♛I am so pleased,
ma chère. True love knows no gender limitations. And we can always use more characters inspired by my relationship with Louis. I’m not revealing anything new when I say it’s no walk in the park but it’s absolutely worth fighting for. Constantly. For centuries! *tosses laptop aside and pounces on Louis for kisses*
[X]
♛Darling, embrace the confusion, embrace the mystery!
I should tell you what to do with your life in general? I barely know what to do with my own life, so I can’t answer that for you, but I know what’s worked for me, and that’s been – as gaggingly cliché as it sounds – following my heart. Even when I lacked financial freedom, even when I was seemingly powerless. Something as small as cuddling puppies can cure boredom and restore your soul, and eventually lead to bigger things. I founded a kennel, who knows, had I lived I might have been a famously sought-after dog breeder. I would have had the finest mastiffs in France.
//ooc; as for rp, you can always pester muses, most accept some banter from a mun. There are plenty out there!
Awwww, thank u so much! x3
{2/2} Yes, these are the Right Questions. You know that’s just my reference to the line in the movie, right? Not to be taken as intimidation, Armand may have meant it more like, “Ask the questions that I have good answers for so it will make me look smart and attractive to you.”
Yes, they can get drunk off of victim blood!
Lestat mentions it first in IWTV: “Wine…Both of them had drunk too much wine. I found myself tapping the fence posts with a stick to make a tune,” he laughed. “But I don’t like it, the dizziness. Do you like it?’ And when he looked at me I had to smile at him because the wine was working in him and he was mellow;… his face looked warm and reasonable…”
Okay whatever we know u LOVE it, Lestat.
But they can’t drink it directly from the bottle bc Ricean vampires lose alot of digestive anatomy when they’re turned. So their bodies just can’t metabolize it.
Which is pretty much the case w/ smoking, too. The other obstacle is that they don’t really aspirate. They sigh and huff and whatever for dramatic effect, but they don’t technically BREATHE. But how can they talk, then?? Well SOME air is passing through, but not the amount we mortals need.
I do think Lestat smokes cigarettes just to irritate Louis, and also to satisfy his oral fixation, his need to fidget w/ smtg, and as an excuse to carry a cool lighter around ;D
So as far as the Night Island coven collectively blazing it (this image is making me grin so hard #FANART REQUEST), they can take a victim like Rihanna here, let her do the work and look gorgeous, and then they can pass her around, respectfully. The rule is Bite-Bite-Pass ^,….,^
I think you’re thinking of smoking mentioned in movie!IWTV:
Louis: Perhaps you’d like another cigarette?
Daniel: Yeah, I suppose I would. It’s not bothering you, is it?
Louis: No.
Daniel: No, I don’t assume that it would be, I mean, it’s not like you’re gonna die from cancer or anything, is it?
Louis: No, I don’t think so.
In book!IWTV, Louis dispels the myth about vampires transforming into steam (I cut it a bit for length):
Daniel: And what about the rumor about keyholes? That you can … become steam and go through them.
Louis: I wish I could. How positively delightful. I should like to pass through all manner of different keyholes and feel the tickle of their peculiar shapes. No. That is, how would you say today … bullshit?
^Bonus: a smoking David from the Lost Boys.
{½} Absolutely NOT a stupid question! Congrats on earning the post-final exhaustion ;D
I loooooooooooooove vampire biology questions
sign me the FRACK up 👌👀👌👀👌👀👌👀👌👀 good shit go౦ԁ sHit👌 and it required 2 separate answers so yeah that’s why this took so long, had to really consider it.
You are correct, Ricean vamps can’t eat food. Blood doesn’t need to be warm, specifically, but it needs to be coming from a LIVING victim.* Even more fun when that victim is almost blackout drunk like Louis is here (more on that in my second response to you):
I don’t recall any specific mentions of lipstick or chapstick in canon! ANY. So I’ll go with my own headcanon and say that it probably varies, vampire to vampire, but I would guess that their heightened senses make the texture of lipsticks and lipglosses interesting to wear and kiss on others.
