Castlevania: Curse of Darkness

Mortvia Aqueduct

i think everyone needs to adopt "i didnt say it was good, i said i liked it" into their vocabulary right now. it did me wonders

*it may not seem like I can be, but seeing that someone needed to hear it and so they let me say it makes me so so proud. It’s a bit of an oroboros but we’re ignoring that. <3

but GOD. this last entry. Yeah; I wasn’t expecting things to get any better for jonathan, but dracula telling him he’s free to go? and then threatening to send the wolves after him if he leaves? forcing jonathan to say he wants to to stay in the castle??

it’s a frighteningly realistic portrayal of an abusive relationship. jonathan can leave if he wants; the door is unlocked. but the second he sets foot outside the door, dracula warns there will be consequences, because he controls the wolves. and so jonathan chooses to stay, despite the fact he knows dracula is slowly killing him. and just like everything else dracula has done so far, he shifts the blame of jonathan’s own suffering to jonathan himself- because jonathan entered the castle of his own free will. and now, he says he wants to stay.

One little detail that sends Jonathan reeling but is easy to overlook is how Dracula opens the front door without a key. Jonathan’s been taking potentially fatal risks to try to get through those locked doors, and it’s the only thing keeping him from just fleeing into the forest and taking his chances there.

Then lo and behold! All he has to do is ask, and the door was never locked at all! Why would I need to lock you in, friend Jonathan? I’d never dream of keeping you here against your will, you could have left at any time!

Of course, Jonathan had examined the doors before and knew they were locked. It’s a massive gutpunch of gaslighting that seems to hit harder than all of Dracula’s other manipulations. Meanwhile, I’m pretty sure that Dracula just unlocked the door at a touch, just so he could twist the knife deeper.

Reblog and put in the tags the most obscure / niche characters that are also some of your favourites.

May 16

May 28

June 29

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I just noticed this little detail today. Every time Jonathan falls asleep somewhere in the castle other than his room, he's awakened by vampires. He never wakes naturally, every time it's at the approach of a predator. And while Dracula at least certainly doesn't stay out of his bedroom, as far as I remember Jonathan never is woken by him there. Every time he mentions waking in his room it's a natural awakening.

Furthermore, these three events get closer. The first time, the three ladies are across the room from Jonathan and approach from there. The second time Jonathan wakes as Dracula is entering the room. This time, it sounds like he comes over and wakes Jonathan up himself, probably touching him or at least getting close and speaking to him.

It's a neat detail.

Everything is tainted in Castle Dracula. Every choice, every comfort, every contour and crevice of just existing in that place becomes distorted with an undercurrent of malice. Everything from being a charming guest (or else) to enjoying a moonlit view (the moonlight is made of eyes and teeth and reaching hands) to the privacy of a bedroom (your things are stolen, you are stripped while unconscious, the door is locked) and even to the simplicity of choosing whether you wish to live or die (why is there a third option, no, no, no, not that, please not that, not this, not forever, please, God, no—). It’s all spoiled.

And this latest entry highlights one particular pleasure that I think may be just as soured for Jonathan as things like being touched or appreciating nature’s beauty.

Laughter.

Every time we have heard laughter since Dracula imprisoned him, it’s been at his expense. Dracula’s laughter. His hired workers’ laughter. The Weird Sisters’ laughter.

Ha ha, look how helpless he is! Ha ha, look how afraid he is! Ha ha, look how crushed he is!

What makes it an especially torturous knife twist, though? The idea that the laughter doesn’t just come from cruel amusement at his situation or what’s planned for him. It feels almost like the laughter of an old team snickering over the expected fretting of the new addition. They’ve seen this play out before. The ladies have, in all likelihood, lived this out before.

The welcome to the castle, the impenetrable locks, the tightening noose of Dracula’s attentions and demands, the pleading at the window for help that will never come, the desperate attempt to make it out only to be stopped short by the precipice or the wolves.

I wonder if that giggling little chat outside the bedroom door is a tradition with them. Speaking and laughing just loud enough to ensure the new addition on the other side can hear and know what’s coming. It reads almost like a sorority’s hazing. It’s just so much funnier when you’re in on the joke, on the giving rather than the receiving end of the requisite assault and those final fatal kisses.

All of this with the expectation that someday, some night, there will be another voice laughing with theirs laughing outside the door as someone new makes their last weeping prayers. Ha ha.

I'm sorry, I don't want to come across as harsh, but this is honestly ignorant as fuck.

I'm not gonna claim to know everything about the importance of studying dead languages, but I think I can safely say that it would probably be a really bad thing if we lost these languages to time if we didn't have people studying them.

We can lose hundreds if not THOUSANDS of years of story-telling history if these languages end up forgotten.

I can't put it into clear words right now because I'm busy or go int depth because I only have a common sense understanding, but I just wanted to address this. So if anybody on Tumblr who's more qualified to speak on this kind of matter wants to explain, then please take the floor for me.

And last but not the least:

Things do not have to be "useful" to have value.

also dead does not mean no longer in use, it means no longer CHANGING. No new words are being added to that dictionary. That’s all it means. Latin is only dead bc new words aren’t being added to its dictionary

I think Dracula knows Jonathan intimately enough by now to get that he won't just walk into the wolves' mouths. But it's a perfect opportunity to punctuate what he's been doing to Jonathan from the start: Have Jonathan actively participate in his own victimhood, make him complicit in what is happening and what will happen. "You wish to not stay? Then feel free to leave. Oh, you choose to stay? Remember, you chose to." Everything Jonathan decides to do or not to do has been built this way. Enter of your own free will, write letters that you will be staying with me for a month since you have agreed to meet all my needs, don't open these doors , seek me for safety, exit of your own free will.

This is what I'm quite interested about. Not sure if somebody already done it.