#maybe there's more arguments?

[pynkhues]

Idk if uve discussed this before, im new haha but I really enjoy your readings of the show and I’m curious, would u call louis a femme? Idk i think it’s a widely accepted canon in the fandom and i constantly see it spread all over twitter with no argument whatsoever and im over here like i.. i dont see it?? Idk!

Hey! Welcome, anon! And thank you for your kind words! You’re very sweet!

I think I’ve probably discussed it in fragments before, but not outright said it, but no, I wouldn’t call Louis a femme. It’s certainly a largely accepted fanon in a vocal part of the fandom, particularly on Twitter and ao3, and yeah - - I mean. I’m really glad people are having fun with it! I do also sometimes feel they’re watching a different show to me though, because it’s honestly not something I see at all. I don’t know if their arguments are necessarily organized in the one place (although I could be very wrong in terms of that!) but I might use this as an opportunity to collate my thoughts and the previous posts I’ve made addressing the arguments around this particular topic. SO! Okay! Let’s break it down and dive in:

Louis is femme because he’s a Gothic Heroine

I just don’t agree with this argument, I’m sorry. I’m not going to get into the weeds of this one, just because I feel like I’ve done so already, but I don’t personally read Louis as a gothic heroine at all. In fact, I see him as a very archetypical Byronic Hero, which I talked about in this post, and in others in my Byronic Hero tag.

Louis is femme because he is a Battered Housewife / relying on a Sugar Daddy

This point often gets tied up into the gothic heroine one, and it’s one that always kind of surprises me a little bit. Even putting aside the fact that it’s an ugly, misogynistic trope in general, Louis’ relationship to being a quote-unquote ‘housewife’ is one that – to me – is symbolic of his feelings of emasculation in the Rue Royale household not as a result of Lestat alone, but as a result of the white power structures in New Orleans that would disempower and disenfranchise him. He doesn’t like it, it doesn’t make him ‘femme’, in fact, my interpretation is the opposite – it emasculates him as a Black Man, and he feels that in every part of his life to the point that both his daughter and sister weaponize it against him, and I personally think it’s a factor in his periodic impotence in his marriage. Respectively, Claudia calls him the housewife, and Grace calls Lestat his white daddy – these aren’t compliments, these are callous insults from both of them designed to bruise his pride and force him into action. The fact that neither of them work to move him the way they want doesn’t mean Louis identifies with them, rather it means he’s – at the time – committed to Lestat for better and worse, but their words compound in a way that fuels his resentment of Lestat as both an adulterous husband and a symbol of everything wrong with his life.

Further to that – and I say it in the Byronic Hero/Gothic Heroine post that I link to above  – but a vital part of power dynamic tropes in gothic literature is that women lose power through marriage, they don’t gain it, and Louis does, in fact, gain it. Lestat’s a ticket to social advancement for Louis because as much as Louis (rightfully! It’s extremely racist!) hates being forced into a servitude role publicly at the theatre or in lease agreements, it’s Lestat’s whiteness that allows Louis into more conversations politically, and eventually allows him to buy the Fair Play Saloon and turn it into The Azaelia. It’s a limited power, of course, as a result of his race and the era, but the show actually explicitly lays out certain things for us like the fact that Louis pays Lestat back in full, and pointedly, that Louis never felt that he had to pay Lestat back at all:

The last line of which is Louis greeting Lestat not as a sugar baby or a housewife walking out to his sugar daddy or husband, but as a business man to his husband.

In fact, the interesting exchange of power in that sequence actually leans to the reverse as Lestat ends up playing host to a new client while Louis lords over an empire.

(You can't see it exactly in these subtitles, but it's Louis who says 'you about five years late', and Lestat honeytrapping with taking the man away).

It's a dynamic that repeats with the musician who tries to leave that Lestat coerces into staying - Louis' king of the castle, and Lestat, the show implies, I feel, plays the placating partner smooting over the edges.

But isn’t Lestat a symbol of patriarchal power in the Rue Royale Household?

I’ve had a couple of asks about this and have a long reply in my drafts that I’ll try and post this weekend, but yes and no? I think in Rue Royale, Lestat’s definitely a symbol of patriarchal power to Claudia, and I think Louis sometimes feels him that way too, but I don’t think it’s actually true for Louis in the way that it is for Claudia. Gender isn’t what divides Louis and Lestat, it’s race, and every time Louis has the chance to exert patriarchal power against anyone outside that house or inside it, he uses it – from coercing Lestat into Claudia's rebirth to physically assaulting Claudia over Lestat’s murder, to even trying to influence her diet and guilting her into staying, to throwing Lestat out of his own house and then fucking him in his lover’s bed (which, obviously, are after Lestat's singular act of violence), to being literally a pimp, strongarming his sister and his mother, to giving less than 0 fucks about Lily’s murder and the attempted anal-rape of Bricktop - - just.

