#iwtv fortunately understands this

[valtsv]

i don't think we consider enough the insane abandonment issues being undead would cause. because being undead is such a terminally isolating state - death itself has rejected you. decay will not touch you, no matter how completely you surrender as it eats away at everything you've ever known and loved. time will pass around you, unseeing, diverting its path like water flowing around a rock jutting from the riverbed. everyone and everything will leave you behind, if you don't leave them first. really it'd be more surprising if you didn't develop a personality disorder about it.

[moreaulover]

Eltingville club ranked by how likely they are to support queer people (#pride!):

Jerry- grew up to be the most well adjusted, he seems like an ally, he came to me in a dream and told me so himself (unfortunately would suffer from "I grew up in a marginalizing climate" but works to unlearn most of that and tries to understand)

Josh- maybe queer? Dorkin (we are not on a first name basis) on Twitter said it's up to the reader to decide what a lot of Bill's comments could imply, would still have some odd things to say queer or not

Pete- defends the homoerotisism in iwtv and claims it's classic vampire shit, seems like he would fetishize me (a lesbian) or any queer woman, definitely has many awful things to say but ultimately I don't think he'd freak out or anything, just fairly weird

Bill- my heart says no but my head says he's absolutely the worst ever. Awful comments, awful reaction, very weird about it. Bill is a loose canon on a hair trigger, either going to just argue with you about it and actively antagonize you (ect ect ect) or actually flips out (like that one dog flip video) personally you would not see me coming out to him but fortunately he would never be on good terms with me in the first place

[bonearenaofmyskull]

Hi! I love your Hannibal meta and it's such a joy to see you back. The ask about IWTV reminds me, would there be any chance that you might write the Good Omens meta you said you wouldn't do a few months back XD? Or some hints about what you were interested in talking about? I feel S2 added a bit more depth to the characters that hasn't been discussed enough (or I haven't delved into that fandom enough to see) and the Job story did get a tiny bit Hannibal-y with the god questioning and temptation

Thank you! Glad to be back.

No, I'm not qualified to write Good Omens meta. xD But I can give you ONE piece, the sum of my opinion, which is that the commentary about the finale (what I saw of it, at least) made the common fandom mistake of viewing the characters' actions through the ship instead of through the individual characters' personalities and values. They talk about Aziraphale not being ready for an overt relationship, or just frankly condemning him for his betrayal, or that both of them do not have good relationship skills, or the Metatron's manipulations, or idk, something about the coffee being drugged?

But while all these things are important (maybe not the coffee, idk what's up with that), the real issue that I haven't seen talked about is faith. (Not that I've researched it, so my apologies if this is all going to be not new because someone else covered it extensively, and I'm just not in the fandom so I didn't know.)

And not in faith each other but in God, or more specifically, in God's righteousness.

That's the purpose of the Job story in the narrative, to illustrate that difference in their worldviews. Aziraphale has come to the understanding that Heaven is operating in its own interests, but he still believes in God's goodness. Crowley...doesn't.

That's why Crowley can't go with him because that lack of faith means he doesn't believe that Aziraphale (or even the two of them together, if he were an angel again) could possibly set something right that has no righteousness at its core, while Aziraphale must go to right Heaven because what has been happening there is an abomination of God's goodness in his eyes.

Aziraphale was wrong when he thought that Crowley would take the Metatron's olive branch, but his error is so enormous because he can't wrap his head around how to Crowley, Heaven's iniquity is just a symptom of God's own, which Aziraphale just cannot accept. So he chooses to see it as a flaw in Crowley, instead of recognizing that Crowley's moral backbone is (apparently) greater even than God's.

So what Aziraphale is forgiving Crowley for is not the awkward kiss or anything he did wrong in their relationship. He's forgiving him for his lack of faith. And Aziraphale must go, he has to make Heaven worthy of regaining Crowley's faith, and he has to prove that God is worthy of Crowley's faith as well. He's got to save them all: he has to rescue Heaven from its iniquity, God and goodness and the world itself from the grip of Heaven, and, more than anything, he has to save Crowley from his unbelief, from living in that outer darkness that Aziraphale is really starting to see for the first time.

If Aziraphale can just do these miniscule few teensy tinesy itty bitty wee things, then Everything Will Be Okay.

How this will go in S3 --whether Aziraphale falls and Crowley rises, or something else--is going to be largely dependent on how the show decides to handle God's character. Whatever the powers of Heaven and Hell believe on this show, God Herself seems to be a Deist. She was notably absent in S2, and in S1 She was definitely treating creation like a spectator sport. I think the show is going to have to finally answer the question of whether or not the angels and demons are all carrying out God's Ineffable Plan through following it, or through failing to follow it. The fortunate fall, on a celestial scale, perhaps.

