#shadow and bone discourse

[greensaplinggrace]

“but the otkazat’sya are suffering too!” girl the otkazat’sya have one thousand safe havens to choose from. because it is their entire country and they are the privileged majority. they never have to fear that they are alone or isolated or vulnerable in a land that caters directly to them. do you understand. the grisha have one safe haven in a land that fucking hates them and seeks to strip away their basic human rights at every second. they are not the same.

Wdyt about Israel Palestine

i think that anybody trying to bring a real life attempt at fucking genocide into petty fandom bullshit maybe needs to take a step back a little. what the fuck is wrong with you people.

i think that i don't know nearly enough about the situation to make a statement about anything, but it's pretty damn obvious that israel is making an attempt at wiping out palestine. next person to bring this subject into my ask box as fandom discourse is getting blocked by the way. there are people fucking dying out there right now.

i also think that it's fucking ridiculous to take a statement out of context and try to spin it in some accusatory direction, considering the context is that the otkazat'sya hold irrevocable power within this fictional universe and seek to cull the grisha despite their safe haven. which is genocide. last I checked genocide is bad. it really shouldn't have to be stated that this is fucking fiction versus reality, though. literally what the fuck.

[aziraphalesbookkeeper]

ok so obviously i hate the idea of netflix cancelling yet another show with a big following and i feel for Leigh, but holy SHIT i am so relieved we're not getting more of S&B. do you really trust netflix to give us a good and faithful crow adaption after the monstrosity that was season 2 because i sure fucking don't

[theweeklydiscourse]

Fake Enemies to Lovers Enjoyers: Enemies to lovers only works when [insert thinly veiled description of their fave ship’s dynamic]! Otherwise it’s abusive and toxic!!

These types want so badly for their preferred ships to be the exception to their sweeping generalizations and arbitrary limits on what can, and cannot be explored within the trope. They’re such hypocrites that want to have their cake and eat it too, they want the pleasure that comes from lording one’s perceived moral superiority over others while also enjoying the things that are so similar to what they condemn.

I beg of you…spare me the inane moralizing of your fictional preferences and please just sit down. Stop trying to move the goalposts to suit your specific preferences, stop ostentatiously moaning about what constitutes as what in regards to a broad trope like Enemies to Lovers. It’s a futile game and you look stupid trying to impose moral judgment on what is just a matter of taste

[littleblackraincloudofcourse]

Probably about to piss someone off but. . .

I pointed this out to a friend recently while trying to get them hooked on One Piece, then I thought given what's happening in several other fandoms right now, it's worth sharing it with everyone I can.

One Piece has been running since the 90's and has fans that have been there since the beginning. Since the live action last year, there has been a surge of new fans, myself included, who knew next to nothing coming in.

Some of us have chosen to go back to the beginning and read or watch everything while others are only watching the new series.

There are also numerous "conflicting" ships that some are diehards for. There are fem and trans variants of many of those characters and ships (mostly many fan created) as well.

The one thing I've seen almost nothing of is wars between fans about any of this. Older fans have been willing to answer questions and help new fans find info about backstories and lore without judging them for not going back and finding it themselves. I've never seen (for example) Zosan fans telling Zolu fans they can't ship them for any reason. Canon, crack ships, rare pairs, none of it matters. We're just having fun.

One Piece is one of (if not the most) well loved anime and manga series in existence and I've seen less drama from them than in fandoms of some one season series.

So to all the One Piece fans, thank you for being kind and welcoming!

And to everyone else that bothered to read all this, what are we doing?

[brainrotfromhorny]

The entirety of Siege and Strorm the Darkling is manipulating Alina, tempting her with power and sex and all that ✨ fun ✨ stuff. Meanwhile Mal is manipulating her like that guy you meet in college who is willing to hook up but he can't be together with you because this semester he's taking like, fifteen credits ;c

[niqosasaki]

i'm afraid the cat king x edwin ship is becoming the new darklina and i don't think i like it...

[silmarillisms]

I've realized that every problem I have with the Shadow and Bone book series stems from the fact that the author writes from a place of privilege, never acknowledges that privilege is privilege, and tries to pass off a highly privileged viewpoint on every situation as absolute truth within Grishaverse.

The Grisha don't know how lucky they are. They get to lord over all of us from the Little Palace, dressing in their fancy clothes and eating good food!

Says the person who has never had to spend every day of their life being forced to convince people in power that they are useful to society and deserve to exist, who live in constant fear that someday someone in a position of power might decide otherwise.

Why doesn't the Darkling just trust Alina? Why does he lie to her and keep her out of his confidence?

Says the person who has never been in a position of power where they were directly responsible for the lives of people beneath them. Says the person who did not spend their formative years being repeatedly traumatized by their only parental figure who taught them over and over that no one could be trusted. Says the person who has never liked someone but knows they need to keep them at arm's length because they seem to sympathize with people who, given half the chance, would fuck you over.

