خونکساریها
Oh No! She's Writing Marimand as a Metaphor For Colonial Violence Again!
Blood & Gold & Trashy Procedurals
SO THE NEW teaser AMC+ posted on twitter for Talamasca: The Secret Order, which comes out next month and unfortunately looks exactly like some shit I'd be into, has a very brief clip of an illuminated manuscript burning.
Amadeo, in hi[s] ... see beauty as ... [P]andora, in a ne[w] ... celestial form ... Hea[v] ...
This is adapted from Blood & Gold, the Marius autobiography, from the section where Marius purchases Armand. It was a cruel small chamber in which they'd locked him, and into that chamber the light of a lamp flooded upon the child. And there I saw beauty, beauty which has always been my downfall, beauty as in Pandora, as in Avicus, as in Zenobia, as in Bianca, beauty in a new and celestial form. Heaven had cast down upon this stone floor an abandoned angel, of auburn curls and perfectly formed limbs, of fair and mysterious face... "Amadeo," I said, the name springing to my lips as though the angels willed it, the very angels whom he resembled in his purity and in his seeming innocence, starved as he was.
So. You know. There's that. Look forward to my extensive reviews of every single episode of Talamasca, I guess!
Some Thoughts on Faith
I AM PROBABLY never going to write a Hindu Arun. It's a perfectly valid headcanon—it's very possibly the intended reading, and only time will tell—and it's a certain kind of heartbreaking to imagine that the greatest comfort in his life was, at one point, forced upon him, but regardless of the faith involved, I almost always write my devout characters with a relationship to God ﷻ that's similar to my own—what else is fanfiction for but occasionally holding up a mirror to your soul?—and I was always very, very self assured and arguing with my parents on points of interpretation from a young age and I don't think I want to be writing a kid born into a Hindu family but knowing in his heart the love of God ﷻ and not learning how to put words to what he knew was right until he's...sold into slavery. Feels pretty bad, actually. I don't want to feel like I'm writing overt anti-Hindu commentary? Just on the optics level, if nothing else.
And while I don't mind writing overt anti-Catholic commentary in quite the same way, I'm not really interested in exploring Armand's disrupted sense of identity in a specifically religious lens, either. Again, it's a perfectly valid headcanon! It's very likely the writers' room's intent! But I'm much more interested in having faith as this one singular throughline, the single most important relationship in his life, something that everyone has tried to wrest from him but never actually succeeded.
Anyway, I've said it before and I'll say it again: Marimand hajj pilgrimage very shortly before Amadeo's turning, intended as closure and farewell to his mortal preoccupations, as the adaptation of Marius taking Andrei to Kyiv to meet his parents one last time. And yes, still dragging a fledgling Amadeo from coffin and whipping him over having the audacity to continue having these feelings and this connection to anyone that is not Marius himself. You serve a god. You are happy to serve.
Fight, Flight, Freeze
FOR THE ONE year anniversary of the Penthouse Discord server, this bright young reporter with a point of view teamed up with a few other very talented server members and wrote Marimand. Because of course she did. What else did you expect?
“Amadeo,” said Riccardo, and reached for his shoulder. Amadeo recoiled from him as if struck. “Amadeo,” Riccardo repeated, “يا أخي ما الخطب؟ ya akhi, ma al-khatb?”
Complete, 21 000 words, rated Explicit. Horror. Read it on AO3 in full, or my section as a standalone here.
One By One, We Drop Like Flies
LAST UPDATED 02.08.2025 (sorry it's been so long!), this Venice-era fanfiction was written for yurisaurus as part of the B-Sides Server Exchange, and combines book and show canons to largely very upsetting effect.
There is a boy in a room. There is a man in red. There is a boy in a room.
WIP, 6 000 words, rated Explicit. Angst. You can read the first two chapters here or on AO3.
FIC REC: Miasma Theory
THIS FIC BY platoapproved is a sequel to A Slow Confusion, another absolutely gorgeous, novel-length fanwork which weaves the Vampire Chronicles characters Jesse Reeves and Maharet into a post-s02e08 AU where the Vampire Armand is in a relationship with Real Rashid and Daniel Molloy was never the Devil's Minion.
Set a while after ASC, Miasma Theory follows Jesse and Armand home to their new flat in Edinburgh, where Armand is forced by circumstance to open up about a trauma that, long buried, remains hideously fresh, and the trio grows just that much closer.
“You have, like, five hundred medical textbooks and you haven’t watched Grey’s Anatomy?”
Complete, 20 000 words, rated Mature. Hurt/Comfort. Read it on AO3.
