#asexual vc

[monstersinthecosmos]

[monstersinthecosmos]

me typing and erasing and typing and erasing replies to random AMC fans being acephobic about the VC books … 😮‍💨 it is too early for this I will not engage. 😾

[monstersinthecosmos]

Just stating for the record that there's a lot of confusion about what asexuality is and isn't, and whether ace people can participate in sex, and if sex has to be penetrative.

Like not that it's my job to be your sex educator lmao but

Yes asexual people can have sex; this is about a lack of attraction, not a lack of libido or sexual dysfunction.

Of course sex does not have to be penetrative.

Being celibate is not the same as being asexual.

Asexuals can be attracted to people without wanting to fuck them, they can still experience romantic attraction or desire intimacy that is not sex.

If you want to dismantle ace themes/reads in your fandom of choice, please use textual points that are, in fact, truthful about what asexuality is and isn't. A book isn't less queer if the characters don't fuck. Queer people can still experience love and romance without sex. This need to insist that a piece of media isn't ace because it's queer is saying that asexuals aren't queer, and we're not here for exclusionary radfem bullshit okay?

If we're going to preach this in the larger conversation of queer politics when it comes to, for example: trans rights, queer content in children's' libraries, existing in public--we have to be consistent. Don't tell the larger world that every facet of a queer person's life isn't about SEX but then tell ace people that they're not queer because they don't want sex, or dismiss a queer piece of media because the characters didn't fuck. Asexuality is not queer subtext, it is queer text. It is already queer.

If you're thinking about dunking on ace people in your fandom, like, listen! We know that tumblr has a radfem & conservative problem lol so like if you're just a radfem/terf/conservative/whatever I can't stop you, but if you don't associate with those folks and still want to be exlusionary, please check some resources to see if your understanding of asexuality is up to date before you make a bunch of points that don't matter. I really recommend AVEN - The Asexuality Visibility & Education Network and The Trevor Project's page about Asexuality as a starting point!

Just ask, before you post:

Does the asexual read hurt anybody?

Am I invalidating someone's experience by telling them that they're wrong?

Does my point balance strictly on concepts of sex, and not concepts of attraction?

Am I sure I understand what asexuality is before I start dunking on it and being exclusionary to the ace people in my fandom?

Am I regurgitating points about what sex is and isn't without remembering that asexuality is about sexual attraction, and not about whether or not someone participates in sex acts? (ie: "They do have sex, someone got a handjob" isn't really building your case the way you think it is.)

What exactly is the purpose of my post if it's not to be exclusionary and fucking rude? Do I need to examine my own biases towards ace people?

[monstersinthecosmos]

Little Drink as edging and MURDER as orgasming is the most mindbendingly hot and truthful parallel to ever be drawn. Just. Cannot get past it

 Yes, YES!!!

Like I know I’m Marius Brained and everything but even when I’m reading TVA and in Armand’s POV I am always like, god this must have been killing Marius. 🥵

The Devil’s Minion era (once they warm up to each other) and Venice Era are really the only times in canon we get to see a prolonged courtship between a vampire and human, yeah? But the books constantly tell us about how killing & drinking is the ultimate form of intimacy. (Notice me being very very mature and not devolving into an Asexual VC dissertation LMAO pin that for later). I’m not counting Lestat & David as a prolonged courtship because David was Not Interested and they weren’t sharing blood before Lestat finally turned him, and still David’s turning is explicitly described as rape and written to be erotic. But the overlap of Venice & Devil’s Minion is too obvious to ignore and we see the way the human/vampire relationship finds ways to translate their interspecies erotic desires by sharing sex acts (for the human) and blood (for the vampire).

STILL! 

The Little Drink isn’t all they need! Like they’re not just taking a little sip and fucking off for the night — Thorne describes it as being a bee going from flower to flower! Drinking from many many people! And the books tell us that it’s not ONLY the blood itself — it’s the murdering that’s the truly intimate and most special act!!!!! 

So anyway just.

Taking little sips for years and years ! The blue balls, my god. And finally getting to take him all the way!!!!!!! God. 🥵💦

Especially like reading B&G and knowing that Armand was like, Marius’s 3rd choice rebound during that time period LMAO. He wanted Botticelli and had to leave Florence to not kill him! He wanted Bianca and had to remove himself from her social circle to not kill her!!! 

