I’m almost finished writing the Marius installment of my Omega Armand series, and now I’m stuck trying to decide: do I post it as soon as it’s done, so tonight or Sunday night, and to hell with any inconsistencies with canon since that part is inspired by the books? Or do I wait until the ep with Chris’s Marius actually drops, whenever that may be, so I can go back and edit any of my characterization of him to better fit the show?
This releasing one ep a week deal for TVL is ass, man.
There are actors who can monologue for hours and I am unable to fathom a single emotion of what they're trying to convey. Assad Zaman, with the slight, closed mouth chewing, and the brief, subtle lip corner pull that raises the apple of his cheek ever so slightly, gave me more to think about with his suppressed smile of 2 seconds and no dialogue. The entire cast of TVL is elite, but goddamn Assad really gets to me.
Watching S3E1 and the lengths the writers have gone through to show, in just a few brief moments, the breaking of Lestat by the mere appearance of Gabriella… I will be *livid* if we are subjected to yet another mishandling of Armand and Marius’ reunion (as written in QOTD), where there is no acknowledgement of the *intense* and *crushing* trauma that not only Armand suffered through in his human life, yes even under the hands of his maker, but the mind-shattering reality of having your only guardian, the person you trusted the most (for better or worse), turn you into an immortal being, then be BURNED “ALIVE” IN FRONT OF YOU — only to find out not only did that person survive, they NEVER CAME BACK FOR YOU. Never reached out. KNEW that you were kidnapped into a cult, and according to the book TVL, decided that was too much effort to rescue you from, especially since you seemed to be buying into the cult nonsense, **even though you HAD TO in order to SURVIVE**. And then this being that you had built up as a perfect deity in your mind, that you believed you saw die in front of you, whose death you believed was YOUR FAULT… he opens up to this blonde upstart and shows him things he never shared with you?? And then one day, the world is falling apart, and you walk into a room and there he is?? This mythical being?? That you thought died?? But instead just never cared enough for you to even write a letter?? To say he’s at least alive??
Rolin, I beg you, GIVE THIS MOMENT TO ASSAD. Armand deserves to finally have that, to come to terms with that heart-wrenching break, that utter collapse of his entire world… let him cry, scream, explode, LET HIM HAVE THAT. Give him what Anne didn’t! Let our hearts break for him, let us see that child within the man that begs for some kind of reckoning… let us glimpse that broken boy, like you are letting us see in Lestat’s scene with his mother.
Marius, and that traumatic night Armand was ripped away from everything he had known (AGAIN) just as his world was starting to feel stable… these are people and events that undeniably shaped Armand, if not defined him (at least in his own mind), please, PLEASE do not ignore this. Do not do him dirty and just have him blindly accept Marius’ NON-DEATH and surprise entrance.
I just want to see a realistic reaction. Do not sweep his trauma under the rug, or play it off as something that can be waved away, or that he can easily forgive and forget.
Anonymous asked:
Just want to ask if there is anything physical between Lesmand this season? Kind of bracing for everyone mocking Armand over the theater scene correction
irisbleufic answered:
Hi, anon. I’ve talked about this before, so I won’t hesitate to do so again, but with added analysis of Armand’s and Lestat’s accounts of the theater scene, and added caveats.
Just once, for no other reason than fulfilling a fan fantasy, I'd like someone to acknowledge Armand's beauty openly on the show. And no, not Daniel. Louis' beauty is constantly remarked upon, and Lestat's sexiness and appeal is in your face all the time. You've got Assad Zaman, one of the most beautiful men on the planet, playing Armand, and nobody can address how alluring he looks?
I truly don’t understand how there are people who don’t see anything remotely wrong with the narrative in the fandom that Lestat is inherently more honest than Louis, Claudia and Armand.
Firstly, that’s boring. That’s not a good show. That’s flat and uninteresting. You want the show to be rid of the very thing that made it special in the first place.
Secondly, you really don’t see anything wrong with being so willing to blindly believe the guy who we have actually spent zero time with, over two people we have seen in person and the other whose words we have heard when she thought she was only talking to herself? Before you’ve even watched the new season?
You don’t notice anything different about Lestat from the other three? Anything that might cause you to treat them differently based on biases you may not even consciously be aware that you have? That perhaps are causing you to be more lenient and forgiving when it comes to Lestat? Nothing at all?
Louis lies. Claudia lies. Armand lies. But Lestat also lies, even unconsciously. He’s not automatically a more reliable source. This isn’t the grand reveal that the first two seasons were a waste of time. That’s not what the show is. What an insult that would be to Louis and to Jacob.
There’s this vibe from certain fans that this is where the ‘real’ show begins, that everything before was a facade or was less important. A prelude to the more important show. If you don’t see anything strange about that way of thinking, what it implies, I need you to reflect on yourself. I need you to question why you think the things that you do and why you are inclined to believe or not believe certain things, because it’s about something a whole lot bigger than a show about vampires.