Marius de Romanus Casting "Could Be Way Worse", Reports Graiai
I WAS OF course hoping AMC would cast an African actor as Marius, highlighting the ways in which his relationship with Amadeo is a continuation of a cycle which began with his own birth into slavery, the ahistorical treatment of race in ancient Rome in television which caters to a white supremacist fiction, and allows the already utterly rancid Marimand dynamic to stay at about a similar level of foul to the book canon, where (when they're both white—Armand Ukranian and Marius Gaulish or French respectively) Marius is already kind of impressively racist towards Amadeo. I worry that by making Marius white in showverse, we'll have such a cartoonishly vile Marius that it becomes almost unbelieveable that Armand, a man who is canonically familiar with decolonialist and anti-racist philosophy and activism, would be able to hold his beliefs and any self-delusion about his relationship with his maker in the same breath. But then, let's not assume the worst.
If they had to pick a white guy, I kind of love that it's Christopher Heyerdahl, a.k.a. Todd the Wraith from Stargate: Atlantis, the demon Alastair from Supernatural, and that one evil vampire from the Twilight movie. I don't know his name, sorry. There's already non-con fanfiction about one of his characters on my AO3, and anyway I think he's very attractive. Amadeo, I understand you.
Part of me hopes they'll give us a modern day Marius who looks sort of like how Heyerdahl seems to dress day-to-day...this harmless, artsy suburban dad sort. I want a charming and friendly Marius, believeable as the subject of Armand and Lestat's hero-worship, rather than a cackling, Alastair-esque villain.
Another part of me hopes that, since we seem to be getting a long blonde haired Gabrielle de Lioncourt whose sexual abuse of her son is more overt than in the books, we'll have Armand seeing similarities not so much between Marius and Lestat and falling in love with Lestat for it, but seeing similarities between Marius and Gabrielle, hating her and unpacking his complicated feelings towards his maker because he hates her. We shall see!
—Deo servis. In servitio felix es.
—Deo servio. In servitio felix sum.
Here Come Loose the Hounds
WRITTEN FOR SOMEONE_ELSE in the Penthouse Valentine's Day Exchange, this is a canon divergence AU where Claudia leaves for Europe alone. Features Lestat bashing, castration, and just a hint of vampire fiqh.
It wasn’t love at first sight, not even close. Claudia knew Armand thought she was pretty, and, well—she had eyes, she wasn’t going to pretend she didn’t think he was.
Complete, 6 000 words, rated Explicit. Genre agnostic. Read it here or on AO3.
FIC REC: Accent Color
KATPLANET IS PROBABLY one of the coolest people I know in fandom. Also creating the incredible multimedia extravaganza Bloodstuck and famously great at writing about vampires doing healthy communication and it somehow not seeming hideously out-of-character, they set their skills to an adorable Devil's Minion halal romance for yours truly for the Penthouse Valentines' Day Exchange.
Please read it, it's perfect, you won't regret it. Lestat is there. Kat DM'd me while writing it to ask if muffing was halal.
Complete, 22 000 words, rated Explicit. Romance. Read it on AO3.
T'es mon soleil
CLAUDELEINE WRITTEN FOR Fic in a Box 2024 for word_docs_and_willowboughs. Complete, 1 500 words, rated Mature. Romance. Read it here or on AO3.
In Delusions of Increasing Grandeur
EXPERIMENTAL MULTIMEDIA METAFICTION blending real historical context with in-universe art, essay, RPF shipping, and way too much CSS. If you've read anything of mine already, it's probably this fic.
...if I were a Pulitzer-winning investigative reporter and found out where Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee was, I would not spend two paragraphs on it and then go back to claiming the owner was a vampire. I would be cashing a ten million dollar check and then writing a book about the Gardner heist.
This fic is not the most complicated fannish project I've ever undertaken, but it's up there. I had a lot of fun with it, and I hope you do too.
Complete, 14 000 words, rated Mature. Gen. Read it here or on AO3.
FIC REC: Let the Rock Roll
THIS DEVIL'S MINION role reversal romance set in Toronto (written by volkswagonblues) has a very hard sell summary, but no joke, it's one of the most compelling fics I've ever read. Let the tale seduce you, okay? Armand butchers a guy in his bathroom while human, if that will help convince you any.
She’s indignant. You’re supposed to say au revoir, Arun, that means see you later in French.
Oh my gosh, it’s like you don’t listen to yourself sometimes.
Adieu is for people you never see again.
Complete, 68 000 words, rated Mature. Angst. Read it on AO3.
I Can Be Anything, Anything, Anything
WRITTEN FOR UNRAVELLEDCLEMENTINES as part of Kids Come First 2024, this is half Loumand, half Marimand, all vaguely depressing castration porn. If that sounds like a good time, you're in great company.
How does a castrated dervish become the favorite muse of half the Venetian School become maître of a coven of Franks?
Complete, 2 000 words, rated Explicit. Angst. Read it here or on AO3.
At some point I'll get this email address
set up to redirect to my fax machine...