#because of their obsession with the fucking darkling

[sage-exe]

Darkling x Fem Reader

Pairing: Darkling x Fem Reader

Summary: word has been spreading around that you where the Darkling’s whore, it made you upset, when you go to talk to the Darkling about this reoccurring issue the two of you get a little side tracked..

Word count: 4K words

Warnings: slut shaming?, nsfw, angry sex, corruption kink, consensual sex, breeding kink, bondage kink kinda, obsession, wife kink, hair pulling

You were wandering the halls of the little palace after dinner, searching for the library. You overheard some Grisha whispering to one another around the corner, curious you started to snoop.

“Yeah, that ‘sun summoner’ is probably just his whore, she’s not actually as strong as he says she is, she didn’t even grow up here, he simply likes fucking her.”

You were taken aback by the harsh words, gripping onto your black kefta as tears welled up in your eyes. You rushed off to the Darkling’s quarters only to be stopped by Ivan, one of his guards.

“He’s busy.” You frowned and tried to push past him.

“P..Please this is important.. let me see him for just a minute..” you kept trying to push past the wall of muscle to no avail till suddenly he let you pass, leaving you stumbling and almost slamming right against the Darkling himself.

“Hello, is something the matter?” He spoke in a calm, velvety voice. You nodded and he led you inside his quarters.

“What’s going on?” He leaned against the war room table and crossed his arms.

“T..The Grisha are spreading rumors that I’m just your little whore, that I’m not worthy of being here because I didn’t grow up in the little palace..” you frowned, still upset hearing the news a second time. The Darkling hummed, almost bemused by your frustrations.

“And what am I supposed to do about it? If I mention this issue they’ll only suspect it more.” You glared at his expression and felt rage build up inside you, he was right of course, but the fact he didn’t show much care in the matter made you upset. You pointed a finger into his chest and tears pricked at your eyes.

“Y..you treat me different! This is the reason they started all these rumors.. t..this!” You motioned to your black kefta. “They probably think we’re engaged or having sex and I don’t like that!” His face stayed neutral, causing you to get so angry, until his thumb grazed your cheek, wiping at a tear that threatened to fall.

“That’s because you are different. They are simply Grisha. We? We are much more powerful than they could ever imagine. Besides, so what if their imaginations get the best of them, their ideas aren’t half bad.” He smiled softly and held your face in his palms, almost eye level with you. You took a shaky breath at the simple contact but it was the way his dark eyes peered into yours like he was craving you, like every little movement you made he was studying. It made you squirm and lose all the confidence you came storming into the room with earlier.

“Don’t cry sweetheart, they don’t deserve your tears.” He leaned in and kissed your lips, moving one of his hands that was on your cheek to snake down to the small of your back and pull you in against his warm body. You didn’t try to struggle, you didn’t even find an ounce of hate that you felt earlier just a couple seconds ago. You found yourself melting against him, kissing him back, loving the way his hands gripped you closer almost like he was starving.

His grip on you got tighter, his kisses got needier and rougher as he shoved his tongue in your mouth, letting out a soft groan before lifting you onto the war room table.

“Is this okay?” He mumbled against your lips. His hands slowly caressing down the sides of your body.

“Y..yes..” you wrapped your arms around his neck and he lunged forward once more, crushing his lips to yours almost in a frenzy to have you all to himself. His hands grabbing at whatever he could touch, nearly pressing you against the table to have his way with you. The two of you got lost in each other, his hands gripping the base of your throat and your waist while your hands tangled in his hair and his shoulder. You wrapped your legs around his waist and let out a soft groan, gripping a fist full of his hair.

A knock sounded at the door and he let out a frustrated groan “wait here..” his lips lingered on yours, kissing you once more, like he was unable to pull away from you

The second knock sounded impatient, the two of you broke off from the kiss breathless and the Darkling walked off to answer the door. You checked your appearance in the mirror, your lips were swollen and you had a dark blush on your cheeks, your hair a bit messy and clothes disheveled. The Darkling looked similar when he turned to glance back at you, his hair in messy swipes and his lips plump.

Once the Darkling spoke with one of his guards he closed the door and turned back to you.

“Apologies but I have business to attend to.. please meet me back at my quarters later tonight?” The question caught you off guard but you gave a small nod. He turned to leave but then rushed back over to you, seizing your face in his hands once more to place another kiss upon your lips before walking off to deal with the issues at hand. You blushed and looked down at the floor of the war room, curious on how you were supposed to leave without Grisha questioning you. You remembered the Darkling’s words

‘That’s because you are different. They are simply Grisha. We? We are much more powerful than they could ever imagine.’

His words made you feel special, gave you enough confidence to walk out of the war room and to the common room with everyone else.

Zoya caught sight of you and snickered to her friends, whispering and smirking silently to them. It annoyed you, but she could do whatever she liked. The Darkling chose you, you wear his colors, you get to feel his body pressed against you and the warmth of his lips. She doesn’t get any of that special treatment, she’s just like every other fan girl of the Darkling. Zoya was gorgeous though, you weren’t sure why the Darkling chose you over her, her perfect raven hair and beautiful face. The only thing that wasn’t pretty about her was her snobby attitude.

You held your chin high and walked off to get yourself a warm cup of tea and to settle in some corner of the library to catch up on studies while you waited for the Darkling. You got lost in the literature, learning more and more lore of the so called saints of Ravka, of the three different amplifiers and about Morozova himself. You finished your cup of tea and noticed the library begin to darken around you, the Inferni must not have lit the candles yet. So you closed the book and looked around, the ghost of a touch on your waist. You turned shocked as the Darkling took hold of your waist.

“Hello my love, are you ready to go to my quarters or where you planning on leading me on?” He questioned, noticing the book in your hand.

“I..I was just reading while you were busy, I was gonna come to your room I promise..” you blushed, squirming in his hold with his penetrating gaze. He smiled and lifted his hand to rub your cheek with his thumb.

“Let us get going. I will lead you to my room through the servant’s secret entrances. No one needs to know of our relationship yet, I can tell it makes you uncomfortable.” He led you to a bookshelf, pulling a book down and a door opened. He held the small of your back, walking you through a maze of catacombs under the little palace until he opened a door into another hallway. The door to your left was the Darkling’s chambers, his bedroom. The thought made your stomach flutter and you gripped onto his sleeve.

“Are you alright sweetheart?“ he unlocked the door with a key before walking into the dark room, leading you in with a gentle hold of your hand, giving your knuckles a gentle kiss. You nodded and blushed at his simply yet sweet gestures. His room was full of paperwork, his bed was huge, covered in dark silk sheets and furs, black curtains hanging from the bed frame as well as his windows. His room was beautiful, you wanted to examine it further but got distracted when the Darkling started to take off his coat.

“You can call me Aleksander or Kirigan. Or just simply Alek” you flushed as you watched him, he was unclasping the multiple rows of buttons on his kefta, slowly but surely. His long fingers working with the metal leisurely as he watched your every move. You looked down embarrassed, messing with the sleeves of your own kefta.

“Make yourself at home dear, soon enough you’re gonna be face down in my sheets crying my name.” He smiled and smoothed his hair from his face, pulling off his kefta and showing off his muscular pale arms. You drew in a breath at his vulgar words, causing your cheeks to heat. You slowly sat on his large bed, staring up at his ceiling of constellations. You heard him clear his throat, immediately training your gaze to him. He stood right in front of you, his hand lifting your jaw up to his eyes.

“How beautiful..” he stroked your jawline, leaning down to eye level with you before pulling you into a deep kiss. You shivered and wrapped your arms around his neck, gripping onto his hair once more. His warm arms enveloped you and helped lay you down into his large silken bed. He bit down on your bottom lip and a soft groan escaped you. His lips trailed down your jaw, to your collarbone and neck, causing your breath to hitch. His hand trailed up your thigh slowly, pulling at your kefta buttons.

“Is this okay?” He mumbled against your skin, making your body tingle.

“Y..yes I..I want to spend the night with you.. I want you to do these things with me..” you blushed, gripping onto his shirt. He smiled and sucked against your neck, turning the two of you around so you straddled his waist while he leaned up and kissed your lips, pulling your kefta off your shoulders. You pulled the kefta off your arms and reached for his shirt.

