falling star, 1884 by witold pruszkowski
Anonymous asked:
Lys I miss you so much please come back kicking crying throwing up dying
Sorry dear - le mal de vivre, opium, ennui, attics, evil flowers, à rebours etc, the same good stuff of old. I'm here now.
Anonymous asked:
I have to applaud the boldness of Shadow and Bone writers as they are clamouring for a season three renewal and a spin-off approval from Netflix. Other shows that got spin-offs and renewals were generating triple the amount of SaB’s viewing hours in their opening weeks. And that was achieved without any writers begging the fans to play the show on mute in the background to generate fake views.
It's shameful and laughable, really. Their job is to create a show for the audience to enjoy, not present us with garbage and beg for us to fake-binge watch it for the sake of a hypothetical future quality season at this point I'm not sure they are even able to deliver.
Are they for real? Is this what the industry has become? Numbers and no love for art whatsoever?
Shadow and Bone 2x02 Ruysale
Which deadly sin do you think the darkling embodies?
Each one to some degree, but sloth. His defining deadly sin is without doubt pride, though.
Ain’t it warming you, the world gone up in flames? Ain’t it the life of you, your lighting of the blaze?
Anonymous asked:
Hi, friend! I absolutely adore your take on Aleksander Morozova and I wondered, with such a disappointing s2, are there any fics you would recommend to help get this bad taste out of our collective mouths? I haven’t gotten a chance to read any Grishaverse fanfic so I’d love any and all recs that give us a fair take on him! Thank you so much!! I hope your day is terrific!
Thank you so much, dear anon. I absolutely feel you. So let's help you, shall we?
The fic I am most fond of is probably Out of Time (and the entire Timeless series accordingly). I love it so much I actually consider it the real canon, books and show be damned. Not only is the Darkling always unfalteringly in character and the setting and dynamic perfect, but even Alina somehow manages to remain her original self without being nonsensical and annoying for once.
Another favourite of mine is Start A War. This one is more complicated and painful, but just as amazing. It spans several lifetimes and age teaches Alina a thing or two about who she is and, above all, who was fundamentally right all along.
What I really appreciate is that both fics' setting is an eagle-eye on the future, on time, on eternity, the one place where the full scope of Alina and Aleksander's relationship truly comes alive.
You’re staring. I’m gazing. It’s creepy. It’s romantic.
I love how this show (s&b) has given us such powerful cognitive dissonance that we continue to ship Darklina while also roasting Alina’s shit (I swear I’ll never forgive her for basically telling Aleksander he can never be redeemed…as if he needs redemption at all imo) and preaching the truth about how Aleksander definitely deserves better😂✊
I've never really liked Alina in the books either, but show!Alina is just next level in her heights of brain-dead idiocy. I find it rather painful just to witness her existing tbh lol
The Darkling deserved much better than her in both books and show, - he even knows it himself -, and to the point the only valid meaning I find fair to bestow upon The Grisha Trilogy as a whole is that of a Euripidean-natured story about all the ways Fate amuses itself by tragically tormenting Aleksander, the real protagonist, with cruel irony and false hopes, again and again, before futilely and anticlimactically ending him for good, signifying the utter nonsensical quality of human life and nature.
He has served countless kings, faked countless deaths, bided his time, waiting for you.
Anonymous asked:
Your "I can assure you I wouldn't wish Alina (especially season two Alina) upon my worst enemy. I wouldn't dream of forcing a relationship between them, weren't it actually there, for the life of me. She is no match for the Darkling in both mind and heart." and "Even if that were the case (everything is Darkles' fault, he is a psycho) he'd have already atoned for everything simply by having Alina for a soulmate" HAD ME SCREECHING AND DYING <333
True facts of truth lmao
Anonymous asked:
you are just salty your fave psychopath was revealed for the inhuman emotionless bastard he is
So, now the psychopath is the one who, just barely alive, hurries to free caged and dehumanized people once again, after spending his literal excruciating immortality to try and keep them safe and reaping of it nothing but hatred in return.
Now the psychopath is the one who shows infinite patience and forgiveness towards the person he loves despite her being completely undeserving of it and not showing a grain of the same consideration towards him, not even out of basic human decency, instead accusing him of everything that even mildly inconveniences her and trying to kill or maim him every other minute.
Now the psychopath is the one who unrelentingly tries to shield her from a future living hell, from taking his place as universal scapegoat and readily awaits her with open arms nonetheless.
Now the psychopath is the one who, just mutilated by his own mother (not only in body, but in soul, since his hand was the link to literally everything he held dear), who coincidentally is also his life-long abuser and tormenter, hurries by her side and cradles her dying body, sobbing and apologising, instead of giving his own wound any consideration, only to receive a spiteful "stupid boy" in return.
Now the psychopath is the one that, even dying, even knowing he's about to be finished off by the only one who should have loved and understood him in all eternity, still tries to save her in all the ways he knows how.
Now the psychopath is the one who, even in death, cannot help but respond to her face of hatred with pride and a smile.
I see. The soulful ones are for sure your beloved heroes, Alina above all.
Alina doesn't owe him her affections or anything, his reasoning might be to protect grisha but he became greedy for power, mans cut off his mother's finger to use as an amplifier (blinder her in the books) and scarred genya and abused his power. u can feel bad for his backstory, but it doesn't justify his actions nor does it makes Alina obliged to love him in any way. he lied to her, manipulated her, try to kill her best friends Mal and genya and burned keramzin just to prove a point. he was a flat out villain, the book series was made for fuckin 12 years old and above, bffr and have some critical thinking skills.
also! just bcs he feels bad for doing bad things doesn't make him a good person! shocking I know, acknowledging ur the problem isn't exactly enough, you need to actually do something to fix it.
