#yes this is indeed about nosferatu

[the-crooked-library]

y'all ever get an angry puritan in your asks who's mad about pissing on the poor?..

every single virtue point they're bringing up was already addressed in the original post they're referencing in the ask, so it's very clear they just skimmed it to find whatever line they thought was the most ~problematic~ and never actually read the whole damn thing.

noooo how dare you call this free will!!! i didn't. i explicitly said coercion is involved. there was a vampire threatening her friends and family!!!! yes. he's a vampire. they do that. booohoooo i refuse to accept that the gothic genre deals with moral ambiguity!!! ok sure bud. things are either good or evil!!! i have never matured past a middle school understanding of reality :((( yeah i can tell

[victoria-daydreams]

In Her Place, I Stand

AN: I haven’t had the chance to watch Nosferatu yet, but the general consensus I’ve gotten from readings fics and looking at gifs is that Friedrich Harding, he be in those GUTS! We get a tease of Friedrich in this chapter, but this chapter is mainly focused on Dorothea adjusting to her new life. I was going to wait to post this until I fully completed the story, but I already finished part two and I'm currently working on part three, I'm just too excited to wait to wait so sue me lol.

Trigger Warnings: racism

Word Count: 3.2k

Part I: Echoes of Her Shadow

The morning room was silent, save for the steady, metronome-like ticking of the grandfather clock and the delicate scratch of a fountain pen gliding across parchment.

Please sister, I must implore you to ask this of Father, for me. Ask him, what I have done to have drawn his ire? His displeasure. For I must have made an unknown transgression against him, for him to agree to this marriage—this punishment. I know given who I am, my options for a suitable husband would have always been limited, and I have made my peace with that. But this match defies all reason. Father is no fool, yet he must have been aware of the unsavory rumors surrounding my husband. The disgraceful state he was allegedly found in within his wife's mausoleum before being nursed back to health. Father was so desperate to see me married that he bound me to someone...

Oh Liese, I fear the whispers about my husband may hold truth after all. I fear, he does prefer the company of the dead over the living. I will never be good enough for him, for I am not her. I am not his—

"Frau Harding,"

The pen's movement faltered just for a second. Sitting at the mahogany desk, was indeed the new lady of the house, the new Frau Harding. Dorothea Harding née Larenz. Frau Harding. The title was only a formality, nothing more. Its rightful owner, the woman who it truly belonged to for all time, was Anna Harding. Friedrich Harding's dearly beloved first wife, mother of his two cherished daughters and a third child that would've been equally cherished as well. Not some African-German girl of mixed blood. Never.

"Yes, Sofie," Dorothea answered tiredly, the nib of her fountain pen resuming its movements though slower than before.

"I have your morning coffee, gnädige Frau," Sofie informed.

Dorothea only hummed, never looking up from her letter to her sister, afraid she would forget all the words flowing from her mind. From behind her, Dorothea could hear Sofie moving around to the sofa where she takes her coffee at.

Please visit soon dear sister, I am bound to go mad here. I'm sure of it. Sincerely, Dottie.

Capping her fountain pen, Dorothea neatly folded her finished letter and slid it within an envelope, sealing it with red wax. She rose from her chair, moving toward the cushioned sofas for her coffee as her eyes swept over the room. Painted in pale yellows and blue, the room was large, airy with high ceilings and beautiful wooden floors. Lit well by the large windows looking over the gardens.

"The morning room is where Frau Harding always answered her mail and staffed out daily orders,"

There was no malice behind Sofie's words as she helped Dorothea settle into her new home, but they haunted her regardless. An ever constant reminder she was not only using another woman's name, she was living in this woman's house; using spaces which were only meant for her. Dorothea felt constricted. This house, her name, it clung to her like an ill fitting gown, and she was doomed to where it for the rest of her days. She was an imposter.

She was an intruder.

Tucking the skirt of her dress beneath her, Dorothea lowered herself onto the sofa with poised grace and Sofie handed her the coffee cup and saucer.

"Shall I see to this letter being sent off to the post, gnädige Frau?" Sofie asked, gesturing to the envelope on the desk.

"Yes. And with haste, please," Dorothea said, before pursing her lips to lightly blow on the hot liquid.

"Of course, gnädige Frau,"

Sipping daintily, Dorothea watched over the rim of the cup as Sofie picked up the letter and shuffled out the room. She had barely put her cup and saucer back on the tea table in front of her when she suddenly felt a familiar weight across the top of her thighs. Artemis, Dorothea's black and white shorthair cat had jumped onto her lap, curling into herself with a purr. Dorothea's heart melted. Outside of Sofie, Artemis was the only living creature in the house that offered her companionship. Constantly, she was made to feel like a stranger in her new household by the serving staff. Their temperament toward her ranged from cold to neutral, but never warm. Her third day in the house was singed permanently into her mind, she happened to be walking by the parlor room where she overheard two middle aged servants talking quietly amongst themselves about her.

"Her cat, I believe it's a mixed breed," one voice, reedy and sharp, chirped. Dorothea recognized it as Agnes, a senior housemaid.

Dorothea's brow furrowed. She did have a cat, a gift from her sister for her birthday the year before.

"How fitting, it matches its owner," another voice, older and wearier, chimed in.

Dorothea's breath hitched as she pressed a trembling hand to her chest, desperately trying to calm the frantic pounding of her heart. The casual cruelty of the words struck her with the force of a physical blow, leaving her reeling. That was Gertrude, another senior housemaid, her tone laced with a venom Dorothea had never directly encountered, yet somehow always anticipated.

"Does Herr Harding expect us to burn her linen every morning and replace it with clean ones?" Agnes giggled.

A pause, then a snort, "I hope not, this house will be out of linen by the end of the week," Gertude answered, her cackle was low and guttural.

Dorothea stood motionless, paralyzed, as the world seemed to tilt on its axis. She wanted to burst into the parlor, to demand an explanation, to assert her rightful place as mistress of the house. But a crippling wave of insecurity washed over her. What would that accomplish? Would it change their minds? Would it make her feel less like an unwelcome interloper? Instead, she silently retreated, her steps slow and measured as she withdrew from the scene.

She locked herself in her room for the rest of the day and refused to come out after overhearing the conversation, not even leaving to join her newlywed husband for dinner. Worse, the house seemed to reject her very presence, the walls whispering malevolently as she moved throughout its halls. The lifeless eyes of the family portraits that hung there watched her with a cruel, unblinking gaze. These were the kin of the man she had just married, people who would surely recoil in absolute horror at the sight of the woman now in their midst. A woman whose warm, brown skin had been bequeathed to her by another, a mother she had never known.

"The portraits, the servants, society. They see my mother's blood as a taint, a stain on the pristine white linen of their precious German lineage," she thought bitterly.

The happily purring cat in her lap pulled Dorothea from her thoughts, a soft grin tugging at the corners of her mouth as she continued stroking Artemis.

"My sweet girl," she murmured, and the cat nestled itself deeper into her lap in response. "You're the only reason I'm still sane four months into this farce of a marriage," Dorothea remarked, spitting the last word out like a curse.

With a quiet sigh, she leaned back against the cushioned backrest of the sofa still gently running her fingers through Artemis' fur. Dorothea recalled her first real interaction with her husband shortly after their excessively private, small wedding. It involved Artemis.

"Where are you girl?" Dorothea whispered to herself.

She had spent the last twenty minutes searching for her dear pet, but she was nowhere to be found in the new, vast manor Dorothea now called home. But the Harding manor was not a home, no home would feel this lonely. Turning down another hallway, she felt her feet falter in their stride as she instantly recognized what wing of the house she was in. Friedrich's daughter's rooms. Dorothea did not wish to linger in the hallway, just thinking about how the two young lives were snuffed out tragically by disease made her want to turn heel and run with her skirt in hand. Until, she spotted what looked like the shadow of a cat pacing back and forth from underneath the crack of one the girl’s doors. Dorothea's head tilted to the side.

"It's not possible," she whispered, feeling a shiver course down her spine.

The hallway seemed to become quieter than it had been mere seconds ago, deafeningly so. The silence was bordering on eerie, making Dorothea to feel nervous in her own home. Steeling herself with a shuddering breath, she took a step forward and the creak of the wooden floorboards sounded amplified in the silent hallway causing her to briefly tense up before relaxing. Each step toward the door was careful, but it mattered not. The creak of the floorboards beneath her feet seem to groan in protest at her presence there. Reaching the door, Dorothea wrapped her fingers the doorknob, but never moving to open it. Her mind flashed back to a conversation her and Sofie had while being given a tour of the house.

"May I speak plainly, gnädige Frau?" Sofie asked, her voice hushed as they stood at the entryway of the hall.

"You may," Dorothea said, matching her tone.

"It would be wise to not venture into this section of the house, Frau Harding," she warned, holding her stare. "Less so, going inside the girls' room," she stressed.

"Agreed," Dorothea concurred, gazing at the shut doors ahead of her. "Has anyone been inside since deaths?" she questioned.

"No, none of the servants. Not even Herr Harding himself, for obvious reasons," she answered, looking at the doors herself. "Their rooms are just as they were when the girls passed," she mentioned, a haunted expression crossing over her features.

"It'll only be for a second," Dorothea muttered, reassuring herself.

Looking over her shoulder, she opened the door and the squeak of the hinges pierced the air. Her chest grew tight at the interior of the room. The room was filled with a suffocating stillness; dolls, books, and dresses are arranged as if their owner might return at any moment. She could envision it now, Friedrich's daughters playing with their dolls or rambunctiously running around their rooms and through the house with shrieking laughter not unlike how Liese and her did in their own home. She could almost hear it, the pattering sound of small feet against these wooden floors and she was struck by a feeling of nostalgia, of returning back in time to when she was young. When she was loved, and knew nothing of being alone.

Then, the illusion was shattered as Artemis came scampering from around the corner of the wooden bed frame, brushing herself up against Dorothea's leg. Beaming down at the cat, Dorothea instantly bent down to scoop Artemis up in her arms.

"There you are!" she commented happily, relief written all over her face. "How in god's name did you manage to get in here?" she wondered, her brows furrowing while shaking her head.

When suddenly, a pair of polished, black shoes came into her line of sight. For a second, Dorothea's heart stopped beating altogether, sinking into the bottom of her stomach. The silence in the room seemed to deepen. The air thickening, the temperature colder. With widened eyes, she lifted her head to see Friedrich towering above her, his body rigid, jaw clenched. His eyes, dark and full of an icy fury barely restrained, locked onto hers. He doesn’t speak a word, but his silence spoke for him. Dorothea clutched Artemis tighter, suddenly feeling incredibly vulnerable.

"What, are you doing in here?" Friedrich asked, his voice tight and sharp.

Dorothea's heart thudded wildly in her chest as she rose from her crouching position.

"It-It was an accident," she explained, her voice small. "I swear, Friedrich," she said earnestly.

Even in this moment when tensions were at a boiling point, the use of his name sounded foreign to her ears, foreign on her tongue. Friedrich took a glacial step towards her, a quickly darkening glower on his face and she instinctively took a step back.

Friedrich's nostrils flared, "I am to believe that this pet somehow made its way in here, of all places, by itself?" he snarled, his eyes narrowing.

"I-I don't know how she got in here Friedrich, please," Dorothea pleaded, as he took another step forward.

She felt tears threatening to build up in the corner of her eyes, but she resisted the urge. Artemis sensing Dorothea's fear and the palpable anger emanating from Friedrich, grew agitated in her owner's arms as its ears flattened down against her skull and her back arching slightly.

Friedrich pointed his finger in her face, "Take your pet," he spat, closing in. "And get out of—"

He was unable to finish his sentence as Artemis loudly hissed at him, teeth bared and tail whipping about. Her husband was taken aback by the barely one year-old cat's reaction, while Dorothea shushed her in effort to calm her. Wordlessly, she rushed past him, softly stroking the bristled fur along Artemis' back. Dorothea didn't know who she was trying to soothe more, the cat or herself.

Pausing at the end of the hall, Dorothea spun around for one last look at her husband. Any lingering resentment she might have harbored toward Friedrich instantly dissipated. From this distance, Dorothea noticed a drastic shift in Friedrich's physical demeanor, which had bordered on frightening mere moments ago. Now, his entire frame seemed to deflate, shoulders hunched and head bowed. After all, this was a man still wracked with grief over the untimely death of his entire family. Standing in a room he had no desire to occupy. And for that, Dorothea would never hold his reaction to her involuntary trespassing against him.

His back was turned to her, but Dorothea saw how his shoulders trembled before his anguished sobs pierced the air. The heartbreaking sound reverberated through her, shaking her to the core in a way she never could have imagined. The raw grief in his weeping caused the fine hairs on her arm to stand on end, a horrible and visceral reaction.

