Vampires

A Halloween edition👻👻, it's never too late for the spooky season, right🤔?

Let's talk about one of my most favorite mythical creatures, Vampires🧛.

Fangs, pale skin, affected by the sun (somehow), blood suckers, night creatures, so damn sexy and handsome along with being immortal undead being.

I base my image basically of "The Vampire Diaries" and "twilight movie series" (which I shamefully have to admit it was my favorite once. I dunno how could I tolerate the amount of cringe in these movies, yet I can't get over myself and delete them from my laptop, even though I didn't watch them in years. I was team Edward everyone.)

Please don't make me start on being team Damon and my eternal love for bad boys that Klaus Mikaelson had to be my favorite original vampire even though Elijah Mikaelson was a real gentleman.

So either to glitter in sunlight or to be burnt by it, these stories have to have a base, right? Let's take a wooden stick and walk around in the dead of the night to uncover some truth to these myths.

Most people associate vampires with Count Dracula, a fiction character known to the world by Bram Stoker’s novel, Dracula, which was published in 1897. But the history of vampires began long before Stoker was born. Dare I say as far back as ancient Greece, where stories were told of creatures that attacked people in their sleep and drained their bodily fluids.

The main characteristic of vampires is the consumption of human blood or other essence (such as bodily fluids or psychic energy), followed by the possession of sharp teeth or fangs.

Vampires are "undead" somehow revived after death in variety of ways. The most common one is to be bitten by a vampire. Other methods include sorcery, committing suicide, contagion, or having a cat jump over a person’s corpse. Some people believed that babies born that way. It's said that they rise at night from their graves🪦 or coffins⚰️.

Vampires are typically said to be pale skin and range in appearance from grotesque to preternaturally beautiful, depending on the tale. Another frequently known physical characteristic is the inability to have a reflection🪞 or shadow👥, which often translates into an inability to be photographed or recorded on film🎞. Vampires hunt at night since sunlight weakens their powers. Some may have the ability to morph into a bat or a wolf. They also have super strength and often have a hypnotic, sensual effect on their victims.

While vampires usually do not die of disease or other normal human afflictions, and they are often said to have faster than normal healing capabilities.

That was to know what we are looking for. Now on to killing🗡️.

There are various methods for their destruction. The most popular of those include a wooden stake through the heart, fire, decapitation, and exposure to sunlight. Vampires are said to be repelled by garlic🧄, running water, or Christian implements such as crucifixes✝️ and holy water.

Be carful, in some stories vampires may enter a home only if they have been invited, and in others they may be distracted by the scattering of objects such as seeds or grains that they are compelled to count, which enable victims to escape.

So, did you encounter one yet?👀

That question is leading us to our next question. Are they real?🤔 And is there a historical evidence for their existence?🧐

It’s thought that Bram Stoker named Count Dracula after Vlad Dracula, also known as Vlad the Impaler. Vlad Dracula was born in Transylvania, Romania. He ruled Walachia, Romania, off and on from 1456-1462.

Some historians describe him as a brutally cruel ruler who valiantly fought off the Ottoman Empire. He earned his nickname because his favorite way to kill his enemies was to impale them on a wooden stake.

According to legend, Vlad Dracula enjoyed dining amidst his dying victims and dipping his bread in their blood(🤢). Whether those gory tales are true is unknown. (Please be not true!) Many people believe these stories sparked Stoker’s imagination to create Count Dracula, who was also from Transylvania, sucked his victim’s blood and could be killed by driving a stake through his heart. Other historians denied the connection🤷‍♀️.

That was the so-called story behind Dracula, are there others?

Obviously, Yes!

Tales of walking corpses that drank the blood of the living flourished in medieval Europe in times of disease and people lacking a modern understanding of infectious disease came to believe that those who became vampires preyed first upon their own families. The disease often left behind bleeding mouth lesions on its victims, which to the uneducated was a sure sign of vampirism.

Research from the 20th and 21st centuries has assumed that characteristics associated with vampires can be traced back to certain diseases such as porphyria, which makes one sensitive to sunlight, tuberculosis, which causes wasting, pellagra, a disease that thins the skin and rabies, which causes biting and general sensitivities that could lead to repulsion by light or garlic. Some symptoms of porphyria can be temporarily relieved by ingesting blood.

When a suspected vampire died, their bodies were often taken out of its grave to search for signs of vampirism. In some cases, a stake was thrust through the corpse’s heart to make sure they stayed dead. Other accounts describe the decapitation and burning of the corpses of suspected vampires. 😖😖😖

So that's it? No vampires? Just uneducated assumptions and misunderstanding?

You wish... Although modern science has silenced the vampire fears of the past, people who call themselves vampires do exist. They’re normal, seeming people who drink small amounts of blood in a effort to stay healthy. (misguided I presume?)

Communities of self-identified vampires can be found on the Internet and in cities and towns around the world. To avoid rekindling vampire superstitions, most modern vampires keep to themselves and typically conduct their “feeding” rituals—which include drinking the blood of willing donors—in private.😶

Some vampires don’t ingest human blood but claim to feed off the energy of others. (OMG I know many these people! Can I identify them as vampires?) Many state that if they don’t feed regularly, they become agitated or depressed. (And let me tell you they DRAIN the person in front of them emotionally to look like this😰 mostly pale and lifeless. They end their so called feeding session with a smile and a thank you. Normally you'd be lucky if you got out alive. Many of them are self-identified as your "friend". )

In the end of our hunting session. I hope you stay safe and as far as possible from any kind of vampires out there.

Bye bye 🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