Don't Forget About The Palestinians.

painted some thoughts re: steve rogers and illness

Happy pride month, don't lose focus on the movement going on tho. Be gay, do crimes. Be gay, protest. Be gay while supporting black lives matter. You have the range

What she says: I'm fine.

What she means: Alina's relationship with Aleksander is heavily framed as something shameful,as a stain on her character and very existence and how people around her are supposed to be doubtful of her because "she almost fucked the bad guy!! she could be corrupted too!!" While her relationship with Malyen serves heavily to the puritan culture with the "pure,chaste love" trope,defying any passion or sexual chemistry because those things are considered shameful in the society. Malyen is viewed as someone who saves her from said corruption and is considered noble for loving her despite her past with Aleksander and the "bad decisions" she made. Aleksander plays such an important role in her growth but we're supposed to hate that because Aleksander is the villain meanwhile Malyen does nothing but hold her back, limiting her development as a person. The only conclusion I can derive here is that if you were associated with someone wrong in the past,who helped you unleash your full potential,it can all go to shit and you're not going to be valued for that because the very reason for your growth is a monster. Your entire arc is going to be villainized because it's associated to the bad guy. The whole concept of moving on and being your own person is demonized because "you did it once and you ended up in the wrong hands. You started becoming your own person and were so dumb, someone almost made a weapon out of you for their own gain" Alina and her past attraction towards Aleksander makes Alina bad and if she still wants him despite his deeds,she's wrong and "oh so corrupted". That's why Alina goes back to being the same underdeveloped protagonist, because hey,even if she had zero character development at the end of the day, atleast she's not with the bad guy,at least she's one of the good ones. Her only mistake was being unaware of Aleksander's plans,it could've been called a "bad decision" if she was fully aware and yet chose to be involved with him. And it's so funny how Baghra ONLY tells Alina the truth about Aleksander before they're about to have sex,when she had multiple opportunities to tell her the truth AND help her train into being stronger. This only simplifies into "silly girl,thank god i told you the truth,you were about to fuck the bad guy but you didn't so you're saved,you're still pure" What does Aleksander and his behaviour have to do with Alina and her character? How long are we going to let the men in our past define how pure or impure we are? Is this the feminist conclusion I'm supposed to derive from this mess? Is this not what slut shaming is? How long are we going to shit on our heroines so they stay Good™?

Guys!!!!!! As someone who has only discovered him recently, I've never been happier!!!

PLEASE TAKE NOTE OF WHAT THE HONG KONG PROTESTORS DID/WORE! THIS IS SERIOUS. THEY ARE AIMING FOR THE FACE.

Just casually thinking about how Matthias a witch (Grisha) hunter who has most likely killed a lot of Grisha people for absolutely no reason is not considered a villain, but the guy who has spent his life protecting his people and saving them from being hunted and killed is considered pure evil.

i said it on twitter and i'll say it here.

all this talk about how weaponizing the fold will only increase anti-Grisha sentiment when it's already been established in canon that they're still undergoing heavy persecution is so strange to me. they're already being sold out to the enemy by their own countrymen as well as experimented on and burned alive overseas...how much worse can it possibly get? they're already balancing on the knife edge of being at risk of genocide. (sidebar: I hate how this show attempts to justify their persecution by laying the blame at Aleksander's feet. that conversation with Baghra where she tells him he's responsible for the 'war on Grisha' even before the creation of the Fold is so awful.)

if Alina and the gang had just let Aleksander usurp the king I'm inclined to believe the situation for Grisha in Ravka could only have been improved. and for all that I see claims of Aleksander's belief in Grisha supremacy, I've yet to find any support or evidence for that in the text. if he wanted to enslave all otkazat'sya or get revenge on them surely that would have come up at some point? instead he's a loyal patriot to the country of Ravka and is more interested in cleaning house of the corrupt Lantsov regime.

if I'm wrong please feel free to correct me, because I actually would be interested in seeing if there are passages in the books where the Darkling goes full Magneto.

— Victoria Erickson

i’m so goddamn fucking sick of the argument that the darkling is based on an old toxic relationship from leigh bardugo, and that we’re meant to find him abusive because of that.

please stop being ridiculous. it’s fiction. the darkling is a fictional character, and if miss leigh didn’t want us to like him (which she, by the way, tried very hard for) she shouldn’t have created this entire narrative of a hunted & persecuted minority who have literally one person in the entire world to stand up for them. she shouldn’t have given aleksander the thousands of reasons for him to be the way he is. she shouldn’t have shown us all the centuries of torture and prejudice grisha received until the darkling made a safe haven for them.

human morals don’t apply to eternal beings. simple as that. there is no definite good or bad for him, all there is is life and death and the safety of his kind, who are still enslaved, experimented on, murdered, burned alive, and all other sorts of the most horrific things in the neighboring countries. was the way he treated alina morally right? no. of course it wasn’t. but he has lived centuries of war and loss for even a glimpse of hope and then it came in the form of a fickle teenage girl, who hadn’t seen the things he’d seen, and who didn’t have a clue about the hurt her kind had been receiving since the beginning of time. what he did was wrong, but in his eyes necessary; the end justifies the means.

and i could go on and on about this, explain all of his actions (which i very well can, this is the tip of the iceberg) but the thing is, i shouldn’t have to.

we are allowed to like a morally grey (or, in the hater’s view, entirely fucking evil) character because he’s fictional. we aren’t morally obligated to blindly take over the author’s opinions over their fictional characters because they brought them into this world to be critiqued. to be viewed and liked and hated. we are allowed to like and defend fictional characters despite the author’s intentions for them.

thank u for coming to my ted talk and @ the haters please stop making yourself look stupid. go outside, touch some grass. oh and stop tagging darklina underneath your “ten reasons why the darkling is evil” because it’s unnecessary honestly go take your negativity somewhere else.