"Forgive me, Friedrich," she apologized quietly, knowing he could not hear her, too lost in the depths of his grief. "Though we are strangers, know this, I would never knowingly inflict such sorrow upon you," Dorothea whispered, her words laced with compassion, hung heavy in the air.

Dorothea cast one last, lingering glance before departing the hall, abandoning Friedrich to the solitude of his anguish. For he was always alone.

After the encounter with Friedrich, it was relayed to Dorothea by Sofie, who's been acting as her eyes and ears over the servants, that the culprit behind Artemis being trapped in the bedroom was none other than Gertrude, the woman who called her a mixed breed. She made sure to make her dismissal public. The day she did it, she drew herself up, straightening her shoulders and forcing a composure she didn't feel. Dorothea forced a smile, a tight, unnatural expression as she entered into the servants hall, to once again thank the staff for being so welcoming to her. Most of the staff's expression ranged from being neutral to a smile which never reached their eyes. Then, there was Gertrude, she was bolder and met Dorothea's gaze with thinly veiled contempt.

"Good morning, everyone. I just wanted to reiterate my gratitude for your hospitality, since my arrival. It certainly hasn't gone unnoticed,"

Dorothea's gaze swept over the room, pausing deliberately on Gertrude. The smile on her face becomes less forced, and more pointed.

"Gertrude, would you be so kind as to step forward?" Dorothea requested. She hesitated, but slowly obeyed, her expression defiant. "Gertrude, you're dismissed. Please have your belongings packed and off the premises within the hour," she informed simply.

A collective gasp rose from the gathered servants. Gertrude's face paled, the contempt replaced with panic.

"Dismissed?" the older woman echoed incredulously. "On what grounds? "I've served this household for years—"

"On the grounds that your services are no longer required," Dorothea cut in, her voice deceptively gentle. "Your service has clearly not extended to respecting the lady of the house," she reminded, her smile now genuine, though edged with steel.

"Frau Harding, with all due respect—"

"There is little due Gertrude, and even less respect due in return," Dorothea commented coolly, her stare unflinching.

Gertrude, momentarily stunned, sputtered indignantly, "Y-You can't do this! Herr Harding would never allow it!" she insisted. "A mixed breed like you, throwing your weight aro—"

Dorothea took a deliberate step closer, her voice dropping to a near whisper, causing Gertrude to shrink back.

"I am lady of this house, I have done this," Dorothea stressed, voice ringing with authority. " And my word is law within these walls. I'll indulge you only once," she warned, her smile now devoid of warmth or humor. "Sofie will oversee your departure," she informed, suddenly turning her attention to the younger servant.

Sofie stood a little straighter, "Yes, Frau Harding," she said, with a nod.

"Consider this a final act of mercy," Dorothea suggested, looking back to Gertrude. "Were I to detail your transgression to Herr Harding, you would find it impossible to gain employment anywhere, if he had anything to say about it," she threatened, a knowing gleam in her eyes. "A quiet dismissal allows you to retain some semblance of dignity," she finished, holding the older woman's gaze for a moment longer, letting the weight of her words sink in.

She stared back at Dorothea, a mixture of fury and fear in her eyes, but she knew had been outmaneuvered. Sweeping her eyes across the room, meeting the stare of each servant in turn. The neutral or cold expressions were now replaced with a degree of wariness and, perhaps, a grudging respect.

"Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a household to manage,"

Turning sharply, Dorothea exited the servants' hall, leaving a stunned and silenced room behind her.

Though Dorothea spoke softly, she sent a message she was no passive figure. As the lady of the house, she wielded genuine authority, which Friedrich seemed to be begrudgingly accepting; he had not overridden her dismissal of the senior house maid. Or, his grief may have simply left him too distracted to concern himself with the household's affairs.

"Frau Harding," Sofie called, reappearing in the door frame of the morning room.

A familiar, dull ache throbbed in Dorothea's chest, a constant companion since the day she had arrived.

"What is it, Sofie?" she asked, lifting her eyes from Artemis.

"Georg is ready to discuss the meals for today's lunch and dinner. At your convenience, gnädige Frau," she reported.

"Of course, inform Georg I will meet with him shortly," she said, with a sigh.

"Very well, Frau Harding,"

With a curt nod, Dorothea smiled at Sofie. A small, bitter one nearing a grimace as a knot settled in her stomach and quiet resignation seeped into her soul.

For Dorothea was not truly Frau Harding, despite the name she was forced to bear.

Part II: The Gilded Cage of Mourning

[purrlockholmesbooksblog]

Today is a good day for idiotic history puns, yes?

Vlad the Impaler has been roaming free in the greater part of the internet these days thanks to the rukus about Count Orlok's moustaches.

Indeed, Count Orlok can be said to be a sort of grandson of the Impaler's: the original 1922 film Nosferatu was an unauthorised adaptation of Dracula, whose character is based on Vlad Tepes.

Puns aside, this historical figure was a horror to rival any vampire with his cruel torture methods (thus his nickname, the Impaler) designed to strike fear into the hearts of his enemies.

Blog post about vampire history here and 1922 Nosferatu here!

[ashes-writing-corner]

Hey guys! Guess who's baaaaack?! :D

Sorry for the delay in updates, this chapter is short but it took a little bit out of me. Not sure I like how it turned out but I hope you like it! ^^

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I do make up commissions, but I'm also willing to do writing commissions upon request! If interested please DM me!

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Exile: A Nosferatu Fanfic

Chapter 16

I couldn’t turn things around…(You never turned things around…)

Ellen opened her eyes, only to find herself on a familiar beach, the sounds and smells of the sea invading her senses, sparking them back to an almost lifelike feeling. It was dreary out, but not quite stormy or rainy. Just..gray. Ehre stayed close to her, serving as a guide and guard to her. The wolfhound watched a little crab dig itself into the sand, hiding away.

Looking around, Ellen saw no sign of Thomas. She had focused on him with the black mirror. She had seen him, he had to be here somewhere. He was still here in Wisburg, she could feel it. Perhaps reluctantly, but Thomas was there. She waited, for what she wasn’t sure, but she did. He would show up at some point. Ellen had faith he would…

“Um…excuse me, ma’am?” a little voice sounded behind her as Ellen felt a slight tugging on her black dress.

Ellen looked down to see a little girl at her side. She looked about five years old, with dark brown curls and soft green eyes. She had on nice play clothes, with a little straw hat on. Ellen cocked her head. A child could…see her? Interact with her? Then again, when she was little she sometimes saw what she knew now to be spirits. Perhaps…she could even help her.

“Yes?” Ellen asked.

“I like your puppy! Can I pet him?!” the little one asked, her eyes bright as beads.

“Oh! I don’t know if-” Ellen tried to explain but Ehre came over to sniff and put his head under the little girl’s hand.

“Good puppy!” she giggled as she put his head, “Soft big puppy! What’s his name?”

“His name is Ehre���.

“Honor! So he’s a very good boy!” she smiled, “I only have a kitty at home, but she’s old. I wanna convince papa to get us a puppy”.

Ellen felt a growing suspicion…a cat. An old cat? Greta? This couldn’t be…could it? But again, Ellen couldn’t shake the feeling. If this little girl was indeed…then that meant…

“What’s the kitty’s name?” Ellen almost hated to ask, but she had to know.

“Her name’s Greta. She was papa’s cat…she loves him a lot. But not more than me!”.

It was like glass breaking in Ellen’s head. This little girl…she was…

“Ellen! Darling?! You know not to take off like that” a familiar voice made Ellen’s head turn.

It was Thomas. Older, with a little more gray in his hair, and had a little bit of a beard growing. But she knew that face, that voice, from anywhere. And this little one was his…

“But papa…There’s a nice lady here with a puppy! Can’t you see?!” the little girl, Ellen, asked.

He looked serious for a moment. “A lady with a puppy?”.

The child nodded. “She’s so pretty! Can’t you see? She looks…sad though”.

Ellen felt sad, more than that. She felt…hurt. She knew she shouldn’t be. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair. But…she felt hurt. Thomas had moved on from her. Started a new family. She didn’t want him mourning her forever, but at the same time…

“Ellen…sweetheart…What does she look like?” Thomas asked.

He had named his daughter after her. A small comfort but it wasn’t enough. Ellen felt her eyes sting. Cold overtook her again, gripping her heart just as fast as death once did.

“She has long pretty hair, darker than mine. Her eyes are brown, but…sad. Very sad now. What’s wrong, ma’am?” little Ellen asked.

Ellen couldn’t bring herself to answer. Her feelings of hurt were far too great. She turned to leave. She had her answer. Thomas was fine. He didn’t need her anymore.

“Wait, don't go!” little Ellen called, “Please!”

Thomas held his daughter’s hand. “Ellen, go back to your mother. She’s just down the way. I…I need a moment, please”.

“But papa…the lady-”.

“I’ll talk to her. Please just…give us a moment. Please” Thomas assured her and the child nodded.

“Okay papa. Just…be nice. She’s really sad”.

“I would never upset someone in need of help, sweetie. You help those that you can. I’ll take care of her”.

Little Ellen nodded and bound away, humming a little tune. Ellen turned to him, watching him. Thomas took his hat off, his face somber. He waited until his daughter was out of earshot.

“I didn’t think you’d ever come back. I don’t know if it’s you, Ellen. But I hope it is. I know this…this may come as a shock, but know that I have never, ever, forgotten you. My first love, my truest love. I miss you every day. Even if the pain is a little less” he told her, although he wasn’t sure if she could hear him.

Ellen sobbed, listening to him. She didn’t want to believe it. He had moved on, leaving her behind. At least that’s what it felt like to her.

“It’s been ten years…almost to the day. I visit your grave every year. But of course i suppose it’s fitting you’d haunt here of all places. I mourned for at least the first four before I met my now wife. I think you’d like Cecilie. She’s really sweet, she knows how much you meant to me. We made a memorial garden for you in the backyard. We named our daughter for you. I have tried so hard to keep you in every part of my life. I never want to forget you. I love you still, Ellen. I’m sorry, I don’t want to hurt you. I could never. But…I’m okay. It’s okay. Wherever you come from, be it heaven or elsewhere…I’m alright”.

He seemed to look at her as he said it. Ellen was touched, some of the hurt going away at that. But even so, she couldn’t stop the stinging she felt inside. Thomas had kept her in his life in every way he could, and for that Ellen was grateful. He hadn’t forgotten her, not completely. It took some of the sting, but still…something hurt.

“I miss you” Thomas said, “Every day. The pain of loss…it never truly goes away. You just…learn to grow around it. I hope wherever you are, love, I hope you’re safe. That you’re happy. And I hope you know that I’m safe too, happy. You don’t have to stay if you’ve been here this whole time. You can let go. Just…know something in me never truly will”.

Ellen’s eyes stung as he said it. Ehre’s ears flattened and he let out a soft whine. She had her confirmation. Thomas was okay. He was safe and happy. He didn’t need her to worry about him anymore. It hurt, it really did, but at least Ellen got her answer.

She looked out at the sea, standing side by side with him. This felt like a more proper ending, the one they truly deserved. In that moment, a small part of her thanked Orlok for letting her use the black mirror to come find him. It seemed Thomas needed this closure too, closure he was, for the most part, denied.

Same as her.

With that, she only wanted to see one other person before the count came to retrieve her.

Professor Von Franz…the only other person who believed in her…

If you guys enjoyed please consider liking, commenting, and reblogging! If you feel especially generous please donate to my ko-fi, as I'm again currently accepting both make up and writing commissions! Feel free to follow if you want to see more from me ^^ <3 as always your support is very much appreciated!!!! ^^

[mi55delulu]

literally CRYINGGG at this. absolutely sobbing. i love them so much i’m CRAZY !!!!!!

what do they think about wicked 🎤 and nosferatu 🎤 and does jk get jealous when oc goes AARON PIERRE THAT’S MUFASAAAA 🎤

thank u angel sorry for this i #Miss them

- jk had to bust out a chair for oc and pull a ‘we got AARON PIERRE DAS MUFASAAA at home™’ bit. so yes … he got jealous CUZ DAM THAT MAN IS GORG and he’d crumble too if he stared into those beautiful eyes.

- it’s lil miss oc that suggested to rewatch wicked. jk was reluctant at first bc 1. it’s a long movie 😭 2. bad experience from from when he had to watch mr. gorllla get all possessive with oc that one time. BUT!!! he lurvs oc sm and can’t say no to her. jk may have cried at the end this time 🙂‍↕️☝🏼

- nosferatu SCAREDDDDD oc. she could not get the image of the tongue scene out … meanwhile jk was having a full on discourse about the movie otw back home. (incoming nsfw) it’s only when they were having sexy time that night and oc was riding jk, him being the imitation king he is, does the infamous breathy “you must bounce on it……” (pls tell me you’ve heard that sound on tiktok LMFAO) that makes her cackle and forget about how scary the movie was. and well yes, she indeed bounced on it. 😌

never apologize, my sweets!!! i live for this 🥰 i miss them every day and more — i’ve missed YOU!

