“Our old rituals? No. That part of my life is over. I have no wish to resurrect it.
As for ‘fun’, the notion was anathema to our way of life. We permitted ourselves two pleasures: the twin trances of the blood and the Sabbats. I did enjoy those, even if it was a desperate kind of elation that animated us at those times.
After my ascension to the role of Coven Master, I participated less often in the dancing, being expected instead to preside over my flock in their revels. But I would join them occasionally, to reassure them of my faith. There was a kind of innocence to most of them. They truly believed we were all brothers and sisters. For a while, so did I. There was some peace to be had in that.”
Tag Archives: headcanon
Lestat and Language
//Okay, so I find this all very interesting, so a few thoughts/canon/headcanon re: Lestat’s dialect in French and how his French changed/evolved over the years.
-Lestat is born and raised in the Auvergne, which means his French patois is ‘Auvergnat,’ which is a branch of Occitan, a dialect of mostly Provence. This dialect, if you’ve never heard it, is NOTHING like the Parisian French that most of us learn in school, nor is it similar to what would have been spoken in Paris at the time (18th century). Here is an Auvergnat lullaby, and here is what Auvergnat sounds like, around 4:17. Here is an example of L’Occitane.
-Lestat then moves to Paris with Nicolas, and spends quite some time there (I don’t have my book on me). His French of COURSE would have changed, as he’d have been mercilessly teased for his dialect, which would have sounded ‘country’ to the people of Paris. Personally, I headcanon Nicolas’ old Uni friends making fun of Lestat’s dialect and Lestat forcing Nicolas to help him with his Parisian French, but that’s not canon, just my thoughts.
-Lestat then relocates to New Orleans around 1791, a time when Louisiana actually belongs to Spain. The French that Louis de Pointe du Lac is going to be speaking here is a whole OTHER kind of French, probably colored by a number of things: Spanish colonists, French colonists, and the patois of the Haitian peoples who also live there. You can read more about Louisiana French here. I headcanon that Lestat definitely learned the patois of New Orleans, especially since he lived there for around 70 years. By the time he meets Louis, his French is an amalgam of at least two different dialects, though the French he’d speak to the Marquis would have been Auvergnat. It’s a testimony to the fact that Louis must have immigrated while very young (hilariously, Louis is NOT actually Créole), b/c I highly doubt he’d recognize the dialect.
-Lestat then learns English from, as he calls it, ‘flatboatmen’ on the Mississippi and comic books, which is hilarious, and pretty much accounts for his tone.
TL:DR; I just feel very strongly about language, especially the evolution of each of these characters, and I love imagining how their capacities for language and dialect have evolved.
When did you learn to drive? Who taught you?
“I first started to drive just a decade or so after the automobile was becoming widely accessible to the average consumer, sometime just before the 20s I believe. I never had a professional instructor as we think of them today, seeing as they were still rather new and potentially dangerous that most automobile manufacturers or sellers would volunteer a brief guidance lesson. It was odd to see the physical evidence of the world’s transition into the modern era, but the very first time I drove down an open stretch of road I was so overwhelmed with a sense of liberation that I could barely breathe. I cannot remember feeling more free than I did in that moment.
To fully answer the question, I did not get a modern driver’s license until 1957, and I did not require a teacher for that either. It was easy to read the guidebooks and memorize the rules of the road; I even went so far as to read and memorize the entire manual for my Chevrolet Bel Air Convertible. Driving a car is, understandably, much easier with enhanced eyesight and lightning fast reaction time- therefore, I’m an excellent driver by mortal standards and have no need for instruction.”
//ooc: I love this answer. Imagine Louis in one of ^these cute old cars omg! It’s a Circa 1915 Model 37 or 38 Oakland.
NOW imagine him in this (black, of course) 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air convertible:
[X]
// so consider
‘Juliet and the Spirits’ which maharet and eric totally loved is a movie from the mid-60s deliberately made to be psychedelic
we know ancient peoples loved their mind altering substances
proposition: maharet and eric and possibly mael totally spent the 60s getting stoned out of their gourd on acid tripping hippies, watching movies while high, and dancing under the moon 👌
breaking news: all ancient vampires secretly just hippies
L – Louis/Lucien, E – Etienne, S – Sebastien, T – Thomas, A – Augustin, T – Thierry
^Re: names for Lestat’s brothers, yes, good!
Here’s a baby Lestat for ya:
More good de Lioncourt sibling name comments:
@luanna801 said: Okay, I like Etienne and Mireille, and for the others I’m going with Laurent, Seraphin, Theophile, and Thibault. (Judging by ‘Lestat’ Gabrielle liked somewhat unusual names, so I tried to reflect that in some of these. ‘Theophile’ is also a reference to 19th-century French writer Theophile Gautier, who published one of the first vampire stories in 1836.)
@luanna801 said (re: Louis de Lioncourt): @mntyaggrssn Oh man, that would’ve been awkward! I’m sure he’d get over it, but it would probably be really weird at first to be calling your lover by the same name as a sibling. (I tend to think not, though – Lestat probably would’ve mentioned it at some point if Louis had the same name as his brother.)
I saw the movie first, and I loved the way Banderas did Armand. So secretive and seductive and dark (and that hair!). I was kind of bummed out when I read the book to find out he’s like 16 and looks completely different. I’m just wondering if anyone else felt that way.
