#god what a moment that will be in iwtv history

[sophsun1]

Interview With The Vampire – 2.08: Episode Insider

[murfpersonalblog]

IWTV S2 Ep7 Musings - Sam Reid's Autumn Brown Interview & White Privilege

(Omg I don't watch Autumn Brown, so I had no idea Sam said all this until the transcript excerpts were posted here. 🤦Usually I love what Sam has to say, but this ain't it, chief.)

The problem with this whole take of Sam's is that Lestat is NOT the one on Trial--LOUIS is. The implications of spinning Come To Me makes Louis look MORE guilty, so that LOU'S DEATH IS JUSTIFIED & DESERVED. IDK if Sam is being deliberately obtuse here (seeing the situation with rose colored blinders to just look at Loustat's tragic love; Lestat's romanticism & hurt feelings cuz that's his character & his focus); or if he's deliberately skirting around a much more important & sensitive issue that, as a white man, he may or may not be aware that he's unequipped to handle--esp. since we know AMC put the lid on interviewers talking with the actors about RACE; and esp. since Jacob speaks very candidly about Louis' blackness when he's asked stupid questions.

Cuz the optics of a white person lying that a black man on trial had raped/molested/SA'd them are way too effing obvious--at least for Bipoc audiences--for Sam to boil it down to "a horrifically mean trick for Lestat to come out and say;" and then gloss it over with Lestat stupidly WANTING Louis to AGREE with the lie that makes him look like a sexual predator; and come away with "it’s very shocking for Lestat in that moment to be smacked in the face with ‘I didn’t want you. I always hated you."

Sure, EVERYONE understands & is in agreement about Loustat's "mutual yearning." But their mutual yearning has no bearings whatsoever on the proceedings happening on that stage. Lestat & Louis certainly AREN'T being mutually sentenced for vampiric crimes, and on pain on DEATH. This Trial is not about proving Louis' romantic/unrequited UST, it's about proving that he's guilty of breaking the Great Laws & proving that Lestat's life/wellbeing was in mortal danger from Louis--not just during Mardi Gras, but the entire time!

Lestat LITERALLY said "Louis ACCOSTED me."

The "pleasure house's" location (at the FairPlay) strengthens the implications of being "accosted" with being sexually harassed--esp. since Les & Santiago first start off with Louis' history as a "troubled, disreputable, cold, violent" pimp. Les said that everywhere he went, he was "being HUNTED" by Louis--like prey to a predator.

So if getting mad at Lou for being angry & hurt is all Lest takes away from Lou's reaction against having Come to Me weaponized to make Lou look like a rapist--then by god Les truly had no business being in an interracial relationship & raising a Black child. 😒

Les is so seated in his white privilege (and too busy screwing his white wench Antoinette down in Algiers) that he somehow missed the entire 1921 Tulsa Massacre, and the 1923 Rosewood Massacre, and the 1931-32 Scottsboro Boys case; to not read a effing newspaper or hear about all these Black men being lynched for raping white girls (who LIED on them) during Jim Crow!

Like, we talk about Tulsa & Rosewood wrt the Storyville race riot in 1x3, but I've yet to see anybody talk about how both of those massacres were started cuz white folk wanted to lynch innocent Black men accused of raping white people who lied on them & gaslit the whole country into believing them just cuz white = honest/innocent/good and black = liar/guilty/evil.

How DARE a Black man on Trial by a bloodthirsty predominately white lynch mob be furious that he's being lied on by a charismatic AF white man brought in to testify AGAINST him--

--who's explicitly presented as "THE VICTIM;" the first & ONLY witness whose words were to be trusted (Claudia's diary/words were only used to CONDEMN them, entirely removed from their context as a CHILD who felt unwanted & unloved by the father she was constantly trying to GET AWAY FROM, but who forcibly brought her BACK)--while Lou's context is stripped from him as the spouse who only killed Les for the sake of his DAUGHTER'S freedom. Lou never wanted to leave Les & NOLA; and he freaked TF out after he slit Les' throat & chokeslammed Claudia for tryna burn him--Claudia's diaries even exonerate Lou, PISSED at him for NOT wanting Les dead & for being "dead weight" thirsting after Les the whole time they were in Romania, 5 years later! All Lou wanted was to COME TO LES. Lou swam the nasty AF Mississippi River cuz LES WROTE A EFFING SONG NAMED COME TO ME that Lou STILL has the recording of IN HIS VOICE.

