folkmore | application

★ Character Information ★

Character Name: Louis de Pointe du Lac.
Character Age: 200+ years old, appears 25.
Character Species: Vampire.
Current Health: Alive? Undead? He's fine.

Outfit: A turtleneck sweater, denim jeans, leather boots, and a knee-length wool coat, all in black. Also, a simple emerald ring.

Character Canon: The Vampire Chronicles.
Link to History: Wiki.
Canon Point: Post-Queen of the Damned, just after he heads to London with Lestat.
Canon Iteration: Original canon.

★ Folkmore Roles & Attributes ★

Skills:

→ Well-read, particularly in literature, history, and philosophy.
→ Finance and investing.
→ Manners and etiquette.
→ Managing a household.
→ Speaks multiple languages.
→ General knowledge of Victorian-era occult theory.
→ Brooding.
→ Arson.

Canon Abilities: Louis is a vampire, albeit a relatively weak one. He shies away from exploring his powers, so even he isn't certain how much of his weakness is innate and how much is by choice.

→ strengths. His preternatural speed, strength, and reflexes are enough to break iron locks, scale buildings, and make easy prey of a healthy adult man, but they're nothing compared to what a vampire of his age should be capable of.
→ weaknesses. Though he is immortal, fire or sunlight will reduce him to ash. Goes into a deathlike sleep during the day.
→ blood & biting. Louis drinks blood. Consuming anything else will make him violently ill. If he goes hungry for more than a night or two, he'll start getting weaker and more feral. Starvation won't kill a vampire, but they will eventually go insane and wither into a mindless corpse.

Technically, Louis can create other vampires, but he absolutely refuses to cross that line ever again, and so this particular power is unlikely to come up at all without extensive plotting.

Role: Familiar.
Role Qualities/Attributes: Louis's first transformation will be a rat, just to make his life a little harder, but with practice and confidence he will be able to transform into numerous animals.
Role Reasoning: Louis's aspirations are modest: he wants to see that the people he loves are taken care of, and he wants to understand his nature as a vampire. Though Louis is compassionate and principled, he often falls short of his own moral code. He is neither particularly selfless nor community-minded; his focus is always inward, on self-reflection and on tending to his family. Being in a role that is neither "bad" nor "good" will force Louis to confront his rigid assumptions about himself, and will hopefully give him the opportunity to explore new abilities without the revulsion he feels toward his vampirism.

★ Personality ★

OPTION 2 QUESTIONS

i. What is your character's moral code? Do they have one? Why or why not?

Louis has a strong moral code that does not allow for nuance: he believes that it is evil to take human life, and he therefore has a low opinion of vampires in general, including (and sometimes especially) himself. He can't feed on humans without risk of killing them, and since he can't read minds, he has no way to choose "deserving" victims. Even if he could, he likely wouldn't; Louis finds it distasteful for vampires to pass moral judgment on individual human beings, or for them to act as if what they do can ever be justified. He chooses his victims randomly, waiting for the moment when his thirst for blood is stronger than his guilt.

Louis's "almost-human" sensitivity and compassion are frequently remarked upon by other vampires. However, his conscience has a significant drawback. Because he feels so strongly that he is beyond redemption, Louis has more or less given up on finding ways to be selfless or good, choosing instead to isolate himself from human life and try to do as little harm as possible.

ii. What is the most important and defining relationship in your character's life and why?

The most significant person in Louis's life, for better and for worse, has always been Lestat. Lestat met Louis at the lowest point in his life, fell in love with him instantly, and made him his vampire companion. Though the attraction was mutual, their perspectives on killing were wildly different, and Louis resented Lestat for not being the maker he'd hoped for. His refusal to tell Louis anything worthwhile about other vampires created a rift in their relationship that lasted for nearly two centuries, and Louis managed to convince himself that Lestat only wanted him for his money, even as they spent 60 years raising a vampire daughter together in relative domestic tranquility. It wasn't until after Louis believed Lestat was dead that he was finally able to begin acknowledging his complicated feelings.

Eventually Louis told the story of his life to a young reporter, which was published under the title Interview with the Vampire. When Lestat awoke from his vampire slumber to see that Louis had not only revealed the existence of vampires to the world, but painted their relationship in a deeply unflattering light, he published his very own autobiography (and became a rock star — it's a long story) to set the record straight and finally tell Louis all of the things he had ever wanted to know.

It works. Louis tracks him down, they reconcile, they smooch. From that point on, Louis remains intensely devoted to Lestat, willing to risk his life for him, even trusting Lestat to scoop him up and fly him across the Atlantic. Though they still have their arguments, it seems that finally understanding Lestat was enough for Louis not only to forgive him, but to finally admit that he loves him.

iii. What was the most traumatic experience your character endured? How did this change them?

The death of Claudia, Louis and Lestat's vampire daughter, is an emotional wound that Louis never fully heals from. In Paris, Louis meets a vampire named Armand, who initially seems to be everything Louis had hoped Lestat would be: an older, wiser mentor who would keep no secrets from him. Blinded by his loneliness and desire for companionship, Louis dismisses Claudia's warnings that Armand is manipulating him until it's too late. Armand's coven holds a sham trial, and Claudia is sentenced to death for the crime of attempting to murder Lestat, and because her child's body makes her too weak to survive on her own.

Armand tells Louis that he couldn't have saved her, which Louis finds appalling; his admiration is shattered when he sees in Armand a reflection of his own passivity. But even when Armand eventually admits that he was the one who orchestrated Claudia's death, Louis places the blame primarily on himself: first, for allowing Lestat to create her; second, for failing to prevent her from trying to murder Lestat; third, for letting his selfish desire for goodness blind him to the depths of Armand's evil, and therefore his own.

"And, deserving nothing better, I closed up like a spider in the flame of a match."

Louis numbs himself to his remaining human feelings, but he remains with Armand for several decades, partly as a form of self-punishment: it is "the crowning evil," he tells Armand, "that we can even go so far as to love one another, you and I." Though he is still deeply moved by beauty and art and poetry, he does not allow himself to truly seek out love or connection or any semblance of a mortal life until nearly a century after Claudia's death, when he is finally reunited with Lestat.

iv. What does your character feel like they struggle with still? Where could they improve? This could be physically, mentally, emotionally, or otherwise.

Even after two centuries, Louis still struggles to embrace his vampire nature. He cannot truly make peace with himself as long as he needs to kill to survive, and he shies away from exploring the full extent of his powers, afraid of losing touch with his humanity. Still, there is hope for him — Louis is in love with the world, and with beauty, and he has a great appreciation for what his preternatural senses have allowed him to understand.

If Louis were asked to name his greatest personal flaw, his answer would be passivity. Again and again, he has stood by when faced with what he knows to be wrong — afraid to act, afraid of making the wrong choice, afraid of compromising his own morals. Claudia's death finally forced him to come face-to-face with how his own inaction had allowed evil to triumph and brought his loved ones to harm.

★ Player Information ★

Player Name: Em
Pronouns: she/they
Are you over 18?: Yes
Contact(s): PM + melodramatics
Who Invited You?: Link to Invite
Current Characters: N/A
Permissions: link.

Writing Samples:

tdm toplevel (x3 prompts, x8 characters)

• ana
  
• fran
  
• eren
  
• steve
  
• rhys
  
• mayerling
  
• keyleth
  
• anne-marie