#merde'em

[firespawn]

Star Charts of Théâtre des Vampires (1945)

ARMAND - CHART REFERENCES The Devil - (a Capricorn in tarot) Charles Manson - (a cult leader) Shah Ruk Khan - (an Indian actor)

SANTIAGO - CHART REFERENCES Peter O'Toole - (theater star had a lot of sex) William Marshall - (was Othello and Dracula) Lilli - (Ben Daniels cat inspired him)

EGLÉE - CHART REFERENCES Jill Esmond - (cheat on by Laurence Olivier) Eva Green - (a hot French woman) Bettie Page - (a sexy pin up model)

CELESTE - CHART REFERENCES Vivien Leigh - (she seduced Laurence Oliver) Kristen Stewart - (sleep with men but is gay) Renée Adorée - (a French theater actress)

ESTELLE - CHART REFERENCES Edith Piaf - (a French singer) Lucille Ball - (a ginger actress) Marlene Dietrich - (a bisexual star)

GUSTAVE - CHART REFERENCES Louis Garrel - (a French actor) Luigi Mangione - (a hot criminal) Darren Criss - (a theater actor)

BASILIC - CHART REFERENCES Charlie Chaplin - (mustache actor) Groucho Marx - (mustache comedian) Freddie Mercury - (mustache singer)

PLANCHE - CHART REFERENCES Shaquille O'Neal - (a black athlete) Louis Armstrong - (a black musician) Biggie Smalls - (a black rapper)

MERDE'EM - CHART REFERENCES Gaspard Ulliel - (a French actor) Maxence Danet-Fauvel - (a French model) Ricky Nelson - (a hot singer)

ROMAINE - CHART REFERENCES Thorbjørn Harr - (foreign actor) Eugène Bertrand - (French stage manager) Bob Fosse - (American stage manager)

TUAN PHAM - CHART REFERENCES Atsushi Sakurai - (Asian star) Alexander Wang - (Asian artist) Don Henrie - (a "vampire")

QUANG PHAM - CHART REFERENCES Jackie Chan - (Asian movie actor) Park In-hwan - (Asian TV actor) Philip Ahn - (Asian theater actor)

HANS LUCHENBAUM - CHART REFERENCES Ludwig van Beethoven - (German pianist) Karl Lagerfeld - (German fashion designer) Pierre Bergé - (lover of Yves Saint Laurent)

SAM BARCLAY - CHART REFERENCES Samuel Beckett - (an Irish writer) Albert Camus - (a French writer) Boy George - (DJ)

CLAUDIA - CHART REFERENCES Michele Rice - (daughter of Anne Rice) Bailey Bass - (season 1 Claudia) Delainey Hayles - (new Claudia)

[iwtv-az-hours]

Upcoming music video, collab with Assad Zaman

*I spoke to Matěj Metoděj Štrunc (Merde'em in Théâtre des Vampires) after a concert, most info is here + I'm adding some of the info into separate posts*

Regarding the teased new music video - Assad is not acting in it, he is the DIRECTOR!

We heard two songs from the upcoming album at the concert, sadly not this one. But the single Černé oči (Black eyes) should be out on March 28th, with the MV coming out the following week.

I first assumed AZ would be acting, because another director who worked with Matěj in the past was on the set too – but apparently on this project he was working the camera.

(MMŠ also mentioned he last spoke with Assad two weeks ago, implying that's when they worked on the video)

[mitzvahmelting]

an overview of the Théâtre des Vampires coven according to show canon (to the best of my knowledge)

section 1: the core acting company

apologies for shitty screenshots i made this on the fly and i could not be fucked to get high quality screencaps

Gustave - Currently part of the core acting company, he was a member of the coven since at least before Lestat's arrival, he's in those early scenes.

Celeste (pictured here with Santiago) - Currently part of the core acting company, was also a member of the coven in those early scenes. She and Gustave were seen together having most of the lines in those scenes representing the grub coven.

Estelle - here seen in both recognizable outfits for her. Currently part of the core acting company, her maker is Celeste.

I'm unclear on when Estelle was turned. I'm... pretty sure she's not in the scenes with the grub vampires, but it's possible that this is her handing out flyers for the first edition of the Theatre des Vampires... what do you think? Same lady? 👇

If that's her, then that might imply that Celeste turned her at some point between the dissolution of the grub coven and the reestablishment of the Theater coven, which would make sense in my opinion since I can't picture Armand actually approving for Celeste to turn someone

The final member of the core acting company is Santiago, but I'm skipping him because he's a main character so you already know him.

section 2: the orchestra

Basilic - part of the orchestra, Basilic was also a member of the grub coven.

