Weird at last, weird at last. @cosmic-day - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
Weird at last, weird at last.
@cosmic-day
Long time lurker, trying out this blogging thing. She/her. Multi fandom, with random obsessions that come and go. This will, however, always be a Martha Jones stan account. My fic on A03
AO3 has recently seen a wave of comments claiming to be made by the "AO3 Trust & Safety team", notifying you that your account has been restricted. These claims are not true. These comments are not being made by real AO3 volunteers and your account has not been restricted.
AO3 volunteers, including the Policy & Abuse committee, will never communicate with you through comments on your work. All important communications from AO3 will be sent through the email associated with your account. More general announcements will be posted on our official social media accounts or published as news posts on AO3 or OTW.org.
If you receive one of these comments, do not click on any of the links in it, reply to it, or interact with it in any way. The links in these comments lead to sites asking you to verify your identity by providing payment information. This is a common credit card scam. AO3 does not ever ask users to provide payment information, and the Policy & Abuse committee will never comment on your works asking you to "complete an identity verification process".
If you encounter one of these comments or believe your account has been compromised, please view the instructions under the cut!
We suggest that you review your account to verify that you're using a unique and secure password. Check out the advice from our Policy & Abuse committee on Protecting Your AO3 Account and Keeping Your Account Secure.
If you believe your AO3 account has been compromised for any reason (i.e. you received an email that your username changed), you can change or reset your password to ensure control of your account. Changing your password will automatically log you out of all sessions on all devices. You can find the option to change your password in your Preferences.
If you encounter one of these comments on your own work or someone else's, please report them to the Policy & Abuse committee. To do so:
Select the "Thread" button on the scammer's comment. This will take you to the specific comment page.
Scroll to the bottom of the page and select Policy Questions & Abuse Reports.
In the "Brief summary of Terms of Service violation" field, enter "Spambot".
In the "Description of the content you are reporting" field, enter "This is a spambot, their username is USERNAME."
Reporting in this fashion helps us auto-sort your report so that it can be handled as soon as a Policy & Abuse volunteer is available. To help us address reports about these types of bots as fast as possible, please only submit one report per account, and don't include multiple accounts in the same report.
We also encourage you to share this post and help spread the word about how to protect yourself from scammers and reduce spam on AO3.
For more information about spambots on AO3, you can review our News Post on the topic.
the director of episode 7, alan taylor, saying the original cut of armand reacting to the apology is "a single long close-up of assad, just slowly going in on him, and it was during that performance that i thought 'my gosh, this guy is one of the greatest actors i've ever witnessed'" yet rolin decided he had a better idea and chopped it up instead
is there anyone rolin didn't piss off with this season? he sounds like a nightmare to work with
Genuinely so puzzling how they made Lestat hate Armand more in the show while at the same time removing all the shitty things Armand did to him (in the book).
> Armand did not assult him and forcefully drink his blood after Lestat destroyed his coven like in the book.
> Armand kidnapped Nicki but then him and Lestat have seemingly made up because he even cheats on Nicki with Armand.
> Armand was not the one who chopped off Nicki's hand and pushed him into the fire like in the book, Nicki went crazy and did that on his own.
> Armand did not starve Lestat before the trial to make him weak like in the book.
> Lestat was not forced to participate in the trial and was there willingly, he even seemingly rehearsed the script with them.
> Armand didn't push Lestat off a tower like in the book.
> Armand did not lie to Lestat about Louis being killed at the trial like in the book.
> Armand did not lie to Louis about Lestat being dead like in the book, Louis knows that Lestat is alive and well.
The only valid reason I can think of for Lestat being so hateful towards Armand is the fact that he "took" Louis from Lestat and lied to Louis about who was the one that saved him during the trial. But also Lestat could've told Louis the truth at any given moment over the 77 years, and even then Lestat himself admits that he intentionally let Louis and Armand stay together for so long to torture them. So literally like what valid reason does Lestat even have to be this hateful and angry towards Armand? The book? Armand saying he was Harlequin instead of Lelio? Armand "lying" about the theater box and the nature of their relationship?
Why did they make show!Lestat hate Armand like 100x more than he ever did in the books while at the same time removing 90% of Armand's crimes, making it literally nonsensical for him to hate Armand this much.
