Tag Archives: actual quote

But what if one had a broken nail when turned into a vampire? Would they grow uneven for eternity? So annoying!

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Fingernails are not subject to the Rule of As-Is, my new term for the aspects of appearance someone has as a mortal that will be strictly adhered to when they are turned (like the fact that they are missing a limb, or their hair is shoulder-length, things like that).

[X Lestat left one of his vicious little thumb rings w/ me <3]

It could stay uneven/broken for other vampires in other media.

Why aren’t Ricean vampire fingernails subject to the Rule of As-Is? Well, as you say, an uneven/broken nail would be hella inconvenient for eternity! But none of AR’s vampires ever mentioned having this issue, and with so many vampires, who have known so many more vampires, collectively, surely one of them would have brought it up by now if it were a thing. So I have to conclude that fingernails are not subject to the Rule of As-Is.

[^Claudia’s aren’t long but she was a child, special exception. In Ricean vampires, their nails also have a kind of glassy sheen also my hands are prettier than Louis’ hands]

I headcanon that their nails grow to a certain length when they are turned, longer than they were in life, and will grow back to that length after being filed down. Lestat files his nails, he’s doing it in IWTV:

“And he drew
from his pocket a nail file, and, seating himself on the foot of the old
man’s bed, he began to file his long nails…  I could
hear the old man talking to Lestat; Lestat, who sat with his legs crossed,
filing and filing, one eyebrow arched, his attention on his perfect nails.”

Bc in vampire lore, in general, abnormally long fingernails are considered a sign of being a vampire. This comes from the fact that when you exhume a body from its coffin (to check to see whether dead Auntie Vivienne has been turned into a vampire *gasp*), the nails appear to have continued to grow, therefore, Auntie Viv must be undead! In fact:

“It is not that the fingernails are growing, but that the skin around them retracts as it becomes dehydrated, making them appear longer. When preparing a body, funeral directors will sometimes moisturise the fingertips to counteract this.” [X]

The thought “if I was ever to be turned into a vampire it better be after I pluck, shave and get a nice haircut” troubles me more than I am willing to admit. Am I the only one?

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You don’t have to get groomed before you’re turned, AR doesn’t always specify if ppl do. I doubt Frida Kahlo would have! To pluck or not, to cut one’s hair or not, depends partly on the culture you’re from and what you personally consider beautiful.

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[^Frida Kahlo by Fabrian Ciraolo check out his stuff he is so cool!]

Me, I’d LOVE to never have to bother with it again, but I’d probably let it be somewhat natural under the brow, like Brooke Shields had in the 80′s, so that I’d have that option if I wanted it, bc I am a child of the ‘80′s and this is still beautiful to me:

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It’s part of the package. The women who were turned before shaving one’s legs was expected (presumably it was a sneaky way to sell more razors :P) probably have natural legs. Louis doesn’t mention shaving his face before he was turned, we don’t know if Lestat has scruff.

“I could hear Lestat in his room, the sound of water splashing from his pitcher. The faint smell of his cologne came and went like the sound of music from the cafe two doors down from us.” – IWTV

^Is he shaving? Is he brushing his fangs? Maybe he does have some scruff! He didn’t mention being freshly shaven before Magnus turns him.

It definitely creeped Jesse out in QOTD, but partly bc she didn’t really know what was going on did they shave her legs, too?:

“…Was this a funeral parlor?

It came again, the fear that she was dead, locked in the flesh yet disconnected. She
heard a curious sound; what was it? A scissors cutting. It was trimming the edges of
her hair; the feel of it traveled to her scalp. She felt it even in her intestines. 

A tiny vagrant hair was plucked suddenly from her face; one of those annoying hairs,
quite out of place, which women so hate. She was being groomed for the coffin,
wasn’t she? Who else would take such care, lifting her hand now, and inspecting her
fingernails so carefully.”

Gallery

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gamurd:

GOING TO HELL: a vampire chronicles playlist

❝

Evil is a point of view. We are immortal. And what we have before us are the rich feasts that conscience cannot appreciate and mortal men cannot know without regret. God kills, and so shall we; indiscriminately. […] For no creatures under God are as we are, none so like Him as ourselves, dark angels not confined to the stinking limits of hell but wandering His earth and all its kingdoms.

❞

 

LISTEN

mortal!Louis suffered claustrophobia? how’s that?

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“And you did get into the
coffin?”

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[X] “I had no choice. I begged Lestat to let me stay in the closet, but he laughed, astonished. `Don’t you know what you are?’ he asked. `But is it magical? Must it have this shape?’ I pleaded. Only to hear him laugh again. I couldn’t bear the idea; but as we argued, I realized I had no real fear. It was a strange realization. All my life I’d feared closed places. Born and bred in French houses with lofty ceilings and floorlength windows, I had a dread of being enclosed. I felt uncomfortable even in the confessional in church. It was a normal enough fear. And now I realized as I protested to Lestat, I did not actually feel this anymore. I was simply remembering it. Hanging on to it from habit, from a deficiency of ability to recognize my present and exhilarating freedom.

– IWTV

It’s up to each reader to interpret that quote as his having just a dislike for small spaces or legit claustrophobia, I interpret it as legit claustrophobia.

I find it disturbing that the only mention of New Mexico was in QOTD, and it wasn’t favorable. Is there a reason the vampires hate New Mexico? I mean It isn’t that bad, is it?

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That doesn’t mean the vampires hate New Mexico, lol, even tho I don’t remember it being mentioned anywhere else in canon other than QOTD, either. 

The only reference I see of New Mexico in QOTD is a very passing mention by a mortal (a bad guy) who’s dying: “Paralyzed, couldn’t move, thinking he was a kid again on a farm or something in New Mexico. Just baby talk.”

