#interview with the vampire show

[haflacky]

Unbreakable bond

Prints

[obrienpolycule]

the 2020s said we're gonna make vampire art about the things that are oppressing and killing us

[skltart]

getting their minion devilled

[blackcatsbiggestfan]

[taintedmind6669]

[mostbelovedqueer]

Propaganda for Gonzo: Iirc I thiiiink he won the nonbiney swag competition and he is NOT done. Back to win this one too. His genderqueer swag can kill

Propaganda for Armand: no message

Disclaimer

The tournament is based on submission!

If you don't think xyz character is queer, you can just vote against them! But at this point it is too late to take them out of the tournament without messing the whole thing up!

Rules

don't insult characters or fandoms, you will get blocked

reblogs are fine, but please don't reblog the same polls over and over (especially if you are a poll/tournament blog), you will get blocked

please stop yelling at me or calling me cruel for pitting "your faves" against each other, the tournament polls are randomized

[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.

[fanwarrior-suffering]

We’re winning (new content) but I’m losing (it).

[arylleth]

Kill me again. Show me the only way you know how to love.

[lazyasexual]

The worst thing about Armand is not that he kills people or manipulates them, but that he's a crypto bro

[haflacky]

Old love

[romanovaswebs]

the ability to watch new episodes of house of the dragon & interview with the vampire on the same night is actually world - shattering . i love being in the drama .

[skltart]

devils minion era daniel

[blackcatsbiggestfan]

Guys, admire him one last time before he gets officially cancelled tomorrow:

[taintedmind6669]

Someone HAS to have done this before but I have yet to see it so im posting this

Finally got around to watching Interview With the Vampire and Daniel is my favorite character, Im a sucker for the bitchy old man trope

[mostbelovedqueer]

Propaganda for Castiel: Where to begin! He is part of one of the worst queerbaits ever! He's gay! He confessed his love and died immediately after! He's autistic! He literally broke the narrative because he loves Dean so mcuh!

Propaganda for Louis: no message

Disclaimer

The tournament is based on submission!

If you don't think xyz character is queer, you can just vote against them! But at this point it is too late to take them out of the tournament without messing the whole thing up!

Rules

don't insult characters or fandoms, you will get blocked

reblogs are fine, but please don't reblog the same polls over and over (especially if you are a poll/tournament blog), you will get blocked

please stop yelling at me or calling me cruel for pitting "your faves" against each other, the tournament polls are randomized