01. Nine Inch Nails – Help Me I Am in Hell 02. Chelsea Wolfe – Carrion Flowers 03. Soap&Skin – Sugarbread 04. The Toxic Avenger – Gloomy Sunday 05. Floex – Veronika’s Dream 06. Dead When I Found Her – Misericordia 07. Alcest – Kodama 08. Katatonia – Old Heart Falls 09. Emma Ruth Rundle – Protection 10. Nicole Sabouné – Bleeding Faster 11. Tempers – Strange Harvest (Acoustic) 12. Godspeed You! Black Emperor – East Hastings 13. Elsiane – Beginning of the End 14. Scala & Kolacny Brothers – Piggy
I know that in internet land we all get like, fundraiser fatigue. I don’t reblog every link I see because I would never be able to keep up.
However, this is an old friend of mine who’s been in a shitty abusive relationship for years and it’s just getting really scary. He controls her bank account so we’re having to do this in secret–we have some third parties available to get the money to her when it’s time so that he doesn’t intercept. But he’s getting increasingly violent and this shit needs to fucking stop.
You might also call this fundraiser:
Help Kacy and her Various Goth Friends Avoid Murder Charges Cause I’m Ready to Fucking Vivisect This Fucking Dude
If you can help, even a little, even just sharing, please do. ❤
I usually don’t reblog these bc of the fundraiser fatigue thing, too, and bc it’s hard to know whether they are legit or not, but in this case I met @monstersinthecosmos in the flesh, so if she says this is legit, then I take her word for it. And yeah I’d prefer she and her Various Goth Friends avoid murder charges!
So if you can’t help, signal boost, please. Much appreciated!
I think there are many ways to make a character’s death really sad, and bc we can all have different feelings about a given character, any individual reader will be very sad about the death, when another reader might be totally indifferent (or even glad!). I’ve only written fanfic myself, and I know what makes me sad when I read/write character death, that’s about as informed as I am on the topic, DISCLAIMER: I’m not a professional writer and this is not professional advice.
💀 Some things that come to mind re: making a character’s death really sad: 💀
How they die,
How preventable their death was,
How other characters feel their loss and/or the loss of their potential,
And how much that character meant to the reader/audience, did they like the character?
I don’t know what specifically you’re doing in the Memnoch timeline… I won’t use any examples of deaths from that book in case of spoilers (Idk sometimes I’m more respectful about spoiling ppl than other times *shrugs*)
In IWTV, it was a very sad death when Claudia died. It’s portrayed differently in the book(s) and the movie, but I’m just going to address it re: the points above generally and drawing from both.
1. She died by sunlight exposure and it seemed extremely painful.
Louis would not have seen it, so he can’t describe the moment of her death in the book, but it’s shown in the movie. Leading up to the death, the tension builds and builds, all these moments where Louis, Claudia and Madeleine are hoping for Armand (or some other deux ex machina) to swoop in and save them all. It doesn’t happen. Probably one of the last shreds of hope they had was when the troupe pull Louis and Claudia apart, from that point on, he can no longer protect her ;A;
As it was so painfully underscored in Claudia’s Story, the last name Claudia hears Louis call for is “Armand,” bc calling her name won’t do them any good. But to her, it feels like a final betrayal, that he’s calling for Armand bc he cares more about him ;A;
Claudia and Madeleine get locked in the well, and when Claudia sees the sunlight approaching, she’s already starting to cry, trying to wake Madeleine to try to figure out a way out… there is none and then they can only brace themselves bc there IS NO ESCAPE ;A;!! The acceptance of their own deaths is part of the tragedy.
It’s a pretty universally nightmarish situation, even though sunlight is not fatal for ppl (most, anyway), but we can all relate to the experience. It’s like being pushed onto subway tracks and not being able to escape in time ;A;
2. Her death was a failure in diplomacy, basically. The Theatre des Vampires, led by Santiago, held a kangaroo court (although they may have felt that they were within their rights) in which they found Claudia guilty of attempted murder of her maker, and decided to punish her with the death penalty.
