#many thing have changed as I try to make this story something I like but I do think it's funny henri's looped back around to being a teen

[armandyke]

Remember then that it was love: The relationship between Amadeo and Marius in Blood and Gold, and how it conflicts with Armand’s version of events

Now that I’ve read both books I want to look at all the discrepancies between Armand’s original account of his relationship with Marius in The Vampire Armand compared to what Marius tells us in Blood and Gold. 

I’m leaving all criticisms of Anne Rice’s possible sloppy writing at the door because we could just go around in circles with that. It’s possible that all of these discrepancies are just results of Anne misremembering what she wrote originally, not hiring editors, etc. but we’re not doing that today. I’m going to be taking everything within these books as intentional and exploring what it says about Marius as a character that he would change/erase/contradict different things. 

(Note: there is literally a 10K word essay below)

Blood and Gold isn’t framed as being Marius’ response to The Vampire Armand, at least not in the way that The Vampire Lestat was Lestat’s response to Interview with the Vampire. He’s not being argumentative, or making a point of contradicting Armand, but considering this book follows on from The Vampire Armand in the series, it does feel like this is his attempt at setting the record straight, and putting out his own version of events. 

Within the context of the book, Marius is explaining all of these events to Thorne, a new character who has spent hundreds of years asleep and only recently awoken. He is vaguely aware of the events of Queen of the Damned through to Memnoch the Devil, which he picked up on while he was asleep, but beyond that he doesn’t know the rest of the characters. More specifically, he hasn’t read Armand’s book, and I think that context is important to remember as I go through this. Marius is speaking to somebody with no prior knowledge of who Armand is, or of the story he told. Essentially, he has the opportunity to deliver his account of events to a completely unbiased, blank slate. This could also explain why he isn’t argumentative in the way that Lestat was in his first book. 

I’m going to try and break this down into sections rather than going through the book chronologically, because otherwise I’m gonna end up repeating the same points over and over. So take my hand and let’s go on a journey into the mind of Marius de Romanus. 

(Also, I’ll be referencing page numbers when I include quotes from the books, more for the sake of helping me keep track of the timelines in both books than anything else since I’ll be going backwards and forwards a bit. These numbers are based on the pdf versions that I have which you can download here and here)

Violence

For me the most notable difference between The Vampire Armand and Blood and Gold is the lack of violence in Marius’ account of events. It’s gonna be hard to draw direct comparisons between the two books for this because I’m pointing out an absence of something, so this is mostly going to be me pointing to quotes from Armand’s book and yelling “But Marius never mentioned any of that!!” 

I will, however, start by taking a moment to point out these lines, which I read and literally laughed at.

“Now, I am by nature not given to physical combat, but in a rage I pushed him off me with such force that he was thrown across the floor and back against the wall.  ‘How dare you?’ I asked fiercely. I struggled to keep my voice low so as not to alarm the mortals in the banquet room. ‘I ought to kill you. What peace of mind it would give me to know you were dead. I could cut you into pieces that no sorcerer could reassemble. Damn you.’  I was trembling with this uncharacteristic and humiliating rage. (Blood and Gold, pg. 134)

I could go into detail about how many times, in this book alone, Marius becomes angry (27), furious (12), or filled with rage (9), but that’s neither here nor there. 

From the combined information in The Vampire Armand and Blood and Gold, we still don’t know a huge amount about Marius’ relationship with the other boys in the palazzo. Within his book, he never mentions anything about using any kind of violence with the boys, nor does he ever mention that the teachers he hires for the boys also use corporal punishment. You could argue that this was common practice in those days, so it wouldn’t have even occurred to him to mention, but this is just the first in a long list of cover ups, so it feels relevant to mention. We know for a fact that physical abuse was common within the palazzo, and Marius was not opposed to punishing the boys himself. 

“He whipped Riccardo for it. I was full of shame. Riccardo took it like a soldier without cries or comment, standing still at a large fireplace in the library, his back turned to receive the blows on his legs. Afterwards, he knelt and kissed the Master’s ring. I vowed I’d never get drunk again.” (The Vampire Armand, pg. 57)

This is the only time we get an explicit description of Marius physically punishing other boys in the palazzo, but I think Riccardo’s ability to take his punishment silently makes it clear that this wasn’t an uncommon occurrence. 

Then, of course, there’s the violence towards Amadeo himself. In Blood and Gold Marius only ever describes one instance of him physically hitting Amadeo. 

“‘I cautioned you on this, did I not?’ I said furiously. ‘And now you weep like a child?’ In a rage, I slapped him.  And in shock he fell back away from me, but his tears flowed all the more.” (Blood and Gold, pg. 361)

Interestingly even in this one account, he mentions Amadeo being shocked by the physical assault, when in Armand’s account of events we get lines like this: 

“He approached me and I shrank back, actually afraid. But by the time he struck me, hard across the face, he’d recovered himself, and it was just the usual brain-jarring blow.” (The Vampire Armand, pg. 226)

It’s also interesting that this is the one and only time Marius admits to hitting Amadeo, considering the rest of the context of the conversation. This is a moment shortly after Amadeo’s turning, and after being reunited with Bianca for the first time. Amadeo wants to be able to give the blood to Bianca, and Marius is arguing against him. 

“‘Master, why can we not make her one of us! Why can we not share the Blood with her?’ I took him roughly by the shoulders. He didn’t fear my hands. He didn’t care.” (Blood and Gold, pg. 361)

It could easily be said that this is an argument where Marius seems, from a completely objective perspective, to be right. Amadeo, still a child and also newly turned, is quickly hurtling towards the idea of turning everybody he loves into a vampire so that he can be with them for eternity. It’s an unrealistic and dangerous idea which Marius then puts a stop to, and by doing so he’s also saving Bianca from being turned. Is that why he’s comfortable admitting to using physical force here? Because it’s a situation where it can be more easily justified? Let’s look at some of the violence Armand details in his book, and which Marius never mentions. 

Obviously the most glaring omission in Blood and Gold is the whipping scene. Marius actually uses a whip on Amadeo twice in The Vampire Armand and I’ll get into the second moment in a little bit, but it’s the first scene where we get the most vivid account of the violence he used. 

“I felt the nudge of his knee in the small of my back and then down came the switch across my thighs. Of course I wasn’t wearing anything but the thin stockings that fashion decreed, so I might as well have been naked.  I cried out in pain and then shut my mouth tight. When the next few blows came, walloping my legs, I swallowed all the noise, furious to hear myself make a careless impossible groan.  Again and again, he brought the switch down, whipping my thighs and then my lower legs as well. Enraged, I struggled to get up, pushing vainly on the covers with the heels of my hands. I couldn’t move. I was pinioned by his knee, and he whacked away without the slightest deterrent.” (The Vampire Armand, pg. 88)

This is just a small snippet. It’s one of the most drawn out, brutal scenes in the book (five pages total in my pdf). Now let me show you Marius’ summary of events. 

“I sent him off to the best brothels to learn the pleasures of women, and the pleasures of boys. He hated me for it, and yet he enjoyed it, and he came home to me eager for the Blood Kiss and nothing else.” (Blood and Gold, pg. 322)

I’m gonna be coming back to this scene again later when I talk about the sexual aspect of their relationship. But for now I’m focusing purely on the physical violence, or, more specifically, the complete lack of it in Marius’ account. 

I think it’s important to note at this point, for people who haven’t read the book, that Marius hasn’t been shying away from detailing other acts of violence in here. He gets into physical altercations with Mael, attacks and kills Eudoxia, and kills multiple unnamed vampires. Even when it comes to his relationship with Pandora, he talks a lot more openly about acting aggressively and forcefully with her. 

“‘Stop it, Pandora. It isn’t necessary that I give her up. We are not mortals! We can live together.’  I took her by the arms. I shook her. Her hair did come loose and then violently and cruelly I pulled at it, and I buried my face in her hair.” (Blood and Gold, pg. 513/514)

So what’s the difference? Why can he be open about his aggression towards Pandora and the other vampires, but not towards Amadeo. I have a lot of thoughts about this, and I’m gonna go a bit more in depth on the differences specifically between his accounts of his dynamics with Pandora and Bianca compared to Amadeo, but perhaps it comes down to the simple fact that Pandora was a centuries old vampire, and Amadeo was a child. A human child. Perhaps it comes down to the simple fact that Marius knew there was no way to spin this moment without painting himself as a monster. 

Moving on to the second time he whips Amadeo, this is when we get one of the more glaring discrepancies. In this case we don’t just have Marius omitting something, we see him actively contradicting Armand’s account of events. 

Interesting to note that in this second moment Amadeo is a vampire, though still a child and quite newly turned. This is another scene that’s quite drawn out in The Vampire Armand so I’m gonna break it down by showing the initial assault first, because I think it’s important to emphasise just how violent Marius was in Armand’s version, and then I can explain some of the context of the scene and get into the contradictions. 

“I turned away from him. I figured he was being dramatic and that he would go away. The switch came crashing down again and this time there followed a volley of blows.  I felt the blows in a way I’d never felt them when mortal. I was stronger, more resistant to them, but for a split second each blow broke through my preternatural guard and caused an exquisite explosion of pain.” (The Vampire Armand, pg. 211)

This scene comes shortly after Marius takes Amadeo to Kyiv to see his home and his family again. Pretty understandably (to me at least) Amadeo goes into a bit of a slump after they return to Venice, coming to terms with all of the memories he's finally recovered, as well as the fact that he will never be the person from those memories again. He’s seventeen and coming to terms with the fact that the family he’d forgotten loved him, that they still do love him, and that he’s now had to say goodbye to them forever. 

And Marius does seem to understand this. To some extent at least he seems to acknowledge the conflict going on in Amadeo’s head and appreciates why he's become withdrawn. Now let's compare the two scenes. 

“‘You’ve had enough time to grieve and to weep,’ he said, ‘and to reevaluate all you’ve been given. Now it’s back to work. Go to the desk and prepare to write. Or I’ll whip you some more.’” (The Vampire Armand, pg. 211)

“When would he finally pick up the brushes and paint? I didn’t know, but such a question didn’t matter anymore. He was mine and mine forever. He could do what he pleased.” (Blood and Gold, pg. 375)

“He smacked me across the face. I was dizzy. As my eyes cleared, I looked into his.  ‘I want your attention again. I want you to come out of your meditation. Go to your desk and write for me a summary of what your journey in Russia meant to you, and what you see now here that you could not see before. Make it concise, use your finest similes and metaphors and write it cleanly and quickly for me.’” (The Vampire Armand, pg. 211)

“I tried to forget my jealousy or ignore it. After all, what was to be done about it? Should I remind him of his journey and torment him with questions? I could not do such a thing.” (Blood and Gold, pg. 375)

I don't think you really need me to point out the glaring difference between the two. From Marius’ perspective he was understanding and patient with him, waiting for him to return to his activities in his own time. From Armand’s account Marius physically beat him and continued to threaten him with more violence unless he complied and went back to work. 

Again we have to remember that Blood and Gold followed after The Vampire Armand. And you have to question what effect Armand’s account had on the story Marius then went on to tell. He claims he understood Amadeo’s feelings and struggles at the time, but did he? Or is he able to understand them now in hindsight, having read Armand’s version? 

Sex and Romance

Much like the physical violence, this is another case of omission rather than direct contradiction, so it’s harder to draw direct comparisons between the two books. A pretty significant aspect of The Vampire Armand is the sexual relationship between Amadeo and Marius, but in Blood and Gold this is almost completely erased. The only time Marius mentions any kind of sexual act with Amadeo is in the initial bathtub scene, which remains mostly unchanged between the two versions. 

“Taking Amadeo into the bath, I cleansed him myself and covered him with kisses. I drew from him an easy intimacy which he had denied all those who had tormented him, so dazzled and confused was he by my simple kindnesses, and the words I whispered in his tender ears. I brought him quickly to know the pleasures which he had never allowed himself before. He was dazed and silent; but his prayers for deliverance were no more.” (Blood and Gold, pg. 308/309)

“I groaned for all of this. I sank against him in the warm water, and his lips went down my chest to my belly. He sucked tenderly at the skin as if he were sucking up the salt and the heat from it, and even his forehead nudging my shoulder filled me with warm and thrilling sensations. I put my arm around him, and when he found the sin itself, I felt it go off as if an arrow had been shot from it, and it were a crossbow; I felt it go, this arrow, this thrust, and I cried out.” (The Vampire Armand, pg. 41)

Throughout the rest of The Vampire Armand we get multiple more accounts of sexual acts Marius performed on him, and I’m not gonna sit here and quote all of them because I don’t think it will add anything to my argument. Instead, let’s look at how Marius describes things, or, more accurately, the way he doesn’t. This next quote is one of the only hints at any other physical relationship between the two of them following the bath scene.

“Yet in the late evenings, when the lessons had ceased and the little boys had been put to bed, and the older boys were finishing tasks in my studio, I couldn’t stop myself from taking Amadeo into my bedroom study, and there I visited on him my carnal kisses, my sweet and bloodless kisses, my kisses of need, and he gave himself to me without reserve.”  (Blood and Gold, pg. 315)

This is probably the closest he gets to hinting at his desire for Amadeo, but it’s certainly nothing close to the levels we see in The Vampire Armand. It’s also the last reference we get to the sexual side of their relationship, and it’s soon followed up with this line.

“Here in Venice for Marius de Romanus, there was none. But Amadeo had his suspicions, not as to the kisses that were fast becoming all too chaste for him, but as to the man of seeming marble, who never supped at his own table, nor took a drop of wine from a goblet, or ever appeared beneath his own roof during the light of day.” (Blood and Gold, pg. 316)

This quote references another, much longer scene in The Vampire Armand, in which Amadeo confronts Marius about the nature of their relationship. Specifically about the fact that Marius performs sexual acts for him while not wanting anything in return. 

“‘Well, now,’ I said. ‘There’s a great mystery here and you know it. It’s time you told me.’ ‘What?’ he asked obligingly enough. ‘Why do you never… Why do you never feel anything! Why do you handle me as if I were a poppet? Why do you never…?’” (The Vampire Armand, pg. 66)

And this is one of those moments where I think it’s important to remember the context of the book. As readers, we know that “kisses that were fast becoming all too chaste for him” is referring to Amadeo wanting more from a relationship that is already sexual. But Marius isn’t speaking to us, he’s speaking to somebody with no prior knowledge of Armand or his book. 

From an outside perspective, with none of the additional context, couldn’t “fast becoming all too chaste for him” easily be interpreted to mean there was no sexual relationship at all? 

And again, just like with the violence, this isn’t a topic that Marius avoids altogether in his book. He gets quite explicit during a scene with Bianca. 

“And as my fingers tightened and caressed her, as his kisses grew more fervent, she grew bloodred with her cresting passion and fell softly against Amadeo’s arm.  I withdrew, kissing her forehead as though she were chaste again.” (Blood and Gold, pg. 359)

I’m also including that follow up line, just to emphasise the previous point that Marius absolutely means “non-sexual” when he refers to his relationship with Amadeo as “chaste”. 

So, once again, you have to wonder what the difference is. Why is he comfortable sharing explicit details of a sexual act with Bianca, but not Amadeo? Is it, again, down to the simple fact that Amadeo was a child? Or does it go deeper? 

When Marius comes upon Amadeo, he takes him home and we get the bath scene, the one and only time he references anything sexual happening between them. It’s after this that he then has the idea to groom Amadeo into the “ideal” vampire companion. 

“This was a foundling who could be educated for the Blood! This was a child utterly lost to life who could be reclaimed specifically for the Blood.” (Blood and Gold, pg. 309)

Which then leads us to this thought. 

“My mind went back swiftly to Eudoxia and how she had spoken of the perfect age for the Blood to be received. I remembered Zenobia and her quick wits and knowing eyes. I remembered my own long ago reflection on the promise of a virgin, that one could make of a virgin what one wished without price.” (Blood and Gold, pg. 309/310)

Earlier in the book Marius met Zenobia, a fledgling of Eudoxia’s who explained some of her background to him. She tells him that she believed Eudoxia chose her as an ideal companion because of her youth and her virginity (interestingly, she was also a slave, though Marius never reflects upon this additional similarity). 

