#the fandom will talk about everything but how armand looks at louis

[burythebonesincoldwater]

"There was no love there"

EXPLAIN. THIS. THEN.

[toriangeli]

Weirdly as an Armand stan, I feel like Armand should have been...worse.

Maybe worse/better isn't putting it right.

He should have been scarier.

The Armand I think of as the "real" Armand is the one we got in 2.05. So I know they know he's like that. It isn't exactly that he's evil, but when he hurts, when he's frightened, when he's cornered, he becomes something wild and vicious. Even when he's calm, there's a cold ruthlessness to him when dealing with people he doesn't care about.

So what the fuck is up with this wishy-washy betrayal?

The narrative as displayed on the show:

-Armand realizes he and Louis don't share values, so they need to break up. -The coven confronts Armand with the trial script and give him an ultimatum (disputed in fandom, never contradicted on the show). -Armand chooses loyalty to the coven and directs the play, bowing to their wishes. There are people who overestimate the role of a director and assume this means he engineered the entire thing, but see the problems in the next section below. -The tribunal is going to kill both Claudia and Louis. -The tribunal just kills Claudia. Lestat saves Louis. -Armand is demoted and punished (confirmed by Assad). -Armand, perhaps because of guilt, rescues Louis from the wall and urges him to leave Paris. -Armand makes the split-second decision to lie about saving Louis at the trial. This ends up saving his life. He lets Louis kill everyone in the coven (presumably because he's gotten a good look at how fickle they are toward him). -Louis chooses to continue their romance to spite Lestat, who keeps Armand's secret. -Daniel exposes the fact that Armand was free to choose Louis the entire time, that he was never in danger, and he chose the coven instead.

Things that have been said by Assad that contradict this version of events:

-Claudia "had to go" because she was in the way of what Armand wanted. Thing is, Armand wanted Louis, and he was going to let Louis die, so this makes no sense. -Armand "engineered" the "deaths" of Claudia and Louis both. No motive is presented to us. Moreover, there's genuinely nothing in the show that suggests this as opposed to Armand being strong-armed by a coven he lost control over. That version of events is never contradicted in the show.

And here's the thing: if I had my way, Armand would be the force behind it all, because having him fold to his own coven makes him the very opposite of scary. He'd never do it in the books. FFS, in the books, he slaughtered more than half of his last coven in a fit of madness (and I am convinced it's one of the things he blatantly lied about in 2.03). But to see what's actually presented on the show and to hear Rolin talk, they were deeply concerned with him remaining as empathetic as possible, so it looks to me like they did that by simply making him (/plays guitar) ANEMIC ROYALTYYYYY instead of a wild little gremlin. Instead of being empathetic, he's just pathetic. Instead of making the connection between Armand's history and his present behavior, the average viewer says, "That's just how he is. He lies about everything. Who knows why. He doesn't need a reason."

I can't help but feel this season should have ended with the average viewer saying "Oh he's crazy crazy." Which they kind of said of 2.05, but by the time 2.08 rolls around, they've sort of forgotten that side of him (which isn't a side, really, it's what lies beneath the mask).

And I mean, Armand in the books is definitely prone to bouts of self-pity. That's how people react when their trauma goes unvalidated. It's not playing the victim, either, he really does feel that way.

Maybe they're counting on next season to give context to both Lestat and Armand? It would make sense for Lestat to be the one to give real perspective on Armand, because Louis doesn't really know him and Armand himself is too guarded to be forthcoming. Lestat has seen Armand at his worst, but, at least in the books, he has a crippling amount of compassion for him as well.

I just...I need the gremlin. I need him to be terrifying, because only then can he turn around and be weird. He's endearing in DM because people looked at the "uncomprehending villain" of the last two books and saw him stuffing packs of cigarettes down the garbage disposal, laughing till he cried at movies, and quizzing Daniel about why war happens because he's never understood all that shit. That last was the moment I fell for him. He understands the vampiric instinct to kill, but humans don't have that. Humans just kill and maim each other anyway. The vampire who caused so much destruction asking, "What is the physical need to destroy?"

The innocence hidden beneath the cruelty and violence.

The writers know that innocence exists, but the innocence means very little if he isn't legitimately cruel and violent. If he doesn't make hard choices in the name of survival when the issue at hand isn't a matter of survival. If people don't suffer because he thinks suffering is what everyone does all the time anyway.

They know the cruelty exists, because they showed it in 2.05. They know exactly how to write an Armand who isn't pretending to be normal.

I just worry they've undermined what makes Armand so special as a character in their quest to keep him empathetic.

[island-in-the-shadows]

The Finale, the Devil, His Minion & His Turning

Before I begin, let me state with clarity that I am not an expert in book lore. I’m, at best, semi-pro. I, however, do my due diligence when it comes to my passions and my hyperfixations and this has been one that has stuck around for most of my life. So, I wanted to weigh into the whole Devil’s Minion situation as pertains to how S2 ended as well as implications for the future of it combined with the bits and pieces of things we’ve heard RJ etc say regarding it. I know this is all a big kerfuffle one way or the other. I’m writing this mostly for myself, but I wanted to share with anyone who wants to read because fandom metas are fun even if we disagree with parts of them or even the whole of them. So, disclaimer aside, strap in for this very long post…

Let's talk about Devil's Minion and the implications of the Season 2 finale.

First things first, let’s discuss Daniel Molloy. He’s a difficult guy and I get why there’s a bunch of people who dislike him even though I can’t relate. I love him. I love that he’s a sassy loudmouth who has even louder opinions and can be horribly inappropriate. I love that, when he’s doing his thing, he’s like a dog with a bone and he won’t let go. I love that he has suffered for it because the consequence of being a dog with a bone, of having an addictive personality, of having sarcasm and sass as a defence mechanism, and of having a truly atrocious sense of self-preservation is that he got fucked up by vampires, blew up his life, “destroyed two marriages,” and “fucked up two daughters.” He’s not the character that people who want to black/white moralise this show can point to as a bastion of “goodness,” even if he was, until recently, the only human main character. In fact, it’s precisely because he was human that it made sense that he was a fucked up person. After all, all humans have their good and bad aspects. 

And then, he was turned (offscreen so that people like me can shout manically into the void). I LOVE that he was turned. I’ll get into the larger implications of it later but, for now, I want to explain why I enjoy Vampire Daniel.

For a bit of background, here’s what we know about his book counterpart in broad strokes: he smokes, he interviews Louis in San Francisco, he published Interview with the Vampire anonymously, he went to NOLA searching for Lestat but found Armand instead, cue here everything that has to do with the 12 years in which he and Armand were what they were together, he’s an ash blonde with violet eyes, he’s an addict, he’s a sarcastic loudmouth, he’s morbid, he went mad, he liked building miniature cityscapes, he spent most of the years of his madness (and some after he regained his sanity) with Marius, he and Armand reunite after +- 25-30 years of separation. That’s it. There’s a lot about him that you can certainly infer in the limited page amount where you can read about him, but that’s about it. We especially don’t get to know much about him after he is turned aside from when he got the vampire zoomies at Lestat’s concert and Maharet’s compound, his madness, Marius, his cityscapes, and his reunion with Armand.

Seeing Daniel Molloy be a vampirically amplified version of himself BY himself is, to me, extraordinary. Here, he’s, technically, unconnected to any of the other vampires and is standing on his own two feet. He chose to publish the book with his name on it (which is fucking insane when you think about it), he’s the one choosing to “call” Louis every week to check in on his bestie, he’s the one choosing to comment on some guys headphones before he eats him. In scant minutes we were presented with the vampire Daniel as an individual. This, in many ways, outdoes how he exists as a vampire in the books where he is never truly disconnected from one of two well-known vampires: Armand, and Marius. 

