Multiverse irritations
Living in the darkest timeline continues to a horrorshow, so, to fannish things.
I would say it's a further sign of getting old, but no, I remember feeling a similar way back in the Torchwood days when the majority of fandom was all over Jack/Ianto and yours truly was monumentally indifferent to that pairing. But: right now, I having this sense of disconnect and/or deja vue when looking for fanfic in various fandoms:
Interview with the Vampire (TV): Look, I loved what the show did with Daniel Molloy! Snarky, rude-to-vampires old Daniel Molloy is my favourite! Whereas I was never much interested in young book!Daniel, his vampire fannishness, or his relationship with book!Armand. What is the fandom writing? Essentially book or book osmosis (the book question being not Interview with the Vampire, but The Queen of the Damned, specifically the chapter The Devil's Minion which in bookverse for the first time reveals what became of "the boy" from the first novel) fanfic, which ill fits the showverse characters, usually starring Young!Daniel from the 1970s. Don't get me wrong, (I thought the young actor playing Daniel in the flashback episode was terrific and really sold me as a younger version of Eric Bogosian, but it's still the older version I'm interested in.) It's not that I don't see much hostile UST between old Daniel and showverse Armand, but the emphasis is on hostile here, which is very different to the bookverse characters and their relationship, and so whenever I see the "Devil's Minion happened" tag I run. Then I thought, maybe I'll get vintage show!Daniel in stories that don't pair him with Armand, but not much luck so far.
LotR: The Rings of Power: Where the hell is autistic Elrond ("needs a hug") coming from? WHY? (I mean, he along with everyone else needs a hug in the finale, obviously. But look, there's a reason why Durin immediately knows Annatar is a liar when Annatar claims Elrond called him "the wisest of all the dwarves". And did we not notice Elrond's gigantic chip on the shoulder/disappointment venting at Galadriel during the first half of the season via pointed digs? Yes, Elrond can be vey kind (especially if you're, say, Disa), but he's also sharp tongued and definitely knows what he's saying when lashing out. If you want an Elven male woobie, this as in so many other ways is defnitely Celebrimbor's season.
(Lo and behold, Galadriel, whether paired up with Sauron or with Adar in fanfic, seems to largely escape damselfication and is allowed to continue being messy.)
Agatha All Along: show: delivers a delightfully messed up exes relationship between Agatha Harkness, villainous witch with huuuuuuge body count, and Rio, who is really (spoiler). Manages to flesh out Agatha as a character from her WandaVision introduction without prettifying or ignoring what she did and what she's capable of. Fanfic: here, the warning tags to run away from for me are "soft!Agatha", "soft!Rio", and all variations thereof.The reason why Rio saying something like "she is my scar" or the tender way she beckons to Nicky are so effective in the show is that she's not like that most of the time. Yes, she's protective of Agatha when the ghost of Evanora Harkness shows up. But this "nobody is allowed to hurt her but me" kind of protectiveness does have a "and we do hurt each other" implication, and while both of their physical fights in the season opener and in the finale have sexual elements of foreplay, they also have quite the viciousness - I mean "death by a thousand cuts"? Slashing Agatha's tendril? (All, mind, before Billy repowers Agatha.) A fluffy couple, this is not.
Also: the moment when Ghost!Evanora showed up I knew Agatha would be next in line for the specific brand of woobification where it's all the mean parent(s)' fault. Now, there's some canonical ground work here, to be sure. (There's a slight problem in that the ghost may or not have been actual Evanora, given that Billy created the Road, but since both Agatha and Rio treat her as the real deal, I'm assuming all she says, including "you were born evil" and "should have killed you at birth" were ic for the late Mrs. H.,E.) But I'm still having trouble buying Agatha as 18th century Carrie White, and also, it's been centuries since then. Again, the show is great in showing Agatha's unconditional love for her son (and the fact she doesn't turn harsh or mean on him when he starts disagreeing with her) side by side to her chilling indifference to everyone else, despite the fact after her original coven, all the other witches we see her meet at first are helpful and friendly towards her. I don't want to read about Agatha, Persecuted Woobie. I want to read about Agatha occasoinally catching feelings despite herself while also continuing to be a ruthless killer.
