#maybe noah blue gansey and adam

[crossmyheartwonttellnoother]

you can safely assume i'm thinking about ronan lynch at any given time

[squash1]

the most gansey song ever.

[c-herondale]

I'm a simple woman. I reread the raven cycle. I go and look at posts and fanart that make me want to reread the raven cycle. I reread the raven cycle. I go and look at posts and fanart that make me want to reread the raven cycle. I reread the raven-

[vebokki]

days in henrietta

[pageofpotential]

just two people deeply in love with each other but can’t kiss for fear of death

[highwaystars]

if you don't wanna cry to my music don't make me hate you prolifically

[adamnsey]

adansey / come over - noah kahan

[allforthe-gay]

chapter 37 of trk is simply Not Enough. i need a whole book about henry cheng or i will experience a non-passive failure .

[iheartmoons]

me and some friends think it would be a very excellent idea if someone were perhaps to write a "the raven cycle" AU for the marauders :))

[derrypubliclibrary]

someone should let me ramble through me thoughts about rtc trc au (/j… unless?👀)

[alteriidem]

the way adam/blue made the entire squad uncomfortable is so funny to me. like they would hold hands and suddenly all the air was sucked out of the room because of all the poorly regulated teenage emotions suddenly abuzz

[apocketfullofhobbits]

a girl will watch one single youtube video abt an old russian horror video game and will promptly think up a whole trc au for it

[squash1]

the transition from the raven cycle to the dreamer trilogy captures the transition from being a teenager to being an adult so perfectly i can’t stand it. everything in trc is so big, everything means so much, they are all so in love with each other & fall into friendship so easily. and everything in tdt is so much smaller, so much more trust is required to make real relationships, everything falls apart so easily but there’s also so much raw intimacy. and it’s all just like living this too small too big life that is growing and changing. and it is so painful to have grown up with these characters and for them to now be stuck at one stage in life while i have to continue on.

[justsomeguycore]

i love the idea of gansey being like 5’8” tops. very good for me

[ravenssunshine]

so since maggie said that no one remembers noah and this is backed up by no mention of him after his sacrifice, do you ever think about all the blank spots in the gangsey’s memory?

blue’s pretty sure she’s kissed someone other than gansey. she remembers the feeling of kissing someone and them not dropping dead. but she has no idea who it would’ve been. maybe it was adam, but that doesn’t seem right at all. she never wanted to kiss him.

gansey doesn’t know why there’s an empty bedroom at monmouth. it served as a guest room before and could do so again, but what’s the long-standing point of an empty bedroom? he wonders why he never tried to convince adam to stay there (with rent, of course). or maybe they could’ve separated the bathroom and the kitchen. or gansey could’ve pretended that he slept in his own room, though no one would’ve believed that. anything other than letting an empty bedroom collect dust.

truthfully, noah was so engrained in the hunt for glendower that i don’t see how any of them could ever fully remember it without remembering him. maybe one day they’ll all return to henrietta and find a living reminder of noah czerny. they’ll never understand why the name causes them so much grief. the feelings will never leave, but they’ll never remember him again

[friendofcars]

the cars in the raven cycle and the dreamer trilogy are metaphors for/extensions of the people who drive them (especially in terms of interpersonal relationships and perceptions)- and so is adam’s bicycle. (*warning for brief mentions of abuse in later paragraphs*). adam gets around henrietta on a bicycle because it’s the only form of transportation he can afford, and we know he’s ashamed of this (his narration describes the bike as “somewhat pathetic”). adam's bicycle is present in pivotal scenes: in one of his chapters, he recalls the first time he talked to gansey, and the visceral fear and embarrassment evoked by seeing his bike next to the exuberant camaro (and the awkward fitting of the bike into the camaro’s trunk)- but also their nearly instant friendship once adam accepts a ride to aglionby after helping gansey repair the camaro.

but when adam talks to blue for the first time (described from blue’s pov), they both have their bikes; adam’s is one of several details that endear him to blue, along with his frayed sweater, quiet demeanor, and accent- all of which let blue know that adam doesn’t fit her assumption that all aglionby boys are affluent and arrogant. she notices that adam’s bike is “dolefully squeaking,” which i’m taking to be an oblique reference to a squeaky wheel, or something/someone neglected/in need of care. and when ronan (wakefully) sees adam for the first time (in a flashback in cdth), adam and his bike are going uphill while gansey and ronan ride in the camaro. he refers to adam simply as “the boy with the bicycle." adam, inclusive of the bike, is immediately attractive to ronan, which is a stark contrast to adam’s perception of his bike (and, thus, himself). adam is ashamed of himself, but blue relates to him, and both she and ronan see him as desirable (with the bicycle present!).

in trb chapter 20, adam is trying to get his bike to stand up in the monmouth parking lot, but the kickstand is broken (emblematic of the familial love and support that he lacks/his abusive parents have destabilized him). he then tries to remove the kickstand without breaking it (adam is trying to extricate himself from henrietta without hurting himself or others in the process/ he’s living tensely and precariously. in tdt, he becomes more likely to snap under stress. ronan recognizes adam’s fragility, of being about to break; adam’s spirit breaking is one of gansey’s worst fears). and even if adam could remove the kickstand, a bike without a kickstand (a boy without a family or friends) cannot balance unless it’s in motion (a miracle of moving parts, maybe)- but perpetual motion is impossible, so adam is destined to crash without external support. in this scene, he could lean the bike against monmouth, but he’s not yet ready to accept help or gifts. a bike can only seat an army of one, unlike gansey and ronan’s cars. with the bike, symbolically, there's no risk of codependency or humiliation, but there’s also inevitable isolation and pathological independence. (thank you alli @whoreshoecrab for helping me organize my thoughts re: the kickstand!)

in the same chapter, adam muses that ronan doesn’t need physics/isn’t held back by the mortal, mundane, material restrictions adam has to work around. adam's not serious (and doesn’t know that ronan actually does defy physics when dreaming), but if ronan can waste his time idly and metaphorically use his privilege to launch his bmw through the sky to the moon, adam must drudgingly bike along the ground; he must manage his time diligently and strategically; he must deal with the physical failures of his bike and the kickstand with human amounts of force. this sets up adam’s core frustration with ronan and ronan’s apparent freedom, but this envy gets deconstructed as he spends more time alone with ronan, particularly in bllb.

there's probably a lot to say about the hondayota (and when adam drives alone vs. when he drives blue and noah to the national park and has his awakening, to which his realizations about connectivity and connectedness are crucial), but i'll skip ahead to cdth when adam has a motorcycle instead of a bicycle. the motorcycle reveals some growth (he’s accepted a gift from ronan, he’s healed to the point where he can choose when to leave and return to virginia, ronan says adam has always wanted a motorbike instead of a car, perhaps [metaphorically] because it’s still an independent way to travel but isn’t reliant on sheer physical labor), but also reveals that his life is still unbalanced and marked by the upkeep of a confident façade (he dumps the motorcycle when he slows down/he still falters when he can’t throw himself into a perpetual state of work). he's still adam, always moving and looking at the roads ahead of him, and he's still struggling to reconcile his past with his present without living inauthentically, but he’s no longer balancing his life alone.