“Someone is needy huh?~” he smirked, grabbing a fistful of your hair and pulling it back. You let out a soft moan and whimpered, his teeth sinking into where your collarbone met with your neck. You let out a soft yelp, leaning your head to the side to give him better access as he gripped your hair tighter.

“They’re right you know.. you belong with me.. you don’t belong anywhere else.. I want you to stay with me. Rule the second army with me.” You whimpered as his hands slid up the back of your shirt, pulling it up and over your head.

“A..are you proposing to me..?” You tilted your head, messing with the buttons on his linen shirt. He smiled softly as he watched your nervous habits, he took both your hands and pulled them up to kiss them.

“I would love it if you where my wife, we would be unstoppable together.. I’d treat you so well..” he kissed your finger tips before he pulled off his own shirt, his muscles littered with scars and wounds. You let out a soft gasp, grazing your finger tips along his scars.

“Don’t worry love, I’m alright..” he kissed and bit down into your neck again, leaving marks and nearly drawing blood. You whimpered and dug your nails into his skin, earning a hiss of a groan from him. He stared at you, rubbing your hips gently and he smiled.

“Can you do something for me love?~” you tilted your head confused. “I want you to pull off the rest of your clothes then get down on your knees and suck my dick.” You blushed at his request, but you loved the idea of it. You crawled out of bed and pulled off your bra, your pants and panties and then knelt down in front of him on the edge of the bed, his pants unzipped and his bulge visible from inside his underwear.

He pulled out his cock and let out a soft groan. You blushed and even let out gasp when you saw the sheer size of his length. You weren’t sure if it would even fit in your mouth, but you tried. You gripped the shaft with both of your hands, rubbing it slowly while you swirled your tongue on the tip, the taste of his salty precum already on your tongue. He let out a ragged breath and gripped your hair in a makeshift ponytail. You took your time, slowly sucking on the tip, enjoying the sight of him twitching beneath you like this. With him being such a man of power you wondered if he would beg for you to keep going.

He would tug at your hair when you went too slow, thrust into your mouth and shudder and whisper soft praises to you.

“You’re doing s..so good my love.. keep going..just like that..” you wanted to please him, to hear him praise you. You took more than just the tip into your mouth, sucking what you could with your hands still pumping his shaft. He let out a loud moan and thrusted deep into your throat, causing you to tear up and almost gag, freeing one of your hands to grab at his thigh. He chuckled, watching you squirm and struggle to take his cock in your mouth.

“That’s it, take it just like that, don’t cry darling.. you’ll make me feel guilty for face fucking you like this~” he dragged a hand down his face and moaned softly, gripping the back of your head. You looked up at him with tearful eyes, gripping onto his thighs as he stood. You looked confused before he grabbed your head and started thrusted into your mouth ruthlessly, causing your tears to spill over your cheeks and a muffled moan to fall from your lips. He didn’t spare you a second of breath, he kept thrusting his cock down your throat, greedy and hungry for his release. You closed your eyes and let him use your mouth, letting his grip on your head tighten as his thrusts lost their rhythm.

“Fuck.. I’m gonna cum in that pretty little mouth of yours sweetheart..you’d like that won’t you? Since you’re such a slut for me?” His words made you clench around nothing, your gaze blurry from the tears as you struggled to make out the form of his figure. Right as his hips began to stutter you felt a gush of warm, thick fluid in your throat, he gripped your hair tight as he waited for you to swallow his cum. You swallowed it and gagged on his cock that was still in your throat. You squirmed and he soon pulled away from your mouth. You panted, out of breath and stuck your tongue out for him, so he could see that you swallowed it all.

“You did such a good job sweetheart, but you missed some~” he wiped his index and middle finger across your chin, picking up some drops of his cum that fell before shoving his fingers in your mouth, relishing in the way you licked them clean.

“How obedient, I think I should reward you now darling” You nodded and looked up at him, feeling him pull his fingers from your mouth and lift you up onto his bed. He laid you down with such tender care before grabbing your legs and spreading them, his head delving between your legs. He slowly licked and bit into your inner thighs, teasing the sensitive skin. You let out a whimper and grabbed onto the sheets tightly.

“N..Ngh…Alek…” you whined his name, causing a low growl to come from his throat. He grabbed at your thighs, digging his nails into them before he started to lick and suck at your clit, causing your body to arch off the bed and a cry to fall from your lips. His movements were rough, calculated. He knew exactly how to please your body till you were shaking and crying. You grabbed for his hair, tugging at it as he ate you out like a starving man. The feel of his mouth on your cunt sent a jolt of pleasure through your body. You let out a quiet moan and tried to muffle your noises into your hand, afraid the guards might overhear. Kirigan relished in the way you tasted, licking up your fluids and prodding his fingers into you gingerly, curling them in the spot that made you moan the loudest. He pulled away only for a moment and mumbled against your inner thigh.

“You’re mine.. you belong to me. If I want to call you my slut I’m allowed to, got it?” You whimpered at his words, earning a sharp bite to your inner thigh.

“Do you understand?” You nodded your head and panted softly.

“Y..Yes sir..” he smirked at your response, leaning back down to suck on your clit, shoving a third finger inside you. You squirmed beneath him as he stretched your pussy with his fingers, using the slick from your arousal to thrust his fingers in and out of you.

Between his fingers fucking into your g spot and his mouth sucking on your clit relentlessly you couldn’t hold on much longer. Your legs trembled as they threatened to squeeze around his head, his shadows quickly seizing your legs and tugging them apart while his hands stayed busy, causing a loud moan to fall from your lips as you neared your high. You couldn’t squirm or pull away, his shadows pinning you down in his dark silken sheets. An orgasm rocked through you, a silent moan shuddering through you, his actions not relenting in the slightest. You squirmed and trashed, begging quietly to him.

“P..Ple..Please too sen..sensitive..too much..” you mumbled, your eyes fogged over from the pleasure. Kirigan ignored you and your pleas, curling his fingers inside your contracting cunt as your arousal coated his fingers, dripping onto his bedding as he flicked his tongue over your clit, causing your body to jolt at every flick.

Your body convulsed at the intense pleasure his tongue was forcing from you, still abusing your sensitive clit and shoving his fingers into your cunt. He didn’t care if you were begging him to stop, he was going to force another orgasm out of you. He loved the way you screamed his name and scratched your nails into his upper back.

“P..Please Alek.. A..Alek..!~” you sobbed and formed crescents into his shoulders with your nails, causing a hiss of a moan to come from him. He cast his shadows once more to pin you to the bed, covering up your mouth to quiet your loud cries as he continued to tongue fuck your pussy. You couldn’t take it anymore, you felt your body tense and your cunt clenching around his fingers as another orgasm was ripped from you. Your legs trembled and shook as you panted softly, your attention vaguely focused on Kirigan.

He sat up slowly and licked his soaked fingers clean before he kicked off his pants and underwear, staring down at you with black seductive eyes. The haze from your intense orgasm fogged your thoughts, leaving you to stare up at him and take in all his features. His dark raven eyes and hair, his muscular, lean build, and the way his cock twitched with anticipation as he lined up with your cunt. You grabbed onto his shoulders tightly, giving him a slight nod.

He didn’t waste a second, he rubbed the tip of his cock in the slick of your arousal before he shoved inside of you to the hilt, a cry coming out of your lips. You squirmed beneath him as you cried, tears streaking down your cheeks. He grabbed both your hands with one of his and pinned them above your head, kissing your neck and biting it as he whispered.

“Shh shh… take my cock just like that baby.. you’re doing so good..” he pulled out just to slam back inside of you, starting a slow lazy pace so you could acclimate. He kissed your lips, rubbing the fast pulse on your wrist to sooth you. The feeling of his cock buried so deep inside you made you squirm and whimper his name.

“A..Alek..” he smirked at the utter of his name, thrusting faster inside of you, moving his hand to wrap around your throat and squeeze. You gasped and grabbed at his forearm, letting out a strangled moan. He chuckled as he watched you struggle and squirm beneath him.

