That thing, in particular, was a thirty dollar Barnes & Noble gift certificate. I was still too young for a part-time job, so I didn’t have this kind of spending cash on me, ever. I felt like a god.
Drunk with power, I fancy-stepped my way to my local B&N. I was ready to choose new books based solely on the most important of qualities…BADASS COVER ART. I walked away with a handful of paperbacks, most of which were horrible (I’m looking at you, Man-Kzin Wars III) or simply forgettable.
One book did not disappoint. I fell down the rabbit hole into a series that proved to be as badass as the cover art promised (Again, Man-Kzin Wars III, way to drop the ball on that one). With more than a dozen books in the series, I devoured them. I bought cassette tapes of ballads sung by bards in the stories. And the characters. Oh, the characters. I loved them. Gryphons, mages, but most importantly, lots of women. Different kinds of women. So many amazing women. I looked up to them, wrote bad fiction that lifted entire portions of dialogue and character descriptions, dreamed of writing something that the author would include in an anthology.
This year I decided in a fit of nostalgia to revisit the books I loved so damn much. I wanted to reconnect with my old friends…
…and I found myself facing Mary Sues. Lots of them. Perfect, perfect, perfect. A fantasy world full of Anakin Skywalkers and Nancy Drews and Wesley Crushers. I felt crushed. I had remembered such complex, deep characters and didn’t see those women in front of me at all anymore. Where were those strong women who kept me safe through the worst four years of my life?
Which led me to an important realization as I soldiered on through book after book. That’s why I needed them. Because they were Mary Sues. These books were not written to draw my attention to all the ugly bumps and whiskers of the real world. They were somewhere to hide. I was painfully aware that I was being judged by my peers and adults and found lacking. I was a fuckup. And sometimes a fuckup needs to feel like a Mary Sue. As an adult, these characters felt a little thin because they lacked the real world knowledge I, as an adult, had learned and earned. But that’s the thing…these books weren’t FOR this current version of myself. Who I am now doesn’t need a flawless hero because I’m comfortable with the idea that valuable people are also flawed.
There is a reason that most fanfiction authors, specifically girls, start with a Mary Sue. It’s because girls are taught that they are never enough. You can’t be too loud, too quiet, too smart, too stupid. You can’t ask too many questions or know too many answers. No one is flocking to you for advice. Then something wonderful happens. The girl who was told she’s stupid finds out that she can be a better wizard than Albus Dumbledore. And that is something very important. Terrible at sports? You’re a warrior who does backflips and Legolas thinks you’re THE BEST. No friends? You get a standing ovation from Han Solo and the entire Rebel Alliance when you crash-land safely on Hoth after blowing up the Super Double Death Star. It’s all about you. Everyone in your favorite universe is TOTALLY ALL ABOUT YOU.
I started writing fanfiction the way most girls did, by re-inventing themselves.
Mary Sues exist because children who are told they’re nothing want to be everything.
As a girl, being “selfish” was the worst thing you could be. Now you live in Narnia and Prince Caspian just proposed marriage to you. Why? Your SELF is what saved everyone from that sea serpent. Plus your hair looks totally great braided like that.
In time, hopefully, these hardworking fanfiction authors realize that it’s okay to be somewhere in the middle and their characters adjust to respond to that. As people grow and learn, characters grow and learn. Turns out your Elven Mage is more interesting if he isn’t also the best swordsman in the kingdom. Not everyone needs to be hopelessly in love with your Queen for her to be a great ruler. There are all kinds of ways for people to start owning who they are, and embracing the things that make them so beautifully weird and complicated.
Personally, though, I think it’s a lot more fun learning how to trust yourself and others if you all happen to be riding dragons.
Mary Sues exist because children who are told they’re nothing want to be everything.
A girl making herself the hero of her own story is a radical act. Stop shaming girls for doing it. Stop shaming yourself for it.
That moment when people are so condescending towards young girls about everything they do they even make fun of their escapism methods
It’s fine if we don’t like it, they aren’t doing this for us anyways
Hello @veridian-stealth, thanks for being a long time follower! I admit I haven’t absorbed enough of canon sufficient to say I’m the most knowledgeable source, but I do what I can ^______^
I love the idea of your starting & ending high school drama club
with a VC quote, good closure there. Which did you start with?
