Marius appreciates Louis for his human tenderness, his empathy, and Louis comes to Marius for paternal support. When they play strategy games like cards or chess, they’re among the best-matched opponents in the coven. Pandora’s at their level, too. All three have excellent poker faces.
Marius finds Louis aesthetically appealing but doesn’t have any romantic intentions towards him, but even so, he can’t help but be curious about “upgrading” Louis. For how it might enhance Louis, but also possibly bc the act itself, the intimacy involved, is kind of tantalizing to think about ;]
There’s fic out there that Louis has occasionally modeled in the nude for Marius’ paintings ;}
Canon quote under the cut.
Marius re: Louis, when he’s consoling him that Lestat is still alive, in Queen of the Damned:
“He smiled at Louis. Something in the manner of this one made Marius happy, though he wasn’t sure why. He beckoned for Louis to come to him and they met at the foot of the table and walked together out of the room. Marius put his arm around Louis’s shoulder and they went down the iron stairs together, through the damp earth, Marius walking slowly and heavily, exactly like a human being might walk.
“ ‘And you’re sure of it?’ ” Louis asked respectfully.
Marius stopped. “ ‘Oh, yes, quite sure.’ ” They looked at one another for a moment, and again Marius smiled. This one was so gifted yet not gifted at the same time; he wondered if the human light would go out of Louis’s eyes if he ever gained more power, if he ever had, for instance, a little of the blood of Marius in his veins.
…Then he embraced Louis again warmly. Just a little blood, and Louis might be stronger, true, but then he might lose the human tenderness, the human wisdom that no one could give another; the gift of knowing others’ suffering with which Louis had probably been born.”
Louis – @merciful-death’s Louis has a black cat named Harriet (#headcanon accepted!). She leaves him dead mice often, and according to Lestat (@devilsfool): “She hunts them to try to feed you. She’s convinced that you are a terrible hunter.”
I also see Louis as being visited frequently by a big stray tomcat, and Lestat doesn’t approve of this one either bc MORE CAT HAIR ON VELVET FURNITURE. Velvet is very cat-hair-ophillic. This cat doesn’t have a name but Louis calls him by a lot of baby names (”Mon chou,” “Sir Fluff,” “Kitten,”) and Lestat calls him by a lot of rude names (”Hairball,” “Trashface,” “Loaf”). This cat actually followed Harriet to their home one night, and he likes to nap with her when she allows it.
Lestat – I know you didn’t ask about Lestat but I have to include him a little more! According to @annabellioncourt, “Lestat was also a canon dog person, and while there are people who love both (hi) I think with Lestat’s constant need for validation he’d be a total dog person.
Like no cats at all.
He hissed back at Louis’s cat once.
Lestat almost always has a dog, and he has meticulous memory of all the dogs he ever had.“
^#headcanon accepted.
Daniel – Lizards! Frogs! Snakes! Reptiles in general. Also insects. He has a big pinned collection, featuring gorgeous butterflies and buprestidae. Lestat loves this collection and goes to reptile houses with Daniel on occasion. They both love cobras.
Armand – I can’t find the canon evidence but I’m pretty sure he had big fancy aquariums on Night Island.
[X] Armand is truly fascinated with owls, owls are totes his spirit animal, deceptively powerful in their small size. Their symbolism for intelligence and careful planning. And y’know, they’re basically "flying pillows filled with seething hatred.” like Armand!
Hit the jump for a bit more.
Marius had taxidermied animals:“giant stuffed beasts mounted in lifelike attitudes – the brown bear, the lion, the tiger, even the elephant standing in his own immense chamber, lizards as big as dragons, birds of prey clutching dried branches made to look like the limbs of real trees.” -TVL
Marius also had a “giant aquarium, the great room-sized tank” filled w/ “rare and beautiful tropical fish” and caged birds. – QOTD
Claudia loved birds, especially small ones. She likes songbirds especially. She also loved rabbits but more for their fur than their personality.
The short answer is: Yes, there are PoC vampires in VC (”VoC,” right? Vampires of Color?). There aren’t many in the recurring character cast but they’re in the series! Here’s one in
Queen of the Damned:
“Davis was a black Dead guy and one damned good-looking black Dead guy,… His skin had a gold glow to it, the Dead glow which in the case of white Dead guys made them look like they were standing in a fluorescent light all the time.”
