Vampires Are Petty

Here's an equation for you: 1 Petty Immortal + 1 Petty Immortal = Everlasting Feud.

You may remember earlier when I said: "Most undead, blood-sucking vampires don't get along with werewolves but in terms of strength they're pretty equally matched and stay out of each other's way. Energy vampires, psy-vamps, sanguinarians, etc. don't generally have issues with our lycan friends, however."

This is mostly true. However, the Vampires VS Werewolves stereotype exists for a reason. And no, that reason isn't just Dracula VS The Wolfman.

Image credit: DND Image Description: Straad, a vampire, sitting in an ornate chair drinking blood out of a glass. End description.

In order of frequency, vampires have problems with individuals from these categories:

Yes, I am serious. Yes, I meant to put them in that order. Yes, I am aware that people will disagree with this.

I have already talked about hunters here and here. I will get into the issues with other vampires over the course of this entire website. This leaves the last three categories for me to elaborate on here. Hold onto your hats, this is gonna get ugly.

Some literature will frame these conflicts as petty squabbles between schoolyard cliques. That could not be further from the truth. It is must more serious than that. When supernatural beings fight, things get deadly. That said, just because these feuds are serious and deadly does not make them right or even smart.

Disclaimer before I begin, no feud is innate. The things I'm about to describe are all learned behaviours.

Witches/Wiccans

Pretty bold of me to rank witches higher than werewolves on this list, but it had to be done.

Now if you're a wiccan or a witch and you're reading this thinking, "But I don't have any problems with vampires!" Then good. Thanks. I appreciate it. But your warm-fuzzies for vampirekind don't erase a lot of bad blood between certain magic users and vampirism.

Remember when my friend Marlene talked about the Modern Vampire Community? This may come as a surprise to you, but Wiccans haven't always had a great relationship with psy-vamps. Even today, a quick internet search reveals dozens of "protection against psychic vampire" spells. Look, it makes sense to me. Those who are more in-tune with their own psychic energy would be more in-tune with psychic vampires. But I'm going to advocate for psy-vamps a little. Did you know that psychic energy goes stale? What's more, it doesn't have a very long shelf-life. You're in no danger from a psy-vamp. They eat up energy that is on its way out anyway and in doing so they make room for more energy to flourish. Besides, psy-vamps are more like you than you know. You're both tuned into different types of energy than most people and you both do some kind of work with it. Maybe you can learn a thing or two from one another.

As for us good old fasioned blood suckers, we have a different sort of problem with witches. There is little more dangerous than a witch-turned-hunter. Let's talk about Buffy again for a minute, because while the Winchester boys have been known to go after witches, Buffy has been known to befriend them. I mean, of course she has problems with some of them, but I need you to follow my line of thinking for a minute. Picture this: There's a guy after you and he has a knife. Take that knife and give him a handful of fire that he can throw at you as many times as he likes. Did he just become 1000X scarrier? Yes? Now you can see what I have to deal with. For a long time, only average little normies hunted vampires. When witches started, shit hit the fan. Another good example is in the anime "The Case Study of Vanitas." As Vanitas shows, witches are stronger, faster, and deadlier than regular hunters. Some of them can concentrate the power of the sun into a tiny little ball in their hand and then flick it at you. What the fuck is even that? They can track, too. They are one of the only things able to follow vampires in the dead of night with ease. The power that the strongest magic users hold over vampires is truly frightening for someone used to being at the top of the food chain.

Why witches ever started hunting vampires is beyond me. They went from being burned at the stake by their fellow man to coming after us on their behalf. Stay in your fucking lane!

On a much more serious note, there is a witch which all vampires with any ounce of common sense fear. Millenia ago that witch cursed a vampire so badly that he lost his eternal life. He was not turned human; he still hungered for blood. He was still a vampire, but he died a slow, agonizing, human death. That witch is still out there, and no one has seen her in 1000 years. She keeps many of us up during the day.

Werewolves

Yeah, most of us have some issues with werewolves.

In the 1930's, humans tried to take credit for inventing the vampire-werewolf wars. This could not be further from the truth. The beef between vampires and werewolves is real and ancient.

