#something about the odyssey of recollection

[lestatslestits]

Hmm.

Oh, Daniel…

[blueiight]

The Great Flood of 1924 or 1927?aka, a bored trivia post

s1e05 has become the boogeyman of this fanbase for events that largely occur toward the very end of it, but the flood that leads to claudia’s makeshift burials being exposed is very fascinating in terms of chronology. it speaks to how amc iwtv only slightly shifts around history to situate its immortal characters deeply within the environment of a city thats largely viewed by many, including the source material itself, as an ahistorical pleasure garden with no past or present worth caring about.

from @diasdelfuego’s s1 timeline, we have already seen an example of how the show moves with its environment, altering the release date/place of jelly roll morton’s wolverine blues from 1923 indiana to 1917 new orleans [and it be a record the fictional lestat played a role in creating — lestat aiding in a notorious trickster’s story, one of the most oblique lies on louis’s end to make lestat look more sympathetic or one of the funniest historical movearounds on the showrunners’ end, who knows].

this great flood that brings the living situation in rue royale to a head for claudia is another one of them. when lestat and louis read claudia’s diaries, they discover how shes kept careful record of the people shes buried, killed, and mutilated. they interrogate her to ask where the bodies are, and only toward the end of the confrontation does she reveal where she buried them all.

LOUIS: Where are the bodies?

CLAUDIA: Chalmette. Now get out of my room!

LOUIS: Chalmette's three feet below the river line—

CLAUDIA: So what, get out of my room!

LOUIS: What happens when the next storm comes out the Gulf?

and sequenced near immediately, in classic amc iwtv didactic fashion, the next storm comes out the gulf and unburies the bodies claudia buried on very low-lying ground.

now, temporarily exiting the show and into reality, the true flood of southern louisiana in this period occurred in 1927, when the missisippi river valley experienced heavy rainfall.

where disaster stops, and where segregationist city engineers enter, is that bankers and business leaders in new orleans lobbied the governor to intentionally broke the levee outside of new orleans proper, and so he did, ensuring that the city itself would not be flooded, but flooded out much of the low-lying areas in st. bernard parish. remember chalmette? it is in st. bernard parish.

the subsequent conversation lestat + louis have with tom anderson confirm this even more, with tom describing the number of bodies, the 56 ‘floaters’ from the ninth ward [a neighborhood in new orleans that borders chalmette], all people who have been mutilated in some fashion.

tom anderson notes this as well:

Most of the poor fools they hooked out of the bayou are former inhabitants of the Quarter, so don't be too startled if the police come knockin' on your door.

indicating that most of the people claudia killed, mutilated, and buried there were the wealthy, white neighbors of the rue royale mansion and not residents of low-lying parishes that were seen as fodder by the state of louisiana. now why didnt lestat, who was able to hypnotize an entire room of soldiers in episode 3, hypnotize the 3-4 officers that came to inspect their mansion? questions, questions… (that have very obvious answers but are secondary to this post)

referring back to the s1 timeline linked, this great flood of 1927 was either moved up to 1924, matching the decision to move up + alter the creation of the wolverine blues in episode 3 for narrative reasons, and/or refers to the odyssey of recollection, aka., how keeping exact dates and recalling the numerous historical events u have lived under after 145 or so years of misery become difficult. this post is just a fun little trivia bit + something i found to be interesting

[murfpersonalblog]

IWTV S2 Ep8 Musings - Loustat (SPOILERS) Pt2: Reunion

You don't know the HALF of what Lestat feels for Louis, to let YOUR grimy arse steal his man, just for LOUIS's happiness. ANYTHING for Louis.

Am I the only one who felt left hanging? We BEEN knew it didn't make sense, but what's your POINT, exactly? If Louis misremembered Lestat whispering, it's just par for the course about the odyssey of recollection. But if Lestat DID do telepathy, is that evidence of...what? That the vampire bond works differently than what's been explained? That he COULD read Lou's mind? AMC, this is AGGRAVATING.

Your goose is COOKED, my guy.

The copium & denial pack Louis was smoking as he laughed was 🤌

That's right, start sweating!

Master manipulation; cuz he certainly would NOT have, as we soon find out. ANYTHING for Louis. (Dang, Imma have to take back some of what I said about Lestat's character development not having started yet.)

I was shocked. I was NOT expecting this plot twist. I was ready to throw Lestat out with the rest of the TRASH, in the DUMP. Well dang. Guess I'll only leave him rotting in a TINY landfill.

I nearly SCREAMED--@nashvillethotchicken and I were talking about Loustat as Bobby and Whitney ages ago! I cannot BELIEVE AMC threw in a New Edition reference in the year of our lord 2024; y'all are diabolical AF, Rolin, STOP IT.

I wonder if AMC used Hurricane Odette cuz the OG script was set in pandemic!2020, so it would make sense that a year later Louis would head back to NOLA during 2021 when Hurricane Odette last hit.

That looks like NOLA's Pontchartrain Hotel--lemme find out he bumped into the Mayfairs when Rowan & them were in town, LOL.

Lestat got more aliases than the KGB; meanwhile Louis just sprinkles his long AF unique AF name all over the place. 🤦 But I guess it's ok, since the tour guide never mentioned him & Claudia by name. (Not Tom Anderson in another finale, LOL.) Louis so offended the tour guide said he ran a voodoo cult. XD

Fall of the House of Lioncourt-Melmouth.

You're gosh darned right! THEE Louis of Troy is in the building!

You love to see it. "A wearisome fledgling; all the millennials are--" not Lestat making PALE PROXIES of rat-catcher extraordinare LDPDL out of millennials. 😭

Lestat, if you don't get your crazy arse outta here with that bloodstained wooden keyboard Imma ROTFLMFAO.

NO JOKE, I effed up my friend's whole set when I started screaming "Siri, Pause," cuz my friend's Siri started freaking out and effed up the volume! XD

HERE WE EFFING GOOOOOOOO

(Best scene all season, fight me on this)

You know this was TEARING Lestat up, cuz of what happened in 1973--I gave Louis to you so you could do BETTER by him than EYE did, and instead it's NICKI ALL OVER AGAIN.

Imma smack him--this is NOT the time to be self-loathing, Lestat!

NOLA is my home--and the SAINT is not a city--I'm gonna cry.

He did. He just forgot, when reality settled in and the allure/nostalgia/glamour wore off. "I tried to make nights awful for you." Not the whole time, Louis. Y'all actually were happy b4--even Claudia said "the easy times" stopped after Florence died; and esp. after Charlie died. Lou can't be blamed for grieving his mom's death, and he definitely can't be blamed for Lestat & Claudia falling out after Charlie. Everything that happened after that--the 7 years of depression--was ALSO Lestat's fault. "I wanted you to suffer, cuz I was suffering;" I'm glad Les just waved that aside and said they BOTH wronged e/o.

He's not suicidal anymore then! He has nights in front of him to look forward to! So Lou can finally "learn to live honestly" with HIMSELF.

And Lestat dove RIGHT ON IN with that! He's been carrying that with him for DECADES, worried about Louis & what happened.

