Hail, Unblooded! {My Thesis Defense for Night Owls}

I do my best work at night.

Whether it’s writing my story, or checking stuff off my to-do list, or brainstorming solutions (or discovering/remembering embarrassing mistakes committed earlier!), nighttime is when I function best.

Oddly (because I’m pretty sure this is unrelated), I’m also extremely sensitive to light. As in, I’m often tempted to wear sunglasses indoors. And if even a scrap of sun is peeking through the clouds? You can bet your bottom dollar I’ll be looking like an idiot trotting around in my sunglasses when no one else is (if I’m lucky enough to remember to grab them before leaving the house). Is anyone else like this?

Note: Is that related? Does anyone know??

Here’s what I believe: Embrace your quirks, because they make you unique and special. Don’t let them make you an outcast, but turn them into something for the good.

And so I did.

I created the Unblooded. The Unblooded are a special and unique group of people, a sort of subset of humans. Vampires are a subset of the Unblooded – corrupted ones (I worked with my first attempt at vampires a few head stories ago, and surprised myself by using them again now). The Unblooded have special powers, all connected to natural things (the lead’s is gravity, for example, meaning she can defy and use gravity). They were appointed as guardians for the human race, so that no outer force should wipe them from the face of the planet, and that no inner force should destroy them from within.

Unbloodeds are called that because, if you were to do a genetic test on them, you would find no apparent connection between an Unblooded and their Blooded (regular old human) parents.

Note: they were originally called the Guardians, but they were like outcasts in the old days, and when someone was discovered to be one of them, they would be “unblooded”. It was a verb meaning to cast out, disown, from your kin (you are no longer of our blood, essentially). Eventually, it stuck. The non-corrupted Unbloodeds are called Halos, because of their old name “Guardians”. People confused the Guardians with guardian angels, and so when the non-vampiric Unbloodeds were looking for something to call themselves to distinguish them from the vampires, they adopted the nickname for their group.

Anyway, so Unbloodeds have these special powers, but they were given some critical programming differences <- okay, not exactly programming, but you know what I mean. Because most of the shady dangerous stuff that was their job to get in the way of was naturally happening under cover of night, they were made to function best at night and wane with the light (a time when the humans could look after themselves, right? 😛 ). Hence, they are also painfully sensitive to daylight. They can see, but not well, and it hurts their eyes. Cool ninja awesome sauce powers come with a down side sometimes.

All that to say, this is just a reminder to “embrace what is special about you”. Be who you are, whether a night owl, Unblooded (nice try, they have identical scars on their palms), or super-sensitive-to-light-so-wears-sunglasses-all-the-time person. Being a night owl isn’t a bad thing (right??).

*pompous voice* Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for hearing me out.

(Don’t get me started on telling this story, or I’ll never stop… like the time Morgan bricked her phone because she was getting spam from the vampires…)

~ Kat

Morning person or night owl? Did you ever invent exciting/special things to explain/inspired by your quirks? If so, what?