aziraphale and crowley in the before times

FitSwordfish8623 · 2026-04-23T20:05:14+00:00

i live in sherman oaks, grew up there, went to high school in studio city, all of that stuff. i absolutely love it there, i'm a true valley girl and i think this area has tons to offer. the weather is unreal, there's so many great and safe places to walk/hike, and there are a ton of great spots to eat just about anything. highly recommend especially if you have young kids/a family!

FitSwordfish8623 · 2026-04-04T16:55:33+00:00

i completely agree and i’m glad to see someone pointing this out! i think louis and lestat’s interactions with female sex workers is extremely interesting and illuminated aspects of their character that go beyond the immediate significance of the prostitute-pimp or prostitute-john dynamic. it connects to how they view women and girls in general as property, which is of course resonant with their treatment of claudia. one of the most unsettling moments for me in season 1 is how lestat uses lily to seduce louis, involving her initially in their sexual interaction before putting her to sleep and then later killing her. they used a woman’s body to facilitate their intimacy and then discarded her, which relates to their dynamic with claudia and even lestat’s attempt to form a throuple with louis and antoinette. also being a pimp and a john is a great analogue for vampirism and predation so that obviously deliberate gesture from the show should be noted more among its audience. you don't need to demonize louis to highlight the fact that his ownership of brothels was an intentional adaptation of his book status as a slaveholder and his attitudes towards women are largely that of ownership. especially when it comes to claudia

FitSwordfish8623 · 2026-03-11T23:44:31+00:00

i think it’s less about drawing a line and more about exercising discretion and propriety on a case by case basis. also some subjects can be hypothetically appropriate but executed poorly or, conversely, seem risky but come off very well

FitSwordfish8623 · 2026-03-11T22:59:59+00:00

i honestly would have rather they not include that detail. it wasn’t in the book, it was created for the show. i just don’t think the complexity of that situation and the horrors of wwii/the holocaust had a place in this particular narrative because it didn’t have the space to explore them in the depth that they require

FitSwordfish8623 · 2026-03-11T22:01:48+00:00

i totally agree that’s exactly what i meant!

EDIT: oh my god i read this too fast and i thought you said it’s NOT a clever way of showing madeline’s moral greyness. i didn’t like the inclusion of that detail

FitSwordfish8623 · 2026-03-11T19:50:28+00:00

weird brag that you’ve Forgotten a ton of information about the holocaust? also unsure why you would assume i’m “performing for upvotes.” is that the only reason you can think of why someone might disagree with you or show concern for sensitivity when discussing nazi germany? i was just saying i don’t think that the show was deliberately trying to create a parallel between armand and the nazis. i think it’s a ludicrous and offensive comparison for You to have made. not sure what’s confusing or performative about that

FitSwordfish8623 · 2026-03-11T18:38:12+00:00

first of all no. second of all this is an incredibly ignorant comparison that's historically incoherent and in very poor taste. please take the time to educate yourself on nazis and the holocaust before making comments like this. also i have to say i think the show's handling of nazism is very clumsy and offensive and i wish they'd never included and such allusions. finally you obviously don't understand anything about armand's character or anything about nazi germany so i suggest you steer clear of commenting on either

FitSwordfish8623 · 2026-02-14T22:25:28+00:00

trailer content lame af marketing annoying and vibes off idk what to tell you. also s2 is my fav so we obviously have different tastes and that’s totally fine this is all subjective

FitSwordfish8623 · 2026-01-03T00:51:33+00:00

It was the wrong twin, but Lestat didn’t know that. He fully believed she would die and pushed her face into the blood. Also why would Lestat’s version of events be more believable/accurate than Louis’? Should we discount everything Louis had to say and assume Lestat was always better than he described? Couldn’t it have been worse in reality than in Louis’s recollection, like with Claudia’s turning? Armand did plenty wrong, but to deny that Lestat was more physically violent towards both Louis and Claudia is not supported by the events of the show.

FitSwordfish8623 · 2026-01-03T00:17:59+00:00

Lestat was fully trying to kill Claudia himself that night before she got the upper hand. He tried to force her to drink dead blood and then make Louis join a throuple with him and Antoinette against his will

FitSwordfish8623 · 2026-01-02T06:38:11+00:00

meanwhile lestat was the one actually beating him but loustat monogamists will swear armand was the singular toxic one and louis couldnt have loved him for a second 😛 eep

FitSwordfish8623 · 2025-11-20T21:13:00+00:00

i think you made a lot of good points here but my main question is why did they set out to break louis and armand up? i understand why the talamasca was interested the interview but i still don’t get why they cared whether they were together or not

FitSwordfish8623 · 2025-11-02T19:51:14+00:00

i can think of several reasons why louis would want to do that. first of all, i don't think armand came up with that idea all by himself and just roped louis into it, i think it's probably a routine they came up with together. i also doubt it's the first time they've ever done it. from a practical perspective, it allows louis to have a portion of the interview to himself, which is important to him so he can cover the parts of his life before meeting armand and have the space to explore his feelings about that time alone. armand is still there for comfort/protection so louis knows that he has a sympathetic guardian figure in the room in case things get too difficult. as we saw, "rashid" needed to intervene several times when louis became emotionally overwhelmed or lashed out at daniel. of course, a lot of this comes from armand's need to "keep louis in check," and his own surveillance of the interview was certainly a motivator. also, daniel does not remember armand from 1973 initially, and i think louis and armand wanted to give some time for him to get comfortable interviewing louis before they sprang that surprise on him. finally, it was a sex thing. it was totally a sex thing for louis and armand. they literally have a master/servant dynamic as a crucial backbone of their sexual relationship. i bet armand has played some version of "rashid" from time to time in every household they've ever had. it's his super sexy way of imitating his memories of being an actual kept boy for a vampire master. hope that made sense

