#nosferatu of the east

[zzzaturation]

critters for sale i love you

[mifunebooty]

Nosferatu 2024 rocks my balls off

[l0vefreak]

In all seriousness nosferatu shouldn’t get any flowers for its depiction of the roma. The vampire as a literary genre is heavily influenced by British xenophobia and the small and stereotyped role of Roma in that literature is perhaps one of the most period consistent aesthetics of the 2024 movie. It is also something that is intrinsic to the fearmongering of the other that popularized and relied on depictions of the type in this film to instill horror in its repressed English audience. That mode sees continued use in this movie.

[caintooth]

the death of media literacy genuinely pains me.

Nosferatu (2024) not only can be, but SHOULD BE interpreted as being about many different topics at the same time, including but not limited to: romance, love, abuse, grooming, incest, mental illness, disability, chronic illness, eroticism, disgust, sensuality, queerness, capitalism, class, misogyny, white fears of the Middle East, pandemics, greed, lust, kink, fate, self-determination of destiny, god and faith, sacrifice, higher purpose, etc etc etc.

Nuance exists, and it especially exists in art, and it ESPECIALLY exists in gothic horror. I am begging you people to stop seeing everything so goddamn black and white.

I’ll write a longer post when I’m more awake but for now let me just say, I am frustrated and angry and can’t wait to see the movie again today lmao.

[saintatreidess]

(MINOR) SPOILERS FOR BOTH NOSFERATU (2024) & THE NOVEL DRACULA AHEAD!

modernity in nosferatu (2024) & dracula

it’s been almost 24 hours since i saw robert eggers’ nosferatu and i’m still in shock by how well crafted this film is. all my expectations for a dracula adaptation have been met. it’s obviously not a faithful adaptation of the novel. but we���ve seen that even adaptations that claim faithfulness end up fumbling what the story is about (cough, cough, bram stoker’s dracula (1992)). so, with that in mind, i think it’s better for a movie to do its own thing as long as it includes the themes at the core of dracula. and this is what nosferatu (2024) does really well.

what i want to talk about here is the topic of modernity in the story. it’s a central theme in the novel. there are a lot of references to late 19th century technological & scientific innovation. the count dracula is wary of modernity. he doesn’t understand it so he almost fears it. there is an opposition between modernity and old/paganism. this opposition can also be interpreted as "west v east".

this is referenced a lot in robert eggers’ nosferatu. when thomas hutter arrives at count orlok’s castle he asks his host about the local population’s superstitions. this angers the count who calls said superstitions idiotic (or something like this, i don’t remember the exact quote). obviously in the movie the main reason orlok goes to the west (germany in the movie, england in the novel) is to get to ellen. but there’s another reason, which is that in the 19th century western world (at least in the cities) pagan beliefs are practically gone. it’s a "modern" world in which people are no longer superstitious. they don’t believe in the supernatural, in vampires.

in his home country, orlok is threatened by pagan beliefs. by moving west, he can claim victims and get away with it because he’s protected by the upholding of modern science and rational thinking, which replaced superstition long ago. in the movie, the germans think that the doings of orlok are the plague. the existence of a blood-thirsty demon is ridiculous to them. this idea is represented by the character of herr harding (aaron taylor-johnson), whose rational mind ends up costing him the loss of his family and his own life.

that being said, in the novel, what ends up causing count dracula’s downfall is his weariness of modernity that i mentioned above. he uses "archaic" means of transportation to escape the hunting team made of van helsing, dr seward, mina & jonathan harker etc. he travels by sail instead of steamboat, carriage instead of steam train, the list goes on. but what allows the count’s foes to defeat him is in fact the belief that modernity/science and superstition are complementary and not opposite. van helsing uses both a scientific and pagan approach to eventually kill the vampire. so, don’t get it twisted, the novel doesn’t try to say that "modernity = good & superstition = bad" or vice versa. rather i think it offers a more nuanced take, suggesting that one doesn’t necessarily have to cancel out the other.

gif credits: junkfoodcinemas

[gothhabiba]

Nosferatu (2024)

I'll tell you right now that I'm going to call everyone by their Dracula names because I'm sorry but I don't know the proper ones

The camera angle when the first Germany part of the movie opens! you're so in the streets, so in the crowds. idk if that's the cinematography or just that I haven't seen a film on such a large screen in a long time?

