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dadralt · 1 year

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so it’s the end of the year huh? that went by fast.

i finished my classes and internship, which were pretty intense. i’m so proud of myself. if you had told me a couple years ago i would’ve finished a 13-month course i never would’ve believed you. that was HUGE. it’s december now and i feel like i’m finally starting to recover from it lmao. anyway. been working on my portfolio a lot and trying to find a job. here’s to hoping 2023 will bring me that :’)

that’s for real life, on the fandom side.... well.............. it’s been quite messy, especially these last few months 😅😅

but i felt like a few people deserved a shout out, so here goes:

to becca @yenvengerberg i know i’ve told you this already but i truly wish there were more people like you. you’ve been the only person through this mess who’s been intelligent and kind and compassionate and used their brain. so thank you for not jumping to conclusions, assuming the worst and continuously proving to be the sweetest person on this webbedy site.

my beloved ely @heytheredeann for posting yenralt content through it all and keeping us alive. your fics are a gift and this fandom doesn’t deserve you.

my boo ava @fireflyxrebel-writes for putting up with me, being smart, and bitchy when it’s needed. for daring to say what others don’t. may 2023 be filled with zoyalai goodness, just for you!

darling cee @witch-and-her-witcher who i met this year and has been an absolute delight. you’re funny, and i love your writing, you’re kind, and way too pretty. it’s been a fun year by your side, you made this year better. this fandom doesn’t deserve you either btw.

and last but not least, the usual suspects, who’ve been showing up on my end of the year lists for 2 years now and i couldn’t be happier. melissa @yennefxr and RJ @eyklarsen you are the best besties i could’ve asked for. every time we talk you brighten my days, you make me laugh or cry or both. we’ve shared so much and we’ll continue to do so, i know it. i’ll always be grateful to have met you two. i’m sorry i haven’t watched your shows yet but i love you anyway. so so so much. more than streg loves dissecting girls. more than vilg loves being evil.

mwah mwah mwah on all your faces 🥰🥰🥰🥰

ps: if you’re not on this list it doesn’t mean i don’t love you but these 6 people have literally kept me sane

#moots stuff #txt #end of the year talk

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kanchelsis · 3 years

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If you wrote the Nikolai Duology, how would you change it? You have some good ideas!

aaaaaa thank you!! people have been so lovely about my salty post ghsfjks i'm kissing you all on the cheek 💕

to answer your question, i think it might be less about what i would do, and more about what i wouldn't do. i'll make some bullet points and say whatever comes to mind.

(to be honest, the idea of nikolai having his own duology has lost its appeal to me, which is sad because i adore him. i just believe he's a better side character than main, and there are more interesting grishaverse stories waiting to be told. but let's work on the assumption that i have to keep the basic pillars of the books and not just throw away the whole concept.)

ok so... zoya. i would take her in a completely different direction than lb did. i love a good morally ambiguous character, so i wouldn't just erase that - what drew me to her in tgt was her stubbornness, her shallowness, her capacity for petty cruelty, but also her determination and confidence. we can't just have her holding one of the most powerful positions in ravka and everyone just accepting that. not only does she need to have doubters, the doubters need to have a point.

we have a ruthless young woman, a soldier no less, suddenly needing to utilise diplomacy to protect an entire country. make her screw up. make her uncompromising and callous. make her human. don't expect her to step into this role seamlessly just so unlimited power can be handed to her on a silver platter.

if she has to be an ultrapowerful grisha, it's so much more logical to make her work for it. to hell with the saints on the fold stuff, what even was that?? lb tells us that everything we thought about grisha power is wrong, but 1) throws away the really cool magic system she made and 2) doesn't replace it with anything else. just let zoya be a squaller, not a dragon-saint-chosen-one or whatever.

writing this has kinda made me sad, since zoya could've been amazing, but anyway. onwards to nikolai.

this is the nikolai duology. if he's giving his name to the series i expect him to be the central character. i'd want his main struggle to surround identity and an uncertain future - who is nikolai, underneath the charm and flirtation? there could be an internal war between the demon, carefree sturmhond and the duty-bound king of ravka. both he and zoya are faced with a disarrayed court filled with people who don't think they have what it takes to lead.

