#anyway. armand yes

[sentientsky]

armand is so fucking pretty. genuinely WHO allowed tbis

[loumandforyou]

Armand + why would you say that if you have only met this man once

[reinvent-and-believe]

[nanathebunny]

i do love to think abt armand being so interested in daniel’s Normal As Fuck life stories, like it’s all so mundane to daniel but armand finds it fascinating, he looooooves hearing abt daniel’s first prom, abt the time he failed his drivers test when he was 16, his first job, those normal little things

[skorpiomag]

it cuts you up

[thesunoficaruss]

yes I am aware of everything armand did. counter point: I don't care

[molloyism]

ive been so obsessed lately with the idea that during the years between san francisco and dubai armand was constantly haunting daniels dreams that it has completely fabricated my view of him

[pynkhues]

Sophie I would love to hear your thoughts on the Ha!!! in the Louvre as it seems all the rage to discuss it again. Were you a fan or do you wish it wasn’t there?

Oh, I love it, haha. It's awful, but I think it really taps into this kind of twisted thing deep in Louis that almost - - mmm, this isn't quite the right word, but I'd say sort of resents vulnerability in others. It kind of lives for me with the moment of him shutting Grace down for trying to talk about Paul, and Claudia for talking about Bruce (his 'I don't need that' lives rent free in my head!!), but also with him asking Lestat about the chains only to tell him 'I don't care', weaponising Daniel's Parkinson's, and taunting Santiago over his turning before he kills him.

There are different contexts for all of these beats, of course, and I think they're motivated by different emotions, but interestingly, I think it really deeply ties into Louis' sense of masculinity. I think with Grace and Claudia, it's very much about his own manhood and his feelings of not being able to care for his family in a way that removes his sister's worries, nor protect his daughter (and specifically, protect her from another man).

With the guys, I still think its about masculinity, but that it's not just about Louis' sense of his own, but his perception of others', and how that relates to power. I think he resents what he perceives to be fundamentally a weakness / lack of male strength, which is clearest with Santiago, who he's actively emasculating with the memory of his turning before he kills him, but I think it's pretty specifically there with Daniel too, in how Louis weaponises his illness to effectively render him impotent (because that is how a lot of men feel about that sort of disability, particularly as they age), and I definitely think it's there in those scenes with Armand and Lestat, as both of those scenes are ultimately about how they were both used and rendered powerless by other men.

(And it's kind of an interesting beat with Armand and Lestat, and one of the ways they are two sides of the same coin, because those losses of personal power ultimately lead to great vampiric power).

Of course, what's happening with Armand and Louis in that scene is very much informed by Lestat's story about Magnus in s1, and Louis pretty clearly feeling that Lestat only told him about his maker/making to shrink himself small enough to squeeze back into Louis' coffin, ergo emphasising a moment of personal powerlessness to try and make Louis feel he has any power at all. Whether that was Armand's intention - - I don't think so? I think Armand wants to be understood, which is interestingly one of the ways I think he and Louis are alike (I don't think Lestat really wants to be understood at all, because I think - as Sam has effectively said - Lestat feels that at his gnarled roots, he's fundamentally unloveable), but there is a sense of wielding vulnerability as a power play there that I think Louis is hyper aware of.

It's a predator rolling over to reveal its soft belly and pretending it isn't still trying to trap you in its maw, y'know?

And I think that really intersects with Louis' feelings of not only himself having escaped a toxic and abusive dynamic with Lestat, but also his sense of his own masculinity and role in a relationship. He's soft and warm and starting to take ownership of himself, but he doesn't want to be played again, he wants to feel in control, he wants to be independent, he wants to be a man, but also I think that his dynamic with Armand is underpinned by that sort of resentment of vulnerability, and perhaps even a little bit of disgust at Armand for having the power that he has and never stepping into it as a quote-unquote 'man'. That's not about him subbing, that's about him shrinking himself, making bad art, working with (and I love the Coven, but - - ) bitchy, entitled hacks, and, I think in the context of that beat specifically, being a sex worker and - I'd say in Louis' summation as a Victorian/Edwardian man - 'allowing' himself to be kept by Marius and used again (to quote Louis what, 30 years later? - 'groomed into a little bitch!') when Louis, as a man, for a portion of both his mortal and immortal life, was a pimp.

That hah! to me is kind of the encapsulation of all of that, and I think it's messy and ugly and complicated, and I love that, just as I love him weaponising it in 2.05 just as he basically weaponises his knowledge of Magnus in the tower in 2.08. It's compelling to me, and honestly very Byronic.

[sizeofyoursoul]

I studied him for a long moment, fighting the darkness I had deliberately sought, trying to draw from him some impression of his complete disposition on this, and I realized he was sincere. There was no envy in him, or old grudge against me; there was no hurt, or trickery, or anything. He was past all these things, if ever they had obsessed him. Perhaps they'd been fantasies of mine. "Perhaps so," he said, answering my thoughts directly.

Lestat and Armand, Memnoch the Devil

[clarasghosts]

Clara Oswald 🤝 Armand deceptive control freaks (+ the old men with person-shaped holes in their memory)

[echinocereus]

You take Samama Khalid on a date and all he does it talk about Her (The Magnus Institute)

[laniidae-passerine]

okay I have to ask for the sake of fandom and fic writers everywhere:

[winepresswrath]

Armand's simpering little "and I never have" has taken on new dimensions for me. Technicality king and also I think very in keeping with his whole malign fairy creature deal. You can tell him not to hurt the bae, but you should really specify what "hurt" entails. Is chopping someone's hands off really hurting them? If they have annoyed you very much I mean.

-questions Armand might pose to Lestat that inspire him to leave the country

[movedtonewblogcheckpinnedpost]

One thing I really love about Armand, Lestat and Jaime is that not only they're neurodivergent-coded with their actions, the things they say, interests etc, but the very way they process thoughts is neurodivergent... I'm reading explanations of what they're thinking and feeling and I'm like YUP that's how neurodivergent brains operate actually

[pynkhues]

https://www.tumblr.com/pynkhues/786860993935458304/

Sorry but everything you put especially about Louis' masculinity and connecting points was from thin air. Or have you had private briefings with Rolin? Louis hallucinating the Ha! means he resents Claudia for her SA? Really? And when was Louis ever 'disgusted' at the power Armand had in the coven? You must be passing off your projections of Louis as truth. It's especially offensive when the scene in question was a manipulation attempt by Louis' abuser who is deep into his ensnaring plan at this point. Why should Armand's backstory matter to the people he's preying on? It's nothing to do with masculinity. Louis doesn't want Armand or a relationship with him, he's being coerced into dating a psychopath who is threatening him and Claudia.

I mean, I think I offered quite a bit of evidence from the show that you're deliberately misreading given you're not even able to accurately parrot my own points back to me without twisting them, but it's fine if you disagree, anon. I was asked for my interpretation, and I gave it.

I would say though that Louis isn't being coerced into dating a psychopath, and that he's not doing it for Claudia. Louis' attracted to Armand, and he very clearly cares about him, even if it's a love and care that pales in comparison to his feelings for Lestat. Armand also doesn't threaten either of them, and Louis' ability to move outside of the Coven freely right up until the moment he's not is pretty clearly depicted in the show itself, just as his capacity to leave Armand is, which he does in 2.08. I know a lot of you hate the suggestion that Louis has agency, but he does, and your flippancy over Armand's backstory is pretty ugly, honestly.

[crowleysfall]

amc will have really missed an opportunity if they don’t have lestat performing a cover of this absolute banger in season 3 just saying