The scenes with Count Orlac in the castle and how civil he is in his speech (demanding to be addressed by his proper title; forbidding Jonathan to leave but saying "you will stay as I advise," not e.g. "as I command"), and how thin but impenetrable that veneer of civility is. For "civility" read here all of its implications of "civilisation"

The first scene of the ship being in perfect profile, sailing on a sunny sea with picturesque clouds in the background, just like a painting!! like an Age of Sail painting, and all the things about aesthetics, colonialism, depiction-as-claiming-of-ownership, that that implies.

And then the next time you see the ship, it's storming, the camera pans in from over the stern and forward, the ship is rocking, it's much more down in it, the sunny idealism of imperialist fortune-making brought down to its gritty reality

The East As Contagion (free square)

Major missed opportunity to make the ship more explicitly imperialism-flavoured

Female Sexuality As Dangerous And Inviting Contagion (free square)

Lucy and Arthur already being married and having children, specifically her being pregnant again, Lucy and Arthur as "heterofuture" (after @metamatar), reproductive futurity, him being a shipman, their money being conspicuous and being from shipping--

then Mina having one of her episodes just as they're about to kiss, in the water, dress pulled up, legs open to the water (to the Contagion From The East), convulsing--! Inappropriate female sexuality (inadequately contained, inadequately future-oriented, the West as future, heterosexuality as future, female sequestration in the home to raise children who are also appropriately heterosexual as futurity) and how inappropriate female sexuality interrupts the heterofuture that Lucy & Arthur's almost-kiss represents.

Lucy being very light in colouring and lit so as to emphasise that fact, obsessively dressed in white and placed in all-white rooms, versus Mina being dark in colouring (I mean of hair & eyes) and dress, reproductive futurity as whiteness

The Insane Asylum piquing itself as morally upright, scientific, humane, modern, future-oriented institution; the doctor's "don't lock him [Renfield] up, we don't do that here"--and then of course he stays locked up and restrained, and more so than he was before the doctor spoke to him (so gently and kindly and civilly)

Renfield caressing a bird Dracula had given him and saying "master likes the pretty ones," Mina as bird, birds in cages as metaphor for Victorian womanhood and sequestration within the home, Jonathan saying immediately when the men plan to go hunt Dracula down that Mina isn't going

Something about the drunk (?) man gently banging his head against a wall whom they have to pass to get to Van Helsing's, and this coming on the heels of the scene in the asylum

Mina becoming poorly specifically when Jonathan leaves, her saying that she's unwell because he's gone, Lucy saying "and Jonathan leaving caused your..." and Mina finishing "melancholy." When, like, obviously what's being elided here is the idea that Mina is unwell because she's sexually unfulfilled, the Victorian idea that once a woman has sex she has to continue to or she'll become physically and mentally unwell--a series of ideas you may be most familiar with under the heading of "hysteria."

Mina talking about her "epilepsies," insert everything about Victorian medical science versus popular culture and how ambivalently epilepsy was treated as effectively demonic and uncontrollable on the one hand, or subjected to modernising theories of disease (including and especially mental illness) on the other hand--

which, obviously, the "science versus popular superstition" is a significant part of what animates this. I think they brought this out very well & maybe even a little too explicitly

The fact that it is Germany's (England's) "modern" and "scientific" ideas that allowed this to happen, when Nosferatu had grown weak in Transylvania because of the superstitions of the local populace and especially the "g*psies"--I have to think about it more but there's a countercurrent in there somewhere--expressing anxiety not necessarily on behalf of, but about, "Western" modernity and heterofuturity

That Mina x Jonathan sex scene was so good even & especially because of the demonic possession / doing-it-to-prove-a-point thing. they're so endlessly devoted to one another and I love them so much

Needed an intermission. really really needed an intermission

Just the sexiest Dracula adaptation ever. horniest by far, by far. yes, even including that other one, which really wasn't sexy or horny at all imo.

