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anotherhumaninthisworld · 3 months ago

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Frev Friendships — Robespierre and Couthon

…Moreover, don’t forget to remind me of the memory of Lacoste and Couthon. Robespierre in a letter to Maurice Duplay, October 16 1791, while away on a leave in Arras.Couthon, Lacoste and Pétion are the only of his friends that he mentions in the letter. Considering Couthon came to Paris after being elected for the Legislative Assembly on September 9 1791, while Robespierre was away from the capital between October 14 and November 28, the two must have befriended each other quite rapidly. In a letter dated September 29 1791, Couthon reveals that he has moved into the house of one M. Girot on Rue Saint-Honoré (the same street where Robespierre lodged), and according to Robespierre (1935) by J.M Thompson, the Almanach royal for 1792 gives Couthon’s address as 343 Rue Saint-Honoré. So the proximity between their lodgings might have been a contributing factor.

My friend, I anxiously await news of your (votre) health. Here, we are closing in on the greatest events. Yesterday the Assembly absolved La Fayette; the indignant people pursued some deputies at the end of the session. Today is the day indicated by a decree for the discussion of the forfeiture of Louis XVI. It is believed that this matter will be further delayed by some incident. However, the fermentation is at its height, and everything seems to presage for this very night the greatest commotion in Paris. We have arrived at the outcome of the constitutional drama. The Revolution will take a faster course, if it does not sink into military and dictatorial despotism. In the situation we are in, it is impossible for the friends of liberty to foresee and direct events. The destiny of France seems to leave it to intrigue and chance. What can reassure us is the strength of the public spirit in Paris and in many departments, it is the justice of our cause. The sections of Paris show an energy and wisdom worthy of serving as models for the rest of the state. We miss you. May you soon return to your homeland and we await with equal impatience your return and your recovery. Robespierre in a letter to Couthon, August 9 1792 (incorrectly dated July 20 1792 in the correspondence)

I saw [Couthon] towards the last days of the Legislative Assembly; he appeared to me to be in a mood similar to mine; enemy of the anarchists and of the authors of the massacres of the first days of September, enemy of Marat and Robespierre; he constantly declaimed against them. Supplément aux crimes des anciens comités de gouvernement, avec l'histoire des conspirations du 10 mars, des 31 mai et 2 juin 1793, et de celles qui les ont précédées, et tableau de la conduite politique d'un représentant du peuple mis hors la loi (1794) by Jacques-Antoine Dulaure.

Couthon, whose infirmities give a new value to his patriotism… […] Lettres de Maximilien Robespierre à ses commettans, number 1 (September-October 1792)

During the first three months of the session of the National Convention, the members of the Puy-de-Dome deputation fraternized and dined together once a week. Couthon then never ceased to pour out invectives against Robespierre. Once I told him that I thought Robespierre an intriguer. ”So you call him an intriguer,” he answered me with vivacity, ”You are too nice, I regard him as a great scroundel.” I heard him, in the presence of several of my colleagues, one day when the deputation was summoned to his house, say: ”I no longer want to live in the same house as Robespierre, I am not safe there; every day we see a dozen cutthroats coming up to his house to whom he gives dinner. I do not know how he managed to meet these expenses before being elected to the Convention, while my allowances are barely enough for me to live with my family.” He often applauded the fact that the entire deputation professed the same principles, and that, consequently, we would always be united in heart and mind. This was Couthon's opinion at the time, and he held to it until the constitutional committee was formed. He had the ambition to be a member; he becomes furious at not being inclined to it. This was the time when Couthon changed his opinion, abandoned his conscience to indulge in his passions. Supplément aux crimes des anciens comités de gouvernement, avec l'histoire des conspirations du 10 mars, des 31 mai et 2 juin 1793, et de celles qui les ont précédées, et tableau de la conduite politique d'un représentant du peuple mis hors la loi (1794) by Jacques-Antoine Dulaure. Dulaure’s claim that Couthon for a time lived in the same house as Robespierre is confirmed by l’Almanach national, an II (cited in Paris révolutionnaire: Vieilles maisons, vieux papiers (1906) by Georges Lênotre) as well as by a letter dated October 4 1792 Couthon wrote to Roland from Rue Saint-Honoré n. 366 (Robespierre’s address) asking for rooms in the Tuileries, saying that he must move out of the house within eight days (Roland responded with a negative answer four days later). When exactly he moved in is however harder to pinpoint. According to Robespierre (1935) by J.M Thompson, the Almanach royal for 1792 still gives Couthon’s address as 343, not 366, rue St. Honoré, and in the article The Evolution of a Terrorist: Georges Auguste Couthon (1930) Geoffrey Bruun writes that Couthon moved to Cour de Manège 97 in 1792. It can therefore be concluded that Couthon’s stay on Rue Saint-Honoré n. 366 was most likely rather short. Couthon’s motivation for moving out, aside from Dulaure’s claim that he disliked Robespierre, could also be related to the fact Robespierre’s brother and sister moved in with the Duplays shortly after he wrote the letter to Roland.

The Lamenths and Pétion in the early days, quite rarely Legendre, Merlin de Thionville and Fouché, often Taschereau, Desmoulins and Teault, always Lebas, Saint-Just, David, Couthon and Buonarotti. The elderly Élisabeth Le Bas on visitors to the Duplays during the revolution

Robespierre notes this expression: “for fear that Couthon’s speech will not be heard.” Couthon will be heard, he said, and I maintain that the representative assembly has no right to stifle his voice any more than that of anyone else, because the Convention is not a power above the rights of its constituents who have invested every deputy with the sacred right to express their wish, and one could only obstruct this by an attack against liberty, and by trampling on national sovereignty. Robespierre takes this opportunity to recall the maneuvers of a large party of the Convention, to violate this sacred right that each member has to make his voice heard; and we see, he says, this game of intrigue played out every day with incredible modesty. In the Constituent and Legislative Assemblies, which despite their perversity, at least knew how to respect the freedom of opinions, Couthon's patriotism, which his infirmities make more interesting, never served the most perverse men as a pretext to stifle his voice. Robespierre therefore invites us to come out strongly against this new system of villainy, and to never allow a deputy to ever be deprived of the ability to express his opinion. He ends by supporting the impression of Couthon's speech; it is put to the vote and adopted. Robespierre makes sure the Jacobins print one of Couthon’s speeches regarding the trial of the king, after protests that they ought to wait until it’s been pronounced at the Convention as well, January 6 1793

If you want, and it would be a crime to doubt it, to preserve the liberty, unity and indivisibility of the Republic, you cannot hesitate to adopt Couthon's proposal [to issue a proclamation that the Insurrection of May 31 saved liberty] at once. To begin a discussion on this question would be to allow the conspirators to come to this rostrum to make new declarations against Paris, with their ordinary perfidy. Robespierre at the Convention June 13 1793

The proposal [to have Robespierre enter the Committee of Public Safety] was made to the committee by Couthon and Saint-Just. To ask was to obtain, for a refusal would have been a sort of accusation, and it was necessary to avoid any split during that winter which was inaugurated in such a sinister manner. The committee agreed to his admission, and Robespierre was proposed. Memoirs Of Bertrand Barère (1896) volume 2, page 96-97. Couthon was elected to the Committee of Public Safety on June 10 1793, Robespierre on July 27 1793. In his memoirs, Barère pushes the thermidorian idea that the two plus Saint-Just formed a ”triumvirate” within the committee. On page 146 of the same volume he nevertheless also writes that Robespierre and Saint-Just rarely came to the committee, instead working together in a private office.

Robespierre, Saint-Just and Couthon were inseparable. The first two had a dark and duplicitous character; they pushed away with a kind of disdainful pride any familiarity or affectionate relationship with their colleagues. The third, a legless man with a pale appearance, affected good-nature, but was no less perfidious than the other two. All three of them had a cold heart, without pity, they interacted only with each other, holding mysterious meetings outside, having a large number of protégés and agents, impenetrable in their designs. Révélations sur le Comité de salut public (1830) by Prieur-Duvernois. Later in the revelations, Prieur nevertheless also writes that ”Couthon was never difficult on the Committee; there was no altercation until the day before 9 Thermidor, when the moment to throw away the mask had arrived.”

The National Convention, citizens colleagues, witnessed with pleasure your entry into Lyon. But its joy could not be complete when it saw that you at the first movements yielded to a sensibility way too unpolitical. You seemed to abandon themselves to a people who flatter the victors, and the manner in which you speak of such a large number of traitors, of the punishment of a very few and the departure of almost all, have alarmed the patriots who are indignant at seeing so many scoundrels escaping through a gap and going to Lozère and mainly Toulon. We therefore won’t congratulate you on your successes before you have fulfilled all that you owe to your country. Republics are demanding; there is national recognition only for those who fully deserve it. We send you the decree that the Convention issued this morning on the report of the Committee. It has proportioned the vigor of its measures to your first reports. It will never remain below what the Republic and liberty expect. Beware above all of the perfidious policy of the Muscadins and the hypocritical Federalists, who raise the standard of the Republic when it is ready to punish them, and who continue to conspire against it when the danger has passed. It was that of the Bordelais, of the Marseillais, of all the counter-revolutionaries of the South. This is the most dangerous stumbling block of our freedom. The first duty of the representatives of the people is to discover it and avoid it. We must unmask the traitors and strike them without pity. These principles alone, adopted by the National Convention, can save the country. These principals are also yours; follow them; listen only to your own energy, and carry out with inexorable severity the salutary decrees which we address to you. Committee of Public Safety decree to the representatives in the newly entered Lyon, among them Couthon, written by Robespierre on October 12 1793. Couthon had left Paris for a mission to the army of the Alpes already on August 21 1793.

Send Bô. Montaut, recall the others, except Couthon and Maignet. Notebook note written by Robespierre sometime before October 19 1793, when a CPS decree tasked Bô with going to the army of Ardennes.

…Farewell, my friend, embrace Robespierre, Hérault and our other good friends for me. Couthon in a letter to Saint-Just, October 20 1793, while on mission in Lyon. Couthon was called back to Paris on November 23.

[Collot] has been strongly denounced for his conduct in Lyon, after the recapture of that city. But I was witness to the fact that he only accepted this mission with the greatest reluctance, and that Robespierre skillfully employed the strongest solicitations to persuade him to do so, alleging that he alone was capable of combining justice with the necessary firmness, that Couthon had become moved on the scene and cried like a woman; finally a host of reasons to highlight the importance of exemplary punishment against the rebels of this unfortunate city. Révélations sur le Comité de salut public (1830) by Prieur-Duvernois. While Prieur’s testimomy is written long after the fact and therefore deserves to get treated with some caution, the claims he makes here are to an extent collaborated by a letter from Collot to Robespierre dated November 23 1793, where he claims it was ”on your (ton) invitation” he went to Lyon.

Couthon proposes that the Society take care of "drafting the indictment of all kings", and that it for this purpose appoints commissioners responsible for collecting the particular crimes of tyrants. This proposal, warmly applauded, is adopted. On Momoro's motion, the Society appoints Robespierre, Billaud-Varennes, Couthon, Collot d'Herbois and Lavicomterie as commissioners. Jacobin club, January 21 1794

…Yesterday, Robespierre held a very eloquent speech on our political situation. As soon as this speech has been printed, I will send it to you, it deserves to get read. Couthon in a letter dated February 6 1794, regarding Robespierre’s speech On Political Morality, held the day before.

Couthon and Robespierre enter the hall; all the members and citizens in the tribunes demonstrate through their applause the satisfaction of seeing these two patriots again. Journal de la Montagne describing a triumphant entrance to the Jacobin club made by Couthon and Robespierre on March 13 1794, after both had been ill for a few weeks.

“In the absence of my brother,” said Mlle Robespierre to Gaillard, would you like to try to see Couthon? He prides himself on being good for me, I will ask him to receive you, he will not refuse me, I will precede you by a quarter of an hour, he will give the order to let you in and we will exit together.” Gaillard gratefully accepts, takes the address of Couthon who lived at n. 97 of the Cour du Manège, today rue de Rivoli, near rue du 29 Juilliet, and the next morning arrives at the indicated time. Couthon, whose face was truly angelic, wore a white dressing gown. A child of five or six years old, beautiful as Love, was between his father's legs; he had a young white rabbit in his arms which he was feeding alfalfa. Mme Couthon and Mlle Robespierre stood in the embrasure of a window overlooking the Tuileries.

