#the implication that Dracula knows social media...

[pinkiepiebones]

Bug bros Dracula's original plan is

I mean I get it but also EAT ALL OF NOVA SCOTIA

[beevean]

Lenore, Hector and Alucard are by far the biggest victims of the sudden 180 in direction done by Season 4, both due to the team probably wanting to give everyone a "happy ending" at any cost after Season 3 got criticized for being glorified torture porn, and also due to Ellis leaving mid way, which most likely caused other writers to have to fill in the gaps

I'm particularily convinced that the Lenector stuff was added by the other writers because it literally has no sense of organicity with the dynamic as it was written by Ellis in S3, which was still shit, but this feels like a completely different kind of shit. Ellis liked his misery porn, he doesn't strike me as the type to suddenly turn and write a cutesy fluffy ship between an abuser and her victim, even considering his...background. You'd think he'd have doubled down even more on the edgy bullshit, but Lenector as it is in S4 feels like the kind of stuff a stereotypical crazy shipper on social media would write, which leads me to imagine that Lenector was added after the asshole's departure because some folks at Powerhouse really thought the two looked so cute together

Alucard's and Isaac's stories give me the impression that the writers needed more time to bring their vision to fruition, but for one reason or another they rushed things. Alucard takes one episode to get over his trauma and the implication that he'd be grappling with mistrust and misanthropy is never addressed, Isaac becomes Jesus overnight and then peaces out in the middle of the season after an epic speech. However, if I imagine being a viewer who has just finished S3 and has to wait a year to see how it ends, I can imagine their development happening, just not this sloppily.

The Lenector plotline is too jarring. Part of me still believes that this one screenshot:

was meant to echo Hector's "flashback" of him killing his parents, and be a hint of him going on a blazing rampage.

Which, in theory, happens! But 1) it's for the sake of resurrecting Dracula, after two seasons spent getting beaten over the head that he lied to him and wanted to destroy mankind (which makes his horror at Carmilla's plan of conquering the world immensely hypocritical); 2) despite having complete control of his Night Creatures, he still leaves the "epic" flight to Isaac, who at this point has ascended to the status of Creator's Pet; 3), most importantly, the scene makes a fine point that Lenore is special to him and she must be protected, after the previous six episodes showed them "bonding" and conveniently ignoring all the abuse, forced BDSM and treachery she used to trap him. All together it feels like a subversion for the sake of a subversion, like they kept the original idea but made it less dark at the last minute. And I could have accepted it as a subversion of expectations, if there was more focus on Hector's character (hah) and less focus on how ✨cute✨ they were or how 🥺sad🥺 poow widdle Lenore was. Considering that from what I heard she became a fan-favorite overnight, in theory because of her "nuance" but let's be real it's because she's "hot", I can absolutely see the writers deciding to make her more sympathetic in an attempt to make them happy. If S3 feels like an amateurish torture porn fic on FF.net, S4 def feels like a coffee shop AU lmao.

I don't know what happened in S4. I don't know if they had planned a 5th season, but were forced to condense everything in one: perhaps with one more season, the transition between "I made you into my pet! :D" and "This is why I like you. You're capable of actually listening to me 🥺" would have made more sense. I don't know if other writers entered the fray, even though Ellis is the only one credited in S4. I don't know if Ellis himself was strongarmed into writing fluffy shit because the executives heard the complaints that S3 was poorly received due to being a cynical waste of time - ironically, erasing all conflicts made that season even more of a waste of time.

We can theorize. But much like a rushed game is still a faulty product not deserving of full price even if you can pity the working conditions of the devs, the final result of NFCV is of a rushed, poorly paced, poorly thought-out mess that ended up making an offensive joke of the serious themes it wanted to include.

[byrdtrollsunoreversearchive]

What does damage control even look like at this point?

"Damage control goes like this" He says.

Setting down a small mirror in front of him.

"I've already lost the PR battle. There's nothing now I could do or say that would sway the general public out of Rollyn's favor. Her fans, most lowblood audiences, I've already lost them. I've thought about it every which way, and I'm not going to tarnish her reputation by revealing what she said to me. I can't tell the truth. So that's over. It's done. I have to play the bad guy. I can work with that. I hate to say it but this incident might have even swayed some higher ups in my favor. Having a model girlfriend and not treating her great? Not a dealbreaker for most highbloods I encounter and work with."

