#ARMAND'S REFUSAL TO SAY IT

[sophsun1]

I LOVE YOU LOUIS MON CHER. BRB KILLING MYSELF

[anthony-crowleys-left-nut]

[divorceblogger]

it’s the fantasy of submission!

[hiraya-sa-dilim]

not moving on from how louis so far surpassed the bare minimum of saving daniel's life? how he could've just let daniel walk away and call it a day but he sat him down and armed him not only against the past few days but the rest of daniel's damn life?? how daniel's had it horrible since, but in spite all his losses, he had something??? how he had the hope of being someone and mattering and he held on to it for 50 long years?? and it worked??? it helped him survive over and over and over???? a shit life is better than no life at all and daniel lived because louis chose to help him??!???

[armandposting]

marius does seem to have a lot of complicated feelings about what he did to armand and I really hope one of them is guilt for his thinking in buying armand originally. he talks in blood and gold about how when he heard armand's mind, the entire reason he wanted him was because he thought, here is a child who has been so hurt that it will be no loss to the world if I make him a vampire. and he wavers on this later and I hope it's because he saw this child make friends and learn things and love rings and watches and swordfighting and realize that actually there is never a child so damaged that taking them from humanity is no loss. I wonder if part of the reason he never tried to talk to armand after seeing him with the children of darkness is that he saw that boy changed into a lonely stoic cult leader with no more will or verve and was too consumed with guilt to even try. I hope that guilt started when he took armand to kiev rus and saw how much armand still loved the family he hadn't seen in years and for a while barely remembered from trauma. also I hope marius explodes into one thousand pieces but that's mostly irrelevant

[winepresswrath]

can I just say that armand was extra wet and pathetic in this most recent episode and i could not appreciate it more. local vampire judge jury and executioner cannot stop throwing it all away for the men he's stalking and isolating from their loved ones.

[laniidae-passerine]

we’ve swung so hard from the one evil conclusion (Louis is a horrible person who deserves the awful things that have been inflicted on him) that now we’re on the equally evil and terribly boring side of Louis is an angel and you cannot argue he was being cruel or manipulative in any of his relationships. like yes he was. he was genuinely horrible to Armand, even if Armand was playing some 5d chess game the whole time. Louis is cruel, relentless and deeply selfish in every relationship he enters. Which is why it is positively baffling to read people reacting with anger when meta or discussion arises about Louis’ negative traits or behaviour? especially when they’re arguing against things that Jacob Anderson has said in interviews? 100% valid to want to protect Louis and acknowledge that a significant proportion of fandom are harsher on him than on his peers, but that does not make him an angel and it’s not racially motivated to call the vicious selfish vampire a vicious selfish vampire. that’s the appeal of him!!! love him as is stop flattening him

[cypheragent]

sorry but at this point i just think it's genuinely legitimately disgusting that anyone would erase what is so obviously armand's trauma response after his backstory with csa was just revealed because they can't stand anything differing from their stupid little headcanons from before the season even actually aired that armand is some kind of mafia don daddy dom and louis is a walking stereotype of perpetual victimhood and submissive fragility with no agency no backbone no power of his own. when that is just so CLEARLY not what's being shown. i don't think that serves louis's character well either

[gabriestat]

a lot of new tvc/iwtv amc fans could not understand the relationships characters hold and the dynamics between them even if you showed a graphic explaining in detail to them but you know what! it's fun enough like that. the dumbest person you know has read 13 books of this series and still can't understand a thing <- happened to academics of any field across any era of history too

[tellhulla]

"I don't think you know him" is great because Marius not only didn't try to get to know Armand as Armand, he rejects the idea of Armand existing, to him there is only Amadeo

He is like a conservative parent refusing to acknowledge their kid transitioned and calling them only by their dead name in front of everyone

I kinda want Daniel in this scenario to send him images of Armand as he knows him via mind gift and Marius to lose composure for once because no, he doesn't recognise that person wearing his Amadeo's face in this stranger's mind, his Amadeo never acted like that in his presence, and now he is wondering which one is the real him, but it only lasts a moment, he can't afford to have doubts, how could he live with himself if he has doubts? so he rejects the idea and sticks to what he knows it's true

You know what would be great to see on the show? A scene where Marius meets Daniel and is all like oh so you are Amadeo's fledgling? And Daniel just goes No, I never heard that name in my life, I don't know who that is, my maker is the vampire Armand, I don't think you know him

