#Louis Rando

[drondskaath]

Sekt | Expiate In Purgatory | 2023

Australian Black Metal

A homage to 90's Australian Black Metal featuring Ex members of Tyrant, Dybbuk, Samain & Pagan.

[galactica7071]

ugh fine take your punchy boys and leave

[goblins-riddles-or-frocks]

Daniel (gay): I’d like to… interview you 😉😘😜

Louis (gay and autistic): Okay, let me tell you my life story

[illiadofrecollection]

Louis telling his story to Daniel is really such Catholic behaviour. In the book at least he doesn't seem to care if the story is actually published. He doesn't care about Daniel as a person after either.

He wants to confess. He wants to sit in a small room and talk about the ways he has failed. It's not about the one he confesses to; one priest is as good as another, or a reporter if you're a vampire I suppose. He doesn't choose a weathered investigator who might ask real questions. He chooses (if Armand's assesment when he opens that basement door is correct and not just his being mean) mostly a beautiful face to talk to. Daniel is his pretty little priest.

And when he steps out of that role and asks to be turned Louis gets angry -- he hasn’t really been considering how a young person might react to his story really, and definitely not Daniel in particular.

[morninriverview]

i love fictional relationships where one of them is the worst person on earth no compassion no empathy no morals absolute dumpster fire of a human being and the other one is either 1) helen of troy 2) a rando 3) both

[jlf23tumble]

the fact this happened after the him vs it discourse (widely spread on twt btw)

https://twitter.com/LOUIESTREAM/status/1702075734833987892?t=RZZZh3lmmWClFjgS19iCAQ&s=19

the face he did afterwards like is he annoyed to say "it" or is he annoyed about the forceful "him". Ngl, from the 2nd half of the NA leg until now, almost every crowd does say Love him so... what are your thoughts Jen?

anon 2: U gotta roll ur eyes - the people making a big deal ALL OVER THE INTERWEBZ of Louis supposedly singing “I love him” (as if Harry is the only him, ever btw) are now offended he made a point of singing (screaming?) the “it” today. Not really sure what they expected? Oh wait, I do (him to profess his undying love for a certain curly headed c- on stage) but not happening, not today, not next year, and actually I would put money on neverrr

I think their best bet is on any declarations is from Harry, but only under sad circumstances hopefully decades from now and nothing beyond a few sentences

----------------

I feel like "him" was the original lyric (much like running from the bullshit is the original--and far superior!--lyric on SOTT), so far all we know, cross-faded Louis Tomlinson is just out there, going with v1, but also? I feel like you reap what you sow, and he wants zero larry associations, so I'm sure he was like, oh shit, okay, whoops. But also also? Yeah, there's more than one him in this world, and there's a lot of yoyo action in his real life, so for all we know, that's a clue to a deeper situation than larr nation wants to venture into

[hyunjining]

.

[alarrylarrie]

.

[lunartearrose]

@anemocos

[thisiskatsblog]

Why do you worry so much? Unlike Harry, Louis obviously enjoys getting groped by famale teenagers. It makes him feel like a god in his own words.

FAMALE lmao!

[tarsusingkirk]

louis learns about social media in his best girl summer era and gets an instagram for posting his photography. his bio reads amateur photographer.

it starts slow and easy with some black and white portraits of humans, a few low contrast wildlife shots. he captions them variously with numbers and letters, not fretting over fuax deep captions, more concerned with archiving them orderly. Except when he indiscriminately deletes them when a rando says he sucks. he roams from subject to subject, thinking he's not really, truely capturing the art of emotion in his viewfinder, that parisian art dealer from years ago hounding his every shutter click. nevertheless, his follower count rises from zero.

and then, well, lestat hits the airwaves like an atom bomb. a fragile, messy mascara'd atomic bomb.

louis finds himself scrolling through candids of lestat on stages, hair flaring messily and rings glinting into the blur of a single snapshot. torn crop tops falling off sweaty shoulders, and pale eyes smattered with what is apparently glitter staring off into the distance. sometimes leaning breathlessly over a mic, sometimes baring his chest as he bows back, nimble fingers riffing on a guitar.

it's really only a matter of time until louis quietly purchases a ticket and goes to a concert, his fingers tip-tapping over his camera case.

his first shot of lestat comes thirty minutes into the concert because all he could do was stare in the midst of roaring humans, the air alight with manic energy that made his breathing stop.

