Questions that I fear, chapter one. The point of the song is that we are fairly well damaged by the legacy of the romantic poets. We think of love as this thing that is accompanied by strings, and it’s a force for good, and if something bad happens, then that’s not love. And the therapeutic tradition I come from, I used to work in therapy, also says it’s not love if it feels bad. I don’t know so much about that. I don’t know that the Greeks weren’t right. I think they were: that love can eat a path through everything. That it can destroy a lot of things on the way to it’s own objective which is just it’s expression of itself. My step-father loved his family. Now, he mistreated us terribly quite often. But he loved us. Well, that, to me, is something worth commenting on in the hopes of undoing what I see as terrible damage in the way that people talk about love as this benign, comfortable force. It’s not that. It’s wild.
Wow, bold of you to consider him as a favorite! I’m rarely asked about Magnus. If I might ask, why is he one of your faves? He is like the ultimate Your Fave is Problematic bc of the way he was first introduced in canon, forcing Lestat into vampirism and all that. Lestat pretty much forgives him at this point, having tried going back to mortality and been very unhappy with it, you could say Lestat finally got to make the choice he didn’t have originally well, *sigh* a whole essay could be written about Lestat and choosing to vampire.
Magnus tells his story in Prince Lestat! That he was a great Parisian alchemist. It’s glossed over fairly quickly, there could be more to Magnus. He was in Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis, we’ll probably see more of him.
There was a Magnus RPer, gone inactive now, but you might find good stuff in their archive, might reach out to any active RPers you find there: @theycallmemagnus.
well, *sigh* a whole essay could be written about Lestat and choosing to vampire.
Fortunately, someone HAS in fact written those essays! @anton-mordrid wrote an excellent piece on the themes of consent in Lestat’s character arc from IWTV through TotBT
Taking Bodies: Themes of Consent in Lestat’s Development
[X] Interview with the Vampire concept art by Mark “Crash” McCreery
(Warner Bros., 1994) Haunting head & shoulders portrait of Tom Cruise as the vampire “Lestat” struggling on the ground while blood is gushing from his slit throat. Accomplished in pencil on a leaf of 14 ¾ in. x 8 in. artist’s illustration paper. Fine.
That BTS video is a new fandom treasure and like, back in the 90′s, Tom’s publicist Pat Kingsley would have tracked the source down and made them delete it. ;A; * I love that we’re getting stuff out of private collections now!
^I think this is one of my fave shots of Brad “where did I go wrong” Pitt from that movie… which is why it was so great to see him go from that to this BAMF later in the movie:
^YISSSS PLZ
^Height issues aside (and yeah I’m sure that was an issue!), here’s my take Tom Cruise’s eyebrow concerns. The lighting is different but you can still tell the difference in his makeup/hair. On the left is a still from an earlier scene that was shot and probably had to be discarded bc the blond was too bright, orangey, weirdly smooth (I think they were going for “pampered” and “golden”). Looks like they changed it to highlights and lowlights of blond and a mussier texture to mesh better with Tom’s own coloring. So he had good reason to be concerned about his eyebrows, he probably didn’t want more footage to be wasted.
^anne’s cringey 90’s look: Hey that was in style then bc BELIEVE ME I LIVED IT! But yeah she looks a lot better these days, current 90′s-inspired looks are very different from some of the actual 90′s looks.
*Even though it wasn’t an interview specifically, it was unauthorized bts footage.
“Kingsley was adamant about keeping Cruise out of the tabloids. At press junkets, she demanded that journalists sign contracts swearing not to sell their quotes to the supermarket rags. Then Kingsley expanded her reach and insisted that all TV interviewers destroy their tapes after his segment had aired.”
Wow, bold of you to consider him as a favorite! I’m rarely asked about Magnus. If I might ask, why is he one of your faves? He is like the ultimate Your Fave is Problematic bc of the way he was first introduced in canon, forcing Lestat into vampirism and all that. Lestat pretty much forgives him at this point, having tried going back to mortality and been very unhappy with it, you could say Lestat finally got to make the choice he didn’t have originally well, *sigh* a whole essay could be written about Lestat and choosing to vampire.
