Louis' "You're boring!" Could mean so many things, but I think what's most apparent about that line is that Armand takes no initiative just for himself. He's not really anybody, because he never goes out and finds himself or gets attached to anyone but Louis. Without Louis as his guide he's literally just sitting on a couch picking lint! That's the thing.
He orbits constantly around what would make Louis happy, and never really fully going what would make me happy? Ultimately that drive to please Louis is what drives him to torturing Daniel, not so much that he'd care to just do it. Ultimately, not giving proper care to Louis is just a way to make sure Louis knows he has to orbit around him as well, with shoving Lestat onto him just that other nail on the coffin. So, even if he fails to figure out how to make Louis happy with him, he still knows what Armand is good for, and better than.
That dependency is what drives Armand's abuse. It really just comes down to that. Armand doesn't even realize how suffocated he is by his own dependency. This is just how life is to him. (It shouldn't be lost either that dependency is a theme considering this episode also deals with addiction).
Daniel's fascinating because he's just so driven to be somebody. He's largely independent, he seeks things because he wants them. It's his drug to poke and prod at all the things that he shouldn't. Daniel's exciting because he lets Louis in to something different, lets him in to all this potential in another person that he can also do the same with for himself. It's a real connection. A two way street. It's easy to tell how Armand can be smothering then because he's never introducing him to anything really new, and most the ways both of them connect are all painful and traumatic. It's never just fun because there's always that layer of that pain. Fun died with Claudia.
50 years on they've gotten to a lot better place, both of them, but it's still that same shit. No seriously, "How is this any different from last time, Louis?"
Well... Because Armand's going to be, at the very least, making one [1] decision only for himself - and that's to hold power over Daniel's life. Fucking sick foreshadowing.
They aren't driving each other to the brink anymore but "The vampire is bored" STILL. Maybe it's even worse, despite being in better places, because Louis' sort of just been defeated by it. (I mean, can he even really leave this either?). He's accepting the dependancy cause he kind of has to. He'd literally ended up letting all the enjoyment be up where he can't reach [The book shelves]. Armand so desperately wants Louis happiness but what really ends up happening is that Louis ends up having to give Armand all his own. He's got no one or anything else to get it from. But like an iPad and an over the top eating ritual. Two extremes of what's just more lint picking.
This whole relationship is one I find just tragic inside and out. You have to just pity it, really. There's ways in which you can find yourself feeling bad for both of them. But you can only really be mad at Armand for any of it. Armand, who isn't even 'free' in any sense, having so little concept of his own independence, but is at the same time so controlling over other's. It's a tragic cycle. It's an infuriating one.
Louis at least has the mind to know when enough is enough. If just needing that extra push to get there. Armand's too scared of it being over to even try.
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speedrun of things that cause me agony in the wondla tv series trailer:
whyyy did they have to make the sanctuary so sterile and minimalistic? the book sanctuaries had this charming clunky 70s sci-fi design to them – they were blocky and durable and Eva's was tangibly lived-in, even worn in some places, because that was the point! they were an experiment that outlived their usefulness, but people kept living in them & they felt like it. this feels like Kim Kardashian's creepy white torture house.
"this... is me." has this line not become extremely passé in trailers, like almost to the point of parody?
that is NOT Muthr. idk who that is, but she is not mothering. it's like they took her book design and stripped away anything that may have been even slightly challenging to the cocomelon-smoothed zeitgeist of current animation. she's just so... nothing. she doesn't even look like a robot so much as like.. the lame soul design from pixar's soul. book Muthr looked WEIRD, but you can see the ways in which she's literally a synthetic + superhuman recreation of a Mother Figure: her head shape mirrors the beehive hairdo, her big eyes are saccharine sweet, she has four arms bc she always needs to do a million things at once, etc. i get that this version of Muthr was probably way easier to animate, and i don't even think they had to stick to the original design 100% as long as they still did something interesting for her, but. they didn't.
rip Eva's sick as hell hairstyle. :( seriously, her complicated braids were so important. bc 1) they were an homage to Dorothy's braids in the wizard of oz, the book to which the whole trilogy is a love letter. 2) they immediately gave her a unique visual identity as a character. 3) they contributed to the world of Wondla feeling genuinely strange and foreign to our current one. 4) they subtly spoke to things like Eva's boredom and loneliness and all the time she had to herself.
