#narrator vc: it was in fact because of that.

[kokuycku]

the hilarity i just realized because of dark's actual english va...

[cbrownjc]

As an older fan, I’m starting to get some major Sherlock-vibes from the show, in the sense that fans are coming up with all these big-brained theories to explain weak writing that we have to have faith will come to fruition in some future season. Why make the change to Lestat saving Louis? Why is Louis seemingly stronger than Armand?  Why have the Loustat reunion, only for Louis to leave and challenge the entire vampire world (despite the fact that he’s apparently in a better place mentally-speaking)? Why publish under Daniel’s name, when that would clearly paint a target on his back, especially now that he’s a vampire? What’s going on with Daniel’s eyes?

The whole “spite” thing seems like a clear mis-direct, but with only like 8-ish episodes a season and Dubai-era Devil’s Minion being 100% subtext so far, I don’t think the writing team can do DM justice. All the inconsistencies seem like they’re being written off because it’s the unreliable narrator show, when they’re actually just plot holes.

Like…I 100% think the writing team forgot makers can’t telepathically talk to their fledglings, and that’s why they had to add in the throwaway line of Lestat actually whispering to Louis in 1x02. There was no hidden reason we were meant to find, it was just inconsistent internal logic justified because Louis can’t remember anything correctly.

IDK. I don’t want to be a downer, but a lot of my hype for the show just kinda fizzled out with the finale. I'm still gonna watch S3, but I think I'm just gonna wait til the whole thing comes out this time.

Hi!

So I never watched Sherlock nor was every in that fandom, though I did hear about some things after the fact. So I can't compare it to that fandom. But I can compare things to another book series that was being adapted fandom I was in which was Game of Thrones. And I think wrt things we are at least nowhere near that level of things and theorising. Yet.

Maybe because, unlike ASOIAF all the VC books are written and done. So that's a plus.

And see, the thing is? I can actually see a lot of methods to the madness of some of the things you've listed. Especially given the nature of how the story in the show is told through POVs. Where the issue comes into it is not ever knowing if what you are seeing is true, false, or just an interpretation of the truth -- as in Louis' POV of the play-trial rehearsal.

And I'd really like to know if how they ended this season is how they plan to end every season when a full book has been adapted? Something that wraps up the main character arc and story, but just leaves a host of other questions that, if we weren't getting a Season 3, would have never been answered. And who knows if they will all be answered in Season 3? As far as Devil's Minion goes, or Armand himself, I'm not expecting it to be now, given that Season 3 is The Vampire Lestat adaptation and Armand is a straight-up villain/antagonist in that book and Daniel doesn't appear in it at all, so anything we get with him will be extra anyway.

Now, as to whether Rolin Jones and the writers have a plan, Rolin says he pitched an 8-Season (or so) Arc to AMC before he was given the show to run. So at the moment? That is the only solid thing we have to go on right now wrt if there actually IS a play or not for the show.

But see (and oh boy, please forgive me as am I about to go into a big digression here), plotting a TV show is much harder to do than a book or a movie. TV writing is way more organic given that unforeseen circumstances can occur that you've never planned for when you go into a new season of TV production. Such as the studio asking you to split the first book you're adapting into 2 seasons instead of one, leaving you with only a month to rewrite the scripts. Or, a writer's strike and then an actors' strike a few weeks later, delaying production for months. Both of which happened to IWTV wrt Season 1 and then Season 2.

So organic things beyond the show's control are why it is much harder to plan out every little detail of a TV show in advance over multiple seasons. Take another AMC show, Breaking Bad. It's known that Season 2 of that show was intricately plotted out in advance but then, after that, the writers plotted and wrote the rest of the show as things came along for the remaining seasons, with no grand design to it -- even though the creator of the show, Vince Gilligan, knew way in advance how the show was going to end. And the show was able to get there, to that ending, without having a meticulous plan over seasons on how to do so.

I mean, the character of Jesse on Breaking Bad was originally supposed to die at the end of the first season. But instead, he lived through the whole damn thing. That was not planned at all.

And I think that might very well be the situation we have going here wrt IWTV. I think there are larger things they already know in advance about the show -- which books out of all of them will adapted into full stories vs which will only get references. Which characters in the show will make it into the show as full characters vs which characters will either be cut or combined with other existing characters (as Sam Ried revealed in his interview with Autumn Brown that that is going to happen -- that some characters will be combined with others). And what end point they want each of the main four characters -- Louis, Lestat, Armadn, and Daniel -- to be at when they get to at least Season 8. (If not Season 10, which is what AMC wants, 10 seasons). I think those are things Rolin and the writers very much know.

But I don't think the show has every single little detail plotted out for every little thing wrt how they are going to get to certain things. Not super far in advance at any rate.

I do think they'll purposefully put in seeds for later -- that they very much know they are going to need later -- though I think at most they do it one season ahead if it's a little thing. I very much do think that is what the things from episodes 1x02 and 1x03 very much were, since Season 1 and 2 were supposed to just be one season originally. Or the fight in 1x05 only being shown from Claudia's POV. I think that was also deliberate and they are very much planning on visiting it once again in Season 3, as they did in Season 2.

But I also think there are some things the show has not plotted way in advance and only figured out when they are writing that particular episode. Or maybe just decided to do that season as they were writing it, and not before then. Just like how almost every other TV show works, even ones that might very well know the ending they are working toward.

So I in no way think the show has figured and plotted out every single moment and beat of Armand and Daniel's relationship. Why? Not only because much of it happened in the past -- which yes I very much still think it did -- which covers 12 years of time, but because if you look at this clip, Rolin Jones kind of hints that they haven't plotted it out completely point for point even though there are some things they've thought and figured out:

video credit: Rei Gorrei on Twitter

So as far as Devil's Minion goes, I think Rolin and Co -- mostly Rolin -- has an endpoint for it in mind. But how they get to that endpoint is probably not planned out to the letter, super far in advance. And something they very likely just come up with as they are writing that particular season. At most? I'd say they've put things in this season that will be relevant next season and that's it.

So, I'm not going to say they can't do it justice. Not yet. I frankly don't have enough data to call that in a yes or no fashion since we haven't seen anything adapted from it aside from the 3-4 days Daniel spent in a cage, which is just the very start of how Devil's Minion begins. Basically one or two paragraphs. That's all they've really adapted when it comes to it at the moment.

And hey, it's okay if you feel down about all of this. If it helps, I'd say try and take a pragmatic approach to the show season by season, and if you feel it's better to binge it than watch it episode by episode for a time, that's good too. This is going to be a long journey after all.

[licncourt]

Do you know some sort of like history or timeline in AR's feelings for Louis? Cause I know she originally projected onto him, then diminished his role and admitted she disliked him, but then she made Loustat endgame after all and I've seen some positive posts about them on her facebook lol.

Oh boy, I can try! It's a pretty simple answer but the implications and outcomes are...something.

Like you said, in IWTV Louis was AR's self-insert that helped her process the grief of losing her daughter, so that's a given. She published TVL a decade later when she was in a better space mentally and had begun to shift her focus and projection onto Lestat, and while we don't know exactly what she felt about Louis at that time, she did write a wonderful reunion for the two of them and Louis is portrayed pretty positively there.

I feel like things shift more in QotD. Maybe she doesn't actually dislike Louis yet (again, the ending), but she definitely isn't interested in his character much at all considering how little he's in the book. Just like the rest of the book series though, everything takes a hard left in the 90s with TotBT.

This is an interesting point on the timeline because while I as a reader agreed with (or at least understood) most of Louis' opinions and decisions in this book, he's treated pretty badly by the narrative itself. Anne Rice (via Lestat) is much harsher towards him in this book than in any other besides IWTV, pretty explicitly ripping into his personality traits and character flaws.

