“He wore his favorite old dark coat, a little threadbare but so comfortable, and his favorite old flannel trousers and a fine white shirt Armand had forced upon him with buttons of pearl and outrageous lace. But Louis had never really minded lace.”
— Louis de Pointe du Lac; “It’s Hour Come at Last,” PrinceLestat.
or
Louis happily wearing the slut shirt Armand bought him. not slut shaming, tho. i’m sure he be looking like a snACK.
oh my god check @covenofthearticulate’s tags yo LMAO ikr. When I first read this, I pictured flannel-patterned pj bottoms and was like super horrified. But then I remembered that flannel is also a material, and became relieved when I realized he was probably wearing like classic gray pants made of flannel……but then I remembered we’re talking about Louis here…..and we all know how he is with clothes, so there’s like a 50/50 chance it is plaid flannel….and yeah the horror came book tenfold.
JUST SEEING IT I DON’T WANT HIM IN EITHER. JUST TAKE THE PANTS OFF, BABE, GIVE ’EM BACK TO DAVID LMAO. I HATE IT.
Okay but I invite you to reconsider your stance on flannel trousers and argue that Louis would look hella good in them and they’re cool af (and because he looks good in everthing obvs)
Do I want to see Louis in ^^^^?
Yes, yes I do XD
YA’LL HOLD THE FUCK UP HOOOOLD UP WHERE ARE MY GLASSES—I NEED TO DO SOMETHING NO ONE REBLOG THIS ANYMORE UNTIL I COME BACK.
OK YEAH YA’LL JUST CONFUSED ME IDK ANYMORE I HATE THIS BOOK FR NOW (and yes kacy imma go reblog the glasses post bc i had to do this all w/o them; also, @sangriche, get in here my friend, i saw that reblog!! join the train wreck) AND YEAH PICK YOUR POISON. I’M DONE.
JESUS CHRIST I DID NOT EXPECT TO START AN ENTIRE THREAD ON THIS BUT I’M CACKLING AT Y’ALLS RESPONSES 😂 God damn it, Louis, why can’t we have one nice thing???
I love that model above. Handsome. I’ve seen him several times, especially in relation to VC/Louis and I am happyier for it. Pretty men make me happy!
@princelesthottie your fanart is lovely thank u! Proof once again that, in fact, Louis looks great in everything.
@terryfphanatics, Yes Miles McMillan is lovely and a fandom fave Louis faceclaim ❤
I’m with @wicked-felina Louis ain’t no #briefcase wanker, that is highly unacceptable.
@covenofthearticulate I’m glad your tags sparked this serious discussion, I love it!
@theraphaellus I appreciate your trouser suggestions but MIGHT I SUGGEST (these are similar to your 1st pic but tighter and softer-looking, I think)(Also possibly these are lower-riding on the waist, which, yes plz):
^These might be wool but I they could also be flannel. Louis could rock the whole outfit PLUS UNDERCUT. [X model is Mariano Di Vaio]
BUT I, for one, really love the idea of Louis wearing pajama flannels and giving no fucks, too. I mean if he hangs around at home curled up with a book or some other sedentary activity 90% of the time, why bother putting on outside pants??
Daniel has gotten him some ridiculous pajama bottoms with silly pics on them like Hello Kittys and Louis loves them.
So, I was bored last night on my day off, and I decided to re-watch “IWTV,” just for fun, of course. I remembered how much I fell in love with the costumes by the lovely Sandy Powell, and so, I wanted to design one for her. Hang in there with me on the description, but here goes nothing:
I know, I know— it probably looks too much like the blue one she already wore beside Madeleine in her final hours, but I wanted it to a mirage of blues from dark cerulean to sky-blue. And then just for fun, I swept some Phoera glitter eyeliner over the finished colors for a sparkle effect. On her small cap sleeves and the large sash on her dress in front, there are black beads. I wanted a nice contrast between the colors, so that’s what came out. Well, I haven’t even finished the dress design if I’m honest!
But mostly, I designed this dress for her with the thought of Louis’ quote involved: “We reached the Mediterranean. I wanted those waters to be blue, but they were black, nighttime waters, and how I suffered then, straining to recall the color that in my youth I had taken for granted.”
I dunno why, but it seemed fun to do. Sorry for the monologue, but I just thought it’d be fun to share. I will also do the re-imagining of costumes of other characters!
