Better not look too closely at my .sig then…
This is an interesting thread.
For me–the fascination is with vampire -lore-. The facts and the legends that stem from them. Tengu earlier mentioned Elisabeth Bathory, the Countess who bathed in the blood of her servant girls, and I’ve also spent a good deal of time researching the history of Transylvania and Wallachia, where Vlad Tepes “The Impaler” Dracula was in power–and the vampire mythology in general.
The allure for me is in a 'hobby’ish sort of sense. It’s a fascination, but not an obcession. I suppose if I hung out with the right people, I’d be more tempted to dress in the gothic style, but for now–those no real want or need to. 
Then again–some people already say I look gothy, and, oddly enough, in a “vampiric” sort of way as they put it. No point in making it worse, I guess. 
-Ashley
Hey nobody mentioned the classic black and white silent movie Nosferatu. You just slap some Slayer or some Cradle Of Filth over it and it’s the greatest thing since sliced white bread.
The Vampire, Nosferatu, and other creatures exist in almost every culture. The aspects may change but the core is there. Life beyond death/drinking blood.
It will never go away, it will just move in cycles, right now Vampires are the trend, but most people only have a surface knowledge of Vampire folklore/legend. When they grow bored of it they will find something new to get there rocks off on.
Yeah. MEDIEVAL was what I meant.
Role playing is fun and interesting, just so long as one doesn’t forget the boundaries. A friend of mine is into the Renaissance Fairs, heavily. He loves them. He’s made his own outfit, forged his own battle hammer, shaved his skull, grew a big beard and attends every grouping he can find. When it’s over, he goes back to work as a manager in a window making plant.
I think there is an age when many ‘young folks’ are drawn to the mystery and excitement of ‘the dark side,’ like I mentioned in previous posts. I know I loved making those model kits, designing spooky things, reading up on vampires, monster legends, buying horrific comic books that depicted graphic, bloody scenes (Creepy was one. There was another was forced to tone down the graphics, it got so bloody). I even looked for an available human skull, real or plastic, to set on my desk, preferably to poke a candle on top of. (They were too costly then for my allowance.) I bought and saved cheap Halloween toys and decorations, read all sorts of horror stories and then investigated the only real slaughter I knew of: the Holocaust.
As awful as it may sound, the pictures of the mass, rotting bodies, ovens, instruments of death and things made of human skin both repelled and fascinated me. I think there is something about bloody death and gore which both attracts and repels humans. (That’s why so many gore sites on the web and rentable movies about real death.)
I grew out of it. I had sealing wax and seals, drew cartoons of mass manglement, read these ‘adult’ horror/science fiction/fantasy comics which came out in magazine form showing people and aliens/monsters getting horribly killed. (And big breasted woman who always wound up 90% nude.) 
However, I didn’t grow up as a twisted, demented killer, did not torture animals nor deliberately kill them for fun. (I did find squashed frogs on the road fascinating and studied many a dead animal that was road kill.) After a time, that grew repellent because of the stink and mess.
That’s another thing they don’t consider. Vampires hung around stinky places, had a tendency to leave rotting body parts around and had to sleep on their own grave dirt. On TV they don’t mention that dead bodies give off a stench, even ones interred for years. Dead bodies unburied, rot, become ‘slimy’ and can break apart when moved.
Real death is not pretty. I lean towards cremation instead of ground burial.
It’s all cool, so long as one knows where to draw the line.
I used to read all of the great works about the old days when Knights were bold and charged off to fight great battles and rescue fair maidens in distress. I read Knights of the Round Table, the Sword in the Stone, King Authure, Robin Hood and so on. I loved what I read. Me and my friends played games where we were Knights and so on.
Then, later, I read about how conditions actually were back then, how most people died at around 35, how royalty deliberately inbred to keep the line pure, how poor the way of life was and how aggressive most of the people in power tended to be. Most people had little education, if any and tended to achieve a maturity level just to a level of around their 20s, which was why they tended to kill each other off, go charging around looking for great battles and believed in magic. People got married around 14 to 16 years of age.
