#evolution of vampires

[janusfranc15]

Interesting! I was certainly aware of Vlad the Impaler being a cultural Hero (one of my Aunts was Romanian, and when we eventually got around to watching ‘Dracula Untold’- basically an attempt at making Dracula into a ‘hero’ rather than a villain- she very much preferred it to the other representations.) I was also aware of him having a brother, but I didn’t know that the connections to Romania (and Hungary) were, in truth, so sparse.

A Brief Account of Why Vampires Are Romanian (or Rather A Not-At-All Brief Account of How They Actually Aren’t)

So, in the 1720s-30s, some villagers in Vojvodina (which is now a part of  Serbia but was then a part of the Hapsburg Empire’s Kingdom of Hungary) had what they perceived to be some vampire-related problems and some Austrian military doctors came by and documented their decisions to solve these vampire-related problems by digging up dead bodies and attempting to violently de-vampirize them via beheadings and stakings and other sundry forms of mutilation. Some of this documentation came to be published in newspapers and periodicals across the rest of Europe, and suddenly the rest of Europe was all like “Whoa! Vampires are a thing!” and they found said vampires terribly interesting and promptly wrote political satire about the parasitic upper classes metaphorically sucking the blood of their underlings. As one does.

Eventually, in 1746, a French priest named Augustin Calmet wrote a big treatise on demons and ghosts and all manner of other spooky stuff, in which he included a lengthy discussion of vampires. He called it Treatise on the Apparitions of Spirits and on Vampires or Revenants of Hungary, Moravia, et al., which you will probably observe as not containing any reference to Vojvodina or Serbia at all. Like pretty much everyone else writing about these events, Calmet just categorized the experiences of the Serbian villagers as being a thing that happened in Hungary because technically they did happen in what was Hungary at the time even if they didn’t involve any Hungarian folk beliefs.

And so for the next century and a half, vampires were Hungarian. While Lord Ruthven (”The Vampyre,” 1819) is something of a fluke, given that he’s just Lord Byron if he were an immortal hemophage, a very sizable chunk of the vampires that you actually see throughout the nineteenth century’s literary vampire tradition are debauched Hungarian nobles. You might not recognize names like Alinska (La Vampire ou la Vierge de Hongrie, 1825), Marfa Sergeyevna (“The Vampire,” 1841), Marian Gregoryi (La Vampire, 1875), or Count Vardalek (“The True Story of a Vampire,” 1894), but they are all Hungarian vampires, and they probably all irritated the actual Hungarians of the day who tried very hard to explain that -no- they didn’t actually have any vampire myths (apparently Arnold Ipolyi was cheesed off about this as early as 1854).

Now, while you might not have read any of those obscure vampire texts I rattled off, you probably do recognize names like “Carmilla” and “Dracula.” But wait, what’s that you say? Dracula!? Isn’t Dracula supposed to be Romanian? Isn’t he Vlad the Impaler, vovoide of Wallachia (AKA old school Romania)? Doesn’t he live in Transylvania, which is in Romania?

Well, here’s where things get interesting.1 First off, back in 1897, when Dracula was published, Transylvania was -you guessed it- in the Hungarian part of Austria-Hungary, and like Vojvodina, people just tended to round Transylvania up to being “some part of Hungary” even if the vast majority of people living there were Romanian. Romania existed, but at the time Dracula was published, it had only been an independent state for fifteen years and Transylvania most decidedly was not in it. Bram Stoker, who never went to Transylvania in the first place and did most of his research via really condescending/racist travelogues, constructed the fictional Transylvania within Dracula by copy-pasting in bits and pieces of books that were not only about Transylvania, but about Hungary and the area near the Carpathians in general, nabbing whatever he could find that sounded cool so long as it was nebulously in the region he was describing.

And one cool thing he found? From one book, titled An Account of the Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia, we know that he took notes about a historical Wallachian voivode whose name was given as “Dracula.” This book doesn’t, however, mention much else; it certainly doesn’t mention any of those completely metal stories about a guy impaling people or nailing turbans to emissaries’ heads; it doesn’t even use the words “Vlad” or “Impale” anywhere near this Dracula’s name; and the whole story of this Dracula (and his father, also a Dracula) takes up all of three pages. Don’t believe me? Go check. Right here. Through the miracle of GoogleBooks, you can experience the entirety of Bram Stoker’s known sources on Vlad III in the next minute or so.

