#One that Dracula is fully aware of destroying

[immediatebreakfast]

I have been down to look at that room again in daylight, for I must know the truth. 

Even if today's entry was short, it was extremely concise in explaining the declining mental state that Jonathan is dealing with it, on top of taking a huge peek inside his dilemma in the castle.

It has been sadly established that Jonathan is suffering greatly thanks to the Count purposefully messing up his sleep schedule, and abruptly revealing all of the supernatural stuff he can do in situations in which Jonathan doubts his own mind.

Did he truly saw the Count go down in his lizard fashion, or the lack of sleep is getting to him? Did the three Weird Sisters actually existed, or that awful experience was just another nightmare? All of this is the result of Jonathan just trying to make sense of anything he sees as he jumps from his own shadow, and deals with nightmares. It's the expected result that Dracula wants to extend this obligatory play in which Jonathan can't get out alive.

However, even if today ends with a note of fearful realization, it was not in vain.

When I got to the doorway at the top of the stairs I found it closed. It had been so forcibly driven against the jamb that part of the woodwork was splintered. I could see that the bolt of the lock had not been shot, but the door is fastened from the inside.

How joyful is to find something, anything, that proves that such traumatic event did happen. That your mind is not playing games with you.

[see-arcane]

I don't even care about the Nosferatu characters but there is something creepy about Eggers' scenario being all "this guy feels like he's a beta cuck in front of (thieving, ignorant, dirty) foreign masc men who constantly humiliate his masculinity and surprise he gets cucked" when this was nowhere in the film nor its source?? The fuck was that about

It's the Jonathan Harker effect.

I.e., a reflexive response from adaptation and spinoff creators who have actually been made aware of all the facets Jonathan Harker--or in this case, his doppelganger Thomas Hutter--possesses within the canon of the novel Dracula/the original Nosferatu and immediately get a bug up their butt about how much he encompasses of what makes them uncomfortable.

Jonathan Harker is a damsel in distress.

Jonathan Harker is kind and not classically manly beside a backdrop of more standard masculinity.

Jonathan Harker is preyed upon in an intimate way by the dark and powerful male Villain, the latter having supernatural ability and desire to collect an undead harem/partners against their will.

Jonathan Harker was left ill and disabled after his escape and so showed weakness, needing aid from others, relying on women (ugh) like the nuns and Mina before he could heal and move forward.

Jonathan Harker loves, cherishes, and worships his wife more than anything, wanting her to take the lead. Without her actions and sacrifice, the Villain would never have been defeated, which he highlights at the close of the novel, just as the Nosferatu iteration must take the lead in ending the film's Villain.

Jonathan Harker, polite little nobody that he is, is the one to transform himself into a Thing That Terrifies the Masculine Conquering Power Fantasy Villain. He sends his former abuser and predator running like a coward into the streets, himself giving chase to kill him in public. It is his knife that lops off the Villain's head while he hides in the dirt after Mina arranged the hunt--tastefully aligned with Nosferatu via Ellen (Mina) fully realizing the martyr role and sacrificing her life not out of amorous want of the Villain, but out of a desire to protect her husband and the town, taking on a masculine role in her own right by making the fatal sacrificial play.

In short: Jonathan-Thomas is a victim. He is antithetical to every macho babe-collecting ooh hoo hoo look at my cool-powered masculine conqueror metaphor that exists within the Dracula-Orlok figure. Jonathan-Thomas is naturally more endearing, blithe, and sweet than the common male hero and follows that by being forced into a traditionally female role as the preyed-upon and imprisoned damsel.

His mere existence throws the Mina-Ellen figure into even brighter contrasted spotlight, where she manages to wholly subvert the expected Man Villain seeks Pretty Girl to Ravish format. Mina-Ellen turns it on its head, making herself into the weapon by which the Villain is defeated, rather than leaving every point of planning and action and sacrifice to a male rescuer. This she does to aid and/or rescue her husband, the actual damsel, and humanity at large.

In the book, Jonathan the Damsel turns the tables with Mina's impetus and guidance, and ultimately slaughters Dracula, who they terrified into running home to hide and skulk.

In the film, Thomas the Damsel's plight spurs Ellen into action, making plans and taking heroic steps all on her own to destroy Orlok when she baits him with her offered blood, leaving Thomas to grieve and weep for her, tragically spared from his attempt to take on Orlok himself.

And male directors and writers like Eggers, along with so so So many before him, absolutely fucking hate that shit. It spoils the whole premise for them. Because Jonathan-Thomas is ruining their vibe, the limping simping little milksop Victorian era soyboy that he is. How does he get to kill their bestie bodypillow stand-in, Dracula, or let the Girl One take charge in Nosferatu to put down Orlok?? Bullshit!

Kick him out, kick him down, and make sure Girl One ditches his lame unmanly ass to bounce on that vampire dick that we all know she reeeally wants, lol

And throw in even more weird racism/xenophobic BS to show how Manly and Sexually Liberated the stinky foreign Romani thieves are in the year twenty-twenty-four because why not I guess

[radiant-featherball]

Zead: That is why I guided you here. So that you may fully regain your powers.

Isaac wanted Hector to reclaim his power for the satisfaction of beating Hector at full power and didn't want the the easy way out of killing Hector when he was powerless. Isaac also wanted Hector to resurrect the castle for the delicious irony of the traitor who caused Dracula's death also be the reason for Dracula's revival.

But Zead taking credit for guiding Hector makes me wonder: what if Death convinced Isaac to let Hector regain his power in the first place?

It's never made clear if Death and Isaac worked together or if Death and Isaac made their plans independently of each other and Death just used Isaac for his own goals while Isaac might not even be aware of Zead.

Zead repeatable tells Hector where Isaac is and establishes himself as a reliable source of information, then just lies about Isaac being in the Infinite Corridor. It could be Zead and Isaac had planned this beforehand, and Isaac was just hiding while Trevor & Hector resurrected the castle or it could be Isaac is doing his own thing and Zead just keeping tabs on both Isaac and Hector.

The former fits better with Isaac attacking Trevor and presumable never was in Infinite Corridor, but the later do give the possibility of Isaac had planned for more of Hector's route and filled it with more patronizing instructions "Here is how you use your Innocent Devils to reach new places JUST IN CASE you forgot" but Death cut it all out because Death is petty and won't let Isaac have any fun.

Zead: *Sees Isaac's elaborate roadmap for Hector with sassy comments* I'll just skip this and point out where Isaac is.

Also not clear if Isaac was aware of Dracula's vessel needing to to fully succumb to the curse (Death explaining that to Hector leans to they not knowing, or Death, like Isaac, is just an patronizing bastard) and was prepared to be sacrificed to Dracula or if Isaac's plan was:

Let Hector regain his power

Trick Hector and Trevor into resurrect the castle

Kill Hector

Revive Lord Dracula

Be praised by Lord Dracula and told he is the best servant ever & need no one else and he'll ditch that smelly old skeleton

Death thanking Hector for hesitating to kill Isaac implies he couldn't use a corpse even if he succumbed to the curse. Or at least would be worse material. Which also doesn't explain if Isaac knew Death's plan and just assumed he get to kill Hector and use Hector's corpse to revive Dracula.

But back to the original point and assuming for sake of argument Death and Isaac worked together.

PtR version of Isaac brought a sword for Hector and both PtR and MF manga Isaac don't uses any of his Innocent Devils when fighting Hector. That's great evidence Isaac would always have wanted Hector to be at full strength. But that was also when Dracula was still alive, Isaac still had a home and not been years under a curse.

Isaac could have changed his mind how wise it was to be honorable. He could have regretted respecting Hector, convinced himself if he had used Abel or all of his Innocent Devils back then, then he would have made it back to the castle to heroically slay the Belmont and save his Lord and rewarded as he deserves.

Resurrection the castle requires blood of the Belmont and destroying the seal, but even Trevor feared Isaac scratching him was enough to gain entrance to Infinite Corridor and Isaac knew Devil Forgemasters could easily conjure enough magic to break the seal. So nothing about that step of the plan requires Hector other than the satisfaction of tricking Hector.

So it's not impossible Isaac would have wanted to kill the traitor, get blood from the Belmont and destroy the seal himself, and then revive Dracula and take all the credit for himself. None of which would require Hector to regain his power.

But Death wants to use Hector as he is the most suitable for Dracula's revival. And presumably Hector regaining his powers as the Devil Forgemaster is part of that process since it needs Dracula's power as a power source to work. Also because Death is petty and wants to get rid of both Devil Forgemasters.

Death is well known to be a manipulator and Isaac is ruled by his emotions so if Isaac originally didn't plan for Hector to regain his powers, it wouldn't take much prodding on Isaac's former respect for Hector and his desire to prove himself better than Hector.

Isaac could think everything was his and only his own plan, and not realizing Death is tricking him. It fits with Hector's conclusion Isaac was just another victim.

[beevean]

I feel dirty for doing this, but I do have to raise one point in defense of NFCV's Dracula. While Carmilla and Godbrand saw him as either a crazy person or a shortsighted idiot who wasn't planning ahead for what would be done after humanity was dead, it was heavily implied, if not outright stated, that Dracula knew that he was dooming himself and vampirekind to death via starvation, he just didn't care. In Season 2, Episode 6, around the 5 minute mark, when Dracula narrated out loud that he was only moving the castle to get his generals to shut up, he lamented that he was doing all this, "Just to keep the peace between squabbling creatures who will starve and die before the end of the year anyway." Further, Alucard outright said that Dracula wanted to die before calling the war "History's longest suicide note". I read this as Dracula being fully aware that he was going to die as a result of his extermination, in fact, it's what he wanted. His goals were humanity's extinction as revenge for killing Lisa, followed by his own death because he was just so lethargic and miserable for the entirety of season 2, and he just didn't care if the rest of the vampires died out as a result (Which, honestly, makes the fact that as many of them followed him as they did completely ridiculous, but then again, none of them were actual characters outside of Carmilla and Godbrand).

I know. "He just didn't care" is exactly my point :P

The games never think too deeply about the consequences of Dracula's eventual victory, that much is true. Logically, it's an easy conclusion to reach: if Dracula manages to destroy mankind, and he's a vampire who needs humans to live, he'll eventually starve. But I think it's because it's not really the point: we already know that Dracula's plan is insane, and him for even going through it.

Dracula is targeting the entirety of mankind for the sins of a mob in a random village. Dracula went so far as to make a pact with an Evil God to gain more power. Dracula is completely disrespecting Lisa's memory - he may not have known her last words, but surely he'd know that she wouldn't appreciate a mass slaughter of her own kind in her name. Hell, LoI is all about how Dracula has been an overdramatic, spiteful, petty king even as a human! "Wife died. I'm going to reject my whole humanity, and in doing so causing the death of my bestie's fiancée, but that's okay, I'll propose him to become immortal later". Dracula is not operating on rational thinking, it's obvious: he's a wounded animal lashing out, but this wounded animal is a threat to humanity as a whole.

It's the tone of the show that is different. They never bring up the sheer cruelty of Dracula's overreaction, not even Alucard himself, who just halfheartedly says in episode 1 "well, just kill the people who were responsible!" (thanks man, you're really helpful). Dracula is not really planning anything: the death of starvation of vampirekind feels like an afterthought to him, because the poor thing just wants to die. Dracula is stuck in his Depression Chair not because he's an arrogant lord who can afford to defend himself through the Legions of Hell, the two superhuman knights that command them, and Death itself (or not, since the show didn't even give him that): no, he's just So Depressed and lethargic, as you said. Dracula is relegating everything to others, while patiently waiting for everyone to die. And the others clearly aren't doing a good job, since Carmilla can whisper in Hector's ear "hey prettyboy mind going to braila" and that's it, she seized control of the castle.

Dracula and Isaac knew that Carmilla was bad news. They gave her want she wanted anyway, and then had the balls to go all surprisedpikachu.jpg face when her plan proved to be for her benefit and their downfall.

Dracula: So if I let them go to Braila, they'll stop scheming and whining. Isaac: I think so. It will give Carmilla some power, but that's not a bad thing. Dracula: No. The War Room will speak to you and Hector in one voice instead of a dozen. Isaac: Indeed. And at the end of the day, you don't care. So long as the war continues. Dracula: *sighs* Fine, then. I'm tired, lsaac.

And while I certainly am happy to blame Isaac, the pretentious prick who thinks he's so smart, I'm not letting Dracula getting away with this. Again. Dude allowed Carmilla to insult him and Lisa in public, with her reasoning being literally "I gave you the opportunity to address everyone's concerns", and gave her less than a slap on the wrist. Everything about her screams "I'm only here to amuse myself and I don't respect any of you", and she is not stopped on the first day because uhhh plot reasons (she really should have been more subtle, but eh).

It's just... everything compounded that paints a poor picture of Dracula. He's a Depressed Man whose evil plan at this point is working on inertia (I don't think we see a single village being destroyed in S2, the most that happens is Carmilla making Hector send his Night Creatures to the Belmont Hold? Again, instead of another scene where Alucard is a cunt to Trevor, how about showing us the important shit that is going on?), and whose Depression allows everyone to do what they want because he just wouldn't command an ounce of respect anymore. And, and this is the important part, we're meant to see him as a deep, nuanced, tragic character because he's Sad.

Admittedly, I'm biased. One, Shankar himself painted Dracula as "not an actual villain", as if we're meant to feel sorry for the guy. So the authorial intent of stripping Dracula of his perceived "evil" is there.

Two, this is personal :P but the one thing, the one singular thing that snapped me out of my appreciation of IDW Sonic is precisely a similar instance:

Eggman, the dude who canonically managed to conquer the world some months prior and always had backup plans for his backup plans (Sonic Forces), is now a mindless buffoon that refused to think of a cure for his apocalyptic virus because... eh, couldn't be bothered. Even when his own plan miserably fails, he refuses to think of a cure out of childish stubborness.

And why is that so? Because Eggman canonically is a dumbass who "never, ever has a solid plan"? Nope, to prop up the OC, who is so much smarter than the main villain of the stupid games!

