the earth might be healing because yes!!!! Finally some media literacy!!!
That's why I'm wary of people calling TFOTA a bullies to lovers. Because yes there's a school setting and yes Cardan participated in making Jude's life a nightmare, but some things to consider in no correct order:
1. The meanness was originally targeted towards Taryn, because Cardan and Nicasia knew that Locke was courting her to play with both their hearts. Nicasia was retaliating because Taryn was taking her man, and Cardan because Locke was hurting and insulting him and the person he loved (Nicasia) by stealing his girl (Nicasia) and then throwing her away for a mortal girl (Taryn). What they did was wrong and *fae*, but it wasn't bullying just for the fun of it, it only started as a means of retaliation to frighten Taryn, and Jude got the worst of it because Taryn wouldn't be honest about what she did, Locke thought it would be fun to try to have both sisters, that angered Cardan/Nicasia even more, and Jude was taking no bullshit. Yes we can call it bullying, but let's not present it as just Cardan's group being cruel to the twins since forever and/or starting it unprompted. That's just not how it actually went. It started because powerful faeries felt threatened enough by 2 mortal girls!! And that's part of the theme of TFOTA!
2. Cardan has a kind heart that's been beaten into being cruel.
His mother left him to suckle on a cat's tit instead of her own as a baby, dressed in royal clothes worn out to drags.
His elder brother (Dain) tricked him into a twisted game that ended with Cardan taking the blame for the murder of the king's mortal lover instead of Dain.
The court only allowed him back in because Nicasia took a liking to him when he was cruel.
The brother that educated him (Balekin) and watched over him as a parent would beat him up into submission and cruelty, constantly comparing him to low-status humans and charming them to beat him up as a punishment for weakness. But he never fully beat the kindness out of him: Cardan *has* been snuggling mortal servants out of his manor, and even though he hated Jude for being a lowly mortal loved by Madoc, the urge to care has always been stronger than the desire to be cruel, and he's stepped in whenever things were going too far in front of him.
That doesn't erase the cruelty and violence he's shown, but this is what separates him from someone like Valerian who always enjoyed the violence and would have never changed. Because out of that environment that asked of him to be cruel to be loved and respected, Cardan can actually grow into a version of himself that's kinder and truer to his nature!
3. It was more of a one sided enemies (Cardan had beef with Jude for being basically what Balekin wanted him to be sword-wise and having a great relationship with her dad, all of that despite being a mortal)/unrequited attraction (Cardan had sexual fantasies about Jude) to bullies to reluctant allies to enemies (where Jude has literal control over him) to lovers and one sided enemies (this time Jude thinking he's betrayed her) to lovers lmao. And I think it's important to mention, because Jude never loved Cardan in his bully era, and only started to feel attraction towards him when she had power over him. The love story isn't about a hot bully realizing the nerd he's bullying is actually cute and *therefore he shouldn't bully*TM, but about two persons that society pitted against each other realizing they can love one another when they get themselves out of those toxic social constructs.
4. TFOTA has romance in it, sure, but the story is about Jude coming to terms with her parents' murder by Madoc and her being raised as his daughter in Faerie! The romance with Cardan is a subplot that feeds into the theme (which is that Jude doesn't win against the fae by becoming more fae (cruel) than them, but by understanding their world and still choosing to be human when it matters — and it's demonstrated by Jude defeating Madoc the way he's taught her (the fae way) and still choosing to spare him (the human way), thus showing that she's above him now.) But [the romance with Cardan] isn't the main point of the book. Calling TFOTA a bullies to lovers or enemies to lovers is the same as calling the Star Wars Prequels a knight x queen romance instead of a tragic space opera.
Therefore!! Calling TFOTA a bullies to lovers is dismissive of the story's true depth and intent for the sake of trendy phrases. A book is so much more than an ao3 tag turned trend, and I swear you'll appreciate the story more once you allow it to tell you what it's trying to, instead of trying to make it fit something it's not!