𝓒𝓵𝓪

consuming media obsessively

[wingkink]

btw it's so fucking stupid you can be anxious physically in your body even after you've decided mentally you don't care. I'm supposed to be in charge here

[resinousroad]

Honestly something I was so taken aback by when reading The Vampire Lestat for the first time was how much I related to the way Lestat reacted to the abuse his family put him through. (This isn't a post about me projecting, more so me using my own story to illustrate why I think Lestat's was so well written).

I also grew up in an abusive household, and I was constantly ridiculed for my inability to fit in with the rest, and not adhere to their status quo. I wasn't quiet in response; I was loud as hell. I fought back, I argued, and I became even bigger to protect myself from having to shrink. Because of this, a lot of people struggled to see me as a survivor, or as a victim at the time (I was often told I couldn't be scared of an abuser if I was still bold enough to argue with them). When I read The Vampire Lestat, I was stunned to find myself crying. I've written before about the use of the word "impossible" which Lestat's brother calls him when Lestat is gifted the coat by his village made of the wolves he killed (a moment where he was actually shown thankfulness by the people of his village). Nicki recognizes this, and assures Lestat he's also seen as "impossible."

When I was young, "impossible" , "dramatic", and a whole lot of other adjectives were used to describe how I acted. It's a way to remove attention from the abuser and place it on the survivor. Well, if they weren't so "impossible", if they just "fit in", then they wouldn't "have" to be abused! Survivors react to abuse in a host of different ways, and that is completely valid. Some people, like myself, see something so inherently wrong with the situation, and become bigger versions of ourselves so we're not lost before we get the chance to escape. Lestat takes an interest in theater, performance, he's denied access to being able to read (a form of escapism), so he instead finds a way around it where he can still play the roles he desires. When he's denied even this, he comes back to his village and becomes the provider for his family despite their lack of appreciation towards him. They won't respect him, but he'll know, as they eat the food he provided, that he was the one who nourished them, that he is the one they rely on.

I was the only child in my family to go to college (this is not an insult to my other siblings at all, because again EVERYONE REACTS DIFFERENTLY and not everyone HAS to go to college, either. It's not a sign of success), and I had to scratch and claw my way to get there as I was repeatedly sabotaged. My grades became the way I could actually present my worth, and even then it wasn't enough, because NOTHING ever would be. Still, I knew I was doing it. Achieving what no one else thought I could get. (Ironically, much like how Gabrielle gave Lestat his first gun and the means to hunt, my mom fought to allow me the chance to go to college. Even though she'd prevented me from leaving before (I'd tried to run away), she changed her mind. Before I left to actually go live in the dorms, she whispered in my ear, "run, and don't come back here.").

Despite Lestat seeming strong (and he WAS SO STRONG) he still had moments where he mentally broke down (notably his breakdown after finding out Gabrielle's diagnosis). Because having to put on a front of strength is absolutely EXHAUSTING, and the dichotomy between how people view your life versus what it ACTUALLY is makes you feel like you're going mad. Isolation adds to this, and often the only one who can calm Lestat down is the one "friend" (aka lover) he has (I also relate to this. My dad claimed public schools were brainwashing kids to become democrats/gay (lmao), and as a result I was homeschooled and only had one consistent friend who I met online).

The idea of escaping to Paris wasn't a fantasy to Lestat, which his family treated it like. Lestat was happy, even when he wasn't earning much, didn't live in the best conditions, and was struggling. Because there's a difference between struggling in a cage someone built for you, and the struggle you experience when leaving the cage. (I lived in HORRIBLE housing situations after college. All of my apartments had an infestation of some sort, and they were rarely safe. I was still happier). Nicki, on the other hand, saw Paris as a way to die in defiance, as a way to punish his father (this is how Nicki's mental illness impacted him - he'd been beaten down to the point he saw his life as worthless, so the only way he could find meaning was to use it to punish the person who'd hurt him his whole life). Even when Lestat was horrifically turned by Magnus, he couldn't give into despair, because he fought SO HARD to get his own life. Sometimes, even when you escape, you're still constantly fighting, with the quiet moments being more terrifying than the traumatic ones (I kind of link this to Jacob Anderson and Sam Reid's statements about how, in the books, Lestat would go back to Louis when life was so fucked and he needed something simple, only for him to run away again. Peace sometimes feels scarier than terror, because once you accept it, you have something that can be taken away from you. When you're abused, you learn to almost not allow yourself to enjoy things, as anything you love visibly enough is something that will be painfully torn from you. Such as Lestat loving the monastery).

