#He's just repressing everything. He's such an unreliable narrator

[add1ctedt0you]

Underappreciated how much worse is for jc that he couldn't kill wwx

[dekusleftsock]

I think that there’s a fundamental misunderstanding of what exactly is…happening with Izuku’s character. Specifically in regards to chapter 425.

I’m glad that a lot more people generally recognize that Izuku is not a character that can be read at a surface level, given that he’s both a repressed person with built up emotion of basically everything and also a very glaringly HUGELY unreliable narrator, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I agree with the ways I’ve seen this most recent chapter spoken about.

I see posts, comments, etc with ideas like “Izuku don’t suppress your emotions! Open up with people! It’ll be okay I promise!” When that’s fundamentally not what is happening here.

There’s always always ALWAYS been a distinct difference in character throughout horikoshi’s writing when he is showing that a character is:

A—Avoiding emotions, thoughts, ideas less than ideal for them. Not opening up when they probably should about their problems given that they’ve been handed the space to do so. Just genuinely not acknowledging, feeling, or expressing emotions that they don’t want.

B—Reflecting on the ways they feel about the world, themselves, or other people given their new perspective on a situation. Not outright reaching out to others to talk about these problems/feelings, but instead waiting until the moment they feel they have the most confidence to do so with their new outlook on their own life.

And genuinely, guys, to grab your BkDk attention rn, this is the exact reason why Ochako’s reflection on her feelings for Izuku and thereafter decision to pull away from them WAS NEVER GOING TO END IN OCHAKO EXPLODING WITH HER LOVE FOR HIM.

This was another common interpretation I saw of Ochako and Izuocha for a long time. That because she pushed these feelings away, they were somehow going to explode in this unbelievable way and she would “get the boy” because of it. That her arc would surround accepting her romantic feelings and that she can’t just push away how she feels for a career.

But yk. That didn’t happen. At all. Nowhere close even.

The same kind of goes for Katsuki, allmight, etc. They all had moments in their arc where it was spent genuinely reflecting, and the only reason we as the audience never connected it in the same ways we do ochako or Izuku was ALWAYS BECAUSE the narrative showed their inner thoughts while doing so (mostly because Allmight’s arc after losing OFA and Katsuki’s arc on what it means to be a hero were so intrinsically tied, both starting at the same time and ending at the same time during the final war. And because they were so tied this caused their own reflections, development, and thought process to be broadcasted to us frequently throughout their arcs… to each other. They also somewhat shared aspects with Izuku, but these were cherry picked more often than not, like dvk2 for example).

To us Katsuki never seemed to be.. idk, suppressing his anger in any way because we were always told what he was doing and why (side note: this is why I’ve always thought arguments against Katsuki were so weird, bc unlike characters like endeavor or Ochako he wasn’t like… hiding who he was and how he was changing. Ever. Like the audience knows at all times past basically season 3 what Katsuki is thinking and doing. Like how do you watch this happen, stare me dead in the eye, and tell me how much of a terrible and awful teenage boy he is. Like damn I didn’t think we were this dumb. This is also my theory as to why he’s most popular, his arc is very… in your face if that makes sense). Katsuki’s entire mini arc on reflecting his mistakes and his childhood and his future is spent TELLING YOU that it’s what he’s doing. (I’m referring mostly to the endeavor internship arc, the provisional license exam makeup, and basically everything in the war arc related to him leading up to bakugou Katsuki rising here)

And see, Horikoshi will stare you dead in the eye, tell you “this girl has taken into consideration that she doesn’t want to waste her time training her career focusing on a boy because he kinda caught her fancy”, and y’all will still say that this will explode in her face.

Y’all this is a series about learning how to manage emotions, maturity in relationship to one’s emotions, how to feel an emotion, but in a way that is helpful. Horikoshi isn’t telling you “go buck wild, feel everything all the time and always express it”, in fact he explores why you DONT do that! Through Toga or Shigaraki, they show how grief and anger can genuinely consume you. But he also shows why you shouldn’t just put everything in a box to never look at or acknowledge, or why you shouldn’t just let your grief destroy the world around you, or pretending that some emotions simply don’t exist.

I can’t say this enough, so let me say it now, mha is about the extremes of your psyche. That you should control something, but not too much. Everything can be harmful. Everything can be good.

Izuku is not controlling too much, he’s expressing just enough.

I LOVE shaming this dickhead at all times in all my posts. I love saying he’s an ignorant dipshit with a weird amount of distaste for a girl who just confessed to him. I’ve joked that chapter 348 is basically an entire chapter spent on Izuku calling Himiko a mean dyke. And yet I also believe he’s doing nothing WRONG here.

In fact, I’ll even say that this moment right here?

ISNT EVEN IZUKU DOING THE SOCIALLY APPROPRIATE THING ABOUT IT! But he’s still TRYING to reach out to someone he thinks MIGHT be able to understand. (And frankly, this moment is far deeper than what it’s being made out to be, to me it reads more like an unrequited friendship that Izuku both desires and has thought of them to have, while simultaneously showing the distance Ochako has successfully wedged between them for her own sake. Maybe it was always there though, maybe in weird, miscommunicated Horikoshi fashion, this is a representation of how Ochako always read all those “fun friend hangouts” as a little more than that, and without those feelings the friendship never really held any substance to her in the first place. Where Izuku saw his first real friend at UA, she saw little more than acquaintance)

Simultaneously, Izuku is genuinely reflecting on what it means for the world to change, to be a hero, to live after loss—and trying and failing to gain the connection he desires from individuals who can not and will not afford him that.

