saintarmand

[saintarmand]

We'll have a fang gang within a fang gang!

Also ma boi Matěj's vampire name being Merde'Em is the funniest thing ever to me

[Article on IWTV S2 costumes here]

#glad to finally have some names! #nice to meet you merde'em basilic and planche #iwtv #costuming #iwtv cast

[saintarmand]

Absolutely fascinated with every part in this Carol Cutshall i'm kissing you on the mouth

#creative director!!!! MANIFESTED #missed that the first time reading this #thats literally what ive been calling him #also baring his neck out of confidence hell yes #big contrast to lestat's three piece suits! armand doesn't feel the need to telegraph his power like that #he just has it #and louis's blue collar artist look but tucked and belted like an uptight catholic nerd i love it #also makes me think of his dubai looks. sometimes hes more casual and with an open collar even #but then theres that one look with the closed collar but bare arms. absolutely perfect #iwtv #costuming #louis #armand

[saintarmand]

The nazis that you see in movies are as much a historical fantasy as vikings with horned helmets and samurai cutting people in half.

The nazis were not some vague evil that wanted to hurt people for the sake of hurting them. They had specific goals which furthered a far right agenda, and they wanted to do harm to very specific groups, (largely slavs, jews, Romani, queer people, communists/leftists, and disabled people.)

The nazis didn't use soldiers in creepy gas masks as their main imagery that they sold to the german people, they used blond haired blue eyed families. Nor did they stand up on podiums saying that would wage an endless and brutal war, they gave speeches about protecting white Christian society from degenerates just like how conservatives do today.

Nazis weren't atheists or pagans. They were deeply Christian and Christianity was part of their ideology just like it is for modern conservatives. They spoke at lengths about defending their Christian nation from godless leftism. The ones who hated the catholic church hated it for protestant reasons. Nazi occultism was fringe within the party and never expected to become mainstream, and those occultists were still Christian, none of them ever claimed to be Satanists or Asatru.

Nazis were also not queer or disabled. They killed those groups, before they had a chance to kill almost anyone else actually. Despite the amount of disabled nazis or queer/queer coded nazis you'll see in movies and on TV, in reality they were very cishet and very able bodied. There was one high ranking nazi early on who was gay and the other nazis killed him for that. Saying the nazis were gay or disabled makes about as much sense as saying they were Jewish.

The nazis weren't mentally ill. As previously mentioned they hated disabled people, and this unquestionably included anyone neurodivergent. When the surviving nazi war criminals were given psychological tests after the war, they were shown to be some of the most neurotypical people out there.

The nazis weren't socialists. Full stop. They hated socialists. They got elected on hating socialists. They killed socialists. Hating all forms of lefitsm was a big part of their ideology, and especially a big part of how they sold themselves.

The nazis were not the supervillians you see on screen, not because they didn't do horrible things in real life, they most certainly did, but because they weren't that vague apolitical evil that exists for white American action heros to fight. They did horrible things because they had a right wing authoritarian political ideology, an ideology that is fundamentally the same as what most of the modern right wing believes.

#nazism #fascism

[saintarmand]

Hello, I opened Photoshop again

#a cool sword AND a wife? sign me tf up #knighthood #art

[saintarmand]

BABY LOU LOU. daddy lou's baby, named after him, no identity of her own. this is armand marius all over again except at least this is parody and not an active life choice. armand's gonna hear about claudia wanting her own identity and be like must be something wrong with her. to take louis's name would be an honor. you are not worthy, baby lou lou! into the sun you go

#😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫 #vampterview #iwtv #s #claudia #armand #iwtv spoilers

[saintarmand]

Emmy Magazine's interview with Carol Cutshall. Read the full magazine for free by clicking on the green cover with Conan O'Brien!

#vampterview #interview with the vampire #s #iwtv #carol cutshall #costuming

[saintarmand]

"if you ship this thing it's because you're too naïve to understand that it's toxic and that you wouldn't like a relationship like this" actually it's because I see one of them as a mentos drop and the other as a bottle of coke zero and I want to watch the mess they'll be together

#fandom

[saintarmand]

train of thought that didn't make it into my episode three liveblog (contains discussions of suicidality and domestic violence)

at the end of episode three we have a scene that seems to pretty straightforwardly mirror the pilot: an 'irrational' louis, overcome with grief, staggering through the streets of his city, seeking redemption or refuge

...all my conceptions, even my guilt and my wish to die...

louis explicitly says "i wanna die" during the confession scene, which fits lewis' emotional status in the novel

he doesn't say anything similar about the ending of episode three, but to conclude that he was, to some degree, suicidal doesn't seem a reach based on what's on the screen, and we could extrapolate from the source!

in the book, lewis gets jumped by lestat when he's drunkenly seeking to get himself killed in a bar fight...

and later, when he agrees to be made into a vampire, he's contemplating thoughts of suicide

before he finds and feeds from claudia, he has a fight with lestat, and thinks: "i have to leave him or die"

