Armand told the truth

Here are the ways we can interpret that scene:

1. Daniel really said that. Louis said it didn’t happen to him and Lestat. He was telling the truth. That means Daniel and Armand’s bond is unique. We win.

2. Daniel really said that. Louis said it didn’t happen to him and Lestat. Louis was lying. That means Daniel and Armand’s bond is as potent as Loustat’s. We win.

3. Lestat made it up and in his version, Louis was telling the truth. That means Lestat felt it necessary to highlight that Armand and Daniel’s bond is unique. Lestat is a DM shipper (that’s just book canon tbh.) We win.

4. Lestat made it up and in his version, Louis was lying. That means Lestat felt it necessary to highlight that Armand and Daniel’s bond has major similarities to Loustat’s bond. Lestat is still a DM shipper. We (Lestat included) win.

It’s most likely that they didn’t say what they said in that exact way, but the takeaways from the scene are true. Louis seemed to be lying, although maybe the rapture part is a DM thing. Regardless, either Lestat was writing DM fanfiction or it actually happened. Either way feels like a win to me.

I want him touching everything, going through everyone’s possessions, messing with the cameras and sound equipment, loosening the strings on all the guitars, critiquing the grammar in the band’s lyrics notebooks, running the shower and watching all the hot water run down the drain. I want him making potions out of everyone’s toiletries like little kids do. Maybe he puts Nair into all of Lestat’s hair products but you can never prove it was him.

And none of it’s malicious. That’s the key. He’s just exploring. He does that. He needs the enrichment. Daniel let him in so if you want to blame someone, it’s actually Daniel’s fault, but every time the band come back, there’s something slightly off.

Rolin Jones and the wonderful writers do not hate Armand. They’re not trying to insult his fans. They’re certainly not trying to insult Assad. They’re grown adults. They are working professionals. They also like Armand as a character and they very obviously like Assad. They wrote a quick little scene referencing the fact that he doesn’t mind how people pronounce his name and that’s it. It was a nice scene.

It’s easy to view these scenes where characters who have every reason to dislike Armand insult him as the writers secretly hating him when you yourself hate him and his fans and you can’t separate fandom drama from the actual show. But it’s childish and frankly pretty embarrassing to insist that the crew think the same. It would be even more embarrassing for them to actually behave that way, and if you think it wouldn’t also negatively affect Assad then you are being utterly illogical. He has to go to work on a set where the writers don’t care about his character and don’t think he’s important and you don’t see an issue with that? The subtext of these sorts of assertions are… well I don’t think calling them microaggressions is accurate anymore. I think they’re pretty blatant.

It would be like insisting the writers hate Lestat because of all the jokes they’ve made about Armand being a more popular in-universe character, except without the racist undertones. That’s clearly not the case. Please take some time away from the internet. These are real people and they don’t care about your bizarre grudges. They’re trying to honour Anne’s work and Armand is, unfortunately for you, a huge part of that.