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(I received this ask and chose to censor the person’s name to protect their privacy, but I wanted to respond publicly bc I felt like it was a good thing to discuss out in the open, bc I have seen similar issues come up before, so I will refer to the asker as Anon.)

Anon, while I do try to reblog cosplays here on my blog, it’s not a main focus. We both know that I have reblogged several of yours in the past, I’m so impressed with your skill and resemblance to the characters you cosplay! I can definitely understand why you feel salty about putting so much effort in and not getting the attention when someone who seems not to put in any effort gets the credit for cosplay with the #cosplay tag. 

And may it is also just a salty moment just for me salty cosplayer. I am sorry.

It’s okay, I’m sorry that you were hurt. It was not my intention to hurt anyone’s feelings. Please accept this hug from me ❤

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I feel like there are several ways of answering this, one way would be to remove that tag from the reblog of that post, and another would be to offer an explanation of my thought process on that tag. Since I really want to keep that tag on it, and I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, hopefully my explanation below will reduce some of your salt by offering more perspective on it. If you’re still feeling hurt after this explanation, I am sorry. We all come to fandom as a safe space to be creative and have a good time, and unfortunately we sometimes have different and incompatible definitions of how that works 😛

Again, it was not my intention to hurt anyone’s feelings, it was my intention to compliment the OP of that post, and sadly, when someone is complimented, it can make others feel hurt and/or envy. Maybe this explanation will address those feelings.

So why tag a post #cosplay if OP didn’t tag it #cosplay??

Anyone can tag a post with anything at all, I can tag it #lobsterface, if I have some kind of inside joke with that person, even if no one else understands it! I can tag it with #WOW AMAZING, and other people would probably disagree. One’s tags are one’s own creative expression in that way.

I want to talk about cosplayers, bc that is part of the issue here, that some appear to make “more of an effort” than others in their cosplay.

A) Keep in mind that some cosplayers have considerable advantages over others:

  • Some cosplayers are skilled at being able to sew/make their own costumes,
  • Some choose to buy their costumes, 
  • Some choose to cosplay a more modern-era time period and do not need to sew or buy difficult pieces, 
  • Some are skilled at photoshop and can change their hair color/style or create fangs or alter the scene digitally,
  • Some have access to cool locations like cemeteries or fancy architecture,
  • Some have 

    photographer friends who can stage the lighting/scene really well,

  • etc…

^All of these are great and can add to the quality of a cosplay post 😀

B) On the other hand, some cosplayers do not have these advantages, or choose not to do elaborate cosplay for their own reasons.

  • Some people might feel that they resemble the characters enough that they choose not to add anything to what they already have naturally,
  • Some people lack some/all of the skills mentioned above, 
  • Some cannot afford to buy costume pieces, but still wish to cosplay their favorite characters. 

^This group (B) are no less qualified to cosplay than the people who have the advantages mentioned above, and they have every right to make cosplay posts of their own.

EDIT: I decided to remove the part of this post that addressed a specific other blogger. I don’t think it’s appropriate to drag them into this when I am protecting the anonymity of the person who raised the issue. 

But my advice still stands as follows:

It’s a reasonable compliment that we do give to people who happen to look like the fictional characters, unfairly or not. 

So why reblog a selfie that’s not tagged as a cosplay and tag it with #cosplay? Well, it’s a compliment to the person. 

Hey dear, in honour for cosplay it makes me (i do not speak for all so just my no-one-actually-ask-for-opinion) sad that ppl got tagged as cosplay just because they have a kind of simillarities for fictional characters.

So unfortunately, this does happen, and it is a compliment. 

It is a kind of hurtful for those who bring a lot of effort for the actually costume. 

I can understand that. I’m sorry you were hurt by this. The other difficult thing about tumblr is that the tags are there to advertise as well as organize, and for my own blog, I wanted that post above to be in my cosplay tag so that in the future, if anyone asked me about X character cosplay examples, it would be included. And I think it is a good example to have because, as I mentioned above, some people do not have the advantages you might have to create/buy costume pieces, and/or some people choose not to do those in cosplay for their own reasons. 

I think you did the right thing coming to me to ask about it, and hopefully my answer will reduce some of the hurt. In this case, I don’t want to remove the #cosplay tag from that post because of the reasons I stated above, I’m sorry about that.

And… if I would dye my hair more red would civil photos also be a cosplay-tagged post? 🙁 I am confused. 

I wouldn’t recommend that you dye your hair just to have your selfies reblogged as cosplay, in my experience, reblogs are VERY subjective. Reblogging someone else’s selfies especially is something every blogger has to decide for themselves, as selfies can be very personal. Everyone has their own reasons for reblogging a post, and in my case, I reblog things to have them in my personal collection to refer to later if I want, and again, sometimes it’s also a compliment for someone.

