#because we need more black vampires in media

[bookwormcosplays]

Day 1: Louis De Pointe Du Lac (IWTV AMC)

Do not repost.

#pictures of me #my photos #my photography #my cosplay #black cosplay #black photographer #louis de pointe du lac #iwtv amc #iwtv louis #iwtv cosplay #28 days of black cosplay 2023 #28 days of black cosplay #day 1 #black history month #black cosplayer #i had to cosplay louis #for the first day #because we need more black vampires in media #interview with the vampire 2022

[bratzforchris]

Vampire-J.G. ·:¨༺ ♱✮♱ ༻¨:·

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*

Summary: A night exploring a haunted mansion with your best friend turns into you meeting your paranormal lover

Pairing: Vampire!Johnnie x human (feminine)!reader

Warnings: Horror/scary themes, blood, mentions of werewolf!Jake x Tara

Word Count: 2.2k

A/N: HIIII :) ya girl has been on a writing kick lately and this idea struck me late last night! Let me know if you'd like a part 2 or if you want me to expand more on werewolf!Jake<3

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*

“Do you wanna do something fun?” Tara asked you, looking up from her phone. 

You two were simply lying in your dorm on a Friday night, scrolling through your separate social media. In a rare occurrence, there were no parties going on in your college town, so you two had decided to have a quiet night in. That is, until your best friend looked at you with a gleam in her eye and asked her question. 

“Like what?” You rolled onto your side, propping yourself on your elbow. 

“Well…” she started, brushing her bangs out of her eyes. “What if we went to Harbordale Manor?”

Harbordale Manor was notorious in the town. It was an old, Gothic mansion that was situated rather deep in the woods that skirted the town’s edge. Legend had it that the family that had lived there in the early 1900s had died in a rather gruesome murder and that some of their souls still haunted the house today. You didn’t quite believe that part, mostly because vampires were not real and secondly because no one had been brave enough to actually venture all the way inside the house in the college’s history. 

“You’re kidding, Tar,” You snorted. “What are we gonna do? Go out there and make it to the gates just to say we went? Like literally everyone else?”

Your best friend shook her head, thick, black locks of hair falling down her shoulders. “No. I want to see if the vampire thing is real. I haven’t gotten laid in ages. I need the Edward fantasy to come to life.”

You rolled your eyes at your best friend antics, but pulled yourself out of bed, throwing on a flannel and your Converse. “Well, are you coming or not?”

Tara scrambled down from her bed, pulling on her shoes and grabbing her backpack and a flashlight. Luckily, the residence hall was nearly empty. It seemed like most of the inhabitants and even the RA had decided to have an early, quiet night, which worked in your favor. People would definitely want to join the two of you for the shock factor if they knew where you were going. 

The walk to the edge of the woods was quick and easy. The few students you two had passed on the street paid you no mind, too caught up in their own lives. The forest loomed in front of you, dark and twisted with the sound of animals and other creatures rustling underfoot. 

“This is it,” Tara hummed, flicking on the flashlight. “No turning back now.”

“If we get killed or die, it’s your fault.” You joked, nudging her shoulder. 

You had never been in the woods at night, and because of that, your stomach rumbled with unease. You knew everything you had heard were urban legends, myths, and stories, but that didn’t stop your heart from pounding every time a twig snapped. You and Tara had walked about 800 feet before her flashlight glinted across rusted metal. Shining it more thoroughly, you saw the wrought iron gates that stood before the stone mansion, held up by stone columns. ‘HDM’ was somehow strategically twisted into the bars, letting you know that whoever had once lived here was both regal and wealthy. Whatever path had once led to the house was long gone, and the only trace that people had been out here any time recently were the scattered beer cans. 

“How the fuck are we-” Tara didn’t have time to finish her sentence before you started climbing the gates. “That’s one way to do it, I guess.”

“Don’t be a pussy!” You giggled, landing with a thud! on the other side of the gates.

Tara rolled her eyes, following your path and quickly landing beside you. “Don’t forget this was my idea. I need that vampire boy.”

“Vampires are skinny, Tara,” You laughed. “Remember when you told that guy you wouldn’t go out with him because he only went to the gym three times a week?”

“Yes, well.” she huffed but blushed. 

You two walked closer to the manor, beaming the flashlight over the pure wealth. The mansion was a good three stories high, made completely of smooth, gray stones. The roof was of a black metal that sloped into sharp points that met gargoyles above the high-arched front door. Everything about the house screamed classic, Victorian-era Gothic. The huge, black front door had an enormous silver knocker that looked eerily similar to a human skull. The door handle was the same silver as the knocker and was in the shape of a bloodied dagger. 

“Damn,” Tara said. “The owner’s must’ve been hardcore Goth.”

You tried the door handle, only for it to swing right open. The years of decay on the house must’ve loosened the locks. You both stepped inside, examining the home. Despite falling into disrepair, the house was beautiful and quite literally clean. It had rich, black and white wallpaper with scalloped designs and a plush, blood-red carpet. The entryway swung into a huge foyer and ballroom, with a spiral staircase and enormous, crystal chandelier. 

“This is beautiful.” You murmured, twirling around the room in awe. 

Tara grabbed a silver candelabra off a circular table that was shoved into the corner, examining its white, wax sticks. “Think they’ll light?” she asked, pulling matches out of her backpack. 

“Worth a shot.” You nodded, going around the room and touching various things like paintings and the old books. 

Surprisingly, Tara’s candles lit, which cast the room in a fiery, orange glow. The ballroom was just as pretty as the entryway, with enough room for dancing, as well as some chairs and tables for eating and drinking. Everything was decorated with fine china, silver, and crystal that all stayed with the Gothic look. What truly caught your eye, though, was the fireplace area. The large maroon and black chairs had been sculpted expertly and they sat around a black, wooden coffee table and an enormous silver fireplace. The piece that tied it all together, though, was the portrait that hung above the fireplace. 

It was of a young man with long, black hair and piercing blue eyes. He had on a gorgeous black suit that appeared to be from the Victorian era as well. His skin was milky and smooth in the painting and he had a realistic somber look spread across his plump lips and strong nose. Although you had to stand on your tiptoes to read it, the tarnished plaque read ‘Johnnie Guilbert 1901’. The painting had been made shortly before the murder had happened here, which made you wonder if the man was the house’s owner. 

“He’s hot.” Tara nodded, coming to stand beside you.

“And like, one hundred and forty years old and, y’know, dead.” You snorted.

You two moved on, getting ready to go up the staircase when a sharp pain zinged up your leg. You looked down to see that a shattered piece of china had fallen to the ground and cut your leg, the blood starting to trickle down your shin. 

It all happened so quickly. One moment you were looking at your cut, and the next, Tara had been thrown to the side and you were wrapped in a pair of cold arms. And naturally, you struggled as your best friend looked on in horror. 

“Let me go!” You wailed, wriggling in your captor’s grasp. 

“I’m not going to hurt you,” the masculine voice was icy, yet weirdly comforting in your ear. “Just relax.”

The man’s hands were practically subzero on your arms. Whoever he was, he had to have superhuman strength. Finally, in what you thought was a moment of weakness, but really his doing, the man dropped you and you tried to scramble away. Unfortunately, he grabbed you again by the leg. 

“I’m going to help you.” he hummed, waving  hand in front of your face and staring at you with blood-red eyes. 

You felt like you had been put in a trance, for you relaxed into his cold touch. It didn’t faze you that whoever this was had literal red eyes or the fact that he bent down and licked your cut with long, white fangs bared, leaving your leg looking like you had never been cut at all. Once he had finished, you seemed to fall out of your haze and stared at the man. 

“Who are you?”

“I’ve been a lot of things,” he whispered, cupping your face. “But I know who you are.”

The longer you stared at the man, the more familiar he became. Long, black hair, icy blue eyes, black suit. The only difference between this man and the painting was that he appeared to have modernized himself with tattoos and piercings. 

“You’re the man in the painting,” You whispered. “How are you…”

“Alive? Oh baby bat, you humans can be so clueless sometimes,” Johnnie shook his head with fondness. “Was the blood licking and fangs not enough?”

“You’re not a vampire. Vampires aren’t real.”

Johnni grabbed your hand and placed it on his chest where his button up shirt had been undone. His skin was cold and pale, and you felt nothing other than his soft breathing. There was no heartbeat, and he could tell you noticed this. 

“Believe me now?” he asked softly. 

“How?” You glanced to the right to see Tara being helped by what looked like another man, but you were too focused on the supernatural creature in front of you. 

“The legends of this house are true,” Johnnie looked rather sad for a moment, but his voice was unwavering. “My family was murdered, but I was the only one who was changed.”

Even though you were still slightly shaken up from the interaction, you felt at peace with Johnnie. He wasn’t scary like myths about vampires had told you, and he didn’t seem to want to consume your blood. You almost felt bad for him. Had he been alone in the house his family had been murdered in for over a hundred years? 

