#darklina for ts

[qqueenofhades]

I haven't even watched the season yet, though I will, but I'm already 98% sure I could write some deeply unhinged smut with Alina pegging the Darkling, and him crying and thanking her for it.

[thewingedwolf]

FIRST OF ALL my favorite thing about all the bitter fans who hate how popular the crows are is that they’ll say “focus more on the REAL main characters” and then name every single s&b character BUT mal, and then are all in leigh bardugo & the writers & actors mentions and comments saying “shame on you for ignoring your asian lead” re: jessie, but then they themselves completely ignore archie in favor of ben…and also amita is literally also asian and she’s heavy in all the crows promo!!!!! it’s such a dumb and inappropriate point to try to make literally in the mentions of the writers, leigh bardugo, and even sometimes the actors replies, like!!

second of all…the first book is LICHRALLY the crows going on a heist to human traffic/murder what they think is a middle aged man and turns out to be a teenage boy, they were ALREADY 🗣️HUMAN 🗣️TRAFFICKERS 🗣️ that’s Their Thing, they are unrepentant, ruthlessly competent criminals who are completely devoted to each other and no one else

[terpernoctem]

the stars align (and they all collide)

[swiftie-as-a-coursing-river]

Can you choose a TS song for each of the Grishaverse couples? From all her eras!

Ooooh this is so fun we’re so doing this, but I’m doing too 3 bc I’m an indecisive bitch 🤪

Wesper- basically the entirety of the Lover album, but I’d say especially Paper Rings, I think he knows, and title track

Darklina- Wildest Dreams, Dress, Treacherous

Malina- It’s Nice to have a friend is SO THEM, Glitch, Sweet Nothing

Zoyalai- there ARE SO MANY for them, but my top 3 are Great War (my ride or die Taylor song), King of My Heart, and Midnight Rain, but there are literally so so many

Helnik- exile, This Love, and Afterglow. TGW works for them too but I liked it more for Zoyalai.

Genyavid- You Are in Love, State of Grace (idk why it just feels right), Daylight

Kanej- So It Goes… is SO THEM ITS INSANE, CIWYW, Ready For It (did not mean for it to be all Rep songs, but that checks out)

There are definitely more, these were just the first I could think of

[where-theres-smoak-2]

Hi there!!! I’m the anon who asked about the my tears ricochet song! Omg I didn’t think you’d actually go pick up lines and interpret it, LOVE IT. There’s one more line there that could very well be Alina in S3….cursing my name, wishing I stayed, you turned into your worst fears….yeah corruption arc here we come? Btw, on the eras tour (the one going on right now) during one of her performances, she has a whole army of people wearing black walking behind her as she walks in all white in front of them. It’s like a funeral death march.

Since we’re on a TS song high, you should check out Better Man as well—its basically about how she still has feelings for someone but she knows that her leaving him was something she had to do but if only he were a better man then things might’ve worked out.

Oh bonus: a saucier Darklina - So It Goes on her reputation album.

Anyway, I’m glad my earlier ask made your day! Yay!! Looking forward to all your posts!

Ooh good catch with that line 'you turned into your worst fears' does have alina corruption potential. But I think it could also be how Aleks became corrupted over time, how he became more like those who used to hunt him because of his trauma.

I love Taylor's Better Man, its a very wistful song, reflecting on what could have beens. It reminds me of this darklina quote from the books:

“You might make me a better man.” “And you might make me a monster.”

I think one of the sadder elements to darklina is their lost potential, I said before but I really do feel like they are soulmates that met at the wrong time. I think Alina is very much like young Aleks and if they had met earlier before Aleks hardened his heart things might have turned out so differently. I do think Better Man is a good reflection of how Alina was feeling towards Aleks in season 2 and books 2 and 3. There are a couple of lines that kind of punch me in the gut with the emotions when I think of darklina while listening to it. The first is:

'Never again, I just wish I could forget when it was magic.' This does make me think back to 1x05 how perfect darklina were in that episode, how giddy in love they seemed. I think these memories make the breakdown in their relationship even harder for Alina and Aleks.

Also the line 'We might still be in love, if you were a better man.' Again its that could have been element to their relationship. It also reminds me of what baghra said 'for a moment you could have earned her love instead of claiming her power.'

