#a vampire in new england

[gwen-writes]

so... i couldn't stop thinking about how hilarious it would be if Astarion planar travelled to my roommate and i's dorm room accidentally (thanks Gale), and i wrote it. forgive any formatting errors, this is my first time posting fic-type writing to tumblr!

totally self-indulgent, silly fun. enjoy if you want!

(1357 words) and shoutout to my bestie "isolde" :) love u

IF YOU WANT MORE OF THIS, check it out on my ao3! gwen_writes

A Vampire in New England

With a quick huff toward her candlewick, the smell of “warm luxe cashmere” was replaced with the pungent sting of smoke. Two clicks and the lamp was out, the two women crawling into bed and whispering among themselves. Sleep ached behind Isolde’s eyes, only allowing her a few more blinks before she was lulled into a dream. Fiora stretched and groaned in her cot, wishing she could sleep as easily as her roommate.

Fiora’s brows softened as she soothed herself with deep breaths, waiting for rest to overcome her. An incomprehensible roar shattered her resolve, glares of purple beaming in a flash of swirling magic. Her eyes couldn’t adjust to the light - she squinted and desperately tried to comprehend what was before her. The beacon dispelled just as soon as it had appeared, and Fiora willed against her paranoia to not panic at the sight of a figure in her room.

“I will never trust Gale again,” A smarmy voice hissed. The shadows allowed no outline of the thing on the floor, but she could see that it was sprawled out on her patterned rug. She was stunned into silence, glued to her sheets in place. Every nerve in her body was screaming for her to alert Isolde - who was remarkably still asleep next to her - to alert anyone. But who, exactly, are you supposed to call when a glowing force materializes in your room and dispenses a person in its wake?

Fiora turned her head to look at Isolde, telepathically pleading for her to stir. That was a mistake, notably, because she had caught the guest’s attention.

“Oh, hells,” Something glinted in the dim light, and she realized this visitor had weapons. “Am I going to have to kill you, or are you going to be ever so intelligent and let me walk free?”

Isolde shifted in her blankets. Fiora’s wide eyes darted between her roommate, then the unwelcome presence. Moments passed, and Fiora couldn’t manage any words out of her mouth.

“An answer would be helpful, truly,” Their voice was smooth and fulsome.

“Don’t kill me, please,” She blustered, more pathetic than she wanted it to be. “Just get the fuck out of my room - it’s fine.”

“Wonderful,” They said in a singsong voice. As her eyes adjusted, Fiora was able to make out more features now. White hair, distinctive red eyes. Not intimidatingly tall - they couldn’t be much taller than her. The figure turned sharply, but it suddenly went aflame with a string of profanity. 

“What the fuck!” Fiora jumped out of bed. If the sprinklers went off or something went wrong, she assumed this person wouldn’t hesitate to stab her. Isolde finally awoke, rushing out of bed in a frenzy.

“What! What? What!” She yelped, first giving a worried look to her friend and then looking at the blurry mass of fire. “Oh my god!” Isolde pushed her glasses onto her nose, trying to grapple with her surroundings.

Fiora was scrambling to unscrew her water bottle and douse the open flame, and in its light she could finally see the person. A man with sharp features, extravagant leathers, thick boots. He looked like he had just come from a Ren Faire. 

“What the fuck is going on!” Isolde started opening her water bottle to contribute. “Why is the room on fire!” “It’s a person!” Fiora unhelpfully explained, thoughts racing. She pushed past the flaming body, the fire licking her cotton pajamas, and opened the door. There was one open square on the man’s back, and with the miniscule amount of force in her body, she pressed both of her palms to him, and shoved.

He writhed on the ground, sparks finally deteriorating.

“Don’t even ask me anything, because I don’t know what the fuck is going on,” Fiora said to Isolde, exasperated. A laugh threatened to escape her lips, adrenaline coursing through her.

“I slept through a man appearing in our room?” Isolde replied, and the two women were transfixed by the charred man on their dorm hall floor, despite their better judgment. 

“My stomach hurts. I’m sweating,” Fiora hissed. “You should’ve seen it - it doesn’t make any sense. I was trying to fall asleep and this huge light showed up, and it was the loudest noise I’ve ever heard in my life, I swear to god. And then, he was just there! He was just… on our floor!”

“What do we do with him?” Isolde asked.

Fiora eyed her wildly, “What do you mean ‘what do we do with him?”

“He sounds like he’s magic, or something,” Isolde shrugged.

“He threatened to stab me before you woke up,” Fiora emphasized.

“But what if he’s a wizard?” Isolde whined.