It's cropped terribly because I don't know how to make the reply section bigger, but big up @vorreitenertiqui for capturing this so perfectly:
Louis apparently has 2 viable love interests in the whole wide world. His one true love, the white guy, relentlessly pursued, isolated, then racially violated him for years. In order to make sure he'll never venture beyond that hellscape again, and that fans never want him to, he has to suffer even worse racist violation from the other one—his brown & insignificant 77-year-long partner. The latter has to be even more of an anti-Black cartoon villain despite never acknowledging his own racialisation. And whilst non-Black POC have long been recruited into collaboration with whiteness through anti-Blackness, a group of white writers don't seem to know how to depict that. Especially when said collaborator has darker skin than the Black character & was trafficked by Europeans during colonialism's heyday.
Though heightened by them being vampires, Lestat lived as white men with a fetish did during segregation. He did as klan members do when they have Black partners, which is more common than you'd expect. That ordinariness is an added layer to be escaped. His violence was orthodox in a way that Armand's will never be. The outside world is more likely to hold Armand accountable. We see it in the fan reaction, and the show's press & priorities: people are less likely to forgive Armand, no matter if he's seen to be remorseful and/or pitiful. In addition to positioning him as Lestat's usurper, there were a ton of western biases (if I meant white, I'd have said it) working against him before the big revelations & the attempts to excuse Lestat's abuse.
These white writers have given him very white patterns of violence, including that unleashed by European colonisers against their South Asian subjects during Armand's 500-year existence. Even when that room was more diverse, there was little specificity in how white supremacist domination worked for people with Armand's history. My mistake was believing that an honest effort would be made.
I'm not done reblogging everyone else's commentary on IWTV season 3, but I needed to say this.
It is not the absence of Black writers in the writers' room that made this show so racist.
It is the presence of white writers and showrunners and producers.
Token representation is not structural power. The presence of some Black writers in seasons 1 and 2 did not prevent the racist choices that were made about both the Black and the brown characters. The presence of 2 brown writers in season 3 did not prevent the racist choices that were made about both the brown and the Black characters.
Anusree Roy I now see was clearly brought on to be the fig leaf disguise that they could point to when accused of character assassination for Armand. In much the same way, a Black writer, or two, did not and will not ever have the power to make the show structurally safe for its characters of colour to have a racially coherent narrative.
And white fandom is complicit as fuck in this racist structure because they routinely ignore and dismiss the work that fans of colour have been doing to critically analyse the failures of the show.
And though there are some brown and Black fans who have been in considerable disagreement with me, I have seen, always, right from season 1, that there are Black and brown fans who have been calling out BOTH the anti-blackness AND the orientalist racism against the brown characters.
No one should be falling into the trap of treating all discourse as shipping debates about whether the Black man was mean to the brown man or the reverse--it is the white-centric storytelling that is the problem.
Right from season 1 people like @doublycharming-tetraquark and @claudia-de-lioncourt and @dreadfuldevotee were saying there is a problem evident in the way Rashid!Armand was written, and by the end of season 2 a whole bunch of us--@hozierplaying @antiquititties @rhaenyra-first-of-her-name had lengthy critiques informed by our position as South Asian fans. And all of us were deeply invested in Louis and Claudia, and were calling out the anti-blackness in both the show and the fandom's treatment of both those characters as well.
If there is one thing episode 7 has made clear is it that the white creators of this show are investing heavily is playing fans of a brown character against fans of a Black character, because the only way they see either character worth talking about is through the noose of a white romantic partner. Very divide and rule policy, very British of them, I must say.
I rewatched the ‘Rest’ monologue from iwtv 2x5 the other day in a moment of weakness, and god, the gulf in craft between that speech and Armand’s dumb villain monologue in 3x7 is unbelievable.
The rest monologue genuinely brings tears to my eyes every time I watch it. The beauty of the language, the music, Assad’s extraordinary performance. I’m lulled into it every time, like being wrapped in a warm blanket, and have to almost forcibly remind myself that this is horrifying, this is a cold-blooded murder, I should not feel soothed, I should not feel held. The speech makes all of us into Daniel, that’s the genius of it.
And look at how it portrays Armand. Gentle but also violent. Soothing but eerie. Horrifying but beautiful. Terrifying but vulnerable. Offering rest as cruelty but also as kindness and also kind of yearning for it himself. Ancient and mesmerising and powerful, and broken and desperate and lonely.
