you wanna know what the most terrifying part of tva is. it’s the part where you’re disgusted during the entirety of marius, and then armand is taken by the cult, and it’s not worse in terms of SA but rather there’s just straight up torture (emotional and physical) that brings a new sense of total, existential mind-breaking despair which just wasn’t present in armand before.

and as it goes on this realization creeps up on you that like yeah. yeah. if i had gone from marius to this, i’d idealize marius too. and i think that’s the part that felt the most bone-chilling to me. the part where the narrative puts you so deep in the mind of an abuse victim that despite your knowledge, despite your innate understanding of the situation, the rationalizations of that abuse make sense. they’re enticing.

it’s absolutely haunting, but never for the reason anne rice seems to think it is

Hell, even Marius admits as much. If Armand had gone off from the palace to have a more ordinary life on his own, developing his independence and building his own relationships, he’d likely eventually look back at his experiences with Marius with a dull type of horror or revulsion, even if he could also acknowledge that there was a certain stability and “love” there as well. But… Armand didn’t get that lucky.

so true. always thinking about that moment where marius is like “some day you’ll get older and look back on this time with me and realize how scary and fucked up it is. remember then that this was love” and im always thinking about that. remember then that this was love. fuck. screaming crying throwing up!!

“—and when you think back on this time, when in half-sleep at night you remember me as your eyes close on your pillow, these moments of ours will seem corrupt and most strange. They’ll seem like sorcery and the antics of the mad, and this warm place might become the lost chamber of dark secrets and this might bring you pain.”

“I won’t go.”

“Remember then that it was love,” he said.