blorbo (favorite character, character I think about the most)
Lettow for sure, I love his character, his romance with the courier (though I wished it was longer XD) and how he is one of those decent Princes in the WOD (though he is still very much a grey character cause of all the fucked things he's had to do for the sake of all the Kindred under his care.) I really need to do some art and fics of him sometime (just Night Road in general XD)
scrunkly (my “baby”, character that gives me cuteness aggression, character that is So Shaped)
Vani,Elena and Raul are so important and good and I love them and their side quests and wished I could be even better to them in their romances.
I would also say the same for the wolf famulus too, I haven't played too much with them but from what I've seen they are so cute and goofy! XD
Dove for sure, while she's not completely ignored by the fandom she's not talked about as much as Lettow and Julian. I really love the romance/friendship you can have with her and also that you can have a poly route with her and Lettow too. :D
glup shitto (obscure fave, character that can appear in the background for 0.2 seconds and I won’t shut up about it for a week)
Shout out to Miguel for trying to be a good ghoul only to get killed :( and Giselle for having a ironclad will enough to still be using her magic even when blood bonded and having a neat t-shirt
poor little meow meow (“problematic”/unpopular/controversial/otherwise pathetic fave)
Julian, who else? XD I really love how interesting of a character Julian is, he isn't wrong, one day the masquerade has to fall but he's also kind of a screw up and a huge risk taker even how smart and powerful he is. Will he succeed in his plans or fall harder than he has ever before? We'll have to see, at least he isn't rushing it and his plan will take decades to build before it can be launched. Does he care for the courier even when he's using them? I would like to think so, and it brings a lot of angst to the table.
horse plinko (character I would torment for fun, for whatever reason)
Donati, I don't think I would torment her for fun but damn its always fun to dominate her into dropping her weapon and have her be mauled by Lettow or made to jump off the roof by Julian. She's a hell of a foe that I like taking down! XD (one day I'll figure out how to side with her right)
eeby deeby (character I would send to superhell)
Jasper Knowles, thought to be fair Julian already sent him there! XDDDD
An analysis on Dove, her Nictuku traits, and how they ended up making her resembling the Cappadocians so strongly that her own sire thought she was one somehow.
I always assumed Dove and Modian were close because Dove was clearly distressed when she saw Modian in the condition he was in in the video.
But I was going through the VTMNR code to see the things she tells you about herself that I missed when I was playing that scene, and got to this bit:
"But when he saw my face, he thought he had been tricked," Dove says, her tone bleak. "He said I resembled one of the extinct clans, and treated me like a red-headed stepchild. Imagine that: too ugly to be a Nosferatu. I made my own way then, met up with Jasper Knowles, the Warlock, while he was digging through ruins for old magic, and through him ended up becoming a respectable member of the Camarilla. I didn't see Modian again for a century, when I came to the New World."
So this started out as an analysis on how Modian must have recognised Nictuku traits in Dove (they are descended from Nictuku, a bloodline of Nosferatu that are blood bound to Absimilliard, the Nosferatu Antediluvian, and sworn to destroy the Nosferatu. If you trace Reremouse’s family tree, the Methuselah they’re descended from was a known Nictuku defector). The Nictuku are said to be particularly hideous, like Dove --
Imagine that: too ugly to be a Nosferatu.
And a lot of people don’t believe they exist.
He said I resembled one of the extinct clans
So I thought that the Nictuku blood came out really strongly with Dove, Modian realised it, and freaked the fuck out.
But the “one of the extinct” clans didn’t quite fit (people either believe they exist or don’t, but they never talk about them being extinct), and there was a mention of the Giovanni wanting to put Dove down:
"Jasper was interested in another act of diablerie, the one that birthed Clan @{(clan = "Hecata") Giovanni. This was way before you all joined back up with the other necromancers|Giovanni—this was before the death clans all reunited to form Clan Hecata}. He was interested in me because he wondered if I wasn't a Nosferatu at all, but one of the now-extinct clans. Of course, I had been Embraced by Modian in the normal fashion, my dark arts were those of my clan, and Jasper's hypothesis came to nothing…but that wasn't before a bunch of Giovanni learned about me and tried to destroy me because they thought I was a harbinger of their destruction. To escape them, we jumped onto the Simplon-Orient-Express in Constantinople, and there we ran into this Polish Gangrel…anyway, that was all a long time ago."
