#Armand losing his shit

[rocketrouquine]

Excuse me ? What ? WHAT ?!!! Common ground ? WHAT ????!!!

[sauronism]

ep 5 ( don't be afraid, just start the tape ) : ` louis, thinks i'm boring. do you find me boring?

[randomfandomss]

Once again I'm thinking...Raglan James was right.

Daniel needs to be more afraid of Louis. He doesn't manipulate or play games. He erupts.

Daniel might become a mere casualty in Armand and Louis fight.

[thequeenofsastiel]

LOUIS WOULD A BORING PERSON PHYSICALLY AND PSYCHOLOGICALLY TORTURE A 20 YEAR OLD BOY FOR SIX DAYS? WOULD HE???? LOUIS!!!!!

[neonsbian]

are vampires just unable to have healthy relationships lmao

[butchybats]

YOU’RE ARROGANT BEYOND CONTEMPT YOU BEG TO SHARE MY PRECIOUS BLOOD I’D NO SOONER YOU IN MY VEINS THAN TO SEE YOU WITH THE ONES YOU LOVE‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️

[dead-loch]

armand is supposed to be 17 when turned and so far every single adaptation has completely failed to accurately cast him

he’s such an interesting character and I feel like he just gets lost being portrayed so inaccurately

it’s interesting though because I feel like the new portrayal of claudia, even with the age way off, was done pretty well. so it’s clear they could do it if they cared

[rainbowcarousels]

Why yes I think about it ALL THE TIME and now you have me crying in the club on a Tuesday 😮‍💨 How they’d been each other’s rock for the longest time and the center of each other’s worlds, only to have it taken from them when they needed it the most. How their very foundations were ripped apart (again in Armand’s case). And I know this is verging into fanon territory given that we weren’t exactly given a solid explanation in the text but it’s also worth considering how much Armand’s near dead experience informed Daniel’s delirium and state of mind. Armand was everything Daniel knew and all of a sudden (and as far as he knew), he was gone. And Armand had his one baby, his only child, completely go off his rocker while he was unable to do anything about it, only further cementing his believe that if he ever loved anyone enough to bring them over, he’d fail. Anne was truly cruel for that, even though she made up for it in the end. We only got a few glimpses in the last trilogy, but they seemed at such ease with each other, with the same familiarity between them that’s always been there, that I’d like to think they’d already talked about their pressing issues at length (enough for Daniel to move in with him I mean), and all was well 🥹 xoxo DA

I know it's fanon but it just lines up so perfectly for Armand's death to be at the very least a tipping point for Daniel. We know Armand is not in a good place in Memnoch, he's not really taking care of himself, he's in a fragile state and this just screams post-break up to me. I think @desertfangs has them break up in London just prior to Memnoch and given that would align with what we hear of Armand haunting London in that time period, it feels like it should be canon so I'm counting it as my personal canon.

The thing is when it comes to Armand and Daniel, this would be what, less than a decade after Daniel was made? They're still figuring out how their relationship has changed and how to function in this new way or adapt things. I think you can see the shift even in QOTD where Armand wants to push himself into the teacher role as Marius and probably Santino had been for him and if you look at how he talks and treats Daniel right afterwards, you can see shades of his relationship with them both in his tone and actions as if he's trying to figure out what sort of teacher he is all the while thinking it's only a matter of time before he realises he got what he wanted, he'll leave and Daniel does leave.

I don't think that was the reason - I think communication between them decayed without the mental link between them where he found himself second guessing Daniel's words when Daniel's words are often at odds with his actual thoughts and Daniel had been so used to him knowing that and not having to explain himself that it was bound to cause a blow out - but I don't think it was meant to be a permenant break so much as playing into the pattern of running off for a bit. As a side note, it's also why I think Marius makes such a big thing of Armand being able to hear B&S: he knows how hard it hit him and Daniel to lose it.

I do think Daniel does still have this certain wide eyed delirium that probably comes from having very powerful blood so everything is overstimulating, a long overexposure to the blood as a mortal, being made under circumstances that were not the most stable and getting floored by Akasha all in his first week or so as a vampire. A need for some time apart was probably always going to be on the cards, I think Daniel needed to at least try to show he can survive without Armand even if he's struggling because survival seems to be the mark of a successful fledgling but then, as in a lot of VC, Lestat Happens and all hell breaks loose.

(I am fond of the idea that Lestat's last memory of Armand going as he was pulled away got screamed to the vampire populace and this was in fact the specific tipping point.)

