I have lived a very long time, i shall not say how long because it is just not done. Perhaps my beloved can help grease the wheels in that respect. I do have respect for your opinions here, i like this dialogue. It gives me perspective, other than mine own words. The essence of all things vampire. What is true? What is not. These things are all subjective, like playing on a chess board, with infinite pieces, on an infinite field, giving you infinite possibilities. There are factors that as writers we used to apply to the "field" making the infinite less so. We are all only limited by our imaginations, it is just interesting to see these changes take place. My character is far from invincible, why just last night I was bested by a word processor. Fah! I say, if this were two hundred years ago and a learned man came to my castle daring to say his words were better than mine. I would *bites lower lip* drink of his blood so fast. The human word processor, he might be surprised that he felt very odd in the next moment. But that is the old me, I am changing. Trying to adapt to this new wondrous age, of possibility. I am far from invincible. A word processors +quote thing bested me scant hours ago. But you live and learn, or try to. The help of other people makes the big problem seem small. I take things one step at a time with this character, that is also how I have learned to live these long centuries. Eternity. There is no such thing for one such as me, or any immortal boasting to be eternal. We may say when giving a dark kiss to a lover that it is forever, that is in truth a white lie or perhaps a dark lie for a dark kiss. Eternity is not forever for the long lived it is just that, long life. A chance we are given with our preternatural life to experience more things simply because when we drink blood we use other peoples lives to extend our own. Still, my time will come one day. I hope to face it together with my beloved with a smile upon my face, knowing we had lived our long lives to the fullest. Is that not the best any of us can hope for? Good patrons I am not invincible, in building my character, I try for something that is unique for myself. You bring up a great many fantastic points and I shall try to read them and regard them all. You may find a chink in my armor within the next few phrases or maybe you all have your own favorites that is good. The original movie Fright Night is close to perfection, in its journey to tell the tale of a vampire living next to the "boy next door." The music, storytelling, the characters, the world building, and the humor. When I saw it at the theater in the 80's it took my breathe away, metaphorically speaking and it still does this day. Amy so lovely. I won't say more as I dint want to spoil perfection. Your all so beautiful. *grins* isn't that what a vampire should say to a group of people such as yourselves? Time for my morning drink.
Because I'm thinking about it, I'm going to give a bit of a summary/elaboration on the moral standing of vampires in my story. So I have in the OP that I want vampires to be able to be truly good and not simply in spite of it. The important thing to add here is that I don't mean vampires are only good if they go through some magical journey to get their goodness, nor that vampires are just gonna be people with quirks. But rather, I want vampires to be a little different than people in their general perspective and disposition, but not just immortal + evil. I want it to portray it as an interesting question as to what exactly the difference really is, and explore a variety of advantages and disadvantages. This is especially important because of Jade and her story as a character being significantly about what it means to her and how it has affected her as a person, but it's also important to general themes of the story about identity and the flawed nature of us all. Complicating the matter for us and the characters is how we have to deal with the social perception and history of vampires, something which proves increasingly relevant for when we see more pureblood demon activity later in my story. To start things off, the story begins with vampires as a villain, with a group of violent, callous rogues- excepting for Jade. As we learn also about her bad history and how she herself is down on it, it doesn't make being a vampire look very good. But yet Jade begins the story as a loyal and caring friend to one of the other main characters- despite that character turning against her (even if briefly), and repeatedly aids the others, and as soon as she starts heading to a bad place, it's actually acting more like a vampire that helps her. Jade proves the character amongst the main cast (excluding their ultimate leader who is a whole other story and not someone we know well at this point), the one most willing and ready to kill, but also the most sympathetic of others (especially random civilians). And while it would be easy to say the first is the vampire, and the second is the person, Jade as a person is definitely not perfect, and it seems in at least some small part Jade is so sympathetic because of her experience as a vampire.
I'm going to shameless bump my other thread about setting because I'm still really not sure what setting to use and could use some more feedback, especially on whether a change in setting is actually more interesting to people. https://www.writingforums.org/threads/urban-dark-fantasy-modern-vs-historical-settings.157516/ Please help me.
I am not sure I entirely understand what you are after. To me it seems you are trying to create a type of vampire with a soul a bit like in buffy the vampire slayer "Angel". Maybe try and get a hold of these videos to get some inspiration.
I have the whole Angel and Buffy series. Definitely a source of inspiration and good reference for me. The way they do vampires is significantly more polarised than I intend to. Normal vampires without a soul are all inherently evil while ensouled vampires are portrayed having relatively little issue with controlling themselves. By comparison, there is no reference to souls with my vampires and they tend to be a little more middle of the road. Jade's story is though definitely pretty similar to Angel's. But as well as the general differences in the portrayal of vampires, Angel's journey is more about his role in the world, while Jade's story will be more to do with who she is as a person.