For a closeted gay Black man desperate to keep up appearances & be respected in society, Louis sacrificed EVERYTHING to be with Lestat--his loyalty to Paul (ie: God: x x) and his self respect/dignity/reputation most crucially, only to have that sacrifice (ie: love) ripped to shreds & sullied during the Trial--LESTAT BETRAYED LOUIS, not the other way around, WTF. Esp. cuz YES, Louis DID want Les to come to him the whole time. Even at the TRIAL, Jacob said all Louis was happy to see Les again.

Until Les opened his effing mouth & started spewing BS!

Lou LOVES Les, and trusted & confided in him as a gay closeted man tryna AVOID Les (esp. after being spooked by his gay crisis spooked him when they slept together)--only to be SPAT ON when Les tells all of Paris that he's nothing but a pervert who accosted/hunted/lusted after a man/vampire who made it seem that 1) LES didn't want LOU, and 2) that Les's safety/wellbeing was in danger--when HE'S the gay VAMPIRE wearing Oscar Wilde's chrysanthemum to dinner & baiting/luring Louis to HIS house with Lily waiting on the balcony in her effing underwear!

Remember: Lestat did this whole Come to Me spiel for the audience BEFORE his whole Gay Pride speech. The soldier yelled the F-slur after Les finished their Church Vows; and the whole crowd LAUGHED. This was NOT an audience who thought POSITIVELY about two guys being in a relationship--

--"the love that DARE NOT speak its name," even in gay mecca 1940s Paris (at the time the age of consent was 15 for straight couples but 21 for gay ones), where guys had to meet under the cover of night; hidden in the shadows even while in a public park/in plain sight--just like the vampires themselves.

The audience DGAF about Lestat's romanticism & Loustat's tragic gothic romance. They care about sexual deviancy--despite charismatic AF Santiago having said the very first night that the whole premise of the Theatre was to flip social mores upside-down--the bloodthirsty audience still wasn't effing buying gay sex! 💀

So not only is Les petitioning to a group of homophobes to see him as a victim, but he's are also throwing Louis, as a Black man, under the bus to a predominately white crowd as the villain--

--and yet people get mad at Louis for badmouthing Les in 1973 SanFran, and (LESS-SO) in Dubai??? When NEITHER time was Les being sentenced to death--but the vampires are still tryna kill LOUIS, even though it's DANIEL'S book and HE'S the vampire on national TV!

Again: LOUIS gets punished while these white men walk scott free. Louis gets dropped from the effing stratosphere with ALL his bones broken but his pain is dismissed as "a hard fall, nothing more;" while Louis put Les in the dump with a bunch of rats so Les could heal & NOT be burned alive, saving Les' effing life when Claudia would've GRILLED his arse, and yet Louis' found guilty!?

And again: Louis was actively being gaslit on stage, his brain LITERALLY being scrambled under the Mind Gift of the coven, while Claudia's literally over his right shoulder saying one thing, while Lestat's the devil on the left saying the total opposite. He's conscious, but he's barely more cognizant than Madeleine! But HE'S the liar?!

And again: Lestat's pain & hurt feelings gets centered, when it's LOUIS' ankles that are slashed to the bone so he can't walk or escape the lynchers ready to stone him & his daughter(s); HIS mind fogged whenever he tries to speak up & defend himself--with no one to help him but the very same dude lying his arse off to assassinate Louis' character and twist their story to excuse why he cheated (acting like he never said he wanted "VARIETY" way back in 1x3) & why Louis deserves to have lynchers in the crowd yelling "Shame on you!" as if there weren't TWO parties in this MUTUAL yearning.

I can't.

