Monster Monday :: on vampire sexuality

A year ago, I talked about vampire procreation, but that isn’t all there is to vampire sexuality.  Far from.  So as usual, canon-sorted.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel:

• To a soulless vampire, sex is just part of the fun.  It goes hand-in-hand with blood and killing: they eat, they kill, they bang.  Sometimes more of one of those variables than another, but that’s the basic equation.
• Sex, at least for the Whirlwind, both did and did not acknowledge the family structure that Drusilla (Juliet Landau) set up.  The “official” pairs amongst those four were Darla/Angelus, Dru/Spike, which held to at least the basic seniority involved, but then again, the official pairs were guidelines and not strict rules: “Intimate liaisons also occurred between Angelus and Drusilla, Angelus and Spike, and Darla and Drusilla,” says the Buffy wiki.
• And let’s just look at that for a second.  Both possible slash couples, though not seen liaising, are technically canon.  Angelus/Angel (David Boreanaz) and Spike (James Marsters) can be read as quite hetero-leaning; that they happened to interact sexually was probably more an exception than a rule.  Darla (Julie Benz) and Drusilla are probably hetero-leaning; they aren’t seen interacting sexually with other women, really, though there’s more basis in canon for the nature of their having proper intimacy and not just doing something.  This is to say: while sexuality as a whole is always fluid, vampire sexuality is more openly so, perhaps.  It was network TV, so much of this is implied and not seen, but hey.
• Now, Angel and the “true happiness” issue.  The curse that causes Angel’s soul to disappear being triggered by orgasm in the company of the woman he loved is an interesting metaphor.  It’s not just sex that does it (Angel does have sex later without the soul-losing repercussions) but sex with that person, well.  That this is what does it, and that it’s not fully revealed until after the initial incident, is pretty easy to read as commentary on at least the social connotations of acting on one’s desires.
• Spike has a fair amount of sex.  He’s routinely with Dru when we meet him, he’s eventually with vampire Harmony (Mercedes McNab), he gets with Buffy for a relationship that’s mostly sex without the strings of affection and trust, he probably gets with others intermittently if he can.  At least pre-soul, Spike is one of those who seems to need to have someone to define himself in relation to: he both belongs to Dru and cares for her, he has Harmony, he has Buffy and belongs to her simultaneously.  Angel’s identity is largely defined by his perceived inability to be sexual, and Spike’s identity is largely defined by the ways in which he is sexual.
• Oh, and let’s mention vampire Willow (Alyson Hannigan) and Xander (Nicholas Brendon) also; because this is canonical alternate universing, it’s not worth mentioning in many of these lists, but these guys are a perfect example of: flirtation, killing, all in one.

True Blood:

• SEXY VAMPIRE SEX OHMAHGAH.  That’s people who don’t watch True Blood talking about True Blood.
• But see… not only?  Yes, there is sex.  Many characters, vampire and not, regularly partake of the sex, because it is HBO where you can do that, but, uhm.  I’ve mentioned before that I have never really found it gratuitous, and that still stands.  And it’s not like there isn’t sex in the source material.  Maybe not as much, or as specifically strange, but it is there.  Because hey, you know what?  Sometimes people in life have sex.
• Buffy seems to have a sire/childe relationship imperative: rather, there are plenty of vampires who don’t end up sleeping with those they’re linked to by blood, but the main instances we see of Darla/Angelus and Dru/Spike are blood ties and intimate ties both.  True Blood is… fuzzier on this subject.  Which I talk about all the time, but I’m stating it here for the record too.  I’m just addressing this vampire by vampire.
• Bill (Stephen Moyer).  His sexcapades with Sookie (Anna Paquin) comprise much of the first seasons, which means that SEXY VAMPIRE SEX OHMAHGAH is already a misnomer: Bill is a vampire, Sookie is not, it’s not like this is just a show about vampires banging.  Actually, a reasonable amount of the sex we see is not vampire/vampire at all.  Bill did have a sexual relationship with Lorena (Mariana Klaveno) his maker, which ended when she released him; it is reprised in season three (and while I didn’t even find the head-turned-backward sex gratuitous, it was definitely nosewrinkle-inducing) and it’s definitely not of the good.  Then there’s more vampire/vampire sex when Bill hooks up with Salome (Valentina Cervi) in season five.
• Eric (Alexander Skarsgard).  He gets a fair amount of fangbanger action before he eventually hooks up with Sookie (this in contrast with Bill, who decidedly does not; this could be reflective of the fact that Bill starts as a super-mainstreamer, or reflective of the fact that Bill is kind of a prude).  He is unashamed of this, and it’s definitely not vanilla, nope.  When Eric gets with Sookie, it’s much more “normal” – sure, it’s outside the first time, then it’s in sex Narnia, but it’s still something like missionary.  And then Nora (Lucy Griffiths).  They have two different sex scenes, and this is more vampire/vampire sex, but unlike Lorena/Bill or Bill/Salome, it’s… presumably from a place of if not romantic love in the traditional sense then at least some kind of love.  Eric and Godric’s relationship… well, it’s never fully described, but there’s much speculation.  Also of note is the conversation between Eric and Talbot (Theodore Zouboulidis here credited as Theo Alexander), where they’re about to get to it and Eric comments that it’s been a long time since he’s done this, then corrects upon Talbot’s prompting that he doesn’t mean sex with a man, he means sex with a vampire.  We don’t see Eric getting with men, but he mentions that he has, and it’s unlikely that it’s a complete lie.  So that’s something.
• Pam (Kristin Bauer van Straten).  She’s gotten a fair amount of fangbanger play over time too, usually on the desk in the office; she’s lady-leaning, definitely, though presumably not entirely (“Let bygones be bygones, bi girls be bi girls” and whatnot).  She met Eric in the context of sex, and they were intimate, though they haven’t been in some time.  Pam is completely sex-positive, really.  And while she presumably is entering into a sexual relationship with her progeny Tara (Rutina Wesley), it wasn’t a given fact, it evolved over a bit of time.  The attraction grew like attractions do into what I will say again is the most beautiful phrase in the English language, cellar door be damned: interracial lesbian vampire couple.
• Sophie-Anne (Evan Rachel Wood): vampire/fangbanger time all the way, and “I haven’t enjoyed sex with men since the Eisenhower administration.”  And though she has favorites, she seems iffy on the concept of monogamy.
• Russell (Denis O’Hare), first with Talbot and then with Steve (Michael McMillan).  Definitely gay, which is not made an issue; he forces Sophie-Anne into that marriage of convenience, but there’s no pretense about it.  He seems to be more for vampire/vampire sex, yep.
• Franklin (James Frain) was a d-bag and a rapist and he’s despicable.  But I suspect that would have been true of his personality whether or not he was a vampire.
• Nora.  Reiteration, she has a fair amount of sex with Eric, and it’s vampire/vampire but not of the bad so that’s something.  Also, please allow me to elaborate on why I fully believe that the Nora/Salome kiss came from a place with background: the way I read her, intimacy in one way translates to intimacy in another for Nora.  She and Salome were crazy-close, so naturally they were going to have the sex, even if it was only implied (sigh).  Also, Nora feeds on humans, but she doesn’t strike me as necessarily the fangbanger type too often.  She’s more of a strictly vampire/vampire sex kind of girl.
• Salome.  Based in a story of seductive manipulation, which she then debunked, but either it was a lie in the first place, or she eventually learned that art.  Because wow, wow, all the sexual manipulation from this woman: she was in a relationship with Roman (Christopher Meloni) and presumably had been for a while, they shared a bedroom, she shed a tear (of debatable legitimacy) when he was killed, but do I think for a second that that wasn’t a strategic choice of hers?  Nooope.  Bill was a strategic choice, too, and I still can’t decide how much it turned real.  She was taught to define herself by who she liaises with, at least publicly, but do I think she saw herself as anyone’s strictly speaking?  Nope.  And here’s another reason why Salome/Nora: she looked at Nora like she didn’t look at any of the others, at least if you’re watching with lady-tinted glasses.
• Jessica (Deborah Ann Woll) is never seen having sex with another vampire, actually.  She’s with Hoyt (Jim Parrack), then with Jason (Ryan Kwanten); she feeds on fangbangers of both sexes, but she’s still fairly heterosexual.  She’s actually, I would say, the most heterosexual of all of the vampires on this show.  Even Bill gets innuendo thrown at him and participates in sexy dreams of Sam’s (Sam Trammell).
• Okay so I wrote a lot about these guys and sexuality but that’s because they live in a canon where they’re allowed to have more sexuality to write about.

