THERE ARE NO SILLY QUESTIONS ONLY SILLY WAYS OF ANSWERING THEM. j/k. Lemme catch u up a teeeensy bit.
[^Rare fanart of Lestat and AR. I think he’s trying to convince her to go for a ride! (source unknown)]
[^Another rare fanart of Lestat and AR, by NazNemati]
So yes, AR does post fanfic of her own like this from time to time, and I only have a few reblogged, created a new tag for it tonight: #Current vampire happenings. If anyone has more of these, please send them my way!
“…We’re sitting in a cafe together right now, him and me,… And he’s doodling on a paper napkin with a fine black pen as we talk. His gorgeous yellow hair is loose and long over his shoulders. His skin’s burned because he does that often now, let the sun burn it because it’s easier than covering up the preternatural whiteness, the inevitable gleam. He’s pondering. I’m pondering. As if we had a choice.”
The watching-Hell-on-Wheels-together part, well, I can’t find it. She has mentioned how much she loves Anson Mount as a frontier!Lestat, tho:
I struggled with this answer, because, while it would be diplomatic to simply apologize, I won’t apologize that it was hurtful, because, as you’ll learn in this post, that group of “more obsessive” people have been and are much crueler to their victims than I was with that one word about them.
~Here is a picture of Our Lady of VC for the more obsessive fans to frame and worship~
Side note, before we go any further: Anon, why do you care who I lump anyone in with? I could say everyone who follows X is “a gullible baby,” and everyone who follows Y is “a perfect cinnamon roll, too good for this world,” but that doesn’t make either true. Obviously, if you don’t think you follow AR “slavishly,” then you don’t! Take a breath, this is tumblrland, this blog is for VC fandom love and fanworks (and fandom etiquette and education sometimes), it’s meant to be an outlet, an escape from reality, so don’t take things personally.
This is actually a great opportunity to educate you, Anon, and anyone else who might not be aware of the history between Anne Rice, her “People of the Page” (her phrase, not mine. ”POTP”) followers, her fandom outside of POTP, and outside people who have had opinions on her works. I could write a dissertation on this topic but it’s not worth the effort; this post will be TL;DR for most people. I’m doing this so I can tag it and use it again the next time this topic comes up.
The short answer is: In the beginning, all of AR’s FB followers were POTP. No distinction needed to be made, because they were ALL highly obsessive to the point that they were her online army she could rally to attack people/reviewers who dared to have an opinion on her works. There have been many instances in which something critical to AR came along – or something that she INTERPRETED as critical – and AR makes a statement on her FB page about it, which is a thinly veiled order rallying her troops to inundate that source with their “discussion” on that review. Sometimes her POTP simply made so many personal attacks in the comments on the offending critical post that the victim is forced to withdraw/delete their review. This whole cycle has happened too many times. In fact, AR has recognized this pattern and actually said that she will no longer link to negative reviews of her works (½/14):
“Guys, I am always open to publishing negative reviews of my work for consideration, to balance the many positive reviews to which I link. But the negative reviewer must bring the review here and request it. When I’ve linked to negative reviews for discussion, some of the reviewers in question have felt that they were unfairly targeted; and they have objected to some of the comments made on their reviews. It just doesn’t work. So I no longer volunteer any negative review, no matter how well written, for discussion. Again, reviewers are welcome to bring their reviews to the page, and post links and offer them for discussion. Same with blog posts. I might not repost every single one; but I’m happy to see them posted on the page and to read them and consider them for reposting.”
“… if I link to them for discussion, some of these people get very upset. They accuse me of “demonizing” them. They call the People of the Page “hell hounds” for their comments. And admittedly, some people do make very unpleasant comments…”
She has 1.1 million followers as of this posting, and I, myself, am one of them. So, of all 1.1 million, at least one of her followers is not an obsessive “hell hound,” as described above.
