"Armand envies you and spies on you far more than you might think."

“I hear Armand and I see him and I ignore him,” I said.

Quinn, Lestat, and Mona in Blood Canticle, brought to you by me and my sibling. My sibling was surprised to hear that I had never seen someone attempt to bring their silly little outfits from this scene to life before, so the next thing I knew I was being sent a sketch to finish up and post. Enjoy! 😂

No but seriously these outfit choices are insane. Gold three-piece suit with a lavender dress shirt and sequined tie; three-piece "butter-soft" leather suit with purple turtleneck and "the shiniest boots in Christendom;" and Aunt Queen's strapless dress lined with ostrich feathers and black heels studded with rhinestones. Gotta love it.

The scene it's based on:

I’ve officially decided my favorite relationship trope is “at first I was perpetually bothered by your mere existence but somewhere along the way you became my best friend and oh yeah I’m also in love with you.” Nothing else matters.

coven masters

-"Why do vampires always live in three?"

-"Two are in charge of falling in love and then killing each other, and the third is always ready to free them."

I accidentally thought about Marius in a bun and there you go… 

random sketch of him in a bathtub xD Reading a book. Because that’s a very Roman thing to do. 

A drawing about Armand & Lestat being lovey-dovey was the most requested in my ask, so…

This wasn’t meant to be ready as a Valentine’s Day drawing but I guess date coincided

Been thinking a lot lately about how Akasha calls Louis "the most predatory of all the immortals" because he kills "without regard for age or sex or will to live." but then later in TVA, Armand describes him as this:

"Louis, an indiscriminate killer, because he cannot satisfy his thirst without killing, though he is too weak to risk the death of the victim in his arms, and because he has no pride or vanity which would lead him to a hierarchy of intended victims, and therefore takes those who cross his path, regardless of age, physical endowments, or blessings bestowed by nature or fate."

Like on the surface Akasha seems totally right, Louis doesn't hunt the evildoer, he preys on innocent victims despite his devotion to humanity and that is what makes him dangerous because he's a hypocrite.

But I'm so intrigued by Armand's re-framing because yeah it makes sense that Louis hunts the way that he does since he doesn't have the same tools to weed out the evildoers, like the Mind Gift. Only there's another factor on top of that— Louis also doesn't have the pride that it takes to pick and choose victims!!!!! Like, it absolutely takes some level of pride and righteousness (and dare I say narcissism) to kill based on your personal perception of evil. It takes work to hunt down a drug lord or a gang leader. Like Armand says, their victims exist in a hierarchical system and to get to the top of the food chain, it takes intention and pre-meditation and a level of conviction Louis just doesn't have.

And honestly I think looking at it from that perspective highlights such an important part of who Louis is as a character because vampirism, for Louis, has never been about power. He just has no interest in living above humans. That's not to say he's completely free of vanity or narcissism (don't get me started there lol) but like I do think Louis' lack of discrimination towards victims ultimately stems from a rejection of playing God, rather than whatever unhinged predatory instincts Akasha implied.

lestat always has the kindest most empathetic takes on Armand which is wild considering their relationship 😭 like lestat says this immediately after beating armands ass in tvl bcus he tried to take advantage of him lmao

Pandora draft loustat moment 🥺

Noooo friend. I know you're just being glib, but Lestat's aristocratic background very much does matter! It matters SO MUCH.

There is FAR more to being an aristocrat than money. It's a culture, it's an upbringing, it's customs and manners. Lestat says repeatedly that his "aristocratic bearing" got him places in life that others couldn't. His posture, his body language, his way of speaking. Got him his job as an actor, got him particular attention. He says how the moneyed bourgeoisie tried to emulate this aristocratic je ne sais quoi, but could never quite manage it. Being an aristocrat was the entire reason it was HIS responsibility to kill the wolves, and that plus his manners and affect were the very things that captured Magnus's attention and the whole reason he was chosen to be a vampire in the first place. His beauty/hotness is more than just bone structure and fabulous hair, it was in his attitude, his confidence, his way of facing the world that only someone born into his position could manifest. And not just the aristocratic position, but the impoverished/shamed aristocratic position. Having all the expectations of the ruling class heaped upon his family, but the inability to live up to them because of the lack of money and opportunities shaped his entire upbringing and personality. It's what made his brothers cruel and his mother cold and his father the sniveling old blind man he was burdened to care for. It's what fueled Lestat's darkness, but the privileges of having servants and serfs and subjects also left enough space for his exuberant light to still find a way to shine. If he were that poor and working class, it surely would have all been squashed out of him at a very early age.

And that's all just BEFORE he became a vampire! As a vampire, his aristocratic background was what made him GENTLEMAN death, the new unheard-of species of vampire that blew the minds of the Children of Satan and changed the entire vampiric culture of Paris. None of the other vampires who rejected the cult were gentlemen. Lestat's experience of knowing HOW to be gentry (even if he didn't act that way every day at home) was what gave him the skill and ability to seamlessly enter high society as soon as he had the money from Magnus's treasure to do so. It's why he didn't even think twice about striking out across the world to explore and then to find a place for himself in America, to make that ocean crossing that no vampire had ever been confident enough to try before. Lestat's not bold and confident (just) because he's an impulsive moron. It's bred in him.