Izuku is ready for the world to change, a few select characters are also ready for the world to change (mirio, for example), but not nearly enough are. So maybe I’ll have to take this back if I’m proven wrong and I accidentally looked into this far past what everyone else did for no reason, but I genuinely believe with moments like this

And this

Aand this

That Izuku has come forward with that aspect of his character development. He’s reflecting on his new beliefs, not repressing his emotions for them.

[autolenaphilia]

This coffingame preview video dropped in the last progress report. And it does disprove one minor point of mine in this post of mine "Neither Julia or Ashley are likely to have shared [the abusive voicemails] with Andrew." I was wrong, turns out Julia sure did do that.

Still I think my argument still stands that the voicemails accurately describe Andrew's feelings towards Julia and Ashley. The voicemail described in the preview video seems to be even more on point than the dream ones:

Like everything we see from Andrew in the game confirms that is the truth of it. He wants to fuck Ashley, dating Julia is just for appearances sake. Ashley knows her brother better than anyone else, but as this video confirms, even relative strangers at high school can tell that there is incestous vibes here.

And the rest of the video confirms what else I said about Andrew. Like how Andrew's reacts to Ashley's graphic description of Julia being killed with looking "like someone is listing him the groceries." That's because he doesn't care about Julia, if she lives or dies as long as he isn't made responsible for it. He would kill her himself if it was in his interest and he thought he could get away with it.

What does however make him upset is the suggestion that he wants to fuck his sister, because it's true and he is repressing, so it's his biggest sore point. Yet his mask keeps slipping, so much so that rumors about him and Ashley exist (even if they haven't actually went that far because of Andrew's repression).

So he snaps at Julia because of it, overreacts to the rather mild things she says. The mere reminder that there are rumors and from the outside it might look like the rumors are true, even if Julia says she doesn't believe the incest rumors, is enough to make him fly off the handle.

And as Andrew makes explicit, the fact that it's Julia bringing it up makes it especially bad. She is part of the mask of normalcy he wears, to hide his incestous feelings, so it's especially bad that she might figure him out.

His loss of composure makes the mask slip again for a moment. And then he uses blatant manipulation to smooth over it. He twists the truth of the conversation to make himself look like the victim and the woman as the aggressor. This is what he regularly does, he is manipulative and an unreliable narrator who twists the truth to make himself look innocent. Here it's just more obvious because he is lying about events that took place literally seconds ago.

Julia literally never said she thinks this. He is lying about what she said to look like the victim.

This piece of shit does want to fuck his sister though, that part is true. Poor Julia. I'm glad we are getting her perspective on this.

[oshinohoshi]

In which I ramble about an Oshi no Ko mystery

To this day I am haunted by the question: How many members of the Ai Hoshino fan club were present when Ai gave birth/Gorou died and what where they doing there anyway?

In case you forgot who the Ai fan club members are, their names and ages at the time:

Founding member Hikaru Kamiki (15)

Vilest member of the year 3x award winner Ryosuke Sugano (18)

Most talented and sexually repressed member Nino Fuyuko (somewhere around Ai's age of 16)

Let's address who was there

Tsukuyomi told Ruby in ch 79 that on the night Gorou died, a college student and a middle school boy were present: Ryosuke and Hikaru.

However, in ch 160 according to Hikaru's statement and a flashback, Ryosuke and Nino were present.

So what gives? Was Nino there? Was Hikaru there? A few possibilities:

Tsukuyomi lied - I don't think so. She exists to explain the plot and pester the twins. Therefore, Ryosuke and Hikaru were there

Hikaru lied about Nino's presence and/or his knowledge of Gorou's death - There's really no reason to falsely add Nino to the story. As for Gorou, Hikaru is something of an unreliable narrator in ch 160. He said some things that are true - like the fact he technically didn't stab anyone or push them off a cliff lol - and at least one thing that was untrue - that he never thought of hurting anyone, to which Aqua replied that he wanted to hurt Ruby or at the very least made no effort to protect her from Nino. Personally, I think everything Hikaru said except for his statement about not wanting to hurt anyone is true, but this is up to interpretation. My reason for thinking this besides that I'm still clinging to the man he was before his character assassination in the final chapters is that the vibe Hikaru gives off is telling Aqua truths that are basically lies by omission.

Tsukuyomi didn't mention Nino because it's irrelevant to pushing Ruby into revenge against Hikaru* and from a story perspective, it allows the Nino twist to happen later. Also, Hikaru never actually said he wasn't present.

*Why did Tsukuyomi prod Ruby into revenge? I DON'T KNOW. DO WE KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT ANYTHING? NOT REALLY.

Anyway, point #3 is the most sensical to me. Therefore, all members of the Scooby-Doo gang were present.

What were they doing there?

Unfortunately, we're in the land of pure speculation. I would discount that Ryosuke had murderous intentions. Trying to sneak into a hospital to kill Ai and make it out undetected is just silly.

Ryosuke may have been there to verify Hikaru's story or simply because he's an obsessive stalker. Nino either had similar reasons or was dragged along for the ride.

Hikaru would likely have been there with the intention of meeting Ai. He just wasn't brave enough to do so. He may have wanted Ryosuke present for moral support or because an adult can do things like rent a car in a small town and attract less attention wandering around a hospital alone.

Does it matter?

Kind of? I guess it matters whether Hikaru knew Ryosuke had murdered someone when he sent him to see Ai. I think that even though Hikaru was present, he didn't know. Personally, I don't think a brokenhearted and fragile 15 year old was capable of manipulating others but that's up for the reader to decide.

It also matters to me because I was eagerly waiting for this to be cleared up. Would it have killed Akasaka to just make such things clear? I have a Nino/Ai fic to write. I need to know.