“You’re okay love, I’ve got you.” He used his free hand to grab your hip and slam into you at a brutal pace, still choking you and causing you to see stars. A sheen of sweat started to cover the both of you as lifted your legs to rest on his shoulders as he pressed you into the mattress.

“I’m gonna fill up your sweet pussy with my cum till you’re stuffed full. So everyone truly knows that you’re mine. You’re all mine..” his voice came as a deep rasp, speaking between his rough thrusts. The head of his cock kissed your cervix, you squirmed and clung to his shoulders.

“Please.. need you..” you panted in shallow breaths, trying to muffle your moans in his sheets. He gripped your jaw and forced you to face him.

“Look at me when I fuck you. Otherwise I’ll have to turn you over and fuck you face down.” You whined at his words, covering your face with your hands. He let out a growl and flipped you on your stomach, lifting your hips in the air before slamming back inside of you. He groaned, picking up his pace.

“You’ve been very bad.. not listening to me when I give you orders..” he slapped your ass, leaving a sting as he fucked you. He rubbed the soft plush of your ass before slapping it harder. You let out a cry, gripping onto his sheets before he shoved your head into the pillows.

“Lay down and take it like a good girl, you deserve this punishment for being so bad, make it up to me alright?~” you nodded your head, facedown in the pillows before he grabbed a fistful of your hair and yanked your head back, pulling you into a rough kiss. Your makeup streaked down your cheeks with your tears as he thrusted farther inside you, pressing against a spot that made your legs shake. You gasped against his lips, your body trembling as he slapped your ass again. You could feel your body building up to another orgasm and you could tell he was near his first.

“F..Fuck baby.. love the way you feel around my cock like this..” his thrusts lost their rhythm before a warm gush of liquid flooded inside of you. The feeling of being so full of his cum and the way he thrusted it deep inside your cunt made a wave of pleasure wash over you. Your orgasm left your body trembling and shaking, your mind going completely blank. You felt his warm hands running along your body, rubbing your sore and tired muscles while he kissed your neck.

“Common sweetheart, you can take a couple more rounds I know you can~” you gripped onto the sheets, shoving your hips against his, a growl coming from him.

“Yeah? You desperate for another round of being fucked senseless.” the roughness of his voice made your body melt. He snaked his hands around your body and pinched a nipple with his fingers, causing you to gasp. His thrusts started up again, rubbing against your g spot as his cock twitched inside of you.

“F..Fuck..” you mumbled into the sheets, gripping onto them before he pinched your nipple harder.

“Watch your mouth, otherwise I’ll have to punish you for being a bad girl.” You nodded your head slowly and panted softly as he continued to thrust his dick deep inside of your cunt, watching as your mixed arousal dripped from the two of you. He fucked you till he could assure that you wouldn’t be walking for weeks on end, sweat dripping from your bodies, bites and bruises scattered along your body, his cock turning soft inside you as you struggled to breath beneath his trembling figure. He pulled out, admiring the way you squirmed and twitched beneath him.

“You’re so good like this my love..” he used his fingers to make sure none of his come dripped from your pussy, shoving his fingers back inside your cunt.

“There we go.. make sure you’re nice and full..” you whimpered and grabbed at his forearm.

“P..Please no more.. I..I can’t..” you watched him smile and he pulled his fingers away, licking them clean before his other hand rubbed your cheek.

“Relax sweetheart, we’re done for the night, I’m going to run us a warm bath and I’ll hold you till you fall asleep.” You nodded and wrapped your weak arms around his neck before he carried you to the bathroom, resting you inside the tub with such care. As the warm water filled the tub you made room for Kirigan to sit behind you. He eased into the water and grabbed some soaps and a washcloth, rinsing your body off and scrubbing it gently with the cloth, rubbing his fingers into your scalp with soap suds. You melted against his warm chest, feeling your eyelids droop and your muscles relaxing from the intense night. He kissed your head and rubbed your sides.

“Get some rest, I’ve got you sweetie, just relax..” his deep voice was soothing, lulling you to a deep sleep against his chest, the beat of his heart a faint echo as the world around you drowned out into the background.

Ty for reading! If you want any more specific things with the Darkling he’s my current fixation :)))) lmk!

Btw this caption on Pinterest is so real

#general kirigan #alina x kirigan #count kirigan #aleksander kirigan #aleksander x reader #alina x aleksander #aleksander morozova #aleksander x y/n #shadow and bone #team darkling #the darkling #darkling x reader #darkling shadow and bone #darkling x you #darkling x y/n

[stromuprisahat]

I want to scream when I see this kind of stupidity...

https://www.tumblr.com/goblins-riddles-or-frocks/741136181017837568/you-said-this-the-ice-cold-fakeout-of-giving?source=share

Frankly, this obsession of people with trying to make Aleksander a potential rapist so seriously annoys me. The king is literally there for that. If Aleksander had really wanted to rape Alina like these people claimed, he could have done it, you have to stop the bullshit after a while. Especially since they don't even take into consideration that this scene where the Darkling comes to see Alina with Mal's face is ambiguous at best, completely stupid at best. Because in reality, all we know is that he appeared because she called him unconsciously and we don't even know if he really took the appearance of Mal or if Alina was asleep at a bad view... The Darkling doesn't confirm anything at all on this subject in volume 3. And if the Darkling really took Mal's apprenticeship, it's so stupid, because damn, how could he have do that ?! Exasperating. Honestly their messages make me sick, with the fact that they literally make everything sexual between Darklina in the wrong sense of the word to degrade this relationship.

First of all, I'm not reading that link.

~Self-care.~

Antis would call Aleksander a rapist even if we had his POV, where he'd openly refuse to even look at her without her consent. It's the universal EVIL label. Just like racist, supremacist or genocidal maniac.

Everyone knows it's bad, if you call someone by that word, so are they.

Child's logic.

I've analysed Alina's Mal-shifting dream here.

And if the Darkling truly wanted to rape Alina, he had plenty of opportunities:

Literally any moment she lived in LP, because who would have believed her?

He could've postponed his meeting during Winter Fete AND Alina was willing back then!

Between her desertion and the Fold. She was a fucking prisoner, treated as a guest.

He could've made her scream on Sturmhond's ship.

During any of his visits in Siege and Storm- hell, she was worried she's going mad, an orgasm from her enemy would hammer that home as nothing.

For extra dead dove content, fuck your unwilling Sun Summoner under the corpse of her toxic mother figure...

... I have a feeling raping her was never his intent.

#reply #Grishaverse #The Darkling #grishanalyticritical #Darklina #Alina Starkov #antis #What if/AU/...

[ignitesthestxrs]

How do.you interpret Show!Alina and show!darkling? They were completely different characters than the book ones (less interesting) so do you think differently about them?

hahaha (less interesting) is correct imo. uuuuh i think the show tried to a) girlbossify alina in a way that skips over any ability or reason for her to grow into that personality, and i think they played too far into the idea of the darkling having a genuine emotional attachment to her in the adaptation of the first book.

obvs people's interpretations will be different, but my read on the darkling has always been that for most of the first book, he's manipulating alina and at best, views her as a pet to indulge and a possession to own. so to have him more....emotionally invested? i guess? in s1, didn't really vibe with me. a part of what i have always enjoyed about the character is his descent into obsession, which only increases as alina continues to defy him - he doesn't really hit that point until the second book, which is also when alina starts gaining power and agency in her own right

one thing that really stuck out to me was her like,,,'taking charge' in the romantic aspect of their relationship. this is supposed to have the effect of giving her more agency, but that ignores the fact that the darkling is? manipulating her? she's not being a badass when she kisses him first, she's falling for his ploy 😭 you aren't increasing your protagonist's control of a situation by having her dive headfirst into the manipulation just because it looks like she's Taking Charge Of This Romance.

