Monster Monday :: on makers and progeny (or sires and children, or whichever combination you prefer)

Because I’ve discussed the individual sexual habits and proclivities of individual vampires before, many of whom were makers-sires/progeny-children, and I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned the different kinds of maker-sire/progeny-childe relationships, but I wanted to properly list them out and analyze them.

Shockingly, this list is not going to be canon-sorted.  Since it’s about different kinds of things, I’m sorting it that way.  So.

Sexual relations from the start

• These are the makers (okay, from here out I’m just going with makers and progeny, since quantitatively there are going to be more on this list who are thusly called in canon) who are banging their progeny, period.  They sire (but see here I’ll use that term as a verb, because I like it) a vampire because they like them and want to be with them intimately.
• Sometimes these maker-progeny relationships end; this is often due to choices made by the progeny.  They want to live a different kind of life, so they ask to be released and basically dumped, or they do something to cause the maker to feel they have no choice but to set such a scenario into motion.
• Both pairs of consistently coupled makers and progeny who constitute Buffy and Angel‘s Whirlwind, Darla/Angelus and Drusilla/Spike, could be made to fall under this category.  (Angelus/Drusilla is a more complicated issue.)  Darla (Julie Benz) seduces Angelus (David Boreanaz) and turns him, they go on their merry and have all the sex the whole time (though not exclusively, of course), their relationship is then terminated by Angelus and his acquisition of a soul.  Drusilla (Juliet Landau) is enchanted by Spike, who is then William (James Marsters), then she charms him and turns him, they go on their merry and have all the sex the whole time (though not exclusively, of course).  Their relationship is terminated technically by Dru, but because she observes a change in Spike’s behavior.
• The best example I can pinpoint from True Blood is Lorena/Bill.  (While certain other couples, i.e. Russell/Talbot, technically fall into this category, many of the details are ones that are not given much airtime, so I’m just going to mention it and move on.)  Many of the details of Lorena’s (Mariana Klaveno) past are similarly fuzzy (though according to the True Blood wiki, there are several things in common with the Drusilla situation) but the details of her relationship with Bill (Stephen Moyer) are fairly straightforward.  He shows up at her cabin on his way home from the war, she appreciated his “strong moral character” (quoting from the wiki there, because I think it’s funny), she turns him, they go on their merry and have all the sex the whole time.  In 1935, then, Bill asked to be released, being fed up with Lorena’s being, well, a prototypical murdering seducing vampire.
• Oh, and I guess there’s plenty of this in Twilight, because sex is okay as long as you’re in a committed relationship and maker-progeny situations seem to sometimes lead to committed relationships in Twilight.  Or committed relationships lead to maker-progeny situations.

The fuzzy gray area that involves sexual relations, but

• There are three types of these.
• Angelus/Drusilla, wherein it is a fuzzy gray area because, well, there are sexual relations, there are a lot of sexual relations, but they are technically in relationships with their own other halves.  The Whirlwind is this big polyamorous mess of vampire sexin’, but it’s mostly that they like to share.  Also, Angelus/Drusilla is never a proper relationship, because the proper relationships that come from the sex in these other cases involve(d) some degree of officialness.  Angelus was with Darla, Drusilla was with Spike, and there was never really any time when the four of them were together and that wasn’t true.  And here the father and daughter thing is very intentionally creepy.
• Eric/Pam, wherein it is a fuzzy gray area because yes, they partake of the sexual relations when Eric (Alexander Skarsgard) turns Pam (Kristin Bauer van Straten).  They also partake of the sexual relations before she is turned.  But while they eventually stop having these relations, they don’t ever actually have a “break up” like the above couples.  They stop banging, but they stay together, and their relationship gradually shifts into one that the True Blood wiki says is “comparable to that of a father and a daughter,” though never entirely.  They stop banging, but they stay really, really close.
• Pam/Tara, wherein it is a fuzzy gray area because the circumstances of their turning involve no sex whatsoever, but their attraction grows naturally.  Pam turns Tara (Rutina Wesley), but Tara makes the first direct move sexually.  There is an aspect of mother and daughter to their relationship, though it’s really only as much as you would see with a little girl “mothering” a doll, dressing her up and scolding her for purported misbehaviors.  Mostly they are just two women with a definite power dynamic that eventually enter into a relationship.

Pretty much familial

• I feel weird saying that the Master (Mark Metcalf) was properly fatherly toward Darla, but there’s really no other place to put them, because I’m pretty sure they never banged?  “Darla,” a nickname given her by him, means “dear one,” but that could just as likely be a dearness born of some sort of platonic familial affection.  She was his protégé, and that was pretty much that, I think?
• Also, Bill and Jessica (Deborah Ann Woll).  This is the most overtly daddy-daughter relationship that really is between a maker and progeny, and honestly, the only times I’ve ever felt fond toward Bill was when he was playing good dad.  I’m positive I’ve mentioned that before.  I imagine that Bill’s reasons for not sexually relating to Jessica were several: for one, he remembered how unhappy he was in a romantic relationship with his maker.  For another, he was in a relationship with Sookie (Anna Paquin) at the time.  For another, Jessica was a teenage kid, after all, and Bill used to have scruples and whatnot.  But while he was a pretty awkward dad at first, and he obviously turned into a huge jerk in regards to the whole Lilith mess, there was a period in the middle where he was just an affectionate father, and she was happy to call him her dad, since in that in-between he was way less of a douche than her human father.
• I’m pretty sure this is mostly true of Godric/Eric and Godric/Nora?  In their conversations about Godric (Allan Hyde), Eric and Nora (Lucy Griffiths) tend to refer to him as “father,” and they do seem to (have) compete(d) for his affections like siblings do.  I don’t know if we’ll ever know how much maker-progeny sexin’ was going on in that situation (personally, I suspect there was some, but that it eventually faded out over time a la Eric/Pam, and while Eric/Pam’s eventual form was something almost father-daughter but also decidedly not, the vibe of Godric’s relationship to his progeny was much more strictly familial at the end).
• Oh, and I guess there’s some of this with Twilight and Carlisle the wonder vampire doctor dad.

Surrogates

• Angelus was somewhat of an extra maker for Spike; this is mentioned sometimes.
• Eric and Pam both stood as substitute makers for Jessica for that little while (and I understand why it wasn’t part of the show, but I kind of wish we’d have seen those shenanigans at least a little, just because I love the ridiculous cool older cousin/enthusiastic little cousin vibe that Pam and Jess have).
• Salome (Valentina Cervi) was basically an extra maker for Nora.  Because Godric may have taught her how to vampire, but Salome taught her how to do many other things, I’m sure.
• Oh, and this is true of Twilight and Carlisle the wonder vampire doctor dad too.