Back to Interview with the Vampire (TV version), some more thoughts unrelated to fanfiction: Unreliable Narrator is a big trope in both seasons, and I'm wondering and look forward to The Vampire Lestat (the novel) getting the same treatment in season 3, since I bet the show won't abandon the "questioning the narrator" gimmick despite the fact none of the later novel has the interview framework anymore. And of course it already used bits and pieces of the later novels in its s1 and 2 adaptations, hinting at what will and won't make the cut.Nicholas "Nicky" de Lenfent, Magnus, Marius, Akasha: in. Gabrielle?????? I'm assuming we didn't see her in the Armand-narrated 18th century flashback because they didn't want to cast an actress for a cameo and then possibly have to recast in two or three years if they couldn't get her back. But given what they did with Madeline, whom the show evolved from a thin sketch into a fascinating layered character, I'm resasonably certain that they not only won't cut the character but will likely expand her role and/or show us her from outside Lestat's pov as well. (After all, Gabrielle is still around and not dead, so could give her pov. Not least on how Lestat's early vampire days, err, nights really went, because there's already a big clash between what Armand tells Louis (and Daniel) - i.e. Lestat first cheerfully cheats on Nicholas with him, Armand, then dumps him as soon as Armand says "I love you" and leaves town for no other reason than he's just that flighty - and what Lestat says both in that one s1 comment (on the unnamed wonderful violinist he loved, i.e. Nicholas) and his description of his relationship with Nicholas during the trial in s2 (anything said in the trial is evidently skewered, but the Lestat/Nicholas backstory is irrelevant to the coven putting Louis and Claudia (and poor Madeline) on trial, so presumably that part was pure Lestat and unscripted, where Nicholas was his first great love and Armand never as much as mentioned. In the books, they never had a fling, not for lack of wanting on Armand's part, but then the tv show doesn't have to follow suit, though it could. In any case, I thought it's telling that Armand presents Nicholas as easily dismissed and irrelevant and all but handwaves away the fact the Paris coven drained him to near death before Lestat made him a vampire (or had to let him die), and that it might (as in the books) have been the becoming a vampire part and Nicholas' subsequent inability to cope with the vampire state that caused Lestat to leave Paris, not anything about Armand.
One big difference/twist/adaptation/whatever you want to call it between booklore and tv lore re: Armand is that while in both cases Armand is co-responsible, and not in a minor capacity. for the death of Claudia and at first lies to Louis about it, blaming it on the coven and presenting himself as an innocent bystander, the tv show has Daniel conclude that Armand was, in fact, willing to let Louis die as well at that point, and only went back to the whole "sharing unlives together" idea once Louis survived. Which is the opposite of what happens in the book, where he ditched the coven for Louis completely. (Note, though, what in both tv and book lore Armand in the 18th century as well as in the 20th was secretly sick and over being coven leader, emotionally went for the outsider coming in and effectively destroying the coven hierarchy, and was very willing to trade the coven for the guy - except that in one case, the guy didn't want him, and in the other case, companionship with the guy turned into a Strindberg tale instead of romantic bliss. What he wasn't willing to do, though, is leave on his own. And that's what's selling me on the fact tv!Armand in the weeks leading up to the trial was ready to abandon Louis (until Louis survived the trial) - he evidently didn't believe Louis would stay with him or prioritize him until then, and Armand, not least due to his own horrific backstory, is unable to function alone (or thinks he is) . He also really wanted Claudia dead in all versions. I think that's sometimes overlooked in fandom due to the coven members being that much more openly vicious to her. But the series has Armand predicting Claudia's imminent demise pretty much from the moment he meets Louis, though he keeps saying she'll commit suicide, unable to cope with her existence as an immortal locked in the body of a child teenager. Now at first glance this might look like an honest opinion. But see, in 2.05, the 1970s