Murf's Personals

IWTV Book Pages 114 - 115 (The Train Scene) Pt3 (Mind the Gap)

Ok so can someone PLEASE tell me WHERE--in the scene we saw with our own 2 eyeballs in 1x6, and the words Daniel said came from Claudia's diaries in 3x1 / 3x2--there is ANY PLACE in either version where Lestat threatens Claudia with RAPE? 🔍😭🙏🧐

Granted, there's 3 lines on Page 115 where it was just impossible for me to make out wtf was said, but even there, the jist seems to be that Lestat MOCKED her rape, but did NOT threaten her with it.

So there's multiple narratives going on:

The Train Scene didn't happen "as shown/told" -- no duh, Sherlock; Daniel already told us the pages were missing in 1x7--that is NOT a gotcha!

The Train Scene "never f***ing happened" AT ALL; the entire thing from start to finish is a big LIE (told by WHOM?) (cuz Sam Reid said there were fake scenes in S1 & Jam Reiderson argued about it; the logistics of the train stops & the position of the Earth at sunrise & the speed of a moving train in 1923 don't add up; Armand and/or the Talamasca planted fake scenes; etc etc)

The Train Scene DID happen--so Lestat (AND the Lestans) are lying/exaggerating/hyperbolizing/etc; there's just missing/additional frames, lines/dialogue--characters, even!--to be revealed (Louis was there with them the whole time, Antoinette was/wasn't there, someone DID accuse Lestat of threatening to rape Claudia (when???); Lestat was possessed by Amel the whole time so nothing's his fault actually the Devil made him do it; etc)

The Train Scene DID happen, but the context is totally different and everything that was seen/told takes on new meaning with a major plot twist (Lestat was crying when he's talking to her; Claudia's an evil manipulative liar who made Lestat look worse; Louis & Daniel & Armand are all liars too, etc)

Like.... I'm confusion, gang--what are we doing here? 🤨

Cuz it looks like Sam Reid & Lestat are being VERY insistent/consistent that the MAIN problem with the Train Scene is the accusation of RAPE; which ofc blindsides & hurts Lestat due to his own traumas wrt incest/rape/etc. But this whole "NEVER F***ing Happened" angle is being touted as this giant neon sign that the whole thing's a lie Claudia/Louis/Armand/Daniel/the Talamasca told IN THE BOOK, when even there that's not what was said either!

In season one, Louis is very deliberately framing Lestat as The Bad Guy… but things bleed through that show that Lestat did love & care for both of them. (While being undeniably toxic & fucked up.)

Claudia remembers the train scene as purely a threat, a coldness.

Lestat can legitimately remember it differently with identical words. Have none of you ever survived something dangerous as a child where your parent threatened to fucking kill you if you ever did something like that again?

Which is true? Does it matter? What Claudia felt was real, even if that wasn’t what Lestat intended. Lestat’s abandonment issues don’t make his unwillingness to let Louis & Claudia go any more acceptable.

THANK YOU.

I've been said that I really dgaf about the Train Scene--I just hate how Lestat (& the fandom/Lestans) act like the Train Scene not being 100% real/reliable/etc automatically absolves Lestat from being depicted & understood as a toxic abusive domestic terrorist. Eff the train, it coulda been Santa's Sled headed for the North frikkin Pole--at the end of the day it literally doesn't matter. Claudia was calling Lestat "Massa" BEFORE the Train Scene; cuz she already saw him as a slavemaster. She hated that he cheat on Louis with Antoinette (& that Louis stood by and let it happen); and she certainly hated how Lestat disrespected her grief over Charlie. The Murder Plot was inevitable, cuz Claudia had already made up her mind, determined to go to Europe & find her own companion by any means necessary, come Hell or high water. 🤷‍♂️

Claudia had already run away before, and for very valid reasons, cuz she hated being stuck in that house; Lestat called her a mistake who should've never been born and was keeping Louis away from him (an anvil dragging us down); and she blamed Louis for letting Lestat turn her into an immortal teen instead of taking her to a hospital (on top of being a weak-willed Pick Me who constantly stood aside & let Lestat mistreat & abuse them BOTH). She never even intended to stay at home as long as she did--she would've been gone in 1931, had Lestat not broken Claudia's leg & beat the hell outta Louis & Dropped him from the ozone layer; crippling him for who knows how long & assuring that Louis wouldn't be going anywhere anytime soon.

So the Train Scene's become this big ole deal in the fandom and on the show itself, as if nothing else Lestat did matters, when actually the Train was just the final straw that broke the camel's back; the last domino before the whole thing collapsed. It's another SYMPTOM, not the CAUSE of the rot in that family itself.

