#thaumatale

It always delights me when people say they’re re-reading Gifts of the Magi. I can’t believe some silly fanfic with stilted writing and tons of typos that I posted ages ago still is in people’s hearts! I think about the story a lot; all the characters are super important to me and I still love the plot. That new original version of it is coming, I promise. I might post some shorter original works first to kinda work out some kinks, but the full story is absolutely getting told.

...INCLUDING STUFF ABOUT THE PRIMUS AND LEGBITER gosh it breaks my heart because “Arc 1″ of SITYGTWN was basically setting up Aegis as a person and the situation, and “Arc 2″ gets full on into the Primus and Legbiter’s #Deal because it’s all super important. Like, Buttercup showing Aegis what the Primus has been doing to himself was a really important scene. 

I know I’ve been basically radio-silent about the Thaumatale folks, but that’s because I’ve just been kinda quietly figuring out what the original fiction version of Gifts of the Magi will be like!

Monsters will still exist, although in a different form, as they’re strange creatures whose bodies are covered with an odd form of runic markings called “Script’ that were sealed away in the Tower long, long ago. 

Crane is practically unchanged, but the monster she ends up befriending is an extravagant, hopeful author named Thistle. Despite loving the idea of “writing the classiest manuscript known to mankind!”, Thistle has absolutely zero taste and also has, at best, a cursory understanding of human writing. He’s also got very little experience with the real world, making his plots incoherent and unbelievable, and his prose is... heartfelt, but thoroughly unpolished and in dire need of a thorough spellcheck. Basically, he’s That Dude in your Creative Writing Class with more enthusiasm than good sense, but at least he’s having fun, right?

Thistle can’t decide what his aesthetic is, so he often oscillates between everything he’s interested in. He thinks dresses are very pretty, and both loves dressing up and trying to get Crane to dress up - but his expansive wardrobe is a total mish-mash of colors and styles.  In keeping with his eclectic tastes, he can’t even decide what genre he wants to write, and the ideas he produces often are bizarre mash-ups of the latest things he’s read.

Still. He’s not totally clueless. He’s actually got quite a bit of latent talent, and he’s got a surprisingly keen reading on people. One thing that shines in his work are his characters, and he’s truly a man that loves people. While not being self-aware enough to capitalize on his strengths, his experiences with Crane start shifting his world view, and help him realize that at the heart of every story, there must be love.