@laurasking submitted: I headcanon that when he’s out driving his Bentley (or other expensive cars), Armand carries a driver’s license that gives his name as So-and-so the Third, while the vehicle registration is in the name of So-and-so the Second…so any cop who pulls him over assumes he’s joyriding in daddy’s car.
Yep, believable. Armand loves to f*ck with ppl’s perception of him!
That’s so sweet of you! You’ve made my day, telling @wicked-felina and me this *u*
VC has few F/F (are we supposed to call them w|w now?) ships, there is plenty of room for more. It would be such an honor if Yvette and Jesse became a new ship thanks to our little AU!
Jesse/Yvette was something we didn’t predict, and it’s not a real ship (yet!). Btw, that’s Hattie Watson as Jesse on the right, from her IG. I’m using a pic of Yvette from movie!IWTV bc our Yvette was originally inspired by movie!IWTV’s Yvette, who some of us headcanon grew up with Louis and was more of a sister to him than his own sister. That they genuinely cared about eachother. In our fic,
Yvette is a baker par excellence, grew up with Louis, and they even were a couple at one point. That’s long over now, but they’re very good friends.
[X] Lookit this cutie, Hattie Watson! She has tatts, she could be a modern AU Jesse w/ tatts.
♛Merci, my hair is magnificent, is it not? No real routine, just rinse the blood and dirt out after a kill, if there is any to be rid of… Louis doesn’t like scented products. Perhaps the blood and the dirt are good for one’s hair? Hmmm…
We got a question about our headcanon of Louis’ accent in our coffee shop AU collab, and, I thought others might be interested in our answer so here it is!
[^X] My answer: in canon, Louis would have spoken French as his native language, and Creole in NOLA. Being a vampire, he probably began learning English from various people during his travels with Armand after Paris, and then really got the full dose of it when they were living in NY together in the 20th century.
For our AU, I think of him as having moved to NOLA as a child, and his family moved back to France when he was in college or otherwise old enough to be living on his own; or that he still has family in NOLA, and in modern day, people do speak English there. There’s definitely some Creole and a mixture among the natives now so he might have picked up some of that, but I would think he always went to schools where he had to speak English.
When I visited NOLA (I’ve been a few times now) I didn’t notice everyone there having a heavy southern accent. I would think that a bookworm like Louis might have even less, being kind of antisocial and learning his words from books and speaking mainly to his few close friends and family.
As in canon, his French accent should be noticeable but doesn’t mark him as completely a foreigner, just different emphasis on certain letters, a tendency to hit “th” a little like a “d,” for example.
Gaspard Ulliel’s voice is my headcanon for Louis’ accent, although it is a lower register than I think of Louis.
Yep, I pretty much echo what @i-want-my-iwtv says and my headcanon is more or less in tune with hers –
In the fic, Louis comes from a solidly French family from Brittany (I believe we may have stolen this location from @gairid).He moves with them to New Orleans (or its environs) when he is a child, and he learns English whilst there.
However, his accent is tempered by the following things:
a) His family are Francophone and speak French almost exclusively at home; b) Their relatives in Louisiana are Acadian, so there is that dialect of French and/or Franglais colouring his accent; c) The family is upper class
Of course, his English would have the Louisiana lilt to it, but all that above, too.
From my own experience, French people seem to be amongst the ones who most strongly cling to their accent when speaking English. I have worked with and have many friends from France (including from Brittany) who are fluent in English but have that ‘sharpness’ to the consonants that Daniel references in IWTV.
I also have found that every French person I know pronounces ‘idea’ as ‘idee’ (i.e. the French way) no matter how fluent they are. I pointed this out to my French boss once and was told that we pronounce it The Wrong Way because it is a French word. XD
Following through the comments on my post, there is the idea that “le Russe” is an epithet, that it’s not what Armand goes by, but something Rhoshamandes calls him. It’s only mentioned once in the book, IIRC, by Rhosh. I’d believe that.
Anne APPARENTLY made up “le Russe” in PL. Which I had totally forgotten until I was reminded a little while ago. As far as obviously made up surnames go it’s even worse than de Romanus lol. ETA: I need to do a closeread before I speak lol, it sounds like that’s an epithet rather than a name.
SO LIKE I MEAN, the only part (to my recollection? plz correct me???) where it mentions “Armand Le Russe” is in a Rhosh chapter and that guy is such a salty fuckin tool and I got the impression that he was calling Armand that to be petty and sarcastic? Cause then she started listing the vampires at the end of the books and she still just refers to him as “Armand” without a last name.
“Only the clever ones like Gregory Duff Collingsworth and Armand Le Russe–who could thrive right in the midst of mortals–were undisturbed by the shrinking of the planet.”
