Let me live forever in silks and boyfriend drama

All the heterosexual nonsense we were forced to endure over JULY - subscriber only! VIP!

There is a line from a fantasy novel, from one of the many thousands I’ve read, which describes the idea of elves as “humanity written large”, which I’ve always adored as a concept. I cannot remember the novel - is it Lord of the Rings? I don’t know. But I’ve spent much of my short and brutal life imagining the hypothesis of immortality.

“Humanity written large” as I understand it is the idea that great age would only concentrate your emotions, turn them thick and syrupy - everything from great serenity, to great joy, to great sorrow. That elven detachment is not from a lack of feeling, but from thousands of years of **feeling**.

The latest season of Interview With The Vampire kinda confirms this hypothesis - pitching the undead as being cursed to live forever with too many passions, that only increase in virility and urgency as the years drag by. Defined by thirst, by hungers, vampires are written as the polar opposite of elves - no serenity, no peace from their immortality. And look, they’re both narrative inventions, invested with mythic significance and metaphorical function - and also they’re cool to put in fantasy books - but I think they are both an interesting way to explore ideas about people and the horror of living.

let me live forever so i can afford suits like this