#Claudia's Spark in the Dark

[donnapalude]

i understand the discomfort around it, but the idea of madeleine being attracted to claudia both because of her apparent youth and developed intellect, apart from textually supported, feels thematically much fuller to me than either isolated alternative and, in a fictional setting, far from antithetic to the construction of a romantic fantasy.

claudia is not a neatly compartimentalised adult with a physical condition. despite similarities, to reduce her experience to easily parsable human categorisations does not capture the full horror and potential of her existence. she is a child-adult hybrid monster, twice parentless through death and abuse and left stranded without true companions or guidance. she has decades of experience, but she is as small as a child and presumably stuck with puberty's imbalances and brain reactivity. her situation serves as a partial reference to the arrested development caused by trauma, but it exceeds the metaphor by causing material impediments that facilitate people around her in removing physical and emotional agency from her. she is denied the complete abandon of daughterhood, burdened with the responsibilities of a partner, and never quite recognised for either. the removal of the more overt incestual undertones between her and her parents, does not erase the covert ones. she may not want them to fuck her exactly, but they are the only two people in the world for her and there is true pain in being placed close enough to witness their union, but never enough to be an equal part to it. as there is true pain in the knowledge that she was created for them, to save louis and their marriage, but she can never quite be all that they need. her desire to find an external companion stems as much from the suffering generated from this inherent failure and exclusion, as from an abstract wish not to be infantilised. moreover, infantilisation, for her, is closely related to the suffering of failure and exclusion. she is supposed to be everything for them, but this translates to a gallery of roles rarely donned by her choice, more than a consistent merging. the disavowal of childhood towards sisterhood is not (only) an uplifting impetus of empowerment. it's a stoic recognition of parental disappointment and an attempt to recover louis's love in a way she hopes he'll be able to give and she receive more stably. it's a boundary and, as such, it's also spiteful. despite louis's loving attempts and lestat's mild objections, this is not an ideal solution for anyone. she was created to be child and sister and partner all together. to be just small pieces of this, and so often the worst ones at that, chafes. by denying them access to a part of her, she regains control and twists the knife back (though it still cuts both ways).

it's in this context that the show places madeleine's love as the narrative fulfillment of all of claudia's fantasies. with a wholly negative value assigned to her childhood and youth, the achievement or failure of those fantasies would hinge on whether madeleine's love is read as contingent on honoring claudia's adult mind or coveting her adolescent body. but this binary reading reflects neither claudia's nor madeleine's story.

madeleine holds a fixation for youth that is not really dependent on the thrill of unilaterally lording power over it. her story about fucking a young invading soldier and her attraction for claudia getting fully expressed in light of vampirism, imply a much subtler connection between youth and power and death in madeleine's figurative cosmology. as an unstoppable definitive force, death has something of the sublime for her, inspiring both awe and terror in equal measure. in the romantic tradition, which bleeds into the gothic, the irrational state created by fear is not madness, but clarity of feeling divorced from the confines of reason. and once the barriers are down, madeleine seems to glimpse one truth: if death steals all life, it must be, by now, full of it to bursting. "he was alive", she says, when recalling what made her encounter with the nazi soldier so essential to her survival: "i know it sounds like a joke, but when there's death all around...". she calls him a "frightened boy", cradled to her chest. and to claudia, later, she asks "what's it like to drink blood? is it like drinking life itself?". claudia is much more pragmatic: "it's not an answer to life's mystery. it's food." but for madeleine it holds another significance, it is the answer to life's mistery. to survive one must steal life from death. youth, as a source of life, found in someone holding death in their power, is a direct tap into the vein, even before literal veins come into play. yet she would not like to drain it, hers is not a destructive design. she longs to nurture that life and let it flow freely and bask in its glow. forever if possible. this is her love for claudia. a feedback loop where she nurses the child and draws from the monster, drinks from her girlhood, to return belonging and wisdom. in the flow, a true joining.