Even with the very elaborate cosplays, you can’t predict what will be reblogged. I might put a lot of effort into a post, fic, fanvideo, and it will get very few notes. I might put very little effort in and it gets 5k notes. 

I would suggest that if you want more attention, give other people attention, that’s how this blog became so popular! It is like real life, you get out what you put into it. People tend to give attention to people who have given attention to them *hugs*

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musterni-illustrates:

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shitty horoscopes book ix: the body and the wreckage.

each sign rules a body part, though which part will vary depending on who you’re talking to. this volume marks a year to the inception of the shitty horoscopes series.

amrit brar (musterni), 2015

buy the zines | read them all | instagram | redbubble

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rissi18:

troyesivan:

madderhatter:

witch–vibes:

Did Roy ever find his boyfriend?

he did

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happy for him

YOU FORGOT THE BEST PART

THEY ADOPTED A DAUGHTER NAMED TANGO BECAUSE IT TAKES 2 TO TANGO!!!!

This is them:

and they even had a book written about them:

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@claudiaindarkness @claudia-lilvampire

Hi, so I am confusion. Because I read Lestat the vampire and watched Interview with the vampire bedore I read the first book, so I expected Lestat and Louie to be lovers. And I am now halfway through the book where claudia trys to kill lestat for the first time and so far they absolutely hate and insult eachother but every wiki tells me they were canonically lovers so??? Do they get together in later books or.. am I reading a different book than everybody else I am so confused

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I understand your confusion! To be honest, your message is extremely difficult to answer, there is plenty of evidence that they are not lovers, as you point out in your message: they “absolutely hate and insult each other” during IWTV (and in later books, too), and yes, Claudia tries to kill Lestat 😛 Those aren’t signs of love.

In my reading of canon, they do get together, but it is always a fragile “together.” They meet before Lestat’s concert, they are together at the end of QOTD, etc., there are many times in canon when they are physically together but, it is usually thick with the tension of whether it can last ;A; Perhaps that’s another reason why the L/L shippers make so many fanworks; we just don’t get enough L/L explicitly in canon.

When Anne Rice wrote IWTV, Lestat was clearly the main antagonist (other antagonists included Santiago, the theatre vampires, etc.). Lestat was intended to antagonize Louis. At the end of IWTV, one can say that Louis has won; even if he might not be all rainbows-and-sparkles-happy about life, Louis ends the book at least as a functionally independent vampire, whereas Lestat is miserable and broken, seemingly having difficulty even hunting for mortal victims on his own (dependent on a young “nurse vampire” bringing him a victim). There is disagreement between Lestat and Louis whether that scene even happened, but, whether it did or not, by the end of IWTV-era, it seems like Louis has overcome his abuser/monster and is the stronger one of the two of them.

Still, L/L did explicitly share some intimate moments in IWTV, when Lestat fed on Louis, and sharing the intimacy of the Dark Gift (the most intimate experience for vampires), and beyond than that, Lestat tells the reader in TVL to “Read between the lines.” A relationship does not need to be explicitly stated to exist, it is up to each individual reader to decide whether they want to ship those characters or not based on their reading of the story.

Personally, I ship

Louis/Lestat and thankfully, I have found plenty of other Louis/Lestat shippers in the fandom! Anyone is welcome to reblog/comment on this post as to why they ship Louis/Lestat ❤

TL:DR; Throughout canon Lestat pines for Louis QUITE A LOT. It is my personal belief that most of this pining is to “make up for” all the awful times during the years in IWTV when Lestat abused his fledglings, when they fought back, when Lestat was frustrated at being unable to give them the truth of their vampire nature by sharing his knowledge with them. To make up for the scenes that were not explicitly described in IWTV.

1) Here’s Lestat talking about Louis, from TVL:

I fell fatally in love with Louis, a young dark-haired bourgeois planter…  Louis gained a hold over me far more powerful than Nicolas had ever had…

And why should I bother to tell of the times he came to me in wretched anxiety, begging me never to leave him, of the times we walked together and talked together, acted Shakespeare together for Claudia’s amusement, or went arm in arm to hunt the riverfront taverns or to waltz with the dark-skinned beauties of the celebrated quadroon balls?

^You could say he lied about any of this, we do have unreliable narrators. That’s up to you as a reader to decide if you believe Lestat’s account on this or not.

2) More of Lestat talking about Louis in TVL:

I kept glancing at him and away from him, as if his green eyes were hurting me. In modern parlance he was a laser beam. Deadly and delicate he seemed. His victims had always loved him.

And I had always loved him, hadn’t I, no matter what happened, and how strong could love grow if you had eternity to nourish it, and it took only these few moments in time to renew its momentum, its heat?

^This seems, again, to be very clearly stating that Lestat loves Louis. Whether that love is reciprocated is up to the reader’s interpretation.

