I can’t believe I almost forgot I did this; My favorite scene from Queen of the Damned. Armand barges in at 3 in the morning to call Paris and make it rain.
He might not be able to match someone’s voice flawlessly (ie a woman or young child), but he can match inflection, accent, breath, tone, pitch, diction, and intensity perfectly. This, in addition to the dark gift, is how he learns languages and loses his accents so quickly.
He knows who’s coming down the hall based on foot falls.
He can match any musical note and takes great pleasure in singing. Because he was given the dark gift at 16/17, he would still have a young boy’s falsetto and a grown man’s base without the annoying voice cracks or range gaps.
One of his favorite things to do when someone is singing is to join in with a consonance or dissonance harmony depending on his mood. He loves to make Lestat’s singing sound bad, so 8/10 times, Armand will sing discordantly with him.
He can sound almost exactly like most male singers from the 1960′s to today like Fun., Styx, Elton John, Ed Sheeran, Paul Simon, and not Hozier (he tried, the range was too low for him).
After playing with a new instrument for the first time, he’d be able to play his favorite songs without any sour notes. He does not, however, write his own music.
ooc. Well, headcanons may vary of course, but the way I read the character and the relationship he had with Armand… Yes, Santino loved him. And I will even say that he loved him very deeply. The love was likely not a very considerate kind but it was real.
I hinge this a) on Santino actively assuring Marius that he did love Armand (in TVA) and b) Santino’s exhibiting very fatherly and sympathetic behavior towards Armand.
Santino is depicted as a very honest and very caring character. His honesty is attested by Marius (B&G) and Santino himself claims to hate evil and to suffer from the way he has to live in the cult. Further: He actually cries when he visits Armand in his cell because the torture was so cruel and he couldn’t stand it (TVA). He is evidently very taken with Armand and compliments him even when there is nothing to gain from it. (also TVA) Because of all of this I say he loved him like a son, or else a protégé.
What he feels for him nowadays is more difficult, I think.
OOC: I totally hear what you’re saying but Santino’s fucked up cruelty in the past done unto Marius, Palazzo Boys and Armand were so horrific, I just have a hard time picturing how you describe him. How can I improve my perspective of Santino?
ooc. I genuinely can’t help you there. If you don’t want to view him in a sympathetic light then nothing I say will change that. Mind you, I started out hating him, too. It took me a while to warm up to him. (cut for length)
This is really good !! I’m always a slut for nuanced understandings of complex characters 😍
^YES! I really enjoyed this response from @desanctii.
Perspective and context can allow us to view a character in a sympathetic light, but if you don’t want to do so, that’s fine, too. Both approaches are equal, we all have our own interpretations of canon.
Anyway so I shout into the void about metal sometimes, even though I fully realize I’m like the lone fandom metalhead LOL. I mean @finnishdoomster is around too LOL there’s a couple of us but it’s mostly pretty lonely.
but like fuckit I do what I want TODAY I’M GONNA TALK ABOUT:
BLACK METAL SONGS THAT REMIND ME OF MARIUS DE ROMANUS.
The thing about Marius + metal whenever I think about it is that I’m always thinking about how butthurt he was that Botticelli went dark, how disappointed he was. I’m of the opinion that Marius white-knuckles his way through immortality; that he represses his own anger until it reaches boiling points and he does stupid shit, and I think part of it was his refusal to admit to his own flaws, his own loneliness, his own desperation.
So like, on one hand I think he would see the subculture and find the metalheads adorable, like cute little humans acting all tough and scary. but I think he’d also appreciate that metal subculture is built around the idea of feeling alienated, being different, and embracing all the things that make us weird because we aren’t buying into all the bullshit that’s fed to us. Metalheads are philosophers and outsiders and are, by nature, creative people. They think differently and don’t try to deny it. And you don’t become a metalhead without being passionate, without caring about metal, because all the good metal is hiding from you and it’s a process to find it.
On the other hand I imagine that this music might be too much, too raw, too painful to listen to, just too fucking real. I can’t imagine him or any other ancient hearing some of these albums and not being totally traumatized.
