dungeons and dumbasses

he/him • naddpod & d20 fanatic

[squid-with-five-eyes]

ermine damanescu

[rabdoidal]

I’ve been thinking about episode 7 of City Council of Darkness and about Lavonte reacting the way he did to Maya assuming he and HJ were a couple.

Lavonte and HJ represent exact tropes of homosexuality and vampirism of the 1980s; by the 80s, vampires had shifted from countryside landed gentry hiding away in musty castles to urbanised capitalists - the setting changes, but they still benefit from the toil of others as the bourgeoisie against the proletariat (Morrissette, 2013). At the same time, people moving to cities during the industrial revolution to work formed proletariat communities of their own, including homosexuals that left their homes in search of a better life; the city was different than their small-knit towns where everyone knew everyone, and gave them freedom. By the 80s HIV/AIDs crisis, horror had synthesised vampires and homosexuality to be intertwined urban concepts; for members of these groups (homosexuals/vampires), there is an element of hunting or pursuing a partner (cruising/finding a victim), exchanging fluids (cum/blood), and those fluids put you at risk of sickness or death (AIDs/vampirism) (Clark, 2022). There is, further, the idea of “turning someone” - this is framed as a bad thing by out-members, but contains nuance within the community. They are both seductive. They are both abnormal. You should warn your children about (homosexuals/vampires), do not let your daughter move to the city, or she will become a (homosexual/vampire). Within horror, vampires began to be queer coded; Daughters of Darkness (1971), The Hunger (1983), Fright Night (1985), The Lost Boys (1987).

HJ is the exemplar of the 80s vampire - he is a businessman with immense power, he is slick, he is clean shaven and well dressed, he is a confirmed bachelor. He is coded as (homosexual/vampire), and it’s interesting to think about whether Lavonte pursued HJ because he was a vampire, or because HJ was a man. It is risky for either of those factors to be what makes him appealing, but the desire alongside the disorder is what makes it a (homosexual/vampire) love story - it would be horrifying to want someone while also being terrified of what they can do to you. It completely makes sense to me that Lavonte, even though Lou played it as a joke, would have reservations about people thinking he was gay. Being gay in the 80s meant being dirty, meant being sick, meant being less masculine or respected, meant being the “other,” regardless of if he’s gay or not (Clark, 2022). Even though I see Lavonte as being totally accepting, being gay himself would be an admission of guilt in some way. Lavonte is focused, charismatic, and doesn’t like hearing “no” - if someone implied he seduced HJ to gain vampirism, I think that would be his nightmare.

Truly, even though none of their 80s-gay-vampirism coding was intentional, and even though Lou and Ally were playing up the miscommunication as a joke, I think it's interesting to see how character moments make logical sense within meta-horror. It’s been a great season so far.

Clark, Ian (2022) "Infectious Queers: HIV/AIDS and the Vampiric Body in Interview with the Vampire (1994)," Journal of Dracula Studies: Vol. 24: No. 1, Article 4. DOI: 10.70013/n1p5h7g4 Available at: https://research.library.kutztown.edu/dracula-studies/vol24/iss1/4

Fullilove MT, Wiley J, Fullilove RE 3rd, Golden E, Catania J, Peterson J, Garrett K, Siegel D, Marin B, Kegeles S, et al. Risk for AIDS in multiethnic neighborhoods in San Francisco, California. The population-based AMEN Study. West J Med. 1992 Jul;157(1):32-40. PMID: 1413740; PMCID: PMC1021901. 

Heller J. Rumors and Realities: Making Sense of HIV/AIDS Conspiracy Narratives and Contemporary Legends. Am J Public Health. 2015 Jan;105(1):e43-e50. doi: 10.2105/AJPH.2014.302284. PMID: 25393166; PMCID: PMC4265931.

Morrissette, J. J. (2013). Marxferatu: The Vampire Metaphor as a Tool for Teaching Marx’s Critique of Capitalism. PS: Political Science & Politics, 46(3), 637–642. doi:10.1017/S1049096513000607 

[haleyusesherwords]

[ju-nebugg]

something about “we’ve done this dance before”

[katsparkart]

Nom nom nom….

[nosnexus]

Hey, YOU KNOW IT!

City Council of Darkness episode 7

[dlaserart]

I might come back to this laterrr but HJ and LaVonte homoerotic couch moment

[littlebirdiebooks]

The thing i most love about them playing Vampyre The Masquerade instead of dnd is that I don't know what the fuck anyone is talking about. Yall are making posts like "There's a Cleep in the mines and Beth is obviously a Tumbledrier and the Flimpy faction will probably oppose them" like whatever you say princess I liked when the bat ate the missile

[one-1-eye]

[sneezingisnotnormal]

Already obsessed with the fact that the intrepid heroes decided that CCOD was going to be every genre. Siobhan is going full interview with the vampire. Ally’s got a gatsby thing going. Zac is a creature straight off of the very important people stage. Murph and Emily are Batman and Robin, but Murph is in a Noir film and Emily is an anime character. And Lou is… honestly I don’t even know what Lou is doing. He baffles me.

[griddlemybeloved]

[nosnexus]

BOB's YOUR UNCLE!

City Council of Darkness episode 2

[morningsaidthemoon]

Sky-eyed

[jacquistheripper]

see everyone is always like oh emily or ally were sent from hell to kill brennan but siobhan wants that man dead. this is siobhan "speak friend and enter" thompson. this is siobhan "eat your fucking dice, brennan" thompson. this is siobhan "brennan is it going to fuck everything up if i solve this riddle?" thompson. i love her

[razzmothazz]

loved that episode where riz goes to hell and fully awakens his ocd

(this moment had my jaw on the floor btw i cant ever recover after this)

anyway getting to draw something with dramatic lighting is always nice tee hee

[whatevertups]

some fake frames based on Fantasy High Junior year!! I love my boys

[cryptidstealingyourcreditcard]

i love all the stupid Bad Kids bits that become canon like

riz has full body tattoos. fabian wears size 5 shoes. riz throws up when he gets too excited. kristen has handcuffs engraved with her and tracker’s initials. fig has fishnets made from the hairnet of the lunch lady that adaine murdered. gorgug tried to make a mechanical butt for the hangman to shit out of. fig is blocked on chungledown bim’s phone. adaine made coach daybreak shit his pants and then they convinced ragh that he shit his pants. kristen and tracker 69 so often with so little care to if someone sees them that the others have learned to knock on every door in the manor before going in. fabian briefly forgot riz’s name because he called him “the ball” so much. gorgug sung a song about not getting mad to his barbarian teacher. adaine, this prim and proper sweetheart, consistently chooses violence when dealing with her bio family. kristen created swamp venice. riz tried to get fabian to put dayne’s eye into his own eye socket. gorgug wears size 19 canvas shoes. fabian has pirate porn on his computer. fig disguised herself as a gnome and drove him to kill himself. gorgug wanted to ask a literal vulture if it was his dad, but the vulture flew away before he could. riz hisses at people. all of them are viral online for live-streaming a drunken shrimp party. what the fuck