Fandom: Ronin Warriors (fave characters Kento, Cy, Cale, Sehkmet, Rowen, but I am fine with any really so whatever works)
Au: Vampire (back up if vampires is taken Supernatural Detectives).
Vampires were not taken and I squealed when this initially came in, because I so love this fandom and adore working with anything to do with vampires! Thank you so much for sending this in and I hope you'll enjoy!
Okay, so setting up this AU…in this universe, I see Talpa as not only being a centuries old vampire, but the oldest existing vampire. Like, he got turned into a vampire when dinosaurs were roaming around the Earth, fed on cavemen sort of old. And he's the progenitor of all of the modern vampires. They were all sired by Talpa, including all the characters used in this AU. Talpa is father, sire, master.
Talpa really does raise his vampire children to believe they are superior to humanity, that human beings really are just food and does believe that vampires shouldn't have to hide, should have conquered the world instead of humanity. He encourages his vampire children to feast on whomever, and however many, people as they wish, to take whatever they want and for decades all of his sired vampires obeyed.
But that changed. A little nest of vampires broke off from their master and the rest of vampire-kind. These are, of course, what are canonically the Ronins. They all had sort of fallen in love with humanity and society somewhere along the way, and they found similar views in each other. They all decide to band together, to pull away from Talpa's influence and, instead of living with the other vampires, they make their own nest and decide to integrate themselves into society while hiding their vampiric nature. Instead of feeding from and killing humans, they search to find non-violent ways of feeding.
Of course, Talpa being Talpa, doesn't take this laying down. He sees it as a huge betrayal, as an insult, especially as I really see the Ronins having been among his favourite 'children', so he takes their pulling away from him as something too insulting to ignore. He sends another little nest of vampires, those that are the most brutal and the most loyal to Talpa, his other most favoured 'children' to really find these betrayers, to bring these 'wayward children' back into the fold and back under Talpa's command.
Just for anyone wondering, I also definitely set this AU in current-day settings, just because it amuses me greatly. There's these really old vampires, just emerging back into society, and having to deal with all these very new, complex things. Like, forget even just how technological this world has become and none of them even know how to use a computer, much less know what a cell phone actually really is or what apps are, but there's such an emphasis on social media and everyone has a camera. And even when they make friends and even if they get social media pages, there's always those friends who are like 'come on, take a selfie with me' or 'why do you never post pictures of yourself or any of your friends/roommates' and how do you really explain that, hey, I'm a vampire and thus don't show up in photographs? And of course, they get none of the slang, none of the fashion trends, etc.
And, to me, the way I would sit down and write this out as a story would really be a nice balance between just the fun little moments and the very character driven plotlines of all the members of this breakaway little nest just really learning both how to all live together in this new world, and how each individually learns to live in modern society, how they each learn how to explore the world of humans, how they find their own humanity and identities along the way, how they find relationships of all sorts and learn how to really love and feel and be as human as they can be, and the more plot driven storyline of them trying to live in the world with humans while Talpa and their vampire brethren are very driven to get them back into the fold, stopping at nothing (even murder) to succeed in that.
I'm just going to share some fun thoughts about the characters or some real strong plot lines I would be using in the story for some of the various characters, so I hope you'll enjoy!
Okay, so obviously this new break-away nest who decides to live with humanity, as mentioned consists of Ryo, Kento, Cye, Sage, and Rowen and I will get into some ideas I have for each of them in this AU a bit down below but I want to hit on some of the other very important characters before I do.
So, when the boys are struggling to find ways to still get the blood they need to survive, they try a wide variety of things. They do try getting blood from people seemingly willing to give it to them, live sources, but they find it too difficult to really control their hunger and in some really heart-breaking moments, they still end up draining and killing people. It makes them reconsider if they can do this, and it's really hard for them. They try animal blood and it does work in that it does keep them alive, but it makes them all really sick - the equivalent of a really, really nasty flu bug to humans, really. Diarrhea, vomiting, fever, chills. So animal blood does in a pinch, but they still need to see if there's a better way. Blood banks turn out to be a lot trickier to sneak into than they thought, even with their vampire attributes. It's actually Rowen who comes up with the thought but…does the blood need to come from a living person?
