#also she has a *complicated* engagement with anne rice going

[dumdeeedum]

I'm talking about the grown man she fucks before she meets Bruce. The man that fucks a person meant to be a child, that we are meant to understand looks like a child, and therefore cannot consent as far as he's concerned. The one we're meant to think was a nice guy and that we're meant to feel bad for when Claudia kills him. You can play the "back then" or whatever card but the writers in 2020-something added that to the story, not Anne Rice in the 70s, and no one whom actually had those antiquated sensibilities where one might just marry a 14-year-old because that shit did happen back then. Making her VISIBLY A CHILD takes away all ambiguity. The situation with Bruce also had no such ambiguity.

The situation with Madeline is obviously more complicated because Claudia is older but looks like a child and at the VERY LEAST Madeline knows her actual age and that she's a vampire but it doesn't exactly make it better. Especially when they aged up Armand for the same reason, that they wanted him to have a more explicit relationship with Louis and it would have been weird to have a 17-year-old fucking a grown man. But if that's the rationale then the same could be said for Claudia, whom is YOUNGER than even book Armand, and that's the part that doesn't make sense to me. Who says a child actor would have had to kiss anyone?! There have been plenty of child actors in things intended for adults and they figure it out, there's plenty of child actors in horror, etc. Wtf are you talking about? The only practical reason there would be to not hire a child actor would be that child growing too quickly like what happened with the kid from the show "Lost" or the kids in "Stranger Things."

It also isn't better to have an adult depicting a child in sexual situations that didn't happen in the source material either, especially when we're not meant to understand that the people engaging in those things with her are creeps. She says it later on but it feels wholly disconnected from her first and only "consensual" sexual experience and is meant to only make us think of Bruce and that's weird to me.

It would have been more meaningful, in fact, if the person she bonded with and fell in love with was UNWILLING to have a sexual relationship with her because she looked like a child and they only saw her as a child and condescended to her as such, etc. We'd understand that she has needs and desires and wants the love of her contemporaries but without their understanding her situation and making concessions she can never have that. It's something the book was able to wonderfully convey without making Claudia fuck adult men. And it especially doesn't work when the actress visibly looks like an adult and we can't have the visceral reaction of it FEELING wrong for a child to be having these adult feelings and imagining the type of adult whom would be willing to go with her on that. That wouldn't be shock factor for the sake of it, it'd be a true visceral reaction. Our modern pop culture, sadly, makes us all to used to seeing adult women portraying teenagers having sexual situations so that particular situation has lost the impact something like this is supposed to have.

I've read the entire series, baby, probably before you were thought of, if we're gonna play that fucking game.

It isn't like I'm unaware of what can come/is to come. Lestat fully rapes a woman in "Tale of the Body Thief," but non-Games of Thrones tv show addled brains may have a different appreciation for a rape scene that is written with purpose vs a rape scene written without purpose.

Lestat, for example, is not meant to be right in what he did , it's supposed to be shocking and fucked up that he did that and also tell us something about how he's getting on in his body-switched body after hundreds of years as a vampire.

Having Claudia fuck an adult man when it's too ambiguous whether he thinks she's a child or just looks young serves no real purpose. All it tells us is that she MIGHT look old enough that it may not matter, they certainly flip flop on the subject enough. I think the Bruce rape was a little more purposeful and unambiguous than the one she has "consensually" and goes a lot further to convey its point than the first one that tramples all over it. When things are done without intention and seemingly just for shock value it loses its interest for me, you don't have to feel the same.

Claudia having to be 14 so they could hire an adult actress and put her in sexual situations is not interesting to me. Claudia being a child and having to look and deal with being a child and growing up with a child's body and a mind that is both adult and not adult is more interesting and doesn't have to physically include someone fucking the child. Do you understand? Now off you get, go lecture someone else about "gothic shit."

girl… SISTER? be serious for real

So you're suggesting that in the show that couldn't make Armand 17 and hired a man in his mid-30s so as to not have to deal with all that made it so that Madeline is in love with the child that we're meant to understand looks like a child and will always look like a child?

I guess I wouldn't put it past the writers that made Claudia 14 instead of 5 and hired an adult actress just so her character could be raped by a grown man that we're somehow meant to believe was a nice dude and Claudia was wrong for killing him. Sure, why the fuck not. Sounds about as bizarre as most of the decisions this show has made so far.

[chthonic-cassandra]

Tanith Lee Project #6 - Personal Darkness, 1994

This is the second in Lee’s Blood Opera series, following Dark Dance. It picks up directly where Dark Dance left off, but is immediately different tonally. 

Where Dark Dance was tight and closed-off, holding us as readers within the claustrophobic space of Rachaela’s consciousness, Personal Darkness immediately expands out - just as the plot concerns the Scarabae leaving their hermetic existence in their mansion, and Ruth wandering restlessly through England and leaving havoc in her wake, so too the narrative voice here seems roaming, entering into the consciousness of one character after another, and sometimes leaving them never to be seen again. 

This makes it a weaker book than Dark Dance, whose strength was in its tightness, but there’s still a lot of interest in what’s going on here, and I still found myself engaged and moved. The chapters from the point of the view of the various minor human characters (many of whom fall prey to Ruth’s indiscriminate blood lust) seem to be acting as a substitute for the mundane details of Rachaela’s life which grounded the plot of Dark Dance, and while I can see the utility in that, since the main plot line here is so much more overly vampiric than in the previous book, I don’t think it quite works, and they take up too much space.

The plot immediately comes alive with the arrival of Malach and Althene, cousins from another branch of the Scarabae family, who form complex and fraught romantic bonds with Ruth and Rachaela respectively. I was interested in both their plot lines, but I loved Althene, who is very elegant and self-possessed, and is the only person we have met so far in the series to treat Rachaela with any kind of respect and talk to her in a halfway sensible manner.

[cut for spoilers, discussion of transphobic tropes & csa dynamics] 

We learn midway through the novel that Althene is trans, and I was pleasantly surprised at how well Lee handles this - Althene’s trans identity is presented with a fair amount of realism even within the fantastical context of the Scarabae family, and the narration consistently genders her correctly even following the reveal. Rachaela reacts with with some amount of shock, and has something of a tendency to fetishize Althene, but that remains within a range that I find pretty emotionally plausible, and the relationship that they build together feels real and good. 

I got attached to Rachaela, and was glad for her to finally have a chance at happiness and meaningful connection. I was also impressed to see Lee writing such a sympathetic representation of a trans lesbian character in the mid-90′s. (Having read the third book, I think things get a lot more concerning there, but we’ll get to that when we get to it.)

