It’s around this time of the year that people are beginning to make plans for their NYE partying.

Me, I don’t plan to go to parties. I plan the parties themselves.

If anyone’s interested, I’m organising a masquerade / cosplay night entitled Solstone.

The theme is Artefacts & Enchantments, so the thinsg people are wearing alone should be interesting. I’m hoping with the provision of booze that what they’re no longer wearing later in the evening will be more so for many attendees.

I’m not going to give a full spiel about what it is here. You can go to the site for that. But I will say why I’m putting it on (with the funding of Manifest).

Last year, I went to Euchronia and I had a fucking awesome time… but then again, I’m pretty into that sort of scene, and that kind of music. I also remembered what it was like being a social malcontent that didn’t really fit in with any of the regular crowds, and having to go to house parties that actually really sucked for NYE, except that one year where I got to see Half Moon Bay actually entirely ablaze.

Euchronia’s not happening this year. So strike one for me. No plans. Sure, I could go to one of the clubs out there and listen to the same music I listen to month in, month out, with the same people, in the same clothes, drinking the same drinks… and it’ll just be more crowded and more expensive than my usual night out. That’s strike two.

Strike three would be deciding not to do anything and host a party at home… Been there, done that, had to clean up afterwards and hazily remembered that the lack of hair on my hands and arms was actually caused by me drunkenly setting myself on fire with Bacardi 151.

No strike three this year.

So I’m putting on the most awesome cosplay event ever to grace Australia. Nerd focused, as opposed to Goth, because it allows me to put on a wider variety of acts, have a wider variety of people, and play a wider variety of music (Dr. Steel, anyone?). I can also indulge my hobby of cocktailing by having a few sake and ramune based cocktails. When that stuff is glowing under the UV lights and freaky blue LEDs, you’ll be amazed that it doesn’t eat out your stomach lining and it manages to taste that good.

I hope you’ll think about joining me there.

P.S. Cosplayers are pretty much like goths. Just becaused they’re dressed in stuff that’d make a stripper blush doesn’t mean they’re actually into you, or anything you’re into… Except perhaps the particular thing they’re dressed as. Whilst this may be a chance for you to live out your Final Fantasy X, do consider some restraint.

Thanks to Buffy The Vampire Slayer, we are all well aware that the lamest and most awkward time in your life can be made substantially more awesome by adding in vampires… and a British guy that can sing.

But what happens if you suddenly take out all the cool and raunch of a show like Buffy, and instead added in all the lameness of a highschool drama? What if you crossed True Blood and Degrassi: The Next Generation?

You’d get The Vampire Diaries.

Much like Twilight and True Blood, these are based off a series of books from an author no one had ever heard of until recently, and all seemed to come out with remarkable speed. I guess the big push for vampires at the moment is the same as in the mid 90s. They’re the in thing again, and it needs to be squeezed into teenagers, so their cash is squeezed out, before they go back to some other form of disaffection with life and stop buying black clothes and silly hairstyles. On the bright side, I suppose this current craze could possibly see a revival in goth clubs… On the down side, they might insist on bringing the sound tracks to these shows with them, which in this case would include a fair bit of terrible terrible emo music. Yes, I hate My Chemical Romance in no small degree.

Back to the show!

The plot revolves around Elena, a girl who’s parents died the year previously, being sort of taken care of an aunt, whilst she takes care of her dope fiend brother. She’s having a hard time at school, as all high school drama protagonists do. It should be pointed out the Elena is played by Nina Dobrev, who is probably one of the better people for this role. Why? Because she’s been in other teen horror crap before, she was in Degrassi: The Next Generation, and hell, she even had a part as an extra in Repo the Genetic Opera… So yeah, I’ll give her, and the casting director, some credit in this. She’s also not a woeful actor, unlike many many teenagers.

