#ldpdl → desires

[str1ga]

tag drop dos

[divorceblogger]

Interview with the Vampire 2x02: Do You Know What It Means to Be Loved by Death // I had been hungry, all the years by Emily Dickinson

[murfpersonalblog]

IWTV Musings - LDPDL & Nosferatu 2024

We all know & love AMC!IWTV's canon that the Unholy Family saw Nosferatu in 1922, and busted a gut rotflol over Hollywood's vampire.

But if Louis saw Nosferatu 2024, in the wake of Lestat in NOLA, and esp. Armand in Paris/SanFran/Dubai & Claudia's death, I reckon he'd be triggered on several levels. Ofc, one doesn't need to see Nos24 thru Louis' eyes/POV to recognize all the themes about the predatory nature of vampiric seduction, let alone the devastating ways vampires affect/abuse/take advantage/wreak havoc on human vulnerabilities like religious mania depression, mental illness, and suicidal ideation. But let's go for it!

The Closeted (Isolation, Repression, & Mental Illness)

In IWTV, Louis was a closeted gay man who had to grow up always hiding who he really was, for fear of punishment by his uber-Catholic family as well as society at large. Homosexuality was not only considered a mental illness, subject to extreme forms "treatment" including solitary confinement in a sanatorium (mental asylum--the same place his mentally ill brother Paul had already been sent that made him "worse than before"); but also a crime punishable by incarceration or even death.

I've long said that "Rashid"/Armand's treatment of Louis esp. in Dubai was more like a nurse than a servant--the kind of nurse that hates their job (being "stuck on suicide watch") & whose bedside manner effing SUCKS, having no patience for the mentally ill & no capacity to properly take care of them; just making things worse.

In Nosferatu, Ellen was always "touched" as a child, having the 2nd sight that allowed her to always know ahead of time what her Xmas gifts were, and know the date her mom would die. Her mean father thought she was a freak and had her closeted away & isolated from society, the family embarrassment. Even after she got married, Thomas' BFF Friedrich barely tolerated Ellen, and when her seizures started he had her tied & doped & corseted up--all the worst ways of caring for her that likely did more harm than good. Ellen even called him out on it, knowing Friedrich tied her up cuz he hated having to deal with her in the first place "I tire of discussing her; can we please talk about something else; the entire household centers around her fairy whims!," and got sick of her being in his house anymore.

Book & Hearth's video analysis of Ellen's mental illness in Nosferatu says this:

So, Louis/Ellen are both people stigmatized by Victorian society for things that were never their fault (homosexuality, mental illness, etc), either socially closeted/isolated (Louis) or spatially closeted/isolated (Ellen).

(Lestat kept whining in 1x3 & 2x7 about how the worst thing a vampire can feel is loneliness--as if that's not awful for humans to feel, too. 🙄 Esp. since vamps are immortal, they've got all the time in the world for someone to eventually show up & fall in love with them; unlike humans, who grow old & decrepit & die in no time flat.)

We see the extreme lengths Louis & Ellen would go to, to alleviate their loneliness & desperation for companionship, and their desire to feel seen & close to someone--even if that someone was the Devil himself: a vampire.

"Come to me" - Loustat & Orllen

Both IWTV & Nosferatu use Come to Me. It's a motif as old as Dracula itself, so it's par for the course, really.

"Come to me, Arthur. Leave these others and come to me. My arms are hungry for you. Come, and we can rest together. Come, my husband, come!" --Lucy Westenra, Dracula

But both shows play around with it in interesting ways.

In IWTV, Lestat repeatedly chants C2M/Viens a moi to lure Louis to him. In 1x1 Louis actually runs away, fleeing to the church & prayed to God to help/kill him; only for the Devil/Lestat to show up & "give you death" by making him a vampire. But in 1x6, Lestat uses the song "Come to Me" to "get a rise out of" Louis, who swims the Mississippi to take his estranged husband back. But during the Trial, Lestat lied on Lou and accused him of saying C2M to "accost" Les instead--the human seducing the vampire. Meanwhile, Lou still has Les's master recording of C2M in 2022, which he plays for Daniel in Dubai--again proving that Les was lying on Lou & weaponized C2M against him.

