All that Drama

i don't trust the writers nearly as much as i used to, but this is so fucking obvious that i don't think a professional writer who wrote two excellent episodes with realistic and complex depictions of abuse and even said that louis' victimhood won't ever be denied would be ignorant to not understand what she wrote. i mean, every writer has their blind spots, but it's simply impossible for me to believe.

i had a lot of fears in regards to louis in this season (if you know... you know), but i think if they truly wanted to villainize louis, they'd depict louis doing awful things to lestat. the worst louis has done this season was being weird with a woman who looked like his daughter & treating claudia as extension of himself again. it has nothing to do with lestat. and if they wanted to "humble" louis we'd see a lot more of him getting angry and jelous.

I have a genuine question! please forgive me if it comes off as defending the racist writing I want to be clear that its really pissing me off also and is why I'm sending this ask. But how do you know when something is racist in this show and when it's something that was in the original books? or when it's both? Because Louis in the books as we know was a white slave owner, I feel like making him black has both improved the story tenfold and also made it really complicated now that we are in Lestats pov because Louis is intentionally lying in the books in a way I don't think show Louis is. I have not read the Vampire Lestat but I know there are some reveals that make Lestat more sympathetic and I'm afraid of those reveals in the show coming off as racist now and dismissing Louis more than he already has been. I don't know if this makes much sense but I'm just really struggling with sympathizing with Lestat and Louis at the same time when the writing is getting more racist than ever this season. I'm trying to enjoy it as a story and also be critical of it as a piece of media someone wrote and it's just getting more and more annoying. What is racist writing and what is Lestat and Daniel being racist and complicated characters. You are one of the only blogs who I consistently agree with on interview with the vampire so that is why I'm asking you but of course no pressure to respond or post this! it feels like it may invite discourse and I don't want to inflict that on your blog.

hello! thank you so much for the ask! it definitely doesn't come off as defending the racist writing or anything, i completely understand where you're coming from 🙂‍↕️ and hopefully i can answer in a way that makes sense. (it ended up being VERY long so it's under a read more lmao im sorry)

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I decided to do this one first, cuz I have the least to say about it.

It was pretty clear cut and showed exactly what I expected/hoped it would: CONFIRMATION ON EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENED IN S1--

THE FIGHT WASN'T RETCONNED AT ALL. 😤👏

Diabolical frame, cuz it's pretty much like, Welp, you're here in Europe, after I distinctly told y'all the European vampires were vicious and not to come here! VOILA! 😬

And I love how his back is to the audience, cuz this bit REALLY isn't about the performance--this is Lestat venting, talking right to Louis, even though he's clearly having difficulty meeting his gaze.

Mild way to put it, but wtvr.

There's that word again: "compromise," which Lestat blamed Louis for leading to "spite--" both Claudia's, AND Lestat's own spite towards THEM. Cuz Lestat was constantly holding back; "fought my nature, controlled my temper."

TOO EFFING BAD, you woke the sleeping effing DRAGON!

Backflip into the coffinroom, omg, I accidentally cackled. 😅

Amen! Lestat put his hands on Claudia first, now you gotta PAY!

"It will end in your death"--excuse me, Lestat?! DEATH THREATS!?

That's right, bash his head into the effing coffin! Now we know what the dent was from! Look at that blood stream! Yeah, you BETTER hold back, Lestat; take this arse whoopin!

I like how S1 focused on the blows Lestat dealt to Louis, as it was from his & Claudia's perspective; but now we're seeing more of the blows Louis dealt to Lestat as he gives his perspective. But it still shows that although Louis' fighting, he's still on the defense, cuz Lestat is often just LETTING Louis hit him--LOUIS can't AFFORD to just LET Lestat hit him, cuz "mighty...most ancient blood...godlike strength" Les will REALLY injure him whenever he does! This is NOT an even fight, even if the perspectives are now more evenly shown.

