#the difference is that marius wanted armand and had him

[thelioncourts]

+

[mmelolabelle]

Armand is someone who has been has been trained (in brothels, by Marius, and by 500+ years worth of life experience) to adapt himself to what the people around him want. Throughout seasons 1-2, different people get very different versions of Armand, depending on who they are and who’s retelling the story at the time.

It’s the primary way Armand protects himself, whether he’s a teenage sex slave or the oldest, strongest person in the room. It’s how he controls people. Fundamentally, it’s the only way Armand knows to make people love him (an approximation of love at least). Worse, it’s the only way Armand knows how to love — by twisting and contorting himself into whatever form he thinks his current obsession wants or needs him to be. He even does it to his victims for crying out loud.

And then here’s Daniel, who is constantly seeking authenticity and truth. Who’s bullshit detector is never “off”. Who cannot tolerate any kind of masquerade, manipulation or lie – no matter how kind or well intentioned. Not out of any moral or ethical objection, but because Daniel simply cannot leave things well enough alone once something attracts his attention. He has to know. He has to see where it goes and how it ends.

“It’s my job, I’m built this way”

“It’s in your nature, Mr Molloy. Couldn’t get out the door without lobbing one more bomb.”

Daniel knew something was off about “Rashid” from the beginning, so he began to pick the situation in Dubai apart until Armand revealed himself. And then he kept going until he completely destroyed the narrative Armand had spent 77 years constructing.

Daniel deliberately and systematically pulled “Armand, Amadeo, Arun” apart and laid him bare with nothing but but a laptop, some free time, a near-suicidal disregard for his own personal safety and a mouth that just wouldn’t quit.

There’s power in being seen, in being known, ugly parts and all. What would it feel like, to be completely exposed like that for the first time in centuries?

So yeah it makes sense to me that Armand, who puts on all these acts and artifices to draw people in, but which only serve to ensure they’re kept at a distance, would turn his big sad orange eyes on the person who blew them all to smithereens and be all “…I wanna do this forever, actually.”

[lady-phasma]

Martyrdom

The Vampire Armand x gn!reader

Warnings: not that many really, tragically over-dramatic comfort, implied canon trauma if you know a little about Armand’s history (book or series)

Summary: 1k words of 🥺 and comforting our beautiful monster.

a/n: so yeah, I had to work out some stuff between 2.07 and 2.08 because Armand needs some comfort. This is the most melodramatic thing I have ever written. This was going to be fem!reader but then it really wasn’t important to the comfort so it became gn!reader.

Armand didn’t stir as you walked in. His head was bowed, iPad balanced in one hand, tapping at the screen with the other. His dark curls framed his face. You knew he heard you, of course he did, but whatever was happening on his tablet was engrossing. You walked behind the sofa and rested your head on his shoulder. A glance at the screen showed you an online art auction. You smiled as you leaned down to kiss his neck, ear, and cheek. His singular focus wasn’t unusual but when you looked back at his iPad you saw the thumbnail and item description.

The Martyrdom of St. Sebastian - Marius de Romanus

You straightened up and let your hand linger on his shoulder for a moment. He wouldn’t move from that spot until he owned the painting.

When the bidding was closed he found you in the bedroom on your own iPad. You looked up as he walked in. The blank expression he wore was a familiar sight. He didn’t look sad or dejected as others might. Sometimes he simply didn’t emote. But his eyes would betray him. He didn’t make eye contact with you right away. However, he wouldn’t have come to you if he wanted to be alone.

He thought often, spoke less, about broken things, people he had loved. He rarely spoke of those who had broken him. Sometimes you caught a glimpse of him when he felt unobserved and the vacancy in his eyes would be filled with regret and remorse.

“You own a new painting?” You asked with no inflection. You closed the iPad’s cover and set it on the night stand as he sat on his side of the bed. His back was to you, shoulders stiff.

“Yes.”

“When will it arrive?” You didn’t really need to know, but wanted him to know you understood the significance.

“Approximately 4-6 weeks,” his tone was flat. “Possibly sooner.”

“When was the last time you saw it?”

“500 years ago, give or take.”

“‘Give or take?’” He couldn’t see your raised brows.

“492, I believe.” His shoulders slumped slightly.

“What’s the provenance?” You didn’t expect him to answer.

“Venice, Milan, Prague, a few years unaccounted for, then Berlin,” his tone had changed. Rather, there was now tone to his words. The mildest hint of pain colored the city names. It had changed so many hands. It wasn’t rare for a painting to have been sold before the fire. It was the nature of the painting and who you could assume may have commissioned it, that concerned you. Possibly it was for the Church, but more likely for a private patron. Even so, had it been in a church, a museum? Hundreds of eyes moved by the martyrdom of a real boy who they would never think about. Did they even think of the model for Sebastian at all or only of the saint and his ecstasy? If Armand had wanted you to know that a public institution had once held it he would have said. You didn’t press.

You watched him as he slipped off his shoes and turned to sit more comfortably. His long fingers toyed with the crease of his pant leg. He stared off, looking at nothing, for a moment. Then he turned to you. Your heart ached for him. It did from time to time when he would casually mention something from his past, but this was different. You had only seen an expression like this a couple times before. You looked at him, unsmiling, but with a soft gaze, no judgement. For a moment he looked as if he would speak then he closed his mouth, his lips forming a tight line.

Armand wanted to tell you about the nausea he felt, a peculiar feeling, increasingly rare at his age, when the alert had appeared on his phone. He wanted to tell you that he even had an alert for Marius’s name, but he couldn’t. He had never told you everything, there was far too much to tell. But he had told you the broad strokes. He felt he might never tell anyone all of the details, those he could remember, except in the rare moments of weakness when he was jealous of Louis’s and Lestat’s ability to reveal everything.

You sat up straighter and moved toward him. You gently touched his face. He leaned into your hand as you cupped his cheek. His brow furrowed slightly and he closed his eyes. You stroked his cheek with your thumb. You let your hand slide down to his neck. He sighed quietly and when he opened his eyes to look at you, he became every bit the ancient creature trapped in a young man’s body. Every wrong done, every hurt inflicted, every lie told, by him and to him, turbulent beneath his ageless façade. Over 500 years of mistakes, violence, atonement, none of it truly forgotten.

Your fingers gently caressed the back of his neck as you held his gaze. You couldn’t conceal the expression on your face, the compassion and disconsolation. Slowly you moved your hand to his shoulder and guided him toward you. Armand gave in. He rested his head in your lap, his body folded up alongside your outstretched legs. You leaned back against the pillows and headboard. One hand automatically began stroking his hair, smoothing it back from his face. The other lay against his back, making small circles with your fingers against his shoulder blade.

He felt his shoulders relax first, then the tightness in his chest began to fade. He hadn’t realized tears had started to well in his eyes until he closed them. None came, but he was unsure how long they would stay away this time. He sighed heavily and let himself soften against you. Your steady, consistent movements were a balm to the raging of conflicting emotions inside him. He would think of them another day, perhaps when the painting arrived. Now, in this moment, he could rest.

Note about the painting: The Martyrdom of St. Sebastian, Marco Basaiti (active 1496-1530 in Venice), located in Santa Maria della Salute, Venice

Masterlist

[professional-rat-eater]

I need people in the IWTV fanbase to realise that you can appreciate a character in all their complexities and enjoy their precense in a story and still wish they had a slow, painful death scene. For non-book readers, I hope to be able to clarify a few things about why a certain character is so hated.

Keep reading for more nuanced Marius de Romanus slander:

I feel like I post at least once a day something about hitting Marius with a car or something and I do it mainly because it’s funny but it’s also because there is a very valid reason he is where a lot of people draw the line, despite the scale of morality in gothic literature being utterly different from that of pretty much any other literature, and drastically different from real life.

I love him for what he brings to the story. He is fascinating and I am excited to see him in season 3. He’s a brilliant character and I want to put him under a microscope and study him like a bug. He is still absolutely vile even for Anne Rice, something she even hints at here and there in her work.

I could go on and on for days about him, but to keep it short (edit: I lied), he met Pandora when she was ten years old and he was twenty five. What makes him particularly sick is nothing to do with vampiric morality, which we’ve seen is completely different, within the world of the books and show, from human morality. We get onboard with Lestat because we get to know him as a human and then watch how he changes as he gets used to being a vampire. Lestat was not a monster when he was human. Marius was.