Your comment is off-topic, since I wasn't listing the reasons why Alina owed Aleksander anything, but talking against the specific point of Aleksander being called a "psychopath" and "inhuman and emotionless" - demonstrating how painfully untrue to the story these statements are, with ample examples.
I dare say he is the most human and the most emotion-wretched creature in that show.
This said, since we are at it, I can assure you I wouldn't wish Alina (especially season two Alina) upon my worst enemy. I wouldn't dream of forcing a relationship between them, weren't it actually there, for the life of me. She is no match for the Darkling in both mind and heart. He is a semi-god with abysses in place of his heart, and she's an immature bratty child - and no, not because she's actually underage, but because she has the brain cells of an infant when she should have at least those of a normal mid-twenties young woman.
Why would I still like to see proper, canon, complex interactions between them, you might wonder? Because she is literally, by fate and status, the only potential equal Aleksander could ever have. He understands as much and he is even equally frustrated by the painful knowledge - especially in the books. But he undoubtedly would deserve as a character, in my opinion, to have that match, even in opposition, even in war. They are two of a kind, similar and balanced. Certainly not strangers, certainly not free from each other. That's why I get enraged when the show's writers, failing to understand their true dynamic, opt for painting them the cartoonish villain/heroine they are not.
No one ever said Alina has "an obligation" to harbour affection or feelings for him. What I am pointing out is that she in fact did (it's canon in both books and show she did), and then too abruptly doesn't, at all, and in a pretty disturbing, implausible way. There's an abnormal disconnection between what we were shown in season one and what we are supposed to accept in season two. You cannot have romantic feelings one minute, romantic feelings that quite literally changed your life, and the next, only because someone accuses that person of something wild, completely shed every form of 1) affection, 2) compassion, 3) basic humanity, to replace them only with blind hatred as if they were never there in the first place. It's poor writing, poor character development, poor storytelling even if the Darkling had done way worse than deciding she wasn't mature enough to decide for the salvation of Ravka (in fact in season two we learn that her obsession with the destruction of the Fold solves nothing). He simply decided not to bet his work of literal lifetimes over the unpredictable wheel of her immature reactions.
No one also ever said the Darkling isn't a very grey character bordering into shades of black - because he, in fact, is. That's what makes him a compelling character. But he also has a logical reason for each and every action (leaving aside how they painted them in season two, canon happenings showed in wildly ooc ways), unlike most of the "heroes" of the story.
Pretty much everything he ever did was either escalated by Alina's idiocy, military choices, desertion, betrayal and abuse (don't have me started with Baghra, who deserved much worse than what she got). Very little of it was done out of rage, exhaustion or sheer evil. In fact season two pretty much confesses everything "evil" his corrupted powers did was actually out of his control (Genya was personally betraying him, Genya was deserting the second army, Genya was attacked by the monsters he couldn't properly contain). As for why he burned Keramzin, there's a wonderfully psychological explanation in the books (why the "no shelter but mine" quote is so terrible and beautiful at the same time), but in the show it's again ascribable to his sickness and progressive loss of sanity.
This of course does not mean he was right or moral, does not mean he isn't terrible - he is. But his character is the epitome of complexity, far from inhuman and unfeeling, and that's what wasn't respected by the writers in the show.
Also, is expanding the Fold to stop "all wars" so different from abandoning everyone on the skip to die just to try and kill him, as Alina did? Is his greed for power worse than Alina's need for the amplifiers? Is his using of Merzost less moral than Alina's? (He actually used it to save his people, she used it to save the lover that was coerced into loving her). Is using Genya as a spy or risking to kill Alina's friends during a war so different from what happened to that poor fellow Nikolai's agents killed for information? So different from the Crows and co, killing and maiming people while fighting for their own battles?
Double standards? I think you should be the one preoccupied to grow some kind of basic critical skills. Everything is the Darkling's fault and everyone is, well, a Saint?
Anonymous asked:
For me the main problem darklina s2 is that in the books she still had feelings for him, but she has zero emotions in the show for fim except hate, what is this "genius" move of the screenwriters? It’s doesn’t connects with what was in s1 where she almost f*ck him and almost agreed to rule with him, wtf. Like, she forget this so fast or what
That's exactly the point we are all making, it's implausible and pathetic. Alina's supposed corruption arc is not a genius move (if it's the correct interpretation, it was terribly executed), it's literally the only explanation I could conceive for this idiocy fair.
SHADOW AND BONE
𝟸.𝟶𝟷: No Shelter But Me
Anonymous asked:
The tracker boy “fell in love” as soon as the other man showed interest in alina, and as soon as that man was gone, the love disappeared, and he just dumped her. The screenwriters really to continue this shit? Why they are so unrespectful to Alina
Considering how they turned her into some angry psychopathic pufferfish this season, I don't think they have any respect for anything, or any form of artistic understanding for that matter.
Anonymous asked:
To be honest, the flat and one-dimensional portrayal of Darklina in season two should come as a surprise to no one because the showrunners made it abundantly clear from the collar scene onwards that they wanted to turn the Darkling into a cartoon villain. The showrunners of this adaptation wouldn't be able to write a layered rivalry if their lives depended on it lol.
I was prepared for it and it still shocked me to the core lol
