I FEEL YOU 1,000% I think Tom had the rights to TOBT so he could star in it, even tho that’s the bodyswap episode at best, and all this other soggy mess at worst… I think the 90′s audience and reviewers being all IWTV was “TOO GAY”/”NOT GAY ENOUGH” really soured him on the whole series, but he has always kept Lestat in his heart ❤ (Brad, not so much)
I would love it if Tom were consulted on his opinion re: casting, and then when they do cast a Lestat, Tom could train/advise him personally. BC PLENTY OF PPL WHO NORMALLY DISLIKE TC ADMITTED THAT THEY LIKED HIM IN THAT ROLE.
Brad’s advice to the new Louis would probs be “You’re going to be miserable, just don’t hold back with that… You do get like 2 scenes to take out your aggression when you get all fiery so take full advantage of that.”
My not-so-secret casting fantasy would be to have Tom back to play the Marquis. LIKE HOW PERF WOULD THAT BE?? He’s old enough for it… more villain roles for TC! *bangs fist on table*
Well, given that she’s not in their lives now, and there is some canon that they’re a ship, I would say yes. Louis still would have stayed with Lestat, he was the only vampire Louis knew. Although he did threaten to leave Lestat before Claudia appeared, I doubt he would have followed through with that.
Are childless couples any less committed to each other because they never had a child? Or couples who have lost a child, does that destroy the relationship they had that existed before the child was there? I don’t think so.
Kids can heal a relationship, or strain it, it’s all in the chemistry of the parents and kids involved. Claudia did bind Louis to Lestat for a time, and then she drove a wedge between them. Maybe if she hadn’t been brought into their lives, they might have been better off ;A; She got rather pointy near the end…
Oooh that’s a good question! Idk if phobias count as “irrational,” per se, bc you can have an irrational fear of anything, but phobias at least have categories that are common? Right?
These stories are open enough that you could make an argument for more than one irrational fear or phobia for each character, but for the sake of brevity I’m going to focus on one or a few for each, and keep my support brief.
(TBH I started drafting this and just one character got really lengthy, so I’ll do a series of them.)
1) Louis
A) Claustrophobia –The fear of small spaces like elevators, small rooms and other enclosed spaces.
Canonically, the first one that comes to mind is Louis’ claustrophobia. Idk if Brad was aware of that character trait, but I see it in his face when Lestat closes him up for his first night in a coffin. He has his hand on the lid at first, and then lets it go kind of reluctantly I don’t have that giffed out so you’ll have to believe me on that.
“All my life I’d feared closed places. Born and bred in French houses with lofty ceilings and floorlength windows, I had a dread of being enclosed. I felt uncomfortable even in the confessional in church. It was a normal enough fear. And now I realized as I protested to Lestat, I did not actually feel this anymore. I was simply remembering it. Hanging on to it from habit, from a deficiency of ability to recognize my present and exhilarating freedom.” – Louis, IWTV
^And then post-trial at the Theatre des Vampires, he gets nailed into a coffin and walled up, UPSIDE-DOWN. It’s a bad time. It’s a pretty bad punishment on its own, probably a standard one for the TdV, but I can’t help but think they had some idea that this was one of Louis’ fears specifically that they read in his thoughts and capitalized on.
B) Atychiphobia – fear of failure, specifically re: a fear of confrontation/decisions, because it so often ends in the death or pain of those he loves, particularly Paul and Claudia.
There is a more elaborate meta post out there about this, and I can’t find it, anyone can reblog this and add the link. @wicked-felina and I were discussing Louis and his fear of confrontation/decisions last night, here’s what we came up with:
Louis tends to refuse to engage, except when he physically has to fight people to save Lestat in TVL ❤
Re: Paul, imagine you having a fight with a family member and mocking them (being confrontational) and then they die right in the middle of your argument, and you’re blamed for it, and you blame yourself for it ;A;
Claudia wanted him to choose between her and Lestat, “Now’s time to end it, Louis.” And Lestat ends up dead ;A;
And he has to stand by and watch Lestat (debatable, but I consider Lestat to be his lover at the time) be hurt, lay there suffering as he appears to die on the carpet, then Louis has to help Claudia finish him off.
“The numbness which had protected me since the carriage left the Rue Royale threatened to lift and leave me flayed suddenly, staring, thinking: This is Lestat. This is all of transformation and mystery, dead, gone into eternal darkness.”
