Oh definitely, he is alot of ppl’s headcanon for Lestat ❤
^X Robert Plant by @remarried
robert plant, what a gorgeous creature. ref used, photoshop.
Those #ship kids are SO cute. Tell @superhiki directly how much you love them!
You are not alone, there are others out there. People: Comment/Reblog if you ship Lestat/Armand *u* It’s an AU ship for me, I can ship almost anything AU.
They have a bizarre kind of chemistry, don’t they?! If they weren’t both so obsessed with being alpha, they could really enjoy each other.
This is one of the only fanarts I’ve seen of them in any kind of shippiness, and even then, I think it’s the scene in TVL where Lestat is succumbing to Armand’s illusions.
[Source unknown, even reverse-image searched. Tell me the source if you know it!]
Anyhow they have referred to eachother in canon as being brothers of a sort, so I tag them #murder brothers, if you want more Lestat/Armand action.
If your headcanon is different, that’s great! Variety is the spice of life.
(2) In my experience, having been in VC fandom for 20+ years and on tumblr for about 3.5 yrs, yes, I’ve seen a lot of IWTV-era fanart depicting the male characters with feminine features, you may be right about that. But not all of it is.
[^X Louis, Claudia and Lestat, IWTV-era, by @superhiki, who often uses Daniel Tighe as a reference for Louis, and fandom favorite Danila Kovalev for Lestat (and, not pictured here but worth mentioning, Hiki uses fandom favorite Bjorn Andresen for Armand)]
(3) I get the impression from your message that you consider that “fanart of IWTV makes the boys look like girls” is bad/wrong/incorrect. If that’s not your point, I apologize, and you can skip to (4), but if it is your point, please see this post about fandom policing, here’s an excerpt from @spiderladyceo:
“And no matter how well-meaning you are, you don’t get to tell other fans what they can and cannot write, or draw, or enjoy.
When you start telling people what they can create or enjoy, you invalidate the purpose of fandom, and create a situation where instead of free exploration, we have something similar to mainstream media in which certain tropes or topics are not allowed. This limits the free expression, exploration and innovation so highly prized in fandom.
…You don’t get to tell fans how to enjoy fandom. You mind your own path, your write your own fic, you write meta on why x trope is offensive/problematic/bad but you do not tell other fans how to enjoy fandom.”
(4) I don’t quite understand your distinction between “feminine” and *female* features, except that I consider “female features” specifically to mean female genitalia and secondary sex characteristics (breasts). So I’m only going to address “feminine” features.
On that point, “smaller jaws, bigger eyes, softer features, bigger lips, small/arched eyebrows” are not exclusive to female characters. Jason Momoa is a man with
BIG EYES, thick lashes, arched brows, big lips, soft jaw, round face,… and I think he is a cis man.
(5) I don’t speak for all the fanartists, but I sent your ask out privately to several fanartists, fic writers, etc., and the general consensus was that if you want to know why a fanartist or writer has made certain artistic choices, you should ask them directly about it and they will answer if they choose to do so.
Some reasons they gave for drawing characters the way they do:
^[X] fanart of Lestat/Louis by @sheepskeleton based on
[X] this picture of Andreja Pejic (left) and Erika Linder (right).
^X Lestat by *HRFleur is so lovely. And someone commented on it that they think he is handsome w/o looking feminine.
“I don’t think he looks like Tom Cruise. I think he looks better! it’s as if you took the essence of Lestat from Tom and pulled the real Lestat out. He looks as though he’s about to say something sarcastic or perhaps become peevish over something. I like that you made him handsome without looking feminine.”
^Not my comparison pic, I took it from Janet Carr @ THIS BUG’S LIFE’s post about the Jesus depiction issue. Carr writes that the more feminine Jesus depictions are “actually pictures of Cesare Borgia, son of Rodrigo Borgia, Pope Alexander VI, and brother of Lucrezia Borgia… Pope Alexander VI had all previous depictions of Jesus destroyed in about 1492, and replaced with images of his son. Henceforth, these have been the images used to depict Christ.”
^Here’s our feminized Jesus and early 90′s Brad Pitt, for comparison. I remember Brad being criticized
in the early 90′s
by men for looking too feminine. The pic above is from a magazine, the Italian caption is “Blond, blue eyes, beautiful in spite of himself, and with a smile <<capable of reversing feminism 25 years>>.”
I didn’t put any of that under a cut bc I spent a lot of time on this response and I have found that people will reblog, trying to make a post into a discussion, without reading what’s under the cut. People may still want to try to do that, as this is a social network that encourages discussion, but I’m probably not going to engage any further in this topic. I think I’ve made my point, which is that fanartists draw what they want to draw.