I actually think she has moved past much of the drama, and now her POTP (both our kind, Anon, and the “more obsessive” kind) are more focused on news items, poetry, VC adaptations & casting ideas, headcanons/canon requests for AR, and other good things she likes discussion on. I enjoyed her #Fan Questions for Lestat, and the 15 yr old inside me still gets excited when she posts something about “Where are they now?” like Lestat doodling on a napkin, or the whole coven all flopped together on a couch watching Hell on Wheels, that’s good stuff *u*
Hit the jump for links to examples of POTP vs. reviewers clashing, etc.
1. War on Fanfic
So this is before the POTP’s time, but it’s worth noting that Anne Rice waged a War on Fanfic in the 1990′s. She had every right to do so, but it destroyed the fandom. She sicc’d her pack of lawyers on all VC fanfic authors, and forced speculative fiction (old-timey-wimey word for “fanfic”) sites to shut down. The fandom was driven underground; fanfic could only be shared very privately, possibly through email exchanges or carrier pigeons.
This experience taught AR a valuable lesson: Anything that she didn’t approve of could be shut down by forces she could marshal. Lawyers cost money, and take on only legitimate legal cases, and legal battles can get messy (she’s had other legal issues but I won’t go there, you can use your newfangled googley-woogly machine for that).
Here’s where the POTP became AR’s army, and they didn’t cost a penny, and there were no legal ramifications in sending them forth on her behalf.
“Kayleigh Herbertson found Pandora to be a poorly written novel where the vampires didn’t act like vampires… after Herbertson was done writing the review she took the book, which was already falling apart, and turned it into decoupage.”
“[AR] chose to respond by posting a link on her Facebook page (where her 740 thousand Facebook followers could find it) and appended the invitation: “Comments most welcome.”.“
Her POTP left an enormous amount of harassing comments on that page, and eventually, it was taken down. Here are my two favorite POTP comments from that article:
HOW DARE YOU EVEN COMPARE SHITTY ASS STEPHANIE MEYER TO THE QUALITY WORK THAT IS ANNE RICE HOW DARE YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YOU FUCKING HAG, I HOPE YOU GET HERPES
Aaaaand here’s AR’s call to action discussion on Knights’ review: “… I stumbled on this amazing negative review of my erotica, “Beauty’s Release,” … I would honestly welcome opinions on this review. Please understand: I am not trying to incite “fans” to pile on this reviewer. Not at all. What I welcome here is honest discussion because the review puzzles and baffles me. This is perhaps the longest negative review I’ve ever seen of my erotica, and I’m somewhat, well, stunned, by the tone, intricacy, and length of all this… Your comments are most welcome.”
Hope this helped! I think we’re all coexisting pretty well these days, her People Of The Page and her – what I like to call ourselves – People Off the Page. Let’s just all take a chill pill and enjoy this series together, and if not, let’s just do it in our own way. Live and let live.
garama‘s fanart is a great illustration for this answer bc when you compare these two relationships, there are similarities, but you can see very clearly that there are almost 4 characters here: mortal!Nicki, mortal!Lestat, vampire!Louis, and vampire!Lestat. The 2 pairings physically resemble eachother, but there’s alot of deeper stuff going on that’s described by those poses.
“…but if I did have to choose, the companion would be Louis. My longest most enduring friendship and love affair in this world was with Louis. And though his limitations can be maddening, they can also be as inspiring to me as his virtues… the best choices we make are not always the wise choices. Sometimes they are intensely emotional choices. And I’ve always had a deep Romantic respect for emotion. My love for Louis transcends wisdom. And I may need the pain as much as the consolation that an eternal relationship with Louis would involve.“
I’m inclined to agree with Lestat on that. Lestat would choose Louis over everyone. They have an inexplicable chemistry that binds them hopelessly together.
Do you really want my full opinion? Hit the jump.
Nicolas was Lestat’s first real long-term relationship at a time when Lestat desperately needed love and nurturing and wanted to give it back, too. Nicolas is the first person who really listened to him and they both helped each other immensely.
