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i really enjoyed your louis + motherhood meta, it was fantastic. do you have any thoughts expanding on that irt louis turning madeleine, asking armand to and being turned down, his breakdown after?

Omg thank you 🥺💖

Yesss I do have thoughts! So in terms of my Louis-Motherhood read, I feel like part of Louis's trauma over turning Madeleine is because of turning being a masculinizing act, and the burden of Louis's identity being compromised by the permanent masculine role of fatherhood.

(Idk if maker=father is a common take in this fandom or not so stick with me for a minute lol)

The term "Maker" may seem gender neutral on the surface (enough so that people will jokingly refer to Lestat "birthing" Claudia in a maternal sense/being a mother figure) but the show's treatment of Makerdom is more akin to a paternal 'siring'.

'Maker' has a religious connotation, referring to the ultimate Father, God, and Lestat explicitly takes on a position of Godhood over Louis as his maker.

Lestat is the principal maker we are acquainted with in the show, and they make sure to call him Daddy 100 times (🤦🏽‍♀️)

Armand uses 'sired' and 'begat' for makers (ie male-gendered procreation terms vs something more maternal like 'birthed' or even just 'created')

Also something I don't see discussed much is how paternal Lestat's claiming of Claudia during the trial is. The idea of publicly claiming a child is a father thing and not a mother thing, like a monarch recognizing a bastard child or stuff like paternity court/Maury because mater semper certa est and pater semper incertus est ("The mother is always certain" and "The father is always uncertain").

And then taking into account that it seemed like the coven was ready to lead the audience to believe Louis was Claudia's maker and lay the violation of the Second Great Law purely on Louis to further condemn him (because they emphasize how wrong it is to turn a child and that Louis was warned not to, and seem thrown when Lestat chooses to claim Claudia as his; then they pull the law off the screen all fast bc clearly they are not going to punish Lestat for that crime). So Lestat is literally publicly taking on the title of father in Louis's stead.

And then if you want to get kinda gross about it, turning requires a 'donation of life-giving fluid'....lol and we know vampires cannot give birth but they can get boners and presumably ejaculate 🤦🏽‍♀️ (per the show biology). So in that sense, a vampire making another can only really be a 'fathering'.

It may be tempting to dismiss this as incidental bc male makers are being discussed (and female makers ie Daciana/Celeste are less prominent) but the show is deliberately choosing to frame the role of 'maker' as father and masculine when they could be more neutral about the phrasing. And Louis's reaction to makerdom is presented within the context of this framing choice.

I wrote a long thing about Louis/Armand and the negotiation of masculine roles in another post but basically my read on that is Louis was obligated to take on a masculine/dominant role for Armand, when really Louis wanted/expected Armand to be serving that role for him.

If we see turning/makerdom as implicitly masculine, then Louis asking Armand to turn Madeleine is another attempt to get Armand to serve that role Louis originally wanted from him. Armand's refusal to do so is cementing the onesidedness of their power dynamic: Louis has to continue to perform dominance/masculinity (maitre when its hot or convenient) while Armand doesn't have to obey him or give anything up in return. Just like his negotiation with Armand on the bench, Louis has no choice but to perform masculinity (to his emotional detriment) in order to ensure Claudia's safety/well-being, giving her an immortal companion to survive outside of the coven with. Louis was basically asking Armand to be the dad that stepped up and Armand stepped down instead lol.

Unlike putting on a masc/mask for Liberty Street or for Armand, which could at least be discarded in private, the maker bond is permanent and inescapable. It's the equivalent of Louis fusing the mask to his face. It's intolerable for him. He tries to bodily reject the fatherhood, throwing up blood and cutting his wrists, wanting to have given the gift without being physically defined as 'giver'/maker/father. But he has 'fathered' now and cannot take it back.

(I can't tell if it's the same painting or not, but the painting behind Louis when he's reeling from the turning looks similar to his 'vampire capitalist' painting, ie the one he showed Armand when he was most recently performing masculine dominance for him/the coven.)

Louis even refers to the turning as a 'job', connecting back to his hardened businessman persona. Turning as we've seen it is such a deeply intimate, emotional act, but for Louis it's a job, clinical, detached, transactional, something to buckle down and get over with.

With all of Louis's intense desire for children and family we see in s1, I wondered why Louis never seemed to consider having children as a human. He says he met with Lily in order to publicly conceal his gay-ness, but wouldn't an easier/more secure solution be to just marry a woman and have kids, esp considering how badly he wanted children and mourned not having them when he became a vampire? As a man in his thirties, I imagine he was at the age where not being married with kids would only seem more and more suspicious.

