Le Petit Erik

People commonly defend this practise with "But the audience isn't meant to understand!" or "It's inconsequential!", neither of which actually address a) their assumption that the [ideal Anglo] audience wouldn't understand, or, perhaps most crucially in the context of CCs, b) that this is a failure of accessibility. A hearing person who speaks that "foreign" language will know exactly what's being said. A deaf or HoH person – the people CCs are primarily intended for – who speaks or reads that language should therefore have the exact same opportunity to understand. It very much feels to me like an assumption that we deaf and HoH people couldn't possibly understand any language but English, so there's no point in getting those languages transcribed for us. I hope it goes without saying how profoundly audist that sentiment is.

There is also, I think, a profound misunderstanding or ignorance of Deaf culture at play. Which is to say, CCs in English-language media are written with not only the assumption that the audience will be native English speakers, but that all d/Deaf and HoH people speak English as their first language, so all other languages are as supposedly foreign to them as they are for hearing people. But sign languages are their own distinct language. BSL, ASL, ISL, AusLan, NZSL etc ≠ English (and are indeed different from one another), LIS ≠ Italian, JSL ≠ Japanese, and so on. So, if you follow the captioners' logic to its natural extreme, all non-signed dialogue is "foreign" to many d/Deaf and HoH people and should therefore be labelled [speaks foreign language] / [speaks English] / [speaks own language] / etc. – which is, obviously, a terrible idea that perfectly highlights all the biases implicit in closed captioning.

You can understand him being pissed about the train scene, but the detail about the ticket pocket is harmless and portrays him in a lovely way. So it's like he didn't want indication of how romantically he feels about Louis in the moment

He was very, very hurt.

Like, I keep repeating but it also bears repeating:

Lestat is book-canonically pissed about the book and what Louis did there up to the last VC book - book 13. We're on THREE.

No, he does not "hate" Louis.

He felt utterly betrayed by him.

Like, actually look at the other lyrics, not just at the screamed, hurt part:

I can be a real motherfucker I'm a mess, yeah, I'm a lot Sometimes a monster, just like my father A nasty temper, yeah, I run hot Oh, liar liar! Your skin's on fire! How can I love you if you don't love yourself? I never meant to hurt you (maybe a little) I think you wanted me to be someone else, but Who's the villain sneaking up from behind With a knife in his hand, and a mouthful of lies, yeah! Whoa, whoa The night's for sale Whoa, whoa You sharpened your nails Whoa, whoa You weep and you wail How I'm the big bad wolf in your fairytale You love your gossip, you tiny tattle All your stories with their tiny holes Half the truth is worse than no truth at all I'm an ex, not a devil here to suck out your soul, no! And who's the villain sneaking up from behind With a knife in his hand, and a mouthful of lies, yeah! Whoa, whoa The night's for sale Whoa, whoa You sharpened your nails Whoa, whoa You weep and you wail How I'm the big bad wolf in

This is a rundown of their relationship!! All the things Louis said about Lestat! A motherfucker(!!!!), a mess, a "lot", a "monster", the "big bad wolf in a fairytale"

Like... this isn't subtle?! AT ALL?

And then, THEN:

You ever try to love someone who didn't love you back? I KNOW you know You ever try to let someone back in after they come to you with what feels like sincere apologies for their past behavior? And then you find out about a certain book, a salacious best-seller full of misremembered cobwebs et foutaise absolut Connard!

Just. Imagine. This. Had. Happened. To. You.

Seriously.

Just imagine.

Utter betrayal.

Nonny.

Lestat LOVED Claudia.

She was his daughter.

And even in the book, he never blamed her. You know why? Because he knew what he did to her by turning her, what that would mean for her.

This is what he says to that there:

"She enticed me, she trapped me, and she plunged a knife over and over again into my drugged and poisoned body, until almost every drop of the vampiric blood gushed out of me before my wounds had the precious few seconds in which to heal. I don't blame her. It was the sort of thing I might have done myself. And those delirious moments will never be forgotten by me, never consigned to some unexplored compartment of the mind. It was her cunning and her will that laid me low as surely as the blade that slashed my throat and divided my heart. I will think on those moments every night for as long as I go on, and of the chasm that opened under me, the plunge into mortal death that was nearly mine. Claudia gave me that."