The Best Ghosts: Now live! Special deal, read now!

[mwdeans]

That is a truly disturbing thought. I always enjoyed the idea of the sparklies meeting Brian Lumely's truly terrifying vampires.

His are a symbiot that influence the brains of the infected to be paranoid and territorial while suppressing empathy and self control. All while being insanely infectious.

[PS Power]

There is almost always a question in the idea of the Vampire: What causes them to exist in the first place?

Normally, the idea of some outside intervention is used. In Anne Rice's books, there was a singular ghost, that infected all vampires, granting them powers by animating their bodies and minds.

Lumely had those parasites.

My take is a demonic energy being, that reproduces through infection. So, the being in Eve Benson is different than the one in her Maker, Edom Freeman. Still, they are literally related, on that side of things. (Also, they reproduce a-sexually so taboos that way don't really have a purpose.)

Twilight didn't really go into that level of things. (Which is fine. Most stories don't cover things at that level. I know that I haven't, officially. It is all in my head space at this time. That and on this page...)

[David]

I've seen the demon angle before, and there's the virus angle as well using exotic scientific explanations, IE change in mitochondria, ability to harness particle physics. That kind of thing.

In your books, given the anger and pain they endure as a price for the benefits, not to mention the loss of other emotions, the demon angle makes sense for your vampires. A lot of sense.

Twilight went with mystery, the truth is lost in the ancient past.

Then there's Buffy, the demon angle where the human isn't truly alive anymore, or present.

I've also read a book where vampires are possessed by demons, but not intelligent ones. Hell's animal predators. SO they generally have control, unless they let themselves get too thirsty. Blood keeps the animal sated etc...

I'm sure there's more.

[PS Power]

I can see that. In Alternate Places, Zack (Human Zack) often speaks to the "beasts" of the Vampires.

[David]

Yep, he does it to Snowflake as well when he teaches her to linewalk in the void, so the other vampire demon spirit or whatever they're called are the same? Or close enough? I know alternate doesn't do the blood link thing, or did they just not know how?

[MasterfulZora]

If I’m remembering correctly, vampires in alternate never came across the blood link thing and were trying to see if they could learn to do it themselves.

I don’t think it was confirmed as successful or otherwise in the books but it seems like something they would be able to pull off once introduced to it.

[PS Power]

That's my plan for it. But not confirmed, so that might change...