#mcu central

[wintershieldbingo]

Welcome to the WinterShield Bingo!

This is an 18+ event.

⚔️ Rules

No minors allowed due to the explicit/mature themes that will be featured in participating works.

The WinterShield Bingo is a marvel fandom event dedicated to the romantic relationship between Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes! As such, polyships are not allowed here. Ex: Steve/Bucky/Sam, Steve/Reader/Bucky, Steve/OFC/Bucky, Steve/OMC/Bucky, Steve/NBOC/Bucky, and any other variation.

However, Bucky/Steve/Bucky and Steve/Bucky/Steve are allowed. Work whatever author magic you'd like to get more than one version of our lovely captain and his sergeant in one universe. The world is your oyster.

This is a no pressure event and you can complete your fills at your own pace.

Sign ups are currently open and as long as your works are at least 250 words, feel free to post to the event collection beginning December 25th. After this date, the collection will be open indefinitely.

↳ You are also allowed to combine this event with other organized bangs, bingos, fests, etc. as long as the requirements are met.

Please use one square from your card per chapter/fic.

"Choose not to warn" fics are also allowed, just please tag your works appropriately. We don't want to restrict your creativity with this event. This means dark fiction and anything that will warrant the additional "dead dove: do not eat" tag are welcome! Yes, including that trope.

Your submissions for this event should be new and never seen before content. A new chapter in an already in progress fic is acceptable. A new installment to an already in progress series is also acceptable.

⚔️ Memo

Please tag us in your posts on tumblr using @wintershieldbingo and #wintershieldbingo if you'd like to be reblogged!

If you'd like to be featured on Stucky's Monthly Masterlists of S.H.I.E.L.D. Approved Works in WinterShield-Land, use this form for each square you fill on your card!

If you'd like to see some new prompt additions made to the list we already have, use this form!

The help section is here.

⚔️ Collection

The Ao3 collection for this event is available now! If you'd like the mods to add your works to the collection for you, please use the bingo fill submission form.

⚔️ Your Masterlist

Completing your initial card and submitting a masterlist is the only way you can request another card.

Using a masterlist is how we will verify you have completed your card. Your filled bingo card must be included somewhere in your post. You may @ us on your masterlist but we would still prefer you to use the link below to submit it to us!

⚔️ Masterlist Submission Form

⚔️ The Card

We will be offering a 5x5 card for this bingo! In the form you will be able to opt in for prompts of multiple types. For each category, please select at least 25 prompts that you'd like to see on your bingo card. This will help the mods create the best card for you.

The card only has 25 squares total, including a free space. If for some reason you don't like a square, you can ask for a swap. Only 5 squares are eligible to be changed during the 1 week swap period.

Cards will be delivered via Tumblr DM or Tumblr Submission. Please have the appropriate settings turned on so we can reach you, otherwise sending your card will be difficult.

It would be best to enable all post types for submissions. You should also ensure that the "hide (your blog name) from people without an account” setting is turned off as well.

If you don’t have tumblr, we will use the email you provided in the sign up form to send your card. THIS OPTION IS ONLY AVAILABLE IF YOU DON’T HAVE TUMBLR.

✨ Those of you without tumblr, you may put your email in the TUMBLR URL section of the sign up form. ✨

⚔️ Sample Cards

⚔️ Regarding Swaps

Our sign up form has been updated so you all can cherry pick what you'd like to see on your card!

However, if you're still not satisfied with the card you received, you can request swaps using this form*. The swap period is for ONE WEEK after receiving your card. Please give the mods at least 24 hours to process your request for a maximum of 5 swaps!

*The password to submit your swap form is WinterCap. (This password is case sensitive!)

⚔️ Posting

When posting on any platforms and tagging us here on tumblr, please only mention the one square you are using. Not the squares it might also qualify for since we request that only one square be used per oneshot/chapter.

When posting your works directly to tumblr, you must use the KEEP READING feature once the piece reaches upwards of 300 words.