^This suggests to me, plus the pull he felt to go down with Lestat, that he absolutely cared for Lestat, more than just for what secrets he took with him in death ;A;
Armand wanted him to choose between him and Claudia for him, and Claudia ends up dead ;A;
People really put Louis in terrible situations and he’s frozen with indecision. Anne Rice has compared him to Hamlet, there’s so much weight on whatever he chooses.
“ …`That passivity in me has been the core of it all, the real evil. That weakness, that refusal to compromise a fractured and stupid morality, that awful pride! For that, I let myself become the thing I am, when I knew it was wrong. For that, I let Claudia become the vampire she became, when I knew it was wrong. For that, I stood by and let her kill Lestat, when I knew that was wrong, the very thing that was her undoing. I lifted not a finger to prevent it. And Madeleine, Madeleine, I let her come to that, when I should never have made her a creature like ourselves. I knew that was wrong! Well, I tell you I am no longer that passive, weak creature that has spun evil from evil till the web is vast and thick while I remain its stultified victim. It’s over! I know now what I must do. And I warn you, for whatever mercy you’ve shown me in digging me out of that grave tonight where I would have died: Do not seek your cell in the Theatre des Vampires again. Do not go near it.’ ” – Louis, IWTV
C) Autophobia –fear of one’s self – Not sure if this is the right type of fear, but I would add that Louis’ fear of his own vampiric nature in IWTV was a thing, too.
I never revealed to him half my powers, and with reason, because he shrank in guilt and self-loathing from using even half of his own. – Lestat, TVL
^It has to do with wanting to remain human, and exerting his vampiry gifts was a glaring reminder that he’s not; having grown up a Christian, he felt that being a vampire was monstrous and evil. This was something he struggled with more during IWTV-era than later, as we see in much later canon he uses his powers without explicit canon complaints about it.
Louis has grown in canon, and he doesn’t seem to have these fears any longer, but we seldom know what’s going on with him as we don’t revisit his POV until the most recent books, and he doesn’t mention these things specifically. There’s probably still traces of them, though.
[continued] But it rubs at emotional raw points when the agency of a character who is a minor has their agency completely written off. Mostly because it reminds me of the kind of things that were said to keep me repressed. So what I’m saying is’ yeah I can see how someone who has been there would write that’ not that I would, mostly because I live in fear that my weirdness will hurt others.
Hello Anon, thank you for sending me this message. Responding to these kinds of questions is intellectually stimulating for me, and sometimes the research and crowd-sourcing with trusted advisers changes my mind on things I thought I knew! It’s a learning process.
Reminder: This is a fandom blog for a fictional series, for entertainment only.
^Not shouting at you or anyone, Anon. I’m just reminding people that I recognize that I am out of my depth on certain topics, and trying to express myself without hurting anyone, too. I tried to answer that ask as sensitively as possible, as I, too, don’t want to hurt people who were abused, or anyone else. I’m addressing your message because I feel like you were hurt just for your interest in these things, which I feel is unfair.
TL;DR: Anon, I’m sorry that people trampled you to the point that you felt like your interests were harmful to others. Thoughtcrime is not crime.
Being interested in learning about sex, as a minor or as an adult, is not a crime. I don’t know if you create/consume dark fiction, or even specifically the kind of sex you were intrigued about as a minor, but human beings (for the most part) are sexual beings and are interested in it. In Non-fiction:
Books/essays/TED Talks/etc. are written on it,
There are people who devote their careers to it as a scientific study, see Sexology.
There’s at least one Museum for it! The Museum of Sex in NYC, which I still need to check out one of these days.
More than just for the mechanics, there’s the psychological aspect, the power dynamics, the intimacy with another person/people. It’s a unique experience and one that is defined differently by many people. Some relationships involve people who can’t (or don’t want) penetrative sex, but are intimate just the same.
“But it rubs at emotional raw points when the agency of a character who is a minor has their agency completely written off. Mostly because it reminds me of the kind of things that were said to keep me repressed.”
Right. Did Amadeo have agency in his relationship with Marius? That is up to the individual reader to decide. When people trample others, insisting their opinion is fact, and that you must be completely dense or willfully ignorant (or both!) to even suggest otherwise!!! please keep in mind that they are just a person, no matter how strongly they state their opinion, and you have every right to your own opinion and can disagree privately or publicly.
Repression of interest/education/participation/etc. as it relates to sex has long been used as a means of controlling people, and is too big a topic for this blog post. But I absolutely agree that repression is used to control people, for better and for worse.
