#boinky yapping

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Clan Ventrue and China--my thoughts

Not really a big or super elegant writeup bc my brain hasn't been super functional lately but while I recognize that clan Ventrue is primarily based around ancient Rome, I think there's actually a lot of untapped potential with Ventrue and China.

I will preface this (and hopefully catch your interest) by saying:

There is an old proverb in Chinese that goes "死要面子活受罪，就是为了不丢脸，硬撑的"-- "It is better to die with dignity than to suffer in life."

Chinese (and I'm sure many other Asian cultures, shoutout to all of us) culture places an enormous sense of importance on the concept of dignity and honor. You may find that this is strikingly similar to the Ventrue concept of Dignitas. As the saying goes, better to die than to "丢脸"--lose face. There is a kind of unspoken agreement to suffer in silence. Struggle and hardship and one's ability to endure it stoically are perhaps one of the highest virtues one can have, especially because growing up in China means enduring an immensely competitive environment. Through hard work, you better yourself and hopefully achieve highly enough to improve your class. economic power translates to social capital. Outside of China, at least from my experience, you'll be hard-pressed to find Chinese people openly begging in any context, especially for money. There's nothing so shameful as begging for the fruits of other people's hard labor, which you haven't earned. Especially since everybody is collectively suffering and again, the environment is so competitive. If you want anything in life, you can't wait for someone to save you. Any opportunity, you should take it (抢--"to snatch forcefully, rob").

Thus, there is the obvious caveat that there is a universal expectation or dream to be incredibly high-achieving, or as accomplished as humanly possible. If you think Ventrue Sires exercising the Right of Destruction/Accounting on their Childer for embarrassing them is extreme--don't.

There's also the fact that Clan Ventrue places importance on age. Age is a virtue of its own which can be synonymous to wisdom, demanding a certain level of veneration. Clan Ventrue prides itself as being the "eldest brother" out of all of the clans and claims that [Ventrue] is the eldest of the Antediluvians. The eldest son in a family is said to be the 'father' of the other children (长兄如父), taking on a position of leadership and therefore the most burdens/expectations due to a combination of age veneration and traditional patriarchal values. This is very much like how Ventrue have a shared mindset that leadership is the proverbial cross that they must bear, for they are the oldest, the wisest, the most high-achieving and the most qualified. This ties in well with the concept of tradition and filial piety (孝顺).

Clan Ventrue has a strong, unifying clan culture in which every Ventrue (well, so long as you fall in line) is inherently seen as more valuable than every outsider, much like a family (although not quite as literally as the Giovanni). Tradition is obviously a big mainstay of Ventrue culture but Ventrue also demand their youngest to defer to their elders in every way imaginable, never challenging them and always heeding their wisdom. Childer must subsequently honor their Sires and pay respect to the lineage that 'birthed' them, engaging in elaborate rituals of recitation and commemoration of their notable deeds ("honor your ancestors"). One can say that in a way, coming from a good bloodline is like coming from a good 'family', and there's a lot of shame attached to associating with people who come from a 'bad family', like their lack of honor would in a way taint yours by association (see: marriage).

Sometimes in Chinese you may also find someone cursing out someone's entire family by telling all 18 generations of their bloodline (9 generations forward, 9 generations backwards) to go fuck themselves, although this is considered an inelegant and frankly mid insult. Ancient china really had some absolutely insane work when it came to constructing elegant, almost poetic verbal barbs, or wielding/maximizing command over language in general, and we all know that Ventrue hold a disdain for ineloquent speech, sometimes at the expense of sounding overly verbose, posh or antiquated.

Ancient Chinese courts and even the conception of the afterlife were bureaucratic, emphasizing the importance of hierarchy--which Ventrue are also notorious for, much to the annoyance and chagrin of virtually every other clan. A Ventrue Agoge can likewise be synonymous to Chinese cultures' emphasis on education and the importance of properly equipping your child to handle the rigors of the world.

Finally, or at least this is only the last thing I can think of after having been typing this for like a solid hour now, is that noblesse oblige and etiquette plays another role. You're expected to carry yourself in a dignified manner, and that means treating others with the appropriate amount of respect (尊敬人) and paying heed to sophistication. 'Class', if you will.

So with all of that in mind, I suppose the takeaway here is that I think Chinese culture and Ventrue clan culture have a lot of interesting parallels and I hope that this gave you some food for thought.

Edited addendum: Kind of funny that the Chinese afterlife involves spending a lot of money now that Ventrue in the modern day have notoriously adopted the mantle of boardroom capitalists. Can't escape the grind even when you're dead

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Oughghghghhg reheating my own nachos but like

I’m just so enamored with the concept of a normal middle aged man in a suit suddenly baring fangs over something as mundane as a boardroom meeting

It just makes things feel so much more grounded, creating this stark contrast to the fantasy conception of vampires that’s considerably less romantic and glamorous

We see so many young and hot supermodel vampires, or alternatively older vampires but exclusively in some gothic backdrop, but this isn’t the era of Dracula castles anymore—times change

Modern middle aged, average-looking supernatural monsters with fucking hedge funds and shit walking amongst us is just an utterly elite vibe

Especially if you know that that motherfucker used to be a Teutonic knight or something in his heyday and now he’s being forced to begrudgingly adapt to this new battleground of information and technology

We hardly have proper land conflicts anymore—not when we have bombs

Now, it’s the man who moves the oil freight that’s king

Who controls the lobbyists and whispers poisoned funds into the anticipating pockets of senators

Vampires that don’t look like the Edward Cullens of the world but rather the owners of LLCs

You’ve seen that man before, being ferried coffees by beleaguered secretaries

You’ve seen him forgo the crush of public transport to duck into a chauffeured Aston Martin

That’s the vampire amongst you, Kine

And he looks just like your CEO