“I was the first born son,” the vampire gestured to the immense painting of himself. “My family was very well-loved in town. We held the biggest balls and my father was the mayor, but he made…a very bad deal. To be fair, he didn’t know the man had been a vampire. And so, the man came for revenge. He sucked my family dry, wanting me to join him in his business, which is why I was the only one changed. My mother opened the curtains before she died and…he died. But now, I’m the only one who still walks the earth.”

You were on the verge of tears as Johnnie finished his story. You threw your arms around his neck, hugging him tightly. His icy body relaxed into your touch, holding him close to you. There was almost a gravitational pull from your body to his, something that wasn’t quite human. 

“Do you…feed on humans?” You asked him softly, wondering why he hadn’t sunk his fangs into you and Tara yet. 

“I try not to,” he smiled kindly. “I only feed on animals. Unless of course, it’s someone who deserves it.” the man smiled, his fangs glinting in the pale moonlight. 

“Next question. Did you like, put a spell on me?”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because,” You started. “I’m weirdly comfortable around a vampire.”

Johnnie smiled softly again. “Once a mortal is changed into a vampire, they’re assigned a soulmate. That person can be a mortal or a vampire. I am unable to love until I’ve met my person, baby bat.” he paused to see if you would get the gist. 

“So, I’m your person?” You asked him. 

He nodded softly, kissing your forehead with gentle, cold lips. “Yes, little blood flower. You’re my person.” 

You smiled, relaxing into his hold. Never in a million years would you have thought you would be hanging out with a vampire in an abandoned mansion on a Friday night, but Johnnie’s captivating pull kept you here, eager to relish in his love. Before you knew it, though, Tara had appeared next to you with another man. He was tall, much taller than Johnnie with long, brown hair and green eyes. He also had a variety of tattoos and piercings, but he wasn’t dressed nearly as proper as Johnnie was. Whereas the vampire had on a black and blood red suit, this other man was in more “punk” clothing and looked completely normal. 

“I’m not tripping, right?” Tara asked you. “They’re really a vampire and a werewolf?”

“Well, I know about a vampire, but a werewolf?” You looked to Johnnie for confirmation. 

“That’s Jake. He keeps me company. It gets a little lonely around here, so I need an immortal best friend.” he smiled. 

You smiled, realizing that although these men were technically supernatural beings, they were nowhere near the legends people had made about them. They weren't aggressive or violent  and aside from their physical attributes, they seemed fully human. They could think and feel and love. And as you and Tara spent the rest of the night getting to know your vampire and werewolf, you could tell that they would be in your life for more than just one night. 

#johnnie guilbert #johnnie guilbert fanfic #johnnie guilbert x reader #johnnie guilbert fic #johnnie guilbert fanfiction #johnnie and jake #fanfic #jake webber fluff #jake webber fanfic #jake webber fanfiction #jake webber #jake and johnnie #johnnie guilbert smut #johnnie guilbert fluff #the tinas #tara yummy #youtubers #vampire #vampire au #werewolf #werewolf au

[krysanthii]

I have so much respect for this show so well on how they handled colonialism, subjection, and slavery. Especially delicately handling Annette’s past and her mother. It’s simply beautiful and touching and showing her as a child and shown nothing but love by her mother.

Cleaning her face and taking her a bath as they sang lullabies by the fire. I love how her past was handled in the show and treated it very delicate, respectful and lovingly. Because in many forms of media black bodies are abused to portray the suffering on how bad slavery was. Antebellum, Emancipation, 12 Years a Slave, Roots, Them, Color of Purple, and Kindred. It’s showcase in the most graphic, gratuitous, and almost voyeuristic way. We get it, slavery is bad and awful but why make it overly graphic about it? We don’t need to see that and Annette talks mostly about her experience being enslaved than us seeing most of her suffering she’d endured.

Just like Richter, her mother was killed by a vampire too but unlike Ester—Julia’s death was more graphic than hers. A white woman's. I really appreciate how Annette’s flashback was handled and let the audience know through Annette’s words and her conviction and strength of her experience that she overcome. For season 2 I’m sure we’ll get Olrox’s flashback of the fall of the Aztec empire and how he became a vampire. We know how bad colonization was as it was a literal genocide. The conquistadors raped and pillaged across the Americas spreading disease intentionally to the locals. Sending their dogs on them as a sport.

I’m sure we’ll get snippets of Olrox’s flashback on that but I hope it’s handle was care just like Annette’s.

#castlevania #castlevania olrox #olrox #castlevania nocturne #annette #annette castlevania

[corviisquire]

Creatures have colors!!

Left to Right: @moonchild-in-blue @leonsleftbicep @ghxstly-death

@pear-island

Left to Right: @a-s-levynn @foundationsofdecay @polteergeistt

They have been colored along with making some minor adjustments. If anyone wants anything changed please let me know! These creatures are yours so name them whatever you want, develop lore if ya want, and do whatever you want with them. Possible next batch will probably be made later next week.

Art notes under cut :D

I put some music drops because music inspires me too much.

Moonchild-in-blue: The blues and purples!! Opals and the insides of muscle shells inspired me a lot with the coloring (particularly the stars and moon). There’s another shell that has that shiny blue and green lining on the inside but I can’t remember the name of it. It was a full moon last night but I forgot to take a picture! Thought of you but anyways I loved coloring the lady. It was fun but I first I struggled on deciding if I wanted more blue or purple.

Some songs I listened to a lot while coloring this:

Sweet Disposition - Temper Trap

Moon Child - F16s

The Night Does Not Belong to God - you know who

Leonsleftbicep: Colors go crazy! Idk what your favorite colors are but I chose The Blue. I also incorporated some red (for yummy contrast and complementary colors). I realized this looked very vampire media core. EyAH enjoy the critter!

Some songs I listened to while coloring this:

Blue Monday - Orgy

Military Fashion Show - And One

The Apparition - do I really need to say who?

Ghxstly-death: Per your request, red and black was incorporated! Was inspired by Mohg, Lord of Blood, from Elden ring cause he has cool robes and a trident thingy. I really like how it turned out. Like I’ve been doing with every design is adding the bling and I felt gold would work well.

Was resisting the urge to put the entire One EP right here:

Get The Balance Right! - Depeche Mode

Mascara - Deftones

Jaws - Slep tonka

SEVEN HOUR SHITTER (pearisland/perryisle): You use bright colors in your art all the time so we got the colors goingggg. Little guy reminds me of Pumpkin Patch protagonist or Hollow Knight. Idk. Not much to say except TRIPLE DEATH SLIME BARRAGE!!!

No normal music for you. only Kevin Macleod and Pizza Tower ST.

A-s-levynn: More Dark Sun Gwyndolin inspiration… (you can tell I have my dark souls art books open next to me right now). As requested, tendrils/tentacles were added! I think it improved the design a whole lot because it was originally very symmetrical and the tentacles added just the right amount of asymmetry to balance out the overall look. I’m a huge fromsoft fan (playing Elden Ring, waiting for new DLC, have dark souls 1 remastered but haven’t started it yet, have bloodborne Elden ring and DS1/3 art books) so lots of my art has elements from Fromsoft games (neutron activation).

And just like everyone else, some music for the soul:

Too Late - 311

Scared Together - Silversun Pickups

Dark Signs - eepy coin

Foundationsofdecay: Again, taking more inspiration from your blog, colors and stuff. The design had subconscious influence from the game sky: children of the light. Had lotsa fun coloring it. I don’t know much about you like favorite colors or flowers but I tried my best!

Songs that inspired me:

Let It Happen - Tame Impala

Flux - Bloc Party

Rain - tired currency

Polteergeistt: The oarfish colors… A lot Of these characters have cool blues so I tried to use some teal blues to contrast the red/pink(?). “Nintendo switch core” I’m sobbing. I fixed the feet. Now my Pinterest is filled to the brim with fish images (specifically oarfish, sea jellies, and blue lobsters).

The music!!!!!:

UNDERWATER BOI - Turnstile

The Illness (Teenagers Remix) - GoodBooks

Descending - exhausted dollar

Thank you so much. All of you are such lovely people. 🫂💕🫶

#art #my art #digital art #art gift #gift art #gift #creature #oc art #OC

[celezztia]

Taking a stab at writing, I haven’t done it in a while, but I want to help contribute a Professor! Vampire Donna AU and maybe in the future a few spicy one shots, because we are all thirsty.

(I will format this better as I go on, but do enjoy)

Professor! Donna x Fem reader

(May contain fluff, smut, angst in the future, but first chapter is sfw)

After many trials and tribulations, I had managed to score a scholarship to a college in Romania; Miranda’s All Girls University: though you hadn’t hear much of the campus aside from what the schools website conveyed, who are you to pass up an affordable education?

Had you stayed in America, you would spend years paying off these debts, but now your saved money was going towards travels, airplane tickets, apartment down payment and such .

