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Read The Vampire Armand recently at the urging of a dear friend and drew these.

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#i feel sick #iwtv #tvc #claudia #armand

drives me glass-eating batshit how Claudia and Amadeo were both teenagers rescued (or "rescued") from violently traumatic situations and taken in by paternal gentlemen vampires who taught them about the world and kept them safe and spoiled them rotten and loved them so so so much in profoundly unhealthy and dehumanizing ways. Claudia and Arun both entering the vampiric world as blank slates (like Claudia remembers her pre-turning past but we only get the barest details, it's hardly ever mentioned) and a wash of divinity, angel imagery and merciful gods. then as Claudia and Amadeo grew they started to pick up on the things that were off in their world and display aggressive behavior (Claudia's killing spree and Amadeo's The Shining moment, etc.) only to be physically punished for it. and then they experience the brutalities of life outside their maker's protection (Claudia under the floorboards and Armand under Rome) except she's able to come back home hardened and confront the realities of what's been done to her while Armand never gets that chance, he's stuck with the Children of Darkness, he's stuck deifying Marius, he's stuck clinging to ritual and tradition and all the things Claudia defies like breathing.

and then they finally cross paths and they're inverted mirrors of each other, Claudia the grown woman desperate to escape her teenager's body and Armand the grown man who wants to be loved and precocious and fascinating like he was as a teenager. Claudia being able to effortlessly pull off the veneer of innocence that Armand has to work so hard to maintain and she's not even grateful for it. she's got the youth he wants, she's got Louis's love, she's more free than Armand has ever been, she fought back against her Maker and got away with it, it's not Fair, it isn't right. so Armand punishes her with it, subjects her to the same cycle of objectification and dehumanization and violence that Amadeo went through (because it could be Worse right, he could be Donating her right). and when that's not enough to make up for everything he's missing he fucking kills her in an elaborate show just like she killed Lestat with the elaborate show that was Mardi Gras, only his writings recording the process damn him just like her writings damn her, their need to leave some mark of themselves above all else consuming everything.

and after killing her Armand spends years dragging around with a Louis who hates him just like Louis dragged around with a Claudia who hated him. he's the good nurse for Louis the way Claudia was and he competes with Lestat's ghost the way she did and he watches a fragile life with flowers growing from dead things all come crashing down in ash and dust like she did, all because of what he did to her. and at the end of the day they're both fucked-up kids whose most commonly used last names stem from the fathers who fucked them up and they could have lived each other's lives and in some ways they almost did.

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Hey remember the handful of times Louis dances on screen, and that singular sentence in TVA about Armand dancing with other boys in Venice? What would you say if I told you someone got really emotional about that and wrote a v sappy fic. asking for a friend.

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you know, there’s a lot of discussion of how the specter of marius hovers over a lot of armand’s behavior which is correct and true but i don’t think enough ppl talk about how much the specter of santino colors armand’s treatment of claudia specifically

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it's the way i know for sure that if they'd kept armand as a white redhead then he'd never be out of the promo rotation

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Daniel's going to open the paramours file and find some interview the talamasca tried to conduct with him in the late 70s.

Talamasca agent: tell us all you know about the vampire Armand

Daniel (probably stoned): that bastard likes blenders and honky tonk - sometimes he says he'll get dinner and it's 5 star food sometimes it's Kool aid and Poptarts -- have you seen alien?? I have 37 times he thinks it's hilarious

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I'm gonna need Lestat and Armand to be top 3 of the most important duos on the show. I get it if they're under loustat and armandiel for obvious reasons, but they need to be above all the rest. They don't parallel each other so much with the trauma, (sexual) abuse, fetishization, being hypersexual due to trauma (not that Lestat actually has sex, but for me that's the reason for him not separating platonic and romantic relationships), family issues (I don't know much about Armand's family, but it's clear he misses having one), maker issues, religious guilt, existential crisis, depression, neurodivergence, fear of loneliness, mood swings, BPD and "I don't want to be a monster, I hate myself and want to die, but I'm also a survivor that will find a way to endure any, each and everything life throws at me" energy for that to be put to waste. I need Rolin to invest hard in these two because this has the potential to be one of the most brilliant dynamics on media ever. My expectations are the highest and I don't know if that's a bad or good thing. I need the show to live up to them.

