The Darkling & Alina | Paint it Black

What extraordinary beings we are. shu!darkling....where do i even start I've been obsessed with the concept ever since the "and could pass as either" ditw line and watching the acolyte recently only fueled that. Manny is such a good fancast...not only does he look the part but also his dialogue?? so darkles coded it's insane I'm still mad at the show runners for introducing alina in the show as shu, only to later on abandon that interesting change for the sake of other characters. it still leaves a bad taste in my mouth that we never got to explore that side of her character, leaving only the s1 racism she endured. i feel like the darkling also being shu would add another layer to their relationship - a sort of understanding, unity In my head this au had so many different plots- especially because I started thinking about this before the finale and ngl knowing disney I was scared qimir would die in the finale already (AND HE DIDN'T WE GOT A ETL SHIP WHAT A WIN). maybe I will revisit the other ideas in the future who knows👀 How I imagined this was that the Darkling is in between his aliases (aka everyone thinks he's dead and he's biding his time to make a come back as his descendant). Alina and the cartographers still find themselves on the skiff, but this time only Alina makes it out alive. She ends up in a town somewhere in East Ravka, however rumours of a searing light inside the Fold follow her. The Darkling finds out and goes to investigate, ending up in the same place as Alina. For reasons he can't explain, he feels drawn to her and that's inevitably what causes him to witness Alina being discriminated and trying to escape her attackers. The Darkling rescues her and chaos ensues :) this is dedicated to my shu!darkling pals ‪@Bellsilili‬ (thank you so so so much for enduring my 3am breakdowns and spam you are the biggest hype woman ever), ‪@HeartPhantom‬ & ‪@dominoesrising‬make sure to check out their amazing twitter vids which lowkey inspired this whole project!! and ‪@nyxldx‬, who started this madness over a year ago (still can't get over how you fancasted manny as darkles without seeing the acolyte - insane instict, I'm on my knees) HUGE THANK YOU to ‪@Lilylilie‬ without whom this couldn't have happened as I wasn't able to get the episodes myself in time - you are such a lifesaver and I'm blessed to call you a friend - and this is also for you🤍🤍🤍🤍 small note: this au is a bit half-baked (especially the text:( ) as I'm leaving for vacation and wanted to finish it while inspo is still in tact so if you see anything off, that's why! and to avoid any miscommunication - the thumbnail looks slightly different than the manip itself - not because i did them separately, but because vegas tends to darken my footage during rendering and it's either very dark or so brightened that the quality suffers, please don't come at me for this fskdjfhshdf FANCAST: shu!darkling — manny jacinto baghra — janet montgomery (that one clip rip) TWITTER:   / moonxreverie   INSTAGRAM:   / moonxreverie   ━━━━━━━━━━━ fandom | grishaverse pairing | the darkling & alina song |    • Ciara - Paint It, Black (Audio)   coloring | ‪@maryxstuart‬ program | sony vegas pro 14 #darklina #grishaverse #mannyjacinto #jessiemeili #alinastarkov #thedarkling #fanvidfeed #viddingisart ━━━━━━━━━━━ Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use.