Exactly! You wanna KILL Louis!? But Lou, don't get cocky now; Les is LETTING you do all this to him, cuz he knows if he gets serious that's your behind. 😬

Bites all over Lou's jaw & neck, gosh--look at YOUR face, Louis. U_U

(I can't WAIT to read the fanfics that come out of this; they're gonna make me cry.) No, unfortunately. I don't think Louis had any intention of going anywhere, even after all that (LOUIS GOT THE DEED, that's HIS house--YOU leave!). And congratulations; thanks to you, Les, Lou wasn't even able to WALK for three effing years afterwards.

Claudia calling for her Daddy Lou, I can't. 😭 This poor baby girl has regressed to her inner child--she's so dang scared.

JUST LIKE YOU DID OUR DAUGHTER--PAPA BEAR LOUIS STOOD UP! 😤👏

I've been in this exact situation IRL, and y'all want me to feel sorry FOR LESTAT!? AFTER HE CHOKED "built-like-a-bird" Claudia and beat the mess out of her Daddy Lou right in front of her!?

Chile, the sword-cane's right there; let's get to choppin! 😤🔪🔪🔪

Apropos for Lioncourt, but that's way too good for him--take him to the EFFING SWAMP and let the GATORS feed on him! I want SWAMP KING LESTAT. 😭🐊

I'm gonna LAAAAAAAUGH, oh he's cracked and I love it! You KNOW they talked to a woman who's been in this EXACT situation.

Oh, this is every woman who talks big to her abusive husband right b4 he lands her in the effing hospital (or the morgue); we all saw the Ray Rice footage when he knocked her TF out WITH EASE when she got up in his face talking smack in that elevator. 💀

Your FATHERS temper, but this is the coven writing his lines "teased until you toppled;" they don't know about the Marquis vs Gabrielle.

THE DROP REALLY HAPPENED, THANK YOU, AMC.

It wasn't cuz Lestat was tryna spare Louis or save him from himself or protect him or whatever--LES WANTED TO BREAK LOU.

It could've been 2 effing FEET. "A hard fall, nothing more;" eff you Santiago!

Yeah, gaslight us some more whydontcha; half the fandom LOVES using that reasoning to handwave aside "abuse" when it's done to the character they DON'T like. 🙄😒 Then it's just awful takes about how Louis & Claudia deserved what happened to them and it's "karma" and it's not Les' fault cuz they're monsters & Lou bloodied Les' face.

And biting w/out consent is RAPE, clown! AR said it over & over that it's a violation of the most intimate act b/t vamps who share emotions, memories & sexual pleasure thru the blood! But watch some braindead takes use Santiago's words as gospel just to Gotcha! anyone who says anything against Louis for Ep5. 🙄😒

CRICKETS. Cuz LESTAT TRIED TO KILL LOU, just like Claudia said! "A wolf congratulated for not killing her pups"--that was scripted. But "you can't script a hurricane!" NO! That's right; set the story straight!

Look at him crying, I love how they do the blood tears effect, as their eyes get redder & redder. The sound of Sam's voice as he's crying is just making me wanna yeet myself into the sun--but it's the middle of the night, alas. U_U "I couldn't force him to love me so I broke him. What is worse than that? Crushing what you cannot own." But I thought Louis was saying "Come to me" and luring you with his wicked vixen ways~! The math ain't mathin, Santiago! 🤭

FINALLY AN APOLOGY OMFG

Claudia said it best: "Let's meet vampires WORTHY of your love!" Unworthy in NOLA, unworthy in Paris--cuz he's STILL gonna throw CLAUDIA under the bus to save Louis, and she KNOWS this.

WAY too effing late--Les had his chance to apologize sincerely the night he dropped Louis 20000 leagues from the frikkin stratosphere! Claudia DGAF, LOL. And Louis looks away from Lestat; bye Felicia!

CONTINUE.