He sets down a tiny dracula figurine, continuing to think with his hands.

"...What other trolls in the business wont like is I got my ass handed to me on a silver platter by some random civ. I had a good reason not to attack Sereni back but they don't know that. And also. Before now, the wider public didn't know about my powers and now they will. I'm confident Sereni and Rollyn have already goneto the web or the press about the memory erasing. Suddenly, this card that has been in the mafia's back pocket of having a convienant memory eraser has gone public. Midas will not be happy about this. It'll have people asking questions. Digging around."

"I have to find a way to get tens upon millions of Rollyn's fans, curious onlookers, and rival gangs of my scent."

"At the same time, I've got to retaliate against Sereni in some way that makes my peers respect me again. While at the same time not actually hurting her physically or mentally because she's one of Rollyn's friends and she didn't honestly do anything wrong. She had every reason to suspect me for some kind of abuse and there was nothing I could do to dissuade her."

Sunset stares at the things he's set down, and lets out a long, resigned sigh.

"I'm thinking. I make some social media posts. I get one of my computer people to go back through and make me a nice digital trail of breadcrumbs for Rollyn's fans to 'discover' some kind of fake crime. That I will blame the memory erasing on."

"Something low impact business wise but highly emotional and scandalous enough to captivate the press circuit. It's got to be well hidden enough that I don't look like an idiot, just a very meticulous sociopath, but still open enough to be found in the first place. It's also got to make the gang look good, or at the very least powerful. This is the story we need to sell the press."

"Then, at the same time, I make a different, seperate trail of breadcrumbs for Sereni specifically. That implicate Rollyn in some kind of fake crime she's 'forgotten'. Something Rollyn would realistically back morally but would get her in trouble with the fleet if it went public. I then blackmail Sereni with this, threaten to go to the fleet etc etc, force her into conceding into some kind of smoke and mirrors public defeat at my hand."

Sunset describes to you, like a man who has thought up of a meticulous, smart and well fashioned plan, and is deeply unhappy and unsettled about every single part of it. He could care less about wider alternia. But he cannot describe to you, how much it hurts him to know that Rollyn specifically will likely remember him for the rest of time as one of the worst people imaginable. He is backed so throughly into a corner there could be no choice but doubling down. The kindest thing he thinks he can do for her is to respect her wish not to mourn his loss, and this would certainly leave her not mourning him.

But he can't imagine it would make her happier, imagining him to be some kind of monster. Living a double life like this, it's got to tear a person apart. It stretchs him like a rubber band pulled taut at the best of times. That constant facade. That never ending fear. It's probably at this very moment, that Sunset decides, he can never 'date' again. Most certainly not hold quadrants with anyone he actually cares about. He wanted so badly to live in that fantasy where he meets a cute girl at a pulmonologist and falls in love just like a regular troll. But this world where a relationship between him and Rollyn, away from the prying eyes of the press and coworkers and fear and terror is just that. A fantasy. And it has become what he always knew it to be from the beginning. A liability.

"I don't wanna do it" He says, his voice cracking. "I really fucked up" He wheezes. "How selfish of me. To toss and turn in the grave I dug for myself and not even be able to lie in it. What was I thinking! What was I thinking! I risk my career- my life- my plan- for what? Just to leave Rollyn worse off than she ever was before meeting me? Just to rebreak her heart she can't even remember is broken? I should have never dated her in the first place. I'm smarter than this. I risked it all and for what. To try and ward off some run of the mill loneliness?"

He laughs, bitterly, the way a troll does when trying not to cry.

But the sobs catch up to him anyways. Violently overtaking Sunset's body. He covers his face with his hands, curling up and holding his body close like a young boy well used to weathering this kind of pain.

[alpaca-clouds]

Why do I see no one ever mention this one?

Okay, folks. Whoever follows me on any other social media (or Ao3) knows I am a pretty big Trephacard shipper. It is because of that I am very surprised that no-where I find the delicious shipping implication of this one scene.

