#daniel's memory

[o0anapher0o]

The prayer scene in ep 4. Once again there is so much going on.

For one it’s the only time we see ‘Rashid’ in a non-professional capacity. In every other scene he’s there as Louis right hand/blood bag; this is the only time we see him not working. Which means there is no immediate practical purpose for it (intradiagetically). In his other scenes Armand is organising/arranging things, keeping an eye on Louis, managing the household/the interview/Daniel’s treatment, making cocktails, guiding Daniel places. There is always a practical and obvious reason to why he is in the room at any given moment. They might not always be particularly good reasons (otherwise he couldn’t just leave at a whim whenever someone isn’t happy for him to be there), but you can bet if asked why he’s there he’d have an answer.

When he’s praying there is no reason at all. There isn’t even a reason for why he would be praying. Even if we assume this version of Armand is a devout Muslim who does pray regularly (for which we have no evidence, nor any against it. Only being brown doesn’t automatically mean he has to be hereditarily Islamic.), why would he do it in the room next to Daniel within hearing range of the old man. Surely he has his own room somewhere in the penthouse where he could go about it undisturbed. And if it’s just a part of the Rashid persona why include it at all. Because Daniel would expect a servant from Dubai to be a devout Muslim? Then why immediately undercut it by admitting he’s not from Dubai (ref back to not all brown people…)?

For some reason he wants Daniel to see him pray. Of course, the obvious answer is to mess with Daniel some more. The thing is though none of the incidents of Louis and Armand messing with Daniel are random. They always fit with the part of the story Louis is telling in that episode. The deliberately disturbing dinner parallels/illustrates Louis’ struggle with vampirism and provides conversational anchor points to his increased struggle with the morality of it all. Louis feeding from Armand at the beginning of ep 5 mirrors Lestat force feeding on Louis at the end.

In that regard I do not believe for a second that it is a coincidence that the episode in which Rashmand starts to become more than ‘guy behind an iPad’ (and starts blatantly flirting with Daniel) is the episode that introduces Claudia.

I do think the praying goes beyond that though. I think it’s also a way of testing Daniel. Hear me out: Asr namozi.

Again I don’t believe for a moment that Armand saying those words with Daniel in the room was an accident. That didn’t just slip out. He said it and looked to Daniel for his reaction. And that reaction is in fact the interesting part. Because I’m calling complete and utter bullshit on Daniel being able to identify the geographic origin of a language he has heard a total two short words in with any precision. Yes, I know Kazakhstan is ginormous but Crimea isn’t (it’s also nowhere near Kazakhstan. At least not anymore than England is near Italy). That’s a pretty specific location.The only way I would believe that someone could do that is if the were an insane polyglot or if they had had significant exposure to that or similar languages. According to Daniel’s official biography he falls into neither category. However, if we assume that official biography includes a couple vampire induces gaps…

It seems like the vampires are constantly testing Daniel’s memories, or rather the ones he shouldn’t have. Two episodes later Louis asks him point black what he remembers of their first meeting. And the Tintoretto conversation in ep 2 could be a similar thing. I wrote in another post how weird I thought it was to use Tintoretto as a reference (especially seeing the dates are off) and someone argued Armand would know that Daniel has the background knowledge to find that reference useful, but the thing is we don’t have a lot of indication that Daniel, as he remembers himself now, would have that knowledge (and I don’t count the puzzle at the beginning as such an indication. Just because you’re doing a jigsaw of a famous painting doesn’t mean you know anything about art. It only means you thought a picture with lots of figures on it would make a good jigsaw. Obviously not counting Daniel’s subconscious decision making here). I could go on a whole other tangent about that scene but this is already way too long.

The TLDR is Armand is praying in that scene because he decided that for some reason Daniel needed to see that and I think at least part of that reason was that he is testing Daniel’s memory, as he and Louis do this in different ways throughout the season (Other instances include ‘remember the best you ever had’, the proposal ice cream and reading from Daniel’s memoir, maybe even ‘I wasn’t sure you’d remember me’. All those refer to points in time that could conceivably have happened during or very close to the Devils Minion timeline. Most of those prod at the memories Daniel has as supposed to the ones that are missing). Which is interesting because it implies they don’t fully know the scope of the memory wipe.

[mountainfucker69]

@ whoever is styling armand next season. for your consideration

(the lace is from this 17th century venetian needlepoint that i found by chance while looking for public domain patterns)

[wolfliet]

something something memory is a monster and how somehow the two ppl who are the most on claudia’s side are the guy who killed her and the guy who never met her

bc while her fathers are so stricken by grief and guilt and their own emotions that they are constantly sidelining her neglecting her projecting onto her making her play a role, on the other hand!!!!!! armand knew exactly what he was doing making her be baby lulu!!!! but lestat did the SAME EXACT THING to her treating her like a doll except HE was totally sincere and couldn’t even comprehend why she was unhappy

and daniel being the one to stand up for her and say no claudia would not have hesitated to burn lestat!!! even while louis’s guilt will do anything to block out his memories of how he failed her daniel won’t let him, even tho daniel himself is a deadbeat dad who was constantly failing HIS daughters

like. in some ways armand and daniel are able to see her with the most clarity bc they have the least grief. and for louis and lestat their grief over losing their daughter actually is the epitome of memory is a monster like OK BUT THAT ISNT UR DAUGHTER. THATS A MIRAGE. THATS A FANTASY. THATS BABY LULU.

