even darkness must pass

Random stuff and all things whimsy

[sauron-the-sexy]

[strawberrysheriff]

love that Daniel tells Armand "that was my gag reflex at I'm in love with you" but when you actually rewatch the scene, it just looks like Daniel's heart is being ripped out of his chest and he doesn't know what to say or where to begin.

like, not the slightest bit of disgust whatsoever, just devastation and longing.

[rooksilver]

THANK YOUUU NEW YORK TIMES

[folkbard]

With the exception of the “awkwardness of shoehorning Claudia and Louis”, I agree with the overall sentiment here.

[folkbard]

✨Queen of the Damned, with at least one episode covering past DM and the rest of the episodes with present day Armand and Daniel screwing, surviving and thriving after so many years being separated ✨

[interviewvampiredaily]

Season 4 officially has a title change to Queen of the Damned!

[interviewwiththewerepire]

"armand isn't owed an apology after all the shit he did to louis, i can't believe they made him do that"

hey guys? Do we maybe think that Armand's tit-for-tat mentality, and the way he's been tallying up his and everyone else's sins against each other is a problem? Is it maybe possible that Louis managing to find empathy for Armand in the face of the monstrosity being done to him, and that radical act of kindness and honesty (about the ways he unintentionally hurt Armand) moving Armand so much that it nearly breaks him, is idk a major theme of this whole season?

you know, sorta like how Lestat was holding onto his feelings of betrayal about the book, and all it did to serve him was make him absolutely miserable and lonely and push him into the arms of someone actively harming him. And how it was only after he let that go, and helped Louis even though he still thought that Louis didn't give a shit about him, that they were able to connect again and be happier than we've ever seen them.

Or like how Louis was able to look past his initial feelings of revulsion and betrayal about the Sophia lie, and offered comfort and a space to speak honestly, and how that granted him a deeper understanding of Lestat, and ultimately strengthened their bond.

Are we seeing the pattern here? How they're breaking the curse of loneliness when they stop seeing each other as monsters, and extend a bit of empathy, even when it's hard or not deserved? How addressing the gaping wound behind the actions might open the door to healing for both parties?

[folkbard]

Okay quick question…Who would you prefer to have initiated their first kiss?

Armand or Daniel? Daniel for me personally.

[winkypants]

ah jesus christ

i just realized in the “we were mother and son” scene, Gabriella intentionally cuts that guys neck and covers herself in blood to make herself more attractive to Lestat. I’ve been trying to puzzle that action out for days. UGH.

[folkbard]

Oh so that’s why Lestat had the blood shower in front of Armand too!

I’m so dumb

[folkbard]

A little reminder that… The only reason why you think Armand is worse than Louis is because you care about Louis,✨ and you care about Louis because you’ve been seeing things through HIS eyes and not Armand’s✨

🩸Louis has chopped a few heads as well, even if no one really mentions that 🩸

Be honest with yourselves, you would be rooting for Armand if the story had been told through his eyes.

It’s why people keep forgetting the awful shit Lestat did in season 1, because you’re now looking at the story through *his* perspective.

[yaoiblackmold]

Notice how they remove all blame on Lestat for literally everything bad that has ever happened in the show and books, and in some instances even makes him the victim instead.

> book Lestats wanted the vampire apocalypse, but in the show it's actually Gabriella's manipulation (he is now the victim)

> Lestat is abusive to Louis and Claudia, oh it's the fault of Akasha's blood actually (absolves him of guilt)

> Lestat never threatened Claudia, she was lying (absolves him of guilt)

> In the book every vampire hates Lestat's music and wanted him to stop, now they're all pro great conversion and wants him to make more music (but Gabriella has to forced him to make music which again makes him the victim)

> He never left Nicki and was there all the time as a caring partner and never abandoned Nicki for Armand to care for at all. Nicki totally just chopped his own hands off because he's crazyyyy and this was not exacerbated by Lestat abandoning him like in the book.

> In the book he hears Armand's story about Marius and decided he was a great guy and wanted to seek him out. In the show Marius was actually the one who found him and took him in which erases the whole "Lestat heard about Marius being a pedo white supremacist and thought he was a cool guy" problem.

All of his flaws has literally been externalised and the blame placed on others, now he's just the perpetually helpless victim who has zero agency in anything at all.

[folkbard]

Oh yes sadly this is what really annoyed me this season. Like really annoyed me, because it makes me not like Lestat…when I did in the past seasons 😭

Please allow Lestat to still have flaws and make questionable bad decisions, we’ll still love him I promise.

[lexdelioncourt]

You know what, I think some of us moved on too quickly from the idea that TVL was Lestat's POV and all the characters were being filtered through him. People were very quick to remind us all of this when they wanted to deny that Armand and Daniel had a unique bond or that DM was even real at all, but somehow this argument got forgotten along the way.

