#there isn't much to their character aside from that

[dvchvnde]

when the earth starts spinning backwards

EXCERPT: GEORGIAN ERA AU. ARRANGED MARRIAGE. AGE GAP.

You've been told for most of your life that the measure of a woman's worth laid in the pedigree of her potential suitors.

And maybe that's why—on the eve of your birthday—the pool of your of esteem dwindles to a mere maudlin tear at the bottom of a weather-worn bucket. One swiped up by the trembling finger of your desperate father as he shakes his hand (and within it, the crumpled dowry he had expected to part with on the dawn of your eighteenth year inside his household) at the only man who seems keen to take the heavy burden from his white-knuckled fist.

A man named John Price.

Captain, they say, of the King's Army. Someone who led them to victory on several fronts before being called home year ago when his second wife had passed, marking him a widower with two children. A powerful man on the battlefield, unshakeable in his tenants and faith. A warrior. As fearsome as a wild bear, and hungry for flesh as one, too.

And it's this facet of his character that is given before much else, including the formidable temper that nervously follows when all points of fascinating esteem run dry.

His rage is as legendary as his exploits under the King.

And you're to marry him tomorrow.

A quick, decisive arrangement that brokered no room for negotiations, and likely couldn't since you're well past respectable marrying age and have been already ushered, quietly, into the encompassing title of a spinster. A blemish on your mutable reputation.

But despite the desperate lengths your father had gone to tuck away money for a dowery on the eve of your birth, it had been for naught. Everyone knows the debts your name carries, and any man stupid enough to take you on a bride would only inherit the devastating black hole of your crumbling finances.

Untouchable, it had seemed. Or so those were the whispers late at night.

It's unfathomable a man of his esteem would stoop so low in the social hierarchy for a wife, but from the stilted, haggard conversations you've pried upon, he's in need of a mother to his grieving children. The abysmal state of your family name doesn't matter much when all he needs is a nanny for his children and a pretty thing to warm his bed.

And, they offered begrudgingly, you are rather pretty.

Just much more suited to be the mistress of a Duke rather than a wife of significance to an important advisor to the King.

Envy, you realise, and this pitiless thing called social standing, leaves you very little room to weep over the ill-made match with a stern, ferocious man two decades your senior and twice widowed with three children desperate for comfort you have no idea how to give.

Then again, respectability is more important than comfort, isn't it? And perhaps this is for the best considering your second, and only, option is to agree to warm the bed of a Duke (or several) when he's away from his wife. Who would want to marry the daughter of a penniless estate drowning in so much debt, it's a wonder your father got to keep his flimsy title when the collectors started breathing down his neck, after all? When the jewels were stripped from your neck, the curtains, your clothes and pawned for recompense for a financial loss that happened when you were hardly old enough to feed yourself?

Such is life, you suppose.

And maybe you're giving too much credence to the feverish whispers about your soon-to-be bridegroom.

Two wives—both gifted to him from the kings pool of consorts—who died under strange, mysterious circumstances aside, he might be the polar opposite to the surly beast they make him out to be. One with a temper so formidable, enemies of the country write to air out their grievances after crossing paths with the savage Captain on the battlefield, lamenting the brutal nature of his warfare practises.

It might not be the cage you've been told it will be. Instead of squandering your youth under the thumb of a man so animalistic, they claimed he was birthed by a bear, it could be the escape you've been yearning for.

And perhaps—as silly as the notion is for women of your station—even love.

It's a thought that blots the unease inside your chest. A bandaid over uncertainty even though it's such a silly, silly thing because just what is love to a man thrice wed? Indignity, surely, to stoop so low as to pledge his heart to someone two decades younger than he when an heir has already been secured. Nuptials tied twice before. An old hat at this farce.

What room is left inside of him for a destitute bride with little more than a brooch to your name, and a contemptible debt that will surely ruin any burgeoning matrimony when he doles out whatever sum he agreed to when taking you on as a—

A nanny, maybe.

Pretty thing to warm his bed.

It'll be fine, you think, knuckles bulging from under the thin skin of your fist; so long as there is harmony between you and this man.

That's really all you can ask for, and even that seems overmuch.

He stands across from a man you don't recognise, dressed in a handsome black waistcoat and black breeches. The bristles of his beard—the sight of which gives your mother a terrible start when she sees the unkempt ruggedness of his appearance—brushes against the silk of his white cravat when he angles his chin in defiance at something the man says, arms folded over his broad chest, looking mutinous.

It's not the stance of a man eagerly awaiting his bride but of someone making idle, impatient chatter until the festivities begin.

But—

You can't deny he makes quite a striking spectacle.

His legs are thicker than all of the men in the room, breeches pasted tightly against his skin showing off the beastly appearance they whisper about. More bear than man. And you see it now when he moves. Arms barely contained inside the confines of a thick waistcoat, bulging at the seams. Flexing.

His hair is dark brown. His beard a seamless match to the umbre hue. It peppers along the span of his face, cut clean below the tip of his nose. Bedraggled comes to mind as you take him in. Then—

Wild.

His eyes flash. He rocks forward on the tips of his toes until his nose is a breath away from the man who stands opposite of him, swallowed up in the untenable bulk that threatens to collapse upon him like an unsturdy house. Heaving. The buttons along his jacket stretch taut around every ragged breath he takes, whining under the strain.

He's a beast.

A bear ripped from the wilds and shoved to ill-fitting finery; told to behave.

It's breathtaking, really. All that raw power forced into the shape of a man, one that buzzes with a frenetic energy around the edges as if the potency of it is too much for mortal flesh to carry. Crackling through the air like a whip. His snarling rejoinder clashing against the stained glass mosaic of Mary and Joseph readying their inn for the arrival of baby Jesus, the echo trembling through your bones.

You hadn't realised they were quite so hollow until his growl bounced inside them like a stone tossed into an empty bucket.

Beside you, your mother makes an impatient, contemptuous sound. That, too, echoes, and you smother a wince by burying your hands in the plentiful lace gathering at your thighs. Clinging to the old silks as the men blink from their churlish debate, turning towards the sound.

His gaze is purposeful. He doesn't linger. Doesn't meander. It slashes across the chest of the man standing in front of him like a clutched dagger, stabbing into the thin-lipped frown your mother wears more comfortably than finery with a slight tick of his brow. Settles there just for a moment. Taking her measure. Her worth.

And then it rolls over to you.

Dutiful bride to be.

Standing on fawnlike legs and drenched in a fine sheen of sweat under the swelter of dusty velvet no one expected to ever see the light of day, and jaundiced lace—the one thing your mother was able to convince the debt collectors was worth less than the meagre loaf of bread sitting on the dining room table.

A pittance.

And it's a dismal thing, really. The way he looks at you. Brows pinched. Puckering in displeasure. It's little less than a sneer, and even that feels like a kindness. A blessing.

But you suppose if a woman is fit to lay with the king, then she must be a thing of beauty. That must be the level of esteem he's used to. Lavishness. Sylphlike, pretty things the king is wont to imbibe himself on—a never-ending search for a faerie, or so the rumours go.

But these lissome beauties, the King's hand-offs, birthed this man's children—and rather quickly, you'd heard. Almost scandalously so. But had declared himself the father—at the hurried acceptance of the King—and the matter brought to the church in whispers had been silenced.