there are so many nonsensical subplots in the duology that... fizzle into nothing. cut it down. pick a few things to focus on and give them the detail they deserve.

speaking of, the cult of the starless! lb took what could've been a source of endless interest and turned it into a bland caricature. we get it ma'am, you hate the darkling. but the problem is that the darkling's root motive gets conveniently glossed over in favour of character bashing. he wanted a safe world for grisha. that still doesn't exist. there's a tidbit about grisha no longer being forced to join the second army, but that was not the issue at hand at all? they're not going to know how to use their powers. they're still going to face discrimination.

so onto my point, what if the cult of the starless was predominantly grisha? those who feel let down by the world around them, who see the darkling as a martyr for a reason. now THAT would be something to contend with. a physical consequence for the events of tgt. put them next to people like genya and nikolai who intimately understand the harm the darkling has done, and you've got a badass subplot going there.

plus, imagine zoya spotting old friends and comrades amongst the starless. angst potential. also, yuri's treatment in the books pisses me off so much - lb wants us to see him as a foolish annoyance, but this kid literally marched the religious sect that he leads right up to the gates of os alta. now top that off with grisha powers (inferni would be cool) and you have a way more threatening character.

zoyalai. right, ok. what irks me about these two is that their so-called banter and pining go nowhere. we get some half-hearted justifications for them not being together, and the narrative completely overlooks zoya's comments about him in the trilogy. let's fix this.

maybe they could start off professional around each other, somewhat cold. until at some point, they begin an exclusively physical affair, just fwb and nothing more. i think this could work given the fact they're both flirty and materialistic. the stakes would be that if the court found out, their reputations would be significantly tarnished, yet neither are willing to stop. as they spend more time together, feelings blossom. they're no longer the demon king and squaller general to each other. they just want to be nikolai and zoya, yet both are too proud to make the first move. let the pining commence.

either that or give nikolai a new love interest. wasn't there a line in kos that joked that nikolai would be prone to falling in love with a palace maid? the potential spice of his love interest being someone with zero political standing, someone like dominik. a fellow pirate or even a starless member.

i don't even know what to say about nina. i was devastated over her treatment. there really do need to be more stories where a character who has lost a lover moves on and finds love again, but matthias is quite literally freshly buried when she meets her new boo. that's a major disservice to the potential of hanne's character as well. i'm kinda in favour of scrapping nina's whole plot. it would need a colossal amount of overhaul to work and even though i'm enjoying sharing my ideas, i don't have time to think about that.

same goes for isaac and mayu. either scrap it or give it the attention it needs.

i'm aware this is very kos-centric, but kos is the root of my issues and row is just an extension of that.

MOST IMPORTANTLY: no darkling return. no alina and mal. this story has been told and wrapped up. please don't cheapen it by going back and contradicting tgt. no gratuitous, shoehorned crow cameos either.

that's that about that, i guess!! i apologise for any spelling or grammatical errors, i wrote this rather quickly. i know this isn't gonna be for everyone. that's alright. i just ask people to civil about it and if discussion is going to be had, don't take things in bad faith. sorry anon this got long af.

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dontgetsalmonella · 3 years

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¡Rating the Grishaverse couples/(crack-)ships!

Slight RoW spoilers!

P.S. This idea came to me in the middle of the literal SAT. Thanks, Ms. Bardugo. You cost me a 1600! lol

1. Darklina: No one come for me, but I never really shipped them. I honestly think it’s boring. I don’t hate it and I don’t love it, so meh. 3/10

2. Malina: Same as Darklina. Boring. I don’t hate it and I don’t love it, so meh. 3/10

3. Nikolina: Same as the other two lol. I didn’t like her and Nik together. They’re too similar, so 3/10

4. Genyalina: I don’t hate it, but not my fav thing. 4/10

5. Zoyalina: literally the most chemistry out of all of these just from the way Alina describes Zoya (and Genya) but they’re too similar, they both need someone super sweet/sunny. 5/10

If you can’t tell, I never really shipped Alina with anyone! She was really young and I never though she really clicked with anyone.

