A preface to this essay: This essay was written stream-of-consciousness as a method to sort out my thoughts on the subject, and then edited into a form more accessible to the public. If it feels a little odd or wandering in places, that’s why. I didn’t want to remove the portions that are my sorting-through of my thoughts; it felt important to the final conclusion that they be part and parcel with it.
Othercon 2024 was host to a panel run by two dear friends of mine, Goratrix of the Draconic Wizard Workshop (@goratrix-betrayed on Tumblr) and Chaiya of the Treehouse System (@treehouse-headspace on Tumblr). The panel in question discussed the idea of nonhuman personhood, how nonhumanity and inhumanity can give us insights upon personhood, and whether personhood is something we should, or indeed can, reject. It also, being run by two vampire fictives, one of whom identifies himself as human and the other of whom does not, touched on the nature of humanity as opposed to the nature of personhood - which got me thinking about my own feelings on humanity, and why exactly I reject the label of human.
Some vocabulary for those unfamiliar with the World of Darkness setting, so that I don’t have to stop and explain words mid-essay multiple times:
Chantry: the building where (typically) all the vampires of Clan Tremere living in a certain city reside and work
Childe, plural childer: a vampire created through the Embrace — the childe is the progeny of their sire.
Clan: the group of vampires one belongs to by blood, which determines which powers come naturally to them and, to at least some extent, their culture
Embrace: the process of turning someone into a vampire by draining them of blood and then feeding them some of the sire’s blood (capitalized when written)
Ghoul: a mortal who drinks vampire blood on a regular basis, granting them immortality (as long as they continue drinking vitae regularly) and a modicum of vampiric power
Sire: the person who turns one into a vampire (the person a vampire turns is their childe)
Tremere: the clan of vampires I belong to, a highly unified and organized clan of blood sorcerers who rely on intra-clan solidarity and adaptability as defense against our enemies (we have a… rocky history with many other clans; it’s a long story)
Vitae: vampire blood, sometimes also called ‘the Blood’ with a capital B
With that aside:
Some background on my history and the circumstances under which I became a vampire (or Kindred; I will use the terms interchangeably) is required to really explain where I’m coming from on this. Back in source, I was Embraced into what I recognize now was essentially a cult, run by my original sire (I have since been adopted by another), a man who I recognize now was extremely manipulative and abusive to all of us, but perhaps especially his childer and his ghouls. This cult, this chantry, contained Kindred, ghouls, and mortals who had not yet been judged worthy to be let in on the secret of the supernatural. Generally, how it works is that one is invited to the meetings of an “occult group” as a mortal, which is of course run by the ghouls and Kindred without revealing who they are, and typically observed for a period ranging from several months to a couple of years. If they pass certain tests and the general judgements of the Kindred in charge of the occult group, then they are invited to commit themselves more and more over time, until eventually they are invited to take blood from the Kindred, and be fed from in turn, for the first time (not necessarily in that order). This is a show of trust, of proving yourself; being made a ghoul is a privilege to earn - the ghouls are elevated above their peers by the gift of the Blood, brought closer to vampirism. Many ghouls remain ghouls forever, but almost all hope to one day earn the Embrace - most who are Embraced go a decade or two before being chosen, and spend it proving themself worthy of more and more trust, more and more power granted. Of course, the Kindred must constantly prove themselves as well, must constantly compete for rank both official and social - but to be Kindred is to be inherently above the ghouls and mortals, inherently more than them. To be Embraced is not just to be immortal and powerful, but to have your very mind opened to understand the world better, more deeply, than a mortal or ghoul ever could, even an elder ghoul.
Perhaps, dear reader, you begin to understand why I now have to sit and question why, exactly, I have rejected humanity, and whether I am right to have done so and continue to do so. I’ve unpacked all this enough to realize that if my reason is because it feels degrading to be called human, because it feels lesser, then… that is probably not a good reason.
