#darkolina

[vorbarrsultana]

darknikolina won again

[marvelmusing]

Nikolai and Alina playing dress up with Aleksander’s clothes

[stromuprisahat]

mm thoughts on darkolina/darknikolina? (plz i dont know what it’s usually called but i hope you get it)

It's both as far as I know, and I prefer "Darkolina" (It's all there and it doesn't look too dumbed down.).

It's one of those ships I'm (all) for, depending on a day. Just like Darklina and Darkolai, it has its ifs, namely IF THEY WERE ALLOWED ACTUAL DEVELOPMENT.

Alina (as in other things) needs to discard her baggage- both mental and physical-, so we'd need to get rid of the Blade Boy, her idealisation of her miserable past, her prejudice and bias, mommy issues and insistence on keeping status quo. She'd basically need to re-write her whole personality to become a worthy (political) partner to the other two.

Nikolai is idealistic fool. He'd need to shed his blindness towards uncomfortable truths, especially regarding Grisha- no partner of Aleksander could ignore the slaughters like we've seen in S&S. He'd also need to find the spine he left on his ship. You can negotiate and persuade, but the monarch should also ORDER. And not just the serfs you're conveniently ignoring, when it comes to injustices they have to face.

Aleksander is ironically the easiest one. His greatest issue is "lack of care", which actually isn't present in any of the books, because not even Baghra's lives-long nagging managed to beat it out of him no matter what the narrative claims. He'd "just" need to get over her teachings about inconsequential lives of "the dust" and admit to himself that he does care even for specific mayflies and there's nothing wrong with it. Sure, he's gonna bite and kick and scream on his way there, but he's adaptive and his mommy's death might actually help.

Once they grind their rough edges down a little (*wink wink*), they could become THE power trinity. Two immortals- highly experienced bogeyman and "merciful" Saint, whose rays warm and burn alike- and their charming, clever monster of "an ordinary" King. (Bonus points for making him not quite mortal after Aleksander's "adjustment".)

[goblins-riddles-or-frocks]

Fic | The Scorched Sea

Ships: Alarkling, Darknikolina

Notes: One shot, loose role reversal AU, borrowing some details from Demon in the Wood

Tired of his mother’s austere and fear driven lifestyle, Aleksander Morozova seeks out the Sun Saint and the splendor of the Little Palace

[seventfics]

The Grisha Rarepair Exchange is here!

We are happy to announce our rarepair exchange event for Shadow and Bone/the Grishaverse! It will run during the week of June 11th to the 17th!

First things first:

What is an exchange?

An exchange is a fandom event where participants sign up to create fanworks for other participants! All participants must send their requests to us event moderators through the sign-up form, and we will then assign you another participant's exchange request!

We'll be accepting fics, artwork, gifs, edits, videos...just make sure to post all of your exchange creations with the tag #grishapairexchange!

What counts as a rarepair?

Only non-canon ships with less than 150 fics posted on AO3 will count for the event. The rarer the better! Polyships encouraged!

We'll be evaluating this number based on the "otp: true" search listing of Grishaverse ships. Some examples: Inej/Tolya (4), Mal/Nikolai (7), Mal/the Darkling (10), Nikolai/Alina/Mal (18), Genya/Alina (46), Nikolai/Darkling (71). You can do this yourself by looking up a ship on ao3 and adding "otp: true" into the Search within results function box!

How do I sign up, and how does the assigning work?

All participants will fill in a form requesting basic information (contact options, tumblr name, age*). They must then state 3 rarepair options, each with their own prompt. Please take into consideration that your creator may fill your prompt by fic, art, gifs, or videos! If it helps to keep things simple, you may specify with trope tags. Example:

1 mal/the darkling: hurt/comfort scene, established relationship, the darkling is badly injured and mal stitches him up

2 nikolai/tolya/mal: intimate moments and shared looks between all three, or - all three of them having to watch the other(s) fighting and loving it

3 zoya/nina: zoya and nina shown deeply caring about each other, ex: their season 2 conversations about love and fighting to protect each other fiercely!

If you have any hard-nos, triggers, or squicks, you may write them into the specified text box.

*Participants under 13 are not permitted to participate. If a participant is under 18, they cannot request any mature or explicit content.

Sign-ups are open here!

Please share this post and tell any fandom friends who might be interested! We want as many participants as possible to share in the rarepair love! Rules and scheduling are under the cut!

Content Rules

Any type of fanwork is allowed and encouraged, so long as it is tagged appropriately and it correctly fulfills a prompt.

Writing fanworks must be between 500-5,000 words.

Art fanworks must be between 1 and 5 images, short comics allowed.