Louis tried to protect her from it as best he could, he tried to make a deal to save her life, but failed. In the book:
“ `Listen to me, Lestat,’ I began now. `You let her go, you free her… and I will… I’ll return to you,’ I said, the words sounding hollow, metallic.
3. It kills a part of Louis when Claudia dies. His immediate reaction is extremely sad (not even factoring in the revenge he takes after).
I have a more thorough commentary on this scene here. It’s in this moment that Louis has lost the most precious person, the one who’s told him what to do, someone he could worship and follow, someone who metered out his doses of happiness with her approval. In the movie, he calls her “my child,” Armand tries to correct him: “Your lover,” and Louis compromises with “My beloved.”
In the book, the next night, Louis finds Lestat clutching Claudia’s bloody dress and sobbing over her death, too. Even though he was the very person who testified against her! Even he could not prevent their “justice.”
“And then I saw the thing in [Lestat’s] hands. I knew what it was. And in an instant I’d ripped it from him and was staring at it, at the fragile silken thing that it was – Claudia’s. His hand rose to his lips, his face turned away. And the soft, subdued sobs broke from him as he sat back while I stared at him, while I stared at the dress. My fingers moved slowly over the tears in it, the stains of blood; my hands closing, trembling as I crushed it against my chest.
Louis was expecting Claudia to go on and live with Madeleine, that he would still be in touch with her and see her occasionally. So that potential continued relationship was destroyed, too ;A;
4. What did Claudia mean to the audience/reader…
I know I sympathized with her and very much enjoyed her overall, and I like to think that other readers/viewers agreed, and don’t totally blame her for her actions against Lestat… after all, she was a victim herself. Lestat doesn’t blame her when he speaks of her in canon. We saw the love they both had for her ❤
Is that enough to convince the readers/audience to care enough for her that her death is sad for them? All those factors help!
~💀I hope that helps, Anon! Now make us cry!💀~
OKAY LIKE HI HELLO, I realize I haven’t killed anyone in my fics in a while but my never-gonna-be-fucking-finished novel is about death and grief and was closely based on my own grief process following the deaths of two of my friends in the span of three months so. Here’s what I want to say !!!
The points @i-want-my-iwtv are all super true, but I also want to say that to write an effective death scene or to be affected by a literary death you have to try to empathize with what death really feels like IRL. So, for me? Grieving hinged (and hinges, lbr, it never really goes away) on three things:
The immensity of the concept that you will never see the person again.
That as time goes by it’s not just “missing” them because you won’t see them again but that it’s been longer and longer and longer since the last time you saw them and you miss them the way you can even miss the living that you haven’t seen in a while.
The ruined potential of everything this person had to offer the world.
This is all pretty personal and grief is super emotionally complicated so obviously different people have different experiences and I AM SO EXCITED THAT AS CREATIVE HUMANS WE ALL HAVE WAYS TO EXPRESS WHAT WE INDIVIDUALLY WANT TO SAY ABOUT IT, that’s super special and I think it helps heal people a lot. But to me that’s kinda like how I narrow it down personally.
So when it comes to a story I think it’s going to depend on the POV of the text itself and also if the grief is more directed at other characters or at us as the reader.
Things to consider:
Are you trying to make us sad for US, for our own sake, because we will missing having the character around in canon? Are we attached to them?
Are you trying to make us sad for the survivor(s) of the death who we have grown to love?
In IWTV specially I think the movie does more of a job of letting us care about Claudia as her own person because see her with a bit of a wider frame, vs. the book I think heavily weighs on us caring about Louis and feeling empathy of his loss.
So if you want to make the character’s death “really sad” I think we have to first decide who we’re feeling sad for and go from there. Are we having to survive without them as a reader or are we just empathizing with someone like Louis, that we care about and feel sorry for?
