the personal is political @orestescomplex - Tumblr Blog

moodboardmix

Rigoletto Opera Set, Basel, Switzerland,

Pierre Yovanovitch,

Photographs: Paolo Abate & Matthias Baus

#opera #design #set

dcvertigoblog

ATONEMENT (2007) —

dir. Joe Wright.

[id in alt]

closeupofpaintings

Reflection details in Frits Thaulow‘s paintings

redlipstickresurrected

Gordon Cheung aka 張逸彬 (British-Chinese, b. 1975, London, England) - New Order Still Life with Flowers (after Harmanus Uppink, 1789), 2021, Giclée on Canvas

slaygentford

what kills me the absolute most is that he doesn’t even particularly like armand I cannot stop thinking about it. during every interaction 90% of him is like Jesus Christ this is tedious. and then he actually heeds Claudia for once and reflects on Armand’s sensitivity cuz he doesn’t trust it (manipulative little gremlin) and is like alright I have to take control of this situation because he mentioned the secret to me and to Claudia twice in like. Two days. and the worst thing is by 2022 they’re not even locked together in hatred they’re just kind of sleeping in the same bed sorry I’m just repeating the events of the episode now but he really said no in front of. The entire coven. he really can’t stand Armand quoting love poems. I can’t get over it. He didn’t commit to being Armand’s dom bc he particularly wanted to he did it because he’s in danger and needs to stop this from getting out of hand like it did last time (vintage lioncourt). like he knows that is a megalodon. situationship of the century. I lOvE yOu. I thought I would miss you fanonized mutual obsession but I was wrong. I wouldn’t change louis’ calculations and endurances and protection of Claudia for the world. ROMEO!

slaygentford

Louis was like yes maître and Armand was like armand for you :) and Louis was like Jesus fucking Christ I guess somebody has to dom around here. Fine.

orestescomplex

I'm surprised that this view - something that is one-sided, overly simplistic, and biased from the Loustat shipping got so many approvals by the people in this fandom whom i respected greatly for their usually insightful takes.

How can you go ahead and say there is no love from Louis towards Armand, and that is entirely manipulation and survival tactics? You handwaved away all that longing looks, that romantic framing of their interaction. You take the least charitable view towards the idea that Louis might care about Armand and ended up with this simplistic view of a complex relationship, one that develops and changes with time.

More importantly, how do you explain away the fact that Louis did choose to stay with Armand after 77 years? What's stopping Louis from breaking with him after Paris, when 1/ Claudia is out of the picture, and 2/Armand has a hand in causing her death? Of course that 2nd point will be explored in the future episodes, but nonetheless Louis chose to be with Armand even when his and Claudia's survival were no longer a concern, which gesture to a desire for companionship with Armand.

Saying that Louis finds 90% of their interaction tedious is a grave overstatement. I admit that ghost!Lestat is grating, and imo largely a cold-blooded financial decision to appeal to the Lestat-obssessed audience rather than a genuine artistic decision.

But now that he is there and I have to contend with that fact - if we are more charitable to the idea of love between Louis and Armand, we might say that ghost! Lestat is the manifestation of Louis' guilt and his doubts about Armand. Lestat is an exaggeration of Louis' doubts, a devil's advocate - who are we to claim to know who truly represents Louis in his fractured psyche? Is ghost!Lestat Louis' inner true beliefs, or is he an imagined conflicting voice? Are we all that one-dimensional and simpleton-like, that we can not ever entertain two conflicting emotions at the same time? Can Louis only feels disdain towards Armand (which is like untrue from what we have seen so far) and not both doubts and love towards him?

We did see that at the end of ep4, ghost!Lestat was dispelled by Louis, the moment he decides to commit to Armand, despite his doubts and fears and traumas from his past with Lestat. Love is not a feeling. Love is an act. Love is a choice. And Louis made that choice with Armand.

#iwtv