It's so crazy to me that people are lamenting the loss of Tumblr tags as a primary form of fandom communication on this website. Tags??? Are you kidding me? You mean these things that are supposed to help you find posts and are absolutely not meant for longform writing and cohesive thoughts, which is why they're tiny and gray under the main post and you can't use basic punctuation in them because they're supposed to be so truncated they shouldn't require a comma at all? Those things??? her????
I say this every eight weeks so maybe you are sick of hearing it, but in case you're just joining me, this website is shit for fandom. It has always been shit for fandom. It was not built for fandom. Look at how shit the comment function is. Look at how reply culture has organically metastasized into the tagging system. Look at how miserable the DMs are. This is a microblogging website. The point of it is to scale blogging down to allow marketing content to flow seamlessly from blog to blog. It is designed to blast short-form thoughts out to anyone who finds them, not a dedicated fandom. It is not constructed to handle -- or produce -- the volume and character of fanwork that many people are seeking.
i hope & wish that you / sekrit would speak more about iwtv/tvl, because i find you guys so refreshingly sensible & mature in this cuckooland
oh thanks nonny, that's very kind. I think we will both have plenty to say once the show actually starts. we talk quite a bit about the various wank that happens but it's all kind of an amuse bouche to the show itself.
also, speaking for myself though i'm sure sekrit has opinions (cc: @skrtomg), I don't particularly enjoy being yelled at or spilling opinions into a silent void and it seems like that's mainly the response unless you're bonkers popular in iwtv-land. meanwhile neither of us find the pace of posting you have to do to develop popularity to be sustainable or appealing, you know? also everyone wants to be right so bad and i'm like...pretty into discussions where i disagree with your opinion but i'm open to you making me rethink my stance, and also none of that has any bearing on how i feel about you as a person. that also seems to be not...the...vibe...here.
you didn't ask, but that's a few of the reasons why I don't do a ton of non-reblogged posts.
I can't pretend everything I post is so smart, but -- I'm trying to figure out how to express this, let's see. I'm really hesitant to make a post unless I feel like I can add something of value, and do a good job writing it. I do not just think everything inside my brain needs to be aired in the public forum. And writing a good post is like, hard. it takes a while. At the same time, I know I could meaningfully contribute on some topics, but writing a good post that narrowly navigates the fandom mood Dann notes here takes so long and has gotten really tricky.
For example, I have spent the past year starting and abandoning four different drafts of a long meta post on the role of journalism on the show and how people misunderstand (and unfairly mischaracterize) Daniel as a journalist. I really, really think that I have more to say about this than any other commentary I've seen on it. But it's really hard to rally my thoughts around a big topic like this, especially since I know that it's difficult to put this kind of thing into context without alienating a lot of people, if indeed they ever see it. There is a baseline assumption that Daniel just sucks, and as a character he is pretty flawed (on the flawed character show?? no way), so finding a way to thread the needle of his personal character with context about how journalism was evolving in 1973 is just not an easy thing to do.
I also feel like, once the season is really churning and me and my friends are brimming with great frenetic energy and ideas, I'll probably get pretty active.
Also asks are nice because that's an invitation to go off.
wow, i stopped paying for amc+ in dec 2024, i think? though i have bought the show in bluray and rewatched it many times.
but not watching literally anything else for 2 years!! have you always been into vampires? or is it because this show is amazing ?
I should invest in hard copies of the show.
I don't watch a lot of TV. I used to watch more, but even when I did, it was never quite as much as some people. I'd have like a couple of shows that I was into and watch them when they were on, but just as often I'd lose interest after a season or two -- I stopped watching Game of Thrones in season 4 or 5, I stopped watching Succession after season 2. I could name others. I feel like with many shows I just hit a point where I am like, well, I've seen enough of this. I know people loved these shows at the points where I lost interest, but I just kind of hit a moment where I thought, like, okay, I've seen enough, this show has done everything it's going to do for me. Like I was just never motivated to go back and watch the next episode.
I do watch Youtube videos and listen to podcasts, so like, I'm not not consuming media. I will say the only thing I'm ever really excited to see is gay stuff. And I do love vampires. And it is a really good show. And I'm in the fandom, so like, ther's a fannish energy fueling my rewatching. It's tried together with fannish production, for me. And I'm also not watching it daily. The only thing I do daily is find posts I hate and send them to Dann and Nhaingen to pick apart for amusement and edification.
