without the whole thing feeling like charity) but in the midst of it, the issues they had been fighting about earlier, including the whole concept of charity causes them to fight with great intensity. Adam demonstrates his rage in the same way he demonstrated it in front of Blue, causing Gansey to walk away (also like Blue) and leave Adam to stew in his own emotions.

The next day, however, Gansey can’t find Adam and enlists the help of his family to help locate him; they wind up finding him some miles outside of the city, on the road, lost and alone, until one of Gansey II’s connections discovers him. The point of the scene was to demonstrate Adam’s sense of inequality with Gansey, but also to show that the sacrifice he made for Cabeswater is beginning to wear him down. With all of the unknown questions, he is unsure how to control this new ‘magic’ of his - and it is leading him down a confusing path.

All the while, with Gansey away, Ronan gets into some trouble on his own. Gansey returns to discover that Kavinsky has to be stopped, Ronan destroyed his car - but also dreamed him a new one, and the people hunting the Greywaren are still in pursuit. Eventually they do manage to accomplish most of what they set out to do. Kavinsky and Ronan face each other on, using creatures from their dreams - dark, twisted monsters that set wreckage on the ‘real world’ and end with the death of Kavinsky.

And they manage to keep the Greywaren’s identity a secret from his pursuers with the help of the hitman who was once hired to find him in the first place. But still on a hunt for Glendower, they learn that he might be buried underground and they find entrances to caves to test this theory. One cave only serves to traumatize Gansey when he thinks he hears a swarm of bees very similar to the swarm that killed him the first time. It leaves him incredibly cautious to do anything for a while ... but eventually they learn of another cave entrance and after some convincing (on Blue’s part), they manage to gain access to it.

What they find instead is one of Glendower’s bastard children, a young woman not much older than they are, who has been trapped in her sarcophagus for 600 years, completely awake (so she claims) and thus incredibly unhinged. They bring her back to 300 Fox Way and keep her in the attic where Blue’s aunt Neeve used to be, in an attempt to slowly acclimate her into the present day. Blue’s mother, who disappeared at the end of Dream Thieves, is rediscovered some time later, in the dark caves, with a man called ‘Artemus’ who may or may not be Blue’s biological father. One extra complication to add to it is the fact that Artemus was responsible for Gwenllian’s burial, back in the medieval era. The rescue of Blue’s mother and the further unraveling of Glendower’s burial place, and his family, are where the books leave us, and this is when Gansey comes to Denouement.

Personality:

Richard Campbell Gansey III, who prefers to be referred to as just ‘Gansey’, is almost like any other regular seventeen year old boy on the cusp of adulthood - except not. While Gansey seeks enlightenment and a safe space to grow and discover his own likes and wants, his methods are vastly different, often making him appear to be outside the norm - something of a ‘weird’ kid.

There were two Ganseys: the one who lived inside his skin, and the one Gansey put on in the morning when he slid his wallet into the back pocket of his chinos. The former was troubled and passionate, with no discernible accent to Adam’s ears, and the latter bristled with latent power as he greeted people with the slippery, handsome accent of old Virginia money.

The Raven Boys, 43

Gansey is a young man of many masks and a number of contradictory character traits. He is seen and viewed and judged in a number of different ways by others in The Raven Cycle canon. He is generally oblivious to the reactions of others in terms of these differing personalities. Sometimes he is described as charming, smooth, optimistic and idealistic; sometimes he’s seen as pretentious and unaware, dense; sometimes he is the perfect picture of politeness and an upstanding gentleman; some have also described him as princely or kingly. There’s a regal air to him that makes it difficult to be ignored. He appears to be both old and young at the same time. He claims to be unafraid of the future, of change and the possibility of death but in truth, it is one of the main things that haunts and motivates him. He might appear to be dreamy and optimistic, but he aims for logic, practicality and has a strong need to control and orchestrate. Gansey is generally incredibly skilled at remaining well-liked and amiable towards the people he meets, a result of being able to work the right personality and air into a situation. All of these aspects of Gansey are true and do make up a part of him.

But that is only scratching the surface.