Final questions

Did Nino always wear cute hats? Did Ryosuke own anything other than hoodies? Yet one more thing Akasaka left up to interpretation.

[hero-deserves-to-be-happy]

Hero is doomed to be seen as "perfect" by the narrative because Sunny is an unreliable narrator who idolizes him and because Hero, himself, constantly and purposefully hides his struggles.

Since Hero has a more docile personality, doesn't like to be the center of attention, and is terrified of burdening others with his problems, we never really get to have the opportunity in-game to dive into his actual motivations and the depths of his grief and pain that he works incredibly hard to repress and keep hidden from everyone including Sunny (and, by proxy, the player of the game who is following Sunny's point of view).

As a result, we only see what Sunny sees: on the surface, Hero really does appear to be perfect.

More thoughts under the cut. (Warnings: OMORI spoilers and heavy topics including grief, trauma, and guilt)

After several segments of gameplay spent with the idealized "Headspace Hero" who is superhumanly perfect and adored to an almost outlandish degree, it almost feels like a self-fulfilling prophecy that we first meet "Real World Hero" when he jumps into the lake in the Faraway Park to save Basil and Sunny from drowning. Despite the fact that Sunny has already been shown to be an unreliable narrator given the fact that there are some major differences between some of the characters in Headspace and in the Real World (Aubrey especially), it is easy to ignore this when it comes to Hero at first because it is so understandable why Sunny sees him this way.

Hero is selfless, kind, compliant, docile, and generous. He consistently prioritizes the feelings of the other characters around him, is the first to try to understand where Aubrey is coming from (even though she just pushed Basil into a lake), and he doesn't even think twice before jumping into a murky body of water fully-clothed to save his friends. He jumps in (no pun intended) immediately to save the day, and so, naturally, from Sunny's perspective, Hero is still this amazing older brother figure he looked up to in his childhood.

Additionally, from the outside looking in, Hero appears relatively well-adjusted all things considered. He is incredibly successful and accomplished with a room filled with trophies and awards and has just returned from university where he is pursuing a difficult degree in medicine. Even if Sunny is just comparing Hero to himself, he would likely be impressed and amazed by the fact that Hero at least appears to be living his life and achieving so many things while Sunny has been so grief-stricken by the loss of Mari that he could not leave his house or do much of anything for the past four years.

There are some indications that Hero is not doing nearly as well as he seems (i.e. Kel's account of the one (1) fight they had after Mari passed away and the fact that Hero has never visited Mari's gravesite--refusing to visit even as recently as the 2nd day in the Real World), but these are easily overlooked by Sunny because Hero does not seem to exhibit any outward signs of trauma or internal turmoil or distress like Basil or Aubrey. Hero is very good at hiding his pain which means it is difficult for Sunny to see—which makes it difficult for us, who are following Sunny's perspective in the game to see it as well. We only get to see what Hero wants us to see which is, honestly, not much since Hero doesn't like attention.

Hero isn't a perfectionist in the traditional sense, but he wants to appear "perfect" to reassure his loved ones that they don't need to worry about him. Everything about the way Hero presents himself to the world screams, "I'm okay. Please don't worry about me." If he can really appear to be perfect, Hero believes he will never be a burden on anyone. It's all fake adjustment, fake healing, and fake happiness--fabricated because he's terrified of hurting or burdening anyone he loves with his struggles, but it's convincing.

In one of the most heart-wrenching scenes in the game, Hero drops everything to comfort Sunny at Mari's piano in the middle of the night. He does such a good job at supporting Sunny that one could truly believe that Hero really has found healing and made his peace with Mari's death...until Sunny returns through the door to find Hero crying alone. And that's the real Hero: the young man who buries his pain and pushes it aside in attempt to take care of everyone else. No matter how much he may hide his struggles, they're always there under the surface. Hero is always one piano, one visit to Sunny's old house, one mention of Mari away from tears. He just desperately doesn't want anyone to know.

Taking a step back to think about Hero's greatest strengths in this context, also reveals his greatest weaknesses. His selflessness brings with it a fear of burdening others which prevents him from really opening up to anyone. His generosity leads him to struggle setting boundaries. His complacency and easy-going nature can stem from an extreme avoidance to conflict of any kind which, in turn, makes it hard for him to advocate for himself and his own needs and to express his emotions, particularly negative ones.

It suddenly makes sense why the boy who seems to succeed at everything is only "most improved" when it comes to debate. He doesn't debate. He can't. He can't stick up for himself or express his own thoughts, wants, or desires. He will always acquiesce to someone else in order to keep the peace and make them happy, even if it's at his own expense.

Hero will always, always put himself last which causes him to bury his grief, suffering, and trauma so deeply that no one is allowed to see the pain he is actually in. Unfortunately, "no one" includes the game player as well. We get small glimpses of it, but it's so subtle and so buried, that, just like Sunny, it's easy to get caught up in this idea of "perfect Hero" and struggle to understand that there is so much more to him that just that.

[nalyra-dreaming]

Hello!!

I think the finale has left many of the Fandom wondering what is true and what isn't.

I kinda wish they had made some things a bit clearer myself.

Especially in regards to the trial we can't really know Armands motivations and mindset or lestats for that matter.

Even the cast confuses us a little with their responses ( Assad saying armand was also forced but how so? Lestat and armand together could easily overpower the coven)

To what extent were louis memories manipulated? Armand only admits one: louis sun attempt, so for the rest we are forced to wonder, louis crying over lestats body, repressed memory from grief or edited?

Lestat in the trial and the tower? Real or not real? And louis never picks up on it again.

It leaves us with a sense of disorientation to say the least. 😅

They said in an interview that 80-90% of what Louis remembers is true. That sounds nice at first.

