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--- lb:cod:daeva [2025-10-16 19:02:31] – [Carmilla] Adjusted a footnote relevant to who is writing the sticky notes in the book. Also corrected ‘Francene’ to ‘Frances’. ninjasr
+++ lb:cod:daeva [2025-10-16 19:59:57] (current) – [The World Before Us] Added the next section. ninjasr
@@ Line 73: / Line 73: @@
 The author of the essay (and the Collector seems to agree) that Carmilla doesn't actually exist, but is more of a folklore/myth/idea.
+=== The World Before Us ===
+The next part of the book, which is written by the Collector about the history of the Daeva clan. I had assumed it was longer when I started writing this section only for it to be comparable in length to the smaller ones. Ah, well, I'll reorganize all of this at some point.
+There's a green sticky note here which refers to the Collector as ‘dad’ which suggests the green notes were written by one of his children. I would have to check again, but I'm pretty sure this is either Ayeshe or one of the others. Ayeshe explicitly calls him ‘dad’ and one of the others (though I'm not sure which, I'll have to check ugh) calls him ‘old bat’.((:fn:>Reading further suggests I'm wrong, so I'm noting it in a footnote for now. The Collector emailed a scholar in the Old World. That scholar has the collector's email contact name as ‘Old Bat’. So I guess they're unrelated.))\\
+The green sticky calls him racist, which is actually understandable. Not a White Wolf moment. Though it could be argued to be.((:fn:>They //did// intentionally write the Collector like this.))
+The Collector claims that Kindred started in the city of Ur and his Childer disagree. It's kinda amusing.
+Basically, it starts off with an origin myth. All Daeva supposedly descend from [[lb:Lilith]] who worked for [[lb:Ishtar|Inanna]] who killed her and brought her back to life. Lilith apparently did a thing with Inanna's husband (Tammuz). Lilith was left behind when Inanna left.\\
+Also, Inanna was God's daughter. And God is named ‘Sin’ by the Collector. Sure, why not.
+=== Emails ===
+The next part involves emails between the Collector and a ‘scholar’ (the guy who calls him ‘Old Bat’ and is named Nic) and it's here again that the sex thing comes up //again//. But now it's just kinda uncomfortable.
+Basically, the scholar explains that he's living with three other vampire ladies. Two (Mat/Lishan) of them have admitted to being lovers and he (Nic) assumes that the last one (Katy) joins in with them. What do they do together? Drink each-other's blood((:fn:>The Collector says that they'll learn soon enough that it's a bad idea because being close isn't necessarily great, which he attests to because of his relationship with Ayeshe. I'm just going to let that drift over me because I don't want to think about the implications.)) and, according to his own speculations...‘circle-lick’. Yeah, I think I finally understand how White Wolf failed to go big even after going Chronicles of Darkness.\\
+Nic also clarifies that he has sex with Katy. But he makes it clear that that's as far as it goes.
+Seriously guys. Why are the vampires having sex? Nothing beats the Kiss((:fn:>I wrote this and realized I wasn't sure anymore. Repeat after me: <q>“I'll have to check that later.”</q> Probably the Requiem core rulebook.)) and having sex is difficult considering they're supposedly all corpses. Meaning that requires warming up.\\
+I suddenly remembered that Ayeshe wrote in her diary that she didn't want to warm up for a hug with the Colonel in her segment. That implies that Kindred warm up to hug each-other? While I think that's weird, that's also something I think is very interesting and could tell us a lot about Kindred social dynamics. And it's treated super casually.\\
+Anyway, back to reading about awkward sex. If we assume that they aren't fully dead (and can thus sex without warming up) then that would make a //little// more sense, but the problem is that they would still likely feel way more numb. I'm not sure a male vampire can penetrate period, because that requires blood flow. Female vampires engaging in oral sex? M-maybe...?\\
+If //you// think this is awkward to read, just remember that //I'm// the one reading the original. Though I'll admit that I'm the only one here thinking about logistics.\\
+I think it could be done but, again, they'd feel numb. They're //already supposedly drinking each-others' blood so why are they bothering with the sex//?
+That also indicates to me that it's the author's poorly-disguised fetish. Three sexy vampires in a circle. And the only guy is sexing one of them. Because it's just so uncomfortable.
+After that, Nic goes back to focusing on the history of the Daeva clan and this part is legitimately interesting to read. He's explaining what sources he found, how trustworthy they are, what's in them (vaguely) and some extra details surrounding them. The ones he found were ballads collecting stories written in English and Welsh and he doesn't know who wrote them and who the sources of those ballads are.\\
+He concludes that these ‘Blood Ballads’ were an attempted reconstruction of the old myths, gathered based on the testimony of several elders.
+He adds in a later email that the Lancae et Sanctum had elders who memorized the Testament of Longinus (basically vampire Bible) which is also super interesting.\\
+These elders would recount the Testament to others and then, eventually, flayed themselves to use their own skin to write it down. Most copies of the Testament of Longinus are based on these original Bibles (though Nic says that he's never seen one).
+Nic explains that he thinks that ‘Sin’ is linked to Mount Sinai. Interesting theory, I guess.
+Basically, following that initially uncomfortable bit about lesbian vampires, the rest of the emails are actually concerned completely with speculating about the history of the Daeva. Nic adds that there's a Roman historian who mentioned the ‘Julii’ but he doesn't know who they are and he doesn't think they're Daeva.\\
+Then he explains that a separate historian mentioned ‘degenerates’ who are prostitutes and whatnot. Yay, a connection!
+The emails end with Nic being unethical by sharing scans of the ‘Gospel of James’. The gist of it is that Mary had several dead children before Jesus (the first named James) who ended up growing up despite being dead. They then saw Jesus die and were to speak to Longinus at some point.\\
+Nic suggests this as an alternative origin point for the Daeva.
+That's the end of this bit. The next is a film script.
 === Other ===
 There are other stories and materials interrupting the main stories, or placed in-between.\\