I mean…you have to start somewhere. Just get your name out there, recognize people, get recognized, and then interact more with the people you like?? I’ve been here two years now and this is what I did and do. It’s really not much more complicated than that.
It might help to realize that we’re all just giant nerds who like to talk about norse bros fucking and no one will think you’re being annoying when you try to put yourself out there! Like, yes, come yell with us!
Ok so I have more thoughts. This is actually something that maybe I’ve learned with age? And I’m saying you do this personally, anon, this just kind of general advice for a general “you”, but… You can’t simply…exist somewhere and expect to have people notice you or make friends. You can’t go to a party and sit against the wall looking lonely and not talking and expect to meet people. You can’t even just stand there in a group of people laughing and nodding. You have to make an effort! You have to say hi, and be friendly, and add your thoughts, and ask people about their thoughts…and if you ever want to see them again after that party you have to make it happen. And sure, maybe you might get turned down? But if you don’t try, the answer is always no. I know this is hard. It is! It’s really hard! It’s nerve wracking to put yourself out there like that! And to keep doing it! But the thing to realize is that most people are pretty friendly, and if you DO screw up your courage and put yourself out there, USUALLY good things happen.
Also, this is my personal invitation to anyone who’s ever wanted to talk to me and hasn’t…please do! I love making new friends! But I can’t be your friend unless I know who you are! ❤
If you’ve ever read my books, you know I maintain relationships merely because I’ve been lucky enough to find people who don’t throw me away when I reveal myself to be a complete and utter disaster who will sabotage everything we have if given half the chance. I’m a terrible person to give relationship advice.
So here, based on my own failings:
-Say you’re sorry. Mean it.
-But don’t say it all the time.
-Seriously, it loses all meaning.
-Even if you ARE sorry.
-No, sex with that other person isn’t worth it. Yes, I see how good looking they are. Trust me.
-Find ways to show love: notes, trinkets, kisses. Something to show that they are on your mind.
-But not gifts you’d rather just have for yourself, you idiot.
-Don’t buy them a house unless they asked for one.
-Don’t trick them into having children with you because you are afraid they’ll leave you.
-Don’t entrap them.
-Seriously, that one is never going to turn out the way you hope it will.
-Tell the truth. Even when it makes you look terrible.
-Trust them. Yes, especially when you don’t want to trust anyone.
-Tell them the things that scare you about yourself. If they are who you think they are, they can hold them for you.
-Know that they love you, even when they are so angry at you that they can’t bear to look at you.
-Say I love you. Yes, it’s going to hurt. Do it anyway.
“You forgot the most important point.
Allow yourself be loved. No matter how wretched and undeserving you feel.”
Hello! Your vcsecretgifts mods have been discussing internally when to get the 2018 Exchange going *u* Hopefully we will begin advertising it soon, signups in Nov., so that we have time to assign gifters/receivers, and then give you 4 weeks to make gifts.
What I consider “special” might seem mundane to others. This year, I was grateful to have Lestat with me, as there were many years without him. Each year he asks me what I wish for, what physical objects he can give, places we might go. He wants to know if I want a coven gathering or to just keep to ourselves. I usually choose the latter, but I receive cards to our P.O. box from the coven from all over the world. How do they know it’s my birthday? I’ve never even met some of them.
Every year I’ve been able to do so, I tell him I’m content to just have him with me.
Despite my reticence to ask for anything, he always finds an object that has some meaning to me, perhaps an early edition of a favorite novel with the author’s notations, or he will make a “happening” in which we awaken to a string quartet playing works from one of my favorite composers in our candlelit courtyard. He won’t force me to dance; we curl up together in a rattan chaise, with pillows and plush blankets, to enjoy the music.
After that, he sometimes blindfolds me and we take flight to some other destination. This year, we went to Portland’s Rose Test Garden in Oregon. Roses of so many different colors and scents, some more like citrus, others more like honey… it was a truly unique experience.