Why does Gansey act the way he does? Why does he find himself maintaining a mask for a certain person, or morphing into a particular personality for certain individuals? Beyond the layers of confidence and some otherwordly wisdom, Gansey is still someone coming to terms with who he is and what life path choices lies ahead for him whether they have been ‘written in the stars’ for him or if he has any say. He desires to be liked by all and he makes a strong effort to avoid causing any animosity between him and anyone he interacts with. In order to fit in, he seems to naturally take on a persona, a possible by-product of being the son of a family of politicians and socialites, and growing up in a household constantly under the public’s scrutiny. Gansey finds himself sometimes acting or thinking like his father and admonishes himself for it. Any of the negative aspects he finds about himself, he tries to counter it with a pleasant alternative. He wants to be ‘wise and brave, sure of his path, touched by the supernatural, respected by all, survived by his legacy’ (The Raven Boys) the way Glendower, who is more than just a historical figure, was. He

‘longed for him like Arthur longed for the grail, drawn by a desperate but nebulous need to be useful to the world, to make sure his life meant something beyond champagne parties and white collars, by some complicated longing to settle an argument that waged deep inside himself.

The Raven Boys, 51

But he is aware of how he’s viewed by most of the world, particularly by those outside of the Aglionby Academy circle. He is the ‘blue-blooded’ son of an incredibly well-to-do, affluent family with old money and a very respectable surname to boot. He comes from a very privileged background in which he has wanted for nothing, which makes him a little ignorant in dealing with finances and understanding the value of money. He often spends money on things without really thinking about it, purchasing ‘a side-scan sonar device, two window airconditioners, a leather sofa, and a pool table’ (The Dream Thieves 176) after coming across some frustrations in his search for clues. He is generally clueless about how this affects his less wealthy friends, particularly Adam, whom he gets into several arguments with over giving and lending him money to pay for things. To Gansey, he simply means to help a friend. Money is no object and the point is to share what he can because he has it. In doing so, he is often mistaken for ‘buying’ people off or solving problems (his and others) with money as though that will make the issue disappear. Adam states that ‘he doesn’t mean to be [condescending]. It’s all that blue blood in his veins.’ (The Raven Boys) And it’s true. Gansey was raised in a world where money is the single-most valuable currency and luxury and his family is at the top (or one of the tops) of it all. Sometimes he might say something inappropriate or condescending; sometimes his world-views appear to be narrow or incredibly judgmental. The point to take away from this is that throughout his quest of enlightenment where Glendower is concerned, Gansey also learns about the world outside his own. He realizes when he’s said something incredibly narrow-minded and makes an attempt to correct his mistake in the future.

A good deal of his insecurities lie in being viewed as nothing more than his money (‘It is all anyone sees, even Adam.’ (The Raven Boys)), having a sort of ‘Prince and the Pauper syndrome’ in which he strives to be seen outside of this stereotype and makes efforts to differentiate himself. He buys old, run-down cars that reflect a sort of rough-and-tumble appearance of authenticity. He invests in an old industrial factory building and turns it into a loft for him and his friends. He purposefully fills the space with old books and knick-knacks that could very easily be replaced with the ‘newest and greatest’. This could also be the reason why Gansey picks his friends very carefully and why he’s drawn to the people he deems his closest friends: Ronan Lynch, a rich boy suffering trauma and PTSD from his father’s death; Adam Parrish, a boy with incredible ambition and tenacity, someone struggling to break free from his own personal and societal chains in a way Gansey both relates to and strives to be like; Noah Czerny, a quiet, shy boy - also a ghost; Blue Sargent, a sensible psychic’s daughter with no outward psychic abilities of her own, who wants to do more than follow a path that’s been predicted for her but instead to carve her own path. The friends and non-blood family that Gansey ‘collects’ for himself are made up of people whom he admires for qualities that he wishes he had or qualities he struggles to achieve in parallel to them.

Of course, there’s a part of Gansey that conceals a fair amount of his ‘real’ personality amongst his friends group too. He believs that it falls to him to be the calm, confident, leader in a group situation because of his strong desire to take care of his friends, sometimes at the cost of himself. The only situations in which he ever seems to let his guard down are when he is feeling wary or vulnerable, and during times of exhaustion when it simply is too tiring to keep up a mask. Even then, he tries to convince himself that he should be feeling okay, to ‘keep calm and carry on’ as it were:

Gansey ran over the memory until he no longer felt the thrill of hearing Glendower’s name whispered in his ear, and then instead gave himself over to feeling sorry for himself, that he should have so many friends and yet feel so very alone. He felt it fell to him to comfort them, but never the other way around.

