Friday, April 5, 2019

Team Succ in the City Finds Their Vampire Flying Through the City


Build Your Own Vampire Project

Objective: The goal of this project is for your team to create the rules and attributes of your own vampire universe. While creativity is necessary, research is actually the focal point. The caveat is that your vampire universe must be based on research your team completes about stories associated with vampires from any point in time, history, folklore, or fiction.

Team: Succ in the City (Period 1)
Members: Tiffany Liu, Stephanie Chu, Caitlin Schroeder, Sandra Cangelosi, Alicia Tan, Jack Sheridan

Vampire’s Ethnicity: Greek
Justification: In Greek Culture and folklore, there is an undead creature known as the Vrykolakas. It is an undead creature that is often equated to the vampires of neighboring Slavic countries. The Vrykolakas are unique to other vampires in the fact that they don’t suck blood at all. Actually, a person can become a Vrykolakas simply by living a sacreligious life, being buried in unconsecrated ground, or being excommunicated. Oddly enough, one can even become a Vrykolakas by eating mutton that was previously eaten by a werewolf. The Vrykolakas spreads death through disease, which is unique in that direct contact is not required, and they don’t have an affinity for blood. They do this by knocking on doors, to lure people outside of their homes. If someone answered on the first knock, the Vrykolakas would disappear and the victim was soon condemned to death and would become a Vrykolakas themselves. However, our vampire is unique in that he possesses many of the characteristics of a Vrykolakas as well as the well known Slavic vampires. That means he stills loves to feast on blood!

Bibliography:

Vampire’s Abilities: Shapeshifting, photographic memory, immortality/accelerated healing, flying
Justification:
  • Our vampire must be able to shape shift because they can use this to evade authorities if they ever get caught feeding off of someone. They can also use this ability to lure in their next victim by transforming into someone that would best attract their attention.
  • Our vampire will also have photographic memory because memories start to blur together after many years of being immortal go by. By having a photographic memory, it will help our vampire remember everything that will help them to thrive, for example, who to avoid and where to look and find people to feed on.
  • Our vampire will also be immortal because it will allow for our vampire to become immune to aging. Although living forever has its pros and cons, it’s pros outweigh the cons. By being immortal it allows our vampire to also have another skill which is its ability to quickly heal oneself. If our vampire gets injured falling from a building then their body will immediately start healing itself, and it will all the wound to fix itself at a faster rate. For example, a wound that would normally take about a month to heal can be mended in a couple of days.
  • Our vampire will also have the ability to fly. This ability will allow our vampire to glide over the horizon at night and get to different locations more efficiently by avoiding high security places like the airport and risk getting exposed. This can also aid our vampire when trying to escape from authorities.

Bibliography:
  • “Vampire in Brooklyn.” TV Tropes, tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Film/VampireInBrooklyn.
  • Schuemann, Nancy Loyan, and Paul Seaburn. “A Real Immortal Vampire in New Orleans.”   
                  Mysterious Universe, 26 July 2018, mysteriousuniverse.org/2018/07/a-real-immortal-vampire-in-
                  new-orleans/.
  • Rice, Anne. Interview with the Vampire. Ballantine Books, 2014.
  • “Accelerated Healing.” The Vampire Diaries Wiki, vampirediaries.fandom.com/wiki/
                  Accelerated_Healing.
  • Bradford, Alina. “Bats: Fuzzy Flying Mammals.” LiveScience, Purch, 24 Oct. 2018,
                  www.livescience.com/28272-bats.html.

Vampire’s Weakness(es): Sunlight, bodies of saltwater, impaling, cremation, exorcism
Justification:
  • One of our vampire’s weaknesses starts before actually rising as a vampire. In ancient times, fear of vampires led to murderers mutilating their victims. This way, the murdered victim cannot return bodily to avenge itself on the murderer.
  • There are many burial procedures used to prevent vampires from being created, some being cremation and impaling.  Even simply burying and mourning the dead was a way to avoid vampirism. Leaving a corpse without mourning and proper rites would invite the soul to linger around its home and possibly haunt it. In a way, these can be considered weaknesses of our vampire, since these prevent them from becoming one.
  • To get rid of a Vrykolakas, people can exorcise it with prayer until it turns into dust. If that method fails, cremation would kill the vampire. Vrykolakas rest in their graves on Saturday, so these actions must be taken on those days.
  • Our vampire is also highly sensitive to sunlight, and can even be killed through exposure.
  • Our vampire is also unable to cross running water like streams or rivers, and other bodies of saltwater. Greeks would bury a suspected vampire on an offshore island to prevent them from coming back and attacking people.

Bibliography:
  • Arthen, Inanna. “‘May the Ground Not Receive Thee’ An Exploration of the Greek Vrykolakas and His Origins.” By Light Unseen - Vampires in Media and Culture, 1998, http://bylightunseen.net/vrykolak.htm
  • Rice, Anne. Interview with the Vampire. Ballantine Books, 2014.
  • Luna, V. “Vampire Myths.” Myths, July 2017, www.real-vampires.com/myths.html

Vampire’s Reproduction: Blood transfer, Eat what the wolf ate, Be sinful
Justification:
  • To make vampires, our vampire will drain their blood until they’re near death and then replace the missing blood with our vampire’s blood. This way, the vampire venom will make its way into the new vampire’s body, eventually turning them into a vampire too.
  • To become a Vrykolakas like our vampire, the person would have to eat mutton that was previously eaten by a werewolf.  
  • If none of these options appeal to the person, then they are out of luck. The only other way to become a Vrykolakas is by having lived a sinful life, got excommunicated, or buried under unholy ground.

Bibliography:

Vampire’s Camouflage: Makeup/ Tourist Items
Justification:
  • Our vampire will use foundation shade that is two shades darker than their skin so they can blend in with the humans and not look so pale.
  • Being in NYC, our vampire will easily find many items that will help him blend in. A simple NYC dad hat and an I <3 and="" another="" be="" bother="" clueless="" do="" he="" him.="" just="" less="" like="" likely="" look="" ny="" o:p="" people="" shirt="" the="" to="" tourist="" trick.="" will="">

Bibliography:

Vampire’s Home: New York City
Justification:
Within a city like New York, it would make it possible to make people disappear easily due to the massive population and fast pace. If there were any strings of murders, it will be attempted to cover up because New York is such a large tourist attraction, so they wouldn’t want any negative publicity. If the murders were to be reported, we still doubt that our vampire would have any issues due to the immense population as well as the large number of tourists, because he would never seem out of place. If anything, he can often change his attire due to the wide variety of jobs in NYC.

Bibliography:


Vampire’s Preferences: Blood, material things, moonlight
Justification:
  • Our vampire, like most other vampires in literature, prefers and is attracted to blood. Whether it be human blood or animal blood, it is our vampire’s source of food. Almost like a mosquito, vampires suck on the blood of people.
  • Since our vampire is vulnerable to sunlight, they will prefer to spend their time in the dark, especially in the presence of moonlight. They are able to be exposed to moonlight due to its weak ultraviolet rays. The moonlight also being a representation of their mother-goddess, they enjoy its presence.
  • Like many vampires seen in contemporary art, our vampire will lead a wealthy life full of luxurious goods and riches; including exquisite art, real estate, cars, etc. Being a vampire who is immortal with a photographic memory, they would be wise “beyond” their years, thus, such a luxurious lifestyle would not be difficult to achieve.

Bibliography:


We hope you enjoyed our vampire! Please feel free to leave any comments!

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Thursday, April 4, 2019

Build Your Own Vampire Project Pd. 8 Chomp Suey


Build Your Own Vampire Project
Period 8 Group 6 Team Chomp Suey
Trinity Chen, Siying Chen, Helen Xue, Jenna Mui, Gabriel Cruz, Jasmine Mayor

Objective: The goal of this project is for your team to create the rules and attributes of your own vampire universe. While creativity is necessary, research is actually the focal point. The caveat is that your vampire universe must be based on research your team completes about stories associated with vampires from any point in time, history, folklore, or fiction. 

Vampire’s Ethnicity: Filipino
Justification: Vampires are apart of the folklore in the Philippines. The Aswang Syncrasy details their beliefs about five different mythical creatures. One of these is the vampire, which is a creature that sucks blood. 

Ramos, Maximo. “The Aswang Syncrasy in Philippine Folklore.” Western Folklore, vol. 28, no. 4, 1969, pp. 238–248. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1499218.


Vampire’s Abilities:
  1. Grows wings and tongue 
  2. Detaching torso 
  3. Immortal (unless killed)
  4. Sparkling in sun
Justification:
1. Grows wings and tongue:
Vampire moth has wings and a proboscis to suck blood. They were named “vampires” because of their ability to drink blood for sustenance and to enrich their young with sodium.

Roach, John. “Vampire Moth Discovered-Evolution at Work.” National Geographic, 2 Oct. 2018, www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2008/10/vampire-moth-discovered-evolution-at-work/

The mandurago (a variant of the Filipino aswang) stalks children and hunts them by turning into a bird and waiting until the person is alone. It then extends a long tongue that is sharp at the end to suck the blood of the person from the base of the neck, ankle, or upper arm.

“The Aswang.” Vampires: a Field Guide to the Creatures That Stalk the Night, by Bob Curran, New Page Books, 2005, pp. 35–37.


2. Detaching torso:
The Filipino, Manananggal, or “self-segmenter” is described to be a beautiful old woman who has a detachable torso. This torso has wings that support her in her hunt of sleeping pregnant women, aiming to consume their blood and unborn children.

Anzelone, Allie, et al. “Asia.” Vampire Legends Around the World, vampiresaroundtheworld.weebly.com/asia.html.

3. Immortal (unless killed): Vampires are said to be immortal. That is, they cannot be killed by diseases and they will not die of old age. Nevertheless, they can be killed in unnatural ways. These methods include burning them, putting a stake through them, decapitating them.

Coelho, Paul. “On Immortality.” 30 Aug. 2006, paulocoelhoblog.com/2006/08/30/on-immortality/.

Foreman, R M. Vampire Slaying For Dummies 101: How to Slay a Modern Vampire. msu.edu/~foreman6/writing/vampslay101.html.

Moniz, Ariel. Immortal Affairs. 2014, hilo.hawaii.edu/campuscenter/hohonu/volumes/documents/ImmortalAffairsArielMoniz.pdf . 

4. Sparkling in sun:
“Edward in the sunlight was shocking. I couldn't get used to it, though I'd been staring at him all afternoon. His skin, white despite the faint flush from yesterday's hunting trip, literally sparkled, like thousands of tiny diamonds were embedded in the surface.”

“13.” Twilight, by Stephanie Meyer, Little, Brown and Company, 2005.

Vampire’s Weakness(es): 
  1. Decays in sunlight (Burns in sunlight and also sparkles, making a grisly painful death → very entertaining for spectators)
  2. Allergic to (but will not die from): eating garlic, touching silver
  3. Lactose Intolerant
  4. Arithmomania
  5. Right Angles

Justification:

  1. Decays in Sunlight
As mentioned before, vampires will sparkle in the sunlight, but they are also at their most vulnerable states there. Under the sun’s gaze, newly turned vampires will burn and their skin will blister. Older vampires tend to grow a resistance to it over time, but will always have sensitive eyes in daylight.

Grahame-Smith, Seth. Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. Grand Central Pub., 2012.

  1. Allergies:

  1. Eating Garlic:
Garlic has adverse effects on vampires, but it’s not as bad as it’s typically portrayed. Vampires who consume garlic would have watery eyes, reveal their vampiric traits (such as their fangs), and sneeze uncontrollably. Vampires who eat garlic could be easily identified by humans, so most tend to avoid it.

Carver, Jeremy. “I See Your True Colors... and That's Why I Hate You.” Being Human, season 1, episode 7, Syfy, 28 Feb. 2011.

  1. Touching Silver:
Vampires are highly allergic to silver. They would get an irritating feeling similar to humans touching poison ivy. When a vampire does come in contact with silver, they would feel an awful combination of burning and itching, similar to licking a block of dry ice.

“Chapter 2.” Nice Girls Don't Date Dead Men, by Molly Harper, vol. 2, Pocket Star Books, 2009, pp. 24. Jane Jameson.


  1. Lactose Intolerance:
Vampires cannot consume anything containing the sugar lactose, at least without consequences. This is because vampires are essentially dead and their bodies make an insufficient amount of lactase (the enzyme that breaks lactose down into simpler substances that would be easier to digest). Once consumed, vampire bodies will react the same way humans with bad lactose intolerance do—with terrible indigestion, bloating and, explosive diarrhea. After experiencing an episode, vampires must replenish themselves with a fresh supply of blood.

“Vampire Health Research.” Vampire Learning Centre, Wordpress, 19 Feb. 2016, vampirelearningcentre.wordpress.com/2016/02/19/160/.


  1. Arithmomania
  1. A way to ward off Chinese Jiangshi (hopping vampire) is to leave a pouch of coins for them to count.
Bunson, Matthew. The Vampire Encyclopedia. Random House International, 2001.

  1. Count Von Count is a vampire character on Sesame Street that teaches children to count. He will count anything and everything.
“Count Von Count.” Muppet Wiki, muppet.fandom.com/wiki/Count_von_Count.

  1. In Christian superstition, throwing salt over the shoulder wards off the devil. Additionally, because vampires are afflicted with arithmomania, they are compelled to count every grain of salt.
Welsh, Chris. “Spilling Salt.” Spilling Salt, 3 Jan. 2019, www.timelessmyths.co.uk/spilling-salt.html.


Vampires have a unique weakness to right angles because of their brains which enhance spatial reasoning. When they see too many right angles, they upload too much information into their brains and break into an uncontrollable seizure. The idea that crosses are fatal to them come from this as a cross has four right angles. (Natural selection is playing a good part in the modern world so most vampires alive today can see more than four right angles, but if a vampire sees too many, they will be in a lot of pain.)

Watts, Peter. Blindsight. Tor Books, 2008.

Vampire’s Reproduction: Turning humans
Justification:
This is perhaps the most common way of becoming a vampire found in literature and media. Typically, to turn a human into a vampire the human must be bitten by a vampire.  This occurs due to the exchange of blood between human and vampire which is now known as the “embrace”. This is believed to have originated from Slavic vampire folklore.

Jøn, Allan Asbjørn. “From Nosferatu to Von Carstein: Shifts in the Portrayal of Vampires.” ResearchGate, Australian Folklore: A Yearly Journal of Folklore Studies, Jan. 2001, www.researchgate.net/publication/280805194_From_Nosteratu_to_Von_Carstein_shifts_in_the_portrayal_of_vampires.



Vampire’s Camouflage:

  1. Wealthy
  2. Accountants
Justification:

  1. Wealthy- Vampires tend to be part of the aristocracy because they live long enough to amass a great amount of wealth. They intend to live with this wealth for eternity. Vampires also surround themselves with servants and feed their own greed. Our vampire uses his wealth to hide his vampirism.

Wright, Robin Redmon. “Vampires and Zombies as Critical Public Pedagogy: Using Horror for Critical Adult Education and HRD Instruction.” New Prairie Press, https://newprairiepress.org/aerc/2011/papers/110/.

  1. Accountants- As a result of his arithmomania, the vampire makes a very good accountant. Although boring at times, living as an accountant allows the vampire to reminisce on life before becoming a vampire, supplement his wealth, and get a break from an adventurous and eventful life.

 Hayes, Drew. “The Utterly Uninteresting and Unadventurous Tales of Fred, the Vampire Accountant.” Google Books, Reuts Publications, 12 Aug. 2014, books.google.com/books?id=bO3noQEACAAJ&dq=fred%2Bthe%2Bvampire%2Baccountant&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiKpZjghLfhAhUOy1kKHSs8BUoQ6AEIJzAA.

Vampire's Home: Isolated Mansion

Justification: Since vampires are often wealthy aristocrats, they live lavish lifestyles. In our case, the vampire would live in a mansion. In the book Vampire Kisses, the vampire’s home is described as an “abandoned mansion an exiled baroness built on top of Benson Hill.”

“Dullsville.” Vampire Kisses 1: Vampire Kisses, by Ellen Schreiber, HarperCollins Pub., 2003, novels77.com/vampire-kisses/chapter-2-dullsville-70594.html.


Vampire’s Preferences:
  1. Children/Fetuses/Pregnant Women
  2. Red objects
Justification:
1. Children/Fetuses/Pregnant Women
Unborn babies and children are a common victim to vampires, stemming from their infertility. To prey on an unborn child, the vampire can use its long, tube-like tongue to suck out the fetus from an expectant mother, killing it. They are also known to steal children, particularly infants. This is especially evident with the Philippine story of the Manananggal, because one of its main sources of prey are sleeping pregnant women, as it consumes their unborn children and sucks the women’s blood. Ramos, Maximo. “The Aswang Syncrasy in Philippine Folklore.” Western Folklore, vol. 28, no. 4, 1969, pp. 238–248. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1499218. Stuckey, Johanna. “Goddesses and Demons: Some Thoughts.” AmazonAWS, MatriFocus, 2 Aug. 2015, 3:20, s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/44000759/Goddesses_and_Demons__Some_Thoughts_by_Johanna_Stuckey.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAIWOWYYGZ2Y53UL3A&Expires=1554387100&Signature=kTuOIojE2jG0Jz%2BXgB4Acjt7GZE%3D&response-content-disposition=inline%3B%20filename%3DGoddesses_and_Demons.pdf.
2. Red objects
The character Marceline in “Adventure Time” is shown to be an untraditionalvampire, as she is shown to consume the color from objects that are red instead of just drinking blood. However, Marceline is shown to still drink blood, but only due to its red color. Additionally, Marceline only sometimes drinks blood, and mainly only does so when she is “Red Starved,” and goes into a feral state and tries to consume the blood of a living Creature. This is evident in Episode 38 of the fifth season of the show, “Red Starved.” “Adventure Time.” Created by Pendleton Ward, season 5, episode 38, 2010. 


Add Your Own: Pet Vampire Rabbit
Justification:  A vampire rabbit with fangs used to suck the juice out of vegetables, turning them white. It is not known how the rabbit became a vampire.

Howe, James. “Bunnicula.” Google Books, 8 Aug. 2006, books.google.com/books?id=gMe0bwAACAAJ&dq=bunnicula&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj24JyYhrfhAhXwUt8KHTzSAG8Q6AEILjAB.




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Modern Mythology 2019 Build Your Own Vampire Project


Build Your Own Vampire Project

Objective: The goal of this project is for your team to create the rules and attributes of your own vampire universe. While creativity is necessary, research is actually the focal point. The caveat is that your vampire universe must be based on research your team completes about stories associated with vampires from any point in time, history, folklore, or fiction.


Team Members: Anne Zats, Sherry Fung, Sean Vayser, Winni Chen, Mason Ma, Gordon Yu

Team Name: Deadicated

Vampire’s Ethnicity: Russian

Justification: Russian vampires possess traits that would greatly help them survive. Since vampires live off blood, it would benefit them to have more time to kill.  In Russian culture, the upyr species is not affected by sunlight.  This allows the vampires to kill during the day as well as at night.  This is crucial since Russian vampires crave blood and kill often. Another advantage that upyr vampires have is that they are difficult to kill if found.  If they are attacked in the heart once, they will die, but being struck a second time will give them back their life.

Amanda. “The Real History Behind Hemlock Grove's Upir.” Vampires, 9 May 2013, www.vampires.com/the-real-history-behind-hemlock-groves-upir/.


Vampire’s Abilities: Invisibility

Justification: A vampire must be able to hide in plain sight in order to prevent themselves from being identified by humans, which can put their safety in jeopardy. Our vampire will have the ability to turn invisible, allowing them to easily walk amongst humans without raising any suspicion. This ability exists for vampires within The Elder Scrolls video game series as vampires from the Lyrezi Clan, located in the province of High Rock, have the ability to turn invisible.

Citation: The Elder Scrolls V. Skyrim. Rockville, MD

:Bethesda Softworks, 2013. Print.


Vampire’s Weakness(es): sparkles in sunlight

Justification: Since our vampire does not have the usual vampiric weakness of not being able to exist in sunlight, we have added that, based on the Twilight Saga, the vampire has to sparkle in sunlight if they choose to remain visible.

Citation: Meyer, Stephenie. Twilight. Atom, 2009.


Vampire’s Reproduction: women can be turned into vampires by being bitten in usual vampire fashion, men die when bitten and sucked dry of their blood.
Justification: In season 2 episode 4 of the 90’s TV show “Xena: Warrior Princess”, the titular character and her companion Gabrielle investigate Bacchus, the Roman god of grapes, wine, and madness, who is creating bacchae: innocent girls turned into vampires that go into a feeding frenzy at night.

Citation: “Xena: Warrior Princess/ Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.” Scott, T J, director. Season 2, episode 4.

Hamilton, Edith. Mythology. Back Bay Books/Little, Brown and Company, 2013.


Vampire’s Camouflage: uses years of experience with humans to blend in.

Justification: A vampire is born human and is then turned into a monster. They lose a part of their humanity but they can retain a part of it. This makes them especially deadly as along with countless years of human interaction, they are still individuals who are capable of thinking like humans. Because of this, they are inherently able to prey on humans with little suspicion. Our vampire is like Lestat in the way she uses her experience and charm to manipulate humans into thinking she’s one of them when in reality she’s their predator.

Source: Rice, Anne.“Interview with the Vampire.” Ballantine Books Trade Paperbacks, 2014.


Vampire’s Home: In a castle secluded from society

Justification: Vampires represent those higher up and the elite in society. Our vampire lives in a castle, very much like Count Dracula. In Bram Stoker’s Gothic horror novel starring Count Dracula, Dracula lived in a castle on the Carpathian Mountains in Eastern Europe. With our vampire living in a castle, it is indicative of her aristocratic status on the social hierarchy. Furthermore, because she lives in a castle secluded from society, it adds to the mystery surrounding her that encourages the nearby townspeople in the Old World to come up with myths and legends that would ward off her feeding.

Citation: Lewis, Robert. “Bran Castle.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 13 Sept. 2017, www.britannica.com/topic/Bran-Castle


Vampire’s Preferences:Luxury

Justification: Vampires are capable of indulging in physical experiences that humans typically enjoy. Our vampire follows this idea of luxury similar to what Claudia in “Interview with the Vampire” enjoys herself. From top designer clothing to extravagant methods of transportation, our vampire desires to put the world around her in a trance as she feasts on her human victims.

Source: Rice, Anne. “Interview with the Vampire.” Ballantine Books Trade Paperbacks, 2014.


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