Whoever was involved in making this movie is very, very familiar with Victorian anxieties and motivations and rhetoric and very, very psychosexually disturbed. perfection

My girlfriend complained that all the sex was missionary-style but I think that worked perfectly. For one thing, think of "missionary" and all the colonial implications there. The implications of heterosexual reproduction specifically within marriage that it carries. Also the implications of domination that come with being physically on top of someone, and the fact that the way Nosferatu feeds on Jonathan bears close resemblance to the way he feeds on & has sex with Mina--

then Nosferatu apparently telling Mina that Jonathan was "pathetic" and "weak" and "womanish"--!!!!!!! And the image of spread legs (recall Mina's scene in the water, also Lucy after her death) as surrender. If all the sex and quasi-sex scenes weren't so formulaically heterosexual in this particular way, these parallels wouldn't work as well.

And speaking of Jonathan, it's also interesting that his seduction-by-three-brides-of-Dracula thing is cut out to emphasise instead Mina's seduction by Dracula. We don't get any of that reference to his "indiscretion" (with Mina holding his hand sympathetically, forgiving, perfect angelic Victorian wife) that we get in 1992.

Stupid ending. there is never a good or poetic or touching reason to kill the woman at the ending of a movie. it's always stupid. like I get that she sacrificed herself to save everyone and took agency by reversing things so that inside, within the home, within the bed was where the war was fought, and outside, with the men was just a diversion and I get that this is an intentional subversion of the Angel-in-the-Home bird-in-a-cage situation. I still think it's stupid.

When Jonathan kisses Mina's hand as she's naked, covered in blood, legs spread, covered by the body of Nosferatu, and he pulls away, and he's so covered in tears and snot and saliva and all those liquids make so many stringy trails in the backlit space between her hand and his face as he pulls away. so so so good.

the sound design was incredible

[romanceyourdemons]

nosferatu (2024) is a lovely and often interesting film, but it does have a number of flaws, not least that i do not feel it truly is a nosferatu film. as is expected of robert eggers, it has lovely period-accurate sets captured in gorgeous lineal framing reminiscent of silent film and shot through with numerous references to classic film from faust (1924) to beauty and the beast (1946), and the presence of the supernatural is wonderfully visceral. and yet eggers, who usually puts so much energy into the realism of dialogue and period in his film, falls flat in this one—between the actors’ strained british accents and a narrative that does not engage at all with the culture and fears of its ostensibly german setting, the film seemed to be just another dracula story set in london. of course, what eggers really wants in the nosferatu conceit that he cannot get in a more typical story is the grand conclusion where a maiden willingly offers herself to the beast, thereby defeating him. the engine of fear in this film is the fear of losing control over your mind, losing control over your sexuality, and being compelled to obey; although i felt that the theme of sex, like the german setting, fell somewhat flat through extensive telling and not showing, i cannot deny that the revamped bride of dracula mina harkness plot gave admirable weight to the conclusion, the ultimate act of taking control over one’s sexuality. another victim of telling and not showing was the supposed modernity and enlightenment of europe, which was referenced ad nauseum but never shown in its medieval-looking town—putting strain on the emotional delivery of its clear and unavoidably orientalist narrative of the East as a nightmare den of pagan practices, disease, and unrestrained sexuality that cannot help but desire to spread its unholy influence over the enlightened West through the vector of greedy men and sexual women. at least it did make an effort to reframe the roma as vampire hunters rather than orlok’s unthinking slaves, and at least there were some cool shadow-based visuals that we got out of it. all things told, nosferatu (2024) has some very good visuals and very interesting concepts that it seeks to work with, but unfortunately, through excessive seeking and little accomplishing it falls flat

[zzzaturation]

squid game au and stupids......new sonoshee game next year.....so chill about it all

[mysteryn0te]

Regulus Arcturus Black

The World at its Beginning, Dustin Pearson / For Women Who Are Difficult to Love, Warsan Shire / East of Eden, John Steinbeck / ? / Nosferatu / Dear poets, it's time to rewrite Icarus / Three Poems, Nancy Kuhl

[cafeleningrad]

just watched Nosferatu [Spoilers ahead! Press "J" on the keyboars if you want to skip]

Honestly, I seriously don't mind the mustache. The entire wardrobe and hair is a well researched visual hint that Orlock is indeed centuries too old to be alive. His attire is one of Hungarian (depends on which time he died exactly, the Hungarians and Romanians war fighting bitterly over exactly these regions) counts from the 16th century.

