ULTRAVIOLENCEISM

To start this discussion we first need to discuss consent. Let’s lay down 3 terms I’m going to be using in this analysis.

Informed consent - Individuals must have the capacity to decide, understand the risks, benefits, and alternatives, and voluntarily agree to an action.

Dubious consent - consent is unclear, compromised, or exists in a gray area.

Violated consent - A violated consent occurs when a person's boundaries, agreement, or bodily autonomy are crossed or ignored.

Lestat is a vampire, and vampires by nature exist to explore these themes because they defy consent and coerce it. You cannot kill and eat someone with their consent. Reading someone’s mind is violating their consent. Stalking and watching someone without them knowing is violating consent. Lestat does all of this to Louis.

Lestat violated Louis consent before the turning itself, during the night with Miss Lily. Louis participates willingly and gives consent to a sexual encounter. While no verbal consent is given Louis has time to process this encounter as a sexual one and chooses to consent to it.

However the nature of the encounter changes suddenly from a sexual one to a vampiric one, with no time or enough information for Louis to consent to it. Louis doesn’t know vampires are real and that Lestat is one, he doesn’t know that a biting and blood drinking is about to occur.

Lestat doesn’t give Louis the time to react and no opportunity to leave the situation - Louis can’t give informed consent, it’s dubious consent at best, or a total violation of consent.

After this night we see how Louis decides to cut ties with Lestat. He no longer consents to any type of relationship with Lestat.

Louis does this by avoiding him, and when Lestat confronts him, he clearly states the boundary several times to Lestat, in many ways. All which Lestat violates.

Louis is grieving that night, mentally unstable and incredibly intoxicated. He is so drunk he’s stumbling, and unable to walk straight. He is not in at any capacity to give informed consent to anything.

Lestat stalks Louis to the church and kills the priests. Louis fights back against Lestat’s interference, and disagrees with Lestat’s notion that Louis is humiliating himself by seeking comfort in the church and fights back against Lestat killing the priests.

Then we have an incredibly beautiful love confession by Lestat. And he asks Louis to be his companion. A lot of this speech is not mentioned by Louis, but we know it ends with Louis nodding and giving a kiss of acceptance.

Is saying yes or nodding your head yes enough in this instance to be informed consent? Nope! It can’t be. It’s dubious consent at best.

There has been speculation and been said outside the show that Louis intended to kill himself that night. Was killing the priests Louis were confiding in a great suicide prevention? Or was it an act that isolated Louis to others to turn to?

We don’t know what might have happened that night. What actions father Mathias might have taken, that would perhaps given Louis the care he needed.

In the words of Claudia,

Was turning Louis in this moment when he couldn’t give consent the only available option to Lestat if he was afraid Louis would kill himself?

NOPE! There’s so many other alternative routes than offering eternal marriage to the guy that keeps rejecting you. Lestat could have given the offer and waited to turn Louis when he was in a state to give informed consent, watched over him if he was afraid he’d commit suicide, or inform others who could help Louis. Or anything else. But that would not be a very interesting choice to make in a show about vampires.

Loustat relationship up to and including the turning was muddied with issues of consent that is to be expected when a human deals with a vampire - how does their relationship and consent evolve when they are both vampires?

Know only this, mon cher: you are the only being I trust, and whom I love, above and beyond myself. All my love belongs to you. You are its keeper. A veil will now forever separate our union, but it is a thin veil. And I'm always on the other side, face pressed up against your longing.

Their beginning loves begin with Drogo and Ygritte. Dany was sold into marriage with Drogo as his bridal slave. And Jon was pretending to be part of the Freefolk for his own survival Beyond the Wall. Both Ygritte and Drogo are warrior-type people who fight and aren't very gentle. Yet they also teach Dany and Jon new things and ways about their own cultures that lend into different perspectives for the two.