Secondly, we seldom, if ever, get a vampire in live-action film or TV who looks 60+ in mortal years who, by design, is a sexy swaggering sarcastic menace who wears a leather jacket, an AC/DC tee, and cunty sunglasses. I racked my brain trying to find other vampires who look “older” in human years and even asked friends to help me and, ultimately, came to the following list of best examples (but feel free to tell me more): Gary Oldman in Dracula who is made to look creepy before he gets de-aged in order to be “sexy,” Bill Nighy as Viktor in Underworld, who looks great and powerful, but he’s the villain and he’s not technically designed to inspire anything more than loathing, and Viago’s long-lost lover in What We Do in the Shadows, Katherine ( from which we get the fun Viago being a cradle snatcher meme). This is all my opinion, but it’s fantastic to have a man in his 70s with wrinkles and grey hair be turned into a vampire and be framed as desirable and powerful. Personally, I want to see more vampires who are adults and older adults vs consistently seeing teens and people in their early twenties.

That being said, as much as I love Daniel being a man/vampire in his seventies, this fact alone upends one of the major beats of the relationship between him and Armand as written in Queen of the Damned. The part that is irreparably changed has nothing to do with Daniel’s age because that is irrelevant to Armand who, in book canon, wanted Daniel to live a mortal life, much to Daniel’s chagrin. He even tells Daniel, “Don’t you realise that any one of us would give it up for one human lifetime?”

Daniel doesn't believe him but their arguments regarding mortality only have a level of resolution in 1985 when Armand turns a dying Daniel. What changes here is twofold: the first is that Akasha did not wake from her sleep (which tracks with the timeline of the show thus far, as she wakes up because of Lestat’s music and she ruins the world tour). The second is that, presuming that Daniel and Armand had a past in the 70s and 80s, which is very likely, Armand let Daniel go. Armand letting Daniel go is a HUGE change. Yes, part of him likely let Daniel go because he was still involved with Louis whereas in the book he didn’t have a partner at the time. However, presuming that Armand and Daniel’s relationship in the 70s and 80s was as codependent and obsessive as it was in the source material, letting this one mortal boy go was arguably one of the most emotionally difficult things Armand has ever had to do. It changes a whole host of things in their dynamic moving forward. 

This is why the fact that so many are turning on it now after 2x8 is a little baffling to me. I am a pessimist at heart, especially when it comes to things like this because I have been burned time and time again. It’s been a shock to me that so many who were rock solid on this after 2x5 are now panicking. And yet, I understand the concerns. 

For example, according to Louis and later repeated in interviews by Rolin and sort of by Assad, Daniel was turned out of “spite.” Assuming that this is true, it is devastating. In the source lore, Daniel was turned out of love. Armand tells Daniel he’ll turn him “[…]because I am a coward. And I love you too much to let you go.” Except, in the show’s universe, Armand has already let Daniel go once even if it wasn't because Daniel was dying. Then again do we know if the younger Daniel was dying? If he overdosed once or multiple times? No. But at some point, Armand let him go. At some point, Daniel’s memory of whatever time he spent with Armand was erased. Presuming that something like this happened, that act alone was not out of spite.

Further, it is Louis who said Daniel was “burdened out of spite.” Except Monsieur du Lac has a very particular perspective and is currently quite cross with his ex. Those words, if I may borrow from book Armand, “That’s Louis’ language.” Note that while Daniel retorts, “Make it up to me. We’ll do a follow-up book,” this comes after Louis says “I shouldn’t have left you alone with him.” Daniel neither confirms or denies that he was made out of spite. He’s, to some extent, assuaging Louis’ guilt while segueing to try to get something he wants from Louis. We didn’t see Daniel being turned so we can’t be certain where it happened or when it happened or why it happened. 

I know you’re probably reading this and going: but Rolin said they wouldn’t build the Dubai set again! Rolin said we won’t see the turning! Rolin said it was out of spite! Yes, fellow tumblrina, I know. But, like Claudia’s journals, like Louis’ or Armand’s narration of events across both seasons, anyone working on the show would have cause to obfuscate, omit, or lie. After all, was it not Rolin who also said we weren’t getting Rockstar Lestat when we are, in fact, getting Rockstar Lestat? Ah! That, my friends, is an unreliable witness.

Any creator can lie about their work for whatever reason they see fit including marketing or trying to keep spoilers away. To use a recent example, Andrew Garfield consistently and frequently lied that he was not in Spiderman: No Way Home. Oh, there was a set leak picture? No, that wasn’t him it was a double. He kept that party line until the movie came out, regardless if people knew or not. Same thing applies here and it creates doubt. The tricky part of this all is that, because Season 3 is The Vampire Lestat, it’s likely that anything we do see regarding Daniel and Armand will be quite limited. 

Another thing that truly frustrates longtime Devil’s Minion girlies, especially those who have religiously read the Devils Minion chapter (really, it’s the only thing we have to go off of because Anne Rice put Daniel on a shelf and never really took him off it except in vague mentions in other vampires’ stories and, I guess, she wanted us to go fuck ourselves because Daniel is basically a negative footnote in The Vampire Armand) is the implication that Daniel wants to know where the fuck his maker is because he has been abandoned. We keep thinking: Armand would never abandon a newly turned Daniel. I’ve seen plenty of posts and some fics fully assuming that Armand turned Daniel in the penthouse and then left him right then and there. Which tracks only if he were being made out of spite. Except, at this time, we simply do not know that that is the case. Likewise, we do not know that Armand immediately abandoned Daniel. 

Why are we assuming this? Because Louis says he left them alone? He did but, he also told Daniel to get his things because he’d “arrange a car and a plane to take you home”. With Louis’ money and power, he could’ve had Daniel on a plane to JFK in, tops, an hour. If we want to suppose that it was out of spite, then Louis just left Daniel alone with Armand right away? Louis didn’t change his clothes or pack a bag or grab a wallet to go to NOLA? He had his Amex with him at the hotel and he was wearing different clothes, so there is time unaccounted for in Dubai. Then we have to suppose that a newly turned and abandoned Daniel was alone or eating staff in the penthouse despite being expected on a flight that was probably private, because Louis wouldn’t have done it by half measure if he wanted Daniel out of there ASAP. Then we have to consider the amount of time that Louis was supposedly in NOLA. How long would it have taken him to go to NOLA, have his reunion with Lestat, wait out a hurricane, come back and find a fucked up Daniel in that penthouse? We’re still missing time.

I could present you a different scenario. I could say that Armand stalked Daniel back to NY (which would be on brand, but I digress) and turned him there out of spite or not out of spite. That Daniel remembers or doesn’t remember their past together. That Armand possibly stayed with Daniel some time until Daniel, rightfully pissed off for San Francisco or the gaslighting Armand did to Louis or directing the trial or erasing Daniel’s memories or any of the fucked up shit that Armand did in their shared past (there’s a LOT that this gremlin has done that would make Daniel angry), asked Armand to go away. I could even tell you that in Queen of the Damned Daniel and Armand fought, a lot. I could tell you that Daniel left Armand for months at a time when he was pissed off because Armand wouldn’t turn him. I could tell you that after Daniel was turned, things soured between him and Armand dramatically and, per Armand, Daniel left him.

  I can quote Queen of the Damned to state my case:

“Conversations, sparring matches, and downright fights became the rule.”

“Ugly fights, terrible fights, finally, Armand broken down, glassy-eyed with silent rage, then crying softly but uncontrollable as if some lost emotion had been rediscovered which threatened to tear him apart.”

“And the wandering started, the escaping, and Armand did not follow him. Armand would wait each time until Daniel begged to come back. Or until Daniel was beyond calling, until Daniel was on the verge of death itself. And then and only then, Armand would bring him back.”

