•tabletop time•

The gangs all here!!!! 

Like at any point they could choose to pull back and every time they get the chance, they double down on the idea that they're in this together. That maybe this isn't the first time one or both of them had a 'you need to lock the fuck in' argument.

Maybe LaVonte rocked up to a business meeting with HJ in the 1980s like: you are leaving money on the table and I could get it for you, all these other guys, they're ancient, they're stuck in the past, they'd never give me a chance and they'll never take the opportunities they need to make it rich. I could make you rich. If you fund my startup. How else could Worthy and Wingstreet happen? HJ has money, sure, access, sure, fame, plenty, cocaine, abundantly, but he's not persuasive. He doesn't have good business sense. He has no leadership. Wingstreet Industries wouldn't have made it. And yet LaVonte is the one pulling the moves, the one with more resources, the one who has an actual retainer even though HJ also has two dots in retainer.

So maybe back in 1980, HJ thinks, yeah, you'll be the brains and the face but I'll be the name, the generation(al wealth), the patron to your artist. Maybe to a Black man in 1980 this seemed like the only way to make it. LaVonte starts the series with debts (HJ doesn't). The Camarilla is extremely hierarchical, society is racist, here is an opportunity to pull yourself up by your bootstraps and HJ is the man who can make that happen who can ensure that LaVonte's hard work actually pays off.

So HJ Embraces LaVonte.

As the prophecy foretold i drew him in a sweater.

Also some doodles under cut:

they've already got a guy! you know it!

Im very normal about darkness man (lying)

Alao alt no mask version:

Lavonte and HJ represent exact tropes of homosexuality and vampirism of the 1980s; by the 80s, vampires had shifted from countryside landed gentry hiding away in musty castles to urbanised capitalists - the setting changes, but they still benefit from the toil of others as the bourgeoisie against the proletariat (Morrissette, 2013). At the same time, people moving to cities during the industrial revolution to work formed proletariat communities of their own, including homosexuals that left their homes in search of a better life; the city was different than their small-knit towns where everyone knew everyone, and gave them freedom. By the 80s HIV/AIDs crisis, horror had synthesised vampires and homosexuality to be intertwined urban concepts; for members of these groups (homosexuals/vampires), there is an element of hunting or pursuing a partner (cruising/finding a victim), exchanging fluids (cum/blood), and those fluids put you at risk of sickness or death (AIDs/vampirism) (Clark, 2022). There is, further, the idea of “turning someone” - this is framed as a bad thing by out-members, but contains nuance within the community. They are both seductive. They are both abnormal. You should warn your children about (homosexuals/vampires), do not let your daughter move to the city, or she will become a (homosexual/vampire). Within horror, vampires began to be queer coded; Daughters of Darkness (1971), The Hunger (1983), Fright Night (1985), The Lost Boys (1987).

HJ is the exemplar of the 80s vampire - he is a businessman with immense power, he is slick, he is clean shaven and well dressed, he is a confirmed bachelor. He is coded as (homosexual/vampire), and it’s interesting to think about whether Lavonte pursued HJ because he was a vampire, or because HJ was a man. It is risky for either of those factors to be what makes him appealing, but the desire alongside the disorder is what makes it a (homosexual/vampire) love story - it would be horrifying to want someone while also being terrified of what they can do to you. It completely makes sense to me that Lavonte, even though Lou played it as a joke, would have reservations about people thinking he was gay. Being gay in the 80s meant being dirty, meant being sick, meant being less masculine or respected, meant being the “other,” regardless of if he’s gay or not (Clark, 2022). Even though I see Lavonte as being totally accepting, being gay himself would be an admission of guilt in some way. Lavonte is focused, charismatic, and doesn’t like hearing “no” - if someone implied he seduced HJ to gain vampirism, I think that would be his nightmare.

Truly, even though none of their 80s-gay-vampirism coding was intentional, and even though Lou and Ally were playing up the miscommunication as a joke, I think it's interesting to see how character moments make logical sense within meta-horror. It’s been a great season so far.

Clark, Ian (2022) "Infectious Queers: HIV/AIDS and the Vampiric Body in Interview with the Vampire (1994)," Journal of Dracula Studies: Vol. 24: No. 1, Article 4. DOI: 10.70013/n1p5h7g4 Available at: https://research.library.kutztown.edu/dracula-studies/vol24/iss1/4

Fullilove MT, Wiley J, Fullilove RE 3rd, Golden E, Catania J, Peterson J, Garrett K, Siegel D, Marin B, Kegeles S, et al. Risk for AIDS in multiethnic neighborhoods in San Francisco, California. The population-based AMEN Study. West J Med. 1992 Jul;157(1):32-40. PMID: 1413740; PMCID: PMC1021901. 

Heller J. Rumors and Realities: Making Sense of HIV/AIDS Conspiracy Narratives and Contemporary Legends. Am J Public Health. 2015 Jan;105(1):e43-e50. doi: 10.2105/AJPH.2014.302284. PMID: 25393166; PMCID: PMC4265931.