Why can't you just trust that Nikolai would be better than his father and that his rule would end Grisha persecution?

Says the person who has never had to fight for their rights against a corrupt system, who has never had to accept the fact that the system itself is stacked against them and the only hope they have is to break it entirely.

Why can't the Darkling accept that change happens slowly and incrementally over time? Why doesn't he understand that using violent revolution to enact change is wrong?

Says the person who has never existed in a place or time when the only hope for their people was violent revolution. Says the person who has never been part of an ostracized group, who has never been tired of waiting, of watching, of hoping. We don't pray for change. We make it happen.

Why can't Alina stop thinking about gaining personal power, by aligning herself with the Darkling or otherwise? Doesn't she know that it's wrong to seek power?

Says the person who has never in their life spent a day feeling powerless, feeling hopeless, feeling that they don't matter.

I don't have a problem with the universe of Shadow and Bone. I have a problem with the fact that Leigh Bardugo tries to force the audience to see it, and its characters, through a perspective that disrespects the characters she created, the social and political challenges that they face, and the way those things mirror the real struggles of marginalized groups of people - intentionally or otherwise.

[howtostandinsilence]

darkling fans: in depth discussions about the harmful depiction of persecution in the novels and the racist and antisemitic ways the darkling is written, highlighting how the darkling could have still been a villain if the grisha as a persecuted and marginalized people had been handled better and the story was more aware of itself and the problems it was discussing. detailing where leigh bardugo’s inability to understand politics and oppression led to a damaging puritanical framework for her story that flattened her characters, distracting from the message she was trying to tell and forcing her to rely on ‘tell don’t show’ to convey themes she had no real grasp of.

explaining how they sympathize with the darkling’s efforts to achieve freedom for his people, even if they don’t agree with his methods, and see themselves in the suffering he’s faced at the hands of his oppressors. saying they like the potential he had as a character even as a villain if the story had only been better written.

finding fault in a narrative that champions the return to the status quo and the support of an oppressive monarchy. citing the canonical ways the grisha suffered worse after the darkling’s death and talking about how zoya’s depiction as queen was even more harmful for it’s shallow dismissal of how bigotry and persecution actually works within a system and the very real harm that was done to her people for thousands of years. providing detailed analysis of racism within the grishaverse and how leigh bardugo inadvertently ends up championing forced assimilation for her persecuted fantasy race.

antis, with reading comprehension so fatal they can’t even understand basic literary analysis and critical thinking: darkling fans think of the darkling as a left wing hero! shadow and bone is so so subversive. he represents the most evil men and he is the worst there is! people only like him because he’s so hot... even though mal is also described as hot, and nikolai is too... 

[liaa--qb]

Your take on darklinas is 100% correct. Saw so many darklinas in team black stans and they were shitting on Aegon and Aemond. How can someone like Darkling if they like Rhaenyra as if Darkling wasn't far worse for girls than Aegon. Yes they type whole big paragraph about Daemon did nothing wrong and he never groomed anyone. I am not fan of alysmond but I assure you I don't find them more problematic than Daemyra, Rhaenicent. They said Aemond killed Alys's entire family but I don't think she ever gave fuck about her family.

Iol😂 Ik that btw n firstly let me tell u that in book Alys didn't give a single shit about whatever family that was.That wasn't even her family !

That was house strong who was keeping her only as wet nurse servant just bcz she was a strong bastard herself if talk about book only. She wasn't any princess there😭. Wtf TB Stans think while making these bullshits which wasn't in the book. Atleast should make something sensible.

I already told that dere relationship was not any romantic which some Alysmond Stans want it to be. It was just kind of toxic profit n gain relationship bet them. But she was only with Aemond for her profit n survival. She clearly gets pregnant with his child. Most logical reason is only that she would also hold the power in throne. That's it.

Alys was a witch who killed a man just in secs...do u really think that she would make herself as a crying hostage to a 18 yrs old boy😭. She would have killed Aemond easily if she wanted to right there while slaughtering whole house strong but she didn't bcz she would easily get profit from removing every other man from her strong family. Whole wealth indirectly goes to her or larys.

TB be saying anything rubbish as we don't even get much about her in book. She was neither team Black or team green. Now what tv series would do about her ? I can't say that......but Ofcourse they would say thousand non sense reasons on daemon which even GRRM would die on hearing.😹

N about Darklina stans🤦🏻‍♀️...they r really stupid. Their whole ship is extremely problematic. Even alysmond or every ship from hotd itself is less problematic than darklina honestly 😂.

