The Savage Garden

Avatar by @titus-andr0gyn0us. 🫀 "I ate the campiness and turned it into horror" Violin (& occasionaly piano) Vampire-based improvisations... and random ramblings! Beauty was an uncharted land where one could make a thousand fatal errors, a wild and indifferent paradise without signposts of evil or good. … Beauty was savage. It was dangerous and lawless as the Earth had been eons before man had one single coherent thought in his head or wrote codes of conduct on tablets of clay. Beauty was a Savage Garden.🎻

[savagewilderness]

Cursing Joseph Potters Birthday with a The Poltergeist Improvisation!

But YOU should bless his birthday, and enrich your own life, by watching the full play on Digital Theatre if you haven’t!  Or, if you have!

Digital Theatre :: The Poltergeist

Sasha (Joseph Potter) was destined to take the art world by storm. At the age of fifteen pop stars wanted his paintings, and a new exhibitio

Whenever I watch this I can’t get over how clear a vision I have of Chet… how is he conjured like that?

And of Robyn.

And of the art…

Isn’t theatre magical. 

[savagewilderness]

Alright, let's keep the memory of this kindness together, before we let it go.

I can understand how kind and generous this was, but I still can't imagine why 😭🥹🫀.

I did want to try to play with this tender bit of the play, feeling it as a gift, as the play itself is a beautiful gift, full of feeling.

Even though I literally called what I did a curse, hahaha, I DIE. (Am I curse?)

But I hope that my improvising with this little bit of play wasn't too weird or wrong.

Why am I a person for whom a beautiful thing is gifted to me, and my mind (and beyond that: my body) is like "Oh no, I must have done something AWFUL... You should panic. PANIC!"

But this was just so lovely of him, so: thank you so very much Joe!

For one day, I felt something I created had been heard, and responded to as if it were... a gift. 🥹

What's more generous than offering that?

Edited a week after the event... I don't want to make a new post about it... but I want to share my experience - to remember, just for me, really.

Also, in case anyone ever happens upon this post who may struggle with their own self-worth, to know: I see you and if you ever want to chat with someone who feels this kind of way, I (a person who relates to characters such as Nicolas and Sasha in ways that... are) am here to listen.

That said...

A week on from Joe posting my daft music, I just wanted to say… it was such a super-kind little thing, and it threw me into a spin - taking me from panic to contemplation to beauty.

My hope, as I played, was that my silly music could be a kind of gift.

But then it was received, generously, as a gift, and I panicked at being witnessed. Is that weird of me?

I post my music because I believe it’s important for us all to create. Improvising is about the act of creating, not about making art or anything “good”.

I can’t imagine anyone actually listening. Or, if they do, thinking anything other than “I hate it.” So when someone comments, I appreciate it so much… but part of me assumes you’re just being kind.

I think Joe’s generous repost and kind words challenged my perception of myself, as I couldn’t ignore that my music had been seen.

I don’t consider myself a musician, yet music is a big part of who I am. So my music being seen made me feel I had somehow been witnessed, a tiny act of kindness creating a powerful impact.

And maybe my initial panic makes it even more beautiful in the end. I’m not an artist, so I’m never observed in that way. Joe made my music feel heard.

You never know the impact your small act of kindness might have on someone. Here’s to kindness.

And thank you to every one of you who has ever shown me, or each other, or anyone kindness.

[savagewilderness]

Hit the Lights - words with credit to willefroggie on X.

Lolll… this is so terrible & ain’t gonna resemble the eventual song at all (it’s just musescore playing it from the notes I put in!) but The Beautiful Unwell tried to read a blurry half-complete screengrab, because we may not be beautiful, but we make up for that in unwell, oh YEAH! Sorry I don’t sing the whole thing.. I mean… what’s the point. 

