vampiredust

[vampiredust]

[vampiredust]

TES predicted the future

[vampiredust]

wonky videogame dancing is so fucking fun i eat it up everytime like get it computer boy

[vampiredust]

Imagine being morrissey and thinking you knew how joan of arc felt

[vampiredust]

[vampiredust]

the war on Saturnalia

Today at the taberna I said “Io Saturnalia!” to the cashier. She said “Merry Christmas, sir” back to me. I smiled and said “You don’t have to be afraid anymore. Emperor Julian has given us Saturnalia back.” She started crying tears of joy and said “Io Saturnalia” and then everyone in the taberna clapped.

[based on this]

[vampiredust]

Twink death

[vampiredust]

[vampiredust]

i think if you've ever said 'fahrenheit is more human centric' online the government should send people to your house to seal your computer in a lead box

[vampiredust]

How Bethesda fixed Vampires without realizing it

So there's a LOT of takes on vampires across media, and most of them are radically different from each other. The Elder Scrolls series has an interesting version that I haven't seen anywhere else, that incidentally fixes a bunch of lore issues with vampires, and yet Bethesda hasn't ever really leaned into any of that.

So, the issue with vampires in large RPGs like Elder Scrolls games, D&D, etc, is that a world where various elements of character building are supposed to be balanced, vampires are heavy on the upside and light on meaningful drawbacks. So in Oblivion, Bethesda completely reworked their vampires, coming at it with a blank slate:

Vampirism is a 4-stage affliction, with each stage increasing the numerous benefits of being a vampire as well as the middling drawbacks. Stage 4 brings with it all humanoid NPCs recognizing you as a ravenous monster and attacking you, basically wrecking the game. And, this is the unique part, you reduce stages by drinking blood. Being a vampire is LESSENED by doing the most vampiric thing out there, it actively makes you weaker.

And this is great. From a gameplay perspective, you vanish below ground to kill zombies/robots/whatever, and you grow stronger as the dungeon goes on. But if you don't rush through it, or if it's large, you surface having ignored your hunger for several days and have to do a whole second quest to sneak into town at night and drink blood, where the only reward is to engage with the game again. It's a drawback in the gameplay sense rather than the stats sense. And it lets game designers throw the player against weak vampires in town early on, and face dungeons full of max-bloodlust monsters later once the player knows how things work.

Meanwhile, from a lore perspective this is also great. Suddenly, it's not that vampires have to be evil, it's that they have a choice. A good person who flees their family to hide in a cave is going to starve, turning into a ravenous, uncontrolled, extremely strong monster. Someone who's comfortable sneaking around town drinking blood, meanwhile? They never lose control. They walk in the sun. They're perfectly human. Or as human as anyone can be while the blood of their neighbors flows in their veins.

And Bethesda doesn't DO ANYTHING with this. People you talk to in-game just treat it as "all vampires are evil, why would you expect anything else", when they've created a world where vampire morality is so much more interesting. The few vampires who exist in civilization that you're not supposed to kill don't really discuss their condition at all. And there's plenty of evil vampires choosing to live in caves running societies of vampires, when that makes no sense compared to basically any other way of life they could set up.

Bethesda games are a masterful disaster, in this as in everything else.

[vampiredust]

UNDERTALE

Ruins

[vampiredust]

Doing the 'scroll until you see someone acknowledging a womans existence' in those reddit threads discussing best/worst/favourite/most loved celebs. Its like an extreme sport to me

[vampiredust]

[vampiredust]

Hilda by Duane Bryers

[vampiredust]

Where most of you post from

[vampiredust]

[vampiredust]

It must be so scary to live in London. What with Dan and Phil lurking around every corner all the tjme