#is this too pretentious idc

[vriskaserketdaily]

I don't know how much appreci8tion you get, but I just wanted to say that very few are doing it like you. you really seem to understand vriska, and the commitment to posting so frequently must be alot. thank you for the vriskas, and I hope you are doing well

this is one of the nicest messages i've ever gotten. pretty much the only way i can tell if my work has touched people is through tags, so you going out of your way to message me directly means a lot. i do think about vriska every day that i post, so . . . i BETTER understand her at this point tbh. i've been doing better lately---generally the more digital art i post, the less stress/more time i have. hopefully i can get back on the digital horse in the coming months (yeehaw) anyway.

Ophelie et Narcisse (2023), Mod 8, Paint Tool Sai v2

[idontmindifuforgetme]

I’ll never forget how once my ex joked I “live under a rock” and when I asked how he showed me a Snapchat reel of “hot celebrity gossip,” after which he pointed out I don’t keep up with any of it. I really dated that that’s so embarrassing

[girlcaelius]

Eat your past. Eat it and make it go away. Eat it and let it fester inside you. Eat it and let it dissolve in you, sustain you, slowly become a part of you until you cannot imagine a life without it. Eat your enemies, who are just as empty as you are. Eat your trauma until it rips you open from inside and your guts spill out onto the sand. Eat your brothers and watch them die with you. Swallow your love. Swallow your affection, choke it down, soured by time and the cold hands of evil men. The fruit of your labours is overripe and rotting, bruised to sweetness by beatings and heavy chains. You are a weapon, are you not? An animal - nothing more, nothing less. So act like one. Devour. Bite the hand that feeds because all you have ever known is rotten meat. Life tastes like poison, love even worse. 

Eat your lover before they can eat you. 

[dykeofmisfortune]

being a pretentious fuck is embarassing sometimes. bc if someone asks me what video games i play im like "yeah i only play story based indie games about depression and guilt" like omfg shut UP

[h0dge-p0dge]

whenever people constantly complain about the accuracy of disaster movies it makes me wanna strangle them. "ermm actually that wouldn't have happened☝️🤓" "they wouldn't have survived that🤓🤓" you wont survive me beating the shit out of you did you know that little science fact??

[zeyan]

raven knight

[waywardsalt]

probably not going to try and lean into any sort of like weird fiction/lovecraftian/eldritch whatever horror-specific aspects with the new bellum x linebeck fic inspirations asides mostly bc i dont actually find that stuff interesting as horror

[gdkllr]

sorry to post this picrew but it'sa me! over the years 🫶

[djevelbl]

Also can we talk about that "art HAS to be better than its predecessor to BE art" mentality here for a real quick sec??? Like, who hurt you babygirl? It's not okay to go around saying that parkciv isn't "good enough" to be considered art just bc it isn't QUITE LITERALLY professional movie levels of quality. What the fuck

Like. it isn't Mona Lisa ofc — I'm not THAT insane, but it has inherent value on the fact that it was made. that Evbo and friends enjoyed every second of working on that. By pointing out its flaws like fans aren't already aware of them (you don't gotta clarify for the nth time were we are babygirl, we haven't left the parkciv this ENTIRE first season) and saying "eh. could be better — should be better" you are telling other storytellers that their first drafts aren't good enough to push through, that their ideas should be honed into perfection before they see the light of day. That mistakes aren't part of the art itself, and that they should be removed the next time you try — improvement is healthy, of course, but that fact doesn't mean that art that's flawed is inherently less artistic due to those flaws. I mean, Bob Ross refused to call things mistakes — remember "happy little accidents"? — and that guy is adored by everyone!

Just — can we stop treating art like it should ALWAYS improve to be art?? That stories should always strive to be better so they're considered stories????

Also just finished watching a video that made me ACTUALLY ANNOYED at the guy who made it and like. ok if you don't want a story told through Minecraft that is made through the lens of content creation in ANY capacity then don't??? watch stories told through Minecraft????? Cuz like. they're mostly like that; even parkciv which is still good IS done through a content creation viewpoint — either as a parody on the medium it was being told through (scripted Minecraft content/Minecraft storytelling) or just as a result of telling the story and like. needing to pay the bills or whatever is a bit up in the air I guess BUT STILL. don't sing praises to a series that's GREAT in all cinematography aspects that JUST SO HAPPENS to be told through Minecraft all the while you're saying "oooh Minecraft storytelling shouldn't be scared of being called cringe just bc it's embracing roleplay to tell it's narrative, it shouldn't pretend to be non-scripted when it so clearly is" which true, JUST TO THEN critique parkciv for...

*checks notes*

... Embracing its medium AND its limitations to tell its story, JUST bc it didn't necessarily strive to be groundbreaking??? What??????

From what I understand, the series the guy was singing praises to like it was his own child at the local school's dance recital, Whitepine (which I'm currently watching so I'll just come back to this once I've finished — let's see if I'll eat my words [doubt it]) is GREAT in terms of visuals, audio and the likes — it obviously takes great care in forming its atmosphere and from the little I've seen the youtubers are genuinely being actors, not just their normal selves masquerading as characters (something that, admittedly, happens A LOT in scripted Minecraft content/Minecraft storytelling like SMPs or solo series [I'm looking at you, later half of the DSMP]). But it isn't Minecraft storytelling — in my opinion, at least.

Minecraft storytelling implies that it includes Minecraft and its mechanics in some way, shape or form that becomes impactful to the story that is being told — it isn't just a REALLY good story that just so happens to use Minecraft as its movie set. This, ultimately, is why I think the guy was wrong — not necessarily in the idea that the stories he critiqued had more room to grow (which parkciv at least does. I haven't watched ParrotX2's Unstable Universe videos and I don't really plan to; they're not my thing) but in what "Minecraft storytelling" should strive to be.