Nosferatu24 plays the human-calling/seducing-the-vampire straight, where Ellen literally summoned Orlock. Lonely, she'd prayed to God for a companion, "a spirit of comfort," but accidentally roused the Nosferatu from his sleep as she kept repeating "Come to me."

Ellen accidentally called Orlock, and Lestat hunted Louis down--but both characters are still guilt-ridden by their open-armed acceptance of their vampire lovers, once they eventually realize that the person they thought would be their comfort/safety had only taken advantage of their loneliness, desperation & ignorance about their situation and the type of creature these vamps really were.

Louis' relationship with Armand doesn't 1:1 fit, since they never use C2M per se, but Armand DOES approach Louis similarly to Les, as the charismatic vampire who stalked Lou before finally confronting him, luring him & Claudia into the Theatre to recruit/convert them to his crazy AF coven/cult; and then using a series of lies, manipulations & brainwashes to take advantage of Louis' trauma post-Banishment to keep Lou as his (un)willing companion for 77yrs after killing his daughters.

The Death of 2 Daughters

Orlock's murder of Friedrich's 2 daughters is a chilling scene. The Nosferatu puts a spell on Friedrich while he's sleeping, his hand casting a spectral shadow over Friedrich's face to keep him pinned in his bed and trapped in his nightmares. Meanwhile, his 2 daughters & wife are screaming for him to help them, but Friedrich can't move or wake up, impotently clutching the gun in his hand as his wife & kids are slaughtered bu Orlock, just down the hall from him.

Orlock has both the little girls in his clutches, and throws them down like sacks of potatoes once he's done draining them, as their mother Anna helplessly watches, screaming, before he kills her, too.

This is painfully similar to how Armand instructed the coven to fog the minds of Claudia, Madz & Louis whenever they tried defending themselves, on top of their ankles being slashed so they couldn't move, escape, or fight back--esp. not once Lou was dragged away kicking & screaming to be buried alive, ensuring that he'd be helpless to do anything to save his 2 daughters from being murdered. The last thing he ever heard Claudia say was her screaming his name.

(Since this is 2024, Louis wouldn't yet be privy to the details Lestat reveals in S3 (2026). But if Lestat's also watching Nos24, he knows even more about Claudia's final moments than Lou does--that feeling of helplessness is only amplified by the fact that she's HIS literal Blood Child--he'd've felt her die the same way Louis felt Madz die. Drained after using his Mind Gift to save Louis with Banishment, Lestat's too weak to save Claudia as she burns. The last thing Claudia ever saw was her father just standing there, uselessly watching Armand & the coven burn her to death.)

Sexual Inhibitions, Awakenings, Stigmas, Salvation

Louis is often mocked/derided in the fandom as a d**kmatized Pick Me who only thinks with his loins to stay with toxic AF Lestat's "considerable considerables;" after years of closeted sexual repression.

"Do you remember the best you ever had? So imagine that flowing inside your veins again. Now multiply it by miles, to the rings of Saturn and back...." "He had a way about him, those first years, Lestat. Preternaturally charming, occasionally thoughtful. He was my murderer, my mentor, my lover, and my maker--all of those things at once. He had taken what he called un petit coup, the Little Drink. Not enough to kill me, but just enough to keep him fit. It takes an enormous amount of restraint for us, the Little Drink. For a human, experiencing it for the first time, it was…unsettling. And not for the physical toll on my body, which was significant, but for the feelings of intimacy it awoke within me."

Lestat's seduction of Louis was a sexual revelation/awakening, but it also spooked TF outta Louis. He fled Lestat's house in a gay panic, "vowing never to return." I also discussed how Lestat's C2M in 1x1 was dubcon/noncon, and mirrored Lestat in Paul's head, making both him AND Louis feel unclean.