–your fangirl heroine.

Monster Monday :: on religions and vampire canons

So.  Vampire canons and religion.  I’ve touched on some of this stuff before, but I think it’s appropriate to explore it again.

Buffyverse:

• These guys are susceptible to religious objects.  Crosses, bad.  Holy water, bad.  Fairly standard stuff in that regard.
• Those who fight the vampires do not seem to be beholden to any particular religion at all.  Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar) wears her cross necklaces, but that’s because they stop vampires.  Willow (Alyson Hannigan) and Tara (Amber Benson) are practicing Wiccans, but save a few prayers, the religious aspects of that are really not touched on at all; Willow is also ancestrally Jewish, but does not often mention it save a few frowny-faced “not everyone celebrates Christmas”-type comments.  Religion is not the why behind anyone’s vampire fighting, they just did it because vampires are often bad and should be stopped.
• Ethan Rayne (Robin Sachs) does practice a religion, or at least a religious worshipping of the deity Janus, as a part of his villainy. But he’s only around for a few random episodes here and there, so we don’t get a lot of detail with it.  And also he’s not a vampire.
• Glory (Clare Kramer) is a hell god, but she’s not a vampire either.  So.
• Flashbacks to the lives of those who are now vampires do include religion: dying Darla (Julie Benz) scorns the efforts of a visiting religious figurehead who really isn’t, Drusilla (Juliet Landau) is targeted by Angelus (David Boreanaz) for her piety and actually seeks to become a nun in order to escape his torment.  Darla retains that snarky faithlessness into her vampire life; Dru completely abandons her faith and replaces it with belief in her sire and their crazy evil fun.
• Also, I should point out the puns and ironies made possible by Angel and Faith (Eliza Dushku) by virtue of their names and contrasting actions.
• The idea of hell is deeply entrenched in the Buffyverse: the town is on a hellmouth, multiple characters visit or spend time in hell dimensions.  Hell is a very real concept, though it doesn’t seem to be technically associated with any one religious tradition.  It simply is: it exists in a dimension alongside ours, it can be reached.
• And the idea of heaven really isn’t discussed until Buffy’s return from the grave in season six, when even she, who has probably been there, can only really say that she was probably there.  There is no explanation for the how or why of heaven and, again, no real association between heaven and a religious tradition.

True Blood:

• These guys aren’t susceptible to religious objects, though they have plenty of other weaknesses so it’s okay.  They actually address that myth in canon, so.
• For the most part, the show’s main characters don’t fight vampires most of the time, they sort of just exist alongside them to varying effects.  Those who are clearly anti-vampire and act on it are people like Rene (Michael Raymond-James) in season one, people like Steve Newlin’s (Michael McMillian) Fellowship of the Sun in season two, people like Marnie (Fiona Shaw) and her witches in season four, people like the gang of anti-all supes who wear the Obama masks this season.  Steve Newlin definitely made it out to be a religious thing, a branch of Christian fundamentalism – I, at least, always took it to be a splinter group that didn’t reflect the beliefs of the entire religion, like how some real churches are more avid about not being all right with some things than other churches – that was devoted to values and to eradicating vampires because they were a slight against nature and God.  And Marnie’s whole thing was she just was really curious about necromancy and then whoops, possessed by the ghost of a lady who was killed by vampires in the Spanish Inquisition or something.  Which also has religious background, but Marnie herself was really more of a practicing Wiccan who just delved too hard into the bad stuff.
• This season’s foray into vampire religion is kind of the flip side to human Steve Newlin’s thing.  It’s religious fundamentalism, and they all say as much: the vampire Bible exists for all vampires, but most of them don’t really take it seriously, and the problem that’s occurring with the members of the Authority is coming from taking it too seriously.  Taking it literally, which is not so much a good idea, all things considered.  Though they do refer to it as the vampire Bible and it is steeped in a lot of the same language as the Christian Bible, the sanguinista movement is really more of a cult than anything; lots of cults are based in extreme interpretations of religious texts, and that just helps me say with certainty that no matter what you do or do not believe, it’s probably not fair to judge an entire group based on the actions of beliefs of the extreme few.  ‘Cause that’s generalizing and sometimes leads to bad.  This is not to say that the extreme few are not doing bad; often, as in the show, they are.  But the cool thing about True Blood is that the “good” characters at least seem a lot of the time to take things on a case-by-case basis, judging a small group or an individual; speciesism is reserved for the bad guys nine times of ten.
• The only of the vampire characters who come from a religiously influenced human background are Tara (Rutina Wesley), who really only has the fact that her crazy mom recently married a pastor going on there, so it’s at most the appearance of religious propriety and nothing more, and Jessica (Deborah Ann Woll).  I’ve mentioned this before: Jess’ family background, her too-religious parents and her abusive dad, her need to rebel leading to what seemed like an out if she looked at it the right way.  There’s not too terribly much to say here that I haven’t said already, but it does color the proceedings interestingly.  Presumably others of the characters had some baseline religion in their human lives, but not so much that it warrants mentioning.
• Despite the prevalence of ghosts hanging out on this mortal plane, the only discussions of heaven or hell that we really get are the terms being dropped in passing or maybe Sookie (Anna Paquin) speculating about her gran.  Good and bad could very well exist in other dimensions, but the only other dimension we ever deal with is the fairy world, which is also not heaven or hell.

Twilight:

• They’re not vulnerable to religious objects.
• Blah blah, I’ve heard speculation that the whole thing is a metaphor for Mormonism.  I don’t know if that’s true, I don’t know enough about Mormonism, so I won’t go into it. But that’s what the whisper is.

–your fangirl heroine.

Monster Monday :: I guess today I’m musing about werewolves.

This is not for any particular reason (I mean, I’ve been watching a few episodes of season 2-3 Buffy randomly lately, but that isn’t it).  I’m sure there are plenty of books and films and whatever that are about werewolves exclusively or only, but I realized today that I can only think of one.  Blood and Chocolate.  It’s based on a book that I haven’t read, and I don’t remember the movie too clearly, but I do remember that it just sort of made my friends and I giggle.

