#Mal and alina matching icons

[ragingstillness]

Shadow and Bone spoilers - random thoughts from my notes (e1)

They matched Alina and Mal's outfits on the ship and that's cute. Alina's dress is gorgeous too. I'm very into the embroidered neckline.

Did they film this at the actual Ellis Island? It looks like it.

Alina's freckles are adorable and I'm happy to see them.

I'm liking the movable map version of showing us where things are. Wish they'd give us a tiny bit more context for the overall map though.

Baby Kaz is cute and I like him. Genuinely can't believe the Stadwatch thought they'd be able to take all three of them.

LMFAO about this fanart of Darklina wanted poster.

They're leaning hard on the "there is only one bed" trope as if the two of them didn't book the room off screen. Also the dialogue is literally ripped from a fanfic.

I'll never be a Malina shipper but show Malina is pretty cute. Like, they're nice to each other and sweet and I think my care for the actors is taking over my opinion of them a little.

Quoted literally from my notes here: "Give the people what they want fuckers, I wanna see Ben"

Durast!Jesper is everything to me and I am in love with this storyline. However, if he could make a key out of a coin why couldn't he undo the cuffs? Later in the season they mention that Durasts can control all metal, surely those cuffs aren't made of plastic or smtg. I wanna know the rules here.

"Like calls to like" - nice, iconic, happy to hear it.

I am very into the traditional African outfits for the Zemeni. But I am very conscious of being a white person so I'd be interested to read what someone who's POC would think of them.

Calling being Grisha a blessing, thank god we finally get some Grisha who are actually having a good time. Literally all other Grisha we've met until this point have been just suffering.

Endlessly funny to me that this wanted poster of Alina has a realistic image of her but people throughout the show continue to not recognize her on sight.

I am liking the increased action. I can see Archie's stunt double sometimes but he's doing a decent amount of the running and fighting himself. Mal is also just funnier and quippier this season and I like it. Is it racist to say I'm getting Aladdin vibes from him rolling back under the table and paying the dude while running from the police? Also pleased they're doing a callback to the fact that we did see Mal fighting in episode one of season one.

The sun saint salute. Excellent, well coordinated, we love to see it.

That photo negative wanted poster of the crows is hilariously creepy.

Love me some Inej just nicking knives but I'm surprised she hasn't had some on her already. Did she seriously use all of them in the Fold? I don't think we saw that.

The whole "say Inej every five minutes" thing is back haha.

Quoted literally from my notes here: "Pekka says fuck the police I guess"

"Funny guns and angry hat" are now my names for Jesper and Kaz.

Oof Hellgate looks awful.

"Valiant of you but I bet they printed more than one" - cuties

"First army needs to know its place" - yeah get fucked

Quoted literally from my notes here: "It ain't the Volcra dumbass. Get it Sasha"

Why do the Nichevo'ya look like the transformed Tyrant from RE2?

"This again" - fuck me up that is a tragic thing to say.

"I shall have to overthrow the king now" yeah you do that my man.

[gonebackto505]

SHADOW & BONE ICONS

like/reblog if you like/save it!

[valoislanstov]

Jessie & Archie matching icons

The amount of tweet slander that was directed to Mal— unbelievable honestly.

reblog or leave a ♡︎ if you use it

give credit to @valoislanstov / just don’t claim it as yours

[havenmt]

Alina and Mal matching icons

reblog or leave a ♡︎ if you use it

give credit please to @havenmt / just don’t claim it as yours

[koroleva-nazyalensky]

I genuinely was not expecting to get the amount of interaction between Alina and the Darkling we got in Rule of Wolves, and I was pleasantly surprised the whole scene matched up with at least one of the absolutely mad headcanons I had been cooking up for her reaction since I finished King of Scars last year. (A particularly hilarious one at that-- "Wipe your feet" 10/10, iconic) It was everything my little darklina shipping heart I could have hoped for under the circumstances, (the circumstances being my ship sunk long ago) and overall I'm glad my girl is out there thriving with Mal. That said, before I started the book, I did make a playlist filled with all the possible ways I thought an encounter such as this would play out, and I thought I'd share. It ranges from hilarious, to traumatic, to spicy, and it held me back from writing far too much AU fanfiction, so there you go.