[osatokun]

Is Charlie a gangrel or malkavian? I've seen him tagged as both on here and elsewhere.

Or is he a malk with protein out of clan discipline?l

Ps. I love your art style.

Im living for the art of Colin Turner the nos and that Jeff? The cat/fairy changeling chimera (it's like a mix or cat sith, cat from Coraline, and Cheshire from Alice madness returns to me).

He is a malkavian, who learned protean when he figured he'll going to travel a lot with his new found love and sometimes he won't have place to hide from the sun. His friend Veronica told him a lot about protean and uses of 3rd dot so he figured he need that He also learned animalism from his nosferatu teacher Rene, I even drew this moment

Colin is a wonderful nos indeed! Very sweet, very geeky And yes Jeff is a true wonder, my beloved son <3 I took inspiration from descriptions of matagoth and cat sidhe was a great inspo too! He also speaks human language which makes him even more fun Thank you <3 <3

[bbcumbercutey]

Yes agreed, even the supposed "parallels between Ellen/Orlok in “Nosferatu” (2024) and Lucy/Dracula in “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” (1992)." being in actuality parallels between Orlok and Ellen (the invisible shadow hand moving in the shadows making Lucy writhe is no Coppola invention, it's straight up from Murnau).

But overall yes about people not liking the ending's framing having nothing to do with "you people just don't understand the genius of Eggers basing Ellen on the Sexually Expressive Lucy." I don't think killing the housewife Anna really "subverts" anything either, you have good mothers eaten by wolves in the novel.

I believe Eggers did parallels and homages to Murnau’s, Herzog’s and Coppola’s movies as well as to other movies, including non-vampire movies indeed. Ellen in the garden with Orlok is a parallel to Lucy in the garden/maze with Dracula scene from 1992 movie for example. But the main issue here is that bringing up these visual parallels are not working for 2024 Ellen’s case as some sort of supporting argument for her character or as something that could help with reaction to remake. Because bringing up these parallels inevitably reminds us that Lucy in 1992 movie had a different place and role in the story of the movie. She isn’t main female character, she’s not main focus of vampire’s attachment and obsession, she dies but rises up as vampire, she’s the first recruit to vampirism for Dracula in England, she doesn’t wake up Dracula, she doesn’t have such big special powers, she only sleepwalks. Meanwhile Ellen 2024 is main female character, main focus of vampire’s attachment and obsession, she literally woke him up with her special powers she was born with…and what does she get from the story of her movie which is about her and her very special powers? According to OP who started the whole discussion, she is getting punished for her sexuality by death . 😐 So she’s getting not more than, and arguably even less than Lucy (a supporting character, with no special powers from birth, and who became a full vampire) in 1992 movie? Because at least in 1992 movie entire plot was different and you could see that if Lucy stayed as vampire and Mina would have been converted to vampire as well, Lucy as vampire bestie would be hanging out with her forever and ever. Or vampire Lucy could have gone after her three himbos, who were all over her in that movie. Dark, but like there were options. At least? There’s lack of options in the remake. There was no endgame for Ellen in the form of vampirism in remake. Orlok was not going to make a vampire out of her. He only kept going on and on about tasting her and about flesh on flesh action. No other options. No other goals. Dead end. That’s why I don’t see why trying to interpret remake Ellen as Lucy from the novel or find parallels with Lucy from other movies supposedly could somehow help or solve anything? 2024 Ellen is not Lucy from the novel, but she’s also not Lucy from 1992 movie or any other Dracula movie. Like I’m pretty sure the issues and problems some people have with this remake, that spurred the discussion, are not about categorising Ellen, but because people consciously or subconsciously dislike that punished for sexuality by death addition for main female character and other things related to it.

Killing Anna doesn’t subvert anything. In Murnau’s 1922 Nosferatu Harding had a sister Ruth who was nice and cared for Ellen and she still died because of vampire. Then Herzog remade it in 1979 Harding also had….I don’t remember if she was also his sister in this or his wife already …. and she was also nice and she helped to care for Ellen too, and she still died because of vampire. They did nothing wrong or even remotely sexy or risky in those movies, and they still died. Eggers simply repeats here what Murnau and Herzog both did, killing off Harding woman first, only he expanded his Anna’s role more and gave her children. But maybe such takes about Anna getting killed off as some “subversion” of the novel, of all things, because Anna’s a good housewife and still dies, are unfortunate consequences of this “sexuality punished by death” subversion take in the remake. Some people probably try to view everything in the remake now through such lenses and find more subversion in every corner. People didn’t think it was some subversion of anything with Murnau and Herzog, when perfectly good Harding women were killed off by vampire in their Nosferatu movies.🤷🏼‍♀️

[lafayettenossie]

Previously...

Mid-August, 2024. Night. Deputy Coroner's Office. NOLA. LA.

My Childe handed me a bag of blood from the refrigerator she kept in her small office attached to the morgue at the Institute of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology.

-"Here, I know you're not crazy about it but this way you can heal that ugly bump…"- she said, pointing to the small trail of dried blood at the base of my skull, where the reanimated corpse had hit me by surprise.

I accepted it and began to drink from it, using my fangs to open a couple of holes and begin to suck the tasteless and cold blood from inside.

-"Why didn't you use the revolver? The one you always carry in your purse… You had it in your hand when that thing attacked you!"- Joey asked me with his usual perceptiveness. The damn woman was very perceptive! Had she mistaken her vocation and should have stayed in contact with the living instead of the dead?

-"Because it wasn't loaded… that's why I didn't use it. Besides, it's quite old, it's almost a collector's item…"- I answered her while checking if the revolver was in perfect condition inside my bag.

Jacques' revolver.

Joey clicked her tongue. She knew when I was avoiding a topic of conversation. -"Let's see, Malu…"- she started to tell me.

-"NEVER CALL ME THAT!"- I cut her off, raising my voice and momentarily losing control over my appearance. She was already used to seeing me as the rotting corpse that I really was thanks to the curse that we, the Samedi bloodline, had to suffer, despite the fact that lately we could pass for mortal beings more easily thanks to being part of the Hecata clan. -"I don't like it…"- I said, calmer now, realizing that I had gone a bit too far with my answer.

-"Ok, sorry, boss…"- she continued after taking a sip of her blood bag. -"That revolver is a 'fetter', isn't it?"

My face at that moment must have been a poem. I knew it! -"Yes, indeed. It is…"-

-"Someone important to you? A relative? An old friend from school? An ex?"- She was trying to get me to tell her something about my past and my personal life, how daring she was! Maybe that's why I Embraced her…

-"My twin brother. Jacques. it was his. It was a gift from our father when he joined the city's police force in the second half of the 1910s…"- I said, showing her an old picture of him, without really knowing why.

A photo of Jacques Francis Lafayette, taken before his death in 1935...

-"Oh. Wow… That's very personal, no doubt. I understand that it's one of his 'fetters'. It would certainly have saved his life on some occasion, wouldn't it?"- she asked me trying not to get angry.

-"Yes… It was his favorite weapon. He had it on him when… when… when I killed him…"- I said while making a superhuman effort not to let bloody tears fall from my green eyes, the same ones he had in life.

-"Oh… I'm sorry… I didn't mean to…"- Now Joey looked worried and embarrassed.

Joey "Laveau" Archer, worried about her Sire.

I shook my head. -"He asked me to. I couldn't leave him there like that�� He would never have survived. He wasn't as strong as me or our older brother or our damn father. He was like Mother… I killed my twin brother in a Louisiana swamp in 1935, after first piercing his chest with a piece of wood to paralyze him and shooting him in the head with six .45 bullets. He had been Embraced by a cult of Nosferatu voodoo witches who fed a Torporish Elder under the swamp waters with the vitae of members of their cult. I burned the whole place down before leaving with the gun I killed him with for good…"- Finally a bloody tear fell from my right eye. I quickly wiped it away with the back of my hand.

-"It must have been hard…"- she said as she grabbed my left hand, squeezing it with her own. Her dark caramel-colored fingers felt like insects on my skin at that moment.

-"Yes… but I asked Mamam Brigitte for a favor…"- I added, staring into her dark eyes.

-"Oh, by Bondye, what did you ask her for?!"- From the look of horror on her face, I think she was imagining it.

-"Him. Jacques. Out of the Shadowlands and forever with me, by my side…"- And I showed her the firearm. -"He's in here. Forever."- I wasn't going to let anyone hurt him in there or use him as a tool.

Marie Louise Lafayette did a horrible asking to Mamam Brigitte...

He was the only person I had ever truly loved…

To be continued...

[schmergo]

I’m so glad Dracula Daily is a thing because when I was in college, I had an absolute BLAST reading Dracula for my Gothic & Sentimental Literature class and the whole class experience felt a lot like this. For our final project for that class, we could either write a traditional paper OR do a “creative response.” I ended up writing a whole Weird Al-style parody musical about Dracula in which each song is a spoof of a song from a real musical. It was definitely my favorite college assignment I did. 

When I submitted it, my professor sent me an email with the subject matter “I take it back,” and wrote, “ In this case, I DO give A plusses.  Megan, I would have given  you an A for the "Dracula" song you performed in class. But you wrote a WHOLE F'ING OPERA! “ 

This is the track listing for anyone who’s interested (perhaps mild spoilers):

1. JOURNEY ON (Parody of the song of the same name from Ragtime): Jonathan, Dracula, Mina

2. THOUSANDS OF BUGS (Parody of “Seasons of Love” from Rent): Renfield

3. MY EYES ARE FULLY OPENED (Parody of song from Gilbert & Sullivan’s Ruddigore/ Sometimes Pirates of Penzance): Dracula, Jonathan, Renfield

4. DRACULA! (Parody of “Popular” from Wicked): Dracula

5. BUT VAN HELSING (Parody of “But Mr. Adams” from 1776), Van Helsing, Arthur, Seward, Lucy, Quincey 

6. GOOD EVENING, DRACULA! (Parody of “Good Morning Baltimore” from Hairspray): Lucy 

7. KEEPING DEATH AT BAY (Parody of “Colors of the Wind” from Pocahontas): Van Helsing

8. IT TAKES SIX (Parody of “It Takes Two” from Into the Woods): Jonathan, Mina, Van Helsing, Seward, Arthur, Quincey

9. KILL ME! (Parody of “Show Me” from My Fair Lady): Mina 

10. ONE STAKE MORE (Parody of “One Day More” from Les Miserables): Entire company 

11. DON’T CRY FOR ME MIDNIGHT’S CHILDREN (Parody of “Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina” from Evita): Dracula 

And, if you want to read Dracula’s big villain song, here it is:

(To the tune of “Popular”)

Dracula:

Whenever I see someone less powerful than I

And—let’s face it—who isn’t

Less powerful than I? Their mortal blood tends to start to spill.

So I’m giving you a makeover

Lie back and let me take over

Before I go in for the kill.

For even in your case

A girl so sweet and pure, demure and chaste

I’ll sway you, with each gallon that you bleed

On which I feed

Then, yes, indeed

You will join...

 Dracula! The dreadful Count Dracula!

You’ll glide without making noise

Kidnap little boys

In the shadows, swoop and pounce! Oh!

I’ll put you into a trance

So you’ll stand no chance

Drain you down to your last ounce

Cause I’m Dracula…

The horrid Count Dracula

You’ll hang out inside a crypt

Sticking to my script

From centuries ago

Now I’m here, so darkness will fall and blood will flow.

 I’m not afraid of sun or running water

I think of them as speedbumps on my road to slaughter

And garlic blossoms can’t protect your daughter

Your rear-view mirror

Does no good, I fear, for

It can’t reflect Count Dracula, immortal Count Dracula

Immortal’s just what you’ll be

When you stand by me

So say goodbye to who you are—ta-ta!

There’s no escape, I’ll track you

You can’t hide from Dracular… la…

MWAAAAHAAAAA HAAAAAHAHAHAA

You’re gonna be like Dracula!

 Being ancient hell-spawned creatures

Comes with several special features

Strength, shape-shifting, immortality, to name three.

Celebrated heads of state

Quite soon will be decapitated

Your scientific knowledge

Cannot stop me.

 Cause I’m Dracula! Please! You don’t mess with Dracula

If I see you wield a stake

Oh boy, big mistake

And next time you wake, you’ll be

A vampire slave for all eternity!

 And though you protest

Just like all the rest

You’ll be possessed by me

My dear, once I have got you

You’ll be all Nosferatu-y!

Mwaaaaahaaaa, haaaa-haaha—

Like Count Dracula

Just not half as fabulous as me!

