Trying to figure out if you’re ace or aro can be so much harder than other
sexualities because it’s like, trying to find the absence of something. Imagine
you’re at a pond and you want to know if there are any turtles, or fish. Say
you find a turtle and you’re like “great! Now I know there are turtles.” Or a
fish, now you know for sure there are fish. Or you find both, and now you know
for a fact there are both turtles and fish in the pond.
But like, if you don’t find any turtles it might be that there are no
turtles or maybe you’re just really shitty at looking for turtles and maybe you
THINK you saw a turtle over there or maybe it was just a stick. Maybe there are
only a few turtles. Maybe you need to do something special to find the turtles. Maybe a bunch of these rocks are actually turtles but you couldn’t tell them apart.
Maybe there are no turtles. You have no idea. Meanwhile some people are saying “Oh
there have to be turtles! You’ll find them eventually ;)” or “How many turtles
have you found in your pond?” or “Try planting some vegetables at the shore to
attract the turtles.” Or “Oh no! What disaster happened to your pond that there
are no turtles?” And you’re just standing there wet with an empty net and a
tired expression.
But whatever because whether there are turtles or fish or not your pond’s
ecology works just fine without them because that’s what eco-communities do
they form a system around what they have. You aren’t missing anything if you
don’t have turtles you just have a pond system without turtles. If someone
tried to change you by pouring a bunch of turtles into your pond it would
probably fuck something up.
So you don’t have to be entirely sure. You don’t have to search every inch of the damn pond before you can decide there are probably no turtles. If you want to take the aro or ace label because you think it fits go for it. And if you do find your turtles you can rename the pond. That’s fine.
Ok but Claudia called Armand Louis’ “companion” and it’s p obvious that Armand wants to fuck Louis and then she asks for Madeline as a “companion” and this is probably a gross thought cause Madeline is like “I want a daughter who can’t die” and Claudia is (in appearance) a child but could she be a lesbian?
I know she pines after an adult body but could it be more than that? Could she want a woman to sleep with?
This is a fascinating idea and I have thought about it myself quite a bit.
Possibly a very unpopular opinionbut: I don’t think they were sexual w/ each other in the mortal sense, but there was more to them than a mother-daughter relationship.
I don’t think Claudia’s pursuit of Madeleine was purely for a platonic mother-daughter relationship. That may have been part of it, and it was how she sold it to Louis because he couldn’t perceive Claudia as more than his daughter or as an adult trapped in a little body who would be capable of being involved in a romantic way with anyone, and she needed him to actually do the work for her since she was unable to perform the Dark Gift herself (and I do think she tried before asking him).
While it may not have been a relationship in a more conventionally romantic sense (I don’t believe they had anything sexual, in the mortal sense, going on), I do think Claudia/Madeleine was a ship of sorts, more of an emotional relationship. Claudia was the one in control, she was comparatively older and stronger in personality.
can I hijack/add to this? I think we can simplify the answer to this question a little if we go by canon, that is: the vampires aren’t actually sexual in the conventional sense, ever. This doesn’t mean that the emotions behind romantic love/sensual love isn’t a factor and I don’t think there’s anything in canon contradicting the idea of the two of them having the kind of sensual relationship the vamps enjoy; sharing blood, kissing etc. However I do think Madeleine was too mad to have any real awareness beyond wanting her daughter back in some form and while Claudia needed an assistant, a ‘companion’, I personally think she was too angry/bitter at this point to have room for Madeleine in her heart at all. If she wasn’t so hurt, I think she could have loved her in the typical taboo-defying way all Anne’s vamps seem to do. There isn’t really any definitive labels you could put on them as it is, beyond ‘vampire’ – as I read it anyway^^.
Just my two cents.
Good addition, good points!
I think Madeleine was fairly mad as a new vampire, and if she had been given more time, she might have regained some sanity under Claudia’s tutelage. Yes, Claudia was a bit angry/bitter herself as Armand had his claws in Louis at the time. Claudia had to rush the acquisition of Madeleine because she sensed that the rug was about to be pulled out from under her.
Over time, Claudia might have gained a sense of peace with Madeleine, in guiding her through things, and then the two of them could have explored the world together. And possibly shared that canon sensuality that Ricean vampires can have, which is free of taboos, as you pointed out.
why would you ever think asexual characters would be boring like are you that centered around sex that you think people have no personality unless they’ve touched genitals with another person like oh boo hoo now you can’t masturbate to the thought of them having sex and you actually have to pay attention to them as a character cry me a fucking river and get over yourself
//Okay, this needs to be answered OOC, because my Lestat would have to answer with my personal headcanon, b/c I think Mater is full of shit.
According to canon and Anne/Mater, her vampires do not experience sexual pleasure with their genitals. In QotD, Lestat calls his cock useless, claiming that it can no longer do what it was intended to, or some shit like that (I have a migraine and I’m not looking it up, but I’m sure @i-want-my-iwtv could give you the precise quote because she’s amazing).
