#the vampire chronicles

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Claudia (Kirsten Dunst), Interview with the Vampire (plus Louis and Lestat!)

By popular request, the Vampire Claudia returns! I’ve made this character a few times before, but I’m most pleased with this version. I’ve always loved her blue dress, but now I feel I’ve improved enough sculpting hair that her bangs are closer to how I want them.

Claudia, Louis de Pointe du Lac, and Lestat de Lioncourt are available now for purchase at my Etsy shop. Just in time for Halloween! ‍♀️‍♂️‍♂️⚜️

(Also, a HUGE thank you to @costumeloverz71 for the high resolution photos of the dress!)

Louis - Blood // Water

Tribute to l'enfant terrible herself, Claudia.

For those unaware, Claudia was based on Anne Rice’s own daughter Michele, who died at five years old from leukemia. The resulting depression led to Anne Rice publishing her first of many gothic horror novels, starting with Interview with the Vampire, in 1976. While Claudia was based on Michele, so was Lestat on her husband Stan (originally intended to be named Lestan) and Louis on herself.

The 1976 novel is unfortunately the only entry in The Vampire Chronicles from Louis’ POV, which came from a place of her own personal trauma. Lestat was obviously a far more flamboyant, fun, fanciable character for her to focus on, but ultimately not as prone to exploring the existential crises and philosophical questioning present in her original novel.

One may also notice that the doll shop owner Madeleine’s backstory is that of a mother who lost a young daughter who likewise never got to grow up. Rice’s house in New Orleans was famously filled with antique dolls, which is imagery very much associated with Claudia.

For obvious reasons, a five year old was deemed unable to handle the demanding role of Claudia, which is that of a woman’s mind driven mad trapped in a child’s body (she’s actually over eighty years old by the end of her story), and so the role was aged up for a then eleven-year-old Kirsten Dunst. There was a nationwide search that included younger actresses, but Dunst was one of the few who could handle the part. She actually didn’t get to see the film until years later, either. The 1994 film also included her first kiss, which was with none other than Brad Pitt, though neither were enthused! Dunst also wore the blue dress when she attended Rice’s Memnoch Ball in 1995.

The biggest crime of the later books is how Anne Rice completely threw away what would’ve been far more profound for Louis (and of course, Claudia was dead) because of her rampant author’s pet blind spot. Ironically, Louis was her self-insert, while Lestat was her husband and Claudia was her dead daughter.

It’s like it never occurred to her that the “Human Nature” trope (see Clark in Superman II, Angel in Angel: the Series, Clark again in Smallville, the Tenth Doctor in Doctor Who, Castiel in Supernatural, etc…) is so much more profound for the tragic inhuman character who actually desires most to be human, is at odds with their own species or wants to experience human belonging/family/love, rather than the one who would happily throw away that humanity they never really wanted (Lestat in The Tale of the Body Thief). Funnily enough, Brad Pitt’s Meet Joe Black is also this trope. Louis, not Lestat, is the character who belonged with this trope as it is in every other piece of fiction that uses it. Those medias understood it’s best used as a heartbreaking gut punch instead of a comedy romp. It’s something that hurts when it is cruelly snatched away or must be given up for the sake of a duty larger than oneself. The only Vampire Chronicles character who would prefer even more to be human than Louis because of the profound unhappiness in their physical form would be Claudia. It’s the thing they most have in common together.

Merrick was yet another time when these characters’ potential to continue on the center stage was woefully misused and under-realized in favor of endless new OCs and Lestat. Louis was written out of the starring role that put Anne Rice’s career on the map the second she and the fandom wrote him off as a liar, despite never being able to fully retcon out Lestat’s actions during Interview with the Vampire. There were certainly better uses for Claudia’s ghost than as a cruel manipulation that then never gets closure for her or Louis’ obviously continuing feelings for her. Given that he’s still not over her death more than a century later, it’s always the elephant in the room in regards to Louis in the present. It’s the storyline that keeps Louis frozen in time, unable to continue his own story beyond the 19th century except as a series of vignettes and observations by other characters. Merrick completely failed both Louis and Claudia. He’s as much of a ghost in the present story as she is.

Because of this, Louis’ story now will always be incomplete; a profoundly influential character used as little more than a prop in the background of other characters’ narration. And of course, Claudia’s tragedy was being incomplete from the start.

