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Clickbait for Paranormals: Filipino Vamps Hate This Aswang's Dieting Tips--Find Out Why
by Sarina Dorie
Sarina Dorie is the author of award-winning, YA paranormal romance novel, Silent Moon. Her Puritan and alien love story, Dawn of the Morning Star, is due to come this year with Wolfsinger Publications. She has sold over 80 short stories to markets like Daily Science Fiction, Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Orson Scott Card's IGMS, Cosmos, and Sword and Laser.
By day, Sarina is a public school art teacher, artist, belly dance performer and instructor, copy editor, fashion designer, event organizer, and probably a few other things. By night, she writes. As you might imagine, this leaves little time for sleep.
You can find info about her short stories and novels on her website:
sarinadorie.com.
Clickbait for Paranormals:
Filipino Vamps Hate This Aswang's Dieting Tips--Find Out Why
Looking to lose a little weight, but can't stop dining on human flesh cold turkey? Many other immortals also have the same problem. This was the case for Filipina Aswang, Jesusa Liang.
"I used to disguise myself as a human by day and then turn into a pig at night--literally," says Liang. "After turning into a sow, I'd break down doors to funeral homes and drag out corpses to devour at home. I know, ick, right? Then in the morning I'd feel bloated and sick, and have to clean up before neighbors saw the evidence of my midnight snack. I felt all emo and hated myself for getting so fat and being such a dwerp. I'd go back to living on salads but eventually I'd binge again. I didn't know how to break out of the cycle."
Jesusa Liang isn't alone. Many vampiric beings suffer from eating disorders that affect their night life. With recent incidents of blood shaming that have been going around, many Aswang feel more self-conscious than ever for shifting into blood-thirsty animals at night and pigging out--even the ones who don't turn into swine.
Below are a few tips that Aswang like Jesusa Liang have found helpful to break the binge cycle.
1. Don't stop cold turkey. Your craving for humans is natural. Stopping can have a serious impact on your health. Cutting human blood out of your diet completely will only cause binges like Liang's.
2. Skip the fad diets. As trendy as it is to become "vegetarian," there's no way around it: you are meant to eat humans. Supplement your diet during the day with blood smoothies and rare steaks so that you are getting the vital nutrients an Aswang needs.
3. Add supplements to your meals. Take a tip from your demonic cousins of Japan and dig up graves, as done by the cat-like Kasha. Gathering bones to grind up to add to a protein shake is far less noticeable than kidnapping live humans. Consider incorporating small amounts of human flesh from the garbage cans of plastic surgeons to make an otherwise bland meal flavorful.
4. Portion control is a must. Limit your human servings to fun size. Many Aswang with successful diets know all they need is a human child or fetus to feel completely satiated. On the other hand, if you know you aren't going to be able to stop at one human baby once you start, make sure you don't go hunting while hungry. Remove your victim from his or her environment, bring the tasty morsel home, and then have dinner. Limit what you have in the house and there will be no mindless snacking.
5. Forgive yourself for falling off the coffin. Let's face it, you're going to occasionally binge. What matters is what you do the morning you wake up in a puddle of blood with viscera on your face. Do you tell yourself it's a new day and start over, or do you lick all the bits of gore off the floor and go on a demonic eating spree?
According to Liang, "Once I stopped my midnight snacks and started a more balanced diet, I felt better and looked better. Swag! Also, I was able to control my shifting, and my house stopped smelling like rancid, dead bodies.
"You'd think my friends would have been happy for me. Instead, every Strigoi and Nachtzehrer I was friends with on social media started being like, 'There's nothing wrong with eating as much as you want whenever you want, #Yolo. You trying to make us bloodsuckers look bad?' or 'Girl, you were perfectly BBW before. Forget all that sapiosexual crap and promise me you'll eat a full-grown human tonight.'
"They're such hypocrites, those tall, skinny Strigoi who eat as much as they want and then point out all your bloodstains and thighbrows behind your back."
Beauty really does bring out the beast in some shapeshifters. It just goes to show you can't please all the bloodsuckers all the time. Fortunately for Aswang like Liang, it has never felt so good or looked so good to be a loser!
Fortunately for you, tips from Liang are going to make you all a bunch of losers and we'll be seeing less of you next week!
The End
This story was first published on Wednesday, February 1st, 2017
Author Comments
No, I didn't make up the term Aswang. I was doing research on vampire mythology and came across a Filipino version called an Aswang. The name was too perfect and I knew I had to write a piece about it. I had been tinkering with the idea of clickbait for another story and it ended up that this story became clickbait for vampires. An entire series followed this story.
- Sarina Dorie
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