YEP that’s what @laurasking pointed out to me too. That’s totally plausible. Also since Rhosh’s experience with Armand relates to coven era BS in Paris (idk if I’m even remembering this correctly but isn’t he pissed that allessandra ++ were forced into the covens) it might possibly be a thing left over from that era as well??
laurasking said: Well, Rhoshamandes calls him that, but no one else.
moral-cipher said: Laurasking – ohhh i forgot that. So it’s probably an epithet, possibly left over from the Bad Old Days. That makes a lot more sense. Thanks!
laurasking said: I thought fanon was that he assumed de Romanus.
@i-want-my-iwtv: ^Re: de Romanus, I assumed that was the name Armand used when he was with Marius, but after he was taken by the Children of Darkness, they changed his first name and I would assume he never used “de Romanus” again, either ;A;
I don’t recall that he ever mentioned having a last name, or that he took on Marius’ last name at any point…
[^X Björn by gampy (Björn is a fandom fave for Armand)]
Opening this up to anyone, was Armand ever given or has he ever mentioned taking on any specific last names? I can’t even think if he’d ever shared aliases, as Lestat often does…
I got some good responses to this post, you can peruse them, and whether you agree that “le Russe” is Armand’s last name depends on whether you accept PL as canon.
Others noted that it’s Ivanovich, because his father’s name was Ivan. As far as I know, that’s the naming convention in that part of the world, that your last name includes your father’s name like that, but I didn’t see “
Ivanovich” explicitly written in canon. At any rate, Armand is no longer “Andrei,” so I wouldn’t think that he would have kept that last name, either.
Re: @firelight-fading‘s post: “How many of you actually feel that Louis’ visiting Lestat at the end of IWTV and the conversation that followed actually happened? Lestat insists that it didn’t, but both him and Louis are unreliable narrators…”
Hey, look, you are free to believe in whichever unreliable narrator you want! Clearly we don’t all agree on this. I still don’t know what I believe, but I lean towards it happening, that they met, just maybe not as Louis described it.
Anon says: If the scene didn’t take place at all how did Louis get such an accurate description of Lestat’s condition?…
It’s not like Louis can take images from Armand’s mind either.
^Louis had seen a pretty battered Lestat around 1865, and then he thought Lestat was destroyed in the TdV fire, so he’s probably guessing that his maker looks like toast now, if he’s in fact still alive.
Lestat acknowledges in TVL that Armand came around to pester him in NOLA, which, yes, is presumably after Armand and Louis went their separate ways. But Armand could have visited Lestat before that separation, or gotten the information from another vampire who had seen Lestat in NOLA. They’re probably not the only vampires in New York during the time that they’re there.
Anon says: even if he had visited once before why would he give Louis the full disclosure? In IWTV, Armand tells Louis that Lestat is in NOLA:
“Then, finally, Armand urged me in another way. He told me something he’d concealed from me since the time we were in Paris.
“Lestat had not died in the Theatre des Vampires. I had believed him to be dead, and when I asked Armand about those vampires, he told me they all had perished. But he told me now that this wasn’t so. Lestat had left the theater the night I had run away from Armand and sought out the cemetery in Montmartre. Two vampires who had been made with Lestat by the same master had assisted him in booking passage to New Orleans.
^So how Armand knew this, we don’t know, but I assume he read it from Lestat’s thoughts when he visited Lestat in NOLA prior to Armand’s separation with Louis, or from another vampire who had seen Lestat passing through NY.
Armand wants Louis to see Lestat for himself bc he wants Louis to “come back to life.”
” `You care about nothing …’ [Armand] was saying. And then he sat up slowly and turned to me so again I could see that dark fire in his eyes. `I thought you would at least care about that. I thought you would feel the old passion, the old anger if you were to see him again. I thought something would quicken and come alive in you if you saw him . . . if you returned to this place.’
^Sorry Armand, fail on that 😛
Whether Louis actually met with Lestat the way he described it in IWTV is up for debate, but Louis might have gotten such an accurate description of Lestat’s condition verbally from Armand. Perhaps, as you say, Louis might have exaggerated the patheticness of the conversation to get a reaction from Lestat, as he was trying to provoke Lestat into coming out of wherever he was hiding.
Or maybe Louis just wanted to tell his story to another soul, like confession, and get some feeling of absolution from the act of telling, maybe it felt good to invent this portion for no good reason. I don’t personally think that’s very IC for Louis but… who knows?
Can we just look at this for a minute….
Two vampires who had been made with Lestat by the same master had assisted him in booking passage to New Orleans.
