GUYS THIS IS NOT A DRILLL

Cardan looks like he would play an instrument like the piano or something but all he does is play with his heart

haha

dramione fic rec list

COMPLETED SERIES

this is my first deep dive into dramione and i wanted to share these amazing series i’ve read in the last few months. no particular rank or order to this list. enjoy!!!

Manacled - @senlinyu / @senlinyuwrites  if you’ve delved into Dramione at all, you’ve most likely heard of this incredible dark epic. it takes place in a Voldermort Wins!AU and takes inspiration from the Handmaiden’s Tale about population control in this new frightful era of the Wizarding World. be prepared for all 77 chapters to consume you in this tale of love, loss and hope in between. 

+ emphasis on dark epic. the writer themselves have acknowledged that with such dark and heavy themes, there are large aspects of the story that may be triggering for some people and therefore manacled might not be the fic for you - and that’s totally okay! (what’s important is that you take care of yourself) as always, read the tags and know your limits. + senlinyu is a phenomenal writer, often collaborates with @elithien, pairing their artistry together. @avendell is also another great digital artist who has worked closely with senlinyu, even creating multiple companion art pieces for Manacled (but try not to let the art spoil some parts of the fic for you!!!) + senlinyu has soo many Dramione works, just follow them & dive into it!

Bone Mortar - @mightbewriting enemies to lovers is a given in everything i’m about to talk about in this post, but this short and sweet series takes us to a modern!au setting of academia. what’s not to love about these two professors who are about to go head to head over a little administrative conflict at the start of the new school year?

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I’m so tired I need to sleep but they

THEY WONT LET ME SLEEP

@sixofcrowsnet heist: tragedies

“wylan understood then that he would never reach the school in belendt. he’d never been meant to. there was no secretary. no account in his name. no one was expecting his arrival. the supposed enrollment papers in his pocket might say anything at all. wylan hadn’t even bothered to try to read them. he was going to disappear, just as his father had always wanted, and he’d hired these men to do the job. (…) black spots filled wylan’s vision. he thought he could hear music”

She could fight for him, but she could not heal him. She would not waste her life trying.

One thing among infinite other things that I loved about Inej is, how always, she is her first priority. And just like that, Leigh reminded us again, that as ladies, it is not our job to heal another person. So many girls(and boys too) need to take a look at this, trying to heal them, when the said person doesn't put in as much effort as their SO does.

And my love for Kaz Brekker is just never ending. And I can see why Inej would say that Kaz is worth saving. She noticed Kaz trying. This part where he held her hand. Just that. It might be a small gesture but we can see it must take a lot of courage, for Kaz , to do that.

And I just love the effort he wants to take, he is trying to take, trying to go the extra mile. And it's not just for Inej. I feel he is doing it for himself too. And I love him so much. For all of it.

"Fine, make me your villain".

- The darkling (shadow and bone) by Leigh Bardugo

That single sentence really struck a cord with me. It exploited multiple things about the darkling and his character.

1. It conveys that he knows Alina (and many others) see him as the bad guy. He understands that they look at him as the villain who must be stopped because what he stands for and does is wrong.

2. He’s trying to make Alina understand that well what he is doing is dark and dangerous business, it’s not the wrong thing to do. He’s trying to make her see that sometimes bad actions must be preformed to generate good results.

3. Despite the fact that he’s attempted to explain his vision of a different future to Alina, he has come to understand that she simply doesn’t see it the way he does. He has come to understand that all she sees when she looks at him, is a monster doing monstrous things.

4. He is upset and frustrated that Alina can’t understand his vision and his actions, that she can’t understand him, that she only sees him as a villain.

5. That sentence also touches upon the subject that the villain never truly sees themselves as a villain. The darkling knows what he’s doing is bad, but he believes in his core that it’s ultimately the right thing to do. He believes that by preforming certain destructive actions, a positive result will emerge from the ashes.

6. That single sentence also shows that in Alina’s perspective, The darkling is her villain, but he doesn’t think he is. He thinks she should be with him, on his side.

The darkling is a very interesting villain because he is written to be very dark and very motivated, yet you can understand his motivation, you just probably don’t agree with his methods.

I think one of my favorite things about how Kaz is written is that his limp was caused by something so mundane. He fell. He broke his leg. It healed wrong. That’s it.

There’s no special cause, and we’re not meant to care about how it happened. It’s not written as a tragedy or some sort of marker of being a chosen or anything like that.

I’m not saying that it’s bad to have a tragic backstory for a character’s disability, but too often that veers into bitterness and demonizing a disability. We also just don’t get boring causes very often. And it’s almost always: something terrible happened to this pure and good chara, usually done to them by someone horrible and evil, because our baby hero is too good and cool and perfect to have been injured otherwise.

Kaz fucked up and fell off a fucking roof. And it’s certainly not his fault he has a bad leg now, but it does show that he wasn’t *always perfect,* the way some protags are written.

And he’s not perfect or portrayed as perfect at all. He’s a jerk. He is absolutely an awful person, but he’s not *just awful.* He has a very strong sense of honor and fairness, even if it’s been twisted by Ketterdam. Despite being described as ruthless and willing to do anything for the right price, we see him bluffing whenever innocents get dragged into things.

