#interview with the vampire desired reality

[danemortem]

How I dress in my iwtv DR ❤️

[shiftingwitholive]

guys is it normal to feel like i'm having fucking withdrawals or something from not seeing my s/o

[glitterby-baby]

your charming nature will open many doors for you 🦪🍫🎭🎷🎠

[bbyalwayhigh]

Me rewatching a movie/show so I can remember everything for when I shift and I see my S/O either with a love interest or die

[lotuzies]

𝜗𝜚 SILLY LIL THINGS TO DO — make shifting more fun

THE HARMONIES — make playlists! one for your s/o, for your friends, for yourself & backstory, or even for a specific scenario you scripted! i love listening to a song for the first time and immediately connecting it to someone/something from my dr.

SMILE 4 THE PICTURE — make pinterest boards! i'm sure lots of you already do this, but you don't realize how there are multiple possibilities! a board of pics you and your s/o or friends would take, food you want to eat, things you wanna buy, or even a specific moment like christmas day or your first date! also pro tip: when making a board about someone, try to include more than just their clothes & face, add pictures that really embody their aura.

WORDS AREN'T ENOUGH — if you're a writer, write! script your scenarios in the most enchanting way possible, describe your loves ones with the most beautiful words you can find. and even if you aren't a writer, i still think this can be a lot of fun, i mean, who doesn't like to yap about their dr?

BLESSED VIEWS — make and/or watch edits! if you're a video editor (i am jealous) you can make edits of your s/o or friends to a fitting song, or even better, if you're skilled and creative enough, you can edit yourself with them. this also goes to photo editors, if you have the right resources, you can definitely edit a picture of you with whoever you desire or change some visual aspects. also, i'm sure most of us already do this but it's still worth mentioning, watch edits & clips! recently i found an account that posts the most scrumptious and FITTING edits for my vampire dr and have not stopped replaying it!

LIKE N FOLLOW — make social media profiles! this mostly applies to those shifting to realities where technology exists, there are many apps that can help you create fake profiles and posts, or you can just manually edit a screenshot of an account. this also goes to make up text convos!! between you and whoever you want or even between other people! this can be for a scripted scenario or just silly little mundane texts you'd receive from someone on a daily basis.

LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION — act as your "drself" (i hate using that term but u get it.) if you're only planning to shift later that day, while you're here, act as if you have shifted already! do your hair and make up how you would in the other reality, if for some reason you act differently there, copy it here! maybe act out how you would in a specific situation?

VOGUE'S MUSE — answer interviews! mostly for fame dr shifters, but even if you're not a famous person, let's say this is a hypothetical situation where you get to reply to all these questions about yourself from any of your other realities. search for popular interviews like the ones you'd find on vogue, buzzfeed, elle, or even search for fake interviews on shifting internet spaces!

QUESTION MARK — take personality quizes! this is so much fun, you can take them as yourself from another reality or as someone else from there and then imagine how you guys would react to each other's results!

that is all i could come up with, hope u enjoyed! byebye & go shift right nowwww

[thejournallo]

How to achieve our manifestation in less than three days.

This is a question that is always on everyone's mind because, let's be real, we are all impatient to get our desires as fast as possible. So what can we do to get what we want as fast as possible? Here is THE guide on how to do it.

Is begin "Delulu" the only method to make your manifestation come faster?

People often say that starting with a delusional mindset speeds up manifestation, and you know what? They're absolutely right! Being "delulu" is like wielding a powerful instrument that we can play however and whenever we like. 

But why is it so powerful?  Because we reprogram ourselves by slowly changing our mindset by faking that everything is already ours, reprogramming ourselves means unlearning things that don’t serve our wellness and replacing them with things that do.

Personally, I find it super effective to envision myself in an interview when I try to manifest, telling the journalist how I became so powerful and how everything I've manifested took little to no time. It works amazingly! I get what I want from the universe in just three days by doing this.

We can speed up our manifestations, not just by affirming and believing that we already have what we desire (which alone is often enough to make things happen faster), but also by applying some of the 12 laws of the universe:

The law of Devine ones:

This principle emphasizes that everything in the universe is intrinsically linked, forming a single, unified whole. It implies that we are all interconnected, not only with each other but also with the source, or universal consciousness. With this law, we simply apply the reality that we are already connected to our desire, even if it has to be created from 0. It is already connected to us, and vice versa.

The law of Detachment 1.0:  

The Law of Detachment is a core principle in deductive reasoning and formal logic. It asserts that if a conditional statement (an "if-then" statement) is true and the hypothesis (the "if" part) holds true, then the conclusion (the "then" part) must logically be true as well. I will give a quick example: if I am a witch, then I can do magic (an "if-then" statement), so if I am a witch, and it is true, then the fact that I can do magic is also true. Applying this to manifestations is now as simple as it can be. If I am manifesting this (which is true), then my manifestation is already here (also true).

The law of Detachment 2.0:

The Law of Detachment underscores the importance of trust and surrender. By relinquishing control and not clinging to specific outcomes, you create a state of allowing that can make it easier for your desires to manifest. This approach minimizes stress and resistance, which can otherwise hinder the manifestation process. In essence, the Law of Detachment in manifestation is about balancing desire with surrender. You hold your vision and take steps towards it, but remain flexible and open to how and when it manifests in your life.

The Law of Inspired Action:

Manifestation may require us to take inspired, and intentional action aligned with our desires. This law emphasizes the importance of actively pursuing our goals and dreams while remaining open to guidance and opportunities. For example, if I manifest to go on a great adventure and make a lot of friends along the way, I will have to take the intentional action to book it.

The Law of Rhythm:

Everything in the universe operates in cycles and rhythms. This law suggests that there are natural ebbs and flows, ups and downs, and that understanding these rhythms can help us navigate life more harmoniously. A way that I manifest things is to listen to music that makes me feel powerful and in control of the whole universe. Everyone has this kind of song in their heart because everyone vibrates at a certain frequency and volume. One of mine for example is vampire heart (slowed) - Isak Roen

These laws are not the only way but they for sure are a way. You can use all of them or use only one it is really up to you and i really suggest you learn about the 12 laws because they are a must for manifesting your dream life.

if you are intrested in more intresting way to manifest don't forget to check my masterlist! I hope you have a blessed day or night!

-xoxo the journallo

[rholsof-film]

Vamps and Krittika

I briefly talked about Krittika being the Vampire archetype because of the purification aspect of it. Claire talks more about vampires in her new Mula video. While Mula dominates this trope I have seen the connection with vampires to Krittika’s purification. Claire mentions it’s important to note that vampire films are numerous and casting is broad overall. Which is why we see a a range of different naks in the vampire archetype, creating different types of vamps.

Krittika is ruled by Agni, the Fire God, which represents purification through destruction and renewal. These natives being early solars, lack control over their newfound power of purification/ transformation. The vampire archetype is similarly tied to themes of transformation—living in a state of deathlessness, often feeding off others to sustain their vitality. Vampires destroy to create, much like Krittika’s ability to burn away what no longer serves in order to purify and thrive.

Vampires are inherently tied to the concept of death, but not as an end—it is a state of becoming. Their immortality comes at the cost of their mortal life, symbolizing the shedding of the old self to attain a higher, albeit darker, state of existence. This “death” can be seen as a purifying process that strips away attachments and limitations, pushing one toward a new identity or reality.

Ex: Robert Patterson (Krittika Sun native/solar Ak) played one of the most popular vampires on television.

Ex: Megan Fox (Krittik Sun native) played a vampire in Night Teeth when she came back to television

Ex: Jacob Anderson (Birthtime not yet confirmed would supposedly have a Krittika Venus AK) played Louis de Pointe du Lac in Anne Rice’s TV series adaptation of Interview with a Vampire. I’d argue that the TV series is profoundly better than the original movie.

