The original article, in German, can be found here if you’d like to read it.

The following translation is thanks to the user music_is_breath in the buffyfan community on livejournal.

It’s a really interesting article, comparing Twilight with other famous vampire media, such as The Vampire Diaries, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and True Blood.  I haven’t seen much of The Vampire Diaries, but I definitely kind of adore both Buffy and True Blood so it’s refreshing to read something like this. =) 

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Vampires! Everywhere! Since “Twilight” the bloodsucker novels have become better and more colorful. Only the image of women remains plain. An overview over the new vampire series:

Almost 10 years ago, Buffy Summers went dancing: She had just turned 20 and it wasn’t long since she had risen from the death. The young Vampire-Slayer sacrificed herself in order to save the world. Only months after that magic brought her back to life again. It hadn’t been a good year. Her boyfriend was gone, her mother was dead. There were bills to pay lying around everywhere. Also she quit studying. When she dug herself through the graveyard-dust all alone: “Is this hell?” Only the vampire Spike could understand her feelings and her sudden disgust of the world. Buffy had been fighting against him for years. But now they met secretly: He stepped out of the shadow in a club and lifted her skirt. The two of them had silent and joyless sex, high above the dance floor.

A down point for the hero, but a highlight of the series: Buffy and Spike, the vampire and the slayer, this is one of the best images for the dynamic of a bad relationship. Nevertheless, Spike, bleached-blond, sneering and a bit cold, became a romantic hero figure to many fans soon: “Do I have to give myself up in order to love the vampire?” “Am I wrong, because I long for the company of a man who wants to destroy me?” The series resolved these questions with Spike going away, leaving Buffy, repenting and fighting for an own soul to come back and meet her again at eye level. This was a great first step in making the vampire-machos more complex and more intelligent.

Instead of the bloodsuckers becoming more multifarious, the human girls become more brainless since then, though. In 2005 Stephanie Meyer’s series “Twilight” started and plodded through the whole conflict again, by being as pestering but G-rated and wrapped up in much more sugar. During the 4 books the student Bella gushes for the vampire Edward against her rationality.  A whole genre of books followed Meyer’s novels as bestsellers. Those books have some similarities to Buffy’s pop-feminism. But there are also huge differences to find.

These so-called “paranormal romances” have a clear concept: They almost every time are set at the plain land and in the present. The often inexperienced and naïve first-person-narrator meets an ineloquent and typical masculine man. Although the woman is telling the story, the guy is in the spotlight: He is a werewolf or a vampire and had learnt how to suppress the blood thirst and the sexual-atavism with pure will, life-experience and class. The woman is less controlled. She acts without thinking and she doesn’t know what she wants. It is only when she is able to control herself in front of him, that she earns his love: In no other genre there are so many training lessons, tests, exams and Pygmalion-moments. Without the strange man as a mirror and self-insurance, these women neither realize themselves nor are they able to use their potential.

Even when the minority of the narrators are just plain girls in difference to Bella (Many of them are able to read minds, transmute themselves or they have vampires and witches as parents.) still it’s always the lover who teaches them to accept the dark inside of them. Paranormal romances are coming-of-age novels. There are 10 000 scumbags like Spike, but almost no Buffy. Not the vampires have to get their ass up in order to get at eye level; instead it is the weak woman who has to do so.

In “Twilight”, Bella feels that boring and self-conscious next to her beautiful Edward already, that she begs him to bite her. As a story that is fevered and close to the sensitivity-motives, it is in its best moments close to “Wuthering Heights” or “The sorrows of young Werther” by being headless, breathless and overweening. Nevertheless, the character Bella misses all suspense: She remains a wimp, insecure and nervous.

Therefore “Vampire Diaries” which is a series by Dawson-Creek author Kevin Williamson, makes the critics happier. It’s the same story, a school girls desires a vampire from her high school, but the characters, orphan Elaine and the two vampire brothers Stefan (good) and Damon (evil), stick to their own bullhead: cross talks, nice pop songs, jealousy and a small village makes a pretty toothless but solid mixture.

