Juggling chainsaws

Nalyra ⏛ she/her/they I love complicated characters and relationships. Vampire lover of old. I like a lot of things, so do mind the tags, please.

Ask | Ao3

This blog is NOT Vampire Chronicles / IWTV / TVL spoiler free.

Life is too short for hate, be brave enough to be kind.

PSA

Hmmm, I mean, they HAVE set it all up already, including nods (and comments) to "prince", "crown", "dark monarch" (ultimately setting up the "Monarchy of Darkness").

I disagree that the impact of his music on the vampires is not clear - when Gabriella comes to him in the bus, and they listen to the "voices", it is VERY clear to me how much the vampires feel seen by his music, how deeply they enjoy him breaking the rules to put his music out there.

Yes, that was not the same in episode 1. But it IS that way in episode 4.

The arc you speak of is "speed run", which is logical - they just do not have the time to go through all the ups and downs.

I am not sure we will get Mekare taking the core, for example - I think there is a big chance that Lestat will take it directly.

And I do not think the vampires blamed him for Akasha's destruction? I mean, some did, likely, but the ones that mattered? They didn't.

There is a change incoming, next season - because Lestat did not want to do the concert at the end of this season, right. But we KNOW he will.

So... what happens? Who will make him?

I have a feeling it will be Louis, just like Louis encouraged Lestat to sing to his fans in the car.

Louis might encourage Lestat to do this for all the vampires(!!) banging on their bus, in an echo, in the show's version to the scene from "Prince Lestat", where Lestat goes out to greet all the young ones, I think.

I only joined the fandom like 2 years ago and was shocked when I read the books because that’s not at all what happens. And it’s prominent enough in the fandom that HM was asked abt it at NYCC (I think) last year.

I'm not sure.

I mean, it is common that people pick the things they like from the books, and that is why so many think that Louis and Armand are together at Trinity Gate, too, when... that is decidedly not the case imho, but,... well.

"Fledgling" only denotes that someone was made by a vampire, it does not necessarily have an expiration date attached to this status.

For example, there is a character listing in "Prince Lestat and the Realms of Atlantis", because there's so many new characters. And (for example), it says this:

Everard de Landen—A fledgling of Rhoshamandes from the early Middle Ages who first appears in Blood and Gold and is named in Prince Lestat.

Everard is several hundred years old. He is still - and will stay - a fledgling of Rhoshamandes.

Louis will always be a fledgling of Lestat's. Claudia will always be a flredgling of Lestat's. Daniel will always be a fledgling of Armand's. :) And so on.

It just denotes the base relationship in vampiric terms.

The "vampire toddlerhood" as Lestat calls it iirc wrt Daniel... well he says the first few years are difficult, right?

So maybe the first decade? Since in the books that is when Lestat broke down and buried himself.

Yes, it was the Autumn Brown one.

If you've seen the other one(s) with her, then you'll recognize the.... hinting. :)

Sam is always quite careful, BUT he has also been known to warn the fans when HE thought it appropriate (for example for the violence coming in in 1x05 etc), and so, if you listen (and read) closely.... :)

I'm sure they already know when. These things need to be planned plenty in advance.

I wouldn't worry about it. People did worry the same with this season, and his other projects, and it was no problem at all.

And, and I do not wish this to come off as dismissive, we KNOW they will give Louis his own arc (that should be clear after this season!), but next season is not Louis' main season.

It's the Akasha (and Lestat with her) and Louis with the others and DM season.

So they will likely bring Jacob in for a batch of days, just like last season, doing his scenes more closely together, and so he won't need to be there the whole time once more.

So yeah. My... gut feeling :) would be towards the end of year.

The last we see/hear of DM in the books, it's said that Daniel went back to Armand.

THAT is where I see them ending up.

Will it be a tumultuous road? Definitely.

It will also be worth it, I think.

Do they sleep in that apartment, with mortal Nicolas just THERE too? It would be a risk... yet Lestat and Gabriella are such new vampires that they might not think about, or even realise the risk yet. For instance, they surely don't know that if Nicolas found them in daylight hours, they could unwittingly kill him in their sleep. They've definitely had no evidence yet where they'd have learned this...

Or, do you think Lestat and Gabriella go back to Magnus' lair and sleep there... and Nicolas is just entirely alone for months in the daylight hours, with no explanation for it, wondering why Lestat is literally never there in the day any longer...

Perhaps it is the latter (it seems more likely, as they'd surely sleep in coffins still in this era. How do that explain THAT to Nicki?!) but Lestat and Gabriella would prefer to sleep in the apartment, hence why Lestat, only now, is getting Roget to buy Nicolas his own apartment? Which, frankly, is absolutely bonkers...

