#the thing is that viago CLEARLY loves you

[vigilskeep]

what gets me about viago’s letter to de riva at the start of the game is that he tells them to consider this trip with varric a contract, in the most completely-giving-up move ever. i thought from what i saw before the game came out that since he referred to it as a contract, de riva must have been sent to help deal with solas by the crows, who do have an interest in the world not ending. but no, de riva fully joined the team of their own volition, and viago just threw his hands up and said please think of it as a contract so we can all pretend i have any control over you whatsoever. and then they didn’t even get the “contract” wrapped up.

[tethrras]

a soft place to land

vittoria de riva x lucanis dellamorte. 2.7k. fluff, hurt/comfort, flirting. click here to read on ao3.

-

Vittoria is no stranger to loneliness.

It keeps her bed cold and her nights quiet. Sometimes she’s grateful for it and other times the longing for something more, the same longing she’s felt since childhood, threatens to strangle her. But she’s a Crow, and Crows can’t afford connections like that, so she doesn’t complain and instead spends long nights sharpening her blades in silence. Sharpening blades or, when she feels longing’s hands tightening around her neck, sitting in the window of her apartment in the canal district and watching the civilians of the city go about their lives.

“Her” apartment isn’t her apartment at all. It’s an abandoned apartment overlooking the market that no one has lived in for what seems like a decade, if not longer. She found it after one of her first contracts, and it’s the only place in Treviso that she can escape to without feeling the need to look over her shoulder for Viago. On nights she can’t sleep and doesn’t want to think or train, she scales the surface of the tower and settles in the window, letting the heartbeat of Treviso lull her into something that might resemble sleep. Visiting the apartment is what she misses most about home, and after seeing what happened to Minrathous, after hearing about what's happening in the South, she wants to visit it again. Who knows if - who knows when - it’ll be the last time?

She intends to head for the Eluvian with little fanfare - the others don’t need to know about her trip - but when she reaches the bottom of the staircase in the library, she finds Lucanis sitting on a chair with a cup of coffee in his hand and a book open in his lap. He looks up at her as her footsteps slow to a stop.

“De Riva.”

“Dellamorte.”

Vittoria shifts her weight from one foot to the other as a slight smile creases Lucanis’s lips.

“You’re going out.” He appraises her armor with a raised brow. She should’ve cleaned it earlier like she had meant to…

“I am.” Vittoria rests her hand on the hilt of her sword. “But I won’t be gone for long.”

“Where to?”

“Home,” she answers, then, “Treviso. Ever since we got back from Minrathous…”

He glances down at his lap then. “I know.”

She can tell he feels as she does - guilt for what happened to Minrathous, to the Shadow Dragons, to Neve, but gratefulness that the same - or worse - didn’t happen to Treviso. It’s a poor consolation, but consolation at all is priceless in times like this. 

Vittoria clears her throat. “Would you…”

“Would I what?”

“Um. Nothing,” she insists, shaking her head. Of course he wouldn’t want to come with her - he’s clearly in the middle of something. She’s not sure she wants company, either. “Anyway, I won’t be long. If anyone asks for me -”

“Were you going to ask me if I’d like to come with you?”

“... No.”

“Then what were you going to ask?”

She knows very well that Lucanis didn’t know who she was before she rescued him from the Ossuary, despite the two decades that she has spent with the Crows. It continues to surprise her that he understands her better than Viago ever has after only a month or two. No wonder he’s such a good assassin - he’s very good at reading his mark. She clears her throat. “Alright,” she confesses. “I was.”

“I thought so.” He stands up, takes a long sip from his teacup, and then places it down on the saucer. “Let me get my things. I will meet you at the Eluvian.”

He doesn’t leave her waiting long, and they travel home through the Crossroads in companionable silence. Vittoria can’t help but glance over at him from time to time. While he didn’t notice her in the past, she certainly noticed him - she even thought she had been in love with him once, though she’s sure now that she didn’t know what love meant. Or means. But he and Illario had a life that all Crow recruits wanted for themselves, and Vittoria had been one of them. The acclaim. The attention from the Talons. The inherent talent. When she was younger, she thought that having the attention of someone like Lucanis would’ve made her life easier - easier than the attention from Viago, anyway - and she strove for years to get that attention. She grew out of it eventually, and then, of course, he died, and whatever leftover feelings she might have had died with him. But now, the fact that not only is he alive, but that she was the one to save him… Sometimes it doesn’t feel real, and she always catches herself looking at him to make sure he’s really here.

“We’re not going to the Diamond,” she says when the two of them reach the Treviso Eluvian. “If you wanted to check in with Teia and Viago...”

“Hm. Then where are we going?”

“I have a place in the city that I go to. I consider it… well… a home. Of sorts. I wanted to make sure it was still standing, after…”

Lucanis nods. “I understand. But maybe we can check in with Teia and Viago while we’re here…” At Vittoria’s wince, he gives her a smile. “Or not.”

“Thank you.” There is a part of her that loves Viago, however complicated and repressed that part is, but the last thing she needs right now is a lecture.

“Of course. No one understands the desire to avoid Viago as well as I do, believe me.”

She steps through the Eluvian with Lucanis on her heels. 

Most of the Crows are asleep for the night, so the two of them meet no resistance at the Casino, and from there she leads him through the familiar streets in silence. It’s a short walk, though, and soon enough she’s standing at the base of the apartment building and refreshing herself on her usual footholds. She hasn’t been here since before she saved Varric all those months ago, and she would hate to fall to her death from the building that she’s scaled more than any other - in front of Lucanis, no less. To her relief, the tower doesn’t seem to have suffered in the face of the dragon attack. She glances back at her companion, who is staring up at the surface of the building the same way she had been moments ago.

“It’s not as tall as it looks,” she reassures him.

He meets her gaze. “Good thing I have wings.”

Vittoria has been climbing her whole life. As a child, she would spend hours scaling trees until she reached the top and could settle down in the branches with a book or wooden toy that she had stolen from one of her siblings. By the time she was six, she could scale the tallest tree on her family’s farm in one breath. When she first arrived in Antiva, it was the only thing that made her suited to the life of a Crow - everything else, the fighting and the thick skin and the iron stomach, came later. So climbing is second nature to her, and in no time, she’s heaving herself through the window and rolling onto the floor of her apartment. Lucanis follows. They stand up from the ground, dust themselves off, and meet each other’s eyes.

“This is it.” She says it more awkwardly than she’d meant to, and winces at herself. She thought she’d gotten over her infatuation with him - she doesn’t dwell on those old feelings when they’re working together side-by-side, killing Antaam and Venatori and Sentinels - but now that it’s the two of them, alone in an abandoned apartment with no gods or dragons for miles around, that soft spot of her heart feels rubbed raw. She turns away from him. “I’ve been coming here for years,” she says again. “I’m glad to see it’s still standing.”

Lucanis looks around curiously, and Vittoria does, too, to familiarize herself with the apartment again. There’s a bookshelf with a few books in it - books that she bought from the market herself, but can’t remember the contents of now - and a collection of knives sitting on a stool next to a well-worn whetstone. Above the stool is a series of scratches on the wall, each scratch representing one of her successful contracts. There must be more than a hundred scratches, but she’s not sure if he’d consider that a high or low number, so she resists the urge to call attention to it. 

On one side of the room is the window from which she can see the market, and on the wall opposite is the window from which she can see the whole of Treviso spilling over the hills on the horizon, its silver spires sparkling in the moonlight. Lucanis lingers here, standing still for a long moment. When he speaks, it shatters the silence.

“I have never seen Treviso like this.”

“I haven’t seen it like this for a long time.”

She brushes past him and sits on the edge of the window. It’s what she would do if she were alone, after all, and that’s what she had been coming here to do - to be alone, to calm herself and soothe her nerves of steel. Even though she knows she won’t be able to do those things now that he’s here with her, she’s still going to pretend that she can. And it’s easy, because for a long, long moment, neither of them move. It's only when she turns her head to look at him that he sits down on the windowsill across from her, stretching his legs out until his feet are nearly in her lap.

She used to dream of this. Of sitting across from Lucanis, fighting alongside him, of him knowing her name and… knowing even more than that. When she was little, she always imagined what she would tell someone if they asked her about her childhood in Ferelden, and for some reason, sitting across from him, she feels the words leaving her mouth before she can think about it. “When I arrived in Antiva, all I could think about was how different it was from Ferelden. I hated it at first.” But even the word hate doesn’t capture her feelings, because she spent most nights in the year or two after she arrived sobbing in her bed until the other recruits realized that hitting her hard enough could convince her to be quiet. “But I can’t remember what Ferelden looks like anymore. I can’t remember my family. All I know is Antiva, Treviso, Salle. The Crows. Viago. If Ghilan’nain’s dragon had…”

Vittoria glances over at Lucanis. He seems focused on something in the distance, but she notices him shift in his seat and straighten up when she looks for long enough.

“Did you recognize me?” She doesn’t know why she asks him this, but she does. “In the Ossuary?”

Lucanis shakes his head. “I didn’t. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I didn’t think you did.”

“But I wish that I had.” He turns to face her. “I don’t know how I never noticed you before, truthfully.”

“And why is that?”

He smiles again, and she resists the urge to glance back out the window. “You are an impressive woman, Vittoria.” 

“Well.” She clears her throat. She doesn’t know what “impressive” means to him, if it means what she thinks it means or what it should mean or if it means something else, but her face flushes nevertheless. “I’ve worked hard to be.”

At that, his smile sours. “You know… You take very good care of us. Of the team. But I hope you don’t think that we can’t be there for you the way that you - ”

“I didn’t invite you here to give me a motivational speech.”

“Ah. You didn’t invite me at all, remember? I had to tease it out of you.”

Her face flushes even more at the word “tease”. 

“I just mean that… If there is anything I can do for you, any difficulties you might be facing that I don’t know about… please tell me.” He sighs. “I know that I can’t do much, all things considered, but I can try to ease some of the weight off your shoulders if you let me. I have wings, you know. I can take it.”

“Please.” Vittoria waves her hand at him to dismiss the thought. “You keep me fed - that’s enough.”

“Mm.” He crosses his arms over his chest and nods. “And you do eat a lot more than the others, that’s true…”

“Hey!” She kicks his foot. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing, nothing! It was merely an observation.”

“Watch it, Dellamorte.” She gestures to the open window. “You’d hit the ground before Spite realized what was happening.”

“Please don’t say his name right now. I don’t want him to ruin the moment.”

There it is - another word that might mean something to him but also might mean nothing. She didn’t realize that whatever’s happening between them right now could be considered a moment… but at the same time, she has started to notice that he’s been giving her more attention since she saved him and the Crows from the dragon. He sits beside her at dinner, keeps close to her side in fights and in their travels through the Crossroads… and what had he been doing tonight, sitting in the library of the Lighthouse instead of the kitchen? 

She tells herself that it doesn’t mean anything, though. It can’t mean anything. Vittoria could never live at Lucanis’s side. He’s in line to become First Talon, and his family has been a part of the Crows for hundreds and hundreds of years. No matter how much training she does, no matter what she does, Vittoria won’t ever feel like she belongs to the Crows or like the Crows belong to her. She doesn’t think she’ll ever rid herself of the fear that one wrong move will be the end of it - of her life here, or of her life at all. And she feels the same about Lucanis. If she pushes her luck too far, who can she trust to watch her back the way she trusts him? She needs to focus on finding allies right now. Not a lover.

If he was interested in her at all. Which he isn’t. He can’t be.

“We don’t have to talk, you know,” she tells him, more for her sake than his. If her face flushes any more tonight, she might burst into flames. “We can just sit here and… look out at our city.” 

“Our city.” Lucanis turns away from her and rests his head against the window frame, settling in and looking more at ease than she’s ever seen him. And while watching him in motion is enough to drive her to madness, seeing him at ease might be even worse. Watching his chest rise and fall with long, measured breaths. Watching his eyelashes flutter like he’s trying to keep himself awake. He is a beautiful thing, Lucanis. She’s sure being loved by him would be a beautiful thing, too.

