#fandom is a potluck yknow

[monstersinthecosmos]

As a fellow Marius lover, I always find it kind of disheartening how most of the content/fandom talk about him (meta, fic, fanart, etc.) revolves around m/m ships (Marius/Armand in particular but I’d even go as far to include Marius/Daniel here) when, in my opinion, Marius is like the one male character in the VC universe whose relationships with women are far more interesting than his relationships with other men (the only other character might be Lestat but even then it’s pretty 50/50). They’re so monumental and so full of complexities and pain and so much love and they define him and inform his character in ways that I think, his relationships with men simply do not. Interesting/hot under the right circumstances? Sure but like ARE YOU GUYS SEEING THIS MAN??? AND HOW HE RELATES TO WOMEN??? It’s one of the best things Anne ever wrote and I can never get enough of it and it makes me sad how little content there is of it and I feel I can never say this out loud because I would never want to make people feel bad about what they ship (truly not my intention here) but ugh SO MUCH potential there for life changing discourse and meta about Marius and the women he’s loved and lost and have shaped who he is and there’s like… nothing.

Tl;dr the reason I’m sending this ask is because I’m a firm believer that you must be the change you want to see in this world and because YOU get it! And every time you post or write about Marius/Pandora (or Marius/Akasha! Or talk about Marius/Bianca) an angel gets its (black) wings. You are seen, you are loved and appreciated tysm <3

OKAY FIRST OF ALL THIS WAS SUCH A DELIGHT TO GET IN MY INBOX, SECOND IM GOING TO BE COMPLETELY HONEST AND ADMIT I FEEL TOO INCOHERENT TO TACKLE THIS TOPIC HAHA. I don’t feel articulate enough to do it justice. And I don’t say that to be obnoxious and self deprecating but like in all honesty idk how to synthesize it neatly but I think you’re sharing some GREAT IDEAS. 

I have to say this in bullet points because I don’t feel equipped to string this into a cohesive post:

Marius was based on Anne’s husband, and Marius/Pandora was based on their marriage!!!!! And I think it explains a lot about why their relationship feels so fuckin POTENT to me, like it’s so genuine!!!!!!! And like knowing that I think it makes sense why she wrote him so HOT lol. Like she’s just writing thirsty stuff about her husband right? LOL

Also like insofar as there’s a lot of genderfluidity in VC there’s also something vaguely misogynist about it at times. And Anne Rice was a mega feminist and her work had so much womens lib in it!!!!! So I don’t think it’s intended as misogyny at all vs. Anne having conversations about gender and maybe her own relationship to gender. I think enough characters have said vaguely misogynist stuff that it makes me think it’s an Anne Problem vs being Watsonian. (This is also a historical/time period issue and we can discuss another time if and when vampires are supposed to break out of that when they transcend humanity and social constructs even when they’re still saying weird sexist shit at their big ages.) But I say that to say all VC characters are a tad sexist, even if perhaps she was writing with the intention of her own male power fantasy/male superiority/penis envy. AND THAT MAKES MARIUS VERY INTERESTING. 

Cause like really the three main ladies in his life (Akasha, Pandora, Bianca) DO define him so much! And we don’t see him pine for Armand the way he did for any of them! Why!!!

Like there’s that aspect of sexism where women can be infantilized by men who don’t think they’re being unkind and it makes me wonder, especially when the author is a boomer, like where is that line between condescension and respect? I don’t have an answer here, this is too big-brained for me LOL but like he is SO devoted to the women in his life and I just wonder like if he sees them as creatures unlike himself, you know? 

This is headcanon territory but I bet he’s such a fucking sub to Pandora lol and it just thrills me that he spent 2000 years begging Akasha for affection and she ignored him the whole damn time wow. And he continued to simp!