I think black metal is an acquired taste for some—not everyone is gonna get it right away—but the thing about it is that it’s so cerebral to listen to, it’s such an experience, and when you click with it you just connect on such a deep level, and it just shreds you.
I listen to a lot of fucking music, okay? And I just. I don’t think anything really captures the darkness the way black metal does. Especially the more melodic black metal, especially when it gets a little epic, maybe has some orchestral parts. It’s such an incredible blend of being worldly and majestic with the emptiness and the desperation. There’s really nothing like it.
And I tend to feel, out of all the metal vocal styles, that the signature black metal vocal style sounds so much more like genuine pain than any other subgenre. Like death metal styles sound so much more aggressive and black metal just always strikes me as really meaning it.
And it specifically reminds me of Marius more than anyone else. It’s partly because I’m a fangirl (oops) but also just the very nature of his life, and I find B&G so haunting. He’s the only ancient we’ve really gotten to spend so much time with and it’s so chilling to hear him really own his age, discuss how much he’s seen, the eras he’s lived through. And his book is characterized by loss, time and time again, of people in his life, cities he’s loved, his sense of belonging anywhere. I just feel it heavily and poignantly in a lot of this music.
It’s not just the loss and pain, though, but in black metal that you can hear the abject evil and idk about you guys but it’s something that just inflames everything in me that is capable of feeling passion. It’s so incredibly dark and terrifying andseductive to me and if that doesn’t click into place with how I feel about these goddamn vampires, idk what.
There’s also the trend in black metal, especially blackened folk metal and melodic black metal, for the bands to incorporate traditional instruments from their heritage. It’s such an interesting blend of sounds but also, in this instance!, adds sort of a historical texture to the music in a lot of ways, which makes it an easy motif for me to hang onto.
And I can’t speak for the authenticity of the use of any of these instruments but again I find myself thinking: If Marius heard this, would he be totally shook? Imagine this brutally raw, pained music brought to life with an instrument he hasn’t heard in hundreds of years.
What was the music like at the grove?
(BONUS SONG: Krigsgaldr by Heilung! I will concede that Heilung isn’t metal but black metal fans jizz their pants over this shit and like he’s got that scratchy black metal thing going on and this is just too good not to include cause it fits right in. FUN FACT, since I already talk about Wardruna + VC too much I’ll just casually remind you that Wardruna is black metal dudes. But check out HEILUNG also cause this is like all the spooky folk sounds without the obvious metal. METALHEADS LOVE THIS LOL.)
One of my favorite lines in the entire series is when Marius refers to “the cold and fatal domain” of his soul. Just. Fuck dude.
IS THERE ANYTHING MORE COLD AND FATAL THAN FUCKIN BLACK METAL???? Like “Cold and Fatal Domain” legit sounds like it should be the name of someone’s album.
LIKE, DID U KNO? One of the popular lyrical themes in black metal is the chaos of nature? SORTA LIKE THE SAVAGE GARDEN? Immortal, for example? Half their fuckin songs are just about snowy dark icy mountains and how cold it is in Norway. They have a song called Grim & Frostbitten Kingdoms! Sounds like some Cold & Fatal Domains! (Also LMAO they’re called Immortal. Appropriate.)
I don’t really know where I’m going with any of this and I don’t have a graceful way to exit but. I just wanted to share that with you. If you’re feeling adventurous and want to give a new genre a try, do it. 😀 I didn’t pick any SUPER intense songs, these are good beginner songs, so if you want some icy dark vampire pain knock yaself out.
Attention, fans of Loustat! I took one for the team and messaged Mater about whether we would see any more scenes between them in the next book (I mean, Louis being dropped is a constant fear, lbr). Here’s her response!