The scene towards the very end of the book where David and Lestat talk about how "weak" and wanton people who choose to become vampires are (versus those who are forced) is particularly infamous because of how obvious the dig at Louis is. David is also important here because TotBT is where AR starts pushing hard to replace Louis in the narrative and in Lestat's life, another serious, intelligent, wealthy, dark-haired prettyboy that she decided she liked more.

It's worth mentioning that after this book was published, The Vampire Companion was released, a sort of VC encyclopedia Anne Rice wrote with a co-author. This is the first time she publicly expressed her dislike for Louis and it REALLY shows in his entry. @sofipitch owns the book and has the specific passages on her blog, but among other things, Louis is described as weak, passive, and submissive, unaware of what's best for him and needing/wanting to be controlled.

She writes that he "made himself vulnerable to vampire attacks" with his behavior as a mortal (wow, I wonder what that sounds like) and that he brought Lestat's emotionally abusive behavior on himself by being so weak. It's a really awful section of the book that ties her opinions of Louis to real-world issues like victim blaming in cases of rape and abuse, "slut shaming" (terrible term but you know what I mean), and the mistreatment of people who are depressed and suicidal.

I mention this also because Louis' next major appearance is a few years later in Merrick, a book I've spoken about ad nauseum already. This really seems to be the peak of her hatred for Louis' character and she spends a significant chunk of the book tormenting him and having David disparage him in the narration. He's shamed for his mental illness and grief, sexually assaulted, and goaded into a suicide attempt all in a book that was never even meant to be about him.

It really seems like she just wanted to punish him for existing while flaunting her new favorite, David. It's very uncomfortable to read, not just because of how cruelly the issues Louis deals with are dealt with, but also because of the fact that Louis represents her past self. I'm no psychologist, but torturing and degrading the literary representation of your past self seems like a red flag. In a way, it makes me sad for her because it seems like she had must have had as little empathy for the person who created Louis as she did for the character himself.

After that, Louis doesn't appear in the next two books outside of a couple passing references, his longest total absence from the series and where TVC was supposed to end permanently. If the books had truly stopped in 2003, that's where we would've left Louis forever.

It does seem like she softened to him by the time Prince Lestat came out in 2014, maybe after some distance and with the urging of fans. She admitted during the writing of the PL trilogy that she preferred David in general and as a partner for Lestat, but understood that Louis was by far the fan favorite, so she had taken that into consideration. I have to imagine that the rise of social media and the influx of messages she received from fans of Louis/Loustat had something to do with that pivot in storyline overall.

Because of Louis' epilogue in PL and the fact that he ends up with Lestat at all, I feel like she must have at least stopped hating him as much as she did in the 90s, even if she never really liked him again (she repeated her dislike in response to fan emails around the same time). I'm just glad she didn't kill him off or give us Davidstat endgame though, so I'll take it.

Sidenote: AR injecting misogyny into VC at every possible opportunity combined with Louis' female coded characteristics may very well have played into this mess, so I'll link my posts about that right here and here

[aryastark-valarmorghulis]

Yesterday I finished reading Merrick. I liked it far better than Memnoch (the only VC book I didn't enjoy very much so far), but still, I have mixed feelings about it.

Spoilers below.

I loved that the pivotal character of the book was a biracial powerful woman - Anne's books can feel overwhelmingly white and male-dominated so it was good to have a female character who wasn’t only a love interest but had her own agency. The execution and the whole magic setup suffer a bit from what I call Anne's "exoticism" but it was interesting to read. I wasn’t bored even though the backstory was a lot to take in sometimes.

Of course I didn't like the fact she put under a spell both Louis and David and it didn't have any consequence at all. But that's a VC book, I guess, this stuff happens 🤷🏻‍♀️

The real problem is, imho, this book is a monumental waste of potential though: it should have been told from Louis' pov, with the backstory told by Merrick herself.

That's not only my dislike of David speaking, I swear. I felt that he wasn’t right as pov because the stakes aren’t high enough for him, not as they are for Merrick (the fulfillment of Oncle's Vervain "prophecy") and Louis; especially in Louis' case, all the inner turmoil and the guilt he feels are filtered through David's eyes, so we kind of get them second-hand... and this makes their impact a lot less powerful.

Even the big moment when Lestat wakes and saves Louis is less compelling than it should have been because David, as a narrator, is such a dry, shallow character: his love for Merrick is creepy, his love for Louis is a bad case of "tell but don't show".

Lastly, the book sets up a story for a fight between the vampires and the Talamasca and then... I know the whole thing gets dropped????? Why??? It's almost criminal that we have a secret society that deals with the paranormal and AR did literally almost nothing with it 😅

The best part: the ritual. Claudia's spirit gave me chills. "I loathe you, evil father."

[hyp3rfixation-h3ll]

the fact that i lack an adhd diagnosis is fucking ridiculous because i swear to god i said "yeah i'll join you on a vc!!" at like 3 pm and by some comical fucking insane spongebob narrator voice "3 hours later" i made a batch of cookies with my mom. I LEFT MY ROOM TO SHOWER

[webcamkilop]

Super mario 64 d s cheats

The iQue version is in fact the Shindou version translated to Chinese, and as such it does not have BLJs or the Bob-omb or Bully angle crashes. The iQue version of the game runs on the iQue Player, a rare handheld N64 variant only released in China. IQue (Chinese) Main article: Super Mario 64 (iQue) This version would later be used for Super Mario 3D All-Stars. Some of Mario's voice clips are high-pitched in this version. The game introduced new voice clips like "Bye, bye!" when throwing Bowser. Strangely, when grabbing a pole on this version, horizontal speed affects Mario's angle. It also fixed the infamous Backwards Long Jump glitch, which is why it is rarely used in speedruns, except in the BLJless category. It enabled a compiler flag to allow optimizations, which results in less lag. The final release of Super Mario 64 on the Nintendo 64 was once again released in Japanese. Because of the PAL video format using 50hz instead of NTSC's 60hz, PAL runs at 25 frames per second rather than 30, another reason why it is suboptimal for speedruns/TASes. Outside of ABZ, PAL is little-used because changing languages wastes time and English is effectively identical if you do not change languages. Due to Wii VC Round-To-Zero, however, the true optimal PAL version is not on N64. This is optimal for the ABZ Button Challenge because the Start button can be used to change language and the language with the least text can be selected. The European release of Super Mario 64 supports language changing in the settings menu between English, French, and German. It has, in general, less text than the Japanese version, but takes longer during the intro and ending due to Peach's narration. It fixes some errors and glitches from the previous version, such as the lack of a coin limit. In addition, she does not talk during the ending. For example, Mario does not say "Haha", and Peach does not narrate her "Dear Mario" letter. The English version and all successive versions added some extra dialogue over the Japanese version. The text in the first Bowser fight is avoided during the 1 Key run, so the Japanese version becomes faster. This is because the text takes longer, but the lack of narration makes the game shorter. It is also notable for being the fastest version of the game for the 1 Key category (and some others). The Japanese version has a few glitches that were later fixed in all other versions, such as spawning displacement, the lack of a coin limit, time stop and others. The very first version of the game to be commercially released, the Japanese N64 version was succeeded by the Shindou version a year after release. The Nintendo 64 console is less robust than modern consoles, so its CPU is more likely to crash when confronted by errors and other unforeseen occurrences. There are many different versions of the game, differing by where, when, how, and in what way they were released. The game was released in Japan on June 23rd 1996, then on September 29th, 1996 in North America, and finally on March 1st, 1997 in Europe. The game was rushed at the end of development as told by one of the programmers of Super Mario 64, and a couple of the team members never wanted to make games anymore due to being burnt out after working on Super Mario 64. The entire game was almost accessible, some details got changed before the release, such as the different star icon in the HUD, a rock spike at the top of the mountain in Bob-omb Battlefield, and other small details that were changed. On May 16th, 1996 (E3 1996) the game was shown off and is almost like the final game. The final product was supposed to come out in December, but it was delayed further, and the entire game was rebuilt. Early footage of the show revealed the 50% complete beta version of Super Mario 64, in which it looked completely different than what the final product looked like. The first time Super Mario 64 was shown was at the Shoshinkai show in November of 1995, with the introduction of the Nintendo 64 (Ultra 64 at the time). Super Mario 64 started development sometime before 1995.

