Stream of Unconsciousness (Hypnovamp Hyperfixation Powerhours)

Nico: Fuck. Fine. 8. Still Lav. Gale doesn't need anyone dying for her.

 

I can't brain, ask me shit about my worlds/characters

 

Tell me more about mask decoration? Like what sort of mask means what.

 

It's less mask types and more that masks contain symbols, though often the materials they're made from also communicate a certain amount and certain motifs are used by organizations or certain ranks- the Queen's Lions don't have lion masks in the way the assassins do, but all their masks have a lion mane. The royal family similarly has butterfly winged masks.

But things like trade, home region, where someone studied or was trained, and major families all have their own sigils/crests. There are also standard symbols for things like siblings and children and whether they're dead or not, and major life events (including things as simple as marriage, or things like surviving plague/attacks)

 

lessseeeeee

13?

 

Oh man is this a Lia song. Some parts apply to other characters, but it's Lia all the way down. The fucking opening lines, fucking hell. ("Close my eyes, give me something help me sleep tonight/hostile vibe, now multiply/it's not alright")

There's this constant contrast between a grim determination and completely falling apart which is. Very Lia. She's fine, right? She's fine. (She is not, in fact, fine.)

Also I don't think I have any other song with a lyric that encapsulates Lia nearly as much as "dying inside/no consequence in mind/bent over/and crying/all messed up/and ready to die." Just @ her next time.

 

Also Verena May's voice is fucking hot.

 

-kicks in door to own thread- Y'all can keep memeing me (pls keep memeing me) BUT

I'm working on S/O again so have some more hunter lore.

Hunters typically don't get individual funerals unless they held some kind of rank. Trainers, family heads, the local organization's leaders, and similar might get individual funerals, but your average hunter who gets killed won't. Instead there's a mass funeral at the end of every month where everyone who died in that month is mourned. The first half of the funeral is the more solemn and classically ritualistic. Hunter bodies are traditionally burned, with their ashes entombed, in the section for their family. This is a leftover of old superstition; they may have been founded by a vampire, but she didn't remember the details of her turning and never turned anyone else- she had no idea what the process was like. And the crumbling hunter organizations she based her own on and recruited from were all burning the bodies to prevent them from rising again. They didn't know their founder was a vampire, and it would have been suspicious to correct them even if she knew better. Even as they learned more about their prey, the tradition remained. The rites themselves are uniquely hunter, but they carry influences from several of their founding cultures. Most of the early members came from Christian attempts to hunt vampires, but Dalena was raised as a mage and the hunters kept ties to them, opening up influence from several European pagan practices.

During the first half the names of the dead are recited, including where they were trained and who the vampire that killed them was, if known. The bodies are burned- those who died earlier in the months are kept preserved by the biomanipulators until the funeral- and there's a period of ritualized mourning. There's no conversation, no food and in fact most will fast until the second half, and a great deal of crying and/or wordless screaming.

And then the party starts. The second half of the funeral is a celebration, with a lot of food, a lot of alcohol like holy shit that's a lot, and things get loud. A lot of stories are told about the dead, good and bad, people comfort each other universally in the belief that the death of a single hunter impacts all of them, sometimes ill-conceived plans are hatched to get revenge. Those typically don't last, but might lead to later concentrated efforts to take down vampires who've killed multiple hunters, or who've been on their radar for a while before taking one down. Nobody watches the minors particularly closely so long as they've earned their first knife, so they tend to drink as well. There's also a fair amount of hookups, especially among cadres who lost someone that month but also just in general.

Both parts of the funerals are heavy on song, like most important hunter events. There are mourning and ritual songs for the first half, usually a certain set depending on the seasons and with some variation on location; equatorial hunters won't have funeral songs that mention snow even in the winter, but hunters in the far north most likely have many, for instance. The second half... just about anything goes. People just sing. There are a few standard song types, mostly celebratory, some silly, some rather like drinking songs, but mostly people sing whatever they want on whims based on what they knew of the deceased- a favorite song, a favorite genre, relevant subject matter, a voice similar to theirs, whatever.

 

Monthly reminder that I'm a slut for questions about my writing. I'll answer worldbuilding questions and if you specify character questions can be answered in or out of character.

Plot questions may be answered, or you just get witch cackles.

 

Tell me more about the hunter heads of family? Who are they, how did they get there.

Also, if by some miracle a hunter survives fighting long enough, do they get to switch to teaching?