flashback episode, we get a graphic illustration of Armand, driven by jealousy and anger at Louis he can't express directly to Louis, torturing young!Daniel physically and psychologically for days until he's talked him into wanting death, and even near the end of that, we see Daniel saying twice he wants to live before Armand, psychic powers at full blast, breaks him, and all this in an episode where in the 2022 timeframe Louis early on confidently tells old!Daniel Armand is able to spot the suicidal ones. Also, we the audience have seen Armand - not Santiago, Armand - doing his best to make Claudia's initially joyful participation in the Theatre des Vampires a misery by letting her play the role of a child on stage, refusing her request to go back to backstage work once she's truly sick of it, and forcing her to dress as a child outside of the theatre as well. There's no reason why he couldn't have accepted her request to go back to backstage work; on the contrary, it would have improved the climate among the coven and soothed the clearly jeaous of Claudia's success othhers' ego, including Santiago's. But it was designed to make Claudia miserable, and I think Armand wanted to fastforward the development he predicted for her and drive her into despair, much as decades later, he wanted Daniel broken and dead because Louis had called him fascinating.
(Sidenote: Actually Claudia, any version of her, at no point in either the book(s) or tv show, or for that matter the movie, ever comes across as suicidal or longing for death. Her issues are around the body she has and how this deforms her existence, but she's never not fierce or a dedicated survivor. Could she have gone insane after centuries in a child/teenage body - depending on whether we're talking book or tv -? Possible. But she didn't in the decades she did live through. The tv show makes a point of letting Claudia, not Louis, be the one who in the midst of WWII finds ways to travel through Europe, pick up several European languages, find food, and come up with cover stories. So I'm currently going with Armand doing a mixture of wishful thinking and projecting his own malaise of being on some level a broken child/teenager made immortal in that (emotional) state on her.)
I would say it's a further sign of getting old, but no, I remember feeling a similar way back in the Torchwood days when the majority of fandom was all over Jack/Ianto and yours truly was monumentally indifferent to that pairing. But: right now, I having this sense of disconnect and/or deja vue when looking for fanfic in various fandoms:
Interview with the Vampire (TV): Look, I loved what the show did with Daniel Molloy! Snarky, rude-to-vampires old Daniel Molloy is my favourite! Whereas I was never much interested in young book!Daniel, his vampire fannishness, or his relationship with book!Armand. What is the fandom writing? Essentially book or book osmosis (the book question being not Interview with the Vampire, but The Queen of the Damned, specifically the chapter The Devil's Minion which in bookverse for the first time reveals what became of "the boy" from the first novel) fanfic, which ill fits the showverse characters, usually starring Young!Daniel from the 1970s. Don't get me wrong, (I thought the young actor playing Daniel in the flashback episode was terrific and really sold me as a younger version of Eric Bogosian, but it's still the older version I'm interested in.) It's not that I don't see much hostile UST between old Daniel and showverse Armand, but the emphasis is on hostile here, which is very different to the bookverse characters and their relationship, and so whenever I see the "Devil's Minion happened" tag I run. Then I thought, maybe I'll get vintage show!Daniel in stories that don't pair him with Armand, but not much luck so far.
LotR: The Rings of Power: Where the hell is autistic Elrond ("needs a hug") coming from? WHY? (I mean, he along with everyone else needs a hug in the finale, obviously. But look, there's a reason why Durin immediately knows Annatar is a liar when Annatar claims Elrond called him "the wisest of all the dwarves". And did we not notice Elrond's gigantic chip on the shoulder/disappointment venting at Galadriel during the first half of the season via pointed digs? Yes, Elrond can be vey kind (especially if you're, say, Disa), but he's also sharp tongued and definitely knows what he's saying when lashing out. If you want an Elven male woobie, this as in so many other ways is defnitely Celebrimbor's season.
