#though my process for these is very different from like my just regular character drawing process....
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Going through my files of my more illustrative work and this is a bunch of studies, abandoned pieces, and Wips. Some of which I posted then deleted.
#long post#my art#wip#concept art#sorrryyy i just thought i might as well dump all this here....alos because some of u ask for progress shots and my process#though my process for these is very different from like my just regular character drawing process....#these look so nice together maybe i should actually finish some of them......#the “umi” painting in the water is an irl painting btw and its done i havent shown anyone the finished product tho sorry u guys lol#its 40 by 60 inches tho its pretty damn big....
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i mean it when i say you might have my fave mike characterization ever with avatar au mike. it's what i love for regular or canon mike and you put it in gay lien form and it's great. I wish more people did it. idk he's... really soft around will and it's clearly so natural for him but to me he also seems confident or suave in other ways even as the newcomer to the world. and i LOVE that for mike. maybe it's his protective instincts i see too? basically I'm saying ...avatar mike is hot 😭 i'm sorry. even the way you sketch him lounging. no wonder will is heart eyes and draping himself into his arms all the time. he seems so at peace with mike and mike looks amazing, there's a difference between the two personalities and i look forward to seeing it every time you post. yeah mike's confidence is attractive uhh well done on making me feel things about gayliens!!!
THANK YOU!!
I love trying to keep them in character as much as I can, but it’s not always 100% possible because of the setting and the whole plot of the AU with how they live in the jungle and Will having to teach Mike about everything so he doesn’t end up dead. It’s not really in character for them to be doing so much physical activity as they are in the AU but it’s inevitable because they live in a jungle, it’s where the Omatikaya live. They have to do all these physical activities to get around and do daily tasks (which ultimately builds muscle on both of them because of it. I mean they’re climbing trees and running around so it makes sense).
idk how he even pulled Will tbh with how “stupid” he is. I say that in quotes cause I say it jokingly. I know he isn’t stupid he’s a smart guy canonically to ST and still is in the AU but Pandora is, even with him being BORN there, a new place. cause he wasn’t allowed to roam the forest with an exo pack at 12 like Spider was. it was for his safety cause he’d probably end up getting mauled by a thanator or a viperwolf and have 0 protection. I mean even then he still nearly dies at least 3 times (which Will makes fun of him for). It’s just more difficult to traverse and get around and get used to, you get me??
idk if I’d be comfortable saying he’s hot because of the fact that he’s still very much based off a character that is 14, even though in the AU they’re both aged up to be 16-19 (for 1: Mike being at least old enough that he’s not gonna get himself in a lot of trouble, he’s mature enough to not make stupid decisions basically. I mean, who’s gonna give 12 year old Mike Wheeler a whole other body that costs well over a million dollars to make? and 2: the story takes place over 3 years so they’re gonna age). he’s definitely attractive I’d say yeah but I’d just say he’s a handsome guy (cough the doodle I did above^^). One of my fears is them being all sexualized because they’re older and don’t really wear that much 😨 like they can be in love and not sexualized in the process if ykwim
I remember writing something about them having a conversation that ended up growing into Will pining over Mike (ex: how he’s a bit clumsy, the way he’s treated by Mike, which is essentially his kindness, how he’s a bit snarky or sassy sometimes, etc) and Mike kissing Will repetitively to satisfy that “longing” Will gets for Mike’s lips. It’s not just his appearance but his personality that draws him in, yk? The way they love each other just makes Will fall so much harder, even if Mike was the one that canonically fell first. I’ve had a thought of how their love language in this AU would be touch because of how they’re constantly touching or holding each other close when they’re in the forest together (and being romantic, not counting when they have conversations and are sitting idk. a foot or two apart. their relationship isn’t ALL kissy kissy romantic, even if it’s what it seems like from how I draw them). but obviously even if their love language is touch it doesn’t automatically mean they’re doing sexual things because.. um. it’s weird. and if they were touching each other in weird sexual ways or in areas that would seem sexual (the ass. no. and like. intimate areas. or even just each others chests in weird ways) both I and other people would be severely uncomfortable by that. they can love each other and be touchy without it being in a sexual way because, I can’t stress it enough, it’s WEIRD.
moral of the story (of that paragraph and the one above it) they can be in love and be the way they are in the AU without worry of being sexualized 🎉
I just ranted a LOT I apologize 💔💔 I would rant more but I think the post is long enough so 😭
#byler#byler au#byler avatar au#avatar au#mike wheeler#michael wheeler#will byers#william byers#stranger things#stranger things au
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you WILL perceive my OC process / thoughts / ETC . had an idea for a game the other day while in the shower (they weren't kidding that shower can think) . two main characters they are sisters , you start playing as the older one ETC , and the idea is that she is withdrawn , nervous , responsible and insecure about where she is in life (she is about to start college this is important to the plot but not for what I'm talking about rn) . first instinct was to give her short spiky black hair
first thing I drew (did a couple alt hairs tho) but I felt like the expression did not match what I was going for at all (she is the type to try her best to look calm and reliable) , and neither did the clothes which I drew with the beauty of the opossum in mind . very prevalent today for no reason still a wonderful animal . I did like the hair though and I wasn't ready to give up on the opossum vibe (lol) , so I decided to do a paper doll type thing and start drawing by clothing layer so I could go slowly and think about what she'd be wearing
did not have the willpower to try & make the hair look the same in the paper doll version , didn't wanna overthink her expression either so I really ended up with a completely different character . . . who I really like !!
I have always wanted to do a story set in a cold climate , really had an idea for a different character back in high school (blonde, earmuffs, cheeks are always pink), but gave up on her when I just couldn't figure out what I wanted her to look like . . .
I got the idea for this character to be either in the 3rd or 4th year of high school , she's pretty much an outcast out of habit at this point , enjoys taking walks and being in places she has no business being in . I thought of her being talked to by a teacher (librarian?) on the subject of not just her grades but mostly her behavior at school, gives me the chance of saying if there is something bothering her and affecting her behavior then there is something she needs to get over but I really dunno how to write (think) about something like that ;_;
^ her & her bag . . . NOTHING IS TO SCALE !!!!!!! she has:
- notebook: ripped the used pages from a previous notebook and just kept the empty ones, the thing is beat up to the point the spiral's coming off and the corner of the cover is peeling off ... the cover design is a cloud castle with rainbows , a bundle was on sale and while she doesn't really like it , she doesn't particularly dislike it either .
- pencil case: heart-themed , the fabric is starting to fray after years of use . in it she has: a highlighter, a ballpoint pen, a regular pencil (chewed up), a tiny colored pencil, a container + sharpener combo, and three erasers: one of them is just a formless little thing, the other is a brand new one that she doesn't really wanna use because it's brand new, and the last is one of those useless decorative ones, shaped like a flower. no white-out because she is very very brave .
- water bottle: literally just a plastic bottle she bought a while ago & keeps washing & reusing . getting more & more crumpled up by the SECOND . . .
- strip of paracematol: self explanatory . doesn't get headaches TOO often, just often enough to justify carrying a strip of it around lol
- juice box + tupperware: her mom cuts apples for her and always gets her apple juice cause apples were her favorite fruit growing up ... she really prefers oranges now but doesn't have the heart to tell her . tupperware also has soda crackers . must be mentioned that this is NOT her lunch, just a snack. she gets free lunch at the school cafeteria ! only tasty less than half the time tho ....
- library card: she uses it a lot and has been doing so for a very long time . usually reads non-fiction about unexplained events (she likes ones involving forests the most), but is starting to enjoy horror & sci-fi a bit more lately
- Frankenstein (borrowed from the library): her current read, which she is really enjoying , though she's not sure if she is really getting the "message" of it . happens a lot with fiction books, which is why she doesn't read a lot of them
- flashlight: permanently borrowed from her dad (he insists he's gonna ask for it back eventually so she needs to take good care of it), she uses it for exploring. it gets dark pretty early and the library closes pretty late, so she just goes wherever she wants while her parents think she's at the library . they believe her because she does spend a lot of time there and she keeps feeling guiltier and guiltier ...
- opossum plushie: pretty much her best friend, she carries him everywhere . very soft fur , nice and squeezable too !!
OK ramble over for neow maybe . . .
MILA
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So, out of curiosity: as someone who's got a long-running web comic AND who's got a novel coming as well, have you found that your process for writing each are very different?
Are there things that are the same?
Did you find one easier than the other?
Did the type of media you were making influence the genre you chose to work with?
Sorry, just super curious since I haven't seen anyone do both before!
ooh!! I love this question!
Yes, I'd say, the process is very different! I've said this to a couple friends so far, but working in prose has been like reuniting with an old friend. Pretty common story, but I was a huge reader until sometime in college (around the time i got on social media and my adhd really took a nosedive), so actually writing (and by extension, trying to get back into reading) has been REALLY fun and interesting.
My process for storytelling itself is really similar, but writing for comics can leave a lot up to the visuals. What the backgrounds look like, expressions and character acting, these are things i tend to leave to myself on the page. When you rely on them overmuch in prose, what you get is a kind of boring slog. Working in prose has lead me to try and write not how things *look* (as is my instinct coming from comics) but how they *feel*.
Furthermore, prose is such a different game. Idk how else to put it. The act of writing is so uniquely vulnerable, and while theres things I miss from comics (expressions being wayyyy up there) theres also so much cool shit you can only do in prose. Stuff like really getting into characters interiority, and through multiple pov characters painting different pictures of the world and your cast.
Prose is easier, bar none (okay, this is kind of incendiary) what I mean is, prose is less labor intensive. The act of creating/storytelling/art is still WORK. No matter how you're doing it. And certainly, sometimes I'll beat my head trying to convey something in prose that isn't like, boring. But I can bang out 1k-5k words in a day without aggravating my RSIs, it is not draining in the way that comics are, simply put, yeah. It's physically easier to type words (for me) than it is to draw a comic.
Example: Though I started work on my novel, OTAS, about a year and a half ago, maybe only 6-7 months were spent writing with any regularity (and even on writing days I was still able to do many other things!). The graphic novel I worked on, TPATPG (out in AUGUST!!) took two years of near constant, daily work which allotted a majority of my drawing energy..
Now, I don't think my influences have really changed so much, BUT I made a conscious effort to read prose books with more regularity since starting to incorporate fiction writing. I think it's very important to take in the media you want to work in!!
In conclusion, working in prose has been really fun, and I'm excited to do more of it!
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1 - 23 :3
cracks knuckles
okay
1. how would you describe your art style?
uhhhhhhhh, maybe "safe" is the word rn. whenever I think of my art style, what comes to mind is just how little I've been pushing things with it. I wanna change that ;D
2. what's your favorite thing about your style?
I realize I like to use semi-realistic proportions, its cool how comfortable I've gotten with drawing faces and bodies
3. what's your least favorite thing about your style?
It's so static man. same thing I said for the first question, I don't think anything really looks bad, but it just is lacking in creativity in comparison to the older art that should be looking worse than what I do now. I prefer my older stuff ;D (looking at you inktobertale2021.. where did it all go wrong)
4. favorite thing to draw?
regular ol people. human characters are def more in my comfort zone, which explains why I keep hitting skeletons with the humanization ray (also I prefer to draw feminine characters)
5. least favorite thing to draw?
I can't even say I rlly dislike it cuz of how rarely I even do it, but I am procrastinating so hard on learning backgrounds..
6. warm colors or cool colors?
cool colors are my fav, but i find it easier to work with warm ones (I used to put a cool overlay over all my warm toned drawings hgdhfg)
7. show us a WIP
behold, the wip ever. this drawing... was supposed to be posted on august 2022. and then, it was supposed to be posted on dec 21st, dream and nightmares birthday. (atp if I do end up wanting to finish this idea again, I'll probably just scrap it and start over)
8. what's the most fun and least fun parts about your process?
most fun is flat color and rendering. (though I rarely do the latter anymore) and for least fun, tbh a lot of the sketching part tends to be difficult for me, sometimes its cool tho
9. show us a finished piece alongside the original sketch
example from when sketching was fun
10. how many different sketches do you usually have until your piece is finished?