 

The heads of all the local families form a sort of council, which is the main governing body of the hunters. Family heads don't exactly represent the family so much as they represent what the family represents; each family has a specialization, though there is a fair amount of overlap (Kat's family is one of the many bog-standard kinetic families that make up most of the rank-and-file hunters, but they each have a family head.) Heads are chosen by how closely they fulfill the model of what their family is supposed to be, and most are chosen by the former head upon stepping down, or by the heads of the other local families in the event of an unexpected death. Headship is one of the few ways a hunter can leave the field without catching a bad case of dead- once you're head of your family you can't hunt anymore, you're too important.

Also, I mention singular heads, but there are technically multiple heads per family depending on how spread out that family is. Some families may have multiple heads on one continent- there are about five Keriell heads in the US- while some families, like the Ciura, have a much smaller spread with one head in the Pacific Northwest and one in Eastern Europe. I only refer to a singular head because territories don't overlap, even for families with a large spread.

Current family heads I have notes for are:

• Natalina Ciura, head of the Ciura family. As a model Ciura she's a telepath, a team player, adaptable, and responsible, maybe a little bossy. Pretty far from Lia- every family has outliers, it doesn't mean they're not part of the family, but they will get passed over for headship and are rarely consulted by the head. Ciura family heads usually serve to counterbalance the more hotheaded hunter families but aren't as 'soft' as the Keriells. Natalina used to be leader of a cadre before she took headship, which isn't uncommon for Ciura heads.
• Myron Audley, head of the Audley family. Real quiet guy but the kind of quiet that people listen to when he does speak. Very observant, very patient, surprisingly willing to work with others, fairly strong telepath and one of the rare few who has both input and output. He used to be a scout for a cadre, like most Audleys. He- and every Audley head, historically- serves as one of the main tacticians.
• Lina Keriell, head of the Keriells. Healer, one of the few actually born to the family. Honestly one of the sweeter ones- being a healer for hunters takes a certain amount of steel- but despite her family's reputation she's not a complete pushover. There's... a lot of conflict in perception, role, and actual personality for Keriells- their main purpose is to advocate harm reduction, which means they often get written off as being soft, and because healers never enter the field they're often considered out of touch to the real danger. On the other hand, hunters are stubborn bastards and you have to be able to shout most of them down to treat them for anything that isn't obviously life-threatening, and among your average hunter the healers are known for being hardasses. And then there's the fact that healers know very well the danger hunters face because they're the ones putting the hunters back together. There's this weird liminal space among the heads where the healers simultaneously don't know anything and can be disregarded, but are also incredibly respected, and which side they're being viewed as can flip pretty quickly. Lina's already overworked as one of the better healers, and then she's got the worst of the politics to deal with.

These are all heads for the PNW area, including Blusridge.

For the most part heads serve a combination of ceremonial and staff roles- they handle things like funerals and oath-takings, but also personnel management, logistics, maintaining ties to the local mage enclaves, all the boring shit that keeps a massive organization like this running. They mostly operate as a council when a vampire/group of same catch their attention. Something like Dionne and her brood were actually pretty small-time and handled locally, all the heads did was give the go-ahead for anyone to take a shot at her but if she were more dangerous they might have told the hunters to leave her alone while they organized a more targeted hunt. Half-mad ancients rolling into town, vampires targeting hunters specifically, or particularly prolific vampires are usually taken down by organized hunts, which are run by the local family heads.

Yes! This is one of the other rare ways a hunter leaves the field, and it's typically not age but injury that forces them to make the transition. Lia's firearms instructor had his leg completely shattered by a vampire; he survived, but even a talented healer couldn't do much for him. He's got a permanent limp, and a pretty bad one, that would make it suicide for him to hunt again, but his hands work just fine and he was already incredibly good with guns, so he left his home region and became an instructor.

There is a certain amount of shame in surviving a hunt with an injury that takes you out of the field permanently, only slightly lessened by if you're good enough to be a decent instructor. Most get hit pretty hard by it, and they almost always move to a different compound after. There's a certain expectation to fight to the last- if you lose a fight you either take down the vamp with you or you have the good sense to die trying. (This is your regular reminder that hunters are not ok)

 

-Looks at Lia- You don´t say. :P

ETA: Lia is an extreme example, Kat woulda worked just as well. I love them but they´re hot messes.

