Writer's Block: Twilight becomes you

[seawasp]

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Vampires do not sparkle. Vampires in sunlight burn, or at least (if they are ancient and powerful) flinch away and try to get out of it as soon as possible. I've read vampire fiction off and on for more than 30 years, and they do not under any circumstances sparkle (unless you lit them on fire using fireworks). I have WRITTEN and PUBLISHED vampire fiction, and MY vampires do not sparkle.

No saga with sparkling vampires should have been written. Having been written, it should not ever have been filmed. Moreover, the actor playing the main vampire doesn't look like a vampire, he looks like someone who's pulled one too many all-nighters and needs to go and get some rest and a shower.

Now, Alex Louis Armstrong, *HE* sparkles. And I'd go see a FMA movie. But that's another question.

Comments

[illian.livejournal.com]

If its any consolation, the actor playing the main vamp is creeped out by the character and is apparently playing him up as the stalking, creepy, repressed virgin that he is.

[seawasp]

Really? The only stuff I've seen on him has been glitterati magazine covers with him apparently dating his co-star, dumping his co-star, re-dating his co-star, and looking perpetually half-dead but not in a cool vampire way.

[illian.livejournal.com]

It was from an interview for the first movie. From the interviews, he finds the fans positive fascination with the character baffling.

[seawasp]

Interesting. Though it's not all that surprising -- anyone who's into anime fandom knows that for some bizarre reason girls (and even women!) seem to gain a fascination for characters who are total creeps and dicks. A recent example I encountered was Sasuke from Naruto, one of the most popular characters of the series, and completely unlikeable.

[illian.livejournal.com]

According to the author, Edward spent his off screen time during the first book fixing his love interest's window up so he could open it without making noise and then spent the night in the corner of her bedroom.

Watching her.

Every night.

Without her knowing about it.

Now, if you'll excuse, I feel the need to scrub myself clean.

[full-metal-ox.livejournal.com]

Labyrinth, although it doesn't involve vampirism, is what I keep wanting to shove in the faces of squeeing Twi-fans; that film appeals to a similar demographic and pushes some of the same buttons--a troubled teenage girl with a hyperactive imagination is menaced by a mysterious supernatural Bel Homme Sans Merci--but sends a far healthier message about mastering (not, mind you, outgrowing!) your fantasy life and letting your animus know who's boss.

[seawasp]

That is SO true. I love this comment! You are right -- it's a similar theme in terms of the dangerous, attractive older man-creature, but much different in that the girl, while starting out as selfish, really ISN'T selfish in her heart, and is willing to go almost literally through Hell to get back the baby she is responsible for, and along the way come to terms with the power, danger, and responsibilities of her fantasy as well as her real life.

And you've reminded me to get a copy of Labyrinth, if we don't have one already.

[meril.livejournal.com]

aw, nuts, now you just made me think that someone's written a Twilight/FMA crossover.

[seawasp]

Of course they have. It is an axiom that for any two fandoms of reasonable size, crossover fictions will exist.

Whether any of them will be READABLE is another matter.

[seawasp]

Also, it would be awesome to see an Edward VS Edward battle. :)

[shanejayell.livejournal.com]

I would pay to see a FMA as a live action. If only to LOL at it.

[xyzzysqrl]

All the -interesting- vampires are just kinda like "Meh. Sunlight." *sunglasses*

[seawasp]

Verne Domingo is devastated that you consider him not interesting.

[ross-teneyck.livejournal.com]

If memory serves, Bram Stoker's version of Dracula did not burn in sunlight. His powers were lessened, but sunlight didn't harm him.

Granted, he didn't sparkle, either. On the other hand, neither was he suavely sexy; he was a monster, and looked the part.

[seawasp]

Hmm. He didn't look TERRIBLY like a monster or he'd never have gotten away with the "walk around casually in London" bit.