You were the one that applied, got accepted and the first day of college you were ready.

Though as ready as you thought you were, your new life was far more interesting than you had imagined.

You signed up for a Botany course, a few math and English, and an elective in theater. You figured your years in high school being a techie would come in handy.

The professors were fairly bearable, though the Art History professor was quite striking. Intimidating and cold, but as long as you listened, she never really called you out to answer.

Now as you walk towards your Botany class, you pushed the heavy doors open, grunting a bit as you pushed it open.

It was a vast room, build almost like a media center with levels of desks that led down to the board and desk where the professor sat. She was scanning a stack of papers , a pair of red reading glasses hanging off her nose.

You decide to sit in the front of the classroom; mainly because you did always enjoy the sciences, even if you were more right brained.

The room filled slowly, and a few students began talking quietly to one another, the sound of pencils tapping against the desks.

A group of girls came in together, laughing and chatting.

You clicked your phone open, looking at it for the time.

8:02.

The professor sat at her desk, unmoving from her papers as she spoke.

“Do try to enter here in a graceful manner, class had already begun.” She said curtly, her nose crinkling as she continued to read paperwork. The girls quieted down and dispersed among the classroom.

As they sat down, the older woman stood, pushing her glasses back onto her head.

She was quite tall, slender, dressed in all black; a turtleneck, slacks, and a cardigan that draped to her ankles.

Her hair was in a mostly tight bun, a few raven strands fallen to frame her pale face. A discolored scar splotched across her left eye.

She began to pace around, the sounds of her heels clacking against the wooden floor filling the classroom.

“Good morning. I am Professor Beneviento. Please make sure to keep the chit chat to a minimum, or at least to your breaks. I would like to think that I have enough patience for all of you. This class is about the science of plant life, not the unnecessary jargon. Is that understood?”

She waited for a response from the class.

It took a second, but after some nods, she continued.

You couldn't help but absorb her.

She commanded a room fairly well, yet seemingly suave in the process. Her voice was soft, but had a slight roughness that made her sound older than she actually was.

You kept your pen glued to your notebook, hanging off every word this woman spoke in case you needed to jot it down.

The class ended sooner than you realized, and as you grabbed your books and placed them into your bag, Professor Beneviento walked up behind you, leaning over your shoulder.

Your heart jumped to your throat and you dropped the papers in your hands, the pages scattering everywhere.

“Shit!” I exclaimed, as my notes and pages in my binder flew in different directions.

The professor chuckled softly, and began to help you pick up the papers.

I apologized quickly and thanked her as we finished picking them up.

"Sorry about that. Didn’t mean to scare you."she spoke softly as she handed me the stack of papers I haphazardly threw everywhere.

Her voice was as much less commanding than usual. Up close, you realize her eyes were almost crimson. Maybe that was a gene in Europe, you weren’t going to have your first impression of you questioning her features.

Well… second influence at least.

I nodded nervously, realizing how much she towered over me.

She was a lot thinner than I thought, and a lot prettier.

Her dark hair framed her pale face, a few strands falling from her tight bun, her eyes were a striking red, her lips pouty and pursed.

“Y-You’re okay! I just get spooked easily.” I say, my face dusted with pink.

I could’ve sworn the older woman grinned at me for a split second after that comment.

“Your accent, you must be American, yes?”

You nodded.

Her eyes lit up a bit.

"That's good. We have a few other international students this semester. I know this university is pretty new, but I can assure you this is a great school. If you do ever need help with anything, I will do what I can to accommodate.

What is your name again, coda dolce?” She asked, a thick Italian influence in her tone.

You smiled and told her, her expression remaining fairly stoic, but her eyes had softened.

“My name is Y/N, ma’am.”

"What a lovely name. You'll have to pardon me, Y/N, I have to run to another lecture. But do come to me with any questions.”

You nod, and she gives you a smile and a nod before walking past me and exiting the lecture hall, the scent of honeysuckle following.

#donna beneviento #donna re8 #resident lover #re8 donna #resident evil village #resident evil 8 #donna beneviento x oc #donna beneviento x reader #donna beneviento x female reader #donna beneviento x mc #vampire donna #professor donna #angie beneviento

[prince-kallisto]

Okay, I’ve been convinced BAHXJSH. Hana recommended me to play Ikemen Villains- it’s been a while since I played an Otome or romance game in general, but I’m really a sucker for fairytale themes and dubious morality characters so😭🙏 I was recommended to try this because there’s a character that’s like Crowley…👀💖

*This is not spoiler free, it’s whatever my thoughts are as I play along 🌸🐦‍⬛*

Anyway, here we go ╰(*´︶`*)╯♡

Completely off topic, but did anyway else play this one Alice in Wonderland Otome many years ago? “Guilty Alice” from 2016 I believe…Ah, the memories- the graphics looked better in my memories (´∀｀*) I’m fairly sure my love for fairytale and Wonderland themed media bloomed from there.

This game also had several warnings for mature themes and having an age rating. I’m unsure of the actual extent of this (it listed the warnings but you know) but I will add content warnings above the cut in my posts when necessary 🌸🐦‍⬛

o(*ﾟ▽ﾟ*)o ANYWAY, I am liking this theme of our character believing in the ideal of never doing a “bad thing” to ensure a happy ending. It would be nice if that was the guarantee, no? But even then, what can be considered bad versus good? Does this “force” behind the fairytales care about the circumstances of the trouble you get into? I literally just opened the game BAHXHD so I don’t know if the story get, but I’m getting the vibe that our character follows more…”simplistic” fairytale logic, as in the sort of picturebook fairytales you’d read to children for morality of bad versus good, and the concept of karma. But the villains we romance are more of the classic fairytales (the lines of Grimms Fairytales), of darker themes and never a guaranteed happy ending no matter the protagonist’s suffering and trials for love.

Robin is so cute what? 😭🙏 At NRC, if I work a black version of this uniform, could I be called a raven? 🥺

…May I help you? Abdjsjx, he looks interesting 🌸 Very vampire, I love his cape. It’s always a funny trope to me in Otome where we always meet A Man by dropping something or bumping into him…and then that classic “…” from him because he thinks we’re interesting! 🤣

AHXHDHXHDBD VICTOR IS THAT YOU??? AUGU ROMANCABLE CROWLEY I NEED YOU! AH HIS LONG HAIR!!!!😭🙏 Anyway, do you see what I mean? “Red-eyed man” has to comment about us even though we bumped into him for two seconds 🤣

Part one of the prologue! 🎉 ^_^ I like how it’s cut into sections. “Between good and evil” is giving The School for Good and Evil energy lol. Victor is giving all the Crowley vibes with the castle in the background 😭🙏

I feel so intrigued by this game…the art style is very gorgeous and I love the fairytale theming I have a good impression of it so far- I want to romance Victor already 🥺 (he ISNT A ROMANCEABLE OPTION YET WHICH IS TYPICAL OF ME ANDHDJD)

I’m also open to any other mobile Otome or romance games anyone recommends ^_^

#not sure how to tag this haha #kallisto plays Ikemen villains #not a creative tag but I’ll use that for now 🤣🤣🤣 #ikemen villains #kallisto rambles #kallistopost

[cosmicdream222]

dumb naive question but is void like heaven / astral projection etc?

Don’t worry it’s not a dumb question at all! Most people on this planet don’t know what the void is, and I created this blog to gather more information when I first found out about it. There is a lotttt of overcomplication when it comes to the void, but it’s actually quite simple. Mindblowing, but simple.

The void is simply a state where your awareness is detached from your physical reality.

Everyone can access the void and it actually has nothing to do with loa. It’s above the law. You don’t have to understand the law or even know what the void is to be able to enter it.

When you remove your awareness from this reality, you enter a calm state of nothingness. It’s also known as the 3D blackness, quantum field, zero point state. Most people have never heard of it but may have had experience with it at some point in their lives. Experienced meditators and yogis often enter the void during their practice, but just know it as a place of peace and calm and relaxation.

When we fall asleep and when we wake up, we transition through the void - it’s also known as the midway point between wake and dreams. We dream, lucid dream or astral project from the void. We can access the void through a deep state of meditation or hypnosis. If you’ve ever fainted or passed out, you’ve entered the void (formerly anemic person here can attest to that 😭)

So some people on tumblr and other social medias have figured out that when you’re in the void, you can manifest anything instantly. Like literally anything you want, billions of dollars, a celebrity bf, wake up in a new house with a new family, become a different person overnight, shift to Hogwarts or JJK, become a vampire or a fairy, etc. And it all is 100% real and permanently becomes your new reality (if you want it to be so).

It’s because reality is an illusion and the void is like the default programming screen of the computer simulation we live in. Like you know old school computers with the black screen DOS where you can manually program anything? That’s what the void is like. The DOS screen of the matrix 😉 You don’t need the void to manifest or shift, but it’s a simple & instant way to do it if you can access the state easily.