The CSA dynamics within Ruth’s plot line get a lot messier in this book, and I am still sorting through what I feel about them. For most of the book, Ruth is an young adolescent (11-13ish) who looks like she’s 17, and gets treated in pervasively sexualized and predatory ways by the men who encounter her, though she herself is manifestly uninterested in sexuality and generally kills the men before they can act on their plans. 

I was reminded, in all the scenes of human men reacting to Ruth’s appearance, of the early scenes of Octavia Butler’s Fledgling, in which Shori, a vampire who looks like a child but has a much older chronological age but also has lost her memory and so is sort of psychologically a child again (...that book is complicated) is an object of desire for the adult man who rescues her. There’s a similar uneasy grossness in both, such that I imagine Butler might have read this book of Lee’s and is trying to engage with these questions about age and sexualization more directly.

Once Ruth is caught by Malach and her violent rampage ended, she is trapped again within an overt grooming/conditioning dynamic (poor girl), by this time by a far more competent and psychologically astute perpetrator than the Scarabae were in Dark Dance; I found those sections of the novel pretty triggering and hard to read, and was moved by what was happening (including Ruth’s heart-breaking attachment to Malach, and the rigidity of his understanding of what that attachment can/should be, which leads to such tragic consequences). But I wasn’t really sure what Lee was trying to do with it, what she’s trying to say about vampires and integenerational sexual abuse. It’s clearly something, but it gets pretty incoherent, and will only get more tangled in the final volume.

I found all of Camillo’s plot line dreadfully boring, which was unfortunate because it kept coming up again.

[p-and-p-admin]

Interview given to The Severus Snape and Hermione Granger Shipping Fan Group.  (sharing here Admin approved)

https://www.facebook.com/groups/199718373383293/ Hello CRMediaGal and welcome to Behind the Quill, thank-you for letting us get to know you a little better.

Many of our members will know your Unquestionable Love series. 

We’re grateful you can spend some time with us today. 

Okay, so let's jump into it!

What’s the story behind your pen name?

CR is an abbreviation for “cracked rendition” and that comes from the excerpt from a poem I’ve loved since I was young. Years ago, to help put myself through art college, I did web design on the side and called my little company Cracked Rendition Designs. When I created my pen name, I combined all of these elements together to make CRMediaGal (for some illogical reason I thought it was a solid name at the time lol) and, to this day, I still think about changing my pen name altogether.  I figure it’s too late for that now, though. 

Which Harry Potter character do you identify with the most?

Luna Lovegood. I wish I’d had her self-assurance and confidence in who she is at that age but, that aside, I identify with how she’s a bit of a loner, an oddball, and tends to be left out (or does until she finds her Hogwarts friends). I’ve really struggled with being an outsider most of my life, so it’s comforting to see that representation in literature but through a young woman who possesses the self-confidence people like myself often lack. 

Do you have a favourite genre to read? 

I tend to love period dramas, so a lot of the classic novels are my favourites (i.e. Austen, Henry James, etceteras).  

Do you have a favourite “classic” novel?

The Portrait of a Lady is one of my favourite novels.  I reread it every couple of years.  

At what age did you start writing? 

I’ve been writing since I was very little, so probably seven, eight, nine-ish? I used to be much more of an artist/sketcher than a writer, so I’d make up stories and write and sketch and staple them together all day long lol. 

How did you get into writing fanfiction?

After watching Deathly Hallows: Part 2 at the cinema in 2011.  Severus Snape’s death hit me hard all over again (I hadn’t read the last book in a few years), and I decided that I desperately needed to change that for myself lol.  Unquestionable Love is the first fanfic (SSHG) I ever wrote and it’s become an ongoing series, so I’m grateful to have gotten the “spark” to write fanfic from somewhere around that time.  I decided in 2011 to try my hand at “fleshing out” my little Snape family that had been mucking about in my head for much longer than that.

What's the best theme you've ever come across in a fic? Is it a theme represented in your own works?

I’m a total sucker for the brooding, self-loathing male who thinks himself unworthy of love and redemption and the sunshine, kick-arse lady, aka Centre of His World, who loves him back to life. #GimmeMorePleaseandThankYou

What fandoms are you involved in other than Harry Potter?

I’ve written fics for Star Wars (ReyBen/Reylo is another one of my favourite ships outside of SSHG), The Hobbit (Thranduil/Tauriel), and Les Miserables (Enjonine). 

If you could make one change to canon, what would it be? Do you have a favourite piece of fanon?

Severus Snape’s death (he’s NOT dead! #nope #denial4ever). 

My favourite piece of fanon is probably Severus being Draco’s godfather. Regardless of where it originated from, I’m all for it. 

Do you listen to music when you write or do you prefer quiet? 

I used to need complete solitude and quiet to write, but nowadays I can write with some instrumental music playing in the background.  It depends on where my headspace is at. 

What are your favourite fanfictions of all time? 

I don’t read much fanfic anymore, as it’s hard enough for me to find time for my own writing…but off the top of my head, I’d probably have to go with a “classic” - The Tattered Man (SSHG) by Aurette.  It’s gutting and heart-wrenching and doesn’t have a happy ending, but it’s a hauntingly beautiful piece that stays with you. 

Are you a plotter or a pantser? How does that affect your writing process?

I’m somewhere in the middle. I tend to plot out certain points I want to hit from chapter to chapter (if it’s a multi-chapter fic and heavy on plot, for instance), but writing is an organic process and I enjoy allowing my muse to surprise me as well.

What is your writing genre of choice? 

A good mixture of Angst and Fluff (and nearly always with a HEA!) 

Which of your stories are you most proud of? Why? 

I’m proud of all my stories for different reasons, mainly technical milestones I was able to achieve with the writing or the emotional attachments I had to them at the time that I wrote them.

If I had to choose one (or two because I gotta cheat here haha!), I’d go with either Unto Their Own (SSHG) because the subject matter was so dark and took me to places mentally that were very tough for me to navigate (the fact that I finished that fic is an achievement for me because it could have very well been abandoned at various points in the story); or Unquestionable Love (SSHG), both the original and the series as a whole, because that story has my heart entirely invested in it.  That precious family means everything to me and the story, from beginning to present, is my headcanon for the SSHG pairing.  I really can’t see them any other way, though I’ve written other stories where their lives turn out quite differently. 

Did it unfold as you imagined it or did you find the unexpected cropped up as you wrote? What did you learn from writing it?

