I'll admit, I've always had a fascination with vampires, quite possibly ever since I saw that probably horrible movie about a kid turned into a vampire or something when I was, like, ten. Vampires are cool, like bow ties. Well, vampires done properly are cool, anyway. So, really, it's no surprise that they would make an appearance in my novel, and by 'make an appearance,' I mean, 'have one of their individuals being a main character.'
It's not uncommon to have a vampire in the cast. I don't often see them grouped together with faeries, elves, and trolls (among other things) but I'm sure it's happened before, because they're everywhere. It's like American culture, at least, has some kind of creepy vampire fetish. Actually, it's not just like, I'm pretty sure that a creepy fetish is exactly what it is. Thanks, Bram Stoker; you may not have been the original source of 'sexy' vampires, but you certainly contributed to them.
So, lets posit that vampires really do exist, for a second, and that they're living in plain sight and we just don't know about them. Now, assume they, as a whole, decide that it's a-okay for us, the humans, to know about them, so a few thousand vampires across the nation come out of the vampirism closet. How would we, as a nation, react?
To start with, I can tell you right away that there will be more people who will hate the vampires for being, well, vampires, than there will be people who are willing to accept them for it. Your neighbor Steve? Yeah, he's a great guy, with a good job, and he takes care of his family, volunteers around the community, and regularly attends mass at St. Jude's United Methodist Catholic Church of Episcopalianism and Jesus and the Latter Day Saints*. All in all, he's probably a much, much better person than you'll ever be. Oh, and he's a vampire. Suddenly, Steve isn't getting voted Mr. Springfield every year, he's getting hazed until he's forced to uproot his family and leave, and that's if we don't try to kill him first. It wouldn't matter if they were the fucking pope, we would hate them. Why? Because they are an abomination unto Nuggan. Because drinking blood is unnatural, despite the fact that it's natural for them.
Another thing I can tell you is that teenage girls would date vampires specifically to piss their dads off, every time. And those that aren't trying to rebel against their father would be genuinely and naively attracted to dangerous and forbidden act of sleeping with someone who's probably at least a century older than you and thinks of you as boxed wine. There'd also be a number who would fit into the vampire-hating category described above. That goes for teenaged boys as well, only I'm guessing they'd make a game of trying to nail the hottest piece of centuries-old ass. Hey, these women have had several centuries to perfect their technique, and they're not all saggy or fake like Stacy's mom.
But let's say we, as a race, move beyond our initial— Who am I kidding? Homosexuality, in all likelihood, has been around as long as we have. Atheists have existed as long as theism has (not everyone believes the first person to come along and say, "Dude, I didn't sleep with Mary, I swear. It must have been some giant invisible man from the sky."). After all this time, we're still bickering over morality like vultures fighting over that possum you ran over last week.
Okay, so maybe we do something completely uncharacteristic and respond with vampires by holding out our hands in welcome (like we did with the aliens.. oh, wait). Frankly, such a peace would be tenuous at best. As Lucas puts it in my novel, "[It] only
works out for [them] until some asshat from the eighteenth century gets it in his
head to take advantage of some naïve thirteen-year-old. Trust me, it will happen." So, if there's anything you learned today, let it be that vampires shouldn't come into the open, because the last thing I need is to have Vampire marriage rights propaganda shoved down my throat. Oh god, Worse yet Human/Vampire marriage propaganda. Because nothing says, "I don't want to live in this world anymore," like a pamphlet detailing why vampires and humans should be getting it on.
*If I haven't offended you with that statement, kindly add your religion to Steve's church in your mind, so that it can be equally insulting to all.
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