#anyway queen Krul ftw!!

[lilithrebellion]

Ok because we have been blessed with Krul awesomeness today, I would like to take the opportunity to elaborate on the relationship between her and Amaya.

I chose Krul as Amaya's sire because, well she is the highest ranking female vampire in ons (and the only one we know of...), so she was pretty much the only logical choice. But besides that, she is incredibly nuanced as a character who is a woman in power.

I wrote Amaya's back story as her being a daimyo's daughter, and one who was set to inherit that position. There's actually quite a lot of baggage that comes with that. Being a female heir to a traditionally male position (and a lesbian, so it is not going to be a situation where a man marries into the family for the title), it's fair to say that Amaya faced much higher scrutiny as opposed to if she had been born male. She consistently had to prove that she was suitable for the position.

Part of this I think, is that Amaya was consciously and consistently making an effort to suppress her "commit violence in retaliation against people who harass you" impulses. Because she knows that will only give her opponents more reasons to criticize her. It's the whole "you need to act better than this because you're female" thing, where women are unfairly held to a higher standard than men. And it's definitely something I kept in mind when writing the Ashina conflict and Amaya's motivations when she was human.

Then she becomes a vampire under Krul. It's not like Krul isn't criticised by the other nobles. We see in Seraph ch 22 where Lest Karr is all "if being Queen of Japan is too difficult for you, I am perfectly capable of stepping in". But Krul just doesn't back down. She's not afraid to stand up for herself and put him in his place. This scene is specifically what inspired me to put Karlheinz as a political opponent to Krul. Because it's pretty clearly implied by his language that Lest thinks himself more capable than Krul even though he is younger, simply because he is male. And we know for sure Karl wouldn't accept a woman having more power than him.

This scene shows that despite Krul being one of the oldest vampires, and I think the oldest active Progenitor on the council behind Urd, that she still has to fight for respect because she is female. (A further example being how Ky was... weirdly flirting with her a couple times?? While Krul was just completely fed up.)

It's even more evident in how Ferid consistently tries to undermine and belittle her. But, instead of "acting better than that" Krul literally beats the shit out of him whenever he is out of line. And this is presented positively! Every time Ferid provokes her and gets his ass handed to him, it is shown as completely deserved and works to show Krul as powerful and someone not to be messed with.

Nobody is calling her "emotional" or "hysterical" for rightfully kicking a creep down a notch, or responding with aggression when antagonized.

And I think Amaya really needed to see that. Krul is why she has zero qualms retaliating physically against the Sakamakis now and calling them out on thier bs. She taught her that it was completely justified to react with petty violence and scathing retorts when subjected to sexist crap. That all the anger Amaya had towards the injustices she faced in the past is something she absolutely was allowed to act on. And that acting on it like she'd always wanted to WAS an effective method for demanding respect.

Amaya greatly admires Krul as an example of a woman in power. She's the kind of ruler Amaya aspired to be if she could have been daimyo. And that's why Krul was the perfect choice for her as a mentor figure.