EITHER WAY an important thing to note, whichever approach you take, is that we need to understand the value of this person and what they had to offer and why someone should miss them. If you’re trying to make your reader sad for the character I think it’s important to make sure they are valuable and liked and that we will care that they are gone. I think in the IWTV novel that Claudia is sort of cold and savage and by the time they’re in Paris she’s pretty cruel to Louis, so it’s natural for me not to feel personally affected by her loss, but as a reader I know that Louis is crushed because it’s the loss of his daughter. So even if the character is cold/cruel/unlikable/etc we can still hurt for someone who cares about them anyway.
So.
IDK!
@i-want-my-iwtv had super good points but I also just wanted to add that. Grief and death are messy and horrible and I think the emotional depth and sense of loss makes all the difference.
(TBH I am not current with AO3, so this is a tragically short list, anyone is welcome to reblog/comment with more suggestions, preferably from AO3 bc that site protects its ficwriters. FF.net and Wattpad suggestions are also welcome.)
– Of course I have to start the list off with the collab I did with Rebness/@wicked-felina, Coffeeshop AU. Slow-burn longfic ;D
The Last Drop is technically a few scenes that didn’t fit into the main story, but could be read on their own as stand-alone AU if you’re looking for smtg shorter.
Interview with the Frat Boy the_corinthian – This is a WILD ride, a college AU. It’s silly and unashamed about it’s silliness. A few of its tags say it all: #No Homo #Yes homo #Heavy Drinking #Drunk!Louis #General douchebaggery #several different and uniquely poor kinds of childcare
Interview with a Cannibal or Appointment with a Vampire by (?) – was a Hannibal/VC crossover, so not really an AU, but I can’t find it to link you. Might have been taken down ;A; REMEMBER TO DOWNLOAD AND SAVE FANWORKS U LIKE!!
The Hostile Takeover by StellaMachiavelli (@stellamachiavelliici) – is a legendary fic. “Lestat de Lioncourt is a high-flying businessman out for revenge on ruthless boss Santino, with the help of his best friend David Talbot. There’s just one complication: on Santino’s side is Lestat’s ex, Louis de Pointe du Lac.”
To Die as Lovers May by @goth-mabel inspired this fanart by @13bels, and I haven’t read this series of cis-swapped fics, but @13bels describes it: “very thoughtfully written, drama-filled as our vampires are known to be, and an engaging read, if it’s your cup of tea! Although, it does contain triggering content, so please proceed with caution and read the tags if you haven’t read it and would like to. I enjoyed it especially! I love seeing this trope be experimented with <3″
Absolutely everything had been typical up to the point of Louis arriving at the predetermined rendezvous point, but well bred nerves danced about his shoulders anyway in the familiar icy electricity that had kept him alive and relatively unharmed during every paid tryst he’d attempted. These were the same nerves that saved ancestors walking down muddy colonial streets on a dark night. The same that shivered in the woods when the fire was in sight but the warmth too far away. Well bred nerves.
But now they had been short circuited, as the client who greeted him at the suite looked like nothing to fear at all. Not at first. Doors opened on beguilingly large eyes, a small face he had to tilt his chin down to look at, and someone who looked decided unlike any client he’d had before. At once he leaned back and doubled checked the number but-
“You’re in the right place, come in.”
Louis didn’t lean forward and instead turned his head away, looking down the hall and then side ways at the young man in the door before glancing past him and into the suite for any sign of a set up.
“Louis, come in.”
The man at the door grabbed him by the wrist and when their gazes met those big brown eyes went wide, like he’d only just caught sight of him. Usually Louis would wrench his hand away if grabbed like that before any ground rules had been stated, but those nerves of his were still dazed and he failed to do anything except stand and stare.