I think I do need to make more of at least thumbnail sketches tbh.. I usually just make one and keep editing it, trusting the process. (and that fails like 70% of the time. woww wonder why sketching isnt fun for me-)
11. show us the last thing you drew, be it a finished piece or a small doodle
can this count,,
12. show us an old drawing
first deltarune drawing. here's the redraw I later made of this :3 (also old hsgdhgf)
13. how long do you usually take one a piece?
depends. I'll have like 276478923 wips started, and then I get a random idea that I just have to do right at that moment, and I'll get it done in like 1-4 hours. meanwhile old sketches start to rot and maybe if its lucky I'll revisit it before my motivation dies and my style is too different to wanna continue from where I left off
14. digital or traditional?
digital all the way, i've gotten too dependent on the transform tool + liquefy ;D (and many other things tbh but I'd be here all day if I tried comparing them more jhdjdf)
15. if digital, what program do you use?
procreate, the layouts on other drawing programs scare me
16. favorite media to work with when drawing traditionally
pen on paper (am I understanding this right wdym media-)
17. what do you love getting compliments about?
I like when people enjoy the humanizations I come up with, and also original designs in general
18. are you satisfied with the attention your art usually gets?
hmmm yeah
19. how often do you draw?
very often, I just don't have finished things to share most days
20. a piece from this year that you're really proud of
:3
21. something you would like to improve on
the dynamicness (well, the lack of it) of everything, as said before
22. what inspires you?
Ink sans and a ton of creators in this fandom (also animated shows and movies, I love animation)
23. what's something you hope people notice when looking at your art?
idk tbh, just notice it at all and I'm happy :>
#shy rambles#ask game#long post#twinribbonz#yaayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy#another sign to look for more references#my problem may be going from imagination too often
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SO. My brain is still completely fried from yesterday from doing nothing but schoolwork, and I haven’t really been able to draw that much today because of that, so I instead decided to waste 4 hours of my lifespan trying to figure out the heights for the welcome home characters🫠
please note that (a): I’m not a professional and my research should not be considered anywhere near to canon, (b): yes others have already tried figuring this out but I wanted to try to cause, like, why not? And (c): this is more for a head canon/personal use reference than anything, so I don’t wanna hear any complaining in the comments. Also I know that these might seem a lil bit off, but I was workin with what I had. Now, the heights that I found:
Sally: 2’7” / Julie: 2’10” / Wally (canon): 3 ft (12 apples tall) / Frank: 3’1” / Eddie: 3’3” / Barnaby: 3’7” / Poppy: 5’1” / I couldn’t find any references of Howdy standing directly beside any of the other neighbors, but since he is depicted as quite a tall caterpillar and is supposedly to big to be seen outside of his shop except for on special occasions, I decided to leave his height somewhere between Barnaby and Poppy.
References I used are below the cut (it’s really long so don’t click it unless you want to scroll a very long time):
So first of all, Frank is in a LOT of pictures with other characters. I used his height to create a “back heel” line (the line where I would place the back heel of each character) and the Frank line (where I would match the top of Frank’s head to each time). Using this I found a picture of Julie and Eddie already in a regular standing position and, after matching Frank to the Frank line, found both their heights. With Poppy’s picture, Frank was originally tilted to the left slightly, so i slightly moved his different parts according to where he would most likely move as a puppet to where he was in a more upright position. Since Poppy was a bit too hunched over to properly measure, I left her part of the picture be.
Next I used Eddie to find Sally’s height, though this might be slightly out of proportion since the picture was of paper cutouts. For Poppy, I (roughly) measured her shoulder height and matched it to a picture of her at full height and Wally underneath her (presumably standing at full height). I matched Poppy to the Poppy shoulder line which also gave me Wally’s height as well, which is good since this would also let me measure in a unit of measurement later (feet and inches).
Barnaby was tricky since the only reference of him with another character I could find was one of him and Wally laying down. Laying down references definitely aren’t as reliable, but it gives a good enough estimate. I changed Wally‘s parts until he was standing up, matched them to the previously determined Wally line, and this gave me roughly what Barnaby’s height was.
Now, about this photo: yes it does include all of the characters and yes, you might roughly be able to determine the heights from it, but when I went to use this photo I actually realized: these kinds of photos (ones where you can see every single character PLUS their outfits) aren’t exactly proportioned. Or, I guess, the characters in the back might not be on the same surface level as the ones in the front. It’s almost like when you get pictures done and there’s always gonna be that one person standing on a stool in the back of the group. They aren’t actually tall, they just seem that way since their height is boosted to where the camera can see them. So I decided to not use this photo do find Howdy or anyone else’s height. You can though if you want, I won’t judge.
Also note that since these are supposed to be refrences of characters during the creative process, these measurements might not even correspond to the final heights of the characters around the time of the show’s premiere. So yeah, don’t take these heights too seriously.
Oh hey, you made it to the end of this thing. Kudos to you for reading so much👍
#welcome home#welcome home theory#These could be completely wrong but it’s better than nothing#starsphaeart
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Tatsuki Fujimoto Before Chainsaw Man: 17-21, Or, A Window Into Fujimoto's Madness
So, got my hands on this collection of short stories from Fujimoto, and the first thing I have to say is man, I'm disappointed in Viz. Regular volume size despite the fact that Look Back and Goodbye Eri are both coming in the larger Viz Sig trim. Not only that, but the quality assurance on it is terrible. I mean, I got a bad volume. Totally misaligned and skewed spine, poor paper quality, and even the pages themselves have awful tolerances. Truly embarrassing how far downhill Viz quality has stumbled in the last while. And the talk about cost is laughable, because I'm certain people would pay more for higher quality copies. Anyways, enough Viz hate out of the way, the stories.
There are four short stories contained in this volume, ranging from a boy that stops a bullet, to Power Rangers-esque transforming aliens, to a boy that will stop at nothing to confess his love. What permeates these titles that go from so bad it's good to oddly charming though, is Fujimoto's style. Everything screams him. And that's why you'd pick this up. Not because you liked Chainsaw Man, not even because you enjoyed Fire Punch. But because Fujimoto is so damn weird and interesting you can't help but want a deeper look into his thought process. Anyways, I'll give a brief overview of the one-shots that fill the pages of this volume and my thoughts on them as they appear in the volume.
A Couple of Clucking Chickens Were Still Kicking In The Schoolyard
This one was probably the most non-sensical, and the 'So Bad It's Good' of the volume. Aliens invade Earth and effectively crush them in their entirety, devouring them and being heavy handed in drawing parallels to how humans eat animals. As the story goes 2 humans remain at a high school, disguised as "Chickens", who the aliens treat as pets. Of course things go squirrely and identities are unveiled and action ensues. It's passable purely because of Fujimoto's quirks. Last minute reveals that appear out of nowhere, random gag characters that are walking stereotypes, so on and so forth.
So yeah, overall very weird, and very distant to a lot of Fujimoto's more polished works. It's a fever dream of a high school student trying to write a manga. Not the worst I've read, but a one-and-done for sure.
Sasaki Stopped A Bullet
Sasaki Stopped A Bullet is interesting, to say the least. There's a lot to like about it, and a lot of Fujimoto's weird sense of reality warping that has no start or finish, but it suffers from the key component that is its villain just being an entire waste. It's a pretty cut and dry character trope that Fujimoto admittedly makes solid use of, but it's just something you can't help but sort of let out a sigh at. Aside from that though, the concept is really quite interesting, and it's definitely a more unique look at the thought process of Fujimoto as it exists outside of violence and outright absurdity. I might even say it's the most adventurous of Fujimoto's oneshots in this volume purely because it's that much different from his usual work.
Love Is Blind
Love Is Blind is just a short little story about Fujimoto leaning all the way into a romance. The class president that can't work up the courage to say 3 little words, but will tell off teachers, people mugging him, and even aliens trying to pull a Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy. It's fun, and certainly doesn't overstay its welcome, just a nice refreshing little read that is about as crazy as you'd expect.
Shikaku
I think this one was most interesting because of the lead character Shikaku. No matter how you slice it (or pull it apart?), Shikaku is where the inspiration for Makima came from. Not just in terms of design, but even to a degree the character. It's an odd story that follows the girl in her profession as a hitman, being given the task of killing a vampire because he's bored of life. It's so-so, I wouldn't really say I lean either way with it, but it's probably one of the only ones I'd be interested in seeing expanded. The potential for comedy is pretty solid given where it ends up, but getting there isn't exactly some incredible ride of a lifetime.
So there you have it, the four short stories in this oneshot collection. It's fun mostly because it's Fujimoto, but there's also some good pieces here and there. I think the thing I found the most interesting with it was just how much overlap there is between these and the rest of Fujimoto's works. Similar characters, enjoyable concepts and appeals, there's a lot that remains the same. Take for example, the Alien beaming down in Love Is Blind, you can clearly tell Fujimoto has a penchant for it as we see something similar towards the end of Chainsaw Man with the Chainsaw Devil. Or, there's also the overlap and interest with vampires that Fujimoto holds. Either way, it's really fun to get that deeper look into Fujimoto and see where stuff ends up coming from. Easy recommendation for Fujimoto fans, but for purely Chainsaw Man (or even CSM and Fire Punch) fans, I'm somewhat doubtful of what you'll be able to get out of the volume.
#tatsuki fujimoto#Tatsuki Fujimoto Before Chainsaw Man#love is blind#Koi wa Moumoku#A Couple Clucking Chickens Were Still Kickin' In The Schoolyard#Niwa ni wa Niwa Niwatori ga ita#Shikaku#Sasaki Stopped A Bullet#Sasaki-kun ga Judan Tometa#anime and manga#manga#manga review#manga recommendation#one shot#chainsaw man#fire punch
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Hey, tell me about your interest in fashion. For me it's just silly little projects that I don't get, but I respect it and I want to know the perspective of a person who is interested. I'm genuine. And what should a regular person get from those. How to analyse it for everyday fashion? Or is it a form of art that should be treated as one, and has nothing to do in regular everyday fashion? I have a friend who studied fashion design but I never get to ask him/never thought about it. 😌☺️
Honestly, I don't know a lot about fashion in a technical sense myself. Fashion can be a broad spectrum, as it does refer to popular trends, but I'll talk about clothing here.
In reality, I just like to look at the clothes and think about them, but when I was younger and even now I watched a lot of videos and shows about designing clothes and their construction. I find it to be quite fascinating, and I enjoy seeing the process and the completed pieces. I consider it to be a form of artistic expression, although most clothing I've ever made was for dolls. There's a lot that goes into the craft, and I've seen some people that take months to meticulously complete a piece and I've seen others just wake up and decide to make a dress that day.
When I look at clothes it's more about what I think looks interesting or fits into my aesthetic preferences, though I do find that I see some clothing from time to time and immediately associate it with a character, like many people on here.
(A bit off topic, but the character I tag most under fashion posts is Amu from Zyuohger. This is because she canonically does modelling work and I think she'd dress very fashionably. Everything I tag for her has a specific reason I feel it would fit her. )
Anyways I feel like fashion, just like any other art form, can be analyzed in a variety of different ways. Construction, color stories, patterns, textures, pricing, label, accessories, makeup, hair, etc. can all come together to create a piece, not so different from say a drawing. I like to ask myself why I think certain decisions were made and for what purpose. How could different decisions change the affect of the piece? If we're talking about designers and labels, how do we know on sight that it's their design? For example, Vivienne Westwood and Moschino can't be mistaken for each other as they have their own signatures.