Much like Krittika’s shadow period, vampires live in their state of death and darkness. Vampires, like Krittika natives, are untamable forces that must consume (symbolically or literally) to maintain their magnetic allure and vitality. By taking “life” from others, they metaphorically strip away the old to reveal deeper truths about mortality, vitality, and the essence of being.

Krittika, is about burning away impurities to reveal clarity; truth seekers . Vampires, too, act as a force that removes the superficial, leaving only the essential behind; Liberators.

Vampires often represent what is repressed in society: sexual energy, autonomy, and raw instinct. Acknowledging and integrating these aspects of oneself can be deeply purifying.

In literature and mythology, vampires often serve as catalysts for change in those they encounter. Their presence forces others to confront their fears, desires, and inner truths, leading to a form of purification. For instance, many vampire stories involve characters who must overcome their own darkness or flaws to survive, thrive, or defeat the vampire.

However, eventually Krittika becomes bright and light. This nak does not dwell forever in darkness. This is merely an archetypal observation to the purification aspect of Krittika.

In conclusion, the vampire archetype is connected to purification through its association with transformation, shadow work, and renewal. Vampires strip away impurities.

[lidicanread]

I need an end to the question “did Louis eat the baby?” HE DID NOT. It is so obvious that I genuinely can’t tell if this “debate” is ongoing for another reason. We see the baby on the floor. We see Grace picking him up. In episode 4, at their mother’s wake, we see and hear Grace refer to Louis’s “nieces and nephew” in the present tense.

Literally what more do you people need? Are you implying that Louis ate his nephew and then talked about it in his interview as just a close call? What purpose would that serve? How does it contribute to the narrative that Louis is creating? If it’s to further illustrate that Lestat “was uncaring” then why does Louis show us in that same scene Lestat doing his absolute best to cheer Louis up? Why do we see them at the opera together, with Louis looking at Lestat with love?

Please I am begging for a shred of common sense. He did not eat the baby. It was a close call because he was a new vampire and he didn’t understand just how compelling the desire for blood would be. He learned that his new nature makes him entirely separate from that of his family. It forced him to finally reckon with the reality that he does not belong with them. No matter how much he wants to be able to walk both roads, he can’t. The moment with the baby is illustrating this point.

[see-arcane]

You can’t make people ship ships the way you want to ship them though. People can ship Orlok and Ellen in any way and under any lenses they really want to. Also judging by how interviews of cast and crew go they also wanted people to ship these characters and don’t view Ellen as abuse victim or CSA victim. It’s indeed kissy kissy vampire movie in a way as Ellen literally kisses Orlok on the lips and they have quite sensual vampire sex. I understand you can have frustration with some shipping or shippers and you are free to vent but you can’t change that people ship things or how they view and ship these things or how they view movies. People don’t look at movies and world with your eyes nor should they.

Don't want this to turn into a Thing, so I'd like to cap the topic off here.

I do not have a problem with people shipping Ellen and Orlok, or Thomas and Orlok, or Ellen and Thomas, or any combination thereof. Same goes for the actors/director who clearly wanted an element of attraction happening in the dynamic(s). It is gothic horror centering around the amorous and fucked up triangle these characters make. Ship happens.

What aggravates me is not just the bleaching and rose-colored glasses phenomenon with some folk's very literal non-joking interpretation of Orlok's attentions as purely ribald-romantic, but how it locks into a much longer, much more headache-inducing tradition that keeps getting grafted onto a very Specific kind of relationship in stories like this.

Red Riding Hood and the Wolf. Persephone and Hades. The last living wife standing and Bluebeard. Mina Harker and fucking Dracula.

Every time. Every single time that there is a Girl and an Aggressive Admirer/Predator involved in an original telling, it gets garroted, dragged through a Valentine Card printing press, and spat out the other side, either in genre-blind reinterpretations of every violent act or full-on spinoffs as Beauty and the Beast-flavored naughty xxx romance 😜 (Don't worry, she totally wanted it, she was just playing hard to get uwu)

When the girl is hunted. When the girl is imprisoned. When the girl is raped. When the girl has her life and the lives of loved ones threatened in order to make her compliant with what her attacker wants. No matter how much slaughter or entrapment or physical or psychological abuse is branded into the mythology or book or film, the rosy romantic revamp keeps happening.

I'm not going to sit down and go full hack psychology about the mechanics of forbidden fruit/desire/escapist kink involved in people's enjoyment of these stories. I love those stories! Can't get enough of the fucked uppery involved with narratives that take something like Love or Desire--traditionally upheld solely as Virtues reserved for curing a villain of their evil or firing in a glittery beam from some magical high schooler's wand--turned into something dangerous, maddening, and horrific. I eat that shit up.

What annoys and worries me is the lack of comprehension, or else outright ignoring, of the bare minimum of reality within a story in favor of sanitizing and filigreeing it into 'Just a naughty ;) romance~' wherein the Aggressor was definitely for real just a misunderstood suitor the Girl wanted all along..! as long as we ignore all the bodies and the repeated assaults and the bodily chucking her when she said a thing he didn't like and the point blank gaslighting and the attacking and entrapping her as a teenager as she screamed and went into the first of many many seizures and the fact that she was willing to die in order to kill him

Obviously I can't stop people from seeing what they want to see or thinking what they want to think. Imagination Land has no borders and folks can do whatever. I'm not going around with hardcover editions of Dracula, pummeling errant shippers for their transgressions.

I am just venting. Because venting and languishing and praying for actual critical thinking to make a comeback in media literacy is all I can do in the face of so many people reinventing the Coppola Wheel and stapling it over a work that is itself hammering the audience over the head with a plot about coercion and twisted relationships and murders committed en masse to make a girl put out for her stalker

Give it five years, we'll see Nosferatu: A Love Tale in theaters, directed by Luc Besson, in which the tragic Prince Orlok pines for the time displaced period piece goth girl, Ellen Murray, who is so very sick and tired of her boring boorish throwaway fiance, Thomas Hutter and longs for Orlok's leather clad embrace.

[savagewilderness]

Let’s breakdown this scene…

Lestat, playing piano: bent over, lost in the world of the music - out of this world entirely. Louis sees a broken thing playing a plank of wood. A far cry from the proud, splendid creature he once knew.

(From Interview with the Vampire) "My eyes widened as I studied this stooped and shivering vampire whose rich blonde hair hung down in loose waves covering his face.”

Side note from me, as I love to talk about things that make The Vampire Chronicles appealing to me. Some people seem to be of the view that they wouldn’t desire immortality, only to be these sad, lonely, melancholic creatures… but I have always felt this way myself - even when I was a tiny child, long before I read The Vampire Chronicles. There has always been an innate loneliness and isolation to me deep inside. I don’t think you’d necessarily know it to meet me, mind! I am a smiley person! I like to do childlike, fun things. I try to bring happiness, not gloom to the world.

However, my instinct has always been to retreat into my own, wordless, unbound imagination, and to feel entirely alone, in truth. And still, I am. As a child, I felt more the weight of the world as if I were already 1000 years old. Now, loss of hope that comes with time is both sadder, scarier and, in its way, more freeing.

Anyway - imagine having infinite time and so being able to truly drift out of existence for decades. It’s such an appealing concept to me. I know Lestat is very sad here, but the idea of this kind of true escape… oh how I yearn for it. To let the world crumble around me. To step out of existence for some decades, with the possibility of return, not the reality as it is in mortal life that that is you falling through cracks you’ll never crawl out of ever again…

Lestat names Louis, reflexively when asked who said “hello”. He hasn’t turned to see Louis yet. To Lestat, Louis died 50 years ago. He is a ghost, surely? Lestat’s voice has a flat affect here. He isn’t thinking. He is merely reacting.

When Lestat first looks at Louis, I see fear:

- Does Louis really exist?

