Web Animation / Hunter: The Parenting

Clockwise from left: Kitten, Door, Marckus, Big -D, Boy

On July 29th 2021, Bruva Alfabusa announced that the series If the Emperor Had a Text-to-Speech Device is on indefinite hiatus due to Games Workshop's zero tolerance policy on fan animation.

On December 18, 2021 Alfabusa released an animated video not based on Warhammer 40,000, but taking place in The World of Darkness (specifically Hunter: The Reckoning) called Hunter: The Parenting with several characters lifted from If the Emperor Had a Text-to-Speech Device as a Universal-Adaptor Cast, this time portraying a clan of Hunters lead by The Big-D. Alfabusa has also rechristened his group as Ogre Popennang Productions.

Hunter: The Parenting takes place in the year 2006 in the county of Norfolk, UK, the family of main characters living just outside the township of Warham. It's slated to last 15 episodes according to Alfabusa's patreon.

For those unfamiliar with The World of Darkness, SpeakerD (one of the lead writers) released a video essay on Alfabusa's channel serving as a short (relatively speaking) intro to WoD here. It's not too lore intensive and can serve as a great way to get a good feel of the setting.

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Hunter: the Parenting provides examples of:

• Actually Pretty Funny: Big D has this response to Kevin's elaborate threats.
• Adaptational Sexuality: Now that most of the characters are no longer presumably asexual transhumans in a No Hugging, No Kissing setting, the series moves from Ho Yay subtext to text, making Marckus, Big D and Kitten canonically queer^note Kitten was alluded to having sex with other Custodes in TTS but it never went beyond jokes and he also was said to have been in a relationship with Shadowsun which he vehemently denied, while Magnus never expressed romantic affection to anyone (though he was disappointed to find out the non-Fabulous Custodes wore actual armor). Big D is based on a combination of the Emperor (who only expressed interest in women) and the Fabulous Custodes (who were Macho Camp), so he's pansexual..
• Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: In TTS, Magnus and Kitten were Heterosexual Life-Partners and Vitriolic Best Buds. Marckus and Kitten are not only a couple, but engaged as well.
• Aliens in Cardiff: The story follows a group of monster hunters living in the English county of Norfolk. In Chapter 2, Kitten is somewhat bewildered to learn that there are three different factions of vampires fighting for control of the district of North Norfolk.
  Pyotr: On the small scale. That, and Great Yarmouth.
  Kitten: Oh, I fucking hate Yarmouth.
  Pyotr: Hah! I get it, it's pretty sad.
• Animation Bump: Unlike TTS, The Parenting doesn't rely on clip art. It instead uses a unique style of puppet animation that is simultaneously expressive, sketchy, and grim enough to fit the setting. Episode 3 in particular is a huge step up, with extremely smooth and snappy animation as Pyotr wrecks his way through the house and confronts Kitten and Door on the lawn. The latter half of the episode also contains a number of instances of characters' mouths actually moving when they speak, as opposed to just their entire character portraits shuffling around to indicate speech.
• Awesome, but Impractical: Marckus' "stake-jacket" idea, as Door points out; it's a liability that borders on the lethal at all times where it's not being used, and it only works when you're tackled outright from the front.
• Batman Gambit: Marckus deals a brilliant one in Marckus goes Pubbing with his Weirdo Friends (and gets in a brawl). When grown-up bully Blacklaw starts pestering him about his new 'girlfriend' (not knowing his fiancé is the male Kitten), Marckus starts ignoring him by doing something on his phone. Blacklaw is infuriated and grabs the phone out of Marckus's hands, scrolls down to the contact called "Luv", and then screams a profane rant... before being interrupted by his father. Turns out Marckus changed the contact name on his phone, knowing Blacklaw couldn't resist.
• Bavarian Fire Drill: How Big D ultimately gets out of his interrogation with the police. He pretends his last-minute misstep was intentional, because he's actually a high ranking Camarilla vampire testing the interrogating officer, Detective Sergeant Chapman, on behalf of the Regent of Yarmouth. Chapman, a ghoul bloodbound to Regent, immediately believes him, lets him and the family walk free, and covers up the incident at Big-D's instruction.