[evangelineartemiasamos]

What do u think of Nikolai and Zoya as a potential pairing in King of Scars? Now that I think about it they'd probably be that unstoppable, too beautiful to look at couple and I'm pretty sure Zoya's getting a tragic backstory but idk if their personalities match.

I think they’re very similar personality-wise. Cocky, arrogant, and capable. I like Zoya but I dislike the girl hate and double standards towards her (re-reading it, TGT has a lot of girl hate and there’s some iffy stuff in SOC too). When Alina or Nikolai are snarky, it’s cool, but when Zoya says something sharp, she’s a horrible bitch. Literally said in the books. What’s the difference? I think it’s only in Alina’s head. Yes, Zoya attacked her, but she was punished for it and later on, it’s hardly that big a matter anymore. Yet her personality is still described as vile. But is she really? In S&S, Alina dismisses Zoya’s story about her family murdered by the Darkling but why shouldn’t it be true? Then Alina is the one who’s horrible. Alina is generally socially inept and her views of people should be taken with a grain of salt.

However, just that for us to doubt how accurate Zoya’s portrayal by Alina is. I’m excited to see more from another POV, maybe even Zoya herself. I’d be down for her (sad) backstory, let’s be honest.

I’m not sure whether I like Zoya x Nikolai, tbh. There’s nothing against them, but neither anything that points toward them. They’re alike, but maybe too alike? We never saw them interact, so what do we know? (I only remember the cameos in CK were awesome but not the details, sorry). That is, I wonder whether they’d make an interesting couple, one that stays together. I can imagine a fling, like Zoya had with Mal (”you know, Genya and David’s flirting can get soo annoying. Wanna stay the night in my room?” *winks*). But why should Nikolai date/marry Zoya? He was ready to marry for politics but Zoya is already his ally and not as iconic (literally) as Alina. So I think Nikolai will only marry for the greatest political advantage, his true love, or stay single and atm, I don’t see Zoya as his true love so it’s rather a no from me

... since his true love is Maven Calore please read my fic lol

[lambicpentametre]

The Once and Future Queen (6: with your soul in the grave)

ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/34581256/chapters/87300127

David tests a theory. Alina dreams of the True Sea.

Alina leans in and places her hands on his shoulders, balancing herself on her toes so she can press her lips to his ear. His breath tickles when he sucks in, not expecting to feel the contact.

“Heretic,” she whispers, letting her breath ghost the shell of his ear. He wrenches her away, his hands tight on her arms. His eyes are alight with fury, and she laughs.

Author’s note: This fic is tagged Dead Dove: Do Not Eat. It discusses highly unethical, non-consensual medical experimentation. While this chapter does not contain graphic descriptions of medical experimentation, it does touch on the fallout of such. Please take care of yourself while you read.

Chapter 6: with your soul in the grave

“Would you like to live with your soul in the grave?” - Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë

///

Things between David and Alina change after that. 

He doesn’t put her on the table. 

“There’s no point,” he says, when she asks him after three days. “No matter how much I try, I only get the same answer. I won’t keep causing you needless pain.”

It’s the first bit of kindness that anyone has shown to her in almost two years. She can’t remember the last time someone was kind to her for the sake of being kind, no ulterior motive. Genya, when she dismissed the Queen’s servants on her first full day in the Little Palace? Fedyor, when he greeted her in Aleksander’s carriage that fateful day? 

Or does it go back even further? Mal, running with her in the meadow on sunny afternoons, finding all the best berries in the summer and sharing them with her. A half-remembered lullaby her mama sang to her, after she fell from a swing. 

“Why now?”

“Because I have a theory.”

When David tells her what he suspects, Alina schools her face into indifference and says nothing. There’s work to be done, and she won’t let Aleksander get the best of her this time.

///

David brings books on Grisha theory for her to read, either while he tinkers in the lab or when she’s in her cell. It’s not as if anyone else comes to visit her, so no one ever knows. She reads about the first summoners, how they mastered the wind and the waves; the first corporalki who practiced on themselves, healing wounds inflicted by mobs who chased them out of towns.

One day, David brings her a copy of the Istorii Sankt’ya. 

“You look glum,” he explains.

