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My biggest tip for fanfic writers is this: if you get a character's mannerisms and speech pattern down, you can make them do pretty much whatever you want and it'll feel in character.
Logic: Characters, just like real people, are mallable. There is typically very little that's so truly, heinously out of character that you absolutely cannot make it work under any circumstance. In addition, most fans are also willing to accept characterization stretches if it makes the fic work. Yeah, we all know the villain and the hero wouldn't cuddle for warmth in canon. But if they did do that, how would they do it?
What counts is often not so much 'would the character do this?' and more 'if the character did do this, how would they do it?' If you get 'how' part right, your readers will probably be willing to buy the rest, because it will still feel like their favourite character. But if it doesn't feel like the character anymore, why are they even reading the fic?
Worry less about whether a character would do something, and more about how they'd sound while doing it.
due to recent events involving a loss of passion & unexpected disappointment, this will likely never be finished. a little bittersweet. we’ll see about these two. thank you all for enjoying my devil’s minion AU series. kiss.
i may or may not make more entries in the series - it Does feel unfinished, and i planned to end it on a good note and accompany it with writing. as of right now, however… i’m not sure. it was a really fun way to track the evolution of my art style.
'There's a little etching on your rib cage, says you're a slave': A meta on "The Vampire Lestat", Claudia, Louis, and the archives of slavery
This post will be very heavy. I am afraid to write this post, but I feel like I have to try to explain some of my thoughts around this season.
This was originally written to address the séance scene in season 1 episode 6 of The Vampire Lestat, "New York", but then the finale aired, and now I feel like I have to address the horrific violence committed against Louis, and how the writers unintentionally tapped into themes of the torture and mutilation of enslaved Black individuals, and the silence of Black voices in the archives.
This meta will discuss the summoning of Claudia's ghost, and how Claudia herself has been transformed into the figure of "Venus", discussed by the historian Saidiya Hartman in her influential essay, Venus in Two Acts. This meta will also discuss Louis' torture and branding at the hands of Armand in the finale, and what this means in the context of the historiography of the slave trade and Black history.
This post will discuss incredibly upsetting and heavy topics, such as the Transatlantic slave trade, the suffering and torture of enslaved Black individuals, and extreme racism. Please read at your own discretion.
'Bring out the chasm the spirit Claudia': Claudia's summoning
While the séance scene in "New York" ostensibly borrows its concept from the séance scene in Merrick by Anne Rice, as many others have pointed out, there is an inevitable racialised element to the scene in the show, because Claudia is a young Black girl. Others have discussed the racist language the writers put into the actor's mouths (here, here, and here are just a few examples) so that will not be the focus of this post, nor will this post compare the scene with the one in Merrick, as that has also been done by other users.
I also want to stress that while this post is analysing this scene on a meta level, I do not believe that excuses the racist language in the scene, nor do I believe the writers were necessarily intentionally engaging with scholarship of the Transatlantic slave trade. This is just how I have been pondering the scene.
I have not yet seen anyone discussing is the fact that Claudia is brought back into a mutilated form, with her tendons slashed, wearing the dress she was lynched in. While this is obviously because it was how she died, and in fiction, ghosts typically appear how they looked when they died, this actually serves a deeper symbolic purpose.
The first shot of Claudia's ghost lingers on her ankles as she shambles painfully forward. As has been discussed by many people, this was a tactic to stop enslaved people from running away from their masters:
"A female who ran away […] for a fifth offense, 'the cord of the slave's legs' would be cut above the heel, or the slave would suffer death."[1]
By having Claudia appear in the form in which she died - still mutilated in a way visually linked to slavery - the scene is making manifest how historians of the Transatlantic slave trade often encounter enslaved individuals in the archives. These men and women are often unnamed in the sources, but brutalised nonetheless. As Saidiya Hartman says:
Rather than the wasted effort of a striking a line through “meager girl” or a “refuse boy,” the ledger introduces another death through this shorthand. And it returns the dead to us “in the very form in which they were driven out of the world.”[2]
Hartman's influential essay, Venus in Two Acts (which can be read here), explores the difficulties inherent in discussing the lives and suffering of Black enslaved individuals encountered in the archives, when they are often unnamed, the sources are invariably mediated through the lens of White slave traders and masters, and the archives often describe horrific violence and degradation committed against Black enslaved individuals.