[fallen--leafs]

//Don't mind me just gonna drop this here for those finding out now that Declan ran away-

TW for suicidal ideation and long post and it's not very interesting probably if you don't care about Declan but

And it's not very polished but

Where he is & why. uwu

The train rattles by, breaks screeching as it decelerates onto the platform. They wouldn't see him. Declan sat in the door to an emergency exit, hood up, back towards the oncoming trains. If someone looked out the back, sure. Maybe. But why would you.

This was calm. Space to think. The trains didn't know a language, they hissed past uncaring wherever you went. It was a comfort. If he stopped thinking for a sec, he could pretend nothing had changed. He was just waiting for Kyle to finish a piece. Figure out the train patterns, when it was safe to spray for a bit. When they could get back to the platform.

His name. The Hunter had found that so easily… they had really put in the work. Media presence, reward money… though all of them knew they weren't looking for him. They wanted what he might become. When this rebellious streak ends…

Maybe it was better this way. He could stay in the underground, avoid the sun... But the sleep. That stasis. Could he avoid that?? What if someone found him? What if he fell? Would he notice if he died in his sleep?

Maybe it was better. Less trouble for the hunter, for Mczyne... Nero had been nice. Though, he probably didn't want this either. Maybe he would crash, someone would find him, call an ambulance, bring him out.....

Into the sun.

Hm.

How bad could it be? Couldn't take long, could it?

... And give them the satisfaction?

He thought about them. About Kitty, the Nosferatu, that one hunter... Others, unnamed, who in a fleeting thought already condemned him to death. Just another fledgling. He started fidgeting with his phone. Stares as the lockscreen lights up. Unlocks it. Reads the words he had seen so many times that night.

"Beloved son" "tragic disappearance" "still looking-"

Media coverage had died down after 3 months. Heartwarming boulevard articles came out in the weeks to follow, then those too died down. Last year in summer, when most news took a break, some papers had checked back in with his parents, confirmed that yes, the reward was indeed still offered. Then that reporting had ended too.

Two years.

He stared at his phone. All the expired apps, everything screaming for an update… it should have been a hint. But there had been so much going on… he should be more shocked. Should be curious about anything. How the past two years of SportsBall had gone. What developments there has been in cars, in technology… if his favourite celebrities were still alive. But he didn't feel anything. The two years rang hollow- felt fake.

Two years.

It wasn't that much time! What's two years. It's turning from 20 to 22. It's studying, probably- or more likely, trade school. Or prison. Or, most likely, living on their parents pocket. But who knows. Did they care, when he went missing? Beyond anger that they would be suspect? It was hard to say. They never talked about their feelings, and fundamentally, each of them was replaceable.

Two years.

He opened Facebook. Update your app! WiFi necessary! This phone does not support iOS3675. Goddamned planned obsolescence.

Two. Years.

He had lost that time. What happened?? With the help of news coverage, the memories had come back… the night had been uneventful. Meet up, train across the city, hang out… see what trouble finds them. But none did. They got some shoplifting in, toying with expensive designer bags in the alleyways behind their stores. They had gotten away with it just fine - enough time had passed that this store clerk wouldn't come after them. They were feeling safe. And then…

He woke up in Paris. And this marathon of a night began.

What. Happened.

He wasn't ready to let it go. Clan life be damned- he didn't need them. Paris was a big city, he could stay hidden; he had experience with that. Blend in with the street rats although you're not part of them. That couldn't have gotten harder with superpowers, right? And maybe he could find the source… Or, hanging out with the "target audience", he would just get reeled in again.

A glance at his phone. 15%. Hardly a leg to stand on, and no news from the vampires. Maybe he could just run. Maybe the care those here had developed would keep them from snitching. And beyond that… his life or death would be nobody's problem but his own.

But then that fire flared up again. That anger, and stubbornness. Was that the Beast? It didn't feel like a separate creature… or a new one. But it brought anger. They wouldn't be correct. He wouldn't be one on a list of fledglings that didn't make it. They didn't earn that.

If they want him dead they have to kill him themselves.

[thequeenofthenightgentlyweeps]

The Bucci Gang As Supernatural Beings

*So, I was chatting with @mrsgiovanna about this lovely art ( please, check out the artist and consider giving them a follow! They're insanely good! ), and I came up with these new HCs about the Bucci Gang as paranormal / supernatural beings ( she also helped me with Fugo and Mista ). We hope you like them! ❤❤❤👻👻👻

*WARNING: Mentions of blood, death, violence, and sexual topics

***

Giorno Giovanna

*Giorno is a Vampire!

~ He's not the creepy, kill all humans, kind of Vampire, no. And no, he's not the sparkly type, either! He's just a lonely, centuries - old Vampire ( he is four hundred years old ) who lives at an old, secluded villa in Italy and spends his eternity there blaming himself for being such a vile creature, and most probably for killing innocent people just to feed himself. Occassionally plays piano, too.

~ He's so beautiful! His skin, pale. His eyes, deep red, like the color of blood. His honeyed baritone voice, so hypnotic. His scent, so alluring,... everything about him is made to lure you in! And that's exactly why he thinks he's a monster! A predator who doesn't deserve to live.

~ The only thing he could remember about his mortal life? Someone had turned him into this! He's not always this monster who hides beneath the shell of a beautiful earthly vessel, no! He had a life. He was a Don once, and he was about to be married to his beautiful fianceé. However, he was attacked by something on the night before his wedding. Then, the next day, he wakes up as a newborn Vampire. He couldn't remember anything else. He has searched for that monster for centuries but, he had no such luck.

~ Poor thing has convinced himself over and over that he's a villain, a fiend that must be destroyed. Of course, he has tried ending his own life, he even sunbathed, but nothing seems to work! ( Contrary to some beliefs, the Vampire, like any night creature, can move about by day. Though it is not its natural time, and its powers are weak. Quote directly taken from Van Helsing's phonograph entry about Prince Vlad Of Sagite, circa 1897 ) So, he went out in search of something, anything, that could put him to eternal rest, and that's when he found this powerful group called, Passione. It is rumored to have powerful members with supernatural abilities. That's it! Maybe Passione is the solution to his problem! However, Giorno found out that Passione, indeed, is a group of powerful members with supernatural abilities! Why, it is inhabited by creatures of the night, just like him! What would happen to Giorno now? Would he fight them? Befriend them? Or would they be the key to him finding the enemy behind his curse?!

Bruno Bucciarati

*Bruno is an Incubus!

~ This taste,... is the taste of a Nosferatu, Giorno Giovanna! Oh, you could bet Vampire Giorno and Incubus Bucciarati's first meeting is not a good one. Being born a Demon, an Incubus, to be exact, Bruno Bucciarati feeds on mortals' sexual desires. It gives him sustainance, and keeps him strong. Although he can go a few months without it ( the longest he survived without a meal is three months ), he would never deny fresh meat when one so closely wanders about the vicinity. And, oh boy, he's ridiculously strong! Unlike Vampires, he doesn't need to kill his victims. Needless to say, Giorno, who hasn't fed in a while, has a hard time fighting him.

~ Just like the rest of his kin, Bucciarati's physical body appears so unearthly beautiful to his victims. Yes, everything about him is perfect, and he could bring any mortal to their feet with his bidding. However, the same couldn't be said about his true appearance. Let's just say you wouldn't want to see Bucciarati unveiling his true form right in front of you. You might just wish you were dead than see him in all his demonic ugliness.

~ Although he takes everything when hunger truly strikes, Bucciarati actually has a preference - he adores innocent virgins. Their scent just drives him wild. He would relentlessly stalk his victim and find out everything he can about them. When he gets to know them, he would slowly come to their life, entangling and attaching himself to them like a lover pining for their affection. And when they're finally ensnared by his charm and beauty, his trap would set off. Next thing they know, they are being fed on with no hope of ever escaping.

~ If there's one thing he hates - then those are Vampires. Giorno is a Vampire, so he initially hated him. Yes, they fought, but, eventually, he found out that Giorno doesn't have an insidious intention. He only ever wanted to be free from his own curse. He found out Giorno is very different compared to his barbaric kin who knew nothing else but to slaughter. What would Bucciarati do in this situation? A Vampire, declaring his allegiance to his mortal enemy?

Guido Mista

*Mista is a Summoner!

~ After fixing things with each other, Bucciarati introduced Giorno to his team. And that's when he first met Guido Mista, an ancient Summoner. Now, he can't summon Unicorns, or Dragons, or any mythical beings like that, no. They are way beyond his power and comprehension. What he does summon are Imps, evil little critters that could ruin anyone's life. One could even say these Imps are the cause of half of Naples' death rate.

~ His Imps, which he dotingly calls, Sex Pistols, are very small and mischievous. And they cause Mista enough problems to last a lifetime. They may be small, but they are relentless when they are pursuing their target. First, they'll follow you to your home. Then, they'll purposefully steal your belongings, like your keys, your cellphone, or your wallet, and make it look as if you only misplaced them. Then, they'll start hurting your pets, your children, your loved ones. You would think you are cursed, until you're driven into madness. And that's when they'll deal the final blow.

~ Now, Mista wasn't always the Summoner we know now. He was just a regular mortal back then, living the best life, eating cheese with red wine, flirting with girls, occassionally getting into trouble. However, an incident involving a girl who was being assaulted by a corrupt Lord truly awakened his summoning powers. He wished for power, any kind, that would let him save the girl. The Imps answered to him, and the rest is history.

~ At first, Mista finds Giorno so suspicious. A Vampire who refuses to kill humans? That's funnier than Nosferatu hitting his head on a chandelier when he rises from his coffin! However, this Nosferatu is different. He's only looking for a way to break out of his curse, or die trying. Pssh, so dramatic. He's actually really kind, though! A great chap. However, he looks so familiar, like he's seen him somewhere before,... Maybe Fugo the Witch Doctor knows something that could help this Giorno guy,...

Pannacotta Fugo

*Fugo is a Witch Doctor!

~ And so, Mista leads Giorno to another room in the building. Mista opens the door, and immediately, strong scents began assaulting their nostrils. Followed by an angry voice. "MISTA, DIDN'T I TELL YOU TO KNOCK FIRST?!" This is none other than the resident Apothecarist and Witch Doctor, Pannacotta Fugo. Now, Fugo is normally a mild - mannered man. Normally. During times like this when his privacy gets compromised, he explodes like a bomb and yells at people. Not only because he doesn't want to be disturbed. The concoctions he's brewing are simply too dangerous to anyone who would sniff them, even to himself. So, he wears a special kind of mask to protect himself. But, then, Giorno is a Vampire. He may find the scent of Fugo's potions a bit foul but, other than that, he is unaffected. Naturally, Fugo's curiosity and interest was piqued at their first meeting.

~ Being the intelligent and curious man that he is, Fugo has been making brews and concoctions for the last 100 years. Potions that could kill, potions that could bring luck, both good and bad, potions that could heal all types of sickness, potions that could make anyone fall in love. It was also his knack for mixing different things out of curiosity that led him to his creation of the ultimate concoction - The Elixir Of Immortality, which he accidentally ingested, giving him an unnaturally long life. Fugo wasn't able to replicate the Elixir ever since, no matter how hard he tried.

~ It was also said that Fugo's concoctions were well - known in Naple's Black Market. Many come to him to ask for a special brew but, his creations aren't cheap. "My creations are not for the vulnerable and the faint of heart. Should you proceed with this decision to acquire one, you must be prepared to pay a handsome fee." That being said, Fugo is one of the wealthiest Passione members, next to Bucciarati and Abbacchio.

~ And speaking of the latter devil,... "Huh? I do not know what you're saying. A Vampire who lived more than 400 centuries ago? You must ask Abbacchio. He's older than 400. Maybe he knows something about the monster you are searching for."

Leone Abbacchio

*Abbacchio is a Wish - Granting Demon!

~ Now, don't call him a Genie! He is a far cry from that! Yes, Abbacchio can make all your dreams come true! Fame, fortune, a lover, ANYTHING. However, these wishes come with a price. Your soul, that is. An eldritch ( and very grumpy ) Demon who also hides in the guise of a beautiful mortal skin just like Bucciarati, Abbacchio has lived for a millennia, and over those years he is active, he has acquired more souls than you could ever imagine. Souls of Anne Boleyn, Marie Antoinette, Nostradamus, Niccolò Paganini, and many more. All of these souls made a contract with him for a wish, and when he finally fulfilled them, he immediately orchestrates their death, so it would seem as if they were able to enjoy what they obtained from him. Only to find out a month or two later that they would be doomed to serve him for all eternity.

~ He is also the oldest member of Passione, and because of this, other lesser members fear him, except for Bucciarati, of course, who is also a Demon, like him, although a different kind. He also only obeys Bucciarati's orders and nobody else's. Seldomly, that is. Most of the time, he just keeps to himself. He is a cold - hearted monster who only cares about feeding on mortals' souls who are stupid enough to make a contract with a Demon such as him.