The shilling was so blatant I couldn't believe my eyes at how fast the writing had downgraded. (and then it got worse lol)

Funnily enough, Starline and Carmilla have a similar downfall. Starline ends up stealing Eggman's tech to do everything, his plan is straight up insensical (replacing Sonic and Tails with Surge and Kit, his evil androids that look and act nothing like the real deal, to subvert the hero/villain cycle???) and he dies like a jobber. Carmilla wakes up one day and decides to conquer the world ignoring the logicistical difficulties, so that she too can get the "wow she's so stupid for not thinking things through" treatment. So everything they did was for nothing. I'd say they're clever parallels, but that would need the writing to be clever.

And Frontiers also gave Eggman the "humanization" process by making him suddenly accept a creation of his as his daughter... while also making him completely ineffectual, relegating him to a corner of the plot while the real antagonist was using Sonic for its purposes. I watched NFCV not long after Frontiers came out. By that time I was tired of this.

So I suppose I'm rather... sensitive to this kind of writing, where the villain is downgraded either in villainy or effectiveness for the sake of either 1) making them more pitiable, or 2) allowing OCs to look better by comparison.

[chasingfictions]

ok something about super buffy in primeval having yellow eyes just like vampires. something about super buffy at her most complete state, her heart mind and spirit fully integrated in her body, is when she mirrors the creatures she's destined to kill. something about fool for love "how many of my kind reckon you've done?" / "not enough" / "and we just keep coming. but you can kill a hundred, a thousand, a thousand thousand and the enemies of Hell besides and all we need is for one of us...". something about "you think we're dancing?"/ "that's all we've ever done" something about buffy and vampires being locked in an endless step with each other. she is the vampire slayer. definitionally, she needs their existence for hers. if she were to kill every last vampire, she would cease to be a slayer. it's the dance.

it's restless, which comes off the heels of primeval, the dream state that primeval unlocks -- primeval holding for one second, complete wholeness, which is a state we're not meant to exist within ("we are forever"), and so to come out of that wholeness, that total union with one's family/community/no loneliness within the body, is to open yourself up to see exactly where you're fractured. you return to your body, no longer entwined, and suddenly you're aware of how your body is lonely, of where your aches are, in a way you weren't, a second ago when you were whole, and in a way that maybe you never were before. it's restless containing "we're not demons" / "is that a fact?" and it's restless' sister episode, buffy vs. dracula, containing buffy's hunger for the darkness. it's get it done confirming, that the slayer is made from demons.

it's, if we want to go there because i'm always going there, it's buffy coming back into the room with the scoobies in it, riley in tow, who she had already encountered before the spell began, but then oh boy spike is there, his presence unexpected and confusing, registered with a brief baffled eye. it's the scooby ritual space--the camera swiveling around them, enclosing a magic circle, being literally interrupted by spike barging into the room, with a demon, killing a demon. the wholeness of the spell disrupted, shattered, by the presence of the shadow. by the mirror of buffy's mission -- a vampire, the thing buffy's existence depends upon, performing the action that defines said existence, killing a demon. carrying that punctuation reminder of, in 5x01 terms, "[her] true nature. wanna taste?". reconciliation with the found family established, we now re-break the world, start over the cycle, to find a new brokenness -- the shadow, unreconciled. barely looked at. the loneliness inherent in the shadow itself (this post from @impalementation comes to mind).

we come back into the body, we arrive back at the brokeness of life after the fullness of song ("life's not a song. life isn't bliss, life is just this, it's living. you'll get along. the pain that you feel, it only can heal, by living. you have to go on living. so one of us is living"). ready to inch towards the next fullness. the next reconciliation, wholeness, completion.

which we do. which buffy does. it's buffy's full reconciliation with her shadow. the yellow light of flame reflecting in both their eyes. their hands clasped, united in total wholeness for one moment.

only for the hands to break. we return from wholeness, again, into the world, again, on to find the next brokenness. it's the repetition of cycles. it's how you finally arrive at the ending, the exaltation, the completeness, of the world, only for the cycle to restart. to become the fool again. back to zero.

all things looping back on themselves. the closed fist a kind of the ouroboros. the flames eat at the skin of the hands but the system remains closed, nothing destroyed, nothing created, but everything constantly being eaten.

in short, it's you think we're dancing? that's all we've ever done.

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

What if paranoid Bella told Carlisle what's going on and enlisted his help? Like if she overheard/learned something that made her think he might help, or if this is the Bella who's stuck in a time loop and figures it's worth a shot and at worse she'd be yeeted right back to the beginning of the loop if the vampire doctor is in cahoots with his scary son?

Anon is referring to Paranoid Bella. Now, Paranoid Bella has tried something like this once before, sort of, Billy called Carlisle on her behalf. It went places so awful I refuse to put them down in words.

Here the question is what if Bella asked Carlisle herself.

Why Paranoid Bella Would Never Do This

She can't trust any of the Cullens, for all she knows, they're in league with Edward. Bella's wearing her tin foil hat and that tin foil hat has kept her alive, dammit. For all she knows, this Dracula's Bride thing is just what vampires do and she's the latest victim.

She would never, ever, trust any of the Cullens. Ever.

Dr. Cullen seems nice as he stitches her up? IT'S A TRAP!

As For Time Loop Bella...

Anon's referring to this post, which... You really want this AU, don't you? I think that's conflating things a little too much here, and gives us way too different of a set up.

That Bella would probably try anything and everything, but she's also reached a point of nihilism where she just doesn't care anymore and might just do it to fuck with these people.

Even if she tells Carlisle, she probably keeps looping, and is well aware of this. Life is misery, pain, and endless.

Kind of misses the spirit of your post (which I assume is to get Paranoid Bella out of the miserable hole she's stuck in).

Bella Takes a Leap of Faith

But alright, Carlisle Cullen seems unusually cool and rational as he stitches her up. Maybe it's the pain talking, or Bella's own increasing desperation with her latest brush with morality, but she realizes just as Edward does that this is untenable.

If Bella keeps hanging around these people, as Edward insists she does (Edward having insisted on this goddamn birthday party at his house), then she will die sooner or later. Either Edward or his family will eat her.

This cannot go on and, as of that moment, Bella doesn't know that Edward is going to attempt to leave her within a few days.

This is the first time she's alone with Carlisle, the head of the coven, and probably the only time she ever will be. This is the only chance she'll ever have to ask for help from someone who can actually do something about it.

Bella interrupts Carlisle's "Edward's just weirdly religious" explanation and tells him that Edward's a lunatic. She needs help.

Carlisle has a, "Wait, what?" moment. He knew she was jumpy, very nervous, but she'd seemed very happy with Edward. Also, from his perspective, Edward is a very noble spirit if very young. Edward went on the human diet and came back, presumably understanding the inherent worth of human life. Edward voted not to murder Bella after the truck.

Yes things have been... weird, and Carlisle was concerned, still is about some parts, but it seemed to be going so well.

It's not.

He sits there in numb horror as Bella tells him all about the times Edward snuck through her window (greasing it to make it silent), to stare at her while she sleeps, the time he threatened to kill himself upon her inevitable death, how he has admitted to following her everywhere and spying on her through the thoughts of those around her, and all about that time he contemplated the murder of his entire Biology class to eat Bella: his personal brand of heroin.

Carlisle's listening to someone talk about a completely different person.

But Bella's insistent, Edward Cullen is Ted Bundy in the making, and Bella now has no other recourse but to turn to Carlisle. HELP. ME.

Well, they don't have much time left.

Edward will be back any moment and Carlisle... there must be some misunderstanding, right? Except, with some of these details, there's no misunderstanding this. If Edward actually said and did all of this: then this is horrible.

Regardless, it's very clear that Bella wants nothing to do with the Cullens and especially with Edward. That makes things very clear: Carlisle has to talk to Edward on Bella's behalf and get him to back the fuck off.

Though Carlisle does warn Bella that, as she knows the secret, she and the coven are technically breaking the law. If she's found out, Bella will either be murdered or turned. It's not necessarily likely anyone will find out but... It's not exactly a great position for the coven to be in, or Bella for that matter.

This is news to Bella.

Bella says she'll think about this vampire business (she's not thrilled) and really doesn't want to join the Cullens, and Carlisle will talk to Edward.

The talk doesn't go well.

Edward denies, denies, denies, and... admits some of it might be true were you to look at it from a the naive angle of a pure young woman who knows nothing of the world. Edward wasn't sneaking into Bella's room to rape/eat her, no, he was protecting her! From spiders! And that time he forced her to ride home with him, he was afraid she wouldn't be able to drive after fainting! And that time he almost murdered all of Biology... That was out of context, Carlisle.

Carlisle grows increasingly horrified as Edward's every answer confirms that he is, in fact, horrifying. This is someone who cares nothing about human life, not truly, and is a predator.

Carlisle immediately tells Edward it's over. Consider this a restraining order from Bella, he is never to speak to her, never to be near her, never to see her ever again.

Edward implodes.

Carlisle now hates him, this is terrible, Bella his true love doesn't love him at all and poisoned Carlisle against him, and she's ruined everything!

Spiraling further into madness, as one does, Edward concludes that Bella was a vile villainess: that this was her plan the entire time. She faked her love for him, faked being this utterly wonderful and perfect being, so that she could destroy his family as well as Edward himself? Why? Because she's the type who wants to see the world burn.

Edward's love turns to utter hatred, he's back in Biology again where this little girl dares to disrupt his life, only it's 1000 times worse. Bella Swan is the greatest evil that has ever walked this Earth.

And now he's a man with nothing to lose.

Carlisle's love for him? Already gone. Carlisle's faith in Edward's humanity? Gone. Why should Edward hold back anymore? Why shouldn't he have what he wants?

Within a few days, by the time Edward was originally going to leave, he sneaks into Bella's house and murders her in her bedroom. He then likely desecrates her corpse so she's unrecognizable, to make her as ugly in death as she should have been in life.

Edward then flees, leaving the coven for good, and returns to his diet of people. Not murderers and rapists anymore though, that pretense is done, because he's fully embraced being a monster.

I imagine out of pettiness he kills women who look like Bella.

Conclusion

Congratulations, anon, you have lost the Twilight Yandere Simulator.

[incorrect-ikevamp-quotes]

pls scream about Leo a lil bit cause my love for that man is neverending and i live for you guys' blog,,, and ur comte love fuels me??? head empty except for those two pureblood clowns

HNGNGNG I hope that both you and everyone that reads my shenanigans knows how utterly understood I feel when I see anyone stan Comte, if not both of those idiot purebloods bc good lord...I live for two tired fossil men that just want DOMESTIC BLISS. Literally they have no brain cells beyond respect women and we love that for us, it’s spectacular!!

Under a cut bc I went off and is long:

That being said I’d be happy to yell abt Leo!! Where do I even begin, this man was the reason I got into Ikevamp in the first place, and I’ve read just about every single one of his events at this point. He just makes me so TENDER!!!!!! For whatever reason the first thing that came to mind was this one time he lies about being jealous and MC is lolol u a fool if you think I can’t tell when you lie to me. And he’s so fuckiNG SHOOK?????? It’s even funnier because she’s internally like [I’m not 100% sure but for a second there he almost looked mad...time to test this theory even if it’s just A GAME T H E O R Y] And he’s so fucking pikachu meme that shit sends me. I can’t handle the fact that he’s so used to people just assuming he’s fine, that he can handle himself. That he’s lived for so long without really anyone noticing at all. (Comte absolutely notices and will lightly roast him, but doesn’t really push him about it or wants to overstep). And so when MC just actively pays attention and is so gentle with him he’s just floored???

God I’m crying now, but I will just never forget the funeral scene in his fucking rt. This asshole, this absolute moron, straight up tries to come at us with “yOu GeT uSeD tO iT aFtEr HaLf A mIlLeNiUm, i’M nOt SaD”. Like are you serious. Come here and let me hold you before I throttle you. Absolute clown. He’s just always trying so hard to get by on his own and it breaks my heart. How long...how long has he lived just getting by, nursing his own wounds and dragging himself up all by himself. HE LEFT HOME AT LIKE 14 (whatever the fuCK SOME TOO YOUNG AGE) AND RAN STRAIGHT INTO THE HANDS OF PEOPLE THAT HATED HIM FOR HIS TALENT. HE REMEMBERS HIS MENTORS DESTROYING HIS UTENSILS WHILE TRYING TO ESCAPE PARENTS THAT WHOLEHEARTEDLY REJECTED ANY EXPRESSION OF LOVE OR COMPASSION FOR HUMANITY THAT HE CHERISHED SO DEEPLY. I DON’T NEED SLEEP I NEED TO HUG HIM IMMEDIATELY FUCKING HELL.

Like.........there’s just........I don’t know how to explain it, but I once saw it explained so well in a post. It was basically talking about Castlevania, and how in that show Dracula sees humanity’s folly and develops so much hatred he just goes straight to murder rage. And while in some ways I understand that, I understand even more deeply Trevor’s response to humanity’s fear and violence. He says that he knows they’re short-sighted, that maybe we all just don’t deserve saving...but that he’s going to do it anyway. Leonardo just so much gives me that energy of knowing there’s so much pain in the world, but all we can do is keep walking--keep trying, even if we have to claw our way forward. Because if you only see the awfulness in front of you, you forget the way that strangers make silly faces at babies to make them laugh on the train, how a friend will put everything down to race over to someone and comfort them with some ice cream--do anything they can to distract them from the hurt. How the sight of a child crying will prompt careful cooing from a stranger as to their bravery, an offering of cool water, the gentle placement of a bandaid. How a pair of teenagers will spot a lost child in milliseconds and help them seek out their parents protectively. There is so much wretchedness, but also so much beauty in it all, and the older I get the more I see myself wanting to believe in the latter. I want to be hopeful, and easily impressed, and full of love. To be bitter and jaded accomplishes nothing, and only becomes a worsening self-fulfilling prophecy. The more you seek negativity, the more you will find it; and worse, create it.