This is my favorite Marius quote in VC, when he’s feeling like he’s going to murder Bianca — 

For a moment, I thought my powerful self-control would be lost. I would embrace her, whether or not she would have it, and take her rapidly by force from the very middle of her warm and safe rooms to the cold and fatal domain of my soul.

He finds Armand because he’s trying to like ethically source a fledgling (great job buddy that’s the worst anyone has ever done it) by choosing someone who’s on borrowed time, anyway! Blank slate that he can groom for vampirism!!!!!! 

I was just talking to @apoptoses today about how the concept of “this sounded cool until I actually tried it” comes up a bunch in VC — we were talking about Daniel romanticizing murder until he actually had to do it LOL — but same for Marius thinking he can just mold a trafficked boy to be a good vampire. So it’s not just like, Marius having a relationship with him and taking little sips as a fucking aperitif for The Act but like, he almost immediately changes his mind and doesn’t want to do it !!! He’s willing to deny himself !!! 

Gosh where’s that other thing he says in TVA…

“I’m coarsened by human blood. It's always the fact. Only in starvation do I find an ethereal purity.” "Ah, and you turn me from penance at every juncture," I said, "towards the senses, towards pleasure."

Just, oof. Especially for Marius who, from what we can tell, is a little more into humans than most of the cast? Like he’s someone that craves social connection and wants to be around them all the time. Even when he was alive and he was traveling to meet and study people in taverns. So I think there’s just a lot wrapped up in this ! 

I shared this a couple weeks ago but I wanna share it again because I think it will make everyone understand VC better and we’ll all write better fanfics for it LMAO it’s based on Hellraiser but it's the topic of eroticism in religious penance !!!!! Very excellent. 

But the eroticism of suffering! Of denial! Inside the universe of Written By Crazy Catholic Lady VC we also have to talk about how eroticism is the kill & the blood and how abstinence is akin to starvation - how it’s something actually painful.

Anyway I’m gonna leave it here I think because I’ll talk all day but I was poking through TVA and B&G for some quotes about this and I’m just !!!!!!

Marius on Armand:

I had never experienced such pure intimacy with a mortal, except with those I meant to kill. It gave me chills to have my arms around this boy, to press my lips to his cheeks and chin, his forehead, his tender closed eyes. Yes, the blood thirst rose, but I knew so well how to control it. I filled my nostrils with the smell of his youthful flesh.

"He is irresistible, but what am I to do?

Armand on Marius: 

"Amadeo," he said, his lips on my throat as they'd come a thousand times, only this time there came a sting, sharp, swift and gone. A thread stitched into my heart was jerked all of a sudden. I had become the thing between my legs, and was nothing but that. His mouth nestled against me, and again that thread snapped and again. I saw him staring, beastlike, from his chair, as if some ravener had come into him and banished all his civilized faculties and left him thus, hungry, with glazed eyes and reddening mouth, the glittering blood finding its myriad little paths over the silky margin of his lips. He rose, a drugged thing, and came towards me with a rhythm of movements that was alien and struck the coldest terror in my heart. His fingers flashed, closed, beckoned. I ran to him. He lifted me in both hands, clutching my arms ever so gently, and tucked his face against my neck. From the soles of my feet up my back through my arms and my neck and scalp, I felt it.

"Master, Master, Master, I love you." "Yes, well, that's not so unusual," he whispered. He didn't stop his kissing. He lapped at the blood. I writhed under the weight of his hand on my backside. "But the question is, Amadeo, why do I love you? Why? Why did I have to go into that stinking brothel and look upon you? I am strong by nature ... whatever my nature ..." He greedily kissed a large bruise on my thigh. I could feel his sucking at it, and then the tongue lapping it, eating the blood, and then his blood coming down into it.