Yeah. There are two patriarchs in the Rue Royale household, and both their names begin with L.

Eldest daughter syndrome

Sometimes men are also eldest siblings who feel the burden of responsibility?

Even beyond that though, I think Louis’ response to Grace is particularly paternalistic, a pattern he’d repeat with Claudia, which I talk about here. I do think Louis has a lot of responsibility and weight on his shoulders as an eldest child, absolutely, and I actually think there’s a lot to talk about in terms of his complex position as brother-father to Paul and Grace in s1 (and I empathise with him intensely in this regard as someone who’s been a sibling’s guardian), but like. That’s not a feminine trait, nor is it one that makes him an eldest daughter. I’m not one, and he’s not one either. Sibling dynamics aren’t cut and paste.

But Louis buys and reads Madame Bovary and obviously relates to Emma

I mean, he doesn’t buy it – the show literally, explicitly makes the point of telling us that it’s Lestat’s copy of the book that he’s reading, which honestly makes sense to me. I talked about it here (where I include the caps of it being Lestat's book too), but Emma as a character cheats because she finds monogamy boring, provincial life even more so and dislikes her daughter, while married to a successful man in a regional town. Louis’ not the Emma in that equation, Lestat is, given he's fucking Antoinette – allegedly because he wants variety – escaped the Auvergne in Paris, and can’t cope with parenthood and/or Claudia.

Interestingly too, Louis’ focus in that scene is on the 'denseness' of the prose and 'the absence of metaphor' not the content, as he ignores Lestat having a meltdown directly opposite him. My interpretation of that scene is that the writing is pointing out exactly how disconnected they are from each other, and that Louis can read a story that parallels a lot of Lestat’s experience, and fail to relate it to, or empathise with Lestat at all, even as Lestat indulges Louis’ depression and hoarding, which ! I love Louis, but Lestat does in that sequence (not that that justifies anything that Lestat does, of course).  

Isn’t Louis compared to Juliet and Mélisande?

Mmm, yes and no? Armand does put him in the Juliet role, which Louis riffs with Dreamstat about, but I tend to interpret that more to be about the involvement of the balcony than I do about their roles as Romeo and Juliet – because, y’know. Not everything’s actually about gender, particularly with same sex couples of that era who had limited reference points generally, and certainly limited mainstream ones.  

And Melisande - - not at all, actually? I do have to say that I’m a little bit baffled by this particular argument given we have the lyrics to Come to Me and Lestat puts himself in the feminine role of Mélisande (and I actually do think you can mount the argument that he's done that because he’s intending for Antoinette to sing it, which I thought for a long time before hearing Long Face tbh, and now I actually do think it’s deliberately playing into Louis’ sense of masculinity), and he does cast Louis in the masculine role of Pelléas. The chorus literally goes:

Ruin each other Like star-crossed lovers Your Pelléas, my Mélisande Oh, come to me Come to me

So, yeah. Again, that argument just doesn't quite land for me.

Wasn’t he jealous of Grace’s pregnancy though?

Was he? That wasn’t my interpretation, but I’d actually genuinely be interested to hear a case for it, because I feel that’s kind of tasty on a narrative level, haha. My interpretation of that entire sequence though kind of feeds back into that eldest sibling thing again where he a) resented Grace building something of her own before he could, and b) was terrified of the idea that her having her own family would mean that she’d pull way from him which she, of course, did.

I tend to see Louis’ desire to have Claudia as a fairly impulsive one, and I actually see (in the show’verse) his desire to have Lestat be the one to turn her as a part of him further interlocking him and Lestat together, particularly after he's effectively just broken up with Lestat. It's messy! But yeah, I mean, I think 2.07 laid out pretty cleanly that Louis' choice to turn Claudia was inherently a selfish one, and I personally don't see it as one borne out of jealousy so much as needing an anchor. 