3) In the immortal words of @high-fructose-lesbianism: “Now matter how hard you ship Louis and Lestat you will never ship Louis and Lestat as hard as Lestat does.” [X] Part of why it’s such a tough ship is that AR just does not let us have much in terms of explicit canon fluff of them! It mostly happens off-screen. Which is where fanworks steps in to satisfy that need ;] I have some more of this kind of thing mixed into my #nobody ships Louis and Lestat harder than Lestat ships Louis and Lestat tag.

4) Also relevant: Anne Rice was answering Fan Questions for Lestat at one point and she said (in character as Lestat):

“…but if I did have to choose, [my one companion for all eternity] would be Louis. My longest most enduring friendship and love affair in this world was with Louis. And though his limitations can be maddening, they can also be as inspiring to me as his virtues… the best choices we make are not always the wise choices. Sometimes they are intensely emotional choices. And I’ve always had a deep Romantic respect for emotion. My love for Louis transcends wisdom. And I may need the pain as much as the consolation that an eternal relationship with Louis would involve.“

5) I just posted a letter Anne Rice get from a queer fan who expressed how grateful he was to her for IWTV, and I don’t want to attempt to summarize it for you, please read it to see his perspective for yourself, even though he does not specifically mention Louis/Lestat as a ship.

6) Anne Rice gets this question on a regular basis. I don’t know if her answer below convinced the commenter, Romeo Naghdi, that Lestat is “totally bisexual, totally omni sexual” (which was another term for bisexual some years ago, IIRC). To be honest, I think when she answers these types of questions she is answering so that others can see her statement, even if the commenter might remain steadfast in their own opinion.

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[^X 6/26/2015]  ^Personally, I don’t know how Romeo Naghdi (and others who share his opinion) read the same books that I/we did, but I don’t care what he thinks of Lestat’s sexuality, and I would encourage you all to go with Anne Rice on this. She made her statement and then let it go. 

I am not attempting to erase any queer representation in mentioning that we have these people who headcanon Lestat as straight. I included it only to give the context to AR’s comment. 

I hope that helps, Anon! Again, anyone is welcome to reblog/comment on this as to why they ship Louis/Lestat, even though they “absolutely hate and insult each other” during IWTV!

Anne Rice: From the mailbox: the kind of letter that keeps authors going, through thick and thin.

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[Emphasis has been added]

“Hello, Anne.

I’m sure you receive many, many emails of this kind, but I could not let my gratitude go unexpressed.

The short version of it is that I may not be here today were it not for you.

Now, the longer version of it is that in my 17th summer, my sister went to our town’s sparse public library and brought home a massive stack of paperback novels to get us through the long, hot, enui that can be the countryside days and nights. Interview with the Vampire was among the books, and I happened to grab it first. Honestly, I was more amused by the title than interested, so I decided to see if my predictions for “a little light horror fiction” might come true. Well…

I practically locked myself in my room for three days until I had read it, and then re-read certain passages three and four times over. I had found a new respect for the power of literature.

You see, this was a time when I was beginning to understand my homosexuality, and I had never encountered such rich and erotically charged writing with two male figures. But beyond that–and, more importantly–no work of fiction or fact had ever made me feel that its author had, somehow, reached a hand inside my mind, pulled out the most important philosophical questions that I could not yet put into words, and then laid out the answers in ways that made me hunger for more, and which made me want to live.

The true nature of that time is that I was terribly sad and suicidal because, in my very small and inhibited world, I was sure there were no other boys like me. No one to learn from, no one to take solace with, no one to confess all my fears and doubts to. At 17, as you are aware, I’m sure, the world is always about to end for things that people get through every day. For me it was no different, yet it was insanely compounded by the “gay thing” in the rural south. I won’t go further into that, I know you know what it means.

So, as I read, I saw myself so completely in the character of Louis–and I desperately wanted to be him, sad as he was–that I was able to forget my “family prison”, as I called it, and started thinking about how to really be who I was meant to be. I’ll tell you the part that got me weeping, and that I go back to often when I need to re-feel that old passion that first woke me up…

It’s the section of the book when Louis is in Paris with Armand, and they’re in Armand’s chambers discussing the nature of good and evil, and Louis asks him if they are the children of Satan. Growing up in the Baptist church, I had been taught that “my kind” were just that, and so this was one of my eternal questions brought to the printed page for discussion with a Master (I was shaking by this point!). And then came that beautiful answer–please forgive me if I murder the direct quote: “Exactly. And, consequently, if you believe that God made the world around you, then you must also believe that God made Satan, and that all of Satan’s power comes from God. There are no children of Satan, really.”

And that was it. That was the moment I realized I didn’t need to end my life because I was this aweful thing that didn’t belong in the natural world. I decided to embrace what I was, just as Lestat and Armand had been trying to teach that lesson to Louis, and I have never looked back, hard as the road has been at times.