Drogo and Ygritte, at first, both "coerce" Jon and Dany into sexual relations:

He stopped then, and drew her down onto his lap. Dany was flushed and breathless, her heart fluttering in her chest. He cupped her face in his huge hands and she looked into his eyes. "No?" he said, and she knew it was a question. She took his hand and moved it down to the wetness between her thighs. "Yes," she whispered as she put his finger inside her. -A Game of Thrones - Daenerys II

Two hearts that beat as one. Mance Rayder's mocking words rang bitter in his head. Jon had seldom felt so confused. I have no choice, he'd told himself the first time, when she slipped beneath his sleeping skins. If I refuse her, she will know me for a turncloak. I am playing the part the Halfhand told me to play. -A Storm of Swords - Jon III

And yet, despite these coercion's, we as the readers know that Jon and Dany are both young and truly did not want to do such with Drogo and Ygritte, who are both older than them. The relations are tense. Eventually they melt into what the two consider 'love'. Jon and Dany both adapt to their environments and do what they feel they need to survive. Drogo r*pes Dany nightly until she considers ending her own life but only gains strength from her dragon dreams, and Ygritte forces herself onto Jon even when he tries avoiding her/turning her away until he eventually breaks free and gets back to Castle Black.

Both relations end in death:

Inside the tent Dany found a cushion, soft silk stuffed with feathers. She clutched it to her breasts as she walked back out to Drogo, to her sun-and-stars. If I look back I am lost. It hurt even to walk, and she wanted to sleep, to sleep and not to dream. She knelt, kissed Drogo on the lips, and pressed the cushion down across his face. -A Game of Thrones - Daenerys IX

He found Ygritte sprawled across a patch of old snow beneath the Lord Commander's Tower, with an arrow between her breasts. The ice crystals had settled over her face, and in the moonlight it looked as though she wore a glittering silver mask. The arrow was black, Jon saw, but it was fletched with white duck feathers. Not mine, he told himself, not one of mine. But he felt as if it were. [...] "Oh." Ygritte cupped his cheek with her hand. "You know nothing, Jon Snow," she sighed, dying. -A Storm of Swords - Jon VII

In these two passages: Dany kills Drogo, but it is done out of mercy due to the state he was left in after Mirri Maz Duur. With Jon, however, he hadn't killed Ygritte, but he felt as though he did. Both view these deaths with regret and longing and continue to feel guilt/despair about them later. Where Dany recalls Drogo and even refuses to call herself a widow- still referring to him as her husband. And Jon dreams of Ygritte often.

Their second relations are with people they both choose. Dany with Daario, and Jon with Val. Like my points made here, these relations are very different compared to the first. Dany loves Daario, but doubts over him and their relations together; she romanticizes him, and fantasizes about him stealing her away even if he can't due to her duty as Queen. Whereas Jon does the same with Val, but cannot have her, and wants to steal her for himself, but can't because he prioritizes his duty over love.

Both prioritize duty over love with these two relationships.

Dany marries Hizdhar for peace as Queen.

Jon holds a loyalty to the Nights Watch, and Val marries Toregg out of political necessity.

These second relationships are based on longing for things they can never have. Which also includes children. Dany has a miscarriage on the Dothraki Sea and also thinks she'll never have a little girl of her own, whereas Jon thinks that Val might give him a son he'd name Robb, similar to when Dany was pregnant and named her son 'Rhaego' after her own brother during her marriage to Drogo.

For the third relationships, I believe it will end in Jon and Dany themselves. They have a rule of three, especially for Dany. In the House of the Undying, Dany also gains prophecies that end in three, some depicting 'for love' and showing her Jon- the blue flower growing from the chink of ice and filling the air with sweetness, and Rhaegar dying on the Trident whispering Lyanna's name.