I also scream a little bit bc like. I’ve gone on and on about how Comte is very obviously in love with MC all the time, and sure that may be true. But...I really don’t think Leo is exempt from that either if I’m honest lmfao. Only because what does Leonardo do when it isn’t his route? He almost never shows up. Once in a while he might appear for a split second in a scene, but he almost never converses with MC beyond those short moments. While Comte is the one to pine openly, I’d wager Leo is the opposite. He pines in absolute silence, because he knows that if he gets any closer--he’s going to fall. He’s going to enjoy it too much, going to keep seeking out more before he can stop himself. And losing another person he loves...he just can’t do it anymore. In his first meeting story he talks about seeing MC’s eyes and feeling like he’d known them all his life, and even in his MS he speaks to just being completely fascinated by and enamored of her. She doesn’t hesitate, always does her best, meets people head-on and without much hesitation. After a lifetime of people that are probably just immediately interested in him for his talents, or always seeking out his company for the novelty, this is someone that doesn’t give a single fuck if he’s Leonardo da Vinci. Sure she’s aware, and sure she’s impressed to some extent, but her respect--her attraction and admiration--is something that has to be earned. 

There’s something so refreshing about how their love was written. Sure it’s the whole fake marriage to a real relationship, but it’s also a kind of subtle enemies to lovers pulled off masterfully. MC is 100% minding her own business, just wants to do what she must in order to get home, tries to focus on her work to keep from thinking about how much she misses her old life. She doesn’t rely on anyone, doesn’t talk about how hard it is or how scary it is or how confusing. And even Leonardo forgets in his curiosity, is just chillin and also just trying to do the bare minimum to keep from getting too attached--figures he can admire her from a distance. And then he sees her staring at the hourglass. And suddenly, he can’t just watch her do that herself. Just wait for the hard times to pass, just sit with her own loneliness--that hollowing silence. There’s something so moving about it because he reaches out precisely because he knows that feeling to his fucking marrow, and literally just cannot watch somebody else do that to themselves. Sure he’s been dealing with it for three hundred years, BUT THIS GOOD BABIE CHILD DOES NOT DESERVE THIS. SHE WORKS HARD AND DESERVES NICE THINGS!!!!!!!! And so he drives her crazy as he races ahead of her, intercepting any attempt for her to preserve that silence and hide. She doesn’t see any pattern to it, and that’s just how he likes it--he doesn’t want her to worry about the how or why. 

Like I fully remembering playing in Japanese and being like oh my fucking god this is hilarious, this man is just a wild fucker and I love this. I was enjoying myself, mostly laughing and shaking my head. But then it just gets so, so serious. I was having so much fun that I, like a fool, forgot the anime effect. If you’re having fun, it’s going to come crashing down without mercy soon enough. And it does. He helps a little girl without any hope play her violin again, and maybe I’m just too English major but I was fucking FLOORED when I realized I didn’t see that that was straight foreshadowing. That little girl without hope? That was MC (and by extension depending on how you play, us). Though the metaphor isn’t quite so easily mapped without a physical space, the connection is clear when you think about it. With his careful social awareness, he makes a place for MC to exist in the mansion so naturally--as though she was meant to be there from the start, crafts a positive impression of her presence with each of the residents. And he does it with zero expectation of anything in return; he’s just happy to see her not stressing herself out anymore or trying to do everything alone. MC doesn’t fall in love with him despite their differences, she falls in love with him because they are the same in a singular and all-encompassing way that matters; they both care about other people so deeply, to the point where they will forego any personal needs in order to make that person’s life easier. Whether it be muting their own hardship, or working to involve another person in a new space (or opening up to the point of self-destruction to keep a person from feeling alone), they go above and beyond what anybody asks of them--perhaps strong to the point of their own detriment, in some cases. 

It’s why I always laugh when he says to Sebastian “That cara mia, she has a good heart.” Of course she does, Leonardo; it certainly takes one to know one. 

And because I literally have no brain cells beyond being in fucking love with Leonardo THE LAKE SCENE IS AN AFFRONT TO MY DIGNITY AND SELF-CONTROL. HOW DARE YOU, SIGNORE. HOW DARE YOU ASK ME TO SIT THERE AND WATCH YOU OPEN YOUR HEART TO ME AND NOT BAWL MY EYES OUT AND TRY TO KISS YOU ALL AT THE SAME TIME. SIGNORE “hAhA yOu’Re So SmAlL yOu LoOk LiKe YoU’rE DrOwNiNg In My CoAt.” I WOULD DROWN AND DIE HAPPY--BITCH I TELL YOU THAT.

Like. I can’t think of another route I’ve ever done where I spent a good amount of time like “lmfao this guy is so wild im gonna punch him” to just be in a whirlpool of my own tears, regretting my entire fucking LIFE days later. Like Leonardo’s cultural impact???? Fucking immeasurable, I wish every white man disaster I ever met had a hidden heart of gold in all of his boyish dumbassery, an ICONIC himbo of our time. 

Also because I remembered it before posting and I am Dying^TM. The event where MC was a pureblood and he was human. That entire fucking event. I literally can’t think about it without screaming and crying. Her just so flustered at his reaction to her like “oh look, free real estate” as he plops her in his lap, absolutely no fear, treating her like a princess because of her noble title despite NO NECESSITY BEYOND PLAYFULNESS BUT ALSO STILL MEANING IT IN AN EARNEST WAY, being charming to no END just to see her laugh or look away shyly. 

WHEN HE SAID. WHEN HE SAID “...Can’t leave you alone, or you might go off someplace I can’t follow.” I. CONGRATULATIONS, YOU STRIPPED DEVOTION DOWN TO ITS BARE ESSENTIALS!!!!!! GAH HOW MC HERSELF SAYS “I would tell him the truth but...he’s much too generous for a human. I know he would offer his life without a moment’s hesitation.” How Leo describes the aftermath of her biting him: “Lucky for you, I’m a true gentleman, Unlike my principessa, who took me like a storm” HELLO??????? H E L  L O ???????????????????????? ARE WE JUST GOING TO SLEEP ON THE FACT THAT HE LOST HIS ENTIRE SOUL WHEN SHE BIT HIM???? I--

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.

(Also as much as I love him the cigarillos have got to go at some point, boy do you have any idea the shit secondhand smoke does good lordt)

[anncanta]

‘Dracula’ and ‘Doctor Who’. Blood is testimony

Stephen Moffat is often accused of using similar plots, repeating the same plot lines, and returning to a number of his favorite ideas.

Moffat really develops a certain set of specific, quite recognizable topics, and in his different scripts, he one way or another tells similar stories.

But with his recurring motives and ideas, as, indeed, with another stuff, not everything is so simple.

First, the outstanding authors are most often accompanied by craving for certain narratives and archetypal forms, as well as cross-cutting themes. Some of this authors create ‘frames’ for these ideas in the form of multivolume novels or novel cycles, others devote wreaths of sonnets and collections of stories to their favorite topic, and others choose whole genres for reflection on issues that are important to them. I think that none of those reading this article will have any difficulties with examples.

Secondly, there are not so many really interesting stories.

And thirdly, repetitions can be different. Like any feature, it can exist on its own, or it can – if the author has a large-scale talent – become another way to tell a story like no one else do.

In Stephen Moffat's case, we are dealing with a very unique situation where the author's stories are literally read through one another.

I will make a separate reservation: I am not talking about postmodern ‘intertextuality’ – a vile definition for references and quotations that have existed in literature since the emergence of storytelling and are news only for postmodernists themselves – but about a peculiar use of certain plots and motives.

If you want, you can find a huge number of such things in Moffat's scripts. The viewers who have been closely following his work since the period when he became the showrunner of Doctor Who will immediately name a dozen of them. But I would like to dwell on one example – the newest one for today.

When the TV series Dracula by Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss was released on BBC and Netflix in 2020, some viewers noted the similarity of its style, and in some places, the plot outline, with Doctor Who, and directly called the main character of the film, Agatha Van Helsing, the female version of the Doctor.

The first is obvious, and the second is quite understandable in light of the two years earlier release (absolutely disastrous, in my opinion) of the eleventh and twelfth seasons of Doctor Who.

But the beauty of both Moffat's game and the whole story is that there`s not Agatha who is the Doctor here.

Yes, by all appearances, it is this brave, interested in science, well acquainted with evil, fighting against it and even – partly – traveling through time, the heroine who seems most suitable for the role of the Doctor in the new setting. There was a calculation for this: Moffat, during his time as the showrunner of the series, who, it seems, tried all the plot possibilities except this one, and who left on the eve of the epochal transformation of the character, it would seem, had to offer the audience his version of the female Doctor. Well, he did: on the surface. As if he said: ‘Here is a heroine with such qualities. This is how you imagine her, isn`t it? Well, get it.’

And inside this shell, as inside the unfortunate Jonathan Harker (Moffat, as a true Briton, uses materialized metaphors and often literally shows what he means), there is another story.

In order to understand it, you need to take a close look at Dracula and – at Doctor Who written by Moffat.

With Dracula everything is simple. As soon as you start looking for the main character of this film who: a) lives for several centuries; b) collects human stories; c) travels in time; d) always has one or more people next to him – you instantly find him. And if you've watched an entire episode and a half and still don't understand anything, in the middle of the second one you will hear a direct quote.

'The sophistication of a gentleman, Agatha, is always a veneer.'

'Even a gentleman like Mr. Balaur?'

'Mr. Who?'

But that's just one detail.

A deeper level opens if you try to read Dracula through Doctor Who itself.

In the Christmas special Twice upon a time, which ends the last season, written by Stephen Moffat, the plot is centered on the Doctor's encounter with strange creatures, as if made of glass, which are living vaults of memory. The episode itself is full of layered ideas and references. But for us now only one dimension is important.

At the very end of the special, the Doctor addresses the glass creatures with an ardent speech – one of those that he loves so much.

‘You're just memories, held in glass. Do you know how many of you I could fill? I would shatter you. My testimony would shatter all of you. A life this long, do you understand what it is? It's a battlefield. And it's empty. Because everyone else has fallen.’

Does this remind you of anything?

It seems to me that this is a literal description of what is happening with Dracula.

What he says throughout the film, and what Agatha did not understand even at the end, because in order to understand this, you had to live his life.

And in order to understand this whole context, you need to understand that the Doctor was never a good guy. He always said this to everyone but no one believed him.

No one believed the stories of the horror before which entire civilizations tremble, about a creature that destroyed its entire species in order to stop the most destructive war in history, about the person who does not need weapons so that the captains of warships flocked from the most distant corners of the Universe, after listening to him for a couple of minutes, ran away without looking back.

The Doctor was never a good guy, but just as important, he always knew it. For the Doctor of Russell T. Davis, this position looks like a fact with which neither the character himself nor the people around him and aliens are very inclined to interact. I guess it’s a matter of Davis’ very outlook on the story and perhaps his own worldview.

But the Doctor of Moffat is a hero who lives with this knowledge and with the impossibility of passing this knowledge on to others.

Because the Doctor is always the one they are waiting for, the one they go to for advice, the one with whom they travel around the Universe, the one who opens the door to the magical world, the one they hope for.

He is never the one who sits on the roof of the TARDIS, surrounded by the loneliness of the starry sky. Not someone who lives longer than any human being, not someone who knows what it means to make monstrous decisions in circumstances that most of us cannot imagine.

And the one in whom there is so much testimony that it is able to break the vessel that they will try to fill with.

In Dracula, all these details, motives, and meanings are repeated sequentially.

The most obvious is ‘blood is testimony’. This is not self-quotation, as it might seem, but a literal proposal of the author to look in a certain direction.

The blood in Dracula is not only memory. It's also a way to watch. And to see a bright and diverse world, which otherwise would have become boring long ago.

In the fifth season of Doctor Who, there is a moment when Eleventh says to Amy Pond, ‘You don't understand. I have the whole Universe in my backyard. I'm used to it. I don’t notice it. But when you appear, I look with your eyes. And it becomes a miracle again.’*

In this sense, the ‘brides’ and everyone that Dracula ate are in some way his companions. If you remember what a great sense of guilt towards most of his companions the Doctor felt and how some of them ended up, the comparison turns out to be not so poor.

Dracula, like the Doctor, has companions with whom he has a very special relationship that he cannot explain to himself. He travels through time and space, discovering one day that all human experience is stored and cataloged somewhere in his head, and there is nothing new.

And – as is often the case in Moffat's stories – here one character completes and harmoniously implements a theme started by another.

If the Doctor, being who he is, and fully aware of this, tormented by endless insatiable loneliness and memories of life as an empty battlefield, invariably continues the path that seems to him more and more meaningless, then Dracula decided to end the life like that.

And all this, the whole story, is organized as a transition, as a movement forward and backward in time, which unites and brings to life what is dissolved, inherent, basically exists, and ‘spilled’ in blood. The blood here is also the same as the space in the Doctor Who, it is the Universe, which belongs to everyone and flows inside everyone, and inside which everyone exists, and which determines everyone. In order for blood to become an individuality, it takes time, a specific moment at which each specific individuality comes to the surface. So, for example, the return of Agatha takes place. There must be something she wants to come back for. Like the TARDIS, blood is always within us and speaks through us. In the case of Dracula and Agatha, this is their bond, their love for each other. Even if this love is unaware, – sometimes the TARDIS acts on her own and travels wherever she wants, forcing the Doctor and his companions to act in the circumstances she suggests.

And all this, this whole context, the whole story, with all its dimensions and additional meanings, became possible only due to the fact that Stephen Moffat, the author of both series, is not afraid to describe ambiguous heroes, to reflect out loud on their adventures, and – sometimes – to repeat.

* The words of Eleventh quoted from memory.

[descendant-of-truth]

So, just recently, I found got into Kid Icarus and found your blog! It's given me some amazing Pit and Dark Pit content to think about. Anyway, my question for you is: Besides the opening, do you think Pit and Dark Pit interacted in World of Light? How did Pit react when he woke up without him or Palutena? Was he the one to save Dark Pit? I like to think so, regardless of what I've seen a few people say. Sorry if you don't take Kid Icarus asks anymore, but I just needed to know!

Okay so first I just wanna say that I'm glad you liked my Kid Icarus posts! And even though it's been a while since I've posted about it, I still love the game a bunch. So, anyone can always send me asks about stuff I haven't posted about in a while!

Now, moving on to your question - the World of Light was a huge missed opportunity for character interaction all across the board. I understand that there are a lot more characters to juggle than there were in Brawl, and a fully realized story mode would be a lot more linear than the free-form world map that we got, but it just seems weird to have such a dramatic starting cutscene and then just... not continue with it.

