thoughts on non twilight vampires??
Oooh I have a lot of thoughts!! So in general I feel like vampires work best as queer allegories (out of all the Classic Monsters I mean) because so much of their schtick in literature has been about being sort of outcast and either trying to fit in with humans and hating themselves or openly defying humanity and becoming hated fiends. BUT that also works well in a lot of other allegories (ie anyone that is hated publicly as soon as they're open about who they are) but because vampires are also historically really tied to sex and anti-christianity in the western world, I think they fit the queer allegory best (because a lot of queerphobia in all it's forms is tied with perceived sexual deviancy; transphobia, aphobia, homophobia are all very linked to this perception of sexual deviancy and "corruption"). (Side note: it's also why twilight vamps are so funny to me at times because they're like wildly desexualized in a G-d Honoring Way.)
Lately I also love the idea of vampires as an allegory for the 1% because they really are a devolution of humanity and can only exist through leeching off of humans so I think they make great Straight Up Villains (plus a huge part of me is like "you can't make murderers an allegory for an oppressed group because that implies that oppressed people have ever at any point done something to "justify" that oppression" but another part of me is like "but the whole point of monsters is that they represent how other people see these groups so there's a lot of room for acceptance arcs or like redemptive radical love via seeing the "worst" in someone and choosing to love them anyway" which is why I LOVE the creature from the black lagoon but wow holy hell what a ramble lolol, I digress).
Vampires aren't really my favorite monsters (they're the sexiest to me as a non-monster fucker but I like fucked up evil faeries and werewolves better) but I do love their versatility because there's so much allegorical potential there whether you want them to be the good guys or the baddies! My favorite vampire from anything is definitely Nadja from WWDITS, I am completely obsessed with her and adore her like even more than I love Victoria (which like, fair, Victoria spoke about 10 words total in the series proper so everything I like about her is just projection and my love of redheads lmfao). Thank you for asking! Sorry this got away from me lolol