“And you thought a children’s fable would help cheer me up?” Alina says, her nose deep in Moste Essential Fyre. She’s not inferni, but she can summon light and heat as well. It’s the closest she’ll get to a guide. 

David shrugs and puts the book at the top of her pile. She pours over the stories of Sankta Ursula, whose waves have yet to be matched by even the strongest of tidemakers; of Sankt Grigori, who must have been one of the first corporalnik; of Sankt Juris, who slayed a dragon and protected the battle-hardened.

Alina had once been hailed as a saint, however briefly. If any of the Saints could hear her, she was sure they hadn’t answered any of her prayers.

“Ilya Morozova is Sankt Ilya,” Alina says the next time she sees David in the lab, holding the Istorii Sankt’ya open to the icon of Sankt Ilya in Chains. 

David doesn’t respond. 

“The man who found those mythical creatures was a Saint, wasn’t he?” 

“Many Durasts believe that Ilya Morozova didn’t find the amplifiers,” David says. He was still working away at his newest project, and he wouldn’t let Alina see what it was. He took care to lock it away each time he left the lab, ensuring that she wouldn’t be able to access it while he was gone. 

“And what do you believe?”

“The Bonesmith crafted each of the amplifiers with merzost, the same magic the Black Heretic used to make the Fold,” he says.

“Why?”

David bites his lip. “The General — the tsar, that is — gave me access to his library after you went missing. He wanted to find the stag. I knew he wanted the amplifier, but it seemed odd that he would want it for himself; he’s one of the few human amplifiers we know of. So he must have wanted it for the sun summoner—” he catches himself. “But Miss Svetlana, she was so untrained. Hardly at the level that Zoya was when she received her amplifier, and nowhere near Ivan.

“It’s not my place to question his orders, only to follow them. But what I found in his library…” he trails off. 

“What do you know of the Black Heretic, Miss Starkov?” David asks.

“All Ravkan children are taught the story of the Black Heretic, aren’t they? A warning to naughty boys and girls,” she says. “The ancestor of the ageless King Aleksander.”

“Miss Starkov,” he says gently. “He is the Black Heretic.”

The world begins to fall out from under Alina. David looks at her in panic as the lab disappears around her.

///

She’s in Aleksander’s room again. His bedroom, this time. He’s looking out of his window at something, but when she looks for herself, she can’t see anything.

“You’ve gotten careless, Aleksander,” Alina says, startling him from his reverie. He still drinks in the sight of her whenever she appears to him, she notes with malicious glee. 

“Have I, solnyshka?” he drawls, stepping closer to her. “Or have you?”

“Oh, it wasn’t something I did,” she says, stepping around him. They circle each other like predators. She’s itching for a fight, and she thinks he is too. “You did it all yourself, this time.”

Alina leans in and places her hands on his shoulders, balancing herself on her toes so she can press her lips to his ear. His breath tickles when he sucks in, not expecting to feel the contact.

“Heretic,” she whispers, letting her breath ghost the shell of his ear. He wrenches her away, his hands tight on her arms. His eyes are alight with fury, and she laughs.

“Were you thinking of me again, Aleksander?” she asks with mirth in her voice. “Me, and not your little wife?” His grip tights again, but it only serves to amuse her further.

“You are a thorn in my side, Alinochka,” he seethes. If she were actually here, she has no doubt that there would be bright bruises on her arms by now. 

“Oh, Aleksander,” she whimpers, a mockery of a lustful tone. “Tell me more, please!” 

He lets her go, straightening his kefta. He pulls on his sleeves and places his arms behind his back, a perfect image of the military man he was when they first met. 

“Tell me how you found out.”

“Oh, I will?” Alina laughs. She knows an order when she hears one. “Why would I do that?” 

“You’ll tell me, one way or another. I have my ways, milaya.” 

Alina dances around him, sitting on the edge of his bed. She knows it must be soft, but it seems that the only sensation she gets from this connection is whatever contact she has with Aleksander himself. 

“Aleksander, you’ve already done so much for me. My own cell, my own lab.” She crosses her legs in the most coquettish way she knows how. She thinks back to all the girls who once fawned over Mal, to the way she once tried to seduce Aleksander himself in those few weeks she had before Svetlana arrived, and she weaponizes it all. 

“What more could you possibly give me?” 