I can quote The Vampire Armand for you in the parts relevant to Daniel to show you the contentious separation that also reeks of Armand’s self-loathing and his desire to complete his self-fulfilling prophecy even though it’s painful for me:

“…the boy, who had been my faithful mortal companion, and only sometimes an intolerable nuisance…”

“Daniel, though alive and wandering, though civil and gentle, can no more stand my company than I can stand his. Equipped with my powerful blood, he can contend with any who should be foolish enough to interrupt his plans for an evening, a month or a year, but he cannot contend with my continuous company and I cannot contend with his.”

“I pushed his face into the flesh of the first young innocent he had to slaughter for his inevitable thirst, and thereby fell off the pedestal on which he’d placed me in his demented, over imaginative, feverishly poetical and ever exuberant mortal mind.”

“[…]when gaining Daniel as a fledgling, I lost him as a mortal lover and gradually began to let him go.”

“[…] I rejoined the world in a way which I had not done since my fledgling, my one and only fledgling, Daniel Molloy, had left me. My love for Daniel had never been entirely honest, and always viciously possessive, and quite entangled with my own hatred of the world at large, and my confusion in the face of the baffling modern times which had begun to open up to me […] Daniel himself had no use for the world […] Heaping every luxury upon him, I only sickened him with mortal sweets so that finally he turned away from the riches I offered, becoming a vagabond. Mad, roaming the streets in rags, he shut out the world almost to the point of death, and I, weak, muddled, tormented by his beauty, and lusting for the living man and not the vampire he might become, only brought him over to us through the working of the Dark Trick because he would have died otherwise.”

“[…]he loathed me in his heart for having initiated him into Living Death, for having made him in one night an immortal and a regular Killer. As a mortal man, he had no real idea of the price we pay for what we are, and he did not want to learn the truth; he fled from it, in reckless dreams and spiteful wandering.”

The last sentence in the quote above fucking bullshit, by the way, because Daniel actively asked to see Armand kill and Armand told him no but, whatever.

“and so it was as I feared. Making him to be my mate, I made a minion who saw me all the more clearly as a monster. […] There was never any chance, no matter how beautiful the twilight gardens in which we wandered. Our souls were out of tune, our desires crossed and our resentments too common and well watered for the final flowering.”

But for all those quotes, for all the extrapolating, and for all the suppositions, we simply do not know. We weren’t given concrete answers to anything. Which, yes, is frustrating as all fuck. Because, if we read into it at face value, if we follow that this trend would destroy two characters and a core relationship and what it means to them both in the long run, then we have to accept defeat. We have to admit that the writers of this show don’t actually care about this pairing or these characters as individuals. We have to admit that something that we have wanted (and some of have wanted this since Queen of the Damned came out in 1988) is never going to happen. That we, like Louis, have been gaslit and taken advantage of. 

We’d have to reframe all the charged looks, the oddly sexual “yeah,” Armand knowing how to make drinks to Daniel’s exact tastes, Armand de-escalating Louis’ humiliation of Daniel (I know some of you think he was making it worse but, neither the tone of Armand’s voice or his facial expressions read that intention to me, sorry), the overly elaborate courses of food served to Daniel (which, to book readers, is a nod to when Armand ordered everything in a restaurant for Daniel), the brief announcement of a Night Island spinoff, Armand feeling the need to justify himself directly to Daniel in 2x6, putting Assad and Eric/Luke together for press stuff, etc. are all some sick trick. That they either want to make it into enemies to lovers (which it never really was) and forfeit its true meaning or, worse, that it’s all been shipbaiting to keep us on the hook when Devil’s Minion girlies already know that this is the Lestat and Louis show.

I get it. This is not what many of us wanted. We wanted to see the turning. We wanted to see it be about love. We wanted to see Daniel get even a hint of who he and Armand had been to each other in the past, because they definitely had one. We wanted confirmation that, once upon a time, Armand found some of his humanity through a mortal he loved and that, after 30+ years apart, he broke the rule he withheld for nearly 5 centuries because of his love for this boy. We got none of it. All we know is that Armand turned Daniel, that Daniel doesn’t know where his maker is, and that Daniel’s pissed at him. That’s it.

It leaves us, essentially, with nothing. Frankly, it’s more of a nothing than I thought we were going to get. Again, this is the Lestat and Louis show. They are the protagonists and it is their stories (apart and together) that are the A plot. So all that we can do, if we want to see a good version of Devil’s Minion, is wait and hope. Hope that the good writing that has been done in sections of the show holds true to this also. Hope that, given that the plot hole we ALL noticed in 1x2 was explained in 2x8, all of the subtle hints we have been given are actually going to pay off. Hope that this team, that has put a lot of love and care into this show, doesn’t massively fuck over two characters. Hope that someone gets Eric violet contacts in S3 (unless it’s like the theory @cbrownjc has regarding body swapping which would be very interesting---also if you haven't already, follow her, her blog is incredible and has fantastic insights) because if they can give Jacob green ones, there’s no fucking excuse. 

(Yes, this is a nitpick. As an aside, the established vamps do change shades of eye colour, because Louis and Lestat have had at least 2 shades of green and blue respectively in S2, and Armand had 3 shades of amber/brown/reddish orange in 2x8 ALONE. The weird bit with Daniel’s eyes specifically is how dramatic of a colour shade change it is, how quickly the change happens, and that, say it with me kids, NONE OF THE SHADES ARE VIOLET.)

Listen, this hasn’t really had a thesis statement but I’ve ranted enough that it could be an actual term paper. But I want to end this by saying that what gives me hope is that, thus far, the quality of this show, in every aspect, is fantastic. Heck, I get hope in the fact that the Loustat girlies have been DEEP in the trenches for two seasons and it’s getting a little better for them. Louis is where he needs to be at this point of the story and we know that Lestat, the real Lestat, is coming. Goodness knows, Sam’s gonna keep fighting to make sure it is the real Lestat, warts and all, even with the changes that most people didn’t like. So, let’s hope. Let’s hope that the showrunner/head writer is, yet again, being a massive troll. Let’s hope that the writing team actually understood what the point of Devil’s Minion was and where its beauty lay and that they don’t diminish it to be something entirely foreign. Let’s hope that the massive holes, the missing time, missing scenes, all equate to a net positive. Let’s not give up yet.

TL;DR Don’t be fatalistic about how S2 ended and what it means for Devil’s Minion, because there’s way too much that is missing to conclusively write it off at this time.

[ca-suffit]

This antiblack campaign the fandom just tried to kick up again (to avoid talking about the real issue with Nalyra) reveals how powerless they're starting to truly feel now.

They don't have many users left to vilify so they're putting people on blocklists who are brand new (I was here 3 days lol) or not even really in the fandom. That looks goofy and desperate but then it keeps going. DMing strangers to say "the truth" isn't about racism and "talk to me if you really want to know about anything." Everyone's reblogging those blocklist posts now and adding large commentary suddenly, when before they often fully sat it out. They're doing this in a group to look like they have larger numbers and are "revealing" there's a "big secret bullying problem"....except nobody believes them. Because there's plenty of accounts who are out here saying this shit straight to their faces and they pretend we all don't exist. All of this group has to manufacture drama solely because they just don't want to talk about harmful shit they actually do.

Neil has to make an antiblack statement she made suddenly be about antisemitism towards her, Nalyra's antiblackness is "actually" fans upset about shipping and "what's REALLY coming" in S2, showmey0urfangs is always happy to show up with her dumb screencaps and villain monologue nobody asked for so she can make her everlasting outrage about popular black fics and "feminized" Louis sound deeper than it is, Virginia suddenly cries about IRL issues and wants to leave the fandom because she wants to distract from the Nalyra receipts, Keybearer accused another black fan of trolling people and getting accounts suspended on twitter in 2023 when a Marius fan eventually confessed to it and his eternal shame for that means now every black fan except him is a bully (despite nobody talking about this ever anymore except him), chicalepidopterare mocks a black fan for blocking her "because I thought we were supposed to talk about racism" and then poorly tries to frame any retaliation against her to look like bullying ("see, they're misogynistic, they're bullying my art, they're mean for disliking these ships!").