“You are,” said Couthon to Gaillard, a friend of Mlle Robespierre, you therefore have every kind of right to my interest, tell me, citizen, how can I be of use to you?” [Gaillard then goes on to explain his errand to Couthon] “Citizen,” continues Gaillard, with great emotion, you are convinced that the signatures of these addresses have not committed a crime, you are all-powerful in the Committee of Public Safety where your opinion always prevails. Today, seventy unfortunate people are being led to the scaffold, their condemnation based on nothing other than the signing of these addresses…”

Couthon's face changed, he suddenly takes on the tiger's mask, makes a movement to grab the bell pull... Mlle Robespierre rushes at him to stop him (he was paralyzed from the legs down), turns towards Gaillard and says to him: “Save yourself!” In the confusion into which all this throws him, Gaillard takes Couthon's hat, she notices it, warns him, he runs across the apartment and reaches the stairs. He had barely gone down eight or ten steps when he heard Mlle Robespierre shouting to him: “Go and wait for me at the Orangerie.” […] [Gaillard] has barely gone down into the courtyard of the Orangerie when he goes back up onto the terrace, looking anxiously to see if his good angel was arriving. As soon as he sees her, he runs towards her, loudly asking her five or six questions at the same time without paying attention to the crowd around them. Mlle Robespierre, calmer, tells him in a low voice that she will answer him when they have reached the Place de la Révolution.

“Explain to me, please,” said Gaillard to Mlle Robespierre as soon as they were offshore, ”your haste to tell me to take flight flee and why you held back Couthon in his chair?”

“You were fooled, my dear monsieur, by the profound hypocrisy of Couthon, I was completely fooled myself; I believed your judges saved and you forever at peace like all the signatories of these addresses to Louis XVI... Couthon only showed himself to be so good-natured in order to get to know the depths of your thoughts, you fell into his trap, I could not have avoided it more than you. Your bloody and so justly deserved reproach regarding the 63 victims of today struck in the hearth, my presence, even my confidence could not have stopped his vengeance. The members of the Committee of Public Safety each have five or six men at home who are resolute at their command, because they are constantly trembling. Had he reached the bell pull, this very afternoon you would have been placed in the tumbril alongside the 63 unfortunate people you wanted to save... Fortunately, I succeeded in making him ashamed of the crime he was going to commit by immolating a friend that I had brought to his house... Will he keep his word to me? I followed your conversation very attentively, you did not say a word from which Couthon could conclude that you do not live in Paris... Return home quickly, do not follow the ordinary route out of fear that, remembering the name of the city where your judges were to sit, he sends for men to follow you on the road to Melun.” La Révolution, la Terreur, le Directoire 1791-1799: d’après les mémoires de Gaillard (1908) page 268-273. Anecdote described as taking place in May 1794. Evidence Couthon had contacts with not only Robespierre, but his sister as well. If the dynamics between the three changed after this incident is however something the anecdote leaves unknown…

Is it not known to all citizens since the sessions of 12 and 13 Fructidor, that the decree of 22 Prairial was the secret work of Robespierre and Couthon, that it never, in defiance of all customs and all rights, was discussed or communicated to the Committee of Public Safety? No, such a draft would never have been passed by the committee had it been brought before it. […] At the morning session of 22 floréal [sic, it clearly means prairial], Billaud-Varennes openly accused Robespierre, as soon as he entered the committee, and reproached him and Couthon for alone having brought to the Convention the abominable decree which frightened the patriots. It is contrary, he said, to all the principles and to the constant progress of the committee to present a draft of a decree without first communicating it to the committee. Robespierre replied coldly that, having trusted each other up to this point in the committee, he had thought he could act alone with Couthon. The members of the committee replied that we have never acted in isolation, especially for serious matters, and that this decree was too important to be passed in this way without the will of the committee. The day when a member of the committee, adds Billaud, allows himself to present a decree to the Convention alone, there is no longer any freedom, but the will of a single person to propose legislation. Réponse des membres des deux anciens comités de salut public et de sûreté générale… (1795) by Bertrand Barère, Billaud-Varennes, Collot d’Herbois and Alexis Vadier. It is unclear if Robespierre and Couthon really were alone in having drafted and/or supported the Law of 22 Prairial. The idea that they were was also lifted by Prieur-Duvernois in his Révélations sur le Comité de salut public (he claims Saint-Just was also in on it), Fouquier-Tinville in his Requisitoires de Fouquier-Tinville (he claims that, in the days the law was being worked out, Billaud-Varenne, Collot d'Herbois, Barère, Carnot and Prieur told him it was Robespierre who had been charged with the project) and Laurent Lecointre in Robespierre peint par lui-même et condamné par ses propres principes (1794) (he claims Robespierre wrote the law and confided only Couthon with it). If all these sources are to be treated with caution given their authors and the time they were written, it can nevertheless be established that Couthon and Robespierre (the first one in particular) are the only ones where any direct involvement in the development of the law can be traced, and that they did fight side by side (and harder than any other committee member) against the Convention to get it passed on both June 10 and June 12. I’ve written about this more in detail in this post.

Couthon: All patriots are brothers and friends, as for me, I want to share the daggers directed against Robespierre (here the entire hall rises with cries of: Me too!) […] Couthon at the jacobins July 11 1794

Couthon, all the patriots are proscribed, the entire people have risen up; It would be a betrayal not to join us to the Commune, where we are now. Signed: Robespierre the older, Robespierre the younger, Saint-Just. Letter urging Couthon to come to Hôtel de Ville. According to Hervé Leuwers’ Robespierre(2014) this letter is in Augustin Robespierre’s hand. According to 9-thermidor.com Robespierre and Couthon, alongside Augustin, Saint-Just, Le Bas were all declared under arrest by the Convention around 1:30 PM. Around 5 PM they were taken to the Committee of General Security and served dinner, before getting seperated and taken to different prisons between 6:30 and 7 PM. Couthon was the last to reunite with his friends at Hôtel de Ville at around 1 AM, less than an hour before the building was stormed.

The two Robespierres were [in the meeting room], one next to President Lescot-Fleuriot and the other next to Payan, national agent. Couthon was carried into the room a moment later; and what is noteworthy is that he was still followed by his gendarme. On arriving he was embraced by Robespierre, etc. and they passed into the next room, which I entered. The first word I heard from Couthon was: “We must write to the armies immediately”. Robespierre said: “In whose name?” Couthon replied: “But in the name of the Convention; is it not still where we are? The rest are only a handful of factions that the armed force we have will dissipate, and of whom it will bring justice.” Here Robespierre the elder seemed to think a little; he bent down to his brother's ear; then he said: “My opinion is that we write in the name of the French people.” He also, at that moment, took the hand of the gendarme who entered with Couthon and said to him: “Brave gendarme, I have always admired and esteemed your body; always be faithful to us; go to the door and ensure that you continue to embitter the people against the rebels.” Letter from H. G. Dulac to Courtois, July 25 1795, regarding the night at the Hôtel de Ville on 9 thermidor.

As soon as Couthon entered [Hôtel de Ville], three or four members led him away, and two or three presented him with papers and ink. Robespierre and Couthon said: ”We cannot write to our armies in the name of the Convention or of the Commune, given that this would be stopped, but rather in the name of the French people, that would work much better,” and, instantly, Couthon began to write on his knees saying: ”The traitors will perish, there are still humans in France and virtue will triumph.” Robespierre took the hand of gendarme Muron and said to them both: “Go down to the square immediately and energize the people!” Testimony of gendarmes Muron and Javois, who escorted Couthon to Hôtel de Ville. Cited in Autour de Robespierre… (1925) by Albert Mathiez, page 224-225. The Hôtel de Ville was stormed somewhere before 2 AM. At 5 AM, the injured Couthon was brought to l’hospice d’humanité (Hôtel-Dieu de Paris), before joining Robespierre at the Committee of Public Safety. At 11 AM the two plus Gobeau were escorted to the Conciergerie prison and locked up in individual cells. According to number 675 of Suite de journal de Perlet, released two days after the execution, Robespierre and Couthon sat in different tumbrils when they around 6 PM got driven to the scaffold. Couthon was executed first, Robespierre second to last.

—

Throughout his first year as a deputy, Couthon appears to have been closer to the ”girondins” than the ”montagnards.” In a letter dated January 3 1792 he calls Brissot and Condorcet ”two distinguished patriots with superior talent” apropos of their recent works calling for war. On January 19 1792 he expresses his own support of France going to war in another letter, and on April 20 1792 he was among the deputies that voted in favor of war with Austria (only seven did however vote no). In a letter dated September 1 1792 Couthon calls the Insurrectionary commune to which Robespierre belonged (and, according to some, dominated) ”[a] municipality led by a few dangerous men [that] seems to ignore decrees, and believes itself above the first power,” expressing his hopes that ”this distressing confusion will soon end and that the Municipality of Paris will cease to consider itself the Municipality of the whole Empire.” A week later, September 8 1792, he reports that ”the functions of the ardent chamber of the people have been broken since the evening before last, due to the care of the brave and virtuous Pétion.” In the letter to Roland dated October 4 1792 previously mentioned, Couthon still calls him “brave and estimable minister.” But just a week after said letter had gotten penned down, October 12, he more or less broke with the girondins, when he at the Jacobins said they were a group composed ”of gentlemen, subtle and intriguing, and above all ambitious” that ”wish a republic because popular opinion has demanded it, but they wish it aristocratic, they wish to maintain their control, and to have at their disposal the offices, the emoluments, and especially the finances of the state,” and ending by calling for all energies to be turned against ”this faction, which desires liberty only for itself.” (Bruun speculates this was due to him not having gained a place on the Committee of Constitution within the girondin dominated Convention the day earlier). This move surprised Madame Roland, who in a letter dated October 14 urged Bancal to ”go and see Couthon and reason with him; it is incredible that such a good mind allowed himself to speak out in a strange way against the best citizens.”

Throughout their time on the Committee of Public Safety, Robespierre and Couthon often rose up together at the Convention and the Jacobin club to speak for or against certain subjects. Besides the law of 22 prairial, the two also joined sides against petitioners talking with their hats on (December 20 1793), against Dufourny (March 18 1794), the establishment of a police bureau (April 16, April 18 1794). They helped contribute to the expulsion of both Rousselin (May 25) and Dubois-Crancé (July 11) from the Jacobins, and joined hands in speaking for arresting ”any individual that dares to insult the Convention” (July 24 1794). It was Couthon who asked for the printing of both Robespierre’s On Political Morality Speech on February 5 1794 as well as for his report on Religious and Moral Ideas on May 7 1794. As for Robespierre’s final speech on July 26 1794, Couthon proposed and got through ”that it be distributed throughout all of the Republic.” At the jacobins later the same day he proposed the immediate exclusion of all those who had voted against the printing of the speech, and once again he had his way.

On July 3 1794 we find a CPS decree signed by Collot, Carnot, Saint-Just, Barère, Billaud and C-A Prieur ordering Couthon to go to the army of the Midi, an order that he never followed through with. This could be interpreted as Couthon understanding Robespierre’s enemies were plotting againt him by trying to send him away, but choosing to stay at his side and share his fate.

#Robespierre on Couthon in 1792: 🥰#Couthon on Robespierre in 1792: 🤮#Robespierre to Couthon while on the CPS: stop being so SOFT!!#Couthon to Robespierre while on the CPS: your little sister ATTACKED me!!#robespierre #couthon #frev #frev friendships #ngl the fact couthon potentially hated robespierre’s guts at first is an interesting dynamic #must be the only enemies to lovers instead of lovers to enemies in robespierre’s life #still ends on the guillotine though bc of course it does

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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 30 days ago

Text

Nick Anderson

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

January 6, 2025

Heather Cox Richardson

Jan 07, 2025

In less than 40 minutes today in snow-covered Washington, D.C., a joint session of Congress counted the certified electoral votes that will make Republican Donald Trump president of the United States at noon on January 20. Vice President Kamala Harris presided over the session in her role as president of the Senate, announcing to Congress the ballot totals. The ceremony went smoothly, without challenges to any of the certified state ballots. Trump won 312 electoral votes; Harris, who was the Democratic nominee for president, won 226.

