#Devil's Minion

[yourchocolatenachostudent]

Louis's face here is literally:

"What the hell is going on between them that I don't know about?"

[apoptoses]

It’s rare that he gets to see Daniel’s first meal of the day. He’s picked through his memories, he knows that on the Night Island he tends to wake in the afternoon, stumble down to the kitchen to graze. Daniel takes advantage of the ability to call their private chefs in to make him bacon, eggs. Food that sits heavy on his stomach so that he has to wander back to bed to sleep off the rest of the day. After that it doesn’t much matter, Daniel thinks. He’ll get Armand’s blood and that’s enough to hold him over. A cycle of snacking and blood sharing that repeats and repeats and repeats.

“LIsten, we need to make a pact,” Daniel mumbles between bites. “No more west-bound long haul flights. At least not without a couple days between each layover.”

Armand frowns. “Was it so burdensome to fly without me beside you?” 

It had been odd, departing in the evening in the cargo hold, trapped within the box that contained his coffin. Moving backwards through time. To leave in the dark but arrive in the middle of the morning- it creates a certain kind of inertia, he finds. 

Perhaps it’s what they mean when they say ‘jet lagged’. All of that effort to only be in a place for a week and then they’ll be moving on. Tickets to Thailand, to Nepal, to Greece. They wait in Daniel’s bag. More travel, pre-planned, predestined. A time limit on every stop. Armand wonders how exhausted they’ll both be by the end. 

Daniel spears a vegetable on his fork. He shrugs. “I don’t like it. Being without you.”

Without the blood.

This too, Armand recognizes from his youth. The ravenous fits that come between the tastes of blood. He remembers clearly being sixteen and not eating for days after the drinks his master had given him, and then falling upon the table and out eating all of the other boys.

There’s hollows beneath Daniel’s eyes. A sharpness to his cheekbones that hadn’t been there when they’d met, and perhaps that’s a sign of the march of time- he is, after all, creeping up on thirty now; no longer the wide eyed boy Armand had met but a man in his own right. But then-

His spoon clacks against the glass parfait cup. Daniel digs in straight to the bottom where the ice cream is, bypassing the fruit and whipped cream and chocolate sauce. Somewhere near his lap comes the sound of his insides churning. The wet sound of his stomach straining to accommodate that which he hasn’t consumed in- days? Weeks, perhaps. Armand can’t keep track.

He should be doing better than this. He ought to be taking better care of him but Daniel makes it so hard. The world makes it hard, with how anything and everything can catch his fascination. Like right now.

Something bubbles beneath the surface of him. A desire he can’t quite put a name to, a thread he’ll have to pull at until Daniel unwinds and he understands what it is that he seeks. Some unfinished business from the Copley, perhaps. The meal wherein he’d fed Daniel a bit of everything, only to depart before he could see the effect it had upon him.

There’s so much more he understands about Daniel now. And still so much to find out. He’ll never know him intimately enough.

Armand rests his chin on his hand. He takes in the way Daniel’s tongue sticks out the slightest bit when the spoon nears his mouth, the bob of his adam’s apple when he swallows. Daniel licks an errant blob of whipped cream from his upper lip and it leaves his mouth glossy with his saliva.

[AO3]

[nalyra-dreaming]

Hi! I don't know if this has been asked before (it feels like it will have been) and my apologies if it has but:

If Louis recovering his memories from Armand's mind control thing... Why is Armand allowing this second interview to go ahead? Especially when Daniel is obviously able to get to Louis?

Hey! :)

well... for one I think it needs to be differentiated what "control" is... Like, canonically Armand spellbinds Louis on several occasions in Paris. For example. That... is for more selfish reasons, I would say, we will see how they will spin it in the show.

Later on though, when he seems to have "tinkered" (as Assad called it) in the show... that was likely done in an effort to "help", imho - because he does love Louis. And Louis suffers. The things Louis will remember now... will not be pretty. On the contrary, it will be beyond painful what will be uncovered.

