#armand has taken over my brain | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

apoptoses · 3 months ago

Note

JESS i’m having louis/armand/daniel brain rot again, i wanna know your thoughts 🥺 specifically like, are there any things that armand and daniel enjoyed during their DM years that you think they might pick back up with louis at trinity gate? i feel like in my head, daniel is always kind of the third wheel (at trinity gate, at least), but i’m really fascinated by the idea of LOUIS being the one to step into their world for a change

oh man oh man, I LOVE this question!! and i have so many thoughts!!

Movies: we know Louis watches movies from how he kept showing up at Lestat's in body thief to stare at his tv lol But I think Armand and Daniel have so many inside jokes from all of the weirdo movies they used to watch, or quotes that they repeat and Louis doesn't get it. So I think they'd really enjoy sitting him down and subjecting him to the Worst Hits of Armand's Movie Phase.

And Daniel especially would enjoy the validation that some of these are fuckin terrible films LOL They could mind gift back and forth about how insipid Louis finds the plot until Daniel is sitting there choking back laughter because finally, someone who agrees Time Bandits isn't that funny.

Video Games: I don't mean modern console games, I mean like classic arcade games and pinball machines. Which Armand probably has a whole room of them in the basement somewhere, lovingly restored and in perfect condition. And I think Louis would be a little hesitant- he seems like the type who acts 'above' certain things just because if he tries it and sucks at it he'll feel humiliated. But even he can't resist the siren call of PacMan and eventually he's knocked them both down on the scoreboard and taken the top spot.

(Also they like to go out a lot so sometimes they end up at like, Dave n Busters LOL Which is far more contentious because ugh, it's noisy and tacky and smells like that radioactive 'cheese' mortals cover their nachos with. But your jock!Louis headcanons have bewitched me and I think they could soothe him by getting him to shoot hoops on the basketball game)

Going Out-Out: Louis is such a homebody when left to his own devices and now that they've got Trinity Gate, home to whatever vampires want to stop by, what's the point in spending time among mortals?

So they'd ease him in with some random one-off classes ("Come, Louis, we've an appointment to learn to make fresh pasta tonight" "Yeah, I know, what's the point when we don't eat, just don't argue with him, it'll be fun" And you know what? It is). And then they'd take him to random stuff from the meetup app (or not so random, because both of them know Louis wouldn't be able to resist debating strangers at a weekly book club).

And then they're back to running around strange apartment buildings to meet up and coming artists, and accepting invites to follow their classmates down to a local bar, and crashing the sets of night shoots around New York. It goes better when it's the three of them because when someone is over it and ready to go home there's no obligation to stay and keep their partner company. No pressure to do anything but enjoy existing together out in the world for a few hours.

Special mentions:

board games (the more obscure the better)

travel (this time Louis and Daniel are more mentally present lol)

letting armand play sugar daddy and picking their outfits for the ballet (which leads to some altercations that have armand feeling like that post about 'help my subs have unionized')

weird 70s/80s craft nights (louis ends up gifting his tie dye shirt to lestat, armand and daniel send theirs to marius)

'treasure hunting' aka scamming the wealthy out of their art collections (louis doesn't care about the value, he does however feel some righteous indignation over important historical pieces being kept in vaults as some tech bro's 'investment'; daniel is just happy to finally understand how armand does it, and take part in it himself)

abusing kitchen gadgets (doesn't matter who you are, playing 'will it blend' can catch the fascination of even the most arrogant, erudite vampires)

#THIS IS SO LONG omg #more questions like these pls i feel so alive #i hope i understand louis and these all seem CORRECT lol #but this was so fun honestly i love thinking about the three of them!!!#vc headcanons #apoptoses answers #armand/daniel/louis

25 notes · View notes

nalyra-dreaming · 6 months ago

Note

Heeey, Nalyra :)) same anon about marius/ armand as before!! :D

Yeah, I agree that what they're portraying in the show is hinted in the books, in some way or another. I understand why some people would say Amadeo was "groomed and abused" by his maker, though the show is making me feel like when GOT changed daenerys' first time in the show.

Now, you and someone else touched on the topic of rebranding memory and even that Santino might have made Armand think Marius whored him out. Do you think that Armand might be, alongside these things Santino might have put inside his head as he was brainwashed, lying to himself, trying to make Marius seem worse than he was? As if Amadeo had no choice, as if he was just his slave and not had became his lover? I could see that, especially if he has already met Marius in the show and is disappointed he didn't look for him for so long when he thought Marius to be dead

anyway, thank you so much for the response!! sorry for any typos or gramma mistakes, when i read your ask i noticed i had made some haha English is not my first language :p

Well, I mean... within the context of the torture and the cult mentality they had... them trying to "rebrand" what Armand and Marius had there would fit, imho.

Armand was brain washed, for centuries. That is no trifle.

As stated before, I do not want to take away from the show pointing out certain things here. (And as said I do like them putting their fingers into wounds. And I DO think the books more than hint.) But the show also plays with "memory is a monster" and this is definitely an instance of that. Worse even, since it was literal brain washing and torture.

There is also the aspect that Armand might have also realigned some things that happened simply to deal over time. To deal with the loss, to deal with the void within himself. Marius was taken from him after all, and he did think him dead for centuries. Eventually he likely had to harden himself, or he would have perished.

Given how the show is structured I don't think we will get the full picture here for a while yet.

And yes, I also think that the Armand in Dubai might already know Marius is alive... but he and Marius were not always on the best of terms (in the books), given history (very understandable, imho). It's very complicated and I do not see the show shying away from the parallels and reasons for Armand's fear of abandonment there either.

I don't think the Armand in Dubai has any reason to soften Marius, even if he knows already he is alive. As said before, I can easily see it having been Marius who did the "final edit" on Daniel's brain... at some point of the relationship. And Armand... would not have taken kindly to that I think.

#Anonymous #ask nalyra #iwtv s2 #iwtv #amc iwtv #interview with the vampire #interview with the vampire s2 #amc interview with the vampire #the devil's minion #armand #daniel molloy #devil's minion #marius de romanus #iwtv marius

21 notes · View notes

pynkhues · 3 months ago

Note

Am I the only person alive who would find it (darkly) hilarious if Armand did erase the rest of the 70s interview memory at Louis’ request? I think we can all agree Armand has taken a lot of liberties with the truth and he’s a pretty seasoned manipulator but I’m just so amused with the idea that that was one of the only times he was telling the truth (mostly because of how hard Daniel was rolling his eyes over it and because of how insane it sounds.) it’s got that same energy as that one co-worker who’s always causing trouble who you finally call out, only to find this was the one time they weren’t responsible.

On a similar note, because of how Louis is portrayed (ie with a spotty or unreliable memory at times) and how Armand is portrayed (lying, sometimes directly and sometimes by omission) how do you think about the bits of story we get from the two of them re authenticity? I see lots of takes that just…sweep anything complex or unsavory under the proverbial ‘blame Armand’ rug or the ‘Louis’ brain is Swiss-cheese’ blanket as opposed to examining each action and element of the story through the lens of where each character is coming from in that moment. (For example, I’ve seen plenty of folks question if Louis’ memories of lestat can be trusted at all or if it’s all just Armand’s tinkering to make him look bad and just…it’s a tv show. From a practical standpoint they literally cannot rip up everything they’ve shown you. Rehashing memories can only be done some of the time or the audience gets frustrated. And from a story perspective, can’t we take Louis at his word at least some of the time until shown otherwise?)

(Side note and ironic given my ask but I wish we had half as much discourse about Louis as a capitalist and his understanding of the commodification of experiential human things such as art as we do about whether all his memories are unreliable re his romantic relationships. Thank you so much for including the gallery scene in your fic.)

Hahah, I don't think you'd be alone in finding it darkly hilarious if Louis had asked Armand to take the memory away. Hell, the ambiguity of that scene works because it's believable that Louis would ask - Louis really pendulums between heavy handed repression and unrestrained self-indulgence, and it seems like a dam burst for him that night when it came to Lestat. His name had been unuttered in their home for 23 years! And given Armand can read his mind and could clearly sense thoughts of Lestat in Paris, I imagine he's not been deliberately not thought about too. And suddenly a night with Daniel and it's all he can say! All he can think about! The pressure he's placed on the box he keeps Lestat in has loosened just enough to let it all come out!

To know Armand tried to contact Lestat, to feel his own weakness, to know Lestat might know not just his mental state but his crumbling resolve in terms of the promise he made him in Magnus' tower - - it's not hard to see him asking for Armand's help in repressing it all again.