But again: Imma throw Sam a bone, cuz we know AMC's been weird about interviewers sidestepping actual substantial convos about race--and AFAIK Sam's never really said anything about Louis' blackness & how Lestat responds/dismisses it anyway, so. 🙄😒 Maybe it's for the best that Sam stays in his white lane--but it's still racially tone deaf AF that Loustat's race & contemporaneous IRL events that directly match the show aren't even up for frikkin discussion.

[rearranging-deck-chairs]

Hi hello I watched all of carmilla in a weekend when I was 17 because a student teacher who in retrospect I had a bit of a crush on mentioned that she knew one of the actresses. also I am pretty invested in all your recent vampire stuff because I watched iwtv in 2 days last week because your edit intrigued me

oh hiiii 🫶 thank you for indulging me. thats so cool that you watched iwtv! did it live up to the expectation?

i also watched carmilla at 17! or like, 17-19. i found it when s2 had just started and followed it to the end. did something permanent to my brain but i think it was a good thing. on rewatch now im like, i was right to like this. like it's a solid show, it's good. it has its flaws obviously but it's well written, the emotional moments still get me, i can see why i liked it and i still like it now even when it's not anymore, you know, meeting every need that baby gay me didnt even know they had

what it doesnt reaallyy do though - i dont remember if i posted abt this or if i left it in my drafts but - is explore vampirism as a concept. their subject matter is more lesbianism than vampirism. which is great! thats what they wanted to do and they did it and it's very good. but reading interview with the vampire the book rn im realising how much potential vampires have to be metaphors for like so many things and i started wondering like 'wait, did carmilla just not really engage with it or did it all go over my head'. but it just didnt really engage with it all that much. which again is fine bc that wasnt what they were doing. im glad they were more about the lesbianism than the vampirism

but there's this interesting difference in framing, because in iwtv they keep calling armand 'ancient' right? and emphasising how old he is. and he's like 500? and i was like 'wait isnt carmilla like 400?'. she isnt, shes 340, but still, thats getting there, you know? and we know quite a lot about her history, but kind of just the Big Events. when she was turned, the events of the novella, coffin of blood, silas. thats sort of what we know. but none of the long lonely slog of history day to day you know? with armand i feel like we can really feel how much time everything takes. how every one of those years is made up of single days. with carmilla i dont feel that as much. i keep kind of thinking about daniel, when louis calls him a boy in the first episode, saying "im an old man, with all the triggers that come with it"

because carmilla might look 18 (or mid twenties at this point) but she has lived all that time. shes also seen her native land be claimed by like a succession of ruling powers, right? like armand. shes been buried alive, like louis. when lestat is born, shes already 80 years old, shes lived a whole human lifetime, and the entire adult part of it shes been a vampire. shes lived through 1680-1870 being a lure. i compared her to abigail hobbs in some tags on a post, i dont know if youre familiar with hannibal the tv show, but i do also kinda keep thinking about that comparison

if youre not familiar, in the first episode of hannibal the murderer of the week is this guy garrett jacob hobbs who kills and cannibalises girls who resemble his daughter. and later on it turns out she was made to be his lure. like they'd go places and he'd sent her to the victims to make friends and maybe get them back to their home or smth. not sure if they specified all the details. but that's what carmilla did for mother. and in s2 we hear from mattie that while every couple of decades carmilla had to lure victims for the fish god, she also seemed to just enjoy humans between those times, right? like the doctor, gets lonely, gets a new companion. but we've only sort of got mattie's mocking word for it ("dont eat him, hes a poet! or her, shes got such a wonderful voice. or that one, shes just too pretty to ruin"), we don't know exactly from carmilla's point of view what she was doing or why. if mattie's talking about stuff that happened after the blood coffin, 1950-now, then i think it's a fair assumption based on what carmilla says in the s1 sock puppet show that after she'd figured out what the real situation was and what her role in it was, when she'd started trying to save girls from being sacrificed, that she mightve been doing the same trying to save people from becoming mattie's victims. it's probably more likely that she was just trying to find excuses to stop mattie from sucking someone dry rather than actually having like an aesthetic based morality. but it might be a bit of both. im still trying to figure out what her philosophy actually is, like i dont know what existentialism actually means ghkfjghkj but i will

