trouble in our hearts

thirty-five, genderqueer up to here, and taller than necessary. artist, poet, writer, professionally trans. find me at tekla.bluesky.com💜 I'm back, come say hi!

[therozanov]

Even now, still thinking about him.

[reticent-vampire]

🫪

[sondergeist]

Assad Zaman: There’s something about Armand when he’s not being observed that I took [from the books]. I think if you know the books you know that he’s… the specific alien quality about… when you’re in stasis, you’re almost on standby. Statuesque. You’re unable to emote or think anything because everything you do is shaped on either being obsessed with someone, manipulating someone, or trying to survive your trauma in someway. What do those people do when they’re not being observed? The way Anne Rice describes Armand, several times, is sort of this ethereal, alien quality that doesn’t quite feel like it’s… She called it childish, but I don’t see it as childish. I see it more as like an alien that’s unable to understand himself, his own needs[?], only able to play a part. So when there’s no one to see them, they kind of just go a little bit dead, soulless, that kind of thing. That’s something that I took on, tried to.

[tstandsfortrouble]

ohhhh he’s good. I would add to this that the entire tragedy of Armand is that he was made young, when his whole mortal life had been horrific trauma, and then the safety he found with Marius was so short-lived. He put everything into Marius because he didn’t know any other way to be. He had always been subsumed to one “master” or another. Hence part of why he feels safe playing the part of a manservant or nurse type to Louis. He wants to put another being’s needs before his own because that’s the only way he knows how to exist safely. Over time, as his powers grow, he embraces the gremlin/devil of it all, because that was the only way he saw towards power (and thus, survival).

“In this broken child were centuries of evil and centuries of knowledge, and out of him came no ignominious entreaty but merely the soft and bruised sense of what he was. Old, old evil, eyes that had seen dark ages of which i could only dream.”

And with the children of darkness, he was literally dragged from Marius’ palazzo and made to convert or else he would have been killed too. So he makes that his whole identity, again, out of survival.

“Millions live without belief or guidance. It is you who canmnot live without it.” - Gabrielle

The beauty he sees with Marius is ripped away and he doesn’t think there’s any way he can seek that on his own. So he spends centuries in the darkness, ignoring joy and art and music and mortals and relationships and everything that makes immortal life potentially worth living.

Lestat is equal parts disgusted and fascinated and pitying and loving and frightened by Armand. Armand is like “but…..we’re the abandoned of god :(” to which lestat basically goes “RIP to you but i am in fact different”

The central difference of vampire philosophy here is so fascinating. Armand was created out of the medieval mindset. The renaissance was barely just happening to him when it was snatched away and he was plunged into darkness for so long. But lestat is a creature of the enlightenment. He’s like ummmm ok but why not use our powers to have mortals love us and give us money??? and have a fun interesting time???? And Armand can barely comprehend this at all. Lestat upends his entire worldview and Armand’s only thought is about how he can attach himself to Lestat and Gabrielle. It makes “there’s not enough room in this box for your desperation” hit SO crazy and so funny and so sad. Because armand’s desperate need is the size of the moon.

“All things have eluded my understanding,” Armand said. “I am as one whom the earth has given back, and you, Lestat and Gabrielle, are like the images painted by my old Master in cerulean and carmine and gold.”

“The soft fathomless despair of Armand’s story seemed an ocean in which i might drown. This was worse than the blasted shore in Nicki’s mind. This was for three centuries, this darkness, this nothingness.

The radiant child by the fire could open his mouth again and out would come blackness like ink to cover the world.”

[virgo-79]

Okay but. The thing about the whole tragedy with Nicki that stabs me in the fucking kidney every time is Lestat had, as he said, a bipolar boyfriend. Lestat was probably the steady hand in that relationship.

Then he gets kidnapped, tortured, brutally raped, and turned.

And comes back to a Nicki who still needs him to be the steady hand, and might not have been in any position to reciprocate.

Lestat can't tell him the truth. He can't share any of what he suffered with the man he loves, because Nicki was unstable. Then there's the whole situation with Armand, and then Nicki is demanding Lestat share with him this change he's undergone. And bow howdy if "You want me to murder you?"/"I want you to love me enough to give it to me" isn't a day and a half of unpacking all on its own.

From the moment it happened, Lestat couldn't seek comfort from anyone for this terrifying, violating thing that was done to him. And that's no fault of Nicki's; Nicki was sick.

But it's no wonder he never faced it the way he should have -- the way he owed himself. He never had the time or space to stop his own bleeding. Then all those years later, the same thing happened to Claudia, and he had never healed enough to be capable of helping her.

[tstandsfortrouble]

this is exactly correct!!!!! and it’s part of why he can’t fully deal w/ the depth of Armand’s trauma, either. Once he learns about it he’s very like “oh Jesus CHRIST” and doesn’t really want to engage. Because it would mean facing what happened to him.

[cuntylestat]

i've loved every second of the vampire lestat because i have an open joyous heart and a beautiful mind

[wisteria-lodge]

The Circle & the Line

I want to talk about one of my favorite pieces of visual symbolism / visual storytelling in The Vampire Lestat.

Like, I think of it as the season's primary motif. A circle, and a line. That's the bowling alley + bowling ball. It's the ice-cream scoop. It's the tour bus + wheels ("the wheels on Lestat go round and round.") It's the music note. The first thing Lestat says to Louis is "a balloon is nice" and - in case we missed that - here's Louis with a bunch of balloons.

