Our Vampires Are Different/WMG

The Entire Buffyverse is real.
After Harmony got a reality show (see: Season 8) Willow did a HUGE Cosmic Retcon to fix alot of their problems and couldn't help but invent something that showed off their various exploits. However, due to this arguments often turn into angering or embarrassing the other person/people in the argument with porn fic quotes, most likely causing a few injured Slayers-In-Training (think for a moment, how do YOU think Spike would react to quotes from a Spike/Xander fic?).

The Roman Empire preferred crucifixion as an execution method in part because it also worked on vampires.
Being nailed to a crucifix kills vampires slowly and painfully, just like humans. So if you catch a serial killer, you don't have to worry about his nature, just nail him up.
 * Crucifixes only kill vampires because they're holy symbols. And I don't think a piece of wood in the shape of a cross would work without a corpus.
 * In any case, the cross only became a holy symbol because Jesus was crucified on one. That makes this one heck of a Stable Time Loop.

The French Revolutionary government used the guillotine because it worked on vampires.
More egalitarian, more humane, and who's going to notice if you stuff some garlic in their mouth afterward?

Twilight was written to kill vampires.
It's certainly embarrassing enough to them. Think of what would happen if you were a vampire and you read Twilight. Would you continue unliving, or would you pound a stake through your own heart as a sort of Hara-Kiri to try to regain your honor?
 * To paraphrase (or possibly quote) the great Terry Pratchett, "The perfect world for a vampire is one in which all other vampires are dead and no one seriously believes in them any more." If Stephenie Meyer is a vampire (or controlled by one) and trying to make other vampires stake themselves, that accomplishes both points.
 * Stephenie Meyer is a deadly vampire hunter who churned out a foul supernatural romance series with the sole intent of having raging vampires attack her, allowing her to find and kill them much more easily.
 * Maybe she made the books so that she could take revenge on the vampires for killing one of her friends!
 * This plan backfired magnificently because Stephenie Meyer (vampire hunter) is having increasing difficulty differentiating between the vampire assassins and rabid anti-twilighters attacking her.

Twilight was written BY vampires so we'll stop taking them seriously so they can take over.
Think about it. All they have to do is say, "I'm a vampire and I sparkle"; then they can kill you while you're busy rolling your eyes. As a nightshift worker, I for one welcome our new nocturnal overlords(finally, stores will be open when I'm awake!)
 * It's also so the naturally weak-willed, particularly young women of a tender age, will be properly prepared for life as chattel. All you would need to say to them as a vampire is, "I'll love you forever"; then you've got them hooked. The vampires started this particular propaganda with Anne Rice's Byronic, broody vampires; it has, so far, marched on without a hitch. I, for one, am eagerly awaiting our true puppetmasters' arrival.
 * Let the Right One In was written for the same purpose, but aimed at a different audience. It's much more effective: fans discussing the murder of an innocent character focused on how horrible it was for the murderous vampire.
 * It's a plan by dio to destroy any opposition to his endeavors. That would also explain the poor writing and flawed understanding of relationships.

Vampires have been spending centuries building up this elaborate folklore around themselves to hide that they are as lame as the ones in Twilight.
Meyer's a real jerk.
 * Evolution would never have been so lame if it tried.
 * Who said vampires evolved? Clearly the first ones got caught in some toxic Phlebotinum fallout...

Vampires are the World's Greatest Golfers.
Their true curse is that they will never be able to show it.

Vampires were made so that humanity never got too big
But they found out that we are brilliant at killing anything that isn't us (and some things that are). Now they have to hide behind a Masquerade, waiting for the right time to strike and kill us all. This makes sense because it counters our ability to kill things on the fly -- most weapons cannot kill a vampire.
 * This would explain why vampires haven't run rampant and destroyed the world (our would anyway), they want us to reproduce and get more food for them.
 * But, since they can survive a lot of damage, why don't they just attack us, overpower us and keep us in death camps? So they can get a free meal? I can imagine they could do that.
 * See Daybreakers for why this would be a bad idea.

There are multiple vampire "types".
(Not a complete list by any means! Feel free to add categories and sub-categories!)
 * Basic Vampire - standard vampire strengths and weaknesses.
 * Upgraded Vampire (Hellsing's Alucard, or an Elite from Charby the Vampirate) - Immune or indifferent to standard vampire weaknesses, usually proficient with some sort of weapon.
 * "Snakepire"/"Meyerpire"/"Sparklepire" - Vampires that have a degree of control over their bloodlust, sadly they also sparkle and spew venom, hence the first name.
 * Japanese Vampire - Similar to "Upgrade Vampire", spend some time in Japan and you start losing most of the traditional racial weaknesses.
 * Shapeshifting Vampire - Can transform into bats. Why do you think vampire bats drink blood?
 * They can also transform into wolves and mist/fog.
 * Dracula-A title given to the King of Vampires. Has the same qualities as an Upgraded Vampire, except more boosted. Likely have a One Winged Angel form.
 * Succubi/Incubi-Could be considered the demonic cousin of a vampire. Feed on sex instead of blood.

