opnet [OpNet] Hi everyone!

[Leech]

Hello everyone! I just erupted like 3 weeks ago and I'm so confused about a lot of things. My headaches and stuff have gone away and everything but I've got some really screwed up things that I can do now.

If Stigmata is still here, I think she might be able to help me, but if she isn't, I'd love to hear from anyone who could help.

My blood does some really eff'd up stuff now, and things that I can do with other people's blood is eff'd up too.

Anybody here an expert on eruption? Cause if I had a choice, I wouldn't have wanted to erupt this way. It's kinda creepy, and well, spooky for everyone around me.

[Stormwarden]

I imagine I should say welcome. I can not help you with your questions though.

[Sandcaster]

Welcome aboard, Leech. I wouldn't call myself an expert on eruption, but I'm fairly well informed on the process. Likewise on a variety of xenobiological phenomena; I am -- or was, anyway -- a science teacher.

If you want, feel free to send me a Private Message, and I'll see what I can do to help you over the first few bumps.

[Neil Preston]

I'm not claiming to be an expert, but I know a great deal of stuff about novas, Quantum Expressions, and such. PM me and we can see about meeting, if you like.

[Wakinyan]

Hey Leech welcome aboard. Blood stuff huh? Probably Neil is your best bet he can make blood sing and do a little dance if it needs to do so. Just a suggestion!

[Leech]

Well, I don't know about meeting anyone just yet. My parents would probably get apoplectic or something if strange nodelings from the 'net suddenly come banging at their door. The recruiting people are already hassling us enough as it is.

Anyway, what I want to ask isn't that hush hush or anything.

I never wanted to be a vampire-like thing. The vital-energy deficiency was something I couldn't help, and I've never been a fan of vampie fics or flicks. I dealt with being a chi-vamp and stuff and I took a crapload of shit for it. Now I'm a nova and I don't want people giving me more crap for being more vamp-like when I never wanted to be vamp-like to begin with.

How come I erupted like this?

[Sandcaster]

OK, let me preface this by making clear that my understanding of the vampire subculture is academic rather than experiential (despite interesting discussions on the topic some students of mine a number of years ago). Let me further state that I won't be pulling punches; things need to be laid out on the table, and withholding information in consideration of feelings isn't going to help you right now.

The people who refer to themselves as vampires -- regardless of feeding method (sanguinary, psychic, pranic, elemental, empathic, etc.) -- are such due to a psychological need rather than any real physical requirement. There is a deep-seated need that being a vampire fulfills for these people. It could be a need to establish some measure of uniqueness in what can be an all-too banal and mundane world; it could be an extension of an appreciation for the beauty of darkness and death, such as is stated by full-fledged adherents to the goth subculture; it could be a feeling of emptiness and loss in one's life for whatever reason, and this is the way in which you choose to fill it. But whatever may be the reason that you called yourself a vampire, I assure you that it was a matter of choice -- even if that choice was entire subconscious, and even if your conscious self entirely despised that choice.

Stepping away from the topic of vampiric nature a bit, there is also the nature of one's eruption. With vanishingly few exceptions, the abilities one gains when they erupt are those that are either deeply desired or are needed in order to survive. The survival examples can be long-term or short-term need (I'm a decent example of a short-term case, given my proximity to the Shoreham reactor when it was breached back in '02).

So, you can look at this one of two ways, both of which lead you to the same end. Either you wanted on some level to be a vampire and evidenced that desire by the form of your eruption, or you needed vampiric abilities to help with your percieved vital-energy deficiency and the eruption translated that need into form. Either way, your eruption is pretty well explained as an extension of something that was vital to you in your pre-eruptive life.

[Wakinyan]

Some can try to steer themselves away from the theme of their eruptions or so I am told. I have heard that is not easy however so you might be out of luck in the short term.

However what you might want to do is look into Novas who do not mind sharing blood or at least donating it to you for your feeding requirements.

It is best you do that than feed on Humans. You might kill one by accident and that really isn't a good way to start off.

I am sure one of us can lend you some blood if it comes down to it. Me I got Gallons and it gets spilled all the time. Plus I just love to give myself to others.

[Neil Preston]

Leech, I would like to help, but you need to tell me how. It is tough for me to figure out some of the intrcacies of an eruption unless I can see the individual, but I will do what I can.

Tell me what you do. Tell me how it makes you feel, as well as how it effects the world around you. Don't get hung up on how other people are reacting, or going to react. Believe this can be a wonderful thing for you.

