#Also I hope I didn't appear as like directly contradicting or arguing with you or anything

[luna-loveboop]

You can ALWAYS tag me, I love being tagged.

Idk how much you're ok with me adding to your post, and this isn't perhaps fully on topic, but I have one singular thought in response to this that mainly consists of why they don't trust Wild.

It's because he gets so many injuries I think

example-

They are all so concerned look at their faces, gosh

Legend perhaps isn't too bad overall in his actions towards Wild- I mean Wild is the one he chose to go with when the group split the first time (at the beginning of the divine dark reflections arc- I mean they argued but they still chose to go together right?) Mainly it's just that Legend can be a bit rude to everyone. But here's this-

'He's not hurt again is he?' *zooms in on the word again*

It seems like it's a normal event for the Wild child to get injured.

...obviously

Here's some of Jojo's words- I think it's a bit related

'I see him as 'always hurt' because he pulls all the reckless stunts. while the others are more puzzle solvers...'

So basically my thought is this: the others don't view Wild as stupid- they don't see him as an idiot who they need to tie down before he does something idiotic- no, they see him as a hero who gets hurt... a lot. like a lot. And yeah he and Wars are a mess lol

If you care about someone, you don't want them to get hurt. If you see someone getting hurt a lot, you want to keep better track of them to make sure they're safe.

The others do their best, and I think it'd be hard to know how to handle this guy who you care about who is totally chill with jumping off a cliff at any time. In fact, didn't he suggest he climb down a cliff alone as the immediate solution to following the shadow?

Oh my Hylia, he did

Honestly that scene (in the shadow pt. 4 btw) is kind of funny to me with this dynamic-

Wild: *is trying to offer solutions*

The others, immediately: DO NOT CLIMB DOWN THE CLIFF

I love Wild, and it's a big part of his character that he is so creative and stuff- but what else could they do other than shoot down his idea when it consisted of scaling down a freaking cliff alone over a bloodthirsty monster you don't know much about- it was just a really bad idea of his ok.

Also the art and photos is from Jojo @linkeduniverse au :D

I think it's hard for many to not be defensive of Wild right now (most recent update is Central Room pt.4), because of all the drama with whatever is going on with him and Wars, everyone, etc.

But I love them :) I love that their concern is quite legitimate- that they have reasons to see Wild and perhaps treat him a bit differently.

I guess.. I guess you could say... it's because he's... I mean he's a little bit Wild

I am hilarious

:)

hello lu fandom i have started falling back into lu and i have thoughts on wild again

anyways i think that there are a few members of the chain that don't trust wild or give him the ability to demonstrate his own abilities. and i imagine it would be frustrating for wild to constantly be held at arm's length or constantly be yelled at for doing things incorrectly. legend, time, and warriors are the worst for this.

this post by @luna-loveboop (sorry for the tag!) discusses how warriors tends to view wild and how wild acts in response to that. wars has been shown to hold wild to the standard of one of his soldiers, which is not something he does with any of the other links. in turn, wild doesn't really know how to act around or talk to warriors. legend (although he has been shown to joke around with wild from time to time) doesn't seem like he really likes wild much, let alone trusts him. leg's always calling wild things like "crazy" and insinuating that wild is too uncivilized and routinely nitpicks the way he does things. time, right now, is just on edge so he's more of a hardass than usual. he and wild tend to get along well, but i personally tend to headcanon that there's still a lack of trust in there.

i think it can be insulting to wild when he's a hero in his own right, who woke up with nothing one day and was told to save the world. yes, his methods are different from a lot of the others' methods but that's the nature of his game(s). i think the way that legend and warriors routinely treat wild is the most telling and the most likely to cause issues. wild hasn't said anything about this yet. either he doesn't want to cause a problem or he just hasn't noticed.

[virginiaisforvampires]

Like your other anon, i am glad that you pointed out the definitive difference in how Lestat is being portrayed by some. i don't get the desire to have him dressed like a modern day popstar or rather "under-dressed."

If i remember, for his one concert in SF he had on a full cape.

I really, really hope the show keeps more to the book standard rather than the new mindset. But it all goes hand in hand with, depending up on who you are reading, the desire to feminize either Lestat or Louis instead of letting them be what they are.