#the void #void state

[lgbtpopcult]

A note from the editors...

On First Kill and What it Says About Netflix, Media and the Undo Burden Queer Women Have to Carry

I have no criticisms for First Kill. The people who worked on it did their best with the limited budget and experience they had. Even with its flaws the concept was good and the story of the two girls alone managed to get more viewership than many Netflix series that are constantly renewed.

I will however talk about Netflix. I have been very vocal of my criticism of Netflix in the past but always put that aside so we can promote wlw media on this blog wherever they came from. But it was always blatant how the idea of queer women leads is viewed on the platform.

Netflix initially launched into mainstream culture in great part due to offering diverse shows like Orange is the new Black (a show specifically diverse in terms of women's sexuality, with queer women leads). Shows that were considered alternative and progressive compared to Network TV. After succeeding in gaining popularity because they offered the thing others didn't, Netflix content shifted. Even though investing in creating a quality show with a wlw main couple had paid off in the past they decided being more like network TV was the best strategy. Any attempt at inclusion for queer women was either carefully veiled behind projects that "are not really about the gay girls, the gay girls are just there" like The Prom, promoted without a hint of the lgbt content like Everything Sucks and Teenage Bounty Hunters or not promoted at all like Feria The Darkest Light, The Half of It and I'm Not Ok With This. They were generally given very little room to succeed. Most of the wlw focused projects were never promoted, had unknown actors and given a small budget.

If the project was big, well promoted and expensive it meant the screentime of the queer woman was limited. Even Warrior Nun (based on very gay source material) and Babysitter's Club (with everyone thinking the lead has to be queer) simply gave a side character 2 minutes to be out as a gay girl and called it a day. If they're investing big you can count on the gay woman part to be small. This came to a head when they changed the lead's sexuality in Archive 81 (who was a lesbian with a wife in the original podcast) and made her wife her gay roommate. "And they were roommates!". It was in some ways laughable to what lengths they'd go to because of their need to limit queer women to side characters in big projects they're actually invested in.

But First Kill was a series putting the wlw couple front and center so we had to believe all of the above was a coincidence right? We gave them another chance and they proved everything we had been seeing was right. They set it up to fail and when it didn't they justified the cancellation by saying it didn't succeed enough. That's the thing. It would have succeeded enough if they hadn't set it up to fail so blatantly.

Netflix will rain unbelievable amounts of money to get the biggest names from the TikTok, acting and music worlds to star in their big budget straight cheesy romances. They gave First Kill 10 dollars and candy to paraphrase a person who worked on the show. They were unwilling to pay for the really good, experienced writing team needed to turn a vampire romance story into a well fleshed out TV show. As a result the writing was acceptable for a vampire romance novel but not for live action TV dialogue. They were unwilling to pay for good cgi. As a result the cgi made CW shows look good in comparison. They were unwilling to pay for expensive, popular actors. They were unwilling to pay for any sort of production value. Why? Because they don't have enough faith in projects about queer women to invest in them. But the wlw shows have to succeed anyway or else we confirm their aversion to invest in our projects was right. We are asked and creators are asked to make a hit out of something without given the proper tools and then told we don't sell.

That is our vicious circle with Netflix even if it's proven that when money and work is put in to a project that centers wlw, people will come. Even if millions are lost on failed projects that center straight ppl. Even in a world where Gen Z is set to rule the world and it's a generation that is more and more queer.

Queer women are expected to consume projects that are lesser than those of straight ppl and even those of gay men. Unfortunately, we live in that messed up intersection of misogyny and homophobia that makes investing in us somehow the last risk to take. As they liberally throw money away on worthless trash. But it's straight trash so...

Good news is Network TV is dying. Netflix imitating their focus on a default basic straight audience (and the white gay pretty boys they can fetishize) does not seem like a good strategy for the future. Other services that are putting real effort into bringing queer women out of the TV margins will become the entertainment providers of the most sexually diverse generation of women we've ever had. Let's bring about that future as soon as possible. Go watch Paper Girls, Yellowjackets, Harley Quinn animated series, Dickinson, Crush... If you're a woman, or non-binary person, and not straight, fuck Netflix. Cancel your Netflix account.

Do fear for The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. Expect as little from Netflix as possible. That's what they're willing to give you.

Twitter said it best:

#Netflix #first kill #the seven husbands of evelyn hugo #first kill netflix #lgbtqia #pride #pride month #gay pride #happy pride 🌈 #lesbian #gay #lgbt #lgbtq #wlw #bi #girls who like girls #tv #sapphic #archive 81 #feminism #feminist

[the-crow-binary]

Alright, it's time.

As someone who is pro-"adaptations should differ in some ways from the original material" because that's basically the definition of "adaptation", NFCV is a good example of the limit it has to have. Or, at least, the limits I have.

When one wants to adapt a story from one media to another, sacrifices are bound to be made. Changes are meant to happen. You cannot put, in your adaptation, every single detail the original material had. It would be too long, you need to choose the most important parts of the original media in order to make it shine properly. Wich means some characters will have to be erased, some plots too, all in order for the adaptation to offer a fluent and enjoyable experience for everyone. Even those who already know the original material. Of course, those people will sometimes feel sad about a part or a character they really liked but didn't see in the adaptation... but that doesn't make the adaptation bad.

In my opinion, what makes an adaptation good, is when it respects the core of the original work. It can be many things (and it's multifactorial). The message it wants to pass on, it's universe, it's characters, it's lore... it varies from work to work (you can have work focusing on a main character's story, in this case making an adaptation without this character doesn't make sense. It can be a work telling the stories of a world, in this case, with no main protagonist, an adaptation can change the characters...). You can add many changes to a work you are adapting to a new media (or new audience), but it stops being a faithful or "good" adaptation the moment you erase the core of the original work.

And that's why Netflixvania is not a good adaptation.

Ignoring the questionable writing, the "CHURCH BAD" theme, the overdose of curses and gross dialogues (and so many other nasty writing stuff)... Netflixvania misses the point of the franchise it's adapting entirely. And the few easter eggs here and there are not enough to make up for it.

You can make Alucard bisexual. You can make the Belmont clan a noble family in Trevor's era. You can make Isaac black. Those are details that does not affect the core of the franchise. It might make a few grind their teeth, but that's all. No, the problems go way deeper than that.

Castlevania's core is it's themes. It's lore. Castlevania is the story of a seemingly endless cycle of revenge, tragedy and wars. Of generational trauma, with the Belmonts fated to hunt the night and kill Dracula centuries after centuries with no escape. It's this theme of having to fight evil all the time because it will never truly go away, with or without the Belmont clan. Dracula is not just a vampire king ruling over vampires, he's the Demon King. He's the Dark Lord. He's Chaos personified, with Death as his servant and confidant. He rules over so much more than just vampires (and there is more than two humans who swore their lives to him). And he brought this fate upon himself.

The Belmonts are not just a clan. They are humanity's symbol of hopes, dreams and strenghth. They are total opposites to and complete Dracula. The Belmont-Dracula duality is essential to the Castlevania franchise. They are the pillars of Castlevania.

What themes does NFCV has? Church bad. Humans bad. Christianity dumb. A bit of father-son tragedy.

The only common theme is this father-son tragedy, but it is barely touched (we don't even have the time to fully appreciate Dracula and Alucard's relationship before and after they first fought.) and it became one of the main themes of the cartoon. And it would've been fine... if the adaptation didn't threw out the window what made Castlevania Castlevania in the same breath.

Trevor doesn't have any duality with Dracula here. We barely mention the fact Leon went to Transylvania to hunt Dracula down. We don't feel any deep connection, when in the games, Leon was literally Dracula's friend. They worked together, fought together, they were unstoppable together, and when Mathias turned, he offered Leon eternity by his side. He cared deeply. And Leon decided... no. His own morals, his dead betrothed's wishes, they came first. And so came these lines from Leon:

"You have become a cursed being and I will never forgive you. This whip and my kinsmen will destroy you someday. From this day on, the Belmont Clan will hunt the night."

And this is why Trevor had to be the one to kill Dracula. Alucard still could've had his tragic moment, seeing his father dying by the hands of his friend is really messed up, and it would've make a potential SoTN adaptation where he would have to kill Dracula by himself this time more powerful (we'll get to Nocturne in due time.). But it isn't what happened. Trevor barely participated in the fight. It was a Dracula VS Alucard starring Trevor and Sypha.

Trevor isn't Dracula's friend, but this promise, this curse Leon put on his own family so long ago, it created a kind of bond beetween Dracula and Belmonts that would last for centuries. I talked about them, about how deep it goes, here and here. Dracula created the Belmonts as they are now. The Belmonts created Dracula as he is now, too.

