☁️˚.୭˚Starlight/Static⋆💤｡

I LOVED the Alistar and Ren cameo stream omg,,, not to mention their minecraft skins were jaw dropping. Anyways I felt the need to draw the scene from the arena

Does anyone else remember this show?

It aired on TV somewhere in the early 2000s. I guess it didn’t do to well because they only made a few episodes.

REGRET

"I have enough sins. I don't need to take credit for other people's."

The owner of the bookstore was this grand old dame of 76 who had been in the business for 40 years. She'd had three kids with a husband who was extremely gay, and as soon as those were old enough, they split up. She read on an epic scale, was an avid follower of the opera, sang in several choirs, and scheduled arts programming for a private club. She had gentleman callers (so they styled themselves) at the store continuously the entire fifteen years I worked there--yah, into her NINETIES. She never took up seriously with any of them, because they couldn't keep up. She was impeccably dressed and put together every single day of her life, drank regularly, and said they would pry her estrogen supplements out of her cold, dead hands. She had a gang of elderly single lady friends, though, and they went out every night of the week. They knew everything and everyone, collectively. She got her first smart phone in her mid-80s and became extremely Online. I bet she's on Tumblr now. She is 96.

This blew my mind. Life didn't have to be over...ever.

We worship youth in our culture. Only the young have futures, and the aged exist to enable the lives of the young. We act as if by the time you hit forty, you've had your chance. You are now expected to step aside and scede life to others.

FUCK THAT. I have a lot of life ahead of me. I have places to go and books to read and people to fuck and food to eat and music to dance to and emotions to feel and nazis to punch and stories to tell and hearts to break and ventures to capitalize and empires to conquer. I am going to be doing this for the next fifty years, minimum.

The humans this episode have really got a "fuck it, we ball" vibe going on and I'm just so here for it. Yeah, grab like every beacon despite our plan definitely being leaked. Kill Avid on sight and worry about it later. Apo is our enemy, but fuck it.

Oh yeah, we think Avid was killed by Owen, so what? We keep on going. And let's grab some iron and take the castle while we're at it.

Respawn

Owen will announce he's killed thousands of people and threaten to kill everyone else and then go "So you think vampires are evil? So you think vampires are lesser and subhuman and evil? So you think witch trials are okay?" for episodes when people treat him like the murderer of thousands of people he's claimed to be.

Meanwhile Scott is always moving the goal post so his actions sound justified and everyone else's sound violent and evil. He'll insist he's never hurt anyone, and then when presented with the people he's hurt, make excuses- they wanted this, or at least are benefiting for it, and okay, even if they didn't want it, they deserved it, etc, etc, etc.

I don't wanna talk about it.

--- comic ---

yap and bonus art/sketches below :3

I did my best to categorize what all they said. The categories are: V!Cleo’s personal feelings, OOC and Mechanics, The Code ™, Pearl, Avid, and Other Folks.

V!Cleo’s personal feelings and state of mind:

- They would be open to the cure eventually, but not just yet. It depends how “messed up” vampire Cleo gets

- The letters are reliable but not the only reliable source. Anything that aligns with the “vampire code” is also reliable.

- There’s a whole mess of backstory we haven’t even touched (implied that V!Cleo is deeply traumatized)

- She’s not particularly interested in any humans dying.

- They want what they want and they’re not shy about it.

- V!Cleo is only interested in survival. Hopefully she can bring the people she likes with her, but ultimately she just wants to survive the apocalypse.

- We don’t have all the information about why Cleo’s goal was to find the family tomb and kill the main sire. However, someone wants to do connected backstory stuff with her next session so we might get an answer soon.

- The adoption is not the issue in Cleo and their mom’s relationship. It’s a very different thing.

- Vampire Cleo is not interested in turning anyone themself and they don’t see a need to feed on people.

- Vampire Cleo is fear, and pride, and shame in a whole nasty mess. They don’t get why no vampire is following the code! She thinks all the vampires are stupid.

- V!Cleo is NOT emotionally mature. She’s not great at heartfelt expressions, which is why she won’t just express to Pearl that she doesn’t want to turn her if she doesn’t want to be turned.

- She hadn’t decided if V!Cleo’s mother was alive or dead until the third episode in. The grandfather was always dead, but the mother could have lived. It’s more a journal than actual letters.

- The aftermath of Cleo’s mother’s death was bad. “Some vampires are not good people”. Scott is not the trauma.

- Vampires Cleo is “not doing so hot” and should not be considered a sane leader.

- V!Cleo’s toxic trait is they don’t give anyone else second chances. Everyone has to give them a second chance, but they won’t give anyone else one. If you try them, you become dead to them.

- Cleo thinks V!Cleo can probably avoid staking but they also think vampires are just going to win because in a fight between humans and vampires, vampires should win. If the choice is get staked or get cured, she’ll take the cure. The vampires winning is the only way everyone walks out alive and for all her faults, V!Cleo isn’t a fan of people dying. They don’t want to kill anyone if they can avoid it. The problem with getting cured is that Pyro would have to die and even though she’s embarrassed that he’s her sire, she doesn’t want him dead.