Sticking with Unquestionable Love here, the original story came together mostly as expected, though there were a couple darker turns the fic was supposed to take that I didn’t have the heart--or the stamina, I suppose--to end up developing.  

One of my dear OCs/one of the daughters was supposed to die at one point in the story and I realised that doing so would have ultimately changed Severus’s fate, as well as the entire course of the storyline.  (There is just no way that UL!Severus would survive the death of one of his children, so I guess I’m no JK Rowling or any other esteemed writer who can just ruthlessly kill off their characters haha!) I’ve learned through writing this series that I can tackle subject matters that are very emotionally tough for me and that’s a good feeling.  

I’ve also learned that I have something to say, even if it’s not much heard or well-liked, and that that still makes my storytelling worthy of being out there in the fandomverse; or, at least, I try to remind myself that it’s okay to exist.

How personal is the story to you, and do you think that made it harder or easier to write?

It’s intensely personal in some respects and those aspects are difficult for me to discuss.  I’m not sure if I’ll ever be ready to talk about them in depth, but I will say a couple scenes in the latter half of Unquestionable Love were incredibly trying to write due to personal experience. I pushed through those moments, though, and I think that, because of that therapeutic exercise, I’m able to tackle other tough subjects in my stories more easily. 

What books or authors have influenced you? How do you think that shows in your writing?

I admire various writers, mainly for the love of the language that’s reflected in their writing styles.  Anne Rice immediately comes to mind.  If I had an ounce of her talent, I’d write with so much confidence lol. I don’t think writers like her necessarily affect my writing style, but they’re certainly people I aspire to write more like.  

Do people in your everyday life know you write fanfiction? 

Only more recently.  I haven’t really allowed any of them to read my work, as so much of it is deeply personal, but just being upfront with my closest friends and family has been a nice development.   

How true for you is the notion of “writing for yourself”? 

I think this is something, as a fic writer, that’s essential.  However, I’m also of the mindset that fandom is about community, and fanfic writers want to engage with their audiences.  We want to feel less alone in these wacky and often times complicated scenarios we put our characters through, and we want people to respond to them...hopefully, with a positive reaction. 

That’s what it’s all about--interaction--and it can be rather heartbreaking, as a writer, when you don’t receive engagement because maybe your headcanons or takes on characters aren’t popular or are considered outside of the ‘norm’. 

For me, I find it too crippling anymore to continue sharing my stories with the fandoms I love when they’re met with silence or hate.  There’s nothing more soul crushing than just being dismissed or disliked or not accepted...and that’s why I’ve chosen to post my stories privately (for now, at least).

How important is it for you to interact with your audience? How do you engage with them? Just at the point of publishing? Through social media?

It’s pretty essential to me to be able to engage with readers.  I absolutely love it and I wish it happened more often haha.  I used to run polls and interact with readers on my fanfiction.net and AO3 accounts (both now inactive) and through my still active Tumblr account (http://crmediagal.tumblr.com/ ).  I now have my own website - www.crmediagal.com - where I can fully control the flames and negativity. 

It may be temporary but, so far, it’s working out pretty well.  It’s made my readership a lot smaller but, at least, I know the people who are there genuinely want to read more of my work and won’t leave me hate comments.  That’s so comforting and encouraging.  

What would you most like your readers to take away with them when they've finished your stories?

A powerful message of some kind...remembrance...perhaps, suggest one or two of them to other readers and shippers out there.  

That’s the only way our stories survive, really. 

What is the best advice you’ve received about writing?

That you need to protect your “voice”, no matter how unpopular it may be, and that there is no one else who writes like you and that you should take pride in that.  

I try to remind myself of these important pointers when I’m feeling particularly down about my storytelling abilities. 

What do you do when you hit writer’s block?

Watch my favourite films or television shows to help re-spark my creativity.  I come back to the writing when it ‘speaks’ to me.  I no longer press myself to push out writing because, more often than not, the result is going to get tossed and reworked anyhow.  

Has anything in real life trickled down into your writing?

Yes, certain experiences and people I’ve encountered in my life have definitely wound up in some of my stories.  

Many of my OCs in different stories are examples of that. 

Do you have any stories in the works? Can you give us a teaser? 

I’m working on a new SSHG story that’s based off of a fun prompt from a dear, long-time reader.  

It will start posting at my website - www.crmediagal.com - in the coming weeks/months, so if anyone would like access to it, you can contact me there.  

Here’s a short excerpt:

Cradling his head in his hand, Severus stomped to his front door and opened it a crack, jostling the handle loud enough that it caught three people’s attention, the woman firstly before the others.  

“What’s the bloody idea?” he snarled, shouting above them.  

Each individual—two wizards and one witch—went mute and turned to stare from the neighbouring sidewalk.  

“I’ll have you know that this is a quiet street!  And I was sleeping!”  When the guests next door to him, who were just towing the property line and about to get themselves knocked out, offered no response, he prodded, grinding his teeth together, 

“Are you daft, you fools?  Do you not comprehend?  HEY!”

The two gentlemen, who appeared to be fresh out of Hogwarts—or maybe they hadn’t gotten that far in their magical studies, judging by the stupidity on their expressions—startled and nodded in unison.  

“Yes, sir!”

“Oh, my...” the witch, in turn, murmured, seemingly more to herself than anyone else.

Severus identified her vacant, open-mouthed expression at once: she recognised him.  As of yet, he had little recollection as to who she might be and didn’t give a damn.  He kicked his door open the rest of the way with his boot, jostling the three near trespassers backward a few more paces, and stalked down his steps and onto his sidewalk. 

That was when he finally understood the reason behind all of the commotion: one of the branches to the old oak tree that shielded his stoop, and had been there since the earliest days he could recall of his childhood, had crashed onto the pavement, cracking the sidewalk in half. 

A part of his iron fence, too, had crumbled under the weight of the broken branch, and there was an assortment of boxes, some severely banged up, scattered across his property. 

“What the...?  That’s my tree you idiots hit!  And my bleedin’ fence...!”

“I - I’m sorry, sir,” stammered the witch with wildly curly hair and worrisome brown eyes, hastily stepping forward to intervene.  

“I’ve been trying to figure out how this happened—”Severus turned his glare on her.  

“And who are you?”  The seemingly thirty-something woman blushed to her roots, which he couldn’t account for, until she spoke in a faint, insecure whisper, 

“Um, Hermione, sir...  Hermione Weasley.  Oh, gosh, I mean, I - I was Hermione Weasley until...”  She cleared her throat and attempted to reintroduce herself, flushing in such a manner that it flaunted dainty-looking freckles that dotted her cheeks and nose.  Had she always had those?  Severus couldn’t remember.  

