Text: We used to talk through the wells, a whisper carrying to every farm that had one. There is no one left to send well whispers, and yet I hear one, on a dark, gray afternoon.
Warning: Blood, self harm, human and animal death, horror themes, discussion of new magical systems.
Note: this started out as a simple creepy story and then the world-building just overflowed.
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Whispers used to pass from farm to farm, messages that crossed miles, an old magic that no-one understood anymore. Raising the ghost trees requires space, untouched earth, and height. Our farms are hundreds of miles apart, each high on its own mountain. The wells are the only way we can contact each other... or they were.
I'm not sure what happened to some of the farms. I was too young when it happened. I know that some families left, betraying their trust, and some died out, and some just went silent for no reason we ever knew. This is the last farm still being tended, as far as I know, and I am the last farmer.
I need to find someone to help. I know I do. I should find young people to join me, teach them to tend the trees so that they can go to the other farms and re-seed. But I have never left my farm, and the thought frightens me. When my cousin Gilly died, I was so young, only sixteen, and the last. It's been twenty years, and I've kept the farm going, but I have never dared to leave. What if something happens to me? What if I don't come back? These are the last ghost trees. I have to care for them.
Every full moon at sunset, though, I come back to the well. The well that is the heart of the farm. The well whose water glows pale gold in darkness and poisons everything but the ghost trees.... or those who have eaten their shoots.
I feed the spring shoots to my goats and my birds, every year, and eat handfuls myself. They tasted bitter to me, the first year, and the animals that haven't tasted them before have to be forced to swallow. After that first taste, though, we all learn to love them. Bittersweet and rich, they taste like sunset on snow and the smell of spring. I suppose I could avoid the whole process - there's a spring of ordinary water - but it freezes in winter, and why go to all the trouble of thawing tasteless, dull water from the spring when the well water never freezes or even grows too cold to drink safely, when it tastes so much better and makes us so strong?
I drink the well water. And every full moon I come back to the well to whisper news into it, or the names of my family, or of the farms that existed once and are now lost. I whisper, because a voice that's too loud will echo and distort. I think that's why. I'm not so sure any longer.
Then, one evening in early autumn, I hear a whisper coming back. "Antorune... Antorune..."
Antorune is the name of the mountain, and the farm, and though I'm shaking and sick with shock, I remember how to answer. "Antorune is bright," I whisper. "Who are you?"
"Antorune..." The voice is eerie and hollow, and I can't remember if they always sounded like that. It's been so long. "Antorune, they're coming. They're coming."
"Who's coming? Why?"
"Yours is the last farm. The last trees. Do you know how to scatter?"
My mouth goes dry. Scattering is a terrible thing. Gilly told me stories about it. Scattering is the last act of a farmer under siege, the last desperate hope for the trees and for the world. We all know how to do it, and all pray we'll never have to. "I know. Is it time?"
"It is time." The hollow voice sounds very sad. "Be brave, Altorune. Be resolute. You must save the trees."
"I must save the trees," I repeat, and then I pause. "Voice... my name is Tula. I am the last farmer. I... I wanted someone to know my name."
"I will remember your name, Tula." The whisper was fainter now, but I heard it. "I will remember your name..."
It faded away, then. It comforted me, though, to hear my name spoken once more. It has been so long since anyone spoke my name.
I went to wake the goats. The doves slept in their nests, and were probably safe enough, but the goats would be found. Though it was late, they all got up and followed me without complaint.
I gave them all water from the well, and drank myself. The water makes our eyes and tongues glow, but it also makes night as clear as day and gives us strength for the rocky path up to the trees. The goats all follow me up that path, uttering soft bleats from their blackened mouths.
My mouth is black too. The shoots do that. Gilly told me once that we look frightening to other people, with our blackened mouths and glowing eyes and tongues. It was hard for me to understand. I've never seen anyone who didn't look like that.
We were halfway up the path when I heard noises down below. When I looked down, the farmhouse was burning. It would have broken my heart, if I did not already know the time for Scattering had come. Everything I had ever known was gone... but I could still save the ghost trees. And the goats, in a way.