To quote Claudia here, "You must think me an idiot." And the big cherry on top is also how none of these losers can stand to hear any mention of race....in the fandom of the show that nonstop talks about race. They're using very basic (and meant in a gentle, loving way) teasing of Jacob as proof that black fans are racist against Jacob too, black fans hate Jacob's white wife. People hate Lestat for being white too (what?). They can write crap meta all day about Lestat letting Louis "rape" him and only white victims (Lestat) being real victims to the evil black and brown "true" manipulators (Claudia, Louis, Armand) but gentle teasing from black fans about Jacob's haircut is the real racism. Okay lol. Care to tell us again why you think Delainey's Claudia looks "less innocent" now then? This 3D chess you think you're playing isn't playing how you think for anyone else.

I also notice that afaik there's not a single black American in this group. Idek if there's many Americans of any kind in the group. It's been a lot of shaming to black Americans specifically though, again from the show that's focused on black Americans....by people who aren't black Americans.

"There's people pretending to be black so it's okay to keep hating this whole group." It's not enough you already nonstop shit on black fans as it is, now you have to try to angle it as if none of this could be authentic in the first place. Vile behavior. For what? Tumblr isn't even a platform that pays you for whatever clout you have, so really what is the point here. In a small ass fandom on top of it. Some of you have pretty grown kids too, this is extra sad. It makes all the jumping through hoops to coddle Lestat's behavior make sense though, if you're the same kind of person yourself. Anyway, maybe you don't actually know everything because race exists in the real world beyond how Anne Rice wrote about it in her useless books! You make books written by a racist white woman your whole personality and guess what your outlook on life is going to be.

It's been really pathetic to especially watch any fans of color move more to this extreme bullying side as time has gone on. It will never pay off to promote white fandom ideals. These accounts you're trying to cuddle up to aren't even that big. The fandom outside of the tags actually has much more popular posts, supporters, and fics...although that's also half of what this all is actually about, fic numbers. Again, these are grown adults obsessing over this. We could have a whole different fandom if this group didn't exist and keep wanting to gatekeep everything and be the only people who get praise about anything.

It's no surprise that people who worship Anne Rice have major ego problems themselves. It's been fucked up to deal with but the good thing now is that big egos have big collapses eventually and that's what we're starting to see happening now. People are sick of you and able to see through your basic ass manipulation techniques. People just want to have a fandom, they're not here to worship fans who want to be dictators. Nobody is here for your fragility, losers.

[nalyra-dreaming]

Quick comment - Rollins wasn’t talking about not seeing it in episode 8, he meant at all. He speaks about how they don’t want to rebuild the Dubai set again (in another interview). He did however expand a little on it, basically saying it’s not impossible but honestly that doesn’t make me feel better. Because it implies that so far that scene is not narratively important to their plan, which carries unfortunate implications.

I found Rollins’ vibe strange overall. He seems surprised over the level of investment in DM here (and back at ATX) to me, like he seems eager to reassure fans now and almost a bit defensive about it. Makes me worried about how little had been planned about this - or that he realizes that fans might be/get a bit disappointed over certain decisions. I say this as someone who was not expecting a past DM (would like it though) so my expectations weren’t high, but off-screening everything…. Not only the turning, but the before and immediate aftermath… and the time skip :/

I like the theory of Louis planning to turn Daniel for Armand, but I can’t believe that after S02E05 Louis wouldn’t tell Daniel if there was more memories and more to his relationship to Armand. Like I can’t buy that, it would not be a good look for Louis. And sure Louis is no saint (no one is) but he seemed to feel bad about what happened to young Daniel and also appreciative of Daniel finally helping him realizing all (in ep 5 and 8). So no I can’t see Louis choosing to keep that kind of fact from Daniel. Also, Louis comments about the surprise seemed to me to refer to the food. Just in how he expresses himself when I rewatched the scene. Doesn’t have to be, but I think it’s important to account for that it might just be that.

Thanks for hearing you out, reading your blog is honestly making me feel a little better about it all

*hugs* Glad it helps? :/

Okay so I shared the insider earlier where it is hinted at more wrt Louis and Daniel, and… it got me thinking with you saying Louis would have told him - because… would he?

How much does Louis remember at this point? How much will come back still?

I DO think the memories will come back. But I do NOT think we have had the full picture yet. And I don’t think ghe characters have that either.

As per Rolin… I think he always seems strange when he is trying not to spill too much. All those episode insiders… the way he wrote the OST inlet text and the way he did write the press release with the nod to fandom. ;)) He’s a special guy and I think we are very lucky to have him. But interpreting him might be… difficult ^^

[devilsminion-armandaniel]

apologies if you've been asked this already, but im curious what your hopes are for dm in the show (in terms of happened in the past/will happen in the future/both/secret fourth option(?) and what you think is most likely to actually happen, if those arent the same thing

(it turned into a pretty long post when I had it all typed out, sorry.) I think my hopes are pretty much in line with what I expect the show to do. I definitely think we're getting Past Devil's Minion. it's been hinted at in promo too much for us not to see Luke again. Luke did a lot of promo to begin with for a one episode character, especially if we wouldn't see him again for the rest of the series. Compared to Madeline who was in more episodes. Now, you could argue Luke is better know, but I don't think Luke is anywhere near a household name. We have seen all three them of them talk about Young Daniel. Eric wants to see Luke do a scene with his ex wife/ex-wives, Assad wants a threesome scene where Daniel and Luke merge into each other. And Luke would like it if Alice was Armand. I think if Young Daniel was a closed chapter the actors would be discouraged from talking about it, as to not raise fandom expectations the show had zero plans on filling. Not to mention we had Vampire Sam at the big opening of the season 2 and we had Luke there as well. No other TdV actor was there, only the 'big' characters and actors. And where we haven't seen much of Vampire Sam yet, we will be seeing him again in S3. So, I think Luke being there and pairing him up with Assad for promo was a deliberate choice. There are some things in the show itself that also make me more sure that Young Daniel will return. We know old Daniel has a faulty memory and that he is still missing pieces. And that he also doesn't remember everything properly from how thinks it went. His own auto-biography isn't a correct story, as highlighted by Louis being the stranger he once met. Memory is the monster. Daniel feeling freer in Paris to hold 'Alice' hands, Armand triggering Daniel's memories. Raglan knowing Armand wouldn't harm Daniel. Armand caring about Daniel enough to stop Louis from hurting him, from crossing lines, offering comfort and apologies. None of that makes a lot of sense if they weren't something at some point in the past. Especially because Jacob said in an interview that after San Francisco Armand and Louis kind of went their own way, where they didn't always check up on each other. Armand, according to Daniel, would disappear for long stretches of time in the book, which could easily be during the chase. Armand going from Daniel to Louis and back. We also don't really know much about Louis' past and if Armand was always there. Nor do we know when Armand discovered he could walk in the sun. We have a good 50 years of 'nothing' that we still need to see. We still have to learn when and why Louis believed Lestat was dead and murdered by him and Claudia. Or when Louis found out Claudia hated him. And when he forgot about that. Why did Louis stop killing in 2000. What happened that made him want to change. Who did he kill? If we still have to get all that knowledge I have to assume, there is knowledge in those years that we also need about Armand, Lestat and Daniel. So, I guess, I always simply look at the book as being slightly altered but not much. Past DM is still the QoTD chapter bare the turning which is now their separation. And instead of Daniel going mad and being with Marius, the show aged him, gave him wives and daughters. The present is the show's version of the Prince Lestat trilogy. When they reunite. Anne never wrote those scenes out, so the show has a lot of freedom to decide how to go about this. And I think with this set up, Devil's Minion can be the best couple on tv in a very long time. With all the drama, love, lust, longing, fighting, toxicity and warmth, that only they can have. With the whirlwind rollarcoaster romance and the heartbreaking separation of the past, to the challenging, yearned for, longed for, painful, healing and hopeful reunion. I'm not psychic though, but i do really hope this is the direction they are going in, it's the one I would pick and I think it's the one that will have the highest success rate storywise.

