♛ Ten! Such limitations. Technically, adding ten to the previous five makes it fifteen, and really, that’s enough to share with the public. Some things I adore about him are inexplicable, and many things are too private to share. I’d love to tell you these of course, but bragging of such things is not worth the guaranteed retaliation for such a breach in our privacy.
So you want a wall of text? You shall have one, visage gris.
The bottom line is that Louis coaxes out a better version of myself. I don’t always do things for his approval but when I get validation from him it’s as if the sun has broken free from the clouds. I find relief in his gaze, in his arms. I want to give him everything. I hope that I mean a fraction of what he means to me.
1. His eyes: Let’s start with the obvious. I’ve often described his eye color, but what I mean to share here is about his eyes in their expressiveness. He can be vicious, he can cut me deeply with a glance. When he looks at me with lust, his pupils widen, leaving only slivers of the brilliant green. My surrender is inevitable. Of course I have to play it like I still have some autonomy, he can’t know that he has such an effect *winks*
2. The way he pleads with me not to do certain things that I am SURE will be worth the effort.
3. The way he trembles with rage rather than fight me because he is too much of a gentleman to lower himself to my level.
4. The way he says he told me sowhen I do things despite his advice and come crawling back to him.
5. The way he lets me apologize without degrading myself by literally apologizing.
6. The way his body seems to fit with mine in so many variations,
the way he collects himself beside me, tucking a leg underneath himself, like a panther. As if he were made for me. Fun fact: he was. (As if that needed to be said.)
7. The pride I have in him when he flexes his powers, which he does! Occasionally! He dislikes it the way mortals dislike the gym, but he’s always a little arrogant after accomplishing even the smallest thing (as are mortals leaving the gym). He’s learning to move things with his mind. Seeing his eyes light up as a vase scoots along the mantel is… it’s indescribable. I can barely contain myself from hurling myself on him and cuddling him to death at such times.
8. No one cries as beautifully as he does. Those eyelashes forming patterns wetly together… the red tinge bringing out the green of his irises even more than usual… I admit that I sometimes used to torment him into tears when I couldn’t draw the love from him I needed. That’s a bitter truth. I had issues of my own at the time. I don’t do that anymore, at least not deliberately. He cries now for different reasons, when he does at all.
9. His strength and beauty when he does fight me (or others) is mesmerizing; I think he knows it has that effect on me and uses it to his advantage.
10. His silhouette on the balcony w/ the lights of the street haloing him. Ethereal among the lush plants and night-blooming blossoms.
I struggled with this answer, because, while it would be diplomatic to simply apologize, I won’t apologize that it was hurtful, because, as you’ll learn in this post, that group of “more obsessive” people have been and are much crueler to their victims than I was with that one word about them.
~Here is a picture of Our Lady of VC for the more obsessive fans to frame and worship~
Side note, before we go any further: Anon, why do you care who I lump anyone in with? I could say everyone who follows X is “a gullible baby,” and everyone who follows Y is “a perfect cinnamon roll, too good for this world,” but that doesn’t make either true. Obviously, if you don’t think you follow AR “slavishly,” then you don’t! Take a breath, this is tumblrland, this blog is for VC fandom love and fanworks (and fandom etiquette and education sometimes), it’s meant to be an outlet, an escape from reality, so don’t take things personally.
This is actually a great opportunity to educate you, Anon, and anyone else who might not be aware of the history between Anne Rice, her “People of the Page” (her phrase, not mine. ”POTP”) followers, her fandom outside of POTP, and outside people who have had opinions on her works. I could write a dissertation on this topic but it’s not worth the effort; this post will be TL;DR for most people. I’m doing this so I can tag it and use it again the next time this topic comes up.
