#( santino )

[reibu-b]

coven masters

[killer-laurent]

''Do you have 5 minutes to talk about the Evil word?'' - [Santino, Armand, Alessandra] (Commission for fofoqueirah - Tumblr)

[icedteaandoldlace]

Santino would like to favor you all with a song. Any requests?

[bubblegum-blackwood]

The Vampire Chronicles as Onion headlines - part four

(Links to part one, two, three)

Everyone to Lestat in TotBT:

Lestat and Mona in Blood Canticle:

Marius with Roman coins at the de Romanus clan family outing he got dragged to:

Magnus:

The mortal staff of any vampire:

Marius/Armand:

Lestat's concert:

Thorne roasting Santino:

Louis showing up in a dusty sweater again:

Marius/Daniel:

Devil's Minion:

lbr probably half these guys if not more:

Santino:

Marius:

[feniksido]

Old Man Yaoi is all i've ever needed and Halsin was more than happy to provide

This is my Tempest Cleric of Talos, Santino RAAAAHHH I LOVE BALD ER GAY

[moonlit-void-to-the-far-unknown]

Armand does not know how to properly love or be loved by someone if it’s not him being a means of service to them. He is unable to fully understand what real companionship and love is.

He was molded by the grooming of Marius, who as we learned, doted on him and showed him ‘love’ but it was all a means for Marius to keep him as a sex object (of sorts I’m still reading Armands book but from my eyes, bro just straight up grooming a harem of boys) until he was turned. And then pimp him out to his friends. He was molded to be a thing for people. So that he could be ‘loved’

He was molded to hate humanity, and hate being what he was turned into by the children of darkness. He finds being a vampire a fate worse then death, he hates humanity until he meets Lestat.

Lestat comes in, fucks up all his ideals of what being a vampire is, destroyed the original coven, and Armand became obsessed with him, with serving him, even if it wasn’t really serving Lestat it was simply being…a means to an end for him. After Lestat learned what he could do as a vampire he fucked off. And Armand has been obsessed with him since because it’s how he was molded to love.

Then he meets Louis who comes in, no care for the new take on the laws, and lets Armand be a service, when he needs something, when he wants something, it becomes ‘Arun’ and ‘maître’ it becomes 70 years of trying to atone for the lies on lies he built and him trying to keep them all in place so Louis will stay with him. So he is needed.

Then Daniel comes in, and threatens it all, and succefully ruins the 77 year old lies Armand has built a shell with. The lies that kept Louis with him and while not happy, kept him sedated enough just thinking it was hurting who he thought killed Claudia.

Armand is molded by the need to be a service to others to be loved by others. He is incapable of thinking love is anything other then, being a service to someone. Be it him destroying everything and everyone in the way, burning his companions daughter alive, lying to make it seem he had no choice when he was the one who directed every second on that stage. It was still a fucked up ideal of ‘love’

“I love you so much I let you burn all things I had down, I let you kill my family of 200 years, I let you do as you please with others because I know they can not give you what I give you. Because you need me. And yes I played a big hand in killing your daughter, yes i lied over and over, but it’s forgiven, you said it was. Because you need me and I need you. I love you so much because without I am a shell, a void, no insides because you don’t tell me what I should be. How do I be of service to you. How do I fix it. How to I fix the decades of lies I used to protect me from you leaving.”

Armand built lie on lie on lie because he is a shell of a void of a boy once named Arun, who was taken by slavers, and sold to a brothel, to be used and molded into whatever a paying person wanted, a boy taken and renamed Amadeo, to be shaped into what Marius wanted, to be used and used again. To be taken by a cult, and used as a leader figure, to hate humanity, to be used as a teacher, to be used as a coven leader, to be used as an object of spite. Armand is a shell, a void. A hole. Because he never got to learn how to be anything else. In 514 years he never learned how to simply be Armand. To be whoever HE wants to be.

Because he doesn’t know what he wants to be.

[bethnoir-fic]

IM NOT SORRY FOR A SINGLE FUCKING BIT OF ARMAND EXCUSE MAKING IVE BEEN DOING IF THIS TURNS OUT TO BE TRUE. I AM CACKLING!!!

[desertfangs]

I'd totally forgotten that Armand and Pandora were present when Thorne kills Santino (for his bestie Marius 🥰). I feel that has such huge implications.

What does Armand think about being a witness to Santino's death? Does he even want him dead? He stands by Marius' side and doesn't speak so presumably he's there to support his decision, but how does he take the death of someone who played such a pivotal role in his life? As far as I recall, we never get anything from him on this again.

He must know Daniel is with Marius at this point, right? This means they're having more contact that I maybe imagined during this time which means Armand must know something about the situation. Marius tells us he's isolating himself but surely if nothing else this must be when Armand learns (assuming he didn't already know)?

I don't know, I'd completely erased their presence in this scene from my mind so it feels sort of revelatory, as if I'd been imagining these timelines and intersections of characters all wrong.

Anyway I finished my re-read of Blood and Gold. Would love to hear your thoughts!

[thecactifindahome]

1/3 of an alternate second chapter of The Vampire Armand from the Anne Rice collection at Tulane University

2/3 and 3/3 to follow in reblogs.

[killer-laurent]

Santino and Eric (Commission for mademoisellebianx)

(Credits to the referrer Joseph Christian Leyendecker)

[monstersinthecosmos]

Ok, but

What about Armand and Santino?

