#thevampireviolet

[the-everqueen]

For the book asks: 4, 11, and 17 📚

4. did you discover any new authors you love this year? i read the reformatory and i NEED to read more tananarive due. biggest hurdle is that her older books have Thee ugliest covers, which seems so unfair given that due Gets narrative pacing. the reformatory hooked me in the same way a good stephen king novel does, but without...all of the sexism and racism of stephen king.

11. what was your favorite book that has been out for a while but you just read? i'm going to cheat by a wide mile and say the tyler translation of murasaki's tale of genji, not because it was necessarily my favorite read of the year - and at times it was HARD - but it let me talk to @stellerssong about The Women of Genji and think through what makes translation "work" and learn about heian japan, which is very outside my area of knowledge. i hope to god we get a major translation of the full thing by a woman in swan's lifetime.

17. did any books surprise you with how good they were? answered, but i will say, while i've really enjoyed siken's other books, i do know some things hit me in a core wound i didn't realize was still raw. i adore when a book gives me the language to describe/frame an experience that i didn't have before - like finding a foothold after flailing desperately for a long, heart-stopping moment.

end of year book asks!

[the-everqueen]

#16 with 2 title options: “stealing time from my own life” and “holding out for the sky to sing”

16...if you wrote a fic called [insert title], what character/ship would you want to write it for? ooh okay. "stealing time from my own life" makes me think of two separate concepts: one would be a daniel!dream character study, using jacob anderson's portrayal as a jumping off point to think through what it means specifically for a mixed black boy to lose all his potential human future in order to ensure the continuance of the dreaming. i think there's something interesting happening in the casting choice where daniel parallels rose walker, with blackness representing disruption but also generative possibility--not a total break from the past but going in a new and implied better direction. (which is. so wild. given how antiblack some of the writing choices were. and that's not even getting into AH's whole s2 conservatism.) it'd be fun to explore what breaking with the past really entails for this dream, whose kernel of humanity is supposed to be his saving grace, but also opens up this new space of grieving. if i were VERY clever, i'd figure out how to thread the needle of that arc through with jed as the lone black boy who gets to actually live, and the corinthian as another "second iteration" but who lacks the "innocence" of any childhood experience.

the other concept is admittedly i really liked parts of f4: first steps and this would be a time loop fic where reed tries to stop galactus and repeatedly fails and tries again and again and again... the scene with sue where he says, "it's my job to imagine the worst thing that could happen, to hurt them before they can hurt us," except it hits at a different angle because i think given infinite attempts at some point he WOULD try just sacrificing his own kid. i have a lot of complicated, big feelings about pedro pascal playing thee smartest character in the mcu: the ways that latinos are almost never portrayed as geniuses, latinos are considered good for labor and culture but not really valued for either of those things, we just do the jobs everyone else doesn't want to (and there's overlap with racialization of indigenous/chicane/brown latinos and black americans in terms of being reduced to something that can be used/consumed and then discarded, as fungible). and pascal's reed seems almost to only recognize himself as valuable insofar as he can do something for other people, whether that's his family (the team) or the literal entire planet. the...utter madness i think could come out of experiencing The Worst again and again and trying to get it RIGHT next time, because you believe that you owe it to the world to get it right, because you're only as good as the service and innovation and hope you provide...ough, that's some good food.

...i want both these fics now and i'm gonna have to write them, huh.

[the-everqueen]

For the fic writer ask game: 2, 9, 19, and 20 👀

2...if you could sit down and finish any completely NEW fic without anything stopping you, what would you write? technically already answered but i have been thinking about an la guard dog pt 3 fic and what it might look like for Rose to meet more of her extended family (specifically Despair, as the other half of the twins). i don't think i quite "count" as an iwtv fandom person, but in my brain is the germ of an idea for a claudia/armand fic that explores their respective relationships to gender and infantilization and disability.

9...tell us about a wip/idea you're excited about! this made me go back through my wips to figure out what's even in there...it's been a couple months since i've been really excited about writing (not the fault of my fics, entirely irl issues), but it is kind of delightful to see how much "blonde man in the torment nexus" ideas i have. there are several Pierce things where i am putting him in situations, including a sequel to the dog crate fic--i really do like making the whole "collar and leash" tag literal.

19...give a hint/teaser about something you're writing without any explanation! > In another universe, it is a mother’s grief, a mother’s rage, that brings the Dream Lord Morpheus to his end.

In this one, it is a sister’s.

20...answer any one of the other q's you want to! i'm gonna say 7. is there a fic you wish you'd received feedback on, but didn't get any/much? and then tell people to go read "don't just want to be a footnote in someone else's happiness." mostly because i was relistening to folie a deux this week while on a long drive and got chuffed all over again at how perfectly the song fits these two.

fic asks!

[the-everqueen]

🍓👀

Vi! i'm sososo delighted that you share your thoughts about your AUs with me, it feels like such an honor. (Lavender, final girl of my heart!) you appreciate the nonwhite women in and beyond canon with such a real affection and care. you bring up points that i miss - both in the sandbox of fiction and in the dirt of the real world - and it makes me rethink my positions or adjust to a new perspective. you exhibit care for people and histories that others want to ignore because it makes them uncomfortable. you make me excited about things when i forget that i can be excited.

[the-everqueen]

For the Choose Violence asks: 16, 21, 22 and 25!

