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#i feel like alina does not have enough bad things happen to her for this too happen though
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things i did NOT like about shadow and bone (netflix):
the darkling looks Old. he's supposed to look the same age as all the other main protagonists. this highlights alina's future of staying the same & young where everyone around her dies. it also blurs the line between good and evil more bc 'oh he's the older bad guy' is just such an easy solve. also while ben barnes is a snack imo the darkling was supposed to have a more alluring, youthful magnetism.
making genya's scars barely a few scratches. she's supposed to objectively have lost her former self perfected beauty!!! this is a thing!!! she doesn't just have some deep scars, she's supposed to look hideous at first sight, where is show adaptation teams' courage to show characters that are supposed to be mutilated as just that???? i promise audiences can survive on literally everyone else on the cast being very stereotypically pretty/handsome 🙄🙄🙄🙄
changing wesper's storyline so that they had a one night stand before canon sets in??? what kind of bullshit is that??? fucking robbing me of the "just girls?" -"not just girls" gay ANgST will they won't they, does jesper like him too, will they ever - BAM. KISS. !!!!!!! succession??? making wylan cute and awkward does NOT compensate their book storyline At All what were those show writers thinking??? 😭😭
this one i will forgive but i still rly liked it in the books so im a tad sad they didn't manage to include it: that alina has a time where she thinks she is morozova's second daughter's descendant. in many respects she has learned she is Special, and the shame she feels when she realizes this isn't another one of these cases, this isn't a way to finally show her A Path, that in this respect she is ordinary and mal is tied to fate that way, that's just such a good touch.
malina going seperate ways. what happened to "they had an ordinary life full of ordinary things--if love can ever be called that."????? "choice is true north" my ASS 😤😤😤😤 malina have always been in love and will always be in love idc abt the firebird amplifier thing that was just sth they had to do they've always been people and they've always loved each other there is no way around it
things i DID like about shadow and bone (netflix)
david and genya. specifically the delivery of the lines "I … I don’t understand half of what goes on around me. I don’t get jokes or sunsets or poetry, but I know metal. Beauty was your armor. Fragile stuff, all show. But what’s inside you? That’s steel. It’s brave and unbreakable. And it doesn’t need fixing. You don't need fixing."
genya telling the queen how she poisoned the king, and genya spitting at nikolai how his apologies are of no use and that he needs to prove a better king. generally just genya. 💞
nikolai sending his mother away + what he says to her.
all the malina flashbacks to the meadow <33
malina last night together 😳😳 they love each other sm!!!!!
the scene at morozova's home. baghra sharing her past, all the reveals happening there, and of course the darkling weeping over his mother's body. "know that i loved you. know that it wasn't enough." like OkAY.
sankta neyar's speech. so deeply touching, and doesn't just apply to immortals but to all of us who have been hurt and suffered loss before.
the darkling begging alina to let him be her monster. A+ delivery.
"How will you have me? Fully clothed, gloves on, your head turned away so our lips can never touch? I will have you without armour, Kaz Brekker. Or I will not have you at all." generally the entirety of kanej in this show. inej's hallucination. the mirroring to the last scene. breathtaking showstopping flawless.
little rabbit.
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blaze5681 · 1 year
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Oh boy, now some things I disliked. Some strongly. Sab s2 was a speed run, yes, and sometimes the plot suffered for it. Mostly, I'm mad about the things that were taken away. Nina was done so dirty. She had the Nina personality and was iconic as usual, but I wish they had used more of her instead of her just...being there and talking about Matthias. She has an amazing personality and a lot of plot armor. Yet, they don't utilize that!
We were robbed of ninej as well. I was so excited for Ninej, and we got like two conversations. I want them to have a strong budding friendship, what happened to her flinching when Nina hugs her? Which could have helped with the lack of Inej trauma addressed this season as well. They were so fucking cute together I needed more. Don't get me started on poor Matthias getting like 10 minutes of screen time. I feel bad for him, but that was a mild complaint because what else is he supposed to do this season y'know?
I was mad at the speed run for Nikolina. They literally put all their iconic lines and scenes that were built up and formed of their relationship developing, and shoved them a into one conversation. They made Alina like him right from the start, and I just feel like in general they needed to flesh out Nikolai like a LOT. He was perfect, emanated Nikolai energy, he just needed more chances to prove that!
The erasure of Jesper's crush on Kaz and the Wesper speed run. Oh boy. Okay buckle up. I thought they didn't build up Wesper well enough, and they made them together for the fan service. I wish they had just made them friends or allies this season. Maybe Wylan was crushing on him a little, but I wanted that banter that they had in Soc. Jesper teasing him was great! This season I wished they had spent a lot more time on Jesper's crush on Kaz. Kit Young and Freddy Carter like to pretend it doesn't exist but it does. And I, (a biased Kazper shipper), really would have loved to see it in its early stages. For Inej and Jesper to bond over it and the utter angst in their scenes because Jes knows he won't like him like he likes her. They seriously cut all of that out, and made Jes say they were brothers which is not true. Kaz sees him as a brother, and it just takes out the whole impact of the Jordie line in CK.
Tolya and Inej better not-*sigh* not getting into that.. David I refuse to believe he is dead. He is a part of the Triumvirate, and he was supposed to get married to Genya before DYING. She cannot catch a freaking break.
I also didn't like how the Spinning Wheel was lame. Like, it was supposed to be in the sky. Buried in the mountains. Instead it's like a small mansion in the ground. The sea whip fetter was kind of lame too. Genya's scars could have been better, and so should the Darkling's Sharpie-drawn scars. One thing I just wish could happen is to show Jesper and Nina being bisexual. Like, at this point, people would think Jes is gay and Nina is straight. Is it too much to ask for them both to show their interest in women?
We didn't get lines like "I am not ruined, I am ruination. " and the iconic "i am become a blade. " I have hopes for s3 though. Flaws and all, I love SAB and I have faith in them to give us a good s3 and Six of Crows.
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A Soothing Rain of His: Chapter V - Drifting Apart
Chapter Summary: Alina continues her lessons with Baghra and tries to find what's holding her back. You struggle to be her friend, when you see her becoming closer to Aleksander. You feel you slowly lose him to her…
Pairing: Aleksander Kirigan/Reader
Characters: Aleksander Kirigan, Reader, Ivan, Alina Starkov, Nadia Zhabin
Word Count: 4057
A/N: Chapter contains some plot from episode four of season one. Inspired by prompts: https://pl.pinterest.com/pin/207306389089684456/ https://pl.pinterest.com/pin/207306389089559842/ https://pl.pinterest.com/pin/207306389089684643/
Tag list (let me know if you want to be added or removed):
@budugu
@intothesoul
@mizelophsun11
@pansexualwitchwhoneedstherapy
@zeeader
On your way back from combat training, you come across Alina. She has troubled look on her face.
'Let me guess,' you say, catching up to her. 'You had a lesson with Baghra.'
'You can probably also guess how it went,' Alina murmurs. You grab her arm gently and squeeze it.
'Small steps, Alina,' you say. 'You're already doing better than when you arrived.'
'Yeah,' your friend murmurs, not exactly convinced. You observe her profile for a moment. Whatever happened during that lesson, clearly got her thinking hard.
'Alina… what happened?' you ask softly. Your friend sighs.
'Baghra drugged me,' she answers. You nod your head, understanding.
'Ah, yes,' you say. 'She tried that with me as well.'
'Tried?' Alina repeats.
'Mhm. After I drank poison once, I'm careful about what I'm drinking,' you explain and look at your friend. 'I'm assuming you already know that story?'
'The poison was meant for General Kirigan,' Alina says, nodding. 'Nadia and Marie told me about it. You're very brave. Honestly, I can't imagine doing something like that.'
'If it was someone you care a lot about, who knows?' you ask. Your friend watches you for a long moment.
'So, I'm guessing she did this to discover what's holding you back,' you say. Alina nods. But it's clear she doesn't want to say anything more about it.
'What happened after you… well, weren't drugged?' she asks instead.
'Baghra ordered me to think on my own what is holding me back,' you answer and sigh deeply. 'And it wasn't really that hard. My dad.'
'I remember him hating Grisha a lot,' Alina says, nodding. 'He thought they were monsters.'
'Still does,' you say, your voice strained. Your friend looks at you with surprise. You avoid her gaze.
'Even though you're a Grisha?' she asks with disbelief. You swallow.
'After that lesson with Baghra, I finally got enough courage to visit my home,' you start.
'Go on,' Alina says softly when you're silent for a long moment. You exhale shakily.
'My parents were of course informed about me being a Grisha,' you say. 'But I remembered how much they feared and despised Grisha. So, it took me time to go and visit them. Conversation with Baghra was the final push I needed. I went there and… I haven't seen them since.'
'It was that bad?' Alina asks quietly.
'It was very tense,' you answer. 'We couldn't find a common ground. Or a topic to talk about. It was really awkward. I left quickly and haven't visited them again.'
'Don't you miss them?' Alina asks. You shrug.
'Part of me does,' you admit and smile. 'But I found a family in my fellow Grisha. That includes you as well, you know.'
You nudge her playfully. Alina smiles.
'Thank you,' she says and sighs. 'I think I will go now. I have some things to think about.'
'Of course,' you say, nodding. 'Come to me if you need anything.'
'Thanks,' Alina says and walks away. You go in the opposite direction, to your room.
A few hours later you visit Aleksander in his chambers. You eat together and talk. Soon it becomes late and you start yawning.
'Go to sleep, milaya,' Aleksander says. 'I'll join you soon. I have to finish something.'
'I'm too tired to protest,' you murmur and stand up. Your lover chuckles and stands up as well. He kisses the top of your head and you smile. You go to his bedroom and put on a nightgown you have hidden there. Your head barely hits the pillow when you're fast asleep.
You're woken up violently by a bursting light. You almost fall from the bed, startled. You look around, dazzled. You see the source of the light coming from behind the door. You creep to it and open it silently. You look out carefully and see Aleksander. But he's not alone.
Next to him is Alina, who is the source of the light. She's holding his wrist and looking up at him with… something you can't exactly name. You only know it causes your stomach to turn. Aleksander, on the other hand, is looking at her with a certain dose of surprise.
You watch as Alina lets go of his hand. The light is gone from the room. They look at each other for a moment.
'You are not alone,' Alina finally says, shaking her head slightly, that look still in her eyes. Aleksander, who now you can see has tears in his eyes, reaches out and cups her cheek. He pulls her slightly to himself.
'I have been waiting a long time for you,' he says. You feel your heart breaking a bit. You tell yourself he means he's been waiting for the Sun Summoner to end the war, destroy the Fold. But a part of you fears it means something else.
'I should go,' Alina says. She takes a step back. Aleksander drops his hand. Alina turns around and leaves. The door closes behind her. Kirigan walks to the door. For a moment you wonder if he's hesitating about opening it and going after her. In the end, he turns around and goes back to the table.
You take a step back and stand still for a moment, your heart beating fast. You think what to do. You decide to grab a blanket and leave the bedroom. Quietly, you make your way to an armchair. You sit on it and put the blanket on your body. Aleksander either hears you, sees you in the corner of his eye or senses you, as he looks at you, surprised.
'[Y/N],' he says and smiles apologetically at you. 'I've taken longer than I wanted, didn't I?'
'I don't mind,' you say, making yourself comfortable. 'I can wait here. Take your time.'
'Surely it's more comfortable in my bed,' Aleksander says, amused.
'Well, it doesn't have you in it at the moment,' you point out. 'I don't like being away from you if I can help it.'
Aleksander walks to you. He caresses your cheek and smiles gently at you. He looks at you differently than he looked at Alina. You convince yourself that this softness is still reserved only for you.
'Thank you, lapushka,' he says.
'For what, pretty boy?' you ask.
'Always being by my side,' Aleksander answers. You touch his hand that is on your cheek.
'That's where I belong,' you say. 'I will always be by your side. You're not alone, I promise.'
He leans down to kiss you and it takes your breath away. Then, he pulls away and smiles again at you. You smile back and watch him go back to his table. Your eyes never leave him, but your thoughts are still stuck on the moment he was alone with Alina in this room. For some reason, you can't let go of what you saw.
*
'Thanks again for agreeing to come with me,' Alina says, as you two walk through the streets of Os Alta. You shake your head.
'It's not a problem,' you assure her. 'I needed some change of scenery anyway.'
'So did I,' Alina sighs. 'I'm surprised they let me out at all. I thought… you know.'
'Luckily, you're friends with me,' you say. 'I argued hard that you need to be let out or you're going to go crazy. But it's not without a price.'
'Yeah, I know,' Alina says. 'I'm not happy about it, but fine. But they do make me feel uncomfortable.'
'I feel the same.'
'Does it have to be so many of them, though?'
'Hey, you're the Sun Summoner and I keep getting kidnapped. Just before you arrived, I was kidnapped three times in the same week.'
'You're joking.'
'I wish I did. Honestly. It's scary to be kidnapped so often. But also a bit boring. I mean, honestly, how many times?'
'But why do they kidnap you?'
'Because I was General Kirigan's personal servant. They try to get information about him from me.'
'I see… But did they kidnap his previous servants as well?'
'No, which annoys me so much! I mean, why do they think I'm different? Or maybe it just occurred to them a servant is someone who can tell them his secrets when it was my turn? I don't know. But trust me, I was really annoyed by that.'
'More than by that security?'
'… Being guarded almost all the time is close.'
Alina laughs. You smile and glance behind yourself. Your smile drops immediately.
'Hey… where are our guards?' you ask, your voice a bit higher than normal. Alina swiftly turns. Her eyes go wide when she notices what you did. Your guards are no longer walking behind you.
'[Y/N]…' Alina says slowly, a bit afraid.
'Run,' you say, grabbing her hand, and sprint forward, back to the Little Palace. You barely start moving, when you hear shouts and voices. You both speed up.
'Can't we take them?!' Alina asks.