6. Genya/David: LOOOVE IT, even though Leigh made me cry. Genya and I have the same type: Nerds. 10/10

7. Zoya/Genya: I don’t hate it...not too much chemistry tho. Zoya needs someone snarky and Genya needs someone who’s sweet (in their own way, like David) 4/10

8. Helnik: I love it. Absolutely. The show made it even better lol. Classic enemies to lovers elements (”It’s cold, we need to snuggle!”) and I love literally everything about them together. Also, Matthais is underrated af! 100/10

9. Kanej: Unpopular opinion, but they aren’t my fav. I like them together and their backstories are great, but they’re a very slow burn/quiet couple which I can appreciate, but I just don’t have the patience for. Still love them tho! 9/10

10. Zoya x Aleksander: Ew. No. Zoya can do way better and the whole thing reminded me of a boss/secretary romance done wrong. I just hated it and the darkling creeped me out. 0/10

11. Zoyalai: YESSSS I LOVE THEM! Possibly my fav ship. Nikolai is a king as usual and Zoya is amazing. Also glad they got the ending they deserved so I can forever fantasise about the dragon and the demon flying around Ravka together! 100000/10

12. Darkolai: 5/10 Could be cute even though Nikolai was mr. Steal your girl (and demon). So maybe he will become mr. steal your heart.

Ok, unpopular opinion, but the Darkling kinda did end up with Nikolai. I mean, he turned Nik into one of his monsters and gave him a permanent shadow monster buddy, which leads me to...

13. Nikolai x the demon: ok, so the Demon is ALWAYS with Nikolai. And we now they talk. And I’m sure the demon get’s into it whenever him and Zoya are doin’ stuff and we know they’re good friends. I’m sure Zoya would be into it too.

So maybe..Nikolai x The demon x Zoya...7/10!?

14. Fivan: no words needed, but them with cake wow! 10/10

15. Kaz x Jesper: ewwww I don’t hate it but no. 1/10

16. Nina x Inej: could be really cute. Wouldn’t hate it, especially with jealous Kaz/Matthais lol. 7/10

17. Wylan x Jesper: unpopular opinion, but I think this is another kinda boring one. I just never cared for Jesper or Wylan (both kinda annoying) oops 4/10

18. Mal x Darkling: Mr I am become a blade and the shadow man deserve each-other. Have at it. 7/10 [EDIT: They are related, I see that now. I dislike them both, so my new ship rating is 9/10! I’m from Kentucky, what do you expect.]

19. Alinej: I really like it... like too much. Omg when they speak Suli to eachother wow. 8/10

20. Nadia x Tamar: vv cute. Love all their fanart, wish they got more mentions. 10/10

21. Nina/Hanne: Never loved it. I didn’t read some of those parts of KoS/RoW anyways, so I think I might have missed out. I’ll reread soon and get back to ya! ?/10

PSA! Tolya, dear, if you’re bummed Tamar got hitched, my arms are open! Tolya x me is a great ship. 10/10!!! (I can’t wait for him to be on screen.)

#grishaverse #grisha #soc #ck #row #kos #darklina #malina #thedarkling #alina #zoya #zoyalai #nikolai lantsov #genya #alina x genya #leigh Bardugo #helnik

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comingoutofthecauldron · 3 years

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Sometimes I'm like broooo how did leigh make such good books with soc and ck with such good characters and plots and wordbuilding but she had made a (very entertaining) trilogy but with so many grating 2D characters and sometimes the plot was just ... not it

Like soc and ck obviously have their flaws too but not to the same extent as the trilogy

Like did you feel leigh was very unnecessarily sympathetic to the darkling and treated Nikolai as a mostly good character in the text even though he did sooooo many shitty things

And that zoya was treated (unknowingly) with a lot of misogyny in the narrative which has caused many people in the fandom to hate her

And alarking and nikolina were romanticised in the books and in the fandom far too much

???