Before we move on, re: the concept of hurting people: I’ve been thinking about this quote, (which I thought it was a McElroy quote, but I see that it might actually a Louis C.K. quote? I don’t know who said it originally) Here’s the tweet:
“When someone opens up and reveals that they have been hurt by you, they are being vulnerable. It’s not always easy to admit that you’ve been hurt, and if someone tells you that you’ve hurt them, the least you owe them is your respect and acknowledgment of their pain. The worst thing that you can do is make them feel bad for opening up to you, make them feel like they’re the one who did something wrong, or tell them that you didn’t actually hurt them. You don’t know their feelings. If they’re telling you that you hurt them, then you hurt them. Accept this and apologize.” [6 Lessons We Can All Learn from Louis C.K.]
^It’s easy enough to apologize when you’ve physically stepped on someone’s toes because you weren’t looking. I’m grateful when someone tells me that I did that, rather than bottling up their frustration and thinking I’m a clumsy person. It’s easy to apologize in that situation.
It’s much harder to apologize when you wrote/said something that you thought was socially acceptable, in private or in public, and someone tells you that it was hurtful. A sincere apology is still necessary, but harder to do.
I struggle with wanting to be able to speak my mind on these very sensitive topics, like about Anne Rice being interested in sex before the age of consent and how that affected her writing, inspiring socially taboo situations in her works. To even suggest that there is nuance and something worth exploring in dark fiction, that could be taken (even unintentionally on the part of the person creating/consuming/discussing dark fiction) as hurtful to abuse survivors or anyone else. When I create/consume dark fiction, it’s an exploration, not promotion. I am not intending to belittle the experience of survivors of abuse or hurt anyone else. I can’t speak for Anne Rice or any other content creator/consumer, but I can keep saying that in my opinion, creating/consuming/discussing dark fiction is not a crime. Dark thoughts are not a crime.
When someone is hurt by this exploration, it is partly their responsibility to avoid it.If X person tells me that my discussion of dark fiction (specifically incestuous/pedophilic undertones) hurt them, Louie C.K. is correct,I do not get to decide that I didn’t hurt X person. AND I apologize sincerely. I might also change my opinion of something based on this interaction.
But I also remind X person that this is only my blog, with my own unauthorized opinions. Every blog is an opt-in experience, you choose to read it. If discussing these things = endorsement to X person, then I would ask them, respectfully, to Unfollow/Block me and not read my blog. In a social network like this, it may be difficult to avoid a blogger that upsets you, especially when it’s one of the fandom’s more popular blogs like mine is, but that’s why we tag things. I’m tagging this post with #pedophilia mention tw and #incest mention tw for those who don’t want to see even mentions of it.
I hope that helped, Anon, and to anyone else reading this, it was not my intention to hurt anyone for expressing my opinions about learning about sex or about dark fiction.
Hit the jump for more, cut for length.
To get back to your question…
Anon asked:
“What you were saying about Anne being interested in sex before she was the age of consent, and that being part of her motivation in writing sexual stuff with underage characters. It makes a lot of sense to me. I have some.. interesting emotional baggage from being interested in sex when I was a minor.”
*nods* I think many people are interested in sex before the age of consent, if not the psychological implications, then just the mechanics of it. It’s like anything you learn to do, like anything else, there’s a first time, it takes some practice and there’s awkwardness, so of course we’re curious about it!
I was curious about it as a child, my parents never tried to sell me on anything fictional like the stork bringing babies to expectant adults.
The fact that the age of consent varies by country and even states in the US shows that different societies have different ideas about when a person can consent to physical intimacy, and it’s not universally 12:00 am on your 18th birthday.
Anecdote: My ex-roommate lost her virginity to her boyfriend at age 15. She told me she had no regrets about it. Maybe she did and never told me, or never admitted it to herself, but I am sure that there are those who had similar experiences and were not necessarily abused.
“A lot of wounds that tumblr likes to stick it’s fingers in and that I dare not react to for fear of how aggressive this site can be”
You’re absolutely right about that. I have seen people dogpiled for all kinds of reasons. Generally, it’s thrilling to feel righteous. It feels good to be part of a group attacking a common enemy. There are all kinds of reasons for it and you are absolutely not obligated to expose yourself to people who are looking to pick a fight and bully someone off the site. As someone accurately described it to me, some people are predisposed to disagreement, and you do not have to engage in fruitless, unwinnable arguments. They’ll even move the goal posts so if you think you’ve made a valid response to their point, supported by reasons, they’ll say that wasn’t the point in the first place *eyeroll.* For some people it’s more about just winning your submission.
