#anne rice why would you say that to me

[armandlastnamemarius]

Excerpt From Vampire Chronicles 07: The Vampire Armand

Excerpt From Vampire Chronicles 08: Blood and Gold

i have to say. having their relationship start with marius on a boat hearing armand pray (he prayed for death and death came to get him…) and ending with armand on a boat praying (calling out to marius) is really hurting my feelings.

[likehandlingroses]

“I began the journey towards my first novel with a vampire named Louis in a room in San Francisco telling his personal story to a young reporter, who two books later acquired the name of Daniel. A vampire named Lestat was born early on in Louis’s story as Louis described how he’d been seduced into vampirism by a ‘maker’ he regarded as evil and shallow and unworthy of the gift of immortality he’d given to Louis. Louis’s deep resentment of Lestat colored all of Interview with the Vampire. Yet there were plenty of hints in the novel that Lestat himself might have a very different version of events to reveal, if he were ever allowed to speak. Indeed Lestat’s vitality and glamour came to elicit an enormous response from readers, for which I wasn’t at all prepared.

“Shortly after Interview with the Vampire was published, one of my good friends had a fierce argument with me in which she told me Lestat was the hero of my novel—not the melancholy and ever-complaining Louis, but Lestat, Lestat who loved life and embraced life. Another friend, listening quietly all while, said, ‘You drew Louis in ink. You painted Lestat in oils.’” —Anne Rice, Introduction to Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles: An Alphabettery

[docholligay]

Do you think authors sometimes don't realize how their, uh, interests creep into their writing? I'm talking about stuff like Robert Jordan's obvious femdom kink, or Anne Rice's preoccupation with inc*st and p*dophilia. Did their editors ever gently ask them if they've ever actually read what they've written?

Firstly, a reminder: This is not tiktok and we just say the words incest and pedophilia here.

Secondly, I don't know if I would call them 'interests' so much as fixations or even concerns. There are monstrous things that people think about, and I think writing is a place to engage with those monstrous things. It doesn't bother me that people engage with those things. I exist somewhere within the whump scale, and I would hope no one would think less of me just because sooner or later I like to rough a good character up a bit, you know? It's fun to torture characters, as a treat!

But, anyway, assuming this question isn't, "Do writers know they're gross when I think they are gross" which I'm going to take the kind road and assume it isn't, but is instead, "Do you think authors are aware of the things they constantly come back to?"

Sometimes. It can be jarring to read your own writing and realize that there are things you CLEARLY are preoccupied with. (mm, I like that word more than concerns). There are things you think about over and over, your run your mind over them and they keep working their way back in. I think this is true of most authors, when you read enough of them. Where you almost want to ask, "So...what's up with that?" or sometimes I read enough of someone's work that I have a PRETTY good idea what's up with that.

I've never read Robert Jordan and I don't intend to start (I think it would bore me this is not a moral stance) and I've really never read Rice's erotica. In erotica especially I think you have all the right in the world to get fucking weird about it! But so, when I was young I read the whole Vampire Chronicles series. I don't remember it perfectly, but there's plenty in it to reveal VERY plainly that Anne Rice has issues with God but deeply believes in God, and Anne Rice has a preoccupation with the idea of what should stay dead, and what it means to become. So, when i found out her daughter died at the age of six, before Rice wrote all of this, and she grew up very very Catholic' I said, 'yeah, that fucking checks out'.

Was Rice herself aware of how those things formed her writing? I think at a certain point probably yes. The character of Claudia is in every way too on the nose for her not to have SOME idea unless she was REAL REAL dense about her own inner workings. But, sometimes I know where something I write about comes from, that doesn't mean I'm interested in sharing it with the class. I would never ever fucking say, 'The reasons I seem to write so much of x as y is that z happened to me years ago' ahaha FUCK THAT NOISE. NYET. RIDE ON, COWBOY.

But I've known some people in fandom works who clearly have something going on and don't seem to realize it. Or they're very good at hiding it. Based on the people I'm talking about I would say it's more a lack of self-knowledge, and I don't even mean that unkindly. I have, in many ways, taken myself down to the studs and rebuilt it all, so I unfortunately am very aware of why I do and write the things I do most of the time. It's extremely annoying not to be able to blame something. I imagine it must be very freeing. But it ain't me, babe.

Anyway, a lot of words to say: Maybe! But that might not stop them from writing it, it might be a useful thing for them to engage with, and you can always just not read it.

Also, we don't censor words here.

[comicaurora]

I’ve repeatedly seen you say that you can’t read any Aurora fanfiction “for legal reasons”. I assumed this was a joke and you’d just resolved to yourself not to read any that might change where you take the story (understandable), but the more I see you say it, the more I wonder if there’s actually a legitimate legal reason. So forgive my inability to pick up on humor sometimes— is that a joke? And if it’s not, could you elaborate a bit on those reasons?

I am not a lawyer so I only have a layman's grasp of this, but as I understand it, if I read a fanfic, think "oh that's a cool idea" and consciously or unconsciously integrate it into my future work, that ensnares me and the fanfic author in a terrible tangle of mutual theft.

Technically, fanfiction exists in an extreme legal gray area, and in the early days of the internet, authors were very litigious towards their fans using their work. In the same way that Disney will get on your ass for putting Mickey Mouse in your work, any author has the same legal ownership of their characters, and they can choose to exercise it. Some famously have, like Anne Rice, but most nowadays do not. Fandom is understood to be a beneficial ecosystem for a creator to cultivate. Most creators Pretend They Do Not See It so it can continue to exist.

But suppose you wrote a fanfic about Aurora where something cool happened, and then a few chapters later, your story showed up in Aurora itself. Maybe even with some lines ripped verbatim, for even less plausible deniability. Oh shit - you've been robbed. But your story was fanfiction to begin with, only loosely permitted to exist with the understanding that you didn't own the setting or characters used. In this scenario, I stole your work, but it was work you made out of MY work in the first place. If you got mad and litigious, the legality of fanfiction itself would immediately take center stage in the argument. Do you have a right to your work when you made it out of MY work without permission? Do I have the right to take work that was made out of my work and use it without credit? The fact that I think fanfiction is a great and fun art form has no bearing on the fact that, technically, it is IP theft. And the fact that it IS IP theft has no bearing on the fact that me seeing a cool idea in a fanfic and going "mine now" would still be a shitty thing to do.

But things can get muddier. Suppose you write an Aurora fanfic where events A, B and C happen, and then over the next several chapters of Aurora, A, B and C happen. Did I steal ideas from your fanfiction? Maybe, but it's also possible that I had A, B and C planned out beforehand, and you put them in your fanfiction because you picked up the foreshadowing and prep I was putting down. You could still be mad about it, but there's a very real possibility that in this scenario the only thing I'd be guilty of was Good Foreshadowing.

In this situation, if you got mad and litigious about it, my best defense would be ignorance. I couldn't have stolen your fanfiction because I never read it. There is absolutely no chance that I was influenced by your work; I've never even laid eyes on it.

And that is why I don't read Aurora fanfiction.

[sarahreesbrennan]

Another Interesting Spoilery Evil Question

To directly answer the question before I start rambling, the Cobra’s body’s physical age is 24.

(You can stop reading here if you like. This gets very long!)

When Marius meets the Cobra (chapter 18 epigraph from Time of Iron) he correctly identifies him as Marius’s own age at the time - 18.

At the time of the book all the physical bodies’ ages are as follows.

Marius - 24

The Cobra - 24

Rahela - 24

Octavian - 24

(Pio and Nemeth, Octavian’s advisers, are in their early 40s and late 50s respectively - they’re Octavian’s dad’s people and that is part of why they are so stressed. Their king died young, Octavian became king in his teens and it has been an uneasy court ever since.)

Emer - 23

Key - 20

Lia - 19

Rae and Eric in our world were both 4 years younger than their bodies in this world (so they would both be 20 if the story hadn’t happened to them). For the moment we’ll leave aside Key, who had another life too, in a different way. (He was a little kid, but old enough to walk after his father, in the epigraph from Time of Iron in chapter 15.)

I do age shenanigans for two reasons.

