#robin branaugh

[lovelikehomicide-ao3]

I found more funny little posts, so made more funny little image-text posts. This will probably be the last batch.

(Previous lot.)

[lovelikehomicide]

The Ghosts in the Castle

I've started playing around with a Young Dracula fan fiction idea that explores Robin's mental space following the season two finale. I'm also interested in the possibility of a small-town mythos forming in Stokely, what with the family moving away right before Ingrid started draining the local livestock (and eventually the locals). The Count was implied to have at least tried to keep a low profile.

Please let me know what you think.

________________

My best friend, Vlad, and his family were killed two months ago.  

Mum and dad told us, the morning after it happened, that the family had packed up in the middle of the night and moved away.  

‘Why?’ Chloe had asked.  

Dad shrugged. ‘Maybe immigration troubles, or tax evasion,’ he wrinkled his nose, like the words carried an odour, ‘or a family emergency. Who can say? We didn’t know them that well, all things considered. Anything could have been going on behind those giant doors.’ He turned to me with a pitying smile and laid his heavy, far too hot hand on my shoulder. ‘I’m sure Vlad will reach out once things have settled.’  

Vlad wouldn’t reach out. I knew it then and I know it now. Just like I know, despite what my mother would have everyone believe, that I was at the castle that night.  

What I don’t know is what happened there—but I have theories. Absence is a presence in and of itself, after all.  

I’m full of holes. Pieces of myself were sliced out that night and have since gone missing. Chloe explained the concept of repressed memories and advised me not to try and dig them out, as the brain is good at playing tricks on itself. She believes me, but she’s also heard the rumours, and she’s trepidatious of how they might influence me.  

When you repeat something enough, it becomes fact. Let enough time pass and the story, the reconstruction, and the memory will all bleed into one, never able to be completely disentangled. Everyone has those memories, the ones of things that happened when you were a child, constructed entirely from stories told one too many times at family get-togethers or while reminiscing over tea. Or maybe it isn’t a story, but a photograph that you’ve been glancing at for years, until you start to remember the day it was taken. False memories, Chloe called them. They’re what happen when you let other people convince you of what you should remember.  

Sometimes my dreams feel like drafts sweeping through those holes. Not quite memories, but not normal dreams, either. Something born from corrupted images, discarded thoughts and forgotten conversations. Unlike Chloe, I don’t believe the barrier between our thoughts and objective reality is exactly definitive. It’s more like a gradient. Reality, our perception of it, what we remember afterwards—it's all a matter of cognition. That is to say, I know that just because I think something that doesn’t mean it happened, but if I dream it enough, I’m afraid it’ll become real.  

I have theories, which are built around the things I know for sure. Something happened that night, which my brain considers traumatic. This event either relates to things that had happened before, or was severe enough to have a ripple effect, tearing holes into memories spanning the past year. Memories pertaining to Vlad. The event preceded, included, or followed the death of Vlad and his entire family.  

These are the things Chloe and I have agreed on. We are also in agreement that our parents must know something about what happened, but they have chosen to lie to us. They insist I was with them at a party that night. I would remember that.  

I try not to listen to the rumours, but that’s impossible when it’s seemingly all anyone wants to talk about.  

The Count family died Friday night. Ingrid was young, and pretty, and well-known among the locals. Well-liked, they claim, and such tragedies are so romantic.  

There were rumours by Saturday afternoon. 

Saturday night, something went sculking around old Jenkin’s farm and drained all the blood from one of the sheep. It stood upright, Jenkin’s son told the papers, though it didn’t walk so much as float. It was ethereal, with its billowing cloak and the single pale hand it used to beckon the sheep, luring it away as if in some trance. He didn’t dare approach it.  

By Monday, everyone had their own versions of what was going on.  

[youngdraculasource]

YOUNG DRACULA (2006 – 2014) Series 1, Episode 1: "When You’re A Stranger"

[autisticheadcanons]

Robin Branaugh from Young Dracula.

[lovelikehomicide-ao3]

MORE. I MADE MORE.

(First lot.)

[lovelikehomicide-ao3]

what are your headcanons for each of the young dracula characters? Like sexualities, and random stuff

Oooh, headcanons! I love these! Buckle up--this is going to be long!