⚔️ Sign Up Form

The password to fully submit your card application is SteveBucky Love. (The password is case sensitive!)

Enjoy the event,

Bingo Mods

[prettyboysdontlookatexplosions]

my review of she hulk was basically “i actually really like the idea but they just forgot to make the show good” and tbh i kinda feel that way about agatha in that a lot of the writing line to line feels very bare minimum. but what agatha has going for it that she hulk does not is (1) an actual plot, which means the bare minimum goes further than it did on a show aiming to be marvel’s first sitcom and (2) a lead character with an actual personality

[kenisle]

every time scott lang appears in someone else’s movie all he does is show up, look confused, make goofy jokes, smile, baffle everyone, and be extremely useful

[keycomicbooks]

FANTASTIC FOUR #354 (1991) Walt Simonson Art & Story, 1st Appearance of Casey (Train Conductor for the TVA) & The Cross-Time Central Express Railroad

#FANTASTICFOUR #354 (1991) #WaltSimonson Art & Story, 1st Appearance of #Casey (Train Conductor for the #TVA) & The #CrossTimeCentralExpressRailroad "The Cross-Time Express!" Prison break in the timestream! The FF fights for their freedom from the Time Variance Authority, but what secrets are the timekeeping corps hiding? https://www.rarecomicbooks.fashionablewebs.com/FantasticFour%205.html#354 @rarecomicbooks Website Link In Bio Page If Applicable. SAVE ON SHIPPING COST - NOW AVAILABLE FOR LOCAL PICK UP IN DELTONA, FLORIDA #RareComicBooks #KeyComicBooks #MCU #MarvelComics #MarvelUniverse #KeyComic #ComicBooks

[multiverse-peterbparker]

Some guy in the park— super nice dude— taught me how to use this super cool chess method. I’m still not the best at it— which I know might be surprising, but I’m gonna get better at it! At uh… at chess I mean.

[bloodymarymorstan]

I just watched Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 and I felt like it really solidified one of the reasons why Endgame just did not work in my opinion which was that none of the characters whose stories were ending in that movie actually got a proper send-off that was focused on them. This is because, in Endgame, everything was taking place in the midst of a much larger story where a major goal was still to set up future storylines and ultimately to try to give partial or equal focus to a really unreasonable number of characters. I always hate on Steve’s ending in particular and while I do definitely think it was a majorly poor choice for his character in general it was also just really rushed and didn’t make sense given the pretty minimal amount of time that was allocated to his character in that movie, whereas if Steve had gotten to go out on a final Captain America movie I’m sure it would have been much more likely for him to get an ending that actually aligned with his arc as a whole and within that film. Plus, characters that are so well established deserve to get a real conclusion that is focused on them! And it worked so well in GOTG3 to actually have that but I couldn’t believe it when I realized that this is the first time in the MCU that a series has gotten to end in that way. I feel like it really goes to show how much this type of franchise storytelling wrecks character arcs more often than not because the priority is always the bigger picture rather than the individual story, and I’m happy Guardians got to end in this way but the other characters should have gotten that too :(

[billdenbrough]

i keep thinking about rocket’s “there ain’t no thing like me ‘cept me” and how it’s presented initially as an indicator of who he is—his mouthiness, his independence, his absolute lack of knowledge of what a raccoon looks like—and like. it is those things! it is! but it’s also — yeah, so, the first time we hear it, there’s a hint of story behind it, like: who or what made rocket this?

and now we know it’s the high evolutionary, and now we know the other layer to that statement: yeah, rocket’s confident when he says there’s no thing like him, because a) they were all individual experiments for the same cause but b) because rocket, and therefore the ones ‘like’ him, were classified as defective, and he knows the high evolutionary killed them all

[scinglives]

open starter: bucky barnes 

Bucky couldn’t help but jump at the sound of thunder roaring outside. He had seen a lot of things, but storms were something that flashed a lot of memories back for him. Nights out in the cold, in the woods, in trenches, always hiding away during a storm. Those cold nights when he knew he wasn’t going to sleep, and praying lightening wasn’t going to hit. 