“Before we stop talking, then, let me say one last thing: thank you for saving our city.” His voice is softer than a whisper, so soft that she has to lean in to hear what comes next. “And even though I didn’t know you before, I am glad that I know you now.”

As allies. As friends. As teammates. While she knows that’s all he means, it’s still something. Vittoria smiles at him. “Me too.”

True to his word, Lucanis doesn’t speak again for the rest of the night. Neither does Vittoria. (Neither does Spite.) They watch the sun rise over the mountains surrounding their home and then decide that it’s time to return to the Lighthouse to rest before they see the First Warden. But if things go well, if she somehow figures out a way to stop the gods, then she might bring him back here and tell him all the things that no one has ever thought to ask her about. He might even want to know.

[miriani-lavellan]

Final Thoughts

Well, I beat the game. Some thoughts:

The Very Good

Combat (for mages, haven't played the rest) was a massive improvement over DA:I. It got a little repetitive after I learn the button combos, but this was solved by respeccing and doing something different. Fights felt pretty satisfying, and I didn't feel like I was getting interrupted during side quests/exploration as much as DA:I. And FINALLY, finally, I had to think a little tactically again. Not as much as in Origins, but definitely more than DA:I. It turned out not being able to take control of my companions directly didn't matter as much - you do command and direct them when you tab.

It looks fkn great. And I mean, amazing. The marketing really didn't do it justice - it made it seem super stylised for some reason. It's honestly just like a massively upgraded DA:I - they clearly saw they were doing it right that game and chose to develop it further. Everywhere we went, I felt like I was properly in Thedas again, and I super super wanted to dive into the screen and have a little ocean swim at some points.

Sidequests were all excellent. No more wasting time with busy work, every side quest felt like it was worth the effort, either for a little satisfying side content, or puzzle solving. And they matter more in the outcome of the area, too.

Your decisions have outcomes later in the game, and the game makes it explicitly clear this is happening because you did this. As someone with limited time on their hands, I didn't want to save scum or end up irritated because I didn't realise I was making a key decision.

I thought the companions were an amazing bunch, and I enjoyed getting to know all of them. The quests did an amazing job of making me feel like I was a leader trying to get to know the people they were trusting with so many lives - I felt like I was putting effort into my relationships and being rewarded for it.

The ending quests were fantastic. I bawled my eyes out at The Reveals.

The CULTURAL differences!! We are NOT in the south any longer, and also decades have passed since the attitudes and actions of some key characters in the series. I love that Rook's outlook on spirits, mages, and other things seems to be different from our past heroes. I love that things are different here. The vice grip of the Andrastian chantry is not present here, and that was a culture shock for me. We've been hearing this whole time from characters with different 'unusual' outlooks on life, usually because they came from the places we visit in this game. Now we really get to see it.

The sorta 'key' NPCs, Isabela, Teia & Viago, Antoine & Evka, the Viper and Tarquin, Irilen and Strife were all amazing.

The Good

The music was lovely. I missed Trevor Morris - I feel like he captured Thedas best, and there were no moments where the soundtrack hit me like In Hushed Whispers and Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts - but the music was definitely great.

We got a LOT of closure on big, big questions. I'm sure the lore people will point out some inconsistencies or whatever, but for me it answered and satisfied all of my questions in a big big way. Felt pretty good to have guessed correctly on some things too!

I love that you got some input in the Inquisitor's actions, instead of it being determined by only your 'past choices' selection. In the light of what were uncovering, that was extremely appreciated. I'm still not sure I made the right decision, but what happened and what can happen definitely felt like proper closure on the Solavellan era that tied me up SO bad for a while.

The romances (and I've seen them all, if only played Lucanis) were fulfilling, although I agree with some comments they might have been paced better. Lucanis' lock-in scene was particularly confusing - how it goes down makes perfect sense for the character don't get me wrong, but some follow up would have been nice.

I love the companion relationships that blossom when you have your romance locked in. There was a little set-up that made me jealous between Neve and Lucanis early on though. :)

What I Sorta Wished were Different

The pacing of the whole story felt quite... idk. It seemed all piled towards the end, in a way. The main quests definitely didn't seem to tell a continuous thread like the DA:I quests did - there was a kind of theming and stuff with those that DA:V doesn't seem to have. That being said, there was nothing about the main story I didn't enjoy as such.

I wished we could hear a little more about our decisions from past games. Even a few codices would have been nice.

The Well of Sorrows should have mattered.

It would have been nice to get more variation in armour. There were lots in DAI that seemed to fit my character thematically, I didn't really find any for Rook I really loved. I thought some of the companion armours were a little gaudy looking too.

[adamwatchesmovies]

What We Do in the Shadows (2014)

Taika Waititi is a big name now so I'm not sure I can call What We Do in the Shadows a hidden gem, but it FEELS like a hidden gem. Outrageously funny, this satirical mockumentary on vampires happily takes a stake to the bloodsuckers but also loves them. Try to keep an eye and ear out for countless clever references between the wild fits of laughter.

A documentary crew (wearing crucifixes) follow four vampire roommates who share a flat in Wellington. Viago (Taika Waititi) is the 379 year-old prissy and motherly household member who tries to keep everyone in line. Vladislav (Jemaine Clement) is 862 and fondly remembers his tyrannical days as “The Poker”. At 183, Deacon (Jonathan Brugh) is the “young rebel” of the group. In the basement, Petyr (Ben Fransham) sleeps in a stone coffin and generally keeps to himself… not that the others mind. The 8,000 year-old vampire kinda creeps them out.

Basically, we’re following a bunch of dorks through their day-to-day misadventures. These vampires would be pathetic if they weren’t so endearing. Out of touch with mortals for hundreds of years, they struggle with things we take for granted, such as getting into outfits that will get them invited into clubs. If only they could look at themselves in a mirror! Too bad vampires don’t cast a reflection. They stick out like sore thumbs everywhere they go but no one would ever believe they’re supernatural creatures. I know when I think vampire, I don’t picture a bunch of guys who pull pranks on unsuspecting victims by hypnotizing them and who only manage to be scary when they jump out of a closet yelling “BOO!”

In another movie, you might grow to dislike the vampires as they murder people while the camera crew follows them. Not today. Anyone who crosses their path kinda deserves it ‘cause come on! How could you be dumb enough to willingly enter these guys’ lair? Deacon has been promising to his familiar, Jackie (Jackie Van Beek) that he will turn her into a vampire for years - why she wants to become one is a mystery to everyone watching - but he’s clearly just stringing her along so he can have someone to clean up the blood from the kitchen floor after a meal. The more you learn about them, the more their eccentricities emerge and the funnier it gets. There's a scene where a vampires tries to show off his ability to transform and he botches it so badly it's the funniest thing I've seen in years.

At 85 minutes, What We Do In the Shadows is just the right length. It moves quickly from one joke to another. So fast, in fact, you may miss more than one gag while trying to compose yourself. And then, just as you wonder what aspect of vampirism is left to be lampooned, the movie’s over. Aww man! Already?

I’m not equipped to tell you just how hilarious What We Do In the Shadows is. I can’t even tell you what my favourite part was because I can’t choose. I can tell you to stick around for the end credits (all the way to the end) to get the maximum enjoyment out of it. This film only gets better the more you know about vampire stories, and even if you don't, it will have you in stitches. (April 5, 2019)

[thebonerpit]

I finished Veilguard ;_;

Overall I really enjoyed it. I do have some issues but I also have a lot of things I absolutely adore. And tbh it's hard to judge it only on one playthrough because I feel like I missed a lot of companion dialogue etc. It's hard to compare it to any of the other games that I've had YEARS with y'know?

So spoilery things under the cut, be warned! And a lot of yapping.

I called Varric being dead about halfway through. As soon as that scene happened where he was like "ahh I'm tired, I need to go lay down" I was like oh either he's only alive because the Fade is sustaining him and it's draining slowly or he died back at the ritual, and yup. I'm actually kind of shocked they went there tbh! He's never been a favourite for me so I was ok with it but yeah it was wild.

DORIANNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!!!! Oh my god the scream I scrumpt when he showed up. And he looks gooooood oh boy. And MAE! Literally the two characters I wanted to see the most ha ha. I was absolutely terrified something was going to happen to him though. I specifically saved Minrathous instead of Treviso in case he might have been hurt, and I didn't make him Archon because I thought it would make him a target. But I think he's fine regardless which is a relief lol.

I genuinely teared up the first time we meet the Inquisitor. The music in the background omg ;_; Hearing her voice again was incredible. I cannot BELIEVE all the shit that happened in the South though. I was reading those reports with my face like :OOOOOOOO the entire time. Redcliffe, Denerim, Kirkwall, all destroyed? WHAT? It kind of gives me some great ideas for fic though lol. I'm not upset about it because I think there's of course an opportunity for them to rebuild and they never said "hey btw all the characters left in the South are dead" so I'm saying they're not. The Skyhold mention also made me cry ha ha. Same with the conversation with Harding where she talks about all the Inquisition companions. I definitely think they did surprisingly well with callbacks to that game without basically any choices carrying over. Clearly some things were vague and they couldn't include everyone but I was actually quite happy.

Prince Sebastian Vael mention!!!!! Lmao I also screamed at that.

I loved seeing all the characters from the comics and Tevinter Nights show up like Strife, Antoine and Evka, Teia and Viago, etc. That helped to make it feel a lot more connected to the DA universe for me. Also some other cameos like VALTA (sort of lol), Johanna Hezenkoss, and Felassan ;_;

However, I'm really disappointed that there was literally NO mention of Fenris. He was with so many of those characters in that comic and some of them talk about their adventures, yet no one says oh btw Fenris was there too?? CRAZY. Also sad that neither Zevran or Merrill showed up simply because the story would have been incredibly relevant to include them. Instead we get Isabela... yay :/.

So the romance... once again I fucked myself over. I romanced Davrin and I was absolutely loving it. My Rook was as stoic as I could make her, down to business type, and she meshed so well with Davrin. They were absolutely adorable with Assan and they had such a cute scene where they admitted they were really falling for each other... AND THEN HE FUCKING DIED. WITH ASSAN. I was getting war flashbacks of Alistair lmao. I made him the leader of the other team because I trusted him to get the job done and I mean he did I guess?? But wow I did not expect any of your companions to die. And it HAS to be either him or Harding. Both of those options are so hard but did I really need to pick my fucking romance /sob. I didn't go back on my choice though because I'm fine with a bit of tragedy in my first run anyway but yeah it was pretty devastating. It was feeling very 'Mass Effect 2 suicide mission' so I was like great I've done all of their personal quests, relationships are maxed, we are GOOD... screw you Bioware lol.

The companions overall were... fine? Idk the only ones I really loved were Davrin, Emmrich, and Harding. I just felt like it was almost too easy to have everyone like Rook, and like each other. I missed Fenris and Anders constantly at each others throats. I missed Morrigan absolutely destroying Alistair every time he opened his mouth. I missed Blackwall and Dorian bickering but slowly growing into friends. There was almost NONE of that. Davrin and Lucanis had the tiniest bit of conflict and I got a few scrappy dialogues between Emmrich and Taash but they were all resolved so quickly. I wonder if the reactions to characters like Sera and Vivienne scared them off writing more complexity. Sadly Lucanis in particular was disappointing but I think he was much more closed off because I didn't save Treviso so maybe I'll get more out of him next time.

In the same vein, I didn't love how there were basically no opportunities to get disapproval from the companions. I think there was only one big moment where there were approval/disapproval notifs but almost all the rest were constant approvals. I liked the fact that in the previous games it was at least moderately difficult to get along with everyone in one playthrough. Like if you were bffs with Vivienne it's likely Solas would not have liked you. In this game I don't even think it's possible to have low approval?

One thing I really loved was the reactivity to your background! I played Mourn Watch and not only did I get a bunch of amazing dialogue options but I had special dialogue with Emmrich which was SO SWEET. I decided not to romance him because the Rook I made just didn't feel like a good match but man it was so cute to see them talking about life in the Necropolis and having someone who understood that. Really curious to see what the other factions have!