IM OBSESSED WITH THIS U HAVE NO IDEA

“I dont think you know him” is such a powerful gut punch OOOOOO

[jeyneofpoole]

louis venez ici i’m incredibly distressed i’ve been trawling here on the wifi and i’ve come across something most loathsome do you see this monstrosity? regarde ça this deceitful little bar has been advertised to me as a form of electronic cigarette! they say it is blue raspberry flavored louis i hate this so utterly i cannot stand it. je vais me fuer this century is shallow and rude there is no such thing as a blue raspberry and there is no such thing as an electronic cigarette i refuse to accept it. what makes this cigarette electronic in the least? does it connect to the wifi? i love the wifi louis i wish that the wifi would not associate with this hateful institution. is this one and the same with that detestable object armand refers to as his ‘banana ice puff bar’ i abhor that one most of all it emits the worst odor c’est vraiment mauvais. louis mon cher you must promise that you will never fall sway under the influence of this infernal device i do not know if my heart could take such a beating. i will not allow those plastic pretenders in my home la main à dieu we must find a way to end this

[in-kyblogs]

You can say what you want about past dm but I refuse to believe that these writers would waste the delicious potential of having young Daniel accusing Armand of not caring he would grow old and die and then Armand actually seeing him old and dying and realising he can’t take it, even if it means breaking his vow and betraying a fundamental part of himself. Reflection on humanity and death at its finest

[platoapproved]

This is such a good and thoughtful answer to this question and honestly shifted my way of thinking about it. I had been somewhat wishing for their sex life to not be so elided because it's a really crucial part of their dynamic as a couple, but on reflection... honestly it might have been a rough watch for all the reasons @dreadfuldevotee said above. I can see that it's wiser to err on the side of not opening that can of worms.

Also OP mentioned this in the tags, just going to copy it here, from Jacob Anderson's TV Insider interview:

Speaking of taking clothes off, what about the lack of Louis and Armand sex scenes in Season 2? Anderson says, “I reasoned it this way: Because of [Armand’s] history, it feels like a thing that’s being protected.” He goes on: “The sexuality in their relationship is being protected partly because it has this BDSM dynamic. It’s like, they’re not going to talk about that in this interview..."

Like. Louis is very open about sharing his story in general. That's why he's doing this interview. But he knows that Armand (who is his partner, who he does love or is trying to love or has convinced himself he loves) is adamantly NOT open about sharing his story beyond what's necessary to tell Louis' own. So of course Louis is not going to go into detail because Armand is right there, and out of respect for his boundaries, makes total sense.

Also, consider the audience. Not only is everything they share potentially going to go into a book that literally any human or other vampire could read, but also Daniel is going to hear it and he is GOING to share his opinion. I love Daniel. But he is not respectful or cautious. He goads, and pries, and frequently mocks, even when it comes to deeply traumatic subjects. Not talking about their sex life, which is so bound up with Armand's trauma, was.... probably a pretty fucking good idea, both in the logic of the world but also for the writers of the TV show considering audience responses. Because I know that like, personally, if Daniel had done any 'pulling humor from his pain' like he did with Louis reading Lestat's letter in ep 2.... if he'd done any of that for anything about Armand's relationship with sex or his past, it would've been D O N E.

Anyway. My main point is, great post, great take, absolutely agree.

I'd like to discuss the elephant in the room. Why did we get zero Loumand sex scenes? We got hints and implications, but season 1 was pretty explicit. Do we think that that's a creative choice or something else is happening?

I'm glad I ended up ruminating on this for about a week because episode 7 & 8 really solidified my opinion on it.

I do wanna start by saying that it's very clear to me that there was supposed to be more explicit scenes between them. There has been some thoughts tossed around that censorship happened with the 9 pm timeslot (as opposed to the 10 pm timeslot of S1). I believed this hearing Assad and Jacob talk about the BDSM dynamic between Louis and Armand, but what really sold me on this was Production Designer Mara LePere-Schloop talking about the bedroom set and more specifically about their beautifully carved custom headboard. (If you're a production nerd like me or just want to know more about the design philosophy of IWTV I recommend giving the entire thing a listen!).

I think there are several reasons I think as to why they decided to leave any more explicit scenes on the cutting room floor but above them all is: you cannot separate Armand's sexuality from his abuse. I am really against pulling a "well if you read the books" card but reading just the first couple chapters of "The Vampire Armand" makes me understand so much about not only Armand as a character, but the care being taken to his adaptation. It's clear to me that alongside Rolin & Co.'s commitment to not watering him down to a one-dimensional villain they are also trying to not fall into Anne Rice's tendency to romanticize his trauma.

Sex and sexuality is not the same pillar of Louis and Armand's relationship it was in Louis and Lestat's and so I don't believe their story suffers from the lack of on-screen sex. But I also firmly believe that maybe we don't need to be slutting out the character who we literally just watched talk about how he doesn't remember his life before being sex trafficked. And even when he was "freed" he was still being repeatedly assaulted at the hands of, and under the eye Marius de Romanus. Like it is extremely important to remember that Armand's craving for dominion in his relationships is a manifestation of trauma that deserves the same level of care and depth given to every other trauma portrayed in this show.

