Malkavian Boy

One thing I appreciated about Louis' storyline is that the show made a conscious effort to frame the racism he experienced. Louis had a strong sense of self when it came to being Black. He recognized the discrimination he faced, he often called it out, and Claudia and other Black characters were also there to point out the racial dynamics at play. Even when Louis wasn't explicitly talking about race, the narrative gave the audience enough context to understand what was happening.

Armand is almost the complete opposite, and that makes sense for his character. He's someone whose identity has been systematically stripped away from him since childhood. He doesn't really have a stable sense of self to defend, so it wouldn't be out of character for him to not recognize, or simply accept, the racism and orientalism directed at him. But that's exactly what worries me.

The thing is, I don't even think this is just a concern for the future. I think it's already happening. Armand already experiences forms of discrimination and orientalism that mostly go unquestioned by both the characters and the audience. Because he doesn't push back against them, and because there isn't another, more aware, brown character around to identify what's happening, a lot of people don't even register those moments as racism in the first place.

I also think part of the reason for that is that the show is primarily made for an American audience. Most viewers are naturally more familiar with the history and language of anti-Black racism because it's such a visible part of American history and public discourse. Orientalism, especially the specific ways it manifests against brown people, is a lot less familiar. It often doesn't look like the kind of racism people immediately recognize. It can look like exoticization and fetishization, treating someone as an "ancient Eastern" fantasy, as inherently mysterious, unknowable, spiritually different, submissive, or inscrutable. It can also look like the opposite, portraying them as inherently sinister, demonic, manipulative, or possessing some kind of innate darkness or evil. Those ideas are so deeply embedded in Western portrayals of Eastern people that they often aren't recognized as racist at all.

So if your brown character isn't questioning the discrimination they face, and the narrative doesn't provide another perspective that helps the audience recognize it, then I think a lot of viewers will simply accept those dynamics at face value. They'll mistake them for personality traits, romance, or just "how Armand is," instead of recognizing how much of that image has been constructed through other people's projections and prejudices.

Okay, let's analyze the famous scene:

If you interpret this scene as a sexual assault, it's because you WANT to see it that way.

Until then, Andrei had refused to “work” in the brothel, to let anyone touch him, or to eat, and he was letting himself die. He was surrounded by many people who wanted to take advantage of him. And according to some people, he wouldn’t have reacted or screamed if he hadn’t wanted Marius to touch him.

According to some people, this is the description of someone paralyzed by fear. The same person who screamed at the very Turks who raped him and sold him. Maybe you want Andrei to be a helpless little puppy, but he fought until the very end, and when he found himself in Marius’s arms, he thought he was Jesus Christ.

And okay, then he thought Jesus was giving him a blowjob, but there are people who have been made saints for that.

Of course, they’ll say: He’s a traumatized child, and Marius took advantage of him.

But let’s consider the possibilities:

1. It’s more likely that Andrei fell in love at first sight with a man who looks like Jesus Christ and in fact, he thinks, “Kiss me again,” and all he wants is to be alone with him, and he isn’t afraid for a moment. Because he’s already realized that Marius isn’t human, and that’s wonderful. Anne Rice wrote an erotic, gothic novel, and it's a carnal love story with a monster, not an older man (for that, there's "Belinda" lol)

2. Or perhaps the narrative is romanticized and told from the perspective of a victim who, after 500 years, is still unable to understand what happened to him (what the antis say, as if it were an unquestionable truth)

Could it be that you want it to be that way because this scene turns you on and makes you uncomfortable, and so you have to interpret it as something negative... Or are you making Jesus cry? Or again, you live in such an isolated world that you shut yourselves in sectarian communities where you all have to think the same thing and prove that you all think the same way, for example, by all posting the same pathetic messages where you "face" reading TVA as if it were a trauma, and when it comes to Marius or Marimand, you’re incapable of forming your own thoughts, to the point that you just parrot the words of others.

I'm asking for a friend.

Paid service with no ads: Well, if they're not funding it with ad revenue, they need to charge us something.

Paid service with ads: Well that's bullshit.

(Kandinsky)

You cannot "well but I'M not referring to that kind of art, I only mean Dirty Pictures" your way out of this. You are being harmful and need to stop, not rationalise why it's okay for YOU to be doing it. You need to understand

censorship violates the universal human right of free expression and freedom of speech.

fiction is not reality. Fictional characters are not real people.

if someone SAYS a work of fiction inspired them to do bad things, that is not the work of fiction's fault. The person who did bad things is STILL at fault, because they have free will and must be assumed to understand the consequences of their actions.

discomfort is not harm. If a piece of art makes you uncomfortable, that's actually fine. That's the POINT of certain pieces of art. You need to learn to tolerate discomfort.

It is not in fact the government's job to enforce a set of morals on people. That violates people's universal human right to freedom of religion and creed.

Artistic dress, pink silk and chiffon, c.1900

Designed for Stern Brothers, NYC.

You can't take the Gothic out of the Romantic, but you can't also take the Romantic out of the Gothic,

LOOK AT THIS MAGNIFICENT GOTH-ASS SHIT

EGADDDDDDD

THE IRON-COPPER SOLUTION USED TO DYE THE PAGES WAS SO CORROSIVE THAT THERE ARE VERY FEW SURVIVING EXAMPLES

THESE BOOKS WERE LITERALLY TOO METAL TO LIVE