human AU mika/kurda would b goth/prep solidarity send tweet
I definitely see where you’re coming from! Funnily enough I used to have a human college AU that I wanted to write and then never did anything with it.
Here’s my take on it because I have a big pile of laundry I’m glad to procrastinate on a little longer:
On the surface, Mika as a goth makes a lot of sense for very obvious reasons. The fact that his only defining traits in the DSS are “grumpy man wear black and no smile” definitely don’t help his case here. Because in our first introduction to him we only see him from Darren’s POV where he basically looks at Mika the way Harry Potter looks at Snape. (But my revulsion at the concept of assigning Snapelike vibes to Mika is a whole other dissertation entirely). And I’m not really blaming Darren for developing that opinion either, based on the circumstances when they first interact. He’s not necessarily wrong to think Mika’s a bit of a crabby dick at first. And all 3 Princes’ somewhat chilly reception of Darren is a stark contrast from the warm fuzzies we experience with other mountain vampires prior to that - Seba, Kurda, Vanez, Gavner.
But my version Mika has always been a little different from most. As far as school stereotypes go, to me he’s more of a popular jock than anything else. I see it this way: he’s a young Prince, the life of the party, the all-star athlete. Even in the SLC he’s canonically referred to as “something of a celebrity”. This is why I liked the SLC - we get a closer look at Mika as a person.
Although it’s mentioned in DSS that all the Princes are excellent warriors with Mika being no exception, that’s not the side of Mika that the SLC explores. While he’s obviously a tough enough fighter to impress the rest of the clan at a young age, the SLC never even mentions his combat skills. Pretty much every time we meet him it’s emphasized that he’s very cool-headed with great people skills. I.e. how he verbally disarms Larten when he’s about to throw hands over Arra. And later when he smoothly uses Larten’s big mouth as a weapon to tell the Nazis off when he knows it’s unwise to do it himself, (even though he wants to) because he can’t risk the safety of the vampire clan. In some ways he’s almost the opposite of the other Princes. The SLC explores the differences between Mika and Larten on multiple occasions (see above examples) not to mention the fact that Mika “achieves greatness” while Larten has “greatness thrust upon him” to quote the great 2006 teen comedy She’s The Man, who in turn quoted Shakespeare. In other words, Mika wanted power and got it. Larten didn’t want power, and (sorta) ended up with it anyway. But I digress.
Then we see the differences between Mika and Vancha, Vancha is more unconventional and impulsive as we know. This is illustrated when Vancha goes rogue and threatens Hitler in person to call off the attacks on the clan, and Mika is furious when he hears about it. Yes, Vancha’s method proved successful and wasn’t NOT justified but... if it hadn’t? If it backfired and made everything worse? What if?? Love to see our green-haired feral man threatening a real-world Big Bad (wish he finished the job), but Mika’s anger about it is also justified. Anyway, on to Arrow. In the DSS Arrow mentions that he “usually acts first and thinks second, if at all”. So again, that methodology is the polar opposite of everything we know about Mika. Because every single move Mika makes is premeditated and calculated. So while I DO see him filling the role of the ~popular sports man~, he doesn’t live up to the negative attributes that are frequently associated with it (stupidity, bullying behaviour). And I don’t associate those things with Vancha or Arrow either, however I do think they fit the jock stereotype more than Mika does. Mika would be the star of the football team who’s ultimately in it for the scholarship whereas Vancha and Arrow really just love tackling people in the mud.
Somewhat related, Kurda tells Darren “I’m the first prince-elect to be nominated because of my brain rather than my brawn” or whatever and I call bullshit on that because all evidence suggests that Mika Ver Leth is the most intelligent vampire in the entire SLC but that again is a different dissertation entirely.
For those reasons, while I do loosely classify him as a popular jock/athlete/prep whatever, I also want to emphasize that pop culture often showcases the popular kids in a negative/villainous/simply unintelligent light and I want to be clear that isn’t Mika either. While confident, high-ranking, and powerful he doesn’t go out of his way to bully. (I.e. talking to Darren before his first trial and mentioning he doesn’t want to see him fail). He isn’t a bad or a mean person. He’s just a smart guy who also happens to be a tough guy, with a lot of power and responsibility to manage. And he’s very good at it.
That brings us to Baby Kurda. Based on their respective places in the clan’s social hierarchy, if anything I’d consider Mika to be far more of a “prep” than Kurda. Again, due to Mika’s seemingly effortless popularity and the ease with which he fits in with his peers. In my mind, I see Kurda as more of an alternative/hipster art student. The first thing we learn about him is that, unlike Mika, his interests are way outside the mainstream, i.e. cartography, peace between clans, as well as his complete lack of interest in fighting. AKA organized sports if we’re in a human AU. So to me, although Kurda doesn’t have any attributes of the “goth” stereotype, for those reasons I feel he’s waaayyy more of an “alternative” kid than Mika is.
Despite the fact that Kurda very amicable and kind to everyone, even seemingly having no trouble getting along with vampires who disagree with his politics (laughing with Vanez going “I didn’t vote for you!”) , there’s still a side of him that reminds me of the people from high school that would be like “UGH look at these IDIOTS who only care about sports and partying. I am not like OTHER people. I stay home and read BOOK.” And honestly IMHO, as a person who fell into neither category, I found the latter type more annoying than the preps.