YES OKAY so this is a Big Thing for me. very controversially, i prefer tgt to soc solely because i find it much more enjoyable to read. HOWEVER, there's no denying that leigh's writing definitely improved from tgt to soc, i agree.

while i think that leigh clearly portrayed the darkling as a villain (she didn't tamper down his crimes or make them seem less horrific), i agree that the narrative was definitely (arguably too) sympathetic towards him. i could use a lot of examples for this, but none work quite so well as:

“Once more,” he said. “Speak my name once more.” He was ancient, I knew that. But in this moment he was just a boy – brilliant, blessed with too much power, burdened by eternity.

“Aleksander.”

His eyes fluttered shut. “Don’t let me be alone,” he murmured. And then he was gone.

leigh's choice to have alina, one of the people who suffered most at the darkling's hands, sympathise with him and even grant him his last wish, was a bad one. this man is a thousand year old p*dophilic mass murdering sex trafficker and she had the nerve to describe him as "just a boy" and "brilliant [...] blessed [...] burdened". of course you can argue that this is the residue of his grooming of alina, but i just think that after all the shit he'd done by this point, after a whole book of alina talking about how manipulated she felt and how much she hated him, these few words offer him clemency from the narrative that he does not deserve. all he did to earn alina's kindness (not forgiveness, to be fair to leigh) was die.

and yes, nikolai was hero worshipped by the text for absolutely no reason. even though we see both alina and mal put up a lot of resistance to him + the shit he pulls (punching him, criticizing him etc), the narrative basically shoves their eventual "pity" and "admiration" for nikolai down the readers' throats.

“[...] Nikolai might never have made it out of the Grand Palace.” It hurt me to say it, but I forced myself to speak the words. “He could be dead.”

and

The too-clever fox. Even once he’d abandoned his disguise as Sturmhond, that’s who Nikolai had been to me, always thinking, always scheming.

and

[to nikolai] “I’m just happy you’re alive,” I said, hastily blinking my eyes clear.

imo this sympathy + romanticisation is much worse and much more prominent throughout the latter half of s&s and the whole of r&r than the sympathy with the darkling, purely because the bad things nikolai does are essentially never acknowledged. there is (unsurprisingly ig) no talk of his imperialism, no talk of his pursuing alina when she's a minor, no talk of his racist remarks and generally very little talk of him being an asshole (particularly to mal).

moreover, i agree that nikolina + darklina were too romanticized by the text. i have a very complicated relationship with leigh's portrayal of alarkling, because a lot of alina's earlier feelings and sympathy for the darkling stem from his grooming and manipulation of her, which i think this quote from the start of r&r shows pretty well:

Even now, after everything he’d done, I wanted to believe the Darkling, to find some way to forgive him.

but then we get the whole mental house call thing that alina + the darkling do, in which they can visit each other and no one else can see the other. that was a mistake narratively. the ability to do this implies a sort of deeper bond, and even though the darkling then uses this bond to show alina the corpse of the only mother figure she'd ever known, it still carries almost romantic connotations with it throughout the rest of the book(s) for some reason. this dynamic is similar to a lot of "soulmate bonds" in mainstream ya (namely sjm's mating bonds), which helps to explain why so many people ship darklina; it is written & coded the same as the majority of (abusive) ya relationships, so readers pick up on this as a sign of romance rather than some attempt at narrative foils or something (bc in reality zoya is alina's foil). this isn't even mentioning the repetition of alina's desire to forgive the darkling and her confusion over her "feelings" for him, which once again just reinforces darklina as a viable ship in a lot of readers' minds.

as for nikolina, as a less prevalent ship in the series it gets less attention in the fandom. most often, i see people turn to nikolina because they don't like malina or the darkling, or because they wanted alina to become queen (to which i remind everyone that alina never wanted to be queen). at first i was alright with leigh's portrayal of them because alina punches nikolai + is angry with him for kissing her non-consensually etc, which is the closest the narrative ever comes to condemning him for his actions. but later on alina seems to forget all this and considers marrying nikolai, even joking with him a little when he proposes:

[during nikolai's marriage proposal]

“Stop that,” I said, still grinning.