Now, in my 40th summer, I am studying to be a therapist so I can help others overcome the same suffering I went through and overcame. This confession, though, is not the first time I have revealed to others what, or who, saved my life so long ago. In my efforts to fully connect with others who are struggling, I often tell them of the power of your story, and how it offered a perspective rarely encountered even in the best “self-help” books. Sometimes, a beautiful and tragic allegory can elicit the most catharsis. Lucky for all of us.

In closing, I’ll say again how fortunate I feel to have found you and Louis that summer. He is always with me on some level. I’m not really sure I have the exact words to express all the levels of gratitude I feel, but I hope this letter can convey even a 10th of it.  You may absolutely feel free to share it with others, if you think it would be of benefit. I am forever grateful, and forever changed for the better, because of your incredible spirit and voice.

Love and Light to you always,

Richard Louis Denton”

Anne Rice: From the mailbox: the kind of letter that keeps authors going, through thick and thin.

There’s an instagramer by the username ‘thomasjwf’ and he’s talking about being open to playing Lester haha. What is your opinion on him?

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I didn’t know of this person Thomas Wilkinson Fullerton (aka “Thomas Jef”?) until your ask and oh wow, I really like him! 

>>Side note real quick: he has a few vids up on his IG and I think he can act, too! His bio on his website says he graduated from Dawson College’s Professional Theatre Program. I didn’t watch all his IG vids but I liked his Dubbing Catherine O’Hara as Sheila Albertson in “Waiting for Guffman” (1996) and Dubbing @melissamccarthy as Agent Susan Cooper in “Spy” (2015)<<

He looks like fanart??!! He has a lot of great pics on his IG, I’m trying to keep this post from getting out of control and only picking a few out, but ppl, go check him out. Physically I think he could work, just needs more canon-compliant styling, but this image below looks like it could be for the Rolling Stone article about his upcoming concert tour *u*

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[^X] He’s not just open to playing Lestat, he’s throwing himself at the part, making professional looking cosplays, and his exuberance for it is so heartwarming and in character. I think he’s trying to get these hashtags trending: #castme #imyourlestat! (If he does, he might have to share them with other hopeful Lestats!)

splitclownsyndrome: All I see is Lestat. Such beauty. I hope you do go for the audition.and if you don’t make it, I’ll think of your face while I complete my first novel. 💕💕. Supporting you all the way, my friend

thomasjwf: @splitclownsyndrome thank you so much! More than my own desire and convictions motivating me to portray the role i’m really moved by the support and encouragement from fans of the VC universe. I know how close @annericeauthor is to her readers and receiving validation like this from them is lighting the best kind of fire under my butt. I only hope for the opportunity to prove what i can do above and beyond just posting pictures that convey the right essence. That said, I appreciate your words immensely and hope to have the opportunity to make you and everyone else who comes across my stuff on here proud! 🤞🏻🧛🏻‍♂️🌹

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[X] Here’s a pic with him with blonde hair bc reasons.

The comments on some of his Lestat pics are really sweet and supportive, and that tells me that re: “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” some of those beholders agree on him ❤

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[X]

facebyjacques: Love the edit you did! So much fun collaborating with you, you are an incredible model! You were born to play Lestat!

eggsonrye: Perfect. He’s my favourite fictional character come to life, just how imagined

mandeemorningstar: @thomasjwf best of luck! They would be stupid not to pick you. You look exactly how I picture him when I read the books. Spot on!

sandrakay400: I would kill to see you on the silver screen as Lestat! !! Your perfect for it ! better than any of the other what’s-their-names?, lol

moonchild_sa: I’ll be honest, I have no idea how you found my account(my pictures), but I do see that you are a fellow Vampire Chronicles fan as myself, so that was fun and unexpected. You do make a great Lestat btw✌🏻💖

Here’s one more supportive comment:

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[X posted Jan. 13, 2018] AR likes him! (transcribed from above):

You’re a striking young man; Thomas. When the time comes for casting, I’ll do my best to get real usable info as to here people should go to audition, and I will post it here and on the VC page. We are a year out from casting right now. Thanks for your pic and your comments. You have a marvelous face, marvelous expression, beautiful hair and facial structure, and eyes.

And in this post it looks like he’s a reader, too. This is his year in books, and from the looks of it, he’s read VC and other books that Lestat might have read and liked, too. More food for the character development 😉

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Bonus aesthetic pic:

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I’m going to be living in the french quarter for a week in march for work – any recs on places i should visit etc?

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Yes! A whole week is plenty of time to wedge in VC location visits around the work-related stuff ;D

FYI in my list, I have things in the French Quarter, the Garden District (you can take the streetcar to get there, or walk, if you have the time/interest, it’s 2.5 miles away), and then outside the city are swamp tours (which I really want to do next time I visit) and the plantation houses (Pointe du Lac!).