'Too many of them!' you shout back. You want to add something, but then you take a turn and have to stop to avoid running into a large man. You turn around. Other men are already there.
'Great,' Alina murmurs. 'No way out. We fight?'
Before you can answer her, you feel hands grabbing your arms. You start trashing and in the corner of your eye you see Alina doing the same, as she's too being held by someone.
'Let go!' she shouts.
'Forget about it,' a man says, coming forward, and grins evilly. 'You're going to get us quite a money from Fjerdans. And you… will probably give us something, too. Especially if we tell them you're the Darkling's servant pet.'
So, they are here mostly for Alina, but they know who you are. Not good.
'Let us go this instant,' your friend demands again. The man just snorts. He walks to you and grabs your chin. He forces you to look at him. He smiles lecherously.
'How about we get some fun before we sold this one, boys?' he asks and his man cheer. 'No offense, Miss Sun Summoner, but I'm not fond of Shu girls.'
'I'm not Shu,' Alina says with venom.
'But you look like one,' a guy says and spits. 'Filthy country.'
'Enough,' the leader says. His other hand touches your hip. You feel anger boiling in you.
'If you don't take your hands off me, in the next two seconds you won't have hands,' you say, your voice ice cold. The men laugh. You, however, glare at the man in front of you. But he scoffs.
'How would you do that with your hands spread apart, huh?' he asks and tightens his grip on you. You stare at him calmly.
'Don't forget I warned you,' you say. The man frowns. In the next moment you use all the training Botkin gave you. You headbutt the leader and move your body weight to throw the man holding you over your shoulder. Before anyone can react, you take out your knife and… cut off the hands of the leader.
'Raaaaargh!' the man screams, pressing his hands to his chest and falling on his knees. You throw your knife at the man holding Alina and hit him in the eye. He screams and lets go of her.
'Witch!' someone shouts. The men advance on you. You quickly create ice shards and throw them at them. They scream and duck.
'Come on!' you say to shocked Alina, grabbing her arm. You start running, dragging your friend with you. You hear men running after you. You speed up.
'We must hide!' Alina shouts. 'They're gaining on us!'
'No, we don't have to!' you deny. 'We just need to reach to reach that teahouse we passed earlier!'
'Why?!' Alina asks, stunned. You don't answer her. Because you see the teahouse and that causes you to smile. You take a deep breath.
'IVAN!' you scream at the top of your lungs. You hear Alina cursing under her breath, startled by your loud voice. But you don't even have time to apologise, as the door to the teahouse burst open and Ivan rushes outside, his expression dangerous. He scowls seeing the men running after you and brings his hands together.
Behind you men groan and scream. You pay it no mind. You drag Alina toward Ivan. Once you reach him, you stand behind him and turn around. You let your friend's hand go and summon water. You push it on the men's feet and freeze it. Now they can't move.
'Couldn't you do that earlier?' Alina asks, panting.
'I was improvising by then,' you answer. 'Also, I still need to concentrate really hard to turn water into ice.'
You look at Ivan. He's already giving orders to a servant that's with him. The boy nods and hurries off. Your friend walks to you and Alina.
'We go back to the Little Palace,' he says.
'Fine by me,' Alina says, eyeing your attackers.
'And me,' you agree, nodding. Ivan motions with his hand for you to walk at once. But you see a look of concern in his eyes when your eyes meet.
By the time you reach the Little Palace, you're exhausted. But it all stops mattering when you see Aleksander rushing down the stairs to meet you. You can't help but smile.
'Are you alright?' he asks. You open your mouth to answer… but Aleksander stops in front of Alina. He looks with worry at her. Not you. Your smile drops.
'I'm fine,' your friend answers with a small smile and looks at you. 'Thanks to [Y/N]. She got us out of this situation with her quick thinking.'
'I'm glad to hear it,' Aleksander says, smiling, but still doesn't look at you. 'However, I hope you know there aren't going to be any more trips to Os Alta. Or anywhere else.'
'I know,' Alina sighs. 'To be honest, at this moment, I wouldn't mind leaving my bed at all.'
Aleksander chuckles. Your stomach turns. You clench your jaw.
'We should rest,' you say, forcing your voice to sound normal. Alina flinches, as if remembering that you are here as well.
'Yeah,' she agrees and smiles shyly at Aleksander. She wants to say something else, but you're already walking to the door. She decides to hurry after you, allowing herself only to cast one last glance at your lover. It's never been so hard to control your powers than in this moment.
It's late at night when there's a knock on your door. You can feel who's outside. Usually, you call him in at once. But tonight, you pause and stand still for a moment.
'It's open,' you finally say. You calmly watch as the door opens quietly and Aleksander slips in. You can see tiredness on his face. He smiles weakly at you but seeing you don't answer it, he stays where he is.
'How are you feeling?' he asks.
'Better,' you answer. 'The men?'
'Dealt with,' Aleksander answers and sighs. 'Forgive me for not asking how you were earlier. I… I must appear I care more about the Sun Summoner's well-being more.'
Don't you?
You shake off those thoughts. You nod curtly but stay silent.
'No one can know how I feel about you,' Aleksander goes on. 'You know that. It's for your own safety.'
'I know,' you say, tired of hearing this. 'It still hurt, though.'
'I know, moya lapushka,' Kirigan says, walking to you. 'I'm sorry. Let me make it up to you.'
He cups your face. You see sincerity in his eyes. Any other day, you'd take advantage of that offer. But tonight…
'I'm tired,' you say, smiling sadly. 'At the moment I just want to lay on your chest and listen to your heartbeat.'
'Then that's what you will get,' Aleksander says, already unfastening his kefta. You do the same with yours. A few minutes later you're both in your nightwear (Aleksander has his set hidden in your bedroom as well) and climb into bed.
'Ah, yes,' Kirigan says, suddenly remembering something. 'My mother heard you managed to create ice shards in a heartbeat and used them against those men. I think she was actually… satisfied.'
'For a moment I thought you were going to say "impressed" or "proud",' you say. 'And I started to worry whether someone switched places with Baghra.'
Aleksander laughs. You can't help but smile and relax at that sound. The feeling from before slowly starts to vanish.
'Sleep, my love,' Kirigan says, putting his arms around you. 'Today was stressful. You deserve rest.'
You exhale deeply and close your eyes. Your head lays on Aleksander's chest. The sound of his heartbeat lulls you to sleep. For a moment everything is good again.
But in the morning, it's gone. Aleksander is gone. A part of you isn't even surprised. You just stand up and walk to your window. And there you see your lover. With Alina. Taking a walk.
'[Y/N]?' you hear Natasha's voice and a knock. 'Are you up?'
You don't answer. Your eyes are glued to Alina and Aleksander. You almost feel your heart slowly breaking.
*
Tidemakers often pair up with Squallers for training. At first you hated this, because everyone you were paired up with was far more advanced than you. But now you're better. Now you're good. You can easily keep up with them.
That day you are practicing with Squallers and other Tidemakers, but as a group. One person would attack a dummy with their powers and others would give them pointers. You were always nervous during such trainings. You know everyone means well when telling you what you can improve, but you always feel they're judging you because you've started training later.
You try to calm yourself down, watching a Squaller attacking a dummy. But you see something in the corner of your eye that causes you to stop paying attention. Your heart drops. There they are again. Alina and Aleksander taking a walk, talking and smiling.
You hoped that you being almost kidnapped again would bring Aleksander back closer to you. But the opposite happened. Every day you watch him spending time with Alina. Whenever you walk into the room and she's there as well, his attention is on her. He talks with you flirts with you, yes. But you feel he's not really into it. You try not to think too much about it, but it's hard when he hasn't visited your chambers since that night. He hasn't called you to his either.
You clench your fists, seeing Aleksander smiling at something Alina said. You know she's the Sun Summoner and you need her to unite Ravka and end all wars. You know your lover is charming, handsome and… you could go on. You know he needs to focus on her to achieve peace. But it still hurts seeing them together.
'Alright, [Y/N], your turn,' Nadia says. You place yourself in front of the dummy. You summon your power. You feel it at the ends of your fingertips. And then you hear a chuckle.
You turn your head slowly. You see Alina grinning and Aleksander trying to contain his laughter. Your heart sinks. He's never like that in public with you. He's always calm and composed, even if you say something that amuses him.
Anger boils inside of you. It needs to be let out. You don't think and let it consume you. You bring your hands together and see water forming in front of you. You push it forward at the dummy, fuelling it with your anger.
Aleksander and Alina are pulled away from their conversation by loud gasps and yelps. They look at the training Grisha and are stunned by what they see. Alina's eyes go wide and her mouth part slightly. She's just as surprised as every other Grisha here.
The dummy is cut in more or less half, diagonally. The edges are covered in ice. The top 'half' is laying on the ground. Cut. You used the Cut.
Bewildered, you turn to look at Aleksander and Alina, ignoring excited and disbelieving whispers around you. Your friend from Keremzin is looking at your work with awe. Kirigan is looking at it with… pride. There's a small smile on his face.
His eyes meet yours for a moment and there's that soft look reserved only for you. It makes you happy… but only for a second, as he turns back to Alina, resuming their conversation. You feel as if it was your heart that was cut.
'That… Ekhm. Well done, [Y/N],' Nadia says at a loss of words. No one knows what else to say. Because how they can suggest improving something with what you did?
For the rest of the training, you stand at the back, quiet. Then, you go by the lake. You stand there, your eyes fixed on the water. The part by the bank freezes and unfreezes. It's your relaxing method. You try to calm down with it. You can still feel tears burning your eyes, so it seems it's failing today.
You're not sure how much time have passed when Baghra shows up. Normally, it would really surprise you. You're not sure whether you've ever seen her outside her hut. She stops next to you and watches what you are doing with water.
'I've heard you managed to use the Cut,' she says after a few minutes. You just nod. Baghra turns her face to you.
'You should be prouder of yourself,' she says. 'It's not an easy feat.'
Normally, it would make you happy, hearing such words from her. But not today.
'So,' she says when you still keep being silent. 'I've always knew you had it in you. The question is, what provoked it.'
'You know what,' you say quietly. Your heart aches again at the memory of seeing the two of them together. Baghra sighs.
'He's pushing you away, then?' she asks. 'You might as well be invisible to him?'
You shake your head. It's not like that. Not really.
'It would be too easy to say that I feel invisible,' you deny. 'Instead, I feel painfully visible and entirely ignored.'
You exhale shakily and try to blink away the tears. Baghra stares at you in silence.
'I really hoped it would work,' she says quietly. Too quietly for you to hear. So, you frown at her.
'What?' you ask. Baghra shakes her head.
'It doesn't matter,' she says and looks at you with a known to you sternness. 'Don't give up hope. Never do it, girl.'
'Is there any?' you ask with doubt.
'Of course, there is!' Baghra says and you swear you can feel she's itching to smack you with her cane. 'I saw how he looks at you. It's… Something like that is not easy to destroy. Fight for it. Fight for him.'
You stare at her, stunned and confused. Baghra pats your arm and turns to leave.
'Why?' you ask, stopping her. 'Why do you care about it?'
'Because you may be the only one able to save him,' Baghra answers, not looking at you.
'From what?' you ask, even more confused. She finally turns slightly to look at you with a seriousness that chills you to the bone.
'From himself,' she answers. You stare at her. She stays for a moment longer and then leaves. You watch her go, deep in thought.
'"Himself"…' you repeat in a whisper to yourself. You don't know what to do. If it's worth to fight like Baghra encourages you. You know you don't want to lose Aleksander. But the anger you felt today scared you. Still does. You don't want to feel like that again.
You sigh deeply and head back toward the Little Palace. On your way you pass Grisha. As usual, they gossip. Mostly they do, to your embarrassment, about your achievement today. You see looks of awe shot your way. But other gossips make your stomach turn. They're about how close Alina and Aleksander now are.
You shake your head. You must stop thinking about it. You can't change the way Aleksander feels. You will continue to try to get his attention. And if Alina is truly meant to be his equal… then maybe it means you have to let go.
A/N: Thank you for reading! Please, reblog, like and comment if you could.
This can also be found on Archive of Our Own: https://archiveofourown.org/works/49547866/chapters/125615938
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oooohhh now u got me curious. how do you think an alarkling mentor/protégée focused dynamic a theater au would hypothetically go??