Why is this?  I actually don’t have an answer to the question, it’s not like I’m asking why rhetorically as a lead or something. I mean, werewolves aren’t necessarily the sexiest of supernatural creatures.  But werewolf mythologies seem a lot of times to be tacked on to what was already a vampire mythology, so I’ll just do my big 3 of analysis, because really, I need to talk about how creepy Stephenie Meyer’s werewolves are.  Actually True Blood werewolves are occasionally creepy too, but a lot of it (not all of it) is more the individual I guess.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer:

• Oz (Seth Green) is really the only werewolf we ever know, and that’s not till season two.  I’d think that Sunnydale would have to be home to some sort of wolfpack, being as it is home to basically everything else supernatural.  And there had to be at least one wolf in town in order to have bitten Oz’s cousin who then bit him.  But maybe that was a traveling wolf just wandering through town biting babies?
• DINGOES ATE MY BABY.   That is all.
• Since Oz is the only werewolf we know, and Veruca (Paige Moss) really the only other werewolf we see (there are apparently a couple on Angel, which is my summer project but I’m still just barely in season two, what have I been doing with my life), we get a pretty complete lone wolf mentality.  There aren’t really packs hanging around that we see; the Buffy wiki entry on werewolves does mention packs, and they are mentioned in passing on the show, but we don’t see them, really.
• Sometimes Buffy werewolves look adorable and silly, like people in yeti suits; sometimes they look like people in more serious yeti suits.
• As per the events of 4×06, “Wild at Heart,” and the surrounding, we get a pretty clear sense of Oz’s and the others’ moral stance on werewolfism (?) and what goes with it.  Oz has the others restrain him at the full moon until he goes off to learn to control it and change at will, Veruca thinks that’s dumb and wolfs out when it happens, regardless.
• Buffy werewolves are fascinating to me because everyone but the Initiative seems to see them as a shade of gray.  The Scoobies make exceptions because Angel has a soul, and Spike eventually has a chip and then a soul, but other than that, they aren’t really asking examining the life choices of individual vampires.  “The Scooby Gang and the Angel Investigations team argue that werewolves can’t be held accountable for their actions in lupine form. They do make an exception to this belief when it comes to werewolves that, knowing of their condition, do not seek any method of restraint, regarding these individuals as they would regard common vampires and demons, or at least a dangerous human,” says the Buffy wiki.  Yes, there aren’t really vampires or demons or anything who do try to keep from the killing, except the souled guys, but they have a conditional policy about werewolves.  Which is interesting.

True Blood:

• We don’t get werewolves until season three (or book three) here.  At first, we mostly know Alcide (Joe Manganiello), then we meet Russell’s (Denis O’Hare) crazy V-addict wolves and craycray Debbie (Brit Morgan).
• And Alcide, until season four, also seems to be a lone wolf.
• These guys have the magic of modern computer generated imagery on their side, so they look like real wolves.
• Packs are first presented in the light of the crazy V-addicts, so we don’t have the best first impression.  There is definitely a ceremony to belonging to a pack, and that is in and of itself fascinating; the True Blood world has a lot a lot of ceremony in it, a lot of structure that always seems to want to be broken.
• But the packs don’t actually seem that great.  I mean, there’s the having a pack aspect, having folks who know your secret (since weres aren’t out yet at this point) and who you can wolf out with, and that’s theoretically good.  But abjuring is kind of weird, and packmasters are a strange thing.
• Oh, okay, we’ll talk about this creepy factor for a moment: Martha Bozeman (Dale Dickey) wolfing out at the sight of her son Marcus’s (Dan Buran) corpse and then leading the rest of the pack in the ritual nomming, because apparently it’s expected to nom your dead packmaster.  Ick.
• Also, werepanthers aren’t werewolves, but at least in the television series, creepy.  No good comes from incestuous cult-families of poorly educated supernaturals who think it’s okay to kidnap people for sex.  No.  Werepanthers, at least the Hotshot ones, I’m just going to call bad on.

Twilight:

• Wrong bad no.  Having werewolfism be a part of the Native American tribe could actually be cool, and I’d be interested in seeing someone do something with that who wasn’t being creepy and gross.  But these guys… wrong bad no.
• I am still laughing about the fact that these guys routinely ripped their shirts off.
• And still cringing about the handling of Leah (Julia Jones).  Quotes from the Twilight wiki: “Seeing their daughter phase rather than their son, Seth, her father suffers a fatal heart attack.”Whoa potentially gross.  “She and Jacob have a deep conversation one day whilst hunting, mentioning how being frozen in time has stopped her menstruation cycle and may have disabled her ability to get pregnant. Jacob also remembers her breakdown when she first became a wolf, thinking herself as a freak, a “girly wolf”. Leah also wonders if she maybe isn’t as feminine as she thought she was, and wonders how imprinting would be for her. It is in this discussion that Leah mentions how she can relate to Rosalie’s protection of Bella and the idea of never having a child from her own body was upsetting.”  I mean, if Leah really wants to be a mommy, she could adopt, couldn’t she?  But apparently not physically birthing one would just be too much.  And honestly, if you want to have kids, that’s your business, whatever.  I just still find it frustrating that basically every female character in Twilight who is remotely significant except for Alice has to be written as defined by motherhood roles or a lack thereof.  Also: Dear Leah Clearwater, you can be as feminine as you damn well please and still be a wolf, being a wolf who may not birth a child physically doesn’t make you a bad woman, there are many ways to be a woman.
• And it’s weird to me that Leah is the first lady wolf at all.
• Aaand imprinting.  It’s like an arranged marriage and a biological imperative formed by entitlement and just… creepiness all around.  And really, I am still making faces (as I am sure most people are) over the notion of imprinting on a fetus.  Again, the wiki says it all: “Unlike her imprinter, the imprintee can choose whether she’ll accept him as her ‘soulmate’ or not. It is however implied that a rejection is highly unlikely, since it is said that it would be very hard to resist the levels of “commitment, compatibility and adoration”. It has also been noted that the imprintee feels incomplete without the wolf nearby.  /  But if she does choose someone else over the shape-shifter, he will be in deep emotional pain, though he will still respect her choice.”  Well, at least there’s that respect, theoretically.
• These guys are technically shifters and not werewolves, but they’re… basically wolves.  They might as well be wolves, the rules are close enough.
• Yet again, the mythology just… no.

–your fangirl heroine.

Fictional Friday :: 5 fictional genres that spark my interest fairly immediately

…and leave me either disappointed or really, really happy.

5. Vampire stuff.
This one is the least automatic of the list, because I don’t go ooh gimme for every vampire thing.  For example, I will probably never watch The Vampire Diaries (because really, I am a snob, but the CW… I was willing to make an exception for Sarah Michelle Gellar, and I still don’t even know if Ringer was worth it).  And yeah, Twilight was a mistake forever.  But obviously, Buffy and True Blood and things of that nature.  And I enjoy C-movies I see on Chiller or SyFy or at Blockbuster that are about vampires.  This is also on the list because it is a genre that sometimes I regret and a genre that I criticize the hell out of in certain cases.