If you disagree with that, you can think so if you wish as I do not currently possess the ability to control other people’s thoughts (but as soon as I do, I’m coming for you!) but please do not try and make excuses for him on that topic. Most people will not be open to that sort of debate. I know I’m not. Pandora was a baby. He should not have felt anything towards her other than a desire to protect her as a parent might. Yes, yes, gothic morality. But you need to understand that that is just too much for most people.

And you know who else was a baby, especially in comparison to Marius? Armand. Armand, who grew up to do awful things because of how he was treated. He was already being taken advantage of (to put it lightly) before he met Marius. If Marius had cared selflessly for Armand, he would have taken him from that brothel and tried to help him heal from the trauma. That is what real love would have been. You should not look at broken children and think to make them your lovers. All he was was yet another grown adult taking advantage of a boy whose spirit had been utterly shattered by what he’d endured.

(I’m not suggesting that should have happened or it would have been better, but I dislike the insinuation that Marius’s love for Armand was anything other than exploitative. It can be sincere, and still exploitative. I believe he meant it. I also believe he fucked Armand up more than he already had been.)

Murder in a fictional setting can be justified and overlooked, but as soon as anything involves children, you have to accept that you will lose a lot of people, even in gothic literature. That sort of relationship may have been more normalised thousands of years ago, but there were always people who objected to the concept. Even within the narrative of Anne Rice’s books, Marius’s actions are called out here and there (usually subtly) so even there, they are questioned. Compare him to someone like Lestat (I only mention him because for whatever reason, people like to group them together as irredeemable characters???).

Lestat’s actions are deeply toxic but people still like him because we understand why his behaviour is the way it is. As dreadful as what he does is, we are endeared to him because of his suffering and follow his journey as a vampire. He is twisted, but he is behaving according to what his trauma has turned him into. Armand is another example of this. Vile behaviour that is a believable response to trauma. There comes in the gothic morality again. We love them and know they are awful at the same time.

It is not that you cannot like Marius or characters like him. I do like him very much as a character, but you have to get on board with the idea that most people never will. The lines he crosses are unlike many of the others crossed by different characters. No one looks at Madeleine and Claudia and thinks it’s weird because Claudia is not actually a child. Armand was. Pandora was.

I could honestly make a separate post about book!Louis too and why I think the changes from the book were necessary to make people actually care about him, but it is similar. Harming/exploiting children and anything to do with slavery is a hard line a lot of people draw. Marius is still a multifaceted, interesting, complex, humanised character, as all Anne Rice vampires are, but he is deeply disliked for a very good reason. People cannot switch off how they feel about what he did, even if they are invested in the story.

(But also let’s be thoughtful about this type of discourse. Do not look at anyone whose favourite character is Marius and assume they are a bad person. He is a great character, he is just not to many people’s tastes. They likely just find him deeply interesting which he is.)

Anyway, after he gets his screen time and we reach the end of the show and he has gotten his chance to chance screen time, I vote we tie him up and treat him like a piñata.

[iwtv-theories]

How Iwtv may adapt “the vampire Armand” (theory)

Tw: given Armand’s trauma.

I personally don’t think a whole season will be dedicated to adapt tva. But, I do believe a subplot of his past will be developed over multiple seasons through flashbacks and other writing devices . We already have a new Indian writer hired for the show - who wrote a play about living in a brothel . so we’ll most likely dive more into his past and trauma . it’s also foreshadowed that Armand will eventually tell Daniel his story- similar to how Louis and Lestat did. Armand already told Daniel a (probably not quite accurate) depiction of his past with the children of Satan . And Armand saying to Daniel: “Do you want to hear my story? My first memory…” (could foreshadow he’ll eventually tell Daniel his entire story ).

But, given the nature of Armand’s past I assume a lot of scenes will be portrayed by Assad, and some scenes by a younger looking adult actor, along with darker scenes being verbally stated (similar to Claudia verbally recounting her trauma with Bruce, to Louis). But … I also believe that by the end of Armand’s story a huge “bomb” or several “revelations” will be revealed as Daniel asks “a few follow up questions.” Which indicate Marius is even worse than Armand openly admits or realizes. It would be similar to how Daniel at the end of s2, points out discrepancies in Louis’ story (that re-contextualize everything) .

I think Armand will have been turned as an adult, but I believe it’ll be revealed that Armand was younger in his past than the flashbacks indicate. Similar to how certain passages of Armand’s book made him seem much younger than what he claimed to be . In Armand’s own flashbacks he’d be a “BOY masquerading as a gentleman" (even deceiving the audience into thinking he was older). PS, the next things I mention are either from the books or show canon.

Daniel : “just some follow up questions. Your FIRST memory was being chased down by slavers , so you were young… you had to be only 3 or 4 then? No wonder you aren’t positive of your birth name. I ask cause you said you said you were 15 when Marius saved you from the brothel, right? But, you told me that the night he bought and made a move on you that you were “too young for wet pleasure“ - and then 2 years later that was no longer the case . So you’re saying you only started puberty at 17 years old? Are you sure you weren’t closer to Benji’s age when some of this stuff happened ?” (Benji is Armand’s 12 y foster son who was previously abused and trafficked) .

Daniel: “you told me in 2022 that you were a 514 year old vampire . So you were born in 1508? You said you were 20 years old  when ‘adoration of the shepherds’ was made. But historians say the painting was commissioned between 1520-1525. So you'd have been somewhere between the ages of 12-17 when he 'donated' you to his friends ."

Daniel: “ I don’t know how to say this, but… are you sure the other young boys (that lived with Marius ) didn’t get donated to his artist friends too? Those boys were being trained as painters and hanging out with Marius’ ilk all the time . They may have had a hard time saying no to Marius’ requests , as well. You even said there were rumors of 'bad boys' being 'banished’ from the house ‘immediately' , for saying disrespectful things about Marius. When you first met Ricardo and he painted you , why did he cry ,throw the paint brush and say“ a very different picture master has in mind for you.” Was he warning you that being painted by someone isn’t as nice as it seems? If Marius wasn’t with the other boys -why did he make all of them show their ankles because ‘to him the ankles of boys were beautiful’. Why were those young boys already experimenting with each other , going to brothels and hanging out with courtesans for fun, and teaching you how to read by showing you “frightening books about men and women in carnality.” Aren’t those all signs that they were exposed to that stuff way too early ?! Marius made you go to brothels to ‘train you’ to be better at bedding men and women. And when you were a kid, you said Marius took you to a “ luxurious house of pleasure", which kept … "only young boys.” You even said that , this boys-house was “Eastern styled” and that the boys looked “Egyptian or Babylonian" . He even bought a couch from that establishment. Are you sure he wasn’t a regular customer there ? Armand… I don’t think he bought you to 'rescue you from the brothel'. He bought you because you looked like the boys from his favorite establishment! And at Marius’ house, the first thing those boys did when they met you was say they ���loved you” and wink… are you sure they weren’t taught to do that with all house guests? Are you sure Marius' palazzo wasn't just a high-end brothel of young boys?"

Armand describing Marius' palazzo...

Never forget Marius tried to marry pandora when she was 10 !That man is a repeat offender! I don’t trust Marius at all! idc if all the vamps in the books (or even AR respected him) . All my homies hate marius! And I feel like the show may re-contextualize some of those very questionable details sprinkled in the books , that were never addressed . I think the show will make Marius even worse than the books ! Iwtv writers tweeting: “Kendrick Lamar releases Marius diss track.” And in s2 Louis straight up says Marius “groomed” Armand. I don’t think, they’ll shy away from his questionable actions … but I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of the vamps initially fall for his charisma/wisdom (similar to how he garners respect from other vamps in the novels) . Similar to how a lot of abusers are often loved and respected by their peers. It was Marius after all that initially taught Amadeo how to 'lie' better. Not to mention (Marius' age and and drinking from Akasha would make ) his mind-gift and ability to control minds MUCH stronger than Armand's too . Which could (theoretically) have some scary narrative implications for the future... Daniel run before he tries to mess with your head .