this does not accurately reflect how people attracted to pubescent girls act and reason in real life. the preying on innocence and inexperience does not normally get offset by interest and care for genuine independence. the fact that claudia is not an actual child and is initially the only vampire in the relationship eliminates issues of consent and elides the power imbalance, so that we are left with the possibility that madeleine can nurture claudia's childishness, enjoy the role of emotional protection and guidance she derives from it, as well as feel intense attraction towards the body that holds these signifiers, while at the same time affording her the shared authority and admiration of a true adult relationship. as anticipated, it's a fantasy. it's claudia's fantasy, but also a human fantasy. and it's a cloying one, in its sweetness. the pain claudia holds comes not from being forcibly treated as a child, but from the imposition to live both adulthood and childhood together (not only through her body, but also through familial enmeshment) without being able to experience either in full, as one side of the balance naturally undermines the other. she is presented the illusion of a blissful coalescence of their offerings and is always left wanting. as a child she should be cherished and protected, as an adult she should be respected and powerful. she often finds herself powerless and undefended, needing to choose which wound to tend. and whatever the choice, it can never fill her parents' needs in full measure. with madeleine she can let go and be all, and joyfully. she is daughter and sister and lover and partner and teacher and maker. she can even transcend singularity to fill out a family and a coven. it's suffocating and labyrinthine and recourseless, but it's ultimately about the difference between being deprived of other options and being freed of the need to ever search for them. the wound madeleine heals, the fantasy she fullfills, live in claudia in a heightened state, but fundamentally draw from an incredibly common human want. to be loved in full. to be loved in all the past, present, and future iterations of ourselves, completely and equally. without sacrifice, without maiming, without choosing. it's the illusion given by the love of any parent that, even in the best of families, sooner or later is broken. we learn to parcel our love and to parcel ourselves for people to love different morsels. but claudia can stay whole. for madeleine, at the end, she really is everything.

[half-lightl]

Claudia's Celebration of Life: Spark in the Dark Aug 25th & 26th: Favorite lines or scenes

[crazykuroneko]

Claudia's Celebration of Life: Spark in the Dark

As the title suggests, this event is to celebrate the wonderful Claudia; her personality, her aspirations, her journey. The heart for the past two seasons of AMC Interview with The Vampire. This is to take the narrative back to her, proving she's not just a shingle roof for us.

The event will be held for 30 days (from Aug 11th to Sept 9th) with 15 themes. Anyone can join, and you can post whatever you like, from gifsets, meta analysis, fic recs, fanvids, web weaving, fanarts, fanvids, even poems. You can post them on Tumblr, or Tiktok, or AO3 etc. The rule is just one: make sure to tag "#Claudia's Spark in the Dark" and her character tags #Claudia and #AMC Claudia. Let's flood her tags with posts about her again! (plus, please give TW or CW when it's appropriate)

Important point: This event is AMC Claudia & Madeleine focused only. Please try to minimize inclusion of other characters or iterations except when it's on the theme.

Themes and dates are under the cut!

(The order of themes are generated randomly. Feel free to interpret each theme. For the themes with 'OR', you can choose which one you want)

1. Aug 11th & 12th: Hobbies

2. Aug 13th & 14th: Alternate Universe

3. Aug 15th & 16th: Quotes (From TVC books, other cast, Anne Rice about Claudia OR web weaving with other media)

4. Aug 17th & 18th: Family (Her relationship with Louis and/or Lestat OR with the concept of family itself)

5. Aug 19th & 20th: Claudia's Voice and Lack There Of (e.g. Claudia's diaries as her outlet and how they're used by others)

6. Aug 21th & 22nd: As A Caged Bird OR In Solitude (e.g. the limitations Claudia faces as a seemingly 14-year old Black girl OR bird motif)

