#even though i have an amc account

[goodnight-socialiite]

s-spare iwtv link? spare link?

[weclassybouquetfun]

Tonight is the penultimate episode of series two of AMC+'s INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE.

Well, this isn't ominous at all.

Impressed that months later content from the S2 premiere is still being rolled out.

ALL THE SPOILERS FOR Episode 14 / S2E07

It's fine. It's all fine.

If you've read the books (not me) or have seen the movie (me) or just possess the ability to read between the lines, then you knew this day was coming: The death of Claudia de Pointe du Lac de Lioncourt and her companion Madeleine.

Finally, someone chose Claudia.

They actually made a playbill. The nastiest of nasty work.

There is still a lot to be open to interpretation in regards to motivations and the truthiness of various accounts. Maybe we will get answers in the next episode (how much of a willing participant was Lestat in these deliberations? How accurate was Louis' new recollection of begging Lestat to turn Claudia despite Lestat's warnings?) and maybe we won't (at any time have we seen the real Lestat?)

What I do know is that this cast acts their collective bums off.

What I also know?

They will never make me hate you, maître. You've done nothing wrong, ever.

Even though you leveled your coven with one word, I am sure you could not stop them from putting your lover, his sister-daughter and her companion on trial and subsequent execution.

He was helpless to do anything, you just don't understand!!

Armand was able to control everyone's speech and compel them to say "banishment" and just heaves a sigh of relief for the trouble. Meanwhile, Lestat was wan and bleeding from one ear after mind controlling a room of soldiers.

I still stand by you, Armand. I'm just saying...

-I am inclined to believe Lestat's deviations. You can tell what are Sam's words and what aren't by how Santiago responds and also just how true to form they seem from a character standpoint. I could be very wrong, but I can believe Louis threatened to cut Lestat's head off.

This is Louis who threatened his brother with a knife (which turned Lestat's eye to him in the first place). This is a man who lobbed a veiled threat at Grace during their mother's funeral (and you know it's true because that was from Claudia's diary). Louis was furious in that moment so why would he be expected to hold his tongue and not scrap? As he told Lestat, "You start it, you finish it."

Louis castigated Lestat for choking their daughter. I'm not going to remind him what he did to her when she begged him to let her burn Lestat.

So many people last season were raging because their "Brat Prince" was depicted as a domestic abuser and were sure this season would absolve him. But while we get a fuller picture of the fight, Lestat still did what he did. To me it just adds more clarity on why he stayed away for so long.

The biggest question for me this episode was how long did they workshop Lestat's side? Did the coven plunder his mind or did Lestat readily give them information (they knew about the words "come to me", the killing of the priests, the church kiss, Louis' depression and the house being a shambles. We even see on the projection the raccoon that was roaming their house)?

No matter how they found out the Louis/Lestat details, Lestat is not fully a willing participant in my mind. This man was over it from the jump.

Also, he's stubbled and one thing Lestat de Lioncourt is going to do is be well groomed so those theatre nerds have had him locked away until showtime.

They summoned Lestat while he was drinking his chickory coffee and eating beignets. Classless.

Dreamstat in Dubai feels so wrong.

Spoiler filled interview with Delainey, Roxanne and Jacob after episode 14/7.

Interview with Sam.

[murfpersonalblog]

IWTV S2 Ep3 Musings - Loumand

Last post, I promise; I needed another nap; this ep's a freaking rollercoaster. And these two queens nearly gave me a stress ulcer!

DEBATABLE, Louis. I can think of FAR worse vamps than you, love.

Why're y'all having this whole conversation where anyone can hear?

They got Sartre's wall-eyes down; good makeup this season, team! 👌

DreamStat's a Loumand bed-death truther, jfc. 😭

I wanna know EXACTLY what Armand sees--or "feels"--whenever DreamStat pops up in Lou's head. Cuz he clearly knows precisely where Les is; he looks right in his direction. But does he HEAR Les too? (God I hope not, this song would've had me SEETHING--Back to Hell with you! 😅)

"Oh dear" indeed; I was HOLLERING.

SAM WAS DEVOURING THIS SCENE HOLY GOD GO AWAY DEMON

Armand looked PISSED, I was scared for Louis' life! And he DOES know, actually, yes Lou. I can almost GUARANTEE that he knows PRECISELY where Lestat is AT THIS VERY MOMENT, yes Lou.

If only you knew.... 😬

Claudia's suffered more than Christ. And nice cut to Daniel sneaking around with Raglan James as Armand talks about Furies punishing "human wrongdoing." It's really interesting that Armand told the lawyer that LOUIS is the owner of the paintings. Is he the owner of the penthouse too? HOW MANY DEEDS DOES HE HAVE, ROLIN?

I wonder what AMC might be saying about Loumand's art collection, not just wrt what we know about art heist!Armand (which we'll likely see a nod to in Ep4 at the Louvre); but also wrt what we know about Dubai's godawful neocapitalist hellscape economy, and Loumand's "moralizing" about Parisian black markets in S01E02.

I wonder if that's the excuse Armand'll give the coven when Louis shows up for dinner in Ep4--very much NOT dead; and rips out Santiago's tongue.

WILD voice-over, cuz you KNOW that's what Santiago was thinking, too, LOL. (You wish, Francis.) But yes: Louis' finna end your whole career. XD

Another TERRIFYING jumpscare from the coven, like in Ep2 with Annika. Louis, I am shocked & appalled--can you not HEAR all these vamps planning your bloody murder around you? CLAUDIA! WTF!?

But this is how you know Armand's true personality--he hates getting his hands dirty. He kills all the time, but he makes his victims' deaths pretty. He'd rather sit back & let Lestat/Louis come in and wreck his whole coven, even though he has the power to just light those mofos up all on his own! I wish AMC emphasized a bit more that Armand not only writes/directs the plays--he's an ACTOR, too. And istg he's an expert at PRETENDING to be helpless, meanwhile he's the strongest vamp that's NOT one of the Children of the Millennia (thanks to how well Marius made him).

Armand, that is LOW; waiting until Claudia's stuck under the oaths b4 you tell her she's guilty of breaking Great Laws she doesn't even know about yet. WTF?