I think people have gotten too comfortable calling IWTV a romance when it has always been Gothic Horror. Romance and sex are pivotal to the story but I have found the demands for sex scenes this season a bit absurd and also? unfounded? Loustat share more kisses on screen but there are two sex scenes and both are very plot relevant. I truly figured we were all in agreement that the eroticism of this show is found in the various displays of power, and the dynamics it creates and not the actual clapping of ass-cheeks...which also wasn't happening in S1 either. S2 does not suffer because of the lack of sex-scenes, but the likelihood if it suffering trying to make one work is

[couldnt-think-of-a-funny-name]

cannot get over the IMPLICATIONS of that 'armand was telling the truth' tattoo like:

-in universe fandom for the book

-potentially armand has come out of this whole situation once again portrayed as an innocent victim, and this time he didn't even have to work for it. none of the readers have even gazed into his big beautiful eyes!!!

- everyone thinks lestat is cosplaying as lestat. dear God do you think the armand girls are constantly @ -ing him and daniel on twitter bringing up copyright laws

- do you think daniel has publicly threatened to sue lestat. I Know he has.

- the author, who is perceived to be having an end of life cunty gay era, is convinced to interview the rock star who's cosplaying as his famous character. you KNOW. you KNOW the girls are rooting for them to fuck each other

- discourse about how a hashtag real artist would create their OWN character to embody and also isn't it a red flag that he's idolizing an abusive murderer?!?!?!?! boycott the new album guys!!!

- louis and armand and sam all have burner accounts to constantly shitpost about the book

- claudia girlies showing up to a concert with fanart of her on all of their posters and he has a public breakdown but everyone just thinks it's a regular drug scandal

- anyone remember the armie hammer cannibal situation. yeah.

- lestat says onstage that he ships loustat and he gets booed by even his most loyal fans

- small sector of fans that ship louis and daniel and they refuse to make eye contact about it

- daniel's daughters publicly try to have him committed more than once and some fans preemptively start a gofundme in case his daughters try and get a conservatorship

- (armand donates) (the fans don't even know daniel personally the whole thing is a scam)

- armand prints out and dramatically gazes at any and every piece of fanart drawn of him

- lestat projects hate comments on a screen at his show but like half of the hate comments are by people who think they're talking about a fictional character

- this is getting away from me. I DO wanna see louis in a mosh pit dressed slutty and covered in glitter tho

[gallierhouse]

What if I said that BDSM isn’t particularly fulfilling for Armand because it’s pretense and what he fundamentally wants is to submit to real authority otherwise it’s just hollow role play but he’s simultaneously incapable of true submission because he fears losing control and losing love (which are synonymous, in this case) so he ends up engineering self-defeating dynamics with the people he loves and still refuses to have a safe word because the point of submission is the total loss of control, not the pretense of it, and that’s why he retreats into a 24/7 BDSM dynamic with Louis and refuses to come out of it even when it’s clear that it’s not sexy or fulfilling for either of them? And if I say the security of submission for Armand doesn’t come from trusting someone to treat you well, but from not knowing what they’ll do and being unable to stop them? But he simultaneously can’t bear for anyone to leave him, ever, so instead he dominates and imprisons them, even as he’s submitting, and in a warped way, he sees his domination and imprisonment as a form of servitude (I do this because I love you, I do this for you, etc.)?

[noomyguts]

and in s2ep1 we see in bed Louis asking to look over the missing pages and promising he wont share them with Daniel, which Armand reluctantly agrees to

so is there truth that he just didn't want Daniel specifically to see the missing pages and why is that do we think?

"Why did I owe you my one act of cowardice?" It's in the scene where Armand yells about how he removed pages from Claudia's diary without Louis present in order to "protect himself" from Daniel.

I'm still unclear what this line is referring to or what the pages he removed are suppose to conceal, is it:

He didn't want Louis to know that Claudia had been right and Armand had threatened her life back when he caught her hanging with Madeline. (but if thats the case then why do we still see this scene in paris, who's narrating this part of the story if Louis doesn't know about it?? are these armands flashbacks?)

Or does Armand remove pages about Madeline, because he didn't want to talk about never having given the gift before in front of Daniel, since it's the major point of tension within their DM story arc, and he was worried it'd trigger even more memories ("Why did I owe you my shame?" and the "act of cowardice" Armand's refers to, is it about erasing Daniel's memories instead of turning him back in the 80s??)

like mostly i'm trying to wrap my head around why taking pages from Claudia's diary would protect Armand from Daniel??

like maybe it's just something he says to cover his tracks so louis wouldn't catch on to his motivations and action against Claudia in Paris, but the line itself had so much emotion It comes across like he's protecting even more than the audience knows, like it's something he says involuntarily and reveals more than he meant it to (something he does often with Daniel)