I don’t know where these people live. I live in Poland too and it is no more homophobic place than any other country. Like seriously…
idk, clearly someone ordered it to be edited… Maybe there was less acceptance at the time of translation? I don’t think the translator would have taken it upon themself to make creative cuts like that 😛
In my suburb of Philly here in the US, a friend came out to me, privately, at 15 yrs old, as a lesbian. She told me she was telling me first, before telling other people at school, bc I might have to choose between remaining friends with her or being friends with all the people who were likely to reject her. I stuck with her. Some people did drop her as a friend because of it… this was the mid-90s. People acclimated to the idea and a year or two later, she was more or less accepted again by our formerly ex-friends.
But that is good to hear about current Poland! Equality for all.
ooc; Sometimes I like to imagine the vampires suddenly becoming human and like, Louis feeding Lestat super fucking spicy cajun food and Lestat being unable to handle it. And Louis vs. Daniel drinking contest on who can be the biggest alcoholic train-wreck. And Armand being forced to drink his own blender concoctions.
//I 100% think about this all the time. And the thirteen year old in me imagines Louis and Lestat having kids together—specifically twins surrogated by Pandora, and they win the lottery of IVF, each of them ending up fathering a kid.
I’M NOT A FREAK, YOU’RE A FREAK.
#AU #FANFIC REQUAST
You know Louis would kick Daniel’s butt at Quarters (the drinking game). For one thing he has mad skills w/ throwing things ;]
Thank you and hedonistbyheart so much for doing this! ❤ Sorry I’m gonna stab it with mostly Lestat reaction gifs, I just haven’t made enough for anyone else… And really I think he would be offended on Armand’s behalf so… WHATEVER.
so the time has come to rant about an unbelivable censorship of Polish translation of The Vampire Armand. I’m sitting with three versions of TVA: Polish translation from 2007, English original and Italian copy from 2006 for comparison (tho my Italian is not good enough to draw any significant conclusions). warning: nsfw stuff. And lots of sarcasm.
So, what happens when you compare Polish book with the English one? Fascinating things! There are whole paragraphs missing! The body parts change into different parts! The description gets so vague you have no idea what actually happend! And all of that pulled off just to hide the GAY. Can you believe that Polish translator tried (and tried really hard, I give him that) to make TVA less gay??
It’s hard to decide where to start. Let’s take the (in)famous whipping scene. No way, you would think? There is no possible way to censor THAT one? Oh there is. Three subsequent paragraphs of Marius licking Amadeo’s wounds? Gone. Never happend. This is more than a half of a page missing. Two paragraphs of a handjob? Somehow shortened to one vague sentence. Amadeo’s ass slapped? No, surely no. It was his back. Probably around his shoulderblades, for all I can tell from that masterpiece of a translation.
There is so much sense in slapping someone’s back, isn’t it? Lengthy descriptions of both of them wirtling, moaning etc? Shortened. Why write 4 complex sentences when you can say it in two words?
“Brevity is the soul of wit,” as they say. Pffffft.
There are also missing paragraphs and sentences from random scenes. That two lines where Amadeo literally spreads his legs? (”I sank into the satin quilted down beneath him; I opened my legs and let my knees caress him, numbed and vibrating from the graze of his knuckles against my lips.”) Gone. Simply gone. There is no trace of it.
Which is especially bad because it implies some measure of consent from Armand, right? We don’t need that.
But what about the brothel scenes? Could they censor them too? Oh yes, they could and they did. You get the information that he went there and that he apparently enjoyed himself. But what happend??? the description gets so vague it’s like everything drowned in the smoke of the mentioned pipe. Part about having sex between two skilled lovers? (”Captive between two skilled and willful lovers, I was pierced and suckled, pummeled and emptied until I slept as soundly as ever I had without the Master’s magic at home”) Marked part is gone, the first part of the sentence change into “slept”. Sex in the brothels, no that’s too much for a poor translator, we better get rid of that. He went there to sleep and eat good food, that’s why you go to the brothel, no? Ok, someone actually kissed him. Uh oh.
But brothel means they had BROTH, right? Like soup?
Weird? I tell you one more curious thing. In the very ancient Polish edition of TotBT there is Nicolas mentioned in one sentence as Lestat’s lover and guess what? He is somehow turned into a woman. Nicki is a “she”. The amount of denial is too damn high!
I wonder how different anything would have been if Nicki really had been a “she.”
I look into the Italian translation of TVA and it seems to be spot on. It sounds even sexier, but maybe it’s just the way Italian sounds in general 😉 All sentences are in place, even when Anne repeats herself in the description, the translation follows.
ouo good.
If am not mistaken the 2007 Polish edition is just a reprint from much older one, from the 90′. And I sit here, with these three books and I wonder, what is the reason for that disaster? Was this censorship intentional? Or the trouble is much simpler? Is this the fact that the translator was a guy, and that he apparently couldn’t bring himself to write down such gay paragraphs? Or he did write them and then the editor cut the most inapropriate parts? Were they this homophobic for real? Whatever the reason, I cringe at every sentence. And then I look at the real masterpiece of translation that is Polish version of Cry to Heaven, this one translated by a woman, and I want to weep over TVA.