I skimmed the first 2 books, and this is already a long post with only putting 5 in, bc these are the ones that jumped out at me. They’re small windows into evocative scenes. Things that I can see an actor giving to an audience, pieces that might be able to stand on their own apart from the rest of the fabric of VC.
TBH I can’t remember many monologues that really stood out for me in the rest of canon, but anyone is welcome to reblog/comment and add ones that they would suggest to you 😉 Let us know which you pick, share a video even!
No cuts bc I don’t think this is spoilery.
In order of canon appearance:
-> IWTV:
1) Louis talks about Paul and his death. I edited it down somewhat and took out Daniel’s dialogue but you should probably do it better than I did.
2) Lestat’s “Evil is a point of view” monologue, that would take a lot of editing, but if you want to take a stab at it, go for it! But keep in mind, the last bit is recognizable from movie!IWTV, and ppl will probably compare your performance to Cruise!Lestat. I also don’t think it ends on the best line, so yeah… with edits it could work and be vampiry. I’ve always loved this first para to it.
3) Armand re: inflexible minded vampires. This is really short but I’ve always loved this passage (BTW there’s a bunch of typos in my PDF of this, so you’ll have to check with a better copy).
-> TVL:
4) Lestat’s mercy kill, this might be my fave of these. You might want to give a little context, maybe add more about when he got back home and his brother accused him of making it up.
if i wanted to fictionalize the story of my abuse. if i wanted to tell it properly, the way a good story should be told; tell it so that it would be believed, so it would be felt
i would have to make the reader fall in love with her, the way that i was in love with her.
i’d have to tell them about her eyes. the way that they were gold-brown, a color i didn’t know before her. the way her black hair erupted in the sun into shades of deep reds and golds.
i’d have to tell them about how she dropped things when she looked at me. how when her voice broke on the phone as she confessed to being scared, i felt my life realign to care for her. how she touched me with trembling hands and called me “beautiful”, and told me she didn’t deserve me. that she dreamt of me. how she told me she knew i could be better, knew i could be amazing.
tell them about the tingles that raced all over my skin when she cornered me in the dark tech booth and leaned into me all night, making excuses until she didn’t. how she almost kissed me in the abandoned hallways after school, and in the office she’d sneak into while I TA’d, and in the classroom after everyone had left, and how every time it happened my heart beat so hard I felt bruised.
i’d have to tell them how she finally kissed me and how she’d meant to leave after one kiss but she didn’t, bent down and kissed me again and whispered “you have no idea how long I’ve wanted to do that”, i’d have to tell them that I said, “i think i might” and pulled her back in and felt the world fade away.
and then i’d have to tell them about the second time she kissed me, when I tried to pull her in again and she pressed both hands to my throat until lights flashed in front of my eyes, until i considered that she might really kill me as she told me not to touch her.
how she changed her mind about that two days later and threatened to leave me because i wasn’t assertive enough.
and how she laid in bed with me, petting my hair and reading the sherlock holmes novels with me the day after. how we read at the exact same rate, turned pages in unison and she told me her mind fit mine like a puzzle piece.
the problem with edward cullen, with christian grey, is not that we as readers are meant to love them. that is arguably the only thing that the books get right, is how wildly charismatic, how intense, how perfect an abusive relationship can look at first.
if i wanted to really tell the story of my abuse, i’d have to make them love her like i did and hate her like i did and fear her like i did and long to protect her like i did. i’d have to make them sick with confusion, literally sick, so twisted that even bleeding on the side of the road they’re not sure what went wrong or whose fault it was.
i want them to sympathize with her, because i did, extensively, running antiseptic over the places she cut me watching my phone on the counter so i’d know if she texted me. i want them to know how someone gets to the point of worrying about the person who is hurting them even as they’re still doing it.
if i told the story of my abuse and it was not romantic, if the reader was not in love, if some part of them does not try to make excuses for her, if they don’t try to turn the pieces around in their head to find a way to have the joy without the agony – if they don’t ache with longing for the good parts, i have told the story wrong.
how can we talk about abuse if we cannot talk about why people stay? how can we deny fiction’s ability to explore every fractal: maybe in some universe i fix her. maybe in some universe she kills me. maybe in some universe i kill her. maybe i write a hundred endings to the story. see if any of them bring us peace.