{{ BTW, I don’t think we often address when X person claims that they were hurt in ways (or for reasons) that are hurtful to the one they claim has hurt them, but that absolutely happens. X person might say this is tone-policing or victim-blaming, but I’m sure that some of them are aware that they wield their argument more as a sword than anything else. Both sides can be hurt by call-out posts, for example, which are less about teaching and more about mob mentality and shouting into the void, but I don’t want to delve further into that. }}
Hello Anon, I’m sorry that it took me almost a month to answer this. It’s an extremely sensitive topic, as I’m sure you know, and these are very loaded questions. I took time to reach out to my trusted advisers, talked to them for hours, and considered their responses very carefully.
I’m very sorry to hear that you are a survivor of this kind of trauma in real life. The fact that you are still able to love the Vampire Chronicles despite the fact that they contain parts that are difficult for you to handle means that there must be something good in them for you, and I hope you don’t lose your love for them. Could you come back and tell me some of the things/characters you love about them? Or how you first got into them? I love those kinds of stories!
This has become a very long post, much to my chagrin. I wish that I could simply agree with you and move on, but I can’t do that. The issues you bring up are very nuanced to the point that a blog post on tumblr can’t truly cover it all, but I will do my best to keep this blog post concise and to the point. I have also placed the cut only after most of my response as I have been accused of hiding things under cuts on past controversial topics, so it’s all out, clogging your dash. Sorry.
Before we go any further: My stance on dark fiction (in this case, incest/pedophilia) is that I do not endorse or condone it in REAL LIFE. Period.
TL;DR: No, I don’t think the VC tv series will “dive too much into the incestuous/pedophilic undertones that the books had at times.” Standards & Practices won’t allow it. I’m going to use the term “dark fiction” because I don’t necessarily agree with you that every instance of fictional adult vampires feeding on fictional children is definitely a very erotic experience for the vampire, and therefore carrying incestuous/pedophilic undertones, but it is definitely harm against fictional minors. Harm against minors and incestuous/pedophilic undertones all fall under dark fiction, however.
I’m not asking you to like dark fiction, Anon. There is some that I can’t stomach, either. I’m not saying people who like dark fiction are in any way superior to those who don’t. I’m advocating that some of us do want some dark fiction, and that consuming/creating dark fiction is not necessarily endorsement, whether you are a best-selling author, a fanfic writer, a filmmaker, a fanartist, a popular metal musician, or a cosplayer, or a consumer of the media made by any of these.
(1) The Rices have said that they will try to adapt the books as close to canon-compliance as possible. Whether that means including incestuous/pedophilic undertones and/or harm against fictional minors, the show will very likely have to follow it’s network’s Standards & Practices Dept.:
In the United States, Standards and Practices (also referred to as Broadcast Standards and Practices) is the name traditionally given to the department at a television network which is responsible for the moral, ethical, and legal implications of the program that network airs.[Wiki]
Further:
…the essential responsibilities of the editors [are]… assuring that the programming is acceptable to the bulk of the mass audience. This involves serving as guardians of taste with respect to language, sexual and other materials inappropriate for children,… [More about S&P from the Museum of Broadcast Communications.]
^These are the people who are paid to point out when dark fiction has crossed the line, and together with the showrunners, they decide whether something in a given episode should be revised or must be “taken out completely,” (which is censorship, defined as “the suppression or prohibition of any parts of books, films, news, etc. that are considered obscene, politically unacceptable, or a threat to security.”).
When we talk about censorship, the easy way to deal with dark fiction would be to just “take it out completely.” After all, why do we even need dark fiction? Not everyone wants it. Hannibal is a good example of why those of us who are fascinated by psychology want dark fiction. I foundthis great essay by Warren Ellis. Here’s a quote from it:
“… Fiction is how we both study and de-fang our monsters. To lock violent fiction away, or to close our eyes to it, is to give our monsters and our fears undeserved power and richer hunting grounds.”
“Fiction, like any other form of art, is there to consider aspects of the real world in the ways that simple objective views can’t — from the inside. We cannot Other characters when we are seeing the world from the inside of their skulls. This is the great success of Thomas Harris’s Hannibal Lecter, both in print and as so richly embodied by Mads Mikkelsen in the Hannibal television series:For every three scary, strange things we discover about him, there is one thing that we can relate to. The Other is revealed as a damaged or alienated human, and we learn something about the roots of violence and the traps of horror.”
(2) For movie!IWTV, I don’t know what the writing or editing process was like, but I would assume that there was a S&P Dept. of some kind (or at least similar considerations were taken into account) because there ARE instances of the vampires feeding on children that were changed from how they were presented in the book!!, there’s a few examples that come to mind, and in each instance, and I think it was revised to make it less incestuous/pedophilic. I have examples under the cut so you can avoid them if you need to.
