i could not prevent it

Armand never relented, this is not a revenge for a line a fucking song that wasn't written about CSA by the composer of the fucking songs out of universe (morons, he would have mentioned it). This is a takedown. A tactical revenge because, again, Armand craves his 'rules' and cultish behaviour as much as he craves Lestat.

And all this shit is an isolation tactic. Let's explain it with steps, shall we?

Step 1: Get into Lestat's band by brainwashing Alex.

Step 2: Go to Lestat's bus and vaguely threaten him about the Great Conversion.

Step 3: Kill Larry and further turn Alex against Lestat.

Step 4: Get Alex to film Lestat while he is being sexually abused by Gabriella.

Step 5: Get into Daniel's head and exploit his ego and sexual deviance for him to publish the video as revenge porn that will forever be associated with Lestat.

Step 6: Get Louis and everyone he loves disgusted with Lestat and further isolated him from everyone. (Didn't work with Louis but might work with the the rest of the band).

Step 7: Decapitate Lestat and Louis and separate them.

Step 8:??? Next episode

By the time we left Italy I was playing dangerous little games with mortals. I’d see a man, or a woman—a human being who looked perfect to me spiritually—and I would follow the human about. Maybe for a week I’d do this, then a month, sometimes even longer than that. I’d fall in love with the being. I’d imagine friendship, conversation, intimacy that we could never have. In some magical and imaginary moment I would say: “But you see what I am,” and this human being, in supreme spiritual understanding, would say: “Yes, I see. I understand.”

ASSAD ZAMAN as The Vampire Armand Interview with the Vampire: 3x04

how lonely daniel seems when we first meet him in 2022, but now he knows he has never truly been alone. there is someone who knows him in all of his messy, human entirety. someone who knows the deepest depths of his soul. how terrifying that must be, how suffocating, how comforting. daniel holds so much shame for the choices he has made and the life he has lived and here armand is, saying he loves him, saying he has always loved him despite all of it. and if you were daniel, how could you not believe it? as humans we hold our mistakes and our shame close to our chest. it’s intoxicating to think someone could see that and still want you. armand could read his thoughts, saw him at his worst, and yet here is. in love with daniel. desperate for him.