heartnell:
i wonder what effect wide-spread/public vampirism would have on the evolution of language
heartnell:
like i mean obviously i havent slept properly in like two days but seriously how does it evolve without the assistance of former generations dying out. do people use the words “grisbittyng” and “yolo” in the same sentence. are there parts of big cities where its like walking into a different century like are there neighbourhoods in chicago where people literally speak old english and the teachers at the schools use old english and like the people who live two blocks away speak a creole of ge’ez and polish and like. dude i want cultural implications of vampirism that go beyond bloodbanks i want linguistics and politics and medical science and history and religion, i want hypovolemic vampires who speak akkadian in the home and are devout worshippers of inanna and have a home care nurse to help with making sure the picc line theyre getting lactated ringers solution via isnt partially occluded!!! help
eighthdoctor:
ok i have no excuse for this but
i just got my drivers license renewed and can you imagine the dol dealing with ‘what is your birthdate’ ‘august 27 1662′ ‘what’
but everyone else too, all the bureaucracy’s gonna be fucked
‘bloodtype?’ ‘no preference,just fresh’
‘sir are you a senior’ ‘i was born in the fifteenth century, i should hope so’ ‘sir i’ll need to see id’
and like—how do you deal with a population that’s collecting social security while being functionally 15 or 28 or 50 what do you do about them when they don’t die what does it mean to have a group whose physical ability is unchanging, is there a vampire draft, is there a separate database for vampire SSNs because they draw social security for different reasons what is going on with that
how do term limits work, is there a mandatory down period, or are vampires bound to the same term limits as mortals and if so are there protests about this
heartnell:
afa social security goes i would assume in this setting it would be based on physical ability rather than necessarily age for vampires, which is very similar to what it is for humans: you can get benefits if youre 65+ OR if you physically cannot work, id assume for vampires its just the latter or else “yeah ive been on retirement for 400 years” “you’re the size of a seven-year-old” “yeah and”
hypovolemia DOES NOT count if youre a vampire, some people seem to forget that. there’s IV saline as an adtl to blood, bc quite honestly vampires are wimps and “have you ever tried to drink blood that has half a cup of salt in it?? it’s disgusting”
oh dear god IDs the big question is ofc do they show up in photographs bc if not there is a big market for photo-realistic artists in the govt and in most big companies, bc IDs with descriptions are… pretty easy to bypass, especially when you’re immortal. i’ll bet some places have fun with it, like a lot of art students’ university IDs will be ridiculously stylised, possibly like cubist or some shit.
i assume there are systems in place to keep someone from being head of state for 700 years.
murder???? how do you solve a vampire’s murder how do you identify the victim is it like “so i found this pile of ashes, and this person went missing near here recently, i guess this is our person??” does no one even bother to investigate? i feel like vamps wouldnt put up with that
aromantic-eight:
……Forensic scientists specializing in ash analysis.
aromantic-eight:
Would vampires have to get special, like, carbon-nitrogen profiles done? Stuff that would stay in the ashes? “We did a molecular ratio test on the ash pile and the profile matches the following individuals quite closely.”
heartnell:
thats FASCINATING ngl, although like i wonder how the community feels abt it, like on one hand if someone gets murdered and theres no way to identify the remains ppl are gonna get pissed, if you mandate fancy tests ppl are gonna get pissed (like how they dont want to be fingerprinted since they “arent a criminal”, u know?), its all a mess
secretallie:
Okay, but guys: POLITICS. I mean okay, let’s be optimistic that effectively immortal people would willingly step down from power after a number of years in office. Given how addictive power can be, it’s questionable, but like I said, optimism, because otherwise everything is basically fucked and there will never ever be social or political change whatsoever with a monarch/president still subscribing to rigid old timey values.
But still. Imagine a UN convention where a representative of one country still has visceral firsthand memories of how that dude across the room once served as a general in the war that tore his country apart. Or a Congress where former slaves and slave owners have to sit next to each other. Or a forward-thinking president trying to pass a law about gender equality when a significant segment of the population were raised in an era where women were considered property. HOW WOULD THAT EVEN WORK???
ajcrawly:
coto524 old-manrupee armoredhost queenie-bex
cosmictuesdays:
My guess is that, because they’d have a greater understanding of what constitutes a long-term impact, vampires would be deeply committed environmentalists. Lobbying for more stringent industrial regulations, strengthening the existing laws for clean air and safe drinking water, increasing EPA funding and collaborating with the Department of Agriculture to fight against corporate lobbyists, that sort of thing. They remember what it was like before the Industrial Revolution kicked in, they know what they’re talking about.
…and besides, would you want to eat something sick and diseased?
Tags:
#vampires #story ideas I will never write