How TF you gon' hold Louis accountable for following the Laws when he wasn't even allowed to be in the effing room when they were read!? He's not even a member! WTF! (I get it--any rogue vampires are subject to death, yadayada; we know it's a stupid policy.)

I love how he plans to leave by himself here--it had nothing to do with picking "another one" over Claudia. He just didn't want to hold her back anymore. And his presence was causing problems. 😭 It's so cute that Louis' stipulation about London was that if it's "too large" he'd leave and go to Ireland (?!?)--he's become agoraphobic or something? He just wants to be alone in his hermit hole--MOOD. 😭

Good to get confirmation that the Fire Gift here is Armand and blessedly NOT Santiago--so why's he zooming around in the sewers?

Look, sometimes folks make terrible first impressions--Lestat was being hella racist, Louis' always playing defense, Armand was finna kill Louis in a gay public park. It happens.

Foreshadowing like crazy, as usual.

WILD thing to say. I'm gonna cry, please stop.

(What kinda hypocrisy is that, when you were made young your dang self!?) She's already 30+ years old--maybe she'll last a little longer if y'all (read: sexist, racist, ageist, ableist, etc society) don't eff around tryna make her life even harder! But AMC's deliberately cutting Claudia's life in half, compared to the books, cuz misogynoir's real and Claudia gets NOTHING out of vampirism, not even a fair chance. And y'all let her into the coven KNOWING how much she loves y'all, and KNOWING y'all were gonna kill her. EFF THIS WHOLE COVEN, ARMAND INCLUDED. (Lemme calm down--this kind of betrayal is exactly how Lestat must've felt in S01E07; I get it; they're getting a taste of their own medicine. But LESTAT EFFING HAD IT COMING. The coven should've just told them: y'all got til sunrise to GTFO our territory, you're not welcome here. This whole bit's unnecessary.)

THE PARALLELS ARE PARALLELING

SKILL ISSUE. Cuz Louis' got the least power, and he's finna clear that whole bish out in just a couple episodes. 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

Louis, love, ARMAND DON'T GIVE A EFF ABOUT RAISING SOME OTHER MAN'S OFFSPRING. This is the call of the wild, as Alphas KILL the children their stolen Omega brides had for other Alphas/Betas, so he can restart the gene pool with HIS DNA instead. I know y'all had National Geographic back then already--READ A BOOK, Louis, it's what you're best at.

Incredible. After all of that Louis said Lestat never broke him. BENT BUT NEVER BROKEN, that's right! 💪😤

Boy, we're not talking about some little (unrequited) CRUSH over a man you only knew for a few months (which you've CLEARLY not gotten over yet). Louis was MARRIED to the man for 30 YEARS. This is his MAKER. Lestat knew his whole family; went to the Black cookouts and everything! They literally built a home AND business together! They raised a child together! WHATCHU KNOW ABOUT THAT!?

And that's LESTAT'S DAUGHTER TOO--how much can you possibly love EITHER of them while planning to knock her off!? I can't listen to too much more of this. *hands Louis the torch and scythe*

Beautiful end of this STACKED episode. Incredible work, AMC! Jacob acted his PANTS off; he excels at the trembling voice, agonized facial expressions, and utter mental breakdowns. He's pulling DEEP within him, holy god; it's so raw, it's almost hard to watch. EMMY WHEN?!

[crazykuroneko]

My IWTV S2E4 Watch Notes

Love the episode! I think this is my favorite so far, followed by E3 and E1.

Anyway very long note after the cut. But my main complaint now is: I miss the voice-over narration! It's basically gone after Ep 2 (except for Armand's flashback). I know it's probably a sign of how Loumand have "defanged" Daniel the Journalist and it's part of the mystery, but still! Without it, we don't get much idea about how current Loumand think on certain parts in the flashback. We don't know what exactly Claudia has said in her diaries. I feel so lost without it 😭

Oh, also, my fix-it fic for this episode would be Eglee helping Claudia get out of the coven and leave Paris along with Madeleine. Women support women 😌

• the difference of Loumand's accounts on the reactions to Claudia's play 🤭

• NOT EGLEE GIVING SANTIAGO A BLOWJOB BACKSTAGE

• I love how the founders of the 1927 company got to show off their acting as well

• God @ Claudia being so open with the coven about her hangup with the play and yet. And Louis just sat there being bitchy, giving her "well, /this/ is what you want" look.

• "This is not about Louis" Poor Claudia. people tend to talk about the men around her not her. Many such cases, even out of the screen, unfortunately.

• Santiago creating cracks in Loumand's mind. you have to give it to him

• No @ Eglee my princess catfighting over Santiago's dick.

• Dreamstat came up when Louis is unsure about their relationship. Louis is desperately trying to keep this casual because how bad it was for him the last time. Meanwhile, Armand has history of being abandoned multiple times. Ofc he wants Louis more committed to him. On top of the coven. Like, yknow, he has to risk it for Louis at least he wants to be sure the relationship is real.

• "Only works when I remember shit that pisses me off". Oh, Louis is pissed Armand hanging his history with Lestat over his head. Then Armand goes, "I try to find the vulnerability within the material". The balance is so precarious here

• Ngl the "i love you" sounds so ridiculous. LOUIS PLEASE

• "The fire?" Louis forgets about That?

* Claudia is their current biggest star yet she's still doing the wet room????! Oh fuck off

* Madeilene really matches Claudia's weirdness.

* The restaurant scene. That's what you got when you make a problem with a Black man growing up in Jim Crow NOLA! he's so done with the coven.

* Louis and art. He went into art once he arrives in Paris. I think it's to connect to humanity more. He said it helps freeing his mind as well. I wonder how much seeing Lestat connecting to humanity through art affecting his drive here. Whether consciously or not. But alas, he is businessman at heart. He's good at management and trades. Anyone has tried to guess AMC Louis MBTI?

* The addition in their archive though?? Is rashid a Talamasca agent confirmed? Or that's Armand miscalucating?

* Also that line about Daniel and a girl at high school. Once again a reminder that these men are misogynists first and foremost 🙂

* Oh I like the scene with Louis and Ghostat in the dark room. Ghostat really says everything Louis doesn't dare to admit to himself. He actually knew his weakness as photographer. There's also a meaning here Louis making those lines said by Lestat. Lestat likes to confront Louis about what he believes about himself, but he never does it the right way (which is the crux of their problems). Here he does it the right way.