[alleyskywalker]

Endearment? Endearment?? Armand… No ok but this is kinda insane, and it has layers too because… So, obviously it’s wild to call this…kind of disturbing title, that just screams power, an endearment. But we know Armand longs to be loved. Whether he fully admits it to himself of not, but he probably wants to be called by an endearment now and again, an expression of love and devotion that’s tangible and easily accessible, clearly expressed. But who is there to call him by an endearment? He’s got no family (as most vampires), no companion for centuries now, not even any particularly close friend(s). Given the rank difference between him and the coven members, it’s also unlikely that he would be forming those kind of intimate bonds with any of them – like, yea sure, they’re all fucking each other, but that’s surface, and they were probably still calling him Maitre then. And at the same time, the coven is the closest he’s got to family/friends. So if he can just kind of refrain Maitre as an endearment – consciously or not – it fills that hole a little. It’s a title, yes, but also a name signaling not just power dynamics but closeness and devotion, from the only people who are in any way positioned to offer him that (even if in reality they don’t). He just needs this so much, he’ll pretend.

On another layer…the fact that Armand is even capable of reframing this as an endearment at all… Seems to speak to his history and the relationship with Marius. How the last (and only?) time that he felt loved, cared for and safe was with Marius (as fucked up as that relationship was – Armand’s coping mechanisms include romanticizing the abuse). And he would have referred to Marius as Master – Maitre. Also a title, but within the context there it became something of an endearment too, and that conflation would be perpetuated by the fact that that’s what Armand called the last person who offered him at least the illusion of love and care, the closest he ever had to those things at any rate. (Like especially with show!Armand whose own parents sold him into slavery, etc.)

But then also the last layer of the dynamic with Louis and how the whole “call me Armand” thing functions as a weird double-edged sword. Like…in a normal circumstance, someone saying, “you don’t need to use my title just call me by name” would be a sign of closeness, an invitation toward intimacy. And in some ways, it still is here. Louis functions outside of Armand’s norma structures, he’s different. He’s special. But given the context that he’s just called his an endearment and the coven being the closest substitute for a family/friendship group…imagine calling someone by a nickname their family/friends use and they ask you to call them by their full name. That creates distance – we don’t have that kind of relationship yet. And as they’ve only just met, that would make sense… It’s especially interesting in relation to the bench scene, the scene where they commit (recommit in Armand’s case?) to each other, and Armand calls Louis Maitre for the first time. Agh I love them, they’re just so much.

[fascinationstreetmp3]

ive been thinking about the differences between book and show armand when it comes to sharing his blood. from what i understand, book armand does not let anyone properly drink his vampiric blood until daniel. he tries to use that fact to bargain for lestat's love in TVL when he finds him in new orleans in the early 20th century ("love me and the blood is yours, this blood that i have never given to another.")

but show armand lets louis and lestat drink from him, even when he's insecure in his relationship with louis lasting (he recognises the taste of armand's blood in the coffin), and even before he's sure lestat loves him (in his telling of the story, anyway). i can't help but wonder if the extended amount of time he spent with marius had any influence on his feelings about this.

book amadeo was with marius for two years and during that time had a lot of spirit in him; he loved marius, but also criticised and questioned his behaviour, rebelled and challenged him, and was often punished for it in various ways. marius could take what he wanted from amadeo whenever he wanted it, but there was defiance there too that, by the time amadeo was made a vampire and they're later separated, marius had only just started to fully control. later, after being kidnapped by the children of darkness, armand held onto his blood as one last thing he still had autonomy over after everything else was taken away, this pure, untouched piece of him that was his alone and that he could choose to withhold or share.

show amadeo had ten more years as a human, and in that time marius came to truly own every part of him, could control when amadeo gave himself away and to whom, and complete codependency had been fostered between them for over a decade. there was no way or reason for amadeo to ever defy his master's wishes or question him the way he once did at this point. even though he resented that he would not turn him, he still depended wholly on his love and attention and would do anything for it. by the time he was taken by the children of darkness, maybe armand already felt he did not have anything left of himself that he could or should control. so after meeting lestat and the coven's collapse, armand starts to give his body and blood to others first (there's the added layer of physical sex in the show too) in an attempt to gain security and companionship and love from them afterwards.

[heliza24]

Armand and Unbreakable Cycles

So (perhaps unsurprisingly at this point) I have a TON of Armand thoughts after yesterday’s episode. Specifically I want to talk about the function of the 1790s section, and how it perfectly illuminates the cycle of maladaptive behavior that Armand is caught up in and the difference between his stated wants and his actual needs. I think the setup we saw in this episode will also be crucial to understanding how Dubai plays out, so I want to talk about that too.

I know a lot of people love the show and TVC because of Lestat, and there’s some frustration that Lestat was presented in a way that was untrue or filtered. But I really think you have to view this episode as a lens into Armand, which we in turn need in order to understand Louis. Everyone has someone similar to Lestat’s role in Armand’s life; an ex or a situationship or a former friend who takes up so much real estate in your brain because of their outsized impact  on you, who probably never thinks of you in return. We give these people a role in the story we craft of how we became who we are. That narrativizing is kind of the only way to understand yourself and survive (especially if you’re going to live forever). So I don’t doubt that there are things that Armand says that are untrue, or exaggerated, or twisted in his favor. But I do think the important part is the emotional impact his encounter with Lestat had on him, and I do think he’s being honest about those emotions.

(That being said I am of course very excited to see these events play out again in season 3 from Lestat’s POV. Don’t fuck it up AMC!!!)

The main thing that the flashback does is set up the cycle that Armand finds himself in over and over again. He consistently finds himself clinging to control in an institution he is starting to lose faith in, and is then shaken out of his complacency by a new love that seems– falsely– to rescue him.

Depending on how they adapt his very early backstory, I think we can probably assume that this pattern started in childhood for him. Marius rescued him from being forced into sex work, and seemed to offer a much better life. But in reality he was just grooming Armand. (Thanks @toriangeli for correcting a piece of my Marius lore here!)

In Paris he continues maintaining a strictly enforced life of misery for the coven long after he stops believing in it himself, and (by his telling at least) he was grateful to Lestat for having the strength to end it when he could not. It’s so clear why Armand falls for Lestat. Lestat’s refusal to live in shame, his love of the arts, his ability to exist amongst humanity (at least when he is on stage). Lestat is of the world, while Armand and the coven hide from it. 

The reason I think it is so important that we got to see this play out in Paris is the way it illuminates the sometimes tricky relationship between Louis and Armand. Once again, Armand is the head of an institution that operates on strict and oppressive rules. Once again, we can feel Armand’s enthusiasm for this system waning (and see it reflected physically in the lack of ticket sales and general shabbiness of the theatre). And once again, Armand is swept off his feet by this new vampire who refuses to join, who loves humanity, and who has a passion for art. Louis is very much of the world. He refuses to be pinned down into coven life. Armand can’t resist taking what looks like the opportunity for escape in Louis’s love. 

What I think is so fascinating about this cycle is that it allows Armand to remain passive. He never has to be the one to make the hard call to walk away from a kind of life that is no longer serving him. He just has to wait for the next gorgeous man to arrive to deliver him.  As he says to Louis, “those with the most power are often the weakest”. His status and power in the coven prevents him from changing his own life. Or at least that’s what he believes. 

Thinking about this helped me understand the dynamic of what goes down in the sewers, when Armand threatens Louis’s life. Assad says in the behind the scenes clips that Armand goes into that encounter very set on killing Louis, and I believe him.  So I rewatched it a couple of times trying to understand when, and why, Armand changes his mind. The shift occurs when they start talking about Claudia, and Armand says that her mind will break apart soon because she was made too young. Louis says “you don’t know her,” and Armand responds, “I don’t have to. I’ve seen it before. I’ve seen too much.” That admission– I’ve lived through this cycle multiple times before, it is painful, and I don’t want to do it again– is what shifts Armand from being ready to kill Louis to letting him go. 

There is of course an irony here; mentally ill and child vampires do not necessarily need to go mad. Generally they go mad at least partially because of Armand’s actions. And as we’ve already discussed, Armand going to sleep with Louis instead of killing him is really just a repeat of his actions with Lestat. He isn’t really breaking a cycle at all. But I think in that moment he believes that he is. Maybe he even believes that by being with a man who enacted great violence on Lestat, he can drown out the love and anguish he still feels about Lestat. At the very least, Louis has also loved Lestat and can therefore understand Armand’s narration of his own life in a way that not many other people can. 