(Lo and behold, Galadriel, whether paired up with Sauron or with Adar in fanfic, seems to largely escape damselfication and is allowed to continue being messy.)
Agatha All Along: show: delivers a delightfully messed up exes relationship between Agatha Harkness, villainous witch with huuuuuuge body count, and Rio, who is really (spoiler). Manages to flesh out Agatha as a character from her WandaVision introduction without prettifying or ignoring what she did and what she's capable of. Fanfic: here, the warning tags to run away from for me are "soft!Agatha", "soft!Rio", and all variations thereof.The reason why Rio saying something like "she is my scar" or the tender way she beckons to Nicky are so effective in the show is that she's not like that most of the time. Yes, she's protective of Agatha when the ghost of Evanora Harkness shows up. But this "nobody is allowed to hurt her but me" kind of protectiveness does have a "and we do hurt each other" implication, and while both of their physical fights in the season opener and in the finale have sexual elements of foreplay, they also have quite the viciousness - I mean "death by a thousand cuts"? Slashing Agatha's tendril? (All, mind, before Billy repowers Agatha.) A fluffy couple, this is not.
Also: the moment when Ghost!Evanora showed up I knew Agatha would be next in line for the specific brand of woobification where it's all the mean parent(s)' fault. Now, there's some canonical ground work here, to be sure. (There's a slight problem in that the ghost may or not have been actual Evanora, given that Billy created the Road, but since both Agatha and Rio treat her as the real deal, I'm assuming all she says, including "you were born evil" and "should have killed you at birth" were ic for the late Mrs. H.,E.) But I'm still having trouble buying Agatha as 18th century Carrie White, and also, it's been centuries since then. Again, the show is great in showing Agatha's unconditional love for her son (and the fact she doesn't turn harsh or mean on him when he starts disagreeing with her) side by side to her chilling indifference to everyone else, despite the fact after her original coven, all the other witches we see her meet at first are helpful and friendly towards her. I don't want to read about Agatha, Persecuted Woobie. I want to read about Agatha occasoinally catching feelings despite herself while also continuing to be a ruthless killer.
Back to Interview with the Vampire (TV version), some more thoughts unrelated to fanfiction: Unreliable Narrator is a big trope in both seasons, and I'm wondering and look forward to The Vampire Lestat (the novel) getting the same treatment in season 3, since I bet the show won't abandon the "questioning the narrator" gimmick despite the fact none of the later novel has the interview framework anymore. And of course it already used bits and pieces of the later novels in its s1 and 2 adaptations, hinting at what will and won't make the cut.Nicholas "Nicky" de Lenfent, Magnus, Marius, Akasha: in. Gabrielle?????? I'm assuming we didn't see her in the Armand-narrated 18th century flashback because they didn't want to cast an actress for a cameo and then possibly have to recast in two or three years if they couldn't get her back. But given what they did with Madeline, whom the show evolved from a thin sketch into a fascinating layered character, I'm resasonably certain that they not only won't cut the character but will likely expand her role and/or show us her from outside Lestat's pov as well. (After all, Gabrielle is still around and not dead, so could give her pov. Not least on how Lestat's early vampire days, err, nights really went, because there's already a big clash between what Armand tells Louis (and Daniel) - i.e. Lestat first cheerfully cheats on Nicholas with him, Armand, then dumps him as soon as Armand says "I love you" and leaves town for no other reason than he's just that flighty - and what Lestat says both in that one s1 comment (on the unnamed wonderful violinist he loved, i.e. Nicholas) and his description of his relationship with Nicholas during the trial in s2 (anything said in the trial is evidently skewered, but the Lestat/Nicholas backstory is irrelevant to the coven putting Louis and Claudia (and poor Madeline) on trial, so presumably that part was pure Lestat and unscripted, where Nicholas was his first great love and Armand never as much as mentioned. In the books, they never had a fling, not for lack of wanting on Armand's part, but then the tv show doesn't have to follow suit, though it could. In any case, I thought it's telling that Armand presents Nicholas as easily dismissed and irrelevant and all but handwaves away the fact the Paris coven drained him to near death before Lestat made him a vampire (or had to let him die), and that it might (as in the books) have been the becoming a vampire part and Nicholas' subsequent inability to cope with the vampire state that caused Lestat to leave Paris, not anything about Armand.