Characters like Angel and many copycats (not only vampire characters either–Russell T Davies has fully admitted Buffy and Angel’s influence on his Doctor Who revival and Torchwood spinoff, while the entire Fanged Four are Anne Rice’s archetypal lineup) would directly not exist without Louis. And yet, Angel got the center stage as the deeply-flawed inhuman protagonist with a “human soul” that Louis never got again. Louis is Anne Rice’s archetype (a massive influence on all inhuman creatures with human feelings ostracized from their own kinds, doomed to never belong to either world and the outsider looking in on a life they can never have) that has actually inspired more leads than Lestat ever did. Other media, in Interview with the Vampire’s image, knew that the flashier, funnier, cooler Lestat archetype (which was likewise influential, but rarely an initial lead) is instead an antagonistic, often villainous foil to a more serious, introspective character’s existential crisis and the greater philosophical and moral depth that this brings a story.

Anne Rice stumbled upon that when she wrote Interview with the Vampire, but seemingly didn’t understand it. Or perhaps it was easier for her to avoid her personal trauma by focusing instead on an object of fantasy and fancy.

Unfortunately, she denigrated Louis to make Lestat palatable as an antihero instead of a villain or even antivillain. He and his POV became inconvenient to the change in narrative and Lestat’s POV became rarely challenged, despite him being the more likely of the two to fit as the unreliable narrator with far more reasons to lie and make himself look better. His verifiable actions contradict lies like him only killing evildoers. Claudia being the most glaring refutation, but also the fact that Louis was targeted not because he was evil, but rather because he had wealth Lestat wanted. Louis was telling his story as a cautionary tale in which he wasn’t sugarcoating himself (quite the opposite–he’s the king of self-loathing) or anyone else, not a narcissistic ego trip disguised as a rebuttal.

The author’s retcon and fandom buying into the narrative of Louis as the unreliable narrator is a huge mistake and it goes a long way to explain the fall in quality of the later series. Louis should never have been consigned to the role of Antonio Salieri.

Interview With The Vampire - Welcome To The Black Parade

Smallville really just took its formula from Buffy the Vampire Slayer (as did the revival of Doctor Who, same as Angel: the Series doing the same for Torchwood by Russell T Davies’ own admission), which also has a superhero in high school origin story and a strange town overrun with freaky things happening. Smallville’s meteor freaks were exactly like the Hellmouth and the high death rates of their respective student bodies.

Roswell is another show that had a similar setup and was actually the first WB show about aliens with magic powers in high school. Max Evans is not too subtly Clark Kent-like, right down to the famous moment of transforming a lump of coal into a diamond. The alien/human hybrid quartet of Max Evans, Michael Guerin, Isabel Evans and the infamous Tess Harding are reincarnations of alien royalty/elite from a destroyed planet, so the connection is obvious.

Except that show went far further with what would happen if the government found out than Smallville dared beyond a few episodes here and there. Max certainly had more done to him (the White Room and going on the run in the finale) than Clark ever did in that regard. Humans who get a little too close to the inhuman with plans for science or personal gain certainly is a trope that pops up in other genre shows (often humans desiring eternal life at a cost or captive experimentation/torture).

Sheriff Jim Valenti (who was the villain of the Roswell High books the shows were based on!) turned out to be the kids’ fiercest protector, not unlike Lionel Luthor, despite being initial antagonists. Lionel being the king of horrific fathers contrasted hugely with Jonathan Kent. Jor-El’s A.I. practically martyred Jonathan in a trade for Lana Lang, so this version is absolutely not comparable to the Christopher Reeve version’s relationship with Marlon Brando’s! Smallville’s Clark is nearly a reversal of the old films in regards to farm boy Clark being the real deal, not the mere disguises of Superman and the hapless reporter (this is also true of Dean Cain’s iteration), as well as the nurture over nature message of the Kents being his true parents in all but blood, whereas the focus is strictly on Jor-El over Jonathan as the father figure in the 1978 and DCEU versions.

Closest to danger Clark ever got outside of Lex Luthor’s experimentation (only with the anonymous blood vial that eventually led to hybrid Lex/Clark clone test tube baby Conner Kent) was from General Sam Lane and the anti-vigilantism plot, but Clark never got nearly so exposed. Max also told his secret in the first episode, so it’s a stark contrast to how long it took for Clark to tell his love interests and friends. Clark and Lucifer Morningstar are the kings of the long-delayed reveal! By contrast, Angel waited seven whole episodes and most of the rest of the characters mentioned here did so in their first episode, if not their first scene.