Combat was super fun as a warrior with the Reaper specialization. I was a necrotic damage machine lol. Throwing the shield was AMAZING and it gave you so much more range and motion in battle. I liked synchronizing abilities between party members and it was nice to not have to have 1 rogue, 1 mage, 1 warrior since the abilities can still work in a lot of different configurations. I wish the companions did a BIT more in battle... I definitely prefer the Inquisition AI for that for sure.

There were a lot of insane lore reveals (eg. the Evanuris originally being spirits and stealing Titan blood/life force to make their bodies was... WHAT) and most of them I thought were cool or interesting. I personally loved the teaser at the end for the Executors but I guess a lot of people didn't? Idk I don't agree that it invalidates any of the previous antagonists motivations or whatever because we don't know anything about what type of influence they would have had over them. It's way too early to speculate but I would be HYPE for that to play a role in a sequel (and maybe see what's actually "across the sea"???)

Ok I could really go on forever here lol but I want to finish with the ending. I thought it was beautifully done. I got the "true" ending where you use Mythal's essence to convince Solas to bind himself to the Veil (which, tbh, was very "Loki becomes the World Tree" y/y?) and my Inquisitor went with him. I think for a romanced Lavellan it's perfect imho. I don't know if it would have the same impact with another Inquisitor but idk even the whole scene with Mythal basically releasing Solas from servitude to her was quite emotional. Solas as a presence in this game was one of the best parts and I wish we had more convos with him in the Fade!

[izzy-b-hands]

Viago: So, as you know, since Katherine and I opened up our relationship-

Cut to a shot of Katherine surrounded by shirtless vampires, though by their trouser style and still-on cravats, they're all clearly from the same time period as Viago. She has a Type.

Viago: We've both been exploring lots of new feelings and new wants and well...

He blushes as Anton pops up behind him, waving.

Viago: One of my new wants is...Anton! Actually, the only new one so far-

Deacon, unseen in background: What about that orgy we all had?! I thought you had fun at the orgy?

Viago: I did, but I spent most of it with Katherine and Anton! (to camera, whispered) I think his memory is going the older he gets; what a shame.

Deacon: It is not, and I can hear you, you know!

Viago: I can come say it to your face-

Anton: Hey, hey! There's no need. It's alright. You're both just riling each other up now.

Viago: We are, we are. You're so good at that!

Anton: I lead a conflict resolution class, actually. Only once a month though.

--

We cut to a shot outside of a plain looking building. A foldable sign out front lists the time for a new night session of Anton's conflict resolution class.

Another shot through an open window shows a circle of people of all sorts sat together, including Anton, speaking to everyone, and a delighted Viago watching him.

Back to our talking heads, outside of the building while the class participants walk to their respective cars/transport.

Anton: It was really well attended, better than the late afternoon sessions! I might start holding more of them at night. Well, as long as my teaching assistant can come along.

Viago: I think he could make that happen.

They kiss, softly and briefly, before a nervous and giggly look to the camera. Clearly this is their first time kissing on camera in front of the crew.

--

An intermission type card tells us a week has passed. We then cut to a shot of the vampires' home at night, windows lit up with light and sound. Loud sounds. Potentially bad sounds.

Viago, clothes torn: So, things are okay! I know they don't seem like it, but-

A crash interrupts him, and a shirtless and bloody Anton falls down the stairs into the foyer.

He stands, looking absolutely like shit, and limps over to cling to Viago.

Anton: It'll be over soon, yeah?

Viago: Yeah. Just your body dying, and unfortunately it still hurts. You think the worst of it is passed?

Anton nods.

Viago: Okay, we'll get you a bath-

Anton whines, slightly dog-like in nature (think a v sweet golden retriever that for whatever reason really does not want a bath.)

Viago: I know, but you're a mess, my love!

Docu Crew Member: Did...did he ask you to turn him?

Viago and Anton nod.

Anton: Not sure what being a vampire and werewolf will be like. But I was sick of our schedules never matching up, and I already can't do things during the day too close to the full moon.

Cut to B roll footage clearly taken over multiple days, in the day time, near the full moon. Each brief shot shows Anton stopping to scratch against things like a dog, barking at a cat while people walk past him and stare, and finally him chasing a squirrel through a park.

Anton: So, I thought hey! Why not make it so we can spend time together more often, and I can get a night shift job and just take days off near the full moon as needed!

Viago: I'm excited. We've got dates planned, some with Katherine, when she gets back from her cruise.

Cut to a shot of Katherine sat in a cruise ship's ballroom, taking shots from vampires of various genders, but all turned at a much older age like she was. They're dancing and supping on drug and alcohol infused blood and having the time of their lives.

Viago: But for now, it's the two of us.

They turn to gaze at each other, and Viago gently pushes the camera away as Anton kisses him hard and pulls him towards the stairs and presumably whichever bedroom wasn't completely wrecked while Anton finished turning from werewolf only to vampire/werewolf

The camera person hesitates a few steps towards the stairs, then thinks better of it, and the camera shuts off.

[jazy3]

Free Guy Review

!!!SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

If you haven’t seen the movie Free Guy (2021) stop reading right now! Drop what you’re doing and go get yourself a ticket! You’ll thank me later!

I loved this movie! I saw it this weekend for the second time because it’s that good! I first saw the trailer on YouTube a while back and then when theatres reopened a few weeks ago I saw the trailer again and my interest was piqued. I had high hopes for this movie based on the fun looking trailer, the premise, the cast, and the sense of fun and escapism that the movie seemed to embody and it did not disappoint. It’s always nice when you have high hopes for something and it meets or exceeds your expectations.

Free Guy is just such a fun and joyous movie. Never taking itself too seriously, packed with lots of heart, cool cameos, full of gaming and pop culture references, and it’s fueled by a unique concept that is well executed. There are just so many things I loved about this movie! It was a ton of fun to watch and the actors clearly had a blast making it. During the movie I kept trying to figure out where I knew most of the actors from but couldn’t place them. When I got home, I googled it and I instantly realized why. The roles are just so different and the actors embody their characters so completely you lose yourself in the film and get completely sucked in. I was honestly so surprised when I figured out what I knew most of the actors from because the roles that they’re known for are so different from their characters in the movie. Their appearances, established ages, and even the accents are so different that I literally did a double take, but that’s what makes the movie so good! Because the main actors obviously didn’t need the paycheque they were just there to have fun and it shows. I think if the situation had been different and the actors involved had been desperate for money or took the role for some other reason it wouldn’t have worked. The film would have come off as cheesy, forced, cringeworthy, or just plain bad. Free Guy is none of those things. The film stars Ryan Reynolds as ‘Guy’ a bank teller in a video game called Free City, Jodie Comer whose best known for playing Villanelle in Killing Eve as programmer Millie Rusk and her avatar Molotov Girl, Joe Keery whose best known for playing Steve Harrington in Stranger Things as programmer Walter ‘Keys’ McKey, and Taika Waititi whose best known for playing Viago in What We Do in the Shadows as the Head of Soonami Studios and the film’s main antagonist and villain Antwan. Rounding out the cast are Utkarsh Ambudka as programmer Mouser and Lil Rel Howery as Guy’s best friend and bank security guard Buddy. In a nutshell, Free Guy is about a bank teller named Guy who finds out he’s a non-playable background character (NPC) in an open-world Grand Theft Auto style video game called Free City. Guy becomes the hero of his own story after meeting Millie, the girl of his dreams, and winning fans all over the world by racking up points by being the good guy and helping others. After leveling up and helping Millie escape a dangerous situation in the game, Guy wins her over and she falls for him thinking that he’s another player. But when the world that Guy knows and all of the people in it are threatened, he teams up with Millie to save his friends before it’s too late. In the real world, Millie enlists the help of her former programming partner and best friend Keys in a race against time to stop their code and all of the sentient characters from Free City from being deleted by Antwan the developer who stole their code when the game’s sequel launches. I love that the movie had a unique premise and didn’t overcomplicate things. There are so many movies that I’ve gone to see over the last few years with such excitement only to be disappointed. For example, I loved Wreck It Ralph, but was so disappointed by its sequel Ralph Breaks the Internet. The trailers made it seem like it would take the premise of the first movie and move things into the online gaming world, and I was excited for that. Instead, the sequel left the premise of the first movie behind entirely and way over complicated the plot and the end result was extremely cheesy and disappointing. Free Guy’s strength is that it’s a self-aware movie made by self-aware people who are excellent at what they do. The movie doesn't take itself too seriously, nor should it, and that allows the story to flow and the characters to feel real and genuine. The movie achieves that perfect balance between being entertaining and telling a cohesive and important story because while the movie never takes itself too seriously the people behind it are serious about what they do. This was very clearly a passion project for all involved, especially Ryan Reynolds, and it shows! As he’s spoken about in interviews and on Twitter, Reynolds called on a lot of his friends to be in Free Guy and help him out and the end result was fantastic! I loved all of the cameos! The Chris Evans cameo was by far the funniest and the Alex Trebek cameo got me right in the feels. When I saw the movie in theatres me and everyone else in the theatre gave a collective “awww” when he appeared on screen. Enlisting real YouTubers to show up as fictional versions of themselves to talk about Blue Shirt Guy’s popularity was a nice touch and you’ve also got blink and you miss it voice cameos by John Krasinski, Dwyane The Rock Johnson, Hugh Jackman, and Tina Fey. Channing Tatum appears as the avatar of player Revenjamin Buttons which for the most part was hilarious. One of my few criticisms of the film is that they went a bit overboard the avatar’s antics as Guy and Buddy are attempting to leave and it got bit a cringeworthy. But I know other people found it hilarious so to each their own. I love all of the little details and references in the movie. Just listing them all would be a post in itself. If you’re someone that loves pop culture references and Easter Eggs this is the movie for you. The characters are fun and believable, and you get attached to them quickly. The actors commit completely to their roles which is makes the humour, romance, and heartfelt emotion of the film work. You buy it. 100%. Something that I absolutely loved was that the characters felt realistic and that the dialogue, attire, and settings for each character really felt authentic. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve watched a movie or TV show and walked away thinking, “The person who wrote that clearly never meet a kid, teenager, or twenty something in their life! That was so unrealistic.” The slang’s all wrong. The dialogue is so eloquent everyone sounds like they did Shakespeare in the Park last summer. You walk away thinking, “What the hell was that? No one talks that way!” What I loved about the characters in Free Guy is that they felt like real people you could actually run into or walk past on the street. I’ve read in interviews that in addition to the written dialogue the cast did a lot of ad-libbing and improvisation and the end result is both hilarious and relatable. The dialogue feels real because it is. The big exception to this of course is Antwan who is altogether off the wall and ridiculous. Antwan is such an outrageous, absurd, vulgar, and cartoonish character. He’s so fun to watch and the actors clearly had a lot of fun with his scenes! I’ve read that a lot of his lines with Keys and Mouser were improvised and I believe it. When he goes all Jack Nicholson on the servers? Lord. He’s such a great villain to watch. The characters that are established to be in their twenties like Millie, Keys, Mouser, and the other employees at Soonami Studios talk, act, and dress like they’re in their twenties. The actors that are in their forties are styled to look like they’re in their thirties and honestly, they’re in such great shape it works! I mean I was honestly shocked to find out Taika Waititi’s real age. I love how the costuming really fits each character and allows you to learn more about them. Keys’ clothing is your typical gamer chic which makes because as we learn from his interview with Millie coding is his life and what gets him up in the morning. From Mouser’s clothing we learn that he’s a sports fan, but also isn’t afraid to take risks like with that blazer ensemble he wears in his final scene at Millie’s apartment.

