❝ 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐂𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐧 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐀𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐮𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞 — A modern slang term popular among the Undead for the vampires whose stories appear in the Vampire Chronicles. ❞
If you’re looking for all things Vampire Chronicles (books, NOT the show), you’re in the right place! This is a SIDEBLOG to @theballadofmrslovett so if you see that url in your notes, that’s me babeyyy. I 🖤 Louis de Pointe du Lac, vampire meta, and dressing up in silly costumes!
Here are some tags and links you might find helpful:
Fanfic Masterlist
Organizational Tags: #fan art, #book quotes, #vampire meta, #fellas is it gay to lie down with the devil? (amc iwtv tag for blocking), #loustat, #louis has two hands (louis/lestat/armand tag)
some fandom disagreements are like "I see your point but I think this other aspect of the narrative is more significant," and some are like "I don't think you can read."
can I just say. I do find it hysterical that AMC iwtv is in the midst of their media blitz and just pulled one of the craziest immersive promotional stunts, and all the while, anne’s and chris’ social media accounts are just here like: hey! we released a new audiobook! and absolutely nothing else is going on :)
so one thing about The Vampire Armand (armand's POV book) and Blood & Gold (marius' pov book) is that armand describes himself as being a total pain in the ass--a bad student, out drinking, totally irresponsible. won't paint, won't write. slut. nuisance. always causing a problem. sneaky and greedy and gluttonous. but marius doesn't describe him that way; he says armand was diligent and doesn't find fault. now, it's possible that Marius is just trying to cover for himself here and not admit that he wasn't a very good teacher. but I also think it's very possible............. that armand describes himself............. as worse than he was. feckless. and reckless. and unhelpful. and bad. because he sees himself as bad. because he still thinks he let everyone down. bad armand . that's why all these things happened
And this was his first and only experience of ordinary adolescence: in Kiev Rus, he'd been torn between the monks and his dad, who each harboured a different ambition for him. He wasn't doing the usual youngster thing of going round with a gang of friends getting into amusing trouble.
Instead, he was painting religious ikons and having very big feelings about them and trying to figure out if he had the courage to bury himself alive and die walled up and accompanied only by the cries of the likewise starving. I never get used to the sheer utter horror that is his backstory... to the contrast of it.
And because he was a teenager, he was still backtalking his dad in a developmentally normal way... but he lacked a peer group to compare himself to, or in which to discover himself in relation to others.
Little wonder that when the chance of sex and drink and rock and roll finally materialises for him, and he's got his gang of boys go go round with, and Bianca to moon over and Lord Harlech to play dangerous games with, to him this feels incredibly wicked. He's still judging it by the standards of his old life.
Whereas Marius, who's had like twenty years of catching stray thoughts from apprentices who are up to perfectly normal teenage devilment, is philosophical until and unless Armand either comes to physical harm, or does something out of character: i.e. Marius really didn't see that axe coming.
And sue, they have their whole complicated psychosexual thing going on about that, but when we are privy to Marius's secret thoughts about him, he's not worried that Armand's a little hellion; he's worried that he's "the wizened funereal spirit of a dead man in a child's clothes".... like, he's afraid this kid is in a constant state of spiritual crisis and isn't letting his hair down enough.
A rare moment of Lestat giving Louis lessons on SexEd?
This was actually a bit of a challenge at first for me since I’ve always headcanoned that Louis is pretty knowledgeable about sex given that he lived in San Francisco in the 70s. When it comes to anatomy, however…that’s a different story 🤦♀️
"Lestat..." Louis bores into the back of his lover's head with a curious gaze and a pinched brow. He’s in a strange bout of bravery, or perhaps foolishness, as is most often the case when his many layers of gentlemanly decorum are shed amidst the rest of his clothes by the foot of the bed and the blushing post-coitus warmth makes his head feel just a little fuzzy.
Still strange, these moments of peace the sanctity of their own room. Still novel. He doesn’t want to break the spell, and yet he knows if he doesn’t speak now, he’ll lose all courage once the swoon wears off.
“Hmm?” Lestat doesn’t bother moving, which is for the best, because Louis might lose his nerve if he had to actually face him.
“When you were...alive and mortal, you...”
“I what? I was foolish? I had freckles on my shoulder? I stole my mother’s rouge when I wanted to feel pretty? Guilty, on all three counts.”
“You were bisexual.”
He turns around just as Louis had feared, and he’s got that insipid little smirk on his lips just as Louis knew he would, and it’s infuriating and endearing all the same.
“Yes. Yeah, I was. I am!” He laughs, if only because he’s caught off-guard by the blunt observation.