So yeah… there’s not much there. It is seriously not outside the realm of possibility that Dracula is called “Dracula” because Bram thought it was a pretty cool name that he erroneously thought to mean “devil.” As for the tiny snippet of historical context that got shoved into the book (that part where the Count mentions somebody who “crossed the Danube and beat the Turk on his own ground” and had an “unworthy brother”) this definitely does refer to the itsy bitsy, super small blurb on Vlad III that’s in Wilkinson, but it’s not in any way clear that Dracula is actually meant to be identified with this personage. I could go into more as to why this is so murky, but it’s something that has already been hashed out in sort of awkwardly excruciating detail here by Hans de Roos.2 The short version is that there’s a historical “Dracula” mentioned in the text who clearly isn’t Vlad, who doesn’t seem to have a real world equivalent, and who makes an awful lot of sense to read as being the Count.

In any event, we have a bunch of stuff that points to the Count being yet another Hungarian or Hungarian-coded evil vampire nobleman, and some of this stuff isn’t all that subtle… like Dracula literally telling Jonathan Harker that he is a member of a Hungarian ethnic group. The Count also makes a point of mentioning his use of Hungarian linguistic conventions and, if you look in the novel’s original typescript, you can see that the woman with the stolen child was supposed to have referred to her persecutor as “Hungarian” rather than “monster” at one point in the drafting process. Even with all this rather blatant evidence that Stoker was working within the “Hungary=vampires” paradigm, however, Drac’s Hungarianess still isn’t 100% neat and tidy. It can’t be. Stoker’s culturally insensitive collage of whatever spiffy-sounding factoids he could find about an ethnically diverse region with incredibly complex, intertwining Romanian and Hungarian histories just does not result in a well wrought Hungarian character, and we’re left with a confused hodgepodge of Romanian and Hungarian elements. The thing is, though, that said hodgepodge just so happened to become the most famous vampire of all time.

So what happens post-Dracula? Once the stage play and film take off, people start to take elements introduced in Dracula, even ones that didn’t have any precursors in literature or folklore, and decide that these are 100% ironclad things that real vampires™ do. Suddenly vampires all lack reflections; they cringe at crosses; they need to be invited into your home; and they all suddenly live in Transylvania. Also, TWO WORLD WARS HAPPEN, and at the end of them, Transylvania is actually in Romania, and as Dracula increasingly becomes a topic that nerds and academics and academic nerds like to nerd out about, some people examine the sad little dribblings of history Stoker dropped in the text and get the impression that maybe Dracula is supposed to be Vlad III.3 This was a pretty understandable thing to do, given that most people in those days didn’t have access to all the neato primary sources relating to Dracula that I mentioned somewhere above in describing how dinky the Vlad III evidence actually is.4 It makes sense to seize onto tantalizing historical hints within the text and assume that they might be a part of something grander, and eventually Harry Ludham’s completely bibliography- and source-free biography of Stoker lent the claim some additional credence by giving it out as a completely source-free fact. 

What really got things going, however, was Raymond McNally and Radu Florescu’s 1972 In Search of Dracula, which really really really really tried to sell the Dracula is Vlad III angle and succeeded tremendously, all while describing the authors’ investigation into Vlad as it played out in their own visits to historical sites in Romania. The book, in addition to telling everyone very firmly and enthusiastically that Vlad III was totally Dracula, went to the trouble of explaining that its readers could and should totally go to Romania and see all sorts of rad Dracula things there, all while giving some cringey advice on how not to alert the locals as to the fact that they were weird vampire novel enthusiasts who wanted to gawk at historical sites’ relating to one of the country’s cultural heroes because some Irishman ostensibly wrote a book about him biting people. While I’ve come to regard as unnecessarily mean-spirited some of the later scholarship pointing out how crap McNally and Florescu’s scholarship was, their scholarship really hasn’t held up well, and by the time other scholars started noticing, the notion that Dracula=Vlad and Romania=vampires had become pretty firmly entrenched. By the late 90s, there were several books, movies, and even very legitimate and influential scholarly articles working from the premise that Stoker had had Vlad III in mind as the Count and wanted him to be a uniquely Romanian character, and owing to Bram’s strange, patchwork fiction of Transylvania, there were -in fact- a lot of Romanian elements within the text to support this idea. Vampires, which used to be Hungarian before Dracula, and who are even Hungarian in Dracula, eventually became Romanian because Dracula became such a landmark vampire text that people began to take Stoker’s weird blend of cultural elements as evidence of both Dracula’s and vampires’ Romanianess.

