#like I’m sure a passable adaptation would be hypothetically possible

[no-1-rosalind-lang-apologist]

Ok so like. Film adaptations of books are not universally bad things on principle. I’m definitely not saying that it’s impossible to produce a good one. But at the same time, film and the written word are different mediums that aren’t necessarily suited to telling stories in the same way.

For example, in a book, especially a highly character driven one, you get to directly see and read a lot of a character’s thoughts. And this has a huge impact on your experience of the story. And sure, you can convey this in a somewhat similar way with a voice over in a film adaptation, but depending on the scene being adapted, this doesn’t always work great or feel natural.

And that’s not a bad thing. It just means that it doesn’t translate to film well because film is a different medium that tells stories in a different way. And there certainly are books that translate well to film. But to be honest? A lot don’t. Especially not in a way that even comes close to touching the original that it is based off of. And that’s fine. Plenty of amazing movies and TV shows wouldn’t translate well into books and most people wouldn’t really want or expect them to.

So no. I really don’t think that “achieving” a film adaptation should be seen as a goal the way it seems to be for a lot of books and I think that seeing this as a goal is often doing a huge disservice to the original work. I think that books that are well served by film adaptations are the exception, not the rule, and that most of the drive to produce film adaptations of popular books is driven by the urge to squeeze every last possible bit of profit out of every single creative idea ever rather than like. I don’t know. Actual appreciation for the source material and a genuine wish to understand it in a different light.

#I am not entirely sure where this came from but thank you for coming to my ted talk I guess??? #ok no I know exactly where this came from #shadow and bone netflix 🙄🙄🙄 #I’m tempted to make another post applying it specifically to sab netflix but idk #book adaptation #film adaptations #this is also why I don’t really want a secret Shanghai adaptation #it might work for tvd if they did a really good job #but I don’t think it would really work for flf because of how internal a lot of stuff is with some of the characters #like I’m sure a passable adaptation would be hypothetically possible #and sure. maybe it would get more people to enjoy the story #but I just really don’t think film would be an effective way to convey a lot of flf without losing really important parts of it #especially if you look at what makes your perception of Rosalind change from tvd to flf #I could make a whole separate post about this honestly #also from what I have observed film adaptations tend to lose nuance and exacerbate issues present in the books they’re based on #and while I don’t really think Orion fits the promiscuous bi stereotype exactly #I think a film adaptation would likely end up losing the nuance that makes him not fit it #ok I could probably talk about this forever but I am going to have impulse control and stop now

[spidermilkshake]

Welcome to My Elective Vampire TED Talk #2

TW: Mention and discussion of blood, hematophagy, etc., food and overeating mention.

This one's much less a characterization problem I have, and a lot more a problem with sheer physics goofs in vampire-y media. Science and numbers abound. Behold:

Vampire Physics: “Chuggin’ Four Liters of Buttermilk”

Lovely title. It should certainly evoke some idea of exactly what aspect of the typical vampire mythos I’m about to have a big issue with. Heavy whipping cream, buttermilk, light corn syrup… anything along the lines of red blood in terms of viscosity—whatever you prefer.

It’s the reason vampires are vampires; it’s the primary identifying trait across all the various little representations throughout folklore and fiction. It’s the primary “fear factor” behind the potential presence of a vampire in these fictional settings: They trail after you, perfectly stealthy in the night, perhaps they look and act just like you, could be hidden until darkness or even blending in among you right now—innocuous, human-sized beings but especially equipped to outrun, overpower, or avoid your notice. They very well are among your communities—since you have something they need. The Blood!

Cue the royalty-free thunder sound effects.

But that’s just the issue here with making the vampire fears so very grounded and founded. This isn’t a pack of wolves being sure to stay close to the elk herd to survive the winter on whole bones and carcass. They want something of the humans that the humans can live without, at least to some degree. “But Spider,” I hear a particularly ardent hypothetical vamp-fan interject, “blood loss does kill people! These vampires must be lethal because they need all the blood—it’s not like they waste it!”

Ah, well, the point is well-made: If you have decided the vampires of your setting require this and operate this way, who am I to stop you? The only questionable idea is that a vampire leaving a person alive and unharmed is a “waste” apparently. But do consider your worldbuilding choices should be done with intention—do not introduce a rule that you are not prepared to account for in logistics and adherence to verisimilitude, and especially physics. When establishing a “drains-dry rule”, establish also a physicality of such vampires that suits it because the typical capabilities of a vampire in most modern fiction would need to change for such a lifestyle.

