She wants “mass produced and readily available action figures …that might pass for Lestat, so that anyone could have one for a few bucks” !!! Anne, do you know how much Barbies cost these days? More than “a few bucks” but still, I like where she’s going with this.
I think that’s different for everyone, and #your headcanon may vary, so your headcanon is as valid as any! Who knows how true to canon the new adaptation will be? It would be fine with me if they want to update his musical taste/sound, as long as it seems in character.
But canon-wise, Lestat awoke in the mid-80s, before MCR was formed. AR wrote TVL w/ the 70′s and 80′s in mind. She’s mentioned Bon Jovi was a major Lestat muse for her (she even included him on the PL dedication page).
There’s fanon that Lestat loves Bruce Springsteen, too. So I’d say he would sound like a mix of Guns ‘n Roses, Bon Jovi, and Bruce Springsteen.
When whoever was in charge chose Korn to be the sound for Lestat’s band in movie!QOTD, they weren’t aiming for canon accuracy, but it was an interesting take on it.
There’s also a Lestat band on FB you can check out, I think they officially got AR’s permission to use the name.
Lestat: “Louis I was thinking we could be married under the sea.” Louis: “You mean by the sea, that’s very romantic-” Lestat: “Nonono, you misheard me. I said UNDER the sea.” Louis: “We will drown.” Lestat: “We are part mermaid, it’s totes cool” Louis: “We are not getting married.“
Your guess is as good as mine! I’m guessing Blood Paradise was pushed back to be published after this book. Could be that AR had this book ready and BP is not, bc planning a wedding is pretty complicated and all that!
And my guess, based on outside of tumblr discussions, for the PLROA (yes that is our new acronym gawds) book is that it will be mostly Amel telling us how awesome Atlantis was, and why it fell, and that there’s some unresolved thing for Lestat to swim run over there and fix, and then return to lounging around the castle or whatever they’re doing, bc the Proem seems to set up that everything’s been resolved and this is the report after the fact, like QOTD.
UPDATE: She changed the title of Blood Paradise to Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis:
FURTHER, that the Atlantis story had already been smtg she was working on for years and Lestat was added in later:
I gave the vampire’s fear of sunlight a physiological explanation that had to do with the physiological laws that govern a spirit world or a cosmology. The spirit that has taken them over and made them inhuman is too sensitive to sunlight. It can’t thrive in sunlight — it’s simply paralyzed by sunlight, and weakened — and it can’t enliven their flesh. Therefore, the flesh starts to burn, because the flesh is dead anyway. The dark gift of immortality has different effects on different people. That they respond in different ways. Some people are emboldened, and some people are weakened. Some people are crippled by it, and destroyed by it. Other people are made into monsters by it. But the fundamental thing that happens with Louis is that it doesn’t change him. He is a guilt-ridden adult, living in grief over his dead brother, and he becomes a guilt-ridden vampire, living in grief over the fact that he has to take life in order to live. Perhaps it’s a lesson to Lestat that the basic personality doesn’t always change.
One can criticize a work, create AU fanworks of it, or create an entirely original work. I would encourage everyone to write the story they want to read. Be the change you want to see in the world!
(^Unfortunately, many PoC in VC have unhappy endings. Keep in mind that she’s an evildoer in the book, which wasn’t explicitly stated in the movie. She murdered her clients.)
I’m a straight white lady, but I can understand how frustrating it must be to see one of your favorite authors release novel after novel in one of your favorite series and feel left out of the story bc your race/gender/etc. is not represented (or it’s fetishized, or represented negatively). I can understand how it might feel like the author is saying that you don’t exist (or matter enough) to them to place someone like you on their stage. It may be that they would love to write about a character like you but don’t have the knowledge/confidence/etc. to do the character the justice they need.
However, in my opinion, an author is not a vending machine. No matter how successful they are, an author is not required to cater to their readership. Sometimes they make an effort to do so, as in the case with J.K. Rowling supporting her readers in their headcanon of Hermione Granger as a PoC. (Another concise article on that here: X).
AR has always advised us to write the story we would want to read. Publishing houses turned her work down for years until she found one that chose her story for what it was. Knopf felt her story would sell really well so they took the gamble on it. A publishing house doesn’t want to invest huge sums of money in something unless they think the odds are very good that they’ll make a worthwhile profit. I would ask that the criticism be leveled more towards publishers than the authors of stories which lack representation.
In this day and age it is easier than ever before to self-publish and get your story out there. Anna Todd did that with her One Direction fan fiction, “After”, and here’s a quote from AR (w/ my underlines) about it bc I feel it’s relevant here: [X]
In the same post, AR writes: “And in this great world in which we live, no writer is really in direct competition with any other writer. There’s room for us all. We can each try our personal best to write the books of our dreams and to become the writers of our dreams. And I’m really glad Fifty Shades came along. I am happy for E.L. James. And I’m happy for all the people who like “Fifty Shades.“ ”
“…The amazing thing about the writing world is that there has always been a lot of room in it, and a lot of heartbreak. We’re never directly in competition with some one who makes it big; there are so many avenues, so many spots on the bestseller lists of the world…… We’re really in competition with ourselves, driven to outdo ourselves. That’s how I see it anyway.”
So, write the story you want to see in the world! If it’s compelling, others will want to read it, too.
List of more VC PoC under the cut.
(Not including PL characters bc there are so many! And some ppl do not recognize PL as canon. Go to wiki for those.)
David Talbot – he becomes Anglo-Indian
Davis – from the Fang Gang, not explicitly stated other than “black,” so African American, possibly.
Merrick Mayfair – mixed race
Tarquin Blackwood (I think he is, can’t remember specifically), and other supporting characters in Blackwood Farm.
Akasha – from Egypt
Enkil – from Egypt
Khayman – from Egypt
Avicus – from Egypt
Azim –
Himalayan? Maybe? He has bronze skin. That’s where his temple is.
Benji – Arab, Bedouin
Eudoxia – Can’t remember specifically, but I think she is a VoC. She is described as having white skin, but that may be due to her age (centuries old already when Marius meets her).
^This is a legit screencap from her FB page, I just added the highlight. For the record, AR loves fanart, so keep it coming! ☆° ｡:.ﾟヽ(´∀`｡)ﾉﾟ.:｡+ﾟ ☆
As for the fanfic, here’s my long post on it, with a bunch of her statements about it, but basically, she ignores fanfic:
“I got upset about 20 years ago because I thought it would block me,” she says. “However, it’s been very easy to avoid reading any, so live and let live.
If I were a young writer, I’d want to own my own ideas. But maybe fan fiction is a transitional phase: whatever gets you there, gets you there.” – Anne Rice, Nov. 2012.
Still, her POTP occasionally bring things to her attention needlessly (like this blog post about someone’s bad experience in VC RP), with overly polite language like, “Anne, I hope that you’re aware that…” trying to provoke a response out of her. She still has rights and a lot more money than we do, so it’s important that we respect her.
Nothing really, there are rumors swirling around about casting for the new cinematic adaptation(s) of TVL (allegedly out in 2018! The first of a trilogy!) which is in the works. I think AR is very smart not to comment or speculate on any of that, bc it’s out of her hands. She has no power in it. I’m following her lead and won’t react until official announcements are made, except for my usual #VC Casting tag.
Peruse my #VC News tag to catch up w/ AR’s writing progress on the next VC installment and the cinematic adaptation of TVL info ;]
I-want-my-IWTV 