You can't help but wonder how you compare in his eyes.

It makes you so acutely aware of every inch of your body that it all starts to sting. Burn. From the way the shoulder of your grown doesn't quite sit tight—having been altered and hemmed over the years to account for your growth; a dress made at the fourteen under the assumption you'd be married away immediately. Extra fabric added at seventeen with illustrious care. There was still hope, you know. And each delicate stitch reflects that. But the ones that follow—twenty, twenty-three, twenty-five—are looser. Less attention was paid to the seam. The project was just that: an obligation. A duty.

Hope ended with the addition scrap of off-colour silk on your eighteenth birthday.

And with such hawkish, keen eyes, you know he must see it.

They dip along the curve of your throat, following a taut, intense line of oceanblue down the drape of it. Puddling at the base where a tear in the lace sits against your neck. Folded into itself because there simply wasn't enough time to mend it properly. A blemish.

Beneath the thick bed of wry, burnt umbre curls, his jaw clenches tight, muscles budging at the sides.

The intensity of endless blue is too much for you to wade through—his stare, the weight of his regard, a crushing thing—and you dip your chin in silent supplication, staring at the floorboards in a shameful display of cowardice to avoid the heat in those eyes. A searing fury hot enough to scald you from this far away.

He doesn't want you.

On the alter, John clenches his fist tight against his thighs as he devours the little bride too frightened to meet his eye, and wonders how much longer this nonsense will take before he can finally sink his cock inside of you—

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

i cant really tell if yuu's involvement in ace's character is more for fanservice reasons or because they really did play a part in his character development.

like in nbc we have malleus choosing to focus on finishing the task at hand as quickly as possible so that they can then find the prefect rather than drop everything there at that moment and prioritizing finding yuu. (iirc) and compared to that we have ace who does put a lot of emphasis on finding yuu especially when no one seems to remember it during the halloween event it feels very traditionally fanservice-y ? and i cant really tell where the line is drawn for ace anymore. and you did mention a lot of other points in another post that you made esp with ace's dream recently dropping and the fact that hes the only guy whos dream yuu was actively involved in idk its a little confusing for me i hope im making sense TT no shade to the shippers im just a little slow in comprehending it all bvbvsjdj

your posts are always really neutral and accurate it just helps to clear up a lot of my confusions and questions i have when playing so thank you for your hard work!

[Referencing this post; you might also find this related post useful in the discussion of Ace and Yuu's relationship!]

DISCLAIMER: I do not mean to invalidate or detract from Ace x Yuu or Malleus x Yuu shippers or anyone who may interpret their relationship as romantic. You should ship what you like and have fun doing it. My reply aims to be more objective, but that should NOT impede on your enjoyment or whatever it is you choose to ship.

iufipaerasfeao Thank you for the feedback! I'm glad you find my posts helpful. I try my best to be objective when it comes to analyzing the story and characters, but there's no true way for someone to be completely neutral. There are definitely times when I have an aside to insert my two cents on a situation or I get super heated about a particular topic. Hopefully I still leave enough space for everyone to come to their own conclusions.

I think it's both fanservice and because Yuu actually plays a big part in Ace's character development? Like, it's technically fanservice but it does not feel egregious because it fits Ace’s teasing nature and Ace's bond with Yuu has been established from the start. He was the first student we met at NRC and we spend so much time with him since then; there's no way Yuu wouldn't have had an impact on him, especially when book 7 is now paralleling the two as people with insecurities about being weak/unable to do anything + not contributing enough and Yuu encouraging him when he finally gets his UM.

I commonly see people joking about Malleus having "missed the meeting about Twst not being a dating sim" and holding him up as "the main love interest". (And to be clear, Twst isn't a dating sim, nor do all Twst fans see the characters romantically; I am only speaking about this in a romantic lens in the context of this post.) However, I think there's a very strong case to be made for Ace as well. The thing is, I also feel that Malleus and Ace fundamentally appeal to two different groups of yumejoshi. Malleus is the tall, dark, and mysterious type you can "fix", the type of guy that would burn the world down for you. Ace is the teasing and approachable boy-next-door that has your back and supports you even when the entire world is against you. This is also evident in the ways they're set up in the main story; Malleus is introduced in a way that encourages much more "filling in of the gaps" due to how little he actually shows up in front of Yuu in the main story. It gives the player a lot of space to imagine what their relationship with him is like because there isn't a ton of interactions in canon to go off of. Meanwhile, Ace has many more canonized interactions with Yuu (eating lunch, doing homework, watching movies, playing video games, etc.), so the effort of thinking about what they actually do over the course of their relationship is already done for you. There is an established friendship and connection with Ace, but you barely see Malleus enough to truly have a strong impact on him or to change him. Does that make sense?

IADUPADF9A9FSBdb I do find it sort of funny that Malleus is basically like, "Oh, something unexpected happened (ie Yuu is missing). We'd better solve this." Not really showing much emotion about them being gone in Nightmare. (Malleus only gets annoyed when Leona begins to take charge; he is not mad at the fact that Yuu is gone.) Meanwhile Yuu is missing in Endless Halloween Night and Ace is the FIRST person to excuse himself to check Ramshackle for them.

If you consult the fandom and the fandom alone, you'd think the situation would be reversed. Edit: Malleus does have his moments of intimacy with Yuu (which I won’t be getting into here because then I fear this post would veer into shipping wars), but the English speaking Twst fandom has a VERY strong bias for Malleus x Yuu. Because of that, there is a tendency to misinterpret or misattribute every little thing that Malleus says and does to support the idea that "Yuu is his most important person". (For example, even though Malleus provides no reaction at all when Skully kisses the back of Yuu's hand, many Malleus fans claimed that he would be very jealous or would harm Skully for doing such a thing. In another Halloween event, Glorious Masquerade, people believed he was angry at Rollo for harming Yuu even though this was not the case; the event states that he was mad because the invitation he had been extended was a fake one.)

It is because of thinking like this that a lot of English speakers genuinely believed Malleus would OB in book 7 in a desperate attempt to prevent Yuu from returning to their original world. Misinterpretations, headcanons, misattributions, and personal projections were conflated with canon, leading to many people to believe that Malleus was closer with Yuu than they actually are. Instead, Malleus ended up OBing because he feared Lilia leaving and he barely even considers Yuu after he OBs. And, ironically, Ace is the character whose dream prominently features Yuu and a scenario in which Yuu doesn't have to leave them forever. It was always Ace that we had a strong relationship with, not Malleus.