4. The 1960s.  Is that even a genre?
No, really, is it?  I am a gigantic sucker for it, though.  I have been my whole life, though it used to be more hippie late 60s and now it’s more obvious Mad Men early/mid 60s.  But this one is so pervasive it extends to real life: apparently the Disneyland Hotel has been remodeled all mid-century modern, and we are planning on being in Disneyland later this year, and while we will not stay there as it is exorbitantly priced, welp, as they say.  Mid-century modern with a restaurant and bar to visit?  Suddenly I know what I’m packing and I know what we’re doing one night.  The 1960s were crap for a lot of social reasons, and I acknowledge that, but I crave the aesthetic value of the clothing and the architecture and the music and the cocktails and stuff often.

3. Apocalypses.
Which are totally a genre don’t even.  I mean, more often than not apocalypses leave me sorely disappointed; my favorite kind of apocalypse is the zombie kind, though my love for the genre does not only reach to zombie apocalypses.  I dunno.  I enjoy apocalypse stories because they are morbid and also because, particularly if they’re zombie-related, I feel comfortable analyzing them to death and feeling vaguely authoritative on the subject.  (And no, shouting “double tap” at the screen does not count as analyzing.  Helpful advice, sure, but really?  I am more concerned with group dynamic and weapon usage and stuff.)

2. Film noir.
Always weird; I mean, you have James Ellroy, whose works are novels (that then became films, yes) but it’s still the film noir genre.  Detective mysteries, 1940s-1950s, stylish and morbid and probably involving a lot of gun violence.  This one has come back to bite me often: good film noir is good, really good, and I love it.  Bad film noir is often bad.  Cheesy and cliche.  A lot of things proclaim themselves as “modern noir,” too, which is still an instant grab to me, but really a debatable thing.  For example, Brick, the high school noir with Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Nora Zehetner, is good and I really like it, but Passion Play, which had a very legitimate cast but was so forgettable I just had to look up its title, is not so good and I did not like it.  Also, film noir is a problematic genre in the way that the 1960s genre can be problematic, what with pesky things like misogyny everywhere.  Let’s talk about LA Confidential for a second, though: here you really only have one main female, Lynn Bracken, and she doesn’t run around shooting people and she gets beat up by men and she’s a whore, yes, but she doesn’t damsel, really.  She’s at least an interesting character in her own right.  I saw the trailer for the upcoming film Gangster Squad and went “ooh yay noir” but then immediately started to go “okay is Emma Stone’s character going to be legitimately interesting and well-written or just a spunky damsel?”  I really hope the former, because this is my biggest noir gripe.

1. Late 1800s period pieces.
Many of which are Westerns, yeah.  I am not a complete sucker for the entire Western genre; cowboys tend to bore me.  But I like lawmen and halfway-established towns full of ne’er-do-wells and saloon girls.  And aside from sloppy generic characterizations and sloppy generic sets and sloppy generic plots, which do happen, particularly in low-rent Western-types, the saloon girls are what I judge these hardest about.  This is 100% the fault of Deadwood, which taught me what saloon girls should be (and also how you write good female characters in Westerns).  Saloon girls should not look like they bought their clothes at Pete’s Party Plaza or whatever the hell the party supply store of your choosing may be.  They should not wear brightly colored satin with black lace and black fringe, accompanied by a black feather sticking out of their perfectly neat updo.  For that matter, a saloon girl’s dress should not look brand new or actually new at all.  There should be flaws.  And what is the saloon girl’s role in the plot?  Is she just there to hang on a man while he plays cards and drinks?  Maybe scream during the breakout of a gun battle?  Yeah, no, I will be rolling my eyes.  There should also be interesting women in the story who aren’t saloon girls, and I’m not just talking about extras.  There should be women with lines who aren’t saloon girls.  And at least some of the saloon girls should actually have lines themselves, probably.  Etcetera.

–your fangirl heroine.

Sundry Sunday :: my urban dictionary: triple trainwreck

Def.: when something is so bad that it’s gone from bad to good to bad again and yet you still can’t turn away.

Usage: A friend of mine was linked to the original Twilight fanfiction that became 50 Shades of Gray; reading sections aloud was a triple trainwreck in the worst way.

–your fangirl heroine.

Things in Print Thursday :: the magic of pop culture and philosophy

I’ve read… decidedly fewer fiction books in the last year or so than I have in years past.  This is due to both my frequent acquiring of graphic novels and comic books and the penchant I’ve developed for books that analyze the hell out of pop culture.  If it weren’t obvious, pop culture is in theory one of my favorite things ever; almost as favorite as analyzing is.  So now I’m looking at the list of the …and Philosophy book titles and discussing which ones I will eventually need to read.

I can’t find a solid list; the first I looked at was lacking some titles I knew I’d seen in real life before.  So instead?  I’m just going to look at the (admittedly incomplete) Amazon.com list.  Because it has a lot of the titles that I’d be interested in for various reasons.

• Alice and Wonderland and Philosophy: Curiouser and Curiouser.  I don’t know nearly enough about Alice.  I was way too young to really understand it when I read it, the Disney movie is silly, the Tim Burton movie is cool but just led me to Alice-as-a-vampire-Slayer thoughts.  But I’d be up for reading this someday, maybe.
• Twilight and Philosophy: Vampires, Vegetarians, and the Pursuit of Immortality.  Now, I hate Twilight, pretty openly.  But I’d love to see what people had to say about it academically.  Whether or not they could justify it.
• True Blood and Philosophy: We Wanna Think Bad Things With You.  SO much room for interesting!  Although, I have to note the publishing date: June 2010.  So, season three had just begun to air, and season four was still just a dream on the horizon.  That would change so much.  I’d love to see what a philosopher had to say, for example, about the King of Mississippi (Denis O’Hare).  But I’d still be interested to read this one.
• The Ultimate Harry Potter and Philosophy: Hogwarts for Muggles.  This should go without saying.  Even the questions it states as being asked on the back are thrilling questions, some that I have debated as recently as early Monday night/Tuesday morning.

Is it always wrong to use a love potion?Is death something to be feared . . . or “mastered”?

What can Severus Snape teach us about the possibility of redemption?

Is love the most powerful magic of all?

