#vampire colony

[mrhyde-mrseek]

CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR BOOKS 2 (PUBLISHED) AND 3 (WIP)!

Now for the Case Files antagonists:

Dion Tantlos/Edgar Wick

Abraham “Brom Bones” Van Brunt (whose name I somehow managed to type incorrectly onto the moodboard)

The Headless Horseman/Hans Woelfel

The vampire colony

[kutputli]

So, in honour of finding a whole bunch of people who understand how appalling it is to use 'punah' in a sentence, I thought I'd open up membership of the ASAAD Brigade (A South Asian Armand Defence Brigage) to people beyond @quark4561.

We've been DMing nonstop about our headcanons and AUs and theories, and there are also long reply threads in the comments to various posts we've made. I might try to consolidate everything at some point, and add it to this post.

But till then, hi @rhaenyra-first-of-her-name @claudia-de-lioncourt @antiquititties @hozierplaying @shesgayfolks!

(And anyone else who feels like commenting! Like I said in a reply, a lot of us are just stealthing along armanding until its time to don our arun hats to play detective.)

To stick to the theme of beautiful gay Assad in period clothes being underserved by white showmakers, here's a supercut of all his scenes in what I have been told is a terrible British drama called Hotel Portofino. Where he is a Bengali named Anish Sengupta, whom everyone inexplicably calls 'Nish'. Yes, with the chhoti 'ee' ki maatra. Every white person needs to understand that vowels actually are precise in other languages. Enjoi.

[nashvillethotchicken]

Sometimes I think about how loustat are in a placage marriage and make myself insane.

[creators-island]

As a LatinAmerican student let me tell you something about Olrox, I love him and everything he represents.

Did he killed Julia Belmont? Yes, and she had it coming , let me explain; You don’t go out on a literal civil war without context on what’s going —on and who’s attacking who and most importantly why— take the side that looks like you, just to essentially killed the last hope of protection the other side has —Let’s remember that Belmont knew about the tale of vampires that could be friendly or neutral at worst /aka Alucard/ she could have spoken to the natives or the slaves to know why this was happening, but she didn’t /I doubt she did at least/— then make unfair decisions about who is evil and deserves to die.

(She might have KNOWN what was going on, since –in my understanding– she was living there for A GOOD WHILE, so she either didn’t care or was oblivious enough to pass it out.)

Olrox is literally the best thing to ever happen to me in so long, the lore behind him and the profound sense of cultural connection I feel with him is something I haven’t felt in a long time, I can feel his rage and his intense feeling of disgust at the idea of colonialism.

As a kid most of us were always told that colonialism was good for us, that we were savages before and now “we’re better bc we have technology”, but guess what, we had our technology back then, we had a way of living and a good thing going on. Was it perfect? No. But it was way better that the hell that was forced into us, the sickness and the cultural hatred that influenced us into submitting our culture and beliefs, THAT WASN’T A GOOD THING.

Olrox has every right and reason to do what he does. Fight me in the comments about it.

[kanjichris]

it's so funny to me that in the books, louis and lestat might've never met if it weren't for the french revolution.. rip marie antoinette you would've loved loustat

[autarkiia]

has anyone ever had the hot take that the relationship between Marius and Armand parallels the imperialist control of Europeans over the colonized people of the Orient?

good, white, educated, moral, powerful men of the West "saving" the poor, subjugated, abused, voiceless, uncivilized people of the East. speaking for them, knowing best what they would have wanted, had they had a voice. we're not colonizing you, we're saving you! and we're going to completely misrepresent and fetishize your culture for our own gain.

now - a wealthy, white, European, educated, powerful vampire "saves" a brown child from the horrific abuse in a brothel (by purchasing him, of course), offers him what he knows is best for him, loves him (grooms him, rapes him), sexualizes his exotic beauty and exploits it for personal gain by making him pose for paintings and by pimping him out to his buddies. he owns him, the child is a commodity obtained with power, without his consent - he is being used and treated as if such abuse is the best life he could have ever gotten.

[sentientsky]

the brainrot is all-consuming. i'm reading about le grand dérangement, and at this point the only thing my brain is absorbing is the name of local gremlin and babygirl armand iwtv. help

[dreadfuldevotee]

I want to put together a IWTV reading list outside of the books, but ik that if I begin that list with The Delectable Negro and Orientalism white people will run for hills screaming

[lookslikethatsallthetimewehave]

In your opinion, what's the darkest thing in Poptropica?

