so im trying to decipher this chart on wikipedia that has common vampire weaknesses in it and
a ‘green/yes’ is a weakness, a ‘red/no’ is something that isnt a weakness, and a ‘?’ is something that has never been addressed but fucking riddle me this
in what lore are vampires weak to getting soggy in milk
i scrolled over to check to see what this could possibly be and
I’m quite flattered that you want my opinion, apparently I had alot of thoughts on this, you’re getting a Wall of Text™,
enjoy!
I haven’t read the book, and I probably should, but I saw both “Let the Right One In” and “Let Me In.” I preferred the original movie to the US remake but they were both very good! I am really picky about the vampire media I like, they have to be characters first and vampires second, and the vampiring has to be compelling in some way, introducing something new and believable to the lore.
I don’t remember it completely so I can’t get into a lot of detail, but browsing gifs reminds me what I loved about it: a dreamy and chilly atmosphere, lots of good vampire physiology woven in seamlessly, and the child actors were all amazingly talented, they all seemed very genuine, their emotions were real with subtle variations, and not mimicry, which can happen with child actors. The whole cast of both movies had great chemistry and I believed in all of them. The basic concept of Eli needing a mortal attendant, and this is the story of how she found a new one!! #MY HEART.
The original actors were better, in my opinion, bc they seemed more like the kind of kids who might live next door to you. As opposed to the trope of the “girl/boy next door” who is attractive and popular, you might not take special notice of these kids, they have their own kind of beauty but weren’t the conventionally attractive kind you see in ads.
Eli especially had the perfect blend of childlike curiosity and that old soul carried within, not a face you’d use to sell laundry soap, fortunately. Otherworldly w/o being too supernatural. EDIT: Eli’s gender is ambiguous, according to this Wiki post: “The original film ultimately leaves the character’s gender ambiguous, as the scene showing Eli’s scarred genitalia is not explained. In both films, the vampire tells the boy “I’m not a girl”. In the 2010 film it is quite clear that Abby was born female,…” I interpreted that line of dialogue as meaning that Eli is not a mortal girl, but not that it was a statement about her gender, also. As I said, I haven’t read the book, and maybe that will change my headcanon, but for now, I headcanon Eli as female and will use those pronouns.
This vampire story also brought back the idea of having to be invited in, and without that permission, the vampire in question would start having physical reactions! Like a severe allergic reaction! We got the blood tears that not many vampire movies want (or are able) to tackle.
Then there’s the whole sunlight makes them spontaneously combust, we all expected smtg to happen to this accidentally-turned victim and IT HAPPENED in a HOSPITAL idk that made it really funny to me! Dying dramatically in a place of healing, the orderly opening the blinds bc that’s usually a friendly thing to do BUT NOT TODAY.
Then we have Oskar, who was so sweet to Eli. Yes he’s platinum blond with skin as white as leprosy (did you see what I did there??) but this is a kid who gets bullied on a regular basis and hasn’t lost his kind heart.
You can tell that he’s intrigued by Eli and cares about her before they’ve even had that much time to get to know eachother, it’s that way for best friends. Sometimes you just know in the first 5 min of meeting someone that you want to be friends with them forever, if possible ^u^
I don’t remember when this hug occurs but just look at them, she is so scared of liking him, bc she might hurt him, she’s holding back so hard, just… it’s so good! Such chemistry between them. He wants to teach her about modern things, she wants to have a reason to live, it reminds me very much of Daniel/Armand.
Yah so overall, thanks for reminding me of these movies! I think a rewatch is needed…
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 exhausted and very badly upset, it had been a long trip, and Dora seemed happy to console him in this *very special* way.
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.
More specifically, we don’t get alot of detail about it as being different from the blood they consume anyway, but I would think it would absolutely be a different experience, and hey, maybe there are foodie-vampires who prefer it?
IDK about other kinds, but Ricean vampires would have face, head, and body hair at the length and placement it was when they died (the texture and color of the hair does change slightly, and hair dyes would not remain permanent).
Jesse mentions being groomed before she’s turned. So those stray eyebrow hairs wouldn’t keep growing back for eternity.
There would be a nightly choice of shaving the face or not, if one had a beard when they were turned, and it would only grow back to the length it was the night they died. Which is partly why we never see movie!Louis trimming his sideburns, they won’t get longer. He could shave them off but they’d grow back.
[X] ^Lookit this bearded cutie trying on his fangs awwww… ❤
Lestat doesn’t mention having or being able to grow a beard.
Fingernails are not subject to the Rule of As-Is, my new term for the aspects of appearance someone has as a mortal that will be strictly adhered to when they are turned (like the fact that they are missing a limb, or their hair is shoulder-length, things like that).
[X Lestat left one of his vicious little thumb rings w/ me <3]
It could stay uneven/broken for other vampires in other media.
Why aren’t Ricean vampire fingernails subject to the Rule of As-Is? Well, as you say, an uneven/broken nail would be hella inconvenient for eternity! But none of AR’s vampires ever mentioned having this issue, and with so many vampires, who have known so many more vampires, collectively, surely one of them would have brought it up by now if it were a thing. So I have to conclude that fingernails are not subject to the Rule of As-Is.