Jim Crow New Orleans became firmly established throughout the 1890s, as growing numbers of blacks moved to the city from the plantations. Emancipated slaves “joined other socially marginalized people already settled at the physically marginalized geography that was the backswamp, in the formation of the city’s first large-scale, exclusively black neighborhoods....." Local governments in Southern and border states with large black populations enacted explicitly racial zoning ordinances as early as 1910 to prevent all classes of blacks from entering neighborhoods predominated by whites. -- Seicshnaydre, Stacy, Robert A. Collins, Cashauna Hill, and Maxwell Ciardullo. "Rigging the real estate market: Segregation, inequality, and disaster risk." The Data Center (2018): 1-12.

Chile, what "very close friends" own a whole house together on segregated land during a time when homosexuality was illegal? XD

No wonder everyone was tripping over Loustat--there were all kinds of Jim Crow laws in place forbidding land to be sold to Black people--esp. land above sea level, like in the predominately white Garden District (the Mayfairs), the French Quarter (Rue Royale), etc. (Which is why the predominately Black 9th Ward got effed up during Hurricane Katrina.)

So yeah, was Louis given the townhouse in 1910, AMC!? Cuz that would've been an INCREDIBLY ballsy move, even more than Lestat loaning Louis the money to buy the Fairplay Saloon in 1912--

--especially considering how effing tone deaf & insensitive Lestat was wrt to Ordinance 4118 segregating Storyville in 1917; when the Azalea fell under racially targeted Eminent Domain & gentrification.

ARSEWIPE!

Despite the U.S. Supreme Court decision of Buchanan v. Warley in 1917 declaring racial zoning laws unconstitutional, the City of New Orleans passed such a law in 1924. New Orleans’ ordinance prohibited racial integration “except on the written consent of a majority of the persons of the opposite race inhabiting such community.” The Louisiana Supreme Court upheld the New Orleans racial zoning ordinance but the U.S. Supreme Court put an end to it in 1927. -- Seicshnaydre, Stacy, Robert A. Collins, Cashauna Hill, and Maxwell Ciardullo. "Rigging the real estate market: Segregation, inequality, and disaster risk." The Data Center (2018): 1-12.

It couldn't've been in 1924/1927, cuz that was during the time Loustat went "underground" after Claudia ran away. I doubt Tom & co. would've been willing to turn a blind eye and give "written consent" to them after siccing the entire police force on Loustat, suspecting them of killing The Floaters.

HOWEVER....

Officer Homophobe asked if he was speaking to the OWNERS. But Lestat was the only one who spoke up.

This was 1923. Of course one should always let the white man be the one to talk to cops, esp. fellow white ones.

But Louis DID buck up at the end and said it was THEIR home. (They filed joint taxes together, too!?) So, Louis having gotten the house pre-Ep5 lines up.

My headcanon always assumed Lestat gave Louis the house during the Grovel Era in Ep6, as another one of his gifts. So that would've been 1931-1937. Which would be pretty cool, considering how the Great Depression led to so many people losing their money & homes.

I figured Lestat wanted to make sure Louis was taken care of--esp. while Lou was laid up crippled & half blind for ages--while also guaranteeing that Louis wouldn't leave NOLA/Lestat if he was suddenly penniless after the Crash.

But apparently Louis owned the house the whole time, which is wild. He told Lestat to GTFO, and not to let the coffin hit him on the way out! ^0^

ISTG the IWTV fandom wins the award for spewing the most ignorant and offensive racist crap during Black History Month.

That scene shows how powerless black people are in white society. Even when black folk try to create spaces for themselves--out of NECESSITY, when white people wouldn't ALLOW black folk into PUBLIC (read: Caucasian) spaces--white people can just barge on in--guns, pitchforks, and literal torches blazing.

The ordinances that shut down Storyville in Ep3 were REAL LAWS passed in America that shut down black business and devastated black neighborhoods.

AMC was nodding to REAL LIFE events where white folk segregated/ostracized/disenfranchised African Americans out of PUBLIC spaces and AMERICAN opportunities to pursue life, liberty and PROPERTY, black people said Bet! and created black only spaces, then white people got pissed and burned it all down!

