#especially when it comes to vampire chronicles

[loelett]

anyone can unfollow if they think it's cool to post or purposefully interact with ai art btw

[shoesallinaline]

Re-read The Devil's Minion portion of QOTD, and damn, talk about a flashback. Fourteen-year-old me was utterly obsessed with the Vampire Chronicles in general, but Queen was my favorite, most especially the relationship between Armand and Daniel. Not only is it amazing to get such a fantastic adaptation of the book series, it's gratifying to see how many other people also connect with that particular chapter of the books.

[docholligay]

Do you think authors sometimes don't realize how their, uh, interests creep into their writing? I'm talking about stuff like Robert Jordan's obvious femdom kink, or Anne Rice's preoccupation with inc*st and p*dophilia. Did their editors ever gently ask them if they've ever actually read what they've written?

Firstly, a reminder: This is not tiktok and we just say the words incest and pedophilia here.

Secondly, I don't know if I would call them 'interests' so much as fixations or even concerns. There are monstrous things that people think about, and I think writing is a place to engage with those monstrous things. It doesn't bother me that people engage with those things. I exist somewhere within the whump scale, and I would hope no one would think less of me just because sooner or later I like to rough a good character up a bit, you know? It's fun to torture characters, as a treat!

But, anyway, assuming this question isn't, "Do writers know they're gross when I think they are gross" which I'm going to take the kind road and assume it isn't, but is instead, "Do you think authors are aware of the things they constantly come back to?"

Sometimes. It can be jarring to read your own writing and realize that there are things you CLEARLY are preoccupied with. (mm, I like that word more than concerns). There are things you think about over and over, your run your mind over them and they keep working their way back in. I think this is true of most authors, when you read enough of them. Where you almost want to ask, "So...what's up with that?" or sometimes I read enough of someone's work that I have a PRETTY good idea what's up with that.

I've never read Robert Jordan and I don't intend to start (I think it would bore me this is not a moral stance) and I've really never read Rice's erotica. In erotica especially I think you have all the right in the world to get fucking weird about it! But so, when I was young I read the whole Vampire Chronicles series. I don't remember it perfectly, but there's plenty in it to reveal VERY plainly that Anne Rice has issues with God but deeply believes in God, and Anne Rice has a preoccupation with the idea of what should stay dead, and what it means to become. So, when i found out her daughter died at the age of six, before Rice wrote all of this, and she grew up very very Catholic' I said, 'yeah, that fucking checks out'.

Was Rice herself aware of how those things formed her writing? I think at a certain point probably yes. The character of Claudia is in every way too on the nose for her not to have SOME idea unless she was REAL REAL dense about her own inner workings. But, sometimes I know where something I write about comes from, that doesn't mean I'm interested in sharing it with the class. I would never ever fucking say, 'The reasons I seem to write so much of x as y is that z happened to me years ago' ahaha FUCK THAT NOISE. NYET. RIDE ON, COWBOY.

But I've known some people in fandom works who clearly have something going on and don't seem to realize it. Or they're very good at hiding it. Based on the people I'm talking about I would say it's more a lack of self-knowledge, and I don't even mean that unkindly. I have, in many ways, taken myself down to the studs and rebuilt it all, so I unfortunately am very aware of why I do and write the things I do most of the time. It's extremely annoying not to be able to blame something. I imagine it must be very freeing. But it ain't me, babe.

Anyway, a lot of words to say: Maybe! But that might not stop them from writing it, it might be a useful thing for them to engage with, and you can always just not read it.

Also, we don't censor words here.

[professional-rat-eater]

i think marius might be the only character ever where, if you talk abt the horrible stuff hes done in canon, youll get ppl telling u to get it out of the main tag even though his monstrocity is. like. canon. and in the books

WARNING: Severe Marius slander ahead. I mean it. Just stop reading here if you're going to argue (again.) It's just exhausting for everyone involved, though genuine conversation is always welcome.

_______________

Right???? Imagine a fan of Armand telling you not to post about what he did to Claudia in his tag. It's a pretty significant part of his arc. Or Lestat dropping Louis in the show, or Claudia's serial killing, or Louis's neglect of Claudia. That would all be pretty strange.

And you also get called performative or a virtue signaller for discussing his most notable contribution to the Vampire Chronicles canon (grooming Armand which has a domino effect for every choice Armand makes after that point, especially regarding his personal relationships.) Interesting to know there are those who think calling a pedophile a pedophile is performative. Is this just an extension of the "it's not that deep" mentality that pollutes the way so many interact with the media they consume nowadays or is it something else?

Because it is that deep. Personal feelings, positive or negative, towards Marius aside. That is what he is. That is objectively what he is. It doesn't matter if it was only Armand, it doesn't matter if he never did it again and it doesn't change just because other characters have also done bad things. This isn't even a comment on whether it was wrong or not, though it obviously was horrific. It is an entirely neutral statement. That is what he is. It is inarguable.

There are fans of every character who downplay what their favourites do, I suppose because they don't understand the genre of what they're watching/reading, but it is undeniable that the characters who remained white or have yet to be cast (and so are still perceived as white due to the canon of the books) have a significantly higher number of people making excuses for them.

Personally, I cannot understand why Marius is the character people are riding this hard for. On top of being a child predator, he's also exceedingly arrogant, seems to have no regard for what he did to Armand beyond what is performative, he's delusional and entitled and arrogant and selfish and immature.

