It’s a series of calm and gloomy days.

I want to cry but i have no tears.

I was alone in either city, Seoul or Bangkok.

The unfamiliarity of the destination only made loneliness clearer.

I'm tired of loneliness,

and I'm tired of getting tired.

The only thing that i left on the lantern, my two-syllable was Love.

Do you remember when I said I have Kylie?
Yes, I remember.
And you're okay with it?
Yeah.
Why?
Because with or without it, you're still you

i’m just like him (thinking of my past loves and trying to understand things better and depressed, generally)

loved their friend group sm but was sad about mi-ae not rly reappearing

honestly so good and not trying to appeal to the general, non queer public (which seemingly made conservatives ofc bug out unfortunately)

rly loved the movie too but can see why it was much more accepted than the series sigh

The first published study about climate change (that I am aware of-- feel free to point out if there's an older one) is an 1896 paper by Svante Arrhenius. He pointed out the link between the greenhouse effect and changes in atmospheric CO2.

Plate tectonics, which the geoscience community now recognizes as near indisputable, was a fringe theory until about the 1960s.

Like, everyone "likes" her! But in that very "girl boss girl power" white feminism way where they erase everything about the source of the power out, in order to subsume it. And it's weird because to me, it showed that, just like how they did with Louis, they did not engage with how Claudia's Blackness was another important part of her story. Despite it being quite spoonfed in season 2, tbh.

Think about it. Claudia is 1) Black, 2) female, 3) queer, and 4) trapped in a child's body, forever. This is like, the torment nexus of Lacking Power and Autonomy In Society 😭 Going unheard, that resentment against the world for not taking her and her needs and her desires seriously, from inside the home and on. Of having to build a wall of strength and resilience to protect herself, of always Taking Care of Business because her goof ass brother certainly isn't gonna do it! Of having to grasp power her own way, because it will never be considered for her. Yet, somehow still a threat.

To me, AMCs Claudia is a very beautifully written example of a Black Woman that is Angry, who would be treated like an Angry Black Woman. So many of these fans HATE real world Claudia's! Because I've seen her rage and exhaustion, her fire to fight (Akasha's too), in so many of us. And yet we don't get the girl power, girl boss label- until it's time to Need us. Otherwise, you're just a Bully.

Some of yall may have heard some of the shit that has been going on right now. I'm gonna give a quick run down of some of the stuff that has been happening. Note, this is not all, and it may never be all as much as I will try to update this.

(I am going to try and compile and briefly explain these as much as I can. There may be misinformation. Please inform me if I got something wrong.)

(This will also be updated with additional information and new topics added.)

1) Racist Chinese Dolls.

There are these dolls in China that are being called "Natasha" baby dolls. These dolls are not only very obvious caricatures of black people, but they are being advertised as a "stress relief" in which the people who buy these abuse it in various ways.

This links to a video of a compilation of the various "uses" of the doll. There are more in the replies of the tweet. (Another link to the same tweet just incase)

2) The Mocking, Abuse, and Dehumanization of Black Children.

Apart from the aforementioned doll, there are apparently people going around mocking, abusing, and dehumanizing black children.

Some people have compared black children to the doll.

Others have been going into African countries and have found ways to mock, abuse, and dehumanize black children for clout.

(Source 1 + Full Video) (Source 2)

There are more videos surfacing.

3) Black people are going missing.

Black people, especially children and teens have recently been going missing at an alarming rate. Some of these same people are turning up dead, deaths being ruled as "suicides."

While it generally unknown why many of these people are going missing, many suspect that their disappearances, deaths, and even lack of coverage is rooted in anti-blackness.

The following is a list of black people that have been reported missing as of recently. Please note that this is not a complete list (it may never be completed due to the fact that many of these disappearances will still occur as time passes) this may contain inaccurate information. Please inform me if that is the case.

By the time you see this, some of these people may have already been found either alive or deceased. This post will be updated overtime.

It is also heavily encouraged that you reblog this with more links to recent cases of missing black people if you are aware of any that aren’t included on this list.

Alexis Shaver

Payton Diver

Nasir Tacuma

Ka’Laya Cooper

Makaila Monae Adam

Moriah Kerre Smith

Uchechi Chijindum Nkemdirim

Victeria Uriah Spear

Rilen Wade (Found. Is Safe)

May I take a stab at it, @babydrummer?

I just saw Sinners for the second time tonight. While in the car ride back with my friend, it occurred to me that Sinners is kinda what I wish Interview with the Vampire (the TV show) had been, with respect to race.