And this from TVA when he finally does it:

He bent his lips. A sense of dreadful awesome finality swept over me. "You will die now to be with me in life eternal," he whispered in my ear. "Never for a moment must you really fear. I will hold your heart safe in my hands." His teeth cut into me, deeply, cruelly with the precision of twin daggers, and I heard my heart thud in my ears. My very bowels contracted, and my stomach was knotted in pain. Yet a savage pleasure swept through all my veins, a pleasure which coursed towards the wounds in my neck. I could feel my blood rush towards my Master, towards his thirst and my inevitable death. Even my hands were transfixed with vibrant sensation. Indeed, I seemed suddenly to be but a puppet map of circuitry, all of it aglow, as with a low, obvious and deliberate sound, my Master drank my life's blood. The sound of his heart, slow, steady, a deep reverberating pounding, filled my ears. The pain in my intestines was alchemized to a soft sheer rapture; my body lost all weight, all knowledge of itself in space. The throb of his heart was within me. My hands felt the long satin locks of his hair, but I did not hold to them. I floated, supported only by the insistent heartbeat and thrilling current of all my swiftly flowing blood. "I die now," I whispered. This ecstasy could not endure.

(What’s also funny is that the turning from Marius’s POV is so much about Armand’s religious ecstasy and revelations - thanks Catholic Lady but also that’s whole eroticism-mysticism thing again. Also the way that Marius treats it like a wedding so. Jsdkgla.)

I’m going to be so fucking honest with you, I was gonna pull a bunch of quotes and I think there were some more I was gonna look up but I got a little too squirmy reading these ones 🥵🥵🥵🥵 dhjkadslg I THINK I’VE MADE MY POINT.

[monstersinthecosmos]

Hi! I'm the anon from your last ask.

The fic I wanted to comment on was "Cauda Pavonis".

And it is so beautiful!! Seriously!! I love reading anything that explores the relationship between Marius, Amadeo and Bianca. I also really liked the choice of setting this after Amadeo has been made a vampire, and I loved all the bits where he reflects on how, just a few months before, this would have been different. I really enjoy the way you write Marius in general, and this time is no exception. I loved the gender-fuckery of swapping clothes, and most importantly, swapping roles in a way that won't make Bianca suspect a thing. I loved how it was all orchestrated by Marius, and Amadeo still had to figure out for himself what to do next. I really enjoyed the image of a newly-turned Amadeo dressed in Bianca's expensive clothes. And to be fair, Bianca looks probably handsome as hell in masculine clothing. I enormously appreciated the little detail of how, aside from their clothes, they also swap jewellery, with Bianca putting pearls in Amadeo's hair and Amadeo giving her his own rings (though they could have been Bianca's from the beginning, in which case it's still hot I LOVE a woman with fingers full of rings). It's the details for me!!

Some bits I loved: Like a father and son, perhaps, resembling each other in a way that’s almost uncanny now. Made me laugh a little

And, not that he wants to tell her no, but he feels Marius’s silence too keenly. It had been there before too, but he hadn’t known better. Now, feeling for him the way he can for mortals, his ears ring in the absence.

and

He doesn’t think his old self would be so still, so reserved. Just beautiful

The filthier parts (I mean it in a good way) are really great , as usual with your writing. For some reason, while I KNOW it's filthy, I also find the way you write sexual acts really elegant in this one. Very sensual.

Really loved the melancholic ending as well.

I'm so happy you wrote this. I feel like Bianca is often overlooked by the fandom, and that Marius could do with a little more love from the fandom as well.

Amadeo/Armand has been an absolute favourite of mine ever since he appeared on the page in Interview with the vampire, and I think you captured his character really well!

lkfhdflg wow this is so kind of you, thank you ;.;

(The fic is here if anyone is curious!) GOSH I ALSO FEEL LIKE BIANCA IS OVERLOOKED BY THE FANDOM!!!!!!!!! gosh she's RIGHT ! THERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I really think there's so much gender stuff going on in Venice, for all three of them really! I don't feel well equipped to tackle this subject in a meaningful way but Marius I think is one of the VC characters who straddles gender roles the most potently, with his mommy issues and instinct to be a caregiver.