—but in the book, he leaves claudia for dead, and lestat kidnaps and turns her to keep lewis from leaving him (and perhaps, we're led to understand, committing suicide)

however, in the show, the events of claudia's turning change!

our louis is not guilty in the way that lewis is guilty by virtue of having nearly killed the girl, he is responsible for the choice to make claudia into a vampire

but the tradeoff is still the same

you were ready to abandon our home. now you want a third.

and it's later, in episode six, that lestat kidnaps and holds claudia hostage, explicitly to keep louis 'happy', that is, not actively suicidal

—i teased the sun that night in jackson square. thought about the walking cane and pile of ash they'd find in the morning. but paul had forever ruined grace's wedding night, and i would not do the same to claudia on the anniversary of her escape. if i was to join dante's wood of the self-murdered, it would be another night. and so i endured my way home… —back to the crypt. —back to the undeserving lestat.

—you didn't want me. you made me for louis. —and he needs you now more than ever. he's in a terrible state. —he said i could go. he picked you over me. —louis couldn't pick an apple off a tree in his current state. he'd grip it, tug at it, and, weak as he is, the stem would hold. —let me go, lestat. —in louis' hour of need? i'm afraid i can't allow that. he's very fragile right now, worse than the last time you abandoned him (...) we endure each other for louis' happiness. so come home and make him happy. because if you try this again, claudia, i won't snap your leg, defile your pocket, and zoom off on a motorbike. i'll turn your bones to dust.

sound familiar?

well, that last bit was something of a digression, but what it adds to my train of thought is that the show seems to be keeping to some of the core emotional elements of these story beats, and, if he's indeed suicidal before he's turned, and he's indeed suicidal when lestat holds claudia hostage 'for his sake', then there's reason to assume that he was indeed suicidal the night he found claudia, right?

so, my conclusion, the end of episode three and the beginning of episode four function as a loose parallel of the ending of the pilot, with the most obvious mirroring being the sequence of events:

a fight with lestat (funeral march, rue royale)

a respectively drunk and manic louis staggering through the streets

louis seeks to make amends with his god by confessing and with his people by helping them

louis is explicitly suicidal at the end of the pilot and there are grounds to interpret him as being, to some degree, suicidal at the end of episode three

lestat convinces louis to agree to be turned into a vampire, louis convinces lestat to make claudia into a vampire, and both scenes directed in roughly similar ways

and there's something else!

i was thinking during my liveblog about the fact that claudia's origin story seems to have been 'lifted' from rose's story, which might be a way of seeding a meaningful moment that will be called back to later, or simply folding a minor character into a major one, but which allows for yet another parallel:

in both scenes, louis runs towards fire in a moment of 'redemptory' 'heroism'...

and both louis and claudia are 'reborn' from the flames

#!!!! #and it will all end with louis unable to save claudia and burning down a building in response #framed in the book as his redemption for his centuries of passively letting shit happen hes finally taking real action #been thinking about this a lot but i never caught the suicidal part #really made things click #iwtv #louis #meta

[saintarmand]

Rewind the tape- Episode 7

What's a favorite look of yours?

Definitely Claudia's red power-sleeves

I just love this look so much, especially when contrasted with how she looked in the beginning of the episode, wearing a beige cardigan, light green shirt, and neutral plaid skirt.

She adopts a younger look here, almost reflecting her teenage years, although those can never really be returned to again, as evidenced by hair, which, though down, is rolled up on the front left side. She's aiming for a more inoffensive, girly, dutiful daughter appearance, something that can blend into the background and escape Lestat's notice.

From "Bloody Fashionable: A Costume Analysis of AMC’s Interview with the Vampire" by Eliza Niblett:

As she gets older, red and other warm tones feature more heavily in what she wears, which usually contrasts Louis and Lestat, who are more often seen in neutrals and cooler colours. The red clearly reflects her violent and ruthless nature, but by setting her apart from Louis and Lestat, it also highlights her isolation, which leads to a drastic plan. (x)

When she puts on the bolder red, takes out her earrings, and puts her hair fully up, she is now ready to make her moves against Lestat, and wants to be noticed by him.

I also got that same red shirt and tie three years ago when I was going through my 40s fashion phase, so that may be why I'm also partial to it :)

#iwtv #costuming #claudia

[saintarmand]

From Emmy Magazine

#baby lou lou? daddy lou's baby? doesn't even get her own name? yeah... #um sidenote. is it just me or do these sketches look like a white girl. whats up with that carol. #iwtv #costuming #claudia

[saintarmand]

Really fucking sad. No words.

#palestine #israel

[saintarmand]

what the fuck did you expect me to feel when you gripped the back of my head like that and sank your fangs into my neck? Indifference? Disgust? NOT sheer adoration? be serious.