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Save for Big-D and Boy, who both come out of the fight with the vampires unscathed, the rest actually look like they took a very brutal pummeling. Downplayed in that, besides a shallow stab and a Kiss from Kevin, Big D wasn't injured in the tunnels.
  • Fully Averted come episode #3, where Big-D looks noticeably jacked up due to falling on and breaking his jaw when Pyotr dragged him out of the window. Boy only comes out unscathed due to him avoiding being targeted the whole fight.
• Beware the Silly Ones: The Mighty Kevin initially seems like a complete joke, but he quickly turns out to be the biggest threat of the tunnel Vampires due to knowing Domination (with enough skill to control multiple targets) and his genuinely deranged temperament.
  • Later justified in the second audiolog: Kevin is the lowest Generation in his pack, and thus the strongest of the four.
• Campbell Country: The gang hunt vampires around Norfolk, England.
• Cliffhanger:
  • Chapter 2. Pyotr, engorged on the blood of his slain packmates, breaks out of the family's basement and escapes into the house, leaving the protagonists cowering together in Markus's room amid a deafening silence.
  • Chapter 3. The family is left battered but alive after a fight with the most powerful vampire they'd encountered, surrounded by landmines and the sun-scorched ashes of Pyotr, when suddenly police officers arrive thanks to Kitten's automatic house alarms.
  • The Blender Crusade: In Spiteful Defiance of Corporate Villainy ends on a to-be-continued note, the first audiolog to do so. Big D finds a mysterious pit in the backrooms of the 99p-Land Shop, heavily implied to be the entrance to a vampire lair. Despite putting the mystery aside to complete his goal of buying a blender for 99p, Big D accidentally slips on a wet patch of floor and tumbles into the pit, whereupon the credits roll.
• Cluster Bleep-Bomb: Whatever Brok Blacklaw intented to tell Marckus' fiancee (not knowing it was Kitten and thinking it was a woman) was explicitly labeled as "[this was too much, even for this horrible channel]", complete with four-second bleep.
• Cowardice Callout: Kitten's "Reason You Suck" Speech to Pyotr is based around Pyotr being a Dirty Coward, from attacking a child while the other vampires target the armed adult Hunters, to turning on his allies to diablerize them as soon as possible. It doesn't work, because Pyotr is unimpressed at the idea he should feel human things like shame.
• Cover Identity Anomaly: Big D poses as Kevin Wettsworth during his police interrogation, but makes two mistakes.
  • When Sgt. Chapman asks about a Kaitlyn Wettsworth, Big D thinks she's Kevin's mother. Kaitlyn is his sister.
  • Big D didn't change the picture on Kevin's ID, so he's an enormous Middle Eastern man posing as a tiny British man.
• Crazy-Prepared:
  • Subverted in episode one: Kevin drops his Domination spell after feeding from Big-D, who was tripping balls off DMT, prompting this exchange:
    Kitten: "As expected of Sir-D! He knew that putting narcotics in his system would befuddle the vampire!"
    Big-D: "THAT IS DEFINETLY WHY I DID THAT!!"
  • Kitten has stilts to escape vampires! For the minefield in his front yard.
• Destination Defenestration: In Something Is Wrong With Horse, we learn that Kitten permanently killed a vampire before he even knew what one really was by managing to get their back to a window; he then kicked them out of said window, leading to Inertial Impalement when the vampire fell onto an old iron fence that surrounded the apartments. Pretty impressive for a (mostly?) regular mortal with no prior experience. Oh, and this was after getting stabbed in the side. Adrenaline is a hell of a drug.
• The Dreaded: Werewolves. None have appeared as of yet, but when they're brought up in the first audiolog, Big-D drops all of his zaniness to inform Kitten that they are incredibly dangerous, and well beyond the Family's ability to fight.
• Embarrassing Cover Up: When a cop asks Big D why Kitten has a torture dungeon in his basement, complete with live camera feed, Big D can't say it's to interrogate captured vampires from a distance. So he feigns disgust and 'reluctantly' admits that it's Marckus's sex dungeon.
