#she could have lived a full and good life (by vampire standards) if others hadn't decided that she couldn't/shouldn't

[pirateshelly]

As much as nearly every character she meets tends to act like there's something uniquely broken and wrong with Claudia, at no point does it truly seem to me like there actually really is? I mean, obviously she is extremely fucked up, she straight up went through a serial killer collecting trophies phase, but there's a level of fucked up that's sort of the baseline for every character in the show, and obviously being turned into a vampire as a child puts her at a unique disadvantage. But for all that everyone around her spends their time bemoaning how dreadful and doomed her life is, even Louis who genuinely loves her but also builds so much of his identity around feeling responsible for her Terrible Fate™, I really don't think she's like, fundamentally damaged any more than any of the other vampires are.

But Lestat is so unwilling to be wrong that every time her life hits an inevitable road bump instead of helping her through it he points and says "look! see! she IS a monster, I was right Louis, making her was a mistake!" (and I think he sees his own monstrousness in her but fails to also see her humanity)

And then Armand meets her and sees only someone who will inevitably lose her mind, so of course speeding up the "inevitable" and siding with the coven to plan her death is just a mercy, absolving himself of any blame. (and he projects his own frailty and desire for death onto her, failing to see her strength and her desire for life)

Which makes it so cathartic when she meets Madeleine, admits to her how broken she feels sometimes, and Madeleine's response is just. Well that's normal. Who isn't a little broken these days. Let yourself feel it, move on, let yourself feel it again if you need to. After spending her life having others act as if her emotions are something uniquely dark and worrying, Madeleine's incredibly blase attitude must have been such an incredible breath of fresh air for Claudia!

To spend her whole life being made to feel like something is Wrong™ with her, and then meet someone who's just like, "yeah, and?? Who isn't? Join the club I guess"

Which makes her death so incredibly tragic and frustrating because like. She was fine! She was making a life for herself! She wasn't doomed by her nature, she wasn't "doomed by the narrative" (whatever the fuck that even means), she was doomed for no reason other than that everyone around her (except for Madeleine) preemptively DECIDED she was doomed and never gave her a chance to prove them wrong.

[metalomagnetic]

I feel like I’m always harassing you with my asks (sorry!!), but bouncing off of my previous request for Black lore- what are the Blacks (that we know) like ✨in bed✨? What are they into?

I spent way too long thinking of this!

We'll start with Sirius the Grandpa Black. I have a feeling he was wild in bed, like he was wild in everything. Curiously, I spoke with a friend about this just the past week, and I said 'he made his wife very happy in bed, and exasperated outside of it'. He was a leg man- he loved long, shapely legs on a woman. In his time-period, no one could see a woman's legs, all hidden by long skirts, but he had a way of guessing beforehand lol.

Arcturus- funnily enough, in the new chapter I am writing, Sirius jokes that Arcturus probably only had sex twice in his life, because he cannot see his strict grandfather as a sexual being. And while he certainly had sex more than twice, I think he was pretty standard in bed, nothing crazy, just plain old missionary style. He was a virgin when he married and never cheated on his wife, even after she died, had no desire for anyone other than her.

Pollux and Irma (in my story she's also a Black, half, on her mother's side) have the same dynamic in bed they have in real life. Irma really likes dominating him, and in bed, he actually enjoys it.

Cygnus has a pregnancy kink 😂 That aside, poor man hadn't had much sex since his wife fell into a deep depression.

Alphard was into nerdy, quiet men with a hint of a wild side (he once had a brief crush on Tom Riddle, of course). He was a very generous partner, in bed and outside of it. His last partner, whom he'd been with on and off for like two decades, and actually lived with for the last five years of his life, almost made an appearance in Canis Major, but I had to let the scene go. Alphard left what remained of his wealth to Sirius, but he left his beautiful home to his partner, who was disowned by his family when he moved in with Alphard.