(…)

Spike-Fans should be satisfied with Jeaniene Frost’s erotic “Cat & Bones”-novels: the stupid half-vampire Cat is being trained to be an undercover mistress by an undead headhunter who has the exact same attributes as Spike: bleached-blond, vain, with a British accent and beautiful cheekbones. He teases the naïve narrator until she shivers with desire: “My breasts almost busted my bra!” she gasps. Buffy would have slapped her for that kind of sentences or maybe even staked her.

More emancipated is “True Blood”, the new series of the All-American-Beauty author Alan Ball. “True Blood” is set in deep Louisiana and follows the cute-naïve waitress Sookie who is idealistic. Because she is able to read minds, Sookie saves the life of the sad vampire Bill and therefore is hated by her human friends: prejudices, sex, social criticism and fierce redneck-humor – the women wear the pants in “True Blood”.  Not a masterpiece but a quaffable pleasure.

“Moon called” by Patricia Briggs is the best book in this genre. The main character is Mercedes Thompson who is a car mechanic that can morph into a coyote. Her neighbor is a werewolf, her friend a vampire and in between her down-to-earth and likeable succinct everyday life, Mercedes tries to have her garage and not be included in the power games going on in her pack.

This book has the most confusing cosmology and is still the clearest book, since in contrast to her blindly adoring colleagues, Mercedes has an own voice and a sharp look. She has a character; she is more of a Buffy then a Bella.

In the end, this seems to be the most important factor for a good paranormal romance. Not necessarily how strong the girl’s love for the vampire is but how strong the reader’s love for the narrator is. And there is a lot of unused potential for strong complicated women who get lost in dark relationships. And who then, against all oppositions, find themselves again, instead of disappearing in love stoned fatuity.

Source = The Twilight_Sucks! community on livejournal

^This guy says it best.  If you think about it, sucking blood in general is kind of, well, you know… GROSS AND DISTURBING. 

Just saying. 

I’m a little sick of it too.

(Not Buffy of course, but the rest of it… you know)

Source courtesy de la Youtube!

I really love this guy.

“You… are a twat.”

xD

That’s why I think I’m going to repost his Twilight videos here from now on, because they are awesome… assuming I don’t get sued or something.

Anyway, enjoy. =)

(Excerpt)

When I was growing up, my fairly progressive-minded mom always told that she’d prefer I waited until I was married but that she really hoped I’d wait until I was in love before I lost my virginity. Now that I’m a mother, I put the characters in my books to a similar litmus test. Not married (I didn’t get married until I was 29 and I moved in with my husband when I was 23 so that should give you some idea of what I was up to). No, my test is this: Would I be happy if my own daughters were doing what my girl characters are doing?

In If I Stay, Mia and Adam have sex. It’s never on the page (though there is a sex scene on the page, it’s not intercourse, if we want to get technical about it) but it’s implied that they’re sleeping together. There has been very minimal fuss about this (more people seem upset about the cursing, of which there isn’t much, especially compared to this upcoming book which is like a four-letter-word-o-rama). I like to think it’s because Mia and Adam are so obviously in love. So are Grace and Sam. I haven’t seen much fuss made about their “relations” either in the brief Googling I did.

Or maybe it’s because we’re past that now. With so many of the Gossip Girl-type novels where everyone hooks up with everyone, maybe readers (and adults) have been become inured to a little action between the covers (heh heh). Or maybe parents who are reading books like Shiver and putting it to their own mother litmus test? I don’t know.

Speaking of the mother litmus test, let’s take this scenario: My daughter is dating a guy who might kill her. Then he dumps her and she gets kinda suicidal. But they reconcile and wind up getting married and she has his baby at 18, a pregnancy that near kills her. She’s not going to college. She hitches her wagon to a guy she’s known for a year for all of eternity. Literally.

If Willa were 13 right now and I were helping her with book selections and it was between Twilight and Shiver, I know which book I’d steer her toward.