[saintarmand]

8, 17, 21 & 22 for the iwtv ask thingy! 🤍

8. Who's your favorite actor?

jacob anderson. come on now. they're all great but he is ethereal. second place assad zaman

17. Have you read or watched anything because it was referenced in the show?

oh just a few things

love's coming of age by edward carpenter

chéri by colette

nausea by jean-paul sartre (louis was reading this in ep6 when lestat and claudia are playing chess while talking about nicki. you can't see the full cover but i went detective mode and figured it out)

madame bovary by gustave flaubert

a moveable feast by ernest hemingway (s2 first look "esurient hearts beating as one, the rumbling beast of the moveable feast")

iolanta (tchaikovsky opera)

don pasquale (donizetti opera)

pelléas et mélisande (debussy opera)

a doll's house (henrik ibsen play)

a streetcar named desire (tennessee williams play) + the movie with marlon brando

i didnt read the full text but i did hunt down and read parts of "de masticatione mortuorum, the chewing dead" that claudia mentions, full title "dissertatio historico-philosophica de masticatione mortuorum" by philip rohr (1679) (view the original manuscript here + english translation here)

i havent finished all of emily dickinson's poems yet but im getting there! (some of these i had read before ofc but im reading them all in order now)

ive also previously watched nosferatu (and rewatched it for iwtv) and the trimph of the will (NOT rewatching 💀 that was for a film history class) and ive read dante's inferno which louis mentions ("if i was to join dante's wood of the self-murdered...") and i highly recommend it!!! absolute fav

there's also stuff that wasn't directly referenced in the show but the fandom has drawn parallels to, that i've read and watched for that reason.

anne carson's an oresteia (to better understand all the agamemnon iphigenia clytemnestra electra comparisons people make)

giovanni's room by james baldwin

rebecca (1940 film)

theres def more movies but i cant remember lol

and theres some nonfiction books i've yet to finish bc im slow at nonfiction

the vampire: a casebook by alan dundes (cited by writers as s2 inspo! about irl vampire folklore)

black new orleans 1860-1880 by john w. blassingame for historical context

the theatre of fear and horror by mel gordon, on the grand guignol aka the inspiration for theatre des vampires (i did finish this one except for the summaries of all the plays, i decided to skip that there's so many. very engaging read and gives a lot of insight into the some of the bts stuff we've seen about the theatre)

louis's favorite movies from the tale of the the body thief!

la belle et la bête (1946)

the company of wolves (1984)

the dead (1987)

i may be forgetting some stuff. there's also so much more on my list that i mean to get to. a prayer for owen meany by john irving, of "memory is a monster" quote fame is locked and loaded for example

if anyone's interested to hear my thoughts on any of these feel free to ask i would love to talk about it!!!

all this and i've still only read the first 6 of the actual vampire chronicles. and im still procrastinating starting merrick

21. What was your favorite monologue of season one?

HMM the obvious one is louis's confession. ive watched the whole sequence from the funeral to the end of the episode a truly unhealthy number of times. also claudia's coffin monologue

22. Who's your favorite character? Why?

LOUIS. probably because i relate to him so much. instant connection. tricked into loving myself. also like hes literally louis how could i not love him do i need to even explain this

when i started reading the books i didnt care for book louis that much lol but i did become an armand stan. possibly bc i also relate to him im selfish like that i guess. also just his whole backstory and the way it informs everything he does is so fascinating to me. ppl say hes incomprehensible and hes literally not. everything he does makes sense when you consider his life experiences

iwtv ask game

[cbrownjc]

loumand shippers are mostly brown and black people who are first and foremost happy to see and interracial gay relationship without a white in it.

they will never turn on loumand or assad because for them it's less about the show and more about the representation.

they're also the smallest group in the fandom when you think of the three main ships. loustat, loumand, dm.

Hey Anon,

I mean, I kinda don't want to assume. I'm sure there are some white fans who ship Armand and Louis too. But I admit I do feel like many who do are as you say, people are drawn to a non-white interracial couple.

And I don't have a problem with that. I fully understand that. Hell, it's a rare thing to see in any medium. And if they are fine with accepting that Armand isn't going to morph into some noble good guy and will be doing some problematic things, just like other characters in this story, that's fine too. Again I and no one has ever asked them to stop shipping Armand and Louis because of the things Armand will do. Or turn on the ship.

The actors however no, I'm not confident about that. And not just because of what some of them are saying about Sam. But because of what I'm hearing is being said about Jacob too.

Apparently, some people have called Jacob a sell-out in regard to this stuff, particularly it seems because he's friends and close with Sam. Jacob, who went through some of the most racist backlashes in almost any fandom due to his casting, is being called this and having people question why he is so close with and hangs out with Sam so much instead of Assad.

So forgive me but no, at the moment I have little faith Assad is going to escape some of this when even Jacob hasn't, apparently.

And lord forbid either one of them say anything nice about Sam, or that their characters both actually love Lestat. Because, you know, as far as canon goes, Louis and Armand both do love Lestat too. Deeply.

This does not negate the love and understanding Armand and Louis have for each other, of course. But that is just a nuance here that I feel is going to go over a lot of these people's heads. It seems to whenever many of us in fandom have tried to explain it before now.

I don't usually mind shipper back and forths. I've engaged in my own in different fandoms, as anyone who goes through my Tumblr archives can see. I don't really do it for IWTV and VC fandom simply because I'm so drawn to the poly nature of Rice's vampires than I am for any sort of monogamous shipping aspect or idea. I am deeply looking forward to seeing the combinations of everything that's coming in S2.

But I am not looking forward to the actors being attacked or having disparaging things said about them just because Jacob or Assad aren't hanging out with each other more like some think they should, or because they both actually like Sam, or will at some point talk about how each of the characters they play love Sam's character and being called sell-outs for that, or anything else.

Because, again, nothing I'm seeing right now wrt all of this is giving me pause to not expect it to happen. Nothing at all.

And I speak from experience when I say . . . the actors do see or hear this personal stuff that's said about them. You might think they don't, especially if they have limited or no social media. But they still hear about it, even if just through a second hand. For sure.

[bluedalahorse]

Two options for the character breakdown game: Sara (because you haven't done her yet, and we can't leave her out) and Claudia

You know what? I’m going to do both.

Claudia

How I feel about this character: TV CLAUDIA IS THE ABSOLUTE GREATEST. I’ll be honest, book!Claudia kind of weirded me out conceptually, especially the part where she and Louis are kind of in love but she still looked like a little kid? I also read Interview with the Vampire at the age when I was just… not great at loving female characters, and when I sort of wanted to ship mlm ships exclusively. But show Claudia is incredible. I mean, there’s the part where she’s extremely badass, and one of her first acts as a vampire is to just. Straight up eat a cop. But I love that we start from that badass, highly emotional teenage space but then go deeper with her, and I love how unapologetically herself she is. I love that she dreams about the idea of finding vampire community. I love that she stands up for herself. I love that she and Lestat are so alike and they fight about it. I love that she refuses to let her truth be erased by the way she records everything in her diary. Claudia deserves the world and I cannot say that enough.

All the people I ship romantically with this character: CLAUDELEINE OBVIOUSLY. They deserved more happiness together than they got.

My non-romantic OTP for this character: If there were a universe where Claudia and Daniel could have existed at the same time and become friends, they would have been unstoppable, and they would have adored one another, and everyone else would have suffered for it. Hilariously.

