Well first of all, #I love these kind of stories, where ppl talk about how they got sucked into this fandom, whether it’s when they first saw movie!IWTV (or movie!QOTD) or starting reading one of the books…

Movie!IWTV is frightening, there are brutally scary parts. It touches on a lot of taboo subjects. The kind of violence it has is scary partly because there’s the element of betrayal in many instances, definitely when Claudia knifes Lestat, and then when Louis sets him on fire ;A; We laugh about it now bc if we didn’t have a sense of humor about it, it would just be too cruel. But that is really cute that you watched it with your older sister, hopefully she explained things that were confusing or at least provided some support during the scary parts ;]

I was given book!IWTV when I was 11 and saw the movie soon after, sneaking over to my best friend’s house bc it was rated R and I wasn’t allowed to watch it. It was dark comedy to us, and we ended up watching it repeatedly, trying to memorize the lines so we could say them along with the movie. Our favorite line had to be: 

“Just remember: Life – without me – would be even more unbearable.” And I can’t really gif that out, the shot is pretty dark, but you remember, it was here:

That line was a declaration between us, too. We’re still best friends to this day, 20+ years after bonding over this series!

VC had a huge enough influence on us. For better or worse *shrugs*

I was an ambivert. I was completely obsessed with antagonists, too. The VC encouraged me to develop all those extroverted traits I loved in Lestat, which other characters didn’t always approve of, but he dgaf! He marched to his own drum. He craves the spotlight for validation but his own love for himself outweighs these external rewards. The VC has been a huge source of strength. So much great advice. Here’s an example, that suffering can be embraced as being a valuable part of our experience, too:

“It’s an awful truth that suffering can deepen us, give a greater luster to our colors, a richer resonance to our words. That is, if it doesn’t destroy us, if it doesn’t burn away the optimism and the spirit, the capacity for visions, and the respect for simple yet indispensable things.” – Lestat, Queen of the Damned  

But really, the quote that bound me and my best friend together, that’s what I hope for fandom to accomplish. We do come and go, but I’ve been in this for 20+ years, and it seems to me that VC fandom as a whole will always be here for those who want it.

“Just remember: Life – without me – would be even more unbearable.”

^What I think is also worth mentioning here is that Lestat could have killed Louis or just left Louis in NOLA at any time (before Claudia). But he didn’t. Even at his worst, Lestat was still fascinated with Louis, and life – without him – would have been even more unbearable ❤