#schloop schloop schloop

[shadesofmauve]

Becoming one with the bog

It was technically a 'poor fen', not a bog in the strictest sense, because it's ground-and-surface water fed, not reliant entirely on rain. It's still on the acid side of neutral and dominated by sphagnum moss. The acid and lack of oxygen in the water mean the plant matter doesn't fully decay, which forms the 'peat' of the peat bog, and the sphagnums help make sure it all stays that way.

The peat fen is a sensitive ecosystem, and it's totally possible to sink one of the 'dry' feeling hummocks (they're NOT dry, they're lying; sphagnum can hold a huge amount of water), so you don't walk from hummock to hummock; you avoid them and wade through the water and mud.

It makes very satisfying SSHCHLORP and GLOOOP sounds, stealthily tries to eat your feet if you stand still too long, and it bounces. The ground was actually something like 20 feet below us; we were walking on the peat. I think they said that 90% of the water was in that peat, with 5% below and 5% above. Not sure I've got the numbers right, but picture a giant neutrally buoyant sponge. With a landscape on top of it. It is sproingy.

Bounce, and the shrubs and stunted trees bounce with you, or whatever that saying is.

We saw three species of carnivorous plants. I didn't get a picture of the bladderwort, but the left is a Washington native sundew, and the right is sticky false asphodel, which was only discovered to be carnivorous in 2021.

I also took lots of pictures of pond lilies, which aren't specific to this environment but are really cool looking:

They also make it warmer inside their flowers. That's part of why all the lil' bugs are there! Pond lilies be making it cozy. Swamp lantern (skunk cabbage) also generate heat — and they create their own little 'wells'; clear space in the sphagnum hummocks. None of my pictures captured it well, but it's quite weird. Like little variations on the massive "plant shaping it's environment" theme that the sphagnum moss started.

And that, it turns out, is the true lure and danger of the fen. Not just that it could schloop you under (I only fell on my ass once, and it was sproingy). Not will-o-the-wisps. No, the true mystery is the sphagnum hillocks themselves.

Mounds of moss rising a foot or more above the water, red, brown, chartreuse, and yellow. They look like little hills, but it's moss, moss, moss, all the way down. You can wiggle your hand right down inside it. It's incredibly soft, and it's warm.

I can just imagine someone, weary from their bog slog, starting to miss their footing in the gloop, falling prey to the siren song of the Forbidden Coziness. They lay down (crushing numerous delicate plants as they do). They wriggle in. They fall asleep.

Several thousand years later, a lucky archeologist finds another bog body.

[debdarkpetal]

Hello everyone, if by any chance you are interested, I have uploaded the Interview With The Vampire panel at San Diego Comicon 2024 on my Instagram account dedicated to #iwtv.

Links: Part 1 - Part 2

[harrystarks]

IWTVWriters: Starting strong with what we know you want the most… photos of Jacob. Here’s @jacobanderson’s first visit to Barrandov Studios, where we filmed most of the season. Our brilliant Production Designer Mara is showing them the reconstruction of the Dubai penthouse, which was packed up and shipped from NOLA to Prague ahead of the season.

[crazykuroneko]

A short feature on costumes in IWTV in Variety among other Emmy craft contenders

You can read the digital version on the second link I linked below.

Interesting bit.

[90sgreggaraki]

season 1 concept art vs season 2 finale

[nalyra-dreaming]

Mara pointed out the Dubai prison setup as well 💀

And the importance of the tree… 😈

And soooo much more.

[toscrollperchancetomeme]

Happy Dubai bedroom set design photo release day to all Loumand fanfic writers out there.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Mara Lepere-Schloop (@instagrampawpaw)

[pickingbelovedoffthesofa]

What kind of audience do we think Loumand was performing for in their Dubai bedroom? Like... this is small-scale coliseum seating, tbh. You can fit a good twenty-odd spectators with leg room in this bedroom and that's not even getting into the cuck lounge. Was Damek and the boys holding tickets for the Friday night fight? Was Louis bedding down successions of men lined up in the rafters to watch and wait their turn while Armand took it all in, laid out on the cuck lounge in the corner? What were they getting up to in there???? And will we ever find out???

[greedandenby]

Interview with the Vampire S01 production design visuals by the awesome Mara LePere-Schloop and her incredible team

Long post!

The Dubai penthouse research board is just so aesthetically pleasing!

Also finding out that the entire backlot set is now rotting in a landfill like our trashboy Lestat made me incredibly sad.

From the super interesting IFF Webinar.

All credits to Mara LePere-Schloop & AMC.

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

Alternatively: yeerk in a morph-capable host morphs into, say, a human. Human-morphed controller wouldn't have a yeerk inside them even though the yeerk controls the morph. But what if another yeerk enters the human-morph? Who controls it then? Original Yeerk or New Yeerk?

Okay, so to be sure I'm following this:

Aftran is a yeerk. Aftran squishes her way over to a morphing cube, and gets the ability to morph. Aftran herself turns into a human. While Aftran is a human, another yeerk — let's say Edriss — crawls into Aftran's ear.

In that scenario, I assume Edriss would be able to control Aftran's body, because yeerks seem to be extremely well-adapted for overriding hosts' ability to move in favor of moving host bodies how the yeerk wants to move. Aftran might be marginally better equipped to fight back against Edriss than a typical host, since she has experience from the other side of the fence, but I think Edriss would still primarily be in control.

[crazykuroneko]

After The End: A Post Mortem Chat with Mara LePere-Schloop

Interview with Mara, IWTV's production designer

[indelicateink]

The panel will feature Mark Johnson, who oversees the Anne Rice Immortal Universe, Showrunner and Executive Producer Rolin Jones, Production Designer Mara LePere-Schloop and cast members Sam Reid, Assad Zaman and Delainey Hayles. They will discuss the recent explosive second season and tease the recently announced third season.

[nalyra-dreaming]

src and direct link to the article!

Especially the Night Island hint is so cool?!

Also:

”At the beginning it was very fun because it was more of this design exercise based on character - Lestat’s coffin versus Louis’ versus Claudia’s. We ended up building them all and building them in different sizes so that you could shoot inside of them. We would build sample versions out of cardboard and then get Sam and Jacob to come and lie in them and make sure they could both fit. You know, it was a very charming exercise.“

AND:

“Louis was a collector of art too, and so, that was months of discussion, because I think art is something that so many people have ideas about.“

Seems like Louis and Armand did choose the art in Dubai?!

[la-femme-au-collier-vert]

IWTV Set Design

So the 1947 movie posters in Prague that I’ve been able to identify include Le Cafe du Cadran involving a wife’s affair with a young violinist, Quai des Orfevres which includes one Inspector Antoine, and Monsieur Vincent is about St. Vincent…de Paul. I’m deceased 💀

*morts sans sepulture is about a group of imprisoned resistance fighters struggling not to give up information about their leader to the Nazis.

credit to @criminalbiskitt on twitter for the image

[portraitoflestatonfire]

Mara LaPere-Schloop on creating the Dubai Penthouse

[m-ia--m-ia--m-ia]

I think everyone should watch this amazing interview with Mara LePere-Schloop. It's endlessly fascinating and once again shows how much passion is poured into every aspect of this show.