He's seen in that flashback ☝ playing an instrument which @bloodripelives identified as potentially a chalumeau. (i spent 3 months calling this guy merde'em by mistake, fuck me)

Here's the rest of the orchestra. From left to right: Merde'em, Basilic, Planche.

Don't ask me what instruments they play, I didn't try that hard but I'm sure you could check if you watched the B-roll hard enough.

Merde'em and Planche were both turned by Basilic at some point - presumably Basilic could have gotten approval from Armand to turn people because they needed an orchestra. I feel like that would be a sufficient reason for Armand to consent, especially if Lestat was co-leading the coven at the time. Also Nicky was probably around but I'm ignoring him because he's dead by now so you don't have to try to spot him in the 1940s coven scenes.

Don't ask me why Merde'em is literally named "shittem," your guess is as good as mine.

Planche has a good relationship with Eglee - we see him squeezing her shoulder to comfort her during the dinner scene at the restaurant. Speaking of, let's talk about her and everyone else.

section 3: everyone else

Eglee - Front of house. Because we see humans handling the ticket counter when Louis and Claudia arrive, that means that Eglee must be the manager of all the ticket counter staff and ushers.

actually on second thought i think the guy who louis and claudia see at the ticket counter with the fake fangs might actually have been Sam? idk, worth a look. Either way, front of house is Eglee's purview.

We see her sexually ride Santiago's motorcycle as well as suck him off in the lair.

During the 2x04 "Lulu Dress" confrontation between Armand and Claudia, Santiago jumps to Claudia's defense and criticizes Armand. At this point in time, Celeste throws her support behind Santiago and also verbally criticizes Armand, which Santiago appreciates.

Seeing Celeste unexpectedly throw her support behind Santiago (and knowing that Celeste and Santiago have had an on-again-off-again thing for years), Eglee gets jealous and shouts "put your tits back in your bloomers, slut!" before attacking Celeste onstage, to Estelle's delighted shock.

then Eglee is later jealous and morose at the restaurant scene

Tuan (left, father) and Quang (right, son).

Tuan does the projections and works alone in the projection booth all show.

Quang is a swing actor, so he's sometimes on stage and presumably serves as an understudy for most of the male roles.

Because Quang "refused the dark gift until he was old enough to be on stage", we know that presumably Armand allowed Tuan and Quang to join the coven while Quang was still mortal. Which is fucking wild, but I won't be getting into that with more depth here.

Also, Tuan and Quang Pham are from Vietnam, which was called "French Indochina" at the time because colonization. We don't know when specifically they were invited into the coven, but that can give you a rough lower bound on the years. here's a map of the french conquest of vietnam by years, from the french indochina wikipedia page.

the upper bound would probably be the 1900s? because they would have to have been brought into the coven 1. before santiago, and 2. long enough before santiago that Quang had time to grow up and be turned before Santiago was turned.

Romaine - stage manager. No idea when he was turned or brought in. From his behavior in the scene with the restaurant, we can see that he's tasked with giving Armand updates and reports about what's going on with the coven. He's a snitch.

He's also the one who interrupts Armand during the gallery scene, after he finished telling Louis about Amadeo. Romaine phones in on the vamp wifi and tells Armand that Claudia is at Madeleine's atelier. (Or possibly Romaine just tells him "there's a body rotting on the green room floor" and Armand tracks down Claudia himself). Either way: Romaine's a snitch.

Samuel "Sam" Barclay - a nod to real life playwright Samuel Beckett. Armand refers to him as the "playwright in residence" so personally i want to headcanon that he's not actually a part of the coven, though I have no evidence to support that.

He's basically a main character so I'm not gonna talk about him much more here, but like. I'm interested to see what they do with him. We don't know when he was turned, we don't know who turned him, we don't know how old he is. We do know that he got away from Louis' rampage and became a friend of the Talamasca. We also do know that he's a DJ in 2022 and wears a helmet when he performs.

Center, here, is Hans Luchenbaum, the costume designer. We don't really know much more about him, except that he's most often referred to as Luchenbaum, and he sounds a little more german than french? idk.

That's all folks! <3 hope that was helpful. if i got anything wrong, which i probably did, go ahead and tell me please. also go read my fics. eventually i'll post the fucking coven fic on there.

[murfpersonalblog]

IWTV S2 - Fave Theatre Coven Member

[thanklessindubai]

"The suits are so we don't get in the car smelling like cats. Louis will know. He eats cats. And he knows that I don't. This place must be kept a secret. If Louis finds out about it..."

...

What? What would he really do if he found out Armand was hiding a PS5, a Christmas tree, and a dozen kittens?

He had moved his hangers-on to their food dishes and petted each of them as if the fairness of it was terribly important.