* Sam giving 🥺 because Louis does that when they're good with each other is so 😭

* "Romeo!" Louis is SO mad about the restaurant if that's how he reacts to Armand romancing him

* "Are you their hostage?" Madeilene why are you so straightforward? (I like her)

* I know it sounds consensual, but Madeleine's body language when telling her story with that German soldier looks weird. Perhaps we'll see her more open later.

* "I don't enjoy using my power like that" he says, after flexing his power on security guards then float to the next floor. I think what Louis said in S1 that Lestat not using his power perhaps in consideration to not make Louis felt way weaker says more about his current situation than he was with Lestat. Like, I get him, you can't help comparing notes on your relationships.

* Oh, the Ghostat in the museum date is clearly Louis' reluctance to believe Armand completely. Or rather than believe, I think "putting his guard down" is more accurate. He did after Lestat told his story and yet he got betrayed. I think Sam does a good job here. As the story goes, Ghostat looks more anxious. Louis wants to let go yet there are still the coven, Armand's power, and the secret hanging over them.

* Assad's acting here 😭

* Going on a date with Louis then threatening Claudia. THAT IS WILD.

* I wonder if Delainey uses chest binder as Claudia. If not, I wish she did. ngl that line and the visual don't match.

* That period blood scene is something. Bet Rolin was very inspired when he read Memnoch

* "I pretended to be an actor for two years." When does Louis mean here? Lestat at Renauld's? He stayed there as an actor for two years before shit happened? I need an updated timeline already OML

* Not @ Ghostat aka indirect Louis calling Claudia a "poor decision"

* Louis knows it's doomed. But again, he's desperate to find happiness in Paris. Because him killing Lestat and choosing to go with Claudia has to pay off somehow. (Is she worth it?) He's desperate to make this work with Armand. He sees Armand is basically a lost child, shouldering this job he doesn't want just because he's older. So, Louis, good at running things etc, takes the wheel here. Trying to save the sinking ship that's the coven. Unbeknownst to them, the doom actually has started already (Santiago finding Lestat's last words). Louis also gives Armand a choice here, but Armand said he wants him. Well, we know what will happen with the coven members 🤭

* The Ghostat disappearing. Ngl the rain and special effects make it look ridiculous. And Hannibal (the show) did a better job with it by literally re-slit Abigail Hobbs' neck. But I understand that won't work in IWTV narrative wise. In Hannibal, it's not Will who slit her throat, so when they redid it it doesn't have added meaning. But Louis the one who slit Lestat's throat. And he doesn't want to re-kill Lestat. He has made peace with it. In fact, the fact he doesn't burn Lestat's side on that photo with Armand and his last words with Ghostat tell me that he's not forgetting Lestat. he's moving on, yes, but he puts Lestat safely in a corner of his heart. Just like Lestat did with his initials. And it reminds me to Louis' initials on the letter he sent Daniel in S2 look a lot like LDL, not LDPDL

* But anyway, isn't it sus Claudia just has her diaries out in the open like that? I mean, yes she doesn't live with Louis anymore, but there's a history of Louis reading her journal. If I were her, I'd at least save them in my coffin at the apartment for save keeping. This is sus.

* "Is that what makes you fascinating?" Oh, Armand is so insecure about their relationship for years. He saw Louis getting interested with this Daniel boy and he tried to crack his brain, finding the reason.

• Daniel isn't filed under suspected victims.

[incesthemes]

I'm coming to bother you even though you're asleep because your sad long dead gay arctic explorers are haunting me so you have to deal with the consequences of your actions by me asking you to talk.

I'm curious to know your thoughts on Tuunbaq. How well you think he worked as a plot device in general in the amc, whether the book portrayed it in any different ways (I believe you said you read the book, might be wrong, ignore this if you had), anything interesting you've happened to read about it through your other research into the sad dead tent men, whether you really really fucking hated the cgi, etc.

I'll be back to haunt you with questions about Jopson but right now my brain is just record scratch sounds and sobbing so you're gonna have to wait for something coherent to come out of that mess lol

i am AWAKE now and i gotta say i wasn't expecting the jopson talk last night to lead into tuunbaq but that's okay. he's my perfect fluffy wuffy teddy bear who can do no wrong

i think others have said this kinda thing better than i ever could, but i really do like how tuunbaq is used in the show. he's like a manifestation of colonial hubris—the embodiment of fuck around and find out. they came to the arctic and destroyed the ecosystem, and their imperialist entitlement to conquer the land was inevitably their downfall. and i like that it's the "land" itself (in a metaphorical way, through tuunbaq) that shows them that entitlement is nothing but a false, vain hope. it doesn't matter what you think you're owed; the world doesn't exist for you to exploit and command, and it will not bend to your will.

because like, if gore and bryant had hesitated before shooting the shaman, tuunbaq likely would never have been a problem for them, right? he certainly wasn't in the 8 months since they'd gotten stuck in the pack. had they been peaceful and had they respected the land and its people, nature never would have clapped back. it was retaliation and defense. and the explorers' escalation of the issue—trying to hunt the bear, again out of entitlement to conquer and dominate—only caused further harm. they paid the ultimate price because they couldn't let go of their own entitlement and imperialism. they refused to listen to the netsilik, they pursued vengeance and sought dominion, and they died.

