Alicornutopia

Do they have the capability to understand language? If so, what if humans tried to tell them stories to act out? Or is humans-knowing-it-is-fake-even-if-also-big-fans bad for them?

Sounds like they need a fanfiction website to write endless streams of self-insert fic on.

Self-insert fic would not do the thing; the emotionally compelling narrative has to consist of real events, and the amount of nourishment they gain from retellings is proportional to the accuracy of the retelling.

They can understand and use language. (This helps way less than you might think with their trouble understanding humans.) Not-fae acting in plays or movies might actually work, I haven't decided, but they probably won't stumble across the idea on their own because they don't understand human culture very well, and humans are unlikely to suggest the thing because humans are by and large fucking terrified of not-fae except in the paradise zones where they're probably being lightly mind-controlled.

Would the not-fae starring in movies work better if they played themselves instead of if they played characters, even if every not-not-fae actor in the movie played a fictional character?

I can only think of one example to clear up what I’m asking if that was confusing, even though I know there are more: in one episode of Stargate SG-1 ("Prodigy"), General Ryan (Chief of Staff of the US Air Force) showed up to the fictional air force base the show takes place on. He was played by the real General Ryan, Chief of Staff. If Ryan were a not-fae, would that have been more effective than if he had played some random other character?

Hmm... I'm not sure. I think there's not really a solid definition of "themselves" that excludes playing a fictional character, if that makes sense? In a sense the Good vs. Evil not-fae are all playing characters, just in a really, really method way.

When you become an Aurum vampire, you get kind of preserved in that same stage of life and personality for the rest of your immortal existence.

I would expect a Sherlock to be sort of resistant to that effect, because I'd expect it to preserve them in a state of "constructing a personality and then executing it", which I would expect Sherlock to have continued doing anyway. Is that about right, or how does it go instead?

I mean, Sherlocks' constructed personalities are fairly static to begin with, so I'm not sure what differences you're imagining here?

WRT fluidity of personality after turning, I think Aarons are the really interesting case, because I suspect a vampired Aaron would get a witch power that supported their natural tendency to grow whole new personalities to meet the demands of their circumstances.

I'm imagining something like Shirask restructuring herself for a world outside Angband, compared to how difficult that can be for people who were turned with a personality shaped by the Volturi.

I still don't feel like I have a solid handle on Aarons.

Aarons are kind of difficult to get a solid handle on. I wish I had more opportunities to show them off, because I think they're really neat, but it's hard to get one into a show-offable condition.

Ooh, yeah, okay, Shirask is a thing. Sherlocks have the ability to rebuild their personalities from scratch but they can only rebuild them into Sherlocks, and they obey certain kinds of constraints (e.g. a Sherlock can't reconstruct themselves across the Sunnyverse soul boundary with complete effectiveness, although they can come close - a soulless Sherlock can't quite flawlessly turn themselves into a soulful one or vice versa). For most purposes this doesn't amount to much fluidity, but a Sherlock who was turned into an Aurum vampire while their personality was in a less-desirable state would be able to reconstruct themselves into a more-desirable Sherlock flavour. In theory. I've never done it so I'm not sure how it would shake out.

Cool.

Didn't you have a thread around somewhere with an Aaron transported alone, to show him off? I don't remember where to find it.