#Vampyre ask

[annabelle--cane]

youtuber/podcaster/writer/etc: here's a history of development of vampires in pop culture

me: yayyy say more

them: so they originate folklore, and then the first work of literature about them was penned in 1816, the year without a summer, when lord byron-

me: I Know More Than You

[mayhemchicken-varneyposting]

In a post you said "if you want this trope or that trope that you keep inserting in Dracula, read Varney instead!" And omg you're right. I could add "If you want a vampire story that puts the spotlight on the titular character and gives them tons of screentime, read Varney instead."

Which made me realize the same applies to Carmilla… "You want a story with a badass vampire slayer from a vampire-hunter bloodline, who has connections to the titular vampire, and is the one who kills it? Carmilla." "Want a dangerous but sympathetic vampire with a tragic backstory? Carmilla." "Vampire who obsessively loves a girl and awakens Thoughts in her? Carmilla."

Everyone wants Dracula to be the everything vampire and he really isn't. (I would argue Varney is, but I am biased.) Of the various literary vampires, Dracula is the best horror monster; for all other purposes, one of the others is better suited.

Tragic/sympathetic monster? Varney/Carmilla. Suave/seductive? Literally any of the others - Ruthven, Varney, Carmilla and Clarimonde all do this in some flavor. The only person Dracula ever seduces is Jonathan and he can't even do that without turning it into a grueling psychological torture. The vampire is the protagonist? That would be Varney (the back half of it, at least). The vampire did nothing wrong actually? Clarimonde. Saved/redeemed by the power of love? Also Clarimonde (Varney gets an honorable mention for trying on this one but it never actually happens). Sexy Liberator? Surprise, that one's actually The Black Vampyre (RIP king your vampire revolution should have succeeded).

[wniemocy]

Okay, I'm sorry for kinda making this blog a mess, by throwing screaming cats at you. But I have genuine question.

Would you see those two as a stickers? Would you like to see characters from Vampyr in this style as stickers? Because I could make that happen :-]

I could even do a poll I guess.

[burntoutgiftedidiot]

Vampyr (2018) x House MD

[welldonekhushi]

Bless you for your Vampyr support, in these trying times!

THIS 👏🏻 FANDOM 👏🏻 NEEDS 👏🏻 TO 👏🏻 STAY 👏🏻 ALIVE! I'm glad I can be of service! I'm very happy that people like you still continue to post your work over this underrated game and it makes me relieved as someone who revisited this game after six years. Vampyr peeps, where you at?

Oh, also! Yesterday I also finished a McCullum sketch after completing the Reid one! Here's what it looks like, and I hope you like it! <3

[miausterx0x]

the demons are demanding that you draw fangblade kissing, otherwise its eternal damnation.. sorry :/

i fear the demons are gonna get to me,,,

THAT IS if i didnt have this hidden camera

I've drawn fangblade kissing seriously a whopping 3 TIMES!!! one reason is bc drawing ppl kissing is hard man ;(

[wulfhalls]

favourite dracula adaptation?

phantom der nacht!!!! werner herzog kinski adjani AND bruno ganz????? collaboration of all time (after stoker) its beautiful it's dreamy it's ephemeral it's nightmarish it's a gothic fairy tale it has klaus kinski in acrylics going ape shit and it has ROMANCE. everyone should watch it and be enchanted immediately

[indianaterrors221]

To all the vampires/vampire enthusiasts of Tumblr:

[foolscapper]

How about kobra kid #15?

a two-for-one of the venom brothers

[mayhemchicken-varneyposting]

yeah vampires having a preference for like, young humans, makes sense. more robust blood. but unless you are plagued by victorian sensibilities that think defiling purity is peak horror then people of all genders and all sexual experience being equally in danger is more scary! imagine dracula going to turn mina and being like, curses, i was going to inflict my revenge but she's got solicitor action. ant_with_bindle.jpg

i don't blame you drawing him biting everyone

Frankly I think even if you're plagued by Victorian sensibilities the equal-opportunity vampire is still scarier. Look at the Demeter sequence, and the reaction of the first mate - he's not scared Dracula is going to punch him or stab him or whatever, he's afraid for his very soul, and his reaction reflects that fear - he throws himself into the sea rather than die at Dracula's hands. There's still very much a sense of defilement - vampirism corrupts the soul. Humanity itself is the pure thing being defiled.

The thing is, Rymer knows this. The townsfolk spend much of the story fearing vampire attacks from every quarter. In their eyes, no one is safe - men, women, children, even cattle. But he won't or can't commit to the notion entirely, and the many, MANY male characters who wind up in a position that ought to end with fangs in their neck instead simply get stabbed, or strangled, or someone else conveniently shows up and chases Varney off, or whatever.

I do think there must have been some taboo about men getting bitten in vampire stories, given that even in Dracula such events are strongly hinted at, but never shown explicitly on-page. The Vampyre, too, shies away from the subject - in that quote I posted earlier, Aubrey (the protagonist and point-of-view character) is attacked by Ruthven, and the story even goes so far as to describe him as "prey", but Ruthven is chased away before any biting can happen. (To be fair, given Ruthven's habits Aubrey probably wouldn't have survived if he had been bitten.) Carmilla preys on a girl. Clarimonde drinks blood from a man, but doesn't bite him. The only outlier I can think of would be Aurelia, although she leans more ghoul than vampire. Varney, being chock full of lurid penny dreadful descriptions, probably can't afford to let any men get attacked - Rymer is not a subtle enough writer to coyly imply such a thing happening.

I'm not giving him a pass though because the whole concept is rooted in sexism and probably some amount of homophobia, and also his stupid penny dreadful would have been a thousand times better if even 10% of his dumbass characters got drinked when they should have been.

