BASIC INFO.
✖ Character Name & Journal: Starkov, Alina (sankta) ( note: if her canon update is approved, i would like to switch to this journal for her: solkoroleva. thank you! )
✖ Application Link: previous application.
✖ Current Canon Point: Siege & Storm - right before she takes control of the Darkling's power, but after her and the Darkling meet again in the chapel
✖ New Canon Point: Ruin & Rising - directly after the Darkling invades the mountain lair, kills Sergei, and throws Nikolai back on the terrace, but before he 'punishes' ( i swear canon refers to it as a punishment ) Nikolai and turns him into a beast

✖ Personality Section:

For the most part, Alina's basic personality remains intact during her canon update.

One thing that changes is her level of determination. Alina has witnessed more of the horror that the Darkling has wrought, and she wants to do anything she can to stop him. This is what drove her to join the CDC in the first place, having witnessed the blood and gore and death of her friends at the Darkling's hands. It goes a step further she fights the Darkling. Alina tries to to kill him through tearing him apart from within with merzost. The drawback is that she's also tearing into herself to do it. Alina accepts what she is doing, though, and is willing to let herself die to take the Darkling with her. Before, Alina believed in the possibility of saving the Darkling, but now she knows that they will eventually fight to the death. She even welcomes the possibility of her own death.

While not suicidal, Alina welcomes her own death readily in trying to kill the Darkling. To the extent that she resents Mal for interfering and stopping her from what she was trying to accomplish. She expresses that she wishes he had just let her die back there.

But this is reflects more in another way that Alina has changed. Alina's power is slowly consuming her, and fighting the Darkling leaves Alina weak and powerless and worse for wear. Trying to defeat the Darkling took Alina to a depth of her power she had never experienced and she relished that feeling. She hated being torn from it and she hated surviving knowing that she had failed in her goals. All she is anymore is her power and goals, and Mal kept her from both. The power inside her begs for more from her, even her life, and leaves resentment in not allowing her to see it to fulfillment.

This kind of extremism begins to consume Alina. When not using her powers, she is the same girl she always is. Trying to do her best, a little nervous and scared, hesitantly leading people despite her own insecurities, searching for a place to belong but never finding it, constantly feeling like an outsider, a more gentle determination to succeed for the good of people, etc. These are all the things that make up Alina at a base level. Alina's powers, however, turn the worst things in her up to extreme levels. Such as with her determination, making that need consume her so that she can feel death at the hands of her powers. Then resentment that should never take root, but does as he loses her powers and aches for them. They make her miss the benefits of living and resent only that she doesn't have power anymore. Then, when Alina regains her power, she feels such a flush of them that she nearly kills two people. She wanted to kill them. Her powers don't just drive her to use them, they drive her to be a different sort of person. Alina becomes a more outspoken person, a demanding and even cruel person. When putting the Apparat in his place, she almost forces him to crawl on his knees before her subjects to subjugate himself to her. This can be both a good thing and a bad thing. It helps her to assert herself as a leader and can lead to good, but always at the price of holding back something that's on the very edge of breaking out of her. When Alina does kill her first man with her powers, she becomes sick with disgust at herself, but later confesses that she liked it. That it doesn't matter how she uses her powers, so long as she uses them. Even if it's killing someone, she aches for more of it. The need to increase her power and push it to the limits becomes a constant need to check and balance. She needs the firebird, despite warnings against it from Baghra, but she also knows she would despicable things to get the firebird. Even kill an ancient being of power for it, and confesses that the thought doesn't disturb her like it should.

Alina's powers push her to extremes that scare her. On the one hand, she can't stop herself sometimes from exerting some power, like acting commanding and powerful and reminding people why she's a saint. On the other hand, she has to constantly check herself from pushing it too far and becoming a monster. The firebird would only increase her power, though, and Alina fears that using it will push her to levels she can never return from. Baghra states that gaining the firebird would make Alina an abomination like her son. Abomination fighting abomination. Alina accepts this, however, knowing she has to do anything to stop the Darkling. Even if she has to become like him to do it.

