“An original idea. That can't be too
hard. The library must be full of them.”
― Stephen Fry
Lately it seems like all my best ideas
have been plagiarized by the great writers and producers who have the means to
publish and even televise my ideas much faster than I can, thus taking all the
credit and leaving me to look like a copy-cat schmuck. If only I could write
faster, publish sooner. If my book had come out three or four months earlier, I would’ve got the stinking credit. *Le
Sigh* But I digress. This blog isn’t (entirely) about that.
It’s about vampires having babies.
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| The Twi-family |
Edward Cullen gets a lot of beef for
being a vegetarian vampire and falling in love with a teenage human girl even
though he is absolutely, positively NOT the first vampire in history (contemporary
or ancient) to do so. In fact, I just recently wrote a guest post on The Pen Muse blog talking about that. But the other night as I was watching Angel
season 3 on Netflix (as I’ve been doing for many nights now before bed), I
learned about something else Edward wrongly receives credit for: Being the first vampire to produce offspring.
You see, Angel and Darla (two adult
vampires from the early 2000s television series, Angel) had a human son named
Connor.
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| Angel and baby Connor |
My poor boyfriend, with his inexplicable
timing that never fails, called me just as my head was about to explode and was
forced to listen to my full rant that went something like (I’m paraphrasing here) “Why
the *bleep* does Meyer get all the credit for writing about a vegetarian
vampire who falls in love with a human and has a baby when literally nothing about that is original?”
Yes I know the poor woman gets ridiculed
for it, she wasn’t exactly handed an award or anything. But my thing is, if
so-called “real vampire fans” are
going to claim that vamps can’t have babies and don’t have sex with human
girls, and are going to ridicule this poor author for making her vamps “too
human”, they better get their facts straight first and don’t go blaming the
woman who merely barrowed someone else’s ideas (that’s like yelling at K-Mart
for making Uggs popular. They didn’t start that sh*t).
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| Let's not forget Selene, Eve, and Michael from Underworld:Awakening |
The
Dhampir
According to Balkan Gypsy folklore, some
vampires would return from the grave to have intercourse with their widow or
with a young woman of their choosing and it could sometimes lead to pregnancy.
The baby was called a dhampire. It was
usually male, but there is no rule against females also being born. The
dhampire was believed to have powers that allowed it to detect and destroy the
vampire father, which made the dhampire valuable in Gypsy society. Some
believed adult dhampires even went so far as to supplement their income by
hiring themselves out as vampire hunters. It is said that the powers of the
dhampir could be passed to a male offspring, and ultimately through a family
line.
Really, Meyer could have used this as
her excuse and probably have had a much easier time getting through the
biological explanation that backfired on her. (Men’s bodies don’t change? The
undead have left-over working sperm in their tescitles after a hundred years?)
I’m just saying, generally people are
a little more willing to suspend belief when the author has done their homework.
Meyer could have said Renesmee was a dhampir and saved herself a little bit of
grief.
But that’s beside the point. Meyer and
Whedon were not the first to give their vamp characters a bouncing bundle of
joy, so pipe down all you hard-core-pro-horror-90s-Tripp-pants-Cthulu-sucking-vampre
fans. This rant isn’t even about you anyway.
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The newest paranormal father-to-be, big bad Klaus
from CW's The Originals is expecting a wolf cub!
Er... vampire... hybrid... thing? |
|
I just have a mad case of baby fever
because in a few short months, I’m going to be an aunt for the first time in my
life (with no kiddos of my own yet) and I’m currently in a flux of puking pink
glitter (it’s a girl) and perspiring an excess amount of estrogen (really, my
sister’s glow is contagious right now).
Those of you who read Dark Liaison, don’t
you go running off and making assumptions about my sister and Ema Marx. As much
as my little sis would love and squeee all over the idea, the truth is,
Ema is not based on my pregnant sister. You see, in my mind, Ema’s been preggo
for…oh…about three or four years now.
Did I mention I write slow and publish even slower?
“Books
serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren't very new after
all.”
― Abraham
Lincoln
Now you get my dilemma.
Anyway, fangsters, I hope you’re having
as exciting a summer as I am, and if you have any good babysitting tips, throw
them my way. Also, I’ll take tips on how to sneak her out of the house for when
she gets a little older. ;-)
XOXO,
J.D. Brown
