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This isn’t Sam Reid. This is Lestat de Lioncourt being photographed for his new album. It is absolutely insane. The possession is real. 😦🥵🔥💦♥️

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I’m just gonna call these the Rainbow Sherbet set. 🌈🍧🍭💕💛🧡💙

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SAM REID and JACOB ANDERSON, 2024 TCA Winter Press Tour

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never not thinking about the way Lestat describes Nicki right before he turns him

hearing people say the homosexuality was subtext in the books makes me want to chew glass

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Hello Lovely! What stood out to you as Nicky and Lestat being actual lovers and not just best buds? I expected a very hot and heavy relationship before reading the TVL, but didn't really perceive it that way after reading (which was probably wrong). I got that they loved each other and I may have totally misinterpreted, but they seemed like best buds so close they would share a toothbrush or a bed if they had to just to be on their own in Paris. I guess I expected more "romantic action" because though I didn't get a lot of romance vibes between Louis and Lestat either in IWTV, I assumed why there wasn't was because the vampires don't have actual sex. However, that would not have been the case with Nicky and Lestat who were human and it seems like Anne could have made the nature of their relationship so much more clear. Also, I haven't read past TVL but I hear the later books have more of a romantic connotation between Lestat and Louis?

Hey there! 💜✨

Well, Anne confirmed they were lovers.

Lestat tends to keep a lot of the more intimate, meaningful things private. This trait extends to both Nicki and Louis and also the most painful elements of all the trauma Lestat has suffered. However, there were several telling moments in which Lestat indicated what Nicki means to him.

The first instance is when Gabrielle is telling Lestat about Nicki’s history and how he’d failed in law school in Paris when he discovered the violin and studied with Mozart. She also tells Lestat that Nicki’s father is against his wishes to be a musician and threatens to break Nicki’s hands even though his playing is good.

I gave a little gasp at the cruelty of it. I was powerfully fascinated! I think I loved him already, doing what he wanted like that.

Since this is Lestat recalling this moment, when he uses the phrase “loved him already”, that indicates Lestat is saying he loved Nicki as early as their first meeting when Nicki gifted him the red velvet cloak lined with the fur of the wolves. It alludes to the fact Lestat genuinely falls in love with him later.

Once Lestat strikes up the relationship with Nicki, at Gabrielle’s insistence, they start talking for hours and the conversation delves into religion, which Nicki has no use for.

I was beginning to understand why he was so sarcastic and cynical. He had only recently lost that old faith. He was bitter about it. But no matter how deadening was this sarcasm of his, a great energy poured out of him, an irrepressible passion. And this drew me to him. I think I loved him. Another two glasses of wine and I might say something absolutely ridiculous like that.

Lestat is falling for him. They talk about the witches’ place and the conversation moves to Nicki telling Lestat that Paris is a hellhole too, but Lestat disagrees.

“Ah, you are a dreamer!” he said, but he was delighted. He was beyond handsome when he smiled….He reached out and put his arm around my neck and kissed me. We almost upset the table we were so blissfully drunk. “My lord, the wolfkiller,” he whispered.

I mean, that speaks for itself. And the entire exchange when Lestat begins pouring out his soul to Nicki is quite touching.

Lestat is literally tossing pebbles at his window like a lovestruck kid. After that, Lestat says when he wasn’t out hunting, his life was with Nicolas. When they run away to Paris together, Lestat says it would be far more serious than what he’d done before when he tried to escape.

We weren’t boys anymore, we were men. Our fathers would curse us, and this was something neither of us could laugh off.

The implications of that statement are a lot. For one, two grown men running away together in that time period would’ve been a scandal. For another, their actual relationship was, not only scandalous, but illegal back then. Lestat is aware of this, and he knows anyone finding out would have devastating consequences for them both.

Lestat is happy with Nicki in Paris, but Nicki is struggling. They still disagree on the concept of goodness, but Nicki tells Lestat that he loves him.

“Lestat, I love you,” Nicki said gravely. “I love you as I have loved few people in my life, but in a real way you’re a fool with all your ideas about goodness.”