NFCV doesn't care about that. NFCV turned Dracula into a vampire lord not even capabe of keeping his own generals in line. NFCV belittled the Belmont clan's importance (one brief scene where the court (mostly Carmilla) is like "oh, what, a Belmont? one of those vampire hunters? alive? wtf" is not enough). NFCV belittled Trevor himself (a few nice-looking fight scenes is not enough). It belittled the Vampire Killer (the most powerful Castlevania weapon, created with alchemy and infused with the soul of Leon's betrothed. there is so much tragic story potential around this weapon alone). It belittled EVERYTHING it took from the games. And I haven't even touch Isaac and Hector (they deserve their own post), who have been done so, so dirty.

NFCV ignored so many things that gave Castlevania his identity that it just became it's own thing, wich butcher the franchise's name. So many NFCV fans don't know the games even exist, or mix it up with the cartoon when they have little to nothing in common (Lords of Shadow had more in common than NFCV. And it was not insulting to the OG universe). And let's not get started on people praising the show for being "better" and how some character got "improved" when in reality, it's written by people who don't get said characters or games and stop at the surface. Just like they stop at NFCV's surface. That's why they think it's good. (loving a show doesn't mean said show is good, sorry)

I used to think "it's okay if the adaptation is not faithful, as long as it's good/enjoyable". And you know what? This kind of mentality is what lead to NFCV. I no longer stand by it. (maybe I should thank NFCV for making me see my limits)

And that's not because I'm a purist. As I said earlier, I'm all for adaptations making changes. But I am also all for respecting the source material as well ("respecting" just doesn't mean "doing everything exactly the way it was originally" to me, unlike... way too much people). And NFCV is not.

And as a show itself, ignoring the "adaptation" part? It's not that great either. If you get critical and think deeper about things, you'll start to see everything that is wrong. It's easier to ignore the problems and enjoy the parts you do like when you don't know the games. It's almost impossible to do when you do know and love the games. When you need to turn off your brain to truly enjoy a show, it's not the proof of a great writing.

But oh... That is only the first Netflixvania. :) This far, you can actually call it faithful to the games, compared to the soon to air Nocturne. :) (it actually hurts me to say)

You cannot look at the trailer and pretend it's even trying to be Castlevania. It's an original work who stole Castlevania's name and characters. With the first serie, you could've use the first, maybe the second season to pretend it was trying but "oh, the games don't have enough story to adapt" (shitty excuse btw). But here? Oh, no. No no no. It is NOT trying anything.

It happens during the french revolution, it seems it's gonna tackle racism and slavery (I do NOT trust the show to portray the french revolution correctly. nor racism. nor anything). Richter's tragedy is apparently going to revolve around the death of his mother, so you can say bye bye to the whole generational trauma and the weight of centuries of his family hunting Dracula (since it's not where NFCV went to begin with) and protecting the world now being on his shoulder and how it affects his psyche and- I mean DAMN. That is such a DOWNGRADE. But it's only the trailer. We'll have to wait for the whole season to air to see how bad it truly is. But I do not trust them to make Richter, one of the most beloved Castlevania characters, shine the way he deserves. I do not trust them to make Castlevania shine at all. Nothing this far can make a games' fan think of said games (probably because it's not for the games' fans.)

But we know it won't be about Richter anyway. Just like NFCV, it will be about everyone but the Belmont of the show. I mean it's logic, since it's the way NFCV went. At least that's coherent.

And everyone knows the sole reason why they went from ""CV3"" to ""RoB/SotN"" directly is because of Alucard, the true main character of NFCV. The trailer just dropped and you already have people asking where Alucard is.

There is so much details I could rant about. But this isn't about details (nor ranting, really). This isn't about every little thing that only makes the cartoon even more of an insult to the games (even if those details, piling up, ARE important). This is about the bigger picture. This is about Castlevania's heart getting crippled and shat on in favor of a pseudo-mature show getting off to his pseudo-deepness.

Games and shows are different medias and thus, are bound to have different ways to tell their stories. One is not lesser than the other. The Castlevania games have a story. It has a lore. It has themes. It's character have personnalities. But it's not a cartoon. It cannot show it by literally making the characters talking about how deep they are. They can't make cutscenes just to tell "I have a tragic backstory". It has to be shown in more subtle ways. It uses the decors. It uses the way the characters stand, or walk, or attack. It exploits the few cutscenes and dialogues to tell the most important informations. And yes, sometimes, it has to use the manual to give infos about the lore or characters. That is not a lesser way to do so. It's a way to adapt to the games' limits in order to tell their story. (also, CoD literally have two mangas to it's name. make your choice on wich version you like most)

There is so, so much potential in Castlevania. And if you get into the games, if you play them, if you just read the wiki or look at the posts of people talking about the lore, the characters, the games and analyzing them, you'll know... NFCV is a waste of an adaptation.

#castlevania #netflixvania #maybe people say castlevania has no story because lots of it is told in hints #and you have to actually think and make deductions instead of turning your brain off and eating solely what the games gave you #sigh. big. big sigh.

[grymoria]

I need to accept the fact that the reason why nowadays I only simp for Goku Black within the Dragon Ball series is because he's the closest thing to a Gothic based/inspired character within the series.

HEAR ME OUT, HEAR ME OUT AS TO WHY!

1. The way he constantly call non-gods mortals

Yes we know he calls non gods mortals because he hates them to the point that he wants all of them dead. But as someone who follows goths/ is friends with goths within the social medias, some goths see themselves as vampires. Vampires are immortal so some would refer to humans as mortals.

2. He finds killing mortals satisfying.

The way we see him attack/kill mortals is brutal but we know he enjoys doing it. One might describe this as a macabre. Thing is one thing about us goths is that we see the beauty within macabre things. (Hence why some of us is into Horror movies and Gothic literature.) And the definition of macabre is "disturbing and horrifying because of involvement with or depiction of death and injury." I'm pretty sure that we can all agree that commiting an omnicide is very macabre and we witness Goku Black enjoy doing such a thing. He clearly sees the beauty in it because to him it's justice.

3. He literally uses a scythe.

I'm pretty sure this one is obvious because the number one character that people think of when they hear or see the word scythe is the Grim Reaper. The Grim Reaper is a character that is loved within goths (even though Dracula is probably loved more) and as a god whose entire plan to end the lives of mortals it's no surprise that him having a scythe references the Grim Reaper.

4. He wears dark colored clothes.

If you pay attention to the typical type of outfits that goths wear 99% of the time we're wearing mostly black, which is the darkest of colors, so dark that it's not considered a color for real because of its absence of light. Goku Black wears black, he also wears gray, and white, and red which are also some colors that most goths wear. (Especially red since red is the color of blood.) And because of him wearing dark clothes it's the reason why he ended up with the name Goku Black.

5. His form that is similar to Super Saiyan Blue is Super Saiyan Rosé

It's quite obvious as to why he calls the form Rosé because his form is pink however the way you say pink in French is Rosé. But because of that form I've seen fans link him to the flower, the rose and roses are clearly loved a lot to the point that they're even a part of the gothic aesthetic, especially if they're dead. (Which makes sense for Goku Black judging how he is.)

I know that they're other gothic or gothic based characters within the Dragon Ball series Like for example, Lucifer from the movie Dragon Ball: Sleeping Princess in Devil's Castle (I don't know if he's a vampire or just a demon with vampiric tendencies.) But to me Goku Black is more gothic than he is. But it is debatable because Lucifer wanted the Earth to be full of darkness and ruled by monsters.

Either way this was just something I wanted to point out because I need to stop being so delusional about why I like Goku Black so much. The delusion in question is that he's took Goku's body and made it his (aka he's hot) and he's villainous in an elegant way.

#Goku Black #Black Goku #Gothic #Dragon Ball #Dragon Ball Z #DBZ #Dragon Ball Super #DBS #Zamasu

[elisaintime]

The post-episode 3 shift

FRESH POST!

So we were talking about how AMC's Interview with the Vampire Season 1 handles their choice of making Louis a black man in the early 1900s. This is a really cool change the show made in its AU version of IWTV, and it brought in a whole lot of subjects to explore that didn't exist in the books, making the TV show a very different work of art. But all the initial ideas for this show came from a cishet white man, and while he down the line had assistance from poc collaborators, I still think the show had areas where it could have done better with regards to some of the story beats, character arcs, and plot progression. The other thread got unwieldy with multiple reblog trees, but it's here for reference: https://www.tumblr.com/elisaintime/748738811357462528/woah-i-must-have-missed-something-why-are-people You can see everyone else's discussion in the notes.

I love discussions like this! Please talk to me about vampire chronicles! I live for it! I'm posting this now because I am disappointed that a few people seem to not be understanding several things I said. Maybe I said it unclearly, or maybe they're projecting and jumping to conclusions.

Kind of like how this poster does:

I deleted/banned every single comment on my videos that talked negatively about the show making Louis and Claudia black or deriding it for trying to be woke (and there were a bunch!). I delete block and ban all forms of hate speech. My channel is absolutely not a safe space for racists or bigots of any kind.