“What?”

“Saying the right thing.”

there is zero acknowledgement of how predatory nikolai is, and instead the narrative goes on to sympathise with nikolai and have alina feel guilty for rejecting him. imo alina's characterization (her initial disdain for nikolai, which was much more in character) was sacrificed to raise up nikolai, and also show him to be a plausible and "likable" love interest for zoyalai, which is where leigh obviously intended for nikolai to end up (zoya is even mentioned during nikolai's proposal).

finally - yes, zoya in tgt is basically a manifestation of leigh's internalised misogyny. from alina's initial slut-shamey disdain for her, to leigh weaponising her against malina (repeated sexual encounters with mal), to zoya being seen as evil & a bitch by the other female characters just because she's powerful + isn't "nice", zoya's character was assassinated before it even had chance to materialize. even though zoya was also a victim of the darkling and is, as i mentioned before, alina's narrative foil, alina has very little sympathy for her and assumes that she's an evil bitch. tbf, this gets better with each book, but even in r&r there's a lot of tension between zoya and the other characters because she's seen as unlikable and difficult. i can't speak to her characterization in kos or soc, because i haven't read one and don't really remember the other, but i have heard that it improved from tgt to kos.

anyways this has been a long ass rant and i'm very sorry to anyone who scrolls past it on their dash. fuck the darkling, fuck nikolai lantsov, and stan malyen oretsev

#cauldron rants #cauldron asks #tgt #anti nikolai #anti nikolina #anti darkling #anti darklina #anti alarkling #alina starkov #the darkling #nikolai lantsov #zoya nazyalensky #long post

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nazyalenskyism · 4 years

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How You Get the Girl (part 1)

Summary: A Zoyalai AU fic based on ‘How You Get the Girl.’ | Nikolai tries to win Zoya back, but she's not going to forgive him so easily.

A/N: Nikolai shows up on Zoya's doorstep asking for a second chance. The rest of the fic is under the cut! Thanks for reading, you’re all amazing. Ao3: How You Get the Girl

Nikolai pushed back his wet hair with one hand as he approached the bright red door of the townhouse. The stairs were slick, but he managed to keep his balance, his heart in his throat for reasons not related to personal injury. Well-- actually, considering what he was about to do, there might be some injuries to come. The seconds after his hand tapped the fox shaped knocker had his breath trapped in his chest with anticipation. ‘Am I really about to do this?’ Just when he thought he couldn’t wait a second longer, the door was yanked open, piercing blue eyes digging into him. Oh, how he’d missed this luxury.

“What the hell is wrong with you?”

“It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”

“No Nikolai, believe it or, I remember very clearly the day you walked out of my life. And no, it hasn’t been ‘a while’. It’s been six months.”

He winced, “Nazyalensky, I know how it looks but, I just wanted to explain—“

“Explain? Explain what?” Her hands were on her hips now, venom behind her eyes, acid on her tongue. Oh, how he’d missed this. “You dumped me, and couldn’t even give me a reason that wasn’t bullshit. Whatever you have to say, I don’t want to hear it… whatever lie you took six months to come up with.”

“Zoya, I know. It’s like I told you, I was trying to protect my family’s reputation, my parents announced my engagement to someone else, and I’ve been spending all this time trying to find a way out of it. I know it’s not an explanation but, it’s the truth. I was too worried about my reputation.”

She snorted, “more like you were too much of a coward.”

Nikolai winced again, “yes, that too.”

“So?” Zoya asked, “why did you show up now? Why are you here?”

He paused. He knew why he was here, but if he came out and said, ‘Zoya, you’re the only person I’ve ever loved, and I was trying to fix this all so that I could finally marry you one day,’ she would actually kill him on the spot. Since he couldn’t say that, he chose his next words carefully, thinking back to every novel he’d ever read, all his favourite movies. How did the hero get the girl? By giving a passionate speech in the rain, right? So far he was good for at least one of those two things. He took a breath, making sure that she was looking at him in the eye before he started, “Nazyalensky, I know what I did was terrible, and I don’t want your forgiveness. All I want is for you to know, that I just want a chance to right my wrongs, and I will wait as long as it takes.”

