Bards & Spies

the duality of man

Truly what Louis is doing with Regina is such a gutting confirmation of Claudia “never been about me” like goddddddd god god she never had a choice she was a symbol she was something acted upon she was robbed of her life and self the moment they turned her and when she was finally breaking free she was killed along with the first person to ever see her for HER and Louis’ grief is so deep and acute but it’s about HIM he kills Claudia’s rapist and reads her diary to him as he does and it’s for HIM, he finds a girl that looks like her and pays her to pretend to be her because it was never about her here’s a convincing fill in, it’s baby Lulu all over again it was never about herrrrr Claudia has been dead since the start they killed the woman she could have been and then when she was finally flying free and making herself anew she was killed again and it was never about her I am going to throw up

i cannot get over the visual of lestat's face screwed up, vomiting, and trying to speak through his vomit with the same rationalization of his abuse we have been hearing all season. i just can't get over it. the writing, the acting, the directing of that one moment is stuck in my head. we've heard these words before, but smoother in the past, the lestat pretending-everything-is-fine tone we've grown used to. to hear those same words shaking out between blood pouring from his mouth, tears in his eyes, the video still playing on the phone, that's not my mother, my mother is dead, she cannot be my mother, she is not my mother, she isn't, she isn't she isn't she isn't

the writers did so fucking well at portraying and deconstructing the over abundant amount that lestat in the text romanticizes his abusers. he calls it the "seduction of magnus" multiple times throughout the vampire chronicles instead of admitting he was preyed upon. when you read the books you have to look between the lines of his flowery prose and avoidance but the show took a corny over the top music video style approach and then slammed it next to a full blown ptsd flashback to make sure the audience did not have a chance to misinterpret or mock anything and i respect them for that