#save me gabrielle de lioncourt.......

[sol-flo]

damn iwtv s2 in may... scary...

[ashiistired]

Can’t wait for season 3 of iwtv and Gabrielle getting cancelled to hell and back. I will be defending her. So what if she neglected her children— her useless, asshole husband should have helped raise them into non-fuckups. She’s not solely responsible. Plus she’s hotter than the sun that killed Claudia.

[parhelios]

reading the vampire lestat like. the love was there the love was there the love was there. and every time lestat is the one left behind. the one who must leave. love like sand in his fingers.

[bayoubodycount]

Title: Reviens, Mon Coeur

Rating: E 

Chapters: 1/16

Word count: 53k

Pairings: Louis/Lestat, Nicky/Lestat + past Lestat/Nicky, past Louis/Jonah, Louis + Daniel, Louis + Armand, Grace/Levi, Daniel/Armand, Gabrielle/Pandora, Jonah/Benny Lafitte(Supernatural), Claudia + Sybil, Claudia/Madeleine, Bricktop/Roget

Characters: Architectural Engineer!Lestat, Violinist!Nikky, Aspiring Artist! Restaurant owner!Louis, Journalist!Daniel Molloy, Armand de Romanus, Gabrielle de Lioncourt, Pandora de Lioncourt, Roget, Bricktop Williams, Miss Lily, Grace de Pointe du Lac, Levy, Benny & the Twins, Claudia de Lioncourt, J. R. Morton, Sybil de Romanus, Benji de Romanus, Daniel's daughter, Mojo the Mastiff, Tom Anderson, Alderman Fenwick, Finn O'Shea, Mrs. Fenwick, Dr. Fareed Bhansali, Jonah, Benny Lafitte(Supernatural), Crowley(Supernatural), Priest!Vittorio

Summary: After the unexpected and devastating loss of a precious piece of their family, Lestat and Claudia must pick up pieces of their shattered hearts and move on. Three years later, Lestat meets Louis and his dormant heart returns to life. Louis thinks his dreams have come true until he learns a crushing secret which threatens this new love. Yet to keep this dream he's always wanted, he must find a way to make such an uncomfortable truth sit right with the man and his daughter he's grown to love so deeply.

WARNING for MCD/Canon Character Death (Nicky), Claudia's suicidal thoughts w/out intention

Tags: Human movie AU inspired by 2000 film "Return to Me", canon blood and gore, Lestat PoV, Louis PoV, Architectural Engineer Lestat, Aspiring Artist/Restaurant owner Louis, sick Louis, hospital visits, life saving measures in the ER, bereaved Lestat, single father Lestat, bereaved Claudia, self conscious Louis, slow burn until it isn't, shower Lestaturbation, someone gets slapped, kissing, frotting, handjobs, cum kink, these guys have issues, therapy, pianist!Sybil, violinist! Claudia, ax throwing date, business partners!Gabrielle & Pandora, birthday party, happily ever after guaranteed👌

[jellyfemmedyke]

Gabrielle de Lioncourt literally said "Lestat you are the secret part of myself, the man in me" Testosterone could have saved her

[murfpersonalblog]

The Vampire Lestat & Sir Percy Blakeney: Most Genius & Manly of Himbos

I want to discuss the "babygirl" discourse around Lestat's yaasification, and notions that he's the "woman/wife/mother" in Loustat's household.

YES, Sam Reid has been serving nothing but Charisma Uniqueness Nerve and Talent, but I think his play on gender norms has confused people into thinking he's playing into Lestat's femininity, when actually, I think Sam's playing up Lestat's masculinity instead.

But it's a VERY particular type of masculinity, that clashes with modern norms and tastes and perceptions/assumptions.

And it only recently struck me that the vampire Lestat AND Sir Percy Blakeney (AKA the Scarlet Pimpernel) have A LOT in common: They're both foppish prissy buffoons who are tougher than they look and seem a LOT dumber than they actually are--and it's INTENTIONAL.