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martyr, masochist, maître

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sweet angel <3

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you already know what time it is- interview with the vampire tweets round up of the week

13/xx

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reminder:

- lestat was t0rtured by armand & forced to say claudia's name as the guilty one

- lestat didn't want to be at the trial

- lestat didn't seek revenge after what claudia and louis did to him because he knew they were right

- louis didn't blame lestat for claudia's death

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the way that misty quigley's pride and self-hatred draws her into these situations where she's being mistreated to try to Be Part of the Group, and the ways that her relationships with crystal and walter prove that not everyone would be cruel to her just for existing.

there ARE people who would like her. there ARE people that she could at least try to be genuine friends with and have genuine relationships with. crystal didn't reject her until she found out about the black box. if they became friends under normal circumstances, they would have just been friends. crystal mainly just liked her for who she was, aside from her Most Destructive Behavior.

she spent her whole life before the crash Trying to Get In With The Cool Girls. then she met a Cool Girl who actually liked her, and letting her in on her horrors scared the girl into her grave. the closest she'll ever come to accepting herself is forcing her presence on natalie, because natalie Is Cool Is Someone Misty Wants To Like Her and still tolerates her, despite knowing about the black box.

sure, walter LIKES HER, but that doesn't count. misty doesn't like herself, wants to be like The Cool Girls and Have Them Like Her and walter thinks that's an absurd act of self-hatred and calls her out on continuing to try for something that was NEVER going to end well for her. misty doesn't like that. she wants to Be Cool. she wants these certain people that she values to like her, not just anyyyoooonnneee. and walter?

he's too much like her, so he was never going to count.

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light in the dark

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i cant stop thinking abt them HELP!!!!

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It's Not Narcissistic Abuse

And the Narcissistic Abuse Industry is exploiting abuse and DV survivors at the expense of fellow trauma survivors

If you see yourself as a survivor of narcissistic abuse, seeing a title like that can be extremely triggering. I want to preface this by saying that if that's you, I see you. I see your pain. Let's look at why the concept of narcissistic abuse is harmful, who it's harming, and a better way to understand what you went through.

What makes abuse narcissistic?

To begin with, the term "narcissistic abuse" is not a clinical term with a standard definition, and typically isn't used by domestic violence organisations and services. Abuse, in any form, is inherently selfish; labelling it as narcissistic is not beneficial to understanding the form it takes.

Here are some descriptors for abuse as used by Refuge, Women's Aid, and Safe Lives.

There is nothing unique about the abuse described by narcissistic abuse coaches; nothing that isn't already better described by terms like emotional abuse, tech abuse, financial or material abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse and so on. The abuse and manipulation tactics these supposed educators describe ARE real, but they are can all be categorised by the previously mentioned forms of abuse.

Why are people drawn to the term?

Some abuse survivors may gravitate towards the idea of narcissistic abuse because they feel it carries more weight than the concept of emotional abuse. Because the violence of emotional abuse is invisible, it is widely dismissed as less real or severe, but that couldn't be further from the truth. Emotional abuse is as psychologically damaging as physical abuse - in the brain, the trauma of both present the same.

Emotional abuse is real and soul-destroying; we would do better to shape a future that acknowledges that, rather than feeding into the narcissistic abuse industry as we seek validation of our deep, life-altering pain.

Narcissistic abuse is a distraction

Narcissistic abuse "experts" may or may not be aware that what they are spreading is misinformation designed to keep you trapped in a victim mentality and distracted from the very real systemic issues that play into a person's choice to become abusive. They are using mental illness, particularly NPD, as a scapegoat, absolving abusers of their agency and brushing over the systemic factors that enable abusive behaviour.

What do I mean by that? Abusive behaviour is enabled by power dynamics. The majority of perpetrators of sexual abuse are men. Hate crimes against transgender people are perpetrated by cisgender people. Black people are abused by White people and children are abused by adults - not exclusively, of course, but still all of the time. These perpetrators aren't typically acting that way because they are ill, they are acting that way because we live in a world that enables them to: the privileged feel entitled to take from the marginalised without repercussions or even a second thought.

