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I am this cute!

Adororbs!

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I haven't purchased a HP item in close to a decade - I use the books I already had as doorstops or to prop a laptop up for meetings nowadays.

There is NO "death of the author" with JK Rowling - she controls and continues to profit from her IP, and uses that money to fund hate groups.

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OH FUCK !

Darklina on the fucking PHANTOM OF THE OPERA ?!

My heart can't take it ! HELP THIS IS TOO GOOD !

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So... I found this and now it keeps coming to mind. You hear about "life-changing writing advice" all the time and usually its really not—but honestly this is it man.

I'm going to try it.

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So I was scrolling through Pinterest (like procrastinators do), started down a writing pins rabbit trail, when I happened upon these two bits of advice about writing your Main Character:

First, this is totally a tumblr writing post but I couldn’t find anything with the og authors name/blog, so kudos to them.

Second, as soon as I read these one specific character came to mind. Aleksander Morozov. Like, 5/6 of these situations fit him near perfectly (and if we’re talking about book!Aleks the last one kinda-ish works too). Think about it:

Make them think they’re Known then rip it away from them with rejection to create empathy in the reader

Accepting the Thing They Must Do (use the fold to end wars/free grisha), love interest disagrees and leaves them

Makes a decision they believe is right, others believe it’s wrong (overthrowing the king, use of the fold, etc.)

Finds kinship with someone Like Them at long last (Alina) but that person later discovers some aspect of the MC that they wholly reject (example: it’s their fault that a family member died, or they were the bad guy all along)

Push the MC beyond what they are capable of, then push them farther. Make them want something so deeply they are willing to do anything to get it. Give them passion and drive and grit and more of that then they have fear. (He understood then. The Grisha lived as shadows did, passing over the surface of the world, touching nothing, forced to change their shapes and hide in corners, driven by fear as shadows were driven by the sun. No safe place. No haven. There will be, he promised in the darkness, new words written upon his heart. I will make one.)

Final verdict: Aleksander Morozov is a Main Character forced into the Villain role. And it pains me to think of what he could have been in a more capable authors hands😔

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"Grisha who control the elements are controlled natural disasters waiting to be pointed to the target" IM FERAL OVER THIS DESCRIPTION its so *chefs kiss*, I'm absolutely obsessed.

Personally, I'd be throwing hands with any Inferni making everything all muggy and humid; I live in New Zealand, so I live in 80%+ humidity every day and its the worst 😭😭 i LOVE the concept of the Tidemakers essentially being able to become puppeteers, though – how terrifying would it be to be forced to move against your will, especially in a battle situation??

I know you've mentioned before how Tidemakers could feel "clammy" or Inferni having burnt hands or how Sun Summoners don't have a shadow; how else do you think this body horror take on Grisha talents could impact them physically? I think the physical implications are just SO interesting and really add to the perspectives of other nations (and maybe even non-Grisha Ravkans) to be looking at Grisha as dangerous, abominations, something to be fearful of.

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OG Post (Here)

Previous Post (Here)

I'm glad you like it! I was particularly proud of it haha

Oh man I've escaped previous heat/humidity and do not want to go back lol

Yes, being moved against your will, or being unable to move when you hit a certain range that the tidemaker can control! That would be terrifying!!! Thinking you're on a scouting mission and suddenly you think you can hear voices, so you rush forward, and there's a group, the lost patrol, but they're froze to the spot, screaming for you to run back, instead you find yourself walking towards them, a strange sound of waves in your ears. You don't cry, no matter how much you want to, they don't want to waste the water for tears.

I think it would be really interesting if what they controlled didn't effect them or hinder them, that their science automatically compensated for it. And going of the fact Grisha are supposed to be 'rare' it would be a cool like 'natural protection' for them, and possibly another tool for people to find them before their powers develop, a way to hunt them if you go darker. The closer it gets to their powers showing, the more automatic processes their body does.