—One is that age in fiction and reality is weird, and I wanted to portray that. If I had a crush on Mr Darcy when I was 7, is that okay? If I had a crush on Mr Darcy when aged 41, is that okay? Mr Darcy’s always in his late twenties: Elizabeth Bennet will never be older than 21, but she seemed so glamorous and all-knowing to me when I was a kid.

And if you walk into a story, when in their character development do you find them? Would we like Darcy when he’s sneering at Elizabeth at a ball? Who is it that we love and when?

Plenty of adult women fancied Edward Cullen, perpetually a teen (or was he? Fantasy and horror also open up the possibility of immortality - but in a way, all fictional characters are immortal. Holden Caulfield isn’t growing up any more than Edward Cullen is. And like fictional characters and immortals, the dead aren’t getting any older either—I think often of Anne Rice, author of the Vampire Chronicles, who wrote the doomed child vampire Claudia after losing her own daughter Michele as a child. Death, immortality, fiction and the overlap!) When I read or watched stories in which characters were in different/changed bodies they usually seemed younger - often their younger selves, or a younger/cuter body (Peggy Sue Got Married, Scarlet Heart). (Exceptions exist of course, e.g. Howl’s Moving Castle.) And I like magic losing something, costing you something, plus I’m a contrarian. So I wanted them older.

—The other is that LONG LIVE EVIL is a story about trauma, which often arrests your age in your mind. The period in which you were enduring the horrors is a blank in which you couldn’t develop normally, or in which you had plenty of experiences but few of them match with your peers’.

Cancer did it to me, which wasn’t horrendous as I was in my early 30s and that’s still adult, just meant a bit of ‘oh no I’m not this child’s mother, I’m too young - actually I’m a bit old to be this child’s mother now I think about it, but anyway I don’t claim her’ and the like. But I’ve seen it do the same for people with cancer I befriended or whom I mentor, and it’s a very different proposition if the lost years are 17-21.

It’s not just cancer, I’ve seen bereavement work that way on people, and apparently celebrity works on the mind like trauma and arrests you at the age you became famous in a lot of ways. It’s being taken out of the run of ordinary life, walking through your portal into strangeness.

But in the end most of us wind up with years that feel lost, I think, and playing catch-up is the only way forward.

And allegory remains allegory: if I’m writing a werewolf I’m taking about rage and body horror, sure, but I’m also talking about werewolves.

I was actually confused by this ask at first as I’d written a whole section where Eric says he’s going to die of a heart attack at 20 and Marius is exasperated as Eric is a little young to start lying about his age! But it must have fallen victim to my many cuts - stories transform! - and I can see why, because I don’t think Eric exactly thinks of himself as 20 anymore.

I had some struggles with the age stuff, it’s another layer of complication in a complicated story and there were worries raised that it was unnecessary and might make some characters less appealing but in the end I decided it was necessary to me and let the characters be unappealing, then.

I also enjoy the twisting, fluid ages because they cause conflict, and conflict is story.

Rae uses her new age (and thus doesn’t need to think of her absolutely horrible self worth) to count herself out as a romantic option in Key’s eyes.

She also thinks of the Emperor as in his mid-20s, as he is - after a time skip that happens in the original Time of Iron, years in which Key and Emer were Lia’s servants. She knows about those years, but she doesn’t put it together.

At Eric and Marius’s first meeting 6 years before the events of LONG LIVE EVIL, Eric also hasn’t been in the book that long. He was in a horrifically traumatic survival situation for a large part of the time he was inside, when he approached Marius to blackmail him. That is objectively a deranged thing to do, but Eric is thinking like a terrified 14 year old and also like a Huge Fan of Marius. aka the quintessential white knight, the Last Hope who is reserved and dignified and crucially, 24-28.

That would be the Marius Eric at the time knows when he approaches Marius in the flesh, Marius at 18 and coming off family trauma, friend trauma and quasi-romantic trauma himself. Marius actually DOES go into dissociative states and kill people, Eric was taking a huge risk with his own life that not a single person in the country would have taken. Marius is a Valerius, and they are killers. (The whole court, Marius included, thought Lady Katalin ((Rahela’s mother)) was being very daring by like, touching Marius’s hand when he was 17.)

Eric is acting wild partly because a) he is wild, b) he’s desperate but also crucially c) he’s thinking of Marius as someone that Marius isn’t yet and d) he’s not thinking of things from Marius’s POV, and doesn’t until the events of LONG LIVE EVIL. Their quasi friendship/quasi hostage situation (that the hostage had firmly decided was happening) couldn’t have happened without a perfect storm of weirdness, risks and lack of understanding what the hell was going on.

Marius would not have seen a 14 year old Eric (not a child to him exactly, but squire age rather than knight age) as a criminal threat in the same way as he saw the Cobra, his own age (18, which was definitely very adult, Marius thought at the time). Eric wouldn’t have failed to consider consequences or failed to consider Marius as person rather than character, if he’d actually been 18. But by the time anyone knew better, a status quo was established, and habit is second nature and a stronger nature than the first.

Eric’s plight is horrific initially. But at the same time, Eric is extremely intelligent (both intellectually and emotionally) and able to both cover and play catch-up to this new life, and he can advise Rae with the benefit of his experience - but that doesn’t mean that he didn’t screw up massively when he first came into the book, or that he doesn’t still have many things to work through.

Similarly, Emer is used to Rahela who is quasi older sister and quasi mistress, while Rae is now acting younger. And all of them are dealing with a gross system in which men are seen as in their youthful prime when women the same age are getting long in the tooth and can be traded in for teenagers - so even two people who are the same age aren’t treated as if they’re the same age, if they’re different genders. Age stuff is crunchy!

Also, while Emer thinks of Lia as having all the power due to class, Lia looks on someone who was her glamorous older stepsister’s age mate and went off to the big city years ago rather differently. But then, are adulthood and childhood different worlds? Is being in different social classes being in different worlds?

Can we reach the different universes of other people is something I’m always asking, I think.

THIS IS SO LONG. I AM SO SORRY.

[tac-the-unseen]

What the Lost boys think about vampire related media

Fluff, x reader but just barely

•While making conversation with your four Vampire lovers you were suddenly plagued with a question.

“How do you guys feel about vampire related media?”

-That question was an immediate head turner. The cave goes dead quite before Dwayne speaks up, “Well…vampires are in hiding so…”

-This sparks a conversation about how media representation of vampires may not be accurate, but that's a good thing. “If a book or movie comes out and it is shockingly accurate to what being a vampire is really like, the creator isn't going to last long.” David explained

-That's because there's a set of rules vampires have to follow and one of those rules is to never publicly reveal your double life identity

-”If something like that comes out, that means a vampire has broken that rule OR somebody knows vampires very closely and is creating media they know shouldn't exist.”

-Turns out if a vampire breaks that rule it's basically open season to kill and destroy their creations.

•You turn the conversation and begin to ask how they, specifically, feel about certain vampire representation

•Bram Stoker's Dracula

-Dwayne is the first to buy in his opinion.

-Dwayne feels that while it is a cult classic and well written, The characters are exceedingly dumb.

-”Johnathan spends a ridiculous amount of time talking about other characters ‘Breasts’ and trying to figure out why his host climbs walls ‘like a lizard's.”

-David is the next one to speak up

-David thinks it's not really worth the read

-”Unless you're trying to brag to people there's no point in reading it.”

-”Also why was Mina talking to that old sailor so much?”

-Paul laughs as he remembers “how fucking crazy he wrote Dracula to be”

-”I'm pretty sure the real Dracula thinks it's a heinous crime against him”

-Paul hasn't read it but have heard enough about it to know even the more obscure references

-Marko comments on the graceful writing style and the beautiful descriptions

-”I've only read it because Dwayne thought I would like it"

-Marko also loves how oblivious Jonathan and most of the other characters are

-All of them think the movie adaptation is hilarious and love the shitty special effects

•Interview with a vampire

-Paul chimes in immediately

-”God it's so homo erotic it hurts…in a good way.”

-Paul thinks its a nice horror novel mixed with a weird cozy atmosphere

-Dwayne thinks it's another well written classic and He actually begins to rave about all the themes involved within Anne Rice’s work

-”It's a beautiful Gothic thriller with a deep, sadly comedic energy.”

