#final word count is ~1.9k on this dear fucking lord i talk so much

[malevolententity]

Staring at you with my big eyes

(I know nothing about vtm aside from the suckening but it really interests me and I'd love to hear about about edward and the vampire micro politics)

HELLO!!!!!!! THANK YOU FOR ASKING!!! WELCOME TO VAMPIRE POLITICS 101 EDWARD TWILIGHT IS SO SO FASCINATING TO ME and i have no idea if charlie did any of it on purpose because i dont know if he actually looked that deep into the politics of vtm to plan for any of this.

how do i start this. youre getting an essay. dear lord this is going under a cut. because i gotta explain the normal politics before i can get into why edward politics is so fun for me personally.

everything below comes with a massive banner of context that i have been obsessed with vtm for a literal 13 years. so i have a lot of opinions on how stuff can be explained mechanics and lore wise. that charlie might not agree with and/or might not have been intending the read to be because we are two different storytellers.

SO in world of darkness (the book setting) there are three main political parties. there are the Camarilla which are traditionalists who created the rules of the masquerade and they want kindred society to be united and for there to be a hierarchy. this is the governing body that charlie has implemented and plays around with. then there are Anarchs who obey the general masquerade because they recognize its usefulness but they do not believe in a true hierarchy and bending the knee to The Prince of a city. and then theres the Sabbat who think the masquerade is stupid and think that kindred should live openly and blatantly rule over humans.

charlies camarilla is so interesting from the get go because queens are not a thing. thats a charlie thing. so were already off to a fun micro politics of what the fuck? hey charlie? is The Queen part of the inner circle and the head of the camarilla of the entire world? and you just invented a title? bro? because why would she as just prince of LA be called queen? female princes are still princes. so i work under the assumption that she is part of the main governing body for the entire world camarilla not just LA. because normal princes live in their cities. if she lives in fucking romania in umber castle shes not just a normal prince.

so within the camarilla theres a bunch of jobs but the main ones charlie plays with is primogen, sheriff, and prince. and he does a decent job at explaining them. primogen are voices of their clan. they are the most powerful person in the clan in a given city and serve to represent the needs of the clan within the camarilla. not every clan gets a primogen as it depends on if theres enough camarilla kindred in that clan to warrant needing a primogen. the sheriff is the front facing enforcer of the rules. who is elected by the primogen and prince together. and then the prince is The Prince. they are like a dictator mayor. they are the one who creates and expands the masquerade rules of the city to make sure that mortals do not become aware of vampires. princes are typically not elected; they come about from coups or if the old one wants to abdicate they endorse/instate a new prince.

theres also keepers, harpys, scourges, seneschals, heralds, archons, and justicars. but explaining those does not help with my why edward is fascinating so i can go into those a different time. also because we only have maybe two examples of those within suckening.

SO IN ANARCHS which charlie never brings up to my memory theres a lot less official titles! you have the Barons which function similarly to a prince but they will kill you if you say that; hate princes with a passion. cities depending on their size will have a number of barons who control neighborhoods/sections of the city. they all work together but compete with each other to maintain their footholds in the city and to resist the princes rule. and then the other main one is Proctors who just keep tabs on whos in the territory and doing what. which can function as mini sheriffs. 

so using LA as an example edward rules over the entire city but unless he killed all the anarchs in the city the specific territory of santa monica has a baron who also imposes rules on the kindred of that specific territory.

and then we have the Sabbat who charlie also never brings up. who also have their own chain of command in cities but also the world at large! the most important titles here for this talk are Bishop and Archbishop. a Bishop is going to be akin to a primogen it is a title that is given to a powerful kindred who then leads a large group of sabbat within a section of the city. bishops answer to archbishops. and an Archbishop is akin to a prince. they are the sabbat ruler of an entire city. every sabbat within that city ultimately answers to them.

a big thing with the Sabbat sect as a whole is they do not care about the masquerade. they commit mass masquerade breaches be it mass turning events or just having them run around in the wild doing whatever not caring if kine see a vampire using their powers or feeding.

Edward Twilight is a serial masquerade breacher. like theres no way around it. like yes he is a toreador so he is going to want and demand the attention of everyone. but theres a line. and one of those lines is mass ghouling an entire city and making a large portion of the mortals in your city look like you. that is an insane massive breach that is going to get the inquisition/grimslayers to raid your city because thats not normal. that is a massive red flag that vampires are there. that is a thing that only sabbat would do.

because even with charlies camarilla being his own spin on it and not 100% by the book. i can not bring myself to accept that a genuine camarilla member would pull the shit edward does. like it does not make sense to me. and thats slightly compounded by the fact that camarilla traditionally; even the toreadors; want to stay hidden. they do not like mortals knowing vampires exist they LOATHE cellphones because cellphones put a camera in everyones pocket and is the easiest way to make the entire world aware of your existence and status as a monster. and then your meet your final death when the city gets raided. camarilla toreadors chase fame and beauty but theres still a line ya know.

a sabbat on the other hand? loves a cellphone. doesn't give a shit if the world is aware of them because being known isnt a threat, its the goal. it is the goal to have humans aware that vampires are real and you can be one or to serve one.

so with all that said. i genuinely believe that Edward Twilight is an Archbishop of the Sabbat who has been playing the longcon with the Camarilla. because he is involved in the camarilla, theres no denying that. he has underlings that are clearly real camarilla and work in camarilla terms and conditions. but all of his goals that we know about just scream sabbat to me. he has been vying  for the prince position trying to get that endorsement from shilo to further legitimize himself and his hold on the city, that is a fact. but the amount and types of breaches he commits are the kind no right minded camarilla would commit and he does not have an affliction that drives him to madness. so to me he comes off as a sabbat agent trying to destabilize the cams.

theres also the factor of viv and vex. traditionally in VTM, clans are predisposed to certain political sects, with special cases made for individual vampires. in lore this is because the different sects will consider entire clans just a walking masquerade breach that they don’t want to deal with. so having them be a part of the sect is rare and special. now every storyteller handles this differently some are rigid by the book and some just do what fits best for the story they want to tell. charlie ran this in v20 and by v20 lore tzimisce are purely sabbat because they are an inherent breach. they are a clan who makes weird meatball creatures and turn themselves into literal flesh monster that barely look human. and in v5 tzimisce as a whole are welcome to anarchs but only individually welcome to camarilla. charlie mixes a bit of v20 and v5 because he read them both and touchstones are a thing so we know he pulled some v5 things. but with the shit viv and vex do i just find it hard to believe theyre genuine cam who respect the masquerade. those are edwards fellow weird little sabbat guys who are helping him destabilize and take over. they made edward sexy. they are the ones performing the procedures to turn ghouls and bloodbonded vampires alike into edward clones. that is the most sabbat ass shit ive ever heard of besides mass turning events and weird meatball snuff films

edward twilight is fascinating to me regardless of if m right. because knowing charlie and his love of bits and “well wouldn’t that be silly” it is likely that edward to him is just a genuine camarilla toreador primogen who climbed the ladder and his version of the camarilla are a little more lax in some regards. or because of the bloodbonding the other primogen and deacon won’t go against edward and his mass breaches.

but for me it is so much more interesting to think of edward as an archbishop who decided to infiltrate the camarilla god knows how long ago to become a prince and then probably climb up even higher into the Inner Circle because literally too many details line up and point at that being a possibility for me to ignore as coincidence.

because we do know that this campaign was supposed to be about the political climb until they all started playing and charlie realized that the boys ended up being more interested in the relationships and personal mysteries than an actual political power struggle against each other campaign. so i KNOW he had to do some amount of research into the camarilla i just dont know how far into the other sects that research went to have him genuinely on purpose make edward a sabbat.

and i cant wait for season 2 to drop eventually so i can learn if i put in waaaay too much thought into all this because i know too much about this system. or if charlie actually did an insane amount of research on vtm politics and i picked up on clues that are genuinely there LOL

i really hope this made sense and you enjoyed it! it’s like 4 pages long and if theres anything in here that needs clarifying i will gladly talk even more or explain other things within vtm because this is my favorite system and i do Not know how to be normal about it :D 

[dranefarious]

Indebted(Chapter 1)

Summary: “When you are trying to fix a broken person, beware, for you may cut yourself on their shattered pieces”.

Indebted: Teaser

Word Count: 1.9k sorry

Genre: Romance

A/N: What is promised is debted, so ta-da! I hope you like it guys ♥ PS: Thanks to my lovely proofreader Hydrangea for making such a excellent word and putting up with my shit lmao

“Y/N can you attend in the back?”, you whipped around to find your boss right in front of you, “Do I really need to?”, you mumbled and he gave you an apologetic look, “It’s really crammed in the back,” he hesitated for a moment before adding, “and they only want girls.”, he smiled bitterly.

You sighed, it wasn’t the first time and it’s not like you could really refuse, when aristocrats wanted something, no one lower than them could really say no.

Your boss gave you a soft pat on your shoulder and took the salver from your hands, you only nodded in response, walking as slow as you could and undid the first button of your shirt, this was going to be a long night.

You moved past the curtain that covered the back of the tavern you worked, unlike the front, which was more simple, the part at the back was prepared for “important” people, like the aristocracy or distinguished merchants.

Picking up another salver you made your way through the tables, a man raising his hand to call your attention.

“Good evening, gentlemen, how can I serve you?”, you asked while putting on your best face. “Good evening to you, darling. Aren’t you a beautiful thing?”, you heard the soft laughs and nodding faces of the people surrounding him.

“Thank you, my lord. What can I serve you this night?”, you curled one of your hands behind your back, “How about some of your best wine, then later a side of you.”, he tried to flirt, but you only gave a hard look as your response then bowed, leaving to look for the wine.

Walking through the small private settees that were covered by dark curtains, you made your way to the bar, “Wine?”, you only nodded in response, letting the cold surface of the table cool your head.

“Tough night?”, Jimin asked and you nodded again. “How bad would it be if I punched one of them in the face?”, Jimin laughed while putting the glasses of wine on your salver, “Don’t you go to jail for that? They’re not worth it”, he winked and you nodded again in response.

You picked up the salver again and walked through the same path, watching how one of the settee’s curtains flowed in an odd manner, you walked until you were right in front of it, letting curiosity get the best of you.

Before you could open the curtains, you heard a muffled noise, then a soft grunt. You covered your mouth with your free hand, finally catching on to the situation going on behind the closed space.

Deciding that it was best to just turn around and ignore the situation, your feet shuffled on floor on their on, right before you left, you saw someone’s eye through the small space between the curtain.

You couldn’t really make out the face, but you knew he was able to see you, as you could see the back of the girl he had on top of him, he was watching you above her left shoulder. You saw his eye crinkle, as if he was smiling.

You never walked so fast in your life, quickly going to the table and serving their glasses of wine. Then, dashing as fast as you could and hiding in the cleaning room.

What if he could recognize you?

You discarded the idea right away, he was “busy” so he definitely couldn’t recognize you at all. Yes. That had to be.

You shrug the bad feeling off your shoulders, then went out again to attend the other people. After a while, you actually managed to forget about the little incident and focus on your job.

You could finally see the tavern emptying little by little, finally feeling as if you could breathe. You decided to call it a day, as it was way past midnight and started cleaning the tables while Jimin discarded the empty bottles at the back of the place.

There was just a little problem, the same guy along with a few more than you could handle nobles were still here, “Pretty lady~”, he sing-sang in a drunken voice, “I told you you’d be my sid-e dish, did-n’t I?”, he added.

“Sir, you are very drunk, I think it’ll be better if you go home and rest”, you said in a clipped tone, avoiding his heavy arms touching your body. “I’ll go home if-if you co-me with me.”, he said in response and managed to grab your wrist before you had time to react again.

“S-Sir, please let me go”, you tried to reason, you could always throw a punch, but that meant being jobless, and your family couldn’t afford that. “I do-don’t wan’t to,” he tried to pull you in but you resisted.

You looked around, trying to find Jimin or someone who could help you to get away from this fribble man and his companions, until you saw someone stand in front of you.

His broad back was clad in blue silk shirt, it looked simple but even you could recognize fine silk. “The lady has said no, hasn’t she?”, he spoke in an authoritative manner and you saw the man’s face suddenly go pale.

You could feel the dominance the man emanated and see how the nobles stutter to find an answer. Before they could answer, the young man added, “I want you to leave, before I send you all to prison.”

The nobles were quickly on their feet, not before bowing a little to the man who was now your savior and left as fast as they could in their drunken state. “Well, that was easy”, you heard him say and then he spun around to face you.

It was the same man you saw earlier with the girl behind the curtains. Even you, a lowly commoner, could recognize him. He was Prince Taehyung.

You gasped then suddenly bowed, “I’m so sorry, Prince Taehyung! I didn’t recognize you at all!”, he only laughed a little before softly touching your shoulder, signaling for you to get up.

“Don’t worry, are you okay?”, you only nodded in response suddenly feeling tongue tied in the prince’s presence. He seemed to catch on to your behavior and quickly added, “Please, don’t worry about me, I’m not like them.”

You finally met his gaze and it felt as if he could look straight into your soul, his big brown eyes looking straight into yours. Then you remembered. He was also a noble, one of the most important as a matter of fact.

He could not be like them. He could be much worse.

“I’m sure you’re not”, you responded in a leveled voice, calming yourself down after reassuring that, yes, he maybe a prince. But his behavior in the private settee wasn’t exactly very royal like.

“Anyway, I’m very thankful, your highness”, his face suddenly fell into a soft scowl, as if in distaste of the title but you pretended not to notice, “Pardon but, what are you doing here so late, your highness?”.

He smiled smugly and said, “I ditched a party, I heard this was a good tavern to spend the night and as far as I’ve been here,” he looked at you with a quirked brow, “I could say it’s true”.

You nodded in response, feeling a little uncomfortable under his scrutiny and resumed your work. You thought that maybe he’ll go when you stopped talking, but he didn’t.

He sat in a chair, as if waiting for you. After you finished with the last table and saw a note from Jimin saying that you had to close the back of the place, you saw him sitting there, looking around the place with interest.

“Uh...Your highness?”, he whipped his head around, “Why are you here still?”, he smiled and responded, “Why? You ask, I’m waiting for you, my dear”.

You felt taken aback by his response but quickly covered it with a questioning look, “Why?”, he hummed a little, “You asks a lot of questions, my dear”. Somehow, the new nickname only made you get angry, “You give very little answers, your highness”, you added the title in a clipped tone.

He seemed surprised and you smiled in satisfaction, but your small triumph was quickly gone when he smiled back, “Touché”, he answered.

“Well, are you ready?”, he asked and you gave him a puzzled look, “Ready for what?”, you answered, a small unsettled feeling made its way to your chest. He sighed and shook his head, “I told you, we’re leaving. You’ll show me around town”, his sudden request had you gawking at him for a second, feeling bewildered.

“I am not doing such a thing!”, you yelled before you could stop yourself. Suddenly a thousand thoughts on how he would have your head suddenly came into your mind.

“Why not?~”, he stomped on the floor and pouted like a little kid, “I want to go and have fun!~”, you pursed your lips into a thin line, “Then go look somewhere else!”, he looked at you before laughing.

“You’re funny,” he added after his fit of laughs, “I like you”. You gave him a long look before walking past him, waiting for him to come outside then finally closing the door.

You saw him look around curiously, like a child in a new place. “Well, good luck, Prince Taehyung”, you bowed before turning your back to him. “Wait! Are you going to leave me here!?”, you turned around giving him an amused look, “That was the idea, yes. I thought you wanted to have fun?”.

“Oh come on, sweetheart! You can’t be that heartless”, you stopped in your track and turned around, walking back to him.

“First off, don’t you ever call me sweetheart again”, you said and pointed a finger at his chest, “Second of all, I’m not the kind of fun you’re looking for, if your definition of fun is fucking someone behind a private curtain.”, you finally admitting, trying to suppress the heat that you felt crawling to your cheeks.

“So you did see me,” he muttered softly and you inhaled sharply, before you could say anything else, a royal carriage passed next to the both of you then stopped at the corner of the street.

You saw how Taehyung cursed softly, “Guess this is your cue, Your highness”, you muttered relieved you didn’t have to deal with him anymore. “We could always run, just the two of us,” he responded, his intentions crystal clear.

You smiled bitterly before watching how two guards came down the carriage, “You’re right, you’re not like those nobles. You’re worse”. Before he could say anything, you walked away, feeling drained.

Taehyung watched you walk away until you turned around a corner, losing you from his sight. “Your highness, we’ve been looking for you everywhere!”, the guard spoke in a scolding manner.

Taehyung smiled sheepishly, “I’m sorry, but I’m here now, right?”, the guards sighed as he hopped into the carriage. On the way to the castle, Taehyung suddenly spoke up, catching the guards attention.

“I want to know who the young girl I was with is”, the guards nodded and one asked, “do you know her name, your highness?”, he pondered for a minute before answering, “I don’t, but I know she works there”.

“May I know why do you wish to know about her, your highness?”, the other guard asked a little fear ringing in his voice. Taehyung smiled knowingly.

“She’s fun. I want her.”