#and those franchises have both lived on kinda to the point that the anime doesn't even matter anymore

[dead-lights]

trai-lore!

because ya know. trailers. with lore.

i'll see myself out

but! before i go - I went and compiled all of the Vampires trailers I could find! I wasn't familiar with all of the shorts and I'm not 100% sure I found them all. There are a lot of contradictions, but aside from the gameplay trailer they can mostly be stitched together.

Also, I recognize I'm trying to wring blood from a stone, reading into things that EA never intended, but ya know. That's the point of exploring lore!

this is mostly validated by werewolves - Lily's dialogue confirms that Caleb was turned by Miss Hell, and the 7 years unlucky mirror confirms that Vlad ambushed her while she was brushing her teeth.

It looks like the bar Miss Hell attacks Caleb in is supposed to be in Forgotten Hollow. There are plenty of reasons he could've been there, but to me that implies that Lilith turned first, and he was there because that's where she hangs out now.

It looks like you're supposed to be able to see the normie parts of Forgotten Hollow from that cliff with the bench, rather than just more of the mountain. There's definitely supposed to be more than just those 5 lots.

I'm not sure if the person behind Miss Hell in the bar is anyone specific? they feel slightly familiar but I might be thinking of Leila Illes from island living, which came out afterwards.

It's unclear how Caleb ended up in the bathroom or whether he asked to turn - the animation is the same either way. In game, I've had a lot of success with both bat-form bathroom ambushes and the good ol' "ask for woohoo and then cancel the order as soon as you're alone together" maneuver so either is plausible. To me, it looks like she's reenacting her transformation, with her as Vlad, so she would've wanted unwilling prey. I've generally thought that Caleb followed her into the bathroom thinking he was going to get laid, but with that in mind it does make sense that she would've just ambushed him when he got up to pee (poor humans and their bladders can't handle their nectar). @charsimsalot has a lot of interesting things to say about how being forcibly turned would have affected Miss Hell in this excellent post about the apartment they built for the rebellious vampires!

That bathroom door is on backwards. I checked - that door only has a sign on one side. Maybe they really wanted to hammer home the point that this is a bathroom? the sink and toilet do a pretty good job of that...

Caleb is not a daywalker in this trailer - since this seems to show him in his earlier days, that 100% checks out. It takes 15 skill points to become a daywalker, which... yikes.

note: I know the sims is very gay these days but do keep in mind that vampires was released January 2017. Gay marriage wasn't fully legalized in the US until June 2015. It was a big deal that Caleb suave kissed a guy in the trailer!

fun fact: the song used for this, deadly flo, seems to be either very cheap or free to license. It is used in a few episodes of the Baking Championship franchise. Y'all, that franchise got me back into baking and directly inspired GOBC. I lost my absolute shit when I heard it playing! There are also parts of Holiday Baking Championship that sound suspiciously like the sims 2 theme... I kinda wonder if there's a simmer in their sound department.

Not really that interesting - earlier versions of their outfits/vlad's dark form. Lilith cannot actually turn into a bat in-game.

vlad bloodvein can use "deprive needs" (must be a master vampire at minimum)

brandy can turn into a bat (should be a minor vampire at minimum)

based on the view outside Brandy's bedroom window, it looks like the virtuous vampires might live in an apartment in San Myshuno?

vlad uses supernatural speed to collect figurines

Not very interesting - just Brandy and Elle eating.

↓↓↓ WARNING - jumpscare below ↓↓↓

lmao what

this one doesn't even seem real, but as far as I can tell it was in fact released as a teaser for the full trailer.

This is the official trailer - it lines up reasonably well with other lore. Also the song is so fun.

Most notably: this trailer shows that Caleb is the one who turned Inna. No context is given. Other promotional material & the in-game paintings show that she was a thrall, potentially for hundreds of years before Caleb turned her.

The exterior of the house where Caleb turns Inna looks exactly like Wolfsbane Manor. However, Inna's bedroom doesn't match any room in the manor. It looks like there is a nearly identical house where Widowshild Townhouse currently is, so either Inna was in that house, or Wolfsbane Manor has since been remodeled. It would be kinda interesting if Caleb and Lilith decided to buy Inna's old house when they moved...