She sank on her knees on the floor in an agony of abasement. Pulling her beautiful hair over her face, as the leper of old his mantle, she wailed out. “Unclean! Unclean! Even the Almighty shuns my polluted flesh! I must bear this mark of shame upon my forehead until the Judgement Day.” -- Mina Harker, Dracula

(Lou was bored to dangit death with Armand in SanFran (the gay mecca where he'd been enjoying his 2nd wind/try at a gay sexual awakening), mocking Armand for having been forced into ascetic celibacy by the Children of Satan, who made him forget he had a working peen (Lou was obvs mad that Armand wasn't using said peen with Lou--the Bed Death Truthers were right all along, LOL).)

Meanwhile, Ellen was outright called a "sinner" by her father when he found her lying naked after a (Orlock-induced) fit/orgasm.

Orlock stayed with Ellen for years, an incubus visiting her in her dreams & having sex with her (the best she'd ever had, as she later throws in Thomas' face, "you could never please me like he could"); but also throwing her into fits/seizures--"at first it was sweet...and then it turned to torture!"

In the end, LDPDL & Ellen use their sexual prowess to distract their vampire husbands long enough for their Murder Plots to be accomplished--a la Mina Harker in Dracula.

Louis is literally instructed by Claudia to seduce Lestat, keeping him distracted with sex while Claudia plans how to poison & kill him. Louis is afraid to fall back into the "well with no bottom" and "lose myself in him," and Claudia promises to be his salvation--pulling him out in time to strike the killing blow to Lestat.

Ellen is another femme fatale who welcomes Orlock into their marriage bed, where she forcefully holds him close as he notices the sun rising; keeping him distracted with sex long enough for the sunlight to cook him to death as she hemorrhages under him. Her suicide is her salvation/martyrdom, as she frees herself (and the whole town) from Orlock's clutches.

(Again, Armand doesn't have as neat of a 1:1 fit, since Louis doesn't distract him with sex to defeat him. But Louis still plays up his seemingly helpless submission to get Armand to allow the interview to continue, as if Daniel isn't threat, and as if Louis doesn't suspect Armand of foul play--at least not until the end of 2x5 ofc. But Armand constantly wrests control back, and by the end of the interview in 2x8 he ALMOST wins. Louis doesn't defeat Armand or save himself at all here--DANIEL defeats Armand & saves Louis instead, showing the leagues of difference between the threat Armand posed vs Lestat. )

[bunnydracula]

i love being in sexual thrall with my tumblr mutuals i am so glad the lesson i actually learned from being trapped in my headtrip abusive First Big Relationship was not “do not try to fuck your tumblr mutuals” but “choose which tumblr mutuals you fuck carefully and do not mistake a completely acceptable desire for sex with a Serious Romance Thru the Phone with someone who isnt even fucking nice to you as a friend”. imagine it. i mean im also not fucking anybody who treats me like that again either. its 5am. im sorrrryyy im making plans to fuck another tumblr mutual. okay. this is like ldpdl remembering he can still fuck other vampires really. why would i ever NOT fuck other vampires is the question really

[dwreader]

its super interesting that both a doll's house and a streetcar named desire had to have their endings altered in certain instances to appease the audience/censors/social mores. ibsen was forced to alter the ending so nora stays with her family for the german premiere of a doll's house since he was told the original ending would be received poorly there. streetcar's film adapatation famously had to comply with the hays code (under which bad behavior must be punished) and ended with stella leaving stanley. in each case a woman choosing to leave or stay in a marriage was considered unpalatable to audiences, which really encapsulates how women are harshly judged no matter what choice they make or don't make.

in the same way louis is blamed by some fans for taking part in the murder plot (to allow his child to escape the abusive patriarch) and also blamed by others for being unable to finish the job (cause loving an abuser is ""wrong""). with a writer's room full of playwrights it seems impossible that this wasn't taken into consideration in developing the story but it makes for a very interesting adaptation to ME personally as a theatre enjoyer. stella and nora's choices were meant to challenge the audience's perception of marriage, there was meant to be an uneasiness/discomfort felt about their choices and its kind of crazy we're being put in the same boat watching ldpdl navigating marriage in a fantasy vampire show in 2023. i think the fact that so many viewers are uncomfortable and resisting the show's themes makes it so much more interesting than if it was just campy gay fun as some would prefer it to be.

