Sorry, I meant "Are you aware that, just as with werewolves, there could be good vampires out there as well as werewolves?
I support equal rights for vampires and other supernaturals. As long as you don't believe in killing or harming anyone (including animals) needlessly, and are nice, I'll stand with you. In fact, I would even be against the killing/harming of an evil vampire if I didn't feel that it was totally necessary...
And I still think that if they were to exist, we would probably entrap them and milk them for vamp-juice. Our culture is well exposed to the fantasy mythos and there are plenty of CEO's and politicians in the U.S. for whom the occasional exsanguination of a citizen in order to live forever would be a negligible trifle in the grand scheme of their doings.
They'd be like designer purses, or other accessories. "Oh a strigoi, how proletariat I only use the most elite of vampires. One hundred percent organic you know."
Not wanting to sound rude or offensive, but I am not a vampire and I don't obsess over wanting to be one or anything (although I think it would be quite cool to be one, especially a vampire like Dracula from the 1930's Bela Lugosi movie that has the ability to transform into a wolf, a bat or mist and near-immortality), but, if I ever saw a vampire that was about to be attacked by a hunter, as a vampire lover, I would at least try to save them. I know that, if they do exist, at least some vampires would probably be of the type that would only ever kill when absolutely necessary. They may well need to feed off of others in order to keep their lives, whether they be undead or not, or just to survive life-threatening situations. As for the religious arguments against them, I believe that the main reason why they may be scared of crucifixes could because they are frequently stabbed with them. I also think that they may only get headaches from looking at them because they make them remember all of their friends and family that may have been stabbed with them, and the stress could cause a headache. I also believe that something must be added to Holy water to make it burn vampires since just being blessed by anyone, even a priest or preacher, would not make it powerful enough to harm them. I have even heard that they may still be able to be Christians after they have been turned. All they would have to do is wear shades and fake body tan, not go to church on sunny days and avoid any Holy objects that could harm them*. The vampire in the movie "Dark Shadows" certainly was not purely evil. He did kill a few people, but this could have been out of thirst, not out of brutality. He also saved a young girl from death by falling from a cliff and defended his family against an evil witch. In the children's film "The Little Vampire", the main human character is saved by at least one vampire on two occasions; once from being hit by a truck and then again after he had been locked up in a coffin. There is also an old story that was written in 1914 called "Aylmer Vance and the Vampire". This features a good vampire that saves a couple from dying. Even old legends are not without their good vampires. Although the idea of the Stregoni Benefici was used for the "Twilight" series, the legend did exist beforehand. These are good vampires that are archenemies with the evil ones, and these ones help sick people, too. Watch the documentary "Vampire Secrets". On that one, they managed to use technology to "prove" that this one lady was definitely a psychic vampire (one that feeds off of the mental energy of others, as opposed to their blood). I think they got her to feed off of someone and then used to technology to show her energy count or something like that, and it was much higher than average, possibly the highest that that person had ever recorded at that point. If she were really all that evil, would she not have been too dangerous to feature on the programme without being restrained? She was not restrained at any point in the documentary, by the way. Also, although she may have fed off of someone other than a willing donor at some point in her life, she also wrote or at least did something towards "The Psychic Vampire Code of Conduct" which, if I remember correctly states that psychic vampires should only feed off of consenting adults, or something like that. Before we start bashing them for what they have supposedly done to humans, think about what humans have done to them. Throughout the years, in many of themovies, legends, books and other stories, humans have treated vampires very cruelly. They have used Holy water to burn vampires, as well as tricking them and/or somehow keeping them in the sun, locking them in coffins and allowing them to suffocate, staking them through the heart and otherwise torturing, maiming and killing them. Think about it this way. You are a vampire. You are of the type that has typical vampiric traits in your appearance, such as pale skin and red eyes. You cannot go into any public place without experiencing persecution and having everyone else there afraid of you. You want to make friends, or even just ask someone something, but you cannot get near anyone without them backing away, insulting you and trying to ward you off, even though you have no intention of harming them. They just think that, because you are a vampire, you want to kill them. All you want to do is just ask them something or befriend them, and/or mind your own business, but you cannot do this because are so feared and persecuted. Everyone thinks that you just want to drain their blood, but you don't. Also, there is such thing as a real-life vampire (or vampyre, as some people prefer to spell it) subculture. These do not generally go around attacking people for their blood. Some of them may get it from farm animals or butchers, some of them drink