But those 10-20% of your life being just… false, edited or just gone?! That makes a fifth of your life simply…. untrustworthy. For LOUIS, too. And this is not making Louis a “liar“, no, it’s even worse than an unreliable narrator in a way. Worse for him, too, imho.

He does not know what is missing or wrong. Which parts.

In a way he has to start out anew from hereon out and… we will have to do something similar. Again, not saying that Lestat won’t lie or that we should just point blank believe anything he narrates.

But as has pointed out by Rolin we are leaving memory and POVs now (for something else).

I would have also preferred to have more clarity at the end of s2. Because I think it hasn’t quite sunk in for some that what we saw is indeed, a tale.

A (deliberately) falsified tale. One used to paint a certain picture of Lestat.

Oh not everything is false. But we wouldn’t have had so many discussions about the “real Lestat“ (by cast and writers, too) if there weren’t changes incoming with s3.

Rolin said we had seen 80% of Lestat… which makes me think those memories, too, might be 80% accurate.

Given what we know is not accurate (already) … makes the deliberately skipped parts all the more interesting, too, doesn’t it^^

[dotthings]

6.14 isn't among the strongest S6 eps but it sure does have some meat on it concerning unreliable narrators with Dean and his self-perception. Shoutout back to the "truth" he spoke to Veritas, which was *a* truth, because Dean believed it, but it wasn't The Truth, it drew from his fears and perceptions about himself, when he said he's nothing but a killer.

In 6.14 after Sam collapses from hell memories, Dean tries to give him advice about why he shouldn't explore his Soulless Sam past any further, because it is dangerous for Sam due to the memory wall protecting him. Which, Dean has a point. When Sam asks how to deal with it, then, Dean says "you shove it down and let it come out in spurts of violence and alcoholism."

Dean is expressive on a regular basis and doesn't shove stuff down nearly as hard as Dean would like to pretend he does. But there are also grains of truth--we've seen Dean use alcohol as a coping mechanism and we've seen him bottle things for a time and then do tearful confessions or outbursts of grief or fear or anger.

Dean's self-perception tells him he's nothing but a repressed, alcoholic mess, but he's not in fact repressed since he is loud about his feelings at almost all times, while he tries to "shove it down" but he's just so bad at it.

The scene between Dean and Ben!! The walking talking heartache that is Dean Winchester!!

"I think my job turns me into somebody who can't sit at your dinner table. And if I stayed, you'd end up just like me" "Why do you say it like you're so bad?"

"Trust me, I'm not someone you wanna aim to be."

Dean cannot see himself through Ben's eyes. And yet again, this isn't actually some deep core Truth, it's *a* truth because this is how Dean sees it and how he sees himself inherently. If he'd spoken about the dangers of his life and why that concerns him if monsters came home and put his loved ones at risk, that wouldn't be unreliable narrator and about Dean's self perception, those are real issues Dean and Lisa would have to seriously consider if they continued a long-term relationship while Dean hunts. But he doesn't say that. He says what he says. Like he's tainted. Like he's bad. Like he could ruin the Braedens just by being around. Nothing but a killer. Unfit to be with them.

He loves them and they love him, even if Dean/Lisa isn't an epic romance, they still care for each other as people, and Dean and Ben formed a bond, Ben is one of several kids over the course of the series Dean takes on a paternal role with, willingly and lovingly.

Ben is a perceptive, sensitive kid who cares a lot about Dean and he's not having with it.

"You're a liar, Dean."

"Excuse me?"

"You say family's important. But what do you call people who care for you, who love you even when you're a dick? You know you're walking out on your family, right?"

He's a kid so he doesn't understand completely, and he's hurt by Dean leaving. So he is lashing out. But he is perceptive in understanding that what Dean's saying doesn't add up.

Whatever people ship or don't. One of spn's biggest themes is about family and the different ways family forms. The reason Lisa and Ben matter isn't because it's suburbia and "the apple pie life" it's because they became like family for Dean and he loves them. And the reason he loses them from his life isn't actually hunting, it's his self-perception issues, it's his perception that he can't have that and doesn't deserve them, that they're so much better off without him. He sells that narrative to himself and everything spirals from that.

Yes there are dangers to Dean's life, and he and the Braedens would have to have serious talks about it. But isn't it interesting, the rigid thinking involved to dismiss the Braedens as impossible, "oh, the Braedens can't stick around and they can't be family, this is all fake, Dean doesn't love them, he doesn't want any of this." He actually does. He wants to hunt but he also wants the connection he had with the Braedens. Both things can be true and I really appreciate S6 showing it's all part of Dean, it's sincere and real and part of who he is. It's not that he doesn't want to hunt. Hunting also makes him miserable, it's traumatic, Dean has said throughout the series, since early seasons, how traumatic it is, and how miserable, he also wants to hunt, both things can be true.

But it's not a simple binary where hunting is all he wants, hunting is all he needs, where there is no tragedy or sadness in Dean's yearning for other things and his perception that he can't have it and isn't worthy of anything outside of the hunt, the kill.

At the end of the episode as Sam and Dean commiserate, Dean says "all we do is make a mess." *cries in Dean Winchester*

[sanderssidesthehouse]

Remus is my favorite side and I am collecting people's opinions about him. For the bingo?

-Birch

Hiya, Birch! Consider my opinion collected!

Circle size represents how much I resonate with or feel confidently about an answer.

Going to address the not liking him as a person (vs adoring him as a character) before I go any further. Just like, if I knew a person who acted like him irl (which would probably be a neglected 13 y/o) I wouldn't really like them. Wouldn't necessarily hold it against them, but understanding someone and/or wanting to help someone is not the same as liking them. Sides aren't exactly comparable to people, though.