I have a vivid memory — trust me, this is related — of when I was younger (they say, like she's an octogenarian instead of not even being halfway through his lifetime. anyway) having played Minecraft Murder Mystery with my friends in the playground bc I really REALLY liked Gona89's video series on it. This is like, not really the same storytelling but they did have a sort of story — the chemistry between the youtubers felt like watching a series of characters interact with one another, and certain jokes from one video would seamlessly move into the next as well.

And y'know what? IT DIDN'T FUCKING WORK — playing the thing in the playground, that is. Because the thing wasn't made for that; stories have their medium of expression because they're tailored to it, or the medium is tailored to that story — if your Minecraft story can be told perfectly fine when divorced from its primary medium of expression (Minecraft), then it's LITERALLY not a Minecraft story: it just happens to use the game as the backdrop

... Kinda like The Lego Movie: a lot of the mechanics within the movie CANNOT be divorced from lego that easily BECAUSE it's a fucking LEGO MOVIE — partially related but not really the point of this rant: this is why A Minecraft Movie's trailer fucking FLOPPED. It showed absolutely NO POINT in being made bc it's NOT a Minecraft movie (pun accidentally stumbled upon but I shall confidently roll with it, actually), instead it JUST SO HAPPEN to use the videogame as its set.

TLDR: IF YOUR STORY DOESN'T INCLUDE MECHANICAL ELEMENTS THAT ARE INTRINSICAL TO THE GAME YOU USE TO TELL IT, THEN SAID GAME IS JUST THE FUCKING SET. IT'S NOT A MINECRAFT MOVIE JUST BC IT HAPPENS TO BE RECORDED IN MINECRAFT FOR FUCK'S SAKE

[voidstateho]

tw: war,politics

hey yall. watch the matrix if you doubt shit. it's not real DUH, but my bro morpheus got some good advice. and don't listen to the red piller ignorant repubs. they don't know they're on the blue, they think they're woke, but they call us that and are just projecting how they're not. everything's a code. shifting is a formula and to do it, its pretty much belief + yourself = shift. rage against the machine be real asf- wake up. trippy shit, but seriously, some of these fictional dystopian realities, are actually damn near non fiction. not totally, because it's fiction, but it's not to far off. if it's hard? simplify it. nothing is hard. it's just your perception of it. apply murphy's law = if it can happen, it will. we all know for a fact shifting is real and you CAN do it, so therefore you will. if you reverse murphy's law, and think you can't, then damn straight- you can't shift. but if you believe you can? you will dumb ass. law means law. it might take your time to reprogram your mind with all of the bullshit limits SOCIETYAHUAHFU/j has put on you, but let's be so fr. we are so conditioned to be nihilist. i woke up from that. now im persuing being a fucking engineer as a WOMAN and im joining the military that's been a dream of mine. though there are war threats, i know, i'm not stopping myself from denying myself of my dreams and im going to make something out of myself here. i have finally come to terms with this shit cr. i just said fuck it and i raised my gpa hell, changed my major and i am getting out of my abusive household. they said i couldn't but i can. they made me think school was stupid. but i realized who i was, am- a pretentious smartass nerd who was just insecure about it, i didn't try. i dug myself into a hole because i wanted to be a cool art major, when i am a fucking logician. i was drowning but i got out. if i can realize that? i can shift bro. i can enter the void bro. im getting out before fuck ass trump becomes president so i can persue being a badass engineer nasa bitch in my home reality without the constant threat of war nagging at my back. because it's like we are in the fucking interstellar film, our world is going to shit. so? im leaving. so i can be financially free, have my Ph.D. already. i also made myself a Yale graduate there because I could have done it here, but I fucked up my grades because i listened to those who said i couldn't, because I'm a woman, it's too hard, and I didn't try. now i will never stop trying. the spiraling doom of donald j for joke trump and war with my job won't stop me either. my country is headed into shit and im not gonna see it, the worse it gets on the news the closer i get to waking up home. FUCK THAT, i have already entered the void and I am home. fuck the red pillers. they are the blue pillers. im not staying in a reality where they send me off to who knows where to fight for who knows who when I just want to be a pilot, work for nasa or something, make my grandpa proud that i finally joined the navy. in my reality my service is done, im loved and feel free. no more war. in 2025 lets gtfo. watch the matrix, blade runner, interstellar, whatever to motivate yourself. they all realized they had it in them all along. the red pillers? the dumb ass repubs? they're calling themselves that because they are quite simply projecting, because they know they are NOT that. they are the people turning my country to shit. idc if they call me woke. im leaving either way. im not giving up either. you either are or you aren't, you believe or you don't, sure its getting me a minute to wake up from my nihilist ass ways, my logical ass formula reliant ass brain: but if you are like me and you dread the future here- stop. your shifting tonight, which equals you wont be here. everything is math. so why do you care? stop worrying. murphys law. you can shift. you can enter the void. so you WILL. say goodbye, because you are already gone. think of shifting, understand it and turn it into a formula you can understand. make it easy for yourself. dumbass.

[strawberryraviegutz]

Ok…I’m probably gonna get attacked/mocked for this but I need to vent for a min..

Has the gothic literature/gothic media community also been so…rude/pretentious?/gen

Because in a post of my short review of the Nosferatu 2024 film I said that I liked the movie and thought it was amazing, but that the whole thing with Orlok meeting Ellen as a child made me a bit iffy and I already have 2 anons come at me for it accuseimg me of hating the movie when it’s the exact opposite.

I’ve also seen ppl on Twitter, tumblr and other platforms basically make fun of ppl who didn’t like that Orlok met Ellen as a kid or straight up saying that what Orlok did wasn’t grooming. Yes Ellen did want Orlok when she called out to him due to loneliness but that doesn’t make it right, yes the movie isn’t about grooming but idc. She still was literally a child.

Which like yeah the whole dynamic between Ellen and Orlok is supposed to be horrible/terrifying, but if that’s the case then why are you getting mad at and making fun of ppl who’re horrified about it??