'So It Goes' just reminds me of the darklina desk kiss scene and ep 1x05 in general. I mean:

See you in the dark All eyes on you, my magician All eyes on us You make everyone disappear.

This whole part reminds me of the demonstration at the winter fete, how the whole room was watching them but they were just staring at each other like there was no one else in the room.

And all the pieces fall Right into place Getting caught up in a moment Lipstick on your face.

And this part is just the desk kiss scene where they really did get swept up in the moment and lost in each other. Then of course there's the line 'Come here, dressed in black now' which makes me think of those matching keftas of theirs. The whole song does scream saucy darklina no lie.

[him-e]

what did you think of shadow and bone? have you read the books? i only read the duology

Thoughts on Shadow and Bone, now that you've probably seen it?

I think the show is alright? It lacks a real wow factor as far as I’m concerned, but it’s enjoyable. It’s especially enjoyable in those parts I didn’t anticipate to like / didn’t even know would be there. 

Whereas the main selling points leave a lot to be desired.

The good stuff: the visuals. The aesthetic. The overall concept. Production, casting and costumes are excellent, the setting is fascinating. The worldbuilding isn’t perfect and is sometimes confusing, which is probably due to the show jumping ahead of the books and introducing elements that happen much later in the book saga, but I’m loving the vague steampunk-y vibe of it mixed with more typical fantasy stuff and slavic-inspired lore, the fact that it’s set in dystopian Russia rather than your usual ye olde England.

I find it interesting that in this ‘verse the Grisha are simultaneously superstars, privileged elite, legendary creatures and despised outcasts, according to the context and the type of magic they wield. It’s A Lot, and so far it’s all a bit underdeveloped and messy, like a patchwork of different narratives and tropes sewn together without an organic worldbuilding structure. (there are hints to a past when they were hunted, but how did they go from that to being, essentially, an institutionalized asset to the government isn’t clear yet. There’s huge narrative potential in this, and I hope future seasons will delve into those aspects)

Many of the supporting characters are surprisingly solid. I appreciated that Genya and Zoya eventually sort of traded places, subverting the audience’s assumptions about them and their own character stereotypes, despite the little screentime they were given.

Breakout characters/ships for me were Nina/Matthias, and even more so the Crows, i.e. the stuff I didn’t see coming and knew nothing about (having only read the first book). (I thought the entire Crows subplot was handled in a somewhat convoluted way, at least in the first episodes; it was hard to keep track of who wanted Alina and why, but the Crows’ chemistry is so strong it carried the whole Plot B on its shoulders).

HELNIK. As an enemies to lovers dynamic, Helnik was SUPER on the nose, I’d say bordering on clichéd with the unapologetic, straight outta fanfiction use of classic tropes like “we need to team up to survive” and “there’s only one bed and we’ll freeze to death if we don’t take our conveniently damp clothes off and keep each other warm with the heat of our naked bodies” (not that I’m complaining, but i like to pine for my ships a bit before getting to the juicy tropetown part, tyvm). And then they’re suddenly on opposite sides again because of a tragic misunderstanding - does Bardugo hate high-conflict dynamics? It certainly seems so, because between Helnik and Darklina I’m starting to see a pattern where the slow burn and blossoming mutual trust is rushed and painted in broad, stereotypical strokes to get as fast as possible to the part where they *hate each other again* and that’s... huh. Something.

^That’s probably why I’m almost more interested in Kaz x Inej, because their relationship feels a bit more nuanced, a bit more mysterious, and a bit more unpredictable. (I didn’t bother spoiling myself about them, so I really don’t know where they’re going, but it’s refreshing to see a dynamic that the narrative isn’t scrambling to define in one direction or the other as quickly as possible)

-

Now, as for Darklina VS Malina... I found exactly what I expected. 

Both are ship dynamics I’m, on principle, very much into (light heroine/dark villain, pining friends to lovers) but both are also much less interesting than they claim to be, or could have been with different narrative choices. I’ll concede that the show characters are all more fleshed out and likable than their book counterparts, and the cringe parts I vaguely remembered from the books played out differently. And, well, Ben Barnes dominates the scene, he’s hot as HELL, literally every single second he’s on screen is a fuck you to Bardugo’s attempts to make his character lame and uninteresting and I’m LOVING it, lol.