But above all, perhaps what is his worst crime as a fictional character is being profoundly uninteresting. I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt in previous posts but he is just boring. He's a racist relic of the past who never evolved past his backwards period-appropriate colonial views. That is why he found a boy who comes from the region we would now know as Ukraine, 'educated' him, dressed him up in pretty outfits and broke him down into pieces just to put the pieces back together in a more agreeable form. You could remove all the SA and that would still be true about him. That aspect of their relationship just really drives the point home. Perhaps some research into the historical mistreatment and perception of Eastern Europeans and how that intersects with colonialism and how this concept is only rendered more profound by Assad's casting would serve these people well.

Then, when Armand reacts like all abused children do instead of being his maker's passive pretty little doll, Marius gives up on him and is content to let a cult destroy his mind even further than it already had been for hundreds of years, completely abandoning him to their torture. A true romance for the ages (sarcasm.)

Marius's abusive tendencies and the way in which they are different to other characters are the most interesting thing about him, and we can't even talk about it candidly without having people who read the absolute horror that was The Vampire Armand as a regular romance telling us off for making them feel bad about a character they chose to post publicly about loving. I'll reiterate again that you cannot willfully misinterpret a piece of media to such an extreme and then be sensitive when you see accounts that differ to your own. Have some courage in your convictions, for God's sake. No one rational and reasonable thinks someone is a bad person for liking a fictional character, but don't come on public social media and start policing people for what they think. Everyone inevitably gets their feelings hurt on social media. It's like the wild west on here. It is unrealistic to expect otherwise.

It's frustrating to me personally, I suppose, because there are so many people like Marius, fictional and otherwise. He's not special in any regard. He took a traumatised boy and tried to tame him and making him 'civilised'. It's a tale as old as fucking time. I'm sorry for the Marius defenders who find this discourse boring but you will need to get used to it because it's only going to get worse when season 3 airs and the writers continue to do what they are already doing, which is portraying Marius accurately. I apologise for everyone who will see that ancient white colonial racist buy the little boy from Delhi and destroy everything that remains of him and get annoyed that we aren't moving past that part and filling up their ao3 tag blindly with fluff.

I expect this attitude is going to change when they introduce Marius formally to the show, or at least it will be drowned out more which will be a relief. The writers know what he is and they're already showing it. They had no issue showing Lestat, Louis and Armand for exactly what they are, so I'm not sure why anyone would be convinced that Marius would be any different.

So sorry anon. This was such a long and rambling response. You're absolutely spot on and it is endlessly frustrating.

[seraphinitegames]

The Wayhaven Chronicles—Update 31/May/2024

A busy one this week! But it always feels good when it’s been busy but you can check so many things off your list. Especially seeing as it was a bank holiday I forgot about last Monday, so a shorter week! :D

After some amazingly encouraging comments on Patreon, I did decide to go back and put in the Unit Bravo POV for Chapter Two. Not only that, but I decided to make it individual love interest POVs, because I can’t help myself, hehe! But it was actually kind of perfect, because it gives a nice small glimpse into what the vampires get up to when the MC isn’t around and they aren’t working…well, unless it’s A, and then they’re pretty much always working anyway, lol!

After that, I started on the end scenes for Chapter Two, and let me tell you…they are some doozy scenes! Bringing out some angsty punch right from the start, hehe! But also finished with some rather lovely soft romantic moments which help to soothe that intensity… ;D

They were scenes I have been waiting agggges to write. It certainly sets up how things that are happening might come between the building romances!

I was a bit worried that adding in the extra POV scenes would push me back, but I really went for it this week, and I’m going to be finishing Chapter Two today as planned!!!

So next week that means I can start on the editing and rewriting. Next week will also be social media days, which I will be heading elsewhere to do because internet here is still intermittent at best, and I really want the asks to be more consistent again! 

Got some really fun stuff coming up on Patreon this month too, including the initial sketch idea for Mason/Morgan’s masquerade ball mask! Looking forward to working on all of that :D

Hope you all have the most amazing weekend and enjoy the demo—as well as get excited for what's to come after checking it out, hehe! We’ll be offline as usual, so I’ll update you all again next week! <3

[perseidlion]

The Interview With the Vampire TV show is a perfect example of how adaptations do not have to follow the source material closely to be an excellent adaptation.

(This is a spoiler-free commentary, but it does discuss the dynamics of the characters in general.)

I read the books back in the day, and of course, saw the original movie. Despite a laundry list of big changes, the series still feels extremely true to the books because it captures the spirit. It gets the characters and their fucked-up dynamics right. It doesn't shy away from them being melodramatic monsters. It keeps to the rules established in the source material. The show also makes sure to preserve key moments and key scenes, but always with a twist.

Since they did that, they were free to shift things in time, amp up and adapt certain dynamics, and change the race of characters in a way that deepens the story and complicates already extremely complicated power dynamics.

The original movie stuck more closely to the era and the appearance of the characters as described by Anne Rice, but I don't think the story loses anything by changing those two elements. In fact, it gives it modern relevance and room for political and social commentary.

I have never ascribed to the idea that an adaptation has to be slavishly accurate to the source material to be a good adaptation. It just has to be smart enough to identify what to keep and what can change. An adaptation adapts. Honestly, I find it boring when I see exactly what was in a book up on screen with no surprises. Where's the fun in that?

The difference between a good adaptation and a bad one is not how accurate it is to the source material, but how well the adaptation respects what made the story compelling to begin with.

What's important here?

Lestat is dramatic and powerful and a monster who is deeply charismatic, but also manipulative.

Louis is overdramatic and self-hating, but oddly drawn to Lestat.

Claudia is fierce, but bitter about her eternal childhood.

Their relationship is deeply toxic but with true affection. They are monsters, but monsters capable of intense love and devotion - to the point where it has the power to destroy them.

