What is/isn't a vampire to you?

[Coppernerves]

Vampires must meet at least the following requirements:

1) drink blood
2) be undead (no pulse, don't need to breathe)
3) not fucking sparkle in fucking sunlight

1) Mine drink blood straight from the human artery, killing three people every lunar month.
The blood isn't actually digested though, it disappears when it gets into the digestive system, consumed by the demon which demands it.

2)They only breathe when pretending to be human, as for the pulse, the vampires' heart technically beats, but any blood bled from the vampire turns to smoke which dissipates, leaving no trace, and any sound made by the heartbeats is deadened just like their footsteps.

They may as well be undead in terms of toughness, because most of their organs, while still in perfect condition, are obsolete, with exceptions of the muscular, skeletal, nervous, and sensory systems.

3) They do not fucking sparkle in fucking sunlight, which kills them unless they immediately transition into human form, which limits their powers, and takes a while to transition back out of.

 

[Coppernerves]

If a person wishes to take a vampire and change certain traits for their story then good for them, but it's no longer that creature and using those labels is simply a crutch because they wish to mooch off of people's feelings toward the creatures in question.

Those feelings are a useful thing to mooch off, you can give a general idea of what kind of thing to expect to the reader before fully revealing all the details about the creature.

However if the later details don't stay true to those general feelings, and at least some traits which seem, well, "vampiric", you will piss the reader off.

I suspect by now an author has actually found a way to make pissing the reader off that way lead into making the reader enjoy the book more by now, but that would probably be almost impossible for most writers.

 

[SlaveNumber23]

Any person who drinks human blood and does not become sick from it, as long as you have this basic rule, anything else you add to your vampire is fine. With this constraint people in real life too can be 'vampires'. Any other constraints such as garlic allergies and a weakness to sunlight are optional.

 

[Shadowstar38]

Does it drink blood? Yes? It's a Vampire.

This thread was likely brought up because someone looked at the vampires from Twilight and thought they were stupid. But you know what? Vampires havn't been cool for the past 100 years.

The most famous image of a vampire is a pale guy in a cape and fangs. I can't for the life of me remember the woman that wrote the first Count Dracula book, but she was the Stephine Meyer of the 1900s. Before that, vampires were far more beast like and looked like they would kill your ass.

Everything from Twilight to Blade are just different interpretations of the same idea.

 

[FalloutJack]

Funny story, I had a course in college called "Vampires: Blood and Empire". Very educational. Real live vampires are...

{1} A bit pale.

{2} Merely annoyed or sickened by the sun.

{3} As mortal as we are, plus maybe anemic and often light-sensitive.

{4} Living, but with certain conditional drawbacks.

{5} Not immortal or any more long-lived than we are.

{6} Not healers by any greater extent, sometimes bleeders.

{7} About as varied in strength and speed as everyone else.

{8} Requiring blood regularly as their circulatory system is irregular to the point of needing new blood transfusions here and there.

I'm afraid the myth has really given them all a helluva reputation. Many people suffering from the true vampirism are irritated by everything in literature. Even seeing past it, some still connect it all to Vlad The Impaler, who supposedly hated the sun and drank blood while watching his enemies get impaled to death during his campaign against the Turks.

 

[PhunkyPhazon]

Essentially, they're intelligent zombies that suck blood and can't be in sunlight for whatever reason. They may or may not turn into bats, as far as I'm concerned that isn't a necessity.

Why? Vampires (or any other kind of monsters, for that matter) don't exist, they can be whatever you want them to be. There are no rules to imagination.

Exactly, which is why I'm going to take a less-then-popular opinion and say that I have nothing against the vampires in Twilight...well, the concept of them anyways. Vampires that try to blend in and lead somewhat normal lives, creating some kind of Harry Potter-esque secret society hidden from ours? I actually think that sounds awesome, and there's a lot of potential in that idea.

But that potential just hasn't been explored properly. At all.

 

[DoPo]

The most famous image of a vampire is a pale guy in a cape and fangs. I can't for the life of me remember the woman that wrote the first Count Dracula book, but she was the Stephine Meyer of the 1900s. Before that, vampires were far more beast like and looked like they would kill your ass.

Everything from Twilight to Blade are just different interpretations of the same idea.

Woman? First Count Dracula book? There is only one book written by Bram Stoker, who is a man. Unless you mean Anne Rice, who wrote the Lestat character (from Interview With a Vampire and the rest). Even then, that mostly came about in the 80-90s, not as far back as the 1900s. But Lestat isn't really known for a cape, though, that would be more of a Dracula thing.

Real live vampires are...

Wait, those are a thing? Do you mean the guys that have that disease (porphyria?)? If so, I'd hardly call them "real life vampires". As I recall, they can even take meds to stave it off (not in all cases, but still) and drinking blood isn't really a thing that is likely to help them out.