The WB was already a home to many shows like Smallville, though it certainly started DC adopting the channel as their home to drop their properties into that already-established format.

Angel: the Series, Smallville and Supernatural were the more masculine side (Angel: the Series and Supernatural are definitely the most mature, horror-based shows, as well) on a channel that also had Buffy the Vampire Slayer (the original genre show on a channel that was heavily just sitcoms and 7th Heaven prior to 1997 and quickly transformed the whole channel), Charmed and Roswell (not to mention Dawson’s Creek and other more soapy, non-genre offerings).

Shows like The X-Files and Buffy the Vampire Slayer were the ones that pretty much formed everything we expect from a modern fantasy/sci-fi/supernatural/horror series now, including the mix of overarching long-form story arcs and soap opera/relationship dramas mixed with the Monster of the Week and seasonal Big Bad formats. Monster of the Week (Smallville used Freak of the Week) and ‘shipping were terms coined by The X-Files’ fandom (yep, the biggest controversy of that show was whether Fox Mulder and Dana Scully should remain platonic colleagues as intended by the creator or become a romantic relationship, which took an interminable slow burn of seven seasons), while Big Bad (and thus arcs surrounding that Big Bad seeded throughout the season) was coined on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. All these terms are used for discussing nearly every subsequent genre show today. Television prior to these shows did not have these formats, minus the old-as-dirt episodic Monsters of the Week, but not using that terminology yet.

Smallville was a marriage of comic book superheroes into the genre show format that was already going strong on the old WB. Some of these other non-comic-origin characters wouldn’t be out of place in the comic world either. Definitely true for Buffy Summers and Angel, as they basically are superheroes. Buffy has the more straight-forward Peter Parker-esque origin story, while Angel’s is told completely non-linear (often through a slow drip of flashbacks–his soul was returned a century prior, not during the course of the show, yet he most certainly didn’t become a hero then).

It’s surprising that Supernatural never quite went all-out with a real comic tie-in presence beyond some short runs early on. Neither the comics or the novels use Castiel much at all, who is the most super-powered main on the roster (so much so that the show writers were terrified to put him in Monster of the Week episodes and even tried to kill him off in seasons 6/7 due to him making the Winchesters irrelevant). Castiel is the Eldritch being-level angelic equivalent of The Little Mermaid trying to understand humanity, but with the tragic ending of the novel.

Clark himself has a mix of Dorothy Gale (check out that Over the Rainbow shot on the bridge in Smallville’s pilot, which is an image also echoed in Luke Skywalker’s binary sunset, followed by him doing an Ariel pulling Lex Luthor from the water) and Peter Pan (more than just the flying boy–he also has an immortality problem) in his DNA.

It’s that little piece of inconvenient canon (alluded to numerous times through Smallville) that is at the heart of the adverse reactions of many Superman purists who were horrified by Smallville’s Clark choosing to live a human life and have a family with Lois in the CW’s Crisis on Infinite Earths. It wasn’t just because Tom Welling still refuses to wear tights, but because it was the real unsolved existential crisis facing the character. Conversations with the Kents, Dax-Ur and General Lane all exposed this issue as an insecurity he had quite early on in the series. It’s hardly teen angst, nor was it with Angel and the Doctor saying it repeatedly to Buffy and Rose; it doesn’t make it teen angst just because they were teenagers. Clark likewise shares the tragedy of many other inhuman immortals (and yet, they keep doing it!) in that he can’t father children naturally with humans without some kind of sci-fi workaround (like Blue or Gold Kryptonite).

We might like to see these characters be Peter Pan forever, but sometimes even Peter needs to grow up (as in Hook), lest he forever remain a tragedy. Make no mistake, the immortality trope is always a tragedy, which is why so many of these characters either run away from seeing it played out or they most desire to live human lives. Having duties greater than themselves and a need to save lives they’d never be able to as mortals are often the reasons for these sacrifices, but it still remains a sacrifice and ultimately a damnation, not a gift. These characters are either doomed to lose everyone they’ve ever loved or go out in a blaze of glory, which is what television shows using the trope are actually daring to show more recently.