In efforts to reach her goals of ending the Darkling, Alina grows into herself as a leader more. She never becomes comfortable with her political power and often fears it, but she learns better how to wield it. She stops fearing the word 'saint' and 'moi soverenyi' and begins to accept that she is these things to the people, and these things can be used as tools to her end. At times, she will play these cards to get what she needs. Even if she still doesn't believe in her own sanctity and heroism and pictures herself always as the little orphan girl from the First Army.

This shift in politics doesn't come without it's price, either. Mal and Alina's relationship is damaged from this, already spiraling out of control in Siege and Storm. Alina admits that Mal did fail her before, and she can't quite forgive him for it. But there is a change in Mal. He returns not just to his old self, but to a better self. A self that learns to give up his own desires and become a tool for Alina. More specifically, a weapon in her hand as he tattoos the words 'I am become a blade' in ancient Ravkan on his back. It's a promise to always be what Alina needs him to be and to serve her in the only way he can. Doing so, however, creates a deeper chasm between the couple. Alina always aches to breach that chasm, but they both know they cannot. Alina is destined for more than Mal can give her, as he tells her, and Alina knows he's right. She has duty now, and can't follow her heart any longer. The two come to better terms with each other, no longer angered with each other and somewhere close to friends. But Mal always keeps a level of distance as her guard, and pushes her towards her destiny and away from him.

Part of her destiny comes in the realization that one day Alina will be Queen. It's no longer a question, but an inevitability. Mal states that Nikolai would be a good king, but he knows nothing of suffering. To be a great king, he needs Alina as his queen. Alina begins to spend more and more time with Nikolai, knowing that this is the truth. While Nikolai hasn't asked the question again, and Alina hasn't said yes, they both know they will marry to make an alliance between the First and Second Army. Alina accepts this, but is never quite at home with it knowing she's doing duty and not acting for love. Still, Nikolai is her friend and she cares for him deeply. She searches for him the moment she's free and cries to see he lived at all. The two learn to trust each other more, as he states that he did go back for her to try to assure her he didn't abandon her and she tells him she never doubted it, with no hesitation. He makes her laugh, and she feels comfortable when around him. Her feelings for Nikolai are still uncertain, though, due to unresolved things with Mal and duty making it hard to trust what she actually feels and what she's doing for the good of Ravka. Nikolai points out that he can make her laugh and that they could be happy together and maybe in time that could be love. Alina contemplates whether love is even real or not or a lie people tell themselves to stave off loneliness. She doesn't know how to trust her own heart, but she does know what needs to be done and that's enough for her. She chooses Nikolai more and more, letting him show her the meteor shower, knowing that Mal cannot stay on as her personal guard when they marry, accepting the Lantsov ring- a family heirloom, and ultimately choosing to let Mal leave to search for the firebird while Alina attends state dinners with Nikolai and shows a united front with him. A coming out as a couple, essentially. Alina willingly allows this and moves closer towards politics in doing so, even if she's never felt wholly comfortable there. At least she has Nikolai to help her along with it.

The Darkling is another relationship, but it never really changes with him. There is always a part of her that calls to him, as he is the only one like her and like calls to like. But there is always a knowledge that she will have to end him, and it's for the best. Alina doesn't regret the part of her that wants to kill him, but more the part of her that wants to love him. He's become a monster and hurt her friends and mentally tortured her. She knows she shouldn't harbor any feelings for him, and that's the part of herself she struggles most with. Though, she does gain a better understanding of the Darkling. Baghra explains the story of Ilya Morozova and his martyrdom. How she's the daughter of Morozova and how she raised the Darkling on Morozova's stories. How she gave him his ambition by making him believe himself to be greater than others. Alina also understands him in that she feels the starting of what she's certain he's felt all his life. The way power pushes and consumes and makes her want to do things she fears. At one point, the Darkling tells Alina that she might make him a better man, and Alina responds that he might make her a monster. Alina's learned better to play his games, and knows what must be done. Her resolve is set, it's only the part of her that loves him that she detests.

For the most part, Alina's basic personality remains the same. She's still insecure ( though a little more now that her hair is stark white and she looks a little more weak than before, she's a bit healthier now she has sunlight but she still looks more scrawny again which makes her self-conscious from time to time ). She still wishes she could fit in. She still doesn't understand how people can worship her as a saint when she's nothing but a girl. She's better at pushing these things back in front of others, but the curtain falls around people she's close to and can talk freely with. She doesn't hide these things from people she's close to, and instead acts more like herself. A sarcastic, insecure, and unsure girl making everything up as she goes and hoping to save the world.

