I, uh. Haven’t posted any drabble offers or memes for probably about a year, so I’ve no idea what challenge you’re referring to. I’m sorry, but I hope that you like this little bit anyway!
Louis always took longer than Armand did to wake. Armand could have used that time, spent it, but for what? What purpose, when the being by whom he marked his place in the world still lay dead? Instead he would lie nearby, almost immobile himself, and observe. Little things intrigued him, at first. The fan of jet lashes across a sheened cheek, the shadow cast wavering with the gas-lamp’s flame. The warm light and that movement all combining to make Louis look something other than a corpse. In Paris, he’d believed so dreadfully that Louis was not dead. By weeks and months, he began to learn the signs, and the lack thereof. To differentiate a twitch of eyelid from a wayward air current, a move to wakefulness from wishful imagining. And then he began to learn more. A fly’s weight was not enough to disturb the torpor their kind remained in during their personal day-lengths. An insect could buzz about Louis’s ear or crawl over his skin, tolerated and unnoticed. Insignificant. The curling hair was deader than dead, soft and smooth between Armand’s fingers, utterly unbothered when he stroked it or twisted it into fine plaits to puzzle his love upon waking. The cold flesh… Cold, cold, soft cheeks and chest and lips he could touch for only a moment. Their kind could defend themselves, if need be. A deep, reptilian thread of self-preservation ran through their back brains, keeping them alive even when they seemed empty and lost to all, and it was… Violent. Fascinating. When Louis’ claws slashed Armand’s wrists, when his white hands crushed his throat, when his lovely ivory fangs rent Armand’s trespassing mouth, it all felt like hope.
lol no, Ricean vampires don’t actually need to sleep in coffins.
[Lestat’s about to read Louis the bedtime story “Go the F*ck to Sleep”]
They do sleep in coffins in IWTV, tho, bc what they do need is complete protection from sunlight, and from anyone who might disturb them during the day. NOLA had those huge French windows everywhere, lots of sunshine in every room 😉
The deathsleep takes them and they’re powerless against it; when the sun is up, the vampires are down.
Ricean vampires, unfortunately, are condemned to enjoy the Deathsleep which renders them unconscious for the daylight hours. The plus side being: no snoring can wake them! Not that they can snore, since they don’t breathe. But still.
Louis, IWTV: “Numbness came over my limbs, and then the paralysis of oblivion.“
Louis, IWTV: “You see, I wasn’t sure then why I awoke each evening when I did, whether it was automatic when the deathlike sleep left me, and why it happened sometimes earlier than at other times.”
In movie!IWTV, yes, Claudia is awake right at dawn and seems fully conscious, as she tiptoes carefully around the sunlight.
^It was too perfect a moment not to include in a movie about lonely ppl, that singular act of a daughter climbing into bed w/ her mommy!Louis (bc we all know he’s the mom) rather than sleep alone! ❤ And purely platonic at that point in the movie.
There is a fic out there that suggests that Ricean vampires do awaken during the day when they are under extreme emotional duress, and it’s a very disorienting state to be in, they can’t function very rationally, as nocturnal animals also act erratically in daylight.
I sleep in a bed when at home….and mostly when I travel. I prefer it and it is comfortable to awaken in. I do keep coffins in hidden areas of the house, however and these are fail-safes, when I need to feel more secure. The ground or tombs only when there is no other alternative….or I’ve decided that I’ll sleep for a few decades or so.
I have also found that I sleep less now than I ever have before. It is possible that my “promotion” has altered my need for it. During the day, if I am awake, I stay hidden in the dark as much as I can…it stings my eyes less and I don’t have to move around much.
In true slumber, I will murder anyone that I sense to be a threat and this seems to be an unconscious action. I have found that if blood is shared, I’m less inclined to sense them as a threat and kill them. So it is possible to sleep in bed beside me or in my arms…..however, for all intents and purposes, I am dead. Pooled blood, rigor mortis, clouded eyes….all that fun. So be prepared to sleep next to a corpse for several hours.