I'm not gonna sit here and write an entire story mode, because that would be getting wildly off-track, but the game gives us just enough content to let us extrapolate how our angels are doing.

Starting with that first cutscene: we can see from the blue glow on their wings that Palutena is actually directing both of their flight paths, implying that she's improved her power of flight since Uprising. Possibly for this very purpose?

As she flies them off to safety, you can clearly see Pit looking back towards her - he clearly doesn't want to leave her behind, but it's not his choice to make. Even Dark Pit looks like his head is angled slightly towards her, but of course he doesn't show his feelings as obviously as Pit.

We all know what happens next. Palutena's barrier fails, she vanishes, and with her gone, our angels fall.

Poetically enough, Pit and Palutena end up being controlled by Galeem while Dark Pit is taken over by Dharkon. How Dharkon got ahold of people that Galeem took out is beyond me, but I'm not here to fix plot holes.

Pit is the first of the three to be rescued, and wouldn't you know it, he's found in a ruined Skyworld.

For him to wake up to see that his home has been destroyed again, with Palutena and Dark Pit nowhere in sight, saying that he'd be distressed is an understatement. The main thing keeping him together would be that he isn't alone - he has Kirby and whoever else he's rescued at this point.

(I personally like to think that the cast eventually divides into groups so that they can cover more ground because that map is huge and it would make for better storytelling)

Without his usual support group, I'd imagine that Pit would spend a lot of this journey being antsier than usual. He of course wants to save everyone, and pursues that goal with the same determination as always, but getting Palutena and Dark Pit back is personal. The same most likely goes for Viridi, whose Spirit he probably equips at all times. Can Spirits talk?? Because if they can, that would definitely alleviate some stress.

By the time Dharkon shows up, our heroes have scoured what looks to be a whole continent and then some, and still no angel or goddess in sight. At this point, Pit's gotta be pretty frustrated with his lack of progress, so he practically dives into the portal that Dharkon opens up.

Fun fact: Dark Pit is an absolute pain to unlock because he's found in the trickiest sub-map in the game. Which happens to be Dracula's Castle.

He's specifically on one of the rooftops, which tells me that the fight where Pit saves him would look amazing and it's one more reason why we deserved a proper story mode but whatever.

After so many trials and tribulations, Dark Pit is finally saved! This isn't a proper fanfiction so I don't have time to go over how great their reunion would be, but ideally there'd be a hug in there somewhere, maybe some banter amidst all the feels.

But Dark Pit has more important feelings than fluff to deal with at this point, like rage. Ironically enough, he was the only one of Ultimate's Kid Icarus trio to not get possessed during Uprising, and he's not exactly fond of it now. He made such a big deal over how he didn't want to be anyone's puppet, and now look at what happened.

(Pit can relate because wow, becoming a mindless slave to a god of light sure does hit close to home, doesn't it)

With their combined determination to rescue Palutena and defeat yet another pair of gods, the two of them aggressively tag-team their way through the rest of the story mode until they reach Palutena. Which just so happens to be during the final act of the game.

This wonderfully chaotic place is the battleground for Galeem and Dharkon. And Palutena is placed pretty close to the starting point, which means we'll get to have her around for the whole level! It's what she deserves after being separated for so long.

Now, the game mode itself doesn't let you do multiplayer (as far as I'm aware), but I say to heck with that, it's more narratively satisfying to have both angels save her.

This time around, we might not get hugs unless Palutena initiates it. Pit's too respectful and Dark Pit's not very affectionate to begin with. But the point is that they're finally together again, which means they get to be a triple threat.

Another fun fact: both angels would have been entirely grounded this whole time. They simply can't fly without Palutena's magic, which makes me wonder how many fights you could win without using their recovery move. But now that they can fly again?? Pure chaos.

The banter is in full swing with Palutena back, the entire Smash Bros roster is here with them, and somehow this goes better than the last time. Was there ever a plot explanation as to why? Who cares! I just wrote several hundred words about Kid Icarus again and that's all that really matters anyway

So, to summarize: Pit didn't do so great when he woke up without the others, he absolutely saved Dark Pit and they had many interactions, and they then proceeded to free Palutena together because that's just what makes the most sense with what we were given.

[duhragonball]

Hellsing Liveblog Ch. 2-3

Chapter 2 is a flashback to the origin of Sir Integra Hellsing.   As established in Chapter 1, the Hellsing Organization is a secret anti-Halloween-monster task force.   From what I’ve been able to tell, they have a small army of guys and they all live and train in a big mansion, and the Hellsing family runs the whole show.   It’s sort of like the X-Men except they actually do cool shit and you only have to keep track of four or five characters.   

It’s implied throughout this manga that the Hellsing Family is descended from Abraham Van Helsing, the vampire hunter seen in Bram Stoker’s novel, Dracula.    Shoot, I just remembered I wanted to read the novel so I’d know what this manga was referencing, but it’s too late, I’ll just have to do that later.   I’ve been meaning to read the Great Gatsby for several years, too, and I just never get around to it.   

On the other hand, Integra claimed that her family had been at this since “ancient times”, suggesting that they predate the events of the Dracula novel.  If Abraham Van Helsing was part of their line, then he may have only been carrying on a tradition instead of founding a new one.   I think the conceit of Hellsing is that it regards the Dracula novel as part of its canon.   That is, in this fictional world, the events in the novel really happened, more or less.    I don’t know if that means the novel exists in this world or not.

Whatever the case, it was Arthur Hellsing running the organization up until 1989, when he suddenly took ill.   On his deathbed, he named his daughter as his successor, and asked his brother Richard to help her run things, since Integra was like, twelve, at the time.

Instead, Richard waited three days and staged a coup, forcing Li’l Integra to hide in the ventilation ducts.   He has to act quickly, and kill her before the whole staff finds out what he’s up to, but if he can kill her, he’ll assume control and be set for life.    I’m not really sure what Richard wants out of this.    Maybe he just really wants to run the family business, or maybe he wants to shut the whole thing down and just be a wealthy nobleman without all the monsters.   Anyway, the search for Integra leads to the “underground sector”, which hasn’t been used in over twenty years, so I guess 1969 is about when it was shut down?    It houses a dark arts lab, a library, speciment room, torture chamber, dissecting room, and a dungeon.   That last one tips Richard off, because before he died, Arthur told her that she could find something that would protect her.  

But all she finds inside is a corpse, and then Richard and his goons show up shortly after.   He plans to kill her slowly to punish her for wasting his time, but when he shoots he in the arm, some of the blood splashes on the corpse, and then it comes to life.

Just like Frosty the Snowman, only horrifying.   Richard tries to kill it, which seems pretty stupid, considering how they thought it was dead a minute ago.   That goes about as well as you’d expect, and after slaughtering the goons and taking Richard’s arm, the corpse kneels before Integra and addresses her as “Master.”

Richard apparently knew nothing of this, but the corpse seems to recognize him, at least as far as a Hellsing who’s not fit to head the family.  As Integra shoots Richard dead, the corpse introduces himself as Alucard, the name her family has always called him.  

One thing I find interesting here is that I could have sworn the Hellsing Ultimate anime established that Richard had poisoned Arthur, presumably thinking he would have a clear shot at the inheritance.   But it’s never mentioned here.   Maybe this was something they added in, because honestly, it just makes too much sense.  The implication of this flashback is that there are certain secrets in the Hellsing Family that only got passed down from parent to child.    Arthur and Richard’s father must have known about Alucard, and Arthur was likely the one who sealed him up in the basement in the first place, but neither of them said a word about him to Richard.   Maybe if they had, Richard might have thought twice before trying to take over.   Like the Cheddar Priest, he thought he had it all figured out, but he didn’t know what he didn’t know.

Back in the present day, Alucard is on the shooting range with Seras, teaching her how to shoot.   Seras already knows how to fire a gun, but Al wants her to hit targets at greater distances, using The Force a vampiric “third eye.”   He demonstrates by shooting a target one kilometer away, and hitting it perfectly.   For some reason, Integra is reading the paper nearby, and reminiscing about the her first meeting with Alucard ten years ago.   For some reason, she takes umbrage with the idea that she’s not still a “little girl” like she was back then.   Seras even ribs her a bit, which ticks Integra off.   Of course, Seras wouldn’t think Integra’s a “little girl”.   Integra’s a few years older than she is.  

The main point of all of this is that it establishes why Alucard works for Integra, and what they did with Seras after Alucard turned her into a vampire.   One way or another, Seras is just drafted to fight the Vampire Wars, or whatever they call it.   I find this kind of unsatisfying, because the anime didn’t expand on it either.   Seras just wakes up in the mansion, and Integra tosses her a uniform and says “Get dressed, kid, your shift starts in twenty minutes.”

I think Seras wants to work for the Hellsing Organization, partly because she has nowhere else to go, and partly because she admires Alucard and wants to join his cause.    But it’s never established that Seras has a choice in the matter.  It’s implied that Alucard is magically bound to the Hellsing family.    Integra called him “the research” that her “father and the others were doing.”  Like, you can’t just have a vampire work for you, you have to do stuff to him to make him obey.   I don’t think they’re mind-controlling Al per se.  He seems fully aware of what his role is, and he’s totally comfortable in it.   But he’s not just doing this voluntarily, either.    Integra has some sort of power over him, and my assumption is that Seras inherited that same quality when Alucard turned her.   So now she’s bound to Integra’s orders in the same way.  

But there’s a lot of unanswered questions in this.    I would think Alucard would be expressly forbidden from making his own ghouls or vampire broods.   Yet he drank Seras’ blood without any problems.  Maybe he’s allowed to do it if he has permission?    That might be it.    But then he brings her back to Integra, and I assume she has to make the decision to either keep Seras or destroy her.   I mean, Seras is handy to have on the team, sure, but if this was a good idea, why didn’t they have Alucard do this before?   I guess the situation just never came up.  

I think a lot about what might have happened if the Cheddar Priest had turned her into a vampire.    Would she have become loyal to him?  He said she would have free will, but she’s pretty deferential to Alucard, so what’s that about?   And if she had become a vampire and turned against the Priest, would Al have allowed her to live?   He was on a mission to destroy vampires, so I would think he would have shot first and asked questions later.    Well, let’s move on.

Chapter 3 jumps ahead to August 12, so Seras has been with the team for a little over a month now.   A bunch of murders have taken place in Birmingham (England, not Alabama), and this time no one waits around to call in Hellsing, though they are still surprised to find out she’s a woman.     

This time, the culprit is on the move, and Integra deduces that they’re choosing specific households full of “devout Christians” and spacious walls to write “blasphemous anti-Christian messages.”   Since they’re moving along Route 17, Integra has a rough idea of where they’ll strike next.  

I don’t know what the point of the “blasphemous messages” or seemingly ritual killings is supposed to be, since the killers are just this young vampire couple who only seem to be interested in this for immortality and power.   Their goal seems to be to kill thirteen families, and “they’ll” see to it that they get stronger.   I don’t know if this means some other party has put them up to this, or maybe they mean “they” as in all the families they’re killing.   It’s like this is an initiation ritual or something, except we’ve already seen Seras become a vampire, and she didn’t have to do anything like this to seal the deal. 

Then again, maybe the point of this chapter is to demonstrate that vampires take a while to get all their powers.  When Alucard confronts them, he scolds them, not for their string of murders, but for their lack of conviction, and their inability to transform or fight without guns.     So maybe this couple was trying to jumpstart the process by feeding on several dozen people in a short span of time.    But Al seems to think that isn’t how it works.    I don’t fully understand his moral code, but he doesn’t seem to object to vampires on principle.   Being a vampire is fine with him, so long as you have a purpose to it.   If you’re only in it for immortality and power, with no other reason, then he doesn’t respect you.   Seras wanted to live, but not necessarily forever, and I think she wanted power, but only enough to fight against evil.   That’s what sets her apart in Alucard’s eyes. 

So he kills the boy, but the girl escapes out the window, but Alucard already had that move scouted.

I’m not sure who’s saying “No!” here.   Maybe the girl vampire running down the road.   Anyway, Alucard put Seras on the roof of the house before he went inside, just in case anyone tried to make a break for it.   So all she has to do is shoot down the runner before she’s out of range.  Except she’s 600 meters away, it’s night time, and Seras doesn’t have a scope for her gun.   But Al reminds her to use her “third eye” and it works.  

After it’s over, Seras realizes that she didn’t even feel the recoil of the gun, and she can see in the dark with no trouble at all.   She wonders what’s happening to her, but that seems like a dumb question to ask one month after turning into a vampire.    I’m guessing the first few weeks of it didn’t feel all that different to her, and she probably knew she’d get stronger and better at shooting guns, but now that it’s actually happening it feels a lot stranger than she expected it to be.   In the anime, Seras also points out that she can hear Alucard talking to her in her mind, which is also weird, but I guess she’s got plenty of other weird stuff to process now.

Back at the base, Integra considers the recent increase in vampire attacks.   They’re all jobbers, like this couple Al and Seras killed, and none of them have any particular agenda, except to kill people.    She begins to wonder if someone’s making all these vampires just to cause trouble.  Hmmm...

So, I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself here, but this foreshadows Milennium quite nicely, but are we saying Milennium made vampires out of that boy and girl?   Were they behind the Cheddar Priest as well?  Also, “two” doesn’t seem like a huge increase in vampire incidents, so I guess there have been some other vampires running around between Chapters 1 and 3.   Oh well. 

[thebeautyofdisorder]

The Undone & The Divine (BBC Dracula) - Chapter 8

A/N: Okay, sorry it’s been like two weeks since I posted the last chapter. I am such a mess. This is a bit shorter, more of a set up than anything, but informative? I have so many ideas for this, that it took me a minute to figure out in sequence what’s going to happen when.

Pairing: Dracula & Agatha/Zoe, off and on Dracula/OFC

Rating: M, for blood, language, and mercenaries with guns.

