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enigmaticdiary · 7 days

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Hey, sorry, I just saw a post where you mentioned Anne Rice having abuse apologia (pedophilia and incest) in her work and I was wondering if you could explain that a little more? I’m kind of afraid to google it

hi! i assume you’re referring to my post on the show’s treatment of incest as a theme?

in any case, i hope that i can clarify a little. i’m actually gonna turn to a couple academic sources, because i’m lazy and i don’t feel like writing too much.

but, before i even get into the books, some background on anne rice.

while i do believe rice's fictional work does reproduce a discourse of abuse apologia, particularly with regards to pedophilia, and that you can arrive to that conclusion simply from reading the text, without any extraneous knowledge about the author, ultimately my opinion of rice’s fiction is inseparable from my knowledge of her real-life beliefs, more specifically, her defense of child molester carleton cajdusek and of a bdsm erotica novel about thomas jefferson and sally hemings.

in august 1997 she left this message on her "fan voice mail" still transcribed and public on her official website as it was at the moment of her death, over 20 years later:

O.K. I just read a book I recommend. It's called THE DEADLY FEAST by Richard Rhodes. The book centers around a man named Carleton Gajdusek. Carleton Gajdusek is a Nobel Prize winner and he's in prison--apparently for fondling a 14 year old in a shower. I have not seen the court record and I'm not in any way qualified to judge what goes on. All I want to say is that I highly recommend that you get the book. That the contribution of Carleton Gajdusek to medicine and to science has been fantastic and that I personally am looking into the whole question of child molestation, children's rights, because it concerns me. I remember being a young adult, and I remember being real angry that I wasn't allowed to do things that other adults were doing. I was working full time and I was living in a rooming house and I didn't like being classified as a teenager, because somebody wanted to sell me something expensive. I know I sound angry--I am. I am angry. But we've got to revise our concept of teenagers in this country. If we want to stop the crime in this country we've just got to realize that 14 and 15 year old people are adults, they are not children. And leading them to believe that there is a fundamental difference between play killing and real killing.

in 2015, an author by the name of "Fionna Free Men" published on amazon an ebook called Thomas Jefferson's Mistress, a "Werewolf Fetish Vampire MILF Sex Slave" [sic] about sally hemings, which you can see on webarchive here. author jenny trout published a call to boycott this book, and anne rice in turn called for people to organize against this boycott. there are screenshots and more details here. the situation isn't as clear cut as anne rice going on record to say writing bdsm erotica of a real enslaved child's systematic rape and abuse by the grown man who owned her is perfectly okay, but that she of all people would use her platform to speak up in defense of this bullshit, in my opinion, speaks to how little her ideology had changed since 1997.

i’ve failed to find a full copy of Anne Rice and Sexual Politics: The Early Novels by James R. Keller (and i would be endlessly grateful to anyone who found it for me), but this extract articulates my position fairly well —that is, that you can’t separate the art from the author when the author so intentionally sought to make herself one with her art:

In Michael Riley's Conversations with Anne Rice, Rice asserts that she finds the pictures of naked children in Vogue "very erotic." She then goes on to describe the "sensuous enjoyment" that she experiences when showering her children with kisses and hugs, initially a rather bold admission from a mother and a mainstream writer. However, in her subsequent explanation, she very rapidly distances herself from any impropriety, so much so that she completely eviscerates the concept of the erotic, implying that she means nothing more unconventional than maternal affection, an interest in watching her son grow “big and strong". The backpedaling is very clear in the exchange. The author wants credit for the shocking suggestion, but she does not want to face the social stigma that would attend such an admission. (...) the author wants to raise eyebrows and to perpetuate an outrageous public persona, and yet at the same time, she does not want to be taken seriously. In her fiction and in her initial assertions about children, she appears to be endorsing pedophilic desire. (...) The author even offers a defense of such sexual desire in her biography Prism of the Night, where she suggests that some children are mature enough to negotiate a sexual relationship with an adult and that sometimes the child is even the aggressor. If Rice were to leave these ideas in the world of her fiction, there would be no issue. However, she clearly considers the idea a philosophical position about sexual repression in our society, and she even flirts with the concept in the public characterizations that she makes of her family. Yet as with other issues, the ideas are not ones that she is entirely capable of owning. (...) The argument that she is not obliged to be what she writes does not particularly apply because authors of erotica have often been defined by the stigma associated with their subject. Also, the effort to define her public image as an eccentric and a sexual dissident erases the dividing line between her fiction and her reality.

