jaggedjot

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"I did it for you" has gotta be my favorite form of betrayal. You gave me a gift I never asked for, and now I have to look around at the world you destroyed with the knowledge that it was gift wrapped and addressed to me.

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I feel like a big part of people misunderstanding Louis's relationship to dominance is a misreading of his dynamic with Armand. It's fairly obvious that Louis shifts from the submissive role he played with Lestat into a dominant role with Armand, so some people might think, hey aren't these both equally authentic parts of Louis? Why are some people asserting that Louis is an essentially submissive character when the role he occupies with Armand is, on the surface, very dominant and masculine?

It's because of the way these two roles are framed.

When we meet human Louis in 1910, he is embodying a masculine, dominant role: executor of his family's estate, man of the house, financial provider for his family, businessman, etc. He describes himself as being "a rougher thing", in order to survive his circumstances. He's also miserable. He's doing things he abhors (profiting off people's misery, exploiting others, threatening Paul) in order to perform an identity that isn't reflective of the person he really is, because he can't be the person that he is and still do the things he has to in order to survive.

As a vampiric mind-reader, Lestat is able to see through Louis's facade right away. He knows this isn't the person Louis is, and knows that performing this role is making him miserable.

Louis identifies with Lestat's assessment of him so powerfully he feels like he is being SEEN for the first time.

From that point on, Lestat takes on the dominant role Louis did not want: Lestat's the man of the house, he makes the rules, sets the terms. Louis is allowed to take on a submissive role he had no access to before. By the time Claudia comes along, Louis's family doesn't want him around and his business has been destroyed - the dominant roles he used to occupy in his family/work life have ceased to exist.

The dynamic between Louis/Lestat is so obvious that no one flinches when Claudia refers to Louis as a housewife, and when Loustat decide to do an unplanned dance at the Mardi Gras ball, there's no question of who will lead.

Fast forward to Louis and Armand. When Louis first starts developing an interest in Armand, he is very amenable to deferring to Armand as the more dominant one between them. He senses Armand's "ancient power", knows the power differential between them is just as drastic (if not more so) as that between himself and Lestat, and is into it. He sees Armand as this commanding leader of his coven and Claudia "feels his lust" right away lol.

Louis starts off referring to Armand as maitre, obeys when Armand tells him to put his camera away, offers no resistance when Armand barges into his apartment without asking etc. Even when Louis wants to kiss Armand, he stops shy of initiating physical contact, waiting for Armand to make the first move. There's a presumption on Louis's part that Armand will be the dominant/active partner/pursuer.

(Kinda similar is this moment where Louis doesn't light the cigarette Armand gives him right away, waiting to see if Armand will act first and light it for him the way Lestat always did...but Armand doesn't fjkdlsjaklf;a this was a red flag)

However over time, Louis learns that Armand isn't actually as comfortable with dominance as he seems. Armand gets vulnerable enough with Louis to share about his past, and tell him that he doesn't actually know who he is or what he wants. The dominant role he plays was forced upon him, "a job he did not want", similar to Louis in his human life. Armand's inability to serve as the dominant presence Louis was seeking is mirrored by his inability to keep the coven under his control. As the coven begins to turn on Armand and grows unstable (a direct threat to Claudia, who is now an ostracized coven member), Louis decides to take the reins and assume a position of dominance over Armand.

Louis directly references the role he played in his human life - the dominant role he hated, and which Lestat freed him from - and, in essence, says he can go back to playing it.

Notice how his dominant role is once again tied to downplaying his connection to art, just like he used to do with his family so he wouldn't look weak to them.

Louis has been courting art all season in an effort to find himself, and felt real joy and connection when "getting love" from the human Paris art community, but he quashes all this self-exploration to force himself back into a dominant role that leaves no room for that. He can't look weak anymore, and he can't look like he's still finding himself. He shoves it all down, puts it away, puts the mask back on.

(Also a very ominous music sting plays at the end of that scene after the "Arun/maitre" thing, indicating we are not supposed to see his adoption of this role as a good thing. It's really a character regression for both him and Armand)

The "me without the burden of her" scene can be seen as analogous to the pulling a blade on Paul scene. It's a performative wounding of a loved one meant to obscure Louis's "weakness".

It's callous and notably unlike the Louis we've come to know. Just like in his human life, the mask is on. Does he want to insult Claudia? Did he want to pull a knife on his brother? No! But he did it to get the desired result - that's the way he operates in this dominant mode. He no longer has the space for "weak" emotion, like feeling bad about what he did to Paul/Claudia. He's doing what he has to in order to survive. Louis said what he said to get Armand to turn Madeleine, to secure Claudia a life outside the coven. It doesn't work, but his goal was security for his family, just like it was in his human life.