Because Lestat and Sir Percy Blakeney lived during the French Revolution. The Rococo hellscape of extravagant hedonistic opulence, that caused the fall of the monarchy & rise of the nouveau riche & middle classes. They came at the Revolution from opposite sides--Lestat de Lioncourt as a penniless marquis' son forced to hunt for his own food or starve, and Sir Percy Blakeney as an English elite sympathizer & spy for the French monarchy. That environment heavily colored both of their outlooks on life and interactions with others.

Aesthetics were everything--don't get Lestat started on the Savage Garden!--and a man's whole reputation and life could be ruined by his public image alone. Outdated clothes at court!? Scandalous!

Society's fashions & tastes change. The wigs, high heels, lace, makeup, limp wrists, prancing walks, small waists, shapely calves--all the Old World beauty standards now associated with women actually used to be applied to men. Manly men!

As overdone and effeminate as they might seem to modern audiences, in the 1700s, that kind of man was considered HOT--the very pinnacle of fashion, taste and breeding.

Ladies wanted to be with them, and men wanted to BE them--the nouveau riche, social climbers, middle class, etc--this was the model.

How society's double standards affect the class/race/gender dynamics between Loustat are absolutely feral. Despite how silly Lestat looked in his clothes, this fish out of water with his weird foreign talk and obnoxious behavior, Lestat EASILY "emasculated" Louis, the established & respected tough local pimp (and we would see over & over how effortlessly he could one-up Louis, especially in Ep5 when he came out of that fight without a scratch).

EFF his snatched waist, sassy hands, and long hair--this MAN was on DEMON TIME. Sam said that AMC put Lestat in a whole Matador-inspired villain outfit. Now, I don't know anything about Spanish bullslaying, but one cursory search on Jstor had all kinds of interesting things to say:

Douglass, Carrie B. “‘toro Muerto, Vaca Es’: An Interpretation of the Spanish Bullfight.” American Ethnologist 11, no. 2 (1984): 242–58. http://www.jstor.org/stable/643849.

And Louis definitely saw red and was charging at him like a bull--and Lestat nearly killed him for it.

So y'all tell me who the MAN is in this relationship. 👀 Lestat didn't become his MOTHER, he became HIS FATHER. (Louis is the one who's similar to Gabrielle!)

Lestat's money & class is telling, too. But what's ironic is that although Lestat appears Old Money to everyone (as his inheritance from Magnus was VERY old, and bottomless), he's actually nouveau riche--LOUIS was the silver spoon Old Money elite, with the DPDL estate (inherited from his white ancestors' French colonial slavery & plantations in NOLA). But Lestat was called the Wolf Killer, cuz he hunted wolves & saved his broke family from starving (and his village from wolf attacks).

Lestat was SO cocky after his hunt, prancing around town in his wolf furs like little Lord Fauntleroy, PRINCE LESTAT, like the kind of aristocrat he wished he was, the kind his birthright would've afforded him, if only his broke AF FATHER could've afforded it (and Prince Lestat eventually renovated his father's Chateau for the vampire court). His beautiful braggadocio/machismo was what attracted the vampire Magnus to Lestat, and made him a worthy candidate for immortality. Likewise, Lestat's brazen & BALLSY antics were what attracted Akasha to Lestat in QotD, too.

"Lestat, if all the world were destroyed, I would not destroy you," [Akasha] said. "Your limitations are as radiant as your virtues for reasons I don't understand myself. But more truly perhaps, I love you because you are so perfectly what is wrong with all things male. Aggressive, full of hate and recklessness, and endlessly eloquent excuses for violence-you are the essence of masculinity; and there is a gorgeous quality to such purity. But only because it can now be controlled." "By you." "Yes, my darling. This is what I was born for. This is why I am here. And it does not matter if no one ratifies my purpose. I shall make it so. Right now the world burns with masculine fire; it is a conflagration. But when that is corrected, your fire shall burn ever more brightly-as a torch burns."

For Akasha (and Anne Rice lbr), Lestat represented the epitome--the essence--of (toxic) MASCULINITY. The same vain, supercilious, foppish dandy obsessed with his hair and nails and purple sunglasses, always going on and on about James Dean & Marlon Brando, etc etc--is still a MAN.

He's the silliest creature ever, and he REVELS in it, because he knows good and dang well that he's the most dangerous one in the room. Whatever he wanted, he took, and fought for, controlled & dominated, come hell or high water.

