These are separate calls for fanworks, the @vcsecretgifts exchange is not anon, and runs for the holidays only; I hope that the vampire chronicles anon fanworks meme will continue on beyond December. We needs a consistent one! It can be anon or not. More info on it as it becomes more developed.
…For our fourthannual Vampire Chronicles Secret Santa exchange!
If you participated last year, or participated in any of the other exchanges we hosted after, you should be familiar with how this works. Think Secret Santa, but with no sharing of physical addresses. The gifts given are all shared completely on Tumblr, be it drabbles, fanart, awesome graphics, or what have you. We’ve had great turn outs the past couple of years, and we are definitely looking forward to seeing what great stuff you all submit this year!
If you would like to join:
You can sign up until December 2nd at 11:59PM CST.
By December 7th, we will be assigning all of you your Santas.
Presents must be submitted to the page no later than December 24rd at 11:59PM CST.
Gifts will be posted in a queue throughout the day on December 25.
So, feel free to swing by the rules page, and once you’ve read that through, go ahead and join!
Do the thing, ppl! @wicked-felina and I will be the mods of this event. We saw great turnout last year, and for @monstersinthecosmos & @superhiki‘s #InktoberVC, let’s keep the fanworks momentum going with this year’s @vcsecretgifts exchange <3<3<3
Join the exchange:
[The page will be updated for 2017, but for now, go ahead and sign up]
(better known as a kink meme, but it doesn’t have to be kinky lmao)
💖 might be happening in december if ppl are interested!! 💖
right now i’m just asking around to see how many ppl would be interested in this, so pls reblog/comment/whatever if you are!
how it works, in a nutshell: ppl anonymously prompt things they want to see in fic or art. other people anonymously write the fic or make the art. prompts can be anything from armand/daniel kink to “fake dating mortal au” to “quiet night in at rue royale”. (if you don’t want to be anon, you don’t have to, of course. the anon is to avoid flaming, shaming, and being sued by anne.)
Yassss a VC kinkmeme for December! Should warm up those cold bodies of yours…
Thank you for appreciating that [post is here]! It always feels like I’m going out in front of a firing squad when I say that “creating/consuming dark fiction is not endorsement of it in real life” because people who do conflate those will insist that I’m an x,y,z-apologist. No. That’s incorrect.
ANOTHER WALL OF TEXT™ what is happening to me? I just miss you guys a lot, that’s what 😉
“Why did this person say/do this thing?”
I support the creation and consumption of dark content in media, in fic/art/music/etc. as a means of exploring it, as a means of unpacking it, as a means of trying to figure out where it comes from and how to recognize it. Sometimes it’s not so easy to pick out the “bad guy.” Sometimes the “abuser” seems to be a “good” person. Sometimes the “abuser” is reenacting their own trauma. Finding reasons for a behavior are not excuses for that behavior, but it can help provide answers for those of us who want them.
~Story time~
My grandmother was a tough old lady, what we call a “battle-axe.” She was blunt and tactless, and downright MEAN most of the time. She raised her children through terror and bullying, held grudges for decades, was short-tempered with her in-laws and grandchildren.
She was also very smart in her role as a professor in a college, and had a sweetness to her that very few people in my family experienced bc they were so deterred by her tough exterior. I was one of the few who got close to her, and I wanted to know why she behaved the way she did to others.
Seeing movies like Mommie Dearest, in which Joan Crawford was portrayed as somewhat of battle-axe to everyone in her life, too, I could see similarities between her and my grandmother.
Could my grandmother have had the kind of pressure in her life that Joan did, competing with the misogyny in her career? I thought so.
Both of these women set incredibly high expectations for themselves and others, and then reacted badly if reality didn’t meet their expectations. They were not good at handling disappointment and would take it out on others.
In other media, I would see “only” children worshiped by their parents and then these women were dissatisfied, bitter adults, who would never get that kind of attention again. (Not sure about Joan Crawford, but that was my grandmother’s childhood.)
^What I’m saying is that media (fic/movies/books/music/etc.) gave me insights as to why my grandmother behaved the way she did. It provided reasons for the behavior. I didn’t take these as excuses, but it increased my empathy for her and others I met who were like her. Rather than do as the rest of my family did, by writing her off as “a mean old lady,” I could understand her and navigate my way into a better relationship with her. They missed out on her good parts because of her bruises.
^The first time I saw this graphic, I felt that expression in my soul. These are fictional characters. They are not real.
Writers write them. What is “writing” anyway, but speculative reality? We used to call fanfiction “specs,” short for “speculative fiction.” It’s thoughts. Not all writing is for idealized versions of life and/or wish-fulfillment.
I’ve heard from VC fans who are survivors of child abuse, sexual abuse, etc. who said that VC helped them in some way,
whether it was recognizing that the abuse they suffered really was abuse (and not normal!),
or whether they have since made fanworks with VC characters that helped them explore their own past and examine it from a place of safety,
or in consuming other fanworks, they got some closure on their own experiences in some way and were able to heal or begin to do so,
or just in making friends here that have helped them through difficult times,
I could go on and on… there is enormous value in creating/consuming dark fiction.
Whatever Anne Rice’s agenda is/was in writing the Vampire Chronicles, it doesn’t matter to me, because of how much good I have witnessed that has come from it. If some of her inspiration for certain aspects seems relevant to me, I consider it, but it doesn’t really matter as far as I’m concerned.
It all really boils down to the old adage “Live and Let Live.”
(I have a backlog of asks, Real Life has been taking my life, and this is the one I decide to answer, bc I am apparently a glutton for punishment) (My senpais re: the topic of allowing writers to write dark fiction (and readers to read it) are @restoringsanity and @freedom-of-fanfic, among others, check them out).
