Animated Avatars

[Zummi]

And all these because of animated avatars aren't permitted anymore.

[Celtic Minstrel]

Originally Posted By: Dikiyoba

So how can sexualized vampires (Dracula, 1897) and contagious zombies (Night of the Living Dead, 1968) be "too pop cultural" while necromantic zombies (Dungeons and Dragons, mid-1970's) are a-okay?

I think it's because vampires have a larger myth presence, whereas zombies, despite the idea coming from voodoo, are really more of a pop-cultural concept. (After all, the voodoo type aren't decaying corpses, right?)

Originally Posted By: Dikiyoba

Also, you get Dikiyoba's gender wrong whenever you use gendered pronouns. Use any gender-neutral set or avoid them entirely.

What about mixing male and female pronouns?

[Slawbug]

Originally Posted By: Celtic Minstrel

Originally Posted By: Dikiyoba

So how can sexualized vampires (Dracula, 1897) and contagious zombies (Night of the Living Dead, 1968) be "too pop cultural" while necromantic zombies (Dungeons and Dragons, mid-1970's) are a-okay?

I think it's because vampires have a larger myth presence, whereas zombies, despite the idea coming from voodoo, are really more of a pop-cultural concept. (After all, the voodoo type aren't decaying corpses, right?)

This is an interesting question. First, did the necromantic style zombies appear before D&D, say in fantasy literature? I have to guess that they did, given that D&D appears to have taken all of its monsters from other sources with the exception of the beholder and some outer planes races. I don't know, though. Either way they obviously derive from colonial era voodoo zombies (via early 20th century popular lit), which is not terribly different from sexualized vampires deriving from colonial era Eastern European-ish myths (via late 19th century popular lit).

The contagious zombies definitely have fewer mythological roots -- indeed, as seen in the original book form of _I Am Legend_, they seem to be a hybrid of traditional zombies and vampires, albeit retaining more zombie characteristics.

The parallel distinction for vampires that hasn't been specifically mentioned, and which I think leads some here to lump vampires in with the less mythological contagious zombies, is the teenagification of vampires, or as somebody said "sparkly vampires." Dracula was humanoid, romantic, dramatic, etc., but he was not a whiny emo boy and he did not attend high school. Modern vampires on film have slowly slid in this direction -- this is visible if you look at the drift from the Buffy TV show (mid 90's, heavy on the mythological side but with pop culture injected for humor) to Twilight (late 00's, heavy on the teen angst/romance side but with mythology injected for teenage rebellion cred).

Really, though, I would just call this mythological development. The difference between a necrozombie and a contagious zombie is at least as great as the difference between -- say -- ghasts, ghosts, ghouls, wights, and wraiths, etc., which are all just different flavours of the same basic creature with mildly differing abilities.

[Alorael at Large]

Originally Posted By: Celtic Minstrel

Originally Posted By: Dantius

Actually, Diki's absolutlycorrect onthis one. In Dracula, the definite subtext of the whole "drinking blood" and the behavior of Dracula is the fact that he's a sexual degenerate.

No she's not; while pop culture may be like this, the origina vampire myths aren't really like this.

So how far back does something have to go to be mythology? The Vampyre also has the vampire as a sexual degenerate. The idea came from somewhere. It's not present in all vampire myths, certainly, but it's doubtful that it suddenly appeared in that one novel.

Originally Posted By: Alorael

Vampires can be just about anything and not lose the right to the term.

Except that they must suck blood, right?
Not always, although that falls into the territory of vampires who make me wish the creator hadn't used the term. But now there are also psychic vampires who feed on "life force" and Pratchett's black ribboners who do not drink... blood (humorously). So yes, vampires really can be anything. They should probably have at least a few recognizably vampiric traits, but not all are necessary.

Originally Posted By: Dikiyoba

Zombies are rotting and decaying bodies. Vampires, at worst, look only recently dead and don't decay.

True, vampires have more of a mummified appearance.Usually true now, especially in the age of Buffy and Twilight, but vampires have been and sometimes are depicted as grotesques or as grotesquely decayed.

Originally Posted By: Slarty

And there's the fantasy gaming paragenre, where zombies still tend to be related to necromancers and/or evil deities. Zombies and skeletons (aka lesser undead) have to be one of the most common fantasy game enemy type tropes -- second in line, I'd guess, after goblin-types.