- What will Louis do?

- Must Lestat be drawn back into the world here? To acknowledge reality?

(From IWTV) “`I've dreamed of your coming . . . coming. . ' he said.”

Lestat asks Louis if he’d like a rat, as if he were a hallucination still, more than real-Louis. I think Lestat knows Louis is real when he speaks, but he’s still only half in reality himself.

Louis says “I’ve come to see you”, but Lestat is still half in his own constructed world with his music and Argerich… I love how Lestat hugs and caresses his plank-piano, drawing it into himself, as if drawing music in to himself. Me too, Lestat. Me too. I adore how Rolin and all added music to this scene. It isn’t there in the books. Of course it makes a through-line for rock star Lestat, but it is a deep love of Lestat’s and I am SO HAPPY with this addition!

I know a lot of people find “Siri, pause…” funny, but I must be a weird human, as I just find it oddly poignant. Like did people watch and laugh at this moment? This feels like when I go to see a play and people all laugh at something and I don’t laugh, then some other thing I laugh out loud at, but nobody else is laughing. And this is why I can’t do memes or any popular thing. SIGH. ANYWAY!!!

The way Lestat puts the keyboard up on front of himself, like a shield as Louis moves closer, his breathing growing ragged. Lestat genuinely scared… as though Louis’ mere presence might obliterate him if he gets too close. And of course, he does not know why Louis is there. Is he there to kill him? Does it matter if he is? He should kill him. He could too, right now. The emotional support piano becomes a protective plank.

But what Lestat is not expecting is Louis’ kindness, care, worry and empathy.

“Did you save my life in Paris?”

And now we get the first glimmer of the old Lestat as Lestat lifts his chin, shakes his head, tries to be nonchalant and to muster up his old pride, maintain any pride he still possesses. He immediately dismisses Louis’ niceness with a self-criticism as he truly perceives that he put Louis in danger by not protecting him from Armand. Responsibility in Nicolas’ death, and, he thinks, in Louis’.

Lestat is defensive. His unspoken mantra, “Don’t see me. Don’t see the real me, Louis. I cannot take it. Not right now.” Lestat is almost begging Louis to tell him he hates him, as he’s imagined Louis’ hate all these years… I fear halluci-Louis may not have been the kind, loving vision for Lestat that DreamStat was for Louis…?

A side note again: Lestat’s “All hail me” gave me a full-on spontaneous existential crisis. Folks, does Lestat say “All hail me” in the books? I hope not! Because for as long as I remember, in appropriate circumstances, I say “All hail me” and obviously it’s a turn of phrase, but I had a sudden heart stopping moment where, with a chill, I thought *Did I get that from Lestat?!* Am I entirely even my self at all?! Am I merely a manifestation of all the art I have ever consumed? Am… I… Armand!?!?!??!! Oh MY! I don’t think Lestat says this in the books though, right? Right!?!?

Well, Lestat puts his piano-plank down, terrified Louis might show him love. Craving it. Fearing it.

“Been enduring here?” Lestat is truly proud now. He will not admit his pain. As if not speaking it could make it invisible when it’s plain all about - from within him and without. It is *very* Lestat when questioned on the pain in his soul or shown that it has been seen to be like “I am FINE” & to think that’s how he comes across to others, when really of COURSE they see how broken he is. And then he bemoans that nobody will let him be broken, when he himself struggles to be broken other than when alone or on the page.

“I didn’t know it was a gift.” - Lestat is still wary. Still expecting hate from Louis here… unable yet to fully accept and understand…

Then Louis begins to say the only things Lestat has ever wanted to hear and know from Louis - thanking Lestat for the gift of vampiric immortality, showing he understands the beauty of it and intends to value that and use it… & Lestat is done for; broken open from here. He still, for a moment tries to fight back with “Shall we list all the ways we have wronged each other…” etc. But really, Lestat can now no longer maintain ay facade. Louis has opened him up.

And now we are open to Lestat’s thoughts for the last half-century. Armand erases Louis’ suicide attempt from his mind, but it is the first thing Lestat asks about. In his mind he has replayed for 5 decades how Louis is dead and it is his fault.

Sam and Jacob are so brilliant and beautiful as they open to each other in this scene. Claudia. Grief. Pain. Then, love. Broken-Lestat is particularly too much - holding on to responsibility over Claudia’s fate and how she looked at him at the end and he did nothing… and Louis, trying to take away and share the burden. Louis - so empathetic… and as they move through grief to love, words fall away (or become too personal to matter) and the storm outside echoes the storm of their hearts and their love.

(From IWTV) ““…And as I looked down at him, as I saw his yellow hair pressed against my coat, I had a vision of him from long ago, that tall, stately gentleman in the swirling black cape, with his head thrown back, his rich, flawless voice singing the lilting air of the opera from which we'd only just come, his walking stick tapping the cobblestones in time with the music, his large, sparkling eye catching the young woman who stood by, enrapt, so that a smile spread over his face as the song died on his lips; and for one moment, that one moment when his eye met hers, all evil seemed obliterated in that flush of pleasure, that passion for merely being alive.

" Was this the price of that involvement? A sensibility shocked by change, shrivelling from fear? I thought quietly of all the things I might say to him, how I might remind him that he was immortal, that nothing condemned him to this retreat save himself, and that he was surrounded with the unmistakable signs of inevitable death. But I did not say these things, and I knew that I would not.

" It seemed the silence of the room rushed back around us, like a dark sea…””

Bonus: misprint in my TVL copy!

(From TVL) “Louis had come finally to this very place and seen me through the windows. I tried to imagine it. Louis alive. Louis here, so close, and I had not even know it. I think I laughed a little. I couldn’t keep it clear in my mind that Louis wasn’t burnt up. But it was really wonderful that Louis still lived. It was wonderful that there existed still that handsome face, that poignant expression, that tender and faintly imploring voice. My beautiful Louis surviving, instead of dead and gone with Claudia and Nick.

But then maybe he was dead. Why should I believe Armand?”

[deerdoegone]

⊹ ࣪ ˖ 𝄞 some geeky. some from the mid 2000s. some i'm obsessed with. town names are abbreviated.

my waiting room : not much to say about her aside from the two facts that she's where i'd like to permashift to and stay the rest of that aaliyah's life. has been refurnished—heavily inspired by the pink palace apartments from coraline with subtleties of 2000s mcbling meets himegal interview and harajuku (2018). dolly decor and things you'd find in the bedroom of 2008 socialite who was a victim of the bling ring. shared with my loser boyfriend, tomas vrbada who doubled as a childhood static screen crush when i was concerning(ly) young playing mortal kombat nine.

wstpt, new hampshire : east coast vampires in a fictional college town, inspired by twilight, life is strange one, the vampire diaries, and more. embodies late 2000s to early 2010s with emo and indie-twee influences. this reality is of my own, but was HEAVILY inspired by a non-shifting user, so all credit to her and her original work. meet aaliyah doe. my trip to "regular" westport, basically if it was non-horror.

mrcv, california : 2008 ranchos palos verdes inspired coastal city known for it’s mermaid motifs and middle - upper class residents with tons of tourists for the summer and fall months, all trying to catch a real mermaid every year. cliffside homes and country clubs with new york socialites a long way from home. meet aaliyah pearle.

fame, director and screenwriter : hollywood but i wanna pursue my desire to create. first big film around 2011 at age twenty-one. cult following similar to sofia coppola but not in the lana del rey tumblr girl way. be Normal. inspired by david lynch, sofia coppola, jordan peele, and catherine hardwicke. affinity for psychological horror and supernatural. introduction soon.

fame, actress : hollywood but i wanna pursue my desire to bring creations to life. first breakout role in 2009 at eighteen, probably stole the role of jennifer check. idolized by all, sweetest experiences with fans and peers. starts around 2010, can you tell i love 2000s and 2010s media and culture? paris hilton presentation with fluttershy notes. introduction soon.