Zoya wrinkled her nose, “and why should I give you a chance?” Leaning her hip against the doorframe, she peered out into the lamplit night, “I think I can see more boys running around the corner, waiting for me to give them a chance. Tell me Lantsov, why should I forgive you after you broke my-- after you left me?” ‘After you broke my heart,’ was that what she had been trying to say? He wanted to reach out and take her hand, pull her in close like he used to and convince her that he hadn’t meant to be the biggest jerk on the planet, that he was just trying to save their future, that he didn’t realize how much he’d hurt her.

“I don’t deserve a chance Zoya, but I’m asking you to give me one anyways.”

She looked him down, from head to toe, as if assessing how worthy he was of getting a chance. After the longest silence she’d ever made him suffer through, Nikolai could’ve sworn he saw just the tiniest bit of softness in her eyes, something she never showed anyone but him, and even then, only ever so often. Taking in a deep, she rolled her eyes, “maybe.”

“Maybe?” he mused, pushing more rain-soaked hair from his face.

“Maybe,” she said curtly. “Not yes, not no, just, maybe.”

“So, if I were to call you when I got home tonight?”

“I’ll maybe pick up the phone,” she glanced at her nails briefly, as if this conversation was beneath her. “If I’m not getting my beauty sleep by then.”

He grinned, “even without sleep you still look beyond radiant, Zoya dear.”

Zoya shot him a glare, “why are you still here? I told you, I need to go to sleep. Leave.”

He shot her one last wink as she slammed the door in his face, and he knew she must be chiding herself for even telling him maybe. Although she would probably be in a foul mood tonight, he certainly wouldn’t. It had stopped raining, he had no work the next morning, he wasn’t engaged any more, his parents were finally leaving him alone, and Zoya had told him ‘maybe.’ he had never heard a word as sweet as that before. ‘Maybe’ wasn’t a yes, or a no. It was the hope of something better. He could work with maybe. With a swing in his drenched step, Nikolai found himself smiling all the way home, and by the time he’d curled up under the covers with his cat curled on the pillow next to him, he had a hundred different ideas on how to win Zoya back. To most others, the task would seem impossible, but to Nikolai it wasn’t even improbable. He would not let the last six months go to waste. ‘I’m going to convince her to take me back,’ he thought to himself as he dialed her number. And despite the fact that she hadn’t picked up, Nikolai went to bed with a smile on his face. She’d only declined his call after 4 rings, instead of 1 like she did when she was truly angry. Maybe. He could work with maybe.

#zoyalai #zoya nazyalensky #nikolai lantsov #zoya x nikolai #my writings #ahah i hope you like it

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ariesmode · 5 years

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*tea emoji* for zoyalai?

not 2 be dramatic but i literally had to think about what to talk about bc otherwise i’d spend the whole day writing an essay no one wants to read complete w/ citations from the books so

i mean everyone’s interpretation of canon obv varies and that’s fine but i really don’t get why people still claim that this ship came out of nowhere / is forced bc there were some pretty subtle hints back in ruin & rising + even in crooked kingdom. like, sturmhond didn’t have to defend zoya when kaz was skeptical of her ability to bring kuwei back to life but he just had to didn’t he!!! (we know she probably didn’t give a shit that some punk would doubt her abilities) also there’s the fact that in the time that’s lapsed between the trilogy + kos, they’d have spent a lot of time working closely together. so they def know e/o pretty well already after nearly three (3) years and are comfortable enough to banter. one of my hopes and dreams for the sequel is that we eventually get to see how their relationship progressed from just being allies to zoya becoming his general bc we were just introduced to the fact that nikolai is the #1 zoya nazyalensky stan (not that i’m complaining about that but still) and that she thinks he’s pretty neat as far as lantsovs go. you can tell that their feelings really are based on mutual respect and trust rather than physical attraction (even though they both pretty much acknowledge that the other is hot it’s like, yeah everyone else knows that anyway)