Welcome to our little corner of Tumblrland!
This became a Wall of Text™, but I felt like articulating these thoughts again, as I do periodically. Sorry, no cut, couldn’t find a good place to do it.
Anon, I hope you come into the light and join us, share with us what you like about VC and make our fandom better for being part of it. You might make some of the best friends of your life with us 🙂 I definitely have, and that’s what fandom is about for me.
I think this question was answered very well by @interview-withthevampirehere, with supporting links. I was honored to be tagged as a Certified Old in the fandom, yes, I was around in the Dark Ages of the Internet, for the Spec Massacre, but am I a Respected Old? That’s debatable, lol. I have my opinions about VC, and everyone’s headcanon may vary on all of it.
No sense reinventing the wheel in answering the same way as they did, but I have thoughts to add. @interview-withthevampire started their answer as follows, and I want to start mine the same way:
“the reason why Anne Rice is a bit quarrelsome (I don’t want to use “cr*zy”) is because, well, the kindest way to put it is that she’s a bit of an ego-maniac.”
^YES. She’s probably a bit of an ego-maniac, but not “cr*zy.” “Crazy” is what we use to “other” someone, to dehumanize them by calling their mental faculties into question. It’s a gentle teasing at best and a bullying tactic at worst.
One thing you’ll find in VC fandom is that every so often, like a cycle, we’ll get another round of bashing Anne Rice. Whether or not she is a “good” or “bad” person with “good” or “bad” thoughts/intentions, that’s not the purpose of my blog and not what I base my love for VC on. My blog is primarily for entertainment and fandom positivity.
As fandom has begun a shift into examining authors and content creators who create problematic content (also known as ”dark fiction,” which I prefer as a term bc the word “problematic” has become kind of a joke in its overuse), there is a tendency to conflate that content with their beliefs, that they write what they would like to see happen in reality. I strongly feel that creation/consumption of dark fiction is not endorsement of it.
In brief, people might think Anne Rice is “cr*zy” bc of (1) her Real Life actions against her fans and other people, and (2) the problematic content in her books.
Again, I think @interview-withthevampire covered point (1). In the end, Anne Rice is just a human being who wrote a set of books that have gathered a wide spectrum of fans. I think it took her years (decades?) to understand the nature of her fanbase, and as the internet grew around her, it became easier for fanworks and reviews/feedback to publish into the real world. There were no longer the filters in place of people like magazine editors; any blogger could write a review of her works in full view of millions of fans, and they were not required to pull any punches.
AR had to acclimate to that and after fighting the ficwriters for long enough, she chose to stop suing, and learn to coexist with it all. I don’t know of many other authors treating their own fanbases the way AR treated us, so I would guess that authors who have published works since the internet really got in gear have probably all embraced their fanbases from the beginning. Therefore, VC fandom’s bad blood (pun intended) with Anne Rice stands out as being downright BIZARRE now 😛
As far as (2) the problematic content.
What we’re really talking about is whether dark fiction (pedophilia, incest, etc.) should be written about at all if they are not condemned in the narrative. Personally, I believe that creation/consumption of dark fiction is not endorsement of it.
*Bruised banana analogy*
VC, like any media, be it books/movies/music/video games/etc., is like a banana. It might have gross bruises, those parts that you find squicky or otherwise distasteful. It’s fine to point them out, so that others can be aware, but you are not required to do so. Some areas on a given banana are less bruised than others, and you can eat them. Maybe you eat around all the bruises, even the smaller ones. Maybe you don’t mind bruises and you can eat the whole banana.
I admit, on a subjective level, that VC books have gotten much bruisier for me over the years, and there are several that I find so bruised that there is much less to enjoy, but that’s how it is. I STILL LIKE THE PARTS I LIKE.
[X Banana from fromthedriversseat.co.uk] ^Red would be those bruises that I can’t accept, so I don’t eat them.
Maybe the whole banana is ruined for you and you can’t stomach it. Maybe you can bake it into banana bread, turn it into something else entirely! That’s a fanworks’ purpose. Like a fanfic where you remove/revise the bruises from canon and write the story the way you would prefer it to be. Fluff would probably be a banana with very few
bruises, if any at all.
I’ve made my own headcanons that have “fixed” canon in a way that greatly improved the stories for me. I’ve read fanfic that was basically providing missing pieces from canon. I’ve seen fanart and cosplay that pretty much illustrated my headcanon of the characters. For me, fandom is about taking inspiration from the canon source material to make your own works, sharing that with other fans, and being supportive of those content creators in whatever way you feel comfortable!
It’s every reader’s prerogative, how much of the “banana” they want to eat, if any at all. No one is forcing you to eat it, and other people enjoying the banana does not trample your choice. Your choice not to eat some/all of the bruises does not supersede other’s choice of eating them.
I’ve said that creating/consuming problematic content is not in itself endorsement of
problematic things in REAL LIFE. As far as I know, Anne Rice has committed no REAL crimes, so while I would love it if she had a trusted editor/beta reader,I don’t condemn her for exploring dark topics in fiction. More thoughts on that in my #dark fiction tag.
As fans in the fandom, we can like what we like, critique her work, choose what canon we accept, toss the rest. She put it out there and in that sense, it doesn’t matter if Anne Rice is “cr*zy” or not, or if she is a “good” or “bad” person with “good” or “bad” thoughts. Personally, I believe that AR was interested in sex before she was the age of consent and was frustrated that she was being prevented from pursuing sexual relationships. Those explorations led to bruises in her bananas. Those are her bones to pick, so to speak.
I’ve made some of my best friends in VC fandom, and if they or I had left because of the bruises in our bananas, I might never have met them at all. I consider VC to be a gift to us from AR, no more, no less.
I-want-my-IWTV 