Finn O'Shea--the man who was literally STEALING money from Louis to create his own whites-only ripoff "supper club" of the Azalea--symbolizes all the same dirty white establishments that historically screwed black people over then pointed & laughed in their faces.

What Louis did by hanging that sign up was REACTIONARY, in the face of an entire string of white racist targeted aggression towards him and his people.

Jacob Anderson on Interview with the Vampire

In Creative Company: I'm impressed that you still remember this many details, because I know you've also been working on Season 3 as well. Since we also get to see the nature of the two of them when they were intentionally trying to hurt each other and trying to break each other, and those scenes are so physical between you. And Sam and you [Jacob] know you're literally flinging each other around the room and covered in blood, but at the same time it comes from such a guttural emotional place; and I was curious if you remember some of the elements that went into those scenes together? (12:19) JA: Do you mean the the Coffin Room?  ICC: Essentially, the flashback to when they're really trying to go at each other and hurt each other as they're describing in the court case. (12:31)  JA: Yeah, I think for Sam and I, that scene was just--it was really surreal. It was like: What are we doing?! Especially for me, [it] was really that sort of new Louis that you don't really see, which I think is that primal thing coming out, that rage that he so often hides. He just lets it out in that moment, it unleashes, and HE GOES INTO PROTECTOR MODE, but also just the cruelty in it. And I wasn't used to playing that out loud, like, it was always just something that I just held onto myself. So it was interesting to let it out, and quite cathartic to be honest. (13:30)

sam reid pissed me allllll the way off with this one, i'll never forget he said all this, like wtf:

like, sir--what part of the trial being a literal LYNCHING is escaping you, my guy?! put down anne rice's books FOR ONCE and read about the actual history of racism & lynchings before you go opening your mouth please!?

(Omg I don't watch Autumn Brown, so I had no idea Sam said all this until the transcript excerpts were posted here. 🤦Usually I love what Sam has to say, but this ain't it, chief.)

The problem with this whole take of Sam's is that Lestat is NOT the one on Trial--LOUIS is. The implications of spinning Come To Me makes Louis look MORE guilty, so that LOU'S DEATH IS JUSTIFIED & DESERVED. IDK if Sam is being deliberately obtuse here (seeing the situation with rose colored blinders to just look at Loustat's tragic love; Lestat's romanticism & hurt feelings cuz that's his character & his focus); or if he's deliberately skirting around a much more important & sensitive issue that, as a white man, he may or may not be aware that he's unequipped to handle--esp. since we know AMC put the lid on interviewers talking with the actors about RACE; and esp. since Jacob speaks very candidly about Louis' blackness when he's asked stupid questions.

Cuz the optics of a white person lying that a black man on trial had raped/molested/SA'd them are way too effing obvious--at least for Bipoc audiences--for Sam to boil it down to "a horrifically mean trick for Lestat to come out and say;" and then gloss it over with Lestat stupidly WANTING Louis to AGREE with the lie that makes him look like a sexual predator; and come away with "it’s very shocking for Lestat in that moment to be smacked in the face with ‘I didn’t want you. I always hated you."

Sure, EVERYONE understands & is in agreement about Loustat's "mutual yearning." But their mutual yearning has no bearings whatsoever on the proceedings happening on that stage. Lestat & Louis certainly AREN'T being mutually sentenced for vampiric crimes, and on pain on DEATH. This Trial is not about proving Louis' romantic/unrequited UST, it's about proving that he's guilty of breaking the Great Laws & proving that Lestat's life/wellbeing was in mortal danger from Louis--not just during Mardi Gras, but the entire time!

Lestat LITERALLY said "Louis ACCOSTED me."