When Caleb turns into a bat, he's in the graveyard to the left of Vlad's house. Maybe he and Lilith lived with Vlad for a time? It kinda looks like Vlad had a lot of vampires filtering in and out of his place.

Elle real horny. I wonder what happened to that guy - he isn't a gallery vampire but he shows up in a lot of the paintings. As far as I'm aware Elle doesn't show up in any paintings.

This trailer is an absolute mess. It contradicts enough existing lore that it shouldn't be taken as any sort of canon, but it's a decent source of inspiration to fill in the gaps, and I pulled heavily from it when I was choosing powers for the gallery vampires.

Elle uses her mist form (I checked the animations) - she must be a grand master. She can use Command.

Markus Crow has supernatural speed - must be master+

Lilith is using a computer at the beginning of this, which feels weird because this is supposed to be at least 50 years ago. That said, technology doesn't advance in the sims, so, sure.

This makes it look like Vlad just broke into her house and turned her like he did with Miss Hell, but to me Lily makes it sound like Lilith was a more active participant: "I remember when my cousin, Lilith, first told me she'd met a fascinating man named Vlad. After that, she started spending a lot of time "training" with him. I thought she meant they were workout buddies. It wasn't until later that I found out she'd been lured to the dark arts."

Lilith's bed is a reward from the painter career - not sure if the implication is that she earned it herself?

I can't really see outside Lilith's windows, but it does kinda look like Forgotten Hollow? Which doesn't make a lot of sense to me - why would she and Caleb have to move to Forgotten Hollow if they already lived there? That said, that isn't Lilith. And that isn't Caleb. This was from when their names were Gina and Raylan.

Note that "Raylan" doesn't have the good vampire aspiration, and his traits are completely different. The others aren't quite the same as the gallery sims, but at least they still have the same names.

Looking out the window, it looks like the Virtuous Vampires are in Forgotten Hollow with everyone else. In one of the shorts, it looks like they live in a big city. I'm not sure which I like better!

Lilith is used as the example for supernatural strength. While she doesn't actually have that in-game, this is part of why I like to make her fitness 10 brute with vampiric might.

Elle continues to be real horny. Who is that guy? I like the implication that they had to go get it on as bats because Vlad was taking a nap and they couldn't fuck in his coffin :(

Bonus! While this isn't a trailer, exactly, it's a promotional blog post from Vlad's point of view and it is the best. Every last part of this makes me happy, from Caleb and Lilith ganging up on Vlad to Vlad referring to sparring matches as "epic duels" (or, in this particular case, what seems like a pretty good training sesh for Caleb).

Nothing about Lilith makes it seem like she doesn't feed on people except a) her household description and b) this post. That said, those two things about as primary as canon can get.

Vlad claims to own 100 gray coats

Vlad only fought Caleb. There could be so many reasons for that - was Caleb the one who made the challenge? Does Vlad not want to fight his offspring?

Vlad claims that the Encyclopedia Vampirica is mostly based on him. Make of that what you will.

Second bonus: Did you know that Vlad has a normie cousin??? There was a bit of promotional content for seasons involving the Climate family. This is that time they invited Vlad over for Harvestfest.

Please let me know if I missed anything! There's a lot of material out there, much of it no longer available on EA's site, so it's definitely possible there are things I didn't find.

[bronyinabottle]

by the way do you know I’m going to make an anime called Nautica & lycoris cozy in it the prime timeline cozy and her name is Cozetta and you do know I meant to say give cozy empathy and a conscience and the pain would be from guilt it’s not brainwashing but giving her the tools to reform if she chooses to and you say How do you go about redeeming someone who wants to end all life on the planet 1 name Vegeta from dbz he killed planets and if it’s starlight sunset will be upset Cozetta can take i

The thing is with the Dragonball example there's two factors with Vegeta here. Not only was mass-genocide normal for Saiyans. Like, apparently even before Frieza placed them under his whim it was just something they did for fun. Frieza obviously was more than happy to condone it.