Of course, this completely contradicts what he finds in Amadeo, a child sex slave. Marius is well aware of the abuse Amadeo has suffered, he knows he’s not a virgin, but he still has these thoughts all the same. My personal interpretation is that Marius is referring to Amadeo’s amnesia. The fact that, having pulled Amadeo from the brothel and given him a home, he has essentially been “reborn”, making him a virginal figure in that sense rather than specifically referring to his sexual history. But I still don’t think it's insignificant that Marius makes this observation and then goes on to erase all the subsequent sexual interactions they had, retroactively purifying him in a sense. 

This is slightly contradicted by the fact that Marius does admit to sending Amadeo to multiple brothels. It seems that Marius is only concerned with removing himself from the equation, rather than completely erasing Amadeo’s sexuality. 

Another very significant omission from Blood and Gold, which also slots into the topic of their sexual relationship, is the blood drinking. In The Vampire Armand, Marius begins drinking Amadeo’s blood after he confronts him about his lack of sexuality. He then continues to do this throughout their relationship all the way through to Amadeo’s turning. In Marius’ account, however, he never mentions this. 

We can see how intertwined the blood drinking is with their sexual relationship here. 

“‘Amadeo,’ he said, his lips on my throat as they’d come and gone a thousand times, only this time there came a sting, sharp, swift and gone. A thread stitched into my heart and was jerked all of a sudden. I had become the thing between my legs, and was nothing but that. His mouth nestled against me, and again that thread snapped and again.” (The Vampire Armand, pg. 67)

This is the first instance of Marius drinking Amadeo’s blood, and it then continues to happen in each subsequent sexual encounter we see. 

I think it’s important to consider the use of blood drinking as an allegory for sexual assault throughout the book series, especially in The Vampire Armand. Amadeo, still a child, feels Marius drinking from him, but doesn’t fully understand what is being done. It’s not until much later when he sees Marius drink from somebody else that he fully understands what was happening. 

“Astonished and enthralled, I watched as my master closed his smooth eyes, his golden eyelashes seeming silvery in the dimness, and I heard the low wet sound, barely audible but horribly suggestive of the flow of something, and that something had to be the man’s blood.” (The Vampire Armand, pg. 96)

It’s easy to draw parallels between the blood drinking and CSA. Amadeo was a child, being sexually assaulted, and still too innocent to understand what was being done to him. So I think it’s significant that, as well as erasing the explicit sexual acts, Marius also never admits to drinking Amadeo’s blood. 

The reason for Marius omitting this from his account to Thorne could, again, be because on some level he recognises that the things he did to Amadeo were wrong. But I think it may also relate to Marius’ constant insistence that vampires only drink from “the evil doer”.

“‘I understand it,’ she answered too quickly. ‘So Amadeo told me all that you’d taught him. Only the Evil Doer. Never the innocent, I know.’” “Blood and Gold, pg. 421)

This is one of the most steadfast rules Marius follows, and one he impresses on every other vampire he meets. In fact one of the main reasons for Marius viewing Armand as “lost” to them after joining the Children of Darkness is that he witnesses him drinking from innocents. 

“‘Well, he’s no child now, Bianca. He may be as beautiful as when I made him through the Blood, but he is a patriarch in the dust. And all of Paris, the wondrous city of Paris, surrounds him. I watched him move through the city streets alone. There was no one there to restrict him. He might have sought the Evil Doer as we do. But he did not. He drank deep of innocent blood, not once but twice.’ ‘Ah, I see. This is what has so embittered you.’” (Blood and Gold, pg. 490)

But surely he considered Amadeo to be innocent. Certainly not evil at least. Well, there’s an argument that could be made about Marius always viewing Amadeo as inherently barbaric, purely due to his nationality, but I’m not gonna get into all that here. No, I think that Marius is aware of Amadeo’s innocence. I think that he couldn’t resist drinking from him, and he redacts that part of his story because he knows it goes against everything he’s ever preached.

I think the most important thing to consider on this topic is, if Amadeo truly enthusiastically consented to all the sexual activities happening in The Vampire Armand, why did Marius erase it?

Personality/Dialogue

Getting now into something that we can compare more directly, I wanna look at Amadeo as a character and how starkly different he is in Blood and Gold compared to The Vampire Armand. To an extent there were always going to be differences, because we’re comparing how a character perceived themself vs how they are perceived by others, but the differences here are so severe that I think it speaks volumes about how Marius viewed Amadeo in general. 

To put it as bluntly as possible, Amadeo is barely a character in Blood and Gold. He doesn’t contribute to discussions, or to the narrative as a whole. In essence, he’s Marius’ sexy lamp. It becomes very apparent very quickly how differently Amadeo is going to be portrayed, even from their very first conversation. 

“My Master looked at me and in a tongue I knew, I knew perfectly, he said that I was his only child, and he would come again that night, and by such a time as that I would have seen a new world.  ‘A new world!’ I cried out. ‘No, don’t leave me, Master. I don’t want the whole world. I want you!’ ‘Amadeo,’ he said in this private tongue of confidence, leaning over the bed, his hair dry now and beautifully brushed, his hands softened with powder. ‘You have me forever. Let the boys feed you, dress you. You belong to me, to Marius De Romanus, now.’” (The Vampire Armand, pg. 41)

“‘Master,’ he said softly in the Russian tongue.  I felt the tiny hairs rise all over my body. I wanted so to touch him once more with my cold fingers but I did not dare. I knelt beside the bed and leant over and I kissed his cheek warmly.  ‘Amadeo,’ I said to him so that he might know his new name.  And then using the very Russian tongue he knew, but did not know, I told him that he was mine now, that I was his Master just as he had said. I gave him to know that all things were resolved in me. He must never worry, he would never fear again.” (Blood and Gold, pg. 312)

Throughout the entirety of Blood and Gold, Amadeo’s dialogue is very limited. He rarely speaks unless spoken to, rarely argues back, and, for the most part, seems only to parrot the things Marius has already told him. This massively contradicts Armand’s account of himself in The Vampire Armand. Obviously, we can’t rule out the possibility that Armand was also exaggerating his personality in his version of events. Considering the brutal punishments Marius inflicted on him, I think it would be understandable for Armand to exaggerate how often he misbehaved and argued back in some attempt to make sense of why he was treated that way. 

Another thing to take into account is that from Marius’ account, we get a much better idea of the severity of Amadeo’s amnesia and the way it affected him. It seems that Amadeo was frequently dissociating whenever Marius attempted to force him to remember his past. Perhaps the dissociation means that Armand simply doesn’t recall a lot of these moments in Venice, whereas Marius had a more objective view at that time. Still, I don’t think that accounts for such a drastic difference in behaviour. 

Consider the last quote from Blood and Gold, which is the first dialogue exchanged between Marius and Amadeo. It will be over twenty pages before they have another full conversation (arguably their first actual conversation of the book so far). And between those two exchanges Amadeo has only one line of dialogue. 

“‘Do you know her, Master?’ he asked me soberly, surprising Riccardo, who said nothing.” (Blood and Gold, pg. 317)

For over twenty pages Marius describes the development of his relationship with Amadeo, and the progress of his education, and in that entire time Amadeo will speak five words. 

I’ve talked before about the issues with Anne Rice’s dialogue, how when the characters speak their voices are all very one note and practically indistinguishable from each other. Despite that, however, there were multiple points while reading Blood and Gold that it seemed noticeable that Amadeo’s dialogue wasn’t his own. The example that most stood out to me was the conversation between Marius and Amadeo after Marius has revealed his nature and killed in front of him several times. It’s one of the few conversations that is directly repeated in both books, but there are still notable differences. Sorry in advance for the long ass quotes but I want to try and show the full conversations here. 

“‘If I drink such as that, Master, the blood of the wicked and those whom I overpower, will I become like you?’  He shook his head. Many a man has drunk another’s blood, Amadeo,’ he said in a low but calm voice. His reason had come back to him, his manners, his seeming soul. ‘Would you be with me, and be my pupil and my love?’  ‘Yes, Master, always and forever, or for so long as nature gives to you and me.’ ‘Oh, it isn’t fanciful the words I spoke. We are immortal. And only one enemy can destroy us - it’s the fire that burns in that torch there, or in the rising sun. Sweet to think on it, that when we are at last weary of all this world there is the rising sun.’

‘I am yours, Master.’ I hugged him close and tried to vanquish him with kisses. He endured them, and even smiled, but he didn’t move. But when I broke off, and made a fist of my right hand as if to hit him, which I could never have done, to my amazement he began to yield.  He turned and took me in his powerful and ever careful embrace.  ‘Amadeo, I can’t go on without you,’ he said. His voice was desperate and small. ‘I meant to show you evil, not sport. I meant to show you the wicked price of my immortality. And that I did. But in so doing, I saw it myself, and my eyes are dazzled and I am hurt and tired.’  He laid his head against my head, and held tight to me.  ‘Do what you will to me, Sir,’ I said. ‘Make me suffer and long for it, if that’s what you want. I am your fool. I am yours.’” (The Vampire Armand, pg. 120/121)

“‘Master,’ he asked, ‘if I drink the blood of those who are evil, will I become like you?’ We stood before the closed doors of San Marco. The wind came mercilessly off the sea. I drew my cloak about him all the more tightly, and he rested his head against my chest.  ‘No, child,’ I said, ‘there’s infinitely more magic in it than that.’ ‘Master,’ he said, as I held him close to me, ‘long years ago, or so they seem to me, in some far-away place, where I lived before I came to you, I was what they called a Fool for God. I don’t remember it clearly and never will as both of us well know. But a Fool for God was a man who gave himself over to God completely and did not care what happened, whether it was mockery, or starvation, or endless laughter, or dreadful cold. That much I remember, that I was a Fool for God in those times.’ ‘But you painted pictures, Amadeo, you painted beautiful ikons-’ ‘But listen to me, Master,’ he said firmly, forcing me to silence, ‘whatever I did, I was a Fool for God, and now I would be a Fool for you.’ He paused, snuggling close to me as the wind grew stronger. The mists moved in over the stones. There came noises from the ships.’ I started to speak but he reached to stop me. How obdurate and strong he seemed, how seductive, how completely mine.  ‘Master,’ he went on. ‘Do it when you will. You have my secrecy. You have my patience. Do it when and how you will.’” (Blood and Gold, pg. 342/343)

I wanna start by talking about the difference in Marius’ involvement in the conversation. In the version Marius tells, he is very passive, listening while Amadeo, apparently unprompted, speaks deprecatingly about his past religion before going on to devote himself to Marius. In Armand’s version, Marius asks him directly to state his devotion to him, asking “Would you be with me?”

Then there’s the fixation, in Marius’ account, on Amadeo being a “fool for God”. This is something Amadeo does also mention in The Vampire Armand, though it’s spoken in an earlier conversation in Armand’s version. 

“‘Don’t think me cold, Sir,’ I said. ‘Don’t think me tired and used to things brutal and cruel. I am only the fool, Sir, the fool for God. We don’t question, if memory serves me right. We laugh and we accept and we turn all life into joy.’” (The Vampire Armand, pg 100)

The change in context is important here too. In The Vampire Armand, Amadeo refers to himself as a “fool for God” as a way to explain why he wasn’t horrified or disgusted by the revelation of Marius being a vampire. To him this phrase means that, through his religion, he was able to accept negative or even horrifying events, and to find joy and meaning in them. It doesn’t seem, at least in Armand’s eyes, that this was necessarily a negative thing. He’s simply explaining that his religion taught him how to cope with frightening things. 

Conversely, the Amadeo in Blood and Gold uses the term “fool for God” as something derogatory, and this is what I mean when I say his dialogue in this book doesn’t seem like his own. We know from his interactions with Pandora, Mael, and numerous other characters that Marius has a very negative opinion of religion and worship (despite the fact that he himself frequently performs religious rituals and prays to Those Who Must Be Kept, he refuses to acknowledge this as a form of worship). The changes in wording between the two books are subtle, but we can see clearly how Marius’ own views are being spliced in. “We accept” becomes “did not care”.��

Despite all of this, it’s then interesting to note that in Blood and Gold, we then see Amadeo effectively proclaim Marius as his new god. While Amadeo does refer to himself both as “a fool for God” and “your fool” within The Vampire Armand, these are in two separate conversations, and it doesn’t appear as though Amadeo was referencing the previous conversation when he says this. But in the version Marius presents, Amadeo explicitly states “I was a fool for God, and now I would be a fool for you.” 

It gives the impression, to me at least, that for all Marius’ disdain for the idea of worship and religious idols, he wants to present himself as someone to be worshipped by Amadeo. Or, at least, he wants to present the idea that this is what Amadeo believed. 

The final thing I want to look at before I move on from this conversation is the tone of Amadeo’s final line in each version. 

“‘Do what you will to me, Sir,’ I said. ‘Make me suffer and long for it, if that’s what you want. I am your fool. I am yours.’” (The Vampire Armand, pg. 121)

“‘Master,’ he went on. ‘Do it when you will. You have my secrecy. You have my patience. Do it when and how you will.’” (Blood and Gold, pg. 343)

And again this is what I mean when I say Amadeo’s dialogue doesn’t seem to be entirely his own in Blood and Gold. There’s a flatness to the things he says a lot of the time, a lack of any kind of emotion. To me it gives the impression that Marius was very uninvested in Amadeo as a person. Unlike his retelling of his relationship with Pandora or Bianca, or even any of the other characters, in which he describes their passion and emotional responses with much more depth, this section of his story has an almost clinical feel to it. It’s as if he sees it as simply a series of plot points he has to get through in order to tell this part of the story, rather than a relationship he recalls with any fondness. 

There’s also the subtle difference in language again. “Do what you will to me” becomes “Do it when you will.” “Make me suffer” becomes “You have my patience.” Armand’s version gives much more of a sense of his passion and longing, while Marius’ version presents Amadeo as flatly obedient. 

Returning to the idea that Amadeo’s dialogue in Blood and Gold tends to reflect Marius’ own views, rather than being an honest representation of the things Amadeo said, I want to look at this quote again. 

“‘Don’t think me cold, Sir,’ I said. ‘Don’t think me tired and used to things brutal and cruel. I am only the fool, Sir, the fool for God. We don’t question, if memory serves me right. We laugh and we accept and we turn all life into joy.’” (The Vampire Armand, pg. 100)

Much later in the timeline of events in Blood and Gold, we get this quote from Amadeo after he has become a vampire, explaining why he believes Marius chose him for the blood. 

“‘There’s a bitter cold in me,’ he said, ‘a cold which comes from a distant land. And nothing ever really makes it warm. Even the Blood did not make it warm. You knew of this cold. You tried a thousand times to melt it, and transform it into something more brilliant, but you never succeeded. And then on the night that I came near to death - no, was, in fact, dying - you counted upon that cold to give me the stamina for the Blood.’ I nodded. I looked away, but he put his hand on my shoulder.  ‘Look at me, please, sir,’ he said. ‘Isn’t that so?’ His face was serene.” (Blood and Gold, pg. 363)

It’s quite a shift in belief, as far as Amadeo is concerned. In The Vampire Armand, Amadeo doesn’t want to be seen as cold and unfeeling, in fact he actively argues against it when Marius tries to imply that this is the case. But in Blood and Gold, it is Amadeo who refers to himself in this way. And again this raises the question of how much of Amadeo’s dialogue in Blood and Gold is true, and how much is simply a reflection of Marius’ existing opinions and biases. By giving this dialogue to Amadeo, Marius is effectively shifting the blame away from himself. Marius wasn’t making unfair judgements or assumptions about Amadeo, because it was Amadeo himself who first said these things. 