Chapters 1-2 Here - Chapter 3 Here - Chapter 4 Here - Chapter 5 Here - Chapter 6 Here - Chapter 7 Here

Can be found on AO3 - Right HERE - or enjoy below the cut

Chapter 8

By all accounts he appears as a human man, at varying states of age depending upon how regularly and well he is fed, lingering even at his most satiated at around 45-50 years – presumably the age of his death. His hair is thick and inky black, kept shorter and slicked back when in public view; his nose aquiline and aristocratic; his eyes appear black at a distance but in close quarters and lighting seem to have a dark mossy-brown hue; admirable bone structure, and a mouth that is at times both harsh and jovial depending upon what impression he wishes to put across at the time. His accent is tainted by those of his victims, but always holds a slight thickness and gravel, reminiscent of his native tongue. His teeth, even when not in the state of blood frenzy, still seem longer and sharper than normal, particularly the canines. His fingernails also are long and honed to a point, and seem to be of inhuman durability and sharpness. He is excessively tall and somewhat broad, though of a generally slim build regardless of his bestial strength. No physical deformities upon the rest of his body when in his humanoid state, though his eyes can seem to gleam in the darkness like those of other nocturnal beasts.

When in the presence of human blood, those eyes dilate and become ringed in crimson, and all blunt edges of his teeth sharpen to slight but lethal points. Animalistic tendencies manifest – hissing, snarling, growling, the hunched stance of a predator, etc. Interestingly, he also seems to bare all the normative signs of the common morphine addict – tension, restless movements, irritability, the inability to control his emotions and behavior. He possesses speed the likes of which the human eye can barely detect, but only in small bursts in the midst of attack, by my witness. He was able to manifest a continual fog, as stated earlier in my narrative, and could very well be at fault for the storm swirling in the seas now, as I write. He can deform himself to fit into any small space, one could assume, though I have only seen him do this by defiling the physical forms of other living beings – notably a wolf at the convent, and the late Jonathan Harker, who was also undead at the time. Whether that’s relevant to this ability, I don’t particularly know. He can call wolves and bats to his service, and possibly flies – whether this works with all creatures and he’s merely chosen these for theatrical purposes, or if he’s limited to creatures of darkness and decay, I have yet to discover.

The ‘kiss of the vampire’ is a strong opiate, meaning most victims are often unaware of his bite or the danger they are in until it is too late. He can create and control the dream state in which they enter, often choosing scenarios of an erotic nature. Whether this is for his own amusement or because of the effect it has on the blood, I can only deduce. This method seems to be equally employed through both sexes though I have yet to see any direct indications of intercourse, willing or unwilling. If he possesses a sex drive at all, it is seemingly outranked by his desire to feed.  

He is highly intelligent and possesses a biting wit, which in another context might even be endearing, and his charm is carefully honed to attract potential victims. Though his mental weaknesses are notable, including his arrogance, lack of self-awareness, and dependence on his victims to take in and retain key skills and information. As opposed to learning the language of a new land through study, he merely drains one of its countrymen and absorbs their inherent knowledge. This leads to a flurry of unpredictable behavior and reckless death, and also speaks of his impatience and lack of discipline, which has undoubtedly lessened with age. He was, in life, an excellent ruler and even better general with a skill for strategy currently wasted on petty mind games. If he could ever reach a point of managing his appetite for blood and destruction, he could be an invaluable resource - a first-hand witness to the last four hundred years of European history.

I’m sure you will, dear brother, quickly dismiss this as folly, but however much you would like to categorize him as yet another mindless demon from the pit, I assure you he is anything but. He may fear the cross, but don’t think there is a heavenly power that instilled that fear. It reeks of an entirely human weakness. You would do well to remember that, should you run across him or any of his kind in the future. While his existence seems to have been very luck of the draw, it’s nowhere near as anomalous as Dracula himself would like us to believe. Others could have survived and done what he has done. In fact, I could almost guarantee it.

Zoe read through Agatha’s words again, this particular afterward for maybe the twentieth time since she’d found it. Not for any particular information, more over just marveling at the clarity, simplicity, and dare-she-say fondness with which it was written, in comparison to the information she’d been brought up with. Shockingly, the nun was able to more realistically sum up the vampire than any other Van Helsing before or after her (granted, she had the firsthand experience), and with so much less fire and brimstone, religious nonsense. It was half of why she’d spent so long away from ‘the family business’ as it were, until she’d had to take over the institute. Science had always been the only god she would acknowledge.

Whatever logic Agatha had administered from across the pond however, while well used, had been entirely riddled with her elder brother’s showmanship and particularly Catholic brand of fending off the forces of darkness. Agatha may have seen him as the devil incarnate, but that didn’t stop her from acknowledging his humanity – and in that, Zoe couldn’t help but agree. Dracula was very much still a man, no matter how immortal or powerful, and he still had all of man’s other weaknesses, sans physical vulnerabilities. Minor detail.

She supposed it had made it easier for both the zealot and the scientist to see their subject of animosity as no better than a rabid dog that needed to be analyzed and destroyed. But that had never been the case at all. A self-serving lesson to learn, she had to admit, but an important one. So long as he had retained some of his humanity, there was certainly hope for her.

It was the only thing keeping her sane through the mock trial this experiment had turned into. Every turn she was being questioned and analyzed harder than she had since grad school, and yet still regarded as the antagonistic and dangerous party. It was a contradiction that made her genuinely question the mental capacity of her colleagues.

Yes, let's aggravate the person we're terrified of. Honestly.

Their latest critique, however she loathed to admit it, was actually sound. They needed a control. A 'direct contact' feed to compare to her bottled one, and they all knew there was only one vampire to compare to. Clearly they didn't actually expect him to participate, they only wanted to de-legitimize her process.

But it would make an impact, wouldn't it?

-----

It was just before sunset, traces of red just beginning to seep onto the surface of the sun, and for the first time in a great while, Count Dracula was unenthused. He was beginning to be rather fond of daylight, even if it came with certain disadvantages, as he was beginning to discover. Perhaps vampires were better off as creatures of the night after all.

Most if not all of his preternatural abilities were greatly weakened by the sun, though why he wasn't sure. It made him feel languid and slow, which was perfectly fine for an afternoon on the beach, but highly inconvenient when he got hungry and none of his more willing resources were available. Physical conditioning or a lesser reality of the lore he'd always accepted, who was to say?

Who indeed.

He had given Zoe plenty of space to run her little experiments without interference, aside from keeping an 'eye' out to ensure she wasn't in any immediate danger. But there was only so long that would last, and despite having ample opportunity to create more brides...he felt like he needed more answers before that inevitability occurred.

Agatha had been right, annoyingly, as usual. Lab rats were not something he needed, especially ones who could question him on topics even he didn't fully understand anymore.

If the Van Helsing women were good for anything, aside from healthy competition, it was certainly bluntness and clarity. Being the only thing close to another vampire of any mental capacity to be in his proximity for over 300 years certainly didn't hurt.

Zoe Van Helsing was someone he needed, a concept he could scarcely understand and wasn't entirely fond of, but if he wasn't mistaken, she needed him as well - and hated it even more.

----

"Dr. Helsing, is this really necessary?"

Zoe found herself staring at the younger but far more egotistical doctor through the glass that separated them with an expression not unlike one would give a particularly frustrating insect who refused to die as fast as she wished it would.

"Is what necessary?"

The man, Dr. Connors, pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, punctuating his next words with unnecessary flare.

"Well, our sponsor doesn't understand the necessity of this trial, when it cannot possibly prove anything. All of our intel on the 'vampiric condition' states simply that they require blood to sustain life, but also that it's nearly impossible to kill them. Surely your continued …  existence without blood doesn't fully prove or disprove anything. And without anything to compare it to…"

"For now," she interrupted stubbornly, attempting to ignore his tendency to discuss her as though she were a theoretical construct.

"Even so," he continued blandly, "There are surely better uses of our time, in the face of an increasing number of...undead. Preventative measures, protection for the innocent. Unless you can get some sort of control data…"

Their 'sponsor' had sent this idiot to report back on how his precious money was being spent,  and it had become an increasingly infuriating thorn in her side. Or stake in her heart, she was sure he hoped. Zoe had just begun to second guess her tendencies toward homicide, when she felt the tell-tale hairs begin to rise on the back of her neck.

"Oh fuck me," she cursed aloud, completely indifferent to the confused looks of those observing her. They wouldn't be confused for long.

"Careful what you wish for Doctor."

Everyone but Zoe took a startled glance around. She turned around, eyes directly finding the dark ones on the outside of the glass, quirking a stern brow despite the relative chaos of everyone else receding into the corners in panic.

Count Dracula merely flashed her a shit-eating grin in response, relishing her disapproval in equal measure to the human fear beginning to fill the room. Pungent and yet satisfying, she noted, rather unhappily.

"Oh Zoe how the tables have turned," he couldn't resist prodding at her through the encasement, ignoring the guns pointed at his back in favor of taunting her, hands in his pockets. The picture of malicious nonchalance.

She wasn't trapped, as he had been. They'd learned their lesson in that regard at least, but it was a barrier she'd permitted for her own sanity. Watching everyone walk on eggshells around her was grating, and it ruined her focus. Plus, it helped with the sensory overload until she got more accustomed to it.

"And yet you're still the one at gunpoint," Zoe shot back with a hint of a blithe smile.

He turned and directed his overly fond smile towards the tattooed gentleman with the over-sized assault weapon, greeting him like an old friend. The man that Zoe had never seen with a single facial expression looked so dumbstruck that she had to fight down a laugh. This was apparently the last straw for their visiting dictator.

"Count Dracula," came more of a squeak than a shout from the bespectacled doctor's mouth, with such a forced amount of distaste that Zoe was now certain he had lost his mind entirely. "You will not be permitted to attack anyone here."

Shooting Zoe an incredulous look, mostly as she could read translating to ‘Is he serious?’, the vampire watched her answering eye roll very obviously telling him ‘He's an idiot, but reports to the money’.

Dracula finally looked away from their silent exchange, and took out a small pocket flask, not unlike the one he'd left her before, and shook it in the other man's general direction as he passed by him with total indifference.

"Not to worry, I brought my own," he stated, opening it and taking a long swig. It cleared a direct pathway for him easily, bee-lining for Dr. Bloxham who sat at the control panel. She naturally flinched on his approach, despite trying to hide it. He noticed and flashed her a charming smile, to his credit only showing the slightest hint of fang.

"Terribly sorry about the finger," the Count apologized humbly, almost convincingly sincere as he draped a long arm over the back of her chair. "...But would you mind letting me in?"

Bloxham looked somewhat confused. "You want to go in there?" Her eyes shot up to the ceiling. The sun had not completely set. He gave her an encouraging smile with a faint trace of pity.

"I would love to go in there."

Zoe merely rolled her eyes and tapped on the table with relative impatience, as he paced through the parted seas of scientists and interns alike to join her in the completely ineffective glass prison.

"You evil little thing, you didn't tell them," he accused with quiet glee as he approached her from the opposite side of the table.

"If their superstitions help them feel safe, then all the better for me," she excused in a murmur, hoping he hadn't just given the game away completely.

His grin was one of near pride, as he bent his tall form forward to rest his hands on the table. "I can go slit his throat if you want me to. Heaven knows you won't."

She sighed, not trusting herself to answer. "Why are you here?" she asked instead.

"You needed me, didn't you?"

------

Okay, so this could go really amusingly or very terribly - we’ll see what I come up with, eh? Shouldn’t be as long of a wait this time, fingers crossed.

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[motheatenscarf]

So, I recently recommended Castlevania to people based on the first 2 seasons, and having now seen the 3rd season I’m still keeping that recommendation but with some pretty strong warnings going in.

The TL;DR version is, I still recommend this series with the caveat that your mileage may vary depending on your tolerance for sexual themes and more specifically your sensitivity toward sexual assault. 

So uh, spoiler in the spoiler disclaimer, but content warning for discussion of the above themes. I apologize to mobile readers; this got long. I only feel the need to say all this because I have in the past recommended this show to people before these elements came into play in the first 2 seasons. So, I kind of owe it to those people who may have taken my recommendation to follow through now.

I’m sure it won’t come as a shock to anyone (or at least I hope it won’t) that Castlevania, the show which introduces its wandering drunk protagonist by having him overhear two inbred shit eating peasants in a bar talking about literal goat fucking, has a pretty cynical view on humanity and is a pretty hard R.

Most of that R rating and cynicism has been in regard to gore and Christianity and I’ve been extremely on board and pettily here for it. For all that it’s a gory mess with plenty of colorful language, however, it’s been extremely restrained when it comes to sexuality. 

For my ace ass, that was kind of an appeal. I’m not opposed to sexuality in my media, but people do tend to make it... egregious and often unbalanced. It often feels that any media that gets that R rating just goes “Fuck it, may as well!” regarding shoehorning its nudity and sexuality. And frankly, censorship laws in the United States are FUCKING ANTIQUATED AS ALL HELL, so a rape scene where the camera ogles the woman’s breasts as she’s assaulted? Yeah, sure, that’s an R. Consensual sex scene that shows no genitalia but the woman in clear arousal? That’s an NC-17 for you. And that’s just women; don’t get me started on queer censorship, we’d be here all day. So, given the country I live in, the fact that I like horror and fantasy, and the fact that I’m an asexual woman, you can maybe see where my stance on sexual themes in any adult oriented media is just, an exasperated sigh as I boredly sit through another rape scene.

So, our first scene in Castlevania S3 is of Alucard, having been alone for the last month now, slowly losing his mind to crippling loneliness and overwhelming guilt after having murdered his father where Trevor and Sypha took him at his word when he said he would be the lone guardian standing vigil over Dracula’s castle and the Belmont library. Turns out he was wrong about being fine, which we knew from last season as it ended with him alone in his room sobbing his heart out, but he’s already losing his grip here as he makes little puppets of Sypha and Trevor to carry conversation with. An eccentricity he fully acknowledges is insane.

Our next scene confirms through dialogue that Trevor and Sypha are now in a sexual relationship, even though they’re only ever shown cuddling up in bed talking about The Plot and various happenings a few episodes later. Nothing explicit is ever depicted between them.

Alucard, on the other hand, picks up a couple of strays who were the thralls of one of the vampires killed last season, specifically the evidently Japanese one named “Cho” and our two new characters............ I had to google their names, Sumi and Taka, are also Japanese. They ask him to train them to kill vampires to protect their clan. Alucard, clearly remembering what he said about “Think of all the things Dracula could have done if he’d put all this knowledge toward helping people instead of giving into his rage and destroying them,” decides to agree and help them. He is clearly trying to be the person his mother would have wanted. Aww. 