“Take your sensitive ass back to Hotel Transylvania”

Uh what’s wrong with Hotel Transylvania?? Why are you bringing up and shitting on a kids movie to prove a point???

Ppl have a right to feel uncomfortable about things especially if it involves grooming. And yes gothic literature/media does have some of this type of stuff in some stories and I know that there’s nuance to gothic media/literature but that doesn’t mean grooming is ok?? Also just because someone rightfully didn’t like the fact that Orlok and Ellen met when she was a child doesn’t mean that they’re pro purity culture??

I’ve also seen ppl making fun of others for not finding Orlok attractive and making fun of others who like conventionally attractive vampires like from twilight and or anime(even tho these are the same ppl who also simp for some of the characters from Interview with a vampire) not to mention others shitting on vampire media with romance plots and or different Dracula stories that involved romance too.

Plus conventionally attractive vampires within gothic media have been around for decades and maybe even centuries and they don’t “ruin the vampire genre”. ALL vampire archetypes are valid whether they be the “ugly” type or the conventionally attractive/humanoid type. Same goes for monster/nonhuman characters in general. I personally like a mix of both.

Ppl shouldn’t be made fun of, ridiculed, nor called “cowards” for having preferences in FICTIONAL non human creatures that don’t even exist.(This is also one of the reasons why I don’t rlly associate with the label monster fucker anymore cuz yall will go after anyone who doesn’t wanna fuck creatures like the xenomorph). Why can’t we just let ppl enjoy things???

It sucks cuz I’ve been obsessed with vampires ever since I was a little girl and while I did/do like pink cutesy stuff I also liked horror and gothic stuff as a kid too and I still do now. I want to get into more gothic literature I may like but after seeing all these mean/awful ppl in the community I’m kinda having second thoughts(I may get into more gothic media/literature either way but still).

Idk man I just wanted to voice my thoughts about a cool gothic vampire movie that had one of my favorite actors in it and wanted to see how the 2024 rendition of Orlok looked(which I liked as well btw tho didn’t know how to feel about the mustache. I know it’s supposed to be historically accurate and all but still) especially since an actor I rlly liked was playing as him. I’m tired…

[beevean]

Second half of S2. I think the best way I can summarize my state is saying

and trying to put my thoughts in order.

While it is slightly less disjointed than OG S3, the sheer number of plotlines that they attempted to tackle means that every scene lasts about 30 seconds before having to switch over. I genuinely struggled to keep up with what happens in each episode, until E6 where everything converges. And what made it even worse is the realization that... very little of what I watched actually matterered to the plot.

"But Beev, it's a character-driven story! Like Best Character Of All Time Isaac's!" I get that. And you know what? With stuff like Maria/Tera and Mizrak, I do see the potential for a good character-driven story, especially as the show is finally tackling more complex themes with vampirism instead of reducing them to elves or evil oppressors! But... I cannot get invested. I failed to connect with the characters, and the show keeps throwing other shit at me to divert my focus. This is simply a mess that has been bombarded into my eyes, while simultaneously being empty of content. And it is frustrating, because I want to like the less irritating parts.

Like this scene:

This is adorable. Random and another instance of fixing things too late, but it is a treat to see RoB Maria and finally some genuine emotions <3 literally the best scene in both shows idc. too bad it's drowned by the edgy pretentious Peak.

Anyway, time for the usual breakdown, character by character.

Taking a page from the OG S2, the heroes did nothing until the finale when they get to show off how cool they are. Think about it. Alucard recruits his sidekicks, they go to the Louvre, they get their asses kicked by Drolta, they split, and Annette suddenly has the revelation that the visions of her ancestors haunting her were trying to guide her to the solution of all of their problems: go and retrieve Sekhmet's third soul in the spirit realm.

And here I was hoping that it was some kind of internal turmoil for her. No. They were just the new Miranda, conveniently leading the hero to the solution. She just had to take five episodes to realize that for the suspence.

It's really weird. Annette in S1 was the focus of the season, infamously so, being all about her past as a slave and her desire to free everyone and thinking lowly of Richter for being a coward. Now, she was definitely made more pleasant for ship purposes, but then what is left of her? It says something that technically speaking, Annette wasn't even there in the finale! She was being possessed by Sekhmet!

Which, by the way, isn't just lovely? The descendant of a god being chosen by a god to become the vessel of a goddess. Why do we even keep Richter around?

This is not rhetorical. Why is Richter here? What does he contribute? Being the guy whose 90% of dialogue is swooning over Annette, fretting over her, telling us over and over why he loves her? (while I still don't know how Annette went from thinking he's useless to blushing around him and thinking he's cute.) Now, to be fair, he does kind of sort of talk about himself a few times... but it doesn't land. I don't care about his doubts as a Belmont now because they aren't relevant.

I've known I'm a Belmont and what that means since... since I could form words. Fighting evil, serving some kind of higher purpose. But then I watched Olrox kill my mother, and I understood the bitter fսcking truth. My mother died for absolutely nothing. Actually, she died because I tried to help her, which meant she had to protect me, and that's what got her killed. My whole life since then, I told myself it was so I could live. As if I was the higher purpose.

Why are we suddenly caring? Richter hasn't thought once of his dead moms (moms, Tera raised him too!) and in S1 he was all "I am a Belmont, and Belmonts kill vampires!". I understand the survivor's guilt, I do, I understand the logic "I need to fight otherwise my mother died for nothing", but okay, Richter, tell me: what does being a Belmont mean, in your opinion? Because it certainly isn't being locked in a generational fight against Dracula and realizing that once he dies, you have no purpose in life anymore!

The world's changing so fast. Belmonts, we're something from the past. Maybe there's no place for us anymore.

You know, I almost don't blame him. No wonder he thinks that Belmonts are a thing of the past. They sure were a thing of the 1980s-2000s. These shows hate the Belmonts with a burning passion and do everything in their power to make them tertiary.