• Batman and Philosophy: The Dark Knight of the Soul.  I haven’t read a great deal of the Batman comic series.  (I do have The Killing Joke, but.)  I never watched the cartoons.  I’ve seen the older movies in bits and pieces.  But I love the newest movies, even if Christian Bale’s Batman is a little ridiculous and angsty and growly.  And I love the potential for philosophy that the world of Batman has as a whole.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Philosophy: Fear and Trembling in Sunnydale.  This one I’m almost done with reading (finally).  It’s also inspired me to hunt down a lot more academic Buffy analyses (and I have a Firefly one, too, and if I see a Dollhouse one… I analyze all the Whedon, as well you know).  I also have Mad Men and Philosophy, which isn’t on the Amazon list, but I’ve already finished reading it, so that’s that.  An interesting thing about the Buffy… and Philosophy collection is that it was published in March 2003.  Right in the middle of season seven, and season four of Angel.  The essays don’t go past the end of season six.  And season seven is ripe for philosophical analysis.  But they do analyze the bejeesus out of the season six dilemma.  So.
• The Undead and Philosophy: Chicken Soup for the Soulless.  A catch-all of zombies and vampires, apparently.  Otherwise known as: I’m in.
• Superheroes and Philosophy: Truth, Justice, and the Socratic Way.  Another catch-all.  And it’s another subject that interests me, despite my lack of actual knowledge.
• The Sopranos and Philosophy: I Kill Therefore I Am.  This interests me so damn much.  The Sopranos is one of those shows I would never have watched if I hadn’t been coerced, but I’m glad I was forced.  It’s fascinating.  And I’d love to see what thoughts academics have about it.
• James Bond and Philosophy: Questions Are Forever.  Like Twilight, I sort of hate James Bond (I could deal with Daniel Craig!Bond, because he was sort of the Batman of James Bonds; rather, I could deal with Casino Royale Bond), but I’d be fascinated to read the philosophical thoughts that people have about it.  I think my parents own this edition, so I’m sure I’ll get around to it eventually.
• Terminator and Philosophy: I’ll Be Back, Therefore I Am.  This would necessitate my finishing watching the original films (and presumably, finishing Sarah Connor Chronicles, which I know I need to do anyway, and I will, dammit) but I’m sure it would be interesting.  Questions of identity are my favorite.
• Monty Python and Philosophy: Nudge Nudge, Think Think!  I enjoy a good Monty Python sketch.  I don’t think I’d seek this book out, but if it stumbled into my lap I’d skim it, probably.  I’m sure there is a certain philosophy to the absurdism.  I just find myself more interested in the philosophy of dramatic things like vampires and robots, apparently.
• Seinfeld and Philosophy: A Book About Everything and Nothing.  I grew up with Seinfeld, but… see the above.  Not my most pressing questions.
• Quentin Tarantino and Philosophy: How to Philosophize With a Pair of Pliers and a Blowtorch.  Again, I was there before I even finished reading the subheading.  I want to read this book immediately.  Though, I must note that the publishing date is November 2007.  Death Proof had just been released a few months prior (though I doubt anyone would have analyzed it anyway; a shame, as I could go on about Grindhouse for days) and Inglourious Basterds was not to come for years.  So it’s an incomplete collection, but one I want regardless.
• South Park and Philosophy: You Know, I Learned Something Today.  See Seinfeld and Philosophy.  Again.
• X-Men and Philosophy: Astonishing Insight and Uncanny Argument in the Mutant X-Verse.  I feel like I’d have to read… well, any of the comics before giving this a try.  But this weekend reminded me just how gorram much I was attached to these movies.  (Not X3.  But.)  So I’d be down for it.
• The Office and Philosophy: Scenes from the Unexamined Life.  Once I finish watching The Office, maybe.  Not pressing, but.
• Watchmen and Philosophy: A Rorschach Test.  Oh, I’d be so so interested.

So, other than the obvious Whedonchoices, would I want to see others of these?  Hell, yeah.  Sin City and Philosophy is the first theoretical title that comes to mind.  Film Noir and Philosophy in general is one I’d be into.  Maybe Best Picture Nominees and Philosophy.  A lot of movies I’ve seen I could imagine one or two interesting essays about, but maybe not a whole book.  Game of Thrones and Philosophy.  Deadwood and Philosophy.  (Predictable?  What?)  I could eat this stuff up all over the place.

–your fangirl heroine.

Film Friday :: 2011 in film (5 opinions, 3 predictable favorites, 3 adorable [pairs of] people, 3 awesome cameos, 2 kickass people)

Opinions
5. Christina Hendricks’ talents were wasted in Drive.
I still… don’t really know how I felt about this movie.  Apparently, the processing process is still in effect.  But I do know that my baby could have been given a lot more to do.  She is so capable of so so much.

4. Ian McShane’s talents were wasted in Pirates.
I mean, he was the best thing in the movie, by a long shot, but they still didn’t know what to do with him and his awesome.  Yeah.

3. Elle Fanning > Dakota Fanning.
I’m sure Dakota is a sweet girl.  I just… I don’t know, she was the only young girl in movies for a while, so it was annoying.  Overexposure.  Elle just strikes me as more genuine and likable.  I legitimately enjoyed her turn in Super 8.

2. I’m still a cynical bitch about romantic comedies.
Even the ones that I can logically say that I liked more than the rest, I don’t feel compelled to ever see again.  Crazy, Stupid, Love.: it was cute, and until the end, it didn’t suck, but just… no.  Once was enough.

1. Haters of Sucker Punch to the left.
I mean, I get why people don’t groove on it.  Like I get why people don’t groove on Repo or something.  But… see, the thing is, I actually don’t think it’s just some fetishy fanboy wet dream.  Yes, they’re young women kicking people’s asses. Yes, they’re doing so in a lot of tight, short clothing.  No, Lisa Schwartzbaum of Entertainment Weekly, they are not “psycho sluts.”  In the first reality, yes, it’s a mental hospital.  But that doesn’t automatically mean psycho.  They don’t really go around killing people for fun, they’re just setting themselves free.  And save the deleted scene between the High Roller (Jon Hamm) and Babydoll (Emily Browning), you don’t see any of them actually partaking in sexual behavior except dancing and that time that Rocket (Jena Malone) almost gets raped and Amber (Jamie Chung) sitting on that guy’s lap.  So, uhm… sluts?  How?  It’s not bad to partake in sexual behavior, far from, but it’s not really cool to judge someone in that fashion, or judge a movie in that fashion.  It’s a chicks-kicking-ass movie, and it’s stylized, and it’s weird, and… yeah, I get why it’s not for everyone.  But I have developed a strange protectiveness over it.

Predictable favorites
3. Hugo
Gorramit, this movie was adorable.  I do tend to like love letters to filmmaking, and I love period pieces, and it was stylistic, and there was a steampunk robot and Chloe Moretz.  A recipe for win.

2. X-Men: First Class
I’ve always liked the franchise, completely innocent to knowledge of the comics but.  And I always like the 1960s.  And I usually like, you know, most of the cast.  So it was just going to be a recipe for win.  Everyone liked it, but I just have to say that yes, I liked it too.  Loved it.

1. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2
There was never any question about if I’d like this movie or not.  I mean, there are things I still wish were there, but… it made me cry.  Nothing makes me cry.  That’s magic in and of itself. 

Adorable (pairs of) people
3. Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Anna Kendrick (50/50)
Predictable, maybe (especially because I like both of them: Anna Kendrick is one of the only forgivable things about Twilight, Joseph Gord0n-Levitt is unquestionably endearing).  But true.

