#sab spoiler

[simplydifficultme]

it was at that moment he knew. he fucked up.

aka. Kit continues to pull the best faces

[ilyas-anya]

Ben Barnes and Jessie Mei Li as the ultimate besties

[kallypsowrites]

Thinking about the fact that in the video analyzing the first Darklina kiss, Jessie says that Alina is at a point where she’s ready to move forward and rely on herself rather than waiting around for Mal. And that we really do see her at her most independent in episode 5. She’s laughing with friends, embracing her power, settling in and deciding she wants to be a part of something greater. And she’s taking what she wants with the Darkling

None of Darklina is framed like her growing reliant on the Darkling or her being under his control. In her romantic scenes with Kirigan SHE is the one calling the shots at all points in time. She’s in control of the first kiss, she approaches him during the winter fete, she is extremely open to his advances and then he asks her for explicit consent and she gives it. There is no doubt about what she wants in this moment.

Up until episode 5, Alina has been holding onto the idea of not just Mal but her childhood and her trauma and her feelings of isolation and her ultimate belief that she will never fit in. But in episode 5 she leaves that behind and steps forward which is an incredibly hard thing for someone to do when they’ve been through so much.

And the narrative frames that as WRONG. Baghra calls her naive. Stupid. Chastises her for falling for Kirigan. And because Baghra is meant to be the correct party and the Darkling is evil, ALINA is framed as wrong and her episode 5 journey invalidated.

The problem isn’t that Alina walks away from Kirigan. The problem is that the narrative takes her character growth and decides to punish her for it. By linking her road to independence with her relationship with the Darkling (the very terrible, evil guy, shame for liking him SHAME) her road to independence is invalidated by the narrative. It says that not only is she wrong for liking the Darkling, she’s wrong for trusting Grisha, for wanting to be a part of the Grisha, for wanting to be a part of something bigger, for wanting to move forward.

And I know people will say ‘yeah, but the Darkling is bad so she needed to leave’. But I’m talking on a bigger picture here. Its not about whether or not the Darkling is a good person. Its not about whether Mal is a good person either (because I think he is in the show). Its because ‘Darkling bad, Mal good’ that Alina’s emotional growth is undercut and shamed. Because the good guy is attached to where she came from and the bad guy is attached to the future and therefore moving forward is villainized. And that’s what gets under my skin.

[capinejghafa]

1.07 // 1.08

[taurielsilvan]

–  “It's just you and me now, Alina. And we are all we need anyway.”

 –  “You may have needed me, but I never needed you.”

[ifeelsotiredbuticantsleep]

[rainnorshinee]

the cut from mal‘s friends where mikhael says and when our closest friend is in trouble, we do foolish things to Kaz giving up the crow club for inej

poetic cinema

[mookybear12404]

Me, watching the scene on the train where the bullet gets jammed but Jesper fires it anyways, keeping quiet but silently enjoying the moment of knowing that that was a secret reference to Jesper being a Grisha: 😏

My mom: “wait does he have those magic powers or something”

Me: