I’ve been thinking about vampire swearing today, thanks to a Twitter of role-playing game designer @grimachu’s this morning. It’s not as easy a question as you might think.
Y’see, swearing reflects the things that a culture considers taboo or abomination. It is used as a strong marker of social identity, and in-groups often rely on it (amongst other things) to identify and marginalise outsiders. How you swear reflects not only where you’re from, but your social class, your personal beliefs, and even the way you think.
Saying ‘gosh darn-it’ in a blue-collar bar can be as big a mistake as saying ‘mutha-fukka’ in church. Some cultures (including Anglo-Saxon) swear by reviling the body and its processes. Scandinavian cultures use the devil for swearing. Latin and Greek cultures prefer to insult a person’s religious icons or parents.
New vampires in vampire society are going to be looked down on, just like newcomers in any group. Their ingrained patterns of swearing are going to be one of the things that mark them out. Almost all people will attempt to conform to a dominant group they need, so the way I see it, vampire society would have developed its own language of swearing and insults, which newcomers would need to pick up swiftly to avoid sounding like hopeless wide-eyed rubes.
I don’t have anything resembling a good set of vampire curses or insults yet. However, some of the areas I’m thinking about include:
* light - “blind me”, “burn me”, “sunbeams”, “scorch you”
* weakness - “toothless”, “wannabe”
* attachment to humanity – “lost boy”, “puppy”, “teddy bear”, “meatfucker”
* human stereotypes – “twinkly”, “rock star”, “Lugosi”
What about you? How do you reckon vampires would swear?
Depends on your pov but as a fan of old skool Count Drac I don’t personally take to the concept.