You sweet thing, thank u! Since Iām sort of clawing my way back up to the real world from being sick, this was especially good timing ā¤
*~5 things that make me happy~*ā¦ in no special orderā¦
1. Retail therapy – not necessarily buying anything, sometimes just the hunt is plenty. But of course, if you find that one amazing jacket/dress/top, you gotta buy it, bc when youāre looking for an amazing jacket/dress/top for a specific event, suddenly no one makes good things anymore!!!Ā
2. 80s and 90s music – mostly the hits, one-hit wonders, and also other songs by artists from that time period that didnāt get as much radio play. I think I love it bc it reminds me of when I was riding the bus to/from school, the idea of being in that liminal space, no seatbelts, dappled sunlight, kids chattering around, the smell of the sunshine cooking the green faux-leather seats, being in transit, clutching a book in my hands, and these songs being so optimistic, even when they were angry (Nine Inch Nails) and/or miserable (Smashing Pumpkins). There was always a sparkle of hope that things could be learned from the darkness. Or maybe that was just my own interpretation.Ā
Among which: I love Duncan Sheik, apparently? Good writing music. I had a friend who was obsessed with his music in high school and kept looking for secret messages in the first letters of the track names, and kept trying to get me to listen to his non-hit stuff, and I justā¦ I think I was refusing to do it, just to keep the game of it up with her. That push-pull. I have to reach out to her and admit that I might be as big a fan now as she was then!Ā
3. My oil lamp – I used to buy candles and that gets so expensive and messy, and itās wasteful, bc I end up unable to burn through all the wax (unless itās tealights but those burn so fast), and I hate putting so much trash in the landfills. This is much more efficient bc I can have that friendly little flame and the clear kerosene isnāt too expensive. I like the historical feeling of it, and that ppl had to clean the glass just like Iām doing. I like the smell of the kerosene but some ppl donāt like it.Ā
4. Comfy shoes – I used to have giant pumpkin-shaped slippers and I wore them to their destructionā¦ I wear slippers around the house. I have 3 pairs of slippers now! Not slippers but: my fave black leather boots are comfy, too, and they make me feel like a BAMF. Iāll have to take pics. They fit my calf muscles perfectly, like a hug. Which is special bc my calf muscles are pretty big.
5. Short film viewings/art gallery crawls – I like going to gatherings and meeting new ppl, watch short films, see a bunch of art for a few hours. The variety of it all. I like picking out faves, and meeting the artists and asking them about their process and inspiration.Ā
^I think this last one also applies to my role in fandom, I really love encouraging fanartists and writers, even in other fandoms. Iām not rich by any means, but I scrape together money for commissions now and then. Fanworks are the lifeblood of a fandom and I like to add my applause to the mix. Sometimes I feel like the one in the audience who starts the applause, and thatās fine, too!Ā
Sorry for the absence, I’m not feeling well, and idk, I needed a breather. I owe several replies and will try to get to those when I clear through a few other items.
Anon ask is temporarily off, donāt worry, I wasnāt getting any bad messages, I just felt like I have a ton of asks that have not been answered as it is and should respond to some before inviting any more. I’ll turn anon ask back on when I feel ready to take on fresh anon asks ;D
I got this message from someone a few days ago and responded privately, but I thought this was good tumblr etiquette to share. I will be tagging any shipping stuff related to Armand and Marius asĀ ā#mariusxarmandā so that it can be blocked.Ā
Itās absolutely totally okay to ask for a ship to be blocked. I canāt accommodate all tagging requests (like this pomegranate post that someone wanted OP to tag as gore, and I see both sides of the issue, but I am human and canāt tag everything), this one seemed very reasonable.Ā
I wonāt ask others to tag shipping stuff related to Armand and Marius as ā#mariusxarmandā (you can if you want to) but it would be nice if you could comment/reblog this with any ship names you do tag, maybe it would be helpful for this anon or others to block other shipās shipping stuff they do not want on their dash.
(The temptation to drop this image and post is pretty strong but Iāll go on just a little more in the remote chance that youāre being serious.)(But really when you look at him, thereās pain there, in addition to the humor heās trying to cover it up with, what heās actually saying here is pretty flippant āWeāre lucky to have such a home,ā No honey, itās not luck and you know it, but thatās a discussion for another time.)
