dross-the-fish

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OMG DO YOU HAVE ANY OF THE ERIK X MEG ART PLEEEEEEEEAAAASE

I have exactly one piece left on my hard drive and it's kind of an unfinished sketch version of the last drawing I made for my friend but here it is.

Because this is from more than a year ago lot of elements of Erik's design are from older versions of him, like his partial nose and having slightly more hair but I did kind of like how this one turned out so I kept it anyway.

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in "Adam's Return" the situation is already becoming very dangerous with Adam seemingly trying to manipulate or whatever he was doing when he showed that possession action in front of Heloise but... Imagine when eventually and (if) the rest of the Frankenstein knows about his existence. I imagine everyone in the family thought the same: that he was pretty much dead just like they're grand uncle Victor.

The last chapter really installed a sense of dread after that ending 👁️👁️ I really liked it though hohoho

Thank you! I'm glad you guys are enjoying it so far. Thank you for reading.

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https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-ben-lewis-after-incurable-bowel-cancer-diagnosis

can you please spread this gofundme? it would really help if they reach the target goal, thanks🙏

Boosted

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What bothers you the most about LND?

I think I already answered this somewhere but I can't find it so I'll answer it again. There are a lot of things I really don't like about it. Like how mean-spirited it is to every single character except maybe Erik, how much it undoes all of Erik's character development, the way it demonizes Raoul and the Girys and then how it gives Christine the most senseless and pointless death you could have given that character. It's also the little things. The little seams where the internal logic just falls apart. Webber has never been that assed about consistency or continuity but one of my pet peeves of his is his tendency to just throw in some bullshit that makes no narrative sense for the characters to drive the plot forward. This is why so much of his work feels like concept albums shakily held together by the barest suggestion of a plot. Sometimes that works ok for him but in this case it does not. Why is Meg prostituting herself to help fund Erik's carnival? What happened to his 20k francs per month that he's been getting for years? Did we forget he's been sitting on probably a good decade of extortion money? How much could Meg even reasonably make by selling herself that she and her mother can just....buy Erik a carnival? Why is she in love with a guy who pays her no attention, terrorized and extorted her place of work for years and kidnapped her best friend? Why are the Girys making that kind of sacrifice for Erik when he clearly doesn't give two shits about them? Why are we supposed to feel any sympathy for Erik when he feels no sympathy for the innocent people he's exploiting and abusing...including Christine again. Why does Madame Giry feel so entitled to Erik's...idk, work? Wealth? Time and attention? I'm not even sure what they actually want out of this and whether they've asked him and he refused or if they are just...running on assumptions. Why does Erik, a musical genius who's ahead of his time, write goofy showtunes like "bathing beauty" a diegetic number that is canonically meant to be tawdry and vaudevillesque in the worst way.

It has decent songs and it's stylish as most of ALW's work tends to be but pretty songs and a nice set can't save this one for me.

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Auugh I know it's a trashfire but I still like LND.

I mean, that's valid. I like plenty of things that are objectively awful. The Jekyll and Hyde musical is pretty terrible as an adaptation and even as a play in its own right it isn't good. I still like it. The Frankenstein musical is also a mess as an adaptation that makes some weird choices and does more than a few things that I can't stand but I still like that too. ALW's Phantom of the Opera is technically better from a musical and production standpoint than both of those but I like Frankenstein and J & H better. Sometimes it's not about how "good" something is. It's about how much joy it brought you when you saw it. That's really the only justification you need. One of my close friends likes the 2004 movie version of Phantom and thinks Gerard Butler is good. I will disagree with her on every point but I will still sit and watch the movie with her and draw doodles of Meg x Erik for her because I support her right to enjoy things.

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what's interesting to me about jekyll and hyde is how so many people think jekyll is a saint, because next to black, grey is white.

This! This is a good way to put it. Jekyll isn't good, he just looks better by comparison and how much that holds up really depends on how altered you think Hyde is from Jekyll. Conversely, Hyde is capable of being good. It takes him more effort but he can be completely civil and restrain himself most of the time. I don't think Hyde's urges are greater than Jekyll's but his judgement is more impaired and his emotional control is lower. He doesn't stop being a whole person when he's Edward.

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"He wasn't going to fix shit he was just going to split himself like an amoeba and let the bad half do whatever the fuck it wanted." ok this took me out, great job as always 🤣

Well it's true. The whole point of the potion was to create two versions of himself. One that could do as much harm as it wanted and not feel bad about it or hurt the "good" one's reputation. He gave zero shits about any harm the "bad" half might do to other people as long as the "good" half didn't have to be held accountable.