[And then I really went off on a sidebar and wrote a whole ass essay about asexuality in VC but I decided I was infodumping in an inappropriate venue so I'll save that for its own post some time I guess LMAO but said all that to say -- ]

Asexuality in VC is also so fucking important to me and like something I always prioritize in my fics, and I've written about human Armand and I've written tons about Devil's Minion era Armand but I haven't spent a lot of time with Fledgling Armand and like, what that means! What that shift means! How does it feel to no longer feel attraction in that same way, just hunger! How does it feel to no longer crave it the way you simply crave the violence!!!!!!!! Thinking back every day of my life to Marius & Pandora saying

“This is stupid and superstitious!” “It is neither,” I said. “It is symbolic and comforting.”

What is ritual vs what is authentic desire! What happens when you go through the motions for your partner when could take it or leave it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And gender stuff, too, I mean !!!!!!!! Like, within a PWP fic it's here for kink reasons and isn't that deep, but I do have feelings about it!!!!!!!!!!

It seems like the times we meet gender fluid or cross-dressing vampires in VC they seem surprised, like, even as these creatures who exist outside of human social construct, the way it SURPRISES them to be like "OH I don't have to live like this" tells me how much still needs to be unlearned. Marius is of course a canonical gender-fuckery ally so Armand has the privilege of learning that lesson very quickly and reaping the benefits of Marius's big big age, but for a character like Armand and his backstory and experience with sexual abuse I can imagine this space giving him a lot to think about, even if it's not experiencing it on a fetish level.

I think about this Armand quote a lot, too -

"You know, when you think of it," I said, turning away, so I wouldn't see the dress in his hand, "there's no good reason under God for little girls and little boys. Think of it, the other tender issue of mammals. Among puppies or kitten or colts, does one find gender? It's never an issue. The half-grown fragile thing is sexless. There is no determination. There is nothing as splendid to look at as a little boy or girl."

Just yeah, in their time period, what does it mean to cede this power dynamic? Anne Rice's sort of gender envy meant that becoming male was a source of liberations for her characters and something that women could do for safety, so what happens when you do the reverse? And how different does it feel for Armand, who, as a child was trafficked and treated as a sexless object for abuse? How did that even violate this early life's values as a boy and his space inside religion, etc?

For Bianca it must have been very freeing and fun and for Armand, even within the confines of their home and not going outside, it might have just been A Lot to think about, you know? And without going into another side essay about whether or not vampires ACTUALLY divorce themselves from their human values the way some of them claim to, I think here's still a lot to think about in terms of their sense of self and their identity. Armand might be able to turn this topic over in his head without having a very human crashout and yet still wonder deeply about what it means for his perceived identity and the creature he's become.

Anyway, thank you so much!!! I had so much fun writing this fic because there are so many really interesting themes and topics about the Venice era and even though it was a quickie PWP I felt like I got to kinda dip into it a little for funsies without making it a huge deep thing. 🥰 I'm so glad you enjoyed it!

[monstersinthecosmos]

VC does a good job at constantly reminding us that vampires don't desire sex because they're sensual creatures whose entire bodies have become erogenous zones but like when I tell you how much I fucking adored this moment I found at Tulane which explicitly made the connection between hair combing and making love!

But rereading B&G I'm looking at these two moments with Thorne, a couple paragraphs apart from each other:

"Come," [Marius] said, "let's be done with this pleasure and go for another. Let's hunt. I can feel your hunger."

"BE DONE WITH THIS PLEASURE AND GO FOR ANOTHER" as they're bathing together, referring to the kill being the closest thing that vampires come to sex. And then a moment later after they've gotten out of the bath:

Marius had finished with the task and now took a fresh towel from the stack and began to rub Thorne's back and shoulders. This familiarity sent the chills through Thorne's limbs. Marius rubbed hard at Thorne's head, and then he began to comb the wet hair free of tangles.

Just!! Bathing! Hair brushing! it's so much!!!!!!!

(also let's focus on Thorne right now but this always reminds me of how Armand makes the point to say that when he's being trafficked they pull his hair and hurt him and one of the first thing Marius does is comb it gently okay!)

Listen I'm too emotional to be coherent about this so I'm plopping it on the table and stalking off to wail into the mountains but I just wanted to share this !!

