Sweep

To fully understand the importance of this, I must explain a few things to you first.

One, I got into NiGHTS by a series of events. First, I saw NiGHTS in the NiGHTS pinball game on Sonic Adventure. My friend said that her older cousin had played NiGHTS before but our understanding of the game was extremly empty. A year or so later, I saw fanart of NiGHTS and was a little excited because I recongized who s/he was. Then, YEARS later and about four years ago, I saw one of the most beautiful things of all! It was artwork that I had stumbled upon. It looked cool from the thumbnail on deviantart but I couldn't tell what was going on so I clicked and full viewed. From then on, after seeing Astrima's picture of NiGHTS battling Reala EPICLLY, I was hooked. I looked up info on NiGHTS, made my own little fancharacter who was inspired off of U.V. NiGHTS, and ended up raving about him so much that my dad got on eBay and bought me a Saturn, the game, and the anolog controller.

Second, the first dream I had of NiGHTS was pretty basic. He was there every now and then but I couldn't help but feel it was only because he had been on my mind. It didn't feel like he was there. And due to my fandom being sprouted from Astrima's artwork, I'd always seen him with horns and blond hair so it wasn't extremly special to see him hatless. Despite my amazingly explosive fandom, all my dreams of him seemed to just be based off of my thoughts of the day or what have you. I'd felt I was destined to know NiGHTS because of the drawn out events that lead him to me. But I'd also felt that I had yet to actually see him.

These two things bothered me. I had finally gotten into something amazing that had been chasing me for years which was great and all, but, I felt like even so, i'd yet to connect. And second, my dreams felt just like my reality; unconnected. Until last night when I had a strange, and almost humorous, nightmare!

Okay, so, looking back it was more funny than scary but, oh well. Lately, I haven't been really into NiGHTS. (Thus my lack of appearances) However, I've been coming and going from the boards and listening to the shows and looking at the oekakis etc. I just felt bored, though. Yet, last night, I had a dream where I was stuck in a run down house with a strange woman and an even stranger friend. Together, this friend and I had to somehow defeat the owner of the house who was a derangged and terrible monster of a being. (Which ended up being some kind of twist on Ganondorf from Zelda.... Yeah, ha.) Something went wrong though and he was after us. Just as we escaped the house, he found us and cornered us in this dark, twisted garden and attacked. Before he could get us though, NiGHTS flew out of a wonderous portal like thing to the right and protected us. He began to tear up when Ganon tried ripping him off of us. Then, another NiGHTS came in from the left. She was beautiful. She had a very detailed outfit that I can never hope to put down on paper. She attacked Ganon and killed him after a short fight. I noticed that both of the NiGHTS looked different somehow... until I noticed that they weren't wearing hats. They had long, even cut, purple hair that got darker at the bottom and long, animal-like ears. The female NiGHTS had a glowing, colorful tail. They flew to each other and from all of their affection, they seemed to love one another. Before they left, they looked at me and smiled.

I woke up afterward and was inspired again. I drew and drew all morning, trying to recreate scenes. But nothing I could do could possibly touch the magnificent images I saw. And after I put my sketchbook away, I could still feel NiGHTS' arms around me, refusing to let go. I finally feel connected and like I have my own view on who NiGHTS is to me and I wondered at this realization, how do other people get their view? I've seen many different takes on NiGHTS and surely, someone dreamed it up or just saw it in their minds. So I came back today to ask everyone else their story.

So give it up! How did NiGHTS come to you and what makes you see him/her the way you do?

I'm still stuck and in firm belief that NiGHTS has no specific gender.

SO I had hoped that Sega would try harder to not keep to any gender with the awful pronouns 'he' or 'she'. They failed me in a couple ways.

Kinda spoiler... I guess o-o;

So, as a girl, I find it a tad annoying that they had to use the 'default gender', Male, on NiGHTS all the time. Still, I could have dealt with it a little better if Reala hadn't shoved that comment in there.

What I'm really interested in is everyone else's reactions or thoughts. Apparently Sega's either decided NiGHTS' gender or just didn't feel like confusing the new fans.

Or both!