• Entertainingly Wrong: While Kitten can recognize the difference between vampire clans, he has absolutely no idea what they actually call themselves. This includes referring to Pyotr (a Nosferatu) as a Sludge Lad^note Referring to the tendency of Nosferatu to hide out and lair in sewer systems, Apeboy (a Gangrel) as a Humanimal Type Vampire, Shitbeard (a Brujah) as a Bikerbro Blank, and Kevin (a Tremere) as a Vampire Wizard. ^note This last one is at least somewhere in the ballpark of accurate, given how Clan Tremere originated from a group of immortality-seeking Mages. It's later established in the first audio log that Big-D deliberately keeps his family in the dark about the exact names of vampires, as a means of protecting them from discovery and retribution.
• Everyone Has Standards: The Family is initially quite entertained by the Licks' belligerent cage fight in Chapter 2, but when Pyotr gains the upper hand and starts brutalizing his comrades in an outright sadistic fashion, their enthusiasm wanes (though Door doesn't see the problem).
• Exact Words: Door frequently refers to his "old mining days". He was an EOD tech for the US military and is an expert on landmines.
• Forensic Accounting: Briefly brought up Big D and Kevin in the second audiolog, where Kevin mentions that running a vampire Clan by simply mind-controlling or blood-bonding its servants only go so far, because these servants still need to actually eat and thus to pay for food, and eventually "the taxmen runs the numbers and finds yours don't make sense". Big D agrees, calling taxmen "the unsung heroes of the Hunters".
• Foreshadowing: The second audiolog opens with Kevin being chained up and imprisoned in a cell following his defeat in Episode 1. Later on, Kevin reveals how shitty his life became after being Embraced against his will as a young man, giving new meaning to his imprisonment on a psychological and spiritual level.
• Fun with Subtitles: Constantly, but especially in the audiologs. Expect to see Caps Lock on whenever Big-D is shouting, for words to get drawn out in the subtitles alongside the audio, and for odd accented letters to appear to suit any particularly unusual pronunciations.

  Big-D: Mmm... eÄgg.

• Funny Background Event:
  • At the end of episode 1, you can see Big-D crashing the bus and reversing repeatedly in the background.
  • Big-D is a nearly continuous source of these, from shaking his hips by a tree to cartwheeling down a cave.
• Gut Feeling: Big-D decides to diverge from the conventional Norfolk Ghost Walk, and it pays off when the Hunters discover a gigantic hole that goes down into the fabled tunnels.
• Heh Heh, You Said "X": Heh, COCKthorpe. They even bolded it in their map of the area.

  Kitten: "Bloody Mary,"
  Marckus: "Quite contrary,"
  Kitten: "~How does your garden grow?~"
  Marckus: "With silver bells and COCKle shells..."
  Kitten: "Cock!"
  Marckus: "COCK."
  Big-D: "Stop ruining the mood!!"
• Historical Longevity Joke: When Big D claims to have hunted vampires since "the 90s". Kevin's response:
  Kevin: What, old-timer, the 1890s?"
  • Big D, for his part, just chuckles. Until he realizes he's being insulted, whereupon he is outraged.
• Humans Are Warriors: Big D states in the first audiolog that this is why the Vampires are so obsessed with holding up the Masquerade- the most powerful of them could kill a thousand men with no problem... but there's billions of humans, and we have some pretty dangerous weapons. If it came to an all-out war between vampires and humans, it'd be a hard fight, but humanity would inevitably come out on top.
• Insistent Terminology: The Licks, or at least Kevin and Apeboy, exclusively refer to the pangs of their Horror Hunger as them being "hungy". Being said in a whining tone both times causes them to sound like petulant children rather than bloodsucking terrors of the night.
• Killed to Uphold the Masquerade: Touched on in the first audiolog as the reason Big-D seems to be withholding information on vampires from the rest of the family — The Vampires have eyes and ears everywhere, and knowing too much could see them all promptly put on a hit-list if noticed. So, while he's willing to provide a layman's introduction to vampires and their capabilities, he's unwilling to use or explain formal names like "Nosferatu" that could draw the wrong kind of attention (which in turn explains why Kitten relies on crude nicknames).