“Sorry...” He murmured as he looked at the other with a small nervous smile. “Not a huge fan of storms....”

[ilions-end]

as a serial multiple-books-at-once reader i thought "another quick little athenian tragedy won't hurt" so i started euripides' andromache, got as far as the opening (here's andromache, now a concubine, seeking shelter in a temple to thetis) and just closed the book immediately like "oh i am NOT currently prepared for my emotional response to this :)"

kudos for STRONG opener, euripides, but i am going to have to complete quintus mashing his little action figures together first

[selene-borealis]

So, apparently in Justice League (2017), Central City is revealed through Barry's DMV records to be in Ohio. But, um, since there is already a very big city in the center-area of Ohio, freaking Columbus, is Central City supposed to be Columbus? Did Columbus never exist? Or is this yet another occurrence of writers not even doing 5 minutes of research into Ohio before they write something that takes place within it.

[wintershieldbingo]

⚔️ Happy WinterShield Bingo Day! ⚔️

Welcome all you Winter Babies and Shieldlings, we are excited to announce that our AO3 collection is available and posting is now open!

Here's some pertinent information to remember regarding this event...

The AO3 Collection is available here

Announcement Posts are here

Bingo Event Post is here

Bingo Fills Submission Form for our monthly masterlists is here

Bingo Sign Up Form is here

Bingo Swap Request Form is here*

Completed Bingo Card Masterlist Submission Form is here

Bingo Prompt Suggestion Form is here

Please tag us in your posts here on tumblr using @wintershieldbingo and #wintershieldbingo if you’d like to be reblogged!

Let's make Winter and Cap proud by giving them epic love stories with these bingo cards!

*Remember, the swap period is for ONE WEEK after receiving your card. Please give the mods at least 24 hours to process your request for a maximum of 5 swaps!

*The password to submit your swap form is WinterCap. (Case sensitive)

All links are available in our help section!

Have a Merry Christmas, a Bright Solstice, and a Happy Yule! 🎉❄️🎄

Happy Writing,

Bingo Mods

Photo sourced from Pinterest!

[ao3org]

On Your Left! — Changes to Captain America Fandom Tags

Hello! In the near future, Marvel tag wranglers will be updating fandom tags on AO3 to separate the upcoming Captain America movies featuring Sam Wilson as Captain America from the trilogy of films with Steve Rogers as Captain America.

To do this, we will be renaming the fandom Captain America (Movies) to Captain America (Chris Evans Movies) and creating a new fandom named Captain America (Anthony Mackie Movies). Both will be made subtags of Marvel Cinematic Universe and Captain America - All Media Types.

In summary:

Captain America (Chris Evans Movies) will refer to the 2011, 2014, and 2016 movies featuring Steve Rogers, Peggy Carter, and Bucky Barnes. 

Captain America (Anthony Mackie Movies) will refer to the 2025 movie Brave New World featuring Sam Wilson and Joaquín Torres. This fandom tag will also refer to any sequel Captain America movies starring Sam Wilson in the title role.

Fans interested in reading about both movie series can include both Marvel Cinematic Universe and Captain America - All Media Types in tag filtering. The current fandom tag for The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (TV), which is a subtag of Marvel Cinematic Universe but not Captain America - All Media Types, will also be unaffected by these changes. We’ve included more details of our reasoning below, which better explains why we’re making this change.

Why are you making two separate fandom tags? Can’t everyone just keep using “Captain America (Movies)”?

Despite both having the superhero name “Captain America” and the same continuity, fundamentally the main character has changed between the original trilogy and the new 2025 movie. We also wanted to hopefully make it easier for fans to differentiate between which movies and continuities they’re discussing. Many Sam Wilson fans will likely want to filter for the movie where he’s the central focus; conversely, many Steve Rogers fans will likely want to filter out movies where he doesn’t appear. 