- Whether or not Cleo was intended to be turned one day was based on how useful she was and how well she kept the family secret. Vampirism was a reward.

- Cleo lived on an estate outside of the city and never saw the city because they weren’t trusted to go there.

- V!Cleo thrives on conflict. She’s allowed to be evil, as a treat :)

- V!Cleo doesn’t want to take the reigns of the coven but they might start speaking to the other fledglings because any that come under her influence will be able to handle the transition better and will back her up without making it look like she’s trying to gain power. If she sees anyone else get turned she’ll follow them.

- Cleo absolutely cannot return to the coven they grew up in. They did a “very silly thing” on their way out of the coven.

- Cleo would have gotten evil sooner if she had been able to talk to the coven sooner.

- Cleo knows about vampire powers but doesn’t really understand them because they weren’t used around her. No one really needed to use their powers in the compound.

- If it comes down to it, V!Cleo is interested in her own survival. Right now she can straddle both sides.

- Cleo’s mother was a couple of hundred years old.

- In Cleo’s world, fledglings are your responsibility. So she’s not going to turn anyone she doesn’t think is an asset.

Actual Mechanics and OOC:

- Cleo said that humans are probably going to be buffed in different ways. However, it’s very likely that the vampires will win, at least a little bit.

- The cat head disappeared at the end of the session. The simultaneous “when did we get a cat” was genuine, the cat had apparently been there all session and neither of them noticed. They had set a command to trigger the cat spawning and destroy the skull at the same time at the beginning of the session, but they moved the head between when they’d programmed it and when they triggered the command, so the head stayed. Owen was the one who destroyed the skull.

- Cleo vibes with YouTube SMPs more than streamed, which is why they haven’t been on Misadventures.

- They get why people are frustrated with how powerful the vampires are, but they think it’s fitting for vampire mythology. The devs are trying to improve the balance behind the scenes but they’re “playing with the text…not reinventing it”. They think the humans need to just stop running in at every problem and trying to solve it like if they just throw enough lives down they’ll win.

- Cleo and Legs have both floated playing Blood on the Clocktower as a thing they want to do with the vampires cast.

- Cleo thinks this cast has something really special together, they all really get along and aren’t afraid of roleplaying their hearts out. They got a really good synergy really early on and they all give 1000%. Enough of them are pretty aggressive DnD players and that gives everyone else permission to also go in depth. Cleo got asked to join by Apo.

- Pearl might be able to get better from the bad state she’s in because the POW devs are working on new things. (Which I think is implying they may implement a way for humans to gain hearts back)

The Code ™:

- Vampire Cleo has OPINIONS about how fledglings should be treated because it’s one of the rules and Vampire Cleo has very specific rules. They don’t think the coven treats fledglings particularly well.

- There are ten rules in the code about how to live in vampire society that her family came up with as she was growing up.

- One of the rules of the code is, “Only turn those you can stand. Don’t turn out of pity, or carelessness, or fear”. Another one is “Unpredictable risks must be eliminated, physically or socially.”

- The code was designed to come from a large vampire clan and the rules as such are very specific to that situation. V!Cleo is basically experiencing culture shock coming from a more organized clan with rules and induction protocol into this backwoods willy nilly situation. They come from a place where everyone knows what happens because if you don’t follow the rules you end up dead. Here there’s no chain of command, fledglings are allowed to run around doing whatever they want. This whole mess is her worst nightmare.

- Fledglings are meant to be turned in a community turning and permission has to be given by the coven leader. That vampire is then kept in the house for about a year, learning all the vampire history. Only once they’ve learned it and gotten control of their mood swings and their powers and their hunger are they allowed to go out into society. Pyro is embarrassing to be her sire because fledglings don’t do that. Cleo picked up some of the education a fledgling would get via osmosis because her mother adopted her and she witnessed the education and her mother told her things. She didn’t get the formal education, but she was expected to do chores on the property. She wasn’t told everything, but she was told more than any of these other vampires.

Pearl:

- It’s not in character for her to tell Pearl the truth.

- Her reaction to Pearl being killed completely would depend on why they killed her. V!Cleo is incredibly morally gray.

- If Vampire Cleo was one of the two OG Vampires, she would have targeted Pearl first as a safety advantage because she was her roommate.

- She can’t answer whether she would choose between Pearl and Drift because it would depend on why she had to choose. They would like to say they would choose Pearl, but that’s dependent on Pearl and whether she wants to be chosen and if she’s trustworthy.

- Dramatic stance to protect loved ones doesn’t feel true to the character. Pearl would have to play in a way that Pearl would probably be uncomfortable playing in order to get that reaction. It’s not completely out of the question but it’s unlikely.

