To All My Vampire Friends...

[paragraphs]

Okay...

As some of you know, that darn vampire kit has lodged into my mind and will not let go. The big problem with this thing, is that I am not a vampire fan, and so know very little about the creatures.

I like them well enough...I am absolutely in love with Bill (TRUE BLOOD) for instance, but I never watched Angel (I might though--but then again, maybe I won't so I won't be influenced by him lol), I wallbanged Twilight (is Edward REALLY a vampire? I wonder), I've not read anything but Interview with a Vampire and not sure that counts...okay so I did read Dracula years ago, but I assume times have changed, and, well, vampirism is something I've never really sunk my teeth into.

It will NOT be a romance, TYVM. My POV is not going to fall into the arms of her dark love...uh...no thanks.

So...

What do YOU guys like in your vampires? And dislike, too--like sparkles. Sparkly vampires do not do a thing for me.

Comments

[la-localfreak.livejournal.com]

This might be a bit long and babblesome I'm afriad whilst I sort my thoughts out a bit.

Dracula-related thoughts
Although Vampire stories have been around before Dracula (links nicely to that book you've ordered there) a few things interest me about the older vampires which isn't often addressed in vampire novels or aren't really thought about where they come from.
Vampires, particularly older incarnations of them are undead in the literal sense- they are like dead bodies re-animated by Demonic Forces (Dracula included) this links to the whole drinking blood thing, which is the mainstay really of Vampire fiction although there have been other sorts of Vampire- Jeremy Brett's Sherlock Holmes fights with an energy vampire, for example. This is because in the olden days (and I mean, going back to ancient times) the soul was believed to be carried in the blood- to lose your blood was to lose your soul, so something that drinks blood- well, it'd be like the Dementors in Harry Potter, really. This could also link with the idea of vampire's having no reflection-if your reflection is something to do with your soul and you eat souls then you can't emit anything like a reflection which could be a mirror to one's soul (this link's a bit tenuous, I'm afraid because of course this could equally be linked to something to do with vampires not liking sunlight- if a vampire absorbs everything-light/energy/soul/whatever then the sun absorbs into him/her and burns, and he/she can't emit anything like a reflection)
The stake through the heart thing might be linked to this, of course, because didn't the ancient egyptians believe that you thought with your heart and that was where your soul mainly resided? Of course, even without the soul-thing the idea you could kill a vampire by doing this makes sense- really it depends on the level of immortality (if any) an individual writer/creator chooses to give his/her vampires

The Garlic Idea I reckon comes from something far more practical- if you eat garlic or give an animal garlic their blood becomes distasteful to blood sucking beasties of various kinds. Even by the time Dracula was written this kind of mutated into the idea if you waved some around the vampire would freak out. Personally, I like the old wives remedy for being eaten by midgies better.

Holy Water/Crucifix- pretty obvious. If the vampire is basically damned (has no soul) then he/she is a devilish creation and holy water and crucifixes ward off such things (Anne Rice may be batshit insane, but I did like her take on this both with Armand in the early books and the parisian mummers devil worshipping because 'surely they were damned already' and Louis 'being quite fond of looking at crucifixes' and, of course, in later books, Blackwood's and Lestat's catholicism)

The key thing, then, about middle-ages-ish vampire hunters to think about is that to them they aren't killing a person, that person is already dead. they're killing a soul-drinking monster who happen to be inhabiting the body of someone else, that someone is trapped unable to get to heaven/purgatory until they are released.

Vampires I like (of note): Dracula is the big, fat obvious one, although he is also a symbol of his times (there's a hearty dose of xenophobia and the victorian views about appearance-linking to criminality in there)

cont'd in several posts

[la-localfreak.livejournal.com]

The Vampire Chronicles Vampires. Yes. I know. Anne Rice. Makes one feel a little bit soiled thinking about her...battiness. BUT I like plenty of author's novels without liking the author's themselves and I do like quite a few things about her vampires. For a start- none of them have the answers. They are neither all-powerful nor all-knowing. Lestat can read thoughts, but Louis can't, Marius loses his temper with the Old Ones, Akasha is...well, insane. Also I like the thing about not everyone being able to handle being a vampire (Nicholas goes insane, Lestat's maker jumps into flames after making him and also 'collected' blond young men) and find it hard to move with the times and have to continually move with the times. I also like some of her ideas about vampire phisiology (they can't have sex in the 'usual' way, because their means of reproduction have changed is an interesting and legitimate interpretation)

Poppy Z. Brite's 'Nothing' and 'Christian' (and the others) from 'Lost Souls'. These are interesting examples because Nothing is, pretty much, a normal kid. He doesn't get 'turned' the way older incarnations of vampires do, he's "born of blood and pain"- in Brite's world, a vampire, Zilla gets a girl pregnant (there are hardly any female vampires and those who are remain virgins at all costs) and the baby, basically, eats/drinks its way out, killing the mother. It's an interesting theory, however I do have some quibbles with Brite's ideas on this (and her obsession with absinthe) for a start because the baby then gets left with humans and lives on human food until he reaches his teens and runs away and has to figure out what's going on with him as he goes- how does a baby take in human food so soon after chomping (apparently toothlessly?) through a womb?
Additionally Brite then goes on with an interesting but hard-to-swallow ideas about vampire's evolving over time. Christian, who is very old, has long non-retractable teeth which come to just rest where his lower lip is. Zilla and later Nothing are younger and are born with 'normal' teeth which they then file into points in order to piece skin. The evolution is interesting but the speed of this supposed 'evolving' regardless of exactly how ancient Christian is (and by the name he is, at least, under 2000 years when the book is written) is rather odd. However, Brite does have some interesting ideas which I haven't seen in other vampires.