And in terms of their authenticity in the telling of their stories - - I think it varies! I think Armand definitely and deliberately finds the truth malleable, but that doesn't mean I think he lies about everything. Like you said, he tends to prefer to omit than outright lie - like omitting Gabrielle in his recounting of 1800s Paris or the truth about San Francisco, or, I'm sure we'll discover in s3, Lestat being in Paris in the 40s.

I actually don't think he would've tampered with Louis' memories of Lestat at all though - I don't think he would've needed to. Louis is a really punishing character and Lestat's a volatile one, I don't think it would be all that hard for Louis to focus on Lestat's worse behaviour, or to allow his memory to re-write certain events with the most bad faith interpretations of Lestat's actions, thoughts or words as a means to keep him at an emotional distance. Memories aren't facts, even when we want them to be, and I think for Louis they're as malleable when he needs them to be as the truth is for Armand.

The result is that they enable each other's untruths, I think, which goes to the facade of their relationship. Louis can try and mould his memories into something that justifies his choices, and Armand can mould the truth in a way that makes their love story something more than it is, but that doesn't mean that it's entirely lies or entirely inauthentic. It's a version of a story that they've enabled in one another to perform a happiness neither of them feels, but neither knows an alternative to because Louis' grief struck, traumatised and clinically depressed and Armand has been groomed by a monster, has undealt with trauma of his own and an incapacity to be alone.

So yeah, I think a lot of it is true, it's just not a whole truth.

#and thank you!#i totally agree about louis and capitalism #it's SUCH an interesting area to talk about and i feel it gets overshadowed a lot #i had a lot of fun writing that gallery scene #one of the fics i'm writing for kinktober plays around with him in the world of stocks and private investment too #partially because i'm watching industry #and partially because i want to write him bored with modern forms of business and investment and doing something unhinged as a result lol #louis asks #armand asks #iwtv asks

12 notes · View notes

crazykuroneko · 8 months ago

Text

Rewind the Tape — IWTV S1E04 Rewatch

Finally, I'm back with my rewatch for @iwtvfanevents after having to microdosing Ep 4 because of limited time, mood, and I just fell unconscious once I hit my bed. Again, FYI from before: this is my first time rewatching the show (excluding indirect watch through YouTube reactions), and its purpose for me to refresh my mind and noticing things. So, I won't dwell on certain ongoing or past theories, but I'll take notes about the possibilities I notice as the rewatch goes for myself. Also, disclaimer, because I've had people put words into my mouth before: When I'm assuming the reason a certain character does what they do, it's not to give them an excuse. It's my way of trying to understand what the writers have in their minds. For me, if the action of a character doesn't make sense in that character's eyes, based on their personality, then it's bad writing.

Okay, that's long enough. Be careful with the S2 spoiler alerts. Time to meet ✨ Claudia✨

• It's been 10 years since Daniel published a book and his publisher seems questioning his ability to write a book.

• Armand barely gets any sunlight here.

• *Googling* Levodopa is used to reduce Parkinson's symptoms, like tremors, stiffness, and slowness, which are caused by lack of dopamine. It works by being converted to dopamine in brain.

• "Electronic mailbox" Armand, you're so funny.

• Resting? Wait, have they ever did an interview during mornings before? Ep 1, it's night. Ep 2, during dinner time to late at night. Okay, it seems Ep 3 starts in the day to night. Gonna pay attention to this more.

• The interior designer is a woman. "Louis is missing the 'natural' world" What tree is that again? I'm bad with plants.

• Claudia wrote her name and the year on her first diary. Cute. (But ofc she probably stopped doing that after Loustat read her diaries)

• They arrived in Paris November 14, 1945. A week after Lestat's birthday, fyi. There's a headcanon Armand's (it seems people got it from a wikia, which was taken from an official calendar, but no one has checked that calendar) is November 11.

• They're in Ploiesti in 1941, eating POWs.

• My caption doesn't write it, but Lestat says, "Impossible. Elle est trop jeune." (She's too young) Oh, Louis 😔

• "I just need her not to die". And Lestat probably recalled Louis crying on their bed over not able to have a child, and there they went to doom themselves and Claudia. Anything (because unlike Louis, he knows all the consequences) to keep Louis happy AND stay with him.

• The contrast between Louis' and Claudia's transformation. Lestat doesn't let her to drink much, just enough to turn her. There's no gentleness or anything when Lestat holds her. In fact, the camera stays on his rough hold, highlighting the ugliness of it. Isn't in the books being turned without consent seen akin to rape?

• "Hell demons" lol. I wonder when she got his first diary and when she arrived at that conclusion.

• "It's my new house?" "It is if you want it to be" as if she has another option. Louis, you're so funny.

• Delaying to tell Claudia that she needs to feed on humans. Telling her there's another "choice" than eating humans. Expecting Claudia to feel regret the next day after killing a human. Louis, stop putting your own feelings in her.

• "He has to relay on my words to understand me. Just like humans." "We are a family?" Monsters who have to keep a bit of humanity to get along, who are also playing house like humans.

• You could tell Lestat is already sensitive about being left out in the telepathic conversation since the beginning.

• Claudia witnessing queer relationship for the first time is so amusing lol

• Claudia says ACAB 😌

• This scene doesn't feel "smooth" to me. I don't know if it's the editing or the writing. First, that last line by the cop is too long for such a short action. Second, i think they could pick a better intonation for "not a cop" there. Plus, the placement makes it feel like they almost forgot to put it.

• Claudia needs twice amount of blood than Loustat. She's still energetic when the sleep time comes. Noted.

• "Kill juice" Lestat and Claudia are bonding over vampirism.

• "Have you seen my slippers?" "Under the chair by the window" The domesticity uwu.

• The lines about Lestat talking about Claudia's writing habit are so witty when you remember he canonly writes the Vampire Chronicles books. A platonic kiss for IWTV writers again.

• Claudia's new coffin is called The Feathered Nest. A call back to Louis saying him in Lestat's nest in Ep 2.

• Since the beginning, Claudia likes to ask and figure out things that she doesn't know, while Louis won't say anything to not rock the boat.

• "We try to accustom her to the thought of coming home to God" Oh gosh, Louis is so bad at lying 😭

• Okay, seriously. We know in Ep 2, after Louis is just turned that /at least/ his sight and hearing becomes more sensitive. And in this episode, Claudia can smell the cop's blood from afar. But this lore doesn't consistent with the stinky bodies at their home in Ep 5 and the fact Claudia can stalk Lestat many times (and ofc Claudia and Louis at Antoinette's place in Ep 6 as well). This uncontinuity gives me a headache. OR after they manage to control their senses (Lestat's saying "focus on my voice, a single strain"), their senses basically become normal and only can do more when they willing it? I'm trying to make sense of it here.

• "I miss sleeping with you." So, in good days, they sleep together in Louis' coffin. They /probably/ haven't been doing it since Antoinette thing started (I mean, I wouldn't). That's 8 months. (The sanctioned infidelity narration is on Feb 1917, Claudia started to write her diary in late Sept 1917 and she still sleeps with Louis by that time. Based on this timeline)

• "Sometimes, you gotta be careful where you dig, you understand?" Not to fast forward to S2, but this sounds so ominous.

• Louis in the night with this pink striped shirt 🥰

• "Is that what he's up to when he goes out alone?" No wonder stalking Lestat is the first thing she does after Charlie.

• Do I believe Louis' answer is true? I do, because writing-wise, I don't see there's any reason for Lestat to cheat (as in having a relationship with someone else, because I could see him still making out with humans before eating them) when they keep spending their time together except when Lestat is hunting and Louis and Claudia go out together like in this scene. Plus, unlike in Ep 6, during this era Claudia still follows the no telepathic talking rule. (See: Claudia's "I'll tell Uncle Les you talk to me this way" later) Something, I assume, makes Lestat feel alienated from the two and goes to cheat to find a connection with another on his own. But I digress.

• "Used to caught up in human affairs. Then you."

• Okay, at least Daniel waits Armand to finish his sunnah prayer before interrupting him, though Armand should continue doing his Ashr prayer soon. Anyway, i wish they used adhan that's clearer. I mean, I could only listen the beginning of each phrase, not the end.

• Claudia throwing a thing at Lestat and he barely reacted and proceed to pick it off the floor right away. For a period of time, Claudia is indeed the queen in that house. "This was given to me by a marquis..." If that's from Lestat's father, which makes that a family heirloom, and he gave that to Claudia. That means big for a Provider man like Lestat. (hashtag me and Lestat loved Claudia once propaganda) They are supposed to have 6 years of "good time".

