which is largely concerned with vampires

[ontology]

Attention particularly to goddessreason: there is a film coming out in September about John Keats and Fanny Brawne, and it looks spiffing. Unfortunately neither of them are vampires in it (no word on Byron however), but one cannot have everything, I suppose.

The sun went down yesterday in a tangle of after-storm clouds and a pale bloom of light, and the rain-rimmed window glowed with it. Later outside was dark and the sky dark-water blue and still cloud-wracked, though the rain was drying. Oh, how I love weather.

And in other good news, the first draft of the first chapter of the Evangeline story is finished; I finished it while on holiday. It needs a once-over and I absolutely must edit a handful of passages that I loathe and despise, but it will be going up on balladrie as promised: very soon, actually. And by "very soon" I actually mean "it's up now". (Friends only, as it's My Novel, but if any of you haven't friended balladrie, just do so now and I'll friend you back before you can say... something really short. Unless I am sleeping.) A great deal of new things have snuck in, including a sudden and startling revelation I had in the car: the dead woman on the library steps is not a warning, an accident, or a sign: she's a ritual. I don't know what for yet (perhaps to weaken the threshold ward on the library?), but things make a lot more sense now because I never really knew what she was there for. It's not made clear in the first chapter, though, because the characters don't know at that point. So.

Anyway, Mr Caruthers' Sordid Past! (Someday, I will start a band with this name. It will be brilliant.) Was reading a mostly-entirely unrelated novel when a passing concept sparked a bit of storyknowledge in me, which led to a new set of circumstances, namely: Mr Caruthers spent a year or more living in thrall to group of vampires, supplying them with blood in exchange for learning black magics; was probably about twenty or so at the time. Originally entered contract because of vampire woman he fancied himself in love/lust with. He finds himself in rather an awful situation (what did you expect, you pillock? learning black magics from vampires will lead to nothing good!) but can’t escape. (Do vampires want his blood particularly for something, besides willing blood/memory donor/connection to humankind? Does Mr Caruthers have some sort of special power/ability/lineage? Special capacity for magic?) Eventually the Vampire Division finds and liberates him and make a deal not to charge him with various offences, including use of illegal black magics, consorting with vampires (yes, probably a prison-able offence), various things he was probably something of an accomplice to, and things he did and got away with before entering into thrall -- if he uses his personal understanding of the vampire mindset in their service pretty much forever, whenever they feel like calling on him. Mr Caruthers takes over a library, becomes a recluse in spectacles and tweed and a painfully messy office, and eventually hires a fetching copper-haired assistant librarian.

By the time the story beings, it’s been ten? seven? thirteen? years since Mr Caruthers was released. Some kind of unrest is stirring in the vampire community -- something to do with the Industrial Revolution? Pre-WWI whisperings? Vampires feel threatened, which leads them to try to perform some sort of ritual? Which involves Mr Caruthers as a teind, because he was once a functioning part of their community, or because in their twisted mindset they consider it a sort of honour? Or because he betrayed the community by killing some of them in his bid for escape and/or fed information to the Department? They think they are allowing him to redeem himself by being their sacrifice? The ritual takes place on All Hallows Eve, of course, the story being rather demanding, and my subconscious so determined to put in little hints of Tam-Lin everywhere.

Good heavens, my subconscious is such a bizarre place.

(And yes, really, I do promise to talk about Nova Scotia! Only things keep getting in the way.)

Comments

[lady-moriel.livejournal.com]

Idea: it's semi-impossible for a human to understand the vampire mindset really well because vampires aren't human, therefore even Mr. Caruthers, having lived with them and all, would have a hard time doing so. But. Seeing as vampire things and vampire magic tend to involve blood, what if a considerable part of learning this black magic that he signed up for involved drinking vampire blood? Not much of it, obviously, but it would be a pretty regular thing, I imagine, enough that while he certainly wasn't turned, he was still sort of...steeped in vampirism, the vampire way of thinking, vampire stories really since all these stories/memories are in the blood. I'm sure he wouldn't be getting very distinct stories from individual vampires, for reasons I think you've talked about, but it would still be...well, enough of a composite of the way those stories/memories form/are processed/something that he has more of a sense than anyone else does of the vampire mindset. Because, I imagine, the vast majority of thralls--whatever their motivation for becoming thralls--don't ever get out, and the few that do are so far into black magic as to be irredeemable and totally useless to anyone who might want to fight vampires. So in that sense, anyway, Mr. Caruthers would be...well, special, since it would be the long-term drinking of vampire blood that would be important rather than a one-off "yeah, I went to a vampire brothel a couple times" thing.