And I get so irritated when it's treated as something more than it is, especially when Lestat turns around in S3 tryna use it as a DEFLECTION in his long list of bullcrap ducking accountability for what a p.o.s. husband/father Claudia thought he was; and WHY Louis was convinced by Claudia (AND Armand) that he'd made the wrong decision choosing Lestat at all. Ok, Lestat got raped & has a ton of trauma & Claudia lied on him & Louis was withholding affection & etc. Doesn't change the fact that at the end of the day Claudia poisoned his arse and told Louis to put him in the incinerator, and was pissed at Louis for 5 whole YEARS of silent treatment cuz he refused to kill Lestat & choked TF out of her when she tried to burn Lestat herself. 💀You don't earn that kind of hatred out of thin air, for no reason. EFF the Train.

Yeah, I’m aware Daniel was mainly referring to the time period. But both the fandom and the crew behind the show have taken this one aspect of Louis’ character and assigned it as a forever label. Louis could do anything and he’ll still be called a pimp. He has shares in Lestat’s merch and now there’s review articles saying he’s a pimp whoring out Lestat. Just today you have people saying he’s pimping out Regina. Louis can take a breath and people will say he breathed pimply.

It’s the same result of Armand referring to him as a capitalist. Every single character on the show is a capitalist, but now Louis is The Only Capitalist Ever in both the fandom and within the show itself in how other characters refer to him. Once again he is singled out and branded with a forever label that only defines one aspect of his character.

Someone please tell Nonny that Louis was NOT a pimp when he paid for Daniel's interview. Or for Regina's LARPing. Or when he bought Lestat's stocks. And while he was a pimp during his time TALKING with Miss Lily, yes, Louis was never HER pimp; Tom Anderson was. Louis is paying for services THEY offered HIM FIRST.

LILY was already Tom's prostitute at the Fair Play when Louis met her, and "all we do is TALK," so no one would suspect that Louis was GAY GAY GAY.

DANIEL said he wanted to interview Louis--it was already his JOB, duh. Louis even told Daniel to put his shirt BACK ON when Daniel tried to get sexual! Louis friendzoned him!

REGINA put a price on her time and invited Louis back in the diner rather than calling the cops, cuz SHE googled him FIRST and realized he was a billionaire. 🤑 Initially, she (naturally) assumed he wanted sex, but he immediately shut that thought down; he wanted to TALK to someone who looked like his dead daughter, NOT sexually exploit Regina.

WHAT is not clicking with this braindead fandom? 🤦‍♂️

And omfg Nonny's one of those courtesan!Lestat fanfic peanuts. 😬 Magnus' actor literally JUST called Magnus an ARYAN EUGENICIST MAD SCIENTIST ALCHEMIST (all book canon btw!) who KILLED his "disappointment" test subjects looking for the perfect white man to turn into an immortal ubermensch. Lestat was NOT his "paid companion" he was the VICTIM of RAPE--WTF BRUH?

Magnus immediately killed himself after he turned Lestat; he had ZERO intention of them being companions/married, or anything. He just wanted to pass his vampirism down to the best & most perfect kind of white man he thought DESERVED to live forever; then ABANDONED Lestat to the FIRE. The only reason Magnus was rich and left everything to Lestat is cuz he STOLE all the money & clothes & jewels off his DEAD VICTIMS as TROPHIES for centuries--same way he kept all the corpses in his tower as part of the decor! 🤢🤮

Shane is like no! It’s embarrassing! And this is public! And you wouldn’t make me actually do that to Rose would you? You know the answer, I’m gay!

Only Rose thinks the whole thing is hilarious and gives Shane the go ahead so there’s no real reason to resist Ilya’s begging anymore, still he holds out to the day before the interview.

“Fine! Fine! You can ask about Rose, but I get to ask about anything I want too!” And Ilya’s like yes yes of course my love. His boring Shane would hardly ask anything damning.

Fast forward to the day of the interview Shane is fondly exasperated with Ilya’s Rose questions, and Ilya is being a cocky bastard so happy with how it played out.

Until they switch sides and Shane breaks out his first question:

“Is it or is it not true that despite famously calling Scott Hunter ‘a nearly extinct fossil’ you think he’s hot?” The blood drains from Ilya’s face pretty quickly after that.

“Do you think Hayden Pike is a good hockey player?”

“Do you consider Hayden Pike a close friend?”

“Who do you love more: me or Anya?”

“Besides me who is your favorite teammate?”

Frame by frame breakdown, as usual! LFG, Rolin Cut! (8hrs after Tumblr hit me with the image limit! So I went to bed, slept on all of this, and now I'm awake and ready to gogogo! 😁)

This is possibly THEE coolest frame I've seen on the whole show. 👌 (Murf's Cinematography Awards: 1x1 - Lestat Freezing Time at the Poker Table; 1x7 - Louis Slitting Lestat's Throat; 2x2 TdV's Projections; 2x6 Armand & Madeleine On a Sofa)

I can't wait to see this scene; whatever's going on looks FUN & creative.