NO CUTS WE LONGPOST LIKE MEN
Iāve been there, Anon, and at least in my case, Iām an adult and I donāt live with my parents, so I donāt need them to also like what I like, and I donāt 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 didnāt 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 Armandās 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:Ā
āYouāre 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.āĀ
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 wasnāt 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 didnāt 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 donāt 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 youāre saying when you talk about VC. Itās a work of fiction, if itās making you unhappy you can chuck it out the window. If itās making you happy, then keep talking about it.Ā
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 considerationĀ 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.Ā
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.Ā Ā
Censorship, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.Ā
I have to bring it up for the millionth time, #sorry not sorry. Iāll bring it up until my dying breath.
Censorship has become a bat some fans use to bludgeon other fans. I canāt 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 haveĀ saved lives byĀ opening readersā 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.Ā Ā
What is storytelling? In so many forms, whether itās sculpture, painting, music, theatre, TV, movies, books, cave-paintingā¦Ā Itās sharing oneās own experience, trying to spin straw into gold, trying to find the silver lining, trying to tell oneās story to exorcise oneās 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, youāre 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.
Awww, thank you! Thatās very kind of you. (I was hoarding this ask for a few days, sorry for the delay in reply.)
It warms my heart to see the fandom active, too! Itās always been waves of more or less engagement, but recently there does seem to be something of a renaissance. If the VCTV series happens, weāll probably have even more engagement!
#InktoberVC and the @vcsecretgifts exchange both stimulated great fanworks, Iām planning on setting aside a chunk of time to go through and reblog those Dec. gifts here (I havenāt had a chance to read all the fics yet!) ā¤ Iām hoping that more calls for fanworks get rolling in 2018, too, and Iāll make an effort to promote them. We canāt wait 9 months until the next #InktoberVC ;D
In this world in a time when weāre on the brink of nuclear war bc of reasons I canāt attempt to tackle on a blog for entertainment and there are people in power tirelessly dedicated to stripping away our rights one by one, people
determined to widen the class divide, people dehumanizing other real life people, and there is unpunished crime on a daily basis, I come here for an escape and to offer the same to anyone who likes this blog.Ā
I hope 2018 is a better year for all of us, online and offline, Anon. *hugs*
Look I make no apologies for our fandom or its canon or our fanworks content, ok?! We love it in our own special way, really, Claudia twerking is one of the lesser of theĀ weird things we have lol.Ā
Idk how old you are, so it may be more of an issue for you than for me, but I do get you re: wanting to share your interests with your parents. I tried to get my parents to read VC, they listened to the first 2 audiobooks in the series and were not into it *shrugs* They didnāt judge it either, tho, thankfully.Ā
Hey, welcome to our little corner of tumblrland!Ā Share your fanfic with us, step out into the light, Anon! Iām often critical of my own writing, and I often have a beta reader, a dear friend who gives me constructive criticism and even rewrites lines if I ask her to do so, like an editor, a beta can offer a huge improvement on oneās writing. Maybe youād like to find a beta reader?Ā
-PREAMBLE SORRY BUT I MUST- and no TL;DR for it-
Sometimes when ppl ask those questions, Why is the fandom so small and Where is the fanfic b/c I canāt find it, itās argument bait, Iām sorry to say.Ā
But Iām taking it at face value that you are somewhat or totally unaware of our history, that your mom might not know, and that you are not putting out bait for argument. Iāll try to give you a synopsis in good faith, and hope that other ppl see this post as such. Iām not interested in taking sides, reopening those old wounds for the millionth time. I think of us as the bastard children of fandom, beaten in to a corner by a formerly abusive parent, and we are survivors of that. As such, I would hope that we could offer each other even more compassion than other fans in other fandoms. It doesnāt always work that way. Things can be misread and emotions misinterpreted; this is a text-based communication so we are cheated of facial and verbal cues, it is far too easy to misread intention.