If you want to read the article in its entirety, be sure to check out Gale Foreman’s blog, the source of the above excerpt. 

I don’t actually know much about the author of this blog article, but I was following a series of posts on the “taboo subject” of sex in YA and this one mentioned our absolute favourite subject so I knew I had to post it here.

Basically, the author, Gale Foreman, discusses Maggie Stiefvater’s popular book, Shiver, in relation to sex in YA lit and how the fact that the main characters do have sex makes it much better than the Twilight series, which, as you probably know, has the characters abstinate until after marriage, thus making it ”morally correct”.  I find this interesting, especially as the author further elaborates that she often writes thinking of her own children and doesn’t think the Twilight series is a good example to base your life on. 

It’s refreshing to hear this opinion coming from another author/mother — comparing to Stephenie Meyer, of course — especially one whose books already seem a great deal better than Twilight, even though I haven’t actually read them (yet).

I’m not sure how I feel about this.  I like steamy YA romance as much as the next girl though, and I really agree with what the post says about how if teens are not completely kept in the dark about every little sexy thing, we’re less apt to try stuff out ourselves. 

The Twilight series has been praised by many people for its message of chastity and abstinance, but frankly, I agree with Gale Foreman when she says that the ends do not justify the means.  And to be quite honest, I am way more interested in reading Shiver, now that I’ve heard such a positive review on it… though I suppose on the other hand you could compare anything to Twilight and have it be a million times better.  Hmm.

Something to think about anyway.  How do YOU feel about sex in YA lit?  Good or bad?  Why?

Found at FUCK YEAH VOLDEMORT.

Thanks to Twilight_sucks on livejournal for the tip. =)

Okay, I officially love this guy.
He’s reading Twilight and posting about it on Youtube, but usually he only does a couple of chapters a month.

I encourage you to watch his other antitwilight videos here and/or just subscribe to him in general here.  He’s really funny, and generally a cool guy too. 

PS: That’s Maureen Johnson with the card in the end!  She’s a writer!  Who I once met at a book signing!  I love antitwilighters. <3

I’m not an avid Vampire Diaries fan… In fact, I only just saw the first episode yesterday.
I’ve also never read the books.

BUT, I am already pleased with what I’ve seen. Even though so far the main vamp guy (Stefan, is it?) is without a doubt modelled after Robert Pattinson as Edward, he at least seems to, you know, have fangs & drink blood & stuff.

So, this is for any Vampire Diaries fans out there. Why it’s better than Twilight, according to the NY Post.

Listen up, Twi-hards!

“Twilight” may get all the headlines (”New Moon” Crosses $200 Mil Mark!” “Kristen Stewart: ‘I’m So Not Bella!’”).

But “The Vampire Diaries,” also a tale of the deadly undead, has quietly built a loyal following, first as a series of young-adult novels and now as a CW TV series.

The two may seem the same — both are high-school-set dramas about a young mortal girl in love with a brooding vampire guy — but “The Vampire Diaries” is no “Twilight” wannabe.

With the first 10 episodes of “Diaries” as evidence (all week, the CW is marathoning the season so far on Ch. 11, vamping until the show returns next month), here are five reasons it’s better than “Twilight”:

LOVE BITE: Nina Dobrev (left) and Kayla Ewell, from the breakout “Vampire Diaries,” are more fun than those mopey kids from “Twilight.”
1.) Believe it or not, “The Vampire Diaries” came first.

The “Vampire Diaries” book series, by L. J. Smith, started in 1991 — that’s 14 years ahead of Stephenie Meyer’s first “Twilight” book, in 2005.

The series went out of print until 2007, when creator Alloy Entertainment — the company that gave us the “Gossip Girl” book and TV series — worked on a reissue and shopped around a TV version.

“We certainly saw the success of the ‘Twilight’ books and felt that there was an opportunity,” Alloy Entertainment president Les Morgenstein told The Post.

2.) The Vampire Diaries is bloody, gory and full of killing.