I LOVE that Les' language changes (the way his voice CRACKS and goes so TINY, oml)--he asked Lou in 1973 if he was "ill," and if something had happened TO him; so as to not spook/trigger or blame him--but he can ask more candidly now in a (relatively) "healthier" 2024 if Lou tried to hurt/kill himself; and get a more candid/honest answer. CLOSURE, y'all, I'm gonna cry.

GOOOOOOD. Don't EVER forget your daughter. Y'all need to have a Claudia Memorial; to KEEP remembering her, as she was in all her vampiric splendour, the good times AND the bad times.

I KNOW this hurt Louis to his effing core. The way Jacob cried FIRE!

I'm so glad Lou hugged him--YES YOU WERE, Uncle Les. And you KNOW it; you FELT that bond b/t y'all, even if she never looked at you. The distance b/t y'all was in name only, cuz a little Black girl couldn't have TWO daddies in 1917 and have one of them be white on top of it. I AM YOUR MAKER, sure, but you were her BLOOD FATHER, and she loved you, which is why she hoped you'd help her.

ANOTHER ROUND IN THE STORMY ROMANCE OF YOU TWO. 😭👏

What are these magical off-mic speeches/pep-talks Louis keeps giving people in Season 2?!? THE PEOPLE WANNA KNOW, gosh darnit!

DRATS.

I get why Jam said they thought the Loustat ending was "satisfying." It was nice, even though I'd've preferred to see Lestat in the Dubai penthouse at the end. :\

I LOVE THIS, AMC, thank you! ❤️

[brawlingdiscontent]

The more I think about it, the more perfect the Interview with the Vampire writers’ choice of the 50-year time-skip and older Daniel feels. Not only does the framing of a re-visit complement the show’s metanarrative about ‘the odyssey of recollection’, but also what a perfect way to show off the vampires’ age and sense of time, which in other vampire media often feels comically flat (‘oh yeah, I look and seem like a teenager but I’m actually over 100 years old, let me mention one old-timey thing and then we’ll generally forget about it’). Instead, there’s a character that ages who’s lived a long, busy life but has returned to find the vampire seemingly the same. The eerie alien-ness of Louis being much older than this old, sick man (as opposed to a visually similar young, hot 20-something)—adds a visceral texture to our projections of his internal life, including the age and scale of his loss and ailments (for Lous, grief rather than Parkinson’s) that is fantastic

[saunne]

HSR THEORY - PENACONY AND THE FAMILY

Okay so when I saw Penacony, it made me awfully think of something but I couldn't pinpoint exactly what. Until this morning.

For a bit of context, let's review quickly what we know.

The introduction to Penacony is as follow :

Penacony, also known as the Planet of Festivities, is a planet currently inhabited by the Family in the Asdana star system.

It is said that it was once a prison planet owned by the IPC, until a Stellaron corrosion broke out, a bit like what happened on Jarilo VI. When it happened, Penacony took refuge under The Family and Xipe's patronage.

This prison used to work for the Garden of Recollection to retrieve Memory Bubbles and since it's Fuli domain, linked to memory and all that is unconscious/subconscious, Penacony gradually became a "dream-planet" cutted off from reality, with people's consciousness linked in dreams.

It was the over-present theme of dreams/memory and dream nation that made me go 🤨 the first time but nothing clicked until I went to check who the fuck was The Family. And soon enough, things started to feel strange.

In the vision of the Harmony, the diverse civilizations throughout the universe will eventually become as close as siblings, singing in unison the hymn of unity and joy.

They come from different worlds, belong to different civilizations, and have different identities, but they are, at the same time, the closest family members there are. There is never noisy disputes or even contradictions among its members, only eternal love and smiles — there is no more harmonious family in the universe than them.

Yeah. It sounds good, right ? Who doesn't want interstellar peace and happiness (except Nanook and their followers) ?

But at the same time, the tone of all that, it sounds a bit like a sect doesn’t it ? It seems a bit too good to be true, to be honest.

And it's when I got the Eureka moment of "what does it make me think of" if I may say so.

LOTOPHAGOI.

Also more commonly known as : Lotus-eaters.

In Greek Mythology, in Homer's Odyssey, the Lotus-eaters were a race of people known for their consumption of lotus seeds, a powerful narcotic that made them live in a peaceful apathy.

"Peaceful apathy" hm ? Interesting.

It is believed that this lotus could have been Nymphea caerula, also known as the "blue lotus" of the Nile, used by Egyptian to produce a soporific with psychotropic properties.

Soporific as in "dream inducing". Penacopy being a dream-nation, it's when I started getting suspicious. But then, psychotropic : a psychotropic drug is one that affects mood, thoughts, perception and behavior.

"There is never noisy disputes or even contradictions among its members, only eternal love and smiles". Yeah, well I personally believe they're high as fucking kites.

One of the most interesting things however is what happened after consuming the lotus : "After they ate the lotus, they would forget their home and loved ones and long only to stay with their fellow lotus-eaters. Those who ate the plant never cared to report or return." (x)

What did it say about the Family, hmmmm ?

And it gets even worse !

People are also curious whether any members of the Family had grown tired of the one and voluntarily abandoned the Path of Harmony? In the face of such a question, the Family smiles and replies “Never."

Yeah. I don't really feels like it's a good idea to go on Penacony anymore ?

Because an old prison-planet ? Cut off from reality and heavily linked to dream-state ? Under the full control of The Family ?

"The Family at Penacony issued formal invitations to many galactic factions for the first time in history."

And they invited a whole lot of important people too, how curious !

Addendum:

The universe will become a harmonious whole, with no discordant notes to disrupt the beautiful chords and no fools worrying about their own short-sighted futures.

Do you all know Percy Jackson? Well guess what Rick Riordan did of the Lotophagoi ? A fancy Hotel-Casino in which you got trapped and lost sense of time, without ever wanting to leave !

Planet of Festivities ? Casino ? Anyone ?

Yeah.

Well if they propose to you any suspicious flower-looking food or seeds or anything, same rule as in the Underworld : Do not fucking eat it.

[lukeskyandante]

I don't know if someone already said something about this, but now that we know for sure that Armand messed with Louis and Daniels's memories, I am thinking about the "odyssey of recollection" scene... how Daniel was remembering things incorrectly, like the car seat that wasn't mandatory, the Buick that he never owned. I mean, it's normal to forget or misplace memories, I would understand if it happened only to the car seat. But a whole car he never owned? It's very suspicious.

The whole scene was about Louis and Daniel misremembering things: the wolverine blues, the car seat, the car. It was also about the stark difference between Louis retelling and the story he told on the tapes.

Knowing what we know now, and seeing how the writing in this show is amazing, I am feeling that we are going to revisit this scene in the future. If Devil's Minion happened, maybe the memory that Daniel recalled on the book was altered by Armand in some way. Maybe he's Derek, the guy Daniel doesn't know. Or maybe he was part of that memory in some other way. But see how this happened years after San Francisco? Daniel already had a daughter. Maybe both of them, even.

So now the scene is about two men whose memories were deeply altered. Not only about misremembering, but actively having those memories manipulated.