My unpopular opinion about this character: Occasionally I see book only fans argue that the tragedy of Claudia is ruined when she’s turned as a teenager rather than a little kid. This is something I very much disagree with. Teens are just as tragic as little kids, first of all, but people do have a weird bias against teenagers and actually feeling for teenagers, and I wish they wouldn’t. Also, since Claudia looks like someone in between childhood and adulthood, the age that people in-universe read her as is like… entirely determined by what they want to read her as to control her. Sometimes people infantilize her and make her play Baby Lu. Sometimes they subject her to very adult forms of abuse. Claudia is still tragic no matter what, okay?

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: I wish she and Madeleine could have lived in that cute cottage forever. (Gosh if only Armand hadn’t been stuck behind the baby gate…)

Sara

How I feel about this character: MY WONDERFUL DAUGHTER WHO HAS NEVER DONE ANYTHING WRONG IN HER LIFE. But, while we’re talking about teenage girls, she’s one of the best teenage girls ever written on TV, ever. Sara reached out through the screen and grabbed me by the heart. Her care for others, her willingness to look past the obvious of a situation, her curiosity about who she is and what she values… when she said “no one likes me when I’m me” my sixteen year old self felt seen. I am consistently floored that all my favorite YouTubers who talk about autism and ADHD rep in television have weirdly never talked about her. I almost avoided joining YR tumblr fandom because the abundance of “Sara is on thin ice” posts I saw while lurking made me hesitant and disappointed. Most of my fandom hiatuses were caused in part by people being shitty about her. Sara has one of the best damn arcs in Young Royals, hands down.

All the people I ship romantically with this character: Well, obviously August, controversial as that opinion is. I think their relationship ended up in the right place by the finale, but I can’t resist their chemistry along the way. And as I was saying to @heliza24 earlier, there’s just something about characters who perceive themselves as unlovable finding love with one another. Now, I want to have other Sara ships, but… I don’t know if I do, really? I might read Sara as a little arospec, like gray aro or something, and it actually means a lot to me that she chooses friends and family over romance in the end. But if you get back to me a few months from now maybe I’ll feel differently, who knows.

My non-romantic OTP for this character: potentially weird turn but like, Wilhelm? Specifically in Heart and Homeland where they end up in a kind of disability solidarity queerplatonic partnership. I don’t know if I feel that as much in canon. As far as canon goes, Felice first and Simon second.

My unpopular opinion about this character: I’m going to make this an extension of my August Unpopular Opinion on my August post, because I’m vibrating on a higher sargust frequency than usual this week due to anxiety about travel and I kinda just want to talk about sargust because it’s a comfort pairing. And that is… Sara’s feelings for August are something we can enjoy fannishly, too. They are something we can write fic about and come up with AUs for and make gifsets and fanmixes of. The AU stuff especially—I feel like sargust still could have happened in an alternate universe, or in a universe where Simon didn’t end up at Hillerska, or whatever else. Sara and August have a relationship in their own right and while they are a superb foil to wilmon they are not only a foil to wilmon. There is a level of Weird Teen Girl Horniness represented onscreen in the portrayal of Sara’s crush on August that just feels like, refreshing and authentic. The yearning with the picture of him in 1.5, like girl his hair is terrible in that picture and yet you are there for it! The grinding in 2.2! The dumb little arm punch in 2.3 before they just give up and make out! Seeing a lot of people who’d previously said only negative things about Sara suddenly decide they like her after season 3 when she dumped August was… not as comforting as I’d hoped it would be. Like again, to be clear, I do think their relationship ended in the right place and I want Sara away from him, obligatory “August did terrible things that I do not condone” disclaimer that I’m very bored of typing by now etc etc, I get why this is not everyone’s cup of tea, and so on and so forth. But I just… like them together, okay. And I wonder about all the other people who liked them together who ended up leaving the fandom because there wasn’t as much of a place to express that.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: Sara’s arc is pretty perfect. I have one thing I maybe wanted to say about S3 but I’ll hold back for now. EDIT: I wanted her and Wilhelm to have more interaction in season 3. What was the lack of that about?

One thing’s for sure, after typing all that I really want Sara and Claudia to be friends, and to be able to play with horses together.

[coochiebandanna]

🔥 15, 17

15. that one thing you see in fanart all the time

Kinda said this in the last ask but people white washing either Louis or Armand but especially Louis. In other fandoms I’ve been in, whenever someone white washed a character that artist got dragged through mud by the rest of the fandom. Obviously I don’t condone harassment or dog pilling but people were very firm with stuff like that because it made no sense for someone to understand almost everything else pertaining to art except how to color a poc, or even just COLOR PICK from them. And with this series, whitewashing feels extra slimy because Louis’ race is very integral to the plot and to his relationship with Lestat.

But in this fandom I’ve seen..SOOO much art of Louis looking whiter than a sheet and everyone is just like “WOW 😍😍 Louis looks so good! reblog reblog reblog” and I’m just sitting there like 😐😐😐😐 hello??? It takes so much strength inside of me to not jump on some of these artists and ask them why do they make Louis so white and I’m pretty sure that the one artist who I again, will not name but you know exactly who I’m talking about, was just white washing him on purpose to get a rise out of people.

It kills me.

17. there should be more of this type of fic/art

I think there should be more unhinged art lol. I love the sexy nsfw stuff and I even produce that sometimes but I think more artists, including myself, should start doing more unhinged shit. Blood, gore, ugliness, decay. More art about losing your mind, more art about complete nonsense. Art about a frog tearing the wings off a raven and sewing them into its own flesh so that it could fly. Stuff like that idk 💀💀 I like new shit that inspires me and i have seen alot as of late but I’d like to see more.

[thelioncourts]

themasterletters has just finished one of the most spectacular stories I have ever had the luck of reading in a fandom. I could talk endlessly about going into GtL with such trepidation (borderline hate-reading it at the beginning times because I was like 'who is cheating on Louis 😭 I hate lestat and armand both so much') and leaving both GtL/RiL utterly blown away by how naturally everything fell, how seamlessly it fit, how beautifully every thread of plot was tied off, how gorgeous the storytelling consistently was, how much it made me fall in love with loumand in ways I didn't even know possible, how it's the one time I don't look at lesmand with the worst face, how talented TML is, etc. etc. what a feat of writing, especially in such a short time.

we are so lucky. I am so in awe.

[captain-noir]

There’s a subset of IWTV fans who take everything the writers say or do in bad faith. If this program is causing you so much distress, then leave the fandom. They want the show cancelled even though Jacob has talked about how much he loves working on it. I just don’t get it.

oh god what now? its always something new with these weirdos. anyway they can stay mad because the writers have on three separate occassions told that subset of viewers and the book purist to kick rocks and change the channel. i commend rolin and hannah and co. for what they've crafted. i applaud them for ep 5 for going full horror and gothic. the critical acclaim, ratings and viewerships are all reflective of the fact their vision was well received. all the praise is well-deserved. those 'fans' are not critiquing anything - thats the lie they like to peddle in order to justify their harrassment of the creatives and fans alike. they're just mad the show isnt what they want or expected it to be and that the creatives arent bowing to their childish demands. like what the actual fuck do they want? yeah louis was abused we all saw it happen daniel literally spelled out in the text so really what the actual fuck are they moaning about? that louis isnt the perfect victim? that he still chooses to love and forgive and stay with his abuser? that lestat is a co-lead? that lestat is the protag of the vc? are you mad that dracula is about dracula? be fucking for real. anyway im eagerly awaiting all the horrors to come. i hope we get to witness armand in his frankenstein era and i hope louis kisses him with tongue after the fact. i hope we get to see the extended version of the murder scene really spend time eyeballing louis as he chokes out his daughtersister and for their mutual resentment to eat away at their bond now that they cant scapegoat lestat. i hope s2 and beyond are so horrific that in years to come episode 5 will be looked upon with much fondness. i can only hope that by the end of s2 they will have fucked off and left us the deranged gothic girlies to inherit the show.