I couldn’t make out of the chords are supposed to somehow go in the inch order bit… and even the chords I wrote, I mean, some of them are blurry fuzzes… and some of the notes it was hard to read… and then I had to add an odd note here and there to fit the words. BUT THIS HAPPENED! It’s your daily curse from me! 🔥😭🌊💀

Ok…

Hit The Lights On your way out, on your way out. I should have listened when you told me how you felt. I tried to make it better, I wrote a hundred letters,  When your melody runs through my mind oh how I melt. I wrote a hundred songs, I tried to bring you along, But you disappeared and now I’m left here feeling sorry for myself, With my mind and nothing else, Feeling sorry for myself;  I really love you soo good damn (?) much, Breaks my heart to see you losing touch  With all the things that you used to care about,  I guess just hit the light on your way out Hit the light on your way out. On your way out.

Apologies to Daniel Hart, as I’m sure this bears zero resemblance to the eventual song.

Probably very amusing to screeners!

[savagewilderness]

I dunno about haunting Lestat, but I am HAUNTED by this moment... I have to write about it to try to expel it a bit.

It’s uncanny, unhinged: like Nicki is gone, and it terrifies me!

How does Joe do that? What is happening?!

Nicolas! Come back! Where are you? You are not there! I am so unnerved I want to cry. HELP!

It’s like there is no-one behind the eyes. You can understand why Lestat couldn’t bear to look. But my heart. Help!

This is only a fragment. I have no context. I can see exactly why Lestat would look & see the absolute absence of the person he once loved.

But surely he’s still in there? 😭 I don’t know what the show will do. But isn’t he in there? Just dissociated, shrunk into himself? Or perhaps he chose it intentionally. Or is he trapped somewhere deep inside? Is he just so far away he’s almost unreachable? Or is he gone? Oh God. That’s what Lestat must feel/fear?

The thing is, I don’t know! From this fragment, I cannot tell! And that’s terrifying! Where’s the rope to cling to?????

This is from a fraction of a second. What will the whole thing do?

HELP.

[savagewilderness]

Were you a stutterer as a child, brave little wolfkiller?

[savagewilderness]

My little heart’s reflection You’ve got a confession You used to find…

OH GOD I HATE MYSELF.

I didn’t want to improvise to anything too spoilery while people may well still be first-watching… so today’s improvisation is for the moment that made me cry in E1… this beautiful fragment of a song, that I well and duly improvised on from and so ruined.  SORRY.

OH WELL. I hope, one day, we will hear it in full!  And I hope we do not hear it until full before we hear it in the episode.

Lestat sat on his coffin…

But me…

[savagewilderness]

I wonder if this song will be for Claudia?

“My little heart’s reflection” feels like Claudia…?

[savagewilderness]

It very much looks as though both parties have vampire nails?!

Is it Lestat & Nicki & maybe Lestat somehow trying to draw him from the post-turn stupor? If we get that ever?

It doesn’t matter that it heals, but would be about reaching him?

[savagewilderness]

My little heart’s reflection You’ve got a confession You used to find…

OH GOD I HATE MYSELF.

I didn’t want to improvise to anything too spoilery while people may well still be first-watching… so today’s improvisation is for the moment that made me cry in E1… this beautiful fragment of a song, that I well and duly improvised on from and so ruined.  SORRY.

OH WELL. I hope, one day, we will hear it in full!  And I hope we do not hear it until full before we hear it in the episode.

Lestat sat on his coffin…

But me…

[savagewilderness]

My favourite two things in the episode though were this scene.

And this:

To have known this the last month would have made my every fear so much lighter! I'm curious if screener episodes had the titles. Anyway: joy.

[savagewilderness]

Well, we got some great reaction gifs in any case! Any kind of response required to an argument in particular: we are COVERED! 😅

[savagewilderness]

Re @flopstat, Here you go everyone: wolfkilling scars on human Lestat!

[savagewilderness]

Well, we got some great reaction gifs in any case! Any kind of response required to an argument in particular: we are COVERED! 😅

[savagewilderness]

And one more! So many hidden away!

