#esp lestat who really refuses to show how much he actually loves armand

[anthony-crowleys-left-nut]

[murfpersonalblog]

I wanted to respond to this post & tags by @mdeitrick13, after I saw @fishjellylou's response here.

I HATE book!film!Louis. It's actually a very popular opinion, esp. wrt film!Louis--there's a lot to hate, without ever getting into morality politics--from his plethora of stupid life choices, to his hypocrisy, to his whiny attitude, etc. And wrt to pimps & slavery specifically, we can get into all the ways owning & controlling people's bodies, freedom, & autonomy/agency is effed up. But where exactly does LOUIS exhibit any of that behavior towards Armand--book, film, and esp. on the show??? 🤔

Almighty all-powerful all-gifted uber-privileged vamps can get away with literal murder: Lestat can spitefully beat the hell out of Lou, Armand can sadistically torture HUMAN!Daniel, the coven can gleefully kill Claudia & Madeleine (who literally did nothing), Armand can petulantly drive the mentally ill (Nicki & Louis) to suicide--but disenfranchised weak AF desperate HUMAN!Black Louis is "worse" than all of the vamps, cuz he was a pimp who tried navigating the crap hand he'd been dealt the most effective way he could? 🤨🤨🤨

What did Louis do as a human pimp that makes him so much "worse" as a person than Armand is? Since when does AMC/the show or Lou absolve himself of guilt for being a pimp OR a vampire? In Lou's eyes, evil is evil, and he doesn't give vampires a pass AT ALL--eff all the "biological imperatives" Rashid was simpering about. Since when are demonic serial killing cannibals given a pass in the IWTV Morality Olympics, over prostitution? Cuz prostitution & vampirism BOTH exploit human vulnerability & weakness & bodies, and by the show's logic, one is no better or worse than the other--ALL vampires on this show are COMPLICIT as predators feeding off the lives & miseries of humans. Santiago only used the stupid "vampires are monsters" excuse to justify his personally-motivated vendetta to kill Louis, dismissing Lou's experiences to absolve Lestat's flagrant abuse of power against the man he claimed to love whom he knew was weaker than him and thus intentionally "broke."

The whole point of show!Loumand's dynamic is right here:

ARMAND, the 400+ year old Coven Master, stalked & approached & invited & courted LOUIS. Louis never spoke or utilized his past as a pimp when they met. Armand knew Louis was afraid of him ("I thought he was going to kill me....I sensed his ancient power"), and he promised Louis (who'd suffered from SEVERE PTSD after the last older more powerful vampire broke every bone in his body), that he would never hurt Louis, "and I never have," LOL.

In ANY of Loumand's courtship, where does Louis having formerly been a pimp give him ANY advantage over Armand, or the coven? 🤔

Where does pimp!Louis factor in as the "gross" part of their meeting & courtship--when Lou explicitly told Armand & the whole coven that they were NOT companions, and that he had ZERO interest in Armand tryna RECRUIT Louis to join Armand's coven (*cough* CULT *cough*)? 🤔 Who's pimping whom in this situationship? 🤔

Esp. since Claudia's the one who was actually recruited, to try to lure LOUIS in as the one they REALLY wanted to join, so offended when Lou refused ("[Madeleine] must join or die."). They used the same Charles Manson-style cult tactics on Claudia AND Louis!

Rolin explicitly used Charles Manson music in 1x5, but y'all keep missing the links between Lestat & Armand's treatment of Louis & Claudia to talk about how Armand was groomed & abused--by WHOM?! Certainly not LOUIS! And here the tags go AGAIN tryna link Louis with Marius. 🤦‍♀️ (I cannot WAIT till y'all show-onlies actually see Marius in action, not just picking up crap from hearsay.)

Where is Louis the predator out to harm Armand? How is Armand the one being "grossly" threatened by Lou, pimp or otherwise? When did Louis rape Armand, or pimp him out, or "donate" him to someone else? For all Louis' claims that "he's mine" cuz Lou got to top someone who's not his Maker, how does Louis actually come out on top or benefit, being with Armand? 🤔

For all Armand's simpering about "Are you asking me or making me, Maitre?," where does Louis FORCE Armand to do ANYTHING? Louis states what he wants to do/happen (make Madeleine for Claudia; save Daniel from Armand killing him), and Lou gives Armand the CHOICE to do it it or not. Armand could've had the whole coven descend on Lou the night Lou made Madeleine (as we see in the movie, which clearly noticed the same thing)--instead, we learn that he was actually writing/rehearsing the Trial script the whole time jfc 💀💀💀. He could've snapped Daniel's neck, and what could crispety!Lou have done to stop him, hobbling around all burnt up? But he complies, cuz he'd already sabotaged Loustat's chance to get back together by not telling Lou that Les said he loved him; instead CHOOSING to stay with the man who literally just said he's bored & hates being with Armand & literally just tried to kill himself rather than be with Armand anymore--like WTF???? But ARMAND'S the one who's been in danger from Louis!? 🤣 THIS dude!?

OK, Lou was a pimp, but Armand was running the frikkin vampire MOB in Paris--a literal biker gang of Charles Manson sickos! An effing wet room full of offed "heretics and rule breakers" (inc NICKI, who was NEITHER--SUS!!!) buried in the frikkin walls of his torture-basement, but Lou's "worse" for being a HUMAN!hustler, when Armand's a whole cult-leading mobster his effing self!?