So I think when we get to the point of Daniel's delerium being severe it's Grandpa to the rescue, it's a side effect of struggling with his own delirium and the loss and grief he's feeling so he just retreats into his own worlds he can set up and control and make them beautiful because the world out there feels like empty chaos and he's lost the person who guided him through the chaos (or so he thinks at the time) and at least part of his withdrawal from the world to do his lil crafts was done deliberately to get away from his grief. It's just that once he's done that, it's a lot harder to find his way back again.

And I feel like this is the crux of the Armand issue: from what we know in TVA, I genuinely do not believe he knows Daniel's not really doing well and I do think it's something he learns later so I think there's this swing between 'Daniel wasn't here when I felt broken and I had to pick myself up but I'm his maker, he doesn't have to take care of me, it's his perogative to stay away if he can't stand me any longer' to 'Daniel needed rescuing and he's always been the one to do that, he'd always been the person taking care of him and he'd have tried if he knew, would have dropped everything in a moment to do it' but by then, Marius had stepped in, they were settled, he wasn't going to throw that out and for better or worse, he knows Marius can be devoted to caring for broken boys and seeing them get back up again.

But none of that logical line of thought shakes the fact there is a chunk of his life, especially once they get back together, that Armand had no connection with other than being part of the breaking point much as I think Daniel leaving was part of his. There's these big things that happened and while yes, I hope they talked about it, it's not the same as experiencing it and I think when they're ready to show that in the blood, to share that level of pain and deal with it as a shared sadness and experience, it'll be agony but they'll come away with a stronger relationship for it.

It just won't change the fact that he had a second chance to do it right this time with Daniel where he had failed before, to not be a blunt object seeking practical solutions and prove he can in fact take care of people without destroying them. He does still get this in Benji and Sybelle to a degree, but I think the fact he didn't get it with Daniel probably weighs on him and he can't help but call it back to his own feelings of abandonment as well as what happened with Nicki and even Claudia. He's trying so hard in the modern age to make caregiver be a huge part of him and to be seen as somene who keeps his children safe and even if Daniel was safe at the time, I can't help but think it would bother him that his own firstborn had to be cared for by someone else and that maybe Lestat would be the only person he would really admit this to because he would be the one to understand it. That it was love, not the lack of.

Sorry for the sudden essay DA, it turns out Armand is not the only one with a lot of feelings on the matter!

[dxxtruction]

///

[gallierhouse]

Had enough of “Louis was cheating on Armand” takes. Like Armand was obviously implicitly fine with Louis fucking other men because it’s the fact that he didn’t fuck Daniel that sends Armand over the edge. Armand doesn’t care who Louis fucks and eats; he cares about who he loves, who he sees as a person, who he doesn’t see as an object. I guess it’s hard to grasp since most people see physical intimacy as a bigger betrayal than emotional intimacy, but, well… What Armand wants from Louis is to be special to him and to be more important than everyone else and everything in his life. So it’s fine if Louis fucks other men because those men are unimportant and nothing but objects. Louis’ using them. But it’s not okay for Louis to find value or importance in anyone else, because that threatens Armand’s position as the only person important to Louis, and the only person he’s allowed to love or even like. That’s why he gets so upset when Daniel says “he didn’t even want me in the end.” It’s salt in the wound! Daniel wasn’t just a good meal, he was a person!

Also, I know that Armand gets angry at Louis for seeking comfort in the arms of lowlifes and whatnot. I don’t think he’s happy with the status quo (Louis addicted to drugs, fucking young men left and right) but it’s not necessarily cheating, because Armand knows about it and tolerates it. He doesn’t lose his shit about it. He specifically loses it because Louis doesn’t fuck Daniel and connects with him as a person.

[platoapproved]

I'm still reading TVA and I gotta say for the benefit of IWTV show fans who haven't yet / aren't gonna read the books and are learning about them solely via tumblr: we GOTTA set aside some time in our busy killing Marius schedule to also kill Santino and Allesandra (from the Roman coven of the Children of Darkness that Armand mentions in the museum scene) because holy shit:

LIST OF CRIMES (some of these they don't do personally but they're sanctioning all of it)

the Roman coven kidnap all the boys from Marius' palazzo and throw them one by one onto a bonfire because they deserve to die "for their Master's sins"

Toss Armand in the fire as well but pull him out before he dies, leave him in a cell to suffer his burns.

Santino to Armand when he refuses to listen to Santino's indoctrination:

Santino again:

... then has one of the vampires in the coven dump the ashes from the other boys all over Armand's face so they get in his eyes and mouth.

Santinto to Armand (talking about Marius at first) 😒:

When Armand still resists indoctrination:

Lock Armand up in a cell and starve him for a week before tossing in Riccardo, his human best friend who he loves like a brother, who they specifically did not burn and kept aside for this purpose. Armand drains Riccardo before even realizing it is him and they refuse to remove Riccardo's body so Armand just has to be in there with it rotting.

