(2/2) Besides, I found this crazy place in Paris where people just love each other and are good to one another and never pressure anyone to do anything or judge them for their identities and sometimes I feel like I accidentally ended up in some sort of beautiful coven. And I’m the only human amongst non-humans there and now one’s telling me. :’D Sadly I’m moving out of Europe next month and I can’t stop crying over it. But I am lucky I got to experience this magic at all, if only for a short time.
So, by the way, did, like, everyone who at some point was heavily obsessed with the Vampire Chronicles end up being polyamorous?
I’m not sure about that correlation, I’m a heavily obsessed fan of the series and didn’t turn out poly, myself. But I wouldn’t rule it out as a possibility for me in the future. You’re the first that’s suggested a correlation between VC and heavily obsessed fans ending up poly, that I’ve seen. I’ve only known of a few VC fans who are poly, and I don’t know if VC was an influence before they identified as poly.
I come from this shithole of a small town in what is my country’s very own version of the ‘conservative south’ and I ended up both queer and polya (and critical of compulsory sexuality / amatonormativity) and sometimes I just can’t help wonder if it’s because of all the VC that I read. :‘D
I’m not sure about the affect of fiction on reality, do you think you might have
ended up either/both queer and polya without the influence of VC? Were there other influences? I know of several other fans who related to the characters (especially during formative years) and felt like their feelings and orientation were being represented in VC, they felt a sense of relief at seeing characters like themselves. I’m not sure if VC therefore turned them queer/LGBT+/etc, I get the impression that they already were what they were and VC gave them the confidence to embrace it and even officially come out to their friends/family.
I’m sorry you had to grow up in your country’s version of the conservative south, I can’t imagine how hard that must have been :[
(can you still use the word shithole or is that Trump-vocab now?)
Idk, I can see it w/o thinking of him, but I’m pretty thrilled about the ads reclaiming the word (I actually squealed with joy when I saw this one on a bus the other day!):
Besides, I found this crazy place in Paris where people just love each other and are good to one another and never pressure anyone to do anything or judge them for their identities and sometimes I feel like I accidentally ended up in some sort of beautiful coven. And I’m the only human amongst non-humans there and now one’s telling me. :’D
That’s wonderful, I’m so happy you found this beautiful coven! Where in Paris? Are some of them VC fans, too?
Sadly I’m moving out of Europe next month and I can’t stop crying over it. But I am lucky I got to experience this magic at all, if only for a short time.
Awwww that sucks :,( Well, “better to have loved and lost,” as they say. Maybe you can be the coven leader and create your own beautiful coven like the one you found in Paris! ❤
I mean, you can google these terms yourself, too, why are you coming to me (or that anon)?
I can only guess. Maybe it’s bc (A) you’re genuinely curious and you enjoy the way I answer things (whether you agree with me or not isn’t relevant), or (B) you’re looking to stir some shit bc that’s what this site does best, exacerbate disagreement bc ACTIVISM.
I didn’t invent these words and have no need to defend them, you’re forcing me to make a post that could easily offend Europeans or people who identify as fops, and/or both. I’m not interested in making potential Offense Fodder.
There was a time in fandom that I could just take this at face value and assume that you’re genuinely curious and you enjoy the way I answer things, so that’s how I’m responding, since I’m not interested in making potential Offense Fodder.
A Eurotrash Fop might look like this:
[X] OP @alternativepurple tagged it as: #fashion #rococo #artistic #gentleman #retro #make-up #makeup #make up #aristocrat #elegant aristocrat
^These are positive tags, I’d say, and I’d agree. There are more positive tags in reblogs of that post, like “#inspiration”. But there is also definitely a poking-fun-at about this, this model is so heavily slathered in makeup that the powder has fallen on their clothing and hair ribbon too, the blush is unnaturally red on their cheekbone and it’s even purposefully on their chin, they have so much lace on that it might get in the way of using their gloved hand in some way. It’s intentionally overdone, and I think it’s gorgeous in it’s overdoneness.
In context, I think the Anon you refer to meant “Eurotrash fop” in gentle mockery: “and we need diversity in an ocean of white Eurotrash fops!” There’s a sense of humor there in the image of a literal ocean of heavily made-up people, all jostling together in their fancy clothes.
^This is a crowd pic from the Shining which I brightened up to make it more of an ocean of fancy-dressed white people, which is what Anon was basically talking about. I think in the Shining it was mocking the crowd as an ocean of faces, too, that Jack Torrance had been swallowed by the Overlook and blends in
A human sub-phylum characterized by its apparent affluence, worldliness, social affectation and addiction to fashion. Males are characterized by a semi-slovenly appearance (including half-shaven faces), greasy hair, rib-hugging shirts, tight jeans and loafers worn without socks. Women are easily distinguished by anorexia, over-bleached hair, gaudy jewelry, plastic surgery (particularly breast-enlargement) and their attachment to the male species. Both sexes greet each other with “air kisses,” immediately speak of their last trip (often Paris, Rome, Majorca), spend hours at “see-and-be-seen” restaurants and exhibit a world-weariness and pained sense of irony.
^Sounds about right as far as I know the word, although harsher in judgement than actual living people I’ve known who shamelessly self-identified as Eurotrash.
Fop became a pejorative term for a foolish man excessively concerned with his appearance and clothes in 17th-century England. Some of the very many similar alternative terms are coxcomb,[1] fribble, popinjay (meaning ‘parrot’), fashion-monger, and ninny. Macaroni was another term, of the 18th century, more specifically concerned with fashion.
A modern-day fop may also be a reference to a foolish person who is excessively concerned about his clothing, luxuries, minor details, refined language and leisurely hobbies. He is generally incapable of engaging in conversations, activities or thoughts without the idealism of aesthetics or pleasures.
^Both of those words sound like they could apply to many of the VC characters.