And then, of course, there is the aspect of "the Devil's Minion" having happened in the past (as I am quite sure we will get to see at least parts of in the upcoming seasons)... Armand loves Daniel, Daniel who book canonically becomes his only fledgling.

So, with that in mind...

We know Daniel was kept track off, the package with the tapes arrives in his post box without an address on it (for example), his medical status is known, and there is medicine for him there, which was prepared, and which is not what they claim it to be (the side effects don't match, as noted by others).

I think Louis might have... come to the conclusion at some point that a few things do not match, and I think... that he leveraged the idea of redoing the interview, in an effort to get Daniel to Dubai, and in an effort to slay multiple dragons at once:

Redo the interview. Find out what his subconscious is telling him, what Armand might be hiding (possibly hidden with Louis knowing !- that is also a possibility, that he asked for the memories to be taken away, but has doubts now?! We'll see^^)

Reunite Armand and Daniel, because he does not want Armand to be alone after... because Louis is tired. And if Claudia's diaries are used as I think they will be (as the catalyst they were in the books), then this season will end rather... cataclysmic.

Find a way to at least prolong Daniel's life. As noted above the medicine Daniel gets had to be prepared, and Fareed's presence is no coincidence, it hints at... certain things. (Fareed is the physician/scientist of the vampires in the later books).

Armand... Armand "allows" this because he needs to prolong Daniel's life, wants to see him again, and... loves Louis. And there is also the aspect that what he is keeping from Louis and Daniel - if deliberately or by promise - must weigh quite heavily on him.

I think there is at least a tiny part of him which looks forward to it all being revealed, because being the only one to know the truth... must be a heavy burden.

... ultimately I think it's not clear cut. "Decisions are made of kneaded feelings" (to quote Hannibal here) and all that.

There are a lot of aspects playing into it all. And a lot of them have to do with potential (and very real) emotional hurt.

Which is also (I think) why he decided on a role play at first - to protect his heart, more than anything else.

[glowww0rms]

penetrative sex? the only penetration happening here is his razor sharp fangs gently sinking into the tender flesh of my throat.

[bluehairandproverbs]

“I’m Armand,” he said as he leaned forward and extended a hand, “I couldn’t help but notice you’re alone here.” “Daniel,” the interviewer said, accepting Armand’s handshake. “Do you offer to buy lonely guys drinks often?” he inquired. “I do if I think they’re interesting,” Armand stated as he adjusted his halo, brushing a few russet locks behind his ear. “Am I interesting, then?” Stupid question, Daniel, he just offered to buy you a drink. (Daniel meets someone new at a Halloween party. Human AU.)

read @ AO3 (Explicit, 2,124 words)

[vamplire]

having an ancient vampire develop a psychosexual obsession for me after repressing any feelings of love for centuries would fix me i think

[fire-gift]

Feast your eyes on this special extended look at Season 2 of Interview With The Vampire. May 12 on AMC and AMC+. (c)

[hermit-frog]

[loo-nuh-tik]

What he said:

What I heard:

[ileftmysoulinnorway]

#no notes #they will be the death of me

[anaid-queen]

"surprisingly quiet"

whatever you do - watch this ad till the end.

there is no domestic!Armandiel outside of fics, they said

old!Daniel won't surrender so easily to being a vampire's favorite boytoy again, they said

clearly none of them watched this ad, which i will absolutely make my entire personality till S2 comes out and possibly beyond

this is the kind of tomfoolery Domestic Murder Husbands enjoyers can only DREAM OF being serviced!!!!

[yourchocolatenachostudent]

Young Daniel from the new trailer IWTV S2

+ bonus:

[thedaswolves]

Just devil's minion hanging out as usual 😍😍😍

edit - ©Mike Coppola

[cbrownjc]

"I'm the quiet you've been longing for." Or, in other words, Gentleman Death.

So yeah, there are people, rightly, laughing at Armand calling himself the "quiet" that Daniel's been longing for because if you know anything about their relationship, particularly with how it started, it was anything but quiet. Quite the opposite in fact.

