The Joker Is Not Straight

Firstly, that’s boring. That’s not a good show. That’s flat and uninteresting. You want the show to be rid of the very thing that made it special in the first place.

Secondly, you really don’t see anything wrong with being so willing to blindly believe the guy who we have actually spent zero time with, over two people we have seen in person and the other whose words we have heard when she thought she was only talking to herself? Before you’ve even watched the new season?

You don’t notice anything different about Lestat from the other three? Anything that might cause you to treat them differently based on biases you may not even consciously be aware that you have? That perhaps are causing you to be more lenient and forgiving when it comes to Lestat? Nothing at all?

Louis lies. Claudia lies. Armand lies. But Lestat also lies, even unconsciously. He’s not automatically a more reliable source. This isn’t the grand reveal that the first two seasons were a waste of time. That’s not what the show is. What an insult that would be to Louis and to Jacob.

oh it's bad. i've been trying to push back against it and was called a white saviour who's fetishizing people of colour. i was told not to use the word "brown" because it's "dehumanizing" (i guess brown people aren't human now?)

when i pointed out that i am literally brown myself (mixed race and my dad is bengali like assad) so this is personal for me, i was accused of race-faking. i posted a photo of myself with my family to prove i'm not and someone implied i'm overcompensating because i'm whitewashed by having a white parent (my mum isn't even white) and british poc are all self-hating. i've literally been hit with the "calling something racism is racism in itself" with people telling me they can't be racist against armand because they love louis.

i have a private account so these were literally mutuals of mine talking to me like this and making "bobs and vegane" jokes, comparing armand to the stereotype of indian men harassing women online. i've had to block a lot of people i'd previously considered safe. this fandom is not a fun place to be in right now as a brown person. it never was but it's been worse since that clip dropped.

i had a feeling this would happen when we saw lestat's version of events because i've seen how lestat fans (obviously not all of them) talk about assad's armand but my heart is really aching for friends of mine who'd been so happy to see a brown man like themselves portrayed as desirable and powerful on screen but now have to see everyone gleefully tearing him apart as pathetic and unattractive, saying they want to see him humiliated every time he appears.

this fandom has a problem with racism that's been going largely unchecked with any of us who talk about it treated like we're overreacting or just looking to be offended. i've been so excited to watch this season and discuss it with other fans for 2 years and now just over a week before the first episode drops i feel like i don't even want it anymore.

Anon, I'm so, so sorry to hear about what you've been going through, and I hope that it has been cathartic for you to vent about it to someone. I sincerely hope that you have a strong support system and people to whom you can talk about it off anon, too. Thank you for sharing your experiences here. It's tricky enough being a pale/mixed heritage Jewish person in this fandom sometimes, so I cannot fucking imagine how difficult it is for brown, Black, and other fans of color in IWTV right now. The ongoing conversations that I've had over the past couple of years with fellow marginalized friends in this fandom (for reference, the populations they represent are, predominantly, just based on where I was raised and where I've lived over the past couple decdades: American and British Jewish individuals, Black Americans and Black British people, and individuals from British South Asian backgrounds) has, indeed, exposed the pervasive ugliness. I've only in the past six months to a year (out of the two years I've been extremely active in this fandom) started engaging on posts and making posts of my own, though, because it felt a lot safer to keep those conversations restricted to private messages and discord conversations.

This isn't even me saying that Lestat is lying... that ANYONE in particular is lying. It's just like... has this not always been about people telling THEIR version of events? So why is one automatically assumed to be THEEEE correct one?

so take this with a grain of salt (personally i think they're telling the truth about everything though not without possible bias) but according to the people who got screeners, the lesmand flashback scene doesn't go any differently to how it looks in the trailer. like that's the lesmand dynamic in the show. one of them actually mocked people expecting it to be different, but she's a lestat boymom who can barely hide her disdain for armand and his fans so i'm still waiting to see exactly how it plays out. i'm keeping my expectations low to hopefully avoid being too disappointed

all of them have also said lestat makes a "funny" comment to gabi about armand being a bottom/sub which is… something. like obviously we have to wait and see but if it's some bottom-shaming thing the writers can seriously fuck off. they've also said it's clear we're supposed consider lestat's version of events the truth and that they've left behind the unreliable narrator angle which would be such a bad look i'm hoping that's just their lestat bias talking again. even taking louis out of the equation (due to armand's "tinkering"), having only the black and brown characters be liars and fantasists before the big muscled blond blue-eyed white guy comes along to correct the story just looks so, so terrible i really hope they'd be aware enough not to do it

it doesn't matter that lestat is the main character, rolin chose to race swap other characters and it would be really stupid not to take that into account when it comes to how the characters and story are perceived in the real world