[thelioncourts]

Ohhh thank you. Yeah that plus KP deleting it when he’s such an open book and shares everything is telling lol. I mean he says SO much on his Insta that if they told him to delete it must be important lol

Umm anyways ldpdl still hottest girl in the universe no question 😬

ldpdl is the It(TM) girl. no one compares, no one will ever compare, he's beautiful, stunning, gorgeous, world-stopping, lovely, alluring, incomparable, astonishing, breathtaking, beguiling, charming, sensuous, desirable, the most amazing to ever exist.

[amvguy]

though honestly, sir all I wanna do is get naked in front of you so you can look me up and down and give me your love for being so good > louis de pointe du lac // real men

[str1ga]

tag drop one

[blueiight]

Hi! Could you elaborate on what you meant in this ask : "the fans do not understand racial sexual politic + how desirability operate in tandem with the cultural mythological concept of vampire. and what it actually means to make louis, claudia, armand [+ whoever else] black/vampires of color.. thankfully the showrunners + team get it, but it makes some cyclical conversation about xyz or abcd topics very annoying bc its just like..idk if i should say read a real book + step ur knowledge base up or what guys.. cuz its not a mistake on part of the show or even fans who write fic or recognize such tropes."

Are you talking about the black Mandingo trope? Or something else?

funny u say the mandingo trope cuz at first fandom was veering toward that n when i first got on here i was rly wary of that trope but amc ldpdl now has the stunning accomplishment of being the first black male chara to not be treated like the mandingo. congrats🤷🏾but what i was thinking of moreso now was how fans struggle with writing armand (this is a problem from the book fandom too imo) is that they take a particularly condescending read of him bc hes a character w/ sexual trauma& how they interpret anne rice’s writing of the ukraine/armand’s relationship w the human he once was. its infantilization meets foolishness that becomes troubling when u have a south asian armand when south asian men are often totally desexualized in western media (& how the vampire in western cultural messaging relies on a lot of stereotypes of the ‘east’). its a big choice to make armand a south asian with those things in mind. ive seen some treat show armand as if hes still a 17 year old (physically) when really hes at least late 20s when he was turned & is still nonetheless, a 500+ yr old vampire. with claudia ive talked about it amply too on how ppl acted like 14 was ‘grown’ or being trapped in a permanent adolescence as a black vampress isnt a special hell of its own lol

[saint-louisdulac]

Lestat just answered a question on desiring Daniel and how he would show it. What are your thoughts on the boy who interviewed you 49 years after the fact?

Daniel is a very dear friend of mine and we’ve had a lot of fun together. He’s one of the only people in my life who’s relatively sane and he knows how to talk to me whenever I get in my ways or if I’m feeling depressed. He’s the anchor to my vessel, even if they are times when we debate one another and get on each other’s nerves. I truly do have a certain respect and love for him, even if it isn’t romantic in a sense.