I'd probably just take heavily from a phantom of the opera esque relationship trajectory. though I think vanity or at least pride along with like hard power within the scope of the story is important enough to the darkling's character function that I wouldn't make it an outright poto au where he's like hideous and hiding in the walls lmfao. so he's probably like the artistic director of a theater company, maybe as a retired celebrated performer himself, and she's his favored up and coming actor. (for gothic value and bc there are no powers and I need something to keep me entertained I'd say like Something Happened and he stopped performing and it's a mysterious thing he's broody about. but that's not integral, I just like drama.) the first book already has like the contemporary vibes of a teacher/mentor/someone in power having bad boundaries with underlings despite the trappings of like a fantasy army. so translating that dynamic would be fairly easy, and it'd be simple to just lean into it more, where there's simply a longer period where alina is under his sway and more invested for it. he's likely exacting, again very bad with boundaries lol lmao, and promises her a lot but very conditionally. I'd also highlight the zoya rivalry in this, where she was the former favorite until alina showed up, and translate that into him actively pitting the performers against each other. and alina probably starts out some level of starstruck and apprehensive of like dfgh the red flags but keeps getting in deeper and deeper. something interesting about any sort of professional arts is that it’s SO competitive and alina particularly has like zero ambition. so tho I could see her getting into theater out of an initial genuine interest in it, to an extent, her wanting to like be the best or to just stay in the game on a career level feels like it would probably stem from wanting to keep his favor. but yeah overall trajectory, I'd probably have some sort of phantom esque thing where she does start to make it big and maybe needs him less as a result. he gets weird about it. like maybe the theater itself is seeing more success now because she got overnight famous for whatever reason and she's the one drawing audiences to him? and that threatens the power dynamic in a way that makes him volatile. hm I'd probably throw in some murders dfgh more just because it's fun. if I was planning a full on fic I'd say something related to The Incident that changed his own career trajectory comes back to haunt him. like the renewed interest means someone from the past who like Knows Something shows up and is threatening and he kills them. but the circumstances are such that he can spin it as like alina they were threatening you! this was me protecting you! (lol lmao it occurs to me that the overt connection to alina that circles around to an unknown past connection to aleksander seems most readily translatable to mal since he's the surprise morozova. but on a character level I feel like mal isn't the correct character type for the sort of Problem Causer I was picturing. I was thinking more someone that could function as a weird blackmailing creep in a vasily or apparat sense) and idk now they have to cover up this murder together while their own relationship is fracturing?
idk how I would wrap this up. she def has to learn about the Incident. whatever that is. maybe it was some tragic accident that was actually a crime/murder he committed-- hence there being any opening for blackmail. for more entertaining angst I'd say it's something with a vague degree of justifiability or tragedy. where she wrestles with being sympathetic vs maybe lets not solve all our problems with murder. and it slowly occurs to her over time that he probably did the recent murder for his own benefit too as opposed to the claim that it's all to protect her and her career. and that that's true of everything he does, everything in their dynamic is really about him. anyway uh idk how I'd wrap it up. she'd probably like fuck it and tries to find an out? I'd probably try to achieve that by introducing a fake out suitor to help her (nikolai? mal?) who also dies as the plot spirals in a phantom of the opera esque fashion and then she eventually actually succeeds by reaching out to zoya maybe? okay okay actually sdfghj I would combine the fake out suitor and causes problems on purpose guy. and yes now they can both be mal who shows up seeming like a poto!raoul type but he's actually only really there for blackmail purposes. and then he bites it as planned. alina can help cover up but also freak out about it and have many conflicted feelings. then eventually reach out to zoya? that actually facilitates some sort of option to successfully gtfo. and I think the end would probably hinge on her having a final choice of like deciding to stay bc the fucked up relationship is worth it actually, or leaving for good. which one would probably depend entirely on my mood when hypothetically drafting the last chapter dfghj
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imruination · 1 year
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I get what you are trying to say but Darkling did not love Alina. He loved her power. He saw not value in her as her own person. Yes, the Darkling and Alina’s dynamic is complicated but it’s not supposed to be seem as a “romantic undertone” is abuse, is gaslighting, is a man using his power on a vulnerable teenager. The OP was asking the right questions. That phase should NOT be romanticized because it’s pure evil and disgusting. It should not be interpreted as “grey”. Abuse is abuse. There’s not layers to consider, especially coming from the darkling. This is a years old being that has mastered the arts of manipulation, not a teenager or a simple person.
** TW ABUSE**
Hi nonny. Not gonna lie, the first thing I did when I read this ask was laugh because I spend every day trashing the darkling as a person, and suddenly I’m defending him? What is happening? It’s much more complicated then that though. I’m gonna link you to this post if you’re interested because I think it’s very relevant.
I want to start this off by saying that if I say something that comes across as controversial, I am speaking from my own personal experience with abuse in real life, and not because I think the darkling is an innocent baby.
I mentioned liking the romantic undertone of d/arklina in the books BECAUSE it was very problematic. One of my favorite themes in Shadow and Bone is power and corruption. If Mal represents Alina’s old life, and her tether to humanity, then the Darkling is the opposite. He is immortality and unlimited power no matter the cost. It’s a complete disconnect from the average human population, from little poor orphan girls. I like that the darkling manipulates her, and attempts to seduce her because that’s what power does. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. It tricks you into wanting more and more until you’ve crossed a line that you weren’t even aware was there.
I personally don’t believe in the idea of “pure evil” in real life, and by extension realistic characters. I think ideals can be evil. Behaviors can be evil. I do not believe humans are born evil, and whatever behaviors they are exhibiting are likely something they have learnt from the world around them. Does that make the behavior okay? Of course not. They are still a person though.
In real life I completely understand why it would be comforting to view something like abuse as very black and white, and it’s really not my business how someone deals with something that traumatized them. For myself though, one of the hardest lessons I’ve had to learn in my life is that abusers aren’t evil, they’re just people. If there are no layers, and the abuser is just inherently a bad person, I am not holding them accountable for all of the choices they have repeatedly made.
I have to disagree, I think the Darkling did love Alina. I believe he yearned for nothing more than an equal and a companion. The hero to his monster, without which neither could be complete. But what he was yearning for was a lie.
I like Baghra’s quote on this being “Know that I loved you, know that it wasn’t enough.” She learned how to love from a toxic family, and a toxic environment towards all people like her. Aleksander learned to love from Baghra. You can love someone and still abuse them. You can love someone and try an control them. You can love someone and choose power over them.
It’s all very ironic. Love can be toxic and all consuming to an unhealthy degree, and that’s the very thing that lead to the Darkling’s downfall. I don’t see this as romanticizing abuse (again from someone who’s been through it). Real people are grey. He should have wants and goals and feelings as a character, that doesn’t mean he’s even redeemable. It’s tragic.
The darkling wasn’t able to stop the cycle of generational trauma and violence. He was once a young boy who wanted love and equality. He grew into a centuries old man who abused those around him to meet his goals. He perpetuated violence.
But who does succeed in breaking that cycle? Alina. Like it or not, the entire point is that she could eventually grow into the mirror image of the Darkling. It’s all about individual choices. She does not have to return the darkling’s love and team up with him just to make herself look brighter. She does not have to risk it all for power. She does not have to throw every part of that little orphan girl away until she’s unrecognizable. But she so easily could. And that’s terrifying.
Mercy is at the end of the day, Alina’s true super power. She does see that scared little boy inside of Aleksander, and that’s a good thing!!! Not so she can be in love with him and live behind some white picket fence, but so she won’t repeat his mistakes. She sees the darkling as a human just like everyone else. If she didn’t, I think that might be very bad for everyone.
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capinejghafa · 1 year
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Hey, I thought I'd add into the people telling you that you're completely right and you should say it about Inej/Kanej. This season gives the air of Kaz doing everything she's asking of him and her running away and acting like it's not on her own inability to deal with her trauma. Inej Fails Kaz at every turn this season when it comes to emotions. He lashes out after the Pekka thing because he was Worried, he specifically asked her there for Comfort and she didn’t show, he's rawest he's been since his brother died and irrational, and she just doesn't bother to fight back. She just tells him to eff off and leaves. Nina and Jesper tell her she's being just as dumb as he is and she decides Again, not to bother. Kaz does open up to her about his hallucination, a highly vulnerable thing for him to do, and she decides it's a great time to throw his words back in his face. And then adding the armor scene just comes off like, despite his trying, he will never be enough. Even in the book, though her reasoning is vaguely better, it still comes off as her saying, "your disability makes you not enough for me" and I don't know how I feel about that.
Hi! this is going to be a little bit of a tangent lol
I think it's very interesting the way book!Kanej is different from show!Kanej. Even as individual characters, they are altered to fit the show verse. Book!Kaz is very much closed off than he's show's counterpart... partly because in the book, he's a teen, and in the show, he's an adult. He's driven by revenge for sure, but he's also capable of more complex emotions because he's had to grow up alone in his environment. In the show, we don't know when he meets Jesper or Inej, but we know he's lonely. In the books, he meets them a few years after becoming part of the Dregs. Sure, book!Kaz didn't have friends, but he wasn't exactly alone alone (or not completely!).
Also, book!Kaz is actually bad at feelings because Leigh wrote him that way lol... a lot of his inner monologues are great to get the audience to be sympathetic with him, but he doesn't say what he means out loud... kind of. Like he tried to Inej how he feels before deciding to stay silent ("I will die unafraid..") And I think that's where the show had to find ways to get those thoughts into action. It's why we have Kaz be more open. In the books, it was fine... but it wouldn't have translated well for a general audience, you know?
I bring this up to say, show!Inej seems to have the problems that book!Kaz. Her problems are very internal. She's very much willing to say the problems she has with Kaz's plan or make comments regarding the crows' safety, but Inej struggles a lot with romantic feelings. It's not something that comes naturally to her. She didn't have it before the Menagerie (presumably not), and she's barely experiencing it now. With Jesper and Nina... and even Wy to that extent she doesn't have to worry about that. Hell, I'd even add Alina and Zoya to the mix. She doesn't have to double guess her choices, and they can just be her family (with Jesper) and her friends (Nina, Wy, Zoya), or her Saint (Alina). But with Kaz, she does. It's not that Inej is incapable of saying how she feels lol It's just that she is not comfortable if it's romantic.
So, it makes her actions regarding Kaz seem like a fail. It sort of feels like she's self sabotaging. Like come on, Inej you can't be upset at Kaz for being mad because you said you'd help take down his brother's "murder" and then walk in like nothing happen after you said you'd help destroy him... all awhile he's probably like idk if you're safe.
Or at least, if not self sabotaging, then something like kind of expecting him to forgive her because that's what the Crows do. Especially after he told her, "No Saint ever watched over me. Not like you have."
I don't think in the books it was necessarily supposed to be seen that way. I just think Inej is slightly more honest about her feelings there and unlike her show counterpart, Inej's biggest weakness was the company she keeps, the people she loves. So rather than have only parts of Kaz... I'm thinking more of his heart than physical. Or at least work towards that. I say slightly because there's a moment where Kaz said the famous "If I couldn't walk, I'd crawl you..." and Inej's face is very skeptical. Which makes sense because in her head she was fairly certain that Kaz wouldn't come for her, but I disgress.
tl;dr inej and kaz have to be accountable for their action, and idk talk to each other.
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goatsandgangsters · 1 year
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shadow and bone episode 7: suddenly the kudos emails I’ve been getting from ao3 make a lot of sense
also you know what was NOT on my bingo card for this season? getting CONTENT for my TINY LITTLE RAREPAIR DOMINIKOLAI HEART?? 
previous liveblogs should you require more thoughts yelling flailing etc
……okay one more belated comment on episode 6, because I was so floored by the existence of dominik and the intense homoerotic eye contact that I forgot to process dominik calling young nikolai a “quiet wisp.” dominik. dominik he has undiagnosed adhd. they hired you as a whipping boy because it was the only way they could think to make him sit still or shut up dominik. dominik he merrily chattered your ear off for your entire childhood dominik. he recreationally caused explosions with you dominik.
OKAY! HOLD ON! THAT INTRO! A BODY OF WATER BEING FROZEN AROUND A ROCK??????? HAVE MY DEMON IN THE WOOD PRAYERS BEEN ANSWERED? DID I JUST NEED TO BE PATIENT??????????? are we perhaps going to tie the destruction of Keramzin into his own childhood trauma, thus linking together these two events as a loss of innocence and commentary on the cycles of violence wrought from the desperation Ravka creates? is that too much to hope for?
“The tracker is not to be touched by anyone other than me” oh is THAT why my ao3 email every day has a SIZABLE CHUNK of kudos on my Malarkling fic? I’ve been wondering at that one getting more attention than I expected, I really didn’t think it was gonna have much readership
I really like the costume design for his grisha, the richer gem tones are really nice
I knew I’d have to see it based on the episode title, but oh my godddddd do I really need to see this flashback again? it was in THE FIRST FOUR EPISODES of season 1! every single episode! burn it down aleks I have seen this meadow way too many goddamn times
OH OKAY. MALARKLING TETHER SCENE????????? I understand the kudos emails, I understand the kudos emails. “I knew there was something I liked about you,” he said, like a liar. or maybe he’s not lying, we all saw that electricity in season 1. oh my god. the wheezy fucking laugh of disbelief I just made. “DO YOU REALLY THINK THAT YOU’RE THE ONE IN CONTROL HERE”???????? I understand why I’m getting so many kudos now on my kinky Malarkling smut, I understand it.
Ben, I think this is more than 10 book lines you squeezed in. anyway, “you have a bad habit of acting the fool and calling it heroic” IS an underrated book line, thank you Ben for your service and your post-it note covered books and your list of favorite quotes
stop calling each other cousin, it’s weird. IF YOU HAVE TO GO BACK LIKE 40 ENTIRE GENERATIONS UNTIL YOU HIT YOUR COMMON ANCESTOR, I DON’T THINK IT ACTUALLY COUNTS AS COUSINS. I THINK MOST PEOPLE ARE RELATED IF YOU GO BACK THAT FAR.
like obviously we know his prime motivation is not wanting alina to have enough power to tear down the fold, but I DO actually like that he’s arguing from the angle of “what’s going to happen to her without you” because. like. yeah. it’s good, it’s that thing he does where even when he’s arguing for his own ends, he’s NOT WRONG about what he’s saying. he’s using something totally true to make his point. he knows exactly what losing someone important will do to a person. let’s revisit those mal luda parallels we were making in season 1 with this new content/context
I really just don’t know why, of all the people on this show, Archie and Ben have more sexual tension than any other pair of characters. none of the canon ships can hold a candle to …. whatever these two are doing anytime they’re on screen together
RETROACTIVE PREFACE TO THIS BULLET POINT: I wrote this whole spiel about Appreciating The Ambiguity Of Nikolai and Alina’s Relationship, only for that to immediately dissolve a scene later, BUT WHATEVER, HERE WERE MY FEELINGS: I’m really pleased by how they’re doing Nikolai and Alina’s relationship this season. I love that the exact nature of their dynamic is sort of open to interpretation with what/if there are Feelings Feelings, but the trust and warmth and genuine friendship between them is still palpable. like, I have A LOT of feelings about these two and I’m in the “queerplatonic soulmate” camp with them, the “love has many forms and sometimes love is stronger if it’s not romantic” camp, but in a very adamant THAT ISN’T LESSER THAN IF I SHIPPED IT ROMANTICALLY way, like I am DEEPLY FEELINGS about them, because I think they see through each other and understand each other intrinsically. they’re both characters who have been given A Role To Play as a figurehead and I think that when they’re together that’s the one space where they can set those roles aside and find comfort with the only one who really understands the weight of Being A Figurehead (and I think too much emphasis on romantic pining would get in the way of allowing them that vulnerability with each other, and I like The Vulnerability Space more than I like Romance). I’ve never Queerplatonically Shipped something this passionately, but god I have feelings in my hEART about them!! and I like that canon sort of…. lets you go shippy if you want to go shippy, and it lets me go Queerplatonic Soulmate because I want to go Queerplatonic Soulmate
I’m Fucking Feelings About This Scene, they’re both so good, THEY CARE ABOUT EACH OTHER SO MUCH EVEN THOUGH THEY’VE ONLY KNOWN EACH OTHER A SHORT WHILE!!!
