#my two cents should never impede your enjoyment of these characters

[ask-codeearasure]

I have a few ideas with this character cause he is... there are reasons why I don't like Nightmare at all and one of the biggest reasons is because in the original Dreamtale, he's not supposed to be his own individual, in Joku's words, yet people have seemed to take that notion, at worst, as a personal offense.

Which is fine, but this challenges me to keep thinking on the fact that if I want to write canon Nightmare in a way that's FUN to me, I'm going to have to think outside the box with this information in mind.

If he's not supposed to be a person, what are some things I can do to make this more interesting? Because maybe he wants to be a person, or at least create his own identity where he can be mistaken as one. Or perhaps he is a person but he denies himself that "privilege". I wouldn't say it's out of guilt, again I'm thinking about original Noot Noot here. Maybe it could be a product of this twisted form of grandeur, that being a person and agonizing over identity is a waste of time and he takes pride in what he is.

Or perhaps, he considers his very being to be greater than that of "people", so why bother to care on how puny mortals and enemies define him? He is above them, after all. It's not like they'd understand what he is if he bothered to explain.

Canon Nightmare could be such an interesting villain if people bothered to explore him outside of "Joku made him evil and one-dimensional", because how are you so sure that she actually meant that? Did she ever say this directly, or did you assume because of the language barrier, deleted media, or because of her limited activity on Tumblr? Cause whatever way that is, there's always ths chance you're wrong. In a way, you (the fandom, not OP specifically) are doing the same thing to canon Nightmare as you have done to canon Dream for the past eight years. You are reducing his frame of character based only on what you see on the surface, also making assumptions based on your dislike of a woman you don't even know, which is...? Genuinely, that's a stupid thing to do. You don't have to like her. I don't either, I think she's a freak. But why are you giving your dislike of her so much power that by extension, you are degrading the value of a work that you enjoy despite its creator?

Just think about that for a moment. In fact, you don't have to think about Joku at all. The only person you can control is yourself, so stop wasting that in favor of a stranger. It's a waste of time and energy you could dedicate to something you'd find worthwhile. Something that makes you happy.

But anyways, I got ahead of myself. Back to Nightmare.

I vaguely recall Joku making a post about Nightmare that made him the slightest bit interesting to me, and I'm sure the post is taken down by now so all you have is my word. I apologize for that inconvenience. (If not, I'll find the picture when I get home and link it in a reblog)

It showed corrupted Nightmare existing as Nightmare does, but also green text yelling at him as another presence in his mind. My theory is this dark green text was Nim. So Nim and the man who murdered her are piloting the real Nightmare's corpse together. Or perhaps not; maybe the unnamed man is in primary control but some enraged element of Nim is there anyways. She might not consciously be there because in all accounts, she should be dead.

This concept, if I was interpreting it right, insinuates that Nightmare might be multiple people in one instead of a murderer we don't know the true quality of character of. And in Dreamtale, it's actually Nim who hates mortals more than anything else. It's Nim who was a great factor in the events leading up to the Apple Incident. Nim was also killed by an equally as vindictive man and now they're stuck together in a sick, twisted fashion.

Corrupted Nightmare is the personification of the wickedness of these two individuals. In a way, Dream isn't only fighting his brother's murderer, but their mother as well.

Is this not interesting? Is this not tragic? If this ain't your cup of tea, that's fine, but you gotta admit this kind of feature in a character/construct is bound to raise eyebrows. And perhaps, if you're the type who enjoys physical and/or psychological horror, you could take full advantage of this in Nightmare. I don't see nearly enough genuinely scary shit featuring him anyway.

Nightmare could be a completely eldritch character if this concept was stretched far enough, but I never see anyone do that.

Just some thoughts I wanted to introduce to the conversation. This is nothing against other ideas and you just doing your own thing, I'm just throwing ideas out there.

-- Sarco

I generally have no problem if a writer wants to write Nightmare as someone who cares about others. Its okay. You should write for yourself, and its up to others if they like it or not.

But I'd rather see Nightmare struggle with his own nature in the process. Learning to be better must be a difficult path for him, and I've said before that his "wanting" would not be healthy because of what Nightmare embodies. He can't help but hurt others in his loving ways. And that's much more entertaining to read. How the others react to this attempt and how this could change their dynamic? Would this draw them all closer to each other? I'd dying to see it!

My problem with canon Nightmare is that while the concept is amazing, the execution is not of my liking, the creator said Nightmare is not a person like Dream, he is a THING that acts by nature.

And i have this in mind all the time because you can yet make him move and act conditioned by his nature and do a lot of more of the character by just being "oooh ohh he is so mean!!" Give him an identity to start with maybe? Give him motivations besides his survive? Yeah.