Hartman asks, how do historians discuss the lives and experiences of these individuals, and do so with dignity and empathy? Is it a historian's job to offer narrative catharsis where the archive provides none? As she says:
Yet how does one recuperate lives entangled with and impossible to differentiate from the terrible utterances that condemned them to death, the account books that identified them as units of value, the invoices that claimed them as property, and the banal chronicles that stripped them of human features?[3]
She concludes that inventing narrative catharsis is not true to the sources. The essay revolves around questions thrown up by the enslaved Black girl (known only as Venus), who was murdered onboard the ship The Recovery in 1792 by Captain John Kimber. Hartman discusses her desire to invent a friendship and comfort between "Venus" and another enslaved Black girl who was also murdered by John Kimber aboard the ship:
Initially I thought I wanted to represent the affiliations severed and remade in the hollow of the slave ship by imagining the two girls as friends, by giving them one another. But in the end I was forced to admit that I wanted to console myself and to escape the slave hold with a vision of something other than the bodies of two girls settling on the floor of the Atlantic.[4]
The archive does not offer evidence of even the solace of friendship between the two murdered girls. As Hartman says, "I could not have arrived at another conclusion. So it was better to leave them as I had
found them. Two girls, alone."[5]
In this way, the Hell that Claudia has been banished to in the narrative of the show mirrors the archival reality suffered by many Black enslaved girls - in this case, "Venus" of Hartman's essay, and the other girl who was murdered onboard The Recovery. Trapped by the very documents which preserve the only evidence of their existences, alone, having been brutally murdered. There are even obvious parallels between Armand's title of "Maître", and White "master" slave owners.
Like the Black enslaved girls and women that historians encounter in the archives, Claudia is frozen at the place of her subjugation, her body itself a site of racialised violence, suffering alone without the ability to be afforded comfort by a narrative.
She ends the scene screaming for Madeleine before disappearing, strongly implying that there is no hope for her being reunited with her lover.
'Can't move my body': Louis' mutilation
I will not be including screenshots of Louis' headless body and decapitated head in this section. Having to see it on screen in the finale was bad enough. I am also going off my memory of the scene for the exact dialogue, because I have not rewatched it.
Besides the fact it was horrific body horror seemingly for the sake of body horror, as many people have pointed out, it was mutilation and violence committed against a Black man. Need I say more? Probably not, but this violence can be contextualised against a backdrop of torture, violence, and experimentation on Black people, so I will say more.
I could not work out what else was so disturbing about this scene, besides the horrific racism and gratuitous violence, until I read this post, in which @heliza24 pointed out that there were real medical experiments and medical torture carried out on Black people.
I think this can be taken further, especially in the context of Hartman's essay. Hartman questions the purpose of writing about violence committed against enslaved people:
Why risk the contamination involved in restating the maledictions, obscenities, columns of losses and gains, and measures of value by which captive lives were inscribed and extinguished? Why subject the dead to new dangers and to a second order of violence?[6]
As Hartman says, questioning how one tackles this issue is vital, because it impacts on how these people's lives are retold and remembered. The importance of how this is approached cannot be overstated, because these were real people who suffered unimaginable torture and pain:
If it is no longer sufficient to expose the scandal, then how might it be possible to generate a different set of descriptions from this archive? To imagine what could have been? To envision a free state from this order of statements? The dangers entailed in this endeavor cannot be bracketed or avoided because of the inevitability of the reproduction of such scenes of violence, which define the state of blackness and the life of the ex-slave.[7]
Simply rehashing the violence against Black enslaved individuals is not enough. The violence was done, but how it is handled and discussed and dealt with is incredibly important. It must be discussed carefully, compassionately, delicately. Violence against a Black person in media is never just violence. It is the unwitting repetition of centuries of violence and medical experimentation and torture and violation.
That is even more true when discussing Louis de Pointe du Lac, who lived in the early 20th century and was the victim of racism and racial microaggressions throughout his mortal life. As season 1 of Interview with the Vampire tried to address, turning Louis into a vampire did not protect him from racism. It gave him the power to fight back against racists, but he was still a Black man. Likewise with Claudia, trapped in the body of a young woman. She had power, but it was shaped by her youth and the fact that she was Black.
But the violence against Louis was not just torture. It was medical torture. Throughout the entire episode, wires were attached to Louis' severed head, and Fareed was monitoring his vitals, how coherent he was, how long his head had been separated from his body. Louis struggled to speak at first, and struggled to write. His handwriting was reduced to a huge, childish, scrawl. He struggled to speak, his sentences were slurred, his eyes slid in different directions.