and i just love how they’re the only ones who can really handle each other like... zoya isn’t afraid to challenge nikolai and go against him if she feels like she has to for his, hers and the country’s sake. he doesn’t shy away from calling her out when her ruthlessness™ gets too much either BUT he doesn’t want her to change! he likes her for who she is! he literally scoffs and says all other men are fake zoya stans! (he’s right!) which is why i love chapter 6 a lot. we’re definitely going to get some angst bc of their own personal feelings towards e/o in the sequel but i also want another fight between the two of them in the event of a war; nikolai might have to make some concessions that conflict w/ grisha interests when the time comes for him to make (shaky?) alliances and i know for sure zoya just isn’t going to have any of that. it’s going to be delicious

+ WHAT MAKES THIS SHIP REALLY FUN is that they’re a power/battle couple – if you come for either of them you better be prepared for the other to come for you – who are normally Unbothered by everyone else but they’re either oblivious or have no idea what to do with their fucking feelings? nikolai is supposedly a genius who can invent, build ships, do politics right etc. but when it comes to his zoya feelings he literally doesn’t get it. meanwhile, zoya thinks nothing of the fact that he trusts her to do things he doesn’t trust anyone else to, even when it’s pointed out to her? not to mention that for a pair who don’t seem to be big on physical affection with other people their love language just so happens to be touch (+ banter) and it makes me want to DIE. like i feel really bad for everyone else around them bc kos implies that you don’t even have to be super familiar with them to see it all so clearly while they’re both just like yes we are only very close friends/allies... these idiots are literally asking to get put in every romcom setting ever and i, a huge romcom/romance fan in general, live for that

(also at this point i really don’t care about whether other people are convinced that they’re compatible or not bc that isn’t my problem and i have since been vindicated but it was super frustrating to see a lot of people talk about how they didn’t want this ship to happen bc she didn’t deserve him even before the sampler came out... like, sit down susan, i can tell that you just wanted nikolai to end up with a character you can claim to relate to so you can self-insert yourself into the relationship lmao)

#zoyalai #once again i take too long to write something #i am probably missing other stuff i could go on about but LIKE #tsarinazoya

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lunaathorne · 5 years

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People who ship Alarkling have no right to state that Nikolai deserves better than Zoya. In fact, they have no right of any kind of opinion over Zoya whatsoever. Get triggered or offended or whatever, that's the truth of it.

Saw a beautiful fanart of Zoyalai on an Instagram page and everyone had hated on Zoya in the comments, even to the point of ignoring that an artist had taken time and effort to create something they love. Most of them had usernames hinting to their otp. Y'all can't stay in your own lane of toxic drama, no? Y'all have to shit on our pair, who are much healthier and better written and characterised anyway.

Like literally, FUCK OFF. I'm tired of playing nice and obliging and non committal, this particular part of the fandom needs to shut the eff up and eat their own damn food. And if you don't like something that is inherently harmless, for Jesus Christ's sake don't interact, but at least keep the hate to yourselves.

(also Zoyalai are healthier, better written and share a far more superior bond to whatever twisted attraction your faves have towards each other.)

#zoyalai #grishaverse #anti alar*ling #anti al*arkling #anti dark*ina #fandom drama #i am so pissed ok

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rotzaprachim · 5 years

Text

Zoyalai Shadowhunters AU pt 1

for @kestrel-of-herran

- The Lantsovs have been head of the Москва Institute since- well, since before anyone can remember, really. Through three different types of dictatorships, through snow and ice and the kind of municipal politics that kill the weak and inflexible, they’ve held onto their Institute, a sprawling former monastery that’s had sections added on at various points. The training room’s medieval stone and cold as fuck 80% of the year, the meeting rooms are ultra modern, glass and steel, the library is from the 19th century.