We stayed there in the garden for two nights, where I expressed my appreciation to him. I won’t go into more detail on that. Some nights, we sleep in the dirt, as if we were a part of nature. Lestat gently excavated me on the second night, waking up with the film of good clean dirt was almost like a rebirth. Seeing his face with the backdrop of the starry night sky, his hands carefully wiping my face clean as he spoke gentle words to me, that was a special gift.
Tumblr offered me the chance to meet some pretty amazing writers, artists and VC fans. While reading some of you, I finally decided to set up this RP side blog here and delve deeper into my exploration of Nicolas and so far it’s been an epic ride.
@i-want-my-iwtv has been the first VC blog I found on Tumblr, many moons ago and she encouraged me to get back into the RP saddle. Words are little, few to express the feels I have for the amazing gift you’ve gave me.
here’s to you, my amazing RP companions with whom I write, you’re some of the most talented writers I’ve had the chance to meet and I feel completely honored to be able to create with you these rich universes we explore for our characters!
Define “bad”? Problematic for sure. Squicky for some ppl. Cracky as heck.
I wanted to delete this ask bc an objective “bad” is so hard to define, especially with regard to fiction in this current wave of scrutiny about it. I think we can all agree on things that are bad in Real Life, but what we’re not agreeing on these days is the role of fiction and Real Life, that consumption/depiction of problematic things =/= endorsement of those things in Real Life.
(This is all aside from the criticism dealing with the writing itself on its own merits, which, I am pretty forgiving about. I don’t consider my palette as a reader to be all that refined, I’m more interested in the ideas, and I don’t mind as much about the skills of the writer, even one who may have been very good and then devolved over the years. So you’ll have to ask someone else if the writing style is your concern.)
Some books will be loved by some ppl and praised to high heaven, those same books despised by others and cursed for existing, and everything in between.
IDK we used to call the later books “the Vampire Crackicles,” and I for one, would love to bring that back!
At its core, it is my belief that VC as a whole is a means of demon exorcism and of wish-fulfillment for their author. Sure they have some higher value, if they didn’t, I don’t think the fandom would be as large and as loyal. But VC also has a ton of various kinds of porn, let’s be honest. As a mix of those elements I just described, they do not have to be that deep, they are whatever each individual reader wants them to be. Personally, I really enjoyed the first few, and have found enjoyable stuff even in the crackiest of later canon. If you don’t take them too seriously, it’s worth the effort. But then, I am pretty forgiving and I can do headcanon gymnastics for fun to explain stuff I don’t like, or treat it as AU.
So they can be considered shallow escapism with problematic dysfunctional hipster vampires:
Or, you can dive in and look for deeper meaning, and make richer analysis out of it. It could be that deep, if you want it to be!
When I got this ask ~6 months ago, it was close to Thanksgiving, I had more pressing real-life things going on like traveling and visiting with family. I also didn’t want to answer it bc I was thinking it might be from a troll. Might be someone asking this in order to trick me into some kind of response that could be a launching pad for Discourse.
Now, time has passed, and having absorbed plenty of fiction =/= reality, anti-anti-shipping, and pro-shipping blog posts, I’m not afraid. Of the two possible approaches above (and there are others, of course), you don’t need to pick a side. Sometimes it can be deep, and sometimes not. You don’t have to defend liking it one way or the other, it’s fiction. It’s whatever any individual reader wants it to be, and keep that in mind when you read. Your reading is your own. Your headcanon is your own. Don’t let ppl concern-troll you, policing what you enjoy in fiction. I’m being a little forceful here bc I want to give you the confidence to know and believe: You. Can. Read. AND. Write. Whatever. You. Want.
Anon, you might be a troll, but this is also an honest question ppl have had about this series over the years. I want to believe you’re coming to this honestly and not trying to start something.
I feel like I’m going to get redundant… to wrap up, the most recent and I would say, the Crackiest of the Crackicles, advertised as:
“There is always room for one more vampire novel.”
Hello anon! 😀 I’m not the best at making tutorials and giving tips but I’ll do my best to answer your question! ^^
I sure do love drawing lips! It might be in fact my favourite part of the face to draw.