-He even offers to read it too you sometime

-Marko chimes in quickly about “Claudia’s rebellious behavior and persona”

-”imagine watching your family choose somebody else over you. It's so deeply upsetting but to an understandable level.”

-”I would have hated to turn so young. I look like a teenager and other people can respect that to a certain point. But being five years old with the mind of an adult, No one would respect you.”

-Marko relates to Claudia on an internal level and loves unraveling her character. When you ask why he quickly responds "Some people call me a cherub... You think I enjoy that?"

-David says he doesn't have much to say other than it was a decent read (That's his version of a compliments)

•Twilight

-All of them agree that it's laughably horrendous

-Almost immediately at the same time they say “This is the skin of a killer Bella”

-This leads to banshee like laughter

David speaks up immediately

-”Why do you humans want us to sparkle so bad?”

-”I personally hate the idea of being a walking disco ball, but to each their own.”

-Marko chimes in quickly

-”Would you like it if we sparkled?” He asked while leans on you affectionately

-Marko thinks the only reason to read it is to have a nice laugh

-”Why did Edward have such a violent reaction of Bella standing by a fan? That makes no sense…like I have mates and I enjoy the smell of you guys but…I'm not nearly clawing off my face at your smell”

-”Yeah yeah, I get he's trying not to overreact but running out of class to get away is crazy.”

-Paul even adds that even thought it's very dumb even he can appreciate the message it's trying to said.

-”something something, coming over adversary, something something, love wins, something something..”

-”Also that Jacob imprinting on Bella's infant daughter is super fucking creepy.”

-when you asked Dwayne about his feels he scoffed and said It's insulting at best and borderline sexual harassment at worst.

-He refused to go into depth

•You thank them for humoring you and they tell you that it's no problem

-David kisses the side of your head in an uncharacteristically soft way “We don't ever mind answering your vampire related question.” He tells you

-Marko turns to you “But seriously do you want us to sparkle?”

-”I think I have some roll on body glitter somewhere..” Paul says while getting up to look for it

Thanks for reading <3

[avelera]

It makes me sad when I see posts by people who are enjoying the Interview with the Vampire show but say they've decided not to even try to read the books.

To be clear, it's fine to just not want to read the books, there's plenty of reasons the books might not be everyone's bag, and one reason is that people might just want to enjoy the show without spoilers or the source material muddling the experience.

But I just want to clarify a few points that people might be hung up on with regards to reading the books in case they've decided not to on false premises:

Anne Rice was not homophobic or otherwise anti-sex or against queer relationships for her characters - those are lies, lies, and damned lies. Anne Rice was a queer writer before being queer-- much less writing about it--was cool (to say the least). She more or less defined herself as nonbinary before there was terminology for it, her son is gay, and she left the Catholic Church the second time because they wouldn't accept him (even though the Catholic Church had basically become her life at that point after her husband died, which is a long complicated story). She also wrote tons of erotica, specifically bdsm erotica, which was also very queer. She would not be horrified by the queerness of the show.

Anne Rice was anti-fanfic - Yes, she was. Yes, she was one of the most aggressive authors against fanfic (though she softened later). But just to be clear, she had a legal reason for it. I was one of the people most heartbroken in the early '00s by her aggressive take down of fanfic over the years but even then, I always understood why she did it, she reasonably believed she had to be aggressive in order to defend her copyright. You can dislike her for it but she wasn't just hating on fanfic for the sake of it, the early internet was extremely muddy when it came to the legality around fanfic and copyright and as an early adopter of the internet, she was very concerned on that front specifically.

The books are not poorly written/not fun to read - Look, your mileage may obviously vary, and many have found flaws in her writing (IWTV in particular is probably the slowest read of the bunch) but Anne Rice wasn't a NYT Bestseller on basically every single one of her books for no reason. Her style is easy to read, fun, engaging, and often darkly beautiful and deeply empathetic. She basically defined the modern vampire genre and modern supernatural gothic romance for the last 50 years, I mean she dominated the genre. Don't take an out of context excerpt of the opening of The Vampire Lestat sounding like "My Immortal" as an indication of anything. (The whole point of that intro is that Lestat is supposed to sound like a self-obsessed drama queen in the opening pages, that's the conceit of the book and introduces him as a self-centered unreliable narrator, which she then plays with to great effect. It's actually rather deftly handled how she introduced Lestat as a POV character with that introduction. As a writer, I will defend that introduction as actually genius.)

Anne Rice wasn't perfect, to say the least. And the books might not be everyone's cup of tea, she was often dealing with transgressive topics and probably held many ideas or presented many concepts decades ago that would be side-eyed today.

But they're bestsellers for a reason and she's an era-defining author for a reason. The show is doing some interesting stuff with modernizing and deconstructing the books but the rich material they have to do it with comes from the books.

At the very least, I suggest trying out "The Vampire Lestat" and then "Queen of the Damned" which I think are two of her best and will go a long way to informing how audiences view the show and what's coming next.

[bitterkarella]

Midnight Pals: Butt Toucher

Edward Lee: bro Lee: you spank chicks? Charles Williams: oh yes, quite Lee: bro Lee: like Lee: you touch their butts? Williams: yes Lee: bro Lee: that's sick bro Lee: you gotta show me how you do that bro

Lee: wait a minute bro Lee: this isn't like Lee: part of that white magic shit is it, bro? Lee: i'm not down with magic Williams: oh no no no not at all! Williams: it's strictly a sex thing Lee: alright bro that's cool

Williams: its actually pretty easy Williams: see, first you get a sword Lee: bro Lee: you spank them with a sword?! Williams: here i'll show you Williams: [pulling out sword] i say would any of you ladies like a good walloping on your big juicy lady bum with my mighty sword?

Williams: i say would any lady present enjoy a bit of the old rumbleseat roundhouse? Anne Rice: me! Rice: i was here first! Rice: [elbowing everyone else aside] outta my way!!

Williams: how about the rest of you ladies? Williams: patricia! why, i'll bet you'd love to have a dashing lad give you a right thrashing, ey? Patricia Highsmith: a dashing lad? eh pass Williams: how about you, mary? Mary Shelley: you should give the sword to me

Shelley: c'mon pal hand over the sword Shelley: i'll show you how it's used Poe: uh mary Poe: mary that's a real sword Shelley: yeah?

Poe: i mean you can do some real damage with that Poe: not just comical stabs like you with your shiv Shelley: my shiv stabs ain't comical Barker: yeah edgar, i can confirm Barker: they hurt

Barker: wait a minute Barker: has mary never shivved you? Poe: Barker: OH MY GOD Barker: edgar's never been shivved! Barker: we got a shivv virgin here!

King: you've never been shivved? for real? Poe: of course not! King: how'd that happen? Poe: i Poe: i make it my business not be shivved! Poe: besides i'm not the only one Poe: dean's never been shivved either Shelley: well duh of course not Shelley: that would be mean

Shelley: c'mon edgar let me give you a little stab Shelley: just for good luck Poe: no!

