Dyke who Likes (posts)

this is a wowzah tho:

Armand knew Louis' psyche, his trauma, he knew what planting Regina there would do. Yes, Armand was exploiting both. But Armand exploiting Regina, doesn't excuse her willfully participating in his scheme, and certainly doesn't excuse turning it around and putting the blame on Louis.

Louis started interacting with Regina after prompting from Armand and orchestrating 19 separate instances to get his attention. 19 times before she finally got her wish. The whole point was building a relationship with him on Armand's command and Louis wouldn't have been in the position to stalk her if she didn't. Following him 19 times is not asking him to come back to the Brick and Bacon? If Regina wasn't asking for Louis' attention, then tell me what she expected when she agreed to Armand's schemes?

Come on. There's clear levels of morality in this series. Are you really telling me that Armand, Claudia, Lestat, Louis, ...Marius and Magnus, and others, are all on the same level? Just because they're all vampires? I mentioned Magnus and Marius because they're clearly perceived by the fandom as the worse of the worst. So there's is differentiation.

"doesn't excuse her wilfully participating in the scheme" well then surely by this logic, being "exploited" by Regina does not excuse Louis for wilfully going to see her? she did go by him 19 times to get his attention, but Louis made the decision to follow her inside the restaurant so i don't really understand what this is meant to imply.

"the whole point was building a relationship on Armand's command and Louis wouldn't have been in the position to stalk her if she didnt. following him 19 times is not asking him to come back to Brick & Bacon?" whoa, okay so i want us to be careful here because i feel like this is quickly leaning into victim-blaming territory with the implication here that Louis "couldn't help himself". i want to establish a brief timeline of events here, to point out times where Louis made active decisions to keep pursuing Regina.

Regina tried to get Louis' attention 19 times and succeeds -> she and Louis build up a rapport in the restaurant -> Regina "finds out" that she looks like Claudia and Louis leaves -> Louis comes back (unasked) looking for her during multiple shifts and finds she is not there (in this time we assume he has stalked her online as well) -> Regina returns and they argue and she essentially tells him to leave her alone -> Louis does not leave her alone and instead watches her form outside (we have no idea how long this goes on for) -> Regina invites Louis inside and they set up the deal.

whether or not Regina was luring him in under Armand's instruction, at the time Louis didn't know this. so from his perspective, he was still willingly stalking a stranger. that doesn't change. i feel like too much credit is being placed on Regina here. she didn't even know Armand and Louis were vampires until Louis told her, her panic in 3x04 was most likely genuine. also technically saying she agreed to Armand's schemes isn't fully correct because what she agreed to was not Armand's real scheme, she was also being duped.

I feel like this one sentence sums up so much that's wrong in this fandom.

People really are out here with scorecards completely missing the point, huh?

I mentioned somewhere else that part of the issue with fandom is that in addition to seeing media consumption as activism, they have progressive views with conservative thought patterns. Dismissing moral ambiguity and nuance is a major part of that.

that uhm,

if you know your party’s extension

5

gabriella says, "my dream is belonging to no one" and lestat goes, "except me, right? :)" she says, "let's fuck shit up so bad there's nothing left to bind people to one another" and he tries to bind her with a wedding band (which of course is when she leaves him, realising there will never be true understanding between them. which lestat, again, remains oblivious to).

basically it's a more extreme version of why they couldn't stay together in the book, and i guess they wanted to make gabriella more proactive as a character, so their solution was to dial it all the way up and make her vengeful instead of indifferent. i think it meshes really well with the rest of the show, which is largely about the value of bonds and relationships (and the valuelessness of revenge? tvl definitely does touch that). it makes gabriella a fitting antagonist