I love myths, legends, and folklore. I’m mostly fond of asian ones, usually, but I won’t diss western ones. Elementals, gods, monsters, animals, everything! Let’s talk about vampires.

What is a vampire? Well, every culture has their own version of it, but the most commonly known vampire is what Dracula started. A night walker, blood sucking, horrible creature, or handsome/beautiful, whichever floats your boat. Sunlight burns them to death, NOT SPARKLE LIKE THAT STUPID TWILIGHT DID, IT’S A JOKE! Crosses and garlic ward them off. You get it by now.

However, as I said, every culture has their own rendition, like the Chinese. You know Hsien Ko is from the Darkstalkers games? She’s one of those Chinese vampires called a Jiangshi, also known as “hopping vampire”. Yes, I mean it. They hop. It’s because, for them, rigor mortis had already set in before they were revived. Basically what it does is stiffen the limbs and muscles after the body has died. Another difference between the Jiangshi and the usual western vampires is that the Jiangshi don’t drink blood, they suck out ones life energy, or life force.

Fiction’s another place for different renditions of vampires. For lack of a better example, I’m going to use the whole Twilight sparkle stupidity. While utterly ridiculous, it also serves as an example of differing from the norm when it comes to the usual descriptions of a vampire. I don’t know if it differs from anything else other than that as I couldn’t bring myself to read the books or willingly watch any of the movies.

My imagination also has a different kind of vampire, and I’m curious what kind of vampire you’d create. Would it differ from the norm? Or would it be the same kind?