[dreamologisth2o]

Why I Believe Endersmile Is Canon

Because I’m on a bit of an Endersmile binge--

This is all gonna be very messy and just me putting my thoughts together and I’ll probably not be going through the VODs for exact timestamps or anything because that’s exhausting and I applaud the people who do, but here are my thoughts on Endersmile and why I’m 100% convinced it’s canon. They’re besties your honor.

/rp Any names mentioned are referring to their dsmp characters and not the streamers themselves unless specified

First off: The Disc. Dream trusts Ranboo, a lot. He trusts him so much that he literally gave Ranboo one of the two discs he needed to pull off his big plan at the finale. He trusted Ranboo, so much that Ranboo deciding to give the disc back to Tommy or Tubbo wasn’t an option, even though Ranboo was friends with both, which he knew. I don’t know why he gave Ranboo the disc, or how he got the disc from Skeppy in the first place, and I’m sure he did have a hundred and one back up plans for if Ranboo did decide to give Tommy the disc, but asking Ranboo to hold onto the disc in the first place means Dream trusted him to a degree, and that’s big coming from Mr. “Reserved”.

Second: Knowing Dream’s Voice. Ranboo knows/remembers Dream’s voice well enough that he hears it whenever he’s in the panic room, that his subconscious uses Dream’s voice to force Ranboo to confront his fears. For a guy who hasn’t had any one on one time or conversations with Dream in VC on stream, he sure does a really good job imagining his voice. /s 

Basically, they must have spoken, a lot. They must have spent time together outside planning for things or exchanging items or whatever. So much time, in fact, that Dream and Ranboo both end up sharing the same ideology of “People not sides” of “One big happy family” of “Being the person that stops conflicts” of “Being on all sides” of “Mediating between those sides” of “Choosing the side they think is right”. 

During Ranboo’s prison visit dream/nightmare, the Voice tells Ranboo that the only reason Ranboo hasn’t been hearing it lately, is because he hasn’t been speaking with Dream as often. That Ranboo and Dream had talked with each other nearly everyday. And I’m inclined to believe that because the mere existence of the voice proves he’s heard Dream’s voice a lot, or he has a very good memory of Dream’s voice, which, considering his memory problems probably isn’t the case. This is further supported by how ever since Dream’s been in prison, ever since Ranboo banned himself from the prison, he hasn’t heard even a hint of Dream’s voice, not even as he’s remembering more and more.

Third: The Disc War Finale. During the disc war finale, we have in universe proof and out of character confirmation from both cc!Dream and cc!Ranboo that the characters had been staring at each other during the entire thing. Some friends on a discord server have also pointed out how Ranboo appeared to be avoiding Tommy’s gaze unless Tommy’s distracted. And during the entire thing Ranboo’s the only one not holding out a weapon, instead he’s got a book and quill in his hand. We’ve now also got confirmation that Ranboo was Enderwalking during the Disc War Finale, which makes all the strange behaviors make sense because if they’re friends, if they’re allies, then Ranboo didn’t show up to fight Dream. Then Dream might’ve been trying to convey something to Ranboo, like perhaps trying to keep Ranboo from doing something stupid and revealing their alliance. Especially if he planned on being put in Pandora, he really doesn’t need his friend to try and “save” him and ruin the whole plan.

Fourth: The Voice. I am inclined to believe the things the voice says. Why? Because everything the voice is talking about are all the things Ranboo doesn’t want to confront, doesn’t want to see, doesn’t want to remember. The voice isn’t malicious. It’s not even Dream, it’s just using Dream’s voice to make Ranboo listen. And Ranboo knows it’s just himself. (also out of character confirmation from the cc!s that the voice is NOT Dream and never has been, it’s just a manifestation of all the shit Ranboo’s repressed coming up and slapping him in the face) Everything the voice does, all the things it says, is trying to get Ranboo to remember the “bad” things he’s done, to remember that he was on Dream’s side. To force him to face that side of himself that might be capable of doing bad things, if there’s a good enough reason. It exaggerates things, it makes them out to be worse than they actually are, but that’s how it’s able to get Ranboo’s attention, that’s how it’s able to force him to think about those things. Ranboo won’t do anything until he’s forced to face the problem, the Voice is just trying to get Ranboo to do that.

This is why I believe Ranboo DID blow up the community house. Why he’s working with or has worked for Dream in the past. Why he willingly gave Dream his memory book, possibly to create a visible conflict between them and ensure no one would connect them as allies, like what Dream wanted to do with Punz. And also because the other things it’s said, such as Ranboo being given the Cat disc to hold onto, have been proven to be true. Nothing the Voice has said has been confirmed a lie. And many of the things it’s talked about aren’t things we or Ranboo can find the answer to unless he talks to Dream, which is until the dude’s rescued from the prison, isn’t happening. (cc!Dream where’s your Dream lore?!?!?!)

That said, if Ranboo was the one to blow up the community house, then Dream was covering for him during the Disc War Finale. He didn’t have to. He could’ve thrown Ranboo under the bus. But he chose to take on that blame, make himself look even worse in the eyes of everyone gathered there while he was at their mercy, to protect Ranboo from similar persecution. Doesn’t this remind you of anything? And Ranboo’s got a track record of making friends with those who help him.

Fifth: The Visits. Ranboo has visited Dream in prison multiple times. At the very least at least 2 times that we have direct confirmation of, and probably even more. His visits are consistent enough that just a few days after Ranboo bans himself from the prison, Dream notices and starts a strike, tells Sapnap that Ranboo’s stopped visiting, asks him, his best friend who literally threatened to perma-kill him if he were to ever leave his horrible situation, to send a message to Ranboo. (which, I guess Dream still kinda trusts Sapnap despite everything that’s happened, huh?) 

Why would Ranboo visit? Unless they’re friends, unless they’re allies? Because even Dream’s so called best friend only ever visited once. Even Bad who Dream claims to have been the nicest only ever visited once. And while Tommy and Quackity visited more than once, their multiple visits have very clear reasons behind them, while Ranboo’s just, don’t. 

And consider: How did Ranboo know about the things that were said during the Disc War Finale, word for word, line for line, that he wasn’t present for, unless someone’s told him? Unless he heard about it from Dream himself. Unless that was what they were talking about. Unless that’s part of the reason Ranboo kept visiting Dream. 

Sixth: The Lessons. I don’t know about you, but giving life lessons to someone sounds like something you’d do with a friend, and not just a “puppet”. The whole lessons book gives off really mentor mentee vibes, and considering how Ranboo’s following in Dream’s goal of stopping conflict and uniting the server, well. And the lessons aren’t even malicious, or designed to push Ranboo away from others. In fact, many of them, especially the last few ones we see, are designed to protect Ranboo! Unless Ranboo’s safety was a top priority for Dream, there’s not much reason to pass those lessons down. This lines up incredibly well with Dream taking the blame of the community house’s destruction during the Disc War Finale, as well as his protective streak at his own expense when it comes to his allies and the people he cares about. Which means Ranboo is someone he cares about, which means they’re friends! They’re besties your honor!

Seventh: Ranboo’s Vehement Denial. Ranboo is infamous for being an unreliable narrator, for being in incredible denial despite all evidence supporting otherwise. Which means his vehement denial that Dream can be anything but bad is a fairly obvious red flag that that’s not true, and that Ranboo has reason to believe it’s not true, but chooses to actively ignore or forget those reasons and attempts to reinforce the “everything’s Dream’s fault, he can never change and will always be bad” mentality, that sounds like something he stole from Tommy or c!Dream antis, because he doesn’t want to face the fact that he has reasons for believing the opposite. At this point, I am 100% on board with the idea that all these unprompted instances of Dream hate is just a blatant cover up of how that’s not true at all. (Which he touches on, ever so briefly, when he renovates the second stronghold room)

Aaaaand that’s it! For the most part. I could touch on how Enderboo is hoarding all the backbone in this relationship and that the dynamic between Enderboo and Ranboo is closer to that of someone waking up after a sugar high or going for three days straight without sleep than it is two completely separate people or someone who’s literally sleepwalking (and that “Enderboo” is his normal state and “Ranboo” is the sleep deprived not thinking straight state). But this post is already obscenely long and I should end it here. 