i also found it pretty striking in the movie when shes turning back into a vampire she says like "this was supposed to be done, you know? the blood lust, the self-loathing, the sleeping tied to a chair in my own bedroom". thats what defines her vampirism, wanting blood and hating yourself for it (the third part is a joke/reference to s1 but also i think meaningful for how she sees her relationship with laura when she IS a vampire. little bit of that 'she will reject me for my monstrousness' shining through). and thats what defines vampirism for lots of vampires across the genre obviously, but i dont know, it struck me. we dont get a lot from carmilla's pov, we know a fair amount about her, but the story is always told through laura. we get laura's diaries, but just snippets here and there from carmilla, what shes thinking, how shes feeling

and i love that shes a philosopher. i love that thats how she seems to try and find something to hold onto, in a world that kind of moves around her, having been murdered, kidnapped, turned and groomed to be a lure on the cusp of adulthood, never having been properly loved (the relationship with her father wasnt good she says in s3, and her mortal mother i dont think has ever been mentioned (like laura's)). the only good relationship she seems to have had for the better part of 3 centuries seems to have been mattie, and mattie seems to love being a vampire. i can imagine carmilla just sort of going along with anything mattie wants to do just because shes so desperate for that friendship. not like, against her will necessarily really. but more like, she hasnt even had the space to develop her own will, you know? and philosophy lets you do that. philosophy gives you frameworks to understand the world and to develop your own opinions on it. and by the 21st century she seems to have developed those opinions, she has a sense of her own values, but shes also still stuck in that same situation. shes jaded and cynical in the face of laura's optimism and strong moral code a lot of the time in s1 because she feels probably pretty powerless. like she does what she can to save some girls but at the end of the day shes scared of her mother and she has nowhere else to go really, right?

i like how she grapples with that over the course of the series, in tandem with laura grappling with her black and white morality. she sort of jumps ship from her mother to laura bc theyve fallen in love, but then laura still stuck in her hero thinking refuses to see her monstrous side. not literally bc i think the biological vampirism never seemed to be a problem for laura, but morally. the having murdered. carmilla needs laura to see that and love her while seeing it bc the last girl she loved rejected her for being a vampire.

but you see her kind of swing back and forth in s2. she softens first with laura but then they break up and she leans back hard into the sarcastic cynic defense mechanisms, leans hard into "im a monster, dont expect heroism from me". but thats like, it's sort of learned helplessness i think. it's powerlessness, resignation. bc morally shes not a monster. maybe she doesnt have as strong a drive to help other people as laura does and is a little more selfishly hedonistic in that she just wants to enjoy her/their life, but she doesnt hurt people for fun, she never has. she just sort of didnt have another option for a Really long time. so she pretends she doesnt care. "im a vampire, this is what i do, this is who i am". but clearly from the way she talks about it when she turns back into one, she doesnt enjoy it

and i like how she goes even further in s3, where she starts swinging even more to the heroic side, bc she sees hope. shes like "wow if we kill my mother, i'd be free". theres hope and she becomes like a lot more active. and shes like that at the start of the movie too, a lot happier, a lot more relaxed, and then vampirism is back and bam depression gfhgkjh like shes immediately more gloomy, ashamed of her past and her self, retreats into herself

sorry i just took this as an opportunity to dump all the carmilla thoughts floating in my head on you. you didnt ask fhkghgjh consider this an open invitation to you or anyone else to come talk to me about carmilla

[i-want-my-iwtv]

If Anne R. decided to publish another VC book in the future, how would you like it to be? What topics would you like to see explored? What's your ideal ending to the saga? L̶e̶t̶'̶s̶ ̶i̶m̶a̶g̶i̶n̶e̶ ̶s̶h̶e̶ ̶w̶o̶u̶l̶d̶n̶'̶t̶ ̶s̶c̶r̶e̶w̶ ̶i̶t̶ ̶u̶p̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶t̶i̶m̶e̶

This is interesting, and possibly some very well-wrapped bait. The question about what we want to see in canon is usually framed the other way around, in the form of a statement about what we’re disliking about canon. I’ve seen so many salty posts and hot takes that criticize the series for lacking in many ways, and I can’t remember a time when I’ve had any interest to write one of those myself or engage in them. 