I’ll repeat myself: When we joke about characters, that’s not to say that that’s always a negative act. Look, we’re currently dragging Lestat bc he said IN CANON that he loved being called a “slut,” which is really more of a layered commentary on shaming people for enjoying sex/intimacy, and he refuses to be shamed for it, he’ll turn around and take it as a compliment instead 😉 Same goes for calling him a “Eurotrash fop.” It’s teasing. It’s intended to amuse. It falls under Dark Humor or Black Comedy. If that’s not your thing, that’s fine, but it is a thing, and I like that thing.
A form of humor involving a twist or joke making the joke seen as offensive, harsh, horrid. Yet the joke is still funny. You need to have pension for dark humor in order to find it truly funny. In a way, it could be seen as the jokes are so horrible in their twist that it makes it funny.
Black comedy,also known as dark comedy or gallows humor,is a comic style that makes light of subject matter that is generally considered taboo, particularly subjects that are normally considered serious or painful to discuss such as death. Some comedians use it as a tool for exploring vulgar issues, thus provoking discomfort and serious thought as well as amusement in their audience. Popular themes of the genre include violence (murder, abuse, domestic violence, rape, torture, war, genocide, terrorism, corruption), discrimination (chauvinism, racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia), disease (anxiety, depression, suicide, nightmares, drug abuse, mutilation, disability, terminal illness, insanity), sexuality (sodomy, homosexuality, incest, infidelity, fornication), religion and barbarism.
a lot of young people say that fanfic made them think abuse was okay, and I think it’s disingenuous to say they’re all lying. but why is this suddenly a problem? this is my theory as to why it’s no longer an understood thing that fandom is about fiction & fantasy.
really good stuff
I’ve said it before– if young people are getting their primary education on consent and sexual relationships from fandom they have already been failed.
And I say this as someone who got my primary education on consent and sexual relationships from fandom, and for whom it worked out pretty well. I mined a ton of good stuff out of fandom and discussions around fandom. But the fact that there was a void of education in my life that I had to fill on my own is not on fandom. That’s on society and rape culture and our puritanical education system.
[First post is screenshots of a twitter thread; here’s the text of it.]
something I think about a lot is how fandom talks to each other.
i suppose that’s obvious, but not just the antagonistic vitriol. the hyper-ramps of joy feedback can produce similarly hyperbolic language.
almost a year ago I got a multi-comment ask from an anti who told me that ‘bad ships’ almost led them into some real life abusive situations in her dating life. I didn’t respond because I wanted to think about it. and while the framework of my feelings was formed 1 month later–
–I’ve been fleshing that out ever since. because she’s not alone in saying this happened – she read smutfic and later felt her impressions were screwed up by them – but why? why is this suddenly a complaint?
and i think it has a lot to do with evolving internet culture interacting poorly with fandom culture and young people looking for easy answers to complicated questions. for instance:
-young women&/or afab people grow up with specific toxic messages targeted at them about sex/purity
a lot of shit mixes together & it’s not weird for afab people to be disgusted by their body &/or come away with dark sex/violence mishmashes brewing in the hindbrain. may or may not be kinks later, but like. USians, think about how sex & violence (towards afab/women) is tied together.
(transphobia adding a WHOLE NEW FUN LEVEL to this, too. trans (&nb) people 10,000% included in this, in case it’s not clear to anyone.) -all the taboo around expressing sexual ideas, esp if you’re not a cis man, makes it hard to express yourself. -then fandom: mostly afab, full of kink
-majority afab and/or women, kink-friendly fandom functions like a release valve for a lot of people. & though it was never explicitly said by anyone I remember, there was always a kind of understanding this was the case: a safe place for women/afab people to be crass and sexual–
–objectifying fictional characters instead of being objectified, exploring sexual fantasies in safe spaces, etc etc. people in fandom would express filthy ideas & wants! it was afab people &/or women being as frank & open about their fantasy lives as cis men could be everywhere else.
but it was also understood that everything in fandom was fictional. like: of course rape is bad, nobody wants rape to happen, but fantasies are fantasies. live it out on a fictional character who can’t be hurt! good way to blow off some steam.
& because this was understood, people talked about kinks – some really taboo, some things that would be very harmful or abusive or illegal irl – without restraint or qualifications. they weren’t needed! fandom was for fiction. say the gross thing, nobody’s judging!
and that was all well and good as long as we were all working off the same context: fandom is for fiction. this is where we put stuff that’s not safe irl. but.
but.
tumblr.
tumblr is a viral sharing platform. every post you make can be boosted independent of its original context. & when you remove all this frank, salacious, unqualified talk about fictional characters from the context of ‘it’s fiction’ and ‘it’s not for rl for good reason’: well.
fandom got visible on tumblr in a new way. tumblr dropped the barriers to entering fandom. and starting in 2012/2013, tumblr entrants had grown up in a world where the internet had been around *their whole lives*. 9/11 happened when they were a /fetus/.
and 2011-2013 fandom tumblr is an unholy, indistinct mix of real life activism, awareness, and …. posts about how sexy Dave Strider is. in exactly the same kinds of tones we used on lj, in fandom-only – fiction-only – spaces.
I can see how baby fans got the wrong idea.
without necessarily knowing it was happening, fandom – in moving to tumblr – went from a delineated safe space for non-cis-male sexual fantasy indulgence to being – for newcomers at least – indistinguishable from the sexual noise they grew up with, except probably more appealing.
losing shared context by being diluted on tumblr means young people could encounter fandom fantasy content independent of the ‘we let it hang out here b/c we’re not allowed to otherwise’ subtext. Mixed well with the much nastier toxic messages of rl & mass media & get a nasty mess.
i don’t want to spoil the punchline, but the reason non-cis-men are more in need of a safe space retreat than cis men is b/c of misogyny. so you’ll never guess what happened when fandom’s version of that space got diluted into pop culture!
