a horror- and smut-themed dreamwidth RP

lestat de lioncourt NAME
cis man SEX/GENDER
the vampire chronicles CANON
2x08 CANONPOINT

As a child, Lestat was raised in an abusive and neglectful household, and when his mother sent him to a monastery in the hopes of an education, it was a massive reprieve. However, the formative element is less the warm safety of the monastery, the kindness of his tutors, or the philosophies he had begun to learn, and more the fact that his brothers and father pulled him back out and beat him for his desires to stay there. Here, his faith in God was shattered, and makes for unfortunate echoes in his future behaviour as a father.

Lestat's entrance into vampiric life was one of trauma. He had been happy as a human, a penniless artist in the big city, and was torn from it one night by a monster named Magnus. Captured in his lair, Lestat was imprisoned in a room full of corpses with similar physical attributes to himself, mainly blonde hair and blue eyes and stature, and a week later, Magnus turned him against his will. This has informed Lestat's approach to forming his monstrous identity, refusing to give the Dark Gift to the unwilling while also indulging in spite when he hunts, focusing on men in their prime like himself.

In New Orleans, 1910, Lestat meets the then human Louis de Pointe du Lac, who he falls in love with close to immediately. Still, he takes his time. A year of courtship and deniability, of building a life in New Orleans, establishing a hunting ground. The way Louis tells it, he was being hunted. The way Lestat remembers it, it was a love story. He offers Louis the Dark Gift on Louis' worst night, and gives it when it's accepted. There begins a tumultuously toxic and passionate relationship, and Louis becomes Lestat's personal lodestone and eternal love of his life. His worst regret is a vicious fight between them culminating in Lestat pulling vampiric rank and dropping Louis from the sky, believing Louis did not love him as he loved Louis.

Louis, who was having his own existential crisis, pressured Lestat against his better judgment into turning the 14-year-old girl who had suffered lethal burns in downtown riots he had instigated, an effort to assuage his guilt and torment. Lestat reluctantly did as he was asked despite his fears that Claudia would suffer for it, too young to be turned. In the end, Claudia proved herself a formidable fledgling and a beloved family member. Lestat, however, trended towards the sadistic when it came to his parenting style, having never known anything else, and after he hurt Louis as badly as he did, and forced Claudia to stay when she attempted to leave, Claudia plotted his death. The two were locked in a chess game of wills, and Lestat only survived it by virtue of Louis' mercy.

The Parisian coven of vampires had snared Louis, Claudia, and the newly made Madeleine into a trap for their own sadistic pleasure, culminating in a theatrical trial to punish Louis and Claudia for breaking the Great Laws of vampiric society. Lestat was recruited to participate as star witness and victim, but he used the opportunity instead to break from script, make his apologies to Louis, and rescue him from execution. It would take many more decades for his efforts to be recognised, and result instead in long decades of regret for his inability to save Claudia and a too-late sense of paternal responsibility.

As of entering Rubilykskoye, Lestat is human with no supernatural abilities to speak of.

Lestat is an exceptional musician and singer. An innate ability was enhanced and built upon when he had become a vampire, and those skills remain with him now. He is foremost a pianist, but can pick up and play most any musical instrument set in front of him. He is also a good composer and lyricist (debatably), and a born performer.

A natural hunter, even before he was made a vampire, Lestat knows his way around a rifle, and all the rest that comes with routinely putting meat on the table. He can track prey, kill and clean it, and do so with efficiency. He is an able horseman and once bred and tamed his own hunting mastiffs.

Lestat resembles himself in his vampiric form, but to an exaggerated degree. His mouth is full of fangs, his claws are long and sharp, he grows several more inches in height, his natural ranginess extends. His skin is grey-white, with blue veins visible beneath, and the sclera of his eyes is inky black, making grey-blue irises shine unnaturally. In addition, he is also gifted a set of giant, bat-like wings that muscle out from his back and shoulders.

mind gift | Lestat can read minds, both verbally/visually. He can impose his will on others, directing their physical movements, both voluntary and involuntary. He can read deep memories, and likes to do so. He can warp a person's perception, slowing down their ability to comprehend time until it is like they are frozen in place.
fire gift | Lestat can use his will to ignite anything flammable. Flammability matters as far as how instantly or intensely the fire will burn, and once it is burning, it's beyond his control.
cloud gift | Not quite what it used to be, Lestat's gift of flight is no longer a matter of his own willpower, but a mechanical process that necessitates the use of his wings.

Lestat's personality will be recognisable, save that it will be devoid of humanity, and geared only towards sadism and cruelty. This can manifest itself physically through raw animal violence as well as psychologically, depending on his mood and the subject at hand. Hedonistic in the worst way, evil without redemption, interested in having a good time at the expense of others, and he won't be sated until he drains someone of their blood and feels like he has had a sufficient amount of a spree.