Those statements are often about the issue of representation in published fiction, whether it be LGBT+, POC, etc., “[Author name]’s long history of discussing X but not depicting X in canon” is itself an accusation (deserved or not); that [Author] should do something about it, now! Representation is a nuanced issue, essays have been written on it by people more educated on it than I am, and out of respect, I’m not going to discuss this further publicly. For more on this topic, I would recommend @olderthannetfic​. 

>If Anne R. decided to publish another VC book in the future, how would you like it to be?

Fanworks have fed me so well over the years that there’s not much Anne herself could give me that I can’t find elsewhere. If she can’t or doesn’t want to make the content I want, I’ll write it myself or see if someone else is writing/has written it.

I would say that my favorite fanfics, fanart, and the parts of VC canon (which are all basically sequels of IWTV in some shape or form) that I’ve enjoyed have all landed somewhere in the sweet spot briefly described below.

From “Star Wars - How To Kill A Franchise,” by The Closer Look:

“Imagine exploring the elements from an original story in the sequel like a gradient. On the left, you’ve got ‘Not enough change,’ in the middle you’ve got that ‘Sweet spot’ where they’re different but it feels like a natural development in their character... In a perfect sequel, everything carried over from the original story should be in that Goldilocks zone where they’re still the same characters... but they’ve been developed in natural, interesting ways that allows for entertaining new directions in the follow-up story.”

Then there’s further to the right... ‘For the love of God stop!’  Which is where we use the phrase “jumped the shark,” “Moments labeled as "jumping the shark" are considered indications that writers have exhausted their focus, that the show has strayed irretrievably from an older and better formula...”

>What topics would you like to see explored?

A return to the sweet spot, some ideas would be:

The hypothetical book she might have written thirty years ago as a follow up to QOTD instead of TOBT.

A story, any story, from Louis's POV where he has more perspective in the wake of TVL and QOTD. That last scene of QOTD with Lestat and Louis flying together and so on... Lestat wondered what it had done to Louis to finally learn all these secrets, after being told for so long they didn't exist. Currently, Louis is characterized primarily by his obvious top-level traits, which get exaggerated and turned into the entire depiction, which is so flat, and he has so much more to offer. 

Discussions about the consequences of Merrick, and how that’s changed the way Louis sees things and navigates his existence, whether he and Lestat have the intimacy they were unable to achieve from the end of QOTD to Merrick.

I would prefer that certain characters that had died were allowed to stay dead, and could be talked about and mourned.

The exception being - I’d be open to a Nicolas return! He died off-screen after all.

>What's your ideal ending to the saga?

Ultimately, every problematic thing can't be addressed and tidied up. All of the vampires in VC have killed tens of thousands of people. There's no reparation for that. It's weird to try to apply any kind of human-standard morality to them, because you start from "First of all, they're all mostly-unrepentant killers."

While it would count as possibly Too much change, I think it could be intriguing to make all the vampires mortal and human again; they age together; now that their lives are finite they realize they need to sort out their shit, they get therapy and learn to communicate, and resolve all their many and varied interpersonal problems.

I’m ready to see what Christopher does with it when he takes over. I haven’t read his writing myself, but I’ve been told it’s good, so we’ll see. Maybe he has the Ricean spark✨

>L̶e̶t̶'̶s̶ ̶i̶m̶a̶g̶i̶n̶e̶ ̶s̶h̶e̶ ̶w̶o̶u̶l̶d̶n̶'̶t̶ ̶s̶c̶r̶e̶w̶ ̶i̶t̶ ̶u̶p̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶t̶i̶m̶e̶

You know, over the years, especially when there was more of a sense of humor and people could get away with hyperbole, I’ve made it publicly known that some of the books were not my cup of tea, but there are fans who come to the series from every one of the books. They don’t have the same calibration as I do, IWTV may not be the original material at all for them! One could argue that any of these books could exist as standalones, because AR never promised us a forge weld to them all, 40+ yrs and 10+ books later. It’s not delamination of the stories splitting off from each other and conflicting accounts of events (”unreliable narrators”) if the intention wasn’t a fused weld.