Millie’s clothing shows the contrast between her and her avatar Molotov Girl, and Antwan’s ridiculous coat enhances the overall wackiness of his character. Guy’s clothing tells us something too. He wears the same thing every day until he meets Millie in the game at which point, he starts deviated from his Free City programming and chooses a different blue shirt. I also really love that they put thought into why Keys needs to wear glasses. Something I noticed on rewatch is that Keys is far sighted which is why he has his glasses on when he’s looking at his laptop or computer and sometimes when’s talking to other people, but not when he goes to see Millie at her apartment or when he goes to get them coffee at the end of the movie. Another interesting aspect of Keys’ character that I noticed on rewatch is self-confidence is really something he struggles with in contrast to Millie and Mouser who are very confident. Millie is a genius programmer and Mouser is excellent at what he does, and they are both very confident in their coding abilities, but Keys isn’t despite being every bit the genius that Millie is. At the beginning of the movie when they first notice the issue with Guy Mouser jokes that Keys needs to be better at his job. In response Keys meekly says he thinks he’s pretty good at his job and trails off at the end. Mouser is just joking around, but because Keys lacks self-confidence comments like that hit him hard. Mouser is moving towards his own desk as he talks so he doesn’t notice how self-deprecating and uneasy Keys’ response is. In the interview from the indie games conference that Millie plays for Keys at his apartment, he brushes off the interviewers comment that he’s a genius and says Millie is the real genius because she created the AI engine and he just wrote the code to make it work. Later on, when Keys helps Millie get into the stash house, she calls him a genius and he tells her that as he’s currently sitting on a toilet stealing user code he doesn’t exactly feel like one. Millie responds offhandedly that he never does, but luckily, she knows better. When Keys realizes that Millie was right, and that Antwan did steal their code and their game worked he tells Millie they need to celebrate because once everyone sees their build she’ll be celebrated and she could win a noble prize. Both Millie and Keys are geniuses in their own right. The game wouldn’t have worked without both of their skills and Guy wouldn’t have come to life without both of them working together. Millie’s AI engine made his sentience possible, but Keys is the one who gave him hopes and dreams so that when he met Millie in the game, he came alive. When done right the settings we see tell the story just as much as the characters do and I love how realistic the settings in Free Guy look. The floor at Soonami Studios where Keys and Mouser work looks like a real office and I love that the desks have clutter and personal effects on them like real cubicles do and that they show Keys taking a box of his stuff with him as he leaves. The lobby with the moving water videos and Antwan’s massive but largely empty office fits perfectly with the obnoxious, zany, and over the top character that he is. I also love the contrast between Keys and Millie’s apartments and how those settings tell us a lot about each character and where they are in their lives when the film starts. When Keys comes home from work to find that Millie has broken in, we see that he lives in a stylish one bedroom apartment with an open concept kitchen full of stainless steel appliances, a large living room centred around an expensive wall mounted TV and entertainment system, with his computer and gaming station set up in the corner. On the walls we see artful clusters of black picture frames, through a partially open door we see a bedroom off to the side, the apartment is full of black and white furniture including a plush couch and nice lamps, and features a textured silver accent wall. All of which makes the fact that Millie managed to break in even more impressive because it is clearly an expensive apartment in a nice building. Keys’ style is minimalist and upper scale and based on what we learn about the events that took place before the start of the movie this indicates that Keys got the apartment and all of the nice stuff in it using the money he received when Antwan bought his and Millie’s game. In contrast, Millie lives in a bachelor apartment and spends her time in coffee shops ordering one single black coffee over four hours. This tells us that she kept her original apartment that she had from before the game was sold and is living off the money she got from the sale while she spends all of her time trying to find the proof she needs to win her lawsuit. When we see Millie’s place, we find that it’s cozy, full of plants, throw rugs, quilts, and comfy furniture. She’s got a bike in the corner, you can see her bed from the centre of the room where she’s got her computer and gaming station set up adjacent to the coffee table and the rest of the living room furniture. Her kitchen is smaller and full of wooden cabinets and her bathroom door has DIY multicoloured square panels on it. Keys and Millie’s apartments are very different and through these settings we see the contrast between where these characters are in their lives, their wealth, and their personal style. The song ‘Fantasy’ by Mariah Carey is featured heavily in the film and is guaranteed to get stuck in your head in the best way! Jodie Comer’s cover of it is amazing! It fits the moment where Guy makes it to the island that is Millie and Keys’ original build and shows it to the world perfectly. This movie made me appreciate Mariah Carey’s music in a whole new way and I can’t be the only way. After watching the movie, I went looking for the song on Apple Music, wound up listening to the Mariah Carey Essentials Playlist, and I’ve become obsessed. I knew some of her hits, but after listening to her music more I get why people love her so much. Her five octave vocal range is amazing, and her music is just so fun to listen to. The film has a really great soundtrack overall and I’ve had many of its song on repeat since I saw it. Something I really loved about this movie and the reveal at the end that Keys is in love with Millie and is desperate for her to notice, but she’s been oblivious the whole time is that they don’t do the supposedly nice nerdy guy whose really a jerk trope. So many movies do this where you have a nerdy male character whose unluckily love, looked over, or his love is unrequited, and we’re supposed to root for him because he’s a quote “nice guy”. But really, he’s not. He’s a jerk who feels slighted because a woman in his life doesn’t love him back or notice him and he feels as if she owes him something. The scene at Millie’s place where Millie tells Keys he looks cute when he brags, and Mouser encourages him to tell Millie how he feels is super frustrating to watch but it’s so important to Keys’ character. He asks Millie out for coffee and when she turns him down to jump back into the game, he doesn’t make a big deal about it even though Mouser wants him to. Instead he gets up and goes and gets her a coffee anyway. She goes to tell him her order, oblivious to the fact that he’s memorized it, he tells her he remembers, and goes to get the coffee anyway much to Mouser’s and the audience’s dismay. This is big because Keys clearly doesn’t want to be walking down the street by himself to get coffee. He wants to be getting coffee with Millie so that he can tell her how he feels to see if she might feel the same way, but when she turns him down he goes and gets the coffee anyway because he truly loves and cares about her and he values their friendship enough to put his own feelings aside and suffer in silence rather than lose her and what they’ve built. So, he takes the opportunity to get some air rather than continue to sit there in disappointment. Which is why he’s so confused when Millie runs after him and calls out to him from across the street. He doesn’t understand what she’s doing there. She turned down his offer to get a coffee and he already knows her order so why is she there? I love that they chose to make that scene non-verbal. I think if Millie had come out and made some big declaration of love it would have felt cheesy and overdone. But her running after him and silently communicating through her smile and body language that she understood and that she felt the same way was perfect. It was subtle and beautiful and perfectly acted. It also felt realistic to the characters because in real life when you’ve known someone a really long time and you’ve spent a lot of time with them you don’t always need words to convey what you mean. What Millie wanted to express in that scene was so big and so all-encompassing she couldn’t find the words to say everything that she wanted to say so she didn’t. She just stood there and smiled knowing that being the genius that he is he would understand. It’s like Keys says in their interview, words will fail you, but code never does. His coding worked and now she understands so rather than try and say it all and fail she just looks at him and smiles to show him that she finally gets it. She finally understands what he’s been trying to say to her all this time. And you can see the exact moment Keys realizes why she’s there. The moment where he goes from being confused as to what she wants to realizing that she saw the video and she knows how he feels and that she wouldn’t be standing there smiling at him like that if she didn’t feel the same way. When I watched the scene the first time around, I was anxiously clutching my nachos the entire time because when Keys ran towards her my immediate thought was, “Oh my god he’s gonna get hit by a car and they’re never gonna get to be together! Oh my god!” But then he didn’t get hit by a car and Millie ran out to meet him and for the first time in their relationship she met him halfway and they kissed and it was beautiful! I think because Free City had so much violence in it that’s where my mind went and I’m very glad they didn’t go that route. One of my only criticisms about the movie is that I wish they had stayed on Millie and Keys just a little bit longer. They kiss and embrace and then very quickly they cut to black. I wish they’d linger on that moment just a little bit longer because I love those characters so much and in the scene that follows where Guy and Buddy are reunited we see them hug and then walk away together to start their new lives and I wish we’d gotten just a bit more time with Millie and Keys. I also really loved the parallel between the different kinds of relationships within the movie and how platonic relationships are just as important as romantic ones. The reveal at the end about Guy being Keys’ creation and a love letter to Millie and her realizing she’s been loving Keys vicariously through Guy and them finally coming together and being on the same page is beautiful because from the very beginning the movie is full of clues, hints, and foreshadowing that all comes together at the end. Meanwhile, we see the friendship between Guy and Buddy and how important that friendship is to him because it’s something that he created on his own. His love for Millie is born out of the programming that Keys gave him, but his friendship with Buddy is something that Guy created all on his own of his own volition. Which is part of what makes Buddy’s death on the bridge so tragic. I cried when Buddy disappeared. Reynolds and Howery play their characters with such sincerity that his death pacts an emotional punch you don’t expect. I love that the security guards at Soonami are so moved by Buddy’s heroism and are so captivated by what’s happening with the live stream that Millie is able to sneak past them into the server room and stop Antwan from destroying what’s left of the game. Something else I noticed on rewatch is that during the final battle after Millie gets booted from the game and Guy has to fight Dude on his own the glasses he’s wearing are very similar to the ones Keys wears in the movie which I thought was a cool nod to Guy being Keys’ creation. This really is a movie in which you find something new every time you watch it. For instance, the second time around I noticed that the foreshadowing that Keys is in love with Millie, but she’s oblivious to it because she’s so focused on the game was really well done. In the video from the indie game conference that Millie plays for Keys at his apartment when asked by the interviewer about their chemistry Millie responds first and says that their friends, their relationship is completely platonic, and laughs off the idea that they have chemistry. In contrast Keys falters and is silent and then eventually says meekly that they’re just friends. Millie is looking ahead at the interviewer and to the side away from Keys as she’s laughing and so she doesn’t see Keys’ reaction. At the end of the apartment scene after Millie breaks in to ask Keys for his help, he tells Millie he cares about her and he almost says something else. It feels like he’s about to say, ‘I love you’ but then he catches himself and instead tells her that she needs to leave. When Keys visits Millie’s apartment to tell her that she was right and they’re sitting on the couch he reaches out and puts his hand on her knee and then snatches it back when he realizes he’s gotten too close. He wants so desperately to be closer to her and in his excitement, he gets closer than he normally would before realizing that putting his hand on her knee in that close proximity is not a platonic gesture. Millie is so caught up in the realization that Guy, the person she’s fallen in love with, is an AI and not a real person that she doesn’t notice. My heart broke for Keys in that scene as he realized that Millie had fallen for Guy and kissed him and was so upset about it and meanwhile, he was right in front of her desperate for her to see how much he cares. It must have just wrecked him to go home that night and realize that Guy was based on the lovelorn character he created and that Millie had fallen in love with his creation while at the same time being so oblivious to his real world affection for her. In the scene at Millie’s apartment after they’ve gotten the server from Antwan and Mouser encourages Keys to say something, I noticed on rewatch just how weak and meager Keys’ attempt to ask Millie out is. He stumbles his way through asking her to get a coffee and trails off at the end so it’s no wonder Millie doesn’t clue in that he’s trying to ask her out. And in Keys’ defence he sent her a whole video confessing his feelings for her and all of the little things he loves about her and then told her to watch it and he has no idea if she did or not. We the audience know that Millie only saw half of it, but Keys has no idea if she saw none of it, part of it, or all of it. He knows she got Guy to remember, but she’s also sending him mixed messages. One minute she’s saying he’s cute when he brags and the next, she’s turning him down for coffee to talk to Guy. From the outside it’s so obvious that Keys is in love with Millie, but she doesn’t see it because she’s always looking the other way, not paying attention, so caught up in the game, and too focused on their work to see what’s right in front of her. On rewatch one of the big things I noticed is that Keys is always on the edge of telling Millie how he really feels but he always stops himself because she brushes him or the idea off and because he’s scared of what will become of their work and their friendship if she doesn’t feel the same way. It’s a huge leap. If Millie doesn’t feel the same way it’s going to make their relationship incredibly awkward and could potentially destroy their partnership so Keys decides it’s better not to say anything or only hint at how he feels rather than run the risk of ruining everything. Something else I noticed on rewatch is that in the interview they give Keys says he thinks of himself as an author and that code is what gets him up in the morning and that he loves the ones and zeros of binary because words can fail you and let you down but code never does. At the end of the movie when Millie goes to talk to Guy in Free Life he tells her that he loves her and while he knows that’s his programming he’s realized that he’s a love letter to her and that somewhere out there in the real world is the author. Such a great callback. All in all, I can definitely say that Free Guy has been my favourite movie so far this year! Definitely my favourite movie of the summer. I went to see it twice in theatres and I’ve never done that for any other movie before. I’ll rewatch them at home sure, but I’ve never actually paid money to see something twice on my own. I’m very excited to see the sequel and my hope is that it will be just as good as the first.  Until next time.

