suyao supremacy

If only we had gone together, I would have died with a heart beating in my chest. Oh, they drive me insane. The whole *dying on the same blade.* I will never recover. And of course, credit to @huntseric for Beleg with vitiligo, which apparently is so deeply ingrained in my imagination that I couldn't come up with a design for him without it.

Like, why is the narrative so obsessed with making Louis atone for being a pimp when Lestat, Daniel, and Armand all take part in the exploitation of women. They're all fucking rapists!

Everyone gets a turn on the victim/perpetrator merri go round in the VC. Lestat hires Dee to procure him drugged up groupies to drain and fuck! He was doing sex tourism in Nola! Im not super interested in seeing Lestat "punished". I want to see the emotional fallout of his decision making in s1 & 2 and how he figures out a path forward with his loved ones.

I would say leave the narrative punishment to villains like Tom Anderson and Santiago who work as representations of oppressive systems! But they completely removed the commentary on race and white supremacy so.......🤷🏿‍♂️

The white man gets coddled. The black man who suffered through two abusive relationships, was lynched, and whose daughter was murdered needs to suffer even more while being racially demeaned. Armand and Gabrielle (two characters who've suffered some of the worst sexual abuse out of everyone as humans) are the cartoonish villains.

Oh Armand told Larry to rest? Armand is a communist and insists on the rights of overworked guitarists to take their mandated rest. Armand de Comrade

Oh Armand made Alex relapse into his alcoholism? Armand knows working for Lestat is a drag and he believes in the rights of workers to enjoy their lives and little pleasures. Armand de Kind

Armand beheaded Loustat alongside Daniel? No actually it was revenge against the blood-drinking aristocrats and capitalist vampires who exploit the human class for blood banks and assorted labor. Armand de Avenger

... in which the author complains about AMC's 'The Vampire Lestat'. I am likely going to make it more coherent post, however...

In "Interview with the Vampire", Daniel has a beautiful relationship with language. He runs discourse analysis on his interviewees in real time. He consistently resists being labeled with simplistic and reductive vocabulary. I am not your fucking boy. I am an old man, with all the triggers that come with it. Suddenly... he starts speaking as if he is of an age and intellect level with the people who might take his online class. A sociopathic bottom twink. In my yaoi manther phase. This is not consistent characterization; it's a desperate attempt to get cheap laughs from the audience. Old enough to make dismissive comments about autism, but apparently also young enough to be terminally online. Lelio with a hat, begging for coin. A cue for the laugh tracks.

Similarly, AMC's Claudia has a deep awareness of power, a trait which modern audiences could describe as being 'political'. It is not an academic skill, because her survival was not an academic skill, either. It came from the experience of her short life; a poignant note on how racism affected even one so young. In her defining moments, she is shown to keep her core identity and agency under intense strain. Her resistance to Lestat's control is written through a lens which never ignores race. When she uses the language of the oppressor, she does it subversively. The music of the master race is not meant for these mongrel ears. Then, the writers have her say in anger, to Louis, a man she kept relating to through their shared experience of Blackness in Louisiana, get that into your nappy little head? Absolutely not. Who is that?

I called the show a fever dream. We begin in finis res, which is completely fine. We are not, however, shown the full account of how we got here; only hints, here and there, from Lestat's commentary. The one thing that should have been established explicitly is not. The things that could have been more subtle, however...

I also said it was told to an idiot. The writing consistently assumes that the viewers need explanations, to the point of utter, utter exhaustion. Yes, black licorice can be read as phallic imagery. Yes, Louis is Black and he has a penis. We get it, AMC. I promise. There is absolutely no need to state it on three separate occasions. The only way to make it less subtle would have involved Titus Andromedon bursting through the wall with a rendition of PEEEEENOOOOOO NOOOOIR like a particularly fabulous Greek chorus.

Similarly, "Interview(...)" did a marvelous job with letting the viewer make moral judgments on their own. Like Anne Rice at her best, it trusted us. It allowed us to look at the fallout and determine by ourselves what was the cause of it. We hear the account of the relationship with Marius from Armand; clearly groomed, clearly affected, clearly saved in a way which perpetuated his trauma. The writing does not have Louis name it. The viewer is given the courtesy of an opportunity to do it for themselves.

