I know I've talked about why I like Bloodloathing before but considering it's been (looks at calendar and starts taking damage) six months since then, I figured this is a great time to explain the appeal and why I personally like them!!
(very long wordy thing under the cut)
They are two very complex, hypocritical (I know, surprising in the 'who's your favorite hypocrite smp') characters that I wish every day they interacted more but the sole reason they didn't is BECAUSE of their hatred of each other. And when that hatred gets to the point of where they can't be normal about each other…well…that's where the fun shippy parts come in. Obviously, I also like them as a duo (shakes my fist at sky one day cyanide duo will be a popular name to refer them to by in a platonic sense) mainly because it's fun when they actually just fucking despise each other with no romance in between them as they STILL can't be normal about it. I also encourage secret third thing between them I love it when they are secret third thing.
Anyways, my point is that they are the best accidental narrative foils that only interacted three times and this leaves a lot to mull over how their relationship could've developed. Doctor Legundo is seen as a respected leader of the town almost, being looked up to for advice especially as the oldest one (barring Cleo) when things start to take a turn for the worst. The new fledglings confide in him and he is the bridge between human and vampire until it all falls apart under him. He has bloodied his hands and thinks himself completely unredeemable and his life as a soldier translates into how he thinks of himself as a doctor: live, be useful, die. Yet, he tries so hard to die and it never works. He is human and has a short temper compared to the person he inadvertently presents himself as in town. "I have you all so fooled"-he wasn't trying to make himself look like a good person, but rather did so by omission and getting so swept up in trying to be useful and help others that he forgot what everyone sees him as-the doctor, because he only sees himself as the soldier. Still, he tries not to shy away from the ugly parts of his personality, the problem is he usually does it in a self-deprecating way that makes the townsfolk go "hey man, that's not true, be kinder to yourself."
Scott Goldsmith, however, is a (feared, forceful, commanding) respected leader of the coven and his fledglings look up to him as he is the oldest and has the most experience. He pretends to be a bridge between human and vampire, being the one to often hold "civil conversations" with the townsfolk and absolutely presents himself as a man who can do almost no wrong. Something happened? Well, you did this and this first, and then that caused me to do this, so really it's your own fault. He is the most vampire of them all, being completely disconnected from his humanity and others until Shelby sort of softens that, and even then it'll take until 2006 for him to make any sort of progress. He has done atrocities and does not care. Yeah, sure, he hasn't killed anyone in six hundred years but you're really pushing him to his limit and you don't want him to break that streak, yeah? He has a short temper that he absolutely tries to hide because it ruins his image of civility.
Arguably, Scott is the most "evil" out of the pair, yet they are both undeniably monsters. They have killed people for the wrong reasons and will do it again if they have to, Legundo just has to be pushed a little more. They both play the social game, making connections and trying to convince others to stay on "their side." Scott refuses to be human (because he will lose his power and will die, and that man is absolutely terrified of death/old age) and Legundo refuses to be a vampire (because he will slip back into his old ways and then he won't die, can't die without burdening someone else to stake him). They are in a constant tug-of-war and they don't even realize it because they're focused on the bigger picture.
There's even more dichotomy their characters have, especially in their conversation that I transcripted here:
"Business before pleasure." ← Legundo is a man who ultimately will focus on his work before anything else because he doesn't have anything else.
"One can mix business and pleasure sometimes." ← Scott views others as very disposable and prioritizes having fun/getting what he wants versus the actual gritty details. Yes, he will flirt with the town, because it's fun, even if they're enemies right now. That will pass, because he's going to win.
Also, this shows them immediately disagreeing with each other because Legundo views Scott as the biggest threat, the puppetmaster. Scott, however, views Legundo as a man who's trying for a lost cause because, again, he thinks he's won already. They both equally over and underestimate each other which is a little funny.
"See...you keep saying that you're this...friendly person just welcoming us all in and then you make very thinly veiled threats like that." ← Once again, Legundo is the one who can see through Scott's lies and deception. Sure, he's over correcting a little, but he can absolutely see through the bullshit and that's one of my favorite parts of their dynamic. They can both get under each other's skin if they try hard enough because they have enough wit and social knowledge to see each other for who they really are.
"Welll, you think that, but potentially the mental scars wear off after a while. As they say, time heals everything."
"Scars don't wear off. They just…deepen."
They also view eternal life differently. Legundo views people as remembering the bad more than the good, meaning that no matter how long its been, there will always be some scar of trauma or guilt left on a person-but the thing is, he's a soldier/doctor who's absolutely seen the worst of humanity and that's hard to forget no matter what. Scott views people as remembering the good more than the bad because he's one of the few who's lived long enough to forget everything like that-but the thing is, he's a noble who probably doesn't know things like suffering and trauma. Their views are highly biased based on their experiences and they hate each other too much to challenge those views beyond just arguing and pushing for human/vampires to be turned/cured.
Anyway, all that to say that definitely one of my favorite parts about bloodloathing is the fact that they are mirrors of each other and when put near each other in situations for long enough, are going to change each other in some fundamental way because of how different yet similar they are. Leading into another fun perk of bloodloathing: stick them into AUs. Literally any you can think of, because it will work and yet put such a spin on the tropes involved that it won't be the same thing every time. Ignore the fact that you have to put them into AUs most of the time because they're a rare pair with barely any on screen interaction. Have fun!