As it should be, he thought, abruptly angry with himself. You’ve had it the easiest. What good is all your privilege, you soft, spoiled, thing, if you can’t stand on your own legs?

The Dream Thieves, 132

But as canon progresses, Gansey appears to be better at letting his guard down and being ‘himself’ around his friends; there’s a sense of trust and comfort that takes some time to form before he is able to reveal who he is beneath his ‘proper’ veneer. The insecurity of being ‘liked’ and ‘likeable’ seems to hold him back. Blue and Adam, in particular, have a better sense of the insecurities that lie beneath Gansey’s pristine princely facade. Blue gets to see the ‘self-pitying’ side of him, when he says something sweet or something sassy, something that is much more Gansey beneath the prim-and-proper ‘Richard Gansey III’ mask.

His friends are able to see the other aspects of Gansey that make him far more real to them: his love of old, imperfect collectibles; his insatiable desire to learn (such as learning from Adam about the inside of the car versus having Adam simply fix the Camaro for him); his love of topsider shoes and brightly coloured Polo shirts, his subconscious habits of having mint leaves on his person at all time and running a thumb over his bottom lip when thoughtful; his dreamy nature and hapless desire to believe in the supernatural; his distaste for the ‘socialite’ life; and his naivite when it comes to managing his money (which can sometimes be a frustration to Adam and Blue). Ronan is able to see the harsher, more reckless side of Gansey, the side Ronan calls ‘Gansey-on-fire’. For example, when the two of them went to meet Kavinsky, following the break-in and ID-tag bag left for them at their apartment, Gansey becomes a cold, calm storm of fire and rage - someone not to be trifled with. He speaks calmly, never loses his temper, and exudes a sense of authority and warning.

But what Gansey absolutely chooses to hide from his friends is the very real fear that he needs them far more than they need him. He has a very desperate thought that

In the end, he was nobody to Adam, he was nobody to Ronan. Adam spit his words back at him and Ronan squandered however many second chances he gave him. Gansey was just a guy with a lot of stuff and a hole inside him that chewed away more of his heart every year.
They were always walking away from him. But he never seemed able to walk away from them.

The Raven Boys, 351

There is a strange sense of loneliness and isolation in Gansey that seems to stem from his inability to see past his own privilege and upbringing the way he feels most people view him. He becomes internally desperate for the approval and acceptance of his friends, going so far as to forgive them for nearly everything that they do. Ronan for constantly getting into trouble with Kavinsky and his older brother Declan, for trespassing into the Barns, for failing out of nearly all of his classes with terrible consequences that Gansey personally takes on to fix himself. He chooses to ignore the fact that Adam has betrayed and gone behind everyone’s backs in sacrificing himself to Cabeswater, even stealing Gansey’s prized Camaro to do so because the alternative is really losing Adam, being abandoned by him.

Owing to his incredibly horrible allergy of bee stings, Gansey underwent severe anaphylactic shock at the age of eleven during his parents’ garden party when he stepped on a hornets nest and was attacked by ‘hundreds’ of hornets. Upon dying from several simultaneous bee stings, he believes he was saved by Glendower when he heard a voice tell him, ‘You will live because of Glendower. Someone else on the ley line is dying when they should not, and so you will live when you should not.’ (The Raven Boys) He developed a severe PTSD from this experience, so that he seems to completely freeze up in the face of a wasp, bee or hornet as witnessed in The Raven Boys. A wasp had been trapped in his room at Monmouth Manufacturing, and it wasn’t until Ronan came into his room that Gansey ‘snapped out of it’, while Ronan got rid of the insect for him. In addition, we glean from Gansey’s colleague, Roger Malory, that shortly after the incident, Gansey would have horrible night terrors and panic attacks. In the more recent years of Gansey’s life, he has since been able to control them but his fear is just hidden behind another mask, always there beneath the surface.

Nevertheless, the next seven years following his ‘resurrection’, Gansey began a relentless hunt for the sleeping Welsh King Owen Glendower. Essentially putting his studies on the backburner, Gansey began to travel across the world in search of clues - ley lines, psychic links, artifacts, historical details and information, etc. - to find the final location of the sleeping king. This excursion has taken him across Europe, parts of South America, and the mid-continental US before landing him in Henrietta, Virginia, USA, which he considers his home. It is one of the few places he has remained in for longer than a few months.