[mostlybats-partiallyrats]

Been out of commission this week as a result of certain aspects of my biology that I'd rather not possess. So I've mostly been watching YouTube and Vampire movies. So I guess I'll chronicle my thoughts here:

Interview With The Vampire (1994): what started this whole venture. Really decent movie, loved the costumes. Your average melodramatic gothic horror (loved it). Two things I noticed immediately with this movie that remained pretty consistent throughout: INCONSOLABLY HORNY. Seriously I've never seen a movie where every character except a literal child should go to horny jail (also, the horny is very concentrated between a trio of male characters so... Pretty gay, bro). Holy shit. The second is that Louis will always set something on fire. Usually a building. With varying numbers of people inside. It literally happens three times. So....🔥🔥🔥

[Gif Description: Antonio Banderas as Armand being unnecessarily horny with a lit candle. He runs his hand over the flame and then whinces with pain, pretty much. End ID.]

I think this gif sums up that movie.

The Hunger (1983): didn't even get around to watching this one actually. Only really considered it because of David Bowie and Susan Sarandon (and also some sapphic themes, always nice). Then I just saw that it was too poorly rated by too many people. Maybe I'll watch it at some point for sheer shits and giggles.

[Gif Description: Catherine Deneuve as Miriam, is smoking a cigarette. She has on red lipstick, a pair of dangling earrings, some black leather gloves, and a pair of statement silver sunglasses. End ID.]

Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992): somehow even hornier than Interview With The Vampire in some parts. Always a fan of blasphemy against Western Christianity, so that was nice to see. Winona Ryder is always a win in my book, love her. And it was nice to see a younger pre-Matrix Keanu Reeves. Anthony Hopkins did a great job as Dr Van Helsing too. I liked it, very dramatic, tragic, horny (duh), and lots of blood👌

[Gif Description: Sadie Frost as Lucy Westenra after she has been turned into a vampire. Her face is painted white, she is wearing a gaudy wedding dress with a massive round collar, and a wooden cross is seen being held in front of her. She bears her bloodied teeth. End ID.]

Cronos (1993): haven't been able to find this anywhere, but I really wanna watch it, because I like Guillermo Del Toro and I know he has a particular affinity for monsters. So I'm excited to watch this one. As such, there is no gif, I don't wanna spoil it for myself🤐.

What We Do In The Shadows (2014): different from the others because it's a comedy, but I loved it, it was awesome 😊. Jermaine Clement and Taika Waititi did so well in making the whole thing awkwardly hilarious. Very quotable and great for if you want a change of pace with vamp movies. Will always bring a smile to my face I think😁

[Gif Description: Taika Waititi as Viago, dressed in old 18th Century European clothing, is using a toothbrush to clean the "teeth" (fangs) of the character Peter. Peter's look is clearly influenced by the 1922 film Nosferatu. He is bald with long pointed ears, pale mottled skin, grey irises, and several long yellowed fangs. He's wearing a simple black cloak. End ID.]

Sidenote: seems like the early 90s was for some reason a really good time for vampire movies. Also I've already seen Lost Boys, a while ago. Maybe I'll watch it again soon, who knows. 🤷 I also wanna watch Nosferatu.

✨💀🥀🦇✨

[metaphorical-love-for-a-car]

Look What the Cat Dragged In-- Viago (WWDITS) x Reader

Request: "Saw this [comic below] and totally thought it would a good idea for a fic as I could totally see my cat Oliver doing this lol 😆" @minigirl87​

Warnings: none!

Word Count: 1k

Notes: sorry its so short :/ writer’s block has been kicking my ass lately

      Viago and Deacon had another fight. The latter neglected his share of the flat chores and refused to put in any effort in maintaining the property. It had taken many years for him to widdle Viago down to his last nerve, but he finally snapped. What would have been them bowing up and hissing at each other turned into a bat-fight. Deacon was more scrappy than Viago was, and he often fought dirty. Viago left before things could get any worse. He planned to stay out as long as possible, not wanting to endure the teasing that was bound to happen when he went back home. Viago grew up learning prose, not how to fight, and the others often gave him grief over it. 

      You had never been the type to live in the middle of the city. You loved nature and the sense of peace it provided. Plus, you wanted to have plenty of room for your cat to explore. He was always getting into something. Speak of the devil, he was pawing at the back door, ready to be let inside. "Alright, alright! Calm down, I'm coming," you laughed. When you pulled the door open, you weren't expecting the fat tabby to come trotting inside with a bat in his mouth. You froze for a moment, unsure of how to react. You finally snapped out of your stupor. "Oliver, no! Drop it!" You grabbed the cat and wrangled the poor creature out of his grasp. It didn't appear that Oliver was trying to harm the bat, but he was clearly annoyed that you had taken it away. You tsked, shaking your head. The bat had a few scratches, but nothing that seemed too serious. 

     You found a cardboard box and put a fluffy blanket in the bottom of it, along with a small bowl of water and some fruit slices. After cleaning the bat's wounds, you placed it in the box. "You can stay here tonight, then we'll figure out where to go next." You figured it would be best to leave the box in the bathroom. If the bat escaped, there wouldn't be much for it to destroy, and Oliver wouldn't be able to get a hold of it. 

     You returned to your desk and desperately tried to focus on the droning phone call. Your boss was addressing the team on unimportant matters that could have easily been explained in an email. Propping your head on your hand, you struggled to stay focused. Your eyes fluttered shut. It wouldn't hurt to rest your eyes for a brief moment... if it had only been a brief moment. A loud thud startled you awake. You groaned, realizing that you had been asleep for several hours. The meeting was long over, and you had quite the angry text from your supervisor about not participating in the group calls. It was nearing five in the morning, and you knew that there was no way you'd be able to go back to sleep after such a rude awakening. You pulled yourself from the chair and stretched your back. You figured that it was just Oliver getting into something again. Another loud thud came from inside the bathroom. Your brows knit together. What could the bat possibly be doing to cause such a racket? You slowly pulled the bathroom door open, only to freeze when you saw a man standing inside. He was wearing vastly outdated clothes, including a cloak that was somehow wrapped around the shower curtain rod. Taking a deep breath, you mustered up the courage to snatch the door wide open. "How the hell did you get in here?" you snapped. The man yelped, stumbling backward with wide eyes. He tumbled to the floor and snatched the curtain rod down with him. "You have ten seconds to explain yourself before I call the cops." He quickly waved his hands in the air.

     "You will walk away and remember nothing of me." You scoffed, mimicking his movements.

     "Your Jedi mind tricks do not work on me." 

     "Damn it! I can never get that right when I'm stressed," he mumbled. The man flashed you an apologetic smile. "I hope I did not scare you. I was about to thank you for your hospitality, but as I was changing from my bat form, I-- er, uh-- had a little mishap." He gestured to the cloak-wrapped curtain rod. You pinched the bridge of your nose, beginning to question your sanity.

     "You're saying that you were the bat? What, are you like... some kind of vampire or something?" His face lit up.

     "Exactly!" You crossed your arms.

     "Okay, prove it." The man sat there for a moment, thinking. He finally returned his gaze to you.

     "Well, I have these fangs. See?" He widened his smile, pointing at the elongated teeth. You pursed your lips. There were three possibilities: 1. He was telling the truth, 2. He was lying and actually snuck into your house to murder you, or 3. You were going insane and hallucinating. You decided to give him the benefit of the doubt and hesitantly sat in front of him. You started untangling his cloak from the curtain rod. He quietly watched.

     "So, Mr. Vampire, you got a name?" He sheepishly laughed, rubbing the back of his neck.

     "Oh! Yes, my apologies, I forgot to introduce myself. I'm Viago." You held out a hand as you introduced yourself, and he shook it. When you finally freed his cloak, Viago repeatedly thanked you.

     "Don't thank me yet. You're probably gonna be stuck here for a while. The sun should be coming up any minute... this is the only room without windows, so you should probably stay in here... but I can bring in some pillows and blankets, and you can tell me about the wondrous world of vampires?" Viago smiled, nodding.

     "Yes, I'd quite like that."

~*~*~

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[vigilskeep]

I just started playing a Crow Rook and literally WHAT is going on between Rook & Viago. Why is he so worried about them, why does he care?? It’s not like they’re actually his kid or something…? Rook could probably even be his same age. & we know it’s not a romantic thing! Would love to know your thoughts on it. It’s giving me Hawke & Meeran for some reason lmao

i think they left this open to player headcanon in a way that i personally find delightful and entertaining. the incontrovertible canon facts are that he worries about them, that he is distinctly less bearable when they’re not around, that he has so much faith in them that he puts all their failures down to them being thoughtless or acting out on purpose, and that he expresses all of this via frustration when it’s clearly love. why and how we got to this point is up to you!

so i can only really talk about how i’ve been interpreting that. to Me, viago is so uptight and distrustful that i would struggle to believe in this dynamic if he hadn’t known rook for a really long time. which makes sense, because crows who belong to a house grow up together. i mentioned this way back when we first saw footage of him with rook de riva, but to me he talks to you a lot like an older family member who still kind of thinks of you as a kid. i read into it as him acting sort of like the equivalent of an older brother with a big like 5 or 10 year age gap, but that is obviously dependent on your rook’s age and feelings

i am going to delve into closely-canon-based headcanon territory for a moment but show my workings as i do it. viago is not from a crow family like lucanis. he is not related to whoever was his predecessor as house de riva’s guildmaster. he is a royal bastard who elected to join the crows rather than be exiled, because that is, for some fucking reason, the system they have in place. since his memories prior to the crows are distant boyhood ones, and the crows typically start training early, i think we can guess that he was at most a teenager when he joined the house

please take a moment to picture lanky teenage viago de riva, with all his distrust and temper, accustomed until now to certain noble comforts, terrible at making friends, inclined less towards physical strength and more towards poisons and the fantasy equivalent of excel spreedsheets. does anyone honestly think for a second that when this kid arrived, all house de riva’s scrappy cutthroat embittered crow recruits didn’t immediately smell blood in the water? does anyone honestly think he would have had a good fun time or been well-liked? that he eventually rose to talon by asking nicely or indeed anything other than his ability to cultivate fear as the foremost poisoner in the entire antivan crows? does anyone, for that matter, believe that every crow knows how good at poisoning viago de riva is because his afaik unmentioned predecessor died of super 100% natural causes?

and if rook de riva grew up with viago—which as i said, makes sense!—that would mean they were there. if they’re close enough now to, despite everything they did, have no fear of their talon and for him to be completely incapable of anything harsher than calling them an idiot, isn’t it reasonable to assume they must have been, then, the one person he had? the person who chose and kept choosing to stand by him during all that, when he was the easiest target in the house and it was still a very foolish gamble to make. young and impulsive, sure, but who else would have backed him? young and impulsive, but also so brilliant and determined that he firmly believes there’s no dragon they couldn’t chase away. if we accept all those workings, isn’t the question less why does he love them, and more: how could he not?

[boldly-ho]

Another Life - Chapter 13

Fandom: What We Do in the Shadows 

Pairing: Vladislav x Reader

Series Rating: E

Word Count: 2022

Chapter Summary: Reader and her flatmates finally meet the man... the myth... the legend... STU! (I just really love Stu, ok?)

A/N: Ok. Now that all the characters have been introduced, I promise there will be more plot and less filler. Most of the very plotty chapters I have outlined couldn’t happen until everyone was in the picture. As always, cross posted to AO3.

You looked up from your novel when you heard a series of knocks on the door. Viago and Deacon, also having heard it, entered the lounge, both looking a bit more than mildly concerned.

“Are you expecting someone?” Viago asked you in a hushed voice.

You silently shook your head, their air of discretion rubbing off on you.

“Vladislav!” Deacon called quietly up the stairs.

Vladislav came running down, somehow managing not make a sound on the ancient, usually creaking steps. “Who’s here?”