And by all means Saiyan/Namek saga Vegeta was a bad guy. And many of his kills are more than likely implied to have stayed. Including many of the innocent ones. There's no denying that, and even the most diehard Vegeta fans would say that's the truth. I would however say that Vegeta isn't the Dragonball example to be comparing Cozy to. I'd say that IDOTS Cozy is more of a Kid Buu situation with maybe a little bit of Cell in there. Obviously Cozy isn't as powerful as either of those villains, but they're both created/"parented" by villains (Bibidi/Babidi and Dr. Gero) that are probably as fucked up inside as their creation, the goal of total destruction is in line with Kid Buu along with the evil intelligence that lets her manipulate and seeking more power like Cell. (We should also keep in mind that while Buu is said to be like hundreds if not thousands of years old, Cell is technically 6)

I suppose then maybe you'll point out Kid Buu was reincarnated into Uub. But let's say what do you do if that's likely not possible. As reincarnating requires death to happen first, and it's clear on what happens when someone evil dies in the IDOTS universe that isn't possible to just have them become sentient again. From the moment an evil character dies in the IDOTS universe, any sentience they have is gone and they become dark magic that ravages a part of the planet.

The other factor is that while there is an afterlife in the IDOTS universe. Death is not curable by looking for seven trinkets and wishing from a magic dragon that they could be restored back to life good as new. Spirits stay spirits, death still has a consequence. I'd consider myself a fan of Dragonball, but I'd understand people having the criticism of the franchise that it treats death like just a slap on the wrist for it's recurring characters after all that happens. Even major deaths that are initially made to be a big deal such as Goku's sacrifice against Cell are eventually reversed when it came time for the Buu Saga and thus kept Goku alive to eventually make both GT and Super.

As much as it is cool that Dragonball got to have more new stuff as of late. It does seem like it ruins just about the perfect ending when it seemed like the savior of the earth was being passed down to Gohan from then on. Doesn't help that poor Gohan has been pretty much humilated most of the time since. Sure he got to beat up Super Buu real good, but then he had the drop the potara earring moment before he too was absorbed, and being tossed aside in Resurrection F like trash. Dragonball Super Hero has helped alleviate this somewhat, but those years of Gohan losing the spotlight back to his father aren't suddenly gone because of the new Beast Gohan form.

And while the ability to speak with the spirits of the deceased itself kinda treats death with a slap of the wrist as well. It's not as simple as they're alive again after a wish as in Dragonball. The best that can be done possibly, is what is brought up in the Sunspark story where potentially living beings willing to share their bodies with a spirit can be the closest to them being alive again (And a recommended period of splitting before the end of the 3rd day after the merger). Though even from that point, it should be noted it's recommended that both parties are willing to a merger even in that case.

The problem with your assumption of "tools to reform" with IDOTS Cozy is she would never choose to if given the chance. She played a willing part in the death of Sunset, and thus was a part of why Starlight was led down a dark path. There is no current path to unpetrifying Cozy under those circumstances that wouldn't cause issues. Even empathy must have it's limits. Starlight and Chrysalis each have tragic circumstances that they couldn't do much about, and compare with eachother to begin a bond with eachother as they got to know the other more as they never actually had the time to speak with one another while they were simply being a hero and a villain.

Trying to reform IDOTS Cozy on the other hand, is like any of us trying to reform the most unashamed Neo-nazis you can find on the internet.

And I know you keep mentioning whatever this Cozetta fic is, and that's perfectly fine. You don't have to have a Cozy that agrees with the IDOTS interpretation. I do not wish to make everybody think Cozy is an irredeemable monster in all cases. That's just the direction I decided to take her in this MLP AU. The show didn't give us alot of backing on Cozy, so it's possible to give her a more sympathetic backstory (Although I do think that's hard to reconcile with the fact she was sent to Tartaurus next to Tirek) if you really want to. I don't even think the canon Cozy was meant to be as evil as I'm interpreting in IDOTS. Everyone is allowed to take Cozy any direction they want with any fics that take place after the show. The idea is just not to demand people restrict themselves to a "popular" interpretation of Cozy as if that's what all Cozy fics should be like.

