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@carnadelions

nadiya, she/they.
"Get clothing for him," Armand said. His hand was resting on my shoulder. "He must look presentable, our lost lord," he told them. "That was always his way." — The Vampire Lestat, Anne Rice

whenever someone compares ilya the hockeyman to lestat i get the visual of an indoor cat with a kill count of two socks and one roll of toilet paper looking in the mirror and seeing a fly-ridden blood-soaked lion

shadow of a doubt (1943) / interview with the vampire (2022-)

The same blood flows through our veins, Charlie.

I couldn't help comparing these two dynamics as I watched Shadow of a Doubt (1943) last night -- Lestat as the uncle Claudia once admired. The one she relied on to teach her about the pleasures of their nature. The fantasy breaks when she realizes Lestat's goal is to possess her in favour of keeping his family bound to him, just as Charlie Newton's faith in her uncle as the keeper of a joyful and dynamic life is broken by his murderous actions.

They are two forces that are more similar in their passions than they care to admit, and perhaps more capable of hurting each other than anyone else. Charlie knows her uncle better than anyone -- it's why she's able to figure out he's the Merry Widow Killer. Claudia knows Lestat, at least the dark part of him, even better than Louis. Louis, the brother, and Emma, the sister, are too in love with Lestat and Charlie to do detective work. To beat Lestat you have to become Lestat. To corner Uncle Charlie you have to meet his sinister disposition with your own version of taunting. The gift of death, a ring around both their fingers. Both rings signifying the false commitment to honesty, to an ultimately dangerous love. Physically binding the girl to the father/father figure in so many ways. By his own possessive hands around her face/chest/neck, by the way he holds the promise of a family over her head. (What will it do your mother?/What will it do to Louis?)

A daughter/niece puts on the armoured skin of the violent man in her life. It's how she survives. In the end, both Uncle Charlie and Lestat are freed from their wretched lives, aka killed by the young woman they tried to cage. And there is something so dreadfully intimate about both deaths. Physical closeness for Charlie and her uncle, and Claudia staring down into his eyes, and then writing in her diary with Lestat's blood. The thing you created, groomed to be your very own blood, will always be your greatest downfall.

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