So even if all that has since been debunked on paper, this nevertheless sort of brings us to where we are now. Obviously, there’s a lot of changes in the depiction, perception, and reception of vampires that have occurred in the past twenty years, but we’re still at this weird place where most westerners generally think of vampires as belonging to a country that doesn’t actually have a folkloric vampire tradition… and the reason that we think that is directly related to the fact that for the better part of two centuries most westerners thought that they belonged to another country that doesn’t actually have a folkloric vampire tradition.5 It’s honestly all pretty zany, and while I sort of thought that I’d have a wise, profound, or otherwise satisfying end to this stupid long ramble about how weird vampires’ shifting geographic location is, I don’t really… other than -as always- nobody should really be a tool about vampires. This is not only because one shouldn’t be a tool in general but because there’s a non-zero chance that whatever deep-held truths you hold regarding them have been wrong since before you were born, and it is not impossible that you will live to see the day when somebody totally insists that a supernatural entity you’ve never heard of just lives in your place now and your fave historical figure always was one.

1. Or where they get interesting if you haven’t heard me give this spiel before. It’s that time of year, kids. | 2. Hans is a really nice/chill guy even if I don’t agree with all of his analyses in that document. You might recognize him as the individual who recently brought us the majestic pinnacle of high weirdness that is the recent translation of Powers of Darkness. | 3. Interestingly enough, it might be that the first person to do much with this was Dracula’s first Turkish adapter, who re-imagined Dracula in 1928 as a story about a marauding occidental foreigner from the West coming to get the decent, upstanding citizens of Istanbul… but that’s another story. | 4. They also didn’t have GoogleBooks and thinking of that reality makes me very very sad. :( | 5. Romanian folklore has strigoi, which sometimes are dead and sometimes drink blood, but are really more akin to evil ghost-wizards than vampires from what I’ve heard. Hungarian folklore has the lidérc, which also goes blood-drinking sometimes, but is apparently sort of more like a succubus that is also a chicken… I think. I do know that pretty much every article I’ve read (Florescu excepted) and account I’ve heard from Romanians and Hungarians on the topic of what people typically conceive of as vampires has been roughly “No, we don’t actually have those. Plz stop.” I’m of neither Romanian, Hungarian, nor Slavic extraction, however, so I’m more than willing to be corrected.

[subi-x]

Stories of Vampires : From Monsters to HeartThrobs, An Introspection

Vampires, fictional undead human-like monsters associated with blood, gore, and literary western homoeroticism. It is interesting where the story of vampires starts. A terrifying and unbeatable monster that roams the night and devours the living. A beast with no remorse, with a human intelligence, and with the face of someone that we once knew. This was the description given to them according…

[the-crooked-library]

does anyone else think about Spike and Giles looking at each other and seeing a personification of the most despised and vulnerable aspects of their own past or is it just me

[victoryrifle]

KATE BECKINSALE as SELENE

in UNDERWORLD: EVOLUTION (2006) dir. Len Wiseman

[yellydany]

VAMPIRE KILLER FROG 🐸 🩸 (Nosferas Venari) Also known as Eztlicueyatl (Blood frog) or Tzinacamiztli (Bat death)

"A voracious amphibian-like species that adapted to hunt vampires. Its origins are vague and shrouded in mystery but an hypothesis suggests it could have been the result of selective breeding or nature’s “way” of dealing with the ecological imbalance vampires caused through centuries. Whichever the reason, one thing is clear: these hunters evolved in such fashion they became the night creatures’ bane.

Every bodily function feels almost engineered in eerie accuracy to strike at their very weaknesses- such as the tip of the tail (bone) they sharpen to resemble a stake, the muscle reflexes and athletic composition to catch up with their supernatural agility and a blackened coat which absorbs the bouncing light of nocturnal eyes paired with drastically lowering their body temperature (essentially becoming ‘invisible’ in the dark). Although they may prefer a stealthy approach they show no fear if they must engage in direct confrontation. There’s no sexual dimorphism albeit females are more common in nature compared to the rare male sights and not much is known about the behavior with others of their kind as they are solitary. But such is their intelligence that it would be safe to assume they study- and learn from both their prey’s movement and environments given the observations on this beast.