[Leech]

Quote:

Originally posted by Sandcaster:
But whatever may be the reason that you called yourself a vampire, I assure you that it was a matter of choice -- even if that choice was entire subconscious, and even if your conscious self entirely despised that choice.

Okay, note to self, don't ask Sandcaster for anything again. I've got no time for ignorance like that.

I'll reply to Wakinyan and Preston in a little bit.

[Sandcaster]

Okay, note to self, don't offer help to Leech ever again. I don't have the time to see my efforts kicked to the curb because they run into territory the recipient dislikes.

[Jager]

Leech, what is the nature of your Vampirism?

[Tommy Tomorrow]

Quote:

Originally posted by Sandcaster:
So, you can look at this one of two ways, both of which lead you to the same end.

Three ways. The third perspective is the eruptee at the moment of eruption accepted the "fact" of their nature, and the influx of quantum conformed to this world view. It's not necessarily a matter of "wanting" to be a vampire. It can also be the logical progression of having accepted that personality aspect as being factually true.

And no, I don't mind wasting my time.

[Gerald Haney]

Hi Leech, can I ask you what a chi-vampire is? Is it a nova thing? Because it sounds like you were one before you erupted so I'm a little confused.

[Leech]

A chi-vampire is someone who is deficient in vital energy, called chi, prana, or what have you, and normally takes it from another. Enough of a subculture and a fascination has developed around this that you normally have people who want to participate in feeding. The most common name for this has been "psychic vampire" but I don't really like it myself cause I don't really think I'm psychic or anything. Sanguine chi-vamps gain this vital energy through the taking of blood, though this isn't like you see in the movies or anything. But others do it straight flesh on flesh contact and stuff.

Thing is, erupting didn't make me a true vampire or anything. I don't need to drink blood for food or to keep from dying. Well, at least I don't think so. I haven't had a chi-feeding since my eruption and I'm trying to see if I'm still going to need to do it. If I get really weak after a while I'll know I still have to deal with it.

So everyone who thinks I vamped out, or something, chill. I still like Cheetos and can still live off grapes and spinach.

[Sandcaster]

"A chi-vampire is someone who believes that he or she is deficient in vital energy..."

There, fixed that for you. If you want to persist in your belief, so be it, but there's no point in letting you misinform the board.

I've dealt with members of the vampire subculture before, both in the public school system and as a municipal defender. You're nothing new to me, with the exception of the fact that you've had your little fantasy actualized via your M/R node.

[Tommy Tomorrow]

Quote:

Originally posted by Sandcaster:
... with the exception of the fact that you've had your little fantasy actualized via your M/R node.

When you take all things into account that's a very large exception.

I don't know what's happening between Leech and yourself but I do know two things I consider important. One is that Leech isn't telling the full story. I say this only because you don't pick a name like that while just happening to have that sort of specialized knowledge unless it truly defines something siginificant about yourself. The second is that, where novas and MR nodes are concerned, its often most effective to deal with what is rather than what we'd like it to be. Leech wouldn't be the first or last "vampiric" nova. And while what he was before is important in understanding the process which has brought him to this point, its not that useful in understanding what he currently is.

Also, in general I don't mind someone trying to misinform. That act tells me a great deal about the individual that would perpetrate it. Leech on the other hand doesn't seem to be trying to misinform me, though he is concealing. I don't mind the concealing simply because I don't feel I have an automatic right to know everything about Leech just because he has an MR node and an opnet connection.

Yes for a moment there he was a bit of an ass. Most people are at some point but we get over it and go on to become worthwhile people. I'm sure Leech will as well.

[Leech]

I picked Leech as a name because I can heal people when I suck on their blood, Tommy. People used to use leeches to heal the ill, think the leech would suck out the illness.

I took the name kinda from a song lyric: "you get those suckers to suck, to suck out what is bad. Now this is science not luck, luck is not what you've had. Now that you've brought yourself up, surprise your mom and dad...you will be healing the ill, it's surgery but with no knife, she'll make a good leech wife."

Except that I thought Leechwife was kind of a dumb nova name, so Leech sounded better.

Oh yeah, and my name is Cassie. I'm a girl.

[Leech]

Quote:

Originally posted by Sandcaster:
"A chi-vampire is someone who believes that he or she is deficient in vital energy..."

Only in the same sense that homosexual people believe they are meant to love the same sex.

[Doctor Nova Madigan]

Quote:

Originally posted by Sandcaster:
Okay, note to self, don't offer help to Leech ever again. I don't have the time to see my efforts kicked to the curb because they run into territory the recipient dislikes.

Note to Sandcaster, drop by Cleveland some time and I'll buy coffee and danishes.

