Here are some scientific facts about blood loss for all you psychopaths writers out there.
This is actually very nice. I like the soda bottles as reference. (I remember when I was writing ‘Wizards of Ceres’ how I had to do a similar soda-bottle conversion to try to work out how much blood Fai could drink from Kurogane without killing him.)
On the topic of vampires incidentally, this basically means that there is no reason why feeding from someone should necessitate killing them, unless the vamp can chug two soda bottles worth of liquid in one go or carelessly leaves the bottle open when they’re done
@fieldofclover thought this might come in handy for, you know, vampirey things
Ooh, I like this! The bottles as a reference makes it quite easy to picture mentally - especially since, having previously experienced just how much mess a litre-bottle spilt on the floor actually makes, it gives a better idea of volume etc.
Incidentally, as a frequent blood donor myself (thank you, haemochromatosis), and thus being more aware of the volume of blood donated at each session (the average appears to be 450ml, or 0.45 litres per blood bag filled) and needing to know how long it takes red blood cells and plasma to recover after donation–
about 24 hours for plasma, and up to 8 weeks for red blood cells themselves, which is why the average length between donations is 12 weeks, to ensure the body is well recovered by the next donation (which is also why I was so fucking tired after having to donate once a month for the first three months of my treatment)
– I ended up doing a bit of reading re: blood loss, but this really is the best imagery for it I’ve seen without bogging down into too much science stuff.
Other crucially important facts relevant to vampire porn I have learned:
yes, you can get an erection after donating blood, as the body generally maintains blood pressure equilibrium even if the volume of red blood cells per liquid ml is lower, though if you lose anything more than half a litre you’re probably gonna find it a bit difficult;
erythropoietin is a funky chemical involved in converting stem cells to red blood cells which your body produces when you need more of ‘em, so if we’re going with the standard ‘vampire saliva is an anticoagulant and narcotic stimulant, and/or induces arousal’ conceit, it probably makes sense that said saliva introduces a similar compound into the human blood stream in the post-feeding stage to encourage their food to recover quickly for a repeat feeding, usually while licking the wounds left behind;
your vamp is probably gonna have a really full belly if they try and drink more than the average 450ml or so in one sitting. Blood is quite a bit thicker than water or soft drink; it’s more like drinking a hearty broth or soup. Can you imagine attempting to chug a litre of pressurised soup as it squirts into your mouth with considerable force? No thanks!
tl;dr the science behind blood loss is fascinating, especially in a vampire context, and the government agencies monitoring my search history probably think I’m a serial killer
@audreycritter was it you who was looking this up for a fic last week?
if your vampire’s killing folks, it’s because they left a couple of great big spurting holes in a jugular, not because they actually drank all their blood. we gotta stop having the scene where the detective says the victim was ‘completely drained of blood’ unless there were like 5 vamps involved.
or if your vamp goes waddling away with a bloated tummy like a milk-drunk kitten, that could work too.
