Some mortals have a naturally impenetrable psychic wall, good for them! But for the rest of us, here are some options re: mortals vs. a vampire w/ the Mind Gift:
Try to envision a wall,
or throw up confusing images,
or think of your fave Ace of Base song. Anything BUT what you don’t want them peeking at!
If said vampire has been captured For Science, and you’re trying to keep them incapacitated, I’d put headphones/earbuds on them and blast something loud and confusing. A mix of industrial machinery and 80′s synth, or Disney songs, anything really catchy.
Try to distract them w/ your scintillating conversation?
In all fairness, it’s taxing for them to use their gifts, and they generally do not bother reading minds unless they are checking you out to see if you’re being honest w/ them, or they don’t want to wait on your oral responses.
Plus, most vampires seem to prefer oral communication since it is closer to being mortal, which most of them tend to imitate. They don’t seem to read minds literally, like text in a book, it’s more like gathering images and sounds, and trying to piece them together like a puzzle, when it would be simpler to just ask you about whatever information they’re seeking.
The real question is: What are you afraid they’d discover in yer mind?
I think that’s a valid theory! I’m not sure I would use the word “concubine,” since that would imply that she was coerced into it due to her status on the plantation. My headcanon is that if she was in a relationship w/ him, she was willing, and not coerced into it, based on fanon that she was raised w/ him, and they were always very close and mutually respectful, even though he was her plantation master in title.*
We see little of their interaction in the movie, so it’s impossible to say definitively, but it appears that she was not afraid of him before he was turned, could sense the change in him, and was genuinely concerned about him with more than a servant’s required amount of care.
Unfortunately we can’t talk about Louis/Yvette w/o bringing up the way he ended that relationship – rather badly (and I’m using a little levity in the pic below bc it’s very grim, upsetting, so many other words for how awful it is, but if anyone is offended, I apologize in advance. This is the way I choose to engage w/ the material, so Unfollow if you need to, I understand)
After he kills her, Louis carries Yvette out of the house bridal-style, a reversal of the carrying-over-the-threshold tradition that newlywed men do w/ their living wives to signify that she is welcome and a necessary part of their home and life together.
Louis carries Yvette OUT before he burns down the big house, so that she can be returned to her people (and family members, probably) and given the proper religious rites, funeral arrangements, etc. Conversely, he knows he doesn’t deserve any of that since he’s going straight to Hell; he intends to pay for her life (really, taking her life is the worst thing he’s done so far, especially considering their implied ship and the way he took her life) with his own. He knows that killing an innocent is terrible, even worse that she was someone he loved! He succumbed to desire, fed his vampire nature, and that finally sealed his damnation: “This place is cursed. Damned! And yes your master is the Devil!”
Fun fact: Brad Pitt and Thandie Newton (Yvette) were dating during the filming of IWTV. They are both professionals, but if my boyfriend had to basically act like he metaphorically raped and murdered me, or I had to do the same to him, pretty sure it’d kill the romance somewhat. [X]
Hit the jump for moar, cut for length.
There is some fanon out there that Yvette was raised along with Louis, that they had real history together and cared deeply for each other ❤ So the idea of them becoming closer than that would make sense. Yvette NOTICED his daytime absence in the fields, and seemed to want him back out there. She seems to genuinely care about him: “Are you still our master at all? You must send away this friend of yours… they’re frightened of him. And they’re frightened of you.” I headcanon that they had a good relationship prior to his turning, maybe the best possible relationship between two ppl of such different stations at that time.
This doesn’t seem like the face of someone required to be concerned for her boss, it seems like the face of a lover or family member, someone very close who senses something is very “off” about Louis, more even than when he was drinking and throwing himself at whores; she wants to help and probably thinks she knows him well enough to be able to talk some sense into him ;A;
In movie!IWTV: Louis’ killing of Yvette seems to also be a metaphor for giving in to sexual urges, basically a metaphorical rape in how it’s nonconsensual :[
We see him struggling with it and trying to make Yvette leave him alone, even ordering her to leave: “That will be all, Yvette.” (which he can barely even say, so consumed w/ hunger) but she deliberately disobeys: “I will not go unless you listen to me!” Again, does not seem like the kind of interaction between a plantation owner and his servant.