ULTIMATELY i think leaning into the ''''romance'''' of the ship makes the ship and both characters involved Worse, because that was like,,,,never the point of the ship (for me). the point was the abusive dynamic that gets turned on its head at alina gains power and control and the darkling slips deeper into obsession and loses sight of his goals in favour of Having Alina. do they love each other? who cares lol their relationship is about power and mutual understanding.

as a surprise bonus, the shwo character that frustrated me the most was mal LOL. i think the actor did a fanTASTIC job with him, truly no notes on the performance, but they started mal at his book 3 characterisation and i think that's silly. the whole point of that character is that he grows into his devotion. like he loves alina from the beginning, but it takes two books of fuck ups to get to the 'i am become a blade' point.

the show in general seemed so afraid of letting its characters be weak or unlikeable, which i think is kind of an outgrowth of the Netflix Uncertainty. like, fandoms are SO reactive + you don't know if you're going to get a second season, so better to start everyone off at the culmination of their character arcs where they're at their most interesting, while discounting the fact that the REASON they're interesting is because we've seen them grow to that point.

i didn't end up watching s2 and have only the vaguest idea of what happened LOL i did not like s1 enough to try and kick my attention span into focusing on a second season

[tirkdi]

I don't know why but I've been imagining this a lot for some weird reason. If somehow darklina do end up together just SOMEHOW do you think at one point they'll get bored of each other? Will darkling's obsession with Alina eventually wear out? maybe Alina will want to try something else with someone else. How would darkling react to that? He's possessive as fuck but sometimes I wonder he would understand that unlike him, Alina never really got to be truly free and explore things for herself. I mean I don't think he'll let Alina go lol but do you think aat some point in centuries they might open their relationship?

This is such a hard question because when we're talking about immortals, I tend to believe that almost everything is possible, so this is where metas trying to answer the question (as opposed to fics) get tricky. Is it possible? Totally. Is it likely? Hard to say. I think the question we're getting at is – what are the conditions under which it might happen?

I'm taking the premise of this question to be that somehow, probably during R&R, they get together and rule Ravka (why not?). So we're dealing with not-quite-end-of-R&R Darkling & Alina. It will take them a while to work themselves into a relationship in the first place, and there are a lot of ways that could shake out. But assuming they get there, to a place that is respectful and reciprocal (if not gentle and loving), how long would that feel like 'enough' for Alina, and in what ways?

There are a few things going on here that I'll call out. One thing, to your point of he wouldn't let Alina go, is that we have an example of what an extremely long-lived relationship looks like for him already: Baghra. When the trilogy starts, he's like 800 years old and still living with his mom! Whenever we see them together they're fighting, but they don't leave each other, and right up until the second before she did it, he couldn't fathom that Baghra would jump off a mountain rather than just coming home with him. Similarly, I think it's unlikely that he'd stop needing Alina at any point. At the same time, Alina is different than him – but I do think it's reasonable/probably correct to envision an Alina who never needs him as much as he needs her, even a gazillion years later.

Another question then would be, at what point will Alina feel like she wants (and, importantly, deserves) happiness/something more? There's some character work that has to shake out there, because I'm having a hard time envisioning an Alina that ended up with Aleks at the end of R&R doing anything but being really hard on both of them for many, many years. How does she develop from there? Depending on the setup, I could see his and Alina's relationship getting to a point where they fight like he did with Baghra, but also similarly neither of them has any intention of ever leaving the other. Balance sounds nice in theory, but can be tricky to implement! Their relationship might end up less like a balance and more like a seesaw.

So then, there's the question of – is Alina looking for someone other than him to make her happy or to piss him off? The pissing him off seems pretty straightforward (and I think we have some fics like that that I've seen?). Assuming she isn't doing it to upset him, that she genuinely wants more than him, then I think there's the question of are we talking about sex or are we talking about a relationship with someone else? I do think you could come up with a setup where eventually he'd come to terms with sex, reassuring himself about how the Zoya lookalikes he sees leaving Alina's room in the morning are going to die in like a minute anyway, he doesn't even have to do anything.

I could also see a setup where you could make a power dynamic like that that he'd even enjoy, if he let himself. I think a lot about the Oscar Wilde quote: "Everything in the world is about sex, except sex. Sex is about power." If he allowed himself to acknowledge that he liked the ... humiliation? one area of his life where he was not in control? ... then I could also see him being into it, as long as he felt secure enough in the relationship between the two of them. And that right there is the whole reason we (or at least I) love this ship – their power dynamic is endlessly fascinating and there are so many different ways it could go

#i almost never say never for our tgt immortals #darklina #grishaverse #an ask #aleksander morozova #alina starkov #this was a fun ask to think through!

[bardofavon]

Just realised that every unhinged speech the Darkling has made has been done in complete privacy. Just imagining him slipping up and doing one of his deranged monologues at Kaz with an audience next time and Inej and Jesper and Nikolai collectively being like '.......................okay what the FUCK' 'did he just say he wanted to vore you??' 'you were sleeping next to this guy?' like put kaz in protective custody right now. no wonder he looks like that. "'i'll kill everyone you love so you only have me" who SAYS that? who says that OUT LOUD?'

“I want to vore you” PLEASE 😭 I swear on my life he’ll never say that I can’t do it 😭 but yeah those are all limited edition Kaz exclusives, only reserved for the man himself.

If Genya knew she’d give him a FAT “I told you so”, Inej and Jesper would be more than just a little bit concerned and would somehow be more determined to snap Kaz out of whatever this is while also understanding a little bit more why Kaz has been so weird about navigating all of this??? Nikolai would also be like…a little more understanding of why Kaz is Like That right now but he doesn’t know Kaz enough yet to know if he’s like. into it or not. (but tbh Kaz also doesn’t know Kaz enough to know if he’s into it or not, let’s face it 😔) but regardless he sure as hell would not be throwing it in kaz’s face like he is.

It’s all “fight against the Darkling fight against the Darkling you have nothing to lose, we’re the better option, who cares if he’s mad you shouldn’t care about his feelings anyway, he KILLS PEOPLE KAZ, literally just leave him” until you hear the Darkling say shit like “I will pluck the ambition from your chest and fill you with new meaning” or “I will kill everyone you love until you have no one but me” or “I own you and you like it” or “it’s just us, it will always be just us” or “you would suffer and I would love you and I would make you thank me” or “I will never let you go and my love has no room for freedom or compassion or escape” or “you will outlive everyone you love, care to be alone for eternity?”

and then they’d all be like. “okay. reluctantly, we can see why you’re wary about the consequences of leaving this guy and have underestimated just how much he’s latched onto you but what the fuck lmao”

But the Darkling wouldn’t slip up and say that shit in public so anyone else finding out would rely solely on Kaz’s ability to be vulnerable and honest, admit he’s afraid, and share really really intimate conversations that he holds very personally and feels kind of ashamed at having been involved in because. like. the conversations were two way streets that Kaz kept walking down.

they’d also be like “why the fuck were you going to see him so much at night in os alta when he’d SAY THIS SHIT” without understanding how it’s kind of a little intoxicating at first to have someone that powerful obsessed with you and wrapped around your finger (presumably)

anyway yeah the Darkling is such a little freak

#a good myth is hard to kill #kazling

[alastairstom]

can i ask your reading for disliking emma and julian? (i feel the same way abt them hehe)

God I hate them lmao they're the only TSC ship that I actually despise. Idfk what happened because most of Cassie's romances hit a GREAT spot. But Jemma hits all the Bad Buttons.

More under the cut.

Okay well first I HATE Julian with a burning passion. Let's consider some of his most shining moments!

Drugging his disabled uncle for years

Ultimately being responsible for that uncle's death

Maintaining a creepy room full of portraits of the girl that he's creepishly obsessed with

Getting off whenever Emma tells him he scared her

Sending a vampire to what will probably be his death for selling some weird pizza (no, idgaf that the vampire was revealed to have done evil later - I don't think Julian knew that and what's more think Cassie added it to make Julian more morally correct)

Actually killed some Shadowhunter kid who did admittedly deserve it

Fucked Emma while bathed in his dead sisters blood (I get comfort sex and am not bothered by that, but the BLOOD)

Emma ain't my fave either, but I don't think she's evil. I think Julian is basically the Darkling if the Darkling were younger and made pancakes. I do think that Julian makes her a more toxic person solely because of how freaking codependent they are.