me, writing an entire paragraph about how I like that the show kept the nikolina relationship ambiguous. dominik, five seconds later: sO THOSE ROMANTIC FEELINGS YOU HAVE. me: god fucking dammit. you two, kiss instead. it’s time to make nikolai lantsov canonically bisexual. the people have waited long enough.
okay well as long as I’m paused to tell you My Many Many Headcanons About The Delicate Ambiguity of Nikolai’s Love Life: despite me yelling KISS, my actual default interpretation of Dominikolai is not childhood sweethearts but that there was either a) pining that never got acted on, and then it was too late, or b) nikolai not even realizing until he’s older and dominik’s long dead that in retrospect, Those Were Feelings, bc I think that’s a very first queer love mood. anyway, I will be choosing to interpret dominik asking after alina as being infused with some jealousy, because poor dominik has been quietly carrying a torch for Years  
DOMINIK IS CLEARLY IN LOVE WITH HIM, LOOK AT THIS EXCHANGE. “a king who won’t shut up.” feelings about it, thank you!! much as I have fun with nikolai’s self-aggrandizing humor, I do love that the self-aggrandizement is covering for his very self-deprecating inner monologue
Mal fixing the thing that’s clanking by retying the rope is SUCH a good quiet character moment, it’s the kind of quiet character moment I love, it’s one of those small little actions with a character alone that tells you so much about them, I LOVE THAT WE’RE TAKING MORE TIME FOR QUIET CHARACTER MOMENTS THIS SEASON, I LOVE THAT DESPITE DOING THREE ENTIRE BOOKS WE’RE GIVING THE STORY MORE BREATHING ROOM
this long shot of mal’s face while hugging nikolai has got me like ;____; ARCHIE IS REALLY GOOD, he’s doing “man heading willingly to the gallows” SO fucking well!!!!!
“then I met you and for the very first time I thought this is the life”? oh, we’re even feeding the malolais this episode (malolai? is that accurate? sounds better than nikmal). crumbs for ALL the multishippers of Ravka!
nikolai’s face like “iiiiiiiii also envy Sturmhond’s life. oh god, mY PATH IS ALSO SET. OH GOD.” you can watch in real-time as Mal’s talking that Nikolai is having a whole-ass realization that he’s actually king now oh god
THE “DESERVE HER” HITTIN REAL HARD NOW THAT I ACTUALLY LIKE MAL. god, I will say, “you can’t win unless you kill your love personally” is one HELL of a fucking trope. that is narratively delicious. that is juicy as fuck. but the question remains: do we actually follow through on this emotional set up? or will it all be a convenient bait and switch? Will We Be Brave Enough To Stick To Our Narrative Stakes?
David is So Fucking Cute
oh don’t stop his heart for two minutes, that’s CHEATING! it’s ALWAYS BEEN CHEATING! if you set up emotional stakes and then TAKE A SHORTCUT AROUND THEM, you are SHORT-CHANGING THE WEIGHT OF YOUR OWN NARRATIVE!
“SO WHAT SHOULD WE AMPUTATE” oh david. you’re iconic.
hm. turning Epilogue Narration into Dialogue. that’s Suspicious. are we….. are we perhaps………. making the brave writing choice?
OHHHHH WE’RE TURNING NIKOLAI’S INNER MONOLOGUE INTO A DRAMATIC ROUSING SPEECH, I’M HAVING FEELINGS ABOUT IT!!!!!!
god there are truly SO MANY book lines in this season, WAY MORE than season 1. it’s making me glad I have as good a memory as I do for Sentences. because I’m constantly like AYYY THAT LINE. AAYY!! THAT LINE!!!! AYYYYYYY THAT LINE!!!!!!
my boy my beautiful boy my beautiful perfect boy, I love him so much
also are we gonna have time to volcrafy him? is that coming soon?
“that your religion would deny you satisfaction” “there is other satisfaction” and on that day pekkathias was born and everyone felt confused about it
“HOW MUCH DO YOU NEED” kjshdfgkjhfdg god Archie’s comedic timing / dark humor is SO good this season
“fOR REAL NOW” how is this scene simultaneously so funny and so Deeply Uncomfortably Emotional
AND THE STAKES ARE RAISED
Dominik helping an injured Nikolai along :3333333
YOU KNOW, WHEN I WOKE UP THIS MORNING, “DOMINIKOLAI CONTENT” WAS NOT SOMETHING I EXPECTED I’D BE EXPERIENCING. DID NOT SEE THAT ONE COMING. I know Nikolai mentioned a Dominik a couple episodes ago but I was like “don’t put your clown shoes on, it’s just a guy with the same name” but for once! for ONCE! the shoes were not clown shoes. and here I thought I was gonna have to use that guy from the WWI period drama Paddy did in order to make a very niche Dominikolai gifset. NOPE, I CAN JUST GIF THE GODDAMN SHOW! insane! this is insane to me!
Vladim having an amplifier tattoo instead of bone is a really cool concept
also cool concepts: 1. expanding the fold to cover your battleground, THAT IS A FUCKING STAKE THAT YOU ARE RAISING, I’m extremely excited about it 2. the nichevo’ya popping up and grabbing the volcra by the throat, I love it. this escalation is exciting as hell.
[Volcra munching] OH I LOVE NETFLIX SUBTITLES. NOT QUITE AS GOOD AS [TENTACLES SQUELCHING WETLY] OR [OMINOUS SYNTH MUSIC] BUT YOU DO LOVE TO SEE IT
that now that was an ENTRANCE Inej!!!
“BIG FAN” I love Nina
“NO NO NO NO NO! NO HEROICS!” have you ever seen a man more in love than Dominik I-didn’t-catch-whatever-last-name-the-show-gave-him?
TAMAR AND NIKOLAI HUG!!!! one of my beefs with the later books is that there’s not enough…. friendship between Nikolai and the twins. BUT THERE SHOULD BE. THEY HAVE A LOT OF HISTORY.
Zhaban siblings Squalling together with each of them having only one good arm is Really Good, and I might have to finally forgive Adrik for the crime of being super annoying in King of Scars
Dominikolai shooting together is Really Good, and I don’t know what crime it’s going to make me forgive, but I’ll find one and assign that as my recompense. lack of Oncat, maybe.
me every single time Dominik does Literally Anything in this fight sequence: no don’t be a hero, you’ve already been doomed by the narrative from the start!!!! I know I’m going to watch you die in Nikolai’s arms, I just don’t know WHEN
has anyone in the history of storytelling ever said “cover me” in a heterosexual way? I Think Not
watching Lewis Tan do stunts is EXACTLY as beautiful as I’ve heard. he really does have a beautiful fluid way of moving
THIS COUNTRY GETS YOU IN THE END BROTHER!!!!! SOLDIERS DID NOT CRY, PRINCES DID NOT WEEP, NIKOLAI KNEW THIS, BUT THE TEARS FELL ANYWAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
if you’d allow me to put on my literary analysis hat for a moment, I will say that I do think it’s thematically more important that Dominik was originally killed on the Fjerdan front, because it taught Nikolai the ordinary everyday ongoing horrors of Ravka, and the casual violence and loss of life that everyone is subjected to. It’s important that Dominik represents the “every man” killed in the mud and bleeding in the snow, as so many have. That he was just one more death of many—on a regular day, in a regular war, not even particularly noteworthy except to the one person who cared about him—in an endless and ongoing war that treated the entire country as cannon fodder. if you’d allow me to take off my literary analysis hat for a moment, I will say I CANNOT BELIEVE I GOT A MINI-DOMINIKOLAI ARC ON MY ACTUAL TV SCREEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
…………david what ARE you doing DAVID YOU DON’T DIE UNTIL RULE OF WOLVES, DAVID WHAT ARE YOU DOING DAVID DAVID DAVID DAVID DAVID
if you’d allow me to put on my literary analysis hat for a moment, I will say that I do think it’s thematically more important that David was originally killed BY FJERDAN BOMBERS, THUS DEMONSTRATING THE SENSELESS ONGOING VIOLENCE OF RAVKA’S WARS—
I am actually going to give props for the camera lingering on Enemy Inferni dying and the other two being gutted about it. most things don’t usually show The Bad Guys mourning their losses, I am going to give a point for that
okay Jesper taking Sankta Neyar’s advice and using his buttons as bullets is Very Good
alright well Dominik’s dead, time to shift into Kazolai mode
augghhhh Nikolai casting that finally look at where Dominik’s lying as they leave, even though he’s out of frame of the camera
we don’t have a lot of time left in this episode, are we going to follow up on the very Demon in the Wood intro sequence, or have I been BAITED AGAIN. hAVE I BEEN DECEIVED. LIED TO. TRICKED. are we not doing that thing I said about the loss of innocence and the cycles of violence, because like, I had a point with that. they need to listen to me, because I have POINTS about THEMES and how to dO STUFF WITH THEM
The visuals on the firebird light streams is VERY good with the red and the wing-like formations
oh god the silence on the end credits oH GOD
anyway, that was some genuinely incredible extended fight choreography that didn’t skimp on the emotional moments in favor of the action, I had a good time
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marigold-22 · 1 year
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Shadow and bone season 2 spoilers
I feel very conflicted. I liked so many things but I also disliked a lot.
To begin with the things I liked, I absolutely loved Mal, in the original trilogy he was by far my least favorite character he just felt like a complete asshole who was super unsupportive of Alina and was just very annoying. In the show he is great he was a good partner to Alina and was very supportive he contributed a lot to Alina’s arc but also had his own arc that was well developed and contributed to the story. Another thing I liked was that they just completely removed the entire sun army plot line, in the books it felt like an irrelevant piece of filler, also adding in the apparat as villainous figure in the books just felt like it took away from the villainous presence and development of the darkling, this brings me to my next point. The darkling was amazing in his development and felt like a great counterpart to Alina, speaking of which Alina had a significantly stronger presence than in the books, in the books she felt like she had very little power at all and that just felt like the wrong place for a protagonist to be, however in the show she is a force to be reckoned with and it feels like she and not just her sun summoning is the reason that the darkling was defeated and the fold was destroyed.
Now for the things I didn’t like. The biggest issue plaguing the show is the pacing, the second season is super rushed and because of that many character’s arcs are completely ignored, to begin with Nikolai does not get even close to enough development, his relationships with the other characters appear out of nowhere, it’s like one second Alina is challenging Nikolai on everything and the next second she’s best friends with him, they also left out the Nikolai being a monster plot line which in the books felt essential to his character development, however I did really enjoy much of the onscreen time and development that he did have. Nikolai is just one of many characters that had their development sidelined or even completely lost because of the rushing. Another victim of the rushing was the general feeling of a ravcan civil war, this is one of the things that I feel very conflicted about, the show took a trilogy of books that was primarily a story about a large scale country wide civil war and attempted to turn it into a more interpersonal story, I have no problem with this in concept in fact I actually think I like it more, the problem is that they made it more interpersonal but also tried to keep the civil war storyline, again I don’t necessarily think that this is inherently bad it’s just very hard to pull off and I don’t think they did, Their weren’t enough large scale battles to make a civil war believable and honestly I think that this could have been corrected if they had extended the shadow and bone story into 3 seasons.
Let’s talk about the crows, this and the ending are the 2 things that I feel the most conflicted about, not actually because of what happens in the show but because of what it means for future geishaverse shows. The crow storyline was extremely well done we got introduced to Wylan and each of the crows got plenty of character development and that’s the problem, most of the crows have already finished their arcs from crooked kingdom before six of crows even happens, Kaz had his whole pekka revenge thing happen and beat up per haskel already, Inej also pretty much finished her arc but I’ll talk about that when I talk about the ending, Jesper is about halfway through his arc already but he at least has some room left for development, on the bright side Nina and Wylan have gotten very good introductions hut haven’t even started their arcs yet meaning that they have significant room for growth in a possible six of crows season/spin off. Overall I feel mixed about the crows I really liked them in this season but I worry that their development could get stunted in future seasons.
Finally let’s talk about the ending, I have seen a wide variety of opinions about it ranging from adoring it to despising it, I feel positive about it but have a lot of issues with it nonetheless. Yet again the ending worries me because of what it might mean for future grishaverse shows, to begin with I absolutely love the idea of Alina being a more important character and adore the idea of an evil Alina arc also Mal being sturmhond makes me happy, I just like the idea of Mal and Alina being more present in future stories along with the fact that the end of the original felt to fairytale like and in my opinion didn’t fit the rest of the book my one big worry with Alina is that she will steal Zoya’s arc from king of scars duology which would be terrible I would much prefer a villain arc. As for other characters it seemed like they teased king of scars with Nikolai and I hope that he gets more development in that, Inej is the character that I fear for the most it’s just character development wise I don’t know where she goes from here and we haven’t even gotten six if crows yet.
Anyway there is a bunch more stuff I could talk about concerning the ending, character development, and differences compared to the book but this post is already long enough and I’m tired so I will just say that overall I really liked this show and am excited to see what comes next, it has a lot of issues and doesn’t at all stick to the source material but honestly I think it’s better than the source material at least when talking about the original shadow and bone trilogy, however when it comes to future seasons I think they need to be more careful about the characters and how closely they stick to the source material.