 

[Shadowstar38]

Woman? First Count Dracula book? There is only one book written by Bram Stoker, who is a man. Unless you mean Anne Rice, who wrote had the Lestat character (from Interview With a Vampire and the rest). Even then, that mostly came about in the 80-90s, not as far back as the 1900s. But Lestat isn't really known for a cape, though, that would be more of a Dracula thing.

...For some reason I thought Bram Stoker was a woman. Not sure why...

 

[FalloutJack]

*Looks it up*

I really hope I don't, given that apparently that's the disease known for madness and oddly-pigmented feces.

Plus I said transfusions, the medical procedure. Actually drinking blood doesn't do much for you medically unless your digestive system will get something out of it.

 

[Genocidicles]

Isn't the original folklore like a corpse that's been possessed by a demon or something? Sounds way cooler than douches in leather going around sexing everything up and angsting about drinking blood.

 

[DoPo]

Plus I said transfusions, the medical procedure. Actually drinking blood doesn't do much for you medically unless your digestive system will get something out of it.

Yeah, I know, but as I recall back in the day drinking blood was considered a cure by some. The reasoning went something like this - there is something wrong with the blood, so just get more. Not that it was really useful but we're talking about quite a long time ago. And folk cures of the type "Well, a friend of the brother of my aunt told my grandmother...", which aren't known for their scientific backing.

Anyway, who were the real life vampires?

 

[DoPo]

Isn't the original folklore like a corpse that's been possessed by a demon or something? Sounds way cooler than douches in leather going around sexing everything up and angsting about drinking blood.

Erm, it depends on which folklore you're talking about. It varies wildly between cultures.

 

[Genocidicles]

Erm, it depends on which folklore you're talking about. It varies wildly between cultures.

Well I honestly have no idea, so nevermind I guess.

 

[FalloutJack]

Plus I said transfusions, the medical procedure. Actually drinking blood doesn't do much for you medically unless your digestive system will get something out of it.

Yeah, I know, but as I recall back in the day drinking blood was considered a cure by some. The reasoning went something like this - there is something wrong with the blood, so just get more. Not that it was really useful but we're talking about quite a long time ago. And folk cures of the type "Well, a friend of the brother of my aunt told my grandmother...", which aren't known for their scientific backing.

Anyway, who were the real life vampires?

People say all kinds of remedies, and as Dara O'Briain would say, the ones the science found useful became medicine and the others were like chicken soup.

Still, the real ones? I dunno. Some actually say Vlad, but that might've just been revolving around his business with the Turks. There are people in this century, this decide, who have the problem and that's why I responded to the thread that way.

 

[CrazyGirl17]

Anything that doesn't sparkle. That should go without saying.

Oh and they should at least look somewhat inhuman and menacing, and be vulnerable to garlic/crosses/wooden stakes, ect.

 

[MammothBlade]

Strictly speaking, an undead human which is dependent on blood, immortal in some way, and is harmed by sunlight whilst retaining complete sapience. I'm not too concerned about the rest, vampirism can be interpreted in several different ways.

I'm interested in the view of vampires as conflicted, damned, or existential paradoxes. Their human life is forfeit, and in exchange they will wander forever in a world of darkness. Vampires are free from death, but somehow lost.

This statement applies to pretty much all forms of story telling:
If you are too stupid to come up with your own fucking ideas or feel that you actually have a truly good idea for a story involving vampires/zombies/werewolves/etc then you MUST stick to what that particular item/monster/etc actually is. You don't get to fucking cherrypick what you do and don't like and keep the name, if you want to cherrypick the traits of those idea that's fine, but you should change the fucking name.

Why? Vampires (or any other kind of monsters, for that matter) don't exist, they can be whatever you want them to be. There are no rules to imagination.

Lies.... vampires are real.

 

[Rawne1980]

Vampires are like this....

 

[DoPo]

I like folklore so ive spent litterally years lookinging into universal myths like vampires and shapeshifters. one thing i did find is that pretty much every single culture world wide has a legend of a person who died who comes back to suck the blood or energy of the living. the other details may change back that base remains the same.

i like the chinese hopping vampire

Oh, gosh, that one is hilarious. Or maybe terrifying, if you actually meet one, but hilarious to read about.

And yeah, I have noticed the trend for "vampires" across cultures. Pretty generally, a mythological vampire, seems to be a person (or looks like one), most probably evil, who somehow subsists on the living.

And from looking into various other vampire fiction, I can only describe non-folklore vampires as a person (or looks like one), less usually evil, who subsists on the living.

So, I don't get what issues people have with vampires not being vampires. It only seems that they've become less randomly evil over the centuries.

 

[PinkiePyro]

drinks blood and is harmed by sunlight, garlic, and holy objects