- Five hundred years of shadowhunter-ing in the north, and the Lantsovs are basically royalty. It’s taken a bit of time for the shadowhunters to spread out that far, and certainly it feels more isolating to be a shadowhunter out here, but they’ve got their own traditions, and protections written in Old Church Slavonic instead of Latin, and Russia is certainly not short on demons.

- Alexander Morozova was the favoured, favourite shadowhunter. Except when it turned out that he ws about five hundred years old, and mega evil, and summoning demons to do his bidding.

- Except when he murders Vasily Lantsov.

- The only other Lantsov air is the younger son, an infamous party boy who’s been gone for the last couple years doing .. . some shit on a boat somewhere. No one knows.

- There was this girl called Alina at some point, and a war, and .. . and people died. A lot did, and now the bastard son that no one dares recognise has got to keep everything running.

- Nikolai’s not really sure where to start, for one.

- He was a pretty good bet as a kid. Good at fighting, even if he would honestly rather read pretentious books or fiddle with mundie machinery.

- Better than his brother at fighting, though, because of Dominick.

- Dominick was his parabatai. Dominick was his .. . well, Dominick was certainly something a lot more than his parabatai. Dominick was the scrappy kid from a bloc about a million miles away from the kind of world Nikolai grew up in, who’s dad had, once, been a shadowhunter, before he upped and left the family.

(If not so pressed for numbers, Nikolai wonders what kind of life the Lantsovs would have left him too.)

- Hanging out with Dominick taught Nikolai how to fight, really fight, with fists and elbows and dirty tricks, without runes and blessed blades. It also taught him how to debate football and eurovision with mundies and hold his own in a drinking competition and use Moscow’s public transport. [Take that, Vasily.] It taught him how to pretentiously quote 19th century anarchists and trade unionists who’d been hanged.

- It taught him .. . Dominick taught him . . Deep in his heart, he knows there’s nothing wrong with kissing Dominick, in the darkest part of the night, his hands in his hair, Dominick’s teeth scraping his jaw. There’s nothing wrong with what they do in the darkest back room of the Institute on his seventeenth birthday, and yet.

Nikolai would rather die than have his father know.

- Dominick doesn’t die. Dominick almost dies, and then Dominick leaves for America and leaves the Shadowhunting world behind, voluntarily forsaking the Sight.

- Nikolai doesn’t blame him. There’s nothing like the pain of being where you know you’re not wanted.

There’s nothing like the pain of having a parabatai bond voluntarily severed. (It’s not about Nikolai, but it is, just like it isn’t about Shadowhunting, but it is, and it’s not about Russia, but it is.)

- The scar a severed parabatai bond leaves, though. His subsequent lovers (smaller in number, more diverse in gender, than legend suggests) always ask him, as does every opponents.

- The King of Scars, korol’ shramov, that has a better ring to it than The Bastard.)

- His parents are thrown in jail in Idris, his brother’s dead, the only person he’s ever loved lives in Chicago. And yet. He picks himself up- or rather, the pieces of what’s left, that he’s tried to forcefully assimilate into some person-shaped thing. He picks himself up and he gets to work, trying to create a more modern, open, inclusive institute.

- Zoya’s the most powerful warlock in a generation. She most definitely does not fuck with shadowhunters and their weird insular culture, preffering to live, far less conspicuously, among actual people. (In her down time, she brings justice to Men Who Deserve It.)

- She sure isn’t feeling helpful when Nikolai Lantsov, head of the fucking Moscow Institute, knocks on her door and asks for her help running one of the largest institutes in the world.

- (Her apartment has doors in three cities: Saint Petersburg, Haifa, Kolkata. Which- if you can bend space and time, why the fuck not??? She can only spend so much time in Russia, anyway, before she needs some sunshine and food with flavour.)

- So she lets him in (she doesn’t want to, she doesn’t let anyone physically in, really, except for a handful of one-night stands who think her flat really only exists in Haifa) and makes tea while she Judges him.

- And decides that he’s about to burn Russia down if she doesn’t lend a hand.

#i'll write more abt zoya later i'm just running out of brain #zoyalai #modern au zoyalai #nikolai lantsov #zoya nazyalensky

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