he goes on to put rice’s eroticization of pedophilia within the chronicles in context, breaking down the unmistakably homophobic rhetoric that permeates the entire series, in a couple of pages which i found to make a very solid argument:

Here we must move away from our concentration on family politics to address those myths that are commonplace within right-wing, homophobic discourse. Anne Rice's The Vampire Chronicles perpetuate many of the most troublesome and hostile stereotypes, even those that have proven most effective in impeding the progress of homosexual demands for social equality. Perhaps the most destructive of all heterosexist delusions involves the association of gays and lesbians with pedophilic desire. (...) In such a volatile political environment, Rice's portrayal of same-sex desire between adults and adolescents, a passion that seems to lie at the heart of her vision of vampirism, should not escape interrogation.

george haggerty makes a similar argument, and you can read his essay here:

Rice makes it immediately clear, however, that this world of male-male desire cannot be satisfying. For all the homoerotics of these volumes, Rice seems unable to create a bond between two men that is more than the symptom of a corrupt and corrupting culture.

there’s still something to be said about how the vampires in the chronicles serve as both object of abjection and subjects of identification, which the next essay i’ll mention touches on but doesn’t explore in depth. in the vampire chronicles, vampires are meant to be at once repulsive and attractive to readers, functioning as sympathetic heroes while they behave as evil monsters.

this anti-hero role allows rice the kind of plausible deniability that keller lays out: her vampires can be a homophobic caricature and a (poor) attempt at “gay representation” at once, because it’s up to the reader to decide whether to identify with the monster or reject this identification. this is a technique that vladimir nabokov executes very well in lolita, where we are compelled to identify with the pedophile narrator so that we can understand a predator’s mindset, and there are moments in the chronicles where i’d argue that rice pulls it off, but she overwhelmingly fails in her attempts to walk that line, and the overall result of the series is one that reads as straightforward abuse apologia. i’ll circle back to this later.

now, back to the specific topic of pedophilia and incest.

while i wouldn’t say i agree with every strand of reasoning in this essay, and it’s definitely very 1990s sex wars feminism, i think “Abuse and Its Pleasures: Compensatory Fantasy in the Popular Fiction of Anne Rice,” by Annalee Newitz breaks down the issue very well in these choice passages:

…the heroes in Rice’s novels have in common one basic trait: they feel marginalized or abused, but learn to use their victimhood as a form of empowerment. Her characters often become powerful, wealthy, or famous by taking up the tools of their oppressors—and revaluing their victimization as something pleasurable and special. (...) By representing abuse within a contained, fictionalized setting, one might say that Rice generates a therapeutic “safe space” in which readers can experience and master their anxieties about abuse. And to a certain extent, I want to allow for this possibility in my analysis. But there is also something deeply troubling about the way Rice invites readers to deal with their anxieties. For ultimately she offers what I will call an “anti-therapeutic” resolution to abusive situations: her abused characters gain power by sustaining and even celebrating their trauma.

newitz says:

Louis and Claudia become inseparable, and Louis considers their relationship to be a union between “Father and Daughter. Lover and Lover” (Interview). Rice offers many descriptions of Claudia’s childish sensuality, heightening our sense that it is precisely her status as a child that makes her so sexually alluring to her “parent” Louis.

and later, writing in the sibling, parent-child, and cousin incest in the mayfair witches books, she adds:

By blurring the line between parent and child, Rice generates a fictional space in which children can be cast as perpetrators of child abuse.

this essay precedes the publication of the vampire armand by a couple years, but the rhetoric in that book, and the way armand is written from the vampire lestat onwards all fall squarely within the pro-pedophilia discourses that newitz and keller above describe. armand is “seductive” and “irresistible” precisely because of his “youth” and “innocence,” elements which become integral to his character as the chronicles go on. the first section of his solo novel is dedicated to lengthy erotic descriptions of his sexual encounters with marius, which are presented as pleasurable and desirable and, of course, distinctly different from the violent rapes and beatings that he’s been through.

marius is his owner but a benevolent one and, like mona mayfair, armand is made out to be a sexually precocious child that seeks out and seduces his abuser, demanding for their sexual intimacy to grow and eventually asking to be made into a vampire.