He takes hundreds that night, and spends the next several nights going through and picking ones he thinks have some kind of merit.

two months and two more concerts, taking shots of lestat from the anonymity of his rabid fans is as natural as breathing.

three months later magazines have him on speedial, it feels like, and then he's contacted by the vampire lestat's agent asking if he can do a shoot.

it really was as simple as finding his muse.

[statementlou]

https://www.tumblr.com/louisupdates/754934426217152513/goodbye-faith-in-the-future-world-tour-272024?source=share

did he or did he not lose fans then?

I will answer this because this anon actually brings a concrete question to the table rather than just "hurhur but you're a larrie??" (tell me you can't actually refute any of our points…). Anyway this post shows the decrease in Louis instagram followers between the screenshots taken directly after the release of Faith in the Future in Nov '22, when he changed his bio to promote that album and the tour tickets, and now, when he changed it again to mention the current release. But I'm putting that response under a cut because I'm tired of the actual POINT of all this nonsense getting lost in a sea of made up things people insist are important:

There is no rational argument you can make to say that Louis has less fans now than he did 2, 4, or 6 years ago. You don't need a spreadsheet of details you need to USE YOUR EYES! He has gone from filling theaters to filling arenas and stadiums. His second album made a higher chart position than his first album. His festival has doubled in size EVERY year of its existence. And for that matter: his insta post engagement numbers remain about the same (despite the fact that older posts should have way MORE likes due to having been there longer, even aside from follower counts.) SO WHO FUCKING CARES ABOUT HIS INSTA FOLLOWER NUMBER???? Serious question: what does the word "fans" mean if these things aren't what matters? ALL of this quibbling about what he should do to make things better and people can't even see that THINGS AREN'T BAD.

Anyway to address the specific question- (con't......)

NO- HE DID NOT LOSE FANS. HE LOST SOME INSTA FOLLOWERS. THESE ARE NOT THE SAME THING. As I said above, literally what does it mean to lose fans if that number change coincides with him having higher sales, more audience members, and higher engagement than ever before? Whatever he lost ISN'T FANS. I wouldn't be surprised if a significant factor was something like a bot purge, but also yes: I'm sure a lot of casuals followed him around the time of his big album release and later unfollowed him. That's extremely normal because that's how casual engagement works, and why the definition of fan really matters. Louis and his team understand this and have referenced it repeatedly, talking about how lucky he is to have *us* specifically, to have the kind of dedicated fanbase he has, to have the KIND of fans he does who will allow him to do what HE wants. @dogsliampaynedoesntinstagram named the issue of depth vs breadth with regard to fans a long time ago, and pointed out why having DEPTH is so much more important. It's like this- artists who are on top 40 radio have more numbers on things like insta follows, and for a time on sales and tickets. But those aren't FANS- they're people with a casual interest. And as soon as that person isn't being forced in their ears 10x a day, those people lose interest and stop supporting them, stop buying stuff and unfollow, and those artists end up doing the 'opener on the jingle ball' circuit rather than their own tours. One Direction as a whole, and Louis maybe most of all or near to at this point, have something MUCH MORE VALUABLE than that- DEPTH FANS. Louis has fans who will support him even if he takes years to release music, or stops parading around with a pretend girlfriend to stay in the headlines at least once a month, or completely changes his image and genre, and that is UNHEARD OF. It's ASTONISHING and worth SO MUCH MORE. And they get that! THAT is why he always bragging about us, why industry people he works with are always so agog about us, why he will do anything for US- not for randos. He is also growing his breadth- and it's OBVIOUSLY WORKING whatever his follower counts are, but that is always going to be secondary to doing things for THE FANDOM because that is his sustainable business model. That is what keeps him onstage and reaching number one. And not coincidentally, the things they do are also working to grow that- much more valuable- commodity. So the fact that that's exactly what these chuckleheads complain about- that he does things that are just fandom facing or serving rather than everything being aimed at recruiting casual fans- does nothing but betray how completely they, unlike Louis and his team, misunderstand the actual drivers of his (actual, existing, happening) success. Luckily for Louis, he and his team rely on their own data harvesting (they do a LOT of it) and growth metrics (they're off the charts) rather than the smug assumptions of random (mostly quite new to this) fans and the few bitter people leading the complaining about everything Louis does.