[flowersinthegrocerystore]

OKAY SO I wasn't able to watch IWTV when it first came because I didn't have the time/money, but I just watched the first episode. Without further ado: here were all my thoughts

AUGH IM SO EXCITED

Paul 🙁

Omg I can’t wait for Armand this season

Claudia I’m free any day any time 

The odyssey of recollection I like that

Lmao Daniel calling himself a whore

Armand you sneaky bitch 

Okay here we go

The red sky intro I’m obsessed

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

On god let’s go

I love claudia 

Creepy start let’s go

Love the page turning sound affects

My girl Claudia I love her I love her I love her I lover her 

Ohhhh wait is this the holocaust

Ohhhh

OH

Hey Louis 

You look so depressed babygirl 

Armand stop being like that 

Lmao Daniel you petty bitch

They’re already fighting I love them

Intriguing. And disregarding! 

Did I mention how much I love Claudia

What an icon

I’d wanna explore some abandoned buildings with her

They both look miserable damn

Louis being constantly cold because he’s more human than she is

He’s so fucking alone stop not him talking to himself

I wanna be a historian. A deranged geologist or anthropologist

“It’s dead” shocking info Louis

DEAD WEIGHT MY GOD

Daniel just sitting there chewing while he suffers

Real Rashid is so fucking funny

Unworthy damn Armand

DISREGARD 

I hate them I want them to make out

OOh creepy

Love the vibes

Lestat you drama queen I missed you

The love in his eyes is insane

His voice with nobody there damn I love it 

Obsessed with Louis’ soft apology and Lestat just continuing on like nothing happened

His fear but the chin hold and the I’m gonna kill you

This is love this is love I want them I want to be them

Why the fuck are they shooting graves

Why everyone quiet 

Oh they think louis is hot lol 

God will forget when you die. Preach lady

Something’s wrong what 

There’s gaps in his memory. HIS MEMORY’S WRONG

Or Claudia’s wrong? 

Armand why are you looking like that

The tension in the room is crazy

Daniel smirking he knows what’s happening 

Armand what are you doing

Creepy song with children let's go

Claudia knocking a child over!

So glad I read the book and I know what’s happening

This would have scared the fuck out of me 

Edith Piaf it’s giving la vie en rose it’s giving Izzy Hands

Does red mean communist? 

Oh

Louis’ drunk. Don’t be drunk king. 

Oh he’s deductive damn 

Claudia’s so excited 🙁

Fighting like siblings

Adam and Eve of the damned- oh like the king and queen? ENKIL AND AKASHA MENTIONED

Louis looks so tormented my baby

What is happening what is happening why is he crying why

LOUIS??? 

Daniel looks so devastated but he looks like he cares aw

Oh my god I love this show

Humanity is so. Uh. Fun. God I love this show

That’s a fucking catfish with teeth

Louis is such a sarcastic shit I love him 

What is that thing

Oh it’s a woman

Louis trying to help her and understand her against all odds

All those in darkness go in darkness 

All of them dead now, what about her

How has she lived

Claudia giving her blood

I don’t remember this in the book

But Claudia looks so happy!!

AND so does the woman!! 

Daciana is such a pretty name 

Oh shit…

Getting their hopes up for nothing 

Domestic couple aww Louis and armand 

Why is Louis asking permission…

They’re both cute and vaguely unsettling

The silence is so comfortable but also tense

Armand misses the boy from san francisco??? 

But why do they want to do this. What’s the deal

What is happening why does he want him enthralled what’s his plan

Daniel does not give af lmao the whistling

My man didn’t look up once

So fellas, what’s up?? I love him 

The way they’re so possessive of each other! The little touches and the hand holding. The stares that Daniel is so disgusted by I’m screaming

“We’ll get to you” KILL HIM DANIEL

Claudia looks so small :(

Louis and his talk of death is so relatable

But his HOPE. His HOPE. I’m killing myself. 

If you were the last vampire on earth it would be enough!!

AHH THE CUT TO LESTAT OH MY GOD OH MY GOD 

YOU AND ME AND IT’S LESTAT BUT IT’S ACTUALLY CLAUDIA

CLAUDIA’S FACE. SHE KNOWS. SHE KNOWS. 

Oh the next episode is about to be soooo good

This was so good I’m killing myself

Why did it feel so short?? 

I’m saving the rest for later but OH MY FUCKING GOD.

[nalyra-dreaming]

But being a vampire and living on while your children dies? We have seen that with Louis already. Now Daniel too? Would that be compelling? Daniel has no illusion of him being an intellectual. He is simply in it for the money. He was a shit father and now wants to leave something for his daughters. And he doesn't want to remain alive long enough to see her daughter's relationship coming apart. I don't know how it was for Daniel in the books, how he felt about kids, but for the show!Daniel- it seems like he is trying to make amends.

But then on the other hand you are right about RJ saying that he won't disappoint DM fans. But I am not sure. To me RJ seems to be building up on Anne's work. Giving it a depth and tweaking and playing with the themes. What is the core essence of DM? What is the theme of DM? The addicting pull of vampirism? Madness? Cycles repeating (Marius-Armand-Daniel) ? Wasn't there this character in Dracula? Someone who was almost like a pet to the Count? A man who lost his mind in service of the count...isn't DM similar only now the addiction goes both ways and mingled with love? Sorry I haven't read the books. But I have been wondering about this for a while.

Hey!

You mean Renfield (in Dracula), and yes. He lost his mind over the confrontation with and the possibility of immorality. And yes(!), there is that to it all as well, and this is part of the Devil’s Minion arc.

And it concludes with Armand capitulating, because he cannot let Daniel die.

If it’s alright, I‘d direct you to @cbrownjc‘s wonderful additions to your previous ask here - because the VC differ here in contrast to other vampire media.

In the VC it is not about the triumph of humanity ... it is about accepting the monster that they are and always will be. The last book literally gives them a means to celebrate what they are, accepting, building a community... through the Blood Communion. (And yes, that is as bloody as it sounds.)

And as per Daniel being a shit father... we actually do not know much yet. We know Daniel's memories were wiped. How? When? Why? And... maybe most interestingly - by whom? We cannot yet know what this arc means for "old man Daniel" because the "Memory is a Monster" tagline does apply to him as well. We hardly know anything yet.

What we do know that Daniel is a Pulitzer Price winner. He has written books. There are truths buried in these books, books already (as well) hinting at the "odyssey of recollection".

So. I actually think the linked reblogs put it quite well, I think that the upcoming seasons of The Devil's Minion (I think it will stretch out over several seasons) will echo the capitulation arch of both Daniel and Armand.

Against all vows to never turn someone, Armand won't be able to let Daniel die. And (old) Daniel won't be able to not accept - because he loves Armand. "And yet he loved this thing." (That's a quote^^)

The Devil's Minion is one chapter in "Queen of the Damned". It doesn't really pay much into the bigger story. I can only recommend reading it before season 2.