Ricean vampires, unfortunately, are condemned to enjoy the Deathsleep which renders them unconscious for the daylight hours. The plus side being: no snoring can wake them! Not that they can snore, since they don’t breathe. But still.
Louis, IWTV: “Numbness came over my limbs, and then the paralysis of oblivion.“
Louis, IWTV: “You see, I wasn’t sure then why I awoke each evening when I did, whether it was automatic when the deathlike sleep left me, and why it happened sometimes earlier than at other times.”
In movie!IWTV, yes, Claudia is awake right at dawn and seems fully conscious, as she tiptoes carefully around the sunlight.
^It was too perfect a moment not to include in a movie about lonely ppl, that singular act of a daughter climbing into bed w/ her mommy!Louis (bc we all know he’s the mom) rather than sleep alone! ❤ And purely platonic at that point in the movie.
There is a fic out there that suggests that Ricean vampires do awaken during the day when they are under extreme emotional duress, and it’s a very disorienting state to be in, they can’t function very rationally, as nocturnal animals also act erratically in daylight.
Hit the jump for a bit moar, and spoilers.
(Similarly, Louis seems to be painfully awake as Claudia and Madeleine burn in the sunlight ;A;)
When movie!Louis takes revenge on the Theatre des Vampires, it’s right before dawn, and he is perfectly able to function right up until he leaves the safety of the theatre, and it’s the sunlight more than the fact that it’s daytime that saps him of any functionality. But that was part of the plan, revenge, then suicide.
Ricean vampires can, however, fight in that unconscious state: Lestat says Gabrielle defended herself in her sleep: “And those mortals who did find us during the daylight hours, unless they exposed us to the sun at once, were doomed. For example, outside Palermo she had slept in a cellar far below an abandoned house, and when she had awakened, her eyes and face were burning as if they had been scalded, and she had in her right hand a mortal, quite dead, who had apparently attempted to disturb her rest.”
Amount of sleep needed seems to be related to the age and/or power of the vampire, and Louis, being weaker, needs more beauty sleep than the older and stronger ones.
Even in a place like Alaska in which nighttime extends during the winter months, Ricean vampires are still susceptible and want to fall into a reasonable Deathsleep rhythm.
In QOTD, Akasha purposely chases the night around the world, preventing Lestat from falling into the Deathsleep. Whether it was bc she had too much to do in too little time, or she was purposely using sleep deprivation as another means of controlling him (or both), we don’t know, but Lestat reflects on it:
“We’d been following the night around the world, perhaps, or rather moving at random in it, as Akasha maybe didn’t need at all to sleep.
I needed it, that was obvious. But I was too curious not to want to be awake. And frankly too miserable.”
Akasha tells him, a little bit later, that he requires sleep for his upgrades: “But you must sleep now. You are young still and fragile. My blood’s working on you, changing you, perfecting you.”
Vampires in other media, like Only Lovers Left Alive for example, CAN stay awake during the daylight hours if they feel like it, and they do sleep in beds. Are they trying to imitate mortals? Maybe!
^So Claudia has a bed, and it is covered with dolls, but why even have a bed if you don’t plan to sleep in it at all? Oh wait bc sexytiems… not for Claudia tho, she has a bed to hold her doll collection and dead figure drawing models ffs… In the books they sleep in beds, now that there are really good blackout curtains available.
^In movie!IWTV, Claudia was able to be awake during the daylight, she just couldn’t let it touch her. I don’t think she (or the other Ricean vampires) would have wanted to try to adopt a day/night sleep schedule like a person… even if they physically could, vampires seem to be nocturnal animals and prefer it that way.
Choice is really irrelevant with Book!VC (Ricean) vampires bc they succumb to the Deathsleep; they are physically unable to stay awake during daylight hours. Even in a place like Alaska in which nighttime extends during the winter months, Ricean vampires are still susceptible to a reasonable deathsleep rhythm.
Vampires in other media, like Only Lovers Left Alive for example, do stay awake during the daylight hours if they feel like it, and they do sleep in beds. Are they trying to imitate mortals? Maybe!
I-want-my-IWTV 