Look I make no apologies for our fandom or its canon or our fanworks content, ok?! We love it in our own special way, really, Claudia twerking is one of the lesser of the weird things we have lol.
Idk how old you are, so it may be more of an issue for you than for me, but I do get you re: wanting to share your interests with your parents. I tried to get my parents to read VC, they listened to the first 2 audiobooks in the series and were not into it *shrugs* They didn’t judge it either, tho, thankfully.
You’re so welcome for that! Thanks for coming back to tell me so *u*
I hope everyone’s 2018 is as good as seeing through fresh fledgling vampire eyes ❤ that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense but whateva whateva u know my heart’s in the right place ok
[^Don’t share with him bc Lestat’s pig ok, we all know it]
No but really, I think that’s what shipping is about. You can live vicariously through one or the other of them, and get the best of the whole ship ❤
I do think there’s some truth to the idea of shipping as a way of learning about relationships and in engaging with the characters, who are otherwise just ink on paper and only really exist in your imagination. Lestat speaks directly to the reader, breaking the fourth wall, but he can’t really speak to each individual reader, he doesn’t know your name or anything about you specifically, but it’s a form of intimacy bc you know so much about him. It’s the one-sided relationship of an actor to their audience. He knows he has an audience and he can see faces in the crowd, but he can’t actually have a relationship with a real reader since he’s fictional.
But you can get close to the characters by identifying with them. I can love Lestat for some of the reasons Louis does, and I can love Louis for some of the reasons Lestat does, and in agreeing with them, it’s a form of connecting with them individually. Like we’re sitting at a cafe together gushing about how cute it is when Lestat throws a tantrum over someone (usually just himself) spilling blood on his new Gucci blazer (bc deep down he doesn’t mind that much, he just likes having smtg to throw a tantrum about), or Louis defending his right to making stacks of books in the parlor (bc deep down he likes having an excuse to talk about books in any capacity). That kinda thing.
I think that’s where ppl are really going when they say, “My son” or “My husband” or whatever, about fictional characters, you want to express a form of devotion to them bc they belong to you, too; your vision of them (your headcanon) is truly your own.
So you can have them both, you’re invited into that ship whenever you open a book or read/write fanfic about them, enjoy/draw fanart of them, individually and as a ship!
movie!Interview With Vampire, Lestat says that line at 14 min, 22 seconds into the movie, on the NTSC (US) version. I don’t know when that would be for PAL. Anyone out there with a PAL copy can reblog/comment what it would be for that version.
So basically, start the movie at 11:45 pm New Year’s Eve your time, to begin 2018 w/ Louis’ freshly minted vampire eyes *u*
^Louis is, in fact, capable of smiling, here’s a rare sliver of a smile ❤
*applauds* VERY NICE WE WILL AWAIT YOUR GLORIOUS NEW AO3 ACCOUNT
^I could get in trouble for this but c’mon lookit this dork. He is on a stripper pole but not stripping or using it properly like at all, HE IS FULLY CLOTHED where it matters and
so like, cut me some slack ppl. Me and Stacee, has-been rockstars, need to go lie down and have some tea like the old ppl we are.
Not supposed to be on here, are you under 13? I have to admit I was 11 when I started reading VC, so I don’t judge ppl for being that young. I even wrote my first fanfics then.
@mntyaggrssn said they have the same name on AO3, if you can make an AO3 account and reach out to them. Or reach out to them on anon and give them your wattpad name.
Why are children under the age of 13 not permitted to have an account or upload Content? In the U.S., the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act governs the collection of personal information (which can include things like usernames) from children under 13. Requiring users to be over 13 is the easiest way for us to comply with this law.
ANYWAY, no pressure, Anon. You come to us when and if you’re able/ready ^______^
Hey, welcome to our little corner of tumblrland! Share your fanfic with us, step out into the light, Anon! I’m often critical of my own writing, and I often have a beta reader, a dear friend who gives me constructive criticism and even rewrites lines if I ask her to do so, like an editor, a beta can offer a huge improvement on one’s writing. Maybe you’d like to find a beta reader?
