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Nov 2015

As above fellas! As a creator of vampy comic Bite Me8, the time had come and I need to ask what do you think? Vampires were romanticised for a very long time, but they didn't lost that much respect after Twilight came out or at least that's my impression. Vampires were brutal, blood sucking creatures, children of the night, burning in the sun and we ended up on vegetarianism and sparkling skin. What went wrong? Or maybe it didn't at all?
To clear things up I have nothing against romaticising vampires image, I do it as well, but why of all vampires stories Twilight was the most hated one? It was big, it made big moneys, but does it match with the quality of the story?

Personally I didn't like it, it was romanticisied over the top, characters weren't likeable and the main heroine was so bland and emotionally unstable. Seriously, you are engaded with one guy, but you still love the other one? (I really don't know about the books, but as far as I know the movie was the hated one) People are comparing my work to Twilight because I have similar setting, mortal girl and immortal creature, but should this one element decide if your work is another Twilight copy?

Did Twilight really ruined vampire's image? Or it was something else? Or maybe vampire's stories are overrated?
I know it won't end on here, but it will certainly leave a big scar.

Share your thoughts below : D

EDIT: Okay, I have to agree with some of you people, let's scratch the sparkles and vegetarianism idea. I didn't mean they are bad I just wanted to show how much the take on vamps changed because as I mentioned before:

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There are 56 replies with an estimated read time of 12 minutes.

Vampires were ruined long before Twilight.

Vampire romances entering a school setting is possibly the worst thing to happen to the genre.

i dont think so at all.

my absolute favorite thing about vampires is that everyone has their own take on them. honestly i get kind of annoyed when people think theres only one way to portray vampires or are very elitist about it. in my opinion there isnt any wrong way to do it, not even the sparkly twilight way. every artist has a right to their own creative voice when dealing with a subject like supernatural creatures

Of course, every artist or visionary should express themselves. I'm not saying THESE PEOPLE SHOULD BE BANNED FROM EXISTENCE! It's more about how the movie is handled, like I said I didn't really liked it and I'm more on the "haters" side(?). Because many people compares my work to Twilight in not so positive way, I decided to create this topic and see what others think : )

Caveat: I haven't read Twilight.

There's two questions here. The first is whether Twilight's portrayal of vampires ruined them.
I honestly think the twist of "what? no, vampires don't burn in the sun, that's stupid; they SPARKLE BEAUTIFULLY but since everyone hates them they made up this whole 'burn in the sun' thing" is a great take. I love when people are painstakingly faithful to a monster's mythology, but I also love when they kind of play with it and incorporate different ideas into the well-known myths.

The sorts of people who say "REAL vampires don't sparkle" are exactly the same as the sorts of people who would yell at a fantasy movie "ugh, REAL black dragons breathe acid, not fire, this is so wrong!" It's okay to have a favourite interpretation, but you gotta recognise it's not The One True Way.

The second question is whether Twilight's poor quality ruined vampires for everyone else.
I think the answer is close, but not quite. Twilight, contrary to popular belief, is not the worst-written book in the world, nor is it the worst-acted movie. It's mostly hated because it's popular while containing some bad writing and abusive themes. People who would ordinarily be disinterested and laugh it off became PASSIONATELY opposed to this one book series and anything that resembles it. If anything about Twilight ruined vampires, I would think it's not Twilight's lore or bad writing, but Twilight's success.


I think if you're writing a vampire romance, you have to accept that you'll be compared to the most popular thing in the genre, and have a way to gracefully respond.
"Ugh, like Twilight?"
"I mean, I love the idea of vampire romance, but I couldn't get into Twilight because I wanted the vampires to be more brutal" or "I couldn't really get into Twilight because I wanted characters who had.....actual personalities xD But it is a romance with vampires in it!" and you've taken an unfavourable comparison and turned it around without defensively denying it.

Well of course, I didn't say it's something unnacceptable, I was aware people will compare my work to it. Vampires are a hard topic to handle, it was done many times and it's difficult to avoid any cliches. BUT because of Twilight the vibe is mainly negative. People try to stay away from this kind of stories.
When I asked for a feedback I get only the Twilight references, which is kind of sad because it's not the only movie in this genre.

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.