Aleksander storms toward her, and she smiles. Just as he’s about to grab her, she falls back into the void and disappears. 

///

Alina comes to on the cold, stone floor of the lab, David’s kefta tucked underneath her head. He’s sitting next to her, trying to take her pulse and failing.

“You know it’s on the other side of my wrist, right?” she says, groggy. 

“Shit.” 

Alina sits up; her arms are sore, but nowhere near the pain she’s endured before. She’ll survive. 

“Miss Starkov, are you alright? You fainted.”

She shakes her head. “I didn’t faint. I saw him again.”

“Has it ever happened while you’ve been awake?”

“Not to my knowledge,” Alina says. “But I haven’t been properly conscious for periods of time in a while.” 

David slides away from her. “I’ll make a note in my journal.” He collects his kefta from the floor and helps her stand. 

“David, how did you find out?” she asks. 

“The General told me to read everything I could about Morozova’s creatures. He had journals, Morozova’s personal journals, in his collection. We were taught that the Black Heretic’s son destroyed the journals after the creation of the Fold, and for the General to have them… it seemed suspect. When I looked further, I found personal journals. It felt wrong to read them, but I only needed a few pages to understand.”

“Aleksander is the Heretic,” Alina finishes. “There’s only ever been one Shadow Summoner.”

David nods. 

“The General used merzost to create the Fold. I don’t think he intended to make the Unsea,” David says.

Alina flips through the book. When she sees the icon of Sankt Ilya, she understands. 

“You think he wanted to make another amplifier.”

Alina stands in front of a glass cabinet, the closest thing she has to a mirror in the lab. She slides the sleeves of her shift so she can see her arms. Sure enough, there are two bright red handprints marring her skin. They’re beginning to bruise, purple and tender.

David drops his journal. 

“What happened?”

“Aleksander.” David moves to her side.

“How did it happen?” 

“Aleksander.”

“While you saw him?” David asks. Alina nods, observing the bruises. 

“You were still physically here, though.” 

“I don’t know, David,” she says. “When he calls, I come. I can’t help it.”

///

Alina opens her eyes to a fresh wind. It’s salty, and water sprays on her face. The sun is beating down on her, and the wind is rushing through her hair. Her fingers are wrapped tight around the mane of the horse she’s riding, but when she looks down at her mount, it’s not a horse at all.

It’s the stag. 

She’s galloping down a cold beach, ice chunks lapping at the shore. Somewhere in Fjerda, she thinks. Somewhere cold.

The stag slows down and turns to face the ocean. The sunlight bounces off of the cresting waves like a thousand little crystals. The water is the deepest blue she’s ever seen in her life. Alina has never seen the True Sea, but if this is what it looks like, she’ll be damned if she doesn’t see it before she dies.

In the distance, she sees something breach from the water: a rolling body, shimmering pearlescent color that sparkled even so far away. 

Rusalye, the stag whispers in her mind. Rusalye. Sea whip. 

“Do you want it?” 

Alina turns, and Aleksander is standing next to the stag, watching the sea whip disappear beneath the waves.

“Would you like the sea whip?”

Alina slides off the back of the stag, next to Aleksander. She’s not scared of him; he can’t hurt her here. She’s not in his rooms, he’s in her dreams.

“A gift for you,” he whispers. “How beautiful you would look in those scales.” 

“I don’t want it.” 

“You wanted the stag so desperately, and yet you would shun the sea whip?” he asks. 

“You know what I want. You gave it away.”

He cups her cheek, and she hates the spark she feels when he touches her. “Milaya,” he coos. He grips her jaw, squeezing so she cannot speak, his wedding ring of bone digging into her cheek. It will bruise when she returns. “The stag is not yours.”

Her skin is warm; the light is bubbling just underneath the surface. 

“You would buy my loyalty?” she asks. “Did you buy hers too?”

“I think you would find there isn’t much I wouldn’t do, solnyshka,” he says. He cradles her face so gently, and she relaxes into it.

“Murderer,” she whispers into his palm like a lover would. 

Aleksander grips her by the throat, but she just laughs. 

“Have you told your pretty pet the truth, moi tsar?” she mocks. “Or is the Queen not strong enough to bear the weight of her husband’s true identity?” 

