And on the topic of vampire musicals...

[winter]

Lestat is closing this Sunday

With 39 "official" performances, I believe it did even worse than Crawford's version of Dance of the Vampires. Considering Elton John's comments about a new kind of vampire musical with "no garlic, no crosses, absolutely no dancing vampires", I can't help but chuckle a little. Like von Krolock in my icon.

I pity the cast, though. They assembled such a lot of talented people, it's not their fault the music was trite...

Comments

[winter]

Some scholars, yes. I think Herbert had a nemesis, an old-as-dust professor who remembered a certain dark-haired rebel who used to blow up the medical labs every week like clockwork...

Uh-huh. And for my VK, 34's probably the limit for no silver in his hair, especially with his Tartar genes from his mother :)

[fyrie.livejournal.com]

I think VK and the Missus on this end had been married about 5 years when she got pregnant. They'd tried for years, so it came as a surprise, so VK was already an old father by the standards of the people close at hand. Most his age would have had an heir and several spares by this point. And then, Elisabeth finds out she's pregnant and...

Pardon me, I have to go and kill a mortal!VK, thank you.

[winter]

*hands you the can of Raid*

It works. See that dead body of an 18-year-old slightly sooty medicine student?

[fyrie.livejournal.com]

Um.

Vampire!VK has taken his mortal self under his protection and is glaring at me. I don't think he wants Lise (and, oh goodie, 'their great love') to be neglected.

[winter]

*snickers vindictively*

I'm feeling rather smug about the fact Iza was too love-and-hate for VK to want to revisit that period of his life. Mostly because their great romance consisted of her digging in her claws and dragging him to the altar.

[fyrie.livejournal.com]

*grumbles* Transpires that Johannes' mother was still alive when VK fell for Lise and disapproved of her son marrying someone who was not exactly as young as some of the meat on the market. (Dad had died some time before, which is why Johannes had the title and thus, was Elgible Bachelor #1 at many parties. He hated the fuss so much)

Elisabeth, while a tough little thing herself, was still a tad bit upset by this, because no matter what she did, her mother-in-law disliked her. Even moreso when she couldn't get pregnant. And even when she did get pregnant, Madam VK Senior just sniffed and said a younger person would have been better.

After Lise's death, she starts looking for fresher meat, but VK actually turns on her and tells her he won't marry again. She calls him all manner of rude things and is generously, a heinous bitch of a mother, who is all about position and station.

[winter]

*raises an eyebrow* Sounds a lot like my VK's dad. What happened to her, incidentally?

And my VK tells me his dad's one defiance of social norms was marrying a Transylvanian girl entirely ineligible for a Graf of the Empire, especially with her Tartar looks. He made up for that by being such an incredible git, up to and including locking VK up when he wouldn't give up on the "nonsense" of having visions. (Mommy let VK out, though. Rather a reasonable lady.)

[fyrie.livejournal.com]

VK says he wishes he could say it was something dramatic and assassin-related. Preferably with sharp implements. But it was initially just a mundane spring fever, which weakened her when Lise was still alive, and that was a precursor of the bout of pneumonia that finally did her in about six months after Lise went.

His dad was the nicer one of the parents. He was so used to being of his station that it didn't bother him so, but the Psycho Mother's family had married up in the world and she was determined not to let her newly upgraded ilk sink again.

[winter]

I could see your VK spending a lot of time with dad, then. Shared passion for books, perhaps?

(In my VK's case, books were the one thing they did get along on. The old Graf was big on history, though it was only after his death that VK came back, discovered the hidden alchemy lab and kind of regretted not talking to his dad more often.)

[fyrie.livejournal.com]

Dad was more than slightly eccentric, as well as a decade older than VK's mum, who had him when she was about twenty-ish. I think he took refuge in the library because it meant The Wife couldn't find him or at least, she assumed he was doing important things. She was quite the ferocious battleaxe, running the household with a rod of iron.

(And Johannes just murmured that he crept into the library to hide after getting caught filching food in the kitchen and found dad who was supposably working. He was asleep in a big, comfy chair and looked quite at ease. VK thought his father was a genius ;))

[winter]

:D

Alas, most of my VK's memories of his dad concentrate on failed sword lessons and frustrations. Johannes was absolutely hopeless with a sword. Still is.

