DANGER! DANGER!! Butcher under the thrall of vampire, has been feeding our souls to them (Spoilers: White Night [major], Bigfoot short-story [minor])

You know that feeling Dresden fans know very well, of seeing our favourite wizard suffer through hell again and again, and suffering with him? Of trying to figure things out and getting only vaguely teasing hints from the author and the confusion pushing us to the edge of despair?

What if that's the whole idea? What if the goal is not about creating awesome entertainment, but about inducing maximum despair in us mortal cows? Hear me out!

I think Butcher probably started out as a nice enough guy, writing some fun noir stories based on the notes of Wizard Harry Dresden. At some point, though, Butcher's stories attract the notice of certain powers, powers that see the potential for inducing despair in Jim's readers.

A certain someone approaches him, and starts influencing his writing; making him deviate from Dresden's actual notes, instead driving the hero through increasingly impossible situations, making his choices be only between bad and worse options, and taking things he loves away from him little by little. It makes sense that this must be a Skavis vampire, using Butcher as her cat's paws, increasing her own food supply, as well as the strength of the Skavis clan everywhere. (The real Dresden probably settled down happily in his wizarding-PI business, solving increasingly challenging cases and detectoring around, but otherwise with a nice stable life married to a certain hot reporter and with 3.14 kids. Perhaps one day we'll see the real story from his real notes written by someone, free of vampire-influence.)

Now, who might that vampire be? Perhaps someone who hid herself as just some random fan, slowly increasing her influence and taking over his fan relations, all the better to influence our emotions?
I think the novel White Night was Butcher's subconscious rebelling and screaming to us readers for help - putting in a despair-feeding Skavis vampire and naming her... Priscilla! Yes, fellow fans, our dear u/priscellie , whom we took for just a hardworking friendly young woman, is a vampire!!

Once you hit this realization, there's evidence all around that it's a wonder we missed it all along.

• Priscilla herself admits to writing posts like "Dresden Novels on Hiatus" every year, under the guise of April fools "pranks" - an excuse to create even more panic and despair!

• Look at this goodreads Q&A. In my more innocent days, I took the exchange as "just a joke" (oh what fools we mortals be), but it's obvious what happened (especially if you've read the Bigfoot stories) - Priscilla used the power she gained from the souls of us fanpeople, and used it to improve his hair, perhaps as a minor favour. What she didn't count on was that Butcher would out her like that in public; what he didn't count on was that we fans would remain the idiots we were! sobs

• Look at Priscilla's tumblr display pic. A photo of someone biting Priscilla's neck, with the caption "friends don't let friends drink friends". A subtle move to trick the red/black vampire courts into thinking she considers them friends? Or a warning to us mortals to not let our friends be fed on by vampires of those courts (and thus strengthening her enemies)? You decide.

• The fact that they got Spike (under the mortal name "James Marsters") to be the one reading the audiobooks, doing awesome work and bringing in even more fans i.e. kine into the fold.

• Butcher even just came out and admitted to what's going on, in one of his interviews:

I like torturing my READERS. It happens to be that torturing the characters is the best way to do that.

And we still didn't catch on.

• Another bit of honesty from Butcher in his AMA:

Oh, man, /I/ wouldn't trust me, if I was reading me. I tell giant, complicated, long-term LIES for a living, man. People pay me to manipulate their emotions--to make them laugh and cry, to cheer for the good guys and to hate the bad guys. What kind of person /does/ that for a living? I'll tell you what kind: the shifty, devious, untrustworthy kind. Don't believe a word I say.

[emphasis mine]

• Finally, her freaking name (i.e. made-up mortal identity) 'Priscilla' means "ancient, venerable one" - she's taunting us with her status as an immortal, reminding us of our place as mortal kine (this [probably self-written] urban dictionary page on "priscilla" might be a hint that she's 740 years old)

I don't fear the consequences of writing this daring exposé, as long as it gets some of you out of the clutches of this evil syndicate. Do not despair (for that would only feed priscellie's infernal hungers), remain woke and save your souls.