Sure, he burns brightly, with effervescent light; but he's also the thing that goes bump in the night, lurking in the shadows, hiding his TRUE nature, his real face.

And we see that darkness, that ugly mean streak, as soon as Lestat and Percy feel they've been betrayed & feel their most vulnerable.

On a DIME, this man can go from being a silly, vapid clown, to a cold and calculated evil genius, playing 4D chess with the best of them. And the best trick is that because Lestat & Percy are both the protagonists/heroes of their stories, we'll clap and cheer and hope that they triumph, all while making a thousand excuses for their red flags--the matador wins again!

But what are Lestat & Percy REALLY fighting for & protecting? The rights of vampires to be effing serial killers? The rights of the parasitic monarchy/rich to leech off the poor? Don't let the pretty smiles & fun personalities fool you--they're inherently KILLERS--apex predators, hunters, and aggressively male--gay or straight, butch or femme, he wants to emasculate, dominate, penetrate, and humiliate.

The Scarlet Pimpernel is still an assassin, and Lestat is still a vampire. The patriarchal layers run deep, but their supposed "girliness" is just on the surface; it's due to the time period they both grew up in, and the aesthetic ideals of the elite during the 1700s--a time when manly men were A LOT more effeminate than what we'd expect today. But underneath that cultured veneer, they're still dangerous animals. The whole point of gothic literature Anne Rice's book emulated is that it confronts that duality head on, to consider the underlying nature of MAN's beast within. That's what makes Lestat so interesting--because you know there's sooo much more going on.

[nalyra-dreaming]

@gazeboliberty replied to your post “Louis, inviting Daniel with Lestat’s stationary...”:

Why would Louis save Lestat’s stationary through San Fran & Dubai. I’m not sure the paper would have held up but the somersaults it would take to explain - oh you know Louis dragged Lestat’s stationary - a reminder of Lestat barely being literate - across Oceans - because LDL clearly stands for Lestat de Lioncourt vs Louis de Pointe du Lac you see and even though he could have taken a easily recognizable symbol of his past lover like a ring or a waistcoat, he chose this because… made u think!

​Ok, I'm pulling this up, because sarcasm aside (which you obviously used) - there's a few things I want to add here.

No somersaults needed btw.

Louis canonically (show canonically) has a BOX with stuff from Lestat. Like his card, for example. So he does save things. (Also guess what the card is made of...)

Lestat is not "barely literate" at that point, and I fucking hate it that the fandom jokes about it so much people actually believe it. Lestat learned reading and writing after his turning, his reluctance in regards to books comes from the way Gabrielle treated him, but it does not mean he cannot and does not read. He just has a very complicated relationship to books because of it.

The thing about the first few minutes is, that the show sets up the main themes with these things - namely Loustat, Loumand and the Devil's Minion, by insinuating. It does not matter in the long run if that stationary actually is Louis' or Lestat's. The "Savage Garden" book, the "LDL", the puzzle depicting a Bosch-esque painting that Louis saw with Armand in Paris, the bite mark Louis left on Daniel... all that sets up the themes of the show. And that is quite brilliant, imho.

Louis has other things from Lestat, even show canonically already - like the re-recording of "Come to me". For example. Whatever makes you think he does not have other things as well?

Maybe ask for my reasoning next time, I'd appreciate it.

[echoes-lighthouse]

1, 2, 3 of the Just for Fun ask game for your new F/Os!

Thank you soooo much!! I was saving this one even though I answered the nicknames here and the shared hobbies here: I wanted to spend a whole post on songs >:)

It's hard to separate my Vampire Chronicles songs into characters, because they're all such similar characters at the very heart of them: the underlying theme of the books, that hollow space of eternity that always longs to be filled by something that doesn't really exist. But I did my best! I don't think I would share what songs remind me of the others in-universe, because that's kind of a weird thing to do, especially when most of them are so depressing.

3- do you have any songs that remind you of your f/o? a playlist? what do they think of it, if you've shared it with them?