The flavored makeup would probably not taste good to them like it does for us since those flavors are meant to simulate actual food; cherry chapstick – which I personally love bc it gives you tint and a pleasant smell/taste – would probably taste like a smear of motor oil to a Ricean vampire.
Can you imagine Lestat pulling out a napkin and wiping off your lipstick before he kisses you? “There that’s better. That ah…. color didn’t suit you.”
*Dead blood is not really poisonous on its own, but is just very distasteful, like really old coffee.
When Lestat is sickened in IWTV, it’s bc it’s dead blood, the victim’s soul had already left, but the blood was still warm from the laudanum. Vampires have an intense dislike for being near dead bodies, Lestat was probably so overcome that Claudia seemed to want a truce that he ignored all the red flags ;A;
Merci beaucoup what a lovely thing to say! *u*
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 on hiatus. There was also @play-the-appassionata, looks inactive now, but their archive might have smtg for you!
I don’t really have positive or negative feelings towards her, but in light of later canon, she’s become more solid, more believable, and I do hope AR develops her some more. There’s more to Sybelle than being ANOTHER beautiful blonde woman-child, and having a name of Greek derivation; Sybelle means “prophetess, oracle.” Does she foresee things in canon? Not so much, IIRC, but maybe that has yet to happen.
^While I was thinking about your ask these last few days, I saw this Visual Development from Tangled by Claire Keane
[X] and thought WOW SYBELLE.
In fact I think the comparison is more than reasonable; Sybelle also seemed isolated in a tower, and further isolated herself with her obsession with the piano, specifically, Beethoven’s Appassionata.
We have Sybelle to thank for waking Lestat from his coma, so I set my alarm to one of the stronger sections of the Appassionata,
you really cannot ignore it or shut it out, and it’s NOT the most pleasant thing to wake up to. It works though, it really works. IT COULD WAKE THE DEAD. I had to change it after a few weeks, but try it!
Just try and tell me that Valentina Lisitsa isn’t basically Sybelle, just look at her! She’s just older.
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.
They don’t have all the books??! How rude. You might be able to find the others online for free very cheaply, or at second-hand stores like the Salvation Army.
There ARE different main characters in some of the books, and in some, Lestat is almost entirely left out. He is mentioned only once just to point out that he WILL be completely left out in Vittorio, but that book was not really intended as a Vampire Chronicle.
But the order of the VC still tracks along Lestat’s journey, even if it veers off for a book or two (as with the Vampire Armand or Blood and Gold) and then picks back up with him.
When I was asked “Which books do you personally and/or (if you might feel differently) the majority of the fandom regard as canon?” I answered that I had read them in chronological order as they came out, and it makes sense to do it that way since that’s the order in which Anne Rice pursued her interest in developing different characters/storylines/worldbuilding/etc. and establishing her own rules re: vampire origins, powers, and limitations.
Short answer is: without access to the full canon, you can’t just breeze through it like I did, and I don’t know which ones you are missing, but…. I recommend you read them in order as best you can. In later canon, other characters will refer to scenes already played out in earlier canon, contributing their own perspective, which may be confusing and will spoil those scenes for you. It will be up to you to decide which character’s account of things to believe. They’re all wildly unreliable narrators with their own selfish reasons for explaining things the way they do ;D
^Regardless of the “truth,” do I grin like I’m seeing old friends every time I see a lineup of VC on a bookshelf, no matter what their condition? You bet your a$$ I do.
Hit the jump for moar on this.
Some ppl who HAVE access refuse to read Prince Lestat, or a bunch of the other books, and won’t even give them a chance, so your lack of access might also reflect the fact that the books are not all equally popular. Your library might have purposely not included what it considers the less-popular installments.
Most of the fandom, in my experience, have had different gateway drugs to the series. I love collecting stories of how people first got into it (#I love these kind of stories tag). They first saw movie!IWTV or movie!QOTD and then read the corresponding book, or a friend gave them a random one from the series, or someone donated the whole series to them, etc. From there, some people read in order, some people skipped around.
