I think I can guess who you are! You really like looking for buttons to push, don’t you? Very Lestat of you ;] I won’t tell.
It’s not a fandom law that we don’t talk about Dora, it’s sort of one of our inside jokes, like the fact that Lestat only writes with Wordstar even now.
I don’t reeeeeally want to spoil you, but you can probably already guess what happened between them. Dora and Lestat shared a very intimate experience in Memnoch the Devil that had not occurred in canon before, and has not happened since, but it’s a situation that anyone interested in vampires might have wondered about before. Lestat was very tired, it had been a long trip, and Dora was happy to console him in this *very special* way.
There were alot of mixed reactions to it, if you want to be spoiled, you can read my #Dora tag, or hit the jump.
So I don’t deny that it was gross and bizarre but I think of this scene – at certain monthly intervals – and consider it from her perspective. She seemed to like it. He seemed to like it. It went from dubcon to consensual in about 3 seconds… and she seemed empty afterwards?? He actually might have saved her a few $ on feminine products?? SUCH A GENTLEMAN.
♥u♥ ONE OF US ONE OF US (Apparently we’re calling ourselves Children of Darkness now, btw)
(BTW our mutual facepalming over Lestat was probably about this post)
Yes yes, memeything/fanart/fanfic/fanwork inspiration is, in actuality, the highest compliment to this blog, bc that’s REALLY what I do it for. When I started this thing there was fanwork but it was (and still is) all over the interwebs, and in my opinion there is not enough of it there is NEVER enough of it, so I wanted to have a collection of it for everyone’s enjoyment/inspiration, and a good resource for the fresh stuff, too 😀
Wow, your journey to VC is so touching, that our precious Sheeps shepherded you to us, was it this fanart of
Tonio Treschi?
You read Cry to Heaven –> saw sheepskeleton‘s fanart of it > sheepskeleton‘s fanart lead you here > now you’re one of us!!
#I love these kind of stories, and we (I’m sure I speak for others, too) enjoy your presence here. Great url, btw! He is Emperor of the Undead, lol.
I enjoyed Cry to Heaven, I don’t remember it very well, should reread it. I seem to recall that the main character reminded me of Armand.
A question only I can answer?! Pffffft, that would be true only if I was Anne Rice herself. Although really she ought to deputize me as one of her fandom spokespeople, my VC obsession has made me such a great resource for the fandom!
1. Does Louis just not care that she put a “fix” on him or does he still not believe her?
In his letter, Louis says that she admitted to bewitching him:
“No talk from Merrick of her potent spells can excuse my actions, though in fact, she does indeed claim to have brought me to her with magic I cannot understand. What I understand is that I love her…” – Louis de Pointe du Lac, Merrick
I think that as he writes this, he feels love for her, but he knows it can’t be real love. He must feel tricked at some level, why else commit suicide right after making a loved one into a vampire? If he really loved her, he would want to stay alive and be with her. I think he’s chosen death because he knows what he did was wrong and rather than just adding another vampire to the world, he’s taking himself out, so there’s no change in the number of vampires ;A;
2. Is that spell still there?
I think Louis is still bewitched as he writes his letter, but it’s probably worn off to some extent in the process of his resuscitation. It has definitely worn off by the time he is himself again, but I think at that point he has to consider Merrick with some natural love, because she is his fledgling and there will always be a bond there. The Dark Gift is probably the most intimate experience a vampire can give/receive.
3. And why does Lestat react so nonchalantly to it, as if it was funny rather than a bad thing? Shouldn’t he be a bit more…I dunno, jealous and pissed?
Lestat has just woken up again, cut him some slack! He’s disoriented! “With an awkward step, as though his body, so long unused, revolted against him, he made his way closer to Merrick,”
Lestat also often goes into a kind of emotional and physical paralysis when such devastating things happen. It happened when he was mortal, too. The humor that follows is also a defense mechanism against feeling the pain of the situation.
He knows that there will be an opportunity much later to get jealous and pissed, but in the immediate aftermath his thoughts are narrowed to the emergency and how to save Louis ;A;
I’m not sure why he insists on sharing his blood with Merrick, though. That seemed to condone her trickery too far for my tastes, but I suppose he did it because he saw that Louis still loved her. Making Merrick more of an equal was a gift to Louis.
Or, perhaps he wanted to drink from her to experience her side of the story, without any of her witchery, and sharing blood with her was an excuse to do that.
garama‘s fanart is a great illustration for this answer bc when you compare these two relationships, there are similarities, but you can see very clearly that there are almost 4 characters here: mortal!Nicki, mortal!Lestat, vampire!Louis, and vampire!Lestat. The 2 pairings physically resemble eachother, but there’s alot of deeper stuff going on that’s described by those poses.
“…but if I did have to choose, the companion would be Louis. My longest most enduring friendship and love affair in this world was with Louis. And though his limitations can be maddening, they can also be as inspiring to me as his virtues… the best choices we make are not always the wise choices. Sometimes they are intensely emotional choices. And I’ve always had a deep Romantic respect for emotion. My love for Louis transcends wisdom. And I may need the pain as much as the consolation that an eternal relationship with Louis would involve.“
I’m inclined to agree with Lestat on that. Lestat would choose Louis over everyone. They have an inexplicable chemistry that binds them hopelessly together.
Do you really want my full opinion? Hit the jump.
Nicolas was Lestat’s first real long-term relationship at a time when Lestat desperately needed love and nurturing and wanted to give it back, too. Nicolas is the first person who really listened to him and they both helped each other immensely.
Lestat was a different person when he was with Nicolas; quite literally! They were mortal lovers, and they were in their early 20s, they went through alot together in escaping from their homeland to Paris, and thrived there. Their relationship was horribly shattered when Lestat was kidnapped from their apartment, and things were never the same between them after that happened. Even aside from that, Nicolas revealed that he had a different mission in life than Lestat did:
“And when we decided to go to Paris, I thought we would starve in Paris, that we would go down and down and down. It was what I wanted, rather than what they wanted, that I, the favored son, should rise for them. I thought we would go down! We were supposed to go down.” – Nicolas de Lenfent, TVL
So even in your Alternate Universe suggestion that Lestat could be with Nicki again, I don’t think that relationship could ever really work, because deep down Nicolas and Lestat always wanted different things out of life.
Lestat was about 31 mortal yrs old when he met Louis, and he had grown and experienced a lot. He was more mature, more in control of his emotions. He saw vampiring as being a great adventure and he saw the potential in Louis to be the companion he always wanted. He was right. Louis has been one of the strongest vampires in the coven, without needing to display it in physical feats of strength, but in emotional ones, and in the choices he’s made.
I-want-my-IWTV 