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number63liveblogs · 2 years
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Shadow and Bone: Chapter 11
Like. I understand the jealousy, obviously. Every other Grisha has worked their whole life to hone their powers, and due to a quirk of birth here’s a new girl who gets all the attention without having done much to deserve it. Feeling jealous about that happening makes total sense.
And the “logical” thing to do if you want power is to get buddy-buddy with the new girl, because she needs someone to show her around and that way she can say good things about you to the people whose ear she has. And if you think that she’s going to fail and lose favor, well, then you should just stay far away from her so that the fallout doesn’t catch you.
But why the fuck does Zoya start bullying Alina? The Darkling clearly likes her, and if there was a conflict between them, I see no reason why Zoya wouldn’t be the one who would find herself shipped off somewhere to keep Alina happy, not the other way around.
Has she gotten her way thus far, so that she can’t imagine actually seeing consequences for her actions? Is she self-centered enough that she thinks that because she sees Alina as having lower status than her then everyone else agrees with her? I think I just find it really hard to imagine that someone with this little political savvy got the position she got to, or at least it says really bad things about the whole system.
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catgirlcommie · 3 years
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i think it would be really funny if magia record had a bigger fanbase and alina was woobiefed
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cto10121 · 3 years
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I read your post about the malina’s lack of romantic tension. Do you think darklina’s romantic tension/chemistry was done better overal or even worse than malina?
There is no comparison. The chemistry between show Darklina is electric, on fire, completely immaculate. Their dynamic is portrayed as much more mutual than in the books. And that kiss was one of the best kisses I’ve seen on screen in recent years. Show Malina is mostly a friendship chemistry despite the attractiveness of the actors. Their dynamic feels more platonic and found family, more like how Harry-Hermione should have been in the movies. The fact that though Alina is bolder and more adventurous in this version, enough to want to sleep with the Darkling, yet does not make the first move with Mal despite no obstacles, is telling. The conclusion is that she is not attracted to Mal that way, and her line to the Darkling, “We could have had this, all of this,” confirms that she would have chosen him over Mal. In a way, this is a bad thing, since Malina are the endgame couple and Darklina the decoy. The Darkling is supposed to be a villain; the show’s decision to humanize him only made him a stronger romantic interest for Alina. There the similarities between them were much more evident.
In the books, Bardugo deliberately limited the amount of page time the Darkling got post S&B for a good reason: Every time he appeared the narrative would perk up like a tulip in water. Despite the Darkling’s descent into Disney villainy, Book Alina as much as admits she still likes the Darkling, acknowledges their connection and similarity, is tempted by him, and their scenes carry an erotic charge, the possibility of going further. Book Malina does have many reasons as to why they cannot be together, mostly psychological: In the beginning Alina thinks Mal doesn’t like her romantically, and he flirts and fools around plenty. Then months later he treats her with almost withering disdain at the Little Palace. On the run he admits his romantic feelings for her, which took him by surprise, I suppose. After they get together Mal struggles with accepting her powers and new role in her life, and Alina…still laments that he doesn’t want her, though now it’s for a different, nobler reason. It’s all a tiresome, contrived cycle, and the few erotic moments they have together can’t make up for all of this runaround. They feel like an ill-matched married couple both bad at communicating and emotionally cheating and lowkey cheating on each other. The only way to have kept them together is for Alina to lose her powers altogether, which pretty much everyone agrees was the worst possible ending that could have happened.
Some romantic couples work because each has something the other needs. The Darkling is noble-minded, but because of the centuries he is too focused on the Big Picture and loses some sense of the individual lives, and so can be ruthless and amoral in their pursuit. Alina is narrow-minded, myopic, focused on the individual for better and worse, and does not really understand the Big Picture of Grisha oppression and politics in general. There is that true balance of perspectives, and equality in power. And their attraction to each other is strong and mutual in a way Malina was not (Alina pining after the emotionally unavailable Mal). Their powers are both rare and they are both de facto immortal. Mal and Alina work as found family, but they are in the end two different people that should not have been a couple.
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yesimwriting · 3 years
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Searing Starlight (chapter 3)
A/n I CANNOT believe how many people have supported this story,, I’m so excited to continue it with you guys :)) 
Just a reminder that while this is based off the show i hope to blend in some book aspects/vibes and this is just a fanfic and it won’t be completely accurate/follow the show 100% and any changes I make/parts I chose not to focus on are for the sake of the story I’m trying to tell 
-- 
I can’t tell if I wish Kaz had let me go with Inej or not. She’s faster than I am, and considering that I have no real reason to be loyal to them, I’m a flight risk. That means I’m stuck here with only the Kaz Brekker and Jesper, who I tricked. I hadn’t exactly befriended Inej entirely in the few minutes I was alone with her, but she seemed more trustworthy than them. More susceptible to reason. And when she heard where I was from, who was responsible for raising me, something in the way she watched me changed. It was the oddest combination--a look of both tired sympathy and cautious admiration.
“What I don’t understand…” Jesper breaks the silence. “Is why you all go back there. He lets you leave, he gives you money--there’s no reason to return.” 
I try not to let the question anger me. I shift awkwardly, scratching at my palm. “We tried leaving.” My stomach knots. “Once.” How do I make them understand? “He caught us because we young and stupid, and then he…” I exhale slowly. They’re just words. They don’t change anything. Whether I speak them or not, the events of my history aren’t different. “He picked the youngest, a girl only six months younger than me, and he slit her throat from ear to ear and took a finger of anyone that flinched as her blood splattered onto them. He said her blood was our penance and to live with knowing what we did to her would be our punishment.” 
I don’t tell them that I was twelve. I don’t tell them Anya lied about my birthday on the records. I don’t tell them I’m missing the very tip of my pinky--a small punishment for the twitch of my lip. “When Kenya is truly angry, he never hurts you--he hurts those around you.” No one responds to that. They’re making me seem like such a bummer. “It’s not awful all the time...he borders on agreeable when you listen to him.” 
Most days we have peace, left to our own devices as long as we accomplish certain goals. Their silence does little to unnerve me. After speaking so freely of such a nightmare, the desire to be rid of the taste of those words from my mouth is almost overwhelming, but I hold to the silence. 
“Why has he never sold you to the grisha that are so desperate for you?”
Of course Kaz Brekker would ask a question like that. “He isn’t the business of money, he’s in the business of creating gods. He indentures people he thinks could one day become saints or something else entirely. He wants to be owed by the heavens.” 
I watch Kaz carefully, a part of me curious about how someone like him could react to a goal like that. I can see him understanding the ambition of it all, but I can’t imagine himself a person of faith. Perhaps he’ll think it a clever trick. Perhaps he’ll even agree with Kenya.
He nods once; something I get nothing from. 
Whatever. He can be coy and distant this entire time. They all can. I’ll be out of here soon enough, and I’ll find Anya. And if I can stop something bad from happening to Alina then that’s a bonus I’m willing to take risks for. 
“That man is awful.” 
Inej’s voice comes from right behind me. I snap my head around. “You’re in here.” 
She nods once, oblivious to how shocking her sudden appearance is. She hands me a knapsack casually, staring at Kaz. “What’s the plan? We have six hours.” 
I look around the room, only seeing one closed window and one closed door. “There’s one door in this room.” 
“We take the Inferni to the ship.” He doesn’t even bother looking in my direction. 
Okay, they can be mean to be all they want but they can’t ignore me. I don’t think I’ve ever been ignored in my entire life. Gods in the making get attention. It may be the cruel attention of fate, but it’s something. 
“Did she come in through the window?” 
Again, I am ignored. 
“And then what, boss?” Jesper casually crosses the room, sitting down next to me on the small couch. It’s like I’m not even here. “We’d need to break into the Little Palace to get Alina.” 
What? “You guys are going to--” No. No. I am not kidnapping Alina. And there’s no way she’d be in the Little Palace. “First off--if you want to kidnap Alina Starkov for whatever insane ploy you’re all playing at, you’d never find her at Little Palace. She’s not a Grisha and second--” I cut myself off, standing from my seat. “Why am I even telling you this? I shouldn’t be helping you kidnap her.” 
Kaz’s eyes dart to me boredly. At least it’s some kind of acknowledgement of my existence. “I thought you two weren’t close.” 
I seriously consider scorching him. Just a little. Not even enough to scar him, just enough to get him to shut up. “She’s still a person who has a right to her body and what happens to it.” 
“Not that it’s any of your concern, but if we pull this off we get one million kruge.” 
What does he think I’m going to say? ‘Okay, well as long as you’re doing it for a good reason.’ Is that the response he expects. “Okay, well that makes it fair.” 
His eyes narrow skeptically, but Jesper is the one to ask, “Really?” 
“No,” I scoff, slumping back into my seat, “I was being sarcastic.” 
I drop my head back, neck craning over the back of the small couch. It isn’t exactly comfortable, but at least it makes it easier to ignore them. I’ve kept worse company for less. There’s an odd silence for a long second. I look forward without moving, I see Kaz vaguely gesture in Inej’s direction.
“Y/n,” Inej’s voice is refreshingly measured, “I think after the kinds of things we’ve gone through we understand that there’s some relativity in morality.” 
I shift my head to the right so I can look at her. “...Yes, but you’re just forcing another girl into a similar situation.” Why is Alina even worth so much? “And why would anyone pay so much for Alina?” 
Inej hesitates, glancing at Kaz and then back at me. “She’s a Sun Summoner.” 
On instinct, I straighten entirely, my body rigid. They’re insane. “You all are cracked if you think Alina’s a Sun Summoner.” No. No. It couldn’t be her. “Bless your hearts, seriously, she’s--she was trained to be a map maker--she’s not…” None of them relax, none of them shift in any way. What good would lying about this bring them? They have no reason to lie about this. “Saints, I should have had more to drink while downstairs.” 
So what if she’s a Sun Summoner? She didn’t ask to be one. She doesn’t deserve this. I cross my arms. “It doesn’t make this okay.” 
“And would it make it okay if you were getting a cut of the profit?” What? 
Kaz is looking at me in that tactful way. It takes all of my focus to not let myself become unnerved. “What?” 
“If I offered you a cut, would you be able to push aside more protests in order to make working with you easier?” 
Could I do it? Could I betray Alina? I drop my gaze away from his, opting to focus on the forgotten lantern on the coffee table in front of me. It flickers to life with no conscious prompting on my part. The flame is low and blue. Still though, Kaz notices it. What doesn’t he notice? 
“I can help you do what I agreed to.” I swallow around a lump in my throat, “But I cannot help you kidnap Alina.” 
The corner of his mouth tugs downwards. “We’re just going to get her to work with us.” 
“Work with you?” 
“We never said anything about taking her, and if Alina is really your friend you should know that the entire world is after her. Better us who can get her out of an unwanted situation quickly than the brutal General Kirigan who will hold her hostage until she does what he wants.” 
...I guess he has a point. “Oh.” I’m not naive enough to think that their methods will revolve around making Alina comfortable, but perhaps it’s not as dark as I assumed. “Maybe I was a little quick to assume…” I trail off awkwardly, looking at Inej for some type of reassurance. She avoids my gaze. 
I scratch the back of my arm, feeling like a spiraling child. I pick up my knapsack and place it on my lap, fiddling with the strap. 
“Come on,” Kaz stands, adjusting his grip on his cane, “We only have until sunrise.” 
As I stand, I pull down the skirt of my dress, suddenly aware of how inappropriate my clothing is for this late in the night. “Can--can I change first?” 
It’s a sheepish question, leaving me feeling like a child. 
“Five minutes,” Kaz offers, stepping out of the room with the rest of them. 
Inej leaves last, feet more silent than a cat. She offers me the tiniest hint of a smile. Despite my reservations, I beam at her. Something about me finds her politeness endearing despite it all. I think she closes the door loudly on purpose, to assure me of privacy. 
Normally changing in a building so full of drunk men would leave me nervous, but knowing Inej is outside leaves me feeling safe. I may not trust her with my life but something about her being tells me she values personal autonomy enough to protect it. 
I sift through the belongings Inej brought me. Clean underwear I try not think of her searching for, a thin white dress, comfortable pants, shorts, a few casual shirts, my red hood, and a nightgown. When I get to the bottom of the bag, and I see the personal belongings Inej smuggled back for me, I’m moved so powerfully my hand flies to my mouth on instinct. She had brought the folded up piece of paper with the only information I’ve been able to find about Kamil, the book I left on my nightstand, the small candle holder Alina had given me the day before I was taken away, the blade Mal had given me the day I left, the deck of playing cards Anya had first taught me to play with, and my mother’s necklace. The silver north star on a long chain. 
Before I can become too emotional, I take off the Crow’s Club T-shirt Inej had given me when I looked cold. I change into black pants, tucking the small blade Mal had given me into the pocket. The shirt I put on is pale blue, breaking the dark theme of everything around me. I fasten my red hood over my shoulders, basking in the familiar fabric. Lastly, I pull the north star necklace over my head, watching the blue orb with a black dot at its center blink at me in the light. I always found the stone at the pendant’s center odd. I'm quick to walk towards the door, nervous about what wasting their time could mean. 
“Let’s do this,” I sigh, pushing open the door. 
They all pause. Or maybe they were never moving. I try to imagine them interacting normally, but it’s hard to picture them as anything but intense and unflinching. There’s something odd about them, though, Jesper practically sulking and Kaz dropping his head despite Inej’s harsh stare.
“What kind of stone is in your necklace?” 
I swear to the Saints that if Kaz Brekker tries to steal it I’ll melt those leather gloves into his hands. “Try to take it and--” 
“That’s what I get for trying to make ‘polite conversation.’” He throws a look at Inej as he speaks the last two words. 
Wait--did Inej tell him to try to make polite conversation? Wait--more importantly, did he just kind of, almost say something that borders on casual? 
Wrinkling my nose, I let out a slight sigh. “Sorry.” 
His eyebrows draw together quizzically. “Did you just apologize for assuming I’d steal from you?” 
