IM FUCKIGN CRYING CINDER JUMPED ON THE COUNTER TO WATCH ME TAKE MY CONTACTS OUT AND I LET HER SNIFF ONE AND SHE TRIED TO EAT IT?!?!?!?

Witchless Familiar; Familiarless Witch; part 4

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CW: Stress position; sensory deprivation; spitting; deshumanization; pet whump; no-con (non-sexual) touching;

 She walks back into the fairy ring, where Circe’s wagon is hidden. There, the magic will keep them safe from any eyes, Circe said. At least as long as the faeries don’t come back to claim their mushroom ring, the little sparkly name-stealing bastards.

As she steps inside and the secrets reveal themselves, she sees a colorful figure in the center and she almost drops the firewood she was carrying, immediately turning around and keeping eyes on the floor.

“I’m so sorry Fern. I didn’t knew you were transformed”

She hears a tongue clicking as Fern approaches. She only turns to them when they touch her, with their cold hand, spotted with tiny scales that mixed with their human-like skin.

Alright. She has their permission, then. Good. It even seemed like they were waiting for her.

“Thank you, Fern”

The chameleon-person nods, huge eyes staring at her, colors on their skin and hair shifting from red-warm tones into blue ones. Fern moves around their ragged coat, looking for something.

They click the abnormally longue tongue in satisfaction once they find it, and lick their eyeballs. That looks very disgusting in this humanoid shape, especially because they do have eyelids now… but she does her best not to react. It already means a lot that they are letting her see them like this.

Fern raises a rag doll, for her to see. She frowns, taking a closer look… and drops all the firewood in shock, placing her hands over her mouth. She grabbed the doll, a little doll of her Roots, with tiny yellow button eyes and sewn ears. Her hands shivered, the doll gleaming on the fire.

“-W-why? How?” She looked back at Fern, holding back tears. Fern licks their eyes again, in satisfaction “Did you make this?”

The familiar nods, sitting crossed legged near the fire grabbing a piece of the firewood she brought and throwing it in, watching the flames revive and poking them from time to time. She lets herself fall there too, by the side of the fire, and gently pets the rope-hair the doll has. It smells like ginger.

“Alright… Thank you Fern” she hugs it tight, petting its hair, illuminated by the flames, as they wait for Circe to return.

 ------------------------------------------------

He hears nothing and sees nothing, feels only the intense burning on his muscles, strained for hours in the same uncomfortable position. He has his teeth carved onto his lips to prevent him from sobbing, the lashes of the whip on his back making the ache even more unbearable.  He wouldn’t give them – no, him. It’s just the general now – that much yet.

He wouldn’t call him master. No, he was part of nature and nature is owned by none, respects none, follows only the rules it created for itself. And cats – cats were born free. Lady, lord or masters, no cat should ever recognize.

But… He was about to collapse. And nature wouldn’t save him now, because it was as free and wild as it was uncaring and unfair. Pain, sorrow and shame were risks he took when choosing to assume a physicality. But he had no clue of how hard it could be.

And that same physical body, it was source of conflicts he never found living as a spirit. That body couldn’t truly merge with the essence of the world like he did before, so it craved to feel the world around it on the only ways it could: to see, to hear, to smell and taste and feel.

That body collapsed under pain, and it melted under gentle touches, no matter how unwanted. So when a hand ran through his hair, face, his back, the body relaxed just a little bit. In amidst the numbness, the awful pain of its muscles, the darkness of a blindfold and the awful, awful silence … the body wanted that warm touch, because it was so grounding, it was so real.

Even as his soul fought to be set free from the chains that bound it to earth, his body now wanted nothing other than find things that meant he was still there, after being deprived from them for so long.

The headphones were pulled slightly down, and he heard the breathing of the human. Disgusting.

“So… are you ready to obey now, little cat?”

The man always emphasized that last part, as if being a cat was somehow disgraceful. Being an animal was normal. That divide between mankind and the rest of the physical-life forms… It existed only in mankind’s ego. And they wanted him to feel ashamed.