Speaking of which: Nice nod to the original Nosferatu! The script writer, Henrik Galeen, tried to avoid full-on copyright infringement of "Dracula", so he switched the setting from Romania to Hungary. So Orlock was a Hungarian count in the Kaparta region which was then by 1838 Romanian.

I don't know why the Orthodox monastry scene made me so happy but it was some extra attention spent on an Orthdox setting.

They even had a schema-nun!

I already hard what... takes are going around. However I really appreciate Mr. Eggers for digging into the variety that the folkloric and the literary Vampire represents.

Gosh, I hope the Anglosphere will shut up one day how the only vampire could only ever be about "sexuality". That Mormon-sexfantasy teenage book really screwed the anglos literary more than expected. (That or you have a rip-off alien variant the Mr.President can maul down like earnest-hardworking G.I.'Murican he is. Gosh, I hate the 2010s US Vampire.)

Eggers went more into the fantastical than his previous more grounded period dramas. Still, I really like the way he depicted the relationship Friedrich and Thomas had with woman in their lives respectively. The Biedermeier era in post-Vienna-Congress Germany was a horrible time and place to be a woman. Except for Frantz, all them have trouble and even are unwilling to listen to Ellen. At least until Thomas himself is subject to Orlock's violence.

Still, even though Friedrich could've been an easy stand-in for the cartoonish upper middle class Biedermeier guy with burgeois home and values, it's deeply lovely to see how earnestly he loves the women in his life. Not as property of part of the Biedermeier family but for themselves. He's genuinely affectionate to Anna, and will listen to her persuasion for Ellen's sake. They're sexual desire is very much mutual, so is their will to have children. Friedrich loves his daughters in the same way. He will ease the worries and stay with Clara and Louise when they're scared. Not only to be the fun dad to scare away monsters but also when they're genuinely worried he holds them close. The death of his wife, and daughters lets his grief spiral into necrophilia. Not merely out of madness but because them not living is the end of his life. I don't know, maybe it's a general lack of genuine love between men and women (romatic or not) depicted on screen making me gush so much. Or I think Eggers really nailed the sentiment how all the destruction Orlock harbrings, are deeply tragic as Orlock can just consume but not share, even less so love.

Another really lovely nod to the original "Nosferatu": In 1922, the setting of Wisborg was filmed in the Hanseatic city of Wismar in Northern-East-Germany. In 1838 the city would've been under Swedish siege. Eggers could've chosen any Hanseatic city but he payed tribute to the original movie's setting. So even the city soldier's uniforms are period and place place appropriately Swedish.

Next to me sat an entire row of gorgeous goth girls who swooned at every cat appearing on screen. Rightfully so. At the end of the movie they discussed that their lover should kiss them when become a gorgeous goth girl corpse. Semmelweis úr, please don't turn in your grave, it's just an aesthetic fantasy. (I helped my brother preapre for his pathology exam one hour before the movie... Please don't touch corpses with your bare skin.)

Of course, Eggers' brand has become thorough research. Yet it isn't out of vanity but out of genuine love, so the world is enriched with the little details, the micro-organisms that make the movie live.

Babelsberg era scare shadow! There's the famous Babelsberg scare shadow tribute! Robert, I love you for this!

2024 wasn't such a honourable horror year for Bill Skarsgård. This year bodes well for him though! (I always forget that he actually doesn't like horror.)

I really would like to know it Eggers bothered Skarsgard with Sweden-in-Wismar history facts.

Hollering at the credits when "adapted writings of "Dracula"" appeared. Florence Stoker's ghost shall not be wakened, it seems. ("Dracula" is in public domain nowdays any way, so one might as well be transparent about the ordeal.)

