fuck you I'm a prophet

(Okay this is my second time writing this after the hellsite ate it so it's probably not going to be quite as insanely long, but here you go! Maybe that was Tumblr nerfing me for talking too damn much)

God NICKI. I am always crying in the club over Nicki.

First of all, like you said, I absolutely do not see Nicki and Louis as interchangeable. They are both clearly Lestat's infamous Type (sad, rich, intellectual brunette with a drinking problem), but I think Lestat sums up the difference between them pretty well in TVL and IWTV, which I'll get to later.

To start off, Lestat is clearly drawn to men who are a foil to himself, and he seems to seek out partners who will need him (Nicki touches on this a bit when he talks about how much he needs Lestat's "light", his joy and optimism) and I don't think that's a coincidence. Lestat has a deep need to BE needed, and I think Nicki filled that niche for him. He also has what I would diagnose as I Can Fix Him Syndrome and it's terminal, so again, sad, morbid, angry Nicki was the perfect person for baby Lestat to fall for.

Nicki was absolutely Lestat's first love and I think it was mutual too. There are so many heartbreakingly romantic moments between them, and the chapters of TVL with the two of them as mortals is one of my favorite parts of VC. It's so lovely and bittersweet, the perfect portrait of starry-eyed young love. They were both robbed of their innocence by inside and outside forces, and that's heartbreaking to witness as a reader. They deserved better.

I think what was truly devastating for Lestat was not that it ended, but HOW it ended. We can see their relationship beginning to sour even before Magnus, but it's only after that Lestat (and the reader) really gets why. During the turning, Lestat sees the darkness that Nicki had always described to him and finally understands that the problem is not that Nicki doesn't see his own light, but that he doesn't have it. It's not part of his worldview, he doesn't even have a frame of reference for understanding Lestat. They are fundamentally, essentially, different creatures who, for whatever reason, don't have the common ground necessary to support a relationship.