Not being a tragic horror story, Superman tends to avoid it, but it’s the same problem. That brief scene in Crisis on Infinite Earths was more in line with Smallville than Superman purists wished.

The Doctor is Peter Pan. It’s most obvious with the imagery of little and big Amelia Pond in her nightgown, but the story with Rose Tyler juxtaposed beside Sarah Jane Smith also shows his Peter Pan-esque tendencies. He’s the immortal who keeps picking up new companions to take on far-off adventures, only to leave them behind over and over again before he has to face their human mortality. Although the Doctor is older than Spock, he has picked up many Spockisms over the years like touch telepathy (yup, the Vulcan mind-meld), the half-human aspect of the 1996 TV movie that fans and the show do their best to ignore and the 10th Doctor’s sacrifice via a glass case of radiation (see The Wrath of Khan).

Angel, of course, is Pinocchio (with a big dollop of Highlander’s Prize), the Beast, the immortality of Peter Pan, Louis de Pointe du Lac and pre-retcon evil!Lestat de Lioncourt (the retconned one is, of course, Spike) morphed into Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and a touch of Steve Rogers meets Clark Kent, but with the aesthetic (not character) of Bruce Wayne (that mix is all there). Like Pinocchio and the Beast, there are those major elements of temptation, redemption and atonement.

The Buffyverse definitely borrowed heavily from the sympathetic vampire begun by Varney the Vampire, Nosferatu’s plagiarization of Dracula that gave birth to death by sunlight (see the whole aesthetic of the Buffyverse’s Master), the antiheroization (quite evil initially) in Dark Shadows, the archetypes of Anne Rice (the entire Master + Fanged Four are her lineup–Akasha, Gabrielle, IwtV!Lestat/Louis, Claudia and retcon!Lestat vs. the Master, Darla, Angel(us), Drusilla and Spike), the prosthetics of The Lost Boys and the vampire detective setup of Forever Knight (which copied Barnabas Collins’ cure for vampirism arc, while Angel’s Shanshu borrows more from Highlander’s Prize). Blade and Angel added apocalypse-fighting/comic superheroes to that mix.

Ironically, the more recent examples of the good vampire have gutted their mythologies of evil-default vampires entirely (making the exceptions to the rule far less alienated and unique amongst their own kinds) and certainly kicked out the apocalyptic superheroing for soap opera. The Buffyverse is ironically closer to Anne Rice’s full-blooded, evil, murderous inhuman creatures (no matter the guilt and eating rats in alleys) than it is Twilight and The Vampire Diaries in spite of the human/inhuman romance plots, marking a strong separation between the WB’s era and the CW’s.

That’s a strong example of how the genre show environment has changed in the last two decades, so it’s not just the differences between the eras of Smallville and the Arrowverse/DCEU.

Supernatural is a particularly weird example in that it ran for so long with the same cast (unlike Doctor Who, which is fast approaching its 60th anniversary and has gone through many changes, not just its format) that it was still following the same show format and catering to a generation who grew up along with it (not to mention the actors going from young to middle-aged) from 2005 through 2020. The format all the way to the end (though never again as desaturated, jump-scare horrific as that first season was–its inspirations from The X-Files showed) is most certainly pre-streaming and owes much to its old WB origins using a formula born in the 1990s, despite the CW’s rebranding in 2006. Castiel’s ushering in of the whole angel mythology was the most seismic change in Supernatural’s history, though even he was like a horror creature early on. The show certainly had early comedy episodes, but they definitely got more frequent later. One only has to look at the season 15 premiere’s handling of the Woman in White and Bloody Mary’s returns to see how alien the season 1 atmosphere was to the show by then.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer likewise shed its gothic horror atmosphere and went into the sunlight (not for the better) around the time Angel took his gothic fairy tale-turned-noir with him to L.A. See Lucifer aiming for the same aesthetic in its first season. Smallville was likewise a show that spanned the WB and CW, but before the television landscape completely left that late-'90s/'00s aesthetic. You can definitely start to feel similar differences in the change from Smallville High to Metropolis and Lana to Lois. There’s a pretty stark generational shift in the shows aimed at late Gen-X/older Gen-Y (Millennials) and now Gen-Z (Zoomers). That’s the biggest shift between the WB and the Arrowverse-era CW.

