The Original Heat Vampire

I promise I didn’t come back from a few week hiatus just to write about more vampires. And while we’re at it, let me apologize for not posting. My bad, guys. I was totally too busy for you, but I mean that in the nicest way possible.

It’s fall! Woot! I do rather like the fall. I’d be hard pressed to say which is my favorite season, but fall does have a bit of a magical quality to it. Plus it promises things like pumpkin pie, Halloween, and boot season.

Of course with the fall comes the cold. That’s the part I’m not looking forward to. I hate the cold. I can stand it long enough to run out in the snow and play around for a bit, but I damn well better come back into someplace warm with hot chocolate waiting for me.

This really is one of those big life questions you debate with your friends in the middle of the night. Would you rather be hot or cold? I’d go hot every time. My brother argues endlessly with me over this one. Because when you’re hot, all you can do is take clothes off, and eventually you run out of clothes. Whereas when you’re cold, you can always put more clothing/blankets on.

That may be true, but the thing about clothes/blankets is they work by holding in your heat. I, somehow, have no heat. At least the majority of the time. I overheat in the middle of the night constantly, which is why I sleep with an assortment of fans and very tiny pajamas.

 You see, I am The Original Heat Vampire. If you are not familiar with the term, it is on urban dictionary but personally I think it was invented for me, thus why I always refer to myself as The Original Heat Vampire. Do not forget The Original part of my title. My wrath knows no bounds. Do not listen to those of my friends that compare my angry face to a pouty teddy bear. It’s a lie. Really. I totally can look angry when I want.

I was reminded of my heat vampire status yesterday at brunch (side note, I think brunch may be my favorite thing ever… both breakfast & lunch food available, but you don’t have to eat it early in the morning. Score!). It had been drizzling outside so I was wearing jeans, but it was so cold in the restaurant that the longer we sat there the more I froze. It didn’t help once I ate all my food and was just drinking ice water. Lacking external heat, and unable to produce my own, I could tell my The Original Heat Vampire side was starting to show.

Sadly, as The Original Heat Vampire I am morally bound to not prey upon the unwilling. Well not too much anyway. So I refused to steal heat from the others at the table. This was probably for the best, as they looked a little cold as well. Of course, as The Original Heat Vampire there’s a huge difference between them looking cold, and me looking cold. I could see my nails had already turned that lovely shade of purple. I was willing to bet my lips were becoming blueish. I had goosebumps and was very close to compulsive shivering. All this just from being in a slightly chilled restaurant!

You can imagine how much worse this gets in the winter. This is when I can’t resist using my The Original Heat Vampire powers. I shiver and look helpless until someone approaches me, and then strike out. My hands grab any available skin surface, and the heat leeching begins.

It’s not fatal to the victim, but they sure don’t enjoy it either. For one, my hands are usually comparable to ice blocks. I refuse to touch myself when in full The Original Heat Vampire mode. For another, as I steal more and more heat, reverting from The Original Heat Vampire into a normal person, they become the cold one. Maybe it’s not the nicest thing to do, but on the other hand their heat regenerates. Mine apparently does not.

I’m trying to mentally prepare myself for upcoming trips this month back north. I have been ridiculously enjoying the Texas heat, but I worry this means I no longer can function at normal fall temperatures. I’m thinking I need to pack my knee high socks. In case that’s not enough, this is warning to the friends I’ll be seeing in Pittsburgh. The Original Heat Vampire may soon be among you.

TVD: A Few of My Favorite Things

Sorry to get any hopes up but this is a re-post as a few valued readers were getting some serious errors with this one. 

This is TVD week! To celebrate the season 3 release on Tuesday, every post this week will concern vampires and The Vampire Diaries tv series. Be wary of some spoilers, although I will avoid anything uber important from season 3.

I totally ended up watching Sound of Music this weekend, and while I just missed the "Favorite Things" song by a hair, it’s been in my head ever since. Thus it seemed an appropriate post title since we are concluding our week of The Vampire Diaries posts with random favorite things/moments from the show.

This list is a compilation of my favorites, and my friend Jenn’s favorites. Because sometimes we’re basically the same person, especially when it comes to TVD.

·      The fact that they get rid of the whole “diary” premise. Thank goodness. It gets old. In fact, for anyone that watches the first episode and can’t believe anyone likes the show – give it a few. It’s MUCH better when they’re not doing the diary thing.

·      Damon – enough said.