Enter Mia, who in this AU works as an embalmer in a huge funeral home for plot purposes. She stumbles across the nest trying out this new theory and yeah, she's absolutely astounded by what she sees. Like, why the fuck are these five teenage boys trying to hijack a corpse? Holy shit, is one of them biting the dead corpse? What the hell is going on?! She's terrified, initially really disgusted, horrified, all the adjectives. But she does come to understand and accept not only the boy's vampire natures, but what they're really struggling to find - a non-violent way of just surviving. When the boys find out that yes, the blood from corpses works better than animal blood, in that it allows them to stay alive and healthy, just with weaker vampire abilities than live victims, Mia really does help them out, at the risk of her job and very possibly a long jail sentence, by keeping them supplied with blood. She also becomes their first, and strongest friendship and really does help them with the initial integrating into society.
Another important character is actually going to be Yuli. Not that he'll be an incredibly major character, won't be a huge focus in the story, but he is definitely in there. He actually gets introduced in what I figure is actually going to be one of the most heart-breaking and angsty scenes in the entire story, happening fairly early on when the boys realize just the extent to which Talpa's missionaries will go to bring them back into the fold. Yuli's just a kid out at night to run to the corner store to buy milk for his mom. It's the first time he's been entrusted with such a big task and he's really excited about it. Too bad he gets stuck in between a fight between Sekhmet and one or two of the boys. A fight that really does end in Sekhmet completely draining Yuli and leaving the boy(s) with two impossibly difficult solutions - let the boy die right in front of them or turn him into a vampire, keeping him alive but ending his life in a different way. I do see the final decision being to turn Yuli, just because they really can't handle just letting him die in front of them, knowing it is all their fault he died, and part of the story is really the whole nest raising Yuli as this new, fledging vampire and teaching him how to control his hunger, control his powers, how to feed properly and without causing harm to others, etc.
Now, out of the nest that Talpa sends, the ones seemingly completely loyal to Talpa, I think, throughout the course of the story, we really see both Anubis and Lady Kayura go from blind obedience and loyalty to Talpa, see them go from brutal methods of getting the boys back into the fold and a complete disregard for humanity, viewing them as nothing more than cattle. I think it becomes just a little softening towards the boys, a little bit more holding back in their methods of convincing the boys. I think both vampires see the lives the boys build themselves, existing alongside humans and their disgust just kind of changes slowly to jealousy without them even fully being aware of when or why it started. All they know is that at some point, both Anubis and Kayura start seeing how happy the boys are living alongside humans and both start to want that happiness and to be pissed the boys have it and they don't. And, of course, they both eventually come around to breaking away from Talpa themselves. They don't join the boys nest, not right away, because the boys have a lot of misgivings and can't truly trust them right away, not after everything that has happened, but both of them start their own solitary journeys in integrating into humanity and along those journeys, the boys soften and do help both Anubis and Kayura out.
Do I see Anubis and Kayura being the only vampires of the nest Talpa sends to ultimately betray Talpa? Most definitely not. Sekhmet, Dais, and Kale all do eventually decide to embrace humanity, but unlike Anubis and Kayura, who I see embracing the boy's decision to not feed on live humans, I think when these three do decide to join the modern world and live fully beside humans, they still keep to feeding off living people, sometimes (oftentimes) killing them in the process but they find ways they can live with that decision. Kale, for example, feeds exclusively off very willing humans who almost beg him to do so and he feels no guilt about it. Dais feeds almost exclusively off criminals and feels no guilt about his decisions either, while Sekhmet tends to feed off the very ill and sickly or the very elderly, people he figures were going to die soon anyway.
And just because I really like the idea and trope of 'morality pets', I really do see Kale, Dais, and Sekhmet all gaining those throughout the story and those 'pets' being one of the largest reasons they do ultimately end up betraying Talpa.
Now, just maybe because it's a fun idea for me, but I see Kale discovering the 'vampire counterculture' type movement, a club or something dedicated to those who liked to play vampires or worshipped, in a way, the idea of vampires. He found it amusing, visited a few times, and even after Kale brutally showed them that he really and truly was the vampire they all dreamed about, these people still really threw themselves at him, adored him, worshipped him and wanted to be around him. He had found his place, with so many willing food sources, and at some point, I do think he stops seeing them solely as food and starts to actually grow some attachment to some of the members, even siring his own vampires, something that infuriated Talpa and Talpa's punishment of Kale for doing so is probably what drove Kale out of his loyalty to Talpa, though he was the last to leave his master.