TL;DR: They’re besties, your honor.

Anyways, if you got this far, thanks for reading!

[sofipitch]

Can you recommend me some literature other than the vampire chronicles?

Oh man I could give book opinions and recommendations all day so this almost feels too broad of an ask so I'm going to narrow it a little by recommending books that are similar enough to VC that I think VC fans will like. I'll try and remember to say what it is I think the book has in common with VC. But if you want recommendations for other genres just say the word!

I'm also gonna do contemporary books because I feel like most people have already discussed the parallel between VC and lots of classics, but for good measure my top choices would be: Wuthering Heights, The Picture of Dorian Gray, and Giovanni's Room

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V. E. Schwab: This was a recent read and so so good. The hype is real. In this story a 17th century preasant girl makes a deal with a forest god that allows her to live forever. However the catch is no one can ever remember her. She goes through life meeting all kinds of people, but if they leave the room and come back it'll be like they never met. There is an aching loneliness this concept and book. I think in general this book has a really reflection from it's characters and other than the immortality aspect that is what I think makes this book like VC is the existentialism and yet lust for life that carries throughout. Because while Addie is often very lonely, she is also so in love with the world and people. I also really liked the character of the god who cursed her, he returns to taunt her regularly and their relationship is really fun (what tik tok teens would call "enemies to lovers"). Addie and some other characters are also queer which is a +

Certain Dark Things by Silvia Moreno Garcia: A you a fan of vampires? This book is a really creative take on vampire, more creative than a lot of contemporary reimaginings. Humans have known about vampires since the 1960s and vampires also come in different species, endemic to different regions, which would explain why some vampire lore may be contradictory. Why can some eat food and others can't? Different species. Atl is a vampire hiding from a different vampire clan in Mexico City, a city supposed to be free from vampires. She gets a homeless garbage collector named Domingo to help her avoid being caught by both the police and other vampires while trying to escape the city. Atl and Domingo have very Armand and Daniel in The Devil's Minion vibe. He's a human guy just fascinated by this cool vampire and hey, the extra cash isn't bad. But things get dangerous fast.

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno Garcia: Same author as previous (I really like her if you can't tell). This book is meant to be a take on the gothic genre, if you can't tell by the title. Noemi's cousin who has been recently married sends her a letter asking her to come rescue her. Noemi then goes to the her in-laws family home, a decrepit Victorian mansion, with an equally eerie family. I don't want to say too much but I think this one is a great gothic horror. It both does the tropes and reinvents them

My Heart is a Chainsaw by Stephen Graham Jones: This one is more straight up horror. Jade is a teen horror junkie who loves slashers. So when people start turning up dead in town she thinks she knows exactly what's going on and as a social outcast, this is everytging she has been waiting for, she hates the people of her town and wants them dead. Jade reminds me a bit of Lestat, not a ton in character but there is a deeply personal narration style and the fact that you can tell Jade is masking some massive insecurities she doesn't want to reveal to the audience. I also recommend this author's writing in general, they make my head go brrr

The Devourers by Indra Das: This is a werewolf book and starts off a LOT like IWTV. A history professor meets a man who claims to be half-werewolf. Despite being unsure if he believes him the man asks him to transcribe some historical documents, which tell the story (sst during the reign of Shah Jahan in India) of a werewolf and a human woman. This story is similar to IWTV in how it uses it's monsters as a reflection of humanity, they are both very human and unsettlingly inhuman. This book does have a hard plot so much as a charactrler exploration, and of course the mystery of the characters themselves. This is also a story where monsters are used to explore queer sexuality and gender and it's SO well done. However, since it is kind of a big part of the book, it's not described in detail but mentioned repeatedly, tw for rape

[the-temptation-of-amadeo]

RIP Anne Rice.

I thought about sharing the impact she had on my life after seeing so many fans doing it...reading your stories felt so warm everyone...

I remember a few years ago I sent a message to Anne about how she changed my life. I am born with many disabilities and had a lot of trouble staying focus and learning in class, at 13 I haven’t read a single book on my own and I didn’t know if I ever could have a future, have friends, a lover, it was all a distant dream. I felt like no one could ever loved me, like I didn’t belong. Then I discovered the movie IWTV, then for the 1st time I was sooo into it that I decided to start a book. To start a book was huge to me at that time, it seemed to be an impossible task. But I was so involved in it that I did it, even tho my disabilities wouldn’t allow me too until now.  After that I was kinda able to read, to educate myself through her books (she would narrate X event or talk about X artist and out of curiosity I would check what it is about etc.).

She showed me many doors of possibilities, it was up to me to choose which one I wanted to open. Among them: the desire of non-conformity ; the lgbtq+ community (including polyamourous, acexuality) ; the worth of having friends being a family ; acceptation of itself  but also acceptation that there is some darkness/bad in us because we are human with flaws ; realizing that if we are alive, we are meant to be there/to belong somewhere.

She revealed through her characters that there is a monster in every human, and a human in every monster. That what society tells you is wrong...isn’t necessary and that’s up to you to reflect on it. She taught me all those during my life full of fear and doubt. 

Finally, she showed me everyone makes mistakes. Through her characters (yeah especially you Lestat!), but also herself. We must look how she changed since IWTV publication. She admitted she was wrong sueing people for fanfictions, she was supportive of trans people, she left christianity because of how they treated the LGBTQ+ community and how antifeminists were, she included more diversity in her books, a diversity not limited to sexuality but to ethnicity. On that matter, I personally, I think she wanted the afro-american cast especially to show people that there is nothing wrong with it, just like being gay, and that even if society tells you racialized people do not belong...they do, they always did. but that is another debate anyway.

My point is: she was human, with her flaws and qualities. And she inspired me to accept myself and becoming the better version of myself, because it is possible. It is possible for all of us.

I will forever remember that I met my best friend thanks to her, the funniest part is…he was actually following my blog (it was his fav one back then) but we only discovered this fact months later. It is an intimate story I will never get tired of, it felt like fate. We stayed friends for 10 years now…But Anne, she left.

Another small story: I work in a hospital and our boss is a 50 years woman and she is like very very strict. One day I saw her with a VC book in the arms, the last one (Prince Lestat). Immediately I stop her and I ask her about it. Which she answered all excited that she read all the VC and that she is a fan for yeaaarrss. She then told me her story, how Anne helped her forging her personality and the huge impact she had when she was younger. Until then I’ve only met fans from my generation so I kinda never wondered what impact she could have caused…to read, to love, and to discover yourself through her books in a much close-minded society.

Btw for those who didn’t know, Lestat was inspired by her husband, Claudia by her deceased daughter...and yeah...she was Louis.

Thank you so much Anne, in those dark teenage years and even later, your books saved me in many ways. May you rest in peace and be reunited with your husband and daughter.

[sp-ud]

karl needs to find a good balance between dropping the lore hes prepared for his story and his character, and also allow the other people to improv. i think he might be stressed that not everything's gonna fit and be explored, or maybe he's scared that his streams will be so long. but i wouldnt mind if they were longer or split into two parts. or alternatively, and this is completely changing the format but let everybody stream not necessarily in vc with karl (or each other) all the time and let them take their own time

he could work more with enviromental storytelling, and let everyone take their time and explore and comment on what they see and interact with each other. im sure hes scared that its gonna get boring if the plot doesnt move along but thats where the roleplay can take place

he also could include more content creators who enjoy creating characters, ranboo is an absolute gem for example. but tubbo is a great example of someone who is good at creating memorable characters. quackity is as well but hes a little bit over the top and i think karl and him need to talk to make sure they agree on the Tone for the episode in question. and corpse was pretty good last time as well id love to see him again

tftsmp has got a lot of good things going for it and his stream was better than the last so i think overtime it really can improve. thats my thoughts anyway

- cube-cumb3r

yeah i think you’ve hit the nail on the head here, tftsmp has such a huge potential and could be such a cool thing for the smp to have, and you can tell karl put’s in effort with things like the map they’re in and some of the smaller details. But his execution of the actual stream is where tftsmp falls apart.