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I love that Adam Erik seems to be one of the friends he is referring to in the fic, I guess they have grown closer at some point :3

(also him wanting to possibly house Theo and Erik if needed, sweet, but, definitely not the most traditional way of getting a house ':D )

Adam doesn't do anything the traditional way. He decides he's entitled to something and then no one will know a moment of peace until he either gets his way or everyone dies.

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Stupid confession, but I kept on reading Heloise’s dead name as “Emilie” and I wasn’t picking up. She was trans yet so in the section with the letters, I thought she was giving herself a lesbian lover- 😭

I've made worse mistakes. I'm dyslexic and I have completely misread names. I'm not going to hold it against you. Also, if it's any consolation, she does still like women so she could have a lesbian lover.

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I enjoy your artwork and find much of your analysis compelling, but I must disagree with the idea that Jekyll is a bad person. That view seems to overlook the very purpose of Hyde’s creation — to separate Jekyll from his darker impulses. If Jekyll were truly evil, he wouldn’t have sought to rid himself of those urges. The fact that the experiment became a person with a will of its own is not Jekyll’s moral failing.

I get where you're coming from and I can agree that there's some merit to Jekyll being self-aware and wanting to "fix" himself but what makes him a bad person is that once he realizes all the potion really does is change his appearance and lower his inhibitions he goes to indulge those urges. Actually, on second thought, no. I have to take that back. He wasn't going to fix shit he was just going to split himself like an amoeba and let the bad half do whatever the fuck it wanted while the good half kept being Dr. Jekyll as everyone know him. Having the impulses on it's own isn't the problem, it's that the moment he had a way to act on those impulses he took it. He admits in his letter that he wasn't repulsed by Hyde and that he enjoyed not having to worry about consequences. Because that's what he was most afraid of, if we're being honest. consequences. He was afraid of losing his reputation, his money and his friends way more than he was worried about hurting other people. Once Hyde comes into existence Jekyll doesn't think "Oh shit I'm dangerous when I'm like that" he thinks "Fucking SWEET! I'm going to set up a whole double life!"

"I would still be merrily disposed at times; and as my pleasures were (to say the least) undignified, and I was not only well known and highly considered, but growing towards the elderly man, this incoherency of my life was daily growing more unwelcome. It was on this side that my new power tempted me until I fell in slavery. I had but to drink the cup, to doff at once the body of the noted professor, and to assume, like a thick cloak, that of Edward Hyde. I smiled at the notion; it seemed to me at the time to be humourous; and I made my preparations with the most studious care. I took and furnished that house in Soho, to which Hyde was tracked by the police; and engaged as a housekeeper a creature whom I knew well to be silent and unscrupulous. On the other side, I announced to my servants that a Mr. Hyde (whom I described) was to have full liberty and power about my house in the square; and to parry mishaps, I even called and made myself a familiar object, in my second character. I next drew up that will to which you so much objected; so that if anything befell me in the person of Dr. Jekyll, I could enter on that of Edward Hyde without pecuniary loss. And thus fortified, as I supposed, on every side, I began to profit by the strange immunities of my position. Men have before hired bravos to transact their crimes, while their own person and reputation sat under shelter. I was the first that ever did so for his pleasures. I was the first that could plod in the public eye with a load of genial respectability, and in a moment, like a schoolboy, strip off these lendings and spring headlong into the sea of liberty. But for me, in my impenetrable mantle, the safety was complete. Think of it—I did not even exist! Let me but escape into my laboratory door, give me but a second or two to mix and swallow the draught that I had always standing ready; and whatever he had done, Edward Hyde would pass away like the stain of breath upon a mirror; and there in his stead, quietly at home, trimming the midnight lamp in his study, a man who could afford to laugh at suspicion, would be Henry Jekyll."

No, Jekyll is a bad person because he, by his own admission, doesn't feel remorse for any of it and while he may be shocked at what he's capable of, he relished being able to do whatever he wanted with impunity. The point of the story is that this is someone who wasn't as good of a person to begin with as he presented himself to be (and who had no outlet for the urges he was repressing) losing himself to his inner demons... also the addiction metaphor. That's also kind of a big theme. What a lot of people fail to recognize is that Jekyll would have eventually given in to his urges without Hyde if he'd had a way to get away with it. Hyde just made it easier to for him to satisfy those urges. Hyde is not a different person or the "evil half" he is a drug Jekyll can't quit and it costs him everything. While it's true that Jekyll does experience an altered state of mind it's still HIM. He has always been Edward Hyde.