Ok, so now we are caught up on the past. Let’s talk about Dubai, and how once again Armand is engaged in the exact same cycle of behavior.

The penthouse is Armand’s new coven. He maintains perfect order by controlling the physical environment and shaping Louis’s moods and memories. But just like before, this way of life is no longer serving Armand (or Louis for that matter). You can see that the spark between them has died, only rekindled as a kind of performance when they are in front of Daniel. When Armand is telling Daniel about Lestat destroying the coven, and Daniel accuses Armand of leading Lestat to the coven intentionally… he might as well be talking about himself. Armand has let Daniel into his fortress, and there is at least a part of him that wants whatever destruction Daniel is about to bring into his life.

Daniel fits Armand’s type completely. Daniel is of course more human than Lestat or Louis could ever be. He knows about telenovelas and Bollywood and all other types of art. He’s whipsmart and inquisitive and is not going to let Armand get away with passively maintaining his old order. He’s of the world in a way that Armand finds irresistible. 

I specifically found it interesting how many of the “Great Laws” Armand would be breaking by being with Daniel. Granted, Armand isn’t in the coven anymore when he meets Daniel. But I imagine old habits are hard to break, and being with Daniel would break almost all of them. Daniel is a mortal Armand has revealed his true nature to and allowed to live, Daniel has written about and exposed vampire secrets, and (if we’re looking at book canon) Daniel begs for the dark gift himself, a thing only the maitre is supposed to be able to approve. 

Assuming that a chunk of Devil’s Minion did happen in the 1970s, something interrupted that love affair, before it could settle back down into a new but still oppressive status quo. Something prompted Armand to actively break his pattern of behavior and erase Daniel’s memories. I think it’s impossible not to think about Nicki’s example here, especially after seeing the 1790s flashback. I’m going to assume that 1970s Daniel was struggling with addiction and mental health issues in a way that may have been reminiscent of Nicki. How intentional was Armand in withdrawing because he saw what vampire involvement- his involvement- did to Nicki? How much was his treatment of Daniel a reparation for past mistakes he made?

These last couple of paragraphs are speculation, really, because we won’t know exactly what Armandaniel looked like until Ep 5. But I think it was crucial that we saw this part of Armand’s story before we see San Francisco, because his actions with Daniel will make more sense if we can compare them with the love affairs of Armand’s past.

Regardless, I do think the disparity between what Armand claims to want (maintaining the status quo) vs what he actually wants (to be liberated by a romantic partner) vs what I think he actually needs (to take action himself, instead of waiting for someone to do it for him) is going to play a role in the way Dubai unfolds. I don’t know that Armand will ever get to the point where he’s actively able to break out of the cycle he’s in, because this is Interview with the Vampire, the show of fucked up gothic romances. Vampire life is a series of bad decisions! It’s a weird arrested development you never quite get out of despite living for forever! So it would make total sense if the ending of Dubai mimics the ending of the Children of Satan and the Paris Coven in an unhealthy way. But regardless, it’s gonna be a fun ride, and I can’t wait to see it.

[nalyra-dreaming]

I've seen the episode!!!

(Some comments and) SPOILERS!!!!

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Louis saying it was a betrayal and that he wants to be punished for it just when he finds happiness again via a hallucination of Lestat is so... ugh. Louis, honey, god. Also him imagining Lestat biting him - as a punishment, but he also wants it so badly, baring his neck, not trying to fight it, offering himself up there, he just wants the connection so badly. 😭 And god, Louis having Lestat call him out on his own denial. Damn. And Louis knowing he invited this Lestat as a distraction.

Also... that was definitely foreshadowing to how Louis will think the trial went.

And of course it would be a bat. Of course.™

Claudia driving them onwards, not giving one shit is just... incredible. Delainey is Claudia.

I was also right that she honed her senses and available gifts, more than Louis has his (which fits)

Daniel calling their plight the hunt for Moby Dick

Claudia is also... beautifully hopeful, and thereby almost desperately (intentionally) naive. She just wants to connect, so badly. To find more of their kind. And closes her eyes to what she sees. *deep sigh*

That "Adam and Even and God" comment was hilarious. Oh man, I cannot wait to see what the show will make of / with QotD and Memnoch etc.

Not only is Louis aware of forgotten memories now, he actively pursues them, and he has apparently read the missing pages before. And knows he has forgotten.

Claudia's diaries are unreliable, too (as predicted). Also, Louis correcting his own tale there, lol. Also: Armand‘s look and suggestion there.

Daniel and his little speech as to how he works… you go Daniel. “Here’s almost all the story“ lol

“Human affairs“

The revenants.... "the blood is bad here" *shivers* - I BET that's already setting up the "turning fails" arc with Amel, right there

God that old vampire connecting with Claudia, and then throwing herself into the fire in despair. God.

Morgan's arc was nicely condensed, the scene fittingly horrific

I live for Claudia speaking all the languages, but I noticed some of the subtitles were wrong

Whoever doubted DM happening... well. Sorry, but I AM seeing it. The looks, the smirks, the bitching.

Also "real Rashid" (lmao) - who, btw, does not wear a mask! What if the encounter with Eudoxia Marius had went differently and this is Rashid?

... someone wanting to buy a tryptich they haven't even put up for sale... *coughs* Marius? *coughs* (I mean, who else would know they have it? Or the Talamasca, maybe)

God that Dubai bedroom screams cage. And Armand controlling even the lights with his little iPad. Someone edit a blender into a screenshot of that scene.

The look Lestat gives Claudia at that last part of Louis' little speech. Devastating.

Also: the "I do I do I do I do I do"... Louis. Sweetie. I mean, I get it, but still.

Armand's comment that the boy from San Francisco is still in Daniel. Now if that is not foreshadowing.

A propos foreshadowing: Louis saying he will not choose the fire while Claudia walks the earth. *help*

"We cannot be the only good ones". Yeah... about that. -.-

Louis being so relieved that what Claudia wrote was not the truth

The. Score.

Louis pacifying Armand there with the little touches at the end. LOL (the whole setup makes me wonder if ARMAND has also forgotten some things btw). Also that little thank you kiss

The Groan. Once more seemingly when Armand is displeased, so it could be a metaphysical manifestation after all, especially since Louis seems to comment on it. (It could also be a red herring, we'll see.)

Daniel‘s “we‘ll get to you“ to Armand (lol)

Louis‘ guilty look to Lestat when he tries to pep talk Claudia 😭

EDIT: there were two very short flahback scenes with a comment to memory, which is setting up the big one later, no doubt about it, ugh

I legit teared up so often.

I have missed them all so much.

It's all I wanted, and more. Cannot wait to scream about it with everyone.

Also, last but not least: can I just say how glad I am our writers are playwrights.

[chaotic-multi-fandom]

WHERE DOES IT START? ARUN, AMADEO, ARMAND

- My personal reflections on Armand's names in Interview with the Vampire (show version)

“Who am I Louis?” Armand asks while staring at a painting of a boy that only he would ever be able to recognize as himself. He stares at what is supposed to be his essence captured forever on a canvas, and yet the kneeling boy is a stranger to him. When he asks Louis this, he is earnest. Armand does not know who he is, and this lack of identity crushes and torments him. Armand seems to constantly define himself by his attachment to other people or things, such as a “servant”, as “the job (he) did not want” or as someone’s “companion” because he has never known anything else, he is never just “Armand;” he does not know who that is.

This is further reflected in his names, and the fact that despite having several none belong to him. First there’s Arun. This is supposedly the name he was born with, but even he is not sure of this due to his memory being clouded as a consequence all the horrors he suffered as a child. This name is not his, it is a name so linked to the abuse he endured that it has become the name of said abuse rather than the name of a person. His use of third person when talking about himself as “Arun” signals both a coping mechanism to distance himself from those experiences as well as the disconnect he feels from the identity attached to the name.