“Oh, bother!  It’s Hermione Granger, Professor.  Surely, you...you remember me?”Severus went as rigid as a column.  

“Oh, for fuck’s sake...” he blurted aloud before he could stop himself. Hermione blinked, taken aback.  

“I’m sorry?”Severus’s shock morphed into a tight-fitting sneer.  

“I thought I was done with the lot of you.”

Any words of encouragement to other writers?

Try not to get too discouraged by lack of reviews or not making the recommendations lists.  Keep persevering and know that someone out there, even if it’s just one reader, will love what you have to share with the world.  

Thanks for spending some time with us today CRMediaGal, we’ve enjoyed getting to know you.

[disappearingground]

Rebound, rediscovery, rebirth: How Jenny Lewis made her best album in more than a decade

Washington Post March 15, 2019

Singer Jenny Lewis’s new album “On the Line” is her best work since her 2006 solo debut, “Rabbit Fur Coat.”

By Allison Stewart

Jenny Lewis has one of those faces. If you were to run into her in her natural habitat — a vintage clothing store or Whole Foods — you might recognize her, even if you’re not sure from where.

Lewis has spent almost her entire life lingering at the edges of everyone’s collective consciousness, first as a child actor, then as indie pop’s mid-’00s queen. “People think they know me personally, or we’re related, or from commercials that I was in as a child,” she says. “I just have a familiar face, because I’m weirdly Zelig-y.”

A few years back, Lewis and her longtime boyfriend, fellow singer-songwriter Johnathan Rice, broke up. It had been the formative, defining relationship of her life so far — they were practically married — and its dissolution forced her to look at the world in a new way, and to reassess the way the world looked at her.

“Can you imagine being 40 years old and thrust upon the digital dating scene after a 12-year relationship that started before cellphones?” Lewis asks. She couldn’t either, until it happened. She’s 43 now, just starting to find her footing, to figure out what she wants in a partner, and what the rest of her life might look like.

Many regular guys are afraid of her, rich guys seem unappealing (“I don’t date for the money. What’s the opposite of that?”), and she’s more famous than most of the artists she knows, which is potentially a problem. She reluctantly attended a JDate speed-dating event once because her godfather wanted her to meet a nice Jewish doctor. “It was way too weird,” she says, but at least no one recognized her.

The breakup and its painful, hopeful, way-too-weird aftermath are among the main subjects of Lewis’s new album “On the Line,” her best work since her 2006 solo debut, “Rabbit Fur Coat.” “It’s kind of like a play,” says Lewis, over lunch at the L.A. Farmers Market, over the hill from her Studio City home. “It begins with the breakup, and it’s rebound, rediscovery, rebirth, death, autonomy.”

In person, Lewis is vulnerable and disarming and warm. She won’t answer every question, but she seems like she’s at least considering it. She wears a mechanic’s jumpsuit and a trucker hat atop her familiar curtain of Marianne Faithfull bangs. She looks like the world’s sultriest gas station attendant.

After her breakup, Lewis moved to New York City. She stayed at her friend St. Vincent’s place in the East Village, and hung out with her girlfriends Erika Forster and Tennessee Thomas at Thomas’s venue, the Deep End Club. (The women formed a trio, played their first show at a Bernie Sanders rally, and released a self-titled album, “Nice as F---,” in 2016. It was probably a one-off.)

Lewis remembers watching a video of Ringo Starr and Harry Nilsson playing on the roof of the Capitol Records building circa 1974, with Ringo wearing a bright blue onesie with a star on the front. She must have watched this video a thousand times back then, because God, she loves Ringo, and she’s also partial to onesies.

During this the time, Lewis had taken to wearing Come to Me oil, an herbal compound she’d bought in a neighborhood potions shop. After acquiring the oil, you’re supposed to set an intention, something you want to happen — “You have to be very careful with it” — and then you wait.

She wasn’t trying to bring forth anyone in particular, she just wanted a good thing to happen; Ringo wound up playing drums on “On the Line” not too long after that. “I feel like I conjured Ringo,” she says. (Note: Maybe! But Don Was, the super-connected super producer who contributed to the album, also might have brought him aboard.)

“On the Line” was made in stages, and features production by Ryan Adams and Beck, working separately. In the days before this interview, Adams was accused of emotionally abusing and harassing female musicians.

Lewis says her relationship with Adams was strictly professional and is reluctant to say much more, but this is basically what happened: Adams began work on Lewis’s last album, 2014’s “The Voyager,” but could not be persuaded to finish. Lewis reenlisted him to produce “On the Line,” hoping things would work out differently. They didn’t.

“We began the record together two years ago, and after five or six days in the studio we stopped working together,” Lewis says, carefully. “I took the record and finished those songs without him, and then went in the studio with Beck to record the rest of the songs.”

It was not an amicable break. “I was left in the lurch, and again this happens to me in my life, where I’m faced with getting back to myself and refocusing,” she says.

The juxtaposition between Adams and Beck, one of rock’s all-time reasonable men, was stark. “There are these figures that come along when I’m engaged in these unhealthy creative relationships,” Lewis says, “and they appear just long enough to say: ‘You can do this on your own. You’re good. I can help you, but it’s yours.’ ”

“On the Line” is slower and more muted than Lewis’s past albums; there are gently swinging retro-country ballads, mostly sad, with an emphasis on pianos and organs, the latter provided by Benmont Tench, former keyboardist for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Petty died during a break in the sessions, followed weeks later by the death of Lewis’s mother. Lewis had a complicated relationship with her mother, who struggled with heroin addiction and mental illness, and from whom she had been semi-estranged.

Weeks after her mother died, Lewis recorded the album standout “Little White Dove,” a bottom-heavy ballad about her final days. “I’m still afraid of a lot of things, but I don’t know if I’m afraid of dying,” she says. “Having been through that with my mother, that’s not as scary to me as it once was, which I think is a really liberating thing to go through. I’m afraid of cancer, I’m afraid of the archaic medical tools, but I’m not afraid of the other stuff.”

Growing up, Lewis’s home life had been tumultuous. She had worked fairly steadily as a child actress since the age of 3; in a Jell-O commercial, the Shelley Long comedy “Troop Beverly Hills,” the 1989 Fred Savage nerdfest “The Wizard.” She shared the screen with everyone from Angelina Jolie to Lucille Ball. “There was this normalcy on the set, and there was a meal, and the routine of it. Every time I’d start a new project, there would be a new family.”