Edit fanworks like gifsets and image edits must be collected into a single post, with a maximum of 10 gifs/images.

Video fanworks must range between 1:00 and 3:00 minutes in length.

All posts must be tagged appropriately for ships, characters, and warnings.

Participant Requirements and Rules

As mentioned, participants under 13 are not allowed. Any participant under 18 years of age cannot request mature or explicit content.

All participants must state at least 3 different pair and/or poly ships to choose from. Exchange prompts are encouraged to be short and varied to allow for any fanwork type.

All signed participants must fulfill at least 1 of the 3 exchange prompts they receive.

Completing more than 1 prompt is allowed, but it must be part of its own separate fanwork/post.

Keep your assigned person and prompts a secret until posting week! Once the event is rolling out, mention your assigned person in your posts and tag #grishapairexchange.

No character or ship hate will be tolerated. This is an event centering on rare ships, all of which deserve some love!

If you find any kind of personal conflict or need help with the event, please privately contact the event mods (@seventfics/@jaskierian and @mal-zoya).

Schedule

April 22: Sign-up opens

May 5: Sign-up closes

May 11: Participants receive their exchange prompts

June 11-17: Grisha Rarepair Exchange posting and sharing

June 18: Late entries

[esssteee]

"the three body problem" DO YOU HEAR ME SCREAMING?!

I am but a humble beggar desirous of any crumbs you can feed me related to that one

XD XD XD of course YOU would latched on the promise of potential darkolina uh?

ok soooooooo main idea is that we are like 10 years after the main storyline of of monsters and men, and both aleksander and nikolai are doing okay-ish as tsars (which is a ton better than any other lantsovs before them, but still!!! ruling is hard!! people are needy, war isn't exactly over even if there is new, fresh ruling and treaties are coming down faster than people can slap each other's ass, plus on top of that the courtiers who haven't sided with the previous regime and are still very much alive have once more settled in their bad and more than greedy habits of always asking for more). ANYWAY you did not necessarily wished to know the setting but here you go nonetheless!

but the main thing is that we have nikolai (40 y.o., long-haired, bearded jaw, a bit of a pouch thing going on around his waist, just plain gorge) now more mature physically and mentally (or that's what he thinks lol), and who has come into a stage of his life where, even if he is profundly in love with aleksander, feels something is lacking. basically, the man wants a child (not me exploring my own issues here, no ma'am). he does not necessarily want an heir, but he wishes for a family of his own blood (plus there may be some breeding kink that will show its head there, but i'm pushing back the smut with a bat at this point, tho it WILL be smutty, you know me too well not to explore our favs thru sex).

how alina comes in the picture? well she's basically nikolai's best friend and has long ago fallen into disillusionment concerning mal while also feeling something is lacking. oh oh, would you look at that. anyway, she has her circle of friends with grisha and the twins, but she still is considered a saint and someone of a different rank than all of them, a bit like aleksander in that way. the one to be there for her as a human first is hence nikolai. it's friendship, yeah, but it's first of all a deep love and appreciation for each other, something that could so easily become more than it already is. they are already both very physical in their affection, always touching and standing close to each other, always making sure the other is okay and lifting each other's mood when necessary. sweet, fluffy stuff, you know? and aleksander has long learned to be okay with that cause he wants nikolai happy, and alina, well, there is fondness there too, hidden under layers of exasperation and frustration and roughly-healed wounds, but mostly, regarding them both, there is that possessive instinct to hoard and claim. but we gotta keep in mind that the blistered tangle of aleksander and alina's previous relationship is still very much present―how they tolerate, even appreciate each other, but it is def not the easy relation of when alina first joined the Little Palace. so, playing the good-natured king, nikolai wants to mend that, needs to mend that, even, because, self-sacrificing fool that he is, he knows he is not immortal like them (even with aleksander's shadows) and he knows that they will continue on living long after his death. and since they are his two favs persons in the world and were once almost-lovers, well, they should end up together after his death. right? riiiight?

so that's more or less it, the birth of an OT3 with all the hassle of repairing previous relationships, expanding and morphing existing ones into a completely new one, and, perhaps, discovering the desire of parenthood along the way (tho it won't be a kidfic, but there will be multiple talks of it and the quite sexy consequences of such talks).

oh and, what have we here? could this be all in aleksander's pov? oh my XD

SORRY FOR THE WALL OF TEXT but here you go :D :D i have unfortunately almost nothing written, just curt passages here and there and that dumb copy-paste of the wikipedia text on the three body problem, but this has been the ~main~ rotisserie chicken in my head for sure. won't leave me alone at all ;_;

gonna tag @theonewiththeory just so you have the first idea of that darkolina i mentioned the other day 😈😈😈

