#lestat was PHYSICALLY ABUSIVE

[laniidae-passerine]

Lestat admitting in public that he domestically abused Louis. and Louis knows this and experienced it. and still will never not love him. like truly love him for what he is, not just accepting the good with bad, but loving the bad the ruined the indefensible. what the fuck is wrong with you girl I would tell you to get out but you find a man who doesn’t attack you and you call him boring and dream of your crazy ex. you don’t want to get out. you just wish that your lion pet husband would learn the difference between biting and mauling.

there is something so entirely fucked about Louis’ psyche… look at it all! the physical beatings to an obscene degree, the damaging affairs, the psychological warfare, the public humiliation, the participation in the murder of their only beloved daughter. Lestat does this all to him, or a significant amount even if memory is playing its wicked games. Lestat is a vicious horrible thing with his teeth marks on every part of Louis and yet even with decades of freedom, a new partner, the ability to recognise and condemn cruelty and abusive actions, Louis still wants him back. Knowing what he is, what he can do, Louis wants him back. It never mattered if vampires can dream, for Lestat haunts his waking days, a torturous vision of the only living one Louis really loves.

[divinemanicstate]

human au

claudia's their little artist

[fayevalcntine]

This is what it feels like reading some people's IWTV takes

[winepresswrath]

the thing about revisit of the fight in 1x5 is that Louis started it and Louis kept it going and Louis threatened to kill Lestat but it's kicked off because Lestat put his hands on Claudia. that's what tips Louis over the edge into physical violence.

and the other thing about that fight is that Louis was not going to leave Lestat. He's not focused on trying to get away or comfort Claudia, though he is enraged on her behalf. He is trying to hurt Lestat. He can't really hurt him but he doesn't know that yet. He wants to punish him for both what he did to Claudia and for Claudia leaving in the first place. honestly knowing Louis probably for some other stuff while he's at it. he's been punishing him for seven years. But I really don't think he was going to actually try and leave him. that's so fucked up. they're so fucked up.

[kindaorangey]

also yes as far as emotional beats go, the way armand's abuse of louis is characterised is most similar to gaslighting, but i also think the supernatural-ness of it all puts it in a bit of a grey area - i think it sort-of counts as something close to physical abuse as well, because of the violation of louis' personal autonomy inherent to magically removing/changing his memories

[whatshehassaid]

As someone who had lived with an abuser… for like more than 15 years I can tell you right now from episode 4 that Armand is terrified of Louis. Yes he may be stronger than Louis physically… and this isn’t even me hating on Louis I do love Louis but there is something wrong with him to a dangerous degree and you can see the look of fear and immediately retracting of the statement (that I recognized immediately) when Armand tries to call him out about the photos saying he wouldn’t remember if he put them there himself and then says I take that back super quickly..

I’m telling you we have been reading this all wrong. Armand isn’t in control of shit. He’s trying to be but he is absolutely fucking terrified.

[prouvaireafterdark]

I personally don't think season 3 will or should be Lestat writing his own book. First of all, because of the abuse, I sincerely think any Lestat POV also needs another party present to call him out and not just let the audience assume his side is the truth, otherwise it will seem like the show is implicitly taking the abuser's side of the story (especially after how it framed Daniel's role in digging through Louis's story). Either he will show up to the penthouse and continue the "interview" framing or he will tell his story to Louis so both can be there to hash out what happened between them or something of that sort.

A straight up Lestat POV where he gets to paint himself as the victim would be pretty gross after what we've seen him do honestly and honestly why would the audience take anything he has to say seriously?

Okay I'm gonna be really honest here, unless Louis and Lestat's reunion has already happened and/or he's in a coma in the basement, I have no idea how people expect him to crash the interview at this point. Like it just does not make sense to me that he would just magically appear like that.

Honestly, I would much prefer that Lestat skips the memoir part and becomes a famous rockstar after reading Louis' interview and asks Louis to meet him with his song lyrics/media exposure so he can tell Louis his story himself before the San Francisco concert because that means we get maximum Louis. If Daniel is there to call him out on his bullshit, all the better, but I do want the story from Lestat's lips because the comedy of his narration is just too good to pass up. I've waited 15 years to hear Lestat describe himself with his own clown mouth and I hope season 3 doesn't disappoint.

