When I See People Fighting With Darklina Shippers I Wonder What They Took From The Shadow And Bone Trilogy.

When I see people fighting with darklina shippers I wonder what they took from the Shadow and Bone trilogy. And I don't mean the basic things like "he's a bad person". I mean the fact the story is at it's core a story on how different people process the struggles of war, and the outcome of their actions while doing so.

I wonder if they understand malina is not the good, healthy ship, but rather the result of two very young orphans who lost everything and everyone else and bonded on an unhealthy level, to the point where Alina is willing to give up parts of herself to fit Mal's insecurities.

It's not meant to be cute and fluffy. It just is. And in that sense, I wonder if they actually look at the darkling as the full character that Leigh worked her butt off to portray, past the "ewwww, this man is problematic". Especially in times like right now, where genocide and "how far is too far when you are responding to aggression" are being openly discussed by everyone.

Sure, it's easy to reduce the darkling to this toxic abuser. It fits a box you can check and not think about it later, but I find that to be a disservice to Leigh. So many of you are old enough to think about what makes a character tick, and the context that the story is giving you, regardless if you find the characters' actions justifiable or not, and I see so little of that nowadays in every fandom. Where is y'all's media literacy? Comprehension skills? The ability to reflect on such a complex universe as is the grishaverse?

People are allowed to ship the two characters that are opposite sides of the same coin, and grieve over the boy the darkling was and the man he could have been, before the weight of war destroyed him.

Alina certainly did.

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grishaverse the darkling grishanalyticritical

IT'S DRACULA SEASON

HERE WE GO, GIRLS! The feeling of déjà vu will be constant, but it will always feel like the first time. May it be a smooth journey for our good friend Jonathan Harker and may he be able to jot down as many recipes and interesting facts about his stay as possible to finally share with his beloved fiancée, Mina Murray.

We have been waiting for this moment for a long time and I am so excited!

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books dracula bram stoker dracula daily jonathan harker mina harker jonmina dracula 1897

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ladys-maria

6 months ago

Silly wee Jonathan Harker warmup sketch idk if I’ll ever finish

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dracula dracula daily re: dracula jonathan harker november 6th

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ladys-maria

8 months ago

okay my roman empire is how great could be tv show zoyalai played by patrick and sujaya. i mean they had only one scene where their characters look at each other and i already know that i would die for them

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ladys-maria

7 months ago

Just start, just take the first step and everything will flow...

gentle reminder you can rise up from everything. you can recreate yourself. nothing is permanent. you are not stuck. you have choices. you can think new thoughts. you can learn something new. you can create new habits. all that matters is that you decide today and never look back.

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mental health motivation college academia study inspiration

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ladys-maria

6 years ago

🍃🍃🌈🍃🍃

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ladys-maria

8 months ago

Rereading the Grisha trilogy I find myself wondering, as I go through the chapters of S&S and R&R, would there be a possibility that LB had Zoyalai in mind while creating the first three books? The interactions between both are nothing, we could count on our fingers the times when they are both in the same place or when Zoya asks something and Nikolai answers (and let's not forget when Alina told him who he should marry by putting "a Grisha like Zoya" as an option and he was TOTALLY aware of her presence). Maybe I'm too fascinated with my Zoyalai but I stop every time their names are close together in a paragraph, line by line, on the same page.

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grishaverse leigh bardugo shadow and bone nikolai lantsov zoya nazyalensky zoyalai nikolai x zoya

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ladys-maria

1 year ago

I'M DEVASTATED!!!!!! SO ANGRY!!!!!!

no mourners no funerals my ass. i’m mourning and i’m funeraling

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grishaverse shadow and bone zoyalai nikolai x zoya

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ladys-maria

1 year ago