THAT is at the core of this story. THAT is what they keep intact. This frees up all sorts of avenues for play around a few key plot beats.

This room for play also gives opportunities to expand on thinner characters or rewrite them entirely. It's been a long time since I read the books, but I don't recall Daniel standing out as more than a framing device, especially in earlier books. But in the show, he's one of the best parts. Not only does he take a much more active role in the story, he delivers some of the most hilarious and cutting lines of the entire series. If the show had stuck closely to the source material, we wouldn't have this Daniel.

It was also smart of them to make Claudia a few years older. The eternal child element is preserved, but the layer of arrested teenaged hormones and womanhood that will never blossom adds an extra layer of angst and sadness. She is stuck forever in a state of rebellion, never allowed to settle and come into her own.

Having her be a young Black woman also deepens her attachment to Louis, visually, socially and symbolically. They are different from Lestat and they understand each other in a way he never can. She's still very much the Claudia from the book but with layers added to deepen her character and add new, fresh dynamics and complications.

It's also delightful to see the show take the homoeroticism that was subtextual in the early books with Louis and Lestat (and in the original film) and making it unapologetically text. Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles have always been incredibly queer and subversive, but it's amazing to see that side of it fully embraced and stated plainly with no ambiguity or qualifiers or hints. It's queer and that queerness is woven into the fabric of the entire narrative. Louis and Lestat are the toxic beating heart of the Vampire Chronicles.

It's also important because we need messy, dark, fucked-up queer narratives. Sweet, coming-of-age stories and romances are of course, important - especially for younger queer people. But us older queer folk not only want to see ourselves in multiple genres, we want permission to see imperfect, messy, and yes, even evil characters. It's a way of reclaiming the monstrous queer that was villainized for so long and making it our own. We want to find something beautiful in the dark.

If we all thought about it, we could probably think of dozens of examples where a show or movie went far off-script from the source material and was still an excellent adaptation.

Interview With the Vampire is just the most recent and one of the best examples of a stellar adaptation that respects the source material but also builds and expands on it.

I look forward to seeing how they surprise me next season.

[theresattrpgforthat]

I'm looking for TTRPGs that have... for lack of a better way of putting it, mechanics where like, your character is under a profound amount of stress, and if they don't manage it and additional stress that comes in, they'll break or snap and do something horrible and then have to deal with the consequences. So something that mechanically 'forces' your character to do something they'd normally never do due to external stressors.

THEME: Stress Clocks.

Oh this is my shit. Get ready for a Hall of Fame style of recommendations from me this week (as well as a bit of self-advertising)!

Also a note: this was (mostly) a chance for me to get very excited about a number of games that have specifically inspired me, and I am aware that it means that I’ve kind of neglected certain houses of design as a result. For this post especially, I encourage anyone who can think of a game that fits this request that isn’t listed here to give it a shout out in the reblog and the replies!

Mothership, by Tuesday Knight Games.

Mothership is a sci-fi horror roleplaying game where you and your crew try to survive in the most inhospitable environment in the universe: outer space! You'll excavate dangerous derelict spacecraft, explore strange unknown worlds, exterminate hostile alien life, and examine the horrors that encroach upon your every move.

Mothership inflicts Stress upon you with every failure, and hitting your Stress cap reduces your most relevant Stat or Save, thereby consistency reducing your chances of success with every roll. That’s not all though - your Stress cap also makes it harder and harder to stop your character from panicking, by representing the threshold you must beat every time you make a Panic Check. If you roll less than or equal to your current Stress rating, you must take on a new Panic condition.

You make Panic checks whenever you roll a critical failure, but also whenever you witness something traumatic. These conditions don’t necessarily force your character to do anything, but they represent the toll that being in a constantly hostile environment takes on your mind and body. You have to work harder and harder to prevent your character from attacking allies, giving in to the demands of whatever is haunting their psyche, or going straight-up catatonic.

You can also try to mitigate this stress and panic by resting and doing something that helps relieve the pressure - having sex, taking drugs, praying, etc. There’s even a Shore Leave mechanic for long-term games that allow your character to turn their stress into a character improvement.

In some respect, these conditions remind me of the Morality and Clarity tracks of Chronicles of Darkness and Changeling: the Lost, but with less of the errant language around mental health. The dice rolls also make the consequences much less predictable, so if you want to be surprised by what exactly causes your character to snap, I recommend Mothership.

Urban Shadows, by Magpie Games.

The streets bleed shadows as the supernatural politics of the city threaten to swallow you whole. Will you die a hero—a savior for those who have never had enough—or live long enough to become the villain? Will you fight the darkness…or give in for power?

The choice is yours. 

Urban Shadows is an urban fantasy tabletop roleplaying game in which mortals and monsters vie for control of a modern-day city, a political battleground layered just under the reality we think we know. Vampires, faeries, hunters, and wizards fight to carve out a piece of the streets and skyscrapers, ready to make deals with all those who have something to offer. 

The ‘consequences’ track for Urban Shadows is called Corruption. Each character playbook in this game has a couple of special moves called Corruption Moves, and when you start playing, you start with two Drama Moves the tie into this. The Drama Moves describe specific situations in which your character must mark Corruption. If you fill your Corruption track, you take a Corruption Move. Corruption moves give you special powers that are super-effective, but fill up your Corruption track faster. You can only fill your Corruption track so many times - fill it one too many and your character must be retired, because they’ve just become an antagonist.

I really like how this feels like a slow descent that speeds up the more you lean into it. Your character is consistently tempted to give into their darker sides in order to keep themselves afloat in this unforgiving city - but lean too far and they become exactly the kind of person they were hoping to stop.