But at the session, the tableau on the dais itself illustrated that Republicans have elevated lawmakers who reject that principle. Behind the vice president sat the newly reelected speaker of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson (R-LA), who was a key player in the attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election: he lied about fraud; recruited colleagues to join a lawsuit challenging the election results from the key states of Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Georgia; and, after the January 6 riot, challenged the counting of certified votes from Arizona and Pennsylvania.

After the session concluded, Harris told reporters: “Well, today was…obviously, a very important day, and it was about what should be the norm and what the American people should be able to take for granted, which is that one of the most important pillars of our democracy is that there will be a peaceful transfer of power.

“And today, I did what I have done my entire career, which is take seriously the oath that I have taken many times to support and defend the Constitution of the United States, which included, today, performing my constitutional duties to ensure that the people of America, the voters of America will have their votes counted, that those votes matter, and that they will determine, then, the outcome of an election.

“I do believe very strongly that America’s democracy is only as strong as our willingness to fight for it—every single person, their willingness to fight for and respect the importance of our democracy. Otherwise, it is very fragile and it will not be able to withstand moments of crisis.

“And today, America’s democracy stood.”

Democracy stood in the sense that its norms were honored today as they were not four years ago, which is no small thing. But it is a blow indeed that the man who shattered those norms by trying to overturn the will of the American voters and seize the government will soon be leading it again.

It did not seem initially as if any such a resurrection was possible. While MAGA lawmakers and influencers tried to insist that “Antifa” or FBI plants had launched the riot that made congress members hide in fear for their lives while Secret Service agents rushed Trump’s vice president, Mike Pence, to a secure location, that left at least seven people dead and at least 140 police officers wounded, and that did about $3 million of damage to the Capitol as rioters broke windows and doors, looted offices, smeared feces on the walls, and tore down an American flag to replace it with a Trump flag, there was little doubt, even among Trump loyalists, as to who was to blame.

All four living presidents condemned Trump and his supporters; Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram all suspended him; members of his cabinet resigned in protest; corporations and institutions dropped their support for Trump.

Indeed, it seemed that the whole Trump ship was foundering. Trump advisor Hope Hicks texted Ivanka Trump’s chief of staff that the Trump family was now “royally f*cked.” “In one day he ended every future opportunity that doesn’t include speaking engagements at the local proud boy’s chapter,” Hicks wrote. “And all of us that didn’t have jobs lined up will be perpetually unemployed. I’m so mad & upset. We all look like domestic terrorists now.” “Not being dramatic, but we are all f*cked.”

Even then–Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) delivered a blistering account of Trump’s behavior and said: “There is no question that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of that day.”

But McConnell appeared reluctant to see Trump impeached. He delayed the Senate trial of the House’s charge of “incitement of insurrection” until Biden was president, then pressed for Trump’s acquittal on the grounds that he was no longer president. Even before that February 2021 acquittal, then–House minority leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA)—who had had a shouting match with Trump on January 6 in which he allegedly begged Trump to call off his supporters and yelled that the rioters were “trying to f*cking kill me!”—traveled to see Trump at Mar-a-Lago to get him to support Republican candidates in the 2022 election.

Their hunger to keep Trump’s voters began the process of whitewashing Trump’s attempt to overturn our democracy. At the same time, those Republicans who had either participated in the scheme or gone along with it continued to defend their behavior. As time passed, they downplayed the violence of January 6. As early as May 2021, some began to claim it was less a deadly attack than a “normal tourist visit.”

When the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol began to collect testimony and evidence, Trump and fellow Republicans did all they could to discredit it. As it became clear that Trump would win the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, they worked to exonerate him from wrongdoing and accused the Democrats of misleading Americans about the events of that day.

In February 2021, McConnell defended his vote to acquit Trump of inciting insurrection by promising the courts would take care of him. “President Trump is still liable for everything he did while he was in office, as an ordinary citizen,” he said, “still liable for everything he did while in office, [and] didn't get away with anything yet…. We have a criminal justice system in this country. We have civil litigation. And former presidents are not immune from being held accountable by either one.”

But while more than 1,500 people have been charged with federal crimes associated with the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol and many of Trump’s lawyers and advisors have been disbarred or faced charges, Trump has managed to avoid legal accountability by using every possible means to delay the federal case brought against him for his attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

And now, with the help of a compliant Supreme Court stacked with three of his own appointees, he has gained the immunity McConnell said he did not have. On July 1, 2024, the Supreme Court handed down the aptly named Donald Trump v. United States decision, establishing that sitting presidents have immunity from criminal prosecution for acts within the scope of their official duties. Before the new, slimmer set of charges brought after this decision could go forward, voters reelected Trump to the presidency, triggering the Justice Department policy against prosecuting a sitting president.

As Republicans whitewashed January 6 and the legal system failed to hold Trump to account, the importance of Trump’s attack on our democracy seemed to fade. Even the Trump v. U.S. Supreme Court decision, which undermined the key principle that all Americans are equal before the law by declaring Trump above it, got less attention than its astonishingly revolutionary position warranted, coming as it did just four days after President Joe Biden looked and sounded old in a televised presidential debate.

As the 2024 election approached, Trump rewrote the events of January 6 so completely that he began calling it “a day of love.” He said those found guilty of crimes related to January 6 were “political prisoners” and vowed to pardon them on his first day in office. Dan Barry and Alan Feuer noted in the New York Times today that Trump spokesperson Karoline Leavitt, referring to “the Left’s fear mongering over January 6th,” claims that “the mainstream media still refuses to report the truth about what happened that day.”

And yet, today, Trump’s lawyers wrote to Attorney General Merrick Garland demanding he prevent the public release of the final report written by special counsel Jack Smith about Trump’s attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. They say it would disrupt the presidential transition by “giving rise to a media storm of false and unfair criticism” and interfere with presidential immunity by diverting Trump’s time and energy.

Having reviewed the two-volume report, the lawyers objected to its claim that Trump and others “engaged in an unprecedented criminal effort,” that Trump was “the head of the criminal conspiracies,” that he hatched a “criminal design,” and that he “violated multiple federal criminal laws.” They also took issue with the “baseless attacks on other anticipated members of President Trump’s incoming administration, which are an obvious effort to interfere with upcoming confirmation hearings.”

They conclude that releasing Smith’s report “would not ‘be in the public interest.’”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARSON

#political cartoons #Nick Anderson #Letters From An American #Heather Cox Richardson #coup attempt #fuck qanon #we did this to ourselves #conspiracy theories #fafo #American History #history #January 6 2021 #criminal design #The Mafia Administration #American Democracy

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delimeful · 1 year ago

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mere monstrosity (4)

warnings: misunderstandings/assumptions, dehumanization, threats, janus being kind of a prick, fearplay, mentions of head injuries/brain damage, lmk if i forgot any

Roman reeled back as the hand slammed down in front of him.

Like a campfire doused by a bucket of icewater, his fury was entirely flattened by the bone-chilling realization that he was facing not one, but two humans, far away from the walls, any possible escape, or his brother.

Oh, god. Remus.

He might have still been alive back there, there might have been something that could have been done to help him, and Roman would never know because he’d let his anger overtake his sense. Now, dead or alive, he wouldn’t ever get to see his brother again.

A spark of his earlier fury rose from the ashes at the thought, and he raised his pin in the general direction of the two humans towering over him.

“I’d take on any number of opponents if it meant striking down that monster,” he spat, pretending that the tremble running down his arm was due to rage alone. “Willing or not, justice must be dealt!”

The humans exchanged a glance, neither looking remotely threatened, and then the one with the mismatched eyes leaned forward, still wearing that smile that looked more like a flashing of teeth.

“I think you and I must have very different ideas of what constitutes ‘justice’,” he said, and then moved, quick and sharp like a snake striking.

Roman jerked back, but the length of his pin remained held firmly in place by the human’s two pinched fingers.

“For one, most courts aren’t allowed to rule a defendant guilty and have them executed by needlepoint.”

Too occupied trying to wrest his only weapon free, he didn’t even see the human’s other hand sweeping in until gloved fingers were already wrapping around him.

He was plucked off the ground as easily as a hawk catching a mouse, and the instant his grasp loosened, his pin was pulled right out of his hands. “No!”

There wasn’t even time to mourn the loss of a blade that had been by his side for years. He had bigger problems. Literally.

“If you’re truly a proponent of vigilante justice performed by the powerful, though, I’m sure you won’t mind me stepping in,” one of the problems in question said. “After all, if you can pick and choose an opponent to murder at will, why can’t I?”

The words were accompanied by a slight, pointed tightening of the hand around him, and Roman’s gasping breaths started to sound a lot more like squeaks of alarm.

“Janus, cut it out. You’re gonna give him a heart attack,” a relatively small voice cut in.

He followed the sound to see it was the monster, now carefully cradled in the hand of the nerd-looking human. It was rubbing wearily at its eye in a surprisingly humanlike gesture.

“As opposed to the vital organ stabbing he tried to give you?” Janus replied, but his grip returned to firm instead of constricting. “What if we hadn’t been here? You’re lucky Logan is so predictable.”

Finding no success in his attempts to wriggle free, Roman paused and tried to wrap his head around the arrangement before him. The humans were listening to it, even chatting with it like a friend.

“What is all this supposed to be?” he asked incredulously, gesturing to the entire tableau. “That’s a spider monster! Humans don’t even like regular spiders in their homes!”

The spider-creature flattened itself slightly against the human’s hand, fiddling with the edges of its tiny cloak with a scowl on its face.

“To the contrary,” the human with glasses started, “most non-aggressive spider species are considered harmless and even beneficial to a household, due to the bugs they catch and their general avoidance of human contact.”

Roman stared pointedly at where the spider was literally being held by a human nerd at that very moment.

It shrugged, the motion barely visibly with how hunched its shoulders already were. “Extenuating circumstances. I wanted to not get stabbed more than I wanted to avoid contact.”

“Careful, Virgil. It almost sounds like you like us or something,” Janus teased, his smile softening into something less sharp and more wry when he was looking at the creature.

“You got me, I like you guys more than being stabbed,” it replied dryly, gaze still flickering over to Roman every few seconds. “Congrats.”

The nerd human cleared his throat, speaking over the smug, over-exaggerated ‘awww’ sound Janus was making.

“While I’m normally happy to take time to affirm our friendship, I feel like maybe we should focus on the matter at hand,” he said, turning the phrase literal by lifting the hand he was carrying the monster in and then inclining his head at the hand Janus had Roman trapped in.

“Ah, right,” Janus gave Roman a look normally reserved for gum stuck to the bottom of a shoe. “What are we going to do about this one.”

He tilted his hand back and let his fingers go loose, giving Roman more breathing room but also leaving him feeling like a tipped over beetle with its legs flailing in the air.

Never one to miss an opportunity, Roman twisted and managed to flip himself over and get all the way to his hands and knees before a thumb was pressed against his back, pinning him back in place idly.

“He had a point earlier,” the words were accompanied by a slight increase of pressure along his spine, “we humans really don’t like household pests.”

“Janus, enough already.” Shockingly, the monster came to his defense again. “It’s not even his fault, it was just a stupid misunderstanding.”

“You were almost murdered over a misunderstanding?” Janus replied, disbelieving. “Okay, but that’s worse. You do see how that’s worse, right?”

Roman was almost with the human on this one, though his disagreement was far more furious than bewildered.

“There was no misunderstanding,” he hissed, his voice coming out slightly wheezing from all the air that had just gotten squashed out of his lungs. “You killed my brother, you monster! You were going to eat him!”

There was a long beat of silence after his accusation rang out. Then, all at once:

“I was under the impression that your diet primarily consisted of insects? Would you even be capable of envenomating a creature of this size?”

“If you killed a guy and went to Logan instead of me for help with hiding the body, I will literally never forgive you—,”

“Oh, that is so not true, I didn’t even touch him until he’d already knocked himself out! He’s not even dead, but if he was, it would not be on me, okay?!”

Even amidst the overlapping chatter, Roman’s mind locked on to the only statement that mattered.

“He’s alive?” he asked, his voice cracking painfully mid-word.

Everyone went quiet, and Janus’s grip pulled away, allowing him to push himself back up to a sitting position without a word. Roman didn’t try to flee, only watched the monster and waited for the rug to be yanked out from under his feet, for the cackling laughter and glee that he had fallen for it.