^This used to really irritate me, these two vampire siblings of Lestat who never appeared again in canon, I have to assume Armand invented them for whatever reason (make Louis jealous that he didn’t help Lestat himself?) or that Daniel’s publisher added them in for whatever reason *shrugs*
♛My first impression of Sybelle was her waking me from my slumber with her passionate renditions of the Appassionata. I might have awoken then without it, but I can’t help but feel that her music was necessary; it pulled me, those fierce notes the only thing that penetrated the thick darkness where I was. I still ask her to play it now and then, and it reminds me of that rescue, whether intentional or not on her part.
I have not had the pleasure to get to know Sybelle as much as I’d like to. She is not much for conversation. She’ll converse with music, and I have played duets with her, on guitar along with her.
Eccentric… Who’s not eccentric in our coven? *laughs* Who’s not misunderstood? I will say that she’s not as concerned by her surroundings as you might think she would be, she likes it when Armand or Benji tie her hair back for her, even though she is capable of doing so herself. She seems to carry an old soul and a child’s enthusiasm at the same time; she can be thrilled by little things like playing Tetris on an old Gameboy, and yet, she asks for very little outside of her piano, and her privacy. She has few possessions… keeps her jewelry in plastic bags in a shoe box! Benji’s idea, as the necklaces would tangle otherwise.
I am learning more about Sybelle with every interaction. One thing is for sure, she makes a fine addition to our coven, and I am glad to have her with us.
[^//ooc: Just try and tell me that Valentina Lisitsa isn’t basically Sybelle, just look at her! She’s just older.]
//ooc: So, Sybelle! A rare one for ppl to ask about and rarely chosen for RP. I remember there was @sybelle-the-appassionata, but it looks like they’re pword protected and/or on hiatus. There was also @play-the-appassionata, looks inactive now, but their archive might have smtg for you! Antoine RPer @antoineandthepiano may have thoughts re: Sybelle for you.
For more on Sybelle, try my#sybelle and #the vampire sybelle tags. There’s a little fanart, cosplay, some meta by other ppl, some mentions of Benji (since he’s kind of part of her package deal!) and spoilers.
//ooc: mun doesn’t know much about the actual French used by young people, so my Lestat can’t really answer that…
[^X] He loves learning slang and curse words and such, though, so I’m sure he’d be totally into whatever the actual French used by young people today is! I headcanon that he learns these things and loves mixing slang and colloquialisms from different generations accidentally (or purposely!) and ends up sounding pretty ridiculous sometimes.
I hope you’re not the anon with the project for class, asking me to do your homework for you! But I do want to answer this, so you get my opinion, which may not be the actual answer.
I think there’s more than one climax, depending on what your reading of IWTV focuses on. I’m not as religious as some ppl, so I don’t give that theme as much weight as other readers might. And that is a huge aspect of Louis’ struggle with vampiring and giving into his vampire nature, being in direct conflict with the most important of commandments, Thou Shalt Not Kill (in conjunction with Thou Shalt Not Steal, bc this kind of killing is doing both).
Here’s one definition I found for climax, the noun: “the most intense, exciting, or important point of something; a culmination or apex.” For me, that moment could be a catalyst, too, changing a character to some extent, could be a drastic re-calibration of their inner dialogue with themselves, reconfiguration of their moral values, etc.
I’m not quite sure which scene in IWTV (book or movie) that would be for you, but for me, one of the most intense moments was when Louis found Madeleine and Claudia’s ashes:
First is denial.
It’s in this moment that Louis has lost the most precious person, the one who’s told him what to do, someone he could worship and follow, someone who metered out his doses of happiness with her approval.
He’s also lost his own
(and very first!)
fledgling, and even though in both the book and the movie there doesn’t appear to be much attachment to between them, @vampchronfic/@gairid‘s headcanons about that have convinced me that there IS a bond, deep and invisible, created in the act of turning. Maker and fledgling are drawn together. Something like the attachment between a mother and her child, perhaps more powerful bc (hopefully) the giving of the Dark Gift was a consensual act between adults. It’s even more cruel in the movie bc she dies the same night she was turned, talk about bad life choices.
ANYWAY.
He holds off on the anger for now, goes straight to bargaining. He reaches out to touch them, maybe he thinks there’s some way to save them still? Or maybe the ashes are just on the surface, maybe Claudia and Madeleine are still intact under there? It feels like a nightmare and he wants to prove it’s not real.
But it is real, and they crumble, and everything that they were is gone.
This, his lightest touch, it’s heartbreaking, their final destruction at his own hand ;A;
Depression and acceptance. It’s real, they’re beyond saving, he’s failed them both in so many ways. The only thing left is (anger stage) revenge against this injustice, against the Theatre troupe, and once that’s accomplished, against himself.
So I’d say this was a climax bc it acted as a catalyst for Louis, he finally burst into action because of this, and any remaining illusions he had about vampiring and immortality were shattered. He’s 1,000% done and he’s gonna go out in a blaze of fiery glory punishment.
I-want-my-IWTV 