I'm VERY intrigued to see how this will play out on screen. I really like the way the show handled Louis' trauma and mental state during the first two seasons (he's a ridiculously complicated character who often only feels he has worth and meaning if he's caring for someone else, as that's the only thing his family ever gave him any praise for doing). I think it will be a difficult watch, but I think it's also important. Louis, Lestat, and Claudia are all people that society doesn't usually see as survivors because of their responses to their situations. The show doesn't go to the end of the earth to prove they suffered by making them perfect, it instead forces you to contest with the fact that survivors aren't going to be perfect. Louis responds to the realization of what Armand did by tossing him into a wall, he becomes frustrated by the situation with Claudia even though he was the one who initially asked for her to be turned, Claudia becomes more ruthless after being assaulted, and Lestat is "defiant" and wearing a mask forged from a necessity to survive the whole way through. It saddens me when the fandom tries to turn these characters into one dimensional paper dolls. Everything they experienced is still valid, it was still horrible, even if they're not always perfect. That's not demonizing survivors, it's humanizing them.

[eloiscbridgerton]

KASTLE 2017, 2019, 2026

[keikomivra]

AGATHA ALL ALONG | 1.08 & 1.09 + TUMBLR REACTIONS

[dryope]

Remembering that now lestat was turned whn he was 34 he and nicki were probably together for like 14 years… and that it took him a hundred years to try again… and that he’s more connected to music than theatre and plays in this version 😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫 like imagine youre lestat and you are deeply in love with your first love your husband of 14 years the love of your life and you have a job you love and you are happy you are so so debilitatingly happy and suddenly you are taken away from all of it and you are thrust into this life of killing and monstrosity and then he loses his mind and dies and dies and dies over and over again and you try to save him but he only gets worse and in the end when he dies for the final time he dies without his mind and hating you. Like personally i couldnt do it

[leslutdepointedulac]

I know I've said this before but that was months ago so I'm here again to remind everyone that Nicki loved Lestat. He loved him so much and they were young and in love and, for a time, they were happy. We all know Lestat loved Nicki but we can't forget how Nicki loved him back.

[andresdelugdunum]

 « Joyeux Noël, mon Âme, le tueur de loup… »

My contribution for the #BloodInTheSnowIWTV #IWTVholidaycard for my companion @fablefright !

This is the first time I've drawn Lestat and Nicolas, and I love them! I wish you all a very happy holiday season ❤️🎄

[gayboymolloy-deactivated2026030]

I hate when people say that Nicki didn’t love Lestat because of what he said when he was clearly out of his mind to a supernatural extreme. I have no doubts that he meant what he said in the moment, that he planned on dying in Paris and resented Lestat for thriving. But are you really gonna tell me there was never any love between them? That all Nicki was, was the bitter, ugly parts of his illness?

Or could it be that maybe his final statements to Lestat might have had something to do with the months of abandonment, the torture he’d endured, or the way vampirism sometimes takes to people wrong? Exacerbates what’s already there? Sorry, you’ll never catch me hating Nicolas de Lenfent.

[savagewilderness]

O Earthly Lestat, I see now the trouble I’m going to have with S3 is I may have to defend Nicolas a lot…. And I don’t even know how he’ll be written for TV. But I know he means too much to me, and that’s just that. In a way Nicolas means the most to me. Not that he means more to me than Lestat. But that the elements of Nicolas that I relate to (& importantly as you can never get over this feeling - that I related to as a 12-year-old) I cannot think of any other instance in literature or any other fictional character I could relate to or who so exactly articulated something about me. And so I cannot help but always fight for Nicki 100% (even though I am not like Nicki in all ways.)

I want to CLARIFY! This is not some “Nicolas was Lestat’s actual great love” point of view in ANY WAY! LOUIS, is Lestat’s great love!

But this is: Nicolas loved Lestat. It wasn’t only Lestat who loved Nicki. And Nicolas loving Lestat enabled Lestat to love Louis.

I find it beautiful. YES, Nickistat ended AWFULLY! (And that there was mutual love makes it all the more tragic and beautiful to me!) But I just need to say here…

People acknowledge how much of Louis’ words in IWTV are shaded by his own struggles…. So I can’t understand why so many people seem to take Nicolas’ words in his final argument with Lestat (by which point, with whatever nuance you cut it, Nicolas is as described by EVERYONE as a mad vampire, his mind lost!) as 100% his always-truth!!!?! I just cannot comprehend it!!!?! I’d love if anyone would like to explain how you can see it that way, especially after reading the actual way Nicolas was pre-Paris, in Paris, when Lestat was stolen away… all until the moment he witnesses Lestat be shot. THEN it shifts for Nicki!