✖ Abilities Section:
( note: I've copied and pasted her powers from her previous app. Some things have been rearranged and some things added. Added sections are noted, added sentences to previous sections are bolded. )

GRISHA⇢ Grisha practice the 'Small Science' as it's called in their world. This means that they manipulate matter at its most fundamental matter. They cannot create matter, but only manipulate what exists to their advantage (note: they haven't fully explained how Alina's summoning works at a fundamental level so I'm not for sure on the logistics there myself). Alina is an Etherealki, a summoner. She summons fundamental elements that exist naturally and produces sunlight as a result. Using powers can exhaust a Grisha, even if in the long run the power extends their life. Alina feels more healthy when not suppressing her power, but using it in large bursts can also exhaust her and even make her pass out. Addendum: In the Grisha Trilogy there is a theory the 'like calls to like,' but it is taken a step further by defining the grishas' power as 'if the science is small enough, then we are like all things.' This is considered advanced theory in the Grisha world and is known and practiced by very few, only the strongest of the grisha. Thus far, it's been acknowledged that a particular family of the strongest known grisha practiced this theory and Alina learned from them. There is an implication that if grisha can manipulate at the smaller level, and the if the science is small enough they are like all things, that grisha are not confined to their one ability but can practice all grisha abilities. Ilya Morozova, the greatest grisha and fabrikator ever known, also practiced healing capabilities, a corporalki ability when he was materialki. Alina never reaches this level herself, and Baghra advises against any grisha trying to do more than they can as power consumes grisha. Ilya is the only known grisha to have been able to figure this out and do more with his power.

LIGHT : Alina produces sunlight from herself. Usually, she focuses it from her palms, but it can burst from any part of her. New grisha theory has upped the way Alina understands her power and her summoning. It's not just summoing, but existing as all things. In this way, Alina can not only summon, but she can feel the light where it exists. She can send consciousness out to the light and find the places that it exists. Her range to do this has been shown up to six miles, but is implied even more. This only gives her an ability to use her light in better ranges and techniques by feeling where it exists and manipulating what's there rather than simply summoning. This light can produce heat, to the point that it can kill a person. In Ruin and Rising, Alina burns her handprint into the chest of one of her followers. She makes a mental note to be particularly careful, because if she does it wrong she could kill the boy. Alina is never shown to use heat as a fighting mechanism, and it is implied that only direct contact with her intense heat is dangerous. Meaning, if she's touching and concentrating, she can put enough heat into her touch to burn or do worse. But this would take a still target and precision. When generally applied, she can use the heat to help keep herself as warm as possible while sleeping outside in a snowstorms. When used more widely, her heat is not intense enough to kill or harm people beyond a potential sunburn. Alina uses this light in fighting to blind her enemies by bouncing it off reflective surfaces into the eyes of her opponent. She can manipulate the brightness of the light, how large out it goes, etc. Alina can summon unconsciously, and does so usually when she's been deprived of sunlight or needs it's strength. This generally takes the form of her glowing unconsciously to try to connect herself with the light again, even if she doesn't realize she's doing it.

CUT : Alina has learned how to use her light to cut through matter. She's cut a ship entirely in half with her light and can cut a person cleanly in half as well. She summons and concentrates her light and uses it like a whip or a blade to cut. It's a quick attack to use. This is the only way that she's able to physically harm someone with her sunlight that's been shown in the book. Her cut has grown in power with the use of her amplifiers. This goes back to the new grisha theory: Are we not all things? Alina to not only summon light but to send herself to light, as noted above. She uses this ability to find where light already exists and to sharpen it essentially. In the book, she is shown able to Cut the top off a mountain six miles away by finding the light and finding that the cut already exists where the light does. Instead of summoning light for this, she uses light that already exists to Cut. It's still the same whip-like gesture she uses from before, but her sensing to do so is different. This move takes more concentration on her part and an ability to focus herself and her breathing. It may come more easily with practice and time, but so far she needs to concentrate. Her Cut at it's most basic level that she can control, however, is still a force to be reckoned with. It can cut a person cleanly in half and has tore open ceilings and the ground to create trenches. Alina can change the force of her Cut to range from slicing a person in half to creating trenches, but it is never not at lethal levels if it strikes a person ( whether it is lethal to the person it is being used on or not will depend on the other character in game, though ).

