#assad doesn't BLINK

[carveredlunds]

I'm told you've lived a fascinating life.

[adamnablelittledevil]

TRULY APPRECIATE THE WAY ARMAND DOESN'T EVEN BLINK ON THE FIRST GIF ASSAD THE ACTOR THAT YOU ARE

INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE 2.03 // 1.01 // 2.08

[whokenobi]

Wanna talk about corrupted countries treating people like shit. Let's talk about Palestine and how Israeli people treat Palestinians, killing them, torturing them and doesn't matter if it's kids or adults. Everyone supports Israel, you all are a bunch of hypocrites and I'm unfollowing your shitty blog. You don't care about people and rights, you never said a thing about Israel yet open your filthy mouth about Qatar. You're just islamophobic and no better than Alejandra.

That is quite literally untrue. I am so sorry that I don’t immediately cover every single geopolitical topic in a tumblr ask. Get a grip dude.

Shall I also cover Iran supplying weapons to Russia for their war against Ukraine while also murdering and torturing their citizens for protesting against the morality police/Mahsa Amini’s murder/etc? What about Afghanistan and the Taliban preventing women from holding jobs and returning to school? The Saudi Arabian crown Prince and the state ordered assassination and dismemberment of Jamal Khasoggi? Don’t ever try to act like I am Islamophobic or I don’t have a proficient understanding of geopolitical issues outside of the borders of my country. And that includes the conflict between Palestine and Israel and how the US government categorically refuses to acknowledge what Israel is doing because we fund their shit year after year. (And the ones who do, Ilhan Omar, damn near have their reputations shredded). Oh and yes I know Netanyahu won yet another reelection. Fuck you for your assumptions.

Another one I forgot to add for good measure. Syria and its civil war against Al-Assad’s government and how so many people fled so they would not be murdered. And how so many Syrian cities have been reduced to rubble. And the refugee crisis that followed. One of my good friends was one of those refugees and now when they try to return to visit family who remained in Syria, they have to fly to Lebanon and drive hours across the border. Oh let’s not forget how the US has gotten away with drone strikes in multiple Middle Eastern countries. And how everyone is (rightfully so) horrified for Ukraine but didn’t blink a fucking eye when Russia and Syria leveled Aleppo because the people who were killed weren’t white or Christian enough for them to relate to.

[murfpersonalblog]

Your tags are valid, OP.

There's a lot of blink and you miss it things about this show that legit fly over people's heads. And unfortunately, a lot of them pertain to Armand/Amadeo/Arun.

I made a whole post about Armand's magnolias--which the show never actually tells us is a magnolia tree--you'd just have to know, and piece it together when Armand mentions his cutting in 2x6.

And the show does this constantly--expecting the audience to either know things in advance by reading the books Rolin keeps waving around on press junkets, or just hash it out on social media with metas & such. Meanwhile AMC has the most surface-level asinine interviews ever, with safe/soft journalists who don't DARE ask anything with deeper nuance or context, just teeheeing about crap.

Like, I've seen SO MANY people talk about his "slave name," mistakenly thinking it's Arun, when ARMAND is his real slave name--the name his vampire kidnappers thrust on him when they forced him to join their religious cult & killed his brothers and burned his Maker. 99% of folk had no idea that "Arun" is a local Indian name--which would NEVER be given to an Indian captive being sold into slavery overseas by foreigners, his identity/humanity/past stripped away--what white slavemasters gave their Black slaves African names? XD But do these fans get that? Wtf do they know about slavery, let alone Indian culture, let alone antiquity-renaissance sex/gender/age dynamics, let alone race pre-1492/Enlightenment/etc, let alone the particulars of book!Armand's actual captivity & cult indoctrination--that all color what the magnolia scene represents for him vs Louis, and what "Maitre" represents for him vs Louis.

Like, the show doesn't explain ANY of these nuances wrt Armand. They just gave suspicious fanfic in 2x3 & out-of-place trauma-dumps in 2x4; with the most spotty allusions to his backstory--with more holes & contradictions & discombobulating visual disconnects (that whitewashed effing painting omfg) than anything so-called liar!Louis(TM) gave Daniel--then they get mad when their audience totally misinterprets everything and doesn't perceive scenes/episodes/ships the way the writers/showrunners expected them to, LOL.

They made Armand the ultimate schemer, with not one but TWO big gotcha! plot twists about his duplicitousness in both season finales. But they left so many doors open for racists to blame/doubt Louis on one hand & Armand on the other; ultimately throwing them under the bus for the sake of redeeming effing Lestat (which we saw in living color with the poll results--even SANTIAGO got a pass!). So people are torn over which direction to even approach Armand from, let alone understand wtf was going on with the magnolia & the rocks & Maitre & the script/rehearsal & SanFran & DM & Marius & Rashid etc.

I keep meaning to finish my drafted post/RANT about how miffed I've been about AMC's take on Armand, and the weird AF way they've handled him, and the contradictory/skewed way Assad talks about him. Cuz I've been confused since 2x3 / 2x4. Armand's my fave book character, but I feel he's been used as this huge misdirect for the show to specifically keep book readers on our toes, by obfuscating everything about this dude and his motives, so we can't even anticipate anything about him without a frikkin microscope and a crystal ball, so they can rug-pull us whenever they want. They're not gonna SHOW us--heck, they're not even TELLING us! They axed Night Island cuz I'm convinced they legit didn't know wtf to do with Armand. Rolin wanted this to be the Louis-&-Lestat show--esp. the Lestat show--so who knows how much more they'll give us about the most opaque character!?! U_U

One of the things they really should have actually shown on screen.