[monstersinthecosmos]

something I fucking ADORE about the asexuality in VC is the sort of muddled gray area about what is sexual attraction vs. what is hunger, and all the ways that sensuality & sexuality are blurred together by making blood drinking so erotic on the page.

as much as we can say it's "coded" and make all the cases for drinking=fucking, the way it isn't literal is actually so realistic and wonderful to read as an ace, because aces do shit like this too. a lot of us find ways around intimacy and sexuality by making it something else, and a lot of us even participate in sex even when we don't particularly need to. (This is the classic ice cream metaphor for aces: Yes I could eat an ice cream if you gave me one, but I'm not craving ice cream.) so like yes yes let's talk about all the ways you can be intimate, sensual, all the ways you can be attracted to someone when it isn't about sex, all the things we like about people that are not about sex!!!!!!!!

all the ways sensuality is expressed and all the weird ways they do EVERYTHING EXCEPT SEX is so fucking asexual dude!

participating in sexual acts that do not necessarily benefit you sexually because you like watching your partner squirm??

✅ ASEXUAL!

getting "BASICALLY SEX" out of random shit that is in fact, not sex???

✅ ASEXUAL!

being physically capable of having sex if you really wanted to except you fucking don't want to because who cares it's boring I'd rather kill somebody??

✅ ASEXUAL!

love that for us !!!!!!!!!

[monstersinthecosmos]

🔥 + kink in VC

(also thinking like in comparison to Anne's other books like CoSB and realizing VC is so fucking mild and antis have no business being in Anne Rice fandom)

Dsjgkalsdg comrade why are you asking me this you know I’m about to launch into a TED Talk.

So like, if we compare Anne’s Sleeping Beauty books to VC, I feel like the kink is meta in two completely different ways, like opposite ends of the spectrum. In SB, the BDSM is meta in the sense that it’s built into the universe. They are not books ABOUT BDSM, they are books about fantasy and the kinks just get to exist. It’s an immersive fantasy that takes all the ways people play IRL and makes it canon. And a lot of people who dislike them (based on like bad GoodReads reviews LOL) ONLY see them as rape books and don’t really understand the way it’s giving BDSM a space to breathe.

What vanilla folks don’t understand is that IRL BDSM is also fiction a lot of the time. Even tame shit like spanking and talking dirty—do these people actually want their partners to hit them in their day-to-day lives? Do they want to be catcalled and lewded outside of the scene? Probably not! And even going to more in depth scenes like, do you actually think you’re someone’s kitty? Do you actually want an assailant to tie you up? Do you actually want to be trafficked?

No! You dont’! You want to play pretend with your partner, with whom you’ve consented.

And I think this attitude in the bad reviews is also the attitude that fanfic writers get from conservatives/radfems/swerfs/fancops in fandom, that somehow writing noncon fic or darkfic in general is somehow making these atrocious things literal, when in fact THEIR EXISTENCE WITHIN A WORK OF FICTION AUTOMATICALLY MAKES THEM NOT LITERAL. And people need to understand that the consent for stories like this is not about the fictional people involved who do not exist and therefore cannot consent, but between the reader and the author when you open the book.

Anyway I bring that up because these books tell me a lot about Anne’s sensibility for kink. SHE GETS IT MAN. She wasn’t shy about it. So I think it speaks very broadly to the way power dynamics and monsterfuckery are expressed within VC, as well, even though these are two very opposite ends of the spectrum with her writing, I think that same confidence and kink positivity still exists. There's also a foreward to the copy of SB that I read, I think she added in 2012, and it was SO insightful about her process and her intention writing the kink & porn the way she did and I just think she really fucking understood what she was doing. And it's so telling to me because like, she mentions she used the pen name when she first wrote them because her father was alive and she was embarrassed, and one of the first scenes in SB is Beauty being stripped naked and paraded around IN FRONT OF HER FATHER LOL. So like WITHOUT GOING OFF ON A SIDE TANGENT something else vanilla folks don't understand is that so often kink is about the thing being transgressive and gross and uncomfortable; IT'S HOT BECAUSE IT'S UNCOMFORTABLE. It's not something that anyone literally wants, it's just hot because it's WRONG. And I think often about how this is like, the sex equivalent of trying not to laugh at an off-color joke, and how it's not that the joke is funny but that it's so off-putting that you laugh at the absurdity of it.

