#and extreme hatred towards Dracula

[abrahamvanhellsingjournal]

Entry one: Date November 8th 1898

We finally managed to defeat Dracula yesterday and he is within my custody. It was not without loss of life as our dear friend and comrade, Quincey Morris was killed by the demon. However, his death was not in vain as ultimately we did succeed, though killing the creature has proven difficult.

Jonathan wanted to use his Kukri upon the bastard, but I stopped him from doing so, and told him that I will do my utmost to study the creature to find a way to kill it for good. Ms. Harker, on other hand, seems to be fine, and the foul taint of Dracula has receded as far as I have been able to deduce from examinations of the woman. Jonathan seems to think otherwise, and claims that his wife sometimes has odd cravings. These are likely to be nothing more than the typical strange hormonal changes a woman goes through and nothing more.

On the other hand, I find myself wondering if Dracula cannot be put to better use than to simply put him down. It seems to be what the creature ultimately wants after all, and it has asked me why I hesitate to kill it completely. Dracula claims to be the eldest and first of his kind, I imagine his body could provide many answers about vampires and the disease known as Vampirism, and I plan on finding out exactly what that will be.

[beevean]

...so wanna rant about Netflix Isaac for a few minutes ? :P

My calm and collected reaction when I read this ask.

I was just debating on how to write about Isaac and N!Isaac (or Abraham, as I prefer to call him). Unlike Hector and N!Hector (Caesar), where I could prove that the latter could have been like the former if not for terrible writing… I simply do not like Abraham. At all. The more I think about him, the more resentful I feel, which I know it’s not fair because 99% of my resentment comes from people shitting on Isaac to prop the guy. I honestly simply wanted to explain why Isaac is deeper than people give him credit for, and leave Abraham aside, since, as we all know, the dude has nearly nothing in common with his canon counterpart.

… but if you ask so nicely :)

So alright. I will primarily talk about my man Isaac, because I love him and he deserves more love; by doing so, I’ll also explain why there was zero need to turn Abraham into Diet Hector :)

Since this first part mainly focuses on the prequels, as a counterpart to Season 2, it’s better to start with the biggest misconception about Isaac, and what almost certainly lead to Abraham becoming what he became: his personality.

To give a summary of Isaac as most fans know him, he’s extremely flamboyant, theatrical, cruel, consumed by hatred, but also intelligent, strong and determined. He doesn’t appear much, but he steals the scene every time he does. He acts in theory as the rival, much like his predecessors Hugh and Maxim, but he’s far more antagonistic than either of them: he’s not a friend to be saved, he’s an enemy to be punished for his crimes. However, much like the other rivals, he’s strictly connected to the protagonist, and the story treats him as a victim in its more important moments.

Kou Sasakura, who was a hired writer, kept herself fairly close to the game: you can tell not only from the accurate Innocent Devils she drew, but because, well, there’s not much difference between her Isaac and the game one. He’s already dressed in his magnificent CoD outfit, he’s pretty much a dick to everyone who isn’t Dracula, he talks about troops of people dying with glee and boasts about embracing the “laws of heresy”: clearly, he has never been particularly sane to begin with. He’s an entertaining asshole, as he should be. That’s not to say he’s completely flat, though: there’s still plenty to say about this version.

Instead it’s Ayami Kojima, who worked directly on the characters (and clearly preferred Isaac), who wrote a mini-arc to actually show what the Curse did to him. And therefore, he starts off quite unlike one would expect. These posts explain how, in Kojima’s interpretation, a non-Cursed Isaac is an honorable warrior who respects Hector even in battle, cares about a fair fight, is just as compassionate towards his Innocent Devils as Hector is, and is even sensitive to his Lord’s plight. He also uses an elegant sword, rather than his iconic and brutal Chauve-Souris. This paints him as an even more tragic character, and gives weight to Julia’s words when she says that “[her] brother is in the venomous grip of the Curse”.

… but of course who even read Prelude to Revenge :^) certainly not our man Ellis :^)

Abraham has none of this. At the start of the series, he’s not charming, nor he has hidden depths. What you see is what you get: a stonefaced, serious, no-nonsense, contemplative man who hates humankind and trusts Dracula without question and beyond reason, the latter being literally the one thing that connects him to the name Isaac. He self-flagellates, which I can only assume it’s meant to reference Isaac’s BDSM aesthetic – Abraham even changes reasons for doing so between Season 2 (a self-focusing discipline, implied to be a result of the abuse he went through) and 3 (a religious practice), before dropping it completely.

On his own, he’s… fine, I just think he’s pretty dull because he has no quirks or anything that makes him stand out, but he didn’t irritate me as Alucard did. I enjoyed his utter trust in Dracula, which makes him far less approachable compared to the manipulable Caesar: notably, poor Godbrand didn’t even finish airing his grievances to him before getting swiftly killed, and never mentioned again. This establishes Abraham as being strong, efficient, fanatical, and even concerned for his Master’s mental wellbeing – no point in telling him what happened, right?

As someone who is presented as being Isaac, he irritates me: he feels scrubbed down, neutered, because Ellis or whoever was responsible for the personality change clearly thought there was nothing salvageable about Isaac, and removed everything that made him iconic save for the simpness. Well, they were wrong.

Isaac doesn’t get a childhood flashback like Hector, but we see the day he found Dracula’s castle, which tells us already his priorities. His past doesn’t really matter: his devotion to his Lord does. His blind loyalty is his defining characteristic.

Look at this little baby, so happy to have finally found a place that can welcome him and his little sister <3 he has no idea what fate has in store for him <3

But yes, Isaac’s very young age in this scene tells us a lot without actually showing us what he went through. Whatever happened to him broke him far more than Hector’s own traumatic childhood: poor kid can’t be older than thirteen, and he’s already bragging that he has turned his back against God.

In CoD, Julia says that she escaped from the witch hunts in Western Europe. We don’t know if she meant in adulthood or childhood. If the latter, then Isaac was probably involved as well.

We also see that he still cares about Julia, and he wants her to come with him. Sadly we don’t know what happened to her afterwards – if we go by their canonical ages, she’d be a very young child here – but she’ll be important later. Presumably, Dracula didn’t want to take in such a young, inexperienced witch, while Isaac’s more cursed powers could already be honed.

The other half of his flashback chapter in the MF manga sets up other important factors:

Isaac is learning to Forge Devils, but he has trouble with stabilizing them: Isaac is talented, but just not enough, and it’s not a surprise that being “stable” is what gives him the most trouble (we can infer Hector never had an issue with that, as he’s more levelheaded than his companion);

The Succubus taunted Isaac that he’d be surpassed by a new boy: this establishes his inferiority complex, and while this never comes fully into play in the same way it does for other rivals, the implication is that he always saw Hector as an adversary, and it bred even more animosity in his easily corruptible heart;

isaac is the gayest man in wallachia seriously have you seen how he looks at hector

So this is Isaac. What about Abraham?

Since Isaac’s childhood is far less defined, Abraham had to get his own unique tragic past. Admittedly, not much to point out here: he used to be the slave of a priest who abused him (because CHURCH BAD), but nonetheless Abraham fell in love with his master, and when he confessed, he got punished for it. After killing him, Abraham spent his life on the run, hunted by other people who wanted to kill him and worse, until Dracula personally rescued him. I like how this, much like the MF flashback, paints Abraham as someone who has the tendency to cling to his masters no matter what; and while I prefer the idea of Hector and Isaac knocking on Dracula’s door, I don’t mind the man himself actually helping Abraham. Indeed, Dracula treating him like an outright friend ensures that Abraham will be 100% devoted to him. (if only Dracula’s good relationship with Abraham didn’t come at the cost of the two of them shitting on Caesar…)

Speaking of Caesar! You can’t talk about Isaac without mentioning his crush relationship with Hector! And how it was turned in NFCV :)

Sadly, both mangas give us meager crumbs of what the two thought of each other before Hector’s betrayal, and they diverge quite a bit.

Not much to say about what very little is shown by the PtR manga: Isaac comes off as friendly… or as friendly as he can be:

That power... Perhaps you can become even scarier and crueler than me…

The two even have something resembling a heart-to-heart conversation: Isaac more or less attempts to calm down Hector when he’s in the middle of a morality crisis, although by downplaying his grievances. If the two were friends, they weren’t close ones, or maybe their different moralities were already driving a wedge between them.

The MF manga emphasizes the resentment Isaac felt for Hector, “from the moment [they] first met”:

When he has the confirmation that Hector is alive and has hidden himself on holy grounds, Isaac is ecstatic to face him, so much that he kills his own underlings to go against Dracula’s express order to bring Hector back to him. He is that determined to not only prove his strength to his Lord, but most importantly to kill the traitor with his own hands.

Of course, things may not be as clear-cut as he pretends to be :) He even tried to spare Hector, allegedly in the name of their Lord, but who knows :)

Yeah, who knows.

And CoD itself, while sadly barely touches on Hector and Isaac’s former relationship, gives us another little gem:

I know that Julia has some kind of divination powers, but this doesn't seem like the kind of information she could garner from them. He told her, didn't he?

I was, as you can imagine, immensely disappointed that Abraham and Caesar’s relationship is barely on the level of “coworkers reluctantly forced to share a building”. Abraham’s lack of respect for Caesar is not endearing at all: he treats him with condescension, he insults him behind his back (and to Dracula’s face, who seems to agree with him, and yet again I must ask why did he choose someone he thinks he’s a complete idiot as a General), but he still has time to make a joke about kissing him which at this point comes off as even inappropriate. Caesar, on his part, seems to ignore his existence until Carmilla reminds him of the fact. Not only this complete lack of chemistry is utterly boring, and doesn’t take advantage of the potential differences between the two characters, but it becomes a characterization issue later on.

This all culminates in the fateful moment when Hector and Isaac fight right outside the Castle, freedom and loyalty clashing! And its NFCV equivalent, which has Caesar being dragged against his will into Carmilla’s assault of the castle, and Abraham being yeeted away by Dracula. Yeah, the two don’t fight at all. Because why have a compelling relationship in this show when you can rely on snarky one-liners.

The exact events of the fight differ between the two versions, but they hardly matter in the long run. What matter is that the two fought to the death, Hector emerged superior, and Isaac discovered to his immense horror that, without him and Hector guarding the castle, Trevor Belmont and the others managed to slay Dracula.

Both versions are heartwrenching.

Not only the Curse that Dracula cast upon his death already reached his Generals, but Isaac had a full mental breakdown. You can tell he’s blaming himself for not protecting his Lord, and laments that he has to live without him – Lord Dracula was everything to him, and now that he has failed him to this degree, what else has he to live for?

Why, Hector himself. He can blame him. He was the one who ran away, he was the reason Dracula had to send Isaac in his pursuit. Sure, the Belmont is the one who physically dealt the killing blow, but maybe, if Hector remained loyal, the two could have defeated him together. Even in CoD, Isaac doesn’t direct his fury at Trevor (in fact, in the Japanese version, he even compliments him), because Isaac’s main concern isn’t not him: it’s his former friend who turned his back on him and their Lord.

And what can I even say about this masterpiece from PtR?

I won't let you say that your rebellion has nothing to do with this! Had you cut off my head as well, I would not have seen this… Hector!

Isaac crawled back in shame using his broken sword as a cane, fully expecting to be punished by Dracula for once again proving how inferior he was to Hector. He did not expect to come back to this.