The three moved stealthily towards the door, and you had to bite back a laugh. Your flatmates had explained the risks present to vampires, of course, but you could hardly imagine a vampire hunter politely knocking on the front door at the decent hour of 7:03 p.m.

The door was gingerly cracked open for a moment, then thrown widely open to a chorus of “hellos” and “it’s just Nick!” From your spot on Viago’s antique couch, you couldn’t see Nick, but you could hear their conversation.

“What are you doing here?” Deacon asked. His harsh tone reminded you of how he treated you when you’d first moved in, and how he treated everyone when he was in a sour mood.

“You brought a friend!” Viago cheerily observed.

“Yeah, this is my good friend, Stu.”

Nick and the good friend in question entered the lounge, while your flatmates invaded his personal space and asked inappropriate questions about his sexual history. You considered going upstairs before things got violent, but then Nick gave you a small wave before gathering up your flatmates and ushering them into the hall.

“Y/N, Stu. Stu, Y/N.” And with that brief introduction, the four vampires were gone and you were left alone with the newcomer.

You rose from your seated position to shake his hand. It was unusually warm and made it very clear that this man was human. You wondered if ‘good friend’ actually meant ‘good friend’ or was a euphemism for ‘dinner.’ As you stood in awkward silence with the potential victim, you were able to catch snippets of the conversation between the vampires in the hallway.

Nick asked something about your fourth flatmate. “…Petyr… coffin?”

Viago said something about cake. You eyed the container Nick’s friend held.

“…eat him!” Deacon finished whatever that whole sentence had been rather enthusiastically.

Nick answered with a short rant you couldn’t quite make out. “…my mate… Stu…hang out… can’t…like Y/N!...pretend…cake…” You couldn’t be entirely sure, but it seemed that Stu actually was a friend, one who probably didn’t realize Nick was no longer human, and was not to be eaten.

You shot him a glance and realized he was also straining to listen to the vampires’ hushed conversation. Not wanting him to hear anything too damning, you decided to get him out of earshot of your flatmates and Nick.

“Stu, why don’t we go into the kitchen and get some wine for everyone?”

He nodded and followed you silently into the other room, throwing one last questioning glance over his shoulder towards the hallway.

You gave a silent thanks to the universe that there were no bloody dishes in the sink as you pulled six wine glasses from the cabinet. “Is chianti okay?”

“Sure.” You were glad he said yes. You shouldn’t have even asked. The only other wine you had was a white, and that definitely wouldn’t work. You poured two glasses of the dark red wine, taking a sip of yours and handing the other to Stu.

“So, how do you know Nick?”

He blushed slightly, his face becoming even redder than it already was. “I used to date his sister.”

“Oh.” Unsure of what to say to that, you took another sip of wine.

“How do you know Nick?”

“Oh, uh…” You weren’t what Nick had told Stu, and you didn’t want to poke holes in whatever stories Nick may have spun him. You decided to keep to the truth, albeit simplified. “Nick ended up befriending my flatmates. I have a room here.”

“Oh. Nice.” Stu gestured to the container he’d brought with him. “Do you have any plates? I brought cake for everyone.”

“Yum!” You had no idea how the vampires were going to deal with cake, but it left more for you, and you could certainly think of worse things. “They’re in the cabinet up there,” you told him, gesturing to the appropriate cabinet.

While Stu had his back turned to you, you took the decanter of blood from the fridge and poured it into the remaining four glasses. Vladislav entered the kitchen then, and you silently passed him the decanter, looking pointedly at the fridge, trusting him to put it back quickly. You grabbed the bottle of chianti, topping off your and Stu’s glasses just as he turned back around with the plates. You felt inordinately proud of how sneaky you had been. Maybe your flatmates were rubbing off on you?

“Stu, if you take the cake and plates, Vladislav can fetch the flatware.” As the two did as you directed, you raised your voice and called into the lounge, “Deacon! Viago! Come in here and help me carry the drinks!”

While Stu and Vladislav left, Deacon and Viago entered, both looking warily at the cake as it passed.

“How are we supposed to pretend to eat cake?” Deacon grumbled.

You shrugged, taking another sip of wine. “I like cake. Viago don’t drink that!”

Viago stood frozen beside the table, Stu’s wine glass almost up to his lips. He looked at you questioningly.

“That’s Stu’s chianti. Give me that. The rest of these are all blood.”

Viago grimaced at the glass as he handed it to you.

“It’s one night,” you told him. “It’ll be fine. Besides, how late can he stay, anyway? We humans go to bed at night.”

“I still think we should kill him,” Deacon huffed.

You rolled your eyes. “Well Nick is your friend, so you can’t go around killing his friends.”

“Nick is not my friend!”

You ignored him, heading out into the lounge and trusting that your pouting flatmates would follow you.

Stu already had the cake sliced and served onto six plates. You handed him his wine and took two slices of cake, handing one each to Deacon and Viago to ensure that they took them. Vladislav had already taken his and was glaring at it as though it personally offended him. Perhaps it did. The lounge didn’t have much seating, so you sat cross-legged on the floor beside the coffee table, looking up at the rest of the group.

Once everyone was situated, the silence was palpable. You could sense Stu’s discomfort. Taking yet another sip from your glass, you could feel a pleasant buzz beginning to form. At least one person wasn’t uncomfortable.

“This is really good cake,” Nick lied. You looked at his plate so see that a bit of cake was in fact missing from his slice. What had he done with it?

“It is really delicious,” you added honestly. It was a moist chocolate cake with a sugary vanilla icing- a classic for good reason.

“Thank you,” he said mutedly. He was a fairly quiet person, it seemed.

“So, Stu, what do you do for a living?” you asked.

“I work in IT. GIS, specifically.” His tone lightened a bit. He clearly enjoyed talking about his work, so you decided to follow up. It was looking like you may have to carry the evening’s conversation on by yourself.

“GIS?”

“Yeah, that’s geographic information science. We take business’ requirements, and we analyze those requirements, and then with GIS we make a sort of layered map, depending on what each particular business needs.”

You nodded, though you were having trouble keeping up. “Is that sort of like Google Maps?”

He nodded hesitantly, which you took immediately to mean you were off the mark with that analogy. “Sort of. But there’s more layers of information. Like a map of Wellington could feature a layer of historic houses, a layer of nightclubs, a layer of steep hills, or anything else considered noteworthy.”

“Oh.” Though the example was helpful, Stu was really playing a whole different game with his IT knowledge. This GIS stuff was not your area of expertise. “That’s really impressive.” You weren’t sure if it was or not, but it sounded impressive to you.

“Wait, go back. IT?” Vladislav was looking quizzically at you, Nick, and Stu.

Stu faltered. “Oh, uh, that’s information technology. Computer sciences, basically.”

“Computer?”

You shot Vladislav a look somewhere between disbelief and horror. He offered only a shrug in return.

“I’ve seen one of these computers!” Deacon interjected. “It is like a television screen with a typewriter in front of it.”

You let out an involuntary noise of shock at that remark. You might not have anywhere near Stu’s level of understanding in this area, but you could scarcely believe that this conversation could possibly be happening in this century. You now felt much better about your Google Maps remark. Had they really never used a computer? Any of them?

Now that you thought about it, you’d never seen them use a desktop, laptop, tablet, or even a smart phone. Not once. Your work had provided you with a mobile hotspot when you started working remotely, so you never bothered to get onto their wifi. Did they have wifi? You were starting to think the answer must be no. Even if they didn’t use computers, did they even have mobile phones? Even just a basic flip phone? The only technology you’d actually noticed in the house was a TV, not even a flatscreen one at that, a record player, and a landline phone.

Holy crap.

Stu looked questioningly at Nick. He was probably thinking something along the lines of ‘Where the hell did you meet these lunatics and in which century?’ That’s certainly what you were asking yourself right now.

“They’re Eastern European,” Nick explained.

Though that explanation was useless and nonsensical, Stu didn’t say anything about it, explaining to your flatmates, “That’s what a computer looks like, yeah. But it’s more like a complicated calculator.”

He was really going to sit here and explain computers to your flatmates. God bless this guy.

“A calculator?” Viago asked, his brow furrowed. You weren’t sure what upset him more, the complicated nature of computers or the chocolate cake.

“Like a giant abacus,” Deacon suggested.

“Yeah, kind of like an abacus,” Stu agreed, “but it can do much more complex calculations and functions, at a much higher speed.”

From this one conversation, you were willing to make the call that Stu was the nicest, most patient man that had ever lived.

“Guys,” you addressed your flatmates, “come here and look at my phone.”

You pulled the phone from your pocket as the three gathered around you. You unlocked it with your fingerprint to a series of impressed murmurs from your friends.

“That’s not a phone,” Viago said, though he didn’t sound entirely confident.

“Of course it is. It makes phone calls. It just does other stuff, too. It sends text messages and takes pictures and connects to the internet.”

“Internet?”

“Yeah. Look.” You opened the web browser on your phone, and thought for a minute on what to Google. Looking briefly around the room, you typed ‘chianti’ into the search bar, and displayed the results to your flatmates.

Reading aloud from the small screen, Vladislav said, “‘A chianti wine is any wine produced in the Chianti region of central Tuscany. It was historically associated with a squat bottle enclosed in a straw basket called a…’ It just stops in the middle of the sentence!”

“Yeah, well, it’s just a preview. These are the search results. If you click one,” you tapped it to open the Wikipedia page, “it displays the full result.”

“That’s pretty cool,” Vladislav said, eyes glued to the phone.

“Stu,” Deacon called over your head, “can we get internet computer technology in the house?”

“Uh, yeah, I’m sure you could. I could probably help you guys with that if you wanted.”

“Yes! When are you free?”

[kimhargreeves]

Vampires Suck-Viago x Reader (What We Do In The Shadows)

(Based on the movie:What We Do In The Shadows from 2014)

*Beep beep*

I grab the alarm and threw it against the wall making it crash down but that didn't stop it from beeping, I groan out loud and lazily get up from my bed and tossed the infernal thing out of the window. It's night time..time to wake the boys up. As I begin to walk down the hallway I hold onto the wall,my eyes still not open enough to see where i'm walking.

These vampires have been living with my family for centuries, and now it's my turn to deal with them. I'm in my mid twenties and I live with four vampires. No one from outside would believe me if i'd say them that.

I knock heavily on the first door, "Hey! Viago you awake yet?! It's time for you guys to wake up." the door slowly opens and i'm face to face with a scared looking vampire. "I have awoken from my slumber.." i stare at him confused and rub my eyes.

"Make sure to wake Vlad and Deacon up, they have to finish their chores." i yawn once more before walking away and heading for a shower.

Vlad is the eldest if the vampire, he dresses up like he claims he did back in medieval times and has a sex dungeon, has long dark hair and a mustache, likes to wear fancy clothing and spends his time talking about 'the beast'

Deacon is the young and rebellious out of them and the most annoying to deal with, he claims to be sexy vampire and can deal with anything,besides he dances horribly.

Viago is the kind and sweet hearted one of them, he lost his love when he traveled and found out she was married, he's the one in charge if everything and tries his best but mostly fails since the others are stubborn.

I still remember clearly the day I met him.

***********************

It was Halloween night when I finished trick or treating and decided to enjoy my book near the cemetery, "Pssh." i looked around even more annoyed at whoever was trying to prank me since it's Halloween after all. I gripped onto my book and started to read when someone fell from the bushes scaring me. I let out a tint scream before seeing it was a man, he was cursing and dusting his clothes.

"Hello young lady." he smiled, he was wearing fangs and was dressing funny.

"Hi? Were you spying on me?!" i ask annoyed and the man shakes his head, "I can assure it wasn't me, it was-"

"Me!" another man appears out of no where and tosses his arm around me. I push his hand away and backed away against the tree I was sitting by, "What are you doing?!" another man in a top hat asks the one who touched me.

"That's no way to approach a lady." the man began to lecture him and now they were both fighting. The man who first appeared groaned and took a step closer, "I apologize for them..they can be quite a problem."

"Uh huh? W-Who are you-"

"You're (Y/N) (L/N) right?" the man asks and I nod my head.