Anonymous asked:
I hope that the racist fans who were making those jokes before haven't already seized on the clip in the teaser and started making those so-called jokes again, but...I'm afraid I already know the answer.
oh it's bad. i've been trying to push back against it and was called a white saviour who's fetishizing people of colour. i was told not to use the word "brown" because it's "dehumanizing" (i guess brown people aren't human now?)
when i pointed out that i am literally brown myself (mixed race and my dad is bengali like assad) so this is personal for me, i was accused of race-faking. i posted a photo of myself with my family to prove i'm not and someone implied i'm overcompensating because i'm whitewashed by having a white parent (my mum isn't even white) and british poc are all self-hating. i've literally been hit with the "calling something racism is racism in itself" with people telling me they can't be racist against armand because they love louis.
i have a private account so these were literally mutuals of mine talking to me like this and making "bobs and vegane" jokes, comparing armand to the stereotype of indian men harassing women online. i've had to block a lot of people i'd previously considered safe. this fandom is not a fun place to be in right now as a brown person. it never was but it's been worse since that clip dropped.
i had a feeling this would happen when we saw lestat's version of events because i've seen how lestat fans (obviously not all of them) talk about assad's armand but my heart is really aching for friends of mine who'd been so happy to see a brown man like themselves portrayed as desirable and powerful on screen but now have to see everyone gleefully tearing him apart as pathetic and unattractive, saying they want to see him humiliated every time he appears.
this fandom has a problem with racism that's been going largely unchecked with any of us who talk about it treated like we're overreacting or just looking to be offended. i've been so excited to watch this season and discuss it with other fans for 2 years and now just over a week before the first episode drops i feel like i don't even want it anymore.
irisbleufic answered:
Anon, I’m so, so sorry to hear about what you’ve been going through, and I hope that it has been cathartic for you to vent about it to someone. I sincerely hope that you have a strong support system and people to whom you can talk about it off anon, too. Thank you for sharing your experiences here. It’s tricky enough being a pale/mixed heritage Jewish person in this fandom sometimes, so I cannot fucking imagine how difficult it is for brown, Black, and other fans of color in IWTV right now. The ongoing conversations that I’ve had over the past couple of years with fellow marginalized friends in this fandom (for reference, the populations they represent are, predominantly, just based on where I was raised and where I’ve lived over the past couple decdades: American and British Jewish individuals, Black Americans and Black British people, and individuals from British South Asian backgrounds) has, indeed, exposed the pervasive ugliness. I’ve only in the past six months to a year (out of the two years I’ve been extremely active in this fandom) started engaging on posts and making posts of my own, though, because it felt a lot safer to keep those conversations restricted to private messages and discord conversations.
I’m so sorry to hear that you’ve had to block people who you thought were safe. You should never have been in a position where people you trusted turned out to be toxic and refused to take you at your word. You are not overreacting, and you should do whatever it takes to protect yourself. Unfortunately, there seems to be a lot of this going around; accounts of the treatment that POC have received in this fandom are well documented at this point, and my horror just grows with each account that emerges. The treatment of Assad (and Bally, too; in the past, I’ve seen some shit on discord servers that makes me mad enough to choke) in particular, by both racist fans and the overall trend of neglect in AMC’s marketing, really speaks volumes. This fandom is extremely willing to call out/confront anti-Blackness when it crops up, and I applaud that (because these bigotries/oppressions are not in competition; they are all part of the same problem, and they all need to be addressed). However, the issues it has with racism against South Asian people and anti-Muslim sentiment are not given the same priority when it comes to speaking out with an equal level of fervor. And I wish more people understood that this is a real fucking problem.
tired: louis, claudia and armand's lies vs. lestat's truth
wired: louis's version vs. claudia's version vs. armand's version vs. lestat's version
I mean, I knew we were gonna get here, so I don't know why I'm surprised, but people deciding that Lestat is the objective truth-teller while everyone else is a liar (before the show has ever aired no less) is certainly a choice. I guess we can just completely disregard the first two seasons then, because NOW it's time for the REAL story 🙄
This isn't even me saying that Lestat is lying... that ANYONE in particular is lying. It's just like... has this not always been about people telling THEIR version of events? So why is one automatically assumed to be THEEEE correct one?
No one reads Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John and goes "omg Mark is such a big fat fucking liar who lies! But at least we have John to give us the objective truth."
I’m crashing out admittedly but the reactions to the last teaser seem to have been the last straw for me. Cause it’s really wild to have a character who’s pretty much defined by his otherwordly beauty, who suffered the specific traumas Armand had BECAUSE of his beauty, who literally was a muse to Italian Renaissance artists because of his beauty, whom Marius decided to bring home BECAUSE OF HIS BEAUTY… be treated like… this?
Like ok it’s Lestat’s POV, sure. But even in book TVL, written by Lestat, he can’t help but gush about how gorgeous Armand is. He doesn’t shut up about it, ever. It’s literally one of THE defining traits of Armand’s character, and casting Assad seems to imply that the creators are aware of it.
So… why doesn’t anyone in the show ever comment on it? Why is he being treated as unlovable and undesirable? Why is this a trend, and why is fandom jumping on that like it’s the gospel truth? (i know why.)
I really hope the show itself is better than that, but making Armand into this pathetic unlovable undesirable butt of a joke is NOT it. And I’d hope book purists who were so ready to tell everyone to read the books to get the full context on Lestat all those years would be similarly concerned. But of course they’re not, because the books are only revelant when it comes to defending Lestat. Sigh.
ok i’m trying not to be someone who’s catastrophizing before the season is even out but a little worried that the running gag is armand is this one-sided obsessor and that the nuance of how lestat also does love armand in a way is being thrown out based on the promo so far and the undermining of loumand in s2. i’m ultimately in for DM but i don’t want these other dynamics flattened.
