Imagine Something Quirky: Build Your Own Vamp (with Reader Participation)

Posted on by Teagan Riordain Geneviene

Saturday, March 14, 2026 

Funny sad Dracula vampire with pet spider by Teagan via Night Cafe

Hello, all.  Yes, you saw the word vampire in the post title.  You don’t see me with those ever-fashionable blood-suckers — at least not much.  I’ve only written a couple and they were definitely quirky.  However, I’ve been ponderating ways of bringing you readers into the fun again.  It will not be one of my Three Things serials, but it would involve your participation.

What? you ask… Yesterday, Marian Allen mischievously suggested a story idea to me.  I say mischievously because a couple thousand ideas are always kicking around in my mind.  Marian’s idea had to do with language.  Her adult daughter, Sara, had said, “Why do people always act like vampires ‘made’ in Victorian times would dress and speak like Victorians? It would be a mish-mash of fashions and slang from all the years they’ve been through.”

For me, vampires are made for mashups.  They’re food for funny fantasy.  They’re the quintessential queens (or kings) of quirkiness.  So, keep that in mind as I bid you come out and play!  

Vampire vectors-bat. Pixabay
Image credit Pixabay

Build Your Own Vampire

In these dark days we need to bring our silly sides out into the light.  (They won’t go up in flames like a vampire.) I know that’s hard to do when the world is overflowing with awful things.  So, getting quirky with something inherently dark, like vampires, might be easier than trying to act like there’s sunshine blowing up your ass patootie. 

Remember, this is meant to be “interactive.”  I’m going to help you build your own quirky vampire.  You can participate either by leaving your “Vampire Design” in a comment, or posting it on your blog.  If you do make a blog post, then please include a link to me.  By the way, if you’d rather, you could build a vampire’s minion/thrall.

Ready?  Let’s build a quirky vampire.

Ask yourself these questions:

Dracula vampire in pink walking pet spider amid dog walkers by Teagan via Night Cafe

When was the vampire “made” (turned, sired, brought across, etc.)?

What era?  Is yours a stereotypical Victorian vamp?  Maybe there was a big historic event happening while she/he was sired. 

Was there anything off-kilter, weird, unplanned, or oopsie! about the moment when they were turned?

Charlaine Harris wrote, as a minor character, what I thought was the most brilliant vampire, Bubba.  She had Elvis almost dead from the drug overdose, turned at the last instant by a fan who was a vampire.  The drugs had an unfortunate result. This also explained decades of Elvis sightings.  No offence to Elvis fans.  I love him.

What’s your vamp’s job or career?

Maybe your vampire is hundreds of years old and saved their pennies, so now they don’t need a job.  How did they do that?  Or if instead, they need to make a living, then how do they go about earning that paycheck?

What’s your vampire’s hobby or favorite activity?

Maybe after being turned, your vamp came up with a creative way to engage in an activity that doesn’t exactly work well with the limitations of vampirism.

What does your vamp miss most about being human? 
How does your vampire usually dress?  What’s their favorite outfit?
Vampire is Italian chef with spider assistant by Teagan via Night Cafe
Hey chef, maybe substitute chocolate for that garlic?
Where does your vamp live? 

This can be an actual city/town type location (real or fictional) or you can design their abode.

What unexpected annoyances does your vamp see about being a vampire?
Is there a particularly unique (nonstandard) part of your vampire mythology?

For instance, the Twilight vampires glitter in sunlight, but it doesn’t make them instant fireballs. 

Relating to the standard vampires not having a reflection, in the Moonlight series mythology, a vampire’s image cannot be captured with analogue cameras containing silver emulsion in the film; digital cameras are able to capture an image because they do not use silver emulsion.

Into what creature might your vampire shapeshift?

Answer some or all of these questions to Build Your Own Vampire, and then come out to play.

Taking this reader-participation a step farther, I hope to build a zany town for your quirky vampires and make a few future posts about it.

Friendly comments are welcome, even if you don’t come out to play — but I hope you will.  Wishing you wonders and whimsy.  Hugs.

♦ ♠ ♥ ♣

Of course, here’s the obligatory shameless self-promotion.  Speaking of whimsy, what could be zanier than secret agent Fang Pinkerton, who has a fondness for his hot-pink fishnet tights, and costumes in general?  By the way, he used to be a tiny armadillo from a species called “pink fairy.”

