Web Animation / Hunter: The Parenting

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

Hunter: The Parenting is an online series of fan animations and audio dramas created by Ogre Popennang Productions, led by Bruva Alfabusa. It is based on The World of Darkness Tabletop RPG series—with a focus on Hunter: The Reckoning—in accordance with Paradox Interactive's Dark Pack Agreement. The show uses elements from If the Emperor Had a Text-to-Speech Device, the production team's previous web show, announced to be on indefinite hiatus on July 29th, 2021 due to Games Workshop's then-new zero-tolerance policy on fan animation.

Taking place in the latter half of 2006, the show follows Big-D, a wildly eccentric but seasoned monster hunter who leads a crusade against the vampire clans invading Norfolk, UK. Accompanying him is his own family, consisting of the exasperated, risk-taking Marckus and his fiancé, the studious and loyal Kitten, along with the practical but inflexible Door and his son, the perpetually terrified but promising young Boy. Also, the family has a horse named Horse, who is D's favorite son. When not fighting vampires or other hostile forces, everyone faces their unique challenges while maintaining this lifestyle, such as the interpersonal struggles between family members, the strained relationship between D's family and facilities dedicated to studying the supernatural, D forming unlikely alliances with some of the creatures he hunts, and many more dramatic and absurd twists and turns along the way.

The first episode was released on YouTube on December 18, 2021, and according to production updates on Alfabusa's Patreon, the series is set to last for 15 animated episodes and any number of audio dramas between them. A playlist containing all its entries can be found here. For those unfamiliar with The World of Darkness, series writer SpeakerD released a video essay about the setting on Alfabusa's channel, to help viewers acclimate to the setting's archetypes and rules.

