Tag: vampires

The Hunger and The Hunter – The Vicious Side of Sangs (And That’s Okay)

AlexiaLeave a comment

I’ve made a lot of posts about donors lately, so I wanted to address something on the sang side of the coin. Now, my opinion is firmly that donors are amazing people who deserve our respect. However, it would be negligent of me to not address the impulses and tendencies that sanguivores can have and how it can influence our thoughts towards people. It is a source of guilt for us, and I think some light needs to be shed on the hunter within us.

The hunger is something present in every sanguivore in some form. Often, when it starts to flare up, it is referred to as ‘twoofing’. I wrestled with this for many years. It was the first thing to make me think I was crazy. But it’s alright. We need to accept this part of ourselves. A beast locked in a cage will fight harder than one who is allowed to walk on a leash.

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Why Blood Donors Are Always Welcome At My Hearth, and Expectations of Donating Intimacy

Alexia1 Comment

A toast to blood donors

toast

Blood donors are great. Seriously. Let’s raise a glass and give a hand to all of our blood donors.

No, this is not another April Fool’s article, by the way.

I was surprised at the response to my article about the nurture of blood donors. The number of donors who commented about sang abandonment was interesting indeed. It saddened me to see that people who understand something which is, let’s face it, pretty weird to the outside world had their heart broken for caring enough to give.

Now, I know there are two sides to every story. I will attempt to cover some of these points here. Still, I wanted to write this piece to share my personal appreciation of donors and share some thoughts about blood donation.

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The Facade of Perfection, and the Value of Failure

AlexiaLeave a comment

This is what is so admirable. Overcoming adversity, the willingness to be different, a pariah, all for the sake of one’s own values. The willingness to stare failure in the face and shove your middle finger back at it. The people who don’t give a fuck about adversity or failure or embarrassing themselves or shitting the bed a few times. The people who just laugh and do what they believe in anyway. Because they know it’s right. They know it’s more important than their own feelings and their own pride and their own ego.

– Mark Manson

In society, we have an expectation to live up to. We aren’t skinny enough. Not wealthy enough. Often, people feel the need to protect themselves from the masses. Online, we can portray a version of ourselves that we want to be. Egos are protected. This breeds defensiveness. We want to feel successful. Some are so afraid of failure that they never even try.

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Blood Donors: Our Nature vs. Your Nurture

Alexia3 Comments

Giving blood is the ultimate self-sacrifice. Donors give of themselves to us for us to feel better. Or is it? Is giving blood such a huge sacrifice? Stay with me here.

Many sanguines are troubled by a notion of hurting the donor. The fact that a donor has to be stuck, cut, or somehow ‘harmed’. I feel that the innate nature of sanguivores is the cause of that. We have urges. We want to bite. We hunger for that blood. We twoof. We then feel horrible for doing so. Some feel ashamed, guilty. Some, over time, have accepted that this is simply who they are. Some stay stuck in this negative feedback loop of self-loathing. But donors don’t often feel the same way about giving their blood. The two perspectives can be in juxtaposition.

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Principles of Marketing, Building a Community and 4 Steps To Create Value

AlexiaLeave a comment

As a professional, I have a voracious appetite for knowledge. I spend time learning in the majority of my free time every day. Lately, I’ve been enveloped in the world of marketing, and I can’t help but think of how the core principles mirror what is needed to help in building a community.

These principles are: providing value, a point of differentiation, and then segmentation, targeting and positioning.

What do I mean by this? Firstly, you can’t make everyone happy. Medical sanguivores have very different experiences from some self identified vampires. The not using vampire alone is a point of difference. Criticisms sometimes arise regarding segmentation, but I find this a necessary principle. To focus on your niche of people, you position yourself to provide the greatest value to that niche. Content and support tailored specifically for them. This is one of many reasons that I encourage everyone to acknowledge and celebrate differences. Find your tribe, and work tirelessly to provide for them. You will never please everyone and if you try, you won’t be providing the best value to everyone. Someone will be doing it better than you.

How to create value? Well, there are a whole number of ways. Here are some things that come off the top of my head:

  1. Create a culture of learning. No one comes to anything knowing it all from the get go. Even masters continually learn, and it’s the ability to move between learner and master that helps the best leaders provide for their people. Keep learning. Encourage learning in others. Share information and knowledge freely, and help others to cultivate their skills. Help them to provide value in their own ways.
  2. Find your pain points and target them. Discover what is missing and what there is a need for. I did this when I saw a clear need for atheist, scientifically-oriented sanguivores whose needs were not being met. This could be something like knowledge about blood safety, or what additives are safe to consume. These needs will differ drastically depending on the individual. Tailor your efforts accordingly.
  3. Build infrastructure. Not everyone has the time, resources or personality type to create an organisation or group. Some people desperately need it all the same. Some are too young to be able to establish a group. Build. Create. Start projects and help to make things better. Do in-person meets and training sessions. Provide the framework for growth and people will follow.
  4. Ask questions and leave ego at the door. Listen to what people are telling you. As with market research, study your target audience and ask for feedback. Observe. Ask what people need. Serving those who need it is a privilege; exercise humility. Ask how you can better support those around you and what would make their lives better. Help them find their own voice. Work for the betterment of others, not for the praise or swelling of your ego.

Teaching others and sharing knowledge is extremely rewarding, and by finding your niche and applying the above principles, you can help to build a support network that provides for all those within it.

A

Bitter Or Better? Just Do It – Thoughts On Productivity

Alexia1 Comment

Be the change you wish to see in the world.

– Mahatma Gandhi

Everyone has their opinion on what can be done better, what improvements can be made, or how things should be run with a project. A recurring theme I notice is people who are disillusioned with the status quo or how things are being done. I often then ask, “why can’t you start these things yourself?”..