Aleksander grits his teeth. The sky begins to turn black, but Alina isn’t scared. He starts to squeeze tighter, his eyes flashing in anger. 

“You are an insolent brat,” he says. 

“And yet, you still call to me,” she taunts. “And she doesn’t. How that must burn you! Tell me, of all the lives you’ve taken, all the marriages you’ve ended, which hurt the most? What does the Black Heretic hide in his dark soul?” 

Aleksander lets her go.

“Does he have a soul?” she asks. 

“I am just as human as you are, Miss Starkov,” he replies, dusting his hands. 

“But we’re not human,” she says with a wolfish grin. “Aren’t we? We’re more than that. But your poor wife… she’s just a husk. She burned too hot and now she’s ashes.” 

“You speak of your queen,” Aleksander says.

“She’ll never be my queen,” Alina bites back. “Not since you gave her my collar, the amplifier that should have been my crown. Marry her before the entire world, crown her with every jewel in the royal collection, it won’t matter. I’ll know she’s not my queen. 

“And do you know what, moi tsar?” she sidles up to him, placing her chin on his shoulder. “I think you know she’s not your queen either. Your soul’s not hers, and it never was. Claim her as yours, mark her all you like, but it won’t change. She will never know you like I do.”

Alina hears the stag charging behind her. She plants her feet in the cold sand and stretches her arms out. The stag lowers its head, its antlers pointed directly through her back. She feels it pierce through her skin and revels in the pain. Light pours out of her, and Aleksander has to shield his eyes.

“She will never be what I am. I am the stag and the sun.”

///

Aleksander wakes in a cold sweat. His skin is tight, drawn taut over his body and warm to the touch. He gets up to examine himself in the mirror, and there’s no denying it. 

His skin is sunburnt, as if he’d been at the southern front under the summer sun for days. It’s still early spring, the last vestiges of winter stubbornly holding on with ice cold rain. 

On his left palm, where he held Alina’s face in his hand, is a burn in the mark of the Sun Summoner. It will fade to scar tissue as his skin heals, nothing more than a nasty sunburn, but the message is clear.

[dekoranevich]

GUIDELINES

BEFORE INTERACTING

About the writer: Marianne, she/her, 28, EST. I’ll answer to Ani or Mari, as well. My time is limited and this is for fun!

This is a private and selective blog for GENYA SAFIN of Leigh Bardugo’s Grishaverse. This blog will feature triggering material, including plot-appropriate violence, sex, drug/alcohol use, discussion of abuse (Genya is a survivor), and other potentially triggering content. I will tag all common triggers, and anything I am asked to tag. Please take care if you follow!

Please tag cancer, sexual violence of any kind (including ‘dubious consent’ and somnophilia), and images of spiders.

ON INTERACTING & FOLLOWING

This blog is mutuals only. The only exception to this is for members of group verses. If I follow you, I want to write with you! OCs, multimuses, and crossovers are always, always welcome! Feel free to write greeters, send memes, turn memes into threads, and message me to plot! Please don’t write me unsolicited starters otherwise. I don’t require reblog karma, though I don’t like being used as a meme source if we never interact.

I reserve the right to not follow, unfollow, or block users as I see fit. I won’t follow back if you are under 18, or have no mention of your age / age range on your blog; all minors who do follow this blog will be softblocked. If I unfollow because your blog has been inactive for a while, please let me know when you come back! Don’t romanticize Nazis, don’t be an asshole about “dark themes” (which can be written well & respectfully!), and don’t guilt and manipulate your followers.

This blog is low-activity, low-pressure, and low-stress. I’m very comfortable to unfollow liberally to keep it that way.  If I unfollow or block, it’s simply because I don’t want to see something on my dash, and think it’s important to curate my own experiences; it’s not a statement against you in any way.

I won’t interact with any portrayals that engage in whitewashing, or ignoring canonically established races for characters.

I will not follow or interact with cisswapped characters written by cis writers. (I’m cis; it’s not my place to tell anyone who isn’t how to approach gender.)

I don’t enjoy writing with characters that are completely devoid of flaws, vulnerabilities, or weaknesses – it’s just not fun for me when there aren’t any real stakes, and the rules of whichever universe we’re playing in don’t apply to one of the characters involved.