·      One thing that’s really brilliant is that eventually, they explain inconsistencies. It was driving me insane how vampires kept wandering freely into the Salvatore house. I thought they were just being lazy, but they explain why near the end of season 3.

·      The voiceover at the beginning. Every episode (after the first one) starts by saying “previously on the Vampire Diaries.” Well, being me, I didn’t realize they have a different character saying this every time. In fact the only reason I eventually caught it was because Rose says it in season 2, and I was like wait a minute, since when was that voice British?? I should point out, they literally do switch between like every character. It had been male, it had been female, it had been Damon, it had been Elena. And yet I never realized this until it became British. I feel like this says something about my mind and observation skills, but I’m just going to ignore that.

·      Elijah – he’s adorable!! He’s so honorable and sweet. He’s like a puppy, and how often do you find vampires that remind you of puppies? I would totally hug him in a dark alley.

·      Just the plain old fact that this show can get you so emotionally invested. I end up literally screaming at the tv. Not in fear (normally) but I get so worried about these characters, and angry when they act like flaming retards!

·      Anna – in the words of Jenn, “she's so damn cute... you know after how initially creepy she was.” Anna is like the only one of Jeremy’s gfs I’ve actually liked him being with. That’s saying something. Plus did anyone else’s heart break when she realized he was using her?? Poor girl.

·      Oh plus one thing I haven’t discussed yet (there’s a lot to talk about with TVD) is how they handle villains. The big villains aren’t just randomly evil in TVD. Eventually, we get to see the softer side. I really love this about the show. It’s actually something I think differentiates it from True Blood, as opposed to all their similarities. I mean seriously, who liked Marnie?? What about freaking Maryann??? On the other hand, when Klaus gave Caroline that bracelet I melted. Sadly Caroline actually has a bit more willpower than me.

·      The Damon/Alaric bromance. I know, I know, I already had a whole post about this. But it’s sooooo good I can’t do a list of my favorites without putting it on here again.

·      And then there’s the video below. One of the best moments of the series. Because it won’t make as much sense to non-viewers, some background – Stefan is actually the one walking in the room, in this episode the brothers keep acting like they’re each other. Make sure to watch the video full screen, and watch Stefan’s eyes. Totally a good mock imitation of Damon’s crazy eye thing. 

 

And this concludes TVD week! Season 3 is officially out on DVD, although I will wait a bit before buying. ONLY because I already have season 3 on Amazon video... don't think I have self restraint or anything crazy.

TVD Meets Honest & True Time

This is TVD week! To celebrate the season 3 release on Tuesday, every post this week will concern vampires and The Vampire Diaries tv series. Be wary of some spoilers, although I will avoid anything uber important from season 3.

Today I wanted to talk about my favorite character from The Vampire Diaries, Caroline Forbes. Not only because she’s awesome (although she is totally BAMF in her own way) but because as I grew to like Caroline in the series and figured out why I liked her, I realized some more stuff about myself.

My friend Jenn (who is rewatching season 1 already, which I probably won’t do until next week due to my reawakened Starcraft II addiction) was texting me this evening, and mentioned Caroline because she had forgotten some key plot points from the beginning of the series. I thought this fit in with this post fantastically, because the thing with Caroline is, there’s a huge difference between her at the beginning of the series and her at the end of season 3.

As I’ve mentioned already, when first watching TVD I hated Caroline. She is incredibly shallow. She constantly says the wrong thing. Heck, the first time we see her, she acts like a complete idiot. Elena is recovering from her parents dying tragically a few months ago. Elena is back to school, trying to act normal, and up walks Caroline! Caroline means well, asking how she's doing and whatnot, but then she turns to Bonnie and asks about Elena while she's not there. I mean it's funny, but not the best thing to help your friend recover either.

Then later in the episode she becomes incredibly jealous of Stefan being more interested in Elena than her. She ends up drunk and whining “why not me??” I was immediately turned off. In fact, when Damon ends up using her as a little blood bank/sex buddy/spy combo I almost felt like she deserved it.

As season 1 continued though I actually started to feel sorry for Caroline. Especially when Damon calls her shallow. She has a little mental break realizing yes, she is in fact shallow. In her own words, “I’m worse than shallow, I’m a kiddie pool.” She perseveres though, because she starts to realize her good qualities. She’s a good friend. She cares about other people. She works hard to make sure everyone else is having a good time.