Sehkmet? The idea probably makes no sense but I think, after the confrontation where Yuli was left for dead, Sehkmet sees Yuli's mother, frantic, searching everywhere for her child. And for some reason, it really does hit something in him. It's not exactly guilt he feels…not really. He's really not sane enough to have that traditional sense of guilt, definitely not at first. But there's something about the woman that just hits at him and he keeps an eye on her over the following days and weeks, learns she's a single mother (sorry, killed Yuli's dad off for plot purposes) and that Yuli is her only son. He watches her search, watches her cry, watches, some days, just every move she makes. And he starts going out of his way to spy on the peaceful nest and the boy he'd left for dead, now a vampire himself. And I think he works it out, and for once not because of the potential for mental torture, for Yuli's mother and Yuli to have to reunite. And it's really after seeing Yuli's mother really accept her son and what he's become that I feel Sehkmet starts to really discover the little fragments of humanity that are inside of him and really starts to reconsider if Talpa is right about everything.
I don't have a real strong idea as to Dais' morality pet, only the vague idea that I do see it being either a singular street kid or street person or a group of them, and that, whether it's one or many, they are mentally ill, maybe even that they have some substance abuse issues. And it's weird, because he should revile them, find them disgusting, but there's something in the unique way they all view the world, the way they continue to live and thrive without ever really giving up and just laying down and dying, how, even when he threatened them with certain death, they still fought that gained some amount of begrudging respect, really, from Dais. He starts to keep an eye on them, even if he doesn't always directly interact with them and it's through them that he starts to discover his own humanity.
Now, for some fun ideas with the boys. I see Ryo as the one really most socially awkward. He really does want to live among humans and really integrate into society, but he's not great with crowds or people in general. However, I see him discovering all the new high-tech cameras and such and really getting into that as a hobby, specializing in night-time photography and he starts to meet people through that. As he grows more comfortable making friends, he continues to take more small steps. With Rowen and Sage's help with forging the documents, he's the first of the guys to get a job, tipped off by one of his new friends that the local zoo was looking for someone to do overnight security.
Kento is the biggest social butterfly of the bunch. He really loves getting out and exploring, getting to know this new world they find themselves in. However, I think he has the worst time, out of all the boys, with learning how to handle technology. It's a good thing a lot of the interest he ends up bonding with humans over aren't really high-tech. He spends a lot of time at a 24-7 gym and makes a lot of friends there. He's also the biggest eater and I don't know why but I love the idea of him just using a bag of the blood Mia packages up for them as a juice-box. Does anyone else remember those little plastic bags of juice they used to hand out at school runs and such, where you just stuck the straw into the plastic bag? Exactly like that.
Cye ends up teaching late-night water aerobics classes and nothing can convince me otherwise. He actually gains a huge love for watching basketball, decides on a pro team, and watches every game. But the thing I really think gets him with the new world is that I do think he really does gain an appreciation and love for social media, particularly things that run more along the lines of art, aesthetics, and social justice. He really finds a lot of causes to support and makes friends pretty easily that way. He's also one of the main ones, among the boys, to really keep the nest stable and happy and together, even as they all get used to living with each other.
Rowen is just astounded by the fact that there's all these e-books and audiobooks, just available with an app or a steady internet connection. He gets the most into the fandom scene, just saying. He's also the one who manages to keep the boy's secret from all their new human friends, the one who manages to learn to forge all documents needed, how best to stay safe from the sun, how to keep Mia from getting caught helping them, to figure out how to really exist when it comes down to the nitty gritty. Sage really does help him out wherever possible too. I also strongly believe he joins an evening baseball league and the other boys go and watch his games whenever they can.
Okay but Sage becomes a huge fan, and later even a driver in, the local stockcar racing scene. Whenever the races fall in the evening, when the sun isn't up, Sage races for a company he'd seen advertising for a driver. He loves it and gains a pretty solid friend circle through it. Much like Rowen, the boys go and watch him race whenever they can.