if they really have chosen to make it so lestat is completely repulsed/grossed out by armand without finding him at all attractive, and the only reliable voice in the story, then i feel comfortable calling it racism whether conscious or not. choosing to make a canonically desirable character from the books indian and then choosing to make him completely undesirable, evoking the pathetic, sexually unattractive, boring indian male character american TV has been pumping out for decades would be a clearly racist choice

there's a big difference between saying lestat can't ever be intimate with armand because of the blood rape and armand's general deal with manipulation while still finding him very attractive, and saying lestat would never be intimate with him because he's just soooo pathetic and creepy and unappealing haha isn't that funny? let's all laugh at the brown guy being sexually "humiliated"

seeing how much people are reveling in this is leaving a sour taste in my mouth too. i've even seen someone say he must've lied about fucking the coven too because "ain't nobody want him" 🙄

but of course any concerns we have about armand's character or about assad or about racism are painted as bitter armandcels who want him to be the main character and just hate lestat/sam!

"that's the lesmand dynamic in the show"

Yes of course what we saw in 2x3 was a twisted version of the truth, which Armand imagined, I'm not trying to say that they kissed and were intimate like that and that Lestat confessed his love, but to have Lestat react disgusted like this? In the books, it's canon that Lestat loves Armand too (albeit less/differently than how he loves Louis) but can't be companions with him cause Armand's love would consume him and he doesn't want that/couldn't endure it without losing himself. Only because a companionship doesn't happen, doesn't mean the love isn't there.

I worry that they will make it show canon that Lestat never loved Armand and won't, to center Loustat even more and make it more attractive for show-only fans (don't get me wrong, I love Loustat and I enjoy show-Louis greatly. But the books don't center only on them, there is so much more outside of that particular romance or any romance in fact and I'd hate to see that getting tossed out)

Now, it could be that Lestat just presents it like this because he doesn't want people and especially Louis to *know* that he loves Armand in a way, because of how Claudia died and because he wants to get back together with Louis... I hope that's the case

Now, as to how it works and the specific implementations of the dogshiticity, here is what I have observed from initial experimentation:

OP will get notified of all reblogs, so far as initial testing has gone. This includes tagged reblogs, commented reblogs, and uncommented-untagged "silent" reblogs. This also continues to include reblogs-of-reblogs. The only place OP will be able to see this is in their activity feed, because there is no longer any single location to see all notes/ reblogs on a post. Nobody else will be able to see ALL reblogs.

OP will get notified of any replies directly to their original post. So if you chatter in the notes of the original, OP will see that.

OP will get notified of any likes directly to their original post.

OP will NOT get notified of any likes to commented subsequent reblogs, as those now form a "new" post. Anyone wishing to leave a like should click the like button on OP's section of a reblogged post, otherwise OP will not know.

OP will NOT get notified of any discussion in the notes on comment-reblogs, as those are discussions on a "new" post.

OP will NOT be able to find any specific reblog chain, because for OP the notes on their post will only ever show the direct-from-OP reblogs and never any subsequent ones.

OP will NOT be able to find anything in their notes, and the Activity Feed is not a reliable place to be able to go hunting for other people's previous reblogs.

OP will NOT be able to turn off reblogging on a post, so there is no way to keep a post contained if it takes off in a way you don't want it to.

Every chain effectively becomes a complete silo, unconnected to any other reblog and only barely connected to the original post.

We will NOT be able to scroll through the notes of a post and look for funny tags or interesting comments, because the notes are now wildly fragmented and there is no central reference point. So it will not be possible to look through the notes and see if a hundred other people have already said that thing you were about to say.

OP will NOT be able to do anything to stop a harassment campaign that fills their activity feed, but also will not be able to find any of it in the notes of their post unless the harassers reblog directly from OP every time. This is a feature which will absolutely be used to harass people.

It is also VERY unhelpful that we don't have language to easily disambiguate "comments" (as in, a reblog that someone added something to, thus creating a new post) and "comments" (non-reblgo chatter that happens in the notes). Not that we can reliably see either of those any more.

So! Now you and I are armed with this valuable knowledge about how the new system works, please go to tumblr's feedback form and explain why this is a series of bad problems that you would like them to stop doing.

The teaser is a short scene from s3 - it features Louis and Lestat (on good terms) having an ipad video call, Lestat learning about the book, Lestat overhearing some peeps thoughts/opinions on the book and 'characters' within it, and then stomping off angrily after purchasing a copy.

My thoughts while watching it:

Turns out, I don't like seeing vampires on ipads/doing facetime calls. I get it's modern day and it makes sense for them to do it, but I did not care for it (also the effects were truly terrible, like ytshort greenscreen terrible).