while there are moments in the book that invite a reading of armand as a victim in denial, presenting the reader with a disfigured perspective of the abuse he endured to cope with his own trauma, once put in context with rice’s other work and her personal politics it’s impossible to interpret this novel as anything but propaganda: she was very aware of her platform and reach when she publicly stated that she believed children of fourteen should legally be considered adults when it came to sexual consent, and not two years later she wrote the vampire armand. the connection can’t be ignored.

another aspect of her work that i think could lend itself to a dual interpretation if read in isolation, but ultimately only serves as evidence of the deeply-held ideologies she’s reproducing in her books, is her sympathetic portrayal of abusers. again from newitz:

While Lestat is a cold and manipulative character in Louis’ story, we discover in The Vampire Lestat that Lestat has himself been used and hurt. Like Lasher, Lestat tells a story about his painful intimate relationships which is intended to solicit readers’ sympathy and make his crimes against Louis and Claudia both understandable and forgivable. In these monster stories about child abuse, all of the characters ultimately appear to be victims in the end. Rice invites readers to feel deeply ambivalent about characters who are abusive: at any moment, we might discover that these abusers are victims too, and therefore we cannot hold them responsible for their cruelty to others. The safe space where Rice stages and masks sexualized child abuse is therefore a safe space for both perpetrators and victims. It is a space where the line between victim and perpetrator is impossible to draw, and therefore Rice makes it impossible to judge whether or not child abuse is in fact abusive at all.

(you can find the full book, Creating Safe Space: Violence and Women's Writing, ed. Tomoko Kuribayashi and Julie Tharp, on anna’s archive.)

yes, yes, depiction is not endorsement and so on and so forth. of course, abuse is one of the most prevalent themes in the gothic and there’s no doubt that making the monster a sympathetic object of desire is a staple of the genre. it’s up to us to triangulate the topics portrayed in her novels, the treatment these topics receive, and what we know of rice’s real-life beliefs to interpret her work.

one of the aspects we can analyze when looking at treatment are narrative patterns and, while simplistic, punishment-reward goes a long way. in rice’s vampire chronicles, victims of rape and abuse must fit one of a very narrow selection of roles. keep in mind that the chronicles both make vampiric assault akin to and distinct from sexual assault, so the allegory gets muddy at times, but here’s how i would break it down:

good survivor, gets rewarded: they are violated against their will and firmly refuse the assault, but they don’t overindulge in “whining” and dwelling on what’s happened to them, insteading choosing to embrace it and move on (e.g. lestat, david, marius)

bad survivor, gets punished: either they “ask for it,” sometimes changing their mind at some point, which makes them “deserving” of the bad things that happen to them following (e.g. lewis, merrick, armand); or, particularly in the case of children, even if they did not “ask for” the initial violation (e.g. claudia, armand, merrick) they are later revealed to be, as i mentioned, cunning and seductive, and thus similarly “deserving” of their downfall

revenge on the abuser, gets punished: following from the first division, “bad survivors” are shamed, punished or outright destroyed for taking revenge on their abusers or for wanting to overthrow the abusive institution (e.g. claudia, akasha)

forgiveness for the abuser, gets rewarded: on the other hand, “bad survivors” get a sort of narrative redemption, and “good survivors” cement their position in this role, by forgiving and loving their abusers, often recognizing the abuser had only good intentions all along (e.g. lewis with lestat, lestat with magnus, armand with marius)

these overarching discourses that run through the entire chronicles, coupled with the eroticized depiction of abuse and particularly child abuse, to me solidify the interpretation of the chronicles as uncritically reproducing abuse apologia and pedophilia apologia as the only viable one. trying to read the chronicles as a whole as a critical, self-aware narrative simply doesn't hold.

however, i think there might be more merit to an interpretation of rice's treatment of incest as critical. but the overwhelming fetishization and eroticization of the subject across her books, alongside with the portrayal of most of her victims of incestuous abuse as seductive and, if not “initiators,” then willful participants, ultimately leads me to conclude that, if she was trying to construct a purposeful problematization of incest, she failed.

(now we’re circling back around!)

just like she failed in her attempts to toe the line between a sympathetic villain who’s portraying their victim from a distorted perspective, and outright villainizing and narratively punishing said victims.