“Yeah, man, I’m pretty sure,” the monster— Virgil said, scuffing a hand through his hair exhaustedly. “He was still breathing okay when I pulled him up, at least, he’s just got an awful knot on the back of his head. Probably has a concussion or something?”

Above him, Logan frowned in concern. “In that case, he certainly shouldn’t be left alone out there. I’ll go get out the first aid kit, if you can retrieve him?”

Roman felt a brand new wave of fear wash through him, urgent and sharp after the dull ache of grief.

So, that was why the humans were so fond of the monster, so accommodating to him. A spider-sized monster was no match for a human, but if he got on their good side by bringing them gifts, the rare, valuable kind that they had no reliable way of getting themselves… That was a different story.

There weren’t any other borrowers here, despite the signs in the walls of some living there before. Roman thought he knew why, now.

And like an idiot, he’d walked himself and Remus right into the lion’s den.

Except Remus was out of reach, and there was only one being here who could change that.

Roman stared at Virgil imploringly, a silent plea for mercy for his brother.

Virgil swallowed and averted his gaze, hunching over in something like guilt or shame. “Yeah, I’ll, uh. Yeah. Be back in a few.”

He scurried over to the wall without looking back once, and Roman curled in on himself, despair heavy on his shoulders.

—

Virgil was trying really hard to hate the guy who had almost skewered him an hour ago, but it was turning out to be more difficult than expected.

The moment he’d learned that his brother was still alive, the borrower’s demeanor had taken a full heel-turn. He’d stopped struggling, looked somehow even paler than before, and kept casting these desperate, almost pained glances at Virgil.

Look, he got it, okay. Nobody liked being abruptly under the gaze of a couple of humans, especially not when those humans had been actively antagonistic to them for their entire first meeting. He wasn’t happy about the situation either!

Still, he wasn’t the one who had made the decision to follow someone out into the open and keep trying to stab them to death where anyone could see.

He’d groused about it to himself the entire way through the walls, where he found the guy’s brother exactly where he’d left him, thankfully still breathing.

It hadn’t taken him long to drag the borrower to an exit, and he’d entrusted the stranger to Logan’s exceedingly gentle care immediately.

Janus had raised an amused eyebrow at the sight of how much webbing was tangled around the guy’s body. “Suddenly, I see where the ‘eating him’ assumption must have come from.”

“Ha ha,” Virgil replied flatly. “He tripped.”

Still sitting in Janus’s hand, the borrower didn’t say anything, just wrapped his arms around himself miserably, eyes locked on Logan’s back.

He continued not to say anything until the two of them were left relatively alone— Logan was entirely preoccupied with crafting a sterile wound pad into tiny bandages, and after the excitement had died down, Janus had reluctantly returned to his room and the assignment he’d abandoned.

(He’d given Virgil a look that meant there would be questions later, as though Logan hadn’t already been all but buzzing with curiosity from the start. Virgil decided he’d stress about that bridge when he got to it.)

Both of them were on the counter, but where Virgil was pacing back and forth directly on the marble, the stranger had been set in a wide-brim glass bowl to prevent any further surprise murder attempts.

Virgil didn’t feel great about it, especially not with how the guy had folded in on himself mere moments after taking in his surroundings, but he felt worse about the very real possibility that he’d be attacked again.

The tense silence was growing to almost painful levels of awkward, though.

“He’s gonna be fine,” Virgil finally said, because Logan looked intent but not scary laser-focused, which meant the head injury wasn’t lethal.

The borrower shot him a truly scathing glare, and Virgil skittered back a few steps automatically before returning the look twofold.

“What?” he snapped, keeping his voice low. “I told you I’m not the one who hurt him, okay?! I had no part in his quest for brain damage!”

“I know that! You’re just the one who brought him here,” the stranger whispered back viciously. “To humans.”

It was probably a reasonable reaction, especially given that Janus had been giving him the cat-who-just-caught-the-canary treatment, but it still wasn’t fair to blame Virgil. He hadn’t orchestrated the nightmarish situation, for goodness’s sake!

“It’s not like I meant for this to happen!” He dragged his hood up, trying to hide the agitated flush of his ears. “I thought it was just your brother, okay? I didn’t know there were two of you.”

If he’d known, he would have at least consulted with the guy before dragging his concussed brother out of the walls to get treatment from someone who was, by all appearances, a borrower’s worst nightmare. Even if it made his stomach twist to imagine them rejecting any help when it was partially thanks to him that the idiot had been so distracted in the first place, that was still their right to refuse.

Hell, he could have even feigned a minor head injury and asked Logan for supplies or advice! The three of them could have treated the injury without exposing the brothers to inquisitive, overprotective humans at all.

“Two of us?” the borrower echoed, his scowl abruptly lessening. “You thought it was just Remus?”

“Yeah, and you gave me basically zero time to explain before getting all stabby, so.” Virgil shrugged once. “It’s not like I wanted to bring him here, but he’s injured. I wasn’t going to just leave him to croak in the walls.”

The borrower was just staring at him now, his face creased with a complicated expression.

“You being here is your own fault,” he said, a tad defensively.

He got another dirty look for that, but it quickly faded into something almost contemplative.

There was another long stretch of silence, before Logan stepped over to let them know he was going to check the closet for more supplies. He looked to Virgil in silent question: will you be okay, left unattended?

The stranger shuffled back in the bowl, apprehensive, but Virgil only nodded.

It was hard to feel afraid of the guy when Virgil was 80% sure he was currently trying to work out the logistics of a tiny icepack for Remus.

A few seconds later, they were alone. The stranger turned to Virgil immediately, opening and closing his mouth a few times before finally speaking.

“Remus is injured,” he started, speaking slowly as though carefully choosing each word. “He probably won’t be able to endure for long if he’s under a lot of stress.”

That… wasn’t really the impression Virgil had gotten from the few minutes of interaction they’d had, but whatever.

“Logan’s really good with boundaries,” he offered. “I can make sure he doesn’t overstep. I know I’m… me, but your brother seemed surprisingly willing to give me a chance, so.”

“Of course he did,” the stranger muttered under his breath. “Look, if you only meant to bring one, you’re going to want the one that will… will last longer, right? That’s me.”

Virgil blinked several times, trying to connect the dots of that particular statement. “...What?”

The borrower turned to face him fully, scooting as close as the curved glass would allow, his gaze locked on Virgil.

“Get Remus out of here. I’ll stay, and the humans can do whatever they want to me, okay? Just let Remus go.” The stranger pressed a hand against the glass of the bowl. “I’m begging you. On my honor, I’ll do whatever you want, just–!”

“They’re not keeping you,” Virgil interrupted, feeling a little nauseated as the full implications of the plea sunk in. “Do you really think I’d be willing to stay here if they did that? Did you really think I would have brought you both here if they did that?!”

“I– I don’t know!” the stranger spluttered, recoiling slightly. “I don’t know you, maybe! You said you only meant to bring one borrower, what else would that mean if not–,”

“I meant if I’d known you were there, I would have dragged your idiot brother to you first, instead of going and getting help from the humans because I know literally nothing about medicine!” Virgil was clutching at his hair, now, astounded at the turn this had taken.

“Just waltzing out of the walls to hang out with humans goes against like every borrower rule ever, how was I supposed to know–,” the stranger cut off sharply as Logan walked back into the room, body going stiff as the human’s eyes flicked over to them briefly. Virgil released his hair and stuck his hands back in his pocket with faux casualness.

He took a few deeps breaths, and waited until Logan had returned to his tinkering to resume their conversation, now in a mutter.

“The humans do actually want to help, and I personally don’t want to watch your concussed brother fall off another beam and actually die this time, so would you at least give it a chance?” He studied the stranger’s unconvinced face and sighed. “If you really don’t feel safe after a day or two, I’ll help you and Remus sneak out myself, okay? On my honor, or whatever.”

“... Fine.”

#sanders sides fic #sanders sides g/t #ts roman #ts remus #ts virgil #ts janus #ts logan #my writing #mere monstrosity #mm #writing #sorry this one was late its been A Week

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misfitwashere · 29 days ago

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January 6, 2025

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

JAN 7

“And today, America’s democracy stood.”

They conclude that releasing Smith’s report “would not ‘be in the public interest.’”

—

#heather cox richardson #letters from an american

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salvationofsouls · 3 months ago

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Describing him as deranged would be a mild understatement; however, he had never claimed to possess a sound mind. His entire existence was constructed around themes of death and suffering. To mortals, he represented a formidable concern—the demon with whom humanity frequently associated its own fears. He served as a cautionary figure for those who dared to engage with Ouija boards and legends of the horrors he had wrought circulated through the ages. Some of these accounts were factual, while others had taken on a more entertaining character. He derived a certain enjoyment from causing humans to question their own sanity, driving them into states of madness. His sadistic tendencies were in alignment with his identity as a demon from Hell; thus, preying on the insecurities and fears of individuals constituted his primary modus operandi. In the absence of Lucifer, he had found himself compelled to focus on those ensnared in perpetual cycles of torment.

Yet the time was approaching when the entirety of demonic kind was growing increasingly restless, an electric tension buzzing in the air. He had listened long enough to Dromos’s incessant whining, every drawn-out complaint echoing through the shadowy corners of his mind like a haunting refrain. Whispers skittered along the walls, laden with rumours of Dromos’s soon-to-happen foray into the mortal realm, where he would confront their king. But what was the purpose of such a venture? Lucifer would inevitably send him scuttling back to the infernal depths, so it seemed a dire waste of time and effort.

To truly capture Lucifer’s attention, one needed to think beyond the conventional confines of rebellion. Who better to achieve this than the demon of death itself? While the other demons engaged in trivial acts of defiance, clawing at the edges of their constraints in petty displays, he embarked on a path unthinkable. His inaugural possession of a human had been approached with care, every movement laced with caution; he half-expected Lucifer to sense the disturbance he was instigating and intervene in a blaze of fury. But when no such reprimand came, he felt emboldened, the hunger for chaos quickening within him. With each passing moment, he escalated his attacks, reveling in the thrill of the forbidden.

The flickering candles cast dancing shadows across the dimly lit room, their flames wavering as if caught in an unseen draft. A lifeless hand fell heavily to the floor with a dull thud, the final punctuation in a sinister act. With a manic cackle that echoed off the walls, he made his exit, leaving behind a scene so meticulously arranged it resembled a gift wrapped for detectives to unravel—a cruel puzzle for mortals to contemplate. This grim tableau had been expertly crafted to appear self-inflicted, a signature of his modus operandi. Sometimes, he would even manipulate events to ensure that illusion held strong. For, with the right motivations, swaying a human to act against their own interests was a task as effortless as breathing.

Alas, his return to Hell unfolded with an all-too-familiar predictability. Dromos sat in a shadowy corner, his expression a stormy tempest of discontent, while several of the Lilm—the mischievous imps that thrived on chaos—were engaged in a raucous brawl, their shrill laughter mingling with the clamor of clashing bodies. The humans, trapped in their repetitive loops of despair, moved like marionettes on frayed strings, mechanically performing their rituals. There was a profound absence of excitement, a vacuum that echoed the deep-seated ennui permeating the infernal realm.

Gone were the days of a ruling King to impose order and instill fear; the air no longer crackled with tension, rendering the atmosphere unbearably dull. Zozo contemplated slipping quietly into the cold stone wall, seeking refuge from this drab reality, when suddenly he felt it—a magnetic pull, a powerful summons cutting through the monotony like a bolt of lightning.

Some foolish human was at it again, unknowingly weaving a web that ensnared him with ease. He rolled his eyes at their sheer stupidity, frustration seeping into his perfectly groomed demeanor. Straightening his tailored suit, every detail immaculate and sharp, he prepared for the inevitable. In a heartbeat, he vanished, slipping through the ethereal connection of the ouija board frantically fumbled with, plummeting straight into the very trap that had been set.

‘Bollocks.’

#lucifermorningstxr #♂ | Zozo. ( Starters. )

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princesssterek · 2 years ago

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Anne Rice, Gay Vampires and the Mistreatment of Claudia in Interview with the Vampire

This was my senior thesis so enjoy.