Sexualities:

All vampires are pansexual. It comes with the territory. Given that vampires are often associated with demons and sin, it would make sense for them to be drawn to/represent concepts rejected by Abrahamic religions (especially given vampires' traditional aversion to Christian and Catholic iconography), such as the sins of gluttony and lust. Add to that their ability to reproduce asexually (biting) and it would make sense for vampires to treat sex as an indulgence rather than a reproductive necessity, and therefore not be limited by sexual orientation. That said, pure-blood (full-fang) vampires are still expected to marry and breed with the opposite sex to ensure genetic heirs and prevent messy breakups; two male vampires who split would have equal claim to property and power, but given how patriarchal we know the vampire world to be, a male and female vampire couple would have no such issues. This system helps protect high ranking vampires from being taken advantage of.

Ingrid has a lot of issues with internalised misogyny that she's too proud to work through, which is why she never dates or even develops close friendships with other women. As much as she believes in vampiress equality, her mother abandoned her and she's been exposed to her father's diatribe since birth. Hence, she finds herself looking down on other women without even realising it.

Vlad, similarly, struggled in his teens with internalised homophobia because he knows being straight is the 'normal'. He came to terms with this slowly, alongside his other vampire traits, as he began to accept that not everything 'vampire' is inherently 'bad'.

Robin is gay. His apparent crushes on Ingrid and Delilah were products of his insecurities--he wanted to prove that he was attractive and desirable enough to get the popular girl. He held a similar mindset when he tried to prove he could be normal. It wasn't that he wanted to date Ingrid or join the rubgy team, he just hated that other people thought he couldn't.

Robin has always been secure in his identity, which is why he had no problem wearing jewelry in the show (the closest thing 2006 kids TV allowed to a gay main character), but he keeps it to himself because he's also resistant to doing anything that would invite genuine harassment.

If Vlad had stayed in Stokely, Robin absolutely would have been the one to get him to accept himself, even if it was just by acting really hurt and offended. Vlad's 'it's bad because vampires do it' mentality wouldn't hold up against Robin's accusations of homophobia, and Chloe's well-reasoned arguments--one being that, historically, most 'evil' breathers have been straight, not gay or pan. - Might write something with this concept at some point.

In that same potential timeline, Vlad and Robin would have crushes on each other at some point, but whether these are genuine feelings, or just occurring because it's the first time either of them have met a guy their own age who is also same-sex attracted, is still up in the air.

Robin would go from thinking the Count is cool to completely idolizing him as an elder-gay upon finding out the man has been seducing men for nearly 600 years, and has never once been ashamed of it.

Renfield and the Count have a thing going on that both are aware of, but while the Count sees Renfield as a surrogate spouse, he isn't physically attracted to him. This is because he's known Renfield since he was a child, and this has led to him forever considering Renfield 'too young' for him (though people younger than Renfield, whom he met as adults, are not).

Random:

Robin has religious guilt. His parents are non-practicing Catholics and therefore he was raised to believe in God, and the existence of vampires confirmed his faith. This led to an ongoing crisis about what being friends with and aiding vampires could mean for his soul--something not helped by Vlad, at some point, casually confirming that vampires don't HAVE souls (is that why they're so messed up after the transformation? Does losing your reflection literally destroy your SOUL?). He has nightmares and panic attacks about it that he never tells anyone about, mostly because he doesn't know how much thought Vlad himself has put into the religious implications of vampires, and he doesn't want to see his friend spiral as well.

Vlad was functionally illiterate when they moved to Stokely. Vampires are capable of speaking every language, but that doesn't extend to reading or writing. The Count can read and write in English--a skill he learned in his post-parenthood travels--but he didn't bother teaching his son because he didn't expect his kids to go to school. Ingrid is self-taught, and therefore significantly below-standard, but her teachers put that down to her work-refusal. Vlad, however, was falsely assumed by the school to have dyslexia. This changed when his French teacher actually asked him about his language education, and found out that every language except Romanian was taught exclusively verbally. - Might write something using this concept at some point.

The Count was actually investigated by social services in Stokely at some point, but Vlad intercepted the social worker and hypnotised them into thinking it was a false report, so no one ever knew.

Adult Robin writes comic books loosely based on the Draculas. The premise is basically 'what if he and Vlad really WERE switched at birth?' Despite most of the storylines being entirely of his own creation, the resemblance (both in appearance and personality) between his versions of the Draculas and the real ones is undeniable. This starts a rumour in the vampire world of the Count having yet another illegitimate son.

If Vlad had stayed in Stokely, at some point he and Robin would have realised they both spoke Welsh and started using it like a secret language at school.