Let’s see what makes them so irresistible 😉
tip 1: let them shine! that tiny shiny spot does wonders for the lips – it makes them fuller, softer and more three dimensional. It also makes the lips look slightly wet. Sexy!
tip 2: Build the depth with some darker spots. Quirking corners are great for that, and if you make the darkest spot in the middle of the mouth it seems like it’s about to part. And maybe whisper something seductive 😉
tip 3: The very middle of upper lip is my favourite area, it gives the mouth its distinct character. It’s also a great spot to play with shadows, one lighter stroke, one darker stroke and you have a very dramatic shading going on!
tip 4: When drawing lineart it’s good to keep the line varying in width and pressure. Equally thin, flat line might look good in anime, but even there it’s rarely the case. Making the line thicker in the shadowy part of the mouth adds depth to your drawing.
General remarks:
I almost never outline the upper lip, it tends to look weird. Just a thin “U” shape in the middle is usually enough.
Upper lip is usually in the shadow, at least half of it. Lower lip tends to catch the light, especially with pouty plump lips. The more shadow you add under it, the fuller the lips look.
When drawing male characters I usually play around with skin tones instead of pink and red (see the third row of examples). But it’s not a rule. Some boys rock them rosy lips. 😉
Never paint the teeth white, never. Gray, yellowish and pinkish tones are great.
And the final tip: use reference! Look for pictures of people with beautiful lips, with thin lips and full lips, try to see which line goes where and how it changes the shape and expression. I hardly ever draw without a reference.
THANK U. See, this is an example of someone coming into the fandom through movie!IWTV, and enjoying Antonio!Armand. You can be a VC fan coming in from anywhere and like what you like ❤
[I was kind of bummed out when I read the book to find out he’s like 16 and looks completely different. I’m just wondering if anyone else felt that way.]
No, I don’t often get this kind of message, it’s usually how disappointed fans are that he doesn’t match the book description.
But your points are well-taken. He was so secretive and seductive and dark (and that hair!), and tbh I didn’t even mind that it was a wig. Some ethnicities DO have really thick hair like that. I thought it added to his other-worldliness. That version of Armand was turned at a time when it was normal to have super long hair, apparently? Maybe it was important as part of him being a vampire, like it was for Marius, to grow his hair long before he was turned? We’re not told in the movie but it’s part of his mystery.
I remember my own impression reading IWTV for the first time was that he was definitely an adult.
In book!IWTV, Armand is described as having auburn hair, and deep, brown eyes, but I don’t think he was described as being as youthful as he’s described in TVL and later books.
Bonjour! I’m well, thank u, thanks for the blog lurve! <333
I don’t think his other brother was ever mentioned by name, no 😛
I don’t really love this bit of canon but it’s an interesting explanation; in Blackwood Farm, Lestat says his name is “compounded of the first letter of each of my six older brothers’ names,” so they’d have to have started with L, E, S, or T, bc A was for Augustin. And two of his brothers started with T.
I was working on a ficlet at one point and wanted to include this unnamed brother, talking about him in a PM with someone, and came up with “Étienne,” which is a French equivalent of Stephen/Steven.
Proooobably it’s bc I headcanon him as looking like Steve Zahn and I CANNOT explain why that is, but I am 99% married to this headcanon.
^This is from Joy Ride.
I think it’s bc he’s somewhat attractive, but only bc of his cartoonish attitudes, very smarmy but simple-minded, seems like the younger of the two brothers, desperate to please the older one, Augustin could easily lead him around, he wouldn’t question being ordered to beat on his younger brother, even if he didn’t take much pleasure in it.
So the brother’s names (not necessarily in birth order) would be:
L-?
E- (I am really attached to Étienne!??)
S-?
T-?
Augustin
T-?
Lestat
Off-topic but still, I like to think the eighth de Lioncourt was a girl, bc really, 8 boys in a row is unusual. @viaticumforthemarquise named her Mireille, I think *u*
I-want-my-IWTV 