That wasn’t unfavorable (being mentioned by a dying bad guy doesn’t mean all ppl who had a childhood there will turn out to be bad guys), and doesn’t represent that the vampires hate New Mexico.

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^Here’s a gif of Claudia playing w/ her food bc it’s similar to the scene in QOTD, someone else is playing w/ their food a little. 

Keep in mind that there’s a lot of canon that takes place in other places and time periods. New Mexico was admitted into the US in 1912 [so sayeth Wiki] idk if there were vampires there before or after that, but there may have been restrictions about crossing the border before 1912. Also, travel for leisure is a relatively modern thing. In fact, Louis doesn’t mention any travel for leisure during IWTV, the three of them just stayed in New Orleans for 65 years? It’s possible. 

Does Anne make it clear how much power the vampires have in the world? Like in terms of economic or political influence, or control of banks or other institutions? It just seems natural that, being so rich and being around for so long, they would gain as much influence as the Freemasons, Rothschilds etc. Thoughts?

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As always, #your headcanon may vary, but from my own reading of the books and the characters focused on (the main coven), AR does not make it clear how much power the vampires have in the world* beyond the fact that they’re rich if they want to be (like Armand and Daniel owning and running the luxurious Night Island, a lucrative hotel/entertainment/casino/art-space/etc.), or not (Louis living in a dilapidated shack w/ few physical possessions).  

Santino and the Children of Darkness might have had some impact with their religious zealotry, but targeted at the world in more of a negative way, a League of Shadows sort of group. Other vampires, especially the new ones introduced in PL, we don’t know much about their interest in economic or political influence.

Speaking of Louis… 

he put the Coven of the Articulate’s stance very eloquently in QOTD (my emphasis added):  

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[^Louis by @remarried]

“It’s their world, not ours,” he said humbly. “Surely we forfeited it when we lost our mortality. We have no
right now to interrupt their struggle. If we do we rob them of victories that have cost them too much! Even in
the last hundred years their progress has been miraculous; they have righted wrongs that mankind thought
were inevitable; they have for the first time developed a concept of the true family of man.

… Don’t interfere with them.
Even if they kill each other! Give them time to see this new vision realized; give the cities of the West,
corrupt as they may be, time to take their ideals to a suffering and blighted world.“ 

Cut for length, not spoilers.

*That was the issue that was brought up in QOTD, whether they had a responsibility to have political power and/or have influence the world or not. There was a council of sorts, and some heavy debate was had, mainly on the part of Lestat’s ultra feminist SJW girlfriend vs. literally everyone else except Lestat who mostly sat there terrified into silence and not taking sides, and it ended with the general agreement that they shouldn’t meddle in mortal affairs.

This is partly bc writing their involvement into actual historical events could be difficult if not impossible (What, did they fight in WWII? Which side? How would that even work, concealing their vampirism from their fellow soldiers??!), and partly bc AR herself wasn’t very political back in earlier canon.

Even now, in the later books, AR keeps her world mostly separate from the Real World; IIRC, Hurricane Katrina was never mentioned in canon, and one would think that NOLA-branch coven founders Louis and Lestat would at least comment on that obviously devastating tragedy. At least one fanfic writer did take up the challenge of weaving in Katrina, and did it very tastefully. So it’s possible, but AR hasn’t gone there.

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Of course, he gave me a doll as usual, the replica of me, which as always wears a duplicate of my newest
dress. To France he sends for these dolls, he wants me to know. And what should I do with it? Play with it
as if I were really a child? 

“Is there a message here, my beloved father?” I asked him this evening. “That I shall be a doll forever
myself?” He has given me thirty such dolls over the years if recollection serves me. And recollection never
does anything else. Each doll has been exactly like the rest. They would crowd me out of my bedroom if I
kept them. But I do not keep them. I burn them, sooner or later. I smash their china faces with the poker. I
watch the fire eat their hair. I can’t say that I like doing this. After all, the dolls are beautiful. And they do
resemble me. Yet, it becomes the appropriate gesture. The doll expects it. So do I.

– The Vampire Claudia, Queen of the Damned

Source: mortem-et-necromantia

So I have a question for you. In the book Merrick ( if you’ve read it, you probably have) Merrick Mayfair puts a love spell on Louis. Now if the VC vampires could engage in sex (P+V) do you think Merrick and Louis would of had sex?

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[^ fanart by @liquorandptsdvarietyshow who deactivated, but I’m crediting them and I have permission to repost their art]

We don’t really know much about mortal!Louis’ sex life… in the movie he had been married, and the wife had died in childbirth, one would hope that was his kid, and then he was hanging around w/ whores when he was trying to get himself killed, but he barely even acknowledges that one whore’s presence, even though he has his arm around her to stabilize himself. My general impression of Louis is that of all the vampires, he’s one of the least sexually-motivated.

In IWTV, Louis tells Claudia re: sex: “ ‘It was something hurried,’ I said, trying now to meet her eyes. How perfectly, coldly blue they were. How earnest. ‘And… it was seldom savored… something acute that was quickly lost. I think that it was the pale shadow of killing.’ ”

We don’t know if he just said that to be make her feel better about the fact that she’ll never experience it but Louis usually tells the truth.

I don’t think Louis would have had sex w/ Merrick.

Spoiler alert.

So would Merrick and Louis have had sex? If Merrick wanted it she probably could have voodoo’d him into it, she voodoo’d him into breaking his moral principle to never make another vampire. Without bewitching him, I’d say no.

So we reach into the raging chaos, and we pluck some small glittering thing, and we cling to it, and tell ourselves it has meaning, and that the world is good, and we are not evil, and we will all go home in the end

The Tale of the Body Thief, by Anne Rice (via vampchronfic)