Antiquarian Adventures, by acegiak.

Antiquarian Adventures is a pulpy tomb raiding and treasure hunting Blades In The Dark hack in the style of Tomb Raider, Indiana Jones, National Treasure, and The Mummy.

So Antiquarian Adventures is a pulp game. It’s not grim dark in any sense of the word, but I think it introduces a unique use of the Blades’ Stress mechanic in a special “ability” that happens when your character uses up all of their Composure (this is the “Stress” of this gam). Once you’ve used up all of your Composure, you cannot resist anything that comes your way and your dice pools are reduce to 0 until you do something (specific to your playbook) that usually invites a new consequence.

For example, The Veteran’s version of this is called “Not As Quick As I Used To Be,” which hamstrings the character until the player allows themself to be left behind or separated from their comrades. This kind of mechanic has directly inspired one of the projects that I’m working on, and I think that if you tweak the amount of Composure your character has, or makes the reaction harsher, you could absolutely make it work for a game that’s a bit grittier than Antiquarian Adventures.

Last Fleet, by Black Armada Games

The last of humanity are fleeing across space, pursued by the implacable inhuman adversary that destroyed their civilisation. They're outnumbered and outgunned. Supplies are running low. The actions of a brave few could be all that stands between humanity and extinction.

Welcome to the Last Fleet.

Last Fleet is a PBTA tabletop roleplaying game where you play brave pilots, officers, engineers, politicians and journalists struggling to hold the human race - and themselves - together under unbelievable pressure. The game focuses on action, intrigue and drama in this high-stakes situation. You'll fight space battles, search for enemy infiltrators, tackle supply shortages and navigate faction politics. You'll strive against your own self-doubt and sometimes crack under the stress.

Last Fleet has something called a Pressure Mechanic, which can be used as a player resource, but also activates when you take weather harm or get called out on your shit. Hit your cap? Clear your Pressure and take a Breaking Point action, which often puts you at odds with the other characters, making the situation worse. The whole situation is a designed to act as a pressure cooker, making the situation harder and harder to bear until you finally pop. I love it, and it’s also a direct influence on one of my games.

Apocalypse Keys, by Rae Nedjadi (@temporalhiccup)

Unmask your feelings, uncage your ruination… The Doomsday Clock is ticking down and emotions run high as you and your team of DIVISION agents struggle to find the Keys before the villainous Harbingers unlock the Doors of Power and bring about the apocalypse.

As an Omen class monster, you are the only thing capable of holding back the apocalypse. Combat occult threats and investigate supernatural phenomena alongside your team of supernatural agents working for the shadowy DIVISION. But in a world that shuns monsters like you, only your deepest, most heartfelt bonds can grant you the power to stop those who seek to unlock Doom’s Door.

Taking cues from Urban Shadows, Apocalypse Keys gives you a Ruin track to follow as your monsters try to stop the world from ending. The Ruin track gives you a Ruin advance every time you fill it, unlocking Ruin Moves, permanently marking character conditions, and eventually forcing your character to turn into a Harbinger if you let it. Your Ruin moves are powerful and dark, generating even more Ruin when you use them, and in some cases (like with the Hungry’s "Only Hunger Remains" move), your character can actually halt the current mystery as they get close enough to becoming a Harbinger that the entire party will have to work together to stop you from ripping the world apart.

Protect the Child, by Mint-Rabbit (that’s me!).

Humans have always been protective of their young, sometimes overly so. Humans have also always feared that which might make their young strange or different, and so insist that only humans can raise their own young. Monsters cannot raise human young. This is known.

You have a human baby. You cannot find its parents. What is even worse, is that this child has powers, powers that others covet, and so everyone wants it. If you want to prove that you’re not the heartless monster that everyone says you are, that means you’ll have to raise it, at least until you find someone who is better suited to it than you. 

You are creatures of fur, scales and fangs. You have claws that can rend flesh, faces that can crack mirrors, howls that can cause ears to bleed. 

And your charge wants a blankie.

Protect the Child is a Forged in the Dark game about monsters caring for a young human, a human who contains strange and mystical powers that make them a valuable asset in any monster crew. The setting and factions present in this game are flexible: you might be aliens in a far-flung future galaxy, fantasy monsters from rival kingdoms, or even everyday wild animals that fear human society. 

Alright, so this is my baby and I can tell you exactly how to push your character towards some really unhealthy coping mechanisms. In Protect the Child, your character is constantly battling the stress of being a parent. Stress, like in other Forged in the Dark games, is a player resource, but it’s also inflicted on you when you resist consequences, and when the kid has an emotional breakdown.

Should your stress clock fill up, you’ll have to take a reaction from the list attached to your playbook before you can take more Stress, and these reactions range from doing something for selfish gains to lashing out to your fellow monsters to being fully monstrous at exactly the worst time. Your tools to manage this stress are also limited - you have to be willing to confront your fellow monsters and be honest about your relationships with each-other if you want to stop your emotional kettle from whistling all of the time. If you want a game where building relationships is the only way to deal with the pressures of monster-parenting, then check out Protect the Child!

[wings-of-ink]

What are some IFs you recommend on steam? I played arcadie second born (very good game btw) and I'm trying to find some, but I don't really know where to look :C (big sad) so I ask of you, for you thy guidance dear great one 😌

Oh, this is a fun question. I have some VNs as well that I will include. I LOVED Arcadie too! Most IFs I read multiple times, but I devoured that one especially.