Claudia clocks this shift immediately. She's never met Louis in this hardened/dominant role, because it was abandoned by the time she was brought into their household. It seems to unnerve her, because she knows it isn't genuine, and she questions if this is the identity he found when he set out to discover himself. He can't answer. We as the audience know it isn't, because his journey of self-discovery was cut short when he chose to reclaim his old facade.

Obviously Louis's behavior in this scene sucks and we all hate it, and its a cue from the show that Louis taking on this dominant persona is unnatural, detrimental, distances him from the people he loves by leaving him too hardened to engage emotionally, and results in personal sacrifice, ie his relationship with Claudia suffering (as Claudia observes, even though Louis is "stronger" in this mode, "you gotta give up something to get something").

Also it doesn't even work, because dominance only works if you have power, and Armand was never truly willing to cede any power to Louis, rendering his dominance a superficial one ("Maitre only when it's hot or convenient").

Basically, the show takes pains to establish that Louis hates playing a dominant role, that his incredible connection to Lestat is partially founded on Lestat's recognition that Louis hates that role and that it is "not his true nature", then shows Louis attempting a dominant role under duress with Armand, only after the possibility to be submissive to Armand's dominance is shown to not be viable.

It goes without saying that both Louis's relationships are fucked up and unhealthy regardless of the role he plays, but the key difference is that his relationship with Lestat starts with an invitation to be "his true self", and it's so appealing to Louis that he can't imagine a scenario where he rejects Lestat's offer vs. his dominance with Armand is an explicit attempt on Louis's part to cater to someone else's identity needs and not his own.

I don't personally think Louis's submission is a weakness, or something he needs to correct. I don't think growth for Louis should mean becoming dominant and committing to a role he hates. Obviously, submission makes you vulnerable, but Louis deserves to be vulnerable...he deserves to be all the beautiful things he is. 💖

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i'm thinking about the number of "true crime" stories that exploit and misrepresent the experiences of black victims against their or their families' wishes, and how iwtv has an opportunity to comment on that type of media exploitation in season 3. in the s2 finale louis set daniel's laptop on fire to destroy daniel's recordings of the interview, tacitly revoking his consent about publishing his life story- daniel wrote and published the book anyway against louis' wishes, and in the flash-forward we saw that louis was, at best, ambivalent about the book's existence. (he still hasn't read the advanced copy, he rejects the royalties and when daniel pitched a sequel, louis said "there won't be a next book. there shouldn't have been a first book.") in his latest entertainment weekly interview jacob anderson said "louis is not super happy about the book".

louis changing his mind on publishing his life story and being less-than-happy that daniel did it anyway makes complete sense for his arc over the first two seasons: while louis was able to achieve a sense of emotional truth at the end (and reconcile his grief for claudia rather than repressing it or channeling it into spite), many parts of the interview were rendered null and void by the reveal of armand's gaslighting and his true role in the trial. we know armand was, in large part, directing the interview and in control of the narrative in dubai, and many of louis' idealized statements about their relationship ("armand protects my happiness, even when i don't, or can't" "until i saw the vampire sam standing next to him, blocking his exit. he was as much of a captive as we were" etc) were things armand had conditioned louis to say, whether through "normal" gaslighting tactics or use of the mind gift. we know armand had altered louis' memories to some level (1973 is confirmed, plus there are several scenes where it cuts to armand looking alarmed when louis remembers something more about claudia- in s2ep5 louis said "pieces of my life, gone" plural)

and while i don't think armand was controlling every single word out of louis' mouth, i think the ambiguity about just how much armand manipulated louis' mind and memories helps us understand how destabilized louis would've felt at the end of the interview- what's true, what isn't true?? can he trust his own recollections??- and why he wouldn't want those recordings made public. but daniel went ahead and made them public anyway, writing a manuscript without louis' further input and handing the book over to the talamasca who made further edits. at every phase leading up to publication, someone else exerted more control over louis' life story than louis himself did- and that's 10x truer for claudia, who had her diaries publicized without her consent decades after her death and has no way of responding to the book or to the now-public reaction to her.

we know how the general public reacts to abuse survivors, how common victim-blaming rhetoric and smear campaigns are- and black survivors are particularly vulnerable to that kinda mass backlash bc of how pervasive systemic antiblackness is. many irl iwtv viewers already deny or downplay louis and claudia's victimhood and try to refute their subjectivity in order to make lestat or armand look better- if the theory is true that the talamasca made daniel edit out any mention of their involvement (which also means wiping out any mention of the hard evidence confirming armand's abuse that they gave daniel, like the full 1973 tape or the annotated trial script) that creates more opportunities for in-universe readers to cling to plausible deniability and claim louis was deceived by daniel or was straight-up lying. look at the thuggish black man- "disreputable, cold, violent"- who attacked his loyal partner and kicked him out based on nothing but a journalist's slander. armand told the truth. if louis was lying about what armand did to him, then who's to say he didn't lie about what lestat did to him too?? you read about how he threatened to chop lestat's head off. lestat was probably afraid for his life and just defending himself. etc. we already know the vampire world has zeroed in on louis and want to torture and murder him for revealing their existence- but i wouldn't count out the possibility of human readers, even if they think the book is fiction, characterizing louis as a heinous brute or the "real villain" of the book.