[ca-suffit]

In response to this (context post)

here's how the fandom gets racist (post S2 finale edition) when it speaks about armand and lestat (or loumand and loustat). user cosmicjoke (nalyra's "reverse racism is real" friend) on June 30, 2024

and here's other examples of virginia and nalyra talking recently in ways that make sure to center lestat in everything and themselves as "victims" for defending his character (never saw ur names on any "fandom PSAs" but ok).

the full context of the "loumand in paris" quote and more

the thing is. the show has *not* centered lestat in the loumand relationship from armand's side of it tho. fucking actually. show fans do *not* have any context for this. so it's rly fucking weird to push this attitude that everything we saw about loustat was a lie. disregard that entire thing bcuz louis is crazy and a liar, armand is prbly mind controlling him fully anyway, it's all the black and brown characters faults. also their relationship sucks and everything u see there is real and BAD!!! armand's abuse is real!! lestat's isn't (nevermind the show has confirmed that within canon, we still have S3 to explain it away)!! we've been so bullied for so long bcuz we're only trying to tell the truth and black fans especially are soooOooo mean to us!!!!!!

it's not about "the books." it's about ppl pushing racist agendas and trying to look as innocent as possible doing it. it's about erasing everything to do with black and brown characters and relationships to serve only the white guy and whatever he does.

I do not understand why anyone speaks to these ppl and anyone associated with them. they are the sole reason this fandom has all of the racial issues it does. this is the whole reason I'm here. yet ppl come to me and tell me I'm the problem and I'm obsessive and deranged and whatever else. if more of u stopped positively interacting with and defending racist shit and/or spoke up about it as much as it occurs, it wouldn't have such a hold here! but it's easier for most (white) fans to just never say shit and any fans of color to just slowly leave over time and the cycle continues forever. all that's left is this poisonous shit, still infecting more and more fans bcuz it's the most prominent thing in the tags.

[nalyra-dreaming]

the writers will still make episodes based on Anne's books, keeping in mind Anne's fans. Readers' theories are always more informed and have more merit if the talk is about adaptations / Okay, I have to respond to this because this is a take that always irks me in any fandom.

The arrogance and condescension of thinking that fans who know the source material are superior is weird, especially in this case because as book readers we are just as in the dark as the fans who have only watched the show since the story will end up being very different from the book, just like season 1 deviates a lot from how things happen in the book (I'm not gonna bother listing all the deviations in the storyline because I'm sure we all know them)

Yes, the writers are following the major story beats but it's not a one-for-one retelling specifically because they are keeping the book fans in mind and they want the show to still be surprising and fresh for those of us who already know the story. This is something Rolin has emphasized so many times.

And this idea that we have not seen the real Lestat yet sounds a bit like wishful thinking and a refusal to accept the things he does in the show. It also directly contradicts everything Rolin has repeatedly said, namely that the Lestat on the show is the more nuanced version and he incorporates a lot of the aspects of how he is in the following books, not just IWTV.

I'm sure there will be many things shown under a different lens in season 2 but saying that they will completely erase or invalidate both Louis and Claudia's version of events makes you sound just as delusional as the people hoping Armand will be a wholesome little angel who will have a cute romance with Louis.

Until season 2 comes out, all these fan theories are just speculation. None of us have the ultimate truth of it and no one take is any more valid than another.

I just updated my PSA / pinned post. Please be polite.

I never said everything will be erased, and while the more nuanced version is true it has also been said repeatedly that we will only get the actual Lestat POV later.

Sam has repeatedly said how he would go no, that’s a lie, that didn’t happen while filming - to which Jacob would get real icy because he needed to believe… there’s an interview with this, look it up.

I never said one was more valid to each other. But people - and you - come into my inbox… not the other way round.

Calling me delusional while going on big rants… LOL nonny.

*Armand voice* - Look in the mirror.

Also, again. Be polite. Or get blocked.

[i-want-my-iwtv]

Hello! I'm hoping you are well. I just want to say I love your blunt/possitive posts about fiction not being reality, personal responsibility, authors' responsibility if it even applies...just all of it. Really, major kudos to you for being so blunt!

Aw thank you! Yes, I am doing well. Hope you’re doing well, too. I took a decent break from tumblr, and now I’m getting back into the swing of things, there are fanworks to reblog here

(I’m sorry that this response got kind of long, there are things in here I’ve expressed before, and some I may not have, or haven’t mentioned in awhile, and I kind of want to have these things out there for ppl to see where I’m coming from.)

Your message really means a lot, bc I feel like, if I have any responsibility to the fandom as a somewhat popular blog, that I have to stand up for shippers and creators of fanworks. Fanworks are the lifeblood of the fandom, both for the creators and the consumers. Fanworks are made for free (or on commission) by smaller creators who need the encouragement more. Being smaller and more accessible, they’re also easy & more responsive targets for harassment than the published creators :-P

And so when you see it from that perspective, you can understand that when I reblog those fiction =/= reality, pro-shipping, and anti anti posts, it’s coming from a place of good intention. I identify with those easy targets who are criticized for their creation/consumption of published works and fanworks. I was bullied for pretty superficial reasons in my formative years, not an unusual amount/degree of bullying, but it hurt. “Oh, but words can’t hurt you!”

And this part of the story is my own attachment to canon (and, later, fandom), before I was even aware of others. Do we sever our attachment to something bc smne else says that their connection to it is more valid? I feel like fandom is limitless, it’s big enough for all of us.

Media/Fiction was an escape from reality for me. It was a place I could find inspiration, could see characters beaten down (by antagonists and/or their own faults) and rise up again and again, in so many variations! Even the same plot points can yield different emotions when told in different ways, and/or involving different characters. Characters refusing to lay down and submit to their obstacles/antagonists was inspiring and helped me rebuild the self-confidence the bullies had crushed. 

So that was my story, as valid as any. I love stories of how ppl got into VC (or any fandoms/media really!), and there are so many. I don’t think that any reason is more valid than any other. 

There are those who saw themselves reflected in the fact that there are queer/LGBT+ characters, that they existed and had depth and could love and be loved in return. 

Someone told me that they shared a love of history with their father, especially of Rome. The father passed away when the person was young, and so they loved the historical explorations in canon, it seemed to bring them closer to that lost parent. In fact, the act of pointing out historical inaccuracies in canon was enjoyable to this person.

There are those who passionately adore Armand, for all his beauty, strength, and sass, the fact that he is a survivor of so much tragedy. “We must be beautiful, powerful, and without regret.”

There are those who love the quiet and dignified manner of Louis and how he burns everything down handles situations. 

There are those who live for the ~purple prose~ and ~wealth porn~, in the loving descriptions of luxury, the declarations of love and 3 pages of describing how pretty a character is.

… etc. etc.

^And fanworks based on the media consumed may relate to the fans’ reasons for getting into that fandom in the first place. I like to think my memes and fanfic show the same refusal to quit that I valued so much in the characters when I read canon. I would think that other writers/artists/etc. would say smtg similar, that their fanworks are their way of engaging with canon, whether it’s to have more of what they enjoy about it, fix and/or explore a character/ship/situation, or take the characters into different situations (like AU) and see how they might fare within changed parameters. Ppl analyze canon and critique it, comparing it to other fiction/non-fiction to lay out their ideas. Ppl might want to dress like the characters and act like them in cosplay! So many ways to engage with canon. And then you have comments on works and works inspired by fanworks and that’s p. much the definition of fandom, to my mind.

HOWEVER.