But yeah, B Barnes aside, Darklina is intrinsically, deliberately made to be unshippable. 

It makes me mad, because it’s - archetypally speaking - made of shipping dynamite: yin/yang-sun and moon, opposites attract, COMPLEMENTARY POWERS AND SO ON. And what does Bardugo do with these ingredients? A FUCKING DELIBERATE DISASTER:

^ Placing the kiss so early on (season 1, episode five) effectively kills the romantic tension that was (correctly) building up until that point, and leaves the audience very little to still hope for, in terms of emotional evolution of the dynamic. 

Bardugo lays all the good stuff down as early and quickly as possible (the bonding, the conflicted attraction, the recognizing the other as one’s equal, etc) only to turn the tables and pull the rug so y’all sick creepyshippers won’t have anything to look forward to, because THEY’VE ALREADY HOOKED UP AND THAT BELONGS TO THE PAST, IT’S OVER, THEY’RE ENEMIES. This, combined to the fact that she falls for him *without* knowing who he really is, is the opposite of what I want from a heroine/villain ship (it’s basically lovers to enemies, and while that can be valid too, I wanted to see more pining and more prolonged, tormented symbolic attraction to the Shadow/Animus on Alina’s part). 

But here’s the trick: it’s not marketed as lovers to enemies - it has all the aesthetics and trappings of an enemies to lovers (the Darkling is, from the get go, villain-presenting, starting from his name), so it genuinely feels like a trollfic, or at the very least a cautionary tale *against* shipping the heroine with the tall dark brooding young villain, and I don’t think it’s cool at all. It makes the story WAY less interesting, because it humanizes the villain early on (when it’s not yet useful or poignant to the story, because it’s unearned) but it’s a red herring. The real plot twist is that the villain shouldn’t be sympathized with, just defeated: there’s a promise of nuanced storytelling, that is quickly denied and tossed aside. So is the idea of incorporating your Shadow (a notion that Bardugo must be familiar with, otherwise she wouldn’t have structured Alina and the Darkling as polar opposites who complement each other, but that she categorically refutes)

Then we have Malina. The good ship.

Look, I’m not that biased against it. I don’t want to be biased on principle against a friends to lovers dynamic that antagonizes a heroine/villain one, because every narrative is different, and for personal reasons I can deeply relate to the idea of being (unspeakably) in love with your best friend. So there are aspects of Malina that I can definitely be into, but it troubles me that in this specific context it’s framed as a regression. It’s Alina’s comfort zone, a fading dream of happiness from an idealized childhood, to sustain which the heroine systematically stunts her growth and literally repressed her own powers, something that in the books made her sickly and weak. But the narrative weirdly romanticizes this codependency, often making her tunnel vision re: going back to Mal her primary goal and centering on him her entire backstory/motivation, to the point that when she starts acting more serious re: her powers and alleged mission to destroy the Fold, it feels inorganic and unearned. 

Mal is intrinsically extraneous to Alina’s powers, he doesn’t share them, he doesn’t understand them, he has little to offer to help her with them, and so the feeling is that he’s also extraneous to her heroine’s journey, aside from being a sort of sidekick or safe harbor to eventually come back to. People have compared him to Raoul from Phantom of the Opera, and yeah, he has the same ~magic neutralizer~ vibe, tbh.

The narrative also polarizes Mal’s normalcy and relative “safety” against Aleksander’s sexy evil, framing Alina’s quasi-platonic fixation on the former as a better and purer form of love than her (much more visible and palpable) attraction to the latter. This is exacerbated by the show almost entirely relying on scenes of them as kids to convey their bond. I’m sure there are ways to depict innocent pining for your best friend that don’t involve obsessively focusing on flashbacks of two CHILDREN running in a meadow and looking exactly like brother and sister. LIKE. I get it, they’re like soulmates in every possible way, BUT DO THEY WANT TO KISS EACH OTHER?

