favorite thing about them: His despair. His tragedy. I know it’s not for everyone but it is ABSOLUTELY for me. His desire to do things with the intent of perfectly harming other’s plans and hurting himself in the process. That he cuts off his nose to spite his face, I love that. It’s the way someone who so completely hates themselves that they hate life itself behaves. I love it. LOVE IT. He encapsulates one of my favorite elements of early VC: That people do what is wrong because they want to feel in control of something. That said, I utterly despise this in real life, HAHAHA.
least favorite thing about them: Perhaps that he was so brief? But in a way I’m glad he didn’t get any redemption. It’s not exactly easy to come back from that.
favorite line: OH BOY…
“All a misunderstanding, my love,” he said. Acid on the tongue. The blood sweat had broken out again, and his eyes glistened as if they were wet. “It was to hurt others, don’t you see, the violin playing, to anger them, to secure for me an island where they could not rule. They would watch my ruin, unable to do anything about it.”
During this part I was publically weeping. HAHAH!
brOTP I don’t have one. You’re hot and cold with Nicki. Maybe Santiago was his fledgling and they got along great.
OTP Lestat, Armand.
nOTP I don’t have those really.
random headcanon When he laughs it begins with the soft clicking of his palette like water dripping on damp wood. The back of the throat. He only breathes in as a vampire to shriek and has otherwise abandoned human habit.
unpopular opinion Idk, that I like him in a way that reminds me of the worst part of illness. Hell, the better I feel in life the more I love him for that snapshot of terrible times. Reminds me of the storm before a rainbow. Allows for contemplation of darker feelings.
song i associate with them
Ysaye Violin Solo Sonata, Op. 27, No. 3, “Ballade”
When he got his violin back after turning this was the song that came to mind as I read…
Mayumi Kanagawa’s performance is HEADS AND SHOULDERS above any other rendition of this song I’ve heard to date and it was THIS specific performance and the memory of its sound that gave me goosebumps reading.
favorite picture of them For SURE Victoria Fraces’ illustration of him, how haunting!!
^^^All this!
He encapsulates one of my favorite elements of early VC: That people do what is wrong because they want to feel in control of something.
It’s Armand and it’s actually canonand one of my favorite parts to visualize in QotD(although it’s honky-tonk not ragtime, but their styles are related) I mean, just imagine Daniel waking up to that, looking completely DONE.
Queen of the Damned, page 88
It’s update time! You were right
@i-want-my-iwtv in your assumption that Lestat would love it.
Now go ahead and imagine them dancing to these tunes.
#IT GOT BETTER
Thanks for the update, @luthi69! If anyone is in a bad mood, just TRY and keep that mood with this bouncy happy music on, JUST TRY.
And now I AM imagining Lestat, Daniel, and Armand paying a jazz band to play this all night at a club in NOLA, dancing to it w/ people and having such a good time ❤
OKAY SO I found this WAY back in my likes and I know this thing about Armand and music has come up recently, and I guess here’s the answer? I didn’t even know Anne had said this on fb until I saw people talking about it on tumblr… @i-want-my-iwtv, tagging you in this just in case 🙂
Turns out that Anne, as usual, is misremembering her own writing – she never said he couldn’t tell them apart, just that he doesn’t have a preference. (I still think her weird headcanon that they all love honky-tonk piano is hilarious and messed-up but that’s just MY opinion lmao)
Headcanon that Louis, despite his stuffy erudite persona, is a huge fucking nerd, and accompanies Daniel and Armand to all the midnight premieres of the new Star Wars and Marvel movies. He has Opinions on the prequels and has gotten into literal fights with Lestat over them. His favorite Avenger is Hawkeye, even though Daniel constantly bashes him for being lame. He also read Tolkien before it was cool and is lowkey salty about it but also had a crush on Orlando Bloom’s Legolas so there’s that. (Also don’t even get me started into how deep he is in the Harry Potter fandom. Like, this bitch would die for Hermione Granger okay).
He might not be able to match someone’s voice flawlessly (ie a woman or young child), but he can match inflection, accent, breath, tone, pitch, diction, and intensity perfectly. This, in addition to the dark gift, is how he learns languages and loses his accents so quickly.
