i have many, many conflicting headcanons about what exactly happened in the gap between s2 and s3 and how the entire family was at that point in time but one concept i think is interesting is the idea that vlad was drinking blood in that time.

obviously its well established that vlad refuses to drink blood and believes its wrong. in s3e1 we see him say this from the offset, however we also see him really struggle with being in a room full of breathers. most of this can be easily brushed off with the writer's trying to display that drinking blood isn't who vlad is, even though its what his nature calls for. this is pretty boring however and therefore i am choosing to project headcanons onto it <3

after wearing the crown of power at the end of s2, vlad collapses leading to the iconic scene of ingrid saying she neither knows nor cares if vlad is alive or not. this is where the blank spot begins. we know that the batteries on the uv cage ran out so the count could escape with renfield and vlad, however we don't know what state vlad was in at this point of time but we can assume it was bad.

working on the basis that the crown of power at least partially transformed him (e.g. gave him his fangs and boosted his powers, i then believe that he never went to the blood mirror on his sixteenth birthday as everyone believed he had already transformed, which then allowed for the events in s3e7/8, but thats another post) i think its an interesting idea that the count - unsure what exactly to do with this extremely ill vampire child - gave vlad blood whilst unconcious in an attempt to heal him. when vlad eventually came around he would deny this as treatment, but i'd like to believe that it is what made him better. to go along with this i think it provides an interesting dynamic that vlad is unaware that he was being fed blood whilst in this weakened state, with the count never having the heart to tell him that he had been drinking copious amounts of blood. its for this reason that we see vlad then struggle so much to be around breathers, as he went cold turkey on blood after he woke up properly. it shares some parallels with how much he struggled after biting erin - although it wasn't entirely the same.

My dad wants me to end up on the streets making people beg for their lives.

Gerran Howell as Vladimir Dracula in Young Dracula (Series 1)