Now, at the end of the day, Sinners and IWTV are trying to do different things, and there's a lot to like about IWTV. But the source material is... uh... if not racist, deeply uninterested in addressing matters of race, and the best thing the TV show can do is change the setting, time period, and hire some insanely talented Black actors to act the hell out of their roles. Considering what they're working from (and the 1994 film, with how it portrayed enslaved people), the creators do a great job.

The penthouse is a padded cell; not a real test of what it would be like for Louis to step his Black arse out into the REAL world and ran into god forbid a MAGA Trump supporter, or went to the fancy European stores Oprah was racially profiled at and turned away from by Aryan racists who just saw a n****r enter their store, not one of the richest & most "powerful" (Black) women in the world. So much for "power," when money doesn't solve racism any more than vampirism does--it just cushions the fall; numbs the blow--like you said, does it really save them from grief? Ofc not, it just further instills & crystalizes a person's traumas; "all feels amplified"--just look at Lestat's abandonment issues, getting worse with every fledgling he makes. Dubai!Louis screams PTSD, just like Daniel said about Louis needing 100 sessions of EMDR. He's a shut-in hermit in Dubai. The penthouse is another gilded cage, only more extreme, cuz Louis has The Farm, and boatloads of money to buy exotic animals to eat; and modern technology where he can be on Zoom calls to sell his art and not have to be around humans. He's living in Dubai, a predominately Bipoc country amongst fellow Bipocs--many of whom are darker-skinned than he is (more on that in a sec). Like you said: he's secluded himself. That isn't winning against one's oppressors at all; too afraid to step outside your own front door. Esp. since the irony of S2 is that Louis had been sleeping with his oppressor all along--Armand blindsided him cuz Louis had been trained to be on the lookout for WHITE bigots. He clocked Santiago's bleached blonde arse immediately, all while having no effing clue that Armand was perpetrating all kinds of shenanigans--in Paris, SanFran, AND Dubai.

Sinners isn't the only show talking about fake kinship--IWTV did it too, just in a far less obvious way, that clearly went over the entire fandom's heads, cuz everyone keeps insisting that IWTV didn't talk about race/racism in S2. LOUIS is delusional--and got his naive arse buried alive by a lynch mob with his ankles hamstrung like a runaway slave--but that doesn't mean WE have to be delusional, too.

But even in Sinners, which makes it painfully obvious that Remmick is NOT to be trusted, the message is still not dumbed-down enough for the masses that fail to realize what a noxious & insidious threat Remmick was; even insisting that he's not racist at all & actively shipping him with Sammie, lord have mercy. 🤦 Remmick and Lestat are so thoroughly out of touch with reality and couched in white privilege that they honestly opened their white lips to tell Black people that race is a social construct, and that their color wouldn't matter once they're vampires.

For Remmick, he's tryna build a literal cult, and his "solution" to racism is to change everyone's genetic makeup to make everyone walking corpse blood-drinking mutants.

Remmick's a whole clown, cuz the very thing he wanted from Sammie (the magic in his Blues music) was tied to the human SOUL of Black musicians & the human experiences of Black people--Blues' connections to Gospel & Soul & Negro Spirituals--which would've been irrevocably LOST had Sammie been turned into a effing undead demon.

Sinners is very obvious about the theme of the Hive Mind Remmick has all of his vampires trapped under, which only breaks when Sammie bashes Remmick's head open with the silver bits of his guitar and Smoke stakes him in the heart. Sammie would've been River Dancing to Irish jigs with everyone else, and never played that transcendent Blues music ever again. Remmick would've just gone after someone else and left Sammie's now-useless arse high & dry--so much for "fellowship and love; Heaven on Earth, etc." Remmick has no love of Sammie and certainly no respect for him--let alone ANYONE in this film, cuz Remmick only asks to be let inside their buildings cuz he HAS to--he NEVER asks them if they WANT to be vampires. He's already made the decision for them--they WILL be vampires, and Sammie WILL make music for him, singing on command--what is this; 12 Years A Slave?!

For Lestat, his "solution" to racism is to just kill whoever looks at them wrong ("IF disrespect was done to you, I would have killed him myself!"). At the end of the day, the white man is still the only one calling the shots, in control, the one with the say-so to whether Louis has his PERMISSION to kill people or not ("YOU need to show restraint, fledgling!") How is racism cured, when the white vampire's the one still treating Louis like a "slave"? Louis AND Claudia (x x) called Lestat out for his micro/macroaggressions, only to get another white vampire (Antoinette) barging into their private minds/house, calling them DOGS, and tryna kill them to take their place for their trouble. What Louis & Claudia told Lestat went in one ear and out the other--Lestat doesn't listen to them or RESPECT them as Black people--they're his fledglings, he's the Maitre/Coven Master, and when they had the nerve to stand up for themselves and exert their own autonomy & agency, Lestat was there to put them back in their place, "crushing what you cannot OWN." That wretched racist AF Trial in 2x7 (x x)--and esp. Sam Reid's tone-deaf takes--told me everything I need to know about precisely where that white man Lestat's head was at wrt acknowledging how his actions affect Louis Louis as a Black man: up his own arse.