Have I ever imagined what they looked like? I think that was a pretty good description, because other than the “gold glow,” I would describe a PoC vampire like I would a PoC person, with the features that they have!
[^X] Akasha is an Egyptian VoC, described in the novels as having porcelain white skin, and this is a point of contention in the VC fandom, that AR has whitewashed her. I don’t have a stand on this but I very much like the way that it was handled in movie!QOTD.
It’s worth noting that there is a debate as to what color the Ancient Egyptians’ skin really was, and I added a bit from 2 articles under the cut which might be of interest to you.
Akasha is also very old, and Ricean vampire physiology involves the lightening of the skin over time. This is another point of contention in the VC fandom, again, it appears on the surface to be AR whitewashing a PoC.
I would suggest that the draining of pigmentation is due to the lack of exposure to sunlight, as we can see in examples in nature of subterranean animals who have evolved over time to be light-colored.
Subterranean fauna are animals that have adapted to live underground… troglofauna are associated with caves and spaces above the water table … Adaptations to the subterranean environment include a heightened sense of hearing, touch and smell[1]… and loss of under-used or unnecessary senses, apparent in the lack of pigmentation and eyesight of most subterranean fauna.
^So maybe AR drew a little from there. Why a lack of pigmentation? I found an interesting study/article (In the Light of Evolution: Volume IV: The Human Condition) on that, too, which points to the lack of sunlight as the cause:
Observers beginning with Hippocrates in the fifth century associated human traits and temperament with the environment and recognized that skin color was part of this package (Isaac, 2004). The association of dark skin pigmentation with intense sunshine and heat was further developed by Aristotle and his followers as part of a comprehensive “climatic theory,” which related human features, dispositions, and cultures to the environment.
…The evolution of light pigmentation at high latitudes has long been related to the significance of production of vitamin D in the skin under conditions of reduced sunlight (Murray, 1934; Loomis, 1967).
^I would suggest that the vampiric parasite is always working on converting its host into a better vampire (and less of a mortal) cell by cell, and the process is accelerated too much by the UV rays in sunlight, which causes their skin to burn. Being unable to tolerate the discomfort, the vampire skin gradually drains of color due to lack of exposure to sunlight.
The rate at which they lose pigmentation and how much pigment is lost varies by individual. It’s also possible that some vampires retain a skin color that is similar to their mortal skin color. It’s not an exact science.
There are also examples of vampire skin becoming darker after surviving exposure to sunlight.
Hope that helped! Hit the jump for stuff about Egyptian skin color.
…ancient Egyptians didn’t really perceive themselves as either “black” or “white.” Just look at the above painting from Pharaoh Seti I’s tomb. The top right group, with the palest skin are Libyans (Berbers), the next one over to the left are Nubians, followed by “Asiatics” (Mesopotamians). The bottom central group are Egyptians. By their own perception Egyptians were neither particularly dark nor particularly pale, and given their xenophobic attitude towards outside cultures (which was fairly common for most ancient peoples) they would probably resent being sorted into either “race.”
So why does this matter? Why is it important that we acknowledge the Egyptians don’t fit into our constructed dichotomy of black vs. white, of European or African?Well, for one thing many modern Egyptians find it kind of offensive. Despite their modern self-identification as Arabs, most Egyptians still feel a strong claim to the historical legacy of their ancient forebears and find it pretty annoying when American scholars (and, black or white, it is mostly Americans) try to pigeonhole the pharaohs into one racial category or another for political purposes.
The race and skin color of Cleopatra, the last pharaoh of the Greek Ptolomaic dynasty of Egypt, established in 323 BCE, has also caused frequent debate.[46] For example, the article Was Cleopatra Black? was published in Ebony magazine in 2012,[47] and an article about Afrocentrism from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch mentions the question, too.[48] Scholars generally identify Cleopatra as of Greek and Persian ancestry, based on fact that her Greek Macedonian family had intermingled with the Persian aristocracy of the time. However, her mother’s identity is uncertain,[49] and that of her paternal grandmother is also not known for certain.[50]
(2 of 2) I remember these scenes somewhere in the books pretty vividly, but I just reread IWTV over again and couldnt find them. Did i dream them being in the books after years of watching the movie?