2. Amy Adams (The Muppets)
Again, true.

1. Kat Dennings (Thor)
Yeah, I get it.  Darcy was a brat, a little.  But she was just a damn precious brat.  With precious glasses.  And honestly, her reactions to all of the superhero stuff seemed silly because that’s not how a lot of people in movies act, but it’s how a lot of real people would probably act. 

Awesome cameos
3. Jon Hamm (Sucker Punch)
Because if you watch the deleted scene with the High Roller, it’s… kind of completely different than how it seemed in the theatrical release.  Baby’s just like… “oh okay, I guess I’ll have this intimate time with you now,” and it’s consensual, and it’s good.  It makes sense why the doctor then says that when he was lobotomizing her, it’s almost like she wanted him to do it.  And Jon Hamm is just… all kinds of good.

2. Jim Parsons (The Muppets)
Spoiler alert, finally.  I don’t think there could have been a better humanized nerdy Muppet man than Jim Parsons.

1. Nathan Fillion (Super)
Nathan Fillion anywhere would have been brilliant, but Nathan Fillion in a terrible wig and a cheap-ass super-suit?  In what just may have been the most effed-up movie of the year?  Priceless.

Kickass people
2. Matthew Lewis (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2)
Neville my darling.  My badass darling.  Coming into his own, being so heroic and amazing.

1. Hayley Atwell (Captain America)
Peggy Carter my darling.  Being so efficient, so adorable, kicking ass and taking names and everything.  She is perfection.

So yeah.  Brief synopses and one giant, giant, 24% of the overall post word-wise tl;dr.

–your fangirl heroine.

Fictional Friday :: 5 women I’d love to invent an alternate canon for

5. Alice Cullen (Ashley Greene, Twilight)
I’ll admit to enjoying Alice.  I think that’s just because I’ve had alt-canon for Alice since I made myself sit down and read Twilight back when, so much so that when my cousins asked me Team Edward or Team Jacob, I had a long-winded explanation that I called Team Jasper for their innocent minds but was really Team Jasper and Alice Befriend Spike And Dru And Have Wacky Morbid Adventures.  That’s the life I want for Alice.  I mean, I love her, because she’s the only one not mired in a compulsion to marry and procreate, and because she’s got that whole wacky seer thing going for her, but I’d want more for her.  (Maybe I also like Alice ’cause Ashley Greene models for Stop Staring!  That could be part of it.)

4. Emma Pillsbury (Jayma Mays, Glee)
In part because she gets, you know, three-or-less minutes of screen time per episode and that’s a shame, and in part because she really hasn’t gotten to do much this season but have crappy parents and be Will’s lady friend.  I mean, I’m happy that so far they’re letting her be Will’s lady friend consistently and not trying to fudge it up with some stupid plot diversion, but.  I think the only time I really like Will any more is when he’s with Emma, and even then sometimes I feel like he needs to just think before acting.  He’s gotten better, I’ll allow.  But still.  I want a world where Emma gets to actually say more than a line or two per episode and not a line or two that’s directly encouraging or discouraging the actions of another character.  I want those adorable cardigans-tea-and-neurosis parties with Bennett Halverson that I mentioned way back when.  Or cardigans-tea-and-neurosis parties with anyone.  I just want more people around Emma who really like Emma and understand Emma, I guess.

3. Tina Cohen-Chang (Jenna Ushkowitz, Glee)
Really, I had a hard time with narrowing it down to two Glee women, because I think that Quinn, Santana, and Brittany probably also deserve a world that’s better for them, but I love Tina and Emma the most sincerely, which we already know, so I’m sticking with them.  I don’t know what I want for Tina, but I want something.  I want her to get to be the star of her own life, with her awesome style; apparently, she’s really morbid (she’s claimed that she is) but we never really get to hear it because we rarely get to hear her say anything more significant than “yeah, that’s right!” or a synonym for that.  I want her to get to live in a world where someone doesn’t make reference to her Asianness every day.

2. Knives Chau (Ellen Wong, Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World)
I think Knives is adorable, I really do.  Maybe she and Tina could go be stop-talking-about-my-Asianness buddies in some super-alt-canon.  I also think that Knives would be way less crazy if she had a different life situation than she does: if her first boyfriend wasn’t quite so, you know, Scott-ish, I think she’d be less apt to go craycray on him.  And she’s a total badass, I want her to get to go be a badass somewhere.  She deserves that chance.  And she somewhat gets to be awesomer by the end of the comics, but there just wasn’t the time in the film continuity, and I understand.  So film!Knives, I want to magick up an alt-canon for.

1. Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner, Game of Thrones)
I don’t know what fate has in store for her in the books — I’m still finishing the first one.  But Sansa, I’ve always wanted to have a completely different life.  I feel like all of the hate that she gets is because of her reactions to situations in her life, and her not knowing how the hell to handle them.  And I think that if she had a different life, she’d learn how better to handle them, and there would be different situations altogether.  I mean, she’s betrothed to the d-bag whose mother had her father killed, and society is consumed with getting her to be proper and ladylike, no wonder she can act like a twit.  She doesn’t know better.  Let’s take her to a completely different world, like, I don’t know, Hogwarts (Founders’ Era, to keep it period, or modern, to completely AU the hell out of it) or something else with magic and let that shape her instead.  Yeah.

–your fangirl heroine.

Monster Monday :: vampire procreational and familial tactics and desires

Again, canon-sorted; again, elaborating a lot on points made here.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer:

• Darla (Julie Benz) sired Angel (David Boreanaz) because it was fun and that was kind of just what she did.  Lure and bite young, pretty men.  Not all of them got turned, but they were all part of the game.
• Angel sired Drusilla (Juliet Landau) because, again, it was a fun game.

“She was… an obsession of mine. She was pure, and sweet and chaste.“

• Drusilla sired Spike (James Marsters) because it was fun, because she was enchanted by his cute poet thing, and because she was a little lonely traveling the world with her grandmummy and her daddy.
• The Whirlwind really only formed a “family structure” because Dru was crazy.  Because she was crazy, she acknowledged the technical family lineage of their foursome: Darla was her grandmother, Angel was her father, Spike was her “boy.”  They continued to be a family structure until Angel broke them up.  Because Darla and Angel were the parents just stayin’ together for the kids or something, the kids (really just Dru) being the only ones who actually held to familial concepts.
• Angel and Darla eventually have a son, Connor (Vincent Kartheiser), thanks to… uhm.  Some weird miracle birth since Darla and Angel were vampires, and I don’t feel licensed to discuss it since it happens on Angel where I haven’t seen yet.
• Angel did at one point express to Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar) that being with him would mean that she could never have a “normal life,” including children.
• Buffy vampires seem to sire people because it seems fun at the time.  Procreating to maintain the species doesn’t seem to be a priority.