• Lame Rhyme Dodge: The 99p store manager did not call Big D a senile old freak when he was being difficult in his search for a blender. Nooo, she told him to see aisle three, that's where the kitchenware is!
• Landmine Goes Click: Episode 3 features the "just enough warning to panic" version. Pyotr steps on one of the family’s mines accidentally and only has enough time to vaguely realize he’s stepped on something before it’s detonated, gibbing his leg.
• Laughing at Your Own Jokes: In the first audiolog, Big D bursts into extended, uproarious laughter and declarations of how funny he is, after making a "pain in the neck" joke about a decapitated ghost. Kitten is not impressed.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: In the The Blender Crusade: In Spiteful Defiance of Corporate Villainy audiolog, Big-D refers to a store manager trying to get him to calm down as "an antagonist" in "the fiction of his life".
• Looks Like Orlok: The primary defining feature of Pyotr, as a vampire of Clan Nosferatu.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: Big D has this opinion on some of the folklore that Kitten tells him about in the first Audiolog.
  • The ghost that appeared in the well might have had an attachment to the well, which is why he stalked it so closely... or the whole thing could have been made up by the townsfolk as a way to get the government to replace an aging well with a pump.
  • The story of the Witch buried in the Church does have a very accurate description of a Death Curse... but Big D also says that he doesn't believe it, since who would bury someone in the middle of a church?
• Mythology Gag: Unsurprising, due to factors leading to the series' creation.
  • Marckus in particular has a number of callbacks to Magnus the Red. The number 15 (the number corresponding to Magnus' Legion) is referenced a few times, along with Markus having a bad encounter with a clown. Lastly, the symbol on Markus' shirt is a flipped version of the original Yugioh Magic & Wizards logo◊. He's also repeatedly poked or punched in the eye, and has red freckling on his face.
  • Door likewise has many callbacks to Rogal Dorn: His appreciation for well-crafted furniture; his fighting style revolving around defense and fortification, as well as his skill in constructing fortifications and structures. And, of course, his paternal relationship with Boy.
  • Kitten, rather than the Guardian Spear of his Custodian counterpart, fights vampires with a flintlock pistol duct-taped to a broomstick, with a wooden stake bayonet.
  • The family shatters Kevin's concentration by all roaring out the Sly Marbo battlecry in unison.
  • Marckus's thirtieth birthday was said to involve both a children's card game and clowns, in reference to the fact that Magnus had had his very life wagered in both a game of Yu Gi Oh!, and a stand-up contest with Cegorach the Laughing God.
  • Boy makes reference to a vagabond named Krakus who lives in a ditch, based on the Tabletop Adventure character one of the High Lords of Terra made.
  • The titles of the first two episodes are both allusions to If the Emperor Had a Text-to-Speech Device: "Adorable Family Trip" comes from the first episode of TTS, "Adorable Centurion", and "If the Vampires had a Tortured Wrestling Match" is a snowclone of the series' full title.
  • Once again, Marckus's experiments causes issues because of an unforeseen consequence that his father never told him about in an effort to protect him, though instead of a horde of daemons breaking out of the Warp, this time it's a singular, very powerful vampire being let loose in his fiance's house.
  • In the audiodrama "Something is Wrong with Horse", when Horse starts speaking his prophecy of Gehenna to Boy, his eyes bulge out to near-perfect spheres, turn red, and gain a vertical slit for a pupil, mimicking the Eye of Horus, the primary iconography of his namesake character from TTS.
  • Kitten has three brothers (and one sister), a possible reference to the three Fabulous Custodes.
  • In the "Something is Wrong with Horse" audio log, Marckus calls Kitten "Companion," the same thing Magnus calls him after their alliance. Door also calls Kitten "Captain," since his rank was Captain-General in TTS.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
  • In Chapter 2, Marckus gets the idea to organize an impromptu cage match between three of the blood-starved Licks, because he wants to see what happens when vampires feed on each-other. What happens is the winner gaining a power-boost from cannibalizing his fellows, making him strong enough to overcome Door's fortifications to the basement and escape into the household.
