This is a response to a post I saw where someone went off about the diabolicule question at the NYCC panel, calling it "clamoring" and "embarrassing", saying that asking for diabolicule followed "porn logic," implying that writing polygamy into the show would be bad writing, saying that the writer wasn't here to cater to our own personal fantasies. They're here to write a good show. We just want to see an orgy. This isn't fanfiction, etc.
Anyways, I struggled to find it again after typing my response but I just wanted to express my opinion because that post triggered about 10 of my pet peeves in one fell swoop.
Look. I get that the show writers aren't writing them as a polycule at this early stage when wounds are still fresh and everyone is broken up and hating each other. Tensions are high and nobody is in the right place for a romantic relationship, let alone several.
Daniel's back on drugs, angry at everyone, especially Armand, and probably processing decades of deleted memories. Lestat is switching moods hourly instead of daily and going through a very elaborate midlife crisis flavored meltdown while revisiting every single trauma from his past. Both seem to be gorging themselves with blood, drugs and meaningless sex, determined to push vampire partying and excess to a whole new level. Armand is probably wallowing in self pity because Louis dumped him and he broke his centuries old vow and turned Daniel, and now Daniel is going to resent him, but oh, how he craves him. Louis is reflective for the first time in forever, pissed off at Daniel about the book, and examining his emotions for a change instead of shoving them down like he did around Lestat and Armand. Everyone is reeling.
Which is what I think Hannah's surprised reaction at the question was all about at the panel. Some fans saw it as disgust, but in a show with this many open relationships, what is there to be disgusted about? It doesn't make much sense to have the polycule be a thing when all of this is going on.
It was a perfectly valid question though. I'm lost on how asking it equates to "clamoring," but maybe that comment was about the posts made by people who were quite vocal about being disappointed at Hannah's answer. In which case that disappointment is also valid.
I can sort of see the bad writing angle. I mean, I've read some great polyamory in writing, but TV shows do pretty much consistently suck at portraying it. But if anyone could pull it off, my good friend Rolin Jones could. But dismissing the polycule thing as ridiculous, illogical, fanfic-type wish fulfillment when none of these characters are, in fact, monogamous is a hell of a take. I've also seen too much wholesome diabolicule fluff in art and fics for me to take the orgy comment seriously, but I find it interesting that that's all you are reducing it to. Gives me insight into your view of polyamory in general.
All four characters are varying levels of polyamorous (with Louis and Lestat occupying opposite ends of the spectrum) in the show and in the books. They're all in love with or attracted to each other (which the show deliberately reinforces). They all sleep with other people for different reasons. Daniel because Armand is using it as some sort of courtship ritual, Armand and Lestat because they're just like that and because it soothes their abandonment issues and makes them feel loved, bonus if it makes Louis jealous in Lestat's case, Louis because Armand is boring and he's been repressed for too long not to take advantage of this freedom. And to make Lestat jealous. And all four characters canonically move in together in the books, so if we're talking porn logic, Anne Rice went there first. It's not even our personal fantasy, it's Anne's.
You could make the whole "it's platonic" argument, but what can be deduced based on their attraction to each other? What can be deduced by their sexual behaviour in the show, which includes but is not limited to Loustat, Loumand, Lesmand, Louis offering himself to Daniel, Daniel offering himself to Louis, Daniel's "Jesus Christ, look at him" when he sees Lestat, and the upcoming Devil's Minion? What makes sense?
I mean, your original argument is that diabolicule shippers are using porn logic and ignoring any evidence that things might not go our way, but it seems to me that it's the other way around. You seem to be using puritan logic and expecting the show to cater to your monogamous personal fantasies.
I always find it amusing when people treat Anne Rice's books as some higher art form when it's not that different from angsty self-indulgent fanfiction itself (especially the later ones).
No disrespect to Anne Rice of course. It's just that praising commercial books while slamming fanfiction is something that pisses me the hell off. It's right up there with art elitism, sex negativity and the racialized colonial dismissal of polyamory especially as it exists in defiance to heteropatriarchal norms. Saying that unedited amateur writing isn't on the same level as professional writing that took up more time and had a paid editor look at it isn't the hot take you think it is. More so when we consider what a white male-dominated space professional writing is. And yet, so many fics still outshine so much of the commercialized slop I've had the displeasure of seeing.
prguitarman
discoholicmusic
yousharknotpass
izzy806
titsay
baratheonpilled
andulkaphoto
s-u-f-j-a-n-s-t-e-v-e-n-s