I've been into vampires since I was probably 10 or 11? I'm sure everyone following this journal is alert to the fact that I read the first few books in the Vampire Chronicles when I was around that age. This and so forth.
SIGHING okay eta, an interesting thing about itwv is that it is the only single thing i have ever seen in my life where the show is beautiful and every single person on it is hot and beautiful! like beholding it is just pleasurable. with most shows it's like, I can't even pay attention to this, my eyes are sliding off of it like eggs on a griddle.
I have been paying for AMC+ for two years now. I have canceled every other app I was paying for. I am only paying for AMC+. I got rid of Netflix. HBO Go or whatever. I don't even know what else I was paying for. Oh, Paramount Plus. Well, you could watch South Park and Star Trek movies on it at one point, what a deal. Anyway, who needs it? This is not even a joke post. This is simply true about how I have been living for two years. The only TV shows I have seen since 2024 are Interview with the Vampire and Talamasca. I rewatched half a season of Mad Men at one point but there weren't any vampires so I stopped. This is just some fun information about me and my spending habits. I just wanted to tell people about myself.
nhaingen said i needed a new icon so they made me one, check it out, i don't like that they gave me armand eyes but what can you do, they said i deserved it??? 10/10 new icon (i don't own a garment like this but i'll allow it), old icon was from here, definitely great post, do read (don't read)
Nobody thinks Lestat is going to be "fully" trans, or trans for real, or however you want to put it, on TV, now or ever. If they do, it's like, vanishingly few people. Here are some reasons why:
Most people in fandom understand that exploring things and fucking around in fandom is different from what happens in canon on the show; it's convenient to focus on the handful of people who loudly put a stake in fandom conspiracies or secret episodes, but that's an extreme minority example, not like, most viewers
The idea that a main character of a TV show would become trans in season 3 is still so far from reality that it's almost a joke, trans characters are not exactly like so common on TV, maybe if the actor themselves transitioned? but--
No idea what's going on in his brain so who knows, I guess, but all indications are that Sam Reid is a cis man, and it seems unlikely the show would go that route with this actor
Sometimes art explores themes and ideas without being literal about it; Anne Rice's books are constantly musing on gender, the vampires "transcend gender," and yet nobody in those books (as far as I know, I'm still on The Vampire Armand) is coming out as trans and giving their pronouns? Likewise on the show themes of gender and gender fucking/nonconformity are present even if not always overt, and it makes sense that fans who find this interesting and like those themes would discuss and speculate thereon without expecting the themes to become literal
So that's one reason why I roll my eyes at concern trolling about fans who think Lestat is going to be trans for real. I don't think there are many of these, if any.
Another is, so what?
"So what" is working for me on two levels:
Speculation on TV shows turning out to be wrong is like ... okay? So you're wrong? This happens all the time. You want a really irrelevant example? in 2009-10 South Park introduced a superhero character called Mysterion, and a lot of fans were guessing which of the little boy characters was actually Mysterion, and a lot of people were wrong. I was wrong. I thought it was Clyde. It was actually Kenny! I can't believe it. A lot of people think a lot of things are going to happen in media and then they don't. It's fine. A handful of people are disappointed. They will all live. We will be fine.
What would be bad about Lestat being trans? Like, again, I don't think there is going to be some canon event where Lestat comes out as trans. I think the show will probably dance around gender in various ways that are fun for me, but this show does a lot of dancing around. I kind of doubt Mr. or Mx. Non-discriminating is going to be articulate and concise on the topic of his gender identity, if that's even a concept that matters to him. But if he did, then -- okay? Then the character is trans? That would be cool. Why is it a problem for people to long and project? Who does that hurt? How is wishing for this any weirder or worse than wishing that some couple gets together, or the songs are good, or some past event is revisited?
hi! i wanted to say that i find Louis to be incredibly interesting and developed in birth story, not at all how that anon described him. his way of showing affection is very familiar to me and easily recognizable when you know what to look for, which makes the fics from his point of view fascinating to me.
also, perhaps random, but i was wondering about the decision to remove the de part of his last name and leave it just as pointe du lac? what was your thinking around that?
hi! Thanks for saying this, I mean, obviously (?) Dann and I are trying to write a complex Louis who is satisfying to read about.
