#(also just to clarify I don't mean 'love' in a romantic way I am hardly ever romantically attracted to anyone

[mozart-the-meerkitten]

Hello there! I have been a fan of the Wingfeather saga series for 3 years, (and the animated series since they where aired on YouTube) and I found your fanfics on Ao3 about a year and a half ago. I just wanted to tell you that I think you are an amazing writer, and a really great Wingfeather fan :)

One thing I was wondering, what exactly was it that made Artham your favorite character? For me, it probably would've been his dynamic. Or maybe the way he was written. I'm honestly not sure lol

Hi and first of all THANK YOU SO MUCH. I’m so happy to hear you like my stories and think I’m a good Wingfeather fan. Just, just trust me when I say that means a lot to me, I always feel like I'm not doing enough, so thank you <3

Okay so I’ve been ruminating on this question for a while, because it deserves a good answer and I love my boy a lot. (also I just really appreciated the nice comments and wanted to keep staring at the ask for a while) I am going to attempt to answer it tonight though!

So, first, Artham is just very much the kind of character I like. Tragic backstory? mentally ill? loyal to an absolute fault? loves children? kind? incredible fighter? He’s all of these things and many more and these are traits I love a lot in characters.

Second, Andrew writes him really, really well. He feels so human and so real, like he’s an actual person I could be friends with (and hug). His struggles remind me of my own- he gets better and then slides backwards, he tries so hard to help the people he cares about but doesn’t always know how to do that. He wants so badly to be with his family and to be loved but doesn’t feel worthy of any of that. I love, love, LOVE that he doesn’t lose his mental illness after his transformation. I was so scared that it was just gonna disappear in book three AND THEN IT DIDN’T and I was so happy, because that’s something that happens a lot with characters in media these days- their trauma/mental illness just magically disappears and that’s not how real life works! But Artham doesn’t have that happen even though magic is involved and I love that.

Related to that second point is that I find him both relatable and encouraging. I relate to his struggles with anxiety, depression, trying to cope with past mistakes, blaming myself for things I can’t control or fix… and I find it comforting that the books show that as Sara puts it, “even the noblest soul can be broken”. We are all broken, we have all made mistakes and fallen, even those of us with noble hearts and the best of intentions, and we can come out of that. We can go on living and still find love and kindness and support from people. It’s both solidarity and a reminder that there’s some good in the world, and it’s worth fighting for.

Idk, I just draw a lot of hope from Artham and what happened to him- which sounds silly because he’s a fictional character, but human beings often process real life experiences through stories so- I keep repeating this phrase to myself, it’s kind of become my mantra, “don’t give up before you get your wings”. Because, in book 2, Artham is ready to give up, he DOES give up, and it is at that very moment that he sees Tink and all of a sudden he has a reason to live again and he FIGHTS for it, and it turns out that he was meant to be there all along to save Tink AND to be transformed and have his mind restored. And I try to remember that because I’m going through a lot of crap and I feel like giving up a lot, but remembering that maybe I’m right where I need to be, maybe if I just keep holding on a little longer I’ll get my wings- that something good will come from this- and that helps.

So, uh, yeah. I could probably go on but I think that covers most of it.

TLDR: Artham is a character I love a lot because I relate to him and I love the kind of character he is (loyal, kind, brave, and somehow so, so soft despite everything). I’m drawing a lot of hope from this fictional character and his story. He is the best boy <3

#the wingfeather saga #the wingfeather saga tv show #peet the sockman #artham p wingfeather #thanks for the ask! #this got long and deep #if you read this whole thing then thank you for listening to me ramble :) #probably more of an answer than you were looking for but once I get started talking about artham I don't stop easily #he's one of my absolute top favorite characters ever #he's just below lucy pevensie and sam gamgee #with like zuko and rei from yukikaze #he is very very high on my list #loving artham wingfeather is a thing that can be so personal #(also just to clarify I don't mean 'love' in a romantic way I am hardly ever romantically attracted to anyone #but I do really passionately love characters) #ANYWAY #thank you again! #I love to talk about my favorite characters ask about them any time

[getoffthesoapbox]

Hello! Many questions anon again! You turned off your anon questions before I could send another message lol. I hope you don't mind but I'm back with more questions. So I saw one of your asks about Zero being almost too accepting of Ai, and I was just wondering how much of a role Zero really played in Ai's life? What I mean is, after Zero is attacked and Yuuki warns the vampires to leave him alone, she says that they stopped seeing each other and only met at the bench. (1)

(2) And this was whilst Ai was maybe 4 years old? And then by the time she’s about 8, she says that Zero doesn’t come round the house a lot and she stops seeing him as a father and starts seeing him in a romantic light? I guess what I’m trying to ask here is, how much did Zero really raise Ai? Because I’m not sure he was there much, and it feels like a lot of the fandom try to paint him as the perfect step father just to make it seem like he was 100% okay with Yuuki having a child with Kaname?

