showmey0urfangs:

I stumbled on this really interesting tv movie that’s an adaptation of Anne Rice’s second Novel by the same name. She wrote right after IWTV and I think the writers may have used it as inspiration when coming up with Louis’s family history.

It’s really interesting and I learned so much about the complex history of the Creole free people of colour, the seedy system of plaçage and the colorism and racism that went along with all that.

I watched it on youtube (from what I could find, it’s not available anywhere else) so the quality is iffy, but I still highly recommend checking it out.

illiadofrecollection:

that poll made me google anne rice popeye and gffsfsfss

“At the end of Ms. Rice’s novel ’‘Memnoch the Devil,” the fourth in her wildly popular vampire series, the vampire Lestat sees his reflection in the window of an abandoned car dealership on St. Charles Avenue. “Let me pass now from fiction into legend,” Lestat says, in the last line of the book.

It is doubtful that Ms. Rice would have written that ending if she had known that the abandoned dealership would be renovated by Mr. Copeland after her novel’s publication into a somewhat loud, peach-colored restaurant with Creole-California cuisine, serving sushi and babyback ribs and, sadly for Lestat, garlic mashed potatoes.

The neon-lit restaurant, Straya, is a “monstrosity,” Ms. Rice wrote in a full-page advertisement that she took out in The New Orleans Times-Picayune just before Mardi Gras to blast the restaurant’s design, which some critics have described as art deco in drag. The restaurant, she wrote, “in no way represents the ambience, the romance or the charm that we seek to offer.”

That offended Mr. Copeland, the entrepreneur, and retired powerboat racer, who founded the Popeye’s Fried Chicken chain. But he says he knows why Ms. Rice is so angry.

If the vampire Lestat, perhaps the most famous bloodsucker of all time after Bram Stoker’s classic Dracula, vanished into the building before its renovation, then he must still be there.

“I didn’t bargain on a vampire,” Mr. Copeland said. When he bought the property, he had not read Ms. Rice’s Memnoch book, or any of her other books, but he figures the story cannot be bad for business.

“I’ve got Lestat,” Mr. Copeland said, “and I’m going keep him.”

He is also suing Ms. Rice, accusing her of libel. She described his restaurant in the advertisement as a “ludicrous and egregious structure.”

@asgardian-viking​

kaelio:

“Anne Rice didn’t make it clear enough that this was Bad and Wrong to do” she was busy fighting the Popeyes chicken guy, YOU fucking figure it out

darkangel1791:

jabberwockypie:

kaelio:

kaelio:

kaelio:

hmm

some of these seem maybe even bigger than 5’ honestly

The top one is apparently supposed to be Lestat.

I don’t think they’re scary, I just don’t think they’re super interesting. If I had a three story doll orphanage for my doll collection, my dolls and displays would be so much cooler.

When I visited St. Elizabeth’s in 1996 she had an entire wall of different nun dolls! You weren’t allowed to take pictures. But where are the nuns!

eosphoroz:

I really miss Anne because I’m pretty sure she’d have posted something tonight like “Watching King Charles’s coronation ceremony and wondering what Lestat would wear at his own coronation. Perhaps a gold tissue shirt with a military red velvet jacket with golden epaulettes paired with some fitted silk trousers and high leather boots.”

“But you love books, then,” Aunt Queen was saying. I had to listen.

“Oh, yes,” Lestat said. “Sometimes they’re the only thing that keeps me alive.”

“What a thing to say at your age,” she laughed.

“No, but one can feel desperate at any age, don’t you think? The young are eternally desperate,” he said frankly. “And books, they offer one hope - that a whole universe might open up from between the covers, and falling into that new universe, one is saved.”

Blackwood Farm - Anne Rice

Lestat and his constant protectiveness/worry over Louis in the books

I saw Gabrielle break through the side door before the car hit the ground. And she and I were both rolling over on the grassy slope as the car capsized and exploded with a deafening roar.“

Louis!” I shouted. I scrambled towards the blaze. I would have gone right into it after him: But the glass of the back portal splintered as he came through it. He hit the embankment just as I reached him. And with my cape I beat at his smoking garments, Gabrielle ripping off her jacket to do the same. - The Vampire Lestat

What was she doing? Assessing their power? Looking from one to the other, and then back to me. A stranger looking down from some lofty height. And so now the fire comes, Lestat. Don’t dare to look at Gabrielle or Louis, lest she turn it that way. Die first, like a coward, and then you don’t have to see them die. - The Queen of the Damned

“Ah, Louis, forgive me.” The dark neglected hallway. I shuddered. “I came here because I was so concerned . . . about you.”