the paltry mini braids and single low bun they gave her instead are WEAK. again, they didn't have to follow the books to the letter, but. they did kinda need to give us something more memorable and distinctive than this.
i mean... there is ofc the obvious question of why'd they make her 16 instead of going on 13 like she was in the books? but also, perhaps even more crucially, why does she look like a whole ass adult woman? wondla is very much a coming of age story, and it's really good at capturing the messiness of that experience in every way down to its character design. this Eva doesn't look messy, she looks like an influencer. also i hate that current disneyesque cgi character design.
her outfit's like... fine. but it was so fucking cute in the books. cute and ultra utilitarian, and unlike anything i'd ever really seen before. can't a girl have a vest with a funky collar, cool billowy balloon sleeves, and scrunchy knee socks? do yknow how many kids would want to be Eva for halloween if they simply gave her an outfit that looked cuter? they're leaving money on the damn table.
she wasn't done with her training for life on the surface in the books, and that was important. :/ not that anything could've really prepared her, but the fact that she was so young made her terror and anger all the more palpable. i guess i don't think it's inherently terrible for her to be a bit older in adaptation, but idk, at least let her retain that trial by fire/still kind of a scared kid quality that's integral to her arc.
the placement of the 'wondla' letters on the page makes no sense. it's meant to be the wonderful wizard of oz (or the wonderful wizard of oz by l. frank baum. i forget which, but ONE of those for sure), so by all accounts the l and a shouldn't be right next to each other like that, there should be more space between those two letters.
now i don't fully remember, but i super don't think that 'Eva find me' note was in the books. Eva would've been way more obsessed with it if it was. in the books, she doesn't know the 'wondla' page was actually left for her, it's just this strange anomaly she finds that gives her hope, but she sort of creates that hope herself. its origin is an honest to god mystery until the second book, and therefore, the meaning that Eva gives it is what really comes to define it.
it's not just that no one had seen a human in a long time, most aliens on Orbona had never seen a human at all until Eva came along. that's a big difference! though, this audio does sound chopped up from multiple sentences, so maybe disregard this.
i don't like that they gave away the 'Orbona was once Earth' twist right off the bat. i know it's not a wholly original trope in sci-fi, but this is a middle-grade/family series, and it straight up blew my mind to see as a kid that hadn't ever really read true sci-fi before. and Orbona is SO bizarre, and Eva is SO desperate to find other humans, that the reveal is extra jarring and bleak, and it creates such powerful tension. why give the impact of that away in the trailer?? why not just let people think she's stuck on an alien planet until they get the full emotional gut punch when they actually watch it for themselves?
where's the lake in Lacus? :/ that was... kinda the basis of Lacus' culture and design and all. like ok i see some water, but Lacus should be almost more water than village.
Otto's design!! why god why.
why is Otto furry, why are his eyes Like That, etc.
nooo, don't show the ruins of New York in the trailer, that's for the audience to discover in horror along with Eva.
also why does Otto (i think that's him talking at least?) sound like that? thumbs down.
what are the. uh. shark tale-looking creatures running on water. they're very shark tale-looking (derogatory). they don't look like they belong in this series?? like did this footage just get misfiled?
egads it's coming out at the end of this month. i'm gonna watch it of course. but the whole time i'll be thinking about what could've been. and i'll reread the books, too. >:|
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being very truthful i wasn't feeling particularly positive about the trailer for TIT (still bought tix though hi nyc <3) and am holding out hope they do a little more teasing for what this tour is actually about in future videos,
but i cannot deny that this specific frame of it
("we basically raised half of them." - phil)
like very specifically got me? like obviously yes the bit is like, they're our dads i started watching them age twelve et cetera but. i don't know. with the way all of this is laid out, the contrasting colors that blend together and the silhouettes on their respective sides (as we always view them, dan to the left & phil to the right) and the screens, it says so loudly like... it's dan and phil, side by side. it's the two of them. it's been them for the last fifteen years.