INVISIBILITY : ( whole section added ) This technique Alina has not accessed in Ruin and Rising at the point I'm taking her from. However, less than two hours from the point I'm taking her from she does access it. I would like to be able to allow her to learn it in game through natural means.

In Ruin and Rising, Alina learns how to make things invisible. She does this by imagining the light as wind or a stream, and imagines pushing it around the object she doesn't want to be seen anymore so that light no longer reflects off it and it no longer can be seen ( they do try to give a more scientific reasoning to this, but science goes over Alina's head so she dismissed that option and prefers to imagine it this way. it works for her ). Alina bends the light by cupping her hand usually, as if she's trying to cup the thing she's turning invisible and press the light around her hand. In canon, she hides an entire flying ship by doing this on her first try. However, the struggle comes in trying to turn people invisible and keep them invisible. Alina spends days practicing and training turning people invisible and moving the invisibility with them. While the skill itself comes easily to her, the actual application and usage are what take time and effort. Even her turning the ship invisible the first time isn't perfect, and only works so well because of how far away from the ground they are. It's still shifty and easy to see that something about the ship doesn't seem right. However, after training and practice, Alina is able to turn a group of people invisible and keep them invisible for a long period of time. This takes a couple days of training and practice and still could be perfected as her hold is tentative, but she is able to get to that level.

In canon, Alina learns the technique after she learns the idea of bending light away from what she's trying to hide. This comes in the form of needing to fly a ship during the day without being seen and David, a fabrikator, explains to her how she can make things invisible by bending the light so it doesn't reflect off the thing. Once she hears the theory ( and thinks of it like a rock in a stream, because science is just never going to work for her ), Alina is able to use the ability quickly. In game, I think a similar device would need to occur. Invisibility would never occur to Alina naturally, so someone with an understanding of light would have to give her the idea at all. This would likely occur when a need to be hidden arises, but might occur also if Alina ever talks to a science-type who wants to understand her light further. I don't foresee this topic coming up naturally anytime soon, though, and would only have Alina learn to make things invisible if someone ever tells her what she could do with light. After that, it would only take practice to hone the skill, with inanimate objects coming easily but at a blurred capacity, then inanimate objects becoming easy to hide all together, then humans but in patches and not well, and then humans all together.

AMPLIFIER : Generally, Grisha are not meant to have more than one amplifier. There is no standard for having more until Alina. Alina has two amplifiers at this time. Alina's amplifiers are made from two, previously thought to be mythical, animals - a stag and a dragon. The amplifiers come from mythical animals - the stag, the dragon, and a third firebird - that were said to be created by Ilya Morozova, a Saint and a rumored Grisha, and are, as rumor goes, meant for only one person and that person is meant to have all three. The rumor is only known to a small number of people, and Alina's second amplifier is not common knowledge, only trusted with the same small number of people who know the rumor. Alina's amplifiers cannot be removed at all, and the expectation is that removing them will create a natural disaster on par with the creation of the Fold.

The collar around her neck made from the antlers of a mythical stag acts as a way to boost her powers. She cannot physically remove the collar herself. It's unsure if there's a way to remove it, or if only the Darkling can (as he controls half the amplifier). The amplifier helps her to use the Cut and create wider berths for her light. Should the Darkling ever be apped to CDC, he could also fight for control of her powers through the amplifier. However, it has been shown that the connection goes both ways and she could take control of his own powers as well. In addition to the collar, Alina has a fetter around her wrist made of the scales of a mythical dragon. This amplifier does not tie her to the Darkling, as she killed the dragon herself and chose to make the amplifier herself. Her power hasn't seemed to change as much, slightly brighter and wider berths (up to a mile or more in light expansion) but the Cut remains the same. The fetter has affected her personality more than anything.