[goodnightmemes]

ABIGAIL (2024) SENTENCE STARTERS

❛ Fuck. That’s not part of the plan. ❜

❛ You grab me like that again, I may have to respond. ❜

❛ Y’all might want to hold on to something. It’s about to get real accelerated in this bitch. ❜

❛ You know the rules. No real names, no backstories, and keep the grabass to a minimum. ❜

❛ I’m like a expert at reading people. ❜

❛ Wow. You might be the least perceptive person I’ve ever met. ❜

❛ Crisp $100 bill, you can tell me one true thing about me. ❜

❛ You’ve basically got a fucking neon sign over your head that reads “muscle.” ❜

❛ That’s cheap, considering you come from money. ❜

❛ Don’t ever fuck with me. I will know. ❜

❛ Can you take the blindfold off? It’s really tight. ❜

❛ We’re keeping you here until your father gives us some money. ❜

❛ Do you know who my father is? ❜

❛ Can you promise me you’re not gonna let anybody hurt me? ❜

❛ I pinkie promise you that I’m not gonna let anyone hurt you. ❜

❛ I’m sorry about what’s gonna happen to you. ❜

❛ Oh, my God, you’re gonna be a real pain in my ass, aren’t you? ❜

❛ I don’t scare easy, so when I do, I pay attention. ❜

❛ I like you. You’re scary, though. ❜

❛ What’s going on? What’s going on is that we are fucked. ❜

❛ What if we just, like, you know, like, give her back and say sorry? ❜

❛ If seven million per person isn’t worth the risk, then what is? ❜

❛ Everyone stay alert. Any threat is gonna come from outside, so we set a perimeter and we hold it. ❜

❛ Hey, listen. I don’t trust any of these other fucks. So let’s watch each other’s backs. ❜

❛ His head fell off. ❜

❛ Why do you have a dick on your face? ❜

❛ It looks like a fucking wild animal ripped him apart. ❜

❛ I, for one, would like to revisit the cut-and-run idea. ❜

❛ This whole thing is a trap. ❜

❛ Can you pinkie promise me that you’re not keeping a secret? ❜

❛ We can take ’em. ❜

❛ We’re gonna get through this. ❜

❛ Why’d you do it? Bring us here to kill us. ❜

❛ I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, but you don’t sound very calm right now, Little Miss Paranoid, so forgive the precaution. ❜

❛ Wow. You got a lot going on up there,  but your brain’s not quite putting it together, huh? ❜

❛ You’re not as smart as you think you are. ❜

❛ Fucking put it down. I’d really prefer not to have to fucking shoot you. ❜

❛ We kidnapped a fucking vampire. ❜

❛ Someone has been messing with us ever since we got here. ❜

❛ We got to get out of here. There’s got to be another way. ❜

❛ Okay. What do we know about vampires? ❜

❛ What are we talking about, like Anne Rice or True Blood, you know, Twilight? Very different kind of vampires. ❜

❛ Okay, how do we kill a vampire? ❜

❛ Hey, we got a real fucking situation here. So I don’t give a shit what you think. Either you’re helping us, or you’re dead weight. Which is it? ❜

❛ There’s pool cues in the game room. Go sharpen ’em into stakes. ❜

❛ I’m not betting our lives on your fucking hunch. ❜

❛ All right, let’s go kill us a fuckin’… vampire. ❜

❛ You’re so bloody and so gross. ❜

❛ Oh, if you fucking say, “I told you so.” ❜

❛ Listen, you sit here and bleed, or you trust me. ❜

❛ Vampire on my ass! ❜

❛ I’ll kill you fucking fucks! I’ll rip your fucking heads off and gorge myself on your blood! ❜

❛ I’ve had a few centuries of experience. ❜

❛ Tell us how to get out of here, and we’ll let you go. ❜

❛ Hey, what’s gonna happen to me? Am I gonna turn into a vampire? ❜

❛ We would never have taken you if we knew who your father was. ❜

❛ Haven’t you wondered why I brought you all here? ❜

❛ If this is about revenge, why didn’t you just kill us? Why’d you bring us here? ❜

❛ What can I say? I like playing with my food. ❜

❛ If you touch that door, I will shoot you. ❜

❛ Fuck that shit. I’m not staying down here…with that. ❜

❛ Open the door, and I’ll let you keep all your blood. Oh. Organs, too. ❜

❛ Wait. A deal’s a deal. ❜

❛ Still gullible at your age, you fucking freak? ❜

❛ That’s why I took this job. With that money, I can start over, you know? ❜

❛ God, everybody’s got to be a fucking victim now. ❜

❛ Oh, I’m sorry. Did I hit a fucking nerve? ❜

❛ Fuck this job. ❜

❛ Fucking dream team. ❜

❛ You got any other bright ideas, Nosferatu? ❜

❛ Goddamn it. Why did you all listen to me? This isn’t gonna work. This is so fucking stupid. ❜

❛ You got people out there that you care about? ❜

❛ You and me. You’re my friend. ❜

❛ Lot of painful memories. But it’s never too late to make new ones. ❜

❛ I brought you back here to offer you a deal. ❜

❛ You fucking set me up. ❜

❛ You can die here, or you can help me kill [name]. ❜

❛ Yes, drink, and you’ll be one of us. ❜

❛ Our game ends here. ❜

❛ Well, well, well. Look who came to join the party. ❜

❛ Here’s the thing about being a vampire. It takes a long fucking time to learn how to do all the cool shit. ❜

❛ I came when you needed me. I’m here now. ❜

[avalonia320]

what the fuck Marius

*discussion of The Vampire Chronicles, spoiler warnings for those who haven't read*

Just had to rant a little. So I am a long time reader of the Vampire Chronicles, first read them and became obsessed when I was 11 but I'm gonna be straight up - I kinda peace'd out after Memnoch the Devil because that was just a bit too weird for me and kinda personal; Anne Rice was on this whole religious journey at the same time my mother went on her own similar journey (and immediately told me I was going to hell) so the religious themes were just not it for me. After that I stuck with the first four books, which are still my favorites. Now that the series is out and I'm re-obsessed, I decided to read the later books.

I always liked Marius. I saw him as a mentor to Lestat, he just seemed like this older, wiser, and more patient vampire. I loved how exasperated and fascinated he was by Lestat. I thought his and Armand's story was tragic. But now I've read The Vampire Armand - twice - and all I can say is are you fucking kidding me. It's actually probably not for the reasons one would automatically think - yes I was skeeved that he bought a traumatized kid in a brothel and immediately engaged in sexual activities with him, (not to mention the whipping) but I'm also quite familiar with Anne Rice's erotica so these were not entirely unexpected themes. Anyway I'm not touching that discourse with a ten foot pole. We all know it's problematic. We're all watching the show any way.

But man, so what the fuck does Marius do immediately after he and Armand are reunited again after Armand's suicide attempt? Armand entrusts him with what is most precious to him, his mortal 'children', Sybelle and Benji. Armand leaves them for ONE FUCKING DAY and when he comes back Marius has made them vampires. WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK MARIUS.

Armand is screaming & crying and furious and then I hate-scanned what seemed like 30 pages of Marius making long speechy excuses for it and why it was actually so loving of him to take on the burden of being their Maker so that Armand can be with them forever and they won't hate Armand for it. Hello, Benji was 12 FUCKING YEARS OLD. Have we learned NOTHING from Claudia??? Couldn't give him another decade of mortality first?? God, this guy just will not allow Armand any agency in any part of his life whatsoever and it's MADDENING. Yes, Sybelle and Benji wanted to be vampires and I do think they would have become immortal eventually but again BENJI WAS 12! (and Sybelle is um...not exactly stable at the time either. Girl could have really used some intense therapy first before being frozen in her current state forever.)

Plus the fact that he just abandoned Armand to the coven that kidnapped him, killed his brothers, made him eat his closest brother and best friend - Marius couldn't have helped all that, having been set on fire and all but he had centuries to find Armand again and instead he was just like 'nah, it's whatever. I'm sure that twink is fine.' Meanwhile Lestat comes sauntering along and Marius is like 'oh hey person I've met five minutes ago, let me spill all the secrets of my life, not to mention the most secret secrets of all the vampires, including how to kill us all.' You know, I used to hate Armand and now I understand so much better why he's got so many issues.

Anyway, there's no point to this somewhat incoherent rant, I just had to get it off my chest. I don't know how Marius will be portrayed in the show and I'm excited to see it. Maybe I'll hate him even more. Maybe I'll end up loving him the way I love Armand despite everything he's done but man, I just really want to kick his ass right now.

