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more subtle melancholic expression practice

but i hope you enjoy this silly tiktok i made, wiith thanks to all my besties in the young dracula discord server 🫶🏼🤭

if you wanna join, dm me and i'll send you an invite

As I've made clear... many times... Season 4 of Young Dracula is the definition of disappointing. It had great potential. It's still enjoyable, but it's one of those things that will just never leave my mind. All the possible, better decisions they could have made... and didn't. One of those things happens to be the "love triangle" between Vlad, Erin and Malik.

I, for one, didn't hate the idea of Erin gaining feelings for Malik, and vice versa. I admittedly enjoyed the drama. I think, however, as always, they could've gone further with it. I'm always saying "YD could've gone further with it" but it's true. Let me try and walk you through what I mean.

First off, I never bought Malik's love for Erin. It wasn't love. Aside from doing a bat mating ritual (which wasn't them for real, it was part of a plan for the Count, with his attempts to pursue Alex), there was nothing to suggest there was anything deeper to their alliance to take down the Dracula's. Their whole relationship wouldn't have existed if it weren't for his feud with Vlad, because it was all to piss him off.

Even the kiss. It wasn't because he was into Erin necessarily (given there was no indication, as far as I'm aware), it was just to get to Vlad, to push him into zoning him.

How I would've handled the whole Malik having feelings for Erin thing, I would've had them interact more when she was human. He was unaware she was human and she was actively a part of the SCRAP program and had an issue with him because he was always with her brother, so logically, there should've been some conflict other than a standoff during a football match. If it were me, and it was my brother who was involving himself with a "bad boy cliche", I would've warned him to back off him, human or not. If Erin had done that, I could see Malik laughing in her face, but in a kinda "look at you" way, or a kind of Eric Northman smug way of saying "I see why Vlad likes you, you're feisty". That kind of tension between them would've led to the reveal that she was human, and he's conflicted because for a split second, he saw the appeal. He was attracted.

When Erin is turned, it gives Malik the excuse to go there, to try her out for himself, so to speak. Not only because of that small moment of attraction, or to piss off Vlad, but also because he has this strange "what's yours is mine" thing with Vlad, as he says before the duel and it's like... a kinda perverted claim to his life, to his power. The Chosen One is in love with her... she must be something.

In terms of how Erin would play it, in my head...

I've always said that her lack of clear motivation towards being a slayer muddies things for me. I understand her not wanting to be a vampire because her brother changed completely from this frail guy who wandered around all on his own in the dark to protect her, to this asshole who scratches her face out of pictures and causes problems for her. But I don't know... She never mentioned anything like that in the previous season. She risked being turned or killed when she stepped foot in Garside. It was Vlad who grabbed her and said he didn't want her to turn into a vampire. I could see the hesitation on her face when the Count was berating them, shouting about how he'll stay young forever and she'll age to where she "barely has breath to blow out birthday candles". She even ruined the flirty mood she had with Vlad later on by saying the Count was right, that they were putting off the inevitable. To me, that sounded like she either wanted to break up (which I find ridiculous given what they went through together in Season 3) or she was leaning towards the idea of letting him turn her, hoping that she wouldn't change too drastically. So the fact that she hates Vlad with a passion upon turning... I was kinda irritated by that, to be honest. I understood it, but I didn't like it at all.

Rant over. Context given. I would erase what Bertrand was saying about how Erin is the exception to Vlad's persuasion over her (as the person who made her into a vampire) and keep it as just that: Vlad has a persuasion, an influence over her, and even if she hates him, she can't get him out of her head or from under her skin. In my eyes, I don't see how him being the Chosen One was forgotten for the sake of her hatred arc. It seems more logical to me that, as the Chosen One's first bite, it's designed in a way so that they can be wielded as a weapon by the Chosen One and therefore, must be loyal no matter what. The fact that they're in love and she also hates him a little bit makes everything more intense. It justifies the lowkey sexual tension they actually have in the show.

The longing, the urge to throw away their complicated feelings about him turning her (because he has guilt and she has resentment), it would bubble to the surface. In scenes like... the end of the duel, when Vlad escapes the crystal and is clinging to the floor, whimpering, I would've had Erin lurch forward on instinct, whether it was driven by her tie to him as a vampire, or because of love. That'd be where it gets interesting, for me, because everything they do for each other in this season has them asking each other "was that our bond as vampires, or our bond as lovers?" The scene where Vlad walks in and sees Erin with Bertrand, and confronts her about biting people... I would've had it get heated, where there's a charge in the air as they're yelling at each other, and Bertrand literally is like "I don't know whether you're going to kill each other, or make out, so I'm gonna go".