Let’s start with size:

Presuming a vampire is within the size range possible to humans (what better way to blend in, eh?) and is uniquely adapted to subsist on an at least partial blood diet, deriving some or all needed energy and nutrients from the substances of blood, of an amount they can comfortably fit inside them on a nightly basis. Assuming you want your vampires to be even roughly passable as human pre-feeding as well as post-feeding (and not have them expand to several times their normal girth like a tick and spark a new wave of, er, inflation enthusiasts), then the blood-drinker’s maximum stomach volume should be at roughly one liter. And that’s maximum—as in “OH GOD WHY DID I EAT THAT MUCH? I FEEL LIKE I’MA DIE” levels of over-doing it, not a normal “full” volume where most would stop. That more moderate volume would be roughly half down to roughly a third of that one liter. Basically, if in any sense your setting’s vampires are actually physically putting the blood inside them, and they don’t bloat like a damn balloon, they don’t require any more than a quart of blood at one time.

This does mean, by sheer physiological limitation, your non-expandable human-sized corporeal-blood-needing vampires should never be lethal for their prey just by virtue of draining that blood. Here’s why: The average human body contains anywhere between 4 liters and 6 liters of blood, depending on size again. Even a particularly careless and gluttonous vampire (who also happens to be dumb and/or skeevy enough to not just go “ah. I get more blood by noshing on more people, not just the one”) biting a particularly petite victim will leave them still alive but very much depleted and unconscious. Only intentional carelessness or an accident (such as the “whoops! That one was super-anemic already!”) or both would turn out worse. And “draining dry” should be physically impossible for such a vampire—even an especially ridiculous and greedy one.

Most of the less-hungry vamps shouldn’t even affect the “prey’s” health any more than a typical (notably not-deadly) blood donation, as the ideal “one-third to one-half of max capacity” for a vampire’s DV of blood calculates out to… between 350 mL and 500 mL of blood from one human. Surprise! A donated unit of blood is measured at exactly 450 mL—the perfect amount for a vampire and the human can somehow survive the attack of the dread creature-of-the-night, so long as…

…you find a place to sit down for a few minutes and some orange juice is nearby. Wow, how harrowing. Truly a miracle that you made it.

“But,” I hear a naysayer nay-saying, “the vampires I’m making are after blood for life-energy! So they can take more because they need the life!”

If blood is being physically consumed whether it’s the blood itself or not, the volume constraints still hold. Also, if blood does “contain life energy” in your setting, who says your vamps need all the life energy from a person? Why isn’t 450 mL of life-energy enough? And why can’t the vampires just drain that much “life-energy blood” from multiple people, until it totals up to a “full life’s worth”? They do realize that if they end the life in a body, it stops making life/blood, right? Those vamps just sound like wasteful clowns to me. Or desperately looking for an excuse to kill someone. See Vampire TED Talk #1.

“But they siphon blood straight into their own veins—so they can drain more!”

… Pay better attention in biology, kids. That is not how eating things eat. Unless you are implying your setting’s vampires are literally undead sponges with no working innards at all, just rubbery, desiccated blood-tubes that need a fillin’ for the demon pneumatics to be puppetted around properly, that is not how eating works. Feel free to use these in horror settings or especially as villainous monsters or demons—but I better hope you ain’t planning on making them otherwise act or think like live, conscious, sapient people! If they’re meant to be good characters especially—y’all are transparent as an empty blood-draw bag with excuses to make vampires universally killers.

If you think this makes vampires “boring”, well… Maybe you’re not in it for vampires. Maybe explore what’s in that dark corner of yourself? Question your “default thoughts”. Let's see more fantasy writ with intention--and conscious of its tropes' tendency to be very, er, questionable when thought about for more than a passing second. I know I'm not the first to notice the blood-logistics problem: Special thanks to Martha Bechtel's ol' blog, which I ended up discovering while researching just how off most vampire media is.

See here for their "Worldbuilding: Vampires and Portion Control" post: https://martha.net/2008/08/vampires-and-portion-control/

#vampires #writing opinions #writing good or non-evil vampires #worldbuilding #whoops physics #long post #fiction writing #tl;dr under certain popular physical constraints vampire feeding should not be lethal at all #donate blood #seriously if you can in real life it's a great thing to do