[Image Description: Tag reading “canon is an illusion and also for suckers except for the parts I like”]
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Hello, I was wondering if you know of any fanart that might have been done on Louis’ brother. I know he wasn’t a major character but I would really love to be able to visualize him. Also, I know there is a fanart somewhere of Armand ranting that Marius is not Lestat’s sire. So would he also rant that Lestat is not Daniel’s sire? Since I know people tend to confuse the movies Queen of the Damned and Interview with a Vampire since they state completely different sires from the books.
Ok well… hmmm…. YOU CHALLENGE MY MEMORY AND COLLECTION and I am in a MOOD TO MEET SUCH. Let’s see what we can do….
1) Paul de Pointe du Lac
The one fanart that is specifically Paul is this one:
X by @baladokentang
^I love this fanart, he’s got his brother’s raven hair and green eyes <3, but Paul is described in canon as “He had the smoothest skin and the largest blue eyes. He was robust, not thin as I am now and was then… but his eyes… it was as if when I looked into his eyes I was standing alone on the edge of the world… on a windswept ocean beach. ” (IWTV) Not sure whether it’s canon or fanon but Paul was supposedly blond. He was 15 when he died.
I have a few other things collected in my #Paul de Pointe du Lac tag, like this portrait I think is pretty canon compliant:
^Portrait of Raymond P. Johnson-Ferguson by Philip Alexius de László, 1923
2) Sire drama and fanart
- Also, I know there is a fanart somewhere of Armand ranting that Marius is not Lestat’s sire.
Hmmm that is a very tough one, I know I’ve seen a fanart or two like that over the years, I’ll try and dig around in my personal archives for that. I do think Armand would take more issue at that than the idea that Lestat might have been Daniel’s maker.
I mean, and I shouldn’t go here but I will, bc I think this is one of the reasons I can’t watch movie!QOTD w/o someone with me, cracking jokes at it…
Marius gets unfairly mashed together with Magnus in movie!QOTD, essentially, bc he turns Lestat w/o consent. Therefore, Marius takes on the burden of having raped Lestat into being a vampire and there is no explicit reconciliation or apology for that crime whatsoever, but he and Lestat are kicking it together in Modern Times, with Lestat seemingly bitter at him and Marius seemingly smug back? It’s ooc and uncomfortable. I think Armand would be more annoyed at Marius taking on Magnus’ actions than he would be pissed at Lestat getting to claim Marius as his own sire, since QOTD!Lestat doesn’t seem all that thrilled with that pedigree.
BUT ANYWAY if anyone out there has fanart in which Armand is ranting about Marius not being Lestat’s sire, plz send it to me, or reblog and tag me!
I have one of Lestat and Armand fighting over Marius, and @garama‘s Antonio!Armand w/ QotD!Marius which is not quiiiite what you’re asking for but might like anyway… that I’ll rebagel after this…
- So would [Armand] also rant that Lestat is not Daniel’s sire? Since I know people tend to confuse the movies Queen of the Damned and Interview with a Vampire since they state completely different sires from the books.
Ppl may blend together certain things, but I think anyone who’s seen the movies AND read the books takes the books as more true to canon, and the movies as adaptations, which is what they are. But if ppl only see movie!QOTD, I can’t really fault them for taking that info as their own canon, if they like it.
In MY opinion, since you’re asking: Armand will rant about it @ Daniel in private, but Armsy doesn’t tend to rant about anything he’s personally invested in when he’s in Lestat’s presence, preferring to keep a calm, collected, and unflappable profile as much as possible. Lestat knows this and loves to pester Armsy at any opportunity. There’s A LOT of joking around in the coven about those movies and how Daniel narrowly escaped having Lestat as his fictional maker…
Lestat: “You’d have liked that, wouldn’t you?” *makes a kissy face @ Dan*
Daniel: “Not saying I’d have liked it exactly, but it might’ve sped things up a little…”
Armand: “Are you saying I took too long, Daniel? I had my reasons…”
Lestat: “Dude I see someone I love, I turn them THAT NIGHT,” *snaps his fingers* “If I can possibly manage it, or the very next night, or at least that weekend, gotta strike when the iron is HOT!”
