Are you willing to talk about your feelings on the ending or would you rather not? I've only ever seen you casually avoid it, because I know you've been through a lot of shit with it, so I was just wondering
I MEAN i wouldn’t say like. I’ve Been Through Some Shit LMAO i am not traumatised or anything (not that u were saying i thought i was, just that i definitely want to be clear that i’m coming from a frustrated angle and not a PITY ME angle!)
i think i’ve really clawed my way into the ending in my various meta pieces (my grisha meta tag should has 8 pages of rambling!) so my main impetus is that i don’t want to be repeating myself or - droning on, which i definitely have a Tendency To Do.
BASICALLY my general feelings about the ending is that it broke my heart and i loved it. i don’t think that alina ended up back in the same place she started, i think the world building supports the ending, i definitely don’t think it’s Anti Feminist. i think that the narrative was building up to such a dark place, especially after what happened to genya, that the end was going to require something appropriately dark to set things right again.
i definitely think that the other option would have been to kill some characters that had been there from the start, and while i know there are people who argue that it should have been mal, i don’t think that would have made alina happy.
honestly, the books ended with alina happy, and that is the main thing i wanted out of an ending. and i think that the things that make her happy are in line with her character and development, and mal’s character and development as well.
i am (probably?) past the point of needing to back all of this up with canon quotes and reasons as to why i think them. although someone could probs test me on this come a lazy weekend tbh, maybe y’all really will see 8 written pages of meta from me as i deconstruct the entire series to justify why i like it so much and found it so satisfying.
i don’t think that others have to find it satisfuying, and i can see why they don’t? but i also don’t think that people should treat their fandom opnions as gospel and assume that everyone agrees with them and will be happy to hear them trash the things they don’t like. i ESPECIALLY don’t think that people should be throwing that shit at the actual author of the books my god. i mean bardugo can handle herself but i will never forgot the one person who sent an ask to her ragging the books for being Anti Feminist l m a o.
FINALLY like. i love the books i love the endings, i love the whole canon and i love writing alternate stuff to all of that. that’s the best part about fanfic for me - exploring other possibilities. that’s why a lot of my writing has leaned heavily towards alarkling and nikolina until recently - i got what i wanted out of malina in canon, so fic has been a place for me to explore the other things i might have liked to have seen. LIKE i don’t think that liking the ending has to mean that i wouldn’t have also been happy with other possible ends to the series.
