#and B) he's not the macho fuckboy they are but he lets them think he is so they'll respect him more

[icedteaandoldlace]

Y'all, I just noticed the ominous reprise of Smart Smart Smart Smart Baby playing in the background when Miguel's boss asks him if he took down the firewall, and I'm dying. 😂

[battlestar-royco]

What's your opinion on Mal from the Grisha Trilogy?

OOF he is not my fave! I think I stopped liking him literally within the first three chapters of S&B when he first reacted to Alina’s powers. The most distinctively toolish things I remember about him are: not giving a fuck about Alina and putting far less effort into their friendship than she did, generally being oblivious to her feelings (especially about their friendship/her crush and how poorly he treated her pre-Grisha powers), only beginning to care about her romantically once she had her power, blaming her for randomly coming into power instead of giving him attention so he could be comfy in their unbalanced relationship, being mad at her for enjoying Grisha privileges even though all her efforts to contact him and continue their friendship were thwarted by the Darkling through no fault of her own, getting super macho and controlling when Nikolai suggested a marriage between him and Alina for optics and to literally save Ravka during their war, overall him being framed as a kind person dedicated to her happiness and the only one who cared the most about Alina when that was demonstrably untrue.

From what I remember, Mal felt very entitled to Alina’s existence–even more than Gale toward Katniss in CF. He really only cared about Alina as long as their relationship, her behavior, and her power all operated on his terms. Whatever Alina wanted from him and whatever she wanted to do with her life and her powers came second to what HE wanted her to do. He never thought about Alina’s feelings until HE noticed how HE felt about her; he never cared what she did on her own time until she actually had something good going for her and then he wanted to take that away; he never considered how she felt when he left her alone to be a fuckboy but then when others started showing her attention he lashed out at them and blamed Alina for enjoying the attention that she was never shown and that he himself never showed her. If he actually cared about Alina like that, then maybe he should’ve gotten his act together, told her, and took it from there instead of being ambiguous and oblivious about both their feelings and taking no responsibility for the state of their relationship. Alternatively, once he saw that she was happy with her power and she could do a lot more for the greater good than ever before, he could let her go or wait until the right time for them to be together.

The most infuriating thing about M.alina is that BULLSHIT line in R&R of Alina trying to purport that Mal was the only person in the world who’d ever cared about her. I was like???? Bitch where? Mal doesn’t care about Alina; he cares about bossing her around! Leigh, you’re really trying to tell me that Genya didn’t care about Alina? That Nikolina’s entire relationship was about politics, and that’s it? He didn’t care about her any further? I’m sorry, I just don’t believe that. Genya and Alina were allies throughout the series. I unfortunately don’t remember the specifics of their relationship, but they did vouch for each other and provide solace for each other while in the hostile environment of the palace, right? And what about Tolya and Tamar? And yeah, Nikolai hasn’t known Alina as long as Mal has, and their relationship started off for political reasons, but they went through so much together and he cares about his country and the people who help fight for it more than anything. He cared about Alina and he wanted to help her. He wanted to provide her with resources that Mal couldn’t–both because of her abilities and because of her as a person. And once she made it clear that she didn’t reciprocate his feelings, he backed off and they went on as good friends with a mutually beneficial relationship… unlike a certain other love interest. Thank you, next.