The conversation continues, Nicki telling Lestat that he only believes in weakness and strength and good art and bad art and what they’re doing is bad art, which has nothing to do with goodness. Lestat, again, disagrees but he bites back the argument. Nicki tells Lestat that if goodness exists, then Nicki is the opposite of goodness. Nicki says himself that he’s evil. Again, Lestat is hurt and disagrees. This is when Nicki tells Lestat that he’s the light.

“You have a radiance in you, Lestat,” he said. “And it draws everyone to you. It’s there even when you’re angry, or discouraged—“

“Poetry,” I said. “We’re both tired.”

“No, it’s true,” he said. “You have a light in you that’s almost blinding. But in me there’s only darkness. Sometimes I think it’s like the darkness that infected you that night in the inn when you began to cry and to tremble. You were so helpless, so unprepared for it. I try to keep the darkness from you because I need your light. I need it desperately, but you don’t need the darkness.”

“You’re the mad one,” I said. “If you could see yourself, hear your own voice, your music—which of course you play for yourself—you wouldn’t see darkness, Nicki. You’d see an illumination that is all your own. Somber, yes, but light and beauty come together in you in a thousand different patterns.”

Lestat sees beauty in Nicki, and he loves him for it. This conflict about Lestat’s light will later be the catalyst for their relationship combusting after Lestat turns Nicki and he shows his true colors in that he always hated Lestat and blamed Lestat’s light (his true self) for being the cause of Nicki’s darkness.

In the meantime, Magnus has been stalking Lestat at the theater, and Lestat confides in Nicki that he’s scared of this unknown being.

I was still sitting there, too unsure of myself to say anything, when Nicolas kissed me. “Let’s go to bed,” he said softly.

And this is the night Magnus abducts Lestat and he screams out for Nicki as Magnus is spiriting him away.

Once Lestat becomes a vampire, he stays away from Nicki in fear of hurting him. However, he sends him money and gifts and buys him a nice apartment and a Stradivarius violin. He watches over Nicki from afar outside his window, and he realizes Nicki’s darkness was even deeper and more severe than Lestat ever realized.

And in the lengthening silence, I felt the depth of Nicki’s anguish, I knew it as if I were peering into his skull. And I couldn’t bear it. I couldn’t bear delving into his soul without his knowing it. Yet I couldn’t stop myself from sensing a vast secret terrain inside him, grimmer perhaps than I had ever dreamed, and his words came back to me that the darkness in him was like the darkness I’d seen at the inn, and that he tried to conceal it from me.

He had recognized in my monster self something that he knew and loved.

He eventually seeks Nicki out at the theater after this encounter.

And then there was only Nicolas and I didn’t care….I smelled the blood pumping in him, and for one heady moment I felt love and only love obliterating every recollection of the horrors that had deformed me. Every evil rapture, every new power with its gratification, seemed unreal. Maybe I felt a profound joy, too, that I could still love, if I’d ever doubted it, and that a tragic victory had been confirmed.

He’s also horrified when he wants Nicki’s blood and realizes his physical strength could now really and truly harm Nicki.

No one was safe from me now, no matter how innocent. And that included my dear friends at Renaud’s and it included my beloved Nicki.

Lestat is still worried about Nicki and trying to find ways to take care of him. When Nicki gets kidnapped by Armand’s coven, Lestat is enraged.

The rage building in me was absolutely silent. It will be rage until I have proof that it must be grief, I thought. Then I wasn’t thinking.

Lestat immediately goes to rescue him, he’s enraged again when he’s sees the bruises on Nicki and that they’ve drained him, he busts up Armand’s entire coven, and then he takes Nicki to a nearby inn, making sure he’s got food for him and blankets to keep him warm before taking him back to the tower with Gabrielle.

Before Nicki guilts Lestat into turning him, Lestat is trying to see his Nicki through the madness, malice, and rage.

I tried to see him in the shadows of the room, and not it—the love for him, the aching, wrenching months of longing for him, the hideous and unshakable human need for him, the lust. I tried to see the mortal who didn’t know what he was saying as he glared at me.

And an awful self-consciousness came over me. Silent and lethal, I felt myself flooded with the power I had over him and his knowledge of it, and my love for him heated the sense of power, driving it towards a scorching embarrassment which suddenly changed into something else.