Then, there’s Amadeo. A name given to him by Marius, not only linking him directly with his maker and master but with God and worship, the name meaning “lover of god”. This name is also not his, but rather a projection of what Marius saw or expected in Armand. This is what we see in the painting, an ideal: a submissive, worshipful, whitewashed Armand degraded to kneel at the same level as the dog behind him, “basking in (his) worshipful mercy.” Regardless of how Armand did embody this role of worship and servitude during his time with Marius, that painting is not him, it is the fantasized construct that is Amadeo, who doesn’t really exist. When you think about it, Amadeo being a projection of those around him is not entirely different to “dreamstat” being a projection of Louis. This is of course largely my own interpretation and not fact, but I think anyone can agree that who is being portrayed in that painting is Armand only in name. It is simply another example of his body being used for a purpose, an artistic one in this case, his true essence and even features entirely forgotten and replaced by Amadeo’s. So, that name and the identity attached to it wasn’t entirely Armand’s either. Much like “Arun” being tied to his parents abandon and the brothel, Amadeo is trapped in the painting: just another property to be “sold” or “donated;” what Armand has always been treated as.

Finally, there is the name we call him by now: Armand. A name given to him by the Roman coven before sending him to the Paris coven, a collective that he is now supposed to lead and put before himself as an individual. It is a French name, a place he had no connection to before-hand and that only further distances him from who he might have once been, forcing him to adapt and assimilate into the new role he has been chained to. The name is a role in itself, as it means “soldier.” Furthermore, he is not a simple leader to this coven, he is the somewhat paternal and religious figure through which the coven; his “children,” serve Satan and through him, God. He is part of a “murky trinity” as Lestat calls it, a twisted parody of the holy trinity. So, “Armand” is once again much more than a name; it is another projection the lost and abandoned coven latches onto. Of course, they mostly refer to him as “maitre,” the implications of which I’ve already discussed in a different post. In this case, the dual titles “Armand” and “Maitre” are parallel to “Amadeo,” they both link Armand to the concepts of owner and God, except the roles change from being the owned worshiper to the worshiped owner. It remains someone else’s image, someone else’s name, one that prevents Armand from exploring who he is without it.

Armand does not have a name; how can he know who he is?

Even now he seeks the answer in Louis where he will not find it. There are, however, moments in which this seemed to be challenged. For example, shortly after meeting, Armand asks Louis to address him as such instead of “maitre” as his coven does. It is a moment in which he takes agency over what he wants to be called, a privilege he has never had before. Later, Louis calls him Arun as a way to indicate that he can see the person that lies behind the roles he plays, and that he can be himself around Louis. Yet these moments are still tainted. The name Armand does not reflect who he is, and in the conversation with Louis, Armand falls into his old patterns by addressing Louis as “maitre.” Plus, Louis too will go on to misuse this, but that’s a whole other topic. These instances, though revealing a more loving and honest side to Louis’ and Armand’s relationship in which they allow themselves to be open, they can not give Armand a sense of self. No one but himself can, and yet he doesn’t know how that is. It is a tragic never-ending paradox as immortal as he.

[dreadfuldevotee]

jokes on people because I love loumand because they ARE a failmarriage. I found them becoming companions again and spending time with sybenji in tvc a little bit crazy considering claudias death, I wanted to see the horror of louis dealing with his companion killing his daughter, I wanted the resentment, but we didnt get that. Yes, they still have some cute moments past the first book I'll be missing but overall I think what people need to remember is that amcs iwtv has different approach towards abuse than tvc and that will alter the course of relationships, claudias death and louis' trauma shouldnt be just brushed off, and imo one big fatal flaw with these books is that these vampires will do all of these horrible things but never suffer any consequences because any interpersonal conflicts they have are nullified for the sake of the plot, like in qotd where you have santino casually playing chess with armand, and sorry ms. Anne but that doesnt make any sense:( and its so boring. So, I know future loumand will be different, probably not that close....but the angst!! THE ANGST!!! I am thrilled what theyre going to do with them anyway

Yeah, this is absolutely a gripe I have had consistently across all the TVC books; is that other than Armand being 1# Gabrielle Hater, no one is capable of harboring any substantial hard feelings for another. Sometimes this is funny, like when Lestat immeidatly after learning about Nicki's death goes "Well Armand is so strong and brave for not killing him sooner. I know that was really hard for him." and other times its like mindbogglingly frustrating, Like David Talbot forgiving Lestat for turning him because "I secretly wanted it anyway even if I didn't realize it and begged you to stop and not to do it the entire time." or just everyones relationship with Marius-

Now, I am a showverse Trinity Gate truther, mostly because being irrational is my favorite hobby- but yes I agree that Louis, above all else, deserves to hold to his grief and anger and work through it in the foreground. I don't want the next time we see Armand and Louis in the same room to be sunshine and rainbows or even something fairly lukewarm. I want all that simmering resentment to rise to the top and let them reaaally hash it out. The squandered connection between them is so juicy, because it could have been so good. Getting to talk about how a sweet romance can turn into a cage. Loumand is like going over your friends house and realizing their parents fuckin' hate eachother but still makes everyone have dinner together every night. It's morbidly amazing how well they know eachother but how little they understand.

I would know him blind, by the way his breaths came and his feet struck the earth. I would know him in death, at the end of the world. (derogatory) :))))

[kuethemoon]

iwtv fanfic friday: lesbianism onto the guys

@oldbutchdaniel I'm joining the fun. it's yuri time

two-headed mother by tisiphones // e, 8.6k

"Poor darling," Armand says, and the condescension in his voice is so awful and so offensive and Lestat wants to curl up in it and never, ever leave. "It's okay to let yourself be taken care of for just one night. You can't help what you need." It's Lestat's last night in Paris. Armand makes it a memorable one.

actually world changing. mommy issues galore it's sooo fun and this fic is part of several that got me into armandstat

super graphic ultra modern girl by armanddelioncourt // e, 0.9k

“I want to watch how you insert your tampon.” “Wha—No, you weirdo,” she glanced around the mercifully-deserted aisle. “You can’t just ask me that in the store!”

yummmmmy period blood fic!!! i love period blood fics sooo much and they're so cute

More than Neither by apoptoses // e, 6.2k

Annoying, how hot it is to see Armand kneeling on the dirty bathroom floor like this. Without her heels to compensate for their height difference she looks small, delicate. Her face is on the level with Daniel’s hips and Daniel knows what’s about to happen. Armand has probably been planning for this since they stepped into the store, she realizes. There’s no way she’d catch Daniel bleeding for the first time and let that go. (Daniel gets her period. Armand helps. Written for the Queens of the Damned prompt butch/femme.)

another period blood fic pls bartender! if I tip you can add them being freaky in a public toilet? thank you very much I'll take the lot pls!! the way daniel and armand handle being women and lesbians is so well written. dyke stamp of approval. if you're starting to notice a trend don't tell me

she loves me, she loves me not by IguessIllchangeitlater // e, 2.3k

“Sure,” she panted and raised her head, tried to find Armand’s eyes, but kept focusing on her fanged smile instead. “I will wear that fucking skirt.” Push out, push in, push out, push in, Daniela was going to come just from that, she was going to die. “I can’t-ah, I can’t wear my underwear with that, I would look silly.” Push in, push out. “Yes,” Armand agreed. She rested her head on the mattress, next to Daniela’s knee and busied herself with mouthing the blood that was still there. The blood that she drew earlier. “So, what’s the plan, boss?” Daniela managed to raise herself on her elbows. Armand’s beguiled eyes looked like that of a cat in the light of the night. “For the underwear situation?” “You will wear none, of course.”

butch daniel wearing a skirt because armand said so was an idea that bounced around in my head for a whole week so you know how excited I was to read this. hell yeah they're so bad to each other

sweet things for the sea by ulatraviolet_glow // e, 2.6k

Danielle Molloy, a runaway posing as a young man on a trading ship dreams of a better life, but when her dreams find her falling overboard and into the arms of the woman of her dreams, how disturbed will Dani be when she realises that the woman is not human at all, but a creature of the sea?

siren armand do you know how much you mean to meeeeee I lay awake at night thinking of you sinfully. siren armand...

one of your girls by sleepdeprivedsurgeon // m, 4.7k

“I was thinking maybe I’d go with my girlfriend,” Daniel says. Armand sucks in a breath, a familiar blend of excitement and fever rearing its head inside him. This isn’t new— nothing is, after nearly five centuries— but it’s certainly been a while. Louis doesn’t care what he looks like, what he is, just as long as he stays below him. On his knees in the endless confessional. Marius would dress him up sometimes: Helen of Troy, Cassandra, Mary Magdalene. When the painting was finished he’d push his skirts up and take him there in the studio.

technically not yuri but beautiful feminization + crossdressing armand and I had to put it here. special treat!