We reached the trees. There are only four, but they are taller than the tallest pines, their long feathery branches reaching up and up as if they would stroke the clouds. They're bigger around than the farmhouse, now, because every year the new shoots emerge from the outside, snaking up the great blackened trunks like vines before becoming part of the tree. That's one of the reasons we eat the shoots - they have to be thinned, or the tree's new growth might choke its heart.
This year's shoots are already darkening, but they still stand out against the black of the trunk like veins. They won't get a chance to blacken in winter, and I mourn them in my heart as I lead the goats towards the great trunks.
I know the ritual. A tiny nick, enough to draw a few drops of blood, on each goat. A tiny nick, enough to draw a few drops of sap, on each shoot. The goats are bound to the trees by magic, and each goes to a spot to lick the sap, then lies down by the trunk.
By the time I have finished with the last goats, and the last tree, the goats at the first are no longer breathing, and the roots of the trees are already creeping up to draw them down. But it didn't hurt them, I know that. It would have hurt them if they'd burned in their shed, or been slaughtered by whoever is coming. The ghost trees feed on death, but they are not cruel. The goats will live again, on some other mountain.
I will live again. I believe this. I know this. I have talked to the trees since I ate my first shoots at the age of three, and heard their keening voices in my mind. Theirs is the power of life and death, but a farmer doesn't fear death. Death and life and death again, that is the nature of farming. Everything dies. But then seeds grow, and eggs hatch, and babies are born, and spring comes.
When Gilly got sick, I brought him up here so that he could die under the trees, and they sang him to his rest and promised him that he would live again, and drew him down with their roots so his bones would become a part of them.
The trees are agitated now, I can hear their keening. They are afraid, but excited too, for they know it is time for Scattering. They are only given living blood when it is time to die, and live again.
When all the goats are dead, I go to the place between the trees where four channels fan out from a central bowl, one running to each trunk. This is the way I give them water from the well, pouring the buckets hauled up on my shoulders or the filled skins tied to the backs of the goats into the bowl and allowing the water to run down to each of them. Tonight they will drink something else.
The trees do not allow me to feel pain, when the blood begins to flow into the bowl. They protect me from it. My blood will give them the strength they need. I hope it’s enough. As far as I know, no Scattering has ever been performed by only one person. A whole family of farmers should be here, giving their lives to the trees. I don’t know if one is enough.
The slow trickles of red have almost reached the roots when the first men come scrambling up the path. They see me, standing among the trees, but I don't think they can see what I'm doing. My blood glows like the well water, but it's a faint glow, like starlight, and the moonlight drowns it out.
"What are you doing, creature?" One of them steps forward. He is holding a great axe, but his voice sounds uncertain. It is strange to me that a big man, armed and armoured, could be afraid of a little creature like me. His face is strange and featureless in the moonlight, with no shadow around his mouth, no light in his eyes. His face is all one colour, flat and plain like a baby's face. I could have laughed, seeing it.
But he asked me a question, and I need a little more time. "I am tending my trees," I tell him, words coming slowly to my tongue. I do not speak often, except to the well.
He looks up at the nearest tree, then shudders and looks away, "The trees are evil," he says, his fingers flexing on the handle of his axe. "These... these *things* are poison, full of wicked magic."
I blink, really confused. "Trees are not good, or evil. Trees are only trees," I tell him, frowning. "Many have fruits or leaves which are poisonous, or roots which strangle other roots, but that is not because they are evil, it is because that is their nature."
"Not these. these are not natural trees, they are the product of wicked magic." His voice shakes a little, when one of the newest and lowest branches moves a little, though there is no wind. "They will burn."
"Yes. I thought you would burn them." I sigh. It's sad. I hate to see something that has spent so long growing, something alive and beautiful, destroyed. But I look up into the branches, and faint, cream-pale lights are beginning to glow among the branches. "But you are wrong, you know. They are not made of wicked magic."
He sounds angry. "Of course they are! Look at them! They are not natural trees, and you. you with your ghost eyes and twisted body and mouth stained with blood, sorceress, you are their keeper."
I want to tell him that I am not a sorceress, only a farmer. I want to tell him that the trees are just trees, and that magic is just magic, and that evil and good are human ideas that mean nothing to either.