There's a lot more questions to be asked, especially if you get into areas of costuming where many pieces are meant to convey something about a character. An example would be of the mantle that Gira wears in King-Ohger. In King-Ohger the mantle is symbolic of the King of Shugoddam, and when Gira rips it off of Racules and dons it himself, it is symbolic of Gira's intentions to take Racules' title and throne just as he declares. Post-time skip, when Gira decides to hand the throne to Douga he removes the mantle and hands it over to Douga, showing us that Gira does consider it to be a symbol of his title at this time. I could really go on to speak more on each character's costuming and elaborate more on Gira but I've already rambled a lot.
#i have many thoughts on things#umbrella.asks#answered.sastheforestspirit#subject.misc#umbrella.posts
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random genuine question. how do you write a book? I've written multiple fanfics successfully and want to be a full time author nothing too crazy but just enough to make a good living. But I'm finding myself stuck when it comes to executing my original ideas. I plan them out well but when it comes to the acts/chapters and actually writing I can't seem to pull the trigger. I understand it takes time and I may just be overthinking but still I'm worried I won't be able to execute.
Hi anon,
You are probably better off asking someone who writes books for a living, because I definitely don't, and when I did publish two novels, they have never done as well as my serials (and writing a serial is very different - for me at least - to writing a book). Like, they did moderately well, but I consider myself a professional serial writer and not a novelist, and those two things are 100% not the same thing. (Which is also maybe where you're struggling.
Writing fanfics successfully can often have zero bearing on whether you can (or want to) write a novel. Writing one is not writing the other! The processes are totally different, unless you were just writing novels and splitting them up into serial chapters and then, well, you wouldn't be here asking this question sdalkfjad)
There are some great novel-writing books out there, and many can be requested through libraries, and many of their authors have blogs or similar where they teach many of their techniques online. There are so many different ways of structuring a novel (and it can change depending on your genre, and I don't know what your genre is either!) I can't recommend any personally, because I don't read them, because I don't really write novels.
When it comes to actually sitting down and actually writing anything of length though, it's sometimes down to asking yourself a few things:
What feelings are happening in you that hold you back? Are you afraid it won't be good? (In which case there's no way but through, anon, you have to write some bad writing in order to get to the good writing, it's a mandatory part of the practice - a garden needs shit/manure in order to grow, lol).
Are you bored because you planned it all out? (In which case you may need to look into writing novels without plotting them first).
Are you more excited for future chapters instead of present chapters? (Write out of order! And make the present chapters shorter).
Are you more interested in fanfiction's regular feedback from readers? (In which case consider creating a reader group for your original writing, or finding a really good beta who can give you that feedback). (I can't get dopamine from writing novels, so I don't write them, I just find the process boring in a way that's pretty intolerable to me).
Is the novel too huge of a road into meeting your characters and setting/s in prose? (Consider writing small oneshots for your characters and world first. Consider writing side characters in the world in a 2-3k fic. Treat it like responding to a fanfiction challenge. It can often make access to the world a little easier).
Is something about the story actually broken? Do you need to go back to the drawing board re: the strengths of the characters?
Learn how to fall in love with your characters the way you've fallen in love with fanfic characters. If they're not strong enough to earn that 'love'/'obsession' - make them stronger. (Although, frankly, sometimes you can only learn that love by writing them. Think of it this way: When you start writing fanfiction, you've already invested hours of time into learning the characters and their depth. You need to invest at least the same amount into your own characters and their stories before you might stumble across that same love).
Outside of that you can apply any number of techniques to novel writing, but ultimately, a lot of it is sitting down and just writing (sometimes pretty terribly) and learning how to overcome writer's block and understanding why it's happening for you.
For me, I learned that the cons of writing novels just didn't outweigh the pros. The lack of dopamine feedback re: readers doesn't play well with my unmedicated ADHD brain, which means writing to no feedback at all tends to leave me extremely unmotivated. And fitting the novel formula re: story lengths ultimately just didn't work with me either, most of my long stories naturally hit or exceed the 250k mark, which is fine for serials, but not fine for most novels outside of epic fantasy or hard science fiction.
So I would also recommend sitting down and asking yourself what did fanfiction give you that made you able to write it? And what do you need novel writing to give you, to make you able to write it? Likewise, ask yourself - do you want to write original novels? Or original serials? There's a good market for both now, and novels =/= serials. Like, they are naturally written in different ways!
Do you think you would struggle to write an original serial the same way that you're struggling with novels? All of these things are important to ask yourself.
But ultimately, just... I hate to say it, but sometimes you have to force yourself through the struggle, and write stuff while groaning because you know it's bad, to get to the other side. It's like learning any new skill - and fanfiction writing does not naturally lend itself to writing novels with everyone! You are learning a brand new skill!! Just because I know how to draw with pencils doesn't mean I know how to paint with watercolours, and I may be even more intimidated to learn watercolours because I know now how long it took to get the hang of fanfiction. Sometimes you just have to actually sit yourself down and be like 'okay I have to get real good at being real bad at something for a little while, even if I hate it.'
Chances are it won't be as bad as you think anyway, and then even if it is, well that's a normal part of writing a novel. That's why the first draft is the first draft, and not the final product. :)
#asks and answers#pia on writing#dodgy advice#how to write a novel#i will flat out say as well that novels are just *harder to write* than fanfiction#because you didn't have someone else doing the hard work for you#of establishing the characters and the world#you have to do that now#and it feels harder and more daunting because it IS HARDER and more daunting#like fanfic can be hard work#especially if you're writing AUs in original worlds#but for the most part#someone else did thousands of hours of labour#to give you a world as a sandbox to play in#now you have to do a version of that labour for yourself#and i'm gonna be honest anon#sometimes it is a lot less fun in the beginning#i found writing in a more 'fanfiction style' helped me#but ultimately i decided against being a full-time novelist#and chose to be a full-time serial author#so i'm probably not the person whose advice you need the most sdalfkjs
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So..... Mafia.
TL;DR: Should I combine aspects of the original Mafia and Mafia Definitive Edition into one for my project? Or not? And should this comic be colour or black and white when I eventually do the art?
Sorry if me asking these sorts of questions is annoying or bothersome.
On the one hand it also feels fruitless, because what if I can never draw again? On the other hand this is why Im doing all this, because if I CAN draw again, I'll still be doing something creative right now, and have all of the other stuff done pretty much, and I'll be able to just concentrate on the art and really make it good.
And... obviously... unfortunately... I'm a naturally indecisive person and someone who often sees value in multiple ways of things... for lack of a better way to put that.
But more in depth…
But Ive got several questions regaurding the adaptation process rattling around in my brain.
Thinking a lot about Mafia since I got into it.
I cant help but want to take hold of this energy Ive got going on.
Why not set The Quarry aside for a moment and work on Mafia instead?
First of all, for LA Noire I know that both because the game comes with a black and white mode I prefer to play in and because it fits the noir vibe better, Im going to make that comic black and white.
Mafia Definitive edition also has a black and white noir mode that looks fantastic. Even better than LA Noire's and it would be cool to have more than one black and white comic, since I know most will be in full colour. That said, it also looks gorgeous in full colour. and several set pieces from the original 2002 Mafia have nice colour as well. Not to mention an iconic character outfit from both the entirety of the 2002 game and the end of Definitive edition feels like it would be more iconic to say the least in colour.
Second and IMO more important, While this project was to adapt these into motion comics, using the games as audio, while I VASTLY prefer the Definitive Edition for several reasons, there are quite a few lines I like from the original game. But both games have VERY different casts.
Its made me wonder if:
A. I should Adapt JUST from Definitive Edition and still do a motion comic.
B. Adapt a story from both games and just do a regular comic, with no video.
C. Adapt a motion comic from both games, but only use the audio from Definitive edition and have the original's audio silent.
D. Adapt a motion comic with only music and SFX but NO voices from EITHER game.
or the big wild card option…
E. Fully adapt both games into a motion comic, including audio from both games, even though the voices are different, counting on the eventual art to do the heavy lifting on convincing that these different voices go to the same characters?
What do you guys think about all this? Not going to do a poll. Those seem unreliable and tbh I get antsy. Plus since I just got into it, I know not everyone is going to care since they might not know much about these games themselves. But just from an adaptational standpoint, I'd love to hear y'alls opinions on this. This is quickly becoming hugely interesting for a number of reasons, and I really want to do right by this story, as is with all the other ones I want to adapt for this larger project.
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What are some good writing tips to give? Your book has me quaking I wanna be as good lmao
First off, thank you so much! I appreciate the love 💙💙💙
So I'm just gonna drop some general things that I've kinda learned over the years have helped me. A couple of notes first:
I've been writing for close to ten years at this point and believe me when I say it has been a very slow learning process. My writing even a year ago wasn't as good as I consider it to be now, and I'm still very much learning/not an expert.
That all being said, here are a few things:
Choose your POV and stick by it. I cannot stress this enough. If you're constantly changing between 3rd omniscient, 3rd limited, switching between different characters,etc. Things can get very muddled very quickly. Any changes in POV should be very deliberate.
To give an example: In SiTO I stick with 3rd limited. Roach has tended to be my focus, so most of the story is over his shoulder. When I break this, its done to either add emphasis to something, or increase a feeling of chaos in the story. So, for example, in some of the newer chapters that will be coming out, you'll notice me switching between characters much more
Read your work out loud, especially dialogue. This helps you a ton with editing as you can typically hear when something sounds off. With dialog especially, if you find yourself reading it and going "this doesn't sound like something someone would say" you probably want to go back and change it
Description is important, try to show your audience what is going on and explain feelings to them rather than simply tell them. So for me, I draw from a lot of my own experiences when describing emotions. Saying "He felt anxious" doesn't have nearly as much of an impact as explaining that he felt "tendrils of anxiety creep up his throat"
I'm still telling you the emotion, but I'm helping you understand how that emotion actually feels
With regular description, its a bit harder for me to explain because I know the way that I do description isn't universal. For me, I'm able to put a scene together in my head and watch it play out.
The best way I can explain is to tell you to think of it like a director who is blocking a play. There is a lot more to a scene than just characters walking around. If you can create that scene in your head, it becomes easier to transcribe on paper.
Do not be afraid to act things out!!! Put yourself in your characters shoes. Stand up and talk to yourself if you need to. It will help you understand the small things a character might do!
I know it can be tempting to turn on a TV or have something going in the background while you write, but a lot of times those things act more as distractions than help.
If you're like me and sometimes need the extra stimulation though, I recommend putting together a Playlist for whatever you're writing and listen to it as you write! So for SiTO, all of the songs that I use for chapter titles or quotes at the beginning are actually in a Playlist that I listen to while writing
Listen to your writers block!!! If you're blocked, it may mean that something in your story isn't working or is stopping you from progressing the story. Take the time to go back and reread what you've written. If something feels off, consider trying to rewrite it. (Ik this can suck sometimes because concepts can be so good, but sometimes they just don't fit)
When I'm writing chapters, I find that it helps me to not necessarily plan out the chapter in detail, but rather have certain points lined up that I want to hit.
So typically I have three points that I choose for a chapter: something that happens at the beginning, something that happens in the middle, and something that happens at the end.
So for the current chapter I'm writing (trying to stay as spoiler free as possible here lol) I knew I wanted the beginning to feature a conversation between Roach and a Doctor. I knew I wanted a middle section with Roach having a flashback. And I knew I wanted the end to feature Price and Laswell.
With these things picked out, I can write my chapter while keeping in mind where I'm going and what I need to work toward. So If I'm starting with this conversation with Roach and a doctor, I need to figure out how this will eventually connect into that middle section and how it will transition into the end. It generally helps me keep things more cohesive
Use Metaphors/Similes sparingly!!! I know it can be tempting to shove those things everywhere. It makes things sound so much nicer! But, eventually those things can get so crowded that it almost becomes a drag to read. When you cram so many in at once, they become watered down and the text becomes super dense.
One last note, if you use something like Grammarly to edit, make sure that you are checking over every suggestion that they give you. Sometimes those machines make mistakes or will try to water down something in your writing because it isn't "professional" enough or isn't necessarily "correct."
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4 + 14 + 23 + 27 + 34?!
