#I fucking love villains and I adore toxic ships sue me to hell and back

[videcoeur]

Oh no, you're telling me the guy who designed a birdcage to kill absolutely everyone on the island is in a toxic relationship? Shocker

[pinkbarefacedbeauty]

The Darkling is Problematic

Ok, admittedly I haven’t gotten around reading the book yet. I was watching the show…for the 4th time, I just caught something. I guess I might be slow or something because I literally just caught what was said.

Everyone at this point knows that the Darkling is a pedophile simply off the fact that he is over centuries old by trying to mess with Alina.

I don’’t know what people’s obsession with old ass men messing with teenage girls. Like you don’t even have the girl be of legal age? Doesn’t make it any better but you don’t even want it to be a woman in her thirties or mid-twenties, at the very least??

Even worse, it is a known fact that these type of books and media are targeted to teenage girls and their exaggerated imagination. I remember being in my teens and thirsting after older men and books that I could imagine myself as this betty sue character who all the guys are fawning over. Like i’d take off my glasses and i’d be banging hot.(because in media wearing glasses always equated to ugliness for some reason. No, for real, the heroine would literally take off her glasses, put a little eyeliner and lip gloss and suddenly everyone loved her new revealing style. Overnight hottie.) Like there are actual adults writing and encouraging pedophilia.

Leigh Bardugo wrote possibly everything about the Darkling being creepy as fuck. She didn’t intend for the Darkling to end up with Alina. She made it known how toxic he was. Like even in the Netflix show, you see his background and feel like “awww, how sad” but that doesn’t change all the creepy and horrible shit he has done since then. In her book and show, it is very clear that she is not shipping the Darkling and Alina together. She is making the darkling as villainous as possible.

The Darkling reads Alina’s letters to Mal. This is not some high school boy who stupidly thinks that reading the diary of the girl he likes would bring him closer to her because he just so really likes her. 

This is a man who is over a century old invading the privacy of a 17 year old girl through reading her letters. He reads her letters to find information on how to manipulate her, and he does just that. He feeds her this boohoo story of how he was never accepted and how he was mistreated based on his ancestor’s actions (like she was mistreated because she was half-shu). Everything he does is to get her to only lean on him: the random horseback excursions, the gloves, the story, etc.

Classic abuser behavior (besides actual abuse like collaring her) is to try and make her feel isolated and dependent on him, cutting her off from the people that actually loves her. He tries and make it seem like he is the only person she can lean on.  There are literally people that find it adorable that not only did he read her letters to Mal, manipulate her with the information in those letters, but that he also never had her letters sent out to Mal. They say, “Omg, he’s jealous of Mal”, like…. no, Mal is an obstacle to his ability to have Alina under his thumb. He even uses the information that Mal gave him about her favorite flowers to then give said flowers to this naive, and love-starved little girl. You know what would have been a better present? Let Alina see Mal, her one true North (As he knows from creepily reading her letters).

Like y’all really want a man that cuts you off from your home and family, goes through your mail without permission, guilt trips you (everyone at Little Palace was doing so), abuses you, and makes you feel as  if you’re nothing without him???  People are really obsessed with toxicity nowadays. Like i’m honestly scared for this world. 

If he was actually caring for Alina and looking out for her best interest, he would have (1) let her letters be delivered and receive letters to and from Mal, (2) he would have let Alina see Mal. Everyone else in Little Palace receives letters from loved ones but her. He would have done everything to make sure her new residency made her feel welcomed. 

The excuse of locking her up in Little Palace was for protection from the rest of the world, which made sense as we watched/read about the Grisha hunters. That was like okay, there was no choice in order to protect her. But the rest of his actions are completely inexcusable. His mother basically said it might have started off with good intentions, but he is just power hungry. When you are at war, there is bound to be casualties, but he is treating the Grisha as expendable tools to get his revenge against the country. 

Not only does he pimp out Genya to the king, but like his own mother said, he has had centuries to master manipulating naive little girls. He literally told Zoya and Alina the same thing “You and I are going to change the world”. The scene I just noticed and was thrown off by because it was the most overt thing was when Zoya basically sexually propositioned the Darkling, because it usually took his mind off of whatever was bothering him. Like old times….LIKE OLD TIMES??! 

Now, Zoya’s age is listed as 19-20 in the first book. But her saying “like old times” doesn’t give me the impression of one year ago or hell even four years ago. It seems like a distant past. That would mean this man who is over a century old was messing around with Zoya while she was even younger than Alina’s age (17) in first book. He has messed with countless young/underage impressionable girls who felt like they had no one else to rely on. He is literally preying on children and people are…..shipping this?

People like to excuse when gross ass men mess with 17 year old girls because (1) they are 17 year old girls themselves and consider themselves grown and the man to be hot or (2) they think that since they are only one year from 18 that that makes them grown.. Like no, these are still children. Literally, most people don’t even fully mature until age 25, some people for longer. But seventeen, eighteen, nineteen….these are still teenagers. Children. Then people want to say, ‘well that’s how it was back then!!! blah blah blah’……so you decide to ship it rather the more healthy, legal and logical choice??

It’s like people will shame you for shaming them for liking pedophilia. Like if you know it is gross as hell and you ship it, how can you blame others for shaming you? People like to call it kink-shaming. But I think that just diverts attention away from the issue. This is not shaming someone for liking to be spanked or their hair pulled. This is shaming grown ass men and women for encouraging pedophilia.

If he looked like Jason Voorhees under the mask, then these same people thirsting over the Darkling would be anything but supportive. But hey, I guess foul and disgusting evil behavior can all be excused if it is a hot guy with a sad story, right?

There were also people complaining about how older Ben Barnes looked than Jessi Mei Li, even if he is hot. Y’all know the character is supposed to be over a century right? Y’all should be satisfied that he didn’t show up looking like Albus Dumbledore. That’s the whole point…of how older he is than everyone around him. He is supposed to look older because *SURPRISE!* he is way older than her. 

Like the more I rewatch, I catch up all the little things and it just disturbs me even more that people are encouraging this. I can’t control what people think in their heads,  but don’t fuck up the rest of the generation by encouraging this disgusting shit. It creeps me the fuck out.