The other two five each other before explaining me how my previous family let them live at their house and since I'm the only member alive I should let them continue on living with us. Before agreeing they all introduced each other.

"My name is Viago. The man in the top hat is Vlad and the other one is Deacon and this is Peter..we're vampires!" he happily says and a tall man dressed entirely in black with the palest face i've seen appears, he has long fangs and nails, "Holy shit..n-nice to meet you, what do you mean vampires-"

"What were you reading? Twilight?" Viago asks at the book I let fall when they scared me. I scoff and take the book from him, "Does it look like I read garbage?" he looks taken back. "Of course not! Vampires suck." i angriot tell him.

He gasps, the two other's look hurt and Peter hisses. "Hey lady listen-" "What?! It's the truth. The way they portray your species in the media is cringy."

*************************

It was a blast having vampires living with me but soon they began to really get to me, they constantly left my couch and furniture a mess when they invited their victims over. I finished blow drying my hair when I heard them again fighting.

"You haven't done the dishes in five years!"

"Now now we have to make sure to make (Y/N) happy. Let's not disappoint her." Viago tried to reason with his friends who began to hiss at one another and left the dining room. "Wanna go out to the city?" I ask Viago who happily nods and begins following me like a lost puppy.

"Are you sure I look good?" I eye him up and down to see him wearing an 18th century outfit, I shrug and tell him it's okay. Deacon and Vlad tagged along with us and they tried to keep Deacon with us so he wouldn't run away.

Over the years Viago and I got closer as friends since he still remained in love with his probably already deceased girl he had a crush on. It pissed me off at certain times when he wouldn't let go and was so sadly heartbroken cause of it, "So..Viago? What would you like to do?" I ask and see his dark eyes wander around the public area.

"How about to a pub?"

We all agreed to go to one since they are always together, "Viago..would you sometime like to go on a date with me?" i blurt out when we sat down and he nearly choked on his drink, "A date? w-with you?"

"Yes."

"I cannot, you're to young to date." I glare at the centuries year old vampire and fight back, "I'm not that young and you know it, compared to your years I am but that's it, why won't you hang out with me? Each time I do you blow me off."

Viago tried to explain himself on shy he refuses but gives me the same answers every time. "Alright if you won't agree to one date, why don't you turn me into a vampire?" i cross my arms and wait for his answer.

"Being a vampire isn't that easy (Y/N)-"

"Bloody hell! Everything's the same with you, i'm sick and bored of you three treating me like i'm nothing, I agreed to take you all in cause I thought you'd all understand me..guess none of you do..especially you." i look at Viago before running out of the bar and out the chilly night.

"Stupid bloody vampires." i curse to myself as I start making my way towards home, till I saw a bat fly past me and into the window of a car, "Bloody hell!" I see Viago turn back to normal and runs over to me, "(Y/N) wait!"

"Enough Viago! I'm tired of this."

I enter the house with Viago still following me, "I-I love you okay!" he shouts when I start walking up the stairs. I stop and turn to look at him "What..did you say?" i'm sure he would've blushed if he'd have blood .

"I love y-you (Y/N)..Since the moment I met you but i didn't want to forget her so quickly?" he says looking away before extending his hand for me to grab, "Forgive me for denying your feelings every time you ask me."

I smile and took hold of his hand, "I forgive you Viago.."

"I'll turn you into a vampire if you wish on one condition.'

"What is it?" i curiously ask Viago who kisses the back of my hand.

"If you stay with me forever."

I blush and wrap my hand around his neck and rest my forehead against his, "I'll never leave you." smiling i tell Viago before brushing my lips to his.

[rhetorical-ink]

Rhetorical Ink Reviews: What We Do in the Shadows

**SPOILERS BELOW**

I’ve wanted to watch this film for a while and was so happy to see it’s on Amazon Prime for free! So, now I can write down....

My Top Ten Thoughts on What We Do in the Shadows:

10. The “Mockumentary” style of filming: I have always loved shows like Parks and Recreation and The Office, that try to mimic a documentary. It works perfectly for this movie, which follows around four vampires from various time periods. It’s a great style of filming for this funny concept. Even the inclusion of classic “vampire” imagery works well here.

9. The Tropes of Vampires throughout Literature and Pop Cultured are Satirized and Explored: I love how they take stereotypes of vampires and apply them to a modern context and explore how each would react. For example, the “master and slave” situation between humans and vampires, how vampires would get “invited” into the club, or even  how vampires “lure” their meals in...the concepts they explore work well and were creative and funny!

8. Peter is scary: The eldest of the group, an 8,000 year old vampire named Peter, is definitely a tribute to Nosferatu, and is probably the scariest thing about the movie. That’s not saying much, as the movie isn’t particularly “horrific,” even with the gore, but he has some moments to definitely put one on edge.

7. Nick is a “dick:” Nick, a newly made vampire, is the obvious antagonist throughout the first half of the film. His “transformation,” or rather the lead up to it, is actually almost scary. Nick’s character is that of a “new vampire,” and he can’t keep his mouth shut about that, with hilarious and frustrating results. Deacon, his vampire “brother,” is particularly frustrated with him, and for good reason. Nick causes a lot of conflict in the film, which we’ll touch base on more below. But, for the most part, he’s my least favorite part about the film...a character you just “love to hate.”

6. Handling Reflections: Probably one of my favorite gimmicks they play with in the film is that of reflections and how since they can’t see themselves in the mirror, they rely on themselves to make sure their fashion sense is alright. It results in some really funny scenarios throughout the movie.

5. New Zealand as the Setting: The movie takes place in Wellington, New Zealand, but you would only notice by the characters’ accents. The activities that go on, the locations, etc. all are pretty universal in nature, which is nice; especially if you’re not sure about any “in jokes” because of the filming location.

4. Stu and the Werewolves: Stu, Nick’s friend, ends up befriending the group and for a while, you see them all get along with their human friend...of course, by the end of the film, they encounter a pack of werewolves, who maul poor Stu. The good news? Stu luckily doesn’t die, but comes back as a werewolf and everyone gets along. Stu’s character was so comedic-ally fun because of his clearly “boring IT tech assistant” persona; I was glad he didn’t pass away. Also, the special effects on the werewolves were actually pretty good!

3. Jermaine Clement as Vladislav: If you’ve not watched the comedy band Flight of the Conchords, you may not know who Jermaine Clement is, but I love him as an actor and comedian. His humor is unique and dry and his performance is a highlight of the film.  He is fantastic in this, combining the faux “Fabio” suaveness he naturally carries and the dry humor he brings from his other projects. His friends on the Flight of the Conchords television series also make welcomed appearances.

2. The “Ball”: Towards the climax of the film, they all attend a ball filled with Vampires, Werewolves, Witches, and Zombies. Each have their own stereotypes played upon, to some very funny results, especially the Zombies. It was cool seeing them play around with this concept, and if they ever made another of these films, it would be cool for them to return back to these groups to explore more.

1. Taika Waititi as Viago: Viago is the vampire that is the “middle child,” and the one that narrates most of the story. Waititi’s performance is very good in this, as he taps into the charm and innocence in as much as a vampire can have. He also has a plot thread that plays out through the film with a very fun ending, which I won’t ruin here.

The Verdict?

If you like “mockumentaries” like The Office, and if you like Vampires, this will be a fun movie to watch. At times, the humor lulls, or maybe doesn’t hit as strong as it could, but I laughed out loud several times and found myself entertained. Definitely go rent it!

[filmista]

What We Do In The Shadows

I consider this one of the best vampire films I’ve ever seen, I’ve watched this little gem from New Zealand about three times and every time I’m filled with new enthusiasm and amazement for it.

It does something that very little films of the genre do and that gives me respect for it, it doesn’t try to take itself too seriously and it doesn’t desperately try to reach levels of insane dramatic epicness.

It’s only mission is genuinely trying to make people laugh and it certainly succeeds at that.

Also I really like it for stepping away from all the modern, romantic conceptions that we’ve developed around vampires, it embraces the good old clichés of vampires having no reflection, turning into bats and having a predilection for virgin blood (“wouldn’t you enjoy a sandwich more if you knew no one had fucked it?”).

But It’s still set in modern times, It’s not a vampire period drama. The vampires live in an apartment in Wellington New Zealand, and just like people they each have their own personality, and just as when normal people live together, there’s little tensions and annoyances between them, and they have to deal with enemies such as werewolves, which leads to some very funny scenes.

They fight over who has to clean or do the dishes, It’s brilliant and hilarious to approach vampires in such a way, they’re suddenly, more humane, funnier versions of the undead.

The film focuses on a group of five vampires, who as I said live in an apartment each with their own distinct personality. There’s Vladislav who is based on Vlad the Impaler, but who now don't torture anymore he did this when he was in a “bad place” and can’t hypnotize or transform into animals that well anymore.

There’s Petyr who lives in the basement and very rarely comes out anymore because he’s old, he looks like the vampire from the Nosferatu film. There’s Viago who was an 18th-century dandy, so he’s very well mannered.

When he kills someone, he makes a nice date out if it in his own awkward way, he’ll lay a newspaper under the victim to not stain the furniture. He’s also been in love with the same human woman for years, and still, has a picture of her in his coffin, let’s just say that you really don’t wanna know what he does in there at night, apparently, the blood still flows there… His human love, later in the film has a hilarious part.

Then there’s Deacon who was a Nazi vampire apparently, and supposedly was going to help Hitler take over the world with his undead army. Lastly, we have  Nick who joined the group very recently, so he behaves like a child that just found out he can fly.

I’ll quickly leave you guys with the storyline, though:

Follows the lives of Viago (Taika Waititi), Deacon (Jonathan Brugh), and Vladislav (Jemaine Clement) - three flatmates who are just trying to get by and overcome life’s obstacles-like being immortal vampires who must feast on human blood.

Hundreds of years old. The vampires are finding that beyond sunlight catastrophes, hitting the main artery, and not being able to get a sense of their wardrobe without a reflection-modern society has them struggling with the mundane like paying rent, keeping up with the chore wheel, trying to get into nightclubs, and overcoming flatmate conflicts.

The film is a mockumentary It’s filmed in the style of a documentary, we follow them as they go about their daily business to observe firsthand how miserably they fail at trying to fit in modern society, they don’t wear appropriate clothes and much more, I could give more examples but I don’t want to give away too much, but one thing is clear It’s a guaranteed fun watch.

I really enjoyed the acting in the film, each actor really brought their character to life and makes it memorable, and they have a chemistry that feels very natural and that makes watching them interact with each other wonderfully.

Some people will no doubt say that the acting is dramatic and completely over the top and that they just fully venture into the overacting territory. And these people are right they absolutely do…

But they do it knowingly and I found it utterly delightful, It’s possible sometimes that overacting brings benefit to a film, this is such a case, and in this sort of film, you can expect it.

You don’t want the actors to look to serious, you want to see how positively silly everything is reflected in their acting, and with What We Do In The Shadows you see that, you can almost imagine them doubled over from laughter in between filming a scene.

Where normally I’d discuss individual performances and even choose a favorite, here I won’t do that, as I really thoroughly enjoyed every single performance and thought that all of the performances formed one cohesive, inseparable whole.

I fully enjoyed the whole film, It’s direction and It’s acting. But I think that I keep revisiting it especially for its cinematography, It’s so well thought out, so playful and just overall very lovely and fun to look at.

It’s beautiful as well as very humorous at times. The film is clearly filmed in the style of a documentary, the camera closely follows the main characters everywhere they go, it feels like you’re tagging along.

But where this one differs are the special effects, that are interwoven in the film, they’re quirky and give the film It’s own atmosphere and it makes it easier to go along with it, and also allows to get to know the characters better, as you discover more about them through flashbacks.

The way the story was told sometimes reminded of a fairytale, a gothic and funny one in this case, and this rarely happens with a documentary, It’s special effects make it much more stylish and elegant yet they’re never over the top, so the film still retains a simplicity, which is It’s saving grace, because along with It’s somewhat dramatic acting, it might have become chaotic otherwise.