These aren’t in any geographical order, just the order I’m thinking of them:

+ Gallier House – A must-visit, this is the flat AR based Rue Royale on. They give tours bc it’s a historical site. It’s not expensive, book in advance. They also have a gift shop and I got a nice necklace there. 

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^My estimation of the room assignments bc reasons. Re: “slave quarters,” that’s unfortunately part of the history of that building 😛 but I think by the time L/L were there, those rooms were used for storage bc there’s little closet space in the living quarters, and the maids they hire don’t live with them.

Note: @gairid considers the flat across the street (1127) to be the true home of L/L bc the balcony is much more verdant, and you know Lestat would have all kinds of flora on their balcony! It’s a private residence, though.

+ Oak Alley Plantation – this was used for Pointe du Lac plantation in the movie. It’s a ways away, like 45 min outside NOLA?  Maybe more, but worth the trip! You can pay for the bus tickets and tour package, get there and wander around, there’s food and historical info, highly recommend. Allegedly, Brad Pitt still visits and he stays in one of the guest houses.

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Note: They also filmed at neighboring Destrehan Plantation, but I haven’t been there, idk if it’s worth going.

+ Madame John’s Legacy –

632 Dumaine St, this is the scene in which a family’s worth of coffins are carried out; Lestat & Claudia had been so gluttonous. This building is sometimes open to the public, the last time I was there they had a cool ceramics exhibition.

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+ Jackson Square – mentioned in canon pretty often, you can’t really go to NOLA and not visit.

+ The Cabildo at Jackson Square – I didn’t go in, I think you can. This is where Lestat watches Claudia kill, that same gate is there, you can go hang out in front of it and pretend to watch your vampire daughter kill a victim.

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+

Court of Two Sisters

–

613 Royal St, I really enjoyed the Sunday brunch, there’s a cute little courtyard with fountains, and live music sometimes. They had this oreo pie that like… dangerous. 

+ Cafe Du Monde – mentioned in canon, they serve like 2 things, beignets and coffee (nothing super fancy), very affordable, and are almost always crowded, but totally worth it. If you go around the back there’s a window where you can see them making the beignets!

+ Arnaud’s – very good restaurant in the French Quarter

+ Port of Call – 838 Esplanade Ave, stardustschild, I see in your profile that you’re not over 21, but for OTHER ppl reading this post, this is a good place for a go-cup drink ~$10, it’s large and 1 is enough to catch a good buzz.

+ NAPOLEON HOUSE – Muffalettas, po’ boys & other Creole staples in a circa-1914 house with a palm-filled courtyard. @gairid recs the SAZERAC (for the 21+ people reading this post, not you, stardustchild) here.

+ French Market – that’s a pretty standard suggestion so I have to include it but I didn’t think it was all that big of a deal. 

+ Trashy Diva clothing boutique – 

537 Royal St, they have a few locations. I got a great little black velvet jacket here!

+ 2301 and

2524

St. Charles Ave, Garden District

– AR’s childhood homes

– (Not a location really) 1233 COLISEUM ST. – where the Coliseum theatre was in the scene when Louis goes to the movies, it burned down ;A; But that neighborhood is kind of fun to walk around and just look at the nice houses on your way to Lafayette Cemetery. 

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+ Commander’s Palace, Garden District

– good restaurant but pricey. I had an elder flower liqueur cocktail that was pretty special there. This restaurant is a favorite of the Mayfair family.

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+ 1239 First Street, Garden District – This historic property was for many years Anne Rice’s primary residence. 

+ Mayfair house

, Garden District

 – 3711 St Charles Ave. Not really as crucial on my own list of locations but still.  @cloudsinvenice had posted: “Anne Rice’s former New Orleans home is back on the market again, as per this Curbed.com article, from which I’ve selected some photos. This is the house that inspired the Mayfair witches’ haunted family home…”

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+ Lafayette Cemetery No. 1, Garden District

– mentioned in canon, free but only open during daylight hours tho!

+

St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 – There are tours and I think Nicolas Cage’s very weird pyramid tomb is there, he’s paid for it, and that’s where he plans to be when he’s shuffled off this mortal coil…

+ Bourbon French Parfums –

805 Royal St. bc Louis was all about the jasmine and stuff, they have great sets of perfumes and their own concoctions.

+ DeVille Coffee House & Creperie – 2045 Magazine St, I just really like their crepe suzettes ❤

+ New Orleans Pharmacy Museum – I didn’t get to go here but it was on my list. I think it’s like $5 to go.

+ Marie Leveau’s Grave and Voodoo Shop – has cool stuff, like coffin nails!

+ Boutique du Vampyre – 709 ½ St. Anne Street, IIRC I got a cool poison ring here, they have vampiry wares.

… A few additions!