Which brings me to a general complain: for a young adult saga centering on a young heroine and full of so many hot people, this story is weirdly unsexy? There are a lot of shippable dynamics, but they’re done in such a careless, ineffective way that makes ZERO EFFORT to work on stuff like slow burn, pining and romantic tension, and when it does it’s so heavy handed that the viewer doesn’t feel encouraged at all to fill the blanks with their imagination and start anticipating things (which is, imo, the ESSENCE of shipping). The one dynamic that got vaguely close to this is, again, Kaz and Inej, and coincidentally it’s also the one we didn’t get confirmed as romantic YET. Other than that, where’s the slow burn? What ship am I supposed to agonize over during the hiatus to season two? Has shipping become something to feel ashamed of, like an embarrassing relative you no longer want to invite in your home?

Anyway, back to Alina/Darkling/Mal, this is how the story reads to me:

girl suspects to be special, carefully pretends to be normal so she can stay with Good Boy

the girl’s powers eventually manifest; she’s forcibly separated from Good Boy

the girl’s powers attract Bad Boy who is her equal and opposite but is also a major asshole

girl initially falls for Bad Boy; has to learn a hard lesson that nobody that sexy will ever want her for who she is, he’s just trying to exploit her

also, no, there is no such thing as a Power Couple

girl is literally given a slave collar by Bad Boy through which he harnesses her power (a parody of the Twin Scars trope)

you know how the story initially suggested that the joint powers of Darkness and Light would defeat evil? LOL NO, Darkness is actually evil itself and the way you destroy evil is using Light to destroy Darkness, forget that whole Jungian bullshit of integrating your shadow, silly!

conclusion: girl realizes being special sucks. She was right all along! Hiding and suppressing her powers was the best choice! She goes back to the start, to the same Good Boy she was meekly pining for prior to the start of the story.

... there’s an uncomfortable overall subtext that reads a lot like a cautionary tale against - look, not just against darkships and villain/heroine pairings, but also *overpowered* heroines and, well... change? Growth?

Like, it’s certainly a Choice that Alina starts the story *already* in love with Mal. That she always knew it was him. The realization could have happened later (making the dynamic much more shippable, too), but no. 

[hellsbellschime]

I’m kinda worried they’re gonna change the Darklina relationship to appeal to fanservice. From what i’ve read they’re gonna make them have actual feelings for each other which i would usually be behind but for the sake of this story it kind of sucks. The Darklings interest in Alina comes from the balance her power represent to him. Kind of not feeling alone because someone with enough power can actually be his equal (which is just further emphasized when she loses her power and he says she’s useless now). And Alina’s attraction to the Darkling is something he manipulates out of her by preying on her insecurities like it’s supposed to be an abusive relationship. I really wanna Leigh to stay true to the books there and not make them romantic post s1.

That would not surprise me at all but I agree it sounds kinda cooler as it is.

[firelxdykatara]

Ship whatever you want obviously but Leigh Bardugo has posted before that she wrote Shadow and Bone to cope with an abusive relationship and said Alina’s feelings reflect hers so I understand her not wanting to redeem the darkling

I’m gonna be real honest, here: then she shouldn’t have baited the audience from the very first book.

Like, I sympathize, but I’m not gonna stop criticizing bad writing just because it comes from a sympathetic place. (And, frankly, it makes very little sense to me that she’d condemn the Darkling to a fate worse than death [in the sequel books] because she was writing s&b to cope with an abusive relationship, but then she.... put Alina in an abusive relationship. Mal, in the books? Is horrid. And Alina has to be reduced to a shell of herself in order to make the relationship work. And like I can understand writing that way if it’s all she really experienced in terms of romance but that doesn’t make the writing any less bad.) But that also doesn’t change the fact that Darklina was heavily, heavily baited from the moment the first book was teased.

“A dark heart. A pure soul. A love that will last forever.”

That was the tagline for the first book. If I’d picked up Shadow and Bone, seen that tagline, read the back cover, and then someone told me that the Darkling dies and Alina winds up with her childhood bff who wouldn’t give her the time of day until someone else wanted her? I’d have been baffled. And from what I can tell, having read posts by people who were following the books from the start, Leigh also heavily baited the fandom up until the final book in the trilogy was released, people realized they were baited and got mad, and she decided she hated the Darkling and Darklina and everything to do with them (to the point of eventually doing him and his relationship with Alina even dirtier in sequel books released nearly a decade later; honestly, that’s nearly Bryke levels of pettiness).