So actually, I couldn’t remember either, so I just skimmed IWTV, and neither actually happened quite that way in that book. But it’s still sort of canon bc Anne Rice wrote the script, and she was trying to incorporate later canon stuff where she could.
In QOTD, Claudia mentions it in her diary: “Of course, he gave me a doll as usual, the replica of me, which as always wears a duplicate of my newest
dress. To France he sends for these dolls, he wants me to know. And what should I do with it? Play with it
as if I were really a child?…
He has given me thirty such dolls over the years if recollection serves me…
They would crowd me out of my bedroom if I
kept them. But I do not keep them. I burn them, sooner or later. I smash their china faces with the poker. I
watch the fire eat their hair.”
[X] In IWTV, Claudia crushes a doll in front of Louis and she talks about being disappointed in baby dolls… she was pretty spoiled by her dads, so I would bet she got them at other times than just her “birthday,” too! Maybe the fanciest ones were received annually.
^The haircut thing is actually something Gabrielle experienced in TVL. She had cut it and the next night it had grown back to its full length it had been when she died:
Her long heavy hair had slipped over
her shoulders again, and exasperated, she took hold of it in both
hands. Then suddenly she made a low hissing sound, and her body
went rigid. She was holding her long tresses and staring at them.
“My God, ” she whispered. And then in a spasm, she let go of her
hair and screamed.
The sound paralyzed me. It sent a flash of white
pain through my head. I had never heard her scream. And she
screamed again as if she were on fire.
Merci beaucoup, glad you like this thing! You want more?
You do, I see >:}
I’d agree w/ you about Jack Frost, he’s forced into his immortal status by accident, too, and he’s orphaned and has to figure out what to do w/ himself, too. Jack and Lestat are definitely both
cheeky undead optimists! And yes, OLLA and What We Do in the Shadows are fantastic, that’s for sure! Those movies were very much the VC movie we had been waiting for, with different facets of VC-adjacentness. OLLA more for the aesthetic and WWDITS more for the comedy.
I don’t think that any ONE movie or book (or book series) has all the ingredients that make up that unique VC flavor but there are many that are adjacent. I knew this was going to end up being a masterpost, that’s why it took so long. Also I restrained myself from any Tom Cruise movies. He should have his own masterpost ;D
*cracks knuckles* Okayyy… SO,
VC-Adjacent is more doable than Lestatuesque, bc everyone’s headcanon of Lestat varies and we all know how attached I am to Tom Cruise So I’ll give you one Lestatuesque rec and the rest are VC-Adjacent.
Lestatuesque:
Blade Runner (1982) – this movie is mentioned in canon (QOTD). AR had wanted to cast Rutger Hauer as Lestat. But he was too old when they finally got IWTV into production D: so watch this and see her vision for Lestat.
Over and over [Armand] watched Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner, fascinated by Rutger Hauer, the powerfully built actor who, as the leader of the rebel androids, confronts his human maker, kisses him, and then crushes his skull. It would bring a slow and almost impish laugh from Armand, the bones cracking, the look in Hauer’s ice-cold blue eye.
“That’s your friend, Lestat, there,” Armand whispered once to Daniel. “Lestat would have the… how do you say?… guts?… to do that!”
In no particular order*
(and @annabellioncourt helped me out here, so wherever there’s an *, those are her recs that I agreed with)(and there are other movies I love obviously, but I tried to limit this list to VC-Adjacent only; and I couldn’t think of any of my fave books that come close enough to fit in here).
Vampire movies:
*Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992) – Well this goes w/o saying, and it also shared movie!IWTV’s Michele Burke as head of the makeup dept ;D
The Lost Boys (1987) – @skeletalroses is kind of my authority on this one, and >>>this movie is cited as a major inspiration for WWDITS.<<<
What We Do in the Shadows (2014)- Including it on here bc of reasons, this is a very classy documentary of several vampires flatting together in New Zealand as a big coven ball approaches.