Tagged by:@artlollipop (//ooc: merci! going to answer this as Lestat ♛, more fun.)
Rules: Answer the questions in a new post and tag 10 blogs(or whatever) you would like to know better.
(A)ge: 259.
(B)irthplace: France
(C.)urrent Time: 10:35 PM
(D)rink you had last: I had fun pretending to slug down an entire ‘86 Louis Roederer Cristal Brut for the last hour.
(E)asiest person to talk to: For a long time, it was my beloved furry son, Mojo, and he’ll forever be the easiest ‘person’ for me to talk to. Currently? Perhaps David, less interruptions or criticisms from him than anyone else, or at least he phrases it in a way that isn’t as harsh, more palatable.
(F.)avourite song: Probably one of the hauntingly beautiful duets I did with David Bowie of one of his songs over the years. Pity we never recorded those sessions.
(G)rossest memory: Oh well… this could take us down a long, dark, slimy, twisted path in the darkest of woods, and I’m not interested in such a stroll at this time. If we isolate “gross” to the physical, there are some memories I’d never share with anyone… publicly, I’ve reported the time I gleefully licked my own vomited blood off the stones in a nasty old dungeon almost within reach of a mound of putrid corpses, the freshest of which resembled me. Strangely, I’m not ashamed of it. That’s likely more “gross” than most people would ever experience in their lives.
(H.)ogwarts house: I’d say Hufflepuff as I’m not particularly ambitious or interested in spending my time eyeballs-deep in books like some of the more respectable houses would have me do, but I’m sure the Sorting Hat would prefer to kick me out of the school entirely.
(I)n love?: Always. Hourly.
(J)ealous of people?: Frequently
(K)illed someone: Many someones.
(L)ove at first sight or walk by again?: At first bite.
(M)iddle name?: “Misery” … see
♪
below… *smirks*
(N)ickname? Variations on “Brat,” which I’ve rightfully earned.
(O)ne wish: Ah, I don’t know. What kind of wish? For rain? For a personal superpower? For world peace? World peace would be wonderful, but then, I’d have limited dinner options. I can’t answer this.
(P)erson you last called: I last called Rose about our plans to meet up in Geneva, and I last texted my mother, who marked it as read but didn’t reply.
(Q)uestions you are asked the most: Whether I’m a top or a bottom and to answer that…
(R.)easons to smile: Giving/receiving pleasure
(S)ong you last sang:♪If you’re looking for trouble/ You came to the right place/ If you’re looking for trouble/ Just look right in my face…♪
(T.)ime you woke up: Sunset
(U)nderwear: Satin or none.
(V)acation destination: Staycation in bed with a loved one (or several)!
(W)orst habit: Being overly sexual with friends, enemies, acquaintances… I’m obsessed with filing my nails, too. It’s irritating to others for some reason. I’m also late at replies to emails, especially longer ones.
(X)-rays: Yes? I approve? I liked seeing the x-ray of my teeth for the first time, so macabre.
(Y)our favourite food: Evildoers. Second favorite: homophobic criminals.
Tumblr offered me the chance to meet some pretty amazing writers, artists and VC fans. While reading some of you, I finally decided to set up this RP side blog here and delve deeper into my exploration of Nicolas and so far it’s been an epic ride.
@i-want-my-iwtv has been the first VC blog I found on Tumblr, many moons ago and she encouraged me to get back into the RP saddle. Words are little, few to express the feels I have for the amazing gift you’ve gave me.
here’s to you, my amazing RP companions with whom I write, you’re some of the most talented writers I’ve had the chance to meet and I feel completely honored to be able to create with you these rich universes we explore for our characters!
More stuff about when I was a kid. When I was around 6, I would often go to hospitals with a relative of mine who worked in the medical field, and I’d be left in the waiting room while they worked. I was happy with this bc I’d get copy paper from the nurses and draw pictures with highlighters and whatever was around, and pass out these drawings to the people in the waiting room, and I did it because I wanted to bring a little cheer to them. People are anxious when visiting the doctor, they’re worried that there’s something wrong with them and it will be upsetting to find out, or that the thing that is wrong with them isn’t getting better and they’re about to be told that, and it’s going to hurt. It’s usually an unnaturally brightly lit place, it’s usually pretty sparse. People are afraid of surgical tools, needles, (the scale!), there’s prodding and the personal questions, sometimes there are people suffering within eyesight/earshot. It’s not a fun place, typically.