(radfems! also misogyny.)
2012/13 tumblr gets a 1-2 punch: structural patriarchy: women who openly like sex are dirty sluts! they raise & teach kids how to be good adults! they’re pure! radfems: women who openly like kinks are feeding into female oppression! women teach women to be good adults! they’re pure!
2012/12 tumblr recognizes the structural punch, kinda, but disguised as Girl Power, they don’t see the second one coming. Bam! fandom – mostly made up of afab people and/or women – is suddenly awful for letting itself be sexually expressive! it abandoned the teaching post!
softened up by structural oppression of non-cis-(straight-white)-male sexuality, young fandom went down like a stone to the idea that women should be teaching other women how to be good women and Good Women Don’t Do Kinks Or Men (add heaping tablespoons of transphobia/racism/etc)
this got out of hand like always, god. but long story short: young fandom didn’t – doesn’t – see how society sets them up for abusive relationships, sexual disasters, and toxic predation. so they look back at fandom – in dialogue with all that grossness – and conclude:
‘the people in fandom failed me.’ – fandom was supposed to teach them how to be safe – society tells them that’s the job of ‘women’. but fandom wasn’t being a mom, and therefore if they weren’t safe it was fandom’s fault.
these people who were abused using fandom as a tool, or feel like they were vulnerable because of fanworks: fanfic didn’t make them that way. it just feels natural to blame it because it’s hard to see the power structure you live in, and it’s hard to admit to being helpless.
the fanworks are easy to point to and blame because they’re fiction. It’s the same reason video games were easy to blame for violence. it feels so clean and straightforward, and it doesn’t require dismantling a whole power system – a whole culture – to get rid of.
but it’s not the fiction.
(here’s the hard part.)
if fandom contributed to the toxic messages about sexuality absorbed by younger members, it’s because of continuing to talk about fictional characters like we were in those old, delineated ‘fantasy only/it’s just fiction’ spaces–
– after the shift to tumblr. and frankly, tumblr is not that kind of delineated space: it’s also an activist space (or was one), and an awareness space.
non-cis-male sexual fantasies about fictional characters & rl social activism/awareness do not mix well, as we’ve seen.
and that contribution was a small, small part, probably: fandom is so queer, so non-cis, so non-straight, so disabled and neurodivergent that our influence on everything but tumblr is really small.
but because we’re not a power structure, we’re easy to point to & tear down.
and we’ve been trained by society to blame our troubles on those we can get at and hurt instead of blaming the very way our cultures are built. hurting other vulnerable people is easy. dismantling the earth under our feet is hard. (why do u think radfems focus on fixing women?)
to wrap up: fandom isn’t perfect by a long shot, and one thing we can do to protect ourselves from harm is assume the best of others and try to put things we see into context.
we can also fuck up white cis male patriarchy instead of each other. (screw the system.) /end
Race. *sigh* I keep revisiting this ask, and each time I do I feel more and more like I don’t want to engage as there are so many landmines.
I didn’t get into fandom for landmines, and so I maneuver around them, and the reason I’m answering this at all is for those who are thinking about topics like these but are too afraid to respond for fear of the landmines.
I’m responding bc I feel like if sharing my perspective could make just one person feel better about this, then it’s worth the risk and worth my time and effort.
I’m up for Daniel being Black in the adaptation. His race isn’t mentioned specifically in the books, and we need diversity in an ocean of white Eurotrash fops! I don’t see any reason why not and Bryan cast the lead in American Gods as black so I’m hopeful to see some good changes in Anne’s work. What do you think?
^Here’s one person who wants to cast Daniel as POC/Black, and they seemed to be accentuating the positive. They want diversity. They compared him to the lead from American Gods being cast as black. I don’t watch that show so I don’t know if that character is the “butt of crazy jokes” or only has value being attached to another character, but it seems to me, at face value, that this Anon thinks that Daniel being cast as POC/Black is parallel with the lead of another series being cast as POC/Black, this Anon states that as being a good change.
I answered that Anon more in depth with some historical context, so you can look at that response, but basically, Anne is open to casting POC for VC characters. I’m open to it! I trust in whoever is running the adaptation to produce it in a tasteful and respectful way, and updating it to be inspiring and satisfying to a wider audience would be great, however that happens.
TL:DR; I think people do care about Daniel, and would love to see a character that they care about, like Daniel, be cast as a POC as a good thing. Daniel is not perfect (none of them are! Except Mojo) but he has many positive traits: he’s clever, resourceful, sassy, charismatic, capable of loving and being loved in return. I think people would love for the adaptation to show that those traits can absolutely be found in POC, too. We do need more positive representation like that.
Reminder that this is a fandom blog for entertainment and I am not here to make/agree/disagree with political statements that are potentially inflammatory. Not my focus. But I will address your points to some extent.
Speaking to the connotations of race, it’s interesting that people in the fandom want to make Daniel the black character
I haven’t seen an enormous amount of people in the fandom wanting this change, I think one blog is dedicated to it? I’ve mostly seen interest and support for casting a POC as Akasha, since that casting in movie!QOTD was pretty widely praised. I see people talking about considering casting other characters as POC, but I don’t see anyone other than Akasha as being the main character of interest for that.
One could criticize that choice as being bad, as it could imply that POC/Black women are villains, bc she was a villain in that movie. That’s not the message I took from that casting choice, but one could easily argue that that was a message being sent (and therefore, Bad representation, even though she was cast as a character in a position of power).
when for so many years, a goodly bulk of this fandom has only attributive Daniel as having any value to the story when he’s attached to Armand, or made him the butt of crazy jokes.
“for so many years” covers decades of time, these books have been around since 1976. Reflecting back to when I started in this in 1993 (which was already almost 20 yrs late), I can’t say that any character has escaped being the butt of crazy jokes in all this time, and with the nature of shipping, many of the characters seem to only have value when attached to other characters.