So yeah, I totally agree that Sinners is far more straightforward in its messaging--esp. since unlike AMC's IWTV, it's not based on Anne Rice's universe, inevitably steeped in white supremacy where Lestat 100% painted as the sympathetic villain you're SUPPOSED to root for. Louis is a product of Lestat's power, subject to his whims & tempers & influence in a way that Sammie just never is wrt Remmick. But I totally disagree that Lestat was right about vampirism being, like, some net positive for Louis; not when the price Louis paid was his SOUL. The "triumph" of Anne Rice's vampires is them learning how to Own the Night without falling into self-loathing depression-spirals; get comfortable killing other people to survive, or kill yourselves by yeeting yourself into a fire. Kill or be killed. Lestat's right about that much, sure. But Akasha's called the Queen of the Damned for a reason. What I hope, for AMC!Louis' sake, is that the show will allow him to keep his humanity and his morals about not killing humans just to be accepted & keep the peace & prove that he's "over" his depression. I hope he gets to retain some of his individuality & autonomy & agency from Lestat, and NOT fall into the trap that emulating Lestat is the way for LOUIS to be the "right" kind of vampire. Blade killed VAMPIRES, not other humans. That's what I want for Louis, as a Black vampire icon. S2 already subtly made that parallel as well, with Claudia blinded by her desperate search for community (she'd've been eaten by Remmick SO FAST 🤦), but Louis utterly HATING everything the Old World covens of Europe stood for, disgusted AF and bored out of his skull every time he had to deal with that buffoonish Theatre.

IWTV Musings: Layers of Lestat's Racism

Bipocs, please don't let white folk gaslight & whitesplain you into believing that Lestat genuinely "understood" Louis' struggles & frustrations as a Black man dealing with antiblack racism in Jim Crow America.

Acknowledgment is not the same as understanding. And understanding is not the same as empathy. And empathy is not the same as love. And love is not the same as racial allyship.

You can have Black/Bipoc friends, and be in an interracial relationship, and have mixed-race children, and live in a predominately Black/Bipoc community, and still be a tone-deaf raging narcissistic racist; with patterns of behavior that constantly minimize, deride, whitesplain, dismiss, mock, and victim-blame racially-charged actions targeting Black/Bipoc people.

Despite one's claims to be "color blind", white people have eyes & ears. You can acknowledge when racism is done to others, while STILL lacking understanding and/or empathy for Black people's anger & violence in retaliation against microaggressive/macroaggressive acts of racism against them & their people. (And even some Black folk fall for this nonsense, listening to ignorant people who failed to recognize the nefarious ways that Remmick & Lestat resemble each other wrt to vampirism as a metaphor for racism & fake allyship.)

And we see that in the IWTV fandom all the time, where some white fans are fully capable of acknowledging/admitting that Lestat treated Louis wrong (because these are vampires & vampires are monsters & monsters have no human morals~! and whatever other Santiagoisms they vomit up, eff what Anne Rice said x x); while still pointing the finger at Louis to blame him for being the "aggressor" in the Ep5 fight; or saying that Louis & Claudia got their "karma" in 2x7 and "deserved" to be tortured & killed cuz "Louis was a pimp" or cuz they abandoned Emilia in 2x1 🤣 or cuz they abandoned Lestat after he trauma-dumped his Magnus backstory; or that the Ep5 fight was "even" (although Lestat has all this superblood & "godlike strength" from Akasha and both the Cloud Gift AND Fire Gift as early as 1x1).

Watch out when people use that loaded rhetoric in fandom spaces, because it mirrors the exact same talking points that racists use IRL, particularly wrt the criminalization of Black people, esp. Black males vs the white people in positions of power. It's always about policing Black people's actions, rather than critiquing white people's own (why was Trayvon Martin outside at night; what did he have in his hand; why was he so argumentative; why did he fight back; it's his fault he got killed; George Zimmerman's innocent cuz the racist law says so); all while ignoring the blatant racist micro/macroaggressive attitudes that permeate real and fictional people's lives.

