âBon anniversaire, ma petite! I would send you a doll, but some girls outgrow them at a certain age, apparently. Myself, Iâm over 200 years old and I love dolls. Thereâs no accounting for taste in some people.
*Although I may have acted somewhat excited about it a few months ago (and I donât want to edit the post bc thatâs a time capsule as to how I felt then), currently I donât want a Leto!Lestat bc of the accusations against Leto, which you can google yourself bc Iâm NOT going there. True or false, we donât need that kind of baggage in our fandom, and there are PILES of younger actors out there who can play Lestat bc Boone wants this to be a trilogy w/ TV spinoffs and we need someone who can play 20 or 21 yrs old for a long time, and Leto altho he does not look like it is 44 yrs old.
[WWDITS/IWTV mashup by @luthi69]
Antonio Banderas is one of the fandomâs punching bags re: being cast as Armand in that movie, when that character is in fact described as being around 15-16 yrs old, w/ auburn hair, who looks more like a Botticelli angel than a real person. Alot of Armand fans are more than hopeful that the actor cast as Armand in the new adaptation will be more accurate to canon.
I initially felt the same way about movie!IWTVâs Banderas!Armand, that he was so very wrong. But then I considered it further and came up w/ a lot of reasons (#Defending Antonio) to justify that casting, so you can give my reasons a chance or not if youâd rather join in the fun of beating this dead horse bc I know I have my own dead horses to beat, so have at it!
Louis agrees w/ your cousin.
Armand is a Santiago & Armand hybrid ok jeez and he canât be THATÂ offensive to someone who hasnât read the book(s)!
Take your time, thereâs no rush. Books are patient creatures.
Bringing your cousin into this: yesssss, fresh blood for the fandom ^______^
Itâs endlessly amusing to me that Lestat is the real winner in that movie, bc Tom made him so lovable despite the cruelty he inflicts on everyone around him, and Brad solidified many pplâs impression of Louis as a sad-sack and Kirsten made Claudia well⌠someone who deserved all the sympathy.
Some ppl definitely ARE excited for the new book! There was alot of excitement and cautious optimism for Prince Lestat.Â
I feel like I have a good perspective on this bc I have been in this fandom for 20+ years even tho book!IWTV came out before I was born, too. Iâd have to ask a more veteran fandom person what it was like when they got the sequel(s) to IWTV! I got into the fandom right before the movie came out in â94, when we only had the first 4 books, so I looked forward to every new book with some level of excitement and thatâs hard to shake even now *u*
New titles and storylines have often sounded more than a bit iffy and there has often been resistance to each new VC book. Alot of ppl didnât think they would like TOBT or MtD, and some read those and still refuse to accept either as canon.
[X] Ppl have their own ideas of the characters in their minds. As AR continues delve into their perspectives on previous events and give them new stories in each new book, some ppl choose to âget off the busâ along the way, bc they donât necessarily trust her vision and they donât want to see their fave character(s) in characterization they feel is off, or forced into plots that make no sense, etc. And we canât blame AR for this but the trainwreck that was movie!QOTD, so much was off that it was offensive, and yet, surprisingly, some ppl find that movie nostalgic! ¯_(ă)_/ÂŻ
Some ppl actually trust the fanfic writers and/or fanartists more than the author at this point, bc many of our awesome fanfic writers and fanartists learned the voices and attitudes of the characters and try to keep them in the style that drew us to them in the first place â¤
So I donât know how new you are, and what youâve 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.Â
[^Louis doesnât 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 ;]Â Scenes are often retread from different charactersâ POVs. You can choose which version you want to trust. Maybe there are elements of both that you find acceptable.Â
Even AR doesnât 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 donât need to read the books that lead up to it but youâll 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.Â
Hit the jump for more, cut for length.
Re: differing headcanons: We still have disagreements about what Louisâ 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 doesnât always answer these canon questions explicitly herself (maybe bc she left it ambiguous on purpose, or she forgot, or whatever other reasons).Â
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 wonât accept Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis as anything more than AU either, bc it follows PL.
Reasons why fandom wonât 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 didnât want to tie these in with the events that follow in PL. So her own books diverge from her own timeline.Â
A secondary reason would be the earlier books in the series are generally accepted as the stronger stories with the characters best written.Â
[^Appropriate gif bc heâs all decked out for the opera]
I know like 3% about opera/musicals/plays so @annabellioncourt helped me out w/ this one. She says (btw this was a chat so italics are my comments and I edited it into this format, and she can correct me however needed):
So for Louis, the themes of darkness and the dark side of religion and the supernatural, the cost of damnation, those themes in Faust would stick out to him, even if the story itself is not one he approves of. The audience is not supposed to like the character of Faust.
Don Giovanni is just an amazing show, and was incredibly popular during the 19th century. As a mortal, Louis had a soft spot for Giovanni (but never admitted to liking anything other than French opera). Itâs about a man whoâs a womanizing creep, but at the end heâs dragged to hell by demons and the ghost of the father of a woman he wronged. In opera, the themes and music are always more important than the story.
Lestat loves some of the characters in Les Mis tho, like Enjolras (who he says looks like him). Louis enjoys it; he finds it patriotic.
Elisabeth, the German musical:
Its a rock musical and Louis would love this. The âDer Tod,â his character is basically Lestat. Itâs about the Austrian empress and her life, as well as a love triangle with herself, her husband, and Death himself. Der Tod is German for Death. And heâs a main character.
Louis would probably enjoy any of the âtraditionalâ musicals, but the more rock based ones would be more up Lestatâs alley.
If nothing else, you better believe itâs gonna be the best fish story you ever heard!
Lestat:Â âLouis, the truth is, the ghost that made the first vampire, well, it was an Atalantayan* and we are all in fact Atalantayans so practice your backstroke bc weâre going on a field trip to the bottom of the seeeea!â
We really donât know much of the story, just that it involves Lestat and Atlantis, so weâve been making alot of mermaid jokes but we have no idea whether there will be any. Check my #PLROA tag, thatâs where I put stuff about it as more info comes in.
*This is the actual word in canon, allegedly. AR must be getting a bonus for extra vowels these days.
I-want-my-IWTV 