But yeah, Richter and Annette bond over dead moms, woohoo. Thankfully this new, revamped Annette doesn't mock him over it, now that he has magic. It does get a bit ridiculous when Richter asks Alucard if he could change being Dracula's son, Alucard says that that would change other parts of himself that he'd rather not, and Richter immediately asks about his mother. I don't think Richter even knows Lisa's name, but he just can't help connecting to people through dead moms!

Oh yeah, Alucard! He's still a cunt. That's what his fans love about him. That, and how hot he looks after taking a bath in the shit-filled Seine, I suppose. E5 started with a moment so infuriating, it briefly took me to the OG S2 days:

call me carmilla the way i cry bloody tears

Now, to be perfectly fair, Annette does get her first big W by reminding Alucard that they all thought he killed Drolta and yet now she's back and stronger than ever. hell yeah it takes an asshole to put an asshole in his place 🥰 (although I wish they had done the same to her when she insulted Richter and no one reminded her that Edouard died because of her.) But more seriously, this shifts that line from "Sypha having a boner for Alucard and defending him at all costs" to "Annette trying to comfort Richter that he's not as useless as Alucard implies". I am glad that someone is finally on his side. But still, I am very tired of this. In the OG S2, Alucard was in theory justified because he was a grieving teen: how come this wise 300 yo old man still snaps at Belmonts when he's mad at himself? Now it's even worse due to the age difference. You can't have him stroke his dick over how old he is when emotionally he's still the same brat!

But yeah, this is Alucard in this season. They try so hard to make him sound old and wise and experienced and jaded. To the point where he says that he has fallen in love "countless times", and this is why he dares to give Richter advice on how to approach Annette romantically. I really don't know how to feel about this. It's not wrong, per se, but doesn't gel with my personal vision of Alucard - not just the game version, naturally, but I also can't really imagine show Alucard opening himself up like this, especially since this season paints him as being almost completely detached from human society. What sort of people does he fall in love with? The Belmonts? People like Greta? Eh, I could just take this as a cheeky reference to his Launcher of a Thousand Ships status lol. lmao imagine if they adapt the sorrow games and it turns out soma is one of alucard's many descendants when he lived his best slut life in japan fhdsjkfhskdhkj

I really don't know why they still bother to remind us that he's Dracula's son, though. Sure, they're correcting this from the OG show where the dude sympathized with vampires. But it's not like anyone gives a shit about Dracula anymore. Juste lowkey implied he's less impressive than Olrox. Richter didn't even know who Dracula was. In this setting, Dracula was just a more meow meow version of Erzsebet, not the closest thing to Satan who periodically threatens the world. Not even Dracula cares about himself anymore, since a WHOLE ECLIPSE happened and he's still chilling in Hawaii. Alucard has no reason to tie his identity to what in his perception is a dead man that was forgotten by history. He sure acts like a celebrity, though!

literally "bitch, don't you know who i am? 💅" i don't know, who are you? the one who allowed vampires to become human nobility?

There is, however, something that greatly bothers me about Alucard's untold past.

(why 14? had they said 18, it would have been a neat reference to HoD, even though I know it can't have happened)

If the Drolta plotline (more on that later) didn't convince me that this season was hastily rewritten, this would. Alucard keeps flipflopping between being solitary and being a Belmont ally through generations, which he apparently counted. I'd assume that, considering how much emphasis on his age is put, "years" for him means multiple decades, perhaps a whole century. So which is it? Did he fight alongside Christopher and Simon, whatever they did, and then got tired by the time Juste was born?

Speaking of the Belmonts, what happened to Dracula's castle? Why didn't they stay there, as their new hold? Are you going to explain that, show? No? Okay.

By the way, once again, I was ready to call Alucard a cunt (not helped by his condescending "Trevor would be proud [at Richter's sarcasm]" which I hate on principle), but him being tired of seeing Trevor's descendants die is a pretty good reason for wanting to distance himself and spare himself the pain. See, once again, I'd care much more about Alucard's experiences with immortality if he was more likeable. I'd accept him being more standoffish because his heart has been hardened by so many people dying, if he didn't start out as an 18 yo piece of shit who insulted Trevor's whole lineage for petty reasons.

Oh, and if he didn't literally, deadass, lead the actual Robespierre in the revolution. What the fuck. You know, I was joking about him telling Galileo Galilei about the heliocentric theory! Now I'm totally expecting the Sorrow adaptation to mention in passing that he was the one who killed Hitler!

And you know what? You know fucking what? For all of his posturing, Alucard is just as useless as Richter! His only purpose in the plot is to basically tell the gang "here's what we need to defeat the villain", then he failed spectacularly by allowing Drolta to snatch the McGuffin (and blamed Richter for it), then he basically inserted himself dick first in the Revolution plot to give him something to do in the two-parter finale! He didn't even care about the Revolution! He said so! The Revolution is a completely pointless backdrop to the fight against Sun Thundercat! You know, I'm impressed, I honestly thought he'd be the real protagonist of the show, but no, they managed to waste him too. peak.

Maria, Tera and Juste are all connected, but Maria is pretty much the only character going through an arc here, as Juste is nothing more than Maria's babysitter and adoptive grandpa (yeah, clearly they're trying to establish a "found family" theme as also mentioned by Alucard, but sure it's nice of him to call Maria his family when dude abandoned his blood grandson and hasn't still quite reconnected with him). I think that what they're trying to do with him is to basically prevent Maria from falling down the same pit of despair he did until two days ago, but it doesn't really work, Juste feels like a plot device and Maria's reaction is different than his anyway, since she's falling into... well, edginess.

In fact, Maria is so edgy, that she out of nowhere gets the idea of making her mom bite her to turn her!