[mhacdebhandia.livejournal.com]

"Vampires burn in sunlight" was invented as an alternate method for killing off Orlok at the end of F. W. Murnau's Nosferatu; in Bram Stoker's novel, of course, the heroes stab Dracula through the heart with Quincey Morris's Bowie knife, then cut his head off with a Gurkha kukri.

The only vampire in Dracula that's staked with wood before being decapitated is Lucy Westenra.

[seawasp]

Yes, I know, the modern vampire myth is very different from the older ones -- before it was just a corpse that rose and consumed the blood of the living, ugly, fat, pale, icky. Phil & Dixie in "What's New?" had a good take on that.

Though I liked Saberhagen's disassembly of Bram's Dracula in The Dracula Tape.

[full-metal-ox.livejournal.com]

Have you ever read John Shirley's "Dracula in Love"? A subplot of that novel involves a serial killer infatuated with the glamorous overwrought Anne Ricean interpretation of the vampire myth; he happens to run afoul of some of the genuine article, who are the cadaverous ghouls of authentic Slavic folklore.

[ross-teneyck.livejournal.com]

Well, here's the first description of the Count:

"His face was a strong, a very strong, aquiline, with high bridge of the thin nose and peculiarly arched nostrils, with lofty domed forehead, and hair growing scantily round the temples but profusely elsewhere. His eyebrows were very massive, almost meeting over the nose, and with bushy hair that seemed to curl in its own profusion. The mouth, so far as I could see it under the heavy moustache, was fixed and rather cruel-looking, with peculiarly sharp white teeth. These protruded over the lips, whose remarkable ruddiness showed astonishing vitality in a man of his years. For the rest, his ears were pale, and at the tops extremely pointed. The chin was broad and strong, and the cheeks firm though thin. The general effect was one of extraordinary pallor.

"Hitherto I had noticed the backs of his hands as they lay on his knees in the firelight, and they had seemed rather white and fine. But seeing them now close to me, I could not but notice that they were rather coarse, broad, with squat fingers. Strange to say, there were hairs in the centre of the palm. The nails were long and fine, and cut to a sharp point. As the Count leaned over me and his hands touched me, I could not repress a shudder. It may have been that his breath was rank, but a horrible feeling of nausea came over me, which, do what I would, I could not conceal."

So he's not going to cause people to run away in horror in the streets, but he's certainly not going to cause schoolgirls to go weak in the knees with hormonal surges, either. Anne Rice this ain't.

[seawasp]

Not handsome by any modern standard, no. But except for the hairy palms, not really anything to say "monster", either.

[wiredwizard.livejournal.com]

I liked the pic someone did where they photoshopped Blade in behind Edward & Bella & captioned it "How Twilight should have ended". As fond as I may be of Vampire stories/movies/etc., I refuse to have anything to do w/ the Twilight series. Hell, I'll even watch *Bloodrayne again before I see anything w/ frelling emo sparkly vamps.

FMA - live action version: now *that I would watch! If they could do it with Casshern, why not FMA? =)

[ross-teneyck.livejournal.com]

I like that picture... but this is made of 100% awesome:

http://www.rebelliouspixels.com/2009/buffy-vs-edward-twilight-remixed

[seawasp]

Indeed! But then, compared to Bella, Buffy's always been a well-adjusted and self-reliant type. And I'm including her cheerleading days BEFORE becoming the Slayer.

[kengr]

I have a friend who's home town is Forks, WA. She is less than amused at the books.

[seawasp]

You mean you did not go directly to my YouTube video when I posted the link? Because the actual cover image is shown at the end of the video. Which is also on the www.grandcentralarena.com website. :)

If people would stop BUYING the stuff with hot barely dressed women, Baen would stop using them as draws. Jim Baen apparently used to experiment with that sort of thing and found that for all the sneers and talk about low taste, he sold more books that way.

That said, both of my forthcoming books have either no women (Threshold) or mostly-dressed women (Grand Central Arena) on the cover. Alas, I still haven't got a true exploitative Baen cover yet!