bog unicorn, inc.

Louis. My daughter was my sister was my throw pillow. I loved her/but she didn't love you. Not like he did, not like i have/I know! I know...

His relationship with claudia was complex, but louis didn't want A DAUGHTER when she was turned, he wanted REDEMPTION. He didn't have baby fever, he justified his insistence in "saving" (turning) her by aiming directly for Lestat's insecurities, then offering him what Lestat wants from him: emotiinal intimacy, a family. She can be our daughter and I'll be happy, please please please, I'll love you if you do this, this baby will save our marriage. Don't you want a daughter?

Louis switches more easily between father and brother and some other third thing that neither of them will name because Claudia was born with a job but not a role from Louis' perspective. I think you can make a really good case for Louis and Claudia's relationship being emotionally incestuous. Not at all sexually, but in the sense that the relationship isn't really mutual? He stopped being "Daddy Lou" when he didn't protect her from Lestat and then chose Lestat over her. Claudia feels that burden that Louis put on her when she was made and only really stays with him until she finds companionship elsewhere. Had the trial not happened, I don't think Louis and Claudia would have apoken much after that dinner. She wouldn't come back without a specific reason. Claudia dying when she did and the way she did actually serves Louis's own inner narrative better than if she'd lived and just drifted away, which she would have been happy doing. I don't think that she thought of Louis as a father, I think Louis wanted her to fill an emotional need and she tolerated whatever boxes he put her in until she found companionship with someone who loved her for who she actually is and proved it by putting her money where her mouth is. I think Louis's failure to protect Claudia like a parent should, and then his refusal to burn Lestat, AND THEN immediately sidelining her once he started banging Aemand, absolutely lost him any respect from her. I do think she came to think of him as more of a shitty older brother... or someone she's really only staying connected to out of shared trauma and loneliness

Louis has directly or indirectly been the cause of every bad thing that's happened to Claudia from the fire onward, and she knows it. He said "I'm your father" but didn't prove it

Lestat and Claudia are parent and child and act like it, for better or worse. Usually for worse, but he's UNambiguously her father

I don't think Claudia would have looked to Louis once Madeleine was gone. I think she would have reached for Lestat regardless

And tbh this is holding true in TVL. louis is still using his own grief as an excuse to put his emotions onto claudia even if it means hiring her doppleganger (and a fake French girlfriend???) to pretend to be her and then just listen to him talk about himself. Then spiraled out and got his ex to make sure it's not really Claudia in yet another role he's cast her in himself

Everything Louis' ever done wrong has always been used to prove how he's never loved her and just used her. Funny how anything Lestat has done wrong always comes with an excuse. Lestat was the only one who ever loved her and anything he did wrong was just because of his trauma (which of course Louis had none), or misunderstandings (another problem Louis didn't have cause he was an excellent communicator), or just flat out Louis' fault (cause he's the cause of everything bad that ever happened to Claudia). Right? Right.

If Lestat was her parent, why does it not matter that he didn't protect her? That he didn't teach her everything he could? That he chose Louis over her, over and over and over and over again? She died because he once again chose Louis over her. But that's just being a bad parent, unless it's Louis doing it.

I am also very sleep deprived, so I did ramble, but I put the most rambly stuff beneath a cut. It's mostly me talking abt how much i think about claudia and louis tbh

Altho tldr "claudia and lestat understand each other as parent/child in a way she doesn't with louis" to me is not a compliment and mostly means "lestat scares the shit out her in the way only a shitty parent can scare the shit out of you, but that's still your dad" to me. She was devoted to Louis by choice, and their mutual in strength but not in intention sort of love for each other make the tragedy of how it ended very capital-R Romantic