Oh... wow. You know, some people might be surprised at some of the dark stuff that's happened/implied throughout the franchise. And from such an innocent looking world too :)

I guess I'll make a list of some stuff that stands out to me:

24 Carrot Island 

The 4 children were kidnapped and brainwashed by Dr. Hare probably for months.

Astro-Knights Island 

Mordred almost died in a crash, and had to replace half of his body with robotics. 

Mordred kidnapped the princess because he wanted to marry her. And her parents most likely thought they were never going to see her again, since they had no way of going after her.

Counterfeit Island 

It's implied that Black Widow was gonna torture the player in order to get answers. 

Reality TV Island/Wild Safari Island 

Villains allowed to be on reality tv… and being treated as celebrities... WHAT.

Skullduggery Island 

Captain Crawfish probably killed a lot of people. Cause… pirate.

Steamworks Island 

The entire backstory of this island: the people were doing experiments on plants, when the plants mutated and tried to kill them. The only way they could survive is by freezing themselves.

Captain Ziggs sacrificed himself to hold off the Plant Monsters. Mayor Crumb must be feeling pretty depressed now that she's free and forced to live without him.

Red Dragon Island  

The Shogun being a pretty terrifying tyrant. 

Shrink Ray Island  

POV: you're an elementary school student and your teacher's star pupil. You trust him, because he's a nice teacher. And then he goes crazy and kidnaps you.

Mr. Silva threatens to shrink CJ and the player to the point where they can't be seen by anyone, which is kinda dark honestly. 

Blimp Adventure 

Dr. Cumulo Nimbus sets fire to the rain to all the islands. 

Game Show Island  

Robots take over and enslave humanity. 

Ghost Story Island  

A really depressing murder mystery/ weird love triangle story that involves several character's deaths.

S.O.S Island  

The ship sinks and everyone inside almost dies. Also a child.

Vampire's Curse Island  

Count Bram outlives his wife, and goes crazy. And he kidnaps a child due to insanity. 

Cactus von Garlic has killed many vampires. But not all vampires in Poptropica are evil (if Haunted House is any indication). 

Twisted Thicket Island  

The forest creatures turning into stone. I'm not 100% sure if they're still alive in there or not...

Poptropolis Games Island

The island sinks back into the ocean, with people still on it. Some of the ancient islanders are waterlogged (but still alive, for some reason).

Lunar Colony Island (Book)

The PASE workers are oddly sociopathic to Glen John's situation, only caring about Glen helping them. Glen is 13 btw.

Super Villain Island  

Zeus almost winning. He blew up the world for no reason. Also, there's something really scary about the way he blew up his own island.

Zomberry Island  

Zombie apocalypse. 

Virus Hunter Island  

A pandemic almost happened. 

Monster Carnival Island 

Ringmaster Raven's backstory: Pretty messed up. 

Edgar is an orphan who ran away and joined the carnival. He put a lot of trust in the Ringmaster and seemed pretty happy… and then the Ringmaster hypnotizes him and uses him for his scheme. Pretty messed up. 

Survival Island 

Myron Van Buren. Enough said.

Mission Atlantis Island 

The alien was trapped underwater for years and died.

PoptropiCon Island  

Omegon taking over the convention center, and turning the people into Hench-Bots.

Arabian Nights Island 

Scheherazade attempted to steal the player's soul… what the heck.

Graphic Novels

The kids almost died… several times. (A Saber tooth tiger and polar bear almost maul them, they almost fall to their deaths, they almost freeze to death, they are almost stabbed to death by Lieutenant Rogers, they almost got erased from history on the Ancient Egypt Island, they almost burned alive in a volcano eruption, etc)

The ancient Egyptians are erased from one timeline, and a bunch of people on earth died... and it's unknown if they were brought back, or what.

When Spencer Albright is murdered, Jonas is so overcome with grief that he completely loses it and becomes murderous like Octavian. Jonas is 18-20 btw.

The backstories for the main characters (Octavian is forced to let Paulla die, Mya's mom abruptly dies and she goes through depression, Oliver’s dad walks out on the family).

Octavian's fate at the end is this: he accidentally jumped through the portal before the universe he wanted to go to fully formed. Because of this, he jumped into the in-between point of universes, and was split into an infinite amount of versions of himself. Sounds complicated, but is incredibly messed up.

Mya was seriously considering leaving her own timeline, even though she would be leaving her family and friends behind. Whether or not she knew this is unknown, but if she did... kinda messed up.

And… that's it. No more dark things that stick out to me after that. Probably because after this, they fired the writer who was responsible for most of the dark undertones in the franchise. OOPS!!! >:(

I think the darkest stuff comes from Monster Carnival, Survival, and the graphic novels.