substitutes, but many of them just drink from consenting donors, and at least some of them are wise enough to make sure that the blood is not diseased before consumption, and at least some of these types can be very humane indeed. Yes, there probably are some evil vampyres out there, but are there not evil non-vampires out there as well? Who are we to say that these people do not ever do any good? For all we know, there could even be a few vampires that do charity stuff out... By the way, if these types were to count as humans (which they may well do), killing them intentionally and with malice would probably count as murder. Do you really want to be done in for murder? There are now loads of alternatives in which vampires can use to get the blood that they need to drink. Vampires can now drink fake blood, blood banks, animal blood* and even human blood that they will have collected or had collected from people, without killing them. Some vampires have even been known to heal any cut that they make after they have fed from the person. The person would probably then only get ill to the same extent as if they had the flu after that. They may even ask the person first before they feed and/or have a regular willing donor, if they are able to cope with their blood supply coming from just one person and not being all that varied. Just like with everything else, if they do exist, vampires could be friendly, peace-loving creatures as well. There is good and bad in everything... * Although I disagree with killing animals (or anyone else, for that matter) unnecessarily I have to admit that there is such thing as necessary killing. Also, a vampire killing an animal for the blood is not much different from a tiger or a wolf killing out of their own nature. Think about this for a while: is there really much difference between a human eating meat and a vampire drinking the blood of an animal? In fact, I believe that a vampire drinking an animal's blood is kind of better, in one way, than a human eating the meat of an animal because the vampire is probably naturally designed to drink blood, whereas, according to some vegetarians (I am a vegetarian myself) and/or vegans and others who know about diets and nature and stuff, humans may not actually be designed to eat meat. Also, a vampire, for all we know, may not even have to kill an animal when they feed off of them. There may well even be some vampires out there who are even as humane and as kind as they can be towards animals. How's that? It may or may not be peer reviewed, but it is kind of an essay and/or an article...
Do you really think it is right to cruelly exploit vampires whether they be free-range, organic, etc, or not?
It's not about whether I think it's right. My statements were in no way worded to imply my personal take on this hypothetical matter, which is strangely broaching into a very animal-testing vibe. I'm not going anywhere near that conversational paradigm. It's about what would happen. Humans are greedy. Humans give in to avarice whenever no one is looking and then we all deny the fact, to one another and to ourselves as well, when we're face to face. There are rich humans in America right now who would jump at the chance to live forever and the consequences be damned. When I said: Notice I said would, not should. Eventuality, not propriety. The follow-up joke after this quoted post was a joke aimed at the unchecked avarice of 1%ers and their 1st world problems, not vampires .
Yep. Vampires represent the very side of humanity about which I speak. The side hidden by social lying. The side we deny to others. The side we pretend doesn't live in us. The side that we would stand in front of God and lie to him about. All of these things are the core of the vampire. That is their purpose in literature. They kill for us and enjoy it and we enjoy it through them. They whore for us and we enjoying their whoring vicariously. They hate and envy and covet so that we can enjoy it through them, heightened by a factor of ten, and feel like it hasn't tainted us. This new flaccid, toothless, chummy, sparkly, chibi vampire that has arisen in the last few years is a novelty. It's a bottle of pop with some chewing gum. It happened just yesterday on the literary timeline.
To me they are the ugly side of each of us, the Jungian Shadow. We are repelled by them and at the same time we pity them because they are us, the us we cannot fess up to, the us that we want others to pity should they discover it. I would also like to add a caveat since it seems there is some sensitivity towards vamps as real beings. I know there are people out there who call themselves vampires and practice the ingestion of human blood. If that's you, I'm not talking about you. You are not a supernatural being. You will die of old age or in a freak nail gun accident. Also, this isn't really the best time to practice the ingestion of human blood. I say that out of concern. Watch the news. Anything I say is said with the idea of writing a story in mind. Always. These new chummy vamps are of no use to me as a writer or a reader. They are robbed of their core essence. They are but shadows of their former selves, to quote Akasha. Now that chick was a true and serious vampire. She was the real deal. As a character, as a trope put into effect, and as a person. That's a vampire. All ego, all lust, all gluttony, all beauty, all vanity, aware of the fact and finding it funny. That bitch vamped like a boss! A chummy vamp who admits to me that he's a vamp the way someone admits they're gay or HIV+ isn't a vampire. It's a new minority of human. There are plenty of minorities of humans already in existence about which to write and make use of real world data and experience. There's no need to pull the teeth out of vampires to make one more in metaphorical form.