We’re specifically using “Chris Evans” and “Anthony Mackie” in the fandom tags as they’re the most recognizable and consistent aspect of the movies. There’s no consistent set of directors between all Chris Evans Captain America movies, and actor names are much more recognizable than including multiple years in the fandom tags. This style of making fandom tags named after actors is similar to other fandoms on AO3. For example, there are many James Bond movie fandom tags which differentiate via the actors’ names. 

The Marvel Cinematic Universe is also not the only time Captain America has been adapted to the big screen: there’s a 1944 movie starring Dick Purnell, a 1979 movie starring Reb Brown, and a 1990 movie starring Mat Salinger. The current fandom tag Captain America (Movies) is worded in a way that technically encompasses these unrelated movies as well. It doesn’t make sense for these unrelated continuities to share one fandom tag, so we would have changed the existing Captain America (Movies) tag to be more specific regardless of the release of Brave New World. 

Like we mentioned above, fans interested in reading about both MCU movie series at once can filter for both Marvel Cinematic Universe and Captain America - All Media Types.

Why Mackie Movies instead of Brave New World?

The movie title has already changed several times in between promotion and release. It’s also highly likely Marvel will make sequel movies. Formatting the tag as Captain America (Anthony Mackie Movies) prevents the disruption of renaming the fandom tag in the future. 

We will be creating an Additional Tag for Captain America: Brave New World, similar to how there are Additional Tags for Movie: Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) and Movie: Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021). We hope the Additional Tag will help fans filter for specific movies within the broader series of movies.

Why does Brave New World get a separate fandom tag while First Avenger, Winter Soldier, and Civil War would still share? 

Captain America: The First Avenger, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and Captain America: Civil War all encompass the trilogy centering around Steve Rogers. While Captain America: Brave New World is also set in the same continuity, the main character and actor has changed, and the role of Sam Wilson has changed from being a supporting character to the main focus.

It’s likely that Marvel will release sequel movies to Brave New World, which will not receive separate fandom tags and would instead also be covered by the new Captain America (Anthony Mackie Movies) tag. We hope that separating the fandom tags now will prevent the messiness of renaming tags again in the future, and also allow fans to filter for works that focus on the specific Captain America they are looking for. 

(From time to time, ao3org posts announcements of recent or upcoming wrangling changes on behalf of the Tag Wrangling Committee.)

[scarlet--wiccan]

Agatha All Along, the highly anticipated follow-up to WandaVision, begins airing this week on Disney+. Now is the perfect to revisit some important information about both shows and the context in which some of Agatha's new characters are being introduced.

WandaVision primarily followed the character Wanda Maximoff and expanded on her family history by introducing her late parents as well her twin sons, who are born from magic and age rapidly over the course of the series.

In the Marvel comics source material, Wanda is part of a large, multigenerational family of Jewish and Romani characters whose stories frequently reflect the systemic violence and oppression that both communities face-- including Romani Holocaust victims, who are critically underrepresented in both education and media. In the MCU, these identities and histories are completely erased, and the characters are all played by white actors. Alternate versions of these characters also appear in the Fox X-Men films, and are similarly whitewashed.

The Romani people are a racialized minority that originated as a South Asian diaspora, and who face severe systemic oppression in Europe and North America. The modern Romani population is quite diverse, but they are not of white ethnic origin, and despite the fact that Wanda and her family have historically been drawn with white features, they are minority characters and ought to be considered as such.

Depictions of witches and witchcraft are often entwined with antisemitism and anti-Romani racism. In pop culture, witches and fortunetellers are typically portrayed as visual stereotypes of Romani women. In the real world, fortunetelling is a profession born from survival work, one which Romani families are often heavily policed and racially profiled for practicing. While Wanda usually subverts these tropes, they are often played straight elsewhere in the superhero genre, and any story about witches, especially one featuring Romani characters, needs to be critiqued in this context.

Agatha All Along introduces viewers to a new cast of characters, including Lilia Calderu, played by Patti LuPone, and the enigmatic "Teen", played by Joe Locke, who is heavily speculated to be an incarnation of Wanda's son, Billy.