Of course he's going to need a good reason for wanting this kind of magic in the first place and being willing to do something really stupid to get it, since only a really strong reason for wanting/needing power would convince him to become a vampire thrall. Although if he's, like, deep in angst by that point already, he might want to be bitten or whatever because he thinks he deserves it, or...something. And of course if he was that determined to get this power in the first place, he might well be convinced that staying a thrall is the only way to get it even though it's more likely to kill him, so something pretty awful would have to happen to convince him to turn on the vampires, give up the drive for this kind of power, whatever.

[goddessreason.livejournal.com]

YAY!!!!! Keats!!! No vampires though. Drat. We should begin plotting a way to see it now, since it probably won't come to our smelly theatre. And you know, someday we really must make our own farce about him, with Byron :P Byron makes everything so interesting.

[faeriemaiden.livejournal.com]

SPEAKING of Byron, found this tidbit while wandering through the intarwebs...

English poet Byron, back in the late 18th century, wrote this marvellous piece on the death of the hated Lord Castlereagh:

"Posterity will ne'er survey
A nobler grave than this.
Here lie the bones of Castlereagh
Stop, traveller, and piss"

Oh, Byron.


(You know what would be really brilliant? Dressing up as various Romantics for Halloween. Or perhaps steampunkified versions. Or, uh, the vampiric versions. :D)

[goddessreason.livejournal.com]

I officially love Lord Byron! That is the best epitaph ever.

Yes, that's a marvelous idea! And of course we'd steampunkify them. And we should all definitely be undead ;)

[shadowempress.livejournal.com]

I giggle at the movie news.Due to my costume habit, I have known about this movie for almost a year and have mentioned it to you and Hannah on various occasions. You should check out the movie website, cause it is pretty.

Yay for sordid pasts!

[pearlessence.livejournal.com]

I would like to be added to balladrie quicker than I can say something really short! :D Your story sounds tres intriguing. Poor Mr Caruthers (learning black magics from vampires will lead to nothing good, but it helps appease the insatiably curious? I suppose?).

And I'd love to see a film about John Keats and Fanny Brawne - I'll definitely have to find out more about it.

EDIT: And your idea for Halloween costumes is marvelous. Steampunk undead Romantics? Does it get any better than that? Apologies for semi-hijacking your thread, but I couldn't help it. :D?

[lady-moriel.livejournal.com]

OOH IDEA: So Mr Caruthers needs an actual reason to realize he's in deep crap and be willing to sell himself to the Ministry (just remembered it's the Department of the Paranormal--why is that, exactly? *runs to Wikipedia* Ah, Britain has both Ministries and Departments, and they're a little different, so...huh.), right? And also he doesn't do anything about being hopelessly in love with Evy for, like, ages, and even then doesn't think he should or that he deserves it or whatever Remus.

So here is my idea: it sounds like some amounts of hooking up, associated with all this bad-magic/drugs stuff or otherwise, went on while Mr Caruthers was being a Bad Boy. So say that there's this girl, dunno if she'd be a hooker or a magic-dabbling hooker or a not-hooker dabbling in some of the magic he is, but whatever the case, it's someone he's involved with and grows to genuinely care for. And largely because of Mr Caruthers' influence/idea/whatever, they both become thralls in pursuit of magic--and maybe she figures out first that it's bad business and tries to leave, or something, but whatever the case, she dies because of it, and he's there when it happens, unable in one way or another to do anything about it because he's 1) already figured out this is bad and has tried to get out, and is therefore restrained somehow/weakened by regular blood loss from vampires feeding on him, or 2) too whacked out on bad-magic vampire blood to make himself do anything.

If nothing else, that would give him a very personal reason for wanting to fight vampires, plus a lot of guilt, reasons for avoiding any romantic relationships (especially if Evy, in one way or another, reminds him of the girl who died, in more innocent times), and willingness to get away from the vampires and help the Department whatever the cost to him.