Gabrielle de Lioncourt

Walking In My Shoes, Depeche Mode "The countless feasts laid at my feet Forbidden fruits for me to eat But I think your pulse would start to rush"

Disintegration, The Cure "I leave you with photographs, pictures of trickery Stains on the carpet and stains on the memory Songs about happiness murmured in dreams When we both of us knew how the end always is"

Lestat de Lioncourt

Heavy In Your Arms, Florence and the Machine "I was a heavy heart to carry My beloved was weighed down My arms around his neck My fingers laced to crown"

High and Dry, Radiohead "Flying on your motorcycle Watching all the ground beneath you drop You'd kill yourself for recognition Kill yourself to never, ever stop"

Armand

Big God, Florence And The Machine "You need a big god Big enough to hold your love You need a big god Big enough to fill you up"

Mercy In You, Depeche Mode "I would lose my way again Be led hopelessly astray again Just so I could pray again For the mercy in you"

Louis De Pointe Du Lac

I'm Not Calling You A Liar, Florence and The Machine "There's a ghost in my lungs and it sighs in my sleep Wraps itself around my tongue as it softly speaks Then it walks, then it walks with my legs To fall, to fall, to fall at your feet"

Perfect Blue Buildings, Counting Crows "Asleep in perfect blue buildings Beside the green apple sea Gonna get me a little oblivion, baby And try to keep myself away from me."

Daniel Molloy

Abbatoir Blues, Nick Cave "The air grows heavy. I listen to your breath Entwined together in this culture of death Do you see what I see, dear?"

Bodysnatchers, Radiohead "It is the 21st century It can follow you like a dog It brought me to my knees They got a skin and they put me in."

[linipikk]

WAKES UP IN COLD SWEAT

Gabrielle

Gabriellle... oh god gabrielle.......

Gabrielle de lioncourt save me save me gabrielle de lioncurt

oh shit bro dude she will be there, sorry everyone i will be actually watching iwtv bc they give me her

i hope she is everything i want and more

OOOOHHHHH THEY ARE GIVING US THE VAMPIRE LESTAT!!! THEY ARE GIVING US ROCKSTAR LE---

Wait a fucking second

a...

They spelt Nicolas wrong.....

[murfpersonalblog]

IWTV Ep4 - Rewind the Tape

"How does Claudia joining Lestat and Louis’ family affect or change them, separately and also as a couple?"

@iwtvfanevents

IMO, Lestat saved Louis' life, but Claudia gave Louis a reason to go on living. Cuz unfortunately for Lou, he thinks his value came strictly from external sources; the value other people put on him & judged him by--his career & socio-economic status; his worth as a Black man (a product of slavery and the literal value/prices put on Black bodies; how his role/actions affected "my people"); his orientation ("identifying as a homosexual," "embracing my sexuality"); and his place/dynamic within the nuclear family unit (at the DPDL estate, and at 1132 Rue Royale).

By Ep3, Louis had lost everything--out of business when Storyville was shut down; thoroughly disrespected by white racists at every turn, from Ordinance 4118's segregation bill & Finn O'Shea "a white man who used to work for me" burning down the Azalea after stealing his money to open his own "No Coloreds Allowed" competitor, to Tom & the Alderman screwing him over ("a dumb pimp who got robbed blind years ago"); his white husband cheating on him with a white woman that used to work for him & laughing in his face about it; and Lou dumping Les during the race riots on the night Lestat wanted to make "our anniversary."

But ironically, Les had a point about making that night their "anniversary:" a night of change, evolution, transformation & rebirth for ALL of them--most obviously for Claudia, the baby phoenix vampire rising from Storyville's ashes, but for Loustat too.

IWTV focuses on how Louis was affected & changed by gaining Claudia, first as a daughter & then as a "sister." She became his central axis--everything revolved around her. Louis had discovered what unconditional love truly meant.

That was something Lou'd NEVER experienced before. Everyone's love for him came with conditions, clauses, terms of service--from Grace's conservative judgementalism, to Paul's dogmatic religiosity, to his p.o.s. mother's resentment, hate & homophobia. The affection b/t Lou & Lily was a transaction bought & paid for. And where to even start with Monsieur "Without Apology" de Lioncourt. 😒 And in turn, Louis' love was tainted--he lost touch with Grace, he was blamed for Paul's suicide (and likely blamed himself sometimes), his relationship with his mother had been ruined LONG before he became a vampire, and Lestat...jfc.