My guesstimate's that either:

Lestat's hallucinating/dreaming as he talks to the "ghosts" of his past, and Daniel interrupts him / wakes him up

Someone's using the Spell Gift / Mind Gift against him to MAKE him face the ghosts he's been avoiding (Memory is a Monster)

This is a music video (highly unlikely)

I'm only taking #1 & #2 seriously, because #3 literally makes no sense--half the people at that table are dead. 💀

The fancy AF dining room's reminding me of Lestat's Chateau renovations in the PL Trilogy. That was his biggest hope/dream, to reunite all of the vampires under his father's roof--not the gross impoverished neglected & outdated medieval castle that had fallen to wreck & ruin when he was a human, but the lavish Rococo Disney Castle confectionary Lestat always wanted it to be, as befitting his family's rank as Marquis.

Cuz it's not really about the fancy castle. In Gothic Horror, the Haunted/Abandoned House is a symbol reflecting the character(s) and their progression, degression, or stagnation (x x). The Chateau's a symbol reflecting how badly Lestat wanted to REPAIR HIS RUINED FAMILY--human AND vampire.

So these vamps all eating together at the dinner table aren't some random get-together. Lestat's been stuck in a loop at his father's dinner table in the Great Hall all his life, only now he's taken his father's place--his seat at the head of the table as Patriarch de Lioncourt--repeating the TOXIC CYCLES OF ABUSE & FAILURE over & over with each fledgling, just in different but not unrelated ways.

My DEEP suspicion's that they're not even REAL. Lestat's clearly tripping, since that's the same purple shirt in his other hallucination:

But they're real TO HIM, because this is his FAMILY--these are his LOST CHILDREN. (Like Benji said, ALL vampires are a lost & parentless tribe/family.) But these are all GHOSTS, just manifestations of Lesat's guilty conscience.

☝️ And these are the OBVIOUS 3 dead giveaways. ☝️

Let's get ths heifer out the way first: That's Antoinette in the same Mardi Gras tuxedo she died in.

(My question is who TF the chick is behind her--is that Baby Jenks????? *squints* She's wearing modern clothes, so this is a vampire he turned more recently. 👀)

She's got a typewriter in one hand and a (phallic, cuz ofc) sausage in her mouth. So she's sucking his meat as usual, and writing/COPYING everything he says on the typewriter--cuz just like I said 1000yrs ago in my Brides of Dracula!Lestat post: she's his PARROT, his BIRD. That's not love, that's ownership.

But regardless of how much he used & abused her, I KNOW Lestat had to be in real physical pain when Claudia killed her--that's his daughter, just like Claudia's death must've physically pained Lestat and effed him up even more on that Trial stage (which is why he's mumbling & bumbling in the 2x8 Tower Scene). It's grief.

Next up, the most important of them all: NOLA!Louis in his iconic red suits (back when he had the most confidence, "There's the spark!" that Lestat's overbearing oppressive behavior snuffed out).

Nicki sitting next to Louis (is he shirtless at the table? *squints*):

I can't WAIT to see this convo--this is spiiiiicy~! 👀Cuz in my Brides of Dracula!Lestat post, Nicki's darkness/depression ("you drag me into your gloom") was half the reason Lestat DIDN'T want to turn Nicki.

Lestat knew that Nicki had already been traumatized by vampires--he'd been kidnapped & tortured by Armand & the Children of Darkness, AND book!Lestat had scared TF out of Nicki when he vamped-out at Renaud's and caused a mass panic and got SHOT, lol.

Nicki already had two of the WORST first impressions of vampirism. Lestat had a feeling something bad might happen, but he also hoped that vampirism might help Nicki the way it helped Gabrielle (& also helped himself duh LBH).

So for AMC!Nicki to be hollering about hoping Lestat would've taken the initiative to turn him much sooner is interesting. Lestat's guilty conscience telling him that he should've turned Nicki ASAP is just wrongheaded AF. There was NO POINT IN TIME when Nicki would've ever been a good candidate for vampirism, and certainly not after Armand got his grubby fingers on him.

Nicki was throwing red flags ever since Auvergne, even during Nickistat's "Golden Moments" when they'd get drunk as skunks & dream of running away to Paris.

Ofc the problem is that we only ever see Nicki from Lestat's POV--Anne Rice never gave Nicki his own voice. The way book!Lestat imagines Nicki even in TVL is still HIS version of Nicki. And unless AMC gives us an object 3rd party flashback of Nickistat, we'll never see anything but Armands's version of a cucked jealous AF Nicki, or Lestat's version of a possessive ("MINE!" in blood on the mirror) and needy Nicki whom Lestat felt like he didn't love well enough and abandoned--which.... 👀 🫖🍵☕

Like yeah, the whole point is that Lestat DIDN'T love any of his fledglings well enough. 🤷‍♂️ He let each one of them down in significant ways. And half of them are dead, and the other half are estranged.

Sure, it's not fair to "flatten" Lestat down to just his wrongdoings. BUT it's also not fair to IGNORE the FACT that he was a father who did wrong by each of his kids. 😤 The same way we're primed & ready to cuss Lestat's parents out is the same way we should hold Lestat to the same standards. A deadbeat dad is a deadbeat dad, human or vampire. 💀 (Go ask Alucard, LOL!)