In the comics, Lilia is a member of a prominent Romani family in Wanda's community. Often lauded as the "witch queen of the gypsies," Lilia embodies many racial stereotypes about Romani women. In Agatha All Along, Lilia is depicted as an older Sicilian woman, however, being portrayed as a batty fortuneteller with a tawdry psychic shop, she still embodies an offensive trope. Although Lilia is far from "good" representation, this is not an improvement-- if anything, it's even more exploitative.

Billy was raised in a Jewish American household and places a very strong emphasis on his Jewish identity, in addition to having Romani heritage. His identity as a young gay man is always presented in conjunction with this heritage, not in spite of it. Though there is a significance to Locke being a gay actor playing a gay character, his casting-- if he is indeed playing Billy-- is not authentic. White gay representation should not supersede racial inclusivity, and it is not an excuse for whitewashing or Jewish erasure.

Marvel Studios recently announced that the character Doctor Doom will be played by Robert Downey Jr., who is returning to the franchise after many years in the role of Iron Man. In the source material, Doom is also a Romani character with a very similar background to Wanda's. This identity is central to Doom's character-- although he is written to be both morally and politically challenging, the liberation of his people has always been a primary motive.

Clearly, this type of whitewashing is an ongoing pattern in the MCU franchise. Although "Teen's" identity is still unconfirmed and Lilia may, ultimately, be of little consequence, they are part of a larger problem, and Agatha All Along needs to critiqued in that context.

[asha-mage]

🌶️

The MCU's Spiderman is not a poor execution of Peter Parker's character concept. He's not even poor execution of Miles Morales's character concept.

He is a poor execution of Terry McGinnis's character concept.

Peter Parker and Miles Morales both have so many fundamental pieces to their characters that are just missing for the MCU's Spiderman. Familiar names are floating around him- Aunt May, Mary Jane, Ganke Lee- but the fundamental ideas that make up Peter or Miles arcs just are not there. Themes like Miles's family expectations, Peter's constant money struggles, and the balancing act of doing good vs trying to live your own life are all absent. Even the idea of power and responsibility isn't properly introduced until the THIRD MOVIE when that really should been the central theme from the beginning.

Rather the MCU Spiderman has way more parallels with Terry McGinnis. Both are young hot shot teenagers who end up being taken under the wing of established and experienced hero who is on their way out. Both have complex relationships with their mentor which in a lot of ways serves as the driving force of their character arcs. Both gain high tech suits which enable their heroism. Both are viewed (or at least supposed to be viewed in MCU Peter's case) as heirs to the legacy of this hero.

It falls apart when you get into how they are different. While Uncle Ben is implied to have existed and be dead by the time MCU Peter is introduced in Civil War it's never actually confirmed and never properly comes up. Meanwhile the death of Terry's father is essentially the inciting incident of Batman Beyond: it's what motivates and drives Terry and the murder and it's fallout are the main focus of the first two episodes of Batman Beyond.

What's more MCU Peter's relationship to Tony is grounded in the fact that Tony just shows up one day and essentially taps him to join the Avengers. Bruce by contrast initially tosses Terry out on his ear, and when Terry turns up seeking justice for his father Bruce can't offer him anything but 'go ask the cops for help', and when that goes exactly as poorly as Terry said it would, Terry breaks into the manor steals the Batsuit and goes to stop Powers himself. Terry has active agency in his own choice to be a hero, which helps define his relationship with Bruce and to heroism. While MCU Peter was doing his own superheroics prior to Tony showing up in Civil War (not that he ever does much of that in future movies) his relationship to Tony is defined by Peter's dependence on him and his quest for Tony(/the Avengers)'s approval. And because they don't even bother name drop Uncle Ben or flashback to him, we're left with the impression that the main thing driving MCU Peter is that quest for approval. His motivations are never more complexly explored, and we don't even really see him just running around Queens stopping muggings or car crashes or anything that hints he enjoys or feels the need to actually help people.