And there's something I've been reflecting on with regard to this when it comes to Daniel and the argument that he's been flattened.

Now I thought of this when I saw this interview with Jacob:

Now if Lestat's POV is influencing the portrayal of Louis, why wouldn't that be true of other characters, particularly ones that he doesn't really like very much? Why wouldn't he portray Daniel—a two-time Pulitzer prize winner who was always on his ass, pissed him off, and then cut off his head—in a terrible and unsympathetic light? Why wouldn't he portray Daniel—the annoying fledgling of the guy who killed his daughter—as a stroppy teenager who uses Gen Z slang and straight up says that Lestat might be smarter than him (Daniel Molloy would NEVER).

I'm not saying that certain events never happened, because see this post, however what I am saying is that the Lestat filter, if it can colour Louis, then it's going to colour the others.

Lestat uses cringey slang in episode 1, a lot. So is Daniel really the one saying things like "yaoi manther" or did Lestat put those words in his mouth? Is Armand really saying "armends" and "girlies" or is that a Lestatification of all that? Armand mispronounces Amhurst when he emphasises the "H", just like Lestat with Worcester (notably, Daniel corrects Lestat but not Armand). He also says he's going to "lob" Regina's head off when the phrase is actually to "lop" something off. You could even argue that Armand speaking in his French accent and Daniel not questioning it is a part of this (although there could easily be other reasons for this too).

Now none of this explains why they made Daniel say so many offensive things—maybe he's just that much of an evil boomer. And none of this is to say that all the writing is perfect. But I do think that some of the things (particularly language things) that are being written off as OOC are actually like that on purpose.

[folkbard]

Okay this is going to be looong but bare with me. I’ve seen a few comments trying to pit Lestat vs Armand in their ability to cope with their traumas and making it like Lestat is better for it. AND I NEED TO RANT…Allow me to paraphrase a comment that I saw.

✨“Lestat has had traumas and he hasn’t mindfucked people around him the way Armand does”✨

Okay first off… WTF ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?

Did you watch Season 1? Have you forgotten that Lestat dropped Louis from the sky?? How he killed that opera singer???How he killed that priest??? Do you think those are actions of someone who hasn’t taken out his traumas on others and mindfucked them too???

Do you have object impermanence? You know…what babies have?

I’m sorry if I’m coming across as mean, but I’m just seriously concerned about people’s inability to remember things as soon as they are presented with a shiny new toy, and as someone who has had EMDR sessions, people dismissing or ranking traumas just hits a sore spot for me.

Secondly, we haven’t actually *seen* Armand’s traumas and backstory, we’ve only heard a fraction. And it’s horrifying already. You have no real point of reference to try and make this into “Lestat was just born better” thing. What we know is the following… he was sold by his parents at the age of 12 to a Ship’s Captain, that Captain then sold him to a brothel where he experienced such severe abuse he can’t really remember his true name, he was then sold again at age 15 to Marius a vampire who groomed him, then turned him to a vampire when he was dying from a mystery illness, then was kidnapped by a cult (i have my suspicions that there’s more to this story. He was sold again by Marius is my theory) they “killed” his maker but who’s actually alive, but he doesn’t know this and oh yeah, who referred to him as a rotten boy to Lestat. I’m sure his maker was wonderful/s to him.

Thirdly, there’s something that Lestat has that Armand hasn’t had so far (until very recently) ✨Lestat found Louis✨

Despite how it ended, clearly the time he had with Louis has been crucial for Lestat’s continued development.

Meanwhile, Armand spent centuries underground without a Louis. Ruminating in darkness for years and years until Lestat came along. No wonder he became obsessed with Lestat. He probably thought he had found love at long last. But nope.

Lastly, are you aware that psychotherapy wasn’t a thing back in the Renaissance period? They either thought you had imbalances in your bodily fluids or you were possessed by a demon.

People who are looking at this show through a modern lens are missing out a crucial point in the show, which is these vampires are stuck in their time period and their old state of mind! Yes, physically they change clothes and learn new ways to adapt but mentally they’re stuck. It’s a curse not a blessing despite them calling it ‘the gift’

#“But it’s no excuse. He chopped-”

<It actually irks me whenever people *immediately* jump to the old ‘it’s no excuse’ shtick whenever you try to have a nuanced discussion about people with mental illnesses and tragic backstories who can’t function properly in society…‼️Because it’s never helpful! Because it usually comes from a place of judgement not of compassion and understanding, which is what actually helps people‼️>

Anyway, let’s play the game…

# Ehem…Louis has chopped a few heads as well, funny that no one really mentions that. The only reason why you bring up Armand and not Louis is because you care about Louis, and you care about him because you’ve been seeing things through HIS eyes and not Armand’s. Be honest you would be pro-Armand if the story had been about him. There I’ve said it.