There’s alot of unauthorized VC merch out there, and some of it’s pretty good! Like this cute locket w/ the IWTV cover:
Or you can get an adult replica of Claudia’s dress:
Some of it’s really horrendous tho… I find this really tasteless:
[X]
@gingerhairedimmortal-archived used Caleb Landry Jones as a face claim. I agree w/ the age thing, he definitely could pass for 16, IMO.
There’s a sweetness to him, he’s got some charm.
Can he be bad ass enough? Idk, I haven’t seen him in much. Only Byzantium, which I really did not like, which wasn’t his fault. He wasn’t very remarkable in that movie to me.
This is one of those ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder’ things, I can’t quite articulate why he doesn’t come near my headcanon for Armand, but hey, he could be a fantastic actor. You’re not the only one who’s suggested him, so I’d screentest him, if it were up to me ;]
You gotta give him a hand! At least one.
(Bc I couldn’t choose which one, you get both a silly and a sad fanart)
The silly:
^X
The sad:
^X Our Oldest Friend by Mizzy-chan
…in the book Armand cut off another Vampires hands so he wouldnt kill himself. In “The Vampire Lestat” Armand is this kind of really i cant think of any other word to describe him but “emo” vampire. So I just kind of imagined Armand sitting there all emo holding another Vampires severed hands. I dunno…
I think they might have edited this remix together, lol.
I don’t think AR has said anything about casting Claudia specifically.* It’s another tough role to cast age-wise, bc she’s supposed to be just barely 5 years old, and 5 year olds definitely age.
^X @claudia-lilvampire found this pic of Christopher Mason and his daughter Basie (she looks closer to 4 here?), very Lestat and Claudia ❤
Casting Claudia will probably not be an issue if they start with TVL, bc Claudia’s only in IWTV, and just mentioned in later books. But… let’s cast an actress as Lestat’s little sister for TVL, the 8th de Lioncourt child, and then have her play Claudia, too! The resemblance would be so heartbreaking! ;A; Mireille de Lioncourt, so named by @viaticumforthemarquise.
For funsies tho, I must inform you… awhile back, @hyperbeeb suggested Mia Talerico [X], who just turned 9 on 9/17/16, and I have to agree!
Mia’s had a long career already (IMDB says she was eleven months old when she started filming Good Luck Charlie, so that’s 7 yrs of acting, being directed, being comfortable in front of the cameras, etc.). I did a whole post about her here. She’s pretty much my headcanon when I write Claudia.
^Perfect disingenuous apology, very Claudia.
Hit the jump for more thoughts, cut for length.
IIRC, there was alot of difficulty finding a 5 yo talented enough to play Claudia in movie!IWTV. Kirsten Dunst was the first they auditioned of one hundred actresses, varying in amount of experience, from around ages 5-12. The 5 yr olds struggled with the intensity that the part required… so I wouldn’t mind if they aged her up to 10 or 11. If they cast a 5 yo who looks perfect but can’t act like the frustrated adult inside, it won’t really work. Having a slightly older Claudia also makes it more upsetting for her as a character bc she’s so close to getting that older body she so desperately wanted ;A;
If Claudia’s in the new adaptations at all, I think it will be as a ghost (in later books, she sort of haunts the Rue Royale, Louis, and Lestat), which could also be animated and voice acted by an adult.
*tbh I don’t follow AR’s FB or her Official VC FB feed religiously. I wait for ppl to send me specific things. It’s just too much for me to follow her myself.
Ah, okay. Nicolas had a rough time in canon, sadly ;A;
[^X Nicolas by @unionthesalmon – plz reblog from X or the source]
“Armand was a little bitch just because of the whole Nicki thing.” – Armand may have been trying to help Nicki in the ways he knew how. Armand had been a coven master for hundreds of years, dealt with madness from many ages of vampires, maybe this was something that helped in other cases. It could be seen as cruel from our mortal standards, but maybe that was considered a reasonable form of treatment for vampires.
We only have the account of Nicolas and Armand’s interactions in Eleni’s letters and very little is said. No one ever brings it up again (unless they do in PLROA, which I still haven’t finished), and since we only have the one account, I can’t jump to the conclusion that Armand was definitely torturing Nicki. He can be cruel, but Lestat asked him to take good care of Nicki, and I feel like Armand tried to do the right thing.