And I think that gets into the final and most important difference between the two. Gotham not only needs Batman, it visibly and obviously and terribly needs Batman. Batman Beyond leans into this because decades without a Batman have left Gotham a cyperbunk dystopian hellscape. The city needs someone to stand up to the darkness, to be a symbol of hope, to be aspirational. Terry taking up that mantel means fighting supervillains, yes- but mostly it means doing what the original Batman did. Solving murders, stopping muggings, rescuing people from burning buildings or fighting off street gangs like the Jokerz.

But even in the earliest MCU movies, New York only needs superheroes when the current world ending threat shows up. Otherwise the city is all bright shinny clean streets filled with haplessly content citizens. This is the only reason that Vision's position of 'Our very strength invites challenge' in Civil War makes any sense- because the only purpose of these Superheroes is usually to fight a threat they where somehow responsible for creating. And this problem hits 'friendly neighborhood Spiderman' the hardest because he only has a responsibility to use his great power to solve problems, if their are problems in need of solving. Most of Peter Parker's (and Miles Morales's, Gwen Stacy's, or any other Spiderperson's) day is not fighting alien armies or netherworld gods. It's stopping break ins, rescuing people from car crashes, or dealing with other small scale local threats, that none the less benefit from someone with his abilities to make them better. Either New York in the MCU is an ideal utopian city where the police have everything handled apparently (which ha!) or Peter is apparently not interested in stopping bad things from happening. He spends so much of the first movie basically begging Tony to give him superhero things to do, not realizing that he could go outside and find people that need help on his own.

In conclusion MCU Peter Parker isn't 'regular Peter Parker but not an underdog', or even 'Miles Morales but white'. He's 'Terry McGinnis but without any agency in his own heroism'.

[yes-these-obsessions-are-healthy]

Rook isn’t a Dragon Age protagonist. Rook is designed to be a stand-in for people who never played Dragon Age, don’t care about diving deep into the lore, and aren’t interested in the romance mechanics. Rook is designed to be said bland avatar so that non-DA fans (who for some fucking reason decided to pick up and play Dragon Age 4 FIRST) have a pawn to control and navigate through the world in the most superficial and rudimentary manner possible. The way Solas is positioned in this game—which was originally pitched as him being the central antagonist all those years ago,—is evidence of this. Your Rook is deeply unconnected to Solas emotionally, mirroring how disconnected and uninvested a newbie player would be coming into this story blind at the climax of this decade long story. Even non-Solasmancers had a deep connection to Solas, whether as a friend or annoying thorn in their side.

The way that Rook is set up—someone who has no connection to Solas and can thus ‘do what’s necessary because sentiment is not clouding their judgment’—is coincidentally reflected further in the meta in that Rook, you, also end up functioning as having surface-level shallow connection to everything else in the game and world. You exist technically, you interact with it, but the world is rendered so bland, the dialogue so basic and repetitive and uninsightful, the roleplaying so limited, you might as well not truly exist in the Dragon Age world.

For a character so layered and so intriguing, Solas is sidelined and all greater access to him cut off. The golden opportunity to truly give us that Bioware levels of character exploration we saw in Trespasser by having us interact and speak frequently with this ‘Dread Wolf’ Solas—to interrogate him, to converse, debate, question— was never adopted in favor of…I guess flashy combat and pretty set dressings.

Elden Ring pulled off this angle of “late to the party” gimmick because Elden Ring did the heavy lifting of jamming several games’ worth of history and world-building into it. Veilguard plays both sides: “Eh, you’re a returning player so we’re not gonna go into much detail. You know how it is.” and “Eh, you’re a new player. Don’t sweat yourself on the actual in-depth history and nature of things established by the prior media. We know you’ve rotted your brain with a pure diet of MCU and tiktoks for at least a decade, so we’ve gone and removed the thoughtful nuanced spices and unique properties of the story so you can dive right in to the generic fantasy action rpg moba-like slop’.