The "pleasure house's" location (at the FairPlay) strengthens the implications of being "accosted" with being sexually harassed--esp. since Les & Santiago first start off with Louis' history as a "troubled, disreputable, cold, violent" pimp. Les said that everywhere he went, he was "being HUNTED" by Louis--like prey to a predator.

So if getting mad at Lou for being angry & hurt is all Lest takes away from Lou's reaction against having Come to Me weaponized to make Lou look like a rapist--then by god Les truly had no business being in an interracial relationship & raising a Black child. 😒

Les is so seated in his white privilege (and too busy screwing his white wench Antoinette down in Algiers) that he somehow missed the entire 1921 Tulsa Massacre, and the 1923 Rosewood Massacre, and the 1931-32 Scottsboro Boys case; to not read a effing newspaper or hear about all these Black men being lynched for raping white girls (who LIED on them) during Jim Crow!

Like, we talk about Tulsa & Rosewood wrt the Storyville race riot in 1x3, but I've yet to see anybody talk about how both of those massacres were started cuz white folk wanted to lynch innocent Black men accused of raping white people who lied on them & gaslit the whole country into believing them just cuz white = honest/innocent/good and black = liar/guilty/evil.

How DARE a Black man on Trial by a bloodthirsty predominately white lynch mob be furious that he's being lied on by a charismatic AF white man brought in to testify AGAINST him--

--who's explicitly presented as "THE VICTIM;" the first & ONLY witness whose words were to be trusted (Claudia's diary/words were only used to CONDEMN them, entirely removed from their context as a CHILD who felt unwanted & unloved by the father she was constantly trying to GET AWAY FROM, but who forcibly brought her BACK)--while Lou's context is stripped from him as the spouse who only killed Les for the sake of his DAUGHTER'S freedom. Lou never wanted to leave Les & NOLA; and he freaked TF out after he slit Les' throat & chokeslammed Claudia for tryna burn him--Claudia's diaries even exonerate Lou, PISSED at him for NOT wanting Les dead & for being "dead weight" thirsting after Les the whole time they were in Romania, 5 years later! All Lou wanted was to COME TO LES. Lou swam the nasty AF Mississippi River cuz LES WROTE A EFFING SONG NAMED COME TO ME that Lou STILL has the recording of IN HIS VOICE.

For a closeted gay Black man desperate to keep up appearances & be respected in society, Louis sacrificed EVERYTHING to be with Lestat--his loyalty to Paul (ie: God: x x) and his self respect/dignity/reputation most crucially, only to have that sacrifice (ie: love) ripped to shreds & sullied during the Trial--LESTAT BETRAYED LOUIS, not the other way around, WTF. Esp. cuz YES, Louis DID want Les to come to him the whole time. Even at the TRIAL, Jacob said all Louis was happy to see Les again.

Until Les opened his effing mouth & started spewing BS!

Lou LOVES Les, and trusted & confided in him as a gay closeted man tryna AVOID Les (esp. after being spooked by his gay crisis spooked him when they slept together)--only to be SPAT ON when Les tells all of Paris that he's nothing but a pervert who accosted/hunted/lusted after a man/vampire who made it seem that 1) LES didn't want LOU, and 2) that Les's safety/wellbeing was in danger--when HE'S the gay VAMPIRE wearing Oscar Wilde's chrysanthemum to dinner & baiting/luring Louis to HIS house with Lily waiting on the balcony in her effing underwear!

Remember: Lestat did this whole Come to Me spiel for the audience BEFORE his whole Gay Pride speech. The soldier yelled the F-slur after Les finished their Church Vows; and the whole crowd LAUGHED. This was NOT an audience who thought POSITIVELY about two guys being in a relationship--

--"the love that DARE NOT speak its name," even in gay mecca 1940s Paris (at the time the age of consent was 15 for straight couples but 21 for gay ones), where guys had to meet under the cover of night; hidden in the shadows even while in a public park/in plain sight--just like the vampires themselves.

