♛Ah, the creative blocks! They happen to us all. When I lose musical inspiration, I turn to listening to – or doing my own – variations on existing works.
I might try a song and sing it in another singer’s style. Have you ever heard of Richard Cheese & Lounge Against The Machine? Lounge applied to any other song, preferably one in a very different genre, is almost a guarantee of comic relief, and that can be the first crack in breaking through my creative block.
Collaboration with others can help, too. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been creatively stifled, I’ll call my mortal band to meet at a karaoke place and we’ll just go through our favorites, works very well.
But there are going to be times in your life where the muse won’t speak to you for no apparent reason, and other times when you can’t shut her up, ebbs and flows are normal. I hope your muse returns to you, post-haste *winks*
You might want to send a similar message to Anne Rice herself over on FB, not that she would answer it necessarily, but I do think she appreciates it every time when she gets messages like these, and I think she would be supportive of your love for her books ❤
While I’m always grateful to receive messages like these (notes like these keep this blog alive!), I’ve held it for a week bc I wanted to collect myself, and be very careful in answering it.
I didn’t set out with the intention of providing a place where VC fans can share their thoughts and feelings, that was a happy accident, and I engage with those thoughts and feelings as selectively as I do in any conversation online or in real life. I’m not an official/paid VC spokesperson, not an authority, and never claimed to be, I’m just one fan who enjoys VC and wants to do that in my own specific way. It’s been wonderful to find others who also enjoy VC, the discussions here can be informative, and sharing headcanons/fanart/fanfic/etc. has been the gift that keeps on giving ❤ I’ve made some of the best friends of my life here.
TL;DR: I hope you make friends here, Anon, and can see that you can love these books with others. Don’t let your mom trample on you for what you enjoy. Don’t argue with her, just don’t take those comments to heart.
Hit the jump for more, cut for length.
“Lately my mother has been ridiculing me for having read the VC, she will say things like: “You and your stupid vampire books.” Which is not something I like to hear.”
^I find that kind of dismissive language/attitude really insulting, too. She must not see what you and I do. You’re not alone. This is a small fandom but a growing one, where fanartists are inspired to draw the characters, writers inspired to write fic about them, cosplayers to dress up like them! People use these stories and characters as an outlet for their own self-expression, their own beliefs about life.
I agree w/ you, VC has taught me a lot about life, too. We all come to VC with our own experiences/imagination and we take from it what works for us… but the common thread I’ve seen throughout all these years is that the impact VC has had on many of the fans seems to come directly from the work Anne Rice put into it in those first few books. In those books, she was working through the kind of pain few people can really understand or survive, working through her demons she was working straw into gold, and we found it relatable. We watched Louis struggle through his issues with religion and having to kill people to survive. We watched Claudia suffer with the realities of her existence and try to deal with it as best she could. We got Lestat’s life story and how miserable his beginnings were and how he managed to keep a kind heart and aim for goodness despite all the failures and obstacles in his way. There’s a lot of pain in these first few books, but there’s also love and triumph, too. Not always a clear distinction between good/bad, there are difficult choices, and not always the best results, but the general direction always felt like the characters were trying. That’s my own interpretation and what I’ve gotten out of it.
Straw into gold, that’s what I think we have in VC, and those who fail to see that? Well, maybe they’ve found something more relatable somewhere else, or they didn’t need it, but for people like your mom to trample on others for finding relatable value in a fictional work?I can’t support that, personally. I admit that I do poke fun at the Twilight fans occasionally, as they probably poke fun at VC fans, but deep in my heart, I respect them and I would hope that they respect us. They are no less “worthy” of liking what they like – and finding something in it that gives them life – than anyone else.
“I appreciate that I can just go onto your blog and see that other people love these books too.”
We do love these books! I hope you come off anon and make some friends here. Friends are the family you choose for yourself. Don’t let your mom trample on you for enjoying what you enjoy.
I know that feel, anon, and so does Louis. He definitely gives good advice (even if that advice is just “Wait! Think about this a little more!”) and even his most loved ones flat out ignore him.
And then Louis has to help them pick up the pieces from the damage that Doing the Thing caused :-
On the plus side, he had become so good at giving advice that by QOTD, I think his arguments to Akasha re: not Doing the Thing were the strongest of the whole group! But he still failed to convince her. She didn’t even address his points. As shown by that scene, unfortunately, you can have the best warnings, the best arguments, your logic can be watertight, and ppl will still want to do what they want to do. The old adage is still true: You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.I mean in Louis’ case, it was You can make a glass of blood for a vampire, but you can’t make him drink! He’s had his own share of resistance to advice, too.
When I think about my failures in warning those I care about re: the consequences of their actions, and then I’m proven right when they’re complaining about their decisions, I try to have peace of mind that I did my best bc I still care about them and their well-being. Hopefully they can at least appreciate that I care enough about them to continue to warn them against harm.
♫ But the cat came back the very next day, The cat came back, we thought he was a goner But the cat came back; it just couldn’t stay away. Away, away, yea, yea, yea ♫
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
I-want-my-IWTV 