In some respect, AR has reflected, she often asks her FB followers what they like about certain books/characters/etc. and I think she does read those responses... and while I wouldn’t say she admitted she “screwed it up,” she has said the Mayfair/VC crossovers “did not age well,” even though she is proud of them:

So I think AR’s point is that she tried a direction, and now that years have passed, she decided that it wasn’t worth pursuing further, and it will impact her choices in future books (in this case, not to do more crossovers). I think it takes a lot of guts for her to post that publicly, and it gives me hope that whatever she writes next, I think she’s trying to capture her older and better formula. 

But just because she made us a magnificent cake once, I don’t expect her to make anything like it for us again, ever, and it gives me peace of mind not to expect her to. 

[lucaroyale]

Thanks for the tag @lestvt​ ! I finally found time outside of GRE study to do this so why not.

your name and then what you would have named yourself: My online name is my middle name and I will leave it at that. I’m ftm trans so I was lucky enough to choose my name and I wouldn’t change it :)

astrological sign (sun/moon/rising if you know): I don’t care about astrology but I’m a cancer with basically all water signs and my astrology friends laugh at me for this.

when did you join tumblr and why?: oh god its been so long i don’t remember. 2010 maybe?

top 5 fandoms: vampire chronicles, my hero academia, les miserables, percy jackson, and mcu

top 5 favorite films: Gattaca, Frozen 2, IWTV (ofc), Harry Potter and the prisoner of azkaban, Kiki’s delivery service

go to song when you want to Feel something: Lover Dearest by Marianas Trench or The Wisp Sings by Winter Aid.

what’s your religion or faith if you have one?: Catholic by convenience, but I tend to think of my family’s religion as cultural influence more than anything. I’m not religious.

a song that makes you feel seen: WAP by Cardi B LMAOOOO

if you could have any career: medical illustrator (currently working towards a grad program in this field)

do you have a type: people who *get* math 

what does your heart/soul yearn for: That last toaster strudel in the basement freezer that will probably get eaten before me.. but if its gotta be deep then i guess “true love” or some shit XD

if you had to describe yourself in 5 words to someone who doesn’t know you: sociable, ambitious, pragmatic, creative, chill 

favorite subject in school: Histology. And genetics. But also art.

where does your soul feel most at home: surrounded by close friends and drinking a shit ton of coffee

top 5 fictional characters: Louis de Point du Lac (vc), Francesco Pazzi (netflix series medici), Loki (thor ragnarok version lol), Lady Morgana (Merlin tv series), Percy Jackson (pjo/hoo)

top 3 moments in a show that made you ugly cry: I don’t ugly cry. Or watch a lot tv shows. But MR. ROBOT.. 

the earth, the sun, the moon or the stars: moon

top 3 characters you kin with: Luke fon Fabre (tales of the abyss), Midoriya Izuku (bnha), and Percy Jackson (sensing a theme here)

favorite medium of art: willow charcoal and lotsa graphite 

introvert/extrovert/ambivert: I’m told I come off as an extrovert but my coffee shop tendencies say otherwise.

a favorite literary quote: huh, my favorite quotes notebook has got to be around here somewhere… 

some of your favorite books: Monstrous Regiment (Terry Pratchett), Queen of the Damned, Good Omens, A Separate Peace (John Knowles)

if you could live anywhere in the world where would it be?: Seattle! 

if you could live in any time in history when would it be?: The present. I just like consuming media representing historic eras.

if you could play any instrument masterfully it would be: Guitar 

if you have one, what mythological god or goddess do you feel a connection to?: no idea. Athena?  

oh my god this is so long but LASTLY, favorite recent selfie in your camera roll: This is probably the only pic of my face i’ll post here, so if you miss it too bad. At least it’s on the internet forever lol

And I KNOW i’m supposed to tag people I want to get to know better, but I have a MASSIVE guilt complex and tend to overthink whether I’m annoying other people when I tag them. So I’m going to leave this an open invitation to anyone who wants to do it. Feel free to tag me and I’ll check it out. Cheers!