• "When they can't (figuring out their problems), I can always get between them and make it right." Claudia is literally a band-aid. I suppose she helps them communicating because as I said in previous episodes, Loustat tend to not address the real problem, just shift to something that will make them feel better and forget it until it comes up again.

• *S2 spoiler alert* No, never think about how Claudia's interest in acting probably grew from the times Loustat bringing her to watch picture shows and Lestat acting them out in front of them. And in the end, it's what makes her fall into the trap of the troupe easier in S2. No, we're fine.

• "Know what her last words are?" I love her psychopath side, obsessing over last words after being called a devil in one.

• Oh, Grace's inflection when saying "uncle". They have heard a lot of homophobic jabber and satanic accusations from Florence over the years, no doubt.

• This is from Claudia's POV, so it's interesting how she's paying attention and remembers to write it down.

• Louis really has put down his dutiful son and brother "hat" after having a family himself.

• I think this is probably the last time Claudia admits she has a lot in common with Lestat *insert xie lian's idk whether i have to cry or laugh here*

• That scene of Claudia eating the guy is so classic horror, complete with the blood splatter on glass. Love.

• Lestat really brings her to Lovers' Lane without thinking about the effects. He probably thinks because her appetite stays big like a kid, her mind will stay like that forever.

• "I don't remember buying that outfit" Lestat bought all Claudia's outfits ofc. (I don't regard interviews as part of canon, but Sam did say that Louis chose Claudia's outfits)

• My theory: Lestat could notice when Claudia and Louis telepathically speaking if he pays attention to their expressions. I mean, he clearly has a thing for being alienated by telepathic connection (for a good reason, if they adapt that part of the book, cmiiw), so it makes sense if he just can tell.

• THE HORSE IS CALLED BELLA LOL

• She really has a crush on the first good man she meets. So adorable, if not for her monologue

• She knocks the railing every time she walks towards Loustat's room? Oh I would like to know the backstory that causes this rule/habit 👀. But if it's a rule, it's an interesting when you recall Lestat's "Child. Intervening the romance of the parents" or something like that in Ep 6.

• Waiting on balcony just like her father in Ep 1. The writers are strong with their "Evil of my evil" propaganda.

• Claudia figures out how to block people's thoughts since teenager. Louis has never had a reason to do it

• Again, Claudia is such a curious girl. She dives right in with Charlie

• Sorry, but the editing in this episode is kinda sloppy. I keep noticing things 😭

• This connection Claudia has with last words. It's been awhile but I wonder if we'll get to see it again. *S2 spoiler alert* Perhaps Madeleine says something to her before you-know-what. Or Claudia says something to Louis instead. I just love patterns yknow.

• Daniel Hart is just slaying in the background with his music.

• Vampires feel "loose" when they're aroused, which leads to become very bitey.

• That's why she goes to find out how vampirism works right away. Suddenly Lestat can't do what he did to her. She realizes she knows nothing about her current life

• That scene of Lestat and Claudia at the incinerator... Past Louis doesn't know they're burning Charlie and what exactly what Lestat says there. Imagine reading the latter in her diary.

• The transition from Lestat's whole speech about not being close to a mortal to Daniel 🤌🤌🤌

• If Daniel is true that Louis has had all of the diaries in '70s, so my guess Louis doesn't look fine at all in the flashback is right. He's "wearing hats" again.

• I wonder what Louis wanted to say. But knowing him and judging from his reaction to Daniel's brashness, it's something that sugarcoats Claudia's position in their "family"

• The way Claudia knocks the railing but then it goes weaker, she doesn't really care about the houserules or childish habits anymore

• The last scene is a nice hint/nod to you-know-what, but also I once read someone saying that what she does is the equivalent of a teenager doing self-harming when they're depressed, and I can't unsee that anymore. I think that's a spot-on.

• This is the last episode we hear "In Throes in Increasing Wonder" as a closing music btw. You know, the music that represent Loustat's love. They really say we're going downhill

Summary:

For the previous episodes, I always finished my rewatch and tried to figure out what theme of that episode. Of course it's always about Louis because this is Louis' season first and foremost. But for the theme of this episode, I think it's: Louis' first meeting with Claudia and the first time he has failed her. The first part is obvious, the second part, like I said above, Louis only finds how far Lestat's action is to Claudia after he reads her diaries later. I think, he sees that as his first failure to her; unable to stop Lestat making it worse for her. And we will see Claudia criticize this more in Ep 6.

This episodes also shows Louis' misconception about Claudia. He expects Claudia to react the same way to vampirism as he is. And we will see more of this in the later episodes (but of course the most obvious one is in Ep 7)

This episode is in Claudia's POV, but I like to call it "the closest thing to ideal life Louis has ever gotten", at least until Charlie happens. Like Lestat says in the church scene, Louis wears a lot of "hats": being the good son and good executive in charge of their fortune for his family, being the good straight man, being the good savvy businessman for his family and his own people, and later being a good vampire for Lestat. This time, he gets to take most of them, if not all, off and focus himself wholly on Claudia and Lestat, his family. He says himself, Claudia's existense silences all the noise, chaos, the crisis of his former existence. He has a daughter who has literal telepathic connection to him, someone who can know what he feels without saying anything. Someone by whom he doesn't feel being judged because he can know what she thinks. He has a husband who spends most of his time with them as a family. Who takes their daughter together to shop, Louis choosing the stuffs, Lestat paying for it. Who protects their family when they need to fulfill their daughter's needs (see: the buying coffin scene). Who also has a quality time with their daughter, even though it's mostly about killing humans. Unfortunately, it's rigged to burn, because Claudia won't be a child forever despite her body, outgrowning the very particular role Loustat need from her to maintain their play house.

Oh, I almost forgot, I wonder what the arrangement is with Louis' diet during this happy period. He doesn't do as much action as he did in previous episodes and we do see him eating animals still, but it looks like his sex life is thriving. He has control over his emotions pretty well. So, I assume he doesn't starve himself completely. At least, not as bad as he did before. Perhaps, this is one of the problems Claudia says she has "to smooth out". Though we know later she has never said directly to Louis how she actually doesn't completely agree with his diet choice from Episode 7. *S2 spoiler alert* And we know he later decides to eat human every other day to survive their European trip. My long time theory is Lestat manipulates him into drinking from him at least once a week as a solution. (and that's why he's more powerful than his book counterpart when he's not completely starving himself) 🤔

By the way, since this is the middle of the season, I'd like to say I think this is overall my least favorite episode so far. Mostly from the technical side, but I still love how they sprinkle hints of Claudia's own personality. I think my most favorite episode overall is Ep 1. I just love how their built Louis' personality in it. The performance is crazy, and the directing set the tone of the rest of the season. The directing in Ep 3 is top notch as well, especially towards the end. You really could feel the growing tension. The writing weaving all this history and race problem into Louis' personal life is genius as well.

#interview with the vampire #iwtv #rewind the tape #vampterview #iwtvfanevents #tw rape mention #tw ED mention #moi.txt

13 notes · View notes

caltropspress · 1 year ago

Text

DEBRIEFING: 5 August 2023 | Brooklyn, NY | The Nursery at Public Records

Armand Hammer’s We Buy Diabetic Test Strips Pop Up Party, featuring Fatboi Sharif, Cavalier, and DJ Haram

On the helix approaching the Lincoln Tunnel I saw a Virginia plate that read PHUNKE—its occupants seemed anything but, but who am I to judge? Not since I saw EGO DETH on a Volkswagen Kombi in the artificial light of the Holland while driving in to see woods’ Church release show at Baby’s All Right in early June have I taken a license plate as a sign. Fred Moten writes that “the sign works its terrible magic precisely from within a radical non-isolation,” but it’s a bit too early in the everyday struggle for theory, wouldn’t you agree? What I’m focused on is the WE BUY DIABETIC TEST STRIPS signs plastered over walls and poles. A sight as common in NYC as POST NO BILLS and CA$H FOR CAR$. We close our eyes to these signs, oblivious to their ubiquity. We’ve become blind to them. But I saw the sign with “Armand Hammer” appended to it, and it opened up my eyes. Life is demanding without understanding. So I overstand the signs and signals sent through wires and cables when I dial 1-877-ARM-N-HMR. I focus. I fixate. I study Alexander Richter’s photograph from the forthcoming album of a lamppost covered in taped and torn flyers. The edges fray and flicker in city winds. Looks like the tendons and flesh rotting from the bones of Death in Hans Baldung Griend’s Der Tod und das Mädchen (1517) painting. Looks like some real litter-ature. Gathering on August 5th, just six days shy of hip-hop’s much-heralded 50th anniversary, I think of hip-hop flyers of the past, specifically Kool Herc’s Back to School Jam at 1520 Sedgwick. But MC Debbie D—a flyerologist of the highest order—tells us that the index card flyer is a phony, a fake, a fugazi replica, a forgery. Fifty years into this thing and we’re still searching for authentic experiences. Fifty people at a rap show and one’s an informant. I’m here to inform on what felt—brain to bone—like an authentic experience.