AND ALSO LIKE, I think people DO NOT DISCUSS THIS OFTEN ENOUGH, but did we forget that he chose Armand because he needed a Bianca rebound? He was absolutely TORTURED by his love for Bianca and picked Armand because he didn’t want to kill her oh my god. Oh my god!!! HE KEPT HER LETTER IN HIS POCKET OVER HIS HEART OKAY??? HE DIDN’T WANT TO DRAG HER INTO HIS COLD AND FATAL DOMAIN????? Fuck lol

It’s so fucked up that he didn’t go after Armand but spent like actual fucking millennia trying to find Pandora. HE KNEW EXACTLY WHERE ARMAND WAS AND LEFT HIM THERE LOL BUT PANDORA HAUNTED HIM EVERY NIGHT OF HIS LIFE FOR CENTURIES.

After everything he wound up spending like 200 years with Bianca or something and ?????? CORRECT because Bianca was the fledgling he actually wanted!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

But it’s odd, I know I’ve said this 337589235 times, but Marius like. Has an idea of the person he wants to be and he tries SO HARD to live by logic & reason and he just can’t reconcile with the fact that he has EMOTIONS. And so like part of the person he wants to be like, open/empathetic/wise and he begs his lovers/students/fledglings to CHALLENGE HIM when he’s not actually healed enough to be challenged? And to me there’s something kinda like, extra spicy about it when you’re in Rice World and you’re a lil sexist; how much that burns EXTRA when it’s Pandora or Bianca sticking up to you or AKASHA FUCKIN IGNORING YOU. 

Just really incredible that this person who is like the epitome of a patriarch has such fucked up relationships with all the women in his life. And like he underestimates these women, like the way he tries to manipulate Bianca and she leaves him! PANDORA AND AKASHA ARE UNAVAILABLE TO HIM AND BIANCA FUCKIN LEAVES.

akasSHA JUST IGNROING HIM!! JUST STRAIGHT UP FUCKIN IGNORING HIM FOR 2,000 YEARS!!!! HE'S OBSESSED WITH HER!

Anyway Enkil is ignoring him too but he doesn’t give a shit about that guy tbh lol 

Also the amount of space he gives Eudoxia and Zenobia in his book like there’s more here too but tbh it’s midnight and I can’t start unpacking. I just think like, in 2000 years it’s interesting how Eudoxia wound up having such a lasting impact on his life. 

I did just peek at the Eudoxia part and I’m dying, he goes “Her face was small, oval, and as close to perfection as anything I've ever beheld, even though she bore no resemblance to Pandora who was for me perfection itself.” CERTIFIED WIFE GUY.

What kinda mommy issues are we dealing with here? HIS MOTHER WAS A SLAVE THAT DIED IN CHILDBIRTH AND HE INHERITED HER GENES AND LOOKED LIKE HER AND DIDN’T LOOK LIKE HIS FATHER & BROTHERS? AND HE’S SORT OF AN OUTCAST AS A HUMAN LIKE ? THE STIGMA HERE? AND THEN HE SPENDS 2000 YEARS WORSHIPPING HIS NEW MOTHER??? PERHAPS YOU COULD SAY ENSLAVED TO HER? IDK MAN. 

IS THIS ALSO WHY HE WAS SO OBSESSED WITH LOSING PANDORA?

The irony too, and something I think a lot of people miss, is that he DIDN’T WANT TO MARRY PANDORA LOL. He wanted to be betrothed to a child so that he could FUCK OFF and NOT get married because she wasn’t old enough to get married! He fucked off! He went exploring! He said this is not for me! 

AND TO GO OUT INTO THE WORLD AND BE MURDERED BY HIS MOTHERS PEOPLE???? IDK. 

I’m not sure how these last two points tie into anything but I just wanted to mention his complicated relationship with Pandora and his own heritage lol. And then Akasha like DELIVERS Pandora to him because she’s like “wow this guy needs somebody lol and I am not emotionally available” — Akasha who was famously a violent genocidal radfem and who would not approve of his relationship with Armand but explicitly allowed him to have Pandora and Bianca. IDK WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN! 