Ashamed of being an animal. As if he hadn’t chosen that shape... And didn’t wish so bad to be back on it, instead of stuck on this imitation of a human, a shape familiars reserved for their most dear companions, when words would need to be exchanged.

And cats… Cats were all born free. Lady, Lord or Master, no cat should ever recognize.

The slap was strong enough to make him loose balance. Of course, he didn’t really have room to move, strapped like that, so fell a little to the side, shifting the weight, his body hanged against the ropes that were tightly digging on his skin. He couldn’t contain a whimper, and the fingers that until the moment were soft grabbed his jaw painfully.

“Do not ignore your Master, little cat”

He spit and hissed. He had no clue if it hit the man or not but… He let go.

“Fine. I guess a few more hours will do you good.”

The headphones were put back.

…Panic rose in his chest. A few more hours? He could barely stand. He whimpered, sadly. He could beg. That’s what the man wanted to hear, right? He didn’t have to mean it. He could just say the words… Just tell him…

No. No. He breathed, deeply. That was the physical shape, his corporeal prison speaking. He couldn’t do it. If he begged once it would be all too easy to make him do it again. And then… Then he was scared of what he could become.

Lady, Lord or Master, he would never recognize.

…Right?

tag: @talk-to-rock (I.. just noticed you are a rock. Cool :) )

Young Dracula Vampires and Their Eating Habits: an exploration

Throughout Series 1 and 2 we see Vlad and Ingrid eat breakfast before school; obviously there’s also the episode where Renfield packs Vlad a spinach sandwich that has a cockroach in it, and we know that Renfield is partial to eating a bug or two (or many). We could say that as they’re still under 16 and don’t drink blood yet, their dietary needs would be similar to a Breather’s - albeit that their cuisine is unusual by stereotypical western standards (because in quite a few cuisines it’s common to eat insects and the like, also the idea of food being made out of bugs is slowly becoming ever more popular) - and perhaps they don’t need to eat food once they’re vampires (and yes I know I mentioned Renfield but it’s kind of relevant, hold on). However. We do see the Count eat; in the episode where the Branagh’s stay over and Elizabeth cooks him that weird blood pudding thing, and even in the first episode there is mention of him having to eat black pudding at a service station BUT it’s only because he can’t otherwise get blood. When Magda first makes an appearance and the Count falls for her again, they have a dinner prepared for her. Now my question is - do vampires in this universe need to eat? Is it a necessity for survival or just a personal preference? And can they survive only on blood or vice versa?

I think I assume that no, they don’t need blood to survive, because if you look at Vlad and Talitha in Series 5, they’re both vegetarian vampires and so neither drink blood.  And I mean also - there’s a whole BRAND for soy blood. Surely that means that there’s enough of a demand for it to have at least one brand right? However I’ve just realised that I am COMPLETELY FORGETTING !! that the VERY FIRST instance we see of a vegetarian vampire is Ivan! Before his incident with Van Helsing, he speaks of many vampires in America living a blood-free lifestyle, posing it as the only sustainable way forward. From this we can assume definitely that no - vampires in the Young Dracula universe do not need blood to survive and don’t even need to eat meat either. So, what do they need and why do they drink blood?

I think that the answer to the latter question is simply instinct and possibly tradition. There are many instances in which we see Vlad have sudden cravings for blood; ones that he fights down and doesn’t give in to but cravings nonetheless. Ivan is converted back to blood drinking from the smell of Slayer’s blood, again the fact that it is an instinctual need. As for what these vampires need to survive? I don’t know for certain. And we probably never will. The idea of vampires and the lore of the creatures has been changed and shaped to many different stories and renditions; I don’t know many of them but we can logically assume that Young Dracula takes inspiration from at least one or two more sources outside of the book that it is based off of (which takes its inspiration from the novel Dracula which I have yet to read). I can’t remember where I read it, I think it may have been in a My Sister’s a Vampire book hahaha EDIT it wasn’t it was in Carry On, thanks Baz, but there’s one idea that vampires need to eat food like humans do, but they can go for longer stretches of time without it. However, an opposing idea is present in Twilight; in this series vampires cannot eat human food and it actually makes them dreadfully ill. Although, in this example the Cullens don’t drink human blood either and drink animal blood instead, something that we can assume the vampires in YD probably don’t do as there is no suggestion of it anywhere. These two ideas and the evidence in YD are the only things I really have to go on as I haven’t read Dracula or watched anything based off it. Though I have read Carmilla - a vampire novel that predates Dracula - it again suggests the idea that vampires don’t eat and may be repulsed by food.