Worse yet- for vampires- they have more cunning ways of hunting for a meal.

The Nosferas frog is able to produce a unique secretion mix of blood, mucus and gastric fluids which is all over their bodies- from the inside and out. More interestingly they have a way to regulate its acidic components to either use as a melting gag weapon, dissolving and trapping pathogens or simply increasing its PH. Essentially, the body is extremely moldable thanks to this odd slimy substance that makes it almost feel like liquid and comes in handy in various situations such as protecting their brood eggs by swallowing them. It is also the most crucial function in the capturing of their vampiric prey as the scent of this bloody secretion lures them and other carnivores in. Once they come in sight they eject their multiple stomachs through gastric eversion to latch onto the victim and begin the digestion early. The vampire skulls are then proudly kept and displayed given the very transparent look of the lower side of the body.

Despite it being a terrifying organism by all means, they have shown vague signs of affection toward humans- some of whom have tamed and kept them as exotic guardian pets against the supernatural plague. In most areas of the land however they underwent a ban given their dangerous and unsettling nature."

[hxudini-dreams]

lucian

Underworld (2003)

[tourturestarradio]

𝐄𝐍𝐉𝐎𝐘 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐈𝐋𝐄𝐍𝐂𝐄

“𝐖𝐨𝐫𝐝𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲 𝐮𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐬𝐚𝐫𝐲, 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲 𝐜𝐚𝐧 𝐨𝐧𝐥𝐲 𝐝𝐨 𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐦. 𝐕𝐨𝐰𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐬𝐩𝐨𝐤𝐞𝐧 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐞 𝐛𝐫𝐨𝐤𝐞𝐧.”

☆ ★ ✮ ★ ☆

Prompt: Vampire reader x Wolverine/Logan Howlet, (platonically)

Warnings: teenage reader, kinda mean Logan

☆ ★ ✮ ★ ☆☆ ★ ✮ ★ ☆☆ ★ ✮ ★ ☆☆ ★ ✮

Water dripped down onto your body, the seemingly never ending rain slapped against the ground. You shivered grabbing onto the cold metal bars of a gate looking through the bars you saw a house. A very, very big house.

Looking up you jumped over the fence, going into a bush. You walked closer to the  lit house, going up to a window you spotted someone walking through one of the rooms. Ducking your head you waited a few seconds before lifting your head the darkness of the night hid you as you carefully sliding open the window. 

Getting inside you looked around cautiously, taking a few steps you froze when you felt your stomach rumble placing a hand on your stomach you ran to find something to fill your stomach. 

Hearing chatter you stopped peeking around the corner seeing a man with odd looking glasses, you grew your sharp nails out ready to pounce on him but stopped when you felt the floor creek beneath you. You quickly pressed your back against the wall hearing his footsteps coming close to you, you took off.

The man looked around the corner “hm?” He felt an odd presence, spotting the open window he walked over to it closing it “who left that…open…?” He saw bare footprints and water droplets on the floor he followed them but they stopped right at the carpet that was on the floor. 

“Shit..” 

You felt that annoying feeling your stomach again as you roamed through the seemingly endless hallways, you looked around seeing the pictures up on the wall so many different people and things you never seen before. 

You reached to touch it but had to hurry away due to a door opening a little girl stepped out walking down the hall, you tucked yourself away in the shadows watching her walk past until she stopped slowly turning her head she saw you. 

You hissed at her your fangs sticking out the low glow of the moonlight reflecting in your dilated pupils. The little girl screamed and ran away you scrambled away as well running through the first door you saw. 

Slamming it shut you observed the room it was spacious like the rest of the house. But you smelled something delicious all around you, going over to the freezing box you opened it seeing food. 

Staring at it you grabbed everything that looked good and started eating it grabbing a large drink that looked eerily similar to the drink you’ve been taught not to drink.

 Grabbing it you opened it gulping back the bitter yet sweet drink, going over to the cabinets you pulled out the boxes full of more food and stuffed your hand inside the bag shoving the food into your mouth.��

Jean had her arms folded over her chest “so you think someone snuck inside?” Scott nodded his head, Ororo sighed “it could be a child” Logan rolled his eyes “or a threat.” That’s when they heard a scream. 

The four rushed into action looking for the source of the scream, Storm spotted the little girl “hey hey calm down it’s okay, what’s the matter?” She asked kneeling down to the girls height, the girl rubbed her eyes “m-monster! Big teeth…and e-eyes!” Hugging Storm the little girl sobbed into her shoulder. 

