#but doesn't understand loneliness. also the fact that she's not his daughter by blood is part of that

[liquidstar]

Between commissions I finally managed to finish this OC set of parent characters! If the looks aren't enough to show you who their kid is, the background colors match them ^_^ but of course more details below!

Name: Thuban

Name origin: The former pole star, before the north star (Polaris), it's name means "Large snake" and is referred to as the “Dragon's tail”

Pronouns: He/him

Age: N/A

Relation: Raised Polaris, though they're not related by blood and have a somewhat distant relationship, until he suddenly went MIA

Weapon: Spear (Same as Polaris's)

Ethos (Power): N/A

Flaw power is based on: N/A

Notes: Make no phallic jokes about the large snake thing and you'll be rewarded

Name: Ananke

Name origin: A moon of Jupiter, named for the mythological spirit of necessity, inevitably, and compulsion

Pronouns: She/her

Age: -

Relation: Bella's mother, she raised her to be a warrior

Weapon: Bardiche

Ethos (Power): Indomination (The ability to freeze the movement of objects and people, and lock them in place)

Flaw power is based on: Her strict enforcement of obedience through authoritarianism, and a lack of concern for the wishes of others

Notes: She believes in tough love. It's better in the long run to give your kid strength rather than affection.

Name: Rhea

Name origin: A moon of Saturn named after the Titan known as the mother of the gods

Pronouns: She/her

Age: 38

Relation: Saiph's mother, though she gave him up to the guild when he was very young

Weapon: None

Ethos (Power): None

Flaw power is based on: N/A

Notes: Was unable to take care of a baby at the time, and gave Saiph to the guild. She wishes she'd visited beyond that but it's probably too late now...

Name: Arche

Name origin: One of Jupiter's moons, it's name comes from the muse of new beginnings and is associated with springtime

Pronouns: He/him

Age: 7

Relation: Saiph's half-brother. Neither currently knows the other exists

Weapon: None

Ethos (Power): None

Flaw power is based on: N/A

Notes: He's just a little guy. He likes flowers and playing with toys. He wants to be a cool hero like his dad

Name: Poerava

Name origin: A star in Tucana, the Maori word for a black pearl of mystical beauty and perfection

Pronouns: She/her

Age: -

Relation: Al's mom. She mostly raised him on her own while her husband was with the knights.

Weapon: None

Ethos (Power): None

Flaw power is based on: N/A

Notes: Probably the best parent of the bunch if we're being real.

[pynkhues]

I have a question about your overall thesis on motherhood and Loustat. You said the line “a wolf congratulated for not killing her pups line” was “definitely about motherhood”. As for your take on the final scene of Louis looking at a painting of a mother and daughter in a scene that’s very much about him coming to terms with his loss, as his daughter’s dress hangs in the background: “The maternal side there I can see, but I don't think it's as absolute as others, just personally.” Am I correct in thinking you believe the show suggests Lestat is more closely aligned with the role of mother than Louis in their family dynamic?

I mean, I'd argue that I don't have a thesis, anon. This isn't Tumblr University, I'm not writing dissertations, and you're certainly not peer reviewing me when you send asks like this that are pretty blatantly trying to goad me into arguing a point you want to rebut.

But no, I'll answer in good faith, and say that I think Claudia's mother is dead and that she has two fathers, and the desire in this fandom to ask 'well, which one is the mother' is just another way of asking a gay couple 'well, which one's the woman?' Neither of them are, and the fact that they don't fit into a heteronormative understanding of what a family is is, I would argue, literally the point of the unholy family.

When I talked about Lestat's line about being a wolf as being about motherhood, that - to me - is about connecting him to his past, and relating him back to his own mother, and I also think from the show's writers perspective, it's about Anne.

Lestat's mother in TVL is the one who relates child birth to Lestat killing the wolves, and it was Lestat killing the wolves that lead to his own death, as it's a part of why Magnus picks him. He is sitting on that stage now watching the death of his child, in the city he died in, in the city his mother did too. It makes sense to me that he would be thinking of his mother, who birthed five dead children, who lost two more through mob execution in the French Revolution, as his own daughter is executed. It makes sense to me that that would relate back to Gabrielle's major, arguably character-defining monologue from TVL where she talks about child birth as an act both violent and entirely isolating, so as to be like killing wolves alone in the woods, and it makes sense to me in that moment that Lestat would relate for the first time not to being the killer, but to being the thing that he hunted. It's death, violence, isolation, loneliness, birth, all things Anne relates to motherhood in TVL.

Which is to say it's thematic, not literal, because Anne - a woman, and the author of this female gothic series - was clearly interested in exploring death and motherhood as a theme, which makes sense as she herself is a mother who experienced the loss of a child. It's not about literally saying that Lestat is 'more closely aligned with the role of mother', it's a scene that - again, to me - feels like it's in conversation with the female gothic components of the books, with Anne, and with a formative experience in Lestat's life as he's on the cusp of experiencing a new one.

Regardless of that though, Lestat is Claudia's maker, but he's also his mother's maker, Louis', Nicki's, Antoinette's - it's not always a parental act. In fact, it's usually not for him, and I don't think it is for Louis who made Madeleine either. There is a blood bond there though between Lestat and Claudia that does not exist between Louis and Claudia. Does that make him her mother? I don't think so, no, but it does add a layer to their specific dynamic that Louis doesn't have with her because, again, he did not make her.

The scene with Louis and the painting and Claudia's dress at the end is a loving act, absolutely, and it's a scene that I adore, but it's also intrinsically tied to the painting of Paul, and the apartment with Armand (which inherently calls upon their fractured dynamic in Paris where Louis existed as Claudia's brother too), which to me, shifts the meaning away from motherhood specifically. Again, I can appreciate that other people read it as being maternal, and obviously I think Louis' her parent, not her brother, but in terms of the visual language of that sequence, I think it's a lot wider than some acknowledge.

So no! You are not correct in your thinking, anon. :-)