The short answer is: In the beginning, all of AR’s FB followers were POTP. No distinction needed to be made, because they were ALL highly obsessive to the point that they were her online army she could rally to attack people/reviewers who dared to have an opinion on her works. There have been many instances in which something critical to AR came along – or something that she INTERPRETED as critical – and AR makes a statement on her FB page about it, which is a thinly veiled order rallying her troops to inundate that source with their “discussion” on that review. Sometimes her POTP simply made so many personal attacks in the comments on the offending critical post that the victim is forced to withdraw/delete their review. This whole cycle has happened too many times. In fact, AR has recognized this pattern and actually said that she will no longer link to negative reviews of her works (½/14):
“Guys, I am always open to publishing negative reviews of my work for consideration, to balance the many positive reviews to which I link. But the negative reviewer must bring the review here and request it. When I’ve linked to negative reviews for discussion, some of the reviewers in question have felt that they were unfairly targeted; and they have objected to some of the comments made on their reviews. It just doesn’t work. So I no longer volunteer any negative review, no matter how well written, for discussion. Again, reviewers are welcome to bring their reviews to the page, and post links and offer them for discussion. Same with blog posts. I might not repost every single one; but I’m happy to see them posted on the page and to read them and consider them for reposting.”
“… if I link to them for discussion, some of these people get very upset. They accuse me of “demonizing” them. They call the People of the Page “hell hounds” for their comments. And admittedly, some people do make very unpleasant comments…”
She has 1.1 million followers as of this posting, and I, myself, am one of them. So, of all 1.1 million, at least one of her followers is not an obsessive “hell hound,” as described above.
I actually think she has moved past much of the drama, and now her POTP (both our kind, Anon, and the “more obsessive” kind) are more focused on news items, poetry, VC adaptations & casting ideas, headcanons/canon requests for AR, and other good things she likes discussion on. I enjoyed her #Fan Questions for Lestat, and the 15 yr old inside me still gets excited when she posts something about “Where are they now?” like Lestat doodling on a napkin, or the whole coven all flopped together on a couch watching Hell on Wheels, that’s good stuff *u*
Hit the jump for links to examples of POTP vs. reviewers clashing, etc.
1. War on Fanfic
So this is before the POTP’s time, but it’s worth noting that Anne Rice waged a War on Fanfic in the 1990′s. She had every right to do so, but it destroyed the fandom. She sicc’d her pack of lawyers on all VC fanfic authors, and forced speculative fiction (old-timey-wimey word for “fanfic”) sites to shut down. The fandom was driven underground; fanfic could only be shared very privately, possibly through email exchanges or carrier pigeons.
This experience taught AR a valuable lesson: Anything that she didn’t approve of could be shut down by forces she could marshal. Lawyers cost money, and take on only legitimate legal cases, and legal battles can get messy (she’s had other legal issues but I won’t go there, you can use your newfangled googley-woogly machine for that).
Here’s where the POTP became AR’s army, and they didn’t cost a penny, and there were no legal ramifications in sending them forth on her behalf.
“Kayleigh Herbertson found Pandora to be a poorly written novel where the vampires didn’t act like vampires… after Herbertson was done writing the review she took the book, which was already falling apart, and turned it into decoupage.”
“[AR] chose to respond by posting a link on her Facebook page (where her 740 thousand Facebook followers could find it) and appended the invitation: “Comments most welcome.”.“
Her POTP left an enormous amount of harassing comments on that page, and eventually, it was taken down. Here are my two favorite POTP comments from that article:
HOW DARE YOU EVEN COMPARE SHITTY ASS STEPHANIE MEYER TO THE QUALITY WORK THAT IS ANNE RICE HOW DARE YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YOU FUCKING HAG, I HOPE YOU GET HERPES
Aaaaand here’s AR’s call to action discussion on Knights’ review: “… I stumbled on this amazing negative review of my erotica, “Beauty’s Release,” … I would honestly welcome opinions on this review. Please understand: I am not trying to incite “fans” to pile on this reviewer. Not at all. What I welcome here is honest discussion because the review puzzles and baffles me. This is perhaps the longest negative review I’ve ever seen of my erotica, and I’m somewhat, well, stunned, by the tone, intricacy, and length of all this… Your comments are most welcome.”
Hope this helped! I think we’re all coexisting pretty well these days, her People Of The Page and her – what I like to call ourselves – People Off the Page. Let’s just all take a chill pill and enjoy this series together, and if not, let’s just do it in our own way. Live and let live.
