Troy and Abed were so fucking groundbreaking, man. I don't think I can articulate enough how amazing it felt, and still feels, to have two characters who are characterized so strongly by their neurodivergence featured in the same story. (There is literally an entire subplot of an episode devoted to the concept of Abed being an alien observing humanity from afar.) And neither one of them is a math or science expert! Or white! And they're best friends. And they're both hilarious!
And they're incredibly different people.
I can't think of many pieces of media that achieve that, before or since.
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The most recent episode of Interview with a Vampire let's us see Lestat's side of the story and see how it compares to Louis' accounting of their relationship. As a result, it reaffirms just how unreliable of a narrator Louis is, but it also further illuminates elements of his character that the director and writers have been playing with since the beginning of the show.
There's this part in the episode where Lestat turns to Louis and apologizes and it's framed with Lestat turned to Louis on one side and Claudia on his other side. They're the angel and devil on Louis' shoulders, but who is the angel and who is the devil? And as my friend said, Armand and Daniel are placed into that same dynamic with Louis later on. We are being asked to decide who to trust, who's telling the truth, who's the good guy, but the fact of unreliability robs us of that decision.
This whole story is about Louis, he's the protagonist, though not the narrator, and he is constantly being pulled in two directions, no matter when or where he is in his story. He's a mind split in two, divided by nature and circumstance. He's vampire and human, owner and owned, father and child, angel and devil. He's both telling the story and being told the story. His history is a story he tells himself, and as we've seen, sometimes that story is not whole.
Louis is the angel who saved Claudia from the fire but he's also the devil who sentenced her to an life of endless torment, the adult trapped in the body of a child. He's the angel who rescued Lestat from his grief and also the devil who abandoned him, who couldn't love him, could only kill and leave him.
He's pulled in two directions, internally and externally at all times and so it's no wonder that he feels the need to confess, first to the priest, then Daniel, and then Daniel again.
He's desperate to be heard, a Black man with power in Jim Crow America who's controlled by his position as someone with a seat at the table but one who will never be considered equal. He doesn't belong to the Black community or the white community, he can't. He acts as a go-between, a bridge, one who is pushed and pulled until he can't take it anymore. He's a fledgling child to an undead father, he's a young queer man discovering his sexual identity with an infinitely experienced partner. He's confessing because he wants to be absolved, that human part of him that was raised Catholic, that child who believed, he wants to be saved. He wants to be seen.
Louis wants to attain a forever life that is morally pure, but he can't. He's been soiled by sin, by "the devil," as he calls Lestat, and he can never be clean again. Deep down, I think he knows this, but he can't stop trying to repent. He tries to self-flagellate by staying with Lestat and then tries to repent by killing him, but can't actually follow through. He follows Claudia to Europe to try and assuage his guilt. He sets himself on fire, attempts to burn himself at the stake, to purify his body, rid himself of the dark gift.
Louis is a man endlessly trying to account for the pain he has caused and he ultimately fails, over and over again, because he can't get rid of what he is. A monster. He's an endlessly hungry monster. He's hungry for love, for respect, for power, for forgiveness, for death. He's a hole that can never be filled. He can never truly acquire any of those things because he will always be punishing himself for wanting and needing them in the first place. He will never truly believe he deserves them and as a result, can't accept them if they are ever offered. He can never be absolved for he has damned himself by accepting the dark gift and thus has tainted himself past the point of saving.
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Neighbor! König Part 3
Part One
Part Two
It's only after THREE MONTHS in that you find out his name isn't Kevin
Why? You overheard a phone call. A phone call with his mom
Because, to put it in small terms: König is a mama's boy
Not in the gross way that boy moms do (everyone say EWWWW) or the manchildren who think their mom can do no wrong and will always side with her over on everything. We know those guys. He's not that. Not even close
No, in the 'he genuinely loves and cares about his mother because this is the person who raised him so his respect for her and love is absolutely profound'
That's the woman who raised him, that's the person who read him bedtime stories at night when he couldn't sleep, that's the lovely lady who would let him hide behind her skirts when she'd take him into the village and people would try to say hi, she's the one and only who taught him all about the many wonders of the world and how beautiful nature is
Yeah, he's going to respect her. He loves his mom and for good reason
He calls her every day if possible because she still lives quite far away in Austria :( and things haven't been the same since his dad passed away
He doesn't live near or with her, as much as it pains him, because quite frankly: he can't risk it. He still visits as much as he can, but living with her makes her a target because he's a man with blood covering his hands and there's people who will do anything to get to him
He can't risk her like that, wouldn't ever dream of it
She understands. He doesn't tell her the extent because he can't break her heart and he's afraid she might see him different, but he does tell her HOW dangerous it could be
He will always tell her about the good things he does, though! Like saving hostages! That's always great. She's so proud of him
He might be a grown ass man at 6'6" and weighing over 250 lbs that absolutely towers over her but he will always be her sweet baby boy before anything else
He is always writing her letters and sending her packages and pictures! Letters just are more heartfelt usually and she's old fashioned, she likes having something physical to hang onto especially now that her eyesight is fading
She is always sending them in return too. His favorite coffee mugs are all shaped like little forest animals and she made them! They're precious and he's so happy holding his little hedgehog mug (even if it is a bit spiky)
ANYWAYS how you found out his name wasn't Kevin was because you heard her use his name
His real name
That wasn't Kevin or even close.