Not only Hector deliberately left Isaac alive, which comes off as a humiliation (interesting contraposition to the MF version, where it’s Isaac who grants Hector mercy in the name of Dracula – they will both regret their decision)… these pages really convey just how much Hector’s defection has taken away from Isaac. In one fell swoop, he has lost his beloved Lord, the only place he could call home, the closest thing he had to a friend, and the work of his lifetime. Is it any wonder that even in this version, he seems to regret that he has to live? Is it any wonder that he’d be fueled for three years with pure hatred for Hector?

In short, Isaac has every single understandable reason in the world for wanting Hector dead.

What’s Abraham’s reason?

First of all, Abraham is, technically speaking, also partially responsible for the fall of Dracula’s castle. While Isaac lost everything through no fault of his own (yes, he killed his underlings in the MF manga and that’s fucked up, but that did not influence the chain of events at all), Abraham was also roped by Caesar into asking Dracula to move the castle under Carmilla’s request. His first reason for agreeing was even “it will stop her from making mischief”, which is a nice way to say “Iook I just want her to shut the fuck up”. Agreeable, surely, but I feel less sorry for him.

But that’s not the issue. The issue is that the Hector vs. Isaac fight simply did not happen, because Caesar did not flee on his own (because he was prevented from having agency), so Abraham was sent away by Dracula when the assault started, out of concern for his soul (or because Dracula wanted to die in peace), and Abraham only knew that Trevor, Sypha, Alucard and the Styrian forces were attacking, not that Caesar was involved.

Thematically, I like that Abraham chose to die for Dracula, but Dracula denied him the choice. He’s a tool, and he’s not even allowed to die on his own terms – much like Isaac, who was forced to live. But I’m still not satisfied.

So, Abraham gave zero shits about Caesar, knew that Carmilla was bad news from the start (but still agreed to her idea), didn’t actually see how the battle ended, actually saw Trevor and the others storm in with his own eyes, and didn’t know that Caesar “betrayed” Dracula.

Why in the fuck is he so pissed at Caesar? What weight does his revenge plan have?

This is what happens when you shoehorn a plot point you read on the wiki without understanding the context. Abraham by all means should either blame himself, or blame Carmilla exclusively. His animosity makes far less sense, and I don’t feel as sorry for him.

On top of this, his loss doesn’t feel as severe. Yes, he was separated from his Lord/friend and the castle, but he still had his immense power (even his Forging knife; he didn’t even have to, for example, find himself another weapon while living vulnerable in the meantime), and he actually has lived in the desert before, meaning he knows how to move and what to do. He also is not afraid of travelling among humans, while Isaac couldn’t let himself be seen even if he wanted to (he looks very visibly “wrong” for the average Middle Age person, and that’s not including the possibility that he was known in Wallachia). He did not lose his entire life: there is simply a big obstacle in his way.

Before I move on, two interesting scenes to compare are the different versions of the Hector vs. Isaac fight, mostly for what the latter says.

In the PtR manga, Isaac seems to be genuinely resentful of how humankind treated him:

Were we known in the human world, we would be chased away with stones… A place where we can exist… a place to cling to… Where was it?!

This is fairly in line with what you would expect from him: humans hated him, so he hates human in return, and this is why he’s outraged that Hector would even dare to turn his back to their Lord.

But the MF version has a slightly different flavor:

I pointed out different times that Isaac seems to put more focus on how humans did not respect Dracula enough than how they were cruel towards Hector and him. And indeed, Isaac rarely if ever expresses outright misanthropic views, in the same way Dracula does. This is a more interesting approach, in my opinion: Isaac genuinely doesn’t care about mankind, he’s not motivated by spite against them, he’s only motivated by the love and gratitude he feels for the first creature who showed him respect. And if said creature orders him to slaughter humans, oh well.

I have already talked extensively about Isaac’s “tool” mentality, so I won’t repeat myself. Long story short, Isaac nearly dehumanizing himself and refusing to have his own agency outside of Lord Dracula acts as a contrast to Hector, whose main goal is to gain agency over his own life.

Needless to say, Abraham gets this only halfway through. Yes, he also starts the series believing to be Dracula’s tool. Unlike Isaac, though, he spends two season unable to shut up about how much he despises mankind and considers them the root of all evil and believes that by exterminating mankind the world will be full of love. His dialogue gets incredibly repetitive in no time flat. Abraham is not endearing: he's pretentious.

So I suppose it’s time to jump to the three years between CV3 and CoD/Season 3.

In short, my man Isaac is not coping well with the divorce :’D

This post by @the-crow-binary is a great breakdown of Isaac’s mental state in the MF manga. The Curse has taken a hold of him already, and he’s ranting, obsessed, shaking in fear and rage: an absolute mess.

Still better than how we find him in PtR:

Mmh… So you can make that kind of face… I've gotten a lot better too... How many times has the moon waxed and waned, I wonder? That’s a nice expression… I'm happy. Good pain is proof of life. I won't grant you the peace of death so easily: live, spit blood, and then…

Lord Dracula is with us!

As I have pointed out, in this version, Isaac rotted the entire time completely alone in the ruins of his old home, easy prey for the Curse. He had nowhere else to go, and apparently he didn’t consider to find his sister again. Anyone would have gone mad, even without Dracula's help.

(side note, I love love love how this manga justifies Isaac's iconic outfit by showing that Hector ruined it first, and then Isaac let it fall off his body, no longer in the conditions to care:

Hector broke Isaac's outfit. Hector broke Isaac's mind and heart. It's so interesting how Hector truly is the villain in Isaac's story <3)

And speaking of broken heart! I'd be remiss if I didn't mention this small detail of Isaac writing Hector's name on the sole of his boot. Whether you interpret it as a hex or him expressing twisted romantic feelings, one thing's for certain: Hector is at the forefront of Isaac's thoughts. I cannot stress enough how personal Isaac's revenge is, much like Hector's own revenge quest will be.

This is how we feel the weight of his devious plan to get revenge on the man who took everything away from him, by taking his hard-earned happiness away as well.

So how’s Abraham doing?

This is the part of the show where he turns from secondary antagonist to full protagonist and darling of the narrative.

Season 3 is where Abraham supposedly starts his super compelling character arc, moving away from being Dracula’s tool and giving himself a new purpose. Allegedly, his ingrained misanthropy gets constantly challenged by actually experiencing human kindness, although sadly the lessons don’t quite stick. On paper, this sounds very intriguing, not unlike Hector learning what love is thanks to Rosaly (hint hint). However, I find the execution laughable at best, and irritating at worst.

This is what Abraham does in this season. He decides that he wants a big army, which means killing humans. He travels. He meets a kind shopkeeper that gifts him a mirror that tells him where to go next. He’s stopped by guards because he has an army of demons: Abraham is sad that they’re not as kind as the previous person and kills them. He travels. He boards a ship with an intriguing captain, who manages to tell him that committing human genocide would deprive the world of happiness. He’s stopped by guards because he has an army of demons: Abraham is sad that they’re not as kind as the previous person and kills them. He travels. He talks with a philosopher demon who tells him that CHURCH BAD. He meets a woman that tells him where to go next. He kills a bunch of people and kills a magician.

This is… not really an arc. Abraham allegedly takes one step forward, and then immediately one step back. He doesn’t get better nor worse. He just talks a lot in the meantime pretending to be deep.

Now, I do like the scenes with the shopkeeper and the captain, those two are well written; I also like Miranda as a look on what Abraham could become if he gets consumed by despair, ironically acting as the Isaac to Abraham’s Hector (hint hint). But this scene, one of the most popular ones for Abraham, pisses me off.

Abraham wants to travel with a giant army of demons in tow. The guards insist that he must turn back because, well, giant army of demons. This is literally the second time in a row that this happens, hence the famous “is this the definition of insanity?” quote. Oh, but not because Abraham is stupid in expecting that humans would move out for him, but because poor thing, he really had hopes that humans could be good, but no, they keep hurting him! By doing their job! Oh no, they are slightly aggressive to the dark wizard who can control demons, how awful of them!

Sure, Abraham is correct in saying that he literally can’t turn back because he’s at the harbor, and yes the guards had no chance against Abraham, but the way this scene is framed, we’re supposed to feel sorry that poor little Abraham got confirmation that all humans are stupid and evil after all, and really, is it any wonder that he snapped and killed them all?

This is what Isaac would do. Slaughtering a bunch of humans because they were “fucking rude” to him? It’s just as cartoonishly evil as Abraham fans accuse Isaac of being. Except that in his case, it would be clear that he’s batshit insane, and not in the philosophical way Abraham pretends to be.

Abraham ends Season 3 in the same place where he started, and I have no idea how he managed to become this popular.

Most insultingly, Abraham isn’t allowed to lose. Abraham isn’t allowed to be set back. In the season where every character suffers, is traumatized, or loses something (Caesar and Alucard being by far the worst victims), Abraham ends the season happily killing brainwashed people to then kill a generic magician to get to a magic mirror that would lead him directly to his destination, along with the army of demons that he created by killing people, after a lady he happened to meet told him about the existence of said mirror.

People in NFCV can smell magic? Well, I can smell favoritism.

But okay, he’s still a bad guy, right? I’m not meant to sympathize with him, right? I’m just in for the ride because he’s “cool”, right?

Enter CoD/Season 4.

You, who gave up your powers and became the lowest of the low, nothing but mere scum.

Sadly, CoD has a severe dearth of Isaac appearances, after the iconic first cutscene. He is as I described him in the beginning: an utter bastard. However, I appreciate his overall plan that sets up the whole plot.

There is a lot of speculation and holes-filling to do here (I suspect he had Death’s help, at least when it came to the Infinite Corridor part of the plan, but we have no proof), but the point is, he has all the means to inflict a most terrible punishment on Hector, by taking advantage of the Curse that he’s spreading and that consumed him, and also by taking advantage of Hector himself. The two knew each other well: Isaac knew that Hector would be unstoppable in his quest for revenge, to the point that he felt confident enough to spell out his plan, which is to guide Hector so that he can regain his cursed powers (even drawing schemes to explain how to Forge, which is hilarious when you think about it). What would Hector do anyway, give up? That’s not like him. Isaac knows this. The only part he omits is that he needs those immense powers not just to make their fateful match worth it, but to break the seal that prevents the castle from resurrecting. A very clever spin on the classic “get stronger so that our fight will be worth it” plan.

(contrast this well-thought out plan with Abraham getting everything he wants on a silver platter.)

We also get a cute moment where he retreats at the sight of Julia, almost as if he was afraid of hurting her, implying that he can feel more than smugness and rage.

Sadly, the end of his story is not a happy one. By the time he faces Hector like he wanted, his former friend is absolutely livid that he had been played like a fiddle… and more important, he regained all of his strength. Which was more than Isaac’s. Oops, that part wasn’t very well thought-out. But it’s not Hector who kills him: he saves himself from the Curse taking complete hold of him just in the nick of time. No, it’s Death, who decides to use the “other one” (even making fun of him in the process) to resurrect Dracula. Either the ritual or Hector slashing his possessed body to pieces puts an end to Isaac’s madness. Despite Julia’s best wishes, Isaac never rose from the darkness that consumed him. He constantly chose loyalty to Dracula and hatred, and that doomed him. Furthermore, his own name acted as an omen: much like the Biblical Isaac, he was set to be sacrificed in the name of the closest thing to a God he worshipped.

As for Abraham… at this point in his arc, it’s pointless to compare him to Isaac, because he has officially turned into Hector. By reversing Isaac’s downfall, the writers accidentally recreated Hector’s character arc of finding agency for himself, killing the person responsible for his pain (well, he wants to, but Carmilla in true #girlboss fashion peaces out on her own terms), and then moving on from Dracula, accepting to live in full. It’s. It’s Hector. Except worse.

