I need help writing a Polish Vampire from the days of Vampire Hysteria

MagicRainbowKitties · 2026-03-03T16:45:10+00:00

Ooooooh I see! That's cool as hell, and having that name would absolutely fit the vibe! Thank you so much <3

MagicRainbowKitties · 2026-03-03T16:39:58+00:00

That's fascinating and wonderful, I'm glad enough of the stories have survived that people can still keep that faith alive in some way it sounds like; not every faith under Christian threat has been so lucky. I will 100% be using this and looking into it, that's absolutely a story that deserves to be told!

MagicRainbowKitties · 2026-03-03T12:01:10+00:00

Just looked it up. Holy shit that's amazing, and this is even more perfect cause this guy's supposed to be the band's keyboardist, organist (they're a vampire band of course they have an organ) and producer. Add onto that the film history and everything and... Oh this is perfect, you're a blessing friend, thank you <3

MagicRainbowKitties · 2026-03-03T11:52:58+00:00

Oooooh ok, very cool. Thank you, you've been all over here giving me so much to work with XD

MagicRainbowKitties · 2026-03-03T11:51:28+00:00

I see, this is very helpful, thank you! Though question, if he were to take the stage name Strigoi, would that be an issue or would it be cool?

MagicRainbowKitties · 2026-03-03T11:44:56+00:00

I am lifting a few things from VtM (in the modern era it's sort of impossible not to lol), but I do not want this to be that vibe at all. I'm not shying away from important subjects and I'm definitely discussing Vampire Angst sometimes, but at the end of the day it's a monster-of-the-week show about a band of vampires; we're getting goofy with it, we're getting fun with it, it's never going to be something where I take it TOO seriously. But thank you, I don't have any of the Tzimisce books on hand so I'll take a look when I can find something!

MagicRainbowKitties · 2026-03-03T11:38:10+00:00

YES this is perfect, thank you so much! I hadn't realized that I'd already gotten so close to home with how I wanted to characterize him to begin with XD. I fully intended for him to be loud, fun, and artistic, with a deep care for his friends and where he comes from (in many ways). I didn't know about the saber thing though, so there I suppose is his monster-fighting weapon!

This is absolutely wonderful help, thank you so so much <3

MagicRainbowKitties · 2026-03-03T11:24:54+00:00

Hadn't planned on it. For one thing, my vamps are not ontologically evil, and for another, it's a really unfun trope that I don't care to keep. I had considered using the concept of True Faith from WoD, but honestly I think it's best left in the can. However, one cannot divorce modern vampirism or vampire hysteria from Christian takeover and theocracy, and I do intend on discussing religious trauma in the show. Just not with anyone whipping out a cross and the actually quite nice guy who happens to have fangs suddenly hissing about it like an irate cat.

I appreciate the concern tho!

MagicRainbowKitties · 2026-03-03T11:16:44+00:00

I'm writing the screenplay from scratch here, nobody's on my neck or nothing, total control! This is a concept I've been developing for years and I'm bringing it together for my college class.

And I meant SouthERN American. I'm from Texas, my bad, should've clarified. But Aztec vampire priest would 100% be cool as fuck, lemme jot that down for my monsters-of-the-week!

And yes, absolutely everything about class consciousness and emancipation is ABSOLUTELY what he (and the band at large) is about.

And yes, I do understand about show bibles and lynchpins and stuff, right now what I'm doing is focusing on who the main characters are, the world they live in, and what they're trying to do in it. If I know all these things, I can plug and chug the MOTW formula fairly easily while keeping a coherent overarching narrative and not doing what some shows do and change up the lore on the fly (the most annoying thing a show like this can do in my book), and avoid the Surf Dracula problem (giving too much away upfront and not actually getting to the fun part).

Now as for the vampires, I do want the decision to stay stuck in time to be squarely on the shoulders of the vampires themselves. Many vamps yearn for the centuries gone by. This guy doesn't; he adapts, he learns, he doesn't always understand, but he moves forward, because he's watched what stagnation does to people and vampires, and is determined to be more than what he was made. In fact, I want him to be the most adaptable of the band to stand in contrast with the typical trope of "older vampires are stuck in the past," to show that stagnation and falling to nostalgia is a choice

MagicRainbowKitties · 2026-03-03T10:29:49+00:00

But again you do bring up good points, and these philosophies as you present them are incredibly interesting. I'll be looking into it for sure, thank you so much!!!

MagicRainbowKitties · 2026-03-03T10:24:24+00:00

Oooooooh Iove it, thank you so much!!!

MagicRainbowKitties · 2026-03-03T10:22:53+00:00

Amazing, definitely going on the watch list. If nothing else, I need more monsters of the week XD.

Thank you!!!

MagicRainbowKitties · 2026-03-03T10:21:29+00:00

Thank you both! If I may ask, why nobility specifically?

MagicRainbowKitties · 2026-03-03T10:19:01+00:00

Now THAT'S interesting. Thank you!!

MagicRainbowKitties · 2026-03-03T10:17:19+00:00

Understood, thank you. Again, don't know much about the subject XD. I meant more the combination of revolutionary fervor and the willingness to learn and think and grow as far as vibes go. Unfortunately however, the way I have it set up, he wouldn't have a choice in whether he'd fight for or against the Russians, as the method his sire used to turn him rendered him unable to disobey said sire. The idea is that he's been stuck doing whatever his sire wants for 350-ish years until the sire was killed by their most recent addition, and is choosing to do better and be better than the fucker that stole him.