[fyrie.livejournal.com]

Turns out VK's mother's brother took charge of the martial arts for my VK, so mum had some semblance of control there as well. Dad was very much a scholar/linguist/intellectual, which drove his mother up the wall. She expected a man so well-travelled to be exciting and dashing and all that.

Turns out, he'd travelled to map out interesting lands and make interesting contacts. He looked fine and buff when she met him, if slightly more aloof and distant than he otherwise would be, because he had the left-over remnant of sunstroke ;) Still, he was all dark-haired, pale-eyed (something Scandanavian managed to slip into his blood line some time back) and intrigingly tanned and she decided she should have a nice, handsome soon-to-be-Graf, if the rumours were to be believed.

[winter]

That sounds so much like Iza and my VK :D Iza was the youngest daughter, spoiled by her family but considered too thin and sharp-faced to snag anyone important. She made vague overtures at VK senior, who had charm in spades in social settings, but alas he kicked the bucket before she could get him in a compromising position and make him marry her. Then VK appears, handsome and well-travelled, with stories of Paris and Madrid and Venice and Rome and Vienna, all those places she always wanted to see, and of course as the Graf he won't sit around in that windy castle, but go back to the great world he's used to. And on top of that, he's a closet romantic, so it was the work of a week for Iza to make him fall head over heels with her.

It wasn't until after the wedding that she realised VK was supremely happy to be back home where he could conduct his studies systematically, not to mention the fact that if he had an attack of visions, all he had to do was lock down his wing of the castle. I think the time she told him (pouting all the while) that she thought she was pregnant, he sent her into hysterics by innocently remarking that he always wanted a big family - five kids or so...

[fyrie.livejournal.com]

VK Senior actually did adore his wife, because she did all the stuff he couldn't be bothered with, but she was still a formidable force to be reckoned with. Johannes was their second child of five. Two died in infancy and the other two survivors were the girls, who were married off when they came of age, because what else are moderately-pretty and well-dowried young women for?

(Also, hee! Littlest sibling is drying the dishes and loudly singing Wenn Liebe :D)

[winter]

*blinks* You know, my VK is being very close-mouthed on the subject of siblings. I think there may have been a disowned younger brother.

(With or without knowing what it's about? :P)

[fyrie.livejournal.com]

VK says he wasn't close to them, really. He was a boy and thus, he wasn't expected to spend much time with them. The younger one, he got along with reasonably well, when mother wasn't looking, then he was sent off to school (a fair gap between those two - she was the last kid) and by the time he came back, she was about to get married off.

(Oh, he knows. And he still maintains if he could meet any Tanz character, it would be Herbert. Oh yes, my brother is extremely heterosexual. Very much so)

[winter]

So your VK hasn't travelled at all except to school? Or at some point between vampirisation and present-day?

(Straigh-boy crushes are so cute :P)

[fyrie.livejournal.com]

Oh, he travelled, but he visited him after studying, then mum announced she had some eligible girls to meet him and he went "Er..." at which point dad amiably patted him on the shoulder and said "run while you still can. I'll divert the dragon" and VK, half-grinning at dad, snuck out the house and went exploring all over Europe, taking some his dad's maps and contact details ;)

[winter]

Better strategy than my VK, then ;) He just didn't bother coming home after his studies in Vienna were done with, especially since I think his mother was dead by then.

[fyrie.livejournal.com]

I think baby-sister sent him a letter, begging him to come to her wedding, so she could cling on him and try and escape (Mum wanted her married off even younger, before the unfortunate bachelor got away). Turns out that after she met the guy, she was quite taken with him, though, so it turned out well enough.

[winter]

More soap opera than my Gothic melodrama, then ;) I swear, half the time my VK's living in a Gothic romance.

[fyrie.livejournal.com]

*g* This is why it will never be written ;)

[winter]

That's what I keep telling my VK about his Tragic Childhood (TM) ;)

(And for the record, I don't think he really got locked up in a tower. He's a drama whore. If he had an LJ, he'd be on Fandom_Wank every 12 hours.)

[fyrie.livejournal.com]

*snickers* And, of course, he would be one of those emo-kids who denies being emo, becuase their pain is like totally so real ;D

[winter]

And half the flamewars would be about the artistic merit of his angsty poetry. Not to mention the fact that he'd be lucky no-one could tell who the pretty blond plastered all over his LJ layout is ;)