Deep down, Erin wants Vlad the same way he wants her.

In a weird, extremely complicated way. Before the duel, when she learns Vlad has learnt how to zone and has an extreme advantage, I would have Erin openly be swayed towards for Vlad to win because she truly does desire him and his power. Just like how, simultaneously, Vlad is betting on that to be the case.

He's somewhat riled up, like her, at the notion of killing another guy to claim his position, his throne, his power and to win her back and prove that even though he screwed up by turning her... he can make it up to her for eternity. He's willing to give her whatever she wants, even if it is power and they're both feeding into the "vampire stereotype".

While they're doing this constant song and dance, figuring out where they stand with each other as vampires, on her side of things with Malik, Erin is being duplicitous and somewhat reckless. This would be where this arc comes in for her:

As it was just dropped... the whole mystery, her desperation to kill whoever killed her brother... was dropped. I've always found it to be unbelievable. It's not even because Erin truly changed as a vampire. She didn't. As you see when she looks at Bertrand here, suddenly interested in whatever he's doing because it may give her answers about Ryan's death. She continues to team up with him the whole episode FOR THAT. And yet... it's just randomly dropped.

What could've happened was, to also make sure Bertrand's death wasn't completely in vain, Erin could've picked up where he left off and investigated Malik in secret. He would be under the impression she was with him to get to Vlad (yeah, Vlad seeing them together would serve as payback for him turning her and she would also enjoy being Malik in some ways because he enables her darker desires as a vampire which she doesn't want to admit to Vlad), but really, she's with Malik so she can gain his trust and learn things about him. For instance, his mother and how she apparently isn't dead, and his bond with her, how far they'd be willing to go for each other, for power. Erin would be the one who uncovered everything about the shapeshifter, not Vlad and the Count. She'd go to Vlad, sure (urging another "are you telling me this because of our vampire bond, or love bond" conversation) but she would be the one who knew a lot about Elizabeta.

It'd lead to the reveal:

And instead of Erin choosing to ignore the obvious like she does in the show, she instead clicks and realises that Malik and Elizabeta also got Ryan killed, and so, she goes to harm him. We see how he stops laughing, how he's pissed off and instinctively hisses and defends himself, but how he's also hurt because it's clear she now hates him.

Erin, instead of clinging to his heels like a lapdog and because she can't kill him with the Count there to defend his perfect, evil, eldest son, resorts to mind games and playing on his insecurities.

She keeps rubbing salt in the wound, maybe letting it slip that lately, things between her and Vlad haven’t been all that hostile lately and in fact, they've been intimate together (because in my mind, I could totally see Erin and Vlad having a passionate moment after he mindwiped the slayers to save her). Malik maybe asks her if any of it was real, any of their fooling around, having fun, biting people etc. Erin says something like, "it sure as hell wasn't for you. How could it be when the whole time you knew you had killed my brother?" She did enjoy his company and does care about him (maybe in the same empathetic way she does Ingrid), even amidst the suspicions, because she's learning that being a vampire messes up her morals and priorities (and now understands why even with all the backstabbing and murder attempts, the Dracula's still call each other family). Malik takes this as... hope. He's not convinced she hates him, and even if she did, in the vampire world, it's a thin line. Look at the Count and Magda.

In the end, Erin would obviously choose to be with Vlad because, like she said, she only plays on the winning side. Not only because of that, but because all that back and forth, secret and separate from her and Malik, Vlad and Erin had come to realise that they have both adapted to the changes in their relationship. They know they can work through it. Maybe Erin came to realise she likes being a vampire, in fact, because now she doesn't have Ryan, she has an eternity to live for him (or something along those lines).

I imagine that if she did clock onto that she probably would've ended up living as she wouldn't leave with him. She may have left on her own or maybe stayed. But young dracula loves killing off side characters after 2 seasons!

sTIMBOARD WITH THEMES OF PIGEONS AND BAGGY CLOTHES FOR rUPERT (dETROIT: bECOME hUMAN)!! }:D

hOPE YOU ENJOY! sORRY FOR THE WAIT! }:)

V

[Stimboard with themes of pigeons and baggy clothes for Rupert (Detroit: Become Human)!!]

[Hope you enjoy! Sorry for the wait!]

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Young Dracula AU

Inktober 2023 day 26

Slight reminder that young dracula is on YouTube and the first two seasons are class