4. How did you find the name for a certain character?
I have the same process pretty much all the time I feel bad bc this is such a fun question or it would be 😞 no ones named after anyone or like has their name chosen based on the meaning actively I just like look up names for the place and time period and pick whichever I think fit the character or I already have a name in mind when I make them. I’m like wondering if there were any exceptions. Oh I did want my character Adam’s name to sound like a pseudonym instead of a regular name right bc he’s an SCP agent type like mysterious or whatever. So I used a stage name generator to find out his last name (Adam I just liked how it sounded + the fact that it was biblical). I also like the last name King bc he is also in a position of authority over the other characters at times so it makes sense I guess.
14.Which OC/s do you relate to the most?
Kind of embarrassing to answer lol like this has to be at least a little personal. I like actively try to make OCs different from myself so I’m not just projecting onto them yk. Like that would be first of all embarrassing LMAO but second of all it it wouldn’t be very interesting to explore I feel like. In my opinion it’s better to start with something you can understand, but like have layers of complexity that you don’t relate to at all or whatever. I don’t really know. But to answer the question I think I relate to like the 3 main OCs of Rocio Angel and Cirillo the most :P maybe Lucia as well.
23. Have you ever seen something/someone that looks like one of your characters IRL? What was it like?
I actually haven’t that I can remember like not particularly. I have seen some people sometime where I was like ok I should draw a character’s hair or eyes or etc more like them. Like bc I was trying to draw them a certain way but wasn’t 100 sure how but I’d see someone who looked like them irl and I was like ok ok like that. Ofc Ive seen people with some shared traits, but no one who really looked exactly the same, no one where like I was like omg it’s like seeing them irl yk.
In terms of seeing people irl that remind me of them though like vibes wise what I have seen is people whose clothing really reminded me of like certain characters. Like not that they would actually wear the same thing because I don’t live in a fantasy world in the 1940s but like that remind me of their personality like that they would wear it yk. One time I was like walking around in a city and saw like 10 people with really nice outfits trying to memorize them all to write them down and draw ocs in them later. I ended up doing one of them but I didn’t like how it turned out 😔
27. What's the nicest thing someone has ever said about an OC/OCs?
This question is so embarrassing I have to admit I remember specific nice things people have said about OCs. I do remember specific nice things people have said though. It is hard to pick like 1 nicest thing. You saying Rocio had autism swag is up there. My irl cousin said a bunch of REALLY nice stuff a while ago she likes reading so it was nice to see her reaction. But like every time anyone has said anything like they like a character’s personality or design or storyline or anything it’s really nice I definitely appreciate it and I will remember it forever <3
34. What scene that you've written/imagined is your favorite?
That’s a good question. I literally don’t know at all. Bc I don’t have like all the details down for most of the scenes I’m thinking so all the ones I’ve like thought abt vividly just have a cool visual to go with them and that’s abt it. That makes it sound shallow it’s not that it’s just like I like the emotion of the scene and the idea behind it but not really any of the specifics you know. So I feel like if I tried to pick one it wouldn’t be like a nuanced pick it wouldn’t be like because it develops the character in this way yk it’d be like bc it’s the climactic scene where this character almost dies and it’s so cool or something like that. Does that even make sense.
Ok time to actually answer the question. I wish I had thought of more scenes that like show the dynamics between characters that I like bc my plan with that was to write it in wherever it felt intuitive yk. Like check up on the chastcters’ emotional states to see how they’re reacting to plot events. I just realized as writing this I think I want to have Tiago live for longer. Ok ignore that thats not important ummm I think the only scene I’ve really thought much about along those lines is the one where Cirillo and Laura meet again after a long time. I like the conflict there I like the characters a lot and I think it has the potential to be a very satisfying scene <3. Also maybe like denouement stuff where Rocio is like hi getting back from thr underworld was so annoying anyway sorry for almost ruining your lives and getting you killed. As you can see I haven’t really developed that part of the story yet but I think it’d be cool to see as well
#Im going to have to change Gawain’s name#because I have an active investment in like the knight of the round table gawain now 😞#<Im not actually going to#also this reminded me I need to start putting my art into a folder#I always have to re export them from procreate I can never find the ones I need 😭#also I might write something with Rocio and Yiming of all people lol#I think it’d be an interesting change of pace#also also maybe develop the plot line with the assassins in a little more depth?#my main thoughts rn are to make everything more complex#+ just have there be more going on#Lucia and Joanna subplot as well esp since it’s been like revamped#I like it though I think it gives Lucia more to do#only problem is figuring out her character development 😔#well whatever I’ll get to it for sure#wow thats a lot ok anyway thanks again for sending this in :)#my ocs
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Contains Spoilers
Nothing says romance like having your first kiss next to the dead body of your evil father, right?
…Yeah. Not quite your fairytale get-together, this one. But they have kissed! The ship has sailed!
Don’t get too excited. There's still a ways to go yet.
One thing that keeps surprising me as I read this, eight years away from when it originally published, is how much stuff happens. Like, I knew I had a lot going on in this book, but I have read and also written a whole lot of things since then, so the specifics were a little hazy. I’d forgotten half of the events of the story. But I definitely hadn’t forgotten that part.
Writing a villain monologue is actually a lot harder than you’d think. Trying to get the right balance of intimidating, egotistical, and yet also realistic for the situation; it’s so easy to accidentally turn it into a total caricature of itself. I wrote the confrontation with Nathaniel over and over again, trying to walk that line properly, and reading back it still seems a little more overdramatic than I would like now. But maybe I’m just being too critical of myself — reading this book back, knowing it’s mine but also knowing that I can’t change a thing about it, is a very frustrating experience. As I’ve said, my writing style has changed so much since then, all I can see at times is the way I would write things differently.
Other than the villain speech though, there’s a lot I like about both of these chapters. I like Fox finally admitting that he has feelings. I like the kind of fugue state Cat ends up in after Nathaniel’s death — like I said yesterday, there’s no time to process trauma in the middle of a crisis. And this is a crisis that’s far from over.
I also like James getting the chance to do something useful for the first time in his life. And sure, he’s still not particularly likeable, but he’s trying. He’s leaving the only life he knows, stepping away from the safety/confinement of the government compound, and literally no one would blame him for just going with his mum and avoiding all the chaos. But he sees his chance, and while there’s definitely a measure of it that’s just him trying to impress Cat, there’s also a lot that is just him wanting to decide what kind of person he is now that he has the freedom to actually be a person.
I can imagine he’s spent a lot of time thinking about it over the years, being told by his mother that he would’ve been a prince, a king, had they not been captured. That he would have been responsible for the wellbeing of a whole nation, like his father before him was. That his father died for that nation, for James and his mother. All the while, he’s locked in a room, unable to do anything other than drown under the weight of that legacy.
It’s so easy to dislike James when he’s seen from Cat’s perspective, but I just find him such an interesting character, with all I have in my head of him after. You can see it a little in Cat’s short story, set years after the events of TBtS. It’s easy to dismiss him as a jealous little boy, just there to be an obstacle in Cat and Fox’s Great Big Love Story. But there’s so much more to him that we only get glimpses of here.
Am I the only one who cares more about side-characters than I ever do about protagonists? Again, I think this is a huge draw of fanfiction for me — the protagonist’s story exists on the page, and sure you can nudge your thoughts between the gaps of it, but side-characters just have so much space to fill with your own imagination. I am so curious to hear what you guys think of James; do you love him? Hate him? I know a lot of you are mad about how this story ends, because I get messages about it on a regular basis. But just take a look at the story from his perspective, and maybe it’ll shift your feelings a little.
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Gingerbread man as golem
@yaronata asked:
I would like to write a character who is Jewish and uses a Golem. She's based on the D&D class of the artificer which looks magic but isn't, because they produce all their effects with inventions, like the "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" quote. Her story is that her very Jewish town was under attack from a terrible monster when she was little. Her Rabbis made a Golem to protect the town, and it succeeded but was torn to pieces in the process. She was fascinated by the Golem and as a kid didn't see a big difference between it's sentience and person's so was really thankful for its sacrifice like you would a person's sacrificing their life for you. They thought all the pieces had been devoured by the monster before it died, but she went looking and found the piece used to animate the Golem, which she, kinda misunderstanding called its "heart". She kept the piece and grew up to be an incredibly skilled cook, specialising as a baker in the town. I imagine she would make a lot of really good food for the Jewish holidays, or to break fasts on ones like Yom Kippur or Tish'abav. But she also made a town specific holiday to honour the Golem's sacrifice and the town still being alive, because I feel "we are not dead woo" is a big theme for Jewish holidays from my research, so it could fit, for which she invented ginger bread men to be the golem, and gave them little "hearts" of fruit or honey, and you're meant to eat them limb by limb like the beast did before eating the heart. This would be the inspiration for using the "heart" piece later to make her own giant gingerbread Golem to help her save the world.
These are my questions 1) would it be considered bad or disrespectful for someone who isn't a Rabbi to make a Golem, or is this method of taking an animating piece someone else made disrespectful? 2) Her journey will take her far from her town and her Jewish family and friends and she will likely travel with gentiles. Would it be disrespectful for a Golem to be used to protect a lot of gentiles and one Jew in the course of saving the world? I don't want to fall into the stereotype of someone putting all their effort into valuing and protecting very specifically the group that in real life is oppressive to them. 3) While she is not using magic and is actually mimicking its effects with technology she invents, is this drawing too close to the line of "magical Jew"? 4) I like to "play test" my characters in ttrpgs to really get a feel for them before I write. Would it be disrespectful to play a Jewish character when I am a gentile, and would it be disrespectful to play a Jewish character in a setting where there are demonstrably real gods other than the one of Judaism?
I really like this character idea and I think it's cute and fun and rooted in Jewish culture but I really want to make sure it's respectful and as good as I, a gentile researching on the internet, thinks it is. Thanks so much! Have a nice day!
My answer to this is very complicated because there are things I both like and do not like about this premise. First of all, I love the idea of a cookie golem, and I'm even imagining the magic word that brings him to life (EMET/truth) would be written in icing. And I'm okay with the part about how she found a piece of the old golem and used it to build a new golem, because that makes sense for a golem made from a baked good when you think about how people use sourdough starter to make a new batch of sourdough.
However, here are the thing that make me cock my head to the side like my little sister's German shepherd:
1. re: "magical Jew" - that's not a trope I've ever heard of. Remember, marginalized groups don't receive identical disrespect across the board. It is indeed a trope to use Black people or disabled people as supernatural plot devices who exist only to further the stories of white main characters or able-bodied main characters. But I can't say as I've ever seen anyone using Jewishness that way. Usually if we are someone's one-dimensional plot device it's as someone's lawyer, fixer, "money guy", etc, not a supernatural force. So this isn't something you have to worry about.
2. I have a certain level of discomfort with you playing as a Jewish character just because playacting as a marginalized culture you're not part of strikes me as off, but I understand that that's how you gain insight into a character you're about to write so it's more of a writing exercise than anything else. (I wonder if D&D regulars from marginalized groups have written about this -- I've only played a few times casually with family so if I did run into this type of discussion in my social justice reading I wouldn't have absorbed it. If anyone is curious I played first as Captain Werewolf, and then switched to playing as Cinnamon Blade because lawful good was too hard. :P )
3. I would prefer you omit the detail about eating the cookies piece by piece symbolically, for two reasons: a. it unintentionally evokes Communion by having appreciative people consume a baked good symbolic of an entity who sacrificed his life for theirs, and b. focusing on the details of flesh consumption reminds me too much of Blood Libel (yes, a gingerbread man is in the shape of a person but how many of us actually think about it literally, the way this act would cause?)
As to your first question: I'm fine with her making a golem even though she's just a rando. Second question: I see what you're saying and maybe it could be more okay if it's really clear how well these gentile folks are treating her? And questions three and four are answered above.
