When crafting a vampire story, you really have no choice but to address all of the established rules and mythos. Not necessarily in the story itself, but at least in your own notes or mind. That said, addressing these first came about purely out of necessity.
The opening scene of the story takes place in a restaurant, a Chipotle to be specific. That choice was made for reasons unrelated to the story itself, but it left me with two questions that needed to be answered immediately. The first, are my vampires capable of eating human food at all? Either way is fine, but given the circumstances, there was only one possible answer.
The second, what effect does garlic have on them? If you go through the nutrition section on the Chipotle website, it’s pretty clear that you would struggle to avoid garlic there.
Garlic adds a depth of flavor in our spicy chipotle pepper adobo, which we use to season everything from our meats to our beans and salsas.
Now, one option would be the have them be diligent enough to order around the foods in question. Food allergies are obviously a common thing people have been able to live with, after all. However, there is another question that should be answered before going in that direction. How long have vampires existed in the world? On one hand, if they’re a relatively new addition to the world, they would have to adapt to their surroundings.
On the other, if they’ve existed for centuries on centuries, it doesn’t really make sense for garlic to have become such a prominent ingredient in global cuisine if it were harmful to them. With that being the case in this particular story, I still had a couple of options.
I decided to go with option 1 because it at least allows for something to happen, even if that something is just a little humor. At the end of the day, something is better than nothing.
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