As I said earlier, a large amount of Amadeo’s dialogue from The Vampire Armand is cut out from Blood and Gold, but now let’s look at an example where the inverse happens. We’re still at roughly the same point in time (because this is one of only a few occasions in Blood and Gold where Marius actually details any conversations occurring between him and Amadeo). These quotes are from slightly earlier than the conversation we were just looking at, and take place immediately after Amadeo witnesses Marius killing somebody for the first time. 

“I was speechless. Fear, loathing, these things had no part in it. I was simply amazed. If I thought, I thought it was wondrous.  In a sudden fit of seeming anger, my Master hurled the man’s body to his left and ot into the water where it fell with a dull splashing and bubbling sound.” (The Vampire Armand, pg. 97)

“‘Have you no tears for the man, Amadeo?’ I asked. ‘Have you no questions as to the disposition of his soul? Without Sacred Rites, he died. He died only for me.’ ‘No, Master,’ he answered, and then a smile played on his lips as though it were a flame which had sprung from mine. ‘It’s marvelous what I saw, Master. What do I care for his body or his soul?’ I was too angry to respond. There had been no lesson in it! He was too young, the night too dark, the man too wretched, and all that I had foreseen had come to nought.” (Blood and Gold, pg. 338)

In this case, Marius actually inserts some dialogue where in The Vampire Armand we had none, and this decision raises a particularly interesting question. Does Marius conflate Amadeo’s inner thoughts with his spoken dialogue? It’s a pretty terrifying prospect, that Marius could at any point lash out angrily in response to Amadeo’s thoughts in the same way he would to something he speaks out loud. Who hasn’t had negative, mean spirited thoughts pop into their head at some point or another? Especially as a teenager. 

Overall, there are several factors that might explain why Marius chose to change so much in terms of Amadeo’s personality and behaviour. It’s interesting to note as well that Amadeo’s aggression and violent outbursts are also cut from Blood and Gold, so it isn’t necessarily that Marius is attempting to paint a picture in which he was always the good guy trying to keep Amadeo under control. 

Being completely honest, I think it boils down to Marius just not caring about Amadeo. I think he loved him, but he loved him purely as an object and as a project to see through to completion. His relationship with Amadeo is barely even portrayed as romantic, in comparison to his relationships with Pandora and Bianca. From the moment Marius found him, he viewed Amadeo as something he could shape into the “ideal” vampire, and so his personality and identity outside of Marius was just… never important to him. 

Timeline

Now we’re really cooking with gas, let's get into the timeline conflicts. There are two that I’m gonna talk about here which I noticed, though there might also be others as well. 

The first one I want to look at is something I didn’t pick up on until my second read through while writing this essay/thesis/ramble, and though it’s not necessarily a complete conflict in terms of the timeline, it is very odd. Unfortunately it means we have to return to my beloved enemy, the whipping scene. 

While the whipping scene is completely absent from Blood and Gold, there is an event which follows on from that scene which is present in both books, and this is the conversation in which Marius first reveals the subject of Those Who Must Be Kept to Amadeo. 

“‘Child. I go to see Those Who Must Be Kept. I have no choice in this.’  For a moment I said nothing. I tried to understand the denotation of the words he’d spoken. His voice had dropped, and he had said the words halfheartedly.  ‘What is that, Master?’ I asked.” (The Vampire Armand, pg. 92)

“‘That I cannot do,’ I answered. And out of my mouth there came words I thought I’d never speak. ‘I go to Those Who Must Be Kept,’ I said as if I couldn’t hold the secret within me. ‘To see if they are at peace. I do as I have always done.’ What a look of wonder came over his face.  ‘Those Who Must Be Kept,’ he whispered. He said it like a prayer.” (Blood and Gold, pg. 333)

So, without the whipping scene, you might be wondering what precedes the same conversation in Blood and Gold. Well, according to Marius, this is also the day that Mael visits the palazzo. 

“Amadeo saw him. Again, for several fatal moments, Amadeo saw him. And I knew that something deep inside Amadeo recognized Mael for the creature that he was. But like so many things in the mind of Amadeo, it wasn’t conscious, and the boys left me with quick kisses, off to sing their songs to Bianca, and be flattered by everyone there. I was impatient with Mael that he had come out of the bedchamber, but I didn’t say it.  ‘So would you make a blood drinker of that one,’ he said, pointing to the door through which the boys had left us. He smiled.” (Blood and Gold, pg. 330)

This is something I only noticed when reading the two books side by side and spotting the repeated conversation about Those Who Must Be Kept, but yes, according to Marius’ account of events, the night that he whipped Amadeo bloody was apparently also the same night that Mael was staying in the building. 

In The Vampire Armand, Armand makes no mention of Mael’s visit. However we have evidence from as early as Queen of the Damned that this visit did happen. 

“‘And so you would make that one?’ Mael had asked with simple directness. ‘When it’s time,’ Marius had said dismissively, ‘when it’s time.’” (Queen of the Damned, pg. 282)

So, what does this mean? The way I see it there are two possibilities: Either these events did take place on the same day, or they didn’t. 

If these events did take place on the same day, it would be completely understandable that Armand wouldn’t mention Mael’s visit, considering everything else that happened to him on that one night. Honestly, I think it would be believable that even in the moment Amadeo completely forgot about the strange blonde man he’d seen loitering around the palazzo after then being whipped to the point that he had to dissociate to try and cope with the amount of pain. I think it would certainly be very weird if the two things did happen on the same night, but it’s possible. 

However, the whole point of this essay is to explore what the reasons might be for Marius excluding or changing certain things, so let’s consider that. Let’s consider the possibility that these events didn’t occur at the same time. 

Armand didn’t mention Mael’s visit in his version of events, which essentially gives Marius free reign with the timeline, so why choose specifically this day to claim that Mael was there? Well, for starters, Marius has given himself a witness. Suddenly this is no longer just Armand’s word against Marius, it’s now become Armand’s word against Marius and Mael. With very minimal effort, Marius has managed to throw Armand’s entire account of events into question. Why didn’t he mention Mael? Does Armand even remember Mael? How can we trust any of the things he said if he can’t remember? 

Considering all of this, I also want to point out this line at the end of their conversation in Marius’ account. 

“I bent to kiss Amadeo, and the heat of his body inflamed me.  ‘Master, give me the Blood,’ he whispered in my ear. ‘Master, tell me what you are.’” (Blood and Gold, pg. 334)

This is the closest we get to Marius’ account of the whipping scene, and he reduces it down to almost a single line, in which Amadeo asks for it. 

Following directly on from this scene, we get to the biggest contradiction between the two books. In this case, it isn’t just the timelines aligning strangely, we actually get a completely different ordering of events. 

In The Vampire Armand, after the whipping scene and the conversation about Those Who Must Be Kept, Marius then decides to reveal his vampire nature to Amadeo. He kills several times in front of him, and then leaves to visit Those Who Must Be Kept. While Marius is away, Lord Harlech attacks the palazzo and fatally wounds Amadeo, who is then tended to by Bianca for several days until Marius returns and gives him the blood. I think the most important thing to emphasise is that in Armand’s account, Marius wasn’t at the palazzo, or even in Venice, when Amadeo was attacked. 

“‘The Master will know,’ said Riccardo. He looked drawn and miserable, and his lips quivered. His eyes were flooded with tears. Oh, ominous sign, certainly. ‘The Master will know somehow. He knows all things. The Master will break his journey and come home.’ ‘Wash his face,’ said Bianca calmly. ‘Wash his face and be quiet.’  How brave she was.” (The Vampire Armand, pg. 132)

However, in Blood and Gold, we get a completely different order of events. Following the conversation about Those Who Must Be Kept, Marius then leaves to visit them and ask permission to reveal his nature to Amadeo. When he returns, he kills several times in front of him, and it is only the following day that Lord Harlech attacks, while Marius is at home in Venice sleeping nearby the palazzo. 

“No one had to tell me, as I rushed down the stairs from the roof, that a drunken violent English lord had come rampaging into my house in search of Amadeo for whom he harbored a forbidden passion, which had been somewhat fed by Amadeo’s dalliance on random nights when I had been away.” (Blood and Gold, pg. 345)

It’s easily the most noticeable change in the book, considering in The Vampire Armand we get an entire chapter dedicated to Amadeo fighting off the poison and fever until Marius finally returns home, but in Blood and Gold this is completely rewritten. Why? I think the most obvious answer is that Marius was well aware of the danger Amadeo was in when he left him. He knew the risks, abandoned Amadeo anyway, and it backfired, essentially resulting in Amadeo’s death. So, in his version, he tried to absolve himself of any responsibility by claiming he had been there the whole time. 

Or, maybe, it’s not about Amadeo at all. Maybe it’s about Those Who Must Be Kept. In Blood and Gold, Marius went to them specifically to request permission to reveal his nature to Amadeo, while in The Vampire Armand he did this before consulting them. Perhaps even now Marius is still ruled by his devotion to them, and he couldn’t bring himself to admit to acting without permission. 

Armand’s Turning

While the timeline is up for debate, what we know for certain is that after Amadeo was poisoned, Marius made him a vampire. The process is described in both books but, again, there are differences between the two versions. The change in the timeline already significantly impacts things. In The Vampire Armand we don’t have a good idea of how long Amadeo is suffering before Marius finally returns, but it’s drawn out across two chapters which seems to indicate it was at least a day if not more, whereas in Blood and Gold Marius was there to immediately ease his suffering. The overall impression in The Vampire Armand is that Armand’s turning was a frightening, painful experience, while Marius gives the impression of a very controlled environment. 

“‘Come to me, Amadeo.’ ‘I’m too weak, Master, I’m fainting, I’m dying in this glorious light.’  I took one step after another, though it seemed impossible. I placed one foot before the other, drawing ever closer to him. I stumbled.  ‘On your hands and knees, then, come. Come to me.’” (The Vampire Armand, pg. 158)

“‘Come to me,’ I said. I held out my arms.  He took the first steps, unsure of himself, so full of my blood that surely the light itself must have amazed him, but his eyes were moving over the multitudes of figures painted on the wall. Then he looked directly at me.” (Blood and Gold, pg. 351)

Obviously, it makes sense that from Marius’ perspective this scene would be less emotionally charged, since he’s viewing it from an outside perspective while Amadeo is living through it, but the difference in tone is pretty significant. In Armand’s version, he remembers having to literally crawl on his hands and knees to get the rest of the blood from Marius and complete the transformation. He’s barely strong enough to move, but Marius forces him to fight to stay alive. 

Meanwhile in Blood and Gold, we get no real impression of how much Amadeo was struggling. He doesn’t mention forcing him to crawl to him, only that he was “unsure of himself”. 

“I lay on the floor. He stood above me, and his hands were open to me. ‘Get up, Amadeo. Come, come up, into my arms. Take it.’ I cried. I sobbed. My tears were red, and my hand was stained with red. ‘Help me, Master.’ ‘I do help you. Come, seek it out for yourself.’” (The Vampire Armand, pg. 159)

“‘Come, Amadeo, come and take it from me,’ I said, my eyes full of tears. ‘You are the victor. Take what I have to give.’ He was in my arms instantly, and I held him warmly, whispering close to his ear. ‘Don’t be afraid, child, not even for a moment. You’ll die now to live forever, as I take your blood and give it back to you. I won’t let you slip away.’” (Blood and Gold, pg. 351)

In The Vampire Armand, Amadeo is on the floor, crying and begging for help while Marius barks orders at him and refuses to do anything to ease his suffering, but in Blood and Gold we get a completely different picture. Marius describes himself as overcome with emotion, as holding Amadeo “warmly”, whispering words of comfort to him. 

It’s possible that Armand’s turning was an incredibly traumatic experience, and that’s why he remembers it in such a negative light. But then, if Marius was as caring and gentle with him as he claims, would it have been a traumatic experience at all? If Marius held him through it and comforted him the way he described, why does Armand remember crying and dragging himself across the floor, fighting to stay alive?

There’s another small detail I want to point out before I move on completely. It’s not part of the turning per say, but it is part of that overall scene and I wasn’t sure it really fit into the other sections. 

Before turning him, in both books, Marius bathes him and heals all his wounds, preparing him for immortality. It’s pretty much the same from both accounts but there is one tiny detail that I clocked immediately when reading Blood and Gold for the first time. 

“I stripped off his thick and soiled velvet clothes. And then into the warm water I placed him, and there with the blood from my mouth I sealed all the cuts in the flesh made by Lord Harlech. I shaved off for all time any beard that he might have.” (Blood and Gold, pg. 350)

Why did reading that send of Kill Bill sirens in my head? Because in the same scene in The Vampire Armand we get this instead. 

“He broke up handfuls of water to bathe me. He bathed first my face and then all of me. His hard satiny fingertips moved over my face.  ‘Not a vagrant hair yet of your beard, and yet you have the nether endowments of a man, and now must rise above the pleasures you have so loved.’” (The Vampire Armand, pg. 145)

It’s such a throwaway line but really hammers home the difference between the stories Armand and Marius are trying to present. With a few words Marius is able to present Amadeo as slightly older, slightly more mature. It still wouldn’t make Marius’ actions okay, but it might at least come across as a little less shocking if Amadeo was at least past puberty.

Pandora, Bianca, and Accountability

For this final part I’m gonna be looking less at comparisons between the two books, and more at some of the other parts of Blood and Gold which highlight the difference in the way Marius talks about Amadeo compared to his other relationships. 

First I want to point out a discrepancy between the books and more of a discrepancy within Blood and Gold itself because I think it works to illustrate the levels of dishonesty in Marius’ entire account of his time with Amadeo. As part of his description of the moments following Amadeo being turned, Marius says this. 

“And as he drank from me, I gave him my lessons, my secrets. I told him of the gifts that might one night come to him. I told him of my long ago love for Pandora. I told him of Zenobia, of Avicus, of Mael. I told him all but the final secret. That I kept from him.” (Blood and Gold, pg. 353)

Already this contradicts Armand’s account, because he doesn’t mention any of these characters or their stories when explaining the things Marius told him. But Marius then goes on to contradict himself later in the book when telling these things to Bianca. 

“I told her of the Druid grove again, and how I had been the god there and fled those who would have entrapped me, and I saw her eyes grow wide. I told her of Avicus and Zenobia, of our hunting in the city of Constantinople. I told her of how I cut Zenobia’s beautiful black hair.  And telling her these tales, I felt calmed and less sad and broken and able to do what I must do.  Never in all my time with Amadeo had I told such stories. Never with Pandora had it been so simple. But with this creature it seemed only natural to talk and to find consolation in it.” (Blood and Gold, pg. 431/432)

So we know Marius is lying, at least about some aspects. Lying to such an extent that not only is he contradicting Armand, he’s now contradicting himself in places.

And the thing is, there are many occasions within Blood and Gold where Marius lies, always for selfish reasons, but what’s interesting is Marius’ willingness to admit to this. 

“My soul was wondrously soothed by this event. I am only confessing now what it meant to me. For having lied to Bianca I lived with an unbearable guilt, and now, having given her this gift of the Mother’s blood I felt a huge measure of relief from it.” (Blood and Gold, pg. 496)

In general, Marius goes into far more depth about his relationships with Bianca and Pandora than he ever does with Amadeo. In fact, without the context of the previous books, it would be easy to miss the fact that his relationship with Amadeo was romantic at all. And while Amadeo has his character stripped back to almost the bare bones within Blood and Gold, the same doesn’t happen for Bianca or Pandora. We see the passion of their relationships, and, while it could be argued that Marius is still leaving out a substantial amount of violence that is only implied by the women' s reactions to him, he certainly doesn’t cut it out completely. 

We see incredibly heated arguments between Marius and Bianca throughout their relationship. 

“I glared at her. A madness took hold of me. I rose to my feet I looked about the shrine furiously.  ‘Gather up all you possess,’ I said suddenly. ‘I’m casting you out of here!’ She sat still as she had been before, gazing up at me in cold defiance.” (Blood and Gold, pg. 466)

From the minute Marius is reunited with Pandora we see how violent and possessive he becomes. 