Wow! It’s lovely, I think Sandy Powell would be pleased, Claudia would adore it. Nice tribute to the quote from the book! The glitter for the glittering waves? Black beads for contrast, the morbid touching on the lively aspects, since they are undead.
I was digging around in my archive bc I was SURE I had ONE fanart of Louis and Claudia fighting with the European zombpire, but I can’t find it :[ Maybe someone else knows of it?
Have this, anyway, at least this creature doesn’t have to waste money on lipstick, no lips!: [X]
[I’m re-reading the original trilogy (IWTV, TVL, QoTD), and I was wondering if any of the later books ever talk about the revenant Louis meets in Transylvania with Claudia? Is it ever explained? What do you think caused it?]
I don’t think those European zombpires
are ever explicitly explained in the first 3 books or mentioned in later canon (except in a vague way in TVL by Armand and Marius, quotes further down this post). I might be wrong. If they are mentioned in canon again, I don’t think it was explained what they are :-
TL;DR: The Dark Gift is not an exact science. Your theory could be right! Personally, I don’t think the zombpires share the same origin story as the conscious vampires in VC. Some fans think AR included the
zombpires
as a way to sort of low-key slam the older vampire mythos, since her vampires are SOOO much better… with no issues with crucifixes, having reflections, etc.!
I don’t think we know enough about the zombpires to say definitively how they’re made, so it’s kind of up for grabs in that sense. However each reader sees it! Your theory about the mortals closing their minds during the Dark Trick could be the answer!
If a mortal was deliberately closing their mind to a vampire intent on turning them, thus locking the vampiric parasite out of their head/memories… that could be a reason for the mortal MIND not accepting the vampiric parasite, resulting in THE BODY turning, but NOT the mind, the mortal LOSING their mind to madness, having lost control of their body, thus, zombpire. Quite possible! Would random mortals know how to do this? Could be an unconscious defense mechanism? Maybe!
Hit the jump for more on this, cut for length and/or spoilers.
[My personal theory is that when a vampire makes someone with their mind closed (the way we know some can do), it results in a revenant, as all the making-scenes in the series describe sharing memories and emotions; it seems pretty vital!]
That’s possible, in VC context, closing one’s mind is smtg you do to protect your mind from being read by others, and it takes practice and skill. Talamasca members seem trained to do it.
Refusing the Dark Gift or accepting it, a strong will to live does seem to be a necessary element. Even the vampires who were turned against their will (Lestat, Marius, etc.) actively refused it right up until their last breaths, but that shows a strong will to live, not a closed-off mind. Just in IWTV:
Lestat tells Louis to be still and listen for their blood flow, keep his consciousness during the process: “It is your consciousness, your will, which must keep you alive.‘”
Learning from this, Louis tells Madeleine to keep her will to live, “" `Hold fast to me when I take you,’ I said to her, seeing her eyes grow wide, her mouth open. `And when the swoon is strongest, listen all the harder for the beating of my heart. Hold and say over and over,“ I will live. ” ‘”
And other Dark Gift scenes have some variations on that, I think.
In IWTV, Claudia is fascinated by the European zombpires, tries to puzzle them out, she’s considering how much blood needs to be exchanged and how strong the heart of the mortal is:
“But Claudia’s waking thoughts were of a far more practical nature. Over and over, she had me recount that night in the hotel in New Orleans when she’d become a vampire, and over and over she searched the process for some clue to why these things we met in the country graveyards had no mind.
… ” `After all, what does it take to make those creatures?’ she went on. `Those vagabond monsters? How many drops of your blood intermingled with a man’s blood … and what kind of heart to survive that first attack?’
But how would his blood get into them? He’d have to have an open wound, idk, it seems kind of awkward to imagine Louis accidentally turning any of his victims, and it makes him super uncomfortable to talk about it with her.
Later in canon we see vampires giving drops of their blood to mortals to heal them or as a sensual gesture, and those mortals aren’t given enough to turn them, so that little isn’t enough to make a zombpire.
Claudia seems to think it’s really about the strength of the heart of the victim:
“ `That pale-faced Emily, that miserable Englishman …’ she said, oblivious to the flicker of pain in my face. `Their hearts were nothing, and it was the fear of death as much as the drawing of blood that killed them. The idea killed them. But what of the hearts that survive? Are you sure you haven’t fathered a league of monsters who, from time to time, struggled vainly and instinctively to follow in your footsteps? What was their life span; these orphans you left behind you-a day there, a week here, before the sun burnt them to ashes or some mortal victim cut them down?’