Cuz you know who's NOT at that effing dinner table? Who DIDN'T get a seat at the table? Who's NOT being given a chance to sit with her siblings--her FAMILY--and give Lestat a piece of her mind? So she has to FORCE her way into Lestat's psyche and give him Hell from the ether?

vampire!ToughCookie?! 😱

2 Empty Chairs: Claudia & Felix? 🤔

1) vampire!Tough Cookie?! 😱

OK. So I am confusion, on multiple levels.

First, we have Tough Cookie:

Oh yeah, that's a effing vampire right there--WTF HAPPENED?! 😭

Cuz she still looks human in all of the other scenes--only in oned does she look pale & sickly.

So then who's this chick that gets hurt?!

There's too many brunettes on this effing show. Cuz I'm assuming this is TC in the back blowing smoke in Alex's face?

The girl in Lestat's arms doesn't really look like her, but maybe that's just cuz of the weird angle?

Regardless, thanks to @hauntedbauhaus' eagle eyes, we have DEFINITE suspicion that Tough Cookie's days are numbered; Lestat's turning her into a vampire at some point, oml. 💀 And then she dies anyway--OOF! 💀

2) 2 Empty Chairs: Claudia & Felix? 🤔

Ok, so we have 2 empty chairs, on either side of the table closest to Lestat:

Which is interesting in and of itself--all the other ghosts are sitting faaaaar removed from him; while the 2 seats closest to him are empty.

I reckon the seat next to Louis is Claudia's. And the seat next to Antoinette is Felix's.

So the 2 halves of the table are thus divided: Claudia, Louis & Nicki to the left; and Felix, Antoinette & Tough Cookie to the right. With Lestat & Gabrielle at the head & foot of the table--the OG Mom & Dad.

Hrm.... 🧐 She still looks human here... 🧐 None of the ghoulish discoloration around the eyes & lips.

And I can't see her hands to check for vamp claws/nails. 🧐🧐🧐

@hauntedbauhaus Hallucination!Magnus is spilling TEA!

"Very odd company at The Long Table...."

Because Armand's was telling the truth: it's "repulsive" to make vampires--it's just Makers creating more & more dead things to keep them company at The Long Table (Hell, Purgatory) that eats souls.

Makers know that each of their fledglings "eat your soul" as a reflection of who you are--what you want most, or what you're most afraid of and running away from the longest. They're all The Vampire Loneliness, that you KNOW you can't truly fulfill, cuz you're dead in side too. (It's RARE to have Blood Spouses who CAN beat the odds; "not enduring [eternity], living!")

A HAND

A FINGER

A DRUMMER 👀👀👀

A PIMP

YOU

MOMMY

CLAUDIA

TL:DR: I have so many questions!!!!

Cuz this literally makes no sense. Is TC *ALREADY* a vampire?! Why would Magnus list her? Why else is she apparently at the table?

Like, why does she always looked just as shocked & surprised by vamp shenanigans as everyone else? Or is she just *that* young of a fledgling that the novelty of everything's surprising her still?

IDK, why do I feel like we're being tricked/misled somehow?

Delainey Hayles: Claudia vs Regina, Louis vs GabriellA

In the beginning Regina sees Louis as--well firstly a customer--but then there's an intrigue about him, and I think that's down to his vampirism. There's an alluringness, and he keeps coming back; she's like: Why are you here again? I think she kind of is enamored by him, later on. And she sees that he is trying to have a pure heart, and doesn't mean to inflict harm on anyone. That's not what he sets out to do.

I'm also going to add what Delainey said on 3x4's After Dark:

What Regina thinks about Louis:

Regina's Agency:

Regina vs Claudia:

TL;DR: Fandom, "you do not know this girl!"

I think there's an automatic assumption that just cuz Regina looks like Claudia (TO LOUIS 👀) that that means she IS Claudia, or her reincarnation etc; and that Louis' using/abusing her or wtvr, as if Louis' on the same rung as a degenerate like GabriellA or Magnus. NO, and I love the Superlatives game After Dark played, cuz Assad Zaman gave the BEST distinction on the whole stupid Louis vs GabriellA "debate:"

Sam Reid correctly said Lestat was "EQUALLY" as morally questionable as Louis, where there's EQUAL levels of QUESTIONABLE behavior on both their parts--but NOT definitively immoral judgements we can put on either one of them, because of the complexities about trauma, parent-child codependency, etc; and we CAN debate about it, to question & problematize. But there is no clear-cut answer for Louis or Lestat's morality. However, what IS clear is that Lestat's not tryna HARM GabriellA any more than Louis' tryna HARM Regina. And in BOTH cases, GabriellA & Regina have TONS more agency & power over Lestat & Louis than either man has over those women--*cough* gender dynamics FTW; let problematic characters be problematic~! *cough*

And Delainey & Sam agreed that of ALL the vampires we've seen thus far, GABRIELLA IS THE MOST DANGEROUS. That is NOT a debate, as Assad astutely pointed out. This is NOT a question. She is an ABUSER.