“Come to me, Nicki,” I whispered. I lifted both hands to beckon. “If you want it, you must come…”

Lestat realizes after he turns Nicki that he can’t stand the sight of him, but that all goes out the window when Nicki runs away from Lestat and Gabrielle after being like an animated corpse.

If I had doubted up until this moment that I loved him, I had been lying to myself.

They find him at Renaud’s and that’s when shit truly hits the fan between Lestat and Nicki. Lestat later refers to his relationship with Nicolas as “….the little miracle of love turned into hate.”

There’s so much in that. Lestat believes it’s a miracle that anyone could ever love him, but it was inevitable everyone would grow to hate him, because he thinks he’s a monster now. When Nicki later kills himself, Lestat grieves and blames himself.

It was I who did it, I who seduced him, made him what he was, and left him there. It was I who subverted the path his life might have taken. And so in dark obscurity, removed from its human course, it comes to this.

In Prince Lestat, Lestat refers to Nicki as having been his only mortal friend and his “greatest failure.” He’s still blaming himself all those years later for what happened to Nicki.

For me, none of that reads as best buds. 😏

And yes, The Vampire Lestat and subsequent books make it clear that Louis is the love of Lestat’s life. The entire reason Lestat even became a rockstar and wrote his book was for Louis and to protect Louis.

From The Vampire Lestat:

Shortly after reaching the colony, I fell fatally in love with Louis, a young dark-haired bourgeois planter, graceful of speech and fastidious of manner, who seemed in his cynicism and self-destructiveness the very twin of Nicolas….Yet Louis gained a hold over me far more powerful than Nicolas had ever had. Even in his cruelest moments, Louis touched the tenderness in me, seducing me with his staggering dependence, his infatuation with my every gesture and every spoken word. And his naïveté conquered me always….And I wonder sometimes if I didn’t look to Louis to punish me for what had happened to Nicki, if I didn’t create Louis to be my conscience and to mete out year in and year out the penance I felt I deserved. But I loved him, plain and simple.

And I had always loved him, hadn’t I, no matter what happened, and how strong could love grow if you had eternity to nourish it, and it took only these few moments in time to renew its momentum, its heat?

From Queen Of The Damned:

There was so much I wanted to say to him, to ask him. Yet I couldn’t find the words really, or a way to begin. He had always had so many questions; and now he had his answers, more answers perhaps than he could ever have wanted; and what had this done to his soul? Stupidly I stared at him. How perfect he seemed to me as he stood there waiting with such kindness and such patience. And then, like a fool, I came out with it.

“Do you love me now?” I asked. He smiled; oh, it was excruciating to see his face soften and brighten simultaneously when he smiled. “Yes,” he said.

From Tale Of The Body Thief:

His beauty has always maddened me. I think I idealize him in my mind when I’m not with him; but then when I see him again I’m overcome.

I would have defied heaven to help Louis!

My Louis, I could never deny you anything….

The only name on my lips was Louis. Louis. I could not for a moment forget Louis.

From Memnoch The Devil:

If anything in the world could have truly comforted me, he would have been the thing—with just the beguiling tilt of his narrow head or the way that he kept looking at me, protecting me obviously with a confidential calm from what he must have feared for me, and for him, and perhaps for all of us.

From Merrick:

“Drink now, Louis,” he commanded.

“Harder, yes, take it from me,” came Lestat’s low insistent command. He spoke in French now. “Harder, more of it, take it, take all that I have to give.”

From Prince Lestat:

From Prince Lestat And The Realms Of Atlantis:

Louis was standing in the door of the room opposite, across the hall. I drew in my breath. I didn’t say a word….I was unable to speak….He crossed the hall and put his arms around me and kissed me on the lips. “This is what you wanted, isn’t it?” he asked. Nothing mocking or mean in the tone. Shocked. Unable to respond.

Yet I felt closer to him than to any other visible being in the world.

Louis knew what I couldn’t confide, and he was respectful of it, and comforting and patient. Louis never failed me.

And finally, bringing it all full circle from Blood Communion:

Lestat with the light and the darkness, his guilt about Nicki, and this beautifully understanding reaction from Louis.

“I have no gift for being miserable,” I said.

