The vampire-to-immortal transition

So, today I wanted to ask a question in class, but I was less inclined to, because I knew it was a question that would be obvious to some of the students who are more experienced in this particular subject area. I knew that whatever the answer, if I was aware of the historical context, I would be satisfied and accept it. But I didn't want to ask it in class, because grad school has put The Great Fear Of Looking Intellectually Inferior into me where it really hasn't been for years (boo, I say) and so I went and asked the professor beforehand, which I had no embarrassment doing. And it was nicely cleared up for me.

And then I was validated by having it brought up in class and an Interesting Conversation ensuing.

Randomly, I've begun wondering just WHAT my criteria for locking posts was. I thought it was real-lifey identifying stuff, but apparently not, because then I'd lock anything that talked about my classes. I also wonder how paranoid I ought to be.

Anyway, now I'm going to talk about why I decided to keep some of my characters vampires and why I decided to make some of them merely (merely?) immortal, as caitirin mentioned we did.

( It takes me a while to remember how many vampires I even HAVE. )