Intro

Anne Rice’s debut novel Interview with the Vampire (1976) was not well received at the time of its publishing. One reviewer for the New York Times, Leo Braudy, even went so far as to say “there is no story here, only a series of sometimes effective but always essentially static tableaus out of Roger Corman films, and some self‐conscious soliloquizing out of Spiderman comics, all wrapped in a ballooning, pompous language” (Braudy 1976). However, it is now widely considered to be one of the best-selling novels of all time, having been made into a film 12 years after its release and maintaining enough popularity to be turned into a television series in 2022, some 46 years later. While not well received by critics, audiences loved it then and still love it now. Interview is the first novel to allow the vampire to tell their own story; along with the erotic overtones of the novel is what captured the attention of audiences around the world and what kept their attention. Currently, on GoodReads.com the novel has an overall 4.01-star rating with one reviewer writing “Dark and enthralling. This book asks readers to reflect on the constitutions of love and loneliness” while another comments on the writing style, “Anne Rice really makes you feel the depth of emotion that The Vampire goes through.” Both reviews are from 2023. Not only is Interview still relevant because of its content but the impact it’s had on the vampire genre as a whole. It’s opened the door to allowing vampires to not only tell their own stories but to allow them to feel deeply.

Throughout the novel, there is a heavy overtone of erotic desire, often homoerotic desire, mostly between the main character Louis and his vampire father/husband Lestat but also with his later lover Armand. There are also instances of erotic desire with other characters as well; desire is often associated with the act of feeding. Many see the overall desire within the book as being gay, which is one of the reasons its popularity has persisted. While Anne Rice would later write openly gay vampires, this was not the time for that; instead, we are given subtle hints and overtones. After a conversation with Rice, Katherine Ramsland her biographer would write that “The new vampire is brought over into a dramatically changed existence with a gender-free perspective” (Ramsland 148), which confirms the homoerotic overtones within the book. Rice also claims to have attempted to write her vampires as androgynous and without male or female distinctions or as Ramsland said ‘gender-free’. The reality is that Rice has placed Louis and Lestat in traditional gender roles as parents while also feminizing their vampire daughter/lover Claudia. Claudia is also read as feminist through the way she is treated by those around her, in particular their failure to fully acknowledge her as a woman, not a child.

What the people say past and present

Vampires have always been seen as metaphors for various things from the hidden sexuality or desires of the author to a critique of society's values. As William Hughes, a Professor at the University of Macau, put it in his contribution to the book A Companion to American Gothic (2013), “The vampire, an enduring consensus suggests, is the perfect vehicle with which to express the myriad and conflicting cultural implications of human sexual activity and identity” (Hughes 340); vampire lit makes for a good space to explore sexual activity and identity. This idea can be further narrowed but adding gender into the equation. As Melissa Ames says in her chapter of the book Bitten by Twilight (2010), “The fact that the same gender critiques appear in both Dracula and in more contemporary texts suggests that the vampire narrative is a productive space to tease out problems of gender and sexuality, but that it is not a space that necessarily resolves such issues since they recycle decade after decade and text after text in similar fictional constructs”(Ames 44-45); seeing gender critiques within vampire literature has always been common and will continue to be. This idea was echoed in 2016 in the book Women and the Gothic, specifically by contributor Gina Wisker who points out that “female vampires destabilise such comfortable, culturally inflected investments and complacencies and reveal them as aspects of constructed gender identity resulting from social and cultural hierarchies” (Wisker 150), taking the idea of vampire literature critiquing gender a step further by focusing on the role of the female vampire.

Interview with the Vampire has been no exception to analysis or critiques of the portrayal of gender and sexuality within vampire literature. Many cite how Rice shows gender roles in the relationship between Louis and Lestat but most importantly they turn to Claudia and her mistreatment. Many see the way she is treated by those around her, including her vampire fathers, as placing her in a traditional female gender role, often through their lack of acknowledging that she is a woman trapped in a child’s body. Nina Auerbach notes in her book Our Vampires, Ourselves (1996) that Rice’s vampires are compulsive storytellers but Claudia never gets to tell her own story; only men tell her story (Auerbach 154-55). This is a starting point for the way many read Claudia as being placed in a gender role. Auerbach also points out how “Claudia is an adult male construction, a stunted woman who has no identity apart from the obsessions of the fatherly lovers who made her” (Auerbach 158), something that in 2013 Hughes similarly pointed out stating that “Louis’s narration, and his coda,[he] silently deflects the agency from her to him.” (Hughes 345). Claudia is placed in a gender role has persisted through time. The relationship between Louis and Lestat is no exception to a critique or analysis of gender within the novel. Most notably their gender roles are seen in the way they parent Claudia, but these roles can also be seen within their relationship and the way Rice has characterised them. Ken Gelder points out in his book Reading the Vampire (1994), stating that “Rice emphasises the differences between these two male vampires, with Louis as delicate and sensitive (i.e. feminised) and Lestat as aggressive and impetuous (i.e. masculinised)” (Gelder 112). Rice shows gender roles throughout the relationship between Louis and Lestat often feminising one and masculinising the other.

Pre-child Love

In order to establish a foundation of gender roles within the novel you must first look at the relationship between Louis and Lestat before they created/birthed Claudia. In particular, you must look at how their relationship can be seen as queer or as having homoerotic overtones. Iulia Pintilie¹ points out in her article for the Journal of Romanian Literary Studies that “a passionate tension between the male vampires is clearly suggested in the writing” (Pintilie 642), something that can be seen throughout the novel but most notably early in their relationship. When we first meet Lestat in the novel it is at Louis’s bedside where he thinks him a possible doctor or angel. We, like Louis, quickly learn that Lestat is not normal or human, he is some kind of creature. One that wants Louis to be like him so that he may take control of Louis's plantation (16).

Louis gives their relationship a homoerotic overtone when he, in response to being asked to describe his turning, tells the reporter “I can’t tell you exactly, any more than I could tell you exactly what is the experience of sex if you have never had it” (15); comparing the loss of virginity to his turning implying a sexual overtone. Their relationship and the turning itself are given further erotic overtones when Louis says “I remember that the movement of his lips raised the hair all over my body, sent a shock of sensation through my body that was not unlike the pleasure of passion” (19); again equating sex and being turned. After his turning Louis spends time staring at things like the buttons on Lestats coat or the trees and cobblestones, here Lestat breaks the erotic tone created in the turning scene. Lestats sends Louis to relieve his body of waste and upon Louis's return, he finds him already working on the plantation papers–cementing the idea that Lestat only wants him for his money. This is an aspect of their relationship that Pintilie describes as resembling “an eighteen-century aristocratic union in which the two husbands increase their family fortunes through their marriage” (Pintilie 647), though at this moment it's not yet a marriage.

In the five years that make up their relationship–some sixty pages of the novel–before Claudia’s birth/turning, Louis struggles to come to terms with what Lestat has made him. Louis often refers to how violent and unfeeling Lesast could be, noting early in their relationship how Lestat could go from one emotion to the opposite. Louis notes in Lestat's treatment of his father that “he’d been gracious to the old man, almost to the point of sickening, but now he became a bully” (23); Lestat goes quickly from one emotion to another. Louis also notes how easily Lestat is set off when he says that in response to Louis wishing to sleep alone, “he became furious” (34) before Lestat sets off in a small tirade over why they should be bunking together. Lestat’s repeated instances of enjoying violence or being unfeeling are what give him his masculised gender role whereas Louis is often repulsed by violence and feels deeply thus femisising him. Louis even notes Lestats lack of emotions when after describing his own deep feelings about being a vampire he tells the reporter “Lestat felt the opposite. Or he felt nothing” (31). Driving home the idea that Lestat is different from Louis.

In the five years prior to Claudia joining them, Louis experiences many things with Lestat from his own turning to learning to kill but never embracing it to his home being burned to the ground. Throughout it all Lestat remains a violent, emotionally unpredictable manipulator in Louis’s life, not unlike one would see in an abusive intimate partner. Louis even tells the reporter that “I had to stay with him” (35), going on to explain that Lestat was keeping information from him about his vampire existence as a way to force him into staying. Something Lestat continues to do even after turning Claudia. Eventually, towards the end of their five years, Louis finally decides he must leave Lestat when they flee to New Orleans city proper after an incident at the Freniere plantation. Louis tells the reporter “I have to leave him or die” (71), this decision comes only hours before he meets Claudia for the first time and days before they would turn her.

Post-child Love

When Rice chooses to have Louis and Lestat become fathers, she also makes them husbands cementing their “marriage” when they turn Claudia. While Lestat is the one to complete Claudia’s turning by feeding her his blood, Louis participates by having been the one to drain her thus making them both her vampire fathers. Louis is at first a reluctant ‘mother.’ He did not want to turn Claudia but Lestat forces him into it, using her as a way to trap Louis into staying with him. Candace Benefiel explains this scene best telling readers in her article for the Journal of Popular Culture² that “The whole scene reads like a couple having a child in an attempt to make a failing relationship once more viable” (Benefiel 267). In this case, it’s Lestat attempting to keep the relationship viable, he explains to Claudia after her turning that “ ‘Louis was going to leave us,’ (...) ‘He was going to go away. But now he’s not. Because he wants to stay and take care of you and make you happy.’ (...) ‘You’re not going, are you, Louis?’ ” (94). At this moment he is also revealing the truth of her turning to Louis as well. This plan of Lestat’s works, Louis tells the reporter that “Afraid of fleeing alone, I would not conceive of risking it with Claudia. She was a child. She needed care” (97), cementing his need to stay with the ‘family.’ As if Louis was a mother staying with an abuser to protect a child.

In making them parents Rice masculinizes Lestat–he is only ever the ‘father’ and feminizes Louis–he is called ‘father’ but acts as a ‘mother.’ Lestat takes on a more traditional masculine father role when Louis tells us that he “was loving to her, proud of her beauty, anxious to teach her that we must kill to live and that we ourselves could not die” (97). He is excited to teach her to kill, to be aggressive–traits that can be seen as more masculine. Louis takes on a more feminine or motherly role in that he is the one to educate her on things like “mortal creations”, poetry, music, and books (100), teaching her softer life skills that are seen as more feminine. While Louis’s dedication and attachment to Claudia can be viewed as ‘motherly instinct,’ you could also argue that it is simply parental the way he wants to protect her and keep her close throughout the novel, though it’s the juxtaposition of Lestat's masculine traits that give Louis’s a more ‘motherly’ feel. Louis even tells the reporter “At first, I thought only of protecting her from Lestat. I gathered her into my coffin every morning and would not let her out of my sight with him if possible. This was what Lestat wanted, and he gave little suggestions that he might do her harm” (97), implying Louis is a ‘mother’ protecting their child from an abusive ‘father’–Lestat. The three spend some sixty-five years living together as a family before tensions arise. Before their family comes apart, Louis continues to try to keep himself isolated from Lestat, now having Claudia join him when she is not off-killing with Lestat. Louis explains to the reporter that “there was no quarreling. We kept to ourselves (...) Claudia and I pursued our natural tastes and Lestat went about his lavish acquisitions” (104).

When tensions between Claudia and Lestat begin to rise so do tensions with Louis and Lestat. Lestat is frustrated with Claudia ignoring him or as Louis tells the reporter “she grew cold to Lestat” (105). This leads to Lestat lashing out at Louis after Louis attempts to stop him from lashing out at Claudia and later to another argument. An argument where Louis cements seeing himself as Claudia’s mother telling the reporter “ ‘What’s the matter with her!’ he [Lestat] flared at me, as though I’d given birth to her and must know” (105). It’s in the issues or tensions that we can once again see the relationship between Louis and Lestat as abusive. Particularly with Louis as the victim and Lestat as the abuser; this is one of the main ways that Rice has applied gender roles to their relationship. She makes the relationship reminiscent of a heterosexual one by making Louis the ‘mother’ figure to Claudia. This is shown subtly when after Claudia tells Louis they must leave Lestat they begin to plan their escape (118-119). Louis explains to the reporter that before now he’d “grown accustomed to him, as if he were a condition of life itself” (118). Louis had grown complacent in the relationship content to keep himself and Claudia from Lestat but never leaving. Louis goes on to explain that while he planned to buy their freedom (119) he “did not believe it would be possible to escape him [Lestat]” (119); reminiscent of the emotions a victim planning their own escape may feel.

