So, I’ve been reading quite a few vampire/werewolf books recently –well, I did say I was retreating from Zombie World (that would make a cool theme park by the way – especially for Goths and Emos).
What I would like someone to explain to me is why all the men need to have long hair? I’m not talking slightly long or even shaggy, I’m talking past their shoulders long. Apparently, according to most of the books, they have it “tied neatly in a que” – as I had no idea what that was and I kept thinking of a bus queue, which made no sense at all, I checked on the internet. It appears it’s a ponytail; a ponytail on a man.....yes, I paused when I read that too. Are they follically challenged? Because I have seen many older men over the years with a receding hairline at the front, sporting a long ponytail at the back. Guys, really, length of hair at the rear does not make up for no hair at the front - trust me.
So you have all these guys, usually in tight leather trousers and....well, I won’t put the name the book uses for the boots they wear, but they’re heavy duty biker boots (sounds like hit kicker but has an S in front of the H); coupled with tight sleeveless t-shirts or really tight clingy ones with cap sleeves and always expensive designer labels (always in black; everything – from their wear everywhere sunglasses right down to their silk boxers.) Apparently there’s no such thing as a poor vampire these days - they all live in huge mansions with manic security, top designer cars and motorbikes; coupled with a secretive life that I am sure in the real world would have MI5 and the CIA on their tail before you could say "uh-oh".
Anyway, if not that outfit then the other one that is almost uniform is tight jeans with heavy boots (work boot lace ups, not the hitkickers) and a silk shirt – that’s the worst one. In one novel, set in the present day, the vampires even wore breeches, riding type boots and capes....I mean, really – capes?
The women usually have very long hair (of course) that goes past their “nipped in waist and large shapely breasts”; in other words they’re model slim and as “ethereally beautiful” as the men are “ruggedly handsome” (but with girly length hair). The men are usually anywhere between six and a half feet at shortest to nearly eight feet at tallest; the women are usually around six foot to 6’1”; so completely unnoticeable by the rest of us then, at least according to the books.
The female vampires/werewolves always wear skirts, dresses and float around in a feminine haze of demure, chaste and obedient womanly virtue – but with an insatiable appetite for sex with their men (just as well, as their supernatural partners appear to be sex addicts who, if not killing a bad guy, are.....well, you get the picture). Even if starting as a normal human woman with an independent spirit and a liking for jeans/trousers, short hair and their own mind, they end up wearing the dress/hair combo and happily putting up with being told they’re there to “hold the heart and soul of their mate” and doing whatever their told.
Now I’m sorry, but if these species of the supernatural want to keep themselves a secret – which they all seem to – then why in the hell do they dress like they’re wearing a uniform, gather in menacing groups and glower (even when they’re just getting together for a party) and do it where it’s immediately obvious there’s something strange about them?
I mean if a group, or even a few people, turned up in my village where they all had long hair/ponytail (can I just say Oh.My.God to the male ponytail for any man over the age of twenty?), behaving strangely and all wearing the same style of clothes I would wonder whether they were a cult at the very least. Especially if the women demurely did what they were told even to growing their hair long and wearing dresses because their males tell them “it pleases me to see you dress so feminine; all women did so in my time as a young male”.
Sorry, but my reply to that would be “hey this is the twenty-first century chum, not the first or even the zero; understand women are not chattel anymore and I don’t care about “holding your heart and soul safely” – they’re your heart and soul, your problem, you hold them. I can wield a sword/bow/gun/knife as good as you and I'm not hiding, quivering in the corner because you say so."
I would also be asking these men (and their females) how they’ve escaped detection for so long? Forget the sparklies from Twilight; at least they dress differently and act (mostly) different. They can even blend in at high school; where being different means going to (high school) hell, and they do their relative best to stay under the human radar, so I have no beef with them at all.
No, these current books take suspending your disbelief to ridiculous lengths; I’m meant to believe that these sex addicted males that clomp around after dark in the meanest biker outfits in the world, in cars and on motorbikes that make most hells angels look like little teddy bears on a picnic just blend right in. Taking in their immense height alone and you’d have to wonder how they wouldn’t raise suspicions from the locals? I know I’d be one of the nosey ones; definitely.
Then add these uber feminine women who can fight vampiric/werewolf bad guys (dependent on species in story) yet who’d rather float around in long dresses and skirts (because the men like them covered up, with no make up too) and who also tower over the rest of us and are model thing and supermodel beautiful....oh and who are also nymphomaniacs with their partners, but otherwise can't get sexually aroused with anyone else, and all the non supernatural people still just look the other way. Honestly?
Mind you, of course the women have to be really tall as the men are freakishly big and muscular so to have a normal height/built woman would look daft. Having one with her own personality (rather than a Stepford Wife one) would be nice, but obviously I’m out of mind with that idea too.
To snag yourself a hunky immortal you have to become a doormat; and you can’t be short or dumpy because then you’d be letting the sexy vamp man down, as he seems to only find his “one true love/mate” amongst ultra beautiful women. God help me, and people complain that Bella Swan is a wimp in the Twilight novels; listen, she’s Boudicca compared to the women I’ve been reading about recently. They don’t appear to have a backbone to call their own, or at the least if they have one they give it away to their vampire lover – along with any self respect it seems.
So I assume these stories are set on another earth where the non vampiric/werewolf population are all blind or in some way at least have a blind spot when it comes to these supernatural folk; meaning they just don’t seem to think these super tall, super fast, super sighted/hearing individuals who talk all medieval/ancient olde worlde speak; who treat their women like they’re chattel (much loved chattel, but still...) are in any way different to the rest of us.
After I sat down to read the eighth, count them eight, book I have in this genre and found the main ‘hero’ had hair past his shoulders -again, “smouldering blue/chocolate brown/green (pick correct colour) eyes” - again, and a physique to drool over and was dressed like the meanest hells angel in the universe - again, and yet every normal didn’t bat an eyelid - again; I had to really think about abandoning it and returning to my zombie world.
At least there the zombies are zombies, they all try to eat the normals and the normals all try to kill the zombies. It’s a simple, uncomplicated world and I feel happy there. Vampires and werewolves are getting too ‘True Blood’ for me in books these days with the sex, blood and violence (or going all Bram Stoker with the capes and hissing; I kid you not, I swear). As I’ve said before, too much sex and blood get me feeling nauseous; then figure in my having to suspend my disbelief for so long and it makes me a lot discombobulated.
But then again maybe it’s just me; I can understand the sparkly ones and their furry friends – stay out of the sun so you don’t twinkle at the normals, don’t turn normals into more vampires (so the werewolf boys aren’t made to change), cut your hair (YAH!) and they get their HEA (Happily Ever After) ™. Of course you might have to put up with a freakish human/vampire baby bursting out of you, but it’s a small price to pay for the ultimate HEA™.
As for the rest of them, they’re just giving me a migraine; oh for the old days when vampires ate people, werewolves ate vampires and humans hunted them both. Simple stories, but so much better than the convoluted mumbo jumbo of today’s offerings of biker bad boys with long ponytails and beards, who just glower with angst and the need for the love of a feisty good woman......who they turn immediately into a simpering idiot.
I’m Simi, thanks for reading......
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