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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 (possibly-consensual) 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, which is known for being very stereotypically "rural". In Chapter 2, Kitten is 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 poses as a high ranking Camarilla vampire testing the interrogating officer, Detective Sergeant Chapman, on behalf of the Regent of Yarmouth. Chapman, a ghoul blood-bound to the Regent but starving for a fix, immediately believes him after the suggestion of a reward, lets him and the family walk free, and covers up the incident at Big-D's instruction.
• 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. The second audiolog reveals Kevin is the lowest Generation in his pack, and thus the strongest of the four.
• Campbell Country: The gang hunt vampires around Norfolk, England.
• Chekhov's Gag: In Chapter 4, when the Chancellor is calling roll and orders everyone to show their membership cards, Big D butts in, but since his card was confiscated when was banished from the Arcanum, he's forced to use Kevin's stolen driver's license instead. Later, Blacklaw steals it and uses it as 'proof' that Big D is actually the vampire Kevin.
• 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.
  • Chapter 4. After hearing a scream from upstairs, the heroes barge into the room to find Fatigue's mutilated corpse and Spit curled in the room in a fetal position, covered in blood. Occam proclaims whoever did that won't last until morning. Credits roll.
• Closed Circle: Arc 2 starts off with this: there's a mole in the local Arcanum, so the chapter house is sealed until they're rooted out.
• 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 goes 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.
  • The title card of chapter 3 shows Door with Pyotr behind him and Boy behind Pyotr. In the episode Pyotr is ultimately and unexpectedly brought down by Boy's shot as he is about to strike at Door.
• 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, Unsound Effects, 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 asks if he means the 1890's and 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".
• Lie Detector: Remold's "lie detector" has a polygraph attached to a car battery for Electric Torture of the questionee. He claims that the longer the victim refrains from telling the truth, the higher the voltage, fortunately Grimal discovers that any truth is enough to reset it after she says that Brok's face looks like a baboon's backside.
• Locked Room Mystery: In Episode 4, Occam is non-lethally choked unconscious from behind while he's performing his solar magic blood test, despite ostensibly being the only person in a locked room, which only a select few people have access to (specifically Occam, Remold, Dr. Waters and Lord Fatigue). Big-D concludes that ghoul they're hunting may actually be more powerful than they suspected and may have Disciplines from their sire, which was how they managed to surprise Occam and potentially get inside in the first place.
• 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.
  • Kitten and Big-D's Primer on the Supernatural and Local Folklore is a forty-seven minute long reference to the early episodes of "TTS". It consists of Big D (The God Emperor of Mankind) asking Kitten (Custodes Captain-General Kitten) about an aspect of the world or setting, and then having an overblown reaction or being surprisingly knowledgeable about deep background lore on the topic. Kitten even remains vaguely baffled and slightly terrified of Big D like he was in early "TTS" rather than trading sarcastic barbs like he did later on.
  • The halls of the Arcanum's chapterhouse are filled with portraits depicting modified TTS characters, most prominently Ephrael Stern, Lady Aurelia Malys and Inquisitor Fidus Kryptmann (with Champion Calato).
  • One of the briefly glimpsed artifacts in the Arcanum archive is the sanctified null-box that Magnus the Red was delivered to the Emperor in.
• 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.
• Oh, Crap!: Big-D and Marckus both have one together in Chapter 4 when they realize that Remold and Brok have dragged off Kitten, Grimal, and Amanda off to try to uselessly torture the identity of the ghoul out of them.
  Marckus: You're not torturing Elise?
  Big-D: [shocked] Hellsing's Heart, no! What amateur would resort to torture at a time like this?!
  [beat]
  Both: Blacklaw!
• 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.
  • This happens again, twice, in episode 4: first, he identifies Kevin as his source and recognises Giles, but doesn't explain that he also used Kevin as an alias, leading Remold to believe he made the whole thing up and attributed the story to an alias; afterwards, Big-D refuses to mention that the ghoul they're hunting that may have Disciplines from their sire until after Occam's already been choked out, and Markus assumes Big-D is torturing Elise because of his treatment of Kevin.
• 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.
• Present-Day Past: Big D and Occam O'Connell were legally married at one point (proven by Big D flaunting the divorce papers he never bothered to co-sign, sporting a prominent "Norfolk County" in the text). The story is set in December 2006, and same-sex marriage in England and Wales wasn't legalized until 2013.
• 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.
• Pummel Duel: In "Feuds of our Fathers", Big-D and Remold Blacklaw regularly engage in fisticuffs with the opening fight in the conference room essentially becoming a JoJo's Bizarre Adventure-esque punch rush duel (complete with a Stand cry from Big-D).
• "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.
• 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.
• Simple Solution Won't Work: In Chapter 4, to find the ghoul infiltrator, Occam performs a ritual and kicks everyone out of the room, who then split up. Kitten later laments that they should have just sat quietly in a circle until he was done, until it's pointed out that so many people hate each other that they couldn't.
• 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, which makes sense as Chapter 2 reveals he's something of a LARPer.
    • 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 King's 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.
    • Kitten does not allow Marckus to watch Hokuto no ken anymore, thanks to Grimal blasting "Ai Wo Torimodose!!" for 10 hours a day back when they were together.
    • 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.
  • In the gamer podcast audiolog, one of the games installed on Marckus' desktop is "Frankenstein: Breadlust", referencing a radio gag advertisement from Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines.
  • During Chapter 4, Big D makes a face eerily similar to King Harkanian's memetic "Mah boi" face, even raising his hand to complete the look.
  • Also from Chapter 4, Big D and Remold Blacklaw get into a fistfight resembling the famous flurry of blows from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, complete with Big D shouting "D D D D D D D D D" as a warcry.
  • Occam's use of Solar Sorcery is preceded by him taking a deep breath, mixed in with the earlier JoJo's Bizarre Adventure reference and one can come to the conclusion he's a basically a Hamon user.
  • A tapestry in the Arcanum archive depicts Ruber from Quest for Camelot killing Sir Lionel with his mace. Which also references a video made by Karl The Deranged editing the scene of Ruber's rebellion to be Bloodier and Gorier.
• 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.
• 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 especially since Chapman had just finished interrogating a bunch of people that evening (the Family) who had two corpses in their basement.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
  • In "Hunter's Hunters Hunted", Marckus reasons that if they lure Pyotr outside, he'll have to fight them in the open. So he jumps out his bedroom window... And immediately breaks both legs from the two-story drop.
  • The Blender Crusade video shows the consequences of what the inability of managing finances causes, especially when you carelessly throw away the accountant you specifically embraced to try and manage that upkeep simply because they became a Bearer of Bad News when they deliver the reality that you cannot just keep going to the simple solution of draining your ghouls' finances since it leaves a nasty paper trail for you to collect. The end result? The Regent's command in the region is practically destitute, being forced to operate underneath a 99p store that cannot even afford the most basic of security, and is financially struggling to make ends meet as the workers (save for the daughter of the Regent herself) barely do anything to keep prying eyes out, leading to many potential Masquerade violations that Big-D just stumbles into as he browses about, with the only real deterrent of him just flat out ousting the whole location being... something beyond either party's complete understanding... but the Regent has positively screwed herself by her refusal to acknowledge the need of a good accountant like Kevin to keep her control of the region secret.
• 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.
• 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.
• Talk to the Fist: Apeboy gets shot by Door in the middle of arguing with Kevin.
• 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 two nights), 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.
• Why Don't You Marry It?: When Occam and Big D are arguing over allowing Coalition oversight over his chapter of the Arcanum, Big D uses this retort. The kicker? Occam was married to Big D.
  Occam: I'd trust "Big Government" over Big D any day!
  Big D: Why don't you marry HIM then?!
  Occam: ...WHO!? That's not a-
  Big D: Find me a politician more virile than me! I'LL WAIT!!
• Wizard Classic: Kevin (a Tremere) dresses in a blue robe and floppy hat, 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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