♛These are truly frightening the times for many people, and you have every right to be afraid. There’s no shame in that fear.
I’ve seen tyrants like him fall on their own accord, through their own mistakes. Whether that happens or not, we must do what we can to build ourselves and our communities stronger, and refuse to surrender.
I take heart in the fact that great progress has been made in the past few decades by others who fought for their rights. The power of the President is limited, and there are many groups ready and armed to defend those who need defense. One such group is the ACLU: “The ACLU works to ensure that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people can live openly without discrimination and enjoy equal rights, personal autonomy, and freedom of expression and association.”
In June of 2015, the Supreme Court declared same-sex marriage legal in all 50 states, we all celebrated. Just one example of something fought for and won for the LGBT community, not the first, and not the last.
(THIS ONE’S FOR ME awwww!) Thanks bunches, Rem! <3<3<3
I actually got this message 3 days ago, but I was neck-deep (hehehe!) in birthday messages for Lestat, so I felt like this could be answered a little later, when the dust his confetti settled.
… Little did I know that the sh*t would hit the fan so spectacularly here in the US… where am I going with this, you ask? Well, in the face of such stress and anxiety and and and… all the emotions one can have in this situation… it’s so good to know my face (figuratively and literally) is loved, fangs ‘n all, and I’m still needed, and by unrelentingly plowing ahead, encouraging others to make – and making my own – fanworks, it can help us all get through this.
It isn’t just escape into a fantasy world. Fandom is letting the fantasy world supplement us, bolster us, give us hope. Fandom is drawing our friends and loved ones as close as we can, even separated by massive distance, we can at least communicate with and support eachother.
Homework assignment to everyone out there: Reach out and send a lovely message like this to someone today ❤
By the way, totally unrelated: how’s everyone’s immigration policies? Asking for a friend…
i am immensely proud of anyone who types out stories they want to see for characters that are not their creation, or their property, but that inspire them to delve into a difficult medium with which they likely have little experience or comfort. i have to be proud of that because fanfic is ultimately a thankless line of work. and it is work. it’s work for people who’re good at writing, trained in it. so imagine how difficult it is for beginners, the impaired, those with even a modicum of self-doubt? in that way, they are no different from any other author.
writing, literature, is an art form with an ugly legacy of snobbery. academics and laymen alike still argue about what sorts of writing should and should not be considered ‘canonical.’ add to that odious environment the level of disdain, apathy, or ignorance most non-fannish people have toward fan works and you have a near-permanent, repugnant shroud of You’re Not Real encompassing the whole endeavor. a shroud under which, miraculously, fan works are still produced with vigor and regularity, and largely without access to agents or editors who’re paid to polish. just as miraculously, these writers often receive, from their friends and peers and strangers, the sort of praise one associates with bestselling authors.
it’s miraculous because fanfic writers have been obliged to believe, from the moment they set finger to keyboard, that what they are doing is a sideshow. at best, they are hobbyists with some talent but no real standing. at worst, they are self-indulgent amateurs, muddying the waters of a true craft. like many authors of original work, fanfic writers will never have a millisecond of calculable fame for their efforts. they may step out of their borrowed sandbox and create original work, or they may not, but there is no scenario in which they emerge feeling like an accepted member of a celebrated tradition. even in the rare instance of pop culture turning its eye on some speck of scintillating fan work, it’s still mocked. it’s still a sideshow, just with a brighter spotlight.
so, yeah, i am proud of anyone who can absorb the reality of all the above…and still write.
for all my brave creatives out there – tappity-tap-tap!
They do care, and they probably would have intense debates about the candidates, but they wouldn’t advocate for one or the other. You can check out Lestat’s answer to this question here.
I think Louis put their stance very eloquently in QOTD (my emphasis added):
“It’s their world, not ours,” he said humbly. “Surely we forfeited it when we lost our mortality. We have no right now to interrupt their struggle. If we do we rob them of victories that have cost them too much! Even in the last hundred years their progress has been miraculous; they have righted wrongs that mankind thought were inevitable; they have for the first time developed a concept of the true family of man.
… Don’t interfere with them. Even if they kill each other! Give them time to see this new vision realized; give the cities of the West, corrupt as they may be, time to take their ideals to a suffering and blighted world.”
Cut for length.
That was the issue that was brought up in QOTD, whether they had a responsibility to have political power and/or have influence the world or not. There was a council of sorts, and some heavy debate was had, mainly on the part of Lestat’s ultra feminist SJW girlfriend vs. literally everyone else except Lestat who mostly sat there terrified into silence and not taking sides, and it ended with the general agreement that they shouldn’t meddle in mortal affairs.
This is partly bc writing their involvement into actual historical events could be difficult if not impossible (What, did they fight in WWII? Which side? How would that even work, concealing their vampirism from their fellow soldiers??!), and partly bc AR herself wasn’t very political back in earlier canon.
(Side note: Louis and Claudia left America close to the beginning – or before? – the Civil War started, it wasn’t addressed in canon, Lestat was on his way to Paris to see Armand, and then Lestat slept through WWII…)
Even now, in the later books, AR keeps her world mostly separate from the Real World; IIRC, Hurricane Katrina was never mentioned in canon, and one would think that NOLA-branch coven founders Louis and Lestat would at least comment on that obviously devastating tragedy. At least one fanfic writer did take up the challenge of weaving in Katrina, and did it very tastefully. So it’s possible, but AR hasn’t gone there.
Samwise Gamgee and I want to send love to anyone who is struggling tonight. I know there’s a lot of people scared and hurting about the US Presidential elections.