This was when I finally started to appreciate Caroline. This was also the beginning of her adorable romance with Matt, which seriously was ridiculously adorable. 

Caroline does become stronger and more confident as the series progresses. But I realized that what initially turned me off about her are actually all the things I hate in myself. I’m a bit insecure. I CONSTANTLY say the most retarded things ever, and then later obsess over it for hours. I too ask, why not me? Not so much about boys, but why did my brother get all the good genes? Why is my mother the best cook ever? Why can my daddy make everyone like him? Why not me? Why can’t I?

See, totally me.

I started to realize this when I recognized that the traits I LIKED in Caroline were also ones I prided myself on. Her deep caring, her (mainly) optimistic attitude, her psychotic habit to plan everything.

Honest and true time: even though I would never think of myself this way (not a cheerleader, not quite as obsessive thankfully), out of all the female characters in TVD I’m totally a Caroline. A Caroline Forbes lite if you will. Half the crazy, half the blond, same refreshing taste.

But I also think that Caroline is the most relatable of the main female characters. Bonnie? We’ve already talked about that one. A little too stuck on her own morals to relate to. Elena? Just a bit too selfless to be relatable. But dear Caroline deals with her insecurities. She improves on her faults. At the end of the day, she’s just seems real. Even when she becomes a vampire! 

TVD: The Best Bromance Ever. Period.

This is TVD week! To celebrate the season 3 release on Tuesday, every post this week will concern vampires and The Vampire Diaries tv series. Be wary of some spoilers, although I will avoid anything uber important from season 3.

When Alaric first appeared on the scene in The Vampire Diaries, I actually thought he was a vampire. My friend Jenn & I were both watching the show for the first time in the same few weeks, so I texted her how it was totally obvious that he was a vampire. It should have been a big clue when she didn’t respond (she was further in the series than me). This was a case of clever misdirection. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised I fell for it. I’m the girl that falls for almost every single trick play ever in football.

But it seemed like Alaric HAD to be a vampire. He was uber concerned about making sure he was wearing his ugly, giant ring. He was all broody and mysterious, and yet charming. I believe he even made it a point to get invited in once? Maybe? Or maybe that’s all in my mind (clearly I need to re-watch season 1).

Turns out Alaric was actually a self-made vampire hunter. Even better! Every good vampire series needs a hunter. Alaric was decent enough at it. I still liked him, and as long as he killed the bad vampires it was fine with me.

Of course there was some tension between Damon and Alaric, as Damon had killed Alaric’s wife and was in fact the whole reason Alaric was a vampire hunter. But you know what’s awesome? They got past that to become a regular pair of bros.

The bromance of Damon and Alaric is possibly my favorite thing about the show. After multiple attempts to kill each other they end up reluctantly on the same side. At first the tension is still there. They’re snarky to each other, and you can tell all they really want is to bash the other’s head in.

Somehow this evolves into camaraderie. See both men are tormented. They’re far darker than the other happy-go-lucky citizens of Mystic Falls, and they’re more willing to accept collateral damage in order to meet their goals.

These two are frankly adorable together. They drink, they kill, and they plot behind Elena’s back for her own good. Sure in season 3 there was some trouble in paradise, but overall their friendship stays strong.

So in honor of this bromance, I thought I’d include my top five favorite Damon-Alaric moments.

5. Drunken Conversations.

Damon: I was drunk when I told you that.

Ric: Yeah and I told you I’d use it against you.

This scene occurs near the end of season 3 and has such major spoilers going on that I don’t want to go into detail, but not only did I find it incredibly touching, I loved that it referenced Damon & Alaric drinking and sharing offscreen, because this information transfer certainly never occurs when we’re watching.

4. Trust Issues

In season 3, episode 2, Elena persuades Alaric to help her behind Damon’s back. But SURPRISE! It’s Damon!

3. Team Awesome

Midway through season 2, Alaric and Damon team up to try and figure out whether or not the new girl in town is a werewolf. Alaric acts like a drunken creep and then Damon smoothly comes in to save her. Then, in a totally obvious manner, they both watch her obsessively to see if she drinks the wolfsbane and reacts.

2. All Apologies

At the beginning of season 3 Damon and Alaric have hit a rough patch, mostly due to my favorite moment ever below. Eventually Damon apologizes and they make up. Why this is awesome? It is not a sappy scene. Damon offers a crap apology that he JUST used on someone else while Ric was there, Ric calls him on it, but accepts it anyway.

