So I don’t know how new you are, and what you’ve seen and/or read, but unlike many other fandoms: We do not all accept all of the books (and the 2 movies) in our series as CANON. 

[^Louis doesn’t really approve of the series as a whole.]

All of us are into VC for our own reasons, and there are some ppl who are into it specifically for certain characters, time periods, cosplay ideas, etc. Ppl whose interests are similar tend to find eachother and make closer friendships within the larger fandom. Anything that you do not accept as canon can be considered AU or written off as being told by an unreliable narrator, bc all of our characters are unreliable narrators! They all know someone in the coven will read their account of things and they may *~embellish~* the truth if they want to do so ;] Scenes are often retread from different characters’ POVs. You can choose which version you want to trust. Maybe there are elements of both that you find acceptable. 

Even AR doesn’t accept all of the books as canon: she said that

Prince Lestat does not follow the VC/Mayfair hybrid books (Blood Canticle was intended to be the last VC). She wrote PL almost as a stand alone book and lots of ppl seem to be coming into the fandom from that book without reading IWTV which is fine, and more power to them! You don’t need to read the books that lead up to it but you’ll get a deeper appreciation of some of the main characters if you at least read the first 3 books in the series before you read PL. 

Hit the jump for more, cut for length.

Re: differing headcanons: We still have disagreements about what Louis’ hair really looks like, bc some ppl were influenced by movie!IWTV, the official graphic novels, and the fanart which interprets it in different ways. We still disagree over whether Lestat was 20 or 21 when he was turned, and AR herself doesn’t always answer these canon questions explicitly herself (maybe bc she left it ambiguous on purpose, or she forgot, or whatever other reasons). 

Re: PL: There are parts of PL I can accept, just not the whole thing. There are alot of new characters introduced who I personally did not find as engaging as the old set, and the old set did not always behave in ways that seemed true to their own previously established characterizations throughout the book. Other ppl have different opinions. We have RPers who chose the new characters to RP, so they probably accept these new characters as canon.

I probably won’t accept Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis as anything more than AU either, bc it follows PL.

Reasons why fandom won’t accept PLROA as canon:

The main reason would be that AR herself has told us to disregard the Mayfair crossover books. In terms of her own headcanon, she didn’t want to tie these in with the events that follow in PL. So her own books diverge from her own timeline. 

A secondary reason would be the earlier books in the series are generally accepted as the stronger stories with the characters best written.