"Anyway. These are my children; Celeste, Estelle, Santiago, Gustave, Eglee, Romaine, Luchenbaum, Basilic, Merde'em, Tuan, Quang, and Planche. My little coven."

...Oh.

She seemed too enchanted by the surroundings to understand what Armand was speaking to Tony about or...What the purpose was.

Her train of thought was interrupted by thw track suit given to her.

"What is this for?" She asked, raising an eyebrow. "Loungewear?"

Cats...so many cats to give attention to.

Esha's fingers opened and shut several times, resisting the urge to touch the cats. He had not given her permission yet.

For a moment, she stood, watching him before nodding at the request he made about keeping quiet before making her way to change into another room.

It was comfortable and warm...Just how she likes her track suits to fit, slowly coming out to see what he possibly had in store for her.

[iwtv-az-hours]

Extra info on Assad & current projects

*I spoke to Matěj Metoděj Štrunc (Merde'em in Théâtre des Vampires) after a concert, most info is here + I'm adding some of the info into separate posts*

Chatted with Matěj, some things about Assad Zaman & his new work were mentioned, see below the break

A) here's info on the future of The Fox and the Grapes and Matěj Štrunc's new music video Assad directed

B) Now, here’s a little info that probably shouldn’t be spread much, so please be very civil about this 🙏 I will try to put it as vaguely as possible:

Assad's been focusing on some scriptwriting lately. BUT! But, Matěj immediately added – we need to keep in mind how writing scripts work (for each 10 you write, 9 never get used). So there’s really no guarantee this project will actually get picked up and finalised.

C) and I was considering whether to include this - cause I don't want it to be the thing people focus on, I truly don't wanna spread unnecessary negativity

There was a little quote (paraphrased here):

'..Assad doesn't spend much time on IG, he said the fandom frightens him a bit sometimes with how they would always demand everything from him immediately..' He said that with how introverted AZ is, he probably finds it overwhelming at times.

(for context, we were discussing something with Matěj and I mentioned I'd dm him abt it, but through the noise of the band packing gear he misunderstood me for a sec and thought I said I would dm Assad... We cleared that up immediatelly ofc, but then he was like, Anyway, and added this ↑)

So this just to say, yk, don’t go around DMing and @-ing Assad...

..Or asking more about the stuff I shared here from either AZ or Matěj 🙏You can turn to me if there’s some burning questions ;)

[iwtv-az-hours]

The Fox and the Grapes - update

*I spoke to Matěj Metoděj Štrunc (Merde'em in Théâtre des Vampires) after a concert, most info is here + I'm adding some of the info into separate posts*

Regarding the short film The Fox and the Grapes (producer/writer/director Assad Zaman, music by M.Štrunc):

Apparently, the distribution company is working to find place for it at film festivals - so it could be screened at some of them "either this summer, but more probably the following one"

Please keep in mind, he has this info 2nd hand, I’m telling you 3rd hand. Chinese whispers.

But Matěj added, that it actually was thanks to working on this project that they got to bond closer and strike up a friendship :)

[iwtv-az-hours]

So I've been to Matěj Metoděj Štrunc’s show on 21. March 2025 and I ended up having a nice lenghty chat with him backstage!

We've been discussing his music, but also his other work and iwtv.

I'll pick some tidbits y'all might find relevant (such as Merde'em's backstory, his s2 filming impressions, some info on his projects with Assad, etc.) ⬇️

Gotta start by saying his music is amazing (you should check him out!), really a musician's musician. I had such a blast at the concert! All the musicians are ridiculously talented, and they were also all darlings off stage. Much respect for Matěj's work + he's really sweet and lovely to talk to

On work with Assad

Okay, if you're only here for this, here's separate posts about the New music video, news on The Fox and the Grapes, and some extra bits about Assad and his work.

Read further for more general vampire shananigans!

Season 2 filming

Matěj laughed that The One resounding memory about the shoot were the contact lenses and what a pain they were.

4 days a week they‘d arrive at 5, at 7 the contacts would go in and they stayed in for a 10+ hour shoot.

A few hours in, they had to have a lady running around dripping artificial tears into everyone’s eyes!

And because the contacts were coloured, he often found it difficult to see anything at all through them.

He actually intended to read the IWTV book on set, but found out he can’t – he couldn’t see the pages properly!

Merde’em ’s backstory

I hope I recalled it correctly 😭

He’s the youngest of the musician vampires - oldest Basilic (from og coven) was tasked with recruiting a band for the Théâtre. 1st to be turned was Planche, then Merde’em.

He used to be an army musician. The vampires heard him play and liked it, so they caught him one night drunk on his way from a pub. They gave him a choice to join the Théâtre as a vamp and he agreed.