3PM in the sun. I lined up with the other RSVPs (the show was free, in every sense of the word) outside the venue. Summer summer summertime. Fresh Prince via Juice shit. The temp on my dash read 90°. Kids walked down Butler Street mantled with beach towels from the Douglass and DeGraw Pool. Spotted lanternflies dive-bombed my legs. Thank god I lotioned my pale neck. When the powers-that-be finally allowed us entry, the musk of maryjane and malignant body odor was thick. Now I knew (it hit me in the fucking face) what that PHUNKE license plate was all about. “Funk,” from the French dialectal funkière: “to blow smoke on.” I’m not complaining, though—it was a communal fumigation. We were funky technicians, one and all.

“The Nursery” that Public Records has built falls somewhere between greenhouse and Zen garden. The square space is essentially an urban enclosure where pine and plane trees and fresh lumber create a private performance patio, a paradise just beyond the concertina wire, as woods might say. The stage is bedecked with potted cacti, while I spied A. Richter across the way with his Fujifilm GA645Zi amongst the bamboo stalks. ELUCID’s green Champion mesh football jersey (the Bo Jackson jersey in the laundry, apparently) matched the soundsystem monitors, and I found what little shade there was to be had and huddled close to the soundman’s booth, a shed of glass. I almost managed to forget I was cordoned off by beige shipping containers.

It wasn’t long before I was entertaining the idea of going full Fatboi Sharif, i.e., shirtless. Sharif himself only made it through half his set before shedding his garb—there wasn’t even a hospital gown in sight. The heat was on as soon as he came out to Can Ox’s “Scream Phoenix”—rising from flames. El-P’s Phillip Glass sample could’ve easily made a Sharif beat (we’re only talking a single generation removal, really). Sharif made quick work of some of his most recent altered realities. “Static Vision” included a call [I ain’t scared!] and response [Motherfucker, I ain’t scared!]. He ran through “Phantasm,” “Dimethyltryptamine,” “Designer Drugs,” “Think Pieces,” and “The Christening” like a buxom blonde through an abandoned building, revving chainsaw in pursuit. At times, his speech slurred into a makeshift Swahili (word to This Heat). It was strange to see Sharif in daylight, sunstruck, as I’m so used to seeing him in blood-flooded cellars or Joseph Conrad’s heart of darkness environs, like he alludes to on “Dimethyltryptamine.” He barreled through ventricles, riding shotgun in Sir Menelik’s Space Cadillac. DJ Boogaveli (who hypes up Sharif like it’s a pep rally at Springwood High) shouted about family at the start of “The Christening,” which sounded sincere compared to the tone Sharif takes on Decay—there the family must be of the Manson or Duggar milieu. He finished the track acapella, exhausting the last of his energy, only to reinvigorate and reanimate for a rioting rendition of “Smithsonian.”

I’ve yet to invest the necessary time into Cavalier’s work, though I know him from his association with Quelle Chris. With an album coming down the pike from Backwoodz, I found myself in the lucky position of witnessing his set incapable of discerning old material from new. He took centerstage, acting as his own hype-man and DJ (though he did high-five the invisible “DJ Light-skin” at one point), and his kineticism was immediately apparent. His floral button-down danced over his body as he rapped vitally. I felt vivisected by his exhortations and incisive observations. Keep in mind, my age prohibits me from becoming enthralled by any performer whose work I’m unfamiliar with—a sort of neuropathy of the soul. But he had me open and endeared by the time he implored, Put the tiger balm on it, put the tiger balm. As you wish, Cav. I lathered my chest.

“Y’all believe in magic? No? That’s okay.” Cav said it so quickly that he didn’t give anyone a chance to answer, but he assumed correctly, I think. Still, I was smitten by his conjurations—he made me a believer (no small task). “King me,” he rapped, “I’m trying to make it all across the board.” And, by the end of it, he had the entire crowd shouting “KING ME” back at him without a problem. MAKE SOME BLOODCLOT NOISE! he growled, and we didn’t need to be asked twice. IT’S VIBRATIONAL, AIN’T IT? With a seemingly innocuous phrase he was able to summon the spirit of the crowd. Over the course of his 25-minute set, I heard him rhyme epiglottis, brag of spitting a verse while performing cunnilingus, give a lesson on homophones, and regale us with stories of winking at cops in Whole Foods. “From the Tree of Life I smoke foliage,” he said, and the trees Betty Smith saw grow in Brooklyn circulated through his lungs. “We need to bring back weed spots—it’s not nostalgia.” Though he did rap nostalgically at times, letting us know he was born in BK, went to school not far from where we stood, and though he’s representing the 504 now, Brooklyn born-and-raised ossified his being into bone.

THIS IS CHURCH, YA FEEL ME? And I did feel him. I spent the week culling quotes about improvisation from Amiri Baraka’s Black Music (1967) for another self-assignment (I don’t work for anyone, son), and highlighted this passage: “...to go back in any historical (or emotional) line of ascent in Black music leads us inevitably to religion, i.e., spirit worship. This phenomenon is always at the root in Black art, the worship of spirit—or at least the summoning of or by such force.” [Peace to Kehinde Alonge—always at the ready with choicest recommendations.] Cavalier danced upon the altar and rapped his sermon relentlessly, tirelessly. I was raised up on tippy-toes, enthralled by the force of his spirit. THIS AIN’T JAZZ?! he asked. WHAT THE FUCK THEY TALKIN’ ABOUT MAN? I don’t know who’s doing that sort of talking, but they’d be hard-pressed to say such a thing in this public gathering. “Brooklyn, this is how it feels—all of us together: this is how it feels.” I believed in Cavalier’s magic by the end of his set. I was charmed by his satchel of High John de Conqueror. Let me know where to Venmo my tithe.

The heat index had my vision tunneling. When Armand Hammer stepped on stage, sounds were moving in reverse, and the Class-A dynamite duo took us back (way back) in time, when ELUCID was in “fifth grade in [his] dad jeans” and he “played Game Boy in the backseat.” woods, with his first words of the afternoon, said he “rather be codependent than co-defendants.” This must’ve been “Landlines,” the lead-off from the new album, seeing as how they shouted-out JPEGMAFIA, ELUCID rapped “leave a message after the beep,” and a dial tone toned between verses. It was off the hook, as they say.

They seemed to be following the official We Buy Diabetic Test Strips tracklist, because next up was “Woke Up and Asked Siri How I’m Gonna Die” (a song with a title so long that it must’ve come from the magnum mind of ELUCID). She replied, she replied, she replied… they repeated, but I didn’t quite catch what that chatbotbitch said. woods refashioned a line from “Remorseless” with “Life’s a blip, I’m swimming under the radar.” Life’s a blip and then you die, that’s why we puff lye. Further deepening the uncanny valley, their third offering to the musty masses included “fake trees in the Apple Store.” I’m sensing something about the excesses of tech after a cursory listen to these WBDTS tracks, the detritus and pollution it produces. To quote my damn self, something in line with “...a cell tower with evergreen branches: / …a drone with seagull feathers.” ELUCID revived “a double portion of protection for [him] and [his] niggas,” explaining he’s “trying to only say what’s necessary.” By any means, sir.

Cavalier was welcomed back to the stage for “I Keep A Mirror in My Pocket,” another new joint with Preservation on production. We the audience felt, collectively, like we were in the belly of the beast—those shipping container walls (a real Season 2 of The Wire sensation)—as Cav chorused and signified about the Big Bad Wolf. A cautionary tale, indeed. I can see clearly how Cavalier fits within the Backwoodz cadre.