And yet, even as I reconcile with the fact that I am not, in fact, superior to the mortals and ghouls around me for being Kindred, calling myself human still feels wrong. I worked hard to earn the right to drop that name; to pick it up again feels like discounting that effort and that victory. Moreover, I just… don’t connect with it anymore. Vampire affects who I am, how I think, and how I act more than human ever did. Vampirism is important to me; humanity was always merely circumstantial.
But what does that even mean? What is humanity, really? It’s not merely the circumstance of being physically human, alive and breathing; after all, many vampires still consider themselves human. What makes one vampire human, and another not? What makes me no longer human?
In many cases, at least in my world, it comes down to morality - Kindred have codes of morality called Paths of Enlightenment, or sometimes Roads of Enlightenment, and those who have adopted one instead of continuing to follow the tenets of the Road of Humanity, which is essentially what most humans can be assumed to be “following” (avoid doing harm, avoid violating other people, generally hold compassion and kindness for others, etc.), are often considered the “inhuman” vampires. But I’ve never been drawn to another Road. Indeed, I still walk the Road of Humanity; I’ve never seen a reason to leave it. Community serves me well, and compassion, connection, and consideration for others all serve community. Community and compassion are not unique to humanity - just ask the werewolves of home, or for that matter the alterhuman community here - and especially as part of Clan Tremere, where community and solidarity are highly prized, I don’t feel that they have to make me human. I can walk the Road of Humanity without being human, just as one can walk the Road of Kings without being a king.
Perhaps it’s the fact that ‘human’ and ‘vampire’ are often treated as inherently contradictory labels - that many vampires who insist on calling themselves ‘human’ do so as a rejection of what they have become. And, indeed, they do feel as though they fit into the same ‘slot’ for me, and trying to wear both at once feels wrong in a way that’s hard to articulate. But I know that that’s not inherently true either. I know people who are both human and vampire - Chaiya, as mentioned above, is one of them. Being human doesn’t have to mean rejecting what you have become, or pretending to not be what you are.
Perhaps it’s simply that while vampirism isn’t superior to humanity in general, it has been infinitely better for me personally. The Embrace is one of the best things to ever happen to me; before it, I was next to nothing, with little real hope of making something of myself. Vampirism gave me power, immortality, the chance to be part of something greater than myself, the chance to make my mark on the world. I could never have been what I am now if I had remained mortal. Perhaps it’s also that I’ve been considering myself no longer human for so long that picking up the label again feels wrong. I pulled it off, grew without it, and now it no longer fits when I try to put it back on. Perhaps it’s the very discarding of the word human that made me become something that can no longer be called human accurately, even though from outside inspection I might be mistaken for one. Perhaps. Perhaps that doesn’t mean anything at all; there’s nothing material to that.
But my friends have pointed out, as we’ve been discussing this, that perhaps the mere fact of the choice, and of being happier for it, is enough. That even if there’s no hard line between the two, that doesn’t mean which one (or ones) one chooses to use isn’t personally meaningful. After all, to borrow the analogy one gave me, is there a hard, definitive difference between a man and a woman? If there isn’t, should someone who is happier being a woman feel that she can’t call herself that because she was born a man and there’s no definitive difference? I’ve lived around enough trans people to say no, of course not. That would be ridiculous.
Ultimately, I think that is what it comes down to. Humanity as a social and philosophical concept is such a broad, nebulous thing that it’s virtually impossible to define with hard edges, as philosophy is wont to do. But… vampirism is something I chose, something I wanted, something I worked for. Humanity was only ever a matter of circumstance. Vampirism has helped me, made me a better person, made my life a better life. My life as a human was never what I wanted; maybe it could have been eventually, maybe not, but I don’t think I ever could have been as happy or fulfilled as a human as I am now. Humanity was ultimately simply not right for me, and while once it fit correctly at least as a matter of circumstance, it no longer fits even in that capacity. The Kindred aren’t above humanity, I know that now, but we don’t need to be to be other than. Vampirism is not inherently better, but it is better for me. I chose to be a vampire, and I chose to discard humanity.
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