I think he needs to pretty much completely drop the “book clues” that the last two tftsmp have had because karl wants them to find the books and the clever spots he’s hidden them. but then when they don’t seem to instantly start searching for clues (which often doesn’t make sense for the characters to be doing) he feels the need to go to the book. 

I’m still not quite sure why he doesn’t let them goof off for a bit, I think your theories might be correct, but I'm pretty it might not be the time thing, because I'm pretty sure karl estimated the beach episode would take them 3 hours, and they were done with the story under and hour. i don’t think karl is too concerned about longer streams?

I also really do hope he brings in more serious rpers? like I was somewhat hyped for the line up of dream, bbh, ranboo, and quackity because they’ve all shown that they’re really good at rp when they try, but for some reason they all (- ranboo half the time) are taking it very much not-seriously despite the fact that they have an even better grasp of how much time karl has tried to make this cool serious lore story. Dream didn’t even have anything set up to make sure he was awake on time, he was asleep at the start time and delayed the stream by just under an hour.

I really do think tftsmp could improve if karl looking into how a dnd dm narrates and guides a story, and less how a author narrates and guides a story, because tftsmp is run more like a story book and not like an rp.

[oosteven-universe]

Eternals #7

Eternals #7 Marvel Comics 2021 Written by Kieron Gillen Illustrated by Esad Ribić Coloured by Matthew Wilson Lettered by VC’s Clayton Cowles    NEW ARC! NEW JUMPING-ON POINT! MORE THANOS!     The Eternals have learned the truth of their existence. Their society is in shambles. Who can lead them? Who is the visionary that can lead them from the ashes? And how did they take the throne? Hail Thanos the Mad Titan, Eternal Prime.    Well this has been one long main story with arcs that flow through it changing the focus on what we see while still leaving the larger picture in your mind.  What Kieron manages to do throughout this thus far is really redefine the Eternals and try to present them with a new future path moving forward.  It has been complicated, interesting and full of the perfect amount of drama and intrigue.  This is hard to do too because the balancing act without leaning too far one way or another takes great skill and talent to pull off like we see it happening here.  While a portion of the population scrambles to figure out a new leader, to presumably keep the status quo the same, Sersi and the others want to grow, change and evolve as they find a new purpose and new way of life which to some degree Druig is helping achieve albeit in a very dangerous direction.    I’m loving the way that this is being told.  The story & plot development that we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is presented exceptionally well.  The character development that we see through the narration, the dialogue, the character interaction as well as how we see them act and react to the situations and circumstances which they encounter does wonders in showcasing these unique and individual personalities.  The pacing is excellent and as it takes us through the pages revealing the new direction we’re left wondering could this mad scheme actually happen.  Though knowing Thanos it’s a pretty forgone conclusion it will.    I’m impressed with how we see this being structured and how the layers within the story continue to emerge, grow, evolve and strengthen.  I also like how we see the layers within the story open up these new avenues to be explored.  These avenues allow for some great depth, dimension and complexity to be introduced.  How we see everything working together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward are impeccably handled.      These interiors are bloody stunning as they appear so soft and delicate and yet the power behind them is incredibly immense.  The linework is exquisite and how the varying weights and techniques are being utilised to create this level & quality of detail within the work is mind blowing.  How we see backgrounds utilised throughout the book to enhance and expand the moments and how they work within the composition of the panels to bring out the depth perception, sense of scale and the overall sense of size and scope to the story is awe inspiring.  The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a masterful eye for storytelling.  The various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work show such a monstrous understanding of how colour works.  The light nearly pastels we see and how they manage to convey that strength is beautifully rendered. ​    I love the fact that this doesn’t partake in the mundane daily trappings of the Marvel Universe and instead is its own unique story.  While the ramifications and what happens with the Eternals will eventually be felt by the rest of the Marvel U for now this self-contained story remains one of the strongest titles that Marvel is currently putting out.  Thanks to this stunning display of writing and intense & complicated characterisation and these utterly bloody brilliant interiors really set this apart from what we see on stands anyone today.

[fanatiquee]

get  to  know  the  mun!                                                   repost,  don’t  reblog.

———  BASICS  !   😈

(PEN)NAME  : everyone just calls me G! 

PRONOUNS  :  she / her

ZODIAC  SIGN  :  Aries, don’t know the other stuff, and think astrology is bs. (but have fun with it don’t let me rain on anyone's parade.)

TAKEN  OR  SINGLE  :  taken, you all know @deromanum

———  THREE  FACTS  ! 😈

I’m a PhD student in French History, I specialise in art history, material culture, and archaeology. 

This feels like a tute introduction section.

I can never think of anything to offer because I don’t exist outside of Uni.

———  EXPERIENCE  ! 😈

I have been roleplaying for a very long time, I mostly wrote historical fiction and historical OCS before coming to the VC fandom properly, and only plucked up the courage to join the community recently. But I have been writing creatively, inside and outside rp, for many years. I’ve been writing Louis specifically on and off for quite some time, I’m not sure how long exactly? But he was my first VC muse, and has remained one of my absolute favourites.

———  MUSE  PREFERENCE  !   😈

I essentially seek out muses that I feel have a very particular characterisation. Characters that have very rich interiority and duality, characters with a very distinctive voice and personality, and often characters that have aspects of their identity that I can tap into, without feeling like they’re mere projections of my own thoughts and feelings. Louis is a good example. I was raised Roman Catholic, received all the sacraments, went to a very traditional nunnery school that modernised halfway through my time there, before I transferred to a former brother’s college. I have a really strong understanding of what his Faith means to him, and his religious awe, but I don’t share it. As far as character ‘voice’, I find the internal world and external should have a sense of rhyming and cohesion? There’s always a ‘vision’ with a character that I try to adopt. Louis has a very specific way of expressing himself that comes across so strongly in his narration in IWTV that I really try to emulate in my writing, so that it has a similar cadence and rhythm, which I think is a very important aspect of Louis’ dialogue, and something that challenges me at times. But that’s often the kind of muse I gravitate toward, I really enjoy drilling in on the specificities and emulating the minutiae of their characterisation. 

———  FLUFF  /  ANGST  /  SMUT  !   😈    

FLUFF  :  I’m here for fluff as long as it has an undercurrent of something else. I can rarely write fluff for its own sake. There has to be passion or angst or something else running through it.

ANGST  : I love angst, the cornerstone of my society.

SMUT  :  I don’t mind writing smut when it’s plot important, I think maybe nowadays I would disappear off onto discord to do it? But yes, smut with other important undercurrents, never just a bit of vanilla sex for the sake of it. I’m guilty of peppering in too much dialogue during smut, perhaps.

