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Some historically accurate Claudia outfits💞🪡

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sam not enjoying the soup metaphor 😞

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i'm so bad at writing lestattttttttt like idc about him but that just makes it worse. it should come easy

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it's so annoyinggggggg i can't seem to get ldl right

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She caught my meaning, but her instinctive insolence warred with her desire to cling to her own notions of dignity—the latter lifted from Louis, as all things were, her misplaced resentment and play at being suffocated when she knew it was as hurtful to him as it was insulting to me that she disliked participation, needed to be dragged back into the family she was so thrilled with but a few years ago—and she swallowed the countless jibes evidently rising to her throat.

ch2 up now with lestat pov :/

first leslou fic </3

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639638 don giovanni interpretations remain

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i really enjoyed your louis + motherhood meta, it was fantastic. do you have any thoughts expanding on that irt louis turning madeleine, asking armand to and being turned down, his breakdown after?

Omg thank you 🥺💖

Yesss I do have thoughts! So in terms of my Louis-Motherhood read, I feel like part of Louis's trauma over turning Madeleine is because of turning being a masculinizing act, and the burden of Louis's identity being compromised by the permanent masculine role of fatherhood.

(Idk if maker=father is a common take in this fandom or not so stick with me for a minute lol)

The term "Maker" may seem gender neutral on the surface (enough so that people will jokingly refer to Lestat "birthing" Claudia in a maternal sense/being a mother figure) but the show's treatment of Makerdom is more akin to a paternal 'siring'.

'Maker' has a religious connotation, referring to the ultimate Father, God, and Lestat explicitly takes on a position of Godhood over Louis as his maker.

Lestat is the principal maker we are acquainted with in the show, and they make sure to call him Daddy 100 times (🤦🏽‍♀️)

Armand uses 'sired' and 'begat' for makers (ie male-gendered procreation terms vs something more maternal like 'birthed' or even just 'created')

Also something I don't see discussed much is how paternal Lestat's claiming of Claudia during the trial is. The idea of publicly claiming a child is a father thing and not a mother thing, like a monarch recognizing a bastard child or stuff like paternity court/Maury because mater semper certa est and pater semper incertus est ("The mother is always certain" and "The father is always uncertain").

And then taking into account that it seemed like the coven was ready to lead the audience to believe Louis was Claudia's maker and lay the violation of the Second Great Law purely on Louis to further condemn him (because they emphasize how wrong it is to turn a child and that Louis was warned not to, and seem thrown when Lestat chooses to claim Claudia as his; then they pull the law off the screen all fast bc clearly they are not going to punish Lestat for that crime). So Lestat is literally publicly taking on the title of father in Louis's stead.

And then if you want to get kinda gross about it, turning requires a 'donation of life-giving fluid'....lol and we know vampires cannot give birth but they can get boners and presumably ejaculate 🤦🏽‍♀️ (per the show biology). So in that sense, a vampire making another can only really be a 'fathering'.

It may be tempting to dismiss this as incidental bc male makers are being discussed (and female makers ie Daciana/Celeste are less prominent) but the show is deliberately choosing to frame the role of 'maker' as father and masculine when they could be more neutral about the phrasing. And Louis's reaction to makerdom is presented within the context of this framing choice.

I wrote a long thing about Louis/Armand and the negotiation of masculine roles in another post but basically my read on that is Louis was obligated to take on a masculine/dominant role for Armand, when really Louis wanted/expected Armand to be serving that role for him.

If we see turning/makerdom as implicitly masculine, then Louis asking Armand to turn Madeleine is another attempt to get Armand to serve that role Louis originally wanted from him. Armand's refusal to do so is cementing the onesidedness of their power dynamic: Louis has to continue to perform dominance/masculinity (maitre when its hot or convenient) while Armand doesn't have to obey him or give anything up in return. Just like his negotiation with Armand on the bench, Louis has no choice but to perform masculinity (to his emotional detriment) in order to ensure Claudia's safety/well-being, giving her an immortal companion to survive outside of the coven with. Louis was basically asking Armand to be the dad that stepped up and Armand stepped down instead lol.