Also, I just want to mention this because I feel like when people talk about Lestat there's a tendency to think about Lestat discussing his trauma as him painting himself as the victim and it really grates on me because two things can be true at once. Like, Lestat isn't the victim in his relationships with Louis and Claudia, obviously, but he absolutely was a victim. He was horrifically abused and neglected by his family his entire life growing up and was abandoned by every person he ever loved, even his own mother after he saved her life by making her a vampire bc she never wanted to be his mom (or a mom at all) in the first place. He is profoundly fucked up because of these traumatic events and they have a direct relationship to why he was so abusive to Louis and Claudia. Like he's probably got every trauma-induced personality disorder in the DSM-5 and literally cannot regulate his emotions or make himself stop being terrible until Louis hits his hard factory reset button and gives him an intervention by making him rot in the dump for a while so he's forced to think about what he's done.

Does that excuse any of his horrific behavior? No.

Does that mean he shouldn't have to atone for his bad decisions and the pain he's inflicted on other people? No.

Does that mean we should take every word he says as gospel and cast suspicion on Louis and Claudia's narratives? No.

But that doesn't mean every word out of his mouth is a lie either, and honestly, it's not like Lestat ever says "actually, every bad thing Louis and Claudia said I did was a lie because they're liars and I was a perfect father and husband and they tried to kill me for no reason." He fully admits that Claudia was right to kill him and that it's the kind of thing he would have done himself.

And like, in order for there to be a cycle of abuse, one has to first be abused. That's just how it works. And I don't really get why people are so set on erasing Lestat's traumatic history or viewing it as an either/or situation where only one of them is allowed to have been a victim of abuse and that if Lestat is allowed to talk about his abuse in season 3 he's by definition excusing his actions and challenging Louis' narrative.

I feel like part of the point of Anne Rice's work is that these vampires are, all of them, extremely monstrous AND deeply traumatized. They are both victims AND victimizers. It's what makes them so compelling and nuanced. I don't understand why some people want Lestat to be a cartoon villain with no redeeming qualities or path to redemption, and I also don't know why people seem to think that a season 3 from Lestat's perspective can only mean that the audience will not be asked to question or interrogate his perspective the way they've been asked to with Louis and Claudia in season 1.

Like, after everything they made Lestat do in season 1, if you're genuinely worrying that the writers are going to say "none of Louis or Claudia's trauma happened at all and actually Lestat was a perfect, sad angel the whole time who was unjustly wronged by Louis and Claudia and this is something you, the audience, are meant to uncritically believe because Lestat bat his eyelashes while he said it," I literally don't know what to say. It sounds ridiculous because it is.

There's just no way they're doing that and I think everyone should take a breath and stop stressing over it.

[ateerys-punctuationpanic]

If I could just write Loumand the way I write Sambucky ....

I mean, the skill is there but the inspiration isn't. I don't know why. I'm not going to but I did consider changing the names on this snippet of what I'm working on and will soon post:

Sam looks up at Bucky who’s an arm’s distance above him like Bucky possesses everything he’ll ever need. Like air, water, and shelter are all housed within the walls of Bucky’s skin. Bucky drinks in the adoration and pours it back out to Sam from someplace he’d never quite acknowledged, and squeezes it out through his fingertips, lips, and tongue. Both their temperatures rise at each touch making Sam feel like he’s about to combust. “Maybe someone else has done this to you before but it’s a good starting point,” Bucky says, circling his fist around Sam’s hard cock. Then he warms it in his mouth as Sam responds audibly. Sam nearly comes and is frustrated, almost driven to anger when Bucky pulls back and smiles up at him. “Why’d you stop?” “I don’t know your limits yet, don’t want to wear you out.” “I want to be worn out.” And he does. Like an old rag abused from cleaning every hard surface; fibers sticking out, edges frayed. So Bucky sucks him to completion and swallows down to the last drop. “God. Damn.” Sam says when his orgasm ends. He’s panting but doesn’t wait for his breaths to even out, for his chest to stop heaving, when he pulls at whatever skin of Bucky’s he can reach. Bucky gets the point and moves up, supplying his mouth for Sam to kiss in between his hurried, shallow breathing. He feels like he’s about to be swallowed whole, deep into Sam’s ravenous longing.