DARKNESS : ( whole section added ) Alina can not only manipulate light anymore, but also shadows. During her fight with the Darkling, Alina used merzost to bind them and in doing so Alina left a piece of herself in the Darkling and he left a piece of himself in here ( which he already had when he had the nichevoy'a bite her, but this was a different kind of piece ). Each of them ended up with a fraction of each other's power. This piece is too small to be able to do anything substantial with. Alina can manipulate already existing shadows, and that's all she can do. She can pull at the shadows around her and make them stretch and jump and dance along the walls, but she can not summon them beyond that to do anything else. It's not a useful talent, but she can sometimes use it to shock and scare people to buy her a second in battle. She can pull shadows just slightly, or she can make them stretch and condense on walls to be more blatantly manipulated, but that is the extent of her shadow manipulation.

( note: everything past here is new )

MERZOST⇢ The word literally means 'abomination' in Ravkan. Merzost is the practice of magic. If you refer to a grisha's power as magic, they will become angry and tell you that their power is not magic but the small science. Magic is different from the small science because it knows no bounds. Dipping into merzost involves going into the heart of the making of the world itself and tampering with things like life and death. Dealing in merzost is feared and hated. Merzost has a tendency to corrupt a grisha. It takes their power into unknown and strange depths, and tampering with the making of the world has a bad effect on grisha. Ilya, a strong practicer of merzost, and the Darkling were both driven mad as their power expanded and merzost and their own grisha power consumed them. Magic does not have the same rules that grisha power does. Alina has tapped into merzost on a couple of occasions, and it has left it's marks in her.

NICHEVO'YA : 'nothing' in Ravkan. Nichevo'ya are the Darkling's creations. They are monsters made of pure shadow with life in them. Alina has not been shown to have this distinct power herself, but Alina has used it. In her battle with the Darkling, Alina tapped into his power and created nichevo'ya herself through him. Creating nichevo'ya tears at the person doing it and is painful and feels like losing a piece of yourself. Alina created so many, that she nearly killed the Darkling and herself with how much she was tearing out of the both of them. This is the only time Alina's been able to make nichevo'ya, and only through a direct connection to the Darkling and reaching across their bond of power ( her antler collar ) to claim his power as her own. Alina suspects, however, that she may be able to use this ability on her own to create her own light nichevo'ya rather than shadow nichevo'ya, but she doesn't know how to yet nor does she ever try to in canon. She tells this idea to Nikolai, though, who supports the it and thinks it would be a great weapon.

PROJECTION : for lack of a better term, Alina is able to project herself across any distance in Ravka to speak to the Darkling. This ability only works with Darkling, due to their bond through merzost. The Darkling leaves his mark in Alina when he lets his nichevo'ya bite her and effectively poison her with it's power. When Alina tears into the Darkling, she leaves a piece of herself behind in him as well. This creates a bond between them that allows Alina or the Darkling to stretch over any distance to find the other. When doing this, nothing is clear about where the other is unless they touch each other. So when Alina goes to the Darkling, she can't see his surroundings or anyone near him or hear anything being said to him. If anything is close enough to him to be touching, then the item touching him becomes suddenly sharp and clear to her. Or if he touches her, then everything becomes clear to her. The same goes in reverse. This ability would only apply should CDC ever get a Darkling and only work with him unless Alina somehow manages to tap into merzost in some way and leaves a piece of her light inside someone else in the CDC. Then it would only work with that person. I'm not sure how she would ever tap into merzost to do that, but just as an example. To do this ability, Alina usually has to be undisturbed and in a near trance-like state. She sends herself out to the other person, but can still feel the weight of her bod wherever it is. While visiting the other person, she can still feel things like touch to her unreal self. Only the person she's visiting can see her, though, and touch her.

✖ Inventory:
( note: inventory is much the same as before with only slight differences with her kefta design and a different personal item as her Grisha steel blade is among her things in the CDC already )

- Clothes on her back

+ 1 blue kefta shot with gold mixed into the blue stitching, this kefta has a hood, (Materialki stitching) and embroidered with gold hems
+ 1 pair of thick gloves
+ 1 pair of fur-trimmed boots
+ 1 white undershirt
+ 1 pair of tan pants
( still as pictured here in the center image, just with a hood on her kefta - close-up here)

- 1 antler bone collar (power amplifier, cannot be removed)
- 1 dragon scale fetter (power amplifier, cannot be removed)
- 1 personal item : ring with a fairly large emerald ( described as bigger than her thumbnail ) surrounded by stars of tiny diamonds around and set on a gold band ( the lantsov ring )