Orion, like the hypocrite he is, likes wilful, stubborn women that defy social convention. The surest way to attract his attention was to 'behave atrociously' (as he would call it) in public. He's twisted, and he enjoys pursing strong women, only to dominate them when he gets them. As soon as he 'tames' them, he loses interest in them. He's very good in bed, very open minded unlike in every other aspect of his life. No one ever left Orion's bed unsatisfied.

Orion needs intimacy- he never had a simple one night stand. Even with his briefest affairs, he still took the time to know them first, and never jumped in bed at the first opportunity, nor was he one to feel attraction for a woman just based on her looks. I think he liked 'the hunt' most of all.

That aside, if his marriage hadn't broken apart, he'd have never cheated on Walburga. Before everything went to hell, for the first ten years of their marriage, he didn't even think of other women, was 1000000% satisfied with his wife. Even after it all went down the drain, during the years, whenever Walburga gave the briefest sign she wants him back in her bed, he'd abandon whoever he was with and come *running* back home, eating up whatever scrap of affection he could get from her.

Walburga was basically into everything Orion suggested, and she had a few suggestions of her own (learned from those erotica and sometimes straight up smut novels that she loves and were mentioned very briefly in It runs) that she wanted to try out. She loves dangerous men (that's why we see her reading books with a naked, fanged vampire on the cover). I'm certain she made Orion pretend he was a vampire at least once 😂 She also had a slight exhibitionism streak when she was younger and they lived in Egypt, which put Orion on edge (but also secretly delighted him). They weren't even having full on sex back then (Orion insisted they wait until marriage) but she found ways to rile him up and play with him and drive him mad until they finally retuned to England and got married.

Bellatrix is creative and she always chases a thrill, and her sex life is fabulous. Rabastan, poor dear, had seen and heard things in that Manor that either give him nightmares, either inappropriate dreams staring his sister in law and his brother. Sometimes, Bellatrix likes duels as foreplay, so she and Rodolphus destroy parts of the Manor and then fuck in the middle of the damage. Of course, they also have calmer sex, an entire day of lazying in bed with Rodolphus, filled with gentle love-making. But when they're feeling more wild and duels come into play, whoever wins gets to dictate the encounter.

No one knows what Narcissa likes in bed, only Lucius, and it took him like a few years to find out. So whatever happens in bedrooms in Malfoy Manor, shall remain between them.

Andromeda takes after her grandmother Irma, both in bed and out of it. Ted is her boy toy. He does whatever she asks, and they both enjoy it a lot.

Regulus, the little repressed freak, once he finally gets to have sex, he lets loose, and then he feels guilty for it, because he considers whatever he did as something beneath a man of his station. Orion should have really paid more attention to him, but he was also very young when Orion died, so they didn't get to have fun sex talk like Sirius got. He's so allergic to feelings and affection, he enjoys impersonal sex the most. Regulus only knows to accept love and give it back with his mother and his brother, no one else.

Sirius is- well, we know Sirius. Because of the way he was raised and all the shit he got from his mother about liking boys, he does have certain unhealthy behaviours. He adheres to the strict gender roles when it comes to sex, so when he's with a woman, he must always be in charge. That doesn't mean he isn't adventurous, but only as long as he has control. Even when he first gets with Voldemort, he unconsciously puts Voldemort in the 'woman's role' in his head. It takes a while for him to get comfortable, and he's lucky Voldemort is a very patient dude. Obviously, after that happens, we can see Sirius definitely has some sort of Daddy kink. Not that he'd think of it like that, nor would the word 'daddy' ever be uttered while he has sex with Voldemort, but he enjoys being taken care of by an older, powerful man. He also has a big praise kink, so there's that.

He's into different things in bed, depending if he's with a man or a woman. And while he did have plenty of mindless one night stands, I think he is most satisfied when he has a deep connection with his partner. He's desperate for affection, for a true connection, even if he was also afraid of having a bond like that. It's why he tried to distance himself from Marlene, even if he wanted her, because he was simply afraid of growing too close.

You never harass me with questions! I love the questions, especially because they make me think of my lovely Blacks and their mysterious lives. ❤️