Re: shipping: it seems like ships are more prevalent in fanworks than fanworks portraying the characters on their own, and so it may give the impression that fandom “prefers the characters as part of a ship,” but personally, I think of shipping as the collision of 2 (or more) characters, to see how they’ll interact: in happiness, sadness, anger, all the different ways! Writing about a ship can allow a fanartist/writer/etc. to explore how each member of the ship will react in
actions/words/etc.
to the other’s actions/words/etc. So I can see how you might get the impression that “Daniel only has value as being attached to Armand,” but I think it’s more about how Daniel presents himself when he is with Armand, that’s what the fanworks are exploring.
Along those lines, however you interpret that ship, the bulk of Daniel’s post-IWTV “screentime” was in QOTD, with Armand, and after that, Daniel doesn’t get much action in canon until the more recent books (but even then, not as much as in QOTD). As the fandom does tend to ship Daniel with Armand, and plenty of it that I’ve seen (especially in fanart) is somewhat fluffy, again, I can see why you might get the impression that “he’s only valued when attached to Armand,” but really, I think Daniel/Armand shippers are fascinated with the dynamic of that ship. It’s rarely fluffy in canon. So some of them make fanworks for wish fulfillment, and that’s valid.
Personally, I don’t think Daniel’s only value to the story is when he’s attached to Armand, but again, he spends most of his time in canon with Armand, maybe that’s why the fandom doesn’t tend to write him on his own time separately.
Re: being the “butt of crazy jokes”: As a side note, when we joke about characters, that’s not to say that that’s always a negative act. Look, we’re currently dragging Lestat bc he said IN CANON that he loved being called a “slut,” which is really more of a layered commentary on shaming people for enjoying sex/intimacy, and he refuses to be shamed for it, he’ll turn around and take it as a compliment instead 😉
I’ve been in this fandom for over 20 years and I don’t think Daniel has gotten the worst treatment in those terms, it seems to me that there have been waves of love/interest/disdain/mockery of most of the main (and side) characters at different points in time, and from different groups of fans. So that may be your experience, and that’s absolutely valid, but I haven’t seen it that way. Of all the characters, I think Lestat probably gets the worst of being the butt of crazy jokes and he likes it bc bad attention is better than no attention.
It seems awfully suspicious to me that the “best’ character” to be cast as a POC is the one so many have considered the throw-away one. If that doesn’t speak volumes, I don’t know what does.
I’m sorry, but I have to disagree here, too. I wouldn’t say he’s a throw-away character for the whole fandom. There are Daniel RPers. As I’ve mentioned, it happens that he doesn’t have a lot of action in canon other than in books 1 (as just the interviewer, but it counts!) and 3, so the fandom does not have as much canon to work with as they do for other characters.
And again, re: the fandom choosing him as “the best character” to be cast as a POC, that seems to be Akasha, from what I’ve seen.
The reason I love Only Lovers Left Alive is it shows that a character (Adam) can be severely mentally ill, in this case depressed and suicidal, and still be seen as lovable and capable of being loved and loving in return without being “cured” of their mental illness, and that a mentally ill character can have other attributes aside from being mentally ill while still showing the impact being mentally ill has on his personality.
Adam from OLLA is an extremely important character to me you guys.
Similarly, I think people would love to see a character that they care about, like Daniel, be cast as a POC as being POC is often portrayed negatively in media. Fans of a POC being cast as Daniel would want (I’m paraphrasing from above):
to see
Daniel
showing that a character can be POC, in this case black, and still be seen as lovable and capable of being loved and loving in return, and that a POC character can have other attributes aside from being POC while still showing the impact being POC has on his personality.
Daniel Molloy from VC is an extremely important character to me you guys.
So one of the things in VC is that these vampires are like sappy emotional goofballs and there’s a reoccurring theme of love transcending traditional boundaries. It’s also implied over and over that they experience love on a level that is unfathomable to us as MERE MORTALS because of their big magical vampire brains.
I do think their relationships in general can be looked at on an individual basis and their history dictates the sort of tone there—I think they’re all just super extra and will always refer to companions as lovers even when there are dramatic qualitative differences in their relationship dynamics—like for example Louis & Armand strike me as a more traditional couple model, vs. Marius & Daniel strike me more in a father/son way because Marius takes care of him. Though, it’s a little hard to speculate because we don’t see a lot of them together. But! In this world, with the love transcending boundaries blah blah, it doesn’t mean they aren’t lovers in this universe and this context, because you see the same with Louis & Claudia or Lestat & Gabrielle. And even though there are a lot of areas in the stories where sex is implied through symbolism and coding and whatever there isn’t literal sex, so when you take sex out of the equation it’s a little easier to apply these broader definitions of love to these pairs of characters. And you see it over and over again that they never just like someone, or have a crush on someone. They’re just constantly ~IN LOVE~ with each other and they’re all so obsessed with how beautiful everyone is lol.
But also re: blood/sex !!!
Something I noticed in VC fandom is that there’s sort of a spectrum of how literally people take the blood=sex thing, and when you also combine that with the spectrum of people’s sexuality and sex positivity I think we come up with some varying interpretations of these stories and characters. I’m not here to say that anyone else is wrong. This is a place where interpretation is key and it’s something so personal and that people feel so strongly about that I don’t think authorial intent often changes anyone’s minds. And having the freedom to interpret literature and art the way you want to is something that makes it enjoyable.