He knows who’s coming down the hall based on foot falls.
He can match any musical note and takes great pleasure in singing. Because he was given the dark gift at 16/17, he would still have a young boy’s falsetto and a grown man’s base without the annoying voice cracks or range gaps.
One of his favorite things to do when someone is singing is to join in with a consonance or dissonance harmony depending on his mood. He loves to make Lestat’s singing sound bad, so 8/10 times, Armand will sing discordantly with him.
He can sound almost exactly like most male singers from the 1960′s to today like Fun., Styx, Elton John, Ed Sheeran, Paul Simon, and not Hozier (he tried, the range was too low for him).
After playing with a new instrument for the first time, he’d be able to play his favorite songs without any sour notes. He does not, however, write his own music.
Anyway so I shout into the void about metal sometimes, even though I fully realize I’m like the lone fandom metalhead LOL. I mean @finnishdoomster is around too LOL there’s a couple of us but it’s mostly pretty lonely.
but like fuckit I do what I want TODAY I’M GONNA TALK ABOUT:
BLACK METAL SONGS THAT REMIND ME OF MARIUS DE ROMANUS.
The thing about Marius + metal whenever I think about it is that I’m always thinking about how butthurt he was that Botticelli went dark, how disappointed he was. I’m of the opinion that Marius white-knuckles his way through immortality; that he represses his own anger until it reaches boiling points and he does stupid shit, and I think part of it was his refusal to admit to his own flaws, his own loneliness, his own desperation.
So like, on one hand I think he would see the subculture and find the metalheads adorable, like cute little humans acting all tough and scary. but I think he’d also appreciate that metal subculture is built around the idea of feeling alienated, being different, and embracing all the things that make us weird because we aren’t buying into all the bullshit that’s fed to us. Metalheads are philosophers and outsiders and are, by nature, creative people. They think differently and don’t try to deny it. And you don’t become a metalhead without being passionate, without caring about metal, because all the good metal is hiding from you and it’s a process to find it.
On the other hand I imagine that this music might be too much, too raw, too painful to listen to, just too fucking real. I can’t imagine him or any other ancient hearing some of these albums and not being totally traumatized.
I think black metal is an acquired taste for some—not everyone is gonna get it right away—but the thing about it is that it’s so cerebral to listen to, it’s such an experience, and when you click with it you just connect on such a deep level, and it just shreds you.
I listen to a lot of fucking music, okay? And I just. I don’t think anything really captures the darkness the way black metal does. Especially the more melodic black metal, especially when it gets a little epic, maybe has some orchestral parts. It’s such an incredible blend of being worldly and majestic with the emptiness and the desperation. There’s really nothing like it.
And I tend to feel, out of all the metal vocal styles, that the signature black metal vocal style sounds so much more like genuine pain than any other subgenre. Like death metal styles sound so much more aggressive and black metal just always strikes me as really meaning it.
And it specifically reminds me of Marius more than anyone else. It’s partly because I’m a fangirl (oops) but also just the very nature of his life, and I find B&G so haunting. He’s the only ancient we’ve really gotten to spend so much time with and it’s so chilling to hear him really own his age, discuss how much he’s seen, the eras he’s lived through. And his book is characterized by loss, time and time again, of people in his life, cities he’s loved, his sense of belonging anywhere. I just feel it heavily and poignantly in a lot of this music.
It’s not just the loss and pain, though, but in black metal that you can hear the abject evil and idk about you guys but it’s something that just inflames everything in me that is capable of feeling passion. It’s so incredibly dark and terrifying andseductive to me and if that doesn’t click into place with how I feel about these goddamn vampires, idk what.
There’s also the trend in black metal, especially blackened folk metal and melodic black metal, for the bands to incorporate traditional instruments from their heritage. It’s such an interesting blend of sounds but also, in this instance!, adds sort of a historical texture to the music in a lot of ways, which makes it an easy motif for me to hang onto.
And I can’t speak for the authenticity of the use of any of these instruments but again I find myself thinking: If Marius heard this, would he be totally shook? Imagine this brutally raw, pained music brought to life with an instrument he hasn’t heard in hundreds of years.