Armand: “Or else they might come to their senses and run as far away as they can get from you?”
Lestat: “HEY!”
Daniel: “I did run from you, Armand…”
Armand: “HEY!!”
Marius and Louis just sit back and watch all this, wishing that they had popcorn they could eat.
What is Louis supposed to look like?
Hauls out all these fuckin books… anon why u kill me…
“He stared at the vampire’s full black hair, […] the curls that barely touched the edge of the white collar.” -Interview with the Vampire
“Those green eyes gazed at me […] with a mindless innocence,” -Interview with the Vampire
“I fell fatally in love with Louis, a young dark-haired bourgeois planter, graceful of speech and fastidious of manner,” -The Vampire Lestat
“His blindness to the motives or the suffering of others was as much a part of his charm as his soft unkempt black hair or the eternally troubled expression in his green eyes.” -The Vampire Lestat
“Tall, slender figure. Short dark hair. […] Black hair, green eyes, […] a frayed black sweater that hung shapelessly from his shoulders, legs like long black spokes.” -The Vampire Lestat
“his black hair full and disheveled as it had always been in the old days, and his green eyes full of melancholy wonder,” -The Queen of the Damned
“I touched his face again, the cheekbones, the arch beneath the black eyebrow. What a finely made thing he was.” -The Queen of the Damned
“He ran his fingers back through his hair. Such fine black hair. The first thing I’d ever noticed about him–well, after his green eyes, that is–was his black hair. No, all that’s a lie. It was his expression; the passion and the innocence and the delicacy of conscience.” -The Queen of the Damned
“his face sharpening, the whole picture of high cheekbones and dark probing green eyes firing beautifully.” -The Queen of the Damned
“His face, quite thin and finely drawn by nature, an exquisitely delicate face for all its obvious strength,” -The Tale of the Body Thief
“I glared at him, at the sharp graceful angles of his imperturbable face, […] his wide-set eyes, with their fine rich black lashes. How perfect the tender indentation of his upper lip.” -The Tale of the Body Thief
“Louis de Pointe du Lac, […] slender, slightly less tall than Lestat […] black of hair, gaunt and white of skin, with
amazingly long and delicate fingers […]whose
green eyes are soulful, the very mirror of patient misery, soft-voiced, very human,” -The Vampire Armand“I followed his slim, delicate figure as it picked its way
through the clutter and nineteenth-century Paris, I knew that this black-clad darkhaired
gentleman, so lean, so finely sculpted, so sensitive in all his lineaments,” -The Vampire Armand“it seemed to me that he was a vision of male perfection […] his curly black hair […] combed back over his ears and curling above his collar” -Merrick
“he seemed a young man of twenty-four–with sharply defined and beautiful features, and gaunt well-modeled cheeks.” -Merrick
That only took forever… even with all my dog-ears… anyways, Louis is a pale skinny dude with a Beauteous Male Model face, short, curly black hair, and green eyes, as described over and over and over and over again in almost every book. Brad Pitt was way off.
Also I think this accidentally became a testament to how fucking gay everyone is for Louis, it’s really unbelievable. I even tried to cut out most of the superfluous gay bits and still,
“And I realized what a dreadful
change had come over his narrow face” – Tale of the Body Thief
Good Omens: a gentle reminder
Your headcanon is your headcanon. The characters in your mind are what they are, and nobody is trying to take them away from you. Think of the Good Omens TV series as a stage play: for six full hours, actors are going to be portraying the roles of Crowley and Aziraphale, Shadwell and Madame Tracy, Newt and Anathema, Adam, Pepper, Wensleydale and Brian and the rest. Will they look like the people in your head? The ones you’ve been drawing and writing about and imagining for (in some cases) almost 30 years?
Probably not. Which is fine.