fame, youtuber / streamer : dolly aesthetic before it was cool. sorta. entirely decked out in pink, starts around 2019. does a bit of everything? get ready, gaming, makeup, come file my taxes with me so the irs doesn't take my home. bit of everything like i said. introduction soon.

movie, challengers : still building this reality don't ask questions or i'll shake like an anxious sick old dog (jk just ask and i'll answer as best as i can) introduction soon.

television, common law : the final boss against my craving for old bad but fun television. homicide detective. detective work has never looked so trendy. back when beige and brown were the sexiest colors. dark honey blonde hair with platinum highlights that blends into my skin color. bangles and hoops. break room coffee and dollar store cinnamon vanilla perfume. introduction soon.

television, house m.d. : diagnostics team. if a cool teenage girl was also a distant unwell aunt. crushed on a married man. hates the australian. kinda. deserves as many smoke breaks as she wants. attachment to her oncology chew toy. scarily good at roulette and blackjack but shit at poker. introduction soon.

television, my babysitter's a vampire : had this reality before i even knew what shifting was at 14. crazy. haven't tried to shift here but adding it because it is special to me. somewhere between awkward youngest daughter in her human family and the average guilt-ridden white chapel vampire or witch. haven't decided. undead couture. something akin to hannah washington and jessica riley. introduction soon.

video games, life is strange one : indie sleeze before it was uncool. fashion designer with runway model intentions. evie zamora's closet. tragic backstory covered by extroverted party girl persona. haunts the narrative in before the storm. sortakindanotreally friendship with victoria chase. facebook icon. good student and liked by teachers. rachel amber kind of popularity. gossipy. can make really good pancakes, like i'm talking mouth melting, my god. introduction soon.

video games, watch dogs two : ummm pretty hacker girl this reality is very new still but ask questions and i'll answer as best i can!!!! introduction soon.

[cruesuffix]

Another Crüe Interview

From: The Observer (January ‘05)

Transcribed by: Miss Lily (me)

Tagline: ‘Sex, drugs and hip replacement surgery... the continuing adventures of Motley Crue, the most notorious rock'n roll band in the world.’

Wrecking Crüe’s Return

The most obnoxious and excessive band ever are back. In Los Angeles, Caspar Llewellyn Smith asks Mötley Crüe about facelifts, Pamela Anderson and hip replacements. Photographs by Jamie-James Medina

IT IS A CHILL winter night in Los Angeles when the four members of the band billed as the most notorious on earth unfurl themselves from unfurl themselves from their hot rod hearse. The two figures that loom largest are Tommy Lee, with all the goofy energy of a maniacal drummer and former husband of Pamela Anderson that you might expect, and the vampiric Nikki Sixx, bassist and de facto leader of the group in its present incarnation. Less able to command the flashbulbs and TV carnera booms - less able to extricate himself from the vehicle - is guitarist Mick Mars, who is more the wraith, bent double and stick thin, barely mobile following his hip replacement operation less than five weeks ago.

Despite $70,000 worth of plastic surgery, courtesy of MTV which has been filming him for a reality show, singer Vince Neil looks puffy in the face, not the lip sticked blonde pretty boy who fronted the band when they were the most baroquely glamorous and barbarically decadent act ever seen. But as the group forge, and in one instance, hobble their way into the venue, is the serpentine way in which Vince's tongue flickers from his mouth that makes the fans outside the Palladium - chanting “Crüüüüüe! Crüüüüüe!” as if a moratorium on umlauts has expired - believe this is the day they feared would never come.

Vince's reptilian aspect is repulsive, frankly, but this band more than any proved that when it comes to heavy metal, a little sleaze surely never hurt. So, after the several overdoses and deaths among their circle of friends, after the soap operas of their many and varied lurid relationships, after all the all the bad-blood between them.... more than five years since they spilt, seemingly for ever. Mötley Crüe have risen.

Alas, from the media's vantage point, impossible to discern the precise object of Vince's desire. That is because the Crüe's arrival at the venue has been fraught, and the reporters gathered - from publications including the Wall Street Journal and Metal Hammer (Germany) - are already listening to five men in suits at a press conference, as silent video footage behind them describes the scene outside. It could be an accountants' convention, as Dennis from the American booking agency explains that this reunion, encompassing a global tour, has come about because Nikki was 'treated like an icon' by fans when he toured with his own band following publication of The Dirt, the Crue's bestselling autobiography (described by Rolling Stone as the most detailed account of the awesome pleasures and perils of rock'n' roll stardom ever'). Nikki was busy writing his own Heroin Diaries, an account of his old addiction, but finally capitulated to the demands of promoters, rang the other guys, and lawyers smoothed it all through.

Since the group fell apart, Neil too has had his own band, as well as his fledgling TV career (Remaking: Vince Neil started airing in the States this month) and interests in motor racing and golf. Likewise Tommy, presently in the middle of recording the “best thing I've ever done” with his outfit Methods of Mayhem, also the star of a forthcoming reality show for NBC TV (in which he gets sent to university to take classes in chemistry, literature and horticulture). Then there was last year's autobiography, Tommyland, in which he said that his long standing antagonism towards Vince would prevent the Crüe ever reforming

Mick, the eldest at 48 by two years, has been mostly laid low by his ankylosing spondylitis or the 'grey ghost’ as he calls it - a genetic bone disease that is slowly fusing the joints in his body and which necessitated hip surgery.

Vince, Tommy and Nikki talk with relish about their extracurricular activities, and Tommy has already disparaged four new songs that the band have recorded (“they're wack!”). As for Mick, it seems an act of demonic sadism to force him to throw himself into the demands of a crushing rock tour. But next, at the press conference, Rick from VH1 notes that “our audience has a great interest in metal overall right now,” while Jim from Clear Channel Entertainment, the dominant media force in US rock, admits to having “recently refamiliarised myself with their hits' like 'Girls, Girls. Girls'.” He announces that one of the 'polished new numbers, 'If I Die Tomorrow,’ “will definitely be a hit in 2005.” Rick and Jim are as heavy metal as the Olsen twins and their dour rapaciousness feels depressingly at odds with the vaunted spirit of this particular group

It is to a more romantic view that Tommy subscribed earlier, during the band's only formal interviews on this occasion. They have gathered at a studio rehearsal space in outlying Burbank and plan to board a helicopter painted in their livery to fly to this evening's show. While Nikki is having his hair teased ("Make it bigger!”), the wolfishly grinning drummer responds to the suggestion that the Crüe have always been the quintessential LA band because all the madness of the civilised world washes up here - you go west and then you can't go any further - “So true,” he laughs, “so true!”

Tommy is wearing a baseball cap, a singlet and combat shorts, revealing several tattoos. He talks fondly of Pamela Anderson. but says he advised her not to come to the gig tonight because of the anticipated press 'clusterfuck'; confesses to drinking 'a bit' still; and enthuses about groups such as Snow Patrol and Sigur Rôs (who left him on the floor 'curled up like an infant’ when he heard them for the first time).

“I know, it's kind of crazy." he says of the reunion, “but I just go with whatever seems to be fun at the moment. Wherever my heart is. First I was like. "Ah no, fuck I'm busy." But then there was this overwhelming demand from the fans.” The band constantly pay tribute to their fans. “I'm not stupid, so fuck, let's go!" Of the Crüe's early days, he reminisces: “We were just rebelling against everything else that was fucking going on. Fucking wearing girls make-up… fucking crazy hair and leathers and spandex!"