“Guys split up and look for this “monster” before they hurt someone.” Ororo commanded, the others nodded splitting up and rushing to find whoever or whatever was roaming the house. 

Ororo picked up the girl “okay let’s get you back to bed.” 

You reached into the box again not seeing anymore food you tossed the box aside getting up you grabbed another piece of food before plopping back down on the ground munching on the food. 

But no matter how much you are you still felt hungry craving something else but everything taste so good, nothing like you ever tasted. Picking up a round orange ball you examined it before taking a bit but a disgusting taste flooded your mouth. 

Spitting out the bite you just took you tossed away the bitter fruit. Grabbing something else you looked at the bright red fruit cautiously taking a bite you liked the taste. Taking another bite you got up to get another drink when you heard the door open.

Dropping the fruit you turned around your heart pounding as you looked at the man who stood in the doorway looking at the mess surrounding you “what the fuck…” you were frozen in place. 

His eyes drifted to your trembling figure, without warning he rushed towards you, you hissed running to the far end of the room grabbing whatever was closest to you and tossing it at him. 

You grew your nails long again the man looked you before blade shot out of his knuckles, “I got tricks to, you picked the wrong place to break into” he rushed at you slicing your side adding onto the many other cuts and bruises you already had. 

You sliced the man’s face jumping into his back scratching at his flesh he threw himself back onto a wall slamming you into it however you still stayed stuck onto him slicing his throat you stabbed him over and over smelling something sweet oozing out of his wounds.

Licking your fingers the taste was so delicious you continued to stab into him and licking your fingers and hands after. That was nice until he stabbed into your side knocking you off of him “fuck!” Even though his wounds were healing it still hurt like a bitch. 

Jean, Scott, and Ororo heard all the commotion coming from the kitchen and rushed to the area busting into the room they saw the mess you made and Logan looking at something in the corner. 

They all looked at want Logan was glaring and saw a frightened looking teen. Scott ready’ed his laser but Ororo stopped him “wait, that looks like a child” Logan scoffed “that fuckin kid almost ripped my face off” Ororo slowly approached you. 

You back further into the corner hissing at her, still she slowly came closer “it’s okay no one’s going to hurt you” she spoke in a calm tone, your eyes darted from her to Logan “he was just protecting himself” you shook your head.

Ororo looked back at Logan “you didn’t attack them first did you?” He looked away, she huffed and looked back at you “I’m sorry for his behavior, he won’t do it again unless he needs to.” She crouched down to “did you make this mess?” She asked. 

You looked away slowly nodding your head “you were hungry?” You nodded again “okay…what happened here?” She reached for your bruised limbs but you hissed at her about to scratch her but you couldn’t move you were stuck in place. 

Looking around you saw another woman holding her hand out “I’m sorry I didn’t mean to scare you….did someone do this to you?” She asked.

Jean carefully let you go as you nodded “alright…I’m sorry that happened to you. This is a safe space for mutants such as yourself…we’ll help you” Logan shook his head “I ain’t helping shit. You see what they did to the place and me?” Ororo stood up turning to face him “they were frightened and plus you attacked them first.” 

Logan rolled his eyes and walked out grumbling under his breath. Ororo sighed her eyes caught how you visibly relaxed seeing him leave. She reached her hand out “we can help you, but that’s only if you let us” you looked at the pretty woman then at the other two hesitantly you reached out to grab her hand but you felt yourself get light headed before collapsing on the ground everything going black.

☆ ★ ✮ ★ ☆☆ ★ ✮ ★ ☆☆ ★ ✮ ★ ☆☆ ★ ✮

A/n: this doesn’t end here stay turned for Part 2!!

[georgeromeros]

Underworld: Evolution (2006) dir. Len Wiseman

[words-writ-in-starlight]

"Thank God this is the country where bribery can do anything" Jonathan Harker says, like half the dock workers in England aren't going to have to list him on their taxes as a major source of income

[douglasbradburyverne]

The animators of "X-Men: Evolution" liked using very specific live-action scenes as references for the female characters

[ilikedetectives]

Of the three Vampire Elders, Amelia was the most noble and benevolent. She cared for her people, who in return loved and respected her.

[beevean]

What a cruel detail.