Enter Stefan, one of the founders of their small town, who is now a vampire, and looks about as much a teenager as Luke Perry did as Dylan. He’s here to recapture his lost love from 150 years prior, because Elena, who is not only underage, but so much younger than him that it’s all kinds of wrong (Buffy was wrong too… Except for Willow. Her relationships were all kinds of right.), and his troublesome brother, Damon (nice and obvious name there).

Stefan’s a “good” vampire, because he doesn’t drink human blood. Suck it up, bucko. Literally. Male humans come with a convenient-for-vampires meat straw that they’re more than happy to have someone, anyone, suck on so that some kind of fluid is drained out. It’s what the female fandom are secretly wanting in the first place. Ladies out there, you know exactly what I’m talking about.

I’ll admit to only having seen two episodes, but the show irritates me on a number of levels, and I’m not talking about how much they tried to get a guy that looked like “Edward” to cash in on the Stephanie Meyer / Twilight craze.

The show is simply not that well constructed.

For a start, plot devices ripped straight out of every other vampire series out there. The sunlight going ring from Buffy, so Stefan doesn’t burn up. The “I’m a good vampire now” shtick from numerous sources. The “She reminds me of a lost love” from Anne Rice. The highschool setting from Poppy Z Brite. It’s like it’s every good idea stolen and rolled in together.

The pacing is terrible. Admittedly, this is partially the fault of poor source material, but a good team of writers or director know how to pad scenes so that they can give better over all pacing to a show. True Blood is a fantastic example of how tacky source material can be redone to make a much better paced show.

The special effects are just annoying. One prime example: The mist. Ok, we get it, vampires like mist. But mist rises from the ground, it doesn’t billow in from the sides, and certainly not in great rolling gusts. Maybe it’s mystical mist! No, I still don’t buy it. It shouldn’t be hugging the ground like a thick blanket, but rather be a solid wall. I drive through mist on a regular basis when interstate tripping. It’s scary shit when it looms like a wall, and I only ever see it hug the ground in valleys. Also, crows… Seriously?

The soundtrack to this show is woeful. The non-diegetic music simply does not suit the scenes that they’re paired with, and it really does sound like they’re simply trying to slot tracks in so that later down the road they can sell an MTV approved sound track.

I think I’m going to have to write another article on heart throb vampires that don’t fucking sparkle…

In the meantime, here’s a clip from Vampire Diary (not Diaries). It’s done on a budget of almsot nothing, seems to have no script, yet still manages to not be so lame… No wait, it does.

 

As we’re all entirely aware from anecdotal evidence, teenagers become a lot more easily obsessed with stuff than regular, normal human beings. They begin to behave oddly. They collect things about the object of their obsession. Like photos, news clippings, memorabilia, bits of my hair, faked items on eBay in the hopes that they’re real.

 

Those kinds of things.

What you may not have been aware of was that these teenagers, usually girls that like my hair, are also substantially more likely to turn violent than their adult counterparts.

Frankly, I can see where this becomes totally awesome though. 

As we all know, teenagers are impressionable, naive and easily manipulated. They also tend to hallucinate their own versions of reality which may or may not involve being raped in front of a live TV Studio audience*. So the upside comes in when you start directing their violent tendencies towards you into a more constructive pursuit, such as violent tendencies towards others. 

 

Go into business with a bevvy of martial artist, gun crazed, blood lusting, sexy teenagers for hire. You’ll have clients lining up. Just make sure you’re discreet about selling the girls out, because while the world loves sexy violence perpetrated by 15 year olds in skirts shorter than my briefs, apparently it’s not cool for those girls to actually be doing what 15 year olds have been doing naturally since time began.

 

If you’ve only got one stalker, this may not really be all that possible, unless they’re insanely good at the violence. But surely it can’t be all that hard to get multiple stalkers and slowly warp their minds. I have friends that seem to do it on nearly every interstate trip we take to one of the many and varied conventions we attend each year… And he wasn’t even goth until last year!
 

Admittedly, one of those stalkers did turn out to be a guy. 
But this is the 21st century, so that kind of thing is ok now.

 

*Least tasteful product plug EVER!

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