Darkling literally abused n harmed Alina physically and he gave small girls to get r*ped by King for his own need🤢

n the audacity those idiots have to say anything about any ship way less problematic than them. It's funny when Darkling Stans would say they like Rhaenyra. Even Aegon was less harmful than him like bitch.. be fr😂which drug u guys r taking

I don't hate or not any anti Darklina. I don't even like that book. It's so fucking boring😭.Ship is very much ok. Like you can ship the fuck u want. I used to ship it too but if u r liking a problematic ship urself then u should better keep ur mouth shut about any other ships. They are embarrassing sometimes

(Believe me only thing I shipped it because they have that light and dark dynamic, if it wasn't about that. I would have never shipped them either. Plus Ben Barnes was the reason I went to watch that show 😑)

As I said they can't even like their favourites as they are🤷🏻‍♀️ so don't take them seriously. I am waiting for that clown show when they are going to say Daeron is a r@pist while writing big stupid paragraphs on ' how Maegor was correct'. U can see that very soon.

[sailor-hufflepuff]

I’ve been musing more on my villain binge. As a teenager, I DID NOT GET why so many people liked villains. I wanted a knight in shining armor, treat me right, get along with my mama boy in real life, so why would I want something different for the fictional heroines I lived vicariously through?

Zutara was my first “villain ship”, although I would have passionately argued at the time that Zuko wasn’t a villain, he was an antagonist - not evil, but a child soldier who had been brainwashed into believing he was truly helping the world.

I found the similarities between him and Katara fascinating. The loss of their mothers, their love for their nations, the absolute conviction in doing what they believe is right… the way that, even fighting, they were equals.

Fast forward a few years to Loki. How an abused child desperate for attention did something half prank, half sincere attempt to protect his people from Thor’s wildly unprepared rule spun out of control in ways beyond his ability to handle. The psychotic break that came from his discovery of his true parentage in the worst possible way. I myself had a mental breakdown when I was seventeen when I discovered the truth of my own birth, so that struck me especially hard.

Then in “The Avengers” he was so OBVIOUSLY not in control. The blue eyes. The rote recitation. The signs of torture. The way his “master plan” involved being as obvious a target for the heroes as possible. This was not a villain, this was a victim desperately trying to mitigate the damage he was being forced to do.

Kylo Ren - Ben Solo - took me a while. I was pretty unsympathetic with him at first; I don’t care if your parents fought a lot when you were a kid, that’s no reason to turn into a Nazi. And then it was revealed exactly what Snoke did to him - he’d been hearing voices in his head SINCE UTERO. He could sense everyone’s thoughts and feelings and knew that they were afraid of him, but was too little to know why. He found out that he was the grandson of the second greatest evil thr galaxy had ever known - and that his family had lied to him about it. (See above mental breakdown at 17). And then his parents sent him away, his uncle tried to kill him, and in the ensuing fight everyone he knew turned on him. Where else could he go, but to the voice in his head promising safety?

Once again, this is not a villain. This is a victim, trapped in a nightmare, being used as a tool by a madman to cause harm, and suffering for it

Finally, the Darkling. I’ve written on this topic before, and so have so many other better skilled than I, so I’ll keep it simple. I don’t understand how we are supposed to view the leader of an oppressed minority, trying to prevent the genocide of his people, as a bad guy. Especially when he’s spent the past seven hundred years trying to do things the peaceful way, only to fail again and again and again. What choices did he really have? His actions were acts of war, and arguably caused the least loss of life possible.

So now, I see posts decrying women who ship villains. They say we’re supporting abuse. They say we’re taken in by a pretty face. They say that we’re just rebellious teenage girls, and when we grow up we’ll know better.

My experience was the opposite. As a teenager I was so obsessed with black and white morality, with being a good person, that I couldn’t see the nuances. I couldn’t see that often, the villains were right. I had no grace for those whose lives gave them few choices.

There are still villains I don’t like. Most, actually. Those who kill or hurt for fun. Those in it for their own power and gain. Those who take their pain and lash out against the universe with no cause. Bullies. I don’t like them. I don’t ship them. But I don’t judge people who do, because I don’t know what story they’re seeing. What traumatic event their identifying with. What injustice the villain is trying to correct that they have to deal with in their everyday lives.

We come to fiction for different reasons. Maybe we want a way to explore our pain. Maybe we’re looking for an escape from a dark world. Maybe we feel powerless, and want to live vicariously through someone powerful. Maybe we’ve suffered, and want to see a world where abusers are punished. Maybe we just want to look at pretty people.

All are equally valid. All should be respected. There is a place for all of us in this wonderful online world of fandom, and no one should EVER be belittled for what they like in fiction.

Because you know what? Fiction is first and foremost ENTERTAINMENT, and sometimes the villains have the best stories.