(3) One example of the filmmakers choosing to remove something (almost) entirely from canon: Armand being a teenager around 15 or 16 years old in canon, and he was aged up to the very not-teenage Antonio Banderas, who was 34 yrs old at the time.
^There are still fans today who believe that that change drastically changed the story, and he’s still the butt of jokes about it. Personally, I would say that this change did not drastically change much in IWTV. I don’t think he was described as being that young in book!IWTV, and I don’t think his appearing to be a teenager would have, for example, had enormous impact on Louis’s feelings towards him at that time; that he felt like Armand could be the teacher/mentor Lestat couldn’t be. That’s just my unpopular opinion on that. I have more thoughts on
So yes, I think if some things like that were taken out completely that were not absolutely necessary to their given place in canon, not much would drastically change, but talk to anyone who really dislikes/disliked Antonio!Armand, and you’ll probably get a very different answer.
SO… where does that leave us?
(4) In Fiction, we can explore these things from a place of safety, we can always close the book, or change the channel, or walk out of a movie theatre, as Oprah did during a screening of movie!IWTV in 1994 (my highlights added):
^She walked out because of the gore, which is understandable, there’s alot of blood. That, and the “force of darkness,” which isn’t all that specific. When Tom says, “The movie is not for everyone,” it’s not to say that anyone is lesser for not being able to handle it. I think he was intrigued by the darker aspects, and I think it might be the first truly antagonist/villain role he had taken up until that point. He wanted to explore that.
I don’t believe in just cutting out all the dark fiction, each instance should be considered and handled with nuance. Revision is one option, and total removal might be the better choice in some instances.
I think that’s part of what made movie!IWTV so successful, the enormous amount of care and sensitive handling of dark and light fiction, what they chose to keep, remove, and alter.
(5) The other thing you asked was “Why do you think Anne Rice would go [that] route in particular?”
The question has been raised, many times, whether Anne Rice is, and has been, writing (essentially) propaganda for her own view regarding sexuality, especially as it applies to minors in sexual situations/relationships with adults. Whether Anne Rice endorses sex between minors and adults, it seems pretty clear that she does, as this has been an element of her writing in other series, as well. To my knowledge, she has committed no crimes against minors in real life, and therefore I do not hold her as a criminal of thoughtcrimes. That is definitely an unpopular opinion to other fans, and again, it is why I will not engage in an ultimately fruitless discussion about a crazy lady who writes the books she wants to read. Thoughtcrime is not crime.
Since you asked, I’ll answer why I think AR would pursue that line of thought, under the cut, in case it is upsetting.
I hope that answered your questions in the limited space of a blog post, Anon, and I hope you weren’t offended at any of my response, I tried to be as careful as possible and share my thoughts as respectfully as possible. If any harm was caused, it was not intentional on my part.
Hit the jump for things I said I’d put under a cut.
(2) Instances of the vampires feeding on children that were changed from how they were presented in the book!!:
Louis feeding on Denis (Armand’s mortal “pet”) under the Theatre. In the novel, Louis feels the boy getting a hard-on against his leg. In the movie, their only point of contact is the part of the boy’s hand Louis is biting. Seems to have taken some of the sexuality out of it, and I don’t think it drastically changed that moment.
Movie!Denis himself seemed to be a “peace pipe,” with all those other bites on his hand, and Louis has to feed on him in view of the theatre vampires, making it more about Louis’ discomfort about being watched while feeding which we know from canon he really does not like DUE TO THE INTIMACY of the experience. This, however, is not really clarified in the movie, and it seemed to me to be more about a trust exercise, that he was given this little sip and had to trust that they had not poisoned the blood he was taking. This change worked for me, because the fear of being poisoned was very real in light of how Claudia had poisoned Lestat so easily.
Claudia feeds on Denis in the book, I think she’s even curled up in bed with him. She doesn’t feed on him at all in the movie. I don’t think it drastically changed that moment.
When Lestat turns Claudia in the book, he has Louis drain Claudia a second time, implying that it’s to actually finish her off. This doesn’t happen in the movie, and I was kind of grateful, because it’s more upsetting in the book, when Lestat tears her away from Louis and starts turning her without any discussion about it with Louis first. I’d say that this was a change for the better.
When Claudia offers those boys as a peace offering to Lestat, in the book, he has his hands all in one of their shirts, and as the poison takes effect, his arms are tangled around the dead boy’s body, it’s kind of scarier, this dead body clinging to him and binding him. I would say that this worked for me either way. It’s already a tense and scary moment.