What else can I say? Abraham got his revelation off screen, during a time-skip: now he wants to create, to do good in the world like when he killed the evil magician. He sets out to invade Styria to kill Caesar, but then changes his mind at the last second, and even tells him to not go with his plan of resurrecting Dracula. No internal struggle, just a ton of words. No mention of all the people he has gleefully killed for petty reasons. No remorse at all. Not an obstacle he had to overcome. Not even an ounce of self-loathing that at least made Hector more sympathetic. Abraham fails at being a good reinterpretation of Isaac, and fails at being an interesting anti-hero with a solid journey.

To be clear, I'm not saying he should have died like Isaac. Again, at this point I accept that he became Hector. But his happiness simply doesn't feel earned. He got what he wanted after a fairly small loss (Dracula died, sure, but he never got confirmation for that), and he had his character development offscreen. His narrative is a rushed version of what Hector was allowed to be through two mangas and a game, and yet he's the one hailed as the best character of all time.

Just to cap it off, I can’t help but complain about how dull and forgettable Abraham’s design is. He’s literally just a man who walked into the set and stole Isaac’s full Devil Forgemaster outfit. There is no reason for him to be associated with red (his magic), since the Red Oni Blue Oni dynamic with Caesar has been lost. His tattoos do not convey anything, and we rarely see them in full anyway. Also why does he have a different crest on his back???? IT'S A UNIFORM! It drives me mad! At least try to understand the source material for fuck's sake!

Isaac is iconic. He’s immediately recognizable in the Castlevania cast, but still fitting in thanks to key elements. He doesn’t look fully human, with his bright red hair and yellowish eyes: he doesn’t have the typical Kojima pretty face, but he has more distinguishable features such as a big nose: the tattoos tell a whole story about him and it’s fun to imagine what they symbolize – high pain tolerance? A desire to defile his own body to spite God? Some arcane symbol, the result of a ritual? And then there’s the Devil Forgemaster crest forever embedded in his back, representing his full devotion and the fate he could not escape from. He truly looks like everything Hector isn't.

This post got long. And again, I didn't even care to talk about Abraham, because I don't like him one bit and because I love Isaac independently from this overhyped character. But hey, you asked, and I ranted with great pleasure :P

also have this absolute banger

does abraham have a sick ass theme? yeah didn't think so

[wordsandrobots]

What if 'Gundam SEED' was told from Flay's point of view? How would they approach it? Would it have been better?

For a long time, watching Gundam SEED, I would have said Flay was the most interesting character so I understand the appeal. 'X manipulates Y to exact revenge for Z while simultaneously being what Y needs in the moment and using this to avoid dealing with their own grief, fear and bigotry' is definitely a meaty premise.

However, this is also very clearly not the story SEED was interested in telling.

SEED is fundamentally about Kira and Athrun, and when I say 'fundamentally', I mean the show commits to the day being saved by two blokes in magic space robots who successfully blow up various bits of evil technology and/or bad guys because they're just that special. And to my mind, it's with this notion of 'special' that SEED's underlying flaw lies.

See, the Coordinators are definitively special. Textually, they can do things other humans cannot. We are told (and shown) that people are scared of them as a result. Yet this and Kira's struggles to be defined beyond his genes are obviously poor analogies for any real-world prejudice. It's 'being bullied for being smarter than everyone' logic, rather than how oppression or ethnic conflict actually work.

Basically, it's the X-Men. Hated and feared for being the brilliant ones, why oh why can't we just be treated as people.

Now, I like the X-Men. Always have. It's just, once you commit to inherent genetic 'specialness' of any kind, you back into a corner from which it is extremely hard to extricate yourself. Despite its token protests about Coordinators still needing to train, SEED presents a world where some people are just better. It embraces the idea of functional eugenics. There's nothing here of the nuance allowed by 'new-types' being analogous to new ways of thinking that emerge naturally from a changing world and are subverted or maximised by people who want to control the future. Nor does SEED turn around, as Gundam X did, and saying, nah, you're all random quirks of nature and/or incredibly lucky.

Eugenics is the explanation for why Kira is special. Someone literally bred a super-protagonist. That is a thing that is possible in this world.

So is Flay therefore right to fear the Coordinators?

Even as it presents her hatred and anger towards them as a flaw, SEED allows the possibility that the answer is 'yes'. Because it is reasonable to be wary of those who hold power over you, and the Coordinators come with power built in. Which is an exact inversion of the ways prejudice ascribes particular malevolence to groups who are, in fact, more vulnerable than people holding the prejudice.

I think a story centred on Flay over Kira would automatically be more interesting. If that's the criteria for 'better' then I must answer your question in the affirmative, straight up. The thing is, given all of the above, I can't in good conscience say it would address the stuff I don't like about what SEED is saying. As much as there are stories I love whose politics and worldview are quite at odds with my personal beliefs (currently delighted by Dracula, adore The Man Who Was Thursday, etc), I draw the line at centering lazy misconceptions about bigotry and oppression. And you would need to centre those things if you spent more time with Flay because, within the confines of what is presented in SEED as it stands, they form a significant part of her character.

If you were to take out the whole concept of the Coordinators and simply make Kira a talented member of some group responsible for killing Flay's dad, then tell the story of how she uses him as her instrument of vengeance before growing as a person and confronting the fact Kira is a person too? Sounds like a fantastic set-up with which you could do some very entertaining, very messed-up stuff.

That, however, essentially brings us back to my one big idea for improving SEED which is this: rip it up and start again.

[iubitdracull]

Muse Biography

Name: Vladimir Dracul Tepes III

Age: 4,450 

Species: Vampire

Aliases: Dracula, Vlad Tepes, Impaler Lord, Vlad The Impaler, Dark Lord, Lord of Darkness, Son of Satan, Son of The Devil, The Sacred Ancestor, The Vampire King, The First Vampire, Emperor of The Undead, The Nosferatu. 

Family: (All with a † are deceased) Vladimir Dracul Tepes II (Father) † Justina Szilágyi Dracul (Mother) † Radu (Older brother) † Elizabetha Carmi Dracul Tepes  (Wife) †  Justine Dracul (Daughter) † Seraphina Dracul (Daughter) † Mina Harker (Spouse) † 

Lucifer/The Devil (Spiritual Father) (@ave-sxtanas ) Igor Van Lichtenstein (Adopted son) (Side muse on this blog) Rokshana Dracul Tepes (Adopted daughter) (@sxverana ) Adrian Fahrenheit Dracul Tepes (Son) Dimitri (Son)

Hair Color: Black Eye Color: Red Height: 6’10

Dracula is charismatic and aristocratic, stoic,  poised, and regal, having perfect manners and an imposing presence, a silver tongue with a poetic way with words. Though he often laces it with sarcasm and dark humor, he is a gentleman, well-spoken, erudite, and distinguished, even greeting foes kindly and discussing their motives. He is also knowledgeable, a master of warfare and battle strategy; with a capacity for cunning and manipulation, always one step ahead of those who oppose him. Occasionally he uses unwitting pawns and proxies; he is no coward and isn’t afraid to take matters into his own hands. Though to those who earn his ire, he only displays scathing spite. 

Vladimir is a warrior at heart, a brutal fighter, and a skilled swordsman regarded as the deadliest warrior of his time in his mortal days. Courageous and fearless, he can stand firm against the whole legions of his enemies in direct combat. He does not hesitate to smite his enemies. He spares no quarter and savagely slaughters his foes, preferring to impale his enemies after defeating them and leaving them to suffer a slow and painful death. Dracula fights with ferocity and often extreme cruelty, rarely killing until his enemies have been completely disabled, broken, and humiliated.

He is misanthropic, calling the majority of humankind petty, greedy, dishonest, and worthless. He states that many of humanity, including the heroes who confront him, have darkness in their hearts and should stop denying their selfish desires. He often says there is no true freedom and that people are willing slaves to their religions. He addresses his subordinates respectfully and politely whenever he engages in any conversation and even extends this trait to his enemies. He is also shown to be reasonably grateful, as he often blesses and rewards those who serve him or otherwise help him by usually offering power, a high rank within his army, or even immortality. However, he is shown to be merciless toward any minions that defect from him, executing or torturing them in the most excruciating ways. He will not hesitate to slaughter people for working against him, killing them brutally and leaving their corpses impaled among forests of spears and lances. Still, he would have no qualms sparing innocent people who never intended to challenge him.

Though under all that, Dracula is a tortured individual whose heart has become cold as ice with hatred, not only for the world but for himself. He accepts that he is a monster, the things he has done irredeemable, and doesn’t try to be anything else besides the beast that all men have come to fear and hate. Yet, in his most private moments, he stares long into mirrors, seeing no reflection, drowning in his hatred for himself and what he has become. Dracula is a sad and lonely creature, yet he never expresses himself outwardly. He believes wholeheartedly that he is beyond all hope, cursed by God, feared by the Devil, and hated by all.

Yet his most incredible pain comes from those he had lost, the loss of his first family, whose deaths haunt his every waking moment and afflict him every time he closes his eyes. 

[friendlygirlswag]

and,friendly girl swag? will your explanation ever grace the empty empty halls of my mind 😔 -guillermoguywife

YES IT WILL, SIR GUYWIFE! the day has come at last

okay so first off (and relating to your other ask, which tumblr didn’t let me see until NOW) !! vampires and fiddler on the roof are both VERY jewish. fiddler on the roof is obvious, as its literally about a family in a shtetl in 1905 with the most yiddish names you can imagine, but vampires. oh man oh boy. i fuckin love the jewish connection to vampires

vampires as a story concept have existed for ages all over the world (vrykolakas in greece, moroi in romania, sasabonsam in south ghana, cihuateto in aztec mythology, jiangshi in china, etc etc) but our modern day western understanding of vampires has. a really weird amount of ties to antisemitism, Especially in bram stoker’s dracula novel. like, for one, blood libels—the accusation against jews of needing human blood (especially of christian children) for the preparation of passover matzoh—had already been around for centuries at this point, so the reach between that and vampirism really wasn’t that far, all things considered. “things” being were that antisemitism and antisemitic fearmongering was extremely prevalent in the late 19th century.

anyway. in terms of bram stoker’s dracula specifically. the book opens with the diary entries of an englishman, staying in count draculas mansion in romania while he helps the count buy a house in england. an old woman warns him against travelling during the night of st george’s day, as all evil things will be at their full power. dracula warns him against wandering around the castle at night, but due to the englishmans unfortunate englishness, he does it anyway and narrowly avoids being killed by three vampire ladies because dracula rescues him and distracts the vampire ladies with a bag with a small child trapped inside. the englishman narrowly avoids getting killed by the three vampire ladies a second time and dracula packs his dirt for a ship to england, where he stalks and feeds on a woman. prof van helsing diagnoses her with acute blood loss and puts garlic around her room and on a necklace, only for them to get removed by the womans mother, both of whom die from fright after seeing a wolf shortly after. after the womans burial reports are given of children being stalked at night by a beautiful lady, who van helsing determines as the woman. they track her down and kill her, the englishman and his wife join the hunting group, and go after dracula, eventually killing him in back in romania.