Alternatively:
 * "Hemos"-Catch-all term for a blood-sucker.
 * "Hemo Bestiary"-An animal that is turned into a vampire. For example, a chubacabra is a goat-vampire.
 * "Hemo Lite"-Watered down vampires. Like in Twilight.
 * "Uber-Hemo"-Vampires not originating from the traditional vampire method. May be the result of a Deal With the Devil. They usually have Dracula as an example, and are much stronger than the average vampire.

Vampires don't exist
They were invented by werewolves, who like humans with garlic seasoning.

Vampires are really the next step of man
Emerging from the old world, where a small sub-set of humanity evolved at a faster rate. In reality Homo Dominants vis a via "Prey'' but labeled as Vampires. They live normal lives, can walk in the sun and the cross don't do diddley. They intermarry with others of the Blood and work to keep hidden. They are a little stronger, faster, with sharper senses and heal at an faster rate. Peak physical attributes but various body structures. From portly to stick thin. They are above human but not superhuman. They try to live simple , law abidding lives and punish of the Blood who threaten this. They are ugly, pretty, smart to plain thick depending . Some are likeable and some are dicks, your basic everyman who now and then burns up hemoglobins that need to be replaced on a weekly basis. And they don't live forever. Their normal lifespan is about 150 to 200 yeas. And yeah, if they could they would sue somebody for tuning them into sparkley emo boys.

People with anemia are real vampires.

 * They all have pale skin, constant weakness and of course the cravings for red meat. According to statistics more women are "vampires".

Vampires REALLY don't exist.
A Masquerade on the scale implied by things like White Wolf RPGs is impossible due to sheer scale and internal divisions. And any reproductive methods traditionally attributed to vampires would result in everybody being vampires inside of a century. Thus, our nonvampiric existence refutes the existence of vampires.

The Chupacabra myth was created by vampires.
They needed something else that villagers could blame when their livestock turned up drained of blood. This is why nobody can agree on what the chupacabra looks like.
 * Alternatively, they're animal vampires.

Vampires actually DO exist. And they inspire all authors to write books, shoot movies, and create games - to make world ready for em.
Which means that there is no Masquerade?

Vampire do exist, but vampire stories are supposed to make us believe they are fictional.
This way, anybody who claims to have seen "real" vampires can be written off as a kook, and anything that could be proof of their existence can be dismissed as a hoax. A real vampire who admits to being a vampire is just some weirdo with "prosthetic" fangs.

Vampires start badass the closer they are to Dracula, and get weaker the more diluted their vampiric blood is.
The first vampire is Dracula (let's call him Generation Zero). He is the most powerful. His brides (Generation One) have only half of his blood, and so are not as powerful (in Hellsing at least, they served as a Quirky Miniboss Squad). The ones they turned (Generation Two) have even less vampire blood. The earlier your generation, the more powerful you are, but the more you are affected by the traditional vampiric weaknesses. All vampires, no matter how different, are somewhere in this tree. Twilight is near the bottom, hitting a sweet spot: any less diluted and they do not have the extra strength and vitality (effectively a regular human), any more and the weaknesses start getting inconvenient.

This is just my theory. Discuss?
 * If earlier generations are more affected by vampiric weaknesses, how come Dracula isn't killed by sunlight, but vampires in other works sometimes are?
 * Because he is so strong that he can simply overcome the weaknesses; it's why they had to do so much to put him down.

Vampires have a crippling weakness against gold
It is generally agreed that vampires are killed/weakened/burned/sparkled when the sun shines upon them. Every classical celestial body has an associated metal: Mercury for Mercury, copper for Venus, iron for Mars, tin for Jupiter, lead for Saturn, silver for the moon and gold for the sun. Werewolves are associated with the moon and are weak against silver, since vampires are weak against sunlight, they should be weak against gold as well.

If you really, really, really REALLY want to make that vampire stay dead
Stake the heart, chop off the head, chop off the limbs, hands, fingers, drives nails in the hands, fill the mouth with garlic, consecrate the grave, thermite the body; do a couple of exorcisms just to be safe; drop their socks and other articles of clothing into a river; mix the ashes with silver, and launch the mixture into the sun.
 * Destroy any Soul Jar, Artifacts of Doom, and other Ring of Power. Nuke their Haunted Castle. Dig a great big hole where their Haunted Castle was; so that if it reforms, it falls in. Keeps explosives at the bottom of the hole.
 * Journey to the Underworld. Bind/Destroy/Redeem their souls, whichever works best.
 * Force them to read Twilight. They'll stay dead out of pure shame.