Only Lovers Left Alive (2013) – Including it on here bc of reasons, this is a very classy film of several vampires visiting together in Detroit, Michigan, and Tangiers, Morocco, as the world is slowly taken over by the “zombies” (not actual ones, metaphoric ones). And there are alot of parallels between the married couple and Claudia Ava, who is thirsty all the time and above the law bc of course she is.
Shadow of the Vampire (2000) – It’s a behind-the-scenes fanfic of the filming of the legendary Nosferatu! Mostly horror w/ a dash of comedy. Bonus: Eddie Izzard.
Dracula: Dead and Loving It (1995) – Yeah I love Leslie Nielsen, fight me. It’s a Dracula parody. This will never not be funny.
Jennifer’s Body (2009) – well she’s not really a vampire but she eats ppl, so close enough. I love the dynamic between Jennifer and her best friend, how you’re not sure whether Jennifer wants to bring her into this, or just terrify her, but there is something kind of Akasha-esque about this creature.
Let the Right One In (2008) – the original is better than the US remake (Let Me In, 2010) but they’re both worth watching. Child vampire! Choosing a new BFF! She has to respect the Being Invited In Rule, tho.
The Little Vampire (2000) – a cuter child vampire, w/o much of the angst of being a child vampire, overall super cute and I had to include this bc of Jack Frost.
Other Horror movies/shows:
*Crimson Peak (2015) –@annabellioncourt says: “would be a fair addition because of the atmosphere of it as well as its campy factor”
The Walking Dead (2010-current) – my new drug, group dynamics, fighting for supremacy, survival, romance, killing!
Sweeney Todd (2007) – It’s pretty goth, it has some comedy, it has murder, it has ppl pining for each other. Also, a musical. My fave is the whole By the Sea song sequence bc Helena is trying so hard!
The Witches of Eastwick (1987) – Jack Nicholson is the devil and wants to make his own harem of 3 powerful witches what could possibly go wrong? There is a hilariously awful scene in a church. Jack approaches Lestatuesque levels of charm as he courts these women, and then there’s supernatural stuff going on.
The Addams Family (1991) – Gomez and Morticia have the kind of ship Lestat would kill for. He would probably dig their aesthetic to some extent, too. Also murderous kids, who are encouraged to be murderous. ONE HAPPY FAMILY.
Black Swan (2010) – something about this, maybe the aesthetic, feels very Theatre Des Vampires.
Beetlejuice (1988) – Alec Baldwin! Looked like this once upon a time! But mostly, ppl dealing with being dead and not having a very helpful ghost w/ the most trying to help them. When it works for him.
Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975) – campy, musical, murdery, I still don’t really know what it all really means but it’s fun. Dr. F can be compared to Lestat, in that he’s lusty, charming, glamorous, materialistic, bossy as hell, has a real mean streak, tries to make the perfect lover for himself and fails at it over and over… an essay could be written comparing them. @laurasking is my authority on RHPS.
Other movies/shows:
Phenomenon (1996) – Telekinesis and someone dealing w/ acquiring it, and how his community treats him bc of it. THIS IS CUTE so like, yeah, much further away, I almost didn’t include it. Gonna lose my reputation over this rec OH WELL it’s your fault, Anon, bc Jack Frost.
Anime – recc’d by my best friend:
Vampire Princess Miyu – “similar atmosphere"
Witch Hunter Robin – “quite gothic”
Otogizoushi – “very atmospheric"
Annbellioncourt’s Recs bc she is classier than me:
Byzantium (2012) – Neil Jordan’s first vampire movie since IWTV
Wolfman (2010) – “its cheesey, but its atmospheric, spooky, and bloody”
The Hunger (1983) – “is one I always suggest to people wanting more”
The Bloody Chamber And Other Stories – Angela Carter
Anyone can feel free to comment or reblog this with their own recs *u*
There were many things, as I mention, which Lestat might have said and done. He might have made the experience rich in so many ways. But he did not.
Louis – Interview with the Vampire (Anne Rice)
“No need to tell him what to observe, or what to remember. He always knew such things. Years ago, when I’d
done the dark magic on him, I hadn’t had to tell him anything; he had savored the smallest aspects of it all
on his own. And later he’d said I’d failed to guide him. Didn’t he know how unnecessary that had always
been?” – Lestat, Queen of the Damned (Anne Rice)
I-want-my-IWTV 