#interview with a vampire AMC

[spacedreamon]

I'd like to request a couple Moodboard for @lestatirl and I. It would be based around our fictotypes, Louis de Pointe du Lac and Lestat de Lioncourt, from AMC's Interview with the Vampire (2022). Thank you!

Sorry I missed this one! The ask for buried

[danandfuckingjonlmao]

vampires are gay. every single one.

[darklinaforever]

Tell me...

It really becomes a habit to goad the morally ambiguous character into strangling (commit acts of violence on) the object of their affection, when it's not at all present in the source material...

What exactly is this shitty trend ?! They think they're smart to make an already morally ambiguous character worse to deliver a stupid message about how dangerous this type of guy is ?! Or is it a new fetish on female characters (or the nice character) that we like to see suffer even more ?! I would really fucking like to understand !

[volixia669]

Vampire Chronicles Basics

Okay, with the new Interview with the Vampire show coming out, there’s probably going to be some folks who might be curious about the books and wondering why there’s so much disrespect towards the author. This probably isn’t the ONLY primer, but like, whatever.

Note: I never got around to reading all of her books, and some of this is drawing from memory though wikipedia is helpful.

Contextual History Lesson Time!

As a media criticism type person, I find it important to not examine media in a vacuum, and take into account what was happening at the time it was created.

The timing of the first three books is notable. Interview with a Vampire was released in 1976, The Vampire Lestat was released in 1985, and Queen of the Damned was released in 1988.

So we have one book with gay subtext released post free love movement but prior to gay folks becoming more known in society, then two more released during the aids crisis with the queer subtext/text still going strong. This? This is huge. Reportedly, there were people sending Anne Rice letters about how amazing it was to see themselves in the characters. Some these days might roll their eyes at how subtext might be revolutionary, but please understand. During the aids crisis, the queer community, particularly gay men, were being blamed and discriminated against to horrifying levels to the point gay men still can’t give blood.

So for a book series to have not only the metaphor of penetration and being an outbut but also have these characters seem very gay? It’s huge! It’s like a weight being lifted off, even just temporairly, while you go, “Someone sees me and my situation.”

The Vampire Lestat even had Lestat’s mother questioning her gender and deciding to dress and act more masculine. Sure, these days we’d call it “problematic” trans rep for many reasons, but back in 1985? Except for certain more indie films, trans people weren’t even talked about.

Which is a huge reason the series got big among the queer community, others caught wind, and eventually that movie with Brad Pitt was made.

And now we’re in the 90s with a few things happening. One of which being Anne Rice uh...Firing her editor? Not bothering with an editor? Whatever happened, the quality of writing goes downhill.

Additionally, Anne Rice was going through...a lot, and it shows in her writing. She started as one sect of Christianity, left it after a family member died, was athiest/agnostic for awhile, then went to a different sect of Christianity when another family member died, then eventually was in her own thing of believing in God & Jesus but not following any particular sect. Then she died.

This is relevant, as we see Lestat go from prissy rockstar to literally meeting Jesus. So. There’s that.

Another thing that happened in the 90s was the internet becoming bigger, resulting in things like forums, chatgroups, livejournal, and essentially online fandom. People in the Vampire Chronicles fandom began sharing their fanfiction.

Anne Rice hated that. It was her world, her property, her Gary-Stu, and therefore only she could write Vampire Chronicles. She began suing anyone who was writing fanfiction, yes, even the broke teenagers.

She wasn’t the only one doing this of course, but she was certainly adamant about it. Additionally, there’s an emotional element too. Because her work was one of the few popular media where queers could see themselves in, it was like a betrayal to have her say, “No, I hate anyone who loves this world so much they’d write fic.” (not a real quote btw just how it felt)

This is why many fanfic writers in the 2000s, early 2010s, and a few even today write disclaimers at the top of their fic. Because a “I do not own this property. This property belongs to blah blah blah” was one of the few defenses (however flimsy) fanfic writers had. It’s also why, as of the last time I checked ff.net, Anne Rice’s works are not allowed on that site.

That said, from this backlash against fandom, Archive of Our Own and its lawyers were born. The volunteers of OT3 are why y’all will be able to write Lestat fucking Louis into next week and post it there without worrying about Anne Rice’s estate hounding you.

The Books Themselves

So! With that lengthy history done, what about the books? To start off with, while the movie, and this new show are called “Interview with the Vampire”, that’s just the first book. The series as a whole are The Vampire Chronicles.