…
(5) “Why do you think Anne Rice would go [that] route in particular?”
From what I understand, she was interested in sex before she was the age of consent, and was frustrated that she was being prevented from pursuing sexual relationships. When she writes these scenes involving underage characters, I think she’s placing herself in the role of the minor, and in some cases, trying to empower that minor with some amount of agency (Amadeo axing Marius’ door down in TVA), but it’s up to each individual reader to interpret the story for themselves and decide for themselves whether that minor was capable of any agency at all or was under duress, or whatever else they might headcanon about that relationship.
Again, I do not think she has committed any actual crimes. Thoughtcrimes are not crimes.
I say birb bc it makes it more palatable for me to make fun of it but I mean bird. They’re aliens with birdlike features. Sketchy spoiler under the cut. They’re characters in:
So you should read that… but I recognize that I am slightly a hypocrite bc I still haven’t finished it, but I have skimmed and been spoiled (upon request) so I know what happens and what they are. And…
Us @ Anne:
Anne @ us:
Sketchy and incomplete spoilers under the cut.
Again, not to go into very much detail bc I don’t know much detail, from what I gather:
The aliens are birdlike and are basically part of the origin story of the vampires, it goes back to the Lost City of Atlantis (actually “Atalantaya”)
And the bird aliens’ plan is to derive energy from humans on earth using the aliens’ own creatures, the Replimoids,
and idk, it’s very involved.
Like all great utopias, Atalantaya couldn’t last forever and was destroyed,
and in the act of destruction the Replimoids were scattered
and some of them died and their souls roamed the earth,
eventually, one of the souls was able to possess a human body (Akasha) in a supernatural accident that creATED THE VAMPIRES.
Every new vampire then got a piece of this alien’s soul.
So the vampires are/were in fact humans possessed/enhanced by their share of that one (sometimes dormant, sometimes cognizant and vocal) alien soul.
I’LL GIVE HER CREDIT IN THAT IT’S DEFINITELY ANOTHER FRESH TAKE ON VAMPIRE MYTHOLOGY.
You remember correctly! AR had suggested casting the same actor for the role 2/16/17:
Also Anne can you please spell it Nicolas w/o the H? Plz? *cries*
Lestat did compare Nicki and Louis, and there are similarities and differences, I think AR was just curious about it as an idea… I’m sure this has been done in live theatre at some point, casting one actor for 2 (or more) roles in a given production. She did say she’d want a talented, versatile actor who could create each role distinctively. Twins could probably create distinctive personalities but they would probably still look basically the same.
However, that “twin” comment from TVL was more about their personalities than physical resemblance:
I fell fatally in love with Louis, a young dark-haired bourgeois planter, graceful of speech and fastidious of manner, who seemed in his cynicism and self destructiveness the very twin of Nicolas.
Nicki’s face is not really described, aside from his having brown eyes. Louis is described in much more detail: narrow face, wide-set green eyes, wavy/curly black hair.
Louis and Nicki are not the same. I feel like looking the same would overpower distinctive personality differences.
Played by the same actor or identical twins, I feel like it would seem too much like “Louis”/”Nicolas” is trying to trick Lestat, a weird consideration I’d rather not have introduced.
…But let’s have the Sprouse twins audition anyway and let’s take one of them!
(Reminder: I am/was not a gender studies major, nor a student of fandom. This is just an entertainment blog and all that follows is my opinion only.)
This is a highly sensitive topic that people study academically for many fandoms, and I will hardly do it justice here. But I felt it was important to share what I can, anyway. Some links are under the cut for further reading about this topic, even though they do not apply to VC fandom specifically.
The short answer is that, from my experience, yes, most ppl in the VC fandom seem to be women. This is based on the past 20 years of AR’s booksignings I’ve attended, online communities, interviews/articles over the years, AR’s FB (her own posts + comments from her People of the Page), and AR’s Twitter. However, I would add that she absolutely does have fans who are men, NB, agender, genderqueer, transgender, etc. It would be difficult to do a thorough demographic study of all of her fans (current/past/specific time period(s)/etc.), so I wouldn’t know what portion of the fanbase is made up of women.
^What is superfan thinking? Does she think Santiago is a REAL VAMPIRE? Does she want to die? … or, is she simply a groupie of that media and enjoying it as a fantasy situation? We don’t get her backstory in the movie, so we may never know.
^Santiago has had to deal with hecklers and admirers for years so he’s not really fazed by her disrupting his show, and when he shuts her offer down, it draws a laugh from the audience. Laugh at the fan who confessed her love for the fantasy of it all and offered herself as tribute.