The audience DGAF about Lestat's romanticism & Loustat's tragic gothic romance. They care about sexual deviancy--despite charismatic AF Santiago having said the very first night that the whole premise of the Theatre was to flip social mores upside-down--the bloodthirsty audience still wasn't effing buying gay sex! 💀

So not only is Les petitioning to a group of homophobes to see him as a victim, but he's are also throwing Louis, as a Black man, under the bus to a predominately white crowd as the villain--

--and yet people get mad at Louis for badmouthing Les in 1973 SanFran, and (LESS-SO) in Dubai??? When NEITHER time was Les being sentenced to death--but the vampires are still tryna kill LOUIS, even though it's DANIEL'S book and HE'S the vampire on national TV!

Again: LOUIS gets punished while these white men walk scott free. Louis gets dropped from the effing stratosphere with ALL his bones broken but his pain is dismissed as "a hard fall, nothing more;" while Louis put Les in the dump with a bunch of rats so Les could heal & NOT be burned alive, saving Les' effing life when Claudia would've GRILLED his arse, and yet Louis' found guilty!?

And again: Louis was actively being gaslit on stage, his brain LITERALLY being scrambled under the Mind Gift of the coven, while Claudia's literally over his right shoulder saying one thing, while Lestat's the devil on the left saying the total opposite. He's conscious, but he's barely more cognizant than Madeleine! But HE'S the liar?!

And again: Lestat's pain & hurt feelings gets centered, when it's LOUIS' ankles that are slashed to the bone so he can't walk or escape the lynchers ready to stone him & his daughter(s); HIS mind fogged whenever he tries to speak up & defend himself--with no one to help him but the very same dude lying his arse off to assassinate Louis' character and twist their story to excuse why he cheated (acting like he never said he wanted "VARIETY" way back in 1x3) & why Louis deserves to have lynchers in the crowd yelling "Shame on you!" as if there weren't TWO parties in this MUTUAL yearning.

I can't.

WOW | Interview With The Vampire 1x6 | Reaction & Commentary - FrankFreezy (23:23 - 24:37)

I LOVE this so much.

Cuz it goes back to what I was saying here: Louis has ALWAYS loved Lestat--beyond reason, religion, family, himself, Claudia AND Paul combined. I HATE when people act like Louis never loved Lestat, or never showed Lestat how much he loved him. Pay attention, y'all!

IWTV S2 Ep8 Musings - LDPDL: Burning Questions (Pt2)

EVERYONE called Lestat the Devil. Louis KNEW what Lestat did to Paul--both at the family dinner, and what Paul said later on the roof. He knew it was all true, cuz he'd seen it with his own eyes, and he'd FELT the same way--Louis felt unclean & soiled & bad, and RAN out of 1132 after they had sex the first time; and RAN to the confessional screaming "HELP ME, Father, he's in my head!" after Paul died.

But the gothic horror/romance is that despite seeing Les at his absolute worst, killing all those priests like an utter demon, LOU CHOSE LESTAT ANYWAY. And it's been (literally) KILLING him ever since. "I run to bad beds!" His 128+ dead men in SanFran are all Les!

It's why I love Ep5, as it's just more of the same: seeing Lestat at his worst and Lou STILL loving the monster AND the man in Ep6 (my fave episode in the whole series so far). Seeing Les try to kill Claudia in 1x7 and STILL mourning him all the way into 2x7.

There's A LOT of Les' trash Lou settles for & accepts, inc. even the suspicion that Les ad something to do with Paul's death; inc. Les abusing both him & Claudia. It's not until Les SPAT on Lou's love before a whole crowd of lynchers with "Come to Me" that the last straw broke how much Louis could forgive, cuz "Come to Me/Viens a moi" was when Les got into LOUIS' head and drove HIM to death (vampirism) too, literally in 1x1 & figuratively in 1x6.