Anne bases Louis on herself

She also bases Lestat on herself and/or everything she wants to be, and also washes her hands of Louis as a character for books at a time, and like - - I’m sorry, this is not the tone I usually take, but like - - lowkey, who cares? Everyone in this fandom loves death of the author until Anne says one thing they can use to justify their headcanons, and I just don’t really get it. Why are you trying to interpret a vampire novel as a memoir? Obviously it’s not factual? Anne’s not a man, she’s not drinking blood, she’s not romantically entangled with her dead daughter, like I do understand that it can feel noodly sometimes with authors and characters, but as someone who works with a lot of writers, I can promise you they’re dipping in and out of characters like crazy, haha.

It doesn’t mean a character’s them, and it certainly doesn’t mean you’re interacting with Anne when you're interacting with Louis, which I suspect a lot of people don’t want anyway? I don't know, personally I view this one as a bit of a non-starter.

Louis’ pretty though

Yeah, he is! He’s your Helen of Troy! He’s beautiful! He’d look amazing in tights and heels! That doesn’t mean he’s canonically femme though.

[defensivelee]

why does every queer turn into a redpilled anti-woke far-right comedian fan the moment you tell them they're intersexist like 'stop inventing new terms 🤡🤡 why is everything a slur now 🤡🤡🤡 that one friend that's too woke 🤡🤡' like it's actually surreal how often it happens. i desperately want to know what makes them think that shits okay.

[vaguely-concerned]

My two cents on how much of Mind!Varric is Rook’s mind trying to fill the blank space and how much is Solas actively talking through a convenient blood magic paper doll of the mind: I think it's a mix of both, a truly collaborative psychosocial horrorshow if you would, but waaaay more towards the second. It feels too directed and tactical at times to be anything else. Rook's mind is willing to go along with the denial phase as far as it can fucking carry them to not have to face the grief and regret and does its part in papering over details that don’t make any sense, the way brains will strive to create coherent meaning even out of deeply confusing input, but to my understanding it's a collaborateur in how that plays out, not the instigator or control center. Solas is using it as a path to agency and to gather insight into Rook as a person unguarded as he can't count on in his own guise. (That stoic option that leads to him being like 'oh I see you're cautiously denying me access to your inner life. well. at least you still have Varric to talk to. y'know as an outlet :)'. You absolute BITCH Solas! That alone convinced me that he HAS to have an active hand in it on some level.)

My guess is that it takes considerable effort on Solas’ part to make Mind!Varric do anything more involved or complicated than seeming to sit up in bed and give casual commentary, and that’s why he keeps having eerie five minute shallow pep talks with you before he announces he conveniently needs a nap aaanyway good luck kid you got this haha. When he’s just spouting NPC lines from his bedrest, I’m ready to believe that could be Rook’s mind being allowed to improv lines for him more freely because it’s less about Solas trying to get something out of them or working an angle and more ‘Still here! Still totally alive and fine and the mentor figure you know and love and trust :) don’t even worry about it! Thankfully there is no war in Ba Sing Sei, as we all know’ upkeep work lol. Rook’s mind is allowed to set the tone of Varric, the outlines, but not always the content. 

AND, on a (beautifully fucked up) character psychology level, I feel like Solas is indulging in actually getting to be the good supportive mentor figure to Rook with one hand to assuage the guilt he feels about what he's done -- and what he's going to do -- to them with the other. Same internal logic as he uses in Trespasser about the Qun. ‘Almost everyone is going to die from the course of action I’m doggedly pursuing eventually. But at least I can make their last years happier and freer and kinder than they would have been otherwise. and that kind of makes up for it right. a little bit. doesn't it. doesn't that make it better at least. I need that to make it better)'. Did I really take your beloved mentor and friend from you if you don’t know yet that I did? Some philosophers would argue not really! So it’s probably almost ok actually. Isn’t it even a little noble that I’m taking all this grief and guilt on myself and shielding you for now. With undertones that I’m not sure he would realize himself (and might be mortified by if he did) that he is so incredibly lonely, and even a dishonest and indirect emotional connection is more than nothing when you’re that desperate. In this setup he gets idk. Both the control he craves so incredibly badly in relationships and over himself, and the scraps, the fading afterimages, of intimacy and warmth and companionship, even second hand. The one thing Solas and Rook agree on deep deep down is that they really wish Varric weren't gone. They're handshake memeing this in the saddest and most creepy way possible.

