So I’m re-reading the Vampire Chronicles, and discovering all over again that I love the way Anne Rice depicts sexuality, attraction, and affection in her books, not just among vampires, but among humans as well.
People in platonic relationships never hesitate to say that they love each other, to show affection, to kiss.
Sexual orientation doesn’t seem to exist, really, especially with the undead. It seems that a century or two of immortality has rendered most of them indifferent in regards to gender.
I love the repeated narrative of “I hate you, but I haven’t seen you in a really long time, and I missed hating you in person, so come here and let me hug you and tell you how beautiful you are.” There is something very poignant in the way that they treasure the familiar.
Consent is super important in sexual situations in her books, and in simple social situations, and in regards to the giving and receiving of blood.
It’s recognized that people who have been made vampires without their consent are victims of trauma, even if they are men.
The reason I love Only Lovers Left Alive is it shows that a character (Adam) can be severely mentally ill, in this case depressed and suicidal, and still be seen as lovable and capable of being loved and loving in return without being “cured” of their mental illness, and that a mentally ill character can have other attributes aside from being mentally ill while still showing the impact being mentally ill has on his personality.
Adam from OLLA is an extremely important character to me you guys.
Most men would simply wear a simple large shirt tucked into breeches.
Some men wore linen drawers if they could afford them, which were more or less just thinner breeches.
Because of all the layers of clothing, breeches (knee-length capris) opened in the front without having to actually drop them or undo the waist. Their width at the knees often buttoned tightly to stop stockings from rolling down if the garters at mid-thigh didn’t hold.
Put on some clothes, Lestat! Those scenes where Lestat is just wearing a shirt and breeches? Technically he’s only wearing underwear! Usually even at home, a proper gentleman (like Nicolas) would wear a banyan (an East Asian-inspired robe). When going out, a gentleman would wear a tight frock coat.
All of this goes out the window for the Third Estate, who pretty much only owned two sets of clothing for their entire lives.
Omg, I cannot! ;A; I didn’t read the HP books, only saw some of the movies, so I’ll turn this over to more qualified ppl.
^I do think Claudia would end up in the same house as Lestat, continuing the tradition like the Malfoy line does, but I could be wrong on that. The sorting hat would be taking a LONG time w/ Claudia, tho.
Anyone is invited to sort our beloved characters! Do the thing (ﾉ^ヮ^)ﾉ*:・ﾟ✧
*gapes at you not having read them* Anyway, I feel
like trying though I always tend to change my mind on sortings as soon as I have made a choice. Here goes:
Lestat: Gryffindor.(And I don’t just say
so because it’s the house of the lion ;)) I think he is a Gryffindor because he
is ridiculously impulsive and as a result also ridiculously brave. He wants
greatness, notoriety, to be remembered and he loves people, “I want to be good
at being bad” he wants to be admired, even when his nature doesn’t lend itself
very well to admiration, thus the rock-star phase.
Louis: Ravenclaw. Louis is bookish and
rather introverted, he’s individualist and doesn’t give a hoot what other
people think, but he also tends to avoid confrontation whenever possible. He
doesn’t seem as eager to seek knowledge as most ‘claws, but the other
traits seem fitting.
Claudia: Ravenclaw. Claudia was obsessed with knowledge;
she wanted to know everything about vampires and about adulthood as well. She
was ultimately driven mad by the fact that she was kept from all this knowledge
by Lestat and by her perpetual childhood. She had no loyalty except to
herself and didn’t seem to bother at all with striving for greatness, she just
wanted to understand.
Armand: Slytherin. Armand is difficult,
because he wants so many things and he is so very contradictory in his
attitudes, but I say Slytherin because he always strives to create ‘community’,
but always in a way that revolves around him, he is the ‘Boss’ and he slides
into this role with quiet aptitude, he needs to be in control. His communities
are also often very selective and he is ruthless in keeping ‘rogues’ away. He
loves mystery and cares for the history of the vampires, but he doesn’t value
learning about past or present beyond what can benefit him personally (thus his
random fits of obsessive learning when entering a new century).
Marius: Ravenclaw: He is always learning
new things; he is obsessed with knowledge in the traditional sense and loves
being the one people come to for advice. He is also individualist to the point
where people have to leave him for their own sake and he avoids confrontations so much that he
would rather abandon someone he loves than have to be confronted with a unsatisfactory
situation.
Daniel: I just can’t decide whether he
is a Gryffindor or a Ravenclaw, because on the one hand he is a journalist and
that seems to indicate a pretty heavy thirst for knowledge, but he is also
ridiculously brave, throwing himself into risky situations because of that
curiosity and he doesn’t exactly back
down. He is difficult because much of the time we see him outside of his
interview has him being chased by Armand and/or living with him and that doesn’t
exactly represent his normal behavior.