[wrishwrosh]

the devil’s in massachusetts

[bettinaboo02]

Hey Tumblr,

My friend Farah has requested I boost her GFM more so it can reach €5000 for her to evacuate to Egypt to continue her medical studies, as she is trying to study online in G@z@ however due to circumstances, this is increasingly difficult. She fears for her and her family’s lives every day.

I am just a student trying to help another student achieve her dreams, which EVERYONE has a right to. This g€n0c!D£ and educide has destroyed people’s lives, and Farah evacuating to continue studying is a glimmer of hope for her and her family.

Please SHARE/REBLOG/LIKE and DONATE. Any amount can make a difference.

Thank you 🍉

[meerawrites]

Almost done my novel research, I just need to get to the terror and the (justified) trial and execution of Marie Antoinette and Louis le incompetent <- I’m not saying his number he doesn’t deserve that.

Ah yes, the French revolution the most divisive event in history, my beloved.

Also... Robespierre was a saint compared to feudalism, monarchy and what Louis (and every French monarch before him) was doing to Haiti.

Marie Antoinette’s execution (from a French Revolution pamphlet).

Marie Antoinette on the way to her execution (Francois Fleming 1887).

[hive-buzzes]

Whos the Starclan guide?

[transingthoseformers]

Is Nightstrike from rid2015 a Predacon because if it was Shockwave's doing

Technically, no, he's an energon vampire, which is seemingly a separate thing

[gaiuskamilah]

biggest fear is that if i start going on about how bloodbound is also political someone will start saying im just looking into things too hard as if the villain of book 1 isnt a corrupt senator, as if jax doesnt have a political activist background, as if mc doesnt spend a good chunk of the book going back and forth between the underprivileged clanless and the hegemonic status quo of the clans. and by fear i mean i'll just be extremely annoyed and further think that choicenators are spineless liberals

[alpaca-clouds]

About the international vampires (that are not really vampires)

You know what? Based on the rant I posted last week about the James Somerton video, let me vent about this one specific thing that I have seen around since basically forever. The thing even I believed, because the non-fiction books on vampire mythology I read as a teen claimed this as well. The claim that there are vampires all around the world, that basically every culture has a vampire myth. And that... it is just bullshit. And not only bullshit, but colonial bullshit.

Let me ask you one thing: What do you think of, when I say "vampire"?

I would guess your thoughts are:

Undead (and hence probably immortal)

Drinks blood or maybe consumes human life energy

Probably some sexually charged stuff

And, well... Those things are only really a thing with some of the vampires we find in Eastern European Mythology, which later spread into other parts of Europe (especially England). There is one of the wanna-be international vampires, that kinda fit the deal - though only through more modern interpretation. And that is the Aswang from the Phillipines. But even here, this is not part of the original myth but more came to be through mixing of the myths of the culture with Western mythology.

And that... is actually the big issue here.

See, vampire mythology as we know it is mostly a thing from Victorian England. While we will find some of the ideas in the Eastern European mythology that Victorian England based their ideas on, most things we associate with it come from England. And you know what England did over the years? Yeah, that is right, they colonized most of the fucking world.

And that is where the issue comes in.

See, as someone who is very much into comparative mythology I can tell you: Yes, there are certain ideas in different mythologies that repeat. Showing up in myths around the world. (One of my favorites is the "magic tree connected to knowledge".)

But a big issue with comparative mythology is, that some parts of it are also Western researchers (or people who wanna be such) looking for imagery that confirms their preconscieved notions. And as such they want to find those creatures and gods and patterns that are "just like this thing from our mythology". It is a big thing that happened with Campbell.

And that... kinda has just happened with vampires as well. If you look into the claimed to be vampires all around the world, you will find, that most of them are not vampires at all. At times they do not consume blood, are not undead and also do not have anything about themselves that could really be considered vampiric. Or they are undead, but if we were honest, if anything they are more like zombies than vampires (the hungry dead of Chinese mythology are a good example of this).

And, yeah... I am sorry, but that is just colonial bullshit. It is taking a Western thing and pressing international mythology through this one specific lense. That is not how any of this works.

It is disrespectful towards those other cultures and their mythology. Those creatures are not vampires, they are their own fucking thing.

Now, by all means. If you wanna put other European creatures through the vampire lense... Fine. But don't go around and claim that stuff from other cultures is actually "totally like this one European thing". It is... just horrible.

And yes, I am looking angrily at fucking World of Darkness here, too. Because boy howdy, do they like to do that with their rulebooks, too. (For heaven's sake, White Wolf, just hire people from other cultures. I am begging you!)