“Quickly I crossed the dance floor and bowed before her. I lifted her cold white hand, and led her out and into the dance, and would take no resistance from her. ‘No, you’re mine, you’re mind, do you hear?’ I whispered. ‘Don’t pull away from me.’” (Blood and Gold, pg. 509)

The point being, Marius absolutely doesn’t attempt to paint his relationships with Bianca and Pandora as perfect, and his complete erasure of any violence or anger is something he does specifically with Amadeo. 

I think Marius definitely views Amadeo separately to the way he views Bianca and Pandora. The difference specifically between Amadeo and Pandora is easy enough to notice. After losing her, Marius spends almost the entirety of Blood and Gold trying to find Pandora, while he gives up on Amadeo almost immediately. Both Pandora and Bianca are treated as characters with agency, while Amadeo is spoken of as a piece of property. 

“I had little strength myself to comfort her, but I knew that she needed what little strength I had. It was hitting me again like so many violent blows that my world was dashed, that my house was ruined, that Amadeo was stolen from me.” [...] “But that was gone. All was gone. Amadeo was gone. My paintings were gone.” (Blood and Gold, pg. 424)

As I said before, a lot of the editing and omitting of Amadeo’s story could be down to the fact that he was a child (a human child) and couldn’t defend or fight for himself in the way that Bianca and Pandora could, but I don’t think we can ignore the way race and nationality plays into this either. 

Both Bianca and Pandora are Italian born, the same as Marius, while Amadeo came from Ukraine (Marius continues to refer to this as being in Russia in the present day, which, since I’m writing this essay from a totally Watsonian perspective, means he’s also an idiot). 

Marius has a lot of incredibly racist and xenophobic prejudices in general, specifically his outright hatred of “The East”, and it’s clear the negative views he has of Amadeo’s home country. 

“The following night I told him the story of his native city.  Kiev had once been magnificent, its cathedral built to rival Hagia Sophia in Constantinople from which its Christianity had come. Greek Christianity had shaped its beliefs and its art. And both had flourished beautifully there in a wondrous place. But centuries ago, the Mongols had sacked this grand city, massacred its population, destroying forever its power, leaving behind some accidental survivals, among them monks who kept to themselves.  What remained of Kiev? A miserable place along the banks of the Dnieper River where the cathedral still stood, and the monks still existed in the famous Monastery of the Caves.” (Blood and Gold, pg. 366/367)

“Always before this journey to Russia I had thought the split in Amadeo’s mind was between the rich and varied art of Venice and the strict and stylized art of old Russia.” (Blood and Gold, pg. 374)

Considering that, let’s also look at the difference in the way he describes them. 

This quote, from just after his most explosive row with Bianca:

“I went back to her. She was standing as I had left her, her face as solemn as before, her brilliant oval eyes fixed on me.” (Blood and Gold, pg. 467)

This quote, from his argument with Pandora:

“‘You dream,’ she said and the first coldness came into her face and into her voice. It was in her brown eyes, a coldness that comes from sorrow.” (Blood and Gold, pg. 510)

And then this quote, which isn’t from any argument or disagreement, just Marius describing Amadeo now that he can’t read his mind:

“Now I must read his facial expressions, his gestures, the depth of his secretive and faintly cruel brown eyes.” (Blood and Gold, pg. 354)

Even at their “worst” moments, Bianca and Pandora are described with far more grace than Amadeo gets during a totally neutral moment. Bianca is solemn, Pandora is cold yet sorrowful, but Amadeo is cruel. I definitely think that Amadeo’s race plays a part in Marius’ disregard for him compared to Bianca and Pandora, and likely also contributed to how quickly he gave up on Amadeo after he was taken by the Children of Darkness. 

Conclusion

We did it. Let’s hold hands. To wrap things up, I wanna say again that the fact of the matter is, a lot of this could be down to the author rather than the character. Maybe Anne Rice didn’t want to rewrite every detail from The Vampire Armand from Marius’ perspective. Maybe she forgot things, maybe she got the timelines muddled. 

The fact is, regardless of the reasons why, this is the story we ended up with. And to me at least, this story appears to be one of an abuser attempting to discredit the words of his victim. Marius uses every trick in the book to discredit what Armand wrote: omitting information, contradicting him, even bringing in other people to back up his version of the story, while still admitting to some of his less “severe” mistreatment of Bianca and Pandora in order to paint himself as a man who is able to reflect and take accountability for his actions. Yet, at the same time, this book also gives the impression that, above all else, Amadeo was never that important to him. Perhaps this is just another way to distance himself from Armand. 

And I can’t help but consider the in-universe implications of this. As it is, Armand still isn’t at a point where he recognises the things that happened to him as abuse. We get an inkling every now and then that he might be beginning to realise that Marius wasn’t purely the good and merciful saviour he believed him to be. Sometimes he does fear him, especially after losing Benji and Sybelle to him too. But I wonder how much reading this book could set him back again; how much all the contradictions would muddle the memories he already struggles to make sense of. And I wonder if, to an extent, that was Marius’ plan all along. 

All of this to say that after all of this I can’t help but come back to what, to me, is one of the most sinister quotes from the entire series. 

“‘And when you think back on this time, when in half-sleep at night you remember me as your eyes close on your pillow, these moments of ours will seem corrupt and most strange. They’ll seem like sorcery and the antics of the mad, and this warm place might become the lost chamber of dark secrets and this might bring you pain.’ ‘I won’t go.’ ‘Remember then that it was love,’ he said.” (The Vampire Armand, pg. 69)

[notnights]

This probably sounds funny coming from me who's a very avid supporter of creative freedom when it comes to art (you don't need perfect anatomy, you don't need it to look polished, draw that weird thing! etc etc), which stems from being one of these "mundane" artists. I worked in advertising and graphic design since I was 14. If there's one way to be neutered of artistic freedom in a job where you still make art, it's this one. But I'm largely still proud of the work I made, and the work I see being made in that career. Being on both sides is probably the reason I can enjoy and appreciate work from both.

Some of my favorite things to do is cut out illustrations on product's packaging and tape it to my walls and shelves. I have a collection of advertisements of some of my favorite games, and toys, because well I'm insane but also I think it's still beautiful art. Free art decor if you ask me. I often think the packaging on a toy is so pretty I'm sad to rip it open. When I was around 6 we had computer classes to teach us how to search on the internet and use a printer, for mother's day they let us make a card using clip art we found on the internet. They explained to baby me this was free domain art made so it could be used for anything.

I found a pretty picture of a flower to print on my card. I loved that simple clip art so much. Something about the combination of someone just letting a drawing they made be free to use by little old me and it was this pretty flower always stuck with me, and it's a piece that I till this day try to replicate, and find inspiration from. It is undoubtedly a reason I am a graphic designer today, and make some of the stylistic choices I do in my art.

We didn't have colored ink in the school printer, so it printed out in greyscale, which I think is one of the main reasons I love greyscale coloring. As the specific hues still had such volume that made it look like the coloring was just sucked out of it. I thought that was pretty. The calligraphy brush it used is the reason I use that brush in clip studio, and customized alternations of that brush today. The coloring style isn't evident in my current work but it appeared a lot in work of mine as a teenager.

I don't have that card anymore, but I recreated the illustration years ago and it's been lovingly my icon on one of my accounts since.

It is largely, nothing remarkable to the average viewer, I know, and yet this little thing provided me with so much inspiration till this day. I will probably never know the artist behind this little flower, the internet has largely changed in the past 25 years. Would I even recognize it if I saw it again? And it makes me a little bittersweet.

This artist will never know this simple little flower they might not even have thought too much about when putting online, inspired a child and still into their adulthood.

I tell this story because this is one of those simple "mundane," beauties. There are so many other "mundane" artworks I see around products and find interest in and often think who made that, do they do this a lot, do they have a family, I wonder how old this piece is. Does the artist only do artwork for this stuff or do they do personal work as well? Do they see their own work in the store sometimes.

Want people to appreciate the mundane art around them. Not just the beauty of real life but one big fear I have with GenAI is the art people don’t largely think about very much or appreciate is sadly the likely thing to be effected first.

Arts and photography on greeting cards, calendars, patterns on a shirt, even just the simple designs on the display boxes for make up at the dollar store, that largely reaches the masses without credit of who made that art or took that photo that people often barely glance at even when they buy the product.

I want to hope and pray these corporations continue to pay for a clip art or photography subscription, willing to license an artists work or hire them for work to use on their product, and not switch to just generate muck.

[cloveroctobers]

DESERT EAGLE | Stack (SINNERS) — summer prompts

A/N: I figured why not write stack in vamp form this time around? In the summer is crazy but I hear Mississippi is summer all year round and we already know around this time that this man has lived many lives. Anyways just enjoy your vacay—NOT in Mississippi—with your vamp bf 😉

PROMPTS ARE FROM HERE & I’m using: “how many swimsuits did you bring?” — “all of them.” + complimenting them with every single outfit change of the trip. + late night beach walks >>>

WARNINGS: language, modern au!, written in HC form (my way!) so this is a quick one + slight description of intimate moments.

<- read my previous summer anthology prompt here.

⊹ ࣪ ﹏﹏𓂁﹏⊹ ࣪ ˖ ⊹ ࣪ ﹏﹏𓂁﹏⊹ ࣪ ˖ ⊹ ࣪ ﹏﹏𓂁﹏⊹ ࣪ ˖ ⊹ ࣪

Vacays with Stack were always a adventure because that man was always up to something.

He was always down for spontaneous trips so if you ever showed him travel TikTok’s that sparked your interest? best believe in a few days he’ll be sending you booked plane tickets to your phone.

That man loved traveling by plane.

If you’re the type to get anxious on them? He makes it his job to have you laughing so you don’t have to worry about a thing.

The Oak Bluffs was not necessarily a place that Stack jumped at the chance to go, “The fuck is out there? The real housewives of uppity snobs? And their corny husbands in tight ass polo sweaters?”

“I mean…I can always go with my girls instead? One of their birthdays is coming up anyway.” You shrugged and it’s almost as if you spit in his face.

He never said he didn’t want to go, he just needed to know what type of shit they were on out there.

He’ll ask if you’re sure once, “You sure you don’t want to try one of those tropical islands instead like we did on spring break? Jamaica was a time.”

He’s licking his lips at the memory.

That time underneath the waterfalls? Y’all were definitely chasing something!

“Oak bluffs still is an island, babe.”

Regardless he gets excited to pack only when it comes down to the fits, the man wants to make sure it coordinates with yours well. He had a great eye for detail— something you learned when he showed you pics from back in the 30s.

The brother was sharp! And IS.

He’s upstairs out on the balcony of the Airbnb cottage, one already lit resting against his pointer and thumb as he exhaled the smoke watching the sun finally fade. It barely burned, felt like maybe the sting of a papercut (you thought trying sunscreen would help some but that’s another story!) but he was made to come alive in the night time.

“What do you think about this one?” You asked, arriving back onto the balcony and moving to pose along the banister, elbows resting along the railing and into his view.

He tilts his head back, slow and deliberate as he takes in the suit that clung to your body and made your skin glow even with the sunset being tucked away, “Shit, i wouldn’t be mad if you just wanted to wear that one for the rest of the night.”

You laugh, “You and I both know if I went out on the town in this one? I’d be causing trouble.”

Stack grins at you, flashing you with his dimples, gold and fangs while his eyes remained shielded by some expensive shades. Which he didn’t need to do around you but it was all about the aesthetic. “Now what’s wrong with that?”

That ofc made you roll your eyes as Stack decides to ask letting his eyes drink you in, “how many swimsuits did you bring?”

You stretch obnoxiously, making sure it all poked out before resting your hands on your hips standing by the door, “All of them.” You wink before you decide on another bathing suit, ready to head back inside to change, thinking of another one that would look better underneath the coverup fit you had out.

You should have known Stack would jump right up to assist with that ;)

The both of you were having dinner pretty close to the beach—if not right on it. It was your first night out here and stack was all for wining and dining his woman.

He picked a dinner spot with a panoramic view of the beach, a seafood spot—or some type of grill spot if you’re allergic or don’t care for that. Regardless he knows his lady and wouldn’t budge telling you the name to look up the menu prior. He just knows it’s something you’ll like.

What can I say? He’s a detail oriented guy and paid attention regardless of his playful ways.

If it’s an upscale place, he doesn’t need any other man holding the chair out for you, and if they try? They’re definitely getting a flash of his eyes underneath his shades to back off.

“You not gettin’ a tip for tryin’ to push up on my lady, nig—

“Elias!” You warn, letting him know you heard him trying to have a side convo with the waiter, who couldn’t be no more than nineteen and just doing his job.

Stack is obsessed with the way you look in the amber lights sitting across from him. Breeze blowing your hair over your shoulder. He can’t help but to take some pictures of his own, annoying you when you told him to send you those later. “The internet don’t gotta see what’s mine, baby girl.”

He can still eat regular food since the memory of the old him hasn’t just faded after becoming immortal. He just prefers blood and he can fake it with the most bitter of red wine. It’s still something Elias laughs at when you get him to watch supernatural films that have to deal with vamps.

“Next thing you’re gonna tell me werewolves aren’t hairy either.”

Elias shrugs, “I don’t know shit about them like that. Though somethin’ tells me I might have met one, think her name was Hazel—she owned one of the bars—back in New Orleans when I visited on business. They’ve got a lot going on out there anyway.”

After dinner, the both of you made your way down to the beach with the boardwalk becoming a backdrop for you two now. Your heels are in your hand, stack rolled up his linen pants and held your hand as you walked along the water.

The coolness of his skin no longer feels like a cold glass of something good in the heat, his skin always felt warm enough when you touched him.

“You ever let someone ruin you on the beach?” He says to you as he spins you around to press you up against a boulder off to the side and out of view.

Your hand goes up to push his shades back so you can see the light in his dark eyes, “You’ve been thinking about it since I put that wine glass in between these titties, huh?”

It was a party trick once you got tipsy enough!

Stack nips at your jaw, not enough to draw blood, or mess up your makeup—not like he could with whatever setting technique you did—but enough that the fangs scratched your skin.

His lips trail down the side of your neck, feeling the beat of your heart before he even got the chance to kiss it. His hand goes to your neck next, squeezing and keeping you in place with a smirk before he lowers his head, letting his tongue swipe up the cloth of your exposed bathing suit, your nipple instantly going hard in response.

“Been thinkin’ about it since you put that other shit on back at the Airbnb but here I was being a gentleman.”

You snicker, “Aren’t you kind?”

His eyes flicker with lust beyond the smidge of white in his dark eyes, “I don’t think I will be for much longer, sugar,” he bunches up your floor length skirt dragging the material up to your waist, “Spread em wide, legs out, I ain’t gonna let you fall, you know I gotcha. Just like that, let me feel sum.”

The boardwalk music fades with your breathing becoming the best soundtrack Stack could ask for with the waves also rolling on in the distance.

Stack has no issue making you feel secure, even being pressed up against this rock, hands holding onto your backside as he starts off tonguing you down softly.

It’s always so delicately before Stack’s hunger truly takes over and being with stack like this? Dangerous. Yet you’ve always been down for the thrill.

That hair pulling was out. He knew better. The neck grabbing was tolerable, a turn on that he was the only one that brought it out of you, stack was the vocal type and could always pull it out of you too, even when you challenged him that he couldn’t.

He’s the perfect sting, buried deep, even when he sinks his fangs in just a little to draw blood from your breasts.

Even when he abruptly gets you down in the sand, despite the scarf covering your protective style and being pinned into your hair, you’re ready to fight his ass, throwing elbows and managing to wrestle so you’re on top of him with a triumph grin while he’s rubbing sand out of his eye.

“Aha! That’s what you get for trying to toss me around, knowing I hated sandboxes as a kid.”