However, I am inclined to go with the idea that vampires (these ones at least) do actually need to eat to survive, and perhaps that their requirements for survival in terms of needing food are very similar to humans if not almost the same.

For one thing, the Dracula’s seem to keep pretty regular mealtimes. Throughout the entire program, they can often be found to at least be having dinner if not any other meal. In Series 3 in ‘Bad Vlad’, Vlad invites a Breather girl, Becky, up for lunch - though you could argue that this is to be in-keeping with Breather life. On this note, ‘lunch’ is intended to be her, which again does question whether they need food at all, however throughout Series 3 there are a number of things related to food that we can explore. Again with mealtimes, something that is actually used as a point to drive the narrative forward is when they’re all having lunch and Vlad is given the ocelots nose instead of the Count, who claims that he “always get[s] the ocelots nose”. There are also various other mentions of food throughout the later series in particular, so we know that these creatures do eat and perhaps they indeed do it out of necessity to survive, much like we do.

Contradicting this though, is the language that is often used when referring to blood and Breathers, and it is something that I also want to explore – how blood is consumed and what it is considered to be. Food or drink? In Series 3 in ‘The Blood Thief’, when Ingrid invites Bertrand to the blood cellar to taste one of the Count’s vintage bottles, she says “What a great evening – dinner and a show.”. With “dinner” being not even a full glass of blood we could just assume that this is a turn of phrase; with blood also being treated in a similar way to wine (vintage bottles, a dedicated cellar, drunken out of stemmed glasses) it does seem to therefore be considered to be like a drink. Additionally, in Series 5 where Warlock ‘puts in his order’ with Ingrid, he says “mines a _” which echoes that of a drinks preference (like a usual coffee order). However, there is also constant referral to Breathers being a “meal” or “playing with your food” so – perhaps vampires can survive without food, as long as they have a supply of blood. Hence the glass of blood being “dinner” for Ingrid. This seems very plausible, especially with the opening of the blood banks in Series 4 for the ‘strays’ or ‘ferals’. Vlad claims that they would go wild without them, and we do see evidence of that when the blood runs out at one point. These homeless vampires with nowhere else to go would probably not have access to food; most likely being led by their instincts alone, the only source of nutrition they crave is blood. Human when they can but animal when they can’t. It’s with this point that I retract my earlier statement that we see no evidence of vampires drinking animal blood instead of human like in Twilight, as in Vlad’s speech to the ferals he mentions the fact that they are/will be feeding off of stray cats if they do not follow him to Garside, as they cannot hunt because of the ceasefire. With this information, perhaps I am wrong in my assumption that vampires need to eat food. Maybe they can simply survive on blood alone. So, this begs the question – why do the Draculas have meals? Why are, according to Renfield, certain maggots a vampire delicacy?