[yallemagne]

Kind of basic bur Top 5 books .. ..? Maybe 5 fiction and 5 non fiction if you’re feeling free

and you cant say FraCula . Okay you can i don’t control you

I am deeply sorry, anon, because when I made that "call me beep me if you wanna reach me" post, I'd completely forgotten that I disabled email notifications for my inbox because of bots.

This is fucking rough. Mostly because I just spent an hour typing out a response (too much effort for a tier list request, I know) and then Tumblr chewed it up. How did I ever manage to write full essays on here back in the day without typing them up somewhere else??? BUT ALSO because I feel like such a fake literature fan. I feel like I've read nothing at all. There are so many books that are staples that I haven't read. There are so many books on my shelf that I haven't finished.

"FraCula"? I presume you mean Frankenstein and/or Dracula? Yeah, lol, no. They are not making the top 5. You'd think that they would because of how much time I have dedicated to them, but that's probably the issue jiopegprio. If I were to rank them, Frankenstein may win over Dracula simply because I have so many more feelings about the latter than the former. Which doesn't make sense, right? But the Dracula fever was a turbulent time in my life, and though I love so much about the novel, I hate so much as well (and those things I hate are because I love the other things with such ferocity). Though... I do have to restrain myself from getting into fights with "Victor Frankenstein is the real monster!!!" people. But isn't the fact that I am able to restrain myself further proof that I love Frankenstein less? That I fight for it less?

Oh well. Onto the actual list:

Twenty-Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne Absolute comfort novel, and I wish I had been introduced to it YEARS AGO when I got it for my friend because it was on their wishlist. I'll never forgive. Though, maybe I wouldn't have been able to appreciate it in middle school. This novel was such a positive influence in my life when I was reading it (on this very blog, you can see it helping me through some traumatic shit in real time). I have never touched any adaptations or "sequels" of it and never wish to. [From this point on, the list order is just chronological to when I read the books.]

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott This book will always have a place in my heart because it felt like the first "real book" I ever finished. My mom was very excited when I finished it. So she got me the actual book. Yeah... the book I had finished had been an abridged illustrated version. But still! The excitement (and confusion) on Christmas day when Ma gave me a copy of the real book.

The Silverwing Trilogy by Kenneth Oppel Keeping with the trend set by Little Women, I actually first found this story through the animated adaptation of it. It wasn't until years later when my cousin coincidentally got me the book series as a gift (literally just bc I love bats) that I even knew there were books. Reading them was so fun, rediscovering moments that were in the animated adaptation, newly discovering moments that were left out. I unfortunately fell off with the third book due to how unfamiliar it was, though. Still. Great fun. [people are gonna fuckin roast me for having children's books in this list and not something refined like Les Mis... that is one of the books languishing on my shelf after I failed to get past the first few chapters in middle school]

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson Yet ANOTHER book I learned of primarily through adaptation... though this novella has no good adaptations. The reason? They always disregard Utterson! My beloved POV character. I do not relate to him in the SLIGHTEST, I love him so much.

The Vampyres by C.R. Kane If this list were in any particular order, this would be right after Twenty-Thousand Leagues. And the two would be tied if not for a singular detail that made me lose my shit. The author knows what they did. Let me just... put my book review here:

Roses. Garlic. Ash. The Vampyres is a story about the hunter becoming the hunted. This story was delightful to read. Kane introduces the protagonist, Gordon Williams, and his peers: members of the undead who have made pacts with gods to be indestructible, not even threatened by wards that we commonly know to work against undead monsters like garlic and holy symbols. And then, once the reader is confident in the vampires’ total invincibility, Kane pulls the rug from under their feet and introduces a horror that even the proud and complacent Gordon dreads. Every character introduced is fleshed out by the narration, even minor victims of Gordon’s bloodthirst, creating a world that feels lively beyond the protagonist’s supernaturally broad perspective. I’d recommend this story to anyone for its thrilling action, striking prose, and potent emotions.

Just go fucking read it, dude. I need you to read this book. Read The Vampyres by C.R. Kane.

[kiivg]

.I hope you'll understand, why Geoffrey's not in work today.

[bl00dforthought]

When people draw art of vampires who have just fed/are actively feeding and they're doused, soaked, drowned in blood and all you can think is

"tch, messy fangsmanship? Amateurs"

[welldonekhushi]

Geoffrey: I am the Vampire Hunter! The Leader of the Priwen Guards!

Edgar: Vampires quivers before HIM!

Geoffrey, flipping his fingers at Johnathan: FUCK OFF!

Johnathan: ......I didn't even kill ANYONE-

HAHAHA THAT WAS A GOOD ONE!!! 😂

What's even funny is that regardless Jonathan did nothing wrong, Geoffrey would always be the one to blame him for any of the mess that happens around, and it's absolutely canon. The doctor doing nothing? Geoffrey be like, "Beat his ass, guards."

Why do I feel they all deserve a sitcom? With the Pembroke Hospital staff and Priwen Guards? This would be a really fun idea, but maybe that could be in store for another time. But anyways, I loved it sm Taro haha!!

[spookythesillyfella]

LaLa : *gives Sketchbook like 2 gallons of blood* Here, take this and don't ask where I got it from :]

"Sketch, is this an appropriate time to–"

"Yes; it's a great time to start running,"

[marzipanandminutiae]

lmao I think as soon as I sent my numbers, all the questions I asked got answered. One not on the list, though: what advice would you give to aspiring collectors?

Yes, I'm afraid so! Sorry, I was answering asks I got while at work today.

I'd say, know what you want and collect for the joy of it. Value will go up and down like the waves, but your collection will always make you happy if you follow your heart.

Also, reverse image search photos in online listings that seem too good to be true- a lot of scammers take photos from other listings, re-post them with a lower (but still not usually cheap) price, and then disappear when they have your money.