Ace is often overlooked even though he has far more canon interactions with Yuu in the main story. I think this could maybe to chalked up to a combination of him being "boring" compared to the literal DARK FAE OP CROWN PRINCE M. Draconia over there and the fact that so many of those "gaps" are already filled by the main story. There's less room for imagination because the game has already defined what Ace and Yuu's relationship entails. Malleus is just so much more appealing when it comes to intrigue and mysteriousness. When you look at it objectively though... Yuu only meets Malleus face-to-face like 5-6 times for brief conversations. (Edit: I’m not counting voice lines because those are arguably directed at the player, not Yuu, to endear the character to you and/or all characters get similar voice line fanservice. The canonicity is questionable since the same familiarity in voice lines is not carried over to the main story.) 5-6 times… That's not nearly long enough to make a huge impact or change in his life (unless you as the player extrapolate and imagine more Malleus and Yuu interactions outside of the ones we see in the main story). At best, I think you could say Malleus is glad he can have a special little friend who doesn't know of his name and status? He doesn't really change because of that relationship though. Malleus doesn't even show up until book 2. But Ace has literally been there since the beginning, canonically spends tons of his free time with Yuu, and has been through several near-life experiences with them (several OBs). He has the chance to bond with Yuu. Malleus does not. (He has given Yuu advice once, sent them a card once, and reassembled a stage for them once; all other interactions in the main story are short talks.)

It makes a lot of sense that Ace would be the one "touched" by Yuu's influence, whether you see it as romantic or platonic. Both he and Malleus (and all the other characters, really) get their moments of fanservice--but very few characters' development is directly impacted by Yuu's presence. Yuu might be there for most of the main story, but they actually get only a few moments to engage with the other boys in the cast to the point of actually changing them. It feels like the changes that occur are more often the result of the other boys (Trey standing up to Riddle and holding his hand afterwards, Epel and Deuce bonding on the beach, the twins telling Azul he's lame but also being the first to check up on him following the OB, Idia finalizing his farewells with Ortho, etc.) Ace just so happens to be an exception to that, as Yuu very clearly plays a big role in his development.

[bunni-v1]

relating to your last ask that included arguments between shadow milk and his lover, i cannot get the following picture out of my head:

his doll, while a bit (a bit more) off-put by the whole truthless recluse situation, is very much "whatever, their soul jam, their business" about it

however-

what grinds their gears is the fact that kids (aka the gingerbrave gang) are involved

i can just imagine them going off on shadow milk like "listen, i get it, your plans but they are kids. literal children?? keep them out of this-" "no, doll, listen, they're scheming kids-"

ik this isn't really an ask, but i just wanted to share it :)) love your writing, you're amazing, and your shadow milk headcanons live rent free in my brain (actually i am paying them-)

Lolololol (Feel like a mysmes character typing ts... okay), I guess we can say this is ur rent. I'm happy for your payment though, it's good food for thought my love! Have a little midnight snack as a treat!

Just imagine you're someone who's more compassionate. It's something that Shadow Milk Cookie cherishes about you... when it's directed at him. You're always worrying over him and his little henchmen, Candy Apple especially since she's so young. It's annoying, but it's sweet how much you dote on them, and he can't say he dislikes the idea of you in a more parental role...

It becomes an issue when those little pests come around. You've never nosed your way into his business at all, leaving things between him and Pure Vanilla to be what they are. He prefers it like that, keeping you out of trouble was always a positive on his mind. Oh, but then those cute little annoying snotty nosed brats come along and ruin everything.

It wouldn't have been an issue if you hadn't overheard him threaten to drown them. It not like he was actually going to, he was just poking at Truthless Recluse, that's all. You didn't take it though, you were all kinds of pissed off at him.

He thinks it's a silly thing to be upset about, you know he didn't care enough about those kids to do much of anything to them. Yet, you remain upset, even after things are done and Compassionate Pure Vanilla has TEMPORARILY taken him and his plans down. It stumps him, he can't possibly wrap his mind around what's gotten into you. Such a small insignificant act is nothing compared to half of what you've seen him do.

When you refuse to say more than a few words to him, he starts to worry. What did he do wrong? Well, you told him, but why was it so bad this time? The best answers come from the source, of course, but getting it out of you might be a little harder than he likes.

"Doll? Dolly? Little star? Won't you talk to me?" He pouts, trailing behind you like a lost puppy.

You might've teased him if you weren't so upset now. You keep your nose upturned, doing your best not to crack under his relentless pressure. He could be so persistent about these things, and normally you would give, but he'd crossed a line this time. You didn't mess around with children, and he should've known better.

A drawn-out sigh comes from behind you, "Are you still upset about the drowning thing? It was all in good fun I promise! Nothing to worry your pretty little head over!"

He didn't know better, though. For the former fount of knowledge -- and someone who could literally read minds if he wanted to -- he was terribly unaware sometimes. It made you so angry, and you felt bad for being angry because he really didn't get it.

"They're just insignificant little kids, it's a silly thing to be angry about." He continues, and oh that gets a reaction out of you.

You turn around to face him, the boredom in his expression only making that anger bubble up more and more. You really can't hold it in anymore.

"Exactly, they're kids! Just kids, they don't have any stake in this. Why couldn't you let well enough alone for once!" You shout, and it feels so good to get out. Pettiness aside, you'd wanted to get it through his head since this all started.

You watch his face shift through surprise and annoyance and then flatten into an unreadable expression. It was unsettling to see, especially pointed in your direction. Still, you tried to stand your ground, though you'd never felt so small next to him. He lets the silence linger in a purposeful move, you're not sure why. It keeps you on edge the whole time, unable to tell what his next move might be.

"Dolly, they were in my way, I had no choice-" He starts, but you've had enough of the manipulation and sitting quietly.

"What threat are children to you?" Your voice breaks halfway through the sentence, tears you didn't realize were building pouring over your cheeks, "You are so frustrating sometimes. In what universe would I ever be alright with hurting children? Sometimes it's like you don't even know me!"

You don't realize he's in front of you until he's lifting your face in his hand with uncharacteristic gentleness. His face is still flat, but you see the worry shining behind his eyes.

"Y'know you shouldn't lie to the literal embodiment of deceit," He says quietly as he brushes your tears away.

You know you shouldn't, but you laugh a little at that, "I'm sorry. I'm just upset."

"No, really?"

"You don't get to joke around right now," you scoff with a halfhearted shove at his shoulder.

He hums, leaning into your vision so you have to look at him, "It's making you smile, though."

"Shadow Milk Cookie."

"Okay, okay. I get the message," He backs off, "Just don't cry anymore, please?"

You smile, "Maybe if you promise not to involve those kids more than you have to, please?"

He seems to think it over like it was a hard decision. He doesn't think much longer when you flatten a glare on him, "Alright, it's a promise! You can look at my fingers, they're not crossed either! I'll keep my word!"

You scoff at him, "What do I see in you?"

"My charm and wit, of course!" He puffs up like a proud cat, the usual grin back on his face.

"Just kiss it better you dummy!"

"Whatever you ask for, you shall receive, my little star!"

And kiss it better he does, until you can hardly remember why you were so mad at him to begin with.

[paradoxcase]

There's no problem whatsoever with someone calling something a "holy grail" in a spec-fic story unless you insist on claiming that everyone in the spec-fic story is speaking modern English. Otherwise, it's just a translation from whatever they really said. Making a specific reference to None Pizza With Left Beef could technically be a translation, but it would have to be something really involved, and honestly it's just much more interesting worldbuilding to make up an in-universe reference and use that instead. (This paragraph isn't about the Locked Tomb specifically, I'm just spelling out here what the fundamental difference is between referencing the holy grail versus referencing None Pizza With Left Beef.)