Great. Now I’m fully embarrassed. “Can we just go?” 
“Not before meeting me, I hope.” The stranger’s voice means nothing to me, but the others tense at it immediately. What? The man continues to walk forward, his steps too casual and confident for me to trust. The stranger is quick to respond to the question on my face, “Pekka Rollins.” 
--
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greensaplinggrace · 3 years
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honestly THANK YOU for saying all that abt baghra bc i thought i was going crazy from not liking her??? bc i haven't read the books and only summaries of them on wiki and like. i dunno why ppl like her actually even in the show bc this guy, her son, is like "i wanna make the world better for us grisha" and she's just like "no." even tho he sees that she's MAKING HERSELF SICK from suppressing her powers! she's literally like in bed coughing in the flashback yet seem much healthier at the little palace. also like after everything, after her disapproval, after the fold, after centuries of waiting for the sun summoner.. he never abandons her. he makes sure she's cares for. he doesn't harm her. and i have to wonder if baghra has ever thanks him for that, for just not leaving her alone. like i dunno how im suppose ro believe aleks is a heartless villain when he still cares for his abusive mom like this. like has baghra even told her she loved him (honestly she reminds me of a classic emotionally unavailable asian parent but maybe that's just me). also im wondering if baghra ever told aleks that he had an aunt.. bc like.. now that u bring up her isolating him it's like hmmmm...
not at me being like alina... why do u trust the bitter old woman who literally beats u with a stick and verbally abuses u every chance she gets.. just bc she showed a bad painting... like.. pls use two braincells to see that who u figured out as his mother... is also using his protection..
like baghra could've upped and left with alina. but no. she stayed bc she knew she was safe under aleks's protection.
alsoim just impressed that after his first friend tried to drown him and harvest his bones... he didn't go into hiding???? he still wanted to make a safe heaven for grisha!!! HE STILL WANTED TO PROTECT GRISHA EVEN AFTER HIS GRISHA FRIEND TRIED TO KILL HIM FOR HIS FUCKEN BONES. like... this is the guy im suppose to believe is the villain???
honestly i feel like part of the reason why LB's plotlines seem so bad and disconnected (and sometimes outright racist but that's another rant) and why darkles is disproportionately more violent and villainous in the later books is bc she didn't expect the darkling to be so popular and wanted to stick with her guns of making him the villain. but also wanted the money from aleks's popularity. but like you can't have ur cake and eat it too.
Well thank you for sending this ask! It's very sweet and very passionate. I'm glad you liked my post! I didn't put as much thought into it as some of my others lol. I kind of just talked. But it was nice to be able to finally talk about some of the problems I have with both her character and the fandom/author's perception of her.
HERE is the post this is referring to, in case anyone's wondering.
👀👀 You've hit the nail on the head for so many things, here!
Baghra is extremely emotionally unavailable, basically to the point of neglect. She's also verbally and physically abusive, traits which I doubt were only reserved for her students and not her son. Baghra claims she would do anything to protect him, but I've known a lot of parents who have that mindset and yet still harm their children because they think it's "good for them".
Aleksander stays at Baghra's side for years, and even when they're opposing each other she's never too far away from him. Idk if you've read the books but he does eventually hurt her. And as much as I don't like Baghra, I think his actions were horrid. But I'm also honestly kind of surprised it took him so long lmao.
Yeah I mean, in terms of isolation, let's not forget that she never wanted to introduce him to his father, either. Baghra's sense of eternity clouds a lot of her judgments on relationships, which means she views most people as dust and therefore teaches her son to as well. The problem with that is that he's a growing child, and he needs those social and emotional attachments for healthy development.
I would bet quite a bit of money that Baghra has either never told him she loves him or she has told him so few times it's practically forgettable.
And everything becomes more complicated because so many of Baghra's actions are understandable because of her life and her history, but the impacts they have on the people around her, especially Aleksander, are permanently damaging. And the fact that that's never gone over in critical depth in the books or how it's glossed over in fandom is just very disconcerting. Like, acknowledging Baghra's failings doesn't mean we're excusing Aleksander's actions, it just means we're holding Baghra liable for her own. Which the fandom should be doing, considering she's the epitome of an abusive parental figure.
And Alina trusting Baghra over Aleksander is even more confusing! Especially in the show!! This is the woman who beat her and abused her and tortured her friends when they tiny little children (and who probably still does so now that they're adults). This is the woman who mocks you and harasses you and insults you on a regular basis. Why does Baghra revealing she's Aleksander's mother make Alina change her mind?! Like fuck, I'd just feel bad for Aleksander. No wonder he kept it a secret, I would too! And that painting is enough evidence?! Really?! A random painting shown to you by this abusive mentor that's been making your life hell. That's what you're going to betray your new lover over?
The friends trying to harvest his bones thing is a good point, too. I think Aleksander, especially show Aleksander, is incredibly idealistic. I think he cares too much for others - those he's deemed worth his care (a sentiment given to him by Baghra). Despite everything she's tried to teach him about hiding and abandoning others and never caring and never doing anything to help or reach out or connect with people, Aleksander still continues to do so. It's likely because he never got it from Baghra growing up, and so is desperate for those emotional needs to be fulfilled elsewhere.
His turning point, when Baghra tells him it was understandable that those kids tried to kill him because the world is such a hard place for them - that's crucial. And the reason it's possible as a motivating factor is because of that idealism and that desire to help and that desire to be everything his mother isn't. Baghra tells him this trauma he just experienced was because of the oppression of his people, and instead of following her lead and accepting that, going into hiding and abandoning everybody to their misery, he goes I can do something about that. I can make it so this never happens again. Which is usually how trauma like that combines with one's core personality traits at a young age, especially when there's none of the essential support systems in place to aid in recovery (ie, the role Baghra should have been filling but wasn't, because she decided to exacerbate the problem instead).
And yeah, one of my biggest problems with the ham-fisted "beating you over the head with a sledgehammer of evil deeds" look-how-bad-this-character-is! portrayal of the Darkling in the later books comes from the impression I get that Bardugo doesn't trust her readers. She's so desperate to have us hate this character and think him an irredeemable villain, not trusting any of her readers to engage critically with a morally gray character, that it feels quite a bit like condescending fucking bullshit. Which ew, I know how to engage with literature, thanks.
She really does seem to look down on a large part of her fandom, and imo, the infantilization of the female characters in her books seems to carry over to her impression of most of her female readers as well. Which is why the Darkling's character arc gets fucking destroyed. But he's still a good cash grab, of course, so she'll shake his dead corpse in front of the fandom for money every time she wants something from it.
Also! Another reason I think her plotlines feel disconnected (I'm sorry Bardugo I respect you as a person, but shit-) is because the writing in SaB is just bad. I mean, nevermind the absolutely nauseating implications of the way she portrays the Grisha as a persecuted group who's situation is never actually fully addressed as it should be, considering Grisha rights is what her main villain is fighting for (imo for a series called the Grishaverse, LB seems to be pretty anti Grisha), but her characters and story alone are just wrong for each other. They don't fit together.
And the ending is one of the main pieces of evidence in that regard! You can’t say the ending where Alina isn’t Grisha anymore is her “going back to where she started” when she’s always been Grisha. She just didn’t know she was Grisha because she denied that part of herself that she was born with.
Alina is reluctant to move forward or change, she struggles with adapting, and she’s very set on the things she’s grown attached to throughout her life. She also has some latent prejudices against the Grisha, and so denies the possibility of being Grisha for those reasons as well.
Alina’s lack of powers in the beginning of her life because she willfully doesn’t learn about them to avoid change versus her lack of powers at the end of the book when she’s accepted them and then they’re stripped away from her by outer forces are two entirely separate circumstances. You can’t make a parallel about lost powers and lack of Grisha status bringing her back to the start when she was always Grisha and she always had powers and she simply refused to come to terms with it because of personal reasons.
The first situation is an internal conflict that indicates a story about growth and a journey of self acceptance. Denying herself the opportunity to learn about her heritage and to find acceptance with a group of people like her because she’s tied to the past and because of the way she was raised is the setup for a narrative that tackles unlearning prejudice and learning how to connect with a part of her identity that was denied her and learning how to grow independent and self assured. It’s the setup for a different story entirely. The second situation is an external conflict that centers around the ‘corrupting influence of power’... for some reason.
In a world where Grisha do not have social, political, or economic power and they are hunted, centering your heroine’s journey of self acceptance and growth around an external conflict about... the corrupting influence of power (in a group of people that don’t actually have any power?!) just doesn’t work. It is literally impossible to connect the two stories Bardugo is trying to push in Shadow and Bone without seriously damaging the main character’s developmental arc.
The only way a narrative like this would work, claiming that she has gone back to where she started, is either a) if the Grisha weren’t actually a persecuted group and instead were apart of the upper class, or b) if the one bad connection between the two instances is acknowledged - that Alina denied a part of herself crucial to self acceptance and growing up, and that losing her powers at the end has also denied her. It is a tragedy, not a happy ending.
Alina suffered because she didn’t use her powers. She grew sick. It was bad for her. This was not a resistance to 'the corruption of power and the burden of greed', it was her suffering because she couldn’t fully accept herself.
Framing the ending as a return to the beginning can’t be done if you don’t address how bad the beginning was for your main character. You brought her back to a bad point in her life. You regressed her. This should be a low point in her arc. It should be a problem that’s solved so she can finish developing organically or it should be something that is acknowledged as a tragedy in it’s own right, for the future the world (the writing) denied her.
This is a ramble and it makes no sense and I’m really sorry, but my point is that Bardugo put the wrong characters in the wrong story. The character arc required for organic development doesn’t match the story and intended message at all. The narrative doesn’t fit the cast. She's got two clashing stories attempting to work in tandem and she ends up with both conflicting messages that fans still can’t comprehend in her writing and an ending that doesn’t suit her main character to such an impossible degree that it’s almost laughable.
So yeah, there's a few reasons why I think the story and the plot feels so bad and disconnected. I hope you don't mind me making this answer so long! 😅 I was not expecting to write this much.
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thewhitefluffyhat · 2 years
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Alikari Halloween Part 2 Ramble
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Have you ever wanted to lock two fictional characters in a room and not let them leave until they talked out their problems? This event is literally just that, and not even trying to hide it!
...Naturally, since Alina is involved, it still manages to go terribly!
I mentioned in my post on Part 1 of the event that the situation could have gone very wrong and very deadly, and what do you know, that's exactly what happens.
And I don't hate it? Arc 1 Main Story Alina goes all-in on the evil, but what makes villain Alina interesting to me is the ways in which she still does have a consistent set of values she follows, they're just very divorced from normal morality.
("Only the artist is allowed to destroy their own art," "Alina doesn't lie" - stuff like that.)
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But yeah, even with memory loss, if you trap Alina in a room and suggest that killing someone will allow her to escape, she has no reservations about doing so. If anything, I'm kind of surprised that it wasn't her first thought.
Hotaru being so lazy she barely gives a damn when Alina tries (and is stopped by Karin) is pretty funny too. I was initially unsure why Hotaru was here, but her apathy isn't a bad addition to the comedy dynamic.
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Moeka and Akari, I'm not as sold on. Though Moeka gets some decent mileage out of being the only person around besides Karin with functional social skills who can stand Alina long enough to attempt to *teach* her those skills.
Yes, in case there was any doubt, Alina's lack of social skills is entirely genuine. Which presents a bit of a problem when the girls realize that to undo one of Karin’s commands, they have to convince Karin that Alina has changed for the better.
Moeka has to tell Alina to try things like "smiling" and "maybe call Karin by her real name for once." But Karin sees through the act immediately of course.
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Anyway, once again, I'm looking forward to the full translation. Even just on my own, I noticed quite a few callbacks to bits of Alina's non-Main Story characterization. The "Alina doesn't care if Alina is kind or not. I just do what I want," pictured above, for example.
There's also some interesting stuff in here about Alina not wanting or understanding what Karin wants to change about her.
And there's even a very dark callback to that "Only the artist is allowed to destroy their own art," when Alina finally runs out of patience and gets the idea to kill Karin. Because as of Arc 2, Alina considers Karin one of her artworks, for some reason.
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So yeah, Alina's now considered murdering Karin.
Before Alina can actually do anything, though, Karin winds up feeling so bad she preemptively deletes herself via another command. I guess that's one way to turn the situation around! Goodness these two are a mess.
(One day I will find an OTP that doesn't involve the characters trying to kill each other occasionally but evidently that will not be AliKari!! XD)
Anyway this is a comedy event, so of course everyone finds a way to rules lawyer Karin's command and bring her back.
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In the meantime we get more silly shenanigans, including a flip of the first half of the event. While Part 1 involved Karin turning the dream familiars into Alina copies so she could role play Alina saving everyone from a witch, in Part 2, there's a segment where the girls all try to tempt Karin back out by pretending to be having fun doing Halloween things alongside some Karin copies.
It doesn't work, though. The actual solution is to have Alina say she forgives Karin for annoying her.
Then Karin accidentally summons the event boss by sleeptalking another command, at which point everyone gets fed up and Hotaru suggests Alina duct tape Karin's mouth shut.
...I've seen Alina compared to Erika Furudo from Umineko before, so that little detail really made me laugh. I, Alina Gray, finally have duct tape!
Anyway, as cruel as that is, it actually allows everyone to escape, so uh. Useful stuff, duct tape.
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Overall Thoughts?
The event really does keep up the "this is funny until you think about it more and then it's pretty dark" tone up until the very end.
I remember being quite down on the RikaRen Christmas event, since even though it did involve them solving a minor relationship problem between them, it felt like treading water rather than progressing character arcs. But Alina and Karin genuinely do have a lot of problems in their relationship that would need to be resolved for AliKari to even slightly work. So this kind of story feels a lot more justified and necessary.
Except that it actually ends with their relationship even more messed up than before?
Like, you know how in Alina and Karin's Magical Girl Stories, they both struggle on their own but when they're together, they manage to bring out the best in each other? Alina forcing Karin to be honest with herself and Karin reminding Alina that she's human?