I've said it before, I have no ill will against Cozy as a character. I only took the direction I did since it fit with the story I wanted to tell. I have never intended to shame the character or any fans who prefer a more positive outlook on Cozy. The goal is IDOTS Cozy to be the irredeemable monster, while she co-exists just fine with Cozy's from other fanfics and/or stories that do have a Cozy capable of change. If you've seen Pony tumblrs for years, you should know of a practical multiverse where even the most goody-goody MLP characters are portrayed as unashamed serial killers (Namely most grimdark blogs with Pinkie as the main character). If you can keep that in mind, that's all you have to get to understand.

[01tsubomi]

okay after some digging i found a list deep in my drive so here are the first 10 anime i watched and if i still stand by them: 

haruhi - haruhi was soooo influential to me and like my tastes in stories and storytelling styles and i still consider it my favorite anime and think the direction is fantastic. that being said. i have never been able to get more than like 10 episodes into a rewatch. i don’t know why but it just like can’t hold my attention even though i consider it a 10/10 

ouran - obviously it’s a product of its time (which is part of why i don’t. Want a season 2) but yeah ofc i still stand by ouran. ouran’s gotten like a new wave of life in these past 2 years because now everyone considers it their comfort anime. i’ve watched ouran twice this year

madoka - after getting way into magical girl anime (and watching the genre devolve into Edgy Shock Factor Series Of The Month and Also Precure) i have mixed feelings on madoka. i never got into the spinoffs and barely watched rebellion so idk if this is like incorrect but my lasting impression is that madoka is mostly about having hope and that the people blaming girls for wanting things are the ones in the wrong, and then every anime studio ever for the next 10 years looked at that and said “okay but what if they ARE in the wrong. and what if they die”. i don’t think shaft could’ve known the wave of garbage they were about to inspire but it still taints my thoughts 

fruits basket - i would never ever in a million years rewatch fruits basket (2001) but literally fruits basket is one of the best anime of all time. to clarify what i’m saying is that last year i rewatched what i know was my favorite episode of fruits basket (2001) when i was 13 and found it like borderline unwatchable because of everything from the visuals to the sound direction to the just general way it felt. not saying things that are goofy are inherently bad but the reboot is waaaaaay more what the manga demands. furuba was always great in concept but it’s finally also great in anime execution

sailor moon - this like shouldn’t even be on this list because who would i be to renounce Sailor Moon. but also like yeah of course sailor moon’s still good. the things that were bad about sailor moon were things that we already called bad back in 2014, and honestly, if i were to rewatch it, i probably would spring for the goofy old dic dub. sailor moon being zany and dated adds to its charm because it’s such a classic. there’s nothing to ridicule it’s just the blueprint for monster of the week magical girl anime

k-on - hell fucking yeah i still stand by k-on!! honestly i think i like k-on MORE now than i did back then!! i just rewatched it last month and i don’t even know what else i could say. top 5 anime ever made

mekakucity actors - i mean like. it should be obvious that 1) yes and 2) no. but also like at this point in my kagepro phase i’m not mad at mekakucity actors for existing. when it comes down to it i think kagepro as just a series of music videos and a vocaloid creator’s passion project is absolutely incredible and the fact that they’re hard to approach doesn’t really take away from that. in theory yeah a really incredible kagepro anime that anyone could understand without any prior knowledge that would also condense all the other bits and pieces from the different mediums into one would be incredible. but you know what you can do with mekakucity actors? laugh at it. and look at a scene of your favorite characters, then laugh more, and go watch otsukimi recital again. i love mekakucity actors the worst anime ever 

baka and test - honestly i think i mostly watched this because it was one of the few on netflix at the time and i think the last time i actually rewatched it was like 2016? with maybe like two episodes in the past year. but i do have fond memories even if most of those fond memories are of being 13 and making bad jokes w my 2 friends who liked it. i’m not against a rewatch bc i do remember there being kind of a lot of heart behind the generic anime stereotype jokes (tsundere girl yandere girl boy who gets a nosebleed every 2 minutes) but it’s not high on the list

black butler - full disclosure i’m pretty sure i only made myself get into this one bc it was one of the 5 anime hot topic carried merch of so i thought i had to if i was an anime fan. i don’t really remember liking this one much and the only plotlines i can remember are where lizzie gets turned into a doll and sebastian invents curry pan. also i feel like there’s a lot of stuff that’d be called problematic that only slides under our radar bc it’s old genre anime (and the genre is yaoi). no i would not watch this again

princess tutu - yo i haven’t watched princess tutu since two thousand and fourteen and i would still recommend it to anyone in a heartbeat. i just have such fond memories of it and i remember really loving that it was a darker magical girl anime that didn’t seem to hate magical girl anime (not that madoka did, but that became a defining feature of the Edgy Magical Girl Anime genre). i really should give it a rewatch it’s been way too long

[risingsouls]

[Alright I'm about to jump on my bullshit, so strap in. This might get long.

