vampy dump 2

The second vamp AU dump, and probably the last one of this size for a long time; pretty sure it took me a couple of weeks (margin doodles alone probably ate up three days). Background texture is from AndreeaRosse, like last time.

Now, I don't really enjoy making personal issues public, but given what..."inspired" all this criticism of spiritual abuse in the vamp AU, it would be hard for me to talk around it. The short version is, sometime last year I approached an artist I admired for a long time for help with handling spiritual themes in a different thing, and things were going alright until I clarified that Vince and Durandal are in a relationship. The artist bailed, right then and there, for that reason, and the only reason I didn't tell them how badly it hurt me was because I didn't have the emotional energy for a fight. Given how they later flatly rebuffed an article I tried to show them deconstructing the clobber verses, I'm not sure it would've made any difference. Barring a miracle, I don't expect anything to get resolved.

Trying to work out my frustrations via the vamp AU also led me to realize that, while I wasn't raised in a religious household, I almost certainly was exposed to the idea that Hell is a real place that you'll go to if you don't toe the line, before I was old enough to have an informed opinion on the world. Growing up, I heard talk about how the end of days was coming within my lifetime, read about religious persecution throughout history and how the various denominations tried to tear each other apart, saw spiritual leaders openly advocate violence against LGBT people and seemingly receive no meaningful blowback for it...but didn't hear that much talk about kindness, acceptance, etc. without some implication that YHWH's love is conditional.

...outside of LGBT-affirming churches, which I am grateful for, but also don't think I even realized existed until relatively recently.

I'unno, man. I'm tired of hearing about omni-benevolence and the unconditional love of YHWH only to have "GOD HATES [f-slur]S" slammed into my face by the same people. I've been tired of it for ages. A deity who'd give people value-neutral, but nonetheless personally-important and immutable, identity traits for the sole purpose of forcing them to painfully deny and repress those traits on pain of eternal damnation isn't kind or loving; those are the actions of a tyrant.


--


With that explained, on to the actual art. CW: brief discussion of religiously-motivated queerphobia, as if the above didn't make it obvious that that would turn up.

ETA: And also, after concerns brought up elsewhere, I should clarify: I don't actually think that any real-world marginalized group is comparable/equitable to vampires; this is mostly me venting my frustrations in an urban fantasy setting. (And as alluded to elsewhere in this description, it's not like it supplanted real-world prejudices...)


* The progenitors. Or at least, the two oldest and most powerful known vampires.

Carmilla is a peaceful pagan healer, who's been living this way for as long as she can remember; she doesn't like to discuss her past outside of the events that led her servant Laura Sayle to her doorstep, but she'll gladly ramble at length about a number of things related to her beliefs, all the things she and Laura have made over the eons, etc. She has no interest in inter-vampire politics and may not be fully aware of her reputation amongst other vampires; she has more of an investment in human politics, if only because they seem perpetually designed to make life for vampires (and humans who fall outside a narrow view of humanity) as difficult and miserable as possible.

Like her fellow progenitor, Carmilla is a Terran vamp who's now located on Mars; she may return to Earth one day, but for now appreciates the change of scenery. She can't always be out and about, so Laura often acts as her sentry.


* Dracula's personal history is more well-known, for all the wrong reasons. Growing up, the life of the man who would call himself Dracula felt like a never-ending parade of cruelty; with anyone who could've provided a light in the darkness dying bloody, ignoble deaths all around him, he began to wonder if this was all there was.

Things looked up for Dracula briefly, when he met a woman named Elisabetha who held none of the prejudice against vampires that her fellows from the local church did; the two even raised a dhampir son, and for a time, it was good. That time abruptly ended five years later when Dracula entered the foyer one night to find Elisabetha dead on the floor, apparently from an aneurysm; the very church she attended so faithfully refused to bury her, forcing Dracula to lay her to rest himself on the castle grounds.

It took about two more decades and a string of human atrocities for Dracula's wrath to fully manifest, but when it did, the streets of Wallachia ran with blood for what felt like an eternity, and Dracula's legacy was forever sealed.


* Any mention of Abrahamic faith tends to set Laura off nowadays, but once, she was a studious Christian, living in what she thought was a loving village.


* If there's anything Durandal hates, it's the idea that he's "weak enough" to cry...but he's been doing that often lately.


* As mentioned before, vamp!Durandal suffers from a metric ton of spiritual anxiety, despite Romulus's efforts to protect him and the other Blood Moon vampires from it. There's a particular incident that still haunts Durandal; he was about ten years old at the time, already plagued with worries and fears of not being able to be strong where it mattered. But he wasn't really aware of the strife between humans and vampires beyond Romulus's insistence that he not get close to the former; that all changed one fateful night when Durandal wandered too far away from the court and sought shelter at a nearby church.