But when we look at the Locked Tomb specifically, your point about the holy grail also reveals that assuming the characters are speaking modern English introduces a lot of issues that other spec-fic doesn't have to deal with. Sure, we can say that all of these phrases came from John. But Abigail never knew John, nor did many of the other characters in this story. A major theme of Gideon the Ninth is that almost no one has ever seen him or interacted with him. Sure, I guess you could say that Augustine somehow passed this down to the Fifth House, but like exactly how much time did Augustine spend teaching his House about English figures of speech and the whole Western Canon, and does it actually make character sense for that to have happened? This is even setting aside the whole idea that John has somehow stopped language from changing for ten thousand years during which he only interacted with a handful of other people.

Look, I love this series, but please let's stop pretending that its linguistic worldbuilding is somehow secretly brilliant for whatever reason. It is demonstratively the weakest thing about the series. The series does not have to be perfect to be enjoyable, or even to be really deep in certain respects, which it is. Let's appreciate it for the things it does really well, instead of writing posts praising it for things it does really badly.

I keep seeing people complaining about the memes in TLT as some kind of crappy authorial impingement on the narrative.

And I do get why they might feel like that when you're suddenly getting nerfed by 'none Houses, left grief' in the middle of John being Awful.

But I've yet to see anyone complain about Abigail calling something unique "a holy grail", despite the fact that surely this is also a jarring thing for an evil space necromancer to be casually using as a reference point.

Obviously the inclusion of the memes is a choice on Tamsyn Muir's part. But they very much have meaning in universe: the thing about every single person in this society casually referencing Tumblr memes from the 20-teens is that can only come from one place: the man who ended the world those memes came from, but hangs onto them as a little esoteric connection. And 10,000 years of his shitty little jokes and unexplained references filtering out into the society he created mean that Harrow can sarcastically talk about how Gideon "studied the blade" or Ianthe can reference SNL as easily as Abigail can name check the holy grail.

In retrospect, "none Houses, left grief" sits alongside "how many babies died in the bomb, Gaius?" as part of the chilling trail of breadcrumbs towards the realisation of what John Gaius is, what he did, and just how awfully casual he is about it.

[bridoesotherjunk]

why do people even like the sonic movies? they're not even good, people probably just like the feeling of having cyberbullied a movie studio into compliance.

the movies completely mischaracterize sonic, turning him from a confident, somewhat rebellious, independent cool-kid figure to a weird lonely outcast who spouts a hundred cringey pop-culture references a minute and befriends a *cop* of all people. that's like the last person sonic would associate with. he's against the establishment and for freedom.

jim carrey isn't even recognizable as dr. eggman, he's just 90s jim carrey, tails is the "friend in distress", knuckles has a very unfitting voice that just sounds really weird and borderline racist because 'haha indigenous-coded character is the dumb one' and shadow is just some kind of fancast to appease the 'oOoOo kEaNu' fans. aside from tails all the voices are celebrities who sound nothing like the character, they couldn't even be bothered to give the original voices like jason griffith back as much as possible. the third movie in particular was literally just a worse version of sonic adventure 2, you're better off just playing the game again because the movie felt like yet another overly-hyped nostalgia cash-grab.

This is going to be such a hugely nerdy response, I love Sonic. I've played a bunch of the games, I've watched a bunch of the shows- I genuinely love the Sonic franchise. So I apologize to anyone who follows me that doesn't care about Sonic.

Look, you can have your own opinions on the Sonic movies, I know I have mine and i CERTAINLY have opinions on fucking Paramount, but I Completely disagree on the over-hyped nostalgia cash grab comment. The director of these movies literally has been working on the Sonic games since the early 2000s. (Shadow 2005 my beloved) He very clearly LOVES these characters and clearly puts a lot of love and care into these movies. I've seen videos from Sonic youtubers pointing out all of the little things he's added to these movies from games HE WORKED ON. The man has posted online about Sonic statues and figurines he's bought. The writers and the many animators/animation studios also all have worked with Sonic for YEARS. Several of them help animate the games on a regular fucking basis. The only person who genuinely has not seemed to be a massive Sonic fan has been the composer.

Putting the rest of this under a read more because it got real long real fast

----

""""the third movie in particular was literally just a worse version of sonic adventure 2, you're better off just playing the game again"""" --- not everything needs to be perfectly lore accurate, dude. reLAX. Sonic's got such insane lore, I honestly never expected them to make ANY of the movies 1 to 1 with the games. When I saw the second movie I was shocked they even did the Chaos Emeralds! Sonic's lore is WEIRD. It's not simple to try and translate into movie form.

Take this from the perspective of someone who is very very fucking white, but dude.. your comment on Knuckles completely took me the fuck out - borderline racist- Knuckles has been supposed to be black since the very beginning. from his very first game. His character has been a questionably racist issue for YEARS. - they originally had him Jamaican in the old games. He was supposed to have an accent and everything. ((The old games and their manuals were probably way more fucking racist than anything they've done with him recently, but I digress. His name was going to be fucking "Dreads" for crying out loud. Just... yikes, Sega.)) ALSO Knuckles is probably smarter than he's been IN A WHILE, in the movies, too. In the shows and games he had become an absolute shell of who he used to be. Like, sorry but you're just straight wrong about him being dumb in the movies. Yeah he's not as intelligent as Tails, but he's not stupid. I'd argue that he's smarter in the movies than he's been in fucking years in the games and shows.

Tails is the "friend in distress" - Sonic Forces would like a word, my guy. Nothing will ever be worse than that shit.

Jim Carrey... Literally with Jim Carrey as Eggman - the fucking VA for Eggman in the games is also a piece of shit, so there is no winning with this one. Both of them suck. Who else would you have picked to play him, though, honestly? Like, I wouldn't even picture Jim Carrey, but I genuinely have no idea who the hell I would pick to play Eggman. He's not really a character I've ever pictured in live action before.

And I'm sorry, again, your opinion on the movies is your own- but they really did not mischaracterize Sonic as far as being cringe - he's always been fucking cringe. He's always made references to current pop culture shit. (Some mediums are worse for it than others, but whatever.)

Now I WILL give you --- Him being friends with a cop- yeah, that one is absolute dogshit. Sonic would fucking never. That's ass.

I have no strong opinions on Keanu, like... at all, so I dunno. I would have absolutely preferred Jason come back, but Hollywood's gonna Hollywood now. When I first heard they kept Tails's VA from the games I was honestly shocked as hell. Hollywood does not do that anymore. It's ALL fucking celebrities. (((But you really can't say shit about Ben not sounding 'like Sonic' because Sonic's voice has varied WIDELY from the games and the shows and shit. Sonic's voice has really not been consistent. NONE of the characters's voices have. Ryan and all the cast that have been working since Sonic Boom have been doing it the longest, so I mean, they're the closest to a standard we're gonna get.)))

[altocat]

I was asleep when all the Lucretia stuff was going down but I still wanna throw in my two cents, and it's this:

I think a lot of the hate towards her is people forgetting that she does not have the information that we as an audience do Especially during the time she was pregnant. No one on the Jenova Project knew that Jenova was an alien Aside From Hojo. The discussion around her choosing to experiment on her child has to be predicated by the fact she thought Jenova was an Ancient and Hojo would have Never shared anything that contradicted this to her. By the time she started having those visions and her body started falling apart it was already far too late, and it's not like Lucretia understood Why any of that was happening.