So we’ve got:

Interview with the Vampire (1976)

The Vampire Lestat (1985)

The Queen of the Damned (1988)

The Tale of the Body Thief (1992)

Memnoch the Devil (1995, the one where Lestat meets Jesus, a lot of people hate it, I think its hilarious with some interesting theological points)

New Tales of the Vampires-Pandora (1998, prequel about an older Roman vampire) New Tales of the Vampires-Vittorio the Vampire (1999, another prequel, about a 15th century Italian Nobleman vampire)

The Vampire Armand (1998, it’s Armand’s story and also I maintain the first 60 pages reads like an M-rated fanfic on ff.net, which is objectively hilarious imho)

Merrick (2000, crossover with another her series called the Mayfair Witches)

Blood and Gold (2001, now the ancient vampire Marius gets his own origin story.)

Blackwood Farm (2002, more Mayfair Witches crossover)

Blood Canticle (2003, EVEN MORE CROSSOVER also was originally gonna be a conclusion buuuuuuuuuuut)

Prince Lestat (2014, Lestat is back and is facing pressure to lead the vampires because I guess all the ones with enough of a brain cell to go that would be a TERRIBLE idea are dead)

Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantic (2016, I guess we’re now in Atlantis?)

Blood Communion (2018)

As you can see there’s a lot of books and content. Especially because Vampire Chronicles wasn’t her only series. On top of her erotic romance series that even my “sure you can watch Criminal Minds while 9 years old” mom was like, “Do not touch that,” she had her Tales of the Mayfair Witches series, which AMC incidentally also has the rights for. So...Lots of books, one world with vampires and witches and Jesus.

However, because of the drop in quality as well as the level of batshittery (no I’m still not over Lestat going to fucking Atlantis), last I checked the main reads are the first three, with Vampire Armand also being thrown in because I mean, after you see Antonio Banderas as Armand you want to know more about him.

Of course by all means! Read more of the books! Maybe you’ll get a laugh like I did! Maybe the quality doesn’t seem so bad to you! Maybe you enjoy batshittery! 

And if you don’t want to give the Anne Rice estate more money because she was a bad person, there’s plenty of libraries that have the books! Trust me. They do. Some might even have them in ebook version, so you can use apps like overdrive or libby to check them out without even leaving your house!

Appropriation in Vampire Chronicles

This is gonna be short since I’m sure there’s whole pieces about this and I don’t have the books in front of me nor am I part of any of these cultures, but I do want to run over that yes, there’s certainly some cultural appropriation in this series, particularly of Egyptian Culture, but also of voodoo and creole culture.

I want to warn of this, so it doesn’t catch anyone off guard, especially since “Merrick” and “Queen of the Damned” in particular are uh. Full of this. I also have no idea if the more recent books are any better in this regard.

That said, I’m curious about how the AMC tackles these aspects, as its already quite clear they’re not following the books 1:1, which is actually going to make for a better story.

Hopefully all that is helpful!

[lonelybitchlolz]

okay i changed my mind, i need to read the books apparently armand and daniel are endgame. how the fuck does that happen.

[thembones07]

watching the iwtv tv show and these mfs are GAYYYY OH MY GODDD IM SO EXCITED

[tawneybel]

I OVULATED ON HALLOWEEN

Now that I’ve got your attention, happy belated All Saints’ Day, Día de los Muertos, etc. Ended up not having time to get a costume so I wore what I usually wear. And a witch hat. I don’t live in a particularly well-lighted area, so I held a lantern for the trick-or-treaters. Otherwise I would have blended into the shadows. 

We also watched Queen of the Damned all the way through. (The first time I just made it to the part where Lestat was going “AAAH, AAAH, AAAH” at band practice.) Because I can’t watch the Interview with a Vampire reboot immediately. 

“THIS is the film Twilight drank from.”

Jesse: “All I knew was that I was being cast out.” “Yeah, because your doll collection. It scares us.”

“I think she’s a bottle redhead, Tawney.” “Why would you say that? Maybe she only died her eyebrows and nothing else at all.”

*Marius vampirizes Lestat* “That’s the weirdest way to start dating someone.”

“His nip/ples aren’t hard. Because he’s dead.”

*Lestat and Marius do corpse disposal via bonfire* “‘Do you have any marshmallows, Marius?’”

*Lestat finds secret entrance* “That’s where his doll collection is.”