Except not aww, Taka and Sumi are two clearly traumatized and deeply flawed people from the masses which this series is, again, extremely cynical toward. They are unsubtley fixated on learning more and more powerful ways to kill vampires and Alucard is pretty chill about it because he can’t see through the 4th wall and hear the ominous music or the glances they exchange when he’s not looking. This is purely for the audience. They at one point have a discussion away from him where they try to psychoanalyze him and decide that his isolation is a self imposed punishment for killing Dracula and that this is as close as he can get to killing himself without actually doing it. THIS IS FOR THE AUDIENCE. Then they mentioned they should give him a reward for what he’s done for them.

What happens next is difficult to break down from their standpoint, as they’re not particularly well developed characters, not being Important Characters but just a duo from the masses which the show dismisses, but if you’ve caught a single frame of Alucard this season, is easy enough to explain from his perspective. They come to him at night when he can’t sleep, tell him he deserves a reward, and proceed to make sexual advances toward him, which he seems somewhat embarrassed and confused by at first before quickly becoming a participant in. Again, it is well established by this point that he desperately misses Trevor and Sypha, whom he was already jealous of the connection between last season, and is profoundly lonely. The sex, which he consents to, is clearly a proxy as it’s all he can get for now. The sex is also, unfortunately, initiated under false pretenses, and ends abruptly when the whole thing turns into a Christ allegory and they pin Alucard in the crucifix position after having betrayed him with a kiss (and then some) and demand he show them the secrets they’re certain he’s hiding from them. Alucard tries to reason with them, still insisting he knows they’re scared but that he’s been nothing but honest with them, but they’re too traumatized and broken to believe him, and so he kills them in self defense, all still right there on the bed where they were having sex. He then, reminiscent of Dracula from the series opening, stakes their bodies before the entrance to the castle as a warning to those who would come to harm him, telling the audience that he is Lisa’s son in many ways, but he is also Dracula’s, and is realizing with time and experience now that his father’s sentiment toward humanity may not have been so misplaced.

So you know. Lot to unpack there...

BUT THAT AIN’T IT, FOLKS!

There’s another, far less interesting (unbiased review here, folks) character named Hector. He’s a forgemaster which means he makes monsters which are loyal only to him. He’s no Isaac (whom I’d mentioned his backstory/characterization just kinda left a general bad taste in my mouth before but OH BABY, AM I CHANGING TUNE ON THAT ONE. Could write a whole review on Isaac but I’m gonna stay focused here) but he’s apparently here to stay, so fine. 

There was an evil femme fatale vampire last season who kinda bored me who tricked Hector into betraying Dracula and then took him captive when she got what she wanted out of him. She did not trick him with sex at least but was still “evil manipulative femme fatale” which... *yawn* In S3 she drags him back to her home country and then proceeds to talk to her own sort of war council on how to get him to make a monster army for them to use that won’t just kill them all.

The lesbian vampire war council are fuckin interesting and I love 2 of them. The other one is an actually evil seductress femme fatale who DOES manipulate him with sex. Yay. How original. Well at least there are finally enough interesting, compelling women in the story that this isn’t our token evil female vampire so it’s easy for me to shrug off and forgive. All you need to know about Hector is he played with dead animals as a kid, it freaked his parents out when he kept reviving dead things, he killed them, now he’s a dead critter loving sensitive weirdo who was willing to participate in a “humane cull” that would leave the human race in essentially livestock pens for vampires. 

So the entire time the red headed femme fatale is trying to get him to see that she’s not so bad, vampires can be civil, we don’t want what Dracula wanted, my sister didn’t trick you she appealed to your reason, blahblahblah, she’s calling him a “good boy” and leading him on, i fucking quote, “walkies” with a leash. There’s also a comment that she tended to an injured spider once. So,, y’know, she’s him, which means she’s best suited to manipulating him. And Hector even admits to being aware of what she’s doing and calls her out on it, but he’s trapped and doesn’t have much of a choice other than to go along with what she does and weirdly seems almost content at times. His weird naturalist... weirdness probably gives him some inferiority complex when it comes to vampires, I don’t know, his backstory and motive are not connected in the least and I’m frankly not interested enough in this character to give him much contemplation since it’s pretty clear there wasn’t much going into his creation. Anyway. Long story short, she eventually, with only technically lying to him about the purpose of a particular ring she wears, lures him into having sex with her and in the heat of passion has him swear loyalty to her before slipping a cursed ring on him which binds him exactly as he’d just sworn, essentially making him a slave. The sex, again, also stops here, but she makes some extremely unsettling comments later on about how he was surprisingly good at sex and she might “train him.” Which.... where to begin other than yikes, and why, and, where in the hell was a guy who played with dead animals supposed to learn to eat a bitch out like that anyway??

This is where we also, tying the themes together, learn that one of the allies Trevor and Sypha have been teaming up with was a child killer the whole time. They only learn this after he dies helping them fight the evil that had come to his town (and after the most iconic line of the season; “What the fuck is toilet paper?”) which they accomplish, but not before failing to save anyone in the village, which was consumed in an evil ritual. They’re alone again, with a distraught Sypha realizing what Trevor had tried to forget by getting caught up in her optimism, that, say it with me now;

So there is your mostly unbiased spoilery context for the scenes in question. You can make up your own mind from there if that’s something you can handle, I’m gonna go on to add a few of my own thoughts which do not represent how I believe anyone else should interpret the show, this is purely my own train of thought here.

Sex consented to under false pretenses is still rape. I don’t know that I would personally classify these as “rape scenes,” but that’s just me. The reaction of the characters afterward makes me think Hector’s comes closer than Alucard’s, but the fact that both have appropriate reactions to being sexually betrayed makes me think that’s mostly what people are talking about when they say either one was raped. Hector later falls to his knees in a panic and hopelessness as he realizes “You made me a slave, my life is over,” and Alucard just lays there on the floor where he murdered his father as he weeps silently in contemplation of his own despair. That’s... some heavy shit, and I can, again, easily see where someone with a history of abuse or assault can be completely traumatized all over again watching this. As for the leeriness/attempting to be titilating/making rape “sexy” that a lot of adult fantasy/horror does... eh? I’m asexual, none of it’s sexy to me, and I was paying attention to the visual and audio cues the entire time that were making the audience aware with their ominous music, flashing between sex and battles against evil, and watching the instigators (Taka and Sumi, and Lenore the femme fatale vampire) as the camera focused on their scheming faces. The camera in Alucard’s scene especially just seemed to want to show us how sad and lonely he is, but that was pretty well established by that point and I know a sex scene devolving into a murder scene is jarring for people.

The themes of the season were manipulation, trust, and betrayal. Hector’s story reaches a pivotal turning point the moment the ring is slipped on him. Could it have been implemented differently than through the femme fatale seduction route? Absolutely, the show hadn’t really adopted sexual themes until this season and probably could have done so without it. She’d already lied to Hector an said that the rings were symbols she and her sisters wore to unite them, she could have been lying and welcomed him to join them and gotten him to swear loyalty to them in a ceremony after spending more time getting him to trust her. It was dumb and unnecessary and probably added in there just so maybe Alucard wasn’t the sole bearer of such an experience, or maybe because they shifted his plotline to fit in with the established themes, or maybe they could only sneak a bisexual threesome past the censors if they threw in more straight sex. What can I say? The cynicism of this show is relatable.

Alucard’s was less “Yikes” for me because he was never in a position where he didn’t have emotional or physical power over Taka and Sumi, he was a mentor to them who made no sexual advances whatsoever and seemed to only want to participate in their advances because it temporarily made him feel loved and worthy only to have the rug pulled out from under him and remind him that much more painfully of how alone he is, and how right his father may have been, and how wrong he was for killing him. Could this have been done without a sex scene? Yep, it always can. I know what the writers were trying to convey and I personally don’t have an issue with it and see its effectiveness, but I fully acknowledge another hour of spitballing in the writer’s room would have avoided that. I don’t necessarily think it’s a good or bad thing that they included this, it just... is, for me. I personally think if they’re going to confirm the sexual relationship between Trevor and Sypha, though, and then show us that Alucard is clearly missing them, there’s kinda one natural conclusion to make on how Alucard’s relationship with these two was going to go. I actually think it should have been better established and more time should have been spent on his relationship with them and depicted it as romantic/sexual from an earlier stage rather than just seemingly coming out of nowhere to people who hadn’t realized, “Oh, they’re his proxies,” earlier. I personally found it more tragic than traumatizing, but I don’t have a history of sexual abuse, so that is my own biased interpretation. If someone has that experience, I would not blame them in the least for finding this unpalatable.

Other arguments I’ve seen are, why is the only bi character shown to go through this kind of trauma? I mean, Alucard is our only confirmed bi character left for now, but Isaac is heavily implied to be queer, and again. Cynical universe. And he isn’t the only character period to go through it. They’re not singling him out because he’s bi, he’s just going through a character arc and is bi. I acknowledge again it could have been handled better but I don’t necessarily think this is biphobia so much as it is... unfortunate tone deafness. Tokenism is the problem, not Alucard’s bisexuality, so here’s hoping that we get another bi or queer character soon because as of right now, it’s just rife with unfortunate implications. I had this exact issue with Isaac’s backstory/characterization last season as our lone man of color with a major role and they immediately fixed his arc this season along with introducing several new characters of color and it was honestly the highlight of the season, so... the writers have proven to me that they can learn from their mistakes and spin my suspicion into HYPE, so I’m willing to give them through season 4 to see what they do with it.

I have also seen the argument for, why are the only Japanese characters tricky and sexually manipulative? Well, because they’re human and the show is extremely cynical in its depiction of humanity, we’ve just mostly seen that with white Europeans so far. As I mentioned before, tokenism is the problem. Is it annoying to see a sexually manipulative femme fatale vampire? Yes. Can I live with it and shrug it off a helluva lot easier when we get butch warrior vampire and tactical genius vampire talking back and forth about how they plan to conquer and drink an entire nation while espousing their affection for one another? Also yes!  While we do finally get a lot more characters of color this season who are fleshed out and beautifully complex and sympathetic, I think Taka and Sumi could have been better explored, since their mistrust of Alucard makes sense but their decision to have sex with him in order to get his guard down is... really not apparent other than through speculation with 0 textual evidence to support it. I don’t think they’re sexually manipulative because they’re Japanese, I think they’re sexually manipulative because the plot calls for it and they happen to be the only Asian characters we have for now and the writers made another pretty tone deaf decision. Behind the scenes, I do wonder if they were chosen from specifically Cho’s court just so the animators had an excuse to draw her some more/get that Japanese audience invested. Orientalism is a helluva thing here in the west though, and the sexualization of east Asians is especially fucked up and I’m not gonna say this did not have catastrophically tone deaf implications. I hope we get more Asian characters with a nuanced depiction, and even though they are the only Asian characters, they are not the only sexual abusers and they are far from the only sympathetically broken but dangerous characters we see.  

This is also, I’m fairly certain, a dual-studio production, and I do know Castlevania is a Japanese video game series based on European vampire stories, and in the endless love letter between Japanese and American media, some things gets botched in the exchange. That doesn’t excuse it, and that doesn’t mean it isn’t harmful, but I also don’t think it means “Cancelvania.” But I’m Mexican-American, and Not Asian-American, or more specifically Japanese-American, so, this is purely my perspective. 

I won’t defend the choices, I certainly won’t argue with people who draw a line in the sand and say “This is unacceptable, I won’t watch this,” that’s a valid perspective to have. To me, the writers through Isaac have proven they know when and how to correct course when they need to, so I’m cautiously optimistic that this was all build up for a dynamite season 4 if/when we get it. The show is cynical, I’m cynical, but I can recognize careful writing when I see it, and to me the highlights of this unrepentantly stupid fucking show that I kinda love are gonna be worth sticking through the stuff that makes me wrinkle my nose with concern because I want to see where it goes. A time may come when that stops being the case, but for me it hasn’t reached that point yet. I completely understand if it has for anyone else though.

[mewkwota]

Thank you for revisiting Christopher and Solleiyu. That game was such a gem that really does not get enough attention. And the joke you made about Simon's thighs was funny. I always wondered if you were aware of how you give some guys tiny waists and massive thighs.

I am fully aware. Like women, men can have variations in body shape too.

But Simon is really the only guy that fits that description you gave, at least he’s the one with the thighs. It is with reason, as his sprites give me that impression. Plus, Simon is quite proud of those things. They are the result of his training, and a clear marker of his strength and renown within the clan.

Also yes, Simon was very well aware that he was destroying Dracula’s bridge. (And he’s 100% unapologetic about it.)

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Psycho Analysis: Count Orlok

(WARNING! This analysis contains SPOILERS!)

I don’t think a lot of people fully grasp just how important Count Orlok is, mostly because Nosferatu is one of those movies that is kind of on the line between mainstream and obscurity due to how it has sort of merged itself with popular culture in such a way that major elements of it are now taken for granted as ancient parts of vampire lore. You see, Nosferatu is the movie that originated vampires being killed by sunlight. That trope you take for granted, that has appeared in essentially all vampire media you have ever seen? It all came from this movie.

And his death alone, a death that altered the course of popular culture for nearly a century and counting, would be enough to make him one of the most important villains of all time – it just so happens that death is attached to one of the creepiest, most horrifying, most striking vampires seen in film before or since.

Actor: Count Orlok is portrayed by Max Schreck in one of his many stage and screen roles. Yes, many. Contrary to popular belief, this was not Schreck’s only role, nor was he a vampire; he was just a strange man who did most of his work in Germany. As for this role, you have to keep in mind that everything Schreck did here had to be insinuated by how he moved, how he looked, and all that due to this being a silent film. Thankfully, he looks utterly terrifying and his movements really help sell him as a disturbing monster barely able to keep up the facade of humanity.