The Armadillo Files

Armadillo Files anime style cover by Teagan Ríordáin Geneviene

Universal Purchase Links:

Kindle:  relinks.me/B0B8XX4ZSL

Paperback:  relinks.me/B0B8XDF1GF

Audiobook: Click here

♦ ♠ ♥ ♣

This work is entirely human-authored.  Furthermore, the author expressly prohibits any entity from using this publication for purposes of training AI technologies to generate text.  This is a work of fiction.  Characters, names, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, locales, or events is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2026 by Teagan Ríordáin Geneviene

All rights reserved. 

No part of this work may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission.  Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights.

All images are either the property of the author or provided by free sources, unless stated otherwise.

59 thoughts on “Imagine Something Quirky: Build Your Own Vamp (with Reader Participation)”

  1. This sounds like great fun, Teagan. Alas, the Art Show is not allowing me time to participate.

    I don’t really have time to blog, but I “just dropped in to see what condition my condition was in”

    Hugs!!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
  2. Pingback: Whatnot Wednesday: All the Vamps, plus Tessalina & Tater Tot – Teagan's Books

  5. What a fun invitation! Everybody is getting into the groove.

    How about a vampire named Elspeth Turner (her little joke), who was turned in colonial America? She was a weaver, and everybody knows weavers are solitary and keep their own hours, so she raised no eyebrows. Like Silas Marner, she spent very little money. She kept hens for eggs and goats for milk and cheese and raised her own vegetables, and after she was turned, she slipped the food to runaways or traded it to the local First Nations people for herbal knowledge and hand-made goods.

    Industrialization hit hard, and she took her hoarded money and moved to the outskirts of Louisville, where she set herself up concocting patent medicines. She had reasonable success, but not as much as others, since her medicine contained no alcohol or opiates. When patent medicines went out of favor, she moved to the Yukon, where she prospected during the winter when there’s not much sunlight. Since she can see in the dark, she could go places others couldn’t and struck it rich.

    If you’re rich enough, you can be as eccentric as you want to be. She moved to a small town in southern Indiana, where she keeps herself mostly to herself and dispenses rough justice. Newcomers think it’s odd that the same woman with the same name has lived in the same house for 150 years, but newcomers can just keep their opinions to themselves.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  7. I’d forgotten about Elvis in the True Blood series, lol. Over the weekend I finished the second book, Summer Coven, in the Dead and Breakfast series, and it was just as fun as the first. Hope you’re enjoying it Teagan!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. Horsefeathers, I forgot about that book, Teri — right after I bought the audiobook. I haven’t started it yet. I guess I should leave it until after I do whatever I end up doing with this. Thanks for reminding me, and thanks for the feedback about book-2. Have a great week. Hugs.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  8. My Vampire is Henry Eighth. He’s had a lot of brides! He is a wedding planner and dresses very colorfully, sort of like a male hairdresser. His weddings are always in the evening or at night, naturally, and he lives in a high end apartment on the 30th floor overlooking Central Park in NYC. He obviously doesn’t need to use the elevator so his neighbors hardly ever see him.

    Good luck with this one!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
  11. Pingback: Robbie’s Inspiration – Tanka Tuesday, Imagine Something Quirky, W3, and The Flower Hour – Robbie's inspiration

    1. Hi, Kerfe. They intrigue me, but not the way a lot of people get into them. People have had trouble reacting to my “Imagine Something Wondrous” posts, and given the times, that’s understandable. My main thought a little twisted — to brighten people up with something dark — by making it ridiculous. Yes, there have been some great responses. Now, we’ll see if I can make a quirky “home” for all the vamps. Hugs.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  13. This is so creative, Teagan. For those who love vampires this has to be a fun project.

    Sorry for the long comment but here are a few of my thoughts.

    Meet Terrence De Camp a well known billionaire. He was turned why taking a ride in one of his trips into outer space last year. Since that time he has taken up with the crew member who turned him. He thought he was getting a congratulatory kiss on the cheek and was not expecting two puncture wounds in the neck.