But to have some 6 yr old hand you a drawing of a cartoon character, even if it’s not drawn very well, it’s touching. I don’t think anyone ever rejected my drawings or acted rudely to me, or if they did, I just moved on and went about my business and made more drawings for other people. For the most part, I remember people being glad, and their sadness being alleviated for at least that little interaction when I handed them a drawing I’d made just for them, to keep. I didn’t care if they threw those drawings away or saved them.
So I think that’s what I’m still doing when I make art or write stories, even if it’s not good art, even if it’s progressed to scary stories, not all fluff and sparkles. An escape from reality for just a little while. I’ve seen art and read fic that’s done that for me in a powerful way and I couldn’t be more grateful to those who make fanworks for giving me that little break from reality.
I think this is why I’m so supportive of people who make fanworks. If the fanwork is not to my taste, I don’t say so, I don’t critique unless asked by the original creator to do so, there’s plenty more art and fic out in the world and I’ve found it, plenty of it that I personally like and share with others so that they can enjoy it, too, and I don’t expect anything to conform to my own personal ideals of what it should be.
If I was handed a drawing from a 6 yr old, grinning up at me and hoping I liked it, I could never see it as anything but a gift.
And thinking about all that now, that relative was helping the patients medically, and I wanted to be like that, with the skills I had to offer. I wanted to help people.
I spent awhile looking at pics and gifs of Alex Saxon, I’d never heard of him before, I don’t watch The Fosters, which I think most of the below gifs are from… and actually I think he’s more like my headcanon for Lestat than Louis, but either way, very cute! He has a real sweetness about him.
But to talk about the hair, bc I’m fixated on that…
^Nice volume and waves going on, nice generous mouth and smile…
^Good manbun, I think it would be better if it was higher up but still, works for me!
^really nice duck grease, which is my word for that kind of grease some ppl seem to produce (probably it’s product applied but sometimes it’s natural), that gives their hair a “piecey” or “feathered” kinda look.
^I just like this gif, nice face-framing pieces, and lower hair curlier/wavier than the top/crown areas.
A communion wafer, according to the internet, is about .25g. Jesus was a healthy young man, who worked manual labor and walked everywhere. The average male in Biblical times was 5′1″ and about 110 pounds so call it 50kg or 50,000 grams. So 200,000 wafers to make up a whole Jesus. At one wafer a week that’s 3846 to eat a whole Jesus at weekly communion. If you went to Mass daily you could do it in under 550 years.
1000 communion wafers from Amazon costs $15, so acquiring a Jesus load would set you back about $3000
But that’s just the body. Jesus also bade his followers to drink his blood. How much of that Jesus communion wafer supply needs to be replaced with communion wine to account for his blood, and how much of that would need to be consumed to have drunk all his blood as well?
The human body contains roughly 5 liters of blood.
Communion wine costs about $66 for a case of 12 x 750 ml bottles (9000 ml).
So half a case is 4500 ml, or close enough if Jesus was on the small side which is reasonable given what we know of the times.
Thus, Jesus’ blood would be about 6 bottles of communion wine, costing $33.
How much of his weight was his blood, now? We can bring down the wafer count.
Osnap what an excellent question.
Water has a specific gravity of 1.0 and weighs 1kg/liter. Wine has a specific gravity if 1.5 thus weighs 1.5kg per liter.
4.5L of wine would weigh 6.75kg or about 15 pounds.
Reducing the wafer load by 6.75kg yields 43.25kg so call it 161,000 wafers or $2450 and change.
First of all, there has been some confusion here on Tumblr as to what my intentions are with this post. If you read this and honestly believe I condone pedophilia, I can tell you now; I don’t. Simple as that. If you read this post, written out of my own emotions and translate that to me not caring about yours, that’s simply false. Just because I share mine, doesn’t mean I don’t care about yours. Each their own. Simple as that. If you truly believe I wrote this piece to trivialize abuse victims and/or glorify sexual predators, you think very poorly of me and I invite you to come and talk to me to get to know me better. I guarantee you, I’m a very nice, loving and caring person.