“Oh my god, I can’t,” Fiora started laughing. 

“Nothing cool ever happens, this could be, like, something crazy that we might miss out on!” She bargained.

“Okay, so what do you suggest we do with him?” Fiora crossed her arms. The cold air from outside of their dorm was tickling her bare arms.

“We should help him! He’s burned to a crisp!” Isolde gestured to the limp man, who was still groaning on the floor.

“If he’s a wizard, he can heal himself,” She narrowed her eyes.

“You’re telling me that a wizard just showed up on our doorstep from a portal and you don’t want to know where he came from, who he is, every single thing he’s ever done in his life?” Isolde tempted.

Fiora gave her a long look, “You’re so right.”

“Do you think he’s knocked out?” Isolde looked upon the man.

“I doubt he would survive that,” Fiora reasoned.

“Okay, each of us takes an arm, and then we pull him back into our room. University Police will nab him if they find a sleeping man outside our door.”

As they kneeled down, hands going under the man’s shoulders, his eyes cracked open and he cut through their plans.

“Lay one more finger on me and I will have your head on a stake,” He threatened. Isolde was faster to jump away than Fiora, like a rabbit in the grass with a snake.

“I told you he was violent!” Fiora hissed.

“He’s a wizard!” Isolde defended.

He pushed himself onto his elbows, scowling, “That is insulting. I am not a wizard.”

“What are you, then?” Isolde’s eyes widened with alarm.

“If you must know,” He smiled easily, as if he hadn’t just been scorched moments prior, “I am a magistrate from Baldur’s Gate.”

“Where the fuck is Baldur’s Gate?” Fiora frowned.

“Faerûn,” He threw up a hand like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Uncultured little thing, you are.”

“Why would a magistrate show up in my room from a magic portal?” Isolde’s eyes narrowed. “You’re just a civilian officer. You can’t be that important.”

“Yeah,” Fiora dogpiled, “And why did you catch on fire?”

He chuckled, rising to his feet. Fiora was right, he was barely taller than her. The cracks on his skin from the burns were slowly fading, but bruises peppered his face. A handsome face, Fiora thought.

“Both of you are very inquisitive,” He complimented, which made Fiora’s stomach curdle. He suddenly seemed much less helpless, and much more like a sneering wolf.

“If you answer our questions, we can help you get back to.. Baldur’s Gate, or whatever it was,” Isolde was uncharacteristically bold. The man raised a brow, considering the offer.

“And where are we now, exactly?” He surveyed their surroundings, and it was clear that despite his blind confidence, this man was very, very lost.

“The United States. New England. Our college dorm,” Fiora offered simply. The man rolled his eyes, not to them but almost to someone in the sky.

“Gods, Gale, I’m going to fucking kill you,” He cursed in a sing-song voice under his breath. He blinked a few times, looked to the ground, and then met their gaze again.

“I’m Astarion,” He raised out a pale hand, “you are?”

“I’m Fiora,” She didn’t take his hand, anxiety still going rampant in her veins.

“Isolde,” The red-haired woman smiled and took his hand, shaking it gently.

[jannacalendar]

I understand why it wasn't possible, but it's such a shame we couldn't get Jenny back for The Wish. She and Giles fighting a losing battle side by side and being hardened from it, but remaining each other's solace. Them piecing together the puzzle Cordelia presents to them and having faith in a world better than this, only for Anyanka to try and throw them by hinting at Jenny's death should they return. Giles faltering at the thought of losing her and Jenny, once again, sacrificing herself and destroying the necklace. The way she sees it: she'll either be dead by The Master's hand or by her own, and only one of those inevitabilities gives the man she loves a chance of survival. She kisses him as she plunges herself into the abyss, wanting the last thing she experiences to be his love.

Giles waking up the following morning, the pang in his heart he always feels whenever he remembers Jenny accompanied by a newfound feeling of emptiness, and he's not quite sure why.

[marzipanandminutiae]

What’s the New England vampire panic?

:D

:D :D :D

IT. IS. FUN.

