Awww, you are very welcome to all of that! What a lovely message to send me. Notes like these keep this blog alive… and you made my night, I’m cry! ^______^ Come off anon!
I’m honored that ppl ask for my opinions on VC, it gives me the opportunity to dig around and find the information/resources, I have a nearly photographic memory for some of this stuff *laughs*… many asks make me sit back to reflect and remember what it is about this series that keeps me here… I can only speak to my own reasons, but I draw a lot of inspiration from these characters and their stories.
Am I a genuinely sweet and friendly person? I try to be the blogger and the person I want to see in the world, whether online or in the real world. Which means I still make mistakes, but I learn, and try to improve.
My tags! They used to be a lot sillier and I’ve toned them down, but I keep them as organized as I can so that I can find previous answers! It was just for my own organization originally but I’m so glad you appreciate the tags! I plan to have a legit ~Navigation~ page so that major tags are all lined up and easily accessible, so you can go right to, for example, the #VC News tag and see what the latest news is. I don’t reblog everything from the Official VC FB page since so much of it is teasing and fluff, so if I reblogged/posted smtg here, it’s bc I felt like it was ACTUALLY newsworthy, or there was smtg we could talk about specifically.
P.S. And thanks for reminding me, I have to catch up on my tagging, during the last two months I’ve been off-and-on-line, when you see #Tag later it’s bc I was on mobile cruising the dash ;D
Thanks again, Anon. Very sweet of you to say that *hugs*
That was certainly a good advertisement from you, so I found it and read it and actually I think it was pretty cute
(L/L read her a little Shakespeare! Among other cuteness), so I will just leave this link here and let you all decide if you want to click on it, so like, give it a chance?
“Daddy issues” is an unfair term in real life bc it’s a judgment that carries different implications, either that someone is functioning badly bc of a bad relationship with their father, or that they had too good ofa relationship with their father and are spoiled; etc.; there is a wide range, but it basically all boils down to the cheap jab: “That person has daddy issues.”
When I see that term used on fictional characters, it’s more about people outright shitposting or having a touch of dark humor (sometimes more than a touch!) because we know these characters are not real people, they’ll never actually hear us insulting them. And what’s intriguing to me about that term used in analysis or in canon about these characters is that sometimes it’s considered a huge fault, something you say to put a character down; but at other times, it’s a badge of honor that a character can function so well even carrying the burden of “daddy issues.”
[^ source unknown]
(530): THAT GUY IS NOTHING BUT TROUBLE. HE’S 40% PRETTY HAIR AND 60% DADDY ISSUES.
Loki and Tony Stark are great examples of fictional characters w/ “daddy issues,” bc they both had unhealthy relationships with their fathers and it was a very formative experience for them. They are very layered and intellectually stimulating characters, would they be this way if they’d had the benefit of better relationships with their fathers? Isn’t there a kind of catharsis in watching them struggle and battle through their demons in order to reach their goals? Isn’t there extra reward when we see them succeed despite the emotional burdens they bear? And especially when others taunt them about their “daddy issues” and they are strong in the face of that adversity, too?
Google gives the definition of “Daddy issues” as:
“a pejorative for a lot of social, psychological or behavioral issues that may OR MAY NOT stem from an unhealthy relationship with one’s father. It’s usually used to marginalize issues women are having, though to be honest men are perfectly capable of having “daddy issues” too.”
I was asked this a few months ago and it’s a delicate subject bc, again, “daddy issues” is a pejorative, and therefore it can belittle/marginalize real people who have ‘social, psychological or behavioral issues that may OR MAY NOT stem from an unhealthy relationship with one’s father.’
But since these are fictional characters I feel like we can discuss it without causing harm, and I would agree with @vampires-and-witches who had made commentary that Claudia would probably be the fictional character with the most daddy issues in VC [X].
^And yet, in spite of her “daddy issues,” Claudia had persevered (at least, temporarily) when she thought she had killed her own dad/maker. As much as I love Lestat, he did have that coming to him, he deserved it, and he doesn’t even blame her for doing it. So when Claudia rose up and attacked the one who had wronged her the most? 12 year old me was thrilled, cheering her on! I wasn’t about to copy her and kill my parents *eyeroll* but what it showed me was the immense strength of character, someone who was at a great physical disadvantage, AND burdened with “daddy issues,” and yet she executed her plan entirely on her own and succeeded!