Lestat’s hair is literally The Light, like an angel!

[savagewilderness]

Well, we got some great reaction gifs in any case! Any kind of response required to an argument in particular: we are COVERED! 😅

[savagewilderness]

OH MY GOD IT IS THE WITCHES’ PLACE!

[savagewilderness]

My little heart’s reflection You’ve got a confession You used to find…

OH GOD I HATE MYSELF.

I didn’t want to improvise to anything too spoilery while people may well still be first-watching… so today’s improvisation is for the moment that made me cry in E1… this beautiful fragment of a song, that I well and duly improvised on from and so ruined.  SORRY.

OH WELL. I hope, one day, we will hear it in full!  And I hope we do not hear it until full before we hear it in the episode.

Lestat sat on his coffin…

But me…

[savagewilderness]

I'm such a curse 😭

The Vampire Lestat episode one:

I loved the episode, but I need to talk about Nicolas... based on nothing as there were only brief flashes in this episode.

I was so excited instantly. But already, excitement has settled again into a low-level dread.

And I was absolutely overjoyed. I AM overjoyed!

I am SO happy: for Joe, for Nicolas, and for me about the main billing! How incredible. There - only the six of them. (I feel sad for Delainey, mind.)

The fragments of Nicolas were ALL so intense & beautiful & confirmed what I already knew - That Joe is incredible.

But now I am worried about how mad they will make Nicolas. The thing is, in the books, as a vampire, Nicolas writes all of the plays for the theatre. And when he chooses death, he writes a big stack of plays for the theatre, puts his affairs in order, and plans his death. He doesn't go into death in psychosis. He chooses it: quietly, sadly.

Now I already know *spoiler* something about Nicki's death that means this need not be true on TV... (I kind of like it because I secretly also know that apparently I AM A LITERAL WITCH!!!?! Anyway.)

But the point isn't that I need Nicolas' death to be the same. I don't.

But Nicolas' death IS proof that as a vampire he is NOT, as Lestat describes, simply - "mad". Which isn't to say he is NEVER mad. Of course he IS mad at times... often! There is madness there... but it IS to say he is not ONLY mad. There remains self there...

How much Lestat sees that is up for interpretation.

But Lestat abandons him. My view is that Lestat has to write Nicolas as *just* mad, even if he felt there was something deeper, as to witness him in his fullness, with the full depth of his cognisant suffering is more than Lestat could bear. Lestat couldn't have left Nicolas if he had looked at Nicolas and acknowledged him to that level. And Nicolas, then, would have destroyed Lestat.

Well, I could write pages more on this... But we're veering into interpretation now.

But ultimately, my fear for TV is based on nothing. I do not know what the show will show.

Yet still… What a CURSE I am... supposedly I am the biggest Nicki fan... and yet my standard is Nicolas’ EVERY THOUGHT AND FEELING MUST BE EXACTLY AS I, SELF-APPOINTED OVERLORD OF NICOLAS DEEM. (??????)

Like, other people: I hope Nicki has good scenes!!!

Me: no pressure, but I require a complete account of the writers' understanding of his interiority, motivations, developmental psychology, trauma history, artistic identity, relationship to religion, relationship to class, relationship to music, and metaphysical self-concept.

Am I The Devil?

I mean, this is my genuine hope, even as I know that no character on TV is entirely their book self! Not even Lestat is his book-self in fullness.

I don’t think I even need it really. What it is is fear talking. Insidious fear that maggots itself through my mind, only as there isn’t reality to hold onto yet.

Yet there IS reality: there’s Nicolas saying, “I want you to love me enough to give it to me.” Words that aren’t in The Vampire Lestat exactly like this, yet that are 100% what Nicolas feels! It’s literally perfect!!! It is exactly what Nicolas feels! It is TRUTH!! Justice! Right! The writers understood, completely.