And afterwards you had to go "... uh... Kevin? Who is she talking about?"
König has never been close to this flustered before, even when you fell asleep with your head on his broad shoulders when you were watching a movie together
Time to fess up.
He at first tries to go into denial, then dismissal, but it doesn't work at all
He admits defeat. You caught him, he ISN'T Kevin. Well, he's still the same person! That's just not his name
He was too embarrassed to correct you or himself so he went with it and it kept building and building
He wanted to tell you, but it's a hard topic :( he knows he would have stumbled and stuttered over his words until he fell flat on his face
You'd find it out eventually! It's not like he put 'Kevin' on his mail or anything like that
Now, most people would rightfully feel mad and lied to
But he's turning red enough to match the roses he grows and can't seem to meet your eyes. He's sweating bullets, he's genuinely embarrassed here and feels awful about it
Maybe it's against better judgement to accept such a thing so easily but he hasn't been anything but nice to you ever since you broke down his icy walls.
(Aka he's so painfully socially awkward and flustered you feel bad for him and take pity)
And just maybe you heard the "Ich bin in dich verliebt" slip out as you took his hands in yours and assured that you liked him as him, whether he's named Kevin or not, and nothing would change that
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the hardest thing when you're genderfluid is that, when you use all/different pronouns or change pronouns regularly, people will always ask that one question "hummm it sounds complicated.... can I stick to just they/them?" or Worse, sometimes they'll even stick to one gendered pronoun like, ah yes assume my gender I guess. and everytime, we will almost all reply to it with "sure, it's ok I understand lol". because we're too scared that we are, in fact, asking too much if we ask people to switch our pronouns.
the thing you people need to understand is that most of us are uncomfortable with having a set of pronouns sticked to us, and we'll likely never say it openly. it's been an entire year since I've came out as demi-fluid and it happened literally once that someone switched my pronouns when I changed them to fit my current identity.
so please, please people, know that switching our pronouns and changing them depending on how we feel currently is actually giving us a lot of Gender Affirmation and happy chemicals. if you just ignore it cause "too hard to follow", "too complicated", it just feels like we're beaming signals and they're being ignored. I usually don't mind it when people stick to they/them with me because, no matter how I feel, it'll always be correct, but that doesn't mean it's always my preferred.
like if at some point I feel more feminine and I change to she/they, PLEASE use she/her, at least even once during this period of time, it makes me literally so so euphoric I can't explain like YES thank you for affirming my girly moment!!
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i think that the major misinterpretation that people have with taco is that she didn't get attached to mic because of her sad face in the end wanted to show regret because "she hurted her friend". like. no, she wasn't sad because she regretted what she did. she was sad because she's alone again, but she knows very well at the end that she had it coming. the reason as to why taco was so desperate of wanting mic to tell her that she did gain something is because. she SAW pickle in mic, but of course their situation is very different. "Oh but Taco couldn't have done what she did to Mic to Pickle, Mic was fully aware" but she did do that. Mic herself says it. That is pretty much what II is telling you. Taco isn't a good friend, and is not exactly a good person either. Mic was aware that Taco was/is a bad person, but Mic's nature makes her believe in whoever acknowledges her. Taco made Mic feel like she needed her, just the way she made Pickle feel back in s1.
she didn't really change thanks to mic. her faces of "regret" aren't her actually lamenting all of the stuff she did to microphone, but rather just her realizing that she proved what everyone said about her as a result. i will give it to that she might've tried to change, but not because of mic. she wanted to win the prize so she could prove others wrong on her being a loser and a coward, by being a loser and a coward. if anything, mic made her realize that she hasn't changed. she pretty much just ruined everything for everyone who saw her as a friend, and for herself.