He constantly fights not to care about people because he thinks attachments are weaknesses, but very early on he ignores his phobia of touch to carry Inej at least thirty feet. That’s a lot even with his gloves on. He is definitely calculating, but he’s not heartless.

Even with Matthias, despite Kaz’s irreverence, he reassures Matthias about the sacred ash. He tells Matthias that it was only a metaphor, and that depite its significance, he shouldnt feel guilty in having brought it down. It’s somewhat cold, which I don’t really fault him for, because Kaz is not a soft character.

And Kaz is not a fuckboy. Because fuckboys are a very particular kind of gross. They’re womanizing, arrogant, entitled, and sexist. Most of Kaz’s behavior is tied to his trauma - he has severe PTSD and understandable trust issues, and he shouldn’t be demonized for holding people at arms length.

He’s not beingnstand-offish and secretive to be an ass. Kaz genuinely believes that he has to act that way to survive, and nothing about Ketterdam has proven otherwise. He still maintains a deeply trusting relationship with Inej - he keeps very few secrets from her and consistently allows himself to be vulnerable in her presence.

Kaz’s entire moral scale is balanced on what Inej will forgive him for. Theft, violence, scheming: all of this is fine. But killing an innocent woman? Exploiting sex workers? Burying Pekka Rollins’s son? Absolutely not.

He never pressures Inej into staying with him, though he does ask once. When she tells him she plans to leave Ketterdam, he works to make that possible, because her wants are more important to him than keeping her close.

When Kaz has a chance to bargain with Nikolai Lantsov, to ask for literally anything, he asks Niko to find Inej’s parents. He does things for her and does not ask for thanks. When it comes to Inej and the rest of the Crows, Kaz never thinks in terms of debt - none of the Crows owe him anything. He only makes bargains with them twice - once with Matthias, and once with Nina, and in both cases he is bargainng for their help. He pays Inej’s contract - pays, not buys - because he can and that’s what she deserves. He ruins the Menagerie for the same reason.

And when shit hits the fan, and everything looks like it’s going to come down on their heads, he doesn’t try to save himself. He offers to turn himself over to the mob to let the others go free.

I recently reread Cruel Prince/read the B&N short story, and I had THOUGHTS:

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Cruel prince reader here: NOPE can't do it! Valerian forced her to the ground and made her eat fearie apple which makes her lose control of her body and mind. Sound very similar to date rape drug. Like I know it's called CRUEL prince but I figured the way everyone was stanning Jude and Cardan that he wasn't gonna be too bad. Sure he wasn't the 1 who did that but some shit just crosses the line and he has to be help responsible for the actions of friends trying to impress him. Tumblr is fucked up

Okay. 

I’m going to start with the Faerie apple scene, and then I’ll discuss Cardan and Jude.

Faerie is a dangerous world, right? So dangerous for mortals, in fact, that they cannot eat the food without salt, they can’t eat certain apples, they must go around with rowan berries to avoid charms, etc. etc. The world Holly Black creates is scary, and cruel, and one you would not want to live in. 

However, this is Jude’s home. She’s been forced to grow up here. She’s been forced to live and survive despite the cruelty around her, and she’s survived. In fact, she’s incredibly brave for not only learning how to live in this world, but also standing up to those who aim to hurt her. 

And Jude, for so long, has been keeping herself safe. This moment of eating the Faerie apple, then, while horrible, reminds Jude, and by extension, us (the readers), that Faerie isn’t a safe place. Any safety that Jude had felt up to this moment is gone. She’s vulnerable and can’t stand up for herself and it is cruel. Horrible. Terrifying. It’s a reminder that this world is not meant for mortals, that dangers lurk in every crevice, and even out in the open. It’s a reminder to us, too, that Jude isn’t invincible. She’s human, just like us. 

Now, onto Cardan. 

I’m not just going to say ‘Faeries are cruel,’ because sure, they can be, but Cardan does need to be held responsible for his actions. He and his behavior shouldn’t be written off. 

He’s a bully. He causes pain. And yes, when Jude and Taryn were thrown into the river, he does try to end it sooner. If I’m not mistaken, too, he does try to get his friends to stop their actions in the Faerie fruit scene. But yes, he is cruel, and treats mortals terribly, and treats lots of people terribly, actually, but he was also abused. Is abused. That’s not an excuse for his behavior. Don’t get me wrong: he treats others with immense cruelty at times, and that shouldn’t be ignored or excused. But, it is all he knows. There’s more about why Cardan’s the way he is in the sequel, The Wicked King, but the little moments we catch of how he’s treated by Balekin helps to explain his cruelty. 

That all being said, I think the characters of Jude and Cardan are very dynamic, and as the book (and sequel) show, they aren’t just the badass and cruel characters that we originally met. They are both vulnerable and have been through traumatizing and horrible experiences and that does, inevitably, shape who they become. Ultimately, though, it’s not who they have to be. And I think that both Jude and Cardan are learning that. Particularly Cardan. 

So yes. There are incredibly cruel moments in the book. I think that was going to be unavoidable, particularly when Holly Black’s created such a dangerous world. But those moments don’t necessarily undermine the rest of the book, or the series. 

How to destroy a SOC fan

“Wait.” …. “Is my tie straight?”