I think about Remus so frequently. My absolute favorite we've seen of him was WTIT. It definitely gave us more to work with, particularly with how much he hates being ignored. Bc like, yeah he's a side and he needs to be able to do his function, but his function and subsequently himself have been repressed which has warped everything and tbh I'd act like that too.

I NEED him and Roman to work together bc wtf. I need them both to be mad bc like we're going to have to address at some point why there are two sides that manage Creativity? Um? But skipping past that bc we are where we are, they should be able to work together. Also going to link a post I made about creativitwins bc it's too long to quote here which has more of my thoughts about Remus's job as part of Creativity.

Remus is literally an alarm. He shows up when things are bad... And makes them worse, but!!!!! He's a clue to get to the root problem. Also, as someone who suffers from disturbing and upsetting intrusive thoughts, I'd love to see dealing with Remus through creation, bc honestly him having a hold of Creativity is perfect. One way to get through intrusive thoughts is the mindful meditation technique, another is by ejecting them via art/writing. I think that would be fun.

Some people think Remus is annoying. And? As is his right? No, but seriously, he's been neglected up until we see him appear, suppressed except for where his influence slips out, honestly, he could be MORE annoying if he wanted. Get their asses.

One characterization I see people give him is that he doesn't care, but if nothing else, there is one thing he absolutely has to care about: c!Thomas. I mentioned this in my unreliable narrator post in relation to Janus, but it stands for all of them: “Sides of Thomas will always seek to perform their duties to help Thomas.” I don't believe the sides can purposely seek to hurt c!Thomas. They're not people, they're part of a person.

Speaking of that post, I'm just going to copy paste my Remus paragraph bc I can:

And last we have Remus. This guy. Beautiful boy. All about being brutally honest except he’s just not lying. Except for when he is. I swear he just says stuff recreationally and like, me too, but at least I admit it. He’s got that Brennan Lee Mulligan 'I will die on any hill’ vibe methinks. The problem is that he says the actual profound truths in the same tone he does the shitposts so no one takes it seriously. And I swear to you this is on purpose, I can’t prove it, but tell me honestly you don’t think that’s something he’d do. Rat bastard.

Idk if I've said everything I wanted to. I've probably said enough for this post, though. As always, feel free to tag on or ask questions or whatever else!

[pynkhues]

Really interesting point about Louis often minimising his actions and painting himself in better light while telling his tale. The problem is, that a large part of fandom tend to take everything he says at face value without critical thinking. Upon rewatching, I've noticed the disparities between Louis' voiceover and what's actually shown on the screen. The most jarring example would be Louis claiming he was being hunted and the next shot we see is Lestat looking at him with utter adoration lol. It's obvious that there was nth predatory about their courting.

There's one thing i can't stop wondering (and sorry if you talked about this before): in 1.03 Louis tells Daniel that because of his diet his libido was nonexistent and that was the reason why he wasn't having sex with Lestat and let his indulgence with Antoinette happen. However, later he was quiet eager and had no problem getting it up for Jonah. If he barely could hold a book how he was capable of having sex? I believe his libido was lower but he clearly wasn't impotent. Imo, the main reason why he wasn't having sex with Lestat- but did with Jonah- was because he was blaming him for "taking his life" and wanted to punish him by witholding sex and affection. He was also rejecting his vampirism and by extension Lestat.

I also wouldn't be surprised if once he started eating people again he also had sex with some of his victims like he did in S2, he just didn't mention it to Daniel. Apparently feeding flings are common for vampires and i don't think that neither of them would consider it cheating. Basically, I don't agree with the fandom opinion that Louis is more monogamous than Lestat and Armand. I think you're right and they all are sluts haha.

Lestat and Louis' courtship is definitely a good example of Louis framing something in a way that's both technically true yet articulated in a way that paints a less-than-generous picture. Like, I think there is a sort of element of a hunt in the way Lestat doggedly pursues Louis with the intent of getting him fall in love with him, haha, but it's a sort of hunt you'd probably use interchangably with the word chase or pursue. The use of the actual word hunt itself calls to mind a predator and prey in a way the other two don't, which isn't necessarily reflective of the dynamic that's happening on screen, like you said.

The word choice is such a deliberate one, and I think does a really good job of establishing Louis as an unreliable narrator. After all, the very nature of the interview being Louis recounting chapters of his life means that he's endlessly informed by everything that's happened afterwards. In a lot of ways, Louis needs to not just paint the picture that Lestat's a monster, but feel that he's one, because Louis needs to justify his own actions in the wake of that both to Daniel and to himself. He needs Lestat to be a predator so that he gets to be prey, and therefore blameless in all the carnage, because if that's not the case, if it's not their dynamic, then Louis is ultimately accountable too.

But yes! Agreed that the restricted diet / animal blood alone wasn't making Louis impotent - which Jonah is evidence of - although I do think it definitely would've impacted his sex drive. I agree with both your thoughts that it stems from Louis punishing Lestat, both for taking his life and I'd say for cheating on him in the first place, and as a manifestation of this rejection of his vampirism that Lestat is the physical embodiment of.

I'd add to it too that I think the withdrawal wasn't just a punishment and rejection of Lestat, but I think in some ways it was a punishment and rejection of himself too. Louis didn't want to open up their relationship initially, and I think the scene where he asks if he's enough is really telling of the deeper insecurity Louis has in his relationship with Lestat. Louis struggles with his sense of self, and at that point in the series had enormous issues of internal repression and external oppression when it came to both his race and his sexuality.