So I thought. Huh. Maybe the Giovanni have links to the Nictuku?
Then I remembered what clan the Giovanni are descended from. Cappadocians. Whose bane were that they looked like corpses.
Boom. Turns out the Nictuku to the Giovanni’s Nosferatu are the Harbingers of Skulls, whose weakness --
The Harbingers of Skulls clan weakness is an extension of the Cappadocian clan's weakness. Regardless of the quantity of blood a Harbinger of Skulls consumes, their skin maintains a deathly pallor. Additionally, the Harbingers' skin shrinks to make these Cainites appear skeletal, with bony limbs and faces frozen into an immortal death's grin. Because of this decidedly unwholesome and morbid visage, Harbingers of Skulls have Appearance Traits of zero. All Social rolls involving the Appearance Trait automatically fail for Harbingers of Skulls.
-- are that they look skeletal. Just like Dove.
And like the Nictuku with the Nosferatu, they want to fuck Giovanni shit up. They’re pissed about what the Giovanni did to the Cappadocians.
So the Giovanni see this Nosferatu with a skull for a face, freak the fuck out, and try to murder her.
Modian Embraces a childe, the Nictuku genes come out strongly --
Additionally, age is difficult and transforming on the bloodline. For every hundred years since their Embrace, the Hungry become more monstrous in appearance. But their physical bodies also grow stronger, until they reach the peak of human (and vampiric) physical potential. They grow slowly but decidedly bent, twisted, and ever more deadly, slowly aging grotesques that blame the Nosferatu for their condition.
-- but to the extent that happens to resemble a Cappadocian. Modian freaks out, is like “what the fuck, you’re clearly not mine” even though he was there, so poor Dove gets basically orphaned.
The Nictuku weakness doesn’t quite fit Dove. Nictuku need Cainite blood to feed, not kine. Dove might have been feeding on Cainites this whole time and kept it secret, but a Nosferatu courier doesn’t make any mention of having to do that, so I think it’s safe to assume Dove doesn’t. Also, there’s no mention that Dove gets uglier each century in spite of being Embraced ~1830. But she’s definitely Nictuku because she’s descended from Melachoate, which we find out in the Reremouse chapter.
But who knows. Maybe that weakness gets weaker as your generation gets higher. Maybe Jasper was feeding her the vitae of his victims -- she knew he experimented on wights, there’s a flashback where she’s casually chatting to him while standing over an entire pit of them. But that still doesn’t explain why her childe doesn’t seem to have that weakness either.
So. Dove has Nictuku blood, it came out stronger in her than Modian (and presumably Reremouse), Modian freaked, and it basically caused a rift between them so she ended up raised by Jasper instead.
Which is... interesting. Because she is visibly upset at seeing what Jasper did to Modian, but not upset at seeing Jasper get destroyed.
But it might explain why Jasper chose to wight Modian. Dove never trusted him, and maybe he was far from magnamious when he wighted Modian.
But I dunno. Maybe he was pissed off that Modian basically rejected his own childe.
And it makes me wonder -- Dove often speaks about how restless she is and how trapped she feels. Another Nictuku weakness, beside the hideousness and the inability to take sustenance from kine blood, is what might be claustrophobia:
The Hungry will not haven where they cannot see the moon when they rise and leave each night. [...] They loathe the underground and will not haven there. Ever. This may be related to, or the cause of, the Nosferatu desire to dig.
Dove gets really edgy about not driving, about not getting to leave the city -- essentially about not getting to be in wide open space. We never see her underground, or see any mention of her ever being underground.