7. Aug 23rd & 24th: Happiness (Anything as long as Claudia is happy. I just want to see her happy)

8. Aug 25th & 26th: Favorite lines or scenes

9. Aug 27th & 28th: Womanhood OR Childhood (e.g. Claudia's relationship with womanhood OR the still childlike or innocent part of her)

10. Aug 29th & 30th: The Actress(es) (Bailey Bass and/or Delainey Hayles with or without Roxane Duran)

11. Aug 31th & Sept 1th: Finding The X (Claudia's quest in searching for love)

12. Sept 2nd & 3rd: Enduring (e.g. Claudia relentless determination to "make the best out of it" with her vampirism or how the abuse she suffers and witnesses shapes herself and her views)

13. Sept 4th & 5th: Fashion or Costumes

14. Sept 6th & 7th: FREE THEME!

15. Sept 8th & 9th: Claudia & Madeleine

Special thanks to my mutual (you know who you are) who has helped me with the themes.

Update! I also made a submission page available during the event, if that's your preferred way to post.

Feel free to ask by replying under this post or ask me on my account or on my Twitter @itskuronekos

Let's go!

[frigidwife]

why don't you have wings to fly with? (Aug 21th & 22nd: As A Caged Bird)

[clensters]

Did a piece for @crazykuroneko's Claudia event, for Day 1: Hobbies.

I'm pretty sure we've only seen Claudia draw/paint that one time in Ep 6, but hey, maybe she kept with it!

[claudiablogger]

on claudia (and madeleine) and desire

robert lowell // roland barthes // ruth ozeki // anne carson //charlotte brontë

[murfeelee]

IWTV Claudia's Celebration of Life: Spark in the Dark - Alternate Universe

As the title suggests, this event is to celebrate the wonderful Claudia; her personality, her aspirations, her journey. The heart for the past two seasons of AMC Interview with The Vampire. This is to take the narrative back to her, proving she's not just a shingle roof for us.

2. Aug 13th & 14th: Alternate Universe

“It’s chaos after you die. It’s a dream from which you cannot wake.” Armand says quietly to Daniel. “Imagine drifting half in and out of consciousness, trying vainly to remember who you are or what you were. Imagine straining forever for the lost clarity of the living—” Armand stops suddenly to glare somewhere to Lestat’s left. “Lestat, I beg you on bended knee to close your mind. I cannot bear to listen to her any longer.” “Listen to who,” Louis asks, sharp as fangs. “CLAUDIA!” Lestat shouts into the swamp, spinning in his inner tube. “These drugs are making me hallucinate our dead daughter. I’ve been listening to her explain exactly how I failed her with much virulence and creativity for the last forty-five minutes.” “What’s she like?” Louis asks, eager as anything. “Magnifique,” Lestat answers immediately. “She despises me. She’s wearing a yellow… I believe it is called a tankini. She has a margarita....” Lestat twists in his tube to glare at Armand. “Montre-lui/ Show him.” Louis squeezes his eyes shut, wrists limp in front of him. Armand’s mindgift transmission is jagged and blurry from the drugs, and Lestat’s view is all the more distorted by his own intoxication, but it’s her, it’s her. Claudia rises from the dead to berate Lestat from her very own inner tube, pausing only to take sips from her human drink. At least she is granted liquor in the hopeless afterlife that is haunting Lestat. Claudia’s hair is pulled back the way it was the day she passed, but her face is baby smooth, no trace of the injury the coven had subjected her to before her murder. She smiles at Lestat, dimple still adorable, no matter how old she gets. “And I don’t give one solitary sh*t if you’ve got him d**kmatized,” Claudia tells Lestat. “He says he forgives you for letting me die?” She brings her fingers together and gestures to her own chest. “I don’t f**king forgive you! ” Claudia starts singing in mockery, bitter as her daddy on his worst nights. She cups her hands (Her beautiful hands! The simple pleasure of her hand in his!) around her mouth like a megaphone. “I don’t forgivveeee you!” ��Jesus Christ,” Louis hears Daniel say in the real world before exploding into choking coughs. In Lestat’s psychosis as translated by Armand on LSD, Claudia keeps at it. She urges Lestat to find new and innovative ways to kill himself, embodying Lestat’s senselessness and Louis’ sense in her rage. Their courageous, intelligent, honest-to-God hurricane of a daughter does not look Louis’ way the whole memory, even though Louis deserves the privilege of meeting her eyes again so much more than Lestat does. Even though Louis has spent a lifetime fasting and praying for it. But she is Lestat’s ghost, she haunts him just like she said she would, and Louis figures… He hears his own laugh—hysterical—as the memory ends, the tears wet on his cheeks. Louis figures he’s just too sane to see her these days.