Plus, and this isn't something I've seen a lot of people talk about, but Legundo gets so focused on his hatred and distrust of Scott during his fight with Owen near the lake that he fucks it up. He's focused on the cure and getting rid of Scott so that they can be free that he doesn't consider how much Owen will lash out and it all goes downhill. I would put more analysis of that but it's been a while since I've watched those scenes in particular but it was something on the back of my mind during VSMP's run that I needed to talk about at some point or else I would explode. Also, the fact that when he gets turned and Owen is lost as an option, he instantly guns for Scott next because once again, he views him as the big bad puppetmaster and like, he is but the doctor gets too lost in it that he doesn't help the town at all until they snap him out of it.
Bringing back their narrative foil talk again because that reminds me about how their endings in VSMP are uniquely the opposite of what 'should've' happened to them and yet is both what they wanted. Legundo became a vampire, helped the town and then got what he wanted: eternal rest. Scott stayed a vampire, got the town to help him escape and got what he wanted: eternal freedom. Yet, while Legundo stays the same, Scott changes when Legundo thought monsters like them could not do so. Even if Scott lied about changing, he still made a promise to Legundo about it and I think that still means something.
Can't end this without bringing up the scene where Scott kills Legs. It's a situation of Legundo wanting to protect Pyro/Av1d and sacrificing himself in order to do so and I think Legs getting mauled to death by Scott really just set him on the path of "Scott is irredeemable." Also, Scott deliberately provoking him and doing "do no harm, doctor?" after he's dead on the floor is both funny and really shows how Scott can absolutely push Legundo out of his usual morals, which is also a lovely dynamic.
This is getting longer than I thought it would. Oops. But yes, I like that they are equals in personality and can trade blows while having enough romantic and evil tension that it makes them really interesting. I'm not sure how they started taking over my life but I have to accept it now I think…
oh yeah also
legundo: god i hate you (punches him)
scott: (grinning in a sinister and probably gay way) do it again :)
THIS IS MY PERSONAL ANALYSIS AND OPINIONS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! anyways if you want bloodloathing i recommend watching episode 5 and the finale in their povs
updated the character limit on the blinkie maker! previously 15 characters, you can now attempt to cram a whopping 25 characters on your blinkies!! certain fonts and font sizes WILL cut off. use your best judgement ok?
no i don't think those characters are siblings i think they're friends. I don't think that's their mom I actually think she's their friend. I don't think they're related actually I think they're friends with each other.
he wasn’t even there to be a contestant he joined the crew as a CHINESE TEACHER but the directors noticed his good looks and begged him to compete. poor guy made it to the finals and if he had been one of the winners he would have been contractually forced to be in a boy band whether he wanted to or not
uninstall adobe acrobat. it is malware. it has been malware. these aren't opinions: acrobat meets the definition of malware.
it installs a user-login-time "startup" executable that ignores any windows directives to disable it on startup. doing so only removes the even-more-malicious taskbar-icon-creating advertisement-notification-creating process. no matter what you do, the sleeper "updater" process starts when you log in, and runs perpetually
it sends & receives encrypted network traffic both periodically and non-periodically. both are bad, both are suspicious, and a program doing both is more suspicious than the sum of their parts. and to boot: acrobat will polymorphically edit its code after such network activity
this isn't new: it has always done this. now, it does not even do the thing it is meant to: provide a way to interact with documents, which is amongst the very first features computers were built to provide. you can merely open PDFs and read some of their content in the narrow space between the requests for adobe to give them your money, and interface for features you cannot use (because you don't) or do not, have not, and will not ever need
adobe and microsoft would very much like the user's cultural norms around computers to allow for advertisement built into the local software and even operating system itself. the web being 100% advertisements was not enough! sure enough, acrobat will hijack the windows notifications system thing to give you the 2026 equivalent of pop-ups
i don't really know enough about windows software equivalents, so i'll paypal $20 to the first person that reblogs this with a list of 3-5 PDF reader/editor/etc acrobat equivalents that meet the following criteria:
open source, locally-built executables must match checksum of prebuilt distributed executable
no paid features/premium version/subscription/whatever
not a toy hobby project thing, must be windows-users-proof
Firefox's built-in PDF.js viewer: does everything you could want from a basic viewer, fast enough search, and can now do annotations for filling in forms and such
KDE Okular: is a decent viewer and can also do basic annotations, and is so not-a-toy that you can even download it on the Windows app store.
LibreOffice Draw: I don't ever really like having to open this but if you have to edit a PDF in detail it does work, and doesn't just vomit up a bunch of polygons when you give it text to work with. Better as an authoring tool than an editor.
I've 100% replaced free acrobat with the firefox built-in and it works wonderfully for general office use and research/reading/viewing. It doesn't have robust redaction capabilities, but if you need to fill and sign and highlight a form it's actually much more intuitive than acrobat reader.
i have access to powers and locations that he cannot access independently; he needs my help to navigate the world i've brought him to
i simply found him outside and abducted him one day
there are many cats in the world, but this one is the best and my most favorite. why? because he was available to abduct that morning and for very little other reason.
i have a much greater understanding of this world than him, but he has unshakable confidence in his ability to figure it out and i find that really cute
the power dynamic is fundamentally unbalanced, but i let him have a little audacity. a little combativeness and sass. as a treat.
some humans are needlessly cruel to cats or take them in for a short time before neglecting or abandoning them. but i have chosen to love and guard this one with my life. because i think he's neat.
he is very well-treated and has pretty much everything he could possibly want or need, but he is my prisoner.
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