~ However, just like Mista, Abbacchio was once a mortal. Legend says he was a Knight who served this long lost Kingdom in Europe where Italy now stood. One night, his King was betrayed, and his partner was brutally murdered. He was captured by the neighboring rival Kingdom and was almost tortured to death. It was then that he abandoned his faith in God and turned into a Demon. He was able to kill all his enemies but, he was cursed to walk the earth for all eternity.

~ And, oh man, he hates Giorno the moment he sees him. Nonetheless, he answers his question. "A Vampire who lived more than 400 years ago,... You must be referring to Dio Brando." He says. Dio Brando?! That's the name of the person who killed Giorno's father, Jonathan Joestar! Dio,... is a Vampire?! "Do not get too cocky, you snievelling brat! Dio Brando is still at large and is currently making a huge army of Zombies to conquer the mortal world. I do not care about the destruction of the human realm, or your damned lineage,... "

Narancia Ghirga

*Narancia is a Poltergeist!

~ "Snivelling brat? Do I look like a snivelling brat to you, huh?!" Says the resident Poltergeist, Narancia Ghirga, who just went through a wall from his own room. Narancia, the ghost of a teenager who died of drowning a hundred years ago, is a very sensitive Ghost who gets easily offended at the word, brat. Maybe it was only his guilt that made him sensitive to the word. After all, his father used to call him that when he was still alive. It's what made him run away from home. A storm passed, and a day later, his lifeless body was found adrift on the Bay of Naples. It was said that the spirit of the mischievous child never left the place.

~ Indeed, he hasn't. Bucciarati adopted this lonely ghost and ever since then, he has become a member of Passione. At first, he was only given the task to scare away anyone who would dare to get close to their secret hideout but, as his powers grew over time, he was given more difficult jobs, like possessing mortals to do bad things or kill others, making furniture and ouija board planchettes move, and playing pranks on innocent people. You might say it's only Narancia's way of having fun but, he is a Poltergeist, after all. Everything he does is like a game to him. A game where only he could win.

~ Narancia is always seen around places with lots of sweets. It was said that he adores snacks and treats when he was still alive, and his favorite holiday is, of course, Halloween. It's where he could truly mingle with the living and play endless pranks without his true nature getting revealed. His ghostly appearance always wins over adults. They find him cute so they give him lots of treats. He brings home his huge stash later on to eat them but, alas, he can't. So he just displays the treats he collected in his room. He's been doing it for many years. Aha, so that's where the rotten smell is coming from. Giorno could smell it from a distance.

~ Narancia is never lonely, though. He and Mista are very close. And he takes a liking to Giorno almost immediately. "Ah, but it must be so nice to live forever with your flesh still attached to your soul. Know what I'm saying?" Narancia says when they leave Abbacchio's room. And that's when they hear a terrible noise coming from the next room. A noise that almost sounded like,... wailing?

Trish Una

*Trish is a Banshee!

~ "Hear me! Hear me! An insurmountable force is heading this way! A fiend with an army to do his bidding,... He is coming! The man you are searching for, Giorno Giovanna! DIO IS COMING,... TO END PASSIONE!" Wails the Banshee named Trish. Now, Trish may be docile at times but, she suddenly bursts out like this to foretell the immediate future, which always happens. She does this on a weekly basis, and ruins the appetite of anyone unlucky enough to listen to her during mealtimes. Trivial things like earthquakes, flooding, the death of a politician, a broken teacup, or a missing pet. Trish would wail about it in all her Banshee glory and shatter everyone's eardrums with it. Thank goodness, she lives with monsters with unbreakable eardrums. The neighbors, though,...

~ Normally, Trish has a very pleasant voice. She actually sings for this recording studio and is considered somewhat of a Pop Star in Italy. However, her nature has prevented her from going into her concerts and doing interviews, live or otherwise. That is why her true identity remains a secret, and only her voice and stage name are known by her fans. She is very fashionable, though, and pretty ( the team thinks it's her own way of making it up for her Bansheeness ).

~ She has been a member of Passione since she was a baby. One day, Bucciarati was about to buy groceries when he opened the door and almost stepped on her. She was abandoned by her parents and he found out the reason why when he brought her in. Why, she started wailing like nobody's business and almost gave Narancia a second death! Nevertheless, he took care of her like a real parent, and Trish grew up believing that Passione is her only family. That is, until she found out the identity of her true parents. One of them, a mysterious man by the name of Diavolo,... But, that is a story for another day. "Huh? Did I just say something?" And yes, Trish immediately forgets what she's just predicted as a Banshee and turns back into her docile self.

***

"Dio, personally coming to end Passione?!" Bucciarati questions upon hearing Trish's prediction. "But, why? We have been in the dark for too long. We never mingle with the affairs of the Vampires!"

"Yeah! Why do we suddenly have to fight that sadistic Vampire?!" Mista, who puts his hand on his head, complains.

"Passione controls all of Italy." Fugo muses. "If Dio destroys us, there would be nothing left to stand between him and the mortals. Italy, no, the entire European continent would be his for the taking!"

"This is your fault, Giorno Giovanna!" Abbacchio growls and grabs Giorno's collar. "If you didn't come here, then this would not have happenned!"

"Maybe it's destiny that led Giorno here." Trish says. "After all this time, he would finally be facing the monster who gave him the curse of Vampirism."

"Then, let him come." Declares Giorno through gritted teeth as he effortlessly swats Abbacchio's hands off him. "I'll be prepared for him. I'll put an end to his tyranny, and destroy the curse that's coursing through my immortal flesh!"

"But, if you destroy your curse, you'll be destroyed, too." Narancia lethargically points out, and he's right.

But, Giorno doesn't care. All he cares about is finally putting an end to his cursed bloodline.

Bucciarati sees Giorno's resolve and puts a reasurring hand on his shoulder. "With you here, things have began to move. Maybe it truly is Passione's destiny to end Dio's reign. I'll help you in your cause to destroy him!"

"Count me in!" Mista says, summoning his Imps. "It'll be problematic if we run out of mortals to bully."

"I can't die again, so I'm in!" Narancia raises his hand. "And he can't have all the candy here!"

"I can predict his movements. I'll help you." Trish offers.

"W - whatever! This is too reckless!" Cries Fugo, retreats back to his room, and shuts the door.

"I don't take orders from you, Bucciarati." Abbacchio points out. "A Demon doesn't. I only take orders from one thing, and that is my own demonic flesh. However, it is only through my own kin that I would truly find rest, and that is with you, Bucciarati. So, I'll help. Do not get cocky, Giorno! I'm not following you!"

And so, Passione has began preparing for Dio's attack, with Giorno and Bucciarati as the leaders,...

Here! Have the Monster Mash theme to set the monster mood 👻👻👻❤❤❤

[big-fang-andrei]

May i be so bold as to ask your opinions on the other clans, my lord? Also, your opinions on diablerie

My, that is quite the bold question indeed. But I have an even bolder answer. I’ll tell you what I think of the other clans but also of the other denizens of the night. So pull up your chair and open a new tab to drivethrurpg(I WISH THIS WAS A PAID PROMOTION), as uncle Andrei tells you of the World of Stank-Piss!

Assamites/Banu Haqim: they claim to be our judges yet they lack any form of self control when a drop of vitae hits the floor. It’s true, I’ve blood bonded several with this method.

Brujah: I’ve seen maggots in cum socks lead better revolutions than them. If I wanted to see a bunch idiots yell about their ideas on how to fix the government I’d go to twitter, thank you very much.

Followers of Set/The Ministry: Claim to be masters of darkness yet a night light scares the shit out of them.

Gangrel: Nomadic cowards that spend more time making stories for their OC’s than anything. I find it humorous when one tries to make peace with a lupine only to get torn into thirds.

Giovanni/Hecata: They fuck their sisters, dude.

Lasombra: Ah yes, our brothers in the Sword of Caine. While I do appreciate they’re bravery in the Anarch revolt I do not enjoy their constant reading of the scripture. And dear Caine, they’re so annoying with their dreadful sea shanties.

Malkavian: I once had to share an apartment with one during the 70’s. Malkavians by themselves are a constant overflowing dam with small cracks gushing forth the most insane and obtuse thoughts one shouldn’t be able to imagine. Couple that with his herd of never sober hippies and a philosophy class and that my childe is a recipe for becoming a quiet pair of pants.

Nosferatu: Many assume I despise the Sewer rats for aiding the camarilla, but if anything I pity them. They think they’re so clever hiding behind the skirt of the Ivory Tower when they know we’re the only ones that can help. Run little sewer rats, run all you want from the scary Nictuku, but the ivory tower will crumble long after the last of Absmilliard’s childer wipes the blood from her lips. What? Jealous? Why would I be jealous of their looks… WE work hard to look like this, those bastards get embraced and stay like that cursing over their beauty as if it were a curse. Ungrateful fucks...

Ravnos: I haven’t seen one since my trip to Vegas. Tricksters, liars but I gotta admit good dancers. In fact I haven’t seen much of any in a while. All of ours ended up diablerizing and slaughtering each other a while ago but that’s just another Tuesday around here.

Toreador: Silly, silly children the whole clan. They bore me with their constant slobbering of human art and sobbing of their humanity! It drives a motherfucker INSANE!

Tremere: If I could still shit I’d turn them into toilet paper. ‘Nuff said.

Ventrue: you spend your formative years sucking the dick of a king hard enough until he gives you some armor and a dull blade now you think living in massive sky scrapper with solid gold socks can make up for being a spineless tryhard.

Kuei-Jin: I’d tell you but I don’t want to get cancelled again.

Werewolves: If the Gangrels are the furrys that post their art and ask you to leave positive comments only, than lupines are the maniacs that eat roadkill off the street butt naked at night.

Mages: pah, charlatans with parlor tricks that tell you the secret of magic is to “believe in yourself”. What hog wash, real magic comes from that old gnarled up bastard Koldun.

Ghosts: I rarely have failed experiments but in some even rarer occasions, they result in a phantom. Sure it’s startling at first waking up and seeing something had broken all your windows, flooding your room with sunlight and the occasional threatening words drawing in blood on your living room, clashing with your own blood art. But all you have to do is call in a Nagaraja and those bastards eat ghosts like Papa Andrei eats blood ice cream.

Faeries: I tried to turn a kid into a bike chain once, until he pointed at me with the stick he held, declared it a hammer and smashed my watermelon sized testicles with the force of one. Not one of my finer moments.

Hunters: The Society of Leopold or the Second Inquisition are just as reckless, poorly organized and limp dicked as the Camarilla… but a month or so ago as I was buying some batteries for my custom all flesh furby, when a person behind me claimed to see past my disguise and tried to beat me to death with a flaming fortnite action figure before I twisted him like sausages. Funny thing was I wasn’t wearing a disguise. Hell that was a nude Tuesday for me, but whatever that “thing” was that it certainly piqued my interest.

Mummies: I had a mummy friend during the French Revolution, made me play salty cracker all the time. Not all dusty, covered in bandages or Tom cruise looking like in the movies but they seem ok, naive even. Still trying to save humanity by helping some crummy god.

Demons: In my short time in Mexico I’ve witnessed more things one could experience in two weeks than one could in a life time. A vampire lupine, a toreador glutton fat from vitae, vampires not of Caine or Kuei-Jin origin and a bootleg vhs of regreso al futuro. But in the Tremere Antitribu chantry, Universidad del Tercer Circulo de la Serpiente Dorada, I saw Goratrix preform an unholy ritual with the blood of a virgin and said bootleg vhs, unleashing a fallen Angel chained to the deepest bowels of hell that the Lasombra claim to be their domain. The devil looked upon us and cursed we childer of caine before Goratrix in his pansy Tremere nature banished the fiend back to the abyss. I fear no demon, but the Tremere are superstitious suckers. I left the country the next few days to return back to LA thinking nothing of my encounter until a week later I had heard something happened to the Tremere of the Sabbat. All members simply bursted into ash one night. If that isn’t a sign of Gehenna, then I don’t know what is. Orpheus: Who?

[immortalonus]

Where You Belong: Chapter 3

A/N: I hate this chapter so, so much. Unfortunately, I also couldn't find any way around it. If I got anything wrong, chances are I just missed it, so feel free to let me know.

Read on AO3 here.

“...Humans with ghost powers!? Crazy, right?” Valerie snorted, then paused.

“Or humans that turn into ghosts, or ghosts that—stay human when they die or whatever. The important thing is that there was a part of Ellie that was real. And if it hadn't been for Phantom, I'd have just left her there with Plasmius, to do whatever—to hurt—to—”

Valerie took a moment, struggling to admit out loud what she had already begun suspect for herself.

“—kill her. he was gonna murder a little girl, mama, and if Phantom hadn't convinced me she still had some human in her, if I hadn't listened to a ghost, I woulda let him.”

