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.
I sleep in a bed when at home….and mostly when I travel. I prefer it and it is comfortable to awaken in. I do keep coffins in hidden areas of the house, however and these are fail-safes, when I need to feel more secure. The ground or tombs only when there is no other alternative….or I’ve decided that I’ll sleep for a few decades or so.
I have also found that I sleep less now than I ever have before. It is possible that my “promotion” has altered my need for it. During the day, if I am awake, I stay hidden in the dark as much as I can…it stings my eyes less and I don’t have to move around much.
In true slumber, I will murder anyone that I sense to be a threat and this seems to be an unconscious action. I have found that if blood is shared, I’m less inclined to sense them as a threat and kill them. So it is possible to sleep in bed beside me or in my arms…..however, for all intents and purposes, I am dead. Pooled blood, rigor mortis, clouded eyes….all that fun. So be prepared to sleep next to a corpse for several hours.
//For those who have wondered if Ricean vampires can get piercings:
“His strength puzzled him as much as anything else. […] He drove a long thin knife right through his own hand. Such a strange sensation! And blood everywhere. Then the wounds closed and he had to open them again to pull the knife out.” – Khayman My Khayman, QotD
So yes. They can heal around a foreign object without ejecting it. But unlike with humans getting piercings, it seems the ‘severed’ tissue will try to heal completely back to its former state, instead of just becoming a cleanly healed puncture which you can then pass something through without difficulty. So taking the piercings out might be uncomfortable! (And they would then need to be re-done.)
All at once….but then it is just deafening noise. My preternatural senses have evolved in such a way that they allow me to pick through the layers and find what I want or need to hear. Sometimes I fail if my concentration is broken and that is where my migraines come from.
{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;
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!
ooc: ok but @obsessional-ram made me think about it for a second and i’m like…you know when u have super major cries where snot drips down ur nose??? replace snot with blood for ricean vampires.
“if you’re labouring under the misapprehension that lestat is cool allow me to correct you, lestat is not cool he is a whiny, needy little cry baby and i love him for it” [x]