What was the music like at the grove?
(BONUS SONG: Krigsgaldr by Heilung! I will concede that Heilung isn’t metal but black metal fans jizz their pants over this shit and like he’s got that scratchy black metal thing going on and this is just too good not to include cause it fits right in. FUN FACT, since I already talk about Wardruna + VC too much I’ll just casually remind you that Wardruna is black metal dudes. But check out HEILUNG also cause this is like all the spooky folk sounds without the obvious metal. METALHEADS LOVE THIS LOL.)
One of my favorite lines in the entire series is when Marius refers to “the cold and fatal domain” of his soul. Just. Fuck dude.
IS THERE ANYTHING MORE COLD AND FATAL THAN FUCKIN BLACK METAL???? Like “Cold and Fatal Domain” legit sounds like it should be the name of someone’s album.
LIKE, DID U KNO? One of the popular lyrical themes in black metal is the chaos of nature? SORTA LIKE THE SAVAGE GARDEN? Immortal, for example? Half their fuckin songs are just about snowy dark icy mountains and how cold it is in Norway. They have a song called Grim & Frostbitten Kingdoms! Sounds like some Cold & Fatal Domains! (Also LMAO they’re called Immortal. Appropriate.)
I don’t really know where I’m going with any of this and I don’t have a graceful way to exit but. I just wanted to share that with you. If you’re feeling adventurous and want to give a new genre a try, do it. 😀 I didn’t pick any SUPER intense songs, these are good beginner songs, so if you want some icy dark vampire pain knock yaself out.
So although Lestat’s relationship with Mojo is touching, I personally like to think that Louis would also love to keep pets, though he’s definitely not the sweet and cuddle pet owner like Lestat. So I can say, with 100% confidence, that Louis would absolutely love to keep lizards or other reptiles! I personally think he’d do best with geckos or other small lizards, but tbh it would warm my heart to see him with a little tortoise or snake as well.
In all seriousness, though, reptiles are the best because they’re quiet, require minimum maintenance/interaction, but are still cute and sweet to play with. Also they’re coldblooded like him, so I can just imagine him lowkey pressing his hands against the cage for warmth sometimes.
Also headcanon that Louis likes to just sorta lounge around the house with his lizard pals on his shoulder or chest, and they like to sit right over his heart to feel his heartbeat, or burrow against his neck right after he feeds to feel the warmth there.
Lestat absolutely hates them and thinks that they’re weird and squirmy, and has threatened to feed them to the neighbor’s cat on multiple occasions. Louis, on the other hand, is very defensive of them.
He also takes super good care of them, and has a huge cage with the most expensive decor. He personally goes out into the garden to catch bugs for them to eat (they don’t have to eat every night, and it isn’t much of a hassle with his vampire sense anyway), and hand feeds them.
Anyway yeah that’s it. Thank you for taking the time to consider Lizard Louis (and thank you to @claudiasashes and @i-want-my-iwtv for encouraging this crack). Now back to your regularly scheduled programming.
Seriously, picture an early-2000s, half-washed-up but still fame-hungry Lestat.
(Since after all, Anne did establish that he’s got a fucking Greatest Hits album, in defiance of all logic. Two can play at that game.)
He doesn’t tour any more, but clearly he’s still dropping albums every few years which are snapped up by his aging fanbase, now in their 40s and generally respectable. It’s a running gag on various forums to speculate regarding his plastic surgery and Botox bills, or whether the label just bumped the original Lestat off years ago and keeps replacing him with younger stand-ins.
So MTV wants to do an episode of Cribs with him, and of course he says yes because fuck it in this I’m just ignoring continuity and going with a post-QotD world.
It’s a fucking disaster.
His manager is a little weaselly guy in a full suit who obviously and loudly hates this entire idea. His lawyer, Christine, is semi-retired in the Bahamas and can’t be reached for assistance half the time.
This does not seem to have much of an effect on The Man In Question.
All the Cribs people want is to just film the episode, have some laughs. Everybody knows Lestat is a high-energy presence, lots of personality, and crazy ostentations, so it should be fun, but.
Buuuuut.
This motherfucker.
