#nocturnal ramblings

[nocturnalghoul]

Fun fact about me is that I think the Ghoulettes should get everything their hearts desire and more :)

[nocturnalghoul-archive]

Hear me out, with the Jesus Is Coming wall and tweet what if… new EP drop on Easter???

[nocturne-reverie]

it really sucks the lack of content you could get from that githyanki egg, just imagine the pastabilities

-The dark urge getting some super fucked up drama trying to break the fucking thing

- Karlach getting super maternal and becomes a milf like she should be

- Wyll getting super paternal and holding up pictures of Good things and Evil things to the egg like that scene in megamind

- Astarion literally just being Jareth the Goblin King

- Gale and Shadowheart being actually decent at caring for the egg but are screaming on the inside afraid they’re gonna drop it or something

- Halesin and Jahira being the funkle and the badass aunt

- Lae’zel after you romance her and get the kool-aid out of her system is like “Y’know the odds are we wont find another creche to take it to” and Tav’s like “I think we could find one” and she’s like “...I dunno i mean i could make that little bastard into the greatest gith warrior to ever live.” and tav’s like “What” “You and the wizard could share your arcane knowledge with the youth, granting them mastery over both the arcane as well as our astral manipulation” “Lae’zel” “Astarion can share his techniques in subterfuge and light-footedness, making them the most skilled assassin in the realm” “I would not put a baby in front of-” “Karlach can spot them in various weight and muscle building training” “I- She could, she could do that very well”

[prickly-paprikash]

"Fans just want to see Annette be adapted loyally from the game."

LOYALLY HOW? SHE ISN'T EVEN A FUCKING PERSON? SHE'S JUST RICHTER'S SATELLITE LOVE INTEREST WHO NEEDS TO BE SAVED. SHE GETS TURNED INTO A VAMPIRE, THE ONE INTERESTING THING THAT HAPPENS TO HER, AND SHE'S THERE TO BE SEXY FOR RICHTER.

Annette's biggest plot line is that:

A.) She gets kidnapped by Dracula and Richter saves her.

B.) She gets turned into a vampire and obsesses over Richter.

There is nothing to adapt loyally because she's not a character!

Castlevania games have always been light on plot. The same goes for their characters.

Yeah, no. I'd rather take the one that actually feels like a real character, with real motivations and a rich backstory. I'll take the one who can stand side by side with Richter in battle. The one who is both wonderful independent and connected with Richter.

She's flawed and angry. Filled with pride of her history and ancestry. Who is starting to realize that she might like this Richter Belmont fellow, despite his abrasive attitude. She sees herself in this handsome, arrogant, loyal vampire hunter. In him she sees a reflection of her fears and insecurities. In him she can see a way to beating back the threats that plague the land.

In each other, they see hope.

Richter's abilities return to him because he needs to protect her, along with Tera and Maria. In turn, Annette isn't alone in this fight. She is a woman of color, finding herself in a strange land with people who despise her just for her skin. But with Richter, Tera and Maria? She's not alone.

They see something in one another that is worth admiring.

And one day, perhaps, something worth loving.

[notachair]

thinking about how Sypha described Alucard like a "cold spot in a room" in S2, and Alucard showing up at the end of Nocturne S1 looking all desaturated, though yes ethereal, but also in a sense cold and ghostly, all buttoned up at the front. Sypha saying his sadness being like an icy well. And here he'd been so soft and happy by the S4 finale 😭 I'm nervous- but excited. And I fear the new groupie got some walls to tear down

[wuekka]

Fridge brilliance page for Castlevania nocturne 👏👏 This is exactly the type of knowledge I wanted from it~

[devis-nonsense-n-shitposting]

I am still thinking about Castlevania Nocturne, I am so not normal about this show. Fucking ALUCARD showing up at the end still has me reeling. Fuck. Adrien Fahrenheit freaking Tepes, son of FUCKING DRACULA himself, just shows up and kills the most gaslight girlboss gatekeep vampire and is like "Heyy guys so sowwy I'm late" and then season one just ends. Also everyone in this show was serving, and I hope we either get to see a flashback of young Juste OR see Grandpa Juste put on his Iconic red outfit, I would literally scream. Well, I'm already screaming but still.

Anywho I'm going to go pray to the Writers on hopes that Tera is going to end up okay by the end of the show

[paintedhyenadogs]

The reason Alucard looks so beautiful and ethereal in Nocturne is because his tears after outliving his husband and wife have moisturised him (I have no idea what Im saying)

[milkywaydrabbles]

The first thing out of my fucking mouth after Juste introduced himself and Richter asked "Juste who?" Was "Juste me!" I'm sick of myself

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

WAKE THE FUCK UPPPPPPP CLOWN UPDATEDDDDD

on my hands and knees Wailing

[nocturnalghoul]

Mountain is the one ghoul who always gets everyone else sick. He doesn’t really mean to, but whenever he gets sick he just wants to be around the others and ends up plopping down in the middle of the living room until he gets better.