Again, I think we have to take individual characters or ships into consideration with some of these questions. Like, were they feeding intimately? Until Louis v.2.0 showed up I don’t think he was. Marius and Daniel feed on each other but Marius is always very generous with his blood with his lovers because he wants them to be strong and safe. I don’t think the vampires can share blood WITHOUT it being intimate but it’s important to decide what you think “intimate” means. Because bloodsharing can be compared to sex, which is intimate in its own way, but i also see it being akin to breastfeeding, and that’s super intimate too. We have ways of knowing that these two things are different versions of intimacy and obviously the vampires would, too. But then, again, there’s the idea that the way they love each other is so much bigger than just being about sex, and their definition of intimacy is something much more infinite than we can comprehend. It’s also worth acknowledging that when they share blood they’re literally opening up a stream of their own thoughts and emotions, which is something that we IRL only experience on an implied or symbolic level when we have intimate moments with real people in our lives. So their version of intimacy is a lot more complex due to the literal mechanics of what happens to them and also that they’re canonically just super emotionally intuitive.
But like, for me? I’m happy to play along and suspend my disbelief when I read VC and accept that I have a tiny pathetic human brain and that they’re experiencing something too profound for me to understand. I accept that they love each other on a deep level where it doesn’t matter if their relationship resembles a traditional couple vs a parent and child. That Louis can consider Claudia his lover or that Lestat can consider Gabrielle his lover because of the intimacy they share is a symbol to me that they are above petty human labels, because they are not human.
Every now and then I see discussions where the blood is reduced to sex on such a literal level and it strikes me as being really crude, and to me it does a huge disservice to one of the things I love the most about this series. And that’s, yknow, like I said, something that can vary to a degree between different people. I’m a very sex-positive person, but I’m also asexual. I don’t like reducing intimacy to meaning sex. So “lovers” to me doesn’t necessarily mean sex partners and it also doesn’t necessarily mean blood sharers, either. Like we know that Louis wouldn’t take blood from the others, which tells me he didn’t try it with Lestat or Armand pre-2000. That doesn’t mean he and Armand weren’t lovers. I think it often just means “I love this person, therefore they are my lover.”
You could take the ~just dudes being bros~ attitude to them or to any set of vampires living together if you really wanted to but I really think they’re such sappy motherfuckers that they wouldn’t spend so much time around each other if they weren’t in love, with or without blood to complicate it. I also think the overuse of the word lover is an expansion on romance and not a reduction of it, so in any case where a romantic pairing is ambiguous because of the language I think it’s always better to err on the side of them being in love.
Having said all that I will also say I’m super dying to know more about what goes on at Trinity Gate with Benji and Sybelle and we just DON’T HAVE ENOUGH INFORMATION TO KNOW. I’m curious to see if the coven/family-like nature of the household diffuses the intensity between them, especially if Louis is around to keep Armand occupied.
So! Anyway.
Kind of a hard question to answer because I think you have to take everyone on a case-by-case basis but I would definitely say that they all feel really big passionate feelings and don’t have casual crushes on each other. If they’re living together they’re probably in love with each other, in some ridiculous vampire way that doesn’t really make any sense to me.
Why the fuck do I talk so much when I answer asks idk but
TLDR I think companion and lover are often used interchangeably in VC because these vampires are clingy dramatic saps and that they have a really liberal definition of “lover” and apply it in ways that we don’t as real people in the real world.
Something I noticed in VC fandom is that there’s sort of a spectrum of how literally people take the blood=sex thing, and when you also combine that with the spectrum of people’s sexuality and sex positivity I think we come up with some varying interpretations of these stories and characters. I’m not here to say that anyone else is wrong. This is a place where interpretation is key and it’s something so personal and that people feel so strongly about that I don’t think authorial intent often changes anyone’s minds. And having the freedom to interpret literature and art the way you want to is something that makes it enjoyable.
…
But like, for me? I’m happy to play along and suspend my disbelief when I read VC and accept that I have a tiny pathetic human brain and that they’re experiencing something too profound for me to understand. I accept that they love each other on a deep level where it doesn’t matter if their relationship resembles a traditional couple vs a parent and child. That Louis can consider Claudia his lover or that Lestat can consider Gabrielle his lover because of the intimacy they share is a symbol to me that they are above petty human labels, because they are not human.
^Now, if anyone wants to define the vampires with human labels and definitions, that’s absolutely fine. You do you!
I’m going to stray slightly from Anon’s ask, and focus more on the larger aspect of categorizing/analyzing//judging/defining, bc looking for concrete differences between (A)“they are considered to be lovers” when (B) “they could be just friends,” and really, I think like all questions directed at clarifying VC ships/characters/plot/etc., it’s in the eye of the beholder/reader’s interpretation of the text and discussing it with others, if they choose to, like in sending an ask to me, @monstersinthecosmos, or anyone else.
On Analysis:
When Anne Rice said, “You’re interrogating the text from the wrong perspective!!! ;A; ” we all laughed. We still do, bc it sounded then, as it does now, at face value, like she’s a child stomping her feet and telling us we were judging her works objectivelyunfairly. That any negative or critical reviews could be labeled altogether as bullying, more or less.
…But really, over time, I’ve come to see this statement more as: “If you interrogate/criticize/analyze the text with a lens/rubric that the author was
(a)
not aware of, (b) not subscribed to, or (c.) was not a consideration during or preceding the time the work was written, you are very likely to find the text disappointing, and it will fail your judgment.” I think that Anne took it personally when fans were disappointed bc of this, but she steadfastly refused to accept guilt for disappointing them, and I admire her for sticking to her guns on that. There are fans who want her to include more POC, there are fans who insist that Lestat is straight, there are fans who want her to denounce all the VC and witch books bc they depict vampires and witches in a favorable light, etc. Since she cannot please everyone, she pleases her biggest fan only: herself.
I found a rubric for grading art (from thevirtualinstructor.com), probably for students in elementary or middle school, probably between 6-13 years old, I assume “S” means “student” and “T” means “teacher” but I can’t find the actual post about it, ANYWAY…
^So this is ONE example of a means of judging a work, and honestly, for a child, I’d say it’s sufficient. I would rearrange and add a lot more it to judge an adult, but it would depend on the adult. Maybe something like Effort, which might seem to only apply to children, would still be a factor for someone recovering from surgery or doing art as therapy.