I want to tell him that the ghost trees are the conduit by which magic, wild magic, the magic of life and death and order and chaos, enters this world. That they have been farmed for countless centuries because they are *needed*, because their roots hold the world together.
I want to tell him that this is all a mistake.
But his axe drives into my chest, and I cannot tell him anything. I can only fall foreward, across the bowl, as my blood fills it and runs down the four channels into the trees.
The trees do not let me die. The roots rise out of the ground again, wrapping around me and holding me up. They will not let me go. Not until I see what they do to the men, the first and those who follow after, draining the blood from them with hungry roots to feed the Scattering. Not until I see the glowing fruit ripen on their branches and then break away, rising up into the sky like tiny glowing lamps, letting the air carry them away.
When the men are wise enough to stand back and shoot flaming arrows, and my trees begin to burn, the hot air only carries the fruit away faster.
This is Scattering. The last duty of the farmer. Ghost trees fruit only once, at the end of their lives, and their fruits blow away to take root somewhere far from the danger that destroyed their parents. This is why they are called ghost trees, for they need living blood, life's blood, to fruit, and they die of it.
At the last, I look down at the scene. The burning trees, the dead men, and my own body being drawn under the soil away from despoiling hands. Then I am floating away, with the other fruit of the ghost trees, on my way to a new life.
*
Lina had never entirely believed that Gilly really knew where he was going. She was willing to accept that there were ancient springs of untamed magic in the mountains. It didn’t sound any more implausible than the very fact of magic itself. She *had* doubted that Gilly, the half-wild boy a few years younger than herself, who claimed not to be human at all, but ‘a child of the trees’ and whose eyes glowed in the dark, could find one.
But he had. He’d led them there, straight as an arrow, through thick forest and rocky crags, until they found a high plateau not so far below the snowline. It was gone to the wild, now, but there were still signs for eyes that knew how to look. The remains of a low stone wall. A great stone still marked by fire. Plants growing that should not have been there, where a garden had once been. And in the center of the plateau, a well. It looked ancient. The stones piled up into a crude wall had never been shaped, and she saw no signs of mortar, though perhaps the moss and lichen hid it.
Gilly slid down off his pony, looking up at Lina with his bright, strange eyes. “There’s a spring over there,” he said, pointing. “You can get water for yourselves and the ponies there. Don’t go near the well, and whatever you do, *don’t* touch the water. It’s… dangerous.”
They made camp, while Gilly wandered around, grubbing up pieces of charcoal and small stones. Akal wanted to make him help, but Lina shook her head. Whatever he was doing, it was probably important.
At sunset, when the sky was full of colour that turned the snowy mountain peaks pink and orange and gold, Gilly went to the well. Lina followed, though keeping a little distance, and she saw him lower a bucket into the well and draw it up again on a rope. What was in it didn’t look like water - it wasn’t clear but as pale as milk. It glowed like the moon, and when Gilly drank from it the glow of his eyes brightened perceptibly.
Then he leaned forward, laying his hands on the stones of the well’s lip, and looked down into it. “Antorune…” he whispered, such sorrow in his voice as Lina had never heard. “Antorune…”
And then Lina’s very bones chilled, for a voice came up out of the well, and though it was a whisper she heard it clearly. "Antorune is bright. Who are you?"
"Antorune..." Gilly’s voice was almost calm, but when she moved a few steps to the side to look at his face, Lina saw an expression so terrible that she looked away, shocked. How could Gilly, distant and standoffish with everyone, be brought to such anguish by a voice from a well? "Antorune, they're coming,” he whispered. He was holding one of the small stones he’d picked up, she saw, his knuckles white with the force of his grip. “They're coming."
"Who's coming? Why?"
"Yours is the last farm. The last trees. Do you know how to scatter?" Lina took a few steps towards Gilly, but stopped when he made a brief slashing gesture with his empty hand, warning her off. His voice was still calm, but now tears were running down his face.
The hollow voice from the well held what might be a note of fear, but the answer was as steady as the question. “I know. Is it time?”
"It is time." Grief leached into Gilly’s voice now, and Lina’s own eyes stung with tears at the sound of it. "Be brave, Altorune. Be resolute. You must save the trees."