“I know,” he said. He laughed. Such a human face. Such a lovely face.

If you want further elaboration on all this, as if this post wasn’t long enough 😅, I’ve talked about it more in-depth.

Nicki vs. Louis Debate

Why Lestat Loves Louis

Loustat Is Not Toxic

Loustat Are Home To Each Other

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— Little Loustat moments : in the coffin 🤍

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Ill-Fated Lovers - A LouStat Playlist

This is a companion playlist to my series of fics! Ill-Fated Lovers explores the relationship Lestat and Louis have in AMC IWTV. If you like the things I've written, you should definitely check this playlist out as well!

Tracklist -

Do I Move You - Nina Simone

No Other Love - Jo Stafford

Body and Soul - Billie Holliday

All of You - Ella Fitzgerald

I'm A Fool to Want You - Frank Sinatra

The Very Thought of You - Nat King Cole

The Right to Love You - The Mighty Hannibal

Only Our Love - Tamino

Black is the Colour - Tia Blake

The Taste of You - Ritual Howls

To Bring You My Love - PJ Harvey

Those Eyes, That Mouth - The Cocteau Twins

Come to Me - Mark Lanegan, PJ Harvey

Wild is the Wind - David Bowie

Kiss Me - Tom Waits

Red Eyes and Tears - The Black Rebel Motorcycle Club

My Bed of Thorns - Gladys Knight and the Pips

I Get Along Without You Very Well - Chet Baker

All or Nothing At All - Sarah Vaughn

Is It a Crime - Sade

Cry Me a River - Julie London

Bang Bang - Nancy Sinatra

Either Way I Lose - Nina Simone

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Father Knows Best Part 1

Why is Lestat almost always in full dress at home while Louis is in casual loungewear? There are multiple scenes especially in the second half of the season where it looks like Lestat just got home from work (even though he's a jobless Ken) while Louis has been lounging at home all day. Lestat does go out to hunt so its possible he feels the need to dress up although the full 3 piece suit is certainly not necessary but even when Louis is gaslit into hunting again he is still never seen in a full waistcoat and tie like Lestat. After episode 4, Louis is mostly seen in shirtsleeves, sweaters and loose blouses. The only times he wears a full suit and tie are when he meets Grace for the last time and when meeting with an authority like Tom.

But I think Lestat's choice to maintain his wardrobe even at home is about projecting authority and control more than practicality.. like he really doesn't need to be dressing up to kill victims but he is always without question dressed like the man of the house, even when playing chess in the living room. The patriach cannot uphold his authority unless he dresses the part.

Looking at his oufits progression during his 6 years of begging, he first ventures to the house in full suit and tie but is soundly rejected by Louis. Then he appears on the street in casual sports wear appearing to be conversing with Louis and Claudia on a more equal basis but he is once again rebuffed but this time by Claudia while Louis stays silent. When he makes his final case to be let back in the house, he is dressed more casually than we've ever seen him before as a gesture to Louis and Claudia that he's willing to be on a level with them... except not really, cause the minute he's let back in, he's immediately back to dressing like father knows best. You do not question the authority of a man dressed like that even when he pretends to go along with the new paradigm of the "lambs herding the beauceron" but we all know that's a lie that he never intended to honor and what gives it away from the start is the moment he comes home from "killing" Antoinette seemingly obeying the rules dressed like THIS.

This a Beauceron and his little lambs are the ones dressed in soft pjs. He is herding them no matter what "rules" they agree to in that house.

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louis, lestat and their love: touch edition (pt. 3)

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Caitlyn Siehl ▪︎The Hours ▪︎Mary Shelley ▪︎Crimson Peak ▪︎ unknown

Lestat & love and monsterhood

Image descriptions and sources under the cut

First quote:

When is a monster not a monster?

Oh, when you love it.

First image:

Lestat is looking at Louis off screen from the scene at the opera. His hair is tied back, and he is wearing a suit, staring longingly at his companion. Like all the pictures, it is a black and white still.

Second quote:

Still, there is this terrible desire to be loved.

Still, there is this horror at being left behind.

Second image:

A still of Lestat from his monlogue about his creation, looking off screen, and covered in bruises. His face is an expression of restrained pain.

