Looking at a lot of Loustat shippers and how they view/talk about Louis, is making me think of the BtVS fandom, the first fandom I joined when I was 16/17.

Anyway, a lot of the Spuffy shippers were out there calling Buffy derogatory names, saying SHE was the actual abusive one in the relationship, writing the most vile essays/fanfiction about her needing to be brought down a peg and admit she was wrong and Spike was right, saying the show was boring without Spike, despite Buffy being the main character, could not talk about Buffy as a character separate from Spike, propping up James's acting skills over Sarah's, made it sound like Spike was a better parent to Dawn than Buffy was (?), saying that the other men she was in romantic relationships with were much more abusive than Spike, excusing Spike for basically all of his actions and woobifying him because of his trauma....

and then you'd have the more critical Spuffy/non-Spuffy shippers (mainly woc) pointing out the blatant misogyny and victim-blaming in this way of thinking, pointing out how Spike represents some of the worst aspects of racism and the patriarchy, both textually and subtextually, even providing scholarly articles and literature to back up their claims, and asking why do you even ship Spuffy if you hate Buffy? Which of course received extreme backlash and harassment from people racing to defend Spike themselves, saying, no of course they didn't hate Buffy, but Spike is more complex than you're making him sound, and no he's not a racist or hates women, he's actually a feminist and a punk/anarchist and doesn't kill based on race, you're just a vile sjw and an anti who loves ruining everyone else's fun.

Anyway. Why do you even ship Loustat if you hate Louis?

Ok so, I've been wanting to talk about the whole episode 5 recollection thing ever since we saw it on the previous trailers, and since there were more shots of it in the new one too I'm gonna take the opportunity...

So, in all the little shots we've seen, we have Louis going at Lestat. So I'm guessing the idea is that they're gonna make the """fight""" actually more of a fight and not just Louis getting beaten.

Personally, I am pleased with this, because I think it's basically the best way to deal with this whole mess. I never had an issue with Lestat and Louis "fighting". What I have issue with is how extremely violent it was, how Lestat actually seriously hurt Louis. If it had been just a punch or two (though that would already be domestic abuse) I wouldn't have been fazed, but his whole body was bruised and bleeding. There was a trail of blood when he got dragged across the street. He took months to heal. In their little "fights" (actually not sure if it's more than one) in the book, Louis was completely fine. Lestat never truly hurt him physically.

So, to sort of get into a writers mindset I guess, how could you "fix it"? Well, I don't think they could say it's a fake memory. I'm sorry but the idea that it was implanted by Armand for example is just ridiculous to me. I don't think it even makes much sense in the first place, but besides that, I hate the idea of just blaming Armand to make Lestat seem better. This black and white idea of one of them being the "bad boyfriend" and the other the "good one" that comes from both sides is NOT true to the characters imo, and I also think it's a shitty narrative to go with, storytelling wise.

Besides that, I'm not sure how else you could fully retcon it and say it was fake. I saw people theorizing that only the drop was fake, but again that seems to rely on the Armand fake memory theory, and I honestly don't think they'll retcon it since it was kinda the whole point thematically from what the writers said (that it's a parallel to Paul and that they were "very pleased with themselves" for it). And clearly the initial "fight" is not fake from the new shots we got. Obviously "Louis made it up" is not an option. I remember people talking about how it was from Claudia's POV, which I honestly don't remember whether that part was supposed to be from her diary or not, but even if that's the case the most that could do is establish that the details of the fall are messy because she wasn't there to see it, and that maybe Lestat wasn't so "triumphant" after it.

Lestat attacked Louis, just because he THOUGHT Louis wanted to leave with Claudia. He started it, which does matter imo (I don't think they can change that to it being Louis) and it was completely unequal. I know this fandom is lowkey plagued with gender role discourse, but Lestat, as a stronger vampire, has a huge advantage against Louis, akin to a man hitting his wife, but probably even bigger due to supernatural strength.

And that is to say, technically the main problems will probably still be there. Which is how it should be imo, cause after doing that they have to commit to it, at least to some extent. The idea should not be to fully exonerate Lestat, but to basically soften the blow (literally and figuratively) by adding some more nuance to it. The writers said themselves that they want Louis to be belieavable as a victim.

So, I'm guessing that what we're gonna see is Louis defending himself, getting some hits against Lestat, and that Lestat was hurt too, and maybe something new about the fall. Which honestly is gonna give me some peace of mind. I get why people don't like the idea of discrediting Louis' account of the event, and of how the fandom can turn on him if he's not some perfect victim... But there was (is) just something in me that can't fully ship Loustat as much as I did before with that having happened.