  • Marckus bites himself in the ass yet again in Audiolog 5 as his plan to get Brok drunk in a drinking contest while he only drank cider would have worked... had revealing his plan not gotten Brok so angry he sobered up.
• No Kill Like Over Kill: A non-lethal variant, but Kevin ends up having dozens of stakes driven into him before he’s thrown in the family’s bus.
• Non Sequitur, *Thud*: Kevin exclaims "WEED!!" as he's staked.
• Noodle Incident:
  • Big D apparently ruined Marckus' twelfth birthday by dressing up as "the Bog Goblin"
  • The family was banned from the Happisburgh trailer park's public bathroom for something involving Big D's divorce from the owner.
  • Marckus' thirtieth birthday involved something to do with a children's card game and clowns. It's a Mythology Gag, but the in-universe context goes unexplained.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Big-D shows no signs of fear when walking through haunted woods when his family is fighting for their lives against a pack of vampires, or even when he's being stabbed in the neck and drained by Kevin. However, he instantly enters a state of absolute panic when he sees that his sons allowed Pyotr to eat the other two vampires.
  • He also gets completely, deadly serious when warning Kitten not to try and fight a werewolf, underlining how scary and dangerous they are even compared to other monsters.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: After learning about his prisoners' philosophies, Markus feels morally justified in torturing a bunch of vampire fascists.
• Poor Communication Kills:
  • Big-D neglecting to share many details about vampire society or physiology, namely, the consequences of allowing vampires to commit Diablerie, leads to Pyotr consuming his fellow Sabbat and breaking out of the cellar.
  • Discussed and justified in the first audiolog, set in between Episodes 1 and 2: The Masquerade has so many eyes and ears in plain sight (through a network of mortal servants) and is so strict about maintaining its secrecy that even knowing as much as the formal names of different vampiric clans (Such as Tremere or Nosferatu) would risk bringing every vampire in the region down on their heads.
  • And then played straighter when he discusses the incident with Horse. Turns out that Big D expected Marckus to have already known that "One vampire plus one vampire equals a super vampire" due to basic math, which implies that Big D might not get how other people's thought process might not necessarily line up with his own.
• Pragmatic Villainy:
  • Kevin gets angry with one of his fellow vampires for feeding more than he had to. Not because of any moral outrage, but because it drew Hunters to their lair.
  • The Probing of Kevin establishes that Kevin used to be an accountant, and was embraced to serve as the local Tremere Chantry's treasurer. Unfortunately, he fell out of favor when he criticized his masters' reliance on mind-control to keep their minions loyal without having to pay them a living wage, which leaves mortals starving in poverty and creates a dangerous paper-trail.
• Psychic Static: A variation. When Kevin the vampire tries to Dominate the crew a second time, they immediately apply Big-D's strategy of averting eye contact and distracting the target. And this is carried out by way of donning sunglasses, plugging their ears and screaming at the top of their lungs while charging.
• Recurring Riff: The same "Ha Hi Ha Ho" that was prominent during the outtro of If the Emperor Had a Text-to-Speech Device serves as the basis for Hunter: The Parenting's main theme, with multiple varients including "Ha Hi Ha Ho (Intro)", "Ha Hi Ha Ho: Instrumental Jazz Version", and "Ha Hi Ha Ho - Credits: Orchestral Version". Elements of it also crop up in miscellaneous tracks such as "Kitten's Anger".
• Refrain from Assuming: invoked Marckus makes the common mistake of referring to the first opening of Fist of the North Star (called Ai wo Torimodose) as "Yu Wa Shock", due to how prominent those particular lyrics are.
• Right for the Wrong Reasons: In the third episode, Kitten launches into a scathing "The Reason You Suck" Speech at Pyotr to draw him into the minefield planted on the front lawn. The speech lambasts Pyotr for his cowardice and his failure to lead the rest of his Sabbat cronies and then betraying them. It turns out that the speech absolutely does enrage Pyotr, but not because he's ashamed of being a treacherous opportunist - which he is proud of. Rather, it pisses him off because Kitten thought Pyotr suffered from human weaknesses, when he is actually quite happy to be a brutal, inhuman monster.