"Facts are irrelevant, feels are everything!" I've always said that it doesn't matter what one's intentions are, all that matters is how one's behavior makes someone feel. If they FEEL like you abused them, you abused them. 🤷‍♂️ If they FEEL like you're the villain in their story, you're the villain. 🤷‍♂️ You might not have intended/meant to cause harm, but if someone FEELS that you did, you did! 🤷‍♂️ The only way you can control how someone feels is if you actually put in the work to prove that you're better than that--hence: Regina realizing that Louis NOT tryna hurt he; he's just stuck in a fantasy that SHE has the power to either wake him up from or continue to enable.

Ofc we'll have to wait & see if Regina's in over her head, and whether she's overestimated her own ability to stay in control of this "challenge" to let Louis pretend that he can live vicariously thru her roleplay of Claudia. But we've seen how this always turned out for Louis before (x x x x x), so NGL I'm more scared for HIM than for her rn. 👀💀

(ISTG I've been saying this over & over--and AMC keeps proving me right, LOL)

But from day one GabriellA's proven to be a full PREDATOR. Every action she takes is the most DELIBERATELY & INTENTIONALLY manipulative, controlling, deceitful, selfish, harmful act imaginable. She KNOWS that Lestat wants her to ONLY be his mother, but she DEMANDS that he do as she commands, abusing her power over him to live vicariously thru HIM. She comes back at the end of 3x4 telling him to keep making music to fuel the Great Conversion, because SHE wants more vampires in the world, even though she KNOWS he DGAF about those stupid vamps. She's deliberately putting him in harm's way and she doesn't even care about him at all; she just wants to tap into his power because she doesn't have it herself. 🤦‍♂️

Nasty heffas in this fandom keep ignoring what the actors keep saying.

GabriellA and Louis are NOT the same. ❌

Magnus and Louis are NOT the same. ❌

Just adding this on for more context:

Trust, I wanna puke too--it's SO EFFED UP. 🤦‍♂️ And Louis KNOWS it's wrong, ALL addiction is. ALL addicts know deep inside that they've gone down the wrong path. But it's a mental illness for a reason. Which is why I am SO glad that Louis DOES eventually run to Lestat asking for HELP when he gets in too deep; rock frikkin bottom. That's the RIGHT thing to do.

That's why monsters become monsters; when there's no one there to pull them out of the pit; so instead they sink deeper & deeper into their own darkness; till they start JUSTIFYING the darkness; making EXCUSES for their wrongdoing, rather than facing themselves head on and saying: STOP. This is EFFED UP. STOP IT. (And yet fools wanna say Louis never takes accountability, LOL.)

Yeah, esp. cuz Louis' lying to himself AND to her that he's in control of at all. 😬 He KNOWS there's a HIGH chance he'll snap, and hurt Regina in some way--probably not as bad as taking a literal bite out of her like he did to Daniel when he Dan triggered him saying he'd be Claudia's replacement; but...who knows. 🫣 GOD, I want this arc to be OVER already, and it hasn't even started yet LOLOLOLOL.

SAME DELAINEY!!! 😭It's so HEARTBREAKING!

This is what The Loneliness is talking about! 😩 Lestat hurry up and come get your man and leave that old pervert GabriellA alone, she's TRASH!

Dang. Because Regina's an ADULT, what kind of father does he even think he can be? Is that he just wants to see her as a HUMAN? Or because she IS an adult? Like, this is my ##year old daughter, she's works in XYZ, she lives in blahblah, she's dating yadayada.... The opposite of an Empty Nester; where he's a parent who actually gets to SEE the child grow up? 🤔🤷‍♂️

And one one hand it's like--Louis KNOWS she's NOT Claudia, but this is a woman who looks like what maybe Claudia MIGHT have looked like if she'd physically grown up and been able to have the confidence of an adult IN an adult's body. So does she walk differently because she's an ADULT? Or because she's REGINA? (Both, probably, but it's something I bet Louis was thinking at one point.)

GOD I feel so bad for Louis, but he's GOTTA let this chick go. 😔 This is only gonna TAINT the memories of Claudia that he DOES have, if he keeps overlaying them with Regina--I HATE IT. 😭💔

IWTVL S3 Ep4 Musings - My Maker's Temper (Pt3)

You literally beat me to it; I was gonna make a whole post about this, but eff it; LFG! 💯

Sam Reid said over & over that Lestat lovebombed TF out of Louis

Which I BEEN said years ago, and a whole GAGGLE of barmy Lestans really tried to ARGUE with me about this like LOL. 😭🤣

Oh, so when Sam Reid calls Lestat a toxic lovebomber it's fine, but when *EYE*--?!

Oh, so S1 was just "the tale that was told" by Louis & Armand cuz they're liars tryna make Lestat look like "mayonnaise B-movie monster big bad white abuser~!", but when SAM REID CONFIRMS Lestat's toxicity WHAT THEN???? 🙄😂

Delainey Hayles: Claudia vs Regina, Louis vs GabriellA

In the beginning Regina sees Louis as--well firstly a customer--but then there's an intrigue about him, and I think that's down to his vampirism. There's an alluringness, and he keeps coming back; she's like: Why are you here again? I think she kind of is enamored by him, later on. And she sees that he is trying to have a pure heart, and doesn't mean to inflict harm on anyone. That's not what he sets out to do.