[armandposting]

I'm gonna ramble for a while about this actually so here's a cut lol

actually this is why I struggle with fics where (usually daniel) just like. explains to armand that Venice was bad, usually rudely, and that Works somehow. I get the urge. but I think it's misunderstanding the role of this period of armands life to act like this is how to address his trauma from it. he thinks of Venice as one of the best periods of his life because it was. not only were all his material needs taken care of, which was not true in his original home, when he was enslaved, pr with the children of darkness, but he's also able to be himself in ways he wasn't in any of those other settings. he certainly was his own person at home at kiev but he also had a lot of religious and familial pressures pushing him different ways. and while enslaved and with the cult he had basically no autonomy at all. in Venice he's being abused but he also has enough space to be coming into himself in a lot of ways. marius doesn't inflict unwavering obedience. there are consequences for acting out, but amadeo can and does anyway. (I'm NOT claiming this means marius was better at parenting him than his actual parents lmao. in the books his parents love him and I have no doubt that he would have been able to act out and figure himself out at home too as he got older. but he never got to find that out and his memories of that time are fucked anyway, so that possibility is not really going to factor very strongly in his self image.) and the cult is what completely kills armand's ability to think and act independently for hundreds of years.

so my point is, acting like he can't see that what happened to him in Venice is bad is like... missing the point, from armand's point of view. even if he was to recognize what marius was doing as abuse, that's not going to negate all of the other good parts about that time. and it's not going to negate that, even though he only existed for a few years, amadeo is the most developed in his personhood that armand is ever allowed to be until post-paris when he's finally independent again. thinking about andrei/arun, amadeo, and armand as splintered bits of personality, which I generally do, amadeo's influence is ESSENTIAL to that mix. andrei/arun exists in a fog, almost impossible to access, and even if he didnt, he was never more than a child. armand is tortured, indoctrinated, traumatized, and eventually, free of the structures that did all that, doesn't really know who he is. amadeo knew who he was and what he wanted. amadeo, while a teenager, was just starting manhood and saw himself as a fully developed man. he had friends and family and loved ones and a relative amount of freedom and safety. he was comfortable fighting for what he wanted and fighting back when he was upset. armand NEEDS some part of him who feels that way in order to get back to that place as an independent person. so of course he's never going to view Venice as unequivocally bad. because it wasn't! from his own perspective, it's not like he's viewing that time through THAT unrealistic a lens. it's really just that the rest of his life has either been That Bad or he doesn't remember it.

[pynkhues]

please do share more about lestat learning english from a sailor (who tops him, i gather). you're like the only writer who can write louis or lestat with other people and still make it hot to me (though of course your writing them together tops everything. no pun intended.)

(x)

Oh! Hahaha, yeah! It's one I've had for a while, and I have it briefly pencilled into the outline of the Lestat POV fic set after Ungodly Hour, but it was kind of shook out after re-reading TVL and thinking a lot about a few things? I've mentioned it on here before, but I'm a little obsessed with the exchange between Armand and Lestat in the book where Armand tells Lestat that nobody ever loved either of them enough to teach them anything, and that kind of thematic marriage of education as an act of love that really goes through the series, but particularly that book, which feels really unique to me as a thematic union?

It's something that particularly excites me, because I'm really fascinated by the fact that Lestat could be resentful of educated men as a result - in fact I think typically in fiction, characters like Lestat usually are - but it's genuinely the opposite. He's attracted to intelligent, well-educated men. More than attracted! He falls in love with them! From Louis to Nicki to David in the books, but I'd even argue Armand, where the attraction there begins as a result of both Armand's beauty and what Lestat perceives as vampiric knowledge (and I think there’s kind of an interesting beat with Lestat becoming less interested in him when he realises Armand doesn’t actually have that knowledge).

So yes! On the one hand, my head is often there, but on the other, I do think Lestat needs to have had a degree of - - mm, not sexual healing, because I don't think he's ever actually had that, but I guess sexual reclamation before he meets Louis, and I don't think that can just involve women or topping men, especially because I do read Lestat's 'You can be on top' line on their wedding night as literal (I know plenty of people disagree with me, and you're welcome to, but regardless. That's how I see it.)

(This isn't fic, but it's not not fic, and please know it's pretty sloppy, haha)

SO, I kind of like this idea that he was mostly with women when he and Gabrielle were traveling, especially after Nicki dumps him so brutally and Gabrielle's sort of divorcing herself from her own womanhood as she leaves Lestat for longer and longer periods of time. To me, I think he's probably looking for lovers who can mother him better than Gabrielle in her absence following the traumas of Magnus, then Armand, then the break-up with Nicki, and while I think he probably is intimate with men still, I think it's rare, and I think he'd always be pitching, so to speak.

The long sleep is obviously harrowing in and of itself, but I think being woken by Marius and taken to the Greek Islands probably feels like something close to a fresh start, or at least a way Lestat can try and pretend he's stepped out of the bear trap of his own trauma, and it's especially something because Marius is teaching him things! Sharing things and wanting him to learn, and Armand's just taught him (both a century ago and minutes ago) that that's something that means someone loves him! And I think he loves the islands! He's not there for very long, and he’s mostly holed up with Marius of course, but I think when he gets his chance he swans around and relishes in the glow of this new life so far away from his old one, and I think he fucks around the villages a little, and probably with more men again now, with the distance and the comfort and the look and the sound and the language of them so different to any of the men he left behind in Paris.

I think he's probably enjoying being pampered and the centre of attention, because he's Lestat, and maybe one of them eats him out, which isn't something anyone's ever done for him before, which is so good and feels like - - something.  So he contemplates it with this sweet and eager man, and maybe they make plans to see each other again, but nothing further happens because he drinks from Akasha and everything goes to hell, and suddenly he’s on a boat! Hidden in a crate to be lurched up into the cargo hold because he’s a vampire and it’s the only way to ensure light won’t spill through a window and find him.

But still! He needs to eat, y’know? He’s too restless for a long sleep, even though it’ll be four, five weeks til they arrive in the new world, and he has no idea what to expect from America, and he can’t speak a word of English, but every night he clambers out of his crate to hold the sea air in his long-dead lungs and find a feed. He can’t exactly hunt among the humans every night without causing alarm, so he tries to balance it all between the rats in the hold, the cabin boys who lurk close to the hatch, and some nights he creeps up onto the deck to chase the seabirds that dance around the hull, but only once does he eat a passenger. An odious man with a pipe and ugly thoughts of a girl barely fifteen who he means to steal into the cabin of.

(And it’s bloody, that one. Lestat tears out his throat and stomps on his cock and pushes his eyeballs so far back in their sockets they pop before he throws the mangled remains of him overboard.)

Nobody seems to care much though, and so he’s not sure when this shipman notices him, but he does, because Lestat starts to hear his thoughts. Jumbled words in a language he doesn’t understand that always seem sort of amused and always seem aimed at him, and it’s not until the second week on board that this man slips down into the cargo hold and finds him. He’s older in appearance at least, but not by much. Has maybe a decade on Lestat’s physical age, his face streaked with grime, his features dark and craggy, but handsome somewhere beneath it all, and when he starts to talk, his voice is low and rough, and all Lestat can do is hold up his hands, say Je suis vraiment désolé, je ne parle pas anglais, and the guy says something that ends with the word Frog.

“You,” the man says slowly, pointing at him, and Lestat nods, understanding, before the man points up above them to the deck, and says something that has Lestat blinking back at him. Saying:

“Je ne fais pas semblant, monsieur, je ne parle vraiment pas anglais.”

The man frowns, and Lestat eases his own nerves by smiling charmingly back at him, wondering vaguely if he should eat him, if he even could? Would he taste of ship work and sea air? That could be nice, Lestat supposes, but his neck is rather greasy, he thinks, eyeballing it, when the man suddenly sniffs, fists his hips, looks back at him with an exasperated look.

