the thing that pisses me off about 50 shades of grey isn’t that it’s twilight fanfiction, it’s that it’s bad ooc twilight fanfiction. the implication that edward would be into bdsm is so fucking dumb he’s a 100 year old virgin who cried and went into a week-long depression the first time he fucked bella he wouldn’t even consider the idea of fucking her until they were married because he didn’t want to compromise his virtue and you’re telling me he’s a dom? no, edward cullen has the most boring vanilla sex ever the only thing unconventional about the way bella and edward fuck is that bella tops and edward cries the whole time and bella gets fed up and goes to the other house to fuck rosalie and edward cries some more in his room alone
Some personal Armand Headcanons (because I love making myself laugh):
– only wears odd socks. no reason for it. just can’t be bothered pairing them.
– will not sit on the couch properly. prefers to lie down with his feet on the arm rest.
– Daniel picks a shirt he really needs for the next day. Armand sleeps in it.
– invites Lestat over just to argue with him (calls him a coward if he won’t) and Dan finds them at opposite ends of the kitchen at 1am just staring at each other.
– has tried to cook for Daniel before. understands metal can’t go in the microwave. doesn’t care at all.
– really likes racing video games.
pls add more
– watches hours and hours of random youtube live streams
– uses the mind gift to summon flies or other insects from the garden, then makes them crash into the flames of lit candles. Has a 5 minute existential crises wondering why, then does it again.
– Is never bored.
– Keeps a log of everything that goes on at Trinity Gate.
– stalks everyone on social media (Lestat in particular) but acts clueless if they refer to something they saw on facebook or shared on Instagram.
– Goes to check on Benji every night before going out, stands in the doorway to the office watching him scribble notes when someone calls the show. Politely refuses any invitation to be on the show.
– loses all card and board games on purpose in an attempt to make Daniel happy. Daniel knows.
– Keeps a fake decoy journal. Is secretly terrified anyone might find the real one some day.
Some years they stay together, if they’ve gathered for the holidays leading up to New Year’s Eve, I would think at someone’s home that can accommodate a large group or they rent a house somewhere. Whoever is hosting sends out the fanciest invitations, each year the current host tries to one-up the previous year’s card 😉
I’d imagine a gathering would look smtg like this, black-tie affair at times (but they’d bring casual clothes, too):
And they do the stuff they normally do when they gather:
Coven Game Night where some fool challenges Louis to cards and gets their ass handed back to them, even if/when they attempt to cheat
exchanging gifts – Daniel and Lestat compete in giving the best gag gifts.
there’s teasing each other about all the VC books, from the oldest to the most recent “So that ghostwriter of yours-” “DON’T YOU START WITH ME, ARMAND.”
Sharing pics they’ve taken from their year’s travels
Watching movies together in fancy screening rooms with couches, blankets, and pillows
improvised jam sessions for the musicians in the group
artsy sessions for the artistic ones in the group, although they do invite everyone, and Gabrielle has done a few gorgeous fingerpaintings that Lestat treasures
dancing to the improvised music or someone DJ’ing recorded music
BONFIRE and/or FIREWORKS (outside tho!)
Inviting very special mortal friends over for “drinks,” wherein the mortals are aware and consent to get drunk and then share 😉
marriage counseling (come on, cabin fever sets in and at least one pairing gets into a fight every time).
shameless flirting (sometimes causes the fighting that needs marriage counseling)
Other years, they go their separate ways and celebrate NYE on their home territory, or in smaller groupings.
Okay so I know we talk a lot about how Armand is obsessive, and we talk a lot about Daniel and his trains and how he’s trying to build this tiny world that’s safe and contained and controlled because he’s too overwhelmed by the real world… but can we also discuss the fact that Lestat literally builds life-sized replicas of the periods in his life when he was most happy???
I mean, I know a lot of people don’t accept PL/ROA as a canon basis for characterisation for Lestat, and tbh I get that, but this isn’t just new canon, this is a thing Lestat does.
Immediately after he rises from having been underground, after the whole Akasha debacle blows over, as soon as he has a chance to sort of settle down after that, what does he do? He builds a fucking museum to That One Time He Was Happy With His Ex. He even conceals the modern appliances to make it look authentic! And then he gets his ex to move into it with him again. :’)
Old sport.
I mean, I guess we already know that Lestat writes books because he’s looking to inject some meaning into the meaningless series of events that constitutes a life, so in that context it’s not surprising that he’d want to organise his physical surroundings. And after all the shit that went down with him in QotD, tbh, I understand him wanting a bit of familiarity. Plus he’s literally hallucinating Claudia’s ghost throughout TotBT, so he’s not exactly stable. But it’s still interesting and sad if this is his coping mechanism. (And tbh it’s really interesting how much he and Louis live in the past (literally! *shot*) compared to some of the other vampires in the coven.)
Now I’m just wondering if we can posit an architectural scale of Lestat’s well-being. Renovating: he’s doing good. Reconstructing his old flat: he’s struggling. Reconstructing an entire village complete with château: someone call Gabrielle.
^Very much agreed! I do think he likes to repeat the past, for sure. It makes sense to recreate happier times., especially in times of anxiety about the present/future. I do think Lestat digs deeper into the memory albums of his past happy times when he’s in a bad place mentally, for sure.
I would also add that Lestat is a very big fan of retail therapy, whether he’s conscious of it being therapy or not.Everything about buying stuff, flirting with the salesppl, bossing around the construction ppl, getting things delivered and opening tons of packages, feeling like he’s upgrading things, it’s all therapeutic. He’s doing self-care.
