Melody Lei, Hao Dian Li, Daiana Chen, Shakya Amaratunga, Karen Zhu, Jialin Ma
Vampire’s Ethnicity: Korean
Justification: Our vampire’s ethnicity is based on the Korean dramas Blood and Orange Marmalade. The drama Blood is about Park Ji-sang, a doctor specializing in cancer surgery, who is also secretly a vampire. He does not believe in using humans for his own selfish desires (such as drinking their blood). Therefore, he suppresses his own thirst for blood by taking special pills. The drama Orange Marmalade is about a world where humans and vampires “coexist,” in which vampires try to conceal their nature by drinking pig blood. However, they still desire human blood and they have no choice but to live as outcasts. One such outcast is the protagonist, Baek Ma-ri, who is a high school girl hiding her vampire identity. With the recent popularity of vampire concepts in Korean dramas, we gained inspiration from these dramas (which we enjoyed watching) and thus, we decided to make our vampire Korean.
Moon, So-san, writer. Orange Marmalade. A Song For You Culture Industry, KBS, and Zen Production, 2015.
Park, Jae Bum, writer. Blood. IOK Media and KBS, 2015.
Vampire’s Abilities:
Telepathy
Shapeshifting
Hypnotic abilities
Regeneration
Justification:
Our vampire has a plethora of abilities, one of them being telepathy. Using this ability, she can sense when other vampires are near her and she can read their minds. We adapted this ability from the novel Vampire Diaries, in which the characters Stefan Salvatore and Damon Salvatore always communicate telepathically. Our vampire can also shape-shift meaning that she has the ability to transform into various animals, such as bats. We gained inspiration from Dracula, who can turn into many nocturnal animals, such as bats, wolves, rats, and panthers. One of our vampire’s main shape-shifting transformation is a vampire squid. This was based on an Indonesian folklore, where Leyak possesses the ability to shape-shift into various animals, such as a vampire squid since it helps with camouflage. Our vampire can also regenerate at an extremely rapid pace and she has the ability to heal any wounds. In Supernatural, the Winchester brothers came across vampires in their hunt and found out that they are able to heal from many types of wounds, so it was difficult to harm them. This regeneration process is accelerated by drinking more blood which replenishes them. Our vampire also has hypnotic ability, in which they can mesmerize and influence the minds of other people. In The Vampire Diaries and The Originals, vampires compelled people by making eye contact, dilating their pupils, and telling people what to do. Then, people obeyed without realizing anything happened.
“Asia.” Vampire Legends Around the World, vampiresaroundtheworld.weebly.com/asia.html.
Miller, Elizabeth. Traits of the Vampire, www.ucs.mun.ca/~emiller/traits.html.
Supernatural. Warner Bros. Television, 2005-present
The Vampire Diaries. Outerbanks Entertainment, 2009-2017
Vampire Academy. Directed by Mark Waters, The Weinstein Company,2014.
Vampire’s Weaknesses:
Drinking infected blood
Drinking too much blood
Justification:
In our universe, drinking blood tainted with certain viruses, such as HIV and hepatitis, would still sustain our vampires, but it would weaken them immensely. Consuming this infected blood would cause them lose their supernatural abilities, as well as impair their ability to do everyday tasks; this weakness was adapted from the show True Blood, and the novel Let the Right One In. In True Blood, blood infected with Hepatitis D or Hepatitis V immensely weakened the vampires and could potentially kill them over time. In Let the Right One In, blood from cancer patients was still nutritious for the vampires, but it made them physically ill. Moreover, based off of the show True Blood, our vampire will become in a drunk-like intoxicated state when consuming too much blood. This would connect with our vampire’s ethnicity since Koreans have a large drinking culture as a form of socialization. By incorporating their drinking culture and vampirism, this weakness seems very appropriate for our vampire.
Ball, Alan, et al., creators. True Blood. HBO, 2014.
Lindquist, John Ajvide. Let the Right One In. St. Martin's Press, 2004.
Ball, Alan, et al., creators. True Blood. HBO, 2014.
Vampire’s Reproduction: When our vampire feeds, she reproduces by biting victims and injecting her vampire blood into the victims’ wounds
Justification: During the Medieval times, vampirism was people’s way of culminating the characteristics and explaining infectious diseases. For example, patients with porphyria tend to be sensitive to light and may find relief through consuming blood. Patients with pellagra tend to experience skin thinning. Lastly, patients with rabies tend to have a bite mark (like victims of vampires) and general sensitivity to sunlight and garlic. Our group was inspired by the idea that vampirism is associated to real-life diseases. The disease we chose to connect our vampire to is HIV. HIV can be transmitted through contaminated blood transfusions. According to the CDC, in very rare cases HIV can even be transmitted when one is bitten. Thus, with these characteristics we thought it would be fitting if our vampire reproduced by transmitting her blood into the victim’s body when she bites them.
Eldridge, Alison. “Vampire.” Encyclopedia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 13 Apr. 2016, www.britannica.com/topic/vampire.
“HIV/AIDS.” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 31 Oct. 2018, www.cdc.gov/hiv/basics/transmission.html.
“Porphyria.” Mayo Clinic, Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research, 18 Nov. 2017, https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/porphyria/symptoms-causes/syc-20356066
Editors, History.com. “Vampire History.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 13 Sept. 2017, https://www.history.com/topics/halloween/vampire-history-video
Vampire’s Camouflage:
Profession as a Doctor
Shape-shifting (vampire squid)
Justification: With the inescapable need for blood, working at a hospital would provide our vampire with a readily available supply of blood and eliminate the need for nightly killings. It would also help to integrate our vampire into society rather than having him/her closed off. In Blood, the vampires were able to avoid suspicion through their positions at the hospital. As mentioned in the abilities section, our vampire can shape-shift into a vampire squid. In this state, our vampire can camouflage with its dark color and small size.
Park, Jae Bum, writer. Blood. IOK Media and KBS, 2015.
“The Vampire Squid from Hell.” Smithsonian Ocean, 22 May 2018, ocean.si.edu/ocean-life/invertebrates/vampire-squid-hell.
Vampire’s Home: Transylvania, Romania
Justification: Transylvania, one of the birthplaces of Romanian myths about vampires and werewolves, is a mysterious and seemingly undiscovered region in the Carpathian Mountains. With a population of approximately 7 million citizens, our vampire will have a good supply of blood and a variety of people to choose from. Not only that, it is also easier to blend in with the residents because most of them are religious. The congregations formed in churches will give our vampire smooth access to bigger communities and important relationships.
“Vampires, Myths, Dracula, and Transylvania.” TheCurrent | Continental Currency Exchange, 17 Oct. 2018, blog.continentalcurrency.ca/vampires-transylvania/.
Vampire’s Preferences: AB+ Blood
Justification: Just like how the vampires from Orange Marmalade have a preference for pig’s blood, our vampire also has preferences, but for blood types. In Korea, there is a fetish of asking people about their blood type. It is like the American equivalent of asking what your zodiac sign is. Koreans believe that each blood type has a distinct personality and thus, have their own preference. Our Korean vampire’s preference would be AB blood because those who have this blood type tend to have the most volatile and dichotomous personality. They can be critical yet eccentric, genius yet psycho, and unforgiving yet rational. Not to note, amongst the Asian population, they only make up about 7% of the population. This makes their blood not only have an extra spicy kick, but a delicacy.
“Blood Type Personality in Korea: What It Says about You.” KoreanClass101com Blog RSS, www.koreanclass101.com/blog/2018/05/09/blood-type-personality-in-korea/.
Rettner, Rachael. “What's the Most Common Blood Type?” LiveScience, Purch, 1 Apr. 2019, www.livescience.com/36559-common-blood-type-donation.html.
Moon, So-san, writer. Orange Marmalade. A Song For You Culture Industry, KBS, and Zen Production, 2015.
Vampire’s Appearance: Female vampire, Pale sparkling skin
Justification: Pale skin adds to the vampire’s allure and helps her fit easily into the nobility. White skin often indicates class because those with such crystalline skin probably never had to work a day in the sun. We chose to make our vampire female as most vampires in pop culture seem to be male (Count Dracula, Edward Cullen, etc) and having a female vampire would be more unique. It would also contribute to our vampire's ethnicity as pale skin is favored amongst the Korean beauty culture, further disguising her vampirism.
Twilight. Directed by Catherine Hardwicke, Summit Entertainment, 2008
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