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my beautiful commission of lestat, by the amazing @vanitasmorgue ! (please do not repost this anywhere, ty 💕)

[vampire-scripture]

40th Anniversary of The Vampire Lestat - October 31, 1985

"Lestat really sounds like he's sitting at the table, talking to you, because that's the way I feel about him when I'm writing--that he's right there, telling me the story, leaning over my shoulder, telling me to get it right, pointing out things I should change, breathing down my neck, doing everything but biting me! Which he wouldn't dare!" - Anne Rice (x)

[rijinks]

@kaelio requested Thorne, who was high on my to-draw list!

Bonus:

they seem like very good friends

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something i find fascinating is that the same people who told lestat fans to get over it when the drop happened are now extremely upset and arguing that’s it’s ooc for armand to be as violent as he is with louis. and it IS ooc and bad writing because armand would never, but the lestat fans who were horrified by the ramifications of 1x05 were gaslit by the entirety of the fandom who defended that kind of writing for years. the rot in the show all goes back to s1 and the broken foundations there

100%. and i was so angry and disappointed in that writing choice for lestat in s1. it was the first in a string of awful tone deaf decisions made for the show. now armand has suffered the same fate.

let's not forget, hannah moscovitch wrote both the drop AND the season 3 finale. back in 2022 she doubled down on her decision to write lestat essentially lynching louis, instead of listening to the fans who were rightfully appalled. that should tell you everything.

[levamplestat]

still perplexed by how terribly the show has fucked up the loumand dynamic, and clearly a LOT of show fans are too.

in the later book canon, armand and louis reunite and live together in the trinity gate compound in new york for a while. they have love for each other. they're in a good place with each other again, even after parting ways at the end of iwtv.

you can't tell me that any version of armand would brutalize louis. there's no way.

[levamplestat]

glad people are finally waking up to how fucking gross this show is with how it treats its black characters

the 1x5 drop should have been a warning!! anne rice did not invent this bullshit, rolin jones and hannah moscovitch did. they heard the backlash in s1 and still, they doubled down. they've never cared.

[vampire-scripture]

Rice on Adaptation

What movie do you not want to see?

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holy fuck, this tvl finale. this is bad. really bad. each episode desecrates anne's work more and more, and this one is just as insanely awful and meaningless as the others.

armand would never treat louis like this. EVER.

[coffeefocusrat]

you're just mad because you're hungry and tired and your legs hurt and you head hurts and you're too hot and you have depression

[daughtervampire]

"Now we slipped in the courtyard doors of the hotel and went up to the lavish parlor of our suite. Champagne glistened in a frosted bucket. Two glasses stood on the silver tray. I knew Lestat would fill one glass and sit there staring at the pale yellow color. And I, a man in a trance, lay on the settee staring at him as if nothing he could do mattered. I have to leave him or die, I thought. It would be sweet to die, I thought. Yes, die. I wanted to die before. Now I wish to die. I saw it with such sweet clarity, such dead calm."

Louis, Interview with the Vampire (1976)

[nasnyys]

recent lestats :-)

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Anne Rice and Rolin Jones with their copies of The Vampire Lestat. Rice at the time was working in an adaptation of the book.

The metaphor.

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Adrian Fahrenheit "Alucard" Țepeș Castlevania (2017 - 2021).

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My thing with the Marius hatred (that seems to come especially from the show side of the fandom) is that he was clearly written as a monster who was Armand’s saviour. Inhuman and dangerous, but he does clearly love Armand. Anne Rice liked him, he was not written as an evil evil abuser. I have no problem with people disliking the character, or with people interpreting marimand however they wish to do so, but I do get annoyed that people can’t respect that there are fans who like Marius. It’s not abuse written badly when it wasn’t written as abuse.

Especially since it’s really not that Gabrielle and Marius are evil abusers, but Lestat (who raped a woman in totbt) and Louis (who had a father-daughter-siblings-husband-wife relationship with Claudia) are „good”. I suppose I don’t see any of the tvc characters as either good or bad

you're so right, anon.

not only does anne describe marius through armand's pov as seeming so physically inhuman, armand is fucking OBSESSED. he loves that about him. and despite how old marius is, how powerful and dangerous, he loves armand. he takes care of him and the other palazzo boys, making sure they receive an excellent education and he keeps a roof over their heads.

and yes, marius and armand's relationship was always written as a love story. it's never been a story about abuse.

people can like and dislike whoever they want, but i draw the line at marius antis using their hate to intentionally mislead others with false information.

all her vampires (and let's be real, some of her human characters too) are incredibly flawed, and they all do terrible things. but they are creatures of great conscience and they love intensely. they fall outside of good and bad. that's what makes them so fascinating!

[nigelgraz]

Delicate

[solriart]

you’re perfect, my wolfkiller

wheww it’s been a while since i drew anything for iwtv/tvl! i’ve wanted to illustrate lestat’s wolf hunt scene from the book for ages now, but i knew it’d be really difficult so i put it off. honestly i’m still not at the skill level required to execute it the way i see it in my head…but i tried my best! :))

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Tom Cruise as Lestat de Lioncourt Interview with the Vampire (1994) dir. Neil Jordan