He just gets so lonely in his room all by himself and swears that getting to see the others makes him get better quicker

[nocturnalghoul-archive]

Cos and Chris are being adorable on Twitter.

[nocturne-reverie]

i think Betty being a little crazy for simon right out of the gate is super on point considering not even 30 seconds after appearing before her through the time portal and explaining to her that he was 1000 YEARS in the future, there was no god damn hint of consideration that girl just hopped straight through, learned to fly a magic carpet in seconds and immediately killed a great anti-magic being and got straight to work and honestly if i shared a look like THIS with a man like simon i would have done the same damn thing holy moly what a perfect tragic couple

[prickly-paprikash]

My favorite thing about every single Belmont in Netflix's Castlevania and Nocturne?

Every single initial appearance radiates sad, pathetic energy.

Trevor's bar fight scene was equal parts hilarious and disheartening. This is the Last Belmont? A legendary clan of Vampire Hunters, reduced to a drunken brawler who gets his nuts kicked in so many times?

Julia Belmont? Bodied by hot, gay Dragon Daddy Olrox while her son watches. He brings the direct Belmont line down to two, and traumatizes the kid so hard he has ED—Enchantment Dysfunction until he becomes an adult.

Richter? Yeah! Literally has to have his first true core memory be his mom be fucking owned by the sexiest god damn bloodsucker in history. Little bro's canon event was to watch his mama be crushed.

Juste? Sure his entrance is cool, but then we realize he's also suffering from ED, he sucks at this whole grandfather thing, his wife and bestie killed, and he could never even confront his own blood over the death of his fucking daughter.

I love the fact that every single Belmont makes the worst first impressions. Regardless of sex or gender or age. They just fucking suck when introduced.

[chorus-the-mutate]

This is an edited repost of the Erzsebet Bathory character analysis I wrote yesterday that I refuse to let go to waste. I tried doing the right thing and tagging all of the necessary trigger warnings only for this post to be completely hidden from the Castlevania Nocturne and Erzsebet Bathory tags. Since I can't afford to tag the proper trigger warnings without being punished please do not read this post if discussions of rape or sexual assault triggers or upsets you in any way. I don't take these topics lightly and they are vital to this analysis of Erzsebet Bathory.

This post also contains major spoilers for this first season of Castlevania Nocturne.

This may seem presumptive of me to say but this thought has been stuck in my head for several hours: Erzsebet Bathory is the most rapist adjacent villainess I've ever seen without her actually being a rapist.

The first and smallest point against her is how often she mentions virgins. I know that Erzsebet's initial mention of virgin sacrifices is supposed to tie into the origin of her alter ego and consumption of Sekhmet but it's super fucking weird that it played into why she wanted to sacrifice Maria.

Next point against her is the lawyer's daughter. I'm not sure if this lady was a virgin but when she's first brought to Erzsebet she's already terrified and too dazed to fight back. It's obvious that she doesn't want to be there and that even if she did that she can't really express that desire. But Erzsebet still takes this lady out of a literal gilded cage, sits down and sits this lady on her dress to admire her despair before drinking her blood. The next time we see the lady she's still dazed. The only differences are that she's dolled up and seems more suggestible. Even with hundreds of people in this ballroom scene the lady is literally ignored by everyone except for Erzsebet who dances with her and parades her around for her own amusement. Everyone else knows that Erzsebet likes to make her victims suffer and they still refuse to acknowledge the lady because Erzsebet has made it clear that she's her possession. Hell the only person who is unhappy enough with Erzsebet to go rogue at this point is Olrox and he STILL IGNORES THIS LADY. When the lady is dragged outside to be fed on again without anyone batting an eye it reminds me of a rapist roofying their target and proceeding to do everything in their power to seem interested in their victim's well-being in order to take them to a second location. And no one speaks up since Erzsebet is the Harvey Weinstein, Prince Andrew or Thomas Jefferson of the vampire world; the embodiment of people in power getting away with abuse until the damage has already been done.

