claire

fmab fans are you hearing me. riza hawkeye to hard times by ethel cain. roy and riza to nettles.

mourning a very specific version of an iwtv (not show version, sorry!!) musical in my head. a projection that reads 1976 is across the curtain. open on louis and lestat being interviewed separately. louis sits at a table in a run down hotel, being interviewed by a young journalist. lestat sits in front of a camera (in full rockstar mode) being interviewed by a documentarian. they begin to tell their stories, saying “the year was 1791” in unison. the year flashes once more as the stage begins to transform, and the music picks up. they each give exposition. louis mentions how he recently lost his wife and unborn child (once again, sorry paul, it’s for the claudia parallels) lestat mentions how he recently lost his dear friend nicki, notably hesitating on the word “friend.” during this exposition, both are lost into the dark night streets of new orleans before reappearing in their 1791 clothing. plot continues to happen. I’d really like to focus on the idea that lestat turned louis out of loneliness. he turned everyone he ever loved into a vampire, and not one stayed with him. blah blah blah claudia happens. throughout this at several points we freeze the scene in time as one of the interviewers asks a question. louis or lestat look to the audience and answer. whenever the year changes, it flashes across the screen as we get more snippets of the interviews. develop the trios relationship, imply feelings between louis and lestat. end act i with claudia killing lestat, and their eventual escape to europe. open act ii with interviews again, this time louis recounting their search for other vampires in a large scale, fast paced song. project a map to show everywhere they go. blah blah paris happens. cut between the lead up to claudia’s death and the interviews, creating a sense of dread. lestat and louis are once more present in the interviews during her death, rather than simply speaking to the audience from within the story they are telling. sitting in their chairs, they both break down in grief. in the aftermath, some version of the “I could not prevent it” conversation happens. they separate. from the interview chairs they say in unison “I never saw him again.” sad song about grief and living forever. whole thing with louis attacking the journalist happens. he decided to seek out lestat. documentarian asks question that makes lestat want to seek out louis. awkward reunion that ends with a heartfelt conversation about claudia and companionship. tagline “the worst thing a vampire can be is alone.” please take this whole thing with a grain of salt, this was just me trying to condense the first book into a thematically cohesive musical structure while considering some fun technical details. I wanted to make lestat more of an equal protagonist to incorporate parts of the vampire lestat into his background. as a result of this I changed the ending slightly. it’s bittersweet, but there’s a catharsis with their reunion as apologies and confessions are made. music style wise I’m very much thinking dracula, the scarlett pimpernel, frankenstein musical.

dracula as a revenge fantasy… characters getting to violently murder the man who irrevocably traumatized them… an old aristocratic male creep whose downfall is caused by the woman he assaulted…

I don’t see enough people talk about how rin and nezha’s ideologies essentially switch from tdr to tbg. like nezha was originally the idealistic one who really believed in a republic, meanwhile rin thinks he’s terribly naive. rin is pragmatic for the most part, plus she has her own goals and doesn’t really concern herself with this grand vision for the future of nikan. but this changes in tbg. reality has crushed nezha and he’s just trying to appease the hesperians so half of nikan won’t starve. rin on the other hand is attempting to start a revolution, in regards to her army gaining territory it’s working, but they don’t have the resources (aka food) to sustain the population. yet she pushes forward. she’s clinging to her ideals despite the destruction she’s causing. ofc, sacrificing yourself for your country is also a terribly idealistic thing to do, one she looked down on tearza for doing in the past. and then the once idealistic nezha is left to pick up the pieces.

obsessed with jude and cardan post queen of nothing. like neither really knows how to love in a healthy way but they’re both trying so hard. neither is totally convinced the other isn’t going to stab them in the back, isn’t going to leave them. in another world they would have had time to grow that trust but everything happened so quickly and now they’re married. they’re also rulers but they’re also just teenagers. they sit on thrones but on weekends they eat junk food at vivi’s apartment and take oak to the arcade and do things any mortal teenagers would do. maybe they feel safest (at least cardan does) in that apartment but they could never leave faerie. at the end of the day they love their power too much. it’s just nice to pretend for a while. over time it gets better, the trust and domesticity. they grow into their roles, but at the start they’re just deeply hurt teenagers trying to make it work.