Phantom, if she hadn't listened to Phantom, specifically. It was a detail that still irritated her every time it came up.

The ghost boy had been so persistent, for so long in his charade of being a “good guy,” that most days, she simply tuned him out.

And truly, was that so wrong?

Up to that point, Everything Phantom had said in his own defense had been nothing more than talk. Oh, he said sorry, he said he felt bad about it, but at the end of the day, what had he done?

Ruined her fathers job and her life, then fled the scene like the criminal he was.

Stole for the hell of it and couldn't even be bothered to take the blame when he got caught.

(Valerie still had no idea why the ghost thought an “evil mind controlling clown guy,” was a reasonable excuse, at all, for anything.)

Who was always ready to fight, but never to help.

Never, not once, in all the wretched aftermath of the Grey's financial dissolutionment, had Phantom come to their aid. Not in the immediate events that came after, nor during the process of her father's dismissal, when he could well have stayed his expulsion simply by appearing, proving Damian Grey's assertions of spectral interference months before he would have been otherwise believed.

Not during the move from her childhood home to her current residence down in Elmerton. Too strapped to hire assistance, it had been down to Valerie, her father, and Fenton, who had taken his weekend off to help her move instead.

No haunting the creditors who dogged their every step, even now.

Hell, he couldn't even be bothered to tell the public that it was his fault her life was ruined! In private, yes, where he knew no one could hear. But never where it mattered, to whom it mattered, since that would require Phantom to actually give something up for once and admit what he did was wrong. Which he would never do, because Phantom, like all ghosts, was a fundamentally egotistical creature, right down to his very core.

No, Valerie had good reason to believe that she had Phantom all figured out: A showboating prig, full of hot air and false excuses, distinct from other ghosts only in his capacity to fool the masses into believing he was ever anything more.

Then Elle happened.

The ghost girl's mere existence had managed to throw Valerie's world into a whole new tailspin, leaving her reeling even as events conspired to yank more and more of her footing out from under her, teetering on the edge of her own understanding as all her convictions suffered blow after blow.

Living ghosts.

Ghostly humans.

Friends acting as enemies.

While enemies acted as friends.

“I woulda let him kill her.” She repeated, “Just like I let him kill—end—All those other ghosts I gave him, just handed 'em over for whatever freak experiments he had cooked up.”

Just like she had snuffed out who knew how many other specters during her own patrols.

How many of them were still alive in there, she wondered, underneath the ghost?

Her mother's brows seemed to furrow in response, worried, no doubt, over what exactly her daughter had done.

“I didn't mean it mama, it wasn't my fault! It was all Plasmius, you know Plasmius? That knockoff Nosferatu all the time picking fights with Phantom. He used me and he lied, and—“ Valerie licked her lips futilely seeking moisture from a mouth gone dry.

“He played human to do it.”

Valerie felt a flush of rage and shame wash over her at the words. She had been used all over again, played for a fool and manipulated just like her so-called “friends” had used her before, dangling control and importance in exchange for the very essence of her soul.

To learn that she had struck the same deal with a different kind of devil, that all her power was a tool in someone else's hands had curdled into an ache that rivaled the raw burn of a whole new betrayal.

Because unlike the A-listers she'd run with not too long ago, or even Phantom, who she'd always hated, Vlad Masters had been a man she'd seen fit to trust.

“Plasmius was Masters, and—God, they even share the same first name—My sponsor, the guy who gave me my first suit, trained me up, even kept me and daddy off the streets when things were at their worst. And me stupid enough to think it was 'cause he cared.”

A hard exclamation escaped her throat at the thought, to forceful for a scoff, too sharp for laughter.

No such thing indeed.

“Everyone's out for something. Masters—Plasmius, he was out for Phantom, and I was just the pawn that was supposed to get take him out.”

That's part of what scares me too. Why was Plasmius so dead set on Phantom? Why'd he sink so much money into taking him out? Why does Phantom hate him back?”

And it was peculiar, how much Phantom seemed to hate Plasmius. Valerie had thought for a long time that it was some kind of territory dispute, a conflict over a rare and valuable thin spot between realities. After years of chasing after Phantom, however, it became more and more clear that the ghost boy's resentment of Plasmius went beyond that of simple competition.

The mere mention of the vampiric specter was enough to turn Phantom tense and snippy, as though the mere thought of the other ghost irritated him, somehow. After witnessing the two up close, Valerie's suspicions had cemented into certainty: Phantom hated Plasmius, and he hated him personally.

“There's so much I don't know, and no one to tell me. Plasmius doesn't know that I know, and until I get out from under him, that's how it's gotta stay.”

How Valerie was supposed to get out from under Plasmius was another question entirely. Plasmius, in Vlad Master's guise, was the sole reason the Grey family had managed to keep on top of its debts for as long as they had. To make matters worse, he also provided most of the materials Valerie's suit consumed for its more elaborate systems and weaponry.

Even so, the temptation to throw it all away and smash Plasmius' smug face against her boot was a strong one, stayed only by the fear of what would happen to her father if she tried.

“Phantom went squirrelly on me too,” she said. “I thought maybe I could get something from him, since we never ended that truce. But in the end, he was still just a ghost.”

She hadn't wanted to go to Phantom, in those days between Elle's escape and her decision to plunge into the Zone, had felt too much like would be admitting something, somehow, to do so. Had it not been for the fact that Phantom was her sole and only choice, she was sure she would never have asked at all.

Once she'd made the decision to do it, he'd been easy enough to track down. She found him—where else?—but In the middle of a fight, duking it out at altitude with one of the countless animal ghosts that regularly made their way across the paltry excuse for a veil stretched across Amity Park.

The fight had been easy, the conversation that came after it, much less so.

How could someone be alive and dead at the same time? Were they alive and dead at once? all the time? Did they alternate at will? Were they born? Were they made? How many were there? A lot? How did she spot a human-ghost if she saw it? Was there a way to tell? Or did you have to guess?

Phantom had been the one to tell her that these human-ghost, ghost-human things could exist in the first place, which had lead her to expect, rather despite herself, that perhaps he could explain them, too.

So it was only natural, really, that in that moment precisely, he had chosen to clam up. He knew nothing of these miraculous hybrids, could find out nothing concerning them, and as to finding them, he had no clue at all. Nevermind that it had been he who had first told her such beings were possible in the first place, the ghost was a veritable well of ignorance, utterly unable to aid in her pursuits.

“Ghosts are narrow minded and selfish, they go round everywhere like they've got blinkers on both sides of their head. You stick an idea in front of their nose, and they grab it if they like it, and shove it away if they don't. They don't consider where you got the idea from, they don't think about why its there, they don't even goddamn care why you picked it up in the first place. All that matters is somethings blocking their little slice of the world, theirs, specifically, 'cause they wouldn't never consider any other kind.

That was Phantom's problem, he wanted a truce yeah, but his way, not mine. A truce for beating things up, not a truce for trusting and talking or or anything that might give trouble to him. That wasn't how he wanted it to work.

He was even worse with Elle. She's the only other one I could talk to—not counting you, ma—who could tell me anything about anything about what was going on!

And Elle, I couldn't track her down. When she said she had places to be, I thought she meant like Phantom when there wasn't anything fun for him to hit, not just gone! I tried tracking her, I did, but it didn't work. Either staying human hides her, or she's run too far to track.

Stupid Phantom wouldn't help me with that, neither. It was just 'oh she's fine,' this and 'why do you care' that, like I can't worry about a human girl wondering on her own without nobody to make sure she's even fed!”

Not only had he been absurdly reluctant to answer her questions, but even had the audacity to wonder if they were at all related to her continued association with Plasmius. It was an insult, beyond all doubt, as though he didn't know how little choice she had.

As though he wasn't the one who forced her into making it.

“I guess so far as he figured, if Elle wasn't being kidnapped, then she was fine. It didn't matter that she's a kid, or alone, or was stealing apples just to eat. She was strong enough to survive on her own and not melt, and that was good enough for him. He just sat there when she left, too, watching her scat like any other ghost."

Did he know how far she intended to run, or simply fail to understand why he should care?

"No matter how well he thinks he means, Phantom can't help the human parts of her. Just because she could beat any man that tried to take doesn't mean that she doesn't get—scared, or lonely, or—“ Valerie wriggled uncomfortably in her pallet of dust. “—Or that she doesn't need people. Phantom can't give that, and Plasmius is a sick piece of shit, so that left me. Just me. If I let that go, then Elle'd be alone for real.”

The worry in her mother's gaze didn't lighten, exactly, but it did shift, consternation giving way to curiosity mixed with a hearty topping of concern. It was easy to imagine the question she would have asked, if she could but speak.

“Then what is it do you think you're doing all the way out here, hm?”

Valerie sighed. This, at least, she had a clear answer for.

“I'm on a mission. There's this thing called the infini-map. Don't have all the details, but with a name like that?” She scoffed, “don't need 'em. Whatever it is, its good enough to send Plasmius into a fit just at the idea of laying claws on it.

If I could get something like that, imagine, I could find Elle in a heartbeat. No more lookin', no more running blind and hoping for luck. And when I find her, I could use it get out from under Masters thumb for good. Use it, sell it, whatever, with that thing, it would be easy. Me and daddy could be set for life.”

At the time, the idea had seemed brilliant. With her search for Elle stymied, and rental payments approaching their inevitable due, she had latched onto the idea of a Ghost Zone mission the instant her so-called benefactor had brought it up. It was a chance to bleed “Mister Masters” of a little more of his money, without actually having to tolerate his presence for any length of time. Even better, it presented an opportunity to do right by her father while staying far away from the quiet anger, the soft, dispirited sense of regret that had seemed to overtake him as jobs remained scarce, and Valerie continued to hunt.

Perhaps most selfishly, it was the opportunity for the Red Huntress to become what Valerie had had always wanted her to be: A free agent, no puppet masters, no expectations, just the world, and herself within in it.

It was one thing she truly did not regret, even now, lying in the dirt looking up at the memory of a memory ripped to tatters in her hands. Whatever else happened in this strange, wild place, it was her decision, her choice. She was finally in control.

Thinking of control, there was another reason why she wanted to speed up her search for the ghost girl.

“Elle's a good kid, but she <i>is</i> a kid, with a ghost in her she don't even know to fear. I'm not sure how long she can fight it like that without anyone to tell her what's going on. She needs someone who knows about ghosts,who can show her how to fight back, 'cause if she doesn't, I'm not sure how long she'll last until she ends up Plasmius."

“Or Phantom.”

It was an ugly theory, but explained a great deal. The identical looks, the raw antipathy towards Vlad, in particular, or how a full ghost could see himself as related, somehow, to a being that was something so much more.

All ghosts came from somewhere, and Valerie rather doubted Elle was truly Plasmius' only attempt at capturing a hybrid of his own.

“'Cause I think they're the same kinda thing. It explains why Plasmius wanted her so bad, and they change the same way, too. They go from being a ghost, ectosignitures and all, to being alive. Not some fake, but breathing, heartbeats, everything. There's something in them that's really, truly alive.

Plasmius and Elle, they're both alive," she whispered, "but only Elle's human, and I don't know how long that's gonna last.

I can't stay stupid about all this ghost shit, neither. There's so much they won't tell me, and Elle's my ticket to figuring it out. If I can find her in time, I could fix it. Bring her to the Fentons, maybe, take out the ghost before it gets too big, make cash, move out me and daddy and Elle all together. Either way, this is how I do it, right here, right now. This is my chance.”

No more being lead around like a particularly witless donkey for his carrot wielding master, no more suppressing every violent impulse that threatened to take her over any time she chanced to look “Mister Masters” in his insufferable face, no more long, interminable periods of her nose against a grindstone day after day, scraping her fingers bloody against poverty's wall in the way her father seemed convinced was better, somehow, for all the pain it so obviously caused him.

“I know it's risky, but it's worth it, it's gotta be. If I can get the infinimap, then I can fix everything, all at once. I won't owe nobody nothing, and I can start fixing things again, for everyone.”

And perhaps her mother agreed, as the shadow that had gathered against her brow seemed to ease, relaxing back into something more serene.

Valerie smiled, running her thumb over the place where her face once was, pointedly ignoring the sensation of absence in favor of the smiling visage still shining across her display.

“See, I knew you'd see it my way.” Valerie was pretty sure she'd had to have gotten her sense of adventure from somewhere, after all. “It's hard, but I'm fine. And when this is all done, it'll be more than fine, it'll be better.

Just you wait.”

Overlay image: Session end.

The memory of Theresa Grey vanished slowly, victim of her daughter's own reluctance to see her go. But vanish she did, sunshine grew pale and laughter faded, memory crushed into data and erased of meaning, and Valerie was once again alone.

She sighed, finally allowing herself to lower the photograph as she reached over for her other parcels, which she began collecting into a small bundle atop her chest.

