So, my story has vampires, who stop aging the moment they become undead. Meaning they have to constantly relocate to conceal their immortality. Given that they generally have control over how old they are when they turn, I'm thinking a bit about what ages vampires might consider ideal to be frozen at, and one of the factors would be the age where you can go the longest before it starts to get weird that you don't look older. But I don't actually know what age that is. My guess would be somewhere in the 20s, obviously after your body has finished developing, but I just wanted to check if there's another point later down the line where you can go even longer without noticeably changing in appearance. If your goal is solely to be able to live in one place as long as possible without anyone getting suspicious of the fact that you haven't visibly gotten older, what age would it be most ideal to be made immortal at?
Good question. If you're just talking appearances and blending in, I would say right around 60. There's people that age I know who could pass for 40 or 105. But obviously the body wouldn't be in the best shape performance-wise, but does it matter if you're undead? Like will you still have an achey back and bum knees?
30-34. I was carded in my thirties. That could give you a good twenty years where people are assuming you're twenty and then thinking you look good for forty but in a few years it's probably going to get a little dicey. But then again a woman could always say she had work done.
What a great question. In your case or the vampires, he’s got a moving target that will cause him problems. I assume he wants to blend in with his food source? It needs a little research that cover social habits. This will influence directly from your story’s timeline... sorry for the length but I thought it was needed. Now go look back at 70s tv and movies and watch 25year old actors. They look and act much older. Go further back to pictures of troops in WWI average age 25. They look like middle aged men in photos. Further back to the American Civil War. Photos taken here show 25year old men looking like Grandpa! Its not just fashion they physically look older the further you go back. Also, the life styles of each 25year old would differ. Married earlier with larger families the further you look back. On an education level, school finishing age on average increases the closer you come to today from 10 to 21years of age. All this seems obvious, but your vampire will give a different age depending in what time you ask him. Rather than physical age, your vampire will want his age locked when he’s perceived a man. Not a young man as he won’t be taken seriously around older more experienced heads. Take your Vampire freezes aged 20 in 1865. All great, but by 1965 he’s considered a young man who can’t drink or vote in some countries or own a business. He should be at College. This becomes problematic the further in the future you go. An average Life span of 150years spending the first 26% on education means you leave school at 39years old. He’d be classed a teenager. If he leaves turning till 1875, he will look much older and blend in better for longer. He’ll look much older than 30 in the 1970s and so on. If that makes sense...? I’m 51 now and as a kid that age was ancient. Take my view with a pinch of salt, loved the question. MartinM.
What a great question indeed! For women, there’s this special time between 30 and 40 when you can still pass for twenty-ish, some times, while some other days you look like you’re in your fifties. But women are so used of to disguising their age that it’s hard for me to answer. I’d go with @Homer Potvin and say that after you’re 50 no one looks at you anymore and people only notice you’re ageing if they haven’t seen you for months or years, but that doesn’t make for a very seductive vampire (Rice’s style) if that’s what you’re after.
Well this isn't a vampire romance, but attractiveness is definitely going to be important to most people becoming vampires, yes. But it's definitely a useful job older-looking vampires can do if they happen to be in that situation. Yeah, it sounds like mid-late twenties is going to be the recommended age, as the only ages that perform better in this regard have drastic consequences to quality of life. Still, good info to know, because I do have characters who were turned when they were older.
I don't know if this can be useful in your story, but I've noticed that aging tends to happen in a process of punctuated equilibrium. People seem able to hold back most effects of aging as long as life is going decently, but once tragedy or trauma strike the decades suddenly catch up almost overnight. Literally hair can turn white or grey very rapidly after some terrible experience, and the skin seems to sag and the posture goes. They lose all their resiliency physically and emotionally, and they can become like shuffling ghosts or zombies. I've also seen in happen the other way, well, sort of. A bounce-back I suppose. The woman who was the store manager where I worked was about to turn 65 or something, at which point she would have gotten a nice retirement package, so the company terminated her employment a few weeks before that happened. She became a pale haunted ghost, sad and defeated, but the next time I saw her, which was a year or 2 later, she was her old chipper youthful self again. She had got another job and life had turned around for her.
Its quite hard to tell guys apart when they're in that 23-38 kinda bracket, luckier guys maybe even more like 30-50. I mean, a dude with a beard and a receeding hairline could be 25 and look 50! Women tend to have a period around 45-60 where they can get away with lying about their age pretty good for quite awhile. My mother was more like 50-65, she was able to consistently take 10 years off til the sun worship caught up.
This is very true and I've noticed it in my own appearance over the years. Sometimes you seem to age overnight, sometimes you seem to be rejuvenated. State of mind has a key role in appearance.