[gqueerb]

I will never forgive Lestat and Armand for the part they played in Claudia and Madeleine's death but the fact that Armand gets more hate for what happen to Claudia than Lestat in the fandom is insane to me and I LIKE Lestats dramatic sassy ass dont get me wrong, Im hyped when he shows up in a scene. But especially with how he kept framing Louis (whos not inocent no but has been manipulated by Lestat since he was a human and abused by him as a vampire) through all this as the problem for wanting to leave and forcing him to loneliness 🙄 and cruel for giving him the silent treatment after he dropped him from the fckn sky and not wanting to fuck lestat after Claudia left which is why he had to turn to Antoinette's bony flat ass like he hadnt already been hitting that since from way back when .. like what?

and dont even get me started on claudias turning scene and how this doesnt change anything, the fact that louis didnt fully process the extent of what Lestat was telling him while being traumatized and desperate to save her life as his form of "penance" and someone to possibly be his family which is so unfair to claudia and one of the ways in which Louis is not inocent either but doesnt in any fckn way make lestat a victim and Louis the bad guy in their dynamic (once again not that Louis is a inocent - he isnt - or anything but cmon)

All I'm saying is if youre gonna hate on Armand with such a passion be sure to do the same with the white vampire (especially since ppl treat the fact that a 500y vampire wasnt ready to sacrifice his coven of 200y for a guy he'd been fuckn for a while and repeatly told to get the fck out of Paris since he met him bc it wasnt safe and was clearly using him as a rebound is crazy - again from claudia and louis perspective he is and will always be a manipulative bitch that I WILL NEVER FORGIVE FOR HIS PART in Claudias death but from his perspective...like I don't like it and there was a better way to handle it, i hate it in fact but I do get it)

Like hate on Armand for this and that fine just then keep the same energy with Lestat ppl its all im saying.

(and again I like Lestats cunty sassy ass)

bc if we're really honest and unbiased yh Lestat saved Louis but you know who he didnt save CLAUDIA he didnt even attempt to physically get her away from stage, fight for her nothing!!!

and he knew that Claudia dying would kill a part of Louis he would never get back

Idc what Anne Rice herself comes to me as a ghost and says "he would have if he could but he really couldn't save her" or anyone invoveld in the show for that matter bc what was actually SHOWN to us throughout the ENTIRE series is that his focus has always been on Louis (it was never about you/it was never you/I made you for louis) and at the end of s1 he was fully prepared to replace Claudia with Antoinette.

We all know that if he by any chance needed to make another attempt to save Louis bc the first one wasn't enough he would have! even if he had to fight a whole ass coven we all know he wouldve at least tried for Louis and he DID NOT lift a fckn finger for Claudia!!

Just bc Armand sucks doenst change the fact that Lestat also sucks is my point I guess.

(which is why I'm baffled at why Louis thought Lestat was worthy of any damn apology or thank you - like yh you saved me but you didnt even try to save our daughter and you were part of the reason I needed saving in the first place sooooo wtf do I owe you anyhting - the acting in that scene much like the acting in the entire series was amazing tho ngl!!)

Keep the same energy or just be honest about the fact that you're bias when it comes to Lestat which if you are thats fine, I can even respect that as long as you're honest and don't try to pass your biasis as a valid argument.

Bottom line Claudia DESERVED BETTER and I'm kind of side eyeing the hatred towards Armand the same way i did the opinions that were going around about his casting just bc he wasn't a white ginger (like what?! 😒) like the way some (not all) of yall talk about it is rlly weird and suspicious ngl

Claudia (+Madeleine) and Daniel are my favorite characters

Everyone else needs therapy, either that or be bathed in holy water or smth

[nalyra-dreaming]

Lestats sperm?! !???

I thought vampires didn’t have that in the books

And stolen?

Wtf

Lestats got a legitimate son named vickor?!?

As a non book reader I thought I heard everything so far, honestly. Anne rice was smokin some good golden chush when she thought of all this lmao

She was fearless that way. Trust me, that's only the tip of the iceberg. There's literal aliens, too :)

But yeah, Lestat consented to do an experiment for Fareed (with Flannery, who was also there voluntarily!), hormonal treatment to produce sperm and have "human" sex. It was a short thing, and quite hilarious/touching in the books:

_______

The answer came swiftly with a series of injections and indeed an intravenous line that would continue throughout the experiment to deliver a powerful elixir of human hormones into my blood, overriding the vampiric body’s natural tendency to resist senescence long enough for the desire to develop, the sperm to be produced, and then ejaculated. I thought it was hilariously funny. Now I could write an essay of five hundred pages on how this experience unfolded, because I did feel biological erotic desire again, and I fell on the young woman about as mercilessly as any greedy aristocrat of my time ever fell on a milkmaid in his village. But it was precisely as my beloved Louis had said a long time ago, “the pale shadow of killing,” that is, the pale shadow of drinking blood, and it was over almost at once, it seemed, and then the passion was gone, back into the depths of memory once more as if it had never been aroused, the pinnacle, the ejaculation forgotten. I’d felt strangely awkward afterwards. I was sitting on the bed beside this blond-haired fair-skinned human female, my back to a nest of sweet-smelling linen-covered pillows, and I felt I ought to talk to her, ask her how she came to be here, and why she was here.

And then quite suddenly, as I sat there, wondering if this was proper or even wise, she told me. Her name was Flannery Gilman, she said. In a clear fresh West Coast American voice, she explained that she’d been studying “us” since the night I’d appeared on the stage as a rock star outside San Francisco, and so many of our kind had died as the result of my great scheme to be a mortal performer.[...]

_______

I would love it if Rolin went there, actually, or at least gives us Flannery, there at the rock concerts in s3/s4, drawn to vampires, and finally given the chance, a researcher, a scientist, who later keeps working with Fareed (and Seth), and others.

In fact, I often wonder what "the farm" entails/entailed in s1 (if Fareed is involved, or maybe Gregory?!), hopefully we will get to know in the upcoming seasons!

EDIT: And before any of you come for me with "he fOrcEd her!1111!", let me add her words there, before they part:

“They’ve promised to bring you over, haven’t they?” I asked. “Yes,” she said. “They’re honorable. That’s more than I can say for my colleagues in American medicine.” She turned to me, drawing close enough to kiss me quickly one more time on the cheek. I didn’t stop her. Her fingers went up to my face and she touched my eyelids. “Thank you,” she said. “Thank you for these priceless moments. Oh, I know you didn’t do this for me. You did it for them. But thank you.” I nodded and I smiled. I held her face in my hands as I kissed her now with a fervor that came from the Blood. I could feel her body warming, opening like a flower, but the moment was gone, and I took my leave.

[inthiseverymoment]

silhouettes emerging: chapter iii

“Ever-Soaring Melodies on Unstable Chords”

having theatre-kid-ed her way into this mess, isabelle realizes she needs to theatre-kid her way out. or, as the case may be, theatre-kid her way in even deeper.

iwtv oc x armand, this chapter ~2.8k

this one takes place entirely in flashback and prose for Melodramatic Anne Rice Reasons. don't worry, we'll get daniel's thoughts (spoiler alert: our boy is Less Than Convinced) and some good good analysis in the next chapter

...currently realizing that, if last chapter was "y/n gets noticed at a concert", this chapter is the fight song by rachel platten moment. but, again, IT'S IWTV SO IT'S DEEPER THAN THAT

ok it is three forty eight am enjoy

chapter ii fic masterlist chapter iv

“I’m not sure why he insisted on keeping her in here. It’s not like she’s different from any other once-fresh meat.”

“Did you hear what they were saying before we caught her? She wanted a job.”

“A job! Here! Mon Dieu, the humans are getting bolder and bolder these days.”

Liquid voices were beginning to work their way into Isabelle’s consciousness as she awoke, her eyes eventually opening to reveal a few members of the last night’s cast and crew.

Last night?

Last week?

Last hour?

She didn’t know.

Suddenly feeling as if she hadn’t breathed in too long, she gasped in a lungful of air and was overwhelmed by a tantalizing smell combining rust, hair gel, potpourri, and…night itself, if that could even be said to have a smell.

Backstage.

Despite being in grave danger, just knowing she was in a dressing room environment sent a shiver of comfort through her that she tried to ignore.

Isabelle’s breath alerted the others to her presence, and as her vision gained focus, she began to recognize them one by one as they looked over her. Given her condition, all she could do was string the occasional tired word together.

“So. I take it…you are…real.”

A moment’s silence, and the vampires burst into debatably-natured laughter.

“That’s a new one,” tittered a slim woman with dark, perfectly rolled curls.

“And I realized that, and now you’re going to kill me? That’s how it is?”

“She’s a quick young thing,” a woman with hair like her own said between drags of her cigarette. “Almost wish we didn’t have to drain her.”