This fucking character asshole with his dedication to schtick.
Won’t meet them before dusk, or even answer phone calls during the day. Won’t let them even go into his Malibu mansion to film during the day, for B-Roll, because “The decor is designed to be viewed at night. Besides, I don’t want anyone unsupervised; it could be dangerous.”
Refuses to let them film his kitchen, which they can’t even figure out the location of based on the footprint of the building and the routes they take through it once they finally do go over after sundown on the appointed day.
Lestat’s in full makeup. Face painted white, fake fangs in, long nails, hair big and shiny as Hell–looks just like his stage persona and album covers in his goddamn home. He’s wearing ripped jeans and a horrifying all-leather frock coat and entirely too much jewelry. He shows them his collection of violins and guitars, and it’s exhausting because he never shuts off the persona. Has a story about the history of all of them.
His manager, or handler, or whatever, is there, still loathing every second of this with every fiber of his being. He straightens any object anyone touches seconds after it’s been filmed. It seems like a stressful job.
They tour down halls decorated in the most clashing mishmash of styles known to humankind–gold trim, Baroque mirrors, black lace, intricate carpets, 60s psychedelic prints, several original Nagels hung up in the movie room. (The movie room is actually rather cool, velvety-black with multiple screens and everything from Betamax to Laserdisc to DVD to an full-on projector. Enormous squashy couches, daybeds, and beanbag chairs are the order of the day.)
Every light in the place blazes all the time; someone asks about his electricity bills, and the manager takes off his glasses and pinches the bridge of his nose at the number Lestat responds with.
Finally Lestat is almost giggling as he lead the crew down a flight of thickly-carpeted stairs to a basement corridor painted a surprisingly soothing blue-grey. There are a number of doorways, each with a keypad instead of a normal lock.
He grins widely, showing off the dental work, and proudly swings wide the one at the end to reveal a room where a dark-haired man sits, reading, seemingly startled by the intrusion.
The crew is so distracted by the Surprise Boyfriend that at first they fail to notice what Lestat’s perched on, and when they do–panning down over the steel-blue casket with goldtone hardware and velvet upholstery–the signature line bursts out French-accented on a rush of laughter.
“You see–this is where the magic happens!”
(They end up running it on Halloween, with some altered graphics on the logo for the gimmick of MTV: Crypts.)
“Just so, one loop over the other, then under and through…” he said, the laces of Claudia’s shoes forming into a bow under his nimble fingers. “And pull tight, ma chérie. Simple as that.” Without a moment’s hesitation, her little fingers tugged the laces back open and tried now, for the very first time, to tie them on her own.
They sat on the carpet, her body curled forward in concentration, whispering the directions again to herself as he smiled down above her. He reached out and tucked a stray golden curl behind her ear and she spared him not one bit of attention.
In the warm light of the lamps, I watched them from across the room. We had been together now for some four years, Lestat and I. In that time, I had rarely seen this expression on his face. When he seduced his victims it was with rapt attention, his tongue flicking at his fangs imperceptibly to them, so vulgar to me. He would slink towards me catlike after killing and it was similarly intoxicating. I would let him take what he wanted, and there was lust for him, his wandering hands and whispered praise, but was that love? It left me satisfied, guilty, confused.
This was new, he was patient with the child, embraced her not to consume but with compassion. Their laughter lent a sparkle to the space I had shared with him alone. Together they brought things out of me I assumed I did not have.
“I did it!” said Claudia, her face upturned to him brightly. “Bravo!” he applauded with polite clapping as if at an opera. She shifted position, undid her bow and busied herself with tying it again.
It was in that moment that he glanced at me, his smile still tender and gentle, I felt my heart trip and stop for an instant. He waved me over and I came, entranced. He gestured for my foot. “Oh no, it looks as if,” in one fluid motion he hooked a finger in and opened my shoelaces. “Papa Noir’s laces need tying, whatever shall we-”
“Me,” said Claudia, starting already for the laces. “I’ll fix them for you.” I felt Lestat’s hand on my ankle, his nail lightly stroking my skin, then move up, squeezing my calf as we watched her together. That was the moment I fell in love with him.
I-want-my-IWTV 