(side note. surely someone has talked about how in the dracula novel, vampires can be freed of their curse by someone killing their sire, and how dracula was killed by van helsing on his ancestral soil……. surely someone has pieced that together with nandor and guillermo’s supposed-to-be roadtrip……. with nandor’s rampant self hatred and adoration for human things and guillermo’s van helsing instincts and possibly dwindling wish to become a vampire himself…..)

now for historical context: in the decade or so before dracula was published there was a huge influx of immigrant eastern european jews to england after pogroms in their hometowns. st george’s day marks the death of st george, circa 303 AD, after beint tortured and executed in palestine (majority jewish population, but under roman control/occupation) for refusing to give up christianity. in romanian myth vampires’ power dwindles as the nights become shorter, so on st george’s eve they gather and feast on as much evil power as they can get. we’ve already touched on the blood libel and the christian children thing. dracula is eastern european, wealthy, and has a lack of allegiance towards any country, all very stereotypical jewish immigrant things. his nose gets mentioned often, and shapeshifts into people you would see in jojo rabbits “yoohoo jew”. (coincidentally as part of that book, when jojo is writing down elsa’s made-up ways to recognize a jew, she tells him that they sleep upside down like bats). jews in victorian literature were often described as parasites, and there was a fear that jews would spread bloodborne illnesses— in russian folklore, vampires were created by a bloodborne infection that requires its victims to feed on blood. garlic is a natural antibiotic, and is used to cover up the smell of blood to block insects like mosquitos from locating it. not to mention how dracula’s place in london is described as having “smelled old jerusalem in it”. jewish holidays also begin at sundown, where christian holidays always start when you wake up, possibly contributing to how vampires are creatures of the night and were said to hate christian symbols.

HISTORY CLASS OVER. I MAY HAVE RAMBLED TOO FAR.

“but how does this relate to wwdits and fiddler on the roof, dear friendlygirlswag?” you ask. well.

fiddler on the roof is about a family in a russian shetl, marriages aranged by a matchmaker, and moving away from home for good, lest they get killed.

do you see where i am going with this.

tzeitel is arranged to marry a widower older than her dad, when she really wants to marry her childhood friend motel, who was too afraid to break tradition.

hodel mocks perchik’s modern interpretation of a torah story. perchik mocks her in term for clinging to the old rules of tradition, and dances with her in spite of it being prohibited.

chava gets bullied and intimidated by some goys. one of them protects her, and they form a secret relationship since marrying a goy is prohibited.

sleeping with a van helsing is well against vampiric law. nandor’s been cursed to think about guillermo every time he uses his dick. nandor was in an on and off relationship with a werewolf, vampires hereditary enemy, for Decades. and yet nandor still clings to the past so much, because he’s so afraid of what will happen if he Truly breaks tradition. the djinn is playing matchmaker, and somehow for both sides.

act 1 ends on tzeitel and motels wedding day, where perchik breaks another tradition in public to dance with hodel. the celebration ends abruptly when the russians swing by for a quick pogrom and destroy all of the poor family’s gifts.

the second to last song in act 1 is called “sunrise, sunset” and man. it’s from the parent’s perspective, watching their kids on their wedding day, and then from perchik and hodel, hoping that someday they can get married too. and i am just thinking about nandor and marwa and their shitty ass relationship and guillermo and freddie and s4e10 sunrise, sunset “baby colin reaches that awkward age.”

i am so scared

[lovee-infected]

OK i hope i'm not bothering you but im the same anon who made the castlevania connection and i've been thinking :3c [Castlevania spoilers for the general lore/tw death, fire] since Lisa got burned because she was considered a witch in middle ages i think Malleus' s/o would get killed because they are married to a fae, a fae royalty to make things worse [if i remember correctly Faes and humans have problems in twst Canon but im not sure] that would wreck Malleus since his s/o was the first human to steal his heart and now they are gone because of their own kin, also Lilia could take the role of Death as Dracula's servant since death was very royal to Dracula and has been there with him for the longest time.. Sorry if any of these sound incoherent i can't speak English jdhsjshjssbsjj

Congrats nonnie, Castlevania au exists now👏👏👏

Note: You don't need to have watched Castlevania to understand this au, it just follows similar dynamics and storyline as the series!

Warning(s): Major character death, mildy yandere themes, pain, pain pain and lots of pain. Malleus having another mental breakdown as if being an orphan and growing without any friends hadn't already done enough of damage to him...

It's pretty well known that there has been wars between fae and humans in the past, there's also a possibility that Malleus's or even Silver's parents might've been killed during those wars. Malleus on the other hand would one day be the King of fairies, therefore he's most likely expected to marry a fae of a proper social, and royal class like him.

If Malleus waa meant to fall for a human of all creatures, it's not that far from mind that not only the valley of thorns, but rather the whole community would object to his marriage as the future King. At this point most of them (expect those close to him like Lilia, Sebek or Silver) don't even care about Malleus's desires and decisions; his genuine feelings for a man child isn't enough to wash away the hatred and bitterness the whole fae community hold toward humans, therefore going against Malleus's wish and... getting rid of s/o would be crucial if the royal family wants to avoid another war.

While Malleus believes this marriage would be a chance for fae and humans to reunite, the chaos caused between the fae community is overwhelming; even members of the royal Court riot when the truth behind young prince's secret lover is unfold and soon enough, (y/n) is marked as a threat to the entire valley of thorns.

Yet, Malleus would still choose to marry his beloved child of man regardless of the great antagonism his marriage faced, he is the King and he has the final word to decide whether he should marry his s/o or not.

As he's aware if the hatred his people may hold towards his s/o now, he trusts you with his trusted and loyal bodyguard, Silver and Sebek to protect you from any possible danger; leaving the castle as well is considered to be a threat, so the s/o needs to be under extreme protection which insures their safety.

However, several years after his marriage to s/o, Malleus decides maybe the word is now ready to accept this child of man as their King's partner since it's been years since the last wave of oppositions toward the King's marriage.

Perhaps it's finally time for human and fae to reunite as fairies have finally accepted his s/o, however...

...The betrayal that leads to his beloved human's death and Malleus's mental break down was never going to be from the fairies,

It was meant to be from humans, the s/o gets killed, by the hands of their own people.

(Y/n) has been marked as a threat toward humanity because they were married to Malleus, the King of darkness and mister of all evil.

Malleus spent decades protecting his child of man from the deadliest of faes and scariest of monster, only for them to get betrayed by their own kind, their own people.

Humans...humans, the grudge he has been for this pathetic word over centuries, way before he met (y/n), way before he fell for one of those pathetic humans. He thought s/o could change the way he saw humans, he thought he was going to forget the wounds those disgusting creatures had left on his heart, he thought he could finally come to trust humans but ah, how fool of him.

My my... wasn't he being just too naive? Thinking that there was actually a way for humans to change but no, humans will never change. He laughs at his own patheticness for trusting humans with his beloved child of man's safety as his heart shatters to thousands of pieces, (y/n) is gone, he lost them, he lost them.

It was his very own fault for being such a fool, his love for s/o had blinded him to the point of forgetting what humans are truly like. His hatred toward humans shall last till the very end of this pathetic world and will takeover each and every of those pathetic creatures expect for one, (y/n).

S/o is the true love of his life and the only human Malleus will never hate, they were superior in each and every aspects Malleus could've used to measure a creature's worthiness and purity, if (y/n) of all human had to be the one to die, then no one, not a single soul of them deserves to breathe.

Way through human history, humans have done nothing but to destroy and sacrifice other creatures for the sake of their own greed and fear, their patheticness, their unworthiness, their selfishness.

Humans are the cause of nothing but pain and harm, therefore they shouldn't exist.

...If this, is meant to be how his story ends, let it also be the end of all humans who took his beloved, his child of man, his (y/n) from him...

[serialreblogger]

Hey! I'm thinking of reading Dracula, and knowing that's your eternal hyperfixation, I wanted to ask your thoughts, if you had any comments, suggestions, ect.

HEY WHY DIDN’T I SEE THIS SOONER I’M SO SORRY FRIEND

okay okay okay okay (...several people are typing...) SO

the first thing you should be aware of when reading Dracula is that it’s quite Victorian, so you might find it easier, especially on a first read, to get an annotated version (the Norton Critical Edition version is quite good) that puts footnotes in to explain all the outdated references to like, London penny-meat merchants and stuff. I would say it’s significantly easier to read than Lord of the Rings, but because it was written 200 years ago the difference in language means it’s not a simple read. (However, if you have absolutely any attraction to the Gothic aesthetic, Dracula is so very much worth the brainpower to slog through the rougher sentences. Like. “...the courtyard of a vast ruined castle, from whose tall black windows came no ray of light, and whose broken battlements showed a jagged line against the moonlit sky.” The whole book is like that. A bit stilted to contemporary readers, but also breathtakingly spot-on in its Spooky Factor.)

the second thing you should be aware of is that Dracula is extremely gay, but in a Tormented Victorian Closeted way. There’s a part where Jonathan climbs out a window that just. It’s uh. The descriptions are very,, metaphorical-sounding. Again, the whole book is like that, and sometimes it’s very fun and sometimes (lookin at Lucy’s whole thing) it’s significantly more unsettling if you pay attention to the weirdly sexy descriptions of how the protagonists interact with the vampires, but I think that’s part of what I find so fascinating about Dracula--it’s unsettling and strange and the pieces don’t fit together clearly, and I still don’t know quite what to make of it, but all the same the feeling of what Stoker’s saying comes through quite clearly. There’s a reason why so many Dracula adaptations have this narrative of a protagonist falling in forbidden love with the tormented Vampyre, yknow? There’s something so unmistakeably sympathetic about the character of Dracula, even when the narrative of the story goes out of its way to establish that he has no redeeming qualities or even proper personhood, that he’s just a monster. Because there’s something about the story (even without getting into the whole “Mina and Jon murked their boss” thing) that makes a reader wonder if that’s really the whole truth. If there isn’t something tragic about Dracula. If there isn’t something in him, if not of goodness, then at least of sorrow, instead of only fear.

Anyway I digress but I think we all knew that was gonna happen; point is: Jonathan and Dracula definitely had sex, Mina and Lucy were definitely in love, Seward’s got something weird goin on with the old professor (and also he’s just very weird, full stop. sir. sir please stop experimenting on your asylum inmates. sir i know this is victorian england but please Do Not), and Quincey, well, Quincey is an American cowboy with a bowie knife, and I think that’s all we really need to know.

ok and! the third thing you should be aware of is The Racism. Imperialist Britain, yo. Bram Stoker was Irish so like, it isn’t half as bad as some other authors of his time period (Rudyard Kipling anyone), but the racism is real and I don’t wanna gloss over that. The g**sy slur is used with abandon for a huge assortment of people groups, there’s a tacit as well as overt acceptance of the idea that West is superior to East, and because the educational system where I grew up is a joke and I can only learn things if I accidentally fall down the wikipedia hole of researching the insect genus hemiptera, i genuinely still don’t know how accurate the extensive history of Romania recounted in the first third of the book actually is. Oh also casual and blatant anti-blackness is verbalized by a character at least once. I’m pretty sure the racism has a metaphorical place in the framework of Dracula’s storytelling, but I couldn’t tell you what it is because I am not going to bother putting myself in the mindset of a racist white Victorian man. This is the mindset I am trying to unlearn. So: read with caution, critical thinking, and the double knowledge that even as the narrators are meant to be unreliable, so too is the author himself.