What draws ppl to VC? From what Iāve learned over the years, a lot of us felt marginalized in one way or another and we related to something in VC, we drew strength from it as we were struggling with something in real life. It helped at a time that we needed it. It might still help us. Some ppl just like the purple prose! For real!Ā
Whatever the case, and however you choose to engage with canon or fandom, no oneās relationship to the books or characters supersedes anyone elseās. Not mine, not yours, Anon. We all have our own personal relationship with it. I hesitate to use the wordĀ āvalid,ā bc no one needsĀ āvalidationā to love a book series or character(s). No one can beĀ āinvalidatedā for loving a book series or character(s).Ā
I was in fandom before the internet, and even tho, as Iāll mention below, it was with only one other flesh-and-blood friend, we had our own 2-person fandom! We liked what we liked. We didnāt agree on everything, we still donāt, but it was always civil, and any argument was always based on curiosity and trying to gain a better understanding from each other. It was never about this public display we have now on tumblr and other social networking sites of idk, āMy 10K notes means my opinion supercedes yours!ā? I donāt subscribeā¦ Unless those 10K notes are turning into dollars, then weāll revisit it, lol.Ā
What even is the point of my blog? Itās for entertainment, my own experience, a collection of other pplās experience, and fanworks. When ppl say that I exert all this influence on an army of ppl, I am, in actuality, preaching to a big pile of cats, thatās how it feels. I serve catnip to cats. Thatās the intention, anyway. They donāt even Like some of it, Iāll get like 5 notes on this post, lol. I have no need to be Right. I have no need to be anything other than a brief reprieve from how insane Real Life is and can be.
Fandom isnāt a contest. No one is keeping score. No one even knows your follower count unless you tell ppl (and I wouldnāt, bc even if you only have 10 more followers than smne else, it generally leads to envy).Ā
TL;DR for the below info: The fandom was small, but itās growing now, and there is fanfic, try here on tumblr, and try Archiveofourown.org (AO3). Fandom, however, like Real Life, takes your own work to make what you can of it.Ā
FRICKINā WALL OF TEXTā¢ NO CUTS WE LONGPOST LIKE MEN
A) The fandom is was small bc:
^Gawds this is gonna be me on the outside eventually, itās me on the inside sometimes lol.
Itās an old fandom, over 40 years old! IWTV, the first book in the series, was published in 1976.
Back then, fandom was just the ppl you could gather together, physical mailing lists, idk. It progressed to zines, probably, like other fandoms, but you had to know who was making them. I wasnāt born yet so I donāt know!
As the internet was born, ppl began to find each other on webrings, but even then, it was hard, bc Anne Rice did not approve of fanfic. So you had to know where to look or be lucky enough to stumble upon it.
By the early 90ā²s when I came into VC, there were some fic sites like Rotoli dela Lune (IIRC?) but AR waged a #war on fanfic,Ā sending threatening cease & desist letters to writers, and that made everything EVEN HARDER to find.Ā
Of course, the IWTV movie in 1994 (in development hell for nearly 20 years) did bring in a wave of new fandom ppl, but they really only found whoever they physically met bc of the movie, and the VC books that were out at the time. Meeting in the audience at the movie? Or in bookstores in the Fantasy/Horror section under R, maybe? Probably?
[X] And TBH the movie got backlash bc it was reviewed as being too gay to some, and as not gay enough, but overall, it did well financially and is still considered smtg of a cult classic bc they drag it out and show it on TV leading up to Halloween or whenever Tom and Brad have new movies out ;D (one near-to-Halloween weekend I watched it 4 times, and that was too many, even for me).
Which was my situation, I had my one VC friend, we met in middle school bc I saw her reading QOTD on the bus, I pestered her that morning, and she had to tolerate almost 20 years of my fannish behavior ever since, all directed at her like a fire hydrant, and then she forced me to start a Tumblr and here we are.
*ahem*Ā
We had another small influx of fans with movie!QOTD in 2002, but as the story was barely tethered to canon, and for a number of other reasons, idk if it was the blockbuster ppl had hoped it would be. STILL, there are fandom ppl who find it nostalgic, or love it and embrace it even admitting its canon non-compliance. So I try not to trample it too hard, but trampling it hard was once encouraged! anywayā¦ suffice it to say, someone(s) has to watch it with me and mock it to help me through it, lol.