(i think about that inuit account a lot where it was said that the netsilik provided a group of starving men with an igloo and seals to eat, and they came back months later to discover the seals untouched and the men consumed. that they chose cannibalism over adaption to the local food sources is a horror in itself and an exemplar of the hubris these men carried with them—while the show depicts them as more sympathetic to the netsilik (really hard to get worse than this real account, no matter how hostile the show characters are), i think it does a good job of presenting the mindset of the real expedition)

i haven't read the book though, and based on the reviews i've seen of it i don't have much motivation to either. i may end up reading it in the future but i don't currently have plans for it. as for the tuunbaq himself, i don't think much(?) of him was actually cgi! he has a whole uhhhhh like. i don't know the word or i've forgotten what it is. but he's real:

i don't know much about his production though, and i actually thought he was cgi too until i saw this picture!!! the actual cgi from what i've seen of it (i haven't had much of a chance to look at the BTS stuff tbh...) is really well done. i didn't even realize they weren't like, submerging these poor actors in frozen water until i saw the greenscreen 😭

for tuunbaq's design, i don't know. i've become endeared to his weird human face, but i prefer the Long Neck version which is apparently the book description of him. i just think it's crazy and kooky, and the fanart i've seen of the book tuunbaq is just so awesome. sufficiently creepy for a "monster" but also extremely compelling.

anyway i love tuunbaq. he's the chilling manifestation of colonial hubris. he's blanky's wife. he's my good buddy and best friend. i'm his biggest fan forever 💖

[zombie-bait]

listen if you love amc iwtv and haven’t read the books I’m begging you to read The Vampire Lestat. I know there’s hardcore fans out there who love book one and think you need to read them all in order and I respect the grind, I really do. But.

The Vampire Lestat changed me.

Everything about it was so instantly fascinating. The My Immortal ass prologue, the eloquent writing, the struggles with religion, the history, the overt queerness (this was pre amc iwtv so all I had was the movie ok 😭), the campiness, the quotes that run through my head night and day. Lestat is a bombastic protagonist who’s desperate to survive and find a single ounce of love in a godless world. You get to see a new side of Armand, you get Nicki, you get Lestat’s mother (who I could write a whole essay on). You get the Loustat reunion in all its emotionally glory. If you want to know why the went so hard with the show I implore you to read that book.

Interview is good but TVL is powerful. Where Interview was full of grief, TVL is full of hope and pessimism and defiance that rose from the ashes of that grief. You can feel how much Anne changed in the 7 years between the two books not just as an author but a person. Is it perfect? No of course not, its kind of insane at times. But this is the Vampire Chronicles we’re talking about, I think that’s a given (and, at many times, a positive).

((Edit because I was sleep deprived while writing this and left some stuff out: This is mostly aimed at ppl who are on the fence about reading the books after watching the show or who have tried to read Interview and weren't too grabbed by it. I would potentially recommend watching the movie, skimming book 1 and then reading book 2. The differences in Anne's writing style and opinions on religion are genuinely fascinating to read first hand. The stand out part of experiencing the two books together is how different Louis and Lestat's accounts are. It's an incredibly unique case of both protagonists being unreliable narrators that I haven't seen in other media. This post is largely just me going "hey, if you tried Interview and it made you not want to read more even though you really enjoy the ambiance/concept then TVL might be more up your alley." If you want an in-depth look into the series and if you want to catch/compare everything with the tv show, then absolutely read the first book! I did and I don't regret it, even though I do feel like book 2 is stronger. Tryna keep this short cuz I love this series and I have a million things to say hjdhsfhjkdhjh))

[icarusbetide]

some of my group chat's obscure and inaccurate amrev (hamilton centric) fancasts part 1

the result of five students procrastinating and commenting "hey this guy could play hamilton". not very accurate and based on vibes. we are not scouting agents for good reason.

Alexander Hamilton

We know from people's descriptions and portraits that he most likely: had very red hair, was 5 ft 7-ish, and was slender with a "fine figure". Fun fact, some historians say that people calling him 'small' was more in regards to his slimness than his height, which was more or less average at that time period. Need to find a source for that.

From paintings we do see that he had a prominent nose...and perhaps more of a pointed chin with a slim face, as a young man? It seemed to have broadened out with age. Portraits of him seem wildly inconsistent, and the one Betsey said was very like him was later in life. Damn you Charles Wilson Peale, you never got his face right! tbh I didn't see much of Hamilton's face (especially young Hamilton) in amc Turn's Sean Haggerty who had too much of a round face, and I think he was casted based off of the peale painting lmao.

And of course, who can forget his beautiful beautiful anime blue-violet eyes. Abigail Adams saw the devil in them, Fisher Ames seems to have spent way too much time staring into them. Both accounts can be seen as complimentary.

I've yet to find an actor that really captures an older Hamilton well, so I'm not even going to go there. Honestly, i've yet to find a really spot-on young Hamilton either, so I have no fan-cast. But my friend has one she advocates for a lot:

Tom Blyth based on these specific paintings (and a de-aged one with dark hair). Her words: "he has really piercing blue eyes and we know he can pull off lighter hair from the hunger games movie! he's also very slender which would work well, even though he's pretty tall. we can do perspective work with height it's okay."

And apparently Hamilton's son (William? it's not Philip right) looked quite a bit like him. And in the sketch below I think we can see Blyth's face there!

Not too bad, I think. Especially since his face seems to have filled out more. Main concern is if the hypothetical project would characterize Hamilton well, and if he'd deliver that complicated energy lol. He is charismatic so a point in his favor?

Valentijn Dijkman is another one of my friend's fancasts so I don't know much about him besides the screenshots they shared. Apparently he is a model and tiktoker, and he certainly checks the ginger + blue eyes requirements! A bit of a yassified Hamilton, I think, but some contemporaries called him almost feminine and some descriptions of him are wild so that might be okay.

Elizabeth Hamilton

Now, we know that Betsey was very petite and had lovely dark curls and eyes that Hamilton and even Tilghman, I believe, commented on. It seems like she had a slim face and a strong T-zone. Even in the portraits we see her dark eyes. Portraits of her when she was younger:

My personal fav fan cast is actually Meg Tilly, specifically Meg Tilly in Valmont 1983. She has the dark hair and dark eyes and her facial structure itself is also similar enough to me.

There's also something in her performance here that would serve well for Elizabeth - a sweetness and patient quality plus a hidden playful streak.

John Laurens

We are all stumped for him lmao. We don't have a lot of paintings of him and the main one is a Charles Peale and I don't trust him 100%. We do know he was most likely blonde, taller than Hamilton, and was very handsome.

Coward's way out. Seth Numrich is a popular one and I wouldn't be angry about it!

George Washington

It ain't accurate but I loved Ian Kahn's Washington so much that I don't care. He's way too hot to be Washington but let's just pretend it's that hero-worship coming through.