Finally, regarding interpretation: so personally I’m running with the opinion that Dracula is, at least partly, a metaphor for Stoker’s own queerness and internal conflict re: being queer, being closeted, and watching the torture his friend Wilde went through when the wealthy father of Wilde’s lover set out to ruin his life for daring to love his son. Whether this is true or not (I think it’s true, but hey, that’s analysis, baby), you can’t understand Dracula without knowing the social context for it (as with all literature--the author isn’t dead, not if you want to know what they were saying), and the social context for it is:

- Stoker was friends with Wilde, growing only closer after Wilde was outed

- Wilde was outed, as I said, because the father of his lover was wealthy and powerful and full of the most virulent kind of hatred. This is especially interesting because of how many rich, powerful parents just straight up die in Dracula and leave the main characters with no legal issues and a ridiculous amount of money, which is the diametrical opposite of what happened to Wilde

- Stoker idolized his mentor Henry Irving. Irving was a paradigm of unconventional relationships and self-built family, in a world where divorcees and children born out of wedlock were things to be whispered about in scandalized tones, not people to love and embrace. Irving was also famous for thriving off of manipulating those close to him and pitting friends against each other. Given the painstakingly vivid description Stoker provides for his titular vampire and how closely it matches Irving’s own appearance and demeanor, Irving was widely understood even at the time of writing to be the chief inspiration for the character of Dracula

- the book is dedicated to Stoker’s close friend, Hall Caine, a fellow writer whose stories centered around love triangles and accumulation of sins which threaten to ruin everything, only to be redeemed by the simple act of human goodness

- Stoker was Irish, but not Catholic (he was a Protestant of the Church of Ireland, a division of the Anglican Church). This may come as a surprise when you read the book and see All The Catholicism, Just Everywhere. Religion is actually a key theme in Dracula--most of the main characters start out your typical Good Victorian Anglican Skeptics, and need to learn through a trial-by-fire to trust in the rituals and relics of the Catholic Church to save them from Dracula’s evilness. Which is interesting. Because not only do these characters start off as dismissive towards these “superstitions” (in the same way they dismiss the “superstitions” of the peasant class on the outskirts of Dracula’s domain), but the narrative telling us “these superstitions are actually true!” cannot be trusted, when you know the author’s own beliefs.

(Bram Stoker is not saying what his characters are saying. This is the first and most important rule to remember, if you want to figure out Dracula.)

- The second-most famous character in the novel, after Dracula himself, is Van Helsing, whose first name is Abraham. Note that “Bram” is a declension of Abraham. What does this mean? I legitimately have no idea. But it’d be a weird coincidence, right? Like what even is the thought process there? “Oh, yeah, what should I name this character that comes in, makes overtly homoerotic statements willy nilly, and encourages everyone to throw rationality out the window and stake some vampires using the Eucharist? hmmmm how about ‘Me’”

ok wait FINAL final note: you legitimately do not have to care about any of this. I love Dracula because it has gay vibes and I love trying to figure it out, like an archaeologist sifting through sentence structure to find fragments that match the patterns I already know from historical research; but that’s not why you should love Dracula. The book itself is just straight up fun to read. Like I said, Stoker absolutely nails the exact vibe of spookiness that I love, the eerieness and elegance and vague but vivid fear of a full moon crossed by clouds at midnight. The characters are intriguing, especially Quincey gosh I love Quincey Morris but they’re very,, sweet? if i can say that about people i, personally, suspect of murder? They come together and protect each other against the terrible threat that is Dracula, and you don’t get that half as often as I’d like in horror media. I don’t even know if Dracula could qualify as “horror” proper, because it’s not about the squeamish creeping discomfort that “horror” is meant to evoke, it’s not the appeal of staring at a train wreck--it’s not horrifying. It’s eerie. It’s Gothic. It has spires and vampires and found family and cowboys, and to be honest, I don’t know what could be better than that.

[nitrateglow]

Time for me to complain about THE IMMORTAL COUNT

You know a biography is bad when it says more about its author than it does its chosen subject. 

Arthur Lenning lets you know he is a cradle Lugosi fan, even having met the man several times as a youngster in the 1940s. sometimes, fannish enthusiasm can enrich a critical study or biography. Other times, it comes off not unlike a Jack Chick tract: obnoxious, ugly, and unable to tolerate any view that so much as nudges its accepted ideology. Unfortunately, Lenning’s book is very much the latter.

Some positives first: the first chapters are very good, going into Lugosi’s childhood, his time on the Hungarian stage, his sad first marriage, his political entanglements, and his struggles to make it in Hollywood, where American xenophobia prevented him from being seen as anything but a heavy. These chapters are rich with biographical information, tend to be more objective, and gave me insight into Lugosi’s views on acting as a profession. In essence, it was actually a biography for the first hundred pages of this five hundred page book.

The moment Lugosi becomes a horror icon with the Dracula play, the book transforms from a biography to a fanboyish catechism. I understand the book’s full title is The Immortal Count: The Films and Life of Bela Lugosi, so I did anticipate some film analysis, likely observing what made Lugosi’s style unique and which films made the biggest impression on the popular culture. I did not expect 50% of the book to be plot summaries combined with the kind of fanboy commentary you can find on IMDB’s user reviews pages. Sometimes, Lenning is insightful, such as when he discusses the fairy tale motifs of White Zombie or explains how a movie is made “cinematic” through editing rather than camera movement when discussing the oft-praised Spanish Dracula. Other times, he indulges in trying to “improve” movies he doesn’t like, either by coming up with fix-it fanfiction rewrites of cheap 1940s filler features that make Lugosi more prominent or informing us that Lugosi should have played this or that role that Boris Karloff or Lon Chaney Jr. made famous because Lugosi is God and should not have been denied anything!

The hatred Lenning appears to bear Boris Karloff floored me because it seemed more based in jealousy for Lugosi’s sake than anything else. Karloff made more money than Lugosi, was more supported by the studio, and had a better career on the whole (even though he too ended up in some dire crap towards the end, but this does not suit Lenning’s narrative, so he never observes that). Any positive anecdote about Karloff is dismissed because Lugosi once referred to Karloff as “a cold fish” and who’s going to distrust Lugosi (even though Lenning himself admits Lugosi was envious of Karloff and often made things up about his own background make himself seem more interesting)?

Every story or remark that painted Karloff as an aloof snob is taken at face value. Lenning even claims Karloff’s politeness was a façade for a prima donna nature, hiding an arrogant man who reveled in being more successful than Lugosi. It’s absolutely childish how he chooses to make Karloff a cartoon villain in this, even mocking Karloff’s looks in comparison to Lugosi’s “attractiveness” and “sexual appeal.”

Now, I don’t believe Karloff was a saint whatsoever, and I’m sure he and Lugosi had an awkward working relationship at best, but the many interviews and anecdotes I have perused about Karloff over the years do not match up with how Lenning paints him here.

(Needless to say, when Lenning praises Karloff’s performance in The Body Snatcher, I was actually floored—was this the same author or had someone else typed that??)

However, I was most annoyed with his treatment of Lillian Lugosi by the end. For much of the book, he seems sympathetic to her: Lugosi was extremely controlling in their relationship, forbidding her from wearing make-up or curling her hair, buying all her clothes, growing easily jealous anytime she so much as went shopping on a whim for fear she was really seeing another man. Lenning, the veritable pope of the One True Church of Lugosi, even claims Lugosi seemed to have more regard for his dogs than he did his wife! Yet at the end of the book, when he cites her calling her second husband the love of her life, he snidely remarks that the guy was a drunk and really no better than Lugosi—because how dare she prefer anyone to Lugosi even after twenty years of putting up with his crap!

It’s hard for me to share Lenning’s disdain for Lugosi Jr either. Lenning paints him as a cold son and money-grubber only interested in Lugosi’s image for lucrative purposes, though to be honest, I rarely blamed Jr. for not being so close to his father. Lugosi was constantly traveling to do stage work, the two of them did not share common interests (more than likely due to Lugosi being such an older father), and Jr. was bullied at school for having Dracula as his dad, making their bond all the more awkward. I’m not saying he was totally in the right and as far as I know he could be some Snidely Whiplash money-grubber, but considering how biased Lenning shows himself to be when dealing with everyone else in this book, I have a hard time trusting anything he says about anybody. Either you’re a true believer or you’re a “cold fish,” I guess.

The most cringeworthy thing about this book is that Lenning makes himself a character in Lugosi’s life drama. He chronicles in detail the times he met the actor at performances of Dracula in the 1940s. This would normally be charming. Lenning instead casts himself as a holy figure, a sign to the saddened Lugosi that there is at least one “Lugosi-ite” out there adoring his films! He almost seems to suggest he is the son Lugosi should have had, unlike the unappreciative Jr. Why, Jr. didn’t even read the first edition of Lenning’s Lugosi biography! How awful!

(No, I’m not even kidding. He does complain about this! After claiming that Jr. attempted to control a conversation Lenning had with Lillian Lugosi, poor, poor Lenning says, “Once again he said that he had not read my book! (Perhaps he will spare himself from reading this update as well.)” I don’t know about Jr., but I wish I had spared myself the effort!)

This self-pitying, dare I say self-righteous, attitude permeates the book, making it unbearable and exhausting to read. Lenning makes snide remarks about those who don’t like Lugosi’s style or who dare to interpret events and anecdotes in ways that make Lugosi seem like the bad guy. He even calls some of his detractors “smart-ass critics.” I get being frustrated when critics are being smart-asses about things you like—I really do. I still haven’t fully forgiven Roger Ebert for his review of John Carpenter’s The Thing*… but when you’re writing a biography, is it really the time to settle personal vendettas? Is it really time to call people names like you’re still in middle school? Why not be the bigger person and show some class instead of making smart-ass comments yourself?

Ugh, Lugosi really needs a new biography. He deserves better than this fanboyish diarrhea. It’s sad, because it’s well-researched… but the author taints every event with his own rose-tinted view of Lugosi and his sheer disdain for everyone else save for fellow zealots.

Anyway, I’m done. Holy crap…

* This is a joke. Kind of.

[dexcidium]

So I’ve been meaning to write this for a while now… my review so far of Fate/Apocrypha. Keep in mind that I’ve read all the way up to the translated LNs, which is only up to the end of volume four, as well as this being written prior to the ending of the anime. As of now, it’s only up to episode 23. Let me preface this by saying that I love Fate. The lore and that distinct writing style ever so present within the series. The (mostly) well represented servants within the series. The character interactions, the relationship between servant and master, and everything else in between. That being said… I’ll keep this part short because I am prooooobably gonna go on and on forever on my thoughts later on.

TLDR: The concept was interesting, hype and it had some really great hooks. However, it felt flat on so many of its percieved promises and then… he happened. Sieg is a black hole that made Apoc so much worse than it actually is. Everything is fucking weak overall aaaaaand once again, FUCK YOU SIEG. YOU WASTE OF SPACE AND TIME.

I promise it’s not too long.

Not at all.

Right, let’s get this out of the way. I think Higashide can be a good writer. There were some good characterisation throughout Apoc, as well as some genuinely well written moments. However, there were many failures on his end as a writer. And it only became more evident in the anime. I’ll get to that later. First of all, let’s start with what I liked about it.

Jeanne(Light Novel): Those of you that know me know how much I adore Jeanne. And since FGO was a waifu game, I initially only liked her for her looks. No hiding that fact. But as I read more and more, getting sucked in to the hell that is the Type Moon wiki, I started to like her more and more based on personality. Again, those that know me know that I find these vanilla heroines extremely boring and bland. (SorryArturiaIjustreallydidn'tlikeyouoryourstoryarcinFSN). But of course, since this is TM, there was bound to be more than meets the eye. Like goddamn, she’s a literal saint. Probably the most well known in the world even. I expected her to be a goody-two-shoes and nothing more. But BOY was I wrong. Jeanne: *prays for hours everyday*. Also Jeanne: *exorcises 1000000 unborn children, suggests to crash a plane into the gardens without even blinking*. Her constant struggle of being called a saint and rejecting that very premise was frankly quite shocking because of the established facts about how much she loved God. There was divide in her character. And suddenly she wasn’t this benevolent, all-loving saint anymore. She was Jeanne. A religious girl who fought for her beliefs, and died fighting for them. The world imposed to her a title that she didn’t necessarily want. But her characterisation ends there… at least the actual interesting parts. Oh don’t worry, I’ll get to *that* later.