What alternative was there? Should I have dragged him around Europe with us in the search for Marius and for the answers that I did not have? What about when Gabrielle finally left and I lost all hope? Would he have gone to ground with me? Would he have been careful in his feeding habits when unleashed and roaming the countryside? And when I was rescued by Marius….when I finally looked upon Akasha’s face, would he have stood by my side?
I think not. It was he that returned to Renaud’s and it was he that formed The Theater of the Vampires! He hated the sight of me and I him but for different reasons….I hadn’t perished, the light never left me despite my descent into darkness! And he was a madman….half broken creature of dark genius! Would he have been happy to leave Paris? To stare at my face every evening and leave his music behind?
You know the answer if you are reading. Why ask me the questions to which you already know the answers? Are you attempting to demonize and damn me once more? Are you attempting to point out my mistakes when they parade themselves before me again on a nightly basis?
I have laid it bare at your feet and my sins are available at any time for you to browse and review over and over if you like. I am done with them, a tired tune indeed! Ask me no more!
I will find a way to give Nicolas purpose again but I realize that together, we do nothing but poison the well over and over until neither of us can drink.
pop culture intertextuality is just so damn *fascinating*
today a parody movie (50 shades of black) comes out, based on the 50 shades of grey movie, which was based on the 50 shades book, which was based on twilight, which was somewhat based on interview with the vampire (which anne rice based on an earlier short story she wrote), which was based on Dracula and other vampire stories, which originally came from Dr. John Polidori’s The Vampyre (even though Vampires were a thing in folk tales before then, he was the one who made them all classy, etc.)
so really, like so many things, this is all Lord Byron’s fault.
i’ve been thinking a lot about why people don’t get creepy ships and automatically expect you to apologize for liking them
and it’s just that the appeal, to them, is “oh, wow, the phantom kidnapped christine / the villain decided to spare this other character / the vampire snuck into her room, how romantic” and they think that’s super weird and indefensible
but that’s not how people genuinely think about it? at least not me and most people i know who enjoy those kinds of tropes. we’re interested in characters who don’t have a healthy concept of love, who don’t understand it, making the greatest gesture they’re capable of within the timeline of their stories, recognizing that they Feel a Feeling for someone else and struggling to articulate it. most of the time they are Horrifically Bad at this, but it’s fascinating to watch them bump up into the limitations of their emotional capacity, even as their heart is SWELLING OVER with something they can’t name. their morality doesn’t preclude them from finding someone they admire. we like to hope they’ll figure it out in time and understand how to handle their feelings in a good way, and if they don’t, imagining a scenario where they do and things end happily isn’t hurting anyone. people’s knee-jerk response is “you’re romanticizing, you’re excusing” but all that’s happening is people are recognizing that a character is having a deep internal conflict with themselves and rooting for them to make good choices. i don’t think kidnapping is romantic, i think it reveals that a character who has romantic feelings doesn’t have a guideline for how to express them, and that’s automatically fascinating to me.
Have you ever seen brown eyes in the sun? You don’t always notice it at first but you’ll see that ‘brown’ no longer describes them. They melt into golden rays, circling an eclipse. There’s nothing boring about brown eyes, not even when the later hours encroach; they just turn into a sunset of their own.
First, thank you for asking. This is something I feel is important!
Second, to those who wonder where this question came from, a while back, I reblogged this, and added the comment about squicks not being the same as triggers.
So what, you ask, is a squick?
A squick is an old fandom term for something that makes you supremely uncomfortable and you absolutely do not want to read it. It can be a trope, a ship, a concept, or just an event that happens within a fic or in canon. For me, abused animals are a definite squick. I don’t like it, and will generally avoid reading any graphic descriptions of such. (That includes tumblr gif sets and such too, people! Tag that shit, will you? Even if it has a happy ending.) Another deep, deep squick of mine is infant age play. Don’t like it, don’t get it, don’t want to think about it.
Now, neither of these things are dangerous to my mental or emotional state. I have never experienced either in my life, and they do not bring about any sort of PTSD, dissociation, or spiral of depression, anxiety, etc. They are simply things I prefer not to think about in my daily life, or read about in my escapist hobbies. Therefore, theyare not triggers. Triggers are very real, very bad things for some people, and to label things we choose not to read because we find it disturbing or gross or weird is to diminish the very real danger of actual triggers.
I love the term squick. It perfectly describes the concept without assigning any negativity to the thing you dislike, or to people who do like the thing you dislike. It is something you personally do not care for and wish to avoid, simple as that.
I-want-my-IWTV 