(not that i believe all victims should get happy endings or all abusers should get their narrative comeuppance, of course. actually, let me make a general disclaimer, since i’m releasing this answer into the wilderness: going back to nabokov, there are people who read lolita all the way through and still came away from it still identifying with humbert humbert, and i don’t think that’s a failure in the writing, but in the reading. not even the most skilled of writers are spared from being misinterpreted… and anne rice wasn’t among the most skilled of writers, though she did have a couple strokes of genius. art as a whole would be poorer if bad artists didn’t get to make and share stuff, just like it would be poorer without haters and critics. so anne rice got to write some ideologically indefensible bullshit, and we get to call her an abuse apologist on the internet! such are the wonders of free speech.)

anyway, i think that’s pretty much all i have to say on the topic, so, sorry for the wall of text, i hope this answered your question. and if it didn't, or if you just want to read a bit more, i definitely think newitz’ piece and the part of keller’s essay “Interrogating the Vampire: Heterotextuality and Queer Reading” that’s available for preview here are both worth it.

ps: and again, if anyone can find me that book, or that essay, in full, i’m very curious to know what conclusions the author reaches.

#research

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enigmaticdiary · 8 days

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At the moment i am 60* or so pages into queen of the damned and I have yet to have any meaningful opinion of any kind on it. A lot of set up from characters i dont really care about.... Im at the beginning of Pandoras section and im interested to know more about her, but that's really all im feeling.

I laughed when marius got folded by akasha

#tqotd

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enigmaticdiary · 8 days

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Putting this account to good use to say I looooooooooove louis de pointe du lac soooo muchhhhhhhh. None of you understand the insane feelings I harbor for this woman in my heart SIGH. I am forced (by no one) to witness terrible takes on her character everyday (overexaggeration) on twitter and it is disheartening and makes me want to throw cement blocks at peoples heads (Not An Exaggeration.) but then i have to remember that i am smarter than these people (objective fact) and i will love louis to make up for their lack of love. and i understand the show and i LOVE LOUIS

DO YOU FUCKING HEAR ME!

#Very productive post if i do say so myself I have been feeling negatively lately but this has been cathartic #iwtv show

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enigmaticdiary · 29 days

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and so i have been thinking thoughts...

elicited from the new trailer. copy and pasted from my discord cause i do all my thinkin there n_n;;

claudia + louis

when i think back to the book and the movie claudia was obviously an extremely important turning point in louis' life but it never felt like she was... the center of it you know? despite the fact that she was that glue that kept louis tethered to anything human in him.

but the book felt like he was just telling his story to be a. Sad pathetic man thing for the sake of it. cause he had no purpose to exist alone. to exist without claudia or lestat (or armand but their dynamic is. different and dicier) but after claudia is killed something about her presence and the years she spent with louis while alive felt... shrugged off in a way? and its likely because she didn't really have much of an identity outside of him and lestat which is understandable because she was significantly more vulnerable in the book than in the show, so she lacked that autonomy to have that choice to exist outside of them.

and when madeleine was brought into the picture for her to get that autonomy it was unfortunately already too late...

~~[mild separation of thoughts because i left to take a shower]~~

theres a few things i want to mention. just thoughts in my head. claudia dies fighting HARD for her autonomy as a person and a vampire. in comparison to louis who in all honesty has (DEBATABLY) lived without a shred of having his own autonomy. with lestat, lestats love (as claudia very smartly puts it) keeps him in a box. louis is financially dependent on him as a black man in the jim crow era once he loses the azalea, hes cut off from his family, he has NO ONE.

the brief time of just him and claudia is a good moment in time for both of them , trying to discover vampiric history together(tho in the show it looks like before they get to paris its gonna be absolute dogshit in comparison to the book), but in louis' case i feel like its guided by guilt and some form of obligation, because if he didnt go with claudia–who was already set to do this traveling alone before lestat dragged her back–where WOULD he have gone? stayed in new orleans with lestat in the dump just waiting to crawl out? i think he would sooner kill himself if he was left alone like that.

with armand…………… loumand is definitely better than loustat in extremely complex ways that i cant put into words right now but simultaneously even worse because of HOW armand preys on louis. there is absolutely love between them and i wont deny it but armand is so INSANELY dependent on the love of others to give meaning to his existence that he leverages louis' weaknesses and frailities to ensure that they will spend an eternity together. like he was plotting from the second he met louis and claudia. he kills claudia and madeleine, which then makes louis kill all the other vampires of the coven, so that there is no one left, NO ONE for louis to be able to turn to for solace.

i think that him remembering what actually happened to him up until the present is so important to him because he'll finally be able to realize that he hasnt been allowed to properly exist for himself the entire duration of him being a vampire. and maybe he can decide what he wants to do, for himself.