Third quote:

There is love in me the likes of which you’ve never seen. There is rage in me the likes of which should never escape. If I am not satisfied in the one, I will indulge the other.

Third image:

An image of Lestat floating in the night after his attack on Louis. The frame is cut off just beneath his eyes.

Fourth quote:

But the horror - The horror was for love. The things we do for love like this are ugly, mad, full of sweat and regret. This love burns you and maims you and twists you inside out. It is a monstrous love and it makes monsters of us all.

Fourth image:

A close up of Lestat on the street car. He is wearing a tailored stripe suit and looking off screen as if contemplating something while out on his hunt.

Fifth quote:

I've been bad. These days, when I tell you I love you, what I mean is, I'm sorry. I daydream pain into myself / in hopes I'll be too tired to refuse your gentleness. I need it. I want to crawl into your chest and come out when I've given you all the love I have. It was never meant for me. I love you. I want my blood in your mouth.

Fifth image:

A still of Lestat and Louis embracing near the coffin. Lestat is kneeled against it from the outside, while Louis is reclined within. Lestat’s arm is draped around Louis' shoulder, and Louis' hand gently touches Lestat’s - smiling as they kiss.

All images were edited by me and were found online via pinterest (x, x, x, x and x). And two screengrabs from gifs I unfortunately saved when the show first came out and can no longer find the source for - happy to edit with credit of course.

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louis, lestat and their love: touch edition (pt. 2)

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Extra shots of Louis from the Cast Diary version of "In The Throes Of Increasing Wonder".

The jumping in his jaw at the "compensation for the whole evening"...

Especially this look, at Lestat's "What kind of a man wastes this waist with words" is extremely interesting, I think:

Bonus:

Did you notice that look at Lilly kissing Lestat....

And...

Louis! Where are you looking^^ (And yes, it does look as if their hands touched there very briefly).

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I just realized why lestat marked Tom, like the big stupid idiot I am

(I know everyone else probably already figured this out, but this is MY blog and I get to post whatever deranged thought crosses my pea brained mind.)

When I watched that scene in episode 5 where they're at the bar talking to Tom, I was confused as to why exactly. Why does Lestat mark Tom? If he's marked to kill, why does he wait almost 2 decades later? Well I realized, as all realizations come, in the shower.

Lestat has been planning on killing Tom the whole time.

(Warning before you click read more, this post is a lot longer than I first intended holy fuck)

Well not the whole time. Just right when Louis realized that Anderson and Fenwick had screwed him over. Maybe even longer if he knew it was a trick ("ridiculous of you to mix human and vampire business it always ends poorly"). Notice how he's upset with louis when he kills the guy who's microaggressive with him, cus lestat wasn't there (even if he was there I have my doubts Lestat would understand microaggressions, but he would have definitely killed him for touching Louis.) But tells Louis he's proud of him for killing Alderman. I think this has to be because he witnessed the disrespect first hand. He didn't give a fuck about the money, what he DID care about was that those two disrespected not only him, but Louis.

Even with Lestats little understanding of race relations of the time in America, he did understand hierarchys. He's from 1700s France for God's sake. It's no coincidence wanted to be king of mardi gras. Lestat came to New Orleans and saw himself as the king, even if no one knew it. And he wanted Louis to be his queen. Honestly I could make an entire other post about how Lestat almost literally saw himself as if he was a King and Louis his beloved Queen, which is why he thought it was okay for him to sleep with other women (mistresses and playthings of the king should mean nothing compared to the queen in lestats eyes) but that's getting off topic. I only bring that up because I'm trying to paint a picture of how I think Lestat sees disrespect done to Louis. To him that goes beyond disrespect or rudeness, it's irreverence.

You begin to notice if you watch scenes with them together. Because while I wouldn't say lestat is good at controlling his anger, he's definitely great at concealing it until it erupts (props to Sam Reid have to be given here) lestat is always on the verge of fury when talking to Tom. It starts as a distaste then as he begins to fall more in love with Louis and become more protective of him, his anger builds. Claudia was wrong about one thing, it was no petty slight that was the reason Lestat killed Tom first, it was a loooonng time coming.