[vampfiire]

there's still something so interesting about seeing the same scene (claudia's turning) pan out differently from s1 to s2.... the odyssey of recollection blah blah blah

[invisibleicewands]

Michael Sheen is tremendous as NHS founder Aneurin Bevan, even if the play’s fear of bio-drama cliches gets a bit much

The British, in case you hadn’t noticed, tend to get a little sentimental about the NHS. 

So it’s understandable that playwright Tim Price and director Rufus Norris are wary of dewy-eyed hagiography when approaching ‘Nye’, a new biographical drama about Aneurin Bevan, the firebrand Labour health minister who founded the service. With the title role played by the great Michael Sheen, there is a danger of going OTT in having the nation’s favourite current Welshman star as the nation’s favourite historical Welshman. And so Norris’s production has a determinedly trippy quality intended to counter the cliches.

Billed as an ‘epic Welsh fantasia’, ‘Nye’ is largely presented as the stream-of-consciousness of an older Bevan, who is a patient in one of his own hospitals. There for an ulcer operation, he drifts in and out of the present and into recollections of his past, unaware he is dying of stomach cancer – something his MP wife Jennie Lee (Sharon Small) has determinedly kept from him.

Crowned by a truly uncanny wig, Sheen is a delight as the fiery but unassuming Bevan. He never at any point changes out of his red striped pyjamas, a pleasingly absurdist touch at the heart of Norris’s stylish production, in which the green hospital ward repeatedly dissolves into the past to the sound of wheezing lungs. 

It’s otherworldly in places, especially the scene where Tony Jayawardena’s overbearing Churchill collars Bevan in the Commons and groups of teacup-clutching MPs try to eavesdrop, moving like insectoid predators under Stephen Hoggett and Jess WIlliams’s unsettling choreography.

Really, though, once you get past all the cool stuff, you’re left with a fairly conventional drama, jumbled up. Bevan’s memories of the past come at us in roughly chronological order. There’s a definite artistic licence at work as we see schoolboy Nye - still played by Sheen - overcome a bullying teacher and absorb his local library, hungry to find synonyms for words that trigger his stammer, setting himself on the path to becoming a great orator. But the meat of ‘Nye’ does lie with relatively factual accounts of incidents from Bevan’s life - his scenes in Parliament are particularly riveting, as he is doggedly determined to criticise Churchill’s wartime government, to the chagrin of his boss Clement Atlee (Stephanie Jacob).

I understand the logic in, say, not having Sheen simply parrot Bevan’s big speeches to rabble-rousing effect. But all the hopping around leaves ‘Nye’ somewhat lacking in connective material. It’s never especially clear, for instance, why Bevan is so much more radical and uncompromising than his Labour colleagues. It sometimes feels like we’re seeing his life on shuffle, when a straight playthrough might have said all the same things, but more clearly.

Don’t get me wrong, if it had been a balls-trippingly weird avant-garde odyssey I’d have doubtless been all over it. There’s a big mid-show song and dance number that hints at a much weirder production. Unfortunately, this production never emerges. It feels like ‘Nye’ desperately wants to avoid looking like an Inspirational Drama About The Founder Of Our NHS, but doesn’t have a clear formal plan beyond that.

However, if the whole isn’t quite there, most of the individual scenes are scintillating. And there’s no sense of embarrassment from Sheen, who is magnetic as Bevan - a decent, even slightly bewildered man, who nonetheless feels pathologically drawn to doing the right thing, no matter the odds.

[lying-hyperion-jackass]

the odyssey of recollection

the dark urge x enver gortash

rating: mature | word count: 1701

warnings: durge typical violent thoughts

notes: i am not immune to durgetash. this has been rattling around my brain since my first dark urge run. hope you enjoy <3

You can rarely sleep these days. 

The darkness inside you roils and pulses the moment you lay down, in sweet anticipation of the nightmares that will overtake you.

Despite the assurances of your companions that they would prevent any further tragedy, the terror that you will lose control of yourself again hangs heavy over your head.

But tonight you find something else is keeping you awake. An itch in your mind demanding to be scratched.

So you creep from your bedroll and out into the darkness of Baldur’s Gate. Without much thought, your feet carry you to Wyrm’s Rock. The fort feels even more imposing shrouded in shadow, towering over both Rivington and the lower city beyond. 

The guards allow you to pass without so much as a glance, a fully staffed crew despite the hour. You marvel at the level of trust that has been placed in you. It only makes you more curious. 

You find him seated in his office, behind an almost comically large wooden desk, perhaps meant to make him look more official, more imposing.

He looks small. Weak. 

When he looks up at you, there is no change in his expression. “I must say I am impressed with your speed and efficiency as always.”

You raise an eyebrow.

“I told you not to come here until you had dealt with Orin and acquired her Netherstone. And here you stand, mere hours later.” He sits back in his chair, eyes traveling the length of you in a way that makes something inside of you shiver. 

“You know me,” you say simply in response, frozen in place halfway between his desk and the door. You can’t bring yourself to move closer. 

Gortash’s mouth turns up into the barest hint of a smile. “I do. I thought I made that quite clear in our earlier conversation.” His clawed gauntlet clicks on the desktop where his hand rests. “That does not explain why you are here. And without your compatriots this time.”

“I know that I am…” you begin, but the words turn to ash in your mouth. Monster. Murderer. Bhaalspawn. “I know what I am. But I don’t know who I am.”

He nods. “And you would trust me to fill in the gaps for you?”

The black pit inside you twists. Look how sure of himself. How smug. He thinks he has the upper hand. Remind him of who you are.

You swallow it down. “I don’t have a lot of other options.”

There’s a beat as you stare each other down, but eventually, Gortash rises, circling his desk and coming to lean on the other side, just a few feet closer to where you stand. “You are as I said. A companion in this little plot of ours. A reliable teammate, dedicated to the cause.”

Your mind wanders back to the letters you’d found in the Oubliette, letters you now recognized must have been written in your own hand. You had admired this man in front of you. Spoke of him with a strange kind of fondness. 

“Was I like Orin?” You ask instead. Wondering if you were the mindless, chaotic, cruel follower of your Father everyone expected you to be.

Gortash winces. “Gods no. I would never have willingly entered into this with someone like her. You were different. You understood strategy, timing. The importance of control,” he says, the strange fondness you heard in your writing creeping into his voice as well. “I like to think you appreciated those same things in me.”

“How long had we known each other?”

“Ten years.”

“How did we meet?”

“I sought you out. You had quite the reputation.”

You think carefully about what else would be useful to know. “Why does Orin want you dead?”

“I imagine for the same reason I want to be rid of her. Our visions of the future of Baldur’s Gate do not align,” he says, before inclining his head to you. “Not the way that ours once did.” 

You search his features. Just as it was before his coronation, you see no trace of deception. No reason not to believe what he’s telling you. You imagine that future. The Tyrant Lord and his Assassin. 

The urge inside you recoils again. Before you can realize you’ve done it, you’ve crossed the space. He’s taller than you, but that doesn’t stop your hand from gripping his throat and shoving him back against his own gaudy desk. 

“I do not share anything with you. I will be the one whose sword carves bloody the whole of the coast. I will be the one left standing,” you find yourself snarling at him. 