As that is revealed, just how benevolent God is should also be revealed, and I imagine that could have some significant bearing on how the Ineffable Husbands' relationship resolves. They're setting poor Aziraphale up for his own crisis of faith, ofc, and Crowley more than anyone knows just how that outer darkness feels. But they're also setting Aziraphale up to understand that the belief in goodness that he misplaced with God is a belief in goodness he can safely place with Crowley instead.

[loustat-0]

The reason you were flamed on twitter is because when corrected for using the wrong pronouns you said “I don’t really care” and continued using the wrong pronouns to refer to someone. When shown screenshots of Anne Rice defending a real pedophile you responded by making the case that 14 year olds can consent to sex with adults. I wonder if you will tag this post as iwtv or leave it untagged to conceal the reason you lost mutuals on X

As I said before I wasn't educated about this . And once I was , I apologized to that person . What I ( MISTAKENLY ) did was uncool but that was simply because as none American & not a native fan we have different situations in my country about this . And once I got informed about my mistake I apologized publicly .

Like I said X is a nasty place when people judge you when you're uneducated on something . For example I didn't know pronouns could be that important to someone maybe because it wasn't important to me that who I interact with is a man or woman . But now I will definitely consider it once I know people's pronouns . 👌🏻✅

And I won't conceal anything here . Because Tumblr fortunately has more understanding fans as I have seen till now .

* not to mention that account usually had beef with me for other reasons as well . And when I said that about that account I had him blocked ages ago & it was another account who posted about Marius & Armand & Louis & claudia that account is a famous hater account for Anne's universe . And these accounts wished Anne to be in hell 😬 . Which I don't know if it's the right thing to say just because someone wrote a book about completely unreal people .

[elainemorisi]

.

[licncourt]

moments in VC that alter my brain chemistry (in a good way)

I thought was a good idea so thank you to @prouvaireafterdark for tagging me in @msrandonstuff 's request for a list like this!

I have to specify "(in a good way)" because there is so much wtf nonsense in these books, but I will gladly do a separate "(in a bad way)" list if y'all want. These are mostly from the first two books because they're by FAR the best, but there are a couple from the third and from the last three. If you've seen my Loustat moments post, you've seen everything you need to see from the middle books.

I've included page numbers for all these, but they won't apply to every version of the books. Fortunately, I have a Google Drive folder of VC book PDFs that these correspond to linked here

Spoilers, obviously.

Louis' turning in Interview with the Vampire p. 22-24 (romantic, sexy horror at its finest)

THE PROSTITUTE SCENE in IWTV p. 83-94 (an abridged version is in the 1994 movie, but the AMC show replaced it, rather anticlimactically imo, with the tenor scene. I have a breakdown of what makes the OG version so incredible right here)

Claudia's turning in IWTV p. 97-101 (while I understand the reasoning behind the changes in the AMC show, I prefer the book version. Additional Claudia spoilers here)

Louis' confession and slaughter of the priest in IWTV p. 154-156 (still heartbroken that this was storyboarded but cut from the movie, AMC better give it to me)

Claudia's "murder" of Lestat in IWTV p. 143-145 (gaslight gatekeep girlboss)

Louis and Lestat's brief reunion at the end of IWTV p. 340-346 (fucking brutal, iconic though and way gayer than the movie version)

The intro of The Vampire Lestat p. 1-3 (the first page is written, I swear to you, in the style of My Immortal, but I love it)

Lestat's first date with Nicolas as mortals in TVL p. 30-35 (Loustat is everything but human Nickistat is soooo baby)

Lestat's turning in TVL p. 63-66 (big CW for non-con, but a amazingly chilling scene)

Lestat finds the dungeon of Magnus' tower in TVL p. 77-79 (such a great horror moment)

Nicolas' condemnation of Lestat in TVL p. 198-201 (heartbreaking but such a watershed moment)

Lestat's recollections of Louis and Claudia in TVL p. 385-388 (THEY!!!!!!)

LOUSTAT REUNION FR THIS TIME in TVL p. 403-411 (this is the most important part of VC actually. Nothing else matters)

Lestat's rock concert in TVL p. 412-417 (he is so stupid but good for him)

Armand turning Daniel, the interviewer from IWTV, in Queen of the Damned p. 62-65 (the whole chapter this is from, The Devil's Minion, is amazing and one of the most loved parts of VC, so honestly just read it all)

Louis and Lestat visit NOLA in QotD p. 270-273 (this is where you should stop reading. Nothing is gained past this point)

Louis and Lestat express their feelings for real in Prince Lestat p. 508 (this is on my Loustat moments post, but it has to be here too)

Louis lets go of his grief and accepts happiness at the end of PL p. 518-525 (Louis was in Anne Rice character jail for almost forty years but YES YES THE TIGER IS OUT)

Louis and Lestat commit to each other permanently in Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis p. 131-141 (so many incredible Loustat things packed in here. All that makes this book justified in its existence)

Louis and Lestat live happily ever after in Blood Communion p. 282-284 (If it wasn't for this after All That Shit, I would've had to smash my face into concrete)

[i-want-my-iwtv]

I've been trying to read the whole vc series, but school and work just keep preventing me from getting really far! Is it ok to ask you to write a little summary for each book so I can catch up with the fandom until I have the time to read them all thoroughly?