She also seems to have a very lowkey manifestation of the Nictuku hatred of the Nosferatu, in that she’s constantly at odds with them.
Firstly, she’s at odds with Modian. Sure, that’s because of his rejection of her -- but Modian is also at odds with her. He was present at her Embrace, there’s no reason for him to think she’s not his, but he does.
Secondly, the way she talks about the Nosferatu is nothing but critical.
"Back in the '80s, some of the younger Nosferatu discovered the internet, and found a new place to hide and hoard secrets. [..] They got online by the dozens, and then by the hundreds, establishing a shadow internet for the undead. I warned them not to do it."
The Nictuku despise the Nosferatu. Dove, who has their blood in her veins, although very diluted, doesn’t hate them. But she doesn’t respect them, either.
"But those Nosferatu, they'd look at themselves in the mirror and see the same ugly, unchanging face as when they were first Embraced. And they'd tell themselves, 'I still have the edge."
She’s like this even with her own childe. You can save her life when you last see her, but when you show up at Elysium she is all but obvious with her dislike of you. She sees another Nosferatu, even a Nictuku one, and seems to have this instinctive, lowkey revulsion of them that she attributes to other things. (She claims the Courier abandoned her, but made no effort to reach out to them despite knowing where they were, and the Courier being completely ignorant of where she was.)
And it’s just. fascinating. And so very sad. She’s this lost little chick who knows, deep down, that her bloodline isn’t the same as other Nosferatu, and it comes out in such subtle ways. And yet it comes out in one glaringly obvious respect -- her face.
Tl;dr Lettow represses his emotions and has unhealthy coping mechanisms including, but not limited to: not believing he's worthy of love; having trouble letting people go; and harboring an extreme guilt complex. This mainly stems from Aila, but I'll also be looking at his relationship w/ the other named NPCs, specifically Dove and Jasper Knowles.
Part 1 link: https://lots-of-little-pink-clouds.tumblr.com/post/642069110972416000/a-really-long-essay-on-lettow-pt-1
Part 2 link: https://lots-of-little-pink-clouds.tumblr.com/post/642069117234462720/a-really-long-essay-on-lettow-pt-2
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Jasper Knowles, Tremere Sorcerer
So I'm finally getting to Jasper. Tbh he's the first one I started thinking about b/c I accidently compared Beau to him. But what was there to compare? How much do we really know about Jasper?
It's really not much. He's Tremere, he worked w/ Julian for a time before his death, and he knew Dove, Lettow and Aila since at least WW1. And b/c they've all known each other for so long, Jasper met Dove's sire Modian at some point.
What about his impact on the plot of Night Road? Well, he experimented on Modian and turned him into a wight. He and Julian worked together, resulting in Jasper's death. Jasper worked at the Biosphere and created Lampago. And Jasper told Lettow about a safe hidden there that should be used in emergencies, which the Courier was tasked to retrieve.
So, not much of an impact on the plot.
What's important to this post though is how Lettow and Jasper were friends (maybe more according to Kyle's tweets?). And based on his friendship w/ Dove, we know Lettow cares greatly for his friends. But despite that, Jasper still went behind Lettow's back by experimenting on Modian and working w/ Julian.
Now to be fair, we don't know much about Modian either. There's literally nothing besides how he was Dove's sire. And if you tell them about your encounter w/ him, Lettow hands the responsibility of his destruction to Dove.
But aside from that? Lettow seemingly has no reaction at all. Not to Jasper's death. Not to Modian's transformation. Nothing. Nothing aside from a desire to figure out what happened.
From what's already been established, we can assume that Lettow is repressing his emotions. Not only is he in the presence of the Courier, who he doesn't trust at this point in the story, but he also needs to be strong for Dove, who's reeling after learning the fate of her sire.
He probably feels betrayed by what Jasper was doing. He probably blames himself. If he was more observant, he could have seen Jasper's duplicity coming. If he was quicker, he could have prevented Jasper's death. Either way, he blames himself for the failure, and this guilt complex might also be a result of his failed relationship w/ Aila.