Like, for a while I have basically just chosen to ignore it as much as possible. I don't rewatch the episode, I skip it during reactions, I skip the beginning of episode 6 where we see how Louis is after. I have acknowledged it many times but more as like a meta thing that happened. I probably wouldn't say it's triggering, but it just crossed a line to me and I'm gonna welcome (almost) anything they do to make it less bad than it seemed, not because I want for Louis to come off as a liar or anything but just like... For my own relief, to kinda have a bit of weight off my shoulders when watching the show and shipping them? Obviously I don't know anything for sure and I might be wrong about some things I'm guessing, but not having it be so one-sided at least already helps a bit. (Please don't come here to say I'm a weak bitch who can't handle dark gothic romance or some bullshit like that. I've already talked about that back when the scene aired and if you think it's a simple as that you're probably just dumb and insensitive)

I've tried a couple of times to get my thoughts organized regarding white viewers commentary on how AMC's IWTV handles race, but I'll just simply say there's definitely a cynicism that is common in a lot of those analysis that is...bemusing.

SO what are you thought?!!!!!!! (On the new trailer)!

I mean, my inital thoughts were pure static electricity. 😵‍💫 By the time the trailer was released, it was nearly 1 am, we'd already seen more photos of the cast than the past 6 months combined, we got a release date that's the morning after Eurovision(!!) plus a full panel interview. I don't think I could've handled Rolin's full trailer last night, tbh, so I'm kinda glad we only got a short one!

I needed to sleep, process, watch it a few more times, and THEN lighten it all up and literally watch it frame by frame in order to process it properly. I really struggle to take anything in when the cuts are so rapid fire, and this helped me to focus on details.

Overall, there's nothing I'm hugely surprised by, but it doesn't take away from the excitement of actually seeing it.

I'm loving seeing Louis sparring with his hallucinations of Lestat, the Daniel x Loumand interactions in the Dubai penthouse look absolutely delicious (grab the popcorn), and Delainey is going to absolutely KILL IT (no pun intended) as Claudia.

There are a few scenes I can't quite make out that I'm still pondering over, like:

Who's that woman falling through the floor?

Why does Louis seem to collapse after sharing that moment with Armand?

If the red lighting scene is Louis in a photography dark room, then why does his shoulder look to be bare?

Why are the theatre vampires raising Claudia up on the chair? Celebration, or initiation?

Whose hand has the fire gift in the tunnel?

And still - the hand reaching up from the earth - revenant, or Trashstat??

And that press photo of Lestat carrying the crucifix? The details POP when you brighten it up and examine the scenery... Very intriguing indeed, especially if you've read TVL.

I really don’t want to contribute more to this but any actual good points that people have had about applying a 2024 mindset to centuries old vampires has just turned into not listening to black people in this fandom.

I don't really post about fandom stuff but I think that it's becoming really toxic. There have people myself included who have been brought to suicidal thoughts because of some fandom things. I just don't know what else to do because I love these vampires as much as the next person.

The number of people I've seen online who think Claudia is in her twenties instead of fourteen is honestly disturbing to me 💀

Regardless of Bailey Bass' age, Claudia is a young teenager and she looks like a young teenager in the show! Everyone was willing to give Tom Holland the benefit of the doubt when he was playing a fifteen year old, so is it sexism or racism or a toxic mixture of both?

I kid you not, I saw someone on YouTube say that Claudia should be eternally grateful to Louis and Lestat for turning her at eighteen! What planet are these people living on?? It's like they're physically incapable of separating the actress from the character???

(Additionally, if Claudia WAS physically in her twenties or something, she wouldn't be calling Louis, a thirty-three year old man, her father. Older brother maybe. Father? Nope.)

I realise that not everyone is as terminally online as I am about this show, but I get the impression that Bailey could specify "my character Claudia, who is fourteen years old" in every interview and you'd still get people insisting otherwise? 🙄

I cant deny that im kind of in awe a bit about how the whole fanzine situation went down.