Before we specify why women are in VC fandom, one thing to consider is What is fandom?In my opinion, it’s a group of people who are drawn to a shared space bc of a shared interest in specific media. Within that, you still have to reach out to individuals in order to become friends. You don’t necessarily have to agree on every aspect of the media you each enjoy, but having chemistry certainly helps. Participating in fandom can also mean creating/consuming fanworks without having any personal connection with other fans. Sometimes it’s just in posting fic and/or leaving kudos. Some join a skype chat group so that they focus primarily on their personal connections with other fans. It’s a wide spectrum and there are different ways to engage with other fans within a fandom.
Why VC fandom?We all have our reasons for being in VC fandom. I would prefer not to speak for other fans as to their reasons, but everyone is welcome to respond in the comments/reblogs of this post, or message me on/off anon, and I might gather up those responses and add them to this post.
Why I was drawn to VC:
Personally, I’m a woman, and I’m in this fandom bc the canon/fanon is intellectually stimulating to me. I’ve made some of my best friends here. We share a love for these characters and we discuss them at length. This does not mean we 100% support everything the characters do in canon. We enjoy them as fictional characters, not necessarily as role models.
Secondly… I had posted a personal account about my reasons for being into VC canon, but later deleted that post bc I was informed that my reasons weren’t acceptable. That VC was not for straight women. I’ve given it a lot of thought and I’ll briefly tell you my reasons for being attached to VC, under the cut.
Brief historical context:
These books are/were written by a straight white woman, and she’s always advised her fans to “write the book you want to read.” She currently writes for herself, presumably, as she does not use an editor in the traditional sense. She began VC in the early 1970s with the short story, “The Master of Rampling Gate” (which eventually became the full novel IWTV). The short story was published in Redbook magazine at the time, which is/was a magazine for women, and the short story was written in the vein (pun intended!) of the older gothic romance novels that were extremely popular in the ‘60s.
^In fact, this edition of IWTV is straight-baiting, as the only female love interest that Louis might have gotten into that physical position with would be Babette, and that… definitely doesn’t happen.
IWTV is a dissection of Louis’ feelings, and Louis was a stand-in for Anne herself. VC in general has a lot of emotion, both in the dialogue, and the introspection woven into the narrative itself. The fact that these books are mostly written from the 1st person perspective is a very intimate means of communication to the reader, and makes the novels that much more emotionally rich. Some might say that such emotional writing tends to appeal to women.
The books are intimate. There is a constant thread of intimacy throughout which seems to appeal to women of all sexual orientations, in my opinion. I started the series with IWTV when I was 11 yrs old and I’ve heard from other fans of other genders that they also started VC when they were young, even around the age that I did. Being right before puberty, maybe that adds some extra addictive quality to it, that it explores a kind of intimacy when we’re in the phase of life where we’re just becoming interested in sexuality. I remember mooning over pics of Brad Pitt in my table group at lunch, and we would talk about him, but I doubt any of us would have wanted to actually kiss him at the time, we just wanted to speculate about dating and romance!
After the first book, the intimacy continues with TVL, where we get Lestat’s backstory, and as the series progresses, it just keeps going. Whichever book new VC fans enter the series, they’re going to hit that vein, more or less. It’s not as strong in the most current books, but it’s still there. I would say that AR found that the way she wrote the first 2 books was so well-received that she felt validated in her style of writing, that it was appealing to her readers, and continued to produce it.
There’s also quite a lot of wealthporn, where the characters describe their expensive clothes, jewelry, or lavish surroundings, none of them have to hold a dayjob or anything menial like that. Since many of us do not currently enjoy such luxuries of material goods and/or freedom of leisure time, it’s another element that might make it appealing to certain demographics. There’s a ton of wish fulfillment in the books.
Hit the jump for a little more.
My reasons for being into VC
Basically, I was bullied when I was 11 (for having a bad fashion sense and bad teeth), which is right around the time that someone gave me a copy of IWTV. I had always loved horror novels and scary stories as a way to study monsters and see if I could unpack them and better understand them. I drew inspiration from the way the VC characters handled their own obstacles, I loved getting Lestat’s backstory, he was not just a colorful antagonist, he had his own reasons for acting the way he did. Reasons are not EXCUSES, but in understanding monstrous behavior, we can equip ourselves to weather it when we see it in real life. Eventually, I got braces, grew out of my 90′s grunge phase, and while the bullies changed form over time, I learned how to deal with them.