You’re disappointed to see no fear in his eyes. He does not shrink back from you as he should. Instead he takes one clawed finger and touches it to your chin. “There you are,” he says softly.

Your heart is racing and you blink, moving to step away from him, but he catches your wrist and holds you in place. “You seemed so different now. So righteous,” he says. “You and your little band of heroes. All along hiding away the deepest parts of you. How does it feel to be seen?”

Swallowing hard, you yank your hand away and this time he lets you. 

As if he could let you do anything. You could destroy him. His blood would paint the walls so beautifully.

Looking at him, something else turns inside you, pooling low in your belly. The question on the tip of your tongue feels like one that has already been answered but you have to ask. You have to know. “We were…” you trail off.

“Perhaps I know you more intimately than you anticipated,” he says, still relaxed against the edge of his desk. Before you can ask another question he continues. “Neither of us expected it. But it was a boon for our partnership, even if others disagreed.”

“Orin was terribly jealous of you. Of the power you held. The favor with Bhaal.” He looks down, almost contrite. “I fear that our relationship may have been what drove her over the edge.”

You narrow your eyes at him. “If we were so close, why didn’t you come after me?” 

The muscle in his jaw twitches slightly. “She told me you were dead. I had little reason to doubt her abilities.” 

Liar. Weakling. Coward.

You take a tentative step towards him again. “No. You knew.” The knowledge comes to you with absolute clarity. “But coming for me would jeopardize your position.”

The blackness inside of you writhes joyously, calling the violence to the surface again. This time you embrace it, you imagine ripping his throat out with your teeth, finally quieting his constant lies. “So you left me there. To. Rot,” you spit. 

“As if you would not have done the same to me,” he growls back, standing up to his full height. 

Your mouth splits into a wide, feral grin. Your body sings in his presence, free in a way you have not been since you awoke aboard the Nautaloid. Your companions, your lovers, they all hoped for you to be something else. Something new. The leader, the hero, the unflinching ally. 

It was exhausting. Constant rebellion against your nature.

Isn’t it easier to embrace what you really are?

His eyes search your face, frozen in anticipation of what you might do next. 

“Why aren’t you afraid of me,” you ask, staring up at him.

He doesn’t answer you. Instead he leans down and presses his lips to yours. It's a searing, violent kiss. His golden clawed fingers dig into your skin through your thin camp clothes. You’re pressed so tightly together that you can feel his rabbit heart pounding in his chest.

Prey so eager to be devoured by predator. 

You part your lips to bite into his and copper floods your mouth. He groans, but he doesn’t pull away. Instead he leans in, pulling you impossibly closer.

The urge screams at you to force him to his knees, slit his throat and bathe in his ichor. But some other part of you, tangled in memories that were stolen, aches for a different kind of submission from him. 

He reaches beneath you and lifts, turning to set you roughly on his desk, crowding between your thighs and pulling you into another kiss. Your fingers thread through his hair, tugging hard, earning you another pitiful moan.

“Gods I missed this,” he says against your lips, hands wandering underneath your tunic. The scent of him surrounds you, some kind of expensive, spiced perfume, and memories flash through your shattered consciousness. 

The two of you, tangled up in every conceivable way. The feeling of him around you, on top of you, inside you, Reverence and malice in equal parts every time he looked at you from his knees. The taste of his sweat, his blood, It’s overwhelming, intoxicating, the most you’ve been able to remember of your life before.

Before. Before Orin cast you aside like a broken toy to be tormented at the hands of Balthazar’s sadistic lackeys. Before this tadpole squirmed into your brain. Before the iron grip of your devotion to your father had slackened enough for you to taste freedom. 

You don’t need freedom. Kill the Lordling. Take his stone. Then claim your throne. 

Your eyes snap open and you shove him back, hard enough to send him stumbling. He looks at you with blood on his mouth. He doesn’t look upset, just curious. Mind working five steps ahead of whatever it is you might do next.

Pushing down the squirming darkness inside you takes considerably more effort than it did a few minutes ago, but you manage. You stand, and move carefully around him towards the door.

“I’ll take care of Orin. But after that we’re done,” you say sharply, turning on your heel and leaving the office before he can say anything else. 

Back in your bedroll you find sleep is no more within reach than it was before you went. Only now instead of your bloody visions, you find yourself plagued by hazy memories of yourself, and a desperate desire you know you cannot sate.

[pynkhues]

YOU ARE AN INCREDIBLE WRITER. It's insane how fantastic you are, and this fic is just amazing, it's even more amazing than I anticipated. I'm leaving a comment on the fic itself, so I'll save the odes for that. :)

The way you describe what Lestat endures with Magnus is so (suitably) horrific even though it's not graphic. I feel like there might be something very wrong with me for even asking this question--grateful for anon lol--but your fic is already haunting me and I know I'm going to obsess over this if I don't ask, despite my embarrassment. So--can I ask, with the physical assaults, were you imagining that Magnus took enough "care" (if that's even the right word to use in such a grotesque context) that Lestat wasn't badly physically injured/in severe pain from that specifically, or would he have been in significant pain from that during that week, or would Magnus perhaps use his own blood to heal enough damage that he did so that he could do it all over again the next night?

Again, sorry, I feel like a freak for even asking, but I think it's that your fic is so so so vivid that it's making me wonder about very specific things.

Thank you!! Ah, I'm so glad it not only lived up to, but exceeded expectations!

And don't be embarrassed! I kind of knew as soon as I decided to write it that I wanted to follow Anne's beats in the novel. It meant I had to expand them and rearrange a few, ultimately, because the show's extended the timeline from two nights to a week, and you have the added component of the fact that the vampires couldn't have sex in the early books (although Anne basically retconned that in later books), and obviously can in the show. So that really guided my decisions in how I wrote it.

(Below a cut just because of the nature of it).

As a result, there were a few things at play for me. First and foremost, I knew I wanted to explore this sense that Lestat's feelings evolve really dramatically over the course of that section of the book, from abject human horror at Magnus' monstrousness, to as he puts it, loving Magnus very deeply and feeling loved by him, despite the fact that Magnus is putting him through something unimaginably awful and Lestat never consents to the turning, even at the very end when it's inevitable.

I kind of thought a lot about the show's approach to the books in that sense too, and how much it leans into the elements of memory and the odyssey of recollection, and when I thought about it that way it made sense to me that Lestat would probably retroactively romanticise his turning as a means of surviving it. Lestat's an artist, he's a performer, y'know, but he's also prone to slipping on rose-coloured glasses in general and focusing on the things he finds - or can make - beautiful to navigate his own immortality. He also never processes anything, ever in the books, just goes into long sleeps, and while I know that annoys some, personally I think it's really (probably the wrong word to use in this context, haha, but) fun on a narrative level. It opens up a lot of room for narrative conflict, particularly between Lestat and Louis (and Armand!) who have all collectively and separateley experienced enormous amounts of trauma.

