A vamp physiology poll

[snick_backup]

[Poll #1417946]

Comments

[angearia.livejournal.com]

I'll just say vamps drink enough to bring them to the brink of death, then make them drink. Let's call that 1.5 liters if we must. Though I've also kinda wondered if the blood doesn't get immediately absorbed into their body and travel through their veins too. How else would they bleed? How long does it take for their system to process blood? It's not like they're really going to be converting it much, I imagine.

[snickfic]

Good point - I hadn't even though about the conversion part. If it happens really quickly, then maybe a very hungry vamp could drain a person completely.

[adorkablefae.livejournal.com]

I never really thought it really went to their "stomach" in so many words. I dunno, I just thought it did like a- replenishing of blood supply sort of thing. And it was less of a 'hunger' and more of a "Wow, my fingers are feeling tingly from lack of blood, I should drink some." But maybe I'm crazy. *shrug*

I mean, it obviously wouldn't work identical to that^^ but, I dunno. I always kinda followed that thing Angel said in "Earshot" hot it doesn't really make sense at all, but it just IS.

Have I stopped making sense?

[snickfic]

Hmm, I really like that interpretation about the replenishing and the tingly fingers. I don't think I'm going to use it myself, but it seems compatible with canon (other than, maybe, Spike's repeated declarations of hunger in "Pangs"?) and is an interesting twist.

[next_to_normal]

A little help here? How much blood can a human live without, short-term?

My quick and dirty googling says you'll go into shock after losing about 1.5-2 liters of blood. I'd say that's probably about how much a vampire drinks, and that's enough to kill the person unless they can get a transfusion pretty quickly to replenish the blood.

I don't know that it specifically goes to a vamp's stomach - there has to be some kind of mystical physiology here to get the blood from the mouth to the veins without going through the digestive process, but I think it's one of those handwavey things you just can't think about too much.

[rahirah]

I always figured vampires digest blood, it's just that the energy they get from it is mystical rather than physical. So a vampire's blood wouldn't be a mix of all the new blood they drank, but their own blood, which was magically animated by the demon just like most of their other organs.

[next_to_normal]

Hmm... also possible. I don't know that you can say anything definitively when it comes to magic, so really, anything goes. :)

So - since I know you've probably put thought into this - if vampires digest blood and get energy from it, could they theoretically drink their own blood? Like, if there was nothing living to feed from, could they survive just on their own blood? Or does only blood from a living thing provide nourishment? Or, alternatively, would the blood in the vampire's veins not replenish itself unless the vampire fed on another being?

[rahirah]

What I go by is that they can, but it's kind of like trying to live on candy would be for a human. They get a short-term burst of energy from it, but it's not really very healthy for them to try to live on the blood of other vampires. I don't really buy the 'sire's blood heals you" thing - the ritual Spike used to try to cure Dru didn't, IIRC, involve her drinking Angel's blood.

I assume human blood is best for vampires, followed by other mammalian blood, followed by other types of endotherms - birds, possibly other kinds of demons. And we know that the blood of magically enhanced humans like Slayers or Hamilton can give vampires a temporary high/power boost. (Don't think there's any hard evidence that feeding on Slayer regularly would result in a super-vampire - it's possible, but it's also possible that with continued exposure the vampire would build up a resistance or something.)

I also assume that the fresher the blood, the better - it's more 'nutritious' if the vampire makes the kill themselves, but not to such a degree that vampires who live on pig's blood are weak or malnourished. (Spike and Angel certainly seem healthy enough.)

[next_to_normal]

Makes sense to me.

One thing I've assumed on human blood vs. animal blood is that pig's blood is fattier than human blood, considering Angel's weight gain and Harmony's comment about it going "straight to her hips."

[rahirah]

Could be - though Spike certainly doesn't seem to have that problem. *g*

[next_to_normal]

Heh, I figure Spike's "extracurricular activities" kept him well-exercised. He does gain weight in celibate s7... just saying... ;)

[rahirah]

True, but that's while he's sleep-binging on human blood. The evidence is cloudy here. >:)

[rahirah]

(Actually, I wonder if Angel wasn't so much gaining weight as going back to normal for him, given that prior to meeting Buffy he'd been living on one rat a month, or whatever it was Whistler said.)

[next_to_normal]

Also a possibility, though it seems to happen well after that - he does get bigger between s1 and s2, but he's pretty buff throughout BtVS and early AtS. It's just later that he noticeably gains weight.

[rahirah]

Maybe it's stress-related eating? I mean, his life kinda sucks after mid-AtS S2.

[next_to_normal]

Maybe he secretly binges on chocolate fudge mint chip ice cream. (After all, he remembers that day.)

[rahirah]

Someone wrote a fic about just that! Can't remember who, though.

(Of course, that brings us to the question of whether or not vampires can get any nourishment out of people food.)

[snickfic]

Oh, that makes lots of sense! I hadn't ever thought of the blood as being their own blood. My biggest issue with their having blood at all is the fact that they supposedly have no pulse. But if they have blood in their veins, it must travel from point A to point B at least occasionally, mustn't it?

[rahirah]

Yes, because otherwise it would pool in whatever part of their bodies was lowest, forming large unsightly bruises. I assume that the animating demon lifeforce must at a minimum hold their blood suspended in their veins, and may swoosh it around at need, to heal wounds or digest or get an erection.

[snickfic]

Yay, swooshy demony lifeforce. *g*

[snickfic]

Yep to the mystical physiology. I've just been trying to think about where exactly it kicks in - they do swallow the blood, so it has to happen sometime after that. And canon isn't explicit, so I think to some extent you can just decide where you want to put the handwaving.

[riccadonna.livejournal.com]

Your post sent me directly to googling for more than half an hour, I read so much blood that I thought I was in Dexter's show or in Sweeney Todds' movie.
Then I had to go do something else, and then I really didn't understand it all very well, so, no poll for now. Maybe later.

[snickfic]

Aw. I hope it felt like productive googling? Thanks very much anyway. :)

[mabus101.livejournal.com]

I was going to say something about the blood quickly transferring out of the stomach and into the circulatory system--presumably in some mystical way--but it looks as if that's been covered already.

[snickfic]

Thanks for the thought, though! This is definitely one of those places where the natural/supernatural borderline is fuzzy - how much natural sense does it have to make before the supernatural handwaving kicks in?

[cafedemonde.livejournal.com]

Vamps can drink it that fast, within 5-10 seconds) with powerful jaw muscles and they just suck really hard and swallow fast. hmmm...sounds a little porny which is perfect!

And I think the blood goes into the tummy but is rapid distributed to the veins.

[snickfic]

Thanks for the thoughts! As I rewatch S2 I keep getting hit with how quickly the vamps kill people. I suppose that's partly for the sake of the TV audience - don't want to get too graphic - but I can't help but think that it'd all come off just a little more effective if the vamps took just a little longer at it.

[cafedemonde.livejournal.com]

I think they CAN drink that fast but when they have time and a ssafe place, they do it slowly. Like in season 7 Buffy when Spike was killing. He had that girl and it seemed like he was taking longer.

And when Spike and Dru were in the Bronze in S5 (Crush?), they took their time.