Just how bad is the apology? Here it is: “Well… sometimes… I do things I don’t have to do.”

1. Wake Up

So if there’s one thing we know about Damon it’s that he doesn’t always think through his actions, which is made abundantly clear when he kills Ric near the beginning of season 3. Knowing Alaric will be reviving shortly, Damon brings him back home and wakes him with some special morning drinks (not entirely sure what they are. Looks like vodka and lemonade perhaps?).

Unsurprisingly Alaric gets mad and calls him a dick. Just that fact that Damon waited for him with drinks though made me cackle.

While those are my top 5 moments, everyone has their own. I wanted to also include my friend Jenn’s favorite moment, since it just barely missed out on my top five list.

Special Guest Moment!
Checking In

Near the end of season 3 Alaric is having some issues and can’t be left on his own. Elena shows up at his apartment in the morning to check on him. Damon, who was there during the night, answers the door and is very cagey with her. Of course we’re left wondering what’s wrong, but as soon as Elena walks away it’s apparent they were just working on some man projects together. Too cute.

TVD: Friends Forever

This is TVD week! To celebrate the season 3 release on Tuesday, every post this week will concern vampires and The Vampire Diaries tv series. Be wary of some spoilers, although I will avoid anything uber important from season 3.

One of the major themes in The Vampire Diaries is friendship, which we already know is also an important theme to me as I’ve dedicated my spare time to defining friendship. TVD has some great examples of good friends, so-so friends, and friends that seem wonderful but maybe aren’t so swell. Tomorrow we’ll look at my favorite friendship ever, but first I want to explore the Elena-Caroline-Bonnie triangle.

Sadly there’s a common perception in the world that girls are catty. Girls are cruel. While girls are okay when they have a single “bestie,” it’s thought that once you get a bunch of girls in a group there’s going to be tension and backstabbing. While the main girls in The Vampire Diaries have many faults, the one thing they have going for them is a strong friendship.

In TVD, Bonnie, Caroline, and Elena have been friends since they were kids. When the series first started I have to say I felt like it was more Bonnie & Elena as besties with Caroline as the tag-along friend. Of course, that’s because when we first meet Caroline she seems insensitive and shallow, while Bonnie seems far more caring and supportive.

As the season progressed through, I started to shift my views. Caroline has actually become one of my favorite characters. She does have a bit of a shallow focus in the world, and she definitely isn’t known for her tact, but she cares deeply. In her own way she is just trying to help everyone stay happy despite the circumstances.

While with Bonnie, the longer the show is on the more I hate her. Not because she’s a bad person. She truly does love Elena and Caroline. But being a bit more “deep” than the others she often gets caught up in moral judgments that cause her to go abandon her friends.

Don’t just take my word on it! Let’s look at some specific situations.

In season one after it’s finally revealed that Stefan is a vampire (yeah cuz that was a huuuuuge shock) Bonnie stops hanging out with Elena. She doesn’t approve of Elena’s relationship with Stefan, and she doesn’t want to have anything to do with his kind. Well okay, that’s fine and dandy, if she feels that strongly about vampires then Elena just has to accept that. What I condemn Bonnie for is that fact that I don’t think she even made an effort. She could continue to hang out with Elena when Stefan is not around. She just doesn’t try. She only hangs out with Caroline. Then, she does things like say she’s going to help out while lying and doing the complete opposite of what she’s promised, resulting in multiple deaths. Thanks, Bonnie.

Of course Elena forgives her, and they move on.  For a while.

Then, Caroline gets turned into a vampire. This is totally Bonnie’s fault for multiple reasons. Caroline was in the hospital, not doing well but not definitely dying either. To be on the safe side Bonnie tells Damon to give Caroline some vampire blood, while Elena is against the idea. Then Carolina ends up dying and becoming a vampire. Of course everyone is upset, but they try to help Caroline transition to the life so she doesn’t hurt anyone. While what does Bonnie do? Refuse to see Caroline, and only hang out with Elena. Eventually she gets over it, but this was really the point that pissed me off as it was her decision in the first place to give Caroline the vampire blood that caused the transition.

Now Caroline on the other hand is far more forgiving. She could easily hold her transformation into a vampire against Bonnie, but she never does. While she is plagued by the feeling that she will never measure up to Elena (this is what happens when you date people that are attracted to your bestie) she always apologizes when she acts inappropriately and moves on. In fact, she almost dies multiple times as people use her to get to Elena and Bonnie, but she never holds it against either of her friends.

