raye

oh man. i watched season 2 after all of it had already aired and was fully spoiled on everything that was going to happen so i knew it was coming and it was the thing i was most looking forward to and i still wasn't prepared! nothing could have prepared me. it is *clenches fist* so good.

i'm personally more stuck on the fight between him and louis. there are two moments in particular that his physicality really gets me. the first is when louis is asking (taunting) him if he's going to be the gremlin or the good nurse, and this is armand's response:

i love this because you can see him warring with himself. he doesn't know if he's going to be the gremlin or the good nurse (and hilariously, i would argue he ends up being both: good nurse with louis and gremlin with daniel [and then eventually the good nurse with daniel as well when he's going to kill him].) but there's something about the way armand is holding himself here, like he knows that he's bigger, more powerful, stronger (and in the shots leading up to it, he is inarguably bigger. you can see that he's got height and width on louis as louis is screaming in his face!) but he's still holding himself back, despite everything he's already said to louis and everything he will say. he's still confining himself to a flesh and blood body.

the second is a few moments later:

the reason i love this one is because it's so human. the way he points with the cassette tape and then slams it down on the table is so incredulous lol. and i feel like it's the first moment where he really looks his full size. i don't know how to explain it but there's something very... masculine? i think? maybe? about the way he moves that isn't typically present in his demeanor and it makes him look every inch of his size. and yet!!! he still looks so human.

anyway i bring these moments up because i think they help make your point about the "is that what makes you fascinating?" scene(s). this episode is, i think, the first time we get a real look at who armand actually is. but despite the mask finally slipping in his fight with louis and his size being on full display, there's still something fairly ordinary about him. it's not until his face-to-face interactions with daniel that we see the deranged ancient vampire behind the almost cherubic face. he becomes otherworldly.

and it's very clear that we're supposed to understand that he's the most powerful thing in the room. he is a looming presence that takes up all the air. there are a lot of shots with angles like this where we're looking up at him with daniel:

and a lot of ones like this where ostensibly there are two people of similar size in the frame but he takes all the space up:

but i think the thing that makes the "is that what makes you fascinating?" scenes so horrifying is not his size, but the fact that he's not actually using it. he is larger than both daniel and louis and we're now acutely aware of that. but he doesn't put his hands on daniel at all. in fact, for quite some time he barely even glances at him. armand is terrifying here because he is so physically in control of his body and actions and so desperately out of control of his emotions and you can see it all over his face.

like?? he could snap daniel's neck with barely a thought. he is in the body of a sizeable man and has supernatural strength. but the danger here is the boyish desperation and longing on his face.

Watching S3E1 and the lengths the writers have gone through to show, in just a few brief moments, the breaking of Lestat by the mere appearance of Gabriella… I will be *livid* if we are subjected to yet another mishandling of Armand and Marius’ reunion (as written in QOTD), where there is no acknowledgement of the *intense* and *crushing* trauma that not only Armand suffered through in his human life, yes even under the hands of his maker, but the mind-shattering reality of having your only guardian, the person you trusted the most (for better or worse), turn you into an immortal being, then be BURNED “ALIVE” IN FRONT OF YOU — only to find out not only did that person survive, they NEVER CAME BACK FOR YOU. Never reached out. KNEW that you were kidnapped into a cult, and according to the book TVL, decided that was too much effort to rescue you from, especially since you seemed to be buying into the cult nonsense, **even though you HAD TO in order to SURVIVE**. And then this being that you had built up as a perfect deity in your mind, that you believed you saw die in front of you, whose death you believed was YOUR FAULT… he opens up to this blonde upstart and shows him things he never shared with you?? And then one day, the world is falling apart, and you walk into a room and there he is?? This mythical being?? That you thought died?? But instead just never cared enough for you to even write a letter?? To say he’s at least alive??

Rolin, I beg you, GIVE THIS MOMENT TO ASSAD. Armand deserves to finally have that, to come to terms with that heart-wrenching break, that utter collapse of his entire world… let him cry, scream, explode, LET HIM HAVE THAT. Give him what Anne didn’t! Let our hearts break for him, let us see that child within the man that begs for some kind of reckoning… let us glimpse that broken boy, like you are letting us see in Lestat’s scene with his mother.

Marius, and that traumatic night Armand was ripped away from everything he had known (AGAIN) just as his world was starting to feel stable… these are people and events that undeniably shaped Armand, if not defined him (at least in his own mind), please, PLEASE do not ignore this. Do not do him dirty and just have him blindly accept Marius’ NON-DEATH and surprise entrance.

since we don't know Sheila's look yet I thought this could be a fun react guy to have while we wait