Yeah, I understand, time is limited :P 

I don’t know that summarizing VC will allow you to “catch up” with the fandom, you really only need to read the first 3 books and the Vampire Armand to get most of the jokes on tumblr, bc most of the jokes seem to center around:

Louis being a pyromaniac,

Lestat being an obnoxious but somehow lovable glittery murder machine,

Lestat and Louis being awesome and shitty murder dads,

Claudia being an ungrateful spoiled brat,

Armand being a little brat, or a slut, or an evul coven master, or all of the above,

Daniel Molloy just wanting to vampire plz!!!11!,

Marius being a pedo, or too bossy, or both,

Gabrielle is a bad mom and an ice queen,

Nicolas is spelled NICOLAS and he is NOT DEAD!,

Secondary characters not getting enough love from anyone!!

There are often spoilers in summaries tho, do you really want to be spoiled? I LOVE being spoiled.

We have these unreliable narrators, there is a lot of disagreement as to what canon really is, and some fans choose to ignore parts of (or entire books) in the series. We bring our own experiences to the reading, and we choose what to connect with, so I think we can agree on some things about each book, but you will probably get a different summary from any given reader. Even AR has told us to disregard the hybrid Mayfair/VC books (Blood Canticle, possibly Merrick and Blackwood Farm) when moving onto the more recent VC additions (PL and PLROA). So, for example, I have a friend who has only read the first 3 books. She doesn’t even know what happens after that bc she prefers to think it ended after QOTD. So any new vampires made after QOTD do not exist to her. #Your headcanon may vary.

Anyway, you want summaries.

http://vampirechronicles.wikia.com has a pretty good write-up for each of the books (they don’t have PL and PLROA currently, maybe they will eventually). It contains spoilers.

@vraik​ has thorough VC analysis in their series called The Consulting Analyst over on vraikaiser.com. Spoilers there, too.

@hyperbeeb‘s capsule reviews are pretty gr9 [X]:

Lestat’s Adventures with a Progressive Family

Lestat’s Bisexual Adventures in 18th Century France

Lestat’s Adventures with the Queen of the Vampires

Lestat’s Adventures as a Human

Lestat’s Adventures with Satan

Lestat’s Adventures in a Coma

Lestat’s Adventures with Polyamory 

Lestat’s Adventures in the Deep South

Lestat’s Adventures with Not Being There At All

Lestat’s Adventures with Witches and Other Weird Shit

Lestat’s adventures with Being the Vampire Head of State

Lestat’s Adventures with Literal Fucking Aliens

(Note, Pandora and Vittorio are technically stand-alone “New Tales of the Vampires” books, but Pandora would be No. 6 of the 13 book series).

You can check my #VC Synopsis tag, which has more capsule humorous summaries.

Gonna try to do a little summary for each VC under the cut as a personal challenge. 

Spoilers ahead! I’ll try to do this with as few spoilers as possible, as factually as possible.

1. Interview with the Vampire - Louis tells the story of his life and unlife to Daniel Molloy. Louis starts at the point in his mortal life just before he meets Lestat, and how his life up until that meeting influenced the unlife that followed after he became a vampire. Lestat’s reasons for choosing Louis are unclear to Louis, but he wants Louis to choose to be a vampire. Louis is under so much duress (failing health, still in emotional distress over his guilt re: a close family member’s death) that the choice is not 100% legit, Lestat can’t wait for a more opportune time and proceeds to turn Louis anyway. 

The whole story could be seen as Anne Rice’s exploration of the role of religion and the reasons why terrible things happen to innocent people, the concept of punishment. 

For me, it was also eye-opening bc I was 11 when I read it and it introduced the possibility of love between a same-sex couple, even if that was in more of a read-between-the-lines way. 

It also has a child vampire and I hadn’t seen any media even attempt to tell a story with a child vampire before. Few media that attempt it seem to have captured the beauty and tragedy of such a creature as in this story, and she reappears in a few of the other VC. Unreliable Narrator thing that continues throughout the series.

^ok that was too long, I’m going for shorter.