Also, I thought that Lestat saw his physical beauty as a blessing and a curse. That his vanity was sort of a front, maybe an armor because deep down he felt like a monster.

Maybe that's the connection people are not getting or are ignoring.

Oh, you're hitting upon another glaring issue with this new fandom mindset.

Louis and Lestat are men in a gay relationship. These books have always been queer and yes, Anne uses vampirism as a metaphor, but the prevailing sentiment amongst many old school readers is they finally found a sense of understanding and belonging via these books exactly because they'd be ostracized and discriminated against and hated due to their sexual identity.

The show doesn't shy away from the original queer concept of the books in any way, shape, or form. That's why I'm always borderline disgusted when I see the comments from the minority of readers complaining about the show being "gay" and pretending it's just some new "woke" thing, because NO! The relationships have always been "gay." They've always been "other." The relationships have always transcended societal expectations and traditional gender "norms." That was the entire point as the books continued with vampirism acting as the literal manifestation for queer identity, but some people just didn't understand that, and that brings me to the (new) issue with this.

This new fandom mindset, as you mentioned, this need to feminize Louis or Lestat. This need to push heteronormative stereotypes into a same-sex relationship. This constant need to cast one or the other as "the female" in the relationship.....it is both horrendously homophobic and especially after they've struggled for so long to even barely be recognized as human-beings worthy of the same love and respect as straight people, and it's also erasing one of the main themes of what these books and these characters originally represented — namely giving the queer community actual representation and a source of solace and understanding and philosophical exploration.

That is the problem with this fanon rewrite of Lestat and his relationship with Louis. It directly contradicts with his actual canon characterization as a bisexual male who exhibited mostly masculine traits. One could argue whether Anne handled this correctly, but the fact remains the canon is the canon, and Lestat was not written as this silly and clownish fool who went around acting as "the woman" in his relationships. That's simply not what his character ever was and like I mentioned, he didn't carry himself like how this fandom portrays him and, as innocuous as it might seem, he didn't dress like how this fandom usually claims.

And to your other point — yes. His vanity was never reality for him. It was always a shield and a sign of his deeply embedded trauma from being made to believe his physical appearance and physical abilities were all he had to offer, and that goes back to his adolescence when he became the hunter and the provider for his shitty family, and it was exacerbated when Magnus chose him exactly because of his physical ability — the wolves — and exactly because of his physical appearance — blue eyes and blond hair.

If people would bother to pay attention to the actual text, those moments when it's just Lestat with his thoughts, it reveals everything about his character quite clearly, and there are plenty of moments in which Lestat sees himself as a plain and mediocre being who was merely thrust into a life he never wanted both as a human and as a vampire. He takes the time to describe his misfortunes, but it never comes from a place of feeling he was wronged. No, it comes from such a place of deep self-loathing to the point Lestat feels he deserves all the horrific tragedies that befall him. It all directly contradicts with this fanon portrayal of him as this arrogant and vain bastard only out for himself with a hedonistic worldview.

That is not Lestat at all, and it's a disservice to him and a disservice to Louis and a disservice to the entire premise of their relationship. It's not only jokes or having fun. It's a terrible symptom of a much larger problem within this fandom in that people simply do not understand this material and do not understand how to engage with what it's actually saying. Like I've pointed out before, there is a reason so many of the fanfics are now human AUs. There is a reason Lestat is often depicted as foolish vulgar trash. There is a reason why the homophobic feminization nonsense persists. As I said, it is all symptoms of a larger problem, which is the fact people are just, to be blunt, dumb with zero reading/media comprehension and cannot fathom having the ability to positively(!) engage with such confronting and dark subject matter without having to write out their 10,000 words disclaimers about how this is soooooooo morally wrong and this is soooooooo the morally correct way to interpret XYZ instead of just being like "yeah, XYZ is fucked up and I like XYZ because I realize XYZ is fictional but also because the real world is fucked up too and the fucked up stuff needs representation too."

All of these issues, as you said, go hand-in-hand with the larger most prevalent issue, which is the simple fact people simply do not get it and feel the need to shame the ones who actually do and feel the need to push their own problems/misery into the spotlight as some sort of fandom authority aka their morality fanon and like I've said probably 50+ times by this point, that attitude WILL. NOT. WORK. with this material.