devil's minion... (in the present)

[these thoughts are referring to a tweet that wonders if armand is going to end up alone in the end. note: i am not versed in devil's minion lore. i'm getting there but as of this post i have not reached it]

saw this [the tweet] and audibly exclaimed GOOD

i love armand but the guy is genuinely evil and has wronged every single character hes come across including lestat which i find is hard to do

I know ppl are excited for armandaniel and devils minion but Im not..going to lie ive been REALLY skeptical of it and how it would be explored in the context of the show without severely wronging louis and doing him EXTREMELY dirty.

people are allowed to like it in the bubble of the books but theres a really big shift in dynamic for the show in the fact that ... armand has definitely done... Something to daniel and louis, of what i cant say. but with the way that things are going, an ending in which daniel sides with armand after finding out exactly what armand did to louis and claudia in paris does NOT sit well with me?

and i love loumand but I am so uneasy about the inevitable breakup in regards to whats gonna happen AFTER it. I feel like daniel now is wise enough to not chase after a guy who is diabolically selfish and broken and leave louis behind to live out the vampire fantasy dreams of his youth. and in the trailer too im getting. Loudaniel vibes in terms of reconciling their past with the previous interview. And Heres my theory for Devils minion BUT ITS LOUDANIEL INSTEAD OF ARMANDANIEL (1/689)

#iwtv show #iwtv book #I usually post stuff under the impression that no one is going to gaf about anything i say but if you do I demand that you be nice to me

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enigmaticdiary · 1 month

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Tonight i start reading queen of the damned

#i want to continue my rewatch but ive been so busy with schoolwork that i havent had time to sit by myself and watch.. :/#i did watch ep 1-3 with friends in the dorm though for my bday last week and i had such a fun time!#i also forbade myself from starting the book cause i had another book to read for class.... BUT I FINISHED IT.

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enigmaticdiary · 2 months

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vampireposting hall of fame (2022-2023) for @iwtvfanevents's a meal to remember | links in images

#The last one got me #iwtv show

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enigmaticdiary · 2 months

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i dont have much to say but yeah i agree, basically. TVC is my first full experience in the gothic genre and im understanding now that incest and other taboo themes similar to it is just... part of the genre, so I won't really complain about its presence anymore but ill definitely complain if i feel like the themes being utilized don't have much substance to them.

in which i definitely agree there isn't really that much to gabrielle and lestat. it felt like their romantic entanglement was so heavily emphasized for... shock value? at least to me. it didn't feel challenging, i just found it to be an annoyance which ended up making me want gabrielle out of the story faster since it was obviously what their conflict was leading up to, even though I find gabrielles character to be fascinating!

it's hard to put into words, but essentially i like the themes of lestat and gabrielle in their respective perceptions of the latter, but their interactions to develop their dynamic really just left a lot to be desired.

I do like the ideas that anne rice sets up in regards to vampirism, the loss of humanity, and the melting of human dynamics but she chooses the most extreme ways to make examples of these ideas and it makes it so fucking hard to take it seriously cause im Trying to i really am.

like with claudia and louis. i did enjoy the complexities of their dynamic, louis being trapped between the perception of her as a child and her as an adult, and claudia being trapped within that same perception of herself, since her identity hinges on both of those worlds. but then i have to read the bizarre romantic and sometimes borderline sexual interactions between them and it just makes me roll my eyes... to me it's clear that she's trying to show a difference between vampire and human intimacy... human dynamics as we know them get distorted past the reinvention via death but she just dips these concepts so much farther than can be justified

even worse as im reading TVL and. every single instance between lestat and his mom. this in particular is so frustrating to me not just because of the incest, which is a given, but because the book keeps fucking flip flopping between acknowledging gabrielle in this new life as lestat's mother or acknowledging her as just gabrielle and no longer the marquise, becoming essentially a whole and seperate person after her death.

theres an entire spiel from gabrielle where she views her human self as someone completely other, but then other times the narrative reinforces the mother son dynamic in the same breath as the lovers dynamic. JUST PICK A MESSAGE! DO WE REJECT HER PAST AS A HUMAN AND EVERYTHING THAT CAME WITH THAT (lestat being her son included) OR NOT!!