The Red Faction: Boy these guys were fun! The Red Servants felt much more organic and light hearted compared to the other faction. Granted that part made sense since Darnic is a literal Nazi. Anyway… these guys were just so much more fun. From Karna’s literal and metaphorical roasts, to Shakespeare’s loud and outspoken cravings for tragedy, to Achilles’ constant and flirtatious admiration towards Atalanta (AKA the woman who beat up his dad), to the crazy, fucked up and manipulative asshole that is Shirou (not Emiya) Kotomine. They were just fun to watch. I could go on about the tinier details but that’d make this shit even longer… MOVING ON!

Kairi and Mordred: Oh boy these two are just… perfect. A father son combo like no other. And an absolute joy to watch. They filled a void sorely lacking in each other’s existence. And you can clearly tell that by their interactions. Kairi was edgy and cool but unlike someone like Kiritsugu, he was easy going and didn’t take everything so seriously. A cool dad. And Mordred… god I love this little scamp of a knight. Mordred is adorable in her own little way while being cool and badass like her master/dad. They were just a fun duo to watch in the series where master and servant interaction was rather lacking of interesting dynamics. These two just worked. And they worked well.

The premise: basically any other HGW times two. Goddamn was the set up cool. That’s all, really.

Right, so this is the section where I shit on Apoc from both a viewer’s stand point, as well as from a narrative and structural stand point. To stop myself from going on an even further tangent, I’ll be talking about Sieg last. Other than this part. Let me just say that he is pretty much directly linked for like… 70% of this show’s major flaws. But again… that comes last. Lets start off with the stupid points in Apocrypha and the disastrous end of the first volume. I’ll also be comparing it to the anime, which was a hot mess. Not quite garbage. That came later.

So… the characters. Way too many of them. It was evident that Higashide could not handle such a large cast. It was basically what a normal grail war was times by a factor of two and then add a little bit more. So what did he do? Take out half of the masters by having Amakusa straight up manipulating the entire thing. A good move I’d say… but there was still too many for him to handle. It was all over the place. But frankly, he handled the earlier parts quite well in the LN. There was, however, a gigantic lack of characterisation for many of the earlier characters. Of course those were the same characters that pretty much needlessly died off for shock effect. For example, Siegfried (henceforth shall now be known as Siegfriend) had me going “this makes no sense" rather than “YOU KILLED SIEGFRIED. YOU MONSTERS". And as a writer, if you can’t make your audience feel the emotion that you intended them to – then you’ve failed. And the series is plagued with these rather stupid deaths. A lot of them felt pointless and held no significant impact on the overarching narrative. They just died. And I didn’t feel anything. The delivery felt weak and half-assed, played for fake emotion.

And speaking of deaths, Darnic and Vlad’s… no that, that was fucking stupid on top of a pile of stupid. Well, this felt like actual lost potential. Unlike a certain other character… Darnic was being built up to be the main antagonist… and he felt like he would have been a good one. If not for the structure being a battle royale-ish. And it is one because people pretty much did their own thing pretty early on in the story. Getting back on track, Darnic and Vlad had a relationship akin to Tokiomi and Gilgamesh from Fate Zero. And that is the servant being more of a master than the actual master. This was good as we were seeing a variety if servant/master dynamics. Darnic, however, was no pushover. This man had been established to do whatever it fucking takes to get what he wants. And he had been succeeding too. Just what grand scheme was he about to pull off- aaaaaaand he’s dead. Dude talked a lot of shit… nothing happened. Not even a lasting impact. He just became one with Vlad and that was it. What the fuck was that? There wasn’t any sort of intelligence or cunningness that he had displayed before. Oh and poor Vlad. Man, he was the real victim here. This part I actually felt for. Because he became what he didn’t want the most. The Legend of Dracula. A vampire. And not one of Nasu’s myriad of vampire OCs. The OG, Count Dracula. It was meant to be an actual tragedy… yet… it left no impact. So when Darnic’s BRILLAINT plan of fusing his and Vlad’s soul together, while activating his Legend of Dracula NP, he was made out to be this near unstoppable being that needed all these powerful heroic spirits boosted by a command seal to be stopped. But really… he wasn’t. Fuck, he didn’t even kill anyone important. And no one at all in the LN. I was expecting him to pull some Hellsing Ultimate bullshit and turn the entirety of Trifas into a ghoul-infested city. But nope. Nothing came out of it.

He ends up getting fucked over by the ACTUAL main Antagonist, Amakusa Shirou Tokisada via baptism rites. This was meant to make him look powerful or whatever. Except the entire fight scene is really dumb because if you know anything about vampires, they have very specific weaknesses. Two of those are the sun and holiness. And not just any weakness. Deathly weakness. AND WHO DO WE HAPPEN TO HAVE!? The most famous saint in the world and the son of a sun god who literally has sunlight woven into his skin. This whole thing was made even more stupid but the fact that the initial plan in the LN was to wait until dawn for the sun to come out. Also in the LN, Jeanne was poking away at Vlad using her holy spear which she did not do in the anime. By the way, Jeanne can do the exact same thing as fuckboi Shirou. Only even better because she’s an actual saint and a Ruler. Plus she used Baptism Rites to exorcise Jack as well. Seriously, Karna could have hugged Darnicula to death. This whole scene is stupid, man.

Continuing the stupid death trend, Avicebron and Adam… god that was stupid. Roche you say? Who? Kid was barely a character. He was made to be killed. He had no build up. No actual back story. And barely a personality. In short he didn’t matter at all. But dear god, this fight was meant to be the Cthullu fight equivalent. Yet again, this was somehow even more anti-climactic and even more boring than the Darnicula fight. Again, nobody important died. They’re killing for the sake of killing. And it was just fucking weak man. I barely felt anything. Other than the seething hatred and boredom of course. And again, it was meant to make somebody else look good. Our “protagonist". Anyway, this fight was dumb and boring. Some good animation in the anime though. I will give it that much.

And this was the point in the series that everything pretty much got thrown out the window and it was evident that it wasn’t going to get any better. Jeanne lost her neutrality, literally 2/3rds of the Ygdmillenia family didn’t even really matter in the end, the Red faction’s fucked off to cross the border or something, Sieg is a super special servant/master hybrid rolled into one with super special BLACK command seals because he’s the super special protagonist aaaaand Jack’s fucked off back to Reika. Who at this point also barely has a personality and back story. But still way less than most people that have already died. And that’s just sad man. I, as part of the audience, couldn’t give less of a shit about any characters except a set few. If I didn’t know most of them through Grand Order already, I would have dropped this shit ages ago. And dear god, Jeanne still doesn’t have an established personality besides existing for SHIGGU-KUN in the anime. The LN does a far better job with characterisation. Even if it is still a heaping dumpster fire. And then they do pretty much nothing except side quest to kill Jack and exorcise 10,000 babies. Which, despite feeling like a loose end that they had to tie up despite being in a rush to go after the Red faction, was actually my favourite scene in the LN due to the fact that it completely changes the reader’s perception of Jeanne. Of course the anime version sucked ass.

Right, continuing on… this scene. It did not work for the anime. And I’ll have to start by explaining that Jeanne’s characterisation does not exist beyond Sieg in the anime. A lot of her characterisation outside of that was cut. Which is a damn shame because she became what I hated the most in an anime character. Bland, generic, no real motivation, no established personality yet somehow still being out of character whenever that shithead Steve-kun is around. Not only was Jeanne no longer the Jeanne I knew, she was replaced by bumbling tsundere who blushes for a wet sock. It was cheap and boring. And this fucking harem Romanian romance BS that was happening was so fucking out of place. It was evident that Jeanne had barely become a character anymore. She was just waifu bait like Astolfo now. Putting that aside, even in the LN, Jeanne still becomes a mess. While I have not personally read the last volume since it has not been translated, I have read summaries. And my god is everything stupid. I’ll return to this part once I cover the long awaited shitfest…

WARNING. As this is my personal review, it is very opinionated. And as you can probably tell… this is very personal.

Sieg. Oh you waste of space, you don’t fucking deserve that name. Like every both of his being, it’s half assed. I mentioned that Sieg was a blackhole in the beginning. And that’s because he sucks up any bit of good in this series whenever he’s in a scene. Good characterisation from well established characters? NAH LETS BEND OVER AND LET SHIGGU KUN WIN AND HE WILL BE LOVED FOREVER AND EVER BECAUSE HE’S SO GOOD AND PURE AND INNOCCENT YOU GUYS. Right, now that that’s out of the way. It’s time to dive into exactly why this dude is such a demerit to the series overall.

First and foremost, he disrupts the entirety of the story structure. While it could have certainly worked, it most definitely did not here. Sieg’s role in terms of plot devices was to centralise the story as a whole. However, Higashide went too far and just… ended up giving Sieg far too big a role. This, in turn took away a lot from the rest of the cast. Not only their screen time but their whole character. Yet despite all this “development" he was getting, he still barely had a character. Some may say that was the point. Sieg is indeed a blank slate that was meant to learn as he grew. But the thing is – he never did. Instead, there was this identity crisis that was never really addressed in the actual narrative. However, as it stands… the whole fiasco was extremely pointless. Sieg remains a flat character and his entire goal was immediately solved the episode after he decided to do it. Worst of all, there was no sense of struggle. Not even a spec of it. He just sorta did it. And my god was it so boring to watch. Even after when he’s trying to get his morals straight, it basically boils down to him asking people if killing was bad. And it just kept dragging on and on and on and on! And in the end… nothing came out of it. By the time they were about to go and attack the Hanging Gardens, barely anything changed. Basically, it was a giant waste of time.

And of course, we have to address Siegfried. While certainly, yes, you could argue that tragedy is the very essence of Siegfried’s story. Even in his own legend we were only told of his story through a series of flashbacks. In Apocrypha, Siegfried’s suffering continues. He has a shit master, he can’t even fucking talk, his brotp moment gets cucked by the fetus, and he never actually gets anything that he wanted. And as a result; he was sorely undeveloped. Then he fucking dies. It was meant to come off as a heroic sacrifice but… there was nothing there to latch on emotionally, as well as making no sense. For one, at this point everything about Sieg was just to make the audience feel sorry for him. That’s it. Nothing else. Secondly, the homunculus and Siegfried had no real emotional connection. They literally just met. Hence, making the sacrifice feel… well, emotionless. They try to reason it off with some BS about Siegfried doing something selfish… but it was still a selfless action. So I never bought it as a proper reason. Now keep in mind, that I personally was trying to keep an open mind about Sieg when I began reading Apoc. I had heard bad things and the stuff that people were saying pretty much embodied everything I hated in a protagonist. Except… it was a lot worse. Sieg is a lot worse. At this point in time, I didn’t even hate Sieg yet. He just had little to no presence or relevance, nor even a semblance of a personality that I did not give a Rin’s ass. Then… Siegfried tore his fucking heart out – his own heart out, literally and made Sieg…. eat it? It was… really stupid. Because A: Servants’ spiritual cores are their hearts and they wouldn’t be able to even move without it the moment it gets torn out. And of course before he dies out Siegfried gets his only redeeming moment… chock one up to poor pacing…. yay. So just when I starting to give a shit about Siegfried, he’s out of the picture. For this… thing. And as someone who’s aware about the consequences of having a servant’s body part attached to another human being (AKA Heaven’s Feel), I was expecting some consequences. Horrible, horrible consequences. But…

Nothing.