Cue the preacher, followed by the entire congregation, literally backing the terrified child into a corner and screaming about how he and all his kind were demons from Hell without souls, how God damned them all from the Cross, and how the only moral thing for him to do was lie out in the sun and wait to die. This abuse went on for so long that by the time Durandal finally spotted an opening and fled, the sun was beginning to rise; ironically, it was probably by the grace of God that Romulus found him before it got dangerously high.

Durandal was too afraid of the church folks to tell Romulus what happened, but some months later, two vampire women and their child sought asylum at Blood Moon, explaining that a church-backed kill squad was hunting them down. Durandal overheard their conversation with Romulus and finally told him the truth; within a few hours, that congregation's leaders were drained and disposed of, but the trauma had firmly wedged itself in Durandal's head.

As a side effect: ever since then, Durandal's been suffering from a recurring nightmare where he's abandoned by God on a dead Mars without having a chance to plead his case. Maybe now that he's got someone he can confide in, Durandal can start healing...


* Harvest Moon seems to attract vampires with unusual alternate forms; case in point, Tycho's is a fox. (It's mostly reused from that art I did in '17 of fox!Tycho and collie!Durandal.) To his annoyance, Enzo likes to pass him and snake!Caliban off as her pets.


* Enzo's blood arts primarily take the form of knuckle protectors. When she really wants someone dead, they get spiky.


* The tale of Lucy Westenra, Dracula's servant, is a sordid one. This is not the tragic figure of Bram Stoker's novel; this is someone who had severe issues long before meeting Dracula. Lucy visited Dracula's castle on a whim, not in spite of, but because the townsfolk kept referring to it as "hell incarnate", and struck up a conversation with its lord. At first she tried to pass herself off as a normal villager, but then Lucy admitted that she always found Satan and his demons more interesting than God or His angels, and her facade swiftly crumbled. Dracula permitted her to return whenever she wanted, and Lucy did so often...then one night, she stepped through the front doors splattered in blood.

See, the villagers finally figured out that she was a devil worshipper and set out to kill her; in her attempt to escape, Lucy spotted the kid that squealed on her and decided that there was no better time than now to test that "become a vampire through blood rites" thing. Didn't work, but Dracula offered to make her his servant (the next best thing), and it didn't take Lucy long to accept.


* The old "one of the heroes gets brainwashed and the others have to save them". In this case, it might have to do with a court mentioned further below. (Outfit blatantly reused from a demon AU doodle)


* Vince had his own violent encounter with a local church, though it left an entirely different mark on him than it did Durandal. While he was born and raised an atheist, Vince did help out at a nearby church when he was in high school; everything was going fine until he let slip that he was hoping to find a boyfriend before graduation. In the span of a second, all these people that had been friendly to him for months turned on Vince and screamed all sorts of horrible shit at him; he tore out of the church and spent the rest of the day reeling in disbelief. The following Monday, in between classes, Vince got jumped by a classmate from the church; security separated them, and Vince's stance on faith would never be completely neutral again.


* Trying to help Durandal de-internalize the awful things he heard growing up is an uphill struggle; the doodle on the right is probably what Vince said at the end of their first major conversation on it.


* Seven wolves and one bunny. They look familiar...


* Subtle about his attractions, Vince is not. Aleister never really told Durandal things like this.


* This is how Durandal has to ride Vince's motorcycle most of the time: clinging to his shirt in bat form.


* When this AU was first conceptualized, Romulus wasn't Durandal's biological father, but that's since changed, necessitating that Durandal's mother (and Leela and Tycho's mother; they're his cousins here) be brought in. Brief vampire biology lesson: they can't bear or sire children the "human" way and reproduction is largely external.

Solange Ogier is an incredibly powerful non-court vampire who hails from Iran; her life has largely been one of solitude, punctuated by violence, and she could never seem to escape that until her brief visit to Mars. Years before that, Solange killed a vampire from Tenebris--the most infamous, vile court known to vampire-kind--and caught the attention of religious authorities, who extended her the following offer: shank the rest of Tenebris, and the persecution of the region's vampires will cease.

Now, Solange had enough life experience to realize that this one event was unlikely to undo centuries of spiritual hostility towards vampires, but accepting this would give her the resources to end Tenebris's reign of terror. Her newly-assembled team of vampires made it into Tenebris's deepest sanctums and managed to stake all but two of their members; in the battle with the prince, Solange lost one of her eyes, but eventually the prince went down with all the others. And when Solange and the surviving vamps presented the internally-rotted bodies of Tenebris to the church...not a damn thing changed, just as Solange expected.