Count Duckula.
He's a cartoon character. I know. BUT he is a vegetarian vampire. Interesting for the idea that although vampires in this world are 'born' not 'made' they get brought back to life and become babies again ("by means of a secret rite, performed once a century when the moon is in the eight house") in Duckula's case, when the recipe called for blood, Tomato ketchup was used and POOF Veggie Vampire.However, despite this, and having no fangs, he has no reflection and the ability to 'poof' from one place to another.

cont'd...

[la-localfreak.livejournal.com]

Jeremy Capello from My Best Friend is A Vampire (yes. It is Robert Sean Leonard.) It's a crack-film from the 80s but, again, its ideas about vampires are interesting. In this one vampires are made by being bitten by a vampire, although it is never actually explained if this happens to everyone who gets bitten, or if there are other circumstances that make this possible. Vampires are part of a huge underground network and can buy Vampire-related products (Pigs blood beer, Pigs blood Wine etc) Mudoc, the 'Vampire Guidance Counciller' who helps Jeremy come to terms with his vampirism describes taking the blood as "like taking your vitamins" in this case (and in the case of Duckula's relatives, above) there's nothing about the idea that vampires can't drink blood unless it's 'live'- quite the contrary. Jeremy can also go out in sunlight although becomes sensitive to it and loses his reflecation and develops an allergy to garlic. Vampires can also turn into wolves (think Dracula and The Black Dog at Whitby) despite the fact that werewolves are mentioned offhand as existing. Whilst this is a cracky comedy and not exactly well-thought out in terms of 'what stays and what goes' in the list of vampire staples, it's interesting both for its ideas about vampires being able to live reasonably normal lives (they are not immortal either, though for every 10 human years, they age only 1) seeing their vampirism as a kind of vague medical condition and the links the film makes between vampirism and homosexuality during the time period.

Things I don't Like in Vampires
Superhuman. A few supernatural talents are fine (like Lestat's mind tricks, or Dracula's shape shifting abilities...and couldn't Varney the Vampire turn into steam and go through locks- or was that another penny dreadful vampire?) , but if they can do anything at all ever it's just a pain in the bum, I like them to have disadvantages. In 'My Best Friend Is A Vampire' Jeremy has to do stuff like paint over his window and sleep under the bed away from the dawning light, and cuts himself shaving because he's lost his reflection, but then he can climb really well and do mind tricks- although he messes them up and they don't really work.- it kind of balences out)

Ugly!Vamp (Y Hallo Ther Buffy's Vamps) I don't mean that they all have to be stunningly attractive, that's just as bad. Vampires, if you're not having them as a seperate species are basically humans. Some might be hot, some not that attractive but most would be just normal average looking people. Their ability to turn on the charm (if kept) might set them apart, but I don't like it when they're either Evil-therefore-Ugly or Not-Evil-and-Sex-Gods. I don't like the way in Buffy when the Vampires are going to drink from someone their faces shift all demonic-looking, because it's just...it makes them less like humans. I suppose it works for Buffy fans, but I don't like it that much.

I'm not that keen on Soulless vampires. However there is an epic Harry Potter fanfic by Maeglin Yedi ('To See the HUman Soul Take Wing') in which a vampire has a soul but his aura is broken, as if half his soul has died and the other half lived. The vampire in that is still a person, not a demon or an undead monster, simply some of him has gone (incidentally it's a very good fic).

Perfect!Vamps. I like them when they muck stuff up and make mistakes. You could live for a thousand years and not be perfect. I think Anne Rice's vampires show that perfectly, cos all of them (although I'm particularly thinking about Lestat at the moment) do some phenomenally stupid/reckless/daft things over the series.

Basically I don't like them to be devils nor Gods, not modern day vampires (it works for like Dracula's era, because I can read them in context, but, even from a religious perspective it doesn't work so well in my brain)

Er. I've now no idea about what I've covered or if I've missed anything important so if you have any questions or you think I've left something out then do ask me and I'll do my best to furnish you with an answer, I realise this might be rather babbly and disorganised.

[paragraphs.livejournal.com]

All this is really great stuff, Mike. I am printing it out, along with everyone else's responses. Such great thoughts on vampires...I am confident I will be able to make _________ a good one.

Still no book, dammit... ARGH! I want it, NOW!! I need to check and see when it is slated to arrive, since I had to get it used.

I may snag your time for more questions later.

[la-localfreak.livejournal.com]

Well I hope some of it can be of use! Looking at the other responses they're all rather more succinct and readable than mine, I'm afraid my brain obviously just went "Vampires- what do I know about vampires? *SPLURGE*" and this was the result. It of course doesn't help that I've written my own vampires in the past (unfinished. To date my Nano novel is the only long piece I've ever finished and that had nothing to do with vampires at all) so I kind of did the whole 'hmming' and 'ahh'ing about vampire phisiology and mythology and orgins of myth and stuff....it all just gets tangled up in my brain!