Вообще в моем хэдканоне Саша по сути и есть еретик, потому

“Something caught your eye, Sasha?”

Sasha is trying to exchange husband for a daughter

i'm in darknikolina mood, so HEADCANONS TIME.

let's say pre-canon!darkolai happened at some point, and darklina obviously was a thing during the trilogy, and then nikolina got married because it's the ending we deserve. as a royal couple, they're expected to have kids at some point, and eventually they have a daughter. both, tsar and tsaritsa, have a lot of complicated personal and political feelings about a certain shadow summoner, but they name her sasha anyway. it silenced a lot of gossipers: they assumed the tsarevna was named after her unlamented grandfather, tsar aleksander.

(in truth, grand duchess aleksandra nikolaevna was named after the darkling, lamented by many.)

but then liza & co ressurect aleksander. and he learns that now there is a lantsov girl named aleksandra, who is in equal parts alina and nikolai, his most beloved people. and she possesses alina's beautiful dark eyes, and nikolai's golden locks, and alina's dimple, and kolya's sunny smile. and the girl is also a grisha (a little alkemi, because they deserve representation) - the grand duchess (aged three) did accidentally turn the darkling's brandy into water during their first meeting.

so, of course little sasha has big sasha wrapped around her tiny fingers in no time. all the tsarevna has to do is ask. and the scary, powerful, terrifying darkling would do it. like, once sasha said she would like to have an octopus as a pet, and aleksander immediatelly was like: "ulla, ULLA. get me the prettiest octopus in all three oceans of this world for baby sasha, please. you're her aunt too, by the way."

(aleksander: ugh, i hate the lantsovs, they're the worst. someone: but, your excellency, you are cuddling the tsarevna right now? aleksander, clutching sasha even harder to his chest: i said what i said.)

nikolai and alina are no help because they are aleksandra nikolaevna's loyal slaves too. as are aunt genya and uncle david. so, actual disciplining has to be done by aunt zoya, who is the only one immune to tsarevna's pleading eyes.

(aunt zoya is also little sasha's first girl crush, and she tells everyone that when she grows up she's gonna be general nazyalensky, and break hearts of boys and girls too.)

(alina is mentally preparing for the day sasha will have suitors because darkolai would try to decapitate anyone daring enough to ask their little girl out.)

and they live happily ever after, the end.

🥰🥰🥰

THEY

Adorable lil puppy 💞

this pic of paddy looking at ben is hilarious, but also. yes, that's how nikolai looks at sasha 99.9 % of time.

А вы думали это одноразовая акция? Я всё жду более "интересных" взаимодействий между дарколаями в "Восемь тактов" от @vorbarrsultana, хехехе. А пока развлекаюсь тем, что рисую свои любимые сцены из глав. Вот например мне запомнилось важное стратегическое собрание детишек на крыше XD. Что-то в этот раз мне не понравилась жесткость грифеля, надо попривыкнуть наверное.

good evening, nikolai's coronation coat was consciously inspired by darkling's kefta

пользуясь моментом хочу прорекламировать мой годичный ролик по дарколаям с русской песенкой (the retuses!!)!!!

you know what i want a spin off of? i want a spin off of the years of the darklings life that are completely skipped over. i want to see him as a kid constantly on the run from people who want to kill him and use his bones, i want to see the things he's done for the kings, the deals his made that they'd sooner kill him and everyone like him then keep to, i want to see the reactions of himself and baghra and ravka and the world after the fold was created, i want to see the progress of how it made grisha useful enough to the royals to let darkling build the little palace, to make his own second army, to have grisha working at the edge of the fold to get people through safely. i want more of his backstory.

Nikolai's demon acts like an overgrown cat around the Darkling, because it came from his power and like calls to like.

The Darkling likes to be around Nikolai's demon, because it's his unique creation.

Nikolai doesn't enjoy Aleksander's company at all, they're too different for it.

Aleksander doesn't like to pet the creature because it's one of few living beings openly affectionate with him.

At least that's what they keep telling themselves, when they wake up next to each other once too often.

there’s just some fics... they never leave u bro. i’ll be sitting on the toilet four years later thinking about the 94k enemies to lovers fic that captured my soul