This event is the opposite of that. It's a story about how Alina and Karin can also bring the absolute worst out of each other instead. Alina's stubbornness and disinterest in even the bare minimum of kindness drives Karin to increasingly wild measures and despair over changing her, and Karin's pushiness and inability to stop making things worse eventually backs Alina into a corner to the point that she starts trying to delete people again.
And by the end of the event, they still haven't learned anything.
Karin's conclusion has her getting inspired to write a "The Redemption of Alina Gray" manga, looking to Magical Kirin for inspiration. She just keeps digging her delusional hole deeper.
Meanwhile Alina hasn't actually changed for the better. One of the central questions the event explores is "Can you redeem a villain who doesn't want to be redeemed?" And the answer it ends on is... no, but you sure can break her will enough that she'll learn to lie convincingly to please you!
Hey, uh, you know how Alina could be pretty terrible, but at least she didn't really have the capacity to lie or fake her intentions? Great, now we've taught her to do that! What could possibly go wrong?
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vanilla-vivillon · 3 years
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So since y’all seemed to like Kanej kid, let’s do Zoyalai kid. Also David isn’t dead in this because it is to sad
||ROW SPOILERS||
TW, this has brief mentions of infertility and describes labor, nothing to graphic just talks about how painful it is
After the wedding zoya and Nikolai were both excited to start a family
Nikolai; while he adores his sister Linnea and his father, never really was able to grow up in a loving household
He never wanted that for his children
He and Vasily had a horrible relationship growing up and he wanted to di everything in his power to make sure his kids had a healthy sibling relationship
Zoya on the other hand never really thought she’d have kids
Before everything went down she kinda assumed she’d work as a general and work to help Grisha
She never thought she’d have children
That obviously had to change
The country needed heirs
Zoya already decided that since she was probably gonna live a loooooong time, when her heir came of age she would step down; that way she wouldn’t love for a super long time.
Now that Zoya was gonna have children she wasn’t honestly sure about
What if they hold her back?
What if she gives up to many duties for them?
But higher the all these other worries she didn’t want to turn into her own mother
No matter how much Nikolai assured her that never will happen
Zoya still had worries
Zoya was a lot of things but motherly she was not
Nevertheless in February Zoya and Nikolai told there friends they were expecting
They were all incredibly happy for them
Tamar loved children although she herself didn’t want any and couldn’t wait to teach the kid things like how to ride a horse or shoot
Tolya objected saying the kid should be well educated on poatry and great works that way the Nazyalensky dynasty might be somewhat pious
Genya was hoping for a girl. Genya and David had there son Forrest earlier that year and Genya was already planning play dates
David was happy for his friends and had already started on projects for toys for the kid
When they wrote Mal and Alina they were ecstatic
While Mal gave tips on how to handle babies to Nikolai
Alina with her wiles and years of friendship with Zoya figured out all the way from Keramzin Zoya was worried
She wrote “Zoya babe imma cut to the chase, your nervous, your scared, your probably worried you’ll turn out to be a horrible mother. And imma tell you your not. Cause you’ve got an amazing freaking team. You’ve got Nikolai, Magnus, Linnea, and Genya and David, the twins, and of course myself. There’s no way in hell we’d let you turn out horrible to the kid. We’ve got you”
It helped Zoya a lot
She decided it was orphan wiles that Alina used to diagnose her exact problem from the letter she wrote to her
And Zoya did have wonderful people to help her
She wasn’t alone
Zoya had been trying to remember that more
Three months along Zoya was safely into Trmester two and it was time to tell the public
This was crucial to the monarchy
While zoya and Nikolai were popular
They needed an heir to convive people of the security of the nation
They made a public speech announcing the baby and Ravka went wild
If there’s one thing Ravkans know how to do it’s rally around babies
Letter came pouring in from name suggestions to old wives tales
They said Rosemary made the baby healthier
They said they should name there child Plumje
Well the Plumje comment was from some Kerch girl Zoya found strange but never mind that
The announcement was huge
The people had hope
Hope that wolves wouldn’t come knocking
Hope that there boys and girls wouldn’t be drafted
Hope for peace
While the people rejoiced Zoyas pregnancy was getting tougher
She had a easy enough first trimester but the second? That was rough
The morning sickness was bad
Her Healer; a no nonsense Fjerdan Women said that the vomiting wasn’t something that could be healed
And so Zoya suffered on
Zoya insisted on keeping her normal schedule
Her usual meetings with Grisha and the spy’s
Passive agressive letters to the Kerch
Aggressive aggressive letters to the shu
And trying to figure out whether or not there was a revolution group in the Wandering Isle
Zoyas schedule was already stressed and the baby wasn’t helping
Eventually her healer; Monika, put her foot down
“Your Magesty” She started “if you do not alleviate your stress I guarantee your pregnancy will be worse”
“Look Monika I can handle a little throw up”
Monika and Zoya attended the little palace together
While Monika was a healer and back then the animosity between corporalki and etherealki were high, they were friends
It was good to have a powerful healer in your corner when half the little palace hates you
And it was good to have a powerful squaller in your corner when your Fjerdan and in enemy territory
“Zoya you are endangering your child” Monika stated
By this statement Nikolai had enough
And zoya finally listened
Nikolai assumed some of her duties and Zoya started to feel a bit better
Her second trimester was stressful for there relationship
Nikolai had a hard time understanding zoya
And Zoyas fears started to grow
But they were a good couple
And they worked through tension before
Zoya opened up about her worries of being a competent queen with a child
She leaned on Nikolai more
And they worked together to fix the damage
By the end of her second trimester there relationship was healthier
And they thought the third couldn’t be as bad
In a way they were right
Her morning sickness while still present was significantly less then her second trimester
However I new thing arose
A question that everyone had been thinking
“What if the baby is Grisha?”
The Ravkans had accepted a Grisha queen
But a Grisha dynasty was another thing
Monika told them outright that the baby was probably Grisha
Being Grisha tended to run in families
And Zoya was fairly sure her paternal grandmother was also a squaller
The whole science of Grisha heritage wasn’t studied well
Most Grisha were in Ravka in the second army
And most of the soldiers don’t have children
Zoya also learned her new found ability to sense Grisha wasn’t fool proof
Sometimes she couldn’t tell at all
And in Genyas case of being somewhere between a corporalki and materialki, she couldn’t tell what she was
She also couldn’t sense anything in Forrest Kostyk
That meant they couldn’t rely on Zoyas power
Nikolai couldn’t help but think tracing heritage would be easier if he wasn’t a bastard
His mother’s line was easy
She was a Fjerdan princess so he could trace everything back from the very start
And from his mother not a drop of Grisha blood ran through his veins
His fathers got murky
Magnus didn’t come from nobility
He was self made
A self made orphan
So other then his father neither he nor Magnus knew anything about Grisha influence
Nevertheless they had other worries
Zoya was in her third trimester and was going to give birth any minute now
Zoya honestly didn’t think she would make it this far
And that has nothing to do with her fears of motherhood
Her own mother had four miscarriages
Pregnancy complications were common
Especially in Ravka where most couldn’t afford mediks
But now that the due date was fast approaching Zoya was in fact okay
Zoya can handle pain, she’s handled much worse
Labor was one of the least of her worries
The due date was October eighth
And on time and punctual Zoya went into labor during lunch
Nikolai joked it would be a good trait for a ruler to show up on time
However Zoya was in to much pain to think about a snarky retort
She had vastly underestimated how much this would hurt
The pain was blinding
But Zoya was strong enough to survive the fall
And so in 3:07 PM son October eighth
Prince Mycanae Juris Nazyalensky was born (prounounced My-kuh-nay-uh because I threw some random vowels together and made it a name)
Myca (My Kuh) for short
With a tuft of chocolate brown hair and beautiful hazel eyes he shone
Nikolai absolutely adored him
He would rock him and sing him lullabies
But mostly tell him stories
About the amazing Privateer Sturmhond
Of the allusive Juris
Of the little termite
Zoya in the other hand had a different approach to there newborn
When he first cried she was elated
Zoya didn’t hold back the tears of happiness and didn’t even swear the healers to secrecy after
Zoya was the epitome of
“Oh god it’s a baby, as I holding him wrong? Does he have the right clothes on? He’s so fragile and precious”
Monika had to tell her three times that Myca’s crib was fine for him and it wasn’t to hard
However the family’s elation was short lived
They were a family
But they were also the rulers of Ravka
And Ravka needed to see the face of there hope
Four hours after his birth Nikolai presented him before the nobility
Zoya still wasn’t feeling to great and Nikolai Insisted he could do it
This is what the Ravkans needed
The baby met stability
Met peace
For once in many years the people could lay down in there beds without fear
But to Zoya and Nikolai
There baby wasn’t a political tool
Or a savior
He was just a baby
A perfect
Small
Baby
This is what love does.
Im really proud of myself for accomplishing this. I worked really hard on it and to keep our characters in canon. My ask box is open and n do any Grishaverse asks
If this gets 25 likes I’ll do a part two 😉
I defo think Nikolai and Zoya would have more then one kid
Also I kid you not I couldn’t find any good names for the life of me so I eventually took a break and was doing my History homework when I was reading some old Greek thing and saw the word “Mycenae” and was like “Yeah I can massively mispronounce this and make it a name”
Here is part two https://dablackdahlia.tumblr.com/post/651104016423583744/the-black-dahlia
I also made a Kanej kid one here
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brutal-nemesis · 2 years
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E&T: A Night We Won’t Forget (Part 2)
I am a cat and your emotions are a ball of yarn (●'◡'●)💕 
←Previous - Masterlist - Next→
Ingredients: a little possessive/noncon touching (unsexy)
After that song ended, Erebus shooed Neteri off to go talk to Alina, and it was only until he found himself entirely alone that he realized that might not have been the best idea. Normally at parties, people were walking up to talk to him all the time, but here...no one even spared him a second glance. Well, he was rather hungry, and he should probably give those flatbreads Neteri suggested a try, since it’s not like they could taste bad. He wandered over to one of the food tables, scanning it for-there, that had to be them. He reached for one-
“Don’t eat that.”
“What?” Erebus looked up to see a girl about his age standing next to him, arms crossed as her green eyes bored into his.
“They’re terrible.” 
“But...I was told to eat them by my-my-uh...my sister. She said I had to eat at least five of them or I can’t say I had a good time.” He didn’t really know why sister was the first thing that came to mind, but he supposed the way Neteri doted on him was sort of sisterly, at least as far as he could guess as an only child. 
The girl raised an eyebrow. “Well she’s playing a mean trick on you, then.”
“I guess she would-well...” he could see Neteri doing that to mess with him, but they were both well aware that his tongue made anything taste good, so there wasn’t much point in trying to play a prank like that on him. He reached out and grabbed one. “I’ll take my chances. I trust her.”
“Your funeral,” she huffed, twirling a lock of her long, black hair around her finger as he took a bite. 
Despite her warning, he found it delicious, the perfect balance of spicy and sweet, and he could tell that wasn’t just because of his tongue. “This is fantastic,” he proclaimed after he swallowed. “You really don’t like it?” 
She glanced around furtively before leaning in slightly, her voice dropping in volume. “I don’t like them; I love them. Enough that I wanted all of them to myself. But you had to go and ruin that, mister…” she waved a hand expectantly.
“Uh...Erebus.”
“Mister Erebus. So now you’re in on this with me whether you like it or not. Do not tell anyone how good these are or they might end up all getting eaten and then we will both be sad all night. You feel me?”
“I get it, I get it, I wasn’t planning on telling anyone about them, anyway, since I don’t really...know anyone.”
“Of course you don’t.” He felt a bolt of fear shoot through him, did she know he was- “Nobody does at these sorts of things.” She fell silent for a moment as his anxiety subsided. “Shiori.”
“Huh?”
She sighed. “I’m Shiori. There, you know someone else now.”
“Oh. Um, it’s nice to meet you, Shiori.”
Just then, the music changed, the beat sounding a little faster. Shiori’s face broke out into a smile. “Oh yes, this is a fun song.”  Before Erebus knew what was happening, she’d grabbed his hand, pulling him slightly. “Come on, dance with me for this one.”
“Uh-alright.” He followed her to the dance floor, face flushing. Why was he even getting all nervous, he’d danced with plenty of girls in his time, and honestly there was less pressure this time since not as many people were paying attention to him, but something about her asking him to dance made his heart beat faster than it had any right to. He was able to calm himself once they started dancing, concentrating on the motions as much as he could. Shiori was quite a good dancer, a better match for him than Neteri since she wasn’t so ridiculously short. 
“So where are you from, Erebus?” Shiori asked after the song changed to a slower one.
He hesitated a second, but he decided to just tell the truth, though not all of it, in favor of getting caught in a lie. “I-I’m from Nathar. In Berké.”
“Oh, weren’t you recently conquered by Xerna? Is that why you’re here now?”
“Yes.” He fought to keep his voice calm, his expression neutral. “What about you?”
“Urtam! My fathers are merchants, though, so I’ve been all over.” Erebus nodded; they’d done trade with that small, coastal kingdom to the south.
“How cold does it get down there? Have you ever, uh, seen snow?” Part of him wanted to steer the conversation away from his life, and part of him really was curious. 
“Of course I have! It gets cold enough to snow most winters, but nothing you can’t handle, you know? Why, does it not snow in Berké?”
He shook his head. “Nope. I’ve never seen it before. I’ve always wanted to, though.”
“Huh. I usually find it annoying, myself, but I guess it is really pretty. Even once you get tired of it, you can’t help but love the sight of it blanketing everything in white.” She fell silent for a moment. “I don’t think I dislike it as much as I thought I did.”
Erebus laughed a bit. “Worth seeing, then?”
“For sure! I’ll make sure to throw some in your face if I’m with you so you can have the full experience.” She laughed at his confused face. “What, can’t handle a snowball fight?”