YAAAAASSSS
👌👀👌👀👌👀👌👀👌👀 good shit go౦ԁ sHit👌 thats ✔ some good👌👌shit right👌👌th 👌 ere👌👌👌 right✔there ✔✔if i do ƽaү so my selｆ 💯 i say so 💯 thats what im talking about right there right there (chorus: ʳᶦᵍʰᵗ ᵗʰᵉʳᵉ) mMMMMᎷМ💯 👌👌 👌НO0ОଠＯOOＯOОଠଠOoooᵒᵒᵒᵒᵒᵒᵒᵒᵒ👌 👌👌 👌 💯 👌 👀👀 👀 👌👌Good shit
I cant believe @i-want-my-iwtv brought back this dank af meme
yesssss louis my fave
1. BELIEVE IT BC IT IS A LOVELY VINTAGE MEME THAT HAS AGED LIKE A FINE WINE! ❤❤❤
2. *slams fist down on table* MORE LOUIS IN CANON PLZ
I’m the way I always was about every new VC book: cautiously optimistic, there may be some great stuff in it, if not, it’s still going to be a Wild Ride as per usual!
Yes, you’re right, the descriptions are a little different, and idk who has control over that. I’m guessing it’s not the author *shrugs*
The U.S. description was more about Lestat still wrangling all the vampires into some kind of monarchy/democracy government and then:
… against his will, he must battle the menacing, seemingly unstoppable force determined to thwart his vision and destroy the entire vampire netherworld.
What now with this ‘unstoppable force’? I thought we already extracted Amel, he was specifically the ‘force’ pestering everybody and tryna start shit!
…and tells the riveting story of the formation of the Blood Communion and how he became Prince of the vampire world, the true ruler of this vast force,
What is ‘the Blood Communion’ is this going to be a blood orgy oh gawds… are all the vampires a ‘vast force’ now, or is he getting YET ANOTHER super power? Weather control and/or lightning, like Thor now?? *ragged sigh*
…and then of his fierce battle of wits and words with the mysterious Rhoshamandes…
Rhoshamandes, a force who refuses to live in harmony at the Court of Prince Lestat and threatens all that Lestat has dreamt of.
Ok, yes, a vampire civil war good BRING IT ON. Hopefully he gets some allies to even it up and make it a fair fight.
….As the tale unfolds, Lestat takes us from blah blah blah France to
blah blah blah
Louisiana
blah blah blah; from
blah blah
the Pacific’s untouched islands to the 18th-century city of St. Petersburg and the court of the Empress Catherine …”
^I’m guessing this last bit re: Empress Catherine will be us sitting down to hear more of Rhoshamandes’ story, we’ll see.
From blah blah blah France, Prince Lestat is grappling to instil a new ideology of peace and harmony among the blood-drinking community.
So no blood orgy mentioned ok, but…
Accustomed to welcoming all of the Undead – from far and wide – into his court, one night he awakes to news of a ruthless attack by a group of maverick blood-drinkers.
^THERE’S A GROUP OF THEM who attack. What would it take to attack a compound designed by vampires to be the safest place for them and teeming with vampires capable of telepathic gifts, a species that is always out for its own protection?
After fleeing to investigate the terror, Lestat learns of several new enemies who despise his rule over the blood-drinking realm, and who are intent on disrupting the harmony he tries so hard to maintain.
GOOD I’m glad the attackers have a group, it’s not just Everybody-Hates-Rhoshamandes on his own, that’d be kind of unfair.
One enemy in particular, the infamous Rhoshamandes, is notoriously powerful. But is Lestat strong enough to take on such evil alone or will sacrifices have to be made?
^SACRIFICES – makes me think a few of the old crew have been taken prisoner or have switched sides? IDK.
Then again, I do think there are enough new characters added in PL/ROA to be used specifically as canon fodder.
Will his cry for peace be heard in a world riddled with violence?
No. Honestly this is a pile of serial killers, murder is what they DO. And then, some ppl just want to watch the world burn, even if peace is offered and on the table.
An enthralling, sweeping adventure, full of drama and suspense, Blood Communion will have readers gripped to the very end. It is not just a compelling tale of a troubled leader, but a novel about the power of ambition, as well as a timely reflection on the struggle of individuals to find and defend their place in the world.
I think it is definitely timely, he is a troubled leader, and I think it’s got the potential to be very good the way Queen of the Damned was good.
I-want-my-IWTV 