The fandom doesn't talk about the dubcon/noncon/mind-rape of the Come to Me/church scene as much as we should, and how much of a violation it was for Les to be barging all up in Lou's head the way he was, while Lou was literally suffering an entire grief-triggered drunken suicidal mental breakdown. Lou's POV makes it seem more like lethal assault (I'm being mortally hunted; my life/soul's in danger by the white Devil). But Lestat/the script acknowledged the predatory nature of Come to Me during the Trial, when Les flipped it to make it seem like Lou had (sexually) assaulted HIM instead (my purity/chastity's in danger by the Black pimp).

This violation of their relationship is IT for Louis ("those were HIS words! F**k you!"). Their history is sullied, Lou's name & reputation (personhood) is dragged through the mud & soiled. ("I was dead.") With Claudia dead and Les betraying them by participating in the rigged Trial, Lou was able to believe Armand's weak AF lies for 77 years ("bad beds"); and sacrifice his love/marriage, "kill" Les & get divorced (Lou's most non-Catholic move of all, LOL) for good.

Les had ONE chance to be honest about the Trial (the 2x8 Tower Scene) & totally blew it by letting Armand get away with "Banishment." It all comes home (literally, in NOLA), when Lou finally stops running AWAY from uncomfortable truths, and asks the burning questions about Les that REALLY define their relationship.

Cuz it's not really about the Trial, or even Claudia; it's about Paul, the catalyst for Louis' entire arc--she was just the final/ultimate casualty. Everyone important in Lou's life has just been another replacement for Paul, "I loved him more than anyone on earth." All the people he had sit & TALK to him--Lily, Lestat, Claudia, Daniel, even Armand (to an extent), are all just Lou looking for Paul--understanding, acceptance, and love--i.e.: his companion. Someone he can confide all his secrets in, who won't judge/condemn him, and who'll accept & love him for who he is.

Sam said Les is Lou's "soulmate." Even though his heinous antics constantly proved Paul RIGHT, Lou also loved when Les put in the effort to prove Paul WRONG--he CAN behave & act like a human & charm the absolute pants off of Louis by just sitting on a park bench or sofa & TALKING to Louis; CONNECTING with Louis on a deeper level than even sex (which Lou already said is the best he's EVER had--and ya boi got around in the 70s-2000!).

But Les can also match Louis' freak; show his fangs, and be an utter monster Lou ALSO loves; cuz there's something dark in Louis too, that Jacob said "needs friction."

I said before that actual saints like Jonah & Paul are way too nice for Louis; too good & pure for this world. Lou LIKES Bad Boys; he likes men who're effed up & broken, cuz it makes HIM feel like he's not alone--HE'S not so bad after all. Vamps are just crabs in a bucket, and Lou's own hyper-Catholic brain treats it as a form of punishment, that he "deserves" effed up devils like Les & Armand. Beaten down all his life, and hating himself, full of self-loathing, Lou never knew his own worth--"let's meet vampires WORTHY of your love!" In 1x5 Lou stopped putting in the effort to take care of himself & their family/household ("ignoring all other duties of the role Claudia once mocked me for: the unhappy housewife"), and stopped confronting Lestat about his BS ("He treats us like sh*t and you take it! Why is that?!"). He's about to burn Les alive in 2x8, then just visibly gives up (puts the fire out), to "kill" Les by marrying Armand (who he's not even in love with, and who KNOWS Lou's only with him to spite Les) before the ink on Loustat's divorce papers are even dry.

It's only after Daniel FINALLY helps Louis claw his way out of Armand's clutches that he understands what Claudia meant about him having never known or loved himself ("Who are you, Louis?"). Lou's TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION required that he work on bettering himself, and allowing Lestat the chance to better himself too. That "friction" was toxic AF, and they both needed a real CLEANSING, which only started when Lou opened his mouth to ask Les the truth (the false-start in 1x6 about Paul; and the real-start in 2x8 about Armand).

For context the original post hadn’t even connected that the line was about Louis. They said they saw there was controversy about the line and started explaining Anne’s connection with Popeyes. Top comment had to explain it was about Louis and things snow balled from there.