I really do love the idea of a giant gingerbread man golem. Cookie golem T_T <3
--Shira
I would like to second Shira’s point about not ripping apart the gingerbread cookies. I honestly would prefer they were used as decoration, and other cookies eaten instead, since that part just feels so not-Jewish to me, but I don’t have golem-specific issues other than that. It seems like you have already been doing a lot of research, which is appreciated.
As far as the ttrpg/DnD aspect… I bounce back and forth on the topic of playing characters that are so very different from our experiences, other than in fantasy-related ways. However, I am aware that a lot of people will play with, and experiment with gender in game, and learn something about themselves in the process (the number of trans players of ttrpgs who tried out their gender in game before they were out is high). It’s different with Judaism, and even more significantly different when it comes to things you can’t convert into, like various actual, real-world races. But because people do sometimes experience growth from experiences like this, I’m hesitant to dissuade players completely. I do urge you to, at a minimum, bring the same care, research, and willingness to learn, that you brought to this question.
--Dierdra
This sounds like a creative storyline that you could have lots of fun with 😊
At first I was confused by this part:
She also made a town specific holiday to honour the Golem's sacrifice
But then you really got me thinking about different types of Jewish holidays and how they come about, so thank you for that!
Because it’s often the little details that either make a story super powerful or kind of nonsensical, I think it would be a good idea to decide what type of holiday is being created here:
A full-blown chag with restrictions on labour and halachic obligations? These are commanded in Torah and new ones can’t be added.
A minor yom tov with halachic obligations but no restrictions? These were instituted by the rabbis prior to the destruction of the Temple, so again new ones can’t be added.
A public holiday or equivalent? This would usually be declared by the Knesset in Israel, and filter to the rest of the Jewish world from there.
A community-based yom tov with specific customs only for people in the know, such as certain Chasidic groups celebrating the birthdays of their deceased leaders? I asked around, but no one can really tell me how these holidays get started, which is probably a good indication that they arise quite organically from a group of people who all just feel that it should be celebrated. Probably not created by a single person, as such.
Something she runs from her bakery, not religion-based, but more like a day of doing special products and deals the way many small businesses do on their anniversary?
Now, if the people of a modern-day town were actually saved by a real live Golem, that would arguably be the most overt miracle for many generations, so there would be a decent chance of options 3 and/or 4 happening. It’s entirely plausible that there could be special foods for this day that become a tradition, including Golem cookies. People who directly benefited might also return to the site where the Golem fought the monster and recite the prayer, ‘Blessed is Hashem, Master of the Universe, Who performed a miracle for me in this place.’
Alternatively, if it’s important that your MC created the holiday, something like option 5 might be the best. Hopefully this will still fulfil what you need: you describe her as incredibly skilled, so I can imagine the day when she goes all out on the Golem cookies being one of the most exciting events of the year for the townspeople, just because her baking is that good. Plus, they already have a personal stake in the Golem’s sacrifice, so I definitely think it could be a thing without being an official holiday. Also, if she is outside of an all-Jewish environment, don’t forget that she would have to decide whether to commemorate the anniversary in the Hebrew calendar or the local one.
Coming back to the cookies, sorry if we’re getting a little repetitive on this point! But I don’t see the cookies being torn limb from limb as part of a celebration. First of all, this doesn’t sound like a very celebratory thing to do, to say the least. Can you imagine explaining that to a three-year-old on their first Yom HaGolem? They would be terrified! (I don’t read this suggestion as accidental anti-Semitism so much as getting carried away with a metaphor, which I’m sure as writers we have all done!)
But also, it’s worth pointing out that our commemorative foods aren’t usually that literal. If you think about hamantaschen, maror, or apple in honey, they’re all symbols. That’s not to say that having Golem-shaped cookies is a problem, as this sounds like just a bit of fun that the MC is having and not something that is directly at odds with Judaism or Jewish culture. But it’s worth bearing in mind that the more literal you go from there in terms of tying the cookies to the event they commemorate, the less culturally aligned your holiday food becomes.
Finally, about the Golem protecting non-Jewish people: I like this idea! There’s a stereotype that we only use whatever is at our disposal to help ourselves and other Jewish people, so a Golem being created by Jews but helping others as well is a big plus for me. Of course, as has already been pointed out, this would be an odd choice if her Saving The World team were anti-Semitic or otherwise disrespectful to her/her community, but I don’t think you were headed that way!
-Shoshi
I have to come back in here just to squee over the phrase “Yom HaGolem.” Well done :D
--Shira
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can u make a nikolai x reader based on the song mr perfectly fine by taylor swift?
Mr Perfectly fine
A/n: Ahh, thank to you friend, I've been jamming to this song every day lmao Hope I've done it justice x Also, I've left out some parts of the lyrics to make it better fit the story.
(if you want, you can add yourself to my taglist here)
for my other masterlists, you can find them on my navigation page
Word count: more than 7K (ikik it took a life of his own, what can I say)
Warnings: bit of fluff, angst (like a lot), character's death, spoiler if you haven't read Siege and Storm
Tagging: @jupiterandbutterflies (Thank you so much for your comment! I saw it and it made my day✨)
(I don't remember where I took this from so if you know pls lmk)
Most people knew of Nikolai Lanstov. He was a prince, the second born and the most charming. Most people knew him thanks to the countless rumours that went around at court: supposedly he was not of royal blood. "Sobachka" was what they called him.
No matter how though, everyone knew of the last Lanstov prince. But very little knew him.
Meeting him wasn't difficult. Since he had been of age, Nikolai had always been out of the Grand Palace and among people. He’d also volunteered to enlist in the first army, refusing any kind of special treatment and fought beside his brothers in arms in the infantry. That was part of the reason why everyone outside the court loved him so much.
Being Grisha meant that fighting in the Second Army was mandatory. Not that you minded. There was nothing you wanted more for your people than to finally be free. Also, that Shadow Fold needed to go and as the Darkling has always said, all efforts are necessary.
That’s how you met Nikolai the first time. Generally, the First and the Second Army were stationed in different parts of the campsite. Numerous quarrels between oprichniki and Grisha had rendered the separation necessary. However, you never liked crowds much and living in the Little Palace meant that you were always surrounded by people. So, every chance you had to draw away and be by yourself for a while, you took it. Also, being a Healer meant that you’d spent more time in your assigned tent taking care of soldiers than among them.
Word had gone around that everyone in need could come to you. Usually, you had been instructed by the Darkling that your powers were reserved for Grisha. However, what good was it to have the ability to cure people and only take care of a selected few that very rarely got seriously injured? Meanwhile, soldiers of the First Army often suffered from severe injuries, fatal gunshots or knife wounds. You could help them and possibly save their lives so why shouldn’t you?
That was why Nikolai found you one night. Sure at that point it was just another nameless soldier to you. He had never been in your tent before so you had never seen his face before. The boy whose arm he had draped on his shoulders though, was a usual visitor of yours.
“Oh, Petyr, what happened this time?” gesturing to his blond friend to lay him down on the table, you started gathering everything you needed. Not that you needed much but you had found out that Petyr was absolutely incapable of bearing having his bones or injuries in general repaired without having some kind of pain reliever before.
After a few tries, you came up with a herbal composition that dulled the pain but didn’t make him unconscious. Using kvas would mean that Petyr would be knocked out for a couple of hours. That would put him in trouble with his superiors.
“He’s a fool, that’s what happened.” The explanation came from his friend after he put him down gently. Despite his words, you could hear in his tone worry and guilt?
“If saving your life makes me a fool then go ahead and call me one,” Petyr huffed in pain.
“Who knew you were so brave, uh?” After quickly shredding the herbs you needed, you poured hot water on it and brought the cup to Petyr’s lips while helping him keep his head up.
“He’s the bravest of us all,”
“If I knew it took a bullet wound to make you hand out compliments so easily, I would have done it sooner.” Scoffed Petyr after sending you a thankful look.
“See? What did I tell you? A fool,” his friend said dramatically and you smiled amused at their playful banter.
“Let’s see what we’re dealing with, shall we?” You said out loud to warn both Petyr and his friend. Letting them know what was about to happen was best, your experience taught you. Both for the person on the table that could brace themselves for what was about to happen and for the person with him that was filled with worry and cautiousness. Oprichniki didn’t trust Grisha that much.
After assessing the damage, you let out a relieved sigh as the bullet had gotten through and it had not hit any major artery. It had already got infected though, so you knew it would be a painful one to treat.
“So, did you receive any letters lately, Pety?” You ask, suggestively wiggling your eyebrows while your hands cover the wound. You had your eyes closed to better focus but you were sure that he had rolled his eyes.
“Only from my mum.”
“Don’t tell me you didn’t write her back,” you said, opening your eye just in time to send him a glare.
“Ugh, not this again, y/n, please. Have mercy on me, I’m bleeding all over the table.” Petyr moaned making his friend snicker.
“You’re not bleeding all over the table and if you didn’t notice, I’m already taking care of you, am I not? That doesn’t excuse you for being an idiot, though.”
“Are you two in cahoots or something? It’s not fair. Wounded man over here.”
“Oh shut up.” Both you and his blond friend said at the same time. Petyr moaned once again and you sent a little amused smile to the blondie.
“Should I leave you with a cool battle scar? Maybe acting like a war hero will give you the balls to write to her.” You harmlessly threatened him but your hands were already reconnecting the tissue of his skin without letting it scar.
“I’ve told you, y/n. She deserves better than what I can give her. I am, who knows if I even make it home? I’d be only stringing her along.” Now Petyr was dead serious. It was true, you had talked about this often since he was a regular you got to know him better and he had soon told you about his sweet Katia.
While his friend chanted “fool” like a mantra in the background, you took his bloodied hand in yours, his wound fully healed.
“Petyr, how do you think she’s gonna react when she learns that there hasn’t been any delay to her letters but you’re just ignoring her? Besides, you should let her make this decision too. Who knows, she’ll surprise you.” Squeezing his hand you turned to let your words settle and to put away your utensils. You knew you had given him so much food for thought so you didn’t address the subject anymore. His friend helped him off the table and that’s when you noticed that he was injured too. He had a pretty nasty cut on his lower lip and there was already a bruise forming on his temple.
“Petyr, you can sit on my chair while I take care of your friend. You should be fine but for at least a while don’t stress your body.”
Mentally making a list of the things you need to tend to this kind of wound and where you kept them, you started collecting before heading back to them.
Petyr had sat down but his friend was still standing.
“You don’t have to lie down if you don’t want to, but unless you don’t want me to go take a ladder or something, it would be best if you sat on the table.” You gave him your best reassuring smile as you mixed the healing paste. Sometimes, men didn’t like to put themselves in a vulnerable position with someone they didn’t know and had learned to fear. He wasn’t that badly hurt and it would only take a couple of seconds to fix but not every oprichniki was comfortable with being healed by Grisha power. So the paste would do your job for you. It would take longer, sure and it would also sting a lot more but at least he’d be healed at last.
After looking at you for a little while, the blond man did as you instructed, giving you a dazzling smile in return when you settled between his legs to fix his cut.
“The name is Nikolai or handsome if you prefer.” It was not the first time a wounded soldier tried to flirt with you. IT didn’t bother you, you found them amusing more than anything and you knew it was the allure of someone taking care of them speaking more than any real interest.
“Let’s hope you won’t be around here much for me to learn your name.”
“I’ll have to find another way to make myself unforgettable then.” He winked at you before hopping off the table.
You didn’t address his words, only gave them the paste you had prepared. It would prevent any wound from being infected and would be able to cure small cuts and bruises if applied for a couple of days. With that, you sent them both on their way. Petyr waving you goodbye while Nikolai sent you another wink.
And so this was how it all started.
Mr. "Perfect face"
Mr. "Here to stay"
Mr. "Looked me in the eye and told me you would never go away"
Everything was right
Despite your fellow Grisha, military life could be a bit alienating. Which sounded like a paradox, sure, but everyone had their own way of processing trauma and emotions and of course there were plenty of those during the war. If the best way to come to terms with everything that happened was to distance yourself from others and try to find the solution in solitude, it could get to the point where you’d feel alone in a room full of people.
