Neetee

Marius/Mael | Rated E | 62k

The knock at the door is uncharacteristically gentle.

They don’t usually knock anyway, do they? 

Marius’s neck strains and he doesn’t bother lifting his head, sore eyes staring, waiting, for the ashamed way it finally cracks open.

Mael doesn’t say anything right away. Peers in at first, studying, before he lets himself inside. Only opens the door wide enough for his body to slip through, closing it so quietly behind him.

Angry words are right behind the gate, ready for Marius if he needs them, if Mael is going to act demure about all of it again, but he says nothing. His fingers tap nervously against a bottle that he sets down on the bench, and for a moment Marius expects him to sit there, too, but he comes closer.

Not quite in arms reach, but he sinks down to the floor by the bed, his back to the fire. It lights up the stray hairs that stick up from his head, from his fancy braids, but casts his face in shadow.

“Are you…” he begins, and stops himself. 

Marius’s stomach churns. 

His whole body is stiff from curling in bed all day, but a stubborn bit of pride spikes inside him. He pushes himself up, so that they’re eye-to-eye, tries to straighten his shoulders. 

When Mael doesn’t continue, Marius rolls his eyes.

“Am I what?”

“Are you feeling better?”

“That’s a complicated question,” Marius says. He crosses his arms over his chest. “Would you like to be more specific? Do you mean from when I was ill? Or when your men hit me over the head? Or when—”

When you ignored me for days, Marius almost says, but stops himself.

“When you were ill,” Mael says quietly. “But you seemed quite upset last time we spoke. I suppose I’m asking if you’re… still upset.”

“Stupid thing to ask.”

I've also noticed that show!Armand fans tend to identify with the character way too strongly. I've found so many posts across social media of fans talking about Armand as if they are Armand ("the show is mocking my trauma" said literally). It reminds me of that post about people saying they don't read stories in third-person because they can't identify with the character and saying they dropped books when the first-person narrator did things they wouldn't do.

I don't want to say this because the term has been abused and overused, but what in the media illiteracy is going on.

and this is where people are losing the plot. fiction can be an outlet for wish fulfillment. there's nothing wrong with creating or desiring that, but there is a problem if that's the only way you're willing to interact with stories, and subsequently demand that your pursuit of that be valued equally to critical examination of themes, authorial intent, technical quality, etc.

i'm also not in the camp of "fiction doesn't affect reality", but i understand why people say it in situations where the opposing party is being obviously ridiculous. i'm really passionate about the effects of storytelling on the evolutionary development of human beings, so i get a little pedantic about that statement in particular.

rotten boy

You know what I find genuinely fascinating? The anti-Marius crowd are so often the very same people who reduce every other character to a hypersexualised, infantilised fandom aesthetic.

Lestat, Louis, Armand, all of them flattened into fan art of crop tops, tiny waists, exposed chests, blood-smeared mouths and carefully curated trauma. Centuries of history, philosophy, violence, grief, power and contradiction are discarded so they can be transformed into whatever Gen Z fandom currently considers cute, submissive or sexually consumable.

Yet these same people will position themselves as intellectually and morally superior when discussing Marius, as though their engagement with the text is somehow more thoughtful, ethical or rigorous.

That is the hypocrisy.

They condemn Marius fans for acknowledging the complexity of a morally compromised character, while simultaneously fetishising the suffering, abuse and instability of every character they find aesthetically attractive. They insist that liking Marius must mean endorsing every terrible thing he has ever done, but reducing Armand’s trauma to blood-covered thirst traps is apparently nuanced literary analysis.

He hates Lestat’s music, I just know he does. I bet he ghostwrote the Pitchfork review. But does he know about Big Boss? Does he have any idea what Armand has been through since they last met or what Armand has been up to? Did he read the book Armand’s only fledgling wrote? And what does he think of Daniel? Because this Daniel is very different from who he meets in the books. There’s no way he approves of Armand’s decision to turn him and I bet Daniel just loves that because there’s no way he likes Marius so if his very existence pisses him off, then good.

Looks around Leaves another Disaster Vampire Runs away