If we forget for a minute that vegetarian vampires exist and focus on the majority, what exactly are the reasons for the Draculas and other vampires, like those at the Hunt Ball in Series 1, to be eating food? Is it still indeed a necessity thing and vampires like the ferals, though surviving, are perhaps malnourished without food as well as blood? Is it a culture thing, a tradition thing? A class thing? Up until the introduction of the ferals, we are not shown a way of vampire life other than that of the Draculas and their associates. The Draculas are therefore really our only source of information and so that is what I am basing these assumptions on. The mention of it possibly being a class thing is also because, assumedly, the Count is.. well, a Count. Whether his title is with or without the corresponding status is irrelevant though, because we know that the Draculas as a clan are still supposedly renowned as a name and have status in their own right because of that, and so may be expectant of certain things due to having money - like food being a part of their life. Another theory is that maybe, turned vampires don’t need to eat but born ones do? (With the assumption that most of the ferals are Half-Fangs?) It’s a possibility. My personal thoughts are that vampires in this universe can survive only on blood – as possibly evidenced by the ferals – but need some sort of food too if they don’t want to be constantly hungry and/or malnourished. In addition, those of a higher status may be more accustomed to eating food perhaps because of tradition, which is usually found to be kept more in higher status places, or because of culture. The cuisine in question is also definitely very odd by human standards, and so here we come back to one of the opening points. The fact that these vampires seemingly have a pretty vamp-specific cuisine even before being 16 is another indication to the possibility that vampires in this universe eat food for possibly more than just enjoyment, and their dietary requirements are the reasons for this. This being said, Renfield also seems to share a lot of the same food, although he isn’t exactly a regular breather and he is pretty disgusting in his taste (even by a vampire’s standards), so it does still raise the possibility of it just being culture/tradition.

In Series 1 the Dracula’s are found to be eating various gross-looking things, a lot that looks kind of mouldy; at the Hunt Ball, we are shown a vampire eating an eyeball skewer, and bugs seems to be a large part of their general diet as evidenced by the maggots for Magda in Series 1, and also Renfield’s “bug burgers” in Series 5 that George helps him make. In Series 2 we also see a large fox in a sort of pie thing among other mentions of badgers and birds that Renfield serves, which leads to Ivan telling the Count he’s vegetarian. There is far more mention of the food that they eat throughout the show, however we can generally deduct that they seem to eat pretty much anything and everything if it’s an animal that moves, particularly if it is gross by regular human (also western) standards. In Series 5 the Count even mentions how he hasn’t “had a toad in years” when one (weirdly CGI-ed) appears on his balcony. So they eat toads too. Maggots seem to be weirdly popular; Series 3 at the Carpathian Feast shows Renfield ‘teaching’ Wolfie how to eat maggots, these ones considered to be a delicacy of “fine dining” having been “fed on a diet of elephant dung”. Gross. These vampires’ diet seems to be quite broad; however, the existence of vegetarian vampires also proves that they don’t need to eat these things to survive or be healthy. Obviously it can just be argued that they eat these things because, well, they’re vampires and it’s a work of fiction, and the fact they eat these weird foods just helps to hold the suspension of belief of them being supernatural creatures. But that’s not how I am going about this, so we’ll forget about that argument. With the consideration of vegetarian vampires, I am inclined to go with the fact that vampires eat these foods in particular because of tradition, because of their culture. Or at least the Draculas do. This may just be that it’s because they’re from “the old country” (Transylvania), and like aforementioned, they’re of a higher status and more likely to keep old vampire traditions. So it isn’t to say that vampires of this universe don’t enjoy a burger or two, despite the Count not knowing what they are. (“What is that, a person from Hamburg?”) However, the vampires that we are shown are all from a similar status family/position as the Draculas, and so their food does seem to be kind of similar. Whatever background a vampire comes from though, their diet is most definitely carnivorous, whatever form that meat comes in. This comes back to my main point of their eating habits coming from their vampire instinct. The fact that the Draculas are accustomed to eating certain foods in certain ways is probably more indicative of their class than anything else. As with all people, I’m sure these vampires have preferences and different types of food across the vampire globe – raw meat is something that you would assume they would eat, yet it is only seen to be eaten twice throughout the show. Ivan in Series 2 after his run-in with Van Helsing, and Hack in Series 5 from the basket of meat that Ingrid sent him. But, they definitely don’t need to have this diet to survive, and we can assume that its reason is more of instinct and tradition.

So what do vampires in the Young Dracula universe need to consume to survive?