Also the more they use their powers the more visual it becomes. Shadow summoners who's limbs blacken, and seem to vanish into smoke in certain light. Sun Summoners who slowly go blind from their own light, burning from the inside out and collapsing like a dying star. Tidemakers who slowly drown themselves, every manipulation of water fills there lungs drop by drop, or the opposite, they pull water from their very being. Squallers who pull air from themselves, slowly suffocating, or they fill themselves up with so much they combust, they dissolve into the air itself. Inferni who have burns creeping up their hands, who cough and breathe out ash and smoke, their bodies being burned from the inside out, after all that's all oxygenation is

Tidemakers who never get wet or damp, even in the rain, not because they're moving it, but because the water knows not to effect them. Like how some birds have oil in thier feathers that makes them hydrophobic. They can hold their breathe for too long, the water dividing itself into oxygen for them to breathe. One of the ways to check if a child might be a squaller is to hold them underwater, of course, not many abide this old superstition. The can handle slightly hotter or colder temperatures as the water in their bodies adjusts. Tidemakers that can direct small bits of water, when it's raining the runoff never seems to dampen their feet or the area they stand.

Inferni that are never uncomfortable in any temperature their body naturally adjusting, they're immune to certain chemicals/combinations because of the combustion particles. They can gain bursts of strength, their bodies manipulating them as they would flame from the world around them. Depending on what specific particles it is they can manipulate (Would other Inferni be better at different particles/combinations?? That would be very interesting) they can breathe in highly toxic areas like nothing is wrong. They can track or recognize places and soldiers by particles, they can tell where things have come from if they've been exposed to certain particles from certain areas. They can effect the temperature of those around them, especially with strong emotions. Those that make an Inferni anger or someone that causes lust/ a crush are often the source of a sweltering gaze and prickling heat, sometimes when their gaze is averted, something close by will combust/light on fire/heat up. Inferni who give off steam when they become emotional.

Squallers that never seem to slow in movements, the wind pulling and pushing their bodies for them, keeping them moving, keeping them out of danger even if their body can't or shouldn't be moving. Like when a strong gust of wind moves you. They can handle low oxygen environments like mountains or caves easier than most. They can alter air pressure around objects to make them heavier or lighter to an extent. The wind seems to influence their emotions, or the other way around, most aren't sure and no one want to anger a Squaller enough to find out.

Sun Summoners who move faster, are stronger in the sunlight, seemingly full of energy when in the lights path. They can see in the dark because they produce a natural light that encompasses themselves, the more power they have the more others can see it. When they become angry or too excited, or just too many strong emotions it will blind others from their reactions. They never seem to get sunburned, or sun stroke. They become effected by the season more easily, the lack of sunlight causing them distress if they're lacking in a strong family

Shadow Summoners who can see in the dark, who don't recognise that there isn't a light source. They can move the shadows to hide them. They often move silently when in darkness. The changes in season are usually when they're stronger, they don't seem effected by the shorter days or longer nights. They can travel better and night, they can stay in darkness for days at a time, so different methods of torture must be used for them. They suffer from light sensitivity often struggling to be out during the highest points of the day or they hide from flames and other light sources.

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“Can’t keep my hands to myself”

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Shadow and Bone

Alina and the Shadow Fold

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Darklina wanted poster because i've not seen it around anywhere yet (i bet it is lol i just haven't found it, but for anyone else who might not have either - here ya go!)

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a quiet moment

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Alina didn’t choose to have her powers taken from her and she didn’t intend for them to be lost. You can’t say Alina chose her ending when the ending was deliberately forced on her without her consent, and she is actively upset by this.

It has been said before and I will say it again:

Alina explicitly wants her power in the books. She has conflicting feelings on it, which is normal, but does on multiple occasions admit to herself as well as others that she likes the power, that she wants it, and that she does not wish to lose it.

This is not due to a lack of conceptualizing Alina liking her powers and Alina’s greed for power as separate things. This has nothing to do with Alina’s greed. Outside of Alina’s greed for power, she comes to love this part of herself she neglected all her life because she was raised by people who could not understand her and who taught her to be wary of her own people and culture, so much so that she subconsciously avoided dealing with who she actually was.

Equating Alina’s power with her greed is exactly what those oppressing grisha do in justification for their hate crimes. You are using the same logic as a cast of people set on genocide and oppression. Not to mention the direct connection between grisha being based on jewish persecution and how the thing that defines grisha is equated with greed, which is a highly common antisemitic depiction of jewish people.