PLOT  /  MEMES  : I love to plot, plotting is a good way of establishing a rapport with another writer and getting a handle on their characterisation, and how that matches up with your own. Memes I’m okay with for sure, I’ll only rb memes I can imagine my character responding to, and I generally prefer plotted stuff over memes, but I can also develop a meme starter into something more substantial, so it just depends! 

tagged  by  : @hxllion  I tag: @auburnandamberangel ,  @immortalmolloy , @caravaggiovagabond , @count-v-dracula , @claudiaindarkness , 

[originlist]

bron thots and hcs 99% harvested from rambling i sent to charri and didnt wanna retype yet

thinking about avicebrons workshop as i write. it is... a nice place to be i think. in my terms of nice. avicebron keeps it comfortably warm bc he likes it better that way. it smells like earth. warmly lit. there are various comfortable chairs because he used to just have one or two for himself and then he realized people kept coming by so hes just [sighs and adds another good chair and someone else drags in a bean bag or some shit]. hes got a bookshelf full of things. theres clutter but its an interesting kind of clutter and he knows where everything is anyways and the floor is cleared so ur not gonna trip over anything except maybe a golems whos keeping it tidy. its a chill place to read a book and if u ask nicely u can use some of the clay he keeps to makes lil figures with for fun. thonk bron: im going to make a place i like being in as a workshop narrator: this means other people will also like being there and sometimes hang out with you, which means you will be forced to acknowledge The Existence Of Other People bron: fuck. ive played myself

one day i will reread my source on kabbalah and itll be the end for everyone bc ive been interested in it since freshman year but its hard to find sources. and i have Thots about his golems but ill properly phrase them once im able to look thru my other primary source, for now i just ramble but basically his current golems except Adam arent like True Golems and even Adam is iffy because its moved past what a golem is

so proper golems are entities made thru certain specific magical rituals, and they are beings created generally by rabbis with a background in mysticism in order to help the community. a proper golem is highly autonomous and able to think on (almost) human level on its own, somewhat similar to a homunculus in proper homunculus lore but also, not. dont worry about it. i dont have the time to get into it. but one day. thats a threat. the final piece to animating them is writing on either them or an amulet they are given, which they can be returned back to earth by erasing the first letter they are, specifically, made to either help or protect which is why the reactor core thing is [singsong] bullshiiiiiiit

avicebrons golems are quickly made things that are more like basic familiars, as they possess a lower level of thought and dont follow ritual, the handoff of being less autonomy in exchange for being able to make a lot of them very quickly and easily so he doesnt count them as Proper Golems but he also classes them as More Useful For Our Situation Than A Proper Golem they can do chores and they will keep u safe but they also dissolve after a few hits

look the man’s disabled and he uses golems to make up for the fact, he doesnt need them to be durable or fully sapient he just needs them to do chores when he cant move his arms all the way and his back hurts

adam however (his NP) is a Proper Golem Plus Some. im ignoring the part where its like 'in fgo he also would need a mage or high level reactor to be its core' because thats stupid a proper golem doesnt need a core it just needs mystic words and some other stuff, but in exchange ill say he writes life into it using some part of his own magic plus whats drawn from his master, and the rest of Adam's unique reality marble ability is that it can pull mana from the earth directly quickly made familiars have mineral cores in order to like..... cores are the equivalent of when u pull back a ball on those clacker desk toys, where they keep going back and forth for longer than they should? the core jump starts the mana conversion procedure allowing it to create energy to move bc gems in fate are a good prana conduit

he can still do the thing of like. fuck i forget the word for it. earthbending. like he does in apoc where he just kinda draws shapes out of soil, but its only for various kinds of dirt. cant rly fuck with gems or metal but hes got bigass clay jars in his workshop full of dirt and clay and Various Rocks to make stuff ut of that he can control with a hand wave. it makes his life easier. bron vc do i LOOK like i can lift anything. i thought not.

uuhhhh other random bron infodumps bc i made other posts and then deleted them

no legge, prosthetics start at the hip ball-and-socket joint. arms yes. the second pair of arms is removable and attached to a thin plate that he can attach under his shoulders. the secondary shoulder joint is technically hypermobile and its easier to dematerialize/rematierialize them instead of putting them on and off. theyre usually not out unless he needs them for something. he is ambidextrious with all four of them and will show off in the name of efficient multitasking.

got a lotta facial scars from having acne as a young adult. pockmarks and the like. on top of his whole body being fucky.

does not like the cold!! makes both his physical and prosthetic joints feel stiff. will not mention it but will just [slowly recedes further into his cloak]

his hair is not as fun as it looks (to me). he hates having a body in general and so he will intentionally refuse to care for any non-prosthetic part of himself properly for it until it gets bad, so his hair is generally kinda dry and messy. its not Bad bad but its not great.

he takes better care of his fake legs than he does the parts of his body he cant replace and u should yell at him for it.

his cloak is also not as heavy as it looks like it should be. its carefully balanced. he can and will however bonk you with the pointy bits if you stand too close to him. forcibly mandated 4-ft personal bubble.

THIS MAN CLICK CLACKS WHEN HE MOVES AND I DONT CARE WHAT APOCS LACK OF SOUND EFFECTS TRIES TO IMPLY. this man WILL go click clack between his feet and the metal decoration thingies on his cloak bonking each other.

people who know shit about golem lore feel free to tell me all my books are packed but thoughts ping like ping-pongs

actually just tell me about folklore in general from any of u i like legends and mysticism 

if u have read this far tell me about some of ur folklore

[high-fructose-lesbianism]

A Subjective Ranking of all 18 Books in the Vampire Chronicles Extended Universe

18. Blood Canticle (2003)

It took me the longest to read Blood Canticle of any of the books because I couldn’t read more than about 25 pages at a time before the urge to throw the book out the nearest window got too strong. The story is bad, the characters are the worst they’ve ever been and the writing style is full-on terrible. Blood Canticle is one of the worst books I’ve read full stop.

17. Taltos (1994)

I hated the Mayfair Witches trilogy. While Taltos was at least the shortest of the three, it was a terrible conclusion to the trilogy. The Taltos are one of Anne Rice’s worst ideas. Each of the books delves more into their mythology and it gets worst the more it’s explored.

16. Blackwood Farm (2002)

A major issue I have with Anne Rice is she insists on telling these extremely lengthy backstories of characters we’ve just met who I almost never give a shit about. That’s the entirety of Blackwood Farm. It’s the backstory of a character I just met and don’t care about whatsoever. Blackwood Farm evokes the classic Anne Rice style of bad where it switches between just being insane and being fucking boring at the drop of a hat. I skimmed most of the book because it was so boring. But then I’d tune in to some insanely weird shit about intersex vampires or ghost twins giving handjobs or whatever was happening and yeah, my attention would of course be held by such insanity. But invariably, the book would drift back into describing wildly uninteresting events with too much detail and I’d tune out again.

15. The Witching Hour (1990)

The Witching Hour has a three paragraph summary on Wikipedia. It is an accurate summation of the events of the book. So then why is this fucking book 968 pages? That’s my main grievance with The Witching Hour; it’s way too fucking long. It’s the least insane of the Mayfair Witches trilogy but also by far the least interesting.

14. Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis (2016)

These fucking bird aliens who inhabited Atlantis are just the Taltos 2.0. There’s a lot of insanity and also boring backstory in this one. I skimmed the backstory of the Atlantean bird aliens and don’t feel like I missed anything. What saves this book from ranking lower is I’m a slut for the main VC characters interacting and this one did have such a thing, plus some good Louis/Lestat moments which is my other big priority with the series. Simultaneous highlight and lowlight of this book is when that one dude looses a hand but it gains sentience, breast feeds off him or something and then becomes his perfect clone. Fucking insanity.

13. Lasher (1993)

Lasher is the best of the Mayfair trilogy because there are genuine moments of horror in this horror novel. On the downside, the Taltos are as always, insane. Also, another signature of Anne Rice’s is sexy and sexualized teenage characters which there is a lot of in this book in the form of 13 year old Mona Mayfair, her affair with Michael Curry and the many scenes where this is excused, justified or even somewhat celebrated. That disturbed me and not in the way I want a horror novel to disturb me.

12. Memnoch the Devil (1995)

In terms of writing style, Memnoch is a lot better than many of the books that will rank higher than it. But this is a subjective ranking and I didn’t give a shit about Anne Rice working through her weird, religious baggage in a series that I’m reading to hear about the exploits of sexy, bisexual vampires. The majority of this book is again, a long backstory from a character we just met and I don’t care about. In this case it’s literally Satan which is a good start but Anne Rice sure has a way of taking too long describing everything which leaves me extremely bored by the narrative.