(to research- it was probably horrifying to live through. just so we're clear)

basiclly, it was a series of incidents in response to tuberculosis outbreaks throughout New England (Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Maine, and Vermont) during the late 18th and 19th centuries. it wasn't actually a single event, but rather isolated cases of TB being blamed on revenants rather than disease. where this belief prevailed, people frequently exhumed the alleged vampire, burned their heart or another organ on a blacksmith's anvil, and mixed the ashes into water for living consumptive people to drink

unsurprisingly, this never worked

though the earliest documented incident was in 1793, most people's awareness of this phenomenon coalesces around the 1892 death and exhumation of Mercy Lena Brown, of Exeter, Rhode Island. after dying of TB at age 19, Mercy was posthumously accused of afflicting her brother with the disease. despite drinking the ashes of her heart and liver in water, he- shocker! -died. the Brown case reached the popular press, who reacted to it with a sort of morbid fascination. "look what these crazy backwards Country People did" energy. Brown's grave has become a popular site for legend-tripping among Exeter teens since then- the game is to stand there and say, "Mercy Lena Brown, are you a vampire?" and see what happens

aforementioned classism and/or regional prejudice is a fascinating aspect of the Vampire Panic(s). like I said, a lot of the commentary- even going back to the 18th century -takes a tone of bemused horror that such superstitions could still exist, and of judgment on the intelligence of those involved

but honestly, before widespread understanding of TB bacteria...it COULD have been vampires, for all people knew. most of them were aware that it wasn't, but when your choices are "it's a disease; do nothing and watch your loved one die" vs. "it's vampires; do this thing and your loved one might not die, even though there's no proof it works," one might want to feel like one was at least trying

and unlike other mass hysteria cases a la Salem, nobody actually got killed because of a Vampire Panic. just saying

(there's a theory that Bram Stoker may have been partially inspired by the Brown case in writing Dracula, but I've seen no compelling evidence that it inspired him any more or less than any other vampire story)

[bandydear]

Daniel Molloy:

The Vampire Armand:

[sixminutestoriesblog]

Mercy Brown: when superstitions go awry

Tuberculosis is an insidious disease that comes in quietly and sweeps away entire families, rarely content with just one or two before its run its course. This slowly dividing bacteria travels from host to host through aerosol droplets via sneezing, coughing, speaking and other airborne paths. Considering the fact that TB attacks the lungs most often, resulting in, among other things, coughing up bloody phlegm, this means its highly transmissible and yet, luckily, very slow to be caught by the average passer-by. The longer someone spends with the sick person, and the less well ventilated an area is, the more likely the disease is to pass on to the next victim. Most people that came down with TB caught it from sick family members. These days we have a vaccine against it but TB has been around for most of humanities' recorded history, with even Egyptian mummies having been found with physical evidence of it. In Victorian (and later) times the disease was referred to as 'consumption' with little understanding of its source or its cause, an unknown horror that seemed to come from nowhere, prey on an entire family or community and than vanish again just as mysteriously.

In 1883 (or 1884 or 1888 -the dates are all over the place), a woman in Exeter, Rhode Island by the name of Mary Eliza died of 'consumption'. Six months later, her oldest daughter, Mary Olive, joined her in the graveyard. The distraught husband, George, waited, one can only imagine, with terror for the rest of their children to be swept away as well but for the next several years, all was well in the family. Then, in the cold months at the end of 1891, his daughter Mercy Lena came down with consumption.

From our place, safely in the future, we can look at the case and wonder if she was exposed to a new strain that finally found a weak spot the previous one hadn't and laid claim to her. It's entirely possible however that the same bacteria that killed her mother was now killing Mercy as well. Mercy might have contracted what's known as latent TB from her mother, a case where the bacteria lies dormant in the system, the victim a benign carrier who can't infect others until something, usually an event that suppresses the immune system, triggers it into a full blow, active bought. Whatever the case, whether it was a new infection or the haunting family ghost of her mother's older one, Mercy, and her younger brother Edwin, both came down with active TB in 1891. Edwin, a teenager at the time, was sent to Colorado in the hopes it would heal him - but Mercy died in the first month of the new year, going the way of her mother and older sister before her to the grave. She was only 19.

The story should have stopped there.

I wouldn't be writing about this if it had.

Edwin returned from Colorado and his health continued to decline. Soon, if nothing changed, he would follow the majority of his family into the grave. The neighbors had a plan though. They just needed his father's permission.

What they proposed was that an evil entity was draining the life of the Brown family, picking them off one at a time and returning for each new victim. The evil that was killing the family - was a member of the family.