#sorry i took so long to respond i saw i got a response and got really scared orz...#i feel like if gabrielle was Just a bit more of an emotionally active character things could have been a lot more interesting #but half the time it just feels like lestat is talking to a brick wall #sorry if it feels like I'm just repeating what you're saying i do have other thoughts im just nervous O.O #mingling

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enigmaticdiary · 2 months

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When Louis joins in the laughter at the state of Lestat’s cards, he does so because he has recognised what those other men have not; Lestat is blatantly hustling, play acting as the rich-and-naive-foreigner to the point of parody (“I'm terrible at cards. Did I not mention that to everyone?”). It is absurd that anyone would believe this to be real, but Lestat has correctly measured the extent of the others' greed, ego, and xenophobia. This is an overture by Lestat to Louis, an attempt at drawing similarities between them by showing being underestimated by those around him. It is so interesting then that Lestat follows this up by choosing to reveal his powers to Louis, changing the presentation from one where he is wrongfully thought of as lesser, to one where he is superior. It should be threatening, but Lestat presents this power as something that can help Louis, that Louis should welcome. And then, in the next breath, Lestat elevates Louis above him (“I'll need protection from the wolves”), making himself vulnerable with an offer of help and love. In one evening, Lestat switches between presenting himself to Louis as having less, equal, and more power than him. And of course (completely unintentionally for Lestat) this scene also demonstrates how power and access to it are controlled by societal forces beyond individual influence. For all that Lestat is an outsider with odd mannerisms and too long hair, his whiteness ensures that a respectful title is given before his name. Lestat simultaneously sets it up so that Louis can win money at cards, privately criticising the discrimination Louis faces, while publicly backing up the excuse used to pressure Louis into accepting an exploitative deal.

#wow. jesus #iwtv show #good post

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enigmaticdiary · 2 months

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i am rewatching episode 1 for rewind the tape :) I've seen the pilot probably around 20 times at this point but I've only watched it by myself.... once! so for the first time since my first time watching it alone, im gonna do it again with a head full of knowledge of the iwtv book and the full season. and im turning off captions so it's less reading and more watching and close observing for me >:D

Below is a liveblog!

WARNING: I FUCKING LOVE TO TALK AND POINT OUT USELESS THINGS ON EVERY SINGLE THING I SEE. THIS POST IS GOING TO BE A MILE LONG. Also im still not great at putting my thoughts together.

hmm. I would read molloys book on kaposi sarcoma and hiv/aids. i love how well the fake book covers and this advert are put together because so many times I've been asked by friends who i showed the show to if it was an actual commercial LOL.

THE PIC ON THE BACK OF THE BOOK GOING FROM LUKE TO JUST AN ACTUAL PICTURE OF YOUNG ERIC BOGOSIAN? LMFAO. The casting is genuinely so perfect in this show. hehe i like how well the passage of time is depicted through the book covers too, not just in. the photos for daniel obviously but for the aesthetic styles of the covers. the cover they made for "the internets gavel" is sooo mid 2000s. I love the attention to detail for these things on screen for less than a second because it gives a fool like me something to look at and praise simply because the detail wasn't overlooked.

"hate and ashbury" man this is such a good title too. simply because im looking at it and sifting out details it's such a good way to get even more insight into molloy's character. while I don't need to get into a history lecture of haight-ashbury, it tells a lot because it was a historically hippie neighborhood in the 1960s and the birthplace of the counterculture movement, it says a lot for molloy especially seeing the previous three fictional books he wrote about, being hiv/aids crisis, the politics of climate change in the United states, the governments attempts at putting stricter regulation on the internet... I could get into how this connects with molloy's character more in relation to his desire for vampirism but i am barely over a minute in and I've been typing for 15 minutes now!!!

"Preparing For An Interview" NO WAY. GUYS!

No no no i will not pause every 10 seconds and try to connect the thematic dots of everything being presented to me. I need to save that for the video essay im writing!

louis' beautiful handwriting❤️

i dont know why daniels scrunched up face is so fucking funny to me.

Jesus okay watching this without captions is actually really difficult for me i see why i need them all at all times. If im not rewinding because i keep fucking pausing im rewinding because I didn't understand a fucking word i just heard. Despite seeing the episode 20 times.

Hmm.. What personally redemptive accomplishments could louis be referring to..?

UUGGGHHHHHHJJJJJJJJHHHHHHHHHHHHHFHHHH sorry Louis on screen and i started tearing up. Hello armand goodbye armand.

Yah.

Do you think louis goes on twitter sometimes.

