Darkest 3 am

Previously unseen photo of Assad Zaman (possibly from the Wonderland Magazine photoshoot).

armand de perfect profile ✨ [+ bonus]

Here is our protagonist hes going to tell you a story. But some of it he's remembered wrong -- was it raining that night? And some of it he's obfuscating or skirting or deliberately lying about. He's admitted the first time he tried to tell this story was a performance. Also he hallucinates, sometimes. Oh, and there are characters who can erase and alter memories. When does he mix up a detail? When is he lying? When is he telling what he thinks is the truth but he's just wrong or being lied to himself?

Here's Claudia's diaries. The written word, in her own words. Surely we can trust them! Except she knew her diaries were being read by her fathers/brothers/jailors. She had reason to present her life in a certain way in those writings, reasons to not write down everything. And same as any other person,even if she was writing the truth, she was limited by her perspective of what that was. Here are her diaries but some of the pages have been ripped out, censored by other people.

Here is Rashid. Except no, he's really the vampire Armand. He can erase memories. He was pretending to be someone else. His name was never Rashid. It isn't really Armand either, he doesn't even know his own name, or all of his own story, Armand will do.

Here is Real Rashid. Even Rashid isn't what he appears to be. He works for a shadowy organization.

Here is Daniel Malloy, our journalist, our interviewer. It is his job to ask questions, provide evidence reveal the truth. But even he can't trust his own altered memories. He has time he can't account for, gaps in his memories from years of drug abuse and one bad trip from a week of drug AND vampire abuse. He is not an objective observer, he too is a part of the story he is trying to tell.

Here is Lestat de Lioncourt. Except not really. maybe once at the end. Here he is through memories, and other peoples stories and hearsay. Here is the seducer, the boogieman, the abuser, the victim, the Vampire. He haunts the narrative, and starts the narrative, and is, in many ways, the bleeding heart of the tragic narrative and he never tells his own story in his own words.