So then, why must I insist on still feeling so frightened? 😭

Rating for episode 1: 9.5/10. (0.5 subtracted for the absence of any eighteenth century beyond 0.2 second flashes! 😂)

Rating for my self: 0/1,000,000.

I feel like the most annoying person on the planet. And I don’t want to be afraid. And there’s literally ZERO to be frightened of! EVERY SINGLE PIECE OF EVIDENCE is brilliance.

But I am still afraid. Help!

I want to end by clarifying I am SO HAPPY! And also, I am SO AFRAID. These things coexist, but with ♾️ love for the art.

[savagewilderness]

Is Louis’ book worse than we think?

Louis not mentioning Lestat’s scars makes sense. He loves Lestat! Why mention them?

BUT Daniel says Louis told him about Lestat’s childhood stutter. If he’s not revealing every intimate detail about Lestat (including a pretty massive one, like the scars), why would he reveal the stutter???

[savagewilderness]

S3E1

I'm not going to spoil while people still have to watch...

I just want to say: Joseph Potter is in the (very few!) MAIN BILLED CAST and I am SO happy! I am happy for him, and I am happy for me! Nicolas matters.

I can see how incredible Joe's work is from those flashes of Nicolas.

And I obviously can't say what I'll feel about Nicolas' personality/actions/adaptation (I mean... Lestat is not his book self in all ways, so that speaks that we cannot expect anyone to be their book-selves entirely... and I don't need anyone to be their book self... except I do need Nicki to be... so, let's see...)

But I know Joe will be incredible, and Nicolas will matter. And I love that. Joe is going to be powerful. And I sort of feel like maybe, however Nicolas is adapted that's joy? But let me be honest when I have experienced it, of course.

But honestly, those silent yet intense flashes made me feel I have nothing to fear.

I'm so intrigued about Gabriella, from an objective point of view. Because that episode went in mainly on the Gothic, only the stutter remerging alluding to trauma, and the 2026 full picture.

Can a show in 2026 successfully balance pure, transgressive Gothic aestheticism with our modern need for moral and psychological accountability? I'm curious to experience what it has to say...

Finally, I found After Dark patronising. When you lie about things you didn't realise it makes real praise fake too. I don't get it.

Am I alone? I don't understand? Why pretend...???

SPOILERS

You didn't know Gabriella was coming through the door before she did? Literally EVERYONE knew Gabriella was Toi, if they read The Vampire Lestat!?! Maybe not in the first text chat, but WAY before we saw her! Obviously!

Why pretend you didn't know Lestat's doppelgänger was Sam? Sam's a brilliant actor! He is wonderfully different as his doppelgänger... But it's patronising to suggest you don't realise it's him. It's obviously him.

WHY ARE HUMANS? I find it so insulting to US as an audience and to Sam!!!!?!??!

[savagewilderness]

Well, we had to look it up, since Daniel Hart spoke of "La Fontaine de Sang" by Charles Baudelaire…

The Fountain of Blood

It seems to me sometimes my blood is bubbling out As fountains do, in rhythmic sobs; I feel it spout And lapse; I hear it plainly; it makes a murmuring sound; But from what wound it wells, so far I have not found.

As blood runs in the lists, round tumbled armored bones, It soaks the city, islanding the paving-stones; Everything thirsty leans to lap it, with stretched head; Trees suck it up; it stains their trunks and branches red.

I turn to wine for respite, I drink, and I drink deep; (Just for one day, one day, neither to see nor hear!) Wine only renders sharper the frantic eye and ear.

In terror I cry to love, "Oh, put my mind to sleep!" But love for me is only a mattress where I shrink On needles, and my blood is given to whores to drink.

— Edna St. Vincent Millay, Flowers of Evil (NY: Harper and Brothers, 1936)

Enjoy episode one, everyone xxxxx

[savagewilderness]

One more play with the Rolin cut before the actual episode.