As you can see in the screencap, there is nothing in these comments that is about the race changes. These comments are talking about other changes the show made from the books and don't touch on race at all. The poster who screencapped them is jumping to the conclusion that these commenters liking the books better than the show automatically makes them racist, and that these are racist comments. And this screencap is specifically what I was referencing at the beginning of the other thread. Several people have said this now, that my YT comments section makes a safe space for racists. But these are not racist comments, and there is no evidence that the commenters are racist. This is projection and assumption. If you DO ever notice a racist comment on any of my videos, that I somehow missed, please bring it to my attention so that I can immediately delete and ban the user from ever commenting on my channel again.

But back to the show itself and my critique of it. I'm always here for talking about vampire-related writing! Let's go!

I still stand by what I said in my videos about the few issues I had with the show's scripts. If you watched my videos or follow all I've said about the show here on tumblr or elsewhere, you'll know how excited about this show I've been from the very beginning, how obsessively into it I am, following every aspect of production and behind the scenes news. You may even be in one of the multiple discord servers with me where we talk about the show constantly. There was much I really enjoyed about season 1, which I was outspoken about in my videos, and people keep seeming to forget. My videos had a greater percentage of positivity in them than negativity. But yes, I did have critiques as well, just like I do with every single piece of vampire media I discuss on my channel--it's the entire point of my channel!--and those mostly had to do with inconsistency in the writing.

What I've said is that the DRIVING FORCE of the plot wasn’t about Louis's struggles with chafing against society as a black man after episode 3, not that there was no more racism. I said he was obviously still immersed in systemic racism all around him, which the show showed us with visual details in the background, despite no one talking about them. This is fine, we don't need it spelled out for us. TV is a visual medium, and that's what the images are there for. But my discussion is about his character MOTIVATIONS on a writing level. His want vs need. His goal vs obstacle. If you're unversed on the techniques of story writing and plot structure, I recommend Blake Snyder's book Save the Cat as a crash course. In ep 1-3, for Louis, it was about being respected as a man equal to others among his society, the citizens of New Orleans, his colleagues and business rivals. Fighting for social opportunities that were limited to him because he is black. That story ends with episode 3 and a new story begins. I’m not saying this is a bad thing. I just said I NOTICED it.

After it all burns down, Louis stops focusing on society respecting him as a human being (which was ironic to begin with, because he’s not human anymore) and his driving plot becomes about making and keeping a family and such. Obviously race is still an element of that in a mixed marriage, but it’s not about his business or social standing anymore, these parts of his life that were SO IMPORTANT to him in the first three episodes. In the books, vampires stop caring about that kind of stuff the second they are made, but the show changed it to take Louis a few years to get there instead of it happening instantly.

Obviously racism doesn't magically disappear or stop mattering once he accepts his vampire nature (which Lestat kind of promises him it will), but it does shift to being a background element for what we see on screen. He is not focused on it anymore, when it used to be the primary driving force of his plot. We hardly even get to see Louis interact with (racist) society again til the finale (and I made this observation on episode 5, which the end-of-episode credits told us was written by a white person). For example, the police that come to their door are bigoted to him and Lestat because they’re gay, but meanwhile, they act completely colorblind. At this point, Louis’s character motivations are about fear of them being caught for murder, and his emotions regarding how Claudia is struggling with her eternal child body and lashing out--about keeping his family together. Not about his racial struggles as a businessman and citizen in outward society.

Yes, we all know there were non-white people in the writer’s room (thank god! Can you imagine?? If there weren’t any, we’d all have been raging from the very beginning! Did you read RJ’s episode 1 script draft before it got revised with the input of black/queer/female editors? OOF), but the choice to completely shift Louis’s driving character motivations away from his impassioned societal race struggle to something different after 3 episodes was part of the original season outline made by white people before any poc were brought on to the team. 

And again, I didn’t say it was a bad thing, it was just something I NOTICED, and the way the show executed it felt very abrupt and clunky. Did I want the cops to not be colorblind and get in some racial digs and microaggressions while they were at Louis’s house? Ew no. But I did NOTICE that they didn’t do that, and how it was so different from the way Louis was spoken to by white people in the first 3 episodes. Did the white writer of this episode perhaps feel uncomfortable going there?

The season told two different stories for Louis, with an abrupt turn in the arc after episode 3. It didn’t feel like an arc at all, but a sharp angle. Starting with Claudia, Louis’s primary drives and character motivations completely change. He no longer wants to be an important businessman respected in society, he becomes “the housewife,” and never once seems to miss his desperately-fought-for social status at all. This comes back to what I said about the show being weakened by trying to shove in too much book stuff. Ep1-3 were all these cool new original ideas from the show with Louis having entirely new character motivations based on the show's changes to his background. They were naturally driven by what him being black in 1910 now meant. But after that story was done, it abruptly shifts back to more of how he in in the books, and trying to suddenly pull him back to his book personality/motivations/goals after giving us this whole new organically-evolved self in 1-3 was notable. I noticed it.

All in all, I think it probably would have worked much better on a writing level if it was treated as two separate mini seasons instead of presenting itself as an attempt at one coherent whole.  

#amc interview with the vampire #vampire chronicles #maven of the eventide

[cinnamokittykat]

Inspired by @puff0o0 's artwork pt2!

Wait, he isn't going to get mad at me, or worse?

You stare in amazement as he pulls a plastic chair out for you to sit. Tentatively you take a seat as they begin to play a song you had yet to hear of. It was rather slow, and the person who was singing sounded rather sad.

The drums in the background were prominent and quite well-played from what you could gather. You rested your face in your hand, watching the drummer boy at work, his hair flinging around and arms flexing. Upon closer inspection, he was wearing leather pants and a tee with a skeleton print on it, and it fit him very well if you did say.

After several minutes, the melancholy melody came to a halt and they transitioned to a more lively, fire-y song talking about "obeying your master" or something rather. It had a pretty impressive guitar part, so you quite enjoyed that. (yes im sorry i only know it from stranger things im so sorry i'm a goth girlie, not a metalhead)

The man gets up from his seat and walks- more like strides- over to where you're sitting. You feel even smaller in front of the Goliath of a man in front of you.

"So, what did you think?" He inquires in accented monotone.

"That's what... metal is?" You tilt your head to the side, still half-expecting to be decked.

"Ja, the second song. We also do more gothic stuff, which was the first one."

"I see. It sounds..."

"Dark?" He finishes your sentence for you.

"Yes."

He looks off to the side, then back at you.

"Your name is?" You ask hesitantly.

"Me or the band?"

"You... b-but also the band!"

"Well, I am König, they-" He points to the other boys in the garage "call me Kilgore though, the guitar player is 'Phantom', and the singer is 'Leshy'. And we're all part of a group called 'Feral Woods'. And may I ask your name?"

"Oh, well... it's (y/n)."

König cocks his head to the side ever so slightly, before finally smiling for the first time.

"You are welcome to watch me practice whenever you want to, (y/n)."

You forget to thank him out of pure, unadulterated shock. The last thing you expected out of a broody, all black wearing teen was kindness. After a few more songs, your mother calls you home for dinner. You wave goodbye to the boys and tell them how nice it was to meet them before rushing home down the street.

‿︵‿︵୨˚̣̣̣͙୧ - - ୨˚̣̣̣͙୧‿︵‿︵‿︵‿︵୨˚̣̣̣͙୧ - - ୨˚̣̣̣͙୧‿︵‿︵

As you sit in your fluffy bed with a mug of tea, you think about how strange it all felt. You more or less interrupted practice for a Gothic giant twice and he showed you nothing but kindness.

Well, it doesn't matter now. I'm sure we'll both forget about each other soon, school starts tomorrow and I need to focus on my studies.

You think to yourself, looking at your pristine bookbag all packed up for the following day, and your girlish pastel outfit laid out on a chair.

I can't believe they would make my schedule like that!

You recall the email sent to you a few days ago with your attached schedule, and how you called all your friends to compare them, only to find out that you only shared 1 class with 1 of your closest friends. To make all matters worse, it was your senior year. Hell is a teenage girl, isn't that the saying?

Foreshadowing, anyone? I decided to take some liberties and make him a silly goth boy as well as a metalhead, mainly because I've never seen goth guys in media that aren't vampires tbh.

#konig #cod konig #konig mw2 #konig cod #konig modern warfare #konig fanfiction #cod x you

[londonspirit]

Imagining what could have happened if the creator dared to dream bigger is fandom’s driving ethos. Whether or not the people behind the scenes expected to have the most passionate bloc of their audience fixate on a queer romance that may or may not have been intentional is irrelevant. When queerness is still on the periphery of society, it’s unsurprising that the relationships fans obsess over and seek to actualize are predominantly queer.