[professional-girlkisser]

I want a loumand spin off filmed like Scenes From a Marriage (2021) where it's all shot from the Dubai penthouse and Louis and Armand are sooo sad and miserable but they're enduring. They're suffering together. And isn't that what marriage is all about? An undercurrent of resentment and hatred running between you and your partner? But they sit across from each other having dinner and pretending like everything is okay.

Except nothing is okay and Louis gets soo bored with Armand’s masking that he runs away. Sometimes he runs for short periods of time (to fuck and drain some randos) but other times he runs for much longer periods (to be with Lestat). And Armand begs him not to go, literally clings to his coat tails at the door, but Louis forcefully disentangles himself and leaves anyway. And Armand remains alone in the penthouse staring blankly at the wall like a wind-up doll waiting to be turned on.

But then sometimes he goes into his secret little playroom where he keeps his secret little pet Daniel. And Armand doesn't see the irony of it. That this is exactly how Louis treats him. That the penthouse is his cage and that Louis sometimes comes back to play with him but doesn't consider him his “real” life. Louis has a “real” home and a “real” family somewhere else.

But none of that matters bc when Louis comes back he’s looking the sluttiest he’s ever looked (similar to the scene with Jessica Chastain in knee high boots) and they have the freakiest, nastiest sex ever and Louis says things like I missed you so much and I never stopped loving you and maybe he doesn’t mean it but who cares? And he stays a little while longer and Armand holds him tight in bed and wakes up in the middle of the night (day) to watch him sleep. And then Louis leaves again and the cycle repeats itself for 8 seasons.

[twopoppies]

Eleanor had some interactions with Freddie at the last show she went in LA but other than that fans believe Louis cheated on her with Briana because of the resurfaced photo of Louis, Oli, Briana and Ashley from Februay 2015. They believe that since it was a cheating situation that then led to Freddie Eleanor choose to not being involved with him. Some add that since the Danielle vs Briana drama it was better for Eleanor to not be spotted with Freddie to not anger Briana lol

The pretzels they’ll twist themselves into are insane. I don’t remember Eleanor having any interaction with him at all. Nor do I recall her being in LA. 🤷🏻‍♀️

The way they would still support him if he cheated on Eleanor, got some rando pregnancy, ignored the baby and baby mama for five solid years, dated someone else (Danielle) in the midst of all that, then dumped her only to get back together with Eleanor (but barely ever be seen with her), is completely insane.

[jlf23tumble]

I love the H German boy story bc it’s his way of saying shit without saying anything, ya know? Which is pretty much his public default. All performers have their stage bits but he coulda let that one go or just change it into amorphous holiday talk but NO! He’s going to name check his German summer boo in 2023!

[if asks had tags / does this story still piss L off lol - I love a petty moment / why would L be in Germany anyway - shouldn’t he be prepping for US tour? I can’t wait to see the big bowl of nothing L serves larries, he’s so done y’all - I do enjoy all the fan pics of him surrounded by men and hope he’s enjoying himself - he does seem to be in his Ariana revenge dress/thirst trap moment on IG, spicy]

For real, it's the EXACT same stage patter, same story, go on, girl, give us nothing cloaked in something that seems major but only has a dash something because you're in your script era! I love the concept of asks having tags, THIS would be something I'd be way more into vs. badges, I'll just answer in REAL tags lol

[monstersinthecosmos]

kacy i wanna know how much of a perv you think daniel is LOL so much fic centers on armand dragging him through an experience *armand* wants. so like what's the ratio of daniel being a freak in his nature (and knowing this about himself) vs armand nurturing this trait into him?