also obv armand being the only one who can understand her on the level of “child vampire” and how a lot of his hatred and disdain for her doesn’t come from a place of actual hatred but more like. the detached contempt of putting down a sick dog that doesn’t know it’s sick. it’s not about her either. it’s about the laws about how he believes she’s a mistake just like he was a mistake and she will suffer just like he’s suffered and he’s putting her out of her misery. he’s able to write off taking her life bc “oh well it’s a mercy killing, she’s inherently broken (like i am)” instead of seeing her as a fully actualized person who HAS AGENCY AND CONTROLS HER OWN NARRATIVE AND DOESNT HAVE TO FOLLOW THE CYCLE!!!!!!

like. insanity. her parents should have protected her but they didn’t. the person who probably could have understood claudia the most in the world (armand) and therefore SHOULD have protected her from what he went through decided to repeat the cycle and that taking away her agency was for her own good and her death didn’t really mean anything bc she was doomed anyway. the guy who’s reading her diaries and scavenging between the lines for hints about who she was is too late to ever hear her voice

[platoapproved]

So? Who broke the ice? insp (x)

[azvhaalk]

triptych

[seancefemme]

Listen as though I'm the voice of God or an angel talking to you. Telling you this room doesn't matter, this night doesn't matter. You're not inconsequential or a junkie. You're a bright young reporter with a point of view. There are stories that need to be told. If things ever get bad again, these are the words you'll hear in your mind like a tape playing over and over, like a song stuck in your brain. These words will hold you up and carry you. They are your lifeline.

[animalceramics]

[hangonsnoopy19]

Something I love is that Daniel fixes his mistake.

In ‘73 his original sin is that he jumps in and rants mid-interview about how he deserves the dark gift and Louis doesn’t understand the meaning of his own story. He interrupts in order to haphazardly ‘explain’ Louis’s own story to him and impose meaning on an incomplete narrative, which you shouldn’t do as a journalist and can’t successfully do anyway without knowing the whole story.

Present day, he interrupts again - this time stopping an emotional spiral - and tells Louis to keep telling the material details of his story. Ignore the existential implications and focus on getting all the pieces together. “Sidestep the big picture; get the story straight first.” Finding meaning comes way later. Meaning doesn’t mean anything if parts are missing. You’re going to go to pieces and lose yourself completely if you don’t hold on to the narrative thread. Let the tale seduce you.

The man is totally and completely a journalist now, and he’s right. Memory is a monster.

[dr-reids-fidget-toy]

I had to search my memory pretty hard to find a straight couple where they’re both vamps

[strategicjazzhands]

[fascinationstreetmp3]

We, I think… gave you more drugs. Distorted it all in your mind. Fed you a truncated version.

INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE | 2.01 + 2.05

[comradesummers]

it's funny to me that so many fics depict maddie's relationship with her parents as fine and dandy, i guess to highlight how badly they treated buck, but there is actually very little canonical evidence of them treating maddie well. beyond the fact that they made the insane choice to force a nine year old to pretend her dead brother never existed, they're also pretty consistently mean to her. she has two scenes with her parents in the flashbacks and both of them involve her mother yelling at her. when baby buck falls off his bike, the first thing margaret does is blame maddie. like literally, the first words out of her mouth are "maddie, what did you do to him!" and then the next time we see them interact directly, it's margaret telling maddie that she's making a terrible decision for moving to boston with doug. and presumably it's after this that her parents cut her off for making life decisions they disagree with. which would be an incredibly fucked up thing to do to your kid even if they weren't entering an abusive relationship, but all the more so when they are, and cutting them off essentially means they have no support system. and then, when the buckleys show up in season 4, they're constantly giving her backhanded compliments while needling her and victim blaming her for having been abused.

i think people just assume that because maddie got a baby box and buck didn't, maddie had it better. but the buckley parents are pretty consistently shown to be mean and downright cruel to their daughter, and they never acknowledge or apologize for how badly they failed her.

[geryone]

Uncertain Acrobats, Rebecca Hart Olander

[macaulaytwins]

pov you just propositioned a threesome to your geriatric ex who you wiped the memory of (to erase all recollection of your psychosexual trysts with him when he was younger) while also not technically holding him captive in your skyscraper in dubai and he said no :/

[amid-fandoms]

“i’m still nostalgic about the manchester apartment! 🥰”

the nostalgia:

[sophsun1]

The boy we met in San Francisco, the one who fumbled over his tape recording device, who barely understood the meaning of the story he was being told. He's still in there somewhere.

Interview With The Vampire – 1.06 | 2.02