it's a we, it's a testament that this kinda sacred thing of 'dan and phil' has lasted a really long time, and survived a hiatus, solely because dan and phil themselves have known each other and existed alongside each other for those fifteen years. and yes, obviously, this trailer is all scripted, but this exchange still has this feeling of it being about them, not just their brand together-- they aren't really talking to the audience, here, are they? it wasn't solely 'dan and phil' content that raised the audience; dan and phil did. (maybe a redundant point, but i am working off of the negative space here. a lot of this feels like intertwining themselves with their online personas, and simultaneously walking that line. letting us see only what they want to be shown, and now examining that introspectively).
i hope that makes sense, i'm not much of an analyst or theorist. i don't know what the dan and phil renaissance really is yet, and i am a bit afraid of it all, but i'm really excited, both for everything that's to come but also -- more importantly -- i'm just fucking excited for them.
for this bond between them and the phandom to blossom in the healthy ways it has been lately, for the opening of new doors amidst this phan renaissance... and for them to take back what the internet took from them.
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what i wish people would also explore more when it comes to Percy is the other side of his feelings about his mom about family and his childhood but this fandom is too afraid to paint Sally even in the slightest bad light (even if it's not bad just acknowledging her flaws because she's a human being and not perfect) that no one will touch on that subject. like yes Sally is the best mom but she also isn't and that's the thing! She isn't perfect! but she tried her best but her best still got Percy hurt and it isn't her fault at all but that's the tragedy of it. i want Percy's feelings about this explored. how he grew up with a loving mom but an abusive step father. how his step father would humiliate him and call him stupid but then his mom soothed him and told him he's not the things Gabe calls him. how Gabe would hurt him and Sally would be there to make him happy and loved but at the same time she stayed with him. i want Percy's feelings explored about how he knows his mother loves him but her absence still hurt him. she would work so much to have money to raise him she did that for him but at the same time it meant Percy was left alone or with Gabe. Sally gave up so much for him, she sent him away to protect him but at the same time he was sent away from his mom. she's the only parent he has because his father is absent and Gabe is not actually a parental figure at all but she's also often absent in his life too and that must have left him with such mixed feelings because it's not all black and white! Sally's love protected him but also hurt him. Percy loves his mom so so so much but there's also this deep-seated bitterness and hurt and anger he never let himself feel and then the guilt for having those feelings because his mom loves him he knows that and she gave up so much for him and she married a monster that abused her to protect him, he knows that but it doesn't make it hurt any less. the mess his emotions are because he knows his mom suffered for him and did it from her love for him but he still desperately wishes she never married that monster that he wouldn't have to have the childhood he had with him that he wouldn't have to live with the trauma he was left with. this all is exactly what makes their relationship so fascinating and also heartbreaking.
or the idea of Percy having weird mixed feelings after Estelle is born because that's his little sister and he loves her with his whole heart and would do anything for her and wants only the best for her but there's also this little jealous monster deep down that wonders why she gets to have a loving mom and a loving dad and a happy normal life but he never got that. why does she deserve it but not him? why couldn't he have that too? doesn't he deserve that too? he was just a child too so why why why??? and then the guilt of feeling that way too it makes me want to scream. emotions are fucking messy and they can be really ugly and they can make you hate yourself and there's no way Percy's feelings aren't a mess when it comes to this and i want to see it explored so badly!
and with Sally too! her feelings about Percy because she did so much and tried her best but sometimes unfortunately your best isn't good enough and it still got her beloved son hurt and she hates it and feels so guilty but she just has to live with that but she can't help to wish it was different. that their lives would be different. better. normal. she can't help but to wish she didn't have to do the things she's done, didn't have to suffer so much just to protect her child. can't help to wish she didn't have to worry so much, didn't have to be so scared about Percy, didn't have to be terrified that one day he won't come back home to her, that she won't be able to hold her son anymore because he will be gone, she just wishes he didn't have to suffer so much, she just wishes and wishes and wishes
and i just wish people weren't so afraid to explore this because it's so heartwrenching and yes if you want something do it yourself but unfortunately i cannot write nor am i able to handle this topic in a way it deserves so i am left only with rambling about it on here thank you
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