But I’ll be generous and gloss that one over since it wasn’t established in the plot here.

Now I may be going on and on about expectations and shit but that’s because literally everything in Apoc was trying to outdo Zero/FSN. Let me go on a tangent for a bit and explain. Twice the masters, twice the servants, a more exciting and dynamic premise. But in actuallity, every bit of delivery was extremely weak. A lot of it was just below par. I was promised something great but even as I continue to lower the bar, Apoc continued to limbo under it.

Anyway, back to that useless sack of shit. The anime didn’t really have this but my god… the following moments is what made me hate Apoc right then and there. So in the Light Novel, Jeanne senses a new disturbance due to Sieg’s unique (*rolls eyes*) existence. So as she investigates, she goes and talks to the black faction (they fucking skipped the theological debate between Jeanne and Vlad in the anime btw), until she finds Sieg.

Then she collapses because of Laeticia needing food still cuz host body and all that. So far I was buying it. Then Sieg carries her. O..kay? Then blushing… Uhhhhhhh…. and when they finally reach a village and was allowed a room for the both of them… it devolved into a generic light novel plot.

They had to share a bed.

Girl blushes.

Dense protag is dense.

UHHHHH

WHAT THE FUCK? WHAT THE HELL IS THIS? You’d think I was kidding but this id exactly what happens. And it was this precise moment that my expectations drastically dropped to near zero. It came out of fucking nowhere. I don’t get why they’d not-so-subtly force this shitty romance between characters who just met in a primarily action-focused novel. It wasn’t even good. I could open SAO and whatever other clone and they’d do it just as badly.  And it was at this moment that Sieg became the worst thing about Apoc for me. But ohohoho… just as you think it’s hit rock bottom, it somehow goes BELOW that.

GO BELOW AND BEYOND. MINUS ULTRAAAAA!

Okay, so skipping a couple of events, Jeanne fucks back off to the main battle where the Red Faction actually gets their shit together. She does nothing but run around for the entire volume. Like. Literally does nothing except save wet sock’s ass. Anyway, while everyone else is having rather personal battles with Chiron fighting his former pupil, Achilles, the two Lancers/Aces of them having one hell of a fight and arguing their religious beliefs, Fran confronts fuccboi Shirou and gets screwed over by Shakespeare’s NP (and we get to see her real struggles as well as a bit more on how Caules is as a master), Astolfo being a loser as always, Atalanta being… whatever she was doing, she doesn’t really get interesting until after, and Mordred being the shitty driver she is, giving Kairi a heart attack. Right so before this gigantic fight happens, Sieg finally decides that he wanted to save his homunculus buddies. Which is a fine motivation. …that got immediately solved because everyone else was too busy actually fighting. Zero tension or risk here. Anyway after one of his major character motivations gets solved so stupidly easily, he decides to pull a Shirou Emiya (only a lot worse and he doesn’t make sense) and fight the servants. In which Mordred immediately kills his ass but is the only one that does damage for some reason (gotta make him seem useful and interesting), despite Fran doing next to no damage. The servant. Doing no damage. But this guy did. O… okay. So he gets killed, I rejoice like Kirei when he hears an Emiya is participating in a HGW on Christmas day, the evil is defeated, the world is a better pla- and he’s alive. Once again. Not even an episode later. Absolutely no tension. Do you see what my problem is with wet sock as a character? There’s almost no stakes for him. No proper emotional connections to a lot of characters. Characters die for him to live. Said characters who have never even had a conversation with him prior. So tell me how am I supposed to feel? Certainly not satisfied or even happy. In fact I’m frustrated that a far more interesting character died so that this bland fucko could live. And it doesn’t even make sense! He gets a fucking power up too for whatever fucking reason. So Fran accidentally zaps him back to life when she sacrifices himself to kill Mordred. Now he has command spells that are black (because HE’S SO SUPER SPECIAL YOU GUYS). And he can now turn into Siegfried.

What kind of stupid writing is this? It makes no sense. Progression is fucking stupid. No explanation. No proper emotional connection. No proper stakes. No risks. And above all else… there’s no entertainment. I’m so goddamn bored. And I’m already sick of our main protagonist. And he takes up a lot of the time. I can’t connect to this character. Even if I can’t relate to his struggle, I should be able to at least feel for him. But I didn’t. Because I know that somehow, someway, he’ll BS his way through it with fake struggle that has no tension. Wet sock is lacking in every single area. And him being the protagonist highlights his shittiness as a character. Honestly, he could have worked if they didn’t have a forced romance or if he was the main character. He could have provided the view of the homunculus. Instead Toole, who barely appears, does a better fucking job of that more than the guy that takes up half the screen time. And at this point, I’d rather have him gone completely rather than try and make him even remotely interesting. Even his introduction was sketchy to me. It was just a whole lot of “FEEL SORRY FOR ME. ARE YOU FEELING IT NOW MISTER KRABS? ARE YOU REALLY FEELING IT??????”. But I didn’t. I didn’t know shit about this fucko. Why should I care? There was nothing to latch on to, no emotional hook. Not even an interesting characteristic. And he never develops one. Instead, I feel like he just steals shit. Just like him receiving Siegfried’s heart and taking half his name, his entire character is half-assed.  Not quite a self insert because there isn’t a power fantasy to be fulfilled. That sort of fantasy is immediately ruined because he literally turns into someone else. Can’t really project yourself onto someone who turns into someone else. A terrible MC due to him bullshitting everything and surviving everything with no real consequence to him. He just makes the story terrible by his sheer existence.

Right, so going back to one of my earlier points. That scene with Jeanne, Atalanta, and Jack. A very pivotal moment for Jeanne and Atalanta. Jeanne, who was a revered saint decides to confront Jack the Ripper, who is the embodiments of one part of the legends where he killed pregnant ladies or something. I don’t exactly remember all the details with Jack. Anyway, the important part is that Jack is made up of a bunch of unborn souls. Children. And Atalanta, whose wish is for the happiness of all the children in the world, sees all this. The horror of the tormented children, not even a chance given to live. She’s hit right at the core of her being because she was abandoned by her own parents on a mountain for not being a male in her legend. So Jeanne’s decided that she can’t save these children. They’re already long gone. Of course Atalanta was forcing her own beliefs towards this revered saint. It seemed that to Atalanta, saints were miracle workers, they could do crazy things. And historically, yes, that was exactly who they were. And as Jeanne rejects the very notion of being pronounced as saint, saying that she was nothing more than a village girl who answered god’s calling, she demolishes Atalanta’s view. The Archer’s entire world. And with the baptism rites going, Atalanta screaming for her to stop, and Jeanne following her own set of beliefs… it was a very personal moment for all of them. In the anime, Sieg was there for some reason. He literally just took up screen time. He feels like he was just there. Added absolutely nothing and just wasted time. And this annoyed me because this was a very personal moment for two other characters. Yet this wet sock is just… there. Intrusive. Like he needs to be included in everything. It was an absolutely well done scene in the LN where Jeanne’s beliefs are far more established and she actually has personality outside of Steve-kun. Where he wasn’t there.

Basically what I’m saying is Apoc is really good when he’s not around. Seriously, it’s so much better. Achilles’s fight with Chiron was very personal, so was Achilles’ fight with Atalnta. When it’s personal, it’s good. Sieg has no personality or history with others. No emotion. No relations. Nothing. Just stale bread that’s winning against people who have nothing to do with him. And I can’t help but get frustrated at this goddamn show for that.

OKAY: Lightning round of shitty wet sock things:

Spends a fuck tonne of time asking people “are humans bad hurr durr” and comes out with the solution that he basically wants to be hero of justice and protect humanity or whatever. It’s never stated in the anime but this is what Siegfried wanted. So he’s stealing personal character motivations too. Waste of episodes that could have been used developing far more interesting characters.

Jeanne (in the anime ESPECIALLY) only exists to be his love interest. She isn’t allowed to be anything more. And her big character revelation is that she loves Sieg(big surprise). She acts against her neutrality a lot of the time because of him. When she strongly declines picking sides at the very beginning. The reasong for this is that he has nothing to do with the war. BUT GUESS WHAT? HE DOES BECAUSE HE DECIDES TO GET INVOLVED IN IT. So there is no reason to protect him. She acts against her own beliefs so that she could be waifu bait for this fucko. They say it’s all Laeticia or whatever but to NO ONE’S surprise, it was Jeanne all along (yaaaaay….).

He becomes more Siegfried than Siegfried. Well in life, Siegfried could spam Balmung as fast as he could swing it. But he can’t do that as a servant of the Saber class because it’s a big Noble Phantasm. But guess whaaaaaat? Sieg can do that because he apparently also has galvanism from Fran for some fucking reason, and to pour more salt on the wound, he can upgrade Balmung to EX Rank using a command seal. Which, mind you has never been done before nor foreshadowed. Karna’s Vasavi Shakti was still more powerful thought because this dude don’t play around for some ho. And ya’ll know how much of an asspull this was.

Speaking of that fight, from what I’ve heard in the LN, he actually had a clear shot of Siegfriend’s back but for some reason didn’t decide to take it. I can’t 100% confirm this but if that was the case, that’s another thing of making characters act OOC. Karna would never let someone win a fight. And this is him with a time limit while wet sock has a shroud from Jeanne that auto heals him, a bunch of help from a bunch of other people. Yadda, yadda, yadda, ass pulls. He wins the fight. Fuck off wet sock-kun.

Jeanne, for some ungodly reason is unaffected by really personal things like her mother talking to her and reasoning that she shouldn’t have gone off to war, seeing her fellow Frenchmen die in the hundred years war, and even seeing the room where her best friend murdered a bunch of kids after her own death.  Yes, she knows it’s all fake. But when Shakespeare shows her images of Sieg burning at the stake instead of her and his decapitated head… she freaks the fuck out. Why? She knows it’s fake. She’s known this dude for like a week. You could argue that she feels personally responsible for involving him in the war. But once again. This doesn’t make sense. Sieg chose to involve himself. He chose to fight. He chose to fight a riskless war because he’s the main character. Of course in the shittiest reveal ever, she realises that she wuuuuuuuvs him. Fuck right off. AND DON’T GIVE THAT ‘LOVE WORKS IN MYSTERIOUS WAYS’ SHIT.

SPEAKING OF THIS BULLSHIT. There was this utterly stupid scene in the Light Novel where Sieg and jeanne see a couple or whatever. There was a baby or something. And Sieg asks Jeanne if servants could get pregnant. Of course, since she looooooooves him so much, her immediate thoughts were “DOES STEVE-KUN WANT TO IMPREGNATE ME!!??!?!?!?”. I wanted to hack out blood when i heard that was a thing. Thank god that it wasn’t in the anime.

He cucks Jeanne out of killing Shiroumine, the big bad antagonist of the series. The anime and promotional material is making them out to be rivals when they have zero ideological battles, have never even spoken to each other before, nor an allusion to some sort of rivalry at all. It just happens. At this point Sieg doesn’t even have any command spells and he pulls Blasted Tree(Fran’s NP, yeah he stole that too) out of his ass. Kill stealing bitch. Reported. Blocked. Emailed Harada. Email Jeff Kaplan. Perma-ban pls. Basically, Shiroumine was a shit villain because his plans weren’t really clear. Salvation of humanity was too broad in a sense on how the actual fuck he was gonna pull it off, and it wasn’t explained all too well. And with Sieg being the contender for the shittest protagonist I have ever had the displeasure of laying my eyes on, the main villain just became… fucking boring. I say villain but he was an antagonist. A direct result of bad character writing.

The so called romantic ending is an even shittier version of one of the endings in the Fate route in FSN. Like it’s a straight up copy. Imagery and everything.

