EVERY CONTRACT DESCRIPTION IN KERBAL SPACE PROGRAM:
we here at ionic symphonic protonic electronics like knowing things. but the other day, an intern tripped over a cable in the office and went shooting off into the stratosphere. suddenly, it seems like we don't know anything at all. that's where you come in.
PUT THIS BIG-ASS AIRPLANE WING IN ORBIT OF DRES. ADVANCE: 1 CREDIT. COMPLETION: 2 CREDITS
EVERY CONTRACT DESCRIPTION IN KERBAL SPACE PROGRAM:
we here at ionic symphonic protonic electronics like knowing things. but the other day, an intern tripped over a cable in the office and went shooting off into the stratosphere. suddenly, it seems like we don't know anything at all. that's where you come in.
PUT THIS BIG-ASS AIRPLANE WING IN ORBIT OF DRES. ADVANCE: 1 CREDIT. COMPLETION: 2 CREDITS
hello welcome to post apocalyptic video game. this weapon you find is a gun made from plumbing and other garbage using no power tools. it was smashed together by a Raider (a discrete category of person, ontologically evil) while high on Drugs, and is an example of how stupid and primitive the people of The Wasteland are. it is fully automatic, has a rifled barrel, never jams, and has interchangeable magazines that are compatible with every other garbage gun made by other Raiders elsewhere in the world.
āMany groups of people put under the 'raider' label by outsiders have long oral and written traditions of ingenious, easily modified and repaired scrap weaponry due to the scarcity of actual gunsmiths and firing pins. The resultant product, however, is more typically used for banditry than for hunting or trade, granting it ill repute.ā
Obsessed with a vampire's existence being symbolic of the terror in a lack of control. Of having needs that scare you. Of a non-violent heart having to enact violence for the sake of survival. Of hiding yourself and longing for the honesty of companionship that you may never hope to get. Of fearing fearful eyes. Of more hunger than you know how to fill. The vampire wants to be taken care of, the vampire is scared, the vampire feels small, the vampire wants to rest. I!!!!!! Like that a lot :) I like pathetic vampires. And I like the catharsis of when someone does offer that vampire the space to be loved and trusted. Of someone offering their blood as a symbol of the vampire being taken care of. I love you, I'm not scared of you, I trust you, I'll feed you. You're safe here. And I know that I am too
āHow would you feed if you were a vampireā reveals a lot about people
āSteal blood donations from hospitals and blood banksā = my personal favorite. They assume the process for this is simpler than dealing with eating people, clearly the most ethical.
āStealing blood bags is more unethical than eating peopleā = surprisingly common take. Perhaps they hold the belief some people deserve life saving care over others. If stealing blood people donate anonymously that would keep both you and potential victims alive, then how is it unethical? Most likely, they read this take online and never really thought about it too hard just agreed because everyone else did. Very telling.
āIād only feed off of volunteersā= has a deep set faith in a sense of community. Not only people that you trust to keep your secret but would put themselves in danger for you. Thatās beautiful. Probably gay.
āIād feed off of strangers but knock them out first, Iād just take a littleā = the belief this is more ethical than stealing blood donations is fascinating
āIād only eat bad peopleā = MASSIVE can of worms, requiring its own post. who do you believe deserve to die, how would you be sure of that, and how is this more ethical? This conversation is now about who you would murder if you could get away with it
but I also hate the opposite of edgelords, ie people who are like "I'm going to make everything nauseatingly cute and fluffy because I'm such a badass rebel"
Putting happy things in stuff that's depressing is fine, having a problem with canon becoming cringey in its pursuit of pointless edgelordery is fine
but if you're sashaying into a fandom whose media is naturally dark and changing EVERYTHING and removing all conflict in the original source so that it's boring, sanitised and Pure, I've got to wonder what the hell you're doing here in the first place and why it even appealed to you to begin with?
Like if you're into VTM, and you take away the personal horror and what makes vampires *vampires*, why are you into VTM specifically instead of some fandom centred around superhumans? If you're only going to make bloodbag-drinking vampires and headcanon that everyone is nice and makes friends with each other and nobody is ever scared or struggling to survive, and that everyone is nice to humans and loves to hold hands skipping into the sunset, and that everyone who adheres to the canon that most vampires are monsters or will become monsters is a terrible person with no morals IRL, why... why are you even here?