The other things that really struck me as I re-read that section of the book is a) how drunk Magnus gets him - - because he gets him really drunk before he comes back to him in the tower, and b) the fact that Magnus only seems to get angry at Lestat when Lestat calls out for God (the 'I'll feed you to the wolves of hell' line is actually a direct quote from the book, and it's the last time Lestat calls to God that Magnus really hits him and knocks him to the ground), the rest of the time he mostly just seems to be amused by him.

This is a very roundabout way of answering your question, but I guess in my head Magnus was probably more brutal on some nights than others, and only even attempted to prepare or care for Lestat by getting him drunk, which both would've made him more pliant and would ultimately affect how disoriented he was and what he would remember. The fact of that I think has probably only been compounded over time as Lestat's twisted up his own spotty memories into something he can live with.

Like, Magnus is one of the most traditionally monstrous monsters in the book, not just for what he does to Lestat, or the fact that he demolishes the blond boy population of 1700s France, but he steals the dark gift in the first place. I tried to get this into the fic, but couldn't quite make it work, but Magnus becomes a vampire by chaining one up while they're in a deep sleep and waking them up only to force himself on them. His own turning was another act of violent rape he inflicted, and so I had that in my head too as I was writing it.

[mothmage]

20 Qs for fic writers

Tagged by @monstersinthecosmos , thank you!!!

1. How many works do you have on A03? 31 (and a few anon, i think 2 or 3. idk, when i post a fic on anon i forget about it forever)

2. What’s your total Ao3 word count? 446,135

3. What fandoms do you write for? currently/primarily vc, iwtv (amc), star wars, and merlin (bbc)!

4. What are your top five fics by kudos? A Lovely Little Normal Life (which, honestly, kind of annoys me lol. i know it's just bc it's a huge fandom, but really? the stupid little 12k harry potter fic i wrote in two days is my most kudos? please...); Arthur Pendragon, Long May She Reign (forever pushing my lesbian genderswap agenda); The Face of God (les mis slightly canon divergent javert character study); The Odyssey of Recollection (amc iwtv s1 pov armand); Away From Stranger Tides (potc philip/syrena fic i started ages ago and never finished, lol)

5. Do you respond to comments? yes i love talking to people in comments!!!! i've made a lot of friends through comments!!

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? omg. umm. merthur fans don't know this yet bc i havent finished posting but it's arthur pendragon long may she reign (BUT it's part of a series, so it's literally fine). idk, i dont tend to write long fics that end angsty. but my angstiest fic in general is probably Hollow-Boned Boy (armand contemplating his human life in the early CoD era) or Vision of the Damned (daniel's turning from armand's pov)

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? i love a happy ending!! my series Odysseus in White Silk is probably the happiest ending, and in such an undeserved way hahaha it's so very AU because i was sad after s1 of the show and just wanted them all (and armandaniel) to live happily ever after

8. Do you get hate on fics? i dont think i ever have, but i tend to read comments in good faith too, so maybe someone out there is annoyed that i interpreted their vague dislike comment as a genuine comment or something, idk. in general though, i'll say no

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind? yes but i dont post that often, idk if there's a particular kind, but generally it tends to be a little rougher than is probably appropriate without discussion in real-life situations, but also very...idk my friend described it as very tender, like theyre very clearly in love. which is so funny considering that that kind of tenderness irl gives me fucking hives lmfao

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written? oh wow, not in a long time. i do have a wip sitting around rn that's a crossover between london spy and cloud atlas, which is really crazy until you remember that ben whishaw is in both london spy and the cloud atlas movie lol. and cloud atlas is already about weird reincarnations and parallel worlds and stuff, so it isnt too out-there.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? i dont think so!

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? yes!! The Face of God was translated into Korean by ao3 user Crescent919 !! i've had a few comments on other fics asking to translate for personal use (always yes, of course), but no one else has asked to share a translation publicly

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? no!! i've been thinking about it lately though

14. What’s your all time favorite ship? all-time? probably merlin/arthur from merlin (bbc). it's the whole fate-destiny-choice thing, it just compels me like nothing else

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? hmmm, i would like to finish Roswell -- well, kinda (agent carter farm girl / alien crash landing au) because i still have all the original notes and outlines and stuff. i also made a shitty conlang when i was first writing it, which is crazy lol. but it would need some pretty serious revisions, and i would definitely rewrite the first few chapters that i posted years ago. i just kind of lost the agent carter bug, but i might return to that fic if i ever get in the mood for it again.

16. What are your writing strengths? ooh, i'm not really sure! i get a lot of comments mentioning characters' voices and/or personalities, so i would say maybe that!!! i also feel that i'm fairly good at mimicking an author's writing style when i want to (notably, i do not mimic anne rice when writing vc fic, lol)

17. What are your writing weaknesses? editing for sure. i have at least a hundred fics sitting on my hard drive fully or almost-fully written that i just need to edit. but i would simply rather die than do all of that. it's also why my whole merlin fic got put on pause while i went down the vc rabbithole, because i just can't bring myself to go edit the next chapters lol

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic? hmm, i think it's usually unnecessary and comes off as a bit silly. that said, i did do it once (maybe excessively) in Daniel Molloy, Time Bandit (1984 daniel ends up in 1794 theatre des vampires, it's more of a character study than a time travel fic) BUT, let me defend myself -- i did it because daniel doesnt understand french, it's his pov, and he's incredibly confused and distraught for most of the fic. i felt like the dialogue being in french conveyed this sort of "daniel does not belong in this time/place" vibes. but, also, my french is...a little rough. so i'm sure it's an annoying fic for french readers lmao

19. First fandom you wrote for? warriors cats, a million years ago hahahah

20. Favourite fic you’ve written? ok, i have three different answers for this. the fic i think is the best, objectively, in terms of writing and content: The Story of Dani [...] (r63 devil's minion from armand's pov, starting with lestat's house). the fic i am the proudest of, mostly because it was my first "big" fic (it's funny now, bc it's only 41k) and i feel like i grew a lot as a writer while working on it, and i'm still happy with it: The Face of God (les mis pov javert, character study from childhood). the fic i have the most fun with and think about almost 24/7: Arthur Pendragon, Long May She Reign (r63 merthur, canon divergence, this is like a 4-part series that's currently over 300k lmao)

no-pressure tagging: @aunteat @leslutdepointedulac @butchybats @graygiantess and anyone else who wants to!!