@nixsrebellionoflies​ added: 
may i add that you can go into port of call if youre not 21 and over? they have great burgers and a very interesting aesthetic. you might have to wait a while tho to get in

^Thanks for that! I haven’t tried their burgers myself, now I have to be sure to put that on my list for my next trip 😉

@jeezycreezysuperstar​ added:
Some of the cemeteries are now only open to the public via tour group, just fyi

^RIGHT I forgot about that, it’s a relatively recent rule, within the last few years I think? Partly bc of the vandalism that was happening, and offerings/graffiti on some of the famous tombs like Marie Laveau’s Tomb. But do take a tour if you have the time/money/interest, bc they are informative and spoopy.

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kamikazesoundsociety:

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We have always been here.

Vintage LGBT love photography post

Vintage WLW love photography post

Please add more if you have them ❤ 

What is your opinion on Marius/Armand’s relationship? i’ve seen posts in support and posts against and I’m ultimately in the middle because a) it is horror/gothic lit where weird/bad shit happens and b) vampires operate on a different moral code than human beings. So I’m just curious what you think.

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As @shippingisnotactivism put it so succinctly: Often times people aren’t actually interested in a debate, they are interested in making you do intellectual/emotional labour for no reason at all. [X]

I wrote this huge Wall of Text despite the above quote. If you’re a sealion, Anon, you’ve accomplished your mission to some extent, you’ve managed to get me to spend more time and effort on this response than I ever wanted to. 

I didn’t write it for you, though. I wrote it for my 15 year old self who was able to read and enjoy all the fictional problematic content I wanted. My 15 year old self loved black comedy, dark humor. I was never criticized for it. I was bullied for other things, like my wonky teeth, my hair style, my (lack of) fashion sense, which, looking at pics of myself, I can see why I was an easy target!  

Now, we have bullies who do it in a much more insidious way. They tell you that your interest in problematic content means that you endorse it in real life. I’d rather be bullied for my teeth again.

I actually did spend time crowdsourcing privately to respond to this ask, I got some good answers, but you know what? I don’t need to write a full dissertation on horror/gothic lit and/or Marius/Armand’s relationship and/or Ricean vampire sex/intimacy and/or Anne Rice’s motivations for writing what she writes and/or VC fandom’s reactions to VC ships, etc., for an anonymous person(s) on the internet. You said you’ve seen posts about it already. Being in the middle is an acceptable place to be. I’m not here to force you to one side or the other.

You’re looking for easy answers to complicated questions. It’s not my responsibility to feed you those answers. And I would hope that you would take anyone else’s response to your questions with a grain of salt, and not simply accept opinions as truth because they sound good and righteous.

These are issues with so much nuance, so many facets, and to write Marius/Armand off as simply “abusive” and “pedophilia” is extremely narrow-minded to me. To write off people who attempt to discuss these things in fiction as “abuse-apologists” and “pedophilia-apologists” is a form of bullying. If we cannot discuss problematic things in fiction in a civilized way, it won’t make these things A) disappear from fiction or B) stop happening in real life. 

If you’ve been watching/following my blog for even a few weeks, or you check out my archive, you know that I’ve reblogged plenty of Marius/Armand fanart, some of it NSFW. So I think you can do the math on what my stance is on that. 

I confess that I was never wildly into that ship, but I have always loved talent and skill in the fanart/fanfic of both of these characters, separately and together, and now my interest in it is A) to have some variety in my blog rather than always reblogging fanworks about L/L (my main ship and, arguably, the VC juggernaut ship), and B) to support anyone who loves those characters separately or ships them together, and let them know that I support them. They can like whatever fictional content they like.

It’s been said before by blogs with better rhetoric than mine, like @fiction-is-not-reality, @freedom-of-fanfic, @shippingisnotactivism, @shipwhateveryouwant, @yourshipisfine, @shipping-isnt-morality, @olderthannetfic, @bitteroldfandomqueen, @wilting-blooming, @yoonbum-indrag, etc. 

Basically:

There is no debate when it comes to my own permission to like whatever I like in fiction, and I extend that permission to everyone. It’s fictional. Period.

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^Marge Simpson is against pro wrestling here. It was an actual debate, you can google it. I’m not interested in arguing with her. I’m not even interested in calling her “a Killjoy,” even though she’s asked the viewer to do so. Unlike Marge, I’m not interested in forcing anyone to agree with any of my opinions. 

More importantly, why is she standing up there next to the TV? She wants to divert attention from it and onto herself. Marge wants the attention.

She is riding on it as a topic, and it’s an easy target, bc it is VIOLENCE. Scripted or not, we all generally agree that violence is bad. So she stands there concerned, but does she really think it’s so awful? I don’t remember the episode well enough to know if she says that pro wrestling is definitively a bad influence on its viewers. Her caption says enough: “BC THIS IS NOT TO MY TASTE, NO ONE ELSE SHOULD BE ABLE TO ENJOY IT.” 

