A prince of Faerie, nourished on cat milk and contempt, born into a family overburdened with heirs, and a nasty little prophesy hanging over his head — since the hour of Cardan’s birth, he has been alternately adored and despised. Perhaps it’s no surprise that he turned out the way he did; the only surprise is that he managed to become the High King of Elfhame anyway.
Some might think of him as a strong draught, burning the back of one’s throat, but invigorating all the same.
You might beg to differ.
So long as you’re begging, he doesn’t mind a bit.
“This?” he demands, looking down at the waves far beneath them. “This is how you traveled? What if the enchantment ended while Vivi wasn’t with you?”
“I suppose I would have plummeted out of the air,” Jude tells him with troubling equanimity, her expression saying, Horrible risks are entirely normal to me.
Cardan has to admit that the ragwort steeds are swift and that there’s something thrilling about tangling his hand in a leafy mane and racing across the sky. It’s not as though he doesn’t enjoy a little danger, just that he doesn’t gorge himself on it, unlike some people. He cuts his gaze toward his unpredictable (page ends)…
And here is one of Rovina Cai’s gorgeous illustrations of Jude and Cardan on ragwort steeds
So I’ve got lots of thoughts and feelings on “Come home and fight with me”
But tbh I think no one wants another dissertation out of me on this fandom so all I’m gonna say is that those words are not a show of weakness of softness but are instead the words of a desperate man literally begging for a fight. Cardan isn’t simping here, he wants to know Jude cares enough to be angry and to have the fight. He -wants to fight- because he only knows how to express himself through harshness and also once the fight is over it is over. Fights are clear. A beating may leave bruises but it ends.
Today!! Starts in about an hour and a half. You don’t need to join the facebook group to watch and I think they will be archived to watch later if you can’t make it to the live.
I just realized that I hadn’t posted the extended version of my The Folk of the Air comic on tumblr, so here! This takes place when Jude is coming back from fighting Grima Mog in Holly Black’s book The Queen of Nothing. I love the kind of transition parts in the beginning of the book when tired, bounty hunter Jude just kind of deals with the human world.
Betrayal trope when its someone telling person A that person B betrayed them and person A refuses to believe them because they know that person B would never do that. But person B just looks at them with this sorrowful guilt and person A knows. And person B’s heart breaks along with person A’s and they just stare and stare and stare at eachother, aching so much. And person A is so angry at themself and at person B and they hurl themselves at person B because how dare they? How dare they come into their life and then destroy everything? And person B just takes the punches because they’re asking themself the same questions >>>
It’s you I love,” he says. “I spent much of my life guarding my heart. I guarded it so well that I could behave as though I didn’t have one at all. Even now, it is a shabby, worm-eaten, and scabrous thing. But it is yours.” He walks to the door to the royal chambers, as though to end the conversation. “You probably guessed as much,” he says. “But just in case you didn’t.
i love how cardan doesn’t wait for her to react bc he doesn’t want to face any rejection at all bc of his severe abandonment issues from everyone who has every interacted with him.
he feels like he’s never good enough for anyone and that just makes me so sadddd.
i’ve seen people say that cruel prince is bullies to lovers so i just needed to get it off my chest on how it’s not
jude is not into the abuse that was thrown at her and she did not have a crush on him early on. she was able to fight back in her own way and she did not let herself be called inferior. in the beginning, the feelings that jude had for cardan were hatred and disgust, not desire. the kiss that happens in the court of shadows mostly represents judes delight in having control over him.
cardan does not bully jude because he wants to be possessive and controlling, he’s doing it because he can not distinguish and express the feelings of love and attachment he has for jude. i’m not saying that it was okay for him to do so, he knows that and acknowledges his disappointment in his previous self in the later books. i’m just saying that his actions had depth to them. everyone that’s loved him has left him but jude has never left his thoughts, so he sees it as a weakness to the cruel prince image that he is trying to portray. his crush on jude is annoying to him and he needs it to stop before he seems more powerless than he already feels to everyone around him.
i love their development because they start to mutually respect each other. jude is impressed on cardans decisions, cleverness and humor. cardan doesn’t put up his cruel persona in front of jude because he knows she can see right through it and he finds himself trusting the plans and schemes she creates. cardan was able to make jude laugh and jude was able to make sure he didn’t get stabbed. sooner or later, jude and cardan found themselves caring for each other and wanting the other to be safe even though they knew they could both handle themselves individually. they became pretty attached to each other and they desired being with each other. they’ve learned to understand each other’s motives and interests and admire the other for it. jude admires of cardans ability to be charismatic and charming and cardan admires judes bravery and perseverance.
cardan exiled jude because he wanted to impress her with his trickery and he wanted her to admire him for how witty he was with the personal riddle he created for her. he didn’t want to make her feel inferior to him. he thought that her staying in the mortal fault was his fault because she didn’t want to return back to him and whatever flaws he had that annoyed her.
cardan loves jude with every fiber of his being and the thought of her leaving him destroyed him. jude wanted to hate cardan and make herself believe that everything he’s done was a lie, but she didn’t. jude was able to love him for everything that he grew to become. once they sorted through their misunderstandings, cardan and jude were able to be comfortable with their feelings for each other without holding back.
jude was devastated when she was forced to slay his serpent self because she didn’t want him to leave her. but, she loved him enough to give him the ending that she believed he deserved. once she broke the curse, she didn’t care who saw her run to cardan. cardan explained how throughout the whole serpent mess thing, jude was the only thing that he was able to remember.
so those are my thoughts on that. this ended up turning into me rambling on my love for jurdan and their relationship development instead of what i started with but i don’t really care
i demand justice for being robbed of more fluffy scenes between jude and cardan
the hug after jude slays the snake and the part where jude finally tells cardan that she loves him were some of the best parts of tqon
i just want to see jude and cardan being more vulnerable with each other and working on recovering from their traumatic experiences together because i love their relationship and i want to see it grow more
Hey guys i just made a bookstagram account, I’ve been meaning for a long time to do it and finally got the courage so if you’re interested follow me and thanks in advance.