Like, account goes up, people get excited + fill out the interest check, and then the mods make it clear that they have no idea what content is in the property they are making a zine about, everyone goes HUH? And then the account gets deleted and one of them starts bitching about people not wanting to buy their zine on their personal blog 😭😭😭

All of this happened in what, 48 hours? So insane

It's your coffin, my love. Enjoy it! Most of us... never get to know what it feels like.

yeah you know what? I'm going to get into this. "don't humanize villains"/"this abuser is a monster" is some of the worst character discourse in fandom. abusers are not other. abusers are not always easy to recognize. othering someone who's done terrible things from humanity is an arrogant, poisonous idea.

that is a person who is doing those things, and you want so badly to be unable to fall into such patterns of harm and abuse that you will force that person into another category of species altogether, and in so doing you spare yourself from introspection and you give yourself a pretty little pedestal to stand on and you shame everybody who fell for a red flag that is surely so easy to recognize. and you give into prejudice you assign moral values to attributes outside of yourself and you think you are so above doing harm that you could never act in such a way, even as it is a capability within all of us to do so.

get off your self righteous high horse for a moment and use your fucking brain. I'm sick of people in fandom claiming to be the most moral members that are the "only people willing to discuss this" and then every statement out of their mouth is harmful and pervasive word vomit.

going off of what dwreader and ghostfoolish have been saying better than i can:

why do people think louis will still be a believable victim and it won't be racist if the show just has armand mess with louis's memories regarding 1x05 and how claudia died, and also be controlling him throughout the entire interview/relationship? like not only does it paint victims of abuse as unreliable and unstable, therefore not be trusted with anything*, but it also, just, shifts most if not all the blame from a white man to a poc? we've asking this the entire time, but they still don't have an answer for that.

*like statistically speaking victims of abuses' memories might be muddled/repressed from the trauma, so even though they know the abuse happened, people will use the fact that they might not be able to describe an entire fight in specific detail, or got some dates mixed up, or did not speak up sooner, to paint them as mentally ill liars, or even abusers themselves. which is why i think giving louis false memories in 1x05 is still victim blaming in a way, because it encourages the trend of victims not being believed.

Yes I "can excuse murder but not domestic violence" on a TV show.

No one cares about random extras or minor characters that Lestat uses to feed. We care about Louis. Actually, it's not even just that. I wouldn't care if he did that to Armand. We care about it being done to Louis because he's someone Lestat loves and is in a relationship with. The fact that the term "domestic violence" even exists already shows violence against a partner is seen as different (and possibly worse) than to a random person.

On a story where the main characters are vampires, creatures who naturally kill people because they need/want their blood, the detachment from that kind of violence and the difference between that VS hurting someone they love for no good reason is even bigger.

This a relationship that people are supposed to care about. Yes everyone knows it's a toxic one, but we're still supposed to care about it, and dare I say, root for it, since they are endgame in the books and the show is focusing on their relationship even more than the source material. To an extent, you can see that even the writers somewhat understand this. Lestat doing that to Louis is a huge emotional climax. Lestat killing randos to feed is not. Obviously they did not think they went too far and that the scene shouldn't have happened while I do, but they do understand the difference between it vs killing random people. So can you PLEASE try to understand that instead of making those "I cAn ExCuSe mUrDeR bUt NoT dOmEsTiC aBuSE~ jokes and shady comments as if people who don't feel the same as you are idiots?

When it comes to just my own emotions, if it was "just" Lestat punching him I wouldn't be as mad. It would still be domestic abuse but it wouldn't disturb me. To see him drag Louis who's already beaten to a pulp and bloody in the ground was disturbing. Mostly the fact that he held him so up in the sky (like seriously, that's not just one/two floors, it was HIGH) and threw him was disturbing. Claudia's reaction seeing that happen to her father was disturbing. If you can easily brush that off and go back to happily shipping them again the next minute, that's good for you, but it's not so easy for everyone.

"Yeah but it's a dark roman-" I have read the damn book. I've seen the movie. I've read interviews before the show started. I saw the trailers. I saw the promos. I didn't just randomly play the show blind and got shocked with what I got. I had perfectly appropriate expectations. This feels like when people say the graphic rape in GOT was all justified because ~that's just how it is~ in Westeros.

The fact that their relationship was already toxic is just another reason why I didn't want that. Because I thought it was already toxic enough and they didn't need to taint it even further. The show portrayed their relationship in a much more romantic way than the first book (the "original tapes" where Louis is just dissing Lestat is probably even a reference to that!), so the fact that they also made it even worse than it ever was there did surprise me.

I didn't want to make a post talking about this, cause I wanted to just say literally everything I think about the show in one big post, and cause I managed to mostly stay quiet when the episode aired. But back then I wasn't caught up and got spoiled/spoiled myself after seeing the discourse. Now after I've seen it in context, and more recently saw more comments about it, the emotions came back.

If you have a bad reaction to people criticizing a piece of media you enjoy, that's because you care about it. So try to understand how it feels for other people when it's not just a fan's bitter comment upsetting them, but this very content that they care about itself.