Anne of course (typically) reneges on this when she wrote PL, creates a bunch of faulty science bullshit so that Lestat can jizz for science and create Viktor.
In fanon, it’s generally accepted that, yes, the vampires can have sex. There is some variation on this depending on what fic you are reading or who you are RPing with–but it’s generally agreed upon that vampire sex is 100% about the blood and sensuality, and that, even if they aren’t going to orgasm in the traditional sense, they are still going to get something pretty intense out of the entire situation.
There are some pretty amazing fics out there that make sense of all this, but since Vampire Chronicles fan fiction doesn’t technically exist, I can’t help you find them.
For my purposes, sure, Lestat has sex. Plenty of it. And it’s primarily about the blood. But there is also fun to be had with their bodies, and that’s more fun to write anyway, so there you have it.
ooc: ALL OF THIS. Also like… you can’t tell me that vampire sensation is 10x that of a human and expect me to believe that sensual touch does nothing for them. Maybe they can’t reach climax but that’s what the blood is for. Doesn’t mean sexual acts don’t work as amazing foreplay.
ooc: I’ve written about this before at some point I believe, but that’s very much my take on it too. Especially this: ‘you can’t tell me that vampire sensation is 10x that of a human and expect me to believe that sensual touch does nothing for them’
Hell yeah.
^Basically agreed with all 3 ppl here. Respect #Your headcanon may vary on this topic.
Canon doesn’t directly take on whether their dicks even work until the 3rd book, when Lestat says:
“I studied my reflection … and the organ, the organ we don’t need, poised as if ready for what it would never again know how to do or want to do, marble, a Priapus at a gate” – Lestat, Queen of the Damned
So I’ve discussed this topic at length in my tags for it: #asexuality, #asexual, #sex, #sexuality, #lets talk about sex. So check those out for more discussion on it. Ricean vampires still do feel sexual lust, it’s channeled through the experience of taking/sharing blood, and other sensually physical things.
In fanon there is a wide spectrum of whether they can have penetrative sex, some even speculate that their um… output… would be very bloody.
TL;DR: It all depends on your idea of what sex is. There are human couples who are unable (or do not want) to experience penetrative sex, and they can still be intimate with each other in other ways.
Claudia asks Louis about sex in IWTV, and he replies that it “‘…was something hurried…And… it was seldom savored… something acute that was quickly lost. I think that it was the pale shadow of killing.’”
He could have been lying a little to downplay it, so that she wouldn’t feel as bad for missing out on smtg she would never be able to experience, or maybe bc he truly felt that the experience of killing supercedes mortal intercourse. We don’t know bc #unreliable narrator.
ALL THAT SAID, if you prefer to take AR’s word as the gospel for canon, she has been definitive about it:
I think that reproductive obstacle (vampires are undead, they cannot carry a growing baby inside of dead flesh) is why Anne Rice made the choice that they could BE sexual, but not in a reproductive way.
In canon, Louis did explain to Claudia that sex was, for him, the “pale shadow of killing,” and some other negative things about the experience, but it was probably meant more to try to make her feel better about missing out on it. She would never be able to experience it herself :-
In movie!IWTV, Louis seems to spend his mortal nights getting drunk and hiring cheap prostitutes like have you seen the higher quality ones Lestat hires?! so I would say he’s probably sexing them, I wouldn’t think he’s hiring them for their conversational skills…
I can’t find the same info in book!IWTV, about the prostitutes, but he was getting drunk and passing out in cabarets.
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?
Thank you for clearing that up! I remember Louis mentioning the intimacy thing but I totally forgot about Lestat. I just have a vivid memory of Armand and Daniel in bed and I guess my mind tried to fill in the blanks.
Honestly, It’s been so long since I’ve read them that I’m starting to wonder what I actually read and what my friends and I headcanon’ed.
//OOC: Yeah, so here’s actual the question I asked on Facebook AND the response, for those interested, since there’s a version going around without the question. Never actually asked about sex just the depth of the relationship, but Anne does usually throw that in during ship questions. (I still apply fanon logic since Ursula banged Vittorio in his book. Discrepancies, love it for fic and RP reasons.)
Yeah.. well, we all read PL, right? In this book EVERYONE loves EVERYONE and EVERYTHING in EVERY moment EVER mentioned! So yeah, of course that Marius loves Daniel. It does not confirm anything.
And sex. Didn’t Lestat say in QOTD that his johnson was like priapus ready for something that could never been performed anymore? Not with pleaure that is. So, well, technically, penetration is possible…but orgasm through that? Nah…
merciful-death said: ooc; Didn’t post the full question because I didn’t want to show disrespect by posting your real name on Tumblr. I apologize.
Yeah, I’d have done the same, Merciful “D”. 😉
//OOC: It was never explicitly stated in PL that Daniel reciprocated feelings for Marius, which is why I asked. With Anne’s response, now we know. Again, the point of this question was the ship, not sex, but the fandom seems incapable of enjoying the happy parts of anything without someone having a fit.
The Vampire Chronicles: If you shipped it, it was or will be canon at some point. The ship whore’s delight.