"I must save the trees.” For a moment there was silence, and then the voice spoke again, the whisper fainter. "Voice... my name is Tula. I am the last farmer. I... I wanted someone to know my name."
"I will remember your name, Tula." Gilly’s voice broke. "I will remember your name..."
No answer came from the well, and he dropped to his knees beside it, weeping, clutching the small stone to his chest. It was only after several minutes that he seemed able to speak again. “I left her,” he sobbed. “I left her.”
Lina watched him, and as mad as it sounded even now, she had no doubt. “Tula,” she said softly. “You… knew her.”
“She was my cousin. My family. And I died and left her all alone.” And while Lina was still blinking in shock, he snatched up the still half-filled bucket and scrambled to his feet and towards the edge of the plateau, to what looked like a craggy, impassable cliff face.
But it wasn’t. There was a path there, narrow and winding, a path more suited to goats than men, but Gilly scaled it as if he’d done it a thousand times… and perhaps he had, Lina thought, following him. She tripped and stumbled many times, but he didn’t. Back and forth across the cliff face the path went, and when they came out on the higher place, Lina caught her breath. She’d seen ghost trees - one that had been discovered and burned out when she’d been a child, and Gilly’s own tree, which he had only reluctantly left to help her on her quest. These had to be the remains of ghost trees… and yet they were huge, as big around as a cottage, the shafts of the branches bundled together making a trunk black and broken-looking. When she moved closer, the remains looked more like stone than wood.
Gilly went to a place in the middle of the four great, dead stumps, where the worn remains of a stone bowl lay in broken pieces. He poured out the whitish, magical water on the ground, and then raised his hands. “Show me,” he said commandingly, and then almost pleadingly he repeated it. “Show me!”
And it did show him.
Lina watched, captivated, as the very dust rose around him, outlining shadowy shapes in the darkening twilight. She saw the small, hunched figure leading a trail of goats up to the trees. She watched the goats lie down, and disappear into the ground, and then the figure - a woman, though there was no guessing her age, with a hunched and twisted spine, who stood over a bowl and let her own blood run into it.
Then more figures, shadows of armour and of axes, and she watched the woman - Tula, she deserved her name - stagger as an axe struck her chest, and the twining roots that wrapped around her and held her up.
And then there was nothing, only Gilly, whose face was still wet with tears but who looked strangely, unaccountably relieved. “She did it,” he breathed. “She escaped.”
Lina stared at him. “She *died*.”
“Oh yes. That’s part of the Scattering.” Gilly went over to one of the stony, broken stumps, laying his hand against it gently. “The trees fruit, and die, and the farmers die. But the fruit fly away, to let the seeds grow far from danger, and they take the souls of the farmers with them.” He turned to look at her. “I was human, once,” he said, and for the first time she truly believed that he wasn’t. Not because of his black-stained mouth and strange, glowing eyes, but because of what she’d just seen.
“I lived a mortal life, and died. And when I was dying, Tula brought me here, to the trees of Antorune, which is the name of this mountain and this farm, and the trees took my body and my soul, and the first became a part of them, and the second they kept until the time of need, so that when the seeds were sent forth, as many as possible might have a keeper with them, to be born from among the branches, to tend them, and teach those who followed why the ghost trees are important.”
Lina looked at the broken stumps, and the boy who was not entirely human, and knew in every fiber of her being that this was why she’d been chosen. This, here and now, this knowledge that had been preserved even after death by a poisonous tree, and brought back again. “Tell me, then,” she said quietly. “Tell me why they are important, and what they have to do with the terrible magic that rampages through our land.”
He shrugged. “They are what prevented the wild magic from ravaging all this world, until foolish men forgot why they were important and named them wicked.” He sighed, and then he moved to the edge of the small flat place, looking out over the great valley below them. “And that is why we scatter their fruit, and ourselves with them, so no matter what happens, someone will remember why.”
“How?” Lina frowned. “How can a tree… even one as strange as a ghost tree… change the nature of magic?”
He picked up the bucket. “The same way you change the nature of water,” he said dryly. “They drank it. This water… the wells are places where magic comes into the world. Once, it poured in wild and uncontained, and all the world was as this land has been in the last hundred years. Magical storms, and monsters, and lands breaking apart and seas pouring in. Magic, in its wild state, is as dangerous as lightning, or the sea, and even more so, for it follows no laws.”