[likeadog]

i want to talk abt nosferatu but i feel under educated on the topic so i did what any normal individual does and purchased a copy of dracula annotated by a scholar focusing on the presentation of the dichotomy between East and West and the cultural signifiers utilized in the novel and how they relate to the culture of the time. i cant wait for it to get here. once thats here its over for you hoes

[thehollowprince]

I was cleaning out my desk the other day and came across some of my old character sheets for VAMPIRE: THE MASQUERADE and it took me back to my high school days when my friends and I came up with all of these ideas for a story that we never got to play.

So, in memory of my forgotten childhood...

Because Tumblr is weird and only gives you twelve options for these polls, the last three choices are Other. So, if you happen upon this poll and say, "Hey, why isn't (clan name) here?" That's why. So pick the Other option that works for you and leave a comment as to which one you picked (Caitiff, Thin-Blood, Salubri, etc.)

We also have the Kindred of the East (Kuei-Jin) and the African vampires, the Laibon, the latter of which has a number of Legacies to choose from.

I'd like to see the World of Darkness games get the same treatment that Dungeons & Dragons has gotten over the last decade.

[raisinchallah]

Hi I might have missed it but did you figure out your thoughts on nosferatu? I recently saw it and did not enjoy but wanted to hear your thoughts

hmm i wrote a few disconnected posts on it back like december 26th when i saw it i cannot say i have anything more coherent but i can explain further i think hmm as ive thought more about it and done a bit more reading and research and such...

one i think the biggest question i find so strange is why did it call itself nosferatu and not dracula when it remained i think deeply uninterested in like the unique adaptational choices of nosferatu that makes it different from dracula as well as i think the filmmaking history of nosferatu.. its a deeply unsubtle film it is afraid to leave questions unanswered ideas unexplained it seems to be aimed in some ways at people that find old movies hard to watch because everything isnt explained or their hand isnt held the whole way or the story is a bit weird and maybe more evocative rather than you know plot a leads to plot b type stuff which idk i think shows a level of discomfort with storytelling that leaves the film feeling quite empty while also i think this level of focus and interest on trying to make every part of the story explained and coherent it also is like totally unconcerned with exploring the racism and xenophobia of both dracula and nosferatu and in some ways kind of stitches the two together like nosferatu 1922 has little feeling of a hard divide between east and west it has no racist caricature romani figures that serve the evil count but they draw right back into the text of dracula here and make sure to bring this all back for some kind of what? eggers regularly has discussed how he wanted to return to older folklore or older conceptions of vampires for authenticity so what he now is portraying count orlok less tinged with 20th century antisemitic caricature (tho not totally eliminated) and instead pulling from the orientalism of polidaris the vampyre? why do we need this like i really do think there is a lot one could do if they had idk interest in this more complex legacy and well the regular tying of rise of disease and increased xenophobia are all things someone could make a quite interesting film about if one you know wasnt just saying lets recreate the xenophobia of dracula unquestioned over and over and over again to explore many of the underpinnings of the vampire....

another thing ive been ruminating on since watching it and reading more about the productions of both 1922 and 1979 nosferatu and like the history of this story is how theyre both shot on location in places that are like real this was a money saving move in 1922 but also something that now in our modern age that location shooting is viewed as more "authentic" or desirable leaves it feeling quite unique and ahead of its time in comparison to other famous early horror films something also engaged with by werner herzog and his stunning vista shots that leave the choice to shoot so much of the 2024 film in sets and miniatures in fake looking towns it looks more like tim burtonesque victoriana than anything real it loses a sense of place and i think leaves it feeling even more inexplicable when its like all these supposedly german characters speaking in their british accents on fake sets devotedly recreating portions of dracula left on the cutting room floor but also i dont feel like its saying anything like tipping its hat to the previous films we cannot make something that looks like that we shall try the higher budget studio style and idk i think the totally perfect set camera no hair out of place sets with no sense of an outside world really undermine the themes of plague and breakdown of order the sense of the end of the world