To get a little respite, you’d usually go on a long walk or resort to stargaze. Sometimes, depending on where you were posted, it wasn’t safe to leave the campsite. So, that’s how Nikolai found you one night. Even he had to take a breather once in a while. Being a different version of yourself based on who you’re interlocutor was must be exhausting. Of course, you didn’t know this. You knew nothing about Nikolai at that point if not that he was Petyr’s friend and a socialite, according to other soldiers.
He seemed to be at the centre of gossip no matter what group of people you found yourself with and there also seemed to be a consensus about him. Everyone liked him. Even if it was rare for some Grisha to appreciate oprichniki, you knew they somewhat respected him because if they didn’t praise him out loud, they didn’t speak ill of him either.
“Not a fan of crowds, are you?” he announced his presence before sitting down beside you.
“I love them, I really do. It’s just that sometimes it gets too much.”
“Yeah, I know how you feel.”
“You do? Everyone seems to think you’re a socialite.”
“It’s what I want them to think but alas, I enjoy being more complex and multifaceted than that.” He lightly bumped your shoulder with his, eyes aflame with mischief.
“I bet.” you simply smirked. Despite how everyone seemed to think they knew him, you got the peculiar vibe from him, like there was a lot more to him than what he let everyone see.
“No one seems to know much about you.”
“Maybe you’ve talked to the wrong people.”
“Well, then I guess it’s better if I got straight to the source, don’t you think?”
“That will surely be a better start. Not sure you’ll find what you’re looking for though.”
“We’ll see.”
That night had been the first of many. It had become a sort of an unspoken arrangement between the two of you. While it didn’t last long, you sensed that you got to know him better than everyone. There was something about late nights meetings under the stars that prompted deep and meaningful conversations. It wasn’t hard to form a solid bond with him after a few nights.
The conversations weren’t always personal in the conventional sense. You’d often stray and talk about the most bizarre things. Like why something had the name it had or how cool it’d be if it was possible to pass through surfaces, which led to imagine all the uncomfortable situations one could find themselves in if they were to simply go into a room through its wall.
Nikolai was witty, overly confident and ambitious and he knew a lot of things. You always wondered how he had learned them since he was so young and been in the army for a couple of years already. But Nikolai was never too forward on certain topics, his family and childhood being some of those. You understood, those were sore subjects for you too. So you never insisted. It was much more interesting to listen to him rumble about impossible future projects of his, like a flying ship.
"When people say impossible, they usually mean improbable." He’d say whenever you’d point it out to him. Somehow, despite the absolute absurdity of them, the sheer confidence that he seemed to constantly exude, made you consider the possibility of his success.
You got the distinct feeling that there was nothing this man couldn’t do.
But that was when I got to know Mr. "Change of heart"
Mr. "Leaves me all alone," I fall apart
It takes everything in me just to get up each day
But it's wonderful to see that you're okay
But, alas, as all things do, these encounters of yours also got to an end. You knew it would happen, you were both soldiers so your lives were both heavily characterised by uncertainty after all. However, you were not prepared for it to end so abruptly though. And without an apparent reason. Because Nikolai’s unit hadn’t been posted elsewhere and he hadn’t been fatally wounded. You would have heard of it were that the case. But it wasn’t.
You thought that he had come to cherish your nightly encounters too. Some of those had been full of his promises. How he’d love for you to be around when he’d eventually find the time to work on his ideas. How you had been a nice surprise, a most interesting person among so many dull idiots you were surrounded by every day. How he’d come to value your opinions and presence in his life and that he was going to find a way to make sure that that would never change. Promises that turned to be empty.
You had never allowed yourself to fully believe him. It wasn’t the first time that a boy had made the same kind of promises but Nikolai looked sincere. Honest enough to be believable. But, of course, you had been wrong.
You didn’t realise just how much you had come to rely on him until he was gone. You tried to keep your mind off him and luckily the perfect distraction came your way. The Darkling had scheduled an attack on the enemy’s army and had posted you to be on the field to take care of everyone promptly. You had never been more grateful to the man, even after he had given her a home and a purpose.
Ever since your first encounter with Nikolai, you had thought it had been a blessing. However, you had soon changed your mind and now considered a curse more than anything. Why? Because as soon as you got to the field you couldn’t help but scour the troops for a familiar mop of blond hair. Many looked like him and being this far you couldn’t be sure that he wasn’t one of them but you certainly despised the leap your heart made every time though. That was a distraction you couldn’t afford. Besides, it wasn’t smart to let your heart get involved in times of war.
The battle began, Inferni and Squallers were working together to impair the enemy’s visual so they couldn’t shoot or use their cannons while the First Army marched after them to swap in as soon as the air cleared to catch the enemy by surprise. While your role wasn’t active per se, you were a Corporalki after all, and even if you had been specifically trained as Healer, you had also got one of your friends to teach you the basics of an Heartrender’s work. You weren’t a powerful one but you could hold your ground in a fight. Especially since they weren’t expecting you. And you were still far from any real threat.
The battle dragged on and soon there were wounded soldiers that needed your attention. You hated this kind of work, it was messy and dirty and had to be quick because spending too much time on one soldier could mean dooming another to death. You were accustomed to it by now and soon found a rhythm focusing on ensuring everyone’s survival and not bothering with the aesthetic side of healing. That could be taken care of later if they wanted to.
As soon as your eyes fell onto a crouched figure you sprinted towards them. It was dirty and you didn’t recognize them but you got the feeling it was a life or death situation. Oh, how you wanted to be wrong.
The person crouching turned out to be Nikolai and he wasn’t alone. He was kneeling beside someone, Petyr.
“Where are you hurt?” you hurriedly asked as you tried to assess the damage. His uniform was dirty and full of blood but you couldn’t figure out where it was coming from. Trying to answer you, Petyr opened his mouth only to let out the most gruesome gurgling sound as his respiratory tract was flooded by blood.
“He got shot in the gut.” Nikolai offered.
“Is the bullet still inside?” Opening his uniform jacket you tore a piece from his shirt to use it to put pressure on the wound.
“It’s too late,” Nikolai uttered.
“No.” You strongly refused as you removed the cloth and focused on the wound. His heart was straightening and he had already lost a lot of blood. If the bullet was still inside that it was going to be a problem, if it wasn’t then you still had a fighting chance.
“I removed it earlier.” So that was why he had lost so much blood. Nodding your head to show that you had heard him, you set out to stop the internal bleeding. Slowing his heartbeat so that it was pumping less blood and thus eased your endeavour. You were still in the middle of the field and while you were keeping up with the warfare but in the back of your mind, you registered the sounds of screaming and of gunshots getting closer. A bullet hit you in the shoulder propelling you forward over Petyr’s body. Grisha’s kefta were bulletproof so you weren’t worried for your incolumity but for the harsh movement you had made.
Leaning back, you heard Nikolai calling for you but your eyes were trained on Petyr. You tried to listen for his heartbeat but could only hear two instead of three. Nikolai, who had never left your side, immediately understood what had happened by the fall of your shoulders and the tensing of your hands.
He kept calling for you but the only thing you could focus on was that you had let your friend down. Now there will be one more family crying for a loss, another girl mourning a lost loved one. And it was all your fault. It was because of you that Petyr wouldn’t live to see another day, to write another letter or to fight another battle. It was on you.
The details of what happened next were a bit blurred. Someway you must have found your way back to the campsite. Whether you did on your own after tending to everyone else, you didn’t know. Your memories picked up after you woke up in your tent. Someone was calling your name, saying that the Darkling wanted to see you.
Mechanically you raised and made your way to the Darkling’s tent but your mind was elsewhere. Your thoughts were plagued by Petyr’s face, by that godforsaken sound he made when he tried to speak. The realisation that he was gone hit you like a wall of brick that would have made you stumble if you weren't’ sat in front of the Darkling’s desk. Whether he was speaking and stopped after seeing the forlorn look in your eyes or he hadn’t been speaking at all, you didn’t realize. You did hear him say that you were going to be posted somewhere. Under different circumstances you have said something, anything to not let him send you away. Your mind immediately went to Nikolai. You’d be leaving him behind along with the campsite.
However, you now realised that you had already lost him. Losing Petyr had been the last thing that had completely severed your bond. There was no turning back now and part of you was grateful.
Hello Mr. "Perfectly fine"
How's your heart after breaking mine?
I've been Miss "Misery" since your goodbye
And you're Mr. "Perfectly fine"
You couldn’t know, of course, but Nikolai had left not long after you did. Albeit for a different reason. He had finally earned the Major rank and as such, he took a step back from military life deciding that his skill would be better suited for a life on the sea. Assuring Ravka the supply she needed but in ways that weren’t exactly suitable for a prince but worked just fine for a privateer. And thus Sturmhond came to life.
As for you, you kept doing your job at your new post but were relieved when a letter came from the Darkling instructing that you were needed at the Little Palace. Part of you had relegated Nikolai to that part of your mind where the unmentionable was, however, a traitor thought whispered that maybe there was a chance that you could see him at the royal grounds. Sure, the possibilities were close to zero but it was still possible, right?
No.
You already were ashamed of the fact that you’re still suffering because of him. And yes, you missed him but you weren’t going to indulge the pathetic hope of seeing him again.
He doesn’t want to see you. If he did, he would have already found you. Or write you a letter if he couldn’t, but he didn’t.
You were right. You knew you were, nonetheless, the thought only brought you a bittersweet feeling.
You found the Little Palace just how you’d left it and yet it seemed changed in a way. The insane amount of work you found there waiting for you helped you drown the feeling that it was you that had changed.
Months passed this way, sometimes the Darkling would post you with him or outside the Little Palace. All in all, you’ve kept busy. When news of the little prince leaving the Palace reached you, you let it wash over you. It wasn’t like it mattered much, whether he was a few feet away or in another nation, Nikolai wasn’t part of your life either way.
When the whole expansion of the Fold happened, you were stationed at the Little Palace. Chaos and terror ensued as soon as the news reached the capital making most of the Grisha flee. Most of them went looking for the Darkling while others simply ran away and hid. You were amongst the first group.
Soon, your life was radically changed. The shift in the Darkling was palpable and it didn’t have anything to do with the scars on his face. You had tried your best to heal them and Genya to tailor them away but somehow, they could not be removed. It was an unsettling thing to realize that they didn’t take away his beauty. One could even say that they enhanced his attractiveness.
He was certainly more powerful. None of you knew what had happened in the Fold that day, just that the Sun Summoner had fled and that there were no survivors apart from him. However, as your journey in pursuit of Alina dragged on, you were soon witnesses of his newfound power.
The nichevo’ya, he called them.
He had always been immensely powerful. One of a kind. But this- this was different. And as dread settled among your group as you watched them in action, realisation sat heavily on your shoulders.
He soon found a trail and traced Alina in Novyi Zem and set out to reach the island by hiring Sturmhond’s crew. He was a famous pirate after all and despite his unreliability, the Darkling was sure that as long as he got his money, he wouldn't be a problem.
In the round trip, you didn’t see much of the captain anyway. Some members of his crew were amiable enough, particularly the Yul-Baatar twins. You had even asked Tamar to spar with you from time to time. Your lessons with Botnik were a distant memory and you knew that mastering combat training skills could increase your chance at survival.
When Alina and Mal were held captive though, that’s when Sturmhond made an appearance. He looked younger than you’d thought and there was something oddly familiar in the way he held himself. Still, you didn't talk with him much. Your job was to take care of Alina and so you spent most of your time in her room.
It wasn’t until the Darkling asked Mal to track Rusalye and consequently spent more time with Alina that you had a chance to talk with him. It was during one of your night shifts when he approached you, the Darkling had wanted some of his to always be patrolling the ship.
“What could possibly make a little thing like you be amidst this wretched company?”
“It’s all a matter of perspective, I guess.”
“The thrill of adventure?”