“No need,” he said considerately. “It was just a little pilgrimage I had to make.”

I touched his face with my fingers; so warm from the kill.

“She’s not here, Louis,” I said. “It was something Jesse imagined.”

“Yes, so it seems,” he said.

“We live forever; but they don’t come back.” - The Queen of the Damned

“All right,” he said despairingly. “I hope you discover the man’s seduced you with a pack of lies, that all he wants is the Dark Blood, and that you send him straight to hell. Once more, let me warn you, if I see him, if he threatens me, I shall kill him. I haven’t your strength. I depend upon my anonymity, that my little memoir, as you always call it, was so very far removed from the world of this century that no one took it as fact.”

“I won’t let him harm you, Louis,” I said. I turned and threw an evil glance at him. “I would never ever have let anyone harm you.”

And with this I left.

Of course, this was an accusation, and he felt the keen edge of it, I’d seen that to my satisfaction, before I turned again and went out. - The Tale of the Body Thief

Oh, yes, I had asked for it, as mortals so often declare. And I had done this despicable thing of letting loose the Body Thief with my powers. True. Guilty again of spectacular blunders and experiments. But had I ever dreamed of what it would truly mean to be stripped utterly of my powers and on the outside looking in? The others knew; they must know. And they had let Marius come to render the judgment, to let me know that for what I had done, I was cast out!

But Louis, my beautiful Louis, how could he have spurned me! I would have defied heaven to help Louis! I had so counted upon Louis, I had so counted upon waking this night with the old blood running powerful and true in my veins. - The Tale of the Body Thief

I thought then of Louis’s rejection, and that I would very soon see him again, and an evil satisfaction rilled me. Ah, he would be so very surprised. Then a little fear came over me. How would I forgive him? How would I keep my precious temper from exploding like a great wanton flame? - The Tale of the Body Thief

No scent of a mortal signaled an intruder. In fact, I knew the step that was approaching. I had heard it so many times in my life both mortal and preternatural. Yet I didn’t dare to believe in such a rescue from my misery, until the unheralded figure appeared in the courtyard, his velvet coat dusty, his yellow hair tangled, his violet eyes looking at once to the grim and appalling visage of Louis:

It was Lestat.

With an awkward step, as though his body, so long unused, revolted against him, he made his way closer to Merrick, who turned her tearstained face to him as if she too were seeing a Savior come in answer to her directionless prayers. - Merrick

Lestat seemed to be considering these things. How could he not? Once, he himself had gone into the sunlight in a distant desert place, and, having been burnt again and again, without release, he came back. His skin was still golden from this hurtful and terrible disaster. He would carry that imprint of the sun’s power for many years to come.

Straightaway, he stepped in front of Merrick, and as both of us watched, he knelt down beside the coffin, and he moved very close to the figure, and then he drew back. With his fingers, quite as delicately as she had done it, he touched the blackened hands, and he left no mark. Slowly, lightly, he touched the forehead, and once more, he left no mark.

He drew back, kneeling up, and, lifting his right hand to his mouth, he gashed his wrist with his own teeth before either Merrick or I knew what he meant to do.

At once a thick stream of blood poured down onto the perfectly molded face of the figure in the coffin, and as the vein sought to heal itself, again Lestat gashed it and let the blood flow. - Merrick

“Come now, enough of these ‘things,’ ” he said with a tone of remarkable weariness. “New Orleans waits. Louis waits. And if he hasn’t come down to New Orleans as you asked, I say we go to New York and get him.”

He had mentioned Louis countless times in the last six months, but the strange thing was, I didn’t trust him with all these mentions of how I needed Louis, and ought to write to Louis, and ought to pick up one of the many telephones around me and call Louis. I had some deep fear that he was in fact jealous of Louis, but I was ashamed of that feeling. Now he was saying, Let’s go, let’s find Louis.

[…]

This troubled me, and I wasn’t sure quite why. What if he suddenly wanted to hurt Louis? What if he became jealous of Louis—of my affection for Louis?

