lee felix enjoyer and shane hollander understander

SHEILA ATIM as Akasha

and she's flustered at first, insisting he should photograph other people, and several hours (and drinks) later he says he'll give up the polaroid if he can take some serious pics of her first, cause "that outfit is killer" and she rolls her eyes but agrees.

after securing himself some pictures on both cameras, hyping her up the whole time, he gives the polaroid to another employee to pass around, and of course slips his Connie pics into his inner jacket pocket. at the end of the night they share a ride, to her place. And that's how he also ends up with these:

[ilya voice] with a little umbrella?

Because yeah what a nasty mean thing to say, it definitely is an insult, but also, not really?? I mean it’s more than that. That one line functions fundamentally as a substitute for what amounts to paragraphs in the vampire lestat of Marius and Lestat talking about Armand. this one line in the show has so much subtext doing the heavy lifting. Here’s a telling bit from the book that I feel is relevant:

“Rotten” as an insult is so so specific. “Rotten” infers that something that is now decayed and putrid was formerly fresh, pure, unspoiled, ripe, gleaming with potential. but it was left out to spoil, abandoned, or ruined, and now it’s gone bad, moldering, sour, repulsive. there’s no coming back from rot. a rotten fruit is tainted beyond redemption, it would’ve been delicious once, but now it’s sickening, it’s foul, it’s rot.

And not just rotten, Rotten boy. boy. “boy” that is a 27 year old man that has been alive for over 300 years. It’s belittling, but it’s belittling in the way parents are towards their children. I would go so far as to say there’s an undercurrent of affection in it. Oh Armand, that rotten boy, that grimy little devil. Rotten because Marius left him to rot, rotten because it's too late, the food has already gone bad. Marius made a horrible mistake, making Armand, and now he’s gone bad, he’s no good, he’s to be thrown out for the rats and the flies. But he’s a boy. He’s his boy, was his boy, his fruit, his seed that he grew and flowered and would have eaten if he hadn’t let it go rotten.