I will add that I think VC has a ton of terrible fictional parents (mortal/biological and vampiric/makers). Many are neglectful, abusive, manipulative, etc. or a combination. A terrible or absent parent/maker can affect someone’s future relationships with everyone they interact with. It’s those fictional characters who bear that burden and rise up and succeed (or at least keep trying!) despite it, those are some of the best characters in the series, in my opinion.
So I’ll open this up, anyone can reblog/comment about the characters with the most “daddy/maker issues”!
Louis does not approve of making vampires himself, that’s for sure! But yes, Louis wanted to be with Armand and Armand didn’t want Claudia as part of that equation and she knew it.
So, right, IDK what Louis was thinking about how it could possibly work out w/o making her a new adult vampire companion. He had little choice in that. He couldn’t bear to think of her out there on her own, she clearly wasn’t going to be invited to join the Theatre des Vampires, and she couldn’t make an adult vampire herself. There was a line in book!IWTV where she tells Louis: “ ‘Can you picture it?’ she said, so softly I scarcely heard. “A coven of children? That is all I could provide…” <– whether she could actually turn a child is not known. We don’t know of it happening successfully anywhere else in canon before or after that point. Louis probably would not have approved of that, either.
Worth noting here is that in the first version of IWTV, Claudia wasn’t killed off by the Parisian coven (from the Vampire Companion):
“In the first version of [IWTV], Claudia eventually goes off with three vampire brothers whom she meets in Paris. She does not die. As such, it was as if Rice had attempted to give her daughter a form of immortality. Rice, however, experienced psychological problems that cleared up only after she had rewritten the ending – by killing off Claudia and taking Louis through an experience of intense grieving. This version was much more cathartic for Rice.”
It’s tough for me to answer bc I think it depends on every individual reader’s sense of humor,… even within “humorous/ dark tone as VC” there is a range*. So I can’t say definitively that these reccs are in line with what you’re looking for necessarily, but you can use this list as a starting point.
*Lestat dancing w/ Claudia’s mom’s corpse: Some ppl find this moment dark and hilarious and other ppl think it’s just disgusting, so… there is a range. Personally I find it pretty amusing.
(There are some duplicates on this list, sorry about that, but I wanted to list them by recc’er.) (And I added ** next to those that @gothiccharmschool just recc’d in two recent posts which I will reblog momentarily for you.)
In no special order:
(Okay this is the first one bc it IS special, and the closest to the humor of VC I’ve seen in awhile) This is a mockumentary/movie but it sneaks onto the top of the list bc it is just SO good, courtesy of @theamazingdrunk for reminding me in a comment on an older rec post: WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS
**Salem’s Lot – Stephen King, personally, I find several Stephen King books to be darkly humorous, this one is a good one. I find humor in the Shining and Firestarter, too, but less so.
Vittorio – don’t forget Vittorio. Not sure if you read this one. It’s also by Anne Rice and technically not a VC book, he has a different origin story and is not part of the VC vampire group.
@riverofwhispers said: Carmilla is good Anita Blake and Sookie Stackhouse books, but only the early ones. the Rachel Morgan series but again starts out good gets weird later and it’s not about vampires so much as there are vampires in it.
@bluestockingcouture said: ‘The Angel’s Cut’, sequel to ‘The Vintner’s Luck’, is very atmospheric and well worth reading. Not quite as moving and intense, but there are some excellent new characters.
@sanguinivora said: Also, as to voice: IWTV opens in the late 1700’s/early 1800’s. Don’t know about either a southern American or French hinterlands-with-a-gloss-of-Parisian dialect, but for the grammar and vocabulary, one cannot go too far wrong looking to the novels of Jane Austen and Patrick O’Brian.
@dragontrainerdaenerys said: I just read Fevre Dream, George R.R Martin’s own vampire novel, and while I didn’t liked much his vampire mythology the main characters are charming! Besides, it’s set on the late 18XX and goes on the Mississipi River, so it has similar scenarios to IWTV!
@baroquebat said: Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust, while futuristic, has a loooot of lovely gothic set pieces in the anime movie, plus its just gorgeous and has the rare treat of having a dhampir lead!
@annabellioncourt’s Recs, and these are mostly her descriptions, too, compiled from other recc posts:
The Bloody Chamber And Other Stories – Angela Carter
A Taste of Blood Wine – Freda Warrinton, for romance and decadence.
**Blood Opera Sequence (or “Trilogy”?) – Tanith Lee’s vampire series was out when Lestat was playing rockstar
Historian – Elizabeth Kostova, for its worldliness
**Fevre Dream (yes its spelled fevre) by George R. R. Martin (yes, its THAT Martin, and his take on vampires is Very Good.)