ANYWAY, so if you reread @monstersinthecosmos‘s post there is so much to consider, especially re: the way we define “lover” and “companion” being very much in line with what I’ve added here, considering the rubric/lens from which we judge VC.
The questions then become:
Are you looking to be disappointed? Are you looking to be impressed? What do you need from a fictional work?
^And I think the answers to these will be different for everyone. In my experience, it’s been more enjoyable for me to take VC for what it is, and take pleasure in the acceptance, corrections, and/or manipulations (like AUs) of canon to fandom through fanworks and respectful discussion.
To my mind, when the word of the author is not even the authority, and there are unreliable narrators, no one’s opinion supercedes anyone else’s, no matter how hard they might try to push you to agree with them. Curate your experience with fandom and your own headcanons.
“Ballet embraces the soft, ethereal and majestic side to women, and yet we often don’t see the media portray black women in this light. My project aims to reveal that women of color possess these qualities. We too are capable of portraying the princess, fairy and swan.”
—Aesha Ash
Aesha Ash’s prestigious career has included world class roles. Yet she’s now on to a different mission, with three big goals. She wishes to see ballet become more diverse. She hopes to inspire youth from rough areas to pursue their dreams. And she wants to show the world that tough environments can’t hold back talented people, especially those with ambition.
Aesha performed professionally for 13 years. She attended the legendary School of American Ballet; joined the New York City Ballet at age 18; and has danced solo and principal roles for companies like the Béjart Ballet in Lausanne, Switzerland, and the Alonzo King Lines Ballet in San Francisco. Now she’s focused on The Swan Dreams Project, in which she uses imagery to tackle stereotypes placed on black women. Aesha commissions photographers to snap her as a ballerina in her hometown of rugged Rochester, New York, and in Richmond, California, and then donates proceeds from photo sales to organizations helping advance inner city youth. She also donates images to organizations for their fundraisers and to people seeking more positive imagery for their children or groups.
The dancer points out that black women have always existed in ballet, yet few become principals, the highest tier of dancers. When Misty Copeland became the first black female principal with the prestigious American Ballet Theatre last summer, Aesha found the milestone a moment to celebrate, yet sad and troubling that in 2016, we’re still celebrating a first. She hopes The Swan Dreams project will give more dancers — and youths in general — the chance to be celebrated for their own talents.
Rochester has one of America’s highest crime rates. But Aesha hits the streets to prove that her hometown is more than violence and gangs. That’s where her Swan Dreams Project comes in. “My community saw that out of our environment came a ballerina, not just negativity — a little black girl from inner city Rochester actually went on to become a professional ballet dancer in a top-tiered company,” Aesha said in a one-on-one interview for this report. “Youth followed me on the street saying, ‘This is what we need. This lifts us up.’”
(The temptation to drop this image and post is pretty strong but I’ll go on just a little more in the remote chance that you’re being serious.)(But really when you look at him, there’s pain there, in addition to the humor he’s trying to cover it up with, what he’s actually saying here is pretty flippant “We’re lucky to have such a home,” No honey, it’s not luck and you know it, but that’s a discussion for another time.)
NO CUTS WE LONGPOST LIKE MEN
I’ve been there, Anon, and at least in my case, I’m an adult and I don’t live with my parents, so I don’t need them to also like what I like, and I don’t need their approval to like the things that I like, but I remember feeling so validated when they DID like what I liked. I had a very good relationship with my parents over and above the fact that I admired them and respected their opinions on pretty much everything.
I talked about VC when I lived with them and they were receptive when I needed them to clarify things for me that
I didn’t understand at 11 years old. But this is the case with every piece of media and every new thing that I came across as I was growing up and all the way to currently, they were and are a valuable resource and sounding board for my developing ideas.
Sometimes I brought up VC to illustrate a point. Like Armand’s line in the movie was pretty motivational and helped me immensely when I was a bullied kid and needed confidence:
~We must be powerful, beautiful, and without regret.~
^Which Louis rejects bc he knows that regret absolutely does have value, especially to him in that scene. But I think, isolated, I took it as:
“You’re carrying too much regret, wallowing in guilt is not working for you, and you need to let go of those things that are out of your control now, past mistakes are in the past, try to learn from them and do better, move on and you can be happier.”
And I think that while my parents may not have been thrilled that I loved a series that centered around murderers, they had no issue with it as long as I wasn’t taking inspiration from it out in the backyard sacrificing rats to Louis or whatever! We would watch reruns of the Twilight Zone, Unsolved Mysteries, the X-Files, plenty of shows with crazy shit happening, we liked the thrill of monster stories, murder mysteries, all that stuff that takes you to dark places safely. Stories that didn’t shy away from exploring the various aspects of crime, accidents, monsters, and we talked about all of it! As we did then and still do, the lively debates about these things were and are very intellectually stimulating.
I don’t know how old you are, but do you agree with your parents that you talk about VC too much? I think it depends on what you’re saying when you talk about VC. It’s a work of fiction, if it’s making you unhappy you can chuck it out the window. If it’s making you happy, then keep talking about it.
There are those who have asked Anne Rice to denounce the VC. When she returned to religion, there were Christians who felt that writing about ghosts, witches, and vampires was very wrong and bad, with no consideration as to the actual content of her books. There are so many more reasons for censorship out there. Some ppl might want to censor her books for daring to suggest that the same gender person can love the same gender person, and I know from conversations with other fans that it was a heartbreaking epiphany, to find fictional characters who could do that, that simple and natural thing, those readers who identified with that felt validated and relieved that someone was writing about it, someone was finally accepting them. It helped some of them realize that they were not alone.