“I loved a maid as white as winter, with moonglow in her hair.” - Tyrion X, ACOK

“The khal laughed as he swung down off his stallion and showed her the scars on his leg where the hrakkar had raked him through his leggings. "I shall make you a cloak of its skin, moon of my life," he swore.” - Daenerys VI, AGOT

“All in black, he was a shadow among shadows, dark of hair, long of face, grey of eye” - Jon I, ACOK

“He was who he was; Jon Snow, bastard and oathbreaker, motherless, friendless, and damned. For the rest of his life—however long that might be—he would be condemned to be an outsider, the silent man standing in the shadows who dares not speak his true name.” - Jon IX, AGOT

"Every man who walks the earth casts a shadow on the world. Some are thin and weak, others long and dark. You should look behind you, Lord Snow. The moon has kissed you and etched your shadow upon the ice twenty feet tall." Jon glanced over his shoulder. The shadow was there, just as she had said, etched in moonlight against the Wall. - Jon VI, ADWD

“Sometimes she would close her eyes and dream of him, but it was never Jorah Mormont she dreamed of; her lover was always younger and more comely, though his face remained a shifting shadow.” - Daenerys II, ASOS

“They had no moon to guide them home, and only now and then a patch of stars. The world was black and white and still. It was a long, slow, endless trek…Jon glimpsed the red wanderer above, watching them through the leafless branches of great trees as they made their way beneath. The Thief, the free folk called it. The best time to steal a woman was when the Thief was in the Moonmaid, Ygritte had always claimed.” - Jon VII, ADWD

“If he loved you, he would come and carry you off at swordpoint, as Rhaegar carried off his northern girl, the girl in her insisted, but the queen knew that was folly.” - Daenerys VII, ADWD

“I would need to steal her if I wanted her love, but she might give me children. I might someday hold a son of my own blood in my arms. A son was something Jon Snow had never dared dream of, since he decided to live his life on the Wall.” - Jon XII, ASOS

“Even with Ygritte sleeping beside him, he felt alone. He did not want to die alone.” - Jon V, ASOS

everyone needs to hear about the situation in india right now. the youth of this nation are going through hell and back to protect the foundations that our country was built on in the first place, while the adults who are supposed to actually be in charge try to silence our voices.

NEET, which is an exam taken by millions of students per year and is the ONLY gateway for medical admissions across the country, had its papers leaked. so many took their lives because this exam meant everything for their future. and NTA, the agency who conducts this exam, was not held accountable.

there was national backlash. cockroach janta party (initially a satirical political party formed by abhijeet dipke in retaliation to the remarks of the chief justice of india calling the youth "cockroaches" and "parasites of society") started protests at jantar mantar, demanding the resignation of the union education minister, dharmendra pradhan. the movement also asked for ten million inr (~100,000 usd) in compensation for the families of students who died by suicide and wanted NTA be held accountable.

sonam wangchuk, a climate activist and education reformer, also went on a hunger strike at jantar mantar to protest against this corruption in india's higher education system. his fast began on june 28, demanding the resignation of the union education minister. his fast lasted for 20 days until delhi police FORCIBLY removed him and admitted him to safdarjung hospital on july 18.

because of this, cockroach janta party announced "chalo sansad," a march to the parliament beginning on june 20th, 9:00 am ist. but the police seems to be responding with water cannons, mobile jammers, and baton charge. all of this, because of a peaceful protest led by people no older than 30.

The government is doing everything it can except for actually having an honest dialogue with the protestors.

It’s important to note that despite all the police brutality, despite how the government has had extra forces airlifted to Delhi to help quash the protest, this has deterred no one.

Not only is the protest in Delhi going strong, the government closed down every metro station in Central Delhi in an effort to stop them and it still hasn’t.

There’s protests in most major cities in India in solidarity. Palakkad, Chennai, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Kochi, and probably more besides. There has been a protest in the UK as well in solidarity.

People who aren’t at the protest are donating so much food that the organisers have had to ask them to stop doing so because there’s more than enough. In lieu of that people are donating money for medicine, lawyers, cleanup, and umbrellas.

Most crucially, hopes aren’t broken. Spirits aren’t broken. People with bruises and broken bones are still showing up. People are showing up cosplaying as freedom fighters and super heroes and a dinosaur. People are doxxing goons who show up trying to incite violence. People are making reels. People in Mumbai literally opened a moving police detainment van to allow arrested students to escape.