Also Lestat's song isn't good bc he's a better parent or bc she's sad or whatever. It's because he's finally (FINALLY) not just feeling guilty and sad ABOUT claudia, or sympathy FOR claudia, but feeling empathy WITH her. Enough to write a song about a conversation with her where he acknowledges her experience, without defending himself at all. The full recording has Delainey jumping in to sing harmony on lines that are "Claudia's", she she has the bulk of them, it's really cool. It's Lestat learning a lesson, possibly for the first time in his life and way too late to save Claudia; he tried not to be his own mother to Claudia and went the whole other way instead. Her portrayal of him in her diary is emotionally accurate even if details differ

Hope that helps, sorry about that! Should've been clearer that it wasn't a "lestat better parent than louis, look how sad lestat is about it" sentiment

If you care abt more detailed thoughts they're under the readmore but it's just the above but noisier

I've been resource gathering for YEARS so now I am going to share my dragons hoard

Floorplanner. Design and furnish a house for you to use for having a consistent background in your comic or anything! Free, you need an account, easy to use, and you can save multiple houses.

Comparing Heights. Input the heights of characters to see what the different is between them. Great for keeping consistency. Free.

Magma. Draw online with friends in real time. Great for practice or hanging out. Free, paid plan available, account preferred.

Smithsonian Open Access. Loads of free images. Free.

SketchDaily. Lots of pose references, massive library, is set on a timer so you can practice quick figure drawing. Free.

SculptGL. A sculpting tool which I am yet to master, but you should be able to make whatever 3d object you like with it. free.

Pexels. Free stock images. And the search engine is actually pretty good at pulling up what you want.

Figurosity. Great pose references, diverse body types, lots of "how to draw" videos directly on the site, the models are 3d and you can rotate the angle, but you can't make custom poses or edit body proportions. Free, account option, paid plans available.

Line of Action. More drawing references, this one also has a focus on expressions, hands/feet, animals, landscapes. Free.

Animal Photo. You pose a 3d skull model and select an animal species, and they give you a bunch of photo references for that animal at that angle. Super handy. Free.

I've been resource gathering for YEARS so now I am going to share my dragons hoard

Floorplanner. Design and furnish a house for you to use for having a consistent background in your comic or anything! Free, you need an account, easy to use, and you can save multiple houses.

Comparing Heights. Input the heights of characters to see what the different is between them. Great for keeping consistency. Free.

Magma. Draw online with friends in real time. Great for practice or hanging out. Free, paid plan available, account preferred.

Smithsonian Open Access. Loads of free images. Free.

SketchDaily. Lots of pose references, massive library, is set on a timer so you can practice quick figure drawing. Free.

SculptGL. A sculpting tool which I am yet to master, but you should be able to make whatever 3d object you like with it. free.

Pexels. Free stock images. And the search engine is actually pretty good at pulling up what you want.

Figurosity. Great pose references, diverse body types, lots of "how to draw" videos directly on the site, the models are 3d and you can rotate the angle, but you can't make custom poses or edit body proportions. Free, account option, paid plans available.

Line of Action. More drawing references, this one also has a focus on expressions, hands/feet, animals, landscapes. Free.

Animal Photo. You pose a 3d skull model and select an animal species, and they give you a bunch of photo references for that animal at that angle. Super handy. Free.

BUT. This is Lestat's story. How much of that was what really happened? Did Louis recite those pages from Claudia's diaries to Lestat? Were those even really her words? I think finding out more about Louis's relationship with Lemuel will actually hugely affect my reading of this scene, because that phone call at the end could so easily be Lestat projecting the same insecurities he always has about Louis partners (and I think black men, especially), and if so, that may be a cue to remember that this is Lestat's story. We also see Louis fly, which Louis himself says he can't do, and which we never saw him do in the objective reality scenes we got in IwTV.

Lestat was the one who first opened Claudia's diary, not Louis. Louis went with it, and he did plenty later, but Lestat started it. He chose to violate her privacy because of how she acted after he hurt her in a way that echoed his own trauma.