But insted in 3 x7 we get a cartoonish cliched villain monologue that feels like it stepped out of a bad parody. Armand bouncing all over the space when his stillness is his most disconcerting quality. Gleefully taunting his victims and dropping pointless unfunny quips. Dragging the machete down the table when he really does not need props to be scary. Doing a Big Evil Monologue to explain his Big Evil Plan (which doesn’t even make sense) even though Big Evil Monologues are such a cliché that no one even does them any more except ironically. Pointlessly killing his henchman in the middle of his Big Evil Monologue just to be even more of a cliché. Not one word of the speech memorable or quotable when every word of the rest monologue is gold.
To be clear: the real horror of this scene is the racism and Islamophobia, and complaining about the quality of the writing is very minor in the scheme of things but. Seriously. How. How did we get from that to this?
I waited hoping to find someone else assembling a comprehensive post because I did not want to doxx myself, but a few days ago on the 19th July 2026, the police killed Abderrahim Fakir, a 42 year old Moroccan-born man who was still fighting to get his Italian citizenship despite living in Italy since he was seven years old. This happened in the city of Bologna in northern Italy.
Fakir was forcibly restrained by two police officers after some people called the police saying he was screaming and kicking at a door, videos of his last moments show him shouting asking for help, saying he could not breathe, while members of the Italian Red Cross observing the scene did not intervene. Protests have erupted in the city, across all internet platforms Italians are proving to be more divided than ever between those who demand justice and others who callously say they're happy it's 'one less [criminal, by which they mean immigrant]'. This is one of the first cases where the new 'Security Decree' brought into law by our far right government this year comes into action, shielding the officers involved. In the case of Abderrahim Fakir's death, Bologna prosecutors have entered the two police officers and four emergency workers into the register required by the Security Decree that came into force in April. This is a "preliminary annotation" that allows for verification of whether their behavior was justified, without immediately placing them under investigation.
It is particularly bitter how this awful death comes around the 25th anniversary of the Genova G8, few years after the end of the long legal battle brought forward by the family of Stefano Cucchi, who was brutally murdered while in question by carabinieri in 2009. Matteo Salvini, our ever despicable Deputy Prime Minister of Italy and Minister of Infrastructure and Transport, and Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni predictably side with the law enforcers and are ready to reduce Fakir to someone he wasn't. Fakir's family members have bravely spoken about him during protests, mourning the loss of a kind uncle and man, and demand justice. I am sorry if this post isn't the most well-written, I have tried my best and am open to edits if there are imperfections. I just hate to see so little coverage about this.
Thousands of people took to the streets demanding justice for a Moroccan-born man who died on Sunday.
there really is nothing like spending a quiet morning reading fanfiction to make you feel in awe of the creativity of others. i feel so lucky that so many different people have spent their precious time and effort and emotion on writing fics just for the joy of it. i am also lucky they were brave and generous enough to put those fics online and share them with others. i really am having one of those 'realizing the unique beauty of something completely mundane in your life that most days you take for granted' moments.
List 10 favourite characters from 10 different fandoms, then tag ten people.
Tagged by: @androidtrashfire - thanks for the tag! I love these games, even if picking only ten characters only is haard. But here's the ten I would pick today:
Martha Jones (Doctor Who)
Armand (Interview With The Vampire)
Abed Nadir (Community)
Britta Perry (Community)
Chidi Anagonye (The Good Place)
Rebecca Bunch (Crazy Ex Girlfriend)
Naomi Nagata (The Expanse)
Parker (Leverage)
Kim Wexler (Better Call Saul)
Every single character in Black Sails (this is cheating and I don't care)
Pretty sure this list says a lot about me and probably none of it is good but anyway.
Tagging anyone else who feels like playing: @snequanimity @irenthel @hollowwaveremnant @nightislands @thebookworminthetardis @awindylife @youremyonlyhope no pressure obvously!