    He lives with his intended in an old Victoria house in Sonoma California. They have discovered a secret way to fertilize grape vines and have produced an award winning vintage this year. People in town are constantly discussing the pair since they a re rarely seen after sunrise. Folks marvel at the lack of homeless in town when prior to the arrival of Terrence and his intended the town was overrun.

    Terrence finds sleeping all day to be a waste of time and he complains that the dampness of the cellar causes his arthritis to act up. He is currently working on a drug that will allow him to take up more time in the sunlight. His intended is not offering much encouragement but is happy to be a subject for his testing of various compounds.

    His other grip about being a vampire is that he cannot see himself in the mirror so he is constantly nicking his face when he shaves. He also has shaven his head since trying to style his hair has been a losing proposition.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  15. My love of vampires dates back to an early crush on Barnabas Collins, back in the mid-60s. I recently wrote about one and placed him in my idyllic little town of Piedmont. I had every intention of getting back to him so as to expand his story. Now, look what you’ve done! I’m inspired to get back to that little project. If you’d like to read about my friend, Vladislav, here’s the key: https://olbigjim.com/2025/11/14/peach-cobbler-and-pallor/ but, be careful to leave your preconceived notions out on the front porch.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

        1. Oh, I had forgotten there were two of the Collinses — thanks Jim. I was a big fan of that show when I was a kid. The music terrified me, LOL. To this day vampires are the only horror creature that frighten me, probably because Dark Shadows made them so real to me. 🙂

          Liked by 1 person

          Reply

    1. Hi, Robbie. Thanks — I hoped to give everyone something fun that would let them segue out of the darkness. I know you already have a vampire character. I hope you can have fun making another, or expanding on the existing one. However, I know you have a lot on your shoulders right now, so no worries. I hope your mom is doing better. Big hugs.

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply

  17. What a lovely and fun post, Teagan! You’ve reminded me I started a story about a vampire years back, but I left it parked and never went back. My brain is pretty full of other things at the moment, but I will mark this post to keep it as an inspiration for the future, and I hope to see what others come up with. Have a fantastic weekend, big hugs, and love to the Scoobies!

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  18. I have to add mine as a long comment, Teagan, the downside of running a challenge.

    7-10

    Thomas “Lucky” Lord was born during the Great Depression. He grew up in rural West Virginia in a coal mining town on the banks of a river. He attended university on a bowling scholarship but went back to the mines as his family members before him. He was a shift supervisor for the midnight shift. In his spare time, he carved mythological creatures from lumps of coal.

    Thomas was a member of the Deep Hole bowling league. Their bowling shirts were emblazoned with the image of a 7-10 split — two pins sitting at the edge of a bowling alley — on the back, with a bowling ball on course to pick up the spare. He had his nickname, “Lucky” stitched across the top. The shirt had a miniature version of the bowling alley, pins and ball stitched onto the left breast pocket.

    He was bitten by a fan while celebrating his team having won a grudge match during which he had bowled a perfect game — 300. The bite marks were aligned along the outer edge of a triangular scar he had from a mining accident where a piece of shrapnel from an explosion had struck him in the back of his head. The combined scars looked like a 7-10 split.

    He misses bowling. He still can, but the bright lights affect him in such a way as to interfere with his game. He also hates the whole mirror thing because it means he can’t see himself in his favorite shirt.

    Since becoming a vampire, he has the ability to bring some of his carved coal figurines to live for short periods of time.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

      1. I practically grew up in a bowling alley, Teagan and that included being there after the lights were out and having to take trash down into a basement that had more than a few critters running around. It could be a truly scary place.

        Liked by 1 person

        Reply

      1. I didn’t have a photo that I could work with to add that something extra.
        It was so much fun once I got into the groove.
        There was a bushranger called Captain Moonlite so I used a bit of reality as well 🤗

        Liked by 1 person

        Reply
  20. Pingback: The myth of Captain Moonlight – bushboys world

    1. Hi Brian. Yes, that would be great. It would also combine nicely with the stories I hope to write with comments/vamps used as prompts. Perfect timing. I emailed your hotmail address (from inside the blog’s guts) so you’d have my contact info. If that isn’t the right one, let me know.

      I realize it’s the middle of the night there now, so I won’t look for a reply until your tomorrow. Thanks very much — and big hugs.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

Leave a comment