ASSAD ZAMAN as Armand

My family and I are living in extremely difficult humanitarian conditions. My father is unable to work, so I have become the sole provider for my family despite having very limited resources.

What hurts me the most is my sister Sarah's situation. She has a disability and needs ongoing medical treatment, medication, and care. Unfortunately, I can no longer afford to provide her with the basic support she needs. It breaks my heart every day to see her suffering while I am unable to help her.🥹🙏🏼

I once dreamed of completing my university education and building a career in my field, but the circumstances forced me to put my dreams aside. Now, my only goal is to provide for my family and do everything I can to care for my sister.

Please, if you are able, help my sister Sarah, even with a small donation. Every contribution, no matter how small, can make a real difference in her life and give my family a little hope.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart to everyone who supports us or shares our story with others.

Please donate through PayPal. Thank you so much for your kindness and support.

IWTVL S3 Ep7 Musings - DARVO, the "Mutual Abuse" myth, and The Armends

[x x] Hannah Moscovitch said that Armand "had been done wrong" and "used in all sorts of ways by Louis."

[x] Rolin Jones said that Louis only "rightfully" hurt Armand 5-10%; and that he's 90-95% "partially responsible" for his own predicament (read: torture & abuse) and "owes" something to Armand for having his head up his own arse (read: grieving & PTSD).

[x] Rolin Jones said "the twist" of Armand planning this elaborate years-long revenge was to for "Louis to finally understand the depth of the damage he’s inflicted on Armand, which prompts him to make genuine amends to Armand." "'What am I actually accountable for when I froze this guy out?.... What didn't [Louis] say when he threw him into the wall in Dubai?" Rolin feels "very empathetic towards Armand at that moment."

[x] Rolin Jones said that Louis found out what Armand did (read: sold him out to the coven, directed the play, lied on Lestat to Louis about killing Claudia, driving Louis to suicide, mindwiping him, more lies, Fred Steins, lied on Daniel about forging the real Trial script, etc), and because Louis "never apologized for the 50 years" of Loumand's failmarriage, that's why Armand's a gremlin now.

[x] Rolin Jones confirmed that the plan happened as Armand sat in the debris of the wall Louis shoved him onto (after Daniel exposed his Seismic Lie about "Banishment"). Since there were "two people in that relationship" (despite there not being two people who knew Armand lied about everything....)

[x] Rolin Jones said that Louis is the "most prideful" of the three vamps given Armends, and because he needs humbling Armand "is owed" an apology from Louis in the most brutal way imaginable.

[x] Rolin Jones said that Louis' humbling requires that he "owe[s]...some accountability for why we are here."

[x x] Rolin Jones said that Louis' "growth" requires that Louis finally realize that there is "some part of me, of what i did in my life" that "made" Armand decapitate him & scam him with Regina; Louis clearly had "something to do with that."

[x] Rolin Jones said that Louis actually has "culpability" in how he "ended up here" because of what he "did to this person for 77 years of shutting him out" (after Armand not only sold him out to the coven but also deliberately lied to him about his daughter's death that he has never stopped grieving and told Armand to his face "You'll never make it up to me.").

[x] Rolin Jones said something Louis owes Armand for having "iced out for 77 years," and is "culpable for having brought him to this level of extremity."

[x] Rolin Jones says Louis reminding Armand about the Seismic Lie is just him "playing the victim card."

[x x] Rolin Jones said that the first step towards Louis needing to "work on" himself (read: be humbled) is to apologize to Armand (read: for not loving or forgiving him post-Paris).

[x] Jacob Anderson said that Rolin told him he would "never put anything in the show" that the actors weren't happy with.

[x x] Jacob Anderson said that 3x7 was Louis' smaller way of taking accountability that "the fault" was his for being tportured.

[x] Jacob Anderson said "I don’t know that I agree that Louis would be like, it’s my fault that you chopped off my head."

[x] Jacob Anderson hopes that Louis doesn't believe what he says, that his "withholding is what led to" Louis to deserve Armand torturing him.