Castiel, despite him learning how to love, is the ultimate example of free will in a mythology that has none by design (he truly did have a “crack in his chassis”) and even adopts a son whom he can finally relate to, ends with him tired, very sad and unloved in return. Not a single character in the history of Supernatural ever tells Castiel that they love him. Frankly, Meg and Crowley, who kept saving his life, showed more care about and affection for him than the Winchesters, particularly Dean (who belittled, refused to help and abandoned Castiel for years before the Jack and Mary drama shattered the relationship irrevocably). Sam, who used to feel the same othering from John and Dean as the Boy with the Demon Blood that got heaped on Castiel if he dared remind Dean he wasn’t “human, or at least like one”, had a bad habit of following his brother in questionable acts like putting Jack in the box. Castiel says he loves others several times, but he never once hears it back. As in The Little Mermaid, Castiel sacrifices himself for someone who will never love him back, except in place of sea form is the black goo of the Empty. At least Jack cared, but you’ll notice Castiel is nowhere to be seen when the Winchesters reunite in Heaven. Not even Sam (who was equally sad and tired at the end, while Dean was just angrily lashing out at everyone while blaming everyone but himself) bothered to place a single photo of Castiel amongst his shrine to John, Mary and Dean. Sam literally knew Castiel longer than he ever knew Mary and his relationship with John was so bad that he left his father and brother to go to Stanford. Boy, did that final episode say it all about Castiel loving, but never being loved in return. Bobby Singer was wrong; it turns out that, for the Winchesters, family did end in blood.

The alienated outsider archetype who doesn’t quite fit in amongst human society (often with an immortality/lifespan problem on top of other interspecies differences), but often desperately wants to find human belonging, love and family, is true of characters like Clark, the Doctor, Spock, Connor/Duncan MacLeod, Angel, Castiel, Lucifer, etc… These are subsequently the shows and storylines that borrow most from the Superman mythos.

See the many takes on Superman II’s Pinocchio plot, except having to give it all up for a higher purpose (not to mention many other Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid, Pinocchio and Peter Pan parallels), such as Angel’s I Will Remember You, Smallville!Clark’s Arrival/Mortal/Hidden, the Doctor’s Human Nature/The Family of Blood and Castiel’s season 9 arc.

That’s Superman and Clark’s real impact on the television landscape.

Was reading Interview with the Vampire and Louis was answering a question about a woman he had sorta loved named Babette. She wasn’t the greatest love he’d ever felt, but he says his greatest love was foreshadowed in Babette. I’ve seen the movie, so I only know what happens as far as the film is concerned, but I wondered if he meant Claudia the child vampire?

And then my brain went: wait, is Babette the child vampire in Skyrim an Interview with the Vampire reference? Both she and Claudia take guiltlessly to killing afaik. Is the Babette of Skyrim a combination of strong and sensible Babette Freniere and the cunning but childlike Claudia?

Will make a more rounded assessment when I finish the book. But ooh.

If you Google it, you do get a few results of other people wondering the same thing, but I like it when I think of questions independently of others’ influence.

“It was Lestat beyond question, restored and intact as he hung in the doorway, his head thrust forward, his eyes bulging, as if he were drunk and needed the door jamb to keep him from plunging headlong into the room. His skin was a mass of scars, a hideous covering of injured flesh, as though every wrinkle of his ‘death’ had left its mark upon him. He was seared and marked as if by the random strokes of a hot poker, and his once clear gray eyes were shot with hemorrhaged vessels…”

Lestat de Lioncourt from

THE VAMPIRE CHRONICLES (Anne Rice)


I just watched Interview with the Vampires again and once again, I fell in love with Lestat (T▽T)

i needed to take several moments to compose myself when i was reading their reunion scene in the vam

i needed to take several moments to compose myself when i was reading their reunion scene in the vampire lestat


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Old art from last year.  The Promised Neverland band AU, vampire family portrait, and Jotun Loki.Old art from last year.  The Promised Neverland band AU, vampire family portrait, and Jotun Loki.Old art from last year.  The Promised Neverland band AU, vampire family portrait, and Jotun Loki.

Old art from last year.  The Promised Neverland band AU, vampire family portrait, and Jotun Loki.


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❤️ The world changes, we do not, there lies the irony that finally kills us.

❤️

The world changes, we do not, there lies the irony that finally kills us.