• Roger Rabbit Effect: The Devil, as he appears in The Stinger of Episode 3, is a live-action human (Karl the Deranged, one of the animators, to be exact), who interacts with Pyotr, a 2D animation.
• Serious Business: Door stops right in the middle of a Vampire Den to measure the board width of a picnic table, declaring that It Must Be Done.
• Shoo Out the Clowns: Downplayed: "A Life Well-Lived" stars the resident goofball Big-D giving comfort to a recently-Embraced old lady before she is brought to burn away in the sun. Everything's played completely seriously and D remains quiet, speaking sparsely and with brief sentences. The standard Stinger with Karl at the end is present, but similarly muted.
• Shout-Out: Just like most of Alfabusa and his team's work, there's references to many memes and media a plenty.
  • Marckus remarking on Big-D's call to Split The Party Up.
    Big-D: Alright! Let's split up!
    Kitten: A— Any particular reason?
    Big-D: IT SHALL BE SPOOKIER THAT WAY.
    Marckus: *drily* Okay Frederick from Spooby-Doob.
  • After the group splits up, a few references pop up as Door and Boy explore the tunnels.
    • Trying to keep himself calm and brave, Boy says to himself "just keep swimmin" repeatedly.
    • As they happen upon a picnic table in the tunnels, Door comments that "It's a surprise, for sure. But a welcome one" while trying to console Boy.
  • Boy riding in Door's modified baby carrier as Dadorable tanks damage for him while wielding a shotgun/stake combo is reminiscent of a Grey Knight Nemesis Dreadknight.
  • Apeboy has a few during the fight in Chapter 1.
    • When lunging at Door, Apeboy the Gangrel vampire lets out a battle cry of "Vae Victus!"
    • Apeboy drops another familiar one-liner during the fight but fumbles it a bit.
    Apeboy: You! -- -Should have... -never should have- -COME HERE - -BLOODBAAAAAAGS!
    • As Apeboy takes a point-blank blast from Door's shotgun, he drops to the ground in the Family Guy death pose.
  • Shitbeard the Brujah rapidly pummeling Kitten during the fight.
    Shitbeard: GETBENTGETBENTGETBENTGETBENTGETBENT
  • Big-D smoking a DMT cigar is one to the memetic scene of King Harkinian smoking in The Kings Epic Adventure.
  • When Door tells Boy to sing the national anthem, he sings Amerika by Rammstein. The next time he sings The Trooper by Iron Maiden
  • In the second episode Apeboy defeats Shitbeard with an Impaler DDT, a finishing move made famous by WWE wrestler Gangrel (who himself was a licensed reference to Vampire: The Masquerade). He even uses Gangrel's Catchphrase, "fangin' and bangin'!"
  • When the spectating hunters can't find Pyotr, Boy makes a VERY funny reference (according to Door).
    Boy: you cant see him! could his time be now???
  • As Door finally takes on Pyotr after the vampire stepped into his minefield, he aims a large revolver at him and gives him a speech that is clearly inspired by Dirty Harry.
  • In the end of the third audiolog Big D hurries people along by shouting a string of move order acknowledgements from Dawn of War.
  • In the fifth audiolog, Grimal is a never-ending source of anime or Japanese media-related references thanks to being an unrepentant weeb.
    • Marckus can no longer watch Hokuto no ken, thanks to Grimal blasting "You Wa Shock" as she tries to sleep.
    • Grimal eagerly uses her yaoi paddle as a weapon and gives quite the anachronistic reference.
  Grimal: I DO NOT DENY MY BLADE IT'S PURPOSE.
• Shown Their Work: The production team researched actual 2006 Norfolk and the area, referencing real-world folklore of the area in episode 1 and referencing real-life locations (though usually because of the unfortunate names) throughout.
  • Along with this, any player of the tabletop game will have a fun time pointing out the systems’ lore and mechanics in the show. Like the clans, disciplines, and how the family hunts the kindred.