[x] Jacob Anderson said he "wholly disagrees" that Louis withholding love & affection from Armand post-Trial "led to this moment"; that it's his fault he was being tortured by Armand

[x x] Jacob Anderson says he doesn't think Louis means all of that; Louis' just under duress & "trying to stay alive."

[x] Jacob Anderson agreed that Louis' willingness to shoulder the blame saved himself and Regina.

[x x x] Jacob Anderson said that abuse is also part of Loumand's relationship, but that it comes from "different angles"--as if it was mutually abusive.

[x] Jacob Anderson said that Louis' confession "is real to a certain extent," but was still "under extreme duress, so there is an element of self-preservation."

What DEEPLY horrifies me about Rolin Jones' rhetoric in S3 is that not ONCE does he ever couch these ruminations of Louis' within the broader context of abuse victims who blame themselves or are gaslit into blaming themselves for being abused.

For all the seriousness with which they want us to treat Lestat's abuse by his mother and how that affects his propensity to shirk accountability for his own cycles of abuse, not ONCE does Rolin or Hannah step back from the vapid Teehee Armand is such a Gremlin aren't you all glad to finally see him acting crazy in our Horror™ show~!? 🤭 to actually have a serious conversation about the ways that he weaponizes Reverse-Victim-Offender to put the onus on the other person: "You drove me to this; you made me do this!"

Not ONCE in S3 does he discuss the complex psyche of survivor's guilt, or abuse survivors, or Stockholm Syndrome. Not ONCE does he acknowledge Louis' self-hared and tendency to internalize the awful things Armand has levied against him, as a way of rationalizing what Armand is even "owed."

Not ONCE does Rolin factor in what those 77 years was even based on, and how Louis would have never spared Armand his wrath in Paris had he known Armand lied about "Banishment."

Not ONCE is Armand's own culpability addressed, knowing even before he and Louis started having sex that Louis was hallucinating DreamStat all over the city and already deep in the throes of mental illness--even admitting to Daniel that he knew DreamStat was there, (albeit not as vividly as Louis saw/felt him), and that he would only be entering a relationship with Louis as a rebound still hung up on his ex.

Not ONCE does Rolin give Louis the grace to acknowledge that although there is no such thing as a perfect victim on this show Louis was always at a far bigger disadvantage because there was so much he didn't know about Armand's machinations--let alone the true history of his dynamic with Lestat (and even Nicki & GabriellA). Which flies in the face of any attempt to dress up Loumand's dynamic as "mutual abuse" (which does not exist); even if one nobly tries to be diplomatic and see things neutrally or try to avoid the Perfect Victim Frying Pan by landing in the Mutual Abuse Fire.

As such, the OBVIOUS biases Hannah & Rolin have towards Armand--and the BLATANT disdain and resentment they have towards Louis who needs to be "humbled"--is loud and clear. And it is truly heartbreaking to see Jacob Anderson visibly struggling to make sense of it all, contradicting himself when left & right; Rolin and Hannah have been VERY consistently doubling down on their own explanations. 🤦‍♂️

Dishonorable Mentions: Rolin Jones pre-S3 on Armand "Apologists"

I've already shared my thoughts on these post-S2 / pre-S3 quotes, and how problematic they were even then.

[x] Rolin Jones "hoped Armand Apologists would multiply" by the end of S3.

My story and hope for survival😭

I am Israa Alwan I am 23 years old, a young woman who once had big dreams and was ready to achieve them. After years of hard work and study, I finally received my degree in Early Childhood Education. It was an indescribable joy, knowing I was about to start my journey as a teacher, to help shape young minds and walk alongside them in their first steps toward knowledge.🥺🧑🏻‍🎓🧑🏻‍💻

But my dream didn’t last. The war came and turned 🇵🇸my life upside down. My home, once a safe haven, is now rubble, and I’m left with only a few belongings and broken dreams. Now, I have no home, no job, and no sense of security. I move from one place to another with my husband, carrying my unborn child, searching for shelter to protect us from the cold winter and the scorching summer.😭😭🍉

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I am Esraa 🤍 I married the man I love, and he is my support and strength in this difficult world. Now I am pregnant with our little baby, and we dream of the day we hold our child in our arms, filling our lives with love and hope.