 

(here because I always feel weird getting infodumpy in other threads)

Yeah, vampverse hunters have this combination of duty and numbers that means the value of the individual is much lower. A hunter who dies without managing to take down the vampire that kills them is wasteful and unfortunate, and there is at least the knowledge that hunters are vengeful little bastards and a vamp who takes down a hunter probably will get taken down soon, especially if the dead hunter had a cadre. There's a kind of math at play, where one dead vampire means a lot less dead humans, so there's a certain allowable number of dead hunters to get there.

 

Oh mood.

Yeah it´s part numbers, even large packs don´t come up the vampverse hunters sheer numbers, and purpose. Packs aren´t fighting against anyone by nature, it´s all individual factions starting shit. Or individual packs starting shit.

 

Lia: Yes if it's eldritch!Asher, no otherwise.
Lexi: Hard no.
Caelia: Hoo boy, yep. The crossroads between trash fire and artist is one of her favorite sorts to play with.
Liborio: Yes, he's also into hot trash fire artists except with him it would be an "I can fix him" thing.
Crow: Oh fuck no. No.
Fox: ...Would top the hell out of him, especially if it makes him shut up for .5 seconds.
Cat: Too gay.
Lav: He's enough of a twink to be cute but not mean enough for her to want to fuck.
Zedra: Too gay.
ETA: Nico and Gale would both fuck eldritch!Asher, as noted by the Rave

 

asher: no wait wait i can be mean
asher: watch this
asher: [gives aodhan psychological scars]

 

HERE WE FUCKIN' GOOOOO

Second verse same as first, mostly. Lia and Nico/Gale would fuck Herald!Maikel only though, and Caelia would be less interested. Liborio would still make horrible 'I can fix him' decisions.

Lia: Oh hells yes.
Lexi: Oh hells no.
Caelia: Nope. Starshine's too confident and settled to be of any interest.
Liborio: Would, yes. He's hopelessly gay but he loves being around Big Gremlin Energy and would definitely hang out and drink with her.
Crow: Would, to be polite. Immediately regrets it. Ends up drunk on the floor crying with her mask off.
Fox: Hell yeah hell yeah hell yeah.
Cat: Starshine could hand her a live grenade and she'd take it.
Lav: Yeeesss. Would offer a drink in return.
Zedra: Nope. Inherently distrustful of anyone too much like her.
Nico: Him? Turn down a bad decision? Never.
Gale: ...Maybe. Depends on what's on offer.

Lia: Hell fucking yes.
Lexi: Only if he's not expected to actually party and can find somewhere quiet to people watch.
Caelia: Would try not to be in the same zipcode as Matt.
Liborio: You think this disaster gay death-obsessed poet wouldn't party with a necromancer?
Crow: Politely declines.
Fox: Yes. Matt has to dance with him at least once though.
Cat: S-sure?
Lav: Hell yes. Hell yes.
Zedra: Will go along with Lav.
Nico: Will go if Lav isn't, will spend the whole time looking for people to start shit with.
Gale: Slightly terrifyingly, yes.

Lia: Would go. There's gotta be someone there who'll fuck her up properly.
Lexi: NOPE.
Caelia: Shows up in one of her best (and skimpiest) dresses.
Liborio: Shows up, has a great time.
Crow: Politely declines, combusts in embarrassment as soon as no one's looking.
Fox: Wonders why a horrible little gremlin was invited, but shows up.
Cat: Says she'll go, chickens out at the last moment.
Lav: Most Lavs would absolutely go, most wouldn't get involved with the orgy. Demon!Lav absolutely would, though.
Zedra: Might go if there's anyone other than Lav she knows, especially people she doesn't like.
Nico: Depends on how heavily things lean towards 'orgy'
Gale: Absolutely giddy about the invitation, which is cause for concern and alarm.

Lia: Oh absolutely.
Lexi: Would supervise if Lia went.
Caelia: Not either of those, no.
Liborio: Would roadtrip, for sure.
Crow: Would definitely be up for a bounty hunt. It's been so long since she got to do actual field work.
Fox: Up for either, if Calamity would put up with him.
Cat: Also up for either, really excited about it.
Lav: Too many enclosed spaces with limited people. She doesn't like being trapped in cars for extended periods.
Zedra: Also down for a bounty hunt.
Nico: Only if he's allowed to kill the bounty.
Gale: Same as Nico, but she'd roadtrip for funsies.

 

Calamity would road trip on bikes, not in car, if that helps Lav any.