In 2012, we got a graphic novel of Claudiaās POV during IWTV called Claudiaās Story. You can find it on Amazon.
B) The fanfic IS out there.
CURRENTLY, the fandom is experiencing a revival, we liiiiive!
with the recently published books and AR no longer fights the fanfic writers! Woo!
AR has a FB page and an official VC FB page, where she communicates with her People of the Page and whoever else comments on her posts.
Thereās also a thriving community of ppl here on tumblr, who make fanart, write fic, do podcasts, write meta, cosplay, etc. Dig around in my archive and youāll find them. We just did a @vcsecretgifts exchange and thereās fanfic in there.
Another great place to find fanfic is archiveofourown.org (AO3). You can set up an account and post your fanfic there, and I bet youāll find readers who want what you have to offer!
Thereās also fanfiction.net, and wattpad, but I donāt know those sites very well.
^^^All this taken into account, the thing is, anon, fandom is not an open door.Ā
Fandom is not a ballroom with everyone listing their url name down and committing to staying or even having civility, we canāt make a VC RP directory bc inevitably ppl arenāt invited for whatever reason, and feel left out, or they move on to another fandom anyway. Itās not everyone extending their dance-cards for you to sign your blog url for a dance with EVERYONE. We have had arguments and in-fighting, call-out posts, cliquesā¦ there are heated posts about certain characters or ships still getting reblogged with their 10K+ notes and an implication that if youĀ ālikeā those certain characters or ships, that youāre contributing to real world harm.Ā
Fictionās affect on reality is a debate thatās started before the internet and will go on as long as we are capable of communicating. Societies have waves of being more or less pure, like a pendulum. Thatās not the focus of my blog.Ā
All debates aside, fandom is what you make it, itās not guaranteed easy friendship. I once thought it was, but I learned the hard way that itās very much like real life. You have to do the work of finding and reaching out to those ppl who you find a spark of connection with, and actively nurture that spark. On a public site, you have to extend yourself and show some opinions and thoughts, gush about what you love, reblog from ppl who you relate to, and gradually build your own network of friends. Nothing is handed to you. No one will crowd into your inbox bc your url sounds cool (well, maybe a few urls get attention bc of that!)(there is an exception to every rule).
So whenever I sayĀ āWelcome to our little corner of tumblrland!ā I mean it, I do welcome all, and I hope that Iām going to see you flourish as you make your way into the space. Are you a new fanartist, or writer, or someone whoās supportive even if they donāt have the skills to create fanwork of their own? A combination? Show us, and reach out, and if weāre compatible, weāll reach back.
[Give us some of your first impressions, who are your faves? What are your ships? And um, excuse u, 5 books in 2 months when you have Real Life, too, thatās not slow to me, heck, when I reread just one of these books it takes me at least 2 months, squeezing it into my āCopious Amounts of Free Timeā and I hope this blog isnāt spoiling you too much, if spoiling bothers you I frickinā love being spoiled, myself).Ā
Awwww thank u! What a lovely thing to tell me. Welcome to our little corner of tumblrland mmmm fresh bloodā¦.
So I try to keep this thing purely VC, and I have my self-imposed post limit, so I think for A LOT of my followers, they probably are like you, and see a post from me, and go,Ā āOooh a VC blog, I should foll- oh yeah, I already follow it!ā Sometimes I even see smtg reblogged from me on my own dash and I go, āOooh! New VC fanart! I should reblo- I ALREADY REBLOBBED IT!āĀ
I used to have a rule about reblogging stuff only once so I wouldnāt have duplicates in my archive, but the audience changes, thereās tons of new ppl out on tumblr every year, so WHY THE HECK keep some awesome fanart from their dash just bc I reblogged it 2 years ago??! So I reblob stuff from my own archive sometimes, usually when Iām in there looking for smtg else and I find an old fave that PPL SHOULD SEE! ā¤
BTW if you want some more VC stuff, we recently did a @vcsecretgifts, that archive has a bunch of VC fanworks in it and you can find more VC blogs that way ;D
I-want-my-IWTV 