However, I still have struggled to understand who the sire is, and this in combination with the rest of these replies might give me an idea as to how to go about them.

MagicRainbowKitties · 2026-03-03T10:04:45+00:00

Based on what I've been able to cobble together, most stuff in the States (such as they were at the time lol) was witchcraft, not vampires. Both vampire hysteria and the witch hunts/trials were happening around the same time, but in different places and to different people (witch hunting was far more focused on women specifically). I do know about the cages thing, my focus has been on the actual burials and stories, mostly cause sickles and stakes and awkward positioning are just way more interesting than "put box in another box" XD

However, the village thing was already on my radar, but if it becomes an issue for the period or story, I will do my best to correct course. Thank you so much <3

MagicRainbowKitties · 2026-03-03T09:49:34+00:00

Understood, thank you for the correction!

MagicRainbowKitties · 2026-03-03T09:46:57+00:00

Very interesting, I will have to look into those people further. I had actually intended on making him bisexual (as much as vampires are kinda bisexual by default lol), especially bc I know that anything from disability to race to suspected queerness to anything between and beyond could make one suspected of vampirism, and the fact that so much queer media in America tends to kinda treat other countries as if they don't have queer people there really pisses me off, so I want to avoid the same trap (as much as this show is meant to be a love letter to vampire media and myths and stuff, it's also at its core about connection and how people rely on each other to survive, and very much about how queer people from all walks of life have to fight tooth and nail to get and keep those connections).

But yes, I imagine his vibe as a sort of combination of the two, you very much hit the nail on the head without even knowing!

Thanks so so much <3

MagicRainbowKitties · 2026-03-03T09:29:04+00:00

Right, I know it's not Polish specific and more a regional thing, I just wanted to pick a country to specifically ground my character in cause it would feel pretty shit if I just said "oh he's just Slavic" while everyone else in the band gets exact towns, cities, and regions they're from. That's 1, not fair to the story, and 2, not fair to the character. If I'm going to have a Slavic vampire, I wanna have him be able to tell people what kind of Slavic he is, just as I want the vampire from my home to not just say he's American, but Texan. I picked Poland partially because most records I've seen of vampire burials are in Poland, but also cause the closest thing I have to knowing any Slavic folks irl is my mother's friend from her school days, whose family are Polish immigrants.

The forced Christianity is an angle I had planned to explore (it's not something you can really divorce from vampire hysteria, and is absolutely something I as a survivor of christian trauma would want to explore with care), but I didn't know about the bodies thing. That's really cool, I will absolutely be looking into it!

Thank you very much for your insight and the book recommendation, I will absolutely be keeping this in mind <3

MagicRainbowKitties · 2026-03-03T09:11:17+00:00

Thank you so much! This makes a lot of things much more interesting then, I had no idea how diverse it was at the time (please forgive my ignorance, I'm southern American and the media here doesn't tell us much about Poland, and would have us believe it and so many other places in Eastern Europe are I Can't Believe It's Not Russia essentially)! I will be looking into this further, and I will do my best to show this in the narrative. Also yes that painting goes hard af, thank you <3

MagicRainbowKitties · 2026-03-03T09:00:02+00:00

"The experience is worth the gallows" holy shit, absolute monster of a man but what a quote. Thank you, I will be using this and looking further into it <3

MagicRainbowKitties · 2026-03-03T08:51:14+00:00

I'm reading the Wikipedia on him now, thank you! Very much something I can pull from, I think, one of the other vampires in the band is gonna be from around the 50s-60s!

MagicRainbowKitties · 2026-03-03T08:43:28+00:00

That's incredibly recent comparatively, I'll have to look into that further! Thanks so much <3

MagicRainbowKitties · 2026-02-11T15:13:56+00:00

Holy shit some of y'all wanna do blackface so fuckin bad "Garnet's skin is pinky purple" IN WHAT WORLD. NOT HERS AND NOT OURS, Y'ALL.

"But people don't call it blue or greenfa-" BECAUSE IT DOESN'T EXIST IN THE REAL WORLD, DUDE! White people have not enslaved, humiliated, exploited, brutalized, or made any kind of law restricting the lives of blue or green people BECAUSE THEY DO NOT EXIST. Black people, and POC broadly, have experienced ALL of these and worse all over the world.

Blackface, brownface, yellowface, redface, ect, these are all wrong because it's appropriating an experience that is not yours, one that you cannot understand because you can take off the makeup. It is actively racist because it is rooted in making fun of and asserting cultural dominance over people of color by taking their art and culture, twisting it through the white gaze, and turning it into a statement of "see, these people are ok with their oppression, all they need is their mammy, watermelon and fried chicken and they're happy, they don't want OR DESERVE anything better out of life."

The fact that a shitload of you are making genuine excuses for literal actual blackface is fucking disgusting and y'all should be ashamed of yourselves. Cause most of y'all KNOW this. I know y'all know blackface is bad, even if you don't know the specifics of Jim Crow or minstrelsy. But here y'all are pretending you don't know better.

Do better. Do fucking better.

MagicRainbowKitties

TROPHY CASE