[tired-needs-sleep]

Tell me more about raju? It doesn't have to be anything particularly detailed or fleshed out, just whatever you came up already

@owlhead650

+ there isn't much special about that. it's happened with every oc i've ever brainrotted on because i didn't start drawing humans until last year

i'm not making the same post twice because there's way too much information for me to want to say it all a third time, sue me

so raju woke up on dawn island. she had no recollection of who she was aside from her name. she washed up with two other people, mordem, a friend of her's, and another guy that died. she found mordem burying him.

mordem says that he wanted to stay and mourn a little, and advised raju to go to redwake and find herself.

she was told that the trio now duo were experimented on for some reason, and they escaped. all three of them could use magic.

raju got either plasma, fire, or explosion magic. i'm sort of leaning towards fire since you can get a second and third magic later on. i was thinking fire/explosion/flare, but there's also a third teir of magic so i was wanting one of each. so base/lost/ancient magic, fire/flare/whatever the devs make for ancient. anyway:

and boy did she,

so the world of arcane odyssey. think the colonial period but without the colonization. the main way of travel would be by ship, since the world is a supermassive ocean with clusters of islands divided into seas.

raju managed to get a ship and crew and a co captain. i think she and the co captain have a sort of father daughter relationship since she is on the seas a lot, so they've been through a lot together and he sort of taught her everything she knows about that sort of thing.

she has a sort of restlessness to her. always needs to be on the move somehow. always wants to travel, help people when she can, find treasure, constantly chasing the feeling of discovery. it's actually become a sort of problem, because she's not allowing her mind to catch up and process the shit she's been through. because she's killed. she's killed a lot, killing is required to defend yourself. and sure she's very desensitized to murder and death, but she's grown very powerful and has killed very important people in the name of justice. people with connections.

so now she's constantly in danger because her sense of justice got her into some deep shit. she's been traveling with her friends recently, but had to go into hiding with them so the injured could heal. and then she needed to go on her own to do a little something to get stronger. i stopped there because it was nearly 3 am and my shoulder was hurting.

she always does what is right, so she isn't very fond of pirates and criminals, generally. she makes exceptions for those falsely punished, and tries to help them too.

she was pretty uncertain and cautious about everything at first, but she's grown more confident with time on the sea and hearing the constant praises being sent her way. she also might be a little smug with that, and i was thinking about letting her be a little sassy too.

she fights with both her magic and her sun katana. she made it herself for the sole purpose of conducting her superheated magics, but i haven't decided if she remembers that she made it or not. it's warm to the touch, but the blade can grow hot with magic being infused in it. so not only do her foes bleed by the blade, but can burn by it too.

she probably will have a second weapon too, since her katana is very easily recognizable, but again haven't decided what. i liked using the cutlass/ scimitar so i might do that

i also plan on having two more ocs to go with raju but i don't have anything for them yet.

[vicwrites-and-acts]

WIP: TEMPUS ↪➡️

Chapter One | Sample | full first chapter.

▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃

EARTH SHOULD BE nothing more than a long, forgotten memory; a recollection of childhood dreams, nostalgia so real it makes your stomach twist and your heart ache with a million regrets. Cake, late night TV, screaming with her bestie about something irrelevant, her parents. It's all been taken from her. Stolen, really. The Nightwalker virus destroyed everything, and left her no choice but to hurtle through space at precisely 34 kilometers per second. 

Eris Matthews tries to hold onto her memories from home. The scent of her mother baking her famous sweet and savory apple pie, her ridiculously blown out of proportion nagging about wearing sunscreen, her smile whenever Eris and Draven would do something exceptionally funny. Her father's ridiculous oversized sweaters that he insisted he had to wear every morning, while having a cup of coffee. Draven's fanatical approach to theater, and the warm summer nights huddled around the bonfire near the ocean…

God, it's the little things she never fathomed she'd miss.

Being confined to the cargo hold doesn't exactly help, either. The walls remind her of her father's latest project car, being held together by sheer luck. Framework's damaged as if someone had taken a hammer and wailed on it near the fender, tried to fix it with insulating foam sealant, before realizing halfway through it doesn't work. If you've never had to scrape foam out of fiddly car parts, you're the lucky one. Eris and her dad worked tirelessly that summer. This? Entirely different. This is life or death, and someone didn't even bother building it correctly.

Yeah, life totally sucks. 

Eris isn't supposed to be here. She's an unauthorized person aboard the Exodus; a crazily, reckless, stowaway mission with one of the only people she trusts. Her best friend, Cashmere Moni. Okay, okay. I know what you're thinking. I didn't have a choice, alright? There hadn't been enough time. The ship was only built with four people I'm mind, not six. However, if they'd stayed behind on Earth, they would have never made it. Eris was not going to let that happen. It hadn't been an easy choice, mind, but her conscience is very clear. 

Incessant beeping comes from the hull, dull and distorted like broken wires on top of an antenna, rips Eris out of her thoughts. She knows what it means. The atmosphere is vastly approaching at an alarming rate. Damn it. Eris reaches her hand out toward Cashmere, but she's too late. Turbulence hits hard, sending the two of them careening into the nearest wall. Eris clenches her jaw to keep from screaming, blood pours from her nose, and she's pretty sure the force of the impact blacked her eye on principle. Shocking pain explodes from behind her eyelids. Yep, definitely a black eye, Eris thinks, dazed, stumbling backwards and barely catching Cashmere as she crashed into her, sending them both towards the door. 

And silence. 

Well, mostly. The crash had dimmed Eris' hearing a little. A distant voice echoes throughout her skull, making her feel pretty confident that the ship's computer informed them the Exodus is stabilizing. Oxygen level at a hundred percent. The planet is survivable; like Rhys had promised. A breath of utter relief passes through her lips, closing her eyes briefly to get rid of dark spots threatening her vision; feeling like a million tiny dragons are waging war inside her brain.

"What do you.. wanna bet Rhys forgets.. to.. to open Cargo?" Eris says, blinking, giving Cashmere a lopsided smile. Her speech slurred, thanks to the possible concussion. 

"How 'bout I bet you two of your famous crunchwraps that you're right?" Cash winks, crossing her arms over her chest. 

"Deal." 

Rhys Grey is single handedly the most forgetful person to ever exist, but Eris owes him her life. He'd shown up to warn her. Only a select few, higher ups mainly, were chosen to go to the Odyssey; the space station that would lead civilization towards their new planet. Without him, her fate would have been a long black abyss of an infected Earth. She shivers. 

Her family had been sick for days. There wasn't enough knowledge about the virus, which later the CDC coined as the Nightwalker virus. Yesterday, her family woke with a thirst for blood, red-rimmed, lifeless eyes that pierced into her soul. Their distorted voices begged Eris to join them. Her brother, Draven, promised to end her puny mortal existence swiftly; no pain, he swore. Her mother was the loudest. Telling her life would be much easier if she could feel what they felt. Which was nothing.

The virus was unlike anything the newscasts released. 

It was a game changer. Something Eris tried to tell Rhys' parents, because if she could just get someone to listen, then maybe, maybe, she could have an opportunity to save her family. Nobody would listen. Sherry and Dakota Grey clammed up, kicked them off the ship, and if Rhys hadn't disobeyed them.. Well, the only future Eris and Cashmere would've had is a one-way ticket to stale bread, a half-life existence, struggling from one place to another, and barricading themselves in at night to avoid the vampiric shells of humanity. 

The sound of metal grinding into gear brings Eris out of her miserable reverie, bringing her to share an anxious look with Cashmere, praying against all that's left that Rhys is the one who opened it. She doesn't even want to think about how his parents would react to seeing them here. Her heart thumps wildly inside her chest, leg bouncing erratically where she sways in place; again, thank you possible concussion. 

An equally anxious Rhys greets them, standing at the edge of the platform, glancing over his shoulder every few seconds. That does little to console Eris. Despite that, she's the first one out of cargo, stumbling into Rhys and throwing her arms around his neck.

