Basic Trope: A vampire story is written in which one or more vampires snark at the way in which they are portrayed in other fiction.
- Straight: The Vampire Chuck reads Dracula and finds the portrayal of vampires to be humorous, though somewhat offensive. The powers Dracula is presented as having are all wrong, and he acts nothing like a REAL vampire.
- Exaggerated:
- Chuck goes on a killing spree, murdering vampire authors whose portrayals of the undead he doesn’t like.
- Chuck takes the matter to one or more human rights tribunals (never mind that he's not technically human himself) and vampire fiction gets labelled as hate speech.
- Downplayed: Chuck reacts with mild amusement to vampire fiction, and the occasion doesn't get much mention.
- Justified:
- Dracula was based on Chuck’s life, and was intentionally written to smear him.
- The author was a vampire trying to spread disinformation.
- Inverted:
- Chuck loves vampire fiction, realistic or not.
- Chuck writes a vampire novel of his own.
- Chuck is deeply disturbed or impressed by just how accurate the author’s portrayal was.
- Chuck, a human, snarks at how laughably off the mark vampires are about humans in their fiction.
- Chuck is jealous of fictional vampires: "I wish I could turn into a bat. That would be sweet."
- Subverted: Chuck snarks at the portrayals in Dracula, but later it turns out he was bluffing and Bram Stoker actually got a lot of it right.
- Double Subverted:
- It turns out Chuck was reading an obscure pre-publication version of the book, where the vampire stuff is very different from what ended up in the book. The previous version was "too whimsical" and hard to believe.
- The vampire novel that Chuck wrote was a deliberate attempt to write a realistic vampire novel.
- Parodied:
- Vampires do nothing all day except sit around and complain about vampire fiction.
- Vampires are immune to crosses … but they all writhe in pain whenever the heroes pull out a copy of The Twilight Saga.
- Chuck pulls out a Long List of what vampires don't do, featuring pretty much every vampire ability and weakness from fiction ever on the list. Somebody then asks what vampires can do, at which point Chuck can't think of a good answer.
- Chuck's personal favorite book is about a twelve-foot Chick Magnet vampire with reflective skin and heat vision, but it's okay since another vampire wrote it rather than a human. Hey, vampires have their Wish-Fulfillment needs too.
- Zig Zagged: Chuck reads a wide variety of vampire fiction, and expresses all of the opinions above, and more.
- Averted: Chuck doesn’t read vampire fiction, or has no strong opinions on it.
- Enforced:
- Chuck's rant is a deliberate Take That! from the writers at an upcoming dueling work featuring more traditional vampires.
- The creator of the work wants to establish how Our Vampires Are Different.
- Lampshaded:
- “Before we do battle, I suppose I’m obligated to tell you that crosses and garlic are all a bunch of bunk.”
- “Why do all the vampires in fiction seem to hate each other so much?”
- Invoked: Chuck’s sire, as part of his training, MAKES him read Dracula, and practice his witty snarks.
- Exploited: Chuck’s hatred of Dracula is what alerts the Hero Antagonist to his vampiric nature.
- Defied:
- “I will not waste my valuable time analyzing the merits of fiction with you!”
- Unrealistic vampires in fiction are no weirder to Chuck than stories about humans with Charles Atlas Superpowers and other oddities are to humans.
- Discussed:Bob: Fair warning, Alice: when I take you to meet Chuck, whatever you do, don't bring up Anne Rice.
- Conversed: Vampires, ironically, spend a great deal of time bashing vampire fiction for portraying them as obsessively hating vampire fiction.
- Implied: Chuck makes an offhand remark about never going to New Orleans.
- Deconstructed: All the other vampires quickly become annoyed at Chuck’s constant bitching about bad vampire fiction.
- Reconstructed: Chuck is a Friendly Neighborhood Vampire, and his snarking at the way his own kind is portrayed endears humans to him.
- Plotted a Good Waste: Chuck's creator, Heidi, has porphyria, a rare medical condition that has been proposed
as a basis for vampire legends. When she was a child, she read a story in which a character with porphyria was depicted as a Complete Monster. As a consequence, Heidi vowed to write at least one work of vampire fiction wherein vampires, with whom she has something in common, get to make Take Thats about how they're depicted. (She doesn't use her actual ailment because "it's not sexy.") - Played for Laughs: Chuck is followed around by an annoying Tagalong Kid who keeps asking him if vampire tropes are real.Kid: Are you allergic to garlic?Chuck: No.Kid: Can you turn into a bat?Chuck: No.Kid: Are you unable to cross running water?Chuck: No.Kid: If someone stakes you in the heart, do you die?Chuck: Geez, kid, wouldn't you?
- Played for Drama: Vampires in Chuck's world are fairly harmless and prefer to drink the blood of cattle, but because of vampire fiction, humans reject them as evil and often murder them.
You may return to your ridiculous cliché of Your Vampires Suck.