"I cannot live without you" "I breathe when you breathe" "I bleed when you bleed" are NOT romantic and healthy sentiments I'm sorry! And his room of Emma paintings is stalkery. They cannot be apart and it's crazy. It's insane. I think people like this about them but it makes me physically uncomfortable. The "I'd do anything for my Emma and my family" is possessive and unbalanced, not virtuous.

Also it drives me CRAZY that he wasn't allowed to go dark at the end. Julian made a fucking terrible hero, but he'd have been a damn good villain. But I'm supposed to ignore the fact that he's an insane asshole with 0 regard for others because he's All Better Now and makes pancakes for kids? Nope, not buying it.

#anti jemma #anti blackstairs #anti julian blackthorn #anti emma carstairs #anti tda

[ladylokilaufeyson5]

✨Dot Points with The Darkling - Send me a character and a trope and I’ll make head cannons on what it would be like (e.g. Enemies to lovers with Peter Parker)* - best friend to lover with James Potter, please. Thank you

James Potter has always been your best friend

ever since you were little you’ve been friends - you were neighbours, and you grew up together

at Hogwarts the other three marauders joined your group, and your life became chaotic in the best way

you and James do pretty much everything together - you work on your homework together, you go to each and every one of his quidditch games and most of his practices, and you definitely prank people together

but you realised that things were different in your third year, just after you’d turned fourteen

you no longer looked at James with the innocent look of a best friend - you started to see him as something more

but you repressed it, because you didn’t want to lose him

a couple of years passed, and all James would talk about was Lily

you tried to listen and ignore the pain and jealousy in your heart, but it started to become difficult

it was in sixth year that James realised he was in love with you

sixth year when he realised that the feelings he held for you weren’t platonic at all

sixth year when he realised he wanted to kiss you, to hold you, to marry you one day

he realised that he’d lost romantic feelings for Lily a while ago, but he hadn’t noticed

but he kept the act up, because he didn’t want to lose you, but it turns out that’s what caused him to lose you

it put a strain on your friendship, so you started seeing each other less

you opted to do your homework with Remus, and only showed up to quidditch games when he was playing

the rest of Hogwarts knew something was up

Y/n L/n and James Potter were supposed to be inseparable, but now you barely spoke to each other!

Remus and Sirius decided to stage a sort of intervention

They spilt the two of you up (which wasn’t really that difficult) and had separate conversations with you

Remus asked you what was wrong, and after a while of denying everything, you finally confessed that you were in love with your best friend

James confessed to Sirius much quicker

Sirius had always known that you two had something special, but he was thrown off by James’s apparent obsession with Lily

So after that Sirius and Remus conversed, and came up with a plan

That’s how you ended up locked in a broom closet with James Potter

The door refused to open, and Sirius gleefully told you two from the other side of the door that he’d be back in an hour

The first ten minutes were awkward - you and James had barely had a full conversation in over two months

But when James muttered something about Sirius being a git, the two of you easily fell back into the rhythm of your friendship, first complaining about Sirius, and then catching up

you’d missed him dearly, and he you

“Where did we go wrong?” James asked you. “I’ve missed you.”

“I've missed you, too,” you admitted. 

you didn’t comment on where it went wrong, because you knew it was your fault

James considered it his fault

And as James watched the clock, he knew that as soon as you two left the broom closet, things would go back to how they were, as if this conversation had never taken place. Because there would always be the strain on the friendship

Because of that, he decided to take a leap of faith

“I know where if went wrong,” he whispered. “It’s my fault.”

“It’s not your fault,” you assured. “It’s mine.”

“If I wasn’t so stupidly in love with you, this would never have happened,” he groaned. “It’s my fault.”

And that’s when you froze, and your whole world stopped

James Fleamont Potter was in love with you!??!?!?!?

“You’re joking,” you breathed

“I most certainly am not,” James sighed. “I fucked everything up with this, I’m so sorry-”

you cut him off with a kiss

he kissed you back eagerly, his hands gripping your waist, and your own tangling in his messy locks

“We’re both idiots,” you breathed when you pulled away. “I’m in love with you, too.”

Cue more kissing, and Sirius opening the door with a yelled, “About damn time!”

come and join the celebration!

#james potter #james potter x reader #james potter x you #james potter x y/n #x reader #marauders #marauders era #marauders multiverse #ladylokilaufeyson5's 500 follower celebration

[aleksanderscult]

The darkling 28 about elizaveta before KoS and RoW (their history i mean)

28) How they feel about Elizaveta

He was attracted to her power that's for sure and the Darkling is generally attracted to what a person can do and not how they look. Because even though Elizaveta was a beautiful woman I don't think he felt romantically attracted to her a) since she's Grisha and him having a relationship with a fellow of his kind is unlikely to me b) he wasn't interested in her enough to pursue her this way.

Interestingly I find their dynamic kinda similar to Alarkling. The Darkling was obsessed with Alina and wanted to have her. But Alina turned him away. And we also have Elizaveta who is obsessed with the Darkling and wants to have him. But the Darkling turned her away. It's amusing and funny to me because the Darkling is NOT in love with her and I'm sure he never wanted something more from her but her powers and her alliance with him. He considered her annoying and foolish. She got him in his nerves. I don't think he felt flattered by her loving admiration, even before KoS. That much attention from a woman that doesn't interest him is bothersome to him.

(Just imagine the mighty Darkling running away from her screaming: "LEAVE ME ALONEE!!"😭)

So yeah even though Elizaveta had a huge crush on him and wanted something more to happen between them, Aleksander wasn't interested. I bet he was more concerned with Ravka, the Grisha and his plans to spend his energy with a woman that gave him heart eyes. So he kept it strictly professional (that doesn't mean though that he didn't use his seduction skills to make her like him and join him, right? 👀 Although I think it kinda backfired because she got some serious feelings about him and he was like "...fuck. now she doesn't leave me alone")

#The Darkling doesn't mind if a woman falls in love with him #But when that woman starts becoming annoying and pesters him with her feelings then he gets irritated #I think that's what happened with Elizaveta #And the fact that she's constantly like “Oh nature! Oh bees! Oh beauty around us!” is extra annoying for him #He be like “stfu😒” #rule of wolves #ask game #anon asks #the darkling #pro darkling #aleksander morozova #pro aleksander morozova #grishaverse #shadow and bone #sankta elizaveta

[darkolai-playlist]

Following this post about an au where Nikolai gets Aleksander memories.

The things is, it started with nightmares where he was the Darkling and he was being terribly cruel.

The first time he performs the cut, he wakes up, hands trembling. He dreams of what the Darkling did to Alina and Mal, dreams of Genya screaming, dreams of so much he cannot but hate and hate and feel ill. Yet it fills him with strage curiosity. In those dreams he never feels regret, just intense grief, sorrow, resignation. His nightmares soon transforms into hollow dreams, surrounded by an infinite darkness, the type of cold that makes you wish you were dead, the loneliness beyond any reason or doubt.

Exhausted after nights of not sleeping because he fears going back to that void, Nikolai at last starts getting the happy memories.

It's worst.

It makes him feels worst, to the point it messes his emotional balance and it's sabotaging his concentration and ability to problem solve. He almost missed the nightmares, because at least he could channel the rage into productivity.

But the happy memories of Aleksander?

Nikolai learns fast that they are just a few and far too short to bring him solace, any comfort. They always always are followed by the inevitable cliff, the fall, the moment Aleksander faces his reality and the consequences of his own actions.

Trusted people? Ended up betraying him. Loved ones? Lost their lives, sooner than they should, leaving a trail of tears in the cheeks of those who cared. (Nikolai learns that Aleksander stopped crying when he was young. He doesn't like to think too much about it). For every grisha he managed to save, ten more were murdered, hunted, exposed for everyone to see. For every village and every new landscape, there's a memory of it on fire and ashes, bloody corpses, screams, and decisions. Decisions and more decisions. Every single day, every hour, the type of leadership that makes him wonder why, why, why can't it be different.

Nikolai finds himself digging into the memories, speeding through them to try and reach the point when the Fold was created. Maybe they can use the information to... do something?