He looks like he’s about to receive Holy Communion in the shot above, his eyes closed almost in prayer, he’s probably thinking about everything Lestat’s told him, and How wrong can this be when it seems so right? VERY WRONG.
*So my answer is based on their 100% consensual relationship, but books could be (and have been!) written on the pressures of a slave being coerced into a relationship with the plantation’s owner, and I’m not going there.
Lestat usually initiates w/ Louis so at the moment of contact, Louis might not appear to be all that into it, bc he’s pleasantly surprised! He gets into it quickly though ;D
I agree, weird question, but honey, ucametotherightplace ^________^
Vampiring can be very busy! All the entertainment (concerts, galleries, fashion shows), the charity balls, the netflix & chills, and they still have to wedge murder in, too.
[@vampchronfic helped out on this answer! Much appreciated *u*]
Jesse and Pandora arrive early and always ask the host(ess) if they need any help setting anything up.
David and Marius are always on time. Perfectly.
Louis is on time when he is not being dragged into lateness by Lestat.
Armand is variable; sometimes on time, sometimes fashionably late, but he always leaves first. His reasons are never questioned.
Daniel is on time when he goes with Marius or Armand, but on his own, always late (still consistently arrives before Lestat).
Lestat is always late bc he takes forever to dress up and dress Louis up and is easily distracted. It’s gotten to the point where Brian* has to lie that an event is an hour earlier than it really is just to get Lestat there /close/ to the starting time.
David chastises Lestat every time, Lestat laughs and laughs. David sends Lestat fancy watches with alarms set, accompanied by notes like, “So you’ll know the time. At ANY altitude.”
(*Brian Callahan is one of @vampchronfic‘s OC’s that I have come to aggressively accept into my headcanon.)
Gabrielle is never expected to go to anything (she moves around too much to be sent an invite and pays no attention anyway) unless she is in the presence of someone who got an invitation. She has little tolerance for mingling, but she does like David. They swap travel stories and he can usually impress her with his depth of knowledge of ancient ruins and natural wonders.
{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?
{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;
Interview with the Vampire (1994) dir. Neil Jordan
one of the greatest performances ever
I’m in love with this film for Tom Cruise ‘s performance and the fabulous long hairstyle of Brad Pitt.
Definitely one of my fave scenes. There’s so much going on here. Lestat bursts in and immediately looks around to see if he can salvage anything out of this, but knows he can only save Louis, and still has time to have this thorny little exchange bc he’ll be damned if he isn’t going to take this as an opportunity to lay in a little verbal smackdown. “Have us sleeping in the field like cattle!” He has this subtle pain in his eyes, as if Louis was actually trying to usurp his role as the captain of this ship, not that he was in fact trying to commit suicide. It doesn’t even cross Lestat’s mind to remark on the fact that that’s what this was, a suicide attempt. Or maybe it does, and in not giving Louis the choice to go down with his fiery mansion, Lestat has made a renewed internal vow to guide Louis into becoming the vampire he knows he can be.
Lestat could have easily just let Louis burn up with the house.Except that he loves him. Even though this was an act of ENORMOUS REBELLION it only makes Lestat love Louis more, bc only a BAMF like Louis could do something like this, try to destroy everything an apparently materialistic creature like Lestat has ever wanted, and not care about the consequences. But that’s not who Lestat really is, that’s all just retail therapy, hoarding shiny things to fill a void, and they both know it. Having stripped away Lestat’s treasured hoard, Louis’ face is 99% sexual ecstasy, he’s so satisfied with himself here.
Louis didn’t do this to rile Lestat, he did it to win, and finally do away with himself. But seeing his maker there, clearly to rescue Louis, the most precious thing to Lestat in the whole place, had to touch something in Louis. Because he lets Lestat save him without putting up a fight, and he doesn’t run away as soon as he’s capable. He stays with Lestat. As much as he doesn’t like his methods or philosophy, he’s captivated by Lestat. He trusts Lestat.