So, at the end of the day, I don’t really care that Leigh didn’t want to redeem the Darkling. I don’t really get it (especially since she herself admits that Kaz Brekker is, morally speaking, even worse), but if the books were well-written and marketed as childhood friends falling in love and defeating a great evil, I wouldn’t really care. It probably would never have caught my attention, but I wouldn’t think anyone had much of a reason to feel cheated. As it is, though, I suspect that Leigh knew that the real money is in enemies-to-lovers relationships--they generate the most buzz, the largest followings, the most fan engagement--and decided to pull a bait-and-switch rather than being honest about her intentions from the beginning.

And that just means I really don’t respect her, at the end of the day. I’m grateful for SoC/CK (though I have my issues, and Helnik is another example of how allergic she is to enemies-to-lovers having happy endings or fulfilling lives together), and I love the show, but I just don’t have a whole lot of respect for the author as a creator.

[brother-lipsmackariah]

Grishaverse AU

In other words, I love making Patton suffer

@stardustsides

[rebeccasjack]

………nahthe katniss/peeta/gale vs alina/mal/d@rkling love triangle “parallels” needa die

[esther-dot]

Hi! I wanted to ask you what made you turn off by Darklin@. It's more popular ship than Malin@ in fandom but I am not so invested in it. Do you believe that show made it much more better than books?

Most of my followers/the people I follow ship Darklin@, so I'll put this under a cut

I wrote this shortly after S&B aired:

To me, Alina wasn’t pursuing the Darkling as much as she was pursuing being loved. It seemed like that aspect of their relationship was placed within the context of her feelings (which she believed were unrequited) for Mal. This may be different in the books, but it didn’t feel like a typical love triangle where the girl was torn between two men as much as, Alina thought Mal was not an option, and she was lonely, believed herself emotionally  abandoned (because the Darkling intercepted her letters to and from Mal), and she wanted someone. It makes sense for her to feel the way she did, to reach out and take what she can, but I never thought there was any weight to her/the Darkling because it was never about him to Alina—it was about Mal. I didn’t even sit there and bellyache over the Darkling lying to her. I felt sorry for the girl who wanted to be loved, who was in love, but thought the person she loved didn’t feel the same. That’s what it felt like Malina was THE couple, all of Alina’s feelings are wrapped very tightly around it. (link)

I ship what I think the characters want, and since that was my impression of Alina’s feelings, I had no interest in the Darkling as a romantic partner for her. Also, uh, the way they sold Malina to me really worked. She’s so happy with him

From the beginning she acts as if she’s in love with him (you know she wants Mal to kiss her)

And it isn’t just happiness/comfort with each other, she wants him (I laugh so hard over her swallow here. Get a grip, girl!)

Anyway, I was sold on Malina from episode 1. I think they’re very sweet together.

Even if I had thought D@rklina had great chemistry (to me they didn’t) it reminded too much of a ship I hate to be interested. I really hated jxnerys (Jon and Dany in GoT) so the similarities between Dany and the Darkling just made the whole thing a no go for me:

The show versions of both the Dxrkling and Dany fight to protect an oppressed people, but it’s tied to a corruption arc in which they’re simultaneously amassing power and their version of what the world could look like consumes them until they’re willing to mercilessly kill to achieve it.

Both shows use a tragic event (the death of the Dxrkling’s wife and Missandei’s death) to trigger the villains.

Jon, to save everyone, believes he needed dragons. So, the idea that Alina wants to use her power for good? That’s similar, and even though I have no idea wtf d&d we’re trying to do with Jxnerys, Jon and Alina both get involved with the villains.

And more importantly, Alina and Jon learn who they “really” are. The revelations upend how they see themselves, and they worry about how their “family” (Mal, Sansa, and Arya) will view them. (link)

No part of me watched the Darkling create a scenario in which Alina was vulnerable enough, lonely enough, that she was open to a sexual relationship with him and think “how romantic.” Come to think of it, his “make me your villain” is kinda similar to Dany’s “let it be fear.” (link)

But, even without the above, I never would ship a girl with a man who tried to enslave her. I’m a very boring person who likes happy relationships for the characters I love, so I was never going to like that.