• Somewhere, an Equestrian Is Crying: In the Something is Wrong with Horse audiolog, Horse's main symptom of sickness is constantly vomiting copious amounts of blood. Played for Laughs in that such a lethal symptom is treated casually, but horses cannot actually vomit at all. As it turns out, this is a hint that Horse may not be an actual horse.
• Stop, or I Shoot Myself!: At the end of the third audiolog, Guy Chapman threatens to commit Suicide by Cop by attacking Kevin and Big-D if they don't give him a fix of vampire blood. Since the disappearance of a cop wouldn't go unnoticed, it's a legitimate threat.
• Spiked Blood: How Big-D was able to break Kevin's Domination on the rest of his family... by spiking his own blood before starting the exploration.
  Big-D: It's a good thing I came here absolutely FUCKED on DMT! Ah-hahaha-ha AAhahHAAHAAHAHAHAHAHA...
  Kevin: ohhhhh fuck... (Kevin's eyes dilate like Montgomery Burns getting his weekly death-cheating injection.)
• Starter Villain: The four man group of Sabbat vampires. While dangerous, Kitten identifies them as Licks (fledglings), and Big-D comments that the family is not yet in the big leagues when it comes to vampire hunting.
• Talking Is a Free Action: Averted. Apeboy gets shot by Door in the middle of arguing with Kevin.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Kitten gives one of these to Pyotr in Episode 3 over his cowardice and horrible leadership. He calls him out on attacking a child first in the cave, having his comrades do the hard work in the fight while he gets rather easily dealt with, and for instead of breaking up the fight in the cellar and focusing on escaping, he hid invisible in a corner to pick off the winner between Apeboy and Shitbeard.
• Take That!:
  • In Marckus Goes Pubbing, the Kuei Jin are mocked in-universe as a fanciful myth rooted in Orientalism, with Grimaline's belief in them attributed to her generalized Japanophilia, reflecting criticisms levelled at Kindred of the East.
    Marckus: Grimal, my dad tells me literally nothing, ever, and yet even he told me, up front, that the Kuei Jin are just a LARP group based out of LA who hijack concepts from, like, ten different Asian cultures and mash them up without actually knowing anything about them. [...] Yes, [my dad is crazy,] and he still doesn't believe in the "cool special Asian vamp" hoax.
• Tom the Dark Lord:
  • The Great and Mighty Kevin appears to be the leader of the band of vampires in the tunnels. Definitely stronger than the others, but very insistent in letting his name be known despite its mundanity.
  • Given an actual explanation in the third audiolog: when he was first turned he was forced to use a new name by the Camarilla, and when he defected to the Sabbat at great effort he had an insulting nickname until he built up enough respect to be called what he wanted. Going by his birth name is a genuine achievement worth boasting about.
• Turn of the Millennium: Takes place in late 2006, as noted by Marckus setting up a gaming rig in anticipation of Team Fortress 2's release next year. The third audiolog, which takes place immediately following the first story arc (which unfolded over the course of a single night), is specifically dated to the afternoon of December 1st, 2006.
• Villain with Good Publicity: In the fourth audio log, Kitten tells a story of a classmate named Edwin Davies, who was a wealthy, popular student at his university. One day, Kitten discovers Edwin's horrible secret: Edwin is actually a Vampire of the Nagaraja clan, whose members cannibalize their victims in addition to drinking their blood. While Kitten was able to kill Edwin by kicking him out of the window, getting Edwin staked on the iron fence below, his first ever encounter with vampires really traumatized him.
• Wizard Classic: Kevin (a Tremere) dresses like this, leading Kitten to the following exchange.
  Kitten: And you are... a vampire wizard.
  Kevin: HOW WOULD YOU KNOW THIS?!
• Wrestler in All of Us: Apeboy pulls out an Impaler DDT against Shitbeard during their brawl in Chapter 2; fittingly, a finisher associated with WWE wrestler Gangrel.
• Writers Cannot Do Math: Door claims the cellar door can withstand 18000 psi of force, which the subtitles give as "825 kilograms per square centimeter" — in reality, it's just over 1250 kg per cm squared. In a later episode Big D cites this as an example of Door being bad at conversions.

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