“There’s plenty of it everywhere you go if you’re Grisha, even if you just go on a stroll.”
“Is that why you follow him?”
“I owe everything to him.”
“I’m sure you realize your role in this.”
“Of course I do. I’m not some naive girl who has a crush on her general.”
“Ah, so who, pray tell, do you have a crush on then, beautiful lady?”
“You’re certainly noisy for a pirate.”
“Privateer,” he corrected you, “there’s not much to do around here is it?”
“Not if you have everyone taking care of it, no.”
“Amuse me.”
“It isn’t wise to let the heart get involved in times of war.” That was all you were willing to share. Yes, he was handsome. Yes, the twinkle in his eyes was oddly familiar but he was a stranger. A dangerous one.
“Those sound like words spoken from experience.”
“Maybe.”
“Well, I’d say it’s no fun to only think about war. Life is so much more.”
“Believe me, if I could, it’d be the last thing on my mind. But, alas, l don’t have the privilege to do so.”
You had already lost too much time speaking with him. If someone were to see you or tell the Darkling you’d be in trouble. And you had made it your goal to never put yourself on the path of the Darkling’s anger. So you excused yourself and went back to your rounds.
If only you had stayed and talked to him more maybe you would have understood what was about to happen. Maybe you would have had an enkindling of Sturmhond’s plans. Instead, you were taken by surprise, just like everyone in your group, when Rusalye was spot and a shot was fired. You had found yourself in the uncomfortable position of having to fight against people you had grown to like.
“I don’t want to hurt you, y/n,” Tamar warned you as you stood face to face on the sinking ship dock. Her trusted axes in her hands while your hands were raised ready to attack.
“I don’t want to hurt you either.”
“Then you don’t have to. Come with us.” Her proposition made you gasp.
“That would be treason,” you whispered hoping that the Darkling wasn’t around to hear you. A shiver ran through you as you thought of the punishment he’d give you for even thinking about leaving his side.
“Then you leave me no choice.” She said lowering her arms. Was that guilt you heard in her voice?
Before you could voice your question though, she shouted for her brother and not even a second later, you felt your body grow still. Your eyebrows faltered as you felt your heartbeat slow down.
They were Grisha.
They must have seen you realise because you heard Tamar apologize before everything went black.
Mr. "Never told me why"
He goes about his day
Forgets he ever even heard my name
Well, I thought you might be different than the rest, I guess you're all the same
You didn’t stay out for long though. As soon as Sturmhond’s crew had left the Darkling’s ship and had safely made it onto the Volkvolny, the privateer had asked for you to be awakened.
There wasn’t enough light for you to realize you were on another ship, what alerted you of your new situation were your hands. They had bound them behind your back. Immediately you started to struggle, hoping to wiggle out of the restraints. To no avail though. Huffing out in frustration, you settled for looking around you and see if there was something you could use. That’s when you noticed him.
“Release me- this instant, or else-”
“Or what? You’re a Healer. Not exactly a violent job, is it?” Sturmhond interrupted you, a smirk on his face since he had the upper hand.
“I don’t need my powers to kick you in the ass, do I?” He laughed but didn’t look remotely threatened. Rather amused, actually.
“Please, you have to let me go. He’ll kill me if-” Panic started to build as you realized that there was no way you could successfully escape.
“He won’t touch you.” A solemn glow took over his eyes. “He won’t ever hurt you again, you have my word.” He promised, looking subtly at your left shoulder. You winced as you realized that he must have seen your scars. The ones left by the Darkling’s niche’voya.
“How can I know if you’re trustworthy? You don’t exactly have a good score, you know?”
“You’re going to find out soon enough. Don’t worry.”
Of course, he didn’t bother offering further explanations. He’d left it at that. You weren’t a captive per se but he left your hands bound, only freeing them when you needed to eat or relieve yourself.
Fruitless were your efforts in making you tell more. He often ate with you and would check in at least twice a day but that was it.
It wasn’t until after you had landed after that forsaken vehicle of his had gotten you through the Fold that you understood. His coming out as Nikolai Lanstov, prince and second in line for the Ravkan throne, had shaken you all to your core. However, you doubted that it had sent a pang to the others’ hearts as it did with yours.
Nikolai Lantsov. The man you had been dreaming about, the one that had left you behind without any sort of explanations, the one you missed so dearly, had been by your side all this time.
You weren’t sure how you felt. It made sense now why his eyes looked familiar and his posture. You then connected that the vehicle you had used in the Fold had been one of the many projects he used to geek about with you. It tasted a lot like betrayal. Not because he had lied to you about his name but because he had tried to get close to you again and had managed to somehow break that growing bond again.
'Cause I hear he's got his arm 'round a brand-new girl
I've been pickin' up my heart, he's been pickin' up her
So dignified in your well-pressed suit
So strategized, all the eyes on you
Oh, he's so smug, Mr. "Always wins"
So far above me in every sense
So far above feeling anything
Even if his secret had been outed thus causing some shift in the dynamics between Nikolai and the two new members of his crew - you suspected Mal was closer to punching him every second that passed- not much had changed for you.
On the outside, you pretty much looked like a prisoner. Albeit a very clean one. You rode with them, hands still bound, scowl ever-present on your face.
Nikolai had not come to see you ever since that night after the Fold. And now it had been almost a week since you had started your journey back to the capital. Whether this was all part of his plan to make you look the part of the captive even more or he was just gutless, you didn't know. It was working either way though.
You liked to think that his reason was simply that he didn't care. He had far too much on his plate right now as it was. Going back to court after years of absence while also making claims to the throne and trying to sway the Sun Summoner your way. It was no easy feat. But hadn't he always liked to say that impossible often meant improbable? A lot of things had changed since that night but even so, you'd still pose your bet on him that he'd be able to achieve anything he set his mind to.
It wasn't exactly that thinking this way brought you actual comfort. Of course, not. But it was better than foolishly hoping for him to still care about you the way you did for him. After all, he had sent plenty of signals that pointed in the other direction.
But then why did he kidnap you? Why take you with him? You weren't that close to the Darkling to be of any use to Nikolai in that way. And, as a matter of fact, no one had come to interrogate you regarding his plans or whereabouts. Then why?
You still couldn't figure it out.
Some days your anger shifted more to frustration and you were ounces away from asking for him yourself. Almost as if he had heard you though, he gave you the final push.
It was the usual day, Nikolai and Alina were riding in the carriage, stopping in every village we passed to meet with the locals. However, this time, before climbing back into the carriage, they kissed.
You were too far to figure out who started it and the details. The gist of it was enough though.
You most certainly were a fool. Still thinking about a guy who didn't give two shits about you, who had kidnapped you putting you in a dangerous situation and you were still wondering whether he felt something for you or not? Pathetic.
You had to do something about your situation and quickly too. Officially, you were a traitor. You had fled and joined the Darkling, that wouldn't make you look good in front of the king. He was a lousy bastard anyway and will probably sentence you to death to set an example. You hadn't survived so much shit to end up at the end of a rope.
So, even though you had initially thought against it since you were so close to home, you decided to escape. You were already headed towards certain death so what was the worst that could happen?
Your hands were left unbound when you were in your tent. One less problem to solve. Closing your eyes, you focused on listening for any nearby heartbeats. You heard two, those of the guards posted outside your tent. Maybe you could find an excuse to call them inside, put them to sleep and then slip away.
That was not exactly what your powers were for but you were desperate. You had to at least try.
And so you did. You called them in and immediately set out to slow their heartbeats. You had almost succeeded in putting them under when someone else slipped in. The last person you wanted to see.
"Am I that bad of a host?"
You didn't meet his ruse though, you knew it would make you lose focus.
"I'm afraid I have to ask you to release my soldiers." As soon as he said it though, they fell unconscious at last. Your chest was heaving by now, using so much power in such a different way was costing you. But you couldn't back down now. It was one on one and you were Grisha and a woman scorned. He stood no chance.
"Move out of my way, your highness."
"I'm afraid I can't do that."
"You can or I can make you. Your choice." The venom in your voice was unmistakable and it took him by surprise. He gave you a curious look tilting his head to the side like he was seeing you for the first time over again.
"I didn't realize ruthlessness was one of your personality traits."
"You know nothing about me," you seethed. The tip of your fingers flexed, the tension in the room could be cut with a knife and you were already weary.
"It may have been a while y/n, but I like to think I know a good deal about you."
"And I would like to completely erase this last year but you don't hear me yap about how shitty it has been, do you?"
"You never did like opening up much."
"I'm well past the point of sentimentalism, Nikolai. It is coming far too late anyway. And whatever my feelings for you may be, I won't let you put my life on the line." Your posture straightened, stance ready for battle.
His eyes flashed, jaw clenched. His hands closed in fists and he almost looked hurt. But why would he?
"Is that what you think all of this is?" Nikolai always acted aloof. He was always composed and dignified. You had thought it was for his insane amount of self-confidence but now you understood it was for how he was raised. But you recognised the pout on his lips. It was the expression he’d always have whenever he tried to get something from getting to him. To prevent himself from showing emotions.
"You're holding me captive while you go around Ravka parading your latest conquest, flashing your return everywhere. I don't know why you're doing this but I don't care. I've stopped waiting around for you and I certainly won't let your father put me to death."
"You think I'd let him?"
"So you want to do this?" you threw your hands up in exasperation, "Fine. You really want to know what I think?"
"Be my guest."
"I think that the Nikolai I knew would have left out of the blue without so much as a letter. I think that the Nikolai I knew was ready to go to any length to achieve what he believed in. However, I thought that the Nikolai I knew cared about me and what we had but look at me now. So maybe, I know nothing at all."
"You certainly do seem to know a lot of things. But you’re not wrong."
"If this is the way you care about me," I gesture to my tent, "then I'm not sure I want this Nikolai to care for me."
“This,” he said, emulating your gesture, “is to keep you safe. This is my way to ensure that if the Darkling got news of your whereabouts, he’d be sure not to think you willingly left his side and betrayed him.”
“That’s because I didn’t!” You raised your voice in outrage. The nerve of this man.
“Spare me your indignation. I know you hate being at his beck and call, to do his dirty work and be constantly surrounded by warfare.”
“Do not presume to speak for me.” You snapped. You knew it was best to keep a cool head but his cockiness was getting on your nerves.
“Didn’t you? Hate it, I mean.”
“We’re at war, Nikolai. Being away or close to the Darkling won’t change that. At least with him, I was safe.”
“You can’t be that delusional to think that he was protecting you.” He scoffed at your words as if they were the most absurd thing he had ever heard.
“And you can’t be that delusional to think that bringing me back won’t result in your father killing me.” You fired back shifting on your feet. He winced as if you had physically hurt him.
“You have so little faith in me?” His voice was just above a whisper and you knew that your words had struck a chord.
“How can I have any, Nikolai?” your voice softened a bit. “One day you’re telling me how much you value my opinion, you promise me a future where I’d be the first to see your project come to life and then you left. You just left, Nikolai.” And when I was starting to make my peace with it that’s when you come back? Also, let’s not forget about my abduction and your flirting with Alina.”
“So yes, I don’t trust you.” You concluded, crossing your arms on your chest with finality. He just stared at you for the longest time. If someone would come in now, they’d think you were in the middle of a staring contest. Then he sighed and started talking.
“I had to go away. I had already pushed my parents’ limits when I said I wanted to be part of the infantry. So, one day I got a letter written by my father personally and I knew that my time was up. I had been Nikolai for too long, now I had to start being a Lantsov prince.” His eyes were on the ground now, shame making her way in his words.
“So that’s what I did,” he went as he started pacing,”I went to Kerch to study, just like my father wanted. I did what he asked, he couldn’t reproach me anything now. I could never stay too still though, a life of adventure was calling me and I could not ignore it. It was only then that I realized that I could do so much more than sitting in a class, to realistically help Ravka.”
