Jane Austen Wrote 'Northanger Abby' in 1798

It is an immense tragedy that, during the course of the last century, the fantasy figure of the Vampire has been transformed from a potent myth into an effete Anime character who enjoys a little light S&M every other Thursday. There has been an irreversibly sad decline from Undead to Uninteresting. Indeed, why bother thrusting a stake through the heart of the modern Dracula, when one may merely kick sand in his face and watch him cry.
But, of course, the greatest problem facing Fantasy today is that, by and large, its exponents have no imagination. Forced to scavenge whatever is easily reproducible from the consensus slag heap of popular culture, 21st century Fantasy subsists in an old and depressing petri-dish of cross-eyed bacteria feeding off Special Edition DVD vocabulary and Internet Identikit costumes: in other words, Star Dreck.
Observe the uninspiring and insipid collection of sterile, stereotyped vampires, werewolves and assorted nerds that congregate on the banal Second Life site, recent subject of a gushing "how-to" article in Wired magazine "Third-rate Life" would be a more appropriate name. It is like a Zoo for losers. It is not surprising that such conventional washouts don't have any real friends. It is astonishing that such sad-sacks always claim to be expressing their individuality when they are quite evidently all the same.
Restore those fiery, art deco rocket ships to real man Flash Gordon. Bring back the evocative Nosferatu of silent cinema; proper Draculi don't wear glasses and listen to indie pop music.

Comments

[Carter]

I still wouldn't play it, but that game would be better if one could be a Sandsend Blob instead of some limp wristed vampire.

[Mortimer Shy]

I wonder if you have read "Nightmare Abbey" by Thomas Love Peacock, a stylish satire of gothic novels, written in 1818.

[stephenesque]

C - Yes. Cryptozoology is a bridge too far for the Online Game people.
"It certainly was not a badger or a deer as it was too big, fat and round." .... Weird creatures to use for a comparison.

M - No. I think it is one of those novels that I see in Fall/Winter time and think it would be a good read but never get around to it.

[wordplayer06]

Wouldn't the plural be Draculae? :)