Lewis’s father wasn’t a presence in her life, but his role was played by a series of reassuring ’80s television dads. “Corbin Bernsen, David Strathairn, Peter Scolari,” Lewis remembers. “These guys that played my dads, they were the best guys.”

Lewis found the same stability in Rilo Kiley, the band she and guitarist Blake Sennett (who was also a child actor, and her future ex-boyfriend), formed in the late-’90s. Bands, like film sets, were a makeshift source of shelter. When Lewis later heard that inmates in women’s prisons formed family units on the inside, she immediately understood — it was kind of like that on tour.

When Lewis recorded “Rabbit Fur Coat” with female backing duo the Watson Twins, things in Rilo Kiley were already rocky. The album, a country-gospel-soul mash-up that she estimates took five days to make, became a cultural sensation that changed the course of her career. At 30, she felt free for the first time. She and the Twins wore matching outfits onstage, and, unlike in Rilo Kiley, nobody yelled at each other. She couldn’t believe how easy it was. Rilo Kiley released one more album before disbanding.

Lewis has always felt that her songs are prophetic somehow, like they knew things that would happen to her before she did. She is still struck by the naivete of many of those early songs, but she wonders if she was setting intentions she didn’t know about. “I’m always surprised by my songs, at either how irrelevant or relevant they feel,” she says. “There’s hidden messages to myself in there. It’s like I’m singing to my future and past self.”

When Lewis was in her 30s, she wrote the “Voyager” track “Just One of the Guys,” a song about a perennial Cool Girl beginning to doubt her life choices (“When I look at myself all I can see / I’m just another lady without a baby”). The song wasn’t a hit, but it was a big deal, and it was accompanied by a buzzy video starring Kristen Stewart, Brie Larson, Tennessee Thomas and Anne Hathaway, a friend from her acting days.

Lewis says the song wasn’t biographical (“My songs aren’t the paper of record. There’s a lot of wiggle room in there”), and isn’t meant to seem sad — just matter of fact. But pop music is short on songs about women confronting their empty uteruses, and it struck a nerve with fans, who still ask her about it.

The further Lewis gets from the track, the closer she feels. She’s “a career girl and a survivalist,” on the road so much she can’t even get a dog. But she’s back living in Studio City now, in the house she lived in with Rice, a green and brown house called Mint Chip. Mint Chip has seen countless late-night jam sessions and dissolute ragers. Mint Chip is a vibe.

But the people Lewis rented it to during her time in New York had a baby there during her absence (they asked her first, it’s fine), and the idea of a baby in Mint Chip seems strangely not awful. At the very least, it’s a means of exorcising the house’s dark breakup juju.

Children aren’t something Lewis needs, or are something she is even sure she wants. But she wonders about them, especially lately, and she feels the weight of other people wondering, too.

“There’s so much anxiety around the subject,” she says, tapping meaningfully at an imaginary watch on her wrist. “This is all I talk about with my girlfriends. There’s biological pressure, there’s this sense that you aren’t a complete person. People kind of look at you weird, like, Auntie Mame-style. It’s not whether I want it or don’t want it, we’ll see where life takes me. My time ain’t up yet.”

[delta-roseblr]

Okay, I already reblogged this but now that I have read the comments I have to add.

The things people are complaining about in fanfiction all exists in more traditionally distributed storytelling. Some very popular and successful stories contain these things. Don’t believe me, here are some examples:

Incest: The Flowers in the Attic (both the book series and the films), Game of Thrones, The Blue Lagoon.

Rape: Well, the enitre rape-revenge horror subgenre exists but beyond that we again have Game of Thrones, A Handmaid’s Tale, Vikings and I can go on. There are actually a lot of great articles out there about how prevalent rape tropes are in fiction.

Underage sex- Every teen drama on television (yes, CW I am looking at you). A lot of period piece type stories (again looking at Game of Thrones) include what would be considered underage sex by modern standards. A lot of those Coming of Age type movies/books include underage sex.

*Also, and I feel this is important to include is that at least in the US, underage in many states is a kind of complicated thing. In many states there are laws that sets different rules regarding age of consent based on the age difference between the two parties. For example, if a sixteen year old has sex with their eighteen year old partner, in a lot of states that is fine but if that sixteen year old had sex with a twenty four year old that is statutory rape. So when people complain about the inappropriateness of a story involving two 16 year old's having consensual sex, they are complaining about something that isn’t even illegal in most states.

Significantly underage sex- It has been a real long time since I read it but pretty sure Flowers in the Attic would fall in this category. Blue lagoon might as well. A few Anne Rice novels definitely do. More tame, but movies like Eighth Grade also touch on this.

Pedophilia/Predatory Sexual behavior- Anne Rice, I’m looking at you cause this was all over her work. Lolita is a pretty easy one to look at. No sex is explicitly described but I got some real questions about what was going on in Man without a Face. There was some classic grooming behavior going on in that book.

Yes, some of these things are really uncomfortable to read about and you as a reader may want to avoid them, which really is the beauty of things being tagged. 

The thing that people who complain about Ao3 and the content there don’t seem to get is that just because someone writes about something, that doesn’t mean they endorse that thing, believe it is right or okay, are advocating that you or anyone should go out and do it, or engage in it themselves. It is FICTION and exploring the darker side of humanity and uncomfortable topics is sometimes a part of that.

Just because Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein that doesn’t mean she was grave robbing or telling people to stitch corpses together.

Just because Jeff Lindsey wrote the Dexter series that doesn’t mean he is out there killing people or advocating for vigilant justice.

Vladimir Nabokov wasn’t suggesting middle-aged men should abduct and rape 12 year old girls when he wrote Lolita.

Wealthy publishing companies aren’t being expect to eliminate this kind of content from their catalog or even warn people when a novel includes such content. Films and tv shows continue to be made containing this kind of content. Why is Ao3 being expected to censor content to an extent no one else is?

after seeing yet another huge post where young people rail against AO3 and older people have to explain that censorship is bad actually, I gotta say that as someone who reads a fuck ton of books a year, these younger people could really benefit from doing the same for a little perspective. fucked up content is not just a fanfic thing, and with books, you don't get any warnings! you just turn the page and gaze upon the most fucked up scene of your life! these people do not know how good they've got it tbh just filter tags my lieges

[dingoes8myrp]

A Jekyll/Hyde Deal: Vampire Morality in Buffy the Vampire Slayer

The vampire lore in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel is a mix of traditional vampire attributes and unique original concepts. While this combination creates an interesting dynamic when it comes to vampire characters, the formula becomes problematic. The rules for these vampires seem to change throughout the show, and it’s often difficult to tell if these changes are compliant with the lore the show sets up for itself. I’m going to be analyzing a few of our favorite vampires alongside the lore itself to try to figure this out. There may be triggery things throughout.