I could list every detail I think supports this but I'm sure you get the gist by now. My main point is really the layer of complexity this adds to not only the story, the characters, but also lestat and louis' relationship. Consider it for a second, Lestat saw all his violence as justified, everything he did one can see it through the lense of him punishing the disrespectful (take a shot every time I say disrespect in this post jesus christ). "I bring death to those deserving" indeed. Lestat has a god complex out the wazoo, and every attack, torture, and death he caused was righteous to him and thus enjoyable. Louis on the other hand didn't see himself so highly. He may seem confident but if you look through the cracks it's apparent Louis's self worth in near nonexistent and he's horribly insecure. I think lestat thought when Louis was made a vampire he would see himself as Lestat saw himself, and as Lestat saw Louis. But again, another post for another time.

Despite Louis' insecurities (or perhaps because of them) louis revels in the violence lestat commits for his sake. That's probably why louis is so quick to forgive lestat about the priests. For a brief moment Lestat truly said the truth to Louis and Louis could forgive him because of it. As lestat says, he doesn't kill the priests to intimidate Louis, nor does he do it just because he enjoys it. He does it because he sees them as humiliating Louis, charlatans that don't deserve Louis' sorrow. Louis didn't want the priest's to die, but he could understand why lestat killed them, simply because for once in his goddamn life lestat told the truth, and louis loved that truth. That truth being that lestat killed and mutilated and committed such horrors not just because he liked it, but because he did it out of a fucked up sense of protection. Him killing the priests was essentially a knight killing a dragon to earn the princess' hand in marriage.

The worst part is that Lestat doesn't even realize it. Not fully anyway. Let's be honest with ourselves, lestat doesn't understand Louis. Obviously there's the race, background, culture differences that lestat doesn't understand nor seems inclined to try, but there are better posts about that made by smarter people than moi. I'm mostly talking about lestat doesn't understand louis' mind itself (louis' mind in a vacuum I suppose you could say) he understands Louis' desire for violence sure, but he doesn't understand the core of that want. Honestly I'm on the fence of if he ever understood that Louis loved it when lestat was protective in the first place. I guess it can be dumbed down to Louis wants Lestat to kill to protect Louis and to protect the family (and anyone who deeply disrepects them), lestat perhaps understood a little at one point, but since he sees everyone as a threat and everything is a slight to him, he has no trouble and qualms with delighting in the torture of people Louis views as innocent. Louis' heart is a bit dark, but ultimately human, so he's disgusted by lestats violence towards the undeserving. Lestat can no longer read Louis' mind and even if he could, Louis doesn't quite understand the difference himself (that's why he tries to hunt for criminals briefly) so the cracks of miscommunication starts to form, and neither of them even realize there is miscommunication.

Therein lies the importance of Tom Anderson for season 1. Not much of a character, more of a plot device in human skin. Claudia can see that Lestat hates him, but doesn't understand why, nor does she care to get to the depths of that. (*Mr house voice* understandable) I think it's notable that Louis rarely brought him up, he didn't understand the depths of lestats love. Nor did he know about Lestats 3 decade long grudge, all because Tom disrespected Louis.

Now I'm not excusing Lestat's actions, I just think it's interesting how this one throwaway character reveals a whole level of complexity to the relationship between him and Louis, and better sheds light on not only Lestats personal philosophy but louis' as well. Even Claudia to a degree.

Anyway, uh. End of essay. Bye.

