darkness is a color

I don't think my interpretation is 100% Always Correct Forever, but we were already told about the crying girl with the bag over her head in S2E5. I don't think it's a stretch to think Daniel may be a rapist.

i think some people in fandom get the scaries about the word rapist because their image of rape and rapists is very far from what those things often looks like irl.

whether armand was implying the sex was initially consented to—which is still questionable given daniel's position of authority in this scenario—but on account of being rough and under negotiated, was so traumatizing that the student wasn't capable of revoking consent in the moment, or if he's implying rape through fully intentional physical force, it really doesn't matter to me. the end result was still someone left in such a state that armand wiped their memory to protect daniel from potential legal or career impacts. i think imagining the first option as somehow less impactful for the victim (and consequently a "less bad" action on daniel's part) is making a distinction without a difference for the purpose of not reckoning with the truth of a scenario which might cause them to reflect on their values, assuming they actually held them.

And no, Armand doesn’t refer to him as an abuser on TVA. And no, it doesn't romanticize abuse because he's traumatized or any other bullshit you've come up with in recent years to justify why you're supposed to like this book.

No, the book isn’t about real people, you don’t have to save anyone.

I will not hold that against them as I know I'm reading about evil vampires doing evil vampire things during different historical periods, ranging from Antiquity to the 20th century (I will not include the 21th century because the golden age was def in the late 20th century when it comes to these books.)

But I love that people's 'punching bag' is the man that would agree with their hottest woke takes if they have them, who gives a shit that he practiced pederasty in the 15th century when Armand was considered a man by all standards?

Armand definitely does not care and I sleep well knowing that if he had the chance (has the chance if we're talking show!Armand) he'd jump on Marius the first instance he got.

one of my favorite things about marius is that he's intended to be an authoritative figure to the coven, while having very little of his own life together lol it's been very fun for me to recontextualize him by reading the books at different points in my life. i find his struggle with responsibility so much more relatable now than i did ten or fifteen years ago. and we giggle about his arrogance because nobody put him in charge, but damned if we can't all relate to knowing if we don't do something ourselves, then it won't get done right, and possibly won't get done at all