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Nov 2015

I think (if I remember correctly from what I read of your comic, I could be getting it mixed up with yet another vampire romance that takes place in a school) they compare it to twilight because of 3 similar points.

  1. Vampires
  2. School
  3. Abusive relationship romanticized

It's collage and it's not a main focus, the abusive relationship isn't romanticised, but I will get to that later : )

Collage is still a school
Abusive relationship is romanticized at this point (not reaching the we'll get to un-romanticizing it later) part.

Also your summery in explain your comic in one sentence thread was something along the lines of "He's a jerk, but he's hot so that's ok" isn't selling the 'it's not romanticized idea' (don't feel like looking up the exact quote)

Points still stand.

Edit: Not hating on your comic, even though it kinda sounds like I am, just explaining why your readers are seeing the similarities.

I don't think so either. Like, zombies are probably more overdone but I'm currently enjoying iZombie like a lot. Penny Dreadful has vampires, werewolves, you name it, all in a creepy Victorian setting that some may say is played out but I'm certainly engaged! Plus movies like Let the Right One In/Let Me In or The Only Lovers Left Alive feature vampire characters in unique (and romantic) ways and I love those films to bits. I never thought of myself as the type to go for these kinds of stories, but there you have it. And really, I don't think people will tire of anything so long as there are individual voices out there with their own interpretations, just like yours. So keep on drawing your vampire stories if you want, it looks like you have quite an audience as it is (over 5K, dang!). And people will always compare things based on surface similarities and that's understandable at times, but your comic doesn't scream Twilight to me. Though honestly, I've only ever seen the first movie in the series (and that's all I needed lol!).

About that I just wanted to use funny summary quote... It was just for fun.

It's okay, I know why people see the similarities and that I can forgive, but some people are too aware like after few pages "okay it's a twilight story, I'm out of here!"

I didn't like the Twilight series (only read the first book....haven't had any exposure to the rest of the series except sister telling me about it). I'm not saying it necessarily ruined the vampire genre so much as ruining peoples' perception of it. I completely disregard the Twilight series when it comes to vampirism. (I actually really liked that there were 'vegetarian' vampires, and have actually literally come up with a world where there are vegetarian vampires (one specifically, because there is a rare fruit with seeds that when dissolved make a blood-like substance))

Anyways, there really is no set vampire. There is the stereotypical vampire, and the odd, sparkly vampire (there's even a story about a vampire who is a plant that resembles and acts like a human). It just so happens that the Twilight series has essentially become the stereotypical vampire (sadly, if I do say so myself)

I do personally like the classic dracula but it's interesting to see how people put their own spin on it, it's not something that's real so everyone should be able to interprit it the way they like.

That being said I find that Twilight...as bad as it is...has its own charms, I honestly like it for all the wrong reasons, and this is because my friends kept dragging me to see the movies in the cinema. So I grew to enjoy it because I found it funny ovo.
Also, this guy:

Seriously watch the movie just for him!! i don't know how they let the actor over act this much it's ridiculous, even when he's not saying anything just look at his facial expressions, yeah he's not taking any of this seriously loool

See? The movie needs to be good! XD

But seriously. Twilight have still a big influance, it have big audience and haters all over, tho I really try to find positives in the movie, let's leave the sparkles, that was the author vision, but I really can't enjoy those movies and as far as I know my fanbase can't enjoy it either, It's really hard for me to not see Twilight as something that left a big mark on vampires genre, even actors didn't like it xD

Thanks! That was exactly what I was missing in my statement! Big like for you! <3

Well yea I guess if you don't treat the movies too seriously, you can quite enjoy it for it's flaws ^^

Ruined? No. Temporarily tainted their image as a teenage girl's self-insert fantasy thing? Ehhh, for a little while, yes, but I think that effect is already starting to fade. Even I have gotten a Twilight comparison, and the abusive aspects of Daniel and Christine's relationship aren't romanticized, it's just straight-up abusive. XD

If there's anything that annoys me when Twilight is brought up it's the "stalking" and "old vampire targets very young girls" thing. Um, since when are vampires NOT depicted as stalkers? Also, Dracula and like a billion other vampire stories have an older vampire targeting a young human woman, why do people act like Twilight invented this? XD

Vampire stories have been around a long time and will probably always be there in some form or another. There will also always be readers for the genre, too, so never worry about that, and there will always be silly people who immediately make a comparison to other media, whether the author wants to hear it or not.

If you, or anyone here's curious, I wrote this BIG article a little while ago over at my Tumblr about what I learned from writing vampires over the years (because Daniel isn't my first, it's just the first I didn't reboot like three times XD), I also just try to give a whole lot of tips to people who are considering writing a vampire story -
http://vermillionworks.tumblr.com/post/133561128067/writing-vampires2

The best thing you can do when making a vampire story is just single out your favorite vampire tropes and go with the flow, and also remember that not everyone is going to like them, just like everyone doesn't like werewolves and zombies. However, as @bumblegoo said, there is no real way to write vampires. If someone wants to make them get chicken pox from sunlight, then that is entirely up to them. It's their story.