I’m also not one for blaming Armand for Nicki’s demise. The tragedy of Nicolas is, Lestat is very responsible for Nicolas’ demise, and simultaneously all Lestat did, he did through love. There are a thousand ways Nicki’s tragic demise is Shakespearean inevitable resonance… and yet…

But yeah, it’s actually primarily because of his music & things around his music that Nicki matters so much to me. But nevertheless, he matters & I shall fight for him!!! Lestat and Nicki's conversation matters deeply to me too, and what Nicki is for Lestat in that conversation. But where I connect with Nicki is in his music and how he feels about his music. I personally connect with Lestat's worldview on the other hand. Although in my personality, I am my self, of course, I also relate to some elements of each of them.

The thing with Nicolas I suppose for me though is there are various aspects of his self I relate to that I have never felt anywhere else except in my own self. Not in fiction & not in anyone I have ever known in reality either. And I guess that’s why I will always fight for him. Also, because most people should understand Lestat - we’re so in his heart & head 💛. But we don’t hear the story from Nicolas’ point of view, yet for me, at times it is like he is absolutely in my own mind & heart or I am in his, or it’s the same thing in some odd way I can’t quite articulate. I feel seen by him, and I see him. I understand some parts of him, reflecting how by existing in fiction, he has understood me.

Back to Nicolas. He kept Lestat’s dressing room at Renaud’s as a literal shrine to Lestat. He fought with his friends over Lestat’s moral integrity after Lestat went missing. Even when Lestat was gone, Nicki was still loving him, fighting for him, staying at Renaud’s, wearing rings Lestat sent him. If he felt as he said in his final argument, why did Nicolas even stay working at Renaud's at all? Why was Nicolas so distressed when Lestat sent him lots of money and gifts but didn't ever contact him?

I just list these things, which are just a few ways we see Nicki's feelings through his concrete actions. Nicolas truly did resent Lestat in the end. Just as Lestat couldn’t stand the sight of vampire Nicolas. But even that doesn’t negate love.

Mortal Nicolas DESPERATELY needed Lestat’s light. Vampire Nicki doesn’t. And I see his cruelty in the final argument (while not being entirely absent of truth) as being partly founded in love…. Nicki knows the dark thing he now is & he knows, even in his addled mind Lestat won’t leave him… and he knows Lestat. He knows Lestat must leave him or he’ll take Lestat to his death with him.

It’s ok that love was once & isn’t eternal. It’s ok that Nicki’s love for Lestat did exist, but turned to hate & yet was never entirely lost. It’s ok that Lestat’s love for Nicki never diminished even though he couldn’t stand the sight of him as a vampire. These things don’t negate love. Hate can be part of love. It’s ok that their worldviews were fundamentally different. It’s ok they were not each other’s eternal loves. There was love. Deep and mutual love.

As I see it, we can accept & enjoy that they BOTH loved each other, and that fact only deepens Loustat.

By which time, Nicolas is long dead.

But I genuinely believe when they were mortal, Nicolas’ love for all of Lestat (even when envying him too!) meant Lestat could later love the all of Louis so unconditionally, as he had been loved that way before.

It’s an unpopular opinion, I know. But it’s mine. I express it with acknowledgment I can’t be objective about Nicolas. But that doesn’t lessen the strength of my truth!

In all honesty… we are all subjective humans. Can we be objective about any fictional character we have an emotional connection with?

And that’s the crux of it: when you CARE so much, ultimately it’s about whatever truth you need.

Maybe we ought to think on this on all of our favourite characters & imagine how it might apply to others for any character we love less unconditionally ourselves…?

[sweet-shut-eye]

Parisian Fashion

[and-fishing-equipment]

lestat de lioncourt is too silly he really said "after it took me over a century to get over my dead boyfriend, the most depressed man in all of france, i am ready to try again with my new boyfriend: the most depressed man in all of america"

[leliorisingx]

I can’t stand it when people blame Lestat for the fact Louis chose to stay with Armand. Not only Louis wouldn’t have believed him at the time but he was so set on staying with him out of spite that he would’ve stayed with Armand even after finding out what happened in 1973. The whole point of Louis agency is trying to live down his own choices. Blaming everything on Lestat is limiting your ability to understand Louis

[snumelhp]

[northstarfan]

The phone is there for my convenience, it is not an electronic leash. If it's not convenient for me to talk for any reason, including "Just not feeling social right now", I'm not obligated to answer. This is not rude, this is a normal personal boundary.

[vexheart]

[leliorisingx]

might be the flu or simply the consequence of months into being protective of him but every tweet i see about lestat pisses me off. stop perceiving her, you clearly do nawt know this girl

[mugentakeda]

the young yapper and her yappees

[leliorisingx]

when someone follows me from the loustat and armandstat edits and assume they can slander nicki around me…..how dare you

#nicolasdelenfent #tvlnicki #freeher #nickistat