16. you can't understand why so many people like this thing already answered, and i stand by it

21. part of canon you think is overhyped sandman: the entire 15-30 min of hob gadling in s1. "it's queer pining! it's devotion! it's romance!" calliope got a whole episode, the corinthian got a whole arc, and somehow i did not see nearly as much fandom love for their canonical appearances as for the british mercenary/slaver/venture capitalist (also all canon occupations for him!). hannibal: the whole italy arc, sorry but s3 (and lbr the back half of s2) is a mess in terms of pacing. iwtv: s1 lestat - like, i get louis is traumatized and trying to make a narrative where lestat is a villain but imho we rebound too hard, too fast from "love of my life" to "textbook abuser," and while i'm very down with the deconstruction of lestat as rice's most beloved character, and also i get that white fandom can't do analysis for shit, i wish there had been some middle ground.....somewhere between the blood wedding and the cheating/gaslighting/physical abuse that showed what louis loved in lestat. (and the complications of...colorism and patriarchy that are at work in louis that make lestat appealing.) again, not to make lestat more of a fandom golden boy than he already is - tbh i'm not sure that's avoidable just because he's literally white, but *i* wanted some deeper exploration of the ways that whiteness functions and its appeals to nonwhite people who still have access to other axes of power (gender, cisness, class, etc).

22. your favorite part of canon that everyone else ignores sandman: always and forever the potential behind rose walker being the vortex. hannibal: bev being friends with will and being the person he calls when his reality is crumbling...! iwtv: i think the armand/claudia jealousy over louis could get so much more attention - there's so much incestuous stuff happening in the theatre de vamps but also in claudia and louis' entanglement. hockey gays: shane being a mixed-asian kid who leans heavily on the ways that he "passes" in order to avoid notice. like, again, it's about the conditional relationships to whiteness, the ways that whiteness is constructed and reinforced as the dominant viewpoint, the ways non-white, queer, and marginalized folks still get hooked by the promise of (individual) inclusion at the cost of community exclusion.

25. common fandom complaint you're sick of hearing "just let people have fun!" okay but I'M not having fun seeing all these antiblack, white supremacist, sexist takes! desire is political! "fun" is political!

choose violence asks

[the-everqueen]

Happy Birthday! All the love to you and to Merricat 💕 Every word from you I treasure and hold in my heart. 😊 Not a two-headed calf cake, but wanted to share a picture of this dog-themed one since it goes with CapLav AU 🐶😘

awww, thank you! i will always cherish a dog cake, and it's even sweeter thinking about Cap and Lavender's pack!

[the-everqueen]

For the ask game: shibari, knifeplay, exhibitionism, and sensory deprivation

shibari fiction No | rather not | I dunno | I guess | Sure | Yes | FUCK yes | Oh god you don’t even know *** yes with the caveat that in fic it's really hard to describe intricate shibari or rope play in a way that's satisfying for the reader, vs. any visual medium where it's easier to appreciate the result. which isn't to say it can't be done well in fic! again, to me, it's more about the play between characters and what is being achieved and the eroticism of being confined/captured and what that means for the submissive AND the dominant

irl No | rather not | I dunno | I guess | Sure | Yes | FUCK yes | Oh god you don’t even know *** haven't done it but i would like to!

knifeplay fiction No | rather not | I dunno | I guess | Sure | Yes | FUCK yes | Oh god you don’t even know *** i mean, my fandom loves have included will graham and the corinthian, of COURSE i like some good knifeplay. predator/prey themes, competency kink, hunger and horror, etc.

irl No | rather not | I dunno | I guess | Sure | Yes | FUCK yes | Oh god you don’t even know *** i say "sure" because once more it depends...yes theoretically and i do like scarring/branding/marking things, but i also have a low threshold for gore that sometimes moves in odd places so equal chance of "oh this is hot" and "oh i'm going to faint."

exhibitionism fiction No | rather not | I dunno | I guess | Sure | Yes | FUCK yes | Oh god you don’t even know *** exploring Thingness! being an Object that others can perceive and/or deride and having no power over either the presentation or the reaction! ownership! the porous boundary between public and private!

irl No | rather not | I dunno | I guess | Sure | Yes | FUCK yes | Oh god you don’t even know *** lmao i said all that and meanwhile i hate doing so many routine things In Public (shopping, errands, exercise). don't look at me!

sensory deprivation fiction No | rather not | I dunno | I guess | Sure | Yes | FUCK yes | Oh god you don’t even know *** the erotic as horror and vice versa! the challenge for a writer/artist to portray the feeling of the feeling, as my undergrad poetry prof called it!

irl No | rather not | I dunno | I guess | Sure | Yes | FUCK yes | Oh god you don’t even know *** okay not total sensory deprivation, those tanks seem like a bad time slash i think if i could only hear my heartbeat/the blood in my veins i would go a lot crazier a LOT faster, which isn't in anyone's interests, probably. but one or two senses? yeah, sure, please. however the odds i fall asleep go up so much higher if my eyes are covered.

send me kinks to rate!

[b-plot-butch]

EURYDICE/PERSEPHONE 👀👀

Thanks for the ask!!

Eurydice downs her cup of moonshine in one blistering gulp. It’s less than nothing compared to the smooth dandelion wine Persephone serves up top. All sweetness and fullness stripped away, leaving only the burn.

Help me write!