THE BAND'S ORIGINS LIE GENERALLY IN the decline of Western civilisation, but specifically in a West Coast music scene that had fallen for English pop groups like Haircut 100 and local new wave bands.“Skinny ties with the short hair... we were like, "No fucking way!". The band had come together by April 1981, and Nikki, Vince and Tommy lived together in a two-bedroom cockroach invested apartment on Clark Street, 50 yards from the Whisky A Go Go club on Sunset Strip.

"We'd get drunk, do crazy amounts of cocuine, and walk the circuit in stiletto heels, stumbling all over the place," Vince said in The Dirt. “The Sunset Strip was a cesspool of depravity.” “Is it still like that?" I ask Vince, who is wearing a T-shirt with a pink slogan ('I think that stripper last night liked me') stretched over a waist that belies the fact that he still boozes, It's arguable whether his brow-lift, partial face-lift, check implants, nose job, and jaw-line sculpturing have improved his looks.

“I don't know, he says. “Nobody in the band lives there any more. I'm sure you still have the same wannabes and poseurs who act like rock stars. It's the same old scene. It’s cool.”

Tommy, who has seen Vince perhaps twice' since the band split, begs to differ: “Everything's way different.” He says the local LA scene is on its ass and that “a lot of weird things have happened between from the time we started ‘til now. People wear condoms!"

If Tommy as a kid was a shy outsider, being in Mötley Crüe changed him, as it changed them all. Certainly, girls came flocking, and in the early days there were endless hilarious escapades - like the time that Nikki tried it on with Tommy's mum (“If you can get in there,” said Tommy's father, “you can have it”). And while the drinking and the drugging and the fighting curdled into something darker - the routine humiliation of groupies in ways that make the fable of Led Zeppelin and the mud shark seem quaint, for instance - the band grew closer to each other.

“It was about being in a gang.” says Vince. "People said we wouldn't make it, that we sucked. We were like, "Fuck you!" We just went ahead and stuck to our convictions." The band self financed their first recordings (known as the Leathür tapes) and carried out their own promotional duties, “driving around putting up fucking flyers on telephone poles ourselves,” as Tommy recalls. “There was something really special about that,” he continues. “We fucking made it happen, you know what I mean?"

Finally signed to Elektra Records (despite the label's boss complaining. "I'm not in the circus business”), the Crüe swiftly became the hottest heavy rock act in the States. Records such as Shout at the Devil led to trailblazing tours across North America and Europe. Only Ozzy Osbourne could out-gross them - in a literal sense - as the carnage reached its zenith. (See box page 17.)

Is rock'n'roll a more conservative business these days, I ask Tommy? “Oh my god, it's completely different, it's fucking retarded. Knowing more about it makes me appreciate how the West was won in the old days, how we did it.”

All this time, Nikki in the background is explaining why the group won't take their shirts off for a photograph - nothing to do with their collection of sagging tats, it's because “we're not a fucking boy band!"

Meanwhile, outside on his own in the tour bus sits Mick Mars. Dressed all in black - black sunglasses and a black blanket on his lap, too - he repetitively tugs at the folds of loose skin on his hands. Tommy only met him for the first time in six years three weeks ago and say “he's anti-social - he hates everybody,” as if the prospect of meeting any of the band wasn't potentially intimidating already, But while his condition means he can't turn his head to mect my gaze, Mick seems relieved and pleased to have someone to talk to, and he discusses President Bush's opposition to the stem cell therapy that might help others with his disease with grace and humour.

While Vince is nervous about this evening's imminent performance - “If we screw up, we screw up in front of the world….. it might be the most important gig of our career” - Mick is confident that despite his AS, he can give it '11o per cent'. Forget the sex and drugs, I say, that never-say-die attitude is true rock'n'roll. “That's right."

Nikki suddenly appears and interrupts. The helicopter journey has been cancelled - something to do with the LA Fire Marshall and the negotiation of a landing fee. “That sucks!” shouts Tommy outside. According to the bass player, there's a different reason anyway. "We're the fucking Crüe - that's why!”

Tickets for the Palladium show this evening have been distributed for free to 2,000 fans, who have queued for them outside the Hustler magazine store on Sunset Strip. It is a mostly male crowd, and judging by the faded T-shirts and engorged guts, most of them have been fans since the outset. Thirty-six-year-old Sean Warner, who first saw the group in 1981, and calls the swimming pool cleaning business that he runs 'The Pool Crüe', has however brought his two young sons with him. "It's important that they see the original line-up,” he insists.

The calculation is, of course, that a younger generation will fall for the band's charm given the success of contemporary cock rockers such as the Darkness (at whose gigs the Crüe’s promoters have run teaser ads for this reunion). Also present in the queue, more improbably, is current Los Angeles resident and British pop star-in-the-making Har Mar Superstar. Indeed, it transpires that Har Mar is such a fan that he is living in the Crüe's old apartment. And given the enthusiastic response to this comeback from whippersnappers such as Slipknot, perhaps the Crüe have tapped into the rock zeitgeist. It's mean-spirited to suggest that the spectacular interest in their coming together again reflects a modishly ghoulish desire to learn if they can escape their latest escapades alive.

IN THE YEARS THAT FOLLOW THE BAND'S first flush of succers, the lunacy is pandemic. Nikki starts shooting heroin and coke; the reliably priapic Tommy marries TV starlet Heather Locklear; and on the fourth night of a party to celebrate the release of the band's third album, *Dr Feelgood, a drunken Vince crashes his Ford Pantera into an oncoming vehicle, killing his passenger, leaving the young couple he hits both brain-damaged. He serves a short prison term and enters rehab. Certainly, the pages of The Dirt would make Caligula blush, let alone the band themselves. "The book showed us as assholes,” says Vince, "because for most of the time, that's what we were.”

Nikki goes on something of a drugs bender in Hong Kong - hiring a gaggle of prostitutes dressed as Nazis and nuns for his embarrassed manager - and almost dies of yet another overdose back in LA. The whole band are in and out of rehab, before Vince is fired in early 1992 after falling out with Nikki and with Tommy in particular for the umpteenth time. Tommy weds Pamela Anderson six weeks into their relationship The marriage lasts three tempestuous years and ends with Tommy spending three months in jail on charges of spousal abuse. Hen-pecked and drinking heavily, the reclusive Mick comes close to committing suicide. His extreme case of AS steadily worsens, leading to chronic depression. The others are too preoccupied to really notice. No wonder Tommy tells me: “We are all still alive, right? How crazy is that?"

——————

[Eyes blazing and mouth wet with urine, Ozzy looked straight at me: "Do that, Sixx'

In 1984, Motley Crüe supported Ozzy Osbourne on tour - and finally met their match, as Nikki Sixx relates below

OZZY HARDLY spent a night on his tour bus: he was always on ours. He'd burst through the door with a baggie full of coke, singing. “I am the krelley man, doing all the krell that I can, I can,” and we'd snort up the krell all night long. until the bus stopped and we were in the next city.

In one case, that city happened to be Lakeland, Florida. We rolled out of the bus and went straight to the bar, which was separated from the swimming pool deck by a glass window. Ozzy pulled off his pants and stuck a dollar bill in his ass crack, then walked into the bar, offering the dollar to each couple inside. When an elderly lady began to cuss him out, Ozzy grabbed her bag and took off running.

He came back to the pool wearing nothing but a little day dress he had found in the bag. We were cracking up, though we weren't sure whether his antics were evidence of a wicked sense of humour or a severe case of schizophrenia.

We were hanging out, us in T-shirts and leather, Ozzy in the dress, when all ofa sudden Ozzy nudged me. “Hey, mate, I fancy a bump.”

"Dude," I told him, “we're out of blow.”

“Maybe I can send the bus driver out for some.”

"Give me the straw,” he said, unfazed.

“But, dude, there's no blow.”

“Give me the straw. I'm having a bump.”