Maria: It feels good... to have such power. To control such powerful forces. To have power over life and death. Juste: It shouldn't feel good, Maria. The world can be a dark place, full of horror. But if you surrender to the darkness, what's the point in living? None of us counts for much. All of us will be forgotten eventually. But there's something miraculous about us being here at all. To see this world. Breathe its air. Smell the forest at night. Feel the sun on our skin. If we're still able to do that... there is a point in living. Maria: And maybe there's even more point in living forever. He's right. This was different. Killing my father. This was murder. I can never go back to who I was. But I could be with you forever. *exposes neck*

Just a taste of the dialogue here. Juste doesn't even feel like a real person at this point. Why is he talking to Maria like she said that she wants to die? Is he projecting his own depression? Or is it only so that she can talk about living forever?

Maria, the girl who sees the world in black and white and therefore slotted vampires in the "evil" category, being ready to ditch her humanity because she'd rather live with her mom forever and perhaps out of guilt for killing her father out of revenge and not a righteous reason, is a very interesting idea. And this is why it's never brought up again :) Tera, with shocking self control for a newborn vampire, runs away from her to "find herself", leaving Maria crying and to be comforted by Juste. By the way, Tera's arc is done here lol. She runs away, lowkey implying that she manipulated Maria into killing her dad because "he deserved to die", and then she's the only open plot thread left for S3, enjoying the executions and perhaps glad of the dark path taken by her daughter, leaving ambiguous how much vampirism corrupted her.

Again, I kinda like this arc. I like that it ends with Maria declaring that the humans who worked alongside vampires (which I didn't notice at all, but maybe it was because I was inundated with too much Peak) deserve to be executed, probably still thinking about Emmanuel. It just rings hollow because Maria has always been a serious righteous fuck who only cared about the Revolution, with all that it entails, so I don't see much of a change in her. Maybe it could have worked better if they hadn't been cynical hacks in S1 and kept her RoB innocent personality. And I'm also irritated that they could have given this corruption arc to someone else...

(also, since I'm a horrible person, I am compelled to point out that the show leans heavily onto the "bite is sexual" trope, as shown by how predatory Sun Thundercat is with women and later on by Olrox with Mizrak. Therefore, having Maria begging for her own mother to bite her so that the two could live forever together is very. mh. well this is getting interesting i suppose)

As for the villains, before the finale, I just have to say: why in the sheer fuck do the villagers bow down to an obviously foreign vampire noblewoman?

Your Abbot, as you know, is dead. Murdered by a revolutionary. Your Abbot compared me to Joan of Arc. But I am not like her. She was defeated, burned like a witch. I will burn all your enemies. All your oppressors. Burn them all to ash. I am the one who wields the knife.

I get that these people are against the revolution, but really? They trust her as being better? I don't know anymore. Also her Sun Thundercat 2.0 transformation is a punch in the eye but we all know that.

oh right, olrox and mizrak. uhhhh they spend most of the time still doing their drama. Olrox is a passive force who mostly spends his time spying on everyone, Mizrak wants to fight. Since they don't really matter, I'll summarize the rest of their arc here: Mizrak joins the fight like he suddenly belongs, he's fatally wounded by a random vampire, Olrox saves him and decides to turn him into a vampire. The last shot we see of them is vampire Mizrak ready to rail that cockrox raw lmao. And, again, this is a good concept. Mizrak was shown being torn between his faith and his desire to sin with Olrox: therefore, vampirism for him means shedding his inhibitions and indulging in the sinful pleasures he has always coveted. This is good! And completely irrelevant to the story! Even thematically, vampirism hasn't been treated in this way by the story, not even with Tera! These two just make their own sideplot that never intersects with the main one! What's with this series and being unable to organically integrate gay people into their plot?

Okay, I think I covered everyone, so it's time for the grand finale.

The final fight is basically two episodes straight of this

and it's boring. I'm sorry. I get that the animation is cool and the anime fights are cool, but I just find boring to watch a bunch of people throw flashy but redundant spells to an invincible foe. Yeah yeah muh Harmony of Dissonance spells, that just pisses me off at this point, you didn't even mention Maxim once and had him and Lydie be fridged offscreen while the game can't happen due to the lack of Dracula's relics but you're pretending we're suddenly fans of the games?

(a small correction, though. Apparently, Juste's ring is not meant to be the friendship bracelet, but the Aurora Ring, the one that increases the power of the Sacred Fist. While I don't understand why it's specifically that ring, since Juste never uses punches, I do appreciate a more niche reference.)

Hey guys. Remember how fun it was to play Portait of Ruin and having to protect Charlotte for 20 seconds as she casts her plot-solving spells? This is Sekhmet's role in the fight. A sitting duck who tries, for half an hour of real time, to absorb Sun Thundercat's Sekhmet soul to weaken her, while Richter sometimes goes to cool her down with his ice powers. For a goddess, she is quite weak. And I would dearly love for someone to come here and explain to me what the fuck was that monster that Annette fought for the entirety of the finale in the spirit world. And, in the meantime, Alucard and Olrox fight Drolta, with the weird implication that the latter is stronger than Dracula's son since he's much more successful at keeping her down (and that they met once, because we like making fans speculating). Again, I need to stress out: the heroes do nothing of importance until the plot lets them win.

And then this happens.

alright. So, memes are in order.

But I think it's time to talk about rewrites, right?

Sun Thundercat's death feels not just pathetic, but spiteful. Compare it with other deaths: Dracula cried that he was killing his boy and let himself be impaled, Carmilla exploded herself to not allow Isaac to claim a victory, Lenore sunned herself because her life got a little more uncomfortable. They are undignified deaths, but they are at the very least graceful. We are meant to feel something for them. Sun Thundercat has an utterly pathetic breakdown, and then she's randomly betrayed by Drolta, who cements herself as the Real Big Bad.

