Armand Really Picked The Worst Guy To Turn Into A Vampire And Run Away From.

Do you guys ever think about the fact Armand never got to have a normal life EVER? Everyone else did, to some degree. They grew up, they had jobs, they had families. Armand was enslaved from the time he could form memories. And how he likely sees himself in Daniel, another young man so frightened and involved in sex work in some ways? How the ONLY thing he wanted was for Daniel to live the normal, mortal life he never did and never can. And how Daniel hates him for denying him it? How Armand knows he is the reason Daniel would be throwing away his normal, mortal life. How perhaps he wouldn't be so different from his own maker, watching Daniel please others for him and eventually stealing his life. And how Daniel cannot understand why Armand doesn't love him enough to want him to stay forever, how he could just doom Daniel to becoming old and weak before dying

23 / 08 / 2024 🪩🤨

Jean reckons with The Psionic Eyebrow for the first time

I'LL BE WITH YOU

literally wake up some nights in a cold sweat thinking about this

Sometimes I see folks online being like "devil's minion shippers need to realize the show isn't about Armand its about Lestat" and, technically they’re right, but ALSO respectfully, I can make anything about Armand. Music, books he's not in, art at a museum, food I eat. I can certainly make a show he's a major character in all about Armand. Skill issue if you can't.

Post s2 cryptids ~

At your divine mercy

Amadeo's sketch

A moonlit hotel room, just him and the devil 🩸🦇

i didn't get a minor in art history for no reason, so let's talk about

The Adoration of the Shepherds with a Donor by Palma Vecchio, c. 1520-1525 (held at the Louvre under the French name L'Adoration des bergers avec une donatrice, here's its collection details)

What's fascinating about this painting (done in the very very late High Renaissance to early Mannerism) is that the identity of the commissioner of the painting is the one kneeling to the far right, who Armand in the episode says is modeled by him, is actually unknown. (So that makes it very handy for the show to claim it's Armand without actually being inaccurate or anachronistic)

What this depicts is the Christmas story (though yes, I know, it doesn't look like Christmastime in the painting) where the shepherds pay Jesus a visit after he's born. There's a lark sitting in the window on the left, which often symbolizes rebirth, and there's a dog all the way to the very right, which usually symbolizes loyalty.

Of course, within the IWTV verse, the choice of using this painting (which doesn't have much, if any literature on it by itself--maybe because for a long time it was attributed to the painter Titian by mistake instead of Vecchio) is extremely fascinating to me. There's a lot of dimensions here: most notably, as another user I saw pointed out, Armand was the model for this, and the painter (Marius de Romanus in the show, Armand's maker) whitewashes Armand. Now, Armand is immortalized in room 711 in the Louvre forever as a 20 year old, looking nothing like himself, his identity effectively completely erased, while thousands of people pass and see this painting every year.

It raises a lot of poignant questions, also: since the commissioner of real life (who is the real life model) doesn't exist in IWTV, what is the motivation for Marius to paint Armand in a Christ scene? Because obviously, Armand would not have commissioned this painting. What spurs him to do that? Since the real life artist, Vecchio, was very influenced by Titian at the point when this painting was made, was Marius also? I really do want to know the team's thought process behind choosing this painting, because it's endlessly interesting to me. It's definitely one of the lesser known works in the Louvre, even just a cursory glance over JSTOR barely has any information. I might literally email my art history professors and ask if they have any material on this or Vecchio because I'm so intrigued... anyone else wanna discuss <3?