However, despite Gansey’s fear of bees and the very real possibility that a bee sting might kill him again, he refuses to let it get in the way of him traveling across the country, exploring wooded areas and forests (such as Cabeswater) if it means the possibility of finding Glendower. Gansey keeps an updated EpiPen in the glove compartment of his Camaro but he sees the futility in it and believes he must forge his own path where his mortality is concerned.

“The truth is that there’s not even really a point having an EpiPen. The last they told me was that it would only work if I got stung once, and even then, they don’t know. I was four the first time I had to go to a hospital for a sting, and the reactions only got worse aftre that. It is what it is. It’s this or live in a bubble.”

The Raven Boys

He very frankly tells Blue’s mother and her aunts that he refuses to be told the meaning behind his chosen card, Death, perhaps because he is actually haunted by thoughts of death. His belief in his mortality is constantly being tested throughout the series - being told that if Blue is his true love, she could kill him with a kiss; that his EpiPen is essentially useless from another bee sting; that this quest for Glendower could end in the harming (or death) of him or his friends, etc. The more serious the hunt becomes, the more cautious and withdrawn Gansey becomes - as though his strong, unflappable mask is beginning to crack, showing the frightened young man beneath who is still traumatized by his first experience with death itself.

Gansey suffers from terrible insomnia and seems to have had it since his death experience. A large part of his insomnia is likely due to obsessively mulling over facts about Glendower and his quest to find him, which pretty much occupies all of his time when he’s not doing his homework and being a regular Aglionby Honours student. During these nights of insomnia, Gansey can be found working on his miniature-sized model of Henrietta made of cereal boxes, glue and paint. In the duration of the series, he has built a large part of the town only to have some of it destroyed by home invaders (a certain Gray Man and others on the hunt for the ‘Greywaren’).

Throughout the books, Gansey has repeatedly stated that he doesn’t believe in coincidence, making it clear to other characters in the books, such as Blue:

Gansey was beginning to rub off on her because coincidences no longer seemed so coincidental.

The Raven Boys, 377

For someone who believes in the supernatural and magic, of sleeping medieval kings and psychics, he is incredibly pragmatic too. Coincidence and chance are excluded. He believes that everything happens for a reason and finding one impossible thing makes it possible to find more impossible things. He would rather seek out the next step in his journey versus having his journey predicted for him. Hunting for clues and putting them together is worth the effort. It’s the actual journey that bears the most importance for Gansey; it’s some of the reason why he refuses to have his card read and explained to him at 300 Fox Way.

Yet Gansey is still a teenager and it shows. He is hapless when it comes to social interactions with his own peers, often saying the wrong thing and being unaware of his own station in life. He wants to be loved and know what it’s like to feel comfortable with himself. He prizes honesty above nearly all else the way Ronan chooses never to lie, but Gansey contradicts himself (where Ronan does not) by lying to cover up his own truths, ashamed or insecure about some of his own secrets and fears.

Gansey has a knack for saying things before he considers the consequences, using his mouth as a main source of weaponry. Mostly this is unintentional. Even when it is unintentional, his words have a way of becoming sharp and full of judgement, hurtful to his friends, which in turn affects him quite dramatically.

His vow to consider his words more carefully came back to him, and so he framed the rest of the statement in his head before saying it out loud.

The Raven Boys

He is often described as something of a prince, with a regal appearance in the way he presents himself. Confident, charming, He is simultaneously young and old. He prefers to wear brightly coloured shirts, chinos and topsider shoes (often criticized as ‘boat shoes’). He stands at an average height and has slightly tousled brown hair and hazel coloured eyes. He is described as having strong arms and a rather well defined, well-fit body from his time on the rowing team when he served as captain. He does suffer from horrible eyesight, unable to see without either the use of contact lenses (most often) or his glasses (wireframes, often worn at night).