In "The Vampire Lestat"? The title character's relationship with Gabriella is initially set up as a deeply complex dynamic born of powerlessness and isolation. It is not healthy. It is not easy to watch. It is definitely abusive. But it makes a deep psychological sense... until it becomes flattened into a panic attack and a hurt/comfort scene. Which, don't get me wrong, would probably have been lovely to read... on Ao3. Suddenly, Gabriella was no longer in an incestuous relationship with her son because neither of them felt seen, and both were the closest their narrow world had to a witness; she becomes an unstable sex addict with absolutely no sense of public decorum. She is a monster. End of character analysis.

Writing racist characters is very different than having racist writers. In good quality tv, even within —especially within gothic horror— there should be someone challenging such characters. Have someone call Daniel out on his racist bullshit. Have someone call Lestat out on not taking accountability. Even within his narrative, especially within his narrative, having an opposing force is not only interesting but it's necessary to build a story right. But instead what do we have? Louis apologising to Lestat all the time for some reason. Claudia lied about the threat to make Lestat look bad as if he was an angel before that. Armand.... he went from passivity and reaction to malicious planning for no reason.

Why couldn't Daniel focus on trying to break Lestat down? Why couldn't Louis call him out on the company he chooses, and the words he uses?

Why couldn't Louis just have his own damn arc? Why did it have to be a way back to Lestat in the most humiliating and ooc way possible? Louis could have been building his own empire. He could still be drawn to Lestat but have a realisation that their problems never really went away? When he killed Bruce, I thought he'd continue doing that, killing vampires like that, which would lead him to eventually work with Armand.

And Armand would be killing fledglings here and there to clean the mess Lestat is making. Perhaps even fledglings that were made before Lestat started this. And perhaps some vampires that deserved it. Perhaps he would no longer care about their "rest". And then he runs into Louis... and they have a common goal. They have to face each other. Actually talk about the bdsm dynamic (if you're so inclined on them never having done so before). Have Louis admit he hurt Armand but the way Armand hurt him was so so much worse (we both drew blood but those cuts were never equal). Have them fight over killing a vampire, call each other out on false purpose and hypocrisy...

Do something good with the damn story. It's still full of messed up characters and dynamics, it's still about vampires, but it's also interesting cause you get to explore morality within a different frame (another interesting subject could be "are the farms much better than killings? Are the humans really willing?" "Is it better to kill a monster than someone random? Who are you to judge — anyway), have flawed characters that are complicated and make sense.

Don't have a female black character be just manipulative and say things to absolve the white man. Don't make the male black character have no personality (we don't see him care about anything really, even after Claudia he was thinking about Lestat) and reduce his deep love and empathy for others (Daniel, Armand, Claudia, even Lemuel) to nothing just cause you want to have him back with Lestat. Don't make the muslim brown character Jigsaw but without a true motivation and also make him to never have loved anyone truly.

IWTVL S3 Ep7 Musings - DARVO, the "Mutual Abuse" myth, and The Armends

[x x] Hannah Moscovitch said that Armand "had been done wrong" and "used in all sorts of ways by Louis."

[x] Rolin Jones said that Louis only "rightfully" hurt Armand 5-10%; and that he's 90-95% "partially responsible" for his own predicament (read: torture & abuse) and "owes" something to Armand for having his head up his own arse (read: grieving & PTSD).

[x] Rolin Jones said "the twist" of Armand planning this elaborate years-long revenge was to for "Louis to finally understand the depth of the damage he’s inflicted on Armand, which prompts him to make genuine amends to Armand." "'What am I actually accountable for when I froze this guy out?.... What didn't [Louis] say when he threw him into the wall in Dubai?" Rolin feels "very empathetic towards Armand at that moment."

[x] Rolin Jones said that Louis found out what Armand did (read: sold him out to the coven, directed the play, lied on Lestat to Louis about killing Claudia, driving Louis to suicide, mindwiping him, more lies, Fred Steins, lied on Daniel about forging the real Trial script, etc), and because Louis "never apologized for the 50 years" of Loumand's failmarriage, that's why Armand's a gremlin now.

[x] Rolin Jones confirmed that the plan happened as Armand sat in the debris of the wall Louis shoved him onto (after Daniel exposed his Seismic Lie about "Banishment"). Since there were "two people in that relationship" (despite there not being two people who knew Armand lied about everything....)

[x] Rolin Jones said that Louis is the "most prideful" of the three vamps given Armends, and because he needs humbling Armand "is owed" an apology from Louis in the most brutal way imaginable.

[x] Rolin Jones said that Louis' humbling requires that he "owe[s]...some accountability for why we are here."

[x x] Rolin Jones said that Louis' "growth" requires that Louis finally realize that there is "some part of me, of what i did in my life" that "made" Armand decapitate him & scam him with Regina; Louis clearly had "something to do with that."