One big difference/twist/adaptation/whatever you want to call it between booklore and tv lore re: Armand is that while in both cases Armand is co-responsible, and not in a minor capacity. for the death of Claudia and at first lies to Louis about it, blaming it on the coven and presenting himself as an innocent bystander, the tv show has Daniel conclude that Armand was, in fact, willing to let Louis die as well at that point, and only went back to the whole "sharing unlives together" idea once Louis survived. Which is the opposite of what happens in the book, where he ditched the coven for Louis completely. (Note, though, what in both tv and book lore Armand in the 18th century as well as in the 20th was secretly sick and over being coven leader, emotionally went for the outsider coming in and effectively destroying the coven hierarchy, and was very willing to trade the coven for the guy - except that in one case, the guy didn't want him, and in the other case, companionship with the guy turned into a Strindberg tale instead of romantic bliss. What he wasn't willing to do, though, is leave on his own. And that's what's selling me on the fact tv!Armand in the weeks leading up to the trial was ready to abandon Louis (until Louis survived the trial) - he evidently didn't believe Louis would stay with him or prioritize him until then, and Armand, not least due to his own horrific backstory, is unable to function alone (or thinks he is) . He also really wanted Claudia dead in all versions. I think that's sometimes overlooked in fandom due to the coven members being that much more openly vicious to her. But the series has Armand predicting Claudia's imminent demise pretty much from the moment he meets Louis, though he keeps saying she'll commit suicide, unable to cope with her existence as an immortal locked in the body of a child teenager. Now at first glance this might look like an honest opinion. But see, in 2.05, the 1970s flashback episode, we get a graphic illustration of Armand, driven by jealousy and anger at Louis he can't express directly to Louis, torturing young!Daniel physically and psychologically for days until he's talked him into wanting death, and even near the end of that, we see Daniel saying twice he wants to live before Armand, psychic powers at full blast, breaks him, and all this in an episode where in the 2022 timeframe Louis early on confidently tells old!Daniel Armand is able to spot the suicidal ones. Also, we the audience have seen Armand - not Santiago, Armand - doing his best to make Claudia's initially joyful participation in the Theatre des Vampires a misery by letting her play the role of a child on stage, refusing her request to go back to backstage work once she's truly sick of it, and forcing her to dress as a child outside of the theatre as well. There's no reason why he couldn't have accepted her request to go back to backstage work; on the contrary, it would have improved the climate among the coven and soothed the clearly jeaous of Claudia's success othhers' ego, including Santiago's. But it was designed to make Claudia miserable, and I think Armand wanted to fastforward the development he predicted for her and drive her into despair, much as decades later, he wanted Daniel broken and dead because Louis had called him fascinating.
(Sidenote: Actually Claudia, any version of her, at no point in either the book(s) or tv show, or for that matter the movie, ever comes across as suicidal or longing for death. Her issues are around the body she has and how this deforms her existence, but she's never not fierce or a dedicated survivor. Could she have gone insane after centuries in a child/teenage body - depending on whether we're talking book or tv -? Possible. But she didn't in the decades she did live through. The tv show makes a point of letting Claudia, not Louis, be the one who in the midst of WWII finds ways to travel through Europe, pick up several European languages, find food, and come up with cover stories. So I'm currently going with Armand doing a mixture of wishful thinking and projecting his own malaise of being on some level a broken child/teenager made immortal in that (emotional) state on her.)