u/SeasOfBlood

Hi everyone! I just finished reading the story 'Carmilla' and was really impressed by it. It's fun reading something so old and seeing tropes take shape that we all know and love today!

Carmilla herself is a really fun character. Any time the main character, Laura, experiences something spooky, rather than denying it, Carmilla is all like Whaaaat?! That's crazy! The exact same thing happened to me! and it's hilarious, because she keeps getting away with it. Her ability to improvise crazy excuses on the fly really made me chuckle.

And there were a surprising amount of cute moments in the story, where her Vampirism felt almost played for laughs. Like her observing a funeral and complaining about the hymns, or getting offended when a traveling salesman commented on her sharp teeth!

The ending is a little muddled, but it does have one really striking image, of Carmilla in a blood-filled coffin, bobbing inside it as she rests. That one creeped me out. As did the scenes where, when feeding, she almost transforms into something like a black panther, which was really different than what I was expecting!

Is anyone else a fan of this story? What did you think of it? I'd love to hear some opinions on it!

Hi guys! I thought this might be an interesting discussion! So, as the title says, what's a game you've played since Skyrim came out that you feel the next Elder Scrolls could learn from in some way?

For myself, whilst I don't vibe with the gameplay too much, I think Silksong really nailed the same horror elements that TES dabbles in, but like TES, never goes too far. There's a whole optional quest in that game where you can get infected with a parasite, which massively impacts your character, and just the whole vibes of that quest and the villain of it are some of the spookiest things I've seen in a game.

Have you got any examples which spring to mind?

Hi everyone! This may seem a strange question, and I apologise in advance if I am unable to properly articulate it, but...

Shakespeare is known for his grand, beautiful soliloquies, but something I have found is that he was really good at writing naturalistic, conversational dialogue which made the characters feel human underneath the moments of high drama and introspection.

What is your favorite instance of this in his plays? For myself, there's genuinely so many moments I could mention, but perhaps my favorite is the meeting between Antony and Octavian in Antony and Cleopatra - there's a paper thin veneer of civility, but even at the beginning they can't decide on who will sit down first because neither want to look weak.

Also, Coriolanus is FULL of this stuff. Very quickfire dialogue, because Coriolanus himself is so short-tempered, unsentimental and crude. The whole ending confrontation is a masterclass in this sort of thing (Especially when Coriolanus is offended at being called 'Martius'!)

I apologize in advance if I can't articulate what I mean particularly well, but I will try my best!

But does anyone else hope that when we complete the main quest of the next game, the general vibe feels more like a conclusion to the whole game? Rather than us just completing another quest? Obviously, the players will still be doing stuff and exploring the world, but if there's this huge danger hovering over all the characters, shouldn't that evil being defeated feel more like a big deal?

Just as an example, in Skyrim, I always felt like we should have gotten far more reactions and fallout to Alduin's defeat. How does it effect the Civil War? How does it effect Skyrim's delicate religious balance? How do ordinary people react to what is, essentially, the end of one age and the beginning of another?

Is this something you'd like the next game to try? I guess I just want out victory to feel more momentous, and have a more concrete impact of the world around us. And just the sense that even if our adventures continue, a huge chapter in the world has closed, and no one knows what will come next.