But then I realized, Louis wanted children, but he never wanted to be a father. He already begrudged so much of his masculine social role, and again, that suit can be removed in private. Being a father cannot. After struggling beneath the burden of 'man of the house' for his family, the last thing Louis wanted was to lock himself into that role even deeper. One day his mother would die, and Grace would marry, and Louis was committed to being Paul's keeper, but as a brother that masculine burden wouldn't be the same pressure as 'man of the house provider etc'. As long as Louis didn't become a father or marry a woman, he could preserve the possibility of one day setting down that particular burden.

But being a vampiric maker is literally eternal fatherdom! So it is a massive sacrifice of Louis's personal identity and leaves him despondent and dissociated from himself. :(

It just impresses upon me even more Louis's alignment with motherhood. Fatherhood is a thing that is foisted upon him, that he hates, feels as unnatural and disconcerting. But when he looks at his mother-child picture he's so at peace.

In conclusion: Louis Is Mommy 🥰

Sorry that got pretty rambly but thank you for the ask!! 🩷

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really really really really devastating.

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how it feels to not care abt lestat at all not even a little

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Joint at the hip 🤭

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trying to finish part 2 of predators parlay (very very short but i'm struggling what's new) and i can't believe i'm saying this but i think i've made lestat too mean........

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my beloved Claudia❣️

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Blahblahblah, something about the function of painting in Interview with the Vampire to illustrate the characters' (especially Louis') search for meaning and its use of blank/empty space in the absence of. It's so deliberate that you usually see the backs of the characters' heads or them from far away when they're looking at art - it's less about the art itself than the act of looking, and thus interpretation and meaning-making (Eventually I will get around to writing this post)

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claudia lampshade dress ✨

inspiration + close up below the cut

here's the tweet that gave me the inspiration for this ^_^

i thought it'd be cute to make these lampshades into dresses. i also have a sketch for madeleine, and one for bailey's claudia too, so i'll probably post them when i've finished them! this one just came to me first and i got carried away working on it :)

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lmao Sam dropping that bomb to only show watchers,lestat will have many love interests like in the books,he loves louis but they will explore more of his lovers which is great and more belivable than him only being with louis

hes already had lovers other than louis in the show so I'm not sure what you mean, both s.r. and j.a. have already said ldpdl and ldl are irreplaceable to each other they will always find their way back to each other and of course that does not preclude the existence of other love interests. after all lestat is literally a cheater

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ghost girl walking

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JACOB ANDERSON Interview with the Vampire SDCC 2025

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I got in that coffin on my own free will.

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the emphasis on LOVESSS-ZAH really did it for me

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“We’re really going after mortality, which is a strange thing for immortals. Lestat is not a guy who has spent a lot of time looking inward, and there’s this transformation that’s happening between performative vampire and actual vampire. Putting himself out there as an artist opens him up to a level of introspection that is dangerous, thrilling, very very terrifying, and that he’s not prepared for. We’re in a real Hamlet situation here, he’s going after the very big things, and he’s charging forward with abandon. And does that mean trying to end it? Does that mean he’s trying to get to the other side of this — what is all this acting out? What is all this longing for extremity?”

rolin jones on the thesis statement of S3

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Louis/Grace and Motherhood

I always thought the purpose of Grace as a character was to represent Louis's connection to his human family/community, but I noticed on a recent rewatch how much their relationship is centered around children/motherhood. Every time he sees her after his turning, the theme of motherhood comes up.

Their first post-turning meeting has Louis able to sense Grace's pregnancy/incoming motherhood. He's obviously excited for her, but his first words are in relation to himself: "Making me an uncle". Her family growing means his is growing too. Her having children means he is going to have children around him. As a gay man (with Grace as his only remaining sibling), his sister having kids is the only chance Louis has to have children in his life he is biologically related to; her motherhood is the only motherhood he can access, even if only vicariously.

Also peep the framing of Papa Du Lac in the corner, the fallen patriarch whose absence forced Louis into the man-of-the-house role, hovering over this maternal revelation like a reminder that Louis's masculine social role means he cannot have what Grace has. Grace gets to be a young newlywed mother and Louis has to play the patriarch, providing her with money to see the children well-cared for because again the person who should be the man of the house (Levi) is insufficient just like how Louis's father was secretly running them into debt.

Also never noticed the way Louis's laughs at this but his smile quickly falls away :( Being reminded of his businessman role, and the knowledge that if Levi can't occupy that role, Louis will continue to be obligated to it.

The stills don't really do it justice, it's such a blink and miss it reaction. Jacob Anderson you are everything.

Next time he visits Grace it's to see baby Benny.

I love how soft and motherly Grace looks in her light clothes vs Louis this dark intruder. She almost blends in with the couch, she's so enmeshed in her domestic life, and Louis is just a guest here, a spectator to her motherhood. When she tries to involve him in it, handing him the baby, it's obviously disastrous.

