Vampire Fail

[ladyruby07]

In my opinion, vampires fail harder.

Mostly due to the ongoing emasculation of them in literature.

Comments

[pelespen]

I just can't get into vampires in romance fiction. It does nothing for me, and that's saying much, considering I've never really been into werewolves, either. It's just - dude, have we forgotten that you're screwing a dead guy, there? Werewolves might be puppies, too, but they at least have a pulse. The way that modern fiction tries to get around the dead aspect of vampires might be what turns me off so much. All of the above and then some. At least Anne Rice tried to make the creepy monstrous aspect of vampire the lure, instead of stripping them completely of that, you know? I mean, Louis aside... *snorfle*

[darkmanifest]

This is exactly how I feel. Okay, fine, if your vampires are the living sort with a pulse and everything. But if it has no body heat or blood pressure, you are basically humping a raw Perdue chicken from the grocery store. It may be a talking raw Perdue chicken, but it's still dead meat. You can't have an actual corpse and shaggable sexiness at the same time without making me ask some hard questions about how he gets it up and how long you've had your necrophilia.

[celestineangel]

Now I want to see someone write a book about a teenager girl who gets with a vampire because she's a necrophiliac and it beats the unresponsive corpses at the morgue.

...

Did I just type that? Yes I did.

[polarisdib]

But I would read this!

It may be sick and twisted, but it's original and fun. It has a sense of humor, it takes risks, it's not a friggin' wish fulfillment fantasy for kohl-eyed teens.

--PolarisDiB

[vauvakolibri]

Though I agree with lots of these points and prefer teh ebil vampyre, I don't think you really can say how something is supposed be written.
Like "2) Daylight will burn them to a crisp."
Since when? True, that's a staple of the classic Hollywood vampire but that's what it still is, generic Hollywood vampire.
Surprisingly little of the actual lore supports that, and kinda few of the older vampire books support that.

And though I know you are mostly raging against the current woobie-vampire trend (which I dislike too, yes), vampires aren't supposed to be written as generic Hammer horror Hollywood vampires either. They don't need to crave only blood, they don't need to be animalistic or have generic weaknesses or even be wicked beasts of night to be vampires.

As for werewolves? In here the real werewolf mythos goes pretty much "people get cursed to look like normal wolves, and real wolves beat and kill them if the werewolves get too close, and since these people suck at being wolves they die in the forest from hunger, the end"Are these

[nykeyoung]

Yeah, I believe Dracula was just powerless in the sun.

Messing with the mythos is where the fun comes in. I mean, in my current project, Vampires don't only lose their powers in the sun, but their cunning, seductive wit goes out the window, too. In the project, if you told a vampire in the sun that you were not here, but over there at that bus stop, the vampire would look back and forth between you and the bus stop confused for the better part of a minute.

[vauvakolibri]

If I remember right, the same was with Lord Ruthven, or at least I don't remember the book mentioning any elaborate ways for him to avoid being out during the day. And for some of the vampires in myths, it was like "well shucks, it's morning and I gotta go back" or that they transformed vampiric only during the night.

Ha ha, I'd totally read a book with that version of a vampire, it'd probably make a good RP enemy to have fun with too :D
The vampires in my writings come in two flavours, the novice vampires basically drop in a dead coma during the day and will slowly die in sun so they have to hide early and well enough, but the older vampires can stay awake/wake up during the day which makes them much harder to kill.

[ari_griffin]

OT-
Is that a Mina & The Count icon I see? I loved that cartoon.

[ceilidh_ann]

I don't mind different interpretations of vampire lore (although I draw the line at sparkling) but I think what we've been seeing in recent times, especially in teen fiction, is the vampire metaphor being used as a more romantic thing than anything else. Vampires have always been about death and sex but now they're about eternal love and that's fine if it's written well but it's used so lazily nowadays. There wasa a fantastic NPR segment on how vampires change their meanings with the times but I can't find it anymore.

[darkmanifest]

While I do like my vampires to be monstrous, and not emo-machines with funny teeth, I don't like cardboard monster vampires who have no trace of humanity or human motivation left. I've read those, and they are amazingly dull. We've got a million and one fodder monsters already. What makes the vampire so frightening is that they were still people, still drawn to their loved ones and sometimes able to hide among us, but with a monstrous need that they may not want. Therein lies the conflict. It can written well, or written stupidly, but when avoided entirely, what's the point?

I do agree they need weaknesses normal people can use against them. It's no fun when the only one who can kill a vampire is another vampire.

[l_o_lostshadows]

Personally, I like my vampires of the type that, who they were/are effects how they act as a vampire. The whole, "you drink blood, you're now evil" thing doesn't work as well IMHO.