His gaze carries past Lestat, to the crate he’s been sleeping in, before he looks back at Lestat. He points at Lestat, then it, then presses his palms together, lifts them beside his head, tilting his neck towards them, and making a loud, nasal sound with his nose.

Lestat stares at him, as the man lifts his head again, repeating the gesture – pointing at Lestat, the crate, then - - ah, yes! Pretending to snore!

“Oui,” Lestat says, pointing at the crate. Yes, he sleeps here! What a quick-thinking man! He looks back at him, and the monsieur is staring at him, almost surprised that Lestat has admitted it with such enthusiasm.

“Okay,” he says, and Lestat nods.

“Okay,” he echoes, the words clunking out of his mouth, and at the sound of it, the man looks almost amuse. He seems to think for a moment, take Lestat in, before he exhales, gestures to himself again, says:

“Abel.”

Which - - oh! He means him! Lestat nods, suddenly delighted.

“Lestat.”

The man - - Abel - - he squints back at him, like he’s trying to tell if Lestat’s telling the truth, and so Lestat says it again, hand to his chest, Lestat, before he glides over, pressing a hand to Abel’s chest, which the other man quickly bats away. Lestat’s unphased, says: Abel.

Abel looks up at him, says something else in English that Lestat can’t comprehend, before he tosses up his hands, and then he turns on his heel, climbs back up to the deck, and just - - leaves him. And it’s a swell of emotion of course – the sense that he should’ve killed him, that he could reveal him, could pry open his crate in the daytime and let the sunlight flood in, and Lestat reaches for his mind, but he can’t make sense of the language. No, the only sense he can make of the man is that he’s quiet, that his hands are always red and aching from rope burn, that he’s planted his feet on more countries than even Lestat, but never France, no, and Lestat doesn’t know why he lets him live that first night beyond the fact that it’s the first time someone has spoken to him in two weeks.

Still, he’s only half expecting it when Abel comes back the next night after Lestat has fed on a wary seagull, the man holding a ship lantern and a frayed wad of notepaper and a little bag of things he’ll soon learn involves a map and a pencil and a children’s word book borrowed from a passenger, and Lestat’s not entirely sure what to expect when Abel lays it over another crate he means to use as a desk, but he peers into his mind and sees only intent. So Lestat sits beside him, and Abel, gruff, with cracked hands, starts to teach him.

And it becomes a habit, every night after the passengers are rounded up for bed, Abel steals back down to the cargo hold with a plan and few words, and it’s just - - it’s the sort of school Lestat had always wanted. Not long lectures littered with personal history, the sort Marius had liked to soliloquy, but words and letters and a pencil in his hand, and Abel was patient in a way Lestat had never known. Gruff, yes, but warm, and ever exasperated, of course – Lestat knows he is ever exasperating – but Abel would never get angry. No, Abel would have Lestat repeat words and change tones and pronunciations, and he’d adjust Lestat’s grip on the pencil, and his hand would be so big, so firm, so hot atop his own, that Lestat had found himself deliberately mishandling it just so Abel would fix it.

And he could hear it. Could see it in Abel’s ever open head, his mind a window for Lestat to press his nose to, and in it was a dutied marriage and a dead child, then worse, a man, a lover, gone the way Nicki did, then years at sea to escape, and beneath it, boys he’d loved but could too rarely bring himself to touch, so Lestat touched. Lestat would lean over until their shoulders pressed atop the crate they used as a table, and Lestat would let their knees knock when they sat opposite one another, would let their fingers brush when he plucked an apple from his hand and learnt this English word for une pomme, and Abel would never flinch. Would never let his eyes dart, would never show that he’d felt it at all. Would just exhale the closest thing to a laugh he ever shared with Lestat, and tell him America would eat him alive.

“Not if I don’t eat it first,” Lestat took to saying, and Abel would give him a look that he tried to make disapproving but always just looked hopeful, which gave Lestat dreams of staying aboard. Of travelling port to port with this growling stranger, his blunt-nailed, crack-knuckled teacher, this man who offered without expectation, and Lestat could pay him, and maybe one night he tries to. Offers him some of the jewellery he’s brought with him, stuffed into a pouch in his crate, but Abel doesn’t want it, and maybe it’s then that Lestat realises that Abel’s lonely too.

Maybe it has Lestat touching him softer, more intentionally, and maybe it’s when Lestat’s hand touches his elbow, ever so gently, in thanks, that Abel’s mask finally cracks. When his eyes clench and a mournful sound tears from his throat, and he leaves Lestat early that night. Disappears up the hold to the deck as Lestat watches him depart, and he’s not sure what to expect, but the hard grasp of loneliness finds him that night and he climbs back into his crate to weep himself to sleep.

Still, Abel comes back, and maybe they pretend it’s nothing until they’re a night from port, an Abel’s brought beer down from the kitchens to celebrate, and they both get a little drunk, and Abel’s trying to teach Lestat how to ask for directions from the dock, and Lestat just - - looks at him. Looks at this man he’s spent the last four weeks with, looks at the man who’s taught him this language of doorknobs and obscenities, and he meant it when he said it was all he ever wanted, and he thinks - -

Well.

Lestat doesn’t think. No. Lestat put a hand on Abel’s knee, and slides it up, inch, by honest, tender inch.

And Abel looks at him, and Lestat can see how tight his throat is, can hear his rabbit heart, can see his pants, too quickly straining, and Abel exhales, but he doesn’t move. Lets Lestat slide his hand further up, lets him rise from his seat, lets Lestat swing a thin leg over his hips, but doesn’t touch him, even as Lestat leans down to softly kiss his chapped lips.

“Our last night together, mon cher,” Lestat whispers, looking at Abel through his lashes as the other man’s eyes darken. “Won’t you take me to bed?”

And he feels it, Abel swallow, feels it even more when Abel brings a hand up to skim Lestat’s hip, dropping it away almost before Lestat can realise it. He shakes his head, tries for a joke, tilting his head at Lestat’s crate.

“Don’t know if you can call that a bed,” he says, and Lestat tilts his head back towards him, feels his own heart start to hammer at Abel’s sad, craggy face. So generous, his seafarer, his teacher, and tonight, his lover.

And Lestat climbs off him. Strips off his clothes, watching as Abel’s gaze darts up, looks away, back up, away, as Lestat climbs over the wall of it. A little breathless now that he’s nude, just like he was - - no. Stop. And he closes his eyes as he lifts a hand, sucks on his fingers, wetting them with spit, and he knows he wants this. Knows he wants it so much, that he misses being so lovingly filled, even if there are memories pacing at the wall of his consciousness, and he spreads his trembling legs, when suddenly his hand is pulled out of his mouth and his fingers are doused wetly, and Lestat blinks his eyes open. Looks up to find Abel red-cheeked, watching him, pouring some of the beer on Lestat’s fingers.

“This’ll be - - slicker,” Abel says, voice a little rough, and when Lestat stares, he just shrugs, says softly: “Make it easier.”

And that - - oh. When was the last time Lestat had someone who wanted to treat him softly like this? He wets his lips, cock twitching, chest aching.  

“Will ah - - will you do it for me, monsieur?”

Abel works his mouth, then suddenly nods, dousing his own fingers in beer before climbing into the crate, dropping a hand between Lestat’s legs, pressing a rough finger there. He checks Lestat’s face, and Lestat blinks hard, and Abel rubs, before he breaches him, and oh, it’s slow. All of it. Has to take a half hour for Abel to get three fingers in, him tentative, Lestat tight, but Abel was a patient teacher, and he’s patient here now too, gentler than Lestat can remember anyone ever being with him, and when he finds his prostate, it’s stars atop stars. An eternal splendid heaven that has him breathlessly close to coming on Abel’s patient hand alone, but he doesn’t want that, not now, not with his last night with his seafarer, and he pulls him closer, reaches for his cock, slick with beer, guiding him towards him, and he pushes in, and Lestat won’t close his eyes. Won’t close them to let any face that isn’t the panting, honest, kind one atop him fill his gaze, won’t let anyone claw their way into this moment, because he is in no tower, no church, no tiny apartment, no theater, no, he is here beneath a man who he knows has never set foot in the city that killed him, and Abel looks at him like he can’t quite believe he’s allowed to have him, and Lestat thinks you can, Lestat thinks you can because you waited for me to want you too, because you let me decide, because you gave without expectation, Lestat thinks you would deny yourself wanting me, but I won’t deny you, you can have me, you taught me, and Lestat thinks it’s not right, for someone with skin as rough as this to touch so softly, and he knows he’s weeping as he wraps his legs around Abel’s waist, his arms around his shoulders, as he pulls him in close as his cock buries itself to the hilt, and Abel says:

“You’re alright, you’re alright, love, oh, I don’t know how you’re real,” as he presses chapped lips to the corner of Lestat’s mouth, and Lestat thinks this man has made him real these last weeks. That this, with him, is a soft entry into a new world, and oh, he hopes its one that will be as kind to him as Abel has.  