^This seems to fit in line with the needing a strong will to live.
The Children of Darkness chose their fledglings with care, and even then it’s unpredictable. Armand in TVL:
But let Armand understand here also that the effect of the Dark Trick is unpredictable, even when passed on by the very young vampire and with all due care. For reasons no one knows, some mortals when Born to Darkness become as powerful as Titans, others may be no more than corpses that move. That is why mortals must be chosen with skill. Those with great passion and indomitable will should be avoided as well as those who have none.
Marius confirms this, still in TVL:
But no matter, only so many children can be made by one in a century. And new offspring will be weak. However, this is not necessarily a bad thing. The rule of the old covens had wisdom in it that strength should come with time. And then again, there is the old truth: you might make titans or imbeciles, no one knows why or how.
Nicolas might have become such a zombpire, the way he was barely functional as a fledgling at first.
By midnight it was clear that [Nicolas] would not speak or answer to any voice, or move of his own volition. He remained still and expressionless in the places to which he was taken. If the death pained him he gave no sign. If the new vision delighted him, he kept it to himself. Not even the thirst moved him. And it was Gabrielle who, after studying him quietly for hours, took him in hand, cleaning him and putting new clothes on him. – TVL
^But he does move when prodded and Lestat thinks Gabrielle can telepathically communicate with him, which makes him more functional than the European zombpires. Lestat is finally able to rouse him with the violin, so was Nicolas just refusing to talk, etc, or was he really unable? We don’t know.
i totally can’t remember there being an eighth 😮 what book is that from?
In TVL, Lestat talking about his mom:
[Gabrielle] had always been silently unhappy. She hated the inertia and the hopelessness of our life here as much as I did. And now, after eight children, three living, five dead, she was dying. This was the end for her.
Bonjour! I’m well, thank u, thanks for the blog lurve! <333
I don’t think his other brother was ever mentioned by name, no 😛
I don’t really love this bit of canon but it’s an interesting explanation; in Blackwood Farm, Lestat says his name is “compounded of the first letter of each of my six older brothers’ names,” so they’d have to have started with L, E, S, or T, bc A was for Augustin. And two of his brothers started with T.
I was working on a ficlet at one point and wanted to include this unnamed brother, talking about him in a PM with someone, and came up with “Étienne,” which is a French equivalent of Stephen/Steven.
Proooobably it’s bc I headcanon him as looking like Steve Zahn and I CANNOT explain why that is, but I am 99% married to this headcanon.
^This is from Joy Ride.
I think it’s bc he’s somewhat attractive, but only bc of his cartoonish attitudes, very smarmy but simple-minded, seems like the younger of the two brothers, desperate to please the older one, Augustin could easily lead him around, he wouldn’t question being ordered to beat on his younger brother, even if he didn’t take much pleasure in it.
So the brother’s names (not necessarily in birth order) would be:
L-?
E- (I am really attached to Étienne!??)
S-?
T-?
Augustin
T-?
Lestat
Off-topic but still, I like to think the eighth de Lioncourt was a girl, bc really, 8 boys in a row is unusual. @viaticumforthemarquise named her Mireille, I think *u*
//Hey thanks so much for the birthday wishes and such a great question!
GOD I love Louis for so many different reasons and could really go on for days lmao but I think the main reason I love Louis so much is that he reminds me why humanity and life is so precious. I’ve always found his character interesting because as one of the first “reluctant vampire” tropes, he was vampire I was introduced to who had a moral compass.
This is going to sound a little weird and maybe a bit narcissistic, but for my job training, I had to take this personality test called the Clifton Strengths Analysis test, which will tell you what your strongest personal and leaderships skills are. My number one “strength” was empathy. And while I wasn’t thrilled to have empathy as my strongest quality, I’ve actually learned to love it, through learning how Louis utilizes this quality throughout the series.