In a lot of ways, that feels partially aggravated by his relationship with Lestat, because their relationship being interracial adds - especially in that era, but arguably still now - its own degree of social taboo even outside of Louis being gay and Black.

In that sense, Antoinette, and Lestat's relationship with her, feels uniquely built to point out everything that's publicly quote-unquote 'wrong' about his and Lestat's own relationship. She's a woman, he's a man, she's white, he's Black, she's straight, he's gay, and together she and Lestat are a heterosexual, white, socially acceptable couple, while together he and Lestat are a queer, interracial, socially unacceptable couple.

Add to that Antoinette and Lestat having a shared language both in their whiteness and in music, which I talked about here, I think Louis withdrawing in intimacy and affection from Lestat was - on top of being punishing and a rejection - manifested by his own deeply held insecurities around what his and Lestat's relationship is. After all, if Lestat still wants her - if he still wants that - when he's with Louis, what's to say that he won't one day decide that the ease of that is worth more than the struggle of it with Louis?

I can absolutely see that having an impact on Louis' sexuality with Lestat, and I don't think it was coincidental that he's able to consumate with a man he shared his own language and identity with being both Black and gay, instead of with his white, bisexual husband.

[hvtmessxpress]

I finished kiseki: dear to me last week and chen yi and ai di have me in a chokehold. No one I know has watched it so I'm gonna word vomit here lol.

I was honestly really surprised at how differently I view chen yi and ai di than most other people here and on twitter. Most people are really sympathetic to ai di, which is valid, but I think we're missing chen yi's pov in all this?

Starting with the birthday thing. The whole thing is a breakdown of communication. Was it ever really specified that they'd spend each birthday alone? I think it's very possible that chen yi also felt rejected by ai di's refusal to attend the boss's birthday party for them every year. Now, that doesn't negate the fact that he could have spent time with ai di after, or gotten him gifts.

I'm also not sure chen yi actually had a crush on the boss. It's very possible, and that was ai di's understanding, but it may not be true. To me, getting an extremely similar tattoo isn't a sign of liking someone, but instead a sign of wanting to BE that person. Chen yi may be confused, but to me, all signs point to him wanting to be the person his boss is. Like zerui said, there is a difference between love and admiration and it's unclear if chen yi could tell the difference

Another thing people forget about is that, for years chen yi had just thought of ai di as his little brother. I believe that there was some very real panic on chen yi's end when he realized his feelings were changing. I've read posts about how people thing chen yi kissing ai di in ep6 as him using ai di as a substitute and i'm like ????. Like y'all, chen yi know who he's kissing. Mans probably had a breakdown after that bc he's realizing that subconsciously, he doesn't see ai di as his annoying little brother anymore. And then he repressed that and tried to act like everything was fine (which it really wasn't). He probably thought his possessiveness over ai di was completely normal before all this.

All of their problems boil down to a complete and utter lack of communication. It's apparent that ai di did everything in his power to hide his feelings for chen yi, so how was he supposed to know? Also ai di leaving after what happened in ep9 is completely absurd to me. Esepcially with that note. Like you were so convinced one thing was going to happen you didn't leave space for any other possibility. I understand ai di was 18 then, and that's 100% 18 year old behavior but still.

We get a lot more of ai di's pov than chen yi's, which is likely why public opinion skews towards him, but I really do feel like there's more to the story than the feelings and opinions of such an unreliable narrator.

[morally-gray101]

no.1: dickieboy oldman

First impressions: he's nothing like me. he's a weird narrator, unreliable and all this account take on this dreamlike take of what happened. i mean seriously, his account of everything is almost a decade after the events and it's idealised and confusing, chock full of timeskips.

But. he's an incredibly written unreliable narrator. he leaves out key details, (like the fact he was drunk off his ass half the time) (or on drugs) and just really. he lets his own bias get in the way of everything. he still loves bunny and charles (charles somewhat less because he actually hurt someone he "cared" about) because he's a white man from california in the eighties. he doesn't care that they're but abusive hateful people because their prejudices don't actively hurt him. even though they harmed his friends.

and furthermore he kind of indulges in the same prejudices. he feels violent urges towards camilla (though it was really a passing remark and he doesnt act on them as charles does) and his internalised homophobia inhibits his relationship with francis whenever he's confronted with francis' gayness all over again. (although francis was flirting with him the entire time. so that may be a moot point.) so yeah. he's definitely a narrator alright.

the way he interacts with people is interesting because he feels the urge to lie about. well. everything to do with his past. and so he doesn't really HAVE a relationship with people until they realise he's penniless. which they notice pretty quickly. (even bunny does) (ie making fun of his offbrand ties etc etc) as the people around him spend mroe time with him and realise that Richard Papen is actually poor, they start treating him like a person.

Richard has a very distinct and interesting way of interacting with his friends individually. he builds up a distinct way to build rapport with each of them. (reassuring charles that he is liked, listening to francis and taking him to the doctors etc) because not only does he have a deep seated need to be like, BUT he wants these people to stick with him for life. he wants them to want him.

but onto the reason i wrote this. hes fuckin gay. the way he describes men is just out of this world. henry is described like he's a god. francis is beautiful and untouchable. charles is an all american dream. and camilla. is constantly described as boyish and looking exactly like charles. which means he's attracted to charles by proxy. he literally kisses francis back in the kitchen. he would've got on his knees for henry had he the chance. he was literally a charles apologist. he was so repressed it hurts my heart. he just didn't like women the way he described men. he wanted to grow old with francis in the countryside. camilla was the closest he was going to get to a man.

he's toeing the line between bicon and gay bastard but god does he walk it hard. he does it for us. i love and hate his junkie ass.