-PREAMBLE SORRY BUT I MUST- and no TL;DR for it-
Sometimes when ppl ask those questions, Why is the fandom so small and Where is the fanfic b/c I can’t find it, it’s argument bait, I’m sorry to say.
But I’m taking it at face value that you are somewhat or totally unaware of our history, that your mom might not know, and that you are not putting out bait for argument. I’ll try to give you a synopsis in good faith, and hope that other ppl see this post as such. I’m not interested in taking sides, reopening those old wounds for the millionth time. I think of us as the bastard children of fandom, beaten in to a corner by a formerly abusive parent, and we are survivors of that. As such, I would hope that we could offer each other even more compassion than other fans in other fandoms. It doesn’t always work that way. Things can be misread and emotions misinterpreted; this is a text-based communication so we are cheated of facial and verbal cues, it is far too easy to misread intention.
What draws ppl to VC? From what I’ve learned over the years, a lot of us felt marginalized in one way or another and we related to something in VC, we drew strength from it as we were struggling with something in real life. It helped at a time that we needed it. It might still help us. Some ppl just like the purple prose! For real!
Whatever the case, and however you choose to engage with canon or fandom, no one’s relationship to the books or characters supersedes anyone else’s. Not mine, not yours, Anon. We all have our own personal relationship with it. I hesitate to use the word “valid,” bc no one needs “validation” to love a book series or character(s). No one can be “invalidated” for loving a book series or character(s).
I was in fandom before the internet, and even tho, as I’ll mention below, it was with only one other flesh-and-blood friend, we had our own 2-person fandom! We liked what we liked. We didn’t agree on everything, we still don’t, but it was always civil, and any argument was always based on curiosity and trying to gain a better understanding from each other. It was never about this public display we have now on tumblr and other social networking sites of idk, “My 10K notes means my opinion supercedes yours!”? I don’t subscribe… Unless those 10K notes are turning into dollars, then we’ll revisit it, lol.
What even is the point of my blog? It’s for entertainment, my own experience, a collection of other ppl’s experience, and fanworks. When ppl say that I exert all this influence on an army of ppl, I am, in actuality, preaching to a big pile of cats, that’s how it feels. I serve catnip to cats. That’s the intention, anyway. They don’t even Like some of it, I’ll get like 5 notes on this post, lol. I have no need to be Right. I have no need to be anything other than a brief reprieve from how insane Real Life is and can be.
Fandom isn’t a contest. No one is keeping score. No one even knows your follower count unless you tell ppl (and I wouldn’t, bc even if you only have 10 more followers than smne else, it generally leads to envy).
TL;DR for the below info: The fandom was small, but it’s growing now, and there is fanfic, try here on tumblr, and try Archiveofourown.org (AO3). Fandom, however, like Real Life, takes your own work to make what you can of it.
FRICKIN’ WALL OF TEXT™ NO CUTS WE LONGPOST LIKE MEN
A) The fandom is was small bc:
^Gawds this is gonna be me on the outside eventually, it’s me on the inside sometimes lol.
It’s an old fandom, over 40 years old! IWTV, the first book in the series, was published in 1976.
Back then, fandom was just the ppl you could gather together, physical mailing lists, idk. It progressed to zines, probably, like other fandoms, but you had to know who was making them. I wasn’t born yet so I don’t know!
As the internet was born, ppl began to find each other on webrings, but even then, it was hard, bc Anne Rice did not approve of fanfic. So you had to know where to look or be lucky enough to stumble upon it.
By the early 90′s when I came into VC, there were some fic sites like Rotoli dela Lune (IIRC?) but AR waged a #war on fanfic, sending threatening cease & desist letters to writers, and that made everything EVEN HARDER to find.