The content of the next number left no question of its title. “Niggardly (Blocked Call),” if I was asked to predict, will be the cynosure of the new album. (Yeah, you heard me right dog, I said cynosure.) Produced by August Fanon (who was in the place to be—a rare appearance from an elusive mastermind who would humbly demur if you called him such, I’m supposing), the song has an R0 = 15 infectious hook: “Admittedly niggardly, I won’t even give these niggas bad energy.” woods, what with his penchant for scales and measurements, boils everything “down to the last red cent.” How does he do it? Well, MY HEART PUMP KETAMINE, he yells. We find woods in one of his ruthless, no Vaseline moods: “I eat knowing I’m starving my enemies.” Revenge is like the sweetest joy next to spending time with your kids, and woods picked up where his verse from “As the Crow Flies” left off. He closed his eyes and rapped to the rafters and the sky:

I write when my baby’s asleep, I sit in the room, in the dark, I listen to him breathe, I walk him to school and then the park, Hold they little hands while we cross the street, I think about my brother who is long gone, And this is all he ever dreamed.

ELUCID and woods repeated admittedly niggardly back-and-forth at the end, delighted with the wordplay.

They kept riding the August Fanon beatwork like Thomas Sankara in the Renault 5 as the killer chords from “Smile Lines” crept in. The crowd response was screw-faced sneers and shouted lyrics. One youngblood knew the song front to back, beginning to end—ELUCID acknowledged him from the stage: “Peace to the homie out there—he knew every word, man.” I watched the dude beam from the compliment. Even after writing profusely—profusely (fuck Caltrops and his non-existent editor, here comes the predator…)—about woods and ELUCID, I still can’t memorize their lines. Chalk it up to some neurological incapacity that arrived in my 30s. I envy those who commit songs like “Smile Lines” and “Smith + Cross” to memory. My not-so-supple gray matter just can’t cut it anymore.

My expectations for We Buy Diabetic Test Strips were upended by the tracks they debuted. I’d speculated an abrasive noise event; a Sheet Metal Music for the new millennium we’ll never reach; a kind of Schoolly D “P.S.K.” FML swagger. There’s certainly elements of that, just not as much as I was anticipating. (And who knows what noise the as-yet-unheard tracks might bring.) I assumed the shared space with Soul Glo over the past several years, the screechings zapped through the receiver on the toll-free number, and their recent appearance on Shapednoise’s Absurd Matter would be an indication of the Shape of Rap to Come. Speaking of which, woods sludged through his verse from “Family” before DJ Haram’s scrapyard percussion ushered in “Trauma Mic.”

Haram was at the helm for the entirety of Armand Hammer’s set, and she reveled and felt every ounce of her own beat. The buzzsaw sounds were like Baraka’s description of Don Ayler’s trumpet: “long blasts…in profound black technicolor.” ELUCID’s traumatized mic draped over his shoulder for the opening anvil strikes. He needed his hands free to clap in rhythm. The gesture was reminiscent, again, of Baraka’s analysis of the saxophone held by Albert Ayler (the elder Ayler), “a howling spirit summoner tied around the ‘mad’ Black man’s neck.”

The “Trauma Mic” video had me thinking on thematics of refuse and rubbish—you best protect your dreck. I thought back to the garbology Aesop sifted through, where I saw Bakunin’s barricades in the city streets and revisited the actions of The Motherfuckers in the late ’60s—they stood in solidarity with striking sanitation workers and dumped garbage at the doorstep of Lincoln Center. Armand Hammer—outfitted as scrappers, pitching barrels and coiling skeins of copper wire—are of the same spirit. They propose a cultural exchange of garbage for garbage.

woods bodied “No Hard Feelings” and was joined by damn-near the entire crowd. Had it sounding like a tenant revolt as we all screamed, LIKE THEY STEALING! The Aethiopes track equals, if not outright overtakes, “Asylum” and “Remorseless” as most affecting in the past year’s blitz of performances.

ELUCID stood on the precipice, at the edge of the stage, as he rapped through “Barbarians.” He went swimming into the crowd with his free arm, astro-spiritually. The refrain of “Who the fuck are you?” evolved from the accusatory tone heard on Rome to an existential “Who the fuck am I?” ELUCID and woods bandied the question between them like two college kids in the dorms at 2AM, faded as fidduck. The “intelligent fist” of woods and the “mysticism” of ELUCID (to use an equation Baraka applied to Milford Graves and Sonny Murray) working together to produce a manic mix. They kept the marriage going through “Mangosteen” before turning to the heliocentric worlds they invented in collaboration with the Alchemist on Haram. “Black Sunlight” and “Falling Out the Sky” had me thinking of Baraka (again!): “It only takes two to start a group. If the two are maturely strong, and have a oneness, then the others will feel it and touch their own sound, voice, or whatever.”

ELUCID’s last solo number was “Spellling,” and by then he was spent but still perseverating in the dopest way possible. “This is a physical experience,” ELUCID said as the song began, asking the soundman to turn the volume up higher. IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII been spelling, he spoketh [an ever ever elongated I and a shot-to-the-dome of “been”]. The I Told Bessie opener became what Baraka calls “an antiphonal rhythmic chant-poem-moan.” ELUCID’s voice was ragged by this point, a metallic scrape as he shouted about being “your momma’s favorite, since about ’88, ’89.” The down in “just got to heaven and I can’t sit down” was made malleable in how he twisted it around in his mouth. Split tongue heavy lifting.

He had nothing left when the alarming squeal whistle warp of “Stonefruit” started to play. But the audience assisted, screaming with him I REALLY CAME IN ON A CYCLONE as his voice gave out. woods jumped in early when it was his turn, which proved a moment of levity. To err is human, and woods—despite the adoration he’s been receiving—is endearingly human. That humanity is probably why so many of Armand Hammer’s fans have become zealous collectors, showing up at the venue with cardboard boxes full of vinyl, willing to wait patiently for woods and ELUCID to write their names in metallic Sharpies on these their prized possessions. “First Armand Hammer show in the states in a while,” woods said at one point. “Small flex,” ELUCID noted, chuckling. But they brought it home on Saturday. It was “As the Crow Flies” made manifest. woods brought all the Backwoodz family on stage at the conclusion of their set. The family atmosphere afforded by the 3PM start time was embellished by the sight of children on shoulders. It had the feel of a triumphant affair. It’s winning, it’s winning, it’s winning…

Peace to the conversations that were had with Alex Richter, Willie Green, Max Heath, and Sharif.

Photos credit: Rory Simms

AH setlist:

1. Landlines 2. Woke Up and Asked Siri How I’m Gonna Die 3. [???] 4. I Keep A Mirror In My Pocket 5. Niggardly (Blocked Call) 6. Smile Lines 7. Family 8. Trauma Mic 9. No Hard Feelings 10. [???] 11. Barbarians 12. Mangosteen 13. Black Sunlight 14. Falling Out the Sky 15. Spellling 16. Stonefruit

#armand hammer #backwoodz studioz #public records #fatboi sharif #dj haram #cavalier #underground hip hop #brooklyn

11 notes · View notes

writingkitten · 2 years ago

Note

Hi! Love your work. Any chance you'd be interested in writing something w/ Armand Gamache? Or maybe you know someone in the fandom who would? This show is so underrated 😭

First of all thank you so much!!!!!! You’re so sweet 🥹

Second, since there’s interest in it I think I might just have to do it now! I love my sweet Armand toooo precious bb (and dude I can come up with some great stuff for our sweet detective omggggggggg)

In the meantime, I do have some posts featuring Armand! If you go to my pinned post, you’ll see the stuff I’ve done with him in the “ask” links! There are no fanfics (yet) and the writing is mostly horny brain rot lollll

Also @chrism02 might’ve done something already! I don’t know for sure (I’m sorry Chris I haven’t taken the time lately to check for new ficssssssss 😭 life stress and also guilt over reading but not writing has made me not read). But I’m confident in saying either Chris has written a fic already, or hasn’t but plans to/is working on one.

TL;DR - I’m gonna start working on one and I simp for @chrism02

#ask #armand gamache #three pines #molina-verse

17 notes · View notes

bandedbulbussnarfblat · 1 year ago

Text

Give Me Your Teeth

here is my latest Armand/Daniel fic, this one set in the devil's minion era. shameless PWP. NSFW

The music is so loud that Daniel can feel the bass thumping through the wall he’s pressed against. It’s a gay bar, so no one here cares if Armand pushes him against the wall and starts sucking on his neck. There are men embracing in dark corners all over the club.

Gay clubs are one of Armand’s favorite hunting grounds for the small drink. Once, Armand told him a vampire of his age could get by with only doing the small drink. Daniel has watched men bare their necks for him all night, has watched Armand slip off with them into the dark, out of sight.

