#i might retcon in more vampire!apollo stuff because vampire caretakers are fun

[paingoes]

now that I’m finally caught up with rubies (which is excellent btw) I have to ask these burning questions: what does Delta taste like to Lun? (is he yummy?) can Lun taste the difference between different species’ blood? do they have a favorite person to feed from? does everybody have red blood or are there different colors?

omg yayyyyyy lun. can we talk about lun i’ve been dying to talk about lun. i remember being like fuck it i want vampires but ive never really gotten into the thing w lun and apollo since.

yes i imagine different species have different tasting blood because there’s different blood chemistry levels between them.

i decided somewhat arbitrarily that delta’s blood is blue and will continue to decide somewhat arbitrarily what color everyone else’s blood is. i imagine its red most commonly but there are exceptions. lun’s own blood is silver!

delta’s blood is saltier than normal and also colder and with a more jellylike texture. it’s not so thick that you’d notice just from spilling it but it is evident when tasting it. i also imagine lun got mildly sick afterwards because they can taste drugs in someone’s blood and delta was still coming down off a lot of steroids. so that feeding was vaguely medicinal. i have to be honest i don’t think he tastes particularly good but he certainly tastes interesting.

additionally lun is an opportunistic feeder out on missions and will frequently take anyone who is close because they don’t like to wait long.

their preference is more for familiarity than taste. feeding puts them in a really vulnerable position so their preference is always going to be with somebody they know and trust if they can afford it, as well as in the interest of causing undue pain. their favorite person to feed from is probably kitty because she’s always very willing. kitty’s blood tastes sweeter and hotter than normal, kinda like warm apple cider.

he will not feed from apollo ever cause it’s a taboo.

i originally wrote apollo and lun as being like a genetic lottery joke. apollo is like “yeah we have the same parents but lun got all the cool stuff :/“ because lun is such an old school vampire and apollo doesnt seem to have any powers. but i think apollo also has some vampiric traits (including a thirst for blood) they just manifest in different ways. unfortunately this just like. hasnt come up yet LOL theres too much going on.

nsfw talk below cut

in stars vampirism is a stand-in for intimacy and vulnerability and thats why delta gets so flushed catching lun and kitty and later getting caught himself. to spoil some of my plans for rubies: delta is weird about sex and kind of slutty. and i dont want people being like thats weird where did that come from. because one of the first things he did after getting out was attempt sex as self harm with apollos brother 😭

not that thats necessarily the only reading. i think it could also be read as a metaphor for self harm alone and representative of delta’s desire to be useful and tendency to give. but i tend to interpret it as like. sleeping with someone you shouldn’t as a way to try and regain control of the situation. which is why delta is honestly pretty devastated to have his attempt shut down. apollo doesnt blame him for it but he is mad at lun for what he perceives as taking advantage.

stars was a weird chapter.