Technically, she could reach over to put her mother with her boots and rations instead of the other way around, but found herself suddenly disinclined to do so. Without the stress of the day to keep her going, she found exhaustion pushing down at her very bones, keeping her pressed against the meager comfort of her body warmed hollow of dirt.

No, lifting herself up as little as possible seemed a very enticing proposition indeed.

She grabbed both her boots, then her gloves, peeled off to reveal the same skintight leather which coated the rest of her, the remains of her wallet, and a single, battered bag, too smooth for leather, too thick for silk: All supplies from her earlier run in with the thieving insect from before, pared down to those goods and supplies she could actually use.

She chose not to dwell on how few of them there were.

Her mother came last, placed gently at the head of the pile, where she could look it over one last time.

She should have done this sooner, she knew, perhaps even the moment she entered the Zone. Keeping the photograph on her physical person was too much of a risk, one born of foolish sentiment and thoughtless desire. She had just wanted so badly to keep one good thing with her, somewhere tangible and real, she'd disregarded the threat she put it in.

Because if there was one thing death was guaranteed to do, it was steal everything and everyone it thought was yours.

Valerie placed her hands over the small collection, reaching once again into the inorganic hum prickling ever at the edges of her mind.

Unit_1 selected (Gen_Storage:)

Report

Status: Stable (20% full)

Contents (See details)

Intake request:

Intake selected? (Y/N)

>Yes

Processing…

A flick of her mental fingers, and it was done. Boots, bag, and all turned into their own kind of mist, dissolving into the small pocket dimension that followed her always, shadows diffusing into the surrounding light, the weight of them dissipating until nothing but the memory of their pressure remained.

Valerie brushed her fingers over the space they left behind, a half smile tugged at the corners of her trembling lips.

“Goodnight, Ma,” She whispered. A grief like seaglass hung heavy on her heart, smoothed over edges cut no longer, though the heft of its sorrow lay leaden even yet.

“Sleep good now, you hear?”

No voice answered in response.

Valerie no longer expected it to.

Deep in the realm of the dead, a figure turned on its side, curled against itself on its small outcropping of stone. Legs up to its chest, arms clenched tight around its shoulders as it heaved, breath by mortal breath, seeking some moment of repose.

[illimitablespaces]

Ghost, Candy Corn, Trick or Treat, Black Cat, Haunted House, Corn Maze. c:

Ghost: Do you get scared easily?

Admittedly, yes. I think part of this tendency to be scared easily, more so as I am older, is the fact that I am often riddled with anxiety, which does little to help.

Candy Corn: What is your favorite kind of candy?

I am not fond of candy but there was a time when I loved bit-o-honey. I discovered those from my grandmother. And now that I think on it, Werther's caramels (the hard ones). My great-grandmother had those in her home. Oh, and another one I remembered, there were these little bon-bons (which is what they were called, generically) that are made up of a ball of peanut butter encased in a wafer shell, covered in chocolate. I haven't been able to find these since I had them years ago. Ferrero Rocher is close but not quite the thing.

Trick or Treat: What was your favorite Halloween costume?

When I was little it was almost certainly obligatory for me to dress as Dracula. I was obsessed with bats for a time and I have remembrances of Tod Browning's Dracula (with Bela Lugosi) and Nosferatu that have stayed with me over the years. I only managed to watch Nosferatu completely when I hit my 20s because I found it so grotesque and fantastical (I still do).

To answer the question: Dracula (or some similar vampire).

Black Cat: Are you superstitious?

No, not really. I don't put much stock into anything like that.

Haunted House: Would you prefer to live in the city or the country?

The country, most definitely. Although I live in the city, I long for an extended stay in the country, away from all the importance and noise that seems so integrally tied to life in the city. Things proceed more simply and calmly in the country and, I think, there is a certain breadth of time that one can appreciate.

In the city, I am not afforded the opportunity to walk out my back door and wander over the field and into the woods as I once did. I cannot go out late into night in summer and stare in awe at the Milky Way. And winter too, when I would bundle up in my wool coat and go to the forest edge and listen to the wind make moan and here coyotes laugh far in the distance.

These things I miss dearly, and much more. The city has its positive aspects, of course, but I am a country mouse at heart.

Corn Maze: What is your favorite autumn activity?

Walking is perhaps my favorite activity in all seasons but there is something special about an autumn walk--the breezes have a bit of bite to them, not too cold though; the sun, when it shines, shines bright but not too hot; the trees reveal their colors in the most brilliant degree; the earth is scented with a spice-sweet fragrance, akin to wood but also old books; the moon, when she's visible, seems a more dear companion; tea becomes something of a ritual... I could wax poetical for many lines but I think my point is clear. And while I have not had the opportunity to enjoy autumn as I did in years prior to moving to the city, I think this year I will make a point of savoring these little joys in whatever way I can.

Thank you, @ant-soul, for these. I think in answering your questions I revealed my sentimentality, which is most welcome for me indeed.

[chiseler]

Great Zilches of History

Film is light. There are times, though, when that light may take on a Stygian cast, burning with a flamme noire severity, a weird and otherworldly keenness. Or it may burn lurid and loud — especially if it’s a very old film, acting like a séance that summons the unruly dead. The darkness in cinema best typified by that form we call film noir is in its essence an extension of the peculiarly American darkness of Edgar Allan Poe.

Early, nitrate-based film stock, with its twinkling mineral core, gives Poe's crepuscular light its time to shine and thereby illuminate the world. No longer held in the solitary confinement of a page of reproduced text or an image, frozen, rendered in paint or ink. Poe's singularly tormented vision is finally written alchemically, in cinematographic rays beamed through silver salts; into moving images of such aggressive vitality as to blast every rational thing from one's mind. A Black & White image flipped into negative makes black fire, or black sunlight such as illumines Nosferatu’s Transylvanian forests, through which a box-like carriage rattles at Mack Sennett speed. But with the slightest underexposure, a little dupey degradation of the print, or even a little imagination (such collaboration is not discouraged), this liquid blackness will spread everywhere and anywhere, the most luminous pestilence known to creation.  Be it in the laughing nightmare of Fleischer cartoons of old (Out of the Inkwell, indeed) or John Alton’s vision of the night, we are left to wonder: is daylight burning out the corner of a building, or is it the blackness of the building which is eating into the sky? 

As with many such questions, film permits us no easy answer. We are simply to watch as the characters smudge. As their shadows pulsate and flicker, emanate out beyond themselves. But if Poe represents the loss of control over one’s existence and the ensuing panic, then cinema, consciously or not, takes existential dread as a given.

God, a vague and unseen deity, died at the moment cinema was born, replaced by a new celestial order. Saints and prophets made poor film characters, giving off the feeling of having stepped out of a stained glass window, flat, Day-Glo icons moving uncomfortably through three-dimensional space. Movies rather rejoiced in dirt and rags, texture and imperfection, so that the most lacklustre clown easily outperformed all the icon messiahs. At 45 minutes, Fernand Zecca’s The Life and Passion of Christ (1903) is one of the earliest feature films, but compared to the same filmmaker’s less ambitious, more playful shorts, it’s a beautiful snooze. A different execution climaxes his Story of a Crime (1901), in which we get to see, by brutal jump cut, a guillotine decapitation before our very eyes. This, as Maxim Gorky prophesied, is what the public wants. Or maybe the events of 1901, cinematic and otherwise, allow “the public” to define itself in ways heretofore unthinkable. The year brings Victoria Regina’s propitious death. And with her passing, Edgar Allan Poe’s pronunciamento on celebrity, “the ludicrous heightened into the grotesque," comes to new and anarchic fruition as an incendiary schnook, one of history’s finest.

When he shot President William McKinley at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo on September 6th, 1901, the currents of fear and vengeance unleashed by Leon Czolgosz would carry him on a journey from reflexive beatings at the hands of police and a post-Victorian mob – ladies in bustles shedding all restraint, transformed from well-honed symbols of middle-class decorum into yowling banshees, screaming “GIVE HIM TO US!” – straight to the electric chair, from whence his corpse would be taken for additional punishment, a process where ghoulish prison authorities at Auburn separated the head from the body, and then poured sulfuric acid on what remained, before secreting the sorry residue of America’s anarchist son into an unmarked grave.

Despite attempts to erase Czoglosz from history, a visual document survives, oozing with pathos and bitter recrimination. It is impossible, looking into those eyes, not to feel unnerved and, yes, sympathetic with him – his desperate act, after all, was as critical a part of America’s greed-engorged industrial fantasia as the near daily spectacle of peaceful strikers, his friends among them, being slaughtered in the name of profit. 

Cinema’s misspent childhood years in late-Victorian fairgrounds are followed by a grimy adolescence in Edwardian nickelodeon parlours. The medium, which finally comes of age amid gaudy palaces built in its honor, morphs many times. However, All Talking Pictures are the final death knell for the Victorian standard, belching from the screen a thousand inbred tongues that invade the ear willy-nilly. They remind us that when Queen Victoria breaths her last Naturalism sheds decorum, taste, breeding, good table manners.

Edgar Allan Poe essentially owns motion pictures via ongoing necrophilic obsession, since celluloid preserves the dead better than any embalming fluid. Like amber preserved holograms, they flit in and out of its parameters, reciting their own epitaphs in pantomime; revenant moths trapped in perpetual motion. Film is bona fide illumination — as opposed to religion’s metaphorical kind – representing the supremacy of alchemy and necromancy over sackcloth and ashes. The inmates, emboldened under the spell of Klieg lights, were not only running the asylum, but re-shaping the world in their own image.  Both Church and State with their blunt instruments of repression proved impotent against the anarchy of this freshly liberated ghetto.

Holy men were unceremoniously defrocked, their doctrine of abject compliance to class-based norms re-written into storylines enriched by grease-painted floozies, costumed villains, and snooty dowagers brought down a notch by the drunk hobo in her drawing room. Amidst widespread labour unrest and mass poverty, followed soon by the Great Depression, filmgoers of the silent era had a front row view of the plutocracy’s helplessness against a swelling tide of restless humanity. Charlie Chaplin’s itinerant laborer may have accidentally thwarted a plutocrat’s plan for world domination and/or a house renovation, just as Groucho Marx seemed to have spontaneously derailed a social climbing matron’s equally fierce ambitions.

All hail the magic mirrors! Celestial mandalas! Giant eggs and butterfly women! Segundo de Chomón’s The Red Spectre (1907) ruthlessly assaults our eyes with a wraith-magician dissolving through his coffin lid in a red, hand-tinted, flame-flickering hell. His presence, caped, skull-masked, was to herald a new thespic truth, that from this moment forward the art of acting would be reduced to how you respond to light, and how light responds to you. The Specter of Chomon’s dark bauble is in every element Poe’s Red Death — japing and performing tricks for us, his adoring fans and welcome guests, before announcing our doom — literary metaphor slammed against a literal backdrop of amber stalactites, pellucid as an ossuary.

That was a long time ago, in the first decades of the 20th century, before artifice and studios and the commercial paradigm of stardom finally swallowed cinema in one ravenous bite. It was a period when one could see, if one paid close attention, the dreariness of ordinary life at the centre and around the edges of every motion picture brought forth. It lived onscreen in film’s early days, exposing the pretense, however fitful, of opulence or period as simply that: pretense, a fundamental desire to escape reality. But this “escapism” had always been erroneously attributed to the audience’s needs, when in fact it was rather those bankrolling the nascent medium not yet sufficiently in control of itself to impose any order.

The censors were on to something, even if they could never fully articulate what precise blasphemies were being committed. 

Take Hitchcock’s Vertigo, for instance, which isn’t pure noir but is pure Poe: what would the surgical excision of an influence look like? Granted, the noir genre seems an unlikely Poe derivative, but what of Laura — fatalism, romance and necro-fantasy (with Lydecker as Usher)? DOA is the kind of concept Poe might have dreamed up; one of the great noir scribes, Cornell Woolrich is channeling Poe through an all-thumbs pulp sensibility. And how hard would it be to cast Val Lewton as the horror noir hybrid, with premature burials, ancestral disease, lunatics taking over bedlam? Jean Epstein, who adapted The Fall of the House of Usher in 1928, complained that Baudelaire’s translations fundamentally mistook Poe’s innocence for ghastliness. 

The dead in Poe, writes Epstein, are “only slightly dead.”  

To the extent that Epstein was correct, the whimsy that Poe bequeaths to cinema finds itself absorbed in almost material terms — not as sensibility but as a texture whose particular nap or weave is never granted names. In Mesmeric Revelations a voluntary subject is quite near physical death and under the ministrations of his mesmerist, answering precise questions about the nature of God. Before dying, he says God is “ultimate or unparticled” matter: “What men attempt to embody in the word ‘thought,’ is this matter in motion”. The same unnamable textures apparently survive on television, a case of Poe resonating inside our minds, a collective consciousness replaced by cathode rays. 