No one liked her. Erzsebet Bathory has been, from day one, derided as a flat, cartoonish villain with a stupid plan. Her design is ridiculous, her personality never goes beyond "smug wannabe goddess", and her only power is being invincible. She is boring, and always has been. But Drolta? Oh, Drolta was cool. Nevermind that in S1 she also had the depth of a piece of paper. Everyone loved her many designs, everyone thirsted over her BDSM get up, everyone thought she was a huge badass in fight. So, what did they do? Give her a whole backstory and kick her upwards to the role of the true puppetteer who was in control the whole time :) basically, they gave her the Isaac in S3 treatment.

yeet, you waste of screentime

And in the meantime, I'm here left asking two questions. One, why didn't Drolta absorb Sekhmet's soul from the get go, instead of wasting so much time finding the right vessel and killing countless women? She had no hesitation trying it now.

And two... why did we spend so much time with Sun Thundercat? What was the point of hyping her up as this great figure, much more terrifying than Dracula, only for this to happen? This isn't cathartic. This isn't fun.

Sun Thundercat is a pathetic villain, by far the worst in the series, even more wasted than Carmilla, with less feats on her belt than everyone combined despite the hype. And they didn't even try to fix her. Instead of making her a better character, they doubled down on her being flat and then pulled a bait and switch for fanservice purposes. Drolta is probably the most inoffensive villain in the series since Dracula, but that doesn't erase the sloppy, disingenuous writing.

She doesn't put much of a better fight, either. Now Alucard joins Richter in their epic team up, because of course. And I'm going to sound like a Classic purist, but I am sick and tired of the shows ignoring the Vampire Killer. Why in the fuck is Richter fighting Drolta with magic punches? Didn't Dracula mock Trevor for that? You have a consecrated whip, you imbecile!

oh, then they redo the same scene they did with Sun Thundercat, with Sekhmet being all angery that Drolta defiled her, Drolta sobbing and whimpering that she did everything for her, and the two engaging in some sort of Avatar spiritual fight that makes Annette's eyeballs explode or some shit.

Btw, gotta love this epic reference to Sonic '06:

I don't think you will live anywhere if you don't let her do her thing, genius.

I could be generous and think that he's so attached because he doesn't want to lose another person. I like some details here, like Richter using his ice magic to embrace Annette's searing body. It's just. I don't buy this romance's foundations, because S1 fumbled so bad. Alucard says that Annette laughs at Richter's jokes, and debates his ideas, which means that she loves him, but is that really enough for him to declare that she's more important than the world he swore to protect? Also, why does Annette like him back? Because he constantly tries to protect her, even though that should piss her off according to her S1 personality?

btw

shut up you cunt

Speaking of the cunt, Richter kills Drolta by using Alucard's sword infused with ice magic. No, I have no clue why it works except anime logic. The Vampire Killer can go fuck itself. yay. To top it all off, Richter is surprisingly chill when he spots Olrox, even calmly echoing his promise of "killing him one day, but not today". hey, remember how Richter used to suffer from PTSD over his mom's murder and panicked at Olrox' presence? remember how Olrox was built up to be this msyterious, charismatic figure with his own agenda and plans for the little Belmont? guess that's another tease for S3!

The ending feels like a fusion of the one of OG S2 and S4. Richter and Annette pull a whole Trepha and abandon Maria to her own grief. Nice job guys! She is still crying for her parents but you just have to bone in private, I suppose! So much for muh family! Well, at least Maria will hang out with her new grandpa and Alucard, who...

ah. mhh. well. This is bound to be very funny lol.

(btw, it's perfectly fine for a 16 yo to crush on an older man lol. We'll just have to see what said older man will do with it.)

Oh, Edouard! I forgot about him because he was nothing more than a jukebox: his only character development is that his extra hands move away from his face, maybe because he's no longer ashamed of himself. Well, he's coming to Saint Domingue too with Annette and Richter! Yes, as a Night Creature. Annette simply says "the people there have had worse nightmares than you" and the matter is settled. Hey, remember when she felt guilty for being the cause of his fate? Remember when she was this close to mercy killing him? It doesn't matter anymore! Yay, just like Dracula and Lisa! Conflict is for those who are sure they're going to get a next season!

And while Richter and Annette kiss and are all cute and everyone is happy, I'm left wondering who was the true protagonist of this season. Richter? No, he did fuck all until the end. Annette? Same. Alucard? He could have vanished in E1. Maria? She got a lot of focus, but ultimately irrelevant to the main conflict. Juste? Tera? Mizrak? Olrox? Don't make me laugh.

Drolta, then? The season took the time to give us her backstory to explain how she got here. She stole the mummy, which is what caused the final fight. And that's it. Once again, I feel the need to use Carmilla as a comparison: she was the true star of the OG S2, because she was the only character in both plotlines to actively do something, and she acted throughout the whole season, even if in the end she didn't get what she wanted. What is this season even about? How do you summarize it? Why is it so rushed and confusing? Why did they try so much and muddle every theme they could have tackled, like the effect of vampirism on your soul, or the dark path grief can take you, or finding a new family?

and oh right. the shadowy figure that seems interested in maria and tera. i don't even know. we'll see in s3 i guess. which will happen, since this season has currently a 100% on Rotten Tomatoes because it is considered peak fiction.

anyway,

[deadrlngers]

oc smash or pass.

i was tagged by @ruvviks and @mojaves thank youuu this was so much fun!! <3 tagging: @arisatominakos @elgaravel @ncytiri

@faarkas @pawnguild @gothimp @katsigian and whoever else wants to join!!!

rules: pretty self explanatory. include physical descriptions or pics, and propaganda. the “other” label can be used for “sexuality misalignment” (ie: oc is femme and you’re gay, vice versa or you aren’t into smashing but a specific thing you wanna do with them like perhaps hug or study them under a microscope idc).

full name: fenix hayes

height: 1.91m

age: 30 (as of 2077)

gender: man

pronouns: he/him

sexuality: bisexual

PROS:

extremely funny and entertaining, knows how to crack a good joke and make you smile no matter what, won't keep you bored.

very domestic..if you manage to pin him down in a serious relationship. will hit the grocery store for you even at 4am, do anything to please you and make you happy, buy you gifts etc etc. very big on affection and pda (if you dislike it he will be respectful enough in public but will be all over you in private. he's like a teddy bear.)

charismatic, a big flirt, he knows how to seduce you and i'm afraid he's very good at it.

despite his asshole exterior he hides a big heart and a very clever mind. great conversationalist if you like reading, movies and retro music (he even collects vinyls and old books). he might come off as a bit pretentious for fun but he genuinely doesn't judge your tastes.