Another thing I really enjoyed was the costume design and the set decoration, the costumes in the film really fit each character and are believably antique looking, the same goes for the decoration. It really strengthens the illusion that these people come from different eras and that they’re stuck in the past and their own nostalgia and doesn't know how to behave nowadays.

I find the soundtrack simply fantastic, I fall in love with it each time. It brilliantly fits the storyline and theme of the film, as well as adding to the mood and tone of certain scenes.

Half of the humor of some scene lies in the music that plays in them, it really creates a unique atmosphere in the film.

Some people might think that the film is not their thing, that It’s too silly for their liking  as it doesn’t really motivate deep thinking, while the film obviously doesn’t really promote philosophical thinking, that’s not It’s intention, It’s an ideal film for when you really just want to sit back, have a good laugh and most of all have fun while you’re watching.

I fully recommend it to everyone that has lost faith in the vampire genre or if you want to go back to the good old days when vampires weren’t vegetarians or didn’t creepily watch sleeping, teenage girls.

“One day I was selling my wears, and I walked passed this old creepy castle. And I look at it and think, "'very old and creepy". And then this creature... flies at me! It dragged me back to this dark dungeon. And bit into my neck. And just at the point of death; this creature forced me to suck its foul blood. And then it opened its wings, like this. And hovered above me. Screeching. 'Now you are vampire.' And it was Petyr. And we're still friends today.”

[boldly-ho]

Another Life - Chapter 14

Fandom: What We Do in the Shadows 

Pairing: Vladislav x Reader

Series Rating: E

Word Count: 2113

Chapter Summary: You bond with your flatmates and friends over a night on the town, and meet some more of the dangerous creatures that roam the streets of Wellington. On a night out with your flatmate, you once again run into the strange man you may have known, but instead of clarifying anything, the mystery gets thicker.

Stu was every bit as good as his word. He’d come over one evening and installed a wifi router and desktop computer. He also set up your flatmates’ new mobile phones. In those acts alone he’d gone above and beyond. He didn’t stop there, though. Stu had stayed for hours, late into the night, to teach them how the technology worked. And throughout it all, he had been bombarded with the dumbest questions and a great level of incompetence. At one point, Viago and Deacon had even suggested Googling Viago’s one hundred year old lost scarf. But now, the vampires all had their own social media accounts and basic mastery over texting, Google, TradeMe, the works.

You were expecting to hear of Stu’s upcoming canonization any day now.

The novelty of it all hadn’t yet worn off of your flatmates, so you’d been keeping your phone on silent. Otherwise, it would be pinging all day with notifications from them. Looking at your phone now, you found a Words With Friends request from Viago, three texts from Deacon, and one from Vladislav.

It had been about five minutes since you last looked at your phone.

Deacon’s texts were all asking whether or not you were going out with them tonight. Nick had organized a night on the town that included Stu, and you had been invited along as well. As Stu still didn’t know that Nick, or anyone for that matter, was a vampire, the night would solely be about having fun. No victims. Thankfully.

You texted Deacon back that you were planning on going. He was right downstairs. It would probably be easier just to shout your answer. But, they still found the phones new and exciting, and so you were willing to indulge them a bit.

“Y/N!”

Speaking of shouts…

You found your flatmates gathered in the lounge, looking at pictures of themselves on their smartphones, analyzing their own outfits.

Upon seeing you, Viago smiled widely. “Y/N, we need a human opinion on our clothes for tonight.”

You looked each of them up and down, disappointed but not surprised by what you saw. Each was dressed like an absolute clown, which wasn’t all that unusual for their going out clothes, but you still couldn’t understand. It wasn’t as though they were ever the epitome of fashion forward, but their day to day clothes weren’t nearly as bad as the clusterfuck outfits they wore out on the town.

Vladislav actually dressed fairly attractively on the day to day. It was odd sometimes, but it always worked. He usually wore a low cut black top that exposed his chest, tight black pants, and black leather boots. Instead of that smart look, he currently wore cream pants with a red athletic stripe down the side, a ruffled red shirt with his chest exposed, of course, and a brown fur vest. He completed the monstrous ensemble with a top hat.

Usually Viago usually dressed like he stepped out the wrong century. Dated, but not inherently horrible. He currently wore one of his 19th century ruffled tops and coordinating vests, but now with a pair of camouflage joggers.

Deacon was irredeemable, and always dressed like an idiot. At least he was consistent.

The last time you had helped them put together somewhat wearable outfits, it had taken over an hour. You really didn’t want to deal with that right now. You were supposed to leave in a half hour to meet Nick and Stu, and you still had to change. Tonight was just about having a good time; they didn’t need to attract victims. They didn’t even have to worry about getting into clubs. Apparently, Nick knew the bouncer at Boogie Wonderland. It really didn’t matter how stupid they looked.

“Looks good, guys.”

“I told you,” Deacon snapped at Vladislav.

“Is that what you’re wearing?” Viago asked, a barely hidden grimace on his face, as if he had any room to judge.

You’d already put on your makeup and fixed your hair; you only had to get dressed. You looked down at your body, currently clad in paint covered sweatpants and a worn hoodie. “Uh, no?”

“Oh, good. You should probably go change. It’s almost time to go.”

As if they weren’t the ones who called you downstairs…

“Good idea.”

You ran back upstairs, shedding your comfortable clothes and replacing it with your favorite black dress. You’d worn it the last time you went out with the guys, but hopefully they wouldn’t remember. You had other club-worthy clothes, but this dress was on another level. Why mess with a good thing?

~

You adjusted your favorite little black dress in the mirror, not bothering to make sure your cross necklace was still in place beneath it; you never took it off anymore.

The bathroom door opened, letting in the noise of the thumping bass from the club.

“Y/N? You in here?”

“I’m here, Dawn.”

“You okay? You’ve been in here a while.”

“I’m okay. The music was a bit loud. Just needed a second.” A partial truth. The music didn’t bother you, but you did need a breather, a little alone time.

“Do you want to leave?”

“No,” you walked towards her and the exit. “Let’s go back out.”

As you walked out together, the song changed, and Dawn excitedly grabbed your hand and pulled you towards the dance floor.

“I love this song!” she shouted over the pulsing music.

Dawn worked on yanking you out onto the dance floor, pulling you through the throngs of bodies. You stopped in your tracks, though, halting Dawn from where her hand still held yours, when you recognized a face in the crowd.

“Y/N?”

“That’s him,” you told her, not looking away from his face. “That’s the man I saw at Boogie Wonderland that night.”

He looked just the same, even wearing the same jacket, though this time with a pair of horribly mismatched pants. You pointed him out to Dawn.

“What do I do?” you asked. Clearly he hadn’t wanted to talk to you.

“I’ll talk to him,” she offered. “I’ll see what I can find out. Go! Don’t let him notice you!”

Dawn pushed you towards the bar, and made her way deeper into the crowd, towards the man you may have known. Settling onto a stool, you watched as Dawn approached the man. She cozied up to him, danced a little too provocatively, placed a hand on his arm. He seemed startled, at first, by her flirtatious attention, before visibly warming up to it.

“Anything for you?”

You jumped at the question, but turned to answer the bartender. “No thanks, I’m waiting on a friend.” You gestured vaguely at the crowd.

You returned your gaze to the packed dance floor, looking for the familiar faces of Dawn and the man. You scoured the crowd for a good minute or so, before realizing that they weren’t there. Where had they gone? Had he fled from her too?

You all but jumped from the barstool, heading out the front door to see if you could still find them. You were looking up the street, trying to spot either of them in the foot traffic, when Dawn literally bumped into you from the side.

“Y/N?” she asked as she caught her balance. “What are you doing out here?”

“Me? I was looking for you. What happened?”

“Nothing happened. I thought you were still in the bathroom, so I was coming to find you. I think I spaced out, though, and sort of auto-piloted out here instead.”

“The bathroom? No. I was at bar, while you were talking to that guy. What did you find out?”

“Find out? About what? What guy?”

Realization crashed over like an icy bucket of water.

“What’s the last thing you remember?”

“Getting up to look for you in the bathroom.”

“And before that?” You could hear clearly the urgency in your own voice.

“I was just sitting at the bar waiting for you. You said you were going to the bathroom, and you didn’t come back for almost twenty minutes.”

You looked up and down the street again, looking anew for the man.

“Y/N? What happened? What’s wrong?”

~

It seemed that your flatmates had enjoyed Boogie Wonderland even more than they had Red Square. Viago went on and on about their light up dance floor, and Vladislav didn’t even leave said dance floor once. Deacon even managed to have a good time, and once he’d stopped pouting and complaining about Nick, he’d dragged you onto the dance floor and kept you occupied until you physically needed a break. You’d even gotten to know Stu a little better, bonding over the subpar snacks served at the bar. You’d had more fun than you expected, and were throughly worn out as you walked back towards the bus stop as a group.

You were laughing at a joke Nick had told when Viago interrupted the conversation. “Do you smell that?”

You sniffed the air. It didn’t smell great, of course, but it just smelled like city air. You couldn’t discern anything out of the ordinary.

“Werewolves,” Deacon hissed.

Nick glanced worriedly at Stu.

“Don’t start anything. Just keep walking,” Vladislav advised the group.

There was a group of men walking towards you, a few more in number than your group, but similar in age. Where they the werewolves? There was no one else around.

As you passed each other, Deacon let out a, “Look out, guys. Don’t catch fleas.”

“Deacon!” Viago scolded.

The other group stopped while Vladislav reiterated, “Keep walking.” Both groups ignored him, instead turning to face one another.

“We heard that!” one of the other group called back.

“Yeah, mate, we’ve got sensitive hearing,” another added.

“Oh, have you?” Deacon taunted.

“Yeah!”

“Why don’t you go smell your own crotches?”

“We don’t smell our own crotches; we smell each other crotches, and it’s a form of greeting.”

You wrinkled your nose. Viago did the same. You saw Stu looking around questioningly. You could hardly blame him.

“Maybe we should just go, guys,” you offered.

“Yeah,” one of the werewolves said. “Why don’t you ladies just go home?”

Deacon stiffened. “Who are you calling a lady?” He stepped closer to the opposite group, into one of their personal space, and was immediately, forcefully shoved back. Deacon hissed.

Viago removed one of his gloves, while one of the werewolves made a disparaging remark about it. That same werewolf was then promptly and, somehow, politely slapped across the face with the glove.

“Hey, what the fuck!”

“Don’t swear!” another from his group chastised. “We’re gonna lose it!”

The situation escalated. Deacon started shouting obscenities as a few werewolves snarled and were held back by their friends. A few of their eyes reflected the moonlight in a wholly inhuman way. Nick stepped in front of Stu, and Vladislav shouted as he grabbed your arm, yanking you behind him. You stepped aside to look at the werewolves, but were quickly pushed back.

“Stay back there!” he snapped at you.

You poked your head around his body to see, but otherwise stayed put.

“Calm down! It’s not a full moon,” the werewolf who had last spoken addressed the group as they collectively calmed, taking deep breaths and talking each other down. “Thanks a lot guys,” he said to your group. “We didn’t want this to happen.”

A few of their group howled loudly as they left. Viago, Vladislav, and Deacon hissed at their retreating forms.

“Are you okay, Stu?” Stu didn’t seem to hear Viago, still staring at the werewolves, growing smaller in the distance.

“Hey, man, it’s cool.” Nick slapped him on the shoulder and led him away, asking Viago, “Were those really werewolves?”

You still stood in the same spot, looking after the werewolves you could no longer see, more intrigued than frightened. Vladislav stood with you as the other four continued on.

“Y/N?” he asked. “Are you alright?”

You nodded, finally tearing your eyes from were the werewolves had been, and looking up at Vladislav. You could see the concern written plainly on his face.

“I’m fine. It’s just wild. Real life werewolves… crazy.”

He sighed in relief. “I thought you were frightened.”

You shrugged. “Maybe a little, when things were getting pretty heated. But it all happened so fast, there wasn’t really time to be scared.”

He simply nodded. “Good.”

“Thank you, though, for looking out for me,” you told him. “For protecting me.”

He shrugged off your thanks. “I didn’t really think about it. Humans can’t protect themselves from a werewolf the way a vampire can. You could have been in danger.”

“Well, thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”