Yah?

COVID MEDIA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! COVID MEDIA!!!!!!!!!!!

Louis has changed... The only big change he's mentioned between Interview 1 and now that I can recall off the top of my head is that he stopped killing in 2000. I wonder why? I wonder many things

Truth and reconciliation....

Armand being concerned with daniels editor seeing/hearing what was said. I am vaguely aware of the theory that armand has possibly been up to mindfuckery with both louis and Daniel and i can only wonder if this has been mentioned to buoy that theory. To control the narrative.? Hmm... but why?

I know Daniel was annoyed by louis calling him "boy" but i think it's kind of cute. Even with nearly 50 years passing by, the old human is still young to the vampire who has lived going on twice his lifetimes. I am not 10 minutes in and I have been typing for 40 minutes!

FUUUUUUCK sorry. louis

I have no commentary on louis introducing. LESTAT. sorry, not him. On louis introducing new orleans and his the place he inhabited in it. I think its pretty self explanatory and explicit, yeah?

BRICKS❤️❤️❤️❤️

Oh my god the fucking "Oh—goddamn." upon seeing fenwicks diarrhea dick is Ao fucking funny. Louis acting like he would actually have a problem seein a dick or too. Probably would have a problem seeing fenwicks tho (unshitted on). I don't disagree there. Maybe the poop camo is for the best....

Yiu can't be saying that racist jake the dog

Id stick my finger in fenwicks wound and see how deep itd go.

Hi paul

The lord told me to cum. Sorry im 5 years old

Paul punching louis is genuinely so fucking. LESTAT AND HIS FUCKING GOOFY ASS HAT OH MY GOD!!. Sorry. Paul punching Louis was so fucking funny to me because I know that if they were not on that street and were at home or something they would be SLUGGING each other until grace has to pull them apart. Then hug it out :) Idk is this how siblings work im pretty much an only child

I keep having to google words help. HELP. NOT ME HAVING LOOKED UP "PULPIT" ALREADY AND APPARENTLY COMPLETELY FORGETTING WHAT IT MEANS.

Immediately another word I have to google. Im not gonna say I'm stupid for not knowing these words, i did not grow up with the church as closely as others...

i do think a lot about the pointe du lac household before their father died. like. A lot. Theres so much in that brief interaction mentioning him. The sugar cane, the hospital, the Diversion.

Ill never forget the first time i rewatched this ep After learning about the mayfair witches and seeing this scene and being like: GASP! OH MY GOD! ANNE RICE REFERENCE! IT'S ALL CONNECTED!

Paul is so fucking funny like the shade he's constantly throwing, please take a break LMFAO

hng. (louis)

Googling words again. Hmmm the internalized homophobia yes yes i see. Sorry need to google another fucking word. Oh. oh louis...... Ok I can see how my mom picked up on louis being gay so fast. I am a smart boy but my vocabulary is pathetically limited so "big" words going over my head made what should've been pretty obvious be absolutely indecipherable to me. Sorry for being stupid (im not)

I am 17 minutes in and I have been watching and typing for an hour!

Louis: everyone in here is white so its easy to pick out who's gonna call me a nigger to my face and whos gonna do it behind my back

Sir..... Mister....

Hes here

Microaggression 1

TWO.

THREE.

FOUR?

LESTAT CONTINUOUSLY HITTING ME OVER THE HEAD WITH BRICKS

His hair looks like shit

IM. GOING TO KILL HIM. Dont worry louis get behind me.

YOU GONNA FALL VICTIM TO THIS MAN WHOSE HAIR GOT CAUGHT UNDER THE IRON?

Oh my god Leswirl de lioncourt PLEASE PLEASE I CANT TAKE THIS. Actually started growling out loud and said "Shut rhr fuck up, oh mt God.!!!"

IVE EMPTIED A BANK VAULT SAMPLING. S. AJSHKSKSJZMSMS PLEASE SHUT THE FUCK UP OH MY GKD. PLEASW. ISNSSMJAKSNSMSJAJZMSUAUBZNZ

Lestat put your ears away, please.

Me, watching this for the first time at the age of 20: Is this gay...? No... it can't be. They would put gay in a show...? For real? (in denial and scared of being queerbaited despite the most explicit homosexual overtext)

MISS CARROLL THEYRE HAVING A DICK MEASURING COMPETITION.!!!!!!!