True Blood:

• Godric (Allan Hyde) sired Eric (Alexander Skarsgard) because he was impressed with his prowess in the Viking wars and wanted to save him from his wounds.
• Eric sired Pam (Kristin Bauer van Straten) because it seemed like a way to… take her from her tiresome human life?
• Lorena (Mariana Klaveno) sired Bill (Stephen Moyer) because she was too impressed by his moral character to just nom him.
• Bill sired Jessica (Deborah Ann Woll) because he was forced to in order to make up for killing another vampire.
• There aren’t many “families” in their vampire world; Eric and Pam are close, Bill and Jessica have a definite father-daughter thing going.
• Bill did at one point express to Sookie (Anna Paquin) that being with him would mean that she would never have a “normal life,” including children.
• True Blood vampires seem to either sire people because they legitimately appreciate something about them or because they have to, to maintain the species.

Twilight:

• Carlisle (Peter Facinelli) sired Edward (Robert Pattinson) because he was dying of influenza.
• Carlisle sired Esme (Elizabeth Reaser) because she’d tried to kill herself after losing her baby.  She later became his wife and the adoptive mother of his vampire children.
• Alice (Ashley Greene) was sired because it would save her from being sired and tortured by James (Cam Gigandet).
• Jasper (Jackson Rathbone) was sired because Maria (Catalina Sandina Moreno) was a crazy bitch.  He later found true love with Alice.
• Carlisle sired Rosalie (Nikki Reed) because she was beaten by her fiancee.  She was forever bitter because she could never actually birth a child.
• Emmett (Kellan Lutz) was sired by Rosalie because he was dying from a bear attack.  He later became her husband.
• Edward sired Bella (Kristen Stewart) because she was dying from birthing her half-vampire baby.  They were already parents, and already married; he would only consider turning her once they were married.
• All of the Cullens maintain a very strong family structure.  Carlisle and Esme are the “parents,” despite the fact that Esme is younger in vampire years than Edward and Jasper both; the others continue to be children even though they have been semi-alive for almost a century.  Esme is fulfilled because she is a mother.  Bella is fulfilled because she is a mother.  Rosalie can never be fulfilled, because she can never be a mother (because though she sired Emmett, they boink, so that would be too much to think about in the land of Twilight).  Alice is too awesome to care about all that.
• Twilight vampires seem to sire people because they are already dying or in danger.  Either that, or because of a blood-and-sex lust that is later repented from.

In short… it’s more fun when you sire someone because it’s a game or just something you feel like doing.  It’s lame when it’s done out of pity every single time.

–your fangirl heroine.

Monster Monday :: what vampires’ mythologies say about their canon

I mean, what a vampire’s weakness is does tell you just what the creators of said canon decided to do, but I think it also says something about the characters.  About how high-stakes the scenario will be, about the emotional vulnerability of the characters, about those surrounding them.

As always, I draw on three major examples for vampire canon, Buffy and True Blood and Twilight.  Because two are really awesome, and one… well, isn’t.  And can therefore help me make my points.  (That and I’ve seen Anne Rice things and Dracula and whatnot, but I’m not particularly familiar with them, so I don’t want to accidentally mess up.)

So I’ll canon-sort at first, as is my nature.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer:

• They can appear as normal people when they’re not, as is said, “vamped out.”  This state is defined by fangs (most prominently the usual eyeteeth, but the rest of their teeth do take on a sharp, animalistic shape as well), by a forehead commonly described by others as “bumpy” (ridges, protrusions, furrowed brows), and by the yellowing of the eyes.
• They’re weakened by crosses (they won’t entirely keep them away, but they will hold them back, depending) and holy water.  (In fact, in the case of the comic “The Origin,” blessing a large body of water and then making the vamps go swimming will do the killing job quite nicely.)
• They’re vulnerable to sunlight; direct sunlight will kill them close to instantly, while indirect sunlight will be a problem, but less of one.  (This is variable, as sunlight sometimes causes fairly immediate burns and sometimes Spike can go for a wander in the shade or wearing a funny hat and a blanket [6x03, "After Life," 6x08, "Tabula Rasa"].)
• They are also susceptible to control by certain forces (the First Evil, season 7) and to scientific tampering (the Initiative, season 4).
• They sleep during the day, in a shaded indoor space (often a crypt or abandoned building).
• They are not visible in mirrors, but can… sometimes be seen in film, sometimes not.
• They can be killed by sunlight or holy water, by being staked through the heart (anything wood, including sticks and pencils, can do the trick) or by being decapitated.  Bullets or arrows in other parts of the body will hurt, but they’ll probably get over it.  When they are killed, they turn to dust and evaporate.
• There would seem to be a bond between the vampire who bites and turns and the one bit or turned; here, the older vampire is known as a “sire” and the process is “siring.”  The second vampire has no official title, but I’ve heard the term “childe” used online, so I’ll be pretentious and adopt it for convenience’s sake.  A sire and their childe are not automatically linked (7×07, “Conversations With Dead People,” 7×08, “Sleeper,” wherein Spike [James Marsters] has bitten and sired several vampires, but has no memory of it nor control over them) but are often joined emotionally, usually in a sexual fashion (Darla [Julie Benz] & Angel [David Boreanaz], Angel & Drusilla [Juliet Landau], Drusilla & Spike).  The Whirlwind, as they are called, are actually somewhat unusual even in their own canon, though this is mostly Dru’s doing, bless her heart; it’s not often that vampires consider their sires and their sires’ sires in a familial fashion, but she’s all Daddy and Grandmummy and [her] darling boy, regardless of the sexual escapades between “family members.”
• They’re strong (Dru is my favorite example for everything, but really, a woman of her build should not be able to lift and carry a man of Spike’s build for more than a few seconds, yet she can) and relatively fast, and they do heal at an accelerated rate (Spike and Dru’s various season two feeblenesses are the longest it seems to take these vampires to heal, while Angel can recover from a poisoning thanks to some Slayer blood and be able to carry Buffy [Sarah Michelle Gellar] to the hospital like that).
• Some, but not all, vampires have extra abilities.  Again Drusilla is the notable one, but her prescience, known in the Whedonverse as being a Seer, dated back to her human life.  It’s never stated whether her gift of thrall, which is basically hypnotism, also goes back that far, or was something she developed as a vampire.  But even still.
• When vamping out they’re not pretty, they’re primal.  They’re largely not apologetic for their vampiric nature, unless they’re Angel, who only seems to vamp out when soulless or pissed the hell off.  Even souled Spike is still pretty “okay, I’m a vampire, I did some bad things, but I can now attempt to help without being a sodding ponce in the process,” but he vamps out a lot.  I will again point out Dru, who we don’t see vamping out too terribly much, actually.  We don’t see her killing that often, but she does definitely inflict some pain.  At least of what we see, torture and mayhem is more her style; she’s even neat about killing Kendra (Bianca Lawson), just putting her in thrall and slitting her throat.  (Of course, in the comic “All’s Fair,” we see olde-timey Dru and Spike partaking in a lot more mayhem.  But even then she’s more in it for the kill than the noms.)
• They’re vulnerable in a lot of ways.  But they sort of have to be; it needs to be a high risk scenario.  When you’re rooting for the vampires (or at least Angel and Spike do at varying points work with the Scoobies) they should be at just as much risk (different risks, but hey) as the humans.  And hey, in the Whedonverse everyone’s at risk always.  It makes perfect sense.

True Blood:

• They can appear as normal people when they’re not in vampire mode.  When they are, the only real differentiation is the fangs, simply extended eyeteeth.  They often save their growliest facial expressions for this time, but that’s because they tend to extend their fangs whenever they’re angry or threatened.
• They are not affected by holy objects.  At all.
• They’re vulnerable to sunlight.  Very.  As evidenced by the repeated mentions of vampire murders/suicides via “meeting the sun.”
• They’re also vulnerable to necromancy.  (Season 4.)  Necromancy can make them do things they wouldn’t ordinarily do, put them in a state that the characters have referred to as being both “zombies” and “robots” (neither is entirely accurate, my geeky self points out, but they’re close enough) and even erase their memories, like with Eric (Alexander Skarsgard).
• They sleep during the day, underground and either in coffins or “cubbies.”  Cubbies is, it would seem, rather loosely defined; it can be a basement-like space, an underground bunker, some combination thereof — as long as it’s underground.  These vamps actually refer to it as “going to ground” when they go to their sleeping places, and when they don’t get enough rest, they get “the bleeds.”
• When, as mentioned, they are tired, they bleed from the facial orifices.  They also cry blood.
• They are visible in mirrors and on film.  A good thing given the season 4 PR campaigns.  A bad thing given Russell Edgington (Denis O’Hare).
• They are weakened by silver.  Unusual, as this is more typically associated with werewolves, but when weakening one of these vamps, they are often “silvered,” or held down with silver chains.
• They can be killed by sunlight, by staking or shooting through the heart (either by wood or by silver; as in the case of Sophie-Anne [Evan Rachel Wood], wooden bullets with a silver core) or by decapitation.  When they are killed, they turn into a big bloody pile of guts and grossness.
• There is a definite bond between maker (akin to a sire) and progeny (akin to a childe).  They often travel together for many years, if not forever until the progeny decides to vamp up and be a maker, and the maker can summon the progeny telepathically.  They can also sense when the other is in danger.
• Actually, True Blood vamps can sense whenever someone who has had their blood is in danger.  This can mean humans who have taken their blood from the source, for healing or for sexual gratification.  (If the blood is sold independently of its owner and used as a drug, the vampire will not have a sense of whose it is, but when it’s drunk “on tap,” so to speak, they will.)  The person who has had the blood will also know these things.  It’s what is referred to as a “blood bond.”
• They’re very, very strong and very, very fast.  And occasionally (as in the case, again, of Sophie-Anne, seen in 3×12, “Evil is Going On,” and again in the flashbacks in 4×02, “You Smell Like Dinner,” and also with Russell) they can fly?
• All True Blood vamps have the ability to glamour.  This is not unlike Dru’s gift of thrall, but universal to the entire species.  If you look into the eyes of a vamp intending to glamour you, you’ll be drawn in, period.  They can then change your memory or erase parts of it altogether; not unlike being human remote wipe devices.  (I will never tire of saying that about things.)
• They are not susceptible to being read by human (well, fairy) mind-readers.
• Even when vamped out, they’re fairly sexual creatures.  Their fangs are the only real difference, but they’re not really polite eaters.  All of them have been seen with blood all over their bodies at least once, and this is usually associated with the kill, but some do find it sexually appealing.  Dream!Jason (Ryan Kwanten) expressed his interest in dream!Jessica’s (Deborah Ann Woll) being all bloody, for example.
• Being in the public eye has led to their being objectified in several ways.  Some (usually religious, like the Fellowship of the Sun) groups despise them.  Some want to use their blood as a drug (called V for short).  Some want to have sex with them all the time (these people are called fangbangers; they’re often, but not always, interested in V too).  They’re very sexually attractive to people and sexually voracious, so they enjoy this last perk.  The first two not so much, for obvious reasons.  Unless they’re selling V for a profit like Sophie-Anne and Eric were.
• They’re not always vulnerable in the traditional ways, but they’re vulnerable enough to be high-risk.  They do get magically better after they have some blood and a little time has passed if it’s not a fatal injury, but it’s still a subject of tension.

Twilight:

• They can appear as normal people pretty much always.  The ones that survive off of human blood have permanently red eyes and the ones that survive off of animal blood have “topaz” eyes, and they’re pale, and their teeth are sharpish but normal looking, but that’s it.
• Their vulnerability to holy objects isn’t really ever a deal.
• In the sunlight their skin sparkles.
• They don’t sleep.  Ever.
• They aren’t visible in mirrors or on film.
• They can only really be killed by decapitation or being set on fire.  Wooden stakes are irrelevant.  Sunlight, as mentioned, makes them sparkle.
• The maker/sire to progeny/childe bond is… occasionally relevant.  I say occasionally because the Cullens are notably “different” than other vampires in their world for having a family structure, and the family structure is pretty nonliteral (technically, Esme was sired by Carlisle, making her his childe, yet she’s his… wife?  And the mother to the other children, not all of whom are his by rights?)
• They’re strong and fast and deus ex machina-y.
• Some of them have special abilities.  Alice can see the future (like Dru, her gift predated her vampirism).  Edward can read minds (but not Bella’s).  Jasper has empathic gifts (sensing moods, altering them somewhat – usually used to calm people the hell down).  Bella… has a stupid deus ex machina-y ability that’s stupid.  Baby Renesmee, the half-vampire, can communicate telepathically by touching people.  What even.
• Oh yeah, and these vampires can impregnate human women with their long-dead sperm.  Again, what even.
• They’re just… not that vulnerable.  And what they consider “weaknesses,” like the sparkling thing, are just so freaking lame and inconsequential compared to, I don’t know, burning alive/undead.  It’s never that tense, because you know they’ll probably be all right.  In part because they have only a few weaknesses, in part because Stephenie Meyer doesn’t have the guts to kill off major characters.

–your fangirl heroine.