To be fair, they did successfully pressure Artur Conan Doyle into resurrecting Sherlock Holmes. You just have to pick easily influenceable solo authors.
and if i said those racist haters made their random boring oc enzo just so that the human lestat apologized to didn't have to be miss lily.....................
maybe this is just me as I shake armand around in my mind but I dont particularly love how they used "rest" in the third season? like its not just that it was used a lot, it was used a lot last season too, its just,, it feels like it was made out to be his superpower that makes people kill themselves whenever he wants? which is. not?? how it was Ever used last season. if anything, the one thing it did was make people pass out or force them to relax physically and mentally. even in THE rest scene with danny in San Francisco, its never a "kill yourself" thing, its a "be calm and hold onto that feeling as death approaches" much like santiago's "no pain" bit. whyyy did it become his suicide-superpower? why make something so simple and in moments beautiful so,,, idk, silly? lame? why take "you will feel no fear and no pain as I bring you death" turn into "lemme mind-trick you into suicide rq :D"
It's called the Global Justice Report, it is here. This is an actionable plan which can be sent to legislators and demanded of political parties. We could save the world within our lifetimes.
It has always been possible. It is still possible.
The horror-hilarity of Armand who said “they went mad and ended themselves” hunting his defected coven members down and shoving them into a fire with a wooden plank? Nah. Armand chopping Nicki’s hands off and then giving them back and then assisting his suicide? Pfftt. Armand punting Lestat off a tower and shattering every bone in his body because he had the audacity to come around begging for his blood after rejecting his companionship? Yawn. Armand slaughtering fledgling vampires left and right because he thinks they’re vermin? Meh.
Why would we include any of this book-canon and perfectly in character “gremlin” behavior when we could instead do racist torture porn and abuse apologia, character assassinate Armand, and narratively punish Louis because he “needs to be humbled” for some incomprehensible reason and “got off too easy” the last times he was abused and lynched? Three birds one stone, this is the gothic vampire horror show and they’re all monsters who do bad things, you just don’t get it you media illiterate dumbass! Lestat never did anything that was actually his fault btw, in fact he never really did anything at all. This is peak TV.
Is it not weird that they haven’t mentioned marius’ grooming of armand once? or his pimping out armand? or his orientalism? His racism? Any time armand’s trauma is mentioned it’s about his time in the brothel. They could make nazi jokes about a brown former slave but nothing about his slave owner? They couldn’t even show any parallels between lestat’s relationship with gabriella and armand’s relationship with marius?
I don't think we need to use "weird" when "erasure" is the better word. The adaption erased Armand from Lestat's narrative, giving absolutely no room to have that kind of commentary. It was an adaption choice to do so.
The devastating issue with all of this, is by choosing to erase Armand fro, Lestat's story, which he was an INTEGRAL part, they avoided the potential to have anything interesting to say about racism. Okay, make Lestat goofy happy weird, and then have Armand be the bucket of cold water, because he is a reminder that no, everything is not okay goofy happy weird.
I wouldn't have liked it, but it could have said something about Armand, and the white male lead facing his narrative mirror who doesn't get the luxury of whiteness and carefree perspectives.
And instead. They did not. They made a choice to not adapt that.
Which is erasure, because TVL had space for Armand to exist in its pages. You can't tell a good story about Lestat without his narrative foil, which is Armand. If they had adapted the book, they would have had a chance to capture Lestat and Gabrielle's racism and orientalism they would have seen Armand with, and then contrast it with Lestat's "failures" in the present day, because hey we know that would be pretty fucked up now. They purposefully erased Armand from Lestat's story, so that they wouldn't have to. I can only make a guess, with all the other strange and upsetting framing choices they made this season, that it was racially motivated.
All I can say, is that I am so so so glad that we had 2x04 and 2x05, because the ways Armand's history is addressed in those episodes, on TOP of how well utilized the Loumand fight was in letting Armand react to insults to his character, lets us have these conversations within the realm of a canon that gives a fuck about the story its telling. Whoever made the 2x05 loumand fight decisions shall be reincarnated as a lotus flower.
Like i know the effects of long covid are well documented but this is like saying black mold is the reason jk rowling is a transmisogynist. There Are Multiple Interlocking Factors.
I do think we're in the midst of a media literacy crisis but I attribute that more to the explosion of digital media, a broad devaluing of the arts, enshittification, the creep of capitalism on our work-life balance, and the rise of pseudo intellectual tastemakers and influencers. And yes, the covid lockdown certainly allowed these elements to proliferate and evolve at a higher rate, but all this was going on even before 2020. Covid did not magically make us all stupid and reactionary, we were heading this way already.