[pynkhues]

"I honestly think both in terms of fic for the show itself and for RPF, it's about race"

Ah, I wasn't expecting this, which as a brown woman is incredibly naive of me.

There's currently discourse on X about Louis being the most "boring" character which is also, undoubtedly, driven by racism.

(x)

Oh, I'm really sorry, anon, and you shouldn't feel naive. I mean, for starters, I could be wrong, and I'm being pretty speculative, but even if I'm right, the onerous of that isn't, or at least shouldn't be, on you. I think there's a lot of really great progressive things that happen in fandom, but at the same time fandom is created by People Living in Societies, and unfortunately biases and discrimination, at least in my experience, can and do seep through in ways that are both toxic and just flat out negligent.

The idea of Louis being boring is absolutely an insane and racist rhetoric too. He is so wildly interesting as a character, with so many layers of storytelling and nuance and contradiction, which I adore in him, and it makes me wonder if the people who find him boring are the same ones who want to make him the audience insert (insane given Daniel is literally right there) or to project all this 'battered housewife' narrative onto him, which - - look.

I've tried to shrug this off, but I literally just spent the entire day at a symposium on how the Australian government child support system is weaponised by abusive men against women post-divorce, so I'm a bit of a raw nerve about this topic, but it's made me even more pissed off at the Louis-Housewife arguments than normal.

Not only is it diminishing and completely at odds with his character, but what a way to show you've never, ever engaged with real survivors of, or conversations with, patriarchal oppression.

[elvesofnoldor]

Local vampire (Lestat) thought he snatched the young hot rich single in the area, got trapped in an abusive relationship instead. More at 7 as the story develops

[mybelladonicbeauty]

OH MY GOD they are reading the diaries - her private thoughts backstage its all going to come to a head

[lesbianaang]

oh babygirl you are so mentally ill….

[pretty-weird-ideas]

Episode Seven and White Tears

The trial's allegory is not just a lynching, it is a lynching for a Black person entering a relationship with a respected White man, and proceeding to leave him. It's not a murder case, as seen through the show, there's actually very little emphasis on the murder in the episode in regards to Louis. The emphasis is on his "seduction", his "ungiving nature", and "refusing to give his body". It is a public humiliation and lynching for turning a respected white man down. The crime isn't hurting Lestat, it's hurting his feelings.

Lestat doesn't speak to the audience about the pain of his throat being slit. He speaks of loneliness, the audience chants and jeers about how cheating was justified if Louis isn't putting out. Santiago isn't talking about the murder, he's talking about how much of a sexual deviant Louis is the second he is introduced. The show is telling us what's important to the case, and what language hurt and stuck out to Louis the most. The deciding factor in the eyes of the audience, the story that Sam and Santiago are trying to tell, is that the crime is heinous because Louis turned down Lestat.

The audience isn't mad about the murder, they're mad about Lestat's emotions, they're mad about the betrayal, and they are mad that Louis and Claudia didn't put up with things. The case built against the two of them isn't based on violence, it's based on white tears. Louis isn't called a monster for slitting Lestat's throat, the audience member calls him a monster for turning down Lestat's advances.

The show is clear that the trial isn't really about the murder, it is about Louis not "giving enough" for Lestat. It's about Louis asking Lestat to turn Claudia and literally bargaining his happiness where he literally gets on his knees and says "I'll be happy for you, I will never leave you if you do this for me". It's never been about the murder, it's quite literally just shaming Louis for not "loving a good man who might be abusive".

At the end of the day, the trial as framed and written by Sam is building a case off of Lestat's tears, not actual physical harm.

Like my skin is crawling but also the show is so chilling with how it portrayed the "He's a good man so hold your tongue and endure! Lest you read as ungrateful".

Anyways someone take the laptop from me before this becomes my life.

[fayevalcntine]

The whole "Claudia is now his sister"/Louis' sibling comparisons are never gonna sit right with me because that's never going to erase the fact that Claudia exists as a vampire partly because of him. Their relationship will never have this clearly defined role of siblings in the same manner Louis had with Grace or Paul, even if he was their older brother and was implicitly given the role of providing for them as the successor and manager of his family's estate. Because Louis was never responsible in part for their creation, the reason why they existed the way that they do in terms of behavior and life itself.