and all that brings us to to lestat's tour in s3. and while i think it was a great creative choice to distance louis from the book to avoid making louis the primary target of lestat's ire- we already watched a whole season where louis got gaslit and darvo'd by one of his love interests- the fact that lestat is speaking on a public platform at all prompts the question of who gets to share their stories and who controls these narratives. lestat can't control the public's perception of him either, but he has the opportunity present himself to the world in the way he wants to be seen- and bc of his whiteness, he has a greater chance of being seen and understood, of being sympathized with, than louis and claudia did. regardless of whether the show textually comments on this i'll have it on the back of my mind when watching s3. louis and lestat may have reconciled personally to some level, it doesn't change the privilege lestat's whiteness affords him and how that impacts how he and louis are perceived are narrators- and how many people both irl and potentially in-universe think it imbues him with an inherent vulnerability and trustworthiness they think louis doesn't have. think about how many times black victims and their families have had their pain exploited for "entertainment", the statements black families have made renouncing tv shows sensationalizing the murders of their loved ones and begging people not to watch them- louis set the laptop on fire in the context of that media landscape, and daniel steamrolled right over that to make a boatload of money off louis and claudia. and now he's gonna be interviewing lestat.

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pssssst hey. hey. free and expansive database of folk and fairy tales. you can thank me later

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sometimes i think about gay people who lived centuries ago who thought they were all alone who imagined a world where they could live openly as themselves who met in secret spoke in code defied everything and everyone just to exist and i’m like..i gotta sit down. whew i gotta sit down

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@ krimamr

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forever obsessed with dynamics between vampires, specifically that of a maker and fledgling, as a way to explore abuse. the creation of a vampire itself can so easily be a literalization of the lasting impacts of trauma and also much more simply the ways a perpetrator might shape their victim’s very identity. the extremes of isolation in the way that the new vampire, in most narratives, must cut all ties to their mortal life, or else go through an elaborate charade to maintain the facade of humanity, while forever still being removed from it. and the sheer dependence and vulnerability of being in an entirely new state of being, wholly uncertain of what it entails, and relying on another person to define… everything.

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I love antagonists who mirror the protagonist instead of contrast them. They are the most extreme version of the protagonist, someone with the same dreams and beliefs who believed these things could only be achieved by the sharpest tools. The crushing weight of knowing that could be you.

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claudia! <3

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the persistent prevailing myth of louis' incuriosity is one of the most infuriating regurgitations of this fandom

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Tea with Auntie Ethel

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okay but there is something disquieting about this urge to cast fan writers as altruists. they give us all this for free!! well, no.

they’re sharing

it’s a key difference in perception. fic isn’t given. it’s shared. it’s part of a fandom community— in which readers are also an integral part.

it’s probably inevitable mission creep from the increasingly transactional nature of the internet and fandom-as-consumerism, which was always gonna happen after corps worked out how much bank there is to make from those weirdo fan people

but like. fandom is sharing. i think we’ve lost that somewhere.

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I feel like some of you guys think "bad art" is like someone gluing rhinestones to a water melon, or a guy who made his own armchair out of Ohio license plates, or a trashy romance novel where someone says "the blue-eyed one kissed the brown-eyed one," when in reality bad art is a 1000000 Billion Dollar movie where none of the workers got paid and every single creative decision was market tested to see how lucrative of a profit it could foreseeably make to wow shareholders.

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okay i am going feral over this. it's 2023 and no one was going to point out to me that the title doesn't translate to Revolutionary Girl Utena wtf

like. i legitimately never noticed. idk how obvious it is if you're a native Japanese speaker, or if it's actually acceptable grammar to put the adjective after the noun and this is just an alternate way to say Revolutionary Girl, but... growing up with so many "Magical Girl X" shows, "Revolutionary Girl Utena" sounded so normal to me that I never looked at the Japanese.

and like, the French subtitle that they throw in there is la fillette révolutionnaire, which does translate to Revolutionary Girl

but, thinking about it, if it really is that, shouldn't it be "Kakumei Shoujo", not "Shoujo Kakumei"...??

so the reason this has me feral: if it's true, it's yet one more bait-and-switch they threw in there, right up front, and it was in plain sight all this time. caution: heavy spoilers for the plot of the show follow.