I studied castles, which fascinated me anyhow. (Always wanted one, but they’re a tad expensive and read damn hard to keep up.) Real castle accommodations were NOT what was shown in the movies. They tended to be real drafty and cold. Toilets were often holes in the floor that opened onto the moat far below, or to deep pits that the ‘peasants’ got to shovel out when they filled up. I love today, because so much information on such things was not easily available back then. TV producers tended not to produce the bad side of history (like John Kennedy Senior actually agreeing with Hitler and loosing his post as Ambassador over it). The Internet makes it even easier.
I mean, have fun, but remember if you go too far into Vampirism and Gothic, there’s a price to pay when you cross the line. That’s like the guy who started the church of Satan. He’s a nut, who liked attention and power, so to get it, he created the church as a lark, and the repercussions are still rolling in as many of his often whacked out followers kill people. Followers he did not even know he had.
Then the ever popular Manson family. At the beginning, it was cool, a small group of nuts and codependents, and then Manson carried it too far and they started to believe him. We all know what happened after that. They should have been content with a small commune, screwing each other at will and living in the desert.
I’ll have to look up the Gothic movement a bit more, having confused it with Vampires. Any websites?
Are you takling about Anton Levay? Skribbler–yer an intelligent guy, and yer posts in this thread have been fascinating–but have you actually researched the modern church of satan? It sounds like you’re making a generalization that involves ‘devil worshippers’, which are not the same thing. Put down that crack-pipe, and gather around ya’ll and listen to old Ash tell ya a story!
Modern satanism isn’t a whacked-out religion. Pre-Levay probably was, but the modern doctrine is actually a deity-less, Buddhism-like religion. The only satanists I know are actually pretty nice people. Here are a few big points to get across:
Satanism does -not- authorize any animal sacrifices whatsoever. Even Judaeo-Christian religions document animal sacrifices as part of their faith.
Satanism, the name itself, does not imply worship of Lucifer, the fallen angel. Satanism comes from the old Jewish word ‘Satan’–meaning ‘opposer’. Although it can be argued that Satanism has a double symbolic meaning in the sense that Lucifer was the first ‘opposer’, the church of Satan itself regards the worship of any deity as foolish.
The deal with the red horns and devils and things you see on the church of satan web page is propoganda stunt. (no such thing as ‘bad’ publicity). It’s a dog-and-pony song-and-dance routine.
There are some whacked-out people in the church of satan. But there have probably been far more whacked out people in our beloved Christian/Catholic/Jewish churches. Both in number, and in degree. Don’t forget that these churches have been responsible for some of the most bloody-handed moments in the history of the world.
-Ashley
Skribbler said:
Can’t…breathe…laughing…too…hard…
Hey, Anthracite, do ya have to be a girl to join the Unholy Lesbian Vampire Army of the Night?
the people who truly believe in vampires, claim to be them, or be married to them, and have whole websites explaining all about the virus that makes them, and about the other types of vampires who inherit it instead. And then some psi-vamps thrown in for fun…
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Rampart/1311/
I would pay good money to see this site debunked.
Hijack Alert
I’ve never, ever, ever seen a reliable source that actually believes that Lucifer in Isaiah is Satan. The most common interpretation is Nebuchadnezzar. At any rate, the text in which Lucifer is named is clearly prefaced by the phrase “Take this taunt to the King of Babylon”. In any event, the Old Testament lacks any references to fallen angels, be they Satan or anyone else. Actually, Satan as an independant being doesn’t exist as such in the Old Testament, but I digress at this point…
I’ll stop hijacking now, but this was enough of an error to trigger my spider senses.
Agreed… once we stop laughing… hehehe.
I once congratulated a young Catholic girl on her ritual cannabalism, and she flipped out… this was right after I told her that I want to be cremated, mixed with a good tea, and drunk deeply by my friends…
When I told her about “Transubstantiation” and stigmatas she stopped talking to me… refused to believe in any of it at all… ah well…