VC brought people together for what it contains, it continues to bring people together, I have met some of my best friends through VC. One of them I have driven my claws into and will not release has stuck with me for over 20 years, my first Real Life VC friend, and we met because I saw her reading QOTD on the bus to school. How dark and miserable my life would be without her.
Censorship, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.
I have to bring it up for the millionth time, #sorry not sorry. I’ll bring it up until my dying breath.
Censorship has become a bat some fans use to bludgeon other fans. I can’t support the crusaders who on a daily basis want to shame other fans for liking fictional characters. Despite their flaws, there are characters that have inspired readers. There are characters who have saved lives by opening readers’ eyes to the beauty of living.
Knowing what I know now, I think it would be hard for me to decide whether to let a child of mine read these books at the age that I did, and yet, I started to read them when I was 11 and I loved them. I think as long as a reader of any age has someone(s) they can rely on for clarification, then the books can be read. They can be discussed. They can inspire.
What is storytelling? In so many forms, whether it’s sculpture, painting, music, theatre, TV, movies, books, cave-painting… It’s sharing one’s own experience, trying to spin straw into gold, trying to find the silver lining, trying to tell one’s story to exorcise one’s own demons, and maybe, to try to give others the tools to exorcise theirs, too.
I hope your parents can see that when you talk about it, you’re looking for a connection with them, whether to share your impressions or get their feedback and clarification as they have more life experience than you do. Many parents miss out on the best part of having kids, which is the mutual sharing of ideas and perspectives. Mine knew it. I hope you have the kind of parents who know that, too.
Yep, Anne reversed her opinion on Tom’s performance, but she did not care for QOTD.
Someone out there might have more time-relevant sources to link to (reblog/comment if you do!), I found this vid on YT from 2009, looks like Anne released it herself, so she can speak to this in her own words.
“Well, I didn’t care for the movie of “the Queen of the Damned” at all. I begged the studio not to make that movie. I told them that the readers really didn’t want that movie, what they wanted was a was a movie based on “The Vampire Lestat,” the second book in the series, and the studio went on and made the movie, and the movie was not really based on my work. They used the names of the characters, but they replaced original material with material that they had written for them by a scriptwriter. And the movie was a great disappointment to most of my readers.
“I still get letters to this day asking me why I let it happen and, of course, I couldn’t control it there was nothing I could do. They had the right as a studio to make that movie in and there was nothing I could do to prevent it.”
^So that’s Anne’s opinion.
You didn’t ask but it’s relevant to note that the fandom (as a whole and as individuals) went through some or all of these stages w/ that movie
over time:
When it was announced, the old guard were excited about it (did you know that in 2000 Wes Bentley was being considered for the role of Lestat??), I know bc I photoshopped him blonde and blue-eyed w/ my limited skill-set at the time and No I don’t have that to show you but I DID IT,
Then it came out, and there was disappointment that so much had been changed from canon (BRUNET!LESTAT and WTF MARIUS??? IS LESTAT’S MAKER??? WHAT?! IS??! THIS JESSE/LESTAT SHIP????% DO NOT WANT being primary grievances), the one change we mostly all approved of was Aaliyah’s performance being awesome and her being POC in a series that has few POC (although at the time I don’t recall that second part being as applauded as it is now),
There were waves of bashing the movie, even though we mostly all agreed that Aaliyah was great,
It’s still bashed today (I do it, too, but I try not to be TOO harsh),
^A combo of the above or other reasons, etc.
…AND YET, it also is loved/enjoyed by many in that:
There are ppl in the fandom who were brought in by that movie,
Or enjoyed the soundtrack,
Or find it nostalgic,
Or find it so-awful-its-great (like the Room),
^A combo of the above or other reasons, etc.
Anon, I assume that if you’re asking if Anne ever reversed her opinion on movie!QOTD, you may be looking for her approval on liking it.
Given the above, one can’t really place a value judgment on it bc so many of us have different feelings about it! As I’ve often said, you don’t need the author’s permission to like a thing (movie/book/tv series/other media), you do not need ANYONE’S permission or approval to Like a Thing! So go forth and Like movie!QOTD as much as you want!!
As a positivity exercise, what do y’all like about movie!QOTD? (ﾉ´ヮ´)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧
Oh definitely! And I think you’re right that Armand and Louis would have had their own little moments throughout the time they were together, the art, inventions, social progress, etc. of the early-mid 20th century… there would have been highlights for them, they would have taken little mementos or made records of these times* :,)
I think there’s a reason AR chose to have Lestat effectively sleep through that time period
(”sleep” isn’t quite right, as he was more or less conscious but he was basically in his own little bubble, hiding from the world, buried in comic books). There’s no way Lestat wouldn’t have gained notoriety of some kind if he’d been his usual, confident, glittery-murder-machine self! I think she wanted to skip to the era that fashion and art and all that had really reached a peak that it had been steadily growing towards, and then she would be able to slam it at Lestat in the avalanche that he expresses it is in TVL.
I mean, (skipping over the 1940′s bc WWII, and the world beginning to rebuild itself from war**) the fashion of the 50′s would have been very appealing, the music, the inventions, the art…
^Lestat would have LOVED Elvis’ music, and his iconic pink Cadillac, for sure. Aesthetically, that car was so organic (while also having a touch of space-age smoothness!) and sensuous curves, and the color being so unashamedly bright and joyful following such dark times re: WWII, it was a triumph of the human spirit. I pick this car as iconic of the ‘50′s bc I think it was part of the zeitgeist of that time and had international influence.
^And Elvis’ outfits (which got progressively more glamorous ok Lestat would have copied inspired ALL THOSE LOOKS)
^And then of course James Dean and the Bad Boy/Greaser appeal ;D
Lestat being underground through all this kind of reminds me of the whole god-of-the-grove thing that Marius described the druids imposed on their captive vampires, that the periods during which a vampire rests underground, malnourished, absorbing the world above in a dream-like state, are as natural and cyclical as having autumn & winter precede the vitality of spring & summer. When Lestat rose up in the mid-80s the world was a more vibrant place in many ways than when he’d gone to ground to hibernate, and he was ready to take it all in and join it.