[Sandcaster]

I may do just that, Flicker, if I find myself in the area.

[Neil Preston]

Quote:

Originally posted by Leech:
I picked Leech as a name because I can heal people when I suck on their blood, Tommy. People used to use leeches to heal the ill, think the leech would suck out the illness.

Sweeeeeettttt!!!! I was right!
(sorry, but I was guessing that to be the reason)

Quote:

Originally posted by Leech:
I took the name kinda from a song lyric: "you get those suckers to suck, to suck out what is bad. Now this is science not luck, luck is not what you've had. Now that you've brought yourself up, surprise your mom and dad...you will be healing the ill, it's surgery but with no knife, she'll make a good leech wife."

Except that I thought Leechwife was kind of a dumb nova name, so Leech sounded better.

Oh yeah, and my name is Cassie. I'm a girl.

Cassie, as a fellow healer, I would so like to meet you anc compare notes. Btw, I'm an Empathic Healer, in that I take on other people's wounds onto myself and my body actually replaces the damaged tissue.
I would love to see just how you do what you do.

[Leech]

Um, okay. But my parents will probably want to be there. They've become really overprotective since I erupted.

[Amped]

Welcome aboard Leech. I guess you're prbably close to my age if you are still under the watchful eyes of a parent. Welcome aboard as another teenage Nova, but I get to be the hot one.

The way I see it, being a vampire can either be a choice, or it can be something psychological that you really have no control over. Couldn't it be an actual dependancy?

[Neil Preston]

Quote:

Originally posted by Leech:
Um, okay. But my parents will probably want to be there. They've become really overprotective since I erupted.

No problems. Would you prefer being called Leech, or Cassie? People just call me Neil.

[Leech]

Hi Amped. It's neither a choice nor psychological. Some people are just made that way.

Neil, you can call me either Leech or Cassie.

[Amped]

I don't really see how that is possible, not for a human anyway. Their feeding habits are all relatively the same. I don't see how this prana or chi vampirism can actually be existant in a baseline. I could see it as being some physiological phenomenon based upon something the mind is doing maybe, but there is no way a baseline would die by not meeting this, whereas they would surely pass away if they didn't eat. That's where my opinion will sit until I see some scientific proof that a baseline has to meet this type of feeding requirement to survive.

Of course with a Nova, this would all be thrown out the window, anything is possible.

[Leech]

I've never heard of a chi-vamp dying of a lack of vital energy. I've known some that have become quite fatigued and in some cases seriously ill, though.

I really don't expect anyone here to understand what it's like, since it's one of those things you really have to experience to understand how it feels. I feel sorry I ever brought it up in the first place. I just wanted to give context as to why my eruption seems odd.

Think about it this way - if I could choose to live without a vital-energy deficiency, I would do so.

[Tommy Tomorrow]

It's a pleasure to make your acquiantance Cassie. Thanks for filling in some of the details on your background. Although I implied it wasn't a right on my part to know these things I do appreciate you thought enough of the conversation to volunteer information.

Quote:

Originally posted by Amped:

I don't really see how that is possible, not for a human anyway. Their feeding habits are all relatively the same. I don't see how this prana or chi vampirism can actually be existant in a baseline.

Chi, pronounced chee, is a fundamental component of existence. Considered both the principle and energy that animates all living things, Chi flows continuously through channels in the body, the environement and even through the vastness of space. It is synonomous with life itself as cessation of chi would result in lifelessness. Forces those of us in the modern world accustomed to being presented with selections; Chi comes in two distinct flavors.

The concept of individuals being unable to effectively gather or harness positive Chi is an old one. Not quite so old but still quite venerable is the idea an individual can be naturally attuned to the negative aspects Chi and require large infusions of positive Chi by a variety of methods in order to achieve "normal" function. While I don't see Chi as a mystical force, I do consider it self evident that an interplay of forces exists that can collectively be viewed as Chi until western science stops screwing around with clockwork gears and gets on with the business of understanding how the universe works.

In other words; "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

[Sandcaster]

And yet, nobody has ever managed to measure this chi. It has no detectable mass or displacement, no volume that it fills, no wavelength to examine via spectral analysis, no resonance, no quantum or subquantum pattern, no gravitational properties...nothing. It is as ephemeral as the human soul, completely dependent upon the belief of the beholder to have any effect whatsoever, and as such falls into the category of theology, not science.