Continue the cycle of leaving Armand starving completely alone in the dark for a week, bringing him a human victim, leaving the body there to rot. for like FIVE MONTHS while Armand loses his mind and starts seeing ghosts.

then:

[lafamilledelioncourt]

them: he manipulated them, killed their daughter, and fucked their heads. he's the villain! he's a sick twisted villain!

me: the 500+ year old vampire? with severe trauma? and zero support for his very obvious neurodivergence? the child sex slave? the dogmatically groomed prized possession? the cult victim? the 'has to figure out how to please people and blend in to survive and avoid further abuse' character? the 'regimented and desperate for order and sense of purpose so yeah he tries to do the job he is forced into to the letter' coven leader? the 'frequently abandoned, misused, and neglected so clearly he's developed frantic control issues to not lose his only sense of stability and comfort' one?

next day edit: hold on, i'm not done. i'm sitting here at lunch the next day and i really can not shake that some people do not get the point.

it's not that i'm gonna excuse villainous behavior. the tiny gremlin did all that shit, and his ass is gonna go in time out, but TO ME, the whole fucking point of the show is that no one is really the villain.

that's because they are ALL FUCKING AWFUL. all differently bad, all differently broken. the closest thing to a saint we got is madeline, so sure go off calling her the only good one im in agreement, but they are ALL A GODDAMN NIGHTMARE.

the beauty of this entire series, particularly the books for me but i do love the show, is that the nuance and wiggle room between monstrosities and man is the poetry of the story. it is beautiful that these creatures have this tiny gasps of heart and happiness and hope despite who and what they are.

i can scream into the void all week about armand and claudia and daniel bc those are the characters i most identify with bc of my own personal trauma. HOWEVER, that does not take away my ability to see that EVERYONE needs therapy.

put their asses on a vampiric SSRI, tell them to all fuck eachother and get the orgy over with, and then have an honest to god conversation about their feelings.

DAMN.

okay anyway, going back to work.

[slapjacq]

just gonna hop on my soapbox again about this show but,

hot take: I actually love the colored contacts that the vampires wear because

there is an uncanny valley look to these vampires, that marks them entirely out of place as at any given time. It actually at some points, in my opinion, makes them more frightening. Their eyes tell us that whatever is going on behind them, that it’s beyond fucked up and animalistic.

I can pinpoint several moments where these stupid, gaudy looking contacts enhance the energy that the actors and the editors are going for. The moment where Madeline says Claudia has eyes like her windows, those contacts make Claudia look like so horrifically scarred, the 100 yard stare is made a million mile stare. The moment when Armand is coaxing young Daniel into accepting death, his words are gentle and honeyed, but he looks like a monster, completely inhumane. When Louis loses his shit in the last episode, the man looks absolutely deranged beyond the point of recognition of the man he was before vampirism. There are so many moments in this show where if the contacts weren’t there, we would be missing a part of the potency that lingers in those truly emotionally challenging moments.

Plus the added touch of whether it be the lighting or the costume department changing the intensity of the color of the contacts depending on whether if they want to convey a character’s theme is just such a cool touch.

Anyways serious props to the entire crew on set, in this post specifically the makeup and costume department. We talk a lot about the acting choices but I COULD KISS whoever came up with the fuckass contacts and didn’t go the traditional route of the colonized “pale/white skin”, the easily gone route of “comically prominent fangs”, or god forbid “sparkles”

[annabellecane]

truly do not get the people disappointed at the 'out of spite' comment, as if that's not an incredible relationship dynamic for them to continue. Armand maybe losing his control that he's held onto so tightly and thinking that if he can't kill Daniel he can curse him-- only, whoops! you fucked up! you're now inextricably tied! you're bound to one another! he's Armand's fledgling now. this is the one (1) dude who will constantly call you out on your shit and he can feel your grief and anger and love and you can't read his mind anymore and yet it's all laid bare between you two and your ways to establish control are rapidly shrinking and you can't get rid of him! whoops! oh no! looks like you fucked up and made your own red string of fate, idiot!

[shivvytheshiv]

one thing that genuinely surprises me is how the majority of loustat fics i came across are super dark and erotic and angsty which is more than fine!!! but i’m LONGING for the comedic perspective what’s with lestat throwing tantrums and going full wizard howl and louis trying to make amends w/him and claudia/armand/whoever the fuck and slowly losing his shit? this being said i would love some fic recs

[duke-of-gloom]

I'm sorry, but if the casting is correct, I'm going to lose my shit.

Armand straight up stole his employee's identity and did a slutty cosplay of him.

Notice how the real Rashid doesn't have his titties out.