Like I said previously, we don’t and won’t know for sure. But this exploration has shown that their need for blood and for meat as food is most definitely instinctual than anything else. Those that are led more by their instincts like the ferals, and even Ivan, are more likely to be blood thirsty and want their hunger satiated that way, more so than through food. They also prove that vampires can survive only on blood if need be, without the need for food as well. However, without food they definitely seem to be wilder than your average vampire. Or perhaps are exactly what you imagine a vampire to be like and the Draculas, due to their class and status, are simply more controlled. I’m not sure. What I am sure about though, is that it is possible for a vampire to live without blood, and without meat. This is proven by both Vlad and Talitha, and Ivan before he was reverted. So, what vampires need to survive is still unclear, but is nothing to do with having a special dietary requirement that is unlike a human’s. In fact, they probably can survive on the same diet as a breather. But, the key thing is their instincts, which are hard to control, being the main reason why the majority of vampires are carnivorous blood suckers. Even Vlad, who has always refused to drink blood even before he was vegetarian, has instinctual cravings for it.

TL;DR - Food for vampires in the Young Dracula universe seems to be more a thing of culture, tradition, and class than anything else. These vampires can definitely survive without blood and without meat if they wanted, however for most their instinctual need takes over. They also seem to be able to survive only on blood, however this appears to make them more instinct dependant, driving them slightly mad. Essentially, food seems to be a preference, and either it or blood can be the sole thing a vampire survives on, irrelevant of the consequences. Also, vegetarian vampires are pretty happily surviving without blood.

I’m sure there is much more I could talk about, especially once I finally read Bram Stoker’s Dracula, but this is pretty much all I can think of to explore for the moment. I would be here forever otherwise, and will probably add quite a bit in the future as I come up with more ideas to do with this.

Goretober Day 13: Red Rain

Prompt: Guts

Fandom: Legend Of Korra

Summary: Kuvira gets into a car accident and wakes up in the middle of the surgery to fix the damage. 

They strap her down but they don’t put her out. She gathers that there isn’t any time for that, but it doesn’t make it any better. They tighten the straps. She isn’t sure that she will actually feel anything anyways. Rather, she isn’t sure that she will be able to distinguish new pain from the pain that she is already in. 

Kuvira supposes that the hows of it don’t really matter, but she is aware of them all the same. Really it is quite unremarkable. She’d always assumed that she’d get herself killed in action. That someone would pin her under a boulder or slit her throat in her sleep in an attempt to end her Empire. 

If not that then she  had expected to meet her downfall at her own hands. The price of another impulsive and reckless endeavor. No matter how hard she tries. No matter how tightly she binds her hair and how rigidly she presents herself. She can’t shake the person beneath. The person that craves stimulation and adrenaline. 

By all means, she can see herself meeting her end while thrill seeking. Especially with Korra there to encourage her. The two of them are reckless and destructive and they feed off of one another. 

It was neither of these things that had taken her down. It was a satomobile accident of all things. A series of unfortunate mishaps all perfectly lined up to take her out. The vehicle in front of her breaked abruptly. She breaked in uniform, the satomobile behind her did not. It slammed into her own vehicle hard enough to throw her through the window. 

Jagged spikes of glass tore her to ribbons. The largest of them sliced her middle open. She had been dully awake. Awake enough to realize what had happened. Awake enough to know that her guts were tangled and clumped on the glass and strewn over the hood of the satomobile. But not awake enough to do anything about it. Nothing but stare up at the sky with glassy eyes. She coughed. It was a wet cough, forced out to clear blood from her throat. 

The last thing she truly remembers having done was feebly trying to hold her stomach closed despite the size of the wound. 

She has been in and out of wakefulness since. She thinks that they might not realize she has woken up again. They probably wouldn’t be working to stuff her innards back in place if they did. They mean to help her, to save her life but it is torturous feeling them rustle around as they try to work out what goes where. The waterbenders don’t help much, at least not with the pain. All of their focus goes into healing over comfort. 

No, they definitely haven’t realized that she is awake.