Of course, the IWTV movie in 1994 (in development hell for nearly 20 years) did bring in a wave of new fandom ppl, but they really only found whoever they physically met bc of the movie, and the VC books that were out at the time. Meeting in the audience at the movie? Or in bookstores in the Fantasy/Horror section under R, maybe? Probably?
[X] And TBH the movie got backlash bc it was reviewed as being too gay to some, and as not gay enough, but overall, it did well financially and is still considered smtg of a cult classic bc they drag it out and show it on TV leading up to Halloween or whenever Tom and Brad have new movies out ;D (one near-to-Halloween weekend I watched it 4 times, and that was too many, even for me).
Which was my situation, I had my one VC friend, we met in middle school bc I saw her reading QOTD on the bus, I pestered her that morning, and she had to tolerate almost 20 years of my fannish behavior ever since, all directed at her like a fire hydrant, and then she forced me to start a Tumblr and here we are.
*ahem*
We had another small influx of fans with movie!QOTD in 2002, but as the story was barely tethered to canon, and for a number of other reasons, idk if it was the blockbuster ppl had hoped it would be. STILL, there are fandom ppl who find it nostalgic, or love it and embrace it even admitting its canon non-compliance. So I try not to trample it too hard, but trampling it hard was once encouraged! anyway… suffice it to say, someone(s) has to watch it with me and mock it to help me through it, lol.
In 2012, we got a graphic novel of Claudia’s POV during IWTV called Claudia’s Story. You can find it on Amazon.
B) The fanfic IS out there.
CURRENTLY, the fandom is experiencing a revival, we liiiiive!
with the recently published books and AR no longer fights the fanfic writers! Woo!
AR has a FB page and an official VC FB page, where she communicates with her People of the Page and whoever else comments on her posts.
There’s also a thriving community of ppl here on tumblr, who make fanart, write fic, do podcasts, write meta, cosplay, etc. Dig around in my archive and you’ll find them. We just did a @vcsecretgifts exchange and there’s fanfic in there.
Another great place to find fanfic is archiveofourown.org (AO3). You can set up an account and post your fanfic there, and I bet you’ll find readers who want what you have to offer!
There’s also fanfiction.net, and wattpad, but I don’t know those sites very well.
^^^All this taken into account, the thing is, anon, fandom is not an open door.
Fandom is not a ballroom with everyone listing their url name down and committing to staying or even having civility, we can’t make a VC RP directory bc inevitably ppl aren’t invited for whatever reason, and feel left out, or they move on to another fandom anyway. It’s not everyone extending their dance-cards for you to sign your blog url for a dance with EVERYONE. We have had arguments and in-fighting, call-out posts, cliques… there are heated posts about certain characters or ships still getting reblogged with their 10K+ notes and an implication that if you “like” those certain characters or ships, that you’re contributing to real world harm.
Fiction’s affect on reality is a debate that’s started before the internet and will go on as long as we are capable of communicating. Societies have waves of being more or less pure, like a pendulum. That’s not the focus of my blog.
All debates aside, fandom is what you make it, it’s not guaranteed easy friendship. I once thought it was, but I learned the hard way that it’s very much like real life. You have to do the work of finding and reaching out to those ppl who you find a spark of connection with, and actively nurture that spark. On a public site, you have to extend yourself and show some opinions and thoughts, gush about what you love, reblog from ppl who you relate to, and gradually build your own network of friends. Nothing is handed to you. No one will crowd into your inbox bc your url sounds cool (well, maybe a few urls get attention bc of that!)(there is an exception to every rule).
So whenever I say “Welcome to our little corner of tumblrland!” I mean it, I do welcome all, and I hope that I’m going to see you flourish as you make your way into the space. Are you a new fanartist, or writer, or someone who’s supportive even if they don’t have the skills to create fanwork of their own? A combination? Show us, and reach out, and if we’re compatible, we’ll reach back.
I-want-my-IWTV 