Secondly, we’re talking about a fandom. Almost in all fandoms, there is love for protagonists and antagonists alike. This does not mean we condone crime, rape and murder in real life. Look at the love for The Joker, Sephiroth, Moriarty, The Master, Mason Verger etc. Is everyone that loves these characters a bigot and contributor to the trivialising of crime victims? No. Wether it’s a villain that not so bad or a ‘hero’ that’s not all good; it is still fiction. No matter how real our feelings are for certain fictional characters, this is not a real reflection of our stance in real life. Period. Especially in VC, the fandom is based on loving killers. We love Lestat. We love Armand. All the vampires in VC have done horrible, horrid stuff, taken lives and committed an array of criminal acts to (for example) get undeniable wealth. To go into this and pin pointing one guy with a flaw that makes him in all honesty a villain (Marius in this case); is funny to me as they then all are. They are all criminals. They are all killers, arsonists and thieves and all have their own mental issues to cope with. I will gladly have discussions about individual characters and their crimes or contributions to the fandom, but don’t point fingers saying I discredit crime victims when the whole series does that in romanticizing vampirism in the first place. If you don’t like the books, I discourage you to read this post or anything I post on my Daniel blog.
If someone reads this and still finds me a horrible person, I insist you contact me personally in PM for an open conversation. Don’t hide behind others. If you want your voice to be heard, speak up. I am open to any civil, reasonable conversation.
ON TO THE ACTUAL POST.
——
One of my dear friends just messaged me about how she feels terrible about the fact that Marius is being portrait as an abusive monster by a lot of people of the fandom and nothing but that. And I just want to share with you my story to let you guys know why there are people out there that love him.
Reading this story take in account that I am religious. When I was 15 I got into a particular fandom which stimulated my art, my creatively and my love for roleplay. I fell madly in love with one of the characters and RPed him for a looooong time. Nonstop. Only back then I did not know what a muse was. I did not know of the word. And darker forces took advantage of that. When it was revealed that this particular character died in the next book, it tore my heart to shreds. And instead of experiencing the muse as an inspirational source for my writing, it became a constant presence that would ‘talk’ to me. Said it came to be with me. Demand things of me. For almost two years this thing pretending to be him tried to isolate me and drag me down a dark path. I would be his and only his. I even broke up with a boyfriend back then whom I was crazy about. Because he told me to. And in the end he would even start telling me to off myself to truly be with him. Thank god something then clicked in me, only then realising this was going too far. I believe by recognising it, God reached out and expelled it. This thing left. But I didn’t realise it was my own strength- my own doing that did this. So I was distraught. It broke me. It left me depressed and unhappy for more years than I dare admit. It ruined my ability to be romantically involved with anyone which I still suffer from till this day.
But then something happened. I got introduced to the Vampire Chronicles fandom. I was scared at first. The confrontation with such strong, vibrant characters and the overwhelming subject of death made me so very weary for this fandom. But when I reached the point in The Vampire Lestat where Marius dug Lestat up and Lestat said he had never laid eyes on something so beautiful, I was roused. And as I kept reading, this Marius- this beautiful, man so full of life and optimism and love for life made me smile again. He was calm and wise and friendly and so extremely patient. An artist too and in love with everything beautiful in life. He appreciated the simple gesture of opening a door and all his strength and power made him humble towards weakness. Through his death, he only loved life more. All these lessons overwhelmed me. Shook me to my core. Slapped me in the face and told me this was the muse to follow. And he saved me. He literally saved me. I smiled again. I started appreciating life again. I went back to art school. I started appreciating the small beauties around me again. He opened my eyes again to the beauty of living. Getting back into roleplay scared me but I met a girl who for the first time explained what a muse was and only then did I realise that I had been tricked. That I had been taken advantage of by darker forces. And so then I decided that if I was going to RP again, I was going to keep the now called muses at a distance. And I did. And I still do. And I can enjoy it again. I can enjoy life again.