He wishes Armand would let him watch him feed. But then, he doesn’t like the idea of Armand’s teeth in someone else’s throat. Not if he isn’t going to kill them after. It’s too intimate. Armand is his. He doesn’t want to share him with anyone else.

Except Louis. Louis was there first, and he’ll be there after. But Daniel doesn’t want to think of that. Not now, when Armand has his fangs buried in his throat and is sucking at it so sweetly. It feels amazing, the way it always does. It makes Daniel feel like he’s floating, like his body is buzzing, but so relaxed at the same time. It’s a good thing the wall is there to support his weight.

One of Armand’s hand’s is buried in his curls, holding his head back at just the angle he wants. Daniel likes the tight grip on his hair, it’s grounding. Armand’s other hand leaves his hip and slides into his pants. The jeans he’s wearing are ones that Armand bought him. They’re skintight, too tight for underwear beneath them. Daniel gasps and Armand rubs his palm over Daniel’s erection. Armand biting him always gets him hard.

Sometimes Armand does something about it, and sometimes he doesn’t. Usually, Armand bites him before they fuck or while they fuck. If Daniel’s lucky, he can get him to bite him both.

There are times though that Armand bites him with no intentions of fucking him. Daniel still gets turned on, like it’s his fault that Armand basically trained his body to equate biting with sex. Depending on where they are and what their plans are, Armand will take him in hand or suck him off after. Sometimes.

Daniel spreads his legs wider and grinds against Armand’s hand. It’s fairly dark here in this back corner of the club, only the flashing neon lights illuminating them every few seconds. There’s no real privacy, but it’s enough that Daniel can pretend no one can see him back here moaning like a whore.

Armand withdraws his fangs and Daniel whines and clutches at his hair, trying to hold him there. Armand stops moving his hand and Daniel releases his grip. The hand starts back up, and Armand’s fingers wrap around his length and begin to pump. His other hand lets go of Daniel’s hair and moves down to squeeze his ass. His mouth goes back to Daniel’s neck, licking and kissing.

“Give me your teeth,” Daniel begs shamelessly, to horny to care how he sounds. Who cares if he sounds like he’s down bad? He is. He’s Armand’s and Armand is his.

“I’ve already taken too much.” The reply is inside his head, Armand’s voice cool and silky smooth. Like a kiss to the brain.

Armand twists his hand and rubs his thumb over Daniel’s slit. Daniel cries out in pleasure. Armand’s mouth covers his and he hears a laugh inside his head. “You’re so loud, lover. Perhaps I should give you something to occupy your mouth.”

Daniel loves him, but he’s not doing that here. They can go into the bathroom or the alley behind the club. Then Daniel will be happy to get on his knees for him. He wants to. He loves sucking Armand’s cock.

But it’s what he wants right now.

“Give it to me; I need it, baby.” He means the blood, of course. He always wants it, but Armand doesn’t always give it. Sometimes, he’ll make Daniel go weeks without it. Especially if Daniel has made him angry.

“Not tonight,” Armand says easily, and Daniel wants to cry. He’s been so good for Armand, letting him bite him here in front of everyone. And he even said he’d blow him. Well, he thought it and that’s basically the same thing with Armand.

Armand’s hand quickens and Daniel tosses his head back, smacking it into the wall. It’s concrete, so it hurts like a motherfucker. “Ow, fuck.”

“Let me kiss it better,” Armand says and he presses his mouth to Daniel’s. He slips his tongue inside and massages Daniel’s. His tongue is bleeding and the rush hits him at once. The pain in his head disappears. Likely the reason Armand changed his mind. He sucks greedily at Armand’s tongue then keeps kissing him hungrily, only breaking away to breathe.

“I love you, I love you, I love you,” Daniel thinks at Armand as his orgasm crashes over him and he nearly screams, Armand’s hand covering his mouth and muffling the sound.

Armand pulls his hand away and kisses Daniel chastely, tucking him back into his pants and doing them up. “I love you, my boy.”

Daniel wraps arms around his neck and grins up at him. “Give me a minute to catch my breath, and I’ll take the alley outside and take care of you.”

Armand cups Daniel’s cheek and rubs his thumb over his skin. “Or I could take you home and fuck you until you cry. Your choice, my love.”

“The second one. Definitely the second one.”

#iwtv fic

4 notes · View notes

apoptoses · 1 year ago

Note

A whole week later but I finally got the chance to finish Climb to the Sun and I have so many fucking thoughts!

"Pain blooms beneath his skin. Memories bubble up from the depths of his mind, of cold little arms around his waist, his face buried in a dead neck. A jolt of pain that suddenly narrows his world into nothing but the sensation of two fangs, like little ceramic knives pricking at his throat. He’d thought maybe he was dying this time too. But this time he hadn’t cared. This time he’d felt something tugging at his heart, from his pulmonary veins to his femoral artery. Down into his cock, where his blood stirs even now." God you're SO back. How did we manage to survive this long without you? The way you perfectly encapsule Daniel's jumbled, messy thoughts, how you can feel his fear slowly fading away and paving the way for something else entirely... can't get enough of it. You truly captured the feeling of having just experienced a life changing encounter, an awakening of sorts. The night he met Louis changed the course of his life and the night he met Armand sealed it, but Pompeii was his moment of divine revelation. From the way he started seeing everything around him so differently (so clearly) because of the blood, to how he finally allowed himself to tap into the power of his desires. Armand had him wrapped around his little finger, but the opposite was true as well.

And I LOVED you how kept bringing up his night with Louis and how he kept telling himself "no, this was something different" in regards to what he and Armand did in Pompeii. "Why Louis’ bite had made him sick, why Armand’s has had entirely the opposite effect. If it’s some special magic only Armand contains, like the influence Louis had described him using in their interview", INSANE. Daniel Molloy woke up every single day right before the sun set for over a decade and bravely asked himself "what if being terrified and horny were the same thing?" and it will never not be my favorite thing in the world, I swear.

"The praise tingles at the back of his brain. His blood pounds in the fine veins that spiderweb his cheeks. He feels stupidly, embarrassingly mortal over the way clutching the back of Armand’s sweater has him hard beneath the comforter puddled at his waist." GOING INSANE OVER THIS!! Relationship of all time right here, who tf is doing it, has EVER done it like them? Obssesed with this and them and you, it's such a delight to have you back! xoxo DA ❤️

DA FINALLY I GET TO RESPOND TO THIS ♥ IT MADE MY DAY!!!

I just really liked thinking about the contrast between those two experiences because like yeah, he's been bitten before, but with Louis there was no foreplay LOL It was meant to frighten him and then he was so stressed and desperate to find more vampires after.

And also I think about Louis and Armand's first bite experiences and how they actually replayed them on Daniel- like Louis got taken by surprise and left feeling feverish and confused until Lestat returned. But Armand's first time being bitten was a sensual experience, his first taste of the blood was sensual. Daniel has no idea he's actually been used twice as a vector for vampires to replay their 'first time' upon and that's really interesting to me. And via that he becomes a blend of the two of them, walking this line of horny scared.

Also like, I don't think I've done enough fic that really digs into what experiencing the blood is like for Daniel too. The books describe it as so psychedelic!! And Daniel being caught up in that really sets up what he's like as a young vampire so- idk I gotta mine that more.

And look I LOVE having Daniel be the bigger one but feeling small because Armand is so powerful!!! It's so hot!!! I couldn't not go there.

But THANK YOU I AM SO HAPPY YOU LOVED IT!!! I hope to have more soon ♥

#apoptoses answers #dungeon anon

3 notes · View notes

intervieweird · 5 years ago

Text

CARAVAGGIOVAGABOND:

“ I UNDERSTAND YOU. ”

Daniel lays on the bed, four fingers of whiskey full, plied with a fifth of vodka and the stirrings of something frothy in his stomach. He figures he’s got enough booze fermenting in him to make a brewery.

He puts out his butt in the ash tray, burnt to the filter and bland as the scratch in his throat. Everything else in the room swims as he stirs; a blurred wave of neutral tone and unexpressive landscape paintings.

But not those eyes. Those eyes stay right where they are.

“Yeah?” He asks, pleasantly slurred and sluggish, moving his limbs mechanically on the bed to turn and face the creature watching him from the chair. He feels good now. Real good. Warm and tingling all the way to his toes, though the way his brain is having trouble keeping up with his eyes tells him he’s going to feel it in the morning. He just can’t mix his spirits like he used to. “And how’s that?”

caravaggiovagabond: @intervieweird cont. from [x]

The dimly lit, unspectacular hotel room isn’t exactly Armand’s usual preference, but currently he’s given little choice but to follow wherever his current obsession leads him. Tonight, that just so happens to be by his bedside, the young man lying charmingly inebriated across the bed.