[mikkeneko]

#the thing is with sy...#he is the most unreliable narrator you can find#when you interact with a media you have to pay attention to the subtext#with svsss narrated by sy it is even more true! you can't just accept everything he perceives!#you have to take everything he is thinking about himself with a grain of salt!#he is extremely repressed and traumatized! he is oblivious! he doesn't understand that he Is Being Perceived#whatever you read about sy FROM SY you can't trust in it! you have to understand it from the subtext#you have to read between the lines! - via @i-will-cry-you-a-river

This! Shen Yuan so consistantly fails to realize that He Is Being Perceived. For so long he persistently believed he is still a Reader who is Outside The Story and thus, cannot either genuinely affect it or be affected by it.

And he's very, very wrong.

It really is unfortunate that shen yuan being an unreliable narrator often makes people misunderstand his character. "Shen Yuan was lazy and stole shen jiu's cultivation." In truth, Shen jiu's cultivation was extremely unstable and he was far behind all the other peak lords.

It was shen yuan who entered the caves right after unlocking the ooc function and cultivated in seclusion for several months.

In short:

[nalyra-dreaming]

I've seen more than 1 fan insisting now that the purpose of the 'revisits' will be to make Lestat look even worse/more violent, but honestly?? what would be the point?? I'll be so confused if they return to major scenes from s1 just to reiterate the exact same points they made first time round. The revisits will fall so flat unless they provide new and/or surprising info (and no act of violence from Lestat is going to shock the audience much at this point). What do you think?

Yeah that doesn’t fly and just proves that those fans know nothing about the Chronicles, sorry 🤷🏽‍♀️

But let us let Jacob answer:

Maybe Anne Rice didn't fully know what their relationship was at first - the style is very different in the first book. Lestat is this kind of goblin monster torturing Louis. But when you look back with the context from further books, you see this man was just very repressed and so hurt by what happened between him and Lestat that he couldn’t acknowledge him as his lover, as his partner, as his great love.

Interview from today.

This is what book readers have been pointing out again and again and again. The longing starts in the second half of IWTV and then it just rollercoasters from there until they END UP MARRIED.

Jacob Anderson and Rolin Jones at FYC Emmy Panel: “Season 2 will change the way you see everything in Season 1.” Rolin Jones on the AMC Podcast: “Stick with Lestat.” Rolin Jones in 1x07 Episode Insider: “I think there has been a story that has been told to Louis that Louis told to himself that maybe Armand has told to him, too. This is a major player out there, folks! This is the leader of a coven of vampires.” Rolin Jones at SDCC Panel: “Louis is an unreliable narrator.” And in show: Daniel to Louis in 1x07: “Was it raining, Louis?�� (the tale unravels at the end of episode 7….)

Yeah, no, I don't see that.

Season 3 will be the Vampire Lestat.

And Lestat IS one of the main players of the Vampire Chronicles and they are getting married in the end.

Can you, in all seriousness, imagine that happening if it was worse.

Which, like, would totally contradict the books.

"And because we're adapting the whole of the Vampire Chronicles and taking things from later books..."

They're doing he books. It's in the books.

[faebriel]

I would love you rambling abt your double life fic..

then ramble i shall nonnie!! :D scottpearl is so deranged i love them

both scott and pearl (it's more evident on scott's end because he's the pov character) are torn between bitterness and wanting. pearl is much more open with is - her want is present tense, while scott firmly considers his as past. she wants, he wanted.

but you can tell he cares (not in like, a positive compassionate way necessarily, but that pearl bothers him) in these brief flashes where he can't even suppress the hurt in his own head. there's a sickly kind of resentment to scott throughout his own telling of the events (or at least there's supposed to be lol) - it's not entirely unjustified because pearl has hurt herself to hurt scott in the past, but yeah. it's kind of like she's almost always on his mind, but he's just swallowing those thoughts up when they unsettle the 'comfort' he's found for himself. (also, scott has won one of these games before - it's strategic for him to keep note of what's going on with her even when they're not allied. especially because they're not allied.)

The thought is tempting. Too tempting. Tempting enough to bring Scott pause as he feeds his goats, eyes searching for somewhere to lay himself to rest before he summons up the common sense to tell them not to – they fall upon a suspiciously soft-looking mound of grass, right by the ranch’s borders, the kind threaded with tallgrasses and spotted with little flowers. It sits innocuously in a beam of sunshine, just warm enough to be cosy without making him sweat.

it's more of an implication than a theme per se but i think pearl subconsciously drawing scott closer to death (when she's not actively trying to freeze his and also her fingertips off) is a fun idea to play with. i mean, scott kind of mocks the curse in his internal narration when pearl and ren mention it, but he does subconsciously link her to letting his guard down and death. and is that because pearl is cursed? or is it just something the others believe so hard they manifest it into truth? anyway i love unreliable narrators and the worlds they live in

but yeah. scott does this weird thing where he resents pearl for getting herself hurt and waltzes over to her vase to tell her off and is snippy and rude but then just starts. cooking her soup. "you look awful," he tells her, sweeping her shit off the bench so he can cook. "go to bed." tells her that her base looks like shit while clucking over her spending so much time in the snow that she gets sick. he's sick of her but there's a very small part of him that's been extremely repressed (after she abandoned him, thanks) which feels bad for her.