This was torture via experimentation. The question both Armand and Fareed wanted answered was, "How will Louis hold up in these conditions?" This experiment could have worked with Lestat, but of course, it was carried out on Louis. Ostensibly, because Armand wanted an apology from Louis, but by doing this - intentionally or not - the writers were also tapping into centuries of medical violations and experiments against Black people.
There was an added layer of horror. Louis' headless body and severed head themselves were made horrific and monstrous. When Louis slurred that he didn't know where he was, that he couldn't move his body, and Armand had Louis' head turned around and he was shown his own headless neck, blood still staining his skin, we, the audience, were supposed to be horrified and sickened by Louis' body itself. We were supposed to be repulsed by his body, by the sight of his head without a body, slurring and struggling to speak. Though Louis was our point of view character, and we were supposed to feel the horror with him, we were also horrified by him.
This was exacerbated by Regina's presence. She screamed and sobbed in fear when she saw Louis. The subject of Regina and her involvement with Armand is a separate meta, but suffice it to say here, Regina's body was brought in as part of the horror when Armand threatened to cut her head off and sew Louis' head onto her body. There was now a Black woman dragged into this experimentation. The history of medical torture against Black women is a subject all by itself, again too detailed to discuss in this meta.
There is more I could probably say about all of this, but that would require me rewatching the scene, which I will do, when it's available online in higher quality, and when I can stomach it. I think the point is made.
'Says you're a slave': Louis' branding
One final point that must be discussed is Louis' branding. Even after he and Armand share a moment of understanding and sympathy, even after Louis was able to apologise to Armand for how he treated him in light of Armand's history as a CSA victim and the victim of slavery, the script still had Armand brand Louis with the letter "A", for his own name.
Why the writers chose to include this is truly beyond me. Was Armand saying that Louis still belonged to him? That part of Louis would always be his, because of the horrific torture he had now inflicted on Louis? Was that point not made in season 2, when we learned that Louis still had rocks embedded into his feet from the coffin he had been buried alive in? Those physical reminders of the betrayal Armand committed against him at least had a narrative purpose - Armand pointed out that Louis could have had them removed, but like Claudia said in season 1, "We keep the damage so we don't forget the damage." That was why Louis chose to keep the rocks in his feet, as a reminder of the damage the coven inflicted on him.
This cannot be explained the way that was. This was Armand carving his initial into Louis' body, while Louis' head was still detached from it. As so many people have said already, this was a branding.
This also comes right after Claudia's infamous line in "New York": "There's a little etching on your rib cage, says you're a slave." I cannot read this branding as anything other than corroboration of that statement. Armand branded Louis because Armand was, and still is, Master in their relationship. Armand added the Stein's into Louis' photo collection; he manipulated and lied to Louis for over 70 years; he erased and edited his memories; he hired Regina to use her against him (it still isn't clear to me why he did that); he listened to Claudia's séance; he was pulling the strings offscreen this entire season.
By having Armand brand Louis, the show seems to be confirming that yes, Louis is a slave. He is Armand's slave. Louis is being defined completely by his Blackness, but also by his subjugation. There's also the constant reminders to the audience that Louis was a pimp. Meanwhile, Claudia's ghost referred to her "bleak, Black, life".
In seasons 1 and 2, the fact that Louis and Claudia were Black and Lestat was White felt like a pointed decision, and a doorway to discuss race and racism in the early 20th century and the present day, abuse in interracial couples, and vampirism and Blackness. This season, they have been punished for their race. That is painfully, upsettingly, obvious in these two scenes.
Bibliography
A. Leon Higginbotham, In the Matter of Color: Race and the American Legal Process: The Colonial Period, p. 177
Saidiya Hartman, Venus in Two Acts, Small Acts, 26 (2008), p. 5. The final quote, “in the very form in which they were driven out of the world”, is Hartman quoting Michel Foucault, Lives of Infamous Men, p. 284.
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It wasn't naive, foolish, or wishful thinking to think the last episode would be cohesive. Fragmented narratives aren't new forms of storytelling, and a well-written narrative can clean itself up with surprisingly short strokes if it is laid out well. While the narrative up to episode 6 was very flawed, it wasn't in shambles. The actors and writers also kept us excited for it, and while healthy skepticism of official press is fine, there wasn't much indication that the result would be like that without hindsight.