Just a few years ago Louis had refused to entertain the very notion of labeling one’s sexuality (”why is it anyone’s business who I am attracted to? why must my identity be dissolved into a rainbow flag?”), and now the tone in his voice makes it sounds as if it’s as plain as day. The sky is blue, water is wet, and the vampire Lestat is bisexual.
“I hope you weren’t waiting for me to come out to you, as they say. It’s a little late for that.” They haven’t strictly spoken about it for some time, though of course Louis had always known for as long as he had known Lestat that he wasn’t particularly discerning when it came to wanting to get laid.
“No. Stop that.” Louis is half-tempted to smack his pillow into his face.
“Alright! So what? I’m bi. You’re gay. And we both lived happily ever after.”
“I wanted to know...” He shifts under Lestat’s suddenly attentive gaze, throwing off the comforter as his face is suddenly flooded with an unbearable warmth. “Never mind.”
“Louis! Oh, come now, Louis, you’ve gotten this far, you may as well ask.”
“I said never mind.” He all but pouts.
“You want to know how I knew I was queer? Or you want to know what it feels like to make love to a woman? It has to be one of those two, I’m not a fool, I know what people think about— well, about people like me, I suppose.”
“What do people think about people like you?” The frown has reappeared across his delicate lips, still raw and blood speckled from their evening together.
Now its Lestat’s turn to pout as he inspects his nail bed and picks at his cuticles. A petty human decoy that he can’t seem to let go of.
“That I’m confused. That I’m a slut.”
“You are a slut.”
The response earns him an elbow in the ribs, but Louis only uses the opportunity to pull Lestat close for an embrace.
“That I’m selfish.” Lestat continues, mumbling into the soft canopy of black hair. “That I’m too straight for queers and too queer for straights.”
“Hmm.” Louis hums, appreciative of the candor. “Well, you’re just right for me.”
“Thank you, little miss Goldilocks.” Lestat snorts.
Louis presses a kiss to his forehead, soft and sweet and sickeningly domestic.
“I wanted to know the latter. What it feels like.” Louis finally says once they have settled into themselves once more, and the air feels a little lighter and the world seems to slow with the rise and fall of Lestat’s chest against his own.
“But you slept with women, Louis. I watched you, those final months and weeks of your life.”
“That was so long ago, I can barely remember. Besides, you know it was different. Of course you know. You must’ve known, even then. I wasn’t...I never felt...the way you seem to.” There is a hint of sadness behind his words, and it’s so soft Lestat can barely stand it.
“It’s...different. Softer. And wetter. Fundamentally, though, I think it’s roughly the same if you’re doing the fucking. Right down to the angles.”
“The angles?”
“Yeah, y’know. The angles.” He leans in close, brings his hand between their two faces and slowly, sensually curls his two fingers inwards until—
“Lestat! Ugh, you’re disgusting.” Louis knocks his hand out of his face with a scowl.
“You asked, mon coeur!”
He rolls his eyes, holds tight to Lestat’s hand until their fingers link together. “What do you mean, though? What about angles?”
“It’s the same, in women. They have a spot, and if you curl your fingers up and press against it, well...” Lestat gives his hand a little squeeze, turns his head so he can press a smattering of kisses against Louis’ neck.
“Hmm. I didn’t know that.”
“Of course you didn’t, Louis. God, those poor women. Do you even know where the clitoris is?”
“Shut up.”
“Well, DO YOU monsieur-know-it-all?!”
“I…it’s…below the…near the…”
Oh, Lestat can hear the blood flushing beneath his skin, like one warm strike of lightning, as he digs his heels into the mattress to keep from fidgeting. GOTCHA! It’s not often he can render the ever-articulate Louis de Pointe du Lac speechless, and he can’t help but smile as he curls himself against the solid form of his lover.
“Would you like a demonstration? Surely we could entice Bianca, or perhaps Jess—“
“No! God, no.”
“Not even for educational purposes?”
“Lestat, I don’t need to be educated in making love to women. That’s knowledge I’m never going to use.”
“What about knowledge for the sake of knowledge?! My beautiful philosopher, aren’t you curious?” He’s got one strand of black hair twirled around his finger now as he nips at the tender flesh beneath his jaw.
“Lestat...”
“I promise, I’d put on a good show, Louis. I’m a very good teacher, as you well know. Wouldn’t you like to watch?”
Lestat can’t see his face from his position on his chest, but he knows it’s twisted with adorable, stubborn defeat.
Mutuals who I have hardly spoken with but we instead communicate through silently liking and reblogging each other's posts... I hope you're all having a lovely day ✨