Rook is the least real protagonist I have ever encountered in a supposed RP-heavy RPG. There are faceless boys in harem anime with more personality and weight and presence in their worlds than Rook.

[prickly-paprikash]

Castlevania Nocturne really stepped up its game in the second season.

I had two major complaints for the premiere season of CN:

The pacing was erratic. From episode 2 onwards, it seems as if the story is obsessed with giving us nonstop climactic battles, at the cost of letting the characters and pacing breathe. I understand that a central theme of the first season was loss—not just loss of loved ones and the grief that comes with it, but simply losing at every turn. They make the Vampire Messiah feel more like an inevitability, and it works to some extent. But one thing that the original Castlevania series did well was how it handled the flow of conversation and combat.

Seasons 1-3 were all mostly slow, deliberate episodes centered on talking. Characters would simply converse. The very first scene of Castlevania literally embodies this.

Lisa and Dracula, having an organic yet expertly crafted conversation that feels sharp, poignant, and immediately tells us everything we need to know about these two characters. We get one Lisa scene, and then she dies and yet it hits so hard because of how one conversation was written.

Nocturne's first season, many times, felt more like a quip-fest. Castlevania's humor was dry and morbid, to better fit the sarcastic and dark tone of the series. When characters like Trevor or Sypha or even Isaac cracked a joke, it never felt out of place. They had a cold, callous sense to them. Like their humor was a coping mechanism for the dreary and bleak reality they lived in.

Richter on the other hand felt like a Phase IV MCU lead, being unbearably sarcastic and "witty". Watching Nocturne again, I struggled to like Richter in the first half but he really came into his own after he meets Juste.

In the second season, however, the pacing really knuckles down. It becomes deliberate. And when a fight scene happens pre-episode 7, it feels more like OG Castlevania again. It isn't being treated with extreme weight, but it feels more like a part of every day life for Belmonts and their peers. Whenever Trevor, Sypha and Alucard get into a scrap with Night creatures, it actually had a sense of levity to them. This was a job. An occupational hazard. A logical result of living in Wallachia. In Nocturne season 1, fights were treated with more weight than they should have, while character work felt secondary, barring someone like Annette.

Here, it really allows me to fall for these characters more. Being an OG Drolta stan was so rewarding this season. I really also liked Maria and Tera more here, with Tera becoming a vampire creating a really interesting dynamic between the two and pushing their characters into directions that I didn't expect to enjoy as much as I did.

Mizrak, Olrox, and Richter were sidelined a bit more here, but it makes sense. These three dominated the first season, so it made sense to shift the focus on others and let their characters grow and shine. But just because they didn't take up most of the spotlight doesn't mean their characters were ignored.

Mizrak and Olrox's romance was developed in more subtle ways this time, which I appreciated. The writers let the unspoken heat and budding romance speak for themselves here, and I really enjoyed Olrox's sadness and Mizrak's regret and grief here, though of course the best scene between them was at the end. The way the writers made that finale, weaving feelings of heartbreak, lust, love, and fear into that one sentence was so, so good. Mizrak's fear of death and torment. Olrox simply saying that the devil was easy to cheat.

Ugh. That's the good shit.

And Richter? They still let him be the dry, sarcastic quipster, but I appreciate the restraint here. He doesn't crack jokes as much. Instead, they really focus on his feelings with Annette, to the point that he feels more like the love interest rather than the MC for a good chunk of the season.

And I'm not complaining. I enjoyed the budding romance between them in the first season, but with the deliberate pacing here, the writers really sold me on this soft, chaste, tender love story. Richter and Annette feel like young adults falling for the first time and I really fucked with it.

I'll talk about Annette in a separate post, but sufficed to say, she was the best character of this season. Hands down.

My second complaint was Erzsebet Báthory. She felt so... she felt like she paled in comparison to the three other villains of the season.

Drolta was exquisite. She oozed charisma and charm, and she stole every single scene she was in. The animators loved her and I could tell. She had the most costume changes. She had the sharpest lines. She was gorgeous. And even her death felt euphoric because she got to introduce Alucard into the mix. Like, seriously, they used her perfectly in the first season and she was easily the best character by far.