Items on your character at canon point:

( 1 ) polo shirt (aquamarine, teal, or yellow)
( 1 ) pair chinos
( 1 ) pair topsider shoes
( 1 ) EMF reader
( 1 ) leather-bound journal of Glendower notes
( 2 ) pens (black ink, red ink)
( 1 ) set of carkeys for a 1973 Camaro
( 1 ) pair sunglasses, Designer
( 1 ) wallet, with driver's license, credit cards, $200 cash, library cards, museum membership card
( 1 ) EpiPen, date current

Abilities, Strengths and Weaknesses:

Abilities.

Gansey has an incredible ability to bring the strangest collection of characters together. He is said to ‘collect’ people on several occasions in canon; this is not wholly untrue. He can bring people together in a quest that might seem incredibly mad at first - that is, the search for an old Welsh King from the medieval period. He has pulled together an eclectic team that consists of: a traumatized, angry teenager who has the ability to dream things into reality; an abused, poverty-stricken boy with a chip on his shoulder but a good heart; a dead ghost-boy; a psychic’s daughter with no real psychic power of her own, an old professor with an incredibly bizarre personality.

In addition, Gansey is very good at speaking. It might be said that years (and years) of practice, as well as being surrounded by a family of very good speakers, has given him an unconscious education in motivational, convincing speaking. He is confident and logical and convincing.

Strengths.

Aside from his abilities - motivational speaking, and his idealism, optimism, perseverance and tenacity, Gansey is physically quite strong. In his short time at Aglionby Academy, he shot up through the ranks of his peers and made it to the team captain of his rowing crew. He is canonically described as having strong arms.

His optimism, idealism, and his perseverence and tenacity make it very difficult to remain skeptical of Gansey’s quest even if it might seem outrageous. His dreaminess and his ability to be the strength and anchor for others makes him the kind of person people want to be around at the worst of times.

Weaknesses.

Gansey is incredibly, incredibly allergic to bees. He will undergo anaphylactic shock and die. The effects of bee stings get worse with each attack, and Gansey has already died once.

Without his glasses or contact lenses, Gansey is practically blind. In canon, he has to hold his phone screen an inch from his eyes in order to read the caller ID.

Deep down, Gansey is afraid of death and he is ridden with insecurities related to his incredibly wealthy status, his loneliness, and his desire to be loved by all. He can sometimes say the wrong thing and he often says or does before he thinks, which can get him into trouble when he offends the person he means not to offend. He is afraid of hurting others unintentionally, which is closely tied to his desire to be liked and loved.

Samples
Network/Action Spam Sample:

i. in which gansey and adam go spelunking

Prose Log Sample:

ii.
Gansey lets out a breath, maybe for the fourteen-thousandth time. It's hard not to feel like breathing is just about the only normal thing right now. Well. That, and the solidity and realness of the leather-bound book in his hand, a testament to his still being himself, Richard Gansey III, a politician's son wishing he wasn't a politician's son, a young man on a quest that cannot, must not, be delayed for any such reason.

Except, of course, this.

It's late, if the dark black sky above him is any indication. He'd just heard the sound of a terrible wailing lasting for longer than is comfortable, tempting him to cover his ears as a means of muffling it out. And then suddenly, just like that, it's gone and the only indication that anything had happened at all is the ringing in his head, a residual effect of the sharpness in its sound digging something deep within him, threatening to crack that finely crafted veneer of confidence that Gansey has taken years to perfect.

His grip on the leatherbound book, filled with notes and coordinates, images, doodles, information about Glendower, tightens.

He feels entirely out of his element here, alone and without a soul for miles around, without his car - a beloved 1973 Camaro he nicknamed Pig for all her perfections and flaws - and without his friends. His best friends: Ronan Lynch, Adam Parrish, Blue Sargent, Noah Czerny, the people who mean more to him than any group of people ever have. He's never stayed in a place long enough to make the kind of friends he has in Henrietta; he's never done it on purpose either. It's just - with the past seven years being something of a whirlwind to find the sleeping Welsh King, it hasn't left a whole lot of time for such things as lasting friendships.

But Henrietta ... Henrietta is different. Was different.

Gansey has to remind himself that he's here now, and here is a whole other world. Adam told him to meet him here, and thank God that he'd managed to reach one of his best friends, but until he sees that lanky figure, his straight nose and the pointed silhouette of his cheekbones, the slant of his blue, blue eyes all reminiscent of Henrietta (Jesus, he misses that place right now), he's not sure he can relax.