#vampires #danielcore

[saintarmand]

armand according to louis: sexy professor with a knife and handcuffs on his belt

armand according to claudia: mob boss sending you bullets in the mail

armand according to daniel: if the predator from predator was a manic pixie dream girl

armand according to lestat: screaming baby clinging to your leg but his eyes are completely black

#i considered including marius but everything i got was too horrifying and a major bummer #still workshopping how he views himself but the word orphan is definitely in there somewhere #really it depends so much #iwtv #tvc #armand #vampterview #s

[saintarmand]

[saintarmand]

Honestly? My main piece of advice for writing well-rounded characters is to make them a little bit lame. No real living person is 100% cool and suave 100% of the time. Everyone's a little awkward sometimes, or gets too excited about something goofy, or has a silly fear, or laughs about stupid things. Being a bit of a loser is an incurable part of the human condition. Utilize that in your writing.

[saintarmand]

I know white people especially struggle with this concept but like when a Palestinian, or any other group of Black or brown people are calling you in and making a general statement about the state of the allyship for our causes, and making criticism of common behaviours or whatever else, that is NOT an invitation for you to confess your own shortcomings or your journey of self-improvement. Especially not under our posts. Make your own post if you really feel like it. But we don't need to hear your personal story of how you ignored our long-standing genocide until you saw enough people doing the right thing and you decided to follow. Keep that to yourself.

These posts are meant for you to REFLECT ON YOURSELF! BY YOURSELF! QUIETLY! And decide on your OWN what part of your behaviours you can identify being criticized in these posts and fix them!! And if you need help you can ask a question without necessarily giving us all the details of how you used to be ignorant or whatever. We're not here to hand out forgiveness we're trying to help coordinate and organize people to be more cohesive and we're giving you tips to be better allies. We're not giving you counciling for white guilt!!!

[saintarmand]

In discussions about the finale of Black Sails, one of the things I often see is folks hard-focusing on Flint's fate, in an either-or binary fashion, usually presented as "Which do you believe-- that Silver killed him? or sent him to the plantation?"

Now, for posterity's sake, gonna mention a few things-- first off, that's simply not thinking broadly enough. There are farrrr more than two options here and I've come up with my share of the reallyyyyy bad ones for sure. Whatever your mind chooses, none of those are happy endings anyway, there are bittersweet, bad, and worse endings all the way down. (They are paused, they are in a time loop, and also all endings and no endings are happening simultaneously)

But also, the more cogent point is that, it doesn't actually matter what happened *to Flint* The story is... not actually about him at that point. We have transitioned from Flint as protag to Silver as protag, setting up for (the fanfiction that Black Sails has ended up making of, ugh, king shit) Treasure Island.

And so, I just, don't find it to be of particular interest exploring what we think Flint is actually doing or if he's alive for real. What is EXTREMELY interesting to explore though is how Silver's speech at the end to Madi is sort of giving Thomas back to Flint as a pacifier/comfort object, but how... Silver is giving Flint that thing in his own mind as his own type of pacifier/comfort object.

That's the REALLY chewy bit. What actually happens to Flint is not the purpose of that scene for me, of Silver's recounting of events to Madi. It's more about... projection. It's about how Silver is dealing with whatever happened to Flint/whatever he did.

And I just feel like it's missing the point to focus so hard on if Flint is alive or not.

He is the ghost of the story regardless, that's what's important. He's going to haunt the narrative for the rest of everyone's lives. No one has been untouched or unscarred by coming into contact with Captain Flint; he has a forever legacy. I'm not the first to call him this, but he's Schrödinger's Flint and he's staying that way.

But this?

"No. I did not kill Captain Flint. I unmade him. The man you know could never let go of his war. For if he were to exclude it from himself, he would not be able to understand himself. So I had to return him to an earlier state of being. One in which he could function without the war. Without the violence. Without us. Captain Flint was born out of great tragedy. I found a way to reach into the past... and undo it. There is a place near Savannah... where men unjustly imprisoned in England are sent in secret. An internment far more humane, but no less secure. Men who enter these gates never leave them. To the rest of the world, they simply cease to be. He resisted... at first. But then I told him what else I had heard about this place. I was told prominent families amongst London society made use of it. I was told the governor in Carolina made use of it. So I sent a man to find out if they'd used it to hide away one particular prisoner. He returned with news. Thomas Hamilton was there. He disbelieved me. He continued to resist. And corralling him took great effort. But the closer we got to Savannah, his resistance began to diminish. I couldn't say why. I wasn't expecting it. Perhaps he'd finally reached the limits of his physical ability to fight. Or perhaps as the promise of seeing Thomas got closer... he grew more comfortable letting go of this man he created in response to his loss. The man whose mind I had come to know so well... whose mind I'd in some ways incorporated into my own. It was a strange experience to see something from it... so unexpected. I choose to believe it... because it wasn't the man I had come to know at all... but one who existed beforehand... waking from a long... and terrible nightmare. Reorienting to the daylight... and the world as it existed before he first closed his eyes... letting the memory of the nightmare fade away. You may think what you want of me. I will draw comfort in the knowledge that you're alive to think it. But I'm not the villain you fear I am. I'm not him."

This is the speech of a man who is self-soothing, who is spinning himself a tale, who is projecting, who is coping.

and THAT is just, way chewier, innit?

#black sails