The tone, the dialogues, the acting... weren't on par with seasons 1 & 2. Let's just say that.

To me this all felt redundant (maybe it will come across better within the full context of the episode); why did we need to see this? We could of already guessed and filled in the blanks between seasons that Lestat learned about the book and he and Louis fell out over it, do we really need to see it play out beat for beat on-screen? I feel like there are better uses and more important things to focus the runtime on.

I'm not overly fond of shows lazily commenting on annoying irl fans. The pair quiping over the book and thirsting for Armand was just an eyeroll. Think back to how (mostly) well handled s2 did the trial; mocking the racist, anti-black, abuse apologizing idiots in a way that felt both clever, thematically relevant to the story being told across both seasons, and sadly necessary for this fandom; none of that was present here.

I don't want to be a debbie downer, because this is just one very short scene presented out of context, and we don't know how the rest of the season is going to play out quality-wise - so I don't want to judge too harshly, I want to give the whole season a watch in full before I pass judgement. But with that being said, if this clip was supposed to excite me for season 3... it has had the exact opposite effect.

The magic system that IWTV has is for flavour. It’s spice, it’s zest, it’s a lil bit of seasoning that gives the storytelling a fun supernatural kick. 

We are not given exact metrics or data for how exactly the Vampire Powers function, just examples of some that can manifest (pyrokinesis/telekinesis/telepathy/flight/mind control/etc) and that Vampire Powers get stronger as they get older. eg. Armand can walk in the sun – but is he immune or just resistant? How old does a vampire have to be before they can take a midday stroll minus immolation? Is there a time limit? An intensity where they could still be injured? Does the effect lessen if they have some shade like an umbrella or a large hat–

IRRELEVANT!!! The Vampire Powers are for SPICE and these kinds of nerdy-ass questions about scope and scale in this magic system does nothing for the characters or the story. You do not need to know the exact range or power of Louis’ Fire Gift in order to cheer and clap when he burns down the theatre. Lestat’s Cloud Gift doesn’t need a follow-up explanation on how high/fast he can fly in order to be devastating when he uses it to do a domestic violence. This isn’t Fullmetal Alchemist, this isn’t Mistborn. This magic system is SPICE, and getting into specifics about the powers and how they work distracts from the wonderful twisty soap opera of the gay vampires doing war crimes to each other.

So my thing about the twist is not that Armand was willing to let Louis die, and it’s not the reveal that Lestat was actually the one who saved Louis.

My thing about the twist is that it relies on a magic system that wasn’t built to support that kind of major end-of-season plot point. And the consequences that the resulting ambiguity has on Claudia, the greatest tragic hero of all time.

So the Mind Gift. 

Armand has that shit on lock. He’s shown using it extremely competently even before the San Francisco memory-alteration reveal. He’s the only member of the coven who clocks Louis’ recognition at Lestat’s name, he notices the “presence” in Louis’ mind when Louis hallucinates Dreamstat, he knows when Louis is lying to him about Claudia’s involvement in Lestat’s murder, when he tells Louis and Claudia to close their minds before his conversation with Madeline he says “I’ll know it if you haven’t.”. He’s able to knock out the entire coven in one scene, although it’s unclear whether that’s the Mind Gift or a combination of telekinesis and the time stopping(?) thing. Plus of course mind-wiping memory-alteration courtesy of the San Francisco saw trap.

Armand is the oldest vampire in the show so far, we know vampires get more powerful with age, and his previously shown competency with the Mind Gift means that when he says he compelled an audience full of people into banishing Louis, it’s a believable addition to his powerset. 

And, consequently, when he says “it took all my strength” we can guess that he’s lying his ass off. Daniel points out Armand saved Louis and not Claudia because he was trying to reveal the reasoning that everybody except Louis already knows. To quote Assad Zaman: Armand doesn’t give a fuck about Claudia.

Lestat on the other hand.

His one and only use of the Mind Gift (besides the generalized telepathy all the vampires share) is when he mindfucks 30ish soldiers out of his townhouse in the 1900s. His ears bleed about it – and we can pretty confidently interpret orifice-bleeding as a kind of catch-all for mind-powers being difficult. And then we don’t mention it again for a season and a half because the magic system is for spice and Louis is more concerned with other shit.

Until Daniel brings it up in his Big Reveal, and this piece of evidence allows for the truth to come out and Armand to be exposed as an opportunistic liar. Scene is played out brilliantly, Louis puts a crater in his wall via his ex-husband, good stuff.

HOWEVER

This twist has the consequence of shifting the focus of the story. The central question has changed slightly. Instead of the reveal being who killed Claudia, the narrative focus is now on who saved Louis.