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Listen, the tv series isn’t going to give us Daniel the sassy gay and highly capable reporter in the

Listen, the tv series isn’t going to give us Daniel the sassy gay and highly capable reporter in the 1970′s trying to transcribe a book and survive a vampire stalker at the same time, so *I am.*


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Marius-Armand-DanielI adore these three men. To me, they are such a beautiful running thread throughMarius-Armand-DanielI adore these three men. To me, they are such a beautiful running thread throughMarius-Armand-DanielI adore these three men. To me, they are such a beautiful running thread through

Marius-Armand-Daniel

I adore these three men. To me, they are such a beautiful running thread through the series. The scholarly Roman forced into taking up the mantle of the wise and responsible leader, the lost soul stolen and rescued for luxury only to be lost again, and the boy, curious to a fault who became a ruined thing. For their blood line to come full circle and for Daniel, the one who started it all, the crux on which The Vampire Chronicles begins, to become the beloved companion to Marius, while both love and mourn for and reunite with Armand in their ways, how broken Marius leaves Armand, how broken Armand leaves Daniel, it’s the most beautiful and frightful trio. 


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Absolutely obsessed with the song Shot at the Night by the Killers for Daniel circa the Night Island

Absolutely obsessed with the song Shot at the Night by the Killers for Daniel circa the Night Island so here’s some neon dreams


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Warm Miami nights. I picture this somewhere around 1982. He’s not doing great in any shape or form b

Warm Miami nights. I picture this somewhere around 1982. He’s not doing great in any shape or form but that death spiral hasn’t quite hit yet


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Marius and Daniel, as absolutely stupidly homoromantic as I could possibly get them, a Vday gift for

Marius and Daniel, as absolutely stupidly homoromantic as I could possibly get them, a Vday gift for @daniel-james-molloy and now for y’all to enjoy


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A Christmas gift for @caravaggiovagabond as commissioned by their girlfriend!I always loved the myth

A Christmas gift for @caravaggiovagabond as commissioned by their girlfriend!

I always loved the myth of Hades and Persephone, and there’s something to be said about the parallels to Marius and Armand, stealing the youth to darkness and watching them become something powerful 


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Happy cold dark time of the year, TVC Fandom!Or at least, survivable cold dark time of the year. Tak

Happy cold dark time of the year, TVC Fandom!

Or at least, survivable cold dark time of the year. Take solace in knowing how early vampires can wake up now in the northern hemisphere. Those bastards can catch matinee shows and grab the after dinner crowd for their meals! Yay them!

Here’s a tense Louis and an oh so seventies Daniel to get you through. 


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Well I’ve been there,sitting in that same chair,whispering that same prayer half a million times,It’

Well I’ve been there,
sitting in that same chair,
whispering that same prayer half a million times,

It’s a lie though,
burying disciples,
one page of the bible isn’t worth a life. 

It took me a while to process what I wanted to say about the death of Anne Rice, and what she meant to me. There’s a long story, as there is for so many, but in the whole, Anne’s struggle with religion and meaning spoke to me in a very real way through Armand. So many times, even in her autobiography, she spoke of emerging from the darkness, and on the page, through Armand, she told a story of devotion, obsession, and eventually, martyrdom. What I believe though, is that this supposed darkness is the only place some of us can see any light at all.


I was raised Catholic. “Normal” Catholic. Go to mass but don’t read the Bible Catholic. More statues of Mary than pictures of Jesus, catechism classes, trussed up like a child bride for Christ. All that. I grew into an independent and liberal, ally and feminist teenager, but somehow, eventually, I was scared into what I can only call fundamentalist Catholicism. Cover my hair for church, confession twice a week, giving up everything in life that made me happy, because happiness outside of Christ was a sin.

Over the course of about 6 years, I evolved past this, from Catholic to trinitarian Wicca to Greek Pagan to, eventually, atheist. But trauma, obsession and issues with mental health have only become more pronounced as I got older, and around summer 2019 I realized I had some severe religious trauma to sort through. Then comes fall, and something snaps in my brain. To this day I don’t know what sparked it or triggered it but I suddenly became intensely convinced of the idea that Holy Mother Church was not only true, but Truth with a capital T, and I was, once again, going to hell. Because there is no liberal Christianity in my world. There is no love and light, no universalism, no salvation. In my teachings and the cult beliefs I know, almost nobody goes to heaven. Short sleeves, cut hair, homosexual thoughts, appearing to others that you are sinning- souls “fall into hell like snowflakes” so says our lady of Fatima, and there is absolutely no salvation outside the church.