“Welcome to the Hellmouth” and “The Harvest”

The first two episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer lay out some ground rules for how vampires work.

Vampires look like regular people.

Every universe is different. In Anne Rice’s world vampires are beautiful, yet distinctive with their porcelain-colored skin, reflective eyes, permanent fangs, and fingernails like glass. In the opening scene of BtVS’s pilot episode, we meet our first vampire: Darla, the nervous presumably teenage woman in the school uniform, complete with pleated skirt. We’re given no indication that she’s anything but human until she strikes, showing her vamp face.

There is a vamp face.

Vampires vamp out differently in every universe. In The Lost Boys they grow two sets of fangs and their eyes turn yellow. In True Blood they have handy retractable fangs that are nice and discreet. When Darla is ready to feed her face morphs. She doesn’t merely grow a pair of fangs. Her brow ridges and cheek bones shift, becoming more pronounced. Her face wrinkles around the eyes, which turn yellow-orange. All of her teeth become sharp and jagged, not just her fangs.

Most people are unaware vampires exist.

In some universes containing vampires there’s widespread knowledge of their existence. In True Blood vampires come out of hiding entirely and fight for equal rights. In The Vampire Diaries they have an in-the-know council dedicated to protecting the town’s citizens from vampires. While it becomes clear early on that Buffy and Giles are aware of vampires due to context clues, Xander picks up a wooden stake Buffy dropped and has no idea what it’s for. When a dead body is found in a locker Buffy is the only one asking weird questions about how the person died. It becomes clear very quickly that most people don’t know vampires exist.

Blood sharing turns a person into a vampire.

Buffy reiterates to Giles: “To make you a vampire they have to suck your blood. And then you have to suck their blood. It's like a whole big sucking thing. Mostly they're just gonna kill you.” This is a pretty standard vampire transformation process and, at this point, doesn’t sound too fancy or complicated. It’s very similar to the Anne Rice process of becoming a vampire. Pretty classic.

There’s only one legitimate vampire hunter.

A unique thing about the Buffyverse is the Slayer: one girl in all the world to fight the monsters. BtVS specifies there’s only one Slayer and that there’s a large number of all kinds of monsters she’s expected to ward off.

Stakes and sunlight kill vampires.

Buffy mentions a stake to the heart will kill a vampire, as will sunlight: “Oh, come on, stake through the heart, a little sunlight... It's like falling off a log.” Again, pretty standard.

Vampires are people possessed by demons.

This is where things start to get complicated. Giles explains: “[T]he last demon to leave this reality fed off a human, mixed their blood. He was a human form possessed, infected by the demon's soul.” In Buffyverse vampirism is a form of demonic possession, the rules of which are murky at this point.

Vampires are intelligent.

These aren’t walking reanimated corpses (unless you’re in Pylea). Vampires are just as intelligent as humans. They come up with elaborate schemes, they manipulate people, and frequently outsmart our heroes.

Garlic, crosses, holy water, fire, and decapitation are essential for vampire slaying.

Buffy gives Xander the rundown on how to repel vampires. He says “Okay, so, crosses, garlic, stake through the heart.” She confirms “That’ll get it done.” Then later: “Oh, fire, beheading, sunlight, holy water, the usual.” Fairly typical. The usual, indeed.

Vampires don’t retain their former selves.

After Jesse is turned, Giles tells Xander: “When you see him you’re not looking at your friend. You’re looking at the thing that killed him.” This implies that vampires don’t retain their humanity after they turn.

Angel and Buffy

We learn a lot about vampires through Angel’s relationship with Buffy. He explains stuff to her and, therefore, to us. 

Vampires can’t have children.

Fairly early in their relationship, Angel tells Buffy vampires can’t have biological children. It’s a topic that comes up a few times in their relationship and it’s one of the things that ultimately causes them to break up.

But, they can get it on.

Vampires are able to have sex, recreationally.

Food doesn’t do much for vampires.

Vampires can drink and, possibly, they can eat. However, according to Angel food is unappealing to vampires and it doesn’t help them nutritionally.

Vampires don’t need to breathe.

When Buffy is drowned by The Master, Xander has to administer CPR because Angel has no breath. This comes up with Angel a few times throughout the show.

Vampires sleep.

We see Angel and Buffy nodding off together a number of times, so vampires get their Z’s just like everyone else.

Sometimes vamping out is involuntary.

While vampires seem able to control their vampire visage, for the most part, there are times when they vamp out without intending to. When a vampire feeds or engages in combat their face morphs whether they want it to or not.

Vampires are vulnurable to magic.

Angel was cursed with a human soul using a magic ritual, which is later replicated by Willow.

Spike and Buffy

Spike teaches us a bit more about vampires as he teaches Buffy.

Most vampires are well aware of the Slayer.

Spike has killed two Slayers, which he describes in detail to Buffy. Most vampires are well aware of her existence.

Vampires can get drunk.

Spike indulges in his share of alcoholic beverages after a hard day.

Vampires can get knocked unconscious.

Spike chokeholds Drusilla until she passes out. This might be due to lack of bloodflow moreso than oxygen.

The show adds to and rewrites these rules as it goes, but to start with that’s what we’ve got. In a nutshell, vampires are demonically tainted humans that are inherently evil. They’re harmed by holy things and sunlight. They can be killed by fire, decapitation, or a stake to the heart (although that’d probably kill pretty much anything). That’s all well and good until we start getting to know some vampires.

Jesse McNally

Jesse is the first person we see actually transform into a vampire. We meet him as a human, then we see how his personality differs after he turns. Based on the traits we see, the core elements of Jesse’s personality remain. He’s outgoing and confident. As a human he introduces himself to Buffy and joins in conversation with her, displaying none of the nervousness Xander exhibits. He also frequently hits on Cordelia, despite her cruel brush-offs. He has a teasing sense of humor, which is mostly directed toward Xander. The primary difference Jesse displays as a vampire is his morality. His attraction to Cordelia becomes a predatory obsession. Once good-natured jokes toward Xander turn into hostile put-downs. However, he does display a comradery with Xander, verbally jousting with him and telling him how awesome it is to be a vampire. He doesn’t kill Xander, even though Xander clearly shows up prepared to kill Jesse at the Bronze. Jesse still has some sort of a pull toward Cordelia and he doesn’t seem to want to kill her, instead wanting to keep her for himself. What his intentions are beyond that are unclear at best. The point is, at the core, Jesse still appears to be the same person and to want the same things. There’s just nothing preventing him from hurting people or displaying cruel behavior.