(and that word "nice" is important. It comes back in the finale as a happy ending, instead of the "not enough" Lestat feels it is in the beginning.)

We even have some incidental circles-and-lines, that aren't there for any reason other than visual cohesion.

(I like that the wrecking ball is the image the showrunner decided to put over his name.) (I also think that the stripper + stripper pole images belong here, but they were blocked by the tumblr content gods)

So... what does it mean?

So the line is Lestat. Movement, progress, action, tight barreling forward. This is a season full of hallways, corridors, long tables, alleys. Our main set is the tour bus. And Lestat? Always always doing a walk-and-talk, walk-and-sign-the-paper. He's showering when he's talking to Armand, he's watching strippers when he's talking to Christine and Gabriella, he's always doing SOMETHING. He refers to himself as things like the "scalpel" and the "last of the sutures." Y'know. Lines.

I think the constant movement gives him the illusion of control. Lestat's spent a pretty large chunk of his life trapped and stagnant (first by his family, then by Marius/Akasha). The thing about the "long table" is that it ISN'T him sitting at the head.

It's his father, it's Magnus, it's Gabriella, and it's a victory when he can finally do this:

Symbolically taking responsibility for the 'direction' his life is going.

And the most extreme version of Lestat-as-line is when he's speeding in the car, driving as a way to escape his memories of Magnus.

Because of course, that's the reason for this. Lestat is trying to escape his trauma by keeping himself busy, existing as just a body, just keep going, just keep going. Don't think about it.

But then the car flips, rotates. The next shot is the world upside down - we're rolling. The line is becoming the circle.

Because if the LINE is action, then the CIRCLE is contemplation and reflection. It's being inside your own head.

Which is very much where LOUIS has been trapped this whole season. Lestat is always moving? Louis is never moving. He's sitting, he's still. He's reliving and revisiting the past, cycling inside his own head, unable to move forward.

Our introduction to Louis is as a head on Lestat's iPad. Only a head.

And one more circle I want to throw in:

Like, the obvious interpretation of this shot is that Gabriella has Lestat by the balls. BUT... if circles are thoughts, contemplation, reflection. Well, that's showing us visually WHY Lestat doesn't particularly want to go there. Gabriella's in his head, making sure he circles around and around without making any progress, just like she plays with those ping-pong balls.

That's why it's lovely that the first time Lestat and Louis REALLY talk this season, make some real progress... it's in a parked car. Lestat is able to be still when he's with Louis. He can sit and think and process. And Louis can lean on Lestat's action, can get him to go in and end the situation with Regina, because he can't do it himself.

And that's why the finale, with its Beetlejuice-esque beheading, is kind of brilliant. Because really? The circle and the line... that's just a head and a body. Lestat has been finding pockets of stillness all season - with Louis, while composing (that's why it's important that he has to record the album in a literal underground bunker) but it's only when he is ONLY his head that he is forced to unpack, process, and come to the conclusion that he wants to stop. He doesn't want to go on stage.

And Louis' body (without his head) gets to struggle, and reach, and get out of Armand's saw trap. Get up out of the chair he's been sitting in all season.

[bloodyspector]

Down bad

[tstandsfortrouble]

[irradiatedwarlock]

THEY HAVE IDEAS!

[cloudabserk]

[whooshsoohw]

The whole concept of "I tracked your dead daughter's doppelganger with facial recognition software on my iPad" is goofy af but it made tech expert Armand canon so that's W for me.

[limitedseries]

The Vampire Lestat— "The Failures" (1.07)

[ngalitzine]

— EDITH WHARTON

[alexanderwales]

It's absolutely crazy that intellectual labor can wipe you out. It seems like it shouldn't be a thing, like your stores of brain juice shouldn't be able to be depleted in that way.

I feel like a wizard that's out of spell slots, and to me that's a hackish mechanical limitation put in place to try to balance the classes.

[i-know-the-enddc]

what I fucking love is how tvl was written in the 80s and lestat is constantly sayinf shit like “as the kids say 🤪 that’s so rad!!” or whatever, and to me, reader of the vampire lestat in this modern age, that does NOT register the way anne rice intended it.

like it is supposed to feel jarring and insane. it is supposed to feel like lestat has been violently submerged in modern young people trends and culture and is now repeating all the new words he learned like a beautiful fresh baby. but because the book is from 1985, all I think is oh interesting huh I didn’t know that slang term even originated in the 80s how vintage how retro how lestat wow he’s so embarrassing aw aw so cute.

but amc in all their incredible genius decided that honoring anne rice’s original vision of writing an extremely modern and weird book that fully embodied the era it was written in was more important then bringing back the 80s nostalgia thing that streaming services love and it’s incredible to me. now I get to listen to lestat say shit like “labubu FOMO cosplay reddit discord Gen Z more like gen SNOOZE 🤪🤪🤪 safe space pronouns donald trump labubu tiktok dance 🕺🏻” and suddenly I understand what it felt like to be a young anne rice reader in 1985. God…. I understand.

[tstandsfortrouble]

constantly thinking about the Tale of the Body Thief and how it’s literally just Lestat experiencing all the wonders of a modern cruise ship

[griffineatsbread]

"armends"

[reticent-vampire]

[zarahartist]

Interview with the Vampire ❤️