Louis’s ‘motherly’ instinct is seen again towards the end of the novel when the Theater Des Vampires come to collect Louis, Claudia, and Madeliene for trial. Louis tells the reporter that “the instinct to protect Madeleine and Claudia was overpowering” (294), he also attempts to bargain with Lestat for her life saying to him “ ‘You let her go, you free her…and I will…I’ll return to you’ ”(296). In both of these cases, Louis is attempting to protect Claudia the way a mother or parent would. In the second instance, Louis even attempts to stand up to Lestat as a means to protect Claudia or at the very least justify her actions against him by telling the others “how you treated us, that we didn’t know the laws, that she didn’t know of other vampires’ (296); he is attempting to get Lestat to own to his part in Claudia’s attempting to kill him, to admit to abusing his power over them.

Claudia as treated by her ‘fathers’

It’s not until Claudia has lived with Louis and Lestat for over sixty-five years that Loius begins to acknowledge that she is in fact not a child but a woman trapped in the body of a child remarking to Lestat that “She’s not a child any longer,[...] I don’t know what it is she’s a woman” (105). Louis only begins to realize this after she has been ignoring Lestat, resenting him for being her “father.” Both men realize that she is grown again only after she begins to question her origins and subsequently wants to leave Lestat to free them from him saying to Louis “And we’ve been his puppets, you and I; [...]. Now’s time to end it, Louis. Now’s time to leave him”(118). Claudia tells Louis that she will kill Lestat to free them of him. Not because she believes it’s the only way to free them but because she wants to, she repeatedly tells Louis “ ‘I can kill him. (...) I want to kill him. I will enjoy it!’ ” and “ ‘I want him dead and will have him dead. I shall enjoy it’ ” (124). They proceed to argue over if Lestat even can be killed and after she comments she may inherit Lestats power after killing him, Louis becomes angry. He tells the reporter “ ‘I was enraged now. I rose suddenly and turned away from her’ ” (124) but he quickly reverts back to seeing her as childlike in her innocence, seeing her wanting to be free of Lestat like a child throwing a tantrum and making idle threats. It's not until she attempts to kill Lestat that he again sees her as a woman though it is at the expense of also being repulsed by her. After Claudia kills Lestat, Louis tells the reporter “I turned away from her. I was unable to look at her (...) I would not look at her (...) I couldn’t stand the sight of her” (139-140). Though once Claudia shows distress at Louis's reaction he reverts back to treating her like a child rocking her as she cries in his arms.

Lestat never sees Claudia as a woman or an adult; to him, she is simply a means to keep Louis with him, and as a toy or as Lestat calls her a “doll” for him and Louis to play with. Lorna Jowett points this out in her article “ ‘Mute and Beautiful’: The Representation of the female vampire in Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire”, telling readers that “In neither case is Claudia of importance for herself; rather she is simply an object to be used in the struggle/relationship between two male vampires” (Jowett 56). Lestat eventually comes to see Claudia as a child, his and Louis, but by the end of the novel he sees her as the enemy and never does he view her as a woman.

Throughout the novel both Louis and Lesta refer to Claudia as a doll; Louis often refers to her by material things as well. After first presenting the idea of turning Claudia Lestat even tells Louis to “think of all the pretty dresses we could buy for her” (75). Louis even goes as far as explaining that after her turning Lestat hired dress and shoemakers to outfit Claudia; that he “played with her as if she were a magnificent doll, and I played with her as if she were a magnificent doll (99). Both men also treat her like a doll up until she begins to ask questions often dressing her and doing her hair. Katherine Ramsland notes in the book The Vampire Companion⁴ that “Lestat and Louis treat Claudia like a doll, despite the fact that her mind matures into that of an intelligent, assertive, and seductive woman” (Ramsland 69); even after her maturing they continue to treat her as a doll. Louis further feminizes Claudia by placing emphasis on more material items like her clothes and hair. Gabriella Jonsson says this well when in her article for the Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts³ she claims “Claudia’s “feminity” is expressed only through clothes and hair, making her gender identity fluid, easily disruptible” (42). Louis often refers to Claudia's dresses, hair ribbons, or even her blonde hair as a way to not only give her physical description but to emphasize her femininity and adolescence. As we know from Louis she is often dressed in colorful puffed sleeves, hair ribbons, and slippers like you might see a doll wearing. Even in her death, Claudia is defined by material things, Louis knows she is dead after seeing not only Lestat holding her yellow dress and her golden hair.

Claudia as perceived by others

Other vampires aside from Louis and Lestat tend to overlook Claudia, something Louis notes when telling the story of his and Caludia’s first night with the Theater Vampires, stating to the interviewer “Knowing what I also knew and what they [the female vampires] seemed unable to grasp: that a woman’s mind as sharp and distinct as their own lived within that small body” (243).The other female vampires Estelle and Celeste– the only two to get named– take an interest in Claudia’s beauty, having her flaunt her looks the first night they meet. Though they quickly reveal their true feelings towards Claudia, Estelle tells her in front of the other vampires that “black was the color for a vampire’s clothes, that Claudia’s lovely pastel dress was beautiful but tasteless” (244) causing everyone to laugh at her. Louis also notes that Celeste appears to not like Claudia early on when in response to a question she asks he claims “her [Celeste’s] eyes reflected a certain contained hostility” (244) only further cementing the notion that these two vampires do not like Claudia. The other vampires like Santiago see her as neither child nor vampire. To them, she is simply a toy, something they can play with to soothe their boredom and allows them to indulge in their cruel nature. They do not see her as an equal which could be because she appears as a child but they feel the same lack of intellectual interest in Louis, who is only saved from being their target by Armand's interest in him. Armand overlooks her simply because he has no interest; he is more concerned with getting Louis to leave Paris with him, to become his companion. Ultimately Armand has no personal feelings about Claudia only seeing her as an obstacle to getting Louis, something Claudia is aware of. She tells Louis after their first meeting with him, “Do you know what he said….that I should die'' (249), explaining to Louis after that “He would have you, and he would not have me stand in the way” (250). Armand notes to Louis that it was cruel of them to turn Claudia seeing as she will never be a full woman, that is a woman who has reached physical maturity, telling Louis that if he were in a position that required him to turn his human child-blood-slave he would not, “because he is too young, his limbs not strong enough, his mortal cup barely tasted”(252). It would be a disservice to turn him, a “flaw” as he calls it. He notes the problem with turning a child, the disservice that her creators did in making her, saying to Louis “And then there is this mysterious child: a child who can never grow, never be self-sufficient” (252), telling him that most other vampires wouldn’t turn anyone who could not be self-sufficient. Having this vampire child with him is part of the reason the other vampires have taken an interest in them, it's quite unusual. Also, Louis and Claudia are not unfeeling vampires (he still holds onto his humanity), making them stand out in a way that makes them easy targets for a group like the Theatre Vampires.

Alternatively, Madeleine only sees Claudia one way, as an immortal child. As we know Madeleine is grieving the loss of her own daughter so that's what she sees in Claudia. When Louis is asking Madeliene if she will care for Claudia he also asks “Is that what you believe her to be, a doll?” (267), though she responds with “ ‘A child who can’t die! That’s what she is,’ ” (267). This interaction tells us that while Madeliene may not see Claudia in the same doll-like way Louis and Lestat once do she still does not recognize her for what she is–a grown woman trapped in the body of a child. After her turning Madeliene becomes obsessed with Claudia, making her clothes and furniture that are proportionate to her size. Beyond Madeliene's grief-induced obsession with Claudia being an immortal child that she must provide for, we know nothing else of their relationship or Madeliene’s perception of her.

Claudia on her situation

Claudia is not ignorant of her position within her family and in the world, understanding that she will always appear as a child so no one will treat her as a woman, a point of great frustration and struggle for her. Before her demise in the novel, she has come to terms with her situation and has chosen a new caregiver for herself so that Louis may be free. Though she must beg him to do so. Louis only concedes after speaking with Madeliene–an adult–emphasizing that Louis does not see Claudia as an equal (adult). It's in the turning of Madeliene that we can see Claudia as other or less womanly in the eyes of men; it brings Louis great pain to turn Madeline causing him to see Claudia as absurd or monstrous. She must ask Louis to do this because while she is a vampire she can never turn another, that is create children, due to her size. Lestat points this out, stating “You don’t have the power. Either of you” (Rice 132) after Claudia makes a comment about the three of them filling the world with vampires. She must beg Louis to do it for her, once again emphasizing her child and womanly-like helplessness, telling Louis in response to his hesitance at turning Madeliene “ ‘Because I cannot do it.’ Her voice was painfully calm, all the emotion under the hard, measured tone. “I haven’t the size, I haven’t the strength! You saw to that when you made me! Do it!’ ” (260). It's in this instance, of Claudia begging Louis to turn Madeliene, that we can see her awareness and frustration with her situation. She tells Louis that had he waited “six more mortal years, seven, eight…I might have had that shape! … I might have known what it was to walk at your side.” (261-62). This is also where we can see her acceptance of her situation as she explains to Louis that he must “Give her [Madeliene] to me so she can care for me, complete the guise I must have to live! And he can have you then! I am fighting for my life!” (265). She points out how she will not survive this world alone; she must be forever tied to another. We can also see her anger in having been immortally bound to a child's body when she calls Louis a “monster” and in her killing of Lestat after discovering he was the one to turn her. This anger can be seen in how his initial “murder” is not one of passion but is intricately planned with Claudia poisoning him to make him an easier target though his later “murder” is one of self-defense seeing as Claudia is attempting to protect herself and Louis from Lestat’s attack that final night in New Orleans.

The other women

Women are not often seen–that is given speaking roles or even names– in the novel. There are a few like Babbette Freniere–a human that Loius and Lestat knew before Claudia’s creation, Celeste & Estelle–the only other female vampires noted in the novel, Madeliene the doll maker turned vampire, and of course, our main female figure Claudia the vampire child created in an attempt to save her ‘father’ relationship.

Babette takes up little space in the novel only being initially significant because of Lestat’s interest in killing her brother and Louis's concern for their family plantation. Before Louis and Lestat must flee to the Feniere plantation for aid Babette is only mentioned when Louis advises her to keep the plantation after her brother's death. Louis shows his respect for Babette not only in advising her to keep the plantation but before then when he describes her to the reporter as “not only as smart as her brother, but far wiser” (43). We see the downfall of Babette when after Louis and Lestat go to her for aid, she attacks Louis attempting to kill him because she believes him to be “from the devil” (65). The last time Babette is mentioned is when Lestat mentions that now some sixty-five years later the Freniere plantation is meant to be haunted. This causes Louis to remember Babette, he tells the reporter that she “died young, insane, (...) insisting she had seen the devil” (130); an insanity caused by discovering that Louis is not human. Babette is also used in the novel as a tool to further Louis’s self-loathing. She acts as a symbol of him holding onto his humanity and what was left of his human life. She even validates his thoughts that he is from the devil when she tells him such and calls him a “monster.” Overall we only know Babette as the human Louis saw his humanity in, a human who descends into madness.

In contrast, there are the two notable female vampires Celeste & Estelle who are often characterized as what you could call ‘mean girls.’ They are initially introduced as part of the Theater des Vampires, women who at first seem to take to Claudia fondling her and having her turn about for them (243). Louis is quick to note that Celeste's eyes “reflected a certain contained hostility” (244) and that Estelle is condescending to Claudia when she points out that “black was the color for the vampire’s clothes, that Claudia’s lovely pastel dress was beautiful but tasteless” (244) causing everyone to laugh at her. We also know from Armand that Celeste is jealous of Claudia, he notes “She is jealous of the child’s beauty” (254); another reason they can be characterized as ‘mean girls.’ Overall they can both be viewed as catty ‘mean girls’ who are jealous of Claudia and only wish to play games with both her and Louis. In the end, they are killed, in fact, no female vampire survives the novel.