Magnus tells his story in Prince Lestat! That he was a great Parisian alchemist. It’s glossed over fairly quickly, there could be more to Magnus. He was in Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis, we’ll probably see more of him.
There was a Magnus RPer, gone inactive now, but you might find good stuff in their archive, might reach out to any active RPers you find there: @theycallmemagnus.
In movie!IWTV, Armand’s origins aren’t explicitly stated, just that he’s an Old World vampire. He could very well be Spanish, that’s Banderas’ actual ethnicity. So we don’t know. Just bc Louis and Claudia meet him in Paris doesn’t mean he’s French; he tells them he’s 400 yrs old, he’s probably lived elsewhere.
On my recent post about Antonio!Armand, @slow-read shared this opinion: “I would like to add that Antonio’s accent also gives one a sense of age, otherness and it sounds (or sounded) exotic to the audience? It was perfect for Armand-the-oldest-living-vampire-in-the-world. *-*” The
ppl behind movie!IWTV might have chosen Banderas and made the character this way rather than a more canon-compliant actor bc they wanted him to be more convincing as
Armand-the-oldest-living-vampire-in-the-world to audiences who had not read the books. Filmmakers then (and now) want a movie to appeal to wide audiences. I was a kid then, but it seems to me that fandom (and specifically, trying to please the fanbase as a primary objective) wasn’t as much of a consideration at that time.
In the books, Armand comes from a place called Kiev, which according to AR is in Russia and according to the google is in the Ukraine, but idk. Then he spent years in Italy which is where he got most of his mortal education, so he may have picked up some of that accent from his teachers and friends… and then he lived in Paris for many years so he might have consciously tried to pick up some of that accent in order to blend in.
Anyone is welcome to answer this with what you think Armand’s accent is like!
Well, anon, lemme just take a look in my coat here…
The museum podLestat pissily refers to Armand building for Louis in PL (while OBVIOUSLY not getting him, unlike Podstat, who bought Louis what he definitely loves: clothes) was a really last ditch effort, maybe just before going to America. It contains every piece of art Louis expressed even the vaguest interest in during their decades together, whether bought, bargained, or stolen (there are some very convincing fakes out there now)
Louis’ initial feelings for Armand were entirely real – Armand only mentally interfered when trying to keep Louis from doing something that could then be rationalized as “for his own good.” Even still, Louis has kept Armand locked out of his head since the day he learned how
When Armand realized he couldn’t rouse joy in Louis, he settled for pain, emotional and physical. The physical was technically consented to but Louis was so nigh-catatonic it didn’t count for much. Playing the Lestat card was partly because they came to a line even Armand didn’t consider himself monstrous enough to cross
They’ve never talked about Armand’s feelings for Lestat, nor Daniel’s feelings for Louis. They really, really should
Benji was the only reason Louis initially agreed to stay at Trinity Gate, seeing him as an opportunity to atone for his treatment of Claudia
Armand sees himself in Sybelle’s “madness” (read: she seems to be autistic and predominantly nonverbal, ANNE YOU’RE WRITING IN A WORLD THAT IN-UNIVERSE NOW HAS A MORE NUANCED UNDERSTANDING OF MENTAL ILLNESS NOW, COME ON) He’s never actually sought modern diagnoses for himself, and fuck knows her parents never did that for her, but like recognizes like
Louis’ never really forgiven Armand for what he did, and Armand doesn’t expect him to. Rather, the fondness just trumps the resentment after a full century
They fell into “parenting” very easily, and didn’t think about their feelings beyond their roles for the first few years
Louis actually made the first move. Armand was doing his best to give Louis space after all those years of doing the opposite. The French Library was Armand’s gift, so Louis would have a place to be alone, and he never goes there
Armand still feels very lost in the wake of everything (his attempted suicide and the revelation that the being who drove him to it was just an elaborate con), but buckles down talking about it because ROLES. ROLES ARE HOW YOU SURVIVE AND KEEP GOING. But…Louis actually asked about it
They repaint the ceilings in the mansion together every few months based on skies around the world
I-want-my-IWTV 