Motivation/Goals: Orlok is, to put it simply, a monster. His sole motivation is to feed on people, to the point that the people in the Carpathian Mountains of Transylvania are utterly terrified him and refuse to venture out at night. When he finally decides to head off to England, he brings with him a unique entourage – coffins filled with diseased rats, so he can spread the plague to the point where he can feed and no one can suspect a thing. It makes sense, considering the film’s title is actually not the Romanian word for vampire (that would be, funnily enough, “vampir”); the roots are unclear, though a common guess is that the Greek term “nosophoros” may have inspired it, as the phrase means “plague-bearer.” It does fit in well with this film, but it should be noted that Nosferatu only popularized the term in the consciousness of pop culture, as it was used in quite a few bits of 19th century literature prior, including the book Nosferatu ripped off: Dracula.

Aside from his desire to feed, he doesn’t seem to want much more, and that makes him absolutely horrifying. He is willing to damn thousands of innocents to disease-ridden death simply so he can feed, and even ignoring that he’s still draining the blood from innocents. Orlok is basically an animal with a vaguely human form, with no sense of morality or decency, making him a stark contrast to the more aristocratic vampires that were all the rage beforehand.

Personality: Orlok is basically a savage animal putting forth the bare minimum to appear human; he certainly doesn’t look the part, nor does he really act the part either. He is a different kind of vampire, especially compared to ones from around the time his film came out, playing up the more nightmarish elements of a monstrous, undead, bloodsucking creature of the night and forever establishing that if you want your vampires to be evil but don’t want to make them look suave or charming, there is a perfect alternative.

Final Fate: His death is a true game changer: the rising of the sun catches the count unaware and utterly destroys him. This is considered the originator of the idea vampires are killed by sunlight, as this was not an idea in vampire folklore or even in the novel Dracula that this film ripped off; Dracula went about business during the day as normal. But this death here, it altered vampire fiction for all time. Some of you out there may not have even been aware that vampires do not die to sunlight in the old myths. Of course, this leads to the disturbing realization that, technically, Twilight is more mythologically accurate to vampires than just about every other piece of vampire media ever made.

Best Scene: Orlok gets three of the most striking moments in all of horror, and Im going to list them all to make up for the fact that he doesn’t have a best quote since, you know, he’s a character in a silent film.

The first is the scene where Orlok massacres an entire crew onboard their ship, and then stands menacingly onboard alone. The second is the scene in which Orlok rises from his coffin for the first time, which is one of horror cinema’s most terrifying moments. The third is the iconic and striking image of his shadow on the wall as he stalks the night.

Of course, for younger crowds, you might appreciate the scene where he screws around with the lights in the Krusty Krab in the beloved SpongeBob SquarePants classic “Graveyard Shift.” I do have to wonder, though… As cheap as Mr. Krabs is, why would he hire the living embodiment of plague to work in his fast food restaurant? That has to violate a health code or two.

Final Thoughts & Score: Count Orlok is easily one of the most important villains in cinematic history. This is one of the easiest 11/10 scores I will ever hand out; it should have been obvious from the get-go.

Count Orlok’s mark on culture is absolutely undeniable. There is the obvious: he helped popularize that vampires are killed or weakened by sunlight, and all of that because the director the film didn’t actually know how to kill him, so he just threw that in to end the movie. The enduring pop culture idea that vampires die by the light of the sun is all because a director was too lazy to come up with a better idea, isn’t that just wild?!

But beyond that, there is his overall design. Orlok is monstrous, rat-like, barely something one could consider human… but then you look at Dracula, particularly Lee and Lugosi’s takes, and you see the stark contrast, with Orlok being more animalistic and monstrous while Dracula is more aristocratic and classy. This was deliberate on the part of director F.W. Murnau; German Expressionism was all about stylization, and so he set about to stylize his vampire, make his take on Dracula and his ilk look the part he was playing. And thus he created Orlok, a vampire who looks like an anthropomorphized plague rat and plays the part oh so well. This terrifying design is so iconic it has spawned a slew of imitators throughout pop culture, as well as leading to the “Looks Like Orlok” trope.

To think, we might have been deprived from this, one of the most influential and important vampires in history, cinematic or otherwise, were it not for rampant piracy in the wake of the Stoker lawsuit that demanded all copies of Nosferatu be destroyed. Can you imagine a world without Nosferatu, especially in light of all this film and its villainous Count Orlok gave us? It would be a far different and a much less interesting world. We wouldn’t have villains like Freddy Krueger, The Master, Baron Vain, or NOS-4-A2, vampire fiction would be radically different, and God only knows what else fictional vampires would be like if some of them didn’t look like bald, inhuman monsters.

One final note: Nosferatu is actually in the public domain, meaning that you can actually use Count Orlok in your own works. Want to make him the head vampire of your story? Want to make him into the plague-bringing Horseman of the Apocalypse Pestilence? Want to put him into some touching love story when some beautiful doe-eyed babe woos him and brings out his better nature? Well, legally, you can! Not only is Orlok perhaps the greatest vampire of all time, there are zero ramifications from anyone slapping him into their stories. So great an evil is he, he is allowed to permeate all of fiction and absolutely nothing can stop him.

[belmontsfate]

Day 3: Spirit - Sypha

- The Year of our Lord 1103

Sypha wasn't exactly sure how it happened … One moment she lay dying in the forest, surrounded by Lycans, and then she woke up as nothing more than a spirit, a bodiless soul, unable to talk and trapped in a frozen crystal shard kept in an underground cavern. For thirty years she was stuck in there, fully aware of everything that happened around her. She saw beasts and brotherhood soldiers alike pass her by, but none of them paid her any attention.

As you can imagine, thirty years left a lot of time for contemplation. By studying her surroundings, as well as the number of brotherhood warriors who passed by, she was able to conclude that she was somewhere within Dracula's domain. She still did not understand how or why, but as far as she could figure out, someone had stolen her soul and placed it inside the crystal.

She thought of her family … Trevor and Simon … Were they dead or alive? Had Trevor truly been killed, or had he too had his soul stolen? And what about Simon? Had he managed to escape from the Lycans and find safety? Was he still living? Did he have a wife and children of his own? Oh, how she wished that she knew the answers to these questions.

The years dragged on and Sypha had started to give up hope on ever being freed when a man unlike any she had seen before stumbled into her cavern. From the first moment she spotted him, she found there to be something oddly familiar about him, yet she couldn't quite put her finger on how she knew him. Everything about his appearance hinted that he was a warrior, though definitely not one belonging to the Brotherhood of Light.

He was a beefy man, tanned and covered in scars, with a head of shaggy red hair and a matching beard. It was hard to see his face with all the hair and scars, but she managed to get a decent look at him as he approached the crystal shard. His features were harsh, the sign of a difficult life. Though his eyes were a soft shade of brown, they were filled with anger and determination, making them look just as wild as the rest of his appearance.

Then she noticed the pendant hanging from his neck. It was then that she realized who he was. The revelation shocked her. Trevor had given their son an identical mirror pendant before he left, requesting that he always keep it with him. The man before her had to be none other than Simon, now at the age of thirty-six.

Before she could even fully comprehend the revelation, she felt the crystal shard being picked up. Simon held it in his hand for a moment, turning it this way and that as he examined it. Had she had a body with a heart, she was sure that it would have started beating rapidly. Would her son save her? Did he know that her soul was trapped inside?

Her answer came soon enough …

"Bah!" he exclaimed as he started to turn to leave, tossing the crystal shard over his shoulder as he did.

The shard broke into hundreds of tiny pieces as it collided against the hard cavern floor. With her prison broken, Sypha was finally able to escape! Her soul slowly rose from the shard ascending upward into a beam of light, but she stopped halfway and turned back to glance over at her son.

One by one monsters emerged, forming a circle around Simon. She had a hunch that her son could probably manage on his own, but the thought of one of the monsters sneaking up on him from behind and hurting him didn't sit well with her.

Just then, she heard a voice come from above.

Go to your son. He will need your help with the mission he faces. I will be waiting to welcome you through heavens gates with open arms when you are ready.

She smiled up at the beam of light above her head, watching as it vanished into thin air. No sooner was it gone then she turned all of her attention towards her son, her determination to protect him just as strong as it was the moment she died.

By this point, both her son and the monsters surrounding him were staring at her. Quickly she flew to Simon, wrapping her spirit around him to protect him from enemy attacks as he made short work of defeating them one by one. She realized as she was protecting him that he had indeed grown into a skilled warrior, just like his father. It seemed to run in the Belmont's blood. Trevor would have been so proud.

Sypha remained at Simon's side as he continued on his journey into Dracula's castle. It pained her that she was unable to speak with him, or even reveal who she was. He didn't seem to recognize her, though she couldn't exactly blame him for that. It had been thirty years since he had seen her last. She had hardly recognized him herself.

Eventually, they made it to Dracula's lair, where the Prince of Darkness himself awaited them, seated on his dark throne.

"You fight well," Dracula complimented. "Worthy of the name Belmont."

She didn't know if the compliment was sincere or not. There was no way to tell when it came to the powerful vampire. He was dangerous and unpredictable, able to kill within a matter of minutes, or so she had heard. To think that this man was Trevor's father as well as Simon's Grandfather ... It was a terrifying thought.

Admittedly, this was the first time she had ever seen him in person. While he possessed the usual physical attributes of a high ranking vampire such as pale skin and glowing red eyes, she could tell that he still somewhat resembled his human self. She identified certain features that Trevor had inherited from him. The shaggy hair being the most obvious.

"I am Simon Belmont. I have come to avenge the death of my parents. I have come to destroy you."

"Tell me; how do you plan to do this, Simon Belmont?" Dracula chuckled, motioning to the combat cross in his hand. He without a doubt recognized it as his son's. "With that perhaps?"

Sypha gritted her teeth. The vampire was taunting her son, and she couldn't stand it. However, there was nothing she could do to stop it. She was nothing but a spirit. All she could do was block physical attacks, and she wasn't even sure if it would work against Dracula.

"That relic you carry with you holds no power over me, Young Belmont," Dracula continued. "Know this. Your father died by my hand. Will you suffer the same fate?"

Hearing this plunged Sypha into sadness. So, it was true … He admitted it himself … Trevor had died by his hand … If that was true, then what chance would Simon have against him?

Unfortunately, Simon refused to back down, ignoring the warning he had been given. He was still just as stubborn as when he was a boy.

Sensing his grandson's refusal, Dracula rose from his throne, his fist blazing with fire. "You cannot kill me. You will die in vain, just as your father did."

"We'll see about that now, won't we?"

Dracula started to move towards her son but stopped as the sound of the door being unlocked behind them echoed through the air. Everyone turned and waited to see who it was. To Simon and Sypha's surprise, the door opened to reveal none other than the mysterious white-haired who had helped them through the castle.

"Good of you to join us, Alucard," Dracula greeted him.

Alucard … The name struck Sypha as odd. Another thing that struck her as odd was the fact that Dracula seemed to know this man. The look on his face hinted that he had expected him to come.

Until that moment, neither her nor Simon had been able to get a decent look at him, as he kept to the shadows, but now, as he strode towards them with determined steps, his fists clenched at his side, they could see him as clear as day. He too was a vampire, like Dracula, the only difference being that his eyes were bright yellow. As she examined his scarred face, she couldn't help but feel as if she knew that face. It was the second time she had felt that way, and the first time it had ended up being her son … Who then was this?

"Father …" Alucard greeted Dracula, his voice dripping with bile.

That was when it hit her. Dracula had only ever fathered one child as far as she was aware. That child was Trevor. Could it be? No! A part of her didn't want to believe it. Yet, all the signs seemed to point to that conclusion. This vampire … Alucard … He was none other than her husband, Trevor Belmont.

"It's been a long time," Dracula smirked at his son.

"It seems fate has given me a second chance," Alucard stated. "I have come to finish what I started."

Sypha watched the father and son's exchange closely, noting how the smirk vanished from Dracula's face as he heard his son's refusal to join him. It was almost as if he was disappointed, which seemed odd for such a merciless killer. How could he possibly expect his son to join him after all the crimes he had committed against him?

"Look at me! You've made me a monster, father!" Alucard declared. "You've made me like you: a creature that thirsts for blood, filled with rage! You should have let me die that night!"

Had she still had a heart, it probably would have broken at that moment. The way her husband spoke of himself made her want to burst out crying. He truly hated what he had become.

"No matter," Dracula tore his gaze away from his son, refocusing it on that of Simon. His hand once more ignited in flames. "It all ends now!"

Alucard stepped in front of Simon to protect him. "Let him go. This is between me and you!"

Dracula shook his head. "He is a Belmont. I will not suffer that bloodline to live any longer!"

And with that, the battle began. Dracula tried to lunge at Simon, but Alucard stopped him, taking the hit himself as he wrestled him. Before long, Simon joined Alucard in fighting him. The two attacked him from both sides. He would grab one, trying to strangle him, only for the other to distract him, causing him to let go.

Sypha did her best to protect Simon, even though there were many moments she was tempted to rush over to her husband and aid him as well. When it came down to it, she chose to stay with Simon, knowing that he needed more protection than her husband did. Trevor, or Alucard as he now went by, was a vampire and was not so easily killed in comparison to their son.

It was a tough battle, but in the end, Dracula was slain. With Alucard holding Dracula firmly in place, Simon was able to deliver the fatal blow, driving the combat cross into his heart. The Prince of Darkness vanished into a blinding ray of red light. The combat cross collapsed to the stone floor. Sypha smiled at her two boys. Together they had completed their task.

"This is not how a vampire is supposed to die …" Alucard muttered as he stared at the spot his father had been slain.

Both Sypha and Simon were alarmed by this.

"What do you mean?" Simon asked.

Alucard failed to reply as he appeared to be deep in thought.

Just then, the lost soul, a specter like creature who had helped guide them through their mission, appeared before them, holding his hand out towards Simon. Neither her nor Simon knew what he wanted, at least not until Alucard explained.

"He wants the pendant you are wearing."

"Not a chance!" Simon refused. "It was a gift from my father. It's all I have of him."

"Your father gave you that without knowing it's true power. As long as you wear it, you won't be able to decide or act entirely for yourself. Your actions will be guided … manipulated. Do you think you are here entirely of your own free will?"

Simon was clearly conflicted. In his mind, it was all he had left of his beloved father. Even though he was a grown man, there was a part of him that hadn't changed since he was six years old. He still loved his father, or rather the memory he had of him.