Lina frowned. “Laws?” The word seemed incongruous.
He nodded. “All things have their laws. If you plant a seed from a tree, what will grow is the same kind of tree, not a flower, or grass. If you pour out water on a slope it will run down, not up. Water will only harden into ice when it is cold, not when it is hot. The laws of the world are not like the laws of men, and nothing may disobey them… except magic. And that disobedience is very dangerous, for it unmakes the world itself.”
“I think I know what you mean.” She had never thought of it in that way, but… yes, it was a good way to explain the mayhem of the last century. The very fabric of the world being warped, unmade…
“Yes. You’ve seen it.” He tapped the bucket again. “Magic that has passed through a living creature is different. It… it learns the laws. It learns the shape of the world. It is tamed. But there are few living things which can endure more than a taste of wild magic without dying of it. It is a poison to them, as it is to the world.”
“And that is why magicians are dying? And dying so… so horribly?” She shuddered, and tried not to remember what had happened to Cengolant, his terrible screams…
“Yes. There is not much tame magic left. And when they use the wild magic, it unmakes them.” Gilly sounded different, here and now. More confident, and somehow much older. She wondered how old he’d been, when he’d died. “The ghost trees are different. They drink the magic-infused water, and the magic passes through without harming them. They are called poisonous, but it is the magic in them that makes them so, just as mushrooms grown in unclean land are poisonous, but leave the land clean.”
Lina looked at the bucket. “But you drank the water. Why didn’t it kill you? Because you came from a ghost tree?”
“In part. In part because I have eaten the shoots.” He touched the blackened rim around his mouth. “That is the source of this stain, and the light in my eyes and my blood. Those who eat the young shoots of the ghost tree are changed by it, and we, too, can endure the touch of wild magic without harm. We would feed the shoots to our goats, and our pigeons, so that we too could pass tame magic into the world, and prevent harm.”
Lina laughed suddenly, almost hysterically. “I remember once… when we were in that rat-hole city, I saw you piss up against a wall and I was *sure* it glowed.”
He laughed, too. “It does,” he said, amused. “My dung, too. And that is magic, safe and tame, passing from my body and into the world.”
Lina shook her head, still laughing a little. “Like… like running water through sand and charcoal, to make it clean?”
“Just like.” He was still looking out, but when she went to stand beside him he looked up at her. “Lina, lightning is dangerous, but mage-light is not. A tidal wave is dangerous, but water turning a wheel is not. And that does not make the lightning evil, or the tidal wave malicious. It is only… too much. And thus it is with magic. It is not doing all this damage with intent. It is only too powerful, too wild, for our fragile world to hold. Never forget that. There is no malice here, no foe that can be fought. Replanting the ghost trees, restoring the farms, that is what will save us.”
Lina nodded slowly. “It is like a flood, coming down a river,” she said softly. “When there is too much water upstream, and it rages down and washes all away. But the river is not angry, it does not *want*… it just is. You cannot fight it. You can only build better levees and dams and bridges, for the next time.”
“Or plant many mushrooms, on poisoned ground, to draw the poison out.” Gilly nodded. “Which is not to say that fighting the monsters and the mad wizards is not important, any more than rebuilding what the flood has destroyed is not important. But it will not solve the problem.”
She nodded. “So. Where do we start?”
Gilly looked at her. “We?”
Lina shrugged, spreading her big hands and muscled arms. “You’ve been listening to me complain for the last two months about how foolish it was to send a farmer’s daughter, however big and strong, to fight magic. But it wasn’t, was it? This was never truly about fighting. The fighting is only to buy time to grow more trees.” She grinned down at him. “And if there is one thing I know, it is how to grow. I *am* a farmer, and this is the work for me.”
He grinned back at her, and it was the first time she’d ever seen more than a tiny sliver of a smile on his thin face. “We, then. I have some cuttings, live shoots from my own tree. Tomorrow, we will plant them. And then we will begin to search for the other reborn farmers.” His face softened. “I would like to see Tula again,” he said softly.
“She would have been reborn like you, from a ghost tree?”