It's a little funny it took this long for someone to ask about the last name:
hello, i just had a question about your louis in birth story. in the show louis is emotionally repressed and reserved. but still a warm and loving figure but in birthstory i find your louis to be so cold and almost alien like. like a dull throw pillow while lestat is this bright figure with a rich inner life and history. even madeline and claudia are warm and three dimensional and louis is just bleghhh. is that how feel louis is in the show or books?
I have discussed this with @queerofcups. Their basic response is, among other things, Louis isn't any one way? Both in the show and in this fic series, written by me or both of us I guess. In terms of the books, I am midway through The Vampire Armand so like, I really can't say that I have a good handle on Louis. He's the narrator of the first book and then, as you may have heard, the tone of the book series becomes, "Hello, Lestat here, whatever Louis said just forget about it, we're on Lestat time now and it's 8 million a.m., everyone get lubed up for spiritual penetration." And this pretty much goes for the books that Lestat doesn't narrate, also.
I think here are some things to consider:
re: the fic I recently posted, Louis is not really the focus. It's in Madeleine's POV and it's really a character study of her, using Lestat as a counterpoint as a) someone else who's marrying into the Pointe du Lac family, essentially, and b) also an immigrant, and coincidentally also from France. Louis is Madeleine's father-in-law, more or less. (She and Claudia aren't married yet.) He is cordial to Madeleine but she does not perceive him as warm. Her perspective is like, here is my girlfriend's very rich father, who is scarcely more than a decade older than I am. He is financially supporting me, even if indirectly. He is paying for the very lavish wedding I don't really want. Claudia has problems that I don't like to think about and it wouldn't be helpful for me to ask any questions about what his contribution to those has been. When I met Claudia he was married to someone I was meant to see as Claudia's step-father, but since then he's left his husband and built a $2 million house for his mistress, who is also someone I work with professionally, so like, all of this is pretty nuts if you think about it, and it won't help me to think about it that deeply, so like. The best strategy is to compartmentalize whatever I cannot silently judge. For now. So I think some of the specific Louis treatment here is just relevant to like, the fic is about the character who has the least investment in him and her feelings are complex.
But on yet another level, like, is Louis warm in canon? I see him as someone who has the propensity to be warm or cold depending on, you know, what's going on. How he feels. This seems a totally normal way to be. Louis can be a huge bitch, like, just incredibly cold when he wants to be. He ignores and snipes at Lestat for years. He threatens his sister as his mother's funeral. He absolutely reads Armand to filth. He is pretty stiff with Claudia while they're in Eastern Europe. All of these are complex dynamics, beyond readings of "it's okay that Louis wasn't nice" or "Louis is mean." The point is, Louis's warmth, where it exists, is in balance with the rest of him. He can be very cool. He can be a huge bitch.
In contrast to Lestat, I mean, this is their character dynamic -- in the books, in the show, in this series. Louis is repressed and Lestat is loud and dynamic. Lestat is a kind of character I would describe as like, the orchestra's in town. This person's inner dynamics cannot be kept inside. This is not always a good thing--sometimes it's smarter, more psychologically balanced, to just, like, keep it in and move on. It's also very appealing to someone like Louis, who in this AU (as in canon) has lived a life of responsibility and forcing himself to comply with social expectations he's straining against. In birth story specifically, Louis is from a background where he gets just enough reward out of dealing with expectations that he doesn't totally want to push back against them. He has, and he does, but not as totally and thoroughly as Lestat has (or wants to).
Meanwhile, the actions Louis has taken in this AU, both in the fics and in the backstory, are pretty enormous. He is making giant gestures of love that are also, like, irrational and meaningful and not the actions of a man who is reserved.
I don't have a conclusion for the post, sorry, the post is done now. Thank you for asking.
Hi, I hope you don't mind me saying, I was a little surprised by Madeleine and Lestat's relationship in deceptacon. Not that I was expecting them to be besties, but it seems like she doesn't think anything about Lestat except that's a rich asshole.
I do not mind you saying this at all. I like it when people share responses to my fic, even (maybe especially) if they are not outright praise. But I do think it's maybe kinda premature since the fic is not finished?