Here's where we get into the superstition part of things. If you read articles online about Mercy Brown you'll find the word 'vampire' thrown around a lot. It was the word used in the newspapers of the time, that caught wind of what the neighbors planned, and its also modern culture, thanks in large part to Bram Stroker's Dracula (there is speculation that his character of Lucy might have had its roots in stories he'd read about Mercy in the newspapers of his time. Dracula, remember, was published in 1897). A dark force, rising from the grave to suck the life out of its victims. Well, yes - and no. Modern vampires, the way we collectively view them now, with fangs and a hunger for blood, creeping around through windows and walking among us on our crowded nighttime streets is a new reskinning. During Mercy's time, and much much further back than that, the 'vampire' associated with disease like TB was much more nebulous. For many cultures, what was rising out of the grave to drain the life from its own family had more resemblance to an angry or hungry ghost, than a walking, talking monster. A distinction that, realistically, has no bearing on the end result but, metaphysically, the story changes. It becomes something personal, to the victim and the neighbors around the family, someone they knew in life, someone they watched die. It's the sorrow and the potential rage and absolutely the confusion of why it happened in the first place, rising like fog from the grave to whisper across the landscape, trying to take what it once had back to the cold of its tomb with it. It's the familiar knock of a friend at the door when the friend isn't there anymore. It's the smile you knew all the nineteen years of its life on the other side of the window on a moonless night. When the neighbors wanted to dig up Eliza, Olive and Mercy, there was the quiet whisper that traced back through a thousand ancestors into the far past of humanity that murmured that love doesn't die when the body does - and that that's terrifying, not comforting.

George, with his son dying, agreed to let the neighbors go digging up his family. Maybe he believed them, some accounts say he didn't, but whatever the case, he let them pull up the bodies of his dead loved ones out of their cold graves in the late winter and lay them out right there for testing. Mary Eliza and Mary Olive were safe. They were too rotted to be the hungry ghost that was trying to take young Edwin with it. Mercy however - Mercy, according to the reporter that was onsite to record all of this, looked far too fresh to be a two month old corpse. Her hair and nails had grown, her body looked unblemished, reports said her body had shifted since it had been laid out and, most damning of all, when her chest was cut open by the local doctor, her organs were found to still have blood in them. It wasn't important that Mercy's body had been in the ground during some of the coldest, and therefor most preserving, months of the year. They certainly didn't know about the buildup of gas in a body that can make it move or the way the skin shrinks and pulls back from nails and hair, making them seem to grow. No. What they saw was that Mercy wasn't content to travel into death alone. She wanted her baby brother to go with her.

So they burned her heart on a stone in the graveyard, put the ashes in a drink and had Edwin chug it down. In a move that dates back to, at least, Achilles desecrating Hector's body in the Iliad, you rob a ghost of its power by mangling the body that ties it to both this world, and its recognizable identity.

It didn't work. Within two months, Edwin was dead as well. The story however, lived on. Perhaps in Stoker's Dracula and certainly in the papers of the day. Mercy was, perhaps, the last body dug up in New England and given the 'vampire' treatment. She wasn't the only one however. There are at least six other recorded, and possibly other unmarked, instances during what came to be known as the New England Vampire Panic that swept the upper US during the 1800s. Mercy, at this point, seems to be the last, coming in on the tail end of the old century and the beginning of the new. A last flicker of the old superstitions dying out in the face of rising science.

[candela888]

Vampires and other Vampiric entities in the folklore of the Americas & Europe 🧛🏻‍♀️

[cryptid-quest]

Cryptid of the Day: New England Vampire

Description: From the late 1700s to the late 1800s, there were 12 reports cases of vampire panics in New England. Villagers would dig up graves, mutilate carcasses, and rebury them. The reason for this boils down to superstition and a misunderstanding of diseases during that time. 

[foxspit]

Essi by @foxspit

[fallen-faerie]

its been confirmed: there are vampires where i live🦇

but u guys already knew that because i'm here ;) i love being from nightmare new england🕸️🍂🩸

here is the book i'm currently reading with a snippet about encounters from my state [massachusetts] 🧛🏻‍♀️🍷🩸🦇

[tiny-elf-of-doom]

🎨 I’m getting this dollhouse for my birthday soon, so… 🏡

[k-i-l-l-e-r-b-e-e-6-9]

𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝔐𝔦𝔡𝔫𝔦𝔤𝔥𝔱 ℌ𝔬𝔲𝔯 (յգՑՏ) 𝔡𝔦𝔯𝔢𝔠𝔱𝔢𝔡 𝔟𝔶 𝔍𝔞𝔠𝔨 𝔅𝔢𝔫𝔡𝔢𝔯

[lxvenderghost]

ʚ♡ɞ creepy grl ʚ♡ɞ

[aboutl0ve]

[annamadsen]

I hate drama

yet I’m so fucking

melodramatic

shot on 35mm Cinestill 400 film || Jim Thorpe PA, USA || 2021

[atu433b]

@writerman @twilight-secret-gift-exchange

[horror-aesthete]

Dark Shadows, 2012, dir. Tim Burton