Twilight:

• Presumably, Rosalie (Nikki Reed) and Emmett (Kellan Lutz) have a healthy sex life, Alice (Ashley Greene) and Jasper (Jackson Rathbone) have a healthy sex life, Esme (Elizabeth Reaser) and Carlisle (Peter Facinelli) have a healthy sex life.  Token “breaking a house” jokes go here.
• But do we know anything about these healthy sex lives other than those jokes?  No, because this is the kind of story where only major characters’ intimacies are really delved into, so we only hear about Bella (Kristen Stewart) and Edward (Robert Pattinson) doing it.
• I’m still shuddertwitching about the birth scene, though.  I haven’t seen Breaking Dawn yet, but I remember reading it and being horrified.  For one thing, half-vampire half-human baby?  How again?  At least there’s magic involved in the vampire/vampire conception on Angel that I’m still not up to yet.  For another thing, this is the actual grossest, and I have the strongest stomach of most everyone I know as long as there aren’t closeups on needles in spines or eyeballs.  But it’s gross psychologically, too, which I’m sure has been said many a time already on the internet.

–your fangirl heroine.

Whedon Wednesday :: Buffy characters as My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic characters

Originally I was intending to do the entire Whedonverse as ponyfolk, but once I’d got about four of the women typed Buffy style, I just decided to go with it all the way. So.

As Twilight Sparkle, we have Willow Rosenberg (Alyson Hannigan).  Because she is the extremely bookish one, the not-strictly-sociable one who still loves her friends very much, the one representing the “element of magic.”  Twilight Sparkle didn’t have friends except Spike before moving from Canterlot to Ponyville, when she learned about the importance of friendship and teamwork; Willow didn’t really have a lot of friends except Xander before Buffy moved to Sunnydale, when she learned firsthand about the importance of friendship and teamwork.  I will also note that Twi’s official My Little Pony wiki article states that at one point she does use a memory spell on her friends (I haven’t seen that far yet, but hey).

As Spike, we have Xander Harris (Nicholas Brendon).  He may be named Spike, but he is Xander through and through; he is best friends with our resident bookish one, he is goofy and affable and flirts with a lot of people to very little success.  He isn’t always the most useful in the traditional sense, but he is valuable to the team.  He is a little bit of a derp.

As Applejack, whose name I just realized was written as one word and not two, we have Buffy Summers (Sarah Michelle Gellar).  NO WAIT I SWEAR THIS IS RELEVANT.  I mean, Apple Jack was the one I had the hardest time Buffycasting, actually, since none of the Buffy characters are all twangy and cowgirl and Buffy herself isn’t exactly the “element of honesty” all the time for valid reasons.  (Though look see Buffy owns a cowboy hat go with it.)  But what got me was when AJ got all stubborn and insisted on doing everything by herself, because as teamworky as the Scooby Gang could be, Buffy did do the “it’s my responsibility and mine alone” thing several times.  Also, the sister thing.

As Apple Bloom, we have Dawn Summers (Michelle Trachtenberg).  See, sister thing.  Apple Bloom really does mean well and she has a very good heart, it seems like from the once I’ve been exposed to her.  She just wants to play with the others and not be treated like a kid, and she’s very open to people even if they’re not the obvious choice.  (I.e. with Zecora the zebra, and sort of like Dawn’s unlikely friendship with Spike for a while.)  And yeah, sisters.