She guesses that it is alright, her mind will shut itself down again soon. It can only handle so much. Another hand reaches into her, this time with a few tools. Medical grade thread and needles to stitch her back together where the waterbenders’ healing doesn’t work. 

She feels herself growing mercifully dizzy again. 

The sound of gushing and slurping accompanies her on her way out, the sounds linger in her dreams. Dreadful dreams where she sees herself dragging her body from the wreckage, but no one is there to untangle her from the glass. She has to do it herself. She has to pick up her own innards and pull them off of the spikes. They beat and pulse, still working as they are supposed to, all the while spilling blood and viscera about the hood of the satomobile.

Red stains her gloves and her shirt. The air around her fills with voices telling her that she has earned this. Nevermind that she has repented, that she is actively trying to help rebuild the portions of Republic City that she has knocked down. 

They scream at her, telling her that it doesn’t matter, that she had sprayed this city with blood and gore and so she should become part of the mess. At this point it is obvious to her that she is dreaming, not that it wasn’t before. 

But now the sky opens up and guts rain down upon her. Not just guts but brains and hearts. Eyeballs and bone fragments. All of them appearing to have been blasted apart. The cover and coat her in a thick and heavy slosh. 

She has to move, has to get herself inside. She works with quicker hands to unravel her guts. But her entire body is slick with blood both her own and that which has come from the sky...is still coming from the sky. She slips and gives a sharp scream as she tears some part of her further. She falls back into the vehicle, head slamming against the seat. 

The rain continues to fall and the organs are beginning to stack atop the broken windshield. Kuvira lurches forward to punch them away. She doesn’t think that they should be too heavy. But they are, and each one that falls adds to the weight of them. She knows what is going to happen before it does. One innard sloshes through the hole in the windshield and lands in her lap. And then another and another. It looks like ketchup through a funnel but much chunkier. 

She is going to drown.

Drown in a bloody fucking mess. 

Raava knows that she has more than enough guts to replace her own now. They fall into the gaping wound with a vengeance as the voices turn to laughs, jeers, and taunts. She opens her mouth to scream, a mistake. She has never tasted human flesh nor guts before. 

She never wanted to. But she does. And they taste like copper. The texture is both mush and rubber. She heaves but the steady onslaught of gore keeps anything from rising. She suffocates as her world goes red. 

And then her world goes white. Everything is bright. To bright for her to see anything. She saints and squeezes her eyes shut with a pained moan. Her body feels weak and limp, numb. Her wrists throb and so does her abdomen. 

She bolts upright and presses her hands to her middle. Another hand comes to claps around her wrist, while two more of them gently push her back onto the mattress. “Careful, you’re going to hurt yourself again.” 

“Baatar?” She winces. 

“Yeah.” He replies. 

Some of the tension leaves her body and she tries to relax into the bed as her memories begin to work themselves back in place. The car accident, the surgery, the dream… “Am I…?”

“Alive?” She recognizes Korra’s voice.

“I was going to say, ‘okay’.” Kuvira replies. “But…” her voice falters before she can finish. 

“You will be.” Korra assures. “As long as you don’t spring out of bed again.”

Kuvira brings her hand back to her middle and holds it there only for a moment before Baatar moves it again. 

“And if you just leave it alone.” Korra rolls her eyes.

“We’re probably going to have to cuff her or something.” Bataar chuckles. “She’s always done that.” He pauses. “She doesn’t like to leave injuries alone. She’s picked at pretty much every scab that she’s ever had.” 

“I don’t need to be cuffed.” Kuvira rolls her eyes. “But a glass of water would be nice.” 

Korra fills one half way. 

“Slowly.” Baatar says. 

She nods and takes the cup in her hands. 

“You’re very pale.” Baatar notes. 

“Let me know what your complexion is like after being sliced open.” She puts the glass to the side and lays back down. He might need the cuffs after all because her hand absently makes its way back towards her wound. Granted, she catches herself and simply hovers it above the stitches. 

Her stomach aches and her heart throbs. But at least they are inside of her where they belong and, hopefully, in the right positions.