11. Blood Paradise (2018)

Blood Paradise should be lower in this list. It’s objectively extremely poor. Blood Paradise is basically the inverse of Memnoch; I really liked the story but hated the writing style. This one only ranks so high because it is a story that focuses on the lead vampire characters who are my priority. And yeah, I liked the outline for the story. It’s character-based, no major new characters interrupt the narrative and no insane additions to canon are added. Too bad the writing style feels extremely half-assed. Where usually I’m critical of Anne Rice taking way too long to say anything and focusing on unimportant details, this one is the opposite. It feels extremely rushed. A lot of major, emotional scenes that occur between characters are only a few sentences or paragraphs long. But still, at least this one gave me story content that I could just expand upon in my head instead of insane additions to canon that I’d prefer to ignore.

10. Merrick (2000)

Merrick actually might have my favourite ending to any of the VC novels. I loved Lestat resurrecting Louis from his suicide attempt and then that descends into Lestat, Louis, David and Merrick living in what seems to be perfectly happy polyamory. I totally dug that. But of course, the majority of the book is a backstory of Merrick, a character I just met and don’t care about. Also, we get a bit of David backstory which I seem to remember being him mostly creeping on some young boy who was in expedition with him. Not ideal. 

9. Vittorio, the Vampire (1999)

Vittorio is a fairly effective historical horror. Anne Rice did a lot of research and it shows. That’s not exactly my interest but she did well with it. There’s also some really horrific moment where Vittorio meets a clan of vampires in an old castle who do keep humans like cattle and eat babies and stuff. The major downsides is just that this is a character who we’ve never met before and never see again. Also the fact that Vittorio is 16 and is absolutely sexualized. I’ve really grown tired of Anne Rice’s constant belief that’s in almost all of her writing that teenagers are sexy and it’s totally fine to fuck them. It makes me uncomfortable to say the least.

8. Pandora (1998)

This one’s just pretty good. I’ve no major complaints but no specific bits of it I want to champion either. Again, a lot of historical research is done which is not interesting to me but well done. Also nice to have at least one book with a female vampire protagonist.

7. Prince Lestat (2014)

Prince Lestat is not objectively better than the last two books. I rank it this high mostly out of relief. For ages, Blood Canticle was the last book in The Vampire Chronicles. So, when Prince Lestat was released, it was impossible to see this as anything other than a huge upgrade. And of course, I liked that this book returned to focusing on the lead characters of Lestat, Louis, Marius, Daniel etc. It’s still a baffling idea to have Lestat be the vampire head of state or whatever though. But oh man, that Louis/Lestat moment near the end of the book made me feel a whole lotta feelings.

6. Blood and Gold (2001)

This one is another excuse for Anne Rice to do a lot of historical research. And you know what? Better she spends her energies doing that instead of creating weird, tall supernatural beings with specific quirks that are impossible to take seriously. I like the framing of this one because it’s sort of the inverse of usual. Thorne, a new character is introduced but instead of him telling Marius his story, it’s established character Marius who tells Thorne his story. And he does this the first day they met after Thorne’s awakened after several hundred years and they’ve taken a bath together. That’s just good story structure right there. The most memorable part of this story for me is keeping a vague tally of all the people Marius fell in love with throughout the course of the story. In one 100-page stretch, Marius falls in love five separate times. This grew tiresome but I also just thought it was funny.

5. The Vampire Armand (1998)

I’m the most morally against The Vampire Armand. It’s basically the peak of Anne Rice’s love of sexualizing teens. That’s sort of the whole book. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that around the time of its publication, Anne Rice got back into religion. I think she looked over what she wrote and was like yeah okay, maybe I do need Jesus. But I dunno, I remember really liking it. It was well-written and Armand is one of my favourite characters. I think Anne Rice did actually hit the right mixture of the story being sexy, horrific and rather tragic. Also, that bit at the end where Armand eats a drug dealer’s face and heart in front of some new, human friends is one of my favourite scenes.

4. The Tale of the Body Thief (1992)

There’s a lot of good and a lot of bad in Tale of the Body Thief. I love the body swap aspect and this one has some of the best interactions between characters. On the downside, there absolutely is a 2-page description of Lestat taking a piss, he absolutely commits a rape and him turning David into a vampire was #problematic. But even there, the Lestat and David scene is really well-written and works because Lestat is an absolute piece of shit. Tale of the Body Thief is for better and worse, Lestat at his most Lestat. Still didn’t need to hear about him taking a piss in that much detail, though.

3. Queen of the Damned (1988)

Akasha is the only good villain in any of the Vampire Chronicles books. Plus, Queen of the Damned brought all the characters we’d met in the previous two books together and I was absolutely all about that. At this point in the series, I actually did care about the majority of main characters and their interactions were absolutely spectacular. Only downside is again, we get a lengthy backstory of Akasha that I absolutely skimmed.

2. Interview with the Vampire (1976)

Yeah, it’s only number 2. Because while this book is better written and the start of this whole damn phenomenon, Louis is far from my favourite narrator. Dude’s too morose and shit. Still, the writing style is exquisite and it introduced great characters. As the series went on, Anne Rice clearly ran out of ideas but because this one is the first book, that’s not the case. There’s a lot of ideas here and they aren’t even fucking insane. 

1. The Vampire Lestat (1985)

I’m really only into this series because of how much I love Lestat as a character. I read Interview and thought I was done with the series. Interview was fine but I didn’t think I cared about the sequels. However, six months later when I decided to read The Vampire Lestat, I knew within the first two pages that this was going to be a problem for me. This is exactly my brand of bullshit. It’s just Lestat being a sexy and shitty person who makes out with everyone and overreacts to everything. I love him. And in the third act when it’s revealed he’s been in love with Louis all along and then Louis shows up in the present day and they reunite???? Oh my god. 16 year-old me nearly exploded. The Vampire Lestat is really the sole reason The Vampire Chronicles happened to me as hard as it did. I love this book and its ridiculous narrator/protagonist.

[inkofamethyst]

December 23, 2020

Crap.  I think TommyInnit is indeed becoming less annoying with time.  I think the first time I engaged with him was in a Wilbur video where they were playing on a team in some Minecraft Youtuber Royale thing and he was so annoying but since a big part of the current arc is Tommy’s exile (and Dream’s casual manipulation (and lowkey gaslighitng) of Tommy while in exile (fbajbvkajdj)), I’ve had to resort to watching the VODs of Tommy’s livestreams and like, he’s not that bad when engaging with other people.  Or, or or or, maybe I just really like Dream and don’t mind Tommy as much when Dream is also in the VC.  Either way I’m stepping toward this kid not being so annoying and idk how to feel about it.  Well, next up I think I’ll be watching Techno’s VODs of old streams because I do enjoy Technoblade and his narration.  

Guys I’m getting in so deep so fast that I’m actually considering putting together closet cosplays of the characters.  SMPbounding, if you will.  I just gotta say, I’m always a fan of political dramas and courtroom dramas and the like.  The wordplay just really does something for me, and I think that might be part of the reason why I enjoy the SMP so much.  It’s legit just a political drama, in Minecraft, played by young adult characters.  It’s kind of made me want to try roleplaying again (not in Minecraft, but possibly online), it’s just that I’ve never been particularly god at riffing off people or improvisation, you know?  I get flustered too easily.  I need a script.

Well, yeah.  That’s my update on my deepening love for the Dream SMP.

Anyway.

Things I have learned this semester:

Professors aren’t scary!  They appreciate when you go to their office hours with questions!  You should do that more!  Another option is to email professors if you have questions about the material (especially if they’re welcoming to communication).

Schedules are key when doing online classes.  Yes, maintaining the drive to stay on track daily is difficult, but I promise it’s so much nicer in the long run.