Louis reading that entry is intercut with Lestat's flashback. The show is making a connection for us. But Lestat is telling this story, right after spending an episode trying to convince himself his relationship with his mother is okay by trying to convince us, so how much of this is him making a connection for himself? His hallucination of Magnus mentions to Claudia by name in Lestat's side of this scene. No one else gets a name.

This is the same episode where he talks about Nicki; both watching Nicki lose his grip on reality and spin out into self harm, and literally watching Armand burning him, and the parallels between that and Lestat burning Claudia's dead lover are so strong, as are the ones between Lestat letting Nicki convince him to make him a vampire and him letting Louis pressure him into making Claudia a vampire. No doubt the memory of what happened with Nicki made him reluctant to get too close to Claudia, and I think his response to her behavior after the burning of her lover was probably deeply influenced by that. Louis's and Claudia's accounts of him during that time are so different from the person we see in his own memories leading up to Nicki's death, and I don't think that's solely a matter of who's telling the story.

Lestat is so defensive about what happened on that train, telling sideways truths that don't answer for what he was really accused of. "Did I threaten Claudia with rape on a train?"—maybe not, but unless for some reason it was changed in the book, that wasn't really the question.

The first callout of a transfemme I didn’t see until years later and it was directed at monetizeyourcat for financially abusing and pressuring young trans women into sex.

At the start of my employment, my boss showed me videos of people stealing, and we both had a chuckle about it. How silly they were! There was a camera overhead, and it’s not to watch the shoppers. See, we can’t actually stop shoplifters. They get away with it maybe nine out of ten times. But we, who are watched and tallied and witnessed? We are always caught.

At first it was hard to hold one hundred dollars bills. An amount I had never seen before. An amount that didn’t exist in my household. It’s normal now. Here is something that is not for me.

“What the hell, I’ll take another,” says the man, pondering our 200 dollar watches. What the hell. Total comes to 580 and not even a flinch in his face. I have been working for 11 hours today and made only 110 dollars. It will go to my rent. Today I work for free, it feels. When I get my check, I will have 35 dollars left for food and saving.

The six hundreds he hands me go into the cash register. For a moment, I imagine having money. Then I put it away, counting out his change.

I know for a fact we sell our products for double what they are worth. That I could be making commission. That they could hand me those 580 dollars and change my life and not even mark the difference in their checkbooks. He’s not the only sale they make today, but I am the reason they made it. He’s not the only one spending 600 dollars, but if I hadn’t spent two hours with him telling me about his life, he wouldn’t have spent any. I go home. I don’t own a watch.

I have watched and rewatched a video on how to make salmon four ways. My shopping list is always the same. Pasta. Rice. Tuna. If I can afford butter it was a good week. I dream of the world I will never walk in, where I can throw the best fish fillet in the cart with a shrug. I hold hundreds in my hand and look up at the camera. I put them under the cash drawer.

I go to work. I scrap together my savings. I eat my bowl of rice slowly. My manager takes a paid week off from work just for his birthday. He owns a yacht. 

i was part of their college program. i moved to the state for it. they legally owned the building i was living in and still charged me rent. i ostensibly was being charged to work for them. it was a 2 bedroom apartment and they placed 6 adult women in it in forced triples.

as many as one in ten disney employees have experienced homelessness while working for the company. despite huge efforts to unionize, strike, or otherwise demand fair treatment; disney has refused to increase employee quality of life.

disney admits publicly that a good portion of their success is because the employees (“cast members”) are dedicated, passionate, and selfless. this is never reflected in pay. even “face” characters (ie those that are princesses etc) make barely above a minimum wage.

at the time that i worked there, i made $8.50 an hour. at one point i was asked to create a human shield around a bag because a bomb dog had alerted to it. for eight fucking dollars an hour.

i now work a very cushy office job. i have bought the salmon and cooked it all four ways.

i go to the store. i am nice to the person behind the counter. she looks up at the camera while she counts out my change. there is nothing fundamentally different about her and i.