In other words, it’s a more traditional vampire horror tale than “Twilight,” which is heavy on romance, light on murder.

And while they all look like models in both series, the ones on “Diaries” sometimes get dirty.

“The vampires, while pretty, are still sort of vicious,” explained Lindsay Soll, editor of MTV’s Hollywood Crush blog. “When they’re hungry and about to feed, their fangs come out — they don’t even have fangs in ‘Twilight’ — and their veins stick out. They’re not afraid to make pretty people ugly.”

They’re also not afraid to make pretty people die.

There’s already a sizable body count and, now that the people of Mystic Falls, Va., are gathering their stakes and fighting back, Morgenstein promised, “There will be more killings.”

3.) These sexy vampires actually have sex!

In “Twilight,” Bella and Edward lust after each other and yet miraculously manage to avoid having sex. Written by a Mormon, “Twilight” has long been considered an abstinence fantasy.

Not so “Vampire Diaries,” which has no falsely neutered innocence.

“We’re not pulling any punches,” said Morgenstein.

4.) Elena is an independent young woman.

Perhaps “Twilight” is so popular because Bella is a blank slate, an everywoman on which young girls can project fantasies of themselves.

But Elena, of “Diaries,” sets an example for young girls as a strong-minded woman.

“She doesn’t let her attraction to Stefan completely control her, whereas Bella is totally blinded by her passion,” Soll said.

“When Bella finds out that Edward’s a vampire, she acts like she’s just learned he went to the dentist — as if it’s no big deal.” “She gives herself over to Edward, while Elena questions it all, like most people would.”

5.) Had it with the Twi-hype? “The Vampire Diaries” is the underdog.

And who doesn’t love rooting for an underdog?

Evidently it’s a vampire’s world right now — but we get to choose which of many vampire tales to watch. (HBO’s “True Blood” will return next June, by the way.).

And since “Twilight” didn’t invent vampires, how about giving Bella and Edward’s vacant, lovestruck gaze a rest, and resting your eyes on “The Vampire Diaries.”

Source: nypost.com

Thanks to @melissa_marr, and @lotuselyse on Twitter for…. well, for tweeting about it and giving me the tip. =)

Oh, and to the obsessed Vampire Diaries fan I know who tells me to watch the show every chance she gets.

I’M WATCHING IT, OKAY??? xD

Background Info:
John Green is the (completely awesome) author of a few of my favourite books, Looking For Alaska, An Abundance of Katherines and Paper Towns.
He and his brother Hank also have a youtube channel (Vlogbrothers) in which they often talk to each other, but they talk about Big Issues also for the world & stuff.
Oh, and they’re are the founders of Nerdfighters.com which is just kind of made of awesome.

So, without furthur ado, this is John Green’s opinion of Twilight (the source being his youtube channel, obviously):

Source.

Twilight, the movie, comes out this week. It is based upon the bestselling novel by Stephenie Meyer, and, like the book, is said by many to be the “next Harry Potter,” meaning it is the first young-reader book series to come close to the astronomical sales of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series. Meyer still has a lot of catching up to do, having sold “just” 17 million books worldwide, compared to Rowling’s 400 million.

While both sets of books deal with children and their adventures with the supernatural, that is where the similarities end. Potter is aimed at a slightly younger demographic (9 to 12) and is loved by boys and girls alike; Twilight appeals mostly to older girls (14 to 19) and their sexually frustrated mothers.

The most startling difference between Twilight and Potter, however, is not demographical; it is ideological.

Put simply, Rowling and Potter live on the left; Meyer and Edward dwell on the right.

Both sets of books are popular in the United States, but I believe it is for drastically different reasons, however subconsciously those reasons may reside. Just as the nation continues to more of less split into the red and the blue (with high hopes that our President-elect can change this), the fundamentalist and the forward-thinking, so too does the world of children’s literature.

Read the rest of the Source Article here at racialicious.com.

It’s an interesting article, mostly talking about the politics behind Stephenie Meyer and JK Rowling’s different ideas.
Worth checking out, I’d say. =)