By virtue of the us the audience knowing what Jenova is, that knowledge gets projected onto characters who don't have it and never did which muddies their actions and intentions. This is a phenomenon I've seen many times in different media contexts, it happens all the time. Gast and Gillian (very occasionally) get the same treatment at times but I rarely see the same visceral hatred directed at them (and when Gast gets some side eyeing it's, justifiably, for the other morally dubious shit he did and his narrative being a confusing mess for the past 30 years lmao).

But even bringing Gast back in for a moment when he learned Jenova was an alien it was long after the fact and seemed to send him into a mental spiral. We simply do not know how Lucretia would have reacted to this information, and it more than likely wouldn't have been good. She didn't even know that Sephiroth was going to be taken away from her; acting like she had full information is just wrong.

THISSSSSSSSSSS

Lucrecia isn't even a known sadist like Hojo or a callous bastard like Gast. She's literally just...some lady. Who evidently didn't have as much power within Shinra as she assumed. Hojo likely saw her as a prime opportunity to accomplish a goal. And since Gillian and Gen's mother had already served their purpose to the project, Lucrecia probably thought such actions were logical.

And honestly? Ignoring all that, ignoring her overall knowledge, culpability, etc. When is it EVER okay for someone to be emotionally abused by their husband? When is it okay for someone to have their baby being taken from them before ever even getting the chance to hold them? The person wasn't "asking" for this. They didn't bring this upon themself. No one wants to go through this shit. It's horrible. Losing a child is an unfathomable pain that I hope no one EVER HAS to go through.

Vincent himself, whether out of love or understanding or empathy, decided that telling Lucrecia the truth about what happened to Sephiroth would only prolong her suffering. His own actions, whether right or wrong in your eyes, cemented that there was no point in further bringing Lucrecia emotional damage. He chose to be merciful. He chose compassion because he KNEW that she was in enough pain already.

Why can't we?

[panilagidna]

One of the things that really bothers me about Abel's character is his age. According to biblical canon, Abel isn't much younger than Adam (relatively), which would put him at 7,000+ years old. But aside from his design drop in the Christmas trailer, which doesn't quite fit that description (hello, Saint Peter), we've had a lot of his behavior from the showers. And while the former can be justified by the vagueness of his death, the latter, well....

!Spoiler alert!

Abel literally acts like a boy drummer in a school boy band, nothing more. Bro doesn't even know the name of the weapon used by exorcists. How were they even going to make him Adam's successor?

This wouldn't be a problem if he was at least Charlie's age or something like that. But he's 7,000 years old and he asks his general if he can take HIS LATE FATHER'S guitar IN HIS NEW OFFICE.

Not to mention that when paired with Emily (the youngest seraphim, I don't think she's over a thousand years old) and Saint Peter, who's about 2,000 years old (if the real Saint Peter ever existed, and this one isn't the hyped mascot that Lute called him in court), Abel doesn't even seem like an older comrade, but an equal. Knowing that people are swiping him with both of them, it feels a bit... strange?

And if we stick to this theory, why is Adam the first human soul in Paradise? Isn't that why they made him an archangel (or partly for that)? Because Abel, by all accounts, is no different in strength or knowledge from the typical victor.

(Screenshot stolen from Twitter)

The funny thing is that I can totally understand both sides here. On the one hand: Abel in the series is a stupid chubby twink who literally gives off the vibes of a choir boy from a Catholic church (let me beat you up for this joke in the comments), who you can't give more than 20 by a stretch. On the other hand, according to the probable logic of the series, he's already like 7 thousand stupid chubby twinks and the stubble would be quite justified.

And the funny thing is that I'm 100% convinced that this issue will either not be raised at all in season 2, or it will be something minor that will break the lore even more.

If this post gets around, I'll make a second part where I'll analyze Abel's design a little more, try to come up with a stupid theory that would explain both his hair color and the correspondence of his age to his behavior and Adam's dislike for him.

[ckret2]

@rysta-makes-art said: Everyone thinks endgame is Billford but little do they know that Billstan has been peaking its little head since the meaningful conversations they had while running from the tooth fairy. Their handcuffs were foreshadowing for Bill later tying his happiness to Stan.

Okay you're joking but I actually am deliberately using Stan to make a meaningful contrast with Ford. Narrative foil type thing.

All "haha isn't this a hilarious thing for Stan to say" aside, unironically & sincerely he does look at Bill's physical human body and think it's drop-dead gorgeous. If he saw it as a magazine pinup with zero context and no clue about who was inhabiting that body, he'd be stashing that issue in his dresser drawer for the rest of his life.

But he thinks Bill's body is 100% attractive; and everything inside the body is 0% attractive. And they feel absolutely no romantic spark toward each other.

Dr. Ford Monsterfucker Pines, "I've always been attracted to the strange and the strange has always been attracted to me," is drawn to the weird, the unique, the supernatural, the alien. He's drawn to brilliance, knowledge, mysteries, secrets—and to the opportunity to acquire that brilliance, that knowledge, those mysteries, and those secrets for himself. He gravitates toward people that strike him as important, and he gravitates toward people that make him feel important. He wants someone he can learn from, someone who can teach him and show him things he doesn't know, someone he can have a conversation with without holding back and without them turning up their nose at him for being too weird, too nerdy, too much of a know-it-all, too himself. He wants someone who looks at his high ambitions not as a joke or a sign of arrogance, but as a goal they want to help him reach.

What he isn't drawn to is human beings.

Ford thinks Bill's body is 0% attractive; and (once they get past 30 years of hatred, torment, and murder attempts) he thinks everything inside the body is 100% attractive.

Bill identifies 0% with his body. 100% of his sense of self and self-worth is tied to what's inside his body.

If Bill were to spontaneously shed his body and float up into the sky shiny and bright and triangular again, everything Stan finds attractive would be left collapsed on the floor. Everything Ford finds attractive would finally be unleashed.

And that's exactly why billford is endgame, even when there's so many characters whose eyes practically pop outta their skulls when they look at this hot babe with the big blonde curls and curves that could kill a man. Because their eyes get stuck on his body. Ford, disinterested, looks straight past the body—which makes Bill feel like Ford actually sees him.

Stan thinking bill’s “an objectively beautiful woman” is one of the funniest ideas presented in this fic to me im literally always thinking abt that. Stans like ‘if he closes his creepy eyes and doesnt talk and i also dont talk and have a couple beers and pretend i cant see the bleached spot on the windowsill where sixer kept that creepy gold statue of him for years then-“

that's it, that's it exactly.

Listen, you've gotta consider what we know about what Stan's attracted to. Carla "Hot Pants" McCorkle. Lazy Susan. Darlene. I'm gonna count Eda "Marilyn" Clawthorne, it's close enough to canon for me. What does this tell us Stan's into?

big hips/butts (Carla HOT PANTS—might not be THAT big but Stan considers it her most defining feature; Susan; Darlene & her goddam spider ass)

big hair (all four of them)

not turned off by con artist vibes & blatant fake flattery (definitely Darlene; presumably Marilyn)

not bothered by weird eyes/only using one eye (Susan) or even inhuman eyes (Darlene)

gold tooth???? (Marilyn)

It's not a long list. But by god, Bill's human body fits it.