I think an important element too is that Solas needs Rook and their team to *succeed* —  up to a certain point. He needs someone to hold the two other elven mean girls off until he can get out of here. Ideally, in a perfect world, even do all the hard work of killing them so he can swoop in at the end and do his thing when both sides are exhausted and out of resources to stop him, and then Bob’s your uncle! Same logic as he was using with Corypheus, and after that worked out so well, too! King of choosing to never learn from a single solitary mistake he’s ever made even though i fully believe he could have the capacity to Fen’Harel <3 The underlying idea isn’t flawed, you see, it was just unforeseen circumstances getting in the way. This time for sure it’ll all work out the way I cleverly imagined it in my head beforehand. Cue By Talos this can’t be happening etc. in the form of a statue almost crushing him like a bug. 

So he's providing guidance and forging Rook into a leader from two angles: one Rook might not trust, and one they probably will. Shaping them into what he needs slowly and carefully. He’s helping you hone your team into their most effective state, as he might have done with his own agents back in the day, setting up his chess pieces even if he has to squint through two glimpsed realities to do it haha. Pincer maneuver of an insidious stealth mentor you never asked for. Also… at one point mind Varric gives you a whole little monologue about how Solas' problem is that he’s always seen his interpersonal connections as flaws and see where it’s landed him, all alone and the worst part? it hasn’t even worked. it’s all been for nothing he’s back where he began with nothing to show for it but his mistakes. Like...that has such strong 'uh okay happy to play your therapist from two rooms away here what the fuck kind of traumadump is this' energy to me, I’m not sure Rook like. Thinks that much about Solas as a private person. So much of Solas' self-loathing and futile insights into his own flaws seem to shine through in Mind!Varric's dialogue all the time — I just can't believe that there's no guiding hand behind it as it were. 

Most of all. I feel like people underestimate the degree to which Solas is incredibly funny. As in, he has a very consistent and recognizable sense of humour. It’s one of my very favourite things about him. We must remember — it is crucial that we always keep in mind — Orlesian accent and wig Solas from May The Dread Wolf Take You (my beloved, the explanation for why I love this dude even with the. All of the everything else. No one does it quite like him). He is not at all above doing things or adding little flourishes for his own obscure amusement, in fact that seems to me to be one of his most consistent traits. The Randy Dowager Quarterly comment Varric has? The ‘Maybe this is the Dread Wolf’s revenge. Forcing us to house sit for him’ thing? To Me this is 100% Solas amusing himself in his boring Fade jail surrounded by the screaming hellscape of all his regrets. Source: it came to me as divine revelation through pure vibes trust me bro 

If nothing else I find it much more narratively interesting personally if the connection between Rook and Solas really is that defenselessly intimate and entwined (and so unbalanced!), and the sense of violation and invasion and betrayal afterwards consequently all the more nauseatingly intense. Even if you kept him at arm’s length in the open, he’s been under your skin the whole time, looking around, gathering what he needs to destroy you, wearing the face of a friend. Regretfully, probably, but choosing to do it every step of the way anyway. (Sound familiar, Inquisitor? Solas doesn’t have that many tricks when you actually look at it, he keeps returning to old tried and true ones like a dog with a bone haha.) Maybe he even genuinely meant some of it as mercy, which only makes it so much worse. It makes his sin against his own core principles of autonomy and the freedom of all beings in mind, spirit and body so much more juicily grave if it’s something he pursues actively and consistently, rather than it half-falling into his lap as a happy accident mainly orchestrated by Rook’s own subconscious. Solas, too, is at his very lowest point, the closest to giving in and becoming his own antithesis fully that he’s ever been, and it makes the choice of whether you still reach out your hand to him one last time or not all the more impactful and difficult.

[danielnelsen]

while i get where this comes from and it’s true to an extent, i reeeaaaally don’t like how people try to explain “trans men don’t [necessarily] have male privilege” with things like “some trans men don’t pass”.

like sure that’s the most obvious example (someone who is seen as a woman won’t have the privilege that comes with being seen a man) but you’re still acting like being a passing trans man is just a free opt-in to male privilege which is………kinda the issue.

[artbyfinnbrown]

Tier List of how good Re:Zero characters are at killing Subaru

[blueskittlesart]