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I respect the hell out of Adeles reservations and doubts of Adam, but personally, my stupid ass does not have any self-preservation skills and apparently a whole lot of death wishes, so gimme (/j)

Have at him and best of luck to you, anon, I support you in your quest to pursue the 8 foot tall corpse man.

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I was turned a back by the fact that Adam wants the House lmao Victor is shaking violently on his tomb! And oh, boy, eventually Heloise won't be able to hide him from her whole family. Uh... Things will get complicated. They are a proud family, but what Adam is doing is like a robbery... All the Frankenstein family has to do is NOT. REACT. If they react... The thief could end up very angry and... Kill them with a shot. Or with your own hands, in Adam's case. We know Adam has gone through character development along with his new friends, but this family can bring out the worst in him, his obsession. Perhaps the worst will come when Hector finds out everything, as he is extremely obsessed too.

Well, at least Victor is dead. Imagine if he saw the last thing left of his family taken away too (the mansion).

And ah, Adele :( I can't imagine how much anxienty she must be feeling. For herself and for her mother.

Your writing is *chef kiss* stunning!

Thank you! I have been really delighted with all of the feedback I've been getting. Everyone has left lovely comments and I appreciate it.

Hector is going to play a pretty big part in upcoming chapters. I've been itching to get to him.

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Adam really said "I respect Heloise's gender identity but not Heloise"

Adam is an interesting character to write. My version of him firmly believes people have a right to create themselves in opposition to their creators intentions and he openly sneers at social norms or religious morality so when he spots an outcast, a pariah, or a moral "deviant" he's more likely to have sympathy for them than he is to reject them.

However this does not mean he's not fully capable of deciding they're his enemy. Also he's been exposed to Theo who is queer herself and sometimes presents as male/uses male pronouns. It's not a wholly new concept to him by the time he gets to this side story.

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I KNEW IT. I KNEW HELOISE WAS MY TRANS QUEEN!!!!

Yeah, I think most of you guessed it and you were right. She is a trans woman.

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Chapter 14 is up.

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Me reading about Adel being freaked out by Adam. Girl skill issue, give that gorgeous man to me.

To be fair Adele is aware of Adam's history and his behavior is a huge red flag. There is a greater than zero chance that she is in real danger and she knows it.

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How can you judge AI if you never use it? Or have you tried it?

I've played with it a little just to test it. ultimately I didn't feel like I had enough control over the final result. When I tried to use it to write something it couldn't fully replicate my narrative style and my character's dialogue was fucked up. Like it didn't account for distinctive speech patterns at all and it had no fundamental understanding of who my characters are or what their motivations were. There was no point where the result didn't feel like someone's fanfic interpretation of my work. Even just using it for research was a slog. If I want to look something up I have a better shot at doing that on my own because I can verify my sources and if there are gaps in the information I can formulate my own theories based on what info I do have and then seek out one of my friends or my partner to discuss the soundness of said theories and they will give me honest and thoughtful answers instead of telling me what they think I want to hear. I had a whole conversation about how practical it might be to have Erik's lair be heated with electricity circa 1870 and I got so much more out of researching by looking up articles and then bouncing ideas off of one of my more knowledgeable friends than I ever would have from ChatGPT. We went over what was in the source material, what was available for the time period based on historical technological advances, and how much we should account for Erik being ahead of his time. From my convo I was able to conclude with feedback from my friend that while it wasn't impossible for Erik to be rigging up electricity for his automata or his torture chamber, if we accounted that he was exceptionally innovative, it would have been more realistic and convenient for him to continue to use conventional methods of heating for his lair as a whole.

The whole creative side of the research process would have been lost if I'd tried to use ChatGPT. The fact of the matter is that when you try to marry fact to fiction there's something of a delicate balance in grounding your work in realism and skewing towards the fantastical. AI doesn't yet have the ability to grasp that kind of nuance or to give any kind of unconventional feedback. It cannot give you a dynamic conversation and its' ability to extrapolate missing data from incomplete patterns if deeply flawed. It's a bad tool. it's not reliable and it's extremely limited. I cannot recommend it to anyone who wants to seriously write because it's just not good at what it does and I consistently got better results out of my own methods than I did by trying to use AI.