To see Daniel in such a state is also not Armand’s preference – he would much rather that he was active, coherent, and fit enough to be dragged from pillar to post all over the globe. Those plans, however, are quite clearly foiled as it’s looking very much doubtful that Daniel will be able to travel even to the bathroom unassisted, never mind anywhere further afield. He dips into the mortal’s mind for just a moment, morbidly curious, but soon pulls away again, the dizzy, room-spinning stupor clouding his thoughts not at all a pleasant experience to him even secondhand.

With a sort of languid, animalistic grace, the vampire slips from the chair that he’s taken up residence in, half-crawling to the side of the bed where Daniel now faces him and crouching beside him at eye level, both arms folded on the mattress near the man’s face, his marble cheek resting against the thick, baggy sweater clothing his own forearm.

“Because we are kindred spirits,” he murmurs, cool, iron-scented breath a sigh against Daniel’s heated cheekbone, amber eyes fixed on him as one fingertip emerges from the cradle of his folded arms to prod at Daniel’s shoulder.

Armand is like a crooked creature, skewed limbs unfolding, too long. A monster. A monster crawling from under the bed and slipping under his skin like an itch. It’s a trick of the eyes, Daniel knows. Mortal eyes; eyes made of cells dying every second. He remembers what Louis told him once, how the undead moved too fast to process with the feeble chemical impulses of the human brain. Maybe it’s the old, primitive vestiges that are telling him to run, run, flight sparking in the dull grey matter, clogged with fatigue and poison.

But Daniel doesn’t run, and he wonders, distantly, why.

He turns towards death at his shoulder, a frown on his face as he fumbles for his glasses on the nightstand.

“Quit poking me.”

His vision blurs, sets, settling into a fixed image of that beautiful damned boy. Daniel peers at him, curious, and he wonders if Armand hears the catch in his throat, the fine movements of the muscles, the ache in his jaw as he feels it clench. “What makes you say that?”

caravaggiovagabond‌:

“Don’t you feel it?”

The words are barely more than a whisper; seductive, addictive, persuasive, a gentle smile twisting the corners of the boy-demon’s mouth upwards at the other’s tense reserve and slurred reprimand. He stops, his fingertip resting only gently now against Daniel’s arm as though in rebellion, staking a silent claim.

“I feel it, Daniel. Your heart sings for me.”

Armand’s sharp fingertip is removed from his arm, slender hand sliding across the mortal’s prone chest to clutch the sheets on his far side, using them as leverage as the boyish frame pulls itself effortlessly upwards. He kneels beside Daniel on the mattress, leaning over him until tangled, auburn curls almost brush his cheek, staring down at him with that frighteningly preternatural, chestnut gaze as though he’s the most fascinating specimen of human life.

His demand is unspoken but nonetheless powerful. He will be taken notice of. Daniel will listen to him.

“Sometimes you run so far and so fast that I almost start to believe you don’t want to be found. Almost.”

Does he? Does he want to be found? Sometimes, no. Sometimes he’s felt the safest in a Fresno flop house or Amsterdam bordello, red light winking at him through the vinyl slats, an unfriendly demon eye, haunting him like his own vision of the devil.

And sometimes - sometimes he’s slumped over a payphone, coins rattling like his fingers on his last pack of smokes, and he calls Armand to take him home.

And isn’t he here now? Didn’t he come? Daniel doesn’t recall the push and the pull, doesn’t remember where the knot of their tug-of-war finally crossed the mark. Armand finds him anyway, in the Waldorf-Astoria or slumming it on a bench in Hyde Park. And as far as he runs, doesn’t Daniel also let him?

“You think?” Daniel growls, scratchy-timbered and aching for a glass of water. But his hand finds its way to touch that cheek - so fucking glacial, his fingertips brushing against a cold steel hull, for all the perfect flesh didn’t give. A chill runs up his arm, to touch this thing looming over him. This beautiful, awful thing. He laughs, low and throaty. “Maybe I should buy a submarine.”

caravaggiovagabond‌:

His beloved’s short-tempered quips might be more painful to hear, were it not for the fact that Armand knows (perhaps even better than Daniel himself does) just how besotted he is. Even were it not for the promise of the Blood, he knows that Daniel could not turn away from him now even if he so desperately wanted to. Their lives and fates have become so intertwined – after all, how could Daniel turn his back on the one person who understands him more than any other?

The reporter’s hoarse laugh has a wry, little smile blooming on Armand’s face all over again, the touch to his cheek pleasantly warm. He turns his head so that those brave fingertips catch just barely on the corner of his lips, dangerously close to teeth that could rip them off without hesitation. He wonders, if Daniel came face-to-face with a wild jaguar would he try to pet that, too?

“You know I could buy that for you too if you really wanted,” he husks against the prone fingers. “But wouldn’t you be terribly lonely all the way down there without me?”

With lazy, feline grace, he topples over, rolling across Daniel to tuck in against his side, writhing his way close beside the boy and resting his pretty, auburn head against Daniel’s shoulder, pressing so tightly against the inebriated young man that he has no choice but to pay notice.

“You could just love me instead, Daniel.”

It’s a strange kind of heaven they make together.

It takes no thought for Daniel to fold around the boy in his arms, to breathe in the copper curls, the slight body crushed, crushing - against him. Armand is so slender, so terribly, deceptively delicate. It’s almost a tragedy, the two of them embracing like this in the wan yellow light, midnight minutes ticking away like so many hours of his life.

“Of course I would.” Daniel murmurs into his hair. Muscles spasm at the corner of his lips, but it’s no smile. “I’d go crazy.”

His hand tremors.

“I would. I do. You don’t need to give me anything. Except the one thing you won’t.”

He regrets immediately, pang like a hot knife cutting through his gut. His stomach cramps, a shiver twisting through him as he swallows back bile. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, he wants to say. I didn’t mean it, he wants to confess, and hold that cool body closer against him. But he did mean it, all his wretched viciousness and bitter hooch breath. He meant it, like he meant it all those times before.

“So do it. Goddamnit, why won’t you do it?”

caravaggiovagabond‌:

As quickly as he’s enveloped by the docile affections of his lover, they’re whisked away again as the age old argument once more raises its ugly head. He feels a strange, rather hollow sense of loss as the easy domestic bliss crumbles around them, Daniel’s hand shaking against him with all the bitterness and animosity that the young man can muster towards him.

Face betraying his disappointment, even though the regret underlying Daniel’s brash reaction is prominent against his mind, Armand pulls back, disentangles himself from the embrace as though it’s a punishment, sitting instead straight-backed against the headboard.

“I’ve told you so many times before, Daniel. The answer hasn’t changed. The answer will not change, regardless of how many times you ask me.”

Sad doe eyes glance reluctantly towards his companion, a frown disturbing the otherwise smooth flesh between his brows.

“I couldn’t bear to live with your eternal resentment, my love. Why can you not trust me when I tell you that this - whatever you think it is - is not what you want?”

If you loved me, you would not ask of me the one thing that I cannot give you.

“So you can bear to live with me dead? The fuck am I supposed to feel?” Daniel leans forward, coils of bedsprings protesting against the shift of weight. His feet swing over the side of the bed, barefoot on the whorls of carpet. His back is a faceless, unfriendly plane to Armand, slouched over his knees in as his head bows into his hands.

He can’t bear to look at Armand. He can’t bear that too-knowing, mournful look. Ages old.

“I’ve heard this before.”

From Armand, from Louis, too. It’s no gift, you don’t want this. But Daniel does want it. He can’t help but want it, this singing, killing blood in him. Only in drops! Agonizing, evil drops that Armand would dole out as he saw fit. And what did Armand care about agony it put him through? It’s a selfish, unjust thought. But he still thinks it.

That honeyed voice slithers into his mind, same as it always had. Daniel knows it so well now, he can hear it whispering things to him in the electric pulse of his brain, in the moments before sleep - in his dreams - in his nightmares - when he wakes. He hears it, knows its timbre, its faint accent and the way it sharpens when Armand feels pain, or rage, or the way he’s feeling right now.

“I’m tired.” He sighs. His body aches, and he’s dizzy even when he presses the palms of his hands to blackness against his eyes. And he’s tired of this fighting. Tired of hurting, tired of being hurt.

