sunmon | (no subject)

♰ OOC

Player Name: tifa

Are you over 18? yes

Contact:

protects

Characters in game: N/A

♰ BASICS

Character's name: Alina Starkov

Canon: Netflix's Shadow and Bone

Canon point: The night of the winter fete, after Baghra sneaks her out and she climbs into Jesper's trunk, but before meeting the Crows.

Age: A vague space between 16 and 20 that the show hasn't defined (16 at this time in the books, but some characters are aged up); she's a young adult, in her culture

Background: link

Abilities:

In the First Army, Alina showed herself a capable cartographer.

But as the sun summoner, Alina has the ability to manipulate light. Though grisha only manipulate what matter already exists, it's pretty clear that Alina is capable of creating light sources in dark places, presumably by turning some molecules into photons or whatever. Right now, her ability is fairly limited. She can create light sources, blind people, and create some kind of protective light shield. However, per book canon, she can develop the ability to compress light energy to slice shit up, an ability demonstrated by Kirigan's shadow summoning and make other creative applications of her power.

Grisha are also especially long lived. A grisha of Alina's power could live for centuries, like Kirigan has. (The presumption that she is 'like him' in this way and others is part of the source of his fixation.)

♰ SUITABILITY

Strengths:

RESILIENT - Alina is a spirited, charismatic young girl who relies on a dry sense of humor to cope with the harsh realities of living in war-torn Ravka. Subjected to racist abuse since her childhood as a war orphan in Keramzin and later in the army, Alina has learned to never show weakness around others. She tells Mal that one of their biggest lessons from the orphanage is to never let anyone see them cry. She stood up for Mal routinely against the bullies in Keramzin, and on the worst day of her life, when she is separated from him and brought to the Little Palace to be forced to train as a grisha, she waits until she is locked behind the door of her new room to collapse into sobs.

PROTECTIVE - Due to her own traumatic experiences, Alina is particularly empathetic towards those who have suffered loss and abuse. She connects easily with these people and makes herself their protector — bonding particularly to Genya (a victim of sexual abuse) and Mal (the kid all the other kids picked on in the orphanage). She gets thrown into the military jail because she decked a superior officer to defend Mal once, and when she does bond with Kirigan, it's under the auspices that he is unfairly maligned because he's grisha and because he's associated with his """ancestor""" who created the Shadow Fold.

Weaknesses:

SELFISH AND IMPULSIVE - When Alina wants something, she doesn't let anything get in her way, even basic rationality. She sabotages her chance at a better life by evading and cheating the test to see if she is grisha as a child because she fears being separated from Mal. If she were grisha, she would be well-fed, well cared for, and she would have a bigger sense of belonging; yet she wants nothing more than to remain in the orphanage with Mal because he feels safe and certain. This trend continues as she enlists in the First Army with him, and sabotages the maps of West Ravka, dragging her entire cartography unit onto his trip into the Fold and endangering them just so she can be with Mal.

ANGRY/BITTER - When she feels threatened or when something touches too close to her insecurity about whether or not she's lovable/worth anything, she lashes out. A lot of her anger comes from how emotionally stunted she is — she doesn't even fully understand herself, and she can't get in touch with her desires and needs because she's lived in such a scarcity mindset where she avoids processing her emotions because there's no room for them. This leads to more frustration and aggressive outbursts when she is under stress, especially since she has cultivated a bitterness towards the world.

UNTRUSTING - Due to her upbringing, Alina does not trust other people easily and has a hard time letting herself be vulnerable with them. She also holds long grudges; when it becomes clear that Mal isn't writing her back, she assumes the worst of him (that his hatred for grisha has extended to her) and initiates an unhealthy romantic relationship with General Kirigan, her older supervisor, so that she can salve the wound and still feel wanted.

Fears:

LOSS OF AUTONOMY - Now that she knows Kirigan is planning to control her and weaponize the Fold, she has great fear that she will be used to hurt people.

INSIGNIFICANCE/WORTHLESSNESS - Alina feels like she is worthless and fears that she is truly insignificant, or worse, that she is the wrong person to be given her grisha ability and that she isn't enough to be the hero/saint everyone expects her to be with it. She fears disappointing people and losing the conditional love and acceptance she has.

LOSS OF A LOVED ONE - Genya and Mal are the most important people in Alina's life, and given that she has lost her parents, she is very afraid of being separated from either of them via death or some other separation. (Note: right now, this applies less to Mal because she's under the impression he ghosted her for being grisha, but she gets over it pretty quickly when that deception gets cleared up later in canon.)

Desires: Alina's chief driving desire is love and respect. All of her other more shallow, concrete wants are manifestations of her pursuit to feel like she has value as a human being, which she seeks via love and praise in the same way that an addict seeks their vice. Because she's been starved of it for so long, she is toxically dependent on it and incapable of moderation. No amount of praise will fill the big black hole in her that tells her she's worthless, but she'll continue doing stupid thing upon stupid thing to get it.

Regrets: To some degree, a part of Alina regrets becoming grisha. It upheaved her life. She wasn't happy with how it was, but at least she had Mal; now she feels like she has nothing, and it all came about because someone discovered her powers.

Another regret is trusting Kirigan. Alina uses this as something to beat herself up about, calling herself stupid and foolish for being so easily manipulated (by a several centuries old monster with much more knowledge and experience, so this isn't really fair of her, but it be like that sometimes).

Tethers:

MAL - Mal is Alina's childhood best friend and someone that she is currently grieving losing because she had romantic feelings for him.

A SUN CROWN - This object doesn't come from canon explicitly, but it appears in her home as a symbolic representation as her roles and responsibilities as the sun summoner, savior of Ravka.

MAP OF RAVKA - As a child, Alina's orphanage matron taught her how to draw maps. This is a map of Ravka that Alina drew as a child that hangs on the wall in Keramzin, part of her home.

♰ OPT-INS / OPT-OUTS

If you'd like your character to be subjected to the following options at any given time, please answer accordingly. Note that these might temporarily disrupt your established plans.

Harrowings: yes

Curses/Pranks: yes

Imprisonment: yes

Encounters: yes

Loss of control: yes

NOTE: i don't know why it WOULD come up with alina, but fetishized genderplay is a trigger for me, so uh, now you know?

♰ SAMPLES

Here is Alina on the TDM.