—–
In Marius’ defence
Yes, after reading all the books, I realise he has major issues. I know he made some really bad decisions and a million more mistakes. But let me tell you; I was happy to see he wasn’t perfect. I was relieved to know that even those we look up to are flawed. And yes, in the span of his life, which is over 20 lifetimes!!!!, it is really quite OKAY for him to make more mistakes than we do in a lifetime. But lets not forget he is a vampire. Do we blame a lion for killing the antelope? No. It’s in his nature. Do we blame a vampire for manipulating and taking lives? No. It’s in their nature. It is quite unfair to throw shade at Marius for faltering every now and then when he so desperately tries to be human. And then there are some things I wish to point out that people seem to forget.
– If it wasn’t for Marius, The Parents would have died thousands of years ago and the vampire race would have gone extinct. There would literally be no VC if it wasn’t for Marius sacrificing his freedom to harness and protect the Core.
– The knowledge of Marius’ possible existence was the thing that kept Lestat going in TVL. It was Marius that dug him out of the ground for a second shot at life. It was Marius who showed Lestat there was more to vampirism than the pain he had suffered so far.
– Without Marius intervening, Daniel would have been lost. Despite Marius’ double agenda to kill his own loneliness or feeble attempts to make it up to Armand, taking Daniel in was an act of kindness. Marius saved Daniel and only could through his endless patience.
– Marius welcomes Mael into his house. This is such an important aspect of his endless attempts to be good. Do not forget Marius was a very, very happy man in his mortal days. Mael stole that away from him. He robbed him of a simple but wonderful life and tossed him into this whirlpool of death and loneliness and misery. And yet Marius lets him sleep under his roof and offers him his own clothes!! His kindness is often obscured by acts of petty behaviour, but in his heart he is a genuinely good man who wants peace. He tries. And that is what matters.
– It is Santino that destroyed Armand. Not Marius. It gets my blood boiling when people have Armand speak in defence of Santino and somehow dare to shove all the blame onto Marius. Despite his questionable ethics with children, Marius wanted nothing but to give the boys and especially Amadeo a second chance in life. He wanted to make him happy, knowledgeable, successful and powerful. Marius is not the one that set the Palazzo on fire. Marius is not the one that tossed children in a fire. Marius is not the one that cruelly made Amadeo kill his best friend. Marius is the one that got burned to the bone and had to recover for 100 YEARS!! Marius is the one that had to suffer the loss of all his children. The loss of his happiness he experienced in Venice. The loss of his acolyte. The loss of his empire. His pupil. His lover. Marius is the one that served Akasha and was therefor told to leave Amadeo behind. I am not saying he was right in leaving Amadeo behind. Yes, t was one of the biggest mistakes he made. Despite being weak and in excruciating pain, he gave up on Amadeo because Santino had already tainted him. The fact that Amadeo forgot about his trauma’s in the past, Marius had a clean slate to make the best piece of art he had ever made. But Santino went over it with a sharpy and Marius, forever being the perfectionist, did not see a chance of saving it. And yes, that was wrong of him. And yes, he should have tried to get Amadeo back and save him. But it is extremely unfair to forget all these things in play. Marius suffered tremendously through this ordeal and caught his own traumas on the way.
– He stays positive. He couldn’t marry the girl he loved due to discrimination. He was kidnapped. He was robbed of his mortal life by a man whom he later had to safe by pulling his head off and putting it back the right way. Three of his houses got burned down to the ground. He sacrificed his own freedom for the sake of his kind by taking care of The Parents. Akasha then thanked him by crushing him and breaking all his bones. He lost his happiness and the love of his life by a Satan-worshipping cult. He suffered 100 years because he was set on fire. He got the chance to finally be with the woman he loved but literally missed the memo. And yet… he stays positive. His natural optimism of living a happy, mortal life is what kept him going. It’s what made him a child of the millennia. He is the eternal optimist because he knows how precious life is.
So again; I am not saying you don’t have any right or reasons to dislike Marius or distrust him. All I want to say with this, is that despite his flaws, he inspired and set in motion more than the fandom gives him credit for. He suffered more than the fandom gives him credit for. He saved my life and therefor I will always defend him. He deserves it.
This is a long post, I’m sorry for the dash intrusion, and for making it even longer, but for a year and a half now I have often thought about this post. It’s one of the posts on tumblr that has most stuck with me in the past 5 years. I always wanted to reblog it, but didn’t have the courage until now, bc I felt that the spotlight that my blog can put on a post can sometimes exacerbate an issue. Such is the nature of social media 2.0, where controversy is what makes posts explode (do we still say “go viral”?) more often than not.