When we first meet Louis, he is the personification of guilt because of what happened with his brother, but that guilt sticks with him throughout his transformation, and it becomes incredibly important as he attempts to navigate the new world as a transcended being. He is conflicted as hell, and insists on punishing himself via starvation because he is so heartsick and guilty and full of grief both for his brother, and for his humanity. When he is first turned, the empathy that he possesses doesn’t exactly work in his favor. He is overly empathetic, and refuses to take life because he empathizes too much with everyone (this is doubly hard considering that he does not have the mind gift, so he cannot weed out the bad seeds from the good ones; he tends to assume most people are innocent, or at least undeserving of death). But as he grows older and begins to figure stuff out, I think he is finally able to sympathize and empathize with humans in a gentler way, and I really admire that. He eventually learns to exist in the world and admire the human beings that he walks amongst, and I love that about him. In fact, one of my favorite moments in the series is when he stands up to Akasha and says:
“Then kill me! I wish that you would. But don’t kill human beings! 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.”
He is fiercely attached to the human race, even though he is no longer a part of it, and he’s even willing to risk his life for them.
Another of my favorite things about Louis is that he’s ridiculously complex and dichotomous as a character, which makes him super interesting in my eyes. You know that phrase: “I’m lover, not a fighter, but I’ll still kick your ass”? Yeah, that’s Louis. Like I said earlier, he’s very empathetic and intuitive and emotional, and he purposefully remains the weakest vampire and rejects the vampiric gifts because he wants to remain as close to being human as possible. Yet his determination in fighting the vampiric gifts makes him incredibly strong in a different way, and I really admire that. Louis, unlike Lestat, Armand, Marius, and most of the main characters of the series, has never went under ground. He has stayed alive and sentient for two and a half centuries without needing a break. His stamina and stubbornness are incredible, and yet when people think of Louis, these usually aren’t the first qualities that come to mind. Louis is a Romantic, melancholic beauty, sure, but he’s also like a great oak tree: strong and solid and unyielding.
And at the end of the day, he’s a straight up ruthless killer. We see this in his treatment of not only Lestat, but Armand’s entire coven. And while these were killings of passion, it is also evident that he is a meticulous and heartless killer when it comes to his hunting methods. In fact, one of my favorite moments in the series is when the Queen of the Damned herself calls him out and says: “Yet you yourself are the most predatory of all the immortals here. You kill without regard for age or sex or will to live.” So how can someone so full of emotion and empathy kill so carelessly? I think the answer lies in the fact that he does not have the mind gift, and has never willingly accepted or used it, so he cannot pick out the “evildoers” like the others, and therefore must kill indiscriminately. But one thing that I also headcanon is that because Louis is so constantly tormented by guilt and overwhelmed by emotions, he could never sustain himself if he didn’t have some way to switch the emotions off; he’d be too drained to do anything (in fact, we even see this scenario play out in his first few years when he’s feeding on chickens and rats). So he eventually learns how to switch those emotions off when he hunts. It’s a defense mechanism. And while it ensures his survival, it also makes him dangerous as fuck, because that means he can switch of his empathy and love for mankind like a fucking light switch.
ANYWAY, I think my main love for Louis can be summed up in this description of him by Lestat:
“Just a little blood, and Louis might be stronger, true, but then he might lose the human tenderness, the human wisdom … the gift of knowing others’ suffering with which Louis had probably been born”
TL;DR: I love Louis because he is so complex and though he is the most human-like vampire who possesses an aching tenderness and erudite nature that speaks to my very soul, he is also a dangerous badass whose moral stance is highly debatable. I love all sides of him!!
Adam Driver is extremely gorgeous and so talented, I really enjoyed him in SW and I’m looking forward to whatever he does in his career!
It took me a moment to make the connection between Adam Driver and Armand, bc the book version of Armand is very different from the IWTV movie version!
In the movie version of IWTV, Armand is played by Antonio Banderas, a tall, dark, masculine vampire of the Old World. I can see where you might see some Adam Driver resemblance there…
However! In the books, Armand was turned at 17 yrs old*, he has auburn hair, and he is supposed to look more angelic (and androgynous enough to pass for being female, as he says in TVA).
*“I was perhaps seventeen years old when Marius made me into a vampire. I had stopped growing by that time. For a year, I’d been five feet six inches.” – TVA.
This has been a bigger point of contention in VC fandom than the “Dumbledore said calmly”/”DIDJA PUT YA NAME IN THE GOBLET AFIRE??” issue in Harry Potter fandom 😛 Why Antonio and not smne resembling the canon character? You’ll find some answers in my #defending Antonio tag.
To my mind, I would love to have Adam as a vampire in our series. If we cast him as a more canon-compliant character, I would suggest Santino, Santiago, or even Nicolas de Lenfent. But we probably can’t afford him now *cries*
I-want-my-IWTV 