Vampires ... and Birthdays?

Image copyright Sandra Ormandy 2012 All Rights Reserved

What do vampires say to each other on their birthdays? Happy birthday seems so utterly human?

Options seem to include:

Happy UnBirthday? But then I have the Mad Hatter's song from Alice in Wonderland running through my head where it is firmly mind-wormed. This sort of destroys and counters the whole idea of a vampire not aging after their human-death.

Happy Undeath-day?  While this does not make the Mad Hatter's song run through my head, it doesn't really answer either. I am, still, thoroughly human,  and thus each day I celebrate not having yet endured death.

Happy Turn-day? I have seen this used in various author created mythos, and in many ways it does meet the criteria,celebrating the day one turns from human to vampire through whatever process is necessary for that change to occur. And yet being a creative and odd sort of person, I hear my mother telling me that if I did something or other, my father would be rolling over (turning over) in his grave. I do not think that this is quite what my mother referenced (darn it!), but nonetheless, not quite what a celebration of another year of not meeting the sun, or meeting a stake, deserves.

So if any of you ghosts in the internet machine have better suggestions, I am open to discussion. What does one say to a vampire on his rebirth day?

Eternal Life Eternal Youth Eternal You

"Eternal life," he whispers into my ear, his breath a warm and honeyed moistness against the tender skin behind it. "You will never age," he continues softly as he presses his body into my back, rubbing his head against my own. "You will never die," he finishes as his lips dip to my neck and he nips it.

Such is the vampire promise. Eternal life. Eternal youth. What could be wrong with that? Honestly, in our youth obsessed culture, it sound pretty darn good.

The advertising is great. Usually it features a hot young thing offering eternal love and mind-blowing sex, at least in the paranormal romance field. It usually features companionship and willing blood-donors who are "special" in that they are allowed to know about vampires.

The package comes with super-powers also: super strength, enhanced senses, mesmerizing skills, ability to shape-shift and to heal from most wounds. It makes you more attractive since all the best predators are beautiful.

The problems do not appear in the disclaimer: You have to reinvent yourself constantly as fashions, social mores, and technology changes around you, and you don't physically change.

And you are yourself for all eternity. Can the dead change?

Think about it for awhile, and I will return to the conversation later. Meanwhile, a cup of blood.

Bad Endings Bite

Spoiler Alert and Bad Ending Warning: Forever Knight's ending, well, bites!

Sweet Goth has just spent some serious time watching the 1990's three season series Forever Knight, a television series produced in Canada. It took awhile before I adjusted to the 1990's hair and clothing (and on a side note, the producers might have varied both the hairstyles and clothing of the female mainstays), and adjusting to the glowy green vampire eyes, but the story-lines mostly were good enough that those could be shuddered at, but ignored.

What I can't ignore, and really resent, is when writers and producers are so desperate to end the series that they have the characters break character. (Oh, and the constant injections of the past clips as filler is also resented, but really.) The viewers have watched though 69 episodes, they have invested in the characters as they have behaved throughout all those episodes. So Nick, is anguished at being a vampire -- 800 years of "oh, damn, I'm eternal?" -- but he is trying really hard to not drink human. His friend Natalie, a Medical Examiner, is helping him in his search to become human. Over the course of the series, we have found he's brought several people "across." But when the time comes to split with his best bud and creator LaCroix because LaCroix declares it is time, Nick promises his non-girlfriend girlfriend Natalie to bring her "over" because he doesn't want to leave her behind. And instead of bringing her "across," he kills her? Why? Was she somehow chained to the city of Toronto and unable to leave the border? Could she not have traveled with them as a human? And then LaCroix who has been established as being a totally amoral and selfishly vicious alpha, kills his son because Nick wants him to. Again, why? Nothing in the character has established him as willing to kill his son.

Yes, I'm upset. I sat through 70 repetitions of the theme blurb "... endless, forever night." (Endless IS forever -- chose ONE and stick with it!) I deserved a more coherent ending.

Telepath as Vampire

The Sweet Goth has been spending a few hours perusing the Library of Congress holdings, looking for holdings of vampire books for young children, and holdings between 1897 and 1950, and she stumbled upon The mental vampire per telepathy; sketch and revelations to science of the invisible world, by August M. Becker (published in NY, 1928). It caught my attention because while vampire (and Zombie) economic metaphors are prevalent, as are gold-digger (pimp) metaphors and employer metaphors, Sweet Goth has never really considered the idea of telepaths as being sort of mental vampires.

I had always just considered the idea of being able to look into someones mind as somewhat cool and freaky. But as a metaphor, now that I think about it, it works. A telepath looks into someones mind without their permission (except Spock) taking away someone's very private view of the world. It again plays with a trinity (vampire, victim, blood) = (telepathic human, victim, thought), and what is more personal than thought? Our thoughts are as integral to us as our blood, because without either, we cease.

Bram Stoker's seminal Dracula of course does lead this direction with Dracula's ability to read the minds of the women he has vampirized. He is able -- as are they -- to share telepathically what they are seeing as they see it. This is seen most obviously in Mina Harker -- nee Murray as the slayers, through the hypnotism of Helsing, use Mina's connection to Dracula to trace his travels from England back to Romania.

Pretty cool that someone back in 1928 was making the connections for me. I will be all vampiric and use his/her thoughts send across the invisible time/space world in the form of a book, and spend some time communing in someone's brain. Cool.