And that's very funny. It's like if a swamp monster shambled up to the porch wearing an ill-fitting disney princess gown and Stan went "well, you've gotta admit, that dress is gorgeous"

[hpowellsmith]

The Earth Has Teeth Progress Report: Feb #2

I did some Chapter 2 revisions and stat tweaking this fortnight! And I've been continuing writing Chapter 3, and it's so Large. (This evening I'm 84% through the draft.) It makes sense, because a lot of it is about exploring a new place and meeting new characters, and having some new kinds of interactions, but my goodness. I just checked my spreadsheets and it's larger than the Chapter 3s of Noblesse Oblige, Blood Money, or Creme de la Creme!

(This is what always happens when I go into a project with the aim of making it shorter than my last one...)

Anyway, it's been really fun putting the PC in new situations and letting them explore more unfamiliar parts of the world. They've certainly been through it in the earlier chapters, so this is a chance for them to recover a bit. Or not, if they'd rather!

Aside from that, it's been really fun to tell more people about the game! Today I wrote a post going into some more detail about the setting, so do take a look if you're curious about learning more!

Next fortnight, I'll be continuing with Chapter 3 which isn't much of a twist, but! I'm aiming to have the Chapter 3 draft finished and tested by the next time I do one of these reports.

Thank you for reading, and I hope you have a good weekend!

[sophieinwonderland]

I hate having to wonder if any space even slightly system-adjacent is safe for me. Not even as a self-proclaimed endo. As someone who doesn’t label their origin because I don’t feel like analyzing my entire life with a microscope for if I actually count as traumatized.

I joined a Moon Knight discord because I want to maybe talk about the character and don’t know any fans in real life. They have a role for systems. But I’m scared to take it. Searching the terms “endo” and “endogenic” only brought up negativity. I don’t want to be caught in syscourse if it gets brought up again. I still don’t understand how you can have read all the comics and have come out of it still anti-endo. But that’s another story.

I’m reminded of the time that I left a discord for The Brave Little Toaster because of a prominent anti-endo in it. We’re literally here to discuss cartoon sentient appliances. Why do you care if endos interact with you. I hate it.

I've been thinking about how to answer this for a while...

First, right off the bat, I will tell you that there are plenty of places that are open to all kinds of plurality if you look. But you do have to look, unfortunately. It's not going to be clear immediately where those places are going to be. Obviously, any plural server that is dedicated specifically to endogenic and mixed origin systems is probably going to be safe. But it's going to get more complicated as you venture out from there.

Once you do get out of there, you might have to make room for yourselves.

And that means asking yourself if it's worth it to fight for your place in the community. And knowing that you could very easily end up dogpiled and banned anyways if the community is against you.

Let's say that you were out in the server as pro-endo. What is the worst thing that could happen? Well, I guess it's that everyone gangs up on you and accuses you of faking. But if this happens, you can at least be prepared for it. And it will hopefully not be as bad if it's expected.

You could also respond by linking and quoting academic sources that discuss endogenic and non-disordered systems.

Eric Yarbrough's Transgender Mental Health is the most explicit source stating for a fact that you can be plural without trauma or a disorder. And it has the backing of being peer-reviewed and published by the American Psychiatric Association. You can also quote the boundaries with normality from the ICD-11, which make it clear that you can experience multiple distinct personality states without a disorder.

You can also point out how Moon Knight is himself a mixed origin system. I'm sure that could stir up some fun discussion.

You can work to educate people in that space, and maybe make them more accepting. And maybe you will fail anyways. That's part of the problem of taking any risk. But really, there isn't much risk for trying aside from people saying mean things to you.

I mean, sure, they could ban you. But you probably wouldn't have stayed in a space you didn't feel safe in regardless.

To be clear, I'm not saying this to pressure you into a confrontation you don't want to be in. It is totally valid to take care of your mental health first. If you don't want to be involved in syscourse, you shouldn't have to involve yourself in it. That is completely 100% fair.

I guess what I'm really getting at is that... It absolutely sucks that more spaces aren't just accepting by default... But there aren't going to be any spaces that are accepting without people who are willing to educate others. That absolutely doesn't have to be you. Again, nothing wrong with prioritizing yourself and your mental health. But it will have to be someone. If these spaces that hold bigoted views aren't even exposed to anyone with contrary opinions, they will never change. Because no one can possibly realize that they are wrong about something without education. Misinformation has never been corrected by silence.

Again, this is not me trying to get you to be the one to break the silence. I don't want it to come off that way. But I want to explain why there are a lot of servers with anti-endo views still today. In some cases, it is just irrational hate and bigotry. And these people will double down no matter what research they are presented with to the contrary. But in other cases, it is being misinformed. It is people whose only frame of reference for what endogenic systems are has come from anti-endos.

If you look at queer acceptance, it didn't just come out of nowhere. Queer people had to fight at every turn to achieve what they did. And the fight is still far from over. But if you look at virtually every place that is accepting of queer people today, it is that way because someone decided to fight for it. Because someone made an effort to educate and spread information. And doing this put themselves at risk. Not just risk of enduring mean words, but risk of being beaten or jailed for what they were, if not much worse.

These types of physical risks don't exist online. But it still holds true that if we want acceptance, we will have to put the work in. I wish that we could have been born in a century where someone else had already done all of this. Where systems of all kinds were already fully accepted. But sadly, we aren't there yet.

And that means that it will fall to us, to this community, to be an instrument of change that will let systems in the future be born into a world that we wish we had been born into.

[franeridan]

i just realised but i really like the way hoyo goes about writing geniuses, there's so much variety in the way they're handled that the fact that they're geniuses isn't even that relevant to their overall character and mostly just informs their abilities and interests, it's fun

[savagewildnerness]

Thank you so much for responding, and for making me feel happy I sent in my ask.

I thought I would repost to my blog to express generally: I'm here for anyone/everyone's conversations on any character or feelings any time. If anyone ever wants to chat on any character or topic, I'm interested in your thoughts.

I hope we can all try to discuss characters and events in S3 going forward in a way that shows consideration for each other. We're all so excited for S3, right? So let's make it even more fun for ourselves. It's up to us to create the space we want to be part of.

And in the end, it's interesting to discuss when you have different viewpoints even moreso than just totally agreeing with each other. As you can just reason with yourself in your own head to agree with yourself. I guess one thing we can take from Lestat and Nicki's conversation is the message that discussion from opposing viewpoints can be very fulfilling! As long as we're all aware we deeply care and so some points can touch nerves, so let's be mindful of that, while discussing all of the gothic glory.

I do realise I need to manage my expectations for S3. It's impossible Nicolas could be as important to any adaption as he is in my own heart, as I have thought on his experience so much, and he has meant so much to me for so long. And I don't imagine Nicolas will even be on screen nearly as much as I'd imagine, let alone hope, before we even get into what Lestat and Nicki's relationship might be. Obviously there are practical changes to the characters which we already know which will affect the story before additional adaptation. And of course, the TV show is heading towards its main endgame of Loustat... which the books do as well. But romance is one of many themes present in the books, whereas it's going to be the biggest feeling on TV (and lucky us as it already is beautiful and we are gifted with the combination of writing and casting and all creativity to make it the epitome of all it can be!)

