u/PortraitofMmeX

I only read the books through Queen of the Damned so forgive me if I missed it, but why/when did we go from Gabrielle to Gabriella? I hate it!

>!In the opening scene of E1 of TVL one of the auction lots includes a song cycle set to the poetry of Baudelaire.!<

Please note that this post was not written with AI in any way, either in research assistance or in drafting my thoughts. My own dumb brain is responsible for all of these words, in the order they appear below.

Many musicians over the centuries have been inspired by Baudelaire. He is considered one of the most influential figures of the French Symbolist and Decadent movements, and one of the first Modernists. It makes perfect sense for Lestat to be interested in Baudelaire.

Symbolism was concerned with dreams and feelings, rather than realism. We know this is a central theme of IWTV. The Decadent movement took this aesthetic even further into hedonism, fantasy. Classic rock star shit. Very TVL, as we've already seen.

So okay, that all makes sense. So what was the point of the Symbolists, and the Decadents? What was the point of Les Fleurs du mal? What can that tell us about Lestat, then?

Well, we already know that >!"the failures"!< are not going to be the objective truth. We already know this season is going to be bombastic and baroque. But I think what the >!Baudelaire song cycle!< confirms above all else is that it is both reactionary and intended to cause an incendiary reaction >!(quite literally, as we see in that opening scene, but also as the story unfolds to its audience)!<.

The Symbolist and Decadent movements are both essentially saying, the natural world, the real world, is insufficient. It sucks (haha we got vampire jokes), and living there just raw-dogging realism is pointless. What is real isn't the point, the effects of what is real are what matters. If you have to aesthetically bend or embellish or imaginatively editorialize something to convey its effects, in a way that is more real than reality.

Les Fleurs du mal is, to vastly oversimplify, about idealism and death. Aesthetically, it depicted its themes in such a provocative way, Baudelaire was formally prosecuted and the poems were banned in France until like the 1950s. I think we can also expect that kind of aesthetic boundary pushing from Lestat this season, with similarly prosecutorial (is that a word?) consequences for him as the author of his story.

>!If you have read the books, you probably already expected this, narratively speaking.!<But I like the way it is also being emphasized aesthetically, in the formal aspect of the story telling and not just the narrative (because I'm an art historian so I like to look at the pictures okay). And in a meta sense, not just Lestat's in-universe story >!recorded in "the failures"!<but also in the way TVL is being told to us, the audience. The concert? Let's all pretend this is real? Brilliant.

You can peruse Baudelaire's Intimate Journals on the University of Virginia Library website. Parts of them are really funny if you read them in Lestat's voice (although, as a content warning, Baudelaire viciously hated women and there is a lot of misogynistic garbage in these writings). Some bangers:

• Anyone, provided that he can be amusing, has the right to talk of himself.
• The Dandy should aspire to be uninterruptedly sublime. He should live and sleep in front of a mirror.
• To be a useful person has always appeared to me something particularly horrible.
• There are but three beings worthy of respect: the priest, the warrior and the poet. To know, to kill and to create.
• [Pages upon pages of disgruntled rambling about how much he hates George Sand]
• Do not punish me through my Mother and do not punish my Mother on my behalf

I'm an adult re-rider. My family did not have horse money. As a kid I worked my butt off as a working student to get to ride and be around horses. I had to quit because there was no one to drive me to the barn as a 12-13 year old. During the pandemic as an adult I was looking for some outdoor activities I could do and realized I had adult money now, and could take riding lessons again.

I ride at a serious jumper barn now. I leased an amazing jumper for 2 years, been successful in rated shows. I have worked so hard to save up more discretionary money than I ever have in my life to buy a horse of my own, finally.

Where are the horses?????? Now that I have, not a huge budget but a reasonable budget to buy a horse suitable for my level and goals, there aren't any? It's the year of the horse and I am going to spend it without a horse. I'm pretty depressed about this. I am trying so hard. I made a stupid FB account just to search horse ads (I don't have meta accounts), I check the sporthorse sale sites every day, my trainer is looking, my friends know to keep an eye out.

I'm just really sad about it. I miss having a horse (my lease jumper retired). I miss showing, I miss training. I miss having a 1200 pound dog to take for walks and brush and play with and love. I miss being part of my barn community (I'm back in the lesson program while we look but it's not at all the same). 2-3 years ago I would look at the sale pages and there were dozens of options and it motivated me to be really financially disciplined to save up so I could have one and I did that and now there are no options.

Just complaining. If you're also sad about horse shopping, this is the place for you. Let's complain together.