YassenTheCat

I'll add smth here cos I learned after posting this on IG that people still aren't entirely understanding how scary and dangerous this is. Ppl kept saying to me 'I can still buy your book in shops though' or 'Its okay, I'll order your book into my library!'

I dont give af about my book lol No one outside of Ace ppl ever read it, its yearly sales don't even cover a month of expenses for me.

The thing you should all be concerned about is that a totally benign unheard of book about someone's every day life is being banned. And those laws listed above are passing through US government right now. One of those laws would make it so that any teacher/librarian in the US could lose their job/go to prison for simply sharing 'ideology'- and I don't mean only lgbtq folk, these laws are attacking black history, civil rights history, disability rep in books. Just talking about these things will now legally be considered a 'dangerous ideology'.

And once that's set into law, the US government has backing via law to go ahead and say 'if these books aren't legally allowed in schools, then they shouldn't be allowed in shops, either.' And from there it sets up a great argument for 'The dangerous content in these books is lawfully being removed from public, shouldn't we be lawfully removing the people living out/promoting this ideology too?'

I can see why ppl don't fully understand how dangerous book bannings are, if they're not familiar with the history of fascism. If you're interested, there are plenty of graphic novels that share this history via first hand accounts- Maus, Persepolis, Banned Book Club.

But guess what? You're on limited time to get these via libraries...cos all three of these books are on banned lists too, and they got nothing to do with lgbtq rep, and everything to do with warning ppl about fascism.

And the US government knows it can get away with this, because they are passing these laws as we speak and barely anyone is doing anything about it or talking about it. I've been trying to talk about it for years and no one does anything except say to me 'don't worry, I'll buy your book!' or say its a badge of honour that I have a banned book.

Rolin knew it was coming but it really is true. WTF have they done to it? He talking about these two being the weakest episodes but season 3 is supposed to be their strongest season, according to him, despite the fact that seasons 1 and 2 didn’t have a single episode this weak.

And we’re 2/7 episodes in which means a tone flip even by three is going to still be jarring. This is really how it’s gonna be going forward. Horrible pacing, fast food writing and a life story told through 5 second long flashbacks

Like Lestat saying {paraphrasing; Yeah, I wasn’t there for these scenes (between Louis and Daniel) but I’m going to tell you what happened anyway and you just have to believe me} is such damn lazy writing. Lestat’s such a reliable narrator that he can even tell about scenes he wasn’t even present for? Like he’s omniscient now?

I do like that they’ve made it clear that Lestat is not comfortable with the relationship between him and his mother but even then, Gabrielle is like a parody villain who has done everything but cackle manically while tying someone to the train tracks and what is with that accent?

I am honestly gutted. Lestat and Louis are side by side my favorite characters and I wanted so much better for Lestat and Sam. There were some gorgeous moments; the concert, the music and the end scene with Daniel and Louis. They really are missing Louis as a tether between seasons, tbh because as soon as Louis hits the scene and when he and Lestat are in the same place, the whole vibe changes (and I did feel this too during season 2 when Lestat was absent) and the scenes with Daniel and Lestat in episode 1 were very strong but IDK, it’s already such a decline in quality (everything but the acting which remains stellar as always) when compared side by side to 1x1 and 2x1

i think there's a bit of defensiveness in rolin saying that this is their best season yet. i'm still not sure how much he was just trolling his actors and his audience with tvl, because it's genuinely comedic how much he was hugging tvl book and promising "everything you ever wanted from tvl". i do think it was his artistic vision for the season. i do think he loves the end result, in the same way people tend to love and feel protective over their ugliest messiest art works (speaking from my own experience).

i also suspect that this is the season where he felt like he was the closest to what he wanted to do with this show. reread the draft for s1e1. many things that were removed in the final version of the script (because they were weird and didn't fit the overall tone) found their way to s3. rolin tends to support collaborative process, and i think the writers' room for s1 and s2 was powerful enough to deliver consistent tone and thematic integrity, which rolin accepted. but tvl is his baby, so he's the one making decisions and he had two people who weren't experienced playwriters in the writers' room for this season. you can really tell the difference.

i think the show is also greatly suffering from online discourse that surrounds it, because while s2 only had one episode that more or less gracefully commented on the state of the fandom (s2e7), it feels like s3 is way too aware of what fans are talking about. and i think inconsistences in the framing, like lestat saying that he wasn't there for louis and daniel's conversation, is like a cheeky commentary on s2e5: a lot of people were confused how louis could hear what lestat says to armand, so now they're making fun of this. and lestat's jabs toward the book are already meta as hell. it's just... i did expect some metatextual bullshit this season, but so far it feels very shallow.

+ dead wife montage