i remain totally mystified by the choices to be like this is ellens story but its like again the refusal to allow things to be idk subtle or whatever we get like yet another woman experiences hysteria while men just say really really obvious misogyny dialogue in case you didnt get it like who is this for... corset as a metaphor for men trying to control her? groundbreaking........... herzogs 1979 film frankly does far more interesting things making the film about ellen/lucy giving her agency but also completely trapped and that she literally has no other choice without all the useless men standing around wasting time the movie is simply too long and spends far far too much of it on random men standing around trying to explain things or saying misogynistic things dracula is a difficult novel to adapt since it has so so many different storylines and every adaptation makes different choices on what it is interested in for you know economy of time and all and you know i actually do think the choices made in nosferatu 1922 were all quite wise to boil things down to the bare essentials and honestly might be some of the best choices of any dracula adaptation and eggers again weirdly uninterested in adapting what makes nosferatu nosferatu and not dracula decided the film needed to bring back a glut of characters who try to be the power structures and the keepers of knowledge and though they are put there to fail to some degree and keep the final act of heroism to ellen and not the valiant vampire hunters of dracula it bloats the film with a bunch of people standing around exhaustively explaining the themes and meaning wasting my time and for all its supposed interest in ellens interiority and agency spending half the film where she is doing scenes from the exorcist but without the messed up makeup or having one hair out of place because she cant look bad for even one frame both the camera and characters are treating her as something to be looked at rather than understood or identified with the entire um sexual politics of the film well thats the part i understand the least ill be honest from the interviews and material around the film being like oh the final scene is romantic is kind of insane etc idk i am not really sure they added anything to their take on the vampire by making the blood drinking = sex/sexual assault metaphor so explicit and literal while idk i think having so little to say about that collapse of metaphor and simplifying of meaning... in general i am still mulling over the sexual politics and themes of this film but i think it was hmm not good most mystifying part is how ellens fits stop only when her husband is near like ok so is wandering womb theory real????

idk just in comparison to nosferatu 1979 which is interested i think in what makes nosferatu unique while also doing very much its own take on the story and playing with those themes in a far more deft manner especially i think making the vampire u know just some terrible german man acting as him with minimal prosthetics i think is perhaps the only way one can approach the original vampire designs reasonably but whatever idk if u will like the film or anything but could perhaps illuminate some things... also has a fantastic boat scene thats actually still steaming about it why were the boat scenes and the rats and the plague stuff so background like u dont even caaaaare whatever whatever ok sorry guys for making this so long <3 i love to be a hater

[la-femme-au-collier-vert]

A List of Works Influencing and Referenced by IWTV Season 1

Season 2 here, Season 3 here

Works Directly Referenced:

Marriage in a Free Society by Edward Carpenter

A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

Cheri by Collete

A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams

La Nausee by Jean-Paul Sartre (credit to @demonicdomarmand )

Complete Poetry of Emily Dickinson edited by Thomas H. Johnson*

Blue Book by Tom Anderson

The Book of Abramelin the Mage

Don Pasquale by Gaetano Donizetti with libretto by Giovanni Ruffini

Iolanta by Pyotr Tchaikovsky with libretto by Modest Tchaikovsky

Pelleas et Melisande by Claude Debussy

Epigraphes Antiques by Claude Debussy

Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992)

Nosferatu (1922)

The Graduate (1967)

Marie Antoinette (1938)

On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin

De Masticatione Mortuorum in Tumulis by Michael Ranft (1728)

Emily Post’s Etiquette

Bach’s Minuet in G Major (arranged as vampire minuet in G major)

Works Cited by the Writer’s Room as Influences:

Bourbon Street: A History by Richard Campanella (as it hardly mentions Storyville I think interested parties would be better served by additional titles if they want a complete history of New Orleans)

Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino (This was also adapted into an award winning opera)

poetry by Charles Simic (possibly A Wedding in Hell?)

poetry by Mark Strand (possibly Dark Harbour?)