I'm also going to add what Delainey said on 3x4's After Dark:

What Regina thinks about Louis:

Regina's Agency:

Regina vs Claudia:

TL;DR: Fandom, "you do not know this girl!"

I think there's an automatic assumption that just cuz Regina looks like Claudia (TO LOUIS 👀) that that means she IS Claudia, or her reincarnation etc; and that Louis' using/abusing her or wtvr, as if Louis' on the same rung as a degenerate like GabriellA or Magnus. NO, and I love the Superlatives game After Dark played, cuz Assad Zaman gave the BEST distinction on the whole stupid Louis vs GabriellA "debate:"

Sam Reid correctly said Lestat was "EQUALLY" as morally questionable as Louis, where there's EQUAL levels of QUESTIONABLE behavior on both their parts--but NOT definitively immoral judgements we can put on either one of them, because of the complexities about trauma, parent-child codependency, etc; and we CAN debate about it, to question & problematize. But there is no clear-cut answer for Louis or Lestat's morality. However, what IS clear is that Lestat's not tryna HARM GabriellA any more than Louis' tryna HARM Regina. And in BOTH cases, GabriellA & Regina have TONS more agency & power over Lestat & Louis than either man has over those women--*cough* gender dynamics FTW; let problematic characters be problematic~! *cough*

And Delainey & Sam agreed that of ALL the vampires we've seen thus far, GABRIELLA IS THE MOST DANGEROUS. That is NOT a debate, as Assad astutely pointed out. This is NOT a question. She is an ABUSER.

"Facts are irrelevant, feels are everything!" I've always said that it doesn't matter what one's intentions are, all that matters is how one's behavior makes someone feel. If they FEEL like you abused them, you abused them. 🤷‍♂️ If they FEEL like you're the villain in their story, you're the villain. 🤷‍♂️ You might not have intended/meant to cause harm, but if someone FEELS that you did, you did! 🤷‍♂️ The only way you can control how someone feels is if you actually put in the work to prove that you're better than that--hence: Regina realizing that Louis NOT tryna hurt he; he's just stuck in a fantasy that SHE has the power to either wake him up from or continue to enable.

Ofc we'll have to wait & see if Regina's in over her head, and whether she's overestimated her own ability to stay in control of this "challenge" to let Louis pretend that he can live vicariously thru her roleplay of Claudia. But we've seen how this always turned out for Louis before (x x x x x), so NGL I'm more scared for HIM than for her rn. 👀💀

(ISTG I've been saying this over & over--and AMC keeps proving me right, LOL)

But from day one GabriellA's proven to be a full PREDATOR. Every action she takes is the most DELIBERATELY & INTENTIONALLY manipulative, controlling, deceitful, selfish, harmful act imaginable. She KNOWS that Lestat wants her to ONLY be his mother, but she DEMANDS that he do as she commands, abusing her power over him to live vicariously thru HIM. She comes back at the end of 3x4 telling him to keep making music to fuel the Great Conversion, because SHE wants more vampires in the world, even though she KNOWS he DGAF about those stupid vamps. She's deliberately putting him in harm's way and she doesn't even care about him at all; she just wants to tap into his power because she doesn't have it herself. 🤦‍♂️

Nasty heffas in this fandom keep ignoring what the actors keep saying.

GabriellA and Louis are NOT the same. ❌

Magnus and Louis are NOT the same. ❌

EXACTLY.

And like, Regina's RIGHT to be scared of him. She read the book--she KNOWS how deeply flawed & emotionally unstable Louis is. She'd already seen the unhealthy attachment he has to her BEFORE the roleplay had even started. She's playing with fire, and I hope for her sake she doesn't get burned. Take the money and RUN, girl! But if they're BOTH addicts, then they'll just feed off each other--him giving her more & more money; her playing the role over & over till she gets it just right. And that's when Louis' gonna get his ish rocked--cuz she IS astute, and she might very well pick up on alllll those said flaws, and stop being like child!Claudia in 1x4, and more like adult!Claudia in 2x4, cussing Louis clean out: PICKED ANOTHER ONE, OVER ME!

100%. Because Louis treated Claudia like ISH in S2; I wanted to strangle him; I been said that the ONLY one with the right to get mad at Louis is MY DAUGHTER (x x x x); it was awful, as their resentments towards each other got worse & worse. 🤷‍♂️

Precisely. Cuz YES, Claudia was PISSED at Louis, and full of rage at him for all the ways he failed her. But people stay getting it twisted like Claudia didn't love Louis regardless; when Delainey repeatedly said that it was WAY more complicated with Claudia & Louis than it EVER was with Claudia & Lestat.