Would she take into account that it’s cathartic for fans of pro wrestling to watch the scripted violence played out? Would she care that we love rooting for our faves and we love watching them appear to beat the crap out of the other wrestlers for dominance? Would she care that we can watch it and know the difference between violence in media and in real life? I’m thinking that if she is truly committed to her crusade against violence in pro wrestling, she would be unable to cede an inch of ground, even a molecule of nuance could topple her from her soapbox. Acknowledging that her opinion is opinion and not fact would be acknowledging that she could be wrong, and that’s unacceptable to Marge.

It’s not enough for Marge to respect the old fandom rule of #Don’t Like, Don’t Read. When there is something as juicy as a topic with a buzzword that invokes an immediate reaction to get righteous about, the argument becomes: #I Don’t Like This Thing; No One Should Read/Write This Thing (Unless they Write it the Way I Want it Written).

The points I would make, if I were making points, would be these, listed below. You can do your own further research, bc I’m not being paid for this, and have no obligation to provide sources that will most likely fall on the deaf ears of the “Marges” of fandom who are unable to cede any ground. I am not obligated to respond to arguments against this post. 

These points are for the Marius/Armand shippers and Marius fans to show my support for them by sharing some of my own thoughts.

  • “Vampires operate on a different moral code than human beings.” Anon, you wrote this yourself, and I think it’s a good point. An essay could be written on it. 

^Some of the vampires may want to abide by human moral codes, but those may be codes from the era they were turned. I wouldn’t even say that moral codes have evolved, I would say that moral codes are on a pendulum swinging from moral to immoral, back and forth. 

^Attitudes towards sex/intimacy also change during different eras. This includes the time periods during which the novels were written, what was expected in fiction then, what the cultural landscape was like, etc. 

  • The ship itself occurred during a time period in history when underage/adult relationships mlm were socially acceptable. You can argue that she should not have chosen that time period, but she’s a writer, she can choose whatever time period she wants.
  • Given the content, I would suggest that these books were written for adults who know the difference between fiction and reality.

  • These books are fiction, they are not self-help manuals. 

^If you use them as a self-help manual and are harmed, it is your misuse of them, not the author’s fault, and not the books’ fault. Like alcoholism. It’s not the alcohol’s fault if you drink it irresponsibly. 

  • Shipping is not just for wish fulfillment/idealization, but it can be. Maybe Marius/Armand is wish fulfillment/idealization for Anne Rice. 

^While it is a possibility, I highly doubt she’s intentionally trying to injure any of her readers, especially if she sees

Marius/Armand

and Marius himself as good and desirable. 

  • I absolutely do not condone pedophilia, abuse, or grooming in real life, and in my 20+ years of fandom I have never met a Marius/Armand shipper or Marius fan who condones any of those things in real life, either.
  • I do not believe that an author is required to condemn problematic elements within the text. 

^Which she definitely wouldn’t do anyway, if she sees Marius/Armand and Marius himself as good and desirable.

  • Anne Rice has similar ships with the underage/adult dynamic that don’t get the hate Marius/Armand does, oddly enough. Furthermore, she didn’t invent it, this is a fantasy that’s been around since before she was even born. 
  • There are a bunch of other kinks mixed into that ship that I don’t need to list out here for you. Anne Rice/the fans/anyone is allowed to have/explore their kinks in fiction or in consensual spaces online/in real life with other adults.
  • It is my belief that underage people (including Anne Rice) can be curious about sex/intimacy before reaching the Age of Consent. 

^Are we only allowed to be curious about it on the stroke of the first minute of our 18th birthday?? I believe Anne writes these ships setting herself as the underage character, spending decades rebelling against what she perceived was an overly repressive religious upbringing in which the adults in her life tried to convince her that her curiosity was EVIL and a disgusting form of Sinning. Making it the “forbidden fruit” just made it that much more desirable for underage!Anne. IMO, her underage/adult ships are a coping mechanism she does for her younger self.

  • I am not knowledgeable enough about horror/gothic lit to say how Marius/Armand compares to other ships in those stories, but as I understand it, the exploration of monsters of all kinds has been problematic since monster stories were invented. 

^Horror/goth lit elevated these stories to a higher intellectual level, so they were criticized on a higher intellectual level than the older monster stories. However, the criticism of exploring these concepts has always been harsher to women writers bc PATRIARCHY and how dare women explore sexual fantasies without permission?!

  • Shippers of Marius/Armand are easy targets for bullying and harassment as that ship and character tick off plenty of boxes of things we know are wrong in real life. But as I’ve said in the past, creating/consuming problematic things =/= endorsement of them in real life. Thoughtcrimes are not crimes.
  • It’s easier to attack

    Marius/Armand

    shippers and Marius fans than attempting to attack Anne Rice. Anne Rice is a published author, insulated from anything she doesn’t want to hear/read. The shippers, like me, are humans behind their screens, and we all just want to get along with each other, so getting accused of endorsing real life problematic things bc of their ship preference is something shippers are very likely to respond to. Shipper attention, while not as juicy as attention from Anne Rice herself, is a reasonable substitute for the “Marges” feed on.