Later, she demonstrates even more remarkable strength when befriending someone that could easily kill her. When a member of her family is brutally murdered, she forgives the murderer knowing that it was a situation beyond their control. And she does this in the very next episode! No weeks of judgment and abandonment in the meantime.

Some might argue that Bonnie is the stronger character and that she is just sticking to her morals. I argue that Caroline is stronger. She certainly doesn’t agree with everything her friends do. In fact by season three she has realized that Elena is starting to be attracted to Damon, and constantly nags Elena to do the right thing (not Damon). But she never once turns her back on Elena like Bonnie normally does. She never once stops hanging around the two of them, because Caroline is strong enough to be around Elena without feeling like her own morals are compromised. This is where I think Bonnie falls short. 

Bonnie still comes around eventually though. No matter what their failings, these girls do stick together through it all.

Yet if I had to choose to be one of the three girls, I’d be a Caroline every time. Flaky, controlling, insecure, but one of the best friends you can ever have.

TVD: Vamps & Tramps, Not Apples & Oranges

This is TVD week! To celebrate the season 3 release on Tuesday, every post this week will concern vampires and The Vampire Diaries tv series. Be wary of some spoilers, although I will avoid anything uber important from season 3.

When comparing vampire myths I have mentioned True Blood a few times, and with good reason. The Vampire Diaries and True Blood are actually remarkably similar. In fact, it’s a common question in the world (yes, the whole world, of course not just neeky people chatting online) which series is the better one to watch. This is up for some debate.

Now I have watched True Blood up to this past season, which I haven’t watched yet. I have watched The Vampire Diaries up to the very last episode in season 3. Thus I feel qualified to make some suggestions.

As I said, the series are super similar. Knowing how everyone loves a good list, here are several areas in which the shows overlap:

·      Both are based on a book series.

·      Both shows develop a way for vampires to be in the sunlight.

·      Both draw in other supernatural elements… vampires, witches, and werewolves – oh my!

·      Both introduce werewolves in the second season.

·      Both have main (hot) female characters who are non-vampire.

·      Both main female characters have only one sibling, a brother.

·      Both main female characters (mfcs) have dead parents.

·      Both mfcs initially still live with their female guardian.

·      Both mfcs fall in love with a “good” vampire.

·      Both mfcs then get some hard core lust going on for a “bad” vampire.

·      Both mfcs are summarily torn between the two.

·      Both mfcs have “special” blood.

See? Practically the same show.

The big differences between the two are sex & violence. Since True Blood is the adult show, you would expect it to be the more sexual & violent of the two. Well, you’re half right.

True Blood definitely has more sex, and it’s definitely more graphic. This is not a show to watch with your grandma (your grandma’s already secretly watching it at night when she’s done reading Fifty Shade of Grey). I have actually heard people say before that a large part of why they watch True Blood is for the sex.

Yes, please.

Now TVD on the other hand is a little more subdued with the rampant lovemaking. Oh it happens here and there. Vampire hormones apparently are constantly stuck in horny teenager mode. But it’s certainly not every episode and there’s certainly far less body exposure. Not that I have anything against Eric Northman strutting around in the buff. Faaaaaaaaaaaar from it.

But when it comes to violence, I actually think the shows are pretty evenly tied. True Blood is a bit more visual and gross. TVD is a little more realistic with its violence and torture. However, where TVD totally has True Blood beat is the body count.

As I’m said before, in The Vampire Diaries people die ALL THE FREAKING TIME. That wasn’t an exaggeration.

Not only do people die, the ones that die are RELEVANT. They’re not just killing off random characters you met for a second and figured would probably die. Sure, True Blood has had some very shocking character deaths, but TVD totally has them topped, even if you only count characters that appear in the first two episodes and then die.

This is one of the things I really like about TVD. When a character I like gets into some sort of undesirable situation, I legitimately do not know if they’ll survive. But this is FANTASTIC. I mean sure, it makes me quite cross at times, but it also keeps me on the edge of my seat. I have no false sense of security. Heck, I wouldn’t be surprised if at some point they kill off one of the three main characters. I am invested in some of these characters. Not knowing what might happen to them keeps me watching, keeps me tense, and keeps me screaming at the screen.