In time, she would meet Romulus, who was just as burnt-out with humanity as she was, and the two would produce a son...right as those Tenebris stragglers resurfaced with threats of rebuilding the court. Solange decided to go back and deal with them, though she promised Romulus that she'd return if all went well. It's been twenty-seven years since.

[Spoiler alert: she'll survive and come back eventually.]

* Below that: one of Romulus's and Solange's last interactions before she left.


* Narcissa Weyland is the adopted granddaughter of the late Samuel Weyland, a human gardener living in a rural community; he found her abandoned (or perhaps orphaned) in the woods and, having lost his biological daughter some time ago, was only too happy to bring her into his life. Narcissa loved him dearly, and was naturally saddened when he passed away early into her teenage years...shortly afterward, she realized that Grandpa Sam was her only protection against the rest of the town.

The moment he was out of the way, they all moved in for the kill, bombarding Narcissa with abuse after falsehood after abuse and making it abundantly clear that, no matter how hard she prayed and tried to repent, there was no place for her in their little village. Rather than live with shame and self-hatred like they intended, however, Narcissa simply grew up resenting her neighbors and their two-faced faith--a resentment she made explicitly clear to them on the eve of her trip to Mars. Simply put, these people didn't deserve Grandpa Sam and Narcissa was never, ever coming back.

On Mars, Narcissa met Remus and the then-members of Harvest Moon, and she formally joined them with great enthusiasm--at last, she had a community that would actually treat her like a person. The two got to stay together a bit longer than Romulus and Solange, though like the latter, Narcissa would eventually have to depart for Earth before her children were grown--something about abrupt complications with her grandpa's estate. 

[Spoiler: Narcissa will return at some point, too.]


* Below that: Leela at age six, and Tycho at age <1 (yes, Leela's outfit was deliberately modeled on Roll's MM8 dress). Plus, Vince makes a startling discovery about that one Harvest Moon lady who's been trying to negotiate for him.


* Bat!Durandal having a stretch.


* The son of Dracula mentioned above, Luca cel Frumos--or, as he's been calling himself for eons, Alucard. He's a very rare example of a dhampir, who are essentially daywalkers with no alternate form.

When Dracula set out on the warpath, Luca stood up to oppose him, and actually managed to incapacitate most of the guards...alas, Dracula put a very abrupt and painful end to his son's foolishness. Too badly injured to keep fighting, Luca was recruited by the humans to be their behind-the-scenes commander; he successfully led them to victory, but the humiliation of getting curb-stomped and guilt over sending humans to their deaths (from his point of view) led Luca to swear off violence. He assumed the title of "Alucard", an explicit reversal of everything his father stood for, and devoted himself to humanitarian work. In the present day, he's something of a hippie drifter.


* Vince, post-fight.


* Durandal's particular ability is healing, and he can do a fair amount of it with no ill effects--past a certain point, however, it starts eating into his own energy, and he doesn't exactly have a lot of it to spare. Cue fainting into Vince's arms, probably.


* Tycho and Vince don't get along in the slightest, just like in most timelines/universes; in particular, I really doubt that Tycho would like the idea of any human being on his level, especially if that human is the servant of a fragile bleeding-heart like Durandal. Vince doesn't care to mitigate Tycho's insecurities.


* Going off of a bit of dialogue from above, a potential what-if ("potential" as in it might turn canon to the vamp AU). In the angel 'verse from which these versions of Cain and Abel are derived, Cain stabs Abel multiple times in a blind rage, Ephraim ascends Abel to save his life, and then Cain is cursed with vampirism. Over here...well, that curse probably came directly from God, or maybe Gaea and Theia (that's what Carmilla would tell you), and Cain used it to turn Abel before he could finish drowning in his own blood. So now Abel will survive, but he's naturally more than a little pissed over being bound to the guy who shanked him; even in the present day, one gets the feeling that the brothers haven't quite worked everything out yet.

The original idea was to have Durandal yell at Cain for screwing everything up. I still think Durandal wouldn't be enthused to meet him...


* Vince makes a vow to Durandal that won't be broken, and I practice doing face angles I normally don't draw.


* Like that reverse mer-AU doodle, there had to be a reverse vamp AU thing eventually. Dante came home one day to find a direwolf asleep on his bed, and nothing was quite the same for him since; he also gets rather embarrassed whenever Vitus starts going on about what a kind, gentle, intelligent servant he has (Dante's not the first two, dangit! Although he totally is).