There's a pile of books now in his place, history books, diaries. Some of them belong to Nikolai. He writes down the memories, trying to piece them together. Despite it all, there's so much to learn from Aleksander's life. It shames him, that he never thought before of any of it. Of the fact that the Darkling was a genius, an incredible strategist, a real general with enough experience in battle— no, the most experience in battle.

And fuck. He had a sister. Half-sister, whatever. There are others, some that Aleksander never found or knew, some that he simply invited and they refused. Apparently, no one else was willing to do what he wanted to do. No one else was as crazy or unconditionally devoted to the grisha cause. No one else was as obsessed or blinded by his desire for a home, a safe place to live, a place to belong to.

When Nikolai manages to release Aleksander, in a way he doesn't die, he's already half way there. In the sense that now Nikolai is the only person in the entire world who knows what Aleksander has gone through. The only one who understands. It doesn't mean he forgives him immediately, does not mean he forgives him at all. Just that Nikolai is tired of feeling like just another passage in the suffering of a saint. Maybe if he starts giving Aleksander happy memories that don't lead to more pain, they both could start falling asleep, waiting for sweet dreams and not darkness.

Nikolai convinces himself that he's doing it all for Ravka. Somehow, it is. Turns out that a happy Darkling is everything an angry Darkling is, with the side benefit of less manipulative tendencies and more... environment enrichment, so to call it.

#darkolai #the Darkling #aleksander morozov #aleksander morozova #nikolai lantsov #sturmhond

[greensaplinggrace]

believe it or not it was easier to write the darkling in atfoha because he was the most mentally unstable man on the planet and fucking just- obsessed with the sun. im now really experiencing the pitfalls of alina's perspective and how sane she is in comparison

#like she's got issues (which is conveniently when im able to write her best) #but she is not the most batshit person to ever exist #if you catch my drift #which is actually for some reason HARDER to capture in text for me #myramblings #myfic: at the foot of her altar #alskdjflk #me 🤝 the darkling #being obsessed with the sun #the darkling #alina starkov #shadow and bone

[waldensblog]

Shadow and Bone Season 2 thoughts

So I just finished watching Shadow and Bone season 2, and I have a lot of thoughts to unpack. It probably goes without saying, but there are spoilers below the read more line for the show. Overall, I really enjoyed this season, and there were things I liked, and some I didn’t. 

The Darkling

My BABY. For me he stole every second of every scene he was in, because I am still harbouring a ridiculous crush on this man. I loved seeing him rescue the Grisha in cages, pointing out that this happened before, and he’s disappointed it’s happening again, but isn’t surprised. He’s tried different tactics and now he’s decided he’ll have to become King/Emperor to stop the wars, stop the mass loss of life that’s been happening for centuries, and try to establish a peace - a Pax Darkling. Unfortunately, I don’t think we had a single season 1 Grisha on his side, so all his troops/allies were new, relatively undeveloped characters. I don’t take issue with David switching sides - that was kind of foreshadowed in season 1 with the regret on his face when fusing the stag’s bones to Alina and the Darkling, but no Feydor (what even happened to him?)? No other named Grisha? Really? Not one? And don’t get me started on his relationship with his mother. Is he a good, pure, soul? No. But his mother very much pissed me off. She pretty well kills herself in front of him, and uses her last act to cut off his hand. He tries to stop it, but he is held back, and she effectively blames him for it. He’s cradling her and saying sorry, crying. Dear lord. He looks at Alina with so much pride throughout the season most of the time, and in the end, his last thoughts are of those moments of peace and happiness he found with her (before it all got FUCKED). His last wish is for her to burn the body so his bones can’t be used. Alina doesn’t even realize how alike she is to him, and I hope to GOD he comes back, even if I know the writers probably won’t. Ben did a fantastic job, and whatever happens in season 3, I won’t forget it. My favourite character of this show. I applaud Ben so much for his excellent performance. 

The Darkling x Alina I ugly cried. I can’t believe I got becoming part 2′ed again. No seriously how many times must I be subjected to my ship ending in this very specific manner? A lovers to enemies arc ending with her stabbing him with a sword. Why has this happened to me three times? Okay now in all seriousness. I still love them. I did feel like Ben was kind of carrying this ship by himself at times, though, because I guess the writers didn’t want Alina acknowledging feelings for anyone but Mal this season - the closest we got to Alina confronting her feelings was that conversation with Baghra. I loved the Darkling being still in love with Alina, “My Alina”, “My little saint”, had one moment of peace BESTILL MY HEART. I loved this, but also, I am disappointed that Alina couldn’t shed one tear for him when he died. I blame that one on the writers. I am obsessed with Alina’s ending, when she used the Shadow cut and smiled like that. Oh, Honey. HONEY I don’t know what happened but that was a Darklina treat for me (after they first ripped my heart out, I will accept my consolation prize thanks). Alina has so much in common with Aleksander this season and doesn’t see it all and he’s so right about so much and I just... AHHH. I’m secretly hoping we get a season 3 that brings him back, perhaps they can take a cue from Buffy season 3 or do a possessed Nikolai thing. #BringBackTheDarkling #DarklingSeason3. Do it.

Nikolai, Tolya and Tamar

I loved the introduction of Nikolai and the other pirates privateers. They immediately added an interesting element to the show that I loved seeing, and I enjoyed seeing Nikolai join the Crows/Alina alliance. It was also interesting that he turns out to be the prince, who winds up king. A wild ride. Despite my immediate stanning of them, I would have liked if they were a bit further developed. Don’t get me wrong, I thought they were fleshed out okay, but when Nikolai’s friend died near the end of the show, I was like “who is this guy?” because I’m pretty sure I just met him. He may have been a long-time friend of Nikolai’s, but I didn’t see any of that friendship. I liked seeing Tolya and Tamar fit into the cast as well, with Tamar becoming a close ally of Alina’s and almost her Ivan, and Tolya becoming a sort of honorary crow. Nikolai initially refusing to learn Mal’s name was iconic. An immediate legend. 

Nikolai x Alina I feel like these two had a lot of potential presented this season to be a good romantic pairing, definitely healthier than Darklina (which is still my #1 ship for this show), but it didn’t get fully developed. They spent some time together, but mostly there was wandering off and the occasional conversation/flirting. It felt pretty one-sided, which even got acknowledged near the end, where Nikolai’s friend refers to it as a “fake engagement with real feelings”. I’d have liked if they spent a bit more time developing this. Maybe season 3, if a season 3 there will be. And with that Nikolai shadow mirror ending, I have hopes - not likely to happen, but hopes that we may get a possession plotline. Yes.PLEASE. 

Mal x Alina Still not feeling it, sorry not sorry. No offense to Archie at all, because this one is a writer’s problem I think. Mal is just... sorry but he’s so boring. He’s whitebread, an absolute lego block with zero personality. What was his character in season 1? A tracker obsessed with Alina. Season 2? A tracker obsessed with Alina. “You are my nation” my guy please have any sense of politics or personality. I always felt like they were better as a platonic brother-sister kind of relationship. I liked when they broke up because he didn’t “feel that pull” anymore because at least now Mal may actually develop into a character and not a plot device. Whatever the reverse of a Mary Sue is, that’s Mal in this show to me. Literally, he’s the firebird, his purpose is to be an amplifier to let Alina take down the fold. And now he’s done that. I dislike that he apparently just gets to be captain of a pirate ship now though, because the dude has never served a day in his life as a sailor. He hasn’t earned that captaincy. I also really dislike that the writers had Alina only acknowledge feelings for Mal this season, because if I’m honest, those feelings felt forced - kind of like she was mistaking the pull of the firebird amplifier for romantic feelings. I’m going to assume that’s the case for now, and hope the writers stop trying to force this on us, even if the source material does (as they have clearly gone in a new direction from the books, one can dream!)

