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a vintage drag club in harlem circa 1960s.

📸 by: lloyd yearwood

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don't be afraid, just start the tape

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Takato Yamamoto aka 高遠山本 aka Yamamoto Takato aka 山本 タカト (Japanese, b. 1960, Akita Prefecture, Japan) - 吸血妖鬼 (Vampire Fairy Demon), 2008, Paintings: Acrylic on Paper originally printed in the book "Coffin of a Chimera"

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"Mine" 🧛🏾‍♂️🧛🏼🦇

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Kentha Kirezi by Angel Buzo for L'officiel Baltics Magazine May 2025

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the uncanny piano piece in interview with the vampire s2 that starts off with the single recurring note- i thought of it as the "mind gift" motif before i learned the real title, it's the musical cue that armand has done something with the mind gift that the show wants the viewers to pay attention to- is "which ever way your nose bends" by simon rackham

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Lmaooo

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annie appreciation post✨

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A beaded pale pink crêpe-chiffon flapper dress, mid 1920s

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"But you came to be healed, and you did not want me! A century I had waited, and you did not want me!"

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one of the most important changes for me in the iwtv show v source material is how claudia was gonna make it as an immortal if the coven hadn't lynched her. she wasn't inherently doomed- she wasn't a lost cause- dying wasn't a "more merciful" fate than living. she'd found love, she was planning to travel the world for pleasure instead of a tunnel-vision quest, she was coping a lot better with the social and physical limitations of being in a child's body. like it's super important that she surpassed lestat but it's discussed less often that she surpassed louis too- while louis was regressing and lashing out in 1949 claudia was on the rise, like she was undeniably the more mature, settled and confident person between the two of them in s2ep6. and that makes the tragedy of her story so much more powerful imo- the fact claudia's death was avoidable. she wasn't on an unstoppable path bc of her inherent flaws like a classic tragic hero- she was on the cusp of living the free life she'd always wanted after breaking the cycles that trapped her adoptive parents. tldr claudia's death wasn't mercy it was murder

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screencap redraws

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parisian gothic

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la rondine

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the subtitle industrial complex doesn't want the people to know that louis said "i had you covered" when he walked in on claudia and madeleine in s2ep6. every english subtitle track i've found for the show omits that line

louis' full spoken dialogue here is "i'd like a few months where you don't tear things down or fuck things up. i had you covered."

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100%.

(original image under cut)

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following up on this bc there's been some more discussion abt dreamstat's role in s2 esp the controversial "ha!!" in the museum scene- i think there's a major difference between "i dislike dreamstat as a creative choice/i dislike that it was lestat specifically who represented some of louis' suspicions and doubts about armand" and "i dislike that louis had suspicions and doubts about armand at all". i think it's valid to dislike dreamstat being s2's go-to narrative device for a lot of louis' interiority or to dislike how his presence was executed in certain scenes- but i've also read a lot of takes that boil down to "dreamstat sucks so let's get rid of him and keep everything else in those scenes as-is"- and that's basically the same thing as saying "i wish louis' authentic emotional responses to armand matched the facade he was presenting in s2- i wish louis had less of a complex inner life and was flatter and more passive- i wish the false narrative really was the truth".

like it or hate it, dreamstat is a load-bearing part of louis' story in s2- you can't remove him without carving out a chunk of louis' arc in the process unless you add another way for louis to express his guilt and self-loathing, his empty-nester resentment and affection for claudia at different turns, his lingering doubts and suspicions about armand in paris. this is what i mean wrt viewers who totally externalize dreamstat misinterpreting louis' character in s2- it's extremely significant that dreamstat still calls armand a "manipulative gremlin" after armand shares his tragic backstory, it's extremely significant that dreamstat looks fond of claudia after louis and claudia fight in s2ep4 and louis rebuffs her, and all of that comes together to say something about louis' mindset and why he's making the choices he's making heading into the bench scene at the end of the episode. so if we're talking about a dreamstat-free version of s2 there has to be a different way of landing the same emotional beats for louis even if they don't necessarily have lestat's face and voice. "s2 would be so much better if louis had less interiority" is a bad take

*banging pots and pans together* you don't have to like or even tolerate dreamstat as a plot device or narrative presence but you can't completely externalize him from louis' emotional arc in s2 without making some wild misinterpretations of louis' character. this is why most viewers who see dreamstat as a purely external force with no bearing on what louis himself is thinking or feeling end up drawing super off-base conclusions about louis and claudia's relationship dynamic in paris specifically. in this essay i will-