Stack blinks the grit out of his eyes and up at you, like you’re his whole world, licking his lips, he palms at your waist, “My fault, baby. I thought you liked it a little rough, lemme make it up to you. You could put my favorite box right here if you want.”

And when he sticks his fat tongue out, he could feel you clench against his torso and he knew he had you before the lips on your face greeted his first.

To say you ended up sandier than expected would be a understatement but the afterglow was worth it.

It’s well past three am when you return back to the cottage, a shower in each other arms, sweet nasty kisses in one another’s embrace, and fogged up mirrors was a night well spent.

During the daylight Stack’s normally down to recharge, not for long if he ate properly before you went on this trip.

Majority of the trip would be night time activities and if you’re a night owl, it’s not a big deal. Your life still went on, on a regular basis with a bf who could only really be out during the nightfall, it only became hard if others knew about your love life.

No secret (well the vamp part yeah) but private.

A moonlit bike ride was part of your second evening together.

You were headed to the gingerbread houses, to see the lanterns that illuminated the homes when the sky went to sleep and whatever else the two of you could get into.

You’re walking alongside a rented bike while Stack is still riding circles around you, like a big kid, before slowing down to peddle beside you.

He gets close enough to peck a kiss to the back of your shoulder, getting a slow smile out of you in return as you bring your attention away from the evening sky.

“Can I have my space back?”

“For what? You stink or somethin’?”

You stop walking, scoffing as you both share a laugh, one that’s low and private. The kind meant for lovers.

“So if I slash your tires and make your face kiss the pavement for disrespecting me, I don’t want to hear nothing.”

Stack chuckles, “I’ll prolly still love yo ass anyway…even if your edges start to puff up.”

And that sends you chasing after him, even to the point where you have to hop onto your bike to get to him, yet that vampire speed was also something else.

When you get back to the house, you find stack out back, watching the fire pit while smoking, as soon as you sit in the chair beside his, he’s pulling you in the chair close enough to his. You angle your body to toss your legs into his lap, he holds the blunt out to you, you decline, resting your head back against the chair. He leans over to press a kiss to your forehead.

“Cobalt blue is your color, ma.”

It’s sportswear and something he complimented when you rushed outside to meet him before your outing—you were taking longer to get ready after lounging around all day and he didn’t help you pick out what to wear this time around…but the night was still young.

“Thank you baby,” you say as his kiss still tingled against your skin.

He hums as he takes another inhale, trailing his thumb against your thigh, “Might need to make this a tradition.”

You press your cheek into your shoulder, “What? Me looking good?” You tease.

Stack laughs before he drawls out, “That’s all the time, whatcha talkin’ bout?”

“Oh you’re just trying to ruin this fit too.” You reply with slits in your eyes, playfully twirling your finger at him.

Stack stares over at you, “I don’t need a vacation or daily planner to want to do that. Trust me when I say that. Plus I could always replace it no problem.”

This you knew, stack always treated you well—not just with materials but gift giving was his thing—if he didn’t treat you nice he would just be another whisper in the dark.

You both don’t say much for a while, soft inhales and exhales mainly coming from you.

The fire snaps, lazy and red, stack’s thumb sweeps against your biker shorts.

You eventually slip away and stack protests with a groan, thinking you’re not up for whatever else the night had in store, to the point he wouldn’t let your hand go but you promise you’ll be back.

A minute goes by with you returning with a chilled bag you tucked away for later.

He quirks up a brow, silently wondering where you got that from and how you managed to keep it hidden from him, but he doesn’t say it as his skin brushed against yours, taking the blood bag from your grasp.

“Look at you, spoilin’ me.” He murmurs as he tears into it, fangs poking out that it almost makes you laugh at the memory last night when a older white man said his grandson wanted some fang grillz before and wanted to know where stack got them, you watch as he spits the plastic away into the grass, “I’mma lucky ass fella.”

Your eyes are soft as you say, “See what happens when you’re loved and loved in return.”

Stack blinks those orbit eyes at you, “Well I do,” he shrugs as you tilt your head at him, leaving him to add, “Love you.”

“I know,” you sigh before curling yourself against him in the same chair this time, resting your head back against his collarbone, “I do too.”

Maybe you’re an oddball too, being involved in a relationship this real and what the heavily religious would call unholy or unnatural even.

Stack loops his arm around your frame, giving your hip a squeeze with the blunt still in between his fingers. The smoke spinning upwards.

He’s pinching at the bag, swirling its contents a little as he peers down at you with love, your eyes slowly closing, taking in the moment.

The crickets sing somewhere near the trees, the summer night keeps this memory alive as stack finally goes at the blood bag like it’s a capri sun, and it doesn’t bother you that his hand tightens against you.

You’ve long accepted that some sinners just love harder.

⊹ ࣪ ﹏﹏𓂁﹏⊹ ࣪ ˖ ⊹ ࣪ ﹏﹏𓂁﹏⊹ ࣪ ˖ ⊹ ࣪ ﹏﹏𓂁﹏⊹ ࣪ ˖ ⊹ ࣪

Continue with my summer anthology prompts here.

[riemanifests]

hi love do u have any challenge for manifesting appearance changes? i need motivation to keep going i think my prob is i say i have my face then i doubt and check the 3d and i freak out and then try to keep saying no im beautiful but it just doesn’t stick!

hii i'll create one for you right now! but keep in mind, it is your responsibility to actually follow through on this because while i can give you all of the details you need you have to be the one to actually take it and apply it, but you totally can. 　　

⊹  . 𝓐𝓹𝓹𝓮𝓪𝓻𝓪𝓷𝓬𝓮 𝓒𝓱𝓪𝓵𝓵𝓮𝓷𝓰𝓮．

　 ᧔᧓ . Challenge Information

﹕This is a decide and persist challenge ﹕The challenge duration is one week ﹕All you have to do is decide that you have your desired appearance change and then persist. 　

　 ᧔᧓ . Challenge Rules

keep yourself busy. you need to give yourself less time to waver and check the 3d, so find an interest and pursue it. if you have the time to sit and doubt your assumptions then you have more than enough time to go out and do something, so do it. it's also a bonus if it's an activity that requires you to be grounded in it like painting or hiking, whatever it is it doesn't matter you just have to start doing things. 　

have some self discipline. if you're a person who doubts a lot then its more likely that your motivation easily comes and goes, so why would you want to depend on that?? stop relying on it to keep you going and start making the decision that you'll keep going no matter what. persist. discipline yourself, because no one else can give it to you but you. 　

　 ᧔᧓ . How to participate

Figure out what your new story / affirmation is going to be in this case it would be you have your desired face 　

Decide that the new story is your truth now tell yourself right now that you have your desired face and that is your truth now 　

Persist in the decision you made don't contradict it, don't overthink it, and don't look for it, just persist in it. accept that as your truth now and let it be your new truth. i don't give two shits about what the 3d looks like now or later, because you have a new truth now and that is your damn truth. 　

Make that decision every single day for the next 7 days honestly i think one week is all you need, but it's okay if the challenge ends and the 3d hasn't reflected your inner change yet. of course you shouldn't allow the 3d to ever knock you off your new story, but if you reach the 7 days and it seems nothing has changed i want you to keep going anyways. especially since you've been doubting and wavering a lot i highly suggest to focus on being consistent rather than manifesting quickly. no matter how many "days its been" i want you to keep persisting because the story in the 4d always changes the story in the 3d. 　

ALSOOOO ONE LAST THING. whatever you have to do to persist in that decision, do it. and i mean this in the context of using methods. if you need to affirm everytime you think about your appearance or visualize, go right ahead. if you need to play some upbeat music and pretend you're in a fashion show so you can stay in that state, go right ahead. do whatever you have to do to NOT waver but rather persist instead. 　

how to manifest appearance changes <3

[ladsaplenty]

Beyond Cloudfall Should Be a Standard Myth and Here's Why (AKA how I got Sylus-pilled)

Okay, this started as a completely unhinged rant by a non-Sylus main after watching Cloudfall, but I tried to tighten it up a bit because I really do think that this myth is essential viewing for a fair interpretation of Sylus's character. Every time I have read about someone changing their mind about Sylus, this myth comes up, and rightly so. I was sobbing by the end of it and everything about Sylus, even the stuff that annoyed the crap out of me (ESPECIALLY THAT STUFF) suddenly made perfect sense. But because he has less main story time than the OG 3 and because his backstory isn't as straightforward as Caleb's, it might be harder for some players to warm to him unless you're already attracted the kind of vibe he brings.

You can look this myth up on YouTube, but I think most people would only do that after deciding to main him, in which case they probably don't need the myth to be convinced. Some people are into Sylus right away and understand where he's coming from, but I think there are people like me who would main or second him if they understood him better but we weren't given the opportunity. When I started the game, all signs pointed to me liking Sylus, but I just didn't and couldn't figure out why until I watched Beyond Cloudfall. Not read about it. WATCHED it.

If you're someone who also feels like they should like Sylus, but he just kind of turns you off for some reason, go watch this myth and then report back and tell me if I'm insane (more so than I already am) for thinking myths like this should be in the permanent wish pool.

(Also, I know that this myth will never become standard because it's awesome and they'll get more money from it being limited. I just have too many feelings I need to express and I have chosen to spare my loved ones from hearing me gush about this game nonstop. Also, usual disclaimer that this is JUST MY OPINION. Other interpretations of Sylus are equally valid, but this is the internet and I get to yell things just like everyone else. Spoilers for Beyond Cloudfall obviously.)

1) For people who are turned off by Sylus's attitude, Cloudfall clarifies and humanizes his behavior and makes his actions less confusing.

When he first showed up, I thought Sylus would be totally dominating and aloof and other typical enemies-to-lovers trope stuff, but then he goes so overboard trying to get MC to resonate with him, putting on a performance for her with the big chair and so on, that I didn't buy it. I thought "oh, this dude is a teddy bear and he's just throwing a tantrum about something," but he then kept acting that way. Even when he stopped forcing himself on MC, he still acted like a complete prat on a regular basis and I couldn't understand it. (Like in No Defence Zone. MC WON THAT HORSE FAIR AND SQUARE, YOU CHEATING MOTHERF-)

Why was he like that and why would he expect her to like him while he's like that? (Besides the fact that he's unreasonably and devastatingly handsome and rich.) And then I watched Cloudfall. I learned that Sylus spent so long being who he had to be to survive, being what other people thought he was because if they were going to hate him either way, why bother trying. He had to become cruel and controlling and cold to live and get to where he was/is. But he doesn't necessarily want to be like that, or at least not ONLY like that. As a child, he even cut off his horns to try to avoid that fate for himself, to avoid being rejected and seen as a monster. Yes, Sylus is still imperious, selfish, an adrenaline junkie, and a bit of a brat, but the version of MC in Cloudfall allowed him to be his WHOLE self, including the parts of himself that wanted love and connection and tenderness from the very beginning. Without watching Cloudfall, that aspect of him was invisible to me. I could sense it was there, but it was never truly clarified in any of the cards I got, so I didn't trust it and that made it harder to get invested in him.

2) For people who are turned off by Sylus's initial, uh, forcefulness with MC, Cloudfall softens the blow.

Even seeing the myth explained in other posts, I didn't fully get why people were so insistent that Sylus's initial behavior in the main story was valid. My reaction to their reasons was: "so they had a soulbond, but she forgot? That's pretty sad, but not ASSAULT someone sad. He actually hurts her, she says it hurts, how is that okay??"

What was missing was the context of their previous time together. There's an inherent physicality in their first relationship that explains (BUT DOES NOT EXCUSE) Sylus manhandling MC, even hurting her, and then trying to justify his treatment of her by telling her "she could handle it." Because to be fair, she used to handle it just fine. They tried to kill each other when they first met, of course a wrist grab isn't a big deal to him. They were always very physical with each other, first violently and then lovingly. MC fell in love with him, showed him that affection physically and let her guard down around him when every other human he'd ever known had called him a monster and vilified him. And even when MC feared him, she never hated him. So now that moment in the main story when the workshop guy says "she's disgusted by you" hits so much harder. When I think about how Sylus must have felt hearing that, how he immediately stops pressuring her when he realizes how it's made her see him, IT BREAKS MY WHOLE HEART.

3) Cloudfall reveals how Sylus's love for MC works because we get to see the version of MC he first fell in love with.

And another thing the myth does is explain how and why Sylus loves MC, which doesn't really come through in the main story and standard memories like it does with some of the other LIs. MC and Caleb's relationship is beautifully encapsulated Rain's Embrace, how long they've been together and how Caleb is so obsessed with protecting her that he sometimes ends up hurting her. Rafayel also tells his story in an affinity-based Memoria so we understand his bond with MC too. With Sylus, it was unclear to me at first whether or not he even liked MC. Midnight Stealth doesn't tell us anything about what he wants with her. He treats her like a plaything, but then lets her have exactly what she wants? He seemingly talks down to her, but then always wants to include her in everything?? It bothered me because he came so hard out the gate being harsh and so the teasing felt like taunting to me and the hot/cold vibes made me anxious.

But seeing how MC acts in Cloudfall explains all of that. She's wilder, greedier, and more playful in that dangerous way like Sylus is. Sylus knows those parts of her so intimately that he's comfortable with that dynamic, and MC probably is too, deep down, or at least it doesn't take her long to acclimate. However, to me, that cat/mouse (or actually cat/smaller cat) exchanges just felt off-putting and unearned. If it were someone treating ME like that at the beginning of a relationship? No sir, I don't care how hot you are, you don't get to hurt my feelings and CHEAT ME OUT OF MY HORSE, YOU MOTHERF-

It wasn't enough for people to say that they they had a soul bond in their past lives. I had to really FEEL IT. And it was by watching the myth that I realized that Sylus loves MC by treasuring her. Not in a possessive or overprotective way like Caleb. Instead he admires her and holds her dear to his heart. He treasures her like one treasures a memory: precious, irreplaceable, part of you forever. (Also, dragon? Treasure? DO U GET IT??) He is who he is because of her and he knows that and is grateful for it, even though he would never say it that way. And when I think about how that kind of love is reflected in everything he does with her, how he teases her because he actually trusts her and adores her and believes in her? I. CAN'T. HANDLE IT. *CRIES IN INSECURE ATTACHMENT*

3.5) ALSO if Cloudfall were standard, we could see that THE PART WHERE SYLUS FORCES MC TO SHOOT HIM IN THE MAIN STORY HAS A PAYOFF. In the past, she cursed him to only die if she willed it and did it herself, so he could never do what he did last time, when he used his hands to MAKE her kill him. And in the present he repeats that moment probably because he wants her to remember! OH GOD MY HEART.

In conclusion, TL;DR, Beyond Cloudfall should be viewed by everyone because the main story and cards don't give everyone a real chance to understand who Sylus is. Cloudfall explains things about him that get explained about other LIs in their permanent content but aren't really explained in his. He still isn't my main, but he will forever have a special place in my heart now and it's solely because of this myth and I firmly believe it should be standard so that anyone who thinks they don't like Sylus can watch it before they decide and then hopefully they will see why he's amazing and why he needs all the love in the world. If you already love him, good. If you don't, go watch Beyond Cloudfall and LOVE HIM DAMMIT, LOVE HIM RIGHT NOW.

Question: are there any STANDARD Sylus cards that explain him as well as Beyond Cloudfall?

[rainrot4me]

haiii!!! feel free to ignore this but could you walk us through your writing process, or just give some writing tips in general? your characterizations and style just hit SO hard :3

Thank you!!! I swear my style/theme changes like the weather, but I will try my best to explain my process! (used small font so it doesn’t take up so much space, lol)

── .✦

Firstly, and it may sound lame, but I stare at Pinterest for hours on end (lmao). I get the most of my inspiration from visual things like aesthetic collage boards, tiktoks, quotes, and color palettes, so Pinterest is a good way for me to get an idea of the vibe I want for something I want to write. I save aesthetic images for each of the Creepypasta’s, so whoever I want to write for, I just russian-roulette and scroll until I find an image that makes me go “omg, that would be such a good vibe for a story,” and go from there.