Oh yeah, he turns into a dragon for whatever reason. Comes out of nowhere. Like zero build up. Then he fights monsters for the rest of his existence on the other side of the world or something. It’s really stupid. It’s meant to feel heroic but I don’t feel that at all. When a heroic sacrifice that’s meant to make me feel all sorts of emotions, makes me laugh instead, you’ve done a shit job at writing.

There’s probably more that I can’t remember at the top of my head. But there’s only so much that I can complain about. Oh who am I kidding, there’s a chat in one of my discord servers that we spend all our time at least a couple times a week on how shit this fuckhead is. He’s that bad, honestly.

To conclude, Apocrypha could have been great. It had a lot of promise. But it failed on nearly every end. The grandiose battles fall flat because nobody actually cares about a lot of the characters since more a lot of them are severely underdeveloped. And despite the narrative spending the most time with him, Steve-kun was a massive failure of a main character. He was a shounen protagonist in the wrong genre. Actually, he’s a generic light novel protagonist in Fate. And it didn’t work. Because fate is so much more deeper. So much lore. And I love that crazy, well thought out world. Wet sock-kun doesn’t have a place in it. Not in a narrative like this. Not in a world where depth can go seemingly forever. And especially not against characters who have actual strong personality and rich histories. And so, he fails. Sieg fails. The actual self-inserts of a character like Hakuno and Guda do a better job at fulfilling their role than an established character. And that’s fucking pathetic. I had more fun reading through Hakuno’s nurse fetish and Guda’s snarky attitude. Honestly, it is tiring. I was constantly frustrated at Apoc. I still am. The anime will be ending soon. And I’ll probably just laugh at how bad it is.

I won’t rate it or whatever. I’ll just say to not bother. But if you love fate, then go for it. There may be characters you saw in Grand Order that you want to know more about. And the servants are absolutely great. But honestly, just go read their source material. You’ll have more fun with that. But if you’re like me and are a salty piece of shit… the welcome to the club. There’s a lot to gnaw on.

Right so before I get massive flack for an opinion piece that I decided to write, and before anyone says that 'If you’re not going to say anything nice then don’t say anything at all'… I’ll just say to fuck off because it is my very right to speak about a creative piece. I’m not critiquing a person. I’m critiquing their writing in my own little colourful language. Critiquing a professional work, mind you. I wouldn’t do this to a fan work. And again, it’s an opinion. You don’t have to agree with it. If you liked wet sock then more power to you. I just personally thing that he’s the worst thing in the Fate franchise. Though people do say that Manaka is worse. I doubt you can limbo under something that’s like negative bajillion on any scale. Sieg just managed to offend me so hard when almost nothing does these days. And honestly, that’s an achievement on its own. Golf clap.

Anyway, I had a lot of fun writing this. But hey, maybe I’m just a petty little shit who got his waifu cucked by a fetus, amirite?

[squeakybri]

Castlevania

So let’s review “Castlevania”

Released: July 7, 2017

Created: Warren Ellis

Developed: Adi Shankar

Written: Warren Ellis

Directed: Sam Deats, Adam Deats, Spencer Wan

Let’s begin with the origin of the story. Is based on Castlevania an action-platformer video game developed and published by Konami for the Family Computer Disk System video game console in Japan in September 1986. It was ported to cartridge format and released in North America for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in May 1987 and in Europe in 1988. It was also re-issued for the Family Computer in cartridge format in 1993. After a Priest burns Dracula’s wife at the stake for “witch craft” a vampire hunter has to fight to save a besieged city from an army of otherworldly creatures controlled by Dracula with his pure hatred towards humans.     

Editing, Art, Characters and Voice Acting

The editing of this anime is impeccable. With every angle you are either disturbed or uneasy. The art is heavenly disgusting in the best of ways possible. The gore is amazing and extremely accurate. I would never change anything about any of these characters at all and if you would how dare you, their stories and story arch are *mwah chief’s kiss*. I would never ask for better voice acting in my whole life, just wow when it comes to the voice.  

I leave with this: Your own hunger will consume you

[wonderfulworldofmichaelford]

Shit I Hate #4: Attitudes Towards Reboots, Remakes, and Adapting Previously Adapted Books

Lately I’ve been seeing people responding to the news that a new adaptation (keep this wording in mind, it’s important) of Stephen King’s Pet Semetary is being made with cries of “Oh my god! Hollywood is out of ideas! Stop remaking classics!” And… well, it’s honestly the breaking point for me. It’s time I do a rant on this subject, this subject being how much I absolutely LOATHE the knee-jerk reaction people have towards ‘remakes’ and ‘reboots,’ as well as this idiotic idea that any time a new version of an adaptation is made, it’s somehow a ‘remake.’

Let’s look at that last point first, because it relates directly to my breaking point I mentioned: a new adaptation of a work previously adapted is not necessarily a remake. Pet Semetary was a book first. Then it got made into a movie. A new adaptation is not going to be remaking the original movie, it is going to be adapting the book. It’s not a hard concept to understand. You’d think after the smashing success of Stephen King’s It in the wonderful year that is 2017 people would realize taking another shot at adapting something isn’t always a bad idea (the miniseries version was a disrespectful trainwreck only notable for having one of Tim Curry’s best performances), but hey, guess the critical acclaim, box office success, and love from audiences means nothing. Here’s the thing: when it comes to adapting something like a book to screen, different artists are going to have different visions for what said book should look like on screen. Look at all the different reinterpretations of Batman we’ve had on film over the years: West’s goofy hero, Keaton’s hardboiled badass, Bale’s rasping do-gooder, and Affleck’s tragic demon. We get all these different facets of Batman put on display due to different artists looking at him in a different way. And I don’t think it should be any different when it comes to adapting books; if an artist has a new angle of looking at something, we shouldn’t just jump right in and start screaming of how they lack ideas. That sort of criticism is for when the film actually comes out. Preemptively damning a film for having the gall to adapt a book that may have already had a movie is fucking stupid as all hell.

This becomes even worse when the original ain’t all that great. Pet Semetary, while not an awful movie by any means, is basically a step or two above average and not one of the more memorable King adaptations; the best bit of it is the Ramones song that plays over the credits, and this film had the audacity to cut out the wendigo scene. So really, even if it was okay, I’d love to see a new version that incorporates elements that were left  out, or just look at the film from an artistic angle the first adaptation didn’t. Again, look at It: it managed to do what the miniseries couldn’t and remain close to the book while having a wildly different tone and look. It’s not a carbon copy, and in fact it’s superior in every way. Now, this doesn’t always work out, obviously; you’re not gonna find many people arguing that Stephen King’s Shining miniseries is better than Kubrick’s movie, but EVEN in that case, the former still has some level of artistic merit. Regardless of your feelings towards it, it did still try and look at the source material in a different way than Kubrick did (namely, by trying to actually follow the source material more closely).

Now, onto the hatred against reboots and remakes… this, I can more see where it’s coming from. As of late, there have been A LOT of soulless reimaginings of movies crapped out into theaters. There’s the shameless retread of Poltergeist, there’s the rebooted Ghostbusters… it destroys a lot of faith. But here’s the thing: rebooting and remaking is not an inherently flawed or awful concept. Two of the greatest horror films ever made – The Fly and The Thing – are, in fact, remakes of old horror films. And then there are all the times Dracula has been reimagined, including the Hammer films with Lee’s portrayal and Francis Ford Coppola’s take on the Bram Stoker novel (you’ll find that this part of y rant will tie back into the first part quite a bit; it’s unavoidable to talk about how reboots are not inherently bad without mentioning the numerous times literary characters have been redone). Or take a look at the fantastic Hannibal Lecter thriller Red Dragon – it isn’t the first time that story was adapted, first being done by Michael Mann as Manhunt and featuring Brian Cox as the first onscreen portrayal of Lecter. And then the Hannibal stories were adapted yet again for the TV series, taking the characters in ever different directions than the movie did! Yes, I’m not going to argue that there are plenty of boring, awful reboots or remakes – Psycho as done by Gus Van Sant exists, and that film is basically the logical extreme of a bad reboot, being a shot-for-shot remake with no imagination or intelligence applied anywhere. But even less-well received ones like the remakes of Halloween and A Nightmare on Elm Street have some level of artistic merit to them. I’d never say they’re as good as the original films, mind you, but I don’t necessarily think they’re wholly devoid of value.

Bottom line: things should be judged on the quality of the actual product, not judged via knee-jerk reaction. I’m not going to defend something wholly soulless and devoid of any sort of creativity when it comes to remakes, but I’m also not going to ignore if they try to do something new. And I’m CERTAINLY not going to have a fit over literary adaptations being made, even if there has already been one.

[beevean]

Anyway. Any thoughts on Mathias? :) Maybe on ships in wich he is included? :)

Wasted potential.

Which I guess makes him ripe for headcanons! :P

So I'm approaching him as "Dracula if he pretended to have morals" lol. These are my rough guidelines on how I imagine him, obv before Elisabetha fell sick.

He was your typical hypocritical Catholic man. Apparently this is not as popular of an interpretation as I thought? Fans mostly think he was already going through a crisis of faith? I don't know, his whole "how dare God hurt me after everything I did for Him!" smacks me of a fake devoted person who only pretends to believe in God in the hopes that things will go well for them. He talks a lot about God and his faith... but his principles fly out of the window when a cute sinner kneels in front of him :P also, you know, the whole alchemy studies? Not very Christian of him.

He's prone to extreme bursts of emotions. Call it flanderization, but I just couldn't resist the idea of him falling into depression once he's forced to accept that yes, Dracula is him.

He's as stubborn as a mule and very good at ignoring things that aren't convenient to him (see: how he dodged Leon's question "is this what Elisabetha would have wanted?")

He values people mostly as what they can give to him. He's trained to distinguish between knights worthy of being in his company and knights who are just there for the family honor or money.

He loves Elisabetha and Leon more than his own life, literally the only two people in the world he'd trust his life with.

He's extremely proud of his accomplishments as a tactician. Therefore he has a bit of an inflated ego about his intelligence :P

his type of man is "pretty boy who can obliterate my entire ass" lmao. not surprisingly, in my fic he mainly focuses on hector's hands and scars because for him they prove how good of a fighter he is. (he's not as attracted to the scars inflicted by his future self though hehe :))

As for the ships, well. I wouldn't even know how to explain how I fell into Mactor hell lmao. This post explains it better than I could: it's about the transient love that they both know will not last, because Mathias is doomed to become a monster and no one knows how much of him will remain in Dracula, but that doesn't erase how important that experience was for both of them. (yes your fic about Mathias asking to be scarred still lives in my head rent free why do you ask) also, crispin freeman

We didn't really think about Maac lol. In my fic Isaac hates Mathias' whole guts because he doesn't see him as Dracula and he's actually disappointed that his Lord started out as a weak, emotional human. Maybe he's just copying Dracula's blatant disdain towards his past self :P but I suppose that, if Mathias was forced to talk to him, he'd see that underneath his abrasive personality there's a boy who only wants to be loved by his Master... and maybe if they could warm up to each other, who knows?

Macula, I'm still not into it because self-cest is not my thing no matter how far you push it, but there is a valid story to be told about self-hatred evolving in self-acceptance.

Maleon, well I love that Mathias seriously expected Leon to follow him in immortality lol, man just wanted his bestie for the rest of his existence :( But I haven't seriously thought about their dynamic and what they'd like about each other.

and Malter is very underrated lmao, love the idea of these two bastards playing mental chess with each other. also, walter as foreshadowing of what mathias will become <3