-- Alligator Tears, @siahatha

MY THOUGHTS & CC CREDITS

MY THOUGHTS

A day late, cuz I was busy yesterday.

This post was directly inspired by the latest chapter of an extremely good & unhinged post-canon modern AU IWTV fanfic, where Loustat are back together, Devil's Minion is a thing, and Lestat's being haunted by the ghost of Claudia's memory. Louis' sad that he can only see her through Armand, cuz he can't read his Maker Lestat's mind, ofc.

CC CREDITS

-- IP EP pool floats by me

-- Lestat heatstroke tan line in gamma by me

-- Blood bags by @thebleedingwoodland (X X)

-- Louis swimsuit at MTS

-- Gators at Simszoo

[murfpersonalblog]

Claudia's Celebration of Life: Spark in the Dark - Lines & Scenes

As the title suggests, this event is to celebrate the wonderful Claudia; her personality, her aspirations, her journey. The heart for the past two seasons of AMC Interview with The Vampire. This is to take the narrative back to her, proving she's not just a shingle roof for us. 8. Aug 25th & 26th: Favorite lines or scenes

This was REALLY hard. She's never done anything wrong in her entire life, your honor! Anyone who says otherwise can kick bricks.

1: "Oh I forgot! Love makes you STUPID! Make you fickle, and weak, and blind!... PICKED ANOTHER ONE, OVER ME!" Hearing her yell that in the first trailer had me gagged. I knew right then that Delainey was gonna kill it; perfectly depicting Claudia's PAIN, sick of being the shingle on their roof, caught in "the stormy romance of YOU TWO!" (Honorable Mention #1).

2: "I now know all your faces. If there is an afterlife, I'm gonna come back and f*****g KILL all of you. And if there isn't an afterlife, I'm still gonna find a way!" My daughter, ladies & gentlemen. 👸🏾

3: "Please, come with me! Let's meet vampires WORTHY of your love!" One of the most underrated & important lines in the whole dang show. Lestat wasn't worthy of Louis yet. Unworthy in NOLA, unworthy in Paris--disregard!

4: The park bench scene in 1x6 is so freaking sweet, she loved her Daddy Lou so much. But she knew there was no way she'd survive with that monster Lestat; and she knew Lou'd never leave him. (Honorable Mention #2: "You should've let that train go, Uncle Les!")

5: Claudia clowning Lestat in 1x7 effing SENT me, omg, that's my daughter. In S3 hope he hears her mocking wheezes in his dreams.

6: The look on her FACE as she realizes the fix she's in with the coven. I wanted to effing cry. DOOMED by the narrative. U_U

7: Claudia's "Massa Lestat" added years to my life! She said this Ku Klux Klan member better stop playing with me!

8: "Who are you, Louis?" Kids say the darndest things. She clocked his whole life in S2, knowing good and dang well he wasn't her effing "brother" & she wasn't his "sister;" she was just a placeholder until he was back with Lestat. (Honorable Mention #3: "If he can't take you ballroom dancing and tell you you're pretty, to hell with him!" 💀)

9: She was NOT 👏 HAVING 👏 IT 👏 with Antoinette. (Honorable Mention #4: "If that's the kind of desperate trash he wants to love, then let him have her!" Jfc, Claudia. 😅)

10: Claudia killing Madeleine's rapists was so dang good. I did NOT expect the vampire reveal to go that way, oml. The hype was real though, I was cheering and whooping the whole time.