“I mean, you really don’t-”

“I’m afraid we do,” came a familiar drawl, and Santiago seemed to dramatically part his Red Sea of castmates. “Our Great Laws state that no vampire can allow a mortal to live who has had the vampire’s true nature revealed to them. Being that you now know the true nature of the entire Théâtre des Vampires…ah, well. The Laws must be followed. Too bad, my sweet, really. It’s what they say: so full of artless jealousy is guilt-”

“It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.”

However much terror was running through her veins at the thought of imminent death, the second half of her favorite Hamlet quote had come through her lips low, calm, and controlled. She breathed in something like relief; here was one thing to hold onto. Santiago, who’d clearly been expecting to continue grandstanding, regarded her with something like a challenge flashing through his cold eyes.

“Stars, hide your fires-”

“Let not light see my black and deep desires.”

“Anger’s my meat: I sup upon myself-”

“And so shall starve with feeding.”

Her adrenaline turning from fear to the high of competition, she would have stood to face Santiago if it were not for her realization that she was tied to her chair. He was advancing on her, an attempt at intimidation, but she matched him play for play and quote for quote; these words were her comfort, her lifeline, her blood.

“Run when you will. The story shall be changed:”

“Apollo flies, and Daphne holds the chase.”

“Or if I live, is it not very like-”

“-the horrible conceit of death and night-”

“-together with the terror of the place,” they finished in unison before Santiago started up again-

“No, sure, my lord-”

“My mother cried,” they said together, reaching the crest of their increase in volume to the point where they were both shouting-

“But then there was a star danced,” she concluded on her own,  more conviction in her voice than she had ever felt before, “and under that was I born.”

A long, long, long silence seemed to pass as the other cast members stared at them both with endless amusement. Eventually, Santiago allowed himself the smallest of chuckles.

“Yes, we’ll have to fog this one’s mind quite a bit for the next performance. Otherwise, she’ll get the audience on her side, and we can’t have that.”

…What?

No.

Nononononononono-

Eventually, she realized she was saying this repetition out loud-

“Someone get Armand,” she cried out. “You can’t do that to me. He wouldn’t allow it-at least I thought-what happened to the sympathy you had for me? That speech, to that girl? She was always entirely an act-I didn’t know all of you were-I-Armand!-please, please don’t-merde, I’m begging now-I’m saying-”

“Do not take her mind,” a measured yet half-flippant voice came from the staircase, and she turned to see him there.

Was he watching this whole exchange?

An ember of shame threatened to burn within her for wielding power through words that weren’t truly hers and then, at the threat of losing what she valued most, crumbling and calling out desperately to someone she’d met only hours ago; but it was soon swallowed up by more pressing matters-namely, the fate of her agency and life.

“People come to the Théâtre to be entertained,” Armand was saying as he descended the staircase. “It is not often that one of our victims puts up a true intellectual fight, and our audience will appreciate the chance to see it.”

“Maître, it won’t work otherwise, she wouldn’t fall for the-”

“Not too fast, Santiago,” came the interruption, and the maître in question silenced his leading man with only the lift of a hand. “We don’t want to spoil the surprise for her.”

“I-”

A blush painting her wearied face, she had to search for words for a moment as the vampires turned their piercing eyes to her. It took quite a bit of willpower to regain her composure, but regain it she did.

“I was there for the last performance. It will not be a surprise. You-you read their minds, I suppose, point out their flaws, and make them wish for the death you provide. Is that it?”

A beat, and then an outburst-

“Fog! Her! Mind!” Santiago said in the verbal equivalent of an exasperated eyeroll.

“I will not,” Armand held firm, “and neither shall any of you.”

He stepped behind Isabelle’s chair and touched two fingers to her temple, and an odd wave of something seemed to wash over her as the rest of the cast dispersed to their coffins, whispering all the way.

“That is a protection,” came Armand’s whisper to her. “I’ve stopped them from getting into your thoughts-”

“What, so that you can turn around and do it yourself?”

She ripped herself away from him as much as she could in her current position, her breath finally falling into tears, and he somehow seemed genuinely wounded.

“You do not trust me, then.”

“Why on earth,” she choked out a laugh, “would I trust you? It was your voice in my head last night, you who took me where I could see the bloodstain, you with so much power-apparently both hierarchical and supernatural-over everyone else here.”

“My promise regarding the audience was simply so that they would spare you. I have a plan, Isabelle-”

“And, whether that’s true or not, I suppose you could make me believe it somehow? How-”

Isabelle broke off, trying to keep from heaving a sob. The sudden longing for her tiny apartment with dripping ceilings and creaking tables overwhelmed her, if only for a return to when she was hers, when she was safe.

“How can I trust anything about you?”

After a moment, he swallowed hard but silently, then looked her in the eye for the first time since their last night’s conversation.

How she ever could have seen those eyes for even a moment and not realized that this man was something more than human was quite a mystery now. The deciphering of him that Isabelle had delighted in as an audience member with a crush had turned into a full-throated attempt to read his every flicker of the eyebrow, with her life now on the line. And all this time, the man in question had been silent.

“I’ll prove it,” he said simply.

Finding nothing more that he could do, Armand turned and retreated, going back up the staircase with every quiet footstep ringing.

He’d saved her last night. He’d claimed to have saved her now. And he was apparently planning to save her tomorrow from the death that his cast-his coven-hoped to carry out.

She was left alone with many questions, above them all being:

Why?

~

Isabelle’s day on the chair as the vampires slept had been spent half in silent contemplation, half in fruitless attempts to escape from her surely-supernaturally-assisted bonds. There was, needless to say, a lot to grapple with, but one thought nearly as alarming as losing her memories was the knowledge that-

If these people-people?-weren’t trying to kill or otherwise disarm me, I’d…

I’d adore them.

She’d never felt anything like this before. Immersive theatre that delved into grief and every facet of humanity, both beautifully artistic and unapologetically messy, was an idea she could only dream of for most of her life. The thrill of finding herself a little bit infatuated with half the cast throughout each play, then seeing all of those same bright eyes turned towards her; the offbeat adrenaline rush of a Shakespeare-off; the fact that she was no longer the most dramatic one in the room, not by a mile; so much about this group was intoxicating.

And the short conversation she’d had with Armand before everything fell open, as well as the restless dreams she’d had of him that she was sure he’d somehow placed there, still took the forefront of her musings.

Why is it that the first time I have genuine reason to feel wanted, it’s under…

Her leftover makeup had started to flake, and the rope was near biting into her wrists after the hours it had spent there.

…these circumstances?

Last night, she’d thought that a performance gig here would be her last chance, and this now seemed to be true in a whole new fashion. It took quite a lot of figuring, hoping, and crying to come to terms with the extremely high likelihood that there were only two ways that this night would finish:

Either Isabelle de la Rue, once Bella Ditell, would be killed…

…or she would be embraced.

It was clear that, for a few fleeting moments, in even the slightest way, these vampires respected her a little bit. They clearly thought she was dangerous enough to necessitate intervention, that she had enough presence of mind and will to live to stop her from falling for Santiago’s beckon to death. They now knew, too, that she was clearly a performer by trade and by passion. Armand had mentioned her possibly being of entertainment value, and that had sparked something of an idea; as little as she wanted to be valued only for that, if this was the only way to survive, she would show them that they wanted to keep her around.

The audition of a lifetime.

~

Hours later, she was behind the very same curtain that she’d been on the other side of only a day before. In any other circumstance, this would be a dream-to see a show at a theatre company one night and be part of said company the next.

Apparently, manifestations need to be more specific.

The redheaded woman who’d expressed not wanting to kill her held one of Isabelle’s arms, and the other was taken by a pretty-boy type who had played a woodcutter in an earlier skit. They both seemed surprised at her silence, but didn’t address it.

Probably makes it easier for them. It’s simpler not to see their victims as people, and all that.

But when they dragged her onstage after a very long monologue for Santiago-as-Death, Isabelle did not stay silent, and she also did not scream.

She sang.