*Takes a deep breath* *Tries not to write a lot* *Writes a lot anyway*
I think it was both. Added for effect for the movie but also, their eye color IS enhanced with the Dark Gift. Here look at Louis’s pretty eyes change color:
First moments as a new vampire would be intense, Vampiring has just been installed into the system and director Neil Jordan probably wanted to make it very clear to the audience that this moment is as significant a moment as birth, and other than seeing the blood dry up and absorb into his face, and now we see the blue veins more prominently, it’s the eyes that really convince us that a change is happening. The eyes are the window to the soul!
In VC, it’s often noted explained at enormous length and exquisitely vivid detail how beautiful Louis’ emerald green eyes are *u* Both before and after turning.
Short answer is, in canon, the Blood enhances what you already have. The amount of that enhancement varies.
~Hit the jump for 3 Shades of Lestat’s eye color.~
Movie!IWTV does not align with book!IWTV on eye color. It isn’t mentioned in the books that their eye color changes by a particular tonal measurement; the Dark Gift is different for each of them, but what it does do consistently is enhance what the fledgling already had as a mortal.
For example, Armand has warm brown eyes as a mortal, IIRC, and they take on a golden (or amber) glow when he is turned.
Their eyes brighten and darken at different times in the movie, maybe it’s related to the intensity of their emotional state. I know for a fact that they all (main adult cast, not Claudia or Denis) had at least two shades of contacts in their color: a normal set and a brighter set and of course there may have been times, as with Orlando Bloom in LOTR, that someone forgot to put the contacts in before shooting, that’s human error.
3 Shades of Lestat’s eye color:
Chastising your idiot child who could’ve finished you both would be intense:
Finding out that your daughter has polluted her own bed, less intense or intense in a different way? i mean it’s HER bed after all you don’t sleep with her thank goodness:
Pleased with self for A+ parenting, low intensity:
(I assume you mean more than just unconscious sleep, which yes, he did sleep with her, that’s canon)
Y’know that’s smtg I’ve thought about, too. Was it only her body/age that was the obstacle there? She seemed to think so… or so it seems from what Louis shares with us re: just a few times when she even opened the subject with him.
Particularly that time in Europe when they had just killed the Icky Gross Mindless Vampire, and they’re totally exhausted and hungry, and she offers him her wrist:
“ `Drink,’ she whispered, drawing nearer. `Drink.’ And she held the
soft, tender flesh of the wrist towards me. ‘No, I know what to do;
haven’t I done it in the past?’ I said to her.” <—- REJECTED. I don’t think Claudia shared blood w/ either Lestat or Louis, at least not in any intimate way, ever, which had to have been part of her not-growing-up frustration.
SO BACK TO THE QUESTION AT HAND:
No, I don’t think Louis would have slept with Claudia if she had been turned at 18+ bc there were more obstacles than just her physical form.
For one thing, Louis was in a relationship already with Lestat, even though it was a problematic one.
The chemistry between people (even IRL) has to work in that way for there to be any sexual attraction.
He always cared for her like a daughter. She was very much his own security blanket, a buffer and a glue between him and Lestat.
She was less human than either of them, which did not seem to be something that made her more attractive, but less comprehensible to him: ” `I love you now with my human nature, if ever had it,’ I said to her.
“ `Ah yes …’ she answered, still musing. `Yes, and that’s your flaw,
and why your face was miserable when I said as humans say, ” I hate
you, “ and why you look at me as you do now. Human nature. I have
no human nature.’ ”
Also, in terms of canon vampire physiology, the Ricean vampires seem to be asexual, blood gives them all the satisfaction they need/want in that regard. It’s in fanon and RP that they’re sexual.
As a side note, claudiaindarkness might have some good opinions on this, bc she often RPs Claudia aged up. thevampire-claudia also had a thread in which Claudia was aged up and *ahem* had some private time with a Louis (merciful-death) if u need some tasteful au smut ;]
I-want-my-IWTV 