I handed him the straw, and he walked over to a crack in the sidewalk and bent over it. I saw a long column of ants. marching to a little sand dugout built where the pavement met the dirt. And as I thought, "No, he wouldn't," he did. He sent the entire line of ants tickling up his nose with a single, monstrous snort.

Then he hiked up the sundress, grabbed his dick, and pissed on the pavement.

Without even looking at his growing audience - everyone on the tour was watching him while the old women and fimilies on the pool deck were pretending not to - he kneit down and, getting the dress soggy in the puddle, lapped it up. He didn't just flick it with his tongue, he took a half-dozen long, lingering. and thorough strokes like a cat. Then he stood up and. eyes blazing and mouth wet with urine, looked straight at me. “Do that. Sixx" I swallowed and sweated. But this was peer pressure that I could not refuse.

After all he had done so much for Motley Crie. And. Ifwe wanted to maintain out reputation as rock's most cretinous band, I couldn't back down, not with everyone watching. I unzipped my pants and whipped out my dick in full view of every. body in the bar and around the pool. ‘I don't give a fuck,’ I thought to steady myself as I made my puddle. ‘I’ll lick up my piss. Who cares?’

But, as I bent down to finish what I had begun, Ozzy swooped in and beat me to it. There he was, on all fours at my feet. licking up my pee. I threw up my hands: "You win.” From The Dirt by Motley Crüe and Neil Strauss (HarperCollins).]

——————

When Vince is kicked out of the band there is an ill-fated diversion into more experimental musical territory with new vocalist John Corabi. Truth be told, the band's pop metal was never wholly original - Mick argues that the Leathür tapes (collected on the tastelessly titled Music to Crash Your Car To box set) show them at their best, rather than the mooted classics on a forthcoming Greatest Hits. But the new album with Corabi flops and on the accompanying tour the band finally, albeit metaphorically, stiffs.

It is during this period that Nikki takes umbrage in an MTV interview when asked about the plentiful women, fire, and hairspray in their videos. “That's a silly question. Women, hairspray and fire?!”

In late 1996, Vince (whose four-year-old daughter, Skylar, has meanwhile died of cancer) returns to the fold. According to the singer: “I wouldn't have gotten defensive like Nikki. I wouid have said, “You know what, we are about fucking fire, we are about chicks, and we are about hairspray. And that's a whole lot better than being about boredom.”

The band disintegrates again in 1999 - Tommy leaves, the others limping on with a drummer called Randy Castillo for two more years (Castillo then leaves, and dies of cancer shortly thereafter).

No wonder that now, within the next six months, filming is due to start on a screen version of The Dirt. “I want Brad Pitt to play me,” says Tommy. So does Nikki. Vince reckons Val Kilmer could get him down pat. And you, Mick? "Jennifer Aniston,” he says deadpan. “I want her to play me."

AT THE PALLADIUM, AN AIR-RAID SIREN announces that the original line-up of Motley Crüe is about to take the stage for their first live show for more than five years. Vince and Nikki stride on, Tommy hops up to his drum riser and Mick hobbles right. Down in the crowd, Sean Warner rocks out as 'Dr Feelgood’ lurches into life, with bemused ten-year old McKay and eight-year-old Markus squashed beside him.

“This is a monster that's been sleeping,” shouts Vince as the song ends. "It's reared its head again!" Then it's ‘Shout at the Devil,’ 'If I Die Tomorrow' and 'Girls, Girls, Girls'.

Nikki is struggling because he can't hear the click track that the band now use to keep In time, and Vince is prancing around the stage doing more of the tongue thing. The show staggers the thin line between organised chaos and total collapse, much as Mick finally managers to stagger 15 feet across the stage to join in.

"Can I get a "fuck yeah"?” Tommy asks the crowd.

"Fuck yeah!"

“Can I get a motherfucking “fuck yeah"?"

"Motherfucking fuck yeah!"

“That - that is why we fucking love you!"

Show over, Tommy, Vince and Nikki dole out soundbites for TV camera crews, An exhausted Mick (who can't drink after his operation) has gone home. Nikki (who can't drink because "if I drink I die, simple as that”) follows him shortly afterwards. Vince and Tommy head on to a party at the Whisky A Go Go. Vince then slinks off into the night, while Tommy mans the decks and, shirt akimbo, plays a set of techno.

In the morning, it's back to business as the band minus a recuperating Mick sit through a succession of brief interviews with local radio stations across America. They give stock answers to a succession of the same questions: it's for the fans; they’re all getting on just like brothers; lock up your daughters when we hit Wisconsin!

The truth is that the four members of the band will travel on tour in separate buses. But the bonhomie doesn’t seem forced. “It's been like getting back on a bike,” says Tommy off air on getting back together.

“Without a saddle,” says Vince.

"Yeah..” says Tommy. “Woah! My mind was already going to sniffing the saddle.. but then I realised what you were saying.”

I tell Nikki that, if possible, we would like to shoot pictures of the band back at their old apartment, where Har Mar Superstar is now living. “Superstar?” says Nikki. “There is a superstar living in our place?” Even Tommy, more au fait with contemporary music, is utterly baffled.

Of all the band, Nikki is the most sensitive to the accusation that they are only back together to pick up a final pay cheque. “What does money have to do with anything?” he asks when we talk separately.

"When you see Lennox Lewis get S14 million for a fight, do you say he's doing it for the the money? Of course not, 'cause he's got the fucking eye of the tiger. He wants to kill his opponent. That's me. I'd do this shit for free.” Is it all for love or money?

Two days later, all four members of the band make it to Hat Mar Superstar's apartment on Clark St to have their picture taken. The place is tiny and kept in appropriately squalid fashion. Tommy has brought a bottle of cheap white wine with him, which he and Vince chug together out of Har Mar's mugs. They reminisce fondly about how they used to use the balcony as a trash can and came close to being evicted - and how they used to kill the cockroaches with their hairspray and lighters. “This is so sick, dude!” Tommy says by way of general approval.

A month after we meet, on 9 January, Vince gets married for the fourth time, to his gitifriend Lia Gerardini. Officiating at the ceremony in Las Vegas is newly ordained minister and former hip hop star MC Hammer, Vince's personal manager stands in as best man after his first choice is hospitalised. The original best man had been found with serious injuries in a drainage ditch following a party at the Neil household two days earlier. This is but the latest surreal chapter in Vince's life - and in that of the Crüe too, because also present at the wedding are a reconciled Tommy and Nikki.

"Do you think the drink, drugs and women overshadowed the music for a while?” I had asked Mick. “Not for me it didn't. It may have for the other guys but my shadow was AS.”

Nikki had insisted that: “The real thing that brought us together was music. The pussy and the drugs was the icing on the cake. The music was the cake.”

Vince had had the final word: "It's always gonna be with you, the band, isn’t it? It's like a life sentence." And then mixing his metaphor: “The whole band is like an old tattoo.”

All being well, Mötley Crie will enchark on a UK tour in June.

OMM

(this one took way too long and I almost lost my transcription twice… yet i still love to transcribe these things!) (*editors note: the third album was Theatre of Pain, not Dr. Feelgood. think if you publish an article in a magazine, you should do some basic fact checking before hand. for that alone, if you see any more mistakes here, i am terribly sorry, i really tried with this one.)

[easyboyrecliner]

( www.maesblog.com )

they!them. 18, july ‘06.

pinterest letterbox the playlist

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howdy hey, i'm mae! i am turning 19 in summer and i am non-binary. i’ve been shifting since 2020 I don’t care for the vibes for my dr but rn I am leaning towards the 60-80s simply because those era’s hold a lot of nostalgia and are very prettyyyyy. the main dr i have at the moment is a lost boys dr with some tweaks to it.

SOME INFO ABOUT ME

i'm fluent in english, german and danish: i am currently learning french. i am dyslexic but you can't really tell when i am writing on english lol. i repost more than i post, a flaw really but who am i to blame. i switch my main dr's faster than a dad reaching for the tv remote to change the channel.