After all, since he's already blaming himself for not being enough for her, it would make sense for that to extend to other things too, right?
between Jasper and Strauss, the Tremere are clearly just an entire fucking clan of evil dads.
like Carna criticises the misogyny of the Tremere and we think it’s typical women-don’t-matter misogyny, but it turns out it’s more along the lines of “you’re going out dressed like THAT?” and threatening-boyfriends-with-shotguns misogyny.
So the original post got super long and I needed to make a part 2. But also, this one got super long too, so I made a part 3 that focuses on Jasper.
Tl;dr Lettow represses his emotions and has unhealthy coping mechanisms including, but not limited to: not believing he's worthy of love; having trouble letting people go; and harboring an extreme guilt complex. This mainly stems from Aila, but I'll also be looking at his relationships w/ some of the other named NPCs, specifically Dove and Jasper Knowles.
Part 1 link: https://lots-of-little-pink-clouds.tumblr.com/post/642069110972416000/a-really-long-essay-on-lettow-pt-1
Part 3 link: https://lots-of-little-pink-clouds.tumblr.com/post/642069120459948032/a-really-long-essay-on-lettow-pt-3
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Dove's Cadillac Story
I really love this story. But the most important part of it that's relevant to this post is really subtle. After telling the Courier the story, Dove mentions that it was this incident that had Lettow ground her. I.e. Lettow tells Dove that she's not allowed to drive anymore.
It's taken as a joke and it's fucking hilarious. But it also sets up Dove's frustration later when Tucson's couriers are being picked off one by one by the SI. They need more drivers. So Dove turns to Lettow and asks him to let her do it. And what does he say?
Lettow says no. He needs her in Tucson. And he sends the Courier instead.
How is this important? Well, Dove mentions in her recounting that both herself and the car she was in were on fire. Fire is very bad for Kindred. In WW games, it causes Lethal Damage. But vampires? Vampires take Aggravated Damage instead. Meaning that since Dove was engulfed in it, she actually could have died. And Lettow saw that.
She might have been exaggerating. She might not have. Either way, it doesn't change how he reacted.
It makes sense for Lettow to keep his second-in-command in the city, especially w/ the encroaching SI threat. If he loses her, he loses a very capable Camarilla agent. But he also loses a friend and confidant.
We know that Lettow has trouble letting go of Aila. He stays in Tucson for her. As soon as he gets a lead on her killer, he does everything he can to follow up on it. If you romance him, the text explicitly says that he seems to be looking at someone else instead of you. So is it not plausible for this to extend to his friends too?
I believe that Aila leaving affected Lettow more than he let on. He blames himself and represses his emotions as a way to cope. And maybe, just maybe, when one of his oldest friends almost died, he grounded them so they would stay in Tucson as a way to keep them safe.
And maybe Dove sees that. Dove's angry b/c of what's happening w/ the SI and she's also been stuck in Tucson for years. But she doesn't leave. If you ask her about going to Seattle, she says she's old enough to know when to cut her losses and get the hell out of dodge. But she's sticking it out b/c Lettow is convinced they can fix the issue. And when Lettow gives into the Beckoning, if you side w/ the Camarilla, Dove seems to assume the role of Prince in his place.
I guess that makes her an enabler? Lettow is a decent sort by Kindred standards (mostly) and if she wanted to leave, I don't think he would stop her. But she doesn't. It's something to think about.
Jasper Knowles, reclining on a plastic lawn chair in an aloha shirt while a bunch of wights call Dove a whore: I believe in the inherent unknowability of the soul.
Me, pointing at the dumb pretentious Tremere: Kyle, why can't we romance this one
Spoilers for the Nossie courier, specifically Jasper Knowles:
OK but the mental image of Jasper Knowles acting as pretentious as possible while looking as silly as possible is fucking hilarious and says SO MUCH about that character
