#side note jenny and i were in georgetown today which is where the dc glossier is and i could not get the words 'miss troll glossier october

[chronotopes]

silly question about Aivide but I'm curious, were there any chance that she could've hatched a malcos-thieri or no? like in the grand vastness of paradox space timeline shit and not predeterministic fate of what succeeds as alpha timeline stuff. if sooooo how would she have differed? Like I know if she'd contacted Eubie life'd be miserable y'know an 'Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan' paintings ending I'd assume, but apart from that, how'd it've gone ahead?

Have a nice weekend mate!, yer writings real nice I'll be sure to check out Vital light if/when it ever drops, take care! :]

first off: thank you so much, that means a lot! i hope you have a nice weekend too <3

secondly: are you kidding me, this is an AWESOME question. albeit one with maaaaybe a disappointing part one to its answer (disappointing for you the asker, not aivide, who i'm sure would be deeply relieved) – it is not super feasible for aivide to have been born thieri-malcos because the nature of al2rnian hybridization specifically requires the sort of fucking-frequency that comes with a longterm committed relationship rather than the ill-advised intermittent one-night stands that eubala and stelad were getting up to. for this basic logistical barrier i have never sat down and contemplated a fuchsia hybrid aivide.

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maybe i should, though, that would be a fun thing to contemplate even if it wasn't a feasible thing within the al2rnia universe. HOWEVER, what i have thought about (with esther's input) is an 'aivide thieri-malcos' universe where aivide is not literally a thieri-malcos but is born while stelad is still alive, meaning that she is raised by stelad with eubala's occasional (and not super solicited) input.) aivide thieri-malcos is in some ways treated by eubala the same way the main timeline aivide treated by eubala – as a built-in replacement for stelad, a consolation prize for the fact that stelad died. (woman who is super normal about death, she promises.)

the knowledge that eubala would want to hire stelad's ancestor was a known (and not very fun) fact between stelad and eubala toward the end of stelad's lifetime. you sort of see a hint of this (though not the worst of it) in vinbre the novel –

but it would only intensify if aivide was actually hatched during stelad's lifetime. What Esther and I imagined was that instead of letting Aivide go to teal school Eubala would insist on "nothing but the best" and pull strings to get her into the violet liberal arts college that Nora and Govy attended. This version of Aivide is a lot more explicitly like Stelad than canon Aivide – she has never had a "me remembering when i was nice when i should have said who the fuck do you think you're talking to" moment with a peer. she LOVES saying "who the fuck do you think you're talking to" in clever and unpleasant ways whenever she gets away with it, which.... isn't always or even often, because ultimately this version of aivide has almost no teal peers and no active connection to tealness aside from movies and her mom.

Hilariously, this Aivide knows Nora and Govy but feels nothing for Nora and goes for pitchromancing Govy instead. (I have like three AUs that enable Aivide/Govy, all of it varying levels of #bad).

This is also an Aivide who – for all that she still understands her mother's flaws and her complicated reputation among teals Aivide's age – understands firsthand that her mother as a victim of something frightening and unpleasant just as much as she is an active facilitator of misery for her own stratum. It will take canon Aivide Thieri most of an epilogue to properly conclude my version of Aivide Thieri-Malcos has known from her young childhood in that regard. Aivide Thieri walks through a 300-year-old apartment and draws partially correct conclusions; Aivide Thieri Malcos wakes up every day and wonders if Eubala Malcos is going to send her mom flowers or just throw the vase at her. Normal childhood!

The most obvious takeaway from this is that of every AU aivide I have, this is the one that feels the most genuine softness and affection for her mom. I have profound ideological differences and personal beef with my father but those would take a backseat if someone who is incomprehensibly more powerful than him started tormenting him. That is about where Aivide and Stelad are – seeing each as the other's protectors, even though neither of them can really protect the other from anything, and the two can't even fully understand each other.

The other character dynamics outcome of this AU is that – spoilers for Aivide's long-term character arc, I guess – while canon Aivide comes to see Eubala as a horrible but pitiable woman and gets access to a more complete picture of her than any other living character in the Al2rnia cast – Aivide Thieri-Malcos knows Eubala is pathetic and miserable in addition to being dangerous from age fourteen or so, and that makes her hate her a lot more. She also knows very well that Eubala intends to replace Stelad with her the moment she dies, and isn't thrilled about it. There's nowhere this alternate universe story concept really goes, but I do love to rotate those versions of the characters in my head.

Anyway I know that's only tangentially connected to what you asked but it involves Eubala raising a child Aivide so I figured it couldn't be wholly irrelevant. I wanted to link you to a 2021 curiouscat answer from Esther where they talk about how Eubala would have interacted with a hypothetical Versii-Malcos hybrid. This would would not at all be the same as a Thieri-Malcos but very interesting and VERY sad (for the child) in itself. That said fucking curiouscat has shit the bed again so it was not to be. However, Esther answers a2 questions on tumblr now so I'm sure they'd be happy to share more Eubala lore with you if you want to reach out!