I always wondered why Louis's bloodlust came out specifically for the baby. It's not like he isn't around humans all the time, working at the Azalea etc. But as we see in the scene with Jonah in the swamp, his fangs/bloodlust are tied to desire and...Louis wants a baby!

Look at his shitty posture in the above pic and how he perks up when it's baby time 🥺

Louis is obviously distraught by this, not just because he almost harmed his baby nephew, but because it drove home for him that a child/motherhood is not something he will ever be able to have. As a vampire, he can't even hold a baby.

It's interesting too the way Louis frames this inability to have children as a burden for Lestat. Lestat, who has no interest in children, who is more than happy to live as a family of two. But Louis sees children as integral to family ("No family of my own...no sons, no daughters"). He dgaf this gay found family nonsense, he wants to pop out some kids!!

He tells Lestat he should find someone else because Louis can't have children. Louis sees his inability to access motherhood as a failing so great he can't see his partner wanting to stay with him because of it. Louis has such an intense desire for motherhood and a nuclear family structure that it's a part of his identity, and he feels shame to the point that he thinks he should be killed for not being able to achieve it.

There's probably something here subtextually about Louis being a gay man and thinking bisexual Lestat should go find a woman so he can have a "real family" but obviously Lestat can't biologically father a child as a vampire. But it could be an idea in Louis's head/something he internalizes.

The next sad visit is the last time Louis gets to see Grace at home, when he brings her twin daughters paper dolls.

First of all, it's so cute/sad to picture Louis thinking about what present little girls would like, shopping for the dolls the twins would like best 🥲 And makes me think of that interview with Carol Cutshall where she talked about Louis buying Claudia's clothes like him dressing up a doll.

Louis is finally rejected by Grace, shut out of her home and denied access to her children. He feels like he's lost his family, lost everything, and it's one of the things that contributes to him snapping and committing this incredible act of violence against the alderman (also a family man, with a wife and kids tucked safely away btw. Louis's literally destroying a nuclear family after being denied one)

And it just so happens that this act of violence and the ensuing riot is what leads him to Claudia, his own child. Also note the parallel between Louis kicking the door to Grace's house down as he demands to see the girls to give them their present, and Louis kicking the door down to save Claudia from her burning home.

Louis doesn't see Grace again until their mother's funeral, where she meets Claudia and interrogates Louis's right to have a child.

Louis doesn't answer, but when Grace demands the Du Lac family house (which is in Louis's name as executor in charge of the family estate), Louis responds with a threat.

At first I was like, why would Louis care about the house? He doesn't need it, he's been living with Lestat for years. But clearly Louis is insulted by the insinuation that he doesn't need the family home and what that represents. Grace needs it, has the nuclear family structure that belongs inside it, and Louis doesn't. It all goes back to Louis's insecurities about motherhood/family. Louis came to the funeral with Lestat and Claudia, introducing Grace to his daughter as family, and Grace rejected and insulted him. The family he's cobbled together isn't good enough for her, too unconventional to be associated with her traditional family. He's being shut out of her family life again, denied his motherhood by the only mother he knows. So he lashes out.

Ultimately, Louis can kick down Grace's door all he likes, but he knows he doesn't belong inside. He surrenders the house, but leaves her with the lingering threat of violence to disrupt the happy home life she will have there, a life he can't have.

The final time Louis sees Grace is after Claudia has left him.

Before Claudia leaves, she too interrogated Louis's right to have her as his child.

When she describes the life she could have had if she hadn't been made into Louis's eternal child, it's a domestic one, a family life, the kind Louis wanted and was shut out of. In taking Claudia to complete his family, he denied her any chance of having her own. He's totally despondent as he realizes this.

To Louis it must feel like Grace was right, he was never meant to have a child, it was a selfish desire and now Claudia has suffered because of it.

So Claudia leaves, and when Louis meets Grace for the last time it's in a graveyard.

He's lost his daughter and now any dream of family has been taken from him. Grace doesn't even recognize him as her brother anymore. It's a complete severing of the familial bond, and the motherhood Grace represents. When Claudia does return, it's as 'Louis's sister', his daughter no longer.

Though Louis continues to think of Claudia as his daughter, and probably always will judging by the mother-child painting from the s2 finale, this is a shift in the relationship I don't think they ever fully come back from.

I hope part of Louis's healing is being able to not see himself as a failed parent, but as a flawed one, as all parents are, as his friend Daniel with two estranged daughters can tell him.

Anyway it's such an interesting little through line of the Louis/Grace relationship! This show is so rich for analysis I really do notice new stuff with every rewatch.

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Life imitates art.