Alina is the ethnic jew raised by goyim. She is the repressed queer child of homophobic parents. She is everybody who only got to realize and express themselves after finding and connecting with their community late in life.

A story about a persecuted minority hunted because of what makes them different ending with your main character, who is a part of that minority, losing that piece of themselves and being forced to assimilate, is incredibly problematic. And anybody who makes this criticism about “Alina choosing” forgets that Alina is a character who’s only choices are those made for her by the person who wrote her.

Another thing that people constantly misrepresent is that Alina is not happy to be stripped of her powers at the end, and explicitly expresses sadness, grief, rage, and anger about the loss of her powers. This is separate from her finding happiness despite her grief, but the grief never goes away. Which means that anybody saying she was happy to lose her powers or chose to do so is factually incorrect. Her agency is stripped from her in the end.

She doesn’t get to choose the peaceful life because the peaceful life is chosen for her. This is not a natural ending to a meaningful character arc of self realization. This is the regressive and brutal shafting of a character who’s arc was abused at every turn, and who’s actual development was walked backwards. Not because of her powers but because she is prevented from ever finding peace with her powers by the narrative.

She doesn’t have to fight a war ‘because of her powers’. She has to fight a war because her people are fucking oppressed. Laying the blame on what makes her different instead of the people who have singled her out because she is different indicates a severe lack of understanding in regards to racism, persecution, and oppression.

Her powers didn’t become so corrupt that they failed her in the end. She didn’t see the consequences and choose peace to avoid them because she wasn’t allowed to see anything at all. Her path was decided for her before she could even look down the other.

People focus on Alina and her powers because that is the story. It is a story about realizing something crucial about yourself that has been kept from you and repressed your whole life. It is an incredibly important story to tell. It is a coming of age story about self realization and self actualization and finding agency after a life where you realize you had none.

Blaming Alina being grisha for why she is stripped of her grishaness is fundamentally flawed argument. If the greed for power was what was supposed to be punished, then she would only have lost that which she sought in her greed. And if a balance needed to be reached, then there would be just as many sun summoners as shadow summoners in the world. Because she lost more than that and because of the discordance in thematic symbolism, the message becomes a punishment not for “greed” (which shouldn’t have even been the message in the first place for a plot and setting like this), but for something else. It becomes a punishment for her being grisha and coming to love and accept herself for it. It becomes a punishment of reveling in one’s difference. It becomes a statement about living outside of the boxes society tries to place people in. It becomes a message about oppression and assimilation on the side of oppression and assimilation.

The most important criticism about the ending will always be about the framing of Alina losing her powers. Alina choosing peace and love over power as a message would only have been able to work if Alina had been able to choose it. And to do so she would have had to choose it when she still had her powers. That is the only progression her developmental arc of “choosing peace and love” could have taken if it didn’t want to become regressive and strip her completely of her agency.

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it kind of bums me out that more people arent entirely feral and rabid over alina starkov like how can you not lose your mind over her??? i get shes not a traumatized little man like wylan and kaz and like i love them too but COME ON shes just as much of a meow meow

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Alina loving her powers would mean for her to love herself. Whenever she loves her light, the way it makes her feel, the way it protects her, she is loving who she is and defying the will of an oppressive society that wants her to hate herself. She was meant for another story where the author doesn’t chastise her for loving herself and create a bizarre message that if you love yourself too much, you need to be humbled and put in your place.

Shadow and bone glorifies repression in a disturbing way. It almost seems to praise Alina’s repression during her adolescence as an accomplishment that eventually allowed her to defeat the Darkling and proof of her humility. In RoW, she condemns her supposed greed in the past in an act of self-flagellation because OBVIOUSLY she must perform her humility to prove that losing her powers wasn’t a horrible thing. This self-hatred is then transformed into condemnations of the Darkling and reveals her (and the narrative’s) fear that she will become like him. It’s almost hilarious how scared the story is of Alina potentially understanding him and sympathizing with his ambitions.

That’s ultimately the great fear of the story. That Alina will care enough about something to actually use her power to change the status quo and help other people aside from Mal. That she will embrace who she truly is and become active in her life. Taking responsibility and stepping up to the challenge is wrong and evil, so she should just sit down and quietly hate herself while the problem gets worse

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if you’re having a bad day, here’s a cute little marching band