I have not read the books, so I really can’t speak about the changes made, but I know that the actor who played the Darkling has a lot of fans and he was the preferred fancast for the Darkling before there was a show, so I’m sure that contributed to the popularity of show Darklin@. Apparently, the fandom always disliked Mal, think he’s a fuckboy and that he’s toxic. From the book quotes I read and the arguments I saw (on both sides), I think people are exaggerating Mal’s flaws, and ignoring the fact that not only is he willing to die for Alina, *spoiler* he actually does die for the greater good. *end spoiler* Of the two ships, I think you understand why a romantic like me wouldn’t be into the first, and is a sucker for the second.

But really, I’m just drawn in by what the actors sell, and I believed these two loved each other.

[qqueenofhades]

Also, HOOOOO BUT DARKLINA THIS SEASON IS *REALLY* DOING IT FOR ME.

(Maybe because I'm a messy bitch who loves me some narrative foils and angsty plot drama and all that, but they meet in dreams every night and they clearly wanna hatesex so bad and Alina insists she's not like him while becoming more like him all the time and seductively shrugs off her kefta to announce she's not wearing his color again WHILE SHE IS WEARING AN ALL BLACK DRESS AND LOOKING AT HIM LIKE HE SHOULD TOUCH HER IF HE DARES AND HEEEEEEEERE COME THE PARALLEEEEEEEEELSSSS)

/breathes heavily

[elisabeth-forbes]

jfc why do some fans want zoya to be rejected more by the darkling? Like was it not enough for you that both mal and the darkling rejected her for alina in the show/books?

Why do you want her to be stomped on to make your ship feel superior despite it kinda failing at what its supposed to be?

If the basis of the ship is that it involves the belittling of another female character then its just crap. Also its just lazy writing.

[firelxdykatara]

i saw that gifset and i had to physically restrain myself from responding with an elaborate take-down because it was tagged correctly but man. the way some people misuse the word grooming just to get one over on a ship they don’t like is maddening ffs

Grooming gifset!! Oh what the holy hell

Yeah someone made a (very elaborate and objectively time-consuming, which makes it even more embarrassing on their part) gifset of Alina and the Darkling overlaid with quotes defining what grooming is. As if somehow putting text over images just magically makes the meaning whatever you want it to be 🤢

[swiftie-as-a-coursing-river]

To go off of the anon you answered earlier.

The ultimate TS song for Darklina - My Tears Ricochet. Almost word for word. It’s basically about them. ESPECIALLY with that season finale. Also, Better Man and even would’ve, could’ve, should’ve. Even the 1 (a literal line about tossing pennies in the pool)

Lover is totally Wesper’s album. But shout out to Gorgeous—that could be theirs too….cuz 🎶LOOK AT YOUR FACE 🎶

Willow for Kanej maybe? The more that you say the less I know….every bait and switch was a work of art…wait for the signal and I’ll meet you after dark��.wreck my plan, that’s my man 😂 hmmm maybe this is more Darklina in the earlier days.

Omg wait, what about for Nikolina?

Yk what? I didn’t even consider MTR bc I don’t consider it a love song but you’re literally SPOT ON.

Willow I can definitely see as both Kanej and Darklina, I think they do have a lot of similar songs tbh. Some verses are def more kanej and some are more Darklina.

First one that dark to mind for Nikolina was All of the Girls You Loved Before 👀 but I think that’s actually more Zoyalai.

For a Nikolina breakup song: White Horse. 100%. Especially with the royalty connections.

[him-e]

Darklina is a very beautiful ship to look at but it has practically no substance as far as characterization, tropes, and evolution are concerned. He is a mustache twirling villain and she is miss goody two shoes. They never develop beyond these caricatures. Their entire relationship amounts to a few kisses and then everything does downhill from there. This ship can certainly decorate social media dashboards but it cannot sustain an analytical fandom. I won't deny that they had potential though. Darklina could have been an amazing light/dark romance but Leigh Bardugo chose not to go there.

Can’t say I disagree.