The Crows I still love the Crows, or specifically, Jesper, Inej and Kaz. Jesper is a bi disaster, and I loved finding out he’s a Durast, and seeing that evolution in his character. I am so here for it. Super thrilled that Inej is finally free of her indenture, and I enjoyed learning some more of Kaz’s backstory and finding out why he is the way he is. I find them all pretty morally grey - to different degrees of course. Wylan was interesting, but I didn’t get attached to him or Wesper, that plot line is just fine to me. I like Nina alright, and she fits in well with the rest of them (every group needs their respective heartrender after all!), but if I’m honest... I just don’t care much for Helnik or Mathias overall. Him and Nina were pretty disconnected from everyone else in season 1, so I was kinda meh about them to start, and while Nina fit in well with the others, Mathias just hungout in jail all season. He seems nice enough (points for refusing to fight canines), but I just don’t... really care about his storyline. I did enjoy seeing the Crows have a whole revenge plotline and then jump back into the fray as Alina’s allies - evidently they care a bit about what happens in Ravka, they easily could have just said “whatever” but I guess it’s a “I’m one of the idiots who lives in this world” bits. 

Overall Impressions I enjoyed the season, but to be honest, some of it felt a bit odd in terms of balance. Some parts and relationships felt either rushed or not developed enough, and other times I was like “boy it’s been a while since we’ve seen the Darkling” and I’d realize I was like 30 minutes into the episode and he hadn’t shown up yet. I think maybe because they were adapting 2 books at the same time and adding the Crows storyline, it was perhaps a bit rushed/jam-packed. I also found it really odd pacing to have the Darkling die in the first 10 minutes of the final episode, leaving like... 45 minutes to go to wrap up everything else that season. Just pacing wise, it seems odd. Also, the only ship that really won this season was Wesper, huh? 

#shadow and bone #shadow and bone season 2 #the darkling #anti baghra #darklina #nikolai lantsov #tamar #tolya #nikolina #anti malina #anti mal oretsev #alina starkov #six of crows #kaz brekker #jesper fahey #inej ghafa #wylan #nina zenik

[platoapproved]

okay okay my shadow and bone season 2 hot takes are burning me from the inside out so here we go:

these are in no particular order but sadly it did feel kind of like a miss for me with nikolai :/  i was worried it was going to be way worse but there were a few changes that were just Not It for me. like you CANNOT just bring in Dominik and have him still be alive. he should’ve been dead the whole time, because that’s nikolai’s whole thing.  he has his charming prince / dashing privateer / all around witty fun guy façade, and underneath it is grief. over a normal commoner, who died wastefully in an unimportant battle.  it MATTERS that that death matters so much to nikolai

AND it’s really not the same for him to get randomly wounded 0.02 seconds before the civil war is completely over, and then later realize some weird magic shit is going on with the wound.  like instead of being DELIBERATELY made into a monster and then spending weeks? months? however long as a mostly mindless monster, unable to help his friends or his country and lowkey maybe eating people.  like that’s that 👏 good 👏 shit 👏 .

it also matters that he’s not visibly scarred afterwards? like literally “king of scars” hello? even if people outside his inner circle don’t know what really happened they still think the darkling tortured him for months or whatever.

anyway the point is the show needed to hurt nikolai a lot more.

kaz was perfect i love him, love how they delivered on his story, definitely the thing this season landed the best.

BUT it does somewhat irk me that pekka is still in the mix after kaz’s takedown.  he runs away, and then just as he’s thinking about maybe coming back, inej finishes it and he’s just OUT. the last chapter of the duology is him just being like “i can’t DEAL with how vicious these teens are i’m too old for this shit i’m FINISHED”.  i just think kaz brekker would not be satisfied with him still being in hellgate having any power whatsoever.

LOVED how little mattias content there was.  cut him out entirely. five of crows.

giving the darkling a weird underling with bad bangs and 90s lipstick and spending so much time on her was a strange move considering how many other things they were trying to cover, like y’all don’t have room to be adding new OCs.

JUSTICE FOR DUNYASHA why was inej fighting some random taxidermy man instead.  her appearance in crooked kingdom always DELIGHTS me because she just shows up out of nowhere declaring herself to be inej’s great rival and being psychosexually obsessed with her and inej is just ?????? because she has no idea who this fucking person is. changing her to some random dude is a homophobic attack on me personally.

i am glad they gave jesper some serious moments this season finally, but also a little sad with how much they rushed the grisha stuff for him. i think it’s probably an inevitable book-to-movie thing but they didn’t do enough with how much hiding his powers was fundamental to who he is. it’s like, the root of his frankly suicidal recklessness and addiction and shame.  his feelings about his powers are tied to his mother and her death but also to his father and how he taught Jesper to lie about himself and also made him feel ashamed/guilty to have powers.  AND most importantly it’s not just parent stuff, it’s a response to the world around him where grisha are hunted and persecuted and kidnapped and enslaved and conscripted and experimented on.  it’s not just that he’s sad about his mom.  it’s one of the many responses we see in the books from grishas towards a world that is so hostile to them.  you can’t just make it about the personal circumstances.  the social and political ones have an impact too.

i do get why they never get into it but man. i also missed jesper’s pathetic fucked up crush on kaz.  just another moment where the show provided the outer show (jesper being charming and having plenty of little flings and encounters) but not the knife-twist beneath it (him pining for kaz all those years and both of them kind of knowing it but never saying anything about it, and kaz just absolutely 100% not into him like that but not NOT stringing him along with little bits of kindness, unintentionally or intentionally).  like one of the things that is great about wylan and jesper is that it’s jesper deciding finally that he deserves more than waiting for little scraps of nothing from kaz and just going on a date with a nice boy, y’know?

i wish nina and inej had more friendship moments :c they haven’t known each other as long in the show. :c they’re supposed to be besties. :c i need them to be in love. :c

okay that’s all the hottest of my hot takes i think, overall i had a lot of fun with it and the main takeaway was that the kaz stuff was /chefkiss

#/ #// #/// #//// #///// #shadow and bone spoilers #six of crows #also i'm like DESPERATE to chat w someone about the show so you know message me if you've got hot takes too

[goblins-riddles-or-frocks]

since apparently there is a darklina Secret History AU in the world i had a fun ask idea. what would the general premise before these various darklina aus: - vampire story, - Heathers (1988), - POTO adaptation, - The Devil Wears Prada (2006), - Star Wars. Almost said Victorian era but i think it IS the Victorian era lol

AGDJFHDGGFF see the trouble is, most of these don’t need much adjusting!

Vampire AU

This would be really funny bc the Darkling is basically a vampire anyway. And him as like a centuries old melodramatic bitch and Alina as the disgruntled fledgling from the modern era with no sense of glamor whatsoever trying to figure out how to get rid of the fang lisp and being most bummed out bc she can’t buy a fucking mcmuffin in the morning anymore would be so funny.

As for the actual premise, I could see like really leaning into the age old reincarnated wife trope, but maybe going in the OG Dark Shadows take on it, where it’s more about trying to *make her* into the old GF and kind of brainwash her into it. But she actually turns into a vampire very early on and you get the above incompatibilities in full force.

(That being said. A typical Dracula AU of the TGT gang would also be VERY FUN)

Heathers

OH MY GOD I mean frankly I don’t think this needs any changing whatsoever, the Darkling is simply JD. Alina as Veronica is a mildly harder fit but she has that same kind of sarcastic grit. I feel like the biggest hurdle is getting his characterization to a point where he’d want to suicide bomb the whole school— I do not think he’s at all typically prone to self destruction over having the chance to at all control anything. But if LB managed to make Dark Academia Darklina *cute* and actually compatible then I think Heathers!Darkling can be a messier more destructive flavor.

If we’re going way off script though. I think Darklina as the very very fucked up teacher/student serial killer duo could be INTERESTING.

Phantom of the Opera

Not going to lie, the funniest part of this is making the Darkling ugly because he’s SO vain. I think if his face ever got fucked up he’d be so wretched about it. I would like to see it!!

I think it’s actually really simple to just swap out his grand plans with the obsession over music. And there’s a fairly 1:1 similarity there of Erik’s belief that he is owed Christine’s love because he’s suffered so much in his life and the Darkling thinking Alina is like the cosmic answer to his loneliness and his rightful soulmate whether she wants to be or not goddammit! And of course there’s the mentor/protégée aspect and inherent manipulation. I think the end result of such an AU would probably just be Kay!Phantom if Christine was an angry wet cat.