But in Claudia, Louis could finally pour all of his love & attention & affection on someone who could love him back, tabula rasa, a newborn vamp who just wanted food, home, comfort, safety & love from him, with all a child's demanding.

Sadly, Claudia did NOT love Louis unconditionally. By the end, she genuinely hated him (and ofc Lestat), for all the ways he'd "dragged his family into this mess" (especially in Paris), and hopelessly "failed" her, and chose other men over her (regardless of whether or not he really DID, that was how SHE FELT). Lou'd learn the hard way in Merrick that NOTHING he'd given her had been enough.

As horrific as it was, Merrick was the best thing for Lou; forcing himself to face Claudia's ghost, her diaries, and her true feelings about him. In the end, he had to learn that loving people (and being loved) couldn't be a crutch, or his reason to keep living or not.

Lou'd HATED himself his entire life, deeply depressed & full of "self-loathing;" and after losing Claudia he couldn't pretend to be happy anymore (even w/ Armand, despite how long they stayed together).

Same goes for Lestat. For all his vain cocksure braggadocio, Lestat hated himself too. (Despite claiming he didn't in ToTBT.)

Lestat thought his value came from what he could provide/give/do for others--the gentle son who stayed by his mother Gabrielle when the Marquis & his horrid brothers abused them; the Wolfkiller who saved the town & hunted food for his family; the gallant hero/lover who rescued the damsel in distress & whisked them away on a whirlwind adventure/romance (Gabrielle, Nicki, Louis, etc). Whatever people wanted, he'd give them, lovebomber supreme.

This ultimately culminated in his role as the vampire Maker, the god of his own Savage Garden, creating the world through his image of what he felt the world was/should be like (a la the Chateau Era).

Cuz he suffered from chronic abandonment issues--everyone he'd loved most had betrayed him & left him--first & foremost God.

So it all snowballed from Lestat's own traumatic childhood, trying to find God (freedom, food, home, comfort, safety & love) but being dragged back into Hell over & over (LITERALLY in Memnoch).

And trying to connect with his fledglings & being abandoned over & over, as vampirism had turned Lestat into a monster/the Devil.

Claudia effed up Les' God Complex, but he needed that humbling. He needed to take accountability for all the things he'd done wrong, and the ways he'd failed as her Maker/Creator/Father. Cuz we know Les loved her deeply in the books--he just didn't know HOW to love.

Together, I think Loustat was most affected/changed by having Claudia in the way they were able to come back together and rekindle their love for e/o through loving Claudia--she really was an effective bandaid gluing them together, when Lou would've left Les in Ep3.

Claudia was an outlet for Loustat: she gave Louis someone he felt he could "do right" by (after he'd failed Grace & the kids), and she gave Lestat someone he could bond with as a sadistic vampire killer.

So yeah, Loustat (mostly Louis) did the best he could by Claudia, but we see where the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.

Ultimately, in the books, Loustat is only able to come together to "do right" by another daughter when they take in Rose; making up for the mistakes they made with Claudia. (But even there, we see the ways Rose still suffered from loneliness/abandonment, especially when Lestat over-corrected by giving her more freedom & autonomy by being more hands-off & distant, instead of overbearing & controlling.)

[murfpersonalblog]

Operation Matador: Wolf Killer Lestat

@blueiight FACTS! Lestat represents everything both he & Louis claimed they hated, but secretly admired/envied. Lestat lives for the aesthetic--he grew up just as slovenly and broke as any peasant, in the marquis' crumbling chateau, embarrassed about his brothers' rough manners throwing bones to the dogs at the dinner table & such.

For all Lestat's talk about being the rugged hunter, the Wolf Killer, the first chance he got he booked it to Paris to act the dandy Lelio. He HATED his family, and he admired/envied the lifestyles of the rich & fabulous. Part of why dandies act so flamboyant is because they're putting on airs--an emulation/exaggeration of what they thought the nobility/genteel acted like. The bourgeoisie/nouveau riche/lower & middle class all wanted to be JUST like the aristocratic elite--and the Reign of Terror showed how they became the monsters they were trying to kill. "I wanted to murder the man; I wanted to BE the man." Vicious cycles.