He talks in later books about how new young vampires, even in modern times, become vagabonds who don't know how to make/save money or integrate with society. They don't have the background structure to know how to climb in the world and need to be taught. Lestat spent his whole childhood upbringing being taught. His aristocratic education (even if it wasn't an academic education) gave him a huge step up over vampires made from commoners, so that even without a maker or any friends in the world, he was able to in a manner of weeks become the most fabulous vampire the world had ever seen since Marius's days in Venice.

And let's also talk about the most important thing--Louis! The difference between their classes impacted their relationship in a huge way from the very beginning! Even if Anne didn't have the idea for Lestat to be poor nobility when she wrote the first book, I'll bet she realized she had no other choice for him when it came time to create his backstory, because she had already used all the building blocks of it. He talks of Louis's naivete due to his "strange bourgeois faith that God was still God even if he turned his back on us, that damnation and salvation established the boundaries of a small and hopeless world" in contrast to the cynicism and atheism that were the result of his own aristocratic upbringing.

Lestat says, "As for his belief that I was a peasant, well that was understandable. He was, after all, a discriminating and inhibited child of the middle class, aspiring as all the colonial planters did to be a genuine aristocrat even though he had never met one, and I came from a long line of feudal lords who licked their fingers and threw the bones over their shoulders to the dogs as they dined." Upper class aristocracy in reality was different from and a whole lot more than how middle class men like Louis imagined it, that assumption of glamor and propriety. It was darker, messier, meaner than those who fantasized about it liked to believe. Aristocracy was the duty to risk your life alone to kill eight wolves in the snow with medieval weapons because an entire countryside of people depended upon you to survive the winter.

Their differences in upbringing and resultant perspectives on life and the world doesn't just impact Louis and Lestat's relationship, but is also the backbone of the philosophies that provide major themes in the books. Of the darkness, the cynicism, the disillusionment of becoming a vampire for Louis. Like the bourgeois dream of climbing the class ladder to aristocracy, becoming a vampire seems like a very desirable transformation until Louis actually makes it and is faced with the dark reality of what his new role in life must be.

the funniest thing about lestat is he was secretly a member of the gentry!! woaaah!! plot twist!!! except it doesn't really matter at all. they had no money. it doesn't define his perception of himself. it was nothing but a stricture and eventually he left and even that mattered in no material terms to anyone. to the extent he returns to auvergne in like 200 years the vibes are rancid as hell and it has no continuity. it never actually mattered. if it's a lie and he was the groundskeeper it's the same. his existence shed everything human. he's playing with the shadows in the cave

"Да пшёл ты нахуй" which means "F*ck you" or more like "Go f*ck yourself"

Writers Truth & Dare Ask Game

🎱 ⇢ post your AO3 total stats  🍓 ⇢ how did you get into writing fanfiction?  🌵 ⇢ share the link to a playlist you love 🕯️ ⇢ on a scale from 1 to 10, how much do you enjoy editing? why is that? 🛼 ⇢ describe your latest wip with five emojis 🥑 ⇢ you accidentally killed somebody, which mutual(s) do you text for help? 🥤 ⇢ recommend an author or fanfic you love 💌 ⇢ how many unread emails do you have right now?  🌻 ⇢ tag someone you appreciate but don't talk to on a regular basis 🐇 ⇢ do you prefer writing original characters, reader inserts, or a mix of both?  🧃 ⇢ share some personal lore you never posted about before 🎲 ⇢ what stops you from writing more in your free time?  🍄 ⇢ share a head canon for one of your favourite ships or pairings 🧸 ⇢ what's the fastest way to become your mutual? 🪐 ⇢ name three good things going on in your life right now 📚 ⇢ what's the last thing you wrote down in your notes app?  🍬 ⇢ post an unpopular opinion about a popular fandom character 🔪 ⇢ what's the weirdest topic you researched for a writing project? 🦷 ⇢ share some personal wisdom or a life hack you swear on ❄️ ⇢ what's your dream theme/plot for a fic, and who would write it best? 🌿 ⇢ give some advice on writer's block and low creativity 🥐 ⇢ name one internet reference that will always make you laugh  🏜️ ⇢ what's your favourite type of comment to receive on your work? 🍦 ⇢ name three good things about a character you hate 🥝 ⇢ do you lie a lot? what's the most recent lie you told? 🦋 ⇢ share something that has been on your heart and mind lately  🦴 ⇢ is there a piece of media that inspires your writing?  🍅 ⇢ give yourself some constructive criticism on your own writing 🐚 ⇢ do you like or dislike surprises? 🪲 ⇢ add 50 words to your current wip and share the paragraph here ☁️ ⇢ what made you choose your username? 🐝 ⇢ tag your biggest supporter(s) and say one nice thing about them 🌸 ⇢ do you have any pets? if you do, post some pictures of them 🎨 ⇢ link your favourite piece of fanart and explain why you like it 🧩 ⇢ what will make you click away from a fanfiction immediately?

Throwback to that time I predicted the entire Rashid-turns-out-to-be-Armand reveal before ever seeing a single episode

😆 I so called it!

"Polymorphous sexuality" is entering my vocabulary.

"I really see vampires as transcending gender. If you make them absolutely straight or absolutely gay, you limit the material. They can be either one. They have a polymorphous sexuality. They see everything as beautiful." - Anne Rice

Marius, Armand and Lestat (Commission)