Jesse’s behavior complicates Giles’s statement to Xander that vampires don’t retain their former selves. Giles may be trying to simplify things for Xander so that Xander can fight or kill Jesse without hesitating. But, it seems to be the general belief of Buffy as well as the Watchers Council that vampires are demon souls possessing human corpses. Does this mean a vampire is literally a person possessed by an entirely different being with its own personality, as with the demons in Supernatural? This doesn’t seem likely in Jesse’s case. He presents as a darker version of his human self, without guilt and conscience getting in the way of his desires and impulses. So, what exactly is this “infected by the demon’s soul” business? How does it actually work? This is something that’s never truly explained or delved into and I wouldn’t be surprised if the writers never actually nailed it down.

Darla

Darla is the first vampire we meet in the pilot’s opening scene. She’s the one that sets the tone for vampires and how they operate. They’re clever, blending in with people, as Darla does at the Bronze. They’re also predators, stalking their prey, displayed when a vampire lures Willow to the cemetery from the Bronze. Darla, as a villain, is dangerous and unpredictable. She’s supposed to be collecting people as offerings for The Master she answers to, but she prematurely bites Jesse because she “got hungry.” She’s the one who killed someone and stuffed him in a locker at Sunnydale High, where he would undoubtedly be found by some unsuspecting student. Darla enjoys toying with people, playing with her food. With Darla, we learn that vampires aren’t predictable creatures. They change course, they adapt, they betray those they’re supposed to be loyal to.

Darla does seem to retain an affection for Angel, though she loathes his human soul, and she’s jealous of Buffy. While we don’t see much of Darla before she was turned, we do see her as a human resurrected on Angel. Her personality is very similar, though a bit softer. She’s still a seductress and a survivalist, putting her own interests ahead of anyone else’s. It’s hard to tell how much of this was her original human personality, since we’ve only seen her human once on her deathbed. Even with a soul we see Darla has a hard time redeeming herself. She doesn’t want to redeem herself, which is the important part. She expresses remorse for things she’s done, but she has no desire to continue living as a human and die of her illness, nor does she want to deal with the consequences of her actions. She wants to go back to being a vampire, perhaps because it’s easier or because she’s now more familiar with her vampire self than her human self.

With Darla’s resurrection comes the question of what happens to vampires in the afterlife? In Buffy the Vampire Slayer season 6 we learn what “Heaven” is like from Buffy: “Wherever I ... was ... I was happy. At peace. I knew that everyone I cared about was all right. I knew it. Time ... didn't mean anything ... nothing had form ... but I was still me, you know? And I was warm ... and I was loved ... and I was finished. Complete. I don't understand about theology or dimensions, or ... any of it, really ... but I think I was in heaven. And now I'm not. I was torn out of there. Pulled out ... by my friends. Everything here is ... hard, and bright, and violent. Everything I feel, everything I touch ... this is Hell.” When Darla’s talking to Lindsey she says “I was Darla for so long. Then I wasn't. I… I wasn't anything. I just stopped. He killed me. I was done. Then you brought me back.” She doesn’t speak of Heaven or Hell. According to Darla there was just nothing. It’s possible she doesn’t remember anything due to however they resurrected her, but it makes me wonder what a vampire’s afterlife is like, considering Hell does exist in this universe, in many physical forms. 

When Angel was killed by Buffy and sucked into Acathla’s portal he went to a Hell dimension. Giles tells Buffy: “From what is known about that dimension, i- it would suggest a world of... brutal torment. And time moves quite differently there, so...” Buffy concludes Angel would have been there for hundreds of years of torture. His experience was very different from what Darla describes. I was never clear on whether or not Angel actually died. We didn’t see him turn to dust, so perhaps he was alive and then physically transported to another dimension. Buffy said she killed him, so maybe he did die and get resurrected. I’m not sure how that all worked. If Angel did die, he did go to a Hell that was a physical place. What does it mean if Darla didn’t? When Darla was resurrected she also had her soul, which implies a person’s soul doesn’t go away when a vampire takes over the body. So, where does it go in the meantime?

New rule: Wherever vampires go when they die, it’s not Heaven.

Angel/Angelus

Angel is the first vampire with a soul we meet. According to Buffy and Giles, he’s an anomaly. Angel is the first vampire anyone in the cast actually gets to know because no one knows he’s a vampire at first. On one hand, one can’t blame him for being low-key about it, considering this bunch is known for just killing vampires without even considering they could be something other than evil. On the other hand, he waits a long while before he reveals what he is, and when he does it’s accidental. His motives behind that are shaky, as it’s only partly self-preservation. He gets overly involved with Buffy, and he doesn’t seem to mind that he is. He points out on a number of occasions that the two of them dating is a bad idea, but it doesn’t stop him from pursuing a romance with her. We learn down the line that Angel saw Buffy before she was called and sort of stalked her to Sunnydale and conveniently ran into her one night to warn her about the Harvest. The fact that he’s so deceptive about his motivations and about what he is makes me think he’s not really “good” in a moral sense, even though he’s on the good guy team in season one. All of his actions are self-serving, even aiding Buffy because of his interest in her. How much of this is the vampire and how much of it is the man? The backstory we get of Angel, as a human, reveals he was unmotivated and a disappointment to his father, which doesn’t tell us a lot about what he was like generally speaking.

As Angelus, Angel was a ruthless killer who enjoyed stalking, tormenting, and artfully displaying his victims. The notable thing about Angelus is that his personality as a vampire seems completely different than what we know about his personality as a human. This wasn’t a lazy, unmotivated person. The only thread I can make between the two is the desire to prove himself. As a man, this was an inner “someday I’ll make something of myself and show them all” sort of desire. As a vampire, it was a thing he actively did. Whatever made him lazy or kept him from acting on things was gone when he became a vampire. I can also see a tendency toward excessive indulgence in both personas. As a man, he drank and whored. As a vampire, he fed and killed.