Wow, interesting that one was less mutilated. When was Cry To Heaven translated? I bet the censorship rules changed. But then again, I recall TVA as being more ghey than CtH…
I wonder whether AR is aware of this, bc she strenuously objects to any editing of the English editions. STRENUOUSLY. Kudos to her commitment to her vision.
yES of course I would! But if it’s not in league with Anne Rice, you have the possibility of getting slapped with a copyright infringement suit 😛
Now, I reblog tons of VC fanart, and fanworks, bc I love it, and there is some difference between the artists sharing it for free vs. charging money for it, but it seems that AR must be aware of fanart made for commission (paintings, prints, etc.) and she hasn’t made any negative statements about it. In fact, she’s complimented more than one fanartist (for example, garama) and at least one cosplayer (for example sheepskeleton)(it’s a form of art so it totally counts)… so I think we’re somewhat safe so long as we keep it small-scale and don’t poke the bear by throwing it directly in her face.
I actually do intend to commission some VC fanartists at some point, just need a good enough idea to ask for.
But, we can’t cut Louis’ evil out of the conversation. His own cocktail of potent feelings for his…daughter, sister, friend, almost-lover? Whatever she was. Whatever she continues to be.
Louis’s evil is that he kills indiscriminately, which Akasha points out makes him “the most predatory of all the immortals here. You kill without regard for age or sex or will to live.”
But yeah, back to the NOTP of Louis/Claudia, I thought it was very well-handled in the movie. Which I consider almost canon bc AR did write the screenplay and was consulted on it alot. My notes in ().
Louis: “Listen to me. Claudia is very dear to me. (pause, feeling like he needs to actually specify the relationship?) She’s my daughter.”
Armand: “Your lover.” (and he mouths this word again silently bc he’s TEH JEALOUS)
Louis: “Well my beloved. My CHILD.” (He’s being very clear here, NOT LOVER)
Armand: “You say so, you are innocent.” (Armand knows that she didn’t come out of Louis’s wrist)
Louis: “She’s in danger, isn’t she?” (Tactically changing the subject so as not to bring up Lestat).
Truthfully she was his sister. But so is Gabrielle. Gabrielle is sort of his sister, Grandmother, and Mother-in-Law all rolled into one. WHAT A MESS.
while I don’t think an aged up Claudia would give a second thought to ravishing Louis,
YEP NO HESITATION THERE bc let’s be honest we all want to ravish Louis ok.
she’s a symbol for everything that horrifies him about himself, and I don’t think that that would exactly be grounds for amorous thoughts.
Indeed.
Sure, he loves her and cares for her,
Exhibit A:
but I think if she was an adult, it’d be a lot easier for him to see just how far mentally out there she is, how evil, how unable to understand human goodness she had grown to be.
She’s worse than Lestat about playing w/ her food, that’s for sure, and choosing to kill innocents specifically is NOT a turn-on for Louis.
(I assume you mean more than just unconscious sleep, which yes, he did sleep with her, that’s canon)
Y’know that’s smtg I’ve thought about, too. Was it only her body/age that was the obstacle there? She seemed to think so… or so it seems from what Louis shares with us re: just a few times when she even opened the subject with him.
Particularly that time in Europe when they had just killed the Icky Gross Mindless Vampire, and they’re totally exhausted and hungry, and she offers him her wrist:
“ `Drink,’ she whispered, drawing nearer. `Drink.’ And she held the
soft, tender flesh of the wrist towards me. ‘No, I know what to do;
haven’t I done it in the past?’ I said to her.” <—- REJECTED. I don’t think Claudia shared blood w/ either Lestat or Louis, at least not in any intimate way, ever, which had to have been part of her not-growing-up frustration.
SO BACK TO THE QUESTION AT HAND:
No, I don’t think Louis would have slept with Claudia if she had been turned at 18+ bc there were more obstacles than just her physical form.
For one thing, Louis was in a relationship already with Lestat, even though it was a problematic one.
The chemistry between people (even IRL) has to work in that way for there to be any sexual attraction.
He always cared for her like a daughter. She was very much his own security blanket, a buffer and a glue between him and Lestat.
She was less human than either of them, which did not seem to be something that made her more attractive, but less comprehensible to him: ” `I love you now with my human nature, if ever had it,’ I said to her.
“ `Ah yes …’ she answered, still musing. `Yes, and that’s your flaw,
and why your face was miserable when I said as humans say, ” I hate
you, “ and why you look at me as you do now. Human nature. I have
no human nature.’ ”
Also, in terms of canon vampire physiology, the Ricean vampires seem to be asexual, blood gives them all the satisfaction they need/want in that regard. It’s in fanon and RP that they’re sexual.
As a side note, claudiaindarkness might have some good opinions on this, bc she often RPs Claudia aged up. thevampire-claudia also had a thread in which Claudia was aged up and *ahem* had some private time with a Louis (merciful-death) if u need some tasteful au smut ;]
Alright the fandom has officially, and quite collectively, lost its mind and is in DESPERATE NEED of a new film. GET OFF YOUR BUTTS, UNIVERSAL STUDIOS!
I-want-my-IWTV 