"Thank God," Eris breathes, voice catching in her throat as she takes in the frozen wasteland over his shoulder. "Um, Rhys –" 

Civilization is nowhere to be seen. A purple haze glitters from the sun, transforming the snow-covered trees, and the icicles dangling from every branch into a soft lilac. A frozen forest stretching for seemingly miles with a thick blanket of ice covering the only path. Eris draws in a breath. It's breathtaking. She slowly removes her arms from around Rhys' neck, almost in a daze, before taking a miniscule step backwards. Wrong. An equally mesmerized Cashmere steps beside her, grinning, but Eris can't find herself feeling much joy at all. It's not right. Where is everyone? 

She longs to feel the ice against her skin like blue flames nipping against the wind, but the previous horrors of a long, forgotten Earth has taught her to look beyond the veil of illusion. What the hell are they going to do now? 

"Uh uh, no way girl," Cashmere says, sending Eris a pointed look. "I've seen that look plenty of times to know what you're thinkin'. No. 'Live better,' that's what you said, right?" 

Eris grimaces. Cash is right, technically, but the entire point of the mission was to blend beneath the cracks. Disappear into the crowd like they were meant to be here all along. This isn't the plan. A Tundra, where nothing will ever melt if it's anything like Earth; pristine, open, possibly deadly… There's nowhere to hide out here. 

"Look, my parents won't stay gone forever. Let's just explain it to them and.." 

"No. Absolutely not," Eris replies adamantly, shaking her head repeatedly to drive her point across. "Nope. Your parents would ship us back into Nightwalker hell. Don't know bout y'all, but I'm not going back there." 

It's a weak argument. A way to undermine them in hopes they'll just let it go, without having to go over it again. It's insane. She doesn't even know why Rhys would suggest that option. The thought of having to explain herself to a flabbergasted, possibly angry Sherry and Dakota, how she and Cash disregarded their rules and wound up here anyway? No thanks. 

Rhys clears his throat to capture Eris' attention, and she almost wishes she hadn't looked over at him. She groans. Of course. The damn look. His face morphs into despondence, and he pouts his lip, making it quiver for extra effect. The warm blue eyes pierce into hers, turning sad, almost pleading. 

A puppy. A ridiculous, oversized puppy, but one nonetheless. 

She averts her gaze. It's like the two were children again, sitting at a desk in a stuffy arts classroom. Eris had her 'special' purple crayon in front of her. She'd believed for the longest time it had special powers, magical ones. Mrs. Crandall encouraged sharing. Eris did not. She'd never had to, not even with Draven. 

Rhys had really wanted her purple crayon. He'd been coloring some fancy fire-breathing dragon, and wanted to blend the shade of purple and orange to make the breath. A cool concept, really, if he'd wanted to ask anyone else. It's silly. How utterly defensive Eris had become over a normal crayon, but she'd been vehemently against giving it to him. He looked at her, then, raising his eyebrows dramatically to make them larger, jutting out his bottom lip and giving her his best depressed look. 

Eris groans. It's something she should have seen coming a mile away, and yet he always manages to catch her completely off guard. Great. She sighs and peels her gaze back towards them, trying to cover her ever-growing smile. 

"Fine," she says, giving them a faux unamused look, before continuing, "but if they hurdle all three of us back to Earth, I will say I told you so."

They trek in silence. The sun will be going down any minute now, and they're no closer to finding Rhys' parents. Go back. Her brain is at war with itself; On one hand, going back to the ship would make this one hundred percent easier, but on the other hand, she'd be letting Rhys and Cash down. It's impossible to see much beauty with these thoughts swarming her brain. Even if she'd like to be lost in her surroundings, like Rhys and Cash were. 

Eris brushes stray hair from her freezing cheeks, shivering at the cold air. It had almost felt warm. When she'd first stepped off the platform back at the ship, and now it feels as if she'd stepped into a gigantic chest freezer. She'd done that once. On accident, Draven had locked her in it, and nearly forgot about her for five minutes. If only he were here now.

She shakes her head. It's hard not to dwell on the past, on Draven and her parents; hell, even the difference in air quality here. Endless possibilities. Variations of different levels of bad, depending on the situation. 

A sickening crunch echoes below Eris' feet, bouncing off the trees. Horror washes over her; a nameless dread infiltrates her body like a snake ready to crush his prey. Heart pounding. If she moves, she'll fall. If she doesn't, maybe it'll give her friends the time they'll need. Now or never. 

"Slowly move back the way we came," she orders, shakily. "Now." 

Her eyes continuously dart towards the spider web-like cracks increasingly at an alarming rate, and back towards her friends. 

Breathe. 

What would mom do? 

What would Draven do? 

The last question makes her cringe. Draven would be just as useless as her in this situation. Focus. 

"Eris…" 

She raises her hand to silence their worried prodding, wildly gesturing for them to just do as she asked them. Now isn't the time for them to doubt her. If she gave in to her own fear, threatening to crush her beneath its weight, then they would all die. She won't let that happen. Rhys saved her life, and now it was time to repay him with hers. 

One second. That's all it took for her to free-fall through the ice. Rigid water engulfs Eris, entering her open mouth, and muffling her panicked shrieks. The worried shouts from her friends go mainly unnoticed. Her lungs feel like they're on fire. She kicks her legs wildly, arms desperately reaching upwards before her fist connects with a solid block of ice. 

The shouts above her cease. All that's left is a long, jagged silence. 

[nalyra-dreaming]

I hope we get some snippets of the 70's interview in s2 - I'd guess it's closer to the the book plot, but I'm curious about how it differs from the present tale & why Louis changed his tune so much. I don't get why some fans ignore this plot point & the way it's informing Daniel's current approach. In his line of work, if someone gives you two contradictory stories, admits the first was a performance but is vague when you ask why & deflects when u challenge them, they're an unreliable source.

Definitely, and something must have happened.

And there is another level to it, the interview we "see" is not the one that was "recorded".

There is no "Lestat had surrounded me" when Louis leaves after their first time. But there is on the recording Daniel has. For example (there was a very interesting post the other day in regards to this).

Which gives an interesting spin to the meta level of the show itself, because you literally cannot trust anything.

Did Louis say "surrounded me" and Daniel's interpretation is that which we "saw"? Is it Louis' imagination, and what we saw is what he meant, but he chose to use a different word for Daniel?

And of course, as you rightfully point out, the big, big discrepancies between the tape and recording, that Daniel himself points out.

Why is that.

There is only one logical reason (imho) and that is that some kind of reconciliation has happened in-between those interviews. As Louis hints at himself. Perspective, for one.

How did Louis get to a different perspective on Lestat? And why does he still suppress memories? What other memories does he suppress? Are suppressed?

He mirrors Daniel here (a bit), in the way that they both remember differently, a parallel that Louis himself points out to Daniel.

The odyssey of recollection.

And... I think both hope for a more tranquil crossing.

But odyssey's are always a mess, they come with sirens, death and storms.

And the passage of time. :)

So yes, Louis is an unreliable source.

Unfortunately, Daniel is, too.

And I bet Armand will be as well 😈