As seen in Daniel’s apartment & quoted on his LinkedIn account:

The Savage Garden by Mark Mills credit to @speckled-jim

Midnight in Washington: How We Almost Lost Our Democracy and Still Could by Adam Schiff credit to @spreckled-jim

America and Dissent: Why America Suffers When Economics and Politics Collide by Alan S. Blinder credit to @speckled-jim

Dairy Queen Days by Robert Inman credit to @speckled-jim

Plan B 2.0: Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble by Lester R. Brown credit to @speckled-jim

Attila: the Judgement by William Napier credit to @speckled-jim

In A Heartbeat by Rosalind Noonan credit to @spreckled-jim

The Lost Recipe for Happiness by Barbara O'Neal credit to @speckled-jim

Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism" by Jacques Dupuis credit to @speckled-jim

Strawberry Hill: Horace Walpole's Gothic Castle by Anna Chalcraft & Judith Viscardi credit to @speckled-jim

Sailing to Byzantium by Yeats

The Circus Animal's Desertion by Yeats

The Second Coming by Yeats

Artworks referenced (much credit in this section to @iwtvfanevents and to @nicodelenfent )

Fall of The Rebel Angels by Peter Bruegel The Elder (1562)

The Storm on the Sea of Galilee by Rembrandt (1633)

Three Peaches on a Stone Plinth by Adriaen Coorte (1705)

Strawberries and Cream Raphaelle Peale, (1816) credit to @diasdelfeugo

Red Mullet and Eel by Edouard Manet (1864)

Starry Night by Edvard Munch (1893)

Self Portrait by Edvard Munch (1881)

Captain Percy Williams on a Favorite Irish Hunter by Samuel Sidney (1881)

Autumn at Arkville by Alexander H. Wyant 

Cumulus Clouds, East River by Robert Henri 

Mildred-O Hat by Robert Henri (Undated)

Ship in the Night James Gale Tyler (1870)

Bouquet in a Theater Box by Renoir (1871)

Berthe Morisot with a Fan by Édouard Manet (1872)

La Vierge D’aurore by Odilon Redon (1890) credit to @vampirepoem on twt

Still Life with Blue Vase and Mushrooms by Otto Sholderer (1891)

After the Bath: Woman Drying her Hair by Edgar Degas (1898)

Bust of a Woman with Her Left Hand on Her

Chin by Edgar Degas (1898) credit to @terrifique

Backstage at the Opera by Jean Beraud (1889)

Roman Bacchanal by Vasily Alexandrovich Kotarbiński (1898)

Dancers by Edgar Degas (1899)

Calling the Hounds Out of Cover by Haywood Hardy (1906)

Dolls by Witold Wojtkiewicz (1906) credit to @gyzeppelis on twt

Forty-two Kids by George Bellows (1907)

The Artist's Sister Melanie by Egon Schiele (1908)

Paddy Flannigan by George Bellows (1908)

Stag at Sharkey’s by George Bellows (1909)

The Lone Tenement by George Bellows (1909)

Ode to Flower After Anacreon by Auguste Renoir (1909) credit to @iwtvasart on twt

New York by George Bellows (1911)

Young Man kneeling before God the Father

Egon Schiele (1909)

Kneeling Girl with Spanish Skirt by Egon Schiele (1911)

Portrait of Erich Lederer by Egon Schiele (1912)

Krumau on the Molde by Egon Schiele (1912)

Weeping Nude by Edvard Munch (1913)

The Cliff Dwellers by George Bellows (1913)

Church in Stein on the Danube by Egon Schiele (1913)

Self Portrait in a Jerkin by Egon Schiele (1914)

The Kitten's Art Lesson by Henriette Ronner Knip credit to @terrifique

Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion by Francis Bacon (1944)

New York by Vivian Maier (1953)

Self Portrait by Vivian Maier (Undated)

Self Portrait by Vivian Maier (1954)

Slave Auction by Jean-Michelle Basquiat (1982)

(Untitled) photo of St. Paul Loading Docks by Bradley Olson (2015)

Transformation by Ron Bechet (2021)

(Untitled) sculpture in the shape of vines by Sadie Sheldon

(Untitled) Ceramic Totems by Julie Silvers (Undated)

Mother Daughter by Rahmon Oluganna

Twins I by Raymon Oluganna

@iwtvfanevents made a post of unidentified works here.

Works IWTV may be in conversation with (This is the most open to criticism and additions)

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, uncensored (There are two very different versions of this which exist today, as Harvard Press republished the unedited original with permission from the Wilde family.)

Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner

Warsan Shire for Beyoncé’s Lemonade

Faust: A Tragedy by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

La Morte Amoreuse by Theophile Gautier

Carmilla by Sheridan LeFanu

Maurice by E.M. Forster

Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison (credit to @johnlockdynamic )

1984 by George Orwell (credit to @savage-garden-nights for picking this up)

The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner

Gone With the Wind film (1939)

Hannibal (2013)

Beauty and the Beast by Gabrielle Suzanne de Villenueve

Music used in Season 1 collected by @greedandenby here

*if collected or in translation most of the best editions today would not have been available to the characters pre-1940. It’s possible Louis is meant to have read them in their original French in some cases, but it would provide for a different experience. Lydia Davis’ Madame Bovary, for example, attempts to replicate this.

** I've tagged and linked relevant excerpts under quote series as I've been working my way through the list.

[the-art-block]

Seeing your latest art of the nossies in the group new years picture reminded me of Wolf Mother (and her childe) as characters and now I'm DEEPLY interested in them as people and characters! I love their designs, just how much the curse affected them and am interested in how they fit into the Moonrise Nation story. (not that you have to reveal anything, of course!) Just admiring.

You're too sweet! YOU'RE TOO SWEET 🥺

These two have a lot of lore behind them (which I'm sure folks don't mind) so for the sake of brevity I'll try to keep it simple!

The Kindred population in the pre-colonial states was never that big, and it was kept in check by Kindred themselves - because the more of them that existed, the less food there'd be for the whole. These old laws regarding Kindred creation and conduct state that a Sire is responsible for their Childe for their whole unlife, and forbade any Kindred from having more than one living Childe at a time. Wolf Mother, original name lost to time, is a seven century old Nosferatu that was Embraced in the St. Lawrence River Valley for the crime of sabotaging the hunting grounds of another tribe in the locality.

Wolf Son, going by the name Jack Skinner modern-day, was Embraced 600 years ago by Wolf Mother for the crime of banditry. Probably like most Embraces, the relationship between them started out strained and unfriendly. Getting Embraced in the old tribe days was definitely a form of capital punishment and not something anyone really wanted. This of course is doubly true for an Embrace via Nosferatu, and the man that became Wolf Son took a long time to settle into his fate as a hideous living omen. When he did manage to overcome his grief and horror, he became a proper student to Wolf Mother and served alongside her in the assigned role of the Promiskeepers (The colloquial name for the Nos at the time) - which was to safeguard and dispense knowledge from both Kindred and Kine of generations gone. Things like: what to do when the seasons are uncharacteristically unfavorable, how to respond when a certain disease starts spreading, what to do with land that refuses to yield resources, etc. (Nos like Grandma Oginn also used to provide matchmaking services to her local tribes ;D) Additionally, in the old Kindred society, the Promisekeepers were tasked with keeping track of debts and contracts made between Kindred. The Nos of pre-colonial North America (at least on the East Coast) were basically your archivists and judges.

As the modern Moonrise Nation is attempting to reclaim some of the old traditions, both for Kindred and their human relations, Nosferatu who come into the faction are expected to take up this mantle of advisors and story keepers, to learn and preserve history, and be there to aid humans and other vamps alike when they're not sure what to do about a problem. Wolf Mother herself was a bit of an isolated Kindred back in her day, she roamed a huge tract of land and only encountered other undead and humans rarely. Still, she was widely known to be a neutral or friendly presence, and her child inherited the same nomadic lifestyle.

The pair would be separated when the first waves of Sabbat Kindred arrived on the continent on the crossings from Europe. They thought each other dead until very recently.

Wolf Son met with immigrant Camarilla Kindred in the 1700s and would later travel to Europe, where he would be installed as Sheriff over a Midlands Domain for several decades. Modern-day, he has come home to America, and is now serving as an Archon.

Wolf Mother spent most of the last few centuries in torpor near Lake Erie, and in the few years she's been awake again she's been singing into the night in hopes her long-lost Childe might still be around... Poor thing...

You can imagine the eventual reunion between them is gonna be super emotional. Not least of all because the Moonrise Nation is explicitly not joining the Camarilla, and seek to make themselves an independent faction.

I'm sure it's fine 🙃