"Let it go. It doesn't belong to you," Alucard told him. "Just as it did not belong to your father."

After a moment's hesitation, Simon pulled the pendant from his neck, reluctantly dropping it into the lost soul's hand. The lost soul vanished with it not a moment later. Free from the pendant's control, he turned back to face the white-haired vampire.

"Will you tell me who you are now?"

Sypha held her breath, or rather she would have if she had the breath to hold, as she watched and waited to see what her husband would do. He kept his back to them at first, but slowly he turned and drawing closer, raised a hand to cup Simon's cheek. He said nothing, simply staring into his brown eyes, which Sypha noticed no longer held the burning anger she had seen earlier. If anything they looked lost, as did her husband's.

A moment later, Alucard swiftly retracted his hand, turning and retracing his steps out of the throne room.

Sypha knew that her time with her family had almost come to an end. She had fulfilled her task of protecting Simon. There was no doubt in her mind that he would be all right now. However, she wasn't ready to leave quite yet … Not until she at least got the chance to say goodbye to her husband. She silently prayed to God, begging him to grant her this one last wish.

Go to him and speak your final words. I will return your voice to you, but only while you are with him.

Thanking him, she left Simon's side, stopping for only a moment to wave to him before she rushed out of the throne room as well.

It didn't take her long to catch up with him in her spirit form, seeing as she could pass through walls and objects as she pleased. Once she was close enough to him, she felt her voice return to her, just as God had promised. She might be unable to touch him, but at least she could speak to him.

"Trevor, wait," she called to him.

At the sound of his name, his human name, he stopped dead in his tracks. "I know that voice …" his voice sounded shaky, "but it cannot be. Its owner is dead."

"Turn and see for yourself."

Slowly he turned to face her, his eyes widening as he took in the sight of her, bloody tears beginning to form. "S-Sypha? Is that really you?"

She nodded her head, floating closer to him. She wanted nothing more than to reach out and caress his face, kissing his lips and wiping away his tears, but she could not.

"What happened to you?" he asked. "Why is your soul still on this earth."

"My soul was stolen by one of Dracula's minions and imprisoned in a crystal shard for many years. Thankfully Simon came along and freed me. I have been watching over him ever since."

"Simon told me of your death … I am sorry I was not there to protect you."

"None of this is your fault, Trevor," she assured him. "There was no way you could have known how the future would unfold. You left to try and save us, and you've done nothing but protect our boy since he arrived here. You have done what any good father would do."

He hung his head in shame, his face hiding behind his long white hair. "I am not the same man I once was, Sypha. Trevor Belmont is dead, and in his place now stands the vampire, Alucard."

"That is not true. You are still the man I fell in love with, even if you are a vampire now," she insisted. "There is still goodness in your heart, and there always will be so long as you continue to love."

He started to raise his head back up, a sign that she was getting through to him.

It is time.

A blinding light enveloped her again as she started to ascend. Her time was running out, and she was ready to go. She smiled at her husband. Her work here on earth was completed. She felt at peace, assured that both her son and husband would be alright without her.

"I love you, Trevor Belmont. Never forget that," she said. "Remember that I am waiting for you in heaven."

Then she was gone, leaving Alucard there by himself. Though the tears threatened to surface again, he fought them back, a sad smile tugging at his lips.

"I won't forget …"

[new2otomelol]

SCM - The Mate - Chapter 6

Hey guys, it’s been crazy and a really long time since I’ve posted, but I promise I will see this to the end, even if it may be weird and might not get a lot of reads, but I have many ideas that I am working on. Here’s another chapter of my Star Crossed Myth Fanfic that has to do with all sorts of things. Please give it a ty and hope you like! Voltage owns the rights to SCM and it’s characters.

A snap was heard once again and suddenly Zyglavis, Huedhaut, the King and I were all back in the dais of the Heavenly palace. “Rhea, the dark king has become stronger within each passing day; however, he needs the powers of the former goddess to fully return.” Zyglavis states and turns to the king to let him continue. “My child, we do not know what implications this can have to your dragon side, but we know for a fact that your soul, and the power embedded within it, can be drained.”

I’ve always felt sure of who I was. No matter what hardship befell me, the people that surrounded me and my circumstances acted as my anchors of security. Listening to the last words uttered by the king, I felt as if the world before me shattered and there would be no crawling back to the safety I held so dear.

“How long has it been since his return?” I can’t believe I am asking this, but something inside is pulling me to do so. Zyglavis looks at me with resolve and responds “there’s been a recent spike in violent crimes on earth; my department is having a hard time keeping up with the punishments… people seem to be affected by a dark force. It’s been five months since we’ve seen this pattern. Once the Wishes Department found you, we noticed darker energies around your complex and thusly decided to act. We didn’t expect for the demons to be hunting you so fast, yet, you still managed to escape…”

I tune Zyglavis out, I just need time to think, to process all of this and come up with a plan of action. I take a deep breath and stare into the most magnificent eyes I have ever seen. “Your highness, I need some time for myself, if that’d be alright?” Zyglavis quickly tries to interject, but the king raises his hand to stop him and smiles warmly at me. “Go and rest my child; just know that you will have to have someone with you at all times in order to protect you.” The dragon pride in me flared and it took everything in me to contain it. Perhaps sensing the sudden shift in me, Hue quickly embraces my shoulders and tries to pacify me.

I take a deep breath and release to let the frustration out; dragons don’t need protection; however, my circumstances aren’t what they used to be. The king draws a slightly amused smirk on his face as he notices my reaction that only seems to infuriate me a bit more, but I must remain calm. I continue to look at the king straight on “I understand and request for Hue to be by my side in the meantime. One important thing that I need from you three, I need for you to be the only ones aware of my shifting abilities. I think you can comprehend this as ONE of your children smells different than the rest.” I had not intended to mention this, but Partheno’s scent, in particular, bothered me from the get-go. The king arches an eyebrow and loses his smirk. “You don’t play, do you?” Damn my temper, I can never keep my mouth shut. “Look your highness, I’m sorry, but I must always be cautious. I’m more than sure you have your reasons and your plans, but you and I both know, there is no predicting the future when it comes to the type of darkness that you are referring to.” He walks to his throne and sits, “rest assured my child, no one else beside us shall know. Now go and rest, we shall meet again within two days’ time.”

 Hue takes my hand and leads me out of the throne room with Zyglavis staying behind to speak with the king. “Rhea, you will be staying with me in my room so that I may protect you. Plus, we need to discuss this ‘mate’ business.” I blush as suddenly it all comes back to me, the kiss, almost marking him as mine, blast it all! My breathing increases as I feel an overwhelming sense of walls closing in on me and my back becoming painfully stiff. My vision seems to blur the closer we get to the door that I presume leads to Hue’s room. “Rhea, are you okay?” I feel his warm arms surround me as black spots float in to my vision and everything goes dark.

Flashback…

“Rhea, run to the others outside the castle, the bastard found us.” I grunt in frustration as I hear the sounds of battle surround our beautiful home. “But I told you I can help! He’s just a vampire!” My uncle growls as he is pushed down on the ground by a very ticked off supernatural being. “A handsome one my dear, and one that is in need of a new bride… seeing as your uncle and your kind sought to destroy my three loves,” he states in a very heavy Romanian accent. I gasp and look around the room. Where? Where did we put those damn stakes? I run around going through my uncle’s desk drawers, the shelves, anywhere I can look while the two struggle on the carpet. Wait, I remember, he placed them under the chair!

I run around the fighting pair and make it to the chair behind the desk. “My dear, whatever you’re looking for, you need to stop, I don’t want my bride to be tired, especially for our ceremony.” Damn this guy is creepy and maniacal. “Shut it Dracula, she’ll never be yours.” My uncle yells back as I reach underneath and grab one of the stakes. My uncle reaches out as I throw it to him and the vampire steps away. “This isn’t over. I WILL HAVE HER!” He lunges towards me as my uncle quickly follows. I try to run but feel Dracula’s arms embrace me from behind and hold me tight. “You will learn to love me Rhea…” I scream as I struggle to get out of his hold… I’m still a young dragon! As his elongated fangs graze my neck I hear a sickening scream pierce my ears followed by a horrid smell. “Never again vampire! No more girls for you to kidnap and kill, ESPCIALLY MY NIECE!”

“NO, I DON’T WANT TO BE YOUR BRIDE!!!” I scream out loud as I suddenly realize, great, it was all a memory from a couple hundred years ago and I probably startled Hue now. “Rhea? Are you okay?” Right on que, Hue, I let out a little laugh as I think of the pun I just came up with in my head. “Rhea, you’re seriously starting to scare me… what’s this about you being a bride and why are you laughing? I take a deep breath and let out a long sigh, “well, I’ve lived a few hundred years now and let’s just say that thanks to my Uncle’s extra-curricular activities, I’ve come across a few unsavory characters. Now Hue, I believe we need to talk.” I sit up from what feels to be like the most comfortable bed in the world and take in the beautiful room filled with books. “I believe we do, but first, would you like some wine?” Just what I need to soothe my nerves. “Yes, please.”

I prop some pillows behind me and sit up in bed as Hue pulls up a chair and hands me a glass filled with light pink liquid. I take a sip and let the wonderful rose taste fill my taste buds. “Now Rhea, please tell me, what is this ‘mate’ thing the king referred to earlier?” I laugh, well, might as well let the cat out of the bag. “Supernatural creatures have what we call ‘soul-mates.’ This is due to our need to procreate and maintain the secrecy of our species. This includes dragons, werewolves, fae, and though I hate to even admit, vampires.” I shutter as I remember Dracula’s semi-bite and reach to feel the small scar left as a reminder of that fateful night. Hue furrows his brows as he looks upon me. “How come the gods aren’t aware of all these creatures?” I smile and take another sip of my wine and reach to hold Hue’s hand, feeling the wonderful connection that electrifies through our hands. “There are many creatures out there Hue and we all mask our auras and our actions so that we don’t meddle in the affairs of gods and humans. From time to time there will be a mating with a human, however, thanks to the bond shared by their pairing, they usually become a creature themselves. Vampires on the other hand, do have mates, but they are able to choose who they want themselves.” I shiver as I remember the feel of Dracula’s body burning around me as my Uncle stakes him. “Trust me, I almost became one of Dracula’s brides, and though the benefits package seemed good, I knew he wasn’t my true mate.” I smile as Hue looks upon me with a face of complete shock.

“Now all that aside Hue. You are my true mate, yes, I have the soul of a former goddess in me and I have her memories and feelings, but I am more than what I use to be. I am a bundle of weirdness, a rarity in my own kind and now for some reason I am… I am… ugh…” I feel a headache coming on. “Shhhh… relax, I’m here and I will never let you go again.” I feel Hue embrace me and I drop the wine glass I was holding. I return his embrace and take in his smell… so sweet and intoxicating. I angle my head over the area above his collar bone and begin to lick. Hue begins to moan as he holds me tightly. “Hue, I’m dangerously close to marking you, please let go.” Hue holds me tighter and I feel many emotions flooding in to me. “Whatever marking means, I don’t care, just do it.” I shake my head on his toned chest. “But you’re a god and I don’t know what will happen. Maybe we should…” I am instantly cut off as I feel Hue shift me in his arms and kiss my ear whispering sweetly “nobody knows what this will lead to, but I’m willing to find out because I’m NEVER going to let you go again.” I feel a tear form but I let go of everything holding me back. I growl as I get on my knees on top of the bed raising him along with me. I undo his arms that were embracing me and gently move my left hand behind the back of his head, cradling it in support. I move my other arm around his neck and pull him closer as I kiss along his neck. I feel his arms embrace me once again around my waist.

“I, Rhea, the only female dragon and former goddess, claim you Huedhat as my mate. I swear on my life that no harm shall befall you.” I kiss Hue on the neck one more time as I feel my fangs elongate. I slowly sink my teeth in to the area where his neck begins and feel him moan. I hold on to him for a few seconds as I complete the link between us and I release him helping to lay him down on the bed. His beautiful blue eyes look up at me as he pants… “th… that was…” he couldn’t speak. That was beyond amazing. I heard the voice in my head, his voice. I smile and kiss him on the cheeks. “That it was my beautiful mate and yes I can hear your thoughts now. We’re linked.” Hue gasps and I feel a sudden surge of questions hitting me all at once. “Calm down Hue, all will be answered in time, for now just know that we can feel each other’s emotions and thoughts. You can always talk to me with your mind.” I move up and hover over him ensuring that he’s well. “Can you sense what I am feeling now?” He boldly asks me as he snaps his fingers and find that we are both now naked under silk covers. I feel myself to a new shade of red and quickly try to cover myself more. No my darling, you can’t escape me, we need to complete this now, don’t we?” I hear his voice in my head as he pins me underneath him. That night I went through the most passionate and amazing time of my life. I had never experienced anything like it and by the looks of my sleeping mate’s face, neither had he.

I wake up in the morning scrounging to look for my clothes as I feel the bed shift around me and arms suddenly embrace and push me back down. “Where are you going my little dragon?” I giggle at Hue’s nickname for me and reach out to move his hair away from his eyes so that I can gaze at them. What?! It can’t be! I hold his head with both of my hands and begin to move it back and forth as I observe the new abnormality in his eyes. “Rhea, I’m not sure what game you’re playing, but can you let go of my head?” My jaw drops as I realize what happened. “H… Hue… your stars, you have two different consolations now, one in each eye!” Hue quickly snaps his finger and a mirror appears before him as he looks on to check his eyes. “But, how could this be? I gave my stars to save your soul, there shouldn’t be anything there, much less a new constellation.” I quickly get up from bed and pace back and forth. “It must be our bond, I must have healed you when I marked you, Dragon blood can do that. But why a new constellation? Do you feel different?” I stop and look at Hue who is still sitting in bed looking at me with a sexy smile. “Well, yes I feel very different, I feel like I have an unlimited amount of energy and looking at the beautiful naked creature in front of me suddenly gives me many ideas on how to help me tame it.” I quickly grab a bed sheet and cover myself, I’m so stupid sometimes. “Hue, get a hold of yourself you perv, this is serious! We should talk to the king!” I hear another snap and I find myself in bed once again being pinned down by the love of my life. “Sure thing love, but first, I need to release some energy...”

To be continued...