Nurse…it’s awake

thinking about armand again and how different his memories are from when they're perceived directly from lestat's pov in tvl and then retold by armand himself in tva. in lestat's version armand begged the brothel owners to keep him, pleaded that he'd be good, he'd do anything. marius appearing as this big, shadowy figure without a real identity, something monstrous to take him away from what was already familiar to him. and then in armand's retelling to david talbot he's the gentle father who unshackles him after having resisted for so long against the abuse in the brothel, something celestial to deliver him from his earthly sufferings. you could argue it's a continuity error from anne rice's part because she wanted to write marius/armand erotica for tva and it's impossible to do so if not even the willingness of the child is appearant in the story, but i also think it says something real about proximity and memories and what the psyche chooses to prioritize when there's no other choice. at the start of tva he already reconnected with marius, he even entrusted sybelle & benji to him. marius would've reappeared in armand's life if he'd wanted it or not, how else was he going to deal with it if not by hanging onto the most human parts of their relationship. in both versions of the story marius appears god-like. frightening in tvl, benevolent in tva. if god wants you back, there's nothing much you can do.

It gets overshadowed by everything that succeeds it but I think we’re too quick to gloss over the part of IWTV where less than a chapter in Louis tells us he got raped crazy style by a vampire in an alley while drunk as a skunk and liked it so much he came down with horniness-induced tuberculosis and married the perp that same weekend. Book Louis you will always be famous

incredibly sorry for the black writers and directors of the previous two seasons who thought they were building something. I am so sorry that your work was not respected and now dismissed by this new season. I am so sorry that the love and care with which you crafted the characters, especially of Louis and Claudia was so resented that the current writers' room chose to dilute all. I am so sorry that you are having to see the anti blackness in full force on a formerly black led show and everything you worked on- your vision- it was all wiped off. I am so sorry to Jacob and Delainey for having to work with those scripts.

Any TVL cast member being interviewed: yeah so when I first read the script I wanted to murder Rolin with my bare hands :) haha yeah he butchered my character so badly that I threw my laptop across the room :) aha and then I yelled at him for two hours which only resulted in minor tweaks to the script :) yeah I was so shocked and confused :) and he comes up with scenes that don’t make any sense in-universe. :) and I worry for the future of this tv show :) but it’s alright as long as you think about how [5 min in depth analysis of details that the cast member has come up themselves to justify the season despite these justifications not being evident in the actual show at all] aha :)

to those who keep claiming that armand’s diabolically low screen time is justifiable, since he is not in any way the main protagonist: have you read the vampire lestat? armand plays an immensely important role in flashbacks to paris, where he is at his most desperate and unhinged self. it is a crime that they did not adapt the complexity of armand and lestat’s relationship, how armand begged for the other to love him (“what can i do to make you love me? what can i give? the knowledge of all i have witnessed, the secrets of our powers, the mystery of what i am?”), how lestat hovered between desire (finding him unspeakably beautiful) and fear (seeing how mad he was), how he saw that scared little boy in him (“in this broken child were centuries of evil and centuries of knowledge, and out of him there came no ignominious entreaty but merely the soft and bruised sense of what he was”) and how in depth he understood armand despite being utterly afraid of him. they did not show us the tower scene. no depth to armand. “love me. you have destroyed everything! but if you love me, it all can be restored in a few form”. armand shared with him his own story and the story of marius. later, as lestat met marius in person, they had a long conversation about armand and how marius perceived him as a bitter regret. where is the depth? where is that context? this is not about us getting all angry about not seeing assad’s pretty face, but he is one of the most important characters in the chronicles, a crucial part to tvl itself, and he has been completely erased from it. not even just erased, but also reduced: reduced to something laughed at and humiliated at every possibility, while being called, respectively: “a rag doll for sale”, “cruising the streets”, “tart”, “rotten”, “piece of mold”, “pussy”, “bottom twink sociopath”, and “boring to death”. hey so. uh. what the fuck?