Lestat was a different person when he was with Nicolas; quite literally! They were mortal lovers, and they were in their early 20s, they went through alot together in escaping from their homeland to Paris, and thrived there. Their relationship was horribly shattered when Lestat was kidnapped from their apartment, and things were never the same between them after that happened. Even aside from that, Nicolas revealed that he had a different mission in life than Lestat did:
“And when we decided to go to Paris, I thought we would starve in Paris, that we would go down and down and down. It was what I wanted, rather than what they wanted, that I, the favored son, should rise for them. I thought we would go down! We were supposed to go down.” – Nicolas de Lenfent, TVL
So even in your Alternate Universe suggestion that Lestat could be with Nicki again, I don’t think that relationship could ever really work, because deep down Nicolas and Lestat always wanted different things out of life.
Lestat was about 31 mortal yrs old when he met Louis, and he had grown and experienced a lot. He was more mature, more in control of his emotions. He saw vampiring as being a great adventure and he saw the potential in Louis to be the companion he always wanted. He was right. Louis has been one of the strongest vampires in the coven, without needing to display it in physical feats of strength, but in emotional ones, and in the choices he’s made.
The name sounds familiar… I saw this post on FB tho. Looks like she’s one of AR’s biggest “People of the Page” FB fans. I don’t know anything beyond that. Anyone else have more on why Granny/Lynda is such a favorite?
It depends where your headcanon stops in canon. If you accept all of canon, according to Anne Rice, “Daniel
and
Marius love each other very much” in Prince Lestat. daniel-james-molloy asked Anne Rice that question explicitly and was answered without a definitive Yes or No:
Yes, Daniel was romantically involved with Armand in QotD; Armand is Daniel’s maker. So if your headcanon stops at that book, then they are still a couple.
Armand was romantically involved with Marius in TVA and B&G; Marius is Armand’s maker.
Other people might accept all of canon, so for them, Daniel/Marius might be a real ship. They’re living together. Armand is living elsewhere with other vampires.
But the vampire couple in Only Lovers Left Alive live apart and still love each other deeply, so it all depends on what your own headcanon of what a ship is. Can it survive long-distance? Can it survive polyamory? Does it have to be monogamous?
Hi, so I’m dying to know what the VC Tumblr fandom thinks about vampire sexuality.
IMO the fact that vampires don’t have sex doesn’t necessarily make them asexual.
I’m thinking about Marius with Amadeo in Blood and Gold, and Louis with the mortal boy in Paris.
There is a passage in IWTV that goes roughly like this: “He pressed his whole body against my legs and I felt the firm strength of his sex under his clothes. A moan escaped from my lips…”
– I translated this myself from the Spanish version, but you get the idea 😉
I’d be thrilled to further discuss vampire sexuality.
That’s all, keep up the good work! 🙂
#Your headcanon may vary.
So I’ve discussed this topic at length in my tags for it: #asexuality, #asexual, #sex, #sexuality, #lets talk about sex.
It all depends on your idea of what sex is, but Anne Rice has been definitive about it:
The scene that you mention between Louis and the mortal boy: Louis is still capable of finding that boy’s hard on to be arousing, but he’s getting alot of sensory input in that moment, and Armand is probably manipulating him psychologically, too.
Marius/Amadeo: Amadeo is mortal and experiencing things differently than Marius is.
I’ll open this to discussion, what are your opinions/headcanon on Ricean vampire sexuality?
ooc; For anyone that wondered, this was a thing on her Facebook today. Both the vampires not having sex and the Daniel & Marius bit.
//Awww. That’s sweet. (Not sarcastic. It is.) I definitely got the impression they cared very much for each other in PL. I still don’t read it as a romantic relationship. I don’t know it, it just doesn’t feel that way to me in the text. But I can see it being a very loving and intimate relationship. If it gets passionate, though, I see there being problems, given that Marius is so controlling and Daniel does not like being controlled. Will be interesting to see how this goes in Blood Paradise.
I do hope Armand and Daniel reconnect in some meaningful way (which doesn’t have to be at the expense of Dan’s relationship with Marius, whatever that is – I contend they’re not very monogamous creatures anyhow). But really, I just want to see them TALK, goddamn it. Nod at each other. SOMETHING.
I-want-my-IWTV 