Madeleine is the last woman in the novel to be named. Not only does Madeliene die by the end she is only in forty-five pages of it. While she is used only as someone to replace Louis as Claudia’s caretaker we do get to see the beginnings of her descent into madness. When we first meet Madeleine it is after Claudia has brought her home to have Louis turn her; her only significance is in replacing Louis. We quickly learn though that while Claudia intends to have her as a guardian, Madeleine only wishes to relieve the guilt of having lost her own daughter by replacing her with an immortal one; Madeleine notes this to Louis “A child who can’t die! That’s what she is” (267). Her madness starts quickly after her turning when Louis notes that she burned her dead child's belongings and that he “had to lead her away from men and women she could no longer drain dry” (273). He even outright calls her mad when talking about those few nights before her death. Louis also notes that Madeleine had become “accustomed to dreaming; and that she would not cry out for reality, rather would fee reality to her dreams, a demon elf feeding her spinning wheel with the reeds of the world so she might make her own weblike universe” (273); he gives his explanation for what was happening to Madeleine. In the end, Madeliene is only remembered by Louis not only for her madness but for her cries as the Theater Vampires took them away.

Conclusion

The claim that Anne Rice has made of writing vampires as being without male or female distinctions or as being “gender-free” (Ramsland 148) is disproved through a close reading of Interview with the Vampire. The main characters within the novel Louis, Lestat, and Claudia present to readers the gender roles which Rice claims to have not made. Through the relationship that Louis and Lestat share–both pre and post-Claudia–you can see how she has made Lestat masculine in a way that gives Louis a femininity. Through Claudia and her mistreatment Rice once again shows that she has given her vampires' gender distinctions. One can also see Rice’s gender distinctions in her treatment of women in the novel as a whole but it is most notable in Claudia. Claudia the immortal woman-child whose story is only told by a male vampire in relation to a male vampire.

End notes

¹ “GENDER CONVENTIONS: HOMOSEXUAL EROTICISM AND FAMILY LIAISONS IN ANNE RICE AND NEIL JORDAN’S INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE.”

² “Blood Relations: The Gothic Perversion of the Nuclear Family in Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire.”

³ “The Second Vampire: ‘Filles Fatales’ in J. Sheridan Le Fanu’s ‘Carmilla’ and Anne Rice’s ‘Interview with the Vampire.’”

⁴ The Vampire Companion: The Official Guide to Anne Rice's "The Vampire Chronicles"

Works Cited

Auerbach, Nina. Our Vampires, Ourselves. University of Chicago Press, 1996.

Benefiel, Candace R. “Blood Relations: The Gothic Perversion of the Nuclear Family in Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire.” The Journal of Popular Culture, vol. 38, no. 2, 2004, pp. 261–273.

Braudy, Leo. “Queer Monsters.” The New York Times, 2 May 1976. NYTimes.com, https://www.nytimes.com/1976/05/02/archives/queer-monsters-interview-with-the-vampire-vampire.html.

Click, Melissa A., and Melissa Ames. “Twilight Follows Tradition: Analyzing ‘Biting’ Critiques of Vampire Narratives for Their Portrayals of Gender and Sexuality.” Bitten by Twilight Youth Culture, Media, & the Vampire Franchise, Lang, New York, NY, 2010, pp. 37–53.

Gelder, Kenneth. “Vampires in the (Old) New World: Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles.” Reading the Vampire, Routledge, London, 1994, pp. 108–123.

Interview with the Vampire (The Vampire Chronicles, #1). https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43763.Interview_with_the_Vampire. Accessed 3 Apr. 2023.

Jönsson, Gabriella. “The Second Vampire: ‘Filles Fatales’ in J. Sheridan Le Fanu’s ‘Carmilla’ and Anne Rice’s ‘Interview with the Vampire.’” Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts, vol. 17, no. 1 (65), 2006, pp. 33–48.

Jowett, Lorna. "Mute and Beautiful": The Representation of the Female in Anne Rice's Interview with the Vampire." Femspec, vol. 4, no. 1, 2002, pp. 59

Pintilie, Iulia-Mădălina. “GENDER CONVENTIONS: HOMOSEXUAL EROTICISM AND FAMILY LIAISONS IN ANNE RICE AND NEIL JORDAN’S INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE.” Journal of Romanian Literary Studies, no. 07, 2015, pp. 642–53.

Ramsland, Katherine. Prism of the Night: A Biography of Anne Rice. Penguin, 1994.

Ramsland, Katherine. The Vampire Companion: The Official Guide to Anne Rice's "The Vampire Chronicles". Ballantine Books, 1995.

Rice, Anne. Interview with the Vampire. Ballantine Books, 1976.

Wisker, Gina. “Female Vampirism.” Women and the Gothic, edited by Avril Horner and Sue Zlosnik, Edinburgh University Press, 2016, pp. 150–66. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3366/j.ctt1bgzdfx.14.

A Companion to American Gothic, edited by Charles L. Crow, John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated, 2013. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/stedwards/detail.action?docID=1388810

44 notes · View notes

hesbuckcompton-baby · 8 months ago

Note

TAPE FOR THEA PRETTY PLEASE

POETTTTT THANK YOU!!! Thea Graves I would die for you <3 warnings: mentions of alcoholism ONE WORD PROMPTS

-> tape

"Miss Graves?" A tiny voice piped up over the edge of her desk, a little pair of tear-stained eyes peering up at her, wiping their nose on the back of their hand in the way Thea had long since learnt to stop grimacing at. "Can I have help?"

A smile creased the dimples in her cheeks as she let out a sigh, discarding the half-finished chain of paper dolls that had been in her grasp. "Of course you can honey - what's wrong?"

The little boy wandered back to his desk, the heel of his shoe briefly sticking in whatever constituted the most recent spillage to coat the classroom floor. Stepping purposefully around it, Thea followed his trail, crouching down beside his desk to peer at the painting that had caused his tears, a jagged tear slicing through the tableau of various poorly-drawn farm animals. "Oh, look at that," She gasped "Isn't that wonderful?"

He sniffled, wiping his nose once more. "It's broken."

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The co-pilot's chair vibrated incessantly beneath her as the wind battered them from all sides, the terrible screech of metal sounding from somewhere - behind her? In front? The air moved too fast to tell, and her helmet was pressing too hard over her ears, a distinct sense of vertigo rising in her stomach, the kind she hadn't felt since her first days of training.

"How many engines?!" Kit's voice thundered, and Thea heard double as the question echoed from the pilot beside her and the radio in her ear all at once, disorienting her even further, if possible.

"Two," Nora's barking reply sounded over the radio. "Just lost another, but we're even on both sides." That at least was a relief. One working engine on each wing struck her as infinitely preferable to two on one and neither on the other.

"Eighty miles to go, give or take," Sylvie called, and as Thea tore her gaze from the blank sky ahead for just a moment, glancing across at her pilot, she could tell she and Kit were both running the same math. This was doable. It had to be.

Things were just starting to look up when Angel's voice buzzed into her ear.

"I got smoke comin' from engine four!"

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

"Well, let's not worry about it, huh?" Thea smiled, reaching into her sleeve for a crumpled tissue, her cardigans always stuffed with a fresh supply. "It's an easy fix."

The boy held it to his face, wiping instead of blowing, the ineffective way in which children always chose to deal with a runny nose. A small stack of rolls of tape resided within the drawer of her desk, and she quickly retrieved one, the sound echoing through the small classroom as she tugged away a strip, hanging it from the edge of the table as she realigned the tear in the paper. The image came into clarity as she smoothed the tape across the jagged rip, clumsily drawn lines weaving back together again.

"See?" She urged, the child nodding along as he composed himself. "Good as new. Who's this one for, then?"

"My Nana," He blubbered.

"Oh, she's gonna love it. Which animal's gonna be her favourite, d'you think?"

Pulling the tissue away from his face, his brow furrowed slightly, suddenly concentrating. "Hmm. Pig." The boy declared, chubby finger pointing at one brown scribble amongst the crowd of seemingly identical brown scribbles that occupied the page. If he hadn't indicated which one he was talking about, she never would've guessed.

"Well. That's really great, bud."

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Another screech of metal pierced the air, making Thea flinch as the plane began to bob up and down slightly, carried on the uneven winds as the third of their four engines slowly sputtered to a halt, its propeller ceasing its movement. "Holdin' steady," She grunted, more of a wish than a report as she wrestled against the lever in her hand, which seemed intent on tugging against her, the insides of her gloves slick with sweat.

"We'll glide in on nothin' if we have to," Kit declared beside her. The statement didn't give her much comfort. It was all well and good saying these things - doing them was another matter. When she was sitting in that cockpit, Kit seemed to blur the lines that defined reality, an otherworldly confidence matched only by her unfailing ability to scrape through whatever situation they found themselves in.

If only Thea could have been the same.

She was a good co-pilot - she knew this. But when things broke, they became harder and harder to fix. It was easier to have the answers when the only people looking to you for them were five years old. But now it was quite literally life or death, and there was nothing she could do to stop their fourth and final engine from giving out, nothing she could do to bring the others back. There was nothing she could do but hold out.

When Thorpe Abbotts came into view, it was all she could do not to cry. It had scarcely been fifteen minutes since the third engine had gone, but each second had stretched into agonising hours, the lever in her hand still pulling fiercely against her, every muscle in her arm screaming to let go, shaking all the way up to the shoulder.

"Gear up," Kit barked, but Thea had been reaching for the lever already, creaks rattling the plane as the wheels retracted back into the hull, the realisation that they weren't reaching the runway hitting them both at once. The buzz of reporting over the radio fell silent as the others abandoned their posts, bracing for a hard landing as the green grass below reached upwards to meet them, skidding closer and closer with each millisecond.

Thea couldn't stop the yelp of shock that escaped her throat as the belly of the Seraphim first collided with the ground, the jolt that rocked them so fierce that it sent a pang of hurt through her body, an ache that would no doubt haunt her for days. The jagged edges of their ship churned up the field below, clumps of grass hurled this way and that, pinging against the windshield as they slowly ground to a halt, the plane's nose half-buried in the dirt by the time their movement finally ceased.

An almighty huff escaped her as Thea collapsed backwards against the headrest, finally releasing the lever as her arm began to shake and spasm from the exertion. Kit chuckled in something that almost sounded like disbelief, their gazes meeting as they tore off their helmets, hair drenched with sweat and plastered to their necks and temples. "Another happy landing," Her pilot breathed, and Thea couldn't help but laugh.

Rising to her feet, she made to leave, scrambling halfway towards the cockpit's exit before a sight made her freeze.

There was a hole in the plating right beside her, a shard of shrapnel embedded in the side of the headrest, scarcely inches from where her head had been. Any sudden movement, any swerve or trick of the wind, and she would have been dead, a fragment of flak burrowed deep into her skull.

It was the kind of luck that never struck twice.

Kit passed by her without a word, never noticing how close they'd come to an entirely different outcome. Thea could hear various whoops of victory rising from the other crewmates as they clambered out one by one, scarcely any sense of urgency amongst them now that they were on solid ground, even as black smoke continued to pour from two of the engines. Medics and mechanics and all sorts of ground crew had rolled up, and soon found themselves with little else to do but stand around and watch as the women cackled in their defiance of death, leaping into each other's arms and beaming with unbridled boldness.

Thea was the last to exit the craft, resisting the urge to wince as Angel slammed into her, enveloping her in an embrace as she squeezed at her tender shoulder. Slowly, the elation that painted the others began to seep into Thea too, returning the hug as she began to grin.

No one but her knew how close she'd come to death that day. But dammit, she'd made it.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The others had long since departed the scene, eager to rest and recuperate (but most importantly; celebrate) after their flight. Only Thea and Kit had remained, arms folded across their chests, watching in silence as the Seraphim was carted off for repairs, tufts of grass still wedged in every available gap, as if it had been left for nature to reclaim. All things considered, the fort was in excellent shape - she'd fly again, even if they had to find a substitute for a while.

Thea sighed, wiping a hand across her brow. "I need a drink," She rarely felt the allure of the pub - of the noise, the clamour, the stink of stale beer - but tonight it was calling her.

"I'll join you," Kit muttered, the pair wandering off wordlessly. There was an ease that existed between them in the air, one that seemed to ebb the moment they touched the ground. They were a team - an excellent team, at that - but something seemed yet to click between them, something neither of them could quite put their finger on.

The barman held a pint out to her, and Thea called her thanks as he hurried off to the next customer, taking a long sip as she weaved her way back towards the table. Kit sat there quietly, nothing but a glass of water in front of her, foot propped against the chair she'd saved for Thea to prevent anyone from snatching it, a habit the patrons here seemed particularly prone to.

"You don't want a beer? I can get you one," Thea offered. "Thought you were a drinker."