Could I have drawn inspiration from other books/movies/music? Yes! And I did. But VC, for the intimacy of the stories, for the vibrancy of the characters, for so many reasons that I can’t go into on a post I’m trying to keep brief… this is a piece of media that I’ve held onto over the years. Not the only one, but certainly the main one, for me.
A few good posts to check out re: women in fandom:
And I don’t mean to attack you, Anon, but these posts are written with a tone because there is so much criticism of what women in fandom are not allowed to enjoy. Please read at your own risk, but they have some very good points about why women might be into certain things in fandom.
YES, I loooooved OLLA! Definitely one of my faves.
So many questions about those characters! I want the backstory on all of them. How are they turned? When was Eve turned? She seems to have some kind of touch-telepathy with materials, like a druid? How did Ava get turned, is she older than Adam? WHAT HAPPENED IN PARIS 87 YRS AGO? Some bad shit went down in Paris for our faves, too.
(From what I understand, based on my behind-the-scenes knowledge (I know a dude who is good friends with the director, Jim Jarmusch) much of what does happen in OLLA is based on real things that happened in the director’s life, specifically, experiences with an ex (in the movie, represented by Ava).)
It’s almost the VC movie we’ve deserved for a long time and I loved it! Like a documentary or a diary entry, almost. It’s humorous, sensuous, clever, dramatic, all built on a strong foundation of the characters’ chemistry w/ each other. It offers its own take on some of the vampire mythology (they don’t have reflections in mirrors, they are susceptible to blood diseases). Not alot actually HAPPENS, plot-wise, but it doesn’t need to. We’re getting a slice of life of these characters. It’s mostly a collection of charming subtle moments, like Adam trying Eve’s new “cuisine” for the first time:
^Yes, this moment has a sexiness to it *drool* but more than that, he is almost childlike in both his resistance to *~and his curiosity about~* this New Thing bc he won’t let Eve know she can improve his mood so easily bc Adam is a SERYUS Brooding Musician ffs.
Btw, there is/was an Adam RPer, @wastefulselfobsession. You might check out their archive for more OLLA. They have character backstories!
So Adam is something of a Louis/Nicolas hybrid, being the bookworm musician who lives in a shambles and doesn’t care for fashion (or conditioner apparently). Like Louis, he doesn’t want to go around hunting the Evildoer. I can’t help but make a few more little comparisons to IWTV…
^Frickin’ house rules, ppl!!! Hot dad is angry.
^Claudia and Ava are SOOO sorry. Like really. So apologetic. They’ll never do it again, seriously. They are voracious little monsters, aren’t they?
^Little sisters to big bro/sis/makers: “We are going to have S O M U C H fun”
More comparisons could be made but I like ppl to think I am just a casual fan and not a corkboard maniac that’s alls I got for now.
♛He doesn’t scare as easily now as he once did, that’s for sure. It takes serious planning, so I would say 3. If I have someone in league with me I have more of a chance at it, as he’s less suspicious of others, so maybe a 4.
//ooc: the mun struggled with this, bc it is something Lestat has done, and frightening Louis can be comical in canon! So one would think it would be easy to come up with a humorous answer, but it sat for a month in my inbox bc I’m torn on it… Yes, it can be comical, but currently, I don’t think Lestat likes to frighten Louis purposely, I feel like they have reached a kind of mutual respect that wasn’t there in early canon. In earlier canon, I think that some of Lestat’s frightening Louis was about asserting dominance, or he was exasperated from every other attempt to get Louis on board with whatever he wanted.
So while I don’t think Lestat intentionally tries to frighten Louis these days, it’s more like when he suggests some wild or
dangerous
trip or activity that’s ignited his imagination, Lestat really just wants Louis to validate him, go along with him, and be part of it. Louis knows not to underestimate what can happen but he also doesn’t leap to conclusions, he sits at his desk and thinks about it before reacting, if he feels fear, he doesn’t immediately show it.
When Lestat has moments of crippling stillness, which I think he still gets now and then, that’s frightening because Louis can’t always draw him out of it, and he worries that Lestat may slip into that state for nights/months/years ;A; Louis can also be frightened by Lestat’s rage at Louis or others, bc Louis knows that Lestat is capable of enormous destruction, and he has a short fuse. I don’t think that Lestat would be all that comfortable talking about any of that.
I think Louis is too calm and collected these days to be easily frightened by Lestat or anyone else when it comes to pranks. I think the news, the current state of the world, is upsetting and frightening to him. I think Louis was very afraid of Akasha and her plan, but he was still able to speak up in front of her and risk her wrath.
I-want-my-IWTV 