“I want to go home. Take me home, Armand.”

caravaggiovagabond‌:

In an act of uncharacteristic vulnerability, Armand stays rooted to the spot, moving only to pull his knees upwards to his chest as though trying to make himself smaller, as though wishing he could disappear altogether. He feels chilled right through to his bones by Daniel’s bitterness, the hateful burning of tears already working behind his eyes.

“You don’t know what you are asking me for,” he hisses defensively, his whole posture mimicking that of a coiled viper. “You have so many beautiful years, Daniel, and you would squander them away to become… this!”

In one whip-quick, agitated movement, he gestures towards his own being with one hand before pulling it back in towards himself, covering the palms of his hands with his sleeves protectively.

“Death is better than this, believe me; I’ve seen both and I know which one I would choose - which one any of us would choose - if given my time again.”

Face pinched with pain, he drags his sleeve across his eyes briskly where vicious red begins to well up from his tear ducts, leaving coppery stains smeared across the white cable knit, the evidence of his shame. Truthfully, he can’t even think of turning Daniel, of making him cold and distant, his stomach twisting with some strange, foreign anxiety at the idea alone. He wants to obey Daniel’s wishes, to take him home and forget all of this nastiness, but he CAN’T, the atmosphere too oppressive, choking his voice as he forces it out.

“Don’t you think I realise the consequences of my choice?”

“God damn you!” He grates, suddenly explosive. He moves with combustive, kinetic energy, hand swinging like a mallet against the bedside radio, plastic pieces imploding with a clatter against his fist and falling with a muffled thump against the motel carpeting.

“How the hell can you be what you are and tell me you love me, you son of a bitch.” He rounds on Armand, rage whiting out the image of the huddled, wounded boy curling into himself on the ruined bedspread. “What kind of sick nerve you’ve got. Maybe it was better when you let me starve in that cesspit. At least I came to terms with croaking it. Now you’re killing the both of us. So do the fucking vampire bullshit already. Put me down like a dog. Is it better now, Armand? Is it really any fucking better? I don’t want any goddamn twilight years! I want all of it! I want to be with you!”

His face is feverish, wild and glistening. For all the unsteady, gut-roiling omen of his liver, Daniel holds his ground. He boils with blown-out pupils, sweat pricking at his temples and chest and the soft flesh under his arms. “I want the blood. I want it. What’s the point without it?”

caravaggiovagabond‌:

It’s impossible to suppress an overtly human flinch as the radio goes to pieces and he can’t help but stare at the action bitterly, desperately wanting to reciprocate. One small, white hand balls into a fist, desperate to lash out, but no matter how badly tempted he is, he won’t – he could never put Daniel in harm’s way and with his preternatural strength, there’s no promising his safety were Armand to lose his temper.

“Stop it! STOP IT!”

The hoarse cry boarders on a scream, both fists slamming down either side of him on the old, worn mattress, undoubtedly adding a few more broken springs to its collection.

“How could you do it to me? Why are you doing it to me?”

Staring up at his lover balefully, he can’t stand to hold his anguished stare for long, burying his blood-streaked face in both hands, unrestrained sobs wracking his body now. He isn’t sure what’s worse – Daniel’s rage or the incessant reminder that someday, Armand will have to let him go. He isn’t ready for it; he isn’t sure he’ll ever be ready for it. And as much as it breaks his heart, the thought of cursing him for all time is still inconceivably worse.

“Why isn’t this enough for you, just as things are? Am I not enough for you, Daniel?”

Even Daniel flinches, eyes shuttering like from the flash of a camera bulb. His head turns - involuntary - for only a split second, but he feels stung; wounded by Armand’s naked despair, wounded that even this isn’t enough.

His hands hurt - every fiber of him hurts - a live wire, raw and ragged and sparking. That’s Daniel Molloy, boy-reporter: a ruined man, shorting out and burning himself up from the inside. Is this enough for you? He thinks. Enjoy before your warranty expires.

“Stop it, Jesus, you’re gonna — ” Daniel grimaces, blinking away the sight of Armand on the bed like that, so fragile and so monstrous. He isn’t sure what he meant to say, what words died in his throat as he half looks away, embarassed and ashamed by the nakedness of feeling. "Don’t you dare ask me that. Don’t you fucking ask me that. It’s not the same.”

Light pulses behind his eyes, pulls on the nerves woven through the lattice of his skull like the fistful of a careless child, and he brings up a hand to squint away the pain.

Fuck. Fuck.

“This isn’t some ‘til-death-do you-part’ bullshit vow. Don’t you have any idea what it’s like?” Daniel leans into the pain - it’s pissing him off, sharpening the edge. He offered an out - he did. And he knows it wasn’t fair, it wasn’t real; it was just some half-assed excuse, too tired for this familiar old fight. But Armand wouldn’t let this of all things die, and Daniel found his second wind. “Don’t come at me with pretty words about mortality. I’ve heard it before, from you and Louis and Keats and Neruda and Shelley. It’s all the same.”

caravaggiovagabond‌:

After everything that he’s lived through, consensually or otherwise, Daniel is the only one who, in this day and age, could possibly rip such unfiltered feeling from him – intentionally or otherwise. The intensity of this - of what they are - has such a habit of racing from 0 to 100 in milliseconds; entwined as lovers one moment and a raging war the next. And for what? All because Armand loves him more than Daniel thinks, than Daniel could ever comprehend. Even wretched and enraged, Armand could never bear to part with this and trade it for some cold, dead imposter.

“Then why won’t you listen?” he begs. “Do you think that we all say it for the sake of our hea-ealth?”

His voice, though reedy and underdeveloped, has always been so clear. Now, it is broken with hiccuped sobs and jumping like a scratched record.

“Of course I know what it’s like, I’ve been on both sides, haven’t I? And believe me, I would take death first. I would take death one thousand times before this!”

If it was so simple, if he thought that he could live with himself for it, of course he would change Daniel. But he knows that to do so would be a date worse than death. All of it, from the process of creation itself to the loss of the very essence of Daniel’s humanity… he can’t. He curls in on himself, arms coming to wrap loosely around his torso as though trying to comfort himself, the fight suddenly seeming to drain out of him and leave him helpless instead. He wipes his sleeves across his face and then leaves his wrist there to cover his mouth, to stifle any further cries.

It’s so much easier to be angry. It’s easier when Armand is angry, too. But this - this wretched, hiccoughing misery - Daniel doesn’t know what to do with this. How small Armand looks, folding in on himself in a kind of helpless resignation. Armand - giving up ? - he doesn’t know what it is, but the wrongness of it makes him angry.

How’s this any better? Daniel thinks. Living off crank and cough syrup. Not eating, not sleeping. He hasn’t seen the sunlight in weeks. This isn’t being alive. This is barely being human.

Where the hell do we go from here? It’s as much a thought for himself as a challenge, bold-faced; direct - to Armand. Where the hell do we go?

Daniel stares at him, bleary-eyed, barefoot among the broken things.

“Quit it,” he says lowly. “C’mon, just — ” Just what? Now that’s bad writing, building the suspense without fulfillment. This makes for the shittiest story. Daniel has always loved speculative fiction; worlds parallel to their own, something just close enough to see the reflection of what you know. But something different, something bigger than the awful, looming monotony of an ordinary life. It had been so goddamn simple to transcribe Louis’ words, to insert himself only in the spaces left in-between. “The boy” wasn’t really him, wasn’t really Daniel so much as it had been the world. The audience’s oeuvre into this fucked up, violent, beautiful other life he had tumbled into.

But he’s living it now, or - living alongside it. That’s worse. To be so close to feel it and never to break inside. No matter how many times Daniel might beat his fists against the shell, no matter how it fractures - how Armand fractures - he can find no purchase. And each time, he finds himself slipping, loose and unstrung, falling deeper and deeper into the void. Don’t you see, Armand? One of these days, I’m not going to get out again.

He doesn’t want to write this story anymore. Not now, not that it’s his.

“Goddamn you. So just kill me already. You’re doing it anyway. God damn you.”

Daniel’s fists clench and unclench, casting long, distorted shadows in the shitty light of the flophouse room. He sits again on the bed with the creak of the cheap metal springs, hunched and sullen next to the figure of the wounded boy weeping silently beside him. Daniel says nothing else, staring hollowly at the stain in the peeling wallpaper, imagining it resolving into the shape of a long-legged insect with fractal wings and the smell of blood.

#alcoholism //#drug reference //#caravaggiovagabond #thread: same old dance.#verse: 1980s.

9 notes · View notes