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      Welcome, everyone, to the new 910CMX Community Forums. I'm still working on getting them running, so things may change.  If you're a 910 Comic creator and need your forum recreated, let me know and I'll get on it right away.  I'll do my best to make this new place as fun as the last one!
The Old Hack

Story Friday July 21, 2017

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5 hours ago, Cpt. Obvious said:

The mere thought that Vampires might exist in those books throws science out the window. If we are to accept that vampires are real, then we have to accept that there is some "magic" at work and that we doesn't know how it works. Why blood? Why the blood of sentients, or human blood, or in some versions only the blood of virgin humans?

In Hellsing, vampires can drink any blood ... but only virgin will change in vampire when killed by one.

2 hours ago, The Old Hack said:
6 hours ago, Cpt. Obvious said:

To be able to read a story involving vampires we have to ignore all of these things, so what makes it so hard to accept the idea that you could give blood orally to a woman pregnant with a vampire baby when we doesn't even know why they need blood in the first place?

Read my post above about breaking rules. You can break ONE rule while establishing your setting and your readers will happily go along. Or, at least break a genre-defined set of rules. But for every rule you break BEYOND that, you weaken your story because the readers will start to realise that you haven't done your work and that you are just pulling stuff out of your rectal orifice. Do it enough -- and Twilight has done it to an immense degree -- and all you have left is drivel.

You can break every rule if you fix them afterwards - meaning, replace with other rules. You don't need to fix rules broken by genre if you use usual genre replacements. But specifically vampires are rarely exactly identical ... case in point, EGS. Or see tvtropes. Regardless, Stephenie Meyer managed to break so many rules it's questionable if she shouldn't renamed her monsters ...

It's when you break a rule and not replace it when readers realize your story is weak and unsupported.

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I think Pat Elrod broke or changed as many vampire rules in The Vampire Files as Meyer did in Twilight, but it's an infinitely better series.  Established the rules right off the bat, and stuck to them, sometimes discovering new aspects but never just saying "not anymore, I changed the rules!"  It helps to have characters who are interesting, intelligent, and have a sense of humor.  First book is Bloodlist, you should check it out.  It's sort of a cross with hardboiled detective novels; Jack starts out by solving his own murder.

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1 hour ago, CritterKeeper said:

Jack starts out by solving his own murder.

That does sound interesting. Unfortunately, I don't have enough time to read all interesting books. I keep it on list, but I'm afraid Harry Dresden is higher. The fact neither was translated is bit of handicap ...

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33 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

That does sound interesting. Unfortunately, I don't have enough time to read all interesting books. I keep it on list, but I'm afraid Harry Dresden is higher. The fact neither was translated is bit of handicap ...

Well, the earlier books at least are relatively short and fast reads, so if you have a chance to read something like that, I do recommend trying Bloodlist by P. N. Elrod.  :-)

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Whats wrong with drinking blood? The Maori drink the blood of their own Cows. In fact by making a small incision draining some blood then patching the cut the Maori are able to live of the blood their cows provide without butchering them. (i'm not saying they never  kill their cows just that they get more milage of of them this way)

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52 minutes ago, animalia said:

Whats wrong with drinking blood? The Maori drink the blood of their own Cows. In fact by making a small incision draining some blood then patching the cut the Maori are able to live of the blood their cows provide without butchering them. (i'm not saying they never  kill their cows just that they get more milage of of them this way)

Ritually speaking, nothing at all. Medically speaking, from the viewpoint of modern science, drinking blood and expecting a fetus you happen to be carrying inside of you to get any benefit from it at all is utter hogwash.

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1 hour ago, The Old Hack said:

Ritually speaking, nothing at all. Medically speaking, from the viewpoint of modern science, drinking blood and expecting a fetus you happen to be carrying inside of you to get any benefit from it at all is utter hogwash.

Gotcha. What about nutritionally? 

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29 minutes ago, animalia said:

Gotcha. What about nutritionally? 

I am actually not sure. I merely wince at the thought that blood which might have been used to help a patient who badly needed it to live was decanted into a styrofoam cup and drunk through a straw. They could at least have pretended to administer it in a way that made sense.

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Animal blood is used as an ingredient in recipes from many cultures.

Drinking raw animal blood is more rare, and is often ceremonial.

Drinking raw human blood is even rarer, and again is mostly ceremonial.

Drinking raw human blood, without the consent of the source, is usually considered rude.

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10 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

Animal blood is used as an ingredient in recipes from many cultures.

Drinking raw animal blood is more rare, and is often ceremonial.

Drinking raw human blood is even rarer, and again is mostly ceremonial.

Drinking raw human blood, without the consent of the source, is usually considered rude.

Raw anything is generally risky because of diseases. Of course, vampires don't need to worry about that, but all those ceremonial people should be careful about that.

(Surprisingly, fruits and vegetables are exception.)

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5 hours ago, hkmaly said:

(Surprisingly, fruits and vegetables are exception.)

It may have something to do with their absence of an internal circulatory system to carry intrusive bacteria and virae around. And it is still a good idea to clean their outsides carefully before eating them.

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3 hours ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

SHHHHH!  It is not yet time to reveal that our Chlorophyll Overlords thrive upon animal sap.

Huh. I knew there were parasitic plants, but somehow I always thought they only parasitised OTHER PLANTS.

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4 hours ago, animalia said:

Huh. I knew there were parasitic plants, but somehow I always thought they only parasitised OTHER PLANTS.

Venus fly traps, pitcher plants, there's all sorts of fun predatory plants out there.

As long as you avoid the Triffids, I think humans aren't in any danger.  ;-)

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9 minutes ago, CritterKeeper said:

Venus fly traps, pitcher plants, there's all sorts of fun predatory plants out there.

As long as you avoid the Triffids, I think humans aren't in any danger.  ;-)

When you said animal sap my thoughts went parasitic NOT predatory. That being said I AM Aware of them for two more fun examples see sundews, and butterburs

Edited by animalia
spelling

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On 7/29/2017 at 7:37 AM, The Old Hack said:
On 7/29/2017 at 2:16 AM, hkmaly said:

(Surprisingly, fruits and vegetables are exception.)

It may have something to do with their absence of an internal circulatory system to carry intrusive bacteria and virae around. And it is still a good idea to clean their outsides carefully before eating them.

I'm pretty sure they DO have internal circulatory system. Slow and low-capacity compared to animals, but still.

Note that bacteria usually can't get inside plan through roots due to being too big. And generally, most plant illness are fungus-based. Also, it's possible that there ARE bacteria in plants, just not harmful to humans and animals.

On 7/29/2017 at 4:32 PM, animalia said:

When you said animal sap my thoughts went parasitic NOT predatory.

There are fungui parasiting on insects, but plants seem to not really care.

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Just now, hkmaly said:

I'm pretty sure they DO have internal circulatory system. Slow and low-capacity compared to animals, but still.

Note that bacteria usually can't get inside plan through roots due to being too big. And generally, most plant illness are fungus-based. Also, it's possible that there ARE bacteria in plants, just not harmful to humans and animals.

There are fungui parasiting on insects, but plants seem to not really care.

I wonder if those fungal virae from The Last of Us count as predatory fungus.

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