I typically use Steam to purchase some Hosted Games IFs or VNs. I don't typically like to read on my phone as much, so it works for me.

I'll list Wayhaven Chronicles & Blood Moon though I feel like they need no recommendation since most know of them, lol. But they have a special place in my little heart.

Another fav of mine is The Passenger, it's one that I read over and over too.

Let's see I also loved, Fields of Asphodel, The Midnight Saga, Vampires Kiss, Royal Affairs, Noblesse Oblige, Creme de la Creme, The Golden Rose, Fernweh Saga, and Fatehaven.

If you like VNs: Gilded Shadows (personal FAV), Bewitching Sinners, Changeling, Crimson Spires, Demonheart, Divine Speaker, Error 143, Obscura (demo-but soooo good already), Royal Affairs, Touchstarved (demo-also soooo good), Tailor Tales, Trouble Comes Twice, and When the Night Comes.

I hope you find some gems in there that you will love, my dear! ^_^

Wait, did you really just call me great one? LOL

[magnuspanoptes]

posts that get you sniped from every quarter but there's nothing inherently wrong with j mart and also it definitely did not come out of nowhere i used to be vaguely into it pre-s5 and you can't tell me jon barging into martin's office with an invitation of "let's ritualistically blind ourselves and elope" didn't have deliberately romantic undertones to it and this is coming from a 'jonelias is basically text because of themes and also motifs' blog, like i cannot lie about this ideologically opposed to lying about a text for ship preferences sorry. and they shouldn't be acting out a healthy no conflict relationship in the midst of an apocalypse because that Would Be bad writing, and that's why i'm not all that bothered by martin's continuous impatience with jon in s5 because jon's role as an avatar is fundamentally vampiric in nature, his very existence is conditional on the violence he is willing to inflict on other people and i think it's perfectly understandable to be repulsed by that aspect of a man you're in love with. when he fell in love with jon he did not know he was going to be shaped into a living embodiment of terror by his dracula boss. thats fine. but also. there's such clear ugly and unacknowledged narrative tension to their relationship in s5. which is good. the tension is good because avatarhood is ultimately also about the transformative effects of trauma and nobody else on that podcast has been traumatised and transformed more by it than jon (you are. a living chronicle of terror!!) and this SHOULD affect any relationship he hopes to build with martin, and the way martin cannot comprehend what happened to jon (it didn't happen to him. that traumatic experience belongs to jon alone) or what is happening to him during s5 should've been interrogated, like, not in a way that causes them to break up that's not what this is about. but i recall the podcast being sooo hesitant about exploring any of those ugly undertones, to the point that what it ended up doing instead is giving martin this righteous moral high ground in all their interactions, even when he was hurting jon, especially when he was hurting jon. after four seasons of thoughtful writing on the way horror colonises every aspect of your life, why shy away from writing about those themes wrt your focal relationship for the final season. because what was the point then. what was the fucking point!!

[italovision]

People are starting to get really weird again now that season 3 is starting to get into shape, I mean... come on guys, I love Louis and Claudia, Armand and Daniel, but like... YES, Louis IS the protagonist of the first book, but he is not the main character of The Vampire Chronicles, that is Lestat, and a lot of the characters we love, kind of become "nothing" characters from now on, and I'm sure the writers on the show are going to do the most to include more of them, but... Lestat IS the face of the The Vampire Chronicles, especially when it comes to the book The Vampire Lestat.

So yeah, the producers are going to be parading Sam Reid around from now on a lot more, this is kind of a soft season 3 promotion to the industry, and please don't be weird when the real promotion starts and Lestat is the main face on the posters and everything, he's not going to be the shadow or the face in the background anymore.

And I understand that it sucks to see a black character getting sidelined, but that was the risk they paid when they did the story change, and hopefully they know this.

[ancient-qveen]

EMPEROR in Transylvanian Damnation issue no. 1, 1992

^ Emperor era Mortiis c. Nov 1992 bc I can't find the zine cover

Mortiis interviewed (transcription below)

[ancient-qveen: I linked this interview before but I wanted to make a dedicated post about it because its not that easy to find. Credit to AEon]

Emperor formed about Sept of ’91, with the following line-up: Steingrimm – guitar and vocal, Samot /Lord of Silence/ - guitar/ex-drums and Emperor Mortiis – bass /on the photo L to R/. They recorded the debut demo in May, on a 4-tracker. Euronymous offered them a record-deal, and a few months later Samot left the band to join BURZUM. Let’s see...

Well, you formed about one year ago and released a demo... How do you see this time, are you staisfied with your work?

Mortiis: Yeah! We are satisfied with our work. As for what we created during Oct-May, we are not really sounding so much like that any longer. As well as his lyrics are a lot more in depth of total Evil! Our music is still /of course/ blacker than bottomless lakes, and even more errie, depressive and deep! The lyrics for the demo was about Vampirism, Witchism, Black Magic etc. this is still our subject, but it’s all in one dark world. All the lyrics belong to teach other, and his lyrics always will. They are of a thousand years to come. Forgotten by time itself!

Did or do you play in other bands besides EMPEROR? And what about Samot, you know, strange to hear that he joins BURZUM, because as Grev said, his band is and will be only a one-piece band... 

Mortiis: Yes, he did play in a couple band before. But they are nothing to talk about! Fuck them! Although for one of them the lyrics for “Forgotten Centuries” and “Moon over Karashehr” were written. But for luck never used. All those people, the lowlife human life form, deserve torture! He believes that the Samot/BURZUM thing is because the Count wanted BURZUM to be a live band! Something like that... Anyway, people should be aware that Samot is still in EMPEROR, and hopefully forever will be...