And to round it all out, Turn Lafayette was also suprisingly accurate in face shape I think. You can see we ran out of steam at the end.

[winepresswrath]

I'm enjoying amc loustat way more this season, mostly because I feel like they're letting Louis match Lestat's level of obsession and "don't drag anyone who is not at least an armand level freak into this." Last season I enjoyed Louis-Claudia and Lestat qua Lestat but loustat and lestat-claudia especially fell flat for me. Even lestatoinette disappointed! And I only like lestat/antoine as a vehicle for loustat drama and a sad sad case study on the hold depressive art majors have on Lestat (nicki.remix.uwillneverbehim.mp3), so they really had to dig deep to underwhelm me on that front. However the one-two-three punch of "was she worth it," "even now i'm still the only one you trust," and "show me the only way you know how to love," has worked some dark magic upon me. Louis isn't going to get well because he doesn't want to get well. He wants Lestat but he can't admit to it on account of his general inability to admit to his own complicity in the horrors. Losing Lestat almost but not quite tips him over the edge into acknowledging he wanted to keep him, but he still can't live with it so in the absence of the real thing he hallucinates a fictional Lestat to offload all of his frustrated guilty desire onto. What else was he going to do? acknowledge his own feelings and agency? admit to himself that he's hurting because he lost something that mattered and focus on putting Claudia first even though he's fucked up about it? impossible. Sick and twisted! Good for them.

[slaymitchabernathy]

sometimes i like to think abt my little fictional characters but in modern life.

like soarynn would totally have all those little cookie cutter things for her kids lunches so she could cut their fruits into cute shapes.

coryo would only want to watch movies at AMC movie theaters bc he claims that he has “super long legs so i need to be able to recline” but he really goes for the nicole kidman bit.

soarynn would enter petunia into a cat show for fun & actually win the damn thing.

standing by what i said & believing that coryo would come home one day with a cyber truck telling soarynn that “it’s an investment”. soarynn drives a subaru btw.

soarynn would buy that hatch alarm clock thingy but it would scare both of them in the morning when it starts to make weird sounds.

coryo would have a twenty step skin care routine & religiously do retinol.

soarynn would love vera bradley bags even though coryo constantly buys her designer bags (she likes that they look like quilts).

i also believe that one flaming hot cheeto could kill coryo bc that man is allergic to red dye 40.

soarynn would have one of those yard signs that says everyone is loved in their house no matter what they believe in or who they love & she is always showing up for the pride parades bc sejanus is too scared to go by himself.

coryo has a private instagram account with like six followers & he posts once a year & it’s always a picture of soarynn for her birthday. he never accepts when sejanus requests to follow him.

soarynn hits every curb with her car but that’s okay bc we love her.

coryo drives in the carpool lane by himself bc he doesn’t want to drive in traffic.

soarynn has a purple iphone 11 & coryo owns the entire apple ecosystem.

coryo constantly gets into fights with their HOA abt how he maintains their lawn.

[kaelio]

IWTV: Claudia (2022)

I keep reflecting on changes made to Claudia for the AMC+ adaptation and chewing on the logic underlying them.

First off, I do think that they aged her up so they wouldn't have to contend with the child labor laws that apply to child actors (which, if I recall, would have meant they couldn't functionally film at night, among other things). I want to be really clear here: those laws are good, and it's also fine if this was the initial reason! I do, however, think it was not unlikely they would have aged her up regardless, and I think they made it work in their favor for the story. But I think this was probably a functional limitation before it was a creative decision. Again, this is fine—lots of good creative decisions come from having to work within new parameters. And it means we got Bailey Bass, which is great!

Changing her age does do a few interesting things, though. First off, it means she's achingly close to being able to be semi-independent. Close, but probably not quite there. In the book, there's horror ascribed to the idea that Claudia 1) doesn't even remember being human and is, as such, a 'pure' vampire and 2) she doesn't even approach passing for an adult and is wholly dependent on a companion who makes her presence credible.

This Claudia can pass for a young woman, but she can't quite pass for a mature adult. There are situations where she can be out by herself without it seeming like she needs intervention. It's not all places, but there are some places, in a way there were no places for book-Claudia. But this also means Claudia can feel how near she is to something she is still being denied based on age and race. In the scene where they go to approach Tom Anderson about the party, Claudia is part of that conversation in a way that book-Claudia obviously wouldn't have been.

It does also make it more comfortable for the audience to engage in the discussions about her sexuality. Okay, so this gets back a little bit to the differences between the books and the show overall. Vampires don't have physical sex in the books, so even though Claudia's fascination and anguish about sex exists, it exists as something she can't and never will have, and the complex content with Louis is always defined in purely non-sexual terms. I think they made this change so that, you know, Louis and Lestat could have sex, but once you've opened the "vampires can have sex" window, you have to take that into account for everyone.

(Note: People act like it's a given that Claudia won't have partner/romantic interest in Louis in this version, and I genuinely don't think we've necessarily established that.)

All in all though, we now have a "Claudia at the cusp of adulthood" and not a "Claudia utterly divorced from adulthood" and that matters the entire run. It completely changes the prison that she's in.

Oh, and it's also worth thinking about why she's conscious for this event in this version. That is to say, to ensure that the audience and Claudia have no ambiguity about how that transpired. She knows the precise circumstances in a way that Claudia from the book doesn't.

In the adaptation she, like Louis, is Black; even though that makes sense to us as an audience and we accept it readily, it was still a decision that the adaptation specifically made. I'd argue it matters because there's a completely different dynamic if Claudia is Black than if she is non-Black. If Claudia is, say, white, like in the book, then a lot of what she's experiencing will be interpreted as a consequence of gender—the only woman in the household—and her relationship with Louis would come across differently. It's worth considering what the alternative would have looked like, to understand why casting Bailey was the right move.

Now, that is an interesting thing to have changed particularly when you think about it in tandem with other changes made to her background. In the book, Claudia is found in the presence of her deceased mother. They were not, to my recollection, impoverished (although their home is not described very clearly). Though Black citizens in New Orleans didn't have the same opportunities and therefore were forbidden from many channels of generating wealth, and therefore it makes sense she isn't from an affluent background, Claudia's is especially grim. Book-Claudia has a deceased mother and her father was waiting for them by ship (then by that time gone from the story). However, she has not lived life as an orphan. The kind of destitution that Claudia has experienced in the adaptation is far more explicit, including some of the associated hazards, like sexual harassment/abuse from caretakers that she's not in a good position to remove herself from.