This is illustrated by his apparent disdain for the revelry of the Festival Of The Undead. While the “popular kids” aka the Princes & Kurda’s fellow Generals are diving in and having a great time getting fucked up with their “classmates” we see Kurda more or less sitting in the corner and watching it all in a way that I wouldn’t necessarily call condescending because he’s too kindhearted for that (Gavner may disagree) but also makes it clear that not only does Kurda not fit in with the rest of the class, he doesn’t really WANT to.
And guys, I KNOW it’s not fair to compare mundane high school culture to vampire society because the latter is very dark and violent, trust me I’m aware. So please don’t come at me. I’m just drawing some vague parallels between the two. Humour me alright?
Of course, when we meet Kurda in the DSS, he’s on the brink of being initiated into the ranks of the ~popular kids~ but we have to remember he BARELY scraped through with 54% of the votes or something. A far cry from Mika’s initiation back in the SLC. (Although we don’t know whether Mika was voted in unanimously by the sitting Princes or if the Generals had to vote. But we do know Mika’s political stances were pretty neutral, AKA he didn’t give a lot of people a reason not to support him + it’s mentioned several times he was very well respected so evidence suggests he was a much more popular candidate in his time than Kurda was years later).
But unlike everything we know about Mika from the SLC, Kurda isn’t seeking popularity for the sake of being popular. So despite the implication that, like Kurda, Mika is smarter than many of his peers, his quest for the throne didn’t seem to be driven by any ulterior motives the way Kurda’ was. Illustrated by Wester hearing about Mika’s nomination and going “fuck Mika he’s too neutral, can we get someone more genocidal up in here?” So although Mika isn’t popular with Wester specifically, his lack of controversial opinions help to maintain his popularity. He gives the clan a lot of reasons to respect him, and few reasons for them NOT to like him. So while Mika’s clearly dedicated to keeping civility between the clans, he doesn’t exactly seem interested in the level of unity that Kurda dreams of either. Unlike Kurda, Mika didn’t bring an agenda when he got promoted as far as we know. He literally just decided he wanted to be a Prince so he put in the work and made it happen. Mika just wants to keep the clan safe and enjoy the view from the throne. If Kurda’s campaign slogan is “I’m a pacifist, I’m not sorry about it, and I don’t CARE if you like me. #MakeLoveNotWar”, Mika’s would be “It’s not a competition but I’m winning. #SireVerLeth2020”.
In conclusion, it makes perfect sense to look at them and see a goth and a prep. Just the other day I was listening to Sk8er Boy in the car and the line “he was a punk, she did ballet” came on and I was like LOL THATS MIKA AND KURDA. But then I gave it a little more thought and then I wasn’t so sure. Both of these vampires have many layers to their personalities in the canonical storyline. And if I was to delve into my AU there’s even more layers to dissect but I’m going to leave it at that for now. Kurda has enough of a badass streak, and Mika is just enough of a deep thinker for them to form some sort of relationship. Whether as colleagues with a functional professional relationship (canonical) or taking as far as the Dirty Chai AU and forming a legitimate romantic relationship. They may be polar opposites in many ways, but what do Mika and Kurda have in common to form any sort of solidarity over? More than it appears! We know they’re both skilled debaters/arguers. Both charismatic. Both love the clan (despite Kurda’s noted frustrations with vampire culture, he wouldn’t have done what he did if he didn’t care an AWFUL lot.) They’re both undisputedly intelligent. They’re both big-picture thinkers. Both logical and calculated. Both leave their personal emotions aside when powering through difficult tasks (i.e. Mika maintaining neutrality to a dangerous enemy in SLC despite his disgust towards them + Kurda not letting ANYTHING get in the way of his plot including poor Gavner). Sure, Mika’s a bit cold towards Darren at the beginning while Kurda welcomed the kid with open arms and proceeded to stand up for him at every turn. But Kurda also snuck a horde of vampaneze into the basement for a murdery surprise party, whereas Mika literally just does his job to the best of his abilities throughout both sagas. And ultimately, I feel they’re both fascinating characters who also happen to be overall good people, for different reasons.
TLDR: Aesthetics aside, if we’re factoring in the social nuances that influence traditional high school or college stereotypes... ultimately Mika fits in with his classmates with apparently minimal effort. While Kurda, in many situations, does not. For these reasons, it is my highly unprofessional opinion that if I had to pick ONE stereotype to assign each of them, I would categorize Mika as the prep/jock and Kurda would be the alternative/hipster/artsy kid. Submit essay.
Anon, thank you for inspiring this post and giving me a reason to put these thoughts into words lol. I really hope you don’t come away from this with the impression that I wrote a thesis for the purpose of disagreeing with you, because that’s absolutely not the case. I just have a lot of thoughts about these two characters in particular, and getting to talk about them in any context makes my soul happy. This post was pure joy for me to write. So again, thank you from the bottom of my heart and I hope you visit my ask box again!