In my zeal for reblogging posts (and writing my own) about defending shippers and creators/consumers of published media and fanworks, I can be too blunt, and unintentionally injure others. I trust ppl to inform me privately if a post goes over the line in that regard, and I have responded by editing/deleting posts. This blog isn’t sacred, editing/deleting a post is not a sign of weakness, but of curating it to better serve my needs and those who come to it for whatever reason. 

Bc my blog really is at its core about entertainment and encouragement/sharing of fanworks.

It’s hard for me to sit in silence about attacks on shippers and creators/consumers of published media and fanworkswhen I feel like if I don’t speak up, silence is tacit agreement when ppl state, “Don’t draw/write/talk about X bc it is harmful to Y” I understand that some ppl do have real triggers and some fictional characters/ships are painful to them, but on the other hand, is it fair to restrict everyone else who wants to explore those characters/ships? 

We have to find ways to coexist, and that may mean everyone taking on some responsibility for their fandom experience and extending respect towards others. Someone asked me to tag a certain ship, and now I do, so that they can block it. I can’t tag every possible thing, but within reason, I will add tags on request.

I don’t believe in censorship when it comes to fiction, for many reasons, there are blogs out there who are much more eloquent than I am in their defense of it. I don’t have their rhetoric. But I feel like I need to defend those who are easy targets for bullying (as I had been).

^^^With all that said, I think it would be best for me to refrain from too much of this type of posting so as not to trample others. Instead, I want to focus on encouraging fanworks, reblogging posts about writing/art and advice about that.  

(If you are looking for more blogs that defend fanfiction, I can recommend more to you privately, or in a separate post.) 

[breanne-says-boo]

Anne Rice Facebook livestream breakdown

Today, Anne Rice had two livestreams on Facebook, the first as a general Q&A and the second specifically related to the Vampire Chronicles television show. Part way through the second livestream, the video glitched and I missed a minute or two, but overall this is what I had.

I’ve divided the information into 3 sections and highlighted the most important or interesting things she mentioned in my opinion):

Anne Herself

Anne wants to assure fans she is the ONLY one who answers and sees emails sent by fans. She tries hard to view all of them

She also reassures that shes been trying to read as many comments given on Facebook as possible and to consider them

In her writing process, she can’t do all-nighters anymore; her books about Christ were the last time she really did this

She loves how people in New Orleans love life and celebrate it. She misses New Orleans terribly. She notes, “Lifestyles [down there] are inherited and have a beauty”

She reads more non-fiction than fiction and constantly takes notes from them, especially about archeology (which she loves: “It’s like eating ice cream for me! I love it so much”)

She says she no longer identifies as a Christian, but still has a love for Jesus and what he has done for her, such as helping her solve problems and beyond that

She has some new announcement coming soon not concerning the vampires

She feels this is the age of the nerd where readers’ opinions are most important. Says she has always taken us the readers seriously and wants us to feel appreciated. She appreciates our power and what we have done for the series.

The Books and The Characters

*spoiler* There is NO certainty Mona and Quinn are dead. This is just what Lestat believes.

She went through the pronunciations of characters’ names

Marius is pronounced like Marius in Les Miserables

Mekare is May-care-ee, but thinks other pronunciations are beautiful too

(And I think as a fandom we’ve come to agreements on everyone else’s names. She went by the names fast!)

Anne says she sums up the story of the chronicles as “how badly Lestat wants to be the hero of his own life”

She appreciates fans pointing out mistakes in her writing since she wants to be as accurate as possible, especially when it comes to history/time periods

When asked about the taste of blood/how it functions, Anne says blood is like every kind of drug- it’s sex, alcohol, drugs, everything

She writes a TON of notes since she occasionally forgets when/how certain things are mentioned, such as how the Savage Garden was introduced in the novel (which she no knows as something that occurred during Our Conversation with Nicolas and Lestat)

The name “Talamasca” came from a book on old witchcraft she found

Lestat’s name was a “blunder” rather than a “eureka” moment. His name was NOT based on her husband Stan intentionally. She was trying to look up old french names.

The transformation process of human to vampire (after getting the Dark Gift) is a little slower than how the IWTV film portrayed, but close in Anne’s mind (she truly appreciated how the film went above to stay close to her own visions and her work)

During his time with Louis and Claudia, Lestat attempted to give answers that would “keep them alive” rather than actual answers, knowing that he couldn’t reveal what he knew due to what Marius had told him (essentially, not just answers that he thought would satisfy them but that he thought would carry them on by themselves...which worked in my opinion)

There were several questions about Gabrielle and Becket commented about how Gabrielle is a fan favorite before he introduced the questions:

Anne says Gabrielle is cold, but admits that she loves Lestat yet at the same time doesn’t need him.

She does not see Gabrielle as autistic (she laughed at this question which really irked me :/ )

She will not write about a memoir from Gabrielle’s point of view since she wants Lestat to stay the focus of “the tribe” and she’s done with writing those sort of side books.

Lestat’s main concern right now is “keeping the tribe together”

She wants to continue with exploring some of the newer characters, Fareed and Seth were mentioned as a part of this.

Anne has an “ambivalence” towards Louis and she loves him since he represents an old part of her, but this is also the same reason she has trouble going back and writing for him, because she feels she is now a different person

She appreciates that there is no “real” consensus on what is the best/worst of her books amongst the fans (though Memnoch was her first example for worse soooo 😏)

In some ways, how Amel speaks to Lestat is a metaphor for how Lestat speaks to Anne.

The Television Show

(Casting)

Armand will NOT be played by someone around 14, because of the long filming process and how it will age the actor. She acknowledges fans want someone young for Armand but feels it will be too difficult to use (um, hello Anne, CGI??)

She thinks Cate Blanchett would be a wonderful pick for Gabrielle.

Says the looks are most important for Lestat, Louis just has to be beautiful (lol)

She really cares about the appearances of the cast and their availability to do about 5-6 years of filming

(Chronology and Production)

She thinks she will not go through network tv, so the home to the show would be Amazon, Hulu or Netflix.

She feels the show won’t be as violent as Game of Thrones but wants that integrity and style, and that “authenticity” to the books that Game of Thrones has (So for the rating, I’m guessing she feels around M?)

Anne wants to be true to the books and what the fans want to see (in regards to characters and plot points)

She appreciated the commitment of the team for the IWTV film and wants to keep up to that standard. She does not want unreasonable changes and compromises

Chronologically, she wants to begin with TVL with Lestat as a young man.

Feels around the 2nd/3rd season is where IWTV would start

The books are long, so it will not be a one season / one book situation.

It will begin chronologically, so it won’t be Lestat reading IWTV and THEN starting with his story as a response, it will start in France as the events happen (I was hoping it would be the former...)

No Mayfair witches in the show

Characters who are introduced later, but existed chronologically earlier like Benedick and Magnus, will be put earlier in the show

The Talamasca will be heavily involved “eventually” in the series, possibly earlier on. Related to this, she wants to tell the history of her vampires and those entities.

She wants to definitely (so badly) cover the scene where Lestat is being turned “stage by stage…” meaning him being in the tower and having realizations about his strength after drinking the blood. Also, how he turns Gabrielle (possibly wants to have a young actress to play Gabrielle and have her human age appear through makeup so the transformation will be more dramatic)

Louis’ story WILL be told, but the show will be mostly from Lestat’s POV

Anne hopes the show will go into production before the end of this year. Around 2018 is when it would come out

Anne and Chris have had a lot of interested companies already looking into developing the project (but she doesn't want to reveal who is talking to them since it “wouldn't be fair”)

She isn’t sure if the show will break the 4th wall. She acknowledges that Lestat does it in the books, but she feels she would have to stick with it for the entirety of the show and that would be difficult (so it sounds like mostly a “no” but she’s considering it)

Christopher and her are currently outlining around 5 seasons (estimated) for the TV series. They are also writing drafts for the first 4 episodes