“Snowball fight?”
“Wow, you really are clueless. Okay, you pick up snow, make it into a ball, and then you just throw it at each other. It’s the great test of champions.” She smiled proudly. “I’ve got an impeccable record myself; I bet I’d make short work of a newbie like you.”
“I, uh, bet you could.” Oddly, he wasn’t too put-off by the possibility...At that, the song ended, and it was just then that Erebus realized how close they were standing. He felt himself turning red again-or maybe he’d been red the whole time and he was just getting redder-but soon enough she stepped back, though she didn’t let go of his hand.
“Come on, let’s get some more to eat. I didn’t get enough earlier.” After filling plates with a variety of food, including at least four of the little flatbreads each, they made their way out onto the patio. The sun had already set behind the wall of the cliff at the back of the palace, but the area was still bright, glowing lightstones set with smaller air minerals floating around up above. People milled about, but it was certainly less crowded here than it was inside. They managed to find a small, empty table and sat down to eat. Erebus tried to focus on his food, but he got caught up wondering what was prettier, the pink and gold streaks of clouds above them, or the girl sitting across from him. He...he could say that, but he didn’t know how to put it, or if it would come out right, he’d probably just embarrass himself. He’d never really tried to hit on a girl before, especially not one he didn’t know well-
“The Midnight Sun always looks so odd during twilight,” Shiori said, looking up at the cliff towering over them.
“Odd how?” Erebus had only seen it during the daytime before, when it was just some crystals set in a rock face, but now that it was starting to get dark out, it was beginning to glow, a sight he found quite captivating.
“Well, during the day, it’s a bunch of dark rocks in a wavy cliff, and at night, it’s a big shining...sun thing. But during twilight and dawn, it just looks...wrong? I don’t know...the fact that it’s glowing so faintly just seems off for some reason. Be bright or be nothing.”
“I guess that makes sense...I’ve never seen it at night, though, so I don’t know if I can judge.”
“You’ve never seen it at night?!” Shiori nearly jumped out of her seat. “So you’ve never even been here before tonight, huh?”
“Well, I...I’ve been to the city once before, but only during the day. So I’ve actually really been looking forward to being out here at night.”
“Well, in that case, let’s stay out here until it gets dark! I mean you can see it through the glass ceiling inside, but I feel like you need to be out here for the full effect.”
“Are you sure you’re alright with that? I-I don’t want to take you away from the party or the people you came here with or anything-”
She waved a hand. “Nah, I just came with my parents, and they’re off doing their own thing. Besides, I’m having fun with you!” She smiled warmly at him before glancing at the party inside. “I love just getting to know random people at these things, even if I end up never seeing them again. Because even if we’ll both forget tonight someday, it’s still fun right now, you know?”
“Yeah. I’m having a good time with you, too. So much that I...I don’t think I’ll ever forget tonight.” Erebus laughed a little as he smiled back at her, though inside he was grappling with the fact that he really would never see her again, that she would forget this night someday, that she would forget him. But it made sense, he thought, that she wouldn’t remember him over anyone else. There wasn’t really anything that made him special to her, he was just the guy she met because he ate the food she was trying to keep to herself, but part of him wanted so badly for someone to remember him like this, someone whose memory wasn’t tainted with the image of him chained to a post and screaming.
“You’re sweet.” She took one last bite of her food and stood, holding out her hand. “Come on, let’s go for a walk or something! I’ve heard this place has some cool gardens.”
“It does!” She raised an eyebrow as he took her hand and stood. “I-I saw when I visited here before. During the day.”
“Why were you in the palace?” 
“I...it’s a long story.” Thankfully, Shiori didn’t push it. They followed a path marked by the floating lightstones to one of the gardens, which ended up being the one with a large fountain (a word Erebus had learned since his trip into the city) that was full of Mydnar’s tears, brilliant blue flowers that floated on the water’s surface. Ordinarily, the fountain sprayed water straight up, but tonight, the stream split into eight and arced through the air, bouncing off of lightstones floating above the pool before raining down. Despite how beautiful it was, there weren’t too many other people here.
“Wow,” Shiori breathed, wonder glittering in her eyes. 
“Yeah.” Erebus found himself nearly speechless at the sight, and right then he was so incredibly grateful to be here, in this moment, with Shiori. He did his best to burn every detail of it into his mind, the way the water sparkled as it splashed, each delicate flower petal, the brilliance of the fading colors of sunset, Shiori’s beautiful smile, the shine of her long, dark hair, the feeling of her fingers against the back of his hand. He had to remember this, hold every little detail in his heart for forever, because the rest of forever was going to cold and empty and lonely and painful and this was maybe the last time that he’d-
“Are you alright, Erebus? You seem...sad.” Shiori looked up at him with concern as she gave his hand a squeeze.
“Yeah! Yeah, I’m alright I was just thinking about...It doesn’t matter, I-” he shook his head, stepping in front of her and holding out his other hand. “Will you dance with me?”
“Of course!” She placed his hand on her hip before laying hers on his shoulder. “Although...it’s kind of hard to hear the music from here, so I’m not exactly sure what dance we should do.”
“We could just sort of...dance slow?” Erebus offered, not really wanting to go back to the party quite yet. He knew they’d have to eventually, that he’d have to return to Neteri and his cell and the table, but for now he just wanted to pretend that they’d stay here forever, that there was nothing outside of this moment. That sentiment only strengthened as Shiori nodded and held him close as they started to sway gently.
He wasn’t sure how long they stayed like that, and part of him didn’t care. The only time he looked away from her for more than a moment was when the sun finally set, causing the Midnight Sun set in the cliff to flash brilliantly, showering them in bright crystalline light for a second before it settled to a warm, steady glow. It really was gorgeous, but the sight of that symbol alight...his chest throbbed slightly, and he turned away, doing his best to ignore it, focusing on Shiori’s warm hand in his, not cold cuffs encircling his wrists, on the sound of splashing water and quiet music, not the murmurings of a crowd, on her eyes looking at him with kindness, not with pity, of Xerna’s sun made of crystal, not metal.
They danced and laughed and walked around the garden and talked about little nothings, and he was able to forget everything but the present for once, holding onto every moment so tightly that his memories and anxieties for the future melted away, letting himself believe he was really just a regular person having a nice night, undeniably human without a care in the world. He’d go back to his home, sleep in a real bed, and when he woke up he could do as he pleased, he could see Shiori again tomorrow, and the day after, and-
“It’s getting kind of late, so we should probably head back, shouldn’t we?” Shiori’s question snapped him back to reality, and all the circumstances surrounding it. “Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been having a good time, but I don’t want my dads to think I went missing or something.”
“No, that makes sense; I should probably see what’s up with-with my sister, anyway. I don’t think she wanted to stay super long.” He’d known they were going to have to leave eventually, but it still killed him inside that this was over now, that he really couldn’t stay here forever. He tried to savor the last few moments of holding her hand as they walked back, hoping she didn’t feel him shaking slightly.
Once they were back inside, Erebus scanned the crowd for Neteri, which was a little difficult given how small she was, but at least he was relatively tall compared to most of the people here, so it evened out. Eventually, he spotted her just as she was saying goodbye to Alina. Once the other woman left, he waved to Neteri as her eyes wandered in his direction. Once she saw him, she smiled broadly and beckoned him over. He held up a finger and turned back to Shiori. “I see my sister so I’m going to go check in with her really quickly. I’ll be right back, just-”
“Aw, is that her? She’s so cute and tiny!” She looked back and forth between them. “You guys don’t look too much alike, huh?”
“We’re, uh, we get that a lot.”
“Well, regardless, I’d love to meet her! So let’s both-”
“N-no, that’s, um, she’s...she’s really awkward. Like really awkward and I don’t want her to say anything weird or try to embarrass me because she likes doing that so I’m just going to go talk to her really quickly and I’ll meet you right back here okay bye.” Erebus slipped away as soon as he was done talking, hoping Shiori wouldn’t follow. He knew Neteri would ruin things somehow if she talked to her, either by getting mad at her for touching her...her property without permission or unknowingly saying something that contradicted the story about himself that he’d told Shiori.
“There you are, Erebus! I was starting to get worried.” Neteri rubbed his arm, and he could somehow tell she wanted to touch him more possessively, but was restraining herself. “Why didn’t you bring your little girlfriend?” She smiled deviously, cocking her head.
“She’s not my-I didn’t want her to-”
“Aww, afraid I might steal her away?” She laughed at Erebus’s bewildered expression. “I’m just teasing, I get why you wouldn’t want her to meet me. Don’t go getting any ideas, though.” She reached up and cupped his cheek, stroking it with her thumb, and in that moment Erebus was very glad he’d said she was his sister. A gesture like that between anything but family or...or lovers...it would be weird. Still, he gently swatted her away after a moment, and she didn’t persist like usual. “Have you been having a good night?”
He smiled and nodded firmly. “I have, and not just because of those flatbreads, it’s been really…” His face fell. “It’s time to go, though, isn’t it?”
She smiled sadly. “Yeah, it is. But you can go say goodbye to her first. I’m not in a huge rush.”
“Thanks.” Erebus started to walk away, but he stopped and glanced back over his shoulder. “Did you have a good night, Neteri?”
“I did!” She blushed fiercely. “Alina and I, uh…” She clasped her hands in front of her mouth and squeezed her eyes shut. “Oh, I’ll tell you later.” Erebus smiled and shook his head before returning to Shiori, who had busied herself with a small plate of cream puffs. He took a deep breath as he got close, trying not to think about what saying goodbye to her meant. 
“What’s up, Erebus?” Shiori innocently looked up at him, holding out her plate. “Do you want one?”
“I-uh, sure, thanks.” It was so light and delicious and sweet, and he probably wouldn’t have something like this for a while-no, no, don’t think about it, don’t cry-
Shiori giggled. “You got cream on your nose, here.” She gently wiped it off with a handkerchief, and Erebus’s face burned red once again.
“Thanks. But, Shiori, I…” he cleared his throat, “I have to go now. Thank you for making this such an amazing night I had a lot of fun with you and I think you’re really pretty and I’m really glad I got to meet you.” He blurted it out with an embarrassing lack of eloquence, but he was too nervous and sad to do any better. Shiori didn’t seem to mind, looking up at him with a warm smile.
“I’m glad we met too, Erebus! You made this a night to remember; I had such a good time! In fact, I...” She set the plate down, turning back to him with a hopeful smile. “When can I see you again?”
Erebus froze, panic starting to worm its way into his mind. W-what was he supposed to say he wanted nothing more than to see her again but he-he-he was- “I-I would really love to meet up with you again, Shiori, I really would, but I...I can’t and I can’t explain why-it’s complicated and there’s nothing I can do.” He blinked away the tears that were rapidly forming in his eyes, fists clenching. 
Her face fell into a look of dejected confusion. “O-oh. Well, if you, uh, change your mind or whatever...how about you meet me by the fountain in the central square in three days’ time?” 
“I-okay.” His heart broke as he said it, at the thought of her waiting for him, her wanting to wait for him, scanning the crowd, her hopefulness dwindling away with the hours, but what was he supposed to say, that he didn’t want to see her again, that he didn’t like being with her, that she hadn’t made him feel normal and shamelessly happy for the first time in months, that he really wouldn’t mind just- “I won’t forget you, Shiori.” He stuck out his hand, trying to keep it steady. “And thank you again for a wonderful night.”
She took it tenderly, far more tenderly than she had any right to, and brought it up slightly. “And I won’t forget you, Erebus.” And then she leaned down, and for the briefest moment her lips were against his knuckle, and then she was gone, just like that, vanished, and he knew he would never see her again, that every fantasy he’d dreamt up over the past few hours would never come true, and maybe some part of him vanished with her, and there was another hand in his now, one that stroked him lovingly only a little more often than it held the blade that sliced his skin.
“Are you ready to go now, Erebus?”
“Y-yeah.” No no I’m not wait just another second-He curled his fingers around hers-please I don’t want this part of my life to be over I don’t want to say goodbye not yet not yet-and took one last look at the quieting party-please just one more moment I promise I’ll savor it just let me stay for a little longer-at all the smiling faces and glittering gold-I don’t want to let go I can’t I can’t why do I have to go please please let me stay here forever-the last few people on the dance floor wrapped in each other’s arms-why can’t I stay-as the rest trickled out-why does it have to end-
And then he turned around and followed Neteri, leaving the party behind. Leaving Shiori behind. Leaving his old life behind. Leaving Prince Erebus Arctas Fradier behind.
Now he was just Erebus, and he was just Neteri’s, and he’d never be anything more.
Extra -  Next→
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#i wrote something#erebus & terror#erebus#neteri#noncon touching#honestly at this point idk if its more like dubcon touching since erebus is starting to really like it when neteri touches him#its like his guilty pleasure. esp when she pets his head#yes i wrote this with the full intention of fucking destroying you. did it work#look at that erebus smiled at his reflection!!! everything in it is fake <3#this entire thing was inspired by some picrew livi rbed where you could make two people dancing#so ofc i made erebus and neteri dancing and i was like 👁 o shit#and then it devolved into this long giant mess of bittersweetness#we get the rare holofoil neteri without her lab coat 😳#now that she knows the eye color illusion spell she might use it on herself for fun#and FUCK we finally got to him asking her if they'd be friends if things were different (┬┬﹏┬┬)#and hey erebus gets to actually say goodbye to his old life cuz he never really had the chance to before#meet cute: she tries to trick you into not eating the good food so she can have more for herself#sorry if any of the romance stuff is weird i dont know what the fuck im doing!!! aromantic bitch hours#i simply stole all the vibes of aoi shiori and nirvana. mostly nirvana. thank you tia#but yes shiori is named that because i already associated the song with this whole thing and so when i named her it was the obvious choice#also i say that like i didnt write this while basically only listening to soundtracks produced by monaca#if you have seen me listening to banquet of death by crushing and confronting god in the forest on repeat: no you didn't <3
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