i-love-soc-a-very-normal-amount - Tumblr blog

i-love-soc-a-very-normal-amount · 3 hours

Text

Okay, so... as a collective fandom, we can agree that bullying Kaz is fun, yeah? There's just something about seeing the guy down at his lowest and then prodding him with a stick and going "Come on, do something."

But I'm going to stand in his corner for a bit in this post.

Something that never really sat right with me is the collective implication that Kaz isn't good enough for Inej (and never will be).

I'm totally with you: he didn't deserve Inej in the first book and maybe not even yet in the second because he didn't give her anything to work with. He didn't even visit her after she was stabbed, or show her how relieved he was when she recovered. And this is just the thing: he didn't deserve her because of his BEHAVIOUR, not because he's inherently less important or less valuable or less of a person than her.

However I've read so many post-CK fanfictions where Kaz has been working on himself, is openly communicating with her, basically kisses the ground she walks on, treats her as his equal and goes above and beyond to make her as comfortable as possible, and still everyone INCLUDING Inej (and Kaz) goes "I/she deserve/s so much better than me/him". And THAT implicates that the reason Kaz wasn't good enough for her was not his behaviour towards her, but the fact that he as a whole human being is just "not enough" and "less valuable" than her, and that viewpoint has always made me super uncomfortable, especially considering his trauma.

Now I know what you're going to say, and I absolutely agree: trauma never excuses abhorrent behaviour. But there's just something icky to me about looking at a traumatized person who has not only been making an EXTREME effort to overcome their issues, but also shown amazing results, and going "They don't deserve X", "They're less than X" etc. just because they haven't fully healed yet or might never fully heal. It gives "Traumatized people are damaged goods"-vibes, which is especially weird considering my next point: INEJ IS TRAUMATIZED TOO AND HER TRAUMA GETS IN THE WAY OF A GOOD AND LOVING RELATIONSHIP JUST AS MUCH AS HIS.

She literally admits to herself that she wears as much armor as Kaz does and was being kind of hypocritical when she told him to remove his. Inej is a flawed character (which somehow seems to be a controversial take in the fandom), and to put her on a pedestal because of how virtuous and "better" she is than Kaz takes all the nuance out of her. There are definitely some parts in the books where I felt like she was in the wrong or toeing the line, but the others never really call out her behaviour the way they do with Kaz, not even in their internal monologue, so we're left with this image of an Inej who can do no wrong and a Kaz who simply got lucky.

The fact that in aforementioned fanfictions (that I still absolutely adore btw) Inej too thinks he isn't good enough for her despite everything he does for her and for himself, and despite how far he's come also turns her acknowledgment of her own self worth into something ugly and vain in my eyes. She loves herself, but she also loves Kaz, so I don't think she, or any good partner, would look at her boyfriend who clearly already thinks very little of himself and go "Yep, this fucker isn't good enough".

So often people will look at a healthy happy couple and go "He/she could do so much better than her/him". Like that's a whole person you're putting in a competition of "Who's more worthy?" as if they were some object that is of better or worse quality.

I don't think I articulated this too well and there's a lot more to be said about this, but I hope you understand the gist of it. Post CK-Kaz who works on himself and openly communicates ABSOLUTELY deserves Inej, and I will ROT on this hill.

Now I've been nice to him for long enough I think *whacks him with a crow bar*

79 notes · View notes

i-love-soc-a-very-normal-amount · 3 hours

Text

I suddenly just want a SoC au where Kaz bakes. Everything else is the same but he bakes and everyone knows it. Inej knows it. Jesper too. Even Pekka Rollins does.

Wylan arrives and is expecting Brekker's infamous butter salted pretzel but he doesn't get it until he finds it in his satchel after he meets his mum with Jesper. He didn't know if he was grateful or wanted to throw it at Kaz's head

Inej constantly finds doughnuts and scones in her pockets. One time she's starving and cold on a roof somewhere in Ketterdam on a job for Kaz and she's looking for a little carving knife to fidget with and she finds three little pretzels in a paperbag in her pocket.

Matthias finds a plate with a muffin on it with the icing shaped like a red bird in his cell the day they broke him out. At one point in Crooked Kingdom he had a craving for Dirtyhand's salted caramel cookies and he wanted to exorcise himself

Inej's parents love his baked goods since the first time he baked them an entire lemon coconut almond moist cake. He presented Zoya with pineapple pie when they went to meet Sturmhond.

Nikolai finds a venison pie shaped like a steam ship in his office after his and Jesper's visit

Nina is banned from his kitchen.