Also, in terms of shipping generally (& not particularly relevant to IWTV, where obviously Loustat are meant to be!) there's obviously love and things that aren't love. However, specific ships aside... why would anyone wish to rank any love against each other? If you or someone you know in real life loved another human and that relationship ended... you can think in extreme terms for example it being ended by death, but you can also just think of a breakup or falling out of love... and then you fall in love again. Does loving someone new make the love you once had less? No. Is something new lesser because you loved in the past? No. That something ends doesn't mean it never was. Even when it ends badly or fades away. If your first partner died and you loved them, could you never love again? Of course you could. And could your new love be the love of your life, even if you deeply loved before. Of course.

There are powers vampires have that humans do not, but an infinite capacity for love is happily something any of us can possess. Would you rank every love of your own or that another person has on a scale of more or less? It's silly, isn't it? Every love is different because what is between people is different. But even in short, human lifespans, it is possible to genuinely love, deeply, more than just once in a lifetime and without having to quantify it. Again, none of that is VC related. I just wanted to shift the perspective on love in general.

Going back to our vampires: we're not talking about humans. We have immortal vampires. And hopefully, with Loustat, the show will want to convey some kind of poignant message about what love could be if you had eternity to know and understand and accept and love each other... and your selves. And Loustat will have that. Lucky them. And lucky us who'll get to feel every ounce of what Jacob and Sam will convey for Louis and Lestat. And given what they already have conveyed - oof - how much more we have yet to feel!

Love and accept the entirety of each other... and of your selves too, our vampire friends.

Be all the beautiful things you are and be them without apology. For all eternity.

(Ugh, it's going to be beautiful!)

OK, I want to weigh in on the Nicolas discussion. I don’t want to do it anonymously because I prefer conversations where we talk to each other in person, knowing who we are.  I am aware you have written several long posts on Nicolas already now and are likely sick of discussing him by this point.  And I can see you dislike him and that’s fine, though I am a bit scared to send this, only because I love Nicki.  We don’t need to agree though.  And I obviously know Nicolas is a (deeply! To say the least!) flawed being. Nicolas himself would obviously agree with that!  I know we will disagree as I believe human Nicolas truly loved Lestat, as much as was possible for a deeply damaged person such as him to, but I think I don’t think picking at an issue we have opposite viewpoints on is the way to find common ground here.

So I mainly want to say that there are those of us who love Nicolas and always did, for himself.  Nicolas was a very important character to me when I first read The Vampire Lestat when I was 12 - for himself, unconnected to Lestat, honestly.  Likely I didn’t understood the full depth of his cynicism then.  But I think I did have some idea.  In any case, I felt exactly the same way Nicki does about his violin playing, about myself.  And it’s way deeper than just the violin playing.  How Nicolas feels about that is a reflection of how he feels about himself and how he feels about the world, as I see it.  This is a way of perceiving oneself which was a way I saw myself that I had never seen written in fiction before or since and I had never heard any other real person speak that they perceived themself in this way, nor did anyone appear to understand how I perceived myself.  And I had had that kind of self-perception always (I have examples of how I felt aged 5 that would relate.)  As such, Nicolas was deeply meaningful to me because he remains a representation in art of how I see myself and of how I experience existence.  (I am not saying I am like Nicolas in all ways.  I have some of his nihilistic worldview, but I am 100% with Lestat in Lestat’s idealism and I am absolutely way more positive than Nicki, thankfully!  If only I could be with Lestat in his enduring practical skills too.  Alas, I have zero of Lestat’s skills in any area!)

Anyway, I don’t want to get into discussion of minute details of the books (unless you want to!  I’m happy to!  But I think it’s pointless when your stance is clear) but your posts have seemed to me to suggest there’s something disingenuous about people loving Nicolas, so I suppose I just wanted to say that isn’t the case for all of us.  I can obviously only speak for myself.  I’ll just say I love Nicolas for himself, for the beauty and the tragedy of his relationship with Lestat and for the fact that he is dead because that he is dead is the whole point.  (I love tragedy and would kill all the characters I love most in art in the end myself!)

Since the previous anon discussed Nicki’s turning, I’ll chime in on that one point and will say I think it is good for both Lestat and Nicki that Nicolas was made a vampire only because I think things would have been even worse for both Nicolas and Lestat had Lestat not turned him.  Nicolas would have resented Lestat and lived for even briefer a time as a mortal than he did as a vampire.  And Lestat, though I think initially he might have felt he'd done the right thing to not turn Nicolas... Nicki's end was awful enough as it was.  Imagine the alternative: which absolutely would have been Nicolas dying young as a mortal.  And then Lestat would always have felt guilt and would have wondered *What if I had turned him, could I have saved him?* - which would perhaps be an unendurable what if for Lestat, because the potential he'd have to live with there is that maybe they could have lived immortally together, and Lestat would never be able to know the truth - which was that would never have been the case.  But imagine how awful that would have been for Lestat to endure for eternity.

Anyway, Louis and Lestat are meant to be together for eternity.  I find it deeply frustrating when people pit Nickistat and Loustat against each other in any way.  And while I hope we all agree that Jacob Anderson has deepened Louis in a beautiful way, personally I find that as Louis becomes a character who appears less often in the books, the way you understand and feel his deep and true love for Lestat only increases.  I adore about book Louis how you can feel his love and empathy without him even needing to put every feeling into words.  He is so suffused with love, you feel it emanating from the pages.  I also find it deeply frustrating if anyone pits Nickistat and Loustat against each other as I feel that Lestat loved Nicolas and… even if you think Nicki never loved Lestat, I hope you would agree that Nicolas allowed Lestat space to express his true thoughts and feelings on deep topics in a way Lestat had never truly experienced before… and I personally think this experience of having space to be seen as his full self is part of why Lestat is later able to love Louis from the first moment with an unconditional love where he loves the entirety of Louis.  And that Lestat is able to love Louis in this way, as I see it enables Louis to love Lestat unconditionally in return, in time and then Loustat are able to have a love for eternity.

I don’t know how much detail to go into.  I guess I wanted to respond because I want to say people can love Nicolas and it be nothing against Louis or Loustat and also people can love Nicolas for his book-self.  Your post where you refer to Nicki’s main point being to serve Lestat’s narrative makes me sad, because I hope I can feel from TV Nicolas as I do from book Nicolas.  (Which obviously doesn’t mean everyone has to like him.)  I hope Nickistat is beautiful and has meaning in order to make how it ends all the more painful and tragic.  Obviously it could be that way.  We haven’t seen what the TV show will give us yet.  But I want all of the big emotions myself.  So that’s what I hope for.

I honestly cannot understand conversations that pit Nickistat and Loustat against each other.  Nicki is long dead when Lestat meets Louis and even longer dead on TV.  And by that point, for Lestat, I think Nicolas will remain forever a cipher to what a human life could have been for Lestat.  His only experience of mortal love and life and creating art as a mortal, and loving art created in the moment by another mortal he personally loved was with Nicolas.  The idea of them living together: loving, creating, laughing, growing old and dying is an eternal “what if” that can never be reached.  The only impossible in an eternity of possible.  It never would have been like that.  It’s as imaginary as a fairytale.  But the imagining of what that could have been can never be tainted by reality for Lestat as it is impossible to reach it.  