[shoolb]

[id: a digitial drawing of claudia from amc's interview with the vampire. claudia is a young-looking black teenager who has her hair stylized into ringlets. she's wearing the lulu costume, her smile is sharpened by visible fangs, and her red eyes pop against the blues and whites of her dress. hazy yellow light fades into the blue background from above.]

the yellow creeps through

[crazykuroneko]

Claudia's Spark in the Dark has started!

For day 1 & 2, it's all about hobbies and interests! Post your metas, gifsets, fanedits, fanarts recommendations, anything about Claudia's hobbies. Don't forget to tag us!

Check out details of our event here:

[eleancrvances]

Wake up, Johanna! Another bright red day! We learn, Johanna, to say goodbye.

IWTV // Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

[b-plot-butch]

FRIENDS LOVERS COUNTRYMEN. what should i do for claudia’s spark in the dark i GOTTA contribute somehow

[claudiablogger]

claudia and family

eric larocca // annie ernaux // chloe michell howarth // ocean vuong

[murfeelee]

IWTV Claudia's Celebration of Life: Spark in the Dark - Costume: Baby Lulu

As the title suggests, this event is to celebrate the wonderful Claudia; her personality, her aspirations, her journey. The heart for the past two seasons of AMC Interview with The Vampire. This is to take the narrative back to her, proving she's not just a shingle roof for us.

13. Sept 4th & 5th: Fashion or Costumes

MY THOUGHTS & CC CREDITS

MY THOUGHTS

I hate that effing dress, I hate that effing song, I hate that effing Theatre, I hate that effing coven, and I hate how effing Armand treated my daughter Claudia.

But Claudia ATE, performing My Baby Loves Windows as Baby LuLu.

CC CREDITS

-- Hair, Bows (x x) Dress (*cough*), Shoes

[murfpersonalblog]

Claudia's Celebration of Life: Spark in the Dark - Womanhood & Childhood

As the title suggests, this event is to celebrate the wonderful Claudia; her personality, her aspirations, her journey. The heart for the past two seasons of AMC Interview with The Vampire. This is to take the narrative back to her, proving she's not just a shingle roof for us. 9. Aug 27th & 28th: Womanhood OR Childhood

-- Keller, James R. "Interrogating the Vampire: Heterosexuality and Queer Reading," In Anne Rice and Sexual Politics: The Early Novels.

AMC's IWTV adaptation goes the distance to both mirror & also complicate Anne Rice's "negotiation between the urge to conform to and the compulsion to subvert traditional bourgeois values about sexuality and gender" (20). Rolin Jones said he wanted to have fun with racial and gendered/sexual roles, and all the messy dynamics therein.

For James R. Keller, the (book) vampires conform to a model based strictly on heterosexual nuclear family parent-child dynamics:

(I assume this is what he meant by "three overlapping triangles"? A venn diagram?)

AMC radically shifted these dynamics, by making The Unholy Family (Lestat, Louis, Claudia) the only united triad; and isolating Louis from Claudia's other interpersonal relationships, to give her more independence/autonomy, as a much older "child"/teenage vampire than she was in the book:

Parent-Child dynamic: Lestat, Louis, Claudia

(surrogate) Parent-Child dynamic: Claudia & Louis

Sibling dynamic: Louis & Claudia

(surrogate Sibling dynamic): Santiago & Claudia

Coven Master & Fledgling dynamic: Claudia & Armand

Romantic dynamic: Claudia & Madeleine

Claudia is aged up not only in years, but experience, especially as she witnesses the brutal spousal abuse of her "favorite" parent, Daddy Lou, at the hands of their much older & much more powerful Coven Master & Maker, Lestat. With Louis dropped 2km from the sky & all of his bones broken so that he can't even walk, Claudia becomes the protector, provider, and "knight in vengeful black" at the door between the the battered Louis and the estranged Uncle Les. She grows up too soon, and becomes Louis' (surrogate) maternal figure during his convalescence.