Unlike putting on a masc/mask for Liberty Street or for Armand, which could at least be discarded in private, the maker bond is permanent and inescapable. It's the equivalent of Louis fusing the mask to his face. It's intolerable for him. He tries to bodily reject the fatherhood, throwing up blood and cutting his wrists, wanting to have given the gift without being physically defined as 'giver'/maker/father. But he has 'fathered' now and cannot take it back.

(I can't tell if it's the same painting or not, but the painting behind Louis when he's reeling from the turning looks similar to his 'vampire capitalist' painting, ie the one he showed Armand when he was most recently performing masculine dominance for him/the coven.)

Louis even refers to the turning as a 'job', connecting back to his hardened businessman persona. Turning as we've seen it is such a deeply intimate, emotional act, but for Louis it's a job, clinical, detached, transactional, something to buckle down and get over with.

With all of Louis's intense desire for children and family we see in s1, I wondered why Louis never seemed to consider having children as a human. He says he met with Lily in order to publicly conceal his gay-ness, but wouldn't an easier/more secure solution be to just marry a woman and have kids, esp considering how badly he wanted children and mourned not having them when he became a vampire? As a man in his thirties, I imagine he was at the age where not being married with kids would only seem more and more suspicious.

But then I realized, Louis wanted children, but he never wanted to be a father. He already begrudged so much of his masculine social role, and again, that suit can be removed in private. Being a father cannot. After struggling beneath the burden of 'man of the house' for his family, the last thing Louis wanted was to lock himself into that role even deeper. One day his mother would die, and Grace would marry, and Louis was committed to being Paul's keeper, but as a brother that masculine burden wouldn't be the same pressure as 'man of the house provider etc'. As long as Louis didn't become a father or marry a woman, he could preserve the possibility of one day setting down that particular burden.

But being a vampiric maker is literally eternal fatherdom! So it is a massive sacrifice of Louis's personal identity and leaves him despondent and dissociated from himself. :(

It just impresses upon me even more Louis's alignment with motherhood. Fatherhood is a thing that is foisted upon him, that he hates, feels as unnatural and disconcerting. But when he looks at his mother-child picture he's so at peace.

In conclusion: Louis Is Mommy 🥰

Sorry that got pretty rambly but thank you for the ask!! 🩷

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...Vampires are killers, apex predators whose all-seeing eyes were meant to give them detachment, the ability to see a human life in its entirety, not with any mawkish sorrow, but with the thrilling satisfaction of being the end of that life and having a hand in the divine plan...

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interview with the vampire 2022 / in retrospect episode 17: the vilification of robin givens / barbara walters' 1988 interview with mike tyson and robin givens

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ok logging off for real now zlzfhdfk

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INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE (2022) A Vile Hunger for Your Hammering Heart - 1x5 dir. Levan Akin.

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love watching with everyone . claudia forever

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Interview with the Vampire | 1x05  “A Vile Hunger for Your Hammering Heart”

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INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE 1.05 “A Vile Hunger For Your Hammering Heart”

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something notable in 1.05 is until bruce, until she goes back home and sees him in her father's face she doesn't consider louis in true danger of being subjected to violence by lestat past the cruelty and cheating, even as lestat has shown himself very willing to hurt her over and over. of course this partly has to do with how they're both her parents and lestat treats louis like shit but they both turn on her when she first kills wrong, but, as she soon comes to find out, the love lestat feels for louis is no protection against that kind of ownership....uncle les let him go it's me that you want. until the end of the fight she truly believes she caused this for louis.......do you remember how happy we were before we had her? happy! we were not happy.

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INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE (2022-) — 1.05 “A Vile Hunger for Your Hammering Heart”

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Interview With The Vampire 1.05 A Vile Hunger for Your Hammering Heart