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“So what did you do for fun?” Jessica asks conversationally, opening a bottle of white nail polish.
“Nora thinks work is fun,” Eric smirks. He leans back in his chair, casual as can be, and ducks Nora’s swat.
“I went to a fair amount of clubs and things,” Nora says. “I read, I watched some grown-up films.”
“What ones?” Jessica questions, fairly certain they won’t be ones she actually cares about.
“All sorts,” Nora shrugs. “It was policy for us to keep up with vampire fiction, so those especially.”
“Ah, yes,” Eric chuckles. “My sister, the top-level media critic.” To Jessica, he adds, “Overachiever she is, she headed almost every one of those inquisitions.”
“Huh,” Jessica says, and because she’s realized it’s sort of funny to watch Nora’s reactions to certain things, she can’t help but add, “So you read Twilight.”
As could have been predicted, Nora shudders, almost involuntarily, and Eric has to try not to make fun of her too terribly. “I think you just said a dirty word,” he observes.
“Aw, c’mon,” Jessica chides. “It’s not that awful.”
“It’s atrocious,” Nora exclaims. "It’s the bubblegum pop of vampire literature at best and an unwitting insult to vampires’ existences at worst. Exceptionally problematic.”
“Now, kära syster,” Eric begins. “Wasn’t the intention behind your reading to search for secrets that were being given away?”
“Oh, that wasn’t the issue,” Nora mutters. “Secrets are kept, so well that those creatures shouldn’t have been called vampires at all, the daywalking, cross-breeding twats.”
“Temper, temper,” Eric reprimands playfully, but she’s unashamed.
“Try telling me that you never had girls stumble into your bar, covered in so much glitter they looked ill,” Nora retorts. “Hoping they’d trip into marble arms and get whisked off into tastefully bloody domesticity?”
“Hey,” Jessica exclaims. “As someone who's been a patron and met plenty of them, too, I’m pretty sure I can say almost no-one’s reasons for goin’ there are righteous, body glitter or not.”
“At least tourists are just there to gaze,” Nora points out. “And fangbangers know what they’re getting into.” Absently, she reaches for the nail polish – it’s her way of playing nice, which she expects she’s soon to be reminded to do.
“Sort of,” Eric corrects. “The glitter girls are a special kind of naïve, though.”
“Exceptionally problematic,” Nora repeats. “And that’s another thing, it’s woefully gender-coded. Did you ever see glitter boys?”
“Not that I recall,” he shrugs.
“Precisely,” Nora exclaims. “This Meyer woman would have these young girls believe that the whole of vampire society was at least subconsciously as regressive as prototypical Victoriana, and would have them aspire to that.”
Jessica wrinkles her nose. “Ye-ah, maybe,” she concedes.
“And really, it’s the opposite of true,” Nora continues. “Certainly, there have been misogynist vampires, but there are also misandrist vampires, also vampires who don’t give a damn one way or the other. Gender roles aren't so rigid, and gendered submission isn't a cultural imperative amongst vampires, just a trait held by a few who got stupidly power-hungry or by some who found it important in their human lives too. Even the practice of claiming humans is often more complex than submission.”
“Is it ever,” Eric interjects wryly.
“Besides, human men can be claimed just as easy as women can,” Jessica adds, sounding almost melancholy for a moment.
“Precisely,” Nora nods.
“If anything,” Jessica declares, “bein’ a vampire’s helped me put more power in bein’ a woman, but I know at the same time that I’ve got power ‘cause I have it, not just ‘cause of bein’ a woman.”
Nora actually beams at that. “That’s the healthy outlook, as far as I’m concerned.” She sets the nail polish down, snuggles against Eric. “These girls that go looking for vampires seeking that old-fashioned dynamic, though, more often they end up still-human and abused by those who would take advantage, and that’s not a situation that plays out well for anyone. Too many messes to clean up, among other things.”
“Yikes,” Jessica mutters, pouting. “I’d never thought about that. I mean, I knew there were vampires that did that kinda thing, but –”
“It’s not all her fault,” Nora says. “To be fair, it’s been happening for all eternity. There have just been notable – outbreaks, let’s say, in recent years.”
“I’m surprised you never took care of her,” Eric murmurs, ruffling Nora’s hair.
“We considered it,” Nora admits. “Still, though, the damage was done. We couldn’t have predicted it at the start of things.”
“I’m thankful I’m largely ignorant to this phenomenon,” Eric says dryly.
“What about their vampire government?” Jessica asks. (She figures Nora will have plenty to say on this, and this is proving a funnier discussion even than she anticipated.)
“Please,” Nora groans. “That provided more trouble than it ought to have, sodding ignorant author. It wasn’t in danger of actually exposing us, but it still put the idea in people’s minds that vampire government was, without fail, like a cult.”
Eric and Jessica stare at her pointedly.
“…yes, well,” Nora mumbles. “I’ve no moral standing, I know that, but before everything, we weren’t cultish, simply political.”
“Oh, of course,” Eric says; both he and Jessica are rolling their eyes skeptically, but they know better than to continue on the subject.
“What it comes down to,” Nora concludes, “is that while vampire society is flawed, and I know that, associating it with that mess of questionable grammar and ideas is still an insult, and one that’s caused much more harm than good.”
“Fair enough,” Jessica shrugs, just mildly bewildered. “Did you ever watch any of Buffy? I used to sneak it at sleepovers with friends sometimes, it was pretty okay.”
To Jessica’s surprise, Nora just nods. “It was,” she agrees. “It certainly fabricated parts of its mythology, but that worked in our favor in a way. Given the fact that their vampires were almost wholly feral, having an organized group of fighters in the show suited its purposes, I suppose.”
“Did that one give you guys any trouble?” Jessica asks.
“Not particularly,” Nora says. “There were fans of the show’s individual vampires, of course, but given the nature of the stories you didn’t have nearly so many naïve pretty young things trying to sign up.” Her smile returns, growing almost wickedly playful. “I rather liked that dark Slayer of theirs, too. She was – something.”
Jessica takes a moment to recall and figure out the appeal. (She’s fairly certain that she’s the only girl vampire she really knows who’s probably not bisexual, and considering she didn’t even know what “bisexual” meant until she was fourteen, that’s – well, she's used to it on the one hand, but she's still processing it on the other.) “I sorta liked the werewolf,” she offers instead.
“Oh, and their librarian,” Nora exclaims, eyes shining.
“Somehow,” Eric interrupts, chuckling even as he rolls his eyes, “I don’t have a clue what you two are talking about, and I’m still not surprised by any of this.”
Nora bats at him gently, making a face. “Anyhow,” she says, “it wasn’t perfect, nothing is, but it was considerably less of an issue and certainly better entertainment, even if we did come off rather grotesque and unadvanced.”
Jessica smiles gamely, nodding along, and Eric suggests, “Now you just need to get her going about Anne Rice.”