Anyway literally like 75% of the reason I like TGT as a fandom source material is because it allows me to play dolls with characters that can be slotted into a POTO meets Elisabeth das Musical type dynamic with a) actual magic, b) no real history to feel weird about c) a phantom type character that is not ugly agshdf I’m shallow okay

Devil Wears Prada

I’m kind of going insane over the thought of the Darkling in the fashion world. He would kill at it tbh. I think pretty much everything would be the same as the movie except we just have Alina and him as Andy and Miranda Priestly analogues, and they shack up together lmfao. 10/10 no notes, I don’t think anything else needs changing.

Star Wars

So on principal I refuse to Star Wars AU anything but also I mean wouldn’t that basically be if Palpatine and Padme were fucking? People want to make Darklina and Reylo comparisons all the time but come on he’s 100% a Palpatine

#for context I’m reading ninth house and you can’t convince me darlingstern isn’t just darklina in a different font #idek how to tag this #darklina #alarkling #grishaverse #all the bendy punctuations #i ramble sometimes #AU corner #AU hour #whichever is my AU tag lol

[plotjotsandespressoshots]

Ten Characters, Ten Fandoms, Ten Tags

Tagged by the wonderful @slxsherwriter (This is going to be rough...I need ten for every genre...)

Sons of Anarchy: Chibs Duh (Though Galen is a VERY close second...see I'm breaking the rules already!)

Game of Thrones: Daenerys (Plays with dragons)

Shadow and Bone: The darkling (Another duh. Everyone else is just running around being all righteous and he's like "Yeah okay saved us from a genocide but I guess I'M the bad guy here")

Six of crows: Nina (I'm going to cheat and say Nina in the books because I love her, her snack obsession, and the way that her powers went buck wild and let her take control of the dead)

American Gods: Mad Sweeny (All hail the angry Leprchan)

The Walking Dead: Negan (I mean did anyone keep watching for anything besides him?)

Lovecraft Country: Ruby (I feel like Ruby was such a good study on being a woman and her character was so under rated)

Justified: Boyd Crowder (I mean if you dont love boyd for all his fucked up-ness I dont even know what to say)

Star gate: Daniel Jackson (One of the first times I realized I was just super attracted to pasty white nerds.)

Good Omens: Gabriel (Okay but the fact that he thought that they were the same kids taken out of the rib and was like "Oh yeah thats definetly how its done. I've seen it happen")

There are so many more but ya know....Can I do one just on action, just on books, just on fantasy, just on horror, just on sci-fi, just on historical fiction?

Tagging: All of you!

#so basically I like villians and girls who play with dead things. #no one is shocked

[ashesandhackles]

8 TV Shows

Thanks for the tag @yletylyf <3 <3

Rules: list eight TV shows for your followers to get to know you better! 1. Buffy the Vampire Slayer Years, years ago, I sporadically watched earlier seasons of Buffy and enjoyed it for the campy fun they were. And then I watched, "Innocence" - Season 2, episode 14 and I was obsessed with Buffy Summers. Buffy Summers is that one character of all time for me - she is heroic, aspirational but she is also flawed and messy and so delightfully complex. I love her and I forever have a soft spot for Sarah Michelle Gellar for playing her.

2. Fruits Basket

I first read Fruits Basket as a manga, saw the first anime adaptation and the reboot came out during the pandemic. Fruits Basket is a very important piece of media to me because of the way it tackles abuse and the nature of systemic abuse. The show/ manga's ideas of rehabilitative justice were truly ahead of its time. Also the anti hero of the story is my all time fixation - Shigure Sohma.

3. Inuyasha

Another long running manga turned anime. Something about this series turns me into a nostalgic goo. It's probably Rumiko Takahashi's brand of characters, where there is something interesting going on with each of them. But my forever love from the series is Sango, the girl who crawls out of her own grave <3

4. Fushigi Yugi

I greatly dislike the main lead in this anime, I great dislike the romance in this series but my heart went out to the antagonist, the main lead's once best friend Yui Hongo. And if this series wasn't so enamored with its ridiculously cheesy and tiresome main romance (i do not have enough criticism for how truly bad it is, believe me), it had decent worldbuilding and politics. A fact that the original manga author knew and corrected with her spin off prequel - the vastly superior manga Fushigi Yugi: Genbu Kaiden (with likable main heroine! an intense romance that never takes over the plot!). She is currently writing Fushigi Yugi: Byakko Senki and I am curious to see what she does there.

5. Nana

Nana is about my early 20s life lol. Co-dependent, almost romantically charged friendship with a roommate/best friend? Check. Misogynist, controlling boyfriends? Check. Intense but fucked up relationships? Check. It's like this show reached into my heart and displayed it to the world.

6. Shadow and Bone

I'll be honest: my interest in the show is largely due to the fact that I have read the Six of Crows duology and loved those books. I only read the original Shadow and Bone series recently, just so I can keep with the main plotline in season 2 and boy, the original trilogy is very poor lol. The only thing that has bones of something interesting is Darkling and his relationship with Alina, and watching Season 2, I feel the show writers aren't comfortable tapping into that. Too much time moralising "this is bAd!!" - lol, yes we know. It is very childish finger-wagging writing, and it's very boring and not at all reflective of human experience (Shadow and Bone writers need to watch Nana to understand how to write abusive relationships without making it look like they are doing 'Toxic Ex Boyfriend for Dummies'). The reasons why Crows shine so much is because they are based on books that are good. And I agree with general consensus that the moral universe of the Crows and the Shadow and Bone stories do not match at all, and it creates horrible discrepancies in narrative framing.

7. Cowboy Bebop

This is a show that has influenced my writing the most: dream-like vigenettes for characters? People dreaming and having nightmares? Characters stuck in the past? I wish I could be as subtle and genre-bending as this show often was. So beautiful.

8. Death Note

If you have inhaled animes during your teen years, you won't go without bingeing Death Note. Fantastic premise, fantastic protagonist and just outright brutal to watch. I keep returning to it time and again.

Tagging @merlins-sequined-hotpants @hinnyfied @bluethepineapple @phantomeo @thedreamermusing @turanga4

#tag games

[bardofavon]

Do 17!!!!!!!

weird asks for writers

17. Talk to me about the minutiae of your current WIP. Tell me about the lore, the history, the detail, the things that won’t make it in the text.

Ok I'm going to talk about A Good Myth is Hard to Kill because that's where my brainworms are

agmihtk facts:

Alina is SO NORMAL! she is not a grisha she is just a mapmaker, and a relatively average one! she is so unbothered and it's great

The Darkling is actually in love with Kaz and there's not really any grey area about it. It's never going to be really explicitly confirmed because Kaz is an unreliable narrator and he's convinced it's 90% manipulation tactics but he actually is completely obsessed with him.

Baghra was hunting Kaz down on the night of the Fete because she wanted to give him all the information she gave Alina, but she never found him because he was too busy faking his escape and after that point it was just too late. She's not sure who she's more disappointed in, Kaz or the Darkling

If Kaz asked her now, Genya would leave with him and go to Ketterdam. Unfortunately, he wouldn't ask her now.

Jesper did not fuck the Darkling. Kaz 100% thinks that they did though and he will never think about it or bring it up again.

It's considered common knowledge in Ketterdam right now that Kaz and the Darkling are an item, like, obviously the news about the expansion of the fold was the most important piece of information the merchant council brought back but "the sun summoner is a gang leader from the barrel, he is romantically involved with the darkling, and they killed all those people as a team" is very much the narrative. Everyone who knew him is real confused about it ahaha

people have asked 'what's up with Zoya?' and the answer to the 'what's up with zoya' question is that because kaz is a boy they don't have that same weird toxic 'but I'M the darkling's favorite girl :/' conflict going on so she just hasn't been relevant enough to kaz for him to think about her. like obviously now that it's clear the darkling has feelings for Kaz there's more going on there with her but it's been overshadowed by them killing her family so!!! petty jealousy is out, hatred for both of them is in!

#a good myth is hard to kill #writing #ask meme