My friend, I’m so glad you asked.

THE THING IS IVE GIVEN THIS A LOT OF THOUGHT and in some ways it’s like, what all of my Devil’s Minion fics are about LOL. And yet! I don’t have a simple answer to this question, the way real questions of nature vs nurture are complicated in the real world in real people!

But let me sketch out a framework of the way I’ve questioned this, and everyone might come to different conclusions and that’s the fun of fandom, because there can exist several thousand versions of Daniel based on the same text! AND I KNOW YOU KNOW THIS STUFF, I HOPE IT DOESN’T COME OFF AS MANSPLAINING LMAO but I’m excited to talk about this topic. 

Here’s what we know unequivocally from the text:

Daniel is 20 years old in IWTV.

That’s it, that’s the whole list.

And here’s some fanon that people often try to extrapolate from the text: 

💦 That he met Louis at a gay bar. UNCONFIRMED, but I think it’s likely? In the short story the bar is named the Pink Baby, I think that might be a gay bar or a dick reference idk lol. 

💦 Whether or not the Pink Baby was a gay bar, he and Louis essentially cruised each other and left the bar together! Daniel has the excuse that he’s hunting for interviews for his job, Louis has the excuse that he’s an apex predator who preys on people, but ? Take this wherever you need to. (Also blah blah Ricean biting=sex symbolisms.)

💦 Was Daniel bisexual outside of the assumption that most of the VC characters are bisexual/omnisexual? The only clue we get is that when he and Armand practice voyeurism, he hooks up with men and women. There’s a lot of interesting information packed into the voyeurism paragraph, like this line: Yet he lay empty afterwards, staring at Armand, resentful, cold. and I’ve seen the “resentful, cold” comment dissected many times in fandom. Is it the general resentment of their whole relationship? Is it because he wants to fuck Armand and not randos? Is it because he only wants the Blood? Does he not consent to being used like a zoo animal? Is he gay and doesn’t want to fuck women? Is he straight (minus the orientation-defying vampire attraction) and doesn’t want to fuck men? I’ve seen all kinds of takes on this LOL. But still, no real definitive answer about his orientation in the text.

💦 What did the “roaming the bars of the world” comment mean? Sometimes I read Anne Rice’s language as being kinda lofty and exaggerated but was he ACTUALLY traveling the WHOLE WORLD or is he hyping up that he trolled bars in the Bay Area? Is he FROM the Bay Area or was it a stop in his travels? He worked for a radio station (not in the book, but mentioned in the short story + The Vampire Companion and The Alphabettery) so did he live here, even if he traveled a lot? Was he wealthy before vampires if he was traveling this much, if you think he was a traveler?

AND AFTER ALL THAT, here’s some extra questions where Daniel is FREE REAL ESTATE that every fan has the freedom to make the fuck up:

💦 How much sexual experience did he have at 20? Do we assume that by default as an Anne Rice character he probably had ample teenage sexual experiences, and if he did, is there a quality over quantity aspect to consider? Is the sex we have as teenagers like, all that to write home about LMAO. Do we really understand kinks yet, or do we need to grow up and gain some perspective first? 

💦 As an Anne Rice character, by default, do we assume he & everything else is sexually charged LOL, are the interviews and cruising and taking people home a code for bringing partners home? What percentage of his interviews were also hookups?  

💦 When we talk about nature vs nurture for kinkiness, how micro and macro is this? As a fellow Off the Cuffs fan I know you understand the “radioactive spider bite into kink” concept, and some kinks are so specific to our experiences. But BEING KINKY in itself IS nature, isn’t it? I’ve read some sex & kink theory that kink is (psychologically) more like an innate orientation. IE: in the way you can be straight or gay, some people are also by default turned on by being smacked or by whatever paraphilia. Whatever that thing is, the way it takes shape, is the nurture half. But like, many people can have the same experience and 99% of them don’t develop a paraphilia right? So I think that capability exists in kinky folks at all times, especially when so many of the radioactive spider bites are things that people discover in childhood. ANYWAY I RANTED but I say that to say; DANIEL MOLLOY IS A MONSTERFUCKER, IWTV IS THE PROOF THAT HE IS A MONSTERFUCKER. IT WAS THERE THE WHOLE TIME. 