[lufifer-morningstar]

ben barnes delivering more darkolina(?)content than the books and fandom combined will be the death of me. our ship sails 🖤

[aquitainequeen]

Literally what was Alina thinking, turning down the chance to partner up with the two most influential men in Ravka and form a ridiculously hot, charismatic, powerful throuple. Like girl why even bother being the protagonist if you're not gonna take advantage of the opportunities it gives you, cmon

[daily-ravka]

Jessie Mei Li, Patrick Gibson and Ben Barnes as Alina Starkov, Nikolai Lantsov and The Darkling Respectively from Shadow & Bone: Everything We Can Tell You About Season 2

[vorbarrsultana]

i'm in darknikolina mood, so HEADCANONS TIME.

let's say pre-canon!darkolai happened at some point, and darklina obviously was a thing during the trilogy, and then nikolina got married because it's the ending we deserve. as a royal couple, they're expected to have kids at some point, and eventually they have a daughter. both, tsar and tsaritsa, have a lot of complicated personal and political feelings about a certain shadow summoner, but they name her sasha anyway. it silenced a lot of gossipers: they assumed the tsarevna was named after her unlamented grandfather, tsar aleksander.

(in truth, grand duchess aleksandra nikolaevna was named after the darkling, lamented by many.)

but then liza & co ressurect aleksander. and he learns that now there is a lantsov girl named aleksandra, who is in equal parts alina and nikolai, his most beloved people. and she possesses alina's beautiful dark eyes, and nikolai's golden locks, and alina's dimple, and kolya's sunny smile. and the girl is also a grisha (a little alkemi, because they deserve representation) - the grand duchess (aged three) did accidentally turn the darkling's brandy into water during their first meeting.

so, of course little sasha has big sasha wrapped around her tiny fingers in no time. all the tsarevna has to do is ask. and the scary, powerful, terrifying darkling would do it. like, once sasha said she would like to have an octopus as a pet, and aleksander immediatelly was like: "ulla, ULLA. get me the prettiest octopus in all three oceans of this world for baby sasha, please. you're her aunt too, by the way."

(aleksander: ugh, i hate the lantsovs, they're the worst.

someone: but, your excellency, you are cuddling the tsarevna right now?

aleksander, clutching sasha even harder to his chest: i said what i said.)

nikolai and alina are no help because they are aleksandra nikolaevna's loyal slaves too. as are aunt genya and uncle david. so, actual disciplining has to be done by aunt zoya, who is the only one immune to tsarevna's pleading eyes.

(aunt zoya is also little sasha's first girl crush, and she tells everyone that when she grows up she's gonna be general nazyalensky, and break hearts of boys and girls too.)

(alina is mentally preparing for the day sasha will have suitors because darkolai would try to decapitate anyone daring enough to ask their little girl out.)

and they live happily ever after, the end.

[marvelmusing]

This entire video fed at least four different ship pairings but I’m choosing to fixate on the darkolai scraps we’ve been given

[stromuprisahat]

hi, i was wondering if you had any darklina fanfiction to recommend (i just love your analysis, and i think if someone had good fanfics recommendations it would be you)

I got more of these, so I'll always reply after some time with some of my newest bookmarks from AO3. I still haven't got over my "nasty fic" phase, so don't hold your breath if you want a fluffy recs.

Last five of my Darklina bookmarks, beware of the dead birds:

Spoils of War by goblins_riddles_frocks

Darkolina to be precise. Nikolai made a deal he didn't quite think through. The Darkling turns into a traditionalist, when some aspects of monarchy are concerned.

Game Night by Mimabe

Modern no-power horny incest thingy. Show!verse.

Nådeløsheten by Madismen

This one is a delicious resolution of immortality and accompanying loneliness.

CHROMA by emerald_tablet 

Don't get yourself a daddy among your father's friends... Modern no-power BDSM show!verse series. I can't believe I'm recommending DD/lg stuff, but I also didn't expect ~some~ writers will be able to make me read AND enjoy it, so nvm.

His Creatures by goblins_riddles_frocks

I think I haven't read the second one yet, but the first was book-compliant monsterfucking Darkolina delicacy, so that's an extra plus. (All you need to make a blond hot is a bit of black goo and some animalistic traits...)