It was an aria of a mythical queen awaiting her death, one that she’d known for years. She felt an odd sensation of multiple telepathic attempts to shut her mouth being ricocheted away by whatever spell Armand had placed, and with the knowledge that this might be the last aria of her life, she poured her entire being into it. Santiago played along in character, partly amused and partly furious, and the sound of his half-chaotic French made her head spin even further, and everything whirled around at once-

All of a sudden, Isabelle was a capella no longer.

She glanced into the wings and made eye contact with the pianist, who grinned at her.

I won’t let myself imagine that anything comes out of real sympathy, that’s too dangerous-they’re playing with their food, is all.

Still…

What a moment!

Roughly half the audience was laughing in disbelief, but the other half seemed genuinely tuned in to what she was doing. She reached out to them, to her fellow humans, every trace of desperation and brazen hope sparking up in her eyes. She even managed to find and share a moment with the girl she’d met the previous night, who had seemed greatly worried upon recognizing her but now smiled at her and leaned forward to take her hands-

-until Santiago grabbed hold of her waist from behind and dragged her upstage.

A few audience members gasped, but Isabelle continued singing, looking between them and her reaper with more fire than she had ever trusted herself to possess.

Unable to stop her voice by supernatural means, Santiago skipped to the end of his usual blocking, straight to the part where he held the victim by the throat. This nearly choked her, and the tears that had started during her frenzied aria threatened to break loose.

A cold shiver ran through her every bone.

This is it.

It didn’t work.

She tried to turn her head, intending for her friend in the front row-her first friend-to be the last face she’d see.

If I go out, I’ll go out singing.

Santiago’s grip tightened, and-

“Arrêt!”

Out of pure surprise, the bony grip around her neck released, and she looked over Santiago’s shoulder to find the source of the voice she already knew.

Armand, now in full makeshift costume, was holding a very real prop sword to his leading man’s throat.

He began to speak in French, with every dramatic inflection of the rest of his coven, but broadcasted a more earnestly spoken translation to her as he did so:

You will not harm her.

Apparently greatly enjoying the improvisatory nature of how tonight was shaping up, the offstage orchestra struck up a soaring, string-soaked theme.

As Orpheus meant to save Eurydice, I mean to claim my love from the hands of Death. Only I, I will not falter. I will not doubt.

He now lowered his sword and looked straight to her, directly, intently.

I will give her reason to trust.

Whether it was the torrent of Purcell-assisted emotion and the promise of certain death that preceded this, her go-with-the-moment theatrical training, the single curl falling in front of Armand’s face, or some overwhelming combination of all three, Isabelle slowly moved to take his hand, deeply affected by the way he seemed to have genuinely expected her not to.

He kissed her birthmark again, and she started to cry.

Never one to miss a chance at upstaging a scene, Santiago swooped in once more, but was repelled. By the way each vampire looked at the other, she knew this was a battle being fought with eyes and telepathy alone, one which the maître would undoubtedly win.

Mighty Reaper, Armand’s speech and translation continued, cliché as it may seem, my love-my lark-is too strong in her soul and in her love to fall to you this early. With the two of us fighting against you, life will…

These words seemed almost to stick in his throat; understandable, she thought, after years-possibly centuries-of existing by the opposite mantra.

This time, life will prevail.

She shook her head, looking to Armand in total bewilderment. Why was he doing this? Why was he saying all of this?

Why me?

This he heard, and this he answered.

She of the ever-winding, ever-sparking mind, she of the soaring and unafraid voice-both of which you, Death, wish to silence-is the only one I ever wish to hear.

What followed was a kiss so tentative, then so tender, then so deep, that the sound of the violins seemed to be circling around the pair in swooping whirls that caught in each contour of their breath.

For the first time in her life, Bella Ditell allowed her guard to fall.

The audience, caught off guard by something resembling a ‘happy ending’ and having quite a lot of fun with the dramatics of it all, roared their appreciation. Above every sound was the delighted, encouraging wolf whistle of the young woman in the front row.

Perhaps it was wrong. Perhaps it was horrid. Perhaps it was everything she’d feared wrapped up in everything she’d hoped, or perhaps it was the opposite.

But now, at least, at last, Isabelle had the chance to find that out for herself.

[recurringwriter]

Twenty Questions for Fic Writers

tagged by @demial4! thanks for thinking of me! went with this blog since it's the more main one aksdjgh

1) how many works do you have on ao3?

sitting at 109! i never saw that one coming, i'll be real

2) what's your total ao3 word count?

961,632!!!!!!! my goal is to get to 1 million words this year, should be doable [imagine a super flustered blushing emoji here]. i just need to work on any of the longfics i'm stuck in the middle of.

3) what are your top five fics by kudos?

this is why i chose this blog--it's all f/ire /emblem:

say it with swords - felix/sylain/bernadetta/annette this diminuendo only gets obscene - rodrigue/manuela (my best series) i know i never make this easy - arospec felix coming out to rodrigue is it bad enough to call it off - i think this is the rodrigue & annette fic Hate to let you down - this whopper is my first fic. the Eh-U

4) what fandoms do you write for?

mainly 🔥emb/lem and i'm now expanding into the finalled fantasy, which is a series i've never played myself. but i'm greatly enjoying learning about it! i also have 1 monster hunter fic and i'd love to write some weird crossover stuff for old book series no one has ever heard of.

5) do you respond to comments? why or why not?

i try!!! but sometimes i am overcome and don't know what to say, and then put it off, and then feel silly to answer months later and so i never do. trust me it haunts me. i'm always so grateful for comments.

6) what's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

it was whatever doesn't make me stronger kills me which i hated for a long time (it's not bad just not to my taste). very ambiguous what happens to sylvain in that one. but then i added a chapter because my beloved fave band released a new album. i still have to add an end proper. since then it's probably anything in the divorce au where i explained the absence of felix's mom. SORRY i just remembered I love you, sincerely, yours truly, yours truly. weird time travel sci-fi sylvain/ingrid.

7) what's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

this is really hard because i like open endings that don't feel like endings, or softly happy endings, so they all feel 'quieter' than i might imagine most happy ends. but nothing is like it was, there's nobody here but us (eh-u, rodrigue introducing felix to manuela) is really positive. then there's Rodfic #50: Something in Which to Believe, which i wrote to cheer myself up. rodrigue/reader.

8) do you get hate on fics?

i had the ghost of anne rice comment on a fic but otherwise people have been extremely nice! i'm very grateful.

9) do you write smut?

😏 i actually was writing smut when i was tagged in this

10) do you write crossovers?

yessss i love crossovers!!!! i don't typically do very long ones, they're sort of like the pilot episode of a longer series that never gets aired. but i thoroughly enjoy them.

11) have you ever had a fic stolen?

okay so i don't Believe it was stolen. but i was browsing tags and saw something with Extremely Similar concept to one of my fics and was like. the likelihood that this is stolen is So Low because my fic has under 90 hits. but i was Shocked when i read it.

12) have you ever had a fic translated?

not at this point!

13) have you ever cowritten a fic before?

sort of! i have two co-written fics in progress both are smut and very often share as i write with a friend or friends!

14) what's your all time favourite ship?

suuper hard question because i throw any characters i can into the brig together to see what happens. but probably Rodriguela has the highest spot for being the first one i acted insane about.

15) what's the wip you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

i'm sort of doubtful i'll ever finish wildfire just because it keeps growing. but i'd love to. my felicity-adopts-sephiroth au has also hit an unfortunate wall and i lost all momentum, but i would really like to finish that one.

16) what are your writing strengths?

i have a huge ego so we could be here all day. dialogue, fight scenes, humour are my favourites though.

17) what are your writing weaknesses?

describing um. clothing. aaaaaaaaaaaa or deciding what characters should eat. don't make me!!! go read a redwall or something if you want food

18) thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

i'd probably say 'he said in french that they should go see the hockey match' rather than write out the actual phrase. but if it were something simple i might take a crack at it. i've used fictional words in wildfire now.

19) first fandom you wrote for?

f/ire e/mblem again. it was the pandemic, i'd just gotten through claude's route, and felix was so silly. so i started the eh-u

20) favourite fic you've ever written?

this is impossible to answer because i love so many. but here's my first curling fic: steal of two

i'll tag @omgkalyppso @umbralstars @lumeha

[xxgothchatonxx]

op have you made a dracula 1992 review because i think it'd slightly fix me

Nonnie, that is so sweet of you to say but... I think that would drive me insane 😂 (I've got an Addams Family adaptation deep dive lined up for later in the year and sifting through Wednesday again just about broke me five times)

But I can do a summary of my opinions on it.

Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula is a phenomenal film. Exceptional cinematography, gorgeous score, iconic costumes, and a fantastic cast. But it is a baffling adaptation. Because in so many ways it does follow the book.. but there's one giant adaptation change that COMPLETELY changes the rest of the story. That is, of course, Mina and Dracula's "romance". Which, well, is nonexistent in the book.

For instance, when you get to the blood exchange, instead of it being presented as a blatant metaphor for sexual assault, it's a massive declaration of mutual love, but then in comes Keanu-than and Team Hero just like they did in the book and it's like "???"

The film clearly got their Bram Stoker confused with their Anne Rice. (Btw, the show is INFINITELY more "Anne Rice's IWTV" than this film EVER was Stoker!) Because Stoker's Dracula is NOT this poor sympathetic antihero- and yet they kept in him feeding a BABY to his brides?? I just- HUH??

And then of course there's Lucy (Christ almighty, she has such a bad track record of adaptations) and Van Helsing - it's just such a mess!

So in conclusion - fantastic film as a standalone story. I can completely understand why it's considered to be one of the best vampire films ever made. But as an adaptation? "Bram Stoker's Dracula", my arse!

That's my review 😂

[littlestsnicket]

excerpt from temporarily abandoned wip: armand and louis watch inception

word count: 1.2k

basically i read that anne rice said that armand would stand as louis’ best man at the loustat wedding and my brain went brrrr! i want the two of them to get there. these are the anything is forgivable if your weird and catholic enough books, and i would like the show to be the anything is forgivable if you have eternity and are willing to do the work show. so this is a scene from my massive mess of an idea of armand and louis doing the work fic that is indefinitely on hold until i get much farther in reading the book. set around the point where the canonically get back together.

“I can’t just incept you, Louis!”

Armand used to be so careful not to make references Louis wouldn’t understand, like it was a secret he spent days watching movies and television shows while Louis slept. Louis likes this version of Armand better, even if it’s inconvenient to have to derail an important conversation. Louis never liked to be coddled.

Armand catches Louis’ look before he even has to ask, dropping into his clinical explaining tone, to say: “From the two thousand ten blockbuster Inception directed by Christopher Nolan. A team pulls off an elaborate heist to implant an idea into the mind of the mark to change the direction of a metaconglomerate, risking their own sanity in the process.”

He shifts back into the slightly shriller tone he had been using as their argument had gotten more emotional. “I cannot, wholesale, plant an idea in your mind. It would not hold up under any scrutiny. You would have noticed by now!”

Louis sighs. “If you’re lying to me now, I will never forgive you.”

“I’m n—“ Armand cuts himself off. He’s still except for the desperate rubbing of his fingertips. “Perhaps you will not remember it that way.”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean,” Louis says flatly. He wants to shake Armand but he suppresses the urge. He’s not even mad, Armand is just so frustrating sometimes.

Armand looks at Louis with his stupidly large, liquid-resin eyes. “I do not make a habit of flat-out lying to myself but it is so easy to forget how much you’ve twisted a narrative. One does, as they say, occasionally fall for one’s own bullshit.”

Armand trails off, doing the thing he does with his jaw when he’s stressed, uncertain, or angry that Louis, unfortunately, finds endearing.

Armand blinks and refocuses on Louis. “I… I had no reason to suppress your memories of San Francisco outside of genuine concern for your safety and well beinf. I accidentally baited you to suicide and very dramatically lost my shit instead of caring for you properly in the aftermath, but you still chose me over Lestat. Why would I have wanted you to forget that?”

Louis closes his eyes, remembers what it felt like to remember San Francisco, remembers their home in Sausalito, the way the moonlight painted stained glass streaks across the warm-toned wood floor. He stops. He doesn’t need to do this, not now. Louis trusts Armand, even if that trust is uneasy. He’s not ready to tell Armand that, but it’s the truth.

“Show me Inception.” It comes out strange and wrong, but it’s a strange and wrong thing to say. It’s the best Louis’ got at the moment.

“You won’t like it,” Armand says cautiously.

“I know that.”

Armand looks at Louis like this is a test and he’s trying to divine the right answer. It is a test, but it’s a straightforward one. Can Armand let go enough of his desire to micromanage to enjoy a film he knows Louis won’t like in Louis’ presence?

“We should go downstairs. At least you’ll have a chance of appreciating the cinematography with the larger screen and sound system.”

“Alright.” Louis tips his head in the direction of the door, waiting for Armand to untangle himself from the blanket he had anxiously twisted himself into and following him down the stairs.

Trinity Gate is light and airy even in the dead of night as Armand leads the way to the home theater in the basement. Armand had a knack for that, totally at odds with Lestat’s sensibilities that tended towards the warm, cluttered, and richly colored. Both managed to be cozy and leave space for Louis’ favorite art pieces.

Armand stops on the staircase, turning to quarter profile. He can sense Louis thinking about Lestat; he always can even when he’s not actively rummaging around in Louis’ thoughts.

“Hey,” Louis says softly, woven through with the thinnest thread of apology. Armand inhales just audibly and continues down the stairs.

He fusses with the projection equipment while Louis locates Armand’s favorite blanket—folded neatly on one of the recliners—and rearranges the pillows on the loveseat Louis prefers to sit on.

Armand sits next to Louis atop the still folder blanket, posture prim and uncomfortable. Louis lets it go and spends the first fifteen minutes trying to be open minded and invest himself in the film. It’s loud and frantic; not Louis’ thing at all. The next five minutes are spent watching Armand watch him which is even worse.

He takes pity on Armand, tilting Armand’s head by the chin to make eye contact, raising an eyebrow, and very deliberately tilting Armand’s head back towards the screen.

Watch the movie.

Armand’s expression wobbles toward distress but doesn’t quite get there. He relaxes by degrees, shifting light of the movie playing across his face, until he’s balled up with his feet on the couch, chin resting on his hands where they rest of his knees.

Louis settles back, one arm spread easily to drape across the back of the couch, not quite touching Armand since he is curled forward. He basks in the contentment Armand radiates whenever he’s single-mindedly focused on something and it mutes his lingering annoyance at sitting through an action flick that’s masquerading as art.

They sit quietly through the credits, because Louis knows Armand’s rules for watching movies, until the only sound is the quiet hum of the digital projector.

Armand tips his head back to rest on Louis’ shoulder.

“You hated it,” he says matter of factly.

“Yeah,” Louis says, letting his smile show in his voice. “I can appreciate the cinematography, the use of color tones to differentiate the dream levels was inspired. But the ending was faux intellectual bullshit. Why would you pick a top as a totem? Doesn’t it undermine the point of the thing?”

“That’s the point, you can’t ever really know. But at some point you have to choose and commit to a version of reality.”

Louis shifts to scratch Armand’s scalp in lieu of a response. If he were in a different mood, he would argue with Armand for the sake of it, even as he’s not sure he disagrees.

They’re quiet for another long while. Louis pressed gently on the top of Armand’s head when he shifts as if he’s going to stand to turn off the projector. He relaxes back into the couch cushions and Louis’ shoulder.

“Armand, you can incept someone just fine.”

“No?” Armand sits up and twists around to study Louis.

“You can’t just stick an idea in someone’s mind—sure. You find something already in there and feed it back to them, twisted the way you want it. That is literally what you do.”

“Oh. You were actually paying attention to the whole thing.”

“Yes, love.”

Armand’s brow furrows and Louis cups his cheek, dragging a thumb over sharp cheekbone.

“If we’re being uncomfortably honest, you are second in my heart, but I do love you.”

Louis suddenly has a lap full of soft curly hair and tinkertoy limbs, writhing like a wounded thing. He brings an arm around Armand’s shoulders and rubs the other down his spine. Armand begins to settle and contorts to grab the hand Louis had allowed to settle at the small of his back, twining their fingers together with painful force.

“You are second in mine as well, but still loved. Desperately.”