It’s funny how they are claiming that folks calling out fandom racism are not contributing anything to the fandom when it was showmeyourfangs (of block list infamy) amongst others were was attacking authors for the content of their fics. I vividly remember them going on several rants telling folks that perhaps they should be writing for twilight. Unsurprising there was furious debates, a rash of trolls writing malicious fic, creating fake tumblr accounts and hate anons right after that.

The people who allegedly don’t contribute to the fandom are the ones running events and writing fic and making art and seriously discussing the show that many people read. Meanwhile, I've had the folks crying about being attacked and reverse racism blocked since 2022 because they constantly stir shit and they never met a bad faith anon ask that they didn’t want to platform to start more shit.

Is Dubai later than we think?

At the end of season 1, we still don’t yet know where the Dubai scenes fit in with the wider book timeline. It feels like the general fandom consensus is that it's at a point when Lestat is incapacitated, either in the ground (TVL) or possibly comatose elsewhere in the penthouse (Merrick, which could possibly account for The Groan?).

However, I saw someone recently suggest that the Dubai scenes could be set during the early Prince Lestat era, and I like this for a number of reasons. I’ll try my best to keep this spoiler-free for non-book readers!

Image source

Placing Dubai in the early PL era gives a different, yet equally plausible reason why Lestat hasn’t turned up in Dubai yet - he’s busy renovating the Auvergne castle and setting up the Court. In the books, Louis was hesitant to come to Court at first, and stayed with Armand at Trinity Gate, even though he and Lestat were in contact regularly. Dubai could easily be a Trinity Gate replacement in the show and not really lose anything.

Placing Dubai at the Prince Lestat time means that TVL, QOTD, TOTBT, Memnoch, and Merrick have all already happened in the grand Vampire Chronicles timeline. The latter is extremely important for Louis’ character development, and could explain why his feelings for Lestat have changed so much since the first interview. It would also explain how Louis’s powers have increased (hello, Fire Gift!) as he gets an inadvertent “upgrade” during Merrick.

Likewise, it means we could see rockstar Lestat in a different era - think late glam rock, 80s hair rock (as in the books) or even 1990s grunge, and still have decades of time left between that and present day to fit in the rest of the intervening books’ plots.

Also, I just want to point out that even if the events of TVL-Merrick have already happened, doesn’t mean the books have been written yet “in universe”. In the books, Louis/Daniel publishing IWTV is the catalyst for Lestat to write TVL, and then all the rest. So Daniel not knowing about the vampire books wouldn’t be a problem, and let’s be fair, even if rockstar Lestat already happened but not written about, it wouldn’t have necessarily been on his radar (esp if Lestat’s career was as short-lived as in the books).

As much as I’d love to see these books' events happen “in present day”, I think narratively they make more sense being told as flashback stories, a’la season 1. It allows for more time to pass between events, but also to continue the framing of the show as being told to an interviewer. This means we get to carry on with the “Memory is a Monster” and unreliable narrator themes, too.

If this is somehow the way the show is going, it’s going to be WILD to get the first glimpse of modern day Lestat, because he gained significant powers in QOTD (and then again near the end of PL) that are going to be a huge contrast to what we’ve seen so far in Louis’s memories of their time together at Rue Royale. It would also add more colour to Louis and Armand’s relationship to see them weather multiple huge crises together rather than just fading into comfortable complacency as in the books.

In any case, I’m not 100% convinced this is the case, but it’s interesting to think about how the show might handle the differing timelines between it and the book. I love that, even after nearly 30 years of reading these books, this show can still surprise and delight, and keep me guessing.

louis still a victim, the fact that he fought back doesn't mean anything other than that he tried to fight back. lestat is immensely more powerful than him and if he wanted he could've killed louis with a flicker of his wrist. seeing what happened that night from an unglossed flash of memories won't change the fact that louis was a victim. of course that we know that present day louis doesn't see himself as one, and also they are undead creatures of the night, no human concept of violence actually applies to them. but still. as unreliable as a narrator may be, one thing we do not do is doubt someone's testimony of abuse. it also applies to claudia, she was a witness to all that horror. those were her parents. her recollection is rooted in fear and anger and a loathsome sense of love and it still very much valid. its a series about creatures who are despicable, toxic and extremely manipulative, nothing is true except what they want it to be.

Listen this is all I'm going to say no matter what fandom stuff is going on killing yourself is not going to solve anything. I promise you that. Each one of you is worth so much more than that.