Let’s see your demo... How can you describe your music, and which bands helped to develop it?

Mortiis: Witching Black Metal! No bands helped us create that cursed demo. We are not saying that we are totally original at that time but now we are! Yeah!, but no bands really influenced us so much. Better ask Samot and Steingrimm this question instead! Probably that band that “develop” us must be VENOM, for creating Black Metal itself!

After the BURZUM, MAYHEM, and ABRUPTUM LPs Euro offered a record-deal to you, too. Which trax will be on it, and what do you think, when will you be able to release it?

Mortiis: The LP will come in the past darkness. We don’t know yet. We’ve got 4 songs mainly worked out, plus he and Ygg are working on two other one. There will be 10 trax all in all! Besides of two guitars, bass and drums /session, but we haven’t found any yet!. There will be constant synth, piano parts, female vocals, cello etc... The studio will be filled up with several instruments... It will be massive for sure! Some titled: “The Stargate”, “Emperor of a Dimension Unknown”, “Chronicles”..., “Reflections of Horizons Dark”, “In the October Frost”, “Gathering Ancient Wisdom /and a New Soul/”, and more!

Something has happened in North-Europe, especially in Norway. Just see, The BURZUM LPs, the second DARKTHRONE LP, and bands with great demos, like ENSLAVED or EMPEROR. Can we speak about a new Black Metal generation or reborn? How do you see the true scene in 2-3 years?

Mortiis: The true and evil Black Metal generation is born! In 2-3 years there will be alot less goodness around! Hopefully he will get to move out of his parents’ house and do some pain to humanity!

Let’s see your life... Do the members live together? Do you have time besides the band for your hobbies /if you have/? And what about the financial side, are you working or going to school?

Mortiis: He is not of this earth. It took him almost 17 years to realize the essence of his soul is not of earth! no, the members do not live together. Samot is at some place in cold Norway. Steingrim is living with his father and other times his mother. Mortiis /Him/ lives with his earthly “guardians” right now. We have no hobby. Our lifes are dark. Our band rehearses seldom these days. But we seem to be getting things together taking the situation into consideration! Both him and Ygg is still doing the school. So financially our lifes are not such interesting...

You inspired by the events of Adolf Hitler. What do you think, is Nazism still alive and will it rise again?

Mortiis: As for today’s Nazism, he doesn’t care about it. If some extreme violence is caused by them, it will be shown on TV. And he will get to see it eventually anyway... Those nazi leaders of today are probably intelligent and all that, but none of them could ever stand up to the genive status that Hitler had. He read a couple of books about Hitler about 2 years ago. And few people know that Hitler drove his sister’s daughter to suicide. And if it hadn’t been for some people who guarded him day and night, he would have killed himself, too. And then there wouldn’t have been any World War II. If the new Nazism rises or not it’s unimportant to him. At least, they are causing lots of pain and fear...

Sooner or later the world will have end... What do you prefer, a new and final World War or natural disasters?

Mortiis: They both sound tempting. Though a war would mean a modern day elimination.

[nalyra-dreaming]

I'm not sure if this is controversial, so feel free to ignore it if it could bring any negativity your way. I love lurking and reading different opinions from both book and show fans, and there's an interesting debate about whether the vampires in The Vampire Chronicles are polyamorous or monogamous. Both sides make good points, but I feel like a lot of people are influenced by their own preferences, and only a few seem impartial.

When it comes to the show, at least for the main four characters, do you think they lean more toward being polyamorous or monogamous?Also, I think some people confuse polyamory with simply having multiple relationships. Of course, the characters will have different relationships with each other and with others over time, but when I say "polyamorous," I mean something like one big throuple or more, happening at the same time.

I think they will lean more monogamous in a real relationship kind of way (feeding flings excluded), which does not preclude multiple relationships, obviously.

These vampires do have a lot of relationships - they shift, some are more consistent than others.

In the books some have "blood spouses", but those also sometimes have a "third" in their union (for example!) or open relationships - Marius later is in a relationship with Pandora and Bianca at the same time, for example.

I don't think the... lines are as hard drawn one might say, than for "us". Like, if you have eternity to figure it out, and also know you will meet the other(s) again at some point?

That changes a lot of things. I think especially towards the end of the books, where the vampire community is smaller and a lot more closely knit it ... blurs the lines somewhat, in a way. And love... only gets more, if you let it. You can love more than one person, but no love is equal, and it does not equal being "in love" either.

I think for the show they will keep to more or less monogamous settings in the end - but that doesn't mean they will not hint, nor that there won't be multiple relationships.

Next season alone there will be Lestat & Nicolas, Lestat & Gabrielle, Lestat & Armand, (maybe Marius & Armand and Marius & Lestat), and Louis and Lestat. And Armand and Daniel.

And there will be even more later on.

If you have eternity a lot of paths cross and recross, and desire and love are things these vampires are always hungry for.

[bookworm-1196]

top 3 tsc characters go 🎤

*proceeds to start naming all TSC characters in my head*

I think my answer changes a lot depending on which book I read last etc but as of right now I’d have to say (in no particular order, I’m truly terrible at picking favorites and spent far too long staring at my phone not knowing who to choose.)

1. Simon Lovelace/Lewis/Lightwood

As a reason, I’d like to quote that part in Tales of the Shadowhunter Academy where he sees Tessa give a lecture and has a momentary crush on her bc she’s pretty and reads comics. I loved him before but in that moment I went you are now my favorite character. I feel like he’s the reason why before coming out as aromantic I used to think my type was nerdy boys. (I had/have a platonic crush on him.)