Did Akasha approve of these women because she knew Marius was completely pussywhipped and would worship them and she wanted to see someone mommydom the fuck out of him and she knew that Armand would never be that person? 🫢

And again I want to say like, taking the author into consideration!! Anne Rice had a HORRIFIC relationship with her mom so you see these themes pop up occasionally in her work. DESPITE ALL OF THAT SHE IS STILL A FEMINIST AND WRITES ABOUT MATRILINEAR FAMILIES like The Great Family or the Mayfairs. But thinking about Mothers in Anne Rice Works makes me think a lot about this like, the damage they can do and the voids they can leave even when you’re a feminist and love women! You see a TON of this with Gabrielle and I always think that Lestat & Marius are such similar characters that you can do a lot of extrapolating or backwards engineering to ask questions about them and how they work, since we get SO MUCH Lestat POV in this series to work with and how we can zoom out sometimes and ask like, what is common across her entire body of work and what is more specifically common between Lestat & Marius and WHAT EVEN MORE INTERESTINGLY is a result that they were both based on her husband in their inceptions. 

Like how much of this has to do with Marius’s actual feelings towards men vs women on purpose, or how much was subconscious author bias, how much was simply that Anne Rice based him on her husband and she was THIRSTY, idk. It’s always hard to say in VC because Anne was such an intuitive and self-indulgent author and the stories are so weird!!! So your mileage may vary!

But I agree with you that these are FASCINATING relationships!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And I like Marius/Armand too (I recently made a post about how I didn’t “””””ship”””” them but then I spent 2 months working on a M/A fic every day and now I think I’ve corrupted and converted myself LMAO) but yeah like. There’s such a lack of substance between them in the end. He treats Armand like he’s temporary, fucks up and moves on, and it’s such a departure from how DEVOTED he was with all his other partners. 

Wow I didn’t think I had a lot to say, sorry about that. !!! EVERY TIME I BROUGHT A POINT UP I THOUGHT OF 5 MORE POINTS GOSH I COULD TALK ABOUT MARIUS ALL DAY.

[lollytea]

Yknow what upset me about the SU fandom (before wanted and Lars head)? How they could let every other character have flaws except him. I know he did some shitty stuff but doesn't everyone at some point? Pearl can be selfish, Steven can get angry, Garnet can be unfair. But when Lars shows signs of cowardice or anger or negativity, people HATE it. Flaws are what make us human, and I hate how people just couldn't let Lars make mistakes. That's what growing up IS. Blarg rant over, lot o feels sorry!

I knoooooow dude. It was annoying as hell. Like? Give the kid a break. It was also pretty fucking hypocritical when people would crucify Lars for being a moody and generally hot tempered teenager while simultaneously FAWNING over the Crystal Gems for their realistic flaws.

Lars hasn’t even been alive longer than 20 years and he still got shit all over because yep. This is it. He’s gonna be like this for the rest of his life. He’s the spawn of Satan and will never emotionally grow. There is no changing this kind of behaviour. MEANWHILE the THOUSAND OF YEARS OLD gems who have had plenty of time to grow and develop as people, still fuck up and make morally ambiguous decisions. Do we even need to go into the amount of shit the gems did? I mean, I love them but these are not perfect angels, my dude.

But God no, Lars is clearly the one at fault here for rejecting Steven’s high five that one time.

Also, all these people were so down for mental illness representation until it showed an actually mentally ill character being mildly unpleasant. Because sometimes that’s just what mental illness is. We’re not all going to be a beam of sunshine to be around sometimes. He wasn’t alright in the head and often lashed out as a result. For both mentally ill people and teenagers alike, this is a pretty common thing. Are these people seriously saying that they never once saw themselves in Lars? Becaaaaause I did. Like regularly. To me, he was like a summary of teenage struggles in a nutshell.