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god it’s soooo difficult to put into words but like. while lestat’s love and violence and emotional impulsivity could be stifling at times and even dangerous, it was his love and insecurity that was the problem. he didn’t want to keep louis on display, he wanted to love him and be loved by him. of course, problems arose because lestat is both a terrible communicator and has severe uncontrolled abandonment issues and rage and unresolved trauma, but his actions came from a place of deep, deep fear of being alone and wanting someone to love/someone to love him. he wanted to travel with louis, he loved louis for his hobbies, he loved sharing his interests with him and opening up when he could. he wanted him and louis to experience life, the world—together. armand is not like this. he’s obsessed and “in love” with louis the same way you become enamored with a rare bird, a priceless one-of-a-kind piece of art. he’s a thing to keep, to take care of, look but don’t touch, etc. like all of the art in his penthouse. he controls louis’ safety, his eating schedule, his time outside the house (which at this point seems nonexistent). he keeps the books out of reach. he keeps an artificial tree and light and pebbles to placate his deeply depressed lover. he doesn’t want to travel the world with louis, he doesn’t want louis to be out on his own, and he frames it all under the guise of protecting him. louis is reserved and depressed in a way that is so opposed to his depression in the rue royale era. whereas before he was incensed with guilt and anger and fear and grief and sadness, now he seems like an empty shell. his deep well of emotion, even negative emotion, has turned to apathy. and obviously this could very well be caused by claudia’s death and lestat’s disappearance, but armand very obviously is not trying to help louis. in this state, louis is at both his most vulnerable and his most likely to go along with armand’s whims, to sink further and further into that apathy because then his trauma won’t hurt so much. and it just plays right into armand’s hands…..

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sometimes I think about the MONTHS that lestat spent seducing louis, and like… lestat is not a patient man. he must’ve been dying of thirst. that scene where he’s eying louis’ neck at the performance? that was him every night. sneaking longing looks at his throat, his back, his hands. collecting his rare smiles. allowed to be close to louis but not to touch. and when he brought lily to the townhouse? you just KNOW that wasn’t the first time he had invited louis upstairs. I think louis often walked lestat home, both of them working to extend the night as long as possible, louis coming up with endless excuses why he couldn’t join him for a nightcap. how many soft goodbyes did they exchange beneath the street lamps? how many times did lestat listen to louis deny what they both wanted? they spent every night at brothels, but they couldn’t even hold hands. lestat fell in love with a good catholic boy, and he worked harder on that seduction than he’d ever worked on anything in his life. it was totally worth it.

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sometimes I think about the MONTHS that lestat spent seducing louis, and like… lestat is not a patient man. he must’ve been dying of thirst. that scene where he’s eying louis’ neck at the performance? that was him every night. sneaking longing looks at his throat, his back, his hands. collecting his rare smiles. allowed to be close to louis but not to touch. and when he brought lily to the townhouse? you just KNOW that wasn’t the first time he had invited louis upstairs. I think louis often walked lestat home, both of them working to extend the night as long as possible, louis coming up with endless excuses why he couldn’t join him for a nightcap. how many soft goodbyes did they exchange beneath the street lamps? how many times did lestat listen to louis deny what they both wanted? they spent every night at brothels, but they couldn’t even hold hands. lestat fell in love with a good catholic boy, and he worked harder on that seduction than he’d ever worked on anything in his life. it was totally worth it.

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The contrast in Louis' favorite past times from when he was with Lestat to when he is with Armand is so interesting to me.

From what we have been shown, it appears that Louis' favorite past times include reading (the man always has a book in his hands) and being in nature.

When he was with Lestat, we saw him with a book in his hands, all the time

Heard him mention how many books he had read

Had Lestat reference the pleasure Louis recieved from reading

And we even learned that Louis had a favorite bookshop

For his other favorite past time, we always saw Louis surrounded by nature, mostly by trees in the park

But we did also see him go to the lake with Claudia

Fast-forward to 2022 and this is not the case anymore. The interior of the Penthouse seemingly clarifies that Louis has the same favorite past times, but it is far more controlled.

While he has a full library, all the books are suspended in the air and appear to only be accessible to someone who can fly, which we know Louis can not

Its been a while since I've watched all the epsiodes fully, but I'm pretty sure the only book we've seen Louis pick up is Daniel's book, which did not come from the library.

For his love of nature, the interior of the reading room is clearly meant to emulate nature, but is still artificial. The little nook has one tree, one source of light, a couple of stones, and gravel.

Since it has been over 80 years, it is fair to say that Louis' hobbies may have changed, but when Louis became distraught and started to breakdown, he didn't run to the "love of his life," he ran to the little corner of nature he has in the Penthouse and put is feet in the gravel to comfort himself and regain composure. I think this shows that Louis is still in touch with nature and is soothed by it, but is unable to truly reach it now.

Now, I don't want to assume Armand's and Louis' relationship, but from what I've seen, Louis is not in control here and does not appear to be free.