2. The Vampire Lestat - Lestat seeks to “correct the record” that Louis laid out in IWTV by giving us his own backstory, starting at his mortal youth and how that influenced the unlife that followed when he became a vampire, against his will (hence the “I’m going to give you the choice I never had,” line from movie!IWTV). There is more exploration in the role of religion and reasons why bad things happen to basically innocent people, and whether you really can make the best of a shitty situation or just give up. More about punishment. A very unique take on the origin of the vampires as a species is revealed. And the reasons why Lestat behaved the way he did (basically all secretive) in IWTV. Unreliable Narrator thing that continues throughout the series, who are we to believe? Lestat or Louis? And the author’s retconning which is perceived as “making excuses later in canon for behavior that’s already happened.” Some readers really despise this. Personally, I like having the options and trusting one version of events, or none of them.

3. The Queen of the Damned - Lestat’s modern-era rock career wakes the Queen of the Vampires and she has this awesome Radical Feminist idea for world peace. She’s already gotten started on it! She upgrades Lestat physically so that he can help her accomplish her goals, but he’s not really on board. They meet with the vampires she has allowed to survive her purge and it doesn’t go very well. Also in this book, we have different narrators, more about the vampire origin story, and the Armand/Daniel ship is sailing at its best here.

4. The Tale of the Body Thief - Having suffered so much through the past 3 books, Lestat is a suicidal hamburger-brained moron and makes some very bad choices. Despite everyone advising him NOT to, Lestat makes a terrible trade with a body thief and learns quickly that he had idealized being human. He does some horrendous stuff, and wants off the Being Human ride. He has one friend who helps him set things back to the way they should be, and then he betrays that friend in a spectacularly cruel way. More importantly, Lestat also gets a wonderful cuddly doggo. 

5. Memnoch the Devil - Lestat Goes to Heaven and Hell, meets Jesus Christ, meets God, meets Satan (who prefers to go by “Memnoch”) it’s all a huge interview process to decide if Lestat might work for God or Satan and it’s basically fanfic of the Bible. Some people hated it for those reasons. I found it really intriguing, bc it presents a reason why God created the earth, and why there’s suffering, why God allows suffering to go on, and where religion comes from. Like Lestat, Memnoch says he’s not the antagonist, but really the good guy in all this. When Dorothy gets back to Kansas Lestat returns to earth, there is disagreement about whether he went on a real trip or he was just fooled by a really talented spirit. Lestat is so confused that he throws a huge tantrum and then gets solitary confinement, then slips into a coma.

6. The Vampire Armand - Armand gets his spotlight and gets to really tell his story, do we believe everything he tells us? Lots of good Italy times stuff. Armand visits Lestat in his coma-state, and talks about that, too. 

7. Merrick - Merrick is a Mayfair witch in NOLA who bewitches Louis in pursuit of his request for closure with Claudia, and hilarity ensues. Louis gets the most screentime he’s had since IWTV, but the whole book is told from a 3rd wheel’s POV, it would have been so much better from Louis’ or Merrick’s POV. Major fatal thing happens but fortunately Lestat wakes up from his coma in time to save the day.

8. Blood and Gold - Marius tells his story, as does the vampire Thorne tell his own story. Marius talks about his artistic influences and his experience with the early Talamasca and Santino and the Children of Satan. We see Daniel (now living with Marius) under a kind of spell, which Marius says is temporary. 

9. Blackwood Farm - Lestat goes to the Deep South and hears the story of vampire Quinn (his story defies summary) and, with Merrick’s help, saves the day.

10. Blood Canticle - More vampire and Mayfair mixing. And Taltos. It’s a very big WTF book. But it has some very funny scenes and lines in it. It ends with Lestat promising the Dark Gift to someone. 

11. Prince Lestat - Vampire scientists. A clone. Someone gets kidnapped. Ultimate Vampire Coven Gathering. Lestat is cranky, saves the day anyway. Ghosts apparently can linger on earth after death and make bodies for themselves. Characters from past books reappear. New characters are introduced. Louis writes a chapter about how OK fine, he does love Lestat. FINE.

12. Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis - I haven’t finished this but basically… the REAL vampire origin story, and it involves bird-like aliens, who were sent to earth bc the aliens feed on the suffering of mortals. The bird-like aliens didnt want to create Atlantis. in fact they were pissed because this one creature of theirs, Amel, made Atlantis with the Luracastria (i dunno i think thats how it’s spelled) and their viewing tech couldn’t see through the material. Amel made Atlantis to spite the bird-like aliens omg i cant believe im typing this. Louis and Lestat finally have some legit canon cuddletimes.

- Pandora - the story of the vampire Pandora, and why Marius is bad at relationships. Lots of good Roman times stuff.

- Vittorio - is not a VC vampire, and wants nothing to do with that dysfunctional pile of fanged crazies. @monstersinthecosmos and @vittoriathevampire could give you a better summary of that one, since I didn’t absorb it too well :P