soph

“You kissed me, whispered stories in my ear. You sang to me and held me as I slept. Your laughed chased me into waking.”

She knew she shouldn’t speak, but she couldn’t help herself.

“And what did you do Matthias? What did you do to me in your dreams?”

His eyes were blue fire.

inej's one would be the longest cause i said so

nina's a girl in red girl

inej likes harry styles' music argue with me i dare you (especially harry's house)

wylan would have two moods: happy shit (ie. taylor swift, one direction) and moody (ie. indie/alt rock, freaks - surf curse, arctic monkeys, the neighbourhood)

kaz is the type of dude to look like he has nirvana on his earbuds 120% of the time but it's always taylor or some song inej reccommended to him

jesper is a hyperpop kid no objections

matthias is either a britney dude or just plain doesn't listen to music (how?!?!?)

zoya doesn't have a music taste she just kinda plays anything but she can't survive without music

nikolai's a sea shanty guy

kuwei's a whatever-song-shows-up-on-my-fyp typa person

argue with me please i would like to debate over fictional characters' music taste

Jesper: is there a love triangle on it?

Nina: well, kind of but-

Jesper and Wylan: NOO!

Inej: is not exactly a triangle guys, you can calm down

Nina: what going on?

Inej: apparently we don't notice because we get too invested on the movie, but when we watch something with a love triangle things get a little...intense

Matthias: you just like Edward because he is rich!

Kaz: DUUH! what is your excuse? you like Jacob because he is a wolf?

Matthias: so what,Kaz? SO WHAT?!

---

Matthias: Aiden is a great guy! Carrie should stay with him!

Kaz: Mr Big is a millonaire!

Matthias: Thats you argument for everything! Also Big is a cheater!

Kaz: well your beloved Aiden got cheated on too!

Matthias: Why are we even fighting over this is neither of us like Carrie!

Kaz: i don't know but we already started

----

"BETTY!"

"VERONICA!"

Matthias: Veronica is a frivolous rich spoiled kid! Betty is sweet

Kaz: Betty is a doormat! Veronica has her whole life ahead of her, therefore Betty should have the bland ginger!

Matthias: no! he should go to Veronica so Betty can find someone better

----

Matthias: you clearly don't understand the hunger games!

Kaz: oh please, the boring goody two shoes blondie has nothing on the competent, strong brunette

Matthias: its because you have not read the books! if you did you´d understand!

(meanwhile Jesper and Wylan locked in the closet)

Wylan: how comes the girls are NOT hearing that? they already broke like four plates

Jesper:shh! they´ll hear you

"both scream as the door opens"

Kaz: guys, we need your opinion on this

Wylan: please no

Nina: There are.

Wylan: Really? What?

Nina: Be my friend or i’ll set you family on fire.

Matthias:

Kaz was 9.

Wylan was 8.

Matthias was 12.

Inej was 14.

Nina was 16.

Zoya was 9.

Genya was 11.

Kuwei was 15.

Woke: Kaz and Wylan are equals, and there is no dad here.

Kaz and Inej make sense to slow-burn — they both have some level of touch aversion, extreme trust issues, and “I’m an island i don’t need anyone” syndrome.

But Jesper and Wylan? Jesper is fully sexually active in both the books and the show, but being sexually active in your 20s is vastly different than as a teenager. He knows what he likes and goes for it and has been doing that for years. Wylan is only like 15 in the books and super inexperienced - but he’s always had that secretly-confident, slightly-unhinged streak. In this alternate universe, he’s had an extra almost-decade for those traits to grow before meeting the Crows — he knows *so* much more about himself.

Wylan isn’t shy, he’s reserved. There’s a difference — it’s not a lack of confidence, his confidence is just quiet. Wylan hits me so hard as a relatable queer character because he plays the game of gently feeling out interest - when we meet him he’s sussing out if Jesper is still interested, and I imagine when they first met he did the “i’m going to signal to you i’m queer and hope you signal back” dance that happens when you’re trying to figure out if hitting on someone in a queer context will be received well or not.

But as soon as Wylan gets the go-ahead that Jesper is interested, he’s all confidence. He was just waiting for the explicit permission to go for it. Both times in the show when we see Jesper and Wylan start to get hot and heavy, Wylan is the one who initiates.

So in the show we have two sexually active adults who are attracted to each other, who aren’t afraid to go for what they want once they get a positive social queue, and who live in a super dangerous place with a “live fast, die young” mentality. Anything other than them jumping each other the first night they met wouldn’t make sense.

(Maybe part one?)

When discussing the Ice Court Heist at the start of the book Wylan explains that he speaks Fjerdan and although Jesper teases that he probably isn’t very good at it, the fact that Wylan has been to the Ice Court at least once before would beg to differ; as a diplomatic meeting it would probably be considered impolite if he and his family didn’t speak at least some Fjerdan when being hosted by what I assume to have been the royal family or at least higher-ups in the Fjerdan government. However, when he’s drawing up plans of the Court on the boat, Kaz asks why nothing is labelled and Wylan says “I don’t know Fjerdan”. He does, in fact, know Fjerdan (and it’s confirmed later that he speaks it well), but he is hiding the fact that he cannot write

In the Bathroom Scene™️ Kaz says that Inej’s tell is the way she squares her shoulders before making a move, “as if you’re waiting for the audience’s attention”. When Kaz goes to the slat in the next chapter, after the fight he squares his shoulders before making his speech to launch a coup against Per Haskell. I think this is really interesting and it absolutely shows what Inej realises at the time, that “the fight was just the opening act” but this, the talking and the convincing and the persuasion, this is Kaz’s superpower. I think this is so interesting and says so much about him, but it’s also a great Kanej parallel. More than any character I can think of, Kaz absolutely embodies the quote “I discovered at a very young age that if I talked for long enough I could prove anything right or wrong, so either I’m god or truth is relative. And either way, boo-yah” (which by the way is a quote from the brilliant sitcom Community)

This is my favourite Wesper parallel: in soc when Wylan uses a bomb to save them from the parem-drugged fabricator, Jesper says “Wylan earned his keep”. Wylan replies “Did I?” and Jesper says “Well, you made a downpayment”. At the end of Crooked Kingdom when the pair are able to go back to Wylan’s house because Van Eck has been arrested, Wylan asks Jesper if he really meant it when he said that he would stay and help run the business by reading to him, and Jesper says of course, but “I charge a pretty steep fee”. Wylan blushes and replies “well I hope the medik is here to fix my ribs soon, because I’d like to make a downpayment”. THEY’RE SO GODDAMN ADORABLE