So I've said it before but I really hate how simplified Vegeta's character ends up when he ABSOLUTELY was set up to be an extremely interesting and nuanced character (and this is honestly A LOT of characters in the franchise but the post I saw got me cheesed off about Vegeta so you get to listen to my shit), but instead we get the basic, he bad > still kinda bad but fighting with the heroes > gets married and becomes a family man > "redeemed." And like...maybe MAYBE they're moving in an interesting direction with his arc in more recent stuff, but I'm so over the Super manga at this point that I'm not holding my breath they'll do anything actually interesting with him. And I absolutely fault fans as much as the writers for this because, again. Zero accountability and they eat it up, Vegeta Stans constantly tout Vegeta as the best written character in anime. Which is absolutely cap because, as I said, while he absolutely has the makings of being a fascinating character with almost the same set up as a character that is SUPER WELL WRITTEN like Prince Zuko in ATLA (which i know people argue isnt anime but just besr with me ok), Vegeta's arc is incredibly basic and boring, poorly written, and, because of that last one, a lot of times doesn't even feel like it fits his character. A lot of it is making him a plot device to furtherthe narrative which does not equal development, Vegeta Stans.

That said, the post in question that got me back on this bullshit was about how each Saiyan achieved Super Saiyan. Vegeta's was, "So he wouldn't get left behind." And while that may be true to a small degree, I HATE how simplified of an explanation it is. It is only one tiny part of it I feel, and a very surface level reading of that moment and time period for Vegeta. His position at that time is very complex, both in the physical sense of being displaced from the life he lived and only one he really knew working under Frieza so long to having no allegiance to anyone but himself and really having no solid direction (until he settles on revenge and surpassing Goku) and, more importantly, in the emotional/mental sense of his understanding of himself, where he stands, and his cultural identity being absolutely shattered and/or greatly challenged.

Why is that important? What does that have to do with him transforming the first time? For Saiyans, and especially Vegeta, much of their identity is wrapped up in their fighting ability. Their power and their status as warriors. It is what ends up defining them their entire life for better or worse. Tack on Vegeta being royalty, born with an incredibly high power level (the highest barring Broly), being a fighting prodigy from a young age, and all the promises of greatness and praise that came from his father and other Saiyans and you have a recipe for not only someone who thinks a lot of himself (and, arguably, for a LONG WHILE could back that up), but also for someone, who is absolutely going to cling to that, especially in the wake of the life he was MEANT to have being forcibly stripped from him. In some ways, especially after Frieza's defeat, those last shreds of his Saiyan identity and pride were all he had left. And, after all the defeats he faced, especially with someone he sees as beneath him defeating and surpassing him, I think that highly jeopardized his understanding of himself. His identity and pretty much quite literally all he had left post Namek.

Thus, Vegeta's ascension was far more than a temper tantrum or not wanting to be left behind. In my opinion, it was, to some (dramaticish, mostly metaphorical) degree life or death for him. It was transform or lose the last sense of his self and identity (which we kind of see happen after Cell is defeated and is FASCINATING but they do NOTHING with it). What had made up the biggest part of his personal and cultural identity was hanging in the balance, the last thing he had left to cling to along with defeating Goku. It was transform and make that a reality or suffer the emotional and mental consequences that, potentially, could become very physical ones in the most drastic of senses.

And yeah that's sounds super dramatic, but when you consider what he's gone through and who he is, what he's built himself up to be, along with the glimpse we get of this mental shattering ACTUALLY HAPPENING after Cell's defeat, his transformation to Super Saiyan for the first time is DEFINITELY a lot more complex than he didn't want to be left behind. Just as Goku tells Gohan: for Vegeta, too, ascending to Super Saiyan was actually when it became a NEED not a WANT.]