Also, it broke my heart when I read that part in TMI where his mother discovers he’s a vampire and kicks him out and starts chanting prayers to banish him or something… The parallels with how this happens to queer kids in conservative families… it’s a big fear of mine and that part of the book just stayed with me for a long time.

2. Catarina Loss

Criminally underrated. I wish we could have a book like the Bane Chronicles for every single immortal character (her, Ragnor, Lily Chen, Camille…) because there’s so much to explore there! Catarina is a character I love so so much because she’s just such a good person despite people trying to burn her as a witch, she never lets immortality turn her into someone callous or uncaring throughout the centuries. She genuinely wants to help those most in need and I distinctly remember her helping people with AIDS in the 1980s so she’s an icon for that. I hope we see more of her in future books especially since she raised the lost Herondale (I think? It’s been far too long since I’ve reread TSC) so hopefully she’ll be in TWP and not die) She and Lily are two characters where I want to know everything about their lives. Might one day decide to write a fanfic about them (not to ship them but like about them as characters)

3. Magnus

I reread the Bane Chronicles last year and I love Magnus so much! At the beginning I saw him and thought oh he’s so cool! He’s funny, he’s effortlessly confident, he’s a powerful warlock etc. And then we get to see his vulnerable side too and how easy it is for him to get his heart broken. I just love him so much.

Honorable mentions :

Grace Blackthorn (I’ll fight.)

Christopher Lightwood

Lily Chen (please don’t be evil or die in TWP I beg you)

Clary Fairchild

Mark Blackthorn

Sylvain Verlac (was VERY tempted to put him in the top 3 but it’s too soon after reading a sea change and my judgement is impaired I should wait at least a month before doing that)

Jem Carstairs

Alastair Carstairs

Charlotte Fairchild (what an icon. She kind of reminds me of my mom but without all the bad parts because my mom is also a badass who overcame sexism in the workplace and goes 🙄 at their incompetence)

Alec Lightwood (as a queer introverted older sibling, I related a bit TOO hard)

Kit Herondale (I like snarky characters who (affectionately) make fun of older characters it reminds me of my sister which is so comforting)

Emma Carstairs (her POV in city of heavenly angels… when she hugged Cortana and let the blade cut her open to transfer the pain somewhere else… 😢)

Yeah I just love so many characters from TSC I need to reread the entire thing actually

[prouvaireafterdark]

Hi! As someone just coming into reading the books but who's been with the show since day 1, I'm curious about why people take Lestat's narrative in TVL with 100% sincerity when the premise of the show seems to be interrogating the dissonance that everybody's versions create. Obviously there's some big things that are definitely going to be true, but I'd personally be disappointed if we got a straight adaptation of unfiltered Lestat perspective on events, haha!

I think you're conflating sincerity with some idea of omniscient, objective accuracy, which, as you note, is a useless thing to search for in a show where memory is continually shown to be an unreliable monster.

Lestat's version of events in TVL is sincere, though. He's speaking from the heart and he's trying to give the story of his life, mostly by sharing his truth about what his life before meeting Louis was like, and in part by filling in the gaps Louis leaves us with about what happened at Rue Royale. His recollection may turn out to be as faulty and biased as Louis' or Armand's has been shown to be in the show, but that doesn't make it any less sincere.

And I'm not implying that Louis is lying or anything. I'm talking about him not mentioning or glossing over the happy memories that meant a lot to Lestat and made up, for him, a big part of what it was to share a home with Louis and Claudia for so long. Giving Lestat the space to talk about his love for Louis and Claudia doesn't erase the abuse he inflicted on them in those moments of instability and rage. I don't get why people are so resistant to seeing that. It's not like it makes everything better. If anything, it makes it worse that he loved them so much.

What's important to note, too, is that at no point does Lestat in his retelling excuse himself for anything he did to Louis and Claudia and I doubt very much we would see him do that in future seasons of the show. Lestat even says it himself that he deserved what Claudia did to him. The way things worked out between the three of them is his greatest, deepest regret and it will haunt him for the rest of his immortal life.

Also, not for nothing, what we've gotten this season and last season are the unfiltered perspectives of Louis, Claudia, and Armand. That's not to say they're lying or intentionally obfuscating (okay, well, Armand totally is), but that is what we got---a narrative that was really challenged only by Daniel and not by anyone who was actually there who remembers it differently. I don't see why we shouldn't also get Lestat's unfiltered version, especially considered he is the main protagonist of the Vampire Chronicles series going forward.

For me and many others, it's not about excusing anything. It's all about contextualizing his decisions. Like, Lestat didn't just wake up one day and decide it would be fun to destroy his family. I want him to tell me in his own words (which, as a reminder, he has yet to do at any point in this series so far) what drove him to do the horrible things he did and how he really feels about it. When we do hopefully get that, I expect the fandom to interrogate his accounts as vigorously as they did Louis' and Armand's and Claudia's.

And to answer your question regarding the books specifically, we have Anne herself to blame for that. She wrote IWTV when she was battling some of the most intense grief and despair a person can feel. She had just lost her child. Writing the book was an outlet for that and you can feel it as you read Louis' perspective. When she decided to continue the series, though, she changed her mind about a lot of things---mainly who Lestat was as a character and how she had come to hate the "weakness" in Louis (which was really because she came to hate the "weakness" she saw in herself as she came out on the other side of her grief and identified with him less and Lestat more). There is a very real dissonance between who Lestat is in IWTV and who he is in TVL and beyond. The way she accounted for that in her own writing was that Louis was misconstruing certain events by leaving things out or straight up making things up like their reunion in NOLA at the end of IWTV, which Lestat claims never happened. The reason people take Lestat's words at face value sometimes isn't usually because they hate Louis or think he lied about Lestat's abuse. It's because Anne, as the writer of the story, wanted the reader to doubt Louis' version in favor of Lestat's because she had changed her mind about the direction of the story and the characters she created.