He does it to ppl, too, like when he’s berating Louis for his threadbare clothes. Lestat dresses himself nicely to make up for all that time when he was poor and couldn’t afford (and possibly didn’t feel he deserved) any better than threadbare clothes. Unless he was wearing a costume for the stage, flashy and attractive to the audience, and being loved by that audience (which taught him that playing a role and being sparkly and attractive would win him the affection he craved and couldn’t get just by being himself). Or borrowing his lover’s red velvet frock coat, far fancier than anything Lestat had ever owned up until that point, and it probably smelled like Nicolas, and that felt good, too.
For Lestat, gifts are love. Gabrielle parted with her heirloom jewels to buy him a better life. She bought him hunting equipment, upgrades to help him do what he already did. The mastiff pups, the mare, those were some of the first gifts he received that loved him back. From the villagers, he received gifts for slaying the wolves: a good sturdy (and fashionable!) cloak, and a new pair of boots. Upgrades that were both functional and had pleasing form to him.
^Sorry for the cheesy gif, but I do think Lestat has a need to return to places and exorcise his demons there. Reclaiming the space. He probably does it as idiotically as Ace Ventura sometimes *eyeroll*
He revamps (ok pun intended) the Rue Royale and his castle in the Auvergne as an act of cleansing it of the demons and bad memories. The castle of his childhood was cold, dark, bare, inadequate, he was beaten there, repeatedly. It was a place of suffering. He might have lived out his life and died there. So now that he has the $ and the power to do so, he rigs it with heating, electricity, and loads it with fancy furnishings, making it a place he can possibly build new memories, better times ❤
He almost died in the Rue Royale, how must it feel to walk through a room that you once lay dying, bleeding out on the floor? On your way to pop a DVD into a player instead? And then go back to the couch and curl up under a blanket with the lover who had done nothing but stand by as you felt yourself pass out of consciousness? No animosity now. The place has been reborn.
I would also add that AR did this in TVL, too, with Nicolas revamping (pun intended again) Renaud’s into the ~Theatre of the Vampires~: “The Theater of the Vampires,” [Lestat] whispered. “We have worked the Dark Trick on this little place.”
Nicolas could not contain what was occurring within him, and often his deterioration became destructive and difficult to conceal from mortals. Despite the fact that I did not directly claim leadership in an official capacity, I had a position to maintain and I had already protected him on numerous occasions, whether he realised such or not, as had Eleni. I had to prove that the threats that I made were not just threats if someone stepped out of line, or be seen as ineffective and suffer further challenges. I could not exclude Nicolas from that.
On the occasion where I took his hands, it was take his hands or take his life; based on the transgressions involved, it could have seriously compromised our position in Paris had it not been corrected swiftly. He was so far gone that others began to talk of precisely that, and I could not allow it. Taking his hands limited him in a way that imprisonment could not possibly have achieved; he had escaped imprisonment before when it was imposed upon him. Imprisonment meant nothing to him because the true oubliette existed in his mind, and that was inescapable. It gave me control over him enough that he could not possibly leave and potentially worsen the situation. It also proved that I was willing to back up my threats and that I would not respond with inaction if I was questioned.
The choice that I made meant that he lived. It does not necessarily follow that it was a choice I made gladly, regardless.
(Ps. This is how I imagine Louis, based on how he was described in the books. So I can’t say that he really looks like that. I mean, it’s not an illustrated book. And he’s not pale because vampires can look like normal people after drinking blood. Louis started drinking human blood in the first book XD)
[^Don’t share with him bc Lestat’s pig ok, we all know it]
No but really, I think that’s what shipping is about. You can live vicariously through one or the other of them, and get the best of the whole ship ❤
I do think there’s some truth to the idea of shipping as a way of learning about relationships and in engaging with the characters, who are otherwise just ink on paper and only really exist in your imagination. Lestat speaks directly to the reader, breaking the fourth wall, but he can’t really speak to each individual reader, he doesn’t know your name or anything about you specifically, but it’s a form of intimacy bc you know so much about him. It’s the one-sided relationship of an actor to their audience. He knows he has an audience and he can see faces in the crowd, but he can’t actually have a relationship with a real reader since he’s fictional.
But you can get close to the characters by identifying with them. I can love Lestat for some of the reasons Louis does, and I can love Louis for some of the reasons Lestat does, and in agreeing with them, it’s a form of connecting with them individually. Like we’re sitting at a cafe together gushing about how cute it is when Lestat throws a tantrum over someone (usually just himself) spilling blood on his new Gucci blazer (bc deep down he doesn’t mind that much, he just likes having smtg to throw a tantrum about), or Louis defending his right to making stacks of books in the parlor (bc deep down he likes having an excuse to talk about books in any capacity). That kinda thing.
I think that’s where ppl are really going when they say, “My son” or “My husband” or whatever, about fictional characters, you want to express a form of devotion to them bc they belong to you, too; your vision of them (your headcanon) is truly your own.
So you can have them both, you’re invited into that ship whenever you open a book or read/write fanfic about them, enjoy/draw fanart of them, individually and as a ship!
This year, however, Lestat and Louis failed to leave on time to meet up w/ the coven in Florida and they landed on a beach in Delaware, made passionate love under the boardwalk as fireworks went off. After that they walked up to the water’s edge, wrapped up together in a big cheap beach towel they’d found under the boardwalk bc their clothes were bloody and shredded to bits! No surprise there.
They watched the kids darting around and Louis was, as always, intrigued by the sparklers waving swoops and shapes of fractured light. One little girl approached them to compliment their Frozen towel and handed Louis a sparkler. He was very touched and forgot all about the gritty sand sticking to the blood across his chest and backside (under the towel, fortunately!).
Lestat watched the light of the sparkler reflected in Louis’ eyes, and for a moment, it was as if they were both just mortal boys, delighted by and in awe of this simple magic as Louis drew heart shapes, circles, and infinity loops against the darkness.
I-want-my-IWTV 