The people in your head and your drawings are still there, and still real and still true. I’ve seen drawings of hundreds of different Aziraphales over the years, all with different faces and body-shapes, different hair and skin, and would never have thought to tell anyone who drew or loved them that that wasn’t what Aziraphale looked like. (And a couple of years after we wrote it, I was amused to realise that the Aziraphale in my head looked nothing like the Aziraphale in Terry’s head.) I’ve loved every instance of Good Omens Cosplay I’ve seen, and in no case did I ever think anyone was doing it wrong: they were all Aziraphales and Crowleys, and it was always a delight.
Good Omens has been unillustrated for 27 years, which means that each of you gets to make up your own look for the characters, your own backstories, your own ideas about how they will behave.
The TV version is being made with love and with faithfulness to the story. It’s got material and characters in it that Terry and I had discussed over the years, (some of it from what we would have done it there had been a sequel). Writing it has taken up the greater part of my last three years. You might like it – I really hope you will – but you don’t have to. You can start watching it, decide that you prefer the thing in your head, and stop watching it. (I never saw the last Lord of the Rings movie, because I liked the thing in my head too much.)
Remember we are making this with love.
And that your own personal headCrowleys and headAziraphales and headFourHorsemen and headThem and headHastur and headLigur and headSisterMary and all the rest are yours, and safe, and nobody is ever going to take them away from you.
I’m really not trying to call you out, or get angry, but you’re a really big voice in the fandom, and I think that you need to consider how you respond to people: you’re very harsh with some suggestions/opinions/head-cannons, (Lestat being bipolar or having ptsd, neither of which we’re certain of; the way that some people like to tease IWTV the movie; people who really enjoy or at think fans should give Rice’s new work a chance; people that really like TQOTD) [tbc]
[part 3] I really like this blog, and I really like you as a spokesperson of sorts for the Tumblr side of her fanbase, but it’d be great if you could take a step back and consider how much you criticize the opinions of others. You put a lot of stuff below the cut, and maybe your’e just stressing a lot as of late because I’ve noticed it more now than before, but you often shut down people very quickly who have different ideas or thoughts on the series than you do.
(Was there a part 2? If there was, then Tumblr ate it.)
I deeply considered this message, it’s been over one whole day, so I’m not replying too quickly.
“…maybe your’e just stressing a lot as of late…”? Thank you for the concern, but no… in the past 2 weeks, we have a new VC book to read and there is turbulence in the fandom about the VC rights reverting back to Anne Rice… my reactions have been the normal amount of mixed emotions for this kind of information. Sometimes there’s exaggeration, which is normal for social media; to replace the emotions we don’t express vocally, w/ gestures, or w/ facial expressions.
I have to respectfully disagree with you. I’m going to reply to this as thoughtfully as I can, without a cut, but basically: make Tumblr a good place for you, and unfollow me if you need to do so.
[^X by @purplekecleon, now known as @glitchedpuppet]
1. As stated before, I do not hold myself out as “a really big voice,” any kind of official authority of, or spokesperson for, this fandom. I have accepted titles in a humorous way only, I do not consider my headcanons/opinions above anyone else’s.
In “As stated before,” linking to a post from 1 week ago, someone else told me that “as a monolith of the fandom,” I have an obligation to be MORE critical, share more critical opinions of VC than I do already, so you can see that I can’t please that person AND you at the same time. Since I consider meta-analysis and reviews to be a form of fanwork, and I encourage fanworks, I am going to continue to share them.
I never told anyone NOT to read the new Anne Rice books PL and PLROA. I have respectfully shared some concerned and negative reviews. Rice is a professional writer and knows that part of putting her work out there means that it is vulnerable to readers’ review. If one bad review stops a long-time lover of a book series from reading the latest book, that’s sad, but I would not censor negative reviews. Rice used to respond to negative reviews, but currently, I believe that her stance is to ignore them.
2. #Your Headcanon May Vary – I don’t always include this fandom law, as this is a fandom blog so it applies by default, but I’ve included it anyway, enough times that I thought it was understood implicitly by now. I am not going to add it as a disclaimer to every response, because I feel like it does not need to be stated. I don’t know if you are new to fandom, but here are a few more Fandom Laws, following them is about “being courteous in fandom. It makes the whole experience better for all of us.”