[daerklina]

what eric heisserer did to alina’s character was absolutely devastating

first of all she got less than two hours of the whole timeline of the whole s2 as a main character.

if they made shadow and bone crossed with the crows, which was absolutely unnecessary and dumb decision because they sidelined even crows themselves and didn’t enlighten none of the problems crows themselves suffered like what jesper and nina felt as grishas or what happened to inej. all of it just to lift kaz’s backstory.

and yes, if they made kaz and alina leads, why kaz got his lines from the books and alina got none when originally this show & books were about her and her only

they promised they’d explore alina’s heritage but by some reasons she was the only person who didn’t get any backstory and they left no clue who are her parents and did other sun summoners exist before. sorry I don’t accept the book ending either because alina was only special and leigh left her powerless with some stinky otkazat’sya on a farm.

and what we got? “empty promises” as said alina in s2 but darkling’s promises were real and the writers’ aren’t. even jessie mei li wasn’t much comfortable about the decision of alina’s complete erasure.

I also can write miles of text how badly they treated the actress herself how they made jessie stay the longest on set, didn’t include most of scenes and how they made everyone shoot in a warm clothes (darkling’s death scene) in 35 degrees hot.

what drives me more mad is that mal knows whose descendant he is, why is he like this but NOTHING for alina. and I even know why, because in any case if alina’s backstory was in the book & show the ending wouldn’t fit leigh’s and eric’s narratives (alina’s terrible ending)

alina is the most powerful and the most interesting and the most unexplored character even in the books and I’m so angry they made her asian just to violently sideline her

also as I remember correct one writer was also involved in a show that erased asian character (dc titans?)

the only and only thing about the show is alina ending up a queen, surrounded by grisha and a good husband who may not be her lover but he’s protective, will always listen to her, will never whine , will help her etc (I’ll forever annoy y’all with my darkolina agenda)

[goblins-riddles-or-frocks]

What is the point of putting rape in Nikolina tag when it's a healthy ship? You can do this on the darkolina tags but why force this pedophile in our tags?

I can only assume you haven’t blocked me or the relevant darkling tags because you actually love reading about it and are in fact trying to reverse psychology me into writing and posting more! sadly I’m writing TLT fic atm but I promise I’ll get back to posting about TGT very soon and will continue tagging each relevant ship that appears in the story appropriately 💖💖

[itsnotunfinisheditsmystyle]

Titles game

RULES: make a new post with the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them, and then post a little snippet or tell them something about it! then tag as many people as you have WIPs.

Tagged by @jammerific . I will NOT tag as many people as I have WIPs lmao. Also my WIPs I'm currently posting have their normal titles, so here is instead a selection of unposted WIPs :

- DARKOLAI DADS AU

- Ulla visit

- Darklina TT power switch

- Darkolina wrong nudes

- Darklina mum AU

- NONSENSE NIKOLAI TIME TRAVEL FIX IT

- Last minute marriage Darklina AU

- NAMES ONE SHOT

- Alina meets the Saints

- baby Ulla + law school

- hurt/comfort exchange (scrapped)

- SOC kidfics

- Ot4 kids mess

Tagging @inahandful-of-dust @tirkdi @storm-elf and anyone else who would like to do it

[esssteee]

WIP Tag Game

Thank youuuuuuuu @goatsandgangsters for the tag!! Took me a while, but here goes!

I've hit a mean writer's block these past months that I hope will lift away some fateful day, but that does not mean several of these listed wips aren't marinating in my head day and night soooooo ONE DAY I'LL BE BACK!! but anyway, these are all GV fics (and i realise that i have NO folder for my wips so it's just a pure hazard opening my main doc folder each time, should def work on that)

RULES: post the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. Let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them, and then post a little snippet or tell them something about it! and then tag as many people as you have WIPs.

the cabin au (where alina and aleksander must hole in during a fjerdan blizzard that interrupts the first book stag hunt and where aleksander is injured and alina is just done with the shit hand life continues to throw her way. lots of spite and hurt/comfort and mutual frustration in that one, which is a killer combo imo)

we are the wild youth chasing visions of our future (that epic AU darklina fic that i will one day finish!! i swear on my life!!!!)

the darkolai priest/demon modern AU that @darkolaism and i fantasise about (so hannigram-konstantin/medved mashup i guess)

PORTFOLIO M (darkolai modern AU photographer/muse)

the three body problem (darkolina follow-up of my of monsters and men series. yuuuuuup, i loved alina too much in that series to not include her more in this no longer only daydreamt epilogue)

as of now the unnamed jurisander second part where aleksander joins juris in his travel to sankt feliks' grave and where he ends up learning more about his own roots and history

And that's it! not a ton of fics, but still too many for my current much too low energy. I've realised I put way too much info related to each title, but fuck it. Anyway, one day, my man will come back from the war (my man = writing mojo, the war = fuckin life)

Tagging: @for-want-of-a-nail, @aloveforjaneausten, @storm-elf, @yletylyf, @iamstartraveller776, @aquitainequeen and anyone else who wanna play!