so like. it's my opinion that the OP, both song and video, of Utena are an extremely clever bait-and-switch. in that they make one kind of sense going into episode 1, and they make a completely different kind of sense once you've finished the show.

like. when you first watched Utena, and you saw the intro, wasn't it basically exactly what you thought the show was going to be like? two girls having a meet cute, there's duelling, fairy tale elements, Utena is badass, and oh no she's going to have to struggle to hold onto Anthy metaphorically because of the Rose Bride thing, which could tear them apart at any time!

it's delicious, it's dramatic, and it's... not what the show ends up being.

but then you watch episode 39 and you realise. the intro is a complete description of the entirety of the show. two girls meet, they have some cute romantic moments early on, there are duels. Utena fights everyone. the castle collapses. they storm the heavens, Utena on her princely white horse of innocence and ignorance, Anthy on her dark horse of... being the dark horse of the plot, lol. Utena cannot be the one to save Anthy, she both metaphorically and physically cannot lift her out of her burdens, and Utena is left alone, curled up on the ground beneath the self-imposed weight of her defeat.

meanwhile, the song. the song!! going into the show cold, "rinbu revolution" seems like a pretty standard song for someone like Utena. but it's not Utena's song at all. it's Anthy's.

Even if I dream, even if I cry, even if I get hurt... ...reality keeps on coming recklessly. I wanna find out where I am, the value of being me. Gonna take who I've been up till now and find the strength to throw it all away. Strip down to nothing at all. Become like a rose petal blowing free! Even if the two of us are ever torn apart l swear that I will change the world.

who, in the plot, finally accepts the reality of her situation? who starts out lacking self-worth and struggles to eventually carve out, with her own hands, the place where she belongs? who heroically finds the strength to throw it all away, stripping herself of her prior role?

not Utena, who up until the very last clings to her "princely" ideals, into which she has placed all her worth and sense of self. in the last episode it's made clear that she hasn't changed the world one bit, nor brought revolution, as the world quite literally forgets her and goes on without her exactly as it was.

except for Anthy. Anthy remembers Utena, the only one who does, even though they are torn apart. she frees herself, changes her own reality by escaping the cycle of abuse to which she had become conditioned. Utena undoubtedly gave her strength and inspiration, but she could not lift Anthy out of her suffering, and believing she could (and had to) was her downfall.

let go of me, Anthy says, as their hands part, to an Utena who firmly believes that she can only make a difference by playing the hero. i'll go my way. the revolution is hers, not Utena's.

which is why, if the title is purposely misleading, it's so damn brilliant. we start out thinking, "of course! Utena is a revolutionary girl! She wears the boy's uniform* and duels, and she'll surely bring the revolution and save Anthy!" but what occurs is simply a "girl revolution", a Shoujo Kakumei, that is completed by Anthy herself.

*(no she doesn't, it's actually a unique uniform design. neither this nor that but a third thing.)

but maybe we can go deeper.

we know that Utena means calyx, while Anthy means flower. a calyx is the tough, protective outer layer of a flower bud, matching Utena's role in relation to Anthy. once a flower blooms fully, the calyx is no longer needed to protect it, and retracts or withers. i'm not a native Japanese speaker, but from what I have studied, it would seem that "Shoujo Kakumei Utena" could be read as "girl-revolution protector". not the one who brings the revolution, but the one who protects/shields the revolution-bringer, who nurtures Anthy while she is vulnerable. then Utena, the calyx, crumples, and Anthy blossoms in her own time.

and i think that's beautiful.

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The only way out is in

By: Pauline Baynes

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Crying Skeleton with Sword in Hand from Nikkan hagaki.

Artist unknown, Late Meiji era.

source

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thinking about the fairytale aspects of the dubai penthouse...rapunzel reading books in her tower, bluebeard with all his skeletons in the closet (literal and metaphorical), the gingerbeard house that lures a hungry boy reporter into a trap. it's the castle where sleeping beauty waits to be awoken from a 77-year-old sleep, but also the peaceful home blown down by a rough-edged outsider. it's where the boy reporter tries to spin the straw of deception into gold, with the help of a mysterious, body-stealing guardian. it's where the green-eyed princess can sense something under the mattress is making him uncomfortable, but can't say what, it's where a "member of the lesser species" (be it frog or mortal) gets introduced to evolution by one bloody kiss. The penthouse has one singular tree, but is nonetheless a forest of lies and disguises--what big eyes you have, Rashid, what big teeth. The penthouse is a glass coffin, an ice-palace where three cold-hearted children try to spell eternity, an illusion to be broken at the stroke of midnight. it's a story comes to life, and the characters have no option except playing out their roles until the bitter end.