TVD: How to Make/Kill Your Own Vampire

This is TVD week! To celebrate the season 3 release on Tuesday, every post this week will concern vampires and The Vampire Diaries tv series. Be wary of some spoilers, although I will avoid anything uber important from season 3.

Today we’re going to learn how to make your very own vampire!

Now for the most part, I’m open to interpretations on vampires. There is one thing though that has always driven me batty, and that’s any version where new vampires are created through a single bite.

Why? Because vampires are NOT zombies!! Let’s consider the dark alley test.

Single zombie=funny

If I happened to meet a zombie in a dark alley, I wouldn’t really be too freaked out. I’d say “shit, son!,” back away, and then go find somebody to handle that situ. One zombie by itself isn’t really a big deal. The danger with zombies is in the number.

If I bumped into a vampire in a dark alley, well at that point I’d be hoping like mad that I recently updated my will. I’m going to assume there will be no happy ending to this encounter. A single vampire is deadly on its own.

Unlike zombies, vampires don’t need to have a psychotic repopulation rate in order to be scary. And logistically, if every single human bit by a vampire became a vampire, we’d already be extinct. That’s why in zombie movies there’s an underlying fear that the entire human race is going to die out and there’s no way to escape this fate. With vampire movies, it’s normally more focused on a specific character and situation without a wider concern for the world.

Movies like Blade and John Carpenter’s Vampires have always filled me with an inner rage. On the other hand, I love that in Daybreakers they address the fact that if every person bitten becomes a vampire, you’re going to run out of humans to eat.

The more standard way to turn people into vampires involves vampire blood being ingested. The details can vary – how much, time of day, extra steps needed, but the blood is the main thing. Think of vampire blood as your prescription to create your vampire. Generally everyone’s taking the same thing (the blood), but the doctor might switch up the dosage and the directions for your specific vampire.

The Vampire Diaries sticks to this general prescription idea, but it’s in those dosage descriptions that it becomes fantastic. Yes, you need to have a nice vampire blood night cap. But that alone won’t make you a vampire. In TVD, what matters is what happens while the vampire blood is in your system. If you’re on the verge of dying and you get some blood, you heal. If you have vampire blood in your system and you die, you start to turn into a vampire.

Which sets up the potential for all sorts of accidental vampires. Say you have a vampire lover, and one day you are attacked and almost die, so they generously raise a vein to your health. You leave, heading home, and get hit by a car. It’s vampire time, baby!!

What makes this even better though is that this just starts the vampire transformation process. To complete it, you have to drink human blood. So in TVD vampire creation is generally 1 part vampire involvement, 1 part personal choice. You have less vampires running around against their will. So to make your vampire, you should ideally have a volunteer. Although of course it could happen where somebody shoves some vampire blood in their mouth in their sleep, kills them, then shoves some human blood in their mouth when they’re starting to wake back up and rather drowsy. Therein lies the danger of sleeping with your mouth open (that and bugs).

So now that you’ve made your brand new vampire, how do you kill it? Inevitably, you probably will want to, so best be prepared to do the deed. The good news is that unlike True Blood, your vampire won’t explode into a gooey mess. You just have the normal body disposal issues.

With TVD vampires, you can stick to your usual execution methods. Stake to the heart, overlong sun exposure, possibly using an Audi (see example below), and removing the head are acceptable ways to kill (most) TVD vampires.

But they also introduce a whole new method to help in the process!

It’s called vervain. Apparently, it’s a real thing. The plant vervain, that is, not its effect on vampires. I absolutely love that they added this twist. Vervain has many uses in TVD. It can protect you against vampire mind control (yeah, they do that). It can reveal who is a vampire based on their reaction to it. It can be used for some light afternoon vampire torture. Most importantly, it can knock a vampire out, making it far easier for you to properly kill them (it’s a lot easier to kill things when they’re not moving).

Now when it comes to killing your new vampire, just be sure to check that they’re dead-dead. Keep in mind that with TVD vampires you can do things like snap their necks, think they’re dead, and then they pop back up a few hours later with a heck of a vendetta.

TVD Week: It Begins

You may or may not remember that back in June, I possibly promised a week’s worth of Vampire Diaries blogs. Maybe you forgot, maybe you hoped it would never come to pass, or (ideally) you’ve been waiting anxiously for TVD week to start. Well I’m here to announce friends that it has finally arrived! In honor of season 3 of Vampire Diaries (or TVD for those who get sick of writing it out over, and over, and over again, and are well aware of the bad-joke ramifications of calling something “VD”) being released on DVD this upcoming Tuesday, I am devoting a full week of entries to vampires, friendship, love, and the wonders of TVD!