THAT SAID, if you want to make VC fanworks (including fic, meta discussion, fanart, etc.) or do VC RP, it seems to help if you’ve read at least IWTV, TVL, and TVA (TVA might spoil previous events in canon but it’s really THE authority on Armand)(and read some fanfic!).
I think those VC contain the crux of the fan fave characters (Lestat, Louis, ((Nicki)), Gabrielle, Armand, Daniel, Marius) and scenes that have had alot of impact in developing the main characters. Your fanworks/RP will be richer if you know the background of the characters, because you’ll be able to refer to the events, or quotes, or take them as a jumping-off point in your work.
However, in the later books, you get new info, new characters, and new perspectives on previous events (example: Claudia’s diary entry in QOTD is heartwrenching).
@annabellioncourt had added this good commentary on that post and I agree with her 110% (except that I don’t love Vittorio but still):
I personally recommend that people read the first three books (IWTV, TVL, QOTD) and if they really enjoy it to try reading the rest of them.
But my caveat for that is that if they don’t care for Body Thief or Memnoch then still give Pandora and Vittorio a chance, then Armand, and if they enjoyed Armand and Pandora, to try Blood and Gold.
Its complicated, but so is the series, for such a seemingly straightforward concept of “vampires decide to write tell-all memoirs of their behind the scenes lives.”
It changes over time, I have a place in my heart for all the main characters from earlier canon (mainly books 1-5).
My gateway character was Claudia, definitely my fave when I first read IWTV when I was 11. I could relate to her frustration at not being taken seriously as an adult. She was just the perfect mix of sweetness and icy screamy-ness and had Louis wrapped around her little finger (WHICH btw, I saw as a purely platonic relationship).
{X}
Of course I loved Louis after her. How could I not? For his dignified manner, his high tolerance for bullshit, his love for books, his ability to hold back, and his ability to break out a can of fiery whoopass when it’s called for. For his frayed sweaters and how he doesn’t really care about fashion but how good he looks when he lets Lestat or Claudia play dress up with him. Because he probably smells like beeswax candles and jasmine.
He’s also very pretty and his hair feels like silk.
… All that said, Lestat was my real spirit animal in adolescence, and he’s the one that I keep coming back to as my true fave.
Lestat was someone I needed as I confronted the usual bullying in school, the usual seeking my own way into this world and the obstacles that go along with that. He taught me so many things. Most importantly, to have faith in yourself and not be afraid to try new things, meet new ppl. Some ppl will reject you just for being new. Some may reject you because you don’t have good chemistry with them. That’s all fine. You might become very close with some, and fail each other in some way, or just end up growing apart. It happens.
How could I not love him with this combination (and more!) of character traits: Charismatic, mixing silly with sinister, mysteriously hinting at a rich and traumatic backstory in IWTV (which we definitely got later), and of course, lastly, pretty damn good-looking.
And he does make mistakes, tons of them! If you really read the books, that’s where he lays out his mistakes and apologizes in the way he’s better able to do than verbally.
{X}
I’ve always loved mean characters, antagonists, monsters… those who were written off as “just mean,” “just evil,” or “just crazy,” these are the ones I want to know more about. Why are they this way? Is this a shield they put up to protect themselves from further hurt?
My grandmother was like this. I broke through her tough exterior and found a kindred spirit. She’s gone now, and I think my radical empathy for antagonists is kind of a search to find her in other ppl, fictional and real alike.
I actually did think of this connection when I saw him as Denethor in LOTR.
For starters: his whole hair and makeup was perfect in LOTR, and the acting, too!
He even sets himself on fire like Magnus!
BUT I imagine Magnus as being scarily skinny, more spindly. He almost seems like a spider:
“…Rather
he leaned to rest, it seemed, upon the thick stone frame of the window,
one knee bent a little towards it, the other long spindly leg sprawled
out to the other side…
his thin, gangly limbs found animation ail at once.” – TVL
Look at John Noble outside of his LOTR makeup tho:
^This looks like the ID card pic for Raglan James to me ;D
A man who, yes, has some solid weight on him because he enjoys fancy food, and not extra physical exertion, he’s older but still got a lot of life in him yet, and a kind of scheming default expression.
I-want-my-IWTV 