Welcome back, my friend! Sorry for turning my askbox off for a bit–I was getting a little tired of passive aggressive hate asks, so I thought a cool down period would be good for everyone’s collective mental health. ;) 

As for your question, my personal take on the story is that Zero seems to be fairly seriously involved with Ai’s life up until she’s around five years old. We can tell this based on inference from several small scenes: 

Zero’s close enough to the family to be drinking from Yuuki in Ai’s bedroom in VKM 2, not something uncles/friends do

Ai is comfortable and close enough to him to insist he’s her dad (rather than than something more distant, say, an uncle or brother) despite Zero correcting her in VKM 2 

Ai “ships” Zero and her mother together in her diary entry in VKM 3 and she writes diaries to him period which indicate serious closeness (she tells him things she doesn’t tell her mother too, as we see from her leaking the story of Yuuki’s underwear in VKM 3)

Zero is the only character we ever see actually playing with Ai (VKM 5), a prime feature of father figures–this would be different if we saw, say, Aidou playing with her or Takuma (uncle figures), but only Zero gets this privilege

Ai is excited to move in VKM 6 because she’ll be near Zero’s work 

It bothers Ai when Zero stops coming around as often as he did formerly (which indicates there’s a serious difference between his current visits and his previous ones)

Even after Yuuki “benches” their relationship, Zero is still involved enough in the family life to be driving Yuuki and Ai to balls and back (VKM 7) and to be taking Ai to visit Yori and Aidou on Yuuki’s behalf (VKM 8). So despite his presence in Ai’s life diminishing slightly, clearly he was still involved enough to be an important factor if her life. Her feelings don’t shift for him until she encounters “other men” at the ball in VKM 8 (and Zero being “safe” with no sexual interest in her–unlike the other young men perhaps–and not “claimed” by her mother becomes attractive to a young girl just hitting vampiric puberty). 

In short, I believe Zero was very involved in Ai’s life as a parental figure in all ways but in name up until VKM 6. After VKM 6, he’s still a parental figure, but it’s more like a divorce scenario–he only gets “custody” of Ai under “approved” circumstances. That doesn’t change the fact that for most of Ai’s early life he was basically a live-in boyfriend who helped raise her (VKM 2 implies he was part of the typical bed-time routine). 

Obviously how much he was involved is speculative at best, but given that he’s Yuuki’s main source of blood throughout her pregnancy and also afterward, and given that he and Yuuki seem closer during Ai’s early years on a romantic level (Zero openly speaks to Yuuki about love in VKM 2, but stops talking about it by VKM 9), it’s likely he was fairly seriously involved with Ai’s growing up years–if not, it makes no sense why she would call him “Dad” rather than “Uncle/Zero.” 

To give you an example, I was heavily involved in helping to raise my friend’s child, my soul-niece. However, my soul-niece has never once “confused” me with her real mother–I am her auntie and have always been her auntie. Children, especially children like Ai, are too smart and perceptive to make mistakes like calling an uncle figure “dad.” The fact that Ai wanted to call Zero “dad” implies he held that role in her life, even if Yuuki and Zero themselves wouldn’t acknowledge it at the time.

I personally do think Zero was a perfect step-father to Ai especially given the circumstances, and that he is the very reason she grew up as stable and functional as she is (her inbred genetics certainly didn’t contribute to that). I don’t think Yuuki’s worth beans as a mother, especially not for a precocious and intelligent child like Ai, and so I would never take away the role Zero played in Ai’s life, despite her ridiculous parentage. Zero certainly loves her too, as we can see from his response to her touching his face in Yuuki’s memory from VKM 10–even if his feelings are complicated, I think his love for Ai is real (otherwise why would he plan a world for her in VKM 8′s forge memory, rather than for Yuuki?). 

It’s quite possible given how little we know from the time period between VKM 9′s teething scene and VKM 9′s confession scene 50-some-odd years later that Zero’s feelings as a parental figure toward Ai may cool the longer Yuuki refuses to acknowledge his role in her life and Ai’s, and this might be contributing to the idea that he wasn’t much of a stepfather–a distance grows between him and Ai once she confesses her love in VKM 8, and then Zero hardly talks to Ai at all in the chapters from the later years like VKM 3 and VKM 9. I suspect some of that is due to Zero trying to be respectful of Ai’s feelings, and some of it is due to Ai trying to keep herself in check, and some of it is due to Yuuki trying to separate Zero and Ai because of Ai’s feelings, but none of that has any bearing on the fact that up until she was 8, Ai held Zero as a father figure and for all intents and purpose he was her father figure. 

Long story short, I feel like Zero’s experience regarding Ai is more nuanced than the story lets on and than fans admit. He has a real parental relationship with her that’s complicated by a.) Yuuki’s refusal to allow him to take his proper place in the family, b.) the source of Ai’s existence (Night 89), and c.) Ai’s own feelings changing to a romantic focus thanks to the confusion Yuuki’s created by not clarifying his role in Ai’s life, all of which contribute to making his situation more of a quagmire than it might otherwise have been. 

These are just my thoughts on the matter, though. =) Obviously since we aren’t shown every day of their lives, we can’t know how much or how little Zero was involved. We can only go by context clues. =)

I hope that addresses your question…I feel like I went off on a tangent. XD If I didn’t, feel free to clarify your thoughts. =)

#vampire knight #vampire knight memories #vkm spec #vkm speculation #kiryuu zero #kuran ai