grimdarkthroes: 

My (bio) cousin makes video games for a living, plays and makes guitars, and is a massive video game and roleplaying nerd. So little me went all spiral-eyed whenever he did anything for me. 

He bought me two very important books for my 12th birthday. The Vampire: the Requiem rulebook (the red book), and IWTV. Naturally, I devoured both.

I read IWTV and everything was wonderful pretty much instantly. There wasn’t a single part of that book I didn’t adore. It was through my rapid and all-consuming obsession with vampirism that I actually started to bloom; creatively, socially, mentally, everything just started to resolve and I started to become a person I like. Yes, I read Twilight during this initial discovery stage. Yes, I was in the fandom briefly. But it was so hollow compared to what I had already read that I was perplexed that others seemed to not want to branch out into real, monstrous vampirism. 

Essentially IWTV is what sparked me going from awkward pubescent to actually pretty great 20-something. I now LARP with the MES (VtR, of course) and write urban fantasy and am generally completely in love with vampires. 

But now a confession: I’ve only ever read IWTV. I haven’t read all of the VC, despite owning literally all of it (sometimes multiple covers per book!) So which should I finally read next?! 

#I love stories like these, how we got into this mess series. 

It’s heartwarming to see how the Ricean vampires have had such a positive effect on ppl in their formative years. They are dysfunctional hipster vampires, all kinds of flaws and existential crises, they try to resolve them, they try to find the answers to questions big and small, and in general promote a trust in one’s self, an inner confidence and an ability to draw pleasure from even simple things. These are good things for anyone, of any age, to absorb.

YOU SHOULD READ THE VAMPIRE LESTAT NEXT you’re going to love it!