Claudia emancipates herself from Massa Lestat's oppression when he returns to 1132, rejecting all illusions that they're still a family where Les would occupy the parental role with any hierarchical/patriarchal authority over her:

While she embraces being a loving sibling with Lou, her relationship with Les is all but dead in the water, not even tryna be a "companion/sister" to the monster she's desperate to get far away from; "You should've let that train go, Uncle Les!"

Pissed at Lou that he didn't burn Les' body after her successful Murder Plot, Claudia's fed up even with him; giving him the cold shoulder as they cross Europe, looking for other vampires.

"And the horrors we walked over every night.... They only calcified her determination to find others she could better relate to. And rereading these pages, it's clear she didn't think I qualified any longer.... Louis de Pointe du Lac. Dead weight."

In Romania, she's rejected twice, when she tries bonding with the Revenant; tryna show him how to feed properly (he was still drinking from soldiers after they were dead, ew), like a mother with a child; just as she caught animals to feed the injured Louis. Feral, he just attacked her & walked off.

Daciana also rejected her, refusing to be mother to vampires she didn't create herself, or allow Claudia to become her surrogate child/coven in the Revenant's stead.

Uninterested in teaching Claudia & Louis anything about herself or her experiences/history; Daciana threw herself into the fire & died.

In Paris, she quickly bonds with Santiago, who stands up for her & guides her almost like a big brother against their Coven Master Armand's rules & punishments. She looks up to him as a proud vampire who "kills with panache;" just as she'd been taken with Bruce, "you don't kill like a 'Bruce;'' you kill like a 'Killer.'" In them she thinks/hopes she's finally found kindred spirits.

Armand gives ZERO effs about Claudia, not interested being any familial figure to her. AMC removes his telepathic death threats from the book, and just goes full force on him actively plotting her death in the Trial. (Most radically, he plans to have Louis killed, too). Armand goes right past Wicked Stepfather, and straight to Evil Arsehole; forcing her to wear the Baby LouLou costume everyday & even sleep in it; ordering her to get her "childlike wonder" back, even as he crushed her spirit and disrespected/disregarded her attempt to grow (up) in the coven.

Armand abuses her exactly how Old World Coven Masters/Maitres abuse fledglings: with zero agency/autonomy/freedom, let alone respect; like slaves rather than people/family, like Lou said in 1x2:

FINALLY, Claudia meets Madeleine; the only one who treats her like a person--at first rude & condescending, but gradually bonding with her as she helps Claudia dress more maturely; acknowledges her being worth more than the demeaning Baby Lou Lou role; and who doesn't reject her when Claudia's vampirism is finally revealed. She treats Claudia like the woman she is, not the child she appears as.

Unlike the books, AMC doesn't make Madeleine Claudia's mother-figure; a woman still grieving for her own dead daughter (a la Anne Rice).

In another interesting twist, AMC!Louis AND Claudia turn Madeleine together--they're BOTH her Makers.

But instead of having a typical Parent-Child dynamic, Claudeleine are like Loustat: Lovers. Madeleine is Claudia's love interest, though their romance is largely left off-screen (which IMO defeats the purpose, if they're not gonna SHOW or barely TELL US that Claudeleine are lesbian vampire companions). But they're also EQUALS, in a way Loustat never was.

With Madeleine, Claudia finally fully matures--she makes dresses for Claudia that tastefully show her cleavage, with jewelry and light makeup, but still youthful & sweet & bright; always dressed in Sunshine Yellow--a spark in the dark.

[brotherconstant]

INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE 2x04 | “I Want You More Than Anything in the World”