Olrox? Sexy. Gay. Kill me. Him and Mizrak? Perfection. His voice was so smooth and seductive. His dialogue? Smartly written. Every scene he's in, he feels like he's always holding back something.

Rage. Pain. Lust. Desire. Grief. Hatred. Remorse. It is always there, an undercurrent of emotions so thick you could feel it in every scene they placed him in.

Abbott? Worthless. Pathetic. Hypocrite. I hated him every single time he was onscreen, and that was exactly what he needed to be. A counterrevolutionary bible thumper that would elicit powerful memories of unlikable relatives at a reunion. No notes. Perfectly utilized villain, and I fucking cheered when he got burnt to a crisp by his daughter.

But Báthory felt so underwhelming.

So either the writers knew this specific complaint from the fans, or more likely wrote her this way to purposefully hide the true final boss of the series.

Drolta.

See, Báthory doesn't hold a candle to any previous villains of the Castlevania story. Not as complex as Isaac. Not as iconic and important as Dracula. Not as enjoyable to both hate and love as Carmilla. Not as hilarious and memorable as Death. She was just there. I thought it was a waste, and that I wanted to see more of her shine in season 2.

So when the only bit of character work she got was her mourning Drolta and her small flashback, I was disappointed.

Make no mistake, she made a great physical threat. But that was it. She felt more like one of Death's elite guards from season 4 than her own true brand of evil.

Not as hate-worthy as the Abbott. Not as conflicted as Olrox. Not as charismatic as Drolta.

So imagine my surprise and subsequent glee as to when Drolta takes the power for herself. Killing her in the sky. That was perfect.

Drolta, who served Sekhmet. Who broke down at the loss of her goddess, her fellow priestesses, and the people she cared for. Who, blinded by grief, sought to resurrect her goddess by becoming a vampire herself and searching high and low for a worthy vessel.

Drolta became even more interesting. Thinking herself as only a follower, never seeking to gain the goddesses' power for herself. Becoming the first Vampire/Night Creature that gave Alucard, the son of Dracula himself who was leagues above Báthory before she became the goddess, quite a lot of trouble.

The way every villain was handled in this season was excellent. From Abbott's death, to Richter proclaiming his desire to avenge his mother to Olrox's face right after they worked together to beat Drolta, but still letting him go afterwards as thanks—I'm sorry, but that was some raw ass writing right there.

The only thing I have to complain about? Nothing from the writers or animators or directors. It's the production that I hate.

Streaming services fucked everything up. 8-10 episodes for every single show is such a dumb move, and making us wait 2-3 years for every single one of them is horrible.

On top of the fact that they will cancel something on a whim.

Nocturne would be unquestionably a masterpiece had it been allowed to have 24 fucking episodes each season. We could explore France more. See deeper into the revolutionary setting of the show. Really see the world of Castlevania, but no. And now there's still a threat of cancellation when animation has been carrying Netflix's worthless ass for years? Especially through the pandemic?

Watch Castlevania Nocturne. Support the studio. Show Netflix that this is where their energies and money should be going towards.

Their live actions, barring something like the big names of Stranger Things and Squid Game, have been flops. They fumbled the Witcher series. They killed Kaos. They ended Shadow and Bone. They fuck up every single time and it has been animation that has pulled through.

Arcane. Castlevania. Blue Eye Samurai. She-Ra.

Support this show, please. I would love to keep this series going, but it needs the attention it so rightfully deserves.

Please. I need to see Old Man Coyote. I need to see Tera go further into the darkness. I want to believe in the possible Maria x Alucard romance that was in the games that could be written really well here. I want to see more of these characters. I want to dive deeper into this world. But most importantly, I want every single person who worked on this show to keep having a job. To be able to do what they do best and get better at it.

This show is great. It deserves more seasons. More sequel series to explore other Belmonts. Other countries. More sexy vampires. More sexy hunters.

Support animation.