Soleil starts with three whips: Christopher's, Juste's, and Julius'. He doesn't choose between them, like every other character: he wields all three from the start.

But he can't access the Morning Star, the collection of all Belmont whips.

All the other Belmonts can. John and Jonathan Morris can. Nathan Graves can. Not Soleil Belmont.

No matter how hard he tries to prove that he's still a Belmont, he doesn't count as one. He doesn't even have his own special whip, borrowing one from his father. His shameful incident has been erased from history, and him with it. Even his placement in the menu is far, far away from all Belmonts, closer to villains and vampires - in particular Stella and Loretta: like them, you have to fight him as a boss and purify him with the Sanctuary spell. He is a demon before he is Christopher's son.

You have to feel bad for the poor boy. It wasn't even his fault Dracula possessed him before he could prove himself as a worthy vampire hunter :(

[cocoabubbelle-newblog]

Professor X: *somberly* It’s the end of the world.

The rest of the remaining X-Men: *at this point some became official heroes, got married, had children, got jobs, got famous, got cloned, committed war crimes, got outlawed, divorced, died, got brought back to life, got aged up/down, got their species changed, traveled other lands/worlds/universes, surfed/ensured/broke the time-stream, committed tax fraud, are doing taxes, yada yada yada in no particular order* AGAIN?!

[victoryrifle]

UNDERWORLD EVOLUTION (2006) dir. Len Wiseman

[indelicateink]

been thinking a lot lately about IWTV's shifting POVs and "memory is a monster" as a foundation of the show, now and going forward.

bc storytelling-wise/audience-wise it's an interesting exercise in trust--and i'm curious to see how this exercise plays out: if can i remain emotionally invested if the property refuses to commit to the veracity of anyone's version of events?

if something devastating happens in the plot and I take that to heart for two years, and then they go back on it and i have to sit with that fallout, do I eventually become numbed to the ups and downs of the story? is it the-boy-who-cried-wolf heartbreak?

--genuine questions, I don't know the answer. I love the show. and people having conflicting POV about events is just life.

but as a storytelling conceit, it's interesting? Rashōmon was a movie of an hour and thirty minutes. IWTV is years (knock wood) of television. I adore the idea of uncertainty, but I am curious if I can sustain emotional investment if emotional beats, important facts, will all be ambiguous; if the default is to be on edge for the "gotcha" wet finger in my ear lol. i'm still game to find out.

[honey-minded-hivemind]

Vampire Bat Mutant Reader AU, where Reader is an ex-ward of the joined Brotherhood and X-Men, and is possibly related to Wolverine or Sabretooth.

It's a dog eat dog world, and Reader is so, so tired of it. They hate being what they are. They hate being called a monster. And they hate, hate, HATE the people who turned their backs on them, who told them they weren't welcome anymore...

Reader can't help that they were hungry! They can't help that they were born like this. They can't change their mutations or be someone they're not. They can't do it anymore. They refuse.

So here they are, trying to figure out how to make sure they aren't immortal, and letting themself fade away as they refuse to drink blood or eat meat. It hurts, but... they don't want to be stuck on this miserable earth with these horrible people for the rest of eternity. So... they just need to make sure they aren't immortal... they just have to go on a bit longer, is all...

Except among the mutants, well... changes have happened. They're still fierce, dangerous, cold-hearted to their enemies and foes... but they're trying to be a bit better to their kids. Trying to be warmer, or more parental, more caring. They still don't let anyone get away with harming their kids. That's non-negotiable. But they'll try to not jump to conclusions so fast...

The newer mutants (Kurt, Kitty, Evan, and Todd) are excited about school, and at least trying to figure out their powers and make new friends (who aren't just their roommates and guardians). And they like the looks of this new kid, who has sharp eyes and bright teeth and seems a bit too depressed, a bit too lonely...

It's time to make a new friend!

And Reader is terrified that their old "family's" newest members are trying to be around them, because they're scared what will happen if the adults catch wind of this... would they actually kill Reader this time? Would they punish their kids, the way they did to Reader and Scott and Jean and the others? Or something worse?

(Scott is finding it hard to believe, but... the new kid... they look like... but it can't be... Reader? He... he has to tell Jean. Now.)

@thewickedweiner @sugar-soda What do y'all think? I thought, huh, what if Vampire Bat Mutanr Reader is a Dark AU, but mixed with good-old fashioned Creed or Howlett Reader too? Did I pull it off?