Imagine - you know your lover is spiralling and losing his mind. What might solve that? Get him to move out so you can live alone with your mother?! That'll do the trick, Lestat! He definitely won't think you want him to move out so you can have more time with your secret lover in this apartment rather than going to wherever they are, as he likely presumes now. He definitely won't imagine your apartment is about to become a base where nobles gather to practice witchcraft and share lordly secrets....

But also, Lestat would not want to spend any longer than he had to in Magnus' tower, of course.

I mean, (book) canonically it is the latter.

Because this being Magnus' tower or not, but it is the safest spot Gabriella and Lestat have at that point.

I think in the show, where they stay longer, there is also a possibility of them sleeping in coffins in the theater with the others, but I do think said possibility is rather slim, because they both did not adhere to coven rules after all.

And yes, this must have been VERY rough on Nicki.

He takes to drinking, we saw that in 2x03. He takes everything Lestat says as a lie, he thinks he is cheated on (which, canonically, is something that Lestat tells them all has been the reason for his absence, that he married a heiress from St. Domingue, and developed/caught a (tropical) fever on their honeymoon and now has light sensitivity).

The show put all that *waves hands* mess into the few scenes we got. The anger, the jealousy, the bitterness.

Yes.

also that happening in that scene is what made me not believe it in the first place because of how cartoonishly evil it actually was and that is something Sam also talks about

Yes. And THAT is the part I did not like, as said before, because they invalidate Sam's statements there, and for what?

We have years of interviews, with Sam stating he knew what would be "real and what not", and... now...

I mean, granted, this was all in Lestat's head. While he way dying.

So we can just write it off if we want to, because outside some realizations nothing of it was actually.... real.

Mhhhhhh.

I get your feeling, but I'm not sure I fully agree there.

I think the fact that they just... clicked back into this behavior with each other speaks volumes, actually, and I love how... nonchalantly they introduced this fact.

I mean, as you also point out, they skipped before. And then presented very specific things for us to catch the meaning of in very specific scenes.

Louis and Lestat in episode 6.... are back on a level of trust - from the first second on! - that they (or at least Louis here) is NOT with their partners.

We can only imagine what happened after the diner in episode 5. After Lestat saw Regina, and after he threw the "pick up the phone" at Louis. At that moment, the wounds of both of them had been opened before, AND - even as issued as a challenge! - a means of communication once more.

An admission of vulnerability and need.

And I think Louis picked up said phone after. And it led to the "bad idea", and a custom made Hastens' coffin. (And yes, I know, a coffin, despite the fact that Louis was entombed - but think on it: Lestat knew that. And Lestat knows about trauma, rather intimately. This Hastens' coffin has layers... healing offered, comfort offered - but not enforced. There's also a bed there, that Louis obviously used - and I would bet money on it that, too, had a Hastens mattress.). It led to a month of getting Louis back from the brink, and to healing for both of them.

Yes, I absolutely would have LOVED to see all that. Obviously.

But it is there.

By now I think that will also be part of s4.

Because what happened with Nicki is deeply interwoven with what happened between Armand and Lestat. And ... after that Sam interview I do think they will address that still.

As per the haunting... I mean, this is Lestat's psyche, not an actual ghost. His Dream!Nicki, if you so will. Guilt, longing, love and history.

Giving us some insights outside of Lestat's words.

Which, btw, does not necessarily make what DreamNicki said "true". It is just what Lestat thinks Nicki would have said then.

I'm seeing the same reactions: "I'll pretend the season ended with ep 6" vs "I'll pretend season 8 doesn't exist".

Anyone who was there then knows that from a certain point on, the two ass*** believed themselves invincible, untouchable and smarter than everyone else (spoiler: they weren't).

Yeah, I remember very well, lol.

I... don't think that is the same level though. And I AM a bit more relaxed after the Sam interview, and his obvious excitement for Hannah's takeover.

We'll see.

Ahhh, I don't think it will lose that, nonny.

Remember, there were writer's strikes and covid that hindered it before, too, and it did not suffer in quality through that... so why would mere time do that now :)

That said - of course I also hope and pray we get to it all sooner.

(Not in a mean or aggressive way!! I just really want to hear what they have to say on where we’re headed with them so I can either breathe a sigh of relief or resign myself to disappointment)

*cackles a bit*

You know, I wonder if the questions at SDCC were "scripted", to use the show's word :). Curated.

I mean, it is an adaptation.

And they keep track of the changes they made to the characters, and use them accordingly.

This is not a 1:1 implementation of the books. They have pulled in many other books from the beginning, and they DO hit the emotional way points and main arcs of the books the season is (mainly) adapting.

Yes, I mean, it should be obvious :) by now that I also have problems with some of their choices, but... I still think the main arcs are, indeed, recognizable and very much there.