“Oh, yes. Or will be, perhaps. It takes time.”
“Then we will search. And we will plant. And we will dam this flood.” Lina flexed her hands. She’d wielded a sword too much, these last months. She couldn’t wait to get her hands on a shovel again.
#just think #when this gifset first passed my dash #however long ago that was #I didn’t even recognize the name Elon Musk #what I wouldn’t give to return to that innocence
The world is changed. I feel it in the water. I feel it in the earth. I smell it in the air. Much that once was is lost; for none now live who remember it.
I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again but it is absolutely an example of civilizational inadequacy that only deaf people know ASL
“oh we shouldn’t teach children this language, it will only come in handy if they [checks notes] ever have to talk in a situation where it’s noisy or they need to be quiet”
My family went holiday SCUBA diving once, and a couple of Deaf guys were in the group. I was really little and I spent most of the briefing overcome with the realization that while the rest of us were going to have regulators in our mouths and be underwater fairly soon, they were going to be able to do all the same stuff and keep talking.
Update: you guys this is an amazing resource for learning asl. Bill Vicars is an incredible teacher. His videos are of him teaching a student in a classroom, using the learned vocabulary to have conversations.
Not only is the conversation format immersive and helpful for learning the grammar, but the students make common mistakes which he corrects, mistakes I wouldn’t have otherwise know I was making.
He also emphasizes learning ASL in the way it’s actually used by the Deaf community and not the rigid structure that some ASL teachers impose in their classrooms
His lesson plans include learning about the Deaf community, which is an important aspect of learning ASL. Knowing how to communicate in ASL without the knowledge of the culture behind it leaves out a lot of nuances and explanations for the way ASL is.
Lastly, his lessons are just a lot of fun to watch. He is patient, entertaining, and funny. This good natured enthusiasm is contagious and learning feels like a privilege and not a chore
And it’s all FREE. Seriously. If you’ve ever wanted to learn ASL
INFORMATION I WAS NOT PREPARED TO LEARN. MAYBE WE *ARE* ALONE. BECAUSE WE ARE SO *EARLY*. IF THERE IS EVER GALACTIC CIVILIZATION THEY WILL NOT REMEMBER US AT ALL. BECAUSE WE ARE NOTHING. CELLS, JUST BEGINNING TO FORM LIFE. SORRY FOR SCREAMING. BUT ARE YOU LISTENING. ARE YOU THINKING ABOUT IT.
Maybe one day, we’ll be there to watch a new, alien race take its first steps into the stars. We’ll be able to hold out our hand and say, “Welcome. We have dreamed of you for ages upon ages. You’re going to surprise us, we’re sure. But neither of us are alone. It’s a big universe out there, so come along and I’ll show you around—I think you’re gonna like it.”
I just remembered my second Pride, where I made different flag themed daisy chain bracelets/necklaces to hand out. I need folks to understand something:
They were free.
They were fucking free.
They were maybe ¢60 of acrylic yarn each at the most, and the whole ziploc bag of them took 2 hours max.
Three people gave me sad eyes until I took their money.
Someone who was clearly the mom friend of their group made me take a $5 and gave a 10 minute pep talk.
At least four more people insisted on getting change to pay for the, once again, free bracelets.
In spite of all these shenanigans, the absolute best was this one person who I can only describe as, “queer surfer dude who looks like a boyfriend who looks like a girlfriend.” I can remember nothing of the outfit, only the impeccable vibes. I did the same thing I did with everyone else, explaining the bracelets were free, and they nodded along as they took the last 6 strand rainbow bracelet. As soon as they had it on their wrist, they pointed at something over my shoulder and, like a fool, I looked.
Next thing I know, they’re running off cackling, yelling, “YOU’LL NEVER CATCH ME!” and I’m holding a fucking $20. I had to stop at least two people from chasing them, cause they thought the person stole something, and then they tried to give me money cause they thought it was funny seeing me flail over people being Too Nice.