It's also worth noting that, in the actual text of the show, that version of events taken from the book, the content of the original interview, is described by Louis himself as an admitted performance. I think it's a perfectly legitimate reading to consider IWTV (the book) in the context of Louis trying to get Lestat's attention with something he knew would upset him, like Armand suggests was Louis' fantasy, because he wanted or needed to see him again.

This got long and rambley so I'll just leave you with the wise, wise words of Samothy Reid when asked to give one truth and one lie in the show: Everybody lies. Everybody lies.

I don't think that will change if we finally get Lestat's POV so imo people should just relax and enjoy the ride.

[seraphinitegames]

The Wayhaven Chronicles - Update 08/Sept/2023 Phew, doing draft after draft of plan is a lot!

I know that putting in all this effort now will pay off  when I actually come to write it (though I may have already loosely drafted a couple of scenes because I can’t help myself… :D) as well as make it a lot smoother when I get to it…but knowing what is coming is making me SO eager to write already, hehe! :D

This week, I spent some time looking at how to add in the villain romance. It’s definitely got a much different feel than the romance-y Unit Bravo ones, lol! But then I want it to be unique with it’s own feel, so it definitely works.

The more I plan in, the more I think it’s a definite that I’ll be adding it.

But I also want to make sure there are points where you can end that romance if you want to, especially because it might get too intense for some people. Definitely want that exit option in there at multiple places!

Planning this romance also means a very different shift in mindset from the vampires’ romances, not only because they’re a not a good person, lol, but also because it is a one book romance. I need to switch from thinking about the romance as a long term thing that can grow over multiple books, to something that needs to start, get involved, and then end in one book! It’s not that it can’t be done, especially with the intensity that’s burning between the MC and the villain if the character goes this route, but I don’t want it to feel like it’s rushed :D

I also spent last weekend, and will be spending all weekends, on starting the spruce up of Book One! That’s been seriously fun to read back through that! It’s not going to be anything major, catching any remaining bugs and spelling errors, matching things up better to later events, etc. But I did realise just how much Book One feels like a different style than Two and Three, so I want to update it to feel more like how I write now, which is a bit of an undertaking. My plan is to make it not too obvious but make the whole series feel more cohesive!

Just shows how much our styles can adapt and change as we evolve as creators!

Hope you all have the most amazing weekend! We’ll be offline as usual, but I’ll talk to you all again on next week!

[avalonia320]

IWTV Thoughts

I finally got to watch the finale last night and when I tell you I am SHOOK to my damn core. I don't know how to put it into words. I'm older than a lot of people here. I first read the Vampire Chronicles when I was 11; I found them in a box that belonged to my mother. When I tell you I devoured those books, re-read them over and over and over, fell in love with Lestat and New Orleans & Paris, cried over Claudia and Louis...I was totally besotted by the world Anne Rice created.

When the movie was announced when I was a teen (yes I'm that old), first I was so excited and then I was furious, as many of us Anne Rice devotees were, when Tom Cruise was cast as Lestat. I could not imagine an actor further away from how I had imagined Lestat. But still, I had to see it, and while it was still miles away from what I had wanted, I came away impressed with Tom Cruise. He still wasn't my Lestat, but he threw himself into the role in a way that made me believe he'd been waiting his whole life to let his inner Queen off the chain.

The movie itself...I had loved parts of it, but there was still so much more that I wanted. When the sequel came out (Queen of the Damned) I liked parts of that too and I actually enjoyed Stuart Townsend as Lestat. I hated most of it though, especially what they did with Marius (to this day I don't know what the hell that was about) but it was obvious at that point that I was never going to see the vampire world I was so enthralled with on the screen.

Then this series comes out. And while my expectations were low, I was still pretty excited. And then I watched it.

Holy fucking shitballs, you guys. I am normally so protective of my favorite books, resenting any little change unless it makes sense but everything they've done with this series, everything they've changed makes so much fucking sense. I don't want to try and break it down, I don't have the words. Lestat was always my big love in the books, but in this series, I've fallen in love with Louis and Claudia in a way I never imagined. I always loved their characters, don't get me wrong, but I never connected with them this way until now. And don't even get me started on Daniel, who I will admit I actively disliked in the books for the unforgivable crime of being boring. Um....that's a word I will never ever use in connect to Daniel Molloy ever ever ever again. And Armand and Madeleine and...I can't.

And Lestat. I loved him in the first season but in the second season, when he showed up with that long hair, I saw him for the first time like someone took the Lestat that has lived in my head since I was 11 years old and put him on the screen. He is EXACTLY how I imagined him. The way he looks, the way he talks, his emotion, his breakdowns, his unbelievable flair for the dramatic...this is HIM. I feel like I've been been unconsciously waiting decades for him to show up and for people to see him the way I saw him back then. I can't be the only old school fan that feels this way. It's just so surreal to see it so exact, it takes me right back to my childhood and the way I fell into stories then. The way you feel things when you're so young is something so hard to recapture but I feel like I'm right back there again on my bed, reading the books over and over again.

I'm just so grateful. To everyone involved with this series, the writers, the cast...I know i'm getting overly emotional but everything's been so shit lately and we've all needed an escape, a good one for once. I needed this so badly.

And I have to believe, wherever she is now, Anne Rice is so fucking proud.