They’re both helplessly bound together in how much they want and need each other ;A;
Part of what makes them so shippable is how much Lestat wants to own Louis, and how not-for-sale Louis is, but how much he is drawn to Lestat against his own better judgment, like a moth to flame.
Ricean vampires, unfortunately, are condemned to enjoy the Deathsleep which renders them unconscious for the daylight hours. The plus side being: no snoring can wake them! Not that they can snore, since they don’t breathe. But still.
Louis, IWTV: “Numbness came over my limbs, and then the paralysis of oblivion.“
Louis, IWTV: “You see, I wasn’t sure then why I awoke each evening when I did, whether it was automatic when the deathlike sleep left me, and why it happened sometimes earlier than at other times.”
In movie!IWTV, yes, Claudia is awake right at dawn and seems fully conscious, as she tiptoes carefully around the sunlight.
^It was too perfect a moment not to include in a movie about lonely ppl, that singular act of a daughter climbing into bed w/ her mommy!Louis (bc we all know he’s the mom) rather than sleep alone! ❤ And purely platonic at that point in the movie.
There is a fic out there that suggests that Ricean vampires do awaken during the day when they are under extreme emotional duress, and it’s a very disorienting state to be in, they can’t function very rationally, as nocturnal animals also act erratically in daylight.
Hit the jump for a bit moar, and spoilers.
(Similarly, Louis seems to be painfully awake as Claudia and Madeleine burn in the sunlight ;A;)
When movie!Louis takes revenge on the Theatre des Vampires, it’s right before dawn, and he is perfectly able to function right up until he leaves the safety of the theatre, and it’s the sunlight more than the fact that it’s daytime that saps him of any functionality. But that was part of the plan, revenge, then suicide.
Ricean vampires can, however, fight in that unconscious state: Lestat says Gabrielle defended herself in her sleep: “And those mortals who did find us during the daylight hours, unless they exposed us to the sun at once, were doomed. For example, outside Palermo she had slept in a cellar far below an abandoned house, and when she had awakened, her eyes and face were burning as if they had been scalded, and she had in her right hand a mortal, quite dead, who had apparently attempted to disturb her rest.”
Amount of sleep needed seems to be related to the age and/or power of the vampire, and Louis, being weaker, needs more beauty sleep than the older and stronger ones.
Even in a place like Alaska in which nighttime extends during the winter months, Ricean vampires are still susceptible and want to fall into a reasonable Deathsleep rhythm.
In QOTD, Akasha purposely chases the night around the world, preventing Lestat from falling into the Deathsleep. Whether it was bc she had too much to do in too little time, or she was purposely using sleep deprivation as another means of controlling him (or both), we don’t know, but Lestat reflects on it:
“We’d been following the night around the world, perhaps, or rather moving at random in it, as Akasha maybe didn’t need at all to sleep.
I needed it, that was obvious. But I was too curious not to want to be awake. And frankly too miserable.”
Akasha tells him, a little bit later, that he requires sleep for his upgrades: “But you must sleep now. You are young still and fragile. My blood’s working on you, changing you, perfecting you.”
Vampires in other media, like Only Lovers Left Alive for example, CAN stay awake during the daylight hours if they feel like it, and they do sleep in beds. Are they trying to imitate mortals? Maybe!
♛Alright, accepted. It was unintentional on your part, but when you invoke him, well… it’s still prodding at sensitive scar tissue. I had a complicated relationship with that man. And anyway, he was stripped of that title during the French Revolution. Neither he nor I ever told Louis to address him that way.
What do I prefer? The title I’ve earned started out as something Marius had to use in order not to beat me to a pulp, then it was gentle derision, and has gradually become a job title *sigh* People seem to expect me to be equal parts “Brat” and “Prince” at this point.
Monsieur is sufficient if you address me by title.
I-want-my-IWTV 