Lestat: *drinks Akasha’s blood* Marius: “What have you done, Lestat?” “Found your doll collection.”

Lestat: “For what you do I yearn?” “I thought he said ‘urine.’”

*Lestat and Marius at the former’s shirtless billboard* “They’re at his crotch.”

Marius: “You’ve awakened an old friend.” “Elvis?”

“They all look so silly.” “I can’t take you to an early 2000s S&M club because we’d start laughing and they’d kick us out.”

*Lestat and Akasha rocket off into the sky* “Marius is jealous.”

“Who goes to bed-?” “Who goes to bed in tight leather pants? That can’t be comfortable.”

*Lestat stares at all the dead bodies around the pool* “Must have been some party.”

“So [Akasha]’s like a groupie?” “She’s the first vampire.” “But she only likes him because of his music.” “Okay.”

“They don’t even get names. They’re [just] Jesse’s weird family.”

Akasha: “You kill me, you kill yourselves.” “Well, at least [Lestat] can get a tan now.”

*Akasha turns to dust* “Does anyone know where the supply closet is?”

“This makes me not want to be a vampire.” “Yeah, the-” “They’re too petty.”

Also, birthday was good. Got some cool things:

Dinotopia Bix plush (Present to myself. Shoutout to @judge-m0rt1s for mentioning he saw it for $12 on eBay.)

“In Darkness We Grow” mushroom enamel pin

heart-shaped hairbrushes 

cranberry-colored hoodie (I’ve been painting my nails the same color. Been on a red violet kick lately. It’s the best juice. I like blending cranberries with honey and mylk.)

black cross earrings

Song of the day: “Linger” by the Cranberries. 

[morganlepelican]

Does anyone have links to watch the new tv show Interview with a Vampire, please? I'm dying to see it! 🙏 🧛‍♂️

[questionablespecies]

Lol I'm sorry but this Interview with a Vampire show definitely comes off like a fanfiction and should've been like a fifty shades situation where someone wanted to make their own narrative with their own twist in it and called it The Dark Gift and ran with that - cuz this is not what Anne Rice wrote at all lol idk what this is

The only props that can give to it is that it leans into them being lovers more which I definitely approve of but let's not call it an interview with a vampire cause you literally had to restructure entire characters to make this make sense lol

Also let me not go into the repeated narrative of race bending a white character Black just for the sake of it 😐 cause for Louis's case, who was literally a slave owner and acquired his family fortune FROM slaves, you cannot race bend this one without changing the ENTIRE story.

Racebending only works when the race has literally no bearing on the character - as in their culture is not integral to the story being told.

And I'm tired of them changing characters into Black people without fully recognizing the implications of it within the story (Anne Boleyn and now Louis and Claudia - who look like Lestat's slaves now)

[tea-withnofixinsplease]

VAMPIRE BOYFRIENDS DAY

VAMPIRE BOYFRIENDS DAY

VAMPIRE BOYFRIENDS DAY

[cruelnemothesis]

[darklinaforever]

SHIPS OF THE YEAR !

Is it me, or is this year the year of ships toxic ?

[volixia669]

lol, it’s so funny being on twitter and watching people learn that the Vamps in Vampire chronicles are horrible people.

Like, if you think the What We Do In The Shadows vamps have NOTHING on the fucked up assholes that make up Vampire Chronicles.

Like yep. Louis and Lestat are in an abusive relationship where they’re both abusive to each other. Lestat is a selfish arse, and Louis can’t help provoking him.

Claudia is a murderous little shit and also WHY you’re not supposed to turn children into vampires.

Madeleine...Okay, she’s kinda just THERE and I’m curious if the show makes her less of a lamp post.

Armand...Oh Armand.

Marius is somehow worse than all of the above.

Lestat’s mother, Gabrielle, also commits crimes and also there’s some consensual incest between Lestat and Gabrielle, though also if I recall correctly Gabrielle coerced Lestat into making her a vampire (which everyone, let’s remember that Vampire Chronicles vamps run off the whole blood drinking is horny thing) so at least you know where Lestat gets it from.

And this is just what I remember off the top of my head after last reading the books four years ago.

[lonelybitchlolz]

okay but since rashid has been there the entire time and louis doesn’t share as much love he really does have for lestat, imagine how many cute scenes we missed out on, when they for late night strolls in the streets or to the library, coffin scenes, them buying cloths together…

[antlerclxws]

[wolfythewitch]

Offer me that deathless death

Oh, good God, let me give you my life