“Nonsense, go to him,” he said. Calm voice. Manly voice. “Am I jealous of your son, Viktor? Am I jealous of your beloved daughter, Rose? You need Louis and you know it, and he’s ready now to surrender. - Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis

And so it was done. Louis was putting on his jacket and scarf. I was unhappy. I watched him pulling on his gloves. I couldn’t imagine how this could end productively or happily. I didn’t want Louis to be humiliated, but what could Fareed and Seth say to talk of the silver cord? If they became impatient and short with him, I’d be furious. - Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis

I knew that the monster had other resources. We all do, the clever ones, who don’t wish to move through eternity like tramps. He had gold and jewels in hiding places. He had wealth undreamt of and unrecorded. And dwellings perhaps of which no one knew.

And now he had taken my Louis, my helpless Louis. Penetrated our most fortified refuge, and taken Louis away.

[…]

Again, I was not thinking. I was merely knowing—and knowing that Louis, Louis the most vulnerable of us all, was in the grip of that monster—or already dead. - Blood Communion

“In all these centuries,” said Cyril, “never have we known one whom we could see as our champion. You can’t really know, boss, just what you are now to the others. You think you know, but you don’t, and that’s why I’ll be right outside your door again sleeping in the passage, sleeping here so nothing and no one can get at you or hurt you—as long as I live and breathe.”

Then I was alone in the chilling darkness—with the villain Armand despised, and the son who had not protected his mother, and the lover who had never protected Louis from himself or others, and the miserable pupil of Marius who had so misjudged Rhoshamandes that now Marius was dead. - Blood Communion

eosphoroz:

Was Daniel dying of AIDS before being turned?

(Thanks to anon for pushing me into this research whirlwind)

As we all know, Anne Rice began writing the Vampire Chronicles in a crucial moment of her life, and ‘Interview with the Vampire’ was published right at the pinnacle of the gay rights movement and before the terrible AIDS epidemic.

(Quote from ‘Prism of the night: A biography of Anne Rice’)

As Anne continued writing the Chronicles the themes morphed and, in her words, she accessed the subconscious to bring to life the characters and storylines we all love.

(Quote from ‘The Vampire Companion’)

It was only after trying different narratives and themes (‘The Sleeping Beauty Quartet’, ‘Cry to Heaven’, ‘Exit to Eden’, ‘Belinda’) that Anne got to a point in her life where loss and grief struck her again, both in her personal and professional life. In less than a year two of her editors and friends died, one of them out of complications of AIDS.

(Quote from ‘Prism of the night: A biography of Anne Rice’)

And it was then, in the midst of her grief, that she once again found the inspiration to write. She began her journey into crafting her most ambitious Vampire Chronicles book: ‘The Queen of the Damned’.

(Quote from ‘Prism of the night: A biography of Anne Rice’)

And even if the themes of this book might seem universal and wide, Anne was conscious that her own personal experiences shaped certain aspects of the narrative.

Anne never really tied the AIDS crisis with Daniel’s character arc in ‘QotD’. She wanted to explore the theme of addiction and obsession through Daniel and Armand, and she linked Daniel’s addiction to drinking blood to his addiction to drinking alcohol. Daniel ultimately wasted away through the bottle (an addiction Anne knew intimately), until Armand turned him into a vampire.

(Quote from ‘The Vampire Companion’)

But one has to wonder what Anne unconsciously worked into Daniel, especially when the grief and loss she had experienced prior to writing ‘Queen of the Damned’ started with the deaths of two of her editors, one of them dying of AIDS.

The violence present in 'QotD’ through Akasha’s male-directed massacres speak loudly of Anne’s own experiences.

(Quote from ‘Prism of the night: A biography of Anne Rice’)

Long story short, Anne never linked Daniel’s casual sexual encounters (through Armand) with his death, nor did she consciously work the AIDS crisis into Daniel’s story.

Funnily enough, the only time Anne linked her experience of AIDS with her work was while talking about ‘The Witching Hour’, which she began writing right after ‘Queen of the Damned’.

(Quote from the article ‘Remembering 'Vampire Chronicles’ author Anne Rice’)

And only this year (2023), Christopher Rice referenced his late mother’s “inspiration” for ‘Violin’, and the autobiographical tones in relation to her experience with AIDS. Anne wrote 'Violin’ almost a decade after writing 'Queen of the Damned’, after losing another friend, John Preston, to AIDS.

(Quote from Anne Rice’s facebook page)

The answer to the question remains in the negative. Consciously, Anne never put Daniel in the path of the AIDS crisis. Whether unconsciously she wove AIDS into Daniel’s obsession and downfall through the Blood will always remain a mystery (or at least, an unverified statement).

Merrick - Anne Rice

↳ Louis describing his first meeting with Merrick