181 notes · View notes

i-love-soc-a-very-normal-amount · 4 hours

Text

cool cool cool. cool. yeah. fine. don't even care. normal about it and like, don't even care at all. cool

976 notes · View notes

i-love-soc-a-very-normal-amount · 4 hours

Text

Jesper: Now are you going to mind your own business or do I really need to give you a piece of my mind?

Kaz: Oh, I couldn’t take the last piece

Wylan: *approaches with spray bottle*

105 notes · View notes

i-love-soc-a-very-normal-amount · 4 hours

Text

thinking about this moment again:

particularly in regards to this conversation:

thinking about inej, who is actively dying, asking kaz for an apology. inej, whose native tongue leaves no room for triviality here. this isn’t “you were mean to me and you need to make nice,” it’s so much deeper.

this is “promise me you won’t treat me like a piece in your chess game again. promise me you won’t keep acting like i’m replaceable. promise me i’m not just another one of your investments.”

this is the first time we see inej holding kaz accountable, the first time we see her ask him to be more, to do better. this is the precursor to the “without armor” conversation. and i think it’s fitting that we never hear whether or not kaz did apologize. because at this point, i don’t think he’s ready to give inej what she’s really asking for here, and in a way, it’s best that she doesn’t hear him say the words. he’s not ready to mean them yet.

293 notes · View notes

i-love-soc-a-very-normal-amount · 5 hours

Text

let me say it again: Nina Zenik is not skinny. She is fat. She is hot. Those two things are not mutually exclusive, so why am I still seeing fanart where she’s thin?????

#THIS IS WHAT IM SAYING

84 notes · View notes

i-love-soc-a-very-normal-amount · 5 hours

Text

halfway through six of crows rn and kaz and inej??? i ship??? they're literally perfect??? oh my god???

87 notes · View notes

i-love-soc-a-very-normal-amount · 5 hours

Text

#this is actually adorable

568 notes · View notes

i-love-soc-a-very-normal-amount · 5 hours

Text

#why tf are people saying hes not #i mean sure at the start he isnt really but he gets better really quickly

32 notes · View notes

i-love-soc-a-very-normal-amount · 6 hours

Text

*weary exasperated sigh* of course it hurts my soul but you see I am now a creature of the angst

5 notes · View notes

i-love-soc-a-very-normal-amount · 7 hours

Text

Jesper: Family generations successively having fewer and fewer kids is called a receding heirline…😃

Wylan: I hate you

70 notes · View notes

i-love-soc-a-very-normal-amount · 1 day

Text

Wylan: Just had a lovely moment with our son, he found an old portrait of my father and excitedly reported that thats the man who levitates at the end of his bed at night

Jesper: Do we need an exorcism? Does he need an exorcism??

60 notes · View notes

i-love-soc-a-very-normal-amount · 1 day

Text

I'm in the middle of rewatching Shadow and Bone, and I still can't believe that a group of ragtag criminals outsmarted a whole lot of trained Grisha.

Inej killed that inferni in the time I take to tie my hair.

Jesper brought Ivan to the floor despite him wearing a bullet-proof kefta.

And Kaz? That badass hot bitch has audacity!

He met the Darkling, roasted the hell out of him by saying that his girlfriend ran away because she was sick of him, made him cry, evaded his cut with a magic trick, knocked out his Materialnik, and stole his carriage.

Honestly, who's doing it like the Crows?

79 notes · View notes

i-love-soc-a-very-normal-amount · 1 day

Text

Nina: I hate seeing a gorgeous woman lose sleep over a man who looks like he had to negotiate his way onto Earth

#preach

53 notes · View notes

i-love-soc-a-very-normal-amount · 1 day

Text

I think everyone knows which scene this is

66 notes · View notes

i-love-soc-a-very-normal-amount · 1 day

Text

Kaz: Today, I was accused of hating children.

Jesper: But you do hate children

Kaz: Well yes, but the statement implies that I like it when children have grown into adults, which I do not.

Jesper: So you hate everyone?

Kaz: Exactly, I hate everyone-

Nina: Except Inej

Kaz: Yes, except Ine- wait...

Nina: SAINTS HE ADMITTED IT

Jesper: ALERT THE NEWS, KAZ ADMITS HE LIKES INEJ

Kaz: Fuck.

130 notes · View notes

i-love-soc-a-very-normal-amount · 1 day

Text

Dude, poor Wylan was having one hell of a day when they appeared

116 notes · View notes