Season 1 Episode 4 has of course the two blockhead men duking it out until Sypha saves Trevor. We then get this exchange between Alucard and Sypha.

Alucard: "A vampire hunter and a magician. You'll do. I am Adrian Tepes. Known to the Wallachians as Alucard, son of Vlad Dracula Tepes. I've been asleep here in my private keep under Gresit for a year to heal the wounds dealt by my father when I attempted to stop him from releasing his demon armies."

Sypha: "You are the sleeping soldier!"

Alucard: "I am aware of the stories. I am also aware the speakers consider the story information from the future. Do you know the whole story?"

At that point Sypha makes this face and gets clearly flustered:

Now this can be read as either Trevor/Sypha or actually Trephacard, but it is clealy implied with this blush that the "whole story" has some sexual or romantic implications.

And I am sitting here like: "C'mon. It basically writes itself. Why are there not more stories using this as a set-up?"

[ocpdramblings]

Maybe I should start using this blog to talk about my hobbies as well so that I can associate it with things I like. I like art, I do a variety of mediums. Watercolor, charcoal, graphite, trying to get into pastels and gouache, digital, not a fan of acrylic but I can do it, really want to try oil painting but I don’t have the space for it to dry.

I like reading classics a lot. Pride and prejudice is a fave rn and I impulse purchased Jane Austen’s entire works. Read the predecessor to Dracula, Carmilla. Very good. Very gay. Way more gay than I thought it was going to be. I thought it was going to be subtext. It was not. I also like reading trashy books as well. I really enjoy the ones that TikTok recommends that have absolutely insane plot premises. I don’t care about the writing at that point I just need to read.

I’ve recently gotten into Overwatch. Never played a FPS before. Made a couple new friends from it. Minecraft, Stardew Valley, Hollow Knight, I really wanna get into Celeste. On the second Ace Attorney game, I love mobile and gacha games, I wanna play more otomes even tho I’m not a big fan of romance when I am implicated.

I unmask a lot with this blog and every time I reread a post I can’t help but think of how bland it is and how I’d never talk like that in real life.

My favorite game is Okami. Never met other people who like it. Very sad.

I watch anime, tho I do this thing where I’ll watch a popular anime a couple years after it comes out. And I tell myself that it’s to see if it lives up to the hype but honestly it’s bc I’ll have random moments in which I want to watch anime and then the only ones that come to mind are popular ones on social media years ago. I say my favorite is Bungou Stray Dogs but that’s actually my favorite manga not my favorite anime. My fav anime rn is probably High Card. Doesn’t have the highest budget but I like the premise so far and the characters. My favorite mangas are Bungou Stray Dogs, Kuroshitsuji, and Witch Hat Atelier (also not caught up on). I wanna start reading firefly wedding.

I read a lot of romance manhwas, mainly with female leads but I have a couple with male leads that I adore. I haven’t watched any tv shows in a while but I’ve been telling myself that I’m either going to watch Hannibal or Dexter. I’ve been wanting to consume more queer material involving women since I’ve found that despite being sapphic, very few women media shows up recommended to me. Favorite movie of last year was Bottoms. I watched it several times. I want to get into cdramas. The next film I see will either be The Handmaiden or Maja Ma. Or one of the Saw movies. Been on a Saw movie binge with friends. I find the themes inconsistent. An unforgivable crime.

There’s no actors I’m particularly into. Never got into anything Marvel aside from Spider Man. I plan on reading the comics soon bc a friend of mine really likes Spider man and I want him to know I care about his interests.

I’ve found a new enjoyment for figure skating. I have a couple of male skaters that I quite enjoy, but I’d like to watch more and eventually get into some female and ice dancing pairs as well.

I crochet. Valentine’s Day is my favorite holiday. I graduate with my bachelors in the spring. I plan on doing my masters in IO psychology. My favorite color is blue and pink. I’ve been dying my hair for I think two years now. Maybe six months away from two. My friends say that I am surprisingly progressive in regards to my political views. I don’t know what that is supposed to mean.

I have a new car cause I recently got into a car crash. I’m very privileged. I don’t have to worry about money. I do regardless. I somehow have this personality disorder, and I have had one of the best life’s a child could have. Though every time I say that my friends say that’s weird considering the amount of trauma I’ve gone through. I think I have turned out well despite my circumstances. I like caring about other people. I’d like to make it my life’s goal to improve the life of somebody I don’t know yet.

Feel free to reach out to this blog anytime. It’s a side blog so I’m likely not gonna end up following anybody but I like talking.

[dereksteed]

Book Review #3

Blooded by Chuck Dixon

Book #3 of my 2020 reading challenge comes from writer Chuck Dixon. Dixon is probably best known for his prolific career as a comic book writer, having many successful and popular runs on characters such as Batman, the Punisher, G.I. Joe, and perhaps most notably being the co-creator of infamous Batman villain “Bane.” Dixon has written several books outside of the comics world as well, including the “Bad Times” and “Levon Cade” book series. “Blooded” is his take on a vampire story.

While Blooded isn’t necessarily a twist on the vampire mythos, it has a different feel thanks to Dixon’s more informal first person narrator. The main character (only once referred by name by a neighbor as “Jason”) wakes up after a wild night of partying to discover he has been turned into a vampire. What follows is his adapting to his new life and his dealing with the implications of what he has become. The female vampire who “turned” him is at first a mentor, but soon abandons him. He is forced to figure things out on his own without knowing the “rules” of being a vampire. Many of the superstitions and traditions of vampire lore are not true (such as religious relics and garlic) but things such as no reflection, being burned by sunlight, and not being able to enter a place uninvited are real. Left alone and inexperienced, he is dependent upon his own logic and reasoning to survive his new and horrifying life. Dixon takes many of the ideas about vampires and gives them an interesting spin. Vampires not needing to breathe, for example, makes crossing a river a bit easier. Wounds that don’t bleed or heal, but still can be painful, and the ability to sense extreme temperatures but not feel discomfort from them are two examples. He manages to avoid the cliches, even though some of the tropes are familiar. The main character tells the story in first person, which gives it a street level, almost journal or diary feel. His inexperience and adjustment to his new normal resonate with this style of narration. It feels more personal. The only disappointment I had was that the end felt a little too quick. The build up of a big shadowy boss bad guy didn’t quite pan out compared to the sense of menace he was given in description. The confrontation with a friend who had betrayed him seems to be over without much ado. But the actions of the main character after the seemingly climactic fight scene sets up an even bigger potential situation of danger and recklessness. Maybe the idea was to set up another series? I hope so, because it would be interesting to see the resolution of the events set in motion by a self proclaimed Vampire going viral on social media. There is a bigger and very interesting story that could follow. I hope we get to hear it someday. I like vampire stories. Dracula is one of my favorite books of all time. But I have never liked the romanticized, morally conflicted vampires meant to attract pity or sympathy like so many more modern versions. Dixon’s vampires are monstrous. And the main character realizes that he has become one as well. I’m happy that Dixon avoids the sappy “woe is me, I’m a monster” drudgery that could have been the expected route. Instead the main character begins to accept his monstrosity but enacts a chain of events that will undoubtedly lead to trouble for the vampire order and especially himself. But that seems to be his plan. I enjoyed “Blooded” even though I hoped for more. For those who like their vampires as monsters, this might be right up your alley. If you prefer the pretty, sparkly heart-throb type of nosferatu, maybe not.

[robinsoncenter]

English courses for students interested in science and technology

Literature and Technology

Did you know that Ada Lovelace, regarded as the first computer programmer, was the daughter of the nineteenth-century poet Lord Byron?  Technology and literature have long gone hand-in-hand: products of our creativity, our inspiration, and our cultural desire to organize and improve our lives.  Studying technology and literature together provides a rounded kind of insight: the human and cultural implications of our tools and our machines.

The English department offers opportunities for students to combine their study in tech fields with investigations of the written word and the stories that we tell with it.  One of the benefits of studying technology at UW is that the U provides more than simply learning code or design, it provides a wealth of opportunity to see the intellectual intersections of these with other academic fields.  Moreover, the current tech market depends upon people skilled in reading and writing, so taking courses in English can be both intellectually and professionally important.

Most of these courses satisfy university requirements for VLPA credit; some provide "W" credit automatically and some have the option of pursuing "W" credit (if not specified, it is often possible to earn "W" credit; please contact the instructor).

Spring 2017

Engl 200G: Alien Minds: Poetics and Mathematics from Print Media to Artificial Intelligence (VLPA, W)

Aaron Ottinger

Module I: Alien Narratives: Reorganizing Knowledge

Sterne, Laurence. Tristram Shandy.

Sousanis, Nick. Unflattening

Module II: Alien Landscapes: The Power of Numbers, Shape, and the Ecology of Reading

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor and William Wordsworth. Lyrical Ballads 1798 and 1800.

Horowitz, Eli, Kevin Moffett, and Matthew Derby, The Silent History

Module III: Becoming Alien

Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus

Kearny, Douglas. The Black Automaton

ENGL 204A:  The Zombie Apocalypse (VLPA)

Eva Cherniavsky

Contemporary culture teems with the animated dead.  While vampires have proliferated in fiction, film, comics and television for well over a century now, zombies are more recent arrivals; the emergence of zombie narrative as a new, cross-media genre of popular culture is usually dated to George Romero’s iconic 1978 film, Dawn of the Dead.  If vampires are a late-19th-century phenomenon (Bram Stoker published Dracula in 1897), zombies are late-20th-century and early-21st-century creatures. If vampires are ancient revenants (figures from earlier ages, called forth from the crypt), zombies are us – or, as Rick Grimes puts in  Robert Kirkman’s comic, “We are the walking dead.”

This course will consider what it is that drives the attraction to the figure of the zombie, and what ideas about government, society, belonging, ecology, and futurity zombie narratives explore.   Dracula’s arrival in Victorian London spoke to the effects of urbanization, industrialization, and colonialism: what might zombies have to tell us about de-industrialization, globalization, austerity, and the information age? While our focus will be on print fiction, we will also consider a number of films, as well as a television series

ENGL 242F:  Dystopian Fiction (VLPA, W)

Elizabeth Brown

From the success of The Hunger Games franchise to the recent popularity of George Orwell’s 1984, dystopian fiction has received renewed attention in the 21st century. In this course, we will consider the genre of dystopian fiction through novels and short stories. How does dystopian fiction imagine uninhabitable worlds? How does it refract “real world” concerns about the time in which it was produced? How might it speak to our own contemporary moment? To think about these questions, we’ll read several works of prose fiction across the 20th and 21st centuries. This fiction might include works by W.E.B. Du Bois, George Orwell, Margaret Atwood, Octavia Butler, Suzanne Collins, and selections from the recent Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction from Social Movements anthology. Assignments will consist of a mix of reflective writing and short papers. No experience taking English courses at the college level is necessary to enroll for this class. You will receive a “W” credit if you complete course assignments. 

ENGL 265A: Cultures of Extinction (VLPA, DIV, I&S)

Jason Groves

With the future of the Endangered Species Act at stake, this course takes a multi-disciplinary approach to understanding one of the more wicked problems of the 21st century: The Sixth Extinction. Rather than approaching this event as a discrete biological phenomenon, this course looks at how current threats to bio-diversity are implicated in, and connected to, threats to cultural diversity, in particular language loss. We will seek to understand how discourses of extinction, beginning from its “discovery” in the 18th century, are related to fraught histories of colonialism and imperialism, whose ecological and cultural effects extend into the present and threaten to shape the future.

While the course seeks to grasp the scale of the Sixth Extinction, it will also critically reflect upon, and propose alternatives to, the dominant apocalyptic narratives in which extinction is framed in the popular imagination. Course readings and critical texts drawn from across the humanities and social sciences will explore and critique various framings of “the end” in literature, art, music, and film.

ENGL 282: Intermediate Multimodal Composition (VLPA, C or W)

Jacki Fiscus

Strategies for composing effective multimodal texts for print, digital physical delivery, with focus on affordances of various modes--words, images, sound, design, and gesture--and genres to address specific rhetorical situations both within and beyond the academy. Although the course has no prerequisites, instructors assume knowledge of academic writing.

ENGL 382: Special Topics in Multimodal Composition  (VLPA, C or W)

Zhenzhen He

Focuses on emerging questions, debates, genres, and methods of multimodal analysis and production. Topics vary but might include transmedia storytelling, digital humanities, audiovisual essays, new media journalism, and performance. Although course has no prerequisites, instructors, assume knowledge of academic argumentation strategies.

ENGL 379A: Narrative as Time Machine

Mark Patterson

This is a course about different ways to tell time.  And the only way we can tell time is by telling a story about time.  Note that the word “tell” figures heavily in both aspects. Stories engage us in issues of time in two ways.  First, narrative happens in time, and we are always experiencing the different ways that stories shape this experience (“How long will it take me to read this novel before class?” Or “I had to read the same sentence three times before I understood it”).  Second, narrative is always about time, or at least about different ways to represent time (historically, experientially, deep time, etc.)  We will read a series of novels and study several films that engage these different ways of experiencing time.  These works will help us think about and discuss issues like the representation of history, the deep time of evolution, the expansion and contraction of time (and space) in our contemporary global society and narrative techniques like stream of consciousness and the distinction between fabula and sjuzhet.

[beevean]

You know what the Belmont's treatment reminds me of?

Samus in Other M

That game wanted so bad to depict Samus as someone with depth, someone who has feelings and enotions and trauma and can cry etc. But the end result had her do jack all in the actual story and for her to be denigrated by other characters who were shown to be more competent.

Except that with Sakamoto I can believe that he genuinely wanted to do Samus justice but went overboard with the weakness aspect because he had his head way too far up his own head

While with NFCV you cannot tell me that the writers don't know that the Belmonts (or others) being treated as sad tragic little meow meows who get treated like shit and need to be rescued/corrected often. These guys are on social media, they are literally part of the fandom and take part in discourse occasionally, so I can't believe they aren't doing this on purpose. Maybe Deats himself doesn't wish for this effect but someone must because it's far too consistent and convenient

... forgive me for what I'm about to say.

Samus in OM is atrocious and we all know that, right? Yes, she has those small cool moments in cutscenes as a token of respect for her skills, but overall she's weak, she's ineffectual, she won't stop praising a man who by all means acts cold and spiteful towards her, she's pretty much forbidden to do anything of substance in the plot, we see this gratuitous sequence of her writhing on the floor in pain after being shot that is nearly fetishistic...

... but the characters respect her.

Well, Adam doesn't, or at the very least, he doesn't respect her as she deserves. But the others? They know who Samus Motherfucking Aran is. Anthony is very friendly towards her. The scientists trusts her. Is it enough? Of course not. But somehow, some fucking how, Trevor and from what I've seen Ricther slip even lower than that level, because they're insulted and laughed at left and right, by their own friends most of all.

I genuinely felt sorry for Trevor who was pushed aside in his own story in favor of Fanservice Central Alucard and Muh Deepness Isaac, and when he was on screen the story beat us over the head that he's a washed up alcoholic who swears left and right and yeah he lost his family but they were weirdos anyway. Richter has a more pleasant personality from what I've seen, but apparently Annette steals the show as expected, the same person who looks down on him and gets away with calling him "useless as fuck", and he doesn't really do anything of substance either.

Oh, and what about Juste? Oh yeah I ain't forgotten about him. Juste, who became yet another Trevor, another jaded bastard after the loss of his family, who can't use his magic anymore, who is a prick to Richter who is a prick to him in return, who can't even help him unlock his magic - no, the memory of Annette does it.

Oh, and do you remember how Dracula recognized Trevor as a Belmont because he threw ineffectual punches at him? How he recognized the power of the Morning Star... who didn't even scratch him? How this sends the implication that the Belmonts kept fighting Dracula... and lost to him? The complete reversal of the games, where the only Belmont who didn't manage to kill Dracula at first was Christopher and anyway he tried again some time later?

Leon so far is the Belmont that came out of it the most unscathed, and even he was reduced to the level of "random crusader who decided to fight Dracula for shit and giggles"

So no. There is an undeniable pattern here. Deats can hide behind the excuses he wants, but again: whoever thought that promoting the show by using Annette's line was a good idea... well, they had to draw that conclusion from somewhere.

also fuck you nocturne for pushing me to say one (1) decent thing about om that other piece of shit game. goddamnit