THANK YOU. Lestat was EASY for Claudia to hate, and be like: Of the 2 of these scrubs, Lestat NEEDS to die ASAP. 👈😤 Delainey said that Claudia died thinking Lestat DIDN'T love her, but that she KNEW Louis loved her--that's why she was so MAD at Louis; why his betrayal hurt her the most, cuz she's like WHAT ABOUT ME & YOU, YOU AND ME?! Louis' a Pick Me! 🤦‍♂️

YES.

And NO.

Three things affect a vamp's Gifts: Time, Blood, & Akasha. ALL vampires have the ability to unlock ALL of the Dark Gifts as they age & drink & get stronger & practice. No one vampire is born with the ability to do things no other vampire can do, that's not how it works. Vampires are superhuman, and preternaturally strong & powerful, even at base level as bb!fledglings. For instance: mere minutes after she was Turned, Lestat's mother Gabrielle was able to shatter glass just with her voice (just as we see AMC!Claudia do); it's basic.

However, some vamps CAN be born naturally more adept at using the Gifts from the offset. Gabrielle's vampiric senses & instincts seemed to be naturally sharper than Lestat's:

And she needed ZERO direction figuring out how to scale walls (anti-gravity)--nothing but sheer youth/age kept her from the Cloud Gift.

A BAMF, AMC!Claudia seems to be teaching herself how to use the Cloud Gift--or at least anti-gravity (OG!Superman could only leap tall buildings in a single bound b4 DC said eff it and let him fly).

Ofc she has the potential for the Cloud Gift already, cuz AMC!Lestat already had it. book!Les didn't learn the Cloud Gift until QotD, after he drank copiously from Akasha. But book!Claudia never stood a chance--book!Les didn't have it yet to pass it down to her.

Another good example's Armand, who is THE best vamp with the Spell & Mind Gifts--a naturally talented savant; a child prodigy.

That's not to say that there aren't other skilled & powerful vamps who're really good at the Mind/Spell Gifts. It's just that from very early on, Armand was uncommonly good at it, and he just honed that talent over time, quicker than other vamps do.

But the Mind Gift is also THE default ability of vampires. Even basic AF young bb!fledglings can use it; and with practice, they can all get good at it--but most don't live long enough to get that good.

But several things CAN hold a vampire back from getting stronger/better with the Dark Gifts--I've explained wtf Rhosh was up to b4.

As bad as Magnus was, he had NOTHING on Rhoshamandes (who deliberately didn't WANT his fledglings to know anything about their Gifts). Magnus was suicidal, and in a hurry to to die, so he told Lestat the barest of bones, but nothing more, then offed himself.

Cuz yes, even BEFORE book!Lestat met Armand & Marius/Akasha, he was ALREADY abnormally gifted (10x stronger than a fledgling his age)--cuz Magnus was old & strong AF thanks to having the blood of old AF Rhoshamandes (via Benedict).

But book!Louis was weak AF, and the WORST with the Mind Gift. AMC!Louis' below average with it, as Armand warned him in 2x2 that he's garbage at blocking his thoughts. But book!Louis couldn't use the Mind Gift AT ALL, he's shockingly bad.

But it's not that book!film!Louis could NEVER be taught how to use the Mind Gift--but Lestat certainly didn't know HOW to teach Louis, or connect with him on a level that could ease Louis into vampirism more considerately. He was a pisspoor teacher for Louis (but not for Claudia, who was more similar to Les & thrived under him--at first).

However, the fact that Lou was habitually starving himself meant he'd stunted his own growth--he CAN'T get stronger/better, cuz his body's too frail by design. Vamps need time, practice, and esp. HUMAN BLOOD, to feed the power within them. book!Lou never did; despite how old he got, it was only once he drank Lestat's super!Akasha!blood in Merrick that he finally unlocked all of the Gifts instantly, in one fell swoop, inc. the Fire Gift. Despite how weak & starved he was, the second Lou got access to Akasha's super!blood thru Les, he was off like a shot. (And I'd bet Monopoly money that if book!Claudia had drunk from Akasha, she'd have every Gift, too.) Speaking of--

Conversely, let's look at Akasha. According to Marius, it took her FOREVER to get the Fire Gift--several millennia. As strong as she was in Egypt, she was still young, and still developing, too. Khayman's Akasha =/=Marius' Akasha =/= Lestat's Akasha. She naturally got stronger & stronger with time.

Back in Egypt, Akasha had to use the Mind Gift (telekinesis) to lift oil lamps that were already lit, and throw them at people.

~500yrs later, Marius saw her kill Eudoxia just by lighting the wench on fire from thin air; with the Fire Gift (pyrokinesis). So it took Akasha thousands of years to acquire the Fire Gift.

But Akasha already had it in her--"lain dormant for centuries." Same as it lay dormant in Marius--he didn't even know he had the Fire Gift, or that it was even a thing--the first time he used it was an accident/surprise, when he was already ~500yrs old & fought Eudoxia's goons.

