I was struck with inspiration half while rewatching the Food [name_u]Theory[/name_u] episode on [name_m]Count[/name_m] Chocula (of all things) and half from reading the Wikipedia page on dhampirs after watching where it said that in the folklore or whatever about them that males in particular may become vampire hunters.
The idea is that there’s twin siblings currently named [name_u]Harper[/name_u] and [name_u]Alex[/name_u] who are the children of a vampire mother and mortal father who are pretty good vampire hunters – as dhampirs themselves, they do have a bit of an advantage. Enter the Everetts, another family of entirely mortal vampire hunters (or so they think) who don’t have the same leniency to any children of vampires they kill that [name_u]Harper[/name_u] and [name_u]Alex[/name_u] do. The twins get a new classmate in [name_f]Edith[/name_f] [name_u]Everett[/name_u], which is where the conflict begins. However, a lot of the story revolves around blood in the familial sense, rather than in the literal ‘that red stuff that keeps you alive’ sense. See, the biggest problem is that if the Everetts discover who [name_u]Harper[/name_u] and Alex’s mother was, they’ll want the twins dead. The twins know this, but they don’t actually know what happened to their mother – killed by Edith’s parents six years before the story begins. It’s all about family ties, and the possible destruction of two families if a few blood-related secrets (again, family sense) get revealed. One of these is the whole ‘our mother was a vampire’ thing, another is that one of the [name_u]Everett[/name_u] children – not [name_f]Edith[/name_f], one of her younger siblings – is actually the result of the mother (currently named Elizabeth) cheating on her husband with, you guessed it, a male vampire. Neither party knew what the other was and [name_f]Elizabeth[/name_f] only learns such when said child realises what they are and confronts their mother about it.
It’s more about the problems with the familial blood, and I wondered about calling it Haemophobia – the fear of blood. After all, [name_u]Harper[/name_u] and [name_u]Alex[/name_u] are scared of the prospect of the Everetts learning about what their mother was, which is related to their ‘blood’. And, well, the [name_u]Everett[/name_u] drama. Does the title make sense, and if not, what might make sense?
Side note, I do want to actually have [name_u]Alex[/name_u] be haemophobic, so there’s also that. But obviously that’s not the reason. It’s all a lot of ‘blood will out’ stuff, when you get to it.
(and sounds really cool)