As Rarity, we have Cordelia Chase (Charisma Carpenter).  Rarity is the town fashion plate; Cordelia is the town fashion plate.  Rarity is a fan of the spotlight; Cordelia is a fan of the spotlight.  Rarity represents “the element of generosity,” and while that is not true so much of high school Cordy, I’d say what I know of her on Angel shows that she grows into a generosity of spirit.  Rarity sometimes frustrates the others; Cordelia sometimes frustrates the others.  Etcetera.

As Pinkie Pie, we have Harmony Kendall (Mercedes McNab).  Really, Pinkie is just innocently, ridiculously chipper; Harmony is more judgmental and occasionally mean-spirited than Pinkie, as Pinkie is really not mean ever (being the “element of laughter”) but she is also kind of ridiculous.  She’s just a cute girl used to being cute and therefore happy; she’s got her selfish moments, her facepalm-inducing moments, her foolish moments.  But she’s not a terrible person, just like Pinkie isn’t a terrible pony.  Just… sometimes misguided.  Or something.

As Rainbow Dash, we have Faith Lehane (Eliza Dushku).  What this totally isn’t just because Rainbow called her friend Gilda “G” that one time, no, of course not.  And Faith is hardly Rainbow in the sense of being the “element of loyalty,” at least at first; I think in her way, Faith is plenty loyal by the end, but season 3 Faith not so much.  Faith is much more troubled than Rainbow, because ponies do not come from such screwed up backgrounds as people, but she is, a la Rainbow’s page on the wiki, brash, (sometimes) competitive, and (sometimes) mischievous.  I’m pretty sure Rainbow is the only pony I can imagine actually making vaguely dirty jokes like Faith sometimes does; Rainbow is also the pony I see as most likely to kick your ass, which is another thing Faith does.

As Fluttershy, we have Tara Maclay (Amber Benson).  Finally, another girl whose pony analogue element suits her wholly: the “element of kindness.”  Tara is the absolute nicest and the sweetest; she is also (at least at first) quite shy.  She’s good at taking care of people, but she can and does get fierce when it’s required of her, even if she personally doesn’t think of herself as being particularly bold and daring like the others.  And she is just the gosh-darn sweetest and I adore her.  So there.

As Trixie, we have Amy Madison (Elizabeth Anne Allen).  Because Amy is a life ruiner and Trixie is a life ruiner.  Because Amy tries to do magic but is not as good as Willow and Trixie tries to do magic, ish, but is not as good as Twilight Sparkle.  Because magic semiposer reasons.

As Princess Celestia, we have Jenny Calendar (Robia la Morte).  Literally just because she is an adult and because she was a teensy bit Willow’s mentor, ish, with the computer teaching and the inadvertently-being-why-Willow-started-magicks.

As Luna/Night Mare Moon, we have Glory (Clare Kramer).  I believe I mentioned this before, yes.

–your fangirl heroine.

Whedon Wednesday :: 10 life lessons you can learn from Buffy 5×01-5×12

Season five is definitely worth splitting; it becomes this whole different thing once Glory (Clare Kramer) is revealed as a god, and it goes from the sometimes amusing to the absolutely devastating all over the place.

10. Don’t get hypnotized by Dracula! (5×01, “Buffy vs. Dracula”)
Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar) has been lacking in her Slayer training from an educational standpoint.  She thinks that Dracula is just like the movies, but she doesn’t know how not to get hypnotized by him.  And Xander (Nicholas Brendon) just doesn’t know that because it’s completely a normal thing not to know.  Dracula (Rudolph Martin) just exploits their not knowing.  Really, this lesson is twofold: know things, and don’t let people take advantage of the things you don’t know.

9. Aliens can be demons too (“Listening to Fear,” 5×09)
There aren’t too many otherplanetary demons in the Buffyverse, but when you’re against a hellgod who you don’t know is a hellgod, they can summon some weird crap.  Just because they’re from space doesn’t mean they’re funny and not to be taken seriously.