Actually, they sort of romanticize this aspect so much! like it's supposed to be charming!
I'd love to see vampire who freely admits they're a stalker or the human girl/boy is freaked out about the stalking and get the vampire arrested or something.

True, that's kind of one of the problems with Twilight and some other recent vampire stories to me, that all the stuff that's normally disturbing about vampires is suddenly just a sign of the vampire's deep feelings for the human. I was just saying that stalking, by itself, is nothing new to vampire stories.

"I'm watching you when you are asleep"
"oh my goooood! You must love me! :O"

I think it just need to be accepted that any story that's a vampire romance that takes place at some kind of learning facility is gonna be compared to Twilight for a while.

Just like any story that's about kids going to a magic school is going to be compared to Harry Potter.

All the effort put into worrying about being compared to some well known title could better be channeled into other more productive outlets.

I wouldn't really say that Twilight ruined it per se, since Vampire themed stories have been gaining a lot of popularity (or notoriety, take your pick) over the years before Twilight even got insanely popular. I think Twilight just added to it's popularity/ notoriety because of the added limelight?

I guess vampires sometimes feel 'ruined' because Twilight vampires have become the icon for vampires recently. When someone says 'vampire' , people don't usually think of the scary fanged vamps anymore but of the more recent sparkly kind? This is only based on the people I usually interact with though.

But at the end of the day, it really depends on how you use vampires in your story. It could still be a romantic story with vampires and it might get compared to Twilight but what matters is how you manage to make your own story unique and distinct from the pre-existing franchise.

Agreed. I have things that I really like about vampires and that make them seem like "real" vampires to me, but when it comes to mythological creatures, there are no rules, only guidelines. Different countries and cultures have different takes on what makes a vampire a vampire, although certain aspects are pretty consistent.

I haven't read the Twilight books, only seen the films. I personally didn't like them, but my issue wasn't with the vampires. I think it's okay (maybe even necessary) that people experiment with these creatures - even though I didn't fancy the sparkly skin. What I thought was way worse was basically everything else - the romanticising of abusive relationships, how terribly boring the main character was, and the really awkward dialogue.

Yup, Dracula in Bram Stoker's story was pretty stalkerish himself. Abusive relationships aren't a new thing to the vampire genre, Twilight wasn't the first to bring that up. Vampires are actually useful metaphors for these kinds of themes - they are abusive creatures from nature's side; they suck out your blood! Their blood lust is sometimes also used as a metaphor for addiction to drugs or eating disorders.

I think the problem with Twilight (as many have pointed out already) was that this abusive relationship was never portrayed as abusive (talking about the films still, because I haven't read the books). It was portrayed as romantic and every girl's dream. That's what a lot of people disliked about it - in addition to the sparkly skin. I didn't like the sparkles either, but I thought it got more negative attention than it deserved, compared to the real problems with those books.

Twilight didn't ruin vampires for me anyway. I still have Bram Stoker's Dracula, and I can watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer whenever I want blush

Oh my, I saw this when I was like... 10?
... I'm so old! ;A;

I agree with a lot of people that vampires didn't ruin Twilight, all it did is create a familiarity larger than the classic one in pop culture temporarily, and yeah a lot of annoying things came out of it like Vampire Diaries, and such. (All the twilight jokes from my vampire characters get old after a while~~~~ )

However, this isn't the first time?

Back in the 1847 (20 years before Carmilla, and more than 50 before Bram Stoker's Dracula) there existed a looooong series called Varney the Vampire.


(not even purple nor dinosaurs, what a jip)

And it was considered SO POORLY WRITTEN. People couldn't even follow the story, the characters were inconsistent and it received a lot of negative reviews. And yet...a lot of the lore that Carmilla and Dracula based themselves out of started from this.

The idea of leaving a bite mark for example.

It was terrible, but people learned from it and improved it. So really, Twilight is just another Varney where we as readers and enthusiasts learn (especially the lore that is always inconsistent) what works and what doesn't.

I think Twilight didn't so much ruin vampires as much as the vampire craze that happened during the same time it became popular. For a while there were quite a few popular shows sharing pretty much the same theme. They were majorly romances with big emphasis on the sexual nature of vampires. I feel like people just got sort of burnt out and now associate vampire stories as just trying to follow that trend.
There's also the factor that Twilight is kind of like "cool" to hate because it got so popular even though it was pretty silly and was favored by young girls.
So no, Twilight definitely did not ruin vamps with it's sparkles, people just sort of grew out of the fad. For me personally I generally don't like main stream vampire pop culture and have a running joke about hating "vampire boners" just cause I'm tired of how intertwined vamps are w themes of sex (even though I totally understand why they are).
I get why'd you ask this question though, I have a vampire main characters (and vamps are a big part of my world building) and before I started I was pretty worried about being written off before anybody could even learn my interpretation of vampires.