[wizardpink]

Hi! Random question, but do you think the show will have Daniel call Armand "boss" now that the Maître thing happened? I know it's very prevalent in the books, but it might have different and/or interesting Implications™ in the show.

This question reminded me of one of my favorite episodes of the It's Always Sunny podcast. Stay with me here because we are going on a journey.

If there's any journalist in the world, living right now, who doesn't have a boss, it's Daniel Molloy.

There was a post recently that said something about how the point in the story where the timeline shifts the most dramatically from the books to the show is in the early 80s, when Armand DOESN'T turn Daniel into a vampire. I think that is a major part of why the Devil's Minion storyline in the show scared and angered so many fans in the finale. It's so different from the story we fell in love with! But we were so focused on Armand being different (possibly turning Daniel out of spite) that we forgot that Daniel is the one who is really different, in a really genius and wonderful departure from the books.

In the books we know human Daniel primarily as a man in his early 20s through his early 30s, but who he is in his early 30s is extremely heavily influenced by all the things that happened to him in that previous decade. Meeting Louis, meeting Armand, being pursued by Armand, and finally becoming Armand's lover.

But show Daniel had a great big reset button pressed on his life either at the end of the interview or at the end of his and Armand's romance, and he got to experience a life that book Daniel never did, and as a result it shaped him into a man that I think book Daniel always would have become, until he got derailed. And it's fascinating how BOTH paths make perfect sense even though they start at the same pivotal point!

Book Daniel meets vampires and then immediately is sucked into their world permanently. It becomes his realm as well. And in that realm are hierarchies and power dynamics that he has to exist within. He becomes subservient in ways to Armand, to Marius, etc etc. I could go on but you know what I mean.

Show Daniel however! Show Daniel meets vampires and gets pushed OUT of their world back into the world of humanity. And yes, in that realm are hierarchies and power dynamics that he has to exist within. But they're upheld by human beings! People who are no better than Daniel himself, and certainly no more frightening than the shit he's already been through whether he can remember it or not. Show Daniel pursues any story, any lead he wants no matter how dangerous or powerful the subject matter may be. He writes what he wants when he wants, and it works because he's fucking good at it. And it doesn't always work out for him! He says he's been fired and rehired, he's been nearly killed when an interview subject gets skittish or tired of his bullshit. But the point is, he went out and he made his own damn rules. He's brash and opinionated and has zero filter. He'll say whatever he wants to anyone, demand answers and truth from anyone. And no one is gonna tell him he can't. They're gonna have to drag him out of here or kill him to shut him up.

Armand and Daniel's maker/fledgling, devil/minion dynamic is going to be SO DIFFERENT from the books and yet JUST as juicy because the important things -- the love, the longing, the passion, the understanding, the recognition -- that is all still there. But I don't see 69 year old Daniel Molloy falling over himself to worship and cowtow to Armand. My DREAM is we see BOTH dynamics just to juxtapose the two, and the strife it creates as two people who once loved each other try to get back to that place now that they aren't those people anymore.

So tl;dr, yes and no. If he says it, it's going to be like, one time and so dripping with sarcasm Armand will be fighting his fangs again. If we get an earnest pet name it'll be very private I feel (as opposed to Armand who would call Daniel his beloved in line at the post office).

Also on a personal note, "boss" is so deeply unsexy. Goons and henchmen call the Joker boss, I don't want that haha. Oh and also I have like zero recollection of him calling Armand "boss" in the books, that's a detail that my brain mulched up and ate years ago I guess. So I was the wrong person to ask this. Thanks for reading though! 😂

[eniokai]

I tried to explain to myself some of Marius's actions towards Armand, and I ended up with a lengthy post in which I want to express my perspective on the dynamics of Marius's relationships with Lestat and Armand. I want to emphasize that this is not how I personally view these characters, but rather how I see Marius's perspective on them.

It will be no secret that in Lestat's and Armand's lives, Marius occupies the role of a mentor, teacher, wise advisor, and serves as a father figure for both of them.

If we consider their relationships as familial, in this hierarchy, not by age but by position, Lestat would be the older child, upon whom Marius places his main expectations, ambitions, and hopes. Lestat is a reflection of Marius himself, the heir to his values and ideas. They are soulmates, sharing views on life and understanding each other well. This forms the foundation of their love and mutual respect. Respect is particularly important here because, despite the fact that Lestat creates just as many problems and chaos as Armand (honestly, even more) Marius sees him as an independent individual. He considers him an equal.

In contrast to Lestat, Armand is complicated and incomprehensible to Marius. He occupies the position of the stereotypical younger child, someone Marius expects nothing from and places no hopes on. He loves Armand simply for existing, even if that existence is not right beside him. However, Armand pays for the lack of burdensome expectations with the fact that he is not treated as an adult independent person. Marius does not believe that Armand is mature enough to live without the interventions of a true adult (Marius) in his life.

Does Marius consider Armand his equal? My honest answer to that is no. You have every right to disagree with this. Marius is convinced that he not only has the full right to make important decisions regarding Armand's life and to scold him like a child, but he believes that Armand needs this.

So how do Armand and Lestat differ in their positions? In absolutely every way. Lestat was initially a free person, he already had a formed personality and he already had a true maker. He found Marius on his own initiative and chose Marius as his authority.

Armand in turn belonged to Marius in the most direct and barbaric sense. Even if Marius did not consider him literal property, that was the factual status of Armand in palazzo. The difference in position and status is obvious.

Furthermore, what is most important is that Armand hardly remembered his life before the brothel. Armand was a blank slate. His new identity was built on mentorship and guidance from his master. Marius replaced parents, teachers, and other possible authority figures. This is more significant than Marius's involvement in the life of any other boy from the palazzo because they had a past, possibly families, and they knew their identities. In Amadeo's life, Marius is the foundation of his new personality.

And perhaps most obviously, but no less significantly, Armand is Marius's fledgling, his dark child.

I’ve seen a lot of angry discussions about why Marius believes he has the right to make decisions for Armand. I agree with this perspective, I think he genuinely believes he has rights over Armand due to all the aforementioned circumstances (not because of the fact that he bought him, but because of the immense influence he has had on his personality and his status as Armand's maker). I see an analogy here with parents who struggle to accept their children’s adulthood, they want to do what’s best, but it often backfires.

But at the same time, Marius is willing to take responsibility (finally 🤐). He takes Daniel under his wing not because he feels pity for some half-mad newly turned vampire, but because it’s a failure his own fledgling. Rights and responsibilities cannot exist without each other. Perhaps in this way, he is trying to atone for his actions (or lack thereof) towards Armand, maybe to redeem himself as master and maker. But I doubt Marius will ever be able to admit this, even to himself.

Armand finds it difficult to break the established opinion about him. Throughout the series of books, there has been a constant tension between them, which sometimes escalated into open conflict.

Armand would lose his temper when referred to as a child, he fought for the right to be considered an adult, as he had indeed gone through his own journey and made significant progress. Unfortunately for him, Marius is not a psychology guru. The differences in their views, life rules, and temperaments are perceived by Marius as misconceptions and immaturity, while Armand's adherence to religious beliefs is seen as a sign of suggestibility and an inability to make his own decisions. To be honest, I think there is some rational basis in this. The occasional emotional outbursts and impulsive actions, but most of all Armand's walked out into the sun, only reinforce Marius's opinion that Armand cannot handle his life on his own.

Let's wish Armand success in being perceived as an adult! 🌠

Origin: Cryptid Club