8. Don’t try to battle with yourself, ever (“The Replacement,” 5×03)
Now, Xander has to do battle with himself because there is literally a physical clone of himself.  But this brings up an interesting psychological point, because Xander is doing battle with what he perceives as a more suave and ideal him, and everyone seems to prefer the him that’s not just goofy, stupid him.  This is a pretty common Buffyverse theme, battling yourself, but it never ends well.  Just embrace all of you and you’ll be totally happier.

7. Having vampires drink from you is not an acceptable recreation activity (“Into the Woods,” 5×10)
Riley (Marc Blucas) feels insecure and detached from Buffy’s life.  He feels like he’s not enough for her.  So what does he do?  He… offers himself up to be nommed from.  Which is pretty ridiculous.  It’s self-destructive, it serves no purpose, and it’s not like Buffyverse vampires are lax with their own blood being used like a drug.

6. And at least in the Buffyverse, it’s totally cheating (see above)
When Spike (James Marsters) tells Buffy that her boyfriend’s off being someone’s snack, she’s hurt.  Like many other fandoms, vampirism in the Buffyverse is often equated with sex; just because Riley’s not having sex with the random vampires, or Buffy’s not nomming on Riley’s blood, doesn’t mean that those are things they can be looking for elsewhere.  And his thinking that they are is selfish and immature.
5. Councils of anything are pretty much crap (“Checkpoint,” 5×12)
Buffy has never respected the Watchers’ Council.  She respects Giles (Anthony Stewart Head), but that’s because Giles doesn’t do everything 100% by the Watchers’ Council book.  He learned quickly that she was going to make her own rules, and adapted.  And the Council punished him for that, which is rotten of them.  When they show up to investigate the Sunnydale slaying operation, the Council does nothing to make themselves seem better.  They ask stupid questions of the other Scoobies (though it makes for some amusing tl;dr on Anya [Emma Caulfield] and Tara [Amber Benson] and Willow’s [Alyson Hannigan] parts).  They threaten Giles… again.  Buffy doesn’t need them, she can handle this with her friends and herself.  And most councils anywhere of anything… are similarly useless, at least in fiction. 

4. Sibling rivalry is silly (throughout the season)
At first, we don’t know where the hell Dawn (Michelle Trachtenberg) came from.  She’s just there suddenly and we have to take their word for her being Buffy’s sister.  Even as we learn more about Dawn, and as Dawn learns more about Dawn, she and Buffy have a completely unnecessary rivalry.  Dawn’s bitter that Buffy is an important Slayer person; Buffy is bitter that their mom (Kristine Sutherland) seems to be nicer to Dawn.  There is much squabbling and arguing, and when there’s not that there’s overprotectiveness that feels more duty-born than anything.

3. And best friend/girlfriend rivalry is silly (“Triangle,” 5×11)
The relationship between Willow and Anya has always been a little weird.  Anya’s sole purpose in coming to Sunnydale was to avenge Willow and Xander’s affair on Cordelia’s (Charisma Carpenter) behalf, and then she started dating Xander, and it was awkward for everyone.  Willow sometimes wants to tell Anya to shut the hell up with her not-properly-human-ness; Anya sometimes wants to tell Willow to shut the hell up with her too-smart-for-her-own-good-ness.  But it really serves no purpose, and they don’t need to compete; Xander loves them both in very different ways, and they should try to get along, because the conflict, as evidenced, serves no real purpose.

2. Also, trying to be bad when you’re not is silly (throughout)
Harmony (Mercedes McNab).  Baby.  You are nobody’s big bad. You’re just a valley girl who became a vampire at high school graduation and is trying to find her place in the world.  That place is not wreaking havoc on the Slayer and her pals.  That place might be on Angel, but I’m not there yet.  But really, Harmony’s attempts at big-badding are laughable.  Good laughable, but still laughable.

1. Family ain’t always blood (“Family,” 5×06)
(As this is something I say often, you will have to bear with the slanginess of the declaration.)  Tara’s blood relations want to manipulate her into believing herself a demon in need of controlling.  That’s not cool on a lot of different levels.  But the Scoobies aren’t hearing it.  They’re a family unto themselves, and sometimes the family you make is more important than the one you’re born in; that’s a lesson you can never learn too many times.

–your fangirl heroine.