This is a social platform, and we all have our own opinions about these fictional characters, film/TV adaptations of canon, and the canon in general. We do not need to agree. We do not need to soften our opinions for anyone. Part of what is so great about a social platform like this is the exchange of ideas, it’s intellectually stimulating to consider other people’s interpretations and headcanons, even if they are stated in a harsh and/or strong manner. I consider every single one that is suggested to me, and I can decide if I want to accept it or not. It doesn’t matter where the ideas come from, even someone suggesting something who has only seen movie!QOTD might have a great idea I might accept!
My headcanon is a collection of my own and other people’s ideas from discussions, fanfics, fanart, meta-analysis posts, etc. which I have absorbed over the last 20+ years I’ve been in fandom. Most of my headcanon would not exist if I did not discuss ideas with other people, or engage in fandom through fanworks. I am grateful for all of the rich discussions and even heated arguments I’ve had about VC over the years!
There are many opinions out there that I disagree with, but I go by the Real Life rule of “Live and Let Live.” Here’s two examples:
[^X by @vampchronfic]
- A) People bash Antonio Banderas as Armand in IWTV, he is one of the fandom’s punching bags. I have stated my opinions about him in my #Defending Antonio tag, but I don’t mind that other people still don’t like him. If I am the only one who liked him as Armand in that movie, that’s totally fine by me!
- B) Just as I do poke fun at movie!QOTD, I don’t mind if other people adore it. I know that some people find it nostalgic. Some people love the soundtrack. Some people love Aaliyah or Stuart Townsend, any number of reasons, or just, “I don’t know why, I just like it” are all fine!
^I am actually friendly with both (A) the people who despise Antonio!Armand, and (B) the people who love movie!QOTD, because we can Live and Let Live. Friendship is not dependent on agreement.
Being in the same fandom with people does not mean that they have to agree with you. I used to think that it did, and that it guaranteed friendship. It does neither of those things. If we all agreed on everything, would there even be anything left to discuss?
#IWANTMYIWTV RP
One of the examples you mentioned of my being harsh re: my headcanons was an Ask directed to Lestat, and I answered as Lestat, in character. Yes, he often responds harshly. I headcanon him as a friendly character but guarded, especially against anonymous strangers, even those that very respectfully suggest that he has a mental illness. Anyone can ask other Lestat RPers the same thing and see what they might say.
In that response, he begins with taking offense, but then winds down to pointing out that it’s unfortunate that medication/therapy carries an unfair stigma, that he does go to therapy, and considers that medical intervention may have helped Nicolas. So to write all that off as being harsh makes me feel like you didn’t read the answer fully. I put some of the response under the cut because cutting long posts is part of Tumblr etiquette.
I do not headcanon him as bipolar. Whether or not he is bipolar is up to every reader’s interpretation. Which brings me to my next point:
The real VC authority
It’s worth mentioning that on FB in another thread, in another topic, Anne Rice herself was asked about “But as a long time fan, I’ve ( and many other fans, I´m sure..) never understood the whole “Lestat and Louis- thing” and I think in a psychologically way it is also very interesting. Please, can you POFOUNDLY explain this whole relationship?”
^Is Anne Rice abdicating authority here? I’m not sure. It looks like she wants the asker to draw their own conclusions. But I have seen her questioned on FB, at booksignings, and spoken of on tumblr and elsewhere, in ways that lead me to believe that she is not considered the authority on VC to 100% of the fandom, and that she doesn’t mind that.
I love what she has given us, but she isn’t my authority. I don’t need her validation on my headcanons. If the creator of the series is not the authority, who is? Not me, I’m just one person.
You don’t need my validation. You don’t need anyone’s validation. You are your own VC authority, anon.
You can form your own headcanons and share them, convince people of them, or not. Make your fandom experience good for you, Live and Let Live, and unfollow me if you need to. I totally understand and wish you well.
I-want-my-IWTV 