Vampires: The Good, The Bad, and Twilight

Vampires are pretty popular in our culture, especially with the rise of cinema. From Twilight to Vampire diaries and the classic Dracula. Some do things right, and some have sparkly people. Yes, I'm going to make fun of Twilight this whole post. But there are so many different interpretations of vampires that they're almost completely different from their origins. You know, the start as a horror figure, a monster who sneaks into peoples homes at the dead of night and drains their blood, sometimes siring more vampires in the process. Meanwhile these days they're the lovers you should aspire to date because of reasons. Now, I'm not saying you can't go this route, love can be found in very weird ways, but I feel like some people forget that humans are more like prey to them, along with the gut-wrenching pain of trying not to drain every person in sight.

I think the worst adaptation is Twilight, not saying it doesn't do some things right, very basic things, but still some. Personally, the adaptation I think does Vampires the best is Vampire: The Masquerade. In it, Vampires can't go in the sun or they die, they have to drink blood to survive, the basic things. But where they differ is the clans, and how each one has a specific look and set of abilities. They incorporate the ugly vampire design in the Nosferatu clan, have the blood magic-wielding Tremere, the psychologically insane Malkavians, the high-born businessmen that are the Ventrue, and many more. How about the origins of them? In the before-mentioned Vampire: The Masquerade, their origin dates back to Cain, the first murderer.

In Greece, it was thought you could become one by many different means, such as eating meat from a sheep killed by a wolf or dying alone. Then Romania, there is the Moroi Strigoi, where living Strigoi were said to be witches with two heart and/or souls, while dead Strigoi were similar, but more like traditional vampires, feeding upon the living around them. There's even the classic and most famous vampires, like Nosferatu and Dracula, sadly I couldn't find how they became vampires.

And finally, we get to the powers and weaknesses. One's that are almost always used are the enhanced strength and speed, and generally being affected by sunlight in some way. Then there's the well known but sometimes never used ones like turning into a bat, an aversion to garlic and crosses, those kinds of things. Then there are the obscure ones, turning into a wolf, blood magic, sometimes they're allergic to werewolf bites and vervain, sometimes plain fire and bullets will do the trick. Although they'll generally have the strength and speed, along with maybe mind control and some other things, the sun will almost always affect them and werewolves are often their biggest threat and enemy. Although a concept that has always intrigued me is Vampire-Werewolf hybrids, I haven't seen them done very often if at all, only really seeing them in Vampire Diaries and accompanying spin-offs, where they are just werewolves with vampire abilities and still have the whole "Vampires are allergic to their bites" shtick. Still, they're an interesting concept to consider hybrid races are kind of a running thing in my novel, combining the best and worst of each race into one.

In conclusion, vampires cover a wide amount of fiction, generally appearing in fantasy and subsequent sub-genres. If you're thinking of writing about vampires, research multiple kinds of literature and sources to make yours stand out among the masses, hopefully in a good way.