They also had roles – Basilic would be the band leader, Merde’em wrote all the music, and Planche... Planche played drums.

Matěj said he couldn't properly recall the backstories of other TdV vamps - each actor received an email with their short backstory, but only their own!

He enthusiastically said how „really all the actors on the set were so great, and they were all friendly and got along very well.“

I basically told him I’d be excited to hear anything about the characters that didn’t get a chance to shine through – cause they spent months living with these roles and what ends up on the show is a few glances. He immediatelly agreed that that’s what it’s like from their perspective as actors too, they put a lot of work into it, but never know which little bits the audience actually end up seeing.

He looked very happy and willing to talk about the filming and the character, but struggled to think of what more he could tell me, that there isn‘t much 😁

Small disclaimer

This conversation took place in Czech, I'm translating it to EN. Band was dismanteling instruments nearby, so here-and-there it was hard to hear one another. Trying my best here to summarize what I heard, but there might be little details I got slightly wrong. Also, obvsly I'm leaving some bits out, either cause they're not really iwtv related, or I'm trying to be respectful with what was shared with me.

To sum up

Three separate band members approached me to compliment my boots, 10/10 stellar evening, would do again!

And honestly, I can't wait for more Lidověk shows and the new album!

(post also on X, bsky)

[notachair]

I always thought it was the third coven member guy but NOPE he's on the other side of nicolas SO- We actually got all five of them!

Edit: Basilic, not Merde'em

This is the only moment (2x03 No Pain) where we see Armand feeding on a human!! It took me a while to pause the video and to be sure it was him but I finally did it and we see his face.

[iwtv-az-hours]

We'll have a fang gang within a fang gang!

Also ma boi Matěj's vampire name being Merde'Em is the funniest thing ever to me

[Article on IWTV S2 costumes here]

[minaharkerdailymirror]

If anyone could describe her relationship with Armand they would choose 'complicated'. She was not drawn to him for his looks, she was not drawn to him for his authority. It wasn't so easy as 'an upstart aiming high and should know her place'. She'd liked him. It felt like she was talking to another adult when she talked to him. He drove her mad sometimes with his own philosophy and his own disregard for life. But he was a vampire.

He'd kept her safe.

It played in her mind over and over since she'd been turned. She'd felt guilty when she left the way she did when she was human. She shouldn't. They both knew deep down it would always end badly. But she still felt like she'd done wrong and when she was turned and she was trying to make sense of what happened...he was the one she thought about.

Yes, mostly it was 'I hope Armand doesn't see me like this' but she'd still chased that man into France anyway.

A perfect excuse to try and make it right.

And now she was here, laying out how she felt to him. She was no fool. She knew even if he said 'yes' they still had a long way to go before they could comfortably call themselves companions. But even so....

"I should wish that...," the words stuck in her throat and she cleared it. She had no problem telling him anything else when it was just them. Why was this causing her such pause? "I wish to be companions some day."

When he made his contact with her hand, chills ran up her arm and to the base of her skull, If he was listening he might hear her breathing change. She instinctively moved closer to him, holding his gaze.

She could make it work with the others; Talk fashion with Eglee and let her finally do Mina's hair. She could help Romaine with props, sew with Luchenbaum and talk German with him as her father taughther, she could talk plays with Sam. She could learn to play instruments with Baasilic, Planche and Merde'em. Maybe even join them with a piano if they had one. She still remembered how to play. She could learn to speak a whole new langauge with the Phams and if Armand wasn't interested then she'd be making eyes at Gustav.

Celeste and Santiago wanted nothing to do with her...and Estelle was pleasant enough but she followed Celeste wherever she went.

but if Armand didn't return her affections, and had no intention of seeing a future with her, would any of that be enough?

X

@minaharkerdailymirror

He had no cause to harm her now that she was one of them and she hadn't broken any of the laws. If any offence had been committed, it had been by the London coven and the offence had been against Mina herself, but it was an unfortunate tale repeating itself among their kind. Many had been brought into the blood against their will and Armand knee there was no world where Mina would have chosen to become one of them. Even now, when there weren't any real barriers in place, she hesitated in joining the coven. He had wondered why but had respected her enough to let her present the answer to that question herself and, she had done so. It shouldn't have been unexpected and yet it did give him pause. That was her reluctance, that was what was preventing her from joining them.

"What future would you wish for Mina?" Armand had not foreseen any specific future for them because their association hadn't reached that point. She had been attractive to him, it was why he had broken the laws that he still enforced to keep her around, and it was evident that their positions had changed and there was a possibility for more. Could she be as his Bianca had been to him once? He reached out, gently stroking a finger along the back of her hand.