- Sunflower trio only works if Martyn and Pearl want it to and trust Cleo to do what they need to do. And no one trusts them, that’s part of their charm.

- She doesn’t trust anyone, including Pearl and Martyn. Pearl has explicitly said that vampires are monsters and she kills monsters. No one left in town is particularly understanding of vampires except Legundo. If Pearl doesn’t see Cleo as a monster, she needs to figure out her words better.

- If Pearl was turned, Cleo thinks she would enjoy it. Pearl isn’t doing well, and Cleo thinks they might be forced to have “the conversation” otherwise she might die. But they can turn that into angst. There is “subtext in the relationship” which Cleo says Pearl is worse about and initiates. Cleo can see themself offering and Pearl rejecting, which they don’t think V!Cleo would take well at all. “It’s very much a ‘Well why don’t you just die then? I’ll be happier, it’s fine, I’m not mortally wounded or anything!’. I half expect Pearl to stake me, immediately,”

- They haven’t watched Pearl’s videos because they feel like it’s cheating.

- Cleo wants Pearl to be turned but it can’t be her who does it because then Pearl will know Cleo wanted her turned. She would only do it if Pearl gave consent and she’s not going to consent so somebody else has to do it. Cleo’s 90% sure Pearl would stake her if she offered. If Pearl agreed to it she would turn Pearl, no questions. Cleo is going to try to drop a whole bunch of hints. But if Pearl doesn’t want to be a vampire, which she has said she doesn’t, then turning her against her wishes would lead to Pearl disowning her which V!Cleo can’t handle. If somebody tells Pearl that Cleo has been trying to encourage the others to turn her then Cleo would turn fully to the vampires because she couldn’t handle that.

Avid:

- “Avid’s character needs a straight jacket. We just need to tie him up somewhere and leave him be….he needs to stop… we need to figure out a way to make him stop. Death is a way to make him stop. Ideally he would be dead in Vampire Cleo’s estimation because he’s a liability. But also, he wouldn’t have been turned in Vampire Cleo’s world,” “Avid just makes my life difficult because he’s a wild card… I can’t control Avid. I can control a lot of variables but Avid is one of those variables that my character would not be able to control,”

- Avid is not a good person, but he could get a pass if he just learned to how to control himself. Cleo doesn’t think he will, however.

- Cleo thinks it’s a mistake of Scott to forgive Avid so fast because it breaks the rules of the code. The risk of Avid is that he’s unstable. He’s already playing big bad, he’s reckless, and he can leave you in a situation where you get hurt because he’s a liability. He was a liability before and he’s definitely one now.

- Avid is a liability and might get himself killed, but if Cleo can do anything to make it happen, they absolutely will. They won’t attack him explicitly but might try to get others to do it. Avid is not a smart person to have in your coven because he can’t stop talking and he’s very impulsive, and that gets vampires killed.

- Avid is playing his character extremely well, his character is just a psychopath. He doesn’t actually care about anyone but is able to pretend he does. He’s like Cleo without a code. If he hadn’t been turned he would have been fine, still a liability but a benign one. Avid is the kind of person that the rules say don’t turn. If they’re sick, they stay sick. If they haven’t proved worthy before, they’re not worthy now. He’s not a “silly little guy”, he turns on a dime. He turned on the humans because he was afraid and fear is not a good reason to turn a vampire. You don’t want vampires who are afraid of living and you don’t want vampires who are fair of dying because they’re not “good foot soldiers for the cause”

Other Folks:

- There’s been less interaction with Martyn because he goes off and does his own thing.

- They have character reasons for taking Drift under their wing, namely personal feelings on how the coven has been treating their fledglings.

- They see Owen as the biggest threat because he’s the only one who’s really clocked her.

- They feel like Legundo and Apo have been the people they’ve played off of the most.

- V!Cleo knows that Abolish didn’t out them intentionally, but that’s the sort of misunderstanding that gets you killed and he needs not to do it again and she won’t ask nicely a second time.

- Abolish is the only one not messing around. Cleo is out here doing dramatic takes with Apo while Abolish is doing actual work. He’s still quiet, but Cleo was very pleased when he crashed out about the building.

- She cares about Legs and Pearl and a bit about Martyn. She likes Sausage. She’s never going to put herself out on a limb to protect another person if she can avoid it. She doesn’t want harm to come to other people necessarily, but she definitely doesn’t want harm to come to her.

- Ren is enemy number one in town. Ren is in the “he doth protest too much” camp, but she doesn’t see Ren as a threat because he’s not that powerful. They don’t know if Ren is disgusted because he really wants it or because he genuinely doesn’t like the idea.

- Ren can’t do anything to Cleo that they can’t do back because too many people respect them.

- Cleo and Scott have an understanding. Game recognizes game.

- Of the four castle coven vampires, if Cleo needed help, they would probably go to Scott. If Scott followed the rules, Cleo wouldn’t have any qualms about the coven. The issue is they aren’t following the rules.