My sister likes to read those books where the vampires almost make out with that one girl that everyone in the town loves. My favourite thing to do is read a paragraph dramatically and append “as he slowly unbuttoned his shirt” to it. It turns a terrible teen romance novel into a terrible adult romance novel with striking effectiveness. Needless to say, I am no longer allowed to read those books in her presence.
I can still make fun of vampires though, which is good fun. I want to see a vampire drama where the vampires try to go “vegan” and wind up being slowly driven mad and killing the people they love in bloodlust. Then they snap out of it and are super upset. Most of my dislike for vampire dramas stems from them either romanticising the idea of being a monster to the point of declawing the idea of a creature that needs human blood to survive, or just turning vampires into another semi-intelligent monster that has to be killed. Overly humanised vampires are whiny and overdramatic. “Monster” vampires are boring. Sociopath vampires would be amazing. Especially since a good bit of actual vampire lore centers around mind control. Think of the tragedies that could be written instead of all those forced happy endings.
Of course, a lot of people consume much more vampire media than I do, and I’m sure I will be pointed to several series that I’m overlooking because of my near-outright refusal to watch modern vampire movies.
Heh… my thing with Twilight is, if there’s a copy of one of the books within grabbing distance when I’m in the check-out line with friends (and there always is), I read the summary in a steamy voice.
You have earned approval from a fellow twilight mocker. :D
There’s always Hellsing. It has ANOTHER vampire named Alucard tearing people to shreds on a regular basis, while still being fairly civilized in the interim.
I couldn’t get into hellsing for some reason. Read a few collections of the manga, but it just didn’t suit my tastes- which is weird because normally I’m all over any kind of paranormal WWII-ish fiction.
I can see it. Not the most… Accessible manga. Not as weird as something by Gainax, but still. (btw, Gainax studios. That is all)
I googled them to see what they do, and found out that I’ve watched a bunch of their stuff. In retrospect, I should have known that the studio that animated FLCL (which is actually the first manga I read) did Gurren Lagann and Magical Shopping Arcade, but Ebichu came out of nowhere on that list. After seeing Panty & Stocking on there too, I was kinda surprised to not see Dead Leaves as well. Maybe I should give Evangelion a try after all, I apparently like stuff from that studio!
I remember now that I borrowed a couple volumes of the Hellsing manga from someone I know and didn’t care enough to follow up- maybe I should try the anime, 13 episodes doesn’t seem like it’d be too bad.
OH GOD NO STAY AWAY FROM EVANGELION.
THE TRADITIONAL GAINAX ENDING IS STRONG WITH THAT ONE.
By which I mean all of the child protagonists are COMPLETELY insane little bitches. The actual fight scenes, if you layer some sweet music over the muted video, are fine, but main character whatshisface screams FAR too much.
You’re free to watch it, by all means do, you’ll be a better person for living through however much of it, but you can’t say I didn’t warn you. Gainax didn’t get graffitied and sent hate mail for nothing. Calling it a psychological series is an understatement.
Gurren Lagann was great, though. Still need to finish FLCL, but I ordered the “Filly Cooly” shirt from welovefine not too long ago.
Also, if you like anime, don’t limit yourself. It’s just as diverse as American TV isn’t. Sadly, all we have is… Well, let’s just say that if Jersey Shore still exists, we aren’t going anywhere fast.
Hey now, if anything the spectrum ranging from Twilight/Jersey Shore to GoT/Community makes American TV more diverse! Animation, maybe not. But TV for sure!
If the psychological messed-uppery is anything around Satoshi Kon level, I’m sure I’ll enjoy it. I’ve watched a lot of really weird animated stuff, I doubt I’ll get creeped out by something that’s as mainstream as Evangelion. Heck, I managed to stick it out through Aachi wa Ssipak! That movie is 90 minutes of WTF, guns and smurfs.
I’d for sure recommend finishing FLCL. It looks fantastic, and it even winds up kiiiiiind of making sense. Gurren Lagann disappointed me a bit, I was expecting the series to be centered around Kamina, not Simon. Still really good though- I watched to the end.
Accursed comment stack limiter. And accursed edit button.
Also, if You’re an anime coinesseur, and I misjudged, apologies. But to not know evangelion…
Also, clarification:
1. Take everything I say about anime with a pinch of salt
2. Traditional Gainax ending = “f*** you, audience” (think P&S w/ G’s ending)
3. More an edit, but whatever; I actually recommend watching at least episode 1 of EVA. There are those who like it, you might be one of them. I just hate it with a burning passion.
If you do watch Hellsing’s anime I recommend going for the OVA…
Oh man, same boat. I’ve watched tons of anime, but I missed out on some of the mainstream stuff. There’s just too much of it to watch everything. I get the most shit for not having watched Akira, but the Evangelion is second worst. At the moment I don’t watch much anime- I got about 10 or so episodes into Geishiken a couple months ago though.
I’ll check out Evangelion once all this craziness going on in my life slows down a bit.
I’ll see if I can do something about the comment threading. I tried to add an edit button plugin a while ago, but it didn’t work.
Isn’t Twilight basically the vegan vampire thing?
With Mormon vampires?
They do specifically refer to themselves as vegan vampires. Not sure if mormon is book-canon, but the author is mormon and there are apparently mormon themes.
I wouldn’t know, most of my twilight experience comes from watching the movie at a friend’s place with rifftrax, which was still an incredibly painful experience. In hindsight, we should have been drinking. We watched a few Dr.Who episodes afterwards to cleanse our minds instead.
I’m fairly certain the Mormon thing is cannon. Think I saw it on one of the promotion posters at a theater once.
WTF. How can vampires be mormon? Aren’t they supposed to be allergic to Jesus or something?
I was going to make a joke but I’ve forgotten it now. Something about Mormon Jesus being a vampire or something. I dunno. I’m sure it would have been funny though.
Mary, you can’t just use the word “Vampires” all willy nilly like that. You gotta use the impact effect of the concept to its full extent. Like this: “VAMPIRES!”
Like, duh.
Like how you are a fun VAMPIRE, because you suck the fun out of everything? ):<
Well Being Human tends to be about vampires who slowly go mad from not drinking blood, fall off the wagon and do something monstrous, then feel really guilty about it.
If you are looking for a good ttrpg I recommend Vampire the Masquerade
The Monster Hunter: International series has an interesting take on vampires. More (not completely) inline with the Bram Stoker Dracula really. When they are first turned, they are rather feral, like modern stuff, but as they grown in power and age they become more civilized and frightening. But it is kinda gun ‘porn’ book, but at least the author knows what he is doing with guns by writing their action scenes correctly. You have been warned. x3, still good series and makes Vampires be Vampires and not whiney emo personal fanfiction.
Anyone watch Fullmetal Alchemist? I love Brotherhood, and while the first FMA series tripped ALL SORTA balls with it’s ending, it was awesome, and Conqueror of Shambala made me pass out on the floor with epicness. BTW…trust me, you’ll get this.
..
I HATE MILK.
Maybe some of Amelia Atwater-Rhodes’ stuff?
Or, and I recommend her highly, Patricia Briggs. A lot of her vampires are sociopathic and/or douchey, but there’s also so many different personalities among them. Even the main character of the book (who is friends, tenuously, with one of the vampires,) frequently says things like ‘vampires are evil. That’s it.’
Also, for a good laugh, you simply MUST watch this: http://www.tubefilter.com/2009/04/01/not-surprisingly-la-sucks-full-of-vampires/
I’ve met the actors in it – truly awesome people.