Lars had very obvious social anxiety (His desperation to impress the cool kids, his reluctance to be himself in their presence, how to make it seem like he wasn’t “Trying too hard” Like he was simultaneously excited and dreading this potluck because he let himself overthink too much. Also straight up deciding that he just COULDNT show up to the potluck. Anxiety tends to work in pretty paralyzing ways, stopping you from doing things you know in your heart you SHOULD do. Lars let it affect him)

Lars had depression (Okay this is more of a headcanon than a fact but I am almost certain that his grades are so bad cuz he cant find the motivation to do shit. Also, according to his parents, all they’re asking for is “A little effort” implying he straight up doesn’t even try. Also “Sadie, do you ever feel lonely? Even when you’re around people?” That is a depressed boy, my dude.)

Lars hated himself. (Buddy, did you HEAR that speech he gave in Stuck Together?? Like dude “I’m a wuss. I’ve always been stupid and afraid” He just sounded so done, so angry, so fucking frustrated. Like this shit had been weighing down on his shoulders forever. With that clear anger towards HIMSELF, it doesnt surprise me in the slightest that he had a tendency to take it out on those around him.)

Now, I don’t think Lars’ habit of being a dick in early seasons should just be overlooked or excused as “Depressed.” Like no. Whatever goes on in your head, whatever comes out of your mouth, regardless of your mental state, you still need to take responsibility for it. The fact was that Lars WASNT taking responsibility, was probably the biggest flaw he had. Because he could just be shitty in general sometimes. A very human-like trait to have. But we’ve all been shitty people in the past and I never understood this “He’ll never change” mentality.

Like Lars in early seasons was intentionally written as a bit of a prick and it wouldn’t matter in the slightest if you didn’t like him. It was understandable. I mean, he blamed Rose for a problem, and yelled about it, referring to her as Steven’s “Weird mom!” Like yeah, that was pretty low. But as soon as Steven yelled in retort, Lars’ face dropped like he regretted his words instantly. It was little touches like these, that really highlighted him as the person he was. Kind of a dick, kind of spoke without thinking sometimes but ultimately not heartless.

The series comes from Steven’s perspective so there are a lot of thing we’ll never see unless he’s present but according to Sadie, Lars is generally a lot kinder in private. We don’t know the extent, we don’t know if he’s nice enough to excuse his public persona but welp, I guess that’s a topic of debate that anyone can have a different opinion on. Sadie seems to think positively about him anyway.

The most annoying part of all of the hate, felt like the fandom was trying to rush Lars’ development. Like there was this pressure in every episode he was in and if he wasn’t perfect yet, he was just gonna get shit on some more. He was being scrutinized for every action WAAAY more intently than any other character.

But like the crewniverse was certainly TRYING. There was clearly something big in store for Lars and I don’t think any of us ever imagined what we ended up getting(HE’S PINK) but patience was a big factor here. You just needed to have faith that this shitty kid would sort himself out eventually. But so many people didn’t believe in him at all and honestly it was kind of disheartening.

But damn, man. He got his big hero moment and I’m so proud of him. While I don’t think his story is over yet, I feel as though Lars Head definitely wrapped up this whole arc that’s been budding since season 1. Honestly, while I still feel that his early actions could have been forgiven with just gradual attempts at kindness and opening up, I’m so happy with what we got instead. Like the crewniverse did not have to go all out. They didn’t  have to make Lars save all those gems, they didn’t have to make him die trying to help, they didn’t have him be the reason Steven made it home safe. They could have redeemed him in such a smaller subtler way but nah man. If that had happened, there would still be a split division of people who STILL didnt like him or felt as though he shouldnt be forgiven.

But the way his development was executed was done in such a big badass extra way, that there would be absolutely no argument whatsoever that Lars had finally proven himself as a good guy. Even people who don’t like him, have to agree now.

NOW BRING THE FUCKING CANDY FLOSS BOY HOME