I feel like the kink in VC is meta in an opposite way, in the way it’s so symbolic and understated. Also because the vampires are asexual it gives a whole layer of like non-sexual BDSM dynamics are it’s SO GOOD. 

So I think coming from an author was not squeamish about writing immersive BDSM, a lot of those themes are in VC and I wonder if they come from the same place, even if it’s subliminal on her part. Like the power dynamics, consent around biting, THE CONSTANT MONSTERFUCKING & FLIRTING WITH DEATH AKA “THE SWOON”. And even later in TVA with the introduction of the whipping scene and all Armand’s comments about getting tied up and having his fuckin, pit hair tugged on or whatever. 

And it has some of those like sort of dubcon romance tropes that I think we can’t discard; being TAKEN! Being OVERPOWERED! It ties into vampire fiction in general with like, vampires historically being a symbol of sexuality, going back to like Dracula comin in ur window and everything. 

But VC never makes it “about” kink, it’s just like SB, just baked into the themes. And like a lot of the more obvious BDSM themes in VC are also not consensual, they’re just built into the universe. Like Armand stalking/abusing Daniel, like Marius whipping Armand without negotiating first, like Akasha’s femdom murder bender. And even how often biting gets used as a symbol for sex, and how often noncon biting gets called rape! And the characters know it! And they do it anyway! (Also I cannot neglect to mention obvious tropes like Marius/Armand just being a teacher/student trope. IT'S A PORN TROPE! Or what about Gabrielle as Mommy!Dom? PORN TROPE! Quinn/Goblin twincest? PORN TROPE! The exhibitionism/public humiliation on the TDV stage hello???? That's like an Upper Floor party come on LOL. [this type of dynamic is also SO SO prevalent in SB.])

I’m not really sure what my conclusion here is because like, I just think this is all here in the books and it’s really excellent fodder to talk about kink and character dynamics. Power dynamics is so huge in BDSM and it’s so so huge in VC, not just like, vampires being old and powerful and having that as a status symbol over one another, but even emotionally speaking like. TELL ME THAT ARMAND & LESTAT AREN’T ABSOLTUELY SOAKED IN HUMILIATION AND BEGGING. Taking inventory of VC ships like there’s ALWAYS a dominant and a submissive, it’s so rare that people are just equals with each other, and it’s always part of the appeal! 

There’s this psychologist Esther Perel, I think she’s brilliant and she’s very kink positive and has a bunch of podcasts and stuff. I read her book Mating in Captivity and she brought up this whole thing about kink and power dynamics and how like, it’s not always clear who’s in charge, and you can’t judge relationships based on who’s older, who makes more money, who’s larger, etc, because power dynamics are so much more complicated than that. She uses the example that if you’ve ever been in public with a screaming toddler, which of you is really the dominant? I think about this constantly!

And like speaking about real life kink being so deeply about CONSENT means so much to me with this conversation about VC, too, because like even looking at a relationship like Marius & Human!Armand or Armand and Human!Daniel, it doesn’t matter that one is a powerful vampire if they also feel so tenderly towards their fragile little human. TVA was very explicit about this when they have that conversation about which one of them is the other’s slave. So in BDSM even though we look at the dom as being the one in control, the consent is the thing in control and ultimately the SUB is in control by permitting all of it! 

So I just feel very strongly about all of this, it’s all over VC, and even when it’s less obvious (relationships like Loustat, like Lestat/Armand, even Louis/Claudia) there are so many of these power elements to examine. Even if it’s not written TO BE KINKY they’re still there and I think it’s all connected, because I’m kink positive and I love unpacking this stuff. 

AND ALSO LIKE ON THE ASEXUAL FRONT, I love it so much because like as a kinky ace, and knowing as many kinky aces as I know, there’s SO MUCH KINK out there that is NOT SEXUAL so I think it just translates so nicely to VC vampires being asexual, like it all makes so much fucking sense to me and it’s so fun and I adore it so much!!! 

THIS WAS PURE STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS IM GONNA POST IT BEFORE I GET WORRIED THAT IM NOT COHESIVE, ENJOY!!!