And despite my love of Daniel’s reveal scene, despite my love of the Louis/Lestat reunion scene, “who saved Louis” ends up a weaker thematic question.

Claudia is the whole fucking point. Claudia and the way her fathers failed her. Claudia and the tragedy of her narrative doom. Claudia and the ways she never escaped that child’s body in that burning house, no matter how much she tried.

My thing about the twist is that it takes our previous understandings of Armand and Lestat’s respective power and agency in that scene from this:

Armand: Could’ve Prevented It (Chose Not To) Lestat: Genuinely Could Not Have Prevented It

To this:

Armand: Could’ve Prevented It (Chose Not To) Lestat: Could’ve Prevented It (Chose Not To)

And then doesn’t interrogate or explain further. There is no one that says to Lestat, “You saved him, but why didn’t you save her?” 

And look I can understand I’m meant to extrapolate that Lestat used all his strength to save Louis and therefore didn’t have enough juice to do the same for Claudia (his ears bleed about it and everything)

But they sprinkled so much doubt on Armand’s “it took all my strength” excuse and then immediately showed Lestat as much more powerful with the Mind Gift than previously assumed, and so I’m left with too many unanswered questions.

This is where the narrative puts too much weight on a magic system that wasn’t built to support it. The audience is aware, vaguely, that the older a vampire is the more powerful they are, but we aren’t actually given tangible comparisons between Armand and Lestats respective abilities circa 1949. Lestat is shown or said to have all of Armand’s same abilities by this point, but besides Armand being older, he’s never shown outmatching Lestat in power, and so we never get a real sense of Lestat's limitations.

I should mention that, on its own, this wouldn’t be a flaw. Like I said the magic is here for spice and zest and we don’t need Armand and Lestat to have a wizard battle in order to understand that Armand is probably nebulously more powerful.

But when you hinge a plot point on Lestat’s magical abilities and their limits, I would like to know for certain whether Lestat genuinely couldn’t have prevented Claudia’s death or, like Armand, simply chose not to.

If it’s the latter, it counterintuitively makes Lestat a much less sympathetic character, when (as far as I can tell) the purpose of the twist is to make Lestat more of a heroic figure, since post-reveal there are no further interrogations of Lestat's choices.

And I’ve read wonderful meta on Lestat choosing to let Claudia die and then regretting it forever: if he loved her more she would’ve suffered less, if he loved her less she might not have suffered at all, etc.

But none of this is given any focus in the show because besides Lestat’s single heartbreaking line about Claudia looking to him in her last moments. There is no illumination on whether Lestat’s inaction was due to personal choice or lack of ability. There’s no solid evidence in the show to swing it one way or the other, the magic system is too soft to support a solid conclusion about it.

And. Claudia was sentenced before Louis. So even if Lestat only had the ability to save one of them, he still made the conscious choice to save his strength for Louis.

Which is also not necessarily a flaw. Lestat making the choice to save Louis over Claudia would be an extremely compelling road to go down. My issue is that the show has changed the central question from who killed Claudia to who saved Louis and is now pretending that that road doesn’t exist.

There is no indication that Louis feels any kind of way about Lestat ostensibly choosing him over their daughter. There’s no indication that Lestat had any hesitation about his choice, despite his sadness at her death. I can interpret Sam Reid’s acting choices in the final scene as Lestat not realizing how much Claudia meant to him until she looked at him “like a child looking to her father” but by then it was too late – but that would still be speculative.

Giving Lestat the agency to save Louis and Claudia during the trial both puts too much pressure on a magic system that can’t support it, and puts wind-drag on Louis and Lestats reunion: what should be the emotional climax of the show.

And look to be clear: show good. I’m obsessed with show. 

But the structural integrity of the final twist makes me feel like an OSHA inspector in an otherwise competently made building that doesn't have railings on the stairs.

They don't establish enough information wrt the magic system so that Lestat’s sudden ability and subsequent assumed limitations can reasonably track. They don't interrogate the consequences of giving Lestat the choice to save his daughter and then him proceeding to Not Do That.

I don’t think it’s out of character for Armand to choose his coven over Louis considering his habit of clinging to the familiar even if it sucks. I don’t think it’s out of character for Lestat to choose Louis over Claudia considering both Lestat and Louis’ habit of doing exactly that.

But you cannot ask the question “Who killed Claudia? (or, through inaction, allowed Claudia to die)” the entire season and then answer it with “Actually, Lestat saved Louis!”

It shifts the focus, it muddies the theme, it relies too heavily on a magic system that is supposed to be vibes-based and most importantly it treats Claudia like an afterthought when Claudia is literally the entire fucking point.