[^Claudia’s aren’t long but she was a child, special exception. In Ricean vampires, their nails also have a kind of glassy sheen also my hands are prettier than Louis’ hands]
I headcanon that their nails grow to a certain length when they are turned, longer than they were in life, and will grow back to that length after being filed down. Lestat files his nails, he’s doing it in IWTV:
“And he drew
from his pocket a nail file, and, seating himself on the foot of the old
man’s bed, he began to file his long nails… I could
hear the old man talking to Lestat; Lestat, who sat with his legs crossed,
filing and filing, one eyebrow arched, his attention on his perfect nails.”
Bc in vampire lore, in general, abnormally long fingernails are considered a sign of being a vampire. This comes from the fact that when you exhume a body from its coffin (to check to see whether dead Auntie Vivienne has been turned into a vampire *gasp*), the nails appear to have continued to grow, therefore, Auntie Viv must be undead! In fact:
“It is not that the fingernails are growing, but that the skin around them retracts as it becomes dehydrated, making them appear longer. When preparing a body, funeral directors will sometimes moisturise the fingertips to counteract this.” [X]
You don’t have to get groomed before you’re turned, AR doesn’t always specify if ppl do. I doubt Frida Kahlo would have! To pluck or not, to cut one’s hair or not, depends partly on the culture you’re from and what you personally consider beautiful.
Me, I’d LOVE to never have to bother with it again, but I’d probably let it be somewhat natural under the brow, like Brooke Shields had in the 80′s, so that I’d have that option if I wanted it, bc I am a child of the ‘80′s and this is still beautiful to me:
It’s part of the package. The women who were turned before shaving one’s legs was expected (presumably it was a sneaky way to sell more razors :P) probably have natural legs. Louis doesn’t mention shaving his face before he was turned, we don’t know if Lestat has scruff.
“I could hear Lestat in his room, the sound of water splashing from his pitcher. The faint smell of his cologne came and went like the sound of music from the cafe two doors down from us.” – IWTV
^Is he shaving? Is he brushing his fangs? Maybe he does have some scruff! He didn’t mention being freshly shaven before Magnus turns him.
It definitely creeped Jesse out in QOTD, but partly bc she didn’t really know what was going on did they shave her legs, too?:
“…Was this a funeral parlor?
It came again, the fear that she was dead, locked in the flesh yet disconnected. She
heard a curious sound; what was it? A scissors cutting. It was trimming the edges of
her hair; the feel of it traveled to her scalp. She felt it even in her intestines.
A tiny vagrant hair was plucked suddenly from her face; one of those annoying hairs,
quite out of place, which women so hate. She was being groomed for the coffin,
wasn’t she? Who else would take such care, lifting her hand now, and inspecting her
fingernails so carefully.”
To answer Daniel, I think the sun is always up and could hurt them but they could stay on the dark side of the planet where it’s night, and also, the spaceship/spacecompound could be sealed from sunlight. The vampires inside would still fall into the deathsleep on their own inner biological clocks so even with a spacesuit capable of protecting them from the sunlight they’d probably still fall into the deathsleep in the presence of sunlight… it would get complicated.
More importantly, they’d need to bring live victims and wouldn’t be able to kill, bc they’d kill off their blood supply. Ricean vampires don’t get much nutrition out of animal or bottled blood, presumably they also need the soul that comes with live human blood.
If a vampire died in space, the ashes would have nowhere to go, but hopefully they would be scattered, bc Ricean vampires can sometimes resurrect if their ashes are not scattered 😛
You’re looking at a 3 mm-wide section of a cat tongue more than a century old. David Linstead’s captivating image was a winner in the 2015 Wellcome Image Awards, run by the Wellcome Trust, a biomedical charity in London.
The serrated ridge may be the most intriguing aspect of this picture. Those rough bumps, or papillae, are the reason that a kitty’s tongue feels like sandpaper when it licks you. When a cat grooms herself, the papillae act like a comb to remove dirt and loose hair. But they also serve a grislier purpose: rasping meat off of bones.
my hc was always that they couldn’t get it up; that the “at the gate” bit meant that it was waiting to rise to the ocassion, but they lacked the ability either physically, or else they were no longer sexually aroused bc blood was a far greater pleasure to them.
That’s my hc, too, at least for Ricean vampires. As much as they might have disliked eachother IRL, Tom and Brad definitely conveyed the ecstasy of blood sharing, a form of intimacy similar to (or as AR has put it, better than) sex.
Louis spent a lot of time screaming and running away from Lestat, that’s just canon. But he always usually came back on his own ❤
[I didnt read the book in English, the line in mine translates “standing erect” in English]
^Oh wow, this may actually be the source of many ppl’s headcanon on this! We can’t expect you to disagree w/ a translator but for them to define it that way would certainly influence your headcanon…
BUT I just CANNOT ACCEPT THE IDEA that they are all walking around w/ permanent boners, as Louis would say: “I can’t. Or more truly, I will not.”
I just feel like it would have gotten alot more canon support if that were really the case. It’s referred to as being like the rest of their flesh, which is usually just compared to marble.
Let’s respect #your headcanon may vary on this topic.
I-want-my-IWTV 