I’m so sorry how much bullshit HP fans are continuing to putting trans people through, Im so fucking sick of it. I mean its international news that jkr is almost single handedly bankrolling the transphobic movement in Scotland and for the second year in a row Ive had to explain to a ‘well meaning’ friend of mine that her harry potter halloween party isn’t just poor taste and I don’t care if she has trans friends who are cool with it I’m not fucking going and its fucking embarrassing. I just wanna shake people. Fucking stand up for something. Consume other media. Sorry not sorry your comfort characters are trash and so are you until you grow the fuck up

what really gets me is that i WAS a huge harry potter fan back in the day. my best friend mailed me a hogwarts letter on my 11th birthday. I got picked to do the wand-choosing thing at universal, and of course i made my parents buy me that fucking $40 wand afterwards. I dressed up as hermione for halloween like 3 years in a row. I've read every single book. I've watched all the movies. I bought the fucking lego sets. but you know what i did when she lost her shit on twitter? i STOPPED FUCKING BUYING HER SHIT. what is so hard about that. genuinely. idc if you used to love the characters. i did too. they don't stand for what we thought they stood for and that sucks but you are an adult and you have to come to terms with the fact that sometimes things aren't what they say they are. find something else to love. or at the very least SHUT. THE FUCK. UP.

[snekky-arts]

to me she's like if orange cream soda was a person

[ultravioletbrit]

“hold” - Jegulus microfic - @into-the-jeggyverse - 488 words

this, but make it jegulus (i tried to get it as close to the original as possible)

Remus is sitting in an armchair doubled over with laughter. Sirius has fallen out of his chair and is cackling on the floor with tears in his eyes from laughing so hard. Regulus is sitting on the couch trying his best to stay composed. And James in standing in the middle of the room with more passion and fire in his eyes than Regulus has ever seen.

“Hold on! Hold on! Hold on!” James is shouting.

“James—” Regulus tries to calmly interrupt.

“HOLD ON!” James looks pointedly at Regulus and his eyes look like they’re going to literally pop out of his head. “Her sister was a witch, right?” Regulus is trying so hard to hold back his laughter. “And what was her sister? A princess! The Wicked Witch of the East, Reg.” James is yelling, not unkindly just very passionately, looking directly at Regulus and nodding his head aggressively to emphasize every point.

James starts pacing in genuine distress. Sirius is rolling on the floor holding his stomach and laughing so hard his entire body is shaking. Remus has his hands over his mouth, which is doing absolutely nothing to contain his laughter.

Regulus stands up to meet James in the middle of the room. “I’m gonna stab him.” He mumbles under his breath, which makes Sirius laugh even harder—if that’s even possible.

James whips around to face Regulus. “You’re gonna looks at me and you’re gonna tell me that I’m wrong? Am I wrong?” James asks emphatically.

And the thing is—James is, in fact, very wrong. “It’s my favorite—” Regulus tries to interject but can’t even get a word in.

“She wore a crown, and she came down in a bubble, Reg!” And that proves absolutely nothing.

Regulus knows he’ll never get James to listen to him. “I’m not fighting with you.” He shakes his head, chuckling fondly.

James makes his way out of the living room. “Grow up!” He says over his shoulder.

“I’m not fighting with you.” Regulus says again.

“Grow up.” James seems to be losing steam as he leaves the room.

“Get educated!” Regulus yells then flops down on the couch and finally lets his laughter out.

Eventually Regulus, Sirius and Remus’ laugher fades into soft chuckles as they calm down and take several deep breaths to compose themselves.  

It’s a few minutes later when James appears in the doorway with a sheepish look on his face—that Regulus thinks is adorable. He slowly makes his way over to the couch and sits down beside Regulus. He’s quiet for a few moments then turns slightly to look at Regulus.   

“I’m not really mad.” James says in a small voice. “And you know I love you, right?”

Regulus chuckles fondly and takes James’ face in his hands. “Yes, I know you love me, Jamie.” He leans in to kiss James softly then pulls back the tiniest bit. “But you’re still wrong.” Regulus whispers against James lips.    

[kiwisandpearls]

I’m putting these words on a high shelf until you guys can actually start applying these words to actual situations where it would be important to apply them to and not fictional content

text behind read more

Text on box: the words “glorify, normalize, sexualize”

text pointing to kid: people who think the depiction of a certain dark topic without demonization equates to endorsement of that dark topic irl

[pluvioloulou]

And what if I say the argument of Eddie is just a hurdle, a "stepping stone" to make Buck and Tommy closer and realise all they want is each other, what then?

