Sanguinarism – Non Interview With A Vampire

The internet is a surprising place, criss-crossed by labyrinthine linktrails and spiraling webrings. It plays host to trolls and sucks away time, but sometimes a traveler will make an unexpected discovery. Such as sanguinarians, or modern day vampires…

Sanguinarius: The Vampire Support Page is how sanguinarius.org bills themselves. The website is devoted to helping people who, allegedly, can’t survive without blood or psychic energy. Anyone can create a website and make some claims, but the people at Sanguinarius did a brilliant job of it. I didn’t read every single article – they have quite a few, ranging from the perks to being a vamp, to coping with bloodlust – but from what I did see, they have their story straight. Someone must have a lot of time on their hands to make this all up, I thought. Unless they’re real…

Perhaps the stack of Anne Rice books piled next to my laptop had something to do with my decision to attempt to make contact with these supposed-vamps, rather than dismissing the whole affair as the ravings of someone who can’t accept that he – or she – is a ‘mere’ human. The Sanguinarius Community expressly stated that it was intended only for people of seventeen years of age or older. Specifically saying that they didn’t want to deal with teenage lifestylers did make Sang seem a little more credible…

Several days after my discovery, the 19th of May to be exact, I sent the following e-mail to the mistress of the website:

Salutations,

 I happened across your organization several days ago and soon became interested in the possibility of interviewing one to three of your members. I say ‘one to three’ as your website makes it clear that every person has a different experience and I would like to provide our readers with a balanced view. If you agreed to set up interviews you would, of course, have an opportunity to read and edit the article before it was published. I anticipate your reply.

With all due respect,

m

I had begun to anticipate questions as well. Major topics I wanted to address were:

• When did you realize you were a vampire and had you always known you were somehow ‘different’?
• In an era when so many people feel comfortable coming out of the closet, are more vampires coming out of the coffin?
• How do you support yourself, as most careers require work during the daylight hours?
• Do you believe it’s possible to change someone? Under what circumstances – if they gave you millions of dollars, if they were diagnosed with a terminal illness – would you change someone?
• What happens when a vampire and a vampire procreate? What about a vampire and a human?

A week passed. I received no reply. The Sanguinarius website hosted an IRC chat function, so I attempted to contact someone via that. The program failed to run on my computer – my lack of technological skill being a probable reason, the inactivity of the website being another. Sanguinarius has a whole section devoted to links, so I began checking those out. The majority of websites proved to be just as devoid of life – both living and ‘undead’. Time and again I was confronted with 404 errors or ‘failure to connect’ pages.

Of the links that did connect to websites, at least half presented me with some grotesque abuse of flash animations, impossible-to-read text and bold proclamations from screen names such as The Darque Basilisk Queen of Damned Night. The other links led me to well-designed sites or forums with an appearance of credulity. I was surprised to find nearly identical copies of the Black Veil – the suggested code of conduct, nearly always attributed to ‘Michelle Belanger of House Kheperu’ (who was successful in talking to vampires, as proven by her book, Vampires in Their Own Words: An Anthology of Vampire Voices) and ‘Father Todd of House Sahjaza’ – another example of the consistency that leads one to doubt slightly less. After deciding whether or not a site was worth checking out, the first thing I looked for was the dates of the most recent posts. Oftentimes this date would be from 2008 or 2007, though many of the copyrights dated back to the late 90s. In the rare case that the site was still active, I then went to look at the inevitable list of the group’s rules.

Two statements reoccurred consistently: the site or forum was not for the underaged (though several did have teen-specific pages) and requests for outside activity – blood donors and, more pertinently, interviews – were not allowed.

So I had nearly given up. Then, I thought I had found something – a link leading me to the LiveJournal of none other than Sangi, the founder of Sanguinarius – the very active LiveJournal. As it was public, I couldn’t help but notice that she had posted an email someone had sent her concerning her website. Aha, thought I. So she still receives email – perhaps my quest has come full circle.

Thus, on the 26th of May, I sent the following message:

I am a bit hesitant at sending a second message; I do not wish to irritate, vex or otherwise annoy… However, I would like very much to receive some sort of reply. Even a venom-laced note telling me to leave you alone would be preferable to silence, though if I do not hear back from you within a week’s time, I shall assume that silence is all you will deem worthy to give me.

With all due respect,

M.

Again, several days passed without any reply. I doubt I ever will get a reply; they obviously don’t seem very keen on talking to outsiders. Is it because their whole society is a hoax and they fear an interview will reveal it? Is that why so many of the sites have disappeared or died in recent years – because the game grew boring? Or is there some other reason – fear that, with the growing interest in vampires, their lifestyle is no longer safe? Could it be that underground vamp politics are at play?

At any rate, I close my investigation with many more questions than I began with, and nothing in the way of conclusions.

If you can’t sleep at night, feel weak during the day and are craving rare meats, perhaps it’s just a case of insomnia coupled with pica. Or perhaps you’re not alone…