Our Flag Means Death, whose second season is now airing on Max, doesn’t require its fans to dream of the queer possibilities. Instead, it’s that rare breed of work that raises the romantic subtext—typically buried under bromatic jokes or subtle ambiguity—to undeniable text from the very beginning. And when fandoms and creative teams are both on the same page of the same unabashedly queer love story, as is the case for Our Flag, the experience is nothing short of sublime.

Queer media, particularly TV, has entered something of a golden age since the aughts. There are the early mainstream pioneers like The L Word and Will and Grace; the wholesome coming-of-age romcoms like Heartstopper and Love, Victor; and the adaptations taking beloved stories one big step further, like Interview with the Vampire, Good Omens, and Hannibal. There are gritty, inspired-by-real-life dramas like Orange is the New Black and Pose, murderous thrillers like Killing Eve and Orphan Black, raunchy comedies like What We Do in the Shadows and Sex Education, and many more stories featuring queer leads with fully fleshed-out storylines.

But even among these big names, this silly gay pirate show stands out by taking what these shows do best and fulfilling a particular need few have met before. The reasons are myriad: It refuses to use queer subtext as a prop or ransom for audience loyalty. It eschews the will-they-won’t-they dance that positions love as an end rather than a beginning. It defies the trope that you must renounce your past in order to move on. It scoffs at the notion of a ceiling for complex queer characters and relationships in a single show. And it demonstrates that depicting the experiences of queer people (and, just as importantly, people of color) don’t always have to center brutality and trauma—that healing can come from making acceptance the norm and bigotry the butt of ridicule, and that being kind doesn’t necessitate being passive.

As a show that didn’t explicitly market itself as “LGBTQ,” one of Our Flag’s most striking aspects is how it subverts the way this genre typically approaches romance. You could argue that the love story begins when Stede Bonnet (Rhys Darby) is recognized as the pirate he wants to be—while three-quarters of the way dead—by none other than the dread Blackbeard (Taika Waititi). Or you could say it begins when Blackbeard, a.k.a Ed Teach, is seen, for the first time, as someone who deserves softness and finery by the epitome of softness and finery himself. Or when Stede comforts Ed as he curls up in a bathtub reliving his worst memories. Or when Stede picks roasted snake out of Ed’s beard. Or when Ed gives himself up to the British to save Stede’s life. Or when…

You get my drift. There’s an entire season’s worth of scenes that make up the foundations of a fandom: moments of intimacy and connection that gesture toward the possibility of something more. These are the planks and rigs of a ship sturdy enough to outpace the fleet of fanworks chasing such moments down until feelings are admitted, consummated, and set sailing off into the sunset. In hindsight, Our Flag was undoubtedly heading in this direction. But it wasn't until the most incontrovertible on-screen gesture of romance happened—a kiss—that fans heaved a sigh of relief. Because fandom, for all its capacity to will alternative universes into being, is inherently bound to the media from which it springs, and many have only ever cast queer love as bait.

But with Our Flag, most fans aren’t at all concerned about what direction the story will take. And the key difference is that they trust the creators wholeheartedly.

For many queer fans, it’s a novel experience to interface with a creative team that is not only aware of exactly who the audience is and what they care about, but also proudly and vocally celebrates them. In interviews, producer and lead actor Taika Waititi has stated that he collects fan art on his phone. Vico Ortiz (who plays the nonbinary pirate Jim Jimenez) has shared that fan art encouraged them to get gender-affirming top surgery. Creator and showrunner David Jenkins once remarked that fan discussions are so spot-on, it was as if they had “been in the writers’ room.” And several queer actors on the show have expressed that the fandom has made them feel even more connected to the LGBTQ+ community.

Our Flag is one of the rare cases where fans and creators share the same vision for a given work. There are no calls for the figurative death of the overly originalist author, nor strict separation of the "canon" of the original work from the "fanon" interpretations of the audience. There is no need for fans to dig for subtext, because what they’ve been searching for has been on board with them all along—not as a blink-and-miss-it pantomime or a nothing-left-to-lose Hail Mary, but a queer love story that was intentionally, thoughtfully crafted from the beginning.

Our Flag presents fans with a vibrant world where everything is mostly beautiful and almost nothing hurts—at least, not yet. Fans can surmise the shape of the second act and the close of the third, even if they don’t know exactly how they’ll get there. But with full confidence in the creators, fans have the opportunity to stretch their imagination beyond tallying evidence and righting wrongs—and it makes for a fandom experience less a eulogy at a funeral of another buried gay, more a toast at the most extravagant and absurd cruise-ship wedding to ever grace the seven seas.

We are all on the same page of the same story, and the experiences of everyone involved is so much richer for it. Or, as Stede would say, treasure is the real treasure.

Fandom, like being a pirate, is in many respects a very queer enterprise. It centers on abandoning the rules so you can survive; grabbing every scrap of home you can find and making it your own; sharing the spoils with the people who see and accept you for who you are and who you want to be. Or, in the words of the show’s pseudo-antagonist, Izzy Hands (Con O’Neill), it's about belonging to something—a something that, I believe, could be enough to help you fall back in love with life and the world.

I think often of the scene that first drew me into Our Flag: Stede asks his former wife, Mary (Claudia O’Doherty), what it feels like to be in love. Looking back at it now, I realize her response describes what the experience of being a part of a community a show like Our Flag creates can feel like. Because love, she tells him, is as easy as breathing. It’s understanding each other’s idiosyncrasies and seeing the charm in them. It’s exposing each other to new things and laughing a lot. It’s passing the time so well together.

To every queer fan out there: I hope you find that, too. I hope you can name it without fear. And I hope you will be embraced for that revelation, and all the wonder and joy it brings.

#our flag means death season 2 #ofmd s2 #ofmd s2 spoilers #spoiler #our flag means death #ofmd #beautifully written #and so very spot on #and now I am NOT crying here #YOU ARE!!! #ofmd s2 press

[lestatthebrat]

About the Racists, Homophobes, and Purists Reviewing amc’s “Interview with the Vampire”

To put it bluntly: the people giving this show bad reviews are racists and homophobes. This is a damn good show that breathes new life into an old story, and the fan reviews claiming that this adaptation is “horrible” and a “disgrace” to Anne Rice’s work are simply bigots who cannot stand to see two men kissing on screen and/or who are ridiculously offended that Black actors are playing Louis and Claudia. 

Don’t believe me? Look at what fan reviewer joshua g had to say on Rotten Tomatoes: “Of course they would take a classic that does not need change, and turn it into a homosexual love story.” Obviously, his 0.5-star rating (the lowest rating possible on Rotten Tomatoes) was not motivated by the quality of the show but by his own homophobia. P W is another fan reviewer who gave the show a whopping 0.5 stars, because he has a problem with People of Color playing some of the leading characters. He says: “At some point, the intentional casting of minorities in reboots is going to end. History will look unfavorably at the practice.” Fan reviewer Rich G says it even more bluntly: “I dislike this show for one very specific reason. The race swapping of Louis and Claudie” (the misspelling of Claudia’s name is his mistake, not mine). Meanwhile, a fan reviewer on IMDb, GeorgeWHAMMYBush, gave the show a 1/10 (the lowest possible rating on IMDb) and this review: “They made the whole thing a dismally shot propaganda piece and it's painful to sit through… The plot gets obliterated completely in this and it's barely about vampirism at all and is now about race and sexual orientation. The whole thing is a waste of time. They then go after religion because while it was touched on as offensive to vampires in the books here it is clearly the target of the hacks who made this abomination. This could be studied in school as a part of a series on why American media failed when it had every chance to succeed. Whoever made this should be banned from the media industry entirely. Do not bother watching this. It will just aggravate you.” Most of the very low reviews on Rotten Tomatoes and IMBb are reminiscent of these examples, and it’s cringingly obvious these people just hate the show because they are racist and homophobic.  

It amuses me that some of these bigots are attempting to use their alleged “love” for the source material as a mask for their racism and homophobia. Like “HOW DARE THEY CHANGE ANNE RICE’S BOOK AND MAKE LOUIS A BLACK MAN INSTEAD OF A SLAVE OWNER!?” or “HOW DARE THEY MAKE LOUIS GAY JUST TO SEEM WOKE!?” But if these so called “avid fans” actually read any of Anne Rice’s books, they must have stopped after book one, because if they got even to book 2 they would have known that Louis and Lestat have ALWAYS been an LGBT couple. If you read book 1, “Interview with the Vampire,” and missed the pretty-hard-to-miss subtext, go re-read it. To recap: Louis talks about how Lestat “had me mesmerized, enchanted” (direct quote); Louis explicitly compares Lestat turning him into a vampire to sex; he and Lestat live together for over sixty year; and they adopt a child together. By book 2, “The Vampire Lestat,” Lestat has male lovers both before and after becoming a vampire, and he confirms that he and Louis were lovers. He and Louis also have a heartfelt reunion in the 80s, and they kiss multiple times on the mouth. (I know, too gay for people who didn’t get past the Neil Jordan film.) By the time we reach the final book in of series, “Blood Communion,” Louis and Lestat are again living together, and in the final chapter of the book, they dance together at a ball, embrace, kiss multiple times on the lips, and profess their undying love for one another. Sorry, homophobes, but these vampires ain’t never been straight, and you’d know that if you actually read the books.  