Secondly, word vomit. All the main points (things like specific dialogue, environment descriptors, or important plot-points), I go ahead and write out before I’ve even decided what the end of the story will be. I get all of my main themes jotted down, and then write the rest of the story around them. (For example, in ‘My Muse’ (the Ticci Toby Halloween story), I wrote out the house-party scene before I even wrote the actual first paragraph in the story because I knew that’s what I wanted the turning point of the story to be).

Lastly, editing *pukes*. Once I’ve gotten down the general just of everything and lined up the story, here comes the exhausting process of reconstructing and reshaping it into something legible for others. All of the tiny little details that you all enjoy so much in my writing usually doesn’t show up until this part, this is where all the transitional and most visually rich content comes from. Even though I may hate this part and it may take the longest, there’s no doubt it’s the most important.

Finally, here’s some tips!

Jesus Christ, just have fun!!!!!! Fanfiction is a community activity, so treat it like it was intended to be enjoyed! If you’re writing something hoping and praying it gets 100k hits and 10k reblogs, then you’re going in for the absolute wrong reasons. Fanfiction is like the weird games you used to play on the playground at school by yourself. You’re alone, until someone comes up and asks if they can join. From there, more and more kids join in your game, and you’ve got yourself a great community of like-minded people all enjoying one thing. Don’t treat it like a job, or an investment, but as the fun, community-rich, positive-focused thing it was meant to be!

Learn what your strengths and weaknesses are. For me personally, I have a terrible time with trying to write dialogue that doesn’t make me cringe, so I find myself rewriting paragraphs over and over again. However, I find I am good at environmental storytelling! So, to combat one thing with another, I make my ability to write out a detailed scene my key element. As many of you have told me, my scenery is what you know me for/enjoy the most, so I am always aiming to improve that. But, I am also taking time to work through my dialogue issues as well! It’s all about balance.

For big projects, make a Pinterest board. Seriously. Visualization is key to keeping things constant from start to finish. (This can be the same for music playlists and tiktok favorites).

Read other fanfiction. You find yourself really liking a creator? Well, what do you like about them? Find whatever draws you to their writing and try to incorporate those themes into your own works (not plagiarizing, obviously). Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so pick apart all the good aspects of someone’s writing abilities and work on them yourself!

Lastly, be kind to yourself. This should be fun. Why would you want to spend your time stressing yourself out about writing for a special interest that makes you happy? You’ll just end up making yourself hate that thing. Have fun!! Make friends who enjoy the same things as you! Dish compliments like you’ve got unlimited to spare, because guess what, you do!! Kindness and community are never meaningless, so don’t be afraid to show some compassion!!!

Love you all, happy reading and happy writing!!

꩜ .ᐟ

[purpledemonlillyposting]

Can't blame anyone for making alts or being on anon. I've sent a few asks your way but there's no way I'm ever showing up in the notes for any posts around this mess. I want to attend the circus, but I don't want any of the clowns following me home. And Sai has kind of made an environment where she encourages her clowns to do just that. (and they also conspire that every single detractor is the same 3 people in a trench coat when it's in all likelihood just... random bystanders throwing their hats in)

I'm willing to bet there's quite a few people hovering around and not interacting on all sides, since there's just. So many people showing up in everyone's inboxes to fling shit. I'm tempted to say people are encouraging that behavior. Really can't blame anyone who sees that and doesn't want that themselves. And I imagine it's quite easy to get swept up in it too, mob mentality and all that.

It is a little funny whenever someone tries to pull a gatcha and say whatever blog owner is sending self asks/gets no notes/whatever because it feels like they just... Ran out of arguments? And if they try to bait out any particular anon, well. There's no reason for the anon to respond. To use my circus analogy again, if one of the clowns starts yelling for me to show myself but they don't know who I am I'm going to keep my mouth shut, they may as well be yelling at ghosts.

Anyways, away from that topic, I do appreciate that for things I send your way you tend to break character for them. I get that it's an easy way to strike nerves (and boy do people show off that it got to them in some way by responding. To anyone who types a "who cares" kind of thing in a comment section you just showed that you do. You cared enough to comment. Now everyone knows you got mad) But I almost wish you did the more thoughtful ones more instead of the in character ones since a lot of people probably blocked your account on grounds of it being a troll (heck, I almost did at first too when you first cropped up) But... Well I get the feeling most those people probably wouldn't have been swayed if you did, anyways.

I will say, for other anons, please provide a source for any claims you make! Evidence is very important, especially so people can see it for themselves and make their own opinions instead of taking word of mouth. Seeing where something came from is also important for keeping the story of what happened clear, and so people don't repeat any half remembered or bad faith and reworded accounts. Full context is also important, though for the other side, sometimes the full context is still not enough to excuse weirdo behavior.

100%. Stay out of the notes and reblogs and keep anon on, don't invite any unhinged crazies from any side over to you. That's the smart thing to do, is keep some personal distance from all the wacko clown show.

and she SURE DOES all you gotta do is breathe her name and her die-hard simps are breathing down your neck while you just get the fire-hose to spray at them down

lmao oh yeah they been tossing out like only two or three names about me and like fucking dumbasses there are more than that who find you all the most piss-shit annoying and stupid hypocritical fucks grow some originality 😂😂😂

it's 100% encouraged, beta-sigh herself has gone on record on stream AND in her simp discord encouraging the witch hunts. they're literally all desperate for drama and mobbing others

tbh whether im in character or not depends. and idrc that people blocked me first, they were never gonna listen to any sort of reason anyways. they're too lost in the sauce. and thats just the thing, aint no one here actually wants to change their mind. nothing anyone says on a shitty blog will actually make them read and self-reflect. sometimes all you can to is honk a horn directly into their clownish faces. 🤣🤣

I dont debate anyone here. there is no point. the pissbaby crying "debate me!" doesnt want a debate. they want a platform to whinge about what they want to believe is right.

so I say fuck 'em, OOGABOOGABOOGA YOUR MOM IS A DEBATE!!!1!!!11! 🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡🤡

[monstersinthecosmos]

Hey! So I saw you wrote a bit of meta about my fic and I wanted to marinate on it for a bit before I responded but it’s gone now lol. It still got me thinking so I wanted to say a few things.

Without getting into an entire essay about media criticism vs transformative fanworks, I do want to just pin the idea here that the moment we start creating transformative fanworks, we begin to own little ideas and universes and timelines and make them ours. I think a lot about these diagrams from @goodboydummy about different TYPES of fanfics, and the ways in which we are playing with the original text -  

I could similarly make a diagram of types of fic writers when it comes to how much or how little we decide to transform the text, and this kinda leads into the idea that all fanworks are inherently analytical about the original text, even if we’re being silly. Like, even the silliest domestic fluff slice of life oneshots, or the most depraved kinky PWPs, or the tropiest AUs that are so very removed from canon all still tell us something about how the writer feels as a reader, right? A PWP can be 1500 words and not reference a single event from its canon and we are still left with the simple truth that the canon gave somebody blue balls and they had to write porn about it, you know?

So anyway like, while we’ve all discussed criticisms of VC to death and we’re all equipped to give the TED talk about all the problematic and questionable messages, as a fic writer & general Fandom Loser I feel like we dissect things a little more than normal, because as a fic writer I want to really have a 360° view and really really understand how the characters feel. I wouldn’t feel confident writing their POV if I weren’t putting in this thought work and really trying to analyze it at this very molecular level.

But that sort of comes with deciding where to meet the text, and this is where transformative works can vary. You can meet the text where it’s at and analyze it in completely good faith, and you can also choose to meet it halfway where you take what you need and leave the rest. I don’t have a problem analyzing in a way that says “I think Anne Rice’s bias leaked in here and it doesn’t make sense to read it as an intentional character beat”.  There’s so many things about Lestat and David in particular, too, where I don’t have a problem criticizing the writing and not completely buying into the characterization as “the canon”, and while we as readers can create several versions of the text based on all these different reads/frameworks/lenses, as a fic writer when you sit down to write a story you have to sort of make intentional decisions about which version you’re playing with.

IE: Do you read Marius as an unequivocal villain and child abuser? Or do you read him as an imperfect guy who is operating within the rules of his own universe, with the moral relativism of the author’s bias? Even things that are not bias and are intentional, like for example, do you think Anne Rice was a gross creep for exploring how repressed she’d felt as a teen or do you accept Armand’s versions of events that he’s a grown up who can consent? How do navigate those concepts inside the worldbuilding of your fic, and the specific lore you want to build upon? Do you change it?

Going back to the types of fics—to me, an ALTERATION doesn’t always have to be a timeline thing, or change of events—I’m also happy to think of that in a more conceptual way. I would actually argue that fics that portray Marius as deeply manipulative, hateful, abusive, etc, or portray Armand as deeply traumatized by Venice are alterations, too. These authors are going “Wow TVA was really fucked up, I wish Anne Rice had acknowledged Marius as a child abuser” and they’re creating transformative work to express that.

Gallows Bird, on the other hand, is somewhere in the middle for me. I don’t think TVA is as deep or literal as a lot of people make it out to be, especially if you’ve read Anne Rice’s other porn novels. I hold space in my mind for several reads of TVA but I also kind of default on it being erotica brand contamination, and the BDSM tropes read to me like she was writing a kink book. I think TVA readers should try reading her Sleeping Beauty books, for example, because it would lend a really powerful context to her writing style and her approach to non-diegetic BDSM. The use of age, consent, power imbalance, discipline, etc, are all used in her erotica to heighten the stakes and make it HOTTER, and taking them too literally kind of misses the point. (I’ve talked about this a bit here so I don’t want to ramble on about it.)

There ARE a lot of spaces in VC that I wish she’d been more intentional or sensitive to writing about trauma!!!!! And like, it’s fine if that’s not what the books are about!!!!!!! But for me personally, indulgently, I would’ve enjoyed seeing more of it, or more honesty/realism about it. Because I can read TVA and see all the ways it’s stuffed to the brim with porn tropes, and while I enjoy that experience as a reader, this comes back to how I think all fanfic is really a commentary or an analysis. Gallows Bird, to me, is going “What if we kept all the kinky stuff but had some more realistic and sensitive discussion about sexual trauma?” And whether or not that came across, idk ! I’m not a professional writer, I did my best LMAO. If I have to come on tumblr and explain the joke as it were, my bad! But my alteration of TVA for this fic, and my commentary on the canon that I wish we’d seen, is “What if TVA had been a little more sincere about Armand’s sexual trauma, and been a little more diegetic about the BDSM?”

There’s so many fanfic tropes that are so so popular—shipping non-canon ships in general, and fluff, and domesticity, and porn!—because sometimes a piece of media doesn’t make time for those things, and when we get so deep into obsession it’s what we WANT to see more of! Like TVA is erotic and whatever but I do want to see the PORN. I want MORE. And in the process of wanting more, and wanting to really sit with it and marinate in it, I do want to do all that thought work and create it as a  360° space and be intentional and sincere about how the characters feel! HOW DOES THIS MAKE ARMAND FEEL, REALLY? How does he behave! How does it affect him on a day-to-day basis? HOW DOES IT APPEAR FROM MARIUS’S POINT OF VIEW, WHEN ARMAND HIMSELF IS NOT IN CONTROL OF THE NARRATIVE?

So yeah the fic is like, about all those questions I had, but also I tried to be intentional about how I write Marius, because I think deeply about Marius, and I have to decide which version of Marius I’m bringing to the table in a fic. Like, I don’t have a problem criticizing Anne Rice’s worldview and how it sometimes tainted the text, but if I’m going to be the one writing, I have the freedom to discard things that I don’t think really make sense.

The social construct stuff, for example-- I don’t specifically weave in Marius's racism because it doesn’t make sense to the vampire lore and you’re right that it doesn’t make sense as a random social construct that they’d hang onto. However, Marius as a traumatized atheist who was murdered by a cult? Very important to me! His xenophobia in the books IS often tied to distrusting religion and zealotry. Even when he wakes up in the Dark Ages in Europe, he's like, oh my god fuck this, this place sucks, and he goes back to sleep lol. He is so much happier when he finds time & space in secularism.

But still, I think we all have to trust each other when we post fic, like, fanfic is its own creative medium and part of that is your audience already knowing the broadstrokes of the characters, and part of that is also expecting the audience's fic literacy to understand tropes. Like, if you post an AU you expect the readers to know what an AU is. And for me with VC fandom in particular, I’ve always hoped that people around me in fandom as well as people reading my fics are all coming to the table with the same understanding that Anne Rice could be pretty atrocious at times, but that all of us enjoying the books aren’t endorsing every single thing on the page, or every single thing she ever did or said. I mean, fuck, I gave up on her for years after the Blood Canticle tantrum and after the fanfic bullshit! I assume and trust people around me to be grown adults who know that the cheesy vampire kink book from the 90s is not a moral guidebook, and I hope people understand if my enjoyment of the characters comes with some transformative caveats. I have to trust that readers understand the premise I’m building, even if my skill isn’t there yet or I miss the mark and it’s not obvious enough.

HAVING SAID ALL THAT LMAO sorry for the rant even though I opened up by saying I wouldn’t write an essay oops – I find your read really fascinating because I am very intentional when I write Marius fics about keeping him as canon compliant as possible, to my own interpretation. I love Marius and want to celebrate him, I haunt VC fandom because he’s my favorite literary character ever!,  and my goal as a fic writer is to sort of soak in all the things I love about him.

At the same time, I want him to feel plausibly in character.

Everyone’s free to write fics that alter the canon, like “TVA if Marius wasn’t a baby having a tantrum” for example LOL, and I think fandom can be quick to judge fic writers’ skill levels when we try to untangle these types of concepts. Like, maybe you read a Marius as being horrifically OOC and way too saccharine and it’s like, maybe the fic author’s skills aren’t sharp enough yet, or maybe they’re intentionally writing a fic “TVA if Marius was way too saccharine” and the beauty of it is that all of these versions are welcome ! Fanfic is for us, it’s fine!

But personally I WANT my Mariusses to feel sort of book-flavored and organic. Even if I tweak some details or emphasize something that I found too subtle in the book, my goal would be that if a Marius Hater read Gallows Bird, they would still think he was in character. I’m not trying to change him too radically, but I do want to add some extra texture or context to tilt some of these ambiguous areas from canon. It’s possible that I fucked up on that lmao.

So it’s really fascinating to me that you get some of these messages from the story!!!!!!! It really was not within my intentions.

I’M REALLY EXPERIENCING SOME DEATH OF THE AUTHOR RIGHT NOW AND ITS ME IM THE DEAD AUTHOR

But if that’s how you read canon Marius, I’m glad that my fic complemented it in a way that made sense to you. I admit that I often struggle with religion in VC because I, like Marius, am a staunch & traumatized atheist with little patience for religious practice. I see TVA & B&G as religious and anti-religious bookends of each other, the sort of mirrors of Faith vs Belief, or Spirituality vs Institution, etc. Anne Rice spoke at length about her struggle with the Catholic Church as an institution, even when her faith in Jesus never wavered, and ironically I think we get this SO deeply in Marius’s POV as the token atheist. He struggles so much to trust anything except what he can see with his own eyes. Even in the fic, Marius still needs to go pray to Akasha because she’s a real thing that he can see and visit, and not a silly invisible concept dictating rules about morality.

The ideas you picked up about Armand’s ethnicity in this fic were not intentional—I was poking at his religion, and the way Marius sort of humors him and tolerates it but can’t wait to teach him better. While that can overlap with someone’s culture and heritage, for me it still comes back to Marius as a creature older than Armand’s religion in the first place, who has this aerial view of it being a huge scam. And I think conversations with this get into a gray area between respecting someone’s culture at all costs or identifying religious institutions as oppressive structures that can cause harm.