One could argue that mere time had given Marius the Fire Gift--and his Maker Teskhamen was old AF, strong enough to have survived the Great Burnings, so that was another bonus. BUT! Marius had drunk lots of Akasha's blood MORE RECENTLY than ANY of the Elders did. Her blood was aging while he alone had her, so as Marius drank, he gained access to older/better blood than the Elders before him. He was at the best advantage to get stronger quicker. Marius was better at every Dark Gift than the vampires FAR older than he was (Avicus was just as old as Teskhamen).

With the Killing Gift, Marius could make bodies literally explode. But Avicus, the eldest, could only give them a fatal aneurysm to make their brain bleed out. Mael could only cripple bodies, not kill them.

But the Fire Gift was something ONLY Marius could do, that the other vamps couldn't, younger or older.

Drinking Akasha's blood is vamp steroids, crack, Aim Bot, hax mode, deus ex machina, cutting the line, copying off the smart kid in class. But drinking from old AF vamps can also grant significant boosts. The Children of the Millennia begged book!Lou to take their ancient blood, to help him get strong pre-Merrick; but he always declined. We know from the Tulane drafts that he never drank book!Les' blood, or vice versa. And presumably, he never drank Armand's blood either. (I have reservations/doubts abt whether AMC!Loumand drank e/o's blood, but I'll talk about that in a separate post.) As for Lesmand....

We'll have to wait for S3 to confirm if 2x3 was bullsh!te or not. AMC!Lestat drank Armand blood (and presumably gained the power boost needed to get the Fire/Mind Gifts Armand then taught him to use), but this never happened in the books. book!Les already had the Mind Gift--he was able to read Eleni's mind and know she wanted Renaud's Theatre, which he told her take & run with Nicki. And in QotD Les said he used the Mind Gift "in the first few weeks after Magnus had made me" to telekinetically punch Nicki during one of their fights.

book!Armand drank LES' blood when they fought and Les kicked his arse, but he never drank from Armand in TVL, or asked him about the Mind/Fire Gift. It was Armand's strength that surprised Les--

--mostly cuz Les wondered if he was just as strong as Armand. Les had no idea what his powers were. Cuz barring extreme cases like using the Fire Gift while your life's in danger, vamps don't KNOW the Gifts that are out there, to even know to learn/practice with them--just like Everard said: Rhosh never told the de Landen Coven about the Dark Gifts, and he was 1000+ years old when he learned about them by reading TVL. Knowledge is power, and if you don't even know what your baseline is, how can you ever know your limits/potential?

The most valuable thing book!Armand taught Lestat (and Louis) was information. KNOWLEDGE about the past. NOT about Dark Gifts.

Louis took Armand's word that there was no living vamp older than Armand (proof that God didn't exist), but Lestat took Armand's word that Marius was NOT a fake legend, and went looking for proof on his own.

But AMC!Armand teaches Lestat & Louis VERY important Dark Gifts, which changes their dynamics significantly (I'll make a separate post all about that).

I agree with all of this. Daniel's had neither Time, nor Blood, Practice, Guidance/Instruction, etc. All he does have is the Mind Gift, which again is THEE most basic/rudimentary skill that ALL vampires get by default. But Daniel's entitled arse assumed that he'd get "something out of it" by virtue of Armand being his Maker, only to come out with zilch.

Daniel's definitely projecting, cuz Armand's blood doesn't suck at all. But I DO wonder if Armand made Daniel properly. 🤔

Like, I'm not saying that I think Daniel's a Revenant (a la Jasper), or anything awful like that. But I do wonder if maybe something went wrong somewhere--was Daniel given ENOUGH blood (a la Marius)? Was he given too much, or too little? 🤔 Is he still cooking, even all this time later? (2yrs!?) That seems highly unlikely, but AMC's been effing around with the book lore this whole time, so who knows. 🙄

I also don't think it has anything to do with Daniel's human age (69yo)--AMC already has a bunch of older vamps running around--

--and Ben Daniels is 62yo, so if we assume Santiago's the same age then HELLO? He's literally ZADDY ALPHA DOM! 💪😍

So....? Yeah, I dunno wtf's wrong with Daniel. 🤷‍♂️

I reckon Armand's blood might actually be TOO good. 👀 Esp. since that was a BIG problem in the books, that the covens didn't want Ancients making fledglings, esp. if they never made one before--their blood never got filtered out, so the fledgling MIGHT come out too strong for the coven/Maitre to handle--hence: SANTIAGO.

You usually see this in anime, where you THINK they got turned wrong cuz their powers aren't manifesting right away; then a huge plot twist comes out of nowhere and you realize: Oh snap Eren Jaeger?! Oh snap Ichigo Kurosaki?!

So if the powers don't kick in thru natural instinct, they need to be nurtured, taught through instructive "lessons" (a la Teshkamen w/ Marius, Marius w/ Armand, Petronia/Arion w/ Quinn; etc); or through consistent practice (a la Marius & Avicus & Mael; etc).

So yeah, as of right now I'm putting a pin in the Daniel mystery. 🤷‍♂️ But I'm intrigued!