Towards the end of Nicki’s life, I love the dichotomy that Lestat simultaneously cannot stand the sight of Nicolas AND cannot bear the thought of him not existing.  I love to feel both emotions coexisting.  And I love also that it is kinder at this point for Nicolas to die rather than to suffer as he does too.  Just as it was a kindness for Lestat to shoot his mare.  

I desire all of the complicated emotions.

Wow.  I didn’t mean to do so long an ask.  I basically just wanted to do a post wherein I give the perspective of someone who loves Nicolas and also loves Loustat, to say it doesn’t have to be exclusive.  However, I will also add that it’s NEVER ok to send hate to anyone for any reason.  Let alone something as small as different views on characters.

Sorry this is long.  You don’t have to answer as you must be sick of Nicki discussion now.  But I needed to write this… maybe selfishly, for me.

Thank you for being respectful. Can I offer you some friendly advice to maybe explain why most of these Nicki anons are coming across as disingenuous?

I'm glad you sent this, because it's a perfect example of how things used to be with the old school fandom. You are one of the few who seems to enjoy the character for the character himself, which is perfectly fine. Like I've said, I don't care who likes who or why. Just don't ignore the canon facts and act like someone wasn't what they were or act like a relationship wasn't what it was — I'm not saying you are doing this FYI. I'm saying it's what these anons are doing, and that has always been my issue and the fact there are certain ones hellbent on pushing this nonsense and harassing the ones who dare to say "actually no that's not the truth." I am glad you appear to be level-headed enough to not fall into that category, but that brings me to my advice based on my own personal observations of this new fandom mindset.

My advice is to distance yourself from ones like these anons who prove their fixations on Nicki are only because of a ship war. I mean, they tell on themselves with their own words and their childish tantrums and their passive-aggressive trolling, and they are making other genuine fans, such as yourself, look like clowns. As I said, the same thing happened with Loumanders, and I genuinely felt bad for the few real ones, because the bad seeds did their absolute best to ruin the entire bunch with their delusional bullshit, and that's exactly what is happening now with Nickistat fans. They are making the character into an utter joke and making it an insufferable topic filled with out of control fanon and ignoring the literal book canon in service of pretending like Nicki was this sweeping wholesome and tender love of Lestat's life who loved him so much and was so much better than Louis and so good to Lestat (again why is Louis even part of the discussion?) and was just an innocent and misunderstood mentally ill victim of Lestat's cruelty, and the book canon directly contradicts all of that. Again, the Loumanders did the same thing. I don't know if you remember all my insane "Loumand tender love" anons? It's history repeating itself, which brings me to something else about which I want to caution you as I can see this is deeply personal for you.

I hope the show depicts the relationship within the parameters of the book canon — the good and the bad and everything in between — and does it justice exactly because of what it represented for Lestat. I do actually agree with some of your points about how the relationship impacted Lestat and how it did provide him an outlet he'd never before experienced, and that just makes what eventually happened all the more horrific for Lestat.

However, as I have cautioned other Nickistat fans, I would prepare myself based on what Rolin did with Loumand. One could argue the two relationships are different, because Lestat genuinely loved Nicki and by default that makes it a different situation, and I am also beyond irritated and frustrated when these relationships are stupidly pitted against each other, but within the parameters of what Rolin is doing overall? They're not different, because what Rolin is doing is twisting everything in the show to revolve around Loustat and warping all the other relationships to juxtapose them with Loustat. He's also using other characters in service of Loustat (*cough* Claudia *cough*) at the detriment of the character's own story and the character's original meaning within the books, but that's also another discussion entirely and so I digress.

Rolin deliberately made Loumand into something it never was, something way more toxic and grossly fucked up with zero book canon to support this specific choice, exactly because he was contrasting it with Loustat. So I wouldn't be surprised when Rolin makes Nickistat even more toxic and fucked up than what it was to also contrast it with Loustat, because he's got actual book canon examples of Nicki's abuse and toxicity to expand upon and like I've already pointed out, he's already depicted Nicki as a jealous and pathetic drunk. Yes, it was during Armand's fanfic, but there are hints to the truth bleeding out, and Rolin has already clearly paralleled Nicki with Louis in service of Loustat. He is turning this material into a soap opera with Loustat at the heart of it, and I have a very complicated feeling towards that overall, but I don't write the show.

So I just hope you understand where I'm coming from when I relegate certain things to certain corners wrt Nicki stans being disingenuous, and it's exactly because that's what the fandom is doing even when they pretend otherwise. Like I said, they tell on themselves by constantly dragging Louis into a narrative he was technically never a part of, because Lestat had not even met him yet. It is literally impossible for Louis to have had any bearing on what happened between Lestat and Nicki. The only way this impacts Louis is because it so grievously damaged Lestat to the point his trauma from Nicki dictated his actions toward Louis.

I had hoped it wouldn't be like this with Nicki, but I should've known better, because unfortunately this fandom is polluted with the new era fans who make everything about shipping and make everything about getting attention and make everything about being "controversial" and make (ironically enough) everything about morality and make everything about the new era of media consumption i.e. they have to put everything into little black and white boxes of this or that being labeled XYZ to make it palatable and to give them a platform of identity to say "look at me and look at how smart I am and look at how virtuous I am to call out XYZ and here's a trendy buzzword vomit post to prove how good of a person I am." It all goes hand-in-hand and has literally ruined fandom by and large. It's why the fandom cannot move on from the tale of S1. It's why so many fics are human AU. It's why everyone harps on Lestat's "abuse" over and over. It's why Armand's behavior is being excused as autism. It's why Nicki's behavior is being excused as vague mental illness. It's why Louis is perfectly innocent in everything. It's why Gabrielle is being twisted into something she never was. They literally cannot get past their own performative, virtue-signaling need for head-pats, and they cannot understand that the concept of fucked up gothic media about vampires cannot function with these cute little labels and cannot function in these cute little black and white boxes of morality. Did you ever read the article that stated IWTV is a prestige show with a CW caliber fandom? That has been the most accurate thing ever said about this show, and that is beyond sad and sickening.

That is why I appreciate you sending this, because you've shown a perfect example of how things used to be. To be honest, the fact you've seen my posts on Nicki and, not only haven't blocked me, but also had the maturity to share your own feelings without hiding behind anon and in such a respectful way says a lot. I really do appreciate that, and I really do hope others will take a cue, because it is possible to have a respectful discussion and to agree to disagree over someone's feelings on a fictional character without shaming or name-calling or slapping on a buzzword label to blackball a person from simply having an opinion you don't agree with.

I hope you feel free to drop by anytime. 🩵

[datcravat]

It seems there's a new lawyer in town!!!

[rottmnt-residuum]

promised raph angst. so much under the surface

this takes place right before leo and mikey get back from checking hidden city entrances

[videoviolence]

MEET DAD & DOG!

[redbootsindoriath]

Oh look what day it is again!

Happy Hobbit Day to all who celebrate! Here's a rushed doodle to assure you guys that I am in fact still out there somewhere on earth.