Ultimately I am a #Ship and let ship person and I support the shippers of problematic fictional ships and the fans of problematic fictional characters.

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Hey I’m planning on writing a VC fic with Armand Daniel and Marius any advice on how to get their characters right?

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I can’t advise you, as we all have our own ideas about the canon characters, and “how to get them right,” a phrase I disagree with. Have you read all of canon? Do you accept all of canon into your personal headcanon? I wouldn’t force you to accept it all, I don’t accept it all. If we’re working from different text acceptance, there can be no universal “getting the characters right” authority (not even Anne Rice herself “gets the characters right,” according to the opinion of some of her fans). As an example, if I accept everything in The Vampire Armand but you don’t (or you haven’t read it yet), your fic probably won’t include/address anything that happened in TVA. That’s your prerogative as a fic writer. You are not required to include/address anything that you don’t want to.

Since no one can decide definitively if you’ve “gotten them right,” don’t be afraid to get them WRONG! Get them however YOU see them, Anon. And it’s not really that black and white; I’ve read fics where there was characterization I loved, and some that seemed out-of-character to me in the next paragraph (but again, that’s just ONE PERSON’S opinion. Another reader might have loved/hated all of it). It could be that you struggle with dialogue in general, so it might be out-of-character now, but you’ll improve by writing more fics. And like a painting, it may not be your failure; you might purposely invest more attention/effort on some aspects of your fic than on others, again, that’s

your prerogative as a fic writer. 

”Summer’s Day,” about 1879, Berthe Morisot (left) and “Portrait of Mrs. A. Lawrence Rotch,” 1903, by John Singer Sargent (right).

^Here’re two paintings done in different styles, Morisot’s is Impressionist, and Sargent practiced his own form of Realism, with some obvious Impressionist influence. An essay could be written comparing/contrasting these but briefly: just between these two works, you can see that Morisot was less interested in capturing the details that Sargent has, but both portraits are evocative to me in their own way. There’s a breathless kind of anticipation in both. They both look like women I would love to get to know better! The Sargent one might have been painted on commission, idk about the Morisot one, but in the case of a commissioned work, there is a dialogue between the artist and the commissioner. When I’ve commissioned fanart, the artist will aim to meet my requirements, but ultimately, art is nebulous, and I’ve always been pleasantly surprised by the choices my commissioned artists make within the limitations of the request!

Bc here’s the thing, fanfic is for free. And no matter how you write them, even if you just copied text out of canon, there will be ppl who will tell you you’re getting the characters wrong. Again, the actual published author “gets them wrong,” according to some fans. So if she can’t write her own characters “right,” then, like Anne herself, you’re not obligated to appease anyone except yourself.

Here are a few “advice” pairings, with narrow-minded advice first and open-minded advice second.

  • “Make sure to include a paragraph about Armand’s physical appearance or else he’s not really in it!!!” – Dye Armand’s hair purple. Have Daniel comment about how striking the color is against his skin. Write Daniel as a POC. Write Armand as if he was able to age, make an AU so that Daniel is the vampire who approaches 50 year old Armand. 
  • “Make sure to address Marius’ anger management issues!!!” – Write an AU where Marius didn’t turn Armand, maybe they met as vampires on more equal footing. Write that Marius gets angry about dumb inconsequential things like being stuck in transit and the other two tease him about being so impatient.
  • “Make sure that if there’s any dubious-consent or non-consensual sexual content at all, to condemn it in the narrative!!!!” – Have a PWP with BDSM with all 3 of them that fails laughably and one of them storms out, naked and angry. WHY NOT???

Fiction is a space where we can explore anything and everything and it does not harm anyone.

Inevitably, some ppl won’t like it no matter what you do, so please yourself.

Whatever you’re writing: Write the fic you want to read! Here’s your permit:

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All that said, I do ask for specific and trusted ppl’s advice when I’m writing a fic if I think they’ve got good ideas bc they’re invested in those characters, maybe they’ve even written fics about those characters. I’m working on a fic that I had to ask a few ppl privately about bc I wanted to bounce my ideas off of them, and gain a little insight as to my specific fic situation, but I wasn’t looking for their permission to write what I’m writing. 

Stuff I personally would like to see explored re: Armand, Daniel, and/or Marius:

  • some backstory on Daniel’s mortal life
  • some Difficult Conversations in any combination of those three characters discussing their past relationships
  • some closure on things, agreement/forgiveness may not be possible, but some closure would be great.
  • some fluff in any combination of those characters, they’ve had so much suffering already
  • I always like the fanon that Daniel has glasses even though he doesn’t need to wear them now, bc reasons
  • give them roles in a story that move the plot along substantively

WRITE THE FANFIC YOU WANT TO READ.