On top of the legit torture we see him do to HUMAN!Daniel, playing with his effing food worse than anything we saw Lestat pull in S1.

(x x x x x)

How does Lou having been a pimp protect him from Armand lying about "Banishment," or having his mind wiped for 77 years, or Armand going behind Lou's back to tear out Claudia's diary pages Lou didn't even know about, or Armand throwing Daniel (& Sam & the Talamasca) under the bus to keep gaslighting Lou about the script?

Where does Louis abuse Armand's trust, lying to control Armand's actions? When has Lou hobbled Armand's bodily autonomy, and the thing Armand can(not) physically do? When did Lou donate Armand to other people? Or act outside of Armand's boundaries/consent?)

The whole point of IWTV is to emphasize LOUIS' vulnerability, and how it's constantly exploited & abused by people more powerful than he is--from humans in NOLA & Romania/Eastern Europe, to vampires in Paris, and especially Lestat.

Armand knew immediately that Louis & Claudia were lying about Bruce being their Maker, cuz he's THE best vampire with the Mind Gift. He knew EVERYTHING, and told Louis to his face in 2x2 that Louis's a terrible liar who can't hide anything or keep secrets from him--just like the last older more powerful vampire read Louis' thoughts & used them to seduce him; "Come to me, Louis."

Armand & the whole coven were Europeans who'd never even met an American vamp before--but they knew Louis was a pimp from New Orleans with a whole failed sugar plantation--cuz they they read his mind; what Claudia explicitly called "invaded their thoughts." Santiago called them BOTH out in 2x3 (more subtly with Claudia but straight up explicitly with Louis, as someone whose mind they could all read way easier than hers).

It especially confuses me when show fans complain all about pimp!Louis being with Armand on the show; but make no noise about slaveowner!Louis being with Armand in the books? (Or they're against pedo!Marius being with Armand, but make no noise about pedo!Lestat being with Armand? Let alone Daniel (who, unlike Marius & Lestat, is NOT an Old World European vamp from a different time period with different morals/ethics), or any adult attracted to a 17 year old's body--including book!Louis?) People have shipped Loumand for decades, yet it's only once Lou's a pimp (amongst other things....) that people suddenly care about poor innocent Armand being abused by the evil thug jezebel who got Armand's daughter killed and lied to Armand about his Maker and allowed Armand to be tortured & humiliated by the public with his ankles slashed open & buried alive for over a MONTH so he couldn't escape? 🙄😒

The Vampire Armand is only ever beaten TWICE: by Santino & the Children of Satan in the books, and by Daniel on the show. That is IT. NO ONE else gets the jump on Armand, or gets the upper hand over him--he's not even one of the ones Rhoshamandes kidnaps! NO ONE effs with TVA, or effs TVA over--HE'S the boogeyman of the vampires preying on his own kind, not the other way around.

The sheer IRONY of Mr. "I Could Not Prevent It" Armand as a character is understanding cycles of violence.

You're missing the whole point of AR/RJ putting the former sex slave Armand in relationships with a slaveowner (book) or a pimp (show). It's about realizing how a former sex slave (kidnapped & trafficked overseas to be tortured so bad that his PTSD gave him amnesia) became a powerful vampire with THEE strongest Mind/Spell Gift powers, leading entire covens/cults purging ALL fledglings in their territories who resisted--thus perpetuating SYSTEMIC & INSTITUTIONALIZED ABUSE.

Armand used & abused Claudia's naivety & Louis' trust in him, cuz he lulls victims into a false sense of security before the trap springs open--"NO PAIN."

AR put Loumand together NOT to make a point about how "gross" it was that slaveowner!Louis was taking advantage of former sex slave Armand. It's about how effing ironic and SAD it is that Armand (the one who IMO experienced THE WORST horrors as a victim of abuse in all of TVC) was now the ONLY one in a position of power to PREVENT things that happened to him from happening to anyone else--and did NOTHING. Or rather: he made already bad situations even WORSE.

Armand weaponizes his past to destroy other peoples' futures, victimizing & harassing & abusing everyone as the Coven Master of that EFFED UP coven. He CLAIMS he cannot prevent bad things from happening, flashing 🥺 all day--only for us to find out that behind the scenes, this mofo was a master manipulator who gaslit & schemed against his lover Louis ("alright, I sold him out"), tricked & abused his frenemy Lestat, mutilated Claudia's body and hid the evidence (I PRAY that ghost!Claudia reveals that the Frankenstein scene from TVA happened), and psychologically tortured his human/fledgling Daniel.

Armand was originally intended to be the main villain of TVC, all the way up until the 3rd book, when AR softened Armand's edges & gave it to Akasha in QotD, and Rhosh in the PL Trilogy. ALL of AR's vamps are sympathetic villains, not cuz one is morally/ethically "better or worse" than the other--arguments have been made even to understand Rhoshamandes & Akasha's perspectives. YES, Armand had horrible things happen to him--but LOUIS is NEVER the one who does those horrible things to him, nor does he EVER benefit from Armand's past. Armand ALWAYS had the advantage over Louis, pimp or no. STOP overestimating the Maitre stupidness! AMC already told y'all what that was about!

But y'all pointedly isolate every other vamp from culpability & accountability under the thinly-veiled guise of caring so much about the freedom/autonomy of people's bodies, when really it only serves to spread hate & vitriol for Louis. All I'm seeing in this fandom is the "GROSS" inequity of how Louis is treated & talked about, versus everyone else, and it's fishy AF.