#slow-read

[incorrecttvcquotes]

'Cause when push comes to shove, I will kill your friends and family to remind you of my love.

Armand

[i-want-my-iwtv]

Ok so this has been bugging me for a while so I thought I'd get someone else's opinion. What kinda accent is Armand supposed to have?

In movie!IWTV, Armand’s origins aren’t explicitly stated, just that he’s an Old World vampire. He could very well be Spanish, that’s Banderas’ actual ethnicity. So we don’t know. Just bc Louis and Claudia meet him in Paris doesn’t mean he’s French; he tells them he’s 400 yrs old, he’s probably lived elsewhere.

On my recent post about Antonio!Armand, @slow-read shared this opinion: “I would like to add that Antonio’s accent also gives one a sense of age, otherness and it sounds (or sounded) exotic to the audience? It was perfect for Armand-the-oldest-living-vampire-in-the-world. *-*” The ppl behind movie!IWTV might have chosen Banderas and made the character this way rather than a more canon-compliant actor bc they wanted him to be more convincing asArmand-the-oldest-living-vampire-in-the-world to audiences who had not read the books. Filmmakers then (and now) want a movie to appeal to wide audiences. I was a kid then, but it seems to me that fandom (and specifically, trying to please the fanbase as a primary objective) wasn’t as much of a consideration at that time. 

In the books, Armand comes from a place called Kiev, which according to AR is in Russia and according to the google is in the Ukraine, but idk. Then he spent years in Italy which is where he got most of his mortal education, so he may have picked up some of that accent from his teachers and friends... and then he lived in Paris for many years so he might have consciously tried to pick up some of that accent in order to blend in. 

Anyone is welcome to answer this with what you think Armand’s accent is like!

[vcsecretgifts]

My Dear Violinist

From: @slow-read

It’s for @annabellioncourt

(Enjoy! I did not intend for it to be so sad for Christmas.  It just ended up this way!)

My Dear Violinist

A candle flickered in the corner of the little dressing room, cozy in its sparse furnishings with so many props and costume pieces lain about haphazardly. The candle fought against the encroaching darkness within its tiny circle of influence, in which she sat tenderly dabbing a damp cloth against Nicolas’ cheek, and along his jawline, the motion gentle soaking up and cleaning from white flesh the faint sheen of sweat. It was a purely human action, unnecessary, but comforting all the while, and this is what she sought to do now, to comfort and calm poor Nicolas.

They had argued again, he explained. Nicolas, in his maddened, reckless state, had written a play that all but revealed their secrets to the whole of Paris. Unlike his previous works that played out the old myths and retold the old tales of creatures that hunted mortals in the night, this one had reached too closely to the truth. It offered details too vivid to have been thought of as the fantastical imagination of its playwright. It all but invited their audience to join these creatures in their eternal hunt for prey. Armand had curtly rejected it, hardly giving it another thought.

Eleni listened to his subdued explanation—Armand didn’t understand. The audience of mortals would never understand it and therein lay the beauty of his work. “We could proclaim anything we wanted, and they would never believe it.” The play had meant to prove that to Armand, to open the door for an entirely new stock of work. And yet Armand had decided to cling to the old ways still, and denied the possibilities of it as he tossed the work into the fireplace. The action sent Nicolas into a rage.

Eleni, along with the other players and crew of the theater, had heard Nicolas’ shouting from down the hall yet none dared to approach the office to interfere. Some shook their heads and returned to their work while others listened keenly for details. Eleni, for her part, knew by now that—if he weren’t punished for his outburst—Nicolas would lock himself in his dressing room for the better part of the night in a stupor that none could rescue him from. She would wait for him, the bed cleared and prepared for him and the room tidied just enough to prevent any distractions from the free-flow of thoughts. This was essential to Nicolas’ peace, she had learned. To let him speak and rant and scream if he needed, until he had said all that needed to be said. She sat upon the bed and waited for him to return, as he all but collapsed beside her with tears and angry declarations he would have never permitted others to witness.

Eleni watched Nikki sat beside her now, listened as made his argument over and over, rambling now. He was exasperated by his inability to have made Armand see reason and his words had become a loop. Armand was wrong. Armand did not understand. Armand was unreasonable.  She noted how the candle’s light reflected in his eyes and off his skin, even as she cleaned it of the blood sweat. The cloth was dipped into the bucket of water at her feet, wrung free of water that had started to run faintly pink, and she turned his face to start on the other side.

The blood was drying now as it clung to the tips of the gently curling hair that framed his face, and at the base of his neck where it had been tied back. Fingertips broke up the curls, passed tenderly through his hair so that Nicolas closed his eyes and sighed.  Eleni’s eyes drifted upward, the cloth following as it touched his temple. Each careful motion of the cloth spoke of the love and patience she had for him. Each stroke of his dampened hair spoke of her promise to Lestat that Nicolas would be loved. Each gentle caress of his cheek spoke of the sober understanding, too, of how much they needed him. Armand and the Theatre would be at a loss without his talent for writing.

The candle had burned down by now into a dull glow and Nicolas had finally fallen silent. His eyes closed and his head gently pressed to her shoulder, as Eleni managed to lull him into a light sleep. Her hand pressed tenderly to his cheek as a kiss placed lightly upon his head.

“Rest now, my Dear Violinist.” 

[vcsecretgifts]

Holiday Armand

Armand is making some cookies for the first time. He’s not sure if he got this right. Back in his day, Christmas was all about drinking and terrifying stuff. He tried to decorate properly, though.

For: @Slow-read

From: @bravenotstubborn

[i-want-my-iwtv]

So, I've been prepping to read iwtv again. As [I] expected, I keep getting side tracked by reading passages I've completely forgotten and coming across random sentences that I never noticed before and I realized how much I loved the character of Lestat. Even under Louis' narrative. I loved him and I miss him so much. 😢

*nods* I know that feel. When writing fic, sometimes it’s easier to write Lestat from the outside, let other characters describe things about him that even he himself is unaware of. Someone telling a story about you, describing you, they’re painting a portrait like an artist would, and it’s often much more accurate than a photograph <3

At the booksigning 11/30/16, AR told us this comment a friend made to her re: Lestat’s portrayal in IWTV (bc even AR was surprised that Lestat was the one she wanted to explore more!):

“You drew Louis in black ink… and then painted Lestat in flaming colors!”

Flaming colors is right.