In fact, Claudia's circumstances were about as grim as they can get. She could have had a mother who died in the event (maybe they thought this overly-underscored how appalling what Louis and Lestat did was) or had died more recently, or Claudia could have simply have been found in the fray without us knowing the home she came from: it's a specific and deliberate decision to make Claudia from the worst possible circumstances not only of race, but of economic class.

I actually find class pretty wildly under-discussed in discourse about the show, because race and class are not separate. Claudia is nominally aligned with Louis on many racial topics, but her economic background also adds a lot of irreproducible depth here. And again, in this version she is old enough to remember that life.

Claudia, in the adaptation, has wildly warranted critiques of both of them that she can't really voice because she depends on them. (Again, this is also from the books but it's handled differently here.) Of the two, she has more forbearance for Louis, but I'm really hoping that we delve into what may be part of what was cut from the diary of their trip to Europe. I know things always have to be cut for time, but did Louis ever, for example, offer to give her the money that might help her get away? Or was it like Grace and the house, where he has automatic assumptions of where the women in his life fall? Does she know what he used to do with other impoverished women? Does she ever wonder how in a life where he never met Lestat, that might have been her?

It's especially easy in the "happy years" part of the show, including her apparent initial impressions, to forget how much Claudia has been wronged and victimized by her conversion to vampirism. In vampirism and the household specifically, Claudia is in prisons they made, including her own body. She gets a little piece later on about it, but I really wanted to see more and I sincerely hope we get it. She's not a third wheel, she's an essential character in this story and her perspective still gets overlooked in the dialogue about the show, which I think is a shame.

[mariacallous]

“Barbenheimer”—the collective celebration around the release of the Barbie and Oppenheimer movies—has collided with the wedding industrial complex. That’s not a joke. According to a Variety story this week, people are planning on taking their friends and family, prenuptials, to see the two films as a double feature. People who aren’t getting married are planning similar movie-watching marathons. It’s the kind of viral cultural moment marketing teams dream of. It also feels like a sign of the end times.

This sense of dread doesn’t stem from the public’s collective yearning to absorb stories about a Mattel doll and the development of atomic weapons at the same time. It’s because this weekend promises the kind of “let’s all go to the movies!” hype (and box office haul) that cinemas haven’t seen since before the Covid-19 pandemic shut theaters down—and it’s happening as Hollywood is going on strike.

This week, WIRED rolled out a series of stories detailing what we believe the future of entertainment might entail. The purpose was to look at how all aspects of culture, from books to video games to YouTube, could be impacted by advancements in technology. As we worked on it, though, something happened: Contract talks between Hollywood studios and the writers and actors unions began to break down. One of the major sticking points in those negotiations was the use of artificial intelligence in movie- and TV-making. Suddenly, as Madeline Ashby wrote in her essay this week, the world was in the midst of Hot Strike Summer.

Then, Hot Strike Summer slammed into the Barbenheimer moment. Once the Screen Actors Guild—American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, or SAG-AFTRA, called for a walkout, stars could no longer smile on red carpets without looking like scabs. The stars of Oppenheimer walked out of the film’s London premiere when the strike began. The cast and filmmakers behind Barbie, which premiered before SAG called for a strike, voiced their support. Soon, “This Barbie Is Now on Strike” became the headline, transforming one of the world’s most well-known figurines into Norma Rae. The marquee at my local theater in Brooklyn listed both movies alongside the phrase “Atomic Kenergy,” while The New York Times asked, “Can I Watch ‘Barbenheimer’ Despite the Hollywood Strikes?” (Short answer: Yes.)

To that end, the strikes will not affect Oppenheimer or Barbie’s opening weekend box office numbers. Earlier this week, AMC Entertainment reported that some 40,000 people had bought tickets for both films, and together they’re estimated to make around $150-200 million domestically, with Greta Gerwig’s send-up of the Mattel doll bringing in a bigger chunk than Christopher Nolan’s historical drama about the man behind the atomic bomb.  

But what matters is what happens after this weekend. By all accounts, Hot Strike Summer seems poised to last beyond one season. Even before SAG went on strike, studio sources were telling reporters that the plan was to let the strike “drag on until union members start losing their apartments and losing their houses.” In response to that, actor Ron Perlman took to social media to say “listen to me, motherfucker—there’s a lot of ways to lose your house.” He later walked that back, but when Hellboy enters the chat, you know it’s not going to end gently.

The longer writers and actors are on strike, the bigger the hole next summer or the summer after that, when the movies that would be filming right now aren’t ready. (Deadpool 3 and the sequel to Mission: Impossible—Dead Reckoning Part One, for example, are both currently on hold.) Cinemas have been bouncing back in the years since Covid restrictions were lifted and people began feeling comfortable in movie houses again. A lackluster year brought on by a dearth of films could prove detrimental.

Yesterday, Comic-Con International began in San Diego. Typically, or at least before the pandemic, the event has been full of panels with flashy stars promoting their next big movie or TV series. As long as SAG is on strike, those celebs won’t show. Some attendees will likely welcome the event’s return to its comics roots, rather than the Hollywood hype-fest it has become. But no matter what happens, it will be unlike any Comic-Con in recent memory. Maybe a little less plastic, but not fantastic.

[my-mt-heart]

Not the post I was hoping to make today, but here it goes. Even though we didn't know for sure what was going to happen last night, even though it doesn't negate the leaks that have been strategically coming out, it's more than fair to be upset. I am. The disrespect AMC continually shows its longtime fans is unbelievable, but it's even worse to disrespect one of your most talented actors who gave you 12 years of dedication and helped make your show household conversation.

Imagine getting unfairly pushed out of your own show, having damaging lies spread about you, agreeing to come back because you love your character and your fans. And then? Still getting the middle finger from the studio, having to read scripts where your character's name has been cut from the title, being hidden away like a dirty secret while they promote your show with a younger lead and hurl tone deaf insults like "The gang's all here" on their Twitter account. Imagine that. And then ask me why I don't trust AMC enough to give them my viewership or my money. It's the same dirty tricks over and over again, and it gives me even more reason to worry it won't stop when Carol is back.