Now if you watch the show, or plan to watch it at some point, be wary of spoilers. Sooooooooooo much happens in the show that it is impossible to say anything without some sort of spoiler. I will be respectful though and try to avoid anything too major, mainly from season 3. Seasons 1&2 are a little more open for abounding spoilers.

Additionally, I will start the week off with a few more general posts on vampires so even if you’re not a TVD fan, you have a little somethin’ somethin’ to get your fix until my next non-TVD post.

One of the things I was surprised to love about TVD was its take on vampires. I’m a big vampire fan. I’ve always loved vampire books and movies, despite the fact that some of them scare the crap out of me. When I was a teenager, I worked at a used bookstore so it was fairly easy to find new vampire books in the horror section.

Then one day, this strange new trend started called paranormal romance. The emergence of paranormal romance fiction deserves a pros & cons list of its own, but that’s not what we’re here for today. At first, I was excited. This meant a huge influx of new vampire-related reading material. Unfortunately, I soon realized that not everyone who writes should, and when people are trying to be unique while using a stock type situation/character (such as vampires) they fall into this trap where they try to make their vampires cool and distinct, and instead they wind up retarded and sparkly.

But I’ve always enjoyed comparing the different myths on vampires, and how they emerge in fiction.

Take, for instance, the mirror thing. In some versions, vampires don’t have reflections. Good examples would be Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Daybreakers, and the Real Vampires Have Curves series which I love, because Glory often discusses the difficulty of putting on makeup without a reflection. True dat. This one is fairly inconsistent though, and doesn’t really mean much as opposed to other areas of the lore. So what if someone doesn’t have a reflection? It’s really only used to identify vampires, and can too easily be excused as a trick of the eyes.

Better areas to explore are things that repel vampires. Garlic, for instance. I don’t find this one to pop up too frequently, but it gives a whole new appeal to garlic bread as anti-vampire assurance. Crosses are controversial. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, sometimes, as in the Anita Blake series, it’s not the symbol that’s important but your faith in it. I like that version. Series where crosses always repel vampires are basically endorsing Christianity. Not that I’m against it (we are NOT getting into religious debate people, let’s focus on the vampires here), but I like my vampires to be more universal.

Now some vampire lore areas are ones people have heard of, but it’s hard to find examples. Such as vampires cannot cross running water. In fact the only instance of this I can recall off the top of my head is actually in the book I Am Legend when Neville proves this one is just a myth. Yet I had heard that one before, so I’m not sure where it originated. If anything I think it’s an honest mistake confusing vampires with fairies, as running water is supposed to be protection against fairies. Or maybe early vampires were thought to be an offshoot of fairies? That’s a totally interesting concept that I should explore some day in a story!

This looks like Christmas with my family...

For the most part, the vampires of TVD aren’t encumbered by the typical vampire issues. Garlic doesn’t bug them. They can eat, and drink alcohol like it’s going out of style. No problems with mirrors or videos. But they do, however, have to deal with the house issue.

Vampires cannot come into houses unless invited. While this isn’t true in some versions like Twilight (hard for your main male character to be such a sketch stalker if he can’t wander into houses as he pleases), it is true in other popular series such as True Blood and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I have to say I quite like in True Blood how you can rescind the invitation, because it makes it interesting to watch the vampires getting thrown out of the house.

Sadly TVD doesn’t have that option. Once a vampire has been invited in, you’re basically screwed. Better move. Although be wary of apartments. Damon at one point goes on a little ramble about how it works. Public buildings are open to vampires. Owned houses are always safe. Apartments are tricky depending on the lease.

Now one has to ask, why do the creators of vampire fiction go with some myths over others? Why do they create the limits in such a way? And I am personally convinced that when it came to the house invitation issue, the TVD think brains decided against rescinding invitations because they want it to be easier to kill people. Yeah, that’s right, this isn’t just some little teenage fantasy where the vampires are good and no one ever dies. People die ALL THE FREAKING TIME. In fact, stay tuned this week as that will be a separate post all on its own.

What I mainly like about TVD is that I do think there are some pretty unique features to their vampires. Sure, they have some of the basics, but they have some interesting new stuff going on too.

But this is already fairly long, so you’ll have to wait until tomorrow: How to Make/Kill Your Own Vampire.