I don’t experience duplicate (character or face claim) anxiety or insecurity and would love to bond over a character we both clearly adore. 

ON CANON & FANDOMS

Genya is based on a combination of show and book canon (including the short story “The Tailor”). For the moment, I’ll be using Sophie Turner as her primary FC — I love Daisy Head’s portrayal but unfortunately, she’s not in too many scenes overall, and I like icons, so there may be a combination of the two present here.

I tend to default to show-based ages (Alina and Mal in their early twenties, Genya and Zoya in their mid twenties, the Crows in their early-mid twenties); the Darkling’s and Mal’s expanded-upon characterization, the expanded political circumstances (such as General Zlatan and West Ravka’s interest in independence) and the blending of the Grishaverse and Six of Crows characters with the kidnapping plot. I tend to default to the book-based appearance of amplifiers, and book- and short story-based knowledge of context outside the show. I’m happy to discuss and find compromises with a partner who doesn’t like this blended canon! If you’d rather we shift in one direction or another, just drop me a message.

I don’t alter character names to match Russian naming customs; the Ravkan language is inspired by Russian, but isn’t Russian, and the changes that Leigh Bardugo made (such as not gendering surnames, or introducing Mongolian grammar) were very deliberate and very careful. On that note, please refrain from the antisemitic and misogynistic “criticisms” of Bardugo claiming that she half-assed her research, or is somehow unqualified to write on what she’s stated was inspired in part by her own family’s history in Russia. 

There are only a handful of fandoms I will not interact with, due to my own comfort. I may interact with the characters in AUs if I am comfortable with the writer. Find the list here.

ON RELATIONSHIPS

I love playing with established relationships of any nature. Come and plot with me if you want to jump right into a dynamic of any kind! I am always open to new ships — I love shipping, and it’s one of my favorite things about collaborative writing. You are always welcome to approach me to talk about ships; it’s not force-shipping in the slightest, and chances are, I’m already excited about it.

I won’t write incest ( relationships between second cousins, or closer ), and while I am very comfortable writing complicated relationships, I won’t romanticize abuse or toxicity, or write explicit abuse scenes.

If you’re interested in shipping, please take a quick look at this post.

ON CONTENT

Please understand that the source material I draw from deals with potentially triggering material, including (but not limited to) violence, sex, drug/alcohol use, and abuse. All of these topics will be dealt with on this blog with care and gravity, and will be appropriately tagged. Please take care of yourself! I’ll tag anything I’m asked to tag (formatted as #tw: [trigger]) and will never approach “dark” subject matter in a flip or disrespectful way.

I am a legal adult and am comfortable writing legal adults having consensual sex. I will not write smut with or about anyone under the age of eighteen. I am perfectly comfortable with and willing to write scenes fading to black or time jumps. I will not use visual aids of any kind in replies involving graphic sex and ask that you do the same. All NSFW images and text will be tagged as #nsfw;

My formatting is minimal – typically small text and 100x100 icons. English is weird, in spelling and grammar. I don’t super care if you get it right all the time. If I need clarification, I’ll ask!

The dash updates were great for me, as a person with limited visibility. I won’t follow anyone sacrificing accessibility for aesthetics, including with photoshop replies, impossible-to-see icons, and purple prose excessive to the point of being incomprehensible.

If you are uncomfortable with anything you see here, please let me know. I am not perfect and I am sure I’ll make mistakes; if that happens, and you’re comfortable, tell me, and I’ll make every effort to fix it and to be better in the future, in the case of me doing something harmful.

CREDIT

Found here.

EXCLUSIVES & MAINS

If I am exclusive with a particular portrayal, please do not approach me to write with other versions of these characters on this blog. Please also know that I’m unlikely to drop exclusivity for any reason besides extensive (two or more months) inactivity, or breaking mutuals. Threads which ignore or disrespect my exclusivity will be dropped.

EXCLUSIVES:

Albert Wesker — urobouris

Arthur Pendragon — uncannylongings

Draco Malfoy — potterstillstinks

James Flint — seascourge

John Robinson — uncannylongings

[havenmt]

Alina and Mal matching icons

reblog or leave a ♡︎ if you use it

give credit please to @havenmt / just don’t claim it as yours