I got another bit of commentary I'd like to respond to.

"Blood doesn't feed up physiological hunger nor thirst, it's about spirit." It means sanguine vampyres don't need to drink blood to live, it just means they drink blood just to fulfill a mental desire.

From the wikipedia article for "vampire lifestyle". This is NOT A VAMPIRE

Let me stop you there. If you're talking about the people who are part of the vampire subculture, then you're probably reading the wrong blog.

Vampyres aren't monsters. You are assuming that all vampyres kill to drink blood, even though that is not true. They can feed by drawing little blood in a persons body, they don't need to kill in order to feed.Even if they did kill, what makes you think that you have the right to kill them? I don't see you shooting lions every time they kill prey. 

People hunt dangerous animals all the time. And if you think that killing people is somehow not something that should be punishable, then you have a twisted morality.

That being said, when people who are a part of the 'vampire subculture' kill people, they go to jail. When real vampires kill people, I hunt them.

Who's the bad guy? You are.

Alright. Let me stop you there again. I am overwhelmed by the responses I get: some are supportive and curious, some are skeptical...But on the whole a lot of responses I get are like this.  So let me go off on a tangent here. Just a small one.

I have described the creatures I hunt as monsters. Killers. Creatures of evil. So my question, then, is why people seem to find it necessary to defend them. to cite an example from humor columnist Gladstone, it would be like coming to the defense of a person described only as a 'rapist' and coming to the conclusion that they are not a rapist.

The vampires I hunt are not goths. They are not "just people like you and I" and they are certainly not "misunderstood". Go back to your twilight and goth subcultures. I don't hunt you. I hunt the real thing.

I received this delightful comment the other day on a recent post.

You know nothing. Crucifixes as items are useless unless held by someone who beliefs deeply. Blood doesn't feed up physiological hunger nor thirst, it's about spirit. There is no way you can find a vampire drinking blood in a public place.
If you think you've ever killed a vampire... I'm afraid that'd make you a murderer or at least unstable. I just wanted to tell you that it's pathetic and made me angry. Come and get me if you dare.

 I don't have any reason to disagree with this reader on the subject of crucifixes. I consider myself religious, at least to a point, but one of my lodge-mates is a Catholic priest whose only weapon is his faith. He is able to repel the creatures far better than I, which lends great credence to your statement about believing deeply.

Blood is about spirit? I don't even know what that means. I've mentioned in a previous post the idea that blood drinking may be linked to cutaneous porphyria. Blood is very symbolic, though, though I don't know if that's relevant. But you're right on another point: vampires don't feed publicly, though they do occasionally use public spaces (alleys, dark streets, wooded paths) to feed. Vampires seem to scout out good feeding locations far in advance, and I have also noticed that I have never witnessed two vampires hunting in the same general area which would suggest some form of territory marking.

Lastly, I have killed vampires before and I don't really consider myself a murderer when I consider the number of lives I may have saved from exsanguination.

If you're an actual vampire, then I applaud your attempts to twist the morality of the situation. No, the creatures who kill people aren't the monsters! It's the people who KILL the people who kill people that are the monsters. If you're not an actual vampire, then the same applies except that you're also probably a member of PeTA.

But seriously. Don't forget who the actual badguys are.

-Tao

Here's a question from 6the1circle6, another mod from the monstrous.com forums.

In your blog you knock the new "sexy" and "kind-at-heart" literary Vampire, but also claim that relatively new beliefs about Vampires, such as the effectiveness of sunlight and Christian holy items are true...Please explain and reconcile these seeming contradictions.

Vampires are more active at night. That much is a simple fact. I have never seen a vampire out in the day, but that doesn't necessarily mean they get hurt by the sun. There could be vampires walking around in the daylight every day and I suppose you'd probably never know. Generally, though, Rule 10 is to never let your guard down until the sun comes up.

As for the effectiveness of crucifixes, that dates back to the middle ages and I wouldn't bring it up if I hadn't seen the effectiveness of it myself. There's really two explanations here:

First is the metaphysical and religious one, which is best phrased by S.T. Joshi in his book Encyclopedia of the Vampire, that the Christian Church purported that "Just as a vampire takes a sinner's very spirit into itself by drinking his blood, so also can a righteous Christian by drinking Christ's blood take the divine spirit into himself."

The second, more scientific explanation, is that the vampires' reaction is psychological: vampires' reaction to holy items is simply the product of conditioning through vampire fiction; in other words, vampires expect religious items and holy water to have an effect on them, so they flee.

I'm not going to try and figure out which one of these is the correct one. Crucifixes work and I'm happy to just accept that.

-Tao