“There we are, come in it won’t take long.” The young man pulled him through the door into the hotel suite and nothing was out of place except for the duvet and a game system thrown atop the mussed sheets. A pizza box was open and picked over, MarioKart’s title screen trilled from the television, outside the window he could see the part of the Venetian across the street, glittering in the night as Las Vegas hotels were wont to do. Louis was stunned still and began quickly wondering just what all he was going to get busted for in this very obvious sting.
The young man let him go and then stood back, gesturing at himself. He was dressed nicely, black suit, as if he really were going out and needing a companion for the evening as his messages had stated. However, his tie was undone and he gestured at this. “Tie this for me, would you?”
Louis obligaged and the entire time he was looking between his shaking fingers and the unfettered stare of the young, very young, man who was watching him work with perfect concentration. When tied up properly he tucked the tie into his vest and then buttoned the second button on his three button suit. He turned and looked into the mirror in the suite’s foyer.
“Excellent, thank you.” He fished into his pants pocket and dropped a wad of 20’s into Louis’ hand without looking back from the mirror. “You’re dismissed.” Louis wasn’t sure what to make of anything and his brow knit in the middle with a severe case of the elevens.
The man, ‘Armand’ if Louis went off the names he signed his messages with, pursed his lips and looked at his call boy’s reflection in the mirror.
“Unless you still want to join me, and I’m not going to be offended if you do or don’t. I’m bringing along a stronger magnet this time,” he began with incoherent order and further confusing Louis. “Which should make collecting coins in the Bellagio fountain that much easier. An assistant to help me collect samples without drawing attention will be useful. You can distract as I extract.”
What would someone with wads of twenty dollar bills want with a couple of coins flicked into a fountain? Much less in a three piece suit and a tie he couldn’t even tie himself.
As Louis would discover with Armand on their many, many trips out, there was a lot of hypocrisy. Namely, that he paid for the attention of a man who found him charming enough to be around for free.
Hey anon! I’m sorry that this took so long, but I’m very passionate about my boy Daniel
Favorite thing about them: Daniel is the most real out of the entire cast of characters in the series, to me. He is the one with the most real thoughts, the most real concerns, the most real emotions, and the most real motivations. It makes him the most down-to-earth being out of the entire coven, yes, even with his flaws. The other vampires have motivations to either suppress internal conflicts (David, Gabrielle, Louis), or to live up to expectations of who they think they should be (Armand, Marius, LESTAT especially). Daniel, at his core, is honest, for better or for worse, and that makes him very compelling in a literary series where both of the central narrators have their authenticity questioned by fans.
Least favorite thing about them: More like, my least favorite thing Anne did to him which was to complete push the easily most interesting character and the most narratively USEFUL character to the side. Daniel, not Louis or Lestat, is the audience’s window to the vampire world. He’s the one that is eased into his transition and our experience of that transition is open for our comprehension needs (which also is the reason why his “insanity” later makes NO sense). David cannot be argued the same as he is not as invested in the vampire world as Daniel was, and his transition was sudden and “unwanted.” It is also because of Daniel’s honesty that we can trust his vision into this world the most. And none of this was utilized.
“there is a very black and white viewpoint on him, especially when it comes to his mental illness, his addictive habits, and his queerness. i don’t think daniel leans feminine or masculine in his queer expression. i don’t think the fans have to 100% sympathize with daniel’s substance addiction, and refuse to condemn it or look at it objectively, in order to have compassion for him as a character and for his struggles that lead to said addiction. i don’t think daniel needs to be painted so tragically–he has a degree of ownership in his decisions and recognizes and even loves the weight of them, but these decisions should be considered open-mindedly by us as well. daniel is not evil, but daniel loves the dark, and we should not forget this.“
And I’ll use you as focal point So I don’t lose sight of what I want And I’ve moved further than I thought I could But I miss you more than I thought I would Oh I’ll use you as a warning sign That if you talk enough sense, then you’ll lose your mind And I found love where it wasn’t supposed to be Right in front of me, talk some sense to me
I-want-my-IWTV 