And tbf even Ivan didn’t want Armand to be part of the cult ! Marius having daddy kink is more about Daddy Kink and not trying to erase Ivan’s influence in that regard—Ivan didn’t want Armand in the monastery either! So I mean also like, as much as this is focused on rape recovery, I did want to weave in some stuff about like cult recovery/religious trauma—Marius reminding Armand that it’s okay to enjoy sex, blah blah. And the irony in the end (just like in the book) that like Akasha to Marius, Marius winds up just replacing the god figure in Armand's life, instead of dissuading him all together.

It's an interesting thought experiment to see if Gallows Bird fits in line with other reads of TVA that I don’t necessarily subscribe to. For example, conceptually again: Do you think Anne Rice was a gross creep for exploring how repressed she’d felt as a teen or do you accept Armand’s versions of events that he’s a grown up who can consent?

Armand’s age and ability to consent become such an important linchpin of people’s reads of TVA, as is Marius’s sexuality (or lack thereof) vs his nature as a vampire & apex predator, and today in this fic in particular I am offering on the table that Armand can consent and that Marius is asexual.

Like as a fan, I don’t WANT to think of Marius as horrible abuser, and I don’t want to think of Armand as a victim. That’s not what this fic was. Consider it a transformative work. This is a recovery fantasy. Like, I want to see some intention and sensitivity about Armand’s trauma, but I want to add some nuance, too. Like, as a 17 year old in the 1490s, who gives a shit LMAO it’s fine. And I need to trust the readers to meet me here and understand it’s the universe I’m working inside.

And like, is it messy and imperfect? YES! Because I don’t want to see therapy speak in my 15th Century gangbang fic. Is Marius well meaning but sloppy? Yes! They don’t negotiate first, and Marius assumes he’ll know if Armand needs to stop, and there are times when he’s wrong! There are times they do take it too far and Armand isn’t okay! Marius doesn’t understand Armand as well as he thinks he does, and he will always see him as sort of a pathetic human who doesn’t know what he’s talking about! Marius is being generous and thoughtful to the best of his ability but he will ALWAYS believe he knows better, and when writing from Marius’s POV the intent vs outcome doesn’t really matter !

But ultimately this fic really is about recovery! It’s about Armand having agency, and wanting to try something, and Marius helping him!

Marius isn’t lending him out for his own benefit, he’s accompanying Armand to explore his sexuality and trauma, and to recreate dangerous situations over and over so that he can have control this time. Marius isn’t lending Armand out to his friends, he’s murdering rapists.

This is such a tricky part of the book, too, like Marius WANTS Armand to go out and have human experience but he still gets jealous about it! He still gets frustrated! And Marius can’t have sex with him, anyway! It’s not about sex!

This is why asexuality in VC matters to me so much and why I always keep it in my fics, like, these are two different species who experience eroticism differently. Armand wants to FUCK and Marius wants to MURDER. In canon, it frustrates Marius to the point of having a meltdown!

So like their outings in the fic are such an exercise for both of them—Armand gets to fuck and Marius gets to murder AND Armand gets to be rescued and Marius gets to jealously kill Armand’s lovers.

I wanted it to be mutually beneficial ! It’s supposed to be healing !! Armand gets to process things that happened to him in a safe space where he’s not in danger anymore! He eventually grows the courage to do the deed himself!!!!!!!!!!! Marius wants to teach him to let go of his old religious shame and live in his body !

There’s always going to be a framework where this can be read as more nefarious and evil than it’s intended to be, because that’s the canon, like, no matter how you slice it, Marius adopted a human and never gave it a chance for a normal life. That’s the nature of the story, though. He’s a monster, he’s a vampire, he eats people, he’s lonely and wants a companion. And he’s a bit of a goober and a fuckup and doesn’t always make great decisions.

But that is what it is, man, like, it’s a monsterfucker book, what do you want from me. If he isn’t a monster what’s the point.

So !! Anyway SORRY FOR WRITING A HUGE MANIFESTO LIKE A SERIAL KILLER !! It was really interesting that you got so much meaning from the fic, I’m really glad that my attempt at keeping Marius canon compliant meant he was also subject to these other criticisms, even though it made me a little sad that my blorbo is once again on the stand lmao.

I STAND BY MY PROBLEMATIC WIFE !!1 😭

Anywhoo asdfgasd thanks for reading im glad it was effective for you!!!

Daddy Kink in Gallows Bird

[read on AO3]

CW: Incest, noncon, TVA stuff !

Okay so. I’m in the middle of writing another meta about Daddy Kink in VC/TVA/B&G so please forgive me if this post or the other winds up being redundant, but in the middle of all the deep thinking I’ve been doing about that topic in canon, I also had some interesting convo in the comments of this fic, so I wanted to park this somewhere as well. I’ll try not to be too repetitive and I’m going to try to keep the convo focused a little more on the fic than on canon (to the best of my ability since they overlap so much!) because I wanted to talk specifically about the train of thought that informed the fic, and just take it with a grain of salt because it does veer into headcanon territory at times when I’m filling in gaps from canon.

Anyway so I brought Daddy Kink/father themes up a few times in this fic, here’s some examples (this might be all of them actually, I forget lol):

During Amadeo’s dream about being raped, that the smell of wine subliminally reminds him of his father, even though he can’t quite put it together.

Matteo commenting that Marius is Amadeo’s father (during sex, and implying that Marius fucks him).

The man at the party towards the end who is thinking about his own son while he eats Amadeo out.

Marius telling the men in the final scene that he and Amadeo are named Ivan and Andrei.

BONUS POINT, less obvious: Marius musing about Rome, the fatherland, and Roman storytelling trying to paint forefathers in a better light.

I admit that on some level this is not that deep lol it was just being horny and indulging in daddy kink, but like I do want my fics to make sense when it comes to meta and I did want it to be plausible with canon.

So off the bat we have to say like, VC vampires exist above social constructs anyway. Marius isn’t someone who’s going to get grossed out by crossing a boundary like this, in the same vein as Louis and Claudia or Lestat and Gabrielle. As vampires they do not exist inside familial structures anymore. So I think this is extremely present in the Venice portions of the books, that there’s this blurry line around father/mentor/maker/lover.

I also think about this part of B&G every day of my life:

And I, with all my power, and all my blandishments, could not replace Amadeo’s father in Amadeo’s mind. Why was I so jealous? Why did this knowledge sting me so much?

BONUS LINE IN NEXT PARAGRAPH: I loved Amadeo as I had loved Pandora.

I WANT TO BE HIS DADDY BUT ALSO HIS DADDY. I WANT HIM TO BE MY CHILD AND ALSO MY WIFE.

There’s just so much going on here!

Anyway so in TVA I think like, not knowing Marius’s POV at that point, Marius is having lots of mood swings, he can be hot and cold, at times sends Amadeo mixed signals. But in B&G when we get the insight, we learn how often he struggled with whether or not to turn Amadeo as he began to love him. (I think also a lot about when he tells Armand at the end of TVA that he sees Armand loves B+S more respectfully than Marius ever loved Armand!!)

And I want to like, balance this against Marius’s inherent selfishness with how he treated Amadeo, how he treated him like a pet or like a project. I don't think (in canon) he saw Amadeo as a full person, and it's why he interrupts Amadeo so much in the fic. Amadeo at this point in canon exists for Marius's own needs.

(Sidenote, when I was working on this fic and kept struggling with like, the POV of a Marius who doesn’t actually see Amadeo as a complete person, I kept using how I feel about my cats as a reference lol. Like I love them to death, I would die for them, but they don’t have a single fucking thought in their brains, they are little babies that I take care of bc they’re cute and I like having them around.)

I talk a lot about how I love Marius because he’s a flawed person; I find his flaws and missteps to be so human and relatable, like I too do my best to be reasonable and kind and patient and yet I do have a petty side. I can hold grudges. I think all of us are capable of acting selfishly.

Because like, his love of Amadeo is conditional, it’s like having a pet. In the book he keeps changing his mind if he should turn Amadeo or let him free to have a real life and we don’t know what his ultimate decision would have been because Harlech forces his hand. The question is: Would he have ever let Amadeo go?

He specifically chooses Amadeo because it’s someone he sees as a blank slate, A FUNERAL SPIRIT, someone on borrowed time. Marius considers Amadeo’s life over already, so this is all bonus for him. There’s never a question of rescuing him out of goodness and returning him to his home. Marius specifically chooses him to groom as a fledgling because he’s lonely, and he doesn't see Amadeo as a human with a potential life anyway.

So in the fic I tried to make this clear, all the times Marius wonders if he can keep Amadeo, even begging Akasha for a clue, and by the end he realizes he has to keep Amadeo because this experience has ruined him. He’s never going to be able to live a normal life now, and Marius knows it*. AS FAR AS THE FIC UNIVERSE GOES, we could ask the same, like, will Marius still turn him in this fic timeline if Harlech doesn’t show up, but I think he would.

*also as an aside, I wrote this fic to be like backwards engineered Devil's Minion, so I bring this theme up a lot in my Armand/Daniel fics, and the entire thesis of The Lotus Eater is that Armand was careless with Daniel and broke him, which is what Marius does to Amadeo.

Anywhoo, back to the daddy stuff.

Like sure yeah it’s just there to be horny because I think Daddy Kink is absolutely present in canon, but Marius is enjoying this game they’re playing, too, even if he’s a little too proper to admit it. He likes taking Amadeo out and getting to protect him. He likes indulging in the kill when Amadeo is fucking wrecked, like it’s a sex act they can share. He likes that their victims think he’s Amadeo’s father. It makes him feel powerful.

And towards the end, when they’re talking about stoicism and whether or not you can simply turn your emotions off, it also leads into whether or not Amadeo can make the choice to remember where he comes from.

Canon doesn’t explicitly say this so this is where fic headcanon comes in, but I wanted to make it that Marius can see into Amadeo’s dreams, and I implied that he knows perfectly well exactly where Amadeo is from. He knows about the monastery, he knows about Andrei’s home life and his parents, he knows their names! So every day that passes in Venice where Marius doesn’t offer this information, or bring him home, is another day he’s chosen to keep Amadeo, and is ultimately selfish.

On the other hand, especially once the fic starts and Amadeo’s memories start coming back to him, Amadeo knows that Marius knows, and he never asks.

This is of course like, dubcon territory of like, SHOULD AMADEO HAVE TO ASK? Is Amadeo’s fragile mental state a clue that he cannot consent or make informed decisions? Is Marius behaving badly by allowing this wounded child to make his own decisions, or as the adult/immortal, even as the mentor/father/lover, should he guide Amadeo to do what’s right? And what exactly is the right decision?

But from the moment Amadeo realizes that Marius knows more about him than he reveals, Amadeo never asks, which means he’s making a decision to stay in Venice. And like, the morally correct thing is not really relevant here when Marius’s moral compass is so far removed from human sensibility, but it also affirms his desire to be wanted. He’s happy that Amadeo wants to stay and wants to be his pupil and his baby boy, so he’s not going to challenge it.

And that’s why he drops the names Ivan and Andrei in the final sex scene, as a climax to all of this. It’s serves both as one final way to challenge Amadeo, to ask if he TRULY doesn’t remember, but also serves to take on the ROLE of Ivan. He wants to be Amadeo’s Daddy. And even though the men in the room are teasing him about how he’s not actually going to sell Amadeo, how Amadeo must be his favorite, how he must be a freak, etc, he still owns Amadeo in this sense, and it allows him another level of release along with Amadeo’s sexual release.

WELL. I hope that makes sense!!! It made sense to me at the time when I was writing it. I love these two dweebs, please talk to me about them any time!

[hyacinthsdiamonds]

I'm sorry but the irony of Nico calling Max unprofessional is sending me so bad like sir there's an entire garage full of people, who were literally in the trenches trying to survive the Brocedes fallout while just doing their jobs, who might have a few things to say about your (& Lewis') level of professionalism at that time 😭✋️

[ewwww-what]

I’m going to say something extremely neutral. The fantasy high webtoon is made for people who watch the show casually or haven’t seen it, and also for people who don’t care about anyone other than Riz. And that is fine.

[secondpersonpoetry]

you’ve probably already read it before, but the poem Party by Kim Addonizio really got me tonight. first thought was “oh man. yeah” and then my second thought was “how can i make this about my hockey guys somehow………..”anyway! have a good one! 

oh. oh.

​

[bluesherryrebelforever]

I'm not here to disagree with anything, even though I'm a fan of Eternalberry, I know it's quite toxic and, unfortunately, one sided, but hope is the last thing to die after all.

I came here to confirmed that Eternalberry is one sided, that only ES feels something romantic about HB. I don't speak English and the game doesn't have a translation for my linguage, but I'm using the Spanish subtitles to get a better understanding and the scenes gained an even deeper meaning with a new translation.

There weren't many changes to the story, maybe one here and another there to better fit the Spanish language, but some changes made the final scene much more impactful in my opinion and explicit that HB doesn't have a romantic interest in ES and that ES definitely didn't think about what HB said to her and that it was completely ignored.

I'll go to the rescue scene, since that was the part most affected by the translation.

(I will show the images I have and I will translate, but I don't have the entire dialogue, when I was playing, I forgot to turn off the automatic and I was left with few images, but I still remember the missing lines well, don't worry.)

After the famous "hero to the rescue" image, (which caused a lot of gay panic in a lot of people, don't lie) ES lets out a sigh and says:

"Hollyberry Cookie... Did you change your mind and decide to stay here with me?"

Yes, she says that, I don't know if those were the exact words, but the sentence becomes much longer and shows how "numb" she is to her fantasy of love.

In response, HB simply says:

"How persistent you are!"

Yeah, that was definitely a slap in the face when I read it, here we can already see that HB really doesn't see ES as something romantic and maybe quite uncomfortable with the same idea of ​​being trapped in paradise.

"I'm leaving here. Think about what I said until we meet again!"

Here we can see that there is still some kind of consolation, but the sentence completely changes context. In English, she says "until next time!" more like a hurried farewell and without many guarantees that she will return. But in the remodeled sentence, she asks ES to think about what she said until they meet again. This sounds more like an affirmation. They will see each other again and she wants an answer when that happens.

After that, nothing much changes, ES just says that she will think about, wich her completely silly (obsessive) and passionate way. Now when we return to her at the end, you can see a certain change in her speech, something that really surprised me overall.

There was no change in her passionate delirium about how she was rescued, but soon after that.

"He he... No more jam. After all, my other half will be happier out of a jar..."

This moment left me completely confused, like, does she agree? ES knows that HB will be happier outside of a pot and signs off on that??

But my confusion and hope only lasted a few seconds before I moved on to the next dialogue.

"I'll have to decorate paradise to make it even more beautiful... So that she when return, she will want to stay forever..."

Yes, with this we can already see that there is no redemption coming from ES, what was said to her went in one ear and out the other, she didn't listen to anything that HB told her, and she will still make paradise more "attractive" so that HB really changes her mind and stays forever. Eternal Sugar is not all bad, she really wants to make others happy, but her negligence to reality and her fear of facing the real world prevent her, she is so obsessed that HB will come back "to her" that she didn't even consider trying to change for herself.

I really hope Eternal Sugar has some kind of redemption, she is one of, if not the only, beasts prone to denying their corruption and trying to be better, but as HB said and @sylvieserene too, ES will not change unless she wakes up and faces reality once and for all. I fear that in ES's case she will need a very strong reality check, not suggestions or gentle pushes towards the right path. Eternal Sugar will only truly understand when she receives a cold shower. She needs to face reality, be thrown face first into the hard road of life and see how it really works, even with its ups and downs, happiness still managing to blossom in the midst of pain and destruction. People like ES only return to reality when it slaps them in the face, just to make the person wake up. It's sad, but it's the truth.

On the recent update, I noticed a lot on yt and a lot of places on the internet that people fully believe that eternal sugar changed for the better at the end of episode ten of beast yeast. In an objective standpoint I thought she didn't and was wondering on your take on if she changed or not objectively and maybe the reasoning for why people think so. And also if it's not too much, what's your opinions on people pushing (not those who say they think or have it as a HC) that Eternalholly is cannon and not one sided?