THINGS I LOVE

i love interview with the vampire (the series, amc please hurry up with season 3) and yellowjackets, may or may not repost a lot about those two series…my favorite movies are: the princess bride and the devil wears prada (sinners may join if I get around to watch it). i have to get back to reading but i thoroughly enjoyed the percy jackson series. i love, love, loveeeeee greek mythology. the hades games are one of my favorite games of all time. currently spiraling the souls games. bloodborne may be hard but it has my heart.

FUN FACT

i draw and write, but do i share my work? rarely. have i written a fanfiction? yes but thats gonna be a secret.

SHIFTING JOURNEY

i’ve been shifting since 2020, though i haven’t successfully shifted, yet. i am inconsistent but i cook up dr ideas if i ever hyper fixate on a certain topic again.

DO NOT INTERACT

if you support trump, israel, racism, homophobia, anti-shifting, sexism etc etc.

DESIRED REALITIES

THE LOST BOYS DR

introduction : will come soon

aesthetic : the lost boys

SONS OF ANARCHY DR

aesthetic : sons of anarchy

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[licncourt]

Louis & Magnus parallels

To elaborate on the Louis and Magnus stuff: Louis has very obvious comparisons with Nicki and I think that's the emotionally easy comparison for Lestat to make, but I would argue that Louis, despite being my most special boy, is really more like Magnus than like Nicki in some very key ways, far beyond being black-haired and pale and creepy. The one that sticks out to me most is how his darkness manifests externally. Nicki said very hurtful things to Lestat during their last meeting, things that affected him deeply and maybe permanently, but Nicki's pain was incredibly internalized. He kept it very close to the chest as a human, to the point where Lestat was wholly unprepared for what he would see during the turning and for what would happen to their relationship.

This is a pretty stark contrast to Louis who only internalizes these things until he very much doesn't, the first example we see being his attack on the priest that comes to his bedside early in the book. It's minor in the context of a vampire story filled with violence, but it's SO important to note that Louis is 100% a human in this scene and Louis says himself that he almost killed that man. What he does is crazy, like straight jacket behavior, he literally chases the priest outside and beats his head against a brick wall until he's almost dead. It’s brutal and intimate and disturbing. There's a reason killers who beat or strangle victims are considered more dangerous than those who used something hands-off like a gun. To kill someone with your own hands like that, you have to really want to hurt them and you have to want it for a long time, it's not a quick death.

I feel like I can't really overstate the gravity of that event in the context of regular human life. And like I mentioned in another post, Louis' mother immediately suspects that he's responsible for his brother's death which suggests to me that this isn't the first time he's behaved this erratically or even violently. Clearly there's even more context here that we don't have, but it says so much about what kind of person Louis is and what he's always been like. There's something very scary and unhinged about him even without vampire urges to help it along. This is what he's always been. His obsession with one blonde boy was only the beginning, given 500 years it could have become a dungeon full. Maybe before Magnus was Magnus, he was someone like Louis.

Magnus and Louis have a similar sense of entitlement, some deeply held belief that their violence is justified by their very existence and the existence of their wants. We see Louis fight the reality of feeding, but he never seems to regret the rest of the death that he brings when something doesn’t go his way. Not the first priest, not the painter, not any of the men he harms in his post-Paul bender, not even the second priest really. He wants to kill Armand’s human slave for the crime of perceiving his desire, he just can’t in that situation. He even attacks Daniel at the end of the interview and leaves him to die because he was an overzealous 22 year old. Louis doesn't suffer alone any more than Magnus did, someone has to pay and they'll go through as many people as necessary to reach the other side of their pain.

When I imagine the Louis that Lestat first encountered, there's nothing particularly romantic about him, not even in a tragic, consumptive beauty way. This version of Louis wasn't just a little disheveled and weeping elegantly, but actively disgusting in a lot of ways, monstrous and half dead on arrival. Greasy hair, blotchy, sallow skin, unwashed and sweating out whiskey and BO, bloated from alcohol, maybe a little jaundiced if this had been going on long enough to cause liver damage (and it probably had been in some capacity), puking and shitting himself behind a tavern, and so full of rage that it's all exploding out of him. If no one wants to lower themselves to his level, he'll find a way to make them do it.

I’m sure in that moment, Louis was like a fairytale mirror of Magnus, the same darkness but enough beauty and soul to round off the edges of Lestat’s nightmares, just enough like Nicki to make the darkness palatable through the lens of loneliness and Need and a consuming desire to fix the past and to return to it with control. It was a chance to reenact what happened to him but in the driver’s seat this time, a do-over of the past where he's no longer the victim, transforming his own horror and disgust over what his attacker did to him using Louis as a proxy. Louis' existence tames the horror of Magnus into something manageable and even romantically and sexually exciting. Lestat wants to want Magnus for his own sanity and in Louis he finally can.

It seems clear within the story that Magnus never went underground and it allowed his madness and darkness to completely overtake him. I think Louis' eventual fate would have been the same, the one dead blonde boy that a part of him did want to push down the stairs becoming a decomposing mountain of them. The process had already started with Daniel, chosen for his similarities to Lestat. I don’t think it would have ended there if Lestat had stayed buried.

[nalyra-dreaming]

S2 predictions...

Just listing this before the episodes hit next week :)

Based on the interviews, reviews and all the tidbits we have heard and seen over the last 1,5 years.

I'm putting this under the cut because there might be spoilers in it that some haven't seen?!? Probably not many surprises, given my asks :) Just in case.

Not in a particular order!

Armand's retelling of Lestat's and his past will have a very deliberate touch to them. He will paint his and Lestat's (his)story in a certain light, for effect. Personally, I don't think it will take away anything from TVL in s3 (if anything, it might build more anticipation, at least for me). Gabrielle won't be in it.

Louis will be aware. He knows - most of it. (What was it in that interview? 80-90%?^^). He probably has asked Armand to help, too. The things not matching will be little things at first, if at all. We haven't heard anything in the reviews wrt the episode 5 fight, or murder night, so they are keeping that for the last two episodes (since we have already seen shots of it in the trailer). That means that the events will likely be combined with the trial, and that... will then be quite cataclysmic. And harrowing.

The trial itself will probably be version 1, too. We'll see if we get a second one after the tale breaks once more in this season, but it might be that we only get it in s3, where we will probably get another ep5 revisit, too, imho. This version of the trial will show Lestat fully in control and blaming Louis and Claudia, too. (This is the version Louis will believe happened.)

Louis and Claudia probably have to flee in the war, we saw them running, which is probably also why they don't have access to their money. That will change in Paris, I bet. Roget's will come into play here, even if only in a short nod.

Louis and his hobby are definitely linked to Louis' perception of reality (and therefore his visions of Lestat, too). Guess Lestat is eating that one photograph Louis looked at in the extended look there... :) - and it will be the one they look at "together".

I don't think Claudia and Madeleine will be lovers. Not only to avoid the kill-the-gays-trap, but also because Claudia apparently bonds with her over compassion, not desire. Also, I believe it was Mark Johnson who said they would stay close to the book there.

The Eastern Europe parts will be gritty and sobering for Louis and Claudia. The horrific possibilities of their existence will be a grating wake-up call to the way Lestat lived with them.

Nicolas will be in the flashbacks to the 1790s, but Armand will not dwell on him for long... again, which I think is only proper, because a) did Armand not care for him too much, but b) also because I don't think the flashbacks will be as extensive as might expect them to be.

That said, Lestat strutting in with the cross does speak of a certain scene, so the kidnapping probably happens. As others have theorized as well, I think that it might be when Lestat is charging Armand in the red coat outside on the street.

I think the bitch fest in the first few episodes in Dubai will be epic.