In hind sight, I should've scheduled a blitz, though not surprisingly I didn't need to. Melissa's fans aren't going to forget her, and we're not going to forget what was done to her. I will definitely schedule something for the 27th, but thanks to everyone for continuing to spread love for Melissa and Carol even though it's hard to believe it's making a difference sometimes.

[greatwesternway]

So this has been on my mind. But Thomas's origin in the books. Is it true? that he just one day came the sodor During a time of war? If so, then does he even remember life before sodor? Or does he just propress the memories?

I'll be honest in that I don't really devote much thought to Thomas. He's kinda got that AMC Series Syndrome to me, where he's arguably the main character and therefore the most developed and so the least interesting.

But the yakety sax nature of the more notable Sodor acquisition stories seems to passively support the narrative of Thomas' arrival on the island. I think it was less that Thomas, of his own accord, wandered onto Sodor but was loaned (along with his crew as it goes in RWS) to help build the railway. When the time came to return him to his actual owners, though... well, lots of things get lost in war. An entire engine seems like a lot to mislay, but it honestly sounds like it could have been a clerical error. The mainland is removing lost materiel from its inventory accounting, Thomas gets mistakenly stricken from roster (either because his status as a loaner was vague or maybe they confused him with another engine who was lost in the war (à la Don Draper, to bring us back around on the AMC metaphor). Then when Sir Topham Hatt tried to arrange his return, they shrugged their shoulders and said they never met the guy. But he's a perfectly Useful engine and if he's nowhere to return to, he may as well stay here.

One does not look a gift engine in the mouth (because it's hot in there).

[murfpersonalblog]

IWTV S2 Ep7 Musings - Loustat Ep4 Revisited (Spoilers)

This one was WILD, my jaw was on the floor. JACOB! SIR ANDERSON! BRUH!?

Santiago doing a deliberately TERRIBLE Claudia voice after we saw his IMMACULATE Louis mimic--I HATE HIM. 🤣

I already tore Lestat a new arsehole for that.

Underneath the distorted Mind Spell audio effect you can barely hear Les say something about "the lies said by Louis;" but the subtitles don't pick it up.

NO, the COVEN wrote that script and did that. Lestat's COMPLICIT only cuz he's tryna SAVE Lou from the mess YOU put them in by selling them out to Santiago, Armand! You stood by and let them be abducted & dragged on stage, when YOU have the Fire Gift! You coulda lit them all up like matches! But you AND Lestat wanted Claudia out of the picture!

Louis finally not wearing black in Dubai; he's in dark blood red. 👀

HOW, if Les cant read your mind? I think SEEING Lestat and hearing his effed up account took Louis back to NOLA--not that Les was doing any Mind/Spell Gifts on Lou, literally taking him back to NOLA. It's a distorted memory, not astral projection or a hallucination.

Lestat like: "WE?" All of a sudden you wanna speak French at me with this OUI?

I couldn't resist, the hands were sending me.

Ohhhh this is SINISTER, making Lou look he manipulated Les. The VOICE Jacob uses is tryna kill me--he sounds so simpering and soft and feminine, no deep bass whatever; they know wtf they're doing. XD Any other network and there'd've been a fullblown sex scene. 😅

Ohhh no, the coven's tryna make it seem like Louis DID know the laws b4 he got to Paris; this isn't Lestat or any true memory; this is the coven talking thru Lestat's script; which wormed into Louis' head.

LOL. Scripted AF.

"He did tell me, what she would be." No, in S1E4 Les realized AFTER she killed the cop that her metabolism would be effed up. Armand told him the Great Laws, but Lestat just laughed in his face. Marius told him not to make vampires as young as Armand, but it had nothing to do with the Great Laws, and Lestat assumed it was just cuz ARMAND'S a poor vampire, in that silly cult. Les & Marius were more concerned about Christianity's effect on vampire moralism/depression/"self-loathing," and Les talked about LOUIS' anxiety--

--but as for Claudia he turned her CUZ HE'S A EFFING BRAT who only ever does what HE wants to do, eff anyone else.

I nearly had heart attack, thinking the coven was gonna say Louis' her Maker--the LAUGH I was gonna make, omg. 🤣 Cuz the humans can't call them on that, cuz what do THEY know about maker/fledgling blood and not being able to read minds?

The coven has her diaries when she said this, so I think this was all scripted; not something he really said--though ofc he could've read it in her mind when he rescued her, and genuinely felt this way, cuz ofc he would--he wanted/needed her to think he was a good person.

I DO wonder if a bit of this was true, about Louis feeding Claudia his blood, cuz these AMC's vamps are wildly inconsistent about healing. Their blood has strong healing powers--as we see in S2E5 when Armand fed Louis after his suicide attempt by fire, and in Ep6 after his suicide by slitting his wrists after making Madz. So ofc Louis might try to heal Claudia by bleeding on her & letting her drink.

These 2 frames back to back are precisely Louis' issue--he don't know wtf is going on. U_U

☝️ THIS!. ALL OF THIS! ☝️

Louis' GUILT is why the memories are all muddled; why he's doubting his own recollection, on top of the literal brainwashing from Armand & the forced Mind/Spell Gifts put on him by the coven.

Dragged on the EFFING FLOOR, the coven is WICKED! 🫣 This is when I knew those dirty heifers were LYING. And Claudia can't even corroborate this, cuz she was in & out of it when she was turned.

She is staring Louis DOWN, but sweetie, he's as lost as you are.

This is hilariously & deliciously & salaciously melodramatic; Imma slap Vampire Sam for writing this script--he'd've loved writing fanfiction on AO3.

NGL, I expected that hand to start veering a few degrees over if you know what I mean. 🍆 Lou's face was in PRIME position to do him some face. (The fanfics finna go CRAZY.)

Welp, my fears were well-founded. The coven is SPITTING all over their history.

PLEASE do the "evil of my evil" line, AMC! 🙏 This democracy of hypocrisy ain't finna do that. Sit your French White arse down on the red velvet throne AR gave you in the Prince Lestat trilogy, and STFU.