[x] Rolin Jones said that Louis actually has "culpability" in how he "ended up here" because of what he "did to this person for 77 years of shutting him out" (after Armand not only sold him out to the coven but also deliberately lied to him about his daughter's death that he has never stopped grieving and told Armand to his face "You'll never make it up to me.").

[x] Rolin Jones said something Louis owes Armand for having "iced out for 77 years," and is "culpable for having brought him to this level of extremity."

[x] Rolin Jones says Louis reminding Armand about the Seismic Lie is just him "playing the victim card."

[x x] Rolin Jones said that the first step towards Louis needing to "work on" himself (read: be humbled) is to apologize to Armand (read: for not loving or forgiving him post-Paris).

[x] Jacob Anderson said that Rolin told him he would "never put anything in the show" that the actors weren't happy with.

[x x] Jacob Anderson said that 3x7 was Louis' smaller way of taking accountability that "the fault" was his for being tportured.

[x] Jacob Anderson said "I don’t know that I agree that Louis would be like, it’s my fault that you chopped off my head."

[x] Jacob Anderson hopes that Louis doesn't believe what he says, that his "withholding is what led to" Louis to deserve Armand torturing him.

[x] Jacob Anderson said he "wholly disagrees" that Louis withholding love & affection from Armand post-Trial "led to this moment"; that it's his fault he was being tortured by Armand

[x x] Jacob Anderson says he doesn't think Louis means all of that; Louis' just under duress & "trying to stay alive."

[x] Jacob Anderson agreed that Louis' willingness to shoulder the blame saved himself and Regina.

[x x x] Jacob Anderson said that abuse is also part of Loumand's relationship, but that it comes from "different angles"--as if it was mutually abusive.

[x] Jacob Anderson said that Louis' confession "is real to a certain extent," but was still "under extreme duress, so there is an element of self-preservation."

What DEEPLY horrifies me about Rolin Jones' rhetoric in S3 is that not ONCE does he ever couch these ruminations of Louis' within the broader context of abuse victims who blame themselves or are gaslit into blaming themselves for being abused.

For all the seriousness with which they want us to treat Lestat's abuse by his mother and how that affects his propensity to shirk accountability for his own cycles of abuse, not ONCE does Rolin or Hannah step back from the vapid Teehee Armand is such a Gremlin aren't you all glad to finally see him acting crazy in our Horror™ show~!? 🤭 to actually have a serious conversation about the ways that he weaponizes Reverse-Victim-Offender to put the onus on the other person: "You drove me to this; you made me do this!"

Not ONCE in S3 does he discuss the complex psyche of survivor's guilt, or abuse survivors, or Stockholm Syndrome. Not ONCE does he acknowledge Louis' self-hared and tendency to internalize the awful things Armand has levied against him, as a way of rationalizing what Armand is even "owed."

Not ONCE does Rolin factor in what those 77 years was even based on, and how Louis would have never spared Armand his wrath in Paris had he known Armand lied about "Banishment."

Not ONCE is Armand's own culpability addressed, knowing even before he and Louis started having sex that Louis was hallucinating DreamStat all over the city and already deep in the throes of mental illness--even admitting to Daniel that he knew DreamStat was there, (albeit not as vividly as Louis saw/felt him), and that he would only be entering a relationship with Louis as a rebound still hung up on his ex.

Not ONCE does Rolin give Louis the grace to acknowledge that although there is no such thing as a perfect victim on this show Louis was always at a far bigger disadvantage because there was so much he didn't know about Armand's machinations--let alone the true history of his dynamic with Lestat (and even Nicki & GabriellA). Which flies in the face of any attempt to dress up Loumand's dynamic as "mutual abuse" (which does not exist); even if one nobly tries to be diplomatic and see things neutrally or try to avoid the Perfect Victim Frying Pan by landing in the Mutual Abuse Fire.

As such, the OBVIOUS biases Hannah & Rolin have towards Armand--and the BLATANT disdain and resentment they have towards Louis who needs to be "humbled"--is loud and clear. And it is truly heartbreaking to see Jacob Anderson visibly struggling to make sense of it all, contradicting himself when left & right; Rolin and Hannah have been VERY consistently doubling down on their own explanations. 🤦‍♂️

Dishonorable Mentions: Rolin Jones pre-S3 on Armand "Apologists"

I've already shared my thoughts on these post-S2 / pre-S3 quotes, and how problematic they were even then.

[x] Rolin Jones "hoped Armand Apologists would multiply" by the end of S3.