[eiloh-dystonic]

As frustrating as reading x men fics as a big magneto fan can be, I've started getting pretty good at picking up on tells that he's going to be writen poorly (or not to my taste) so I don't waste much time on stuff I don't like

Like the words "metallokinetic" or "metal-bender" are an instant drop for me

Random German words is a big red flag too but I'm willing to over look it if something is pulling me in strong enough (rare)

It's hard to point out but a lot of fics take on a subtley dehumanizing tone when writing him that's pretty easy to pick up on quickly

Any fics but especially cherik ones that take on the "telepaths are the least accepted mutants" angle also have a high chance of being very unempathetic towards Erik

I also don't fuck with any fics that are even slightly unkind to Magda or in any way minimize Erik's feelings for her or their relationship

[stimmingandstruggling]

actually don’t understand how people hate renheng like obviously you don’t have to ship it but aren’t you fascinated by them? don’t you want to see what they were? what happened to turn them from “the closest” to this? aren’t you entranced by the tragedy of it all? dont you want to see them heal and reconcile, regardless of romance? to see the bitterness run dry just like their relics say it will? dan heng finding out about the bracers, a real gentle conversation between them, both meeting in the middle and letting go of and accepting the past? isn’t the potential there devastating?????

[bleue-flora]

I got to see the musical Les Misérables recently and it got me thinking... Who represents “the people” in the dsmp. I think the common perception is L’manberg, they have the flag after all. Tommy and Wilbur were certainly not wealthy in riches, surely they represent the poor people starving in the streets, fighting against an unfair system…Except in the beginning they are revolting against Dream, who is neither a king nor dictator nor government. He wasn’t forcing people into poverty or unjustly imprisoning people for stealing bread to become his slaves. On the contrary, he constantly gave out food and even returned people’s armor when the battles were over. I believe Dream even says himself [clip] that the people of L’manberg already had the freedom to build that land and make it their home and community. What they fought for was independence, which gave them the right to deny people freedom to enter their land. They fought not for their own freedom to exist, they already had that, but the right to enforce rules that limited other people’s freedom - only Europeans allowed, no armor… etc - They fought to establish the very oppressive government they claimed to revolt against and when they were kicked out by the very laws of the government they created, that’s when L’manberg (Manberg) needed to be overthrown. But not to dismantle the corrupt institution that allowed a legal dictatorship (like Techno thought) but to become the new dictators. In other words, L’manberg is less like the Les Mis revolutionaries and more like the corrupt government. In that case then, Niki is the people who will not be slaves again, Philza fought for the right to be free, Techno fought for the world he longs to see, Dream fought for his life to start, when tomorrow comes. They then are the people who were oppressed by the government (used as a slave for resources, hunted down and executed, discriminated against and unfairly treated, forced under house arrest because of a friendship… etc) singing for the freedom to simply live their lives. They are the ones singing the song of angry men. [song]

[froschli96]

🗣️ Darlin', you give love a bad name

Found this in my old wip folder and it feels now more relevant than ever :)

Also these don't know why I never uploaded these they were just sitting there completely finished:

[coern-art-very-cool-and-nice]

the boy in the spotlight versus the girl in the mirror

unshaded version

[nillisaie]

So when it comes to Alastor and where he stands on the aroace spectrum, people obviously point towards the two instances where Angel tries soliciting Alastor and he immediately rejects it, while also making a face and noise of shock/disgust, and also the scene where Rosie says that she knows Alastor is an ace in the hole so he obviously isn't dating Charlie

But there's one other thing, a line that he said, that I don't think I've ever seen anyone else mention and maybe it's just because I don't have the firmest grasp on the english language, but when I first heard it, I immediately thought "of course he said it like that, it's because he's aroace." And that line is

"You are like a daughter I spawned."

Like, that is such a bizarre way to phrase that. I really don't think "normal" people* talk like that, especially not those who are being genuine. But this isn't about whether or not Alastor really does see Charlie like a daughter, but his aroaceness

Now one could argue that it's just for the sake of the song, that spawn rhymes with bond, but they could have very easily altered these lines, couldn't they? I'm not a musical or word expert, but surely the people behind these lyrics are. No, I know they are. I've seen one of them discuss some of the thought process that went into some of the songs

I dunno. When I first heard these lyrics, my first immediate thought was that Alastor was attempting to distance himself from the concepts of sex and romance. Almost like he was trying to say that he felt like he "created" Charlie all by himself, maybe with magic or something and not, well, how it's usually done

Also I did look up the definition of the word just to make sure I'm not misunderstanding, and yeah, he is using the word correctly, it's just still sounds very odd. Also in the definition I looked up, it also had the text "derogatory" right above the definition which I think is kind of funny. "You're like my own child (derogatory)"

But yeah, if there are any aspec linguists, I would love to hear your thoughts

*Quick clarification that by "normal" people, I don't necessarily mean allo people, but rather that Nilli is just super autistic and just doesn't know how to people