But I’m reblogging it now and I’ve bolded some things for ease of skipping around so as not to read through all of it. For what I have to add, tho, NO CUTS WE LONGPOST LIKE MEN.
So…
I remember when I first saw this post in March of 2017, I was floored, immediately deeply respected it in its entirety, and how OP has kept it in their archive, even when challenged about it. I have often cited this post, referred to it, shared it privately with others. And in the event that OP ever deactivates or deletes this post, I wanted a version of it I could point to and say, with pride:
This is the kind of fan I aspire to be. Showing love for a fictional character who had a positive influence on them, a real person.
This character for sure has flaws, and has been interpreted at different times as being
problematic, and sometimes not at all. If I recall correctly, at least from the fics I was able to find during the war on fanfic the mid-1990′s, Marius was sometimes written as an uncool Dad figure, setting rules for Lestat & Co. to break, typically in silly!fics. At other times, I’ve known fans who found inspiration in his intense dedication to keeping TWMBK and the development of his art in painting and film, etc. and hardly focus on any other aspect of him. I personally see him as the adoptive benefactor trope, with some teacher/student kink, the dedication to his art, etc., and some of that romance novel stuff mixed in. I’m not a hardcore shipper of him with anyone but I do love the shippy fanart/fic people make, bc it’s made by fans as an expression of their love for the characters, it’s the artists and writers I love more than the fictional characters. And I know of people who are convinced that Marius is little more than a lure for Anne Rice’s alleged thinly-veiled pedophile propaganda.
^None of these ideas of him are totally wrong, and although there may be some things about him that more of us may agree on, to my mind, none of this is totally right, either, because he’s a fictional character and we all draw our own and equally valid interpretations based on our own educations and experiences. A person might find him as
absolutely
inspiring as someone else might find him absolutely disgusting. Neither are right or wrong. It’s not that black and white, in my opinion.
I want to highlight this from OP:
“No matter how real our feelings are for certain fictional characters, this is not a real reflection of our stance in real life. Period.”
*WILD APPLAUSE*
Your interpretation of a fictional character does not supersede anyone else’s, no matter how well-supported your arguments are, no matter what the author of the original work says about their characters, etc.
When a person claims that Character X saved their lives/made their life better/inspired them in a positive way, you don’t get to decide that CharacterX didn’t.
Granted, you can certainly flip that around and state: “When a person claims that Character X ruined their lives/made their life worse/inspired them in a negative way, you don’t get to decide that Character X didn’t.” That may be true, but if a fictional character had such negative impact on your life, wouldn’t you want to stop reading that book/series, at the very least? Which is what OP described above, and thankfully, they were able to unload that negative influence.
Personally, I would stop reading that book, I would find something I found more positively inspiring. Maybe I would seek therapy, I’m sure JAWS and IT sent people to seek professional help. I don’t mean that with any sarcasm, I have had therapy sessions in the past, and found it extremely helpful. I for sure wouldn’t have the energy or interest to try to preach that others see the light of how negative this character is. You can blame violent videogames and Marilyn Manson music for school shooters, doesn’t mean that that media is solely responsible, but I’m not providing links for that bc this is not a blog for that. @fiction-is-not-reality might better direct you on that.
It feels incredibly childish for me to say this but: I wish we could stop waging wars over characters. I don’t jump on posts or respond to asks that seem like they’re coming from a place of bad faith on this topic. I come to fandom for entertainment, to unwind, to be among my friends. I don’t have time for unwinnable arguments that are more about moral superiority than anything else.
Good or bad faith arguments about problematic characters, it doesn’t really matter either way, as it’s been around since long before the internet, it’s going to keep happening as long as people can communicate in whatever form it takes. It just seems to have escalated in fandom in the last few years and this is where we’re at right now, it seems, so my comments on this post are for OP, as an apology that I should have added these comments a year and a half ago, and my comments are for anyone who loves fictional characters, however problematic others may say they are, no matter how problematic they are in canon, no matter how problematic their own original authors say they are! Try to be as strong as OP and I when people come at you for liking, what is essentially, ink on a page.
Creation/consumption of ANY fiction =/= endorsement of it in real life.
I-want-my-IWTV 