I think the entire point of the ending was that she didn't change.

And she directly confirms so by this dialogue alone:

Eternal Sugar Cookie is in deep denial with reality.

This dynamic is central to her and HB's relationship.

ES has always been avoiding reality like a plague, to the point even the mere thought of it scares her.

You can see this especially during her final conversation with Hollyberry Cookie, moments like:

These moments highlight perfectly just how much she hates reality.

She repeatedly associates it with pain. Not just any pain, a pain so overwhelming that it feels like you're being torn apart.

This is basically what their dynamic comes down to.

Acceptance and denial of reality.

Eternal Sugar believes that happiness can be created wherever reality doesn't reach, for that can only bring pain and sorrow. She truly believes that confining cookies here in the garden, a place where she has artificially bred happiness would keep them the most well and happy, for what truly can make you more happy if you remain confined in a space detached from reality? What can make you happier if you live in your own delusions without accepting the cold hard truth? Forever on the run from it and denying it?

Eternal Sugar Cookie embodies that. She has found herself happiness in her delusions, in her twisted sense of "reality" and doesn't want to step beyond it.

That doesn't mean she has ill intentions in mind though. She really is sincere in what she wants.

Happiness for all cookies.

She really wants that. She really does everything she feels is right to cultivate that.

But that doesn't make her methods or approach correct though.

Trapping and not allowing the subjects of her garden to go outside is wrong.

Intoxicating them with such an aroma that they forget all their worries and let themselves indulge in the luxuries her place offers (basically making them high and stripping their will) is wrong.

Scaring them and indirectly threatening them to not leave is wrong as well.

The very methods through which she tries to deliver happiness at the end denies all her subjects their true happiness. It even denies her true happiness.

Hollyberry Cookie understands that.

For just like ES, she has had a phase where she just wanted to run away from the cold hard reality because it hurts. The sad truth is, ES in a way is very much correct.

When you experience something painful or traumatic, the first response is to run away from it.

This is something HB is highly aware of.

From drinking away her problems to neglecting her son to running away from her kingdom after a mental crisis and war, HB has always found some way to avoid reality.

ES's garden was truly a paradise for her in the truest sense. Because just like her, she just wanted to forever run from reality than facing it. She didn't want to face her past, her mistakes, her everything because of the pain that accompanies it.

This is why ES took even more interest in her because she wanted exactly what she offered, denial.

But this is the very thing which also seperates them.

Unlike ES, HB doesn't forever want to live in a delusional world. She has always been the one to face danger and pain head on.

She has her moments of confusion but at the end, HB would rather accept the cold whiplash of truth than forever live in the sweet embrace of a lie like ES.

Unlike ES, HB isn't the one to lie to herself nor is she someone who cowers from pain.

And this, all of this? HB knows and understands this.

Which is exactly why she acknowledges it directly, she tries to gently nudge ES in the right direction, the reality.

That is why, she essentially at first literally says "There's plenty of fishes in the sea!" to ES here when she asks why she's leaving lol

But when that obviously doesn't work judging by her reaction...

She tries to give her a gentle reminder towards the truth.

The most important thing to takeaway from here is HB acknowledges her good intentions but she also tries to push her towards realising the truth.

That there is a world beyond her garden and while it may hurt to incorporate with it at first for reality often is cruel and pain is inevitable but it is only after pain that one can gain happiness. True happiness.

However....as you can see, even the mere mention of reality scares her. So much so, that she asks HB to stop.

She hates reality.

She is scared of reality.

She fears reality.

Which is why, HB tries to console her gently again.

While also pushing her towards the right decision.

By also calling out her flaws.

And offering hope.

Ultimately leading her to atleast think about it, even if for a second.

Which is a huge step up.

HB put a connection with herself and reality to get ES to consider it after seeing that she won't even listen about it on its own.

Her words came from a place of understanding.

What HB said here didn't come from a romantic perspective especially when you look at their dynamic as a whole.

Hollyberry Cookie is a person who wants something reality in life. She craves for reality, she doesn't like falsehoods and would rather take the pain accompanying truths than seek comfort in lies. She'd rather accept the cold hard reality and the pain that accompanies it rather than live in delusions.

Eternal Sugar Cookie is a person who doesn't want the reality in life. She'd rather indulge herself in falsehoods and the sweet veil of lies rather than face pain while facing the cold hard truth. She finds her comfort in the artificial world she has weaved together in her delusions.

This is what really seperates the two and puts them on two different paths.

HB is willing to face the truth and step away from the twisted world crafted by ES while ES isn't willing to step away from it but she doesn't want to let go of HB either.

This... is exactly why ES says this:

Because she understands this conflict.

She knows that what HB is saying is correct and if HB goes outside and gets the true happiness she seeks, it would prove that she has been wrong.

That she has been denying herself happiness and what she has artificially bred in her garden is wrong.

That is why she asks HB to not do this, to not do this to her.

Because while ES is close to admitting her fault, she still is in heavy denial.

Let's revisit the most famous bit that is often interpreted as Eternalberry being "canon" and HB returning ES's feelings:

I think what most ppl fail to understand is that HB's words, with all the previous context in mind, comes from a place of understanding rather than romance.

HB directly admits that while she feels ES is sincere in her actions, her methods are wrong for she is detached from reality and is lying to herself about it.

HB tries to gently nudge ES towards the truth but ES was unwilling to even listen the word reality and literally asks HB to stop which leads her to gently nudge her again because HB recognises ES is not a malicious person. She's just in deep denial and trapped in her own delusional thoughts.

That's exactly why she puts a connection with herself and the truth to get ES to atleast listen because she knows ES won't be listening otherwise.

She quite directly says that the day ES stops lying to herself and gets better, that's the day they can complete eachother cuz as of rn, they don't.

HB and ES are supposed to be eachother's other halves. The ones completing eachother's very soul but they don't.

ES is deep seated in denial while HB craves reality.

How can they complete eachother's soul when their paths diverge instead of converging?

When one runs away from truth while the other runs towards it?

What HB says here is trying to show her the pros of leaving the delusion.

She's basically saying to ES that if she accepts reality then both of them can consider being eachother's other half.

She isn't showing romantic interest towards ES, just showing her that if she changes for the better then she can consider being her other half (Key words: perhaps then).

This just goes to show HB doesn't have the same interest as ES towards her. She is interested in ES but just not in the romantic way.

That's exactly why she tries to console ES by trying to tempt her with something ES actually wants.

A connection with herself.

And the brilliant part is, she gets ES to think about it. The same person who refused hear even the word "reality" suddenly thinks about it at the prospect of joining HB but ultimately, choses her delusions.

That is exactly why when HB doesn't comply to her begging requests, she opts to trap them all in her garden for life and when that didn't work out, she tries to destroy her garden and kill herself along with the damage.

She quite literally goes insane when HB rejects her and tells her that she has to leave.

To the point, she tries to self inflict harm upon herself.

HB, even though she doesn't love her romantically, still cares about ES which includes her life.

So when ES almost dies by getting crushed by her own garden collapsing-

HB swoops in.

In a very stereotypically prince in armor style saving the damsel in distress (ES) fashion lol

However this romantic angle is from ES's pov.

From HB's perspective, she makes it clear that she is not doing this cuz she wants to stay with ES/live in her delusions of because she has a romantic interest in her.

She literally says to ES to snap out of it and wake up 😭

Cuz she wants ES to see that she doesn't feel the way ES thinks she feels lol

HB quite literally calls out her delusion.

But not before nudging her to think about what she says because at the end, HB wants ES to change for the better.

And ES, over the moon, agrees to think about it because of the moment

I think what's important to note here is that HB cares about ES and her life but just not in the way ES does for her.

For HB, it really comes off from a platonic perspective because she doesn't want ES to end herself just because she rejected her/her delusional world because at the end, she cares about her and her life and doesn't want her to kill herself just because of this, despite knowing PV's warnings about Beasts.

Because Beast or not, HB sees the good in ES that's why she keeps asking her to consider what she says to her.

Irl, when someone proposes to someone and they take get rejected and take it badly, the person who rejected sometimes just consoles the other person that they can't be with them for (x) reason and until they do (x), they can't be but if they do (x) then they can consider it. They may or may not actually mean it but the point is, this happens quite a lot and isn't too uncommon.

What HB is doing here is basically that. She basically tried to console ES in a similar way and asked her to help herself by stop denying herself reality and maybe then ES can get a chance to be truly be her other half but until then, nope. And when ES takes this rejection incredibly badly and tries to end her very life, HB intervenes because her intention isn't to finish off ES but rather guide her towards healing because she genuinely thinks she's a good person at heart and sincere in her philanthropic joyful wishes towards others but it's just that she's in deep denial about the flaws in her ways that's doing harm to both her and everyone around her.

HB's response to all ES's advances is at its core just this:

She doesnt want ES the way, ES craves her.

This is further evidenced here as ES basically confirms the parallel between how they see their relationship:

She'd forever wait for HB even when HB won't.

She'd forever offer HB her love even when she rejects that a thousand times.

This directly shows their core dynamic.

ES loves HB romantically but HB? She doesn't.

[Quick Note: This is in this canon reality where she didn't accept her offer to stay by her side, if she did then welcome to their costume story which is a whole another AU and interpretation of her character lmao (there HB can be read as having mutual feelings for ES) ]

And it is due to that, ES is more focused on HB saving her than heeding her words.

The main reason? She chose her delusions at the end.

She said she'll think about what HB says and she does.....just not what HB told her to think about lol

At the end, she really just understood that HB thinks the outside world is better but takes it as some sort of phase of hers that she'll outgrow once she understands how much the outside sucks and will return to her again one day. (Pure copium and delusion lol)

She didn't think about what HB said, it's doubtful she even understood what she tried to say. She's far more focused on her and ironically, her own web of misconceptions than face the possibility of reality.

ES at the end remained unchanged. She chose her own artificially manufactured world of happiness over the real one.

She didnt accept HB's rejection and still awaits her, inevitably setting history to repeat itself because HB will forever reject her false world created by her own denial and self-lying and ES will forever remain self-destructive because of it.

Just as HB said, unless ES "wakes up", she'll forever be stuck in this eternal cycle of pain, false happiness and denial not allowing her to ultimately achieve her dream to bring happiness to everyone or even be her other half.

So yeah, Eternalberry is very much one sided.

Those dialogues by HB truly mean nothing on their own and can only come off as romantic if you take it out of context. If you take in the context, HB's tone is very clear.

HB doesn't love ES the way ES loves her nor does she need her the way ES does.

At the end, they can't be anything, let alone soul mates/eachother's halves unless and until ES changes. It is only then that HB may consider it.

The entire conversation, if anything, just proves so.

So in conclusion, no. Eternalberry isn't canon but rather one sided just like all the Beast x Ancient ships (and this is coming from a person who ships Eternalberry and desperately wants it to be thing in the future lol).

[jumpscaregoose]

I love my girlies (they are 100% legally related and have nothing to hide whatsoever)

[ranger-kellyn]

told myself to take a break from getaway car so i don't burn myself out like i did last year, and of course my brain wanted to go think about my scarlet/violet fic, sooo have some rambling below the read more

like. one of my ideas has always been that i want juliana specifically to have quaxly not just bc he's my favorite starter in that region, but because it turns into quaquaval, a pokemon that is supposed to be known for its dancing abilities. i like to think they're a pokemon that only needs to see a dance once or twice before they've got it memorized.

i love the idea that a huge part of juliana's overall character arc is admitting to herself how much she wants to learn how to dance in some way because of course she happened to pick the pokemon that loves to dance. so she's basically learning alongside her pokemon throughout his evolution stages, mutually gaining more confidence until he's a fully grown quaquaval.

and!! not just him, but probably the three friends as well! it may not be something any of them are really interested in to begin with, but juliana and quaquaval make it a ton of fun. she probably even takes the time to learn an individual dance of some kind with each of them, and is the first to drag anyone to any festivals happening in the cities and towns.

(bc i am who i am) nemona's the first friend juliana ends up dancing with. while juliana quickly realizes how much quaxly likes music, nemona is the one who tells her about how he's going to turn into a pokemon that loves to dance. she mostly just enjoys having fun with them and learning whatever juliana is into. something that really helps juliana come out of her shell, which leads her to opening up to arven and penny around the same time

not 100% sure of styles apart yet but i mean...penny's has to be some nerd dance lol. i also kinda love the idea of arven learning a very formal spanish style dance with them.

idk i just want the core pillars of this story to be something along the lines of, music, song, food, and dance are all forms of love and connection and can be healing and--- AH i just want them to have time to really develop as a friend group throughout the treasure hunt.

[trans-soapberry]

I think the Kirby series deserves another anime, but I struggle to identify what exactly I'd want from a new adaptation. The original is what it is, y'know, I don't feel too strongly like it committed any egregious sins against the franchise. Dedede's characterization... I get the need for a Typical Villain and I don't think there were many good characters (then or now) to get for the mix of Comical and Reliable you need for a serialized show (the way Bowser, Eggman, or Team Rocket worked for their series). It's definitely sad to see him have such a wildly different character that weighs him down the way it does, but I can't think of an Easy Fix. And that doesn't even touch on the way Game Dream/Pupupuland and Anime Dream/Pupupuland differ in their setting, or the way any dub would have to find a way to Exist when people are gonna compare it to the 4Kids dub. Love it or hate it, it was Something, and any dub would have to choose if it wanted to take inspiration or go its own way (both with their own risks). And then you contend with the existence of the anime original characters.

Honestly, I'd probably say my ideal pick would be a Remake (I guess in the vein of Adventure/Nightmare in Dreamland or Return To Dreamland/Deluxe type of update?) Keep the basic characters and story roughly the same, probably tweak the setting so it's a bit more game like, and focus on something that feels similar but takes account of the general series progression and works with that (even if not everything in the game gets adapted, at least picking and choosing from what the games offer)

[kaiserin-erzsebet]

Do you have any tips on doing accurate research for people without access to formal education

Sure! This can't be one size fits all for every field, but I can give some starting points for history.

If you're reading a book, here's what to consider:

1. Are there footnotes or endnotes? In academia this is our way of being transparent with each other about where you got information. If a book doesn't have them, they're more interested in telling a good story than being accountable to their peers. That's a red flag.

2. Don't trust claims that seem very specific but don't have a source. Broad claims can be the author's analysis. But specific things "so and so said this" "there was a rumor that (x)" should be coming from somewhere and it is the author's job to tell you where.

3. Look out for choppy quoting. Even if someone has a source, they may not be using it well. If someone is paraphrasing a lot and only uses bits and pieces of the text while also using a lot of ellipses, you will want to try to find the whole text to make sure it's being quoted fairly.

4. Look at the publication date. Knowledge changes with time and old books tend to be outdated. You don't have to stick to the academic rule of thumb of "25 years is the threshold for new scholarship" but do be aware that if something is over 50 years old, many many people have likely revisited and revised what it's saying. Not that new books can't also be bad and incorrect, but they tend to be working with better tools generally.

5. Look up the author. I cannot stress this one enough. The author's background and political convictions can matter a lot to how they interpret things. For example, one of the biographies people tend to pick up about my dissertation topic is from the late 1920s by a man who later applied to join the NSDAP. That fact really can't be separated from his interpretations no matter how hard people try.

6. Stop reading if someone is making a lot of moral or personal judgements on a historical figure. I'm talking about the "Elizabeth I was a frigid hag and men found her ugly"-esque takes, not things like calling historical atrocities morally bad. Does it feel like bitchy gossip? That sort of thing is unprofessional, uninformative, and means someone has an axe to grind. Spite can be motivation for research, but axe grinding shouldn't show up clearly in published work.

These are things to keep in mind to make sure you're getting better information. Others are free to add on for their field or if there's something I forgot.

One very important thing to add: professors and academics like people emailing them about their research. You can do that! You can ask for copies of pay walled articles. You just have to go through the mortifying ordeal of expressing interest in an email.