Sunshine by Robin McKinley
**The Delicate Dependency by Michael Talbot, also for romance and decadence. (the recently-published edition from Valancourt Books has a foreword by @gothiccharmschool!)
The Hunger by Whitley Scriber
**Dracula – Bram Stoker, for its stereotype-setting content
Lord Ruthven – Byronic vampire, Lestat doesn’t catch the irony of John Polidori’s mockery of the foppish, arrogant, and well…Lord-Byron-y vampire
That is kind of an “out there” question, but intriguing! I’m sorry that I’m not familiar enough w/ the Batman villains to answer that
(here’s a wiki list), I’ve seen most of the movies but haven’t read the comics or had serious discussions about the characters, but I’ll open it up to the group. Anyone have answers for anon? @queenofthesavagegarden uses Margot Robbie as the FC for their genderbent Lestat muse, Lestel, and so that mun/muse may have opinions about how the recent Harley Quinn bears a striking resemblance to Lestel (or the other way around).
As a side thought: I headcanon that Lestat loves all the superhero movies, being a Sam Spade fan. Intellectually stimulating or just brawling or anything in between, he loves it all! I headcanon that, even though it was an older movie and thus lacking in the SFX we have today, Lestat really loved the Reeve!Superman where Superman was given the chance to give up his powers, and how that went very badly, and Superman had to then get them back in order to save the day.
Lestat would also probably have superhero costumes of his own and fly around in them. Would he wear a mask? Hmmm… Gonna need to see some costume ideas. #FANART REQUEST #FANFIC REQUEST.
[//ooc; If you are in fact deathly ill, please seek medical attention! This is just a fandom blog.]
♛Serious viral illness is one thing I definitely do not miss about being human. Although, the remedies for these, many of them didn’t exist in my time. Humidifiers! Detox baths! Electrolyte drinks in every color of the rainbow! Medications! We had bone broth and soup, herbal teas.
Art has long been a cure for many kinds of ailments, even if it only serves to provide mental pain relief. Advice on improving your art? Do what you love, explore it with an open mind, don’t criticize your progress too harshly. And share your drawings of us *smiles* Art has healing properties for those who view it, as well *winks*
You asked about hot blood, well, human blood is naturally the same as normal human body temperature at about 98.6°
Fahrenheit, which happens to be a perfectly palatable temperature for vampires. I think we sense it as hotter than that, since
mortals tend to enjoy coffee between 120°-140° Fahrenheit.
A little internet research tells me that:
Cat and dog blood is close to human blood, at 101-102.5° F.
Rat blood is a little less at 96.6-99.5° F. Imagine my poor Louis drinking what is essentially cold, stinky – and furry – coffee for some four years? Disgusting.
Hotter than that… I’ve never measured it but I’m certain our vampiric blood is far hotter than mortal blood. I’ll have to ask Fareed. It tastes hotter. The internet tells me the boiling point of blood is 212° F, and I would believe it if Fareed told me our temperature was near to that.
I’ve never boiled blood or experimented with it to taste, but @roselioncourt certainly has been intrigued by working with blood in the kitchen. Any thoughts on this, ma cocotte? I bought her a cute little chef hat and apron, matching, of course.
I… ;A; I didn’t read the HP books, only saw some of the movies, I had turned this over to more qualified ppl before, check out this post, (it looks like your choices almost all align with @annabellioncourt‘s!) and anyone can respond to this one, too!
But what about the VC characters as STAFF?
Subjects:
History of Magic
Muggle Studies
Dark Arts and/or Defence Against the Dark Arts
Headmaster/Headmistress
Transfiguration
Caretaker
Divination
Charms
Care of Magical Creatures/Groundskeeper
Flying
Librarian
Astronomy
Potions
Herbology
Arithmancy
But also: could/would a vampire even be accepted as a student or staff member at Hogwarts? What about the fact that they’d have to take/teach all their classes at night (if they were the kind of vampire that has to sleep during the day)?
^They are pretty cute! Armand (Guy-Manuel) on left, Daniel (Thomas) on right.
^This fanart is very them, too. Daniel (Thomas) on left, Armand (Guy-Manuel) on right. I tried to find the source, couldn’t find it, if you know, please inform me.
I think Guy-Manuel works for my headcanon of Armand, really good sass going on there. Thomas not so much for Daniel but… this pic of Thomas in a sea of keyboards and soundboards (I think I see a moog?!) seems very Daniel!
I-want-my-IWTV 