[greensaplinggrace]

“Character A didn’t love Character B because they hurt them” discourse is truly terrible because it assigns a moral value to love that simply does not exist. love doesn’t actually mean anything about someone’s character. it doesn’t make someone’s actions toward another any better or any worse, it doesn’t prevent atrocities, and it doesn’t prevent abuse.

love is a worthless emotion when it comes to morals because it simply holds no bearing on them. true love doesn’t exist. there is no better or more pure version of love. in the end love doesn’t mean anything. it’s a non-emotion. it’s the child of passion and affection and dedication. doing something bad doesn’t preclude a feeling of love, because a lack of love isn’t a requirement for immoral actions, and morality isn’t a requirement for feeling love.

[gorgeousgreymatter-x]

I know people have Feelings about Shadow and Bone but, like, I haven't read the books and i am not gonna okay lol. I am watching the show for exactly one (1) reason and it is this scrungly sad little man:

[theweeklydiscourse]

Why is nuance dieing?

The younger generation seems to be so much more obsessed with moral puritanism in fiction and irdk why. Could it be because kids these days don't interact with real people and are just chronically online so they repeat what they see on the internet?

Actually saw someone saying people who like fictional bad boys are the reason why men get away with sa & rape irl and countries are criminalizing abortion...

It's just so depressing to see that. This line of thinking is scary actually.

I don't remember people going this mad over morals when shows and movies like Vampire Diaries and Twilight saga were huge. It's like people have regressed.

The media we consume is becoming more and more didactic as we enter an age where it seems like every piece of popular media is obsessed with delivering their messages and themes like an after school PSAs. Media is becoming increasingly more sanitized and “family friendly” to appeal to the broadest possible audience to create more and more profits for corporations. This obsession with sanitized fiction has become commonplace with many younger people who parrot what they see online and on the media they consume and proceed to deliver underdeveloped takes on subjects they don’t fully understand yet.

It becomes even more interesting when people point to fictional narratives as the cause for societal problems when there are already larger institutions that have historically been responsible for what they claim fiction causes. They displace the blame for societal ills like SA, abuse, patriarchal violence and misogynistic legislation onto fiction, fan fiction and media that explores taboo subject matter. While I don’t deny that fiction has power, 90% of the time these people have no idea of the ways literary works influence our culture and default to a 1:1 “monkey see, monkey do” explanation for why people must consume the “correct media”.

Another factor is the way that people have become accustomed to moralizing their content consumption. They have convinced themselves that they need a concrete and righteous justification for their likes and dislikes and this has ruined the way fandom interacts with literature, film and other art forms. With this in mind, they can no longer dislike or even hate something without creating some moral justifications for why “hating this thing is actually progressive and righteous!” and in the process, conflate consumerism with activism.

The comparison to Puritanism is quite fitting in this case. After all, the principles of that religion were based in purity, obedience and censorious beliefs for self-indulgences and we can draw comparisons with the way people online discuss certain subjects. There’s a phenomenon where people will say something along the lines of: “It’s alright to like (insert problematic character here)! But you need to acknowledge that they are a bad person.” To them, it seems like a gesture at fairness and magnanimity when in reality, it is an attempt at exerting unearned moral authority over the tastes of others. It is a demand that a person proves their moral innocence to them in a performative manner that validates their need to feel superior. But it’s all performative purity because even if a person did explain/justify their fictional tastes, these people wouldn’t care and would continue to demand purity from others.

People can’t even discuss certain characters anymore without running into people accusing them of being terrible people who would approve of real-life violence and abuse. And I can’t shake the feeling that it wasn’t always like this, when did it change?

[lavender-rosies]

if freddy carter gets one more bloody nose in s&b i’m lobbying for his bafta and that is my opinion on the netflix adaptation hope this helps <3

[apinchofm]

can we discuss how shadow and bone deals with bodily trauma??

kaz, being the biggest one, is so good. he is shown having a panic attack and jesper doesn't ask but does all he can to try to help. inej knows but wants him to heal before they can have a full relationship, especially with her own sexual trauma. the bastard of the barrel is not like the other men of course but she has to be wary and she will never be at peace until she finds her family and knows that kaz is taking care of himself.

genya, sweet genya - being hurt by the darkling and r*ped by the king every night. she finally gets to use her powers for something other than vanity. she's talented and one of the best. also using her body to kill the king, when all he had to do was leave her alone!! also david?? 'you are not broken??'. the explicit affirmation. love it. she deserved that ruby ring.

alina, who has been trying so hard to find herself in her powers, away from mal and the darkling goes through a lot. she was violated when the darkling forced the stag on her (idk how cute he is, he is a creep who sees her as a possession), so she attempts to reclaim that by getting more amplifiers and she does so by ultimately killing the man who violated her in the first place.

they show that healing is a long process and that's okay. it's painful, it's violent but it's still healing.

[white-boy-bracket]