I think Madeleine is a very clear-eyed character. She thinks Lestat is a rich asshole because Lestat is a rich asshole. Everyone in this story is. However, crucially, that's not the only thing she thinks about Lestat:
Lestat is from a rural part of France that is not well-off, Lestat's family is obviously not well-off, Madeline understands that her upbringing was, even if uninspiring, much better than Lestat's was.
Lestat is older enough that growing up queer was extremely difficult, Madeleine understands this is a difference between them, she is immediately aware that Lestat left home and did survival sex work, Madeleine is also aware that these things are connected.
Madeleine is not pointing this out directly in the narrative because a) the reader already knows this in the context of the series, but more importantly b) she knows it would be insulting and rude to comment on this. Lestat is not shy about this part of her past but it's her past to bring up, not Madeleine's.
Lestat is obviously struggling with her gender and unable to articulate how she feels, to herself even.
Madeleine is not pointing this out to Lestat directly because Madeleine knows that this is not what Lestat needs. Madeleine knows a lot of queer people, is herself a queer person, knows that Lestat is not going to be helped in any way by having Madeleine bring it up directly. Of course, what Madeleine does do is catty about it, with Claudia.
What Madeleine is doing instead is trying to encourage Lestat without being overt. Madeleine is not perfect, she is herself flawed, and despite knowing Lestat for several years now, she is not really Lestat's peer. Lestat pays her to make drag costumes, and eventually gets invoved with Madeleine's girlfriend's father. Madeleine is very confident and presumptuous. I don't want to spoil ("spoil") the final chapter of the fic, so all I'll say is that you should ask yourself why Madeleine is doing what she's doing if all she thinks about Lestat is that Lestat is a rich asshole.
Madeleine is the kind of character who is going to seldom say something declarative. For that matter, everyone in birth story is. That's not really the main thrust of the AU. What I would point out is that, in canon, Madeleine slept with a Nazi soldier during the occupation of France. This pales in comparison to the worst things people did during the Second World War, and yet reframing what she did as a gesture of comfort to a scared boy is a little bit revisionist; most people in occupied countries did not sleep with Nazis during the war. She did what she wanted to do and told herself it wasn't really bad, for reasons. She didn't deserve the public abuse she got in the aftermath, to say nothing of the threat of sexual violence. But that doesn't make what Madeleine did a neutral choice without weight. She then decides to become a vampire, because she wants to be with Claudia. Claudia is a terrifying serial killer, but she protects Madeleine. Madeleine thinks this is great and decides she affirmatively wants that, too.
So like, try to detach the parts that don't end up playing out in this AU, namely, the 1940s context and vampirism elements. But do think about what kinds of choices this person makes. She's a complicated woman. She might think Lestat is a rich asshole, but what is she doing with that?
ALSO I can't believe I didn't mention this, these stories are being posted ... somewhat chronologically. We have not posted everything that happens leading up to this. In fact, Dann is working on a fic that I think will shed some light on this story? The events of that fic are referenced a few times here.
what’s the relevance or meaning behind the title “deceptacon”?
are there any references photos used for this house? the robes and drag outfits?
YES hi I'm so happy you asked this, thank you.
"Deceptacon" is a song by Le Tigre. I like this version by Sprints. I like it so much I just put on now. I was listening to it quite a bit while writing this fic and began to feel like it was taking on lyrical relevance to the Madeleine pov here. Happy to get more into it if interesting???
This is the listing for the house, it's a teardown. I don't imagine it's on that exact block. Also, they have massively overhauled it by the time they move into it -- but that's more or less what they bought. So you can imagine Claudia and Madeleine wandering around that at the opening of the fic.
This is the dress Lestat is wearing where she looks like a Valentine, but you have to imagine it without the lace shirt it's styed with.
This is the NYE dress Madeleine has recreated that she is shortening.
The robe Lestat is wearing on New Year's Day is something Agent Provocateur, this or this kind of thing. I imaine for making the eggs something more like this, like an actual dressing gown as opposed to lingerie.