So I bring up all those questions to encourage everyone to make up their own story with this, but I’ll tell you where I personally landed and how I approach it in my fics!!!

The Daniel in MY OWN fics is 20, single child, estranged from his parents, dropped out of college because he didn’t have ADHD support and was struggling, bisexual and promiscuous! I wonder if he went through that like college freshman thing where he got out of his parents house for the first time and partied a little too hard because he COULD! I like to read “bars of the world” as an exaggeration, I like to think he was a normal guy NOT globe hopping, sticking to the Bay Area, maybe he was out there for college, and guess what! There’s a thriving gay liberation culture there, so he finds some safe spaces to experiment with that! 

However, I think the text leaves space to think he didn’t have a lot of close friends, or wasn’t close with his family, due to the way that he simply ✨fucks off ✨ after IWTV. NOW, that’s just me! Because there’s potential here for a TRAGEDY of people looking for him or grieving him! But idk I just like thinking that he was already on the outs and the interview pushed him over the edge.

So I ask like, does the 20 year old have a ton of kink experience? Is he good at sex? WHAT DOES RESENTFUL, COLD MEAN? Was he celibate during the chase years? Are the voyeurism sessions the first time he’s had sex since his old life? Even if he had random hookups during the chase years, was this qualitatively good sex? Can you truly get into good BDSM on a hookup or do you need a trusted partner? (This is subjective, idk, but!) 

Also, how much kink is theoretical and private (to masturbate to) vs stuff you actually try? Especially if we believe that kink is nature, someone isn’t less kinky if they’re celibate, the way someone isn’t less gay if they’re celibate, or even a virgin. As Daniel becomes more and more obsessed with vampires, and with Armand, does it take over how he jerks off? Does he think about getting bitten? HE LIKES SNUGGLING WITH DEAD THINGS.

So like, there IS an element of Daniel being the unwilling witness of Armand’s rapidly shifting hyperfixations, and it’s natural that fandom pervs would extend that to sex acts and kinks. I LOVE IT, yes! It makes sense. 

But when you say like, which one of them is in charge, I wonder if it’s relevant if we assume Daniel enjoys it. (Does he? Would he? Resentful, cold?)

Here’s some points that come to mind when I imagine it as purely Armand’s doing:

💦 People sometimes misunderstand BDSM dynamics when it comes to power and control, because BDSM is a consensual fantasy between two adults. The sub is just as in control, because they allow it. In that sense: Do we believe Armand respects Daniel’s consent? Would he force Daniel to participate if he wasn’t enjoying himself? 

🩸 (How much can we compare this to Venice and how Armand was prepared for vampirism? I’m putting this in parentheses bc I’m putting a pin in this one, I CANNOT ADD A SUB-ESSAY INTO THIS POST ABOUT COMPARING VENICE TO DEVILS MINION but thinking of this too. Returning to the under-negotiated kink in Venice and how much is diegetic to the text, how does experiencing a spectrum of sexuality benefit someone’s last years alive ((sub-parentheses: does Armand flip-flop on turning Daniel as much as Marius did with Armand, does Armand subliminally know he’ll turn Daniel one day, does he go through these experiences as a precursor to turning Daniel eventually?)) are these experiences more for Armand to process the way he was groomed for asexual immortality vs being purely selfless and for Daniel’s benefit?)

💦 Armand uses Daniel as his usher into the modern age, and is it fair to assume he could sense Daniel’s kinkiness and knew that this was the person for him? 

💦 How dubious is Daniel’s consent here? How addicted to Armand’s Blood is he by the time they start fucking around? Is he already within the throes of Ricean Omnisexuality where he’s down for whatever? Does the Blood influence this as well? Is there a secret subliminal violence creeping into your body when you’ve been drinking it again and again? What about less violent kinks, like your feederism fic? Does the Blood encourage all types of excess and consumption??? 