It also makes his betrayal of her all the more heartbreaking in ways that him and Grace drifting apart never will. He was her father, and didn't provide emotional support for her. She had to turn the tables and try to assume the role of being on an equal level because of this failure but this doesn't make him not choosing her any less painful than it did the first time. Even as they shift roles, take or give emotional responsibility one has towards the other, the fact that Claudia exists the way she does because of him and Lestat will always be there.

[dreadfuldevotee]

#during season 1 I thought lestat was the fucking devil & couldn't wait to see armand treat louis right #but now after what he's done to claudia armand is worse

Respectfully, this is quite literally the opposite of the point I am making here. Collectively, we should all be more horrified about the way Lestat beat Louis and how that is glossed over, and ignored and redirected to make it somehow Armand's fault because the basic concept "They are both equally bad" is seemingly impossible to grasp, fandom wide

It bears saying that trying to determine who is a worse abuser, Lestat or Armand, is like comparing getting mauled by a lion vs. being mauled by a tiger because at the end of the day you are still being Fucking Mauled.

That is to say: it is insane that in this fandom poor little meow meow competition, the guy who literally beat the fucking breaks off Louis and dropped him from 500 feet is widely considered the lesser of the two evils

[pirateshelly]

One thing that really fascinates me about interview with the vampire (the show) is this sort of tension between power and powerlessness in all of the characters. Because it doesn't present becoming a vampire as something that just gives you power and magically makes you completely detached from all human concerns and struggles.

And that seems to be something Lestat does very much want to believe, and he's in enough of a position of privilege that he's able to convince himself it's true, and it's a fundamental area where he just cannot understand Louis because Louis CAN'T pretend even if he wants to. (And of course Lestat cannot ACTUALLY separate himself from "human troubles" the way he likes to think he can, he just has an easier time pretending than most). Because as much as becoming a vampire grants these characters supernatural power it doesn't just magically take away the very tangible human ways that they were previously vulnerable or powerless.

Becoming a vampire doesn't negate Louis' struggles with racism; in some ways it amplifies them with how he is alienated from his own family and community; his closest connection becomes Lestat. He loses his economic independence and becomes socially dependent on Lestat in a way he wasn't to anyone as a human because in some ways becoming a vampire made him MORE vulnerable, despite granting him physical strength/speed/etc. The promise of freedom in vampirism Lestat presents to Louis (that I do think he does genuinely mean, but "freedom" means very different things to Louis than it does to Lestat) is never fulfilled.

Likewise Claudia learns the hard way with Bruce and later with the coven that she may be a vampire but the world still looks at her and sees a vulnerable young black girl and that will always put her in danger.

Claudia rescues Madeleine then turns her into a vampire, but rather than protect her from future harm the "crime" of turning her becomes the very thing that gets her killed by yet another angry mob.

And 514 years as a vampire will never be enough for Armand to truly trust or believe in his own power. Because the first 200 or so years of his life he was literally never once allowed any agency at all over his own identity or his own body (child slave sold to a brothel, sold to an abusive master, captured and violently indoctrinated into a vampire cult for centuries). No amount of material strength and power is going to undo the psychological effects of that. (And I know some people like to read his frequently passive demeanor as simply manipulation and a way of catching people off guard (because how could someone so old and powerful possibly feel a genuine sense of fear/vulnerability/etc 🙄) but to me that's an incredibly disingenuous reading of him. But that's a different rant for another time!). Being a vampire does not save him from being horrifically abused, nor does it save him from the lasting emotional effects of that abuse.

And I think there's something interesting to be said about the way that, in order to survive safely, they have to feed on the most vulnerable members of society (people undesirable and therefore least likely to arouse suspicion) in order to go unnoticed. If they want to live they have to prey on those vulnerable in possibly the same ways they themselves once were (and in many ways still are).

There's a frequent argument I dislike that we shouldn't be viewing any of these characters through too human of a lense because they're literal monsters (to be honest it's an argument I see most often made when people simply don't want to talk about the show's complex depiction of racism/misogyny/abuse/etc and used to dismiss those as issues "too human" to be relevant to a story about a bunch of monsters with a supposedly alien sense of morality), but I think the show itself makes a huge argument that for these characters there is no escaping or separating themselves from the very human struggles and vulnerabilities that marked them before they ever became vampires. It's like a sort deconstructed power fantasy.