@likethemodel you keep doing this to me--STOP. 😵💫The Wolf Killer's red velvet cloak and the Bull Killer's red flag/cape, DANG.

Lestat got the prized wolf fur cloak, and matadors are awarded the bull's ears (orejas) and tail (rabo) if they perform exceptionally well during the fight. Lestat's family ate the wolf meat, and after bullfights the bulls are sent to the slaughterhouse and sold as beef. THE PARALLELS commemorating BLOODY victory.

@dirhwangdaseul And what's BANANAS is that Lestat is just as controversial as bullfighting itself. Their violence is not all/inherently bad, it's just whether one chooses to see it in a good/bad/neutral light. IWTV (i.e.: Louis & Claudia) is focused on making Lestat look bad. For Louis/Claudia, the "villain sequence" in Ep5 highlights how Lestat (dressed as The Killer (matador in Spanish)) is just like Akasha said in QotD: "so perfectly what is wrong with all things male." But that's not the WHOLE story, that's not ALL of what Lestat is, even though YES, when AR first wrote about him she was speaking from a place of pain & grief & anger about her own life. A decade later, AR had switched gears and gave Lestat his own perspective, as there's 2 sides to every story. In TVL he's FAR more sympathetic, and we see The Killer in a far more nuanced light, described best by Gabrielle (a la a mother's love).

Lestat LOVES Louis & Claudia. But by Ep5 things had gotten so dang BAD that he succumbed to his worst impulses ("my father's temper"), taking upon himself "the burden of murder or madness to be free of this place." Just like the tragedy of Louis was that he was weak/cowardly; Lestat's tragedy is that he's strong/impulsive--he's always been "stronger than anyone else." He's Hercules, killing his wife & children in a fit of madness thinking they were a pack of lions. But the beast was INSIDE Lestat all along. It's classic Gothic Horror.

@blueiight ALL OF THIS, yup! NGL I think Lestat's endless wealth made him an acceptable relic--his privilege saved him from being treated just like Paul. (Like, Paul acting up in public was only tolerated because of the money Louis kept pumping into the neighborhood (the church donations, those storefronts, etc), that made the DPDLs so respected.) There's a lot being telegraphed by Mr Bouillabaisse de Lioncourt partially because he's SO old that he's out of touch with modernity (I NEED to know if he was asleep before NOLA Rolin, PLEASE 🙏); partially because he's foreign and "there's things you don't get about America, Lestat;" and partially because he's white and he has no clue about the rich nuances of black culture until Louis educates him. (And even then Lestat insists he knows best--one-upping Jelly Roll Morton to create the Wolverine Blues (a la white people claiming blues/jazz/rock & roll Monsieur le Rockstar); whitesplaining about the race riots; etc...). And it's beyond hysterical that Louis was like "he ain't white, he's French," like SIR. 🤦 You of all people should be well-read enough about your own city, Mr. Heads on a Pike in Jackson Square, to know French Whites were the big bad wolves of NOLA's history--not to mention French imperialism across Africa & the Caribbean & Asia. 💀 (He's so lost in the sauce, bless his heart.) But Louis doesn't REALLY know Lestat, is the kicker.

@demonicdomarmand Soooooo multilayered. It's 100% satire @blueiight, agreed. Like, there's the IRL history of Mardi Gras flouting social/class hierarchies (turning everything upside down a la the Saturnalia); how Lestat plays into queer history through gender & drag; the Louis vs Antoinette of it all with the let them eat cake and French history; then they wrap it all up in a direct nod to vamps/demons accused of stealing/killing kids.

DIABOLICAL, AMC, please keep going.

@nalyra-dreaming Show of the Decade! <3 IWTV has the best allegorical handling of vampirism I've ever seen, but folks wanna complain about raceswaps & Claudia's age & them not being on a plantation anymore, like HUH?

@greedydemands I'm not LOL. Just living online and talking to all y'all teaches me more than I ever got in school.

@thebarnburn LOL I'm a student, just proctoring--DR. CAROL CUTSHALL is out here with TENURE. 🍎 It's a effing crime the Emmy's snubbed IWTV--if we don't get some roses come S2 the fix is in, officially, cuz their attention to detail has been downright disgusting.