Angel puts a considerable distance between his soul-toting self and his evil vampire self, seeming to not remember his actions as Angelus when he’s re-ensouled in “Becoming, Part 2.” When we see him get cursed with a soul the first time he immediately knows all he’s done and shows deep regret. It’s possible Angel really doesn’t remember in the season 2 finale. It could be a genuine psychological response on his end, almost like blocking out a traumatic event. But, the ensoulment spell contradicts itself by behaving differently both times. The separation between Angel and Angelus is always something murky and it’s never really clear. It seems to change depending on the needs of the plot.

New rule: vampires can have souls, though it’s rare. New rule: vampire psychology is very complicated business.

Drusilla

Drusilla is unique due to her insanity and her psychic abilities. When we first encounter Drusilla she’s weak and frail, relying on Spike to care for her. She has visions that are precognitive in nature, and her mind often drifts from the reality at hand. However, she’s also a playful predator often underestimated due to her apparent frailty (both of mind and body). She hypnotizes the Slayer Kendra, allowing her to kill the woman with a scratch to the jugular. What’s up with that, by the way? Does she have Wolverine claws for fingernails? But, I digress.

As a human, Drusilla was chaste and pure, studying to be a nun. Her prophetic visions plagued her and she feared she was evil. Angel tells Buffy: “I did a lot of unconscionable things when I became a vampire. Drusilla was the worst. She was... an obsession of mine. She was pure and sweet and chaste...” Buffy concludes “And you made her a vampire.” Angel says “First I made her insane. Killed everybody she loved. Visited every mental torture on her I could devise. She eventually fled to a convent, and on the day she took her holy orders, I turned her into a demon.” Not only did Drusilla become a vampire, she endured unspeakable torment long before. As a result, she becomes a vampire with a broken mind.

Drusilla’s personality as a vampire is the opposite of her human personality. She displays a childlike playfulness when she’s hunting or tormenting victims. She’s hypersexualized, often flirting with Angelus during season 2 despite her long standing relationship with Spike, and seeming to enjoy causing competitive discord between them over her affections. The only link I can find between the two personas is the visions and her reaction to them. When Drusilla gets visions of the future that are negative she becomes quite fearful, as she did when she was human in flashbacks. As both a human and a vampire, the visions are something that set her apart and make her “different.”

New rule: vampires may not be of sound mind. New rule: vampires may have psychic abilities.

Spike

Spike is the only vampire to get a chip to the brain: a behavior modification experiment performed on him by the Initiative that prevented him from being able to harm typical humans. This forced him to change his behavior through no will of his own. He began fighting demons because he could no longer fight people, and he refrained from feeding on people because he couldn’t. It’s important to note that this was not a moral choice on Spike’s part. It was a lifestyle forced on him he tried everything in his power to get out of.

Something notable about Spike is the affection he displays toward Drusilla, his sire, who he’s romantically involved with when we meet him. Despite being an evil, soulless creature, he dotes on Drusilla and genuinely cares for her. When Spike and Drusilla raise The Judge in season 2, he comments on Spike and Drusilla: “You two stink of humanity. You share affection and jealousy.” Spike feels deeply for Drusilla, and he’s not ashamed of it or afraid to show it.

As a man, Spike felt infatuation for Cecily, which he announced and was then ashamed of when he was rebuffed. This tendency toward infatuation remains with Spike as a vampire, as evidenced by his extreme reactions when he’s dumped by Drusilla and later turned down by Buffy. He’s someone who feels deeply and reacts strongly based on his emotions. This sets him apart from both Angel and Darla, and links him to Drusilla.

New rule: soulless does not mean “lack of humanity.” New rule: vampires can form emotional attachments to others.

Spike is the first vampire to seek out his human soul, wanting to be the kind of man Buffy could love. His reaction to the guilt this brings about is very similar to Angel’s in “Amends” and to Darla’s in Angel when she’s resurrected as a human. This brings about questions about the nature of a vampire’s soul, if it has one. A lack of a soul does not equal a lack of human emotion, as evidenced by Spike and Drusilla. It does mean a lack of guilt and an absence of a conscience. The sense of right and wrong gets twisted. The most prominent example of this is Spike’s assault on Buffy in “Seeing Red.” His moral compass is off and his realization of that comes from Buffy’s reaction, from the pain he causes her when he wanted to do the opposite. Perhaps a vampire’s humanity is measured by who they grow attached to…

Connor

Connor is not a vampire. He’s whatever happens when two vampires have a child with the help of divine intervention. I call him a dhampir, but he’s never specifically labeled in the show. Connor is important in this discussion because he’s a combination of human and vampire, the only one of his nature we meet in the show. He has a human soul, which is pointed out by Darla during her pregnancy. Despite that, he does horrible things in service to villainous people.

Being raised by Holtz in a hell dimension, Connor was raised as a warrior – a weapon to be used – and his gauge of right and wrong is off. When Angel asks Connor how he learned to track people he casually describes a “game” Holtz made up for him as a child: “He'd tie me to a tree and then run away,” and then “You know, so I'd have to escape and then find him. One time it only took me five days.” He attributes this as why he’s so good at tracking while Angel is horrified to hear it. This is a strong indicator of Connor’s moral compass. Things other people would find horrific or evil are things Connor shrugs his shoulders at. Evil has been normalized for him, beginning when he was a child. This makes it difficult to say how his soul works, how much of his morality is determined by his nature and how much came from his upbringing.

An important aspect of Connor is how his morality changes to suit whoever he’s loyal to at the time. When he’s loyal to Holtz he’s hellbent on killing Angel. When he’s loyal to Cordelia (or the thing walking around pretending to be Cordelia), he’ll do anything to make her happy – no matter what that means. Nothing is “wrong” if it’s done to serve some sort of end goal he sees as “right.” He can spin just about anything in his favor if he’s protecting someone he loves. He’s very similar to a vampire in this regard, with his morality shifting with his loyalty. However, the human guilt he has makes it difficult for him to function this way for long.

New rule: A vampire’s morality is fluid. Rewritten rule: Vampires can’t have children (unless a godlike being decides they should).

So, where does that leave us? Naturally, somewhere in the shades of gray of morality. Vampires are as evil as they allow themselves to be, or as good as they try to be. For a vampire, evil is their natural state simply because there’s nothing within them telling them things are bad or wrong. But, a vampire can go against that nature. We see it with Spike and with Angel. Being good for a vampire is an active fight every day. One slip or lapse and they can easily backslide. Like people, vampires differ from one another. Humanity is a sliding scale for them. Some lean hard toward the evil end because they have no desire to fight their nature (i.e. Darla until giving birth to Connor). Others lean toward the good side because they have a lot of ties to their humanity (i.e. Spike).

TL;DR – vampires are complicated, guys. Like, very.