That was the year I got reverse-robbed at Pride. I hope everyone out there is having a good time and, in particular, that queer surfer dude is out there still causing benevolent chaos.
a mother is singing her baby a lullaby for the first time, a shelter cat is going home with an excited family, a kid is starting the first pages of what will be their favorite book series, a couple in a long engagement is finally having their wedding, a gardener is stepping outside to see their produce flourishing and almost ready to be picked, a father is becoming a grandfather eager to hold his new little love, a teenager is putting the keys into their first car, someone is moving on from a break up and walking past a place they used to go with their ex without feeling an ache, a patient is taking their first steps forward after a long surgery, a child is getting all giddy with anticipation for their birthday party
because life all around us is beautiful even though there is chaos and sorrow that can often overshadow it.
Do individual vampires have favorite blood types? Does it vary across the different types of vampires?
Some vampires will CLAIM they have a preferred blood type but bland taste tests reveal that no known strain of vampirism can cause the afflicted person to be able to taste the difference in blood types.
What many types of vampires CAN taste is:
Differences in acidity and dissolved oxygen. Most vampires have a marked preference for arterial blood because venous blood is loaded with cellular waste products, on their way to the liver.
The presence of lactic acid and cortisone. Turns out, fear makes blood taste AWFUL. Especially if someone was running right before they were tapped. Horniness, on the other hand, lowers stress levels and cuts the acidity significantly.
Dietary differences. Vegans humans and heribvorous animals tend to have the best-tasting blood. People and animals who eat a lot of red meat can have satisfyingly iron-rich but bitter blood, and for some reason people who consume a lot of dairy taste rancid. Diabetic people have notably sweet blood, but it's so sweet it tends to nauseate rather than entice.
Dissolved fat and cholesterol: Most vampires can taste cholesterol and agree that it tastes, well. like fat. They are sharply divided on whether that is a good thing, with some arguing that it makes blood 'smooth and buttery' and others saying it tastes like 'drinking whipping cream'
That said, there's huge differences between the strains of vampirism in regards to if they need human blood specifically, or if animal blood is fine, if they can contract infections from feeding, how often they need to feed, how much they need, if they have specific nutrition requirements that can be derived from non-blood sources, if theiy have fangs, what those fangs are shaped like and if it's safe for them to bite a partner at all (There is very much an upper limit on "Bigger is Better". You know, like dicks!), if they need to feed from a live host or if bagged blood will work, and of course, how contagious their strain of vampirism is.
Dr. Integra Van Hellsing is one of the world's foremost researchers into the causes and effects of Vampirism, and runs a free clinic in Los Osaka, the current outbreak hub of the devastating strain known as "Sunnydale Syndrome".
This is meta/worldbuilding for my Yu-Gi-Oh Duel Monsters Fanfic, The Power Of Friendship (And This Gun I Found!) . This is actually some plot-relevent world-building, for once lol.
If you want to read it as watsonian commentary on vampire media... that's not actually an inaccurate way to describe it either, actually.
Absolutely nothing will get a vampirologist or vampire themselves foaming at the mouth crazy than the mere mention of Garlic, because it's such a profoundly weird phenomenon.
See,
Garlic causes problems for a lot of Vampires
but it causes problems for literally thousands of different reasons.
Some vampires are sensitive to garlic because it's got a shitload of antibiotic and antinflamatory chemicals and that can play merry hell with bacterial and viral strains of vampirism, especially if the vampire in question is already having problems with sunlight.
Some vampires are effected by garlic because the pungent bulbs are massively overwhelming to vampires with heightend sensory perceptions.
Some vampires are effected by the religious effects of garlic. Yes, yes, the OG Dracula was repelled by Garlic Flowers because of their significance in catholicism, but many, many more vampires are repelled by the bulbs because of the devotion chefs the world over have to their favorite seasoning.
Bakura specifically can't have garlic because the nature of his curse states that he cannot partake of the meat of any plant or animal. Fungi and foods so far removed from their original ingredients that they can no longer rightly be called a plant or animal- like twinkies! The rest of his diet is made by liquifying food in a blender until it no longer qualifies as 'meat', as it is now 'beverage'.
...I just realized that doesn't actually answer your question, but even if they can't taste it, any vampire with a garlic problem will find out about it within seconds of taking a sip.
oh fuck I love this dude so much. I gotta go listen to some more of his shit, maybe share this one with my students. What an excellent job of communicating science!
snowghoul
germansingergirl
tangentwithtanner
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