Does he feel bad for her? Maybe a little, in the same way he feels bad for a drenched, feral cat hissing and spitting at him as he walks past. The kind of feral cat that has rabies, lethargic and clingy but foaming at the mouth. Their bite is poison. You’re not supposed to go near them. Scott doesn’t go near them.

i kind of think this paragraph sums it up best? he's not really fond of her, but part of him still does care (even if he refuses to acknowledge that part's existence beyond his own self-preservation). he openly calls her pathetic, but he's still metaphorically fishing around the alleyway to get the cat somewhere warm and dry. when she threatens to hurt herself worse than she already has been ("imagine what I could do on purpose...") scott is viscerally perturbed - not just due to the subject matter, but because it is pearl saying that (even though it's a fairly direct line from everything she has done up to now). and after that, he stops being so fucking snippy too. things get just a little bit too real for him and he reels it back.

(perhaps there's something to be said about how rabies is 99% lethal...)

they're not happy with each other but despite being split apart they are inherently familiar with each other due to their soulbond - like how they organise their chests the same way, and how scott instinctively feels 'safe' with his back turned to pearl even though he does see her as a hinderance and she's been self-destructive to lash out at him before. and he insists she eats, too. it's this complicated mush of self-interest (because of course scott wants to live best he can) and generosity to pearl, especially when he's quite confident she won't stand to receive his help - and in the end, she does reject his help. he doesn't just make her soup (GOOD SOUP!!), he makes her a whole freaking pot of it and leaves the whole thing with her - and she doesn't eat any of it. they're horrible

it's why finding the golden apple is such a throw-off for scott i think? he knows that pearl has been crying about wanting him back, but as far as he's concerned she's just proved that she doesn't care about him and got rightfully burnt for it. the extent to which she values his life only hits him when he finds the golden apple. she could split their soulbond right then and there and guarantee that scott doesn't win the game, making it possible for her to win as the only victor - and not having to worry about a soulmate's death causing her own - but she didn't. it fully hits him that despite how unwell (mentally as well as physically thanks) pearl is, and how she's hurt him on purpose, she doesn't want him dead.

and about two seconds later it hits him that he doesn't want her dead. what a nightmare

and of course. this all comes with the asterisk of not yet. but we're not up to the final session yet :)

(also one last small detail thing but scott just calls tilly "pearl's dog". he'd probably remember the name if he tried but tbh he doesn't care enough about tilly to actually try. for now)

[retributory]

actually i changed my mind post BACK ON it's absolutely absurd to me that people will read sqq die three times for binghe, say that it would be okay to die together because "dying together" includes "together," go through genuine binghe withdrawal every time they're apart for too long to the point where his peers actively comment on it, scold binghe for being nervous about proposing, say that if he was pregnant with binghe (as in if he was binghe's mom) he would do anything to make sure binghe was born, even if that meant dying in childbirth (INSANE), so binghe should never ever say that no one loves him or cares about him because sqq does, and even after all that convince themselves that somehow sqq doesn't even like him. in the honeymoon extra he literally can't even stop himself from making eyes at binghe the whole time they're talking to old master chen, and then they go run off and play fight (flirt) <- exact wording in the novel.

shen qingqiu is the one who grabs his hand at the end of the novel and takes him away from qing jing peak. if he really, really, really did not want to be with binghe, he had an entire mountain behind his back ready to fight binghe off. he runs off on all of them to be with binghe. he choose to sacrifice his life if it meant binghe got to live. time and time again he chooses binghe over everything else.

he is repressed and weird. he is an unreliable narrator. he is a 20 something man born in a homophobic society that was deeply entrenched in all kinds of bizarre online discourse. he is deeply flawed. he fucks up a lot. he acknowledges that he hurts binghe. he wants to try again because he loves him. he's working on it. it takes him a while to admit things, but he does. when he's overcome with emotion at the end of the deep dream extra he makes his feelings clear - he loves binghe deeply, so much so that seeing binghe hurt or sad physically pains him as if he were being stabbed. he and binghe both have massive flaws - they're working on them, as a couple. as the novel itself says, the story between you and me (shen qingqiu and luo binghe) is only just beginning.

if a bingqiu hater puts the blame on any weirdness in their relationship solely on binghe you KNOW they can't read. this is a freak4freak relationship okay. sqq is the guy that got offended and sulky because binghe DIDN'T hen-peck him into cuddling. he openly admits to loving the tearful lamb act. he likes having a clingy needy girlfriend he has to reassure constantly. he got so horny watching his husband pour qi into his dead body that he woke up and immediately pounced on him and fucked him straight into a qi deviation. when he heard the rumor that binghe raped him his internal argument was that this could never happen because if binghe wanted to have sex with you, you would just let him, so it's not rape. he's literally insane. they're perfect for each other in the sense that they're both bugfuck crazy.

[csparkles123]

"I think there is a story that has been told to Louis that Louis has told to himself that maybe Armand has told him, too."

With Rolin Jones saying this, it calls into question everything we have been told and I think that Louis isn't an unreliable narrator just to be one, he likely repressed and altered his memories from the trauma and those memories were then reinforced to control him or "protect him from himself" by Armand.

I think the only time Louis was intentionally unreliable was when he tore out Claudia's diary pages. The other moment Daniel called Louis out for being unreliable was when he didn't want to kill Lestat, but I'm so sure that he didn't intentionally lie, but he had repressed the real memory for so long, probably because it was traumatic and acted as a catalyst for the deterioration of his and Claudia's relationship, that he had started to believe that was the most accurate memory.

I mean, the breakdown he had over Daniel questioning that memory kind of made it obvious that it was memory that he hadn't thought about in a long time and didn't want to remember.

This also makes me think that the reason the two interviews, 1973 vs 2022, are so vastly different is because of the level of control Armand has over Louis. Since Louis is becoming older and more powerful, I assume the "real" memories are starting to re-emerge because he is less easily controlled. This may be why we see a more positive perspective of Lestat in the 2022 interview, but since Armand still has influence over him, some of his memories are still unreliable.