One thing I try my hardest to do with med sangs, or to be honest, anyone who asks is to encourage people to take action. It’s easy to get bogged down with your doubts and thoughts. It’s easy to believe you’re not capable of making waves, of enacting change, of helping others.

The people you surround yourself with greatly influence how near or far success feels at any given time. Action begets action from others. So what if you’re new? So what if you don’t yet have it all figured out? So what if you don’t yet command the respect you desire from your peers? These things come along the way and with time. People respect action and someone at least trying to make things better for people. If you screw up, at least you’ve learned lessons along the way. This can pertain to a number of things; starting a meet up group, a new organisation, a business, or a movement. People join when they see action and believe in your message.

I try to facilitate and encourage my friends to write and create projects. I aim to support initiatives of others if I agree with them. I think it’s important for us all to cultivate creativity and passion in people by giving them tools, a platform, and support.

Are you bitter, or do you want to make things better? If the latter, how? What can YOU do today to create value for other people?

Forget the haters. Leave behind the negative self-talk. Believe in yourself. Take action. Just DO IT.

– A

Donors: A piece by Giselle DeCavalier

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[Guest re-post with permission from Giselle DeCavalier. Post is from 2015.]

In sharing this, I hope to shed some light from this Donor’s experiences and feelings for the benefit of others. I am a Sang Donor. I have to come to think of donating as “the Act.” There are no adequate words to describe how the Act feels. I know that if I do not participate in the Act every so often, I suffer for it. I don’t want to be turned and I’m not out for popularity. I know I am a Donor as surely as a Vampire knows that they have a need. My need is to give.

I must be clear on this point: I do NOT participate in the Act because I am crazy, depressed, or a cutter. I do NOT exchange money, sexual favors or anything else for that matter. It’s not dinner and a movie, it’s not a date. I sincerely want to help, and I need the exchange as well. I don’t expect to be treated like royalty, or to be asked to treat anyone else like it either. That being said, it cannot be ignored that there is a relationship that forms of a sort. At the very least, I think it’s kind of silly to try and give to someone I can’t at least call friend. It should be nearly impossible to stay impersonal with someone who has shared themselves with you so intimately. Now there are bad donors just like there are bad vampires. Just try your best to communicate what you expect. Then you and the donor are on the same page.

What makes me crazy? When I offer to a vampire and they spend all their time searching for an ulterior motive. It can be hurtful when a vamp treats the exchange as though nothing else about me is worth associating with excepting my blood. I do NOT have to be crazy to do what I do, and please keep in mind vamps, there is a bond that develops, like it or not. If you start taking from a Donor, you have to recognize that that bond is going to exist. It’s absolutely imperative that you talk with your Donor about boundaries and STAY HONEST.

There is nothing in the world like feeding one of you only to be thrown away like a piece of trash. Those wounds take a long, long time to heal. Take care with those that give to you, we may not be fragile, but our feelings can be bruised as quickly as anyone else’s.

What do I get out of donating? A relief of my burden, an opportunity to talk with someone whom I can befriend, who understands my need to donate; and a chance to help someone who I know is truly in need. The Act cannot be treated like a one night stand. For me to allow the kind of bond that exists after a donation, I have to at least know that I will hear from the person I gave to again, that they will take me as I am and expect nothing that wasn’t discussed.

I make sure to let any vamp I donate to know that I am an empath. This means that a certain amount of “drama” should be tolerated by them; they, of course, are free to choose not to feed from me if they can’t handle that. My emotions are not always mine, and I do not always deal with the backlash of that as well as I would like. That’s what makes it so easy for me to be understanding when a vamp comes to me hungry and moody. I can completely understand being a little out of control of one’s self.

Of course I strive to get a better grip, it’s no fun for me to bawl my eyes out when I’m deliriously happy. That “this is too good to be true suspicion vibe” that I get from many vamps on their first feeding is hard to shake off too. Being empathic, as many of you know, gives someone an awful lot to deal with.

It can be very rewarding to give, I do not want to discourage anyone who feels the need to give from doing so, but I do want to issue a caution. For Donors, be VERY clear on what you expect to your vamps. Vamps be VERY clear to your Donors as to what YOU expect. Honestly can save alot of hurt feelings, misunderstandings, and sometimes prevent some pretty dangerous situations. Be smart, care for one another, and most of all, look out for yourself. Don’t get into a relationship with a Donor just because you are hungry and you think it’s the only way they will feed you; or the other way around either.

I’ve made mistakes with this in the past and have suffered for it. It’s my hope that by sharing my experience, I can save someone else the pain I went through.

I will add this word of encouragement, donors. As the time goes by, it gets easier to “contain” the emotions from donating. It comes with maturity and practicing shielding. As always, I am around to lend an ear.

Crimson Kiss: Sanguivores, Blood, and Sex

AlexiaLeave a comment

Catchy title, right? If you’re anything like me, you’ll have read the two words and perhaps winced a little. It sounds like a teenage vampire fan’s edgy lip gloss. Not that there’s anything wrong with loving the crap outta vampire fiction. I support everyone to be authentically themselves and follow their passions.

It isn’t just the words that many sanguivores inherently wince at. I’ve noticed over many years that if there’s a brief hint of sexuality involved in blood drinking, there is an immediate and fierce resistance in most cases.

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A Sanguinarian Treatise: An Argument For Partition From The Vampire Community

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By CJ!

As the long-awaited (by all nine of you) sequel to “A Sanguinarian Treatise” is now in review stage, I felt it was appropriate to repost and reintroduce the original for those to reconsider after a few years of life experience as well for those who have yet to read it. “A Sanguinarian Treatise” was written in late 2009 and made public in 2011. I hope to see respectful debate and lively engagement with the piece. 

prpii

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