“I couldn’t take you with me. You had such a larger role to play in the army and besides, there wasn’t much I could offer you. So yes, I left. I left thinking that I would find my way back to you eventually.” He had stopped by now, regret was swirling in his shining orbs as he looked at you.
“You could have told me.” You contestated, taken back by all the information he gave you. “I would have waited for you.” A whispered promise for something that would never be now.
“I was afraid, y/n. That’s not my best moment, I know and no number of apologies could ever make it right. But I was afraid of your answer. I knew I’d be asking for a lot and let’s be honest-” the desperation in his tone was evident now, he had unconsciously started to lean towards you but you knew what he was about to say.
“You weren’t sure if the future you were offering me would just end up with me being your mistress, am I right?” Your tone hardened but despite the insulting implication of what you said, you weren’t made at him.
“I’m a prince, y/n. We do not marry for love and this country cannot afford to disregard the advantages that a political union could bring.”
His honesty was as refreshing as it was unsettling. He was right. As soon as you had learned he was a prince, you realized just what kind of future you could have with him. But then he left and that problem did not exist anymore. Neither of you spoke, both of you were seizing the other. You had laid it all out, defences were down putting you both in a vulnerable position.
And someday maybe you'll miss me
“You should have talked to me, Nikolai. We could have figured it out together. If it came to being your mistress to stay with you, then that was my decision to make.” You said softly after a while. It pained for you to say this, you would have never thought that getting closure would hurt this much.
Tears streamed on both of your faces, in front of you had been laid what your future could have looked like. It was everything you had wanted, you could still do your job and have the man of your dreams. You were surprised to find that you wouldn’t mind sharing him with his supposed wife. You had been at court for enough time to know how most marriages went. If he assured you it was only a diplomatic affair but that his heart was yours, that would have been enough. Who knows, maybe she’ll get a lover too.
But now… now you didn’t know if you could ignore everything that happened. You did not trust him nor could you ignore how hurt you were by his lack of communication and thus of trust in you.
But by then, you'll be Mr. "Too late"
#nikolai lantsov#nikolai lantsov x reader#nikolai lantsov imagine#nikolai lantsov imagines#nikolai lanstov one shot#nikolai lanstov fic#nikolai lanstov x you#nikolai lanstov x y/n#shadow and bone#grishaverse#nikolai lanstov angst#nikolai lanstov fluff#nikolai lanstov blurb
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spike, angel, buffy & romanticism: part 4
part 1: “When you kiss me I want to die”: Angel and the high school seasons
part 2: “Love isn’t brains, children”: Enter Spike as the id
part 3: “Something effulgent”: Season five and the construction of Spike the romantic
*
“But I can’t fool myself. Or Spike, for some reason.”: Buffy and Spike as a blended self
Before I get into seasons six and seven, it’s worth asking: why would the show do all of this? Why would it spend all of this time developing a supporting villain and joke id character? Why would it give him a romantic arc? I see people say that the writers only gave Spike these storylines because he was popular or they wanted to keep him around, but even that being the case, there was no need to give him the specific arc that they did. It’s more than possible to read meaning into the story that they chose from the array of possible options.
Here is the thing about the id. It’s not actually something separate from you. It’s not a ravenous monster you can blame your weaknesses on while remaining pure and dignified. The id is part of you. The immediate and enduring appeal of Spike is, I suspect, strongly influenced by the fact that the things the id wants are so very human and sympathetic. His foibles and mistakes are often painfully familiar, even exaggerated through vampirism as they are. In fact, it’s precisely because Spike is allowed to show a full range of reactions to love, because the writing is under less pressure for him to do the “right” or dignified thing, that he can at times be compelling in ways other characters can’t. If Spike just did nasty things, his appeal wouldn’t be much more complicated than the appeal of Angelus, who people tend to like as a villain or storyline rather than as a relatable character. But Spike doesn’t want to dismember nuns or construct elaborate murder tableaux. He wants familiar things like love, identity and meaning, even if the ways he goes about getting them can reflect people’s worst impulses.
Which brings us to Buffy, and Buffy’s story about growing up. Buffy is Buffy’s show, which means that every writing choice tends to revolve around her arc in one way or another. And this goes for Spike’s storyline even more than most. In the final three seasons of the show, the writing finally engages with how inextricable the id--and all of its impulsive, inarticulate romantic desires--really is from a person’s self. So instead of keeping Spike at a comfortable distance, both Buffy and the writing begin to take him seriously. They begin to invite him in.
Starting in season five, it’s telling how frequently Buffy herself projects on Spike, rather than just the writing setting them up as mirrors. She tells him that he’s the “only one strong enough” to protect her family, and later assigns Dawn specifically to his protection. In “Spiral” she describes him as “the only one besides me that has any chance of protecting Dawn.” This is a very intimate role that she otherwise only assigns to herself (and which is not really based on pure practicality, considering that she’ll later describe Willow as her “big gun”--yet never gives Willow the task of protecting Dawn). She tells him that he cannot love, which is the thing she fears most about herself. Her protests that Spike is a vampire, and thus cannot express or want human things like love, mirror her lamentations that as the Slayer, she cannot have a normal life.
From the Gilliland Gothic double essay:
More than any of her other lovers, Buffy and Spike overlap one another so often that at times their character arcs become nearly indistinguishable. With Angel, Buffy traveled a parallel path in attempting to master self-control. With Riley, her journey ultimately took her in the opposite direction. With Spike, Buffy’s journey is most closely shadowed, in that her interactions with him in many ways can be seen as metaphors for her feelings about herself.
So now Spike is multiple things. On the one hand, he’s the soulless id he’s been since season two. His vampiric behavior represents a morally uninhibited way of reacting to romantic frustrations, among other things. But on the other hand, his vampirism now also marks him as like Buffy, not merely her opposite.* Nor is he only her mirror in the realm of romantic love. The part of him that is a vampire is the part of him that is supernatural (ie, Romantically larger-than-life), that sets him apart from regular people, and dictates how he can and cannot behave. Just like Buffy’s slayerness. His vampirism is what makes him capable of protecting Dawn, while also making him (supposedly, according to Buffy) incapable of human feeling--again, just like Buffy’s slayerness. Instead of Buffy’s Slayer side being aligned with Angelus, who was an unmitigated evil, it becomes aligned with Spike, who is something more complicated.
*(Though it must be noted that this was a process that began in season four, with the show aligning Spike with the Scoobies by making him a victim of the Initiative. Spike being supernatural suddenly marks him as non-normative, just like the Scoobies, in contrast to the institutional conformity that the Initiative represents. The evolution towards treating the Romantic supernatural as something positive and associated with identity plays a key role in transitioning the show to the more complicated attitudes of the last three seasons.)
This shift in the show’s attitudes towards the id affects how Spike is used. In “Blood Ties” for example, Spike assists Dawn in breaking into the Magic Shop and in “Forever” he helps Dawn resurrect her and Buffy’s mother. In both cases, Spike could be read as embodying impulsive behavior that Buffy is supposed to be better than. Yet both cases specifically involve Spike helping Dawn, who is repeatedly portrayed as Buffy’s human side. As Buffy says in “The Gift”: “[Dawn]’s more than [my sister]. She’s me. The monks made her out of me. [...] Dawn is a part of me. The only part that I--”. In other words, Buffy’s id becomes closely tied to her humanity, even going so far as to become its safeguard. “Blood Ties” ends with Buffy affirming her connection to Dawn, which Spike’s rule-breaking directly enabled, and “Forever” ends with Buffy acknowledging how desperately she wants her mother back too, and becoming closer to Dawn as a result. (Compare to “Lovers Walk”, where Buffy acknowledging her id results in her breaking away from Angel, not drawing closer to anyone). Or in “Intervention”, Spike building the Buffybot directly parallels Buffy’s own anxieties about what she thinks she should be. She thinks she’s losing her ability to love, and that effusive fakery is her only recourse (as she said in “I Was Made to Love You”: “Maybe I could change. [...] I could spend less time slaying, I could laugh at his jokes. I mean men like that right? The joke laughing at?”), a fear that even has some merit, given that her friends cannot tell her and the bot apart. Instead of Buffy and Spike having separate arcs in the episode, Spike learning the difference between real and fake dovetails with Buffy’s own relationship to her realness and fakeness. It turns out that neither of them want a bot version of Buffy. They want real emotion, things like sacrifice and heartfelt gratitude. If even Buffy’s id would let itself be killed for Dawn, then maybe she has nothing to fear from herself. Maybe there is some beauty in the emotional part of her nature that she thinks she must repress.
In other words, part of the writing (and Buffy) fully engaging with romanticism and the id, means engaging with the ways they can be bad and good. There’s this weird thing that happens with Spike as soon as he falls in love with Buffy, where suddenly his actions are more uncomfortable, and to many, off-putting, because their object is Buffy (instead of another vampire like Harmony or Drusilla, who either enjoy the same vampiric things he does, or the audience might be inclined to see as a moral nonentity regardless). His comic id quality becomes somewhat darker and more serious, almost like the way Angel’s early season two darkness becomes more serious after he loses his soul. But at the same time, Spike’s actions are also more intriguing, sympathetic, and even noble...because their object is Buffy. It makes no sense that a soulless vampire should not only fall in love with the Slayer, but genuinely attempt to transform himself into someone worthy of her love. And yet that’s exactly what Buffy inspires him to do. By loving Buffy Spike’s dual nature, and the dual nature of his romanticism, is thrown into relief: it’s something that can be selfish and creepy, yes, but also something that hints at the idea that real romanticism does exist. Something worth feeling romantically about does exist. Thus the writing can at once criticize, say, the way the chivalric mindset conflates love and suffering, while also suggesting that there are kinds of love it’s worth being transformed by. (Meanwhile, Spike’s fumbling bewilderment over how to love Buffy, and what the rules of loving people correctly even are, creates a human middle ground between monstrousness and heroism). By leaning into the way that Buffy and Spike have been used as mirrors for three seasons, and introducing the mythology-bending idea of Spike being in love with Buffy, the writing is able to fully engage with this complicated, contradictory nature of love and romance.
All of which is to say. Spike becomes a potential love interest, and is given a convoluted inner conflict between monstrousness, humanity and heroism, in precisely the season in which Buffy begins to reckon with her own inner conflict between her darker impulses, her human reality, and her supernatural role. It’s no coincidence that season five opens with Dracula, an icon of romantic vampire mythology, tempting Buffy with darkness and promising her insight into her nature. Or that a vampire kidnaps Dawn--again, her human half--in the next episode. Or that the season’s antagonist is a super-strong blonde woman who wants to destroy Dawn instead of protect her. Or that she says goodbye to Riley, the boyfriend who embodied her hopes for a more normative way of being (notice how Riley is progressively destabilized by everything non-normative about Buffy’s life, and provokes those anxieties Buffy expresses in “I Was Made to Love You”). Over and over in season five, Buffy fears that her Slayer half is cold, destructive, and otherwise dangerous. That these Romantic things like gods and vampires have it in for Buffy’s vulnerable humanity. Yet Buffy’s vampire id simultaneously gives lie to these fears by proving itself capable of heroism and genuine human feeling.
In other words, Spike becomes a potential love interest in a season that treats the Romantic--ie the grand and mythical--as something more than just an attractive lie to be disabused of. Rather, the question that season five seems to posit to me, and which will not be fully answered until the end of season seven, is this: once you do clear away the attractive lies, once you accept the hard realities, once you’ve seen the darkest underbellies, what are the things that are left that are truly grand and beautiful? What are the stories that are really worth telling, and the heroes that are really worth having?
And the show asks and answers these questions on both a very personal level, and a more meta, systemic level. On the personal level, Buffy and Spike are forced to confront their illusions not just about the world, but about themselves. They are made to ask themselves what constitutes a heroic role or a demonic weakness, versus basic, unromantic humanity. And on the meta level, the show asks questions about our expectations for how both love stories and chosen hero stories are supposed to go.
part 5: “Everything used to be so clear”: Season six and the agony of the real
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