CONS:

extremely elusive. and i mean the type of elusive that will disappear for a bunch of months without a word because he didn't want to face responsibilities/his own feelings/a fight.

the type that will lure you easily in a one night stand, make you feel like this might lead to more and then leave you heartbroken the morning after.

he can be extremely annoying and difficult to deal with. he will antagonize anyone that he dislikes, sometimes the ones he likes too and make a fight worse by purposefully making you mad smth like 90% of the times. all out of spite.

emotionally closed off unless you fight his 7 evil attempts to push you out of his life and succeed to drag him out of his shell.

will make you live the best and worst moment of your life. he necessarily needs someone with a strong character to match his and finally put him in his place otherwise good luck with all the suffering he will bring.

EXTRA:

he can't cook for shit, despite his italian blood, BUT if you join him it's going to be a super fun experience even if messy. match his silly goofy ass!!

switch king. big lover of cumming inside and giving head. hope you'll have fun. also he likes if you mess him up a bit, push him around and be mean to him literally.

good with cars and house maintenance chores.

he's something of an old man inside. always complaining about stuff, likes to spend the night at home, he can fall asleep on a chair in 5 minutes.

[bartycrawtchjr]

marauders in 2024 taste in music except it’s MY taste in music

James: he’s big on Tyler, the creator, fucks w harry styles and some of taylor swift (he started listening to them cus he heard lily likes them, turns out it’s his thing too). proud ed sheeran enjoyer, also listens bands like the kooks and the strokes, wallows and just general vibey music. casual listener of everything, not really into stan culture

Remus: idc what u say bro is into presplit panic! at the disco, like worshipped ryan ross when he was 13 kind of guy. the front bottoms, fucks w idkhow, had a painfully pretentious ‘born in the wrong generation’ phase where he was obvs really big on bowie, the stones, the smiths, the cure etc.

Sirius: Got into the 2015 emo trinity because of remus’s ryan ross obsession. LOVED pierce the veil as an angsty teen, massively into fob (especially pre-hiatus) and had a crush on Pete Wentz growing up. Definitely had a Gerard Way fan account when he was 15. (i’m projecting). never truly left his emo phase, just stopped being pretentious about it and also began listening to pop music.

Peter: actually enjoys p!atd up to pray for the wicked (again, thanks to remus forcing them on everyone back in secundary school). probably a casual listener of a bunch of stuff, though he’s a big weezer fan and really enjoys niall horan. WILL crank up brainrot music (like the hamsterdance or fnaf songs or minecraft parodies and he knows every single word)

Marlene: everyone’s favourite cool girl, loves riot grrrl music!!! CHAPPEL ROAN!!!!!! OBVIOUSLY a paramore stannie. shakes ass to Gaga and Troye Sivan, probably went to see Weezer live with Peter and started a moshpit during Buddy Holly.

Mary: she’s beyhive for sure, as in, has extensive knowledge on everything beyoncé. Got into Taylor Swift because of Lily. Those two def had a 1D phase together. Likes Pink Pantheress and some Halsey, got into chappel roan bcs of Marlene. She likes most of the main pop girls (ariana, dula peep, olivia…) she’s an overall fun person, so her music taste reflects that.

Lily: HEAVY on Taylor swift and harry styles. as before mentioned, she had a 1D phase along with Mary (she was a Niall girl). Had the inevitable not like other girls phase when she got into Lorde, the 1975, arctic monkeys and halsey (it’s a canon event we can’t intervene). Got over her internalised misogyny and became a swiftie, amen🙏🏻

(gonna do the slytherins in a separate post 😋)

[solarwynd]

An interesting turn of events - it is fascinating to see Jikookers being as vile they are right now towards Tae. Now I will preface this by saying I absolutely dislike that man. I think he’s fkn annoying, cringey and his pretentious attitude gets to my nerves. I have muted all JK related key words too. I am here for JiHope. And Jimin is my forever ULT. But in the shipping world up until 2021, the norm was Jimin getting the absolute worst shit on Twitter for doing nothing while JK and Tae get away with everything. Like the things Jimin would be labelled an attention seeker or whatever for, will be called cute and adorable when TH does it. And Jikookers largely really did pretend like OT7s for the longest time. They wanted to be the ones with common sense, middle ground, moral superiority. Their “you can never make me hate taetae(barf)” ideology was pretty strong.

But I have seen a new flurry of Jikookers that are absolutely unhinged lol. There’s this gang of theirs on Twitter, like a clique and they are all petty hateful towards Taehyung. They call themselves KM solos I believe and I think they really do hate him. I have majority shipping accounts blocked but I was on the trends yesterday and I saw a tweet with Jimin cropped out by a Taekooker account, and the qrts were filled with quality edits and shit and pure spite towards TH. Someone even made a meme where he looks like a donkey? And there were several hit tweets there with thousands of likes, all belittling TH. I also saw some “OT7 joker” getting ripped a new one because they said JKKrs are the same tkkrs. Like the comment section destroyed her. It’s a real shift for those who have witnessed the shipping landscape evolution. He used to get away with a lot and babied. Idk what changed. Now it’s still not even remotely close to what Tkkrs does to Jimin. There’s simply no comparison, but it’s interesting to see a counter narrative. Literally nobody gets benefitted from shipping except for JK I guess.