I like to think that there's a timeline where Vlad and Robin reunite because Vlad sees a vampire painting online and realises immediately that it's a portrait of his dad. The whole account is dedicated to portraits of his father and sister, dramatic and blood-splattered. He buys one of the paintings (seems like a great gift idea for the Count) and offers to pick it up, so he can meet/investigate the artist. It's Robin. The mindwipe didn't hold, and he's been using his memories of the Count and Ingrid as art inspirations for years, given they embody the vampire aesthetic so well.

[lovelikehomicide-ao3]

Mirror Games (Young Dracula Fan Fiction)

A weird Robin-centric fan fiction idea I had. Post-season 2.

----

The skull-shaped lamp on my desk is more for an aesthetic than practicality. It fails to illuminate more than a single-foot radius, so the rest of the room is shadowed. My eyes are used to the dimness, but as I pull the large mirror out from under my desk and prop it against the side of my bed, the reflection is too dark for me to make out any of the finer details. My face is recognisable, though it’s impossible to separate the dark irises from the pupils, and the posters behind me are blurs of black, grey and red.  

Good. That should hurry things up.  

The human brain is a complex and, oftentimes, fussy organ. It seeks out sensory input like plants seek sunlight, but it will also discard out any sensation that’s present long enough to get used to. People aren’t conscious of the feel of the clothes against our skin, or the buzz of the refrigerator, or the blinking lights on their alarm clock, unless something about those repetitive, mundane sensations changes—becomes interesting.  

If those sensations never change—never become more than an environmental automatism—the brain will make its own entertainment. This is more likely to happen in states of sensory deprivation. It’s common for blind people to hallucinate swirling colours and flashing lights. The deaf hear murmurs, and footsteps, and music. These are never completely original creations, but instead draw on memories. A unique jumble of thoughts and experiences. Lazy abstractions.  

This is also how dreams are formed.  

One method of boring your brain is to stare into a mirror. Fixate on one spot on your face, and after a couple of minutes, your features will start to disappear. This phenomenon is known as Troxler’s Fading. Then, the remaining details will shift. Change. Deform. This is Troxler’s Effect.  

The endurance of mirror games like Bloody Mary and Candy Man can be credited to this. When I first read about Troxler’s Effect, I’d expected to see facial distortion and shadow beings—this is what most other people reported, so anything else seemed far-fetched.  

I hadn’t expected my face to change so entirely.  

In the beginning, I could only focus for five-minute stretches before my mind would wander, and my eyes would jerk to some other point in the room. It was enough time to see the shape of my eyes change, the corners sloping downwards in a way that looked decidedly sad.  

By the time I made it to the ten-minute mark, those sad eyes had turned blue, my cheeks had slimmed, and my hair was lighter. There was almost nothing left of my own face in the mirror.  

I can stare for upwards of an hour at a time, eyes fixed on the ones in the mirror, watching them shift and settle. The details change—blemishes, hairstyle, the hue of the eyebags—but it’s always the same face.  

And it’s so familiar.  

Realistically, I know my brain can’t create an entirely new face, so of course I’ve seen it before. It has to have come from somewhere. But I can feel it in my guts—this isn’t the face of someone I saw on television, or passed in the street, and then forgot about. I know the boy in the mirror. I know him intimately. I’m sure of this, but no matter how much time I spend staring at him, I can never figure out how. There’s no eureka moment. I watch him until my head hurts and my eyes droop enough to break the spell, but nothing ever clicks.  

This hobby has turned into a ritual. Every night, once the rest of my family has gone to bed, I set the mirror up and stare into it until I can’t anymore.  

I’ve started to dream of him. He wears a school uniform I don’t recognise and talks with figures that I do. I’ve met these people before—I remember their faces, their smiles, their teeth—but don’t know who they are. I can’t know who they are, this pervasive voice whispers. They aren’t real. Sometimes it’s my own voice, sometimes it’s someone else’s, and other times I can’t tell. They meld together so perfectly I wonder if it really is all me—my own voice, my own smile, my own face—and I’m going mad. 

Every time a name is on my tongue or an image begins to fade into a memory—faces growing clearer, and younger—the voice is there to intervene.  

They aren’t real.  

They can’t be real.  

There’s no such thing as vampires.  

[youngdraculasource]

HQ Young Dracula promo shot of Robin Branaugh from series 1 Click here to view in full resolution