Aside from the raving racists and homophobes, there are some fan reviewers who seem to genuinely love Rice’s “Vampire Chronicles” but have a problem with the amc series diverging from the source material. Again, the “race swapping” is commonly mentioned, so I wonder how many of these people are also motivated by prejudice, but they have other problems too, such as changes in the time period, the ages of the character’s, the dialog (come on, what tv show preserves all of the dialogue from the books?), and even tiny unimportant details like the vampires “spilling blood” when they kill people. I understand when you passionately love a book series (and I myself passionately love “The Vampire Chronicles”), you imagine the story and characters a certain way, but what these people need to realize is that it is not unusual, uncommon, unfair, or disrespectful for tv reboots or movies to make changes from the books. “Interview with the Vampire” was already made into a very successful and well-known movie in 1994, and most remakes/reboots that do NOT try anything new but simply repeat what has already been done fail miserably. “Psycho,” “Nightmare of Elm Street,” “Carrie”... these are all movies that took a classic and remade it more or less the same as the original, and all of these films were brushed off and forgotten because they offered nothing new and exciting, nothing updated and relevant, nothing thought-provoking that would allow the audience to think of things in a different way or see things in a new light. In simply repeating the original with different actors, they failed to live up to the original. The same thing has happened when books have been made into movies and then later into tv series: look at “The Shining.” Most people don’t even know the inferior miniseries exists, even though it is more accurate to the book and Stephen King wrote it himself. On the contrary, some of the most successful remakes, the kind of remakes that make people say, “This is better than the original!”—which, by the way, the majority of critics and fans ARE saying about amc’s “Interview with the Vampire”—are remembered and beloved because they do not just rehash the same old material but because they put a spin on old characters and content; they make changes and updates; they offer the audience something new, exciting, current, and relevant, something more and something deeper. Some examples: “The Fly,” “The Thing,” “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.” This is what amc is doing with “Interview with the Vampire.” 

So, if you earnestly love the original books, that’s wonderful, but you have the books, and you can read them as many times as you want. You also have the Neil Jordan film which you can re-watch to your liking. Now, the amc series is remaking/rebooting this series, and it is not a crime for production teams to take creative liberties, and I honestly do not see this as a disrespect to Anne Rice’s work either. She SOLD the rights of her work for this television series, which means the production team can make whatever changes they want. That’s how it goes for any author whose book is being made into a movie: they sign the contract, they get paid (and Anne Rice most likely got paid millions of dollars for this series) and they don’t have any say over what changes are made to the production. Even most script writers who spend months or years creating characters and writing a story, if they are lucky enough to sell their script to a production company, they lose creative control over that story. That’s just the way it works. It’s nothing new. It’s nothing shocking. And it’s not a “disgrace.” This has been going on literally always since movies and television shows have been made based on books. Have you ever seen the “original” 1931 “Frankenstein” movie? Ever compare it to Mary Shelley’s book? So like I was saying, movies/tv shows departing from the source material is nothing new and nothing to be “furious” or “disgusted” about. 

Now, if you love the show, please go leave a review on IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes, because it’s being review-bombed by racists and homophobes and purists who want to see it tank! But we won’t let that happen because they dumbass bitches and love wins! ♥️ 

#amc's interview with the vampire #AMC+ #AMC #amc plus #interview with the vampire #Lestat De Lioncourt #lestat #Louis de Pointe du Lac #lestat x louis #loustat #homophobia #racisim #rotten tomatoes #imdb #reviews #critic reviews #the vampire chronicles #claudia

[lydiascheidler]

The Vampire Diaries: Racism Behind the Scenes

The Vampire Diaries (2009-2017) is an American teen drama television series based on the book series by the same name. It follows Elena Gilbert (Nina Dobrev) and her friends as they attempt to survive in their supernatural world, facing vampires, werewolves, witches, and more. Elena's two best friends, Caroline Forbes (Candice King) and Bonnie Bennet (Kat Graham) are major characters in the series, taking on even bigger roles once Nina Dobrev left the show.

Caroline (left), Elena (center), and Bonnie (right) in the graduation episode of The Vampire Diaries. Retrieved from IMDb media viewer. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2798340/mediaviewer/rm1744152320/

Despite the major success of the show, one actor had a particularly hard time behind the scenes. Kat Graham played the only Black character in the original series that did not meet a quick and brutal end. I have put together a compilation of just three of the deaths that occurred in only the first two seasons of this show. Many more occurred throughout the shows run.

Video source: The CW

These clips are but a few instances that exemplify The Vampire Diaries' history with killing off Black characters quickly and violently. I think that these clips provide evidence of the creators' racism, as all of these characters were only introduced to the show to quickly die and provide no other meaningful contributions.

Because Kat plays the only lead Black character in this show, it is not surprising that she faced the most racism on set. Kat lived in constant fear of her character being killed off and her subsequent loss of employment during her time on the show. Her character, Bonnie, was actually killed twice throughout the show. Her character also went through the most on the show. Bonnie's grandmother, father, mother, adopted brother, and multiple boyfriends die throughout the show. Bonnie never got a happy ending in The Vampire Diaries. Here is a compilation of Kat talking about her experience on the show:

Source: TikTok (@soutedits), a compilation of Kat Graham's interviews for The Vampire Diaries.

Clearly, Kat felt the effects of the racism on set and felt uncomfortable in her work environment because of it. She has also talked about the struggles of not being able to wear her hair naturally for so many years. She stated that Hollywood does not like Black women's hair and she was forced to wear her hair a certain way despite requesting that her character show her natural hair.

Source: Vogue YouTube, "Kat Graham's Natural Beauty Routine"

As Kat stated, she has yet to play a character that looks like her (referring to her natural hair). This shows that the racism in Hollywood is not present in only one television show, but a widespread issue that needs to be addressed.

This is all related to what we have seen in our ART150 class. Black individuals have been stereotyped and overlooked in American film and television throughout history. This is not a new issue and it will most likely be a present issue for much longer. Unfortunately, this is a product of systemic racism that has been gaining power since the United States' creation. It will take hard work and dedication to resolve this issue, but it is a necessity if we want a fair and equal society for all.

#vampire diaries #kat graham #art #multiculturalamerica

[nalyra-dreaming]

I was just re-listening to Jacob and sam’s podcast interview that someone kindly reposted on YouTube https://youtu.be/832dDXfmU0M

And like 28:30 mins into it when discussing armand, Sam let’s out this little offended laugh scoff of disbelief (lol) when Naomi says lestat would never have been willing to pretend to play butler for Louis like armand etc, and he jumps in to ‘defend’ lestat and responds ‘you haven’t met armand yet’ hahaha

I need Assad and Sam to have a joint podcast episode next season, I think they’d be so funny together while sticking up for their characters

Do you think the show might set up Armand’s darker side (as opposed to simply Louis’ modern companion and support) during promotion or will his character be treated as more of a twist? Because a lot of non-book readers (and those podcast hosts) seem to have developed a ‘he’s healthy and soft as opposed to lestat toxicity and abuse’ mentality. Is it because we are kinda conditioned by most of media to assume love interests serve as these moral examples of black and white, happily ever after, kind of representations? Either way I hope people are open minded so next season we can enjoy the nuance and darkness all the vampires have to offer.

Well, with a bit of luck we'll get that joint podcast episode :))) Fingers crossed!

And... honestly, I... cannot really see them pulling another twist, now that the proverbial and literal(!) gloves have come off. (Like, that dropping of the gloves was so no coincidence?! And I LOVED that)^^

Noooo, we have Armand now. Reality will happen, and fast *laughs*

It is no coincidence either that Rolin put the little talk I shared as gifset a while back into the episode insider for the last episode.

THIS is where the season left us.

Even non-book watchers should have perked up at that comment. Or at least blinked twice.

ARMAND, the coven leader, the one to rouse Lestat to hunt other vampires, the one always cleaning up wherever he is, the one stalking and hunting Daniel for years, the one throwing rats into a microwave and mixing stuff in a blender for color, etc, etc.... the one who killed Claudia, is there now.

And... honestly... most people -I- know are GIDDILY looking forward to it.

Who knows, first teasers or even the trailer might play with the infatuation phase. That could be.

But... that is NOT what the next season will be about^^.

Season 1 was heavily focused on the relationship.

We're entering vampire territory now, baby :))))

#Anonymous #asks #amc iwtv #iwtv #amc interview with the vampire #interview with the vampire amc #iwtv amc #iwtv 2022 #interview with the vampire #lestat de lioncourt #louis de pointe du lac #loustat #armand #loumand #rolin jones #future season speculation #ask nalyra