I saw suicide once again as my only option, because if you are convinced beyond any doubt that you will go to hell, then what use is your life? 40 years on earth suffering and anticipating an inevitable eternity, what does it matter? I was beyond terrified. I am trans, I am queer, I had finally escaped an abusive home and family and was flourishing. Now here I was, looking at our new house with my wife and girlfriend, them so excited to begin moving in and planning renovations, and I was wondering how to tell them I was going to leave them forever. I was sick. I lost 20 pounds, I ended up in urgent care for heart palpitations and I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t sleep, I had constant nightmares when I did. I spent over 6 months in an unending state of terror from the time I woke up to the time I eventually passed out.

Early 2020, my wife, who I hid all this from, started listening to Anne Rice audiobooks, and getting obsessed. I listened to SOMETHING all the time, trying to distract myself somehow and I wanted to die. So, out of nothing else to do, I started to listen, and they were nice. They distracted me, they were dark, pleasant stories. But I wasn’t obsessed like I usually was with a media I would grow to love. So one day she comes home and throws me a copy of The Vampire Armand and tells me here, your daddy issues will love this. SO I started to read it. Only Venice. I didn’t know a lot of the set up, since I was going out of order and had only paid some attention to IWTV and TVL, but I devoured this story of Venice. It was the rescue fantasy I had played out in my head so many times as a child, isolated and hungry and made very well known the fact that I was unwanted. It was a gothic, morbid little Cinderella, and though I knew Armand’s story with Marius didn’t have a fairy tale ending, I didn’t care. I had that connection now, to continue to read, and devour one book after another. I fell in love with Marius, with Daniel, and with Quinn, but it was Armand who drug me back from that pit, Armand, through Anne’s words. Armand and his prayers and his willingness to die as a sinner, Armand with his rings as he reclaimed the beauty of the world.

Anne gave up her vampires for a time as she went back to the church, and while I can’t pretend to be an expert or say I’ve read hardly any of her interviews or articles on the subject, I can imagine her sorrow and pain to have to shelf something that once saved you. I put away, gave away, and turned away so many parts of myself to fit the good little Catholic mold, and that mold is a *lie*. It’s wicked, it’s foul, it does nothing but steal joy and light while claiming to cure us of all that ails us.

I do not believe Anne is with Stan and Michele. I know for so many fans that is a comfort, but it’s simply not a part of reality for me. Anne isn’t anywhere. She died, and she has left us words and pictures and love, but there is no soul, no afterlife, no eternity, and *that* is the true light I see in death. To some it’s so sad to think that we won’t see those we love again, and as someone who lost their mother this year, I know that mourning. But it also means our loved ones aren’t burning and being tortured for eternity for not being Catholic or not being Catholic *enough*. All I can hope is that Anne, no matter what she thought at the very end, faced her last moments in peace and conviction and was without the fear that our past religion says we should all carry in our hearts. I hope she only thought of her own beautiful darkness. 


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for @daniel-james-molloy , Santino and Armand being lovely and sweet as two messed up mofos can be

for @daniel-james-molloy , Santino and Armand being lovely and sweet as two messed up mofos can be


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More of my new favorite rarepair, Thorne and Daniel

More of my new favorite rarepair, Thorne and Daniel



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More practice with marker, Amadeo in Venice. I bought a painting of Venice at dusk a few weeks ago a

More practice with marker, Amadeo in Venice. I bought a painting of Venice at dusk a few weeks ago at work and I’m so in love with it, it was definite inspo


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Another “Ghost” inspired commission for @daniel-james-molloy, wanting a scene of Daniel, despite his

Another “Ghost” inspired commission for @daniel-james-molloy, wanting a scene of Daniel, despite his inner storms and terrors, safe for once in Marius’ arms. Absolutely delighted to have worked on this

Commission slots are open, Message me for details <3


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Body type practice with Daniel, Thorne and ArmandOr as I like to call them, Heroin Chic, Bara Tiddie

Body type practice with Daniel, Thorne and Armand

Or as I like to call them, Heroin Chic, Bara Tiddies, and Plump n’ Juicy


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