THANK U. See, this is an example of someone coming into the fandom through movie!IWTV, and enjoying Antonio!Armand. You can be a VC fan coming in from anywhere and like what you like ❤
[I was kind of bummed out when I read the book to find out he’s like 16 and looks completely different. I’m just wondering if anyone else felt that way.]
No, I don’t often get this kind of message, it’s usually how disappointed fans are that he doesn’t match the book description.
But your points are well-taken. He was so secretive and seductive and dark (and that hair!), and tbh I didn’t even mind that it was a wig. Some ethnicities DO have really thick hair like that. I thought it added to his other-worldliness. That version of Armand was turned at a time when it was normal to have super long hair, apparently? Maybe it was important as part of him being a vampire, like it was for Marius, to grow his hair long before he was turned? We’re not told in the movie but it’s part of his mystery.
I remember my own impression reading IWTV for the first time was that he was definitely an adult.
In book!IWTV, Armand is described as having auburn hair, and deep, brown eyes, but I don’t think he was described as being as youthful as he’s described in TVL and later books.
Early this year I came up with a Headcanon. Lestat sings I’m Too Sexy to annoy people. Specifically Armand.
Lestat, did anyone ever mistake Claudia for your biological child? Did you ever play up your physical likeness?
♛ “Oui, many of her admirers would praise her beauty, and, noting our similar coloring and personalities, would assume she was my own biological daughter. On closer inspection, her hair had more of a natural curl than mine, and the color was just a touch darker, like honey, and her eyes were also a touch more sapphire. But such minor differences do happen with children.” *sigh*
[^X] “What we told these people was that she was in fact my niece, and that Louis was her biological father; tragically widowed when his wife
Mireille
(my younger sister) died in childbirth. It was a narrative that threaded the three of us together naturally; in being a part of their lives, I was also honoring my ‘sister.’”
“We believed in this ardently, Claudia would tell it herself, adding her own embellishments.“
has AR ever canonically stated what happens if a vampire eats/tries to eat food? I know they can’t (or don’t) but I can’t remember if she ever said anything specifically regarding food, and I thought I’d ask you since you’re kind of an awesome vc expert haha xD
I’m “kind of an awesome vc expert”? Awww, that’s very generous of you
❤️ I’m not special I’ve just read all these books and talked about them for like 20 yrs ;,D
I don’t think that AR has ever canonically stated what happens if a vampire eats/tries to eat food… I’m not even sure if it’s canon of fanon at this point but I headcanon that they can swallow little sips of liquids other than blood. But not much.
^This is from What We Do in the Shadows, and it’s probably not projectile vomiting like this for Ricean vampires… but it’s hilarious (but GROSS) so WATCH IT (if you can handle the gross). For these and the Ricean vampires, eating people food is bad, but not lethal.
Ricean vampires lose alot of digestive anatomy when they’re turned. So their bodies just can’t metabolize food. Cooking smells are repulsive to them, as Louis describes it in IWTV:
“The slightly nauseating smell of cooking meat… I caught the sweet smell of the spices and the fresh green of marjoram and bay; and then in a wave came the horrid smell of the cooking meat, the blood and flesh decaying in the boiling fluids.“
So if they were to try a bite of a plate of food, it might be like trying to force yourself to eat something inedible, like an old soapy sponge. Unless you’re really determined to eat a thing, you’ll want to spit it out.
I would guess that eating a whole plateful of food would just make them throw it back up, no enjoyment in or out 😛
Not sure about other vampires, like The Vampire Diaries, Tru Blood, 30 Days of Night, Daybreakers, etc.
I seem to recall the Lost Boys vampires were able to eat Chinese food? I don’t remember.
Question for admin: what VC books do you personally consider canon?
(sorry for the delay in reply!)
I’m pretty flexible with canon. A fanfic might choose to disregard everything after QOTD, and I can accept that when I’m reading that fic, or there could be fanart of stuff from PLROA and I can accept that at that time.
I think a fan should at least give every book in the series a chance, you don’t have to force yourself to finish every book, but to crack them open, just give them a chance. Bc I think there’s something of value in every single one of them!
I’ve read them all and I gotta say that if you don’t take them too seriously, it’s worth the effort. But then, I am pretty forgiving and I can do headcanon gymnastics for fun to explain stuff I don’t like, or treat it as AU.
Originally, I was cutting canon off at TVA, but then, a fanfic came along that required Merrick to be canon, and I was pretty floored by the fic. Among other things, it opened up options for L/L that weren’t possible before.
The tricky thing, too, is that AR herself has said that she herself doesn’t think the hybrid Mayfair/VC novels “wore well over time,” so she disregards them and asks us to do so, as well. I know there are ppl who loved BF and BC, so hey, more power to them, but those events aren’t mentioned in PL/ROA so, you can disregard those books if you choose to do so.
In the most general way tho, just in my own headcanon, I accept everything except BF, BC, PL/ROA. Those 4 are AU fanfic to me, except for select elements.
So basically I look at all of canon as a buffet, and I pick and choose what I want to accept, bc even in the most weird/problematic/(or, what we used to call “cracky”) of the books, there are some good moments/lines that I enjoyed!
I-want-my-IWTV 