Izabel is a Filipina call-centre agent. She bickers and banters with her millennial officemates. She handles infuriated calls from foreigners. She sets off feelings in her team leader. And she also happens to be at least 150 years older than anyone in the office, drinks blood for survival, and can't go out in the sun.
That's right, Forever Sucks, a Filipino Urban Fantasy webseries from Digital 5 (D5) Studios, the Internet arm of media network TV-5, centres around a 170-year-old vampire who happens to work at a call centre, and why wouldn't she? The hours are perfect for night owls like her. It doesn't make interacting with humans any easier though.
The entire 3 seasons so far are available here
, along with the featured soundtrack.
Has earned fan comparisons to Orange Marmalade, a Korean manhwa and later series about a vampire also adjusting to live in human society.
Relevant Tropes:
- Deadpan Snarker: Nancy Jane. Comes with her "kind of a bitch" personality (as quoted by Tony in her performance review).
- Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette / Raven Hair, Ivory Skin: Just look at Izabel in the page image; perfect for (stereotypical) vampire complexions. It helps that her actress Jasmine Curtis-Smith is half-white (which, for better or worse, is seen as more favourable to audiences and corporate bottom lines in the Philippine entertainment industry).
- Friendly Neighbourhood Vampire: Izabel. She's really likeable and apologetic for any "weirdisms" borne out of the necessities of her, er, lifestyle. She won't tolerate other vampires seeing her friends as food, however.
- Gratuitous English: It's a Philippine call centre, one of the primary economic drivers of a country directly colonised by the United States, so of course. Even when not responding to foreigners' calls a lot of the characters engage in long unbroken stretches of English. Truth in Television particularly in urban centres like Metro Manila (where the call centre is presumably located), where it's common to codeswitch between Tagalog (or other Philippine languages) and English.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Nancy Jane.
- Meaningful Name:
- Probably not intentional, but "Izabel" is a Hispanic derivative of "Elizabeth", as in reputed Blood Bather Elizabeth Báthory.
- The call centre itself in a meta sense; it's named Harker & Helsing, after two of the human protagonists of Dracula (though strictly speaking the latter surname should be "van Helsing"), but it could also remark on the fact that the rest of the call centre is filled with humans unwittingly working with a vampire (or more!), and some of them slowly discover the truth, like Jonathan Harker himself eventually did.
- Old, Dark House: Izabel's home. The production crew chose what looks like a big, old, American-colonial-era house for the interiors and the front door shots. All the curtains are drawn inside, for obvious reasons.
- Operator from India: From the Philippines in this case. It's Izabel's and her coworkers' day job—ahem, night job. Makes sense that if a vampire can burn up in the sun, her options are obviously limited to the night shift.
- Our Vampires Are Different: Many of the standard Western vampire tropes apply to Izabel and other vampires in this series—they drink blood (duh), burn up in the sunlight, are biologically immortal, and appear to have Super-Strength and lightning reflexes, among others. Instead of lying prone in a coffin, however, Izabel sleeps upside-down like a bat, and she and other vampires are capable of telepathic Mind Control. Also, it's reasonable to think they're not affected by crosses, given they live smack dab in one of the only two overwhelmingly Catholic countries in Asia—if crosses affected them, they'd have all either died long ago or else fled to literally any other Asian country (except Timor-Leste, the other overwhelmingly Catholic Asian country). Their irises can also turn red (or at least Izabel's does).
- Notably, they are portrayed with the abilities and habits of generically-Western vampires, instead of being like indigenous-Filipino vampire equivalents, like the aswang or manananggal.
- Pun-Based Title: Because living forever, well, sucks. Like vampires, you know, suck blood … get it? No?
- Really 700 Years Old: Izabel is explicitly said to be 170, so in a series which debuted in 2016, this would put her birthdate around 1846.
- Ship Tease: Izabel with her team leader, Tony, for much of Season 1. Also a bit with their officemates Pol and Nancy Jane.
- Shout-Out: Pretty blatantly in the call centre's name, Harker & Helsing.
- Tsundere: Nancy Jane, at least as far as Pol is concerned.
- Urban Fantasy
- Vegetarian Vampire: Izabel drinks from blood bags presumably taken from hospitals and blood banks, though it's not to say she's not attracted when her coworker Phyllis gets a nosebleed. Other vampires in the show have no such reservations about feeding directly on humans.
- Vlog Series: Not the show itself, but Phyllis tries to start a vlog in-universe and has to fend off trolls and cancerous comments. (Shades of Laura Hollis, perhaps?)
- Weakened by the Light: When Izabel is once forced out of her Old, Dark House in broad daylight to help out Nancy Jane, she starts visibly smokingnote .