#“He killed Claudia”

#Claudia was just another vampire to Armand, an abomination that should have never been created because she was just a child, in his twisted way he thought it was a mercy.

Again you only care about Claudia because you’ve been seeing her through Louis’ eyes.

It’s about perspective.

The takeaway of the story is not who is better or worse, it’s about how memory is the monster, because memories are shaped by a single perspective. YOUR perspective, THEIR perspective. And your perspective is always shaped and clouded by your pain and trauma.

You will never know the complete truth. In real life and in the show too. So stop comparing their traumas.

[folkbard]

They better be gearing up towards past Daniel finding Armand 💕so sexy and gorgeous💕that he can’t stop yapping about it, let it be the “armends” for the countless times they’ve subjected Armand/Assad to mockery by the other characters… let the audience know how much of a shameless bottom twink Daniel was in his youth!

I want to see Daniel crazy in love with Armand.

✨Give me Cathy & Heathcliff levels of obsession damn it!✨

[folkbard]

I don’t know about you, but one of my biggest fears is that they’ll try and turn Lestat into ✨Vampire Jesus ✝️✨

[folkbard]

Why am I still seeing comments like ‘why is Armand like this?’

I thought it was made pretty clear in the episode that just aired? 🤨

✨Trauma, bro. It’s trauma✨

[folkbard]

Sigh… that touching and deeply heartbreaking moment between Armand and Louis, when Louis acknowledged Armand’s trauma…something so important and necessary for us the viewers to hear, as well as Armand because this is who he is…deep down he is the scared powerless traumatised little boy that was sold for his body, trapped in an extremely powerful vampire body and lashing out to the world because he can’t find peace and love in the hell he is in. The hell that he has been trapped in for centuries…

…Only for it to be overshadowed by the insanity of the situation…again

It’s starting to piss me off!

[armandgoth]

it is that deep. the mischaracterisation of armand is that deep. i wish for everyone to realise what great disservice the writers have done to his character with their racist storytelling. armand has been described in the show as something repulsive, something without a presence, a fuck cloud and a rotten thing, something boring to death and insipid, something that cannot be loved and something that provokes a reaction of strong disgust in many other characters; lestat was genuinely stunned that louis deemed armand a companion-material. let that sink in.

some will try to argue that all those remarks are only targeted at his evil deeds. unfortauntely that is not true. in the books, however scared or repulsed lestat was by some of armand's actions, he still found him beautiful. he still described him with very reverent language. that was the core of it: everyone desired armand. that was why he suffered so much. everyone treated him like a pretty conquest. at the beginning of tva david talbot literally out of the blue started playing with his hair and sniffing them. it was the most dehumanising desire, that always showed the truth: he was too beautiful for this world.

this is how marius described armand in blood and gold: "And there I saw beauty, beauty which has always been my downfall, beauty in a new and celestial form. Heaven had cast down upon this stone floor an abandoned angel, of auburn curls and perfectly formed limbs, of fair and mysterious face. His soft reddish hair was loose and tangled. His flesh was pale and the bones of his face only faintly sharpened by his Slavic blood."

"This was a boy, as I had said, and he had a head of long curly hair. But his face was shining white, and perfect, the countenance of a god it seemed, a Cupid out of Caravaggio, seductive yet ethereal, with auburn hair and dark brown eyes."

more quotes from books here:

so on what grounds is armand getting so much verbal humiliation in the show? all i see is that the writers for the third time in a row focused on his 'weird' side, his 'gremlin' side, his 'evil and crazy' side, while... completely ditching the rest of the picture. why is it that no one called him beautiful yet? why is he being so perpetually degraded, so belittled and debased verbally? because to me it screams fucking racism, it screams to me all those writers sitting and scribbling their notes about armand and never once admitting to themselves that assad is beautiful, that this bangladeshi man could be described in such a way, that he could actually be considered that. his screentime got radically reduced this season, they literally cut parts of tvl where his character was of paramount importance and any time armand was on screen, we were just given the following messages: he's weird!! he's crazy!! he's evil!! he's desperate!! while completely disregarding the rest. it is a deeply rooted, unconscious racism that genuinely terrifies and saddens me and i truly have no idea how these scripts made it air.

[folkbard]

I think Assad is stunning. I’m perplexed why you would hire an obviously very attractive man and then have every character in the show not desire him.

And as you say, Armand in the books is supposed to be beautiful.

So they hired someone who covers that base and they decide to do this? Why?

Changing that one aspect of the books when you hire a desi smokeshow is very suspect. The optics aren’t good.