“And I agree with you that Nicki was mentally ill” – Some ppl headcanon that he was, and I don’t know what I think about that, but again, maybe Armand was trying to treat the illness and save Nicki!
“And I freaking loved Nicki, I cried when he died. If Armand hadn’t have done that, would Nicki had lived on? Maybe not, but still.” – If we go by my theory that Armand was trying to help him, maybe Armand’s treatment prolonged Nicki’s life. We just don’t know.
If Armand was really torturing Nicki, I think we would have found out more about it in TVA, or some other book, or Lestat would have confronted Armand about it.
But whether Armand really antagonized Nicolas to his death or not, Nicolas had enough reason on his own to end badly even before Armand got involved… as Nicolas tells Lestat, it was his intention all along to fail:
“All a misunderstanding, my love, ” he said. Acid on the tongue.
The blood sweat had broken out again, and his eyes glistened as if they
were wet. “It was to hurt others, don’t you see, the violin playing, to
anger them, to secure for me an island where they could not rule.
They would watch my ruin, unable to do anything about it.” I didn’t
answer. I wanted him to go on.“And when we decided to go to Paris, I thought we would starve in
Paris, that we would go down and down and down. It was what I
wanted, rather than what they wanted, that I, the favored son, should
rise for them. I thought we would go down! We were supposed to go
down.”
Perhaps becoming a vampire was not the cure for that intention/feeling/illness, and it just magnified the self-destruction he already felt ;A;
Thanks for lovin’ mah blargh
♥u♥
I understand, and I sympathize, we’d all love to have someone who’s closer to our headcanon for Armand *hugs* (I also appreciated Banderas’ Armand*, and @vraik had a post worth checking out re: the casting of Banderas instead of someone who fit the canon description better).
That said, an “accurate representation” is pretty tough to ask for bc actors are all human, and there will always be room for improvement. This is especially true re: a character like Armand who may be one of the furthest from being human than any of the other VC characters. Angel, demon, coven leader, youth, imp, etc… he is many things. And AR is not totally wrong, people do age, and it would be unfortunate to have to recast a character bc their actor “aged out” of the role, extra sad if they had built up good chemistry with the other actors!
What we need is someone who’s a little older than necessary who has that elusive *~forever-young gene~* (you know, like Keanu Reeves, someone who doesn’t age), and there are such ppl! I have it. I’m 33 and people still think I’m 17:
^This was before I got my haircut, but it’s pretty recent, no airbrushing, the mirror’s a little dirty tho OH WELL. I’m also posting it w/ this response bc really, the only VC character I could cosplay would be Armand, it’s just the face shape I have, being half Russian and all.
You can dig around in my #VC Casting tag for more ideas but here’s a few, under the cut.
Casting Armand is gonna be tough, bc not only does he need to look that young and stay that young, he also needs to look like a painted portrait, I mean who really looks like a Botticelli angel?! And even then, we don’t all agree 100% on what these characters look like, we’re all influenced by our own culture’s ideals of beauty, our own aesthetic tastes, etc. So my choice of Botticelli angel might not even be yours.
But let’s assume we all agree on THIS angel for the sake of argument, and we hand this over to a casting agent:
[^Madonna of the Pomegranate by Sandro Botticelli, circa 1487, detail]
Fortunately, there are ppl out there who refuse to age, who look younger than they are already, and that’s the kind of actor I’d want ;3 so…
Hit the jump for some options, cut for length.
^Levi Miller, AR’s choice at one point, not sure if she still wants him. I think he’s 15 now, but that face, very childlike. Too childlike? idk.
^X Jaco Van Den Hoven, model, is 26 now, but looks like he could pass for ten years younger.
^X Armand by @teambratprince (hit the X for larger version!) which is really one of my fave fanarts of him ever, and it was based on Jaco Van Den Hoven.
^X Matthew Clavane, a current fandom fave, idk how old he is. Could pass for 15 but he’s a working model so I assume he’s 21+?
^Thomas Brodie-Sangster is 26 and could pass for 15. Idk how old he is in this gif.
^Kirill Nikolini, also a model. @faceofabotticelliangel‘s FC for Armand for awhile. Idk how old he is in the pic or now but… an option? Maybe.
*The book version of Armand, IIRC, was not really developed as much in IWTV, yet another reason they could cast Banderas (preeeetty sure you know by now that I have a place in my heart for his Armand, too <3). I’m pretty sure that his physical appearance is sketched out (auburn hair and brown eyes) in IWTV, the focus is more on his attitude and what he says. His description is clarified in TVL and the later books.
I-want-my-IWTV 