Labelling the perpetrator a narcissist, blaming the abuser's actions on a mental illness, all that does is distract abuse survivors from the wider issues - and from taking action to make real change. Meanwhile, narcissistic abuse "life coaches" and "experts" can endlessly sell their narrative to you through their books and online courses: a narrative that keeps the survivor trapped in a victim mentality, unable to find personal meaning in our traumatic experiences and move forward. A narrative that focuses on individual healing but remains ignorant to the very relevant systemic factors at play.

Most abusers aren't narcissists

Another issue with the term narcissistic abuse is that it encourages people to label their abuser as a person with NPD. The truth is, NPD can only be diagnosed through a thorough mental health assessment by a professional, and very few perpetrators of domestic violence would actually meet the criteria for NPD if they went through this assessment. This up-spike in armchair diagnosing this disorder has led to a massive increase in misinformation and misunderstanding of what NPD is, but it also gives abusers an excuse to avoid accountability or having to change their behaviour.

Some perpetrators of abuse and domestic violence welcome this misdiagnosis because the narrative that "narcissists can't change" absolves them from ever having to try to.

People with NPD suffer

Information about narcissistic abuse is everywhere, with claims such as that narcissists only cheat and lie, that they cannot change, that they are incapable of love, and they thrive off of seeing others suffer. Google 'narcissists are...' and you'll find endless results about NPD - people are conflating those claims with narcissistic personality disorder. But these are demonising generalisations that hurt people who are already hurting.

Narcissistic personality disorder is traumagenic i.e. it is formed through trauma. People with NPD are survivors of abuse and trauma in their own right.

When you tell people, repeatedly, constantly, from every direction, that they are incapable of change or kindness, you are more likely to create the very monster you're so afraid of. No, people with NPD are not inherently more likely to be abusive than anyone else, but it IS traumatising and demoralising to hear this kind of hatred and condemnation everywhere online, all of the time. It does not create the conditions under which people with NPD can best heal, recover, and break the cycles of trauma they've inherited and lived through. Those of us fighting for recovery are doing it in the face of endless, inescapable vitriol.

We should talk about abuse

Let's talk about the conditions that create abusers. Let's talk about the signs that someone is manipulating and abusing us. But let's do it properly. We cannot claim to speak up for abuse survivors by throwing other abuse survivors under the bus.

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please include schizospectrum people in your mental health positivity post. please actually include schizophrenic, schizoaffective, schizotypal, schizoid and other psychotic people. still to this day, i get called dangerous for being schizophrenic. my last ex told me they "knew" i would lash out and become dangerous and that they shouldn't have dated me specifically because i'm schizophrenic. i never lashed out to hurt them, by the way, but they routinely hurt me.

schizospectrum disorders do not make someone inherently dangerous. people still believe this firmly. our fight isn't over we still have to continue to speak about schizospec people and how unfairly we are treated. we are dehumanized instantly the second people find out about our conditions. we are treated like ticking time bombs. people openly admit that we are scaring them when we talk about our psychosis and how it affects us.

people tell us to calm down and that our delusions aren't real and that we're overreacting. people give reality check us and force us to try to think in ways that scare us. people refuse to trust our own accounts of our own lives and what is happening to us, even when we are not actively delusional or hallucinating. people infantilize us and treat us like we're stupid and have zero autonomy.

we are not dangerous. we are not scary. we are literally just existing in a world that refuses to accept us. please keep talking about schizospectrum struggles and how we need to be seen as just another human, just like anyone else. we can be as unique and varied as anyone else with any other neurotype. we are not all the same person, and we are not inherently dangerous or scary.

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10 absolutely unhinged things LDPDL has done

(in no particular order because all of these are gold)

swim the Mississippi to have hate sex with Lestat

dive in tongue-first for a kiss. Who does that??

made an absolute show out of killing a racist (well done, honestly)

told his second husband he's boring and called him a little bitch

"sucked [Armand] off" in front of Daniel (Daniel's wording, not mine)

had a passionate make out session with the hallucination of his ex husband in a public park

proposed sex to a 70-year-old

got into a 77-year relationship just to spite his ex husband

screamed at the hallucination of a dead French guy to speak English even though he's fluent in French

fed a bright young reporter lies about his ex husband just to get said ex husband's attention

Lestat’s version

Armand’s version

Daniel's version