Bowie’s his brother from another mother! Lestat loves him to bits.
There’s definitely some David Bowie in Lestat (fashion, looks, attitude, musical prowess, etc!). Especially Jareth!Bowie.
Check my #david bowie tag for more.
♛I have and we’ve watched it together more than once. My criticisms about it are for Louis’ ears only. I will say that the actor they cast for me did a very accurate job, but I am much more attractive than he is, they could have just cast me *winks* but then all the other actors might have broken character swooning at my feet, so, it probably worked out for the best.
[//ooc: ^X dug this old gem up from the archive! I made it before I was watermarking things. BTW can u believe that’s Travis Fimmel?! from his modeling days… he could have made a great Lestat then, he’s so grizzled now, not sure if he’d want to be so pretty ever again…]
Well… your message sat in my inbox for 5 days bc this is a question every reader has to answer for themselves. It partly depends on how much canon you’ve read.
[^X “I love him in ways that I can’t explain to other people. They don’t understand… it’s not their fault.” is that not canon?!]
IWTV is Louis’ account of their time in that era, and as @vraik astutely pointed out, Louis admits that he’s holding back information when he says “If I held something too close for you to ask about it, I would not bring it up in the first place.” Lestat says as much near the end of TVL, that Louis left many things out. *~Unreliable narrators!~*
And movie!IWTV had even less of what Louis says in the book, because it had to be edited for the sake of time… many scenes in the book were not in the movie. Also, it was made in the early 90′s, keep in mind that it pushed the envelope for its time re: showing any homosexuality.
tl;dr: I ship Louis/Lestat, I don’t need to define my ship as romantic, sexual, or platonic, etc. I just hardcore ship them TOGETHER.
Hit the jump for more, cut for length.
While they don’t “date” in canon, Louis talks about Lestat in IWTV with a lot of fascination, and later, Lestat writes about Louis with a lot of fascination, too (more, really!)… and they don’t actually kiss in canon until the 3rd book, right before Lestat’s big concert, and then they’re separated again soon after. It’s a ship that takes alot of Read Between the Lines.
Most of the vampires who are turned in canon are turned bc their makers love them so much that they can’t let their loved one be perishable any longer. Whatever Louis’ perception was of IWTV!Lestat, it seems clear to many of the fandom that Lestat chose Louis for more than his wealth and/or friendship, and that now, in later canon, the feelings between them are mutual.
AR answered this in 2014 when she was answering #Fan Questions for Lestat, in which she RP’d Lestat admitting that Louis would be his “Forever Companion.”
There was an article out in 2012 that had some varied comments worth reading about it: Anne Rice confirms that the vampires Louis and Lestat are a same-sex couple with a child.
io9: There’s the concept of Louis and Lestat as Claudia’s “parents,” which we see in the novel, movie and now in the graphic novel. When you know the narrative, it’s not quite the modern statement it could appear to be visually, in the adaptation. Are you okay with that as an idea for the new century?
AR: Sure! [Laughs] Sure! I never thought of it, they were the first vampire same-sex parents.
io9: I had wondered if that had been a thought on your mind before.
AR: No.
io9: That’s the way that it seems to be shown, it’s very much “she’s our daughter now.” So I can say, they’re a same-sex couple with children?
AR: Absolutely! Claudia! She’s their daughter.
My additions to one of the comments is pretty funny and you should check it out bc hey, you’ve read this far so? KILL MORE TIME.
♛These are truly frightening the times for many people, and you have every right to be afraid. There’s no shame in that fear.
I’ve seen tyrants like him fall on their own accord, through their own mistakes. Whether that happens or not, we must do what we can to build ourselves and our communities stronger, and refuse to surrender.
I take heart in the fact that great progress has been made in the past few decades by others who fought for their rights. The power of the President is limited, and there are many groups ready and armed to defend those who need defense. One such group is the ACLU: “The ACLU works to ensure that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people can live openly without discrimination and enjoy equal rights, personal autonomy, and freedom of expression and association.”
In June of 2015, the Supreme Court declared same-sex marriage legal in all 50 states, we all celebrated. Just one example of something fought for and won for the LGBT community, not the first, and not the last.
[^X by @sheepskeleton]
♛I don’t eat junk food.
♛Merci, visage gris. There absolutely was fun and decadence on my birthday evening, you know I can’t help but put the “laughter” in “slaughter.”
[^X @phantom-evil]
They do care, and they probably would have intense debates about the candidates, but they wouldn’t advocate for one or the other. You can check out Lestat’s answer to this question here.
I think Louis put their stance very eloquently in QOTD (my emphasis added):
[^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.
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.
(Side note: Louis and Claudia left America close to the beginning – or before? – the Civil War started, it wasn’t addressed in canon, Lestat was on his way to Paris to see Armand, and then Lestat slept through WWII…)
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.
♛ Merci beaucoup… and yes, I can give Louis plenty of kisses at your request, he deserves them!
[^X Kisses! by @obsessional-ram]
♛Thank you, I am beautiful, aren’t I? Well, we don’t eat cake, you might say we’re gluten-intolerant *smiles* There were candles but he was supervised with them…. I mean, do you want an idea of what I have to deal with? Imagine waking up to this in your yard:
[X]
♛Thank you! Yes, I have already learned my lesson about Louis and fire… Had to be taught more than once, but it finally got through to me. He has to be supervised with all forms of candles.
[X]
I-want-my-IWTV 