Previously: five books that I think could basically be summarized with the lyrics to Gravy Train's "Titties Bounce" (x)
This time: The boys go in a quest after blueberries when, suddenly, Ancient Rome. (x)
Pandora
You know what? I liked this.
sighing, okay. So like, the next book in the Vampire Chronicles is The Vampire Armand. However. People who care about the vampire writings of Howard Allen Frances "Anne" O'Brien Rice say that the intended reading order of these books is according to publication date, including two books that are not technically in the Vampires Chronicles, Pandora and Vittorio the Vampire. This is a different series called New Tales of the Vampires that is I guess a marketing gimmick or an experiment or something, but they were published between Memnoch the Devil and The Vampire Armand and people who care seem to think that you should read them in that order.
Based upon my looking into this, it seemed like Pandora would be relevant to the larger Vampire Chronicles story about Lestat and friends, and that there are references to both Memnoch and Armand and so this book should actually be read in between these for serious. Also, Vittorio is irrelevant and who cares. So basically I decided to read Pandora at this point and skip Vittorio. Just so we are all on the same page.
I remember Pandora coming out around the time I was a kid reading these books, and given that I didn't make it past Body Thief my attitude toward this was something like, what the fuck is Anne Rice doing? Great that I will never find out.
So just right off the bat, this is a short book, which I think is a positive. Almost no characters show up to give a monologue. (Admittedly the entire book is her monologue. So, no third characters show up to do this.) There's a tight focus on Pandora and her story. Like, to an absurd degree, I'm pretty sure something like the first fifth of the book covers her life up to age 35, then the bulk of the book happens over like, one night? And then the last 20 pages cover, like, a couple of centuries. I did not go back and look, but like, this is how I felt it was going while I was reading.
I think it's important to say that I got the hardcover of this at a used bookstore, and it's really a wonderful size. Just a great easy thing to throw in a tote bag. An "attractive slim volume," huge contrast to the paperback of The Vampire Lestat, which was a big fat boy.
I say I dislike historical fiction, but in fact I really enjoyed this. Maybe it's that Rome is not my area, but it's close enough that I have the right amount of familiarity, by which I mean, some, but not enough to be upset about how ancient Rome is being treated. I found Pandora a pretty cool character. She was a little grating in her framing device, about recording her life for David Talbot, but ultimately I think that she is a prickly, self-assured, entitled woman who knows herself and what she wants. Criticise Anne Rice when she deserves it, but she can write a good character on balance, which is to say, flawed in a way that makes them entertaining.
Beyond that this is a fun, tight romp (I feel like 80 percent of this book happens over, like, three days), I'm reading these books to find out more about adaptational changes in the TV show, and get a wider read on fandom talking points. Something about fandom is that often people get an idea in their head, and maybe the idea has a kernel of truth, or is in letter correct, but the fannish effect is to distort the interpretation in some sense. For whatever reason what's coming to mind is how in South Park one time Clyde (oh you don't know who Clyde is? the Clyde???) was said to be eating tacos, and then in fanon he became an entirely taco-based character.
So it's interesting, to me, to dig into (or back into) a book series about which there is SO much discussion. You know what people are saying: Lestat pees all over himself. Lestat hoovers a woman's period. Anne Rice is racist. Anne Rice is a crypto trans masc. Devil's Minion, whatever that is. Fareed does sex experiments so Lestat can have a baby. Are any of these things, like, actually there? Or is this just a case of like, bad-faith interpretation, exaggeration, games of fandom telephone? I am mostly finding that the things people say about these books are true, or in some cases undersold -- like, a lot of this is really trans, if you ask me! Just not in a literal sense. All of these books have observations about gender being unfixed and expansive. Characters are always comparing themselves to other genders. Religious and primordial concepts are constantly superseding gender, or fixed gender.
A really big taco in this fandom is about Marius being a pedophile. And while I got the basic idea of this from the show, it really struck me here. Marius seemed helpful if anodyne in previous volumes, but it was always coming from people who didn't really know him, or idealized him. Pandora, however, catches Marius' eye when she is a young girl. When she meets him later on, his house is full of child servants (slaves?). All of which to say, reading this, I had the immediate reaction of, naturally, this is why people think he is a pedophile. It's not coming from nowhere. It's textual.
Not to make the only vampire book about a lady vampire into a post about Marius, but I get the sense that Marius will be in the show soon, and continue to be a big part of these books. I like Pandora, and I liked Pandora, but I'm not sure that she will.
The Vampire Armand is next. I am already 100+ pages into it. So yeah I think this pedophile theory holds up lol.