~LDPDL

[blueiight]

The show targeting white liberals like the type who watch amc shows like mad men, breaking bad etc especially Western Europeans who have weird opinions on prostitution/sex work like a lot of them prob think the government cracking down on prostitution was a bad thing (especially as it was instigated by Wilson who was hardly anyone’s idea of a good prez). it’s no surprise it goes over their heads esp since there isn’t a character who actively calls out his profession not even daniel (but then he is a white liberal just like a lot of the shows audience)

the president/s who drove prohibition policies & crackdowns on prostitution was motivated by the need to ‘whip their citizens into shape’ and was far more likely to blame & arrest the women then they would be to arrest & hold the pimps accountable. in most government initiated ‘crackdowns’ on prostitution, it is unfortunately, the victims who are targeted by the government & shamed by their friends/family for being ‘loose women’ rather than the tricks, pimps and buyers.. im not the smartest person nor do i have the solution in mind but i want ppl to understand my criticisms are centered around ppl on multiple echelons sharing the fundamental view that black women, especially poorer black women, are disposable. this view bleeds into their interpretation of even fictional characters, their understanding of the scale of ‘good’ v. ‘evil’. ur biases impede ur interpretations of whats on screen. its difficult for ppl to accept that louis is morally objectionable off the jump bc they do not think a black man getting rich off sexually marketing poorer [primarily] black women to racist city leaders is evil enough in their eyes. these women are not ‘desirable’ ‘worthy’ victims – theyre NPCs to the avg fan. the showrunners was brilliant to make ldpdl a pimp here, bc while the avg person who watch amc stuff/lib modern vamp fan can somewhat [doing a lot of heavy lifting here] understand the evils of being a white chattel slaveowner of the antebellum period, they r far more reticient when commenting on [what they view as] intracommunal power dynamics btwn the black man & black woman. i can think of dan giving lou some shit a few times: when louis tries to make a euphemism out of his old hustle [‘diversified portfolio of businesses’] daniel was like ‘ur a pimp’ & louis once again, dwelling in the semantics of it all, says the product was desire & dan just lets him go on. and in the s1 finale daniel was like ur 145 years old and still the pimp, paying a hoe to listen to u. cant say thats principled ‘critique’ or dan being motivated out of altruistic concern for the condition of black women in the gilded age [LOL] so much as it is dan being a smartass + reacting to lou, but if even the smug old white fictional character can recognize theres something off about pimping, so should the 3d human beings.. u shouldnt need a fictional chara to tell u right or wrong u should already understand it but alas

[blueiight]

provided the comical realism of the amc iwtv verse n if modern louis is a B billionaire not M millionaire it could all mean ldpdl is like 1 of the now fifteen (irl its fourteen) black ppl on this earth whos a billionaire & its interesting cuz the only black billionaires r either part of giant manufacturing/trading or came up in the entertainment industry. n its interesting . definitely something to go w/ there. the mortal ldpdl as a big time enterprise of human desire vs. the immortal, retelling his story to a journalist & the journalist having to, on some level , sell this as entertainment . bc he cannot sell it as a sort of truth to the wider of humanity. this is a story for the vampires, by a black vampire. the white man who would typically control a black man’s narrative is rendered a conduit, a part of the story as well.

[blueiight]

i think ldpdl is the very early synthesis of an attempt of actualizing a spiritual (not actual.) liberation for a black man. avon barksdale in the sense that he provides for a family who is in (willful) denial of the brutality he oversees & adminsters, but enables it to stomp out the soft streak in their son, nd stringer bell in that (ep1-3 louis) believes black capital will save him. he wishes he could be as cold & apathetic as stringer but he got a big heart & desire for domesticity. hes a proto synthesis of these perspectives bc hes a child of the redeemer period, the precursor to jim crow. liberation cannot occur alone tho, so this is why all 3 of these men fail.

stringer bell is a rly cold character. a hollow suit from dillards, fake wire glasses& a bare minimum understanding of capitalism. fucking on dlo baby moms & planning on gettin rid of dlo. demeaning, degrading & manipulating children into a lifestyle datll kill em or spiritually kill em (life in prison). the same lifestyle that made him is the one he hates, funnels more teens into, all while he seeks to “legitimize” it in the eyes of the white power structure. he hates all dat ghetto bullshit, but his only redeeming trait is his childhood friendship & desire to make it out w thee avon barksdale, the man whos the very heartbeat & vasculature of all da ghetto bullshit..