"I like a drink sometimes, that doesn't make me a drinker," Kit snapped, a faint wave of panic discernible below the irritation. Clearly, she had touched a nerve she hadn't known was bare.

"You're right," She nodded calmly, taking her seat. She'd thought herself capable of resolving these sorts of things once - after so much time spent managing playground conflicts, it had seemed easy to quell the bite. Sometimes Thea wished she could go rummaging through her desk drawer again - pull out some sellotape and bind her and Kit together, fix the rift between them.

"... So. Why did you come? I know it wasn't to spend time with me," Thea asked. Kit frowned, a pang of guilt striking her at this.

She shrugged. "I like to sit here after a rough mission and not drink to prove that I can. My mom needed it for everything - I only need it to have fun. I train my brain not to use it to heal things... 'cause it doesn't work."

"I get that. I got used to not drinking, 'cause my fiancé can't hold his liquor for shit," Thea recalled, smiling at the memory. "I know it's not the same - we just avoided it for the sake of his dignity, 's all."

Kit chuckled. "Oh, trust me, I've lost my fair share of dignity to it."

"... Egan?"

"Egan," She nodded. They both smiled then, the curves of their grins surprisingly similar when placed beside each other.

After a while, Thea spoke up. "You can go whenever you want. You don't have to sit and wait for me." Kit shrugged again, reaching for her glass of water.

"Nah. You gotta tell me more about that fiancé of yours first."

"...Yeah?"

"Yeah."

#thea/kit you will always be famous #abbotts angels #oc: thea graves #helena writes #oc: kit mckenzie #mota oc #mota fic #mota #masters of the air #masters of the air oc

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lepartidelamort · 5 hours ago

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Sentiment de submersion : 500,000 envahisseurs du tiers-monde supplémentaires en 2024.

Il est temps de penser l'après-France française.

À ces 337,000 migrants légaux arrivés en 2024 il faut ajouter les demandeurs d’asile en attente d’un titre de séjour (157,000 en 2024) et enfin les migrants clandestins qui ne se manifestent pas par définition.

Ce sont donc au moins 500,000 colons extra-européens qui sont arrivés en France pour la seule année 2024.

Les femmes blanches

Nous devons également nous intéresser à la natalité.

Les femmes blanches refusent catégoriquement de faire des enfants et avortent à grande échelle pour pouvoir s’éclater en boîte de nuit.

Rappelons que ces putes tatouées ont tué 243,000 enfants en 2024, le chiffre le plus élevé d’Europe. Un triste record qui confirme que les Françaises sont les pires traînées de cette planète – et de très loin.

C’est si vrai que ces putes ont niqué Trump en insérant l’avortement dans la constitution française avec le secours de l’affreuse Marine Le Pen.

Sur les 663,000 naissances de l’année 2024 en France, au moins 40% sont d’origine extra-européenne, soit 264,000.

Il y a aussi le résultat global de la première guerre mondiale (la perte de l’élite de la race française), de la nourriture industrielle, de l’absence d’entretien physique, de la tertiarisation de l’économie sur fond d’absence de sélection génétique par les maladies infantiles (un des legs de la vaccination).

La Bretagne est le premier laboratoire de ce paradigme.

La dysgénisme est un plébiscite quotidien en faveur de la démocratie.

En somme, en 2024, le stock d’allogènes a augmenté de 764,000 unités en France.

Dans le même temps, seuls 400,000 nouveaux Français de sang ont été ajoutés.

Il faut encore retrancher du stock des indigènes disponibles ceux qui sont morts lors de l’année (une grande majorité des 664,000 décès enregistrés en 2024) et ceux qui partent à l’étranger, effrayés par les impôts et les conséquences de l’invasion afro-mahométane.

En résumé, en 2024 :

69 millions d’habitants dont 50 millions de Blancs

764,000 allogènes supplémentaires

300,000 indigènes de moins (vieillissement, dénatalité, émigration)

Notre prévision demeure inchangée : en l’état, la France sera à majorité non-blanche lors de la décennie 2050-2060.

Il ne faudra toutefois pas attendre jusque-là pour que des villes, départements et régions entières ne deviennent à majorité non-blanche, à l’instar de Marseille, la Seine-Saint-Denis et, d’ici peu, la Provence ou l’IDF.

Un tel bilan est proprement apocalyptique et nos lecteurs le savent : nous ne prenons jamais de gants. Il ne s’agit pas de noircir le tableau, mais de regarder les faits et les dynamiques telles qu’elles sont.

Aucun État ne peut demeurer politiquement unifié avec une population racialement hétérogène dont les valeurs ethno-culturelles et religieuses sont antagonistes. Le fait que 60% des allogènes qui s’établissent en France soient musulmans condamne automatiquement la France actuelle à la partition territoriale et politique.

Ce qui maintient un semblant de stabilité politique actuellement est la domination démographique blanche, maintenue à court terme grâce au stock des boomers, ainsi que l’accès à l’endettement qui permet à l’État de payer le tribut exigé par l’envahisseur sous diverses formes de subsides.

Une fois le stock des boomers épuisés (2030-2040) et l’État en défaut partiel ou total, la fragmentation ethnique, sociale, territoriale, politique et économique connaîtra une rapide accélération avec un affaissement général de l’État central. Dans un pays aussi centralisé que l’État français, toute défaillance du centre exporte instantanément la défaillance à l’ensemble des territoires dépourvus de culture de l’initiative, de moyens et de flexibilité opérationnelle.

C’est au fil de cette désagrégation progressive parcourue de chocs que des forces sociales exploiteront le vide laissé pour s’imposer par la violence. Plus que sur un paradigme religieux à strictement parler, les afro-musulmans s’organiseront sur une base criminelle pour le contrôle de l’économie légale et illégale de leur zone.

youtube

Les Blancs ne comprennent pas ce paradigme car ils ont été domestiqués pour céder à l’État démocratique (« l’État de droit ») le monopole politique suprême qu’est l’usage de la violence organisée. C’est encore plus vrai en France où la monarchie de droit divin a divinisé l’État, capital historique capturé par le jacobinisme qui a accouché de sa version systématisée. Le Français, sans l’État, est une non-entité, embarrassée d’elle-même, suppliant qu’un despote de substitution remplace l’ancien.

Les Français de sang du 21e siècle sont désarmés, pacifistes et légalistes, tout comme l’étaient les populations romanisées de Gaule lorsque les légions romaines ont fini par céder face au flot des envahisseurs barbares. À l’exception de quelques officiers qui en étaient issus, ces populations n’avaient aucune culture militaire et ont rapidement été conquises de ce fait.

L’État actuel dispose du personnel et de l’arsenal nécessaires à la destruction des bandes allogènes et à la fermeture des frontières, mais le problème n’est pas technique, il est métaphysique. C’est la définition de l’ennemi qui le pousse à l’inaction face aux allogènes. L’ennemi, pour lui, est le Blanc, consubstantiellement identifié au « raciste » – le péché suprême au terme de la mystique démocratique tardive. Le dogmatisme cosmopolite, l’individualisme culturel, la domination des intérêts ploutocratiques de court terme, les lois en vigueur, l’industrie des loisirs ainsi que l’embrigadement rendu possible par la scolarisation et les médias de masse permettent à un appareil répressif sophistiqué au service de la classe dominante de maintenir les indigènes en état de soumission. Ceux-ci, privés d’élite, subissent en maugréant.

Cet État n’est pas en guerre contre les allogènes, mais contre les Blancs, et il dispose encore des moyens de cette guerre. Il s’opposera jusqu’au bout aux autochtones avec l’aide de ses supplétifs immigrés. Aucune élection dans le cadre de cet État ne changera un système édifié pour domestiquer, désarmer, exploiter les Blancs. Cependant, cet État arrive aux limites de ses ressources, son équilibre interne est menacé, pris à revers qu’il est par les supplétifs allogènes qu’il a recrutés pour tenir en respect les autochtones.

Anticiper la défaillance inévitable de l’État démocratique et penser ce qui doit idéalement lui succéder est l’oeuvre des révolutionnaires.

C’est la partie la plus difficile pour des masses blanches domestiquées, privées de culture révolutionnaire par éducation, et qui confondent jacquerie sans lendemain et renversement brutal d’un ordre injuste.

Un raciste blanc gagne davantage à étudier les grands révolutionnaires marxistes que les phraseurs impuissants de la droite bourgeoise. Non pas que la réalisation du communisme soit l’horizon du racisme, mais que le marxisme intègre dans sa conception fondamentale la violence organisée comme instrument essentiel de l’histoire, en étudie l’application, et qu’il fait de la guerre à tout ce qui lui est opposé son rapport au monde. Tout raciste, c’est-à-dire tout révolutionnaire de race blanche au service de sa race, doit concevoir le monde sous l’angle de la guerre permanente à l’ennemi et faire une pensée solide dans son fondement et souple dans sa pratique.

Pour ce travail d’éducation politique, nous citerons régulièrement des révolutionnaires marxistes, la meilleure école révolutionnaire à ce jour, afin d’éveiller le sens pratique des révolutionnaires blancs qui veulent dépasser la phase démocratique actuelle sur tous les plans, que ce soit au niveau de l’État, de la société, mais aussi au sein des cercles racistes ou apparentés qui, bien trop souvent, importent l’erreur démocratique.

Dans le domaine de la théorie, détruire les racines de l’ultra-démocratie. Tout d’abord, il faut souligner que le danger de l’ultra-démocratie réside dans le fait qu’elle endommage ou même détruit complètement l’organisation du Parti et qu’elle affaiblit ou même sape complètement la capacité de combat du Parti, rendant le Parti incapable de remplir ses tâches de combat et causant ainsi la défaite de la révolution. Ensuite, il convient de souligner que la source de l’ultra-démocratie réside dans l’aversion individualiste de la petite bourgeoisie pour la discipline. Lorsque cette caractéristique est introduite dans le Parti, elle se développe en idées ultra-démocratiques sur le plan politique et organisationnel. Ces idées sont totalement incompatibles avec les tâches de combat du prolétariat. Mao Tsé Toung, « Sur la correction des idées erronées au sein du parti » (Décembre 1929)

Démocratie Participative

#dempart #france #Youtube

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yourreddancer · 30 days ago

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Heather Cox Richardson

Heather Cox Richardson Jan 7 In less than 40 minutes today in snow-covered Washington, D.C., a joint session of Congress counted the certified electoral votes that will make Republican Donald Trump president of the United States at noon on January 20. Vice President Kamala Harris presided over the session in her role as president of the Senate, announcing to Congress the ballot totals. The ceremony went smoothly, without challenges to any of the certified state ballots. Trump won 312 electoral votes; Harris, who was the Democratic nominee for president, won 226.

The Democrats emphasized routine process and acceptance of election results to reinforce that the key element of democracy is the peaceful transfer of power. Before the session, Harris released a video on social media reminding people that “[t]he peaceful transfer of power is one of the most fundamental principles of American democracy. As much as any other principle, it is what distinguishes our system of government from monarchy or tyranny.” But at the session, the tableau on the dais itself illustrated that Republicans have elevated lawmakers who reject that principle. Behind the vice president sat the newly reelected speaker of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson (R-LA), who was a key player in the attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election: he lied about fraud; recruited colleagues to join a lawsuit challenging the election results from the key states of Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Georgia; and, after the January 6 riot, challenged the counting of certified votes from Arizona and Pennsylvania.

“And today, America’s democracy stood.”

NOTE: THE DEMS SHOULD HAVE, TO A MAN, REFUSED TO CERTIFY THE ELECTION - JUST TO PROTEST THIS TRAITOR, FELON, AND RAPIST BEING ELECTED!!!!

And now, with the help of a compliant Supreme Court stacked with three of his own appointees, he has gained the immunity McConnell said he did not have.

On July 1, 2024, the Supreme Court handed down the aptly named Donald Trump v. United States decision, establishing that sitting presidents have immunity from criminal prosecution for acts within the scope of their official duties. Before the new, slimmer set of charges brought after this decision could go forward, voters reelected Trump to the presidency, triggering the Justice Department policy against prosecuting a sitting president.

They conclude that releasing Smith’s report “would not ‘be in the public interest.’”

THEY CAN STUFF IT UP THEIR ARSES!!!! THE PUBLIC ABSOLUTELY NEEDS TO SEE THIS!!!!

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