It was a blood oath, after all, and magic was magic.
The Darkling decided early on how much he would disclose to Alina about his plans for the coup based on a conversation they had on the way to the palace.
I like to look back at this scene from Shadow and Bone that takes place after Alina was seconds away from being killed by a Fjerdan assassin. She denies that she is Grisha, pointing to her plain and scrawny appearance for proof of her certainty and Aleksander responds with a remark about how Alina doesn’t understand what being Grisha even means.
It’s a telling scene because it shows just how surface-level Alina’s view of Grisha is. To her, Grisha are shiny, beautiful and strong and they are prioritized over the common folk soldiers she once belonged with. Of course, Aleksander knows that there is so much more to being Grisha than just beauty, but realizes that there’s so much to unpack with Alina’s statement he doesn’t even know where to start.
This exchange explains one of the reasons why he didn’t disclose his true plans to Alina, much less his ultimate secret. If Alina has such a shallow understanding of Grisha identity, she will also have a shallow understanding of just how much is at stake in this conflict. Alina is no ordinary Grisha, so it hasn’t quite sunk in that she has skin in the game and is more significant than she realizes. Her denial of her Grisha identity (despite obvious evidence proving otherwise) Alina is staunch in her assertion that she is just a normal girl. It is that same denial that tells Aleksander that Alina cannot be viewed as reliable just yet, time needs to be taken to teach her a better understanding of the Grisha first.
This next exchange is the second reason why Aleksander doesn’t tell her. Although Alina herself may not have said that superstition out loud, but it demonstrates how Alina was exposed to those views during her formative years. It raises his suspicion that Alina may hold some remnants of the Serf’s ideas and perhaps compels him to think ahead to assess if this could grow into a potential threat. He ABSOLUTELY cannot tell her the truth anytime soon if there is even the slightest possibility that she believes that he’s soulless and “truly evil”. If Alina snitched on him, his entire operation could be shut down for good and set the Grisha back decades. Not to mention the fact that it could get a lot of Grisha killed.
“You didn’t hurt his feelings.” Dear Reader, this was only the beginning of Alina denying Aleksander’s humanity in order to avoid taking responsibility for her prejudice and to avoid the complex reality of the situation. You can almost hear the incorrect answer buzzer go off in Aleksander’s mind as Alina tells him her answer, I can almost feel his pure disappointment through the page.
Because Aleksander poses an important question that reveals one of Alina’s central conflicts that will continue throughout the trilogy. Alina is still deeply uncomfortable with the idea of Grisha powers after spending her life among people who call them unnatural and strange. To the point that it wasn’t just the fact that the assassin was sliced in two that bothered her, but because of the magic that sliced him. Why on earth would he trust her with his greatest secret when she reacts with such hesitation? He was testing her to gauge how long it would be before Alina could be trusted as an ally to Grisha and received an answer that told him it might take a while. If Alina can’t handle her the idea of her own powers, she cannot be trusted with a secret that could determine the future of Ravka.
I don’t know about you, but I fully believe that Aleksander had every intention of telling Alina the truth, it’s just that considering his personal relationship with her over the safety of his people was a risk he couldn’t take. This gets a bit muddled later on because Alina’s narration seems to care more about her personal feelings of betrayal than the consequences this plan could have on the country. She never takes a moment to look at the bigger picture and consider the consequences of her reckless actions.
I know that I’m just breaking the scene down and explaining what’s happening in it, but it truly is such an informative scene that hints at a potentially fascinating storyline.
Today I learned that Keanu Reeves developed a "mag flip" technique for reloading a gun that is now being adopted by competition shooters and actual soldiers.
Basically he just kinda twists the gun hard enough that the magazine flies out on its own so he can put a new one in faster.
I just thought it was crazy that an actor developed a viable combat technique.
The director of John Wick confirmed that Keanu came up with this independently and a popular firearms YouTuber said he saw competition shooters and military friends practicing this. So I would say this is accurate with a medium level of confidence.
When did you *first* get COVID?
Before 2020
First half of 2020 (January–June)
End half of 2020 (July–December)
First half of 2021 (January–June)
End half of 2021 (July–December)
First half of 2022 (January–June)
End half of 2022 (July–December)
First half of 2023 (January–June)
I've never caught COVID, as far as I know
Other / Not Sure / It's Complicated / See Results
Anybody else got that Evergiven sized writers block
“Where’s the next chapter?!” Well buddy you’re never gonna guess
What’s the comic sans trick?
wingdings' true purpose as a font
Is Firefox OK?
Mozilla’s privacy-heavy browser is flatlining. What it does next is crucial for the future of the web.
by wired.com
Despite some of its misses, Firefox still matters. Mozilla is pushing companies to be more private, and its key product is different at its core. The browser market is dominated by Google’s Chromium codebase and its underlying browser engine, Blink, the component that turns code into visual web pages. Microsoft’s Edge Browser, Brave, Vivaldi, and Opera all use adapted versions of Chromium. Apple makes developers use its WebKit browser engine on iOS. Other than that, Firefox’s Gecko browser engine is the only alternative in existence.
“This market needs variety,” Willemsen says. If Firefox diminishes further, there’ll be less competition for Chrome. “We need that difference for open internet standards, for the sake of preventing monopolies,” Willemsen says. Others agree. Everyone we spoke with for this story—inside and outside of Mozilla—says having Firefox flourish makes the web a better place. The trick is figuring out how to get there.
Download and start using Firefox if you don’t already, I made the switch back to Firefox after not using it for years and being a chrome person until 2020 and have never regretted it
firefox is so amazing. Seriously. If you haven’t, give it a try. At the very least, you can watch youtube videos with 0 (zero) ads.
I’ll say again that I remember many years of Firefox being everyone’s go-to until a sudden migration to chrome, which for me was always slower than Firefox? Chrome spies on you, Firefox has better AdBlock, and Firefox lets you import all your bookmarks and logins so there’s no excuse to put this off
Reminder that you should switch to Firefox. You have nothing to lose but your chrome chains.
This. (Disclosure: I don’t use any other browser without twitching.)
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ALTWow, Daegu (South Korea) went from not protecting Daegu Pride in 2018 the way they should've to receiving education sessions on Queer culture and becoming public allies and vowing to protect Pride from then on and doing exactly so every single year culminating in this year when their hobgoblin of a mayor tried to destroy Pride, and now even protesting in favor of Pride? Growth.
ALTIt's important to note that the courts also supported Pride and the mayor publicly threatened the police chief, yet the police still went to protect and support Pride.
ALT"South Korean news agency Yonhap estimated that about 500 protesters and 1,500 police officers were at the scene. The festival ultimately continued, with the parade taking place as planned."
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UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE
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ALTDespite mayor's threats, Daegu police is sticking by their decision! Kudos to the police chief, general Yoon is a real one!
reddit, how do I make my firstborn stop playing with the fans, the ornaments, and the makeup when he is supposed to be a warlord. I fear I shall raise a poet.
Absolutely based quote my dude