On that note, getting work done early (like, as soon as you get the assignment) is so massively useful!  I know it’s hard to do that, so it might be better to just start an assignment.  Spend ten or fifteen minutes looking it over, making a plan, maybe even getting a little bit of it done.  You don’t have to continue past those fifteen minutes if you don’t want to, but, knowing you, Nina, I know that you like to bang things out all at once.  Completing work in increments doesn’t appeal to you, and that’s okay!  What isn’t okay is procrastination, but I promise you’ll feel better if you take those fifteen minutes to start an assignment right after you get it.

Sewing (and pattern drafting, draping, designing, researching, etc.) is one of those activities that’s both mindless and mindful at the same time somehow and it works as both a great distraction and a great stress-relief activity, especially since I can’t do typical college stress relief activities related to being with other people.

Watching Star Trek: The Next Generation is, again, another one of my favorite wind-down activities.  This feels like a return to Senior year of high school, I believe, where I’d watch an episode or two of TNG every day on BBC America upon returning home from school.

Eating regular meals, exercising regularly, and being able to think clearly are all linked.  Frankly, I think my inability to push myself through schoolwork might have been in part related to the fact that I haven’t been exercising (I used to walk every day extensively... reaching nearly an average of 7 km a day in addition to a weekly cardio class and ballet class, but I’ve honestly been on only four or five walks this entire semester) or eating regular meals (I used to eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner on a daily basis to replenish the energy I’d lost from walking around campus so much, and it was also a social period).  These, I’ve come to believe, are imperative to having a solid educational experience.  I must rectify this.

For a while, my sleep schedule wasn’t terrible.  Getting regular sleep hours and waking up at the same time each morning worked great while I’d maintained it.

Last semester, I got dressed for school and washed my face every day.  I think this is a good strategy for beginning the day, possibly in addition to a light breakfast or brunch.

In other news, I wonder how people would feel if we replaced the phrase Black Lives Matter.  Like, some people refuse to say the phrase because it is tied to an organization that they in no way support.  Frankly, I don’t support the organization either, but, obviously, I still believe that Black Lives Matter.  But, okay, say if we changed it to Black People are Important Too.  Not as catchy, and the hashtag is long, but the phrase isn’t tied to an organization that could be seen as offensive to conservatives.  Would there still be a problem?  Would people still refuse to say the phrase?  

And on the related subject of being black, I don’t think I could handle online dating.  Not with the market being saturated by white guys who “have never been with a black girl before” or black guys looking for white women or any other group of guys actin all fetishy around women with darker skin.  I saw a tik tok today where a brownskinned black girl got a message from some white guy like “if slavery still existed I’d buy you” as if that’s supposed to be sweet?  Nah, sorry dude.  Besides, a lot of people on dating apps are looking for hookups when that’s literally the exact opposite of what I’m interested in?  And I certainly don’t want to lead anybody on, so.

--

WHEW OKAY SO

I’ve been watching some of Tommy’s streams the past two days (only the ones with Dream in them though bc the kid still do be a bit annoying on his own) and I thought it was really cute how Dream was visiting him (though it was abundantly clear that Dream was acting more in a Good Cop or Warden role as opposed to an actual friend, but them building the bridge together was cute) but I was also wondering exactly what Dream’s angle was, right?  Like, he was totally just manipulating Tommy to get him on Dream’s side, right?  Or, at least, that’s what I was thinking?  Like, it was definitely no coincidence that Tommy threw a party and no one showed up except Dream.  I wouldn’t be surprised if Dream had forbidden any visitors for the party so that he could go himself on his own, cozying himself up to Tommy as an excellent show of emotional manipulation by the puppetmaster of the Dream SMP himself.

BUT THEN WHEN DREAM BLEW UP TOMMOY’S STUFF BC HE WAS HIDING IT??? WHEW.  chile.  Like, Tommy’s literally calling Dream his only friend during his exile since he was visited by Dream every day while also talking about how Dream would take his items every day but dismissing it as just part of the happy daily routine of Dream’s visits AGH manipulation at its finest.  Wait wait wait wait he’s working it out now.  “He was my friend... he was here to watch me... but... he was literally here to watch me.  He wasn’t my friend.  He was just here so he could watch me.  He wasn’t here because he was my friend.”  Atta boy, Tommy.  Atta boy.

I do feel bad for Tommy though (though the bits where Dream legit accidentally killed himself with his own fire bow by shooting the tnt in close quarters and where Tommy respawned within the SMP after dying bc he hadn’t reset his spawn in exile after Dream blew up Tommy’s exile empire were hilarious omg livestreamed roleplay do be like that).  He’d built up so much :(.  I think the next bit of the exile arc is Tommy working with Techno, so I’m excited to watch those videos (most likely from Techno’s view though)!  Anarchy pig!!  

Today I’m thankful for... honestly it’s not that profound or deep but I’m thankful that people upload their VODs of the Dream SMP.  It allows me to stay on top of the storyline (while I’m out of school anyway) without relying on Wilbur’s well-edited but admittedly sparse uploads.  Frankly, though, I think I’m nearing my max of things that I can watch at once, with this and Critical Role and Star Trek Next Gen, that’s a lot of content.

Oh and side note: just saw a trailer for the movie Nobody and I’m kinda down to watch it.

And a final side note, me my dad and my sister have picked up watching Ragnarok (the Netflix series set in Norway, not the hilarious third Thor movie) and it’s really quite good.

[little-smartass]

jess i did the greek gods uquiz and this is how I learnt that lestat is a villain. how long have u been posting vc dead disasters stuff cause all I got from that was that he's some kinda antagonistic idiot. this is what i get for engaging w media thru thumblr fandom osmosis

this is so hilarious omg because uhhh... he’s both? like both of those takes are 100% Valid and Accurate, it just depends on which books you’ve read.

IWTV is from Louis’ POV, and when he gives his interview he definitely sees Lestat as the villain of his story, if one that he can’t help but love in a very anguished and deeply embarrassing way. and then the next two books have Lestat as the narrator, and he presents himself very much as a villain, but only so far as villain means “very sexy person who does bad things, but I didn’t CHOOSE to be a monster, and actually I’m deeply sympathetic and you should love me despite it all, oh god, please love me Louis, did I mention I’m very sexy? please focus on that rather than my trauma” 

basically in IWTV he’s a romantic byronic villain who gets his tragic comeuppance. and then in the two other books in the trilogy he’s a “ “ villain ” ” who’s just sort of floundering through his own story with zero control or plan, and literally everyone who encounters him thinks he’s an antagonistic idiot lmao. so he’s both, but antagonistic idiot is more fun, so that’s how most people focus on him I think? 

a lot of the dissonance in how he’s presented on the sliding scale of “actual villain” to “antagonistic idiot” comes from the fact that for the OG trilogy, AR really leans into the super interesting idea of unreliable narrators exiting within their fictional world working with their own agenda - so the Louis and Lestat of IWTV (Louis’ 10 hour rant on how much both of his ex husbands fucking suck and not in the good way) are quite different to the Louis and Lestat of TVL and QOTD (Lestat’s “Here’s My Tragic Backstory Baby Please Take Me Back” and “The Trauma Conga Line Continues” books respectively) - which means we have to constantly question which author is more reliable, what were their agendas in presenting each other in this way, and even what did Daniel’s poor editor cut from the 10+ hours of tape Daniel sent him from that evening??? was Louis ever really fully in control of his story and what got published about him???? did Louis KNOW his story was going to be published and if so does that change his motivations in telling Daniel his life story??? like did he deliberately present Lestat as a villain to goad him into coming out of hiding and- and I’M GONNA STOP NOW BEFORE I WRITE A WHOLE ESSAY ON THIS BUT IT’S ACTUALLY VERY COOL AS A CONCEPT. 

arguably he’s most villainous in the post-trilogy books because he become a totally unchecked power hungry egomaniac rapist monster with no weaknesses who the author refuses to accept is truly reprehensible and nothing like the Real Lestat but we don’t talk about that!!!!