Deep within the 18 hours of David Lynch’s Twin Peaks: The Return, there is a moment that, on its incandescent surface, could have been lifted weightless from the great post-war dream of material deliverance; as if the zeitgeist of the mid 20th century had somehow got lost and ended up in this one: Daytime, the top on the convertible is down, the radio tuned, The Paris Sisters singing I Love How You Love Me as a reincarnated Laura Palmer lifts her face to a cloudless sky.  Within this tapestry of an early Phil Spector production — his trademark reverb eternally evocative of Romance and Death (two conditions Spector knows well) — the voice of Priscilla Paris could be a siren sound from the American Beyond, or a dream goddess lullaby from the whispering gallery, or sweet nothings from the crypt.  We don’t know.  We’ll never know.

In this oneiric echo chamber, Poe smiles down upon American blondness, muscle cars soaked in sunlight, candy for eye and ear; the terrible ecstasy of unending motion and immortality.

If Lynch’s Return means going back home, then home is that Lemon Popsicle/Strawberry Milkshake species of innocence proffered by America's music industry between 1957 and 1964. The horror genre always has to have some component of innocence to devastate, be it the existential kind which inspires the malevolence everyone paid the price of a ticket to have vicarious transit with; or the mere victimisation of the unsuspecting. Either way, there was no other period in American popular culture when innocence, of any variety, was so lavishly examined, toyed with, killed.  The free floating chord that opens The Everly Brothers song, All I Have To Do is Dream, remains a lamentation in sound: the sudden recrudescence of Poe’s beating, tell-tale heart.  Adoring such guilt-free teenage odes to sleep, death and sexual desire, David Lynch finds a muse in Amanda Seyfried. Specifically her visionary eyes melting Phil Spector’s dark edifice of sugar in a deathless, Sternbergian close-up — iridescent search lights, ever more urgently scanning the sky above, waiting for the sun to swallow her whole. We can only bear witness, and internalize this shimmering ingenue, this angel in a red convertible, trading places with Old Sol; as if whatever she just snorted has entered our system through hers.  But in that ephemeral instant she achieves oneness with all things; the transcendence of stardom — true, temporal stardom  — shorn of fame and the imperatives of show-business.

To this day David Lynch’s favorite film remains Otto e Mezzo, directed by Federico Fellini: Western Europe’s sorcerer of confectionary delights and unending motion; the man who put the “dolce” in La Dolce Vita. Fellini, he states, "manages to accomplish with film what mostly abstract painters do; namely, to communicate an emotion without ever saying or showing anything in a direct manner." Even if one were to take him at his word — and we must, of course, for no filmmaker has ever been known to misrepresent themselves to us — this seems a strange instance of gravitational pull, particularly in the light of the formal strategies of both men as they developed through time. Lynch has always favored a blunt pictorialism that, in its bluntness, borders on the language of Imagism: the studied simplicity of the language used to complex, powerful effect. Fellini, in 8 1/2 and throughout much of his career, by contrast, unleashes upon the viewer an insanely fluid, brutally precise camera ballet. Any good cinephile might be tempted to resolve the disparities and move toward a brighter, less subterranean comprehension. But, ultimately, such understanding would be a didactic burden no moviegoer needs. For here, in these conflicting dialects, you have a fleeting taste of ideologies swirled together like ribbon candy: a blur of four-wheeled luxury from the New World zooming past regional splendor into that fraternity of man: the socio-economic nirvana imagined by Karl Marx in the Old.

Careening from one via to another at harrowing, white-knuckle speed, Fellini was once heard to lament that “Some of the neo-realists seem to think that they cannot make a film unless they have a man in old clothes in front of the camera.” George Bluestone, recording these words for the pages of Film Culture in 1957, was sitting in the literal passenger seat of that ideal metaphor for post-war ebullience in action: expert, 20th century precision hurtling them through Roman streets with graffiti-scrawled churches proudly bearing the hammer and sickle; that famous Black Chevy skirting the Italian Scylla (the Vatican) and its equally dogmatic Charybdis (the Party). At that velocity, anything could make sense.

“Appearances aside" Bluestone wrote, "the Chevrolet is at every moment under Fellini’s control. He weaves in and out of traffic, misses pedestrians by inches, swerves away from Nomentana’s interminable monuments, dodging yellow traffic blinkers as if he were trying out a darkened slalom.” It is every bit a performance. Rome, after all, is the land of Bernini’s The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa, Apollo and Daphne — marble-cum-flesh, even as flesh itself gives way to forms that leave the viewer in terrified awe. While reliving his own mythic, carbureted experience, Bluestone does some weaving of his own, quoting Genevieve Agel’s one-line pronunciamento (and, in the process, defining what would soon be labelled 'Felliniesque'), “Fellini is a visionary of the real”, as the passenger positions his driver somewhere between corporeal reality and ecstatic truth while the big man (no old clothes for this maestro) drives and drives. “As one hand lightly guides the wheel, the other gestures — it acts.”

Spirits of the Dead is one of those compendium films, with voguish directors (Malle, Vadim, Fellini) entrusted with bringing to the screen a Poe story each. Only the Fellini episode, Toby Dammit, is notable, but it's very notable, a hallucinatory yarn owing as much to Mario Bava's Kill, Baby, Kill! as to Poe's Never Bet the Devil Your Head, its ostensible source. The title character, played by Terence Stamp with white-blond hair and dark roots and constant beads of witch hazel perspiration, is in Rome to attend an awards ceremony and to play Christ in a western, but he's fatally distracted by his new sports car and a vision of the devil in the form of a little girl. Toby's ride through a hellscape of nocturnal Rome seems lifted from Jules Dassin’s 10.30 p.m. Summer (1966), but works even better for Fellini than it did in the Duras adaptation. An oppressively subjective film, Toby Dammit narrows down to the view in the Ferrari's headlights, a ghastly floodlit interzone where human forms are gradually replaced with mannequins and cut-outs, as the city becomes unreal, an elaborate movie set, an uncanny valley laid out for the staging of an epic stunt/snuff film.

Fellini and Lynch celebrate bodily extremes in intriguing if differing ways, which should, in our time, naturally gallop beyond the pale, but nevertheless become wholly, weirdly digestible. It is perhaps the innocent glee of these artists, their wonderment at the vast variety of shapes the human body can assume; an innocence which suspends toward erasure our awareness the way physical representation functions in the 21st century. Lynch presents the disabled as childlike, mysterious, magical beings without ever worrying about lending them agency (The Elephant Man’s John Merrick functions both as passive whipping boy and chic spectacle for the whole of Victorian London), or the mendacity of adult sophistication (the latest Twin Peaks iteration includes a pint-sized hitman who whines like a puppy when his icepick is broken). Is it any wonder Lynch evolved a style which placed them front and center in unmoving shots, without irony or pity? 

Poe, while certainly a pioneer of fake news, also had a way of vindicating the lumpen masses of humanity (to the middle-brow’s abiding chagrin).  

The Mystery of Marie Roget, a Parisian murder mystery, presented as a fictional sequel to The Murders in the Rue Morgue, was simultaneously trumpeted as a correct solution to the real-life murder of Mary Cecilia Rogers in New York. When a news article presented fresh evidence while the story was still being serialised, Poe made minor changes to the final instalment to keep his fiction in line with the facts.

He later published a story about an Atlantic crossing by balloon, accomplished in three days, in The New York Sun in 1844. "Signal Triumph of Mr. Monck Mason's Flying Machine!!!"  The piece was presented as truth, and only revealed as "The Great Balloon Hoax" a couple of days later. “The more intelligent believed," wrote Poe, "while the rabble, for the most part, rejected the whole with disdain.” He saw this as a new development: “20 years ago credulity was the characteristic trait of the mob, incredulity the distinctive feature of the philosophic.” 

What had changed? Perhaps the acceleration of scientific and social progress meant that the more literate and scientifically-minded had become inured to startling new developments, so the most surprising events now seemed credible. And since these same technological leaps were always presented as social benefits, the working class was growing skeptical, since they rarely saw any improvement in their condition.

by Daniel Riccuito, R.J. Lambert and David Cairns

Special thanks to Richard Chetwynd

[robotslenderman]

Hi, absolutely loving radio silence!!! But just thought I'd something. I wonder how bias Wendy's view of robin is? Like is he as bad as she says? Or just bad in a more downplayed way and nossie are exaggerating? Like look at calebros in gerards words. When in reality, it's quite different. Also, what made you decide robin as your antagonist? He doesn't hate nossies cannonly. But this is a fanfic so it was your call and it was a good choice too. Really seems like a bad guy! It's a great portraya!

Honestly at this point my fic is more inspired by canon (yes, I know, just go with me XD) than based strictly on it. That's because I only skimmed the Nosferatu Clan Novel, didn't read the Ventrue novel (where Prince Isaac Goldwin appears, which I found out after I wrote the first draft and put a LOT of headcanon into Isaac which is almost certainly wrong... headcanon that the end of my story relies on in order to function), and accidentally based half of the story story on an assumption I ended up finding out was false.

Cut because this got long and I know not everyone reads Radio Silence, but Cock Robin, Wendy, and their relationship to each other addresses one of RS's biggest themes. Discussing this without spoiling their character arcs was actually damn hard lol.

TL;DR at the bottom

The assumption I got wrong -- "Cock Robin is a Justicar."

RS takes place during BJD after The Anarch Freefall and before Azhi Dahaka. And uh, somehow I completely and entirely forgot that Cock Robin quit his job as a Justicar to be an Archon instead, and this was mentioned in The Anarch Freefall.

Problem with that is if I fix it, it throws my entire plot and his role in it out the window, so I've had to completely ignore his resignation in order for the entire second half of the story to work, oops. If I went with canon, I'd honestly have to remove him from the novel entirely in exchange for another Justicar.

Which would be a shame because I explicitly wanted Cock Robin in it because he's a Nosferatu.

One of the big themes of Radio Silence is family and community. The Nosferatu are a family. They're a collection of smaller family units in one big extended family.

Cock Robin is a foil to Wendy. Wendy is very much stuck in the image of the Nosferatu as they tell themselves as -- that they're one big supportive family, that they're collectivists instead of individualists. Cock Robin, when he appears, is a depiction of a criticism of this. Where Wendy brushes the Nosferatu's biggest flaws under the carpet, Cock Robin drags them kicking and screaming into the light and says "this is not good enough, I demand better."

So how does this relate to Wendy's view on Cock Robin?

She's not so much wrong about him so much as:

Not aware of the full story

Not presenting the full story

These are both due to the same reason: she doesn't like to think about the worst parts of the Nosferatu culture.

I mentioned that Wendy brushes the Nosferatu's biggest flaws under the carpet. There is a hugeass one that Wendy actually withholds from the reader because it's such a bad flaw she doesn't even like to think about it, and this flaw is hinted at in the very first chapter, but she immediately glosses over it because it's so fucking bad she can't stand remembering it exists.

Wendy she loves her family. She loves her clan. But there are enormous flaws in Nosferatu culture that are there to stay, and won't stop happening because one fledgling (indeed, a lot of fledglings) has a problem with them.

Because Kindred are immortal, so old viewpoints don't die out. Instead of the new generation developing different norms, the new generation is eventually forced over time to accept these norms and eventually perpetuate them. Wendy adores her clan, so she just... uncomfortably acknowledges these flaws at best, and flat out ignores them at worst, because she doesn't know how to reconcile her love of her family with the at times horrific nature of the Nosferatu.

Cock Robin's canon story is that he was abandoned by his sire, so he didn't get to spend his chidlehood in a nice, big, warm, fuzzy, happily family like Wendy did, who had a doting sire and a supportive family. So he never had that conflict between the people he cared about and the fucking awful things they do to maintain and support the family.

Much like Wendy, Cock Robin knows that the flaws of the Nosferatu are not something that are ever going to be addressed or changed on a clan-wide scale. While Wendy accepts that they're there to stay whether she likes them or not, Cock Robin takes actions that says he'd rather burn the whole thing down and start over from scratch.

That is an interpretation of Cock Robin's issues with the Nosferatu as Wendy and many Nosferatu understand it.

But truthfully Wendy doesn't have the full story either. I mean, in a way she does, but she also doesn't because again, she doesn't like to think too deeply or look too closely at the Nosferatu's flaws, which means she doesn't come to certain obvious conclusions that anyone would if they thought about it for longer than three seconds. If she allowed herself to really face the flaws of the Nosferatu, it wouldn't be hard for her to put two and two together and form a theory as to why Cock Robin is the way he is.

So TLDR -- on the surface, Cock Robin is as bad as the Nosferatu say. But if you think about the Nosferatu from a certain perspective and are willing to examine their worst flaws... well, you'd probably supply him with the gasoline so he can burn it all down.