VTM appeals to me because I can relate to the feeling of struggling to survive in a world where everyone is out to screw you, and you have to do shitty things to keep on living. I can relate to the struggle of maintaining your morals VS doing things that help you survive, "pick one".
And if you take all of that out of VTM, is it even VTM any more?
I like having a universe where my characters can put themselves first and don't have to live with the guilt of being complicit, because I get enough of that IRL, where we're only allowed to consume sanitised, pure content and every other week we're cut off from a new company or creator because they fucked up, and it becomes more and more exhausting to keep on top of that, like being a half decent person is now as unattainable as enlightenment and if you don't exhaust yourself and run yourself down, you're complicit, and that means you should burn in hell. It's like Christianity all over again, and I'm so tired. There's no ethical consumption under capitalism. We're all damned, we're all going to hell. And in the World of Darkness it's the same - just being a vampire means your presence in the world is actively harmful. Yes, even if you drink bloodbags (even moreso), and when people bend over backwards to make their vampires as ethical as possible - every single one of them, not just the odd OC here and there - I just roll my eyes.
If your vampires were truly ethical, they'd kill themselves. Consuming bloodbags is more unethical than drinking from a stranger because hospitals need blood all the time. Drinking from a stranger is unethical because anaemia is awful. And if your vampires are trying to develop blood alternatives, why the fuck are you playing vampires at all? Why are you even here?!
So no. I'm not going to headcanon that all vampires are social animals who love to befriend each other and make the world a better place. I'm going to headcanon that they're predators in competition with each other forced to work with each other to survive humanity. I'm going to headcanon that they can make friends they can trust, but that it's very rare and difficult, and distrust and isolation are the norm. I'm going to headcanon that genuine love and trust are very rare, making it all the more rewarding when it's found.
Sometimes I look at posts and I'm like... why are you even in this fandom?
I wrote a think-piece for myself that, while still partially the stuff this post doesn't like, actually references it with a paraphrase. Thought it'd be neat to tack it on as an addition.
Vampire, as a game, was made to be about 'personal horror'. It has a clear vision to go with this: very few if any vampire is good, even if but victims of recent embrace, as they compromise with their worst selves continuously. Of course, one could manage their humanity like a saint, overcoming or defeating this central point, or be soft-hearted and drawn in by a sugar-coated image of vampires. Perhaps one could take and twist this into a subversion or deconstruction, toxic positivity where they mentally form apologia for only taking but a little blood, or for stealing whole-blood packs before they are separated into cells, plasma, and so forth (indeed, some have even gone so far as to say that a truly ethical vampire would commit suicide).
However, we may focus on other aspects, instead. If coping with a single flavor of beast with a static, increasing scale of sin severity is too stifling a limitation to inspire creativity and new stories, we can treat 'personal' & 'horror' as parts of a whole rather than a single abstract that must be adhered to. Here's a story-teller rule I've thought of for my own interpretation, emphasizing the latter:
The Vampire should be, for someone, somewhere, horrifying. It may inspire fear in the self for what they have become and what they must do to live, the traditional angle, or may be more existential, perhaps the vampire has trivialized their need and now worries if they will face some dread fate such as final death or becoming a wight. Maybe the horror is entirely from other vampires - disgust with the worst aspects of the new, hidden world they live in, with the Camarilla's back-stabbing and the Sabbat's constant atrocities and acts of terror, with the clan-specific cruelties such as the blood-bond pyramid or victims of vicissitude.
Even in a chronicle with the squeakiest, most glazed and white-washed coterie, with the brightest outlook in the entire world of darkness apart from the undying, mortals on the other side of the masquerade won't know this, and may certainly still instinctively recoil at them - if they aren't outright hunters with terror in their hearts, who are living in anxiety that there could be any number of you, or are quite traumatized by witnessing the worst of what the kindred have to offer, and as such would see all vampires staked for the sun in hopes of returning to security and normalcy.
In all of these, even if not as personal, the vampire still horrifies by nature.
at this point i only feel safe in the company of internet perverts . these are like the only people left who you can count on to not let the fascism enter their body when they encounter a weird person
the greater internet is still handwringing about furries in 2025 and a not-insignificant portion of the lgbt community has convinced themselves they're saving lives by harassing horror fans . the people with "dead dove" or whatever in their bio are minding their own business at all times. i know who i'd rather have in my circle tbh
vaporwave
2087
stormborns
s-u-f-j-a-n-s-t-e-v-e-n-s
germansingergirl
romaincrisis
