ARMENDS

The loumand failmarriage only gets more insane with every reveal I'm actually obsessed with it. Like basically Louis was a kind of shitty boyfriend to Armand (wouldn't commit to being his companion, was still hung up on his ex who he killed and who he was hallucinating the whole time they were dating) and Armand responded to this proportionally by colluding with his coven to have him and his daughter and his daughter's girlfriend publicly executed, and he spent ages making all the fun little projector animations for it and probably had a whole mock trial aesthetic moodboard and everything. And then Louis' ex who ISN'T dead teams up with his ex to get revenge on his other ex who tried to kill him, but he changes his mind halfway through the trial and makes sure Louis survives, and both him and Louis get turbo trauma by seeing their daughter killed horribly in front of them. Then Louis is mad at BOTH of them, because he thinks Lestat is why Claudia got killed, and because he thinks Armand just stood by and let the trial happen, but he can't just be single because he's got turbo grief and also the best revenge on Lestat is fucking Lestat's ex, so they get married and IMMEDIATELY fucking hate each other. Louis never loved Armand as much as he loved Lestat and was mostly only with him out of spite and grief. Armand is trapped in this insane lie that could fall apart at any moment; he chose his coven over Louis but then Louis fucking killed them all so he's stuck with Louis. And of course they're both miserable, and so Louis immediately starts fucking (and killing) other men - nearly 200 by the time he meets Daniel Molloy. And Armand initially takes out his repressed anger about this on Louis' new toy but then it turns out, huh, maybe this toy is actually kind of compelling? So whenever Louis cheats on him he goes and stalks Daniel Molloy for enrichment, and now they're BOTH in love with someone else while still pretending they're in love. And then that beaten up chew toy that keeps fucking up his life and fucking dubious twinks in cars is old and about to die so Louis invites him over to tell him his life's story/kill him finally/turn him?/sabotage his marriage for him, and Armand does sexy servant roleplay, and Louis offers to turn Daniel/have sex with him right in front of Armand who is deeply in love with him, and Armand tries to gaslight him back and puts the Steins in with his photographs. And then it turns out that shitty old man is actually a decent journalist and the marriage unravels and they're both FREE but this is very much not actually good for either of them or for society at large!