But see, I think, when it comes to the moment in the image above, that is actually the whole point. Because this moment isn't from some point when they are romantically together. I think this moment is from when they first really meet and speak to each other after Polynesian Mary's. More importantly, I think this is sometime after Armand had stopped Louis from killing Daniel.

There is a great observation/analysis post here that notes the clothes both Armand and young Daniel are wearing, and how they match up to what they were wearing that night when they first encountered each other at Polynesian Mary's. So this moment above being either later that same night, or maybe even the next night after Louis attacked Daniel matches up.

And this moment is very much Armand offering Daniel an "easeful death." Namely, killing him, probably because of what happened with Louis. Armand likely only stopped Louis from doing so because he knew Louis would feel guilty about it later, as Louis doesn't actually like to know anything about his victims before he kills them. So Armand likely stepped in and stopped Louis to spare him from that and such guilt.

However, Armand probably also thinks Daniel now knows too much to risk letting him live. And so is going to kill him himself. And I think what we are seeing here, above, is one of the ways Armand will sometimes present himself to his victims. And I think it is something he learned from Lestat, which is to be "Gentleman Death."

It's been noted by the writers of the show that they were looking to drawn things from Anne Rice's short story, Interlude with the Undead, for Armand in Season 2. (A short story, btw, which you can read online here and here.) And, of course, the line about "easeful death" that we hear in the trailer can be found in that short story, not once but twice:

But if you notice, during the first passage, Armand also talks about being "Gentleman Death." The same exact thing Lestat said to Armand to explain his outlook on being a vampire during the time period when they first met; and basically upending Armand's entire worldview (and cult) under Les Innocents.

From The Vampire Lestat:

From Interlude with the Undead:

From the opening of Interlude with the Undead, we know that this whole short story was actually Louis telling Daniel something Armand had told him. Well, I think not only has the show cut out the middleman on that, but I think what they are about to do is show how very much Armand, in his own way, embraced Lestat's Gentleman Death mission statement for a time. Probably for a long time.

In the show, I think we are going to see Lestat give Armand his Gentleman Death monologue during the scene when these two images happen:

And I think, by the time Louis encounters Armand in Paris, we will see that he has, in his own ways and methods, adapted to that ethos of being Gentleman Death.

However, time does march on. And I do think Armand will begin to see presenting himself as such is beginning to not fit with the times he is now in. But it will still be one of the things he still will present himself as.

At least until Daniel.

Because I really do think when Armand presents himself in this way to Daniel, being a "quiet" (ie death) that he says Daniel has been longing for? Daniel is going to flat-out reject that.

Because Daniel doesn't want to die, no matter how many drugs he takes or the reckless behavior he may sometimes exhibit (during this point in time). What Daniel really wants is to live forever. The reason Louis attacked Daniel as he did was because Daniel asked Louis to make him immortal.

Death? Quiet? Hell no. Give Daniel Molloy immortality, thank you!

So Daniel is going to ask the same thing of Armand he asked of Louis. Which is for Armand to make him immortal.

And just like in the book? Armand is, at first, going to be taken aback. And then, intrigued by this brash (and beautiful) human:

This human whom Armand is sure is going to go completely mad at some point by the knowledge that vampires actually exist. But hasn't gone mad, no not yet:

So yeah, I feel that the "quiet you've been longing for" moment in the trailer is the moment when Armand presents himself as his own version of "Gentleman Death" and it flat-out doesn't work, probably for the first time ever. And that it doesn't work with Daniel is what starts The Chase between them in the show's universe; the show leaving out the 3-days or so that Armand locked Daniel in a cage before that, of course.

And all because of something Armand has been doing since Lestat first upended his life under Les Innocents centuries ago did not work on this one particular mortal. So, instead, Armand let him go to chase him instead.

And to hell with trying to seduce this human with promises of "quiet" because that sure as hell didn't work last time.

[iwtv-az-hours]

a slowed down version of San Francisco cut

(original version)

[vamplire]

armand really said "i am the quiet you've been longing for" but will then proceed to use the blender at all hours of the night to make his vile concoctions