okay let me tell you why i actually loved the darklina scenes in s2: the honesty.
because, to me, the theme of s2 darklina is “i've seen what you truly are, and i've never turned away. i never will. can they say the same?”
because, as we learn, the answer is one hundred percent no. and, despite the fact that alina doesn’t affect much sympathy for the darkling’s position, he’s finally showing her who he is too.
mal literally dips after seeing what alina can do, after she does everything to keep from sacrificing him for the cause. because he sees who she truly is. and nikolai barely knows her - they haven’t had any serious, substantive conversations. and when the darkling comments on her powers when she’s destroying the fold? he literally can’t turn away. she’s magnificent to him, even more so because of her stubbornness, her drive - and as much as her youth drives him crazy, he knows that it’s not her fault that she thinks her way is the right way. a good person tries to reach out a hand before cutting it off. just like he did, once. he understands that, even when it’s frustrating and hard and he kinda just wants to force her to his side so he doesn’t have to wait for her to learn the lesson.
but more than that, alina spends the season seeing the darkling for who he truly is. he stops lying to her. he stops playing the role that he played in s1 - of her lover, her balance, or her villain. he tells her about what he knows, what he wants. he wants her desperately to understand but the tragedy is because of his actions and her youth, she doesn’t want to listen. i really loved baghra’s line to him about how he missed his chance to have alina fall in love with him. the real him. because it’s the best take in a whole lot of bad darklina takes that different characters, including alina and the darkling themselves, had. the fact that she saw who he truly was long after she closed herself off is really sad. but it’s still powerful and captivating and intense, and it gave alina every tool possible for the future. because if she can summon shadows, she’s still immortal. she’s going to have a lot of time to think, and she desperately needs it.
tldr unpopular opinion but i liked where alina and the darkling stood with each other this season. i refuse to throw either of them under the bus for the outcome because, in the end, it made sense (unlike a lot of other things this season lmao)
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I WILL SCREAM AND CRY FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE AND THE REASON FOR THIS CHAOS IS BECAUSE THE CAST OF SHADOW AND BONE IS SO PERFECT I WANT TO DIE
I MEAN
YOU CAN'T CONVINCE ME THIS ISN'T NINA FREAKING ZENIK
AND THE CROWS DUDE, LOOK AT THE CROWS 😭😭😭
AND THEN THERE'S TOLYA WITH INEJ JUST KILL ME ALREADY
Ok I'm done, bye
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let me just say one thing for the moment regarding Ted:
there’s a lot of circumstantial evidence and not much else - it’s good to be cautious and to be keeping a close eye on things, but quite frankly, it’s still a lot of smoke and no concrete anything. like, “he knows/we told him” - how was this done? was there 100% confirmation that messages/replies/@ s were received and read, because that was never indicated and that’s pretty important to the picture people are painting. and from what i’ve seen, the girl in question has no personal information listed on twitter, at least, and if he’s anything like me - and i am way more online than him - i don’t do heavy background checks on every person who interacts with me, and i’m also not an actor who gets hundreds or replies/retweets/@ s daily that are probably largely ignored or unread
protecting minors is absolutely the utmost important thing, but again, unless you can prove without a doubt that something elicit or nefarious is happening, that’s a lot of heavy accusations to be throwing around and i don’t have any answers for you, nor do i have any idea what more can be said at the moment
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