Do you think Santino loved Armand, was he attached to him?

Gosh the thing is like, we don’t know shit from fuck about Santino at the end of the day?????

But we do have this little bit from when Armand is eavesdropping on Marius and Santino collecting the forensic vampire evidence: 

"I don't understand you," Santino confessed gently. "But if you think I never loved him, you are very very wrong."

I can tell you that I believe Santino loved him, and I’ll tell you why, but ultimately this is a blank space in canon so there’s not one answer.

It just feels to me that like, you can use what we know about Armand’s indoctrination into the cult to wonder if Santino went through something similar. And we have to ask like, how much of Santino’s warmth and kindness is sincere, how much of his faith is sincere, or how much is purely manipulation and trauma. 

But I think the structure of VC lends itself to assuming the best in people, and assuming love where it’s possible, so like. Yes I do believe Santino is sincere. I believe his faith is sincere. I believe he thinks he’s doing the right thing in the way he breaks Armand because maybe he went through the same. 

It's important to remember that purely evil characters are very rare in VC. People behave in ways they think are correct. Santino thinks he's doing the right thing.

And it’s a great sacrifice to send Armand away so quickly, trusting him that much. It’s like he’s denied himself the companionship of someone who might really truly understand him because so much of their belief relies on asceticism. Even if he didn't feel sentimental about Armand on a personal level, I have to wonder if he just admired him as a little prodigy.

Something else we know about Santino is that he had the hots for Pandora and was willing to throw it all away for her and she kinda shamed him for attacking Marius, and it makes me wonder how much it plays into why he came with her to rescue Marius from the ice. If it’s for a sense of atonement I have to ask like, does he mean personally for Marius for that one time, or for everything. 

Armand is similarly ashamed of his years in the cult and it’s like the biggest phase of his life that he barely talks about in his book because it’s too dark and painful. 

So I think there’s a sense that they both entered and exited the cult in the same way, and I get the sense that they already came with their own religious trauma as baggage which made them susceptible to staying in the first place. 

Armand says about Santino We keep a gentlemanly distance from one another and like, you can read into this however you want, but fuck if my brain doesn’t light up like a Christmas tree thinking about how it must be so painful to be around each other, how there must be such a deep level of mutual regret and empathy. Maybe Armand knows that whatever Santino did to him was repeating a cycle, and maybe it’s because Armand continued that cycle. Maybe he knows he’s hurt people as badly as Santino hurt him.

And they’re such a unique pair—how many more coven leaders are out there? And how many others have this direct link to either of them? It’s not some abstract concept of some other guy who also put time in—it’s that Santino directly shaped this for him. 

So yeah I mean.

"But if you think I never loved him, you are very very wrong."

There’s a lot here to think about and in the way Armand tends to deeply love everyone in his life who’s wronged him and doesn’t seem to give up on people, I just know they must love each other. And Santino must love him back. How do you not. Everyone falls in love with Armand. The night Santino found him must have been a revelation. 

[bubblegum-blackwood]

How I think the VC characters would feel about the pumpkin spice latte

Lestat: obsessed, can’t get enough, fall girl 100%

Louis: curls his lip up in distaste at the thought

Armand: fascinated by the concept and definitely enjoys it now and again

Daniel: tried it once because Armand begged him, but it’s a liiiiittle too sugary for his taste

Marius: probably likes it more than he cares to admit

Thorne: a fun treat for every once and a while, but not something he would order consistently

Santino: It is evil and indulgent! 😡

Quinn: thinks it’s kinda mid but drinks it for the aesthetic because he’s a dork

Nicki: actively makes fun of people who drink it

Mael: what’s a pumpkin spice latte?

Jesse: prefers it iced 😔

Seth: no hate but he doesn’t prefer it

Fareed: tried it once and that was enough

Khayman: he thinks it’s absolutely delightful

Pandora: prefers the iced pumpkin cream chai

Bianca: thinks it’s super cute and totally gets it as a more-than-occasional treat

Gabrielle: doesn't get the point of flavoured coffee in general

[ladyvampir3]

“I’m cold and small and have no understanding now of feeling, of longing, even of hate. I don’t hate you, when I should. I’m empty. I want to die.”

“But it’s God will when you die, Amadeo,” he said. “Not your own.”

[kaelio]

The collection at Tulane University only seemed (as far as we could tell?) to have partial bits of the Queen of the Damned draft. Here's a link to everything we found. There are some definite changes, though it'll also be very familiar!

(This is all of the Queen of the Damned book material we have in its entirety. There may be more, but we were forced to triage and made and effort to digitize certain materials we thought would be most helpful.)

Download Link

[feniksido]

Order and Chaos, balanced like all things in Nature should be

Me and the other 5 Halsin lovers here on Tumblr pass each other by like ships in the night reblogging each others posts and acknowledging each other in the tags i hope you know i love all of you

[hey-its-sybarite]

It’s been years since I’ve reread The Vampire Armand but if I recall correctly he has a black hole heart. Dark and consuming, always hungry, and with its own gravitational pull. He’s not normal and he knows it. He doesn’t know how to love in a way that isn’t broken.

Of course, it’s also work separating out Anne’s character-work from Anne’s sometimes incredibly annoying plot-work. One thing I remember hating from TVA was Benji and Sybelle. I recall them being very one-note characters and so I did not like to view them as a reflection on Armand’s character. I wonder if I will feel differently the next read through.