A propos bitch fest, the one between Armand and Lestat in the past will be tame by comparison, as Armand's version is much more focused on how intense Lestat was and their relationship, imho. Nicki is likely dismissed as inconsequential, as said before.

Claudia will come full into her own throughout the season - almost there, almost free, toasting to the future - and then. That kiss to Louis' cheek will be the "Judas' kiss" just before the vampires come for them.

I think Louis will (try to) break up with Armand (to leave with Claudia and Madeleine), which will lead to Armand allowing it all.

Armand's little Frankenstein moment might be founded in genuine desire to help her slash wants to see what happens. I do think it will be part of the reveals in the last episodes.

With Carol Cutshall's comments re Lestat's pinstripes in mind (aka he being a "jailor" to Louis and Claudia) that speaks volumes for the pinstripes on Armand's pajama as well as the bedroom design in Dubai. With the comment re Louis "missing the natural world" in s1, I do think Armand is fully controlling the whole environment and keeping Louis in a golden cage in Dubai.

When the books come crashing down (which is in all likelihood connected to The Groan somehow) Armand will try to save Daniel. And he therefore might miss out on saving Louis.

I think Louis will throw himself off the balcony at sunrise (in a Merrick-esque event due to the (diary-) revelations) in an echo of Paul's suicide. I think they will think him dead and put him into his literal coffin and put pebbles on him, because he so loved the tree (which might have Claudia's ashes buried at its roots). (And that is why Jacob commented on "spreading Louis' ashes" through NOLA with these pebbles - because the Louis after will be changed.)

I think he will be resurrected through Lestat (and possibly Armand) as seen in the scene in the one trailer.

Lestat is somewhere near, probably comatose till the last episode. He will likely connected to The Groan, because while Armand certainly can conjure metaphysical events in the books this specific "hint" is imho connected to something else in that building.

That "something else" could very well be "Those Who Must Be Kept" because even in s1 there were a lot of Marius hints, and... well. The name has already dropped as well in s1, and in that one review there was that "Adam and Eve" hint... so I expect a lot more of THAT, too.

The Devil's Minion will be fact after the season - we have already heard about a bottle episode and Rolin's comments are fresh in my mind re ep5 and 8 and I expect those to set up, detail and then twist DM around.

Armand will save Louis and they will be hunted by Santiago, who Armand then defeats. Louis will burn down the theater with the fire gift (which he might discover during the season, I concur with @cbrownjc there (as well^^)).

The "Dream-Lestat" manifestations will be the representation of Louis' guilt, but also saying that what Louis cannot, for a lot of reasons. They will also taunt Louis with (and show us) that which Louis suppressed in s1.

Claudia will be (even more) breathtaking this season, which will make what will happen to her even worse to watch. That will not soften the blow of her diary-reveal (as said before likely at the trial) wrt Louis though, and I fully expect them to have the relevant entry read out (or narrated by her) live on stage.

I think the NOLA "reunion" will be around the year 2000 and that this is why Louis stopped killing, though why exactly will remain to be seen.

That's more or less it. I hope they'll think of the "Book of Hours" that got lost in Berlin (from ep6), I hope they'll think of Jonah, and maybe Miss Bricktop. I'm very interested to see what they do with Alice and Daniel's daughters, as daughters and twins are very important in the VC.

I'm extremely excited about the hints we'll get wrt more - since the Talamasca are apparently involved that opens the door to sooooooo much - and opens up crossover possibilities, too.

And I haven't heard anything of the "cameos" that Sam mentioned (of other vampires) - so we might see those in the last episodes as well.

Who knows, maybe Gabrielle will show up at the end!!! (And, maybe she will be the "interior designer"... and maybe, just maybe, Antoinette will show up as well.)

[my-coven-is-claudia]

Louis and performance

something that always stuck out to me about louis’s behaviour in the first episode is how almost thrilled he seems to be doing this interview? he full on laughs at daniel’s “so mr du lac, how long have you been dead?” line and overall seems very put together and calculating.

it appears as if he’s fully prepared for this, only interested in giving an informative and educational account of his life. this interview is a heroic pursuit, acting as a warning to others about the harsh reality of vampire life.

but this is all a facade. this cool calm and collected louis slowly falls apart and is paralleled with 1910 louis’s overly violent and macho persona that also falls to the wayside as the series goes along. in both new orleans and present day dubai, louis is putting up a mask. although this time round he’s exchanged stereotypical masculinity for clinical rationality.

and news flash!! he has neither.

he’s trying to conceal the fact that this interview has come about from a distrust of his own memories and recollection of events. that there’s this much more distressing motivation for the interview of louis not even trusting himself to tell the truth and needing someone else to help him parse out what really happened. furthermore, there is also a personal undercurrent to louis’s intentions due to the second interview picking up from his and daniel’s first encounter. unsurprisingly, all of these reasons he neatly skirts around (until push comes to shove). louis meticulously illustrates this picture of his life in new orleans via vivid narration and metaphor, asking daniel (and the viewer) to “let the tale seduce [him].” as he does this he teeters along a tightrope, swinging between expressing his crazed and immense love for lestat and portraying himself as a reserved intellectual detached from his vampiric instincts.

from the very start it is a performance. no argument about it.

the louis of present day dubai is in such stark contrast to the louis of even the 70s. he’s lost so much joy and confidence. this is not the same man who spent hours chatting with lestat under the moon in new orleans, who cheekily danced with emilia in romania, who torched a whole theatre. and with how quickly louis admits to killing lestat in season two it’s interesting how carefully crafted and persistent his ruse of serenity in dubai is. as he’s grown more adept at concealing his secrets, he’s also evolved into this hollow husk of himself. for the past 70 odd years he’s been stuck in a tumultuous relationship, has not properly killed anyone since the year 2000 and tries to paint himself as a passive figure in the tragedy of his own life.

this goes to show that louis is very particular about how others view him and how he’s presented. consistently, louis is tugging back and forth with daniel over who he truly is, his true motivations, his true desires. this is most apparent in 2x04 when louis is horribly embarrassed by the work of other photographers somehow ending up in a pile of his old photos. although it’s currently unclear how they ended up there, i think it’s safe to assume that louis genuinely didn’t intend to pass off other’s work as his own. he immediately scrambled to explain himself and apologise, even going as far as to demean himself as a mediocre artist. he’s so enraged by this incident because he fears how it reflect on him and how it will cause readers to perceive him. in order to be able to tolerate himself, louis has to maintain this very specific image of himself where he is this vulnerable but restrained vampire who is totally fine. louis is always barely holding this facade together and his ability to swallow his more intense emotions has obviously been something that he’s struggled throughout his life, from lashing out and killing the alderman in new orleans to triggering daniel’s tremors out of spite in dubai.

and circling back to dubai, this is all wonderfully conveyed via his change in accent in the present day. he no longer retains his new orleans accent, now speaking with an accent closer to a general north american one. his tone is also much more subdued and soft-spoken, rarely even raising his voice. this really hits home how weary louis has become and how he’s become so detached from his true self. he’s not energised, he’s not passionate, he’s not happy. the closest we get to pulling back the curtain on louis’s mask is when he lashes out and acts most like a stereotypical vampire. if there is a “true” louis then it’s likely the one who triggers daniel’s tremors, who digs through daniel’s memories about alice, who argues with armand over the misplaced photographs. i’m not trying to say that louis is inherently an violent or angry person but the most emotion we get from him in the present day is when he’s wrathful, bickering with armand, laughing in daniel’s face. it’s far from the whole picture of who louis de pointe du lac is but it’s the most honest portrayal he’s allowed of himself over the course of the interview. he does have much more emotional and somber moments but his repressed anger is poignantly tied to his repressed vampirism. we don’t know who louis truly is in dubai and and i suspect he isn’t sure himself