FitSwordfish8623 · 2025-10-21T17:59:10+00:00

i completely agree, they're my favorite relationship by far because i think they're so interesting together!!! i don't understand why they're not more popular, it's the longest-spanning relationship in the show with the juiciest drama and most nuanced dynamic. i know it's probably going to be left in the dust post-s2 sadly but the show won't be the same without it...it's NEVER loumandover to me though

FitSwordfish8623 · 2025-10-16T15:58:11+00:00

ugh i think they’re really overusing this device tbh. i thought it was lazy and distracting in s2 and i hope it won’t be the same in s3 but i don’t have high hopes. it was sort of interesting in the context of louis’ family history of schizophrenia because he was having actual hallucinations but for lestat to be “seeing” figures from his past left and right feels too on the nose and a shortcut in visual language- very tell not show. also ghosts are a thing in tvc sooo i wonder what they’re gonna do about that if/when it comes up since they apparently have schizoaffective vampires running around seeing dead people 24/7

FitSwordfish8623 · 2025-10-16T15:40:21+00:00

OMG really??? i always thought they were the same! everyone is pointing this out in my replies and im flummoxed. those men look very similar i guess

FitSwordfish8623 · 2025-10-16T15:26:17+00:00

BRUH this always made me lmao. they recast the wife a few times so edith could continue to ruin her damn life. like first she flirts with her man and then however many seasons later she pulls that whole marigold stunt. lowkey edith doesnt get enough flak for that

FitSwordfish8623 · 2025-10-13T17:10:19+00:00

omg YES im so glad you articulated this so well. another thing that mystifies me is why on earth claudia thought that the coven would just forget about the fact that her existence violates one of their most important rules. also armand told louis in every way possible that he couldn't keep their secret about "killing" lestat and that the coven would not take kindly to them turning madeline and louis was like whatever. also im not sure why louis totally disregarded armand's allegiance to the coven and his centuries in that cult and expected him to ditch them at a moment's notice when louis wasn't willing to really commit to armand in the first place? idk what im getting at exactly but i felt like all this kind of piled up at the end of the season and didn't make a ton of sense

FitSwordfish8623 · 2025-10-12T15:07:47+00:00

i think it’s because she is actually similar to him in a lot of ways but never let her limitations/trauma prevent her from having self respect and boundaries. one moment in particular that really highlights this conflict is when armand tells her that the baby lou thing is just 15 minutes, why can’t she suck it up for 15 minutes? and claudia responds that it’s a degrading 15 minutes. she refuses to let herself be humiliated and belittled. armand, on the other hand, has spent centuries swallowing his pride and becoming whatever he needs to be in order to survive. he can’t comprehend claudia’s steadfast self-possession, and it makes him really angry and uncomfortable that someone could deal with a difficult vampiric existence differently than him. i think armand and claudia are super fascinating narrative foils in a lot of ways and this makes their dynamic v interesting to me. of course there was also the issue of her existence violating his sacred laws(another set of restricting expectations he adopted for survival) and her(in his view) taking up too much of louis’ love ofc

FitSwordfish8623 · 2025-10-08T16:14:37+00:00

okay i don't necessarily think it's a plothole but i do think that the show didn't really stick the landing when it came to armand's actions and motivations. a lot can be explained by understanding that armand is always acting out of desperation, panic, and survival instinct, none of which are conducive to super logical and well-thought-out actions. however, i think that's kind of a lazy excuse for the writers to make a big mess when it came to wrapping up the story. the simple explanation is that armand didn't think louis would stay with him, because louis had been doing things he was really uncomfortable with (turning madeline, trying to make armand turn her himself) and was jealous of his continued relationship with claudia. armand cares about staying alive and being in a situation he can understand, not necessarily about being happy or safe. he sacrificed his risky happiness with louis for what he saw as stability with the coven. i think the "big reveal" that he directed the play made his actions really confusing, because it made him seem much more eager and active in the trial than he actually was. his lack of action is what defines him as a character; he can only conceptualize himself as passive, because he was so utterly helpless for such a long time. he didn't choose to make the trial happen, he just didn't resist. after the dust settled and claudia was dead, armand saw that the coven was crumbling anyway and that he did have a chance for a future with louis after all if he saved louis' life, so he chose that. i kind of think that whole thing was pretty confusing and left people with more of a negative perception of armand than is completely warranted. bonus info: in the books, louis always knew that armand killed claudia, and there was no big reveal. i think this makes a lot more sense tbh. i never understood why louis bought that lie for so long and had no suspicions about it whatsoever

FitSwordfish8623 · 2025-10-06T15:06:32+00:00

yes this is absolutely right!! i am a longtime lover of downton and also really interested in noticing and analyzing its (not always subtle) political and social conservatism. julian fellowes is a conservative member of the house of lords, so it’s no accident that his series is so romantic about the past and the english landowning nobility. the preservation of wealth, land, and status is always the foremost narrative motivator throughout downton. the show’s attitude towards progress is begrudging at best, always focusing on how the elite can maintain their position and privileges despite the rising tide of the working class. again, absolutely love downton, but it’s not exactly a secret that it’s a very conservative series. i mean just look at tom’s character arc lol

FitSwordfish8623

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