The last and biggest point against Erzsebet is the entire scene where she turns Tera into a vampire. For me personally that is just an allegorical rape scene and it's executed very well. Erzsebet makes her entrance at the abbey as a lioness of a woman, a literal predator who wants to take Maria as a sacrifice and turn her into a vampire to ensure Emmanuel the Abbot's loyalty. Tera protests and offers herself to Erzsebet instead. This is such blatant coercion that Tera refers to herself as the ram Abraham sacrificed to God instead of Isaac. And the only question or concern Erzsebet has at this point is if her sacrifice should be a virgin. The only reasons she accepts the sacrifice are Emmanuel's genuine love for Tera and the fact that Tera is a powerful sorceress. Once Erzsebet settles for Tera and physically lifts her to her level no one can stop her. Maria gets knocked out for trying and Richter gets bodied immediately after. Their only option is to get the hell out of there once Annette makes an opening and Richter rightfully runs for his life. Even Maria, the only person that could look back and see Tera turn, is knocked out and that feels like an intentional writing choice to give Tera one last shred of dignity. Erzsebet holds Tera really close in this sort of hug as she feeds on her and once she's fed she literally sits Tera on her lap for her turn to feed. Then Erzsebet cuts herself and the blood starts dripping down on Tera, starting at her skirt, going to her blouse and reaching her face. At first Tera doesn't react but then her body responds to the blood and she feeds even though she doesn't want to. Even though no one wants this for her. And that is exactly what it's like when someone has an unwanted orgasm. Tera's body is protecting itself the same way a victim of assault would and that paired with the blood on her skirt being reminiscent of the blood on a woman's thigh in the aftermath of an assault hammers home the rape allegory. It's very sad and uncomfortable to think of Tera's turn to vampirism this way but the thought lingers hours after like a grimy film on my brain.

I 100,000% believe that Erzsebet would have been an actual rapist if Netflix Castlevania didn't romanticize Lenore raping Hector and ending their relationship on friendly terms. Not to mention Sumi and Taka's sudden shift from allies to sexually assaulting Alucard out of spite. Castlevania Nocturne seems to shy away from rape and sexual assault in favor of allegories or moments so brief that I missed them unlike its predecessor. So I'm blaming the gratuitous depictions of sexual assault in Castlevania on Warren Ellis, the creator of Netflix Castlevania, who doesn't work on this show for a very good reason.

Everything from her size as Sekhmet to her tendency to torture women and girls before killing them contributes to the allegory of Erzsebet being the vampire equivalent of a rapist. She exudes power and not only does she enjoy making others feel helpless she's also great at it. She is a sadist without honor, willing to parade her lady victim of choice around vampire high society or hang a young girl on hooks to drain dry rather than let any of them die a quick death. The dragged out, needless suffering Erzsebet inflicts along with her preference for women and virgins frames her feeding as something more sexual in nature than the other vampire nobles who simply indulge in their gluttony. Even Olrox feeding on his former boyfriend isn't framed sexually, it's framed as a desperate, romantic gesture to keep his lover alive. And every vampire I remember from Castlevania has their feeding framed as a tool for political power or sheer, simple gluttony. Even the vampire general Cho was shown to be more of a tyrant or a general sadist clinging to power in Japan than a deviant.

Erzsebet's sheer sadism actually contrasts quite well with Dracula's humanity and restraint. He understood humanity, only feeding to survive or strike down the merchants who slighted him. (He probably also used feeding as a tool for political power but I don't think we saw that directly.) Dracula ultimately came to understand humanity so well that he fell for Lisa Tepes, the exemplar of what it means to be human. And that love is why I believe he respected Lisa's wishes and let her keep that humanity instead of turning her into a vampire. And after Lisa's death Dracula stopped feeding entirely, hoping to extinguish his life and take out as many people as he could because he believed that humanity should've been better. He believed that the people who lived alongside Lisa would've stood up for her and they betrayed her out of a mix of fear, religious reverence and apathy. Meanwhile Erzsebet doesn't care about humanity, seeing people like the lawyer's daughter as possessions or people like Tera and Emmanuel the Abbot as pawns to further her own rule. She might be taken aback by Drolta's death once she learns of it but there's an equal chance that she wouldn't even bat an eye.

So what do these points of analysis mean for Erzsebet and Tera's future dynamic as master and pawn? The one thing that's certain is that Tera has been fundamentally changed, forced into an unprecedented nightmare scenario that will drag her down a dark path. But I'm an optimist and I believe that Tera will ultimately be redeemed. She may never be human again but her humanity, her love for her son and daughter will save her soul. Ultimately I hope that Tera lives and recovers from the trauma of Erzsebet turning her. I hope that she goes home to her children and is taken in with open arms. But if Tera dies she will die as Tera, not as a pawn, and that is because Erzsebet could never kill her humanity.

[pinkmirth]

doesn’t he have the most kissable face you’ve ever seen?