Rolin, Hannah, and other writers in the writers room have impressive resumes of previous outside work that confront the topics portrayed in TVL. While the tonal shift was surprising and flawed in ways none of us expected, it was unexpected for the story to go in the cartoonish and simplified direction that it did. Expecting the type of quality and commentary they've displayed in their other works, inside this one, isn't foolish. This was surprising.
Having hope, faith, and reparative analysis is not worse or better than paranoid analysis and pessimism. Both approaches to media can be constructive and helpful to keep media discourse diverse. Both approaches do become flawed when they outright ignore or avoid strong story-elements and patterns, however.
While reflection on the writing patterns that this decision revealed is to be expected, and can help us make sense how we got here, it is also diminituitive to say the writing was always bad, or it hasn't changed much. It has, and it did. The first two seasons were inspiring and wonderfully gothic, and genuinely good television. While they weren't *perfect,* perfection is a silly thing to expect a piece of art to be. Many people expected a bumpy ride and were ready to swing with the flaws. Once again, this was a surprising result.
Some people saw it coming from a long way away. Good. I'm glad. Perception and allowance for flawed narratives differ per person, and I'm glad this didn't take everyone by surprise. No one is smarter, or better at analysis, or more woke, or [insert weird moral comparison here] because they spotted this before someone else. Waiting for a narrative to finish its story is just an approach to analysis and criticism that many people employ.
A lot of us are disappointed. Many of us are angry and disgusted. Some people had a good time, others never want to think about season 3 again. I think overwhelmingly, though, most of us are confused and suspicious. Those feelings don't come from nowhere, and they especially don't come from people needing an easier story to understand or from needing to make room for complex storytelling. Those emotions come from disappointing stories and betrayal.
Just, you know, keep in mind that a large majority of people stayed in an active and divisive fandom for 2 years because they were excited. We didn't know this was how it would begin or end.
I do want to say, in advance of the finale getting its usual release, to any POC fans, you’re going to have a lot of people telling you you’re reading too much into things, you probably already are, and you’re not.
You’re just not. And being white is not an excuse for not seeing this. Louis fans and Armand fans in particular have been noticing it because those two are most affected by this writing. You’re not crazy. You’re not being parasocial. It is that deep. The writers tell us repeatedly that they make this show very detailed, so you’re not crazy for reading between the lies. If they can plant hidden details in every episode, they can be aware of their biases and how they’re portraying the characters of colour. I’ve never understood the separation of these things. They aren’t different skill sets. If you’re a good writer, you’re a good writer.
I just want it to be clear because, as a white fan, it is so obvious. Disappointment is okay. Anything you’re feeling is okay, especially with the promise that this show presented in the first two seasons of being a post-colonial adaptation of what are frankly incredibly racist, xenophobic and orientalist novels.
I mean you read them and it’s jaw dropping frankly the shit Anne Rice came up with. And this season just furthers what the books were doing instead of breaking it down. So feel what you feel, stop watching if you want, and do not let anyone tell you it’s not really there because it is and white people are perfectly capable of seeing it and calling it out, so don’t let anyone gaslight you. You’re right. It did happen. It’s there.
You Are Not Expiring: Fanfic by me where young Daniel has a breakdown over grey hairs, and he and Armand do some fauxcest kink to try to feel better about it.
The Minions Devil: Armand trauma roleplay, but Old Maniel is playing the Amadeo-like character.
Skin Sweet, Incomplete: Lovely fic that is book-verse adjacent, exploring where humans and vampires differ in what they revieve from physical intimacy.
Feel you feel it by @helianthus21: Bookverse DM, where Daniel switches the dynamic a little and gives Armand the sex drugs but enjoys the intimacy the way Armand did with him for 10 years.
livin’ in sin is the new thing : Alice/Daniel/Armand threesome, with a touch of incest kink. Daniel has no idea who Armand is, so there is that fun element as well 🤭
True Love (and other lies): the quintessential Armand tries to convince Daniel of PastDM fic. To me.
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What I picture is him just getting snatched off the streets of Delhi and thrown onto the boat. I reckon he'll end up dirty and ragged later, right now he just misses his mom&dad
And I find it pretty interesting that Armand endured so much in his childhood and he has every reason to hate his parents, yet in the Louvre scene I felt no hatred from him at all. Instead he seems quite attached to the name "Arun". Maybe he misses his human self before all the suffering began.
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