Some white fans in the IWTV fandom will claim that they "understand" racial nuances and power dynamics, with all this crap about holding mirrors up to the audience's faces; and then simultaneously state that because Louis defended himself & his daughter Claudia against Lestat in Ep5, it proves that Lestat is NOT the "big bad white abuser." Which tells you precisely what offends them the most--any negative portrayal of a white man vs a Black person (let alone multiple Black people) automatically rears their defensiveness & abuse apologia; even when it is clear as crystal that a man who starved himself for years on end was in no way shape or form the physical equal to a well-fed vampire 100+ years older than him. Even when Daniel (the white audience surrogate) says over and over again that Louis was abused by Lestat. Even when the S2 guignolettes in the front row of the TdV mirrored all the cockeyed nonsense that the IRL IWTV fans had been up to since S1. Even when parallels were paralleling between the way Loustat & Loumand's dynamic ended up underscoring the FACT that while Louis thought he was in equal relationships (or worse: that HE had the power), the REALITY was that he was the one being played the entire time! "She was at the ball tonight! Like one of those girls on the telephone switchboard, eavesdropping in on things that she shouldn't." | "He directed the play! You were supposed to die with Claudia!"

But of course, the perfect victim is someone who's never done anything wrong in their entire life; who sits back and lets themselves & their loved ones be terrorized & controlled & manipulated while never lifting a finger to fight back and never opening their mouths in anger or hatred. If someone dares to stand up for themselves, verbaly or physically, they're not the victim, they are "the aggressor;" and it's their fault that a fight escalates when they failed to coddle their white partner's fragile feelings and capitulate to their demands just to keep the peace; even at the expense of their own dignity. Why didn't Louis just walk away? Why didn't he just let Lestat choke Claudia again? It's not like Louis' the paragon of good parenting anyway, so what leg does he have to stand on to stop Lestat from being horrible!? 😩

Cuz ofc, any form of resistance is forbidden; valid or justified or not. Autonomy & agency only matters when Black people apply it to do as their white partners tell them to & want them to behave--acts of love automatically negate acts of fear. Louis cannot be a victim, because "he didn't act scared enough" in 1x6 and 1x7--even though in 2x1 - 2x7 Louis (and Jacob Anderson) repeatedly voiced how Louis was scared Lestat was going to kill him in revenge (a la DreamStat). Because Louis never wanted to leave Lestat, he's not "locked together in hatred" in a no-win situation in the well-with-no-bottom on a sinking ship of a failmarriage. Because Louis' in a prison of his own making by choosing Lestat (and then Armand), he's not a prisoner at all~! Because he chose Lestat over Paul/Claudia/God/etc, Lestat can't abuse his power over Louis at all~! The logical fallacies in this fandom are staggering.

The same white fans talking out the side of their neck about how the Trial was NOT about racism cuz Delainey Halyes said they didn't talk about it (even though racism was peppered all over S2 for actually educated & informed audiences x x x x x) will then have the nerve to try and speak on race from their own ivory towers of white privilege; meanwhile having NOTHING of actual substance or value to say about the history of racism in America, and how S1 & S2 subtly or overtly reflect IRL events they know EFF ALL about.

2. The Delectable Negro: Human Consumption and Homoeroticism Within US Slave Culture by Vincent Woodard

3. "Abolitionists turned the tables on Europeans by accusing them of being cannibals when they ate sugar tainted with the flesh and blood of slaves."

here's the intro

That's because they sold out to the Ku Klux Karens with the last episode!

@akajustmerry had a good article on this one, and can get into it better than I can. But- from my perspective- in season 2 the antiblackness was more subtle. Kind of like how, right now, the responses on my poll from the white Europeans is different from the white Americans about race and racism? But it's still racism?

Having a season in New Orleans in the 1900s, yeah it's damn near impossible to tell the story about this Black man and his Black adopted daughter/sister without it. In Paris, it's not so clear cut (well, it is to me, but it's not as spoonfed as S1). Santiago and how he treats Louis is VERY MUCH antiblackness in action.

Plus, Armand and his scheming brings up the reality of antiblackness from a nonblack person of color. And that's a PREVALENT antiblackness that a LOT of people don't wanna discuss. Even the lynching of Louis and Claudia was a masterclass. It's a theme, that as much as Lestat loves Louis, he's also very willing to utilize racism (or to choose when to ignore it) to keep Louis in check.

So, you have all these elements, right? And it's like, okay, I see it! I see where they're going! And in the last run, they just. 🤷🏾‍♀️ It's like everything that led up to that last episode just... Meant shit for dick, I guess. "Well in the book-" I don't give a shit what happened in the book. It's 2024, you're telling me you're going to make me watch an unironic narrative where a white abuser gets to be Right that his imperfect Black victims are Liars and potentially shouldn't be trusted? That their actions towards each other are near equivalent, despite the clear narrative and social power imbalance, and that they should kiss and make up after a hate crime of that caliber? 🤔🤔🤔 They could have at least not had Louis go visit him 😭 Claudia would be SICK.

Introduction of Sharon Patricia Holland's The Erotic Life of Racism