Unfortunately lestat did kind of serve there but throwing his dick down on the table embarrassing louis like that in front of miss carroll and lily was evil and racist somehow And he should be sentenced to 40 good slams in thr head with a brick

If paul didn't punch louis none of this would be happening

Lestat: God i love to troll

Who the devil you say.? Well...

Oh lord louis' face card sorry didn't mean to moan like that. I saw a maj so beautiful I threw up evrrywhere

Hmm. The racism

FUUUUUUCK LOUIS IS SO CUTE I NEED TO KILL MYSELF!

Lestat needs to put his ears AWAY he looks so bad with his hair that short.

What IS this insane time freezing trick lestat is doing? God when im actually giving myself a chance to really absorb myself in the show that scene is actually pretty fucking scary LOL

I NEED TO DIE I HATE HOW MUCH I LOVE THEM. CAN SOMEONE PLEASE SHIOT ME IN THE FUCKING HEADA

Lord have mercy the sheer SEX in his eyes as he looks at louis' neck. I nedd to die

Paul..... I need to kill myself for emotional reasons not related to loustat

Egypt reference! Wow! Gabrielle allusion ! "The means to make my way to paris" Ok well what if i

I FEEL SO FUCKING BAD AT HOW HARD I LAUGH AT PAULS SCENES. steven norfleet does such an amazing job in this role.

SAVAGE GARDEN!!!!!!! GUYS!!!!! B

Hooray! The scene that changed me literally Forever. Whatever, man.

Ykung violinist

lily and lestat circling louis like two lions descending on a zebra.

I had a dream about this scene once. I will not br elaborating.

Dude.

GUYS. SEX IS SO FUCKING AWESOME!!!

Guys.

God thid is so fucking crazy

Unfortunately this part does make me giggle especially having to see these two men floating naked and seeing sams fat ass Im about to start crying again

I wish vampires were real

Insert joe biden yelling faggot I don't have it on hand and i don't want to pause for 20 minutes to find it

MY FAVORITE SCENE EVERRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! PAUL AND LOUIS TAPDSNCING SO CUTE AARRRGGHHHHHHHHHHH!!! The fact that thus scenr eas really all them, being jacob and steven, its so awesome.

WHEN THE BLACK JOY! And then thr Black suffering. Ok guys 21st time is a charm Im praying really hard I THINK I CAN STOP PAUL FROM JUMPING THIS TIME!

This is one of those scenes that really seperates black viewers from nonblack viewers because the way some of my nonblack friends have reacted to florence blaming louis has made me so insanely embarrassed.... I don't know how to explain it. But the shame from a black parent... especially the mother. I don't know. It breaks you in a different way than anything else. Theres a lot of nuance I want to say but I don't have the time or brainpower or expertise to word it properly so please just take my emotional response to this scene at face value.

sorry but lestat just openly asking during the funeral service where they got pauls coffin from is CRAZY.

Breaking finns arm was also crazy as fuck. Like would hs have done that if louis didn't get angry as fuck at him just then. Unfortunately knowing lestats character now seeing louis get mad like that probably made him hard as fuck and thr only way he can deal with it in the moment is to break that mans arm. Sorry I love how ar the beginning of this post i was like super into the nitty gritty and the details bjt then it just turned into me making fun of lestat and how hard he definitely was in like every single scene he was in

God. the pain.

Killing lily was in fact extremely racist and misogynistic of lestat. He should be stabbed many times for this

God.

Ok scene two that permanently changed me

Sorry to that poor stunt double that got knocked out then.

What rage you must feel as you choke on your sorrow. Unfortunately one of the hardest lines ever

No commentary. Hard to say things about this scene cause its just so good, man.

Oh my poor ashy grey blood deprived louis

Watching this scene with headphones on is crazy

GOD. GUYS. I LOVE SHOW. DID YOU GUYS KNOW I FUCKING LOVE SHOW???!!?? Pack it up guys This is one of the best pilots in tv history

To wrap up this post, it took me about 2 hours and 20 minutes to finish the first episode. I spent twice as long watching it BECAUSE I LOVE TO FUCKING YAP!

#iwtv show #vampterview #oh no i just realized that when i was re-editing this post to make more additions i overwrote one of my previous edits so its not there #anymore...#it was the scene of lestat at the dinner :(#Basically i said: This scene is so scary #and that sam is a really good actor. And both him and jacob have installed a passion for acting in me #And of course I was laughing at how funny paul was

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