Can’t wait for the members to start revealing their relationships etc. I will be getting the butteriest pop corn and a front row seat.

You’re actually very right about the bulk of jikookers wanting to appear as OT7 and I never got that. You go on any of their accounts and it’s nothing but Jikook/JK/Jimin on there. What’s the point to even pretend. It seems exhausting putting up that kind of front knowing that you don’t care about the other 5 members to stay in armys good graces. Especially when you’re already ostracized by them. It’s the same as these diet solos who still try to act like they’re armys. Like I can’t imagine if I had decided to continue faking being an army past April of last year.

I think it’s easier for jkkrs to mask their dislike towards Taehyung cause unlike for taekookers, Jikook’s existence does not hinge on Taehyung being seen as some type of wedge. I feel like the bulk of them are indifferent or just don’t care about him. And I do know the exact clique you’re talking about. Including the main one who’s too invested in dragging Taehyung unprovoked and always gets Jimin dragged.

I also did see that big jkkr account that got ratioed and deservedly so, cause frankly idc how neutral or upstanding you’re tryna be. If you bias jimin, your priority should be him. To hell with Taehyung and his fuckass stans.

[nnight-dances]

HOW YOU FALL FOR SEVETEEN (FT. MY FAVORITES LINE)

the title is self-explanatory but also a complete lie, i love all the members so much but thanks to it being like my first month as a seventeen enjoyer, i only so much about so many members. this is purely self-indulgent so feel free to let me know how insane i sound and also, if i messed up their personalities.

as mentioned before, jeonghan is my favorite and thus, you can see how i’m being particularly mean to him. hate is my love language <3 also, someone please teach me how to write scoups because i love the man so much (no idc if he’s like a decade older than me) but could not bring myself to write anything for him. thanks, friends and foes!

jeonghan

…unrequited love probably? LMAO sorry but he’s my bias and i am convinced his standards are really, really high. like you’d have to discover and name a new continent after him before he looks your way.

okay, i’ll stop being mean and start being more delusional: a strangers to lovers maybe? because i feel like he’d be fascinated by you at first so he’d get to know you slowly. you’re wary of him when he tries to get closer to you,, because like… why is this sly devil of a man throwing you eye smiles left and right?

anyways, the moment you let your guard down around him, he’d invade every waking thought you have until you don’t have a choice but to rant to him… about him. yes, he’d watch with a smug smile on his face, as if he’d planned every second of this, and patiently wait for you to finish before leaning in and kissing you because apparently, his feelings were “obvious enough” (his words when you shriek away from him)

mingyu

best friends to lovers, for sure (and i imagine it’d be something like this)

it’s because even though he’s extroverted, i just feel like he’s still pretty reserved and so i think it’d take a long time of knowing him to be intimate enough to be a lover?

he wouldn’t have being anything more than friends for a long time because he enjoys the space of a friendship and he thinks of it as a test for how well the two of you can work out. mans taking this way too seriously but it pays off when one day he gets to call himself your boyfriend.

be careful though, i feel like timing matters a lot with him, and if you get it wrong…

hoshi

ummm this one is hard because the possibilities with hoshi are so endless?? anything could works?? he’s just so loveable that any way you meet him would be so precious

but since he’s introverted, i feel like with him it’d take a long to move on from one phase to another just because both of you are unwilling to budge. like it’s a waiting game with you guys where both of you are constantly dropping hints and neither is picking anything up.

so i’m thinking a fake dating situation for some external pressure that slowly reveals how comfortable pretending to date hoshi seems… maybe because you’ve always been a little more than friends….?

dk

oh god, another loveable one, someone save me… um but in full seriousness, he’s so sweet i can’t imagine anything that wouldn’t work with him

but i’m leaning toward idiots to lovers with a LOT OF mutual pining because neither of you can tell if the other is flirting or just that nice to everyone (spoiler: you both suck at flirting so the fact that the possibility is even being discussed in the slightest… yeah, you’re down bad for each other)

idk he’d be so easy to fall for that even if you’re not generally too good-natured, it’d take everything to not go the extra mile for dk

the8

academic rivals to lovers is soooooo enticing with this one,, because you’d have to match him point to point for his pretentious but wise tendencies to keep up in a romantic relationship

and like, tell me if i’m wrong, but it’d be clear from the beginning that the two of you transcended the boundaries of friends because you’d dwell on the others’ actions for wayy too long for it be friendly banter or even genuinely malicious scheming

just takes you a frustratingly long time to smooth out the feelings because you know you want to maintain a slightly hostile tone when it comes to him or your life would lose all meaning and stimulation

wonwoo

listen … i’m considering one-sided love to lovers? because how could you not fall for wonwoo when you first get to know him? he’s just weirdly good at everything… and so calm

but when you let him know your feelings, i think he’d be so awkward about rejecting you (maybe because doesn’t truly want to) and you’d catch on pretty quick

fast forward to a few months and you’re still friends with him because well… he’s way too captivating for you to leave. so you’ve been pining from the sidelines for a while until wonwoo wakes up one day with the sudden awakening that he enjoys your company as something more than friendship

yeah, took him long enough, but he’s so sweet when he confesses that your heart breaks a little. he apologizes to the verge of tears for making you wait? and thanks you for not abandoning him? and then shyly admits that those things just made him fall for you more.

joshua

you don’t understand. there is nothing but an enemies to lovers in store with this one because he looks so normal that you unsuspectingly try to befriend him, only to be shocked by his attitude. he’s a little bitch. and for what.

for one, he’s so hard to understand, only showing the slightest surface of his personality and when he does,,, well, your head’s suddenly throbbing because what the fuck. someone restrain this man.

no but you’re always ready to fight him especially because he makes it his life mission to follow you around and one thing leads to another until he’s … um in love.

you promise you have an out of body experience when he tells you he’s in love with you, showing unprecedented seriousness, and his sincerity alone would’ve been enough to woo you