taco's whole arc is constantly just downgraded to questionable takes and listen. i do agree that she is heavily flawed as a character. she is morally gray, but ii doesn't portray her as a good person with good intentions, nor she should be really be treated as if she was. neither she had those good intentions with mic at all, i mean, their "friendship" pretty much started because of taco wanting the prize money, taking a part of microphone's prize if she made mic won, you know, an offer. she would get the prize and mic would get recognition. but everyone seems to forget that probably, the main reason as to why she's doing all of this, is because she does regret how she acted on s1. she doesn't exactly regret doing all of that to microphone, and even if she does, it's for the wrong reasons. (that's because she did the exact same thing to you know, pickle, her once best friend, the only person she truly ever cared about)
people do tend to forget that taco keeps sending letters to pickle, and that's often just used for pickle angst and making it his only character trait, but. it's not that. it's the fact that taco keeps on writing those letters, despite fully knowing that she did hurt pickle because of her actions. taco's biggest flaw is that she can't accept that she has ruined everything and wants so desperately to be back on pickle's life because she ended up caring about him deeply as a person. as a friend. but she was never there at all, either.
taco can't seem to understand that she has hurted people badly. sure, she seemed like a "friend" to microphone, and you can argue whatever you want but a fact is that taco IS smart, and she knew that the only way to possibly keep mic by her side is pretending to want to be better, you know, the same way she pretended to be just a odd fella so pickle and her could remain together and have an advance at the game. she played with both of them. because both pickle and mic believed in her but were just used by her for the game.
however, taco does seem to regret the way everything went during-post s1. you can see how she yearns for another chance and is saddened about not getting it, but that's not only for comedic purposes, but that's because the writing is telling you that she won't get a second chance. at least not here.
what i want people to understand is that, yes, taco is a complex character, however trying to sugarcoat what she did is pretty much missing the point of her writing as a whole. she isn't a good person neither was she a good friend. she hasn't grown because she was never able to let go of something that she thinks that she can fix with some words and a prize. she thinks that she can still fix her friendship with pickle, she thinks that she can clear her name (even if she was the one who tainted it), but she only ended up proving knife right. she proved everyone right. she hasn't changed. a morally gray character is that. they're not exactly fully bad or fully good, but it's taco's actions that speak a lot. words are cheap, and taco's title is "The Liar", and that says a lot, because she kept on lying to microphone and to pickle on both of their games. she won't heal unless she lets go.
and i want to be clear here: i do think that taco can go through redemption. i do think that taco can become a better person, but not in the way people portray her to do so. because it just pretty much goes against what her arc has settled in for us, and the other arcs that were involved in hers as well.
taco's arc is meant to be somewhat a parallel with nickel's in a way. hell, even with knife's arc if anything. she treats knife as a simple bully, but when she saw that he became smarter and way more emotionally aware than what she had expected, she felt attacked by that, because he was stable. he became a better person and he was rubbing that on her, and it made her feelings of anger way worse regarding him, but it is true. knife is pretty much everything that taco wants to be, but here's the thing that made them so different:
knife stayed. taco didn't stay.
knife is accepted by everyone in the hotel because meanwhile he hasn't explicitly said that he had a change of heart, he has shown it through actions and a big difference too is that he was there for pickle, even if they weren't close in s1, and taco is on the woods because deep down she is aware that she can't go back. not if she doesn't have something to offer as an direct apology, but here's the problem. whether or not she got the prize, she still wouldn't get forgiven by anyone due to what she said that day.
again. her problem is not being able to let go and to accept when she has messed up badly. she has been lying to everyone but she has also been lying to herself as a whole. she can't keep on doing this because it's just hurting everyone and herself. keeping grudges and holding onto past friendships that were doomed to fall is just hurting her. she is not on the state to keep on trying, she wasn't at all ever.
taco's arc most likely will have closure on a way that fits her character, and i feel like that would be with her letting go of inanimate insanity as a whole and of what she can't fix anymore. her trying to find herself after years of lying to everyone and to herself. she's not a good person. but she can become one. only if she knows what she did was wrong and that her second chance isn't there, and never will be, and if she recognizes that meanwhile she did that damage, she can still become a better person. just not there.
pickle and mic don't owe her anything, especially pickle. taco does owe them an apology, but they won't accept that. the least she could do is to accept their wishes, understand that she needs to leave them and grow to be a better person. maybe, if she does that, she would actually heal.
she doesn't need anyone to fix her. she needs to fix herself.
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