This usually boils down to a dispute over food. See, vamps and werewolves often use the same kinds of hunting grounds and sharing something of that nature isn't easy. Vampire-werewolf turf wars are often bloodbaths and not the fun kind. Werewolves travel in packs but vampires can summon up a gang of friends or at least friendly aquaintances to do battle and they do it old school. Battles to the death over shitty dive bars and 24-hour rest stops are a part of life for the living dead.

Of course, you get the vampire-purists who feel superior to werewolves and the werewolf-purists who feel superior to vampires just based on species alone. This is kind of ridiculous. It's hard to know why it started in the first place. Some vampires feel superior to werewolves because our powers are full-time and not "seasonal" as it were. Some werewolves feel superior to vampires because a werewolf at full strength has a good shot at defeating a vampire at one-on-one combat. Some vampires feel superior to werewolves because over the centuries there have been werewolves who were "cured" successfully while vampires remain "uncurable." Some vampires and some werewolves just hate each other for the sole reason, "We're both creatures of the night but MY kind of creature of the night is the original and better in every way." This is also ridiculous. How on earth are we supposed to determine what came first and why on earth would it matter? We're different beasts all together. So what, we can both transform? So what, we can both talk to animals? So what, we both terrorize humans in the night? To all vampires reading this who take issue with werewolves for no good reason and vice-versa: Get a fucking grip buddy.

But yeah, usually it's a food issue.

I will give werewolves credit for one thing, and that is the solidarity between us and them when it comes to hunters. Not all vampire hunters target werewolves too. Like I said, we're different beasts. Werewolf hunters are often just as specialized as vampire hunters. But I'd tear the throat out of a werewolf hunter any day because I know that any werewolf would say the same about my hunters. I really think it's a beautiful thing, that we can be at odds over the dumbest shit, and put it away when it really counts.

Everything Else

You wanna talk about dragons?

One of the only human novels I've ever read that deals with the conflict between humans and dragons is Tracy Wolff's "Crave." If you're a fan of "Twilight," you'll like "Crave." It's a YA novel about supernatural high schoolers and while it is innaccurate, Wolff did get one thing very right; When dragons and vampires fight the results are catastrophic.

Now, you might be thinking, "Yukon, no way are you going to tell me dragons are real." And to that I say, "But you believe in vampires though?"

Look, I'll lay my cards on the table. The last time I saw a dragon with my own eyes was in about the tenth century CE. I'm not saying they're extinct, maybe they're just really good at hiding. But the day Hershal and I squared off against a dragon in South Wales is not a day I'll soon forget. There were earthquakes. Fires raged out of control. It was probably the most destructive thing I was ever a part of or witnessed ever.

Aside from dragons, vampires also sometimes have issues with ghosts.

When you move into a creepy old castle you need to make sure it's not already haunted by somebody else. The beureaucracy of ghostly real estate can be a bitch. Squatters rights kick in after about a century, and that's only if they didn't die in the house.

There's also a much rarer but much more pressing problem that is touched in in The Case Study of Vanitas: superpowered ghosts who drive humans and vampires alike insane. These trickster ghosts posess huge levels of power and can actually trap people (including vampires) in contracts, capture them, or drive them mad. If a ghost asks for your name, treat it like the fae and say no.

Finally, if you're really unlucky then the ghosts of your victims might follow you around. You'll spend eternity with some dead human bitching and moaning and rattling chains in your ears all because you ate them. Spooky.

Grim Reapers have been known to take issue with vampires too, for two reasons. #1: We make their jobs too difficult. We eat too fast. This is less of an issue than #2: We are quite literally outrunning death while going "Na na na na na na you can't catch me! Run, run, as fast as you can! You can't catch me, I'm the undead man!" Skill issue. Get over it, Grim.

All that said:

If I don't have a genuine reason to be at odds with an individual, I won't. It takes more energy than I have to seethe and writhe at the thought of werewolves or witches existing, minding their own business. I don't have enough hours of the night to hate all werewolves, and lots of vampires feel the same. None of these feuds are innate. They're not rules, they're just general circumstances.

If you belong to one of these species, if you're a witch or a werewolf or a ghost or anything else for that matter, I hope I haven't ruffled your feathers too bad. I don't expect I have. I expect you probably agree with me. And odds are, if we haven't met, I probably have no quarrel with you.

Now, back to the main page.