But if DANIEL is the driving force here, I still must consider:

💦 He meets Armand and his life essentially ends when he’s 20 years old. Was he really self-aware of his kinks? Did he know himself very well sexually yet? 

💦 While exploring kinks can be mutually beneficial by sating Armand’s need for WEIRD HUMAN STUFF, maybe it IS something Daniel wants. It’s something he’s missing out on, because he checked out of regular human life when he was 20. Like, everyone’s different, so, I’m not saying that people can’t be sexually articulate at 20, but I know I fucking wasn’t! And I personally never fucked anyone that age who was good at it LMAO. So like how old would Daniel have been before he experimented enough to really know what he liked, and how much of him getting to know his sexuality involved Armand during the next decade?

💦 And this ties into Armand being his sugar daddy! That’s canon! Armand is his sugar daddy! If Daniel, at 28 years old, starts lamenting “I wish I’d gotten the chance to try watersports when I still had a normal life :( “ wouldn’t Armand have arranged that for him? 

🩸 (Again let’s talk about Venice and what did Armand learn there about being the vampire lover, how much does he process and repeat on Daniel, and for whose benefit?)

💦 If Daniel is an innately kinky person, and realizes as he’s approaching 30 that he never really got to explore it properly, wouldn’t Armand usher him through that experience? Even if Armand didn’t plan to turn him, I wonder if he saw the window of Daniel’s mortal experience closing, maybe he worried that this is the type of thing people need to be wild about while they’re still so young. And outside of stigmatizing Daniel's age, it's also about how he was becoming less and less healthy, dying of alcoholism at 32, so there was a small window here for them to have sex adventures.

So basically, I’m saying that the nature half feels very much like Daniel being a monsterfucker, the nurture half is the actual experiences he got to have. And I don’t think he’d be in this situation in the first place if he wasn’t a bit of a monsterfucker, and wasn't a innately into danger and pain. Like, we don’t get a TON of examples but Gretchen and Babette didn’t try to fuck vampires! We know that vampires give humans the heebie jeebies! What kind of sick fuck is into that?!?!?!? 

I don’t really have one single answer here. When it comes to the large library of kinks I think either of them can be blamed, and I also think it 100% makes sense to use Armand as a vehicle to write fic about them as if they’re another collection of human oddities for him to explore. But even using Armand’s weird bullshit to process that doesn’t mean it’s not mutually beneficial, and I think it gets into a fuzzier area that’s up to the writer when it comes to their take on the relationship, how dubious the consent is, how much do they actually like each other and get along? Can it be mutually beneficial in the end even if one person is driving? (see: the conversation about the second whipping scene in TVA and how it works out in the end.) Is it something they have fun agreeing to and negotiating in advance? 

I can totally see how someone might write this as a fun thing that they talk about beforehand as easily as it could be Armand forcing mystery adventure on Daniel and suddenly he’s tied up in some shitty apartment in Hells Kitchen with some man pissing on him, and did he ever even reveal this kink to Armand or did Armand pull it out of his head? 

The ship dynamic is so fucked up and coercive and resentful and toxic, even though there is real love here, so there’s this whole spectrum to use when you build your fanworks and headcanons!!!!!!! AND LIKE

IF IT’S COERCIVE AND FUCKED UP, DOES IT DRIVE THEM FURTHER APART OR BRING THEM CLOSER TOGETHER? IS DANIEL RESENTFUL AND COLD AND DOES THIS CAUSE FIGHTS? IS THIS A WAY FOR THEM TO PROCESS SOME OF THEIR COLDNESS AND RESENTMENT BECAUSE THEY AREN’T GOOD COMMUNICATORS? DO THEY DO BETTER AFTER THESE SESSIONS AND FEEL CLOSER BECAUSE THEY BROKE THROUGH SOMETHING NEITHER OF THEM KNEW HOW TO SAY?

Gosh idk.

Anyway I apologized in the beginning for mansplaining but I also want to apologize for this non answer LMFAO. I hope it doesn’t feel like a cop-out to not have a real answer, it’s just that I think there is such a rich context with a MENAGERIE of possibility !!!!!!!