When last I checked, nobody is born hard-coded to a religion. It's a matter of choice -- albeit a choice that can be heavily prejudiced, depending on one's upbringing -- and there is nothing even remotely physiological about it. Contrast this to Leech's comparison of vampirism to homosexuality; the latter is indeed hard-wired in most cases, with definable structural differences noted in the physiology of the brain (Levay, 1991; Mortensen, 2003; Granier, 2007; etc).

[Amped]

Since they don't die without "feeding" it isn't actually a requirement. It's just the body's response to the mind's addiction.

As far as chi goes, that's a whole different matter, I believe it's there, the vampirism, I still think is subconcious.

[Tommy Tomorrow]

Quote:

Originally posted by Sandcaster:
And yet, nobody has ever managed to measure this chi.

Really?

How odd. So in other words you believe Chi to be as equally nonexistent as "good", "hope" and "compassion". Interesting.

I wonder if prana has the same atomic weight as selflessness.

[Amped]

I didn't really mean to get caught in this huge debate about all this. I would be interested in learning about chi vampirism, but as far as what I have seen, I have not seen anything to prove it's existance. I'm not saying it isn't but with the facts that have been provided to me as it is right now, I can't believe in it. We'll just have to agree to disagree or this will go on forever.

[Tommy Tomorrow]

Alternately you could make the effort to find out more and then make your own decisions. Debate is fun but its not the same as investigating then weighing the evidence to determine what you truly believe.

That may sound like a critique and in a way I suppose it is, but let me be honest with you. Most of the people that read my books are not motivated, intelligent or educated. Critical thought is a foreign land and even the rudiments of the language of mathematics might as well be Sanskit to them. They read my (non-fiction) to feel as if they have a good grasp of the world when its fairly evident they don't. They skip the sections on empirical proofs and analysis, go directly to the pseudo-fiction illustrating the points then walk away feeling they've understood the underlying principles. Having me spoon feed it to them is easier but they're missing out by not making the trip with me.

Appeals to authority and what "science" believes are only vaguely useful. While most would like to see the edifice of science as a monument, the truth is the monument's been ripped down countless times only to be rebuilt anew. And of course what "science" believes is always correct until they have to bulldoze the monument down one more time and rebuild it. What's safe today according to science will cause cancer tomorrow. The "impossible" becomes common place. As our today becomes tomorrow's yesterday, we'll look back and understand how silly our "science" was.

Of course by tomorrow we'll also think we've finally gotten it right only to repeat the same pompous mistakes again.

[Amped]

Though, I have no reason to go and do such research. I'm not after some universal truth. It is very possible, that since I live my life at such a faster pace than everybody else, that I will die at a young age, even for being a Nova. I'm not going to spend that time researching something that might be a maybe, I'm not a scientist, I'm not a scholar, and while I am more intelligent than almost every baseline, I find that incredibly boring, and I would probably shoot myself in the head after a day of it. So I'll let somebody that is after this truth, go find the truth, then I'll read the truth cover to cover, three times over, and then I'll accept it as truth. Until then, I'll be surfing, skydiving, bungee jumping, freefalling, running, swimming, boxing, sparring, training, practicing my violin, or practicing my piano, or any other activity that I enjoy.

[Sandcaster]

I have to admit, Amped, that your metabolic rate has been a matter of both curiousity and concern for me. When you swing over by the WCK HQ, would you be willing to spend a bit of time in the medical section? Between Alchemist and myself, we might be able to give you -- or at least begin to discover -- some answers for you.

[Leech]

People have an aura visible when having a picture using Kirlian Photography.

I have no such aura.

Granier 2007? You're making that one up.

[Amped]

Sandcaster I can tell you, that I have aged faster than a normal person, over the past year, even though 365 days have past, based upon appearance, both in my dormed form, and undormed form it appears that I have aged closer to two years. Now we both know anything is possible, but it has been of a minor concern.

I doubt Sandcaster would make up such a source, being a teacher and all.

Also, the fact your a nova takes you out of any comparison with Novas. I'm sure there are several of us here that would have no visible aura when using Kirlian photography, and probably others that can control the way their aura would appear, i'm sure I could a bit even seing as it's a photograph of an EM field.

[Leech]

No, I mean before eruption I had no Kirlian aura.

[Lee Jones]

Deriving sustenance or essence from other human beings is a long standing tradition in some cultures. I'm not going to go into the science behind it because...well, I just don't care to.

I have, however, experiences similar to Sandcaster when it comes to this behavior. Many youths are stuck in the psychological component to the act. In the end, as long as both parties agree and nobody is having long term effects, I don't see anything wrong with it.

I am willing to hear what Leech has to say. Trying to keep an open mind and all.