A few more thoughts on all this under the cut, cut for length.
**I had to skip over the 40′s bc I think AR had Lestat out of the picture then for the general policy that she doesn’t address current political conflict in VC.
War is an abstract in the books and I don’t blame her for choosing not to have any of her vampires visibly suiting up for human wars. It would be a complicated thing to tackle, to say the least. How do you explain to your superiors that you have to sleep all day and can fight all night?! How do you choose which side to fight on when you’re providing such an unfair advantage in your preternatural abilities?
That’s partly what the whole confrontation with Akasha in QOTD was about, the VC vampires stating that they have no right to participate in mortal conflicts since they aren’t mortal anymore, and I have to agree on that. Daybreakers had vampire soldiers and idk if that really worked out all that well, I’d have to watch it again to have a proper opinion but I remember it feeling very cringey the whole time I was watching it 😛
^AR acknowledges that Lestat was reading comics from the 1940′s, and I’m sure he had his fave actors like Cary Grant and Humphrey Bogart, and fave actresses (you KNOW HE LOVED JOAN CRAWFORD AND BETTE DAVIS LIKE C’MON). And it seemed like those comics helped to get his spark of lust for life back, he wanted to be the Good Guy he saw in those comics. I’m not well-read on those, but from what I understand about them, the Good Guy made mistakes, and was not necessarily all that civilized all the time, but he tried to be good, and usually succeeded. And he looked good doing it 😉
*Louis/Armand for 100 years: This was probably somewhat like what Armand later did with learning about the world with/through Daniel, but I think Armand held back with Louis for many reasons, partly bc it seemed like Louis/Armand was so fragile. Armand learned that holding back like that can weaken an already tenuous connection (what good did all that holding back really do for either of them?) so I think that’s why we see Armand being more outwardly curious/open-minded with Daniel; the reward for revealing yourself is that you give a person more reason to stay with you, as much as it is the risk of giving them more reason to leave you, but that’s partly how you strengthen the relationship ❤
Oh man, that is a lot to ask, and you’re correct in that I have not consumed a wide range of vampire media, especially in terms of historical/geographical/etc.
“A cliché or cliche is an expression, idea, or element of an artistic work which has become overused to the point of losing its original meaning or effect, even to the point of being trite or irritating, especially when at some earlier time it was considered meaningful or novel.”
Vampire fiction is so varied and has so many different rules compared to its first inception that I think it’s pretty free of ideas/elements that have “become overused to the point of losing their original meaning or effect, even to the point of being trite or irritating.”
One cliché is the “I vaaant to suck your blooood!” line that a vampire might say to a victim, originating in vampire movies from decades ago, but it’s more of a comical thing now. It can also be modified slightly to increase the comedy:
I will say that some of my fave vampire media takes existing clichés and/or rules/conventions about vampires, and interprets it in a different way or ignores it completely.
I think it’s more important to consider existing conventions/rules, and how your vampires will operate within them, if at all. I have some stuff mixed into my #vampire physiology tag, but not a complete list.
A few conventions/rules are already widely varied in different vampire media:
Vampires can’t walk around in sunlight –
In most vampire media, vampires exposing themselves to sunlight will get them severely burned or killed immediately.
In Byzantium, I think they can walk around in sunlight with no problems at all.
In Twilight, the vampires are physically able to do so, but they’re dazzling in the sunlight, so they stand out as non-human when they do (and that’s bad bc revealing themselves as non-human could risk harm from mortals).
Vampires require blood to survive, but they are immortal, so “survive” is more like, “a healthy vampire is one that is feeding on a regular basis, but it’s not a requirement.” – I can’t think of an example of vampires that die from not drinking blood regularly… but I think the What We Do in the Shadows and Only Lovers Left Alive vampires will rapidly weaken if they don’t feed often.
Vampires don’t have reflections in mirrors – the Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992), What We Do in the Shadows, and
Only Lovers Left Alive
vampires
don’t have reflections, but the Interview with the Vampire ones definitely do.
Vampires have to be invited into their victim’s home – Only seen this being an issue in the two adaptations of Let the Right One In.
Vampires are harmed by crosses/crucifixes – Saw this as an issue in the What We Do in the Shadows vampires, that it frightens Deacon that he might be in close proximity to a cross, but it’s unclear what would happen if he touched it. In Fright Night, a vampire touching a cross ignites it in flames but it doesn’t seem to stop him from continuing to attack.
So what I’m saying is that you can explore different conventions/rules of vampires and then pick and choose which you’ll incorporate into your vampires, or invent whole new rules!
UPDATE: Got an anon message adding to the this post, here’s their info: (I reformatted their answer into nicer formatting than asks allow)
Regarding sunlight: In the original Dracula novel, sunlight actually didn’t hurt vampires, but it neutralized their powers. Dracula couldn’t transform while the sun was up, except at dawn, exact noon, and sunset, but as I recall, he still had his superhuman strength/speed/etc and was able to flee our team of heroes.
Regarding needing blood but being immortal: In Dracula and some other media, the vampires not only weaken, but age if they don’t feed. In the novel, Dracula looks like an old man when Harker first meets him, but turns young as he feeds regularly.
Regarding crucifixes: I’ve seen a instances with twists on this relating to faith. In one, the crucifix was harmless because the person using it had weak faith in God. In another, crosses and such only hurt the vampire if the vampire feared them, and faith was considered truly frightening. Two of the vampires went to church regularly to keep up their human guise, and one of them holds a cross in his hand with no issue, but a younger vampire is too scared of a cross to pick it up.
I-want-my-IWTV 
