Hi Anon, thank u for coming back! You’re welcome for that answer (so good to know you appreciated it), but gosh, I’m so sorry for misreading your intentions 

*hugs*

It’s so easy to misread unintended emotions into text, especially when it’s such a short note. I apologize if my answer came off as crushing to you specifically.

I’ve seen so much Discourse from anti-shippers lately that I may be a little predisposed to seeing it in innocent asks, too. Engaging with the question itself could invite Discourse, so my response was more about supporting shippers as a general rule.

I absolutely never intend to shame other fans, I hope that much came through in my response and in my other posts. I do want my blog to be seen as something interesting and relatable, non-shaming and knowledgeable, but I’m absolutely not the authority on VC. Even the “Marges” of the fandom have every right to do what they do, I just choose not to engage with them. I wanted to make a point of identifying them for others, like you, so that you know that their way is not the only way, and they are not the authority on VC, either.

Your being fairly new and overwhelmed to this fandom, let me tell you, it’s a series about murderers, lovers, wacky shit, silliness, some religious stuff mixed in heavily, re-invention of the vampire origin story, etc. It’s not for the faint of heart but if you can manage not to take it too

seriously

you’ll probably have a better time. Please don’t let this one little interaction deter you from reading the books and/or making friends here, bc I’ve met some of my best friends through VC, honed my own writing, shared headcanons, etc., and I would wish all the good aspects of fandom on every new fan ❤

P.S. To answer your previous question a little more gently, Marius/Armand appeals to some fans bc of the taboo nature of it. It disgusts some fans bc of that, too. There’s no right or wrong. My opinion is that I like exploring scary things in fiction even if they’re dressed up to look good, so I would say it’s a perfectly decent ship to ship, even if Anne Rice holds it out as an ideal relationship.

Again, I’m not well-educated on the horror/goth lit aspect so I can’t fully address that, but I would think that Anne Rice had read some of those, and was inspired by them, that she felt her writing (especially in IWTV) was a natural update and/or extension of those characters/tropes/stories.

Marius himself is a character who is probably largely based on the benefactor characters in Dickens that Anne Rice has always loved. She mixed that in with some Daddy kink, some *healing dick* trope, and overall Father-knows-best sort of attitude, and that’s basically Marius. Is he a pedophile? That’s for the reader to decide. Again, I don’t want to make that distinction for you. I’m not interested in getting into a debate about it with the “Marges” of fandom, and tbh, I would recommend that you don’t try them, either, especially being fairly new and overwhelmed as it is.

Have an open mind, read the text yourself. Try to enjoy what you can. It’s a buffet, you don’t need to like all of it 😉