cool

Thank you SO VERY MUCH for your time as a reader and as an artist!

This is remarkable. I am really just so moved by this!

The thing you have to know is that if in the first two seasons you have a show which used the Gothic genre to tell a story of abuse and racism- where there were two black characters who were driven to murder the white patriarch of the house to flee from this abuse, and then comes s3 where basically everything from the previous seasons gets retconned or remains unaddressed or are made into punchlines, then there's something insidious that's going on. If anti blackness is the ha-ha joke, then I think the writing on the wall is pretty clear atp.

I will give you an example: the Salamander character wears a "Hip Hop sucks" shirt in the previous episode and then the actor ( i think) makes a jokey post about how so and so is trying to get him canceled. So these people who are involved in the project know the weight there is to these words-> what it sounds like to have used a costume which dismisses an entire genre of black music, and what did they do with the shirt? what was the intention behind using it? Did this lead anywhere? Was it to have a conversation about a white rock band ( rock and roll, a genre which grew out of African american music ) being hypocrites, who in one breathe both takes advantage of and dismisses Black art/music? I don't know because there was nothing. In a season so obsessed with telling instead of showing mind you.

A TV show doesn't have to have a meta commentary about everything sure, but the thing is in the previous seasons as we followed Louis and Claudia, their blackness in itself was a very present thing in the show because as the story unfolded we saw how the world reacts to them as both humans and as vampires. Using the Gothic to explore violence etc; so how is it that when this season rolls in, and as showrunner you tell the viewers not to worry, the previous lead black character is still a co-lead in the show and then proceed the entire show having this character being mocked and insulted- "Louisiana fried chicken"/ "cancerous jackal"/"big bad wolf"/ "whore Thomas Pitty" with no pushback from the narrative itself? On top of that it is LDPDL who is doing the apologizing in every episode. Lestat has the blood of Akasha in him, so his anger gets the best of him it is said and sure there was Louis saying "no that's not it, it is what you do with the blood..." But this is also the episode where you have Ghost!Claudia hurling slurs at Louis. Throughout the season everyone is taking a dunk at Louis and now you have a all white writer's room making Ghost!Claudia hurl slurs at Louis and saying she actually likes the white man better than you ( this white man being the co-lyncher with Armand). Louclaudia was the heart of the show in the previous seasons; whatever frustration despair and even hate Claudia may have had for Louis, it was always true that the undercurrent of it were love. This is the girl who said to her Papa Lou "his love is a small box he keeps you in, don't let him"/ she pleaded with him that there are other vampires who will be worthy of his love. She pleaded with uncle Les to hurt her instead of Louis and now her ghost is saying Louis is not even her blood? Lestat is her maker??? The black child saying the white patriarch is her own blood, more so than LDPDL? As if during her turning, Madeline wasn't trying to give courage to Claudia by saying don't worry about the blood, its the blood that made you it can't be bad, because that's how torn Claudia was.

first of all, stop excusing the egregiously racist dialogue and comparing it to the language used when the show had Black writers in the room.

the entirety of s1-2 portrayed claudia’s love for Louis and so did her diaries. I have no idea what I am expected to say to this. it is so utterly apparent in every interaction that they have together. if the writers expect me to believe she never loved him, they are asking me to believe that the emotions and portrayal that the actors embodied were delusions that louis invented. people who watch this show fundamentally fail at recognizing the emotions that jacob and Delainey portray. that isn’t my problem.

no, she didn’t hate the man she nursed back to health after Lestat brutalized him. she came back to bring him with her after she escaped. she giggled at him while he spoke about photography and pursued different interests. she defended him when the coven ridiculed him. she screamed and reached for him as he was dragged away. those were portrayed with honesty. the writers expect me to replace that honest portrayal of love with a remake in my own head where she was a cartoonish character rolling her eyes miserably as she bided her time for Louis to make her a fledgling? And even after she got Madeleine, she came back to see him and that was her doom. She loved him. and she hated him, always.