But the reality around us is very hard 💔

We are living in a worn-out tent that cannot protect us from the cold or the rain. Every day, I worry about my baby growing inside me and how I can keep him safe in these conditions.

During this sensitive time, I truly need proper care, healthy food, clean water, and vitamins to protect my baby and myself 🤰💧💊

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"she's too obsessed with ichigo." ok, and ichigo is just as "obsessed" with her, what about it?

"she needs to get over her one-sided crush and become a badass character." first of all, it's clearly not one-sided, yall just lack media comprehension. second of all, who says she cant grow while being in love? if anything, orihime's love and desire to protect are what make her stronger and motivate her to grow. third of all, not every female character needs to be strong and combat-oriented in order to have value. it's enough to "just" be complex and have growth, yall realize that, right? 🤨

"she's weak." i genuinely do not care. character are allowed to be weak. it allows room for growth. which happened. in canon. in case yall missed it. and all of this applies to ichigo, who is at times not "strong enough."

"she's insecure." so is ichigo!

Some self-indulgent meta on Ichigo coming to terms with his feelings for Orihime because fic writing… Relating a lot to this poor boy’s intimacy struggles, I figured Ichigo’s falling in love could be expressed through taking steps towards this particular relationship, little by little.

And that starts with the ground he stands on: empathy

the basis of their relationship is empathy. The series start with him noticing her, worrying for her because he knows her pain.

step 1: he acknowledges that she notices him, too

And that is literall because he says “i had no idea you could see us”, referring to Orihime seeing his shinigami form. But he also had no idea that she noticed him, paid attention to him and thought of him to such high standards. Seeing himself through Orihime’s eyes surprised him at first, but it also helped steel his resolve. She gently holds a mirror to him and says “see, you are a kind, brave person”, and he sees that. He sees his own qualities through her eyes - and this is a big deal.

step 2: he lets her in

now, once again, her display of affection surprises him… and he welcomes it.  He is yelling to the world “I won!”, exhausted, and is (literally) hit with this genuine, tender sentiment that she has for him… and he is grateful for it. In her crying for him, he sees his own desire to see his friends safe, he sees the same level of care that he displays - but he’s also taking in the more intimate concern that she is showing for him. This is another big deal, because allowing someone in like that opens the vulnerability gates, which leads to

step 3: dealing with vulnerability

… and now, he is confronted with facing the consequences: he let her in, now it can get under his skin. Now it can hurt him.

And it does. He sees his own personal failure in her injuries, but the apex here is the fight with Grimmjow: when he sees her frightened eyes, he doesn’t see the kind, brave man he saw before, he sees his own fear. Orihime says: “i can’t see my own reflection/ i don’t recognize him”… and neither does Ichigo. Her not recognizing him is mirroring his own personal fear of losing himself to his hollow.

… but right after, when her loving feelings get to him, he is empowered. She is not just saying “look, you are still a wonderful person”. She is saying “look, this is my heart: it is scared for you, it hurts because I can’t bear to see you get hurt, just like you can’t stand to watch me or anyone else get hurt”. He sees care, he sees love, he sees acceptance and empathy, he sees his old self, and he takes that to heart.

And now, she reaches even deeper…. which brings him to extreme places

And yet he does not fall back on his decision to let her in. It takes him a while, and quite the pain during FB Arc, too, but finally, TYBW comes and we see that he finally took the next step.

step 4: rely on her and their bond.

Ichigo finally takes the leap of faith and trusts in their intimacy. He is trusting eye contact to pull a master move to use his hollow - the power that has made them both so afraid before, the extreme place he went within himself, with her. He is confident in himself, confident in her, confident in their relationship, confident that with her by his side, he can do this. He moves past his fear of being vulnerable, he moves past his fear of failing her. He still worries about her, he always will, but now, he is ready to embrace their bond as it is, trusting that the intimacy they built so far will come through - and it does.

This is love.