I don't think Lou did; he was very candid in S1 about how he cried & pleaded, and Les saying she'd be their daughter. The important difference is the inclusion about the Great Laws, and how that implicates them. It doesn't matter that Louis already knew she'd be stuck 14 forever & didn't care--if he didn't know Lestat was 100+ and stuck 34 forever, then he's a fool. Wanting an eternal child to baby & pamper & dote on is way different from intentionally breaking the law.

No love, that's the guilt talking! They were scrambling your brains RIGHT THERE ON STAGE; take this with a grain of salt; 74 years have provided A LIBRARY OF CONFUSION!

Daniel, stfu for once; why would you see this as having ANY "clarity." This is the most muddled portion of the trial thus far!

[enchi-elm]

[Thank you to whoever made these stills available, link here.]

I was rewatching S01E04 Eternity How Long and I remembered having the same slight cognitive dissonance the first time I watched this episode:

[Spoilers!]

"Is this presumably religious man really going to use headstones from consecrated ground to fortify a barracks?"

As a piece of writing, getting the Loyalists to dig up the headstones to their own ancestors to help fortify the barracks is brilliantly inflammatory. It's a real crisis of faith for Judge Woodhull, who so far hasn't paid any personal price for his loyalty to the crown. No, indeed, he's been profiting left, right and centre, both from his own estate and the estate of people like Selah Strong, whose crop he's selling before the estate it's on has even transferred ownership.

But it always struck me as just a bit too... cruel. Especially coming from Hewlett, who so far has been the model of discipline and what he considers fair-minded decency. Sure, he's nettled by Caleb's escape but still. A desecration like this? As a shield for cannon fire?

So I looked it up.

And was surprised to discover a number of things, including that there was, in fact, a Lt. Col. Richard Hewlett stationed at the church at that time, only he was from Long Island, with a family established there for generations. (Also, apparently those white wigs were out of fashion during the American Revolution?? News to me, I wonder what they would have looked like, then!)

And though he didn't repurpose the gravestones as barricades, here's an account from Zechariah Greene, one of the raiders from the Continental Army at the Battle of Setauket:

The tombstone of Rev. George Phillips and those of many others were destroyed by the British army, who built a fort around the church and cast up the bones of the dead. They destroyed the pulpit and the whole inside work of the church. Colonel Richard Hewlett commanded this body of men.

So the show took a bit of license as no headstones were used as barricades. However, constructing earth-works definitely destroyed the churchyard and disturbed bones. Oof. No win for consecrated ground here. (Ironic that in the show, Major Hewlett specifically assures Judge Woodhull that he won't be exhuming any bodies. Probably the sound judgment of one of the producers.)

So alright, I'll concede that narrative point.

One thing that definitely didn't happen, though, was the conversion of the church into a stables (sorry, Bucephalus). This has always struck me as a bit weird but I didn't know any better at the time so I figured, "historical people doing unhygienic things, whatever". But no, sensible minds have always existed and there's no earthly reason you would put a stable in a church. And they didn't, we know they didn't, because at the Battle of Setauket, the Continental Army stole a few horses that were tied up outside upon their retreat. Horses they could not have stolen had they been in a stable inside the church. (Although, if anyone's going to steal a horse from inside a church behind enemy lines, it would probably be Caleb who was, in fact, there that day.)

[cbrownjc]

Finally watched Mayfair Witches - and oh boy . . .

No spoilers, but if you really like this show, then please just skip this post. This is really just my opinion and not an attack on anyone who may enjoy the show.

* * * * *

So I just binged watched the first six episodes of Mayfair Witches finally.

And OMG, how do you make a story with witches and ghosts and a secret paranormal organization so boring!?

Because that is the ultimate problem with this show - it’s utterly boring. The storytelling, the direction, and the characters. They are all so, so boring. 

I don’t want this show crossing over with Interview with the Vampire at all in its current state. Because I seriously think they would find a way to make all the characters from that show boring if they got their hands on them.

As I said, I watched the first six episodes and don’t know if I can muster up any desire to watch the final two. That’s how much I don’t care what happens.

The problem isn’t that the show changed things from the book. I was completely fine with the majority of changes the show made. It was how they wrote and executed those changes that is the main problem here. 

And I want to place the majority of the blame on the writing here. IMO, the actors are all trying to make this work as best as they can. But there really is nothing that could be done to elevate this, because the main fault, as I said, lies with the writing. 

Adapting the first book into a season-long story was probably an impossible task anyway. The majority of the book this season is based on, The Witching Hour, is the backstory of the main family line of the Mayfairs. It basically reads very much like a historical account, because that’s exactly what that major part of the book is. 

And that backstory contains a lot of incest, and I mean a lot. We’re talking about how the Targaryens are tame when it comes to incest compared to the Mayfairs. 

It’s only in the final 1/4 or so of the book that contains any current plot and big story movement and, even then, it ends on a cliffhanger. 

So yeah, I don’t know what they are going to do to fix this in season 2, because IMO the only way to fix this is to go back to the drawing board and fix the whole structure of this adaptation. Because right now it just feels like someone crossed NCIS: New Orleans with The Secret Circle, and I don’t think that is what they were going for at all. (Or maybe they were, I don’t know). 

Anyway, yeah. IMO a crossover at the moment isn’t going to work. Not just because of the elevated writing of one show compared to the other but, quite frankly, both shows don’t even feel like they are part of the same universe to me, even though they are supposed to be. IWTV feels operatic yet dreamlike in its presentation IMO. Whereas Mayfair Witches just feels like every other standard tv show that had a supernatural bent that gets canceled after one season. Kinda like The Secret Circle. 

And I don’t feel wrong in thinking that if AMC didn’t own the rights to Mayfair Witches, that might have already been its fate as well by now.

* * * * *

Really? A bottle episode after the event with Carlotta and the fire? This was not only an episode that bored me but annoyed me too because I could just feel the writing thinking it was clever with the misdirects . . . 

And don’t get me started on some of the things I know I would likely be confused about if I hadn’t read the book . . . 

* * * * * 

Seriously, I am not kidding when I say this show could find a way to make even Lestat boring. Because, IMO, it really, really could.