This is my kind of zombie.
Lovecraft probably created the pseudoscientific zombie, but wizards and evil priests and cultists creating zombies are perhaps original to D&D. No, wait, the original voodoo was a religion, so the tie to some kind of spirituality is from the original zombies.

—Alorael, who must warn everyone that the real threat is not vampire-zombies but, well, said better elsewhere.

[Celtic Minstrel]

Originally Posted By: Slarty

ghasts, ghosts, ghouls, wights, and wraiths, etc., which are all just different flavours of the same basic creature with mildly differing abilities.

Wait, ghasts and wights are incorporeal? At least in Exile, they don't look that way... (Though, ghouls don't look incorporeal in Exile either.)

Originally Posted By: Alorael

Originally Posted By: Celtic Minstrel

Originally Posted By: Alorael

Vampires can be just about anything and not lose the right to the term.

Except that they must suck blood, right?

Not always, although that falls into the territory of vampires who make me wish the creator hadn't used the term. But now there are also psychic vampires who feed on "life force" and Pratchett's black ribboners who do not drink... blood (humorously). So yes, vampires really can be anything. They should probably have at least a few recognizably vampiric traits, but not all are necessary.

Oh, right, psychic vampires. Still, they all feed on something that we'd rather not lose.

Originally Posted By: Alorael

Originally Posted By: Celtic Minstrel

Originally Posted By: Slarty

And there's the fantasy gaming paragenre, where zombies still tend to be related to necromancers and/or evil deities. Zombies and skeletons (aka lesser undead) have to be one of the most common fantasy game enemy type tropes -- second in line, I'd guess, after goblin-types.

This is my kind of zombie.

Lovecraft probably created the pseudoscientific zombie, but wizards and evil priests and cultists creating zombies are perhaps original to D&D. No, wait, the original voodoo was a religion, so the tie to some kind of spirituality is from the original zombies.

Actually, come to think of it, necromantic zombies are a lot more like voodoo zombies...

[Sudanna]

Okay, looky here.

 

There is no doubt that vampires have a sexual subtext.

-There is an exchange of bodily fluids. Obvious.

-While they may not be restricted to the night, they are deeply associated with it, or at least darkness. Obvious, again.

-They are either dark, sultry, mysterious pop-culturey vampires, or ravening animalistic beasts. Maybe there's some overlap. If you can't see the overtones there, then you have problems.

-They're usually men, who prey on women. Not a rule, but that's the norm. What is most porn, now?

-They're repelled by religious symbols. Obvious. . .

-In almost EVERY description of the act of feeding, it's described more or less like a rape. As in, the same general feelings or relationship between the two.

 

There are probably others, but I can't remember them and have to go somewhere. This has been a reminder of why it is a good idea to keep sex-obsessed, hormone-ridden adolescents around.

[cfgauss]

Originally Posted By: You know that person who...?

The Vampyre also has the vampire as a sexual degenerate. The idea came from somewhere. It's not present in all vampire myths, certainly, but it's doubtful that it suddenly appeared in that one novel.

It most likely came from the same place the ideas of vampires came from. Remember, the original idea was similar to succubi, etc, that some creature is taking advantage of you at night. The theory is that sleep paralysis is responsible for these kinds of dreams, and the dreams associated with this tend to be sexually oriented due to the areas of the brain active during that stage of sleep (and the, err, increased sensitivities of those areas).

[Dantius]

I hold this and the undead thread to be an excellent example of convergent evolution. It's reached the point where a post could be transferred from this thread to the other and still make perfect sense in context.

[Goldengirl]

Originally Posted By: Dantius

I hold this and the undead thread to be an excellent example of convergent evolution. It's reached the point where a post could be transferred from this thread to the other and still make perfect sense in context.

The fact that the undead thread just recently split off from this one in that respect surely has nothing whatsoever to do with that fact, of course.

It would be rather confusing if posts from that thread were transplanted here, though. Hraithes and wights, huh?

[Alorael at Large]

What? No, they're divergent evolution. The undead appeared in this thread first, and then you created another one. It didn't suck all the undeath out of this thread, it just multiplied the zombification.

 

—Alorael, who now hypothesizes that the inanity of the internet is not fixed. The more threads there are, the more inanity there is at a proportional rate. But what is the proportion? Is it linear? Is there a decay in inanity per thread, or even an increase? Are there asymptotes?

[Dantius]

Originally Posted By: You know that person who...?

—Alorael, who now hypothesizes that the inanity of the internet is not fixed. The more threads there are, the more inanity there is at a proportional rate. But what is the proportion? Is it linear? Is there a decay in inanity per thread, or even an increase? Are there asymptotes?

Inanity can be represented by a bell curve. Actually the graph of the integral of a bell curve would be a better fit. So in any given thread, you have long periods of no deviation from the topic, then a short, sharp increase in deviation, and then a long period where there is no relation to the original topic. And your asymptotes would be a y=0 (no inanty in the thread) and y=1 (one of Slarty's project threads). As for the total inanity, I couldn't guess at that. Ah well.

[cfgauss]

I believe it's proportional to the log of the number of threads. (Bonus physicses to anyone who gets the reference who's initials aren't SoT.)

[Niemand]

S \propto log W?

[cfgauss]

Yes! But holy crap, I did not know Boltzmann had such wide shoulders!

[Enraged Slith]

I didn't know Boltzmann was made of stone.

[Celtic Minstrel]

Originally Posted By: Dreaming Under Elderberries

There is no doubt that vampires have a sexual subtext.
-There is an exchange of bodily fluids. Obvious.
-While they may not be restricted to the night, they are deeply associated with it, or at least darkness. Obvious, again.
-They are either dark, sultry, mysterious pop-culturey vampires, or ravening animalistic beasts. Maybe there's some overlap. If you can't see the overtones there, then you have problems.
-They're usually men, who prey on women. Not a rule, but that's the norm. What is most porn, now?
-They're repelled by religious symbols. Obvious. . .
-In almost EVERY description of the act of feeding, it's described more or less like a rape. As in, the same general feelings or relationship between the two.

None of these implicate anything sexual, except maybe for the men preying on women one; and I'm sure plenty of vampires would be female, even if the male ones seem to be written about more, so that doesn't, so it's not really a valid argument. As for the rape one, you seem to be saying it in a way that generalizes the concept of rape to more than just the normal sexual connotation, so again, it doesn't work.


I won't deny that one could see sexual subtexts in some of those. But it's not an inherent property of them; it's something that some people tack on.

[inni]

actually i think that some vampires preyed on sex instead of blood.

[cfgauss]

Originally Posted By: Celtic Minstrel

I won't deny that one could see sexual subtexts in some of those. But it's not an inherent property of them; it's something that some people tack on.

So you're telling me that Booberella isn't inherently sexy?

[Sudanna]

Originally Posted By: Celtic Minstrel

Originally Posted By: Dreaming Under Elderberries

There is no doubt that vampires have a sexual subtext.
-There is an exchange of bodily fluids. Obvious.
-While they may not be restricted to the night, they are deeply associated with it, or at least darkness. Obvious, again.
-They are either dark, sultry, mysterious pop-culturey vampires, or ravening animalistic beasts. Maybe there's some overlap. If you can't see the overtones there, then you have problems.
-They're usually men, who prey on women. Not a rule, but that's the norm. What is most porn, now?
-They're repelled by religious symbols. Obvious. . .
-In almost EVERY description of the act of feeding, it's described more or less like a rape. As in, the same general feelings or relationship between the two.

None of these implicate anything sexual, except maybe for the men preying on women one; and I'm sure plenty of vampires would be female, even if the male ones seem to be written about more, so that doesn't, so it's not really a valid argument. As for the rape one, you seem to be saying it in a way that generalizes the concept of rape to more than just the normal sexual connotation, so again, it doesn't work.


I won't deny that one could see sexual subtexts in some of those. But it's not an inherent property of them; it's something that some people tack on.

No, all of those could also describe sex. Some might need tweaking, but that's just the way I worded it the first time around.

Look, just go to the wiki for vampires and do a Find search for "sex".

[Ephesos]

Hm... I think this has drifted enough. An interesting subject, no doubt, but we're done here.