dhampyresa

I have basically been listening to various songs off the soundtrack of Hazbin Hotel to drown out my hurt feelings and nothing else for the past week or so.

I've seen people call Alastor from (said show) a tumble sexyman and they're not wrong exactly, it's more that what he really is something far older and more powerful. Eldritch, even. He's an edgy 2000s deviantart OC. Love that for him. Love that for me.

Also who the hell is leaving Lucifer reviews on Yelp?!

Title taken from this year's Austrian Eurovision entry which is a fucking banger.

Watch on YouTube

Quite looking forward to Netflix' s upcoming The Fall of the House of Usher. The trailer also has some Masque of the Red Death, The Raven, The Black Cat and possibly some Tell-Tale Heart. Murders in the Rue Morgue, maybe?

Anyway, I hope it fills the E A Poe mash-up hole in my heart left by the Nevermore webtoon being on hiatus. Gothic ghost lesbians <3

Temuera Morrison for his role as Boba Fett in The Book of Boba Fett!

I have SO MANY questions about this show's structure, seriously. This show is only 7 episodes long! Why is the title character not in an entire episode and only 5 seconds in the one after? Why is one of the early episodes 80% flashback by volume? Why is Cad Bane the only one who knows he's in a Western?

Why must the Tuskens be massacred AGAIN?

Does Fennec Shand know she's named after a desert fox? How did teen!Nat from Yellowjackets [1] get to a galaxy far far away? Why is the Armourer so cool? Have all the other women been recruited by the Bene Gesserit? The Spice must flow!

WHY NO CLONES

All in all, a somewhat entertaining show let down by some really weird story choices. First time I've watched a show with a Maori actor in the "lead" role -- anyone got recs for more?


Given Disney's refusal to take a stand against homophobic and transphobic legislation, this is going to be the last Disney product I watch for a while.

[1] I should really talk about Yellowjackets because I fucking LOVED that show, but I am still very in my feelings about it and I need to rewatch if I want to say anything more coherent than "fucked up deer and human sacrifice cult yessssssssssssssssssss"

1. I recently watched Lupin s2 e4 and the ease with which teen!Assane gets a map of the closed/forbidden/unofficial catacombes is LUDICROUS. He doesn't even ask! It gets handed to him by some rando!

Cataphiles are a notoriously secretive people. They hate "tourists", which is how they call anyone who's only going into the catacombes for cheap thrills or any reason beyond the love of it.

But also because. You know. It's illegal. Depending on where you are and how you got in, it can even be double or triple illegal! Most of them don't even have maps! Out of a gatekeepy desire to avoid "tourists" and also to show their catacombes knowledge chops (catachops?). And even the maps that do exist are often outdated, with tunnels and access points being created/blocked off regularly as part of the cataphiles/cataflics (police unit dedicated to patrolling the catacombes, not their official name) back and forth.

The best way to get into the milieu, as it were, is to know a guy who knows a guy, basically. And even then it's a crapshoot.

I'm also going to assume Guédira and the rest called for cataflics offscreen, because going into the catacombes without some way of knowing where you are or where you're going is a good way to end up like Philibert Aspairt.

There's a "gaslight gatekeep girlboss" joke lurking in here somewhere but hell if I can find it.

(Entry title taken from an inscription near the entry of the official catacombes. "Stop! Here is the empire of death.")

I was watching this review of Emily in Paris and realised I knew Emily lives and where the white guy love interest's restaurant across the street is. Unless I'm mistaken, which is possible since it's been a while since I've been to place de l'Estrapade and its rather distinctive fountain, there is a restaurant there. An Ethiopian restaurant. (Which seems rather in poor taste given how white the show seems to be.)

Not sure where I'm going with this entry. Hmm. I remember when the show/trailers for it were coming out, friends and I talked about how a show about 'naïve American who thought Paris was Like The Movies and is severely disappointed to find it is Not That (a la a soft version of Paris syndrome) who then discovers that the real Paris is diverse and multicultural and has a vibrant indie English stand-up scene[1] and you've not lived until you've had homemade authentic Sechuan noodles in a hole in the wall place next door to a lesbian bar from which you will emerge at 2am to eat a kebab three doors down[2] and holy shit there are cormorants on the Île aux Cygnes whaaaaaat?! [3] and get lost in St Ouen and and just coming to appreciate the real Paris, not the whitewashed nonsense of US media' would be PRETTY DOPE ACTUALLY.

Maybe I just miss my city ;_;

[1] And I'm not saying that just because I'm friend of friends with some people in said scene.
[2] Fuck, I love Le Marais.
[3] True story.

Watch on YouTube

:D Heists! :D In Paris! :D

I finished watching The Strain! And I found one of my copies of Dracula, so it's time to talk about vampires!

I found out The Strain existed from this S1 review by The Maven of the Eventide, vampire critic extraordinaire. (Aside: I'm a big fan of her work.)

The TV show is based on a series of books co-written by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan, who I've never heard of. I have not read these books. I have no idea how involved either where with the show and though "Guillermo del Toro does vampires" was a big selling point for me I don't really care all that much.

This is very much a horror show. The vampires are pretty gross! They're a worm-like parasite that shoots out of their hosts. Also in many ways they are close to zombies. There is also occasional jumpscares and medical gore, especially in the first season(s).

( Bad, meh, good )

In conclusion: I enjoyed it, also Dutch & Setrakian made the best team and it's a shape their team up was mostly in the timeskip. I would have watched an entire season of that.

The longest night of the year was one of the best nights of sleep I've had in ages. Good sleep and a bright solstice to all!


I went to the pool today. There was barely anyone there and it was an utterly lovely and leisurely swimming experience. (Apparently leisurely swimming for me means almost no leg work, who knew?)
Today: 900m.
Past total: 50 100. Current total: 51 000 / 585 689.


I'm visiting family from Christmas to to a little after the New Year and apparently they no longer have wi-fi. Welp. To the yuletide away from keyboard post!


I did not barge into someone's meta-esque post to go "I disagree with your entire premise" so go me, I guess. Any attempt to guilt me (ok, people in general but I am people) is going to get my back up because what am I, a catholic? HISSSSS Also I prefer to keep my activism out of fandom.


I have been watching The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina with L and it is quite entertaining. L picks up on things like Daniel Webster and I pick up on things like a character being named Nick Scratch, which LOL. Mostly we just go KITTY or Suzie <3 or Sabrina what the fuck.

For the first time in ages I have managed to write more than 500 words in a day and I liked it. That's honestly a huge relief. I'm not saying the words are all good words or story words, but I don't give a fuck.

I mean, I hadn't stopped writing, not entirely, but I managed maybe 100 words and even on the rare cases I wrote more, I still hated the writing of it. (Yeah, I am one of those people who -- when I have feelings -- enjoys the actual act of writing and not just 'having written', if that makes sense.)

What helped today was the trick (originally from sholio's post, found via yhlee's post) to write a blurb/back-cover summary and use that as the outline.


Also I saw the series finale for Star Wars Rebels and SPOILERS Rex gets to see the end of the Empire! Gregor though ;_; CAN I SHIP AHSOKA/SABINE YET?! Lol Zeb/Kallus going to see Zeb's family. (As canon as that's gonna get, lol.) Hera's son's design was awful. I love Sabine's new hair, though. I don't like Pryce but I kind of respect her for going down with the ship, as it were. Looking forward to Thrawn being a magnificent bastard in future. Tbh although I don't give a fuck about Ezra, I really want Sabine/Ahsoka adventures! /SPOILERS


Oh, also I got my Prismacolors from the deep discount a while back and after a very enjoyable hour where I sorted them by numerical order while listening to Critical Role, I have for the past two weeks or so been using one a day to colour my daily sketches. Having a semi-random colour every day forces me to draw stuff I might to usually have, so that's good. The order is semi-random because the numerical codes shuffled the colours; the box originally came with the pencils sorted by colours.

I wrote five fics this yuletide. I wanted to write more, but December snuck up on me.

Thicker than Water (1526 words) by sevenofspade
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Batgirl (Comics)
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Characters: Stephanie Brown, Cassandra Cain
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Alternate Universe - Vampire Slayer
Summary:

Steph's day goes from bad to worse.

My assignment. L helped me brainstorm the fuck out of this. I do regret that I didn't write more of it.

Most Merciful and Stern (1029 words) by sevenofspade
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Emerald City (TV 2016)
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Characters: Dorothy Gale (Emerald City), Mistress West
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence
Summary:

Dorothy tamed the tempest. Her new Cardinal sisters come to visit.

I watched Emerald City at random a month or so back and it's SO PRETTY. And I like the characters very much. (Further review to come, probably.)

her blessing on my brow (1324 words) by sevenofspade
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Ancient History RPF
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Characters: Hannibal Barca
Additional Tags: Alternate History
Summary:

Hannibal went to Iberia.

To the surprise of nobody, I wrote about Hannibal (and Scipio) this yuletide. L had to hear me complain about running out of names for Hannibal's females relatives, lmao. The recip of this fic ended up being my author! My approach for research notes is NOBODY HERE BUT US CHICKENS (I just figure anyone clicking on Ancient History RPF knows what they're getting into), but I drew most of the names from here. In my notes, this fic was apparently going to be "AFTERLIFE EAGLE HEIST" which ???

Left Turn at Albuquerque (1020 words) by sevenofspade
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Campaign (Podcast)
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Lyntel'luroon/Avaa Arek
Characters: Lyntel'luroon (Star Wars: Campaign Podcast